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MONTH OF THE HOLY ROSARY
Article 22
Monday October 30th & Tuesday October 31st, 2023
King on Sunday! Uncrowned on Monday?
Monday October 30th & Tuesday October 31st, 2023
King on Sunday! Uncrowned on Monday?
King for a Day!
We have just celebrated the original traditional feast day of Christ the King (the last Sunday of October ― the modern Church moved the feast to the last Sunday of the liturgical year, i.e., the Sunday before Advent). In theory, we all know that Christ is King―and always shall be. Yet in practice, the phrase ― “A King for a day!” ― aptly sums up the brief reign of Christ in the minds and hearts of most Catholics! Their honor of Christ is mere lip-service and does not go beyond their lips―it is not found in their hearts and minds. Our Lord complained: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8). The phrase ― “The king is dead, long live the king!” ― is used when a king dies and is replaced by his successor. In the hearts of Catholics, Christ doesn’t reign for very long―the feast of Christ the King only has a brief reign, as Catholics go back to making the world their king soon after. The expression ― “Here today, gone tomorrow” ― means that someone or something is only present for a short time; something that is popular at one point, is forgotten soon afterwards―and that is how it is with Christ! His feast is here today and gone tomorrow! He reigned for a day! Hello and goodbye! Hi and bye!
Christ is not just King for a day―He is King for eternity. Our subjection to Christ the King is not temporary, but perpetual. It is not an option, but an obligation. In Quas primas ― his encyclical on Christ the King ― Pope Pius XI reaffirmed Church teaching that civil States and Nations, as well as individuals, must submit themselves to the rule of Christ the King. In affirming this fundamental truth of our Faith, Pope Pius XI was not referring simply to Catholic nations, or even to Christian nations, but to the whole of mankind. He stated this truth unequivocally by quoting a passage from the encyclical Annum sacrum of Pope Leo XIII: “The empire of Christ the King includes, not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons, who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian Faith: so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ.”
The chief reason behind the ignoring of the Social Reign of Christ the King is that politics has separated itself from religion, the State has separated itself from the Church, the world has separated itself from Heaven, and man has separated himself from God. What was once “one house” has now been divided and made into a “duplex” or “semi-detached” house. In North America, a “duplex” house is a single building having two apartments with separate entrances for two households. This includes two-story houses having a complete apartment on each floor and also side-by-side apartments on a single lot that share a common wall. In Britain, a “duplex house” is called a “Semi-detached house”—this is what politics and religion, or the State and Church, or man and God, have become: “semi-detached
Shaking-Off the Yoke of the King
Our Lord and King said: “My yoke is sweet and my burden light!” (Matthew 11:30) ― yet the world seeks to shake-off the yoke of Christ the King: “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder! And let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). They have uncrowned Christ and placed the crown on the world, some person in the world, or themselves. O abominable pride! “Never suffer pride to reign in thy mind, or in thy words: for from it all perdition took its beginning” (Tobias 4:14). Pride reigns in place of the humble Christ! Christ is not served—we now serve the world and ourselves. Pride stems from self-love―and the bottom-line for most people is that they loves themselves far more than they love God.
In 1846, at La Salette in France, Our Lady warned of this spirit of independence from God: “All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds … A great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten, each individual will want to be on his own and be superior to others.” All this is a sign of increased separation from God, a sign of a spirit or a desire of independence from God—the world wants to left to do what it wants to do. God can take a back seat—it’s our world, let us live it like we want!
The Family of Independence
This independence of thought also shows itself through Naturalism and Humanism, which turns it back on the supernatural and the spiritual, and focuses on the world, nature and humanity, rather than Heaven, grace and the Divinity. This leads us to treasure the natural above the supernatural, things above grace, man above God.
It begets its children of Materialism (greed for things), Rationalism (think what you want in the Natural sphere—nobody tells me what to believe), Modernism (think what you want in the domain of Faith—nobody tells me what to believe about God) and Liberalism (do what you want in the Natural and Religious spheres—nobody tells me what to do, I will do what I want). This is the foundation for all the modern day Revolutions.
It also filters down into the family setting, where independence creeps into family life: the husband becomes more independent from outside authorities, the wife becomes more independent from her husband, the children become more independent from their parents—authority is accepted only if the subordinate agrees with the authority, otherwise there arises a spirit of independence, disobedience and rebellion.
Like Father, Like Son―Like Mother, Like Daughter—Like Nation, Like Citizen
The proverb―“Like father, like son”—is based on the Latin phrase: “qualis pater, talis filius”—of which a more correct translation reads: “As the father was, so shall the son be!” The female equivalent--“Like mother, like daughter”—finds its source in Holy Scripture: “Behold every one that uses a common proverb, shall use this against thee, saying: ‘As the mother was, so also is her daughter!’” (Ezechiel 16:44).
Everyone is heavily influenced by their family, relatives and surrounding environment. It is natural and instinctive for children to copy their parents. The same is true, to a certain extent, of our environment and its culture. There is a lot of truth to the famous saying: “You cannot put clothes in a smoky room without them taking on the smell of smoke.” If you are immersed in a Liberal environment, then you will increasingly take on traits of Liberalism. If you surround yourself with pagans and paganism, you will begin to accept certain pagan values. If a Catholic family is lukewarm, it will more likely produce souls for Hell rather than Heaven. A French say—that some attribute to St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars—says: “A saintly priest will produce a holy parish. Whereas a holy priest will only produce a good parish. However, a good priest will produce a lukewarm parish, but a lukewarm priest will produce a parish of devils.” The principle being that your subordinates will usually be at a lower standard or level to where you are.
The Illusion of Independence
The Illusion of Independence is exactly what it sounds like: it’s the false belief that we are, can be, or should be completely independent―even though it’s total and utter absurdity. Independence is celebrated everywhere; it is lifted up as a model and an ideal of how we should try to be, and so of course we all scramble to identify as being independent. Yet it is dangerous to believe we’re all independent and dangerous to seek to be independent. It’s really, really dangerous, and for several reasons.
The Shame and Danger of Independence
(1) Tracing independence back to its roots, we find that it is born of the devil, with his cry of “I will not serve!” Do we really want to have those kind of ‘family’ connections? Let us take to mind the words of Scripture: “Thy own wickedness shall reprove thee, and thy apostasy shall rebuke thee. Know thou, and see that it is an evil thing for thee, to have left the Lord thy God. Thou hast broken My yoke, thou hast burst My bands, and thou saidst: ‘I will not serve!’” (Jeremias 2:19-20). “So shall you also perish, if you be disobedient to the voice of the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 8:20).
(2) Adam and Eve chose the route of independence from God and thereby walked into the clutches of punishment and death. A fault and punishment that was repeated and received many times throughout history, as is clearly and frequently shown in Holy Scripture—proving, beyond doubt, that independence from God doesn’t pay!
(3) The Jews rejected the Kingship of Christ to their folly and destruction, crying out to Pilate, when he asked them what he should with their King: “The chief priests answered: ‘We have no king but Caesar!’” (John 19:15).
Their desired king—Caesar—sent his son Titus, in 70 AD, as prophesied by Christ, to raze Jerusalem to the ground and slaughter all its inhabitants (over 1 million), because they rebelled against their own acknowledged “We have no king but Caesar!”—and sought independence from the Roman Emperor! An expensive price to pay for rejecting the Kingship of Christ in favor of the worldly kingship of Caesar—yet an even worse carnage awaits the world today for the same fault!
A King Betrayed by a Betraying Council
In a world wherein we speak so often of “religious liberty” and the “separation of Church and State,” it is difficult for us to conceptualize such a social reign of Christ. The language of the Church herself has been nuanced to such an extent that we strain to find even the faintest echoes of Quas Primas (1925) forty years later in Dignitatis Humanae (1965), Vatican II’s declaration on religious freedom. The teaching of this encyclical was ignored and passed over, if not actually contradicted, by the Second Vatican Council. It is an indisputable fact that the Second Vatican Council conspicuously and, one must conclude, deliberately, failed to reaffirm the teaching of Quas primas in which Pope Pius XI reaffirmed the unbroken teaching of his predecessors, saying that States as well as individuals, must submit themselves to the rule of Christ the King.
It is very tempting, in a world that has grown so small, and which experiences so much cultural cross-pollination, to embrace, as though it was a matter of law, an “every religion is equal” religious indifferentism. How do we account for the differing faiths of so many people in melting pots like America? America was founded in large part on the principle that the government “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” And yet, is this not the very kind of attitude that Pope Pius XI warned against, when he admonished rulers not to neglect “the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ”?
Indeed, Pope Pius XI observed the result of failing to do so even in his own time:
“The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the state and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God’s religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart. There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences.”
“The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder! And let us cast away Their yoke from us!’ He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them. Then shall He speak to them in His anger, and trouble them in His rage!” (Psalm 2:2-5).
Is this not the situation we find ourselves in today? Vicious, savagely immoral governments are all that is to be found now in the post-Christian West. Catholics are reduced to pleas for the very sort of religious liberty the Church once condemned as an error, and are forced to embrace the essentially anarchic principles of libertarianism, all out of desperation to preserve their ability to simply continue to exist “ignominiously on the same level” with other, false religions. Meanwhile, pagan and occult practices are on the rise — not underground, but in the open — because no logical excuse exists by which the secular state can deny them the same freedom as any other religion already given equal footing in the public square.
Science is Now Independent of God
Science today is the new god, having sought to replace the one true God in Heaven. It rises higher and higher each year with its achievements, and puts down more and more ‘alleged’ miracles of God. But in the end, God will laugh at them, as the following encounter with God and a scientist portrays:
God was sitting in Heaven one day, when a scientist shouted up to Him: “Hey, God! We don’t need You anymore. Science has finally figured out a way to create life out of nothing – in other words, we can now do what you did in the beginning.”
“Oh, is that so? Explain…” replies God.
“Yep! Sure is!” says the scientist, “We’ve now finally figured out how to take dirt and form it into the likeness of You and breathe life into it, thus creating man!”
“Well, that’s very interesting… show Me!”
So the scientist bends down to the Earth, digs up a wheelbarrow full of soil and starts to mold the soil into the shape of a man.
“No, no, no…! Nooooo you don’t!” interrupts God, “Put that soil down! Put it down right now! That’s my soil! I made it! You go make and get your own dirt!”
Hmmm! Who needs who? Who’s independent of who?
We’re not independent. We are part of a larger system—many larger systems, in fact—that constantly impact our lives and the choices we make. And behind all those systems is Christ the King—who clearly told us: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
He Will Not Reign Over Us!
There are many households (and parishes and nations) where Christ does not reign, or reigns in name only, or theory only: “But His citizens hated Him: and they sent an embassy after Him, saying: ‘We will not have this Man to reign over us!’” (Luke 19:14). Those who rebel against Christ and His law, or tamper with His law, or compromise or dilute His law, will be punished. “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder! And let us cast away Their yoke from us!’ He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them. Then shall He speak to them in His anger, and trouble them in His rage!” (Psalm 2:2-5). “But as for those My enemies, who would not have Me reign over them, bring them here, and kill them before Me” (Luke 19:27). “For He must reign, until He has put all His enemies under His feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25).
He Shall Reign!
Pope Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King in his 1925 encyclical letter Quas Primas, in response to growing nationalism and secularism and in the context of the unresolved Roman Question. The title of the feast was “Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Regis” (Our Lord Jesus Christ the King), and the date was to be “the last Sunday of the month of October ― the Sunday, that is, which immediately precedes the Feast of All Saints.”
In Pope John XXIII’s 1960 revision of the Calendar, the date and title remained the same and, in the new simpler ranking of feasts, it was classified as a feast of the first class.
In his 1969 motu proprio, Mysterii Paschalis, Pope Paul VI gave the celebration a new title: “Domini Nostri Iesu Christi universorum Regis” (Our Lord Jesus Christ King of the Universe). He also gave it a new date: the last Sunday in the liturgical year, before a new liturgical year begins with the First Sunday in Advent, the earliest date for Advent is November 27th. In 2017, this feast day falls on November 26th, or, for those using the traditional calendar and sticking to the original date desired by Pope Pius XI, this year, 2017, it is on October 29th. The liturgical vestments for the day are colored white or gold, in keeping with other joyous feasts honoring Christ.
When Pope Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King in 1925, he connected the denial of Christ, as king, to the rise of secularism. At the time of the encyclical Quas Primas, many Christians (including Catholics) had begun to doubt Christ’s authority and existence, as well as the Church’s power to continue Christ’s authority.
Pius XI, and the rest of the Christian world, witnessed the rise of non-Christian dictatorships in Europe, and saw Catholics being ‘taken-in’ by these earthly leaders. Just as the Feast of Corpus Christi was instituted when devotion to the Eucharist was at a low point, the Feast of Christ the King was instituted during a time when respect for Christ and the Church was weakening, when the feast was most needed. In fact, it is still needed today, as these problems have not vanished, but instead have worsened.
Pius’ Purpose
Pope Pius XI hoped the institution of the feast would have various effects. They were:
1. That nations would see that the Church has the right to freedom, and immunity from the state (Quas Primas, §32).
2. That leaders and nations would see that they are bound to give respect to Christ (Quas Primas, §31).
3. That the faithful would gain strength and courage from the celebration of the feast, as we are reminded that Christ must reign in our hearts, minds, wills, and bodies (Quas Primas, §33).
Things Are Worse Today
Today, the same distrust of authority exists, although the problem has become worse. Individualism has been embraced to such an extreme, that for many, the only authority is the individual self. The idea of Christ as ruler is rejected in such a strongly individualistic system. Also, many balk at the idea of kings and queens, believing them to be oppressive. Some even reject the titles of “lord” and “king” for Christ because they believe that such titles are borrowed from oppressive systems of government. However true these statements might be (some kings have been oppressive), these individuals miss the point: Christ’s kingship is one of humility and service. Jesus said:
Jesus’ Idea of a King
“You know that they who seem to rule over the Gentiles, lord it over them: and their princes have power over them. But it is not so among you: but whosoever will be greater, shall be your minister. And whosoever will be first among you, shall be the servant of all. For the Son of man also is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a redemption for many” (Mark 10:42-45) and we read that during the Passion of Christ:
“Pilate therefore went into the hall again, and called Jesus, and said to him: ‘Art Thou the king of the Jews?’”... Jesus answered, “‘My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now My kingdom is not from hence.’ Pilate therefore said to Him: ‘Art Thou a king then?’ Jesus answered: ‘Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world!’” (John 18:33, 36-37).
Thus, Jesus knew the oppressive nature of secular kings, and in contrast to them, He connected His role as king to humble service, and commanded His followers to be servants as well. In other passages of Scripture, His kingdom is tied to His suffering and death. While Christ is coming to judge the nations, His teachings spell out a kingdom of justice and judgment balanced with radical love, mercy, peace, and forgiveness. When we celebrate Christ as King, we are not celebrating an oppressive ruler, but one willing to die for humanity and whose “loving-kindness endures forever.” Christ is the king that gives us true freedom, freedom in Him. Thus we must never forget that Christ radically redefined and transformed the concept of kingship.
Messias and King
The earliest Christians identified Jesus with the predicted Messias of the Jews. The Jewish word “messias,” and the Greek word “Christ,” both mean “anointed one,” and came to refer to the expected king who would deliver Israel from the hands of the Romans. Christians believe that Jesus is this expected Messias. Unlike the Messias most Jews expected, Jesus came to free all people, Jew and Gentile, and He did not come to free them from the Romans, but from sin and death. Thus the king of the Jews, and of all creation, does not primarily rule over a kingdom of this world, but His kingdom is still to be found on Earth—but primarily in the souls of men, even though His kingdom also forms a visible Church too.
Christians have long celebrated Jesus as Christ, and His reign as King is celebrated to some degree in Advent (when Christians wait for His second coming in glory), Christmas (when “born this day is the King of the Jews”), Holy Week (when Christ is the Crucified King), Easter (when Jesus is resurrected in power and glory), and the Ascension (when Jesus returns to the glory He had with the Father before the world was created). However, Pius XI wanted to specifically commemorate Christ as king, and instituted the feast in the Western calendar in 1925.
We Beg His Kingdom to Come—Do we Mean it?
In the Our Father we pray “Thy Kingdom come.” And the Nicene Creed proclaims the constant doctrine of the Catholic Church, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” Does His kingdom extend to my family and home, or are we living autonomously or independently? If we truly have Him come and reign now, then we will not have to tremble later!
He came once in humility and obscurity, riding on an ass and wearing a crown of thorns. He will come again in glory, publicly, riding on the clouds and will decisively put an end to the culture of death, once and for all. It all seems so real, so invincible, the political and military power of great nations and the ideological control exercised by the entertainment industry and the news media. But just recently, the increasing parade of hurricanes and earthquakes remind us of our impotence faced with the forces of nature, so called “acts of God.” Imagine the awesome power of that coming, that final act of God.
Shivering in Boots
Should we be worried? If we are living a life of opposition to God, yes. Hell trembles at the thought of His coming. The stories of the flood and of Sodom and Gomorrah in the book of Genesis are inspired Scripture. They demonstrate what ultimately happens when unrepentant, stubborn sin confronts the holy majesty of God’s righteousness. He will come as King, to deal decisively and violently with evil (remember the cleansing of the Temple?). He will come as judge, to make clear what it is that each person has chosen as their destiny, to call all to accountability for their choices, which are in fact eternal choices with eternal consequences.
But what if you’ve sought to do His will and be His disciple? Then this coming will be an exciting rescue mission. For the king comes as judge for some, but as a savior for others. For those who welcome Him, every tear shall be wiped away. They shall be from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation (Apocalypse 7:9) and will be ushered into a dimension of joy that can scarcely be imagined.
He is no local warlord, no regional ruler. He is the universal King and no one is outside his dominion. And He is no namby-pamby either. Look the mosaic in the apse of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. There Christ the returning King is depicted with rippling muscles. Jesus meek and mild looks in this rendering like someone you definitely don’t want to mess with. The face of the mosaic has a curious quality―one side of His face has a stern look intended for His enemies. But the other side of His face, though strong, is yet tender in compassion for His friends. I don’t know about you, but I think I’d rather be counted among His friends.
But as Our Lord says, we are His friends if we do they things He commands us to do. That’s what love is: keeping His word. “If you love me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me. And he that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father: and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him … If any one love me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him. He that loveth me not, keepeth not My words” (John 14:15-24).
Catholic Complacency
The problem with this understanding of sin is that it is incomplete, even shallow. Lots of people think that as long as they don’t lie, cheat, and steal, but just keep to themselves and mind their own business, they deserve big rewards from God. The story of the Last Judgment addresses these “decent folks.”
“Then He shall say to them also that shall be on His left hand: ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels! For I was hungry, and you gave Me not to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave Me not to drink. I was a stranger, and you took Me not in: naked, and you covered Me not: sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they also shall answer Him, saying: ‘Lord, when did we see Thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to Thee?’ Then He shall answer them, saying: ‘Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me!’” (Matthew 25:41-45).
Imagine their shock as they swagger smugly up to the judge’s bench expecting praise only to be sent off to eternal punishment! Why? Because they neglected to do the good love required them to do. They did not “commit” offenses or infractions of the law; they did nothing positively destructive. They just, in the presence of suffering, heartlessly did absolutely nothing. Their sin was not a sin of “commission” but a sin of “omission.” But note–these sins of omission ultimately seal the fate of the damned; and there are many, many varieties of sins of mission, and many of them can be grave too! Take time to examine, not only what you ARE DOING, but also to see what you ARE NOT DOING.
Do’s and Don’ts
There are lots of negative commandments, often expressed as “thou shalt not’s.” But the two most important commandments are positive “thou shalt’s”. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, and strength and you shall love thy neighbor as yourself.” These commandments require an interior disposition that issues in outward actions. If you are hungry, you love yourself enough to go to the fridge or drive to the grocery store or restaurant. If you truly love your hungry neighbor as yourself, you don’t just say a prayer and offer sympathy (James 2:15-17). Loving God with all your heart doesn’t mean giving a respectful nod to God and then going on your merry way. It means going out of your way, passionately seeking to love Him and serve Him in all that you do.
In this Last Judgment scene we see how these two commandments, these two loves, are really one. Jesus makes clear that loving God with your whole heart is expressed in loving your neighbor as yourself. And whenever you love your neighbor in this way, you are actually loving the Son of God. So ultimately, the judgment is simple. It all comes down to love. The judge happens to be the King of hearts.
Are Religious Catholics Wishful Thinking?
In a certain sense, Catholics are quasi-religious in the sense that they also should be, as Our Lord says above and as He said on the Sermon on the Mount: “You are the salt of the Earth. But if the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men. You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works” (Matthew 5:13-16). Today, the Catholics have lost the sting of salt and light of the Faith—the consequences will be what they were for Heli, for the Israelites, for the kings of France and the people of France!
Hell for Heli
“And the Lord said to [His prophet] Samuel: ‘Behold I do a thing in Israel: and whosoever shall hear it, both his ears shall tingle. In that day I will raise up against Heli all the things I have spoken concerning his house: I will begin, and I will make an end. For I have foretold unto him, that I will judge his house for ever, for iniquity, because he knew that his sons did wickedly, and did not chastise them!’” (1 Kings 3:11-13). These words of doom came to pass shortly afterwards:
“And it came to pass in those days, that the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight: and Israel went out to war against the Philistines. And when they had joined battle, Israel turned their backs to the Philistines, and there was slain in that fight about four thousand men. And the people returned to the camp: and the ancients of Israel said: ‘Why hath the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us fetch unto us the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and let it come in the midst of us, that it may save us from the hand of our enemies!’ So the people sent to Silo, and they brought from thence the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord: and the two sons of Heli, Ophni and Phinees, were with the Ark of the Covenant of God. And when the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord was come into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, and the Earth rang again.
“And the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, and they said: ‘What is this noise of a great shout in the camp of the Hebrews?’ And they understood that the Ark of the Lord was come into the camp. And the Philistines were afraid, saying: ‘God is come into the camp!’ And sighing, they said: ‘Woe to us: for there was no such great joy yesterday and the day before! Woe to us! Who shall deliver us from the hand of these high gods?’These are the gods that struck Egypt with all the plagues in the desert. Take courage and behave like men, ye Philistines: lest you come to be servants to the Hebrews, as they have served you: take courage and fight!’ So the Philistines fought, and Israel was overthrown, and every man fled to his own dwelling: and there was an exceeding great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the Ark of God was taken: and the two sons of Heli, Ophni and Phinees, were slain.
“And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and when he was come to Silo, Heli sat upon a stool over against the way watching. For his heart was fearful for the Ark of God. And when the man was come into the city, he told it: and all the city cried out. And Heli heard the noise of the cry, and he said: ‘What meaneth the noise of this uproar?’ But he made haste, and came, and told Heli.
“Now Heli was ninety and eight years old, and his eyes were dim, and he could not see. And he said to Heli: ‘I am he that came from the battle, and have fled out of the field this day!’ And he said to him: ‘What is there done, my son?’ And he that brought the news answered, and said: Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great slaughter of the people: moreover thy two sons, Ophni and Phinees, are dead: and the Ark of God is taken!’ And when he had named the Ark of God, he fell from his stool backwards by the door, and broke his neck, and died” (1 Kings 4:1-18).
God’s prophecy was thus fulfilled.
We Want a Human King
The Philistines had beaten the Israelites and the Israelites were determined not to let it happen again. So they demanded from God and from His prophet, Samuel, what all the other nations had—a king to lead them in battle and protect them from their enemies (1 Kings 8:19). Up to that point God had been their king—they were a Theocracy (ruled by God) whereas other nations were monarchies (ruled by a single human).
So God gave them Saul, who ultimately failed in his task. Then David was chosen and, in certain ways, David failed too! That’s what happens when you take your eggs out of God’s basket and put them in a flawed human basket—you become a basket-case! The Philistines had beaten the Israelites, not because God was a bad general, but because they had lost their fervor for God and His Law! That loss of fervor and fidelity was the ultimate cause of the loss of the battle. The spiritual losses in the soul led to the physical losses of being slaughtered!
Fracas of France
This reminds us of a similar fate that fell upon another ‘Chosen People’ of sorts, the kings of France. From the time of the baptism of King Clovis at Rheims, France, in 496, until the French Revolution of 1789, God had protected the French monarchy with an unbroken line of succession of almost 1300 years—something that is unheard of with any other dynasty. Clovis is important in the history of France as the first king of what would become France.
Clovis converted to Catholicism at the instigation of his wife, Clotilde, a Burgundian princess who was a Catholic. He was baptized on Christmas Day, 496, in a small church in the vicinity of what would later become the Abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims; a statue of him being baptized by Saint Remigius can still be seen there.
That dynasty came to an end because the kings of France would not place France under the rule of Christ the King—which is what He had explicitly demanded from King Louis XIV (the Sun King) in 1689. Neither Louis XIV, nor his son and grandson, Louis XV and Louis XVI complied with the demand from the Sacred Heart—which, just as with the Israelites, resulted in a massive slaughter and the capture of the Ark of God (the Church in France) by the revolutionaries of the French Revolution in 1789. Exactly 100 years to the very day that the demand had first been made.
Our Lord Threatens a Repeat
Incidentally, Our Lord makes reference to this when He speaks to Sr. Lucia of Fatima, concerning the failure of the ‘kings’ of the Church—the popes—in consecrating Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, saying: “They did not wish to heed My request. Like the king of France, they will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions of the Church; the Holy Father will have much to suffer.”
Who Rules at Your Place?
What can we learn from this for ourselves and our families, schools and parishes? First of all we learn that it is foolish to ignore or to refuse to comply with God’s wishes:
“Be not as your fathers, to whom the former prophets have cried, saying: ‘Thus saith the Lord of hosts: “Turn ye from your evil ways, and from your wicked thoughts!”‘ But they did not give ear, neither did they hearken to Me, saith the Lord” (Zacharias 1:4). “If you will not hearken to the voice of the Lord, but will rebel against His words, the hand of the Lord shall be upon you, and upon your fathers” (1 Kings 12:15). “Therefore amend your ways, and your doings, and hearken to the voice of the Lord your God: and the Lord will repent Him of the evil that He hath spoken against you” (Jeremias 26:13). “Hearken therefore, My children, to your Father: serve the Lord in truth, and seek to do the things that please Him” (Tobias 14:10). “But if you will not hearken to these words: I swear by Myself, saith the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation” (Jeremias 22:5). “Be not deceived, God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7).
So, first of all we learn that it is foolish to ignore or to refuse to comply with God’s wishes. Secondly, let us show a basic, minimal level of love for Christ the King by keeping the Laws of the King. Thirdly, let our homes acquire the spirit of Christ the King, which can only be done by exposing ourselves more and more to His Words and receiving the Heart of the King in the Holy Eucharist! Let us make place for Christ as King in our homes, families, minds and hearts today, so that we do have to fear this King when He comes to judge tomorrow!
Article 3
Sunday November 5th, 2023
Pray Now! Pay Now! Play Later!
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Poor Priorities
Everybody has priorities! A priority is defined as “something that requires being dealt with or done first.” Things that are priorities come “prior” to other things. If you have a slight cut on the finger and also break a bone in your arm or leg, then it is obvious which you will attend to first of all. If you drop and break a plate on the floor, just as the overheated oil in your deep-fryer on the stove bursts into flames―then, again, it is obvious which situation you will deal with first. If an armed robber points a gun at you and threatens to shoot you if you refuse to give him your wallet―then it is obvious that you will prioritize you life over your money.
Our Lord Himself speaks of having a correct set of priorities when He says: “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Elsewhere He also adds: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also!” (Matthew 6:19-21).
Sadly and unfortunately, most people today prioritize earthly things above heavenly things; they like money more than grace; they see more benefit in having fun than doing penance; self-gratification over self-sanctification; they are quick to play and slow to pray; they are worldly, not spiritual. In short, they have poor priorities―or even pathetic priorities. People seek earthly happiness and worldly pleasures more than they seek eternal happiness and heavenly joys. Our Lady herself said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life―but in the next life!”
Yes―of course―some things are very important in life. We all need to pay attention to our health; our families and relationships; our work and income; even our houses and their contents; our cars and other possessions―but all of these are, in the words of Our Lord, secondary to following Him and saving our souls: “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26) … “He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:37).
What a waste of time to spend one’s life pursuing riches and the comforts they can buy when they risk making us lose Heaven, or at best procuring for us a long time in the fires of Purgatory! Have we forgotten Our Lord’s encounter with the rich young man? “And behold a certain man running up and kneeling before Him: ‘Good Master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Thou knowest the commandments—keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Jesus: ‘All these I have kept from my youth, what is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee: go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven; and come, follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
“Then Jesus, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you: How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus again answering, said to them: ‘Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches, to enter into the Kingdom of God!’ And when they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus looking on them, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!’” (Matthew 19:16-26; Mark 10:17-27).
Our Lady speaks of this vanity and danger: “People will think only of amusements! … Priests … will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain! … Who think only of piling riches upon riches!” (Our Lady of Good Success and La Salette). If priests and religious are doing this, it only encourages the laity to do it even more! God says: “Let not the rich man glory in his riches! But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, for I am the Lord” (Jeremias 9:23-24). “Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:23-24).
Insanity of Insanities!
No doubt you have heard the famous quote about insanity: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results!” Who said that? You will go insane trying to find out―for innumerable people have been credited as being the origin of that quote. Nevertheless, the bottom-line is that the quote speaks the truth. If what I am doing always fails―then why the heck am I doing it in exactly the same way again and again and again? Surely I have to tweak something or even radically change something in the process if it always results in failure. Yes―inventors seem to do the same thing again and again and again in their experiments―but they are tweaking or changing certain elements in that process. Of course, when they succeed―they will repeat that eventual successful formula again and again and again in order to see if this time it repeatedly and unfailingly brings success or the desired result (instead of the earlier failures).
Our insanity―and the insanity of the souls in Purgatory and Hell―comes from repeating and repeating and repeating the insane mistakes of all those souls that are now in either Purgatory or Hell. There are some dangerous quotes that give us a false sense of security in being part of the majority: “Safety in numbers!” … “The majority is always right!” Most people believe most of the things they believe only because they believe that most people believe them! Yes―the majority MIGHT be right, but the majority MIGHT also be wrong! Even non-Catholics, atheists, pagans and worldly folk attest to that―as you can see in the following quotes:
“There is a view of life which conceives that where the crowd is, there is also truth. There is another view of life which conceives that wherever there is a crowd, there is untruth.” (Soren Kierkegaard, a 19th century Protestant theologian and philosopher).
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).” (The Presbyterian, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name “Mark Twain”, 1835–1910, an American writer and an anti-Catholic).
“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it!” (Leo Tolstoy, famous Russian writer and Christian anarchist).
“When you’re the only sane person, you look like the only insane person!” (Christopher James Gilbert, American poet and existentialist philosopher).
“I don’t imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over!” (Henrik Ibsen, 19th century Norwegian playwright). A billion foolish people do not form even a single wise person.
“It’s time to introduce a new fallacy that we have coined the ‘Kool-Aid Fallacy’. It goes like this: ‘You disagree with me and I’m in the majority while you’re in the minority. Therefore you’re a cult. Jim Jones led a cult and all of his followers drank poisoned Kool-Aid. Therefore, you’re a suicide cult!’ It’s unbelievable how many times this fallacy appears on social media. Any strong-minded minority with ideas that challenge the common herd, will automatically be called a cult and then it is inevitable that Kool-Aid will be mentioned. Any scientist that wants to change the prevailing paradigm is automatically branded a heretic, apostate, infidel, blasphemer, maverick or lunatic. The scientist must accept the majority or break with his peers, and have his job, career and funding placed in extreme jeopardy. How many careerist scientists are up for that? The answer is zero. The result is that scientists go on thinking what the establishment and the funding bodies expect them to think, even though they themselves must, deep down, know they are supporting ludicrous claims that make no sense.” (Thomas Stark, professor of philosophy, Extra Scientiam Nulla Salus: How Science Undermines Reason).
Following the Insane Majority to Hell or Purgatory
Our Lord―who tried to save the majority―Himself warns us against following the majority: “And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Not everyone that saith to Me, “Lord! Lord!” shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! … Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! ... Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!’” (Luke 13:23-24; Matthew 7:13-14; 7:21; 22:14).
The saints have taken up the above quotes and commented upon them―here is just a brief selection of quotes from some of those saints:
Pope St. Gregory the Great (540-604): “There are many who arrive at the Faith, but few who are led into the heavenly kingdom. Behold how many are gathered here for today’s feast-day―we fill the church from wall to wall! Yet who knows how few they are who shall be numbered in that chosen company of the Elect? The Ark, which in the midst of the Flood was a symbol of the Church, was wide below and narrow above; and, at the summit, measured only a single cubit. […] It was wide where the animals were, narrow where men lived―for the Holy Church is indeed wide in the number of those who are carnal-minded, narrow in the number of those who are spiritual! They who are to be saved as Saints, and wish to be saved as imperfect souls, shall not be saved!”
St. Justin Martyr, Father of the Church (100-165): “The majority of men shall not see God, excepting those who live justly, purified by righteousness and by every other virtue.”
St. Jerome, Doctor and Father of the Church (347-420): “So that you will better appreciate the meaning of Our Lord’s words, and perceive more clearly how few the Elect are, note that Christ did not say that those who walked in the path to Heaven are few in number, but that there were few who found that narrow way. It is as though the Savior intended to say: The path leading to Heaven is so narrow and so rough, so overgrown, so dark and difficult to discern, that there are many who never find it their whole life long. And those who do find it are constantly exposed to the danger of deviating from it, of mistaking their way, and unwittingly wandering away from it.”
St. John Chrysostom, Doctor and Father of the Church (347-407): “What do you think? How many of the inhabitants of this city may perhaps be saved? What I am about to tell you is very terrible, yet I will not conceal it from you. Out of this thickly populated city with its thousands of inhabitants not one hundred people will be saved. I even doubt whether there will be as many as that!”
St. Augustine, Doctor and Father of the Church (354-430): “Take care not to resemble the multitude whose knowledge of God’s will only condemns them to more severe punishment … It is certain that few are saved … If you wish to imitate the multitude, then you shall not be among the few who shall enter in by the narrow gate … Not all, nor even a majority, are saved ... Beyond a doubt the elect are few.”
St. Bede the Venerable, Doctor and Father of the Church (673-735): “Nor should we think that it is enough for salvation that we are no worse off than the mass of the careless and indifferent, or that in our Faith we are, like so many others, uninstructed!”
St. Anselm, Doctor of the Church (1033-1109): “If thou wouldst be certain of being in the number of the elect, strive to be one of the few, not of the many. And if thou wouldst be quite sure of thy salvation, strive to be among the fewest of the few… Do not follow the great majority of mankind, but follow those who enter upon the narrow way, who renounce the world, who give themselves to prayer, and who never relax their efforts by day or by night, so that they may attain everlasting blessedness!”
St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church (1225-1274): “There are a select few who are saved … Those who are saved are in the minority!”
St. Louis Marie de Montfort (1673-1716): “Be one of the small number who find the way to life, and enter by the narrow gate into Heaven! Take care not to follow the majority and the common herd, so many of whom are lost! Do not be deceived―there are only two roads―one that leads to life and is narrow; the other that leads to death and is wide. There is no middle way.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church (1696-1787): “Everyone desires to be saved but the greater part is lost ... The common opinion is that the greater part of adults is lost … It is certainly a great happiness for some sinners who, after a bad life, are converted at their death, and are saved; but these cases are very rare: ordinarily he that leads a bad life dies a bad death … What is the number of those who love Thee, O God? How few they are! The Elect are much fewer than the damned! … In the Great Deluge in the days of Noe, nearly all mankind perished, eight persons alone being saved in the Ark. In our days a deluge, not of water but of sins, continually inundates the Earth, and out of this deluge very few escape, especially among seculars. Scarcely anyone is saved! … All persons desire to be saved, but the greater part are lost, because they will not adopt the means of being saved! … All would wish to be saved and to enjoy the glory of paradise; but to gain Heaven, it is necessary to walk in the straight road that leads to eternal bliss! … He who abuses too much the mercy of God will be abandoned by Him! ... The saints are few, but we must live with the few if we would be saved with the few! O God, too few indeed they are; yet among those few I wish to be! … Some will say: ‘It is enough for me to be saved!’ ‘No,’ says St. Augustine, ‘it is not enough; if you say that it is enough, you will be lost!’”
Are You with the Insane Majority or the Sane Few?
Ask any soul who has been through Purgatory, or still burns in Purgatory, if they prefer Purgatory instead of doing penance upon Earth. The unanimous MAJORITY answer in this case will be sane and correct―they would all have preferred to have paid the price for their sins here on Earth in the short life that they had, rather than burn (some for centuries) in the fires of Purgatory―which, by the way, St. Thomas Aquinas and many other saints say are just as painful as the fires of Hell; except in the fact that the fires of Purgatory will not be burning the soul for eternity.
Just about everyone is this world always seeks to “get the best deal possible” ― who on earth wants to pay $40,000 for an item when you can get the exact same item elsewhere for $35,000. So why “pay over the odds” to get to Heaven (by going to Purgatory) when you could get to Heaven for far less by doing penance in this life. Unfortunately for the souls in Purgatory, they did not take the sane option―but went with the insane option!
What Price on No More Suffering of Any Kind?
Heaven offers us a life free from any illness or suffering. Imagine what kind of money people would pay for that kind of blessing and guarantee here on Earth! Hundreds of thousands! Even millions! Look at the price of one surgical operation! Of course, insurance companies pay the largest chunk—but people pay insurance companies hundreds a month, every month!
Americans consume 80 percent of the world’s supply of painkillers. Pain also appeared to be a major driver of health-care costs. Research has shown that Americans spent just under $5,000 million in over-the-counter pain medications and another nearly $18,000 million on outpatient analgesics. In the United States, the total amount of money spent on medicines reached approximately $574,000 million ($574 billion) on all forms of medication. Average expenditure is about $1,300 per person per year. Health spending per person in the U.S. averaged out at $12,000 in 2020 ― this number is the average total spent per person by combining both out-of-pocket expenses made by the individual and payments made by health insurance companies.
In a 2019 survey, covering 1,170 Americans aged 18-65, the results show how much time men, women, and different age groups really spend keeping fit and healthy. Americans spend 11.7 hours per week (the average number) on their health & fitness regime.
What is the proportion of time, money and effort spent on spiritual health? Very little. Less than 20% of Catholics take the ‘medication’ of Holy Mass once a week; less than 3% to 4% take the ‘medication’ of the Holy Rosary daily! It seems like most Catholics don’t believe in “Holy-istic” medicine! Unfortunate! Even less is the number of Catholics who will take some spiritual exercise and suffer some regular penance—only to find themselves in REAL suffering in Purgatory, if they can scrape in there! “The Dogma of Purgatory is too much forgotten by the majority of the faithful; the Church Suffering, where they have so many brethren to succor, whither they foresee that they themselves must one day go, seems a strange land to them” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained). Of course, everyone suffers in this life—but very few seem to profit from that suffering if, as Our Lord, Our Lady and most theologians hold that most souls are lost. There were two crucified thieves who suffered alongside Christ on Calvary—one suffered well and his sufferings brought an eternal end to suffering in Paradise; the other suffered badly and it brought him eternal suffering in Hell.
As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Understand the ignorance and error of mortals, and how far they drift from the way of light, when, as a rule, nearly all of them strive to avoid labor and suffering and are frightened by the royal and secure road of mortification and the Cross. Full of this deceitful ignorance, they do not only abhor resemblance to Christ’s suffering and my own, and deprive themselves of the true and highest blessing of this life; but they make their recovery impossible, since all of them are weak and afflicted by many sins, for which the only remedy is suffering. Sin is committed by base indulgence and is repugnant to suffering sorrow, while tribulation earns the pardon of the just Judge.”
What Price on Beauty?
No aging, no getting older, ‘wrinklier’, weaker, or ‘wobblier’. No matter in what state we die—old, bald, fat, ugly, deformed or ‘dandruffed’—in Heaven we will find ourselves in the prime of life (early adulthood years) and with perfections of body that vain people of this world would kill for! They fork out thousands of dollars trying to achieve a perfect body, and God will give it to us for free—if we are good! Here, on Earth, billions is spent in the vain (for most) search for the perfect body, the beautiful face, hair care, hair restoration, etc. African Americans spent $507,000 million in 2009 on hair care and personal grooming items. In Britain women spend an average of $6,000 to $8,000 a year on beauty and maintenance. U.S. women spend on average between $12,000 to $15,000 every year on products and salon services. The amount of money spent annually on cosmetics in the United States is $8,000 million dollars! $20,000 million is spent in the U.S. annually on dieting, including diet books, diet drugs and weight-loss surgeries.
As Fr. Schouppe writes, in his book Purgatory Explained: “Souls that allow themselves to be dazzled by the vanities of the world, even if they have the good fortune to escape damnation, will have to undergo terrible punishment. Let us open the Revelations of St. Bridget. We read there that the saint saw herself transported in spirit into Purgatory, and that, among others, she saw there a young lady of high birth who had formerly abandoned herself to the luxury and vanities of the world. This unfortunate soul related to her the history of her life, and the sad state in which she then was found: ‘Happily,’ before death I confessed my sins in such dispositions as to escape Hell, but now I suffer here to expiate the worldly life that my mother did not prevent me from leading!’
“She then added: “Alas! This head of mine, which loved to be adorned, and which sought to draw the attention of others, is now devoured with flames inside and out, and these flames are so violent that, every moment, it seems to me that I must die. These shoulders, these arms, which I loved to see admired, are cruelly bound in chains of red-hot iron. These feet, formerly trained for the dance, are now surrounded with vipers that tear them with their fangs and soil them with their filthy slime. All these parts of the body which I have adorned with jewels, flowers, and a variety of other ornaments, are now a prey to the most horrible torture! O mother, mother!’ she cried, ‘how culpable have you been in my regard! It was you who, by a fatal indulgence, encouraged my taste for display and extravagant expense; it was you that took me to theaters, parties, and dances, and to those worldly assemblies which are the ruin of souls!’” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Eplained).
“Blessed Mary Villani, a Dominican Religious, was transported in spirit to Purgatory. Among the souls that suffered there she saw one more cruelly tormented than the others, in the midst of flames which entirely enveloped her. Touched with compassion, Blessed Mary Villani questioned the soul, who replied: ‘I have been here for a very long time, punished for my vanity and my scandalous extravagance. Thus far I have not received the least alleviation. Whilst I was upon Earth, being wholly occupied with my appearance, my pleasures, and worldly amusements, I thought very little of my duties as a Christian, and fulfilled them only with great reluctance, and in a slothful manner.” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Eplained).
What Price on Happiness?
Happiness and joy beyond our wildest dreams will be ours. Though there will be no equality in Heaven, there will also be no envy, no jealousy, no pride, no anger, no lust, no greed, no resentment, no desire for revenge, no harboring of grudges, no suspicion, no fear, no arguing, no fighting, etc. What price would you pay to experience that on Earth? You couldn’t pay for it, because it is priceless!
In 2000, the US population spent over $200 billion (200,000 million dollars) on entertainment—just to try find some happiness or joy—which is three times the amount spent on education. Other ‘Make Me Happy’ expenditures are $30,000 million on candy; $76,000 million on soda; $50,000 million on alcohol and $49,000 million on tobacco. That’s only the money side of it—how much time was spent indulging in these things? Our Lady’s complaints at Quito and La Salette are haunting: “The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs … Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement.”
As Fr. Schouppe writes, in his book Purgatory Explained: “The venerable servant of God, Frances of Pampeluna, who was favored with several visions of Purgatory, saw, one day, a man of the world, who, although he had otherwise been a tolerably good Christian, passed fifty-nine years in Purgatory on account of seeking his ease and comfort. Another passed thirty-five years there for the same reason; a third, who had too strong, a passion for gambling, was detained there for sixty-four years. If God is severe towards the rich and the pleasure-seekers of the world, He will not be less so towards princes, magistrates, parents, and, in general, towards all those who have the charge of souls and authority over others.” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Eplained).
You Won’t Miss Anything by Dozing-Off!
In Heaven you won’t miss out on anything. You will have more time to do things than you ever had here on Earth! Well, one reason for that is the “eternity factor” which makes a long-life on Earth seem like a joke! The other factor is that you won’t sleep in Heaven (so get all the sleep you can now!), for there will be no need for sleep! That must be the worldly man’s dream, for whom “time means money”! The less you sleep, the more you can work and so the more money you can make—much like the stores that want to stay open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Heavenly Diet
The beauty of body in Heaven will be aided by a heavenly diet—which is a diet of no food at all! We won’t need to eat to sustain our bodies. That means no more having to grow, hunt or shop for food; no more check-out lines; no more slaving over a hot oven; no more dirty dishes to wash! Put a price on that! You can’t, it’s priceless!
So there we are, just a few of the “Perks of Paradise”! And we want all that for what price??? God will say: “You’ve gotta be kidding Me! Your offer is a joke! When you develop a mature and real sense of values, then come back and we’ll talk about it!”
That was the attitude of most souls in Purgatory. It was a totally unrealistic view of Heaven and its value. In effect, they wanted to swindle God, by getting all the above and more besides, for a few paltry prayers; some soppy sacrifices; lukewarm lines of “Love ya!”; mediocre Masses; rushed Rosaries and the like.
That is not the way to treat God, nor will God let us get away with it—it’s not His way, though it might be ours. With these false expectations for Heaven, stemming from our self-love and pride, God could well tell us to go to “the other place.” Yet He knows what we are made of and He shows compassion:
“The Lord is compassionate and merciful: long-suffering and plenteous in mercy. He will not always be angry: nor will He threaten for ever. He hath not dealt with us according to our sins: nor rewarded us according to our iniquities ... As a father hath compassion on his children, so hath the Lord compassion on them that fear Him: for He knoweth our frame. He remembereth that we are dust” (Psalm 102:8-14).
The Real Price of Real Estate
In that kindness, compassion and mercy, He seeks for a solution to our cheap and insulting offer for a piece of Heaven’s real-estate. The solution is Purgatory. As Fr. Schouppe says, in his book, Purgatory Explained:
“The Justice of God is terrible, and it punishes with extreme rigor even the most trivial faults. The reason is, that these faults, light in our eyes, are in nowise so before God. The least sin displeases Him infinitely, and, on account of the infinite Sanctity which is offended, the slightest transgression assumes enormous proportions, and demands enormous atonement.
“This explains the terrible severity of the pains of the other life, and should penetrate us with a holy fear. This fear of Purgatory is a salutary fear; its effect is, not only to animate us with a charitable compassion towards the poor suffering souls, but also with a vigilant zeal for our own spiritual welfare. Think of the fire of Purgatory, and you will endeavor to avoid the least faults; think of the fire of Purgatory, and you will practice penance, that you may satisfy Divine Justice in this world rather than in the next. Let us, however, guard against excessive fear, and not lose confidence.
“Let us not forget the Mercy of God, which is not less infinite than His Justice. Thy mercy, Lord, is great above the Heavens, says the prophet; and elsewhere, The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient, and plenteous in mercy? This ineffable mercy should calm the most lively apprehensions, and fill us with a holy confidence, according to the words: ‘In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped; let me never be put to confusion.’ If we are animated with this double sentiment, if our confidence in God’s Mercy is equal to the fear with which His Justice inspires us, we shall have the true spirit of devotion to the souls in Purgatory.” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
We have just celebrated the original traditional feast day of Christ the King (the last Sunday of October ― the modern Church moved the feast to the last Sunday of the liturgical year, i.e., the Sunday before Advent). In theory, we all know that Christ is King―and always shall be. Yet in practice, the phrase ― “A King for a day!” ― aptly sums up the brief reign of Christ in the minds and hearts of most Catholics! Their honor of Christ is mere lip-service and does not go beyond their lips―it is not found in their hearts and minds. Our Lord complained: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8). The phrase ― “The king is dead, long live the king!” ― is used when a king dies and is replaced by his successor. In the hearts of Catholics, Christ doesn’t reign for very long―the feast of Christ the King only has a brief reign, as Catholics go back to making the world their king soon after. The expression ― “Here today, gone tomorrow” ― means that someone or something is only present for a short time; something that is popular at one point, is forgotten soon afterwards―and that is how it is with Christ! His feast is here today and gone tomorrow! He reigned for a day! Hello and goodbye! Hi and bye!
Christ is not just King for a day―He is King for eternity. Our subjection to Christ the King is not temporary, but perpetual. It is not an option, but an obligation. In Quas primas ― his encyclical on Christ the King ― Pope Pius XI reaffirmed Church teaching that civil States and Nations, as well as individuals, must submit themselves to the rule of Christ the King. In affirming this fundamental truth of our Faith, Pope Pius XI was not referring simply to Catholic nations, or even to Christian nations, but to the whole of mankind. He stated this truth unequivocally by quoting a passage from the encyclical Annum sacrum of Pope Leo XIII: “The empire of Christ the King includes, not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons, who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian Faith: so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ.”
The chief reason behind the ignoring of the Social Reign of Christ the King is that politics has separated itself from religion, the State has separated itself from the Church, the world has separated itself from Heaven, and man has separated himself from God. What was once “one house” has now been divided and made into a “duplex” or “semi-detached” house. In North America, a “duplex” house is a single building having two apartments with separate entrances for two households. This includes two-story houses having a complete apartment on each floor and also side-by-side apartments on a single lot that share a common wall. In Britain, a “duplex house” is called a “Semi-detached house”—this is what politics and religion, or the State and Church, or man and God, have become: “semi-detached
Shaking-Off the Yoke of the King
Our Lord and King said: “My yoke is sweet and my burden light!” (Matthew 11:30) ― yet the world seeks to shake-off the yoke of Christ the King: “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder! And let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). They have uncrowned Christ and placed the crown on the world, some person in the world, or themselves. O abominable pride! “Never suffer pride to reign in thy mind, or in thy words: for from it all perdition took its beginning” (Tobias 4:14). Pride reigns in place of the humble Christ! Christ is not served—we now serve the world and ourselves. Pride stems from self-love―and the bottom-line for most people is that they loves themselves far more than they love God.
In 1846, at La Salette in France, Our Lady warned of this spirit of independence from God: “All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds … A great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten, each individual will want to be on his own and be superior to others.” All this is a sign of increased separation from God, a sign of a spirit or a desire of independence from God—the world wants to left to do what it wants to do. God can take a back seat—it’s our world, let us live it like we want!
The Family of Independence
This independence of thought also shows itself through Naturalism and Humanism, which turns it back on the supernatural and the spiritual, and focuses on the world, nature and humanity, rather than Heaven, grace and the Divinity. This leads us to treasure the natural above the supernatural, things above grace, man above God.
It begets its children of Materialism (greed for things), Rationalism (think what you want in the Natural sphere—nobody tells me what to believe), Modernism (think what you want in the domain of Faith—nobody tells me what to believe about God) and Liberalism (do what you want in the Natural and Religious spheres—nobody tells me what to do, I will do what I want). This is the foundation for all the modern day Revolutions.
It also filters down into the family setting, where independence creeps into family life: the husband becomes more independent from outside authorities, the wife becomes more independent from her husband, the children become more independent from their parents—authority is accepted only if the subordinate agrees with the authority, otherwise there arises a spirit of independence, disobedience and rebellion.
Like Father, Like Son―Like Mother, Like Daughter—Like Nation, Like Citizen
The proverb―“Like father, like son”—is based on the Latin phrase: “qualis pater, talis filius”—of which a more correct translation reads: “As the father was, so shall the son be!” The female equivalent--“Like mother, like daughter”—finds its source in Holy Scripture: “Behold every one that uses a common proverb, shall use this against thee, saying: ‘As the mother was, so also is her daughter!’” (Ezechiel 16:44).
Everyone is heavily influenced by their family, relatives and surrounding environment. It is natural and instinctive for children to copy their parents. The same is true, to a certain extent, of our environment and its culture. There is a lot of truth to the famous saying: “You cannot put clothes in a smoky room without them taking on the smell of smoke.” If you are immersed in a Liberal environment, then you will increasingly take on traits of Liberalism. If you surround yourself with pagans and paganism, you will begin to accept certain pagan values. If a Catholic family is lukewarm, it will more likely produce souls for Hell rather than Heaven. A French say—that some attribute to St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars—says: “A saintly priest will produce a holy parish. Whereas a holy priest will only produce a good parish. However, a good priest will produce a lukewarm parish, but a lukewarm priest will produce a parish of devils.” The principle being that your subordinates will usually be at a lower standard or level to where you are.
The Illusion of Independence
The Illusion of Independence is exactly what it sounds like: it’s the false belief that we are, can be, or should be completely independent―even though it’s total and utter absurdity. Independence is celebrated everywhere; it is lifted up as a model and an ideal of how we should try to be, and so of course we all scramble to identify as being independent. Yet it is dangerous to believe we’re all independent and dangerous to seek to be independent. It’s really, really dangerous, and for several reasons.
The Shame and Danger of Independence
(1) Tracing independence back to its roots, we find that it is born of the devil, with his cry of “I will not serve!” Do we really want to have those kind of ‘family’ connections? Let us take to mind the words of Scripture: “Thy own wickedness shall reprove thee, and thy apostasy shall rebuke thee. Know thou, and see that it is an evil thing for thee, to have left the Lord thy God. Thou hast broken My yoke, thou hast burst My bands, and thou saidst: ‘I will not serve!’” (Jeremias 2:19-20). “So shall you also perish, if you be disobedient to the voice of the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 8:20).
(2) Adam and Eve chose the route of independence from God and thereby walked into the clutches of punishment and death. A fault and punishment that was repeated and received many times throughout history, as is clearly and frequently shown in Holy Scripture—proving, beyond doubt, that independence from God doesn’t pay!
(3) The Jews rejected the Kingship of Christ to their folly and destruction, crying out to Pilate, when he asked them what he should with their King: “The chief priests answered: ‘We have no king but Caesar!’” (John 19:15).
Their desired king—Caesar—sent his son Titus, in 70 AD, as prophesied by Christ, to raze Jerusalem to the ground and slaughter all its inhabitants (over 1 million), because they rebelled against their own acknowledged “We have no king but Caesar!”—and sought independence from the Roman Emperor! An expensive price to pay for rejecting the Kingship of Christ in favor of the worldly kingship of Caesar—yet an even worse carnage awaits the world today for the same fault!
A King Betrayed by a Betraying Council
In a world wherein we speak so often of “religious liberty” and the “separation of Church and State,” it is difficult for us to conceptualize such a social reign of Christ. The language of the Church herself has been nuanced to such an extent that we strain to find even the faintest echoes of Quas Primas (1925) forty years later in Dignitatis Humanae (1965), Vatican II’s declaration on religious freedom. The teaching of this encyclical was ignored and passed over, if not actually contradicted, by the Second Vatican Council. It is an indisputable fact that the Second Vatican Council conspicuously and, one must conclude, deliberately, failed to reaffirm the teaching of Quas primas in which Pope Pius XI reaffirmed the unbroken teaching of his predecessors, saying that States as well as individuals, must submit themselves to the rule of Christ the King.
It is very tempting, in a world that has grown so small, and which experiences so much cultural cross-pollination, to embrace, as though it was a matter of law, an “every religion is equal” religious indifferentism. How do we account for the differing faiths of so many people in melting pots like America? America was founded in large part on the principle that the government “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” And yet, is this not the very kind of attitude that Pope Pius XI warned against, when he admonished rulers not to neglect “the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ”?
Indeed, Pope Pius XI observed the result of failing to do so even in his own time:
“The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the state and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God’s religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart. There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences.”
“The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder! And let us cast away Their yoke from us!’ He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them. Then shall He speak to them in His anger, and trouble them in His rage!” (Psalm 2:2-5).
Is this not the situation we find ourselves in today? Vicious, savagely immoral governments are all that is to be found now in the post-Christian West. Catholics are reduced to pleas for the very sort of religious liberty the Church once condemned as an error, and are forced to embrace the essentially anarchic principles of libertarianism, all out of desperation to preserve their ability to simply continue to exist “ignominiously on the same level” with other, false religions. Meanwhile, pagan and occult practices are on the rise — not underground, but in the open — because no logical excuse exists by which the secular state can deny them the same freedom as any other religion already given equal footing in the public square.
Science is Now Independent of God
Science today is the new god, having sought to replace the one true God in Heaven. It rises higher and higher each year with its achievements, and puts down more and more ‘alleged’ miracles of God. But in the end, God will laugh at them, as the following encounter with God and a scientist portrays:
God was sitting in Heaven one day, when a scientist shouted up to Him: “Hey, God! We don’t need You anymore. Science has finally figured out a way to create life out of nothing – in other words, we can now do what you did in the beginning.”
“Oh, is that so? Explain…” replies God.
“Yep! Sure is!” says the scientist, “We’ve now finally figured out how to take dirt and form it into the likeness of You and breathe life into it, thus creating man!”
“Well, that’s very interesting… show Me!”
So the scientist bends down to the Earth, digs up a wheelbarrow full of soil and starts to mold the soil into the shape of a man.
“No, no, no…! Nooooo you don’t!” interrupts God, “Put that soil down! Put it down right now! That’s my soil! I made it! You go make and get your own dirt!”
Hmmm! Who needs who? Who’s independent of who?
We’re not independent. We are part of a larger system—many larger systems, in fact—that constantly impact our lives and the choices we make. And behind all those systems is Christ the King—who clearly told us: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
He Will Not Reign Over Us!
There are many households (and parishes and nations) where Christ does not reign, or reigns in name only, or theory only: “But His citizens hated Him: and they sent an embassy after Him, saying: ‘We will not have this Man to reign over us!’” (Luke 19:14). Those who rebel against Christ and His law, or tamper with His law, or compromise or dilute His law, will be punished. “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder! And let us cast away Their yoke from us!’ He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them. Then shall He speak to them in His anger, and trouble them in His rage!” (Psalm 2:2-5). “But as for those My enemies, who would not have Me reign over them, bring them here, and kill them before Me” (Luke 19:27). “For He must reign, until He has put all His enemies under His feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25).
He Shall Reign!
Pope Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King in his 1925 encyclical letter Quas Primas, in response to growing nationalism and secularism and in the context of the unresolved Roman Question. The title of the feast was “Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Regis” (Our Lord Jesus Christ the King), and the date was to be “the last Sunday of the month of October ― the Sunday, that is, which immediately precedes the Feast of All Saints.”
In Pope John XXIII’s 1960 revision of the Calendar, the date and title remained the same and, in the new simpler ranking of feasts, it was classified as a feast of the first class.
In his 1969 motu proprio, Mysterii Paschalis, Pope Paul VI gave the celebration a new title: “Domini Nostri Iesu Christi universorum Regis” (Our Lord Jesus Christ King of the Universe). He also gave it a new date: the last Sunday in the liturgical year, before a new liturgical year begins with the First Sunday in Advent, the earliest date for Advent is November 27th. In 2017, this feast day falls on November 26th, or, for those using the traditional calendar and sticking to the original date desired by Pope Pius XI, this year, 2017, it is on October 29th. The liturgical vestments for the day are colored white or gold, in keeping with other joyous feasts honoring Christ.
When Pope Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King in 1925, he connected the denial of Christ, as king, to the rise of secularism. At the time of the encyclical Quas Primas, many Christians (including Catholics) had begun to doubt Christ’s authority and existence, as well as the Church’s power to continue Christ’s authority.
Pius XI, and the rest of the Christian world, witnessed the rise of non-Christian dictatorships in Europe, and saw Catholics being ‘taken-in’ by these earthly leaders. Just as the Feast of Corpus Christi was instituted when devotion to the Eucharist was at a low point, the Feast of Christ the King was instituted during a time when respect for Christ and the Church was weakening, when the feast was most needed. In fact, it is still needed today, as these problems have not vanished, but instead have worsened.
Pius’ Purpose
Pope Pius XI hoped the institution of the feast would have various effects. They were:
1. That nations would see that the Church has the right to freedom, and immunity from the state (Quas Primas, §32).
2. That leaders and nations would see that they are bound to give respect to Christ (Quas Primas, §31).
3. That the faithful would gain strength and courage from the celebration of the feast, as we are reminded that Christ must reign in our hearts, minds, wills, and bodies (Quas Primas, §33).
Things Are Worse Today
Today, the same distrust of authority exists, although the problem has become worse. Individualism has been embraced to such an extreme, that for many, the only authority is the individual self. The idea of Christ as ruler is rejected in such a strongly individualistic system. Also, many balk at the idea of kings and queens, believing them to be oppressive. Some even reject the titles of “lord” and “king” for Christ because they believe that such titles are borrowed from oppressive systems of government. However true these statements might be (some kings have been oppressive), these individuals miss the point: Christ’s kingship is one of humility and service. Jesus said:
Jesus’ Idea of a King
“You know that they who seem to rule over the Gentiles, lord it over them: and their princes have power over them. But it is not so among you: but whosoever will be greater, shall be your minister. And whosoever will be first among you, shall be the servant of all. For the Son of man also is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a redemption for many” (Mark 10:42-45) and we read that during the Passion of Christ:
“Pilate therefore went into the hall again, and called Jesus, and said to him: ‘Art Thou the king of the Jews?’”... Jesus answered, “‘My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now My kingdom is not from hence.’ Pilate therefore said to Him: ‘Art Thou a king then?’ Jesus answered: ‘Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world!’” (John 18:33, 36-37).
Thus, Jesus knew the oppressive nature of secular kings, and in contrast to them, He connected His role as king to humble service, and commanded His followers to be servants as well. In other passages of Scripture, His kingdom is tied to His suffering and death. While Christ is coming to judge the nations, His teachings spell out a kingdom of justice and judgment balanced with radical love, mercy, peace, and forgiveness. When we celebrate Christ as King, we are not celebrating an oppressive ruler, but one willing to die for humanity and whose “loving-kindness endures forever.” Christ is the king that gives us true freedom, freedom in Him. Thus we must never forget that Christ radically redefined and transformed the concept of kingship.
Messias and King
The earliest Christians identified Jesus with the predicted Messias of the Jews. The Jewish word “messias,” and the Greek word “Christ,” both mean “anointed one,” and came to refer to the expected king who would deliver Israel from the hands of the Romans. Christians believe that Jesus is this expected Messias. Unlike the Messias most Jews expected, Jesus came to free all people, Jew and Gentile, and He did not come to free them from the Romans, but from sin and death. Thus the king of the Jews, and of all creation, does not primarily rule over a kingdom of this world, but His kingdom is still to be found on Earth—but primarily in the souls of men, even though His kingdom also forms a visible Church too.
Christians have long celebrated Jesus as Christ, and His reign as King is celebrated to some degree in Advent (when Christians wait for His second coming in glory), Christmas (when “born this day is the King of the Jews”), Holy Week (when Christ is the Crucified King), Easter (when Jesus is resurrected in power and glory), and the Ascension (when Jesus returns to the glory He had with the Father before the world was created). However, Pius XI wanted to specifically commemorate Christ as king, and instituted the feast in the Western calendar in 1925.
We Beg His Kingdom to Come—Do we Mean it?
In the Our Father we pray “Thy Kingdom come.” And the Nicene Creed proclaims the constant doctrine of the Catholic Church, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” Does His kingdom extend to my family and home, or are we living autonomously or independently? If we truly have Him come and reign now, then we will not have to tremble later!
He came once in humility and obscurity, riding on an ass and wearing a crown of thorns. He will come again in glory, publicly, riding on the clouds and will decisively put an end to the culture of death, once and for all. It all seems so real, so invincible, the political and military power of great nations and the ideological control exercised by the entertainment industry and the news media. But just recently, the increasing parade of hurricanes and earthquakes remind us of our impotence faced with the forces of nature, so called “acts of God.” Imagine the awesome power of that coming, that final act of God.
Shivering in Boots
Should we be worried? If we are living a life of opposition to God, yes. Hell trembles at the thought of His coming. The stories of the flood and of Sodom and Gomorrah in the book of Genesis are inspired Scripture. They demonstrate what ultimately happens when unrepentant, stubborn sin confronts the holy majesty of God’s righteousness. He will come as King, to deal decisively and violently with evil (remember the cleansing of the Temple?). He will come as judge, to make clear what it is that each person has chosen as their destiny, to call all to accountability for their choices, which are in fact eternal choices with eternal consequences.
But what if you’ve sought to do His will and be His disciple? Then this coming will be an exciting rescue mission. For the king comes as judge for some, but as a savior for others. For those who welcome Him, every tear shall be wiped away. They shall be from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation (Apocalypse 7:9) and will be ushered into a dimension of joy that can scarcely be imagined.
He is no local warlord, no regional ruler. He is the universal King and no one is outside his dominion. And He is no namby-pamby either. Look the mosaic in the apse of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. There Christ the returning King is depicted with rippling muscles. Jesus meek and mild looks in this rendering like someone you definitely don’t want to mess with. The face of the mosaic has a curious quality―one side of His face has a stern look intended for His enemies. But the other side of His face, though strong, is yet tender in compassion for His friends. I don’t know about you, but I think I’d rather be counted among His friends.
But as Our Lord says, we are His friends if we do they things He commands us to do. That’s what love is: keeping His word. “If you love me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me. And he that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father: and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him … If any one love me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him. He that loveth me not, keepeth not My words” (John 14:15-24).
Catholic Complacency
The problem with this understanding of sin is that it is incomplete, even shallow. Lots of people think that as long as they don’t lie, cheat, and steal, but just keep to themselves and mind their own business, they deserve big rewards from God. The story of the Last Judgment addresses these “decent folks.”
“Then He shall say to them also that shall be on His left hand: ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels! For I was hungry, and you gave Me not to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave Me not to drink. I was a stranger, and you took Me not in: naked, and you covered Me not: sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they also shall answer Him, saying: ‘Lord, when did we see Thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to Thee?’ Then He shall answer them, saying: ‘Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me!’” (Matthew 25:41-45).
Imagine their shock as they swagger smugly up to the judge’s bench expecting praise only to be sent off to eternal punishment! Why? Because they neglected to do the good love required them to do. They did not “commit” offenses or infractions of the law; they did nothing positively destructive. They just, in the presence of suffering, heartlessly did absolutely nothing. Their sin was not a sin of “commission” but a sin of “omission.” But note–these sins of omission ultimately seal the fate of the damned; and there are many, many varieties of sins of mission, and many of them can be grave too! Take time to examine, not only what you ARE DOING, but also to see what you ARE NOT DOING.
Do’s and Don’ts
There are lots of negative commandments, often expressed as “thou shalt not’s.” But the two most important commandments are positive “thou shalt’s”. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, and strength and you shall love thy neighbor as yourself.” These commandments require an interior disposition that issues in outward actions. If you are hungry, you love yourself enough to go to the fridge or drive to the grocery store or restaurant. If you truly love your hungry neighbor as yourself, you don’t just say a prayer and offer sympathy (James 2:15-17). Loving God with all your heart doesn’t mean giving a respectful nod to God and then going on your merry way. It means going out of your way, passionately seeking to love Him and serve Him in all that you do.
In this Last Judgment scene we see how these two commandments, these two loves, are really one. Jesus makes clear that loving God with your whole heart is expressed in loving your neighbor as yourself. And whenever you love your neighbor in this way, you are actually loving the Son of God. So ultimately, the judgment is simple. It all comes down to love. The judge happens to be the King of hearts.
Are Religious Catholics Wishful Thinking?
In a certain sense, Catholics are quasi-religious in the sense that they also should be, as Our Lord says above and as He said on the Sermon on the Mount: “You are the salt of the Earth. But if the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men. You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works” (Matthew 5:13-16). Today, the Catholics have lost the sting of salt and light of the Faith—the consequences will be what they were for Heli, for the Israelites, for the kings of France and the people of France!
Hell for Heli
“And the Lord said to [His prophet] Samuel: ‘Behold I do a thing in Israel: and whosoever shall hear it, both his ears shall tingle. In that day I will raise up against Heli all the things I have spoken concerning his house: I will begin, and I will make an end. For I have foretold unto him, that I will judge his house for ever, for iniquity, because he knew that his sons did wickedly, and did not chastise them!’” (1 Kings 3:11-13). These words of doom came to pass shortly afterwards:
“And it came to pass in those days, that the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight: and Israel went out to war against the Philistines. And when they had joined battle, Israel turned their backs to the Philistines, and there was slain in that fight about four thousand men. And the people returned to the camp: and the ancients of Israel said: ‘Why hath the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us fetch unto us the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and let it come in the midst of us, that it may save us from the hand of our enemies!’ So the people sent to Silo, and they brought from thence the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord: and the two sons of Heli, Ophni and Phinees, were with the Ark of the Covenant of God. And when the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord was come into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, and the Earth rang again.
“And the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, and they said: ‘What is this noise of a great shout in the camp of the Hebrews?’ And they understood that the Ark of the Lord was come into the camp. And the Philistines were afraid, saying: ‘God is come into the camp!’ And sighing, they said: ‘Woe to us: for there was no such great joy yesterday and the day before! Woe to us! Who shall deliver us from the hand of these high gods?’These are the gods that struck Egypt with all the plagues in the desert. Take courage and behave like men, ye Philistines: lest you come to be servants to the Hebrews, as they have served you: take courage and fight!’ So the Philistines fought, and Israel was overthrown, and every man fled to his own dwelling: and there was an exceeding great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the Ark of God was taken: and the two sons of Heli, Ophni and Phinees, were slain.
“And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and when he was come to Silo, Heli sat upon a stool over against the way watching. For his heart was fearful for the Ark of God. And when the man was come into the city, he told it: and all the city cried out. And Heli heard the noise of the cry, and he said: ‘What meaneth the noise of this uproar?’ But he made haste, and came, and told Heli.
“Now Heli was ninety and eight years old, and his eyes were dim, and he could not see. And he said to Heli: ‘I am he that came from the battle, and have fled out of the field this day!’ And he said to him: ‘What is there done, my son?’ And he that brought the news answered, and said: Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great slaughter of the people: moreover thy two sons, Ophni and Phinees, are dead: and the Ark of God is taken!’ And when he had named the Ark of God, he fell from his stool backwards by the door, and broke his neck, and died” (1 Kings 4:1-18).
God’s prophecy was thus fulfilled.
We Want a Human King
The Philistines had beaten the Israelites and the Israelites were determined not to let it happen again. So they demanded from God and from His prophet, Samuel, what all the other nations had—a king to lead them in battle and protect them from their enemies (1 Kings 8:19). Up to that point God had been their king—they were a Theocracy (ruled by God) whereas other nations were monarchies (ruled by a single human).
So God gave them Saul, who ultimately failed in his task. Then David was chosen and, in certain ways, David failed too! That’s what happens when you take your eggs out of God’s basket and put them in a flawed human basket—you become a basket-case! The Philistines had beaten the Israelites, not because God was a bad general, but because they had lost their fervor for God and His Law! That loss of fervor and fidelity was the ultimate cause of the loss of the battle. The spiritual losses in the soul led to the physical losses of being slaughtered!
Fracas of France
This reminds us of a similar fate that fell upon another ‘Chosen People’ of sorts, the kings of France. From the time of the baptism of King Clovis at Rheims, France, in 496, until the French Revolution of 1789, God had protected the French monarchy with an unbroken line of succession of almost 1300 years—something that is unheard of with any other dynasty. Clovis is important in the history of France as the first king of what would become France.
Clovis converted to Catholicism at the instigation of his wife, Clotilde, a Burgundian princess who was a Catholic. He was baptized on Christmas Day, 496, in a small church in the vicinity of what would later become the Abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims; a statue of him being baptized by Saint Remigius can still be seen there.
That dynasty came to an end because the kings of France would not place France under the rule of Christ the King—which is what He had explicitly demanded from King Louis XIV (the Sun King) in 1689. Neither Louis XIV, nor his son and grandson, Louis XV and Louis XVI complied with the demand from the Sacred Heart—which, just as with the Israelites, resulted in a massive slaughter and the capture of the Ark of God (the Church in France) by the revolutionaries of the French Revolution in 1789. Exactly 100 years to the very day that the demand had first been made.
Our Lord Threatens a Repeat
Incidentally, Our Lord makes reference to this when He speaks to Sr. Lucia of Fatima, concerning the failure of the ‘kings’ of the Church—the popes—in consecrating Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, saying: “They did not wish to heed My request. Like the king of France, they will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions of the Church; the Holy Father will have much to suffer.”
Who Rules at Your Place?
What can we learn from this for ourselves and our families, schools and parishes? First of all we learn that it is foolish to ignore or to refuse to comply with God’s wishes:
“Be not as your fathers, to whom the former prophets have cried, saying: ‘Thus saith the Lord of hosts: “Turn ye from your evil ways, and from your wicked thoughts!”‘ But they did not give ear, neither did they hearken to Me, saith the Lord” (Zacharias 1:4). “If you will not hearken to the voice of the Lord, but will rebel against His words, the hand of the Lord shall be upon you, and upon your fathers” (1 Kings 12:15). “Therefore amend your ways, and your doings, and hearken to the voice of the Lord your God: and the Lord will repent Him of the evil that He hath spoken against you” (Jeremias 26:13). “Hearken therefore, My children, to your Father: serve the Lord in truth, and seek to do the things that please Him” (Tobias 14:10). “But if you will not hearken to these words: I swear by Myself, saith the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation” (Jeremias 22:5). “Be not deceived, God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7).
So, first of all we learn that it is foolish to ignore or to refuse to comply with God’s wishes. Secondly, let us show a basic, minimal level of love for Christ the King by keeping the Laws of the King. Thirdly, let our homes acquire the spirit of Christ the King, which can only be done by exposing ourselves more and more to His Words and receiving the Heart of the King in the Holy Eucharist! Let us make place for Christ as King in our homes, families, minds and hearts today, so that we do have to fear this King when He comes to judge tomorrow!
Article 3
Sunday November 5th, 2023
Pray Now! Pay Now! Play Later!
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
Poor Priorities
Everybody has priorities! A priority is defined as “something that requires being dealt with or done first.” Things that are priorities come “prior” to other things. If you have a slight cut on the finger and also break a bone in your arm or leg, then it is obvious which you will attend to first of all. If you drop and break a plate on the floor, just as the overheated oil in your deep-fryer on the stove bursts into flames―then, again, it is obvious which situation you will deal with first. If an armed robber points a gun at you and threatens to shoot you if you refuse to give him your wallet―then it is obvious that you will prioritize you life over your money.
Our Lord Himself speaks of having a correct set of priorities when He says: “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Elsewhere He also adds: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also!” (Matthew 6:19-21).
Sadly and unfortunately, most people today prioritize earthly things above heavenly things; they like money more than grace; they see more benefit in having fun than doing penance; self-gratification over self-sanctification; they are quick to play and slow to pray; they are worldly, not spiritual. In short, they have poor priorities―or even pathetic priorities. People seek earthly happiness and worldly pleasures more than they seek eternal happiness and heavenly joys. Our Lady herself said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life―but in the next life!”
Yes―of course―some things are very important in life. We all need to pay attention to our health; our families and relationships; our work and income; even our houses and their contents; our cars and other possessions―but all of these are, in the words of Our Lord, secondary to following Him and saving our souls: “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26) … “He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:37).
What a waste of time to spend one’s life pursuing riches and the comforts they can buy when they risk making us lose Heaven, or at best procuring for us a long time in the fires of Purgatory! Have we forgotten Our Lord’s encounter with the rich young man? “And behold a certain man running up and kneeling before Him: ‘Good Master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Thou knowest the commandments—keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Jesus: ‘All these I have kept from my youth, what is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee: go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven; and come, follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
“Then Jesus, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you: How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus again answering, said to them: ‘Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches, to enter into the Kingdom of God!’ And when they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus looking on them, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!’” (Matthew 19:16-26; Mark 10:17-27).
Our Lady speaks of this vanity and danger: “People will think only of amusements! … Priests … will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain! … Who think only of piling riches upon riches!” (Our Lady of Good Success and La Salette). If priests and religious are doing this, it only encourages the laity to do it even more! God says: “Let not the rich man glory in his riches! But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, for I am the Lord” (Jeremias 9:23-24). “Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:23-24).
Insanity of Insanities!
No doubt you have heard the famous quote about insanity: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results!” Who said that? You will go insane trying to find out―for innumerable people have been credited as being the origin of that quote. Nevertheless, the bottom-line is that the quote speaks the truth. If what I am doing always fails―then why the heck am I doing it in exactly the same way again and again and again? Surely I have to tweak something or even radically change something in the process if it always results in failure. Yes―inventors seem to do the same thing again and again and again in their experiments―but they are tweaking or changing certain elements in that process. Of course, when they succeed―they will repeat that eventual successful formula again and again and again in order to see if this time it repeatedly and unfailingly brings success or the desired result (instead of the earlier failures).
Our insanity―and the insanity of the souls in Purgatory and Hell―comes from repeating and repeating and repeating the insane mistakes of all those souls that are now in either Purgatory or Hell. There are some dangerous quotes that give us a false sense of security in being part of the majority: “Safety in numbers!” … “The majority is always right!” Most people believe most of the things they believe only because they believe that most people believe them! Yes―the majority MIGHT be right, but the majority MIGHT also be wrong! Even non-Catholics, atheists, pagans and worldly folk attest to that―as you can see in the following quotes:
“There is a view of life which conceives that where the crowd is, there is also truth. There is another view of life which conceives that wherever there is a crowd, there is untruth.” (Soren Kierkegaard, a 19th century Protestant theologian and philosopher).
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).” (The Presbyterian, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name “Mark Twain”, 1835–1910, an American writer and an anti-Catholic).
“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it!” (Leo Tolstoy, famous Russian writer and Christian anarchist).
“When you’re the only sane person, you look like the only insane person!” (Christopher James Gilbert, American poet and existentialist philosopher).
“I don’t imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over!” (Henrik Ibsen, 19th century Norwegian playwright). A billion foolish people do not form even a single wise person.
“It’s time to introduce a new fallacy that we have coined the ‘Kool-Aid Fallacy’. It goes like this: ‘You disagree with me and I’m in the majority while you’re in the minority. Therefore you’re a cult. Jim Jones led a cult and all of his followers drank poisoned Kool-Aid. Therefore, you’re a suicide cult!’ It’s unbelievable how many times this fallacy appears on social media. Any strong-minded minority with ideas that challenge the common herd, will automatically be called a cult and then it is inevitable that Kool-Aid will be mentioned. Any scientist that wants to change the prevailing paradigm is automatically branded a heretic, apostate, infidel, blasphemer, maverick or lunatic. The scientist must accept the majority or break with his peers, and have his job, career and funding placed in extreme jeopardy. How many careerist scientists are up for that? The answer is zero. The result is that scientists go on thinking what the establishment and the funding bodies expect them to think, even though they themselves must, deep down, know they are supporting ludicrous claims that make no sense.” (Thomas Stark, professor of philosophy, Extra Scientiam Nulla Salus: How Science Undermines Reason).
Following the Insane Majority to Hell or Purgatory
Our Lord―who tried to save the majority―Himself warns us against following the majority: “And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Not everyone that saith to Me, “Lord! Lord!” shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! … Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! ... Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!’” (Luke 13:23-24; Matthew 7:13-14; 7:21; 22:14).
The saints have taken up the above quotes and commented upon them―here is just a brief selection of quotes from some of those saints:
Pope St. Gregory the Great (540-604): “There are many who arrive at the Faith, but few who are led into the heavenly kingdom. Behold how many are gathered here for today’s feast-day―we fill the church from wall to wall! Yet who knows how few they are who shall be numbered in that chosen company of the Elect? The Ark, which in the midst of the Flood was a symbol of the Church, was wide below and narrow above; and, at the summit, measured only a single cubit. […] It was wide where the animals were, narrow where men lived―for the Holy Church is indeed wide in the number of those who are carnal-minded, narrow in the number of those who are spiritual! They who are to be saved as Saints, and wish to be saved as imperfect souls, shall not be saved!”
St. Justin Martyr, Father of the Church (100-165): “The majority of men shall not see God, excepting those who live justly, purified by righteousness and by every other virtue.”
St. Jerome, Doctor and Father of the Church (347-420): “So that you will better appreciate the meaning of Our Lord’s words, and perceive more clearly how few the Elect are, note that Christ did not say that those who walked in the path to Heaven are few in number, but that there were few who found that narrow way. It is as though the Savior intended to say: The path leading to Heaven is so narrow and so rough, so overgrown, so dark and difficult to discern, that there are many who never find it their whole life long. And those who do find it are constantly exposed to the danger of deviating from it, of mistaking their way, and unwittingly wandering away from it.”
St. John Chrysostom, Doctor and Father of the Church (347-407): “What do you think? How many of the inhabitants of this city may perhaps be saved? What I am about to tell you is very terrible, yet I will not conceal it from you. Out of this thickly populated city with its thousands of inhabitants not one hundred people will be saved. I even doubt whether there will be as many as that!”
St. Augustine, Doctor and Father of the Church (354-430): “Take care not to resemble the multitude whose knowledge of God’s will only condemns them to more severe punishment … It is certain that few are saved … If you wish to imitate the multitude, then you shall not be among the few who shall enter in by the narrow gate … Not all, nor even a majority, are saved ... Beyond a doubt the elect are few.”
St. Bede the Venerable, Doctor and Father of the Church (673-735): “Nor should we think that it is enough for salvation that we are no worse off than the mass of the careless and indifferent, or that in our Faith we are, like so many others, uninstructed!”
St. Anselm, Doctor of the Church (1033-1109): “If thou wouldst be certain of being in the number of the elect, strive to be one of the few, not of the many. And if thou wouldst be quite sure of thy salvation, strive to be among the fewest of the few… Do not follow the great majority of mankind, but follow those who enter upon the narrow way, who renounce the world, who give themselves to prayer, and who never relax their efforts by day or by night, so that they may attain everlasting blessedness!”
St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church (1225-1274): “There are a select few who are saved … Those who are saved are in the minority!”
St. Louis Marie de Montfort (1673-1716): “Be one of the small number who find the way to life, and enter by the narrow gate into Heaven! Take care not to follow the majority and the common herd, so many of whom are lost! Do not be deceived―there are only two roads―one that leads to life and is narrow; the other that leads to death and is wide. There is no middle way.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church (1696-1787): “Everyone desires to be saved but the greater part is lost ... The common opinion is that the greater part of adults is lost … It is certainly a great happiness for some sinners who, after a bad life, are converted at their death, and are saved; but these cases are very rare: ordinarily he that leads a bad life dies a bad death … What is the number of those who love Thee, O God? How few they are! The Elect are much fewer than the damned! … In the Great Deluge in the days of Noe, nearly all mankind perished, eight persons alone being saved in the Ark. In our days a deluge, not of water but of sins, continually inundates the Earth, and out of this deluge very few escape, especially among seculars. Scarcely anyone is saved! … All persons desire to be saved, but the greater part are lost, because they will not adopt the means of being saved! … All would wish to be saved and to enjoy the glory of paradise; but to gain Heaven, it is necessary to walk in the straight road that leads to eternal bliss! … He who abuses too much the mercy of God will be abandoned by Him! ... The saints are few, but we must live with the few if we would be saved with the few! O God, too few indeed they are; yet among those few I wish to be! … Some will say: ‘It is enough for me to be saved!’ ‘No,’ says St. Augustine, ‘it is not enough; if you say that it is enough, you will be lost!’”
Are You with the Insane Majority or the Sane Few?
Ask any soul who has been through Purgatory, or still burns in Purgatory, if they prefer Purgatory instead of doing penance upon Earth. The unanimous MAJORITY answer in this case will be sane and correct―they would all have preferred to have paid the price for their sins here on Earth in the short life that they had, rather than burn (some for centuries) in the fires of Purgatory―which, by the way, St. Thomas Aquinas and many other saints say are just as painful as the fires of Hell; except in the fact that the fires of Purgatory will not be burning the soul for eternity.
Just about everyone is this world always seeks to “get the best deal possible” ― who on earth wants to pay $40,000 for an item when you can get the exact same item elsewhere for $35,000. So why “pay over the odds” to get to Heaven (by going to Purgatory) when you could get to Heaven for far less by doing penance in this life. Unfortunately for the souls in Purgatory, they did not take the sane option―but went with the insane option!
What Price on No More Suffering of Any Kind?
Heaven offers us a life free from any illness or suffering. Imagine what kind of money people would pay for that kind of blessing and guarantee here on Earth! Hundreds of thousands! Even millions! Look at the price of one surgical operation! Of course, insurance companies pay the largest chunk—but people pay insurance companies hundreds a month, every month!
Americans consume 80 percent of the world’s supply of painkillers. Pain also appeared to be a major driver of health-care costs. Research has shown that Americans spent just under $5,000 million in over-the-counter pain medications and another nearly $18,000 million on outpatient analgesics. In the United States, the total amount of money spent on medicines reached approximately $574,000 million ($574 billion) on all forms of medication. Average expenditure is about $1,300 per person per year. Health spending per person in the U.S. averaged out at $12,000 in 2020 ― this number is the average total spent per person by combining both out-of-pocket expenses made by the individual and payments made by health insurance companies.
In a 2019 survey, covering 1,170 Americans aged 18-65, the results show how much time men, women, and different age groups really spend keeping fit and healthy. Americans spend 11.7 hours per week (the average number) on their health & fitness regime.
What is the proportion of time, money and effort spent on spiritual health? Very little. Less than 20% of Catholics take the ‘medication’ of Holy Mass once a week; less than 3% to 4% take the ‘medication’ of the Holy Rosary daily! It seems like most Catholics don’t believe in “Holy-istic” medicine! Unfortunate! Even less is the number of Catholics who will take some spiritual exercise and suffer some regular penance—only to find themselves in REAL suffering in Purgatory, if they can scrape in there! “The Dogma of Purgatory is too much forgotten by the majority of the faithful; the Church Suffering, where they have so many brethren to succor, whither they foresee that they themselves must one day go, seems a strange land to them” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained). Of course, everyone suffers in this life—but very few seem to profit from that suffering if, as Our Lord, Our Lady and most theologians hold that most souls are lost. There were two crucified thieves who suffered alongside Christ on Calvary—one suffered well and his sufferings brought an eternal end to suffering in Paradise; the other suffered badly and it brought him eternal suffering in Hell.
As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Understand the ignorance and error of mortals, and how far they drift from the way of light, when, as a rule, nearly all of them strive to avoid labor and suffering and are frightened by the royal and secure road of mortification and the Cross. Full of this deceitful ignorance, they do not only abhor resemblance to Christ’s suffering and my own, and deprive themselves of the true and highest blessing of this life; but they make their recovery impossible, since all of them are weak and afflicted by many sins, for which the only remedy is suffering. Sin is committed by base indulgence and is repugnant to suffering sorrow, while tribulation earns the pardon of the just Judge.”
What Price on Beauty?
No aging, no getting older, ‘wrinklier’, weaker, or ‘wobblier’. No matter in what state we die—old, bald, fat, ugly, deformed or ‘dandruffed’—in Heaven we will find ourselves in the prime of life (early adulthood years) and with perfections of body that vain people of this world would kill for! They fork out thousands of dollars trying to achieve a perfect body, and God will give it to us for free—if we are good! Here, on Earth, billions is spent in the vain (for most) search for the perfect body, the beautiful face, hair care, hair restoration, etc. African Americans spent $507,000 million in 2009 on hair care and personal grooming items. In Britain women spend an average of $6,000 to $8,000 a year on beauty and maintenance. U.S. women spend on average between $12,000 to $15,000 every year on products and salon services. The amount of money spent annually on cosmetics in the United States is $8,000 million dollars! $20,000 million is spent in the U.S. annually on dieting, including diet books, diet drugs and weight-loss surgeries.
As Fr. Schouppe writes, in his book Purgatory Explained: “Souls that allow themselves to be dazzled by the vanities of the world, even if they have the good fortune to escape damnation, will have to undergo terrible punishment. Let us open the Revelations of St. Bridget. We read there that the saint saw herself transported in spirit into Purgatory, and that, among others, she saw there a young lady of high birth who had formerly abandoned herself to the luxury and vanities of the world. This unfortunate soul related to her the history of her life, and the sad state in which she then was found: ‘Happily,’ before death I confessed my sins in such dispositions as to escape Hell, but now I suffer here to expiate the worldly life that my mother did not prevent me from leading!’
“She then added: “Alas! This head of mine, which loved to be adorned, and which sought to draw the attention of others, is now devoured with flames inside and out, and these flames are so violent that, every moment, it seems to me that I must die. These shoulders, these arms, which I loved to see admired, are cruelly bound in chains of red-hot iron. These feet, formerly trained for the dance, are now surrounded with vipers that tear them with their fangs and soil them with their filthy slime. All these parts of the body which I have adorned with jewels, flowers, and a variety of other ornaments, are now a prey to the most horrible torture! O mother, mother!’ she cried, ‘how culpable have you been in my regard! It was you who, by a fatal indulgence, encouraged my taste for display and extravagant expense; it was you that took me to theaters, parties, and dances, and to those worldly assemblies which are the ruin of souls!’” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Eplained).
“Blessed Mary Villani, a Dominican Religious, was transported in spirit to Purgatory. Among the souls that suffered there she saw one more cruelly tormented than the others, in the midst of flames which entirely enveloped her. Touched with compassion, Blessed Mary Villani questioned the soul, who replied: ‘I have been here for a very long time, punished for my vanity and my scandalous extravagance. Thus far I have not received the least alleviation. Whilst I was upon Earth, being wholly occupied with my appearance, my pleasures, and worldly amusements, I thought very little of my duties as a Christian, and fulfilled them only with great reluctance, and in a slothful manner.” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Eplained).
What Price on Happiness?
Happiness and joy beyond our wildest dreams will be ours. Though there will be no equality in Heaven, there will also be no envy, no jealousy, no pride, no anger, no lust, no greed, no resentment, no desire for revenge, no harboring of grudges, no suspicion, no fear, no arguing, no fighting, etc. What price would you pay to experience that on Earth? You couldn’t pay for it, because it is priceless!
In 2000, the US population spent over $200 billion (200,000 million dollars) on entertainment—just to try find some happiness or joy—which is three times the amount spent on education. Other ‘Make Me Happy’ expenditures are $30,000 million on candy; $76,000 million on soda; $50,000 million on alcohol and $49,000 million on tobacco. That’s only the money side of it—how much time was spent indulging in these things? Our Lady’s complaints at Quito and La Salette are haunting: “The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs … Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement.”
As Fr. Schouppe writes, in his book Purgatory Explained: “The venerable servant of God, Frances of Pampeluna, who was favored with several visions of Purgatory, saw, one day, a man of the world, who, although he had otherwise been a tolerably good Christian, passed fifty-nine years in Purgatory on account of seeking his ease and comfort. Another passed thirty-five years there for the same reason; a third, who had too strong, a passion for gambling, was detained there for sixty-four years. If God is severe towards the rich and the pleasure-seekers of the world, He will not be less so towards princes, magistrates, parents, and, in general, towards all those who have the charge of souls and authority over others.” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Eplained).
You Won’t Miss Anything by Dozing-Off!
In Heaven you won’t miss out on anything. You will have more time to do things than you ever had here on Earth! Well, one reason for that is the “eternity factor” which makes a long-life on Earth seem like a joke! The other factor is that you won’t sleep in Heaven (so get all the sleep you can now!), for there will be no need for sleep! That must be the worldly man’s dream, for whom “time means money”! The less you sleep, the more you can work and so the more money you can make—much like the stores that want to stay open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Heavenly Diet
The beauty of body in Heaven will be aided by a heavenly diet—which is a diet of no food at all! We won’t need to eat to sustain our bodies. That means no more having to grow, hunt or shop for food; no more check-out lines; no more slaving over a hot oven; no more dirty dishes to wash! Put a price on that! You can’t, it’s priceless!
So there we are, just a few of the “Perks of Paradise”! And we want all that for what price??? God will say: “You’ve gotta be kidding Me! Your offer is a joke! When you develop a mature and real sense of values, then come back and we’ll talk about it!”
That was the attitude of most souls in Purgatory. It was a totally unrealistic view of Heaven and its value. In effect, they wanted to swindle God, by getting all the above and more besides, for a few paltry prayers; some soppy sacrifices; lukewarm lines of “Love ya!”; mediocre Masses; rushed Rosaries and the like.
That is not the way to treat God, nor will God let us get away with it—it’s not His way, though it might be ours. With these false expectations for Heaven, stemming from our self-love and pride, God could well tell us to go to “the other place.” Yet He knows what we are made of and He shows compassion:
“The Lord is compassionate and merciful: long-suffering and plenteous in mercy. He will not always be angry: nor will He threaten for ever. He hath not dealt with us according to our sins: nor rewarded us according to our iniquities ... As a father hath compassion on his children, so hath the Lord compassion on them that fear Him: for He knoweth our frame. He remembereth that we are dust” (Psalm 102:8-14).
The Real Price of Real Estate
In that kindness, compassion and mercy, He seeks for a solution to our cheap and insulting offer for a piece of Heaven’s real-estate. The solution is Purgatory. As Fr. Schouppe says, in his book, Purgatory Explained:
“The Justice of God is terrible, and it punishes with extreme rigor even the most trivial faults. The reason is, that these faults, light in our eyes, are in nowise so before God. The least sin displeases Him infinitely, and, on account of the infinite Sanctity which is offended, the slightest transgression assumes enormous proportions, and demands enormous atonement.
“This explains the terrible severity of the pains of the other life, and should penetrate us with a holy fear. This fear of Purgatory is a salutary fear; its effect is, not only to animate us with a charitable compassion towards the poor suffering souls, but also with a vigilant zeal for our own spiritual welfare. Think of the fire of Purgatory, and you will endeavor to avoid the least faults; think of the fire of Purgatory, and you will practice penance, that you may satisfy Divine Justice in this world rather than in the next. Let us, however, guard against excessive fear, and not lose confidence.
“Let us not forget the Mercy of God, which is not less infinite than His Justice. Thy mercy, Lord, is great above the Heavens, says the prophet; and elsewhere, The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient, and plenteous in mercy? This ineffable mercy should calm the most lively apprehensions, and fill us with a holy confidence, according to the words: ‘In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped; let me never be put to confusion.’ If we are animated with this double sentiment, if our confidence in God’s Mercy is equal to the fear with which His Justice inspires us, we shall have the true spirit of devotion to the souls in Purgatory.” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Article 21
Saturday October 28th & Sunday October 29th, 2023
The Feast of Christ the King
Is Christ Your King? In Theory? In Practice?
Saturday October 28th & Sunday October 29th, 2023
The Feast of Christ the King
Is Christ Your King? In Theory? In Practice?
What’s the Point?
Why do we celebrate Christ the King? Is He only King for a day? So many Catholics fly through feasts like this on “auto-pilot”—they know it is the feast day, but it is a feast only in name, and not in action. Yesterday was the feast of Christ the King—today is a different day! So put Christ back in His closet and let’s move on! Why should we do the opposite? The reason is simply a case of “agere contra” or “doing the opposite”! The world today, especially and increasingly over the last 200+ years (since the American and French Revolutions which triggered a domino-effect of Revolutions) draws further and further away from Christ and His Laws. The world has sought to throw-off the yoke of Christ—it rejects Christ, it rejects His Laws, it rejects His rightful social reign over nations and families. “Thou hast broken My yoke, thou hast burst My bands, and thou saidst: ‘I will not serve!’” (Jeremias 2:20). “Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things? The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ. ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder: and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’ He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them. Then shall He speak to them in his anger, and trouble them in His rage” (Psalm 2:1-5).
Do You Honor or Dishonor Christ the King?
“Honor the king!” writes St. Peter (1 Peter 2:17). “Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the King of kings, and Lord of lords … to Whom be honor and empire everlasting!” writes St. Paul (1 Timothy 6:14-16), further adding: “Now to the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever!” (1 Timothy 1:17), and again he writes: “To God, through Jesus Christ, be honor and glory for ever and ever!” (Romans 16:27). “Bring to the Lord glory and honor!” says the Psalmist (Psalm 28:2). Even non-Christians and pagans are commanded to honor the Lord: “O ye kindreds of the Gentiles, bring ye to the Lord glory and honor!” (Psalm 95:7). “Honor the Lord!” (Proverbs 3:9). “Honor God with all thy soul!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:33). “Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor―because Thou hast created all things; and for Thy will they were, and have been created!” (Apocalypse 4:11). “The Lamb [Jesus Christ] that was slain is worthy to receive honor and glory!” (Apocalypse 5:12). “In the Name of Jesus every knee should bow―of those that are in Heaven, on Earth, and under the Earth!” (Philippians 2:10). Thus―in theory―we are meant to give all glory and honor to God―and Christ is God. Yet that is not what always happens in practice!
“You have dishonored Me!” says Our Lord to the Jews (John 8:49). “Certain men, ungodly men, are denying the only sovereign Ruler, our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:4). “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). Holy Scripture says of King Herod: “An angel of the Lord struck him, because he had not given the honor to God!” (Acts 12:23).
Stop and Think of the Consequences of Christ Being King!
Words often glibly slip from our tongues without much thought being given to them. It is the same with prayers—we sometimes don’t even remember saying our prayers. Christ our King speaks of this inattentiveness, glibness, indifference and superficiality when He complains: “Jesus said to them: ‘Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: “This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me”’” (Mark 7:6).
This especially applies to our calling Jesus “King” without really realizing what are the consequences of our calling him a “King.” As they say, “Words are cheap” and the honor, homage and service we render to Christ the King is also cheap! Have you noticed the way or manner with which most people say “I love you” to their nearest and dearest? It is often a glib, superficial, half-hearted statement that is routinely and glibly used—much like the superficial and basically dishonest question we ask many times a week, or even many times a day—namely, “How are you doing?” Do we REALLY want to know how people are doing? We would be shocked and disappointed if someone suddenly decided to take up 15 to 30 minutes of our time in proceeding to tell us how they really doing, instead of giving the equally dishonest common reply of “Fine, thanks!” This kind of routine creeps into our relations with God in general, or Christ the King in particular. So much of our so-called ‘devotion’ is mere routine, that we try to camouflage as a real love and devotion. We are doing nothing other than what Our Lord complained of—we are merely honoring Him with our lips, while our hearts are far from Him.
Whose Side Are You On? Who Are You Rooting For?
The basic idea behind the “Social Kingship” of Christ is extremely easy to understand: God or the Devil. We either accept God and submit ourselves to His authority, or we revolt and say “Non serviam!” like Satan. Either we bend our knee before Jesus our Lord (Philippians 2:10), or we drink one of the many flavors of the Kool-Aid of Materialism, Atheism, Hedonism (pleasure-seeking), etc. We are either “for “ Christ the King, or we are “against” Christ the King—there can be no neutrality, no spectators—Christ our King said so Himself: “He that is not with Me, is against Me: and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth! … Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 12:30; 10:32-33). Unlike our words—which often from our lips and not from our heart—these words of Our Lord come from both His lips and His Heart and we should take them to heart and engrave them in our hearts!
Sr. Lucia of Fatima reveals the same thing—that we must choose either Christ or the devil, and that there can be no neutrality and no mere non-committal spectating or ‘fence-sitting’ in our days: “Father, the Blessed Virgin … told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one side will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God or we are with the Devil; there is no middle ground.”
This comment--“From now on, we are either with God or we are with the Devil; there is no middle ground”―is not just applicable to Catholics, but to the whole world. Christ is King—not only of Catholics, not only of Christians, not only believers in a God―but Christ is even King over pagans.
King of Everyone and Everything
If you “make” or “create” a child, then it is YOUR child. If you write a book, then it is YOUR book. If you invent something, then it is YOUR invention. If you pay the full price for an object, then that object belongs to YOU. The same is true for God―and even more so. God is at the root of all things―when we make anything, we only “borrow” what He has made and re-arrange it, modify it, etc. Yet the raw materials that we use are always invariably can be traced back to God. “How great are thy works, O Lord! Thou hast made all things! The Earth is filled with Thy riches!” (Psalm 103:24) … “God―[and Christ is God]―made the world and all things therein” (Acts 17:24) … “All things were made by Him and without Him was made nothing that was made!” (John 1:3) ... “The Lord has made all things for Himself!” (Proverbs 16:4).
Not only did God―and Christ is God―make all things, He also potentially redeemed all souls―from sin, Satan and Hell―by dying for them on the cross. In other words, Christ purchased everyone by His Precious Blood. “You are not your own! For you are bought with a great price!” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Jesus paid a very high price for everyone’s potential salvation―the price of His Precious Blood. “Know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things such as gold or silver, but with the Precious Blood of Christ!” (1 Peter 1:18-19). Therefore, Christ owns everything because He created everything and said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5)―and Christ also owns everyone, not only because He (as God) created everyone’s soul, but also because He redeemed (to redeem = purchase) everyone’s soul from slavery to sin and Satan: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8) … “Whosoever commits sin, is the servant [slave] of sin” (John 8:34).
In Quas primas, his encyclical on Christ the King, Pope Pius XI reaffirmed Church teaching that civil States and Nations, as well as individuals, must submit themselves to the rule of Christ the King. In affirming this fundamental truth of our Faith, Pope Pius XI was not referring simply to Catholic nations, or even to Christian nations, but to the whole of mankind. He stated this truth unequivocally by quoting a passage from the encyclical Annum sacrum of Pope Leo XIII: “The empire of Christ the King includes, not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons, who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian Faith: so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ.”
Christ wishes to bring every human being into the Catholic Church: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations―baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost―teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20). His spirit must be the spirit of the people of His Kingdom. Do you have the spirit of Christ? Or do you have the spirit of the world? The spirit of the world is ultimately the spirit of Satan, or Belial, or the Devil―whom Christ calls “the prince of this world” (John 12:31). Holy Scripture warns: “What concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God! As God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17).
Christ the King is not “The In-Thing”
Sadly—and tragically for mankind in the future—devotion, honor and homage to Christ the King has not grown. Instead, the secularism—which prompted the encyclical and the feast in the first place—has continued to grow unabated, to the point that it caused the collapse of the Catholic world, with Catholics leaving the Church in droves and regular Sunday Mass attendance plummeting, and the Sacrament of Confession falling into almost total disuse.
The chief reason behind the ignoring of the Social Reign of Christ the King is that politics has separated itself from religion, the State has separated itself from the Church, the world has separated itself from Heaven, and man has separated himself from God. What was once “one house” has now been divided and made into a “duplex” or “semi-detached” house. In North America, a “duplex” house is a single building having two apartments with separate entrances for two households. This includes two-story houses having a complete apartment on each floor and also side-by-side apartments on a single lot that share a common wall. In Britain, a “duplex house” is called a “Semi-detached house”—this is what politics and religion, or the State and Church, or man and God, have become: “semi-detached.”
Marriage and Christ the King
We could also liken the world’s relationship and our relationship to Christ the King through an analogy to the current plight of marriage throughout the world. Marriage on Earth is meant to be a reflection of our union with God―or especially our union with the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ. “I will espouse thee to Me forever: and I will espouse thee to Me in justice, and judgment, and in mercy, and in commiserations. I will espouse thee to Me in Faith: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord!” (Osee 2:19-20). It is hard to imagine someone loving, adoring, obeying and pleasing God if they cannot achieve that in an earthly, human, family setting!
Marital problems reflect God problems. The prevalence of adultery, separation and divorce is an indicator of how mankind acts in relation to God. We commit spiritual adultery by seeking to love something else, other than God and even love it more than God—and that something is the world. Holy Scripture calls such lovers of the world by the name “adulterers”, and just as adultery causes enmity between spouses, so too does spiritual adultery with the world, cause enmity with God: “Adulterers! Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). Many seek a separation from God, so as to better enjoy the world! This is what Our Lord and King condemns, when He says: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:19-24). Yet many do try to serve God and mammon—which is like trying to have a spouse and a lover―and can be likened to partially or sporadically practicing the Faith. Some even go further, and do not merely separate themselves from their spouse for a while, in order to be with the lover, but they want a divorce—a permanent cutting of the bond of marriage—which can be likened to apostasy from the Faith.
There are very, very few truly Catholic marriages in the world today—Our Lady even revealed to St. Jacinta Marto of Fatima that most marriages (even back in 1917) were not of God and not pleasing to God! An overgrown selfishness and a near non-existent selflessness is one of the chief causes of such marriages. True love is more outgoing than incoming.
Catholics Burst Free of Christ
Today, many Catholics—even entire Catholic families—have broken loose from the saving bonds of Christ, preferring a ‘better deal’ that is offered by the world, and its invisible prince who works in its shadows—the devil. They forget Holy Scripture’s warning that the world is no friend, but an enemy: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4) and that their true king, Christ, has disassociated Himself from this world: “I am not of this world” (John 8:23). All those who are true Christians—not the fake ‘by name only’ Christians—Our Lord also disassociates from this world: “because they are not of the world; as I also am not of the world” (John 17:14); but the fake, ‘by name only’ Christians He does associate with the world: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world” (John 8:23).
The Great Escape
The Catholic world is on the verge—and already quite some way down the slippery slope—of a mass apostasy: a great escape from Christ. Vatican II opened the windows and doors of the Church to the world—in the hope that the world would “come-in”; but all that has happened is that the Catholics have “got-out”: they have left in droves in the last 50 years: thousands of priests left the priesthood, many of them married; the same goes for an even greater number of desertion among the male and female religious; those who are left have fallen-foul of many terrible vices that surfaced in the last decade or two, which lend credence to Our Lady’s prophecy that the clergy, the religious and the faithful will be inundated with impurity and become cesspools of impurity.
Lust Blinds the Soul
As the spiritual masters teach us, lust blinds the mind, whereas “Blessed are the pure for they shall see God”; which blindness Our Lady speaks of, saying: “The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty ... There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of ... making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church ... The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way, corrupting many of them ... The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence ... These corrupted priests and religious persons ... straying from their divine mission, they degrade themselves in such a way that, before the eyes of God they quicken the rigor of the punishments ... Without virginity it will be necessary for fire from Heaven to rain down upon these lands in order to purify them” (Our Lady of Good Success & Our Lady of La Salette).
Days of Self-Service
All this is the result of having shaken-off the yoke of Christ, of having uncrowned Him and having placed the crown on the world, some person in the world, or themselves. O abominable pride! “Never suffer pride to reign in thy mind, or in thy words: for from it all perdition took its beginning” (Tobias 4:14).
Pride reigns in place of the humble Christ! Christ is not served—we now serve the world and ourselves. Which is very apt in these days of “self-service” that we see in stores, restaurants and gas-stations. It is a serious thing to usurp the throne of Christ, steal His crown, and cast Him out of the world! What else but calamity can result from this—both calamity for the world and calamity for individuals. Pride stems from self-love―and the bottom-line for most people is that they loves themselves far more than they love God. Hence, they tend to please themselves before they seek to please God. Love is an inescapable aspect of human life―but love has to be well-ordered and correctly valued. Our Lord tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God above all things and to love Him with our whole being: mind, heart, soul and strength.
We Must Fight For Christ Our King
Following Christ our King means having to fight! “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Fight the good fight of faith: lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called, and hast confessed a good confession before many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6:12). “This is the victory which overcometh the world, our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). Yet Faith is not an end in itself, but a stepping-stone to love and charity: “If I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). We must fight for Christ the King primarily through love or charity: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Christ our King tells us: “You shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Matthew 10:22), yet “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake! Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you!” (Matthew 5:11-12). “Bless them that persecute you: bless, and curse not. To no man rendering evil for evil. If it be possible, as much as is in you, have peace with all men. Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved; but give place unto wrath, for it is written: ‘Revenge is mine, I will repay,’ saith the Lord. But if thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink. For, doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good” (Romans 12:9-21).
Why do we celebrate Christ the King? Is He only King for a day? So many Catholics fly through feasts like this on “auto-pilot”—they know it is the feast day, but it is a feast only in name, and not in action. Yesterday was the feast of Christ the King—today is a different day! So put Christ back in His closet and let’s move on! Why should we do the opposite? The reason is simply a case of “agere contra” or “doing the opposite”! The world today, especially and increasingly over the last 200+ years (since the American and French Revolutions which triggered a domino-effect of Revolutions) draws further and further away from Christ and His Laws. The world has sought to throw-off the yoke of Christ—it rejects Christ, it rejects His Laws, it rejects His rightful social reign over nations and families. “Thou hast broken My yoke, thou hast burst My bands, and thou saidst: ‘I will not serve!’” (Jeremias 2:20). “Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things? The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ. ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder: and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’ He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them. Then shall He speak to them in his anger, and trouble them in His rage” (Psalm 2:1-5).
Do You Honor or Dishonor Christ the King?
“Honor the king!” writes St. Peter (1 Peter 2:17). “Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the King of kings, and Lord of lords … to Whom be honor and empire everlasting!” writes St. Paul (1 Timothy 6:14-16), further adding: “Now to the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever!” (1 Timothy 1:17), and again he writes: “To God, through Jesus Christ, be honor and glory for ever and ever!” (Romans 16:27). “Bring to the Lord glory and honor!” says the Psalmist (Psalm 28:2). Even non-Christians and pagans are commanded to honor the Lord: “O ye kindreds of the Gentiles, bring ye to the Lord glory and honor!” (Psalm 95:7). “Honor the Lord!” (Proverbs 3:9). “Honor God with all thy soul!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:33). “Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor―because Thou hast created all things; and for Thy will they were, and have been created!” (Apocalypse 4:11). “The Lamb [Jesus Christ] that was slain is worthy to receive honor and glory!” (Apocalypse 5:12). “In the Name of Jesus every knee should bow―of those that are in Heaven, on Earth, and under the Earth!” (Philippians 2:10). Thus―in theory―we are meant to give all glory and honor to God―and Christ is God. Yet that is not what always happens in practice!
“You have dishonored Me!” says Our Lord to the Jews (John 8:49). “Certain men, ungodly men, are denying the only sovereign Ruler, our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:4). “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). Holy Scripture says of King Herod: “An angel of the Lord struck him, because he had not given the honor to God!” (Acts 12:23).
Stop and Think of the Consequences of Christ Being King!
Words often glibly slip from our tongues without much thought being given to them. It is the same with prayers—we sometimes don’t even remember saying our prayers. Christ our King speaks of this inattentiveness, glibness, indifference and superficiality when He complains: “Jesus said to them: ‘Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: “This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me”’” (Mark 7:6).
This especially applies to our calling Jesus “King” without really realizing what are the consequences of our calling him a “King.” As they say, “Words are cheap” and the honor, homage and service we render to Christ the King is also cheap! Have you noticed the way or manner with which most people say “I love you” to their nearest and dearest? It is often a glib, superficial, half-hearted statement that is routinely and glibly used—much like the superficial and basically dishonest question we ask many times a week, or even many times a day—namely, “How are you doing?” Do we REALLY want to know how people are doing? We would be shocked and disappointed if someone suddenly decided to take up 15 to 30 minutes of our time in proceeding to tell us how they really doing, instead of giving the equally dishonest common reply of “Fine, thanks!” This kind of routine creeps into our relations with God in general, or Christ the King in particular. So much of our so-called ‘devotion’ is mere routine, that we try to camouflage as a real love and devotion. We are doing nothing other than what Our Lord complained of—we are merely honoring Him with our lips, while our hearts are far from Him.
Whose Side Are You On? Who Are You Rooting For?
The basic idea behind the “Social Kingship” of Christ is extremely easy to understand: God or the Devil. We either accept God and submit ourselves to His authority, or we revolt and say “Non serviam!” like Satan. Either we bend our knee before Jesus our Lord (Philippians 2:10), or we drink one of the many flavors of the Kool-Aid of Materialism, Atheism, Hedonism (pleasure-seeking), etc. We are either “for “ Christ the King, or we are “against” Christ the King—there can be no neutrality, no spectators—Christ our King said so Himself: “He that is not with Me, is against Me: and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth! … Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 12:30; 10:32-33). Unlike our words—which often from our lips and not from our heart—these words of Our Lord come from both His lips and His Heart and we should take them to heart and engrave them in our hearts!
Sr. Lucia of Fatima reveals the same thing—that we must choose either Christ or the devil, and that there can be no neutrality and no mere non-committal spectating or ‘fence-sitting’ in our days: “Father, the Blessed Virgin … told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one side will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God or we are with the Devil; there is no middle ground.”
This comment--“From now on, we are either with God or we are with the Devil; there is no middle ground”―is not just applicable to Catholics, but to the whole world. Christ is King—not only of Catholics, not only of Christians, not only believers in a God―but Christ is even King over pagans.
King of Everyone and Everything
If you “make” or “create” a child, then it is YOUR child. If you write a book, then it is YOUR book. If you invent something, then it is YOUR invention. If you pay the full price for an object, then that object belongs to YOU. The same is true for God―and even more so. God is at the root of all things―when we make anything, we only “borrow” what He has made and re-arrange it, modify it, etc. Yet the raw materials that we use are always invariably can be traced back to God. “How great are thy works, O Lord! Thou hast made all things! The Earth is filled with Thy riches!” (Psalm 103:24) … “God―[and Christ is God]―made the world and all things therein” (Acts 17:24) … “All things were made by Him and without Him was made nothing that was made!” (John 1:3) ... “The Lord has made all things for Himself!” (Proverbs 16:4).
Not only did God―and Christ is God―make all things, He also potentially redeemed all souls―from sin, Satan and Hell―by dying for them on the cross. In other words, Christ purchased everyone by His Precious Blood. “You are not your own! For you are bought with a great price!” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Jesus paid a very high price for everyone’s potential salvation―the price of His Precious Blood. “Know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things such as gold or silver, but with the Precious Blood of Christ!” (1 Peter 1:18-19). Therefore, Christ owns everything because He created everything and said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5)―and Christ also owns everyone, not only because He (as God) created everyone’s soul, but also because He redeemed (to redeem = purchase) everyone’s soul from slavery to sin and Satan: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8) … “Whosoever commits sin, is the servant [slave] of sin” (John 8:34).
In Quas primas, his encyclical on Christ the King, Pope Pius XI reaffirmed Church teaching that civil States and Nations, as well as individuals, must submit themselves to the rule of Christ the King. In affirming this fundamental truth of our Faith, Pope Pius XI was not referring simply to Catholic nations, or even to Christian nations, but to the whole of mankind. He stated this truth unequivocally by quoting a passage from the encyclical Annum sacrum of Pope Leo XIII: “The empire of Christ the King includes, not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons, who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian Faith: so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ.”
Christ wishes to bring every human being into the Catholic Church: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations―baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost―teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20). His spirit must be the spirit of the people of His Kingdom. Do you have the spirit of Christ? Or do you have the spirit of the world? The spirit of the world is ultimately the spirit of Satan, or Belial, or the Devil―whom Christ calls “the prince of this world” (John 12:31). Holy Scripture warns: “What concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God! As God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17).
Christ the King is not “The In-Thing”
Sadly—and tragically for mankind in the future—devotion, honor and homage to Christ the King has not grown. Instead, the secularism—which prompted the encyclical and the feast in the first place—has continued to grow unabated, to the point that it caused the collapse of the Catholic world, with Catholics leaving the Church in droves and regular Sunday Mass attendance plummeting, and the Sacrament of Confession falling into almost total disuse.
The chief reason behind the ignoring of the Social Reign of Christ the King is that politics has separated itself from religion, the State has separated itself from the Church, the world has separated itself from Heaven, and man has separated himself from God. What was once “one house” has now been divided and made into a “duplex” or “semi-detached” house. In North America, a “duplex” house is a single building having two apartments with separate entrances for two households. This includes two-story houses having a complete apartment on each floor and also side-by-side apartments on a single lot that share a common wall. In Britain, a “duplex house” is called a “Semi-detached house”—this is what politics and religion, or the State and Church, or man and God, have become: “semi-detached.”
Marriage and Christ the King
We could also liken the world’s relationship and our relationship to Christ the King through an analogy to the current plight of marriage throughout the world. Marriage on Earth is meant to be a reflection of our union with God―or especially our union with the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ. “I will espouse thee to Me forever: and I will espouse thee to Me in justice, and judgment, and in mercy, and in commiserations. I will espouse thee to Me in Faith: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord!” (Osee 2:19-20). It is hard to imagine someone loving, adoring, obeying and pleasing God if they cannot achieve that in an earthly, human, family setting!
Marital problems reflect God problems. The prevalence of adultery, separation and divorce is an indicator of how mankind acts in relation to God. We commit spiritual adultery by seeking to love something else, other than God and even love it more than God—and that something is the world. Holy Scripture calls such lovers of the world by the name “adulterers”, and just as adultery causes enmity between spouses, so too does spiritual adultery with the world, cause enmity with God: “Adulterers! Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). Many seek a separation from God, so as to better enjoy the world! This is what Our Lord and King condemns, when He says: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:19-24). Yet many do try to serve God and mammon—which is like trying to have a spouse and a lover―and can be likened to partially or sporadically practicing the Faith. Some even go further, and do not merely separate themselves from their spouse for a while, in order to be with the lover, but they want a divorce—a permanent cutting of the bond of marriage—which can be likened to apostasy from the Faith.
There are very, very few truly Catholic marriages in the world today—Our Lady even revealed to St. Jacinta Marto of Fatima that most marriages (even back in 1917) were not of God and not pleasing to God! An overgrown selfishness and a near non-existent selflessness is one of the chief causes of such marriages. True love is more outgoing than incoming.
Catholics Burst Free of Christ
Today, many Catholics—even entire Catholic families—have broken loose from the saving bonds of Christ, preferring a ‘better deal’ that is offered by the world, and its invisible prince who works in its shadows—the devil. They forget Holy Scripture’s warning that the world is no friend, but an enemy: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4) and that their true king, Christ, has disassociated Himself from this world: “I am not of this world” (John 8:23). All those who are true Christians—not the fake ‘by name only’ Christians—Our Lord also disassociates from this world: “because they are not of the world; as I also am not of the world” (John 17:14); but the fake, ‘by name only’ Christians He does associate with the world: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world” (John 8:23).
The Great Escape
The Catholic world is on the verge—and already quite some way down the slippery slope—of a mass apostasy: a great escape from Christ. Vatican II opened the windows and doors of the Church to the world—in the hope that the world would “come-in”; but all that has happened is that the Catholics have “got-out”: they have left in droves in the last 50 years: thousands of priests left the priesthood, many of them married; the same goes for an even greater number of desertion among the male and female religious; those who are left have fallen-foul of many terrible vices that surfaced in the last decade or two, which lend credence to Our Lady’s prophecy that the clergy, the religious and the faithful will be inundated with impurity and become cesspools of impurity.
Lust Blinds the Soul
As the spiritual masters teach us, lust blinds the mind, whereas “Blessed are the pure for they shall see God”; which blindness Our Lady speaks of, saying: “The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty ... There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of ... making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church ... The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way, corrupting many of them ... The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence ... These corrupted priests and religious persons ... straying from their divine mission, they degrade themselves in such a way that, before the eyes of God they quicken the rigor of the punishments ... Without virginity it will be necessary for fire from Heaven to rain down upon these lands in order to purify them” (Our Lady of Good Success & Our Lady of La Salette).
Days of Self-Service
All this is the result of having shaken-off the yoke of Christ, of having uncrowned Him and having placed the crown on the world, some person in the world, or themselves. O abominable pride! “Never suffer pride to reign in thy mind, or in thy words: for from it all perdition took its beginning” (Tobias 4:14).
Pride reigns in place of the humble Christ! Christ is not served—we now serve the world and ourselves. Which is very apt in these days of “self-service” that we see in stores, restaurants and gas-stations. It is a serious thing to usurp the throne of Christ, steal His crown, and cast Him out of the world! What else but calamity can result from this—both calamity for the world and calamity for individuals. Pride stems from self-love―and the bottom-line for most people is that they loves themselves far more than they love God. Hence, they tend to please themselves before they seek to please God. Love is an inescapable aspect of human life―but love has to be well-ordered and correctly valued. Our Lord tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God above all things and to love Him with our whole being: mind, heart, soul and strength.
We Must Fight For Christ Our King
Following Christ our King means having to fight! “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Fight the good fight of faith: lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called, and hast confessed a good confession before many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6:12). “This is the victory which overcometh the world, our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). Yet Faith is not an end in itself, but a stepping-stone to love and charity: “If I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). We must fight for Christ the King primarily through love or charity: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Christ our King tells us: “You shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Matthew 10:22), yet “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake! Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you!” (Matthew 5:11-12). “Bless them that persecute you: bless, and curse not. To no man rendering evil for evil. If it be possible, as much as is in you, have peace with all men. Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved; but give place unto wrath, for it is written: ‘Revenge is mine, I will repay,’ saith the Lord. But if thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink. For, doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good” (Romans 12:9-21).
Article 20
Friday October 27th, 2023
Are You The Problem? Or Are You The Solution?
Friday October 27th, 2023
Are You The Problem? Or Are You The Solution?
Are You a “Nobody”?
Probably nobody likes being called “a nobody”―unless, of course, they truly practice the virtue of humility. To call someone “a nobody” is to effectively call them “worthless; useless; entirely unimportant; insignificant; unsuccessful; unfruitful; without power or influence.” Whether it is received as such is one thing―but, at its core, it is an insult which is meant to greatly offend. If you are surrounded by “nobodies”, if you have to work with “nobodies”, if your work-force is full of “nobodies”―then you have a problem! If you, yourself, are “a nobody”―useless, unsuccessful, incapable, unproductive, unfruitful, powerless, without influence―then not only do you have a problem, but you are a problem.
God does not want “nobodies” who produce no fruit―God wants “somebodies” who produce some fruit. Jesus said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers to work in his vineyard ... And again going out about the third hour, he saw others standing in the market place idle―and he said to them: ‘Go you also into my vineyard!’ … And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them: ‘Why do you stand here all the day idle? … Go you also into my vineyard!’” (Matthew 20:1-7). “I am the true vine; and My Father is the farmer [gardener]. Every branch in Me, that bears not fruit, He will take away! And every one that bears fruit, He will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit! I am the vine and you are the branches―he that abides in Me bears much fruit! In this is my Father glorified; that you bring forth very much fruit!” (John 15:1-6). “You are the salt of the Earth―but if the salt loses its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more, except to be cast out and to be trodden on by men! You are the light of the world. Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:13-16).
“The Lord has looked down from Heaven to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways―there is none that does good, no not one!” (Psalm 13:1-3; Psalm 52:1-6). Those who are unprofitable shall find themselves rejected and cast out: “The unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness―where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 25:30). Our Faith and its teachings; the Sacraments and their graces are like the talents which a lord gave to his servants, expecting them to use, trade and produce a profit from them. Are we using them? Are we showing profits?
A Nobody with No Talents
“A man going into a far country, called his servants, and delivered to them his goods. To one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one―to everyone according to his proper ability―and then immediately he took his journey. He that had received the five talents, traded with them and gained another five. He that had received the two, gained another two. But he that had received the one, going his way dug a hole into the earth and hid his lord’s money. But after a long time, the lord of those servants came, and reckoned with them. He that received the five talents, brought the other five talents, saying: ‘Lord, behold, I have gained another five over and above!’ His lord said: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your lord!’ And he that had received the two talents, came and said: ‘Lord, you delivered two talents to me! Behold, I have gained another two!’ His lord said: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your lord!’ But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that you are a hard man―and, being afraid, I went and hid your talent in the ground! Behold here it is―you can take back that which is yours!’ And his lord said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! You ought to have at least committed my money to the bankers, so that, at my coming, I should have received my own money back with usury [additional interest]! Take away, therefore, the talent from him and the unprofitable servant cast out into the exterior darkness―where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
Our Lady Seeks Profit but Sees No Profit
All of Our Lady’s modern-day apparitions are essentially about seeking profit. What profit? Not earthly profit! Not monetary profit! But the profit of souls! The profit that comes from saving souls―saving sinners from Hell! “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). At the moment, it is Satan and Hell that is reaping the most profits―as Our Lady said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there is NOBODY to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917). “Many souls go to Hell because there is NOBODY to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” Are you in the “NOBODY” group?
In her other apparitions Our Lady said: “There are no more generous souls, there is nobody left worthy of offering a spotless sacrifice to God for the sake of the world! … For there is nobody left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people! … Penance! Penance! Penance! … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this! … With my Son, I wish for souls who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful! … I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of beloved souls ... Already souls who wish to pray are on the way to being gathered together … Will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time? … Pray very much—very much! … Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears, in the privacy of your heart! O, if men only understood how to appreciate the time given to them and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!” (combination of quotes from Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita).
Are You a Profitable Servant or an Unprofitable Servant?
In this modern world where we are spoiled by the availability of so many things and pleasures―with more things within our grasp than at any other time in the history of the world―it is hard to be spiritually minded and not materially minded. We want our “heaven” here and now―in this world―more than in the next world! We forget that Our Lady said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world―but in the next the world!” Words that echo Our Lord’s words: “For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Those words of Our Lord and Our Lady are equally applicable to all of us! Those words of Our Lord and Our Lady are equally applicable to all of us! Yet those words―more often than not―fall on deaf ears: “O foolish people, without understanding! Who have eyes and see not; and ears but hear not!” (Jeremias 5:21) … “Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a provoking house: who have eyes to see, and see not: and ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a provoking house!” (Ezechiel 12:2).
Probably nobody likes being called “a nobody”―unless, of course, they truly practice the virtue of humility. To call someone “a nobody” is to effectively call them “worthless; useless; entirely unimportant; insignificant; unsuccessful; unfruitful; without power or influence.” Whether it is received as such is one thing―but, at its core, it is an insult which is meant to greatly offend. If you are surrounded by “nobodies”, if you have to work with “nobodies”, if your work-force is full of “nobodies”―then you have a problem! If you, yourself, are “a nobody”―useless, unsuccessful, incapable, unproductive, unfruitful, powerless, without influence―then not only do you have a problem, but you are a problem.
God does not want “nobodies” who produce no fruit―God wants “somebodies” who produce some fruit. Jesus said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers to work in his vineyard ... And again going out about the third hour, he saw others standing in the market place idle―and he said to them: ‘Go you also into my vineyard!’ … And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them: ‘Why do you stand here all the day idle? … Go you also into my vineyard!’” (Matthew 20:1-7). “I am the true vine; and My Father is the farmer [gardener]. Every branch in Me, that bears not fruit, He will take away! And every one that bears fruit, He will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit! I am the vine and you are the branches―he that abides in Me bears much fruit! In this is my Father glorified; that you bring forth very much fruit!” (John 15:1-6). “You are the salt of the Earth―but if the salt loses its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more, except to be cast out and to be trodden on by men! You are the light of the world. Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:13-16).
“The Lord has looked down from Heaven to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways―there is none that does good, no not one!” (Psalm 13:1-3; Psalm 52:1-6). Those who are unprofitable shall find themselves rejected and cast out: “The unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness―where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 25:30). Our Faith and its teachings; the Sacraments and their graces are like the talents which a lord gave to his servants, expecting them to use, trade and produce a profit from them. Are we using them? Are we showing profits?
A Nobody with No Talents
“A man going into a far country, called his servants, and delivered to them his goods. To one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one―to everyone according to his proper ability―and then immediately he took his journey. He that had received the five talents, traded with them and gained another five. He that had received the two, gained another two. But he that had received the one, going his way dug a hole into the earth and hid his lord’s money. But after a long time, the lord of those servants came, and reckoned with them. He that received the five talents, brought the other five talents, saying: ‘Lord, behold, I have gained another five over and above!’ His lord said: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your lord!’ And he that had received the two talents, came and said: ‘Lord, you delivered two talents to me! Behold, I have gained another two!’ His lord said: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your lord!’ But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that you are a hard man―and, being afraid, I went and hid your talent in the ground! Behold here it is―you can take back that which is yours!’ And his lord said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! You ought to have at least committed my money to the bankers, so that, at my coming, I should have received my own money back with usury [additional interest]! Take away, therefore, the talent from him and the unprofitable servant cast out into the exterior darkness―where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
Our Lady Seeks Profit but Sees No Profit
All of Our Lady’s modern-day apparitions are essentially about seeking profit. What profit? Not earthly profit! Not monetary profit! But the profit of souls! The profit that comes from saving souls―saving sinners from Hell! “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). At the moment, it is Satan and Hell that is reaping the most profits―as Our Lady said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there is NOBODY to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917). “Many souls go to Hell because there is NOBODY to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” Are you in the “NOBODY” group?
In her other apparitions Our Lady said: “There are no more generous souls, there is nobody left worthy of offering a spotless sacrifice to God for the sake of the world! … For there is nobody left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people! … Penance! Penance! Penance! … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this! … With my Son, I wish for souls who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful! … I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of beloved souls ... Already souls who wish to pray are on the way to being gathered together … Will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time? … Pray very much—very much! … Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears, in the privacy of your heart! O, if men only understood how to appreciate the time given to them and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!” (combination of quotes from Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita).
Are You a Profitable Servant or an Unprofitable Servant?
In this modern world where we are spoiled by the availability of so many things and pleasures―with more things within our grasp than at any other time in the history of the world―it is hard to be spiritually minded and not materially minded. We want our “heaven” here and now―in this world―more than in the next world! We forget that Our Lady said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world―but in the next the world!” Words that echo Our Lord’s words: “For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Those words of Our Lord and Our Lady are equally applicable to all of us! Those words of Our Lord and Our Lady are equally applicable to all of us! Yet those words―more often than not―fall on deaf ears: “O foolish people, without understanding! Who have eyes and see not; and ears but hear not!” (Jeremias 5:21) … “Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a provoking house: who have eyes to see, and see not: and ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a provoking house!” (Ezechiel 12:2).
Article 19
Tuesday October 24th & Wednesday 25th, 2023
Are You Fiddling While Rome Burns? Or Are You Burning While Rome Fiddles?
Tuesday October 24th & Wednesday 25th, 2023
Are You Fiddling While Rome Burns? Or Are You Burning While Rome Fiddles?
Fiddling & Burning ― Candles & Christians
“Nero fiddled while Rome burned” has become a phrase used to criticize someone who is doing nothing, or something trivial or irresponsible in the face of an emergency. In the summer of AD 64, Rome was devastated by a huge fire that lasted six days. Half the city’s population was made homeless and the blaze destroyed 70% of the buildings.
The Romans wanted someone to blame, and they looked to their already debauched, decadent, cruel, sadistic and unpopular Emperor Nero. He was blamed for ignoring a serious matter, and neglecting his people while they suffered. Some even accused Nero of deliberately arranging for the fires to be started in order to destroy building and free up land which he later took for himself and cleared it to make way for the building of his Golden Palace (Domus Aurea) and its surrounding pleasure gardens, which included a complex of villas on a landscaped park and artificial lake―all of which, had it been finished, would have covered a third of Rome. The fire also enabled him to reconstruct the city of Rome in an image of his liking (it makes you think of a pope who wants to reconstruct Rome and the Church according to his own liking!). The heavy taxation on the Roman provinces all over Europe and Asia funded the reconstruction.
Nero tried to deflect blame away from himself by blaming the Christians for the fire. The blame gained traction due to the rumor that certain Roman Christians spoke of a prophecy that Rome would be engulfed in flames. Sadistically, he had Christians arrested and punished them by tying them to a stake, coating their bodies with tar, pitch, oil, wax and other flammable materials then using them as human candles by having them burn to death, beginning with the lighting of their feet and allowing the flames to spread up to the head. That is where we get the name for one of the fireworks many people use―“The Roman Candle.” Nero’s human “Roman Candles” (burning Christians alive) were used to provide decorative lighting at Nero’s formal parties and celebrations within the imperial gardens during night time, whilst lit in such a way to prolong torture and pain.
Is Francis Fiddling While Rome Burns?
After watching Francis for 10 years as pope, one has to ask―as increasing numbers have been and are asking―“Is Francis fiddling with Faith in Rome?” … “Is Francis fiddling the faithful as to his true intentions?” … “Has the Church been fiddled by Francis?” … “Is fiddling Francis making everyone dance to his new tunes?” … “Is Francis one big Fiddle?” … “Is Francis the biggest Fiddler the Church has known?”
Fiddlers―whether musicians who play the fiddle, or crooks who fiddle and cheat―have to be careful not to play a “bum” note or make a stupid move that will expose their fiddling. Even though the Catholic Church has become incredibly Liberal as well as Modernist, Francis still has to fiddle carefully and not play “too fast” and not play “notes” that an ever-decreasing minority of Conservative Catholics will recognize as not being on the “score” or musical composition of Catholic Church’s traditional teachings and dogma.
Fiddling for Satan?
Francis is merely a Liberal and Modernist musician in the Second Vatican Council Orchestra―even though he is pope, he is not the chief-conductor. He merely leads the orchestra to play the “score” or symphony that has been given to him by others. The chief-conductor, of course, is Satan―and he recruits for his orchestra from one generation to next. Satan has many other orchestras and bands―in government, in politics, in finance, in the media, in business, in culture―Francis is merely a musician playing the fiddle for Satan in one of these many orchestras and bands. If that sounds harsh―then it will not sound harsh by the end of this article.
As Holy Scripture says: “Whosoever commits sin, is the servant of sin … He that commits sin is of the devil” (John 8:34; 1 John 3:8). Today, the Church is sinning more and more―therefore, the Church is more and more of the devil!
► FR. GABRIELE AMORTH: Talking of the devil―the recently deceased (2016) former chief-exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, had this to say: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … The whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican! … The demon tempts the authorities of the Church ― just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
► SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA hinted that a future pope would be under the influence of Satan. She wrote: “Our Lady showed us the individual who I describe as the 'holy Father' in front of a multitude that was cheering him. But there was a difference from a true holy Father―his devilish gaze, this one had the gaze of evil.”
► OUR LADY herself spoke of this: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish! ... Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God! … God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises! … The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders … In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts! … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … . Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls! ... Rome will lose the Faith! … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten, each individual will want to be independent and be superior to others! … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … Many will turn upon Religion! Many people will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church, impelled by the malice of the devil!” (Our Lady of Good Success, at Quito in Ecuador, Our Lady of La Salette, France; Our Lady of Fatima, Portugal; Our Lady of Akita, Japan).
► POPE PAUL VI said on several occasions that Satan had penetrated the Church and was present in the highest ecclesial positions: “We believed that after the [Second Vatican] Council would come a day of sunshine in the history of the Church. But instead there has come a day of clouds and storms, and of darkness ... And how did this come about? We will confide to you … that there has been a power, an adversary power―let us call him by his name: the Devil―it is as if from some mysterious crack, no, it is not mysterious, from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God.” (June 29th, 1972). Some months later, on November 15th of 1972, at a General Audience, Pope Paul VI added: “What are the Church’s greatest needs at the present time? One of the Church’s greatest needs is to be defended against the evil we call the Devil!” A few years later, on October 13th, 1977, Pope Paul VI repeated the same concern: “The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the Faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church!”
► MONSIGNOR MARIO MARINI (1937-2008), Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, and Undersecretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, worked nearly forty years in the Vatican. In 1996 Monsignor Marini told Fr. Paul Kramer, a personal friend for 35 years, with reference to the Roman Curia: “Our hands are tied―we can do nothing, because it is Masons who occupy the key positions!” The last time Fr. Kramer saw him before Marini died, in October 2008, the Monsignor told him: “We are under Masonic occupation!” Msgr. Marini was convinced that John Paul II exercised very little actual power, dispossessed of his power of government by the Vatican Mafia. So do you think anything has changed in the last 15 years? Have the Masons decided to leave being the job was too boring? Quite the opposite! If, as Our Lady said, “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects”, then you can bet your life on the fact that they have an even greater stranglehold on the Church today than at any other time in the past!
► ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, whose name Pope Francis took for his papacy, warned of the future before he died: “The time is fast approaching in which there will be great trials and afflictions; perplexities and dissensions, both spiritual and temporal, will abound … The devils will have unusual power … At the time of this tribulation a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavor to draw many into error and death. Then scandals will be multiplied, our Order will be divided, and many others will be entirely destroyed, because they will consent to error instead of opposing it. There will be such diversity of opinions and schisms among the people, the religious and the clergy, that, except those days were shortened, according to the words of the Gospel, even the elect would be led into error, were they not specially guided, amid such great confusion, by the immense mercy of God. Those who preserve their fervor and adhere to virtue with love and zeal for the truth, will suffer injuries and, persecutions as rebels and schismatics―for their persecutors, urged on by the evil spirits, will say they are rendering a great service to God by destroying such pestilent men from the face of the Earth. By their death will purchase for themselves eternal life; choosing to obey God rather than man, they will fear nothing, and they will prefer to perish [physically] rather than consent to falsehood and treachery. Some preachers will keep silence about the truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it. Sanctity of life will be held in derision even by those who outwardly profess it, for in those days Jesus Christ will send them not a true Pastor, but a destroyer!” (Works of the Seraphic Father St. Francis Of Assisi [London: R. Washbourne, 1882], pp. 248-250).
► FR. PAUL KRAMER states: “Malachi [Martin[ personally confirmed to me in 1997 that the ‘pope’ who will lead the apostasy in the Church will be a HERETIC and an ANTIPOPE.” (Fr. Paul Kramer, May, 2016).
► CARDINAL LUIGI CIAPPI, the personal theologian to Popes Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II, states in a 1995 personal letter to Professor Baumgartner of Salzburg, Austria: “In the Third Secret [of Fatima] it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church begins at the top!” (Fr. Gerard Mura, “The Third Secret of Fatima: Has It Been Completely Revealed?”, the periodical Catholic, published by the Transalpine Redemptorists, Orkney Isles, Scotland, March 2002).
► CARDINAL ALFREDO OTTAVIANI, who read the Third Secret of Fatima, made reference to one of its themes, during an allocution, to the members of the Marian International Academy, he declared: “It suffices to cast a rapid glance at what is happening at this moment in the world, in order to recognize that―without the intervention of the Mother of all mercy near the All-Powerful―the world risks becoming pagan once more, a paganism more deplorable than the first paganism, because it is aggravated by apostasy. We are witnessing a veritable deluge of sins, a deluge which leaves behind it a nauseating quagmire, infected by immorality, lies and blasphemy...” (December 15th, 1960 ― Allocution de S. Em. Le cardinal Ottaviani, à l’Académie Mariale Internationale, Documentation Catholique, 1961, col. 244).
► CARDINAL SILVIO ODDI warned: “The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against the apostasy in the Church … I would not be surprised if the Third Secret alluded to dark times for the Church: grave confusions and troubling apostasies within Catholicism itself...If we consider the grave crisis we have lived through since the Council, the signs that this prophecy has been fulfilled do not seem to be lacking...” (Cardinal Silvio Oddi, to Italian journalist Lucio Brunelli in the journal, Il Sabato, Rome, March 17th, 1990).
► FATHER JOSEPH SCHWEIGL: “I cannot reveal anything about what I have learned at Fatima about the Third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts: the one concerns the Pope. The other, logically ― although I should say nothing ― should be the continuation of the words: ‘In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved.’” (quote from Father Joseph Schweigl, 1952, whom Pope Pius XII sent to interview Sr. Lucia on September 2nd, 1952; reported by Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité, The Whole Truth About Fatima: The Third Secret, Vol. III, p. 710, p. 337-338).
Fearless Francis’ Fatal Fiddling with Faith
The current Church climate is one of Liberalism, Modernism, Apostasy and potential Schism. In a broad and general sense, you could say that Liberalism gives birth to Modernism, and Apostasy and Schism are born quickly afterwards. If you have a clear idea on what Liberalism is and what Modernism is, then you will be able to clearly judge whether Francis is a Liberal and/or a Modernist. Unfortunately, most Catholics know very little about these things and so they live and walk in a cloud of ignorance, with only vague and imprecise ideas about Liberalism and Modernism. There have been entire books written on each subject―and this article cannot do justice to a full explanation of Liberalism and Modernism, for an article cannot be a book! Nevertheless, here are some brief descriptions that may be of use to those whose notions are vague:
What is Liberalism?
Liberalism can be a very broad and imprecise term―applicable to politics, religion, science and art. To confuse matters, in the past the word “liberal” could also mean generous―and in this sense Jesus is called “liberal”. However, that is not the kind of Liberalism we are talking about! The Liberalism that we refer to is a mindset that demands for itself the freedom [“libertas”―Latin for liberty or freedom] to think, say and do what it wants―and not be restricted or curtailed by anyone or anything. Theological Liberalism is a form of religious thought that thinks, speaks and acts in way that does not show obedience to the authority of Tradition.
Fr. Salvany, in his masterpiece of a book, Liberalism Is A Sin, writes: “Liberalism is a world complete in itself … It is the world of Lucifer, disguised in our times under the name of Liberalism, in radical opposition and in perpetual warfare against the Church of Jesus Christ …. Liberalism―whether doctrinal or practical―is a sin! … Liberalism is a mortal sin! … Liberalism is, therefore, a greater sin than blasphemy, theft, adultery, homicide, or any other violation of the law of God … The gravity of sin is determined by the object at which it strikes ... Liberalism strikes at the very foundations of Faith! … The gravest of all sins are those against Faith! … Faith is the foundation of the supernatural order … To destroy the foundations is to destroy the entire superstructure. To cut off the branch of a tree, will not kill it; but to lay the ax to the trunk, or the roots, is fatal to its life. It is a radical and universal heresy, because within it are contained all heresies! … It is the declaration of … the absolute independence of the individual and the social reason― [In other words, the opinion of society, or a group, or an individual, takes precedence over Church teaching]. In short it sets itself up as the measure and rule of Faith … It denies everything which it itself does not proclaim. It negates everything which it itself does not affirm. Such is the general negation uttered by Liberalism … recognizing no principle or rule beyond itself.” (Liberalism Is A Sin).
“The Catholic Liberal or the Liberal Catholic … throws open the gates to the enemies of the Faith, and, posing as a man of intellect with generous and liberal views … is thus both a traitor and a fool. Seeking to please the enemies of the Faith he has betrayed the Faith itself … he surrenders it to … the spirit of untruth … The Liberal Catholic assumes … his individual judgment is the rule of Faith. He believes in the independence of reason. It is true he accepts the Magisterium of the Church, butt he does not accept it as the sole authorized expounder of divine truth. He reserves, as a coefficient factor in the determination of that truth, his own private judgment ... He believes that no one can impose upon him any belief which his individual judgment does not measure as being perfectly rational. What is not rational he rejects; he is intellectually free to accept or reject ... As a consequence, he is really not Christian, but pagan. He has no real supernatural faith, but only a simple human conviction ... They have a horror of any coercive element in matters of faith; any chastisement of error shocks their tender susceptibilities, and they detest any … intolerance. The [Conservative] interpretation to him is violent and extreme, and does much more harm than good … Liberal Catholics ... erect into a dogma what is called the principle of toleration. The differences of belief are, they argue, due to differences of temperament, education, etc. We will not exactly approve those differences, but we should at least condone them” (Liberalism Is A Sin).
“Liberalism is always strategically cunning … To [bring about] a confusion of ideas is an old scheme of the devil … Every heresy in the Church bears testimony to Satan’s success in deceiving the human intellect by obscuring and perverting the meaning of words. Arianism was a battle of words and … verbal chicanery. Pelagianism and Jansenism showed the same characteristic, and today Liberalism is as cunning and obscure as its predecessors … Most heresies have attempted to disguise their errors under an exterior of [pretended] piety … Can the same be said of Liberalism? Liberalism first presented itself under a political mask, but … this mask has become so transparent! … It has become the modern political creed and threatens us with a second revolution, to turn the world over once again to paganism ... Liberalism never gives battle on solid ground; it knows too well that in a discussion of principles it must meet with irretrievable defeat. It prefers tactics of [accusation] and, under the sting of a justly [deserved] flagellation, whiningly accuses Catholics of lack of charity in their [arguments] ... Narrow! Intolerant! Uncompromising! These are the [insults] … hurled by Liberals … of all degrees at us [Conservatives] (Liberalism Is A Sin).
“It is often necessary to displease or offend one person, not for his own good, but to deliver another from the evil he is inflicting. It is then an obligation of charity to repel the unjust violence of the aggressor; one may inflict as much injury on the aggressor as is necessary for defense … Charity is primarily the love of God, secondarily the love of our neighbor for God’s sake. To sacrifice the [love of God] is to abandon [love of neighbor]. Therefore, to offend our neighbor for the love of God, is a true act of charity. Not to offend our neighbor for the love of God, is a sin! … Modern Liberalism reverses this order; it imposes a false notion of charity: our neighbor first, and, if at all, God afterwards! … The Catholic standpoint is absolute―there is only one truth, in which there is no room for opposition or contradiction. To deny that truth is unreasonable―it is to put falsehood on the level with truth. This is the folly and sin of Liberalism. To denounce this sin and folly, is a duty and a virtue!” (Liberalism Is A Sin).
“Peace in war is a contradiction. Foes in the midst of battle cannot be friends. Yet … we find the odious and repulsive attempt to unite Liberalism with Catholicism ... How is it possible to reconcile them? Opposition here necessarily means conflict, and the two can no more harmonize than the square can be made one with the circle ... The monstrosity resulting is what is known as the Liberal Catholic or the Catholic Liberal … This fatal error has its source in the vain and exaggerated desire of reconciling and harmonizing, in peace, [things] utterly incompatible and hostile by their very nature.” (Liberalism Is A Sin).
We can clearly see this Liberalism in the Catholic Church today―it has come to rule everywhere and in all classes―popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, religious and laity. It has become the DNA of our modern age. As one traditional bishop said over 40 years ago: “We are all Liberals, the only difference is in the degree of Liberalism!” Pope Francis is Liberal to the core―the above quotes are a perfect fit for him. Furthermore, just as “birds of a feather flock together”―so to with Liberals, and Pope Francis has surrounded himself with Liberals; he has “stacked-the-deck” of cardinals with personally chosen and appointed Liberals; and has seen that the Church is top-heavy with Liberal bishops―while, at the same time, criticizing and insulting those who are Conservative or Traditional.
What is Modernism?
Pope St. Pius X (reigned 1903 to 1914) was the most notable and high-profile battler of Modernism―however the Church first took note of the heresy of Modernism and defined it on September 26th, 1835, when condemning the approach of certain priests and professors in German universities, who were using the Modern Philosophy of Descartes, Kant and Hegel to reinterpret the Articles of Faith. It was said that “They are profaning their teaching office and are adulterating the sacred Deposit of Faith.” That did not stop Modernism from growing―and, by the time of Pope St. Pius X, it had become a much more widespread problem.
Pope St. Pius X understood that the easy religion Modernism proposed would tickle the ears of modern man. Modernism drained the life from Catholicism. Under cover of becoming more ‘friendly’ to the world, Modernism would wed the Church to the world. Modernism didn’t stop there. It held that the Church’s immemorial traditional teachings had been mummified into a lifeless irrelevancy. The Modernist believed that each doctrine is to be seen as only useful for the time in which it was written. For the Modernist, tradition is only the passing down of an original experience from the past, which then has a suggestive effect to stimulate religious feeling in the present― a kind of intuition of the heart that resides in religious feeling. Modernism would also place excessive stress upon the importance of individual human experience―which was to become the foundation of Revelation. A rebooted Christ was to be refashioned into the image of each individual man. Christ and His truth must evolve for each age. No longer was man made in the image and likeness of God; God was remade in man’s image, likeness and preference.
In his encyclical against Modernism, Pascendi, Pope St. Pius X remarks that there are in the Church many lay persons and many priests “who, feigning a love for the Church, but lacking the firm protection of philosophy and theology, while being thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, look upon themselves as reformers of the Church” (Pascendi, §2). They show a certain contempt for Catholic teachings, and they “endeavor to introduce a new theology which shall follow the whims of their philosophers” ― but, if they are rebuked for this, “they complain that they are being deprived of their liberty” (Pascendi, §18).
The Pope remarks that these Modernists “lay the axe, not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the Faith and its deepest fibers,” and that “there is no part of Catholic truth from which they hold their hand, none that they do not strive to corrupt.” He goes on to say that the Modernists “double the parts of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error.” They “possess, as a rule, a reputation for the strictest morality” and “relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy” (Pascendi, §3).
Modernists say that “what we call dogmas are liable to change,” since religious formulas “have no other purpose than to furnish the believer with a means of giving an account of his Faith to himself” (Pascendi, no. 12). For Modernists, dogmas which are found productive to people’s religious sentiments are to be accepted, and then abandoned when those dogmas are no longer found satisfying. Dogmas may thus change over time, either being completely rejected or re-interpreted and given a meaning different than what they originally had. And thus “the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma,” since these formulas, “should be living, and should live the very life of the religious sense” (Pascendi, §13). “Thus, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true.” And regrettably “there are Catholics and priests who, we would like to believe, abhor such enormities, yet they act as if they fully approved of them,” for they heap praise and bestow such public honor on the teachers of these errors (Pascendi, §14).
Basic Components of Modernism
Modernism — the synthesis of all heresies, according to Pope St. Pius X — is hard to define because it doesn’t have an official creed. For this reason, it is like nailing jelly to a wall. There are some basic components to Modernism, however, some of which are as follows:
● All Religions Are Equal. For the Modernist, it doesn’t matter if you are a Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Wiccan or snake handler; all that matters is that one is religious in some way, since all religious paths lead to God.
● Religion Is Not About Dogma But About Sentimentality And Feelings. For the Modernist, religion is essentially about what makes you feel good; if Christianity, or any other religion, is what makes you feel good and more in touch with the Divine, then it is true for you. In other words, religion does not consist of creeds or objective truth but of feelings.
● Doctrine Evolves. The Modernist says that in previous centuries, the dogmas of the Faith, such as the dogmas of the Trinity, were true, but since dogma evolves, it may no longer be true today. For the Modernist, dogma evolves into whatever accommodates the needs of the current culture.
The Origins of Modernism
● The 16th Century Protestant Revolution. For the Protestant, the individual rejects the Magisterium established by Christ and replaces it with the individual. Given this view, it was only a matter of time that the individual would be elevated to a position to interpret and define all matters of Faith and morals for himself.
● The 18th Century Enlightenment. The Enlightenment rejected all divine revelation and exalted man’s ability, by reason alone, to determine what is true in matters of Faith and morals. This eventually led to the Modernist view that the individual, and not God or Magisterium, determines what is true.
● Early 20th-Century Theologians. Modernism was especially made popular by early 20th-century theologians like Alfred Loisy and George Tyrrell, among others. These men were eventually excommunicated for their espousal of Modernism.
Modernism in the Church Today
● Modernism in the Liturgy―Modernists do not see the liturgy of the Church as the primary way to worship God. Instead, they see it as an opportunity for man to gather together for purposes other than the worship of God. Thus, they think the liturgy shouldn’t be primarily about what God wants, but about what modern man likes. For the Modernist, liturgy is primarily about sentimentality and not the worship of God.
● Modernism in Dogma―Another prevalent example of Modernism in the Church today is the view that sees everything before Vatican II as obsolete. In other words, since doctrine evolves for the Modernist, the things that were true before Vatican II do not necessarily apply to the Church after Vatican II. For the Modernist, a new Church was created after Vatican II, and this Church has new truths that are not necessarily the same as those before Vatican II.
● Modernism in Dogma―Just as dogmas can evolve and change, so too can morals evolve and change. God is no longer the one who decided what is moral and what is immoral. Now it is man who will do that. Invariably what happens is that morality is based upon worldly desires, practices and examples, which for most part are sinful.
● Modernism in Scripture Studies―Modernism has infected the Church in Scripture studies by what is called Higher Criticism. Higher Criticism is an approach to Scripture that often questions the historicity of events mentioned in Scripture. A recent example of the heresy of Modernism in Scripture studies is Cardinal Kasper, who openly denies the historicity of the miracles of Christ. Cardinal Kasper is not the only one who thinks like that!
Francis is Clearly a Liberal and a Modernist
During a homily given on November 18th, 2013, Francis stated that apostasy occurs when the people of God abandon our traditions and identity out of a preference for “worldly proposals.” He characterized such disloyalty among Catholics as a form of adultery that is prepared to negotiate away the “essence of our being: loyalty to the Lord.” This disloyalty, that is characteristic of apostasy, “is a fruit of the devil, who makes his way forward with the spirit of secular worldliness.” Pope Francis identifies a sign of this “spirit of secular worldliness” as the “uniformity of hegemonic globalization, a uniformity of thought born of worldliness.” Pope Francis warned that the spirit of worldliness comes out of a sinful root. It is the attitude of the immature, who seek progress at all costs, which Pope Francis called the “spirit of adolescent progressivism,” and which “seductively suggests that it is always right, when faced with any decision, to move on rather than remaining faithful to one’s own traditions.”
All of those words are in agreement with true Catholic teaching―but that is typical of Modernists, as Pope St. Pius X says: “In their books one finds some things which might well be approved by a Catholic but on turning over the page one is confronted by other things which might well have been dictated by a rationalist … None is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious arts―for they double-up the [opposing] roles of rationalist and Catholic, and this they do so craftily, that they easily lead the unwary into error. Since audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no [erroneous] conclusion of any kind from which they shrink, or which they do not thrust forward with tenaciousness and confidence. To this must be added the fact that they lead a life of the greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for the strictest morality― which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls.” (Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi ).
Francis should practice what he preaches―but he doesn’t! One day he will speak of “remaining faithful to one’s own traditions” and “loyalty to the Lord”; he warns us of the “spirit of progressivism” which “seductively suggests that it is always right.” Then on another day he will ridicule tradition by criticized people who “call themselves guardians of traditions, but of dead traditions”, saying that failing to move forward is dangerous for the Church today. He said that “there is the fashion — in every age, but in this age in the Church’s life I consider it dangerous — that instead of drawing from the roots in order to move forward — meaning fine traditions — we ‘step back,’ not going up or down, but backward. This ‘back-stepping’ makes us a sect; it makes you ‘closed’ and cuts off your horizons. Those people call themselves guardians of traditions, but of dead traditions. True Catholic Christian and human tradition grows, progresses.”
Modernists have a great distaste for clarity and so they often make use of orthodox Catholic terminology to distort the truth of things and to bolster their cause of deception in which it seems at times they have even deceived the greatest of intellectuals and the most devout of Catholics. It would thus be wrong to imagine that everything in the writing of the Modernists was unorthodox. Much of what they often write often sounds perfectly sound, with much ambiguity. The Modernist technique is infiltration “without order and systematic arrangement, in a scattered and disjointed manner” wrote Pope St. Pius X (Pascendi).
That is precisely what we see with Pope Francis as testified by the USA’s “go-to” man on Vatican issues, the lay theologian and historian Massimo Faggioli (Italian born in 1970), a professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University, Pennsylvania, who has followed Francis’ pontificate very closely since his election in 2013. He writes regularly for Liberal newspapers and journals (such as America, La Croix International, and Commonweal) on the Church, religion and politics, frequently giving public lectures on the Church and on Vatican II. He is very pro-Francis and pro-Vatican II. Since Pope Francis took over in 2013, Professor Faggioli said his own life had been turned upside down: “My whole life has changed since his election! I noticed in the first few hours that this pontificate was going to be really worth watching, so my scholarly agenda, publishing agenda, my publishing projects have all changed. With Pope Benedict there was a script, there was something that was going according to plan. With Francis there are really very few things going according to plan―because Francis doesn’t have a plan, he has a vision of the Church, but he doesn’t have a schedule saying: ‘I want to accomplish this!’” ― which is exactly what Pope St. Pius X said about Modernists―no clear plan so that you cannot pin them down as being obvious Modernists. A Modernist will often recite the articles of the Creed using the same words as the Church prescribes―but he interprets them with his own lights, or according to the current progressive understanding, thus giving a new meaning the ancient terms.
In a September 2023 article for Commonweal Magazine, Massimo Faggioli quotes Francis as recently saying: “You have seen that in the United States the situation is not easy! There is a very strong reactionary [Conservative] attitude. It is organized and shapes the way people belong, even emotionally. I would like to remind those people that ‘indietrismo’ [being backward-looking] is useless and we need to understand that there is an appropriate evolution in the understanding of matters of faith and morals.” As regards the issue of women priests coming up at Synod 2023 agenda, Massimo Faggioli says: “The only issue it explicitly leaves out is the possibility of the ordination of women to the priesthood―which, if put on the agenda today, would light the fuse of the anti-synodal and schismatic organizers instantly.” Liberals and Modernists are not so stupid as to advance far too quickly and thereby frighten the prey―yet the words of Holy Scripture are applicable, where it says: “Be sober and watch! Because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9).
The Belgian philosopher, Marcel de Corte (1905-1994), in his 1965 book, The Great Heresy, presents a severe diagnosis of the post-Vatican II changes, tracing them back to the modernist heresy, sewer of all heresies, which he describes as: “a spiritual degradation more profound than anything the Church has experienced in history, a cancerous sickness in which the cells multiply fast, in order to destroy what is still healthy in the Mystical Body. It is an attempt to transform the Kingdom of God into the Kingdom of Man; to substitute for the Church consecrated to the worship of God, a Church dedicated to the cult of Humanity. This is the most dreadful, the most terrible of heresies!” Yes―as Pope St. Pius X wrote: “Modernism is the synthesis of all heresies!”
“Nero fiddled while Rome burned” has become a phrase used to criticize someone who is doing nothing, or something trivial or irresponsible in the face of an emergency. In the summer of AD 64, Rome was devastated by a huge fire that lasted six days. Half the city’s population was made homeless and the blaze destroyed 70% of the buildings.
The Romans wanted someone to blame, and they looked to their already debauched, decadent, cruel, sadistic and unpopular Emperor Nero. He was blamed for ignoring a serious matter, and neglecting his people while they suffered. Some even accused Nero of deliberately arranging for the fires to be started in order to destroy building and free up land which he later took for himself and cleared it to make way for the building of his Golden Palace (Domus Aurea) and its surrounding pleasure gardens, which included a complex of villas on a landscaped park and artificial lake―all of which, had it been finished, would have covered a third of Rome. The fire also enabled him to reconstruct the city of Rome in an image of his liking (it makes you think of a pope who wants to reconstruct Rome and the Church according to his own liking!). The heavy taxation on the Roman provinces all over Europe and Asia funded the reconstruction.
Nero tried to deflect blame away from himself by blaming the Christians for the fire. The blame gained traction due to the rumor that certain Roman Christians spoke of a prophecy that Rome would be engulfed in flames. Sadistically, he had Christians arrested and punished them by tying them to a stake, coating their bodies with tar, pitch, oil, wax and other flammable materials then using them as human candles by having them burn to death, beginning with the lighting of their feet and allowing the flames to spread up to the head. That is where we get the name for one of the fireworks many people use―“The Roman Candle.” Nero’s human “Roman Candles” (burning Christians alive) were used to provide decorative lighting at Nero’s formal parties and celebrations within the imperial gardens during night time, whilst lit in such a way to prolong torture and pain.
Is Francis Fiddling While Rome Burns?
After watching Francis for 10 years as pope, one has to ask―as increasing numbers have been and are asking―“Is Francis fiddling with Faith in Rome?” … “Is Francis fiddling the faithful as to his true intentions?” … “Has the Church been fiddled by Francis?” … “Is fiddling Francis making everyone dance to his new tunes?” … “Is Francis one big Fiddle?” … “Is Francis the biggest Fiddler the Church has known?”
Fiddlers―whether musicians who play the fiddle, or crooks who fiddle and cheat―have to be careful not to play a “bum” note or make a stupid move that will expose their fiddling. Even though the Catholic Church has become incredibly Liberal as well as Modernist, Francis still has to fiddle carefully and not play “too fast” and not play “notes” that an ever-decreasing minority of Conservative Catholics will recognize as not being on the “score” or musical composition of Catholic Church’s traditional teachings and dogma.
Fiddling for Satan?
Francis is merely a Liberal and Modernist musician in the Second Vatican Council Orchestra―even though he is pope, he is not the chief-conductor. He merely leads the orchestra to play the “score” or symphony that has been given to him by others. The chief-conductor, of course, is Satan―and he recruits for his orchestra from one generation to next. Satan has many other orchestras and bands―in government, in politics, in finance, in the media, in business, in culture―Francis is merely a musician playing the fiddle for Satan in one of these many orchestras and bands. If that sounds harsh―then it will not sound harsh by the end of this article.
As Holy Scripture says: “Whosoever commits sin, is the servant of sin … He that commits sin is of the devil” (John 8:34; 1 John 3:8). Today, the Church is sinning more and more―therefore, the Church is more and more of the devil!
► FR. GABRIELE AMORTH: Talking of the devil―the recently deceased (2016) former chief-exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, had this to say: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … The whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican! … The demon tempts the authorities of the Church ― just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
► SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA hinted that a future pope would be under the influence of Satan. She wrote: “Our Lady showed us the individual who I describe as the 'holy Father' in front of a multitude that was cheering him. But there was a difference from a true holy Father―his devilish gaze, this one had the gaze of evil.”
► OUR LADY herself spoke of this: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish! ... Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God! … God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises! … The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders … In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts! … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … . Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls! ... Rome will lose the Faith! … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten, each individual will want to be independent and be superior to others! … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … Many will turn upon Religion! Many people will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church, impelled by the malice of the devil!” (Our Lady of Good Success, at Quito in Ecuador, Our Lady of La Salette, France; Our Lady of Fatima, Portugal; Our Lady of Akita, Japan).
► POPE PAUL VI said on several occasions that Satan had penetrated the Church and was present in the highest ecclesial positions: “We believed that after the [Second Vatican] Council would come a day of sunshine in the history of the Church. But instead there has come a day of clouds and storms, and of darkness ... And how did this come about? We will confide to you … that there has been a power, an adversary power―let us call him by his name: the Devil―it is as if from some mysterious crack, no, it is not mysterious, from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God.” (June 29th, 1972). Some months later, on November 15th of 1972, at a General Audience, Pope Paul VI added: “What are the Church’s greatest needs at the present time? One of the Church’s greatest needs is to be defended against the evil we call the Devil!” A few years later, on October 13th, 1977, Pope Paul VI repeated the same concern: “The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the Faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church!”
► MONSIGNOR MARIO MARINI (1937-2008), Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, and Undersecretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, worked nearly forty years in the Vatican. In 1996 Monsignor Marini told Fr. Paul Kramer, a personal friend for 35 years, with reference to the Roman Curia: “Our hands are tied―we can do nothing, because it is Masons who occupy the key positions!” The last time Fr. Kramer saw him before Marini died, in October 2008, the Monsignor told him: “We are under Masonic occupation!” Msgr. Marini was convinced that John Paul II exercised very little actual power, dispossessed of his power of government by the Vatican Mafia. So do you think anything has changed in the last 15 years? Have the Masons decided to leave being the job was too boring? Quite the opposite! If, as Our Lady said, “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects”, then you can bet your life on the fact that they have an even greater stranglehold on the Church today than at any other time in the past!
► ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, whose name Pope Francis took for his papacy, warned of the future before he died: “The time is fast approaching in which there will be great trials and afflictions; perplexities and dissensions, both spiritual and temporal, will abound … The devils will have unusual power … At the time of this tribulation a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavor to draw many into error and death. Then scandals will be multiplied, our Order will be divided, and many others will be entirely destroyed, because they will consent to error instead of opposing it. There will be such diversity of opinions and schisms among the people, the religious and the clergy, that, except those days were shortened, according to the words of the Gospel, even the elect would be led into error, were they not specially guided, amid such great confusion, by the immense mercy of God. Those who preserve their fervor and adhere to virtue with love and zeal for the truth, will suffer injuries and, persecutions as rebels and schismatics―for their persecutors, urged on by the evil spirits, will say they are rendering a great service to God by destroying such pestilent men from the face of the Earth. By their death will purchase for themselves eternal life; choosing to obey God rather than man, they will fear nothing, and they will prefer to perish [physically] rather than consent to falsehood and treachery. Some preachers will keep silence about the truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it. Sanctity of life will be held in derision even by those who outwardly profess it, for in those days Jesus Christ will send them not a true Pastor, but a destroyer!” (Works of the Seraphic Father St. Francis Of Assisi [London: R. Washbourne, 1882], pp. 248-250).
► FR. PAUL KRAMER states: “Malachi [Martin[ personally confirmed to me in 1997 that the ‘pope’ who will lead the apostasy in the Church will be a HERETIC and an ANTIPOPE.” (Fr. Paul Kramer, May, 2016).
► CARDINAL LUIGI CIAPPI, the personal theologian to Popes Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II, states in a 1995 personal letter to Professor Baumgartner of Salzburg, Austria: “In the Third Secret [of Fatima] it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church begins at the top!” (Fr. Gerard Mura, “The Third Secret of Fatima: Has It Been Completely Revealed?”, the periodical Catholic, published by the Transalpine Redemptorists, Orkney Isles, Scotland, March 2002).
► CARDINAL ALFREDO OTTAVIANI, who read the Third Secret of Fatima, made reference to one of its themes, during an allocution, to the members of the Marian International Academy, he declared: “It suffices to cast a rapid glance at what is happening at this moment in the world, in order to recognize that―without the intervention of the Mother of all mercy near the All-Powerful―the world risks becoming pagan once more, a paganism more deplorable than the first paganism, because it is aggravated by apostasy. We are witnessing a veritable deluge of sins, a deluge which leaves behind it a nauseating quagmire, infected by immorality, lies and blasphemy...” (December 15th, 1960 ― Allocution de S. Em. Le cardinal Ottaviani, à l’Académie Mariale Internationale, Documentation Catholique, 1961, col. 244).
► CARDINAL SILVIO ODDI warned: “The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against the apostasy in the Church … I would not be surprised if the Third Secret alluded to dark times for the Church: grave confusions and troubling apostasies within Catholicism itself...If we consider the grave crisis we have lived through since the Council, the signs that this prophecy has been fulfilled do not seem to be lacking...” (Cardinal Silvio Oddi, to Italian journalist Lucio Brunelli in the journal, Il Sabato, Rome, March 17th, 1990).
► FATHER JOSEPH SCHWEIGL: “I cannot reveal anything about what I have learned at Fatima about the Third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts: the one concerns the Pope. The other, logically ― although I should say nothing ― should be the continuation of the words: ‘In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved.’” (quote from Father Joseph Schweigl, 1952, whom Pope Pius XII sent to interview Sr. Lucia on September 2nd, 1952; reported by Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité, The Whole Truth About Fatima: The Third Secret, Vol. III, p. 710, p. 337-338).
Fearless Francis’ Fatal Fiddling with Faith
The current Church climate is one of Liberalism, Modernism, Apostasy and potential Schism. In a broad and general sense, you could say that Liberalism gives birth to Modernism, and Apostasy and Schism are born quickly afterwards. If you have a clear idea on what Liberalism is and what Modernism is, then you will be able to clearly judge whether Francis is a Liberal and/or a Modernist. Unfortunately, most Catholics know very little about these things and so they live and walk in a cloud of ignorance, with only vague and imprecise ideas about Liberalism and Modernism. There have been entire books written on each subject―and this article cannot do justice to a full explanation of Liberalism and Modernism, for an article cannot be a book! Nevertheless, here are some brief descriptions that may be of use to those whose notions are vague:
What is Liberalism?
Liberalism can be a very broad and imprecise term―applicable to politics, religion, science and art. To confuse matters, in the past the word “liberal” could also mean generous―and in this sense Jesus is called “liberal”. However, that is not the kind of Liberalism we are talking about! The Liberalism that we refer to is a mindset that demands for itself the freedom [“libertas”―Latin for liberty or freedom] to think, say and do what it wants―and not be restricted or curtailed by anyone or anything. Theological Liberalism is a form of religious thought that thinks, speaks and acts in way that does not show obedience to the authority of Tradition.
Fr. Salvany, in his masterpiece of a book, Liberalism Is A Sin, writes: “Liberalism is a world complete in itself … It is the world of Lucifer, disguised in our times under the name of Liberalism, in radical opposition and in perpetual warfare against the Church of Jesus Christ …. Liberalism―whether doctrinal or practical―is a sin! … Liberalism is a mortal sin! … Liberalism is, therefore, a greater sin than blasphemy, theft, adultery, homicide, or any other violation of the law of God … The gravity of sin is determined by the object at which it strikes ... Liberalism strikes at the very foundations of Faith! … The gravest of all sins are those against Faith! … Faith is the foundation of the supernatural order … To destroy the foundations is to destroy the entire superstructure. To cut off the branch of a tree, will not kill it; but to lay the ax to the trunk, or the roots, is fatal to its life. It is a radical and universal heresy, because within it are contained all heresies! … It is the declaration of … the absolute independence of the individual and the social reason― [In other words, the opinion of society, or a group, or an individual, takes precedence over Church teaching]. In short it sets itself up as the measure and rule of Faith … It denies everything which it itself does not proclaim. It negates everything which it itself does not affirm. Such is the general negation uttered by Liberalism … recognizing no principle or rule beyond itself.” (Liberalism Is A Sin).
“The Catholic Liberal or the Liberal Catholic … throws open the gates to the enemies of the Faith, and, posing as a man of intellect with generous and liberal views … is thus both a traitor and a fool. Seeking to please the enemies of the Faith he has betrayed the Faith itself … he surrenders it to … the spirit of untruth … The Liberal Catholic assumes … his individual judgment is the rule of Faith. He believes in the independence of reason. It is true he accepts the Magisterium of the Church, butt he does not accept it as the sole authorized expounder of divine truth. He reserves, as a coefficient factor in the determination of that truth, his own private judgment ... He believes that no one can impose upon him any belief which his individual judgment does not measure as being perfectly rational. What is not rational he rejects; he is intellectually free to accept or reject ... As a consequence, he is really not Christian, but pagan. He has no real supernatural faith, but only a simple human conviction ... They have a horror of any coercive element in matters of faith; any chastisement of error shocks their tender susceptibilities, and they detest any … intolerance. The [Conservative] interpretation to him is violent and extreme, and does much more harm than good … Liberal Catholics ... erect into a dogma what is called the principle of toleration. The differences of belief are, they argue, due to differences of temperament, education, etc. We will not exactly approve those differences, but we should at least condone them” (Liberalism Is A Sin).
“Liberalism is always strategically cunning … To [bring about] a confusion of ideas is an old scheme of the devil … Every heresy in the Church bears testimony to Satan’s success in deceiving the human intellect by obscuring and perverting the meaning of words. Arianism was a battle of words and … verbal chicanery. Pelagianism and Jansenism showed the same characteristic, and today Liberalism is as cunning and obscure as its predecessors … Most heresies have attempted to disguise their errors under an exterior of [pretended] piety … Can the same be said of Liberalism? Liberalism first presented itself under a political mask, but … this mask has become so transparent! … It has become the modern political creed and threatens us with a second revolution, to turn the world over once again to paganism ... Liberalism never gives battle on solid ground; it knows too well that in a discussion of principles it must meet with irretrievable defeat. It prefers tactics of [accusation] and, under the sting of a justly [deserved] flagellation, whiningly accuses Catholics of lack of charity in their [arguments] ... Narrow! Intolerant! Uncompromising! These are the [insults] … hurled by Liberals … of all degrees at us [Conservatives] (Liberalism Is A Sin).
“It is often necessary to displease or offend one person, not for his own good, but to deliver another from the evil he is inflicting. It is then an obligation of charity to repel the unjust violence of the aggressor; one may inflict as much injury on the aggressor as is necessary for defense … Charity is primarily the love of God, secondarily the love of our neighbor for God’s sake. To sacrifice the [love of God] is to abandon [love of neighbor]. Therefore, to offend our neighbor for the love of God, is a true act of charity. Not to offend our neighbor for the love of God, is a sin! … Modern Liberalism reverses this order; it imposes a false notion of charity: our neighbor first, and, if at all, God afterwards! … The Catholic standpoint is absolute―there is only one truth, in which there is no room for opposition or contradiction. To deny that truth is unreasonable―it is to put falsehood on the level with truth. This is the folly and sin of Liberalism. To denounce this sin and folly, is a duty and a virtue!” (Liberalism Is A Sin).
“Peace in war is a contradiction. Foes in the midst of battle cannot be friends. Yet … we find the odious and repulsive attempt to unite Liberalism with Catholicism ... How is it possible to reconcile them? Opposition here necessarily means conflict, and the two can no more harmonize than the square can be made one with the circle ... The monstrosity resulting is what is known as the Liberal Catholic or the Catholic Liberal … This fatal error has its source in the vain and exaggerated desire of reconciling and harmonizing, in peace, [things] utterly incompatible and hostile by their very nature.” (Liberalism Is A Sin).
We can clearly see this Liberalism in the Catholic Church today―it has come to rule everywhere and in all classes―popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, religious and laity. It has become the DNA of our modern age. As one traditional bishop said over 40 years ago: “We are all Liberals, the only difference is in the degree of Liberalism!” Pope Francis is Liberal to the core―the above quotes are a perfect fit for him. Furthermore, just as “birds of a feather flock together”―so to with Liberals, and Pope Francis has surrounded himself with Liberals; he has “stacked-the-deck” of cardinals with personally chosen and appointed Liberals; and has seen that the Church is top-heavy with Liberal bishops―while, at the same time, criticizing and insulting those who are Conservative or Traditional.
What is Modernism?
Pope St. Pius X (reigned 1903 to 1914) was the most notable and high-profile battler of Modernism―however the Church first took note of the heresy of Modernism and defined it on September 26th, 1835, when condemning the approach of certain priests and professors in German universities, who were using the Modern Philosophy of Descartes, Kant and Hegel to reinterpret the Articles of Faith. It was said that “They are profaning their teaching office and are adulterating the sacred Deposit of Faith.” That did not stop Modernism from growing―and, by the time of Pope St. Pius X, it had become a much more widespread problem.
Pope St. Pius X understood that the easy religion Modernism proposed would tickle the ears of modern man. Modernism drained the life from Catholicism. Under cover of becoming more ‘friendly’ to the world, Modernism would wed the Church to the world. Modernism didn’t stop there. It held that the Church’s immemorial traditional teachings had been mummified into a lifeless irrelevancy. The Modernist believed that each doctrine is to be seen as only useful for the time in which it was written. For the Modernist, tradition is only the passing down of an original experience from the past, which then has a suggestive effect to stimulate religious feeling in the present― a kind of intuition of the heart that resides in religious feeling. Modernism would also place excessive stress upon the importance of individual human experience―which was to become the foundation of Revelation. A rebooted Christ was to be refashioned into the image of each individual man. Christ and His truth must evolve for each age. No longer was man made in the image and likeness of God; God was remade in man’s image, likeness and preference.
In his encyclical against Modernism, Pascendi, Pope St. Pius X remarks that there are in the Church many lay persons and many priests “who, feigning a love for the Church, but lacking the firm protection of philosophy and theology, while being thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, look upon themselves as reformers of the Church” (Pascendi, §2). They show a certain contempt for Catholic teachings, and they “endeavor to introduce a new theology which shall follow the whims of their philosophers” ― but, if they are rebuked for this, “they complain that they are being deprived of their liberty” (Pascendi, §18).
The Pope remarks that these Modernists “lay the axe, not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the Faith and its deepest fibers,” and that “there is no part of Catholic truth from which they hold their hand, none that they do not strive to corrupt.” He goes on to say that the Modernists “double the parts of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error.” They “possess, as a rule, a reputation for the strictest morality” and “relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy” (Pascendi, §3).
Modernists say that “what we call dogmas are liable to change,” since religious formulas “have no other purpose than to furnish the believer with a means of giving an account of his Faith to himself” (Pascendi, no. 12). For Modernists, dogmas which are found productive to people’s religious sentiments are to be accepted, and then abandoned when those dogmas are no longer found satisfying. Dogmas may thus change over time, either being completely rejected or re-interpreted and given a meaning different than what they originally had. And thus “the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma,” since these formulas, “should be living, and should live the very life of the religious sense” (Pascendi, §13). “Thus, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true.” And regrettably “there are Catholics and priests who, we would like to believe, abhor such enormities, yet they act as if they fully approved of them,” for they heap praise and bestow such public honor on the teachers of these errors (Pascendi, §14).
Basic Components of Modernism
Modernism — the synthesis of all heresies, according to Pope St. Pius X — is hard to define because it doesn’t have an official creed. For this reason, it is like nailing jelly to a wall. There are some basic components to Modernism, however, some of which are as follows:
● All Religions Are Equal. For the Modernist, it doesn’t matter if you are a Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Wiccan or snake handler; all that matters is that one is religious in some way, since all religious paths lead to God.
● Religion Is Not About Dogma But About Sentimentality And Feelings. For the Modernist, religion is essentially about what makes you feel good; if Christianity, or any other religion, is what makes you feel good and more in touch with the Divine, then it is true for you. In other words, religion does not consist of creeds or objective truth but of feelings.
● Doctrine Evolves. The Modernist says that in previous centuries, the dogmas of the Faith, such as the dogmas of the Trinity, were true, but since dogma evolves, it may no longer be true today. For the Modernist, dogma evolves into whatever accommodates the needs of the current culture.
The Origins of Modernism
● The 16th Century Protestant Revolution. For the Protestant, the individual rejects the Magisterium established by Christ and replaces it with the individual. Given this view, it was only a matter of time that the individual would be elevated to a position to interpret and define all matters of Faith and morals for himself.
● The 18th Century Enlightenment. The Enlightenment rejected all divine revelation and exalted man’s ability, by reason alone, to determine what is true in matters of Faith and morals. This eventually led to the Modernist view that the individual, and not God or Magisterium, determines what is true.
● Early 20th-Century Theologians. Modernism was especially made popular by early 20th-century theologians like Alfred Loisy and George Tyrrell, among others. These men were eventually excommunicated for their espousal of Modernism.
Modernism in the Church Today
● Modernism in the Liturgy―Modernists do not see the liturgy of the Church as the primary way to worship God. Instead, they see it as an opportunity for man to gather together for purposes other than the worship of God. Thus, they think the liturgy shouldn’t be primarily about what God wants, but about what modern man likes. For the Modernist, liturgy is primarily about sentimentality and not the worship of God.
● Modernism in Dogma―Another prevalent example of Modernism in the Church today is the view that sees everything before Vatican II as obsolete. In other words, since doctrine evolves for the Modernist, the things that were true before Vatican II do not necessarily apply to the Church after Vatican II. For the Modernist, a new Church was created after Vatican II, and this Church has new truths that are not necessarily the same as those before Vatican II.
● Modernism in Dogma―Just as dogmas can evolve and change, so too can morals evolve and change. God is no longer the one who decided what is moral and what is immoral. Now it is man who will do that. Invariably what happens is that morality is based upon worldly desires, practices and examples, which for most part are sinful.
● Modernism in Scripture Studies―Modernism has infected the Church in Scripture studies by what is called Higher Criticism. Higher Criticism is an approach to Scripture that often questions the historicity of events mentioned in Scripture. A recent example of the heresy of Modernism in Scripture studies is Cardinal Kasper, who openly denies the historicity of the miracles of Christ. Cardinal Kasper is not the only one who thinks like that!
Francis is Clearly a Liberal and a Modernist
During a homily given on November 18th, 2013, Francis stated that apostasy occurs when the people of God abandon our traditions and identity out of a preference for “worldly proposals.” He characterized such disloyalty among Catholics as a form of adultery that is prepared to negotiate away the “essence of our being: loyalty to the Lord.” This disloyalty, that is characteristic of apostasy, “is a fruit of the devil, who makes his way forward with the spirit of secular worldliness.” Pope Francis identifies a sign of this “spirit of secular worldliness” as the “uniformity of hegemonic globalization, a uniformity of thought born of worldliness.” Pope Francis warned that the spirit of worldliness comes out of a sinful root. It is the attitude of the immature, who seek progress at all costs, which Pope Francis called the “spirit of adolescent progressivism,” and which “seductively suggests that it is always right, when faced with any decision, to move on rather than remaining faithful to one’s own traditions.”
All of those words are in agreement with true Catholic teaching―but that is typical of Modernists, as Pope St. Pius X says: “In their books one finds some things which might well be approved by a Catholic but on turning over the page one is confronted by other things which might well have been dictated by a rationalist … None is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious arts―for they double-up the [opposing] roles of rationalist and Catholic, and this they do so craftily, that they easily lead the unwary into error. Since audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no [erroneous] conclusion of any kind from which they shrink, or which they do not thrust forward with tenaciousness and confidence. To this must be added the fact that they lead a life of the greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for the strictest morality― which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls.” (Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi ).
Francis should practice what he preaches―but he doesn’t! One day he will speak of “remaining faithful to one’s own traditions” and “loyalty to the Lord”; he warns us of the “spirit of progressivism” which “seductively suggests that it is always right.” Then on another day he will ridicule tradition by criticized people who “call themselves guardians of traditions, but of dead traditions”, saying that failing to move forward is dangerous for the Church today. He said that “there is the fashion — in every age, but in this age in the Church’s life I consider it dangerous — that instead of drawing from the roots in order to move forward — meaning fine traditions — we ‘step back,’ not going up or down, but backward. This ‘back-stepping’ makes us a sect; it makes you ‘closed’ and cuts off your horizons. Those people call themselves guardians of traditions, but of dead traditions. True Catholic Christian and human tradition grows, progresses.”
Modernists have a great distaste for clarity and so they often make use of orthodox Catholic terminology to distort the truth of things and to bolster their cause of deception in which it seems at times they have even deceived the greatest of intellectuals and the most devout of Catholics. It would thus be wrong to imagine that everything in the writing of the Modernists was unorthodox. Much of what they often write often sounds perfectly sound, with much ambiguity. The Modernist technique is infiltration “without order and systematic arrangement, in a scattered and disjointed manner” wrote Pope St. Pius X (Pascendi).
That is precisely what we see with Pope Francis as testified by the USA’s “go-to” man on Vatican issues, the lay theologian and historian Massimo Faggioli (Italian born in 1970), a professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University, Pennsylvania, who has followed Francis’ pontificate very closely since his election in 2013. He writes regularly for Liberal newspapers and journals (such as America, La Croix International, and Commonweal) on the Church, religion and politics, frequently giving public lectures on the Church and on Vatican II. He is very pro-Francis and pro-Vatican II. Since Pope Francis took over in 2013, Professor Faggioli said his own life had been turned upside down: “My whole life has changed since his election! I noticed in the first few hours that this pontificate was going to be really worth watching, so my scholarly agenda, publishing agenda, my publishing projects have all changed. With Pope Benedict there was a script, there was something that was going according to plan. With Francis there are really very few things going according to plan―because Francis doesn’t have a plan, he has a vision of the Church, but he doesn’t have a schedule saying: ‘I want to accomplish this!’” ― which is exactly what Pope St. Pius X said about Modernists―no clear plan so that you cannot pin them down as being obvious Modernists. A Modernist will often recite the articles of the Creed using the same words as the Church prescribes―but he interprets them with his own lights, or according to the current progressive understanding, thus giving a new meaning the ancient terms.
In a September 2023 article for Commonweal Magazine, Massimo Faggioli quotes Francis as recently saying: “You have seen that in the United States the situation is not easy! There is a very strong reactionary [Conservative] attitude. It is organized and shapes the way people belong, even emotionally. I would like to remind those people that ‘indietrismo’ [being backward-looking] is useless and we need to understand that there is an appropriate evolution in the understanding of matters of faith and morals.” As regards the issue of women priests coming up at Synod 2023 agenda, Massimo Faggioli says: “The only issue it explicitly leaves out is the possibility of the ordination of women to the priesthood―which, if put on the agenda today, would light the fuse of the anti-synodal and schismatic organizers instantly.” Liberals and Modernists are not so stupid as to advance far too quickly and thereby frighten the prey―yet the words of Holy Scripture are applicable, where it says: “Be sober and watch! Because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9).
The Belgian philosopher, Marcel de Corte (1905-1994), in his 1965 book, The Great Heresy, presents a severe diagnosis of the post-Vatican II changes, tracing them back to the modernist heresy, sewer of all heresies, which he describes as: “a spiritual degradation more profound than anything the Church has experienced in history, a cancerous sickness in which the cells multiply fast, in order to destroy what is still healthy in the Mystical Body. It is an attempt to transform the Kingdom of God into the Kingdom of Man; to substitute for the Church consecrated to the worship of God, a Church dedicated to the cult of Humanity. This is the most dreadful, the most terrible of heresies!” Yes―as Pope St. Pius X wrote: “Modernism is the synthesis of all heresies!”
Article 18
Saturday October 21st & Sunday October 22nd, 2023
Another Synod of Sin?
Saturday October 21st & Sunday October 22nd, 2023
Another Synod of Sin?
A Secret Synod?
Even if the majority of the faithful don’t consider the debate on the Synod, its contents and the meaning of Synodality as being of great importance to them, nevertheless, what will take place in Rome from October 4th to 29th, will have important effects on the life of the Church. Communication to the outside world on what happens at the Synod on Synodality will be tightly guarded. Journalists will only have access to official daily communiqués. This is clearly being done to prevent attempts to report on what is really happening behind closed doors, including the different positions that might emerge, which according to the pope amount to “gossip” and “political chatter.”
In fact, both in the preparation and in the composition of the synodal assembly, Pope Francis has ensured that ― from the speakers to the participants ― a solid majority predominates who are in favor of the “novelties suggested by the Spirit.” This lack of transparency of the Synod, together with the gag on communication, is certainly not a good omen. There is an evident contradiction with the Synod’s alleged intentions. If synodality also means openness to the contribution of all who live in the Church and an open and frank dialogue, then what is happening is exactly the opposite.
With this unusual move, it is increasingly apparent that the Synod will be anything but open and synodal. Instead, it is well-planned, pre-planned and already directed towards a desired result, even more so than previous Synods. Moreover, any questions or doubts about the coherence of the aims to be achieved bearing in mind what the Church has taught for two thousand years has already been branded as “ideology.”
In his press conference during the return flight from Mongolia on September 4th, 2023, Pope Francis was clear: “There is no place for ideology in the Synod, as it is a different dynamic. The Synod is about dialogue―among the baptized, among the Church’s members―on the life of the Church; on dialogue with the world, on the problems that affect the human family today. But if we think in an ideological way, then the Synod is finished with! There is no place for ideology at the Synod―there is only space for dialogue, for talking with each other, as brothers and sisters, and discussing the doctrine of the Church, in order to move forward.”
A Synod of Change?
The Synod on Synodality has been underway and largely underground since the beginning of October. It is the latest in a long line of newly introduced synods that is largely the offspring of the many new approaches and tinkering that came about as result of the Second Vatican Council and its (stupidly) over-optimistic idea of opening up all the doors and windows of the Church to the world―which received the label of an “aggiornamento” ― one of the key words at the Second Vatican Council, used by both bishops and the media, which means “a bringing-up-to-date.” It was the “cockle” that was sown amongst the “wheat” planted by Christ―its purpose, style, mantra and agenda was “change, change, change, change and more change!”
Today, there is no slowing-down on this pursuit of change―as can be seen especially in the pontificate of Pope Francis. Pope Francis has changed the continuous moral teaching of the Church on several occasions. The first was in Amoris Laetitia, allowing Catholics in adulterous relationships to receive the Eucharist; and the second was when he declared capital punishment inadmissible; another instance is his implying that under certain conditions married persons can practice contraception; another is his mixed messages to the LGBTQ+ people, whereby he frankly supported civil unions for same-sex couples in 2021. He said that “homosexual people have a right to be in a family. (…) What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered.”
Papal biographer and veteran Vatican watcher Marco Politi says: “Francis has wiped-off from the table all the obsession of the Catholic Church about sexual issues … He doesn't change the letter of some church documents, But with his gestures or with his words, he paves the way to new attitudes.” The traditionalist adversaries of Francis accuse him of sowing confusion among the faithful by focusing on pastoral issues rather than doctrine. The Conservative German Cardinal, Gerhard Müller — removed by Francis as Vatican theological watchdog — went public with his criticism last October. In an interview with the conservative Catholic cable TV network EWTN, he poured scorn on what he sees as Francis' progressive agenda. “This occupation of the Catholic Church is a hostile takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ,” Mueller said. “And they think that doctrine is only like a program of a political party, [which] can change ... according to [the desires] their voters.”
What these “change-maniacs” seem to forget is that God does not change! “For I am the Lord, and I change not!” (Malachias 3:6). “God is not a man, that He should be changed” (Numbers 23:19). “With God there is no change, nor shadow of alteration” (James 1:17). “Thou art always the selfsame!” (Psalm 101:28). Likewise with Our Lord: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever!” (Hebrews 13:8).
A Synod Nod to Sin?
As one Catholic newspaper states: “What is shaping up as possibly one of the most important gatherings in the long history of the Catholic Church is taking place in Rome October 4th to 29th, 2023. Pope Francis is hosting the first of two back-to-back assemblies of the Synod of Bishops to consider questions that have the potential to change the course of Catholicism. Among items on the agenda: the possibility of women serving the Church in ordained ministry, how the Church can better include LGBTQ Catholics and priestly celibacy.” (National Catholic Reporter).
This past week (October 16th to 20th) the Synod on Synodality assembly delved into two crucial themes: the accompaniment of LGBTQ+ individuals and the topic of a female diaconate. Additionally, the assembly discussed the structure of the Church, all with the aim of shaping a more synodal (democratic) future for the Church.
► LGBTQ+ ISSUES: The issue of the debate on LGBT inclusion was downplayed by Vatican spokesperson Paolo Ruffini, who stated that “the blessing of homosexual couples is not the theme of the Synod” ― at least not yet! Little by little is the safer way to go for the LGBTQ+ advocates! Gain a little more ground and a little more acceptance and sympathy with each synod. This gradual change was indicated on October 17th, when Sister Jeannine Gramick―co-founder of New Ways Ministry, an LGBT+ organization, which was previously denounced by both the U.S. Bishops’ Conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office for causing confusion on sexual morality among the Catholic faithful―met with Pope Francis, along with three other New Ways Ministry staff members. The meeting was publicized by Vatican Media, and perceived as an endorsement of New Ways Ministry’s approach by Pope Francis. The meeting occurred despite a controversy surrounding the Synod’s website, which was forced to remove a New Ways Ministry video that invited LGBT people to participate in the assembly.
► WOMEN DEACONS AND WOMEN PRIESTS: Apart from LGBTQ+ issues, the Synod also discussed the possibility of the female diaconate and even contemplated the possibility of women delivering homilies―which already happens in situations such as in German-speaking Switzerland, where the priest is treated almost like a mere consecration official, who is brought out of the cupboard for the consecration at Mass. The topic of “female priesthood” was even brought up, raising fundamental questions about the role of women in the Church despite assurances from Synod organizers that changes to doctrine were not on the agenda. Yet again, this is the classical Liberal and Modernist approach that has been witnessed countless times since the Second Vatican Council, which changed many things “little by little” ― especially the Mass.
Bishop Shane Mackinlay of Sandhurst, Australia―one of the 13 members of the committee expected to draft the hotly anticipated final document from Pope Francis’ ongoing Synod on Synodality on the future of the Catholic Church―has expressed an openness to ordaining women as Catholic deacons. Bishop Mackinlay said of discussions about women’s ordination: “I’m glad that it is being addressed.” Noting that the possibility of ordaining women as Catholic deacons is mentioned in the synod’s working document, Mackinlay said the issue was included “because there was such a wide representation” of people who brought it up during the two-year consultative process ahead of the Vatican assembly. I’m glad it’s here. I’m glad it’s going to be discussed!” said the bishop. “And if it were to be that the outcome was for ordination to the diaconate to be open to women―I’d certainly welcome that!”
► NEW WAYS TO GOVERN THE CHURCH: Another major focal point of discussion is the topic of Participation, Governance and Authority and discussing the changing of the governance of the Church and restructuring the institution, so as to make it a more “missionary synodal Church.” According to Edward Pentin―a long time Vatican observer and journalist, who is following the events at the synod―participants have commented that they clearly see an agenda that is being focused upon that is being pushed with the desire of a predetermined outcome and conclusion. The number of Synod delegates who are supportive of Apostolic Tradition and Divine Revelation are few in number―so the odds are heavily stacked in favor of change. One participant in the Synod estimated that only around 25% of participants were in favor of upholding traditional doctrine on the matters that were being discussed. Since everything will be put to the vote, the outcome seems to be a foregone and unavoidable conclusion―there will be major changes, if not at this Synod, then at the continuation of this Synod (Part 2) in October of 2024. This has been achieved largely by Pope Francis being in control of who was and who was not invited to participate in the Synod.
Even the Modern Church is Worried!
► CARDINAL JOSEPH ZEN, the former bishop of Hong Kong, has had well-documented difficulties with China’s Communist authorities, felt obliged to speak out in defense of the Faith in the face of the Synod on Synodality. He joined four other cardinals in signing two sets of dubia that were sent to Pope Francis, seeking clarification on points of doctrine ahead of the meeting. Asked about his views on the Synod now underway, the cardinal lamented: “We don’t have much news,” and recalled several “problems of procedure” which he raised in his recent letter to cardinals and bishops participating in the October synod assembly, including the continued reference to “conversation in the spirit” as if it were some “magical formula.”
He sees the constitution and the procedure of the Synod as a confused and confusing set of misunderstandings of the nature of the episcopate and the Church herself. “The bishops [taking part in the Synod] represent only ten percent of the world episcopate. How can such a small proportion achieve the original purpose of the Synod, as Pope Paul VI established it, that is, as a means of facilitating episcopal collegiality?” Cardinal Zen criticized the Synod Secretariat’s attemtps to make personal experience the starting and reference point of the “conversations in the Spirit” rather than basing discussions on Divine Revelation. The Cardinal said: “Please find somebody to explain, in a way that we poor mortals may understand: What does it mean ‘to discuss, not ideas, but experiences?’ Therefore, now, the long tradition of ‘see and judge’ should be changed to ‘see and do not judge.’ But Jesus told the Apostles to ‘teach’! … The animators of the Synod seem to reduce the Word of God to the feeling of the people—by which they mean all the baptized, even those who left the Church long ago—and refer to the Magisterium, not of the past twenty centuries, not of the many recent popes, but only [the Magisterium] of the reigning pontiff.”
Cardinal Zen’s observations strikingly resemble the contrast made by Pope St. Pius X between the Modernist and the Catholic conceptions of Faith itself: “Faith is not a blind sentiment of religion, welling up from the depths of the subconscious, under the impulse of the heart and the motion of a will trained to morality―but Faith is a genuine assent of the intellect to truth received by hearing from an external source. By this assent, because of the authority of the supremely truthful God, we believe to be true that which has been revealed and attested to by a personal God, our Creator and Lord.”
► FR. GERALD MURRAY, Canon Lawyer for the Archdiocese of New York, stated: “The Synod of Synodality was started in 2021 by Pope Francis as an ongoing process. The reasons for concern have to do with what the Synod has been like so far. They have produced an Instrumentum Laboris, in Rome in the Synod office, which is largely reflects concerns that are not central to the life of the Church, but they are central to a certain group of people in the Church who want to promote change, and often radical change. This was compounded by the naming of Synod delegates, because Pope Francis has change the nature of the Synod. This is the most scripted Synodal plan that I have seen in any of the Synods … This is something that is troubling, because a Synod is meant to be about the participants the freedom to discuss what is on their minds, but they are being confined very clearly to this module plan. I don’t think this is the way that mature people, who have lots of experience, should be guided in a discussion of this sort.
“Previously, a Synod was the meeting of bishops and a few priests―there was an exception for a couple of priests. Historically, that is how the bishops would gather. A Synod is a meeting of hierarchs―that is the people who run the Church, who are the shepherds. Pope Francis decided that he wanted to invite lay people to come in and have an equal voice―meaning that they have a vote at the Synod of bishops. This is a big change! I was not anticipating this when I considered the Synod when it was first announced―but it has come to fruition. The Pope named 70 lay people to part of it, based on recommendations from local bishops’ conferences throughout the world and he also named other delegates of his own choosing―and those include some persons who are known to be in favor of the ordination of women to the priesthood, and modifying the Church’s approach to people who suffer from homosexual temptations; and making it an object of discussion as to whether we should bless gay couples who enter into civil unions. This is remarkable! This has never been in the life of Church, but now suddenly people who think that are now invited by Pope Francis to come to Rome and to be part of the Synod! So that is a cause of major concern.
“The strategy of the people who want to change it is to say: “It’s not really a change―it is an improvement!” They are going to use this argument that it is a development of doctrine. That is a false definition of the development of doctrine. Development of doctrine in the life of the Church means that what was revealed by Christ, comes to be better understood over the centuries by virtue of theological reflection, the life of prayer, the experience of the Gospel being better understood over time―but being understood in its accurate and primary sense. It is a false notion to say that development of doctrine means something that can be “yes” today and “no” tomorrow. This is a major problem, because people are now having this very un-Catholic notion of the action of the Holy Spirit.
“The idea has been put forward by Cardinal Grech and others―he is the head [Secretary General] of the Synod Office in Rome―that we just going to let the Spirit speak through the people. So we can always asks questions because we do not know where the Holy Spirit is going to lead us! But―as people point out―the Holy Spirit has already revealed to us the true meaning of Scripture and the Natural Law, and the Church sets that forth in every generation. The Holy Spirit is not going to contradict Himself. The sad thing is that there are bishops and cardinals who are contradicting what has been revealed in the past. This is part of the reason why people are so upset.
“Cardinal Hollerich of Luxembourg said flat out in an interview that the Church’s teaching on homosexuality is wrong. His job as a bishop and a cardinal is to defend the Faith! Unbelievable! It’s really disgraceful! He is being an unfaithful shepherd―because he knows what his duty is! He took an oath when he became a bishop to uphold Catholic teaching! Catholic teaching is that God has an order in humanity―male and female He created them―the man and the wife come together and they bring offspring into the world and they raise their family. That’s how God operates! He does not operate through unnatural sexual activity. Cardinal Hollerich is wrong on that.
“The Pope’s latest appointment was the Head of the Dicastery of the Doctrine for the Faith, Archbishop Fernández, and he himself has said the same thing―maybe the Church can bless homosexual unions; we have to look at it. He says, as long it is not confusing to people―because marriage is only between a man and a woman. But wait a minute! What is a blessing? A blessing means calling upon God to favor something! We bless people, but we do bless immoral arrangements! So people are promising to engage in sodomy and immoral sexual activity―we do not bless the promise they made to do that! Sad to say―the Archbishop is open to that!
“Personnel is policy [meaning that policy often follows the whims of the personnel]. When people are favored―such as Fr. James Martin, a priest who is basically saying that a homosexual lifestyle is good and the Church has to find a way to accommodate it ― he has been favored by Pope Francis beyond belief! He is favored, but other people are not!
“One of the things that are troubling people about the Synod―day to day Catholics who go to Mass, who pray and are raising kinds―those subjects never come up! Catholic education is hardly mentioned. The Sacramental crisis of confessions not being heard in some places; Catholic marriages are down big-time in the United States; the crisis of ordinations―that never comes up! Then from the outside―this whole Wok problem, denying the basic truths of human nature; we have the whole problem of people approaching reality as something they can reshape―all that doesn’t enter into it! How about Communist persecution? That doesn’t come into it. So a lot of things that are happening do not get the attention of the Synod. As we come closer to the Synod, we can see that all this was not an accident and this was what was in store from the beginning!
“There is also the question of the ordination of women. They want to start with the diaconate, but that is inevitably going to lead to the priesthood. This has already been discussed since 1965―Pope Paul VI answered this; John Paul II answered in a very solemn way; the Catechism; the Code of Canon Law―they are all clear that this is impossible.”
► ROBERT ROYAL, editor in chief of The Catholic Thing, who is in Rome for the Synod, states: “I re-read the module and I have to say that I felt slightly drunk after I read it, because I could make out all the words and I went back and parsed out sentence after sentence. It is a piling up of metaphysical ideas, one top of another, on top of another. For a Synod that is supposed to be concrete and is not supposed to be engaged with abstractions, it is the most abstract document that you could almost imagine! The topics of Mission, Participation and Communion―these are all good ideas, but they seem to exist in a very ethereal realm that doesn’t really touch the ground anymore!”
► THE ORTHODOX METROPOLITAN, JOB OF PISIDIA, the Ecumenical Patriarch to the World Council of Churches, noted that this Synod was not what a true Synod should be like: “A Synod is a deliberative meeting of bishops―not a consultative clergy-laity assembly … In light of this, we could say that the understanding of synodality in the Orthodox Church differs greatly from the definition of synodality given by your present assembly of the Synod of Bishops―though, in certain historical circumstances, the Orthodox Church has involved clergy and laity in synodal decision making.”
Fr. Gerald Murray, commenting on the above quote, says: “This is a crucial point! The Synod is [normally speaking] a meeting of the hierarchs of the Church―and the “hierarchs” means the bishops. So it is pope and the bishops gathered together … To have a meeting where lay people, priests, deacons, and religious are now on an equal footing with bishops, really changes the nature … in fact, it is not really a Synod, precisely as the Orthodox bishop was saying, a Synod is the classical and only sense that we know it. What does that mean? It doesn’t mean that lay people do not have good ideas, but they are not equal to bishops! Every Synod in the past had experts―what are called “auditors”―people who would listen and contribute to the discussion. But now―if the Cardinal Prefect of Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith’s vote is equal to that of a college student from Philadelphia, then in what sense is this an exercise of the hierarchy? It is not!”
Robert Royal, editor in chief of The Catholic Thing, adds: “Ironically, this Synod is least synodal of the Synods that occurred before this―as the Eastern Orthodox bishop said. Actually, what we had, after Paul VI started the Synod of Bishops after Vatican II, was closer to the Eastern Orthodox idea than this expanded idea that is intended to tilt the entire process in more democratic direction. There is not going to be a vote in quite the same way where you get majorities on this and that with everybody equal. This is an effort to provide a sense that other people are having an input. It is hard for me not to believe that the surprises that are supposed to come out of this Synod―as Cardinal Zen brilliantly said not long ago―that certain surprises that we can already predict are going to happen, and I think he is absolutely right.”
Gradually Does It
Contrary to the beliefs and aspirations of many activists on both the right and the left, it has been proved that gradual incremental reform is the best path forward. For example, the very structure of American government explicitly and implicitly favors incrementalism. Particularly in a time of intense polarization, any effort to advance radical change will inevitably engender significant backlash. Surveys show little public support for bold change. The public is, however, willing to endorse a broad range of incremental reforms that, if implemented, would reduce suffering and improve fairness. Just look at how gradually, steadily and relentlessly things like divorce, contraception, abortion and homosexuality have been introduced into state protected legislature over the recent decades. It starts with one state and then, like a virus, it gradually spreads to more and more states until, finally, there is universal acceptance. The Church today has become increasingly political in the way it operates. Hence it is no surprise to see the Church embrace entrepreneurial and political ways in its thought patterns, its way of communicating and in its way of acting.
The Frog Heated in the Waters of the Synod!
Do not expect major radical changes at this Synod―it won’t happen, there would be too much backlash from the minority who still adhere to traditional Catholic doctrine, morals and practices. This tactic of gradual change so as not to shock the sensibilities of those you are trying to enforce the change upon is epitomized by the analogy of the frog being boiled to death in very slowly heated water. The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.
This has been verified to be true in actual experiments. An 1872 experiment by Heinzmann showed that a normal frog would not attempt to escape if the water was heated slowly enough, which was corroborated in 1875 by Fratscher. Heinzmann heated the frogs very slowly, over the course of 90 minutes, from about 21°C to 37.5°C (about 70°F to 100°F), a rate of less than 0.2 °C per minute or 0.36°F per minute or 1°F per three minutes. In 1888, William Thompson Sedgwick said: “The truth appears to be that if the heating be sufficiently gradual, no reflex movements will be produced even in the normal frog; if it be more rapid, yet take place at such a rate as to be fairly called ‘gradual’, it will not secure the response of the normal frog under any circumstances”.
The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to, or be aware of sinister threats that arise gradually rather than suddenly. The boiling frog story is generally offered as a metaphor cautioning people to be aware of even gradual change, lest they suffer eventual undesirable consequences. Since the Second Vatican Council, the waters of Liberalism and Modernism have been gradually and almost imperceptibly heated to claim innumerable Catholic “frogs” whose Faith has been boiled to death!
Even if the majority of the faithful don’t consider the debate on the Synod, its contents and the meaning of Synodality as being of great importance to them, nevertheless, what will take place in Rome from October 4th to 29th, will have important effects on the life of the Church. Communication to the outside world on what happens at the Synod on Synodality will be tightly guarded. Journalists will only have access to official daily communiqués. This is clearly being done to prevent attempts to report on what is really happening behind closed doors, including the different positions that might emerge, which according to the pope amount to “gossip” and “political chatter.”
In fact, both in the preparation and in the composition of the synodal assembly, Pope Francis has ensured that ― from the speakers to the participants ― a solid majority predominates who are in favor of the “novelties suggested by the Spirit.” This lack of transparency of the Synod, together with the gag on communication, is certainly not a good omen. There is an evident contradiction with the Synod’s alleged intentions. If synodality also means openness to the contribution of all who live in the Church and an open and frank dialogue, then what is happening is exactly the opposite.
With this unusual move, it is increasingly apparent that the Synod will be anything but open and synodal. Instead, it is well-planned, pre-planned and already directed towards a desired result, even more so than previous Synods. Moreover, any questions or doubts about the coherence of the aims to be achieved bearing in mind what the Church has taught for two thousand years has already been branded as “ideology.”
In his press conference during the return flight from Mongolia on September 4th, 2023, Pope Francis was clear: “There is no place for ideology in the Synod, as it is a different dynamic. The Synod is about dialogue―among the baptized, among the Church’s members―on the life of the Church; on dialogue with the world, on the problems that affect the human family today. But if we think in an ideological way, then the Synod is finished with! There is no place for ideology at the Synod―there is only space for dialogue, for talking with each other, as brothers and sisters, and discussing the doctrine of the Church, in order to move forward.”
A Synod of Change?
The Synod on Synodality has been underway and largely underground since the beginning of October. It is the latest in a long line of newly introduced synods that is largely the offspring of the many new approaches and tinkering that came about as result of the Second Vatican Council and its (stupidly) over-optimistic idea of opening up all the doors and windows of the Church to the world―which received the label of an “aggiornamento” ― one of the key words at the Second Vatican Council, used by both bishops and the media, which means “a bringing-up-to-date.” It was the “cockle” that was sown amongst the “wheat” planted by Christ―its purpose, style, mantra and agenda was “change, change, change, change and more change!”
Today, there is no slowing-down on this pursuit of change―as can be seen especially in the pontificate of Pope Francis. Pope Francis has changed the continuous moral teaching of the Church on several occasions. The first was in Amoris Laetitia, allowing Catholics in adulterous relationships to receive the Eucharist; and the second was when he declared capital punishment inadmissible; another instance is his implying that under certain conditions married persons can practice contraception; another is his mixed messages to the LGBTQ+ people, whereby he frankly supported civil unions for same-sex couples in 2021. He said that “homosexual people have a right to be in a family. (…) What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered.”
Papal biographer and veteran Vatican watcher Marco Politi says: “Francis has wiped-off from the table all the obsession of the Catholic Church about sexual issues … He doesn't change the letter of some church documents, But with his gestures or with his words, he paves the way to new attitudes.” The traditionalist adversaries of Francis accuse him of sowing confusion among the faithful by focusing on pastoral issues rather than doctrine. The Conservative German Cardinal, Gerhard Müller — removed by Francis as Vatican theological watchdog — went public with his criticism last October. In an interview with the conservative Catholic cable TV network EWTN, he poured scorn on what he sees as Francis' progressive agenda. “This occupation of the Catholic Church is a hostile takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ,” Mueller said. “And they think that doctrine is only like a program of a political party, [which] can change ... according to [the desires] their voters.”
What these “change-maniacs” seem to forget is that God does not change! “For I am the Lord, and I change not!” (Malachias 3:6). “God is not a man, that He should be changed” (Numbers 23:19). “With God there is no change, nor shadow of alteration” (James 1:17). “Thou art always the selfsame!” (Psalm 101:28). Likewise with Our Lord: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever!” (Hebrews 13:8).
A Synod Nod to Sin?
As one Catholic newspaper states: “What is shaping up as possibly one of the most important gatherings in the long history of the Catholic Church is taking place in Rome October 4th to 29th, 2023. Pope Francis is hosting the first of two back-to-back assemblies of the Synod of Bishops to consider questions that have the potential to change the course of Catholicism. Among items on the agenda: the possibility of women serving the Church in ordained ministry, how the Church can better include LGBTQ Catholics and priestly celibacy.” (National Catholic Reporter).
This past week (October 16th to 20th) the Synod on Synodality assembly delved into two crucial themes: the accompaniment of LGBTQ+ individuals and the topic of a female diaconate. Additionally, the assembly discussed the structure of the Church, all with the aim of shaping a more synodal (democratic) future for the Church.
► LGBTQ+ ISSUES: The issue of the debate on LGBT inclusion was downplayed by Vatican spokesperson Paolo Ruffini, who stated that “the blessing of homosexual couples is not the theme of the Synod” ― at least not yet! Little by little is the safer way to go for the LGBTQ+ advocates! Gain a little more ground and a little more acceptance and sympathy with each synod. This gradual change was indicated on October 17th, when Sister Jeannine Gramick―co-founder of New Ways Ministry, an LGBT+ organization, which was previously denounced by both the U.S. Bishops’ Conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office for causing confusion on sexual morality among the Catholic faithful―met with Pope Francis, along with three other New Ways Ministry staff members. The meeting was publicized by Vatican Media, and perceived as an endorsement of New Ways Ministry’s approach by Pope Francis. The meeting occurred despite a controversy surrounding the Synod’s website, which was forced to remove a New Ways Ministry video that invited LGBT people to participate in the assembly.
► WOMEN DEACONS AND WOMEN PRIESTS: Apart from LGBTQ+ issues, the Synod also discussed the possibility of the female diaconate and even contemplated the possibility of women delivering homilies―which already happens in situations such as in German-speaking Switzerland, where the priest is treated almost like a mere consecration official, who is brought out of the cupboard for the consecration at Mass. The topic of “female priesthood” was even brought up, raising fundamental questions about the role of women in the Church despite assurances from Synod organizers that changes to doctrine were not on the agenda. Yet again, this is the classical Liberal and Modernist approach that has been witnessed countless times since the Second Vatican Council, which changed many things “little by little” ― especially the Mass.
Bishop Shane Mackinlay of Sandhurst, Australia―one of the 13 members of the committee expected to draft the hotly anticipated final document from Pope Francis’ ongoing Synod on Synodality on the future of the Catholic Church―has expressed an openness to ordaining women as Catholic deacons. Bishop Mackinlay said of discussions about women’s ordination: “I’m glad that it is being addressed.” Noting that the possibility of ordaining women as Catholic deacons is mentioned in the synod’s working document, Mackinlay said the issue was included “because there was such a wide representation” of people who brought it up during the two-year consultative process ahead of the Vatican assembly. I’m glad it’s here. I’m glad it’s going to be discussed!” said the bishop. “And if it were to be that the outcome was for ordination to the diaconate to be open to women―I’d certainly welcome that!”
► NEW WAYS TO GOVERN THE CHURCH: Another major focal point of discussion is the topic of Participation, Governance and Authority and discussing the changing of the governance of the Church and restructuring the institution, so as to make it a more “missionary synodal Church.” According to Edward Pentin―a long time Vatican observer and journalist, who is following the events at the synod―participants have commented that they clearly see an agenda that is being focused upon that is being pushed with the desire of a predetermined outcome and conclusion. The number of Synod delegates who are supportive of Apostolic Tradition and Divine Revelation are few in number―so the odds are heavily stacked in favor of change. One participant in the Synod estimated that only around 25% of participants were in favor of upholding traditional doctrine on the matters that were being discussed. Since everything will be put to the vote, the outcome seems to be a foregone and unavoidable conclusion―there will be major changes, if not at this Synod, then at the continuation of this Synod (Part 2) in October of 2024. This has been achieved largely by Pope Francis being in control of who was and who was not invited to participate in the Synod.
Even the Modern Church is Worried!
► CARDINAL JOSEPH ZEN, the former bishop of Hong Kong, has had well-documented difficulties with China’s Communist authorities, felt obliged to speak out in defense of the Faith in the face of the Synod on Synodality. He joined four other cardinals in signing two sets of dubia that were sent to Pope Francis, seeking clarification on points of doctrine ahead of the meeting. Asked about his views on the Synod now underway, the cardinal lamented: “We don’t have much news,” and recalled several “problems of procedure” which he raised in his recent letter to cardinals and bishops participating in the October synod assembly, including the continued reference to “conversation in the spirit” as if it were some “magical formula.”
He sees the constitution and the procedure of the Synod as a confused and confusing set of misunderstandings of the nature of the episcopate and the Church herself. “The bishops [taking part in the Synod] represent only ten percent of the world episcopate. How can such a small proportion achieve the original purpose of the Synod, as Pope Paul VI established it, that is, as a means of facilitating episcopal collegiality?” Cardinal Zen criticized the Synod Secretariat’s attemtps to make personal experience the starting and reference point of the “conversations in the Spirit” rather than basing discussions on Divine Revelation. The Cardinal said: “Please find somebody to explain, in a way that we poor mortals may understand: What does it mean ‘to discuss, not ideas, but experiences?’ Therefore, now, the long tradition of ‘see and judge’ should be changed to ‘see and do not judge.’ But Jesus told the Apostles to ‘teach’! … The animators of the Synod seem to reduce the Word of God to the feeling of the people—by which they mean all the baptized, even those who left the Church long ago—and refer to the Magisterium, not of the past twenty centuries, not of the many recent popes, but only [the Magisterium] of the reigning pontiff.”
Cardinal Zen’s observations strikingly resemble the contrast made by Pope St. Pius X between the Modernist and the Catholic conceptions of Faith itself: “Faith is not a blind sentiment of religion, welling up from the depths of the subconscious, under the impulse of the heart and the motion of a will trained to morality―but Faith is a genuine assent of the intellect to truth received by hearing from an external source. By this assent, because of the authority of the supremely truthful God, we believe to be true that which has been revealed and attested to by a personal God, our Creator and Lord.”
► FR. GERALD MURRAY, Canon Lawyer for the Archdiocese of New York, stated: “The Synod of Synodality was started in 2021 by Pope Francis as an ongoing process. The reasons for concern have to do with what the Synod has been like so far. They have produced an Instrumentum Laboris, in Rome in the Synod office, which is largely reflects concerns that are not central to the life of the Church, but they are central to a certain group of people in the Church who want to promote change, and often radical change. This was compounded by the naming of Synod delegates, because Pope Francis has change the nature of the Synod. This is the most scripted Synodal plan that I have seen in any of the Synods … This is something that is troubling, because a Synod is meant to be about the participants the freedom to discuss what is on their minds, but they are being confined very clearly to this module plan. I don’t think this is the way that mature people, who have lots of experience, should be guided in a discussion of this sort.
“Previously, a Synod was the meeting of bishops and a few priests―there was an exception for a couple of priests. Historically, that is how the bishops would gather. A Synod is a meeting of hierarchs―that is the people who run the Church, who are the shepherds. Pope Francis decided that he wanted to invite lay people to come in and have an equal voice―meaning that they have a vote at the Synod of bishops. This is a big change! I was not anticipating this when I considered the Synod when it was first announced―but it has come to fruition. The Pope named 70 lay people to part of it, based on recommendations from local bishops’ conferences throughout the world and he also named other delegates of his own choosing―and those include some persons who are known to be in favor of the ordination of women to the priesthood, and modifying the Church’s approach to people who suffer from homosexual temptations; and making it an object of discussion as to whether we should bless gay couples who enter into civil unions. This is remarkable! This has never been in the life of Church, but now suddenly people who think that are now invited by Pope Francis to come to Rome and to be part of the Synod! So that is a cause of major concern.
“The strategy of the people who want to change it is to say: “It’s not really a change―it is an improvement!” They are going to use this argument that it is a development of doctrine. That is a false definition of the development of doctrine. Development of doctrine in the life of the Church means that what was revealed by Christ, comes to be better understood over the centuries by virtue of theological reflection, the life of prayer, the experience of the Gospel being better understood over time―but being understood in its accurate and primary sense. It is a false notion to say that development of doctrine means something that can be “yes” today and “no” tomorrow. This is a major problem, because people are now having this very un-Catholic notion of the action of the Holy Spirit.
“The idea has been put forward by Cardinal Grech and others―he is the head [Secretary General] of the Synod Office in Rome―that we just going to let the Spirit speak through the people. So we can always asks questions because we do not know where the Holy Spirit is going to lead us! But―as people point out―the Holy Spirit has already revealed to us the true meaning of Scripture and the Natural Law, and the Church sets that forth in every generation. The Holy Spirit is not going to contradict Himself. The sad thing is that there are bishops and cardinals who are contradicting what has been revealed in the past. This is part of the reason why people are so upset.
“Cardinal Hollerich of Luxembourg said flat out in an interview that the Church’s teaching on homosexuality is wrong. His job as a bishop and a cardinal is to defend the Faith! Unbelievable! It’s really disgraceful! He is being an unfaithful shepherd―because he knows what his duty is! He took an oath when he became a bishop to uphold Catholic teaching! Catholic teaching is that God has an order in humanity―male and female He created them―the man and the wife come together and they bring offspring into the world and they raise their family. That’s how God operates! He does not operate through unnatural sexual activity. Cardinal Hollerich is wrong on that.
“The Pope’s latest appointment was the Head of the Dicastery of the Doctrine for the Faith, Archbishop Fernández, and he himself has said the same thing―maybe the Church can bless homosexual unions; we have to look at it. He says, as long it is not confusing to people―because marriage is only between a man and a woman. But wait a minute! What is a blessing? A blessing means calling upon God to favor something! We bless people, but we do bless immoral arrangements! So people are promising to engage in sodomy and immoral sexual activity―we do not bless the promise they made to do that! Sad to say―the Archbishop is open to that!
“Personnel is policy [meaning that policy often follows the whims of the personnel]. When people are favored―such as Fr. James Martin, a priest who is basically saying that a homosexual lifestyle is good and the Church has to find a way to accommodate it ― he has been favored by Pope Francis beyond belief! He is favored, but other people are not!
“One of the things that are troubling people about the Synod―day to day Catholics who go to Mass, who pray and are raising kinds―those subjects never come up! Catholic education is hardly mentioned. The Sacramental crisis of confessions not being heard in some places; Catholic marriages are down big-time in the United States; the crisis of ordinations―that never comes up! Then from the outside―this whole Wok problem, denying the basic truths of human nature; we have the whole problem of people approaching reality as something they can reshape―all that doesn’t enter into it! How about Communist persecution? That doesn’t come into it. So a lot of things that are happening do not get the attention of the Synod. As we come closer to the Synod, we can see that all this was not an accident and this was what was in store from the beginning!
“There is also the question of the ordination of women. They want to start with the diaconate, but that is inevitably going to lead to the priesthood. This has already been discussed since 1965―Pope Paul VI answered this; John Paul II answered in a very solemn way; the Catechism; the Code of Canon Law―they are all clear that this is impossible.”
► ROBERT ROYAL, editor in chief of The Catholic Thing, who is in Rome for the Synod, states: “I re-read the module and I have to say that I felt slightly drunk after I read it, because I could make out all the words and I went back and parsed out sentence after sentence. It is a piling up of metaphysical ideas, one top of another, on top of another. For a Synod that is supposed to be concrete and is not supposed to be engaged with abstractions, it is the most abstract document that you could almost imagine! The topics of Mission, Participation and Communion―these are all good ideas, but they seem to exist in a very ethereal realm that doesn’t really touch the ground anymore!”
► THE ORTHODOX METROPOLITAN, JOB OF PISIDIA, the Ecumenical Patriarch to the World Council of Churches, noted that this Synod was not what a true Synod should be like: “A Synod is a deliberative meeting of bishops―not a consultative clergy-laity assembly … In light of this, we could say that the understanding of synodality in the Orthodox Church differs greatly from the definition of synodality given by your present assembly of the Synod of Bishops―though, in certain historical circumstances, the Orthodox Church has involved clergy and laity in synodal decision making.”
Fr. Gerald Murray, commenting on the above quote, says: “This is a crucial point! The Synod is [normally speaking] a meeting of the hierarchs of the Church―and the “hierarchs” means the bishops. So it is pope and the bishops gathered together … To have a meeting where lay people, priests, deacons, and religious are now on an equal footing with bishops, really changes the nature … in fact, it is not really a Synod, precisely as the Orthodox bishop was saying, a Synod is the classical and only sense that we know it. What does that mean? It doesn’t mean that lay people do not have good ideas, but they are not equal to bishops! Every Synod in the past had experts―what are called “auditors”―people who would listen and contribute to the discussion. But now―if the Cardinal Prefect of Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith’s vote is equal to that of a college student from Philadelphia, then in what sense is this an exercise of the hierarchy? It is not!”
Robert Royal, editor in chief of The Catholic Thing, adds: “Ironically, this Synod is least synodal of the Synods that occurred before this―as the Eastern Orthodox bishop said. Actually, what we had, after Paul VI started the Synod of Bishops after Vatican II, was closer to the Eastern Orthodox idea than this expanded idea that is intended to tilt the entire process in more democratic direction. There is not going to be a vote in quite the same way where you get majorities on this and that with everybody equal. This is an effort to provide a sense that other people are having an input. It is hard for me not to believe that the surprises that are supposed to come out of this Synod―as Cardinal Zen brilliantly said not long ago―that certain surprises that we can already predict are going to happen, and I think he is absolutely right.”
Gradually Does It
Contrary to the beliefs and aspirations of many activists on both the right and the left, it has been proved that gradual incremental reform is the best path forward. For example, the very structure of American government explicitly and implicitly favors incrementalism. Particularly in a time of intense polarization, any effort to advance radical change will inevitably engender significant backlash. Surveys show little public support for bold change. The public is, however, willing to endorse a broad range of incremental reforms that, if implemented, would reduce suffering and improve fairness. Just look at how gradually, steadily and relentlessly things like divorce, contraception, abortion and homosexuality have been introduced into state protected legislature over the recent decades. It starts with one state and then, like a virus, it gradually spreads to more and more states until, finally, there is universal acceptance. The Church today has become increasingly political in the way it operates. Hence it is no surprise to see the Church embrace entrepreneurial and political ways in its thought patterns, its way of communicating and in its way of acting.
The Frog Heated in the Waters of the Synod!
Do not expect major radical changes at this Synod―it won’t happen, there would be too much backlash from the minority who still adhere to traditional Catholic doctrine, morals and practices. This tactic of gradual change so as not to shock the sensibilities of those you are trying to enforce the change upon is epitomized by the analogy of the frog being boiled to death in very slowly heated water. The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.
This has been verified to be true in actual experiments. An 1872 experiment by Heinzmann showed that a normal frog would not attempt to escape if the water was heated slowly enough, which was corroborated in 1875 by Fratscher. Heinzmann heated the frogs very slowly, over the course of 90 minutes, from about 21°C to 37.5°C (about 70°F to 100°F), a rate of less than 0.2 °C per minute or 0.36°F per minute or 1°F per three minutes. In 1888, William Thompson Sedgwick said: “The truth appears to be that if the heating be sufficiently gradual, no reflex movements will be produced even in the normal frog; if it be more rapid, yet take place at such a rate as to be fairly called ‘gradual’, it will not secure the response of the normal frog under any circumstances”.
The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to, or be aware of sinister threats that arise gradually rather than suddenly. The boiling frog story is generally offered as a metaphor cautioning people to be aware of even gradual change, lest they suffer eventual undesirable consequences. Since the Second Vatican Council, the waters of Liberalism and Modernism have been gradually and almost imperceptibly heated to claim innumerable Catholic “frogs” whose Faith has been boiled to death!
Article 17
Wednesday October 18th & Thursday October 19th, 2023
Miracles Galore! But No Believers!
Wednesday October 18th & Thursday October 19th, 2023
Miracles Galore! But No Believers!
What Happened to All the Miracles? Where Did They Go?
Already back in the hey-day or height of Christianity―the 1000s to 1300s AD―one of Our Lord’s mystics asked Him why there were no longer such magnificent miracles as those that we read about in the Old and New Testaments. Our Lord replied that the chief reason was that people did not have sufficient Faith to warrant and bring about such miracles. Yet, as we saw in the previous article, miracles still happen in modern-days, though perhaps not as many as could be the case if we only had more Faith in God, a greater Hope in God and a stronger Love of God. We nevertheless have the incredible miracle of the sun at Our Lady’s final apparition at Fatima, on October 13th, 1917. We have stream of miracles at Lourdes and countless other miracles of grace, or physical cures that never make it to the newspapers or the public eye.
Miracles in Front of Your Eyes!
Would God work a miracle for you? “Ah, no way!” you say. Yet God does work a miracle for you each and every day ― yet you are rarely there to see it! We say, when we pray the “Our Father” ― “Give us this day our daily bread!” Yet God not only gives us our “daily bread”, but He also gives us a “daily miracle”! What is that miracle? Yes, you guessed right―or you should have guessed right―it is the Holy Eucharist, our “daily Bread” from Heaven. Not only is it our “daily Bread from Heaven”, but it is also our “daily really”, our daily Real Presence of Christ with His entire Body, entire Blood, entire Soul, entire Divinity that replaces the bread and wine that His priest offered and consecrated at each daily Mass. Jesus Christ is just as really present, daily present, amongst us―just as He was present over 2,000 years ago in Galilee and Judea. The difference being that back then He was visibly present―undisguised, so to speak―whereas today He is “invisibly” present, disguised under the outward visible appearances of bread and wine. Yet using “disguise” is not something new to Jesus―we read that He even went to Jerusalem on one occasion in some form of disguise:
The Hidden Jesus, the Secret Jesus
“Jesus walked in Galilee―for He would not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles was at hand. And His brethren said to Him: ‘Go from here, and go into Judea [to Jerusalem]; so that Thy disciples also may see Thy works which Thou dost. For there is no man that doth anything in secret, but he himself seeks to be known openly. If Thou do these things, then manifest Thyself to the world!’ For neither did His brethren believe in Him. Then Jesus said to them: ‘My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready … Go you up to this festival day, but I go not up to this festival day―because My time is not accomplished!’ When He had said these things, He Himself stayed in Galilee. But after His brethren were gone up [to Jerusalem], then He also went up to the feast, NOT OPENLY, but, as it were, IN SECRET. The Jews therefore sought Him on the festival day, and said: ‘Where is He?’ And there was much murmuring among the multitude concerning Him” (John 7:1-12).
Nobody Believes in the Miracle
Today, there is also “murmuring among the multitude concerning Him”, in the sense that many do not believe in His Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist―holding and thinking the Eucharist to be a mere symbol of Christ, but not really Christ Himself. It is a lack of Faith in the words of Christ, Who said to the Jews: “My Father gives you the true Bread from Heaven. For the Bread of God is that which comes down from Heaven, and gives life to the world … I am the Bread of Life! … But you believe not! … I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven … I am the Bread of Life … This is the Bread which cometh down from Heaven―that if any man eat of it, he may not die. I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven. If any man eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever; and the Bread that I will give, is My Flesh … Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you! He that eats My Flesh, and drinks My Blood, hath everlasting life … For My Flesh is meat indeed: and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eats My Flesh, and drinks My Blood, abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent Me and I live by the Father; so he that eats Me, the same also shall live by Me … This is the Bread that came down from Heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eats this Bread, shall live for ever!” (John 6:32-59).
Feast of the Tabernacles―Feast in the Tabernacles!
It was not just coincidental that Our Lord went to the Feast of the Tabernacles in a “secret” manner, “not openly, but, as it were, in secret” (John 7:10). Today, Our Lord comes into our tabernacles so that we can feast upon Him―but He comes, “not openly, but, as it were, in secret” ― under the appearance of Bread. If you could change your body into bread―then it would be a miracle. That is exactly what Our Lord does―He changes the bread and wine that is offered at Mass, into His own Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. He becomes just as really present to us today, as He was over 2,000 years ago―but He disguises Himself under the outward appearance of the Eucharistic bread. Even when Christ first came to this sinful world, He came as God disguised as man―He was God, but He also chose to clothe Himself with human flesh.
Satan tempted Christ to perform miracles when he tempted Christ in the desert: “And the tempter, coming, said to Him: ‘If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread!’” (Matthew 4:3). Christ, of course refused to “show-off” for no reason at all―but He would later turn water into wine (His first recorded miracle), and bread and wine into His own Body and Blood.
Miraculous Incarnation
The Incarnation of Christ―God taking on the flesh of man while still remaining God―was one of the greatest miracles ever to be performed. Man cannot make himself God, human nature cannot become the divine nature―never even mind the miracle of Christ taking on human nature and ALSO retaining His divine nature. He did that in order to redeem mankind from its sins. For when man sins against God, he commits an infinite offense―because the offended God is infinite. No finite man can repay an infinite offense―only an infinite Being can repay an infinite offense―and only God is infinite. Yet the offense against God through sin is a human act, an act of man―and therefore a human has to pay for that human debt. Thus sin is both a human offense (because it is committed by humans) and it is also an infinite offense (because it strikes out at the infinite God). Hence, for a full and proper reparation for that sin or all the sins of mankind, someone is needed who is both human and infinite―who is both man and God at the same time. Hence the need for the incarnation of the Son of God, whereby Christ the Son of God also becomes the “Son of man”―so that as an infinite God He can repay an infinite debt, and as man He can repay a human debt. Hence the miracle of the Incarnation. St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “God alone can change the order of nature―and this is what is meant by a miracle.”
The Incarnation was not only a miracle―it was a humiliation. The infinite God becomes a mere finite man! Would you drop-down the ladder and demote yourself from being a human to being an ant, a cockroach, a spider, a mouse, a cat or a dog? If you believe in the silly doctrine of re-incarnation, then perhaps you see yourself as being an ant, a cockroach, a spider, a mouse, a cat or a dog in your past life, or perhaps that awaits you in your future life! Yet a normal sane person would never humiliate themselves to that degree―yet for God to become man was even more humiliating. God, Who, so to speak, holds the whole universe in His hand―now becomes a mere man, a mere tiny, microscopic speck compared to the whole universe that He has created.
A Miracle Just For You!
C.S. Lewis writes: “He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less! … When Christ died, He died for you individually―just as much as if you had been the only man in the world!” As Holy Scripture says: “God will [i.e., wants to] have all men to be saved … Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 2:4; 1:15). Christ Himself says: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! … I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … They that are well have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. For I came not to call the just, but sinners! … Go then and learn what this meaneth: ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice!’ For I am not come to call the just, but sinners!” (Luke 19:10; 5:32; Mark 2:17; Matthew 9:13).
Consider how God healed Naaman the Syrian from leprosy (4 Kings 5:1-15) or the angelic vision of the unbaptized Cornelius (Acts 10:3). Received into a Gentile home in Sarephta in Sidonia, God worked miracles for the Gentile widow through His prophet Elias, who performed the remarkable miracle of replenishing the flour and oil, then later restored the widow’s dead son to life (3 Kings 17:9-24). Our Lord healed a number of persons who were not of the true religion (Judaism back then, Catholicism today). We have the miracles Our Lord performed for the non-Jewish centurion’s servant (Matthew 8:5-13) and the non-Jewish Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7:25-30). Then we have the miraculous healing of the ten lepers, one of whom was certainly a non-Jew, for the Gospel tells us he was a Samaritan, who were enemies of the Jews. Yet, the only one of the ten who returned to glorify God and thank Christ — was the Samaritan (Luke 17:16). Many who were miraculously healed were not Jews: “Jesus went about all Galilee, healing all manner of sickness and every infirmity, among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria [the Syrians were Gentiles, i.e. non-Jews], and they presented to Him all sick people that were taken with various different diseases and torments, and such as were possessed by devils, and lunatics, and those that had palsy―and He cured them” (Matthew 4:23-24).
Miracles for the Unworthy!
Our Lord performed miracles for His enemies―as we see in the case of Malchus, who had come to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and had his ear cut-off by Peter’s sword blow: “And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. But Jesus touched his ear, and He healed him” (Luke 22:50-51).
God even performs miracles using unworthy persons. When a priest celebrates Mass in a state of mortal sin, Christ still performs the miracle through the priest of making the bread and wine become His Body and Blood.
When person in mortal sin goes to Confession, a miracle of grace is performed by God, Who, through the instrument of the priest, restores grace to that sinful soul―something beyond the natural powers of the sinner and beyond the natural powers of the priest. The Scribes and Pharisees were scandalized when Our Lord said to a sick man: “Thy sins are forgiven thee!” For in their eyes this was above the natural powers of man―and they thought Jesus was a mere man, and not God.
“And they came to Him, bringing one sick of the palsy, lying in a bed, which was carried by four men. And they sought to bring him in and to lay him before Jesus. And when they could not find any means by which they might bring him in―because of the crowd―they went up upon the roof and they uncovered the part of the roof where Jesus was, and lowered him down, through the tiles with his bed, into the midst of the crowd before Jesus. When Jesus had seen their faith, he said to the man sick of the palsy: ‘Son, thy sins are forgiven thee!’ And the Scribes and Pharisees began to think, saying: ‘Who is this who speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?’ And when Jesus knew their thoughts, answering, He said to them: ‘What is it you think in your hearts? Which is it easier to say, “Thy sins are forgiven thee” or to say, “Arise and walk”? But so that you may know that the Son of man hath power on Earth to forgive sins’ (he saith to the sick of the palsy) ‘I say to thee, “Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house!”’ And immediately rising up before them, in the sight of everyone, he took up the bed on which he lay, and he went away, in the sight of all, to his own house, glorifying God. And all wondered and glorified God, saying: ‘We never saw anything like this!’” (Luke 5:18-25; Matthew 9:2-7; Mark 2:3-12).
Familiarity Breeds Contempt!
We all have heard the saying: “Familiarity breeds contempt.” It’s an old English proverb that allegedly traces its roots back many centuries. Chaucer wrote those words in 1386 in his Tale of Melibee. However some claim that its origin lays with Aesop (died 564 BC) ― the author of Aesop’s Fables ― but Aesop does not say explicitly that “Familiarity breeds contempt” ― but only implies the idea in one of his tales about the Fox and the Lion. Lucius Apuleius, a philosopher and writer who lived in Ancient Rome from 124 to 170 A.D., was quoted as saying: “Familiarity breeds contempt, while rarity wins admiration.” St. Augustine (354-430 AD) acknowledges an already pre-existing proverb when he states: “It is a common proverb, that too much familiarity breeds contempt.” Pope Innocent III (1161-1216) repeats the phrase in his writings. Regardless of who is the origin of the phrase, the statement “Familiarity breeds contempt” is a frequently observable truth.
What exactly does it mean? Let us quote various explanations from dictionaries and other sources and group them all together for a composite definition. “Familiarity breeds contempt” means to say that “if you know a person or situation very well, you can easily lose respect for that person or become careless in that situation. Extensive knowledge of or close association with someone or something leads to a loss of respect for them or it. The more you are exposed to someone or something, the more bored you become and the less appreciation you have for that person or thing. The better we know people, the more likely we are to find fault with them.”
“House guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” Benjamin Franklin famously penned that phrase more than 200 years ago. In other words, the more time we spend with other people and the more familiar we become with them, then the more likely we are to get tired of them or find them irritating.
As one businessman writes: “Some professionals actually have a level of disdain for their clients, the people who pay them money. How can you develop such strongly negative feelings about the people who ultimately pay your salary and justify your job’s very existence? … I hear it all the time when I work with sales professionals, some of whom dangerously take their clients for granted: ‘That customer is such a pain in the ass! I absolutely dread his phone calls!’ … It’s not just limited to your clients. Familiarity with colleagues, bosses, family members and friends can lead to contempt. While “familiarity breeds contempt” is a natural human phenomenon, it is generally not a good one. We need our clients in order to keep companies in business. We need our bosses in order to stay employed. We need our friends and family in order to have love and security in this crazy world.”
Spiritual Familiarity Breeds Spiritual Contempt!
Isn’t that how we are with God, Our Lady, and the persons and things of the spiritual life? We have become so familiar with them that we no longer treat them with the awe, admiration, appreciation, gratitude, respect and honor that they truly deserve. The greatest miracle on Earth―the changing of mere bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―is often attended with boredom, indifference, distractions and impatience, as people can’t wait for Mass to end so that they can get out of there and go do something more appealing and more exciting!
The receiving of God Himself―in the Person of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion―is just as boring, unappealing and uninteresting. We look forward more and show more excitement about the visit of a friend to our home than we do with regard to receiving Jesus in Holy Communion! Just observe how some people approach, receive and act after receiving Holy Communion―does their behavior indicate that they are receiving God Himself in the Person of Jesus Christ? Most Catholics―anywhere from 60% to 80% no longer believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist! A miracle stares them in the face―and they just don’t believe! Most people go to Holy Communion like mindless robots and receive what they perceive to be a mere round wafer. This is most unworthy and disrespectful of God. Holy Scripture warns us: “Whosoever shall eat this Bread, or drink the Chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord! Therefore let a man prove himself―and so let him eat of that Bread, and drink of the Chalice. For he that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself, by not discerning the Body of the Lord! Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep!” (1 Corinthians 11:27-30).
The same is true of the other Sacraments―especially the Sacrament of Confession. Basically, the Sacrament of Confession saves us from Hell when we have committed just one single mortal sin (or even worse, many mortal sins). What price could you put on that? Saving someone from Hell and its eternal fires, punishments and tortures―that is a priceless gift! Yet who looks upon it in such a fashion? Almost nobody! Confession―for the extreme minority of Catholics who still profit from the Sacrament―has more often than not become a mere spiritual “car-wash” that they simply “drive-thru” paying a pitiful penance of a few Hail Marys and with little sorrow for their sins and even less appreciation for the price paid by Christ to bring about the forgiveness of our sins―the shedding of His Precious Blood. It is not with soapy water that we are washed clean in Confession, but it is with the Precious Blood of Christ, painfully shed during His Passion and Death! Familiarity breeds contempt!
Likewise the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the greatest action that takes place anywhere on Earth at any given time! We have all become so accustomed to the Mass, so used to the Mass, we are so familiar with the Mass that we have become indifferent, unmoved, disenchanted and bored by the Mass―to the point where we can’t wait for Mass to finish so that we can get away and do something more entertaining, exciting, and more desirable! For such persons the only good Mass is a short Mass, a fast Mass, a quickie Mass, a microwaved Mass. A long Mass―and, worse still, a long sermon―is like being crucified with Christ on Calvary!
Over the years―especially since the Liberal and Modernist changes since the Second Vatican Council―you can see the “familiarity breeds contempt” principle take effect in the attitudes shown to the introduction to the New Mass. On November 29th, 1964 — a year after the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy was enacted — the “New Mass”, as it was then called, was introduced into US parishes. It was the first step in a series of increased changes that would gradually desacralize the Mass by progressively stripping the Mass of its sacred elements and clothing it with increasingly worldly elements―the extremes being the so-called “clown Masses”, “cookie Masses”, “folk-Masses” and “rock Masses” set to contemporary musical styles such as jazz, rock, pop, rap, and hip-hop. Rock Masses are products of several influences, including the Catholic folk Mass of the 1960s, rock gospel music of the 1970s, praise songs from the Charismatic Renewal movement, secular Top Forty music styles, and the music and creation spirituality of the New Age movement itself. All of this shows contempt for what the Mass really is―it is a Holy Sacrifice and not Holy Entertainment. The chief focus should be the crucified Christ, Who continues His sacrifice of Calvary in each Mass that is offered―and not a focus upon music and musicians; priests trying to entertain the congregation; and people clapping hands, hugging each other and exchanging handshakes!
Today, there is little or no preparation for Mass―apart from dressing-up for Mass (often immodestly), plastering on make-up (is that so that Our Lord doesn’t recognize who is dressing immodestly?), and preparing topics of conversation with other Mass-goers. Likewise, there is little or no thanksgiving after Mass―for rather than talk to Our Lord, people prefer to rush out immediately after Mass to talk to each other―either at the back of church, in the parking lot, or over coffee and donuts! It is not uncommon for cellphones to be turned-on and checked for messages during Mass―is that because they are expecting a text from Jesus?
Priests are not exempt from this “familiarity breeds contempt” principle with regard to the Mass. Many priests race through the prayers of the Mass―do they think that the shorter the Mass is, then the shorter are the sufferings of Our Lord in His sacrifice? Some also fall prey to the “entertainment bug” in trying to entertain their parishioners with jokes, quips and funny stories―but isn’t the Mass supposed to be all about the sacrifice of Christ on the cross on Calvary as a payment for our sins? Maybe they imagine that Our Lady, St. John, St. Mary Magdalen and the other women at the foot of the cross of Jesus on Calvary were also joking around and telling funny stories? The hearing of confessions before Mass has been reduced to a joke―with priests sometimes only hanging around for about 30 minutes or as little as 15 minutes for Confession before Mass, when Jesus “hung around” for hours crucified to His cross for the sake of sinners! What would St. Padre Pio or St. John Vianney say about that? They heard confessions for hours and hours on end! Our Lady of Good Success, foreseeing our days, said:
“See and contemplate the grandeur of this restoring and life-giving Sacrament of Penance, so forgotten and even scorned by ungrateful men, who in their foolish madness, do not realize that it is the only sure means of salvation after one has lost his baptismal innocence. What is most grievious is that even the ministers of My Most Holy Son do not give to the Sacrament of Penance the value that they should, viewing with cold indifference this valuable and precious treasure, which has been placed in their hands for the restoration of souls redeemed by the Blood of the Redeemer. There are those who consider hearing confession as a loss of time and a futile thing. O, alas! If priests were given to see directly that which you are now contemplating and were enlightened with the Light that now illuminates you, they would then recognize this gift!” (Our Lady of Good Success).
Already back in the hey-day or height of Christianity―the 1000s to 1300s AD―one of Our Lord’s mystics asked Him why there were no longer such magnificent miracles as those that we read about in the Old and New Testaments. Our Lord replied that the chief reason was that people did not have sufficient Faith to warrant and bring about such miracles. Yet, as we saw in the previous article, miracles still happen in modern-days, though perhaps not as many as could be the case if we only had more Faith in God, a greater Hope in God and a stronger Love of God. We nevertheless have the incredible miracle of the sun at Our Lady’s final apparition at Fatima, on October 13th, 1917. We have stream of miracles at Lourdes and countless other miracles of grace, or physical cures that never make it to the newspapers or the public eye.
Miracles in Front of Your Eyes!
Would God work a miracle for you? “Ah, no way!” you say. Yet God does work a miracle for you each and every day ― yet you are rarely there to see it! We say, when we pray the “Our Father” ― “Give us this day our daily bread!” Yet God not only gives us our “daily bread”, but He also gives us a “daily miracle”! What is that miracle? Yes, you guessed right―or you should have guessed right―it is the Holy Eucharist, our “daily Bread” from Heaven. Not only is it our “daily Bread from Heaven”, but it is also our “daily really”, our daily Real Presence of Christ with His entire Body, entire Blood, entire Soul, entire Divinity that replaces the bread and wine that His priest offered and consecrated at each daily Mass. Jesus Christ is just as really present, daily present, amongst us―just as He was present over 2,000 years ago in Galilee and Judea. The difference being that back then He was visibly present―undisguised, so to speak―whereas today He is “invisibly” present, disguised under the outward visible appearances of bread and wine. Yet using “disguise” is not something new to Jesus―we read that He even went to Jerusalem on one occasion in some form of disguise:
The Hidden Jesus, the Secret Jesus
“Jesus walked in Galilee―for He would not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles was at hand. And His brethren said to Him: ‘Go from here, and go into Judea [to Jerusalem]; so that Thy disciples also may see Thy works which Thou dost. For there is no man that doth anything in secret, but he himself seeks to be known openly. If Thou do these things, then manifest Thyself to the world!’ For neither did His brethren believe in Him. Then Jesus said to them: ‘My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready … Go you up to this festival day, but I go not up to this festival day―because My time is not accomplished!’ When He had said these things, He Himself stayed in Galilee. But after His brethren were gone up [to Jerusalem], then He also went up to the feast, NOT OPENLY, but, as it were, IN SECRET. The Jews therefore sought Him on the festival day, and said: ‘Where is He?’ And there was much murmuring among the multitude concerning Him” (John 7:1-12).
Nobody Believes in the Miracle
Today, there is also “murmuring among the multitude concerning Him”, in the sense that many do not believe in His Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist―holding and thinking the Eucharist to be a mere symbol of Christ, but not really Christ Himself. It is a lack of Faith in the words of Christ, Who said to the Jews: “My Father gives you the true Bread from Heaven. For the Bread of God is that which comes down from Heaven, and gives life to the world … I am the Bread of Life! … But you believe not! … I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven … I am the Bread of Life … This is the Bread which cometh down from Heaven―that if any man eat of it, he may not die. I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven. If any man eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever; and the Bread that I will give, is My Flesh … Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you! He that eats My Flesh, and drinks My Blood, hath everlasting life … For My Flesh is meat indeed: and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eats My Flesh, and drinks My Blood, abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent Me and I live by the Father; so he that eats Me, the same also shall live by Me … This is the Bread that came down from Heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eats this Bread, shall live for ever!” (John 6:32-59).
Feast of the Tabernacles―Feast in the Tabernacles!
It was not just coincidental that Our Lord went to the Feast of the Tabernacles in a “secret” manner, “not openly, but, as it were, in secret” (John 7:10). Today, Our Lord comes into our tabernacles so that we can feast upon Him―but He comes, “not openly, but, as it were, in secret” ― under the appearance of Bread. If you could change your body into bread―then it would be a miracle. That is exactly what Our Lord does―He changes the bread and wine that is offered at Mass, into His own Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. He becomes just as really present to us today, as He was over 2,000 years ago―but He disguises Himself under the outward appearance of the Eucharistic bread. Even when Christ first came to this sinful world, He came as God disguised as man―He was God, but He also chose to clothe Himself with human flesh.
Satan tempted Christ to perform miracles when he tempted Christ in the desert: “And the tempter, coming, said to Him: ‘If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread!’” (Matthew 4:3). Christ, of course refused to “show-off” for no reason at all―but He would later turn water into wine (His first recorded miracle), and bread and wine into His own Body and Blood.
Miraculous Incarnation
The Incarnation of Christ―God taking on the flesh of man while still remaining God―was one of the greatest miracles ever to be performed. Man cannot make himself God, human nature cannot become the divine nature―never even mind the miracle of Christ taking on human nature and ALSO retaining His divine nature. He did that in order to redeem mankind from its sins. For when man sins against God, he commits an infinite offense―because the offended God is infinite. No finite man can repay an infinite offense―only an infinite Being can repay an infinite offense―and only God is infinite. Yet the offense against God through sin is a human act, an act of man―and therefore a human has to pay for that human debt. Thus sin is both a human offense (because it is committed by humans) and it is also an infinite offense (because it strikes out at the infinite God). Hence, for a full and proper reparation for that sin or all the sins of mankind, someone is needed who is both human and infinite―who is both man and God at the same time. Hence the need for the incarnation of the Son of God, whereby Christ the Son of God also becomes the “Son of man”―so that as an infinite God He can repay an infinite debt, and as man He can repay a human debt. Hence the miracle of the Incarnation. St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “God alone can change the order of nature―and this is what is meant by a miracle.”
The Incarnation was not only a miracle―it was a humiliation. The infinite God becomes a mere finite man! Would you drop-down the ladder and demote yourself from being a human to being an ant, a cockroach, a spider, a mouse, a cat or a dog? If you believe in the silly doctrine of re-incarnation, then perhaps you see yourself as being an ant, a cockroach, a spider, a mouse, a cat or a dog in your past life, or perhaps that awaits you in your future life! Yet a normal sane person would never humiliate themselves to that degree―yet for God to become man was even more humiliating. God, Who, so to speak, holds the whole universe in His hand―now becomes a mere man, a mere tiny, microscopic speck compared to the whole universe that He has created.
A Miracle Just For You!
C.S. Lewis writes: “He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less! … When Christ died, He died for you individually―just as much as if you had been the only man in the world!” As Holy Scripture says: “God will [i.e., wants to] have all men to be saved … Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 2:4; 1:15). Christ Himself says: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! … I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … They that are well have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. For I came not to call the just, but sinners! … Go then and learn what this meaneth: ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice!’ For I am not come to call the just, but sinners!” (Luke 19:10; 5:32; Mark 2:17; Matthew 9:13).
Consider how God healed Naaman the Syrian from leprosy (4 Kings 5:1-15) or the angelic vision of the unbaptized Cornelius (Acts 10:3). Received into a Gentile home in Sarephta in Sidonia, God worked miracles for the Gentile widow through His prophet Elias, who performed the remarkable miracle of replenishing the flour and oil, then later restored the widow’s dead son to life (3 Kings 17:9-24). Our Lord healed a number of persons who were not of the true religion (Judaism back then, Catholicism today). We have the miracles Our Lord performed for the non-Jewish centurion’s servant (Matthew 8:5-13) and the non-Jewish Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7:25-30). Then we have the miraculous healing of the ten lepers, one of whom was certainly a non-Jew, for the Gospel tells us he was a Samaritan, who were enemies of the Jews. Yet, the only one of the ten who returned to glorify God and thank Christ — was the Samaritan (Luke 17:16). Many who were miraculously healed were not Jews: “Jesus went about all Galilee, healing all manner of sickness and every infirmity, among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria [the Syrians were Gentiles, i.e. non-Jews], and they presented to Him all sick people that were taken with various different diseases and torments, and such as were possessed by devils, and lunatics, and those that had palsy―and He cured them” (Matthew 4:23-24).
Miracles for the Unworthy!
Our Lord performed miracles for His enemies―as we see in the case of Malchus, who had come to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and had his ear cut-off by Peter’s sword blow: “And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. But Jesus touched his ear, and He healed him” (Luke 22:50-51).
God even performs miracles using unworthy persons. When a priest celebrates Mass in a state of mortal sin, Christ still performs the miracle through the priest of making the bread and wine become His Body and Blood.
When person in mortal sin goes to Confession, a miracle of grace is performed by God, Who, through the instrument of the priest, restores grace to that sinful soul―something beyond the natural powers of the sinner and beyond the natural powers of the priest. The Scribes and Pharisees were scandalized when Our Lord said to a sick man: “Thy sins are forgiven thee!” For in their eyes this was above the natural powers of man―and they thought Jesus was a mere man, and not God.
“And they came to Him, bringing one sick of the palsy, lying in a bed, which was carried by four men. And they sought to bring him in and to lay him before Jesus. And when they could not find any means by which they might bring him in―because of the crowd―they went up upon the roof and they uncovered the part of the roof where Jesus was, and lowered him down, through the tiles with his bed, into the midst of the crowd before Jesus. When Jesus had seen their faith, he said to the man sick of the palsy: ‘Son, thy sins are forgiven thee!’ And the Scribes and Pharisees began to think, saying: ‘Who is this who speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?’ And when Jesus knew their thoughts, answering, He said to them: ‘What is it you think in your hearts? Which is it easier to say, “Thy sins are forgiven thee” or to say, “Arise and walk”? But so that you may know that the Son of man hath power on Earth to forgive sins’ (he saith to the sick of the palsy) ‘I say to thee, “Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house!”’ And immediately rising up before them, in the sight of everyone, he took up the bed on which he lay, and he went away, in the sight of all, to his own house, glorifying God. And all wondered and glorified God, saying: ‘We never saw anything like this!’” (Luke 5:18-25; Matthew 9:2-7; Mark 2:3-12).
Familiarity Breeds Contempt!
We all have heard the saying: “Familiarity breeds contempt.” It’s an old English proverb that allegedly traces its roots back many centuries. Chaucer wrote those words in 1386 in his Tale of Melibee. However some claim that its origin lays with Aesop (died 564 BC) ― the author of Aesop’s Fables ― but Aesop does not say explicitly that “Familiarity breeds contempt” ― but only implies the idea in one of his tales about the Fox and the Lion. Lucius Apuleius, a philosopher and writer who lived in Ancient Rome from 124 to 170 A.D., was quoted as saying: “Familiarity breeds contempt, while rarity wins admiration.” St. Augustine (354-430 AD) acknowledges an already pre-existing proverb when he states: “It is a common proverb, that too much familiarity breeds contempt.” Pope Innocent III (1161-1216) repeats the phrase in his writings. Regardless of who is the origin of the phrase, the statement “Familiarity breeds contempt” is a frequently observable truth.
What exactly does it mean? Let us quote various explanations from dictionaries and other sources and group them all together for a composite definition. “Familiarity breeds contempt” means to say that “if you know a person or situation very well, you can easily lose respect for that person or become careless in that situation. Extensive knowledge of or close association with someone or something leads to a loss of respect for them or it. The more you are exposed to someone or something, the more bored you become and the less appreciation you have for that person or thing. The better we know people, the more likely we are to find fault with them.”
“House guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” Benjamin Franklin famously penned that phrase more than 200 years ago. In other words, the more time we spend with other people and the more familiar we become with them, then the more likely we are to get tired of them or find them irritating.
As one businessman writes: “Some professionals actually have a level of disdain for their clients, the people who pay them money. How can you develop such strongly negative feelings about the people who ultimately pay your salary and justify your job’s very existence? … I hear it all the time when I work with sales professionals, some of whom dangerously take their clients for granted: ‘That customer is such a pain in the ass! I absolutely dread his phone calls!’ … It’s not just limited to your clients. Familiarity with colleagues, bosses, family members and friends can lead to contempt. While “familiarity breeds contempt” is a natural human phenomenon, it is generally not a good one. We need our clients in order to keep companies in business. We need our bosses in order to stay employed. We need our friends and family in order to have love and security in this crazy world.”
Spiritual Familiarity Breeds Spiritual Contempt!
Isn’t that how we are with God, Our Lady, and the persons and things of the spiritual life? We have become so familiar with them that we no longer treat them with the awe, admiration, appreciation, gratitude, respect and honor that they truly deserve. The greatest miracle on Earth―the changing of mere bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―is often attended with boredom, indifference, distractions and impatience, as people can’t wait for Mass to end so that they can get out of there and go do something more appealing and more exciting!
The receiving of God Himself―in the Person of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion―is just as boring, unappealing and uninteresting. We look forward more and show more excitement about the visit of a friend to our home than we do with regard to receiving Jesus in Holy Communion! Just observe how some people approach, receive and act after receiving Holy Communion―does their behavior indicate that they are receiving God Himself in the Person of Jesus Christ? Most Catholics―anywhere from 60% to 80% no longer believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist! A miracle stares them in the face―and they just don’t believe! Most people go to Holy Communion like mindless robots and receive what they perceive to be a mere round wafer. This is most unworthy and disrespectful of God. Holy Scripture warns us: “Whosoever shall eat this Bread, or drink the Chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord! Therefore let a man prove himself―and so let him eat of that Bread, and drink of the Chalice. For he that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself, by not discerning the Body of the Lord! Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep!” (1 Corinthians 11:27-30).
The same is true of the other Sacraments―especially the Sacrament of Confession. Basically, the Sacrament of Confession saves us from Hell when we have committed just one single mortal sin (or even worse, many mortal sins). What price could you put on that? Saving someone from Hell and its eternal fires, punishments and tortures―that is a priceless gift! Yet who looks upon it in such a fashion? Almost nobody! Confession―for the extreme minority of Catholics who still profit from the Sacrament―has more often than not become a mere spiritual “car-wash” that they simply “drive-thru” paying a pitiful penance of a few Hail Marys and with little sorrow for their sins and even less appreciation for the price paid by Christ to bring about the forgiveness of our sins―the shedding of His Precious Blood. It is not with soapy water that we are washed clean in Confession, but it is with the Precious Blood of Christ, painfully shed during His Passion and Death! Familiarity breeds contempt!
Likewise the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the greatest action that takes place anywhere on Earth at any given time! We have all become so accustomed to the Mass, so used to the Mass, we are so familiar with the Mass that we have become indifferent, unmoved, disenchanted and bored by the Mass―to the point where we can’t wait for Mass to finish so that we can get away and do something more entertaining, exciting, and more desirable! For such persons the only good Mass is a short Mass, a fast Mass, a quickie Mass, a microwaved Mass. A long Mass―and, worse still, a long sermon―is like being crucified with Christ on Calvary!
Over the years―especially since the Liberal and Modernist changes since the Second Vatican Council―you can see the “familiarity breeds contempt” principle take effect in the attitudes shown to the introduction to the New Mass. On November 29th, 1964 — a year after the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy was enacted — the “New Mass”, as it was then called, was introduced into US parishes. It was the first step in a series of increased changes that would gradually desacralize the Mass by progressively stripping the Mass of its sacred elements and clothing it with increasingly worldly elements―the extremes being the so-called “clown Masses”, “cookie Masses”, “folk-Masses” and “rock Masses” set to contemporary musical styles such as jazz, rock, pop, rap, and hip-hop. Rock Masses are products of several influences, including the Catholic folk Mass of the 1960s, rock gospel music of the 1970s, praise songs from the Charismatic Renewal movement, secular Top Forty music styles, and the music and creation spirituality of the New Age movement itself. All of this shows contempt for what the Mass really is―it is a Holy Sacrifice and not Holy Entertainment. The chief focus should be the crucified Christ, Who continues His sacrifice of Calvary in each Mass that is offered―and not a focus upon music and musicians; priests trying to entertain the congregation; and people clapping hands, hugging each other and exchanging handshakes!
Today, there is little or no preparation for Mass―apart from dressing-up for Mass (often immodestly), plastering on make-up (is that so that Our Lord doesn’t recognize who is dressing immodestly?), and preparing topics of conversation with other Mass-goers. Likewise, there is little or no thanksgiving after Mass―for rather than talk to Our Lord, people prefer to rush out immediately after Mass to talk to each other―either at the back of church, in the parking lot, or over coffee and donuts! It is not uncommon for cellphones to be turned-on and checked for messages during Mass―is that because they are expecting a text from Jesus?
Priests are not exempt from this “familiarity breeds contempt” principle with regard to the Mass. Many priests race through the prayers of the Mass―do they think that the shorter the Mass is, then the shorter are the sufferings of Our Lord in His sacrifice? Some also fall prey to the “entertainment bug” in trying to entertain their parishioners with jokes, quips and funny stories―but isn’t the Mass supposed to be all about the sacrifice of Christ on the cross on Calvary as a payment for our sins? Maybe they imagine that Our Lady, St. John, St. Mary Magdalen and the other women at the foot of the cross of Jesus on Calvary were also joking around and telling funny stories? The hearing of confessions before Mass has been reduced to a joke―with priests sometimes only hanging around for about 30 minutes or as little as 15 minutes for Confession before Mass, when Jesus “hung around” for hours crucified to His cross for the sake of sinners! What would St. Padre Pio or St. John Vianney say about that? They heard confessions for hours and hours on end! Our Lady of Good Success, foreseeing our days, said:
“See and contemplate the grandeur of this restoring and life-giving Sacrament of Penance, so forgotten and even scorned by ungrateful men, who in their foolish madness, do not realize that it is the only sure means of salvation after one has lost his baptismal innocence. What is most grievious is that even the ministers of My Most Holy Son do not give to the Sacrament of Penance the value that they should, viewing with cold indifference this valuable and precious treasure, which has been placed in their hands for the restoration of souls redeemed by the Blood of the Redeemer. There are those who consider hearing confession as a loss of time and a futile thing. O, alas! If priests were given to see directly that which you are now contemplating and were enlightened with the Light that now illuminates you, they would then recognize this gift!” (Our Lady of Good Success).
Article 16
Tuesday October 17th, 2023
Anyone Want a Miracle?
Tuesday October 17th, 2023
Anyone Want a Miracle?
Miracles Still On Sale—But Not At ‘Sale-Prices’!
God hasn’t abandoned us—at least not totally! Miracles are technically available any time of day or night and in any kind of situation—there is no set of circumstances that will totally rule out a miracle, except for one! That miracle-nullifying state is obstinate desire to remain in mortal sin. Mortal sin makes you an enemy of God—and, even though Our Lord died for His enemies as well as His friends and followers—enemies are likely to get a lower response rate than would be expected by His friends and followers. Or to put it another way—the price asked of a sinner will be much higher than the price asked of a just man. The sinner will have to clear his debt with God first and then find the spiritual ‘money’ to pay for his desired miracle. The just man is ‘financially’ (spiritually) ahead of the sinner, having already embarked on the path of repaying his past debts—his credit with God is in better shape!
Holy Scripture puts it quite simply: “Now we know that God does not hear sinners―but if a man be a server of God, and does His will, him He hears!” (John 9:31). The Book of Ezechiel adds: “The soul that sins, the same shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4). However, if that sinner changes his heart and his ways, then God says: “But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all My commandments, and does judgment, and justice―then living he shall live, and shall not die!” (Ezechiel 18:21). Yet, despite all that, miracles do not come cheap—they are not ten-a-penny!
What Ruins Our 'Credit' With God?
Before we look at how to try and get miracles from God, let us look at what most certainly destroys, or at least weakens, our credit with Heaven’s Bank. Perhaps we could liken the desire for a miracle from God, to desiring to get a massive loan from our bank. The success or failure will largely depend upon our credit and past performance with that bank. St. Augustine points us in the right direction when he says that God does not answer our prayers for three chief reasons: (1) we pray for what is bad, (2) we pray badly, or (3) we are bad.
(1) Regarding the first point—we pray for what is bad—it often happens that what we think is a good idea (with our limited short-term thinking), is not such a good idea (in God’s long-term thinking). God might not be so inclined to destroy our enemies; make us rich; take away our illnesses or troubles—because He sees some advantage in these. We, on the other hand would prefer to suffer little or nothing, yet still somehow manage to pay our way into Heaven—and get a few miracles thrown into the bargain! Our desired miracles have no small part of selfishness and self-interest attached to them!
(2) Regarding the second point—we pray badly—it must be admitted that there are very few that pray well! Perhaps that is why we have so few miracles! Praying badly can have a multitude of causes, but the chief ones would seem to be:
(a) Lack of Love of God: which is mainly manifested by lukewarmness
(b) Lack of Faith: which could stem from wrong ideas about God, or lack of confidence that He would even think of helping us due to our past sinfulness, or undervaluing the price of what we are asking and over-rating our manner of asking—in other words, we think the favors or miracles to be cheaper than what they are, and ourselves to better than what we are.
(c) Lack of Perseverance: which stems from being weak-willed, or being too focused on other things, which, in turn, prevent from giving all our energies to a long-lasting, persevering banging on the doors of Heaven.
(3) Regarding the third point—we are bad—there are two levels of ‘badness’ that torpedo our prayers for asking for a miracle, or other lesser blessings or favors:
(a) the state of Mortal Sin, and
(b) the state of Lukewarmness.
As was pointed out earlier: “We know that God does not hear [mortal] sinners: but if a man be a server of God, and does His will, him He hears!” (John 9:31). Theologians tell us that any prayers we may say for others in state of mortal sin, or even asking favors for ourselves, will not be heard by God—the only thing that those prayers will be applied to is our conversion from a state of mortal sin to a state of grace. God cannot do otherwise, for then He would be rewarding—giving favors, blessings and miracles—to those who have decided to be His enemies through mortal sin.
Having briefly assessed the big picture, let us now closer at these things and then see what we can do to remedy them, and so improve our ‘credit’ with the ‘Bank of Heaven’.
(1) We Pray for What Is Bad or the Wrong Things
Not Immune
Let us not think ourselves to be immune from this problem—even the Apostles fell into this trap in one way or another. The human mind is easily misled and can too easily humanize the divine.
For example, the Apostles St. James and St. John in what they thought was rightful and holy indignation, asked Our Lord if they could bring down fire and brimstone on a town that would not accept His teachings: “They entered into a city of the Samaritans … And they received Him not, because His face was of one going to Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John had seen this, they said: ‘Lord! Wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven, and consume them?’ And turning, He rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:53-56).
Perhaps we can think of many a town, family or person upon we, too, would like to command fire to come down from Heaven and consume—but, as God says: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts” (Isaias 55:8-9).
This difference in thoughts is also seen with St. Peter, whose plans for Our Lord were not same as Our Lord’s plans for Himself. When Our Lord announced that He would have to go to Jerusalem, and there be betrayed, arrested, tortured and crucified―“Peter, taking Him, began to rebuke Him, saying: ‘Lord, be it far from Thee! This shall not be unto Thee!’ Jesus, turning, said to Peter: ‘Go behind Me, Satan! Thou art a scandal unto Me: because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!’” (Matthew 16:22-23).
Even Our Lord Himself prayed for what would be ‘bad’ for Him, when, in His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, He said: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me” (Matthew 26:39)—nevertheless, He added that the Father’s will should be the deciding factor, and not His own will. Yet, too often, we forget to add that clause—instead we imagine our will to be God’s will.
Careful What You Ask For!
Furthermore, let us be careful and prudent in what we ask for—because sometimes God, as a punishment for our stubbornness and pig-headedness, will actually give us what we obstinately ask for—even though it will be bad for us! We see that happen in the case of the Chosen People, under the rule of the Judges, who were tired of this form of rule and wanted a king!
“Then all the ancients of Israel being assembled, came to Samuel and they said to him: ‘Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways! Make us a king, to judge us, as all nations have!’ And the word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel, that they should say: ‘Give us a king, to judge us!’ And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel: ‘Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to thee! For they have not rejected thee―but Me, so that I should not reign over them! According to all their works, they have done from the day that I brought them out of Egypt until this day―as they have forsaken Me and served strange gods, so do they also do unto thee!’” (1 Kings 8:4-48).
The prophet Samuel tried to talk them out of it—reminding them that God was their king—but they would not listen. So God gave them the king and kingdom they asked for and it was the start of the collapse of the Chosen People and the new ‘Kingdom’ of Israel—they experienced a great majority of bad kings, who fell into idolatry, which resulted in the series of captivities that wiped out most of the tribes of Israel! The words of the Our Father—“Thy Will be done on Earth as it is Heaven”—are loaded full of meaning and truth. Let us not take them lightly. History is a good teacher—if we listen and learn from it.
(2) We Pray Badly
The Dignity of Prayer
Prayer is hardly the most expensive and precious item on our daily “To-Do-List”! Yet what a terrible mistake that is! Let the saints give us their opinion, in the hope that it might trigger a “rethink” on our part!
St. Augustine says: “What is more excellent than prayer? What is more useful and profitable? What is sweeter and more delicious? What is higher and more exalted in the whole scheme of our Christian religion?” When we pray, we enter into the presence of the majesty of God. St. John Chrysostom warns us: “Consider the height, dignity and glory to which the Lord has raised you!” St. Augustine says that prayer is the key of Heaven that fits all the gates of Heaven and all the treasure chests of God. Elsewhere he says that what bread is to the body, prayer is to the soul. And “He knows how to live well, who knows how to pray well!”
The Degeneration of Prayer
St. Bernard reminds us that the angels receive our prayers and present them before God ― as the angel said to Tobias: “When thou didst pray with tears, I offered thy prayer to God” (Tobias 12:12). St. Hilary says the same: “The angels preside over the prayers of the saints and offer them each day to God.” Yet, as Fr. Faber writes of the prayers of lukewarm souls: “Our prayers rise to Heaven with an accompaniment of venial sins in attendance upon them, and the angels are reluctant witnesses of our Confessions and Communions” (Fr. Faber, Growth in Holiness).
One very common fault is speed in prayer. St. Louis de Montfort, referring specifically to the prayer of the Rosary, speaks of those who are “lazy and indolent, who only say their Rosary carelessly, or hastily, just for the sake of getting it over with … Among Catholics, those who bear the mark of God’s reprobation think but little of the Rosary. They either neglect to say it or only say it quickly and in a lukewarm manner ...A fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it!” (St. Louis de Montfort, Secret of the Rosary). St. Francis de Sales adds that: “Precipitation [speed/haste] is the plague of devotion.”
It is because we have lost the sense of the dignity of prayer and the notion of the reality that prayer is being made to a “real-live” God, and not just a statue or an image, some imaginary absent Being—it is because of this that our prayers become increasingly mechanical, routine, distracted and half-hearted. In view of St. Augustine’s quote--“He knows how to live well, who knows how to pray well”—means that by praying badly (mechanically, routinely, distractedly and half-heartedly) we no longer live well, but live badly—we become more and more lukewarm.
What chance has the lukewarm soul of getting a miracle, when God says of lukewarm souls: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth” (Apocalypse 3:15-16), because this kind of soul is the type that Our Lord refers to, when He says: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6).
Ten Common Flaws In Prayer
(1) We Fail To Prepare For Prayer―Preparation is such a vital element of success. How many things in life would work out better if only we prepared better. Coaches cannot win games unless they prepare their teams properly in fitness, tactics and knowledge of the opposition. Exams are doomed to failure or low scores unless we prepare for them. How many things in the spiritual life would function more smoothly if we would only prepare better. Why don’t we meditate our Rosary like Our Lady asks? Because we have nothing prepared! Be prepared to be without miracles if you are little prepared spiritually! Lack of preparation indicates an indifference to prayer, it manifests an opinion of the unimportance of prayer and leads to lack of respect for God in prayer; a lack of focus in prayer; a lack of fervor in prayer—all these are essentials if we wish to obtain something from God.
(2) We Turn Prayer into a Personal Wish List―Of course, there is nothing wrong with asking for things in prayer—it is one of the chief purposes for prayer: Adore‒Love‒Thank‒Ask‒Repair or A.L.T.A.R. Yet for some, that is all they do―they ask and ask and ask! There are other more important things that come before asking—if all we do is ask, then we are being very selfish. Prayer is also about giving! We owe and must give God adoration (praise). We must also love God—as Jesus says, this must be done with all our mind, heart, soul and strength: for it is the primary and greatest Commandment. We must thank God for many or even countless mercies, graces and blessings He continuously sends our way each and every day. Before we even ask, we should pay our debts for past sins—if you don’t pay your bank for a previous loan, then don’t expect to get a future loan! Asking, then, is, in a certain sense, in last place—there is a “whole lotta” giving to be done first!
(3) We Don’t Use Our Creativity and Imagination―Instead of giving God “an original meal”—that is to say “original prayer”, we give Him something “off-the-shelf” that can be microwaved in seconds. Most people really don’t want to go to the trouble of concocting something original each time they pray—it is too time consuming (and it links in to a lack of or no desire of preparation). Why bother going to all that trouble, when there is a “ready-made” “pre-packaged” prayer available?! This leads to the next point…
(4) We Use Clichés―It’s the same old line…over and over again! Much as it is, perhaps, with family, friends and work colleagues—the same old clichés, day in, day out! “Morning honey! What’s for breakfast? Is the coffee ready? Where’s the paper? Bye-now! Love ya! See ya tonight!” Words said routinely, automatically, on auto-pilot, mechanically, without much feeling. This is how we get with God and this is why we get no miracles.
(5) We Talk But Don’t Listen―Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Our prayer is usually all one-way-traffic. We talk. God has to listen. Yet, God has far better things to say to us than we have to say to Him! However, that’s the scary part! We somehow dread the things that God may say to us—because they may not be according to OUR will. We say “Thy Will be done on Earth as it is Heaven” each day, but we slur the words so much, or say it so fast, that it kinda sounds like “My will be done on Earth and in Heaven!”
(6) We Pray Too Fast―Being a “spiritual athlete” does not mean the fastest person on Earth in praying the Rosary! Yet that is how most people pray, or say, the Rosary and many other prayers. Sadly, it is also the way some priests say Mass. These two things—the Mass and the Rosary—are arguably the two most important things a lay person has on Earth. Yet it seems as though they can’t wait to be rid of the obligation of participating in them. This is not the best tactic for getting Our Lord and Our Lady on your side when you want a special favor or a miracle! Pray in haste, repent in Purgatory—or worse yet, Hell!
(7) We Pray Too Little―What a bunch of skinflints we are in relation to God! We want or even expect so much from Him, yet give Him so little in return. We have devalued Heaven; devalued miracles; devalued graces; devalued the Sacraments; devalued mercy and forgiveness—we are on the way to being spiritually bankrupt! Give God more―much more!
Let the words of Our Lady at her apparitions, and the words of the Angel of Fatima, sink into your mind and heart: “Pray, pray a great deal! Offer unceasingly prayers and sacrifice yourselves to the Most High!” said the Angel. At La Salette, Our Lady complained: “I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually! And all you think little of this!” and rebukes those who “have neglected prayer.” At Fatima, Our Lady said: “Pray! Pray very much!” While at Akita she stated: “Continue to pray very much! ... Very much!” Yet the world seems to pray less and less! Bad move!
(8) We Pray Distractedly and Without Focus― St. Bernard was traveling with a poor, uneducated farmer, who boasted, “I’m never distracted when I pray!” St. Bernard objected: “I don’t believe it! Now let me make a bargain with you. If you can say the Our Father without one distraction, I’ll give you this mule I’m riding. But if you don’t succeed, you must come with me and be a monk.” The farmer agreed and began praying aloud confidently: “Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name ...” Then, after pausing for a moment, he asked St. Bernard: “Does that include the saddle and the bridle, too?”
St. Thomas Aquinas said that we couldn’t say a Hail Mary without being tempted to distraction! Yet, Blessed Clare of Rimini was leading a carefree life, in which religion wasn’t something to take too seriously. At the age of thirty-four, she entered church one day, only to hear a rather blunt message from Heaven: “Clare, try to say one Our Father and one Hail Mary to the glory of God, without thinking of other things!” Chastened by this rebuke, she took her religious duties more seriously.
Which is why St. Francis of Assisi, whenever he was about to enter church for Mass, or to pray, would say: “Worldly and frivolous thoughts, stay here at the door until I return!” Then he would go inside and pray with complete devotion. For this reason, too, the Franciscan priest, Blessed Thomas of Cori, insisted that the Divine Office be recited slowly and reverently, for as he said, “If the heart does not pray, the tongue works in vain!” Which reminds us again of the words of Our Lord: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6).
(9) We Pray Without Confidence―“O ye of little Faith!” Our Lord would often say, “Why didst thou doubt?” If there is one thing that we are faithful in, it is in doubting that God will hear and answer our prayers! Yet look at what happened to St. Zachary, the father of St. John the Baptist! Saint or not, he doubted the message of the Archangel Gabriel concerning the future conception of John the Baptist—and his doubt was punished by him being struck dumb and left speechless.
Moses—hero or not—doubted God in the desert, Who had promised that water would flow from a rock once Moses had struck it with the rod. Moses was punished for his lack of faith and confidence by being told he would die before the Israelites would enter the Promised Land. The examples are numerous. Low on confidence? Then let that be one of the first things you ask for in your prayers! Let us cry out with man in the Gospels: “And immediately the father of the boy crying out, with tears said: ‘I do believe, Lord! Help my unbelief!’” (Mark 9:23), or the Apostles: “And the Apostles said to the Lord: ‘Increase our Faith!’” (Luke 17:5).
(10) We Pray Without Any Intentions―As St. Louis de Montfort said: “It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. A fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible!” (St. Louis de Montfort, Secret of the Rosary). Pretty much all our worldly activities are done with an intention—yet when it comes to prayer, we “just do it”!
Acting without any intention would be regarding as a sign of madness—yet, in prayer, this is what is often done! We go to Mass and assist at Mass without formulating any intention. We might often pray our Rosary without any intention—we merely say it because we have to! It is like going through life without any goals or desires—just floating through life! A soldier does not just fire his gun wildly, spraying bullets here, there and everywhere. He has a target and he takes careful aim. Snipers are trained and expected to be able to kill with one bullet. That can only be achieved through taking careful aim at the target. Our prayers should follow the same example.
We Know All This, But...
The frightening and appalling thing is that we already know these things—we have heard them preached or read of them many a time! Yet it all flows off us like water off a duck’s back! The terrifying thing is that knowing these things brings a far heavier responsibility and culpability: “And that servant who knew the will of his lord, and prepared not himself, and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes” (Luke 12:47).
Unfortunately there will be no safety in numbers on Judgment Day! Furthermore, there will no miracles to be had in our day! Shoddy prayer just doesn’t work! It is time for us to really take ourselves to task over this matter—for we are losing many graces through this negligence and running up a very high debt that in justice will have to be punished sooner or later. If we pray like most people—then this is a bad sign! For most people, in the opinion of the spiritual masters, are lukewarm.
God hasn’t abandoned us—at least not totally! Miracles are technically available any time of day or night and in any kind of situation—there is no set of circumstances that will totally rule out a miracle, except for one! That miracle-nullifying state is obstinate desire to remain in mortal sin. Mortal sin makes you an enemy of God—and, even though Our Lord died for His enemies as well as His friends and followers—enemies are likely to get a lower response rate than would be expected by His friends and followers. Or to put it another way—the price asked of a sinner will be much higher than the price asked of a just man. The sinner will have to clear his debt with God first and then find the spiritual ‘money’ to pay for his desired miracle. The just man is ‘financially’ (spiritually) ahead of the sinner, having already embarked on the path of repaying his past debts—his credit with God is in better shape!
Holy Scripture puts it quite simply: “Now we know that God does not hear sinners―but if a man be a server of God, and does His will, him He hears!” (John 9:31). The Book of Ezechiel adds: “The soul that sins, the same shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4). However, if that sinner changes his heart and his ways, then God says: “But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all My commandments, and does judgment, and justice―then living he shall live, and shall not die!” (Ezechiel 18:21). Yet, despite all that, miracles do not come cheap—they are not ten-a-penny!
What Ruins Our 'Credit' With God?
Before we look at how to try and get miracles from God, let us look at what most certainly destroys, or at least weakens, our credit with Heaven’s Bank. Perhaps we could liken the desire for a miracle from God, to desiring to get a massive loan from our bank. The success or failure will largely depend upon our credit and past performance with that bank. St. Augustine points us in the right direction when he says that God does not answer our prayers for three chief reasons: (1) we pray for what is bad, (2) we pray badly, or (3) we are bad.
(1) Regarding the first point—we pray for what is bad—it often happens that what we think is a good idea (with our limited short-term thinking), is not such a good idea (in God’s long-term thinking). God might not be so inclined to destroy our enemies; make us rich; take away our illnesses or troubles—because He sees some advantage in these. We, on the other hand would prefer to suffer little or nothing, yet still somehow manage to pay our way into Heaven—and get a few miracles thrown into the bargain! Our desired miracles have no small part of selfishness and self-interest attached to them!
(2) Regarding the second point—we pray badly—it must be admitted that there are very few that pray well! Perhaps that is why we have so few miracles! Praying badly can have a multitude of causes, but the chief ones would seem to be:
(a) Lack of Love of God: which is mainly manifested by lukewarmness
(b) Lack of Faith: which could stem from wrong ideas about God, or lack of confidence that He would even think of helping us due to our past sinfulness, or undervaluing the price of what we are asking and over-rating our manner of asking—in other words, we think the favors or miracles to be cheaper than what they are, and ourselves to better than what we are.
(c) Lack of Perseverance: which stems from being weak-willed, or being too focused on other things, which, in turn, prevent from giving all our energies to a long-lasting, persevering banging on the doors of Heaven.
(3) Regarding the third point—we are bad—there are two levels of ‘badness’ that torpedo our prayers for asking for a miracle, or other lesser blessings or favors:
(a) the state of Mortal Sin, and
(b) the state of Lukewarmness.
As was pointed out earlier: “We know that God does not hear [mortal] sinners: but if a man be a server of God, and does His will, him He hears!” (John 9:31). Theologians tell us that any prayers we may say for others in state of mortal sin, or even asking favors for ourselves, will not be heard by God—the only thing that those prayers will be applied to is our conversion from a state of mortal sin to a state of grace. God cannot do otherwise, for then He would be rewarding—giving favors, blessings and miracles—to those who have decided to be His enemies through mortal sin.
Having briefly assessed the big picture, let us now closer at these things and then see what we can do to remedy them, and so improve our ‘credit’ with the ‘Bank of Heaven’.
(1) We Pray for What Is Bad or the Wrong Things
Not Immune
Let us not think ourselves to be immune from this problem—even the Apostles fell into this trap in one way or another. The human mind is easily misled and can too easily humanize the divine.
For example, the Apostles St. James and St. John in what they thought was rightful and holy indignation, asked Our Lord if they could bring down fire and brimstone on a town that would not accept His teachings: “They entered into a city of the Samaritans … And they received Him not, because His face was of one going to Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John had seen this, they said: ‘Lord! Wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven, and consume them?’ And turning, He rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:53-56).
Perhaps we can think of many a town, family or person upon we, too, would like to command fire to come down from Heaven and consume—but, as God says: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts” (Isaias 55:8-9).
This difference in thoughts is also seen with St. Peter, whose plans for Our Lord were not same as Our Lord’s plans for Himself. When Our Lord announced that He would have to go to Jerusalem, and there be betrayed, arrested, tortured and crucified―“Peter, taking Him, began to rebuke Him, saying: ‘Lord, be it far from Thee! This shall not be unto Thee!’ Jesus, turning, said to Peter: ‘Go behind Me, Satan! Thou art a scandal unto Me: because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!’” (Matthew 16:22-23).
Even Our Lord Himself prayed for what would be ‘bad’ for Him, when, in His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, He said: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me” (Matthew 26:39)—nevertheless, He added that the Father’s will should be the deciding factor, and not His own will. Yet, too often, we forget to add that clause—instead we imagine our will to be God’s will.
Careful What You Ask For!
Furthermore, let us be careful and prudent in what we ask for—because sometimes God, as a punishment for our stubbornness and pig-headedness, will actually give us what we obstinately ask for—even though it will be bad for us! We see that happen in the case of the Chosen People, under the rule of the Judges, who were tired of this form of rule and wanted a king!
“Then all the ancients of Israel being assembled, came to Samuel and they said to him: ‘Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways! Make us a king, to judge us, as all nations have!’ And the word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel, that they should say: ‘Give us a king, to judge us!’ And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel: ‘Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to thee! For they have not rejected thee―but Me, so that I should not reign over them! According to all their works, they have done from the day that I brought them out of Egypt until this day―as they have forsaken Me and served strange gods, so do they also do unto thee!’” (1 Kings 8:4-48).
The prophet Samuel tried to talk them out of it—reminding them that God was their king—but they would not listen. So God gave them the king and kingdom they asked for and it was the start of the collapse of the Chosen People and the new ‘Kingdom’ of Israel—they experienced a great majority of bad kings, who fell into idolatry, which resulted in the series of captivities that wiped out most of the tribes of Israel! The words of the Our Father—“Thy Will be done on Earth as it is Heaven”—are loaded full of meaning and truth. Let us not take them lightly. History is a good teacher—if we listen and learn from it.
(2) We Pray Badly
The Dignity of Prayer
Prayer is hardly the most expensive and precious item on our daily “To-Do-List”! Yet what a terrible mistake that is! Let the saints give us their opinion, in the hope that it might trigger a “rethink” on our part!
St. Augustine says: “What is more excellent than prayer? What is more useful and profitable? What is sweeter and more delicious? What is higher and more exalted in the whole scheme of our Christian religion?” When we pray, we enter into the presence of the majesty of God. St. John Chrysostom warns us: “Consider the height, dignity and glory to which the Lord has raised you!” St. Augustine says that prayer is the key of Heaven that fits all the gates of Heaven and all the treasure chests of God. Elsewhere he says that what bread is to the body, prayer is to the soul. And “He knows how to live well, who knows how to pray well!”
The Degeneration of Prayer
St. Bernard reminds us that the angels receive our prayers and present them before God ― as the angel said to Tobias: “When thou didst pray with tears, I offered thy prayer to God” (Tobias 12:12). St. Hilary says the same: “The angels preside over the prayers of the saints and offer them each day to God.” Yet, as Fr. Faber writes of the prayers of lukewarm souls: “Our prayers rise to Heaven with an accompaniment of venial sins in attendance upon them, and the angels are reluctant witnesses of our Confessions and Communions” (Fr. Faber, Growth in Holiness).
One very common fault is speed in prayer. St. Louis de Montfort, referring specifically to the prayer of the Rosary, speaks of those who are “lazy and indolent, who only say their Rosary carelessly, or hastily, just for the sake of getting it over with … Among Catholics, those who bear the mark of God’s reprobation think but little of the Rosary. They either neglect to say it or only say it quickly and in a lukewarm manner ...A fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it!” (St. Louis de Montfort, Secret of the Rosary). St. Francis de Sales adds that: “Precipitation [speed/haste] is the plague of devotion.”
It is because we have lost the sense of the dignity of prayer and the notion of the reality that prayer is being made to a “real-live” God, and not just a statue or an image, some imaginary absent Being—it is because of this that our prayers become increasingly mechanical, routine, distracted and half-hearted. In view of St. Augustine’s quote--“He knows how to live well, who knows how to pray well”—means that by praying badly (mechanically, routinely, distractedly and half-heartedly) we no longer live well, but live badly—we become more and more lukewarm.
What chance has the lukewarm soul of getting a miracle, when God says of lukewarm souls: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth” (Apocalypse 3:15-16), because this kind of soul is the type that Our Lord refers to, when He says: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6).
Ten Common Flaws In Prayer
(1) We Fail To Prepare For Prayer―Preparation is such a vital element of success. How many things in life would work out better if only we prepared better. Coaches cannot win games unless they prepare their teams properly in fitness, tactics and knowledge of the opposition. Exams are doomed to failure or low scores unless we prepare for them. How many things in the spiritual life would function more smoothly if we would only prepare better. Why don’t we meditate our Rosary like Our Lady asks? Because we have nothing prepared! Be prepared to be without miracles if you are little prepared spiritually! Lack of preparation indicates an indifference to prayer, it manifests an opinion of the unimportance of prayer and leads to lack of respect for God in prayer; a lack of focus in prayer; a lack of fervor in prayer—all these are essentials if we wish to obtain something from God.
(2) We Turn Prayer into a Personal Wish List―Of course, there is nothing wrong with asking for things in prayer—it is one of the chief purposes for prayer: Adore‒Love‒Thank‒Ask‒Repair or A.L.T.A.R. Yet for some, that is all they do―they ask and ask and ask! There are other more important things that come before asking—if all we do is ask, then we are being very selfish. Prayer is also about giving! We owe and must give God adoration (praise). We must also love God—as Jesus says, this must be done with all our mind, heart, soul and strength: for it is the primary and greatest Commandment. We must thank God for many or even countless mercies, graces and blessings He continuously sends our way each and every day. Before we even ask, we should pay our debts for past sins—if you don’t pay your bank for a previous loan, then don’t expect to get a future loan! Asking, then, is, in a certain sense, in last place—there is a “whole lotta” giving to be done first!
(3) We Don’t Use Our Creativity and Imagination―Instead of giving God “an original meal”—that is to say “original prayer”, we give Him something “off-the-shelf” that can be microwaved in seconds. Most people really don’t want to go to the trouble of concocting something original each time they pray—it is too time consuming (and it links in to a lack of or no desire of preparation). Why bother going to all that trouble, when there is a “ready-made” “pre-packaged” prayer available?! This leads to the next point…
(4) We Use Clichés―It’s the same old line…over and over again! Much as it is, perhaps, with family, friends and work colleagues—the same old clichés, day in, day out! “Morning honey! What’s for breakfast? Is the coffee ready? Where’s the paper? Bye-now! Love ya! See ya tonight!” Words said routinely, automatically, on auto-pilot, mechanically, without much feeling. This is how we get with God and this is why we get no miracles.
(5) We Talk But Don’t Listen―Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Our prayer is usually all one-way-traffic. We talk. God has to listen. Yet, God has far better things to say to us than we have to say to Him! However, that’s the scary part! We somehow dread the things that God may say to us—because they may not be according to OUR will. We say “Thy Will be done on Earth as it is Heaven” each day, but we slur the words so much, or say it so fast, that it kinda sounds like “My will be done on Earth and in Heaven!”
(6) We Pray Too Fast―Being a “spiritual athlete” does not mean the fastest person on Earth in praying the Rosary! Yet that is how most people pray, or say, the Rosary and many other prayers. Sadly, it is also the way some priests say Mass. These two things—the Mass and the Rosary—are arguably the two most important things a lay person has on Earth. Yet it seems as though they can’t wait to be rid of the obligation of participating in them. This is not the best tactic for getting Our Lord and Our Lady on your side when you want a special favor or a miracle! Pray in haste, repent in Purgatory—or worse yet, Hell!
(7) We Pray Too Little―What a bunch of skinflints we are in relation to God! We want or even expect so much from Him, yet give Him so little in return. We have devalued Heaven; devalued miracles; devalued graces; devalued the Sacraments; devalued mercy and forgiveness—we are on the way to being spiritually bankrupt! Give God more―much more!
Let the words of Our Lady at her apparitions, and the words of the Angel of Fatima, sink into your mind and heart: “Pray, pray a great deal! Offer unceasingly prayers and sacrifice yourselves to the Most High!” said the Angel. At La Salette, Our Lady complained: “I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually! And all you think little of this!” and rebukes those who “have neglected prayer.” At Fatima, Our Lady said: “Pray! Pray very much!” While at Akita she stated: “Continue to pray very much! ... Very much!” Yet the world seems to pray less and less! Bad move!
(8) We Pray Distractedly and Without Focus― St. Bernard was traveling with a poor, uneducated farmer, who boasted, “I’m never distracted when I pray!” St. Bernard objected: “I don’t believe it! Now let me make a bargain with you. If you can say the Our Father without one distraction, I’ll give you this mule I’m riding. But if you don’t succeed, you must come with me and be a monk.” The farmer agreed and began praying aloud confidently: “Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name ...” Then, after pausing for a moment, he asked St. Bernard: “Does that include the saddle and the bridle, too?”
St. Thomas Aquinas said that we couldn’t say a Hail Mary without being tempted to distraction! Yet, Blessed Clare of Rimini was leading a carefree life, in which religion wasn’t something to take too seriously. At the age of thirty-four, she entered church one day, only to hear a rather blunt message from Heaven: “Clare, try to say one Our Father and one Hail Mary to the glory of God, without thinking of other things!” Chastened by this rebuke, she took her religious duties more seriously.
Which is why St. Francis of Assisi, whenever he was about to enter church for Mass, or to pray, would say: “Worldly and frivolous thoughts, stay here at the door until I return!” Then he would go inside and pray with complete devotion. For this reason, too, the Franciscan priest, Blessed Thomas of Cori, insisted that the Divine Office be recited slowly and reverently, for as he said, “If the heart does not pray, the tongue works in vain!” Which reminds us again of the words of Our Lord: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6).
(9) We Pray Without Confidence―“O ye of little Faith!” Our Lord would often say, “Why didst thou doubt?” If there is one thing that we are faithful in, it is in doubting that God will hear and answer our prayers! Yet look at what happened to St. Zachary, the father of St. John the Baptist! Saint or not, he doubted the message of the Archangel Gabriel concerning the future conception of John the Baptist—and his doubt was punished by him being struck dumb and left speechless.
Moses—hero or not—doubted God in the desert, Who had promised that water would flow from a rock once Moses had struck it with the rod. Moses was punished for his lack of faith and confidence by being told he would die before the Israelites would enter the Promised Land. The examples are numerous. Low on confidence? Then let that be one of the first things you ask for in your prayers! Let us cry out with man in the Gospels: “And immediately the father of the boy crying out, with tears said: ‘I do believe, Lord! Help my unbelief!’” (Mark 9:23), or the Apostles: “And the Apostles said to the Lord: ‘Increase our Faith!’” (Luke 17:5).
(10) We Pray Without Any Intentions―As St. Louis de Montfort said: “It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. A fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible!” (St. Louis de Montfort, Secret of the Rosary). Pretty much all our worldly activities are done with an intention—yet when it comes to prayer, we “just do it”!
Acting without any intention would be regarding as a sign of madness—yet, in prayer, this is what is often done! We go to Mass and assist at Mass without formulating any intention. We might often pray our Rosary without any intention—we merely say it because we have to! It is like going through life without any goals or desires—just floating through life! A soldier does not just fire his gun wildly, spraying bullets here, there and everywhere. He has a target and he takes careful aim. Snipers are trained and expected to be able to kill with one bullet. That can only be achieved through taking careful aim at the target. Our prayers should follow the same example.
We Know All This, But...
The frightening and appalling thing is that we already know these things—we have heard them preached or read of them many a time! Yet it all flows off us like water off a duck’s back! The terrifying thing is that knowing these things brings a far heavier responsibility and culpability: “And that servant who knew the will of his lord, and prepared not himself, and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes” (Luke 12:47).
Unfortunately there will be no safety in numbers on Judgment Day! Furthermore, there will no miracles to be had in our day! Shoddy prayer just doesn’t work! It is time for us to really take ourselves to task over this matter—for we are losing many graces through this negligence and running up a very high debt that in justice will have to be punished sooner or later. If we pray like most people—then this is a bad sign! For most people, in the opinion of the spiritual masters, are lukewarm.
Article 15
Monday October 16th, 2023
Modern-Day Miracles of Protection
Monday October 16th, 2023
Modern-Day Miracles of Protection
Protective Miracles in Modern Times
You will be happy to know that God’s “Miracle Store” is not closed, nor has it gone out of business—the only problem is that it has very few paying customers! Miracles are not “freebies” but expensive items. You don’t want to pay the price? You don’t get the miracle! Yet the time is fast approaching—in view of current world events and past prophecies—when the only solution will be the miracle, because, humanly speaking, there is little or nothing that human efforts will achieve in the face of so much—and ever increasing—evil.
Sometimes we don’t want to pay for something that we know little about, or something that is much better than we imagine it to be. Let us therefore look at some of the miracles coming out of God’s “Miracle Store” in our more modern times, in the hope that they will “whet the appetite” (yes, it is “whet” and not “wet”. “Whet” means “to hone”, or “sharpen”) and give us both a confidence and a desire to try out God’s “Miracle Store” and browse the prices!
Finite versus Infinite
People are storing and hoarding guns, bullets, food and water—yet these are finite things and they run out. Or, if God’s providence wishes, an earthquake or a flood can wipe the whole store out in seconds! Remember that Our Lady says that in the upcoming chastisement, the good will perish with the bad! So we never know! However, as said, all human efforts and reserves are finite—but God is infinite. Of course, “God helps those who help themselves”, but Our Lord tells us to seek God first: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). This also means “Seek ye first the help of God, and all else will be added to you!” For God will not bless any endeavor, to any great degree, which does not have Him as its sincere and true foundation and end. Yet, when we turn to God first and foremost, then the words of St. Paul can be applied to our cause and plight: “If God be for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31).
Let’s Get Down to the Modern Day Miracles!
Hopefully, some of these miracles will give us a greater hope and trust in God and His miraculous powers—sinful though we may be! (More on that later).
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR ST. JOHN BOSCO—Grigio the Dog
Among all the amazing episodes in the life of Don Bosco, one of the greatest was the appearance of the dog “Grigio”—a huge grey dog that appeared suddenly at moments of danger, reappeared on many occasions and disappeared some years later when the danger was over. He required neither food, nor shelter, but was savage as a wolf against an enemy, but gentle as a lamb with the boys of the Oratory, and to whom St. John Bosco gave the name of Grigio--”the grey one.”
Don Bosco was once passing through the thickly populated quarter which lay near Valdocco late at night. It had a bad reputation―shady characters could skulk behind the tufts of scrub and brushwood and suddenly, without warning, burst our upon the passerby. Don Bosco had passed the last buildings of the town, when a huge grey dog suddenly appeared and walked by his side. He was startled at first, but as he found that the creature seemed friendly, he accepted its company and went on to the Orarory. When he reached the door the dog turned around and trotted off in the direction whence it had come. Every night henceforward, when Don Bosco was out late, the same thing happened. He found the dog waiting for him whenever there was a lonely part of the town to be traversed.
One night, he became aware of two suspicious-looking men who were following him, matching their pace to his. When he tried to avoid them by crossing the road, they crossed too. He decided to run back, but at the moment he did so they were on him. A cloak was thrown over his head and a handkerchief thrust into his mouth. He struggled to free himself and call for help, but it was useless. Suddenly, with a terrific howl, Grigio appeared and rushed upon them. Leaping on the one who held the cloak, he forced him to let go, then bit the second and flung him on to the ground. The first tried to escape, but Grigio was after him, rolled him into in the mud and stood over them both, growling furiously.
Another night, Don Bosco was on his way home when a man, hiding behind a tree, fired twice at him at such close range that it seems almost impossible that both shots had missed. Then, throwing away the pistol, the man rushed upon him. But, at this exact moment, Grigio mysteriously appeared and seized the man, and dragged him a few feet away, growling fiercely all the while. He then released the man, who instantly fled in terror, and the dog once more escorted Don Bosco home.
On another occasion it was from a whole band of thugs that this mysterious companion saved him. Don Bosco had reached a lonely spot when, hearing steps, he turned to see a man close to him with an uplifted stick. Don Bosco was a swift runner in those days, but his enemy was swifter and soon caught up with him. It was a moment for action. Don Bosco, with a well-directed blow of the fist, sent the man sprawling. His howl of pain brought several others out of the bushes where they had been hiding. They were all armed with heavy sticks, and things now looked black for Don Bosco. Once more, at the crucial moment, the terrific howl of Grigio was heard. He ran around and around his master, growling and showing his formidable teeth until one by one the ruffians turned and disappeared.
One night, instead of accompanying Don Bosco, Grigio went to the Oratory and refused to let him go out, lying down across the door of his room, for once growling and showing ill temper towards Don Bosco when he made the slightest attempt to dislodge him. “Don’t go out, John,” said his mother; “if you won’t listen to me, at least listen to that dog; he has more sense than you have.” Don Bosco gave in at last, and a quarter of an hour later a neighbor came in to warn him that he had overheard two rogues planning to attack him.
So how can the incredible timing and actions of “Grigio” the stray dog be explained? How is it that he mysteriously showed up at just the right moment on not one, but numerous occasions to literally save the life of Father John Bosco? Was Grigio an Angel in the form of a dog? Or was he simply a dog that was mysteriously guided by God to protect Don Bosco? But how then did he seem to appear out of nowhere? One thing is for sure―God was with St. Don Bosco because he had long ago given himself completely to the service of God, and God worked incredible miracles through his intercession, that he might be a holy example to all the poor boys who came to the Oratory that he had founded which literally became for them a heavenly refuge. (From the book St. John Bosco by F.A. Forbes, Tan Books).
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION BY ST. PADRE PIO—Monk in the Sky, 1940’s
During the Second World War, when American bombers flew over San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (the town where Padre Pio’s monastery was located), to drop their bombs, the pilots encountered a giant monk in the sky preventing them from completing their mission. Pilots were unable to complete their mission, and instead would return to the U.S. Commanding General reporting the occurrence. Padre Pio, who was still living at that time, had previously promised the town’s people that their city would be spared. This Second World War event was directly witnessed by the general of Aeronautica Italiana, Bernardo Rosini, who at that time was part of the “United Air Command” operating out of Bari with the Allied air forces. “Each time that the pilots returned from their missions,” General Rosini said, “they spoke of this Friar that appeared in the sky and diverted their airplanes, making them turn back.” (I Miracoli d Padre Pio, by Renzo Allegri, pages 110-111).
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FROM THE ATOMIC BOMB—Hiroshima, 1945
Around the same time that the “Monk in the Sky” was driving back American bombers from Padre Pio’s town of San Giovanni Rotondo, other American bombers were about to drop two Atomic Bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When the Atomic Bomb fell on Hiroshima, over 80,000 people were killed instantly. Thousands more would die later from radiation poisoning. Men, women and children endured incomprehensible suffering. The temperature at the center of the blast was said to be as hot as the surface of the sun. The heat evaporated metal, melted glass, and ignited clothing miles away. Eight square miles were reduced to ash in resulting fires. Those whose flesh had not melted away, faced horrible suffering in a variety of symptoms as the radiation destroyed the cells in their bodies.
Hiroshima was obliterated in seconds, but beneath the mushroom cloud, in the midst of horror, a miracle would rise from the ashes of destruction and bear witness to the power of the Rosary and the truth of the Promises of Our Lady of Fatima. Just blocks from the epicenter, the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption was severely damaged, but the stone walls were still standing. However, the rectory, which was a little further down the street, which housed eight Jesuit priests, was still standing having suffered only minor damage. Four of the priests were in the rectory when the bomb dropped. They were showered with glass and debris. Four other priests were in the surrounding vicinity but, they too, survived the initial blast.
Father Hubert Schiffer was one of these eight Jesuit survivors. He was 30 when the atomic bomb exploded at Hiroshima and lived another 33 years in good health. He recounted his experiences at Hiroshima during the Eucharistic Congress held in Philadelphia (USA) in 1976. At that time, all eight members of the Jesuit community were still alive. Fr. Schiffer, on the morning of August 6th, 1945, he had just finished Mass, went into the rectory and sat down at the breakfast table, and had just sliced a grapefruit, and had just put his spoon into the grapefruit when there was a bright flash of light. His first thought was that it was an explosion in the harbor (this was a major port where the Japanese refueled their submarines).
Then, in the words of Fr. Schiffer: “Suddenly, a terrific explosion filled the air with one bursting thunder stroke. An invisible force lifted me from the chair, hurled me through the air, shook me, battered me, whirled me ‘round and round like a leaf in a gust of autumn wind.” The next thing he remembered, he opened his eyes and he was lying on the ground. He looked around and there was NOTHING in any direction: the railroad station and buildings in all directions were leveled to the ground. The only physical harm to himself was that he could feel a few pieces of glass in the back of his neck. As far as he could tell, there was nothing else physically wrong with himself. After Japan’s surrender to the American forces, when the Americans army entered Japan, their army doctors and scientists explained to Fr. Schiffer that his body would begin to deteriorate because of the radiation. To the amazement of the doctors, Fr. Schiffer’s body contained no radiation, nor any ill-effects from the bomb.
There are no physical laws to explain why the Jesuits were untouched by radiation in the Hiroshima air blast. There is no other actual data, or test data, where a structure such as this was not totally destroyed at this standoff distance by an atomic weapon. All who were at this range from the epicenter should have received enough radiation to be dead within at most a matter of minutes if nothing else happened to them. There is no known way to design a uranium-235 atomic bomb, which could leave such a large discrete area intact, while destroying everything around it immediately outside the fireball (by shaping the plasma).
What follows is Dr. Stephen Rinehart’s commentary, on the subject of the Hiroshima atomic bomb blast. Within the U.S. Department of Defense, Rinehart is widely recognized as international expert in this field—here is his testimony:
“A quick calculation says at a-half-a-mile (from the epicenter of the bomb blast) the bulk temperature was in excess of 20,000 to 30,000 degrees Fahrenheit (transients in microseconds greater than 100,000⁰ F perhaps as high as 1,000,000⁰ F within 1 kilometer [about half-a-mile] — depends on construction details and you are inside the fireball) and the blast wave would have hit at sonic velocity with pressures on building (at one kilometer or about half-a-mile) greater than 600 psi [psi = pounds per square inch]. If the Jesuits (at one kilometer or about half-a-mile from the geometric epicenter) were outside the atomic bomb’s “plasma” their residence should still have been utterly destroyed (temp > 2,000⁰ F and air-blast pressures > 100 psi). Unreinforced masonry or brick walls (representative of commercial construction) are destroyed at 3 psi [3 pounds per square inch], which will also cause ear damage and burst windows. At 10 psi, a human will experience severe lung and heart damage, burst eardrums and at 20 psi your limbs can be blown off. Your head will be blown off by 40 psi and no human would be alive because your skull would be crushed. All the cotton clothes would be on fire at 350⁰ F and your lungs would be inoperative within a minute breathing air (even for a few seconds) at these temperatures. There is no way any human could have survived; nor should anything have left been standing within half-a-mile.
“At ten times the distance, about ten to fifteen kilometers I saw the brick walls standing from an elementary school and I think there were a few badly burned survivors; all died within fifteen years of some form of cancer). (Examining pictures taken from a panoramic view from epicenter of the blast at Shima Hospital looking for the Jesuit’s house) did show some kind of two story house totally intact (at least from what I could make out and it looked to me the windows were in place!?). Also there was a church with walls still standing but roof gone a few hundred yards away!? The Department of Defense never commented officially on this and I suspect it was classified and never discussed in open literature. I think it is possible the Jesuits were asked not to say anything either at the time” (Dr. Stephen Rinehart, U.S. Department of Defense).
Not only did they all survive with (at most) relatively minor injuries, but they all lived well past that awful day, with no radiation sickness, no loss of hearing, or any other visible long term defects or maladies. Naturally, they were interviewed numerous times (Fr. Schiffer said over 200 times) by scientists and health care people about their remarkable experience. The eight Jesuits say “we believe that we survived because we were living the message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that home.”
Fr. Schiffer feels that he received a protective shield from the Blessed Mother which protected him from all radiation and ill-effects. Fr. Schiffer attributes this to devotion to the Blessed Mother, and his daily Fatima Rosary; “in that house the Holy Rosary was recited together every day.” Of course the secular scientists are speechless and incredulous at this explanation — and they are sure there is some “real” explanation — but, at the same time, almost 70 years later, the scientists are still absolutely bamboozled when it comes to finding a plausible scenario to explain the missionaries unique escape from the hellish power of that bomb.
From a scientific viewpoint, what happened to those Jesuits at Hiroshima still defies all human logic from the laws of physics, as understood today (or at any time in the future). It must be concluded that some other external force was present, whose power and/or capability to transform energy and matter, as it relates to humans, is beyond current comprehension; a plausibility argument for the existence of a Creator who left his “calling card” at Hiroshima. As Our Lady of La Salette said: “God will look after His faithful ones!”
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FROM COMMUNISM—Austria, 1947-1955
At the end of the Second World Way, Austria had been partitioned into four zones occupied by the Allies: American, English, French, and Russian. The Russians were in control of the part that included the capital, Vienna, and the part richest in natural resources and industry; thus it was a very important acquisition for Moscow, which is why it garrisoned an extremely large number of troops there.
On November 25th, 1945, the national Austrian elections brought a resounding defeat for the Communists, who only won 4 seats out of a total of 165. Nevertheless, the Voice of the People, the Communist party newspaper, reported: “We have lost a battle, but we are just at the beginning of the war in Austria, and that war we shall win!” Indeed, pressure increased steadily in the occupied zone, accompanied by murders and looting, confirming Moscow’s intention to definitively annex the country.
It was then that a Franciscan priest intervened—Fr. Petrus Pavlicek (1901-1982). Returning from captivity in 1946, he made a pilgrimage in thanksgiving to Mariazell, the Magna Mater Austriae, the loving Mother of Austria. In his prayers, while asking Our Lady what he could do to deliver his country from the Communists, he heard a voice within say: “Do what I tell you—Pray the Rosary every day and there will be peace!”
After a year of reflection, on the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, February 2nd, 1947, he launched a Rosary crusade of reparation, in the spirit of Fatima, with the following goals: (1) reparation for the offenses given to God, (2) the conversion of sinners, (3) peace and salvation for the world, and especially for Austria.
A year later, in 1948, 10,000 persons had enlisted in the prayer crusade, including Chancellor Figl, the leading politician of the country. The faithful promised to recite the Rosary at home for the liberation of the country, public recitations were organized in the churches, and processions of several hundreds and sometimes thousands of people reciting the Rosary, wound their way through towns and villages.
In 1949, the situation became more and more critical, and the anxiety grew when it was learned what had happened in the adjoining countries—Czechoslovakia and Hungary had fallen into the hands of the Communists, and the Church was being persecuted; Cardinal Mindszenty had been judged and condemned. As new elections were coming up in Austria, Fr. Petrus decided to intensify the crusade—therefore, five days of public prayer were organized. At Vienna, confessions were heard day and night, and 50,000 people visited the Franciscan convent. The result was that the Communists only won five seats in the elections. But they did not intend to let it go at that, and everyone expected a coup d’etat (an illegal overthrowing of the existing government).
Pope Pius XII said to another Austrian priest at that time, during a private audience: “Vienna is the last rampart of Europe. If Vienna falls, Europe will fall. If Vienna stands fast, Europe will stand fast. The Catholics of Vienna do not have the right to be mediocre. Tell the Viennese again and again. And tell them that the Pope is praying a great deal, yes, that he is praying very much for Austria.”
Then Fr. Petrus organized a new public prayer rally of three days at Vienna, which was to conclude on September 12th, feast of the Holy Name of Mary, a great day of rejoicing in Austria, because it commemorates the victory of the Catholic armies over Islam, when in 1683, at the Battle of Vienna, the Polish, Austrian and German troops led by Sobieski, defeated the invading Ottoman Turks. Then Fr. Petrus decided to organize a great Rosary procession in the city center. The Archbishop of Vienna was reticent. He feared that the Catholics would not mobilize, so much had been asked of them already. But the federal Chancellor Figl replied: “Even if there are only two, I’ll be there! For our country, it is worth it!” There were 35,000 people, with Chancellor Figl at the head, Rosary and candle in hand.
It was just in time, for, by the end of the month, the Communists attempted a military coup d’etat. They proclaimed a general strike; the General Chancellery suffered an initial invasion and occupation by the Communist troops. But the anti-Communist unions launched their members, armed with sticks, to the counter-attack. The strike was broken and the revolutionary coup d’etat failed. The Rosary crusade at the time numbered 200,000 members.
Nonetheless, in Berlin, Germany, Molotov, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, taunted Chancellor Figl: “Have no hope. What we Russians once possess, we never let go!” Chancellor Figl communicated to Fr. Petrus: “Have them pray now more than ever!”
Fr. Petrus continued to crisscross the country to recruit members for the crusade. In April, 1955, it comprised 500,000 members. Then the new Chancellor, Raab, was summoned to Moscow. He wondered what was going to happen. He was received on a 13th of the month. On the evening of the interview he jotted in his agenda: “Today, a day of Fatima! The Russians are still hardened! Prayer to the Mother of God that she aid the Austrian people!”
Humanly speaking, all was lost. But it is exactly at such moments that God intervenes if one has kept the Faith, and if one has persevered in prayer. And in fact, in May 1955, there was a miracle. Contrary to all previsions, Molotov suddenly granted independence to Austria. After ten years of fights and struggles without issue, the Red menace disappeared as if by the stroke of a magic wand. The last Russian soldier left Austria on October 26th, 1955, the month of the Rosary. Thereafter, that date became a national holiday in Austria.
A grandiose thanksgiving ceremony was organized in Vienna at the Heroes Square in the presence of political and religious personages. All the speeches proclaimed the Virgin of the Rosary as the cause of the victory.
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION BY ST. MICHAEL—Korea, 1950
What good is a sword if you don’t use it? Well, such is the case for St. Michael the Archangel. He once said to a soul, that if people only had the slightest inkling of his power with almighty God, then we would fall over themselves in seeking his intercession and intervention! Here is the well-known account of such an intervention in Korea, giving miraculous protection to a U.S. Marine. What follows is a summary of the account, found in a letter that was written by a young Marine to his mother, while he was hospitalized after being wounded on a Korean battlefield in 1950. It came into the hands of a Navy Chaplain, who read the letter before 5,060 Marines at a San Diego Naval Base in 1951. The Navy chaplain had talked to the boy, to the boy’s mother and to the Sergeant in charge of the patrol. This navy chaplain, Father Walter Muldy, would always assure anyone who asked that this is a true story. It concerns a U.S. Marine named Michael had an encounter with his namesake In the Korean War (1950-53).
The U.S. Marine, Michael, was with an advance detail way up over the front lines, scouting the Communist locations. It was winter time and bitterly cold. Suddenly, Michael was joined by another Marine that he had never met before—a giant of a man, around 6’ 4”. When Michael commented that he had not seen him at the outset of the patrol, this strange Marine said he had joined the patrol at the last minute. The conversation and the events went thus (according to Michael’s letter to his mother):
“I just joined at the last minute”, he replied. “The name is Michael.”
“Is that so?!” I said surprised. “That is my name too!”
“I know,” he said and then went on, “Michael, Michael of the morning...”
I was too amazed to say anything for a minute. How did he know my name, and a prayer that you had taught me, mother? Then I smiled to myself, every guy in the outfit knew about me. Hadn’t I taught the prayer to anybody who would listen? Why now and then, they even referred to me as St. Michael!
Neither of us spoke for a time and then he broke the silence. “We are going to have some trouble up ahead!”
Trouble ahead, I thought to myself, well with the Commies all around us, that is no great revelation.
Snow then began to fall in great thick globs. In a brief moment the whole countryside was blotted out. And I was marching in a white fog of wet sticky particles. My companion disappeared.
“Michael!” I shouted in sudden alarm.
I felt his hand on my arm, his voice was rich and strong, “This will stop shortly.”
His prophecy proved to be correct. In a few minutes the snow stopped as abruptly as it had begun. The sun was a hard shining disc.
I looked back for the rest of the patrol, there was no one in sight. We lost them in that heavy fall of snow. I looked ahead as we came over a little rise. Mom, my heart stopped. There were seven of them. Seven Commies in their padded pants and jackets and their funny hats. Only there wasn’t anything funny about them now. Seven rifles were aimed at us.
“Down Michael!” I screamed and hit the frozen earth. I heard those rifles fire almost as one. I heard the bullets. There was Michael still standing. Mom, those guys couldn’t have missed, not at that range. I expected to see him literally blown to bits. But there he stood, making no effort to fire himself. He was paralyzed with fear. It happens sometimes, Mom, even to the bravest. He was like a bird fascinated by a snake. At least, that was what I thought then. I jumped up to pull him down and that was when I got mine. I felt a sudden flame in my chest. I often wondered what it felt like to be hit, now I know.
I remember feeling strong arms about me, arms that laid me ever so gently on a pillow of snow. I opened my eyes, for one last look. I was dying. Maybe I was even dead, I remember thinking “Well, this is not so bad!” Maybe I was looking into the sun. Maybe I was in shock. But it seemed I saw Michael standing erect again only this time his face was shining with a terrible splendor.
As I say, maybe it was the sun in my eyes, but he seemed to change as I watched him. He grew bigger, his arms stretched out wide, maybe it was the snow falling again, but there was a brightness around him like the wings of an angel. In his hand was a sword. A sword that flashed with a million lights.
Well, that is the last thing I remember until the rest of the fellas came up and found me. I do not now how much time had passed. Now and then I had but a moment’s rest from the pain and fever. I remember telling them of the enemy just ahead.
“Where is Michael?” I asked. I saw them look at one another.
“Where’s who?” asked one.
“Michael—that big Marine I was walking with, just before the snow squall hit us.”
“Kid,” said the sergeant, “You weren’t walking with anyone. I had my eyes on you the whole time. You were getting too far out. I was just going to call you in, when you disappeared in the snow.”
He looked at me, curiously. “How did you do it kid?”
“How’d I do what?” I asked half angry despite my wound. “This marine named Michael and I were just...”
“Son,” said the sergeant kindly, “I picked this outfit myself and there just ain’t another Michael in it. You are the only Mike in it.”
He paused for a minute, “Just how did you do it kid? We heard shots. There hasn’t been a shot fired from your rifle. And there isn’t a bit of lead in them seven bodies over the hill there!”
I didn’t say anything, what could I say. I could only look open-mouthed with amazement.
It was then the sergeant spoke again, “Kid,” he said gently, “every one of those seven Commies was killed by a sword stroke.”
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FROM COMMUNISM—Brazil, 1964
In 1964, President Joao Goulart attempted to organize the selling-out of his country to Communism, following the Cuban model. He had succeeded in infiltrating key governmental posts, as well as the schools and universities in most of the country. But, for almost all the preceding year, Fr. Patrick Peyton, of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, had preached a Rosary crusade, criss-crossing the country, in order to convince the faithful to turn to Our Lady.
In the moment of danger, the people remembered. It was the Brazilian women who mobilized first, parading by the millions in the streets of the cities while reciting the Rosary. Once, in the city of Belo Horizonte, they prevented a conference of Lionel Brizola, the Cuban Communist ambassador, from being held, when 3,000 of them surged into the hall where he was to speak, all the while praying the Rosary. On leaving, the Communist, Lionel Brizola, found the streets equally full, as far as the eye could see, with women praying. He departed the city with one of the most incendiary speeches of his career still in his pocket—undelivered.
On March 13th, 1964, President Goulart decreed the amendment of the Constitution, the abolition of Congress, and the confiscation of industries and farms. That unleashed the women’s riposte. The following text was passed throughout Brazil, denouncing President Goulart and his evil machinations:
“This immense and marvelous land, which God has given us, is in extreme peril! We have allowed men with unlimited ambition, devoid of all Christian faith and scruples, to bring misery to our people, to destroy our economy, to perturb our social peace, to sow hatred and despair. They have infiltrated our nation, our administrations, our army, and even our Church, with servants of a totalitarianism which is foreign to us and which would destroy all that we hold dear....Holy Mother of God, protect us from the fate that threatens us, and spare us the sufferings inflicted on the martyred women of Cuba, Poland, Hungary, and the other nations reduced to slavery.”
New, grandiose “Rosary marches” were organized in all the country, in which men, women and young people participated, while Luiz Carlos Prestes, head of the Brazilian Communist party, crowed, “We’ve already seized the power!”
But little by little, the president found himself abandoned on all sides. The governors of the states, the deputies, and army generals left him one after the other. On March 26th, to save the country, the military took power without any blood being shed. President Goulart and the Communist leaders of the unions fled.
On April 2nd, the entire population of Rio, and the surrounding cities, took to the streets for a gigantic prayer march, which ended in a grand finale of thanksgiving to Our Lord and Our Lady.
In July, Fr. Valerio Alberton, Promoter of the Marian confraternities of Brazil, traveled to Fatima to thank the most holy Virgin for the liberation of his country. “We have defeated them, thanks to Our Lady of the Rosary!” he declared. “It is the message of Fatima lived in Brazil, which has saved us!”
The repeated calls to prayer and penance according to the spirit of Fatima revived Faith, a Faith that moves mountains, and the impossible happened: the miracle of a great war won without bloodshed. The counter-revolutionary high command anticipated at least three months of heavy fighting. Then a force humanly speaking inexplicable caused, as if by enchantment, the entire military operation, which had been diabolically and patiently erected over the course of several years, to collapse like a house of cards. The evidence of a signal grace at work was so strong, that all were convinced that the unfolding of events did not have a human explanation. The civil and military leaders of the counter-revolution were almost unanimous in attributing this victory to a special grace of the most Blessed Virgin. Several declared that the Rosary had been the decisive weapon.
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION BY ST. PADRE PIO—Philadelphia, USA, 1983-84
On an icy December night, in December 1983, 17-year-old Paul Walsh crashed his car into a tree. According to one doctor who treated him, his head injuries were equivalent to dropping an egg on a cement sidewalk. His skull was shattered, all his facial bones were broken, and even a section of his brain was torn. Doctors at Crozier Chester Medical Center said he was irreversibly brain damaged and would never regain consciousness. But when you bring in the medicine of Faith and Hope, as well as a medical team from Heaven, then, as they say: “Never say never!”
According to a written statement, by Dr. Michael Ryan—one of the physicians who treated him—Paul Walsh’s recovery from massive head injuries in 1984 was “unexplained, on a purely medical and scientific basis … It is my feeling that without the help of the supernatural influence, Paul would today be dead or continue to be in a comatose state” said Dr. Ryan.
Paul Walsh’s mother, Betty, remembers every detail, from the moment she got the phone call on the night of the accident. She recalls: “The nurse told me to come to the hospital right away … It was hard to even recognize Paul. His face was so swollen, like a pumpkin, and totally wrapped in bandages. It didn’t look very good, but he did recognize my voice, because he moved when he heard me.”
The next morning, Paul underwent ten hours of surgery, losing four and half times the amount of blood in his body. They then transferred him to a better facility at Crozier-Chester Medical Center where his condition remained critical. There, after noticing a suspicious fluid dripping from his nose, a cat scan uncovered a tear in Paul’s brain—the fluid was his spinal fluid. At this point the medical team realized he was in a much more dangerous situation than they initially thought.
Attempts at repairing the torn brain failed, because the inside of Paul’s head was too shattered. They tried to drain the fluid with spinal taps and then a catheter, but Paul’s condition continued to deteriorate. He began slipping in and out of consciousness. A further cat scan showed he had developed hydrocephalus and the ventricles of his brain were filling with fluid. Emergency surgery tried to put a shunt in his head to drain the fluid, but they discovered yet another serious complication—Paul had contracted spinal meningitis. The doctors finally gave up all hope and told his mother: “You have to stop hoping ... The way he is now, is the way he’s going to be. He is permanently and irreversibly brain-damaged.” Even though Paul was alive, in essence, he was gone.
But Betty Walsh was a woman of Faith and would not give up on hope or her son. She says: “We just decided Paul needed a miracle … In the end, if Paul didn’t get better, I would accept it, but in the meantime, I was really going to believe I could have a miracle and I would at least pray with faith.”
A fellow Catholic gave her five prayer cards for people who were in the process of beatification and needed a miracle. Every day after Mass, Betty Walsh and her mother would go to the hospital and pray the Rosary over Paul, then they would say the five prayers for the five different people seeking beatification. “Whenever I came to the Padre Pio prayer, Paul blessed himself, even though he was totally unconscious,” said his mother.
Several people, including some of the nursing staff, witnessed these happenings. Betty Walsh informed a local group of Padre Pio devotees of this phenomenon and they sent someone to the hospital with one of the gloves worn by Padre Pio over the bloody stigmata wounds in his hands. After being blessed with this relic, one of Paul’s many serious ailments had miraculously vanished. The mother begged them to come again with the relic, which they did and laid the relic on his head. Immediately, his mother said, something “like an electric shock went through him! He opened his eyes and looked around the room, very clear-eyed. Then he fell back into the coma again—but I just knew something had happened.”
The following day, Betty Walsh returned to the hospital to find her son sitting in a chair and watching television. He turned towards her and said “Hi Mom!” The nurse rushed in and gushed: “He’s been talking all day!” When the nurse had called the neuro-surgeon to tell him Paul Walsh was talking, the doctor said, “It’s not possible!” and hung up on her.
After another cat scan, all the doctor kept saying was: “I don’t believe this! I don’t believe this!” The frontal lobe of his brain wasn’t smashed anymore. Even more inexplicable was what happened days later, on Easter Sunday morning, when Paul and his roommate woke up to find a man standing at the foot of Paul’s bed. Described as “an old priest in a brown robe,” Paul thought it was Betty’s brother, Charley, who bears a remarkable resemblance to Padre Pio. “I remember being very certain that my Uncle Charley had been in to visit me,” Paul said. “I did see him. He was very happy and smiled at me. And then he left the room.” Betty knew it couldn’t have been Charley, because he lives in Boston. She folded up a picture of Padre Pio, hiding the name, and showed it to Paul. “That’s who visited me,” Paul said. “Isn’t that Uncle Charley?”
Weeks later, Paul Walsh walked out of Crozier Chester Medical Center, completely healed. If there was any doubt in their minds that Padre Pio interceded in Paul’s healing, those doubts were put to rest a year after the accident when the family received an unexpected phone call from Bill Rose, who lived on the property where Paul hit the tree. Rose claimed he heard the crash the night of the accident and ran outside to find Paul laying on the ground with his face in a gutter. He knew the person was dying and while someone called for an ambulance, he held Paul’s head up out of the gutter and prayed for his soul. “Within three to five minutes of your son’s accident,” he told Betty Walsh, “I dedicated him to Padre Pio.”
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION BY ST. MICHAEL—Afghanistan 2010
The New York Times did not mention it. Several other news sources also ignored the fact. However, The Wall Street Journal did tell the story of a U.S. Marine who was shot squarely in the head by a sniper. The bullet penetrated the helmet, but did not kill the Marine. In fact, he was not even taken out of action. Lance Corporal Andrew Koenig had special protection! What most people do not know is that, inside the helmet, Lance Corporal Koenig had put a picture of St. Michael the Archangel.
The Wall Street Journal, of February 16th, 2010, reported that Lance Corporal Koenig turned his helmet over to display the picture card tucked inside, depicting St. Michael the Archangel crushing Lucifer’s head. “I don’t need luck,” he said. Afterwards, Lance Corporal Koenig put his dented helmet back on his head and climbed back to his rooftop duty within an hour of being hit.
Qualifying As “The Faithful Ones”
Hopefully these miracles give you hope. As Our Lady of La Salette said: “God will look after His faithful ones!” The one thing we must do, while we have time left, is to make sure that we get a sufficiently high grade or score, so that we make the grade of being counted among what God looks upon as “His faithful ones”! For as Holy Scripture says: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). “Many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14). Or as Our Lord says elsewhere: “For many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! Strive to enter by the narrow gate!” (Luke 13:24).
You will be happy to know that God’s “Miracle Store” is not closed, nor has it gone out of business—the only problem is that it has very few paying customers! Miracles are not “freebies” but expensive items. You don’t want to pay the price? You don’t get the miracle! Yet the time is fast approaching—in view of current world events and past prophecies—when the only solution will be the miracle, because, humanly speaking, there is little or nothing that human efforts will achieve in the face of so much—and ever increasing—evil.
Sometimes we don’t want to pay for something that we know little about, or something that is much better than we imagine it to be. Let us therefore look at some of the miracles coming out of God’s “Miracle Store” in our more modern times, in the hope that they will “whet the appetite” (yes, it is “whet” and not “wet”. “Whet” means “to hone”, or “sharpen”) and give us both a confidence and a desire to try out God’s “Miracle Store” and browse the prices!
Finite versus Infinite
People are storing and hoarding guns, bullets, food and water—yet these are finite things and they run out. Or, if God’s providence wishes, an earthquake or a flood can wipe the whole store out in seconds! Remember that Our Lady says that in the upcoming chastisement, the good will perish with the bad! So we never know! However, as said, all human efforts and reserves are finite—but God is infinite. Of course, “God helps those who help themselves”, but Our Lord tells us to seek God first: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). This also means “Seek ye first the help of God, and all else will be added to you!” For God will not bless any endeavor, to any great degree, which does not have Him as its sincere and true foundation and end. Yet, when we turn to God first and foremost, then the words of St. Paul can be applied to our cause and plight: “If God be for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31).
Let’s Get Down to the Modern Day Miracles!
Hopefully, some of these miracles will give us a greater hope and trust in God and His miraculous powers—sinful though we may be! (More on that later).
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR ST. JOHN BOSCO—Grigio the Dog
Among all the amazing episodes in the life of Don Bosco, one of the greatest was the appearance of the dog “Grigio”—a huge grey dog that appeared suddenly at moments of danger, reappeared on many occasions and disappeared some years later when the danger was over. He required neither food, nor shelter, but was savage as a wolf against an enemy, but gentle as a lamb with the boys of the Oratory, and to whom St. John Bosco gave the name of Grigio--”the grey one.”
Don Bosco was once passing through the thickly populated quarter which lay near Valdocco late at night. It had a bad reputation―shady characters could skulk behind the tufts of scrub and brushwood and suddenly, without warning, burst our upon the passerby. Don Bosco had passed the last buildings of the town, when a huge grey dog suddenly appeared and walked by his side. He was startled at first, but as he found that the creature seemed friendly, he accepted its company and went on to the Orarory. When he reached the door the dog turned around and trotted off in the direction whence it had come. Every night henceforward, when Don Bosco was out late, the same thing happened. He found the dog waiting for him whenever there was a lonely part of the town to be traversed.
One night, he became aware of two suspicious-looking men who were following him, matching their pace to his. When he tried to avoid them by crossing the road, they crossed too. He decided to run back, but at the moment he did so they were on him. A cloak was thrown over his head and a handkerchief thrust into his mouth. He struggled to free himself and call for help, but it was useless. Suddenly, with a terrific howl, Grigio appeared and rushed upon them. Leaping on the one who held the cloak, he forced him to let go, then bit the second and flung him on to the ground. The first tried to escape, but Grigio was after him, rolled him into in the mud and stood over them both, growling furiously.
Another night, Don Bosco was on his way home when a man, hiding behind a tree, fired twice at him at such close range that it seems almost impossible that both shots had missed. Then, throwing away the pistol, the man rushed upon him. But, at this exact moment, Grigio mysteriously appeared and seized the man, and dragged him a few feet away, growling fiercely all the while. He then released the man, who instantly fled in terror, and the dog once more escorted Don Bosco home.
On another occasion it was from a whole band of thugs that this mysterious companion saved him. Don Bosco had reached a lonely spot when, hearing steps, he turned to see a man close to him with an uplifted stick. Don Bosco was a swift runner in those days, but his enemy was swifter and soon caught up with him. It was a moment for action. Don Bosco, with a well-directed blow of the fist, sent the man sprawling. His howl of pain brought several others out of the bushes where they had been hiding. They were all armed with heavy sticks, and things now looked black for Don Bosco. Once more, at the crucial moment, the terrific howl of Grigio was heard. He ran around and around his master, growling and showing his formidable teeth until one by one the ruffians turned and disappeared.
One night, instead of accompanying Don Bosco, Grigio went to the Oratory and refused to let him go out, lying down across the door of his room, for once growling and showing ill temper towards Don Bosco when he made the slightest attempt to dislodge him. “Don’t go out, John,” said his mother; “if you won’t listen to me, at least listen to that dog; he has more sense than you have.” Don Bosco gave in at last, and a quarter of an hour later a neighbor came in to warn him that he had overheard two rogues planning to attack him.
So how can the incredible timing and actions of “Grigio” the stray dog be explained? How is it that he mysteriously showed up at just the right moment on not one, but numerous occasions to literally save the life of Father John Bosco? Was Grigio an Angel in the form of a dog? Or was he simply a dog that was mysteriously guided by God to protect Don Bosco? But how then did he seem to appear out of nowhere? One thing is for sure―God was with St. Don Bosco because he had long ago given himself completely to the service of God, and God worked incredible miracles through his intercession, that he might be a holy example to all the poor boys who came to the Oratory that he had founded which literally became for them a heavenly refuge. (From the book St. John Bosco by F.A. Forbes, Tan Books).
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION BY ST. PADRE PIO—Monk in the Sky, 1940’s
During the Second World War, when American bombers flew over San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (the town where Padre Pio’s monastery was located), to drop their bombs, the pilots encountered a giant monk in the sky preventing them from completing their mission. Pilots were unable to complete their mission, and instead would return to the U.S. Commanding General reporting the occurrence. Padre Pio, who was still living at that time, had previously promised the town’s people that their city would be spared. This Second World War event was directly witnessed by the general of Aeronautica Italiana, Bernardo Rosini, who at that time was part of the “United Air Command” operating out of Bari with the Allied air forces. “Each time that the pilots returned from their missions,” General Rosini said, “they spoke of this Friar that appeared in the sky and diverted their airplanes, making them turn back.” (I Miracoli d Padre Pio, by Renzo Allegri, pages 110-111).
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FROM THE ATOMIC BOMB—Hiroshima, 1945
Around the same time that the “Monk in the Sky” was driving back American bombers from Padre Pio’s town of San Giovanni Rotondo, other American bombers were about to drop two Atomic Bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When the Atomic Bomb fell on Hiroshima, over 80,000 people were killed instantly. Thousands more would die later from radiation poisoning. Men, women and children endured incomprehensible suffering. The temperature at the center of the blast was said to be as hot as the surface of the sun. The heat evaporated metal, melted glass, and ignited clothing miles away. Eight square miles were reduced to ash in resulting fires. Those whose flesh had not melted away, faced horrible suffering in a variety of symptoms as the radiation destroyed the cells in their bodies.
Hiroshima was obliterated in seconds, but beneath the mushroom cloud, in the midst of horror, a miracle would rise from the ashes of destruction and bear witness to the power of the Rosary and the truth of the Promises of Our Lady of Fatima. Just blocks from the epicenter, the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption was severely damaged, but the stone walls were still standing. However, the rectory, which was a little further down the street, which housed eight Jesuit priests, was still standing having suffered only minor damage. Four of the priests were in the rectory when the bomb dropped. They were showered with glass and debris. Four other priests were in the surrounding vicinity but, they too, survived the initial blast.
Father Hubert Schiffer was one of these eight Jesuit survivors. He was 30 when the atomic bomb exploded at Hiroshima and lived another 33 years in good health. He recounted his experiences at Hiroshima during the Eucharistic Congress held in Philadelphia (USA) in 1976. At that time, all eight members of the Jesuit community were still alive. Fr. Schiffer, on the morning of August 6th, 1945, he had just finished Mass, went into the rectory and sat down at the breakfast table, and had just sliced a grapefruit, and had just put his spoon into the grapefruit when there was a bright flash of light. His first thought was that it was an explosion in the harbor (this was a major port where the Japanese refueled their submarines).
Then, in the words of Fr. Schiffer: “Suddenly, a terrific explosion filled the air with one bursting thunder stroke. An invisible force lifted me from the chair, hurled me through the air, shook me, battered me, whirled me ‘round and round like a leaf in a gust of autumn wind.” The next thing he remembered, he opened his eyes and he was lying on the ground. He looked around and there was NOTHING in any direction: the railroad station and buildings in all directions were leveled to the ground. The only physical harm to himself was that he could feel a few pieces of glass in the back of his neck. As far as he could tell, there was nothing else physically wrong with himself. After Japan’s surrender to the American forces, when the Americans army entered Japan, their army doctors and scientists explained to Fr. Schiffer that his body would begin to deteriorate because of the radiation. To the amazement of the doctors, Fr. Schiffer’s body contained no radiation, nor any ill-effects from the bomb.
There are no physical laws to explain why the Jesuits were untouched by radiation in the Hiroshima air blast. There is no other actual data, or test data, where a structure such as this was not totally destroyed at this standoff distance by an atomic weapon. All who were at this range from the epicenter should have received enough radiation to be dead within at most a matter of minutes if nothing else happened to them. There is no known way to design a uranium-235 atomic bomb, which could leave such a large discrete area intact, while destroying everything around it immediately outside the fireball (by shaping the plasma).
What follows is Dr. Stephen Rinehart’s commentary, on the subject of the Hiroshima atomic bomb blast. Within the U.S. Department of Defense, Rinehart is widely recognized as international expert in this field—here is his testimony:
“A quick calculation says at a-half-a-mile (from the epicenter of the bomb blast) the bulk temperature was in excess of 20,000 to 30,000 degrees Fahrenheit (transients in microseconds greater than 100,000⁰ F perhaps as high as 1,000,000⁰ F within 1 kilometer [about half-a-mile] — depends on construction details and you are inside the fireball) and the blast wave would have hit at sonic velocity with pressures on building (at one kilometer or about half-a-mile) greater than 600 psi [psi = pounds per square inch]. If the Jesuits (at one kilometer or about half-a-mile from the geometric epicenter) were outside the atomic bomb’s “plasma” their residence should still have been utterly destroyed (temp > 2,000⁰ F and air-blast pressures > 100 psi). Unreinforced masonry or brick walls (representative of commercial construction) are destroyed at 3 psi [3 pounds per square inch], which will also cause ear damage and burst windows. At 10 psi, a human will experience severe lung and heart damage, burst eardrums and at 20 psi your limbs can be blown off. Your head will be blown off by 40 psi and no human would be alive because your skull would be crushed. All the cotton clothes would be on fire at 350⁰ F and your lungs would be inoperative within a minute breathing air (even for a few seconds) at these temperatures. There is no way any human could have survived; nor should anything have left been standing within half-a-mile.
“At ten times the distance, about ten to fifteen kilometers I saw the brick walls standing from an elementary school and I think there were a few badly burned survivors; all died within fifteen years of some form of cancer). (Examining pictures taken from a panoramic view from epicenter of the blast at Shima Hospital looking for the Jesuit’s house) did show some kind of two story house totally intact (at least from what I could make out and it looked to me the windows were in place!?). Also there was a church with walls still standing but roof gone a few hundred yards away!? The Department of Defense never commented officially on this and I suspect it was classified and never discussed in open literature. I think it is possible the Jesuits were asked not to say anything either at the time” (Dr. Stephen Rinehart, U.S. Department of Defense).
Not only did they all survive with (at most) relatively minor injuries, but they all lived well past that awful day, with no radiation sickness, no loss of hearing, or any other visible long term defects or maladies. Naturally, they were interviewed numerous times (Fr. Schiffer said over 200 times) by scientists and health care people about their remarkable experience. The eight Jesuits say “we believe that we survived because we were living the message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that home.”
Fr. Schiffer feels that he received a protective shield from the Blessed Mother which protected him from all radiation and ill-effects. Fr. Schiffer attributes this to devotion to the Blessed Mother, and his daily Fatima Rosary; “in that house the Holy Rosary was recited together every day.” Of course the secular scientists are speechless and incredulous at this explanation — and they are sure there is some “real” explanation — but, at the same time, almost 70 years later, the scientists are still absolutely bamboozled when it comes to finding a plausible scenario to explain the missionaries unique escape from the hellish power of that bomb.
From a scientific viewpoint, what happened to those Jesuits at Hiroshima still defies all human logic from the laws of physics, as understood today (or at any time in the future). It must be concluded that some other external force was present, whose power and/or capability to transform energy and matter, as it relates to humans, is beyond current comprehension; a plausibility argument for the existence of a Creator who left his “calling card” at Hiroshima. As Our Lady of La Salette said: “God will look after His faithful ones!”
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FROM COMMUNISM—Austria, 1947-1955
At the end of the Second World Way, Austria had been partitioned into four zones occupied by the Allies: American, English, French, and Russian. The Russians were in control of the part that included the capital, Vienna, and the part richest in natural resources and industry; thus it was a very important acquisition for Moscow, which is why it garrisoned an extremely large number of troops there.
On November 25th, 1945, the national Austrian elections brought a resounding defeat for the Communists, who only won 4 seats out of a total of 165. Nevertheless, the Voice of the People, the Communist party newspaper, reported: “We have lost a battle, but we are just at the beginning of the war in Austria, and that war we shall win!” Indeed, pressure increased steadily in the occupied zone, accompanied by murders and looting, confirming Moscow’s intention to definitively annex the country.
It was then that a Franciscan priest intervened—Fr. Petrus Pavlicek (1901-1982). Returning from captivity in 1946, he made a pilgrimage in thanksgiving to Mariazell, the Magna Mater Austriae, the loving Mother of Austria. In his prayers, while asking Our Lady what he could do to deliver his country from the Communists, he heard a voice within say: “Do what I tell you—Pray the Rosary every day and there will be peace!”
After a year of reflection, on the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, February 2nd, 1947, he launched a Rosary crusade of reparation, in the spirit of Fatima, with the following goals: (1) reparation for the offenses given to God, (2) the conversion of sinners, (3) peace and salvation for the world, and especially for Austria.
A year later, in 1948, 10,000 persons had enlisted in the prayer crusade, including Chancellor Figl, the leading politician of the country. The faithful promised to recite the Rosary at home for the liberation of the country, public recitations were organized in the churches, and processions of several hundreds and sometimes thousands of people reciting the Rosary, wound their way through towns and villages.
In 1949, the situation became more and more critical, and the anxiety grew when it was learned what had happened in the adjoining countries—Czechoslovakia and Hungary had fallen into the hands of the Communists, and the Church was being persecuted; Cardinal Mindszenty had been judged and condemned. As new elections were coming up in Austria, Fr. Petrus decided to intensify the crusade—therefore, five days of public prayer were organized. At Vienna, confessions were heard day and night, and 50,000 people visited the Franciscan convent. The result was that the Communists only won five seats in the elections. But they did not intend to let it go at that, and everyone expected a coup d’etat (an illegal overthrowing of the existing government).
Pope Pius XII said to another Austrian priest at that time, during a private audience: “Vienna is the last rampart of Europe. If Vienna falls, Europe will fall. If Vienna stands fast, Europe will stand fast. The Catholics of Vienna do not have the right to be mediocre. Tell the Viennese again and again. And tell them that the Pope is praying a great deal, yes, that he is praying very much for Austria.”
Then Fr. Petrus organized a new public prayer rally of three days at Vienna, which was to conclude on September 12th, feast of the Holy Name of Mary, a great day of rejoicing in Austria, because it commemorates the victory of the Catholic armies over Islam, when in 1683, at the Battle of Vienna, the Polish, Austrian and German troops led by Sobieski, defeated the invading Ottoman Turks. Then Fr. Petrus decided to organize a great Rosary procession in the city center. The Archbishop of Vienna was reticent. He feared that the Catholics would not mobilize, so much had been asked of them already. But the federal Chancellor Figl replied: “Even if there are only two, I’ll be there! For our country, it is worth it!” There were 35,000 people, with Chancellor Figl at the head, Rosary and candle in hand.
It was just in time, for, by the end of the month, the Communists attempted a military coup d’etat. They proclaimed a general strike; the General Chancellery suffered an initial invasion and occupation by the Communist troops. But the anti-Communist unions launched their members, armed with sticks, to the counter-attack. The strike was broken and the revolutionary coup d’etat failed. The Rosary crusade at the time numbered 200,000 members.
Nonetheless, in Berlin, Germany, Molotov, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, taunted Chancellor Figl: “Have no hope. What we Russians once possess, we never let go!” Chancellor Figl communicated to Fr. Petrus: “Have them pray now more than ever!”
Fr. Petrus continued to crisscross the country to recruit members for the crusade. In April, 1955, it comprised 500,000 members. Then the new Chancellor, Raab, was summoned to Moscow. He wondered what was going to happen. He was received on a 13th of the month. On the evening of the interview he jotted in his agenda: “Today, a day of Fatima! The Russians are still hardened! Prayer to the Mother of God that she aid the Austrian people!”
Humanly speaking, all was lost. But it is exactly at such moments that God intervenes if one has kept the Faith, and if one has persevered in prayer. And in fact, in May 1955, there was a miracle. Contrary to all previsions, Molotov suddenly granted independence to Austria. After ten years of fights and struggles without issue, the Red menace disappeared as if by the stroke of a magic wand. The last Russian soldier left Austria on October 26th, 1955, the month of the Rosary. Thereafter, that date became a national holiday in Austria.
A grandiose thanksgiving ceremony was organized in Vienna at the Heroes Square in the presence of political and religious personages. All the speeches proclaimed the Virgin of the Rosary as the cause of the victory.
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION BY ST. MICHAEL—Korea, 1950
What good is a sword if you don’t use it? Well, such is the case for St. Michael the Archangel. He once said to a soul, that if people only had the slightest inkling of his power with almighty God, then we would fall over themselves in seeking his intercession and intervention! Here is the well-known account of such an intervention in Korea, giving miraculous protection to a U.S. Marine. What follows is a summary of the account, found in a letter that was written by a young Marine to his mother, while he was hospitalized after being wounded on a Korean battlefield in 1950. It came into the hands of a Navy Chaplain, who read the letter before 5,060 Marines at a San Diego Naval Base in 1951. The Navy chaplain had talked to the boy, to the boy’s mother and to the Sergeant in charge of the patrol. This navy chaplain, Father Walter Muldy, would always assure anyone who asked that this is a true story. It concerns a U.S. Marine named Michael had an encounter with his namesake In the Korean War (1950-53).
The U.S. Marine, Michael, was with an advance detail way up over the front lines, scouting the Communist locations. It was winter time and bitterly cold. Suddenly, Michael was joined by another Marine that he had never met before—a giant of a man, around 6’ 4”. When Michael commented that he had not seen him at the outset of the patrol, this strange Marine said he had joined the patrol at the last minute. The conversation and the events went thus (according to Michael’s letter to his mother):
“I just joined at the last minute”, he replied. “The name is Michael.”
“Is that so?!” I said surprised. “That is my name too!”
“I know,” he said and then went on, “Michael, Michael of the morning...”
I was too amazed to say anything for a minute. How did he know my name, and a prayer that you had taught me, mother? Then I smiled to myself, every guy in the outfit knew about me. Hadn’t I taught the prayer to anybody who would listen? Why now and then, they even referred to me as St. Michael!
Neither of us spoke for a time and then he broke the silence. “We are going to have some trouble up ahead!”
Trouble ahead, I thought to myself, well with the Commies all around us, that is no great revelation.
Snow then began to fall in great thick globs. In a brief moment the whole countryside was blotted out. And I was marching in a white fog of wet sticky particles. My companion disappeared.
“Michael!” I shouted in sudden alarm.
I felt his hand on my arm, his voice was rich and strong, “This will stop shortly.”
His prophecy proved to be correct. In a few minutes the snow stopped as abruptly as it had begun. The sun was a hard shining disc.
I looked back for the rest of the patrol, there was no one in sight. We lost them in that heavy fall of snow. I looked ahead as we came over a little rise. Mom, my heart stopped. There were seven of them. Seven Commies in their padded pants and jackets and their funny hats. Only there wasn’t anything funny about them now. Seven rifles were aimed at us.
“Down Michael!” I screamed and hit the frozen earth. I heard those rifles fire almost as one. I heard the bullets. There was Michael still standing. Mom, those guys couldn’t have missed, not at that range. I expected to see him literally blown to bits. But there he stood, making no effort to fire himself. He was paralyzed with fear. It happens sometimes, Mom, even to the bravest. He was like a bird fascinated by a snake. At least, that was what I thought then. I jumped up to pull him down and that was when I got mine. I felt a sudden flame in my chest. I often wondered what it felt like to be hit, now I know.
I remember feeling strong arms about me, arms that laid me ever so gently on a pillow of snow. I opened my eyes, for one last look. I was dying. Maybe I was even dead, I remember thinking “Well, this is not so bad!” Maybe I was looking into the sun. Maybe I was in shock. But it seemed I saw Michael standing erect again only this time his face was shining with a terrible splendor.
As I say, maybe it was the sun in my eyes, but he seemed to change as I watched him. He grew bigger, his arms stretched out wide, maybe it was the snow falling again, but there was a brightness around him like the wings of an angel. In his hand was a sword. A sword that flashed with a million lights.
Well, that is the last thing I remember until the rest of the fellas came up and found me. I do not now how much time had passed. Now and then I had but a moment’s rest from the pain and fever. I remember telling them of the enemy just ahead.
“Where is Michael?” I asked. I saw them look at one another.
“Where’s who?” asked one.
“Michael—that big Marine I was walking with, just before the snow squall hit us.”
“Kid,” said the sergeant, “You weren’t walking with anyone. I had my eyes on you the whole time. You were getting too far out. I was just going to call you in, when you disappeared in the snow.”
He looked at me, curiously. “How did you do it kid?”
“How’d I do what?” I asked half angry despite my wound. “This marine named Michael and I were just...”
“Son,” said the sergeant kindly, “I picked this outfit myself and there just ain’t another Michael in it. You are the only Mike in it.”
He paused for a minute, “Just how did you do it kid? We heard shots. There hasn’t been a shot fired from your rifle. And there isn’t a bit of lead in them seven bodies over the hill there!”
I didn’t say anything, what could I say. I could only look open-mouthed with amazement.
It was then the sergeant spoke again, “Kid,” he said gently, “every one of those seven Commies was killed by a sword stroke.”
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FROM COMMUNISM—Brazil, 1964
In 1964, President Joao Goulart attempted to organize the selling-out of his country to Communism, following the Cuban model. He had succeeded in infiltrating key governmental posts, as well as the schools and universities in most of the country. But, for almost all the preceding year, Fr. Patrick Peyton, of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, had preached a Rosary crusade, criss-crossing the country, in order to convince the faithful to turn to Our Lady.
In the moment of danger, the people remembered. It was the Brazilian women who mobilized first, parading by the millions in the streets of the cities while reciting the Rosary. Once, in the city of Belo Horizonte, they prevented a conference of Lionel Brizola, the Cuban Communist ambassador, from being held, when 3,000 of them surged into the hall where he was to speak, all the while praying the Rosary. On leaving, the Communist, Lionel Brizola, found the streets equally full, as far as the eye could see, with women praying. He departed the city with one of the most incendiary speeches of his career still in his pocket—undelivered.
On March 13th, 1964, President Goulart decreed the amendment of the Constitution, the abolition of Congress, and the confiscation of industries and farms. That unleashed the women’s riposte. The following text was passed throughout Brazil, denouncing President Goulart and his evil machinations:
“This immense and marvelous land, which God has given us, is in extreme peril! We have allowed men with unlimited ambition, devoid of all Christian faith and scruples, to bring misery to our people, to destroy our economy, to perturb our social peace, to sow hatred and despair. They have infiltrated our nation, our administrations, our army, and even our Church, with servants of a totalitarianism which is foreign to us and which would destroy all that we hold dear....Holy Mother of God, protect us from the fate that threatens us, and spare us the sufferings inflicted on the martyred women of Cuba, Poland, Hungary, and the other nations reduced to slavery.”
New, grandiose “Rosary marches” were organized in all the country, in which men, women and young people participated, while Luiz Carlos Prestes, head of the Brazilian Communist party, crowed, “We’ve already seized the power!”
But little by little, the president found himself abandoned on all sides. The governors of the states, the deputies, and army generals left him one after the other. On March 26th, to save the country, the military took power without any blood being shed. President Goulart and the Communist leaders of the unions fled.
On April 2nd, the entire population of Rio, and the surrounding cities, took to the streets for a gigantic prayer march, which ended in a grand finale of thanksgiving to Our Lord and Our Lady.
In July, Fr. Valerio Alberton, Promoter of the Marian confraternities of Brazil, traveled to Fatima to thank the most holy Virgin for the liberation of his country. “We have defeated them, thanks to Our Lady of the Rosary!” he declared. “It is the message of Fatima lived in Brazil, which has saved us!”
The repeated calls to prayer and penance according to the spirit of Fatima revived Faith, a Faith that moves mountains, and the impossible happened: the miracle of a great war won without bloodshed. The counter-revolutionary high command anticipated at least three months of heavy fighting. Then a force humanly speaking inexplicable caused, as if by enchantment, the entire military operation, which had been diabolically and patiently erected over the course of several years, to collapse like a house of cards. The evidence of a signal grace at work was so strong, that all were convinced that the unfolding of events did not have a human explanation. The civil and military leaders of the counter-revolution were almost unanimous in attributing this victory to a special grace of the most Blessed Virgin. Several declared that the Rosary had been the decisive weapon.
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION BY ST. PADRE PIO—Philadelphia, USA, 1983-84
On an icy December night, in December 1983, 17-year-old Paul Walsh crashed his car into a tree. According to one doctor who treated him, his head injuries were equivalent to dropping an egg on a cement sidewalk. His skull was shattered, all his facial bones were broken, and even a section of his brain was torn. Doctors at Crozier Chester Medical Center said he was irreversibly brain damaged and would never regain consciousness. But when you bring in the medicine of Faith and Hope, as well as a medical team from Heaven, then, as they say: “Never say never!”
According to a written statement, by Dr. Michael Ryan—one of the physicians who treated him—Paul Walsh’s recovery from massive head injuries in 1984 was “unexplained, on a purely medical and scientific basis … It is my feeling that without the help of the supernatural influence, Paul would today be dead or continue to be in a comatose state” said Dr. Ryan.
Paul Walsh’s mother, Betty, remembers every detail, from the moment she got the phone call on the night of the accident. She recalls: “The nurse told me to come to the hospital right away … It was hard to even recognize Paul. His face was so swollen, like a pumpkin, and totally wrapped in bandages. It didn’t look very good, but he did recognize my voice, because he moved when he heard me.”
The next morning, Paul underwent ten hours of surgery, losing four and half times the amount of blood in his body. They then transferred him to a better facility at Crozier-Chester Medical Center where his condition remained critical. There, after noticing a suspicious fluid dripping from his nose, a cat scan uncovered a tear in Paul’s brain—the fluid was his spinal fluid. At this point the medical team realized he was in a much more dangerous situation than they initially thought.
Attempts at repairing the torn brain failed, because the inside of Paul’s head was too shattered. They tried to drain the fluid with spinal taps and then a catheter, but Paul’s condition continued to deteriorate. He began slipping in and out of consciousness. A further cat scan showed he had developed hydrocephalus and the ventricles of his brain were filling with fluid. Emergency surgery tried to put a shunt in his head to drain the fluid, but they discovered yet another serious complication—Paul had contracted spinal meningitis. The doctors finally gave up all hope and told his mother: “You have to stop hoping ... The way he is now, is the way he’s going to be. He is permanently and irreversibly brain-damaged.” Even though Paul was alive, in essence, he was gone.
But Betty Walsh was a woman of Faith and would not give up on hope or her son. She says: “We just decided Paul needed a miracle … In the end, if Paul didn’t get better, I would accept it, but in the meantime, I was really going to believe I could have a miracle and I would at least pray with faith.”
A fellow Catholic gave her five prayer cards for people who were in the process of beatification and needed a miracle. Every day after Mass, Betty Walsh and her mother would go to the hospital and pray the Rosary over Paul, then they would say the five prayers for the five different people seeking beatification. “Whenever I came to the Padre Pio prayer, Paul blessed himself, even though he was totally unconscious,” said his mother.
Several people, including some of the nursing staff, witnessed these happenings. Betty Walsh informed a local group of Padre Pio devotees of this phenomenon and they sent someone to the hospital with one of the gloves worn by Padre Pio over the bloody stigmata wounds in his hands. After being blessed with this relic, one of Paul’s many serious ailments had miraculously vanished. The mother begged them to come again with the relic, which they did and laid the relic on his head. Immediately, his mother said, something “like an electric shock went through him! He opened his eyes and looked around the room, very clear-eyed. Then he fell back into the coma again—but I just knew something had happened.”
The following day, Betty Walsh returned to the hospital to find her son sitting in a chair and watching television. He turned towards her and said “Hi Mom!” The nurse rushed in and gushed: “He’s been talking all day!” When the nurse had called the neuro-surgeon to tell him Paul Walsh was talking, the doctor said, “It’s not possible!” and hung up on her.
After another cat scan, all the doctor kept saying was: “I don’t believe this! I don’t believe this!” The frontal lobe of his brain wasn’t smashed anymore. Even more inexplicable was what happened days later, on Easter Sunday morning, when Paul and his roommate woke up to find a man standing at the foot of Paul’s bed. Described as “an old priest in a brown robe,” Paul thought it was Betty’s brother, Charley, who bears a remarkable resemblance to Padre Pio. “I remember being very certain that my Uncle Charley had been in to visit me,” Paul said. “I did see him. He was very happy and smiled at me. And then he left the room.” Betty knew it couldn’t have been Charley, because he lives in Boston. She folded up a picture of Padre Pio, hiding the name, and showed it to Paul. “That’s who visited me,” Paul said. “Isn’t that Uncle Charley?”
Weeks later, Paul Walsh walked out of Crozier Chester Medical Center, completely healed. If there was any doubt in their minds that Padre Pio interceded in Paul’s healing, those doubts were put to rest a year after the accident when the family received an unexpected phone call from Bill Rose, who lived on the property where Paul hit the tree. Rose claimed he heard the crash the night of the accident and ran outside to find Paul laying on the ground with his face in a gutter. He knew the person was dying and while someone called for an ambulance, he held Paul’s head up out of the gutter and prayed for his soul. “Within three to five minutes of your son’s accident,” he told Betty Walsh, “I dedicated him to Padre Pio.”
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION BY ST. MICHAEL—Afghanistan 2010
The New York Times did not mention it. Several other news sources also ignored the fact. However, The Wall Street Journal did tell the story of a U.S. Marine who was shot squarely in the head by a sniper. The bullet penetrated the helmet, but did not kill the Marine. In fact, he was not even taken out of action. Lance Corporal Andrew Koenig had special protection! What most people do not know is that, inside the helmet, Lance Corporal Koenig had put a picture of St. Michael the Archangel.
The Wall Street Journal, of February 16th, 2010, reported that Lance Corporal Koenig turned his helmet over to display the picture card tucked inside, depicting St. Michael the Archangel crushing Lucifer’s head. “I don’t need luck,” he said. Afterwards, Lance Corporal Koenig put his dented helmet back on his head and climbed back to his rooftop duty within an hour of being hit.
Qualifying As “The Faithful Ones”
Hopefully these miracles give you hope. As Our Lady of La Salette said: “God will look after His faithful ones!” The one thing we must do, while we have time left, is to make sure that we get a sufficiently high grade or score, so that we make the grade of being counted among what God looks upon as “His faithful ones”! For as Holy Scripture says: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). “Many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14). Or as Our Lord says elsewhere: “For many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! Strive to enter by the narrow gate!” (Luke 13:24).
Article 14
Sunday October 15th
Miracles of Protection
Sunday October 15th
Miracles of Protection
God Protects His Faithful Ones
As Our Lady of La Salette said, speaking of our times: “God will protect His faithful ones!” But as regards His enemies and unfaithful ones, Holy Scripture cries out: “The Lord is a jealous God, and a revenger! The Lord is a revenger and has wrath! The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He is angry with His enemies. The Lord is patient, and great in power, and will not cleanse and acquit the guilty. The Lord’s ways are in a tempest, and a whirlwind, and clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebukes the sea, and dries it up; and brings all the rivers to be a desert. Who can stand before the face of His indignation? And who shall resist in the fierceness of His anger? His indignation is poured out like fire: and the rocks are melted by Him. The Lord is good and gives strength in the day of trouble: and knows them that hope in Him. But with a flood that passes by, He will make an utter end of the place thereof: and darkness shall pursue His enemies” (Nahum 1:2-7).
Endless Verses About God’s Protection
There are endless verses in Holy Scripture that give assurances that God is there to protect those that are faithful to Him. It suffices to quote but a few:
“We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).
“If thou go out to war against thy enemies, and see horsemen and chariots, and the numbers of the enemy’s army greater than thine, thou shalt not fear them: because the Lord thy God is with thee … The Lord your God is in the midst of you, and will fight for you against your enemies, to deliver you from danger” (Deuteronomy 20:1; 4).
“A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand―but it shall not come near thee” (Psalm 90:7).
“God is … a buckler to them that hope in Him” (Proverbs 30:5). “God … is the shield of all that trust in Him” (2 Kings 22:31).
“The Lord shall cause thy enemies, that rise up against thee, to fall down before thy face. One way shall they come out against thee, and seven ways shall they flee before thee” (Deuteronomy 28:7).
“You see, that the Lord your God is with you, and … has delivered all your enemies into your hands, and the land is subdued before the Lord, and before His people. Give therefore your hearts and your souls, to seek the Lord your God!” (1 Paralipomenon 22:18-19).
EXAMPLES OF MIRACLES OF PROTECTION
1. Protective Miracles in Old Testament Times
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FROM ENEMIES—Red Sea Disaster for Egyptians : “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Speak to the children of Israel! Let them turn and encamp over against … the sea. And Pharao will say of the children of Israel: “They are straitened in the land, the desert has shut them in!” And I shall harden his heart, and he will pursue you: and I shall be glorified in Pharao, and in all his army: and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord!’ ... And they did so.
“And it was told to the king of the Egyptians that the people was fled: and the heart of Pharao and of his servants was changed with regard to the people, and they said: ‘Why did we let Israel go from serving us?’ So he made ready his chariot, and took all his people with him. And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots that were in Egypt: and the captains of the whole army. And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharao king of Egypt, and he pursued the children of Israel. And the Egyptians followed and found them encamped at the sea side. And when Pharao drew near, with all of Pharao’s horses and chariots, and the whole army, the children of Israel, lifting up their eyes, saw the Egyptians behind them: and they feared exceedingly, and cried to the Lord.
“And they said to Moses: ‘Perhaps there were no graves in Egypt, therefore thou hast brought us to die in the wilderness! Why wouldst thou do this, to lead us out of Egypt? Did we not say to you in Egypt: “Depart from us that we may serve the Egyptians!”? For it was much better to serve them, than to die in the wilderness. And Moses said to the people: ‘Fear not! Stand and see the great wonders of the Lord, which He will do this day! For the Egyptians, whom you see now, you shall see no more forever! The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace!’
“And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Why criest thou to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward. Lift up thy rod, and stretch forth thy hand over the sea, and divide it: that the children of Israel may go through the midst of the sea on dry ground. I will harden the heart of the Egyptians to pursue you: and I will be glorified in Pharao, and in all his host, and in his chariots, and in his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall be glorified in Pharao, and in his chariots and in his horsemen!’
“And when Moses had stretched forth his hand over the sea, the Lord took it away by a strong and burning wind blowing all the night, and turned it into dry ground: and the water was divided. And the children of Israel went in through the midst of the sea dried up―for the water was as a wall on their right hand and on their left. And the Egyptians pursuing went in after them, and all Pharao’s horses, his chariots and horsemen through the midst of the sea. When the morning watch was come, the Lord, looking upon the Egyptian army through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, slew their host; and overthrew the wheels of the chariots, and they were carried into the deep. And the Egyptians said: ‘Let us flee from Israel―for the Lord fights for them against us!’
“And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Stretch forth thy hand over the sea, so that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and horsemen!’ And when Moses had stretched forth his hand towards the sea, it returned at the first break of day to the former place―and as the Egyptians were fleeing away, the waters came upon them, and the Lord shut them up in the middle of the waves. And the waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen of all the army of Pharao, who had come into the sea after them, neither did there so much as one of them remain.
“But the children of Israel marched, through the midst of the sea, upon dry land, and the waters were to them as a wall on the right hand and on the left: and the Lord delivered Israel on that day out of the hands of the Egyptians. And they saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore, and the mighty hand that the Lord had used against them: and the people feared the Lord, and they believed the Lord, and Moses His servant” (Exodus 14:1-31).
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FROM HUNGER—Manna in the Desert : “After they came out of the land of Egypt, the children of Israel came into the desert of Sin … And all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them: ‘Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat over the flesh pots, and ate bread to the full! Why have you brought us into this desert? Is it that you might destroy all the multitude with famine?’ And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Behold I will rain bread from heaven for you! Let the people go forth and gather what is sufficient for every day―so that I may test them whether they will walk in My law, or not. But the sixth day let them provide for the Sabbath―and let it be double to that they were used to gathering every day.’
“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ‘I have heard the murmuring of the children of Israel! Say to them: “In the evening you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread!” and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’
“So it came to pass in the evening, that quails coming up, covered the camp: and in the morning, a dew lay round about the camp. And when it had covered the face of the earth, it appeared in the wilderness small, and as it were beaten with a pestle, like unto the hoar frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another: “Manhu?” (Manna) which signifies: “What is this?” For they knew not what it was. And Moses said to them: ‘This is the bread, which the Lord hath given you to eat!’ And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed white, and the taste thereof like to flour with honey” (Exodus 16:1-31).
Forty years of supplying sustenance for over 2 million people! That is a low estimate―some estimate them the Israelites to have numbered as many as 6 million! Each and every day for forty years! Just think of the truckloads that would be needed today to supply 2 million people for one meal a day! God supplied an incredible amount! Just do the math: 2,000,000 x 365 x 40. That comes to 29,200,000,000 meals, or twenty-nine thousand two hundred million meals, or 29.2 billion meals! Or if there were 6 million people―then we are talking about almost 70 billion meals! Some catering project!
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FROM THIRST—Water in the Desert : “Then all the multitude of the children of Israel setting forward from the desert of Sin, encamped in Raphidim, where there was no water for the people to drink. And they remonstrated with Moses, and said: ‘Give us water, that we may drink!’ And Moses answered them: ‘Why do you chide me? Do you tempt the Lord?’
The people were thirsty there for want of water, and murmured against Moses, saying: ‘Why didst thou make us go forth out of Egypt? Was it to kill us and our children, and our beasts with thirst?’
And Moses cried to the Lord, saying: ‘What shall I do to this people? Yet a little more and they will stone me!’ And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Go before the people, and take with thee of the ancients of Israel―and take in thy hand the rod, wherewith thou didst strike the river, and go! Behold I will stand there before thee upon the rock, Horeb: and thou shalt strike the rock, and water shall come out of it that the people may drink.’
Moses did so before the ancients of Israel. And he called the name of that place Temptation, because the chiding of the children of Israel, and for that they tempted the Lord, saying: ‘Is the Lord amongst us or not?’” (Exodus 17:1-7).
We are not talking about a few gallons of water here! There were anywhere from 2 million to 5 million people, plus their livestock , that needed water!
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR CLOTHING—Clothing & Sandals Preserved : “Moses called all Israel, and said to them: ‘You have seen all the things that the Lord did before you in the land of Egypt to Pharao, and to all his servants, and to his whole land ... He has brought you forty years through the desert! Your garments are not worn out, neither are the shoes of your feet consumed with age!” (Deuteronomy 29:2-5). You try walking for 40 years with one single pair of sandals! No way! However, I guess they could learn thriftiness into the bargain.
No wonder that in the New Testament, speaking to His followers, “commanded them that they should take nothing for the way, but a staff only: no scrip, no bread, nor money in their purse; but to be shod with sandals, and that they should not put on two coats” (Mark 6:8-9). Seems like He was simply carrying on His Father’s way of doing things! This was pretty much the way He Himself lived!
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR THE FAITHFUL—Three Young Men in Fire : During the time of the Babylonian Captivity, when many Israelites were abandoning the Faith in favor of the worldliness that surrounded them, God showed His miraculous protection to those who would not renounce their Faith. One such case was that of the three young men who were preserved from being burnt alive.
While Joakim was ruling over the land of Juda, Nabuchodonosor, a great conqueror of the nations, came from Babylon with his army of Chaldean soldiers. He took the city of Jerusalem, and made Joakim promise to submit to him as his master. And when Nabuchodonosor went back to his own land he took with him all the gold and silver that he could find in the Temple; and he carried away as captives very many of the princes and nobles, the best people in the land of Juda.
When these Jews were brought as captives to the land of Chaldea, or Babylon, King Nabuchodonosor gave orders to the prince, who had charge of his palace, to choose from among these Jewish captives some young men who were of noble rank, and beautiful in their looks, and also quick and bright in their minds; young men who would be able to learn readily. These young men were to be placed under the care of wise men, who should teach them all that they knew, and fit them to stand before the King of Babylon, so that they might be his helpers to carry out his orders; and the king wished them to be wise, so that they might give him advice in ruling his people.
Among the young men thus chosen were four Jews, men who had been brought from Judah. By order of the king the names of these men were changed. One of them, named Daniel; the other three young men were called Ananias, Misael, and Azarias. The master of the eunuchs gave them other names: to Daniel, Baltassar: to Ananias, Sidrach: to Misael, Misach: and to Azarias, Abdenago. They were taught in all the knowledge of the Chaldeans; and after three years of training they were taken into the king’s palace. King Nabuchodonosor was pleased with them, more than with any others who stood before him. He found them wise and faithful in the work given to them, and able to rule over men under them. And these four men came to the highest places in the kingdom of the Chaldeans.
At one time King Nabuchodonosor caused a great image to be made, and to be covered with gold. This image he set up, as an idol to be worshipped, on the plain of Dura, near the city of Babylon. When it was finished, it stood upon its base, or foundation, almost a hundred feet high; so that, upon the plain, it could be seen from far away. Then the king sent out a command for all the princes, and rulers, and nobles in the land, to come to a great gathering, when the image was to be set apart for worship. The great men of the kingdom came from far and near and stood around the image. Among them, by command of the king, were Daniel’s three friends, the young Jews, Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago. For some reason, Daniel himself was not there. He may have been busy with the work of the kingdom in some other place.
At one moment in the service before the image, all the trumpets sounded, the drums were beaten, and music was made upon musical instruments of all kinds, as a signal for all the people to kneel down and worship the great golden image. But while the people were kneeling, there were three men who stood up, and would not bow down. These were the three young Jews, Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago. They knelt down before the Lord God only.
Many of the nobles had been jealous of these young men, because they had been lifted to high places in the rule of the kingdom; and these men, who hated Daniel and his friends, were glad to find that these three men had not obeyed the command of King Nabuchodonosor. The king had said that if any one did not worship the golden image he should be thrown into a furnace of fire.
These men, who hated the Jews, came to the king and said: “O king, live forever! Thou, O king, hast made a decree that every man that shall hear the sound of the trumpet, the flute, and the harp, of the sackbut, and the psaltery, of the symphony, and of all kind of music, shall prostrate himself, and adore the golden statue: and that if any man shall not fall down and adore, he should be cast into a furnace of burning fire. Now there are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the works of the province of Babylon—Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago. These men, O king, have slighted thy decree—they worship not thy gods, nor do they adore the golden statue which thou hast set up.” (Daniel 3:9-12).
Then Nabuchodonosor was filled with rage and fury at knowing that any one should dare to disobey his words. He sent for these three men and said to them: “Is it true, O Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, that you do not worship my gods, nor adore the golden statue that I have set up? Now, therefore, if you be ready, at what hour soever you shall hear the sound of the trumpet, flute, harp, sackbut, and psaltery, and symphony, and of all kind of music, prostrate yourselves and adore the statue which I have made! But if you do not adore, you shall be cast, at the same hour, into the furnace of burning fire—and who is the God that shall deliver you out of my hand?” (Daniel 3:14-15).
A little like today, where the insurgents in the Middle East and elsewhere, are targeting Christians and asking them to denounce Christ or be beheaded or killed in some other way! How many have the courage of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago?
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR THE FAITHFUL—Daniel in the Lion’s Den : Another incident in the time of the Babylonian Captivity, was that of the fidelity of Daniel (who was called Baltassar by the Babylonians) , a colleague of Ananias (Sidrach), Misael (Misach), and Azarias (Abdenago), who also preferred potential death rather than renounce the one true God.
Daniel had made a name for himself in successfully interpreting dreams for the king. With one king after another he rose in estimation and rose in the ranks: “Daniel excelled all the princes, and governors―because a greater spirit of God was in him. And the king thought to set him over all the kingdom―whereupon the princes and the governors sought to find occasion against Daniel with regard to the king: but they could find no cause, nor suspicion, because he was faithful, and no fault, nor suspicion was found in him” (Daniel 6:3-4).
Thus the princes, magistrates, governors, senators and judges conspired together to have an imperial decree and edict published that would entrap the faithful Daniel. They approached King Darius and counseled “that whosoever shall ask any petition of any god, or man, for thirty days, but of thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, therefore, O king, confirm the sentence, and sign the decree: that what is decreed may not be altered, nor any man be allowed to transgress it.” (Daniel 6:7-8). King Darius fulfilled their wishes and decree was published throughout the kingdom. Now when Daniel discovered that this law was made, he nevertheless adored and gave thanks before his God, three times a day, as he had been accustomed to do before.
When his enemies found Daniel praying and making supplication to his God, they approached the king and denounced Daniel and demanded that he should be cast into the den of the lions. Now when the king had heard these accusations, he was grieved, and, on behalf of Daniel, he set his heart to deliver him and labored hard to find a way to save him. Daniel’s enemies, realizing this, insisted that the king could not break his own law. The king requested that Daniel be brought to him and, before reluctantly placing him in the lion’s den, said to him: “Thy God, whom thou always servest, He will deliver thee!” The disconsolate king went away to his house and laid down without taking supper, and could not sleep all night.
“Then, rising very early in the morning, the king went in haste to the lions’ den: and coming near to the den, cried with a lamentable voice to Daniel, and said to him: ‘Daniel! Servant of the living God! Hath thy God, whom thou servest always, been able, thinkest thou, to deliver thee from the lions?’ And Daniel answering the king, said: ‘O king! Live forever! My God hath sent His angel, and hath shut up the mouths of the lions, and they have not hurt me! Forasmuch as, before Him, justice hath been found in me: yea and before thee, O king, I have done no offence!’ Then was the king exceeding glad for him, and he commanded that Daniel should be taken out of the den: and Daniel was taken out of the den, and no hurt was found in him, because he believed in his God. And by the king’s commandment, those men were brought that had accused Daniel: and they were cast into the lions’ den, they and their children, and their wives: and they did not reach the bottom of the den, before the lions caught them, and broke all their bones in pieces” (Daniel 6:7-24).
God looks after His faithful ones! Yet that faithfulness must sometimes be sorely tried!
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION IN WAR—Angels Protect Judas Machabeus : We see the miraculous intervention of angels, who came and joined in battle, protecting Judas Machabeus and the Jews against pagan invaders. “Timotheus, having called together a multitude of foreign troops and assembled horsemen out of Asia, came to Judea by force of arms. But Judas Machabeus, and they that were with him, when Timotheus drew near, prayed to the Lord, sprinkling earth upon their heads and girding their loins with haircloth, and lying prostrate at the foot of the altar, besought him to be merciful to them, and to be an enemy to their enemies, and an adversary to their adversaries, as the Law of God saith. And so, after prayer, taking their arms, they went forth from the city, and when they were come very near the enemies, they rested. But as soon as the sun was risen, both sides joined battle―the one part having, with their valor, the Lord for a surety of victory and success; but the other side making their rage their leader in battle. But when they were in the heat of the engagement, there appeared, to the enemies, from Heaven, five men upon horses, comely with golden bridles, leading the Jews. Two of whom took Judas Machabeus between them, and covered him on every side with their arms, and kept him safe―but cast darts and fireballs against the enemy, so that they fell down, being both confounded with blindness, and filled with trouble. And there were slain twenty thousand five hundred soldiers, and six hundred horsemen. But Timotheus fled into Gazara” (2 Machabees 10:24-31).
Thus we see that even in a bloody war, God will gladly add His forces to those of His faithful followers! God looks after His faithful ones! Yet that faithfulness must sometimes be sorely tried! The Machabees suffered greatly in trying to protect the Jewish religion from paganization.
2. Protective Miracles in Our Lord’s Times
There are few incidents where the Apostles were miraculously protected in the early days of the Church.
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR THE APOSTLES—in a Stormy Sea : “And it came to pass on a certain day that Jesus went into a little ship with His disciples, and He said to them: ‘Let us go over to the other side of the lake!’ And they launched forth. And while they were sailing, He slept. And there came down a storm of wind upon the lake, and the boat was filling with water and they were in danger. So they came and awakened Him, saying: ‘Master! We perish!’ But He, arising, rebuked the wind and the rage of the water—and it ceased, and there was a calm. And then He said to them: ‘Where is your faith?’” (Luke 8:22-25).
Today, the Ark of the Church is in a similar crisis—it is filling up and sinking with worldliness and sin. We fear that it will perish! We must always remember that Our Lord is in charge and He knows, sees and allows this to currently happen. He seems to sleep—but when He decides to awake, He will most certainly take care of things!
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR ST. PAUL—From the Viper : “And when we had escaped, then we knew that the island was called Melita. But the barbarians showed us no small courtesy. For kindling a fire, they refreshed us all, because of the present rain, and of the cold. And when Paul had gathered together a bundle of sticks, and had laid them on the fire, a viper coming out of the heat, fastened on his hand. And when the barbarians saw the beast hanging on his hand, they said one to another: ‘Undoubtedly this man is a murderer, who though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance doth not suffer him to live!’ And he indeed shaking off the beast into the fire, suffered no harm. But they supposed that he would begin to swell up, and that he would suddenly fall down and die. But expecting long, and seeing that there came no harm to him, changing their minds, they said, that he was a god” (Acts 28:1-6).
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR ST. JOHN—From Boiling Oil : During this time there had begun a persecution against Christians under the emperor Nero (56-68). They took away the Apostle John for trial at Rome. The Apostle John was sentenced to death for his confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but the Lord preserved His chosen one. The apostle drank out of a cup prepared for him with deadly poison, but he remained alive. In the year 95, during the second general persecution under Emperor Domitian, John was arrested in Asia and sent to Rome as a prisoner, where he miraculously escaped martyrdom. Tertullian says that he emerged unscathed from a cauldron of boiling oil. His persecutors attributed the miracle to sorcery and he was exiled to the island of Patmos. Until its removal from the Roman calendar in 1960, this event used to be commemorated liturgically in the Western Church on May 6th, as the Feast of Saint John before the Latin Gate (ante Portam Latinam). On account of this trial he is given also the title martyr, although he was the only Apostle who did not suffer martyrdom. He did, however, thus fulfill what Christ had foretold that he should drink of his chalice of suffering. The emperor then decided to send him into a solitary exile on the Island of Patmos.
3. Protective Miracles in the Early Church
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR ST. AGNES—Brothel : St. Agnes was a thirteen-year-old Roman girl who suffered martyrdom for her Faith. Yet before that eventual martyrdom, she was miraculously protected by God. Agnes had made a promise to God never to stain her purity. Since she was very beautiful, many young men wished to marry Agnes, but she would always say: “Jesus Christ is my only Spouse.” Procop, the Governor’s son, became enraged when she refused him. He had tried to win her for his wife with rich gifts and promises, but the beautiful young girl kept saying: “I am already promised to the Lord of the Universe. He is more splendid than the sun and the stars, and He has said He will never leave me!” In great anger, Procop accused her of being a Christian and brought her to his father, the Governor. The Governor promised Agnes wonderful gifts if she would only deny God, but Agnes refused. He tried to change her mind by putting her in chains, but her lovely face shone with joy. Next he sent her to a place of sin, but an Angel protected her. At last, she was condemned to death. She did not pay attention to those who begged her to save herself. “I would offend my Spouse,” she said, “if I were to try to please you. He chose me first and He shall have me!” Then she prayed and bowed her head for the death-stroke of the sword.
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR ST. PHILOMENA : In a private revelation, approved by the Church, St. Philomena revealed the chief circumstances of her life, of which we take a few extracts to show God’s miraculous protection for her person. St. Philomena reveals that her parents “took me to Rome on a journey that my father was obliged to make on the occasion of an unjust war, with which he was threatened by the haughty Diocletian. I was then thirteen years old. “On our arrival in the capital of the world, we proceeded to the palace of the Emperor and were admitted for an audience. As soon as Diocletian saw me, his eyes were fixed upon me. These are the Emperor’s words: ‘I shall place at your disposal all the force of the Empire. I ask only one thing, that is the hand of your daughter.’ My father dazzled with an honor he was far from expecting, willingly acceded on the spot to the proposal of the Emperor.
“When we returned to our own dwelling, Father and Mother did all they could to induce me to yield to Diocletian’s wishes and to theirs. I cried. ‘Do you wish that for the love of a man I should break the promise I have made to Jesus Christ? My virginity belongs to Him. I can no longer dispose of it.’ My Father made the most terrible threats in commanding me to accept the hand of Diocletian. The grace of my God rendered me invincible. My mother, uniting her efforts to his, endeavored to conquer my resolution. Caresses, threats, everything was employed to reduce me to compliance. At last I saw both of my parents fall at my knees and say to me with tears in their eyes: ‘My child, have pity on your father, your mother, your country, our country, our subjects!’ I answered: ‘No, no! My virginity, which I have vowed to God, comes before everything―before you, before my country! My kingdom is Heaven!’
“They brought me before the Emperor who, on his part, did all in his power to win me. But his promises, his allurements, his threats, were equally useless. He then got into a violent fit of anger and, influenced by the devil, had me cast into one of the prisons of the palace, where I was loaded with chains. Thinking that pain and shame would weaken the courage with which my Divine Spouse inspired me, he came to see me every day. After several days, the Emperor issued an order for my chains to be loosed that I might take a small portion and bread and water. He renewed his attacks, some of which, if not for the grace of God, would have been fatal to purity. The defeats which he always experienced were for me to preludes to new tortures. Prayer supported me. I ceased not to recommend myself to Jesus and His most pure Mother.
“My captivity lasted thirty-seven days. Then, in the midst of a heavenly light I saw Mary holding her Divine Son in her arms. ‘My daughter’ she said to me, ‘three days more of prison and after forty days you shall leave this state of pain. Fear not, I will aid you. In the moment of struggle, grace will come to you to lend its force. The angel who is mine also, Gabriel, whose name expresses force, will come to your aid. I will recommend you especially to his care!’ What the Queen of Angels had prepared for me was soon experienced. Diocletian, despairing of bending me, decided upon public chastisement to offend my virtue. He condemned me to be stripped and scourged like the Spouse that I preferred to him. These were his horrifying words: ‘Since she is not ashamed to prefer, to an Emperor like me, as malefactor condemned to an infamous death by His own people, she deserves that my justice shall treat her as He was treated!’
“The prison guards hesitated to unclothe me entirely, but they did tie me to a column in the presence of the great men of the court. They lashed me with violence until I was bathed in blood. My whole body felt like one open wound―but I did not faint. The tyrant had me dragged back to the dungeon expecting me to die. Two angels shining with light appeared to me in the darkness. They poured a soothing balm on my wounds, bestowing on me a vigor I did not have before the torture. When the Emperor was informed of the change that had come over me, he had me brought before him. He viewed me with a greedy desire and tried to persuade me that I owed my healing and regained vigor to Jupiter, another god, that he, the Emperor, had sent to me. He attempted to impress me with his belief that Jupiter desired me to be Empress of Rome. Joining to these seductive words promises of great honor, including the most flattering words. Diocletian tried to caress me. Fiendishly, he attempted to complete the work of Hell which he had begun. The Divine Spirit―to whom I am indebted for constancy in preserving my purity―seemed to fill me with light and knowledge. To all the proofs which I gave of the solidity of our Faith, neither Diocletian nor his own courtiers could find an answer.
“Then the frenzied Emperor dashed at me, commanding a guard to chain an anchor around my neck and bury me deep in the waters of the Tiber. The order was executed. I was cast into the water, but God sent to me two angels who unfastened the anchor. It fell into the river mud where it remains, no doubt, to the present time. The angels transported me gently in full view of the multitude upon the riverbank. I came back unharmed, not even wet, after being plunged with the heavy anchor. When a cry of joy rose from the watchers on the shore, and so many embraced Christianity by proclaiming their belief in my God, Diocletian attributed my preservation to secret magic.
“Then the Emperor had me dragged through the streets of Rome and shot with a shower of arrows. My blood flowed but I did not faint. Diocletian thought that I was dying and commanded the guards to carry me back to the dungeon. A second time the tyrant attempted to have me pierced with sharper darts. Again the archers bent their bows. The gathered all their strength but the arrows refused to second their intentions. The Emperor was present. In a rage, he called me a magician and, thinking that the action of the fire could destroy the enchantment, he ordered the darts to be made red in a furnace and directed against my heart. He was obeyed. But these darts, after having gone over a part of the space which they were to cross to come to me, took a quite contrary direction and returned to strike those by whom they had been hurled. Six of the archers were killed by them. Several among the renounced paganism. The people began to render public testimony to the power of God that protected me.
“These murmurs and the acclamations infuriated the tyrant. He determined to hasten my death by piercing my neck with a lance. My soul took flight towards my heavenly Spouse who placed me with the crown of virginity and the palm of martyrdom in a distinguished place among the elect.” (Extract from the account of the life of St. Philomena, taken from the official account of Fr. Di Lucia’s Relazione Istorici di Santa Filomena and subsequent annals).
As Our Lady of La Salette said: “God will protect His faithful ones!” How full of Faith and how faithful are we? How much more can we improve and strengthen our Faith and our fidelity? While we have time, let us take this matter to heart.
In the next article, we shall look at some of the amazing instances of God’s miraculous protection in times much nearer our times. These amazing accounts will show that God’s protection is still there for “His faithful ones!”
As Our Lady of La Salette said, speaking of our times: “God will protect His faithful ones!” But as regards His enemies and unfaithful ones, Holy Scripture cries out: “The Lord is a jealous God, and a revenger! The Lord is a revenger and has wrath! The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He is angry with His enemies. The Lord is patient, and great in power, and will not cleanse and acquit the guilty. The Lord’s ways are in a tempest, and a whirlwind, and clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebukes the sea, and dries it up; and brings all the rivers to be a desert. Who can stand before the face of His indignation? And who shall resist in the fierceness of His anger? His indignation is poured out like fire: and the rocks are melted by Him. The Lord is good and gives strength in the day of trouble: and knows them that hope in Him. But with a flood that passes by, He will make an utter end of the place thereof: and darkness shall pursue His enemies” (Nahum 1:2-7).
Endless Verses About God’s Protection
There are endless verses in Holy Scripture that give assurances that God is there to protect those that are faithful to Him. It suffices to quote but a few:
“We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).
“If thou go out to war against thy enemies, and see horsemen and chariots, and the numbers of the enemy’s army greater than thine, thou shalt not fear them: because the Lord thy God is with thee … The Lord your God is in the midst of you, and will fight for you against your enemies, to deliver you from danger” (Deuteronomy 20:1; 4).
“A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand―but it shall not come near thee” (Psalm 90:7).
“God is … a buckler to them that hope in Him” (Proverbs 30:5). “God … is the shield of all that trust in Him” (2 Kings 22:31).
“The Lord shall cause thy enemies, that rise up against thee, to fall down before thy face. One way shall they come out against thee, and seven ways shall they flee before thee” (Deuteronomy 28:7).
“You see, that the Lord your God is with you, and … has delivered all your enemies into your hands, and the land is subdued before the Lord, and before His people. Give therefore your hearts and your souls, to seek the Lord your God!” (1 Paralipomenon 22:18-19).
EXAMPLES OF MIRACLES OF PROTECTION
1. Protective Miracles in Old Testament Times
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FROM ENEMIES—Red Sea Disaster for Egyptians : “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Speak to the children of Israel! Let them turn and encamp over against … the sea. And Pharao will say of the children of Israel: “They are straitened in the land, the desert has shut them in!” And I shall harden his heart, and he will pursue you: and I shall be glorified in Pharao, and in all his army: and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord!’ ... And they did so.
“And it was told to the king of the Egyptians that the people was fled: and the heart of Pharao and of his servants was changed with regard to the people, and they said: ‘Why did we let Israel go from serving us?’ So he made ready his chariot, and took all his people with him. And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots that were in Egypt: and the captains of the whole army. And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharao king of Egypt, and he pursued the children of Israel. And the Egyptians followed and found them encamped at the sea side. And when Pharao drew near, with all of Pharao’s horses and chariots, and the whole army, the children of Israel, lifting up their eyes, saw the Egyptians behind them: and they feared exceedingly, and cried to the Lord.
“And they said to Moses: ‘Perhaps there were no graves in Egypt, therefore thou hast brought us to die in the wilderness! Why wouldst thou do this, to lead us out of Egypt? Did we not say to you in Egypt: “Depart from us that we may serve the Egyptians!”? For it was much better to serve them, than to die in the wilderness. And Moses said to the people: ‘Fear not! Stand and see the great wonders of the Lord, which He will do this day! For the Egyptians, whom you see now, you shall see no more forever! The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace!’
“And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Why criest thou to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward. Lift up thy rod, and stretch forth thy hand over the sea, and divide it: that the children of Israel may go through the midst of the sea on dry ground. I will harden the heart of the Egyptians to pursue you: and I will be glorified in Pharao, and in all his host, and in his chariots, and in his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall be glorified in Pharao, and in his chariots and in his horsemen!’
“And when Moses had stretched forth his hand over the sea, the Lord took it away by a strong and burning wind blowing all the night, and turned it into dry ground: and the water was divided. And the children of Israel went in through the midst of the sea dried up―for the water was as a wall on their right hand and on their left. And the Egyptians pursuing went in after them, and all Pharao’s horses, his chariots and horsemen through the midst of the sea. When the morning watch was come, the Lord, looking upon the Egyptian army through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, slew their host; and overthrew the wheels of the chariots, and they were carried into the deep. And the Egyptians said: ‘Let us flee from Israel―for the Lord fights for them against us!’
“And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Stretch forth thy hand over the sea, so that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and horsemen!’ And when Moses had stretched forth his hand towards the sea, it returned at the first break of day to the former place―and as the Egyptians were fleeing away, the waters came upon them, and the Lord shut them up in the middle of the waves. And the waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen of all the army of Pharao, who had come into the sea after them, neither did there so much as one of them remain.
“But the children of Israel marched, through the midst of the sea, upon dry land, and the waters were to them as a wall on the right hand and on the left: and the Lord delivered Israel on that day out of the hands of the Egyptians. And they saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore, and the mighty hand that the Lord had used against them: and the people feared the Lord, and they believed the Lord, and Moses His servant” (Exodus 14:1-31).
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FROM HUNGER—Manna in the Desert : “After they came out of the land of Egypt, the children of Israel came into the desert of Sin … And all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them: ‘Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat over the flesh pots, and ate bread to the full! Why have you brought us into this desert? Is it that you might destroy all the multitude with famine?’ And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Behold I will rain bread from heaven for you! Let the people go forth and gather what is sufficient for every day―so that I may test them whether they will walk in My law, or not. But the sixth day let them provide for the Sabbath―and let it be double to that they were used to gathering every day.’
“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ‘I have heard the murmuring of the children of Israel! Say to them: “In the evening you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread!” and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’
“So it came to pass in the evening, that quails coming up, covered the camp: and in the morning, a dew lay round about the camp. And when it had covered the face of the earth, it appeared in the wilderness small, and as it were beaten with a pestle, like unto the hoar frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another: “Manhu?” (Manna) which signifies: “What is this?” For they knew not what it was. And Moses said to them: ‘This is the bread, which the Lord hath given you to eat!’ And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed white, and the taste thereof like to flour with honey” (Exodus 16:1-31).
Forty years of supplying sustenance for over 2 million people! That is a low estimate―some estimate them the Israelites to have numbered as many as 6 million! Each and every day for forty years! Just think of the truckloads that would be needed today to supply 2 million people for one meal a day! God supplied an incredible amount! Just do the math: 2,000,000 x 365 x 40. That comes to 29,200,000,000 meals, or twenty-nine thousand two hundred million meals, or 29.2 billion meals! Or if there were 6 million people―then we are talking about almost 70 billion meals! Some catering project!
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FROM THIRST—Water in the Desert : “Then all the multitude of the children of Israel setting forward from the desert of Sin, encamped in Raphidim, where there was no water for the people to drink. And they remonstrated with Moses, and said: ‘Give us water, that we may drink!’ And Moses answered them: ‘Why do you chide me? Do you tempt the Lord?’
The people were thirsty there for want of water, and murmured against Moses, saying: ‘Why didst thou make us go forth out of Egypt? Was it to kill us and our children, and our beasts with thirst?’
And Moses cried to the Lord, saying: ‘What shall I do to this people? Yet a little more and they will stone me!’ And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Go before the people, and take with thee of the ancients of Israel―and take in thy hand the rod, wherewith thou didst strike the river, and go! Behold I will stand there before thee upon the rock, Horeb: and thou shalt strike the rock, and water shall come out of it that the people may drink.’
Moses did so before the ancients of Israel. And he called the name of that place Temptation, because the chiding of the children of Israel, and for that they tempted the Lord, saying: ‘Is the Lord amongst us or not?’” (Exodus 17:1-7).
We are not talking about a few gallons of water here! There were anywhere from 2 million to 5 million people, plus their livestock , that needed water!
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR CLOTHING—Clothing & Sandals Preserved : “Moses called all Israel, and said to them: ‘You have seen all the things that the Lord did before you in the land of Egypt to Pharao, and to all his servants, and to his whole land ... He has brought you forty years through the desert! Your garments are not worn out, neither are the shoes of your feet consumed with age!” (Deuteronomy 29:2-5). You try walking for 40 years with one single pair of sandals! No way! However, I guess they could learn thriftiness into the bargain.
No wonder that in the New Testament, speaking to His followers, “commanded them that they should take nothing for the way, but a staff only: no scrip, no bread, nor money in their purse; but to be shod with sandals, and that they should not put on two coats” (Mark 6:8-9). Seems like He was simply carrying on His Father’s way of doing things! This was pretty much the way He Himself lived!
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR THE FAITHFUL—Three Young Men in Fire : During the time of the Babylonian Captivity, when many Israelites were abandoning the Faith in favor of the worldliness that surrounded them, God showed His miraculous protection to those who would not renounce their Faith. One such case was that of the three young men who were preserved from being burnt alive.
While Joakim was ruling over the land of Juda, Nabuchodonosor, a great conqueror of the nations, came from Babylon with his army of Chaldean soldiers. He took the city of Jerusalem, and made Joakim promise to submit to him as his master. And when Nabuchodonosor went back to his own land he took with him all the gold and silver that he could find in the Temple; and he carried away as captives very many of the princes and nobles, the best people in the land of Juda.
When these Jews were brought as captives to the land of Chaldea, or Babylon, King Nabuchodonosor gave orders to the prince, who had charge of his palace, to choose from among these Jewish captives some young men who were of noble rank, and beautiful in their looks, and also quick and bright in their minds; young men who would be able to learn readily. These young men were to be placed under the care of wise men, who should teach them all that they knew, and fit them to stand before the King of Babylon, so that they might be his helpers to carry out his orders; and the king wished them to be wise, so that they might give him advice in ruling his people.
Among the young men thus chosen were four Jews, men who had been brought from Judah. By order of the king the names of these men were changed. One of them, named Daniel; the other three young men were called Ananias, Misael, and Azarias. The master of the eunuchs gave them other names: to Daniel, Baltassar: to Ananias, Sidrach: to Misael, Misach: and to Azarias, Abdenago. They were taught in all the knowledge of the Chaldeans; and after three years of training they were taken into the king’s palace. King Nabuchodonosor was pleased with them, more than with any others who stood before him. He found them wise and faithful in the work given to them, and able to rule over men under them. And these four men came to the highest places in the kingdom of the Chaldeans.
At one time King Nabuchodonosor caused a great image to be made, and to be covered with gold. This image he set up, as an idol to be worshipped, on the plain of Dura, near the city of Babylon. When it was finished, it stood upon its base, or foundation, almost a hundred feet high; so that, upon the plain, it could be seen from far away. Then the king sent out a command for all the princes, and rulers, and nobles in the land, to come to a great gathering, when the image was to be set apart for worship. The great men of the kingdom came from far and near and stood around the image. Among them, by command of the king, were Daniel’s three friends, the young Jews, Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago. For some reason, Daniel himself was not there. He may have been busy with the work of the kingdom in some other place.
At one moment in the service before the image, all the trumpets sounded, the drums were beaten, and music was made upon musical instruments of all kinds, as a signal for all the people to kneel down and worship the great golden image. But while the people were kneeling, there were three men who stood up, and would not bow down. These were the three young Jews, Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago. They knelt down before the Lord God only.
Many of the nobles had been jealous of these young men, because they had been lifted to high places in the rule of the kingdom; and these men, who hated Daniel and his friends, were glad to find that these three men had not obeyed the command of King Nabuchodonosor. The king had said that if any one did not worship the golden image he should be thrown into a furnace of fire.
These men, who hated the Jews, came to the king and said: “O king, live forever! Thou, O king, hast made a decree that every man that shall hear the sound of the trumpet, the flute, and the harp, of the sackbut, and the psaltery, of the symphony, and of all kind of music, shall prostrate himself, and adore the golden statue: and that if any man shall not fall down and adore, he should be cast into a furnace of burning fire. Now there are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the works of the province of Babylon—Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago. These men, O king, have slighted thy decree—they worship not thy gods, nor do they adore the golden statue which thou hast set up.” (Daniel 3:9-12).
Then Nabuchodonosor was filled with rage and fury at knowing that any one should dare to disobey his words. He sent for these three men and said to them: “Is it true, O Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, that you do not worship my gods, nor adore the golden statue that I have set up? Now, therefore, if you be ready, at what hour soever you shall hear the sound of the trumpet, flute, harp, sackbut, and psaltery, and symphony, and of all kind of music, prostrate yourselves and adore the statue which I have made! But if you do not adore, you shall be cast, at the same hour, into the furnace of burning fire—and who is the God that shall deliver you out of my hand?” (Daniel 3:14-15).
A little like today, where the insurgents in the Middle East and elsewhere, are targeting Christians and asking them to denounce Christ or be beheaded or killed in some other way! How many have the courage of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago?
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR THE FAITHFUL—Daniel in the Lion’s Den : Another incident in the time of the Babylonian Captivity, was that of the fidelity of Daniel (who was called Baltassar by the Babylonians) , a colleague of Ananias (Sidrach), Misael (Misach), and Azarias (Abdenago), who also preferred potential death rather than renounce the one true God.
Daniel had made a name for himself in successfully interpreting dreams for the king. With one king after another he rose in estimation and rose in the ranks: “Daniel excelled all the princes, and governors―because a greater spirit of God was in him. And the king thought to set him over all the kingdom―whereupon the princes and the governors sought to find occasion against Daniel with regard to the king: but they could find no cause, nor suspicion, because he was faithful, and no fault, nor suspicion was found in him” (Daniel 6:3-4).
Thus the princes, magistrates, governors, senators and judges conspired together to have an imperial decree and edict published that would entrap the faithful Daniel. They approached King Darius and counseled “that whosoever shall ask any petition of any god, or man, for thirty days, but of thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, therefore, O king, confirm the sentence, and sign the decree: that what is decreed may not be altered, nor any man be allowed to transgress it.” (Daniel 6:7-8). King Darius fulfilled their wishes and decree was published throughout the kingdom. Now when Daniel discovered that this law was made, he nevertheless adored and gave thanks before his God, three times a day, as he had been accustomed to do before.
When his enemies found Daniel praying and making supplication to his God, they approached the king and denounced Daniel and demanded that he should be cast into the den of the lions. Now when the king had heard these accusations, he was grieved, and, on behalf of Daniel, he set his heart to deliver him and labored hard to find a way to save him. Daniel’s enemies, realizing this, insisted that the king could not break his own law. The king requested that Daniel be brought to him and, before reluctantly placing him in the lion’s den, said to him: “Thy God, whom thou always servest, He will deliver thee!” The disconsolate king went away to his house and laid down without taking supper, and could not sleep all night.
“Then, rising very early in the morning, the king went in haste to the lions’ den: and coming near to the den, cried with a lamentable voice to Daniel, and said to him: ‘Daniel! Servant of the living God! Hath thy God, whom thou servest always, been able, thinkest thou, to deliver thee from the lions?’ And Daniel answering the king, said: ‘O king! Live forever! My God hath sent His angel, and hath shut up the mouths of the lions, and they have not hurt me! Forasmuch as, before Him, justice hath been found in me: yea and before thee, O king, I have done no offence!’ Then was the king exceeding glad for him, and he commanded that Daniel should be taken out of the den: and Daniel was taken out of the den, and no hurt was found in him, because he believed in his God. And by the king’s commandment, those men were brought that had accused Daniel: and they were cast into the lions’ den, they and their children, and their wives: and they did not reach the bottom of the den, before the lions caught them, and broke all their bones in pieces” (Daniel 6:7-24).
God looks after His faithful ones! Yet that faithfulness must sometimes be sorely tried!
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION IN WAR—Angels Protect Judas Machabeus : We see the miraculous intervention of angels, who came and joined in battle, protecting Judas Machabeus and the Jews against pagan invaders. “Timotheus, having called together a multitude of foreign troops and assembled horsemen out of Asia, came to Judea by force of arms. But Judas Machabeus, and they that were with him, when Timotheus drew near, prayed to the Lord, sprinkling earth upon their heads and girding their loins with haircloth, and lying prostrate at the foot of the altar, besought him to be merciful to them, and to be an enemy to their enemies, and an adversary to their adversaries, as the Law of God saith. And so, after prayer, taking their arms, they went forth from the city, and when they were come very near the enemies, they rested. But as soon as the sun was risen, both sides joined battle―the one part having, with their valor, the Lord for a surety of victory and success; but the other side making their rage their leader in battle. But when they were in the heat of the engagement, there appeared, to the enemies, from Heaven, five men upon horses, comely with golden bridles, leading the Jews. Two of whom took Judas Machabeus between them, and covered him on every side with their arms, and kept him safe―but cast darts and fireballs against the enemy, so that they fell down, being both confounded with blindness, and filled with trouble. And there were slain twenty thousand five hundred soldiers, and six hundred horsemen. But Timotheus fled into Gazara” (2 Machabees 10:24-31).
Thus we see that even in a bloody war, God will gladly add His forces to those of His faithful followers! God looks after His faithful ones! Yet that faithfulness must sometimes be sorely tried! The Machabees suffered greatly in trying to protect the Jewish religion from paganization.
2. Protective Miracles in Our Lord’s Times
There are few incidents where the Apostles were miraculously protected in the early days of the Church.
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR THE APOSTLES—in a Stormy Sea : “And it came to pass on a certain day that Jesus went into a little ship with His disciples, and He said to them: ‘Let us go over to the other side of the lake!’ And they launched forth. And while they were sailing, He slept. And there came down a storm of wind upon the lake, and the boat was filling with water and they were in danger. So they came and awakened Him, saying: ‘Master! We perish!’ But He, arising, rebuked the wind and the rage of the water—and it ceased, and there was a calm. And then He said to them: ‘Where is your faith?’” (Luke 8:22-25).
Today, the Ark of the Church is in a similar crisis—it is filling up and sinking with worldliness and sin. We fear that it will perish! We must always remember that Our Lord is in charge and He knows, sees and allows this to currently happen. He seems to sleep—but when He decides to awake, He will most certainly take care of things!
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR ST. PAUL—From the Viper : “And when we had escaped, then we knew that the island was called Melita. But the barbarians showed us no small courtesy. For kindling a fire, they refreshed us all, because of the present rain, and of the cold. And when Paul had gathered together a bundle of sticks, and had laid them on the fire, a viper coming out of the heat, fastened on his hand. And when the barbarians saw the beast hanging on his hand, they said one to another: ‘Undoubtedly this man is a murderer, who though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance doth not suffer him to live!’ And he indeed shaking off the beast into the fire, suffered no harm. But they supposed that he would begin to swell up, and that he would suddenly fall down and die. But expecting long, and seeing that there came no harm to him, changing their minds, they said, that he was a god” (Acts 28:1-6).
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR ST. JOHN—From Boiling Oil : During this time there had begun a persecution against Christians under the emperor Nero (56-68). They took away the Apostle John for trial at Rome. The Apostle John was sentenced to death for his confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but the Lord preserved His chosen one. The apostle drank out of a cup prepared for him with deadly poison, but he remained alive. In the year 95, during the second general persecution under Emperor Domitian, John was arrested in Asia and sent to Rome as a prisoner, where he miraculously escaped martyrdom. Tertullian says that he emerged unscathed from a cauldron of boiling oil. His persecutors attributed the miracle to sorcery and he was exiled to the island of Patmos. Until its removal from the Roman calendar in 1960, this event used to be commemorated liturgically in the Western Church on May 6th, as the Feast of Saint John before the Latin Gate (ante Portam Latinam). On account of this trial he is given also the title martyr, although he was the only Apostle who did not suffer martyrdom. He did, however, thus fulfill what Christ had foretold that he should drink of his chalice of suffering. The emperor then decided to send him into a solitary exile on the Island of Patmos.
3. Protective Miracles in the Early Church
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR ST. AGNES—Brothel : St. Agnes was a thirteen-year-old Roman girl who suffered martyrdom for her Faith. Yet before that eventual martyrdom, she was miraculously protected by God. Agnes had made a promise to God never to stain her purity. Since she was very beautiful, many young men wished to marry Agnes, but she would always say: “Jesus Christ is my only Spouse.” Procop, the Governor’s son, became enraged when she refused him. He had tried to win her for his wife with rich gifts and promises, but the beautiful young girl kept saying: “I am already promised to the Lord of the Universe. He is more splendid than the sun and the stars, and He has said He will never leave me!” In great anger, Procop accused her of being a Christian and brought her to his father, the Governor. The Governor promised Agnes wonderful gifts if she would only deny God, but Agnes refused. He tried to change her mind by putting her in chains, but her lovely face shone with joy. Next he sent her to a place of sin, but an Angel protected her. At last, she was condemned to death. She did not pay attention to those who begged her to save herself. “I would offend my Spouse,” she said, “if I were to try to please you. He chose me first and He shall have me!” Then she prayed and bowed her head for the death-stroke of the sword.
► MIRACULOUS PROTECTION FOR ST. PHILOMENA : In a private revelation, approved by the Church, St. Philomena revealed the chief circumstances of her life, of which we take a few extracts to show God’s miraculous protection for her person. St. Philomena reveals that her parents “took me to Rome on a journey that my father was obliged to make on the occasion of an unjust war, with which he was threatened by the haughty Diocletian. I was then thirteen years old. “On our arrival in the capital of the world, we proceeded to the palace of the Emperor and were admitted for an audience. As soon as Diocletian saw me, his eyes were fixed upon me. These are the Emperor’s words: ‘I shall place at your disposal all the force of the Empire. I ask only one thing, that is the hand of your daughter.’ My father dazzled with an honor he was far from expecting, willingly acceded on the spot to the proposal of the Emperor.
“When we returned to our own dwelling, Father and Mother did all they could to induce me to yield to Diocletian’s wishes and to theirs. I cried. ‘Do you wish that for the love of a man I should break the promise I have made to Jesus Christ? My virginity belongs to Him. I can no longer dispose of it.’ My Father made the most terrible threats in commanding me to accept the hand of Diocletian. The grace of my God rendered me invincible. My mother, uniting her efforts to his, endeavored to conquer my resolution. Caresses, threats, everything was employed to reduce me to compliance. At last I saw both of my parents fall at my knees and say to me with tears in their eyes: ‘My child, have pity on your father, your mother, your country, our country, our subjects!’ I answered: ‘No, no! My virginity, which I have vowed to God, comes before everything―before you, before my country! My kingdom is Heaven!’
“They brought me before the Emperor who, on his part, did all in his power to win me. But his promises, his allurements, his threats, were equally useless. He then got into a violent fit of anger and, influenced by the devil, had me cast into one of the prisons of the palace, where I was loaded with chains. Thinking that pain and shame would weaken the courage with which my Divine Spouse inspired me, he came to see me every day. After several days, the Emperor issued an order for my chains to be loosed that I might take a small portion and bread and water. He renewed his attacks, some of which, if not for the grace of God, would have been fatal to purity. The defeats which he always experienced were for me to preludes to new tortures. Prayer supported me. I ceased not to recommend myself to Jesus and His most pure Mother.
“My captivity lasted thirty-seven days. Then, in the midst of a heavenly light I saw Mary holding her Divine Son in her arms. ‘My daughter’ she said to me, ‘three days more of prison and after forty days you shall leave this state of pain. Fear not, I will aid you. In the moment of struggle, grace will come to you to lend its force. The angel who is mine also, Gabriel, whose name expresses force, will come to your aid. I will recommend you especially to his care!’ What the Queen of Angels had prepared for me was soon experienced. Diocletian, despairing of bending me, decided upon public chastisement to offend my virtue. He condemned me to be stripped and scourged like the Spouse that I preferred to him. These were his horrifying words: ‘Since she is not ashamed to prefer, to an Emperor like me, as malefactor condemned to an infamous death by His own people, she deserves that my justice shall treat her as He was treated!’
“The prison guards hesitated to unclothe me entirely, but they did tie me to a column in the presence of the great men of the court. They lashed me with violence until I was bathed in blood. My whole body felt like one open wound―but I did not faint. The tyrant had me dragged back to the dungeon expecting me to die. Two angels shining with light appeared to me in the darkness. They poured a soothing balm on my wounds, bestowing on me a vigor I did not have before the torture. When the Emperor was informed of the change that had come over me, he had me brought before him. He viewed me with a greedy desire and tried to persuade me that I owed my healing and regained vigor to Jupiter, another god, that he, the Emperor, had sent to me. He attempted to impress me with his belief that Jupiter desired me to be Empress of Rome. Joining to these seductive words promises of great honor, including the most flattering words. Diocletian tried to caress me. Fiendishly, he attempted to complete the work of Hell which he had begun. The Divine Spirit―to whom I am indebted for constancy in preserving my purity―seemed to fill me with light and knowledge. To all the proofs which I gave of the solidity of our Faith, neither Diocletian nor his own courtiers could find an answer.
“Then the frenzied Emperor dashed at me, commanding a guard to chain an anchor around my neck and bury me deep in the waters of the Tiber. The order was executed. I was cast into the water, but God sent to me two angels who unfastened the anchor. It fell into the river mud where it remains, no doubt, to the present time. The angels transported me gently in full view of the multitude upon the riverbank. I came back unharmed, not even wet, after being plunged with the heavy anchor. When a cry of joy rose from the watchers on the shore, and so many embraced Christianity by proclaiming their belief in my God, Diocletian attributed my preservation to secret magic.
“Then the Emperor had me dragged through the streets of Rome and shot with a shower of arrows. My blood flowed but I did not faint. Diocletian thought that I was dying and commanded the guards to carry me back to the dungeon. A second time the tyrant attempted to have me pierced with sharper darts. Again the archers bent their bows. The gathered all their strength but the arrows refused to second their intentions. The Emperor was present. In a rage, he called me a magician and, thinking that the action of the fire could destroy the enchantment, he ordered the darts to be made red in a furnace and directed against my heart. He was obeyed. But these darts, after having gone over a part of the space which they were to cross to come to me, took a quite contrary direction and returned to strike those by whom they had been hurled. Six of the archers were killed by them. Several among the renounced paganism. The people began to render public testimony to the power of God that protected me.
“These murmurs and the acclamations infuriated the tyrant. He determined to hasten my death by piercing my neck with a lance. My soul took flight towards my heavenly Spouse who placed me with the crown of virginity and the palm of martyrdom in a distinguished place among the elect.” (Extract from the account of the life of St. Philomena, taken from the official account of Fr. Di Lucia’s Relazione Istorici di Santa Filomena and subsequent annals).
As Our Lady of La Salette said: “God will protect His faithful ones!” How full of Faith and how faithful are we? How much more can we improve and strengthen our Faith and our fidelity? While we have time, let us take this matter to heart.
In the next article, we shall look at some of the amazing instances of God’s miraculous protection in times much nearer our times. These amazing accounts will show that God’s protection is still there for “His faithful ones!”
Article 13
Saturday October 14th, 2023
Miracles of Agression
Saturday October 14th, 2023
Miracles of Agression
Two Sides to God—Two Kinds of Miracles
On October 13th, 1917, the day of the Solar Miracle at Fatima, Lucia passed on messages to Our Lady from people asking Our Lady for cures. The response of Our Lady was: “Some yes, but not others! They must amend their lives and ask forgiveness for their sins … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended!” By these words, Our Lady reminds us of the principle: “As you sow, so shall you reap!” which is based upon Holy Scripture: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, then also of the flesh he shall reap corruption! But he that sows in the spirit, then of the spirit shall he reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:8).
Even though modern man is constantly fed the lines “God is love!” and “God is forgiving!”—modern man must not forget that there are other sides to God: sides that we will be witnessing in the not too distant future. Love and mercy are not the only attributes of God—even though they are at the summit of His perfections, as testified by Holy Scripture. As St. John writes: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and the Holy Ghost, through the Psalms, tells us: “The Lord is sweet to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 144:9). Yet His charity and mercy are not there to be abused—Holy Scripture also says: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7) … “With the elect Thou [God] wilt be elect: and with the perverse Thou wilt be perverted” (2 Kings 22:27). In other words, for the most part, the good will see the good side of His miracles, whereas for the bad, the miracles will be painful chastisements.
Therefore, we have what we could call miracles of aggression and miracles of protection. In other words, with some miracles God punishes—whether it be the enemies of God and the enemies of His Chosen People; or where God punishes the Chosen People themselves if they have become unfaithful to God. Then there are miracles of protection, whereby God blesses, favors and even protects those who adhere to Him faithfully―even to point of destroying or paralyzing their enemies. We see these two sides of God very clearly expressed throughout the entire twenty-sixth chapter of the Book of Leviticus.
The Leviticus Principle
God is love! God wouldn’t hurt His beloved Church! God is ever so kind and merciful! Sure He is—that is not being disputed—but that is not the only chapter in the book about God! Chapter 26 of Leviticus gives us both sides of God—the nice side and the not so nice side (in our selfish opinion).
THE NICE SIDE : “‘I am the Lord your God! If you walk in My precepts, and keep My commandments, and do them, I will give you rain in due seasons ... the ground shall bring forth its increase … trees shall be filled with fruit ... the harvest shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time … you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land without fear. I will give peace in your coasts: you shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid. I will take away evil beasts: and the sword shall not pass through your quarters. You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you. Five of yours shall pursue a hundred others, and a hundred of you ten thousand: your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. I will look on you, and make you increase: you shall be multiplied, and I will establish My covenant with you … I will set My tabernacle in the midst of you, and My soul shall not cast you off. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people!” (Leviticus 26:1-12).
THE NOT SO NICE SIDE : “But if you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments; if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so, as not to do those things which are appointed by Me—then I also will do these things to you: I will quickly visit you with poverty … burning heat which shall consume your lives! You shall sow your seed in vain, which shall be devoured by your enemies! … You shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you, you shall flee when no man pursues you! But if you will not yet for all this obey Me―then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins, and I will break the pride of your stubbornness! … Your labor shall be in vain, the ground shall not bring forth her increase, nor the trees yield their fruit! … I will send in upon you the beasts of the field, to destroy you and your cattle … make you few in number … and your highways desolate ...
“And if even so you will still not amend, but will walk contrary to Me: then I also will strike you seven times more for your sins! I will bring in upon you the sword that shall avenge My covenant! When you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies! … I will bring your cities to be a wilderness! … I will destroy your land! … I will scatter you among the Gentiles! … I will draw out the sword after you! … Your land shall be desert … your cities destroyed! … And as to them that shall remain of you, I will send fear in their hearts in the countries of their enemies! … None of you shall dare to resist your enemies! You shall perish among the Gentiles! … And if of them also some remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities, in the land of their enemies, and they shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers, and their own―until they confess their iniquities and the iniquities of their ancestors, … until their uncircumcised mind be ashamed! Then shall they pray for their sins!’” (Leviticus 26:13-41). However, rather than just these few excerpts, the whole chapter should be read to fully get the message.
Harsh? Listen to Our Lady Today!
Some may think those words too harsh—yet God cannot change, otherwise He would not be a perfect God. The terrible message given by God in the Old Testament is repeated today by Our Lady. Just a few sentences suffice to prove the point, but, as with Leviticus, one should read a compilation of all her threats to get the full message.
Nothing has changed to this day—the same message has been delivered to us by the Queen of prophets: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! ... If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity! It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful!” (Our Lady of Akita, 1973).
That is merely an echo of what Our Lady said at La Salette: “Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events! Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God! … God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together! … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other for years! … The Earth will be struck by calamities of all kinds ― in addition to plague and famine which will be widespread! There will be a series of wars, until the last war! … Blood will flow in the streets! A general war will follow which will be appalling. Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes! People will believe that all is lost. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy! Men will beat their heads against walls, call for their death, and on another side death will be their torment! Blood will flow on all sides!”
Miracles Will Come!—But Which Kind Do We Want?
As Judith—a figure of Our Lady in the Old Testament—said: “For it is certain that our God is so offended with sins, that he hath sent word by his prophets to the people, that he will deliver them up for their sins” (Judith 11:8).
The miraculous events—earthquakes and pestilence—that God sent during the Exodus of Israel from Egypt in its journey to the Promised Land, were painful miracles ― largely due to their sinfulness and infidelity to God. “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘This people, rising up, will go fornicating after strange gods in the land, to which it goeth in to dwell! There will they forsake Me, and will make void the covenant, which I have made with them! And My wrath shall be kindled against them in that day: and I will forsake them, and will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured! All evils and afflictions shall find them, so that they shall say in that day: “In truth it is because God is not with me, that these evils have found me!” But I will hide, and cover My face in that day, for all the evils which they have done, because they have followed strange gods!’” (Deuteronomy 31:16-18).
“You shall not go after the strange gods of all the nations, that are round about you: because the Lord thy God is a jealous God in the midst of thee: lest at any time the wrath of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and take thee away from the face of the Earth” (Deuteronomy 6:14-15).
EXAMPLES OF MIRACLES OF AGGRESSION
In this article we will examine what could be called “Miracles of Aggression”―by which we mean miracles that manifest the anger and displeasure of God, and which usually are the source of some great punishment upon the guilty parties. In the following article we will examine God’s “Miracles of Protection”―by which we mean miracles that bring God’s help in difficulties and protection from enemies and dangers for those who are faithful to God and are truly in need.
● Miracles of Aggression Against the Enemies of the Chosen People
In the Book of Judith, we read of God’s penchant for helping His Chosen People in their battles: “Wheresoever they went in without bow and arrow, and without shield and sword, their God fought for them and overcame” (Judith 5:16).
THE AVENGING ANGEL : We see God go on the offensive and send an “avenging angel” to slay all the first-born in Egypt: “The Lord said to Moses: ‘Speak ye to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, and say to them: “Let every man take a lamb … and the whole multitude of the children of Israel shall sacrifice it … And they shall take of the blood thereof, and put it upon both the side posts, and on the upper door posts of the houses … And I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and will kill every firstborn in the land of Egypt both man and beast: and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments!” I am the Lord! And the blood shall be unto you for a sign in the houses where you shall be―and I shall see the blood, and shall pass over you: and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I shall strike the land of Egypt.’
“And Moses called all the ancients of the children of Israel, and said to them: ‘Go take a lamb by your families, and sacrifice the Phase. And dip a bunch of hyssop in the blood that is at the door, and sprinkle the transom of the door therewith, and both the door cheeks: let none of you go out of the door of his house till morning. For the Lord will pass through striking the Egyptians: and when he shall see the blood on the transom [the crosspiece] and on both the posts [of the door], He will pass over the door of the house, and not suffer the destroyer to come into your houses and to hurt you.’
“And the children of Israel going forth did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. And it came to pass at midnight, the Lord slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharao, who sat on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive woman that was in the prison, and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharao arose in the night, and all his servants, and all Egypt: for there was not a house wherein there lay not one dead” (Exodus 12:1-30).
THE AMALECITES : On their way to the Promised Land, the Israelites encountered the Amalecites. It was through the actions of Moses that God brought victory for the Israelites: “And Amalec came, and fought against Israel in Raphidim. And Moses said to Josue: ‘Choose out men: and go out and fight against Amalec: tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill having the rod of God in my hand!’ Josue did as Moses had spoken, and he fought against Amalec; but Moses, and Aaron, and Hur went up upon the top of the hill. And when Moses lifted up his hands, Israel overcame: but if he let them down a little, Amalec overcame. And Moses’ hands were heavy: so they took a stone, and put under him, and he sat on it: and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands on both sides. And it came to pass that his hands were not weary until sunset. And Josue put Amalec and his people to flight, by the edge of the sword. And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Write this for a memorial in a book, and deliver it to the ears of Josue: for I will destroy the memory of Amalec from under Heaven!’ And Moses built an altar: and called the name thereof, ‘The Lord my Exaltation”, saying: ‘Because the hand of the throne of the Lord, and the war of the Lord shall be against Amalec, from generation to generation!’” (Exodus 17:8-16).
JERICHO : God commanded Josue to execute His divine plan, after which He promised that Jericho would be delivered into his hands: “Now Jericho was close shut up and fenced, for fear of the children of Israel, and no man durst go out or come in. And the Lord said to Josue: ‘Behold I have given into thy hands Jericho, and the king thereof, and all the valiant men. Go round about the city, all ye fighting men, once a day: so shall ye do for six days. And on the seventh day the priests shall take the seven trumpets, which are used in the jubilee, and shall go before the Ark of the Covenant: and you shall go about the city seven times, and the priests shall sound the trumpets. And when the voice of the trumpet shall give a longer and broken tune, and shall sound in your ears, all the people shall shout together with a very great shout, and the walls of the city shall fall to the ground, and they shall enter in every one at the place against which they shall stand’” (Josue 6:1-5). As St. Paul later says: “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, by the going round them seven days” (Hebrews 11:30).
THE ENACIMS : The Enacims (or Anakims) were a race of giants that stood between the Israelites and the Promised Land. Their formidable appearance, as described by the Twelve Spies sent to search the land, filled the Israelites with terror. But God would take care of the problem, as we read in Genesis: “Hear, O Israel: Thou shalt go over the Jordan this day; to possess nations very great, and stronger than thyself, cities great, and walled up to the sky—a people great and tall, the sons of the Enacims, whom thou hast seen, and heard of, against whom no man is able to stand. Thou shalt know therefore this day that the Lord thy God Himself will pass over before thee, a devouring and consuming fire, to destroy and extirpate and bring them to nothing before thy face quickly, as He hath spoken to thee” (Deuteronomy 9:1-2).
THE PHILISTINES : “Another time also the Philistines made a raid, and spread themselves abroad in the valley. And David consulted God again, and God said to him: ‘Go not up after them, turn away from them, and come upon them over against the pear trees. And when thou shalt hear the sound of one marching above the tops of the pear trees, then shalt thou go out to battle. For God is gone out before thee to strike the army of the Philistines!’ And David did as God had commanded him, and defeated the army of the Philistines, slaying them from Gabaon to Gazera” (1 Paralipomenon 14:14-16).
There are MANY, MANY more instances where God gets aggressively involved in matters and shows His powerful hand in battle and in punishment against His enemies and the enemies of the Chosen People. These are merely three of these many.
● Miracles of Aggression against the Chosen People
► THE GREAT FLOOD : We cannot imagine a greater miracle than the Great Flood in the time of Noe, by which God destroyed almost of all His living creatures. The Book of Genesis thus describes this incredible miracle of aggression and punishment: “And God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the Earth, and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times. It repented Him that He had made man on the Earth. And being touched inwardly with sorrow of heart, He said: ‘I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the Earth, from man even to beasts, from the creeping thing even to the fowls of the air, for it repenteth Me that I have made them!’
“And the Earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity. And when God had seen that the Earth was corrupted, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the Earth, He said to Noe: ‘The end of all flesh is come before Me, the Earth is filled with iniquity through them, and I will destroy them with the Earth. Make thee an ark of timber planks. Behold I will bring the waters of a great flood upon the Earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, under Heaven. All things that are in the Earth shall be consumed. And I will establish My covenant with thee, and thou shalt enter into the ark, thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and the wives of thy sons with thee … For yet a while, and after seven days, I will rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will destroy every substance that I have made, from the face of the Earth!’ …
“And after the seven days were passed, the waters of the flood overflowed the Earth ... All the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the flood gates of heaven were opened: and the rain fell upon the Earth forty days and forty nights ... And the flood was forty days upon the Earth, and the waters increased, and lifted up the ark on high from the Earth. For they overflowed exceedingly: and filled all on the face of the Earth: and the ark was carried upon the waters. And the waters prevailed beyond measure upon the Earth: and all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered … And all flesh was destroyed that moved upon the Earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beasts, and of all creeping things that creep upon the Earth: and all men. And all things wherein there is the breath of life on the Earth, died. And He destroyed all the substance that was upon the Earth, from man even to beast, and the creeping things and fowls of the air: and they were destroyed from the Earth: and Noe only remained, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the Earth a hundred and fifty days” (Genesis 6:5-17; 7:4-24).
► DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRHA : This renowned and terrible event shows the angry side of the God of Love. Mankind never seems to learn from God’s previous interventions in the life of sinful man with His miracles of aggression and punishment. One would think that the remembrance of the Great Flood might be a sufficient warning, but mankind has this false sense of security with regards to God. We read in Genesis: “And the Lord said: ‘The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is multiplied, and their sin is become exceedingly grievous. I will go down and see whether they have done according to the cry that is come to Me: or whether it be not so, that I may know!’” (Genesis 18:20-21). God then reveals to Abraham, living by Sodom, his intention to destroy the cities. Abraham begins to plead and intercede—asking God to spare Sodom if 50 just men could be found. God agrees. Then Abraham whittles the number down to 45, then 40, 30, 20 and finally 10. God still agrees to spare Sodom if 10 just men are found—yet not even 10 could be found. “And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven. And He destroyed these cities, and all the country about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all things that spring from the Earth” (Genesis 18:24-25).
► THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT : God did not hesitate to miraculously bring about an earthquake and rain down fire upon some of the Chosen People during the Exodus, when “Dathan and Abiron—the princes of the people—rose against Moses and Aaron in the sedition of Core, when they rebelled against the Lord: and the Earth, opening her mouth, swallowed up Core, with many others dying, when the fire burned two hundred and fifty men. And there was a great miracle wrought, that when Core perished, his sons did not perish” (Numbers 26:9-11).
► CIVIL WAR IN ISRAEL : God’s intervention brings about a victory for the single tribe remaining faithful to Him—Juda—against the other unfaithful tribes of Israel. We see a gigantic battle in the Old Testament, involving well over a million soldiers. It was between the faithful remnant of the twelves tribes of Israel—Juda—and the unfaithful remaining tribes. “Abia [of the faithful kingdom of Juda] had begun battle, and had with him four hundred thousand most valiant and chosen men, Jeroboam [of the unfaithful remainder of Israel] put his army in array against him, eight hundred thousand men, who were also chosen and most valiant for war. [Thus Abia and Juda were outnumbered 2 to 1]. And Abia stood upon Mount Semeron and said: ‘Hear me, O Jeroboam, and all Israel! The Lord is our God, whom we forsake not! … We keep the precepts of the Lord our God, whom you have forsaken. Therefore God is the leader in our army!’ While he spoke these things, Jeroboam caused an ambush to come about behind Abia. And while Abia stood facing the enemies, Jeroboam surrounded Juda with his army, who perceived it not. And when Juda looked behind them, they saw the battle coming upon them, both in front and behind, and they cried to the Lord: and the priests began to sound with the trumpets. And all the men of Juda shouted: and behold, when they shouted, God terrified Jeroboam and all Israel that stood against Abia and Juda. And the children of Israel fled before Juda, and the Lord delivered them into their hand. And Abia and his people slew them with a great slaughter, and there fell wounded of Israel five hundred thousand valiant men [out of the eight hundred thousand].” (2 Paralipomenon 13:3-4; 10-17).
► BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY : Several times God allowed His Chosen People to be conquered and carried off from Jerusalem as captives to Babylon, where they remained for decades on end. On top of that, God allowed the Temple of Jerusalem to be totally destroyed. Now where is the miracle in that? It is more a case of God positively and deliberately withdrawing His helping and protective hand from Israel and giving a hand, in a certain sense, to the enemies of Israel. The Babylonian Captivity was not a spontaneous event—it had been long-prepared by the ever-increasing weakness and infidelity of the Chosen People of God. The Israelites were not content with the rule of the Judges. The people wanted a king to rule over them. They longed to be united under one leader—a king—like the other nations around them.
In the time of Samuel, the people became very restless and insisted that he appoint a king to rule over them. In vain did Samuel remind them that God was their King. They would not listen to him. They wanted a human king to lead them to a final victory over the Chanaanites and the Philistines. Samuel urged them to give up their desire for a king and promised them that the wars would come to an end. By seeking to have a king, they were sinning against the will of God. The people did not heed Samuel. They prayed to God to give them a king, and finally God listened to their prayers and yielded to their desires―which teaches us to be careful what we pray for!! Better leave things to God’s wisdom rather than our capricious desires!
In order to bring them back to His worship and to prevent their worshiping false gods, God gave them the human king that they so foolishly desired, and sent Samuel to anoint Saul king of Israel (1050-1010 BC, reigned 40 years). However, their king, Saul, sinned—much like Adam the first ‘king’ sinned—and sin brought death; in this case, death to the kingdom. The Israelites had exchanged a sinless King, God, for a sinful king, Saul—what a bargain! The consequence was that the kingdom was taken away from Saul and given to David (1010-970 BC, reigned 40 years), who becomes the second in the new line of kings. Yet David also sinned, committing the sins of murder and adultery.
David’s son, Solomon (970-930 BC, reigned 40 years), will be the third king in line. Under Solomon, the Temple is built in Jerusalem and becomes the great means of holding the people together and keeping them mindful of God’s promise. But Solomon was not faithful to God all the days of his life and the true religion, with which he started out, starts to weaken in him, as he gives way to wealth and idolatry. Solomon thus sinned and God punished him by allowing his kingdom to decline.
After the death of Solomon in 930 BC, the punishment continued because the sins continued: two kingdoms grew up—the Kingdom of Juda (under Solomon’s son Roboam) and the Kingdom of Israel (under Solomon’s son Jeroboam). Jeroboam would not permit the people of the ten tribes of the Kingdom of Israel to worship in the Temple at Jerusalem, in the Kingdom of Juda, which was under the control of his brother Roboam. He thought it was necessary to keep them from the Temple in order to keep them attached to himself. In place of the Temple of Jerusalem, he built two other temples to false gods. Civil war follows and the people turn away from the worship of the one true God. In the Kingdom of Juda, Roboam remained a just and God-fearing ruler for only three years. After that time, he followed evil advice and built altars to false gods in various parts of the kingdom. Roboam set the example of idolatry, and the people followed it.
During this time God sent His prophets to warn the kings and the people of the dire consequences awaiting them if they would not repent. One king of Israel after another—from a total of 20 kings over 200 years—turned out to be evil in the sight of God—some more, some less—yet all of them kept the Kingdom of Israel entrenched in idolatry. God, though patient, decided to act. The scourge that He would use would be the Assyrians. Assyria’s conquest of the ten northern tribes, that made up the Kingdom of Israel, began approximately in 740 BC. Nearly 20 years later, about 722 BC, the capital city of the Kingdom of Israel, Samaria, was overtaken by the Assyrians. And in 701 BC the Assyrians marched south into the Kingdom of Juda; however, they were unable to capture Jerusalem due to God’s intervention (2 Paralipomenon 32:22). Yet Just as God had used Assyria to punish the northern Kingdom of Israel, God would use Babylon as His agent of judgment against the Kingdom of Juda for their sins of idolatry and rebellion against Him. There were actually several different times during this period (607-586 BC) when the Jews were taken captive by Babylon. With each successive rebellion against Babylonian rule, Nabuchodonosor would lead his armies against Juda until they laid siege to Jerusalem for over a year, killing many people and destroying the Jewish Temple, taking captive many thousands of Jews, and leaving Jerusalem in ruins.
► THE SIEGE & DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM : The Siege of Jerusalem―prophesied by Our Lord as a consequence for Jerusalem having rejected Him and His teachings―took place in AD 70. Though not strictly a miracle in the positive sense, it could be said to be so in the negative sense—whereby the miraculous protection, which God so often gave His Chosen People, was now withdrawn. The Roman army, led by the future Emperor Titus―with Tiberius Julius Alexander as his second-in-command―besieged and conquered the city of Jerusalem, which had been occupied by its Jewish defenders in AD 66, when they rebelled against Roman governing. The siege ended with the sacking of the city and the destruction of its famous Second Temple. The destruction of both the First and Second Temples is still mourned annually. The Arch of Titus, celebrating the Roman sack of Jerusalem and its Temple, still stands in Rome.
Titus surrounded the city, with three legions―a Roman Legion would have anywhere from 4,200 to 6,000 soldiers―so 3 Roman Legions would have anywhere from 12,600 to 18,000 soldiers. Titus put pressure on the food and water supplies of the inhabitants by allowing pilgrims to enter the city to celebrate Passover, and then refusing to allow them back out. Titus destroyed the newly built Third Wall of Jerusalem with a battering ram, as well as breaching the Second Wall, and then turned his attention to the inner-city Fortress of Antonia, just north of the Temple Mount. The Romans were then drawn into street fighting with the Zealots, who were then ordered to retreat to the Temple to avoid heavy losses.
After several failed attempts to breach or scale the walls of the Antonia Fortress, the Romans finally launched a secret attack, overwhelming the sleeping Zealots and taking the fortress. Overlooking the Temple compound, the fortress provided a perfect point from which to attack the Temple itself. Battering rams made little progress, but the fighting itself eventually set the walls on fire; a Roman soldier threw a burning stick onto one of the Temple’s walls. Destroying the Temple was not among Titus’ goals, possibly due in large part to the massive expansions done by Herod the Great mere decades earlier. Titus had wanted to seize it and transform it into a temple dedicated to the Roman Emperor and the Roman pantheon. The fire spread quickly and was soon out of control. The Temple was destroyed and the flames spread into the residential sections of the city.
The Roman legions quickly crushed the remaining Jewish resistance. Part of the remaining Jews escaped through hidden underground tunnels, while others made a final stand in the Upper City. This defense halted the Roman advance as they had to construct siege towers to assail the remaining Jews. The Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, who acted as a negotiator for the Romans with the Jews, claims that 1.1 million people were killed during the siege, of which a majority were Jewish, and that 97,000 were captured and enslaved. He writes: “The slaughter within was even more dreadful than the spectacle from without. Men and women, old and young, insurgents and priests, those who fought and those who entreated mercy, were hewn down in indiscriminate carnage. The number of the slain exceeded that of the slayers. The legionaries had to clamber over heaps of dead to carry on the work of extermination.
In the year 325, the major early Church historian, Eusebius, wrote about these dreadful events. He wrote: “It is fitting to add to these accounts the true prediction of our Savior in which He foretold these very events. His words are as follows: ‘Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day! For there shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be!’
“These things took place in this manner in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, in accordance with the prophecies of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Who, by divine power, saw them beforehand as if they were already present, and wept and mourned according to the statement of the holy evangelists, who give the very words which He uttered, when, as if addressing Jerusalem herself, He said: ‘If thou hadst known, even thou, in this day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes! For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a rampart about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee and thy children even with the ground!’”
What Do We Learn From This?
“What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31). As Leviticus says: “If you walk in My precepts, and keep My commandments, and do them, … then you shall dwell in your land without fear and there shall be none to make you afraid! … The sword shall not pass through your quarters! You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you! Five of yours shall pursue a hundred others, and a hundred of you shall pursue ten thousand! Your enemies shall fall before you by the sword! ... I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people!” (Leviticus 26:1-12).
“But if you will not hear me, nor do all My commandments; if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so, as not to do those things which are appointed by Me—then you shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you! … You shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies! … I will bring your cities to be a wilderness! … I will destroy your land! … I will scatter you among the Gentiles! … I will draw out the sword after you! … Your land shall be desert! … Your cities destroyed! … And as to them that shall remain of you―I will send fear in their hearts in the countries of their enemies! … None of you shall dare to resist your enemies! You shall perish among the Gentiles!” (Leviticus 26:13-41).
The bottom line is that “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
The choice is pretty simple! Yet how many make a fateful bad choice! It seems that modern man is one of these! Yet, not all will perish. As Our Lady said at La Salette: “God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will.” Who are the faithful servants of God? Those who love Him by keeping His commandments and His words. Our Lord says: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My words … He that does not love Me, keeps not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24). The same is true of Our Lady―if we love Our Lady then we will keep her words, we will obey her commands, we will seek to put into practice and fulfill what she requests.
At Fatima, on October 13th, 1917, Our Lady indicated some of her desires and commands. She again insisted that the Rosary be prayed daily. She also held out to the world the Brown Scapular of which Sister Lucia later remarked that Our Lady wished everyone to wear the Brown Scapular. Furthermore, she told us to stop offending God―because He was already too much offended. The Miracle of Sun was an indication of the power of God and what awaits the world which will see either the protective power of God, or the punishing power of God―depending upon whether or not they amend their sinful lives. In her many other apparitions, Our Lady also warned of the tremendous miraculous events that would occur throughout the entire world if sinful souls refused to amend their lives. The choice is ours! We shall reap what we sow! And Our Lady wants us to sow the seeds of mercy for sinners by our performance of MANY, MANY sacrifices and by the praying of MANY, MANY Rosaries. She could say the same words to us as Our Lord said to the Jews: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46) … “Why do you say: ‘Hail Mary! Hail Mary!’ and do not the things which I say?”
In the next article we shall look at how God takes care of His faithful servants—in the past and in our times, so that we may have hope for the future! The protection of God is truly a marvel to behold!
On October 13th, 1917, the day of the Solar Miracle at Fatima, Lucia passed on messages to Our Lady from people asking Our Lady for cures. The response of Our Lady was: “Some yes, but not others! They must amend their lives and ask forgiveness for their sins … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended!” By these words, Our Lady reminds us of the principle: “As you sow, so shall you reap!” which is based upon Holy Scripture: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, then also of the flesh he shall reap corruption! But he that sows in the spirit, then of the spirit shall he reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:8).
Even though modern man is constantly fed the lines “God is love!” and “God is forgiving!”—modern man must not forget that there are other sides to God: sides that we will be witnessing in the not too distant future. Love and mercy are not the only attributes of God—even though they are at the summit of His perfections, as testified by Holy Scripture. As St. John writes: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and the Holy Ghost, through the Psalms, tells us: “The Lord is sweet to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 144:9). Yet His charity and mercy are not there to be abused—Holy Scripture also says: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7) … “With the elect Thou [God] wilt be elect: and with the perverse Thou wilt be perverted” (2 Kings 22:27). In other words, for the most part, the good will see the good side of His miracles, whereas for the bad, the miracles will be painful chastisements.
Therefore, we have what we could call miracles of aggression and miracles of protection. In other words, with some miracles God punishes—whether it be the enemies of God and the enemies of His Chosen People; or where God punishes the Chosen People themselves if they have become unfaithful to God. Then there are miracles of protection, whereby God blesses, favors and even protects those who adhere to Him faithfully―even to point of destroying or paralyzing their enemies. We see these two sides of God very clearly expressed throughout the entire twenty-sixth chapter of the Book of Leviticus.
The Leviticus Principle
God is love! God wouldn’t hurt His beloved Church! God is ever so kind and merciful! Sure He is—that is not being disputed—but that is not the only chapter in the book about God! Chapter 26 of Leviticus gives us both sides of God—the nice side and the not so nice side (in our selfish opinion).
THE NICE SIDE : “‘I am the Lord your God! If you walk in My precepts, and keep My commandments, and do them, I will give you rain in due seasons ... the ground shall bring forth its increase … trees shall be filled with fruit ... the harvest shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time … you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land without fear. I will give peace in your coasts: you shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid. I will take away evil beasts: and the sword shall not pass through your quarters. You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you. Five of yours shall pursue a hundred others, and a hundred of you ten thousand: your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. I will look on you, and make you increase: you shall be multiplied, and I will establish My covenant with you … I will set My tabernacle in the midst of you, and My soul shall not cast you off. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people!” (Leviticus 26:1-12).
THE NOT SO NICE SIDE : “But if you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments; if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so, as not to do those things which are appointed by Me—then I also will do these things to you: I will quickly visit you with poverty … burning heat which shall consume your lives! You shall sow your seed in vain, which shall be devoured by your enemies! … You shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you, you shall flee when no man pursues you! But if you will not yet for all this obey Me―then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins, and I will break the pride of your stubbornness! … Your labor shall be in vain, the ground shall not bring forth her increase, nor the trees yield their fruit! … I will send in upon you the beasts of the field, to destroy you and your cattle … make you few in number … and your highways desolate ...
“And if even so you will still not amend, but will walk contrary to Me: then I also will strike you seven times more for your sins! I will bring in upon you the sword that shall avenge My covenant! When you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies! … I will bring your cities to be a wilderness! … I will destroy your land! … I will scatter you among the Gentiles! … I will draw out the sword after you! … Your land shall be desert … your cities destroyed! … And as to them that shall remain of you, I will send fear in their hearts in the countries of their enemies! … None of you shall dare to resist your enemies! You shall perish among the Gentiles! … And if of them also some remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities, in the land of their enemies, and they shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers, and their own―until they confess their iniquities and the iniquities of their ancestors, … until their uncircumcised mind be ashamed! Then shall they pray for their sins!’” (Leviticus 26:13-41). However, rather than just these few excerpts, the whole chapter should be read to fully get the message.
Harsh? Listen to Our Lady Today!
Some may think those words too harsh—yet God cannot change, otherwise He would not be a perfect God. The terrible message given by God in the Old Testament is repeated today by Our Lady. Just a few sentences suffice to prove the point, but, as with Leviticus, one should read a compilation of all her threats to get the full message.
Nothing has changed to this day—the same message has been delivered to us by the Queen of prophets: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! ... If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity! It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful!” (Our Lady of Akita, 1973).
That is merely an echo of what Our Lady said at La Salette: “Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events! Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God! … God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together! … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other for years! … The Earth will be struck by calamities of all kinds ― in addition to plague and famine which will be widespread! There will be a series of wars, until the last war! … Blood will flow in the streets! A general war will follow which will be appalling. Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes! People will believe that all is lost. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy! Men will beat their heads against walls, call for their death, and on another side death will be their torment! Blood will flow on all sides!”
Miracles Will Come!—But Which Kind Do We Want?
As Judith—a figure of Our Lady in the Old Testament—said: “For it is certain that our God is so offended with sins, that he hath sent word by his prophets to the people, that he will deliver them up for their sins” (Judith 11:8).
The miraculous events—earthquakes and pestilence—that God sent during the Exodus of Israel from Egypt in its journey to the Promised Land, were painful miracles ― largely due to their sinfulness and infidelity to God. “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘This people, rising up, will go fornicating after strange gods in the land, to which it goeth in to dwell! There will they forsake Me, and will make void the covenant, which I have made with them! And My wrath shall be kindled against them in that day: and I will forsake them, and will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured! All evils and afflictions shall find them, so that they shall say in that day: “In truth it is because God is not with me, that these evils have found me!” But I will hide, and cover My face in that day, for all the evils which they have done, because they have followed strange gods!’” (Deuteronomy 31:16-18).
“You shall not go after the strange gods of all the nations, that are round about you: because the Lord thy God is a jealous God in the midst of thee: lest at any time the wrath of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and take thee away from the face of the Earth” (Deuteronomy 6:14-15).
EXAMPLES OF MIRACLES OF AGGRESSION
In this article we will examine what could be called “Miracles of Aggression”―by which we mean miracles that manifest the anger and displeasure of God, and which usually are the source of some great punishment upon the guilty parties. In the following article we will examine God’s “Miracles of Protection”―by which we mean miracles that bring God’s help in difficulties and protection from enemies and dangers for those who are faithful to God and are truly in need.
● Miracles of Aggression Against the Enemies of the Chosen People
In the Book of Judith, we read of God’s penchant for helping His Chosen People in their battles: “Wheresoever they went in without bow and arrow, and without shield and sword, their God fought for them and overcame” (Judith 5:16).
THE AVENGING ANGEL : We see God go on the offensive and send an “avenging angel” to slay all the first-born in Egypt: “The Lord said to Moses: ‘Speak ye to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, and say to them: “Let every man take a lamb … and the whole multitude of the children of Israel shall sacrifice it … And they shall take of the blood thereof, and put it upon both the side posts, and on the upper door posts of the houses … And I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and will kill every firstborn in the land of Egypt both man and beast: and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments!” I am the Lord! And the blood shall be unto you for a sign in the houses where you shall be―and I shall see the blood, and shall pass over you: and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I shall strike the land of Egypt.’
“And Moses called all the ancients of the children of Israel, and said to them: ‘Go take a lamb by your families, and sacrifice the Phase. And dip a bunch of hyssop in the blood that is at the door, and sprinkle the transom of the door therewith, and both the door cheeks: let none of you go out of the door of his house till morning. For the Lord will pass through striking the Egyptians: and when he shall see the blood on the transom [the crosspiece] and on both the posts [of the door], He will pass over the door of the house, and not suffer the destroyer to come into your houses and to hurt you.’
“And the children of Israel going forth did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. And it came to pass at midnight, the Lord slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharao, who sat on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive woman that was in the prison, and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharao arose in the night, and all his servants, and all Egypt: for there was not a house wherein there lay not one dead” (Exodus 12:1-30).
THE AMALECITES : On their way to the Promised Land, the Israelites encountered the Amalecites. It was through the actions of Moses that God brought victory for the Israelites: “And Amalec came, and fought against Israel in Raphidim. And Moses said to Josue: ‘Choose out men: and go out and fight against Amalec: tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill having the rod of God in my hand!’ Josue did as Moses had spoken, and he fought against Amalec; but Moses, and Aaron, and Hur went up upon the top of the hill. And when Moses lifted up his hands, Israel overcame: but if he let them down a little, Amalec overcame. And Moses’ hands were heavy: so they took a stone, and put under him, and he sat on it: and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands on both sides. And it came to pass that his hands were not weary until sunset. And Josue put Amalec and his people to flight, by the edge of the sword. And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Write this for a memorial in a book, and deliver it to the ears of Josue: for I will destroy the memory of Amalec from under Heaven!’ And Moses built an altar: and called the name thereof, ‘The Lord my Exaltation”, saying: ‘Because the hand of the throne of the Lord, and the war of the Lord shall be against Amalec, from generation to generation!’” (Exodus 17:8-16).
JERICHO : God commanded Josue to execute His divine plan, after which He promised that Jericho would be delivered into his hands: “Now Jericho was close shut up and fenced, for fear of the children of Israel, and no man durst go out or come in. And the Lord said to Josue: ‘Behold I have given into thy hands Jericho, and the king thereof, and all the valiant men. Go round about the city, all ye fighting men, once a day: so shall ye do for six days. And on the seventh day the priests shall take the seven trumpets, which are used in the jubilee, and shall go before the Ark of the Covenant: and you shall go about the city seven times, and the priests shall sound the trumpets. And when the voice of the trumpet shall give a longer and broken tune, and shall sound in your ears, all the people shall shout together with a very great shout, and the walls of the city shall fall to the ground, and they shall enter in every one at the place against which they shall stand’” (Josue 6:1-5). As St. Paul later says: “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, by the going round them seven days” (Hebrews 11:30).
THE ENACIMS : The Enacims (or Anakims) were a race of giants that stood between the Israelites and the Promised Land. Their formidable appearance, as described by the Twelve Spies sent to search the land, filled the Israelites with terror. But God would take care of the problem, as we read in Genesis: “Hear, O Israel: Thou shalt go over the Jordan this day; to possess nations very great, and stronger than thyself, cities great, and walled up to the sky—a people great and tall, the sons of the Enacims, whom thou hast seen, and heard of, against whom no man is able to stand. Thou shalt know therefore this day that the Lord thy God Himself will pass over before thee, a devouring and consuming fire, to destroy and extirpate and bring them to nothing before thy face quickly, as He hath spoken to thee” (Deuteronomy 9:1-2).
THE PHILISTINES : “Another time also the Philistines made a raid, and spread themselves abroad in the valley. And David consulted God again, and God said to him: ‘Go not up after them, turn away from them, and come upon them over against the pear trees. And when thou shalt hear the sound of one marching above the tops of the pear trees, then shalt thou go out to battle. For God is gone out before thee to strike the army of the Philistines!’ And David did as God had commanded him, and defeated the army of the Philistines, slaying them from Gabaon to Gazera” (1 Paralipomenon 14:14-16).
There are MANY, MANY more instances where God gets aggressively involved in matters and shows His powerful hand in battle and in punishment against His enemies and the enemies of the Chosen People. These are merely three of these many.
● Miracles of Aggression against the Chosen People
► THE GREAT FLOOD : We cannot imagine a greater miracle than the Great Flood in the time of Noe, by which God destroyed almost of all His living creatures. The Book of Genesis thus describes this incredible miracle of aggression and punishment: “And God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the Earth, and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times. It repented Him that He had made man on the Earth. And being touched inwardly with sorrow of heart, He said: ‘I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the Earth, from man even to beasts, from the creeping thing even to the fowls of the air, for it repenteth Me that I have made them!’
“And the Earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity. And when God had seen that the Earth was corrupted, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the Earth, He said to Noe: ‘The end of all flesh is come before Me, the Earth is filled with iniquity through them, and I will destroy them with the Earth. Make thee an ark of timber planks. Behold I will bring the waters of a great flood upon the Earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, under Heaven. All things that are in the Earth shall be consumed. And I will establish My covenant with thee, and thou shalt enter into the ark, thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and the wives of thy sons with thee … For yet a while, and after seven days, I will rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will destroy every substance that I have made, from the face of the Earth!’ …
“And after the seven days were passed, the waters of the flood overflowed the Earth ... All the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the flood gates of heaven were opened: and the rain fell upon the Earth forty days and forty nights ... And the flood was forty days upon the Earth, and the waters increased, and lifted up the ark on high from the Earth. For they overflowed exceedingly: and filled all on the face of the Earth: and the ark was carried upon the waters. And the waters prevailed beyond measure upon the Earth: and all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered … And all flesh was destroyed that moved upon the Earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beasts, and of all creeping things that creep upon the Earth: and all men. And all things wherein there is the breath of life on the Earth, died. And He destroyed all the substance that was upon the Earth, from man even to beast, and the creeping things and fowls of the air: and they were destroyed from the Earth: and Noe only remained, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the Earth a hundred and fifty days” (Genesis 6:5-17; 7:4-24).
► DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRHA : This renowned and terrible event shows the angry side of the God of Love. Mankind never seems to learn from God’s previous interventions in the life of sinful man with His miracles of aggression and punishment. One would think that the remembrance of the Great Flood might be a sufficient warning, but mankind has this false sense of security with regards to God. We read in Genesis: “And the Lord said: ‘The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is multiplied, and their sin is become exceedingly grievous. I will go down and see whether they have done according to the cry that is come to Me: or whether it be not so, that I may know!’” (Genesis 18:20-21). God then reveals to Abraham, living by Sodom, his intention to destroy the cities. Abraham begins to plead and intercede—asking God to spare Sodom if 50 just men could be found. God agrees. Then Abraham whittles the number down to 45, then 40, 30, 20 and finally 10. God still agrees to spare Sodom if 10 just men are found—yet not even 10 could be found. “And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven. And He destroyed these cities, and all the country about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all things that spring from the Earth” (Genesis 18:24-25).
► THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT : God did not hesitate to miraculously bring about an earthquake and rain down fire upon some of the Chosen People during the Exodus, when “Dathan and Abiron—the princes of the people—rose against Moses and Aaron in the sedition of Core, when they rebelled against the Lord: and the Earth, opening her mouth, swallowed up Core, with many others dying, when the fire burned two hundred and fifty men. And there was a great miracle wrought, that when Core perished, his sons did not perish” (Numbers 26:9-11).
► CIVIL WAR IN ISRAEL : God’s intervention brings about a victory for the single tribe remaining faithful to Him—Juda—against the other unfaithful tribes of Israel. We see a gigantic battle in the Old Testament, involving well over a million soldiers. It was between the faithful remnant of the twelves tribes of Israel—Juda—and the unfaithful remaining tribes. “Abia [of the faithful kingdom of Juda] had begun battle, and had with him four hundred thousand most valiant and chosen men, Jeroboam [of the unfaithful remainder of Israel] put his army in array against him, eight hundred thousand men, who were also chosen and most valiant for war. [Thus Abia and Juda were outnumbered 2 to 1]. And Abia stood upon Mount Semeron and said: ‘Hear me, O Jeroboam, and all Israel! The Lord is our God, whom we forsake not! … We keep the precepts of the Lord our God, whom you have forsaken. Therefore God is the leader in our army!’ While he spoke these things, Jeroboam caused an ambush to come about behind Abia. And while Abia stood facing the enemies, Jeroboam surrounded Juda with his army, who perceived it not. And when Juda looked behind them, they saw the battle coming upon them, both in front and behind, and they cried to the Lord: and the priests began to sound with the trumpets. And all the men of Juda shouted: and behold, when they shouted, God terrified Jeroboam and all Israel that stood against Abia and Juda. And the children of Israel fled before Juda, and the Lord delivered them into their hand. And Abia and his people slew them with a great slaughter, and there fell wounded of Israel five hundred thousand valiant men [out of the eight hundred thousand].” (2 Paralipomenon 13:3-4; 10-17).
► BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY : Several times God allowed His Chosen People to be conquered and carried off from Jerusalem as captives to Babylon, where they remained for decades on end. On top of that, God allowed the Temple of Jerusalem to be totally destroyed. Now where is the miracle in that? It is more a case of God positively and deliberately withdrawing His helping and protective hand from Israel and giving a hand, in a certain sense, to the enemies of Israel. The Babylonian Captivity was not a spontaneous event—it had been long-prepared by the ever-increasing weakness and infidelity of the Chosen People of God. The Israelites were not content with the rule of the Judges. The people wanted a king to rule over them. They longed to be united under one leader—a king—like the other nations around them.
In the time of Samuel, the people became very restless and insisted that he appoint a king to rule over them. In vain did Samuel remind them that God was their King. They would not listen to him. They wanted a human king to lead them to a final victory over the Chanaanites and the Philistines. Samuel urged them to give up their desire for a king and promised them that the wars would come to an end. By seeking to have a king, they were sinning against the will of God. The people did not heed Samuel. They prayed to God to give them a king, and finally God listened to their prayers and yielded to their desires―which teaches us to be careful what we pray for!! Better leave things to God’s wisdom rather than our capricious desires!
In order to bring them back to His worship and to prevent their worshiping false gods, God gave them the human king that they so foolishly desired, and sent Samuel to anoint Saul king of Israel (1050-1010 BC, reigned 40 years). However, their king, Saul, sinned—much like Adam the first ‘king’ sinned—and sin brought death; in this case, death to the kingdom. The Israelites had exchanged a sinless King, God, for a sinful king, Saul—what a bargain! The consequence was that the kingdom was taken away from Saul and given to David (1010-970 BC, reigned 40 years), who becomes the second in the new line of kings. Yet David also sinned, committing the sins of murder and adultery.
David’s son, Solomon (970-930 BC, reigned 40 years), will be the third king in line. Under Solomon, the Temple is built in Jerusalem and becomes the great means of holding the people together and keeping them mindful of God’s promise. But Solomon was not faithful to God all the days of his life and the true religion, with which he started out, starts to weaken in him, as he gives way to wealth and idolatry. Solomon thus sinned and God punished him by allowing his kingdom to decline.
After the death of Solomon in 930 BC, the punishment continued because the sins continued: two kingdoms grew up—the Kingdom of Juda (under Solomon’s son Roboam) and the Kingdom of Israel (under Solomon’s son Jeroboam). Jeroboam would not permit the people of the ten tribes of the Kingdom of Israel to worship in the Temple at Jerusalem, in the Kingdom of Juda, which was under the control of his brother Roboam. He thought it was necessary to keep them from the Temple in order to keep them attached to himself. In place of the Temple of Jerusalem, he built two other temples to false gods. Civil war follows and the people turn away from the worship of the one true God. In the Kingdom of Juda, Roboam remained a just and God-fearing ruler for only three years. After that time, he followed evil advice and built altars to false gods in various parts of the kingdom. Roboam set the example of idolatry, and the people followed it.
During this time God sent His prophets to warn the kings and the people of the dire consequences awaiting them if they would not repent. One king of Israel after another—from a total of 20 kings over 200 years—turned out to be evil in the sight of God—some more, some less—yet all of them kept the Kingdom of Israel entrenched in idolatry. God, though patient, decided to act. The scourge that He would use would be the Assyrians. Assyria’s conquest of the ten northern tribes, that made up the Kingdom of Israel, began approximately in 740 BC. Nearly 20 years later, about 722 BC, the capital city of the Kingdom of Israel, Samaria, was overtaken by the Assyrians. And in 701 BC the Assyrians marched south into the Kingdom of Juda; however, they were unable to capture Jerusalem due to God’s intervention (2 Paralipomenon 32:22). Yet Just as God had used Assyria to punish the northern Kingdom of Israel, God would use Babylon as His agent of judgment against the Kingdom of Juda for their sins of idolatry and rebellion against Him. There were actually several different times during this period (607-586 BC) when the Jews were taken captive by Babylon. With each successive rebellion against Babylonian rule, Nabuchodonosor would lead his armies against Juda until they laid siege to Jerusalem for over a year, killing many people and destroying the Jewish Temple, taking captive many thousands of Jews, and leaving Jerusalem in ruins.
► THE SIEGE & DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM : The Siege of Jerusalem―prophesied by Our Lord as a consequence for Jerusalem having rejected Him and His teachings―took place in AD 70. Though not strictly a miracle in the positive sense, it could be said to be so in the negative sense—whereby the miraculous protection, which God so often gave His Chosen People, was now withdrawn. The Roman army, led by the future Emperor Titus―with Tiberius Julius Alexander as his second-in-command―besieged and conquered the city of Jerusalem, which had been occupied by its Jewish defenders in AD 66, when they rebelled against Roman governing. The siege ended with the sacking of the city and the destruction of its famous Second Temple. The destruction of both the First and Second Temples is still mourned annually. The Arch of Titus, celebrating the Roman sack of Jerusalem and its Temple, still stands in Rome.
Titus surrounded the city, with three legions―a Roman Legion would have anywhere from 4,200 to 6,000 soldiers―so 3 Roman Legions would have anywhere from 12,600 to 18,000 soldiers. Titus put pressure on the food and water supplies of the inhabitants by allowing pilgrims to enter the city to celebrate Passover, and then refusing to allow them back out. Titus destroyed the newly built Third Wall of Jerusalem with a battering ram, as well as breaching the Second Wall, and then turned his attention to the inner-city Fortress of Antonia, just north of the Temple Mount. The Romans were then drawn into street fighting with the Zealots, who were then ordered to retreat to the Temple to avoid heavy losses.
After several failed attempts to breach or scale the walls of the Antonia Fortress, the Romans finally launched a secret attack, overwhelming the sleeping Zealots and taking the fortress. Overlooking the Temple compound, the fortress provided a perfect point from which to attack the Temple itself. Battering rams made little progress, but the fighting itself eventually set the walls on fire; a Roman soldier threw a burning stick onto one of the Temple’s walls. Destroying the Temple was not among Titus’ goals, possibly due in large part to the massive expansions done by Herod the Great mere decades earlier. Titus had wanted to seize it and transform it into a temple dedicated to the Roman Emperor and the Roman pantheon. The fire spread quickly and was soon out of control. The Temple was destroyed and the flames spread into the residential sections of the city.
The Roman legions quickly crushed the remaining Jewish resistance. Part of the remaining Jews escaped through hidden underground tunnels, while others made a final stand in the Upper City. This defense halted the Roman advance as they had to construct siege towers to assail the remaining Jews. The Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, who acted as a negotiator for the Romans with the Jews, claims that 1.1 million people were killed during the siege, of which a majority were Jewish, and that 97,000 were captured and enslaved. He writes: “The slaughter within was even more dreadful than the spectacle from without. Men and women, old and young, insurgents and priests, those who fought and those who entreated mercy, were hewn down in indiscriminate carnage. The number of the slain exceeded that of the slayers. The legionaries had to clamber over heaps of dead to carry on the work of extermination.
In the year 325, the major early Church historian, Eusebius, wrote about these dreadful events. He wrote: “It is fitting to add to these accounts the true prediction of our Savior in which He foretold these very events. His words are as follows: ‘Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day! For there shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be!’
“These things took place in this manner in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, in accordance with the prophecies of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Who, by divine power, saw them beforehand as if they were already present, and wept and mourned according to the statement of the holy evangelists, who give the very words which He uttered, when, as if addressing Jerusalem herself, He said: ‘If thou hadst known, even thou, in this day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes! For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a rampart about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee and thy children even with the ground!’”
What Do We Learn From This?
“What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31). As Leviticus says: “If you walk in My precepts, and keep My commandments, and do them, … then you shall dwell in your land without fear and there shall be none to make you afraid! … The sword shall not pass through your quarters! You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you! Five of yours shall pursue a hundred others, and a hundred of you shall pursue ten thousand! Your enemies shall fall before you by the sword! ... I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people!” (Leviticus 26:1-12).
“But if you will not hear me, nor do all My commandments; if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so, as not to do those things which are appointed by Me—then you shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you! … You shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies! … I will bring your cities to be a wilderness! … I will destroy your land! … I will scatter you among the Gentiles! … I will draw out the sword after you! … Your land shall be desert! … Your cities destroyed! … And as to them that shall remain of you―I will send fear in their hearts in the countries of their enemies! … None of you shall dare to resist your enemies! You shall perish among the Gentiles!” (Leviticus 26:13-41).
The bottom line is that “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
The choice is pretty simple! Yet how many make a fateful bad choice! It seems that modern man is one of these! Yet, not all will perish. As Our Lady said at La Salette: “God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will.” Who are the faithful servants of God? Those who love Him by keeping His commandments and His words. Our Lord says: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My words … He that does not love Me, keeps not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24). The same is true of Our Lady―if we love Our Lady then we will keep her words, we will obey her commands, we will seek to put into practice and fulfill what she requests.
At Fatima, on October 13th, 1917, Our Lady indicated some of her desires and commands. She again insisted that the Rosary be prayed daily. She also held out to the world the Brown Scapular of which Sister Lucia later remarked that Our Lady wished everyone to wear the Brown Scapular. Furthermore, she told us to stop offending God―because He was already too much offended. The Miracle of Sun was an indication of the power of God and what awaits the world which will see either the protective power of God, or the punishing power of God―depending upon whether or not they amend their sinful lives. In her many other apparitions, Our Lady also warned of the tremendous miraculous events that would occur throughout the entire world if sinful souls refused to amend their lives. The choice is ours! We shall reap what we sow! And Our Lady wants us to sow the seeds of mercy for sinners by our performance of MANY, MANY sacrifices and by the praying of MANY, MANY Rosaries. She could say the same words to us as Our Lord said to the Jews: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46) … “Why do you say: ‘Hail Mary! Hail Mary!’ and do not the things which I say?”
In the next article we shall look at how God takes care of His faithful servants—in the past and in our times, so that we may have hope for the future! The protection of God is truly a marvel to behold!
Article 12
Friday October 13th, 2023
Fatima Miracle of the Sun of October 13th, Part 2
Friday October 13th, 2023
Fatima Miracle of the Sun of October 13th, Part 2
Stacking the Odds Against Yourself!
Sometimes, when God works a miracle, He deliberately stacks the odds against Himself in order to make the miracle all the more stupefying and stupendous. That is exactly what happened at Fatima with the “Miracle of the Sun”. God arranged it so that the remote events and proximate events―that is to say, things that had already taken place in earlier years, and things that were happening right there and then―were for the most part stacked against the success of the miracle that Our Lady had promised beforehand. To announce that something miraculous is going to occur, way ahead of time, puts enormous pressure on the fulfilling of the promise and meeting the expectations of people.
We are probably not aware of several circumstances that existed during those days in Portugal in the build-up to the “Miracle of the Sun” on October 13th, 1917.
(1) The growing spirit of the times was one of atheism (there is no God) or agnosticism (even if there is God, He cannot be known for certain). The prevailing and increasing philosophical mood of the time was epitomized by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who boldly asserted, in the late 1800s, that “God is dead.”
(2) Also, in 1917, Portugal―like the majority of the world―was in the middle of a war. As the First World War (19140=-1918) raged throughout most of Europe, Portugal found itself unable to maintain its initial neutrality and joined forces with the Allies. Over 220,000 Portuguese civilians had died during the war; thousands due to food shortages, and thousands more due to the Spanish flu.
(3) Few years before, in 1910, a revolution had led to the establishment of the First Portuguese Republic in 1910 and a new Liberal constitution was drafted under the influence of Freemasonry, which sought to suppress the Faith from public life.
(4) Catholic churches and schools were seized by the government, and the wearing of clerical or religious clothing in public, the ringing of church bells, and the celebration of public religious festivals―were all banned. Between 1911-1916, nearly 2,000 priests, monks and nuns were killed by anti-Christian groups.
(5) This was the backdrop against which Mary, in 1917, had appeared, month after month, from May to October, to three shepherd children – Lucia dos Santos, 10, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, 9 and 7 – in a field in Fatima, Portugal, bringing with her religious requests for the recitation of the Rosary, for sacrifices on behalf of sinners, and a secret regarding the fate of the world.
(6) To prove that the apparitions were true and put her reputation “on the line”, Mary had promised the children that during the last of her six appearances she would provide a “sign” so people would believe in the apparitions and in her message.
(7) God’s Providence had also arranged for a crowd of around 70,000 people – believers and skeptics alike – to gather in order to see the miracle that Mary had promised. Freemason authorities and newspaper reporters were present in great numbers―ready to mock, scorn and reject the promised miracle.
(8) God’s Providence had also arranged for torrential rain to fall for many hours prior to the miracle―soaking the ground so much that it had turned muddy.
(9) As for the children, they made their way to the Cova amid the adulation and skepticism which had followed them since May. When they arrived they found critics who questioned their veracity and the punctuality of the Lady―who had promised to arrive at noon. It was well past noon by the official time [legal time] of the country. However, when the sun arrived at its zenith―which was noon in “real time” or “sun time”―the Lady appeared as she had said she would.
Seeing is Believing!
How many persons were at the Cova da Iria to witness the Miracle of the Sun? The maximum estimate was from Dr. Almeida Garrett, and was proposed some months after the event. It estimates the spectators numbered at least one hundred thousand. In the local atheistic newspaper, O Seculo of October 15th, its editor, the Freemason Avelino de Almeida, wrote: “The crowd, by the unprejudiced calculations of cultivated persons very new to mystical influences, was estimated at thirty or forty thousand people.” In his article of October 29th, he corrected and increased his original estimate: “On October 13th, according to the calculations established by people free from every prejudice, some fifty thousand people were gathered on the moor of Fatima.” A neutral newspaper, the Primeiro de Janeiro, also estimated the crowd at fifty thousand individuals. We can therefore say, with a quasi-certainty, that this figure is an absolute minimum―that is why the majority of historians propose, as very probable, the presence of a crowd of seventy thousand witnesses.
The proofs for the Miracle of the Sun are greatly aided by the fact that the miracle itself was witnessed by some 70,000 people present on that day. Their testimony is unanimous―even among non-believers, freemasons, atheistic journalists.
Among that large crowd were faithful Catholics, fallen away Catholics, skeptics, mockers, Freemasons, doctors, scientists, professors, teachers, journalists, policemen, soldiers, priests, etc. The Portuguese historian, Leopoldo Nuñes, who was present on the scene on October 13th, says, “At the moment of the great miracle there were present some of the most illustrious men of letters, in the arts and the sciences, and almost all were unbelievers coming out of curiosity, led by the prediction of the seers. Even the Minister of Education of the Masonic government was there.”
So we see here how many modern-day skeptics and debunkers are refuted, because exactly the men whom they claim were not present at the miracle, actually were present at Fatima at the moment of the miracle. Here we have to thank Our Lady, who sought to prove the authenticity of her Fatima Message to the unbelievers by “advertizing” it months in advance so as to pique the curiosity of everyone―believers and non-believers alike. Our Lady had said in July of 1917 that she would perform a miracle at midday on the 13th of October.
Another marvelous thing was that the phenomenon of the Miracle of the Sun could be admired from beyond Fatima. And even, some perfectly credible witnesses, who were very far away from the Cova da Iria, related having seen the unprecedented spectacle of the dance of the sun, exactly like the thousands of pilgrims gathered around the holmoak.
Testimony of the Newspaper Editor, the Freemason Avelino de Almeida
Again, we return to the account of the miraculous events on the day of the 13th given us by the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, the self-professed anti-Catholic witness, who was also the editor of O Seculo. In his editorial Article of October 15th, 1917 (two days after the Miracle of the Sun), he wrote: “And then we witnessed a unique spectacle― an incredible spectacle, unbelievable if you did not witness it. From above the road ... we see the immense crowd turn towards the sun, which appeared at its zenith, clear of the clouds. It looked like a plate of dull silver, and it was possible to stare at it without the least discomfort. It did not burn the eyes. It did not blind. One might say that an eclipse had occurred!” It is worth noting that the editors of the other anti-Catholic newspapers attacked Avelino de Almeida for his report. But even in the face of such criticism by his anti-Catholic comrades, he did not change his testimony. In fact, 15 days after his original account of the miracle, he published another story about the events, this time illustrating it with 12 pictures taken of the crowd in the midst of the Miracle of the Sun. Throughout this article, the Freemason, de Almeida, just kept repeating, “I saw it … I saw it … I saw it.”
Who Saw What?
Just as there are no two people who are exactly alike, down to the tiniest degree; and just as God gives varying degrees of grace to souls on Earth; and just as there are no two saints who are exactly alike in Heaven; and no two damned souls who are exactly alike in Hell―so, too, at the Miracle of Sun at Fatima, there were varying levels of who saw what and to what degree they saw it. If you think that is illogical or unlikely―then recall that when Our Lady of Fatima appeared to the three children―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―each of them had different degrees or levels of participation in those apparitions. As was the case during the first apparition, Lucia was the only one of the three to speak to Our Lady. Jacinta was allowed to see and hear Our Lady’s words. Francisco was permitted to see Our Lady, but could not hear her words. Thus, it is hardly surprising that the same principle was applied to each of those 70,000 persons who were present at the Miracle of the Sun.
Testimony of a Scientist, Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett
Let us follow the account of the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, adding to it the testimony of another eyewitness Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett, professor of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Coimbra―a testimony given by Dr. Garret to Fr. Manuel Formigão.
The testimony of Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett begins on October 12th, 1917, when he arrives at Fatima to “see” the non-fulfillment of the prophecy of a miracle. Here, the unbeliever — who was obviously impressed with the faith of the believers, says, “On the road, we encounter the first groups which are on their way to the holy place, a good 13 miles away … Men and women are for the most part barefoot, the latter carrying their shoes in bags on their heads, while the men lean on thin sticks and are also prudently armed with umbrellas. Apparently indifferent to what is going on around them, they do not seem to notice the countryside, nor their fellow-travelers, but murmur the Rosary as they go immersed in thought … A woman recites the first part of the Ave Maria and immediately her companions continue the second part in chorus. They move rhythmically and rapidly in order to reach the place of the apparitions by nightfall. Here, under the stars they will sleep, keeping the first and best places near the little tree.”
What a moving account. He must have been profoundly moved by what he saw. We can only wonder about his attitude. Perhaps it was one of pity for what he thought were the pathetic hopes of the people.
The whole night it rained. This was a change in the weather from what had occurred earlier in the autumn season. It was as if Our Lady was perfectly stage managing the scene to emphasize the miracle. The rain transformed the dusty roads into muddy quagmires. What does de Almeida say concerning the response of the people to these adverse conditions? “They did not lose hope and they did not forget the cause for which they came.”
The day of October 13th arrived. Dr. Almeida Garrett continues, “By 10 a.m., the sky was completely hidden behind the clouds and the rain began to fall in earnest. Swept by the strong wind and beating upon the faces of the people, it soaked the pilgrims, often without protection against the weather, to the marrow of their bones … But no one complained or turned back … Hours of waiting …The great mass of people congregate round the oak tree which, according to the children, is Our Lady’s pedestal.” (Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett). We temporarily pause Dr. Garrett’s testimony to describe what was happening at that same time in that same place.
Doubting Thomas Priest
What amazes us about the Miracle of the Sun is the specificity of Our Lady. Our Lady said, on July 13th 1917, that she would perform a miracle at midday on the 13th of October. Then when noon came and went on October 13th―there was no sign of Our Lady and no sign of a miracle! Since it was after noon, how can we say that Our Lady’s promise was being fulfilled? Here it is necessary to say that the Portuguese government―due to its belligerency with France and Britain during the First World War―decided that the clocks were to be set 90 minutes ahead, so that Portugal would be in the same time zone as her fellow belligerents. On October 13th, 1917, 1:30 p.m. was actually midday, sun time―and the government time of 12 noon that was imposed by the Portuguese government, was actually 10:30 a.m. according to sun time.
The hour of the miracle approached (according to government time). The presence of the seers was announced shortly before the scheduled time of the apparition and miracle; they arrive about one-half hour early. The little girls Jacinta and Lucy, crowned with flowers, are led to the place where the platform has been erected. When Lucy asks them―actually, she orders them―to shut their umbrellas in the drenching rain, something that goes against intuition and common sense, the order is transmitted and executed right away without resistance. Then they wait. What if there was no miracle? But there was.
Near the time of 1:30 p.m. (government time), a priest―who stood by the children and had been waiting since the evening―began to grow impatient. “Look its midday now! Our Lady does not lie! Well, well, well!” After a few minutes with nothing happening, except the rain pouring down on the uncovered thousands, the priest again looked at his watch and said: “Look, it’s midday now! Our Lady doesn’t lie! It’s past midday! You see it’s all a delusion! Run along all of you! Go away! It’s a delusion!” In response to this priestly skepticism and doubt, Lucy refused to go. It was midday, so the priest began to push the three children away from the site. Then the simple faith of Lucy took over. She began to cry and said: “If anyone wants to go, I shall stay where I am! Our Lady said she would come! She came the other times and she will come this time too!”
At that moment Lucy looked to the east and said to Jacinta, “Jacinta, kneel down. Our Lady is coming. I saw the lightning.” According to Sister Lucy’s account, the impatient priest did not say another word and the children never saw him again. It was at this moment that the miracle commenced.
Back to theTestimony of the Scientist, Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett
“It must have been 1:30 p.m. when there arose at the exact spot where the children were, a column of smoke, thin, fine and bluish, which extended up to perhaps two meters above their heads, and evaporated at that height. This phenomenon, perfectly visible to the naked eye, lasted for a few seconds. Not having noted how long it had lasted, I cannot say whether it was more or less than a minute. The smoke dissipated abruptly, and after some time, it came back to occur a second time, then a third time...”
Whereas “the low and heavy sky had a very dark color, laden with moisture, released an abundant and long lasting rain,” during the time of the apparition, the rain stopped totally. Abruptly the sky cleared: “The sun triumphantly pierced the thick bed of clouds hiding it until then, and shone intensely.”
The Vision of the Sun
Why “the vision of the sun”? Because at this moment, contrary to the normal phenomenon, everyone, and this is a unanimous testimony without contradiction, could look at the sun clearly, directly, and without wincing or closing their eyes. No one needed to turn away. This is what the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, editor of O Seculo says: “Then they saw a unique spectacle, [an] unbelievable spectacle for anyone who did not witness it. From the road … one could see the immense multitude turn towards the sun, which appeared free from clouds and in its zenith. It resembles a dull silver disc, and it is possible to look at it without the least discomfort.”
Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett, however, made this observation, “Suddenly I heard the uproar of thousands of voices, and I saw the whole multitude, spread out in that vast space at my feet, ... turn their backs to that spot where, until then, all their expectations focused, and look at the sun on the other side ... I turned around, too, toward the point commanding their gazes, and I could see the sun, like a very clear disc, with its sharp edge, which gleamed without hurting the sight ... It kept its light and heat, and stood out clearly in the sky … It could not be confused with the sun seen through a fog (there was no fog at that moment), for it was neither veiled, nor dim … but which did not hurt the eyes. The most astonishing thing was to be able to stare at the solar disc for a long time, brilliant with light and heat, without hurting the eyes, or damaging the retina … I do not agree with the comparison which I have heard made in Fatima — that of a dull silver disc. It was a clearer, richer, brighter color, having something of the luster of a pearl … I felt it to be a living body … It looked like a glazed wheel made of mother of pearl … It was a remarkable fact that one could fix one’s eyes on this brazier of light and heat without any pain in the eyes or blinding of the retina.” (Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett).
Other Testimonies
What is truly amazing about this miracle is that Our Lady perfectly “stage managed” the entire event. Each aspect of the miracle was directed to accentuate the miraculous nature of the phenomenon. Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett reports, “The sky, which had been overcast all day, suddenly clears up; the rain stops and it looks like the sun is about to fill with light the countryside that the wintry morning had made so gloomy.” This sudden change of weather surprised all of the witnesses. Dr. Pereira Gens simply reports, “The rain suddenly stopped”; it “suddenly stopped,” of course, at the exact moment which had been predicted for the miracle to take place.
This abrupt change of weather took all the eyewitnesses by surprise: “It was a day of heavy and continuous rain. But a few minutes before the miracle, it stopped raining.” (testimony of Alfredo da Silva Santos). “The people could look at the sun as we look at the moon.” (Maria do Carmo). One would think that this would be enough, being able to look at the sun without having to turn away, but Our Lady wanted to demonstrate her power in a more convincing way. So this sun that all the witnesses could observe without irritation “danced.” This was called by many of the common folk present, “The Dance of the Sun.”
The Freemason and editor of the local newspaper, El Seculo, Avelino de Almeida, wrote concerning this “dance”: “The sun trembled, the sun made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws — the sun ‘danced’ according to the typical expression of the people. It shook and trembled; it seemed like a wheel of fire.” Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett adds: “The sun’s disc did not remain immobile. This was not the sparkling of a heavenly body for it spun round upon itself, it made a whirl.” Also, “It spun like a fire-wheel, taking on all the colors of the rainbow … It looked like a ball of snow, revolving upon itself.”
A reporter from the Lisbon paper, O Dia, reported: “The silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy grey light, was seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken clouds... The light turned a beautiful blue, as if it had come through the stained-glass windows of a cathedral, and spread itself over the people who knelt with outstretched hands... people wept and prayed with uncovered heads, in the presence of a miracle they had awaited. The seconds seemed like hours, so vivid were they!”
According to Ti Marto, the father of Jacinta and Francisco, “At a certain moment the sun seemed to stop and then began to move and dance … However, the sun stops, only to begin its strange dance all over again after a brief interruption, whirling upon itself, giving the impression of approaching or receding.” This “dance,” which was seen by the 70,000 witnesses, was actually repeated three times during the course of the 10 minute long miracle.
Suddenly, the heavenly body began to tremble, to shake with abrupt movements, and finally to turn on itself at a dizzying speed while throwing out rays of light, all colors of the rainbow: “The sun turned like a fire wheel, taking on all the colors of the rainbow.” (Maria do Carmo). “It appeared like a globe of snow turning on itself.” (Father Lourenço). “The pearl-like disc had a giddy motion. This was not the twinkling of a star in all its brilliance. It turned on itself with impetuous speed.” (Dr. Almeida Garrett). “At a certain moment, the sun stopped and then began again to dance, to spin; it stopped again, and began again to dance.” (Ti Marto). It is indeed therefore a triple “dance of the sun” which thousands of witnesses affirm, having contemplated it for several minutes.
With the Dance of the Sun something else began to happen. The landscape, and everything in it, began to take on, in succession, all the colors of the rainbow. Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett: “During the solar phenomenon … there were changes of color in the atmosphere … I looked first at the nearest objects and then extended my glance further afield as far as the horizon, I saw everything an amethyst color. Objects around me, the sky and the atmosphere, were of the same color … Soon I heard a peasant who was near me shout out in tones of stupefaction: LOOK, THAT LADY IS ALL YELLOW! And in fact everything both near and far had changed to yellow. People looked as if they were suffering jaundice … My own hand was of the same color.” The exact same report comes from other witnesses: “The sun took on all the colors of the rainbow. Everything assumed those same colors: our faces, our clothes, the earth itself.” (Maria do Carmo). “A light, whose colors changed from one moment to the next, was reflected on the people and on things.” (Dr. Pereira Gens).
The poet Alfonso Lopes Vieira, who lived over 30 miles away from Fatima, also witnessed the phenomenon. He wrote: “On that day, 13th October, 1917, without remembering the predictions of the children, I was enchanted by a remarkable spectacle in the sky of a kind I had never seen before!”
The miracle was also seen by sailors on a British ship, off the coast of Portugal. One sailor who saw the miracle from his ship, wrote about it to his wife without obviously understanding what it meant or its significance.
A young boy, Inacio Lourenco, who was a schoolchild of nine when he saw the miracle at a village about 12 miles from Fatima. He described how the children and their teachers were attracted outside by a commotion in front of the school to see the Miracle of the Sun. He tells of how he could look at the sun, which looked like “a ball of snow revolving on itself,” before it suddenly came down in a zigzag toward the Earth.
The Falling of the Sun
Now we come to a part of the miracle that made many of those present on the scene of the Cova da Iria believe that the world was ending — such was the fearsomeness of the experience. This was clearly Our Lady’s warning that the Message of Fatima was not only a “message,” but, also, a very grave warning. What happened at that stage of the miracle is called the “falling” of the sun. “The sun whirling wildly, began to move and dance, until it seemed that it was being detached from the sky and was threateningly falling on us, as if to crush us with its huge weight and fiery mass! It was a terrible moment! It seemed like a wheel of fire that was about to fall on the people.” (Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett).
Dr. Domingos Pinto Coelho, a lawyer reporting for a Catholic newspaper of the time, described the event as follows: “The sun, at one moment surrounded with scarlet flame, at another aureoled in yellow and deep purple, seemed to be in an exceedingly swift and whirling movement, at times appearing to be loosened from the sky and to be approaching the Earth, strongly radiating heat.”
Other witnesses state: “The sun began to dance and, at a certain moment, it appeared to detach itself from the firmament and to rush forward on us, like a fire wheel.” (Alfredo da Silva Santos). “I saw the sun turn and it seemed to descend. It was like a bicycle wheel.” (John Carreira). “I saw it perfectly descending, as if it came to crash on the Earth. It seemed to detach itself from the sky and rush toward us. It maintained itself at a short distance above our heads; but that sort of attack was of very short duration ... It seemed very near the people and it continued to turn in the opposite direction.” (Maria do Carmo). “From those thousands of mouths, I heard shouts of joy and love to the Most Holy Virgin. And then I believed. I had the certainty of not having been the victim of a suggestion. I had seen the sun as I would never see it again!” (Mario Godinho).
Many thought that the time of the universal judgment had arrived, and so they quite literally cried out their sins at the top of their voice, begging the Lord’s pardon. Even though many thousands were expecting imminent death and were making their final preparations for that event, the miracle was not the end, but a warning and an indication of the mercy of God and the intercessory power of the Mother of God — because the sun returned to the heavens.
Everybody’s Clothes Were Dry
Then the final miracle that came right after the Miracle of the Sun―the sudden instantaneous drying of all the rain-sodden land, clothes, bodies and hair―the last manifestation of the intimate knowledge and love that God and His Blessed Mother has for mankind and for the pious faithful. Fr. Lourenço says: “This enormous multitude was drenched, for it had rained unceasingly since dawn. But — though this may appear incredible — after the great miracle everyone felt comfortable, and found his garments quite dry, a subject of general wonder … The truth of this fact has been guaranteed with the greatest sincerity by dozens and dozens of persons of absolute trustworthiness, whom I have known intimately from childhood, and who are still alive [1937].” We have it from Dr. Pereira Gens that, “I still remember the delicious sensation that this warm caress of the sun gave me … I [felt] my clothes almost dry now, although they were all wet a few moments ago.”
Implications for Our Lives and Our Times
What do we gain from this great manifestation of God? What should this miracle say to us? What basic truths do these events confirm for our “modern” minds? I would say this. First, that the true God, Master over Heaven and Earth, showed His power over Nature. He brought forward to the modern mind the simple idea that God is omnipotent and yet He is present to us in an intimate and personal way.
When before have we ever had a miracle that was predicted in advance, down to the very moment of its performance? Even the Resurrection itself had been predicted, but, perhaps, only Our Lady was expecting it. With the Miracle of the Sun, 70,000 were in some way expecting the miracle — either hopefully or skeptically — which had been predicted for three consecutive months, July, August, and September 1917. In response to the simple request of the earnest Lucy, Our Lady said in July: “In October I will work a miracle so that all may see and believe.” Here we have, for all “virtual” modern men, a miracle which appeals to our senses and our desire for the sensational. It involves our senses working with reason; our senses working with reason and speaking to us about the activity of the Supreme Cause.
It was not, however, just a manifestation of the omnipotence of God Himself. The Miracle of the Sun occurred while Lucy and the other children were viewing the apparition. Lucy indicated that in the apparition, Our Lady extended her hands and it was the light coming from her own hands which reflected on the sun at the moment of the miracle. The sun danced for Our Lady, the Ark of the New Covenant, just as David danced before the Ark of the Old Covenant. This miracle speaks about Our Lady’s all-powerful intercession. The obviousness of this fact is the reason why there is such shock and bemusement when the witnesses were asked: “What did you think at the moment of the miracle?” Ti Marto, the father of Francisco and Jacinta, answered such a question by saying, “What did I think? That it was the power of God. And if you ask me again, what do you think now? I think the same thing. How God is great!”
Another amazing aspect of this miracle was the response of the faithful. During the miracle they were praying, saying the Act of Contrition, pleading for Our Lord and Our Lady’s mercy for their sins because they believed, perhaps, that this was the end of their lives. They also, however, saw this miracle as a great triumph for them — a great consolation from Our Lady. In the face of persecution, in the face of mockery by the press, by the government, by the intellectuals of the Catholic Faith, that Faith was affirmed in a miraculous way that no one could deny. It was a confirmation of all of their beliefs and hopes.
We are moved when we read of the shock which the faithful felt, after the miracle occurred, when they saw that some of the other witnesses had their heads covered with their hats. This was a sacred event; hence, their outrage. There was an old man who was, throughout the apparition, reciting the Creed. He turned to another group, unbelievers, who had seen the same thing that he had seen and he violently protested and requested that they take off their hats before such an extraordinary manifestation of the existence of God. Believing ladies responded in the same way to the sacrilegious rudeness of the unbelievers. They cried out, as if suffocated with emotion: “What a pity, there are still men who do not uncover their heads when they find themselves before such a stupefying spectacle!” Even the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, editor of the Masonic and Atheistic newspaper, O Seculo, left visibly shaken to the core in his unbelief.
We Need a Miracle Today!
Nobody of sane mind would dispute the fact we are in dire need of a miracle today to save from the apocalyptic path that we are being forced to march. Only an idiot or an ignoramus can be totally unaware of the foreboding similarities, if not fulfillment, of Our Lady’s earlier warnings for our days:
“Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance … The Church will be full of those who accept compromises … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness ... Many priests will lose their spirit … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... They will become attached to wealth and riches … The demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among them there will even be bishops … . Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... This, then, will be the cause of the cursed demon taking possession … From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century, the passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of morals … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell ... The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … [cf. “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the nations, which are over the four quarters of the Earth” (Apocalypse 20:7)] …
“Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … All the civil [Masonic] governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights ... During this period, there will be great physical and moral calamities, both public and private … All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family ... They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption. Woe to the children of these times! …
“During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … Satan, making use of both good people and evil people, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … How the Church will suffer during this dark night! … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth! ... There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases … Various nations will be annihilated! ... Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost! …
Our Lady Promises a Miracle — But It Comes at a Great Price!
Our indiscipline, indifference, irreverence, ingratitude and insanity has the audacity to expect “miracles on tap” ― just turn on the tap and the miracles will pour out in abundance free of charge and at no cost to us! Even though God can and sometimes does perform miracles for sinners―and even through sinners―that is not God’s normal way of operating.
Millions have flocked to Lourdes hoping for a miracle since Our Lady’s apparition there in 1858―but very, very few have come away with the miracle they desired.
Already back in the Middle-Ages, in the peak of Christendom, one of Our Lord’s mystics asked Him why, at that time, there were so few miracles in comparison to the early days of the Church―Our Lord replied that it was largely due to a lack Faith.
We even see that same cause―lack of Faith―preventing miracles in the Gospels: “Jesus went into his own country … and He could not do any miracles there … because of their unbelief” (Mark 6:5-5). When the Gospel says: “He could not”―this is not because of a lack of power, but because Jesus would not work miracles in favor of obstinate and incredulous people, who were unworthy of such favors.
When Pontius Pilate sent Jesus to King Herod, when meeting Jesus, Herod had hoped to see some miracles done by Jesus for his own entertainment―but Jesus refused to even answer his questions, let alone perform a miracle for his amusement―even if it could have saved His life and prevented His Passion and Death. Miracles are never to be done for an individual’s entertainment even if the individual is a king! “Herod, seeing Jesus, was very glad―for he was desirous of a long time to see Him, because he had heard many things of Him; and he hoped to see some sign [miracle] wrought by Him. And he questioned Him in many words. But Jesus answered him nothing … And Herod mocked Him and sent Him back to Pilate” (Luke 23:6-11).
When Jesus was crucified on Calvary, the “Bad Thief” asked Jesus to perform a miracle by getting them all out of the mess that they found themselves in: “And one of those robbers who were hanged, blasphemed Him, saying: ‘If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us!’ But the other thief answering, rebuked him, saying: ‘Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds―but this Man hath done no evil!’” (Luke 23:39-41). The “Bad Thief” was unrepentant ― thus, rather than obtain a miracle, the words of Our Lord to the Pharisees could be applied to him: “You shall die in your sin! Where I go, you cannot come!” (John 8:21). The “Good Thief” was miraculously saved―for he repented of his sins and accepted his crucifixion as a just punishment for his sins. The miracle was that he would nevertheless save his soul in the last minutes of his life and go to Paradise with Christ: “And Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise!’” (Luke 23:43).
We Reap What We Sow!
If we want a miracle today―a miracle that will overturn the ever increasing stranglehold of clearly Satanic evil that currently has us gripped by the throat―then we are going to have to pay, and pay big time! For it is sin that has brought about and allowed these current events―events which are only the beginning of things: “For these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet!” (Matthew 24:6) … “For such things must needs be, but the end is not yet!” (Mark 13:7) … “These things must first come to pass; but the end is not yet presently!” (Luke 21:9) … “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:8).
God clearly and powerfully emphasizes that we shall reap what we sow by the following words from the Book of Leviticus: “If you walk in My precepts, and keep My commandments and do them, then I will give you rain in due seasons and the ground shall bring forth its increase, and the trees shall be filled with fruit. You shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land without fear. I will give peace in your coasts! You shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid. You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you! I will look on you, and make you increase―you shall be multiplied, and I will establish My covenant with you! I will set My tabernacle in the midst of you, and My soul shall not cast you off. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people.
“If you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me … I will quickly visit you with poverty and burning heat! You shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you! I will chastise you seven times more for your sins! I will send the pestilence in the midst of you. I will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins! I will break the pride of your stubbornness! I will bring in upon you the sword and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies! I will bring your cities to be a wilderness, and I will make your sanctuaries desolate! I will destroy your land and I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed! You shall perish among the Gentiles, and an enemy’s land shall consume you! And if some remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies, and they shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers, and their own sins.. They shall pray for their sins, because they rejected My judgments, and despised My laws. And yet for all that, I will not cast them off altogether, neither will I despise them so that they should be totally consumed―for I am the Lord their God. When they confess their iniquities and the iniquities of their ancestors, whereby they have transgressed against Me, and walked contrary unto Me, then I will remember My former covenant to be their God. I am the Lord!” (Leviticus 26:14-44).
The bottom-line is: “Do not be deceived! God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
What Could Happen Today!
We have already seen―on a small level or in microcosm―what could happen if only the Pope would correctly consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That smaller example took place in Portugal in 1931. At her convent, Sister Lucia had been informed of Heaven’s desire that Portugal be solemnly consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and she had, through her bishop, Bishop da Silva, convinced the Portuguese bishops to take this decisive action. Thus, through a common retreat, made by the bishops in 1931, they determined to collectively and solemnly consecrate Portugal to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This consecration took place on May 13th, 1931, during which Cardinal Cerejeira declared to Our Lady:
“The Shepherds―chosen by your Son, to watch over and feed, in His Name, the sheep He has acquired in this Land of Holy Mary, at the price of His Blood, Whose Name cannot be pronounced without pronouncing your own―come today as the official and consecrated representatives of their flocks, and in an act of filial homage, of Faith, love and trust to solemnly consecrate the Portuguese nation to your Immaculate Heart. Take it from our fragile hands into your own; defend it and guard it as your own property; make Jesus reign, conquer and rule in it. Outside of Him there is no salvation.”
Thus, the request of Heaven, made known through God’s messenger Sister Lucia, was fulfilled by this beautiful act made by all of the Portuguese bishops. The benefits obtained through the Portuguese bishops obedience were truly miraculous: the country was converted and underwent a Catholic Renaissance; the government, which only recently had openly displayed its hatred toward Christ and His Church by every means in its power, underwent a miraculous political and social renewal; and Portugal was miraculously spared from the Communist terror that consumed Spain during its civil war, and from the horrible Second World War.
We can see from the example of the Portuguese Bishops that when God desires something from His Shepherds, He will reward the world greatly for their compliance. The pitiful state of Portugal at the beginning of the Twentieth-Century, godless and full of hate, would surely have been revisited upon that country if the bishops had not given Portugal into the hands of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. Yet in return for the bishops humble act of compliance, God miraculously transformed Portugal. That same possibility exists for the whole world today―if only the Pope and all the bishops of the world would consecrate Russia in the manner requested by Our Lord and Our Lady! So far they have not! How much more evil has to occur in the Church and world before they obey? As Our Lord foretold: “They did not wish to heed My request. Like the king of France, they will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions of the Church; the Holy Father will have much to suffer” (Our Lord to Sr. Lucia of Fatima, at Tuy, June 13th, 1929).
Your are Not a Spectator but a Soldier!
Nevertheless, we are not outside of all this! We cannot stand on the periphery! We are not mere bystanders and spectators sat on the sidelines munching our favorite snacks and sipping our favorite drinks while we watch and wait for all these things to unfold! We are Soldiers of Christ―not Spectators of Christ! Our place is not the sidelines, but on the battlefield! We are meant to using our weapons of prayers, sacrifices and penances in order to win the graces from Heaven that are indispensably necessary for all this to happen. That is why Our Lady repeatedly said to US and not just the Pope and clergy: “
“Many men in this world afflict the Lord. In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind ... If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before ... Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger ... Be faithful and fervent in prayer to console the Master … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son [which is, of course, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―therefore pray MANY Rosaries and attend MANY Masses and give stipends to priests to have MANY Masses offered against the evil in the world and the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart]. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests! … Pray very much for the Pope, Bishops, and Priests! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary!” (Akita, 1973). “Say many Rosaries!” (Fatima, May 1917). “Say the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, June 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). “Continue to say the Rosary every day! Pray, pray very much!” (Fatima, August 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (Fatima, September 1917). “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, October 1917).
As Our Lord Himself said: “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times!” (Luke 21:36). “We ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! … The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save! … I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … No, I say to you; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 19:10; 9:56; 5:32; 13:3-5).
To which Holy Scripture adds: “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) … “There is none that doth penance for his sin” (Jeremias 8:6) ... “God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride” (Job 24:23) ... “Let him do penance for his sin!” (Leviticus 5:5). “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die! … But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. Return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32).
What is our answer? Will we continue to idly sit on our backsides, munching and dirking, and watching what happens in the world? Or will we get up off our backsides and get down on our knees and start doing what Heaven has long since requested? We have to pay a price for God’s miraculous intervention and Our Lady’s Triumph of the Immaculate Heart! That price is not cheap! It is not merely a hurried and distracted single Rosary per day! It means praying from the heart and not just the lips―as Our Lady said:
“Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’ … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … Oh, if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! … There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left offering sacrifice for the sake of the world! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom … who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world ... The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession … At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent ... This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss ... Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified … Thus the Church and country will be finally free of his cruel tyranny! … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
So, Soldier of Christ, it is time to get up and off the backside! It is time to get down on our knees and pray MANY Rosaries EACH DAY! It is time to make MANY MORE SACRIFICES ― and also attending the SACRIFICE OF THE MASS MANY MORE TIMES EACH WEEK! We are at war! It is not a video-game war, nor a movie screen war, but a REAL WAR and many, many souls are being “killed” each day by mortal sins and many, many souls are falling into Hell each day because of their mortal sins and because “there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left offering sacrifice for the sake of the world! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
Sometimes, when God works a miracle, He deliberately stacks the odds against Himself in order to make the miracle all the more stupefying and stupendous. That is exactly what happened at Fatima with the “Miracle of the Sun”. God arranged it so that the remote events and proximate events―that is to say, things that had already taken place in earlier years, and things that were happening right there and then―were for the most part stacked against the success of the miracle that Our Lady had promised beforehand. To announce that something miraculous is going to occur, way ahead of time, puts enormous pressure on the fulfilling of the promise and meeting the expectations of people.
We are probably not aware of several circumstances that existed during those days in Portugal in the build-up to the “Miracle of the Sun” on October 13th, 1917.
(1) The growing spirit of the times was one of atheism (there is no God) or agnosticism (even if there is God, He cannot be known for certain). The prevailing and increasing philosophical mood of the time was epitomized by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who boldly asserted, in the late 1800s, that “God is dead.”
(2) Also, in 1917, Portugal―like the majority of the world―was in the middle of a war. As the First World War (19140=-1918) raged throughout most of Europe, Portugal found itself unable to maintain its initial neutrality and joined forces with the Allies. Over 220,000 Portuguese civilians had died during the war; thousands due to food shortages, and thousands more due to the Spanish flu.
(3) Few years before, in 1910, a revolution had led to the establishment of the First Portuguese Republic in 1910 and a new Liberal constitution was drafted under the influence of Freemasonry, which sought to suppress the Faith from public life.
(4) Catholic churches and schools were seized by the government, and the wearing of clerical or religious clothing in public, the ringing of church bells, and the celebration of public religious festivals―were all banned. Between 1911-1916, nearly 2,000 priests, monks and nuns were killed by anti-Christian groups.
(5) This was the backdrop against which Mary, in 1917, had appeared, month after month, from May to October, to three shepherd children – Lucia dos Santos, 10, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, 9 and 7 – in a field in Fatima, Portugal, bringing with her religious requests for the recitation of the Rosary, for sacrifices on behalf of sinners, and a secret regarding the fate of the world.
(6) To prove that the apparitions were true and put her reputation “on the line”, Mary had promised the children that during the last of her six appearances she would provide a “sign” so people would believe in the apparitions and in her message.
(7) God’s Providence had also arranged for a crowd of around 70,000 people – believers and skeptics alike – to gather in order to see the miracle that Mary had promised. Freemason authorities and newspaper reporters were present in great numbers―ready to mock, scorn and reject the promised miracle.
(8) God’s Providence had also arranged for torrential rain to fall for many hours prior to the miracle―soaking the ground so much that it had turned muddy.
(9) As for the children, they made their way to the Cova amid the adulation and skepticism which had followed them since May. When they arrived they found critics who questioned their veracity and the punctuality of the Lady―who had promised to arrive at noon. It was well past noon by the official time [legal time] of the country. However, when the sun arrived at its zenith―which was noon in “real time” or “sun time”―the Lady appeared as she had said she would.
Seeing is Believing!
How many persons were at the Cova da Iria to witness the Miracle of the Sun? The maximum estimate was from Dr. Almeida Garrett, and was proposed some months after the event. It estimates the spectators numbered at least one hundred thousand. In the local atheistic newspaper, O Seculo of October 15th, its editor, the Freemason Avelino de Almeida, wrote: “The crowd, by the unprejudiced calculations of cultivated persons very new to mystical influences, was estimated at thirty or forty thousand people.” In his article of October 29th, he corrected and increased his original estimate: “On October 13th, according to the calculations established by people free from every prejudice, some fifty thousand people were gathered on the moor of Fatima.” A neutral newspaper, the Primeiro de Janeiro, also estimated the crowd at fifty thousand individuals. We can therefore say, with a quasi-certainty, that this figure is an absolute minimum―that is why the majority of historians propose, as very probable, the presence of a crowd of seventy thousand witnesses.
The proofs for the Miracle of the Sun are greatly aided by the fact that the miracle itself was witnessed by some 70,000 people present on that day. Their testimony is unanimous―even among non-believers, freemasons, atheistic journalists.
Among that large crowd were faithful Catholics, fallen away Catholics, skeptics, mockers, Freemasons, doctors, scientists, professors, teachers, journalists, policemen, soldiers, priests, etc. The Portuguese historian, Leopoldo Nuñes, who was present on the scene on October 13th, says, “At the moment of the great miracle there were present some of the most illustrious men of letters, in the arts and the sciences, and almost all were unbelievers coming out of curiosity, led by the prediction of the seers. Even the Minister of Education of the Masonic government was there.”
So we see here how many modern-day skeptics and debunkers are refuted, because exactly the men whom they claim were not present at the miracle, actually were present at Fatima at the moment of the miracle. Here we have to thank Our Lady, who sought to prove the authenticity of her Fatima Message to the unbelievers by “advertizing” it months in advance so as to pique the curiosity of everyone―believers and non-believers alike. Our Lady had said in July of 1917 that she would perform a miracle at midday on the 13th of October.
Another marvelous thing was that the phenomenon of the Miracle of the Sun could be admired from beyond Fatima. And even, some perfectly credible witnesses, who were very far away from the Cova da Iria, related having seen the unprecedented spectacle of the dance of the sun, exactly like the thousands of pilgrims gathered around the holmoak.
Testimony of the Newspaper Editor, the Freemason Avelino de Almeida
Again, we return to the account of the miraculous events on the day of the 13th given us by the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, the self-professed anti-Catholic witness, who was also the editor of O Seculo. In his editorial Article of October 15th, 1917 (two days after the Miracle of the Sun), he wrote: “And then we witnessed a unique spectacle― an incredible spectacle, unbelievable if you did not witness it. From above the road ... we see the immense crowd turn towards the sun, which appeared at its zenith, clear of the clouds. It looked like a plate of dull silver, and it was possible to stare at it without the least discomfort. It did not burn the eyes. It did not blind. One might say that an eclipse had occurred!” It is worth noting that the editors of the other anti-Catholic newspapers attacked Avelino de Almeida for his report. But even in the face of such criticism by his anti-Catholic comrades, he did not change his testimony. In fact, 15 days after his original account of the miracle, he published another story about the events, this time illustrating it with 12 pictures taken of the crowd in the midst of the Miracle of the Sun. Throughout this article, the Freemason, de Almeida, just kept repeating, “I saw it … I saw it … I saw it.”
Who Saw What?
Just as there are no two people who are exactly alike, down to the tiniest degree; and just as God gives varying degrees of grace to souls on Earth; and just as there are no two saints who are exactly alike in Heaven; and no two damned souls who are exactly alike in Hell―so, too, at the Miracle of Sun at Fatima, there were varying levels of who saw what and to what degree they saw it. If you think that is illogical or unlikely―then recall that when Our Lady of Fatima appeared to the three children―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―each of them had different degrees or levels of participation in those apparitions. As was the case during the first apparition, Lucia was the only one of the three to speak to Our Lady. Jacinta was allowed to see and hear Our Lady’s words. Francisco was permitted to see Our Lady, but could not hear her words. Thus, it is hardly surprising that the same principle was applied to each of those 70,000 persons who were present at the Miracle of the Sun.
Testimony of a Scientist, Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett
Let us follow the account of the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, adding to it the testimony of another eyewitness Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett, professor of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Coimbra―a testimony given by Dr. Garret to Fr. Manuel Formigão.
The testimony of Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett begins on October 12th, 1917, when he arrives at Fatima to “see” the non-fulfillment of the prophecy of a miracle. Here, the unbeliever — who was obviously impressed with the faith of the believers, says, “On the road, we encounter the first groups which are on their way to the holy place, a good 13 miles away … Men and women are for the most part barefoot, the latter carrying their shoes in bags on their heads, while the men lean on thin sticks and are also prudently armed with umbrellas. Apparently indifferent to what is going on around them, they do not seem to notice the countryside, nor their fellow-travelers, but murmur the Rosary as they go immersed in thought … A woman recites the first part of the Ave Maria and immediately her companions continue the second part in chorus. They move rhythmically and rapidly in order to reach the place of the apparitions by nightfall. Here, under the stars they will sleep, keeping the first and best places near the little tree.”
What a moving account. He must have been profoundly moved by what he saw. We can only wonder about his attitude. Perhaps it was one of pity for what he thought were the pathetic hopes of the people.
The whole night it rained. This was a change in the weather from what had occurred earlier in the autumn season. It was as if Our Lady was perfectly stage managing the scene to emphasize the miracle. The rain transformed the dusty roads into muddy quagmires. What does de Almeida say concerning the response of the people to these adverse conditions? “They did not lose hope and they did not forget the cause for which they came.”
The day of October 13th arrived. Dr. Almeida Garrett continues, “By 10 a.m., the sky was completely hidden behind the clouds and the rain began to fall in earnest. Swept by the strong wind and beating upon the faces of the people, it soaked the pilgrims, often without protection against the weather, to the marrow of their bones … But no one complained or turned back … Hours of waiting …The great mass of people congregate round the oak tree which, according to the children, is Our Lady’s pedestal.” (Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett). We temporarily pause Dr. Garrett’s testimony to describe what was happening at that same time in that same place.
Doubting Thomas Priest
What amazes us about the Miracle of the Sun is the specificity of Our Lady. Our Lady said, on July 13th 1917, that she would perform a miracle at midday on the 13th of October. Then when noon came and went on October 13th―there was no sign of Our Lady and no sign of a miracle! Since it was after noon, how can we say that Our Lady’s promise was being fulfilled? Here it is necessary to say that the Portuguese government―due to its belligerency with France and Britain during the First World War―decided that the clocks were to be set 90 minutes ahead, so that Portugal would be in the same time zone as her fellow belligerents. On October 13th, 1917, 1:30 p.m. was actually midday, sun time―and the government time of 12 noon that was imposed by the Portuguese government, was actually 10:30 a.m. according to sun time.
The hour of the miracle approached (according to government time). The presence of the seers was announced shortly before the scheduled time of the apparition and miracle; they arrive about one-half hour early. The little girls Jacinta and Lucy, crowned with flowers, are led to the place where the platform has been erected. When Lucy asks them―actually, she orders them―to shut their umbrellas in the drenching rain, something that goes against intuition and common sense, the order is transmitted and executed right away without resistance. Then they wait. What if there was no miracle? But there was.
Near the time of 1:30 p.m. (government time), a priest―who stood by the children and had been waiting since the evening―began to grow impatient. “Look its midday now! Our Lady does not lie! Well, well, well!” After a few minutes with nothing happening, except the rain pouring down on the uncovered thousands, the priest again looked at his watch and said: “Look, it’s midday now! Our Lady doesn’t lie! It’s past midday! You see it’s all a delusion! Run along all of you! Go away! It’s a delusion!” In response to this priestly skepticism and doubt, Lucy refused to go. It was midday, so the priest began to push the three children away from the site. Then the simple faith of Lucy took over. She began to cry and said: “If anyone wants to go, I shall stay where I am! Our Lady said she would come! She came the other times and she will come this time too!”
At that moment Lucy looked to the east and said to Jacinta, “Jacinta, kneel down. Our Lady is coming. I saw the lightning.” According to Sister Lucy’s account, the impatient priest did not say another word and the children never saw him again. It was at this moment that the miracle commenced.
Back to theTestimony of the Scientist, Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett
“It must have been 1:30 p.m. when there arose at the exact spot where the children were, a column of smoke, thin, fine and bluish, which extended up to perhaps two meters above their heads, and evaporated at that height. This phenomenon, perfectly visible to the naked eye, lasted for a few seconds. Not having noted how long it had lasted, I cannot say whether it was more or less than a minute. The smoke dissipated abruptly, and after some time, it came back to occur a second time, then a third time...”
Whereas “the low and heavy sky had a very dark color, laden with moisture, released an abundant and long lasting rain,” during the time of the apparition, the rain stopped totally. Abruptly the sky cleared: “The sun triumphantly pierced the thick bed of clouds hiding it until then, and shone intensely.”
The Vision of the Sun
Why “the vision of the sun”? Because at this moment, contrary to the normal phenomenon, everyone, and this is a unanimous testimony without contradiction, could look at the sun clearly, directly, and without wincing or closing their eyes. No one needed to turn away. This is what the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, editor of O Seculo says: “Then they saw a unique spectacle, [an] unbelievable spectacle for anyone who did not witness it. From the road … one could see the immense multitude turn towards the sun, which appeared free from clouds and in its zenith. It resembles a dull silver disc, and it is possible to look at it without the least discomfort.”
Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett, however, made this observation, “Suddenly I heard the uproar of thousands of voices, and I saw the whole multitude, spread out in that vast space at my feet, ... turn their backs to that spot where, until then, all their expectations focused, and look at the sun on the other side ... I turned around, too, toward the point commanding their gazes, and I could see the sun, like a very clear disc, with its sharp edge, which gleamed without hurting the sight ... It kept its light and heat, and stood out clearly in the sky … It could not be confused with the sun seen through a fog (there was no fog at that moment), for it was neither veiled, nor dim … but which did not hurt the eyes. The most astonishing thing was to be able to stare at the solar disc for a long time, brilliant with light and heat, without hurting the eyes, or damaging the retina … I do not agree with the comparison which I have heard made in Fatima — that of a dull silver disc. It was a clearer, richer, brighter color, having something of the luster of a pearl … I felt it to be a living body … It looked like a glazed wheel made of mother of pearl … It was a remarkable fact that one could fix one’s eyes on this brazier of light and heat without any pain in the eyes or blinding of the retina.” (Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett).
Other Testimonies
What is truly amazing about this miracle is that Our Lady perfectly “stage managed” the entire event. Each aspect of the miracle was directed to accentuate the miraculous nature of the phenomenon. Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett reports, “The sky, which had been overcast all day, suddenly clears up; the rain stops and it looks like the sun is about to fill with light the countryside that the wintry morning had made so gloomy.” This sudden change of weather surprised all of the witnesses. Dr. Pereira Gens simply reports, “The rain suddenly stopped”; it “suddenly stopped,” of course, at the exact moment which had been predicted for the miracle to take place.
This abrupt change of weather took all the eyewitnesses by surprise: “It was a day of heavy and continuous rain. But a few minutes before the miracle, it stopped raining.” (testimony of Alfredo da Silva Santos). “The people could look at the sun as we look at the moon.” (Maria do Carmo). One would think that this would be enough, being able to look at the sun without having to turn away, but Our Lady wanted to demonstrate her power in a more convincing way. So this sun that all the witnesses could observe without irritation “danced.” This was called by many of the common folk present, “The Dance of the Sun.”
The Freemason and editor of the local newspaper, El Seculo, Avelino de Almeida, wrote concerning this “dance”: “The sun trembled, the sun made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws — the sun ‘danced’ according to the typical expression of the people. It shook and trembled; it seemed like a wheel of fire.” Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett adds: “The sun’s disc did not remain immobile. This was not the sparkling of a heavenly body for it spun round upon itself, it made a whirl.” Also, “It spun like a fire-wheel, taking on all the colors of the rainbow … It looked like a ball of snow, revolving upon itself.”
A reporter from the Lisbon paper, O Dia, reported: “The silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy grey light, was seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken clouds... The light turned a beautiful blue, as if it had come through the stained-glass windows of a cathedral, and spread itself over the people who knelt with outstretched hands... people wept and prayed with uncovered heads, in the presence of a miracle they had awaited. The seconds seemed like hours, so vivid were they!”
According to Ti Marto, the father of Jacinta and Francisco, “At a certain moment the sun seemed to stop and then began to move and dance … However, the sun stops, only to begin its strange dance all over again after a brief interruption, whirling upon itself, giving the impression of approaching or receding.” This “dance,” which was seen by the 70,000 witnesses, was actually repeated three times during the course of the 10 minute long miracle.
Suddenly, the heavenly body began to tremble, to shake with abrupt movements, and finally to turn on itself at a dizzying speed while throwing out rays of light, all colors of the rainbow: “The sun turned like a fire wheel, taking on all the colors of the rainbow.” (Maria do Carmo). “It appeared like a globe of snow turning on itself.” (Father Lourenço). “The pearl-like disc had a giddy motion. This was not the twinkling of a star in all its brilliance. It turned on itself with impetuous speed.” (Dr. Almeida Garrett). “At a certain moment, the sun stopped and then began again to dance, to spin; it stopped again, and began again to dance.” (Ti Marto). It is indeed therefore a triple “dance of the sun” which thousands of witnesses affirm, having contemplated it for several minutes.
With the Dance of the Sun something else began to happen. The landscape, and everything in it, began to take on, in succession, all the colors of the rainbow. Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett: “During the solar phenomenon … there were changes of color in the atmosphere … I looked first at the nearest objects and then extended my glance further afield as far as the horizon, I saw everything an amethyst color. Objects around me, the sky and the atmosphere, were of the same color … Soon I heard a peasant who was near me shout out in tones of stupefaction: LOOK, THAT LADY IS ALL YELLOW! And in fact everything both near and far had changed to yellow. People looked as if they were suffering jaundice … My own hand was of the same color.” The exact same report comes from other witnesses: “The sun took on all the colors of the rainbow. Everything assumed those same colors: our faces, our clothes, the earth itself.” (Maria do Carmo). “A light, whose colors changed from one moment to the next, was reflected on the people and on things.” (Dr. Pereira Gens).
The poet Alfonso Lopes Vieira, who lived over 30 miles away from Fatima, also witnessed the phenomenon. He wrote: “On that day, 13th October, 1917, without remembering the predictions of the children, I was enchanted by a remarkable spectacle in the sky of a kind I had never seen before!”
The miracle was also seen by sailors on a British ship, off the coast of Portugal. One sailor who saw the miracle from his ship, wrote about it to his wife without obviously understanding what it meant or its significance.
A young boy, Inacio Lourenco, who was a schoolchild of nine when he saw the miracle at a village about 12 miles from Fatima. He described how the children and their teachers were attracted outside by a commotion in front of the school to see the Miracle of the Sun. He tells of how he could look at the sun, which looked like “a ball of snow revolving on itself,” before it suddenly came down in a zigzag toward the Earth.
The Falling of the Sun
Now we come to a part of the miracle that made many of those present on the scene of the Cova da Iria believe that the world was ending — such was the fearsomeness of the experience. This was clearly Our Lady’s warning that the Message of Fatima was not only a “message,” but, also, a very grave warning. What happened at that stage of the miracle is called the “falling” of the sun. “The sun whirling wildly, began to move and dance, until it seemed that it was being detached from the sky and was threateningly falling on us, as if to crush us with its huge weight and fiery mass! It was a terrible moment! It seemed like a wheel of fire that was about to fall on the people.” (Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett).
Dr. Domingos Pinto Coelho, a lawyer reporting for a Catholic newspaper of the time, described the event as follows: “The sun, at one moment surrounded with scarlet flame, at another aureoled in yellow and deep purple, seemed to be in an exceedingly swift and whirling movement, at times appearing to be loosened from the sky and to be approaching the Earth, strongly radiating heat.”
Other witnesses state: “The sun began to dance and, at a certain moment, it appeared to detach itself from the firmament and to rush forward on us, like a fire wheel.” (Alfredo da Silva Santos). “I saw the sun turn and it seemed to descend. It was like a bicycle wheel.” (John Carreira). “I saw it perfectly descending, as if it came to crash on the Earth. It seemed to detach itself from the sky and rush toward us. It maintained itself at a short distance above our heads; but that sort of attack was of very short duration ... It seemed very near the people and it continued to turn in the opposite direction.” (Maria do Carmo). “From those thousands of mouths, I heard shouts of joy and love to the Most Holy Virgin. And then I believed. I had the certainty of not having been the victim of a suggestion. I had seen the sun as I would never see it again!” (Mario Godinho).
Many thought that the time of the universal judgment had arrived, and so they quite literally cried out their sins at the top of their voice, begging the Lord’s pardon. Even though many thousands were expecting imminent death and were making their final preparations for that event, the miracle was not the end, but a warning and an indication of the mercy of God and the intercessory power of the Mother of God — because the sun returned to the heavens.
Everybody’s Clothes Were Dry
Then the final miracle that came right after the Miracle of the Sun―the sudden instantaneous drying of all the rain-sodden land, clothes, bodies and hair―the last manifestation of the intimate knowledge and love that God and His Blessed Mother has for mankind and for the pious faithful. Fr. Lourenço says: “This enormous multitude was drenched, for it had rained unceasingly since dawn. But — though this may appear incredible — after the great miracle everyone felt comfortable, and found his garments quite dry, a subject of general wonder … The truth of this fact has been guaranteed with the greatest sincerity by dozens and dozens of persons of absolute trustworthiness, whom I have known intimately from childhood, and who are still alive [1937].” We have it from Dr. Pereira Gens that, “I still remember the delicious sensation that this warm caress of the sun gave me … I [felt] my clothes almost dry now, although they were all wet a few moments ago.”
Implications for Our Lives and Our Times
What do we gain from this great manifestation of God? What should this miracle say to us? What basic truths do these events confirm for our “modern” minds? I would say this. First, that the true God, Master over Heaven and Earth, showed His power over Nature. He brought forward to the modern mind the simple idea that God is omnipotent and yet He is present to us in an intimate and personal way.
When before have we ever had a miracle that was predicted in advance, down to the very moment of its performance? Even the Resurrection itself had been predicted, but, perhaps, only Our Lady was expecting it. With the Miracle of the Sun, 70,000 were in some way expecting the miracle — either hopefully or skeptically — which had been predicted for three consecutive months, July, August, and September 1917. In response to the simple request of the earnest Lucy, Our Lady said in July: “In October I will work a miracle so that all may see and believe.” Here we have, for all “virtual” modern men, a miracle which appeals to our senses and our desire for the sensational. It involves our senses working with reason; our senses working with reason and speaking to us about the activity of the Supreme Cause.
It was not, however, just a manifestation of the omnipotence of God Himself. The Miracle of the Sun occurred while Lucy and the other children were viewing the apparition. Lucy indicated that in the apparition, Our Lady extended her hands and it was the light coming from her own hands which reflected on the sun at the moment of the miracle. The sun danced for Our Lady, the Ark of the New Covenant, just as David danced before the Ark of the Old Covenant. This miracle speaks about Our Lady’s all-powerful intercession. The obviousness of this fact is the reason why there is such shock and bemusement when the witnesses were asked: “What did you think at the moment of the miracle?” Ti Marto, the father of Francisco and Jacinta, answered such a question by saying, “What did I think? That it was the power of God. And if you ask me again, what do you think now? I think the same thing. How God is great!”
Another amazing aspect of this miracle was the response of the faithful. During the miracle they were praying, saying the Act of Contrition, pleading for Our Lord and Our Lady’s mercy for their sins because they believed, perhaps, that this was the end of their lives. They also, however, saw this miracle as a great triumph for them — a great consolation from Our Lady. In the face of persecution, in the face of mockery by the press, by the government, by the intellectuals of the Catholic Faith, that Faith was affirmed in a miraculous way that no one could deny. It was a confirmation of all of their beliefs and hopes.
We are moved when we read of the shock which the faithful felt, after the miracle occurred, when they saw that some of the other witnesses had their heads covered with their hats. This was a sacred event; hence, their outrage. There was an old man who was, throughout the apparition, reciting the Creed. He turned to another group, unbelievers, who had seen the same thing that he had seen and he violently protested and requested that they take off their hats before such an extraordinary manifestation of the existence of God. Believing ladies responded in the same way to the sacrilegious rudeness of the unbelievers. They cried out, as if suffocated with emotion: “What a pity, there are still men who do not uncover their heads when they find themselves before such a stupefying spectacle!” Even the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, editor of the Masonic and Atheistic newspaper, O Seculo, left visibly shaken to the core in his unbelief.
We Need a Miracle Today!
Nobody of sane mind would dispute the fact we are in dire need of a miracle today to save from the apocalyptic path that we are being forced to march. Only an idiot or an ignoramus can be totally unaware of the foreboding similarities, if not fulfillment, of Our Lady’s earlier warnings for our days:
“Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance … The Church will be full of those who accept compromises … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness ... Many priests will lose their spirit … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... They will become attached to wealth and riches … The demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among them there will even be bishops … . Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... This, then, will be the cause of the cursed demon taking possession … From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century, the passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of morals … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell ... The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … [cf. “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the nations, which are over the four quarters of the Earth” (Apocalypse 20:7)] …
“Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … All the civil [Masonic] governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights ... During this period, there will be great physical and moral calamities, both public and private … All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family ... They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption. Woe to the children of these times! …
“During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … Satan, making use of both good people and evil people, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … How the Church will suffer during this dark night! … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth! ... There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases … Various nations will be annihilated! ... Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost! …
Our Lady Promises a Miracle — But It Comes at a Great Price!
Our indiscipline, indifference, irreverence, ingratitude and insanity has the audacity to expect “miracles on tap” ― just turn on the tap and the miracles will pour out in abundance free of charge and at no cost to us! Even though God can and sometimes does perform miracles for sinners―and even through sinners―that is not God’s normal way of operating.
Millions have flocked to Lourdes hoping for a miracle since Our Lady’s apparition there in 1858―but very, very few have come away with the miracle they desired.
Already back in the Middle-Ages, in the peak of Christendom, one of Our Lord’s mystics asked Him why, at that time, there were so few miracles in comparison to the early days of the Church―Our Lord replied that it was largely due to a lack Faith.
We even see that same cause―lack of Faith―preventing miracles in the Gospels: “Jesus went into his own country … and He could not do any miracles there … because of their unbelief” (Mark 6:5-5). When the Gospel says: “He could not”―this is not because of a lack of power, but because Jesus would not work miracles in favor of obstinate and incredulous people, who were unworthy of such favors.
When Pontius Pilate sent Jesus to King Herod, when meeting Jesus, Herod had hoped to see some miracles done by Jesus for his own entertainment―but Jesus refused to even answer his questions, let alone perform a miracle for his amusement―even if it could have saved His life and prevented His Passion and Death. Miracles are never to be done for an individual’s entertainment even if the individual is a king! “Herod, seeing Jesus, was very glad―for he was desirous of a long time to see Him, because he had heard many things of Him; and he hoped to see some sign [miracle] wrought by Him. And he questioned Him in many words. But Jesus answered him nothing … And Herod mocked Him and sent Him back to Pilate” (Luke 23:6-11).
When Jesus was crucified on Calvary, the “Bad Thief” asked Jesus to perform a miracle by getting them all out of the mess that they found themselves in: “And one of those robbers who were hanged, blasphemed Him, saying: ‘If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us!’ But the other thief answering, rebuked him, saying: ‘Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds―but this Man hath done no evil!’” (Luke 23:39-41). The “Bad Thief” was unrepentant ― thus, rather than obtain a miracle, the words of Our Lord to the Pharisees could be applied to him: “You shall die in your sin! Where I go, you cannot come!” (John 8:21). The “Good Thief” was miraculously saved―for he repented of his sins and accepted his crucifixion as a just punishment for his sins. The miracle was that he would nevertheless save his soul in the last minutes of his life and go to Paradise with Christ: “And Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise!’” (Luke 23:43).
We Reap What We Sow!
If we want a miracle today―a miracle that will overturn the ever increasing stranglehold of clearly Satanic evil that currently has us gripped by the throat―then we are going to have to pay, and pay big time! For it is sin that has brought about and allowed these current events―events which are only the beginning of things: “For these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet!” (Matthew 24:6) … “For such things must needs be, but the end is not yet!” (Mark 13:7) … “These things must first come to pass; but the end is not yet presently!” (Luke 21:9) … “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:8).
God clearly and powerfully emphasizes that we shall reap what we sow by the following words from the Book of Leviticus: “If you walk in My precepts, and keep My commandments and do them, then I will give you rain in due seasons and the ground shall bring forth its increase, and the trees shall be filled with fruit. You shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land without fear. I will give peace in your coasts! You shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid. You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you! I will look on you, and make you increase―you shall be multiplied, and I will establish My covenant with you! I will set My tabernacle in the midst of you, and My soul shall not cast you off. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people.
“If you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me … I will quickly visit you with poverty and burning heat! You shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you! I will chastise you seven times more for your sins! I will send the pestilence in the midst of you. I will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins! I will break the pride of your stubbornness! I will bring in upon you the sword and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies! I will bring your cities to be a wilderness, and I will make your sanctuaries desolate! I will destroy your land and I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed! You shall perish among the Gentiles, and an enemy’s land shall consume you! And if some remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies, and they shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers, and their own sins.. They shall pray for their sins, because they rejected My judgments, and despised My laws. And yet for all that, I will not cast them off altogether, neither will I despise them so that they should be totally consumed―for I am the Lord their God. When they confess their iniquities and the iniquities of their ancestors, whereby they have transgressed against Me, and walked contrary unto Me, then I will remember My former covenant to be their God. I am the Lord!” (Leviticus 26:14-44).
The bottom-line is: “Do not be deceived! God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
What Could Happen Today!
We have already seen―on a small level or in microcosm―what could happen if only the Pope would correctly consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That smaller example took place in Portugal in 1931. At her convent, Sister Lucia had been informed of Heaven’s desire that Portugal be solemnly consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and she had, through her bishop, Bishop da Silva, convinced the Portuguese bishops to take this decisive action. Thus, through a common retreat, made by the bishops in 1931, they determined to collectively and solemnly consecrate Portugal to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This consecration took place on May 13th, 1931, during which Cardinal Cerejeira declared to Our Lady:
“The Shepherds―chosen by your Son, to watch over and feed, in His Name, the sheep He has acquired in this Land of Holy Mary, at the price of His Blood, Whose Name cannot be pronounced without pronouncing your own―come today as the official and consecrated representatives of their flocks, and in an act of filial homage, of Faith, love and trust to solemnly consecrate the Portuguese nation to your Immaculate Heart. Take it from our fragile hands into your own; defend it and guard it as your own property; make Jesus reign, conquer and rule in it. Outside of Him there is no salvation.”
Thus, the request of Heaven, made known through God’s messenger Sister Lucia, was fulfilled by this beautiful act made by all of the Portuguese bishops. The benefits obtained through the Portuguese bishops obedience were truly miraculous: the country was converted and underwent a Catholic Renaissance; the government, which only recently had openly displayed its hatred toward Christ and His Church by every means in its power, underwent a miraculous political and social renewal; and Portugal was miraculously spared from the Communist terror that consumed Spain during its civil war, and from the horrible Second World War.
We can see from the example of the Portuguese Bishops that when God desires something from His Shepherds, He will reward the world greatly for their compliance. The pitiful state of Portugal at the beginning of the Twentieth-Century, godless and full of hate, would surely have been revisited upon that country if the bishops had not given Portugal into the hands of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. Yet in return for the bishops humble act of compliance, God miraculously transformed Portugal. That same possibility exists for the whole world today―if only the Pope and all the bishops of the world would consecrate Russia in the manner requested by Our Lord and Our Lady! So far they have not! How much more evil has to occur in the Church and world before they obey? As Our Lord foretold: “They did not wish to heed My request. Like the king of France, they will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions of the Church; the Holy Father will have much to suffer” (Our Lord to Sr. Lucia of Fatima, at Tuy, June 13th, 1929).
Your are Not a Spectator but a Soldier!
Nevertheless, we are not outside of all this! We cannot stand on the periphery! We are not mere bystanders and spectators sat on the sidelines munching our favorite snacks and sipping our favorite drinks while we watch and wait for all these things to unfold! We are Soldiers of Christ―not Spectators of Christ! Our place is not the sidelines, but on the battlefield! We are meant to using our weapons of prayers, sacrifices and penances in order to win the graces from Heaven that are indispensably necessary for all this to happen. That is why Our Lady repeatedly said to US and not just the Pope and clergy: “
“Many men in this world afflict the Lord. In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind ... If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before ... Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger ... Be faithful and fervent in prayer to console the Master … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son [which is, of course, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―therefore pray MANY Rosaries and attend MANY Masses and give stipends to priests to have MANY Masses offered against the evil in the world and the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart]. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests! … Pray very much for the Pope, Bishops, and Priests! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary!” (Akita, 1973). “Say many Rosaries!” (Fatima, May 1917). “Say the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, June 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). “Continue to say the Rosary every day! Pray, pray very much!” (Fatima, August 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (Fatima, September 1917). “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, October 1917).
As Our Lord Himself said: “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times!” (Luke 21:36). “We ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! … The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save! … I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … No, I say to you; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 19:10; 9:56; 5:32; 13:3-5).
To which Holy Scripture adds: “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) … “There is none that doth penance for his sin” (Jeremias 8:6) ... “God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride” (Job 24:23) ... “Let him do penance for his sin!” (Leviticus 5:5). “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die! … But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. Return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32).
What is our answer? Will we continue to idly sit on our backsides, munching and dirking, and watching what happens in the world? Or will we get up off our backsides and get down on our knees and start doing what Heaven has long since requested? We have to pay a price for God’s miraculous intervention and Our Lady’s Triumph of the Immaculate Heart! That price is not cheap! It is not merely a hurried and distracted single Rosary per day! It means praying from the heart and not just the lips―as Our Lady said:
“Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’ … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … Oh, if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! … There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left offering sacrifice for the sake of the world! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom … who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world ... The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession … At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent ... This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss ... Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified … Thus the Church and country will be finally free of his cruel tyranny! … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
So, Soldier of Christ, it is time to get up and off the backside! It is time to get down on our knees and pray MANY Rosaries EACH DAY! It is time to make MANY MORE SACRIFICES ― and also attending the SACRIFICE OF THE MASS MANY MORE TIMES EACH WEEK! We are at war! It is not a video-game war, nor a movie screen war, but a REAL WAR and many, many souls are being “killed” each day by mortal sins and many, many souls are falling into Hell each day because of their mortal sins and because “there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left offering sacrifice for the sake of the world! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
Article 11
Thursday October 12th, 2023
Fatima Miracle of the Sun of October 13th, Part 1
Thursday October 12th, 2023
Fatima Miracle of the Sun of October 13th, Part 1
Do You Believe In Miracles?
On this eve of the centenary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima on October 13th, 1917, it would not be a bad idea to spend some time focusing on miracles! Some say miracles cannot happen—what looks like a ‘miracle’ is simply scientifically explicable, but we just don’t have the knowledge or the answers yet. This is opinion of many moderns. If someone believes that there is no God and also believes in what is called naturalism (that all things in the universe are subject to natural physical laws), then miracles are definitely out of existence. For the naturalist, the universe is defined in such a way as to make miracles impossible. On the other hand, if someone believes that there is a God and that God is involved in the world, then it is easy to acknowledge that miracles can occur.
What Do You Mean By “Miracle”?
Basically, a miracle is an event that cannot be normally explained through the laws of nature. The word “miracle” comes from the Latin “miraculum”, which in turn is derived from the verb “mirari”, meaning "to wonder". So, in general, it means “a wonderful thing”, the word being so used in classical Latin. But in a more specific sense, the Latin Vulgate designates by “miracula”, wonders of a peculiar kind, that are expressed more clearly in the Greek text by the terms “terata”, “dynameis”, “semeia”, that is to say, wonders performed by supernatural power as signs of some special mission or gift, and explicitly ascribed to God. The wonder of the miracle is due to the fact that its cause is hidden, and an effect is expected other than what actually takes place. Hence, by comparison with the ordinary course of things, the miracle is called “extraordinary” or “out of the ordinary way of things”.
Would God Perform A Miracle For You?
Now we’re talking! This is the scary part! Would God perform a miracle for you? What kind of person does God perform miracles for? What kind of person does God perform miracles through? In what circumstances will God grant a miracle? These are questions that we need to look at—for, in the near future, we are going to need God to step in and do something about the state of the world today and the fateful direction in which it is heading.
Our Lord and St. Peter Start the Ball Rolling
Our Lord Himself said: “Your Father, Who is in Heaven, makes His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). St. Peter also states this in different terms: “Peter opening his mouth, said: ‘In very deed I perceive, that God is not a respecter of persons!’” (Acts 10:34). In fact, this kindness to bad people, or sinners, was frowned upon by the Pharisees, who threw this in Our Lord’s face: “And the Scribes and the Pharisees, seeing that Jesus ate with publicans and sinners, said to His disciples: ‘Why does your master eat and drink with publicans and sinners?’” (Mark 2:16).
Yet the answer is quite plain and simple—Our Lord wants to save sinners—“Jesus hearing this, said to them: ‘They that are healthy have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. For I came not to call the just, but sinners!’” (Mark 2:17). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). Which was also the message of God in the Old Testament: “‘Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin!’ saith the Lord God” (Ezechiel 18:30).
Miracles of Grace and Physical Miracles
Jesus heals physical and spiritual disease (forgiveness of sins, casts out devils). Our problem is that we think more about and admire more the physical miracles than we do the miracles of grace—yet, just as the soul is greater than the body, miracles of grace are greater than physical miracles. We see, in the following passage, Our Lord state this truth.
“And behold they brought, to Jesus, one sick of the palsy lying in a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the man sick of the palsy: ‘Be of good heart, son, thy sins are forgiven thee!’ And behold some of the Scribes said within themselves: ‘He blasphemeth!’ And Jesus seeing their thoughts, said: ‘Why do you think evil in your hearts? Is it easier, to say, “Thy sins are forgiven thee!” or to say, “Arise, and walk!”? But that you may know that the Son of man hath power on Earth to forgive sins, He then said to the man sick of palsy, “Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house!”’ And he arose, and went into his house. And the multitude seeing it, feared, and glorified God that gave such power to men” (Matthew 9:2-8).
We have the case of Mary Magdalen, whom the Roman Church holds to be the woman caught in adultery, the woman possessed by seven devils whom Jesus cast out of her, and the woman who anointed his head at one banquet, and His feet at the banquet of Simon the Leper. “The Scribes and the Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery … Jesus said to them: ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her! … They, hearing this, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest. And Jesus alone remained, and the woman standing in the midst. Then Jesus said to her: ‘Woman, where are they that accused thee? Has no man condemned thee?’ Who said: ‘No man, Lord!’ And Jesus said: ‘Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more!’” (John 8:3-11). This is an echo of the Old Testament verse: “Say not: ‘I have sinned and what harm hath befallen me?’ Be not without fear about sins forgiven, and add not sin to sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5: 4-5).
Every time water is poured in the Sacrament of Baptism, while saying: “I baptize thee in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”—a miracle of grace takes place. Every time a mortal sinner goes to sincerely and truthfully confess his mortal sins, with the desire to amend and make reparation for them, a miracle of grace occurs through the instrumentality and ministry of the priest—who says: “I absolve thee from thy sins…”
These are miracles for sinners—the former miracle (Baptism) for those in a state of Original Sin, the latter miracle (Confession) for those in a state of Mortal Sin—and they are performed through the instrumentality of humans, if the sinner is prepared to follow Christ and change his sinful ways. These miracles of grace would even take place if the priest or the minister of Baptism were to be in a state of Mortal Sin themselves—such is the love of God and His desire for our salvation. Our Lord then performs another miracle by changing bread and wine into His Body and Blood during the Sacrifice of the Mass, so as to feed those sinners who have been miraculously baptized in the Sacrament of Baptism and miraculously freed from their sins in the Sacrament of Confession.
Don’t Expect Miracles If You Abuse God’s Mercy
Yet, that love and patience is not without limits—even though God is infinitely loving and patient in Himself—for, as St. Paul says: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7). As St. Alphonsus Liguori says in his sermon for the First Sunday of Lent: “Sinners multiply their sins without keeping any account of them; but God numbers them that, when the harvest is ripe―that is, when the number of sins is completed―He may take vengeance on them. ‘Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe’ as it says in Joel 3:13” (Sunday Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori, First Sunday of Lent, “On The Number Of Sins Beyond Which God Pardons No More”). If we won’t believe the saints, the let us believe Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Akita, who said on October 13th, 1917 and 1973: “Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended.” (Our Lady of Fatima, October 13th, 1917) “If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them!” (Our Lady of Akita, October 13th, 1973). Which is why Our Lord said the paralytic, whom He had cured by the pool: “Behold thou art made whole: sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14).
Miracles for Good Jews and Bad Jews
► Jesus performs the stupendous miracle of raising persons from the dead three times in the Gospels—all three whom He resurrected, were Jews: the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the local synagogue; the Jewish widow of Naim’s son; and the brother of Martha and Mary, the Jew, Lazarus.
► JAIRUS’ DAUGHTER: “And behold there came a man whose name was Jairus, and he had an only daughter, almost twelve years old, and she was dying. He was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at the feet of Jesus, beseeching him that he would come into his house, saying: ‘My daughter is at the point of death, come, lay thy hand upon her, that she may be safe, and may live!’ As he was yet speaking, there cometh one to the ruler of the synagogue, saying to him: ‘Thy daughter is dead! Why dost thou trouble the Master any further?’ And Jesus hearing this word, answered the father of the maid: ‘Fear not; believe only, and she shall be safe!’ And when Jesus was come into the house of the ruler, He seeth a tumult and people weeping and wailing much. He admitted not any man to follow Him, but Peter, and James, and John the brother of James. And going in, He saw the minstrels and the multitude making a rout, and He saith to them: ‘Why make you this ado, and weep? Give place, for the girl is not dead, but is sleeping!’ And they laughed Him to scorn. But He having put them all out, He went in, taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with Him, and entereth in where the damsel was lying. And taking the damsel by the hand, He saith to her: ‘Talitha cumi!’ which is, being interpreted: ‘Damsel (I say to thee) arise!’ Her spirit returned and immediately the damsel rose up and walked. And He bid them give her to eat. And her parents were astonished, whom he charged to tell no man what was done. And the fame hereof went abroad into all that country” (Matthew 9:23-26; Mark 5:22-43; Luke 8:41). Isn’t the Good Lord good and merciful?
► WIDOW’S SON: “And it came to pass afterwards, that Jesus went into a city that is called Naim; and there went with Him His disciples, and a great multitude. And when He came nigh to the gate of the city, behold a dead man was carried out, the only son of his mother; and she was a widow: and a great multitude of the city was with her. Whom, when the Lord had seen, being moved with mercy towards her, He said to her: ‘Weep not!’ And He came near and touched the bier. And they that carried it, stood still. And He said: ‘Young man! I say to thee, arise!’ And he that was dead, sat up, and began to speak. And He gave him to his mother” (Luke 7:11-15). Isn’t the Lord good?!
► LAZARUS: “Now there was a certain man sick, named Lazarus, of Bethania, of the town of Mary and Martha her sister. His sisters therefore sent to Jesus, saying: ‘Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick!’ And Jesus hearing it, said to them: ‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God―so that the Son of God may be glorified by it!’ Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus. When he had heard therefore that he was sick, Jesus still remained in the same place two days. And after that He said to them: ‘Lazarus our friend is sleeping; but I will go so that I may awaken him out of his sleep! Lazarus is dead. And I am glad, for your sakes, that I was not there, so that you may believe! But let us go to him!’ … Jesus therefore came, and found that he had been four days already in the grave ... Martha therefore said to Jesus: ‘Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother would not have died! But now also I know that whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee!’ Jesus said to her: ‘Thy brother shall rise again ... Where have you laid him?’ They say to Him: ‘Lord, come and see!’ And Jesus wept. The Jews therefore said: ‘Behold how He loved him!’ But some of them said: ‘Could not He―that opened the eyes of the man born blind―have caused that this man should not die?’ Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself, came to the sepulcher. Now it was a cave and a stone was laid over it. Jesus said: ‘Take away the stone!’ Martha, the sister of him that was dead, said to Him: ‘Lord, by this time he will be stinking, for he is now four days dead!’ Jesus said to her: ‘Did not I say to thee, that if thou believe, thou shalt see the glory of God?’ They took, therefore, the stone away. And Jesus lifting up His eyes said: ‘Father, I give Thee thanks that Thou hast heard Me! And I knew that Thou hear Me always; but, because of the people who stand about have I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me!’ When He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice: ‘Lazarus! Come forth!’ And presently, he, that had been dead, came forth, bound feet and hands with winding bands; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them: ‘Loosen him, and let him go!’ Many therefore of the Jews, who were come to Mary and Martha, and had seen the things that Jesus did, believed in Him” (John 11:1-45). Another miracle performed by God for a good person.
► Jesus also miraculously cures the fever of ST. PETER’S MOTHER-IN-LAW, a Jewess: “And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying, and sick of a fever: and he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose and ministered to them” (Matthew 8:14-15). Another miracle for a good person.
► Our Lord twice performs the MIRACULOUS FEEDING OF THE JEWISH MULTITUDES that followed Him—on one occasion it was four thousand Jews, on another occasion it was five thousand Jews. “Jesus called together His disciples, and said: ‘I have compassion on the multitudes, because they continue with me now three days, and have not what to eat, and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way … And Jesus said: ‘How many loaves have you?’ But they said: ‘Seven, and a few little fishes!’ And He commanded the multitude to sit down upon the ground. And taking the seven loaves and the fishes, and giving thanks, He broke, and gave to His disciples, and the disciples gave to the people. And they did all eat and had their fill. And afterwards they took up seven baskets full, of what remained of the fragments. And they that did eat, were four thousand men, beside children and women” (Matthew 15:32-38).
The miracle of the five thousand is also found in St. Matthew’s Gospel. In this case, there were “but five loaves, and two fishes. Jesus said to them: ‘Bring them here to Me!’ And when He had commanded the multitudes to sit down upon the grass, He took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to Heaven, He blessed, and broke, and gave the loaves to His disciples, and the disciples gave to the multitudes. And they did all eat, and were filled. And they took up what remained―twelve full baskets of fragments. And the number of them that did eat, was five thousand men, not counting the women and children” (Matthew 14:14-21). Isn’t God good—but let us do something to merit His kind help!
► Jesus heals the SINFUL JEWISH PARALYTIC. Yet Jesus even performs miracles for the sinful—but often they have had to suffer a long time as a consequence of their sins. We see a case of this with the sinful paralytic by the pool in Jerusalem. “Now there is at Jerusalem a pond, called Probatica, which in Hebrew is named Bethsaida, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick, of blind, of lame, of withered; waiting for the moving of the water. And an angel of the Lord descended at certain times into the pond; and the water was moved. And he that went down first into the pond, after the motion of the water, was healed of whatsoever infirmity he lay under. And there was a certain man there, who had been thirty-eight years under his infirmity. Him, when Jesus had seen lying, and knew that he had been now a long time, He said to him: ‘Wilt thou be made whole?’ The infirm man answered Him: ‘Sir, when the water is troubled, I have no man to put me into the pond. For while I am coming to the water, another goes down before me!’ Jesus saith to him: ‘Arise, take up thy bed, and walk!’ And immediately the man was made whole: and he took up his bed, and walked ... Afterwards, Jesus found him in the Temple, and said to him: ‘Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!’” (John 5:2-14).
► Another Jewish sinner, the CHIEF PUBLICAN OF JERICHO, ZACHEUS, receives a miracle of grace from Our Lord: “And entering in, Jesus walked through Jericho. And behold, there was a man named Zacheus, who was the chief of the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus—who He was—and he could not due to the crowd, because he was small and not tall. And running ahead, he climbed up into a sycamore tree, so that he might see Jesus; for He was to pass by that way. And when Jesus was come to the place, looking up, He saw him, and said to him: ‘Zacheus! Make haste and come down! For this day I must abide in thy house!’ And he made haste and came down, and received Him with joy. And when all saw it, they murmured, saying, that he was gone to be a guest with a man that was a sinner. But Zacheus standing, said to the Lord: ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have wronged any man of any thing, I will restore to him fourfold!’ Jesus said to him: ‘This day is salvation come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham! For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!’” (Luke 19:2-10).
► Jesus performs a physical miracle for a JEWISH ENEMY, during His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane—it is for the Jewish servant of High Priest, Malchus, who was with the band of men that had come to arrest Jesus. “They came up, and laid hands on Jesus, and held Him. Simon Peter, having a sword, stretching forth his hand, drew out his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. And the name of the servant was Malchus. Then Jesus said to him: ‘Put up thy sword into the scabbard! For all that take the sword shall perish with the sword! The chalice which My Father hath given Me―shall I not drink it? Thinkest thou that I cannot ask My Father, and He will immediately give Me more than twelve legions of angels? How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that so it must be done? Suffer ye thus far!’ But when Jesus had touched his ear, He healed him” (Matthew 16:50-52; Mark 14:46-47; Luke 22:49-51; John 18:10-11).
Miracles for Good Gentiles and Bad Gentiles
True to Divine Revelation—which tells us that the God “makes His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45)—we find Our Lord even performing miracles for the Gentiles (meaning those persons who were not of the Jewish religion). Not only does He perform miracles for Gentiles that are trying to be good people, but also for those who were not good—however, we must remember that these miracles were not given to them because they were in the wrong religion or evil, but because Our Lord hoped to bring them out of their errors and their sins. The miracle is merely a means to that end―a means that is intended to bring about a conversion.
► We read of a GOOD GENTILE SOLDIER, “a certain man in Caesarea, named Cornelius, a centurion of that which is called the Italian band; a religious man, and fearing God with all his house, giving much alms to the people, and always praying to God” (Acts 10:1-2). God told Cornelius to send men to Joppe, where St. Peter was staying, and request that St. Peter come to him. Cornelius desired an end (salvation) and God saw that he would take the means to that end (become a Christian). So God performs this great miracle of grace for him.
► Another Gentile was the GOOD CANAANITE WOMAN, who had a daughter who was possessed. “And behold a woman of Canaan who came out of those coasts, crying out, said to Him: ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David! My daughter is grieviously troubled by the devil!’ Jesus answered her not a word. And His disciples came and besought Him, saying: ‘Send her away, for she cries after us!’ And He answering, said: ‘I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel!’ But she came and adored Him, saying: ‘Lord, help me!’ Who answering, said: ‘It is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs!’ But she said: ‘Yes, Lord! But the dogs also eat of the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters!’ Then Jesus answering, said to her: ‘O woman, great is thy faith! Be it done to thee as thou wilt!’ And her daughter was cured from that hour” (Matthew 15:22-28). The Canaanites were worshipers of pagan gods.
► Jesus cures a SAMARITAN LEPER. “And as Jesus entered into a certain town, there met Him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off; and lifted up their voice, saying: ‘Jesus! Master! Have mercy on us!’ Whom, when He saw, He said: ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests!’ And it came to pass, as they went, they were made clean. And one of them, when he saw that he was made clean, went back, with a loud voice glorifying God. And he fell on his face before His feet, giving thanks―and this was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering, said: ‘Were not ten made clean? And where are the nine? There is no one found to return and give glory to God, but this stranger!’ And He said to him: ‘Arise, go thy way; for thy faith hath made thee whole!’” (Luke 17:12-19). The Samaritans were the enemies of the Jews.
► Our Lord cures the GENTILE CENTURION’S SON. “When Jesus had entered into Capharnaum, there came to Him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying: ‘Lord! My servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, and is grieviously tormented!’ And Jesus saith to him: ‘I will come and heal him!’ And the centurion making answer, said: ‘Lord! I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof: but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed! For I also am a man subject to authority, having under me soldiers; and I say to this: “Go!” and he goeth; and to another: “Come!” and he cometh, and to my servant: “Do this!” and he doeth it.’ And Jesus hearing this, marveled; and said to them that followed Him: ‘Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel. And I say to you that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven: but the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’ And Jesus said to the centurion: ‘Go! And as thou hast believed, so be it done to thee!’ And the servant was healed at the same hour” (Matthew 8:5-13).
● Our Lord performs a Miracle of Grace for THE GOOD THIEF. “And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, they crucified Him there; and the robbers, one on the right hand, and the other on the left ... And one of those robbers who were hanged, blasphemed him, saying: ‘If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us!’ But the other answering, rebuked him, saying: ‘Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done no evil!’ And he said to Jesus: ‘Lord! Remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy Kingdom!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in paradise!’” (Luke 23:33-43). Even the evil Gentiles benefit from miracles—this particular one being, according to tradition, St. Dismas!
► Our Lord performs a Miracle of Grace for THE CENTURION ON CALVARY. Likewise with the Roman soldier, the centurion, who was in charge of the crucifixion—who was actually putting Christ to death! Tradition states that he became a saint and has him named as St. Longinus. “Now the centurion and they that were with him watching Jesus, having seen the earthquake, and the things that were done, were sore afraid, saying: ‘Indeed this was the Son of God!’ The centurion, seeing what was done, glorified God, saying: ‘Indeed this was a just man!’” (Matthew 27:54; Luke 23:47).
Why Do Some Sinners Get Miracles?
Why does a sinner get a miracle? Not all do—in fact very few do! If they do get the miracle, it is because God sees in them a good disposition, which He knows will lead to a conversion. Yet, not all who get a miracle are necessarily saved. This is clearly seen in that case of many of Jews at the time of Our Lord—especially the Scribes and Pharisees.
St. John declares: “God does not hear sinners: but if a man be a server of God, and does His will, him He hears” (John 9:31). It has been said that the only prayer that God hears from a sinner is the prayer for salvation—and consequently, he who desires an end (salvation), must also necessarily desire the means to that end (repentance). If a sinner or an unbeliever prays to God for that which is according to His will, nothing prevents God from answering such a prayer—according to His will.
The only miracle that every single sinner can get is the miracle of a conversion from sin, because that is why Christ came on Earth―to save sinners and those who were lost. God has repeatedly stated that He wants sinners to convert―and each conversion is a miracle of God’s grace, because it is beyond the capacity of mere human being without the help of God: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5), says Christ. “‘The soul that sins, the same shall die! … Is it my will that a sinner should die?’ says the Lord God, ‘and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? If the wicked does penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all my commandments, then living he shall live, and shall not die! I will not remember all his iniquities that he has done! … Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin! Cast away from you all your transgressions by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dies―return ye and live!’ says the Lord God” (Ezechiel 18:4; 21-23, 30-32).
Every time sinners sincerely and truthfully confess their sins, with a firm purpose of amending their lives and making reparation―God performs the miracle of forgiving and removing their sins―which is something beyond the powers of man. The sinful people of Ninive prayed that Ninive might be spared. God answered this prayer and did not destroy the city of Ninive as He had threatened, because the Ninivites, in asking for an end (being spared), were ready to take the means to achieve that end (penance). “And Jonas arose, and went to Ninive, according to the word of the Lord … and he cried, and said: ‘Yet forty days, and Ninive shall be destroyed!” And the men of Ninive believed in God: and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least … And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way: and God had mercy with regard to the evil which he had said that he would do to them, and he did it not” (Jonas 3:5-10).
Yet Sodom and Gomorrha could not find anyone to do penance for their sinfulness—they did get a miracle, but not a pleasant one! Fire and brimstone rained down from Heaven to destroy them. Today’s sinfulness has to be comparable to their sinfulness—otherwise why on earth would Our Lady of Akita say that “if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son.”
The Lightening Rods of Rosary and Cross (the Mass)
The Rosary and the Cross (the sign left by her Son―which is the Sacrifice of Calvary renewed in the Sacrifice of the Mass) are like two lightning rods that can draw down miracles from Heaven. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a miracle in itself, because Christ uses the priest to renew and re-offer His bloody sacrifice on Calvary in an unbloody manner in the Sacrifice of the Mass, while also changing mere bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ, whose Real Presence remains with us miraculously in the Holy Eucharist and Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.
This sacrifice of Christ is extended, prolonged and shared by the members of His Mystical Body on Earth. Our Lord states: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Thus St. Paul writes: “God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ―by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14). “With Christ I am nailed to the cross!” (Galatians 2:19). “I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His Body, which is the Church!” (Colossians 1:24). Likewise, we should unite ourselves with Christ through our sufferings. It is the carrying of our God-sent crosses that unites us to Our Lord’s salvific and redeeming cross―we, in a broad sense, are united to Christ on His cross, in a similar way to which Our Lady was spiritually “crucified” with Christ without actually being physically nailed to the cross of Christ.
The Rosary and the Cross simply translate into what Our Lady asked for at Fatima—prayers and sacrifices. Yet, just as Abraham could not find enough just men to avert the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha, it looks like we are also short of persons to pray the Rosary and carry the Cross today.
Where are the souls described by St. Louis de Montfort in his True Devotion to Mary, where he writes of the “true disciples of Jesus Christ, walking in the footsteps of His poverty, humility, contempt of the world, charity; teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not accepting persons; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in their own behavior” (True Devotion to Mary, §59).
On this eve of the centenary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima on October 13th, 1917, it would not be a bad idea to spend some time focusing on miracles! Some say miracles cannot happen—what looks like a ‘miracle’ is simply scientifically explicable, but we just don’t have the knowledge or the answers yet. This is opinion of many moderns. If someone believes that there is no God and also believes in what is called naturalism (that all things in the universe are subject to natural physical laws), then miracles are definitely out of existence. For the naturalist, the universe is defined in such a way as to make miracles impossible. On the other hand, if someone believes that there is a God and that God is involved in the world, then it is easy to acknowledge that miracles can occur.
What Do You Mean By “Miracle”?
Basically, a miracle is an event that cannot be normally explained through the laws of nature. The word “miracle” comes from the Latin “miraculum”, which in turn is derived from the verb “mirari”, meaning "to wonder". So, in general, it means “a wonderful thing”, the word being so used in classical Latin. But in a more specific sense, the Latin Vulgate designates by “miracula”, wonders of a peculiar kind, that are expressed more clearly in the Greek text by the terms “terata”, “dynameis”, “semeia”, that is to say, wonders performed by supernatural power as signs of some special mission or gift, and explicitly ascribed to God. The wonder of the miracle is due to the fact that its cause is hidden, and an effect is expected other than what actually takes place. Hence, by comparison with the ordinary course of things, the miracle is called “extraordinary” or “out of the ordinary way of things”.
Would God Perform A Miracle For You?
Now we’re talking! This is the scary part! Would God perform a miracle for you? What kind of person does God perform miracles for? What kind of person does God perform miracles through? In what circumstances will God grant a miracle? These are questions that we need to look at—for, in the near future, we are going to need God to step in and do something about the state of the world today and the fateful direction in which it is heading.
Our Lord and St. Peter Start the Ball Rolling
Our Lord Himself said: “Your Father, Who is in Heaven, makes His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). St. Peter also states this in different terms: “Peter opening his mouth, said: ‘In very deed I perceive, that God is not a respecter of persons!’” (Acts 10:34). In fact, this kindness to bad people, or sinners, was frowned upon by the Pharisees, who threw this in Our Lord’s face: “And the Scribes and the Pharisees, seeing that Jesus ate with publicans and sinners, said to His disciples: ‘Why does your master eat and drink with publicans and sinners?’” (Mark 2:16).
Yet the answer is quite plain and simple—Our Lord wants to save sinners—“Jesus hearing this, said to them: ‘They that are healthy have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. For I came not to call the just, but sinners!’” (Mark 2:17). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). Which was also the message of God in the Old Testament: “‘Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin!’ saith the Lord God” (Ezechiel 18:30).
Miracles of Grace and Physical Miracles
Jesus heals physical and spiritual disease (forgiveness of sins, casts out devils). Our problem is that we think more about and admire more the physical miracles than we do the miracles of grace—yet, just as the soul is greater than the body, miracles of grace are greater than physical miracles. We see, in the following passage, Our Lord state this truth.
“And behold they brought, to Jesus, one sick of the palsy lying in a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the man sick of the palsy: ‘Be of good heart, son, thy sins are forgiven thee!’ And behold some of the Scribes said within themselves: ‘He blasphemeth!’ And Jesus seeing their thoughts, said: ‘Why do you think evil in your hearts? Is it easier, to say, “Thy sins are forgiven thee!” or to say, “Arise, and walk!”? But that you may know that the Son of man hath power on Earth to forgive sins, He then said to the man sick of palsy, “Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house!”’ And he arose, and went into his house. And the multitude seeing it, feared, and glorified God that gave such power to men” (Matthew 9:2-8).
We have the case of Mary Magdalen, whom the Roman Church holds to be the woman caught in adultery, the woman possessed by seven devils whom Jesus cast out of her, and the woman who anointed his head at one banquet, and His feet at the banquet of Simon the Leper. “The Scribes and the Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery … Jesus said to them: ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her! … They, hearing this, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest. And Jesus alone remained, and the woman standing in the midst. Then Jesus said to her: ‘Woman, where are they that accused thee? Has no man condemned thee?’ Who said: ‘No man, Lord!’ And Jesus said: ‘Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more!’” (John 8:3-11). This is an echo of the Old Testament verse: “Say not: ‘I have sinned and what harm hath befallen me?’ Be not without fear about sins forgiven, and add not sin to sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5: 4-5).
Every time water is poured in the Sacrament of Baptism, while saying: “I baptize thee in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”—a miracle of grace takes place. Every time a mortal sinner goes to sincerely and truthfully confess his mortal sins, with the desire to amend and make reparation for them, a miracle of grace occurs through the instrumentality and ministry of the priest—who says: “I absolve thee from thy sins…”
These are miracles for sinners—the former miracle (Baptism) for those in a state of Original Sin, the latter miracle (Confession) for those in a state of Mortal Sin—and they are performed through the instrumentality of humans, if the sinner is prepared to follow Christ and change his sinful ways. These miracles of grace would even take place if the priest or the minister of Baptism were to be in a state of Mortal Sin themselves—such is the love of God and His desire for our salvation. Our Lord then performs another miracle by changing bread and wine into His Body and Blood during the Sacrifice of the Mass, so as to feed those sinners who have been miraculously baptized in the Sacrament of Baptism and miraculously freed from their sins in the Sacrament of Confession.
Don’t Expect Miracles If You Abuse God’s Mercy
Yet, that love and patience is not without limits—even though God is infinitely loving and patient in Himself—for, as St. Paul says: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7). As St. Alphonsus Liguori says in his sermon for the First Sunday of Lent: “Sinners multiply their sins without keeping any account of them; but God numbers them that, when the harvest is ripe―that is, when the number of sins is completed―He may take vengeance on them. ‘Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe’ as it says in Joel 3:13” (Sunday Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori, First Sunday of Lent, “On The Number Of Sins Beyond Which God Pardons No More”). If we won’t believe the saints, the let us believe Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Akita, who said on October 13th, 1917 and 1973: “Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended.” (Our Lady of Fatima, October 13th, 1917) “If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them!” (Our Lady of Akita, October 13th, 1973). Which is why Our Lord said the paralytic, whom He had cured by the pool: “Behold thou art made whole: sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14).
Miracles for Good Jews and Bad Jews
► Jesus performs the stupendous miracle of raising persons from the dead three times in the Gospels—all three whom He resurrected, were Jews: the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the local synagogue; the Jewish widow of Naim’s son; and the brother of Martha and Mary, the Jew, Lazarus.
► JAIRUS’ DAUGHTER: “And behold there came a man whose name was Jairus, and he had an only daughter, almost twelve years old, and she was dying. He was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at the feet of Jesus, beseeching him that he would come into his house, saying: ‘My daughter is at the point of death, come, lay thy hand upon her, that she may be safe, and may live!’ As he was yet speaking, there cometh one to the ruler of the synagogue, saying to him: ‘Thy daughter is dead! Why dost thou trouble the Master any further?’ And Jesus hearing this word, answered the father of the maid: ‘Fear not; believe only, and she shall be safe!’ And when Jesus was come into the house of the ruler, He seeth a tumult and people weeping and wailing much. He admitted not any man to follow Him, but Peter, and James, and John the brother of James. And going in, He saw the minstrels and the multitude making a rout, and He saith to them: ‘Why make you this ado, and weep? Give place, for the girl is not dead, but is sleeping!’ And they laughed Him to scorn. But He having put them all out, He went in, taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with Him, and entereth in where the damsel was lying. And taking the damsel by the hand, He saith to her: ‘Talitha cumi!’ which is, being interpreted: ‘Damsel (I say to thee) arise!’ Her spirit returned and immediately the damsel rose up and walked. And He bid them give her to eat. And her parents were astonished, whom he charged to tell no man what was done. And the fame hereof went abroad into all that country” (Matthew 9:23-26; Mark 5:22-43; Luke 8:41). Isn’t the Good Lord good and merciful?
► WIDOW’S SON: “And it came to pass afterwards, that Jesus went into a city that is called Naim; and there went with Him His disciples, and a great multitude. And when He came nigh to the gate of the city, behold a dead man was carried out, the only son of his mother; and she was a widow: and a great multitude of the city was with her. Whom, when the Lord had seen, being moved with mercy towards her, He said to her: ‘Weep not!’ And He came near and touched the bier. And they that carried it, stood still. And He said: ‘Young man! I say to thee, arise!’ And he that was dead, sat up, and began to speak. And He gave him to his mother” (Luke 7:11-15). Isn’t the Lord good?!
► LAZARUS: “Now there was a certain man sick, named Lazarus, of Bethania, of the town of Mary and Martha her sister. His sisters therefore sent to Jesus, saying: ‘Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick!’ And Jesus hearing it, said to them: ‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God―so that the Son of God may be glorified by it!’ Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus. When he had heard therefore that he was sick, Jesus still remained in the same place two days. And after that He said to them: ‘Lazarus our friend is sleeping; but I will go so that I may awaken him out of his sleep! Lazarus is dead. And I am glad, for your sakes, that I was not there, so that you may believe! But let us go to him!’ … Jesus therefore came, and found that he had been four days already in the grave ... Martha therefore said to Jesus: ‘Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother would not have died! But now also I know that whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee!’ Jesus said to her: ‘Thy brother shall rise again ... Where have you laid him?’ They say to Him: ‘Lord, come and see!’ And Jesus wept. The Jews therefore said: ‘Behold how He loved him!’ But some of them said: ‘Could not He―that opened the eyes of the man born blind―have caused that this man should not die?’ Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself, came to the sepulcher. Now it was a cave and a stone was laid over it. Jesus said: ‘Take away the stone!’ Martha, the sister of him that was dead, said to Him: ‘Lord, by this time he will be stinking, for he is now four days dead!’ Jesus said to her: ‘Did not I say to thee, that if thou believe, thou shalt see the glory of God?’ They took, therefore, the stone away. And Jesus lifting up His eyes said: ‘Father, I give Thee thanks that Thou hast heard Me! And I knew that Thou hear Me always; but, because of the people who stand about have I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me!’ When He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice: ‘Lazarus! Come forth!’ And presently, he, that had been dead, came forth, bound feet and hands with winding bands; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them: ‘Loosen him, and let him go!’ Many therefore of the Jews, who were come to Mary and Martha, and had seen the things that Jesus did, believed in Him” (John 11:1-45). Another miracle performed by God for a good person.
► Jesus also miraculously cures the fever of ST. PETER’S MOTHER-IN-LAW, a Jewess: “And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying, and sick of a fever: and he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose and ministered to them” (Matthew 8:14-15). Another miracle for a good person.
► Our Lord twice performs the MIRACULOUS FEEDING OF THE JEWISH MULTITUDES that followed Him—on one occasion it was four thousand Jews, on another occasion it was five thousand Jews. “Jesus called together His disciples, and said: ‘I have compassion on the multitudes, because they continue with me now three days, and have not what to eat, and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way … And Jesus said: ‘How many loaves have you?’ But they said: ‘Seven, and a few little fishes!’ And He commanded the multitude to sit down upon the ground. And taking the seven loaves and the fishes, and giving thanks, He broke, and gave to His disciples, and the disciples gave to the people. And they did all eat and had their fill. And afterwards they took up seven baskets full, of what remained of the fragments. And they that did eat, were four thousand men, beside children and women” (Matthew 15:32-38).
The miracle of the five thousand is also found in St. Matthew’s Gospel. In this case, there were “but five loaves, and two fishes. Jesus said to them: ‘Bring them here to Me!’ And when He had commanded the multitudes to sit down upon the grass, He took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to Heaven, He blessed, and broke, and gave the loaves to His disciples, and the disciples gave to the multitudes. And they did all eat, and were filled. And they took up what remained―twelve full baskets of fragments. And the number of them that did eat, was five thousand men, not counting the women and children” (Matthew 14:14-21). Isn’t God good—but let us do something to merit His kind help!
► Jesus heals the SINFUL JEWISH PARALYTIC. Yet Jesus even performs miracles for the sinful—but often they have had to suffer a long time as a consequence of their sins. We see a case of this with the sinful paralytic by the pool in Jerusalem. “Now there is at Jerusalem a pond, called Probatica, which in Hebrew is named Bethsaida, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick, of blind, of lame, of withered; waiting for the moving of the water. And an angel of the Lord descended at certain times into the pond; and the water was moved. And he that went down first into the pond, after the motion of the water, was healed of whatsoever infirmity he lay under. And there was a certain man there, who had been thirty-eight years under his infirmity. Him, when Jesus had seen lying, and knew that he had been now a long time, He said to him: ‘Wilt thou be made whole?’ The infirm man answered Him: ‘Sir, when the water is troubled, I have no man to put me into the pond. For while I am coming to the water, another goes down before me!’ Jesus saith to him: ‘Arise, take up thy bed, and walk!’ And immediately the man was made whole: and he took up his bed, and walked ... Afterwards, Jesus found him in the Temple, and said to him: ‘Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!’” (John 5:2-14).
► Another Jewish sinner, the CHIEF PUBLICAN OF JERICHO, ZACHEUS, receives a miracle of grace from Our Lord: “And entering in, Jesus walked through Jericho. And behold, there was a man named Zacheus, who was the chief of the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus—who He was—and he could not due to the crowd, because he was small and not tall. And running ahead, he climbed up into a sycamore tree, so that he might see Jesus; for He was to pass by that way. And when Jesus was come to the place, looking up, He saw him, and said to him: ‘Zacheus! Make haste and come down! For this day I must abide in thy house!’ And he made haste and came down, and received Him with joy. And when all saw it, they murmured, saying, that he was gone to be a guest with a man that was a sinner. But Zacheus standing, said to the Lord: ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have wronged any man of any thing, I will restore to him fourfold!’ Jesus said to him: ‘This day is salvation come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham! For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!’” (Luke 19:2-10).
► Jesus performs a physical miracle for a JEWISH ENEMY, during His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane—it is for the Jewish servant of High Priest, Malchus, who was with the band of men that had come to arrest Jesus. “They came up, and laid hands on Jesus, and held Him. Simon Peter, having a sword, stretching forth his hand, drew out his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. And the name of the servant was Malchus. Then Jesus said to him: ‘Put up thy sword into the scabbard! For all that take the sword shall perish with the sword! The chalice which My Father hath given Me―shall I not drink it? Thinkest thou that I cannot ask My Father, and He will immediately give Me more than twelve legions of angels? How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that so it must be done? Suffer ye thus far!’ But when Jesus had touched his ear, He healed him” (Matthew 16:50-52; Mark 14:46-47; Luke 22:49-51; John 18:10-11).
Miracles for Good Gentiles and Bad Gentiles
True to Divine Revelation—which tells us that the God “makes His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45)—we find Our Lord even performing miracles for the Gentiles (meaning those persons who were not of the Jewish religion). Not only does He perform miracles for Gentiles that are trying to be good people, but also for those who were not good—however, we must remember that these miracles were not given to them because they were in the wrong religion or evil, but because Our Lord hoped to bring them out of their errors and their sins. The miracle is merely a means to that end―a means that is intended to bring about a conversion.
► We read of a GOOD GENTILE SOLDIER, “a certain man in Caesarea, named Cornelius, a centurion of that which is called the Italian band; a religious man, and fearing God with all his house, giving much alms to the people, and always praying to God” (Acts 10:1-2). God told Cornelius to send men to Joppe, where St. Peter was staying, and request that St. Peter come to him. Cornelius desired an end (salvation) and God saw that he would take the means to that end (become a Christian). So God performs this great miracle of grace for him.
► Another Gentile was the GOOD CANAANITE WOMAN, who had a daughter who was possessed. “And behold a woman of Canaan who came out of those coasts, crying out, said to Him: ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David! My daughter is grieviously troubled by the devil!’ Jesus answered her not a word. And His disciples came and besought Him, saying: ‘Send her away, for she cries after us!’ And He answering, said: ‘I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel!’ But she came and adored Him, saying: ‘Lord, help me!’ Who answering, said: ‘It is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs!’ But she said: ‘Yes, Lord! But the dogs also eat of the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters!’ Then Jesus answering, said to her: ‘O woman, great is thy faith! Be it done to thee as thou wilt!’ And her daughter was cured from that hour” (Matthew 15:22-28). The Canaanites were worshipers of pagan gods.
► Jesus cures a SAMARITAN LEPER. “And as Jesus entered into a certain town, there met Him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off; and lifted up their voice, saying: ‘Jesus! Master! Have mercy on us!’ Whom, when He saw, He said: ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests!’ And it came to pass, as they went, they were made clean. And one of them, when he saw that he was made clean, went back, with a loud voice glorifying God. And he fell on his face before His feet, giving thanks―and this was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering, said: ‘Were not ten made clean? And where are the nine? There is no one found to return and give glory to God, but this stranger!’ And He said to him: ‘Arise, go thy way; for thy faith hath made thee whole!’” (Luke 17:12-19). The Samaritans were the enemies of the Jews.
► Our Lord cures the GENTILE CENTURION’S SON. “When Jesus had entered into Capharnaum, there came to Him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying: ‘Lord! My servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, and is grieviously tormented!’ And Jesus saith to him: ‘I will come and heal him!’ And the centurion making answer, said: ‘Lord! I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof: but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed! For I also am a man subject to authority, having under me soldiers; and I say to this: “Go!” and he goeth; and to another: “Come!” and he cometh, and to my servant: “Do this!” and he doeth it.’ And Jesus hearing this, marveled; and said to them that followed Him: ‘Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel. And I say to you that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven: but the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’ And Jesus said to the centurion: ‘Go! And as thou hast believed, so be it done to thee!’ And the servant was healed at the same hour” (Matthew 8:5-13).
● Our Lord performs a Miracle of Grace for THE GOOD THIEF. “And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, they crucified Him there; and the robbers, one on the right hand, and the other on the left ... And one of those robbers who were hanged, blasphemed him, saying: ‘If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us!’ But the other answering, rebuked him, saying: ‘Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done no evil!’ And he said to Jesus: ‘Lord! Remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy Kingdom!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in paradise!’” (Luke 23:33-43). Even the evil Gentiles benefit from miracles—this particular one being, according to tradition, St. Dismas!
► Our Lord performs a Miracle of Grace for THE CENTURION ON CALVARY. Likewise with the Roman soldier, the centurion, who was in charge of the crucifixion—who was actually putting Christ to death! Tradition states that he became a saint and has him named as St. Longinus. “Now the centurion and they that were with him watching Jesus, having seen the earthquake, and the things that were done, were sore afraid, saying: ‘Indeed this was the Son of God!’ The centurion, seeing what was done, glorified God, saying: ‘Indeed this was a just man!’” (Matthew 27:54; Luke 23:47).
Why Do Some Sinners Get Miracles?
Why does a sinner get a miracle? Not all do—in fact very few do! If they do get the miracle, it is because God sees in them a good disposition, which He knows will lead to a conversion. Yet, not all who get a miracle are necessarily saved. This is clearly seen in that case of many of Jews at the time of Our Lord—especially the Scribes and Pharisees.
St. John declares: “God does not hear sinners: but if a man be a server of God, and does His will, him He hears” (John 9:31). It has been said that the only prayer that God hears from a sinner is the prayer for salvation—and consequently, he who desires an end (salvation), must also necessarily desire the means to that end (repentance). If a sinner or an unbeliever prays to God for that which is according to His will, nothing prevents God from answering such a prayer—according to His will.
The only miracle that every single sinner can get is the miracle of a conversion from sin, because that is why Christ came on Earth―to save sinners and those who were lost. God has repeatedly stated that He wants sinners to convert―and each conversion is a miracle of God’s grace, because it is beyond the capacity of mere human being without the help of God: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5), says Christ. “‘The soul that sins, the same shall die! … Is it my will that a sinner should die?’ says the Lord God, ‘and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? If the wicked does penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all my commandments, then living he shall live, and shall not die! I will not remember all his iniquities that he has done! … Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin! Cast away from you all your transgressions by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dies―return ye and live!’ says the Lord God” (Ezechiel 18:4; 21-23, 30-32).
Every time sinners sincerely and truthfully confess their sins, with a firm purpose of amending their lives and making reparation―God performs the miracle of forgiving and removing their sins―which is something beyond the powers of man. The sinful people of Ninive prayed that Ninive might be spared. God answered this prayer and did not destroy the city of Ninive as He had threatened, because the Ninivites, in asking for an end (being spared), were ready to take the means to achieve that end (penance). “And Jonas arose, and went to Ninive, according to the word of the Lord … and he cried, and said: ‘Yet forty days, and Ninive shall be destroyed!” And the men of Ninive believed in God: and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least … And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way: and God had mercy with regard to the evil which he had said that he would do to them, and he did it not” (Jonas 3:5-10).
Yet Sodom and Gomorrha could not find anyone to do penance for their sinfulness—they did get a miracle, but not a pleasant one! Fire and brimstone rained down from Heaven to destroy them. Today’s sinfulness has to be comparable to their sinfulness—otherwise why on earth would Our Lady of Akita say that “if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son.”
The Lightening Rods of Rosary and Cross (the Mass)
The Rosary and the Cross (the sign left by her Son―which is the Sacrifice of Calvary renewed in the Sacrifice of the Mass) are like two lightning rods that can draw down miracles from Heaven. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a miracle in itself, because Christ uses the priest to renew and re-offer His bloody sacrifice on Calvary in an unbloody manner in the Sacrifice of the Mass, while also changing mere bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ, whose Real Presence remains with us miraculously in the Holy Eucharist and Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.
This sacrifice of Christ is extended, prolonged and shared by the members of His Mystical Body on Earth. Our Lord states: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Thus St. Paul writes: “God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ―by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14). “With Christ I am nailed to the cross!” (Galatians 2:19). “I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His Body, which is the Church!” (Colossians 1:24). Likewise, we should unite ourselves with Christ through our sufferings. It is the carrying of our God-sent crosses that unites us to Our Lord’s salvific and redeeming cross―we, in a broad sense, are united to Christ on His cross, in a similar way to which Our Lady was spiritually “crucified” with Christ without actually being physically nailed to the cross of Christ.
The Rosary and the Cross simply translate into what Our Lady asked for at Fatima—prayers and sacrifices. Yet, just as Abraham could not find enough just men to avert the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha, it looks like we are also short of persons to pray the Rosary and carry the Cross today.
Where are the souls described by St. Louis de Montfort in his True Devotion to Mary, where he writes of the “true disciples of Jesus Christ, walking in the footsteps of His poverty, humility, contempt of the world, charity; teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not accepting persons; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in their own behavior” (True Devotion to Mary, §59).
Article 10
Wednesday October 11th, 2023, Feast of the Divine Maternity of Mary
Our Lady is God's Mother and Your Mother Too!
Wednesday October 11th, 2023, Feast of the Divine Maternity of Mary
Our Lady is God's Mother and Your Mother Too!
The Feast of the Divine Maternity of Mary
This glorious feast was established as a commemoration of the Third Ecumenical Council of the Church at Ephesus, in 431. It was set up for our own time in 1931 by Pope Pius XI, fifteen hundred years after the Council of Ephesus. The hymns used in the office of the feast also allude to Mary’s dignity as the spiritual mother of men. The love of Mary for all mankind was that of a mother, for she shared all the feelings of her Son whose love for men led Him to die for our redemption
The Catholic Church infallibly declares and defines the Divine Maternity of Our Lady. The Catholic Church tells us that in order to be saved we must believe with our full hearts that the same Person Who is the Son of God the Eternal Father in His Divine nature is also the Child of Mary the Virgin in His human nature. Anyone who refuses or hesitates to call Mary the Mother of God will never be saved.
In the sixteenth century, even amidst their many disagreements, the so-called Protestant “reformers” agreed in utterly rejecting all the honors paid by the Catholic Church to the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the grounds that such veneration of the Mother detracted from the supreme worship due to her Divine Son. Since then, over five hundred years have passed, which is more than enough to show the result of so doing―the Son has followed the Mother out of the door! Many of the descendants of those who refused to Mary the title and rights of Theotokos — Mother of God — have gone a step further and refuse to give Jesus the title of “Son of God” in the traditional sense of the term. Many reject His Godhead altogether, placing Him merely at the head of the line of great moral and social world-teachers; others still retain the word “divinity” with respect to Him, but for them it is no longer synonymous with “deity.”
No Little Matter! No Little Mother!
Today, October 11th, we traditionally celebrate the feast of the Divine Motherhood, or the Divine Maternity―which refers to Our Lady being the Mother of God. “Mother of God” ― it’s just a title, isn’t it? Or is it more than just a title? The title, “Mother of God”, may mean little to most people―but it is no little matter! Most people don’t think twice about that title―yet we should think more about it―especially if we say our Rosary daily. For if we pray the Rosary just once (5 decades) daily, then we are saying or using that title―“Mother of God”― almost 20,000 times a year! We say 50 Hail Marys (plus the 3 Hail Marys at the start) in each Rosary―and in each Hail Mary we say: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners…”―and 53 times 365 (the number of days in a year) gives you a total of 19,345 Hail Marys (which contain the words “Mother of God”) per year. How can we not think twice about something we say almost 20,000 times a year? Yet, sadly, most people are indifferent to the title “Mother of God” ― for it is one of many titles that Our Lady holds!
What could be more important than God? Nothing! That is why we are told: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). If God is so important, then the Mother of God must next-in-line in the order of importance. This is what Pope Pius XI said in his encyclical letter, Lux Veritatis, which promulgated the feast of the Divine Motherhood:
“The Blessed Virgin Mary is to be acknowledged and venerated by all as really and truly the Mother of God … There follows of necessity the dogma of the Divine Maternity, which We preach as belonging to the Blessed Virgin Mary … If the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary is God, then she who bore him is rightly and deservedly to be called the Mother of God … Let us all, therefore, venerate the tender Mother of God … From this dogma of the Divine Maternity, as from the outpouring of a hidden spring, there flows forth the singular grace of Mary and her dignity―which is the highest after God … The Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God; therefore she is far more excellent than all the Angels, even the Seraphim and Cherubim. She is the Mother of God―therefore she is most pure and most holy, so that, apart from God, no greater purity can be imagined. She is the Mother of God; therefore whatever privilege (in the order of sanctifying grace) has been granted to any one of the Saints, she obtains it more than all …
“But there is another matter, Venerable Brethren, which We think We should recall in regard to Mary’s office of Maternity, something which is sweeter and more pleasing; namely that she, because she brought forth the Redeemer of mankind, is also in a manner the most tender mother of us all, whom Christ our Lord deigned to have as His brothers … From this it comes that we are all drawn to her by a powerful attraction, that we may confidently entrust to her all things that are ours―namely our joys, if we are gladdened; our troubles, if we are in anguish; our hopes, if we are striving to reach at length to better things. From this it comes that if more difficult times fall upon the Church; if Faith fail, if charity have grown cold, if private and public morals take a turn for the worse; if any danger be hanging over the Catholic name and civil society, we all take refuge with her, imploring heavenly aid. From this it comes, lastly, that, in the supreme crisis of death, when no other hope is given, no other help, we lift up to her our tearful eyes and our trembling hands, praying through her for pardon from her Son, and for eternal happiness in Heaven.” (Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Letter, Lux Veritatis, December 25th, 1931).
As Pope Pius XI so rightly says: “From this dogma of the Divine Maternity, there flows forth the singular grace of Mary and her dignity―which is the highest after God … The Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God―she is far more excellent than all the Angels, even the Seraphim and Cherubim. She is the Mother of God―therefore she is most pure and most holy, so that, apart from God, no greater purity can be imagined. She is the Mother of God―therefore whatever privilege has been granted to any one of the Saints, she obtains it more than all!”
No Greater Title!
We often judge the importance of a person by the title they hold. The greater the title―or the higher the rank―then the more respect, honor and esteem that title should be given. For example, we honor a pope more than a cardinal or a bishop; we honor a king or queen more than the prince or princess, or lord or lady; we honor a president more than a senator or governor, etc. After the Holy Trinity―God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost―there is no greater rank than that of the Mother of God. There are some titles that she holds that are a logical consequence of, or extension to, or give a different perspective to the title of “Mother of God” ― such as “Mother of Christ”, or “Mother of the Savior”, or “Mother of the Redeemer” ― but essentially they all refer to God, for Christ is God, the Savior is God, the Redeemer is God. All the other titles of Our Lady refer to something connected to Our Lady and not directly connected to God ― Immaculate Conception; Immaculate Heart of Mary, Sorrowful Heart of Mary, Mother of Mercy; Queen of Heaven and Earth; Virgin Most Pure; Virgin Most Chaste; Virgin Most Powerful; Seat of Wisdom; Queen of Angels, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins & Saints; Refuge of Sinners, Help of Christians; etc. ― all of these focus either on some virtue or quality of Our Lady, or Our Lady’s relation to mankind. Other geographical titles, such as Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Akita, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Czestochowa, Our Lady of Walsingham, etc., merely commemorate Our Lady’s appearances and messages given at those locations. The title “Mother of God” outranks all of these because it is directly and solely connected with God and nothing less than God, nothing inferior to God.
Theotokos ― Mother of God
We should distinguish the term Theotokos from “Mother of God”, because there is a subtle yet important difference. The term Theotokos is more specific and precise and less open to being misinterpreted. Theotokos simply implies that Mary carried God in her womb and gave birth to Him. Mary was the human agent through whom the eternal Son of God took on a human body and a human nature and entered the world. The term Theotokos was a succinct expression of the biblical teaching of the Incarnation―whereby Christ became man―and that is how the Council of Ephesus used the word. Mary is the “God-bearer” in the sense that within her body the divine person of God the Son took on human nature in addition to His pre-existing divine nature. Since Jesus is fully God and fully man, it is correct to say that Mary “bore” God.
The term “Mother of God” could be taken wrongly as implying that Mary somehow predated God and was the source, originator or creator of God―which is clearly unbiblical, heretical and nonsensical. The Faith teaches that God is eternal and that Jesus Christ has a pre-existent, divine nature. The title “Mother of God” means that Mary gave birth to Jesus, who is fully God and fully human. Jesus is one person, but He has two natures―His Divine Nature and His human nature. He always possessed His Divine Nature, but He only took on His human nature at the time of the Incarnation, when at the Annunciation, Mary accepted God’s plan to become the Mother of Jesus, Mother of the Son of God, hence Mother of God. She did not create God, but she was chosen by God to provide His Son the human, material, physical aspects that would enable Christ to take on human flesh and a human nature.
God could have done all this miraculously and created the human body and nature of Christ out of nothing―but God chose to use Mary as the vehicle for His Son taking on human flesh and a human nature. We say that she is the “Mother of God” in the sense that she carried in her womb a divine person—Jesus Christ, God “in the flesh” (2 John 7, cf. John 1:14)—and in the sense that she contributed the genetic matter to the human form that God took in Jesus Christ. Pope Pius IX, in the Bull, Ineffabilis Deus, defining the Immaculate Conception, asserts that Mary’s maternity was predestined: “From the very beginning, and before time began, the Eternal Father chose and prepared for His only-begotten Son, a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, He would be born into this world.” Thus we are talking about the greatest birth (Jesus) ever known in the history of mankind, to the greatest mother (Mary) the world has ever known in the history of mankind! How is it that we pretty much indifferent to that? Why does it have little or no effect upon us?
Don’t Argue With The Word of God!
In the Old Testament, the Prophet Isaias predicted: “Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and His Name shall be called Emmanuel (God with us)” (Isaias 7:14).
In the Gospel of St. Luke, we find that the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary: “Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bear a Son, and thou shalt call His Name Jesus” (Luke 1:31) … “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).
And further on in the same Gospel, when Mary visited St. Elizabeth after having miraculously conceived Jesus in her womb, Elizabeth, “filled with the Holy Ghost,” cried out to the Blessed Virgin: “And whence is this to me that the Mother of my Lord should come to me!” (Luke 1:43)
After Our Lord’s birth in Bethlehem, Holy Scripture tells us that those who first came to adore Him―Who is Son of God and Son of Mary―found Him “with Mary His Mother” (Matthew 2:11).
Saint Paul clearly tells us in the Epistle to the Galatians: “God sent His Son born of a woman.” (4:4).
At the scene of the first miracle at Cana, which marked the opening of His public life, “the Mother of Jesus was there.” (John 2:1).
In the tremendous hour when all was consummated, when types and shadows gave place to the mighty reality, “there stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother” (John 19:25)—and it was on Calvary, from the cross, that Jesus introduced the spiritual motherhood of Mary His Mother to all mankind, saying: “When Jesus, therefore, had seen His mother and the disciple standing whom He loved [John], He said to His Mother: ‘Woman, behold thy son! After that, He said to the disciple: ‘Behold thy Mother!’ And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own” (John 19:26-27).
When Our Lord left His little flock―who were to be the nucleus of the Church of God―and ascended into Heaven, His Apostles and disciples awaited, in prayer, the coming of the Paraclete, Who would teach them all truth, and again it was in company with “Mary the Mother of Jesus.” “All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with His brethren” (Acts 1:14).
Far from taking from the honor and love due to the Word Incarnate, devotion to Mary is a strong bulwark protecting the central doctrine. He is ever found with His Mother; where Mary is denied her rights, sooner or later Jesus is denied His rights―They stand or fall together.
Emphasized by Tradition
Not only do we find the reference for the Divine Maternity in Sacred Scripture, but also in Sacred Tradition. In the early Christian Church, there was no misunderstanding in the matter, for the early Fathers of the Church were very clear and firm on the Divine Motherhood of Mary.
In his Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Ignatius of Antioch (circa 110 A.D.) wrote: “Our God Jesus Christ was born by Mary in her maternal womb.”
At another time, St. Ignatius wrote: “There is only one Healer, composed at the same time of flesh and spirit, begotten and not-begotten... of God and of Mary, Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
St. Irenaeus (202 A.D.) taught: “This Christ, Who as the Word of the Father was with the Father... was born of a virgin.”
Tertuillian (220 A.D.) said: “God is born in the womb of a Mother.”
St. Athanasius (373 A.D.) taught: “We confess that the Son of God became Man by the assumption of flesh from the virgin Mother of God.”
St. Gregory Nazianzen (circa 382 A.D.) declares: “Let him who will not accept Mary as the Mother of God be excluded from God.”
The Mother of God is Our Exemplar
An exemplar is someone or something that is considered to be so good that they should be copied or imitated. After Christ Himself, what better exemplar do we have than Our Blessed Mother? The following words of St. Louis de Montfort, taken from various different sections of his book, True Devotion to Mary, should serve as an encouragement and inspiration in forming a greater love and true devotion towards our heavenly Mother―who is not only the Mother of God, but, in light of Christ’s command from the cross: “Behold they Mother!”, she is also our Mother too. St. Louis writes:
“Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High … Mary is the admirable Mother of the Son … Mary is faithful spouse of the Holy Ghost … Mary is the sanctuary and the repose of the Holy Trinity … Mary is the terrestrial paradise of the New Adam, where He was made flesh by the operation of the Holy Ghost … She is the magnificence of the Most High, most excellent and most precious … The saints have said admirable things of this holy city of God. Yet, after all they have said, they cry out that the height of her merits cannot be fully seen; that the breadth of her charity is in truth immeasurable; that the length of her power―which she exercises even over God Himself―is incomprehensible; and finally, that the depth of her humility and all her virtues and graces, is an abyss which never can be sounded. O height incomprehensible! O breadth unspeakable! O length immeasurable! O abyss impenetrable!
“Every day, from one end of the Earth to the other, everything preaches, everything publishes, the admirable Mary! … The whole Earth is full of her glory, especially among Christians, by whom she is taken as the protectress of many kingdoms, provinces, dioceses and cities. Many cathedrals are consecrated to God under her name. There is not a church without an altar in her honor, not a country, nor a canton, where there are not some miraculous images where all sorts of evils are cured and all sorts of good gifts obtained. Who can count the confraternities and congregations founded in her honor? How many religious orders have been founded in her name and under her protection? How many members in these confraternities, and how many religious men and women in all these orders, who publish her praises and confess her mercies! Nay, the very devils in Hell respect her while they fear her! After all that, we must cry out with the saints: “De Maria numquam satis!”—“Of Mary there is never enough!” We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought! She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service!”
“It was only through Mary that God the Father gave His Only-Begotten to the world … He gave Him to Mary, in order that the world might receive Him through her … The Son of God became man for our salvation―but it was in Mary and by Mary … God the Father communicated to Mary the power to produce His Son and all the members of His Mystical Body ... The Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady by producing―in her and by her―Jesus Christ and His members … God the Son wishes to form Himself, to incarnate Himself, in His members by His dear Mother … God the Father wishes to have children by Mary till the consummation of the world … The first man that is born in Mary is the Man-God, Jesus Christ; the second is a mere man, the child of God and Mary by adoption … If Jesus Christ, the Head of men, is born in her, then the predestinate, who are the members of that Head, ought also to be born in her by a necessary consequence … St. Augustine affirms that all the predestinate are, in this world, hidden in the womb of the most holy Virgin―where they are guarded, nourished, brought up and made to grow by that good Mother, until she has brought them forth to glory after death … Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time … The greatest saints, the souls richest in graces and virtues, shall be the most assiduous in praying to our Blessed Lady, and in having her always present as their perfect model for imitation and their powerful aid for help.
“All the true children of God, the predestinate, have God for their Father and Mary for their Mother. He who has not Mary for his Mother, has not God for his Father … Our Blessed Lady is the means Our Lord made use of to come to us. She is also the means which we must make use of to go to Him … To go to Jesus, we must go to Mary … He who shall find Mary, shall find life … But no one can find Mary who does not seek her … No one can seek her who does not know her―for we cannot seek or desire an unknown object. It is necessary, then, that Mary should be more than ever known … Mary must shine forth more than ever in these latter times … God wishes that His holy Mother should be at present more known, more loved, more honored than she has ever been … The Holy Ghost says that a man who honors his mother is like a man who layeth up a treasure―that is to say, he who honors Mary, his Mother, to the extent of subjecting himself to her and obeying her in all things, will soon become exceedingly rich, because he is every day amassing treasures … The more you look at Mary in your prayers, contemplations, actions and sufferings, the more perfectly will you find Jesus Christ, Who is always, with Mary …
“The predestinate tenderly love and truly honor our Blessed Lady as their good Mother and Mistress. They love her not only in word but in truth. They honor her not only outwardly but in the depths of their hearts … The predestinate are subject and obedient to our Blessed Lady as to their good Mother, after the example of Jesus Christ, who, of the thirty-three years that He lived on Earth, employed thirty years to glorify God His Father by a perfect and entire subjection to His holy Mother … The predestinate have also great confidence in the goodness and power of our Blessed Lady, their good Mother. They call incessantly for her help … Lastly, the predestinate keep the ways of our Blessed Lady, their good Mother; that is to say, they imitate her. It is on this point that they are truly happy and truly devout, and bear the infallible mark of their predestination, according to the words this good Mother speaks to them: ‘Blessed are they who practice my virtues’ (Proverbs 8:32), and with the help of divine grace walk in the footsteps of my life.” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, various passages).
The Mother of God is YOUR Mother Also!
Mary is more than just the Mother of God―Mary is your Mother too! St. Alphonsus, in his book The Glories of Mary, writes: “A certain sinner once said to Mary, ‘Show thyself a Mother!’ ― but the Blessed Virgin replied, ‘Show thyself a son!’” We expect her to fulfill the role of a “mother” towards us―but do we fulfill our role of a child towards her? We expect to receive many graces from the Mediatrix of All Grace―but are we “in her good graces” by giving things to her. Love is reciprocal―it is a “two-way-street”―it is about giving and not just receiving! We love to read about things that we love―how much do we read about our Mother Mary? We love to think about things that we love―how often do we think about our Mother Mary? We love to talk about things that we love―how often do we talk about Mary? We love to speak to persons whom we love―how often do we speak to Mary? We give gifts to those whom we love―what gifts do we give to Mary? We willingly make sacrifices for people that we love―how many sacrifices do we make for Mary? Our Lord said of some of the Jews: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8)―could Our Lady say the same thing about us?
Mary the Mother of Salvation
It is said that a mother is the heart of a family. In that case, Our Lady should be at the heart of our life. We neglect Mary at our peril. Some of the saints have gone so far as to say that a person who neglects Mary is neglecting his or her salvation. If Mary is the Mother of Jesus, then she is the Mother of the Savior. If she is the mother of the Savior, then she is the Mother of Salvation. Our Blessed Mother holds such a place in the economy of our redemption that some do not hesitate to state that devotion to her is a necessary condition of salvation.
St. Albert the Great (a Doctor of the Church), says: “They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish.”
St. Bonaventure (a Doctor of the Church) repeats the same thought when he says: “They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation.”
St. Ignatius of Antioch (a Father of the Church), a martyr of the second century, writes: “A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost.”
If a lack of devotion to her is a mark of eternal reprobation a constant love for her must be a sign of eternal salvation. Many spiritual writers state that devotion to Mary is a sign of predestination.
St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church) says: “It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.”
St. Anselm (a Doctor of the Church) writes: “He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost.”
St. Antonine is of the same opinion. He says: “As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified.”
This glorious feast was established as a commemoration of the Third Ecumenical Council of the Church at Ephesus, in 431. It was set up for our own time in 1931 by Pope Pius XI, fifteen hundred years after the Council of Ephesus. The hymns used in the office of the feast also allude to Mary’s dignity as the spiritual mother of men. The love of Mary for all mankind was that of a mother, for she shared all the feelings of her Son whose love for men led Him to die for our redemption
The Catholic Church infallibly declares and defines the Divine Maternity of Our Lady. The Catholic Church tells us that in order to be saved we must believe with our full hearts that the same Person Who is the Son of God the Eternal Father in His Divine nature is also the Child of Mary the Virgin in His human nature. Anyone who refuses or hesitates to call Mary the Mother of God will never be saved.
In the sixteenth century, even amidst their many disagreements, the so-called Protestant “reformers” agreed in utterly rejecting all the honors paid by the Catholic Church to the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the grounds that such veneration of the Mother detracted from the supreme worship due to her Divine Son. Since then, over five hundred years have passed, which is more than enough to show the result of so doing―the Son has followed the Mother out of the door! Many of the descendants of those who refused to Mary the title and rights of Theotokos — Mother of God — have gone a step further and refuse to give Jesus the title of “Son of God” in the traditional sense of the term. Many reject His Godhead altogether, placing Him merely at the head of the line of great moral and social world-teachers; others still retain the word “divinity” with respect to Him, but for them it is no longer synonymous with “deity.”
No Little Matter! No Little Mother!
Today, October 11th, we traditionally celebrate the feast of the Divine Motherhood, or the Divine Maternity―which refers to Our Lady being the Mother of God. “Mother of God” ― it’s just a title, isn’t it? Or is it more than just a title? The title, “Mother of God”, may mean little to most people―but it is no little matter! Most people don’t think twice about that title―yet we should think more about it―especially if we say our Rosary daily. For if we pray the Rosary just once (5 decades) daily, then we are saying or using that title―“Mother of God”― almost 20,000 times a year! We say 50 Hail Marys (plus the 3 Hail Marys at the start) in each Rosary―and in each Hail Mary we say: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners…”―and 53 times 365 (the number of days in a year) gives you a total of 19,345 Hail Marys (which contain the words “Mother of God”) per year. How can we not think twice about something we say almost 20,000 times a year? Yet, sadly, most people are indifferent to the title “Mother of God” ― for it is one of many titles that Our Lady holds!
What could be more important than God? Nothing! That is why we are told: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). If God is so important, then the Mother of God must next-in-line in the order of importance. This is what Pope Pius XI said in his encyclical letter, Lux Veritatis, which promulgated the feast of the Divine Motherhood:
“The Blessed Virgin Mary is to be acknowledged and venerated by all as really and truly the Mother of God … There follows of necessity the dogma of the Divine Maternity, which We preach as belonging to the Blessed Virgin Mary … If the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary is God, then she who bore him is rightly and deservedly to be called the Mother of God … Let us all, therefore, venerate the tender Mother of God … From this dogma of the Divine Maternity, as from the outpouring of a hidden spring, there flows forth the singular grace of Mary and her dignity―which is the highest after God … The Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God; therefore she is far more excellent than all the Angels, even the Seraphim and Cherubim. She is the Mother of God―therefore she is most pure and most holy, so that, apart from God, no greater purity can be imagined. She is the Mother of God; therefore whatever privilege (in the order of sanctifying grace) has been granted to any one of the Saints, she obtains it more than all …
“But there is another matter, Venerable Brethren, which We think We should recall in regard to Mary’s office of Maternity, something which is sweeter and more pleasing; namely that she, because she brought forth the Redeemer of mankind, is also in a manner the most tender mother of us all, whom Christ our Lord deigned to have as His brothers … From this it comes that we are all drawn to her by a powerful attraction, that we may confidently entrust to her all things that are ours―namely our joys, if we are gladdened; our troubles, if we are in anguish; our hopes, if we are striving to reach at length to better things. From this it comes that if more difficult times fall upon the Church; if Faith fail, if charity have grown cold, if private and public morals take a turn for the worse; if any danger be hanging over the Catholic name and civil society, we all take refuge with her, imploring heavenly aid. From this it comes, lastly, that, in the supreme crisis of death, when no other hope is given, no other help, we lift up to her our tearful eyes and our trembling hands, praying through her for pardon from her Son, and for eternal happiness in Heaven.” (Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Letter, Lux Veritatis, December 25th, 1931).
As Pope Pius XI so rightly says: “From this dogma of the Divine Maternity, there flows forth the singular grace of Mary and her dignity―which is the highest after God … The Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God―she is far more excellent than all the Angels, even the Seraphim and Cherubim. She is the Mother of God―therefore she is most pure and most holy, so that, apart from God, no greater purity can be imagined. She is the Mother of God―therefore whatever privilege has been granted to any one of the Saints, she obtains it more than all!”
No Greater Title!
We often judge the importance of a person by the title they hold. The greater the title―or the higher the rank―then the more respect, honor and esteem that title should be given. For example, we honor a pope more than a cardinal or a bishop; we honor a king or queen more than the prince or princess, or lord or lady; we honor a president more than a senator or governor, etc. After the Holy Trinity―God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost―there is no greater rank than that of the Mother of God. There are some titles that she holds that are a logical consequence of, or extension to, or give a different perspective to the title of “Mother of God” ― such as “Mother of Christ”, or “Mother of the Savior”, or “Mother of the Redeemer” ― but essentially they all refer to God, for Christ is God, the Savior is God, the Redeemer is God. All the other titles of Our Lady refer to something connected to Our Lady and not directly connected to God ― Immaculate Conception; Immaculate Heart of Mary, Sorrowful Heart of Mary, Mother of Mercy; Queen of Heaven and Earth; Virgin Most Pure; Virgin Most Chaste; Virgin Most Powerful; Seat of Wisdom; Queen of Angels, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins & Saints; Refuge of Sinners, Help of Christians; etc. ― all of these focus either on some virtue or quality of Our Lady, or Our Lady’s relation to mankind. Other geographical titles, such as Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Akita, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Czestochowa, Our Lady of Walsingham, etc., merely commemorate Our Lady’s appearances and messages given at those locations. The title “Mother of God” outranks all of these because it is directly and solely connected with God and nothing less than God, nothing inferior to God.
Theotokos ― Mother of God
We should distinguish the term Theotokos from “Mother of God”, because there is a subtle yet important difference. The term Theotokos is more specific and precise and less open to being misinterpreted. Theotokos simply implies that Mary carried God in her womb and gave birth to Him. Mary was the human agent through whom the eternal Son of God took on a human body and a human nature and entered the world. The term Theotokos was a succinct expression of the biblical teaching of the Incarnation―whereby Christ became man―and that is how the Council of Ephesus used the word. Mary is the “God-bearer” in the sense that within her body the divine person of God the Son took on human nature in addition to His pre-existing divine nature. Since Jesus is fully God and fully man, it is correct to say that Mary “bore” God.
The term “Mother of God” could be taken wrongly as implying that Mary somehow predated God and was the source, originator or creator of God―which is clearly unbiblical, heretical and nonsensical. The Faith teaches that God is eternal and that Jesus Christ has a pre-existent, divine nature. The title “Mother of God” means that Mary gave birth to Jesus, who is fully God and fully human. Jesus is one person, but He has two natures―His Divine Nature and His human nature. He always possessed His Divine Nature, but He only took on His human nature at the time of the Incarnation, when at the Annunciation, Mary accepted God’s plan to become the Mother of Jesus, Mother of the Son of God, hence Mother of God. She did not create God, but she was chosen by God to provide His Son the human, material, physical aspects that would enable Christ to take on human flesh and a human nature.
God could have done all this miraculously and created the human body and nature of Christ out of nothing―but God chose to use Mary as the vehicle for His Son taking on human flesh and a human nature. We say that she is the “Mother of God” in the sense that she carried in her womb a divine person—Jesus Christ, God “in the flesh” (2 John 7, cf. John 1:14)—and in the sense that she contributed the genetic matter to the human form that God took in Jesus Christ. Pope Pius IX, in the Bull, Ineffabilis Deus, defining the Immaculate Conception, asserts that Mary’s maternity was predestined: “From the very beginning, and before time began, the Eternal Father chose and prepared for His only-begotten Son, a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, He would be born into this world.” Thus we are talking about the greatest birth (Jesus) ever known in the history of mankind, to the greatest mother (Mary) the world has ever known in the history of mankind! How is it that we pretty much indifferent to that? Why does it have little or no effect upon us?
Don’t Argue With The Word of God!
In the Old Testament, the Prophet Isaias predicted: “Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and His Name shall be called Emmanuel (God with us)” (Isaias 7:14).
In the Gospel of St. Luke, we find that the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary: “Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bear a Son, and thou shalt call His Name Jesus” (Luke 1:31) … “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).
And further on in the same Gospel, when Mary visited St. Elizabeth after having miraculously conceived Jesus in her womb, Elizabeth, “filled with the Holy Ghost,” cried out to the Blessed Virgin: “And whence is this to me that the Mother of my Lord should come to me!” (Luke 1:43)
After Our Lord’s birth in Bethlehem, Holy Scripture tells us that those who first came to adore Him―Who is Son of God and Son of Mary―found Him “with Mary His Mother” (Matthew 2:11).
Saint Paul clearly tells us in the Epistle to the Galatians: “God sent His Son born of a woman.” (4:4).
At the scene of the first miracle at Cana, which marked the opening of His public life, “the Mother of Jesus was there.” (John 2:1).
In the tremendous hour when all was consummated, when types and shadows gave place to the mighty reality, “there stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother” (John 19:25)—and it was on Calvary, from the cross, that Jesus introduced the spiritual motherhood of Mary His Mother to all mankind, saying: “When Jesus, therefore, had seen His mother and the disciple standing whom He loved [John], He said to His Mother: ‘Woman, behold thy son! After that, He said to the disciple: ‘Behold thy Mother!’ And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own” (John 19:26-27).
When Our Lord left His little flock―who were to be the nucleus of the Church of God―and ascended into Heaven, His Apostles and disciples awaited, in prayer, the coming of the Paraclete, Who would teach them all truth, and again it was in company with “Mary the Mother of Jesus.” “All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with His brethren” (Acts 1:14).
Far from taking from the honor and love due to the Word Incarnate, devotion to Mary is a strong bulwark protecting the central doctrine. He is ever found with His Mother; where Mary is denied her rights, sooner or later Jesus is denied His rights―They stand or fall together.
Emphasized by Tradition
Not only do we find the reference for the Divine Maternity in Sacred Scripture, but also in Sacred Tradition. In the early Christian Church, there was no misunderstanding in the matter, for the early Fathers of the Church were very clear and firm on the Divine Motherhood of Mary.
In his Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Ignatius of Antioch (circa 110 A.D.) wrote: “Our God Jesus Christ was born by Mary in her maternal womb.”
At another time, St. Ignatius wrote: “There is only one Healer, composed at the same time of flesh and spirit, begotten and not-begotten... of God and of Mary, Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
St. Irenaeus (202 A.D.) taught: “This Christ, Who as the Word of the Father was with the Father... was born of a virgin.”
Tertuillian (220 A.D.) said: “God is born in the womb of a Mother.”
St. Athanasius (373 A.D.) taught: “We confess that the Son of God became Man by the assumption of flesh from the virgin Mother of God.”
St. Gregory Nazianzen (circa 382 A.D.) declares: “Let him who will not accept Mary as the Mother of God be excluded from God.”
The Mother of God is Our Exemplar
An exemplar is someone or something that is considered to be so good that they should be copied or imitated. After Christ Himself, what better exemplar do we have than Our Blessed Mother? The following words of St. Louis de Montfort, taken from various different sections of his book, True Devotion to Mary, should serve as an encouragement and inspiration in forming a greater love and true devotion towards our heavenly Mother―who is not only the Mother of God, but, in light of Christ’s command from the cross: “Behold they Mother!”, she is also our Mother too. St. Louis writes:
“Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High … Mary is the admirable Mother of the Son … Mary is faithful spouse of the Holy Ghost … Mary is the sanctuary and the repose of the Holy Trinity … Mary is the terrestrial paradise of the New Adam, where He was made flesh by the operation of the Holy Ghost … She is the magnificence of the Most High, most excellent and most precious … The saints have said admirable things of this holy city of God. Yet, after all they have said, they cry out that the height of her merits cannot be fully seen; that the breadth of her charity is in truth immeasurable; that the length of her power―which she exercises even over God Himself―is incomprehensible; and finally, that the depth of her humility and all her virtues and graces, is an abyss which never can be sounded. O height incomprehensible! O breadth unspeakable! O length immeasurable! O abyss impenetrable!
“Every day, from one end of the Earth to the other, everything preaches, everything publishes, the admirable Mary! … The whole Earth is full of her glory, especially among Christians, by whom she is taken as the protectress of many kingdoms, provinces, dioceses and cities. Many cathedrals are consecrated to God under her name. There is not a church without an altar in her honor, not a country, nor a canton, where there are not some miraculous images where all sorts of evils are cured and all sorts of good gifts obtained. Who can count the confraternities and congregations founded in her honor? How many religious orders have been founded in her name and under her protection? How many members in these confraternities, and how many religious men and women in all these orders, who publish her praises and confess her mercies! Nay, the very devils in Hell respect her while they fear her! After all that, we must cry out with the saints: “De Maria numquam satis!”—“Of Mary there is never enough!” We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought! She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service!”
“It was only through Mary that God the Father gave His Only-Begotten to the world … He gave Him to Mary, in order that the world might receive Him through her … The Son of God became man for our salvation―but it was in Mary and by Mary … God the Father communicated to Mary the power to produce His Son and all the members of His Mystical Body ... The Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady by producing―in her and by her―Jesus Christ and His members … God the Son wishes to form Himself, to incarnate Himself, in His members by His dear Mother … God the Father wishes to have children by Mary till the consummation of the world … The first man that is born in Mary is the Man-God, Jesus Christ; the second is a mere man, the child of God and Mary by adoption … If Jesus Christ, the Head of men, is born in her, then the predestinate, who are the members of that Head, ought also to be born in her by a necessary consequence … St. Augustine affirms that all the predestinate are, in this world, hidden in the womb of the most holy Virgin―where they are guarded, nourished, brought up and made to grow by that good Mother, until she has brought them forth to glory after death … Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time … The greatest saints, the souls richest in graces and virtues, shall be the most assiduous in praying to our Blessed Lady, and in having her always present as their perfect model for imitation and their powerful aid for help.
“All the true children of God, the predestinate, have God for their Father and Mary for their Mother. He who has not Mary for his Mother, has not God for his Father … Our Blessed Lady is the means Our Lord made use of to come to us. She is also the means which we must make use of to go to Him … To go to Jesus, we must go to Mary … He who shall find Mary, shall find life … But no one can find Mary who does not seek her … No one can seek her who does not know her―for we cannot seek or desire an unknown object. It is necessary, then, that Mary should be more than ever known … Mary must shine forth more than ever in these latter times … God wishes that His holy Mother should be at present more known, more loved, more honored than she has ever been … The Holy Ghost says that a man who honors his mother is like a man who layeth up a treasure―that is to say, he who honors Mary, his Mother, to the extent of subjecting himself to her and obeying her in all things, will soon become exceedingly rich, because he is every day amassing treasures … The more you look at Mary in your prayers, contemplations, actions and sufferings, the more perfectly will you find Jesus Christ, Who is always, with Mary …
“The predestinate tenderly love and truly honor our Blessed Lady as their good Mother and Mistress. They love her not only in word but in truth. They honor her not only outwardly but in the depths of their hearts … The predestinate are subject and obedient to our Blessed Lady as to their good Mother, after the example of Jesus Christ, who, of the thirty-three years that He lived on Earth, employed thirty years to glorify God His Father by a perfect and entire subjection to His holy Mother … The predestinate have also great confidence in the goodness and power of our Blessed Lady, their good Mother. They call incessantly for her help … Lastly, the predestinate keep the ways of our Blessed Lady, their good Mother; that is to say, they imitate her. It is on this point that they are truly happy and truly devout, and bear the infallible mark of their predestination, according to the words this good Mother speaks to them: ‘Blessed are they who practice my virtues’ (Proverbs 8:32), and with the help of divine grace walk in the footsteps of my life.” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, various passages).
The Mother of God is YOUR Mother Also!
Mary is more than just the Mother of God―Mary is your Mother too! St. Alphonsus, in his book The Glories of Mary, writes: “A certain sinner once said to Mary, ‘Show thyself a Mother!’ ― but the Blessed Virgin replied, ‘Show thyself a son!’” We expect her to fulfill the role of a “mother” towards us―but do we fulfill our role of a child towards her? We expect to receive many graces from the Mediatrix of All Grace―but are we “in her good graces” by giving things to her. Love is reciprocal―it is a “two-way-street”―it is about giving and not just receiving! We love to read about things that we love―how much do we read about our Mother Mary? We love to think about things that we love―how often do we think about our Mother Mary? We love to talk about things that we love―how often do we talk about Mary? We love to speak to persons whom we love―how often do we speak to Mary? We give gifts to those whom we love―what gifts do we give to Mary? We willingly make sacrifices for people that we love―how many sacrifices do we make for Mary? Our Lord said of some of the Jews: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8)―could Our Lady say the same thing about us?
Mary the Mother of Salvation
It is said that a mother is the heart of a family. In that case, Our Lady should be at the heart of our life. We neglect Mary at our peril. Some of the saints have gone so far as to say that a person who neglects Mary is neglecting his or her salvation. If Mary is the Mother of Jesus, then she is the Mother of the Savior. If she is the mother of the Savior, then she is the Mother of Salvation. Our Blessed Mother holds such a place in the economy of our redemption that some do not hesitate to state that devotion to her is a necessary condition of salvation.
St. Albert the Great (a Doctor of the Church), says: “They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish.”
St. Bonaventure (a Doctor of the Church) repeats the same thought when he says: “They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation.”
St. Ignatius of Antioch (a Father of the Church), a martyr of the second century, writes: “A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost.”
If a lack of devotion to her is a mark of eternal reprobation a constant love for her must be a sign of eternal salvation. Many spiritual writers state that devotion to Mary is a sign of predestination.
St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church) says: “It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.”
St. Anselm (a Doctor of the Church) writes: “He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost.”
St. Antonine is of the same opinion. He says: “As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified.”
Article 9
Monday October 9th & Tuesday October 10th, 2023
A Heart Can Wipe Away Sin
Monday October 9th & Tuesday October 10th, 2023
A Heart Can Wipe Away Sin
Sin and Hearts
We know how Jesus rejected the zealous, but fake, Pharisees, yet accepted the sinful, yet sincere, Mary Magdalen. Now, of course, this does not mean that Jesus accepts and condones sin—far from it—on the contrary, He preached and fought against sin all His life, but it was for the purpose of bringing the lost sinner back to God: “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10) ... “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance” (Luke 5:32) and “I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance” (Luke 15:7).
Both Mary Magdalen and the Pharisees were sinners—“Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin’?” (Proverbs 20:9). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Mary listened to the call to conversion, the Pharisees ignored and rejected the call. As you sow, so shall you reap! Therefore, Jesus accepted the ‘accepting Mary’, but rejected the ‘rejecting Pharisees’. Of Mary He says: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less” (Luke 7:47). Yet, of the Pharisees He says: “Therefore I said to you, that you shall die in your sins. For if you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sin.” (John 8:24). Jesus had won over Mary’s heart, but the Pharisees closed their hearts to Him. It is all a matter of heart—especially in our prayer life, and more so in praying the Rosary.
The Heart is at the Heart of the Matter
For the heart plays a major role with God. We are told love God with our whole heart (mind, soul, strength). He detests a lukewarm heart: “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.” (Apocalypse 3:16). We are told to “fear the Lord, and serve Him with a perfect and most sincere heart” (Josue 24:14). Jesus complains of the lack of heart in prayer: “This people honoreth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8).
We beg of the Holy Ghost to enkindle in our hearts the fire of His love. Jesus wants to be especially honored in His Sacred Heart. He also wants the world to show devotion, with their hearts, to both the Sorrowful Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We cannot serve God and the world and “where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.” (Matthew 6:21). If the world and its amusements is our treasure, then we will have little heart for prayer; but if our heart is in God, then we will have little love in our hearts for the world. We cannot have both. “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God.” (James 4:4).
The Rosary is All About Heart
Our prayer life, and therefore our Rosary, is primarily a matter of heart. “Whatsoever you do, do it from the heart” (Colossians 3:23). “But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19). It is the heart that loves and prayer is meant to be a communication with the One we love.
“I went to the Lord, and besought Him, and said with my whole heart...” (Wisdom 8:21). “I entreated Thy face with all my heart” (Psalm 118:58). “You shall seek Me, and shall find Me: when you shall seek Me with all your heart.” (Jeremias 29:13). God was moved to action only when “they all begged of God with all their heart” (Judith 4:16). “With his whole heart he praised the Lord, and loved God that made him: and He gave him power against his enemies” (Ecclesiasticus 47:10). So, “let us draw near with a true heart” (Hebrews 10:22).
That true heart goes beyond a Rosary lip-service or lip-recitation, and seeks out a ‘heart-meditation’. Our Lady said that the soul of the Rosary is the meditation, not the vocal prayers. “I am the Lord who searches the heart” (Jeremias 17:10). “He should be loved with the whole heart” (Mark 12:33). “My heart grew hot within me: and, in my meditation, a fire shall flame out” (Psalm 38:4). “And they said one to the other: ‘Was not our heart burning within us, whilst He spoke in this way, and opened to us the Scriptures?’” (Luke 24:32) “...then the devil cometh, and taketh the word out of their heart, lest, believing, they should be saved.” (Luke 8:12).
Divided Hearts
Sadly, especially today, too many pray with a divided heart. They want to love God, but they also want to love the world. They want to be loved by God, and they also want to be loved by the world. It cannot be! “A heart that goeth two ways shall not have success” (Ecclesiasticus 3:28). Such a divided heart will be rejected by God: “The perverse heart did not cleave to Me: and the malignant, that turned aside from Me, I would not know” (Psalm 100:4). “Their heart is divided: now they shall perish: He shall break down their idols, He shall destroy their altars.” (Osee 10:2). “That the house of Israel may be caught in their own heart, with which they have departed from me through all their idols” (Ezechiel 14:5).
Most of the world prays badly (or not at all)! Do not be like most of the world—“Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). Make this month of October the month when you reform your habits of prayer in general, and your habits of praying the Rosary in particular. Think more about the aspect of love and try ensure the presence of love in your prayers, for it love that which makes the prayer powerful—dare we even say infallible. That is why a short, simple perfect act of contrition (whose motive is a love of God, not a fear of God) can wipe away the gravest and the most numerous sins, as in the case of Mary Magdalen, who loved much.
Judged by God―Judged by Love―Judged on our Love
St. John of the Cross says that at the end of our lives we shall be judged by God on love alone: “In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.” That fits perfectly with St. Paul’s words on charity: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Why? Because “God is charity―and he that abides in charity, abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16) ― where there is no charity, there is no God; an absence of charity means and absence of God.
St. John the Apostle and Evangelist―Our Lord’s beloved Apostle, also known as “the Apostle of Love”, writes extensively of charity and love in his Epistles. Here are some extracts:
“He that says that he is in the light and hates his brother―he is in darkness even until now! He that loves his brother, abides in the light, and there is no scandal in him” (1 John 1:9-10) … “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever is not just, is not of God, nor he that loveth not his brother. For this is the declaration, which you have heard from the beginning, that you should love one another. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not, abides in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in himself. In this we have known the charity of God, because He has laid down His life for us―and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that hath the substance of this world and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him? Let us not love in word, nor in tongue―but in deeds and in truth” (1 John 3:10-18) …
“Let us love one another―for charity is of God. And every one that loves, is born of God, and knows God. He that does not love, does not know God―for God is charity. By this has the charity of God appeared towards us―because God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him! In this is charity―not as though we had loved God first, but because He has first loved us, and has sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins! If God has so loved us; then we also ought to love one another!” (1 John 4:7-11) … “And we have known, and have believed the charity, which God hath to us. God is charity―and he that abides in charity, abides in God, and God in him! In this is the charity of God perfected with us … Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us! If any man say: ‘I love God!’ but hates his brother; then he is a liar! For he that does not love his brother, whom he can see, how can he love God, whom he cannot see? And this commandment we have from God, that he, who loves God, must also love his brother” (1 John 4:16-21).
“In this we know that we love the children of God―when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the charity of God, that we keep His commandments and His commandments are not heavy!” (1 John 5:2-3) … “And this is charity―that we walk according to His commandments” (2 John 1:6). That is exactly what Our Lord Himself said: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My words … He that does not love Me, keeps not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
Yet Our Lord demanded more than merely loving our brethren―our family and friends. Our Lord demanded that we also love our enemies: “You have heard that it hath been said: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy!’ But I say to you: ‘Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! And pray for them that persecute and calumniate you!’ ― so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and sends His rain upon the just and the unjust! For if only you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans do this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you do that is more? Do not also the heathens do this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:43-48) ... “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me! … And as long as you did it not to one of these My least brethren, neither did you do it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40).
The Power of Love or Charity
Love or charity is the greatest of all commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
“God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and so the more charity we have in souls, then the more efficaciously God can dwell in our souls and the more we enjoy and profit from the power of God. “Charity is of God. And every one that loves, is born of God, and knows God!” (1 John 4:7). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me. And he that loves Me, shall be loved by My Father! … My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him!” (John 14:15; 14:21-23). “I love them that love Me!” (Proverbs 8:17).
Yet this love of God can span a wide range of degrees from the lowest levels of lukewarmness to the highest levels of sanctity―it is all dependent upon what efforts we put into loving God: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8).
Salvation Is All About Love
Redemption from sin and the salvation of the soul is all about love and charity. Redemption and salvation come from God―and “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). We are told: “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; so that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “By this has the charity of God appeared towards us―because God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, so that we may live by Him. In this is charity―not as though we had loved God first, but because He has first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins!” (1 John 4:9-10). “God showed His charity towards us―because, when as yet we were sinners, Christ died for us!” (Romans 5:8-9). “He is the propitiation for our sins―and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).
You could say that the charity of God covered the debts of our sins―and we, too, should help cover those debts for sin by our own acts of charity: “for charity covers a multitude of sins!” (1 Peter 4:8). “Charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12). “Many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much” (Luke 7:47).
► THE COUNCIL OF TRENT says the following: “That sorrow for sins committed should be so profound and supreme that no greater sorrow could be thought of, will easily appear from the considerations that follow. Perfect contrition is an act of charity, emanating from what is called filial fear; hence it is clear that the measure of contrition and charity should be the same. Since therefore the charity which we cherish towards God is the most perfect love, it follows that contrition should be the keenest sorrow of the soul ... Further, it should be noted that since, as St. Bernard says, there is no limit or measure to charity, there should no limit to the hatred of sin ... Besides, our contrition should not only be the greatest, but also the most intense, and so perfect that it excludes all apathy and indifference ... If, however, our contrition be not perfect, it may nevertheless be true and efficacious ... Our contrition may also be true and efficacious, although unaccompanied by tears. Penitential tears, however, are much to be desired and commended.” (The Council of Trent on Penance: Qualities of Sorrow for Sin).
Hence we see the Council of Trent distinguishing between varying degrees of intensity in the act of perfect contrition. It says our contrition should not only be the greatest (meaning true contrition―which is the greater amongst contrition and attrition), but also the most intense and most perfect of the greatest. It further gives evidence of these degrees of intensity when it says: “Our contrition may also be true and efficacious, although unaccompanied by tears. Penitential tears, however, are much to be desired and commended” Thus the tears accidentally modify and perfect this true or perfect contrition―and this perfection is very much desired and commended. Thus we are not to be satisfied with the minimal degree of perfect―which, therefore, relatively speaking is an >imperfect’ form of perfect contrition; perfect, yet at the same time relatively imperfect, since it still has a great deal yet to achieve in its intensity.
► FR. DOMINIC M. PRUMMER, O.P., in his manual on Moral Theology says: “The sacramental penance is the means whereby the sinner compensates for the temporal punishment due to sin ... The amount and nature of the penance must be determined by the kinds of sins confessed and by the condition of the penitent ... Therefore a grave penance should be imposed for a grave sin ... But there are just causes permitting the imposition of a smaller penance than usual” among those reasons he lists “deep and unusual contrition”.
This unusual contrition has to mean a high degree of contrition, i.e. above mere attrition and most probably an intense degree of perfect contrition. This means that at least some of the temporal punishment has already been taken away by the “unusual contrition” shown by the penitent. A lesser degree of contrition would then merit a greater penance since it would have taken away less of the temporal punishment due. In other words, both lesser and higher degrees of perfect contrition take away the eternal punishment and restore divine grace, but a lesser degree of perfect contrition will remit less temporal punishment, whereas a greater or more intense degree of perfect contrition will remit much, if not all, the temporal punishment due. Thus, it is possible for the worst imaginable sinner, at the point of death, to go to directly to Heaven if he can elicit an act of perfect contrition of a proportionately intense degree ― but, for such a person it would an enormous, unmerited grace, that was perhaps gained by the prayers and sacrifices of others. This is exactly what the Venerable Louis of Granada, O.P., says: “True sorrow for sin is a special grace and a gift from God and a work which exceeds the power of human nature ... and no one can have such love and such sorrow if God does not give it. Hence for God to grant this to a sinner is the greatest gift and greatest grace He can bestow on him.” (Summa of the Christian Life, Vol. 3, pp. 236-237).
► FR. HERIBERT JONE O.FM. CAP., J.C.D., in his manual on Moral Theology states that: “Sacramental satisfaction is some penitential work imposed by the confessor in confession, through which atonement for sin is made to God and the penitent is granted a remission of the temporal punishment due to sin ... Its efficacy is not only 'ex opere operantis’, but also 'ex opere operato’ ... Wherefore, in itself, a grave penance must be imposed for grevious sins ... [However] intense sorrow of the penitent [etc] are some of the reasons sufficient to excuse the priest from imposing a grave penance.” Why? Because the intense sorrow has wiped away much, if not all, of the temporal punishment due the sins the penitent has confessed.
► FR. EDWIN F. HEALY S.J., S.T.D., in his Manual on Moral Theology says the following: “Through sacramental absolution, the guilt of all the sins for which the penitent has at least attrition and the eternal punishment for grave sins are canceled, but God does not always remit, by the same act, the temporal punishment which should be inflicted upon the penitent. Does it ever happen that temporal punishment is canceled in its entirety in the Sacrament of Penance? Very probably it is completely remitted when the penitent receives the sacrament with perfect contrition for all his sins, mortal and venial ... There are many circumstances which the confessor takes into consideration when imposing a penance. He may assign a slight penance for many grave sins if the penitent manifests extraordinary sorrow...” Thus we see HEALY being of the opinion that perfect contrition can also remove all temporal punishment. However, he does not expand upon the varying degrees of intensity that perfect contrition includes.
► FR. H. NOLDIN S.J., in his Manual on Moral Theology says that little penance is to be given ... “If the penitent is seen to be intensely contrite; that the contrition is of such power, as to take away all temporal punishment, or a great part of it...” Note that he says “intensely contrite” ― thus meaning an intense degree of perfect contrition, so much so that it takes away totally, or at least a great part of, the temporal punishment due to sin. Hence, he too affirms that intense contrition (which must mean intense perfect contrition, not mere attrition) can remove the entire temporal punishment due to sin, but he speaks of intense or great contrition ― which seems to indicate a high degree of perfect contrition.
► CANON GEORGE D. SMITH, in his book The Teaching of the Catholic Church, also speaks of, and distinguishes, these degrees. He says that a basic act of perfect charity (contrition) is not difficult to make (though elsewhere he says we should think it is overly easy to make one). Then speaking of this act of perfect charity (contrition) he says: “No habit could be more valuable for the man who is day by day struggling against mortal sin. For if he chance to fall, an act of perfect charity (with, of course, the implied intention of seeking later the sacramental absolution as commanded) will at once produce that disposition of soul which induces God to restore sanctifying grace, so that his sin is forgiven. So far we have described an act of charity of the lowest grade of intensity. A more intense act is within the capacity of the Christian enjoying ordinary grace. By this the will rejects etc ... Finally there is an advanced stage of charity which leads the soul to identify its will as completely as possible with that of God; which reaches out, in the yearning of love, to suffer for and with the Beloved; which welcomes such adverse circumstances as befall or contrives self-immolation, as satisfaction for sin or expression of love.” Hence we see that there is an act of perfect charity, which perfect though it be, is nevertheless the lowest grade and that there are successive degrees of charity that build upon it.
► FR. LUDWIG OTT, in his book on Dogmatic Theology says: “The motive of perfect contrition is the perfect love of God, i.e. Charity. It consists in this―that God is loved for His Own sake above all.” He also goes on to say that a definite grade of intensity or a long duration is not requisite for the essence of perfect love and perfect sorrow, saying that these are only accidental perfections. Yet that does not mean that there are no varying degrees of perfect contrition, or that they serve no purpose at all! For even though he states that perfect contrition restores divine grace, he does, however, allude to varying degrees of perfect contrition indirectly and implicitly when he says: “A definite grade of intensity or a long duration is not requisite for the essence of perfect love and perfect sorrow. These are accidental perfections only.”
It would be foolish to say that all acts of perfect contrition, whatever their intensity, receive the same accidental reward! They all receive the grace of God, which is essential for our beatitude, but the differing degrees of intensity of love, in justice, require differing degrees of reward. St. Thomas explains that clearly in the following extract from the Summa IIIa Q.79 a.5.
► ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, in his article on “Whether the Entire Punishment Due to Sin Is Forgiven through This Sacrament [of the Eucharist]”, says: “Because this union is the effect of charity, from the fervor of which man obtains forgiveness, not only of guilt, but also of punishment.”
Thus the effect of charity is not only to obtain forgiveness [i.e. escaping eternal damnation], but charity also takes away the temporal punishment due to sin. He further stresses and underlines this by saying: “Hence it is that as a consequence [of charity] and by concomitance with the chief effect [of the Eucharist causing charity] man obtains forgiveness of the punishment, not indeed of the entire punishment, but according to the measure of his devotion and fervor.”
A few lines later, he reiterates the same, saying: “Therefore, although this offering suffices of its quantity to satisfy for all punishment, yet it becomes satisfactory ... according to the measure of their devotion, and not for the whole punishment” Though it can remit the whole punishment, for he says in his reply to the 3rd Objection: “If part of the punishment, and not the whole be taken away by this Sacrament, it is due to a defect not on the part of Christ’s power, but on the part of man’s devotion.”
► Finally, let us stay with ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, and include Question 5, article 2, of the Supplement, entitled: “Whether Contrition Can Take Away the Debt of Punishment Entirely?”
Objection 1: It would seem that contrition cannot take away the debt of punishment entirely. For satisfaction and confession are ordained to man’s deliverance from the debt of punishment. Now, no man is so perfectly contrite as not to be bound to confession and satisfaction. Therefore, contrition is never so great as to blot out the entire debt of punishment.
Objection 2: Further, in Penance the punishment should in some way compensate for the sin. Now some sins are accomplished by members of the body. Therefore, since it is for the due compensation for sin that by what things a man sinneth, by the same also is he tormented (Wisdom 11:17), it seems that the punishment for suchlike sins can never be remitted by contrition.
Objection 3: Further the sorrow of contrition is finite. Now an infinite punishment is due for some, viz. mortal, sins. Therefore, contrition can never be so great as to remit the whole punishment.
On the contrary, The affections of the heart are more acceptable to God than external acts. Now, man is absolved from both punishment and guilt by means of external actions; and therefore he is also by means of the heart’s affections, such as contrition is.
Furthermore, we have an example of this in the thief, to whom it was said (Luke 23:43): This day shalt thou be with Me in paradise, on account of his one act of repentance.
As to whether the whole debt is always taken away by contrition, this question has already been considered above (Sent iv, D. 14, Q.2, AA 1, 2; P III, Q.86, A.4), where the same question was raised with regards to Penance.
I answer that, The intensity of contrition must be regarded in two ways. First, on the part of charity, which causes the displeasure, and in this way it may happen that the act of charity is so intense that the contrition resulting therefrom merits not only removal of guilt, but also the remission of all punishment. Secondly, on the part of the sensible sorrow, which the will excites in contrition: and since this sorrow is also a kind of punishment, it may so intense as to suffice for the remission of both guilt and punishment.
Reply to Objection 1: A man cannot be sure that his contrition suffices for the remission of both punishment and guilt: wherefore he is bound to confess and to make satisfaction, especially since his contrition would not be true contrition, unless he had the purpose of confessing united thereto; which purpose must also be carried into effect, on account of the precept given concerning confession.
Reply to Objection 2: Just as inward joy redounds into the outward parts of the body, so does interior sorrow show itself in the exterior members: wherefore it is written (Proverbs 17:22): A sorrowful spirit drieth up the bones.
Reply to Objection 3: Although the sorrow of contrition is finite in its intensity, even as the punishment due to mortal sin is finite; yet it derives infinite power from Charity, whereby it is quickened, and so it avails for remission of both guilt and punishment.
We know how Jesus rejected the zealous, but fake, Pharisees, yet accepted the sinful, yet sincere, Mary Magdalen. Now, of course, this does not mean that Jesus accepts and condones sin—far from it—on the contrary, He preached and fought against sin all His life, but it was for the purpose of bringing the lost sinner back to God: “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10) ... “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance” (Luke 5:32) and “I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance” (Luke 15:7).
Both Mary Magdalen and the Pharisees were sinners—“Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin’?” (Proverbs 20:9). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Mary listened to the call to conversion, the Pharisees ignored and rejected the call. As you sow, so shall you reap! Therefore, Jesus accepted the ‘accepting Mary’, but rejected the ‘rejecting Pharisees’. Of Mary He says: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less” (Luke 7:47). Yet, of the Pharisees He says: “Therefore I said to you, that you shall die in your sins. For if you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sin.” (John 8:24). Jesus had won over Mary’s heart, but the Pharisees closed their hearts to Him. It is all a matter of heart—especially in our prayer life, and more so in praying the Rosary.
The Heart is at the Heart of the Matter
For the heart plays a major role with God. We are told love God with our whole heart (mind, soul, strength). He detests a lukewarm heart: “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.” (Apocalypse 3:16). We are told to “fear the Lord, and serve Him with a perfect and most sincere heart” (Josue 24:14). Jesus complains of the lack of heart in prayer: “This people honoreth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8).
We beg of the Holy Ghost to enkindle in our hearts the fire of His love. Jesus wants to be especially honored in His Sacred Heart. He also wants the world to show devotion, with their hearts, to both the Sorrowful Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We cannot serve God and the world and “where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.” (Matthew 6:21). If the world and its amusements is our treasure, then we will have little heart for prayer; but if our heart is in God, then we will have little love in our hearts for the world. We cannot have both. “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God.” (James 4:4).
The Rosary is All About Heart
Our prayer life, and therefore our Rosary, is primarily a matter of heart. “Whatsoever you do, do it from the heart” (Colossians 3:23). “But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19). It is the heart that loves and prayer is meant to be a communication with the One we love.
“I went to the Lord, and besought Him, and said with my whole heart...” (Wisdom 8:21). “I entreated Thy face with all my heart” (Psalm 118:58). “You shall seek Me, and shall find Me: when you shall seek Me with all your heart.” (Jeremias 29:13). God was moved to action only when “they all begged of God with all their heart” (Judith 4:16). “With his whole heart he praised the Lord, and loved God that made him: and He gave him power against his enemies” (Ecclesiasticus 47:10). So, “let us draw near with a true heart” (Hebrews 10:22).
That true heart goes beyond a Rosary lip-service or lip-recitation, and seeks out a ‘heart-meditation’. Our Lady said that the soul of the Rosary is the meditation, not the vocal prayers. “I am the Lord who searches the heart” (Jeremias 17:10). “He should be loved with the whole heart” (Mark 12:33). “My heart grew hot within me: and, in my meditation, a fire shall flame out” (Psalm 38:4). “And they said one to the other: ‘Was not our heart burning within us, whilst He spoke in this way, and opened to us the Scriptures?’” (Luke 24:32) “...then the devil cometh, and taketh the word out of their heart, lest, believing, they should be saved.” (Luke 8:12).
Divided Hearts
Sadly, especially today, too many pray with a divided heart. They want to love God, but they also want to love the world. They want to be loved by God, and they also want to be loved by the world. It cannot be! “A heart that goeth two ways shall not have success” (Ecclesiasticus 3:28). Such a divided heart will be rejected by God: “The perverse heart did not cleave to Me: and the malignant, that turned aside from Me, I would not know” (Psalm 100:4). “Their heart is divided: now they shall perish: He shall break down their idols, He shall destroy their altars.” (Osee 10:2). “That the house of Israel may be caught in their own heart, with which they have departed from me through all their idols” (Ezechiel 14:5).
Most of the world prays badly (or not at all)! Do not be like most of the world—“Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). Make this month of October the month when you reform your habits of prayer in general, and your habits of praying the Rosary in particular. Think more about the aspect of love and try ensure the presence of love in your prayers, for it love that which makes the prayer powerful—dare we even say infallible. That is why a short, simple perfect act of contrition (whose motive is a love of God, not a fear of God) can wipe away the gravest and the most numerous sins, as in the case of Mary Magdalen, who loved much.
Judged by God―Judged by Love―Judged on our Love
St. John of the Cross says that at the end of our lives we shall be judged by God on love alone: “In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.” That fits perfectly with St. Paul’s words on charity: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Why? Because “God is charity―and he that abides in charity, abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16) ― where there is no charity, there is no God; an absence of charity means and absence of God.
St. John the Apostle and Evangelist―Our Lord’s beloved Apostle, also known as “the Apostle of Love”, writes extensively of charity and love in his Epistles. Here are some extracts:
“He that says that he is in the light and hates his brother―he is in darkness even until now! He that loves his brother, abides in the light, and there is no scandal in him” (1 John 1:9-10) … “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever is not just, is not of God, nor he that loveth not his brother. For this is the declaration, which you have heard from the beginning, that you should love one another. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not, abides in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in himself. In this we have known the charity of God, because He has laid down His life for us―and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that hath the substance of this world and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him? Let us not love in word, nor in tongue―but in deeds and in truth” (1 John 3:10-18) …
“Let us love one another―for charity is of God. And every one that loves, is born of God, and knows God. He that does not love, does not know God―for God is charity. By this has the charity of God appeared towards us―because God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him! In this is charity―not as though we had loved God first, but because He has first loved us, and has sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins! If God has so loved us; then we also ought to love one another!” (1 John 4:7-11) … “And we have known, and have believed the charity, which God hath to us. God is charity―and he that abides in charity, abides in God, and God in him! In this is the charity of God perfected with us … Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us! If any man say: ‘I love God!’ but hates his brother; then he is a liar! For he that does not love his brother, whom he can see, how can he love God, whom he cannot see? And this commandment we have from God, that he, who loves God, must also love his brother” (1 John 4:16-21).
“In this we know that we love the children of God―when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the charity of God, that we keep His commandments and His commandments are not heavy!” (1 John 5:2-3) … “And this is charity―that we walk according to His commandments” (2 John 1:6). That is exactly what Our Lord Himself said: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My words … He that does not love Me, keeps not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
Yet Our Lord demanded more than merely loving our brethren―our family and friends. Our Lord demanded that we also love our enemies: “You have heard that it hath been said: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy!’ But I say to you: ‘Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! And pray for them that persecute and calumniate you!’ ― so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and sends His rain upon the just and the unjust! For if only you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans do this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you do that is more? Do not also the heathens do this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:43-48) ... “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me! … And as long as you did it not to one of these My least brethren, neither did you do it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40).
The Power of Love or Charity
Love or charity is the greatest of all commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
“God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and so the more charity we have in souls, then the more efficaciously God can dwell in our souls and the more we enjoy and profit from the power of God. “Charity is of God. And every one that loves, is born of God, and knows God!” (1 John 4:7). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me. And he that loves Me, shall be loved by My Father! … My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him!” (John 14:15; 14:21-23). “I love them that love Me!” (Proverbs 8:17).
Yet this love of God can span a wide range of degrees from the lowest levels of lukewarmness to the highest levels of sanctity―it is all dependent upon what efforts we put into loving God: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8).
Salvation Is All About Love
Redemption from sin and the salvation of the soul is all about love and charity. Redemption and salvation come from God―and “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). We are told: “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; so that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “By this has the charity of God appeared towards us―because God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, so that we may live by Him. In this is charity―not as though we had loved God first, but because He has first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins!” (1 John 4:9-10). “God showed His charity towards us―because, when as yet we were sinners, Christ died for us!” (Romans 5:8-9). “He is the propitiation for our sins―and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).
You could say that the charity of God covered the debts of our sins―and we, too, should help cover those debts for sin by our own acts of charity: “for charity covers a multitude of sins!” (1 Peter 4:8). “Charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12). “Many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much” (Luke 7:47).
► THE COUNCIL OF TRENT says the following: “That sorrow for sins committed should be so profound and supreme that no greater sorrow could be thought of, will easily appear from the considerations that follow. Perfect contrition is an act of charity, emanating from what is called filial fear; hence it is clear that the measure of contrition and charity should be the same. Since therefore the charity which we cherish towards God is the most perfect love, it follows that contrition should be the keenest sorrow of the soul ... Further, it should be noted that since, as St. Bernard says, there is no limit or measure to charity, there should no limit to the hatred of sin ... Besides, our contrition should not only be the greatest, but also the most intense, and so perfect that it excludes all apathy and indifference ... If, however, our contrition be not perfect, it may nevertheless be true and efficacious ... Our contrition may also be true and efficacious, although unaccompanied by tears. Penitential tears, however, are much to be desired and commended.” (The Council of Trent on Penance: Qualities of Sorrow for Sin).
Hence we see the Council of Trent distinguishing between varying degrees of intensity in the act of perfect contrition. It says our contrition should not only be the greatest (meaning true contrition―which is the greater amongst contrition and attrition), but also the most intense and most perfect of the greatest. It further gives evidence of these degrees of intensity when it says: “Our contrition may also be true and efficacious, although unaccompanied by tears. Penitential tears, however, are much to be desired and commended” Thus the tears accidentally modify and perfect this true or perfect contrition―and this perfection is very much desired and commended. Thus we are not to be satisfied with the minimal degree of perfect―which, therefore, relatively speaking is an >imperfect’ form of perfect contrition; perfect, yet at the same time relatively imperfect, since it still has a great deal yet to achieve in its intensity.
► FR. DOMINIC M. PRUMMER, O.P., in his manual on Moral Theology says: “The sacramental penance is the means whereby the sinner compensates for the temporal punishment due to sin ... The amount and nature of the penance must be determined by the kinds of sins confessed and by the condition of the penitent ... Therefore a grave penance should be imposed for a grave sin ... But there are just causes permitting the imposition of a smaller penance than usual” among those reasons he lists “deep and unusual contrition”.
This unusual contrition has to mean a high degree of contrition, i.e. above mere attrition and most probably an intense degree of perfect contrition. This means that at least some of the temporal punishment has already been taken away by the “unusual contrition” shown by the penitent. A lesser degree of contrition would then merit a greater penance since it would have taken away less of the temporal punishment due. In other words, both lesser and higher degrees of perfect contrition take away the eternal punishment and restore divine grace, but a lesser degree of perfect contrition will remit less temporal punishment, whereas a greater or more intense degree of perfect contrition will remit much, if not all, the temporal punishment due. Thus, it is possible for the worst imaginable sinner, at the point of death, to go to directly to Heaven if he can elicit an act of perfect contrition of a proportionately intense degree ― but, for such a person it would an enormous, unmerited grace, that was perhaps gained by the prayers and sacrifices of others. This is exactly what the Venerable Louis of Granada, O.P., says: “True sorrow for sin is a special grace and a gift from God and a work which exceeds the power of human nature ... and no one can have such love and such sorrow if God does not give it. Hence for God to grant this to a sinner is the greatest gift and greatest grace He can bestow on him.” (Summa of the Christian Life, Vol. 3, pp. 236-237).
► FR. HERIBERT JONE O.FM. CAP., J.C.D., in his manual on Moral Theology states that: “Sacramental satisfaction is some penitential work imposed by the confessor in confession, through which atonement for sin is made to God and the penitent is granted a remission of the temporal punishment due to sin ... Its efficacy is not only 'ex opere operantis’, but also 'ex opere operato’ ... Wherefore, in itself, a grave penance must be imposed for grevious sins ... [However] intense sorrow of the penitent [etc] are some of the reasons sufficient to excuse the priest from imposing a grave penance.” Why? Because the intense sorrow has wiped away much, if not all, of the temporal punishment due the sins the penitent has confessed.
► FR. EDWIN F. HEALY S.J., S.T.D., in his Manual on Moral Theology says the following: “Through sacramental absolution, the guilt of all the sins for which the penitent has at least attrition and the eternal punishment for grave sins are canceled, but God does not always remit, by the same act, the temporal punishment which should be inflicted upon the penitent. Does it ever happen that temporal punishment is canceled in its entirety in the Sacrament of Penance? Very probably it is completely remitted when the penitent receives the sacrament with perfect contrition for all his sins, mortal and venial ... There are many circumstances which the confessor takes into consideration when imposing a penance. He may assign a slight penance for many grave sins if the penitent manifests extraordinary sorrow...” Thus we see HEALY being of the opinion that perfect contrition can also remove all temporal punishment. However, he does not expand upon the varying degrees of intensity that perfect contrition includes.
► FR. H. NOLDIN S.J., in his Manual on Moral Theology says that little penance is to be given ... “If the penitent is seen to be intensely contrite; that the contrition is of such power, as to take away all temporal punishment, or a great part of it...” Note that he says “intensely contrite” ― thus meaning an intense degree of perfect contrition, so much so that it takes away totally, or at least a great part of, the temporal punishment due to sin. Hence, he too affirms that intense contrition (which must mean intense perfect contrition, not mere attrition) can remove the entire temporal punishment due to sin, but he speaks of intense or great contrition ― which seems to indicate a high degree of perfect contrition.
► CANON GEORGE D. SMITH, in his book The Teaching of the Catholic Church, also speaks of, and distinguishes, these degrees. He says that a basic act of perfect charity (contrition) is not difficult to make (though elsewhere he says we should think it is overly easy to make one). Then speaking of this act of perfect charity (contrition) he says: “No habit could be more valuable for the man who is day by day struggling against mortal sin. For if he chance to fall, an act of perfect charity (with, of course, the implied intention of seeking later the sacramental absolution as commanded) will at once produce that disposition of soul which induces God to restore sanctifying grace, so that his sin is forgiven. So far we have described an act of charity of the lowest grade of intensity. A more intense act is within the capacity of the Christian enjoying ordinary grace. By this the will rejects etc ... Finally there is an advanced stage of charity which leads the soul to identify its will as completely as possible with that of God; which reaches out, in the yearning of love, to suffer for and with the Beloved; which welcomes such adverse circumstances as befall or contrives self-immolation, as satisfaction for sin or expression of love.” Hence we see that there is an act of perfect charity, which perfect though it be, is nevertheless the lowest grade and that there are successive degrees of charity that build upon it.
► FR. LUDWIG OTT, in his book on Dogmatic Theology says: “The motive of perfect contrition is the perfect love of God, i.e. Charity. It consists in this―that God is loved for His Own sake above all.” He also goes on to say that a definite grade of intensity or a long duration is not requisite for the essence of perfect love and perfect sorrow, saying that these are only accidental perfections. Yet that does not mean that there are no varying degrees of perfect contrition, or that they serve no purpose at all! For even though he states that perfect contrition restores divine grace, he does, however, allude to varying degrees of perfect contrition indirectly and implicitly when he says: “A definite grade of intensity or a long duration is not requisite for the essence of perfect love and perfect sorrow. These are accidental perfections only.”
It would be foolish to say that all acts of perfect contrition, whatever their intensity, receive the same accidental reward! They all receive the grace of God, which is essential for our beatitude, but the differing degrees of intensity of love, in justice, require differing degrees of reward. St. Thomas explains that clearly in the following extract from the Summa IIIa Q.79 a.5.
► ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, in his article on “Whether the Entire Punishment Due to Sin Is Forgiven through This Sacrament [of the Eucharist]”, says: “Because this union is the effect of charity, from the fervor of which man obtains forgiveness, not only of guilt, but also of punishment.”
Thus the effect of charity is not only to obtain forgiveness [i.e. escaping eternal damnation], but charity also takes away the temporal punishment due to sin. He further stresses and underlines this by saying: “Hence it is that as a consequence [of charity] and by concomitance with the chief effect [of the Eucharist causing charity] man obtains forgiveness of the punishment, not indeed of the entire punishment, but according to the measure of his devotion and fervor.”
A few lines later, he reiterates the same, saying: “Therefore, although this offering suffices of its quantity to satisfy for all punishment, yet it becomes satisfactory ... according to the measure of their devotion, and not for the whole punishment” Though it can remit the whole punishment, for he says in his reply to the 3rd Objection: “If part of the punishment, and not the whole be taken away by this Sacrament, it is due to a defect not on the part of Christ’s power, but on the part of man’s devotion.”
► Finally, let us stay with ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, and include Question 5, article 2, of the Supplement, entitled: “Whether Contrition Can Take Away the Debt of Punishment Entirely?”
Objection 1: It would seem that contrition cannot take away the debt of punishment entirely. For satisfaction and confession are ordained to man’s deliverance from the debt of punishment. Now, no man is so perfectly contrite as not to be bound to confession and satisfaction. Therefore, contrition is never so great as to blot out the entire debt of punishment.
Objection 2: Further, in Penance the punishment should in some way compensate for the sin. Now some sins are accomplished by members of the body. Therefore, since it is for the due compensation for sin that by what things a man sinneth, by the same also is he tormented (Wisdom 11:17), it seems that the punishment for suchlike sins can never be remitted by contrition.
Objection 3: Further the sorrow of contrition is finite. Now an infinite punishment is due for some, viz. mortal, sins. Therefore, contrition can never be so great as to remit the whole punishment.
On the contrary, The affections of the heart are more acceptable to God than external acts. Now, man is absolved from both punishment and guilt by means of external actions; and therefore he is also by means of the heart’s affections, such as contrition is.
Furthermore, we have an example of this in the thief, to whom it was said (Luke 23:43): This day shalt thou be with Me in paradise, on account of his one act of repentance.
As to whether the whole debt is always taken away by contrition, this question has already been considered above (Sent iv, D. 14, Q.2, AA 1, 2; P III, Q.86, A.4), where the same question was raised with regards to Penance.
I answer that, The intensity of contrition must be regarded in two ways. First, on the part of charity, which causes the displeasure, and in this way it may happen that the act of charity is so intense that the contrition resulting therefrom merits not only removal of guilt, but also the remission of all punishment. Secondly, on the part of the sensible sorrow, which the will excites in contrition: and since this sorrow is also a kind of punishment, it may so intense as to suffice for the remission of both guilt and punishment.
Reply to Objection 1: A man cannot be sure that his contrition suffices for the remission of both punishment and guilt: wherefore he is bound to confess and to make satisfaction, especially since his contrition would not be true contrition, unless he had the purpose of confessing united thereto; which purpose must also be carried into effect, on account of the precept given concerning confession.
Reply to Objection 2: Just as inward joy redounds into the outward parts of the body, so does interior sorrow show itself in the exterior members: wherefore it is written (Proverbs 17:22): A sorrowful spirit drieth up the bones.
Reply to Objection 3: Although the sorrow of contrition is finite in its intensity, even as the punishment due to mortal sin is finite; yet it derives infinite power from Charity, whereby it is quickened, and so it avails for remission of both guilt and punishment.
Article 8
Sunday October 8th, 2023
Catholic Spectators — They Look, They Read, They Listen but...
Sunday October 8th, 2023
Catholic Spectators — They Look, They Read, They Listen but...
Spectating Your Way Through Life
Are you a Catholic Spectator? Uh? What? What do you mean by “Catholic Spectator”? Okay, let’s explain what we mean.
In life, there are those who try do something and there are those who try do get away with doing nothing. We see several instances of this in Holy Scripture. One is found in Our Lord’s Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:13-30), where three servants are given money by their departing master. The first receives five talents, the second two talents, and the third one talent. Upon his return, the master wants to know what they have done with the money he left them. The first two had made a profit, the third had done nothing with it, except buried it. In anger, the talent is taken away from him and the unprofitable servant is cast out into the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Another incident from Holy Scripture is very similar to the above mentioned one. St. Luke (chapter 19) relates a parable by Our Lord, where a nobleman departs his house to receive a kingdom and gives his ten servants all the same amount of money—one pound each—so that they might trade with it and bring a profit. Luke only gives details of the nobleman’s judgment on three of those ten. One had made ten times the amount given to him; another had made five times the amount; another had made nothing, but had hidden his money in a napkin. The result was the same. In anger, the master takes the money away from him and gives it the servant who had made ten times the amount.
In modern times, we even joke about this phenomenon of watching and doing nothing. Each country has its own scapegoat nationality for a joke similar to this:
“How many (put in the nationality here) men does it take to dig a hole?”
“I don’t know, tell me!”
“Fifteen! One to dig the hole and fourteen to stand around smoking and criticizing!”
As they say, many a true word said in jest! That is particularly true today, when we have become a race of talkers, but not walkers. Perhaps the talking would not be too bad, if we were only talking to the right people—which would be Our Lord and Our Lady. However, we talk to every Tom, Dick and Harry instead of Our Lord and Our Lady—with the consequence that nothing gets done and world is still as bad as it was when we began talking.
What Counts? Who Counts?
Some words count, other words don’t! Words addressed to the world are nowhere near as valuable or as powerful as words addressed to Heaven. One day Saint Gertrude had a vision of Our Lord counting gold coins. She summoned the courage to ask Him what he was doing, and He answered, “I am counting the Hail Marys that you have said; this is the money with which you purchase Heaven.” Or as St. Padre Pio used to say: “The Rosary is the prayer of the Madonna, the one that triumphs on everything and everybody.”
However, we find no time to pray the Rosary if we are preoccupied with doing nothing else than just venting to the world, or listening to the world venting—which makes the devil very happy indeed. The prayer time that is lost on unprofitable reading on the internet or unprofitable talking whether face-to-face, or on the phone. Unprofitable, because once something is read, especially if it is bad, it never becomes the object of a fervent prayer of intercession. That way, we become like the Jewish priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, who see the problem, but walk on by.
One of the chief faults in all of this, lies in our false set of values. We have long-since discarded the idea of “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” and “love God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength” in favor of “Seek me first and love myself with my whole heart, soul, mind and strength.”
More happens through prayer than though any other means. Prayer is the engine or the gasoline of the world, but there are very few drivers behind the steering wheel. Our Lady came at Fatima to ask for more prayer—but, as she complained at La Salette, “People will think of nothing but amusement” and will have barely time for their regular prayers, let alone any extra prayers. Our Lady of La Salette knowingly warned us, saying: “The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God.”
Poor Prayer and Cheating Catholics
“Why stand you here all the day idle?” (Matthew 20:6). The two children at La Salette and the three children at Fatima, could be said to have been idle in their prayers. When Our Lady asked them at La Salette if they said their prayers properly, they had to admit that they didn’t. At Fatima, they were more interested in playing than praying—they had even come up with an abbreviated version of the Hail Mary―saying just three words: “Ave Maria! Amen!” ― so as to be able to get through the Rosary all the quicker in order to have more time to play.
We see that at the second apparition of the Angel, which preceded Our Lady’s apparitions and took place during the summer of 1916. While the children were playing around their favorite well, the Angel suddenly appeared. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Pray, pray a great deal! The Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary have designs of mercy on you. Offer unceasingly prayers and sacrifice yourselves to the Most High.”
The world has been becoming worse and worse since Our Lady came to Fatima in 1917 to tell us that so many souls are falling into Hell because there is nobody to pray and offer sacrifices for sinners. We know that—at least I hope we do—and yet very little is done to activate the Catholic prayer machine throughout the world. “People will think of nothing but amusement.”
With souls being lost by the cart-load each day—St. Teresa of Avila said she saw souls falling into Hell like snowflakes in a blizzard—we calmly and nonchalantly go about our daily lives as though that truth was the figment of someone’s imagination! Heaven asks for prayers—the Rosary in particular—and what is the response?
St. Padre Pio would pray 30, 40 and sometimes 50 Rosaries a day! Who knows how many little Francisco Marto (one of the three Fatima seers) would pray each day? As Our Lord complained: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22).
Disease & Drugs; Heart Beats & Gasoline; Calories & Bullets
Disease requires that we give the body more attention and care until the disease is conquered. Hospitals even place patients under “intensive care” in order to cure them. The cure of a disease requires that we take a much greater quantity of nutrients or drugs. A normal supply of nutrients―that would suffice in a time of health―is insufficient when battling a disease.
In a war, peace time activities have to be sacrificed to enable the war to be fought. People no longer follow “peace-time schedules” but their lives are often turned upside down by the schedule of war. For soldiers, it can mean little or no sleep; little or even no food; uncomfortable surrounding; etc. When the enemy attacks, one or two bullets shot in the direction of the enemy will do little or no good. There is often a constant stream of bullets being fired at the enemy.
Our resting heart-rate is supposed be somewhere from 60 to 100 beats per minute. But when we are engaged in strenuous work or exercise, that heart-rate has to rise, in order to bring more blood with its nutrients and oxygen to the muscles. This means that the considerably increased heart-rate can climb to anywhere from 120 beats during light exercise, to anywhere from 140 to 200 beats per minute during strenuous exercise. Most of the time, you’re probably blissfully unaware of your heart’s ceaseless activity—nearly 100,000 beats per day, or about 37 million beats per year and 3 billion in an average lifetime.
More strenuous work requires more food for energy. If you live a sedentary life, then you should eat, let’s say for example, 2,500 calories daily. If you lead a moderately active and work out 3 times a week then you should eat, for example, 3,000 calories daily. If you do very strenuous work and exercise, then it would rise to, let’s say, 3,500 calories daily. Greater physical efforts require a greater amount of calories in order to perform them well.
Hauling more weight uses more gas. An extra 100 pounds in your vehicle could reduce your miles-per-gallon by up to 2%. By 2002, 62% of American adults were overweight or obese. By 2010, that figure had grown to 70%. As American waistlines have expanded since 1960, so has their consumption of gasoline. 1 billion gallons of fuel are consumed each year because of the average weight gain of people living in the United States since 1960. Furthermore, an idling car engine can use a quarter to a half gallon of fuel per hour, depending on engine size and air conditioner use. This recalls back to mind Our Lord’s parable, where the master of the vineyard is looking for workers, and says: “Why do you stand here all day idle?” (Matthew 20:6).
Too Content with Too Little!
This brings us to the heart of today’s thought. Why are we content with only praying, or perhaps only saying, a single Rosary per day? For most people, the Rosary means only five decades, but the true Rosary consists of fifteen decades. There are still cultures today that look upon it that way—South America is one example.
But even so, that is only a “rest-rate” for the Rosary, like the rest-rate of a heart beating. But in a fight, that heart beat rises incredibly! Today, we are in a fight that has no known precedent. Religiously, politically, morally, economically, intellectually—the world has taken a nose dive. We are attacked on all sides. The threats increase with each day and year—yet we still persist with a Rosary “rest-rate beat” of five decades a day! Incredible! Illogical! Insane!
Learning From Children
Francisco, one of the three children who saw Our Lady at Fatima, was told he would have to say many Rosaries before he could go to Heaven. He was almost 9 years old when Our Lady appeared to him in 1917, and almost 11 years old when he died in 1919. Lucia and Jacinta, the other two privileged children, say that he was rarely seen without his Rosary in his hands from that time onward—until his death. In the August apparition of 1917, Our Lady said: “Pray, pray very much…”
Yet the “very much” must be also joined to the “very well.” Remember that, at La Salette, Our Lady asked Melanie and Maximin: “Do you say your prayers properly, my children?” At Lourdes, it was stated that Our Lady prayed the Rosary with St. Bernadette, SLOWLY and RESPECTFULLY.
“It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly. Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should.” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-First Rose”).
Not All Hail Marys Are Made Equal!
We already spoke of the recommended method of praying the Rosary by St. Louis de Montfort in an earlier, but it needs repeating often, so as to break bad habits. St. Louis places a cross where he feels a pause could be made in the recitation of the Our Father and Hail Mary:
Our Father who art in Heaven, + hallowed by Thy name, + Thy kingdom come, + Thy will be done + on Earth as it is in Heaven. + Give us this day + our daily bread, + and forgive us our trespasses + as we forgive those who trespass against us, + and lead us not into temptation, + but deliver us from evil. Amen.
Hail, Mary, full of grace, + the Lord is with thee, + blessed art thou among women, + and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. + Holy Mary, Mother of God, + pray for us sinners, now + and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Padre Pio’s Rosaries
St. Padre Pio is a wonderful example of praying well and praying much. He was very attached to his Rosary. Fr. Marcellino testified that he had to help Padre Pio wash his hands one at a time, “because he didn’t want to let go of the Rosary beads, and passed the Rosary from one hand to the other.”
Father Alessio Parente said, “I was at his side for six years, and in all that time I never saw him without the Rosary in his hands night and day. Our Lady never refused him anything through the Rosary. The Rosary was his constant link with Our Lady.”
Once Padre Pio said to Fr. Onorato Marcucci, grabbing the Rosary that he had put on the nightstand for a few seconds: “With this, one wins the battles.”
Padre Pio used to permanently carry a Rosary in his hands and would pray it many times a day. Here are the testimonies of various people to whom Padre Pio revealed, at different times, how many Rosaries he would pray daily.
On February 6th, 1954 he said to Fr. Carmelo: “I still have 2 Rosaries to pray today. I said only 34 so far. Then I will go to bed.”
Answering a question of Fr. Michelangelo regarding the quantity of Rosaries he had prayed, Padre Pio replied: “Today I said 32 or 33 Rosaries. Maybe 1 or 2 more.”
Answering a similar question from Fr. Mariano, Padre Pio said: “About 30. Maybe some more, but not less.”
Then when Fr. Mariano asked “How do you do it?” Padre Pio simply said: “What is the night for?”
To Enedina Mori, Padre Pio said: “When you get tired reciting the Rosary, rest a bit, and then restart again.”
Answering another question concerning the quantity of Rosaries he had prayed daily, he replied: “Some days I say 40 Rosaries, some other days 50.”
Then when asked how he managed that, Padre Pio said: “How do I do it? How do you manage not to say any?”
Lucia Pennelli asked Padre Pio one morning, around 7:00 a.m., after Mass: “How many Rosaries did you say so far today? Two?” Padre Pio replied: “I already said seven.”
To the same Lucietta Pennelli, one day at about noon, he said: “Today I have already said 16 complete Rosaries.”
We will leave you with some quotes from St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina on the Rosary:
► “Mary has recommended the Rosary at Lourdes and Fatima because of its exceptional value for us and our times.”
► “Pray the Rosary frequently. It costs so little, and it’s worth so much!”
►”Always recite the Rosary and recite it as often as possible.”
►”When you get tired reciting the Rosary, rest a bit, and then restart again.”
Well said Padre Pio! Let us not only pray our Rosaries well, but let us pray more Rosaries too!
Article 7
Saturday October 7th, 2023
Mary's Gift to You!
Saturday October 7th, 2023
Mary's Gift to You!
The Rosary is Mary’s Favorite Prayer
“Our Lady … has revealed to several people that each time they say a Hail Mary, they are giving her a beautiful rose, and that each complete Rosary makes her a crown of roses.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Seventh Rose”).
When St. Mechtilde was praying and was trying to think of some way in which she could express her love of the Blessed Virgin better than before, she fell into ecstasy. Our Lady appeared to her with the Angelic Salutation written in letters of gold upon her breast and said to her, “My daughter, I want you to know that no one can please me more than by saying the greeting which the most adorable Trinity presented to me and by which I was raised to the dignity of the Mother of God” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Sixteenth Rose”).
Our Lady Both Hinted and Demanded that She Wanted the Rosary be Prayed
The first apparition at Lourdes starts out with Our Lady praying a Rosary with St. Bernadette. At a later apparition, Pauline Sans, an acquaintance of Bernadette’s, had asked Bernadette to pray using Pauline’s Rosary at the grotto during the next apparition. When Bernadette began to pray the Rosary with it in the presence of Our Lady, she was interrupted by Our Lady, who said with a smile: “You have made a mistake! That Rosary is not yours!”
At Fatima, each of the six times that Our Lady appeared, she insisted on the Rosary being said every day AS A MINIMUM—for she says of 8 year old Francisco that he would not go to Heaven until he had prayed MANY Rosaries. Here are some quotes concerning St. Francisco as written by Sr. Lucia herself, in her memoirs:
Our Lady spoke to us: “Do not be afraid. I will do you no harm.”
“Where are you from?”
“I am from Heaven.”
“What do you want of me?”
“I have come to ask you to come here for six months in succession, on the 13th day, at this same hour. Later on, I will tell you who I am and what I want. Afterwards, I will return here yet a seventh time.”
“Shall I go to Heaven too?”
“Yes, you will”
“And Jacinta?”
“She will go also.”
“And Francisco?”
“He will go there too, but he must say many Rosaries.”
“Afterwards, we told Francisco all that Our Lady had said. He was overjoyed and expressed the happiness he felt when he heard of the promise that he would go to Heaven. Crossing his hands on his breast, he exclaimed, ‘Oh, my dear Our Lady! I’ll say as many Rosaries as you want!’ And from then on, he made a habit of moving away from us, as though going for a walk. When we called him and asked him what he was doing, he raised his hand and showed me his Rosary. If we told him to come and play, and say the Rosary with us afterwards, he replied: ‘I’ll pray then as well. Don’t you remember that Our Lady said I must pray many Rosaries?’
“I made some requests, but I cannot recall now just what they were. What I do remember is that Our Lady said it was necessary for such people to pray the Rosary in order to obtain these graces during the year” (Apparition of July 13th, 1917).
As Lucia said to Fr. Fuentes, on December 26th, 1957: “God is giving two last remedies to the world. These are the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These are the last two remedies which signify that there will be no others.”
Sr. Lucia said: “Father, the most Holy Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid any attention to her message, neither the good nor the bad.” Let us, at least, be of the few that please her, by listening to her! But once we have listened, once we see, once our ears and eyes are opened, then we have to DO something about it! “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22), for as St. Paul adds: “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law.” “Be not deceived, God is not mocked” (Romans 2:13; Galatians 6:7). Take up your Rosaries more often! Learn, make and live the True Devotion consecration to Mary. That is you ark! Become familiar with it and seal all the leaks!
Didn’t Our Lady, in her Fifteen Promises to those who recite the Rosary, say things like: “Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces ... I promise the greatest graces to all who shall recite the Rosary … The Rosary shall destroy vice and decrease sin … It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things ... You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.”
Popes and Saints Endorse the Rosary More Than Any Other Prayer
Pope Leo XIII (reigned 1878-1903) wrote 13 encyclicals on the Rosary! Has any pope ever written just even one encyclical on some other prayer? No! Furthermore, he was not the only Pope to write on the Rosary—there are many papal documents, that fill books, on the Holy Rosary, but nothing of the sort is found on other prayers.
St. Padre Pio, who was born 1887 and was aged 30 when Our Lady appeared at Fatima. When asked what legacy he wished to leave to his spiritual children, Padre Pio’s only answer was, “My child, the Rosary!” As a true son of Our Lady, Padre Pio loved the Rosary and is reputed to have said the Rosary as many as 30, 40 and even 50 times per day. The Rosary, for him, was like background music for his day, or like the air that surrounds us wherever we go and whatever we do. In many photographs, he is shown with his right hand hidden within the pocket where he always kept his Rosary beads. Indeed, he urged all Catholics to “love the Madonna and pray the Rosary; for the Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world.”
The Rosary is a Solution to All Our Problems
Sr. Lucia, one of the children of Fatima said to Fr. Fuentes, (Dec. 26, 1957) regarding the Rosary: “The most holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the holy Rosary.”
The Rosary Helps Us Overcome Sin
“The Rosary is a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight and to keep oneself from sin” (Pope Pius XI). “When people love and recite the Rosary they find it makes them better.” (St. Anthony Mary Claret). Our Lady herself said to St. Dominic: “I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the principal weapon has always been the Angelic Psalter [the Rosary], which is the foundation-stone of the New Testament. Therefore, if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Second Rose”).
The Rosary Brings About Our Salvation
In her 1957 conversation with Fr. Fuentes, Sister Lucia said: “Father, we should not wait for an appeal to the world to come from Rome on the part of the Holy Father, to do penance. Nor should we wait for the call from our bishops in our dioceses, nor from the religious congregations. No! Our Lord has already, very often, used these means and the world has not paid attention. That is why now it is necessary for each one of us to begin to reform ourselves spiritually. Each person must not only save his own soul, but also the souls that God has placed on our path.”
“If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory. Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in Hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and will save your soul, if—and mark well what I say—if you say the Holy Rosary devoutly every day until death, for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins” (St. Louis de Montfort).
The Rosary is the Ark of Salvation for the End Times
Sister Lucia, in an interview with Fr. Fuentes in 1957, said: “Father, the Most Holy Virgin did not tell me [explicitly] that we are in the last times, but she made me understand this for three reasons.
The first reason is as follows: The devil is about to wage a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin, and a decisive battle is the final battle where one side will be victorious and the other side will suffer defeat.
The second reason is as follows: she said to my cousins as well as to myself, that God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These are the last two remedies, which signify that there will be no others.
The third reason is as follows: God, before He is about to chastise, exhausts all other remedies.
With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves; we will sanctify ourselves; we will console our Lord, and obtain the salvation of many souls” (Sr. Lucia, to Fr. Fuentes, Dec. 26, 1957).
Some Thoughts
“So please do not scorn this beautiful and Heavenly tree, but plant it with your own hands in the garden of your soul, by making the resolution to say your Rosary every day.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
“Therefore let all men, the learned and the ignorant, the just and the sinners, the great and the small, praise and honor Jesus and Mary night and day, by saying the Holy Rosary.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
With each day, the chastisements, that Our Lady has often warned us about, draw ever nearer. She goes throughout the world, like the master of the vineyard, trying to recruit workers for her cause, even at this late stage: “About the eleventh hour, he went out and found others standing, and he saith to them: ‘Why stand you here all the day idle?’” (Matthew 20:6).
Let us think less of surrounding ourselves with amusements, of which Our Lady complained at La Salette, and surround ourselves with the mysteries of the Rosary. We might not be up to saying 30, 40 or 50 Rosaries a day, like St. Padre Pio, but we certainly pray much more than one—if we a serious! Let’s face it, a bare-bones Rosary (5 decades and no other prayers) takes less than 20 minutes!
While we have time, let us build our Ark of Salvation. But to build that Ark, Noe had to put far more than one plank in place per day, otherwise he would have ended up floating in the water, clinging to his single plank. The Rosary is our Ark of Salvation; it is our defense; it is our weapon. Start to use it properly; use it well and use it often.
“Our Lady taught Saint Dominic this excellent method of praying and ordered him to preach it far and wide, so as to reawaken the fervor of Christians and to revive, in their hearts, a love for our Blessed Lord. She also taught it to Blessed Alan de la Roche and said to him in a vision, ‘When people say 150 Hail Marys, that prayer is very helpful to them and a most pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me more, if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of this prayer.’ For the Rosary, said without the meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation, would almost be a body without a soul, excellent matter, but without the form, which is the meditation” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-First-Rose”).
Meditation is the Common Catholic Problem
For most Catholics, the problem with the Rosary is in the area of meditation—most people say it, fewer pray it, and even fewer meditate it. Our Lady has said that the heart and soul of the Rosary is the meditation. It is this that we have drum into our heads and then make the necessary changes—cost what they may—to our Rosary routines so that we begin to meditate the mysteries.
“A Christian who does not meditate on the mysteries of the Rosary is very ungrateful to Our Lord and shows how little he cares for all that our divine Saviour has suffered to save the world. This attitude seems to show that he knows little or nothing of the life of Jesus Christ, and that he has never taken the trouble to find out what He has done and what He went through in order to save us” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Third-Rose”).
“Never will anyone be able to understand the marvelous riches of sanctification which are contained in the prayers and mysteries of the Holy Rosary. This meditation on the mysteries of the life and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ is the source of the most wonderful fruits for those who make use of it.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Fifth-Rose”).
“Today people want things that strike and move them, that leave deep impressions on the soul. Now has there ever been anything in the history of the world more moving than the wonderful story of the life, death, and glory of our Saviour, which is contained in the Holy Rosary? In the fifteen tableaux, the principal scenes or mysteries of His life unfold before our eyes.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Fifth-Rose”).
St. Augustine assures us that there is no spiritual exercise more fruitful, or more useful, than the frequent reflection on the sufferings of Our Lord. The advice of Saint Thomas Aquinas, is that, before going on the battlefield, one must first of all practice the virtues of that we see in the mysteries of the Rosary.
Solutions to the Meditation Problem
Even though we may be failing in the manner we pray the Rosary, by not meditating on its mysteries properly (or rarely), let us take heart. Knowing where the problem lies is halfway towards fixing the problem. The Rosary mysteries are so rich in advice and instruction; let us take the time to open the package and READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!
If meditation is difficult, then use a book to help you. Read as little or as much as you like before each mystery and then reflect upon it as you then pray the Our Father and the Hail Marys. A simple book could be used where young children are involved. Another idea would be to discuss the mystery among those present, limiting the time of discussion to whatever is practical. Remember, that it is not necessary to meditate all five mysteries in “one-sitting.”
Read or discuss one mystery at length, and then pray the five decades on that mystery. Or read a little of one mystery before each of the five decades. That way, I am sure you will find your Rosaries to be more interesting, more fervent, more profitable as a source of learning and more meritorious before God.
As for what books to use—there are many good accounts of the lives of Our Lord and Our Lady that come from various authors. Some that spring to mind are:
►The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by Blessed Anna Catherine Emmerich.
►The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by Blessed Anna Catherine Emmerich.
►The Mystical City of God, by Venerable Mary of Agreda
►The Life of Mary as seen by the Mystics, by Raphael Brown.
In addition to these are many other books on the Passion and Death of Our Lord.
“Our Lady … has revealed to several people that each time they say a Hail Mary, they are giving her a beautiful rose, and that each complete Rosary makes her a crown of roses.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Seventh Rose”).
When St. Mechtilde was praying and was trying to think of some way in which she could express her love of the Blessed Virgin better than before, she fell into ecstasy. Our Lady appeared to her with the Angelic Salutation written in letters of gold upon her breast and said to her, “My daughter, I want you to know that no one can please me more than by saying the greeting which the most adorable Trinity presented to me and by which I was raised to the dignity of the Mother of God” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Sixteenth Rose”).
Our Lady Both Hinted and Demanded that She Wanted the Rosary be Prayed
The first apparition at Lourdes starts out with Our Lady praying a Rosary with St. Bernadette. At a later apparition, Pauline Sans, an acquaintance of Bernadette’s, had asked Bernadette to pray using Pauline’s Rosary at the grotto during the next apparition. When Bernadette began to pray the Rosary with it in the presence of Our Lady, she was interrupted by Our Lady, who said with a smile: “You have made a mistake! That Rosary is not yours!”
At Fatima, each of the six times that Our Lady appeared, she insisted on the Rosary being said every day AS A MINIMUM—for she says of 8 year old Francisco that he would not go to Heaven until he had prayed MANY Rosaries. Here are some quotes concerning St. Francisco as written by Sr. Lucia herself, in her memoirs:
Our Lady spoke to us: “Do not be afraid. I will do you no harm.”
“Where are you from?”
“I am from Heaven.”
“What do you want of me?”
“I have come to ask you to come here for six months in succession, on the 13th day, at this same hour. Later on, I will tell you who I am and what I want. Afterwards, I will return here yet a seventh time.”
“Shall I go to Heaven too?”
“Yes, you will”
“And Jacinta?”
“She will go also.”
“And Francisco?”
“He will go there too, but he must say many Rosaries.”
“Afterwards, we told Francisco all that Our Lady had said. He was overjoyed and expressed the happiness he felt when he heard of the promise that he would go to Heaven. Crossing his hands on his breast, he exclaimed, ‘Oh, my dear Our Lady! I’ll say as many Rosaries as you want!’ And from then on, he made a habit of moving away from us, as though going for a walk. When we called him and asked him what he was doing, he raised his hand and showed me his Rosary. If we told him to come and play, and say the Rosary with us afterwards, he replied: ‘I’ll pray then as well. Don’t you remember that Our Lady said I must pray many Rosaries?’
“I made some requests, but I cannot recall now just what they were. What I do remember is that Our Lady said it was necessary for such people to pray the Rosary in order to obtain these graces during the year” (Apparition of July 13th, 1917).
As Lucia said to Fr. Fuentes, on December 26th, 1957: “God is giving two last remedies to the world. These are the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These are the last two remedies which signify that there will be no others.”
Sr. Lucia said: “Father, the most Holy Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid any attention to her message, neither the good nor the bad.” Let us, at least, be of the few that please her, by listening to her! But once we have listened, once we see, once our ears and eyes are opened, then we have to DO something about it! “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22), for as St. Paul adds: “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law.” “Be not deceived, God is not mocked” (Romans 2:13; Galatians 6:7). Take up your Rosaries more often! Learn, make and live the True Devotion consecration to Mary. That is you ark! Become familiar with it and seal all the leaks!
Didn’t Our Lady, in her Fifteen Promises to those who recite the Rosary, say things like: “Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces ... I promise the greatest graces to all who shall recite the Rosary … The Rosary shall destroy vice and decrease sin … It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things ... You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.”
Popes and Saints Endorse the Rosary More Than Any Other Prayer
Pope Leo XIII (reigned 1878-1903) wrote 13 encyclicals on the Rosary! Has any pope ever written just even one encyclical on some other prayer? No! Furthermore, he was not the only Pope to write on the Rosary—there are many papal documents, that fill books, on the Holy Rosary, but nothing of the sort is found on other prayers.
St. Padre Pio, who was born 1887 and was aged 30 when Our Lady appeared at Fatima. When asked what legacy he wished to leave to his spiritual children, Padre Pio’s only answer was, “My child, the Rosary!” As a true son of Our Lady, Padre Pio loved the Rosary and is reputed to have said the Rosary as many as 30, 40 and even 50 times per day. The Rosary, for him, was like background music for his day, or like the air that surrounds us wherever we go and whatever we do. In many photographs, he is shown with his right hand hidden within the pocket where he always kept his Rosary beads. Indeed, he urged all Catholics to “love the Madonna and pray the Rosary; for the Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world.”
The Rosary is a Solution to All Our Problems
Sr. Lucia, one of the children of Fatima said to Fr. Fuentes, (Dec. 26, 1957) regarding the Rosary: “The most holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the holy Rosary.”
The Rosary Helps Us Overcome Sin
“The Rosary is a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight and to keep oneself from sin” (Pope Pius XI). “When people love and recite the Rosary they find it makes them better.” (St. Anthony Mary Claret). Our Lady herself said to St. Dominic: “I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the principal weapon has always been the Angelic Psalter [the Rosary], which is the foundation-stone of the New Testament. Therefore, if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Second Rose”).
The Rosary Brings About Our Salvation
In her 1957 conversation with Fr. Fuentes, Sister Lucia said: “Father, we should not wait for an appeal to the world to come from Rome on the part of the Holy Father, to do penance. Nor should we wait for the call from our bishops in our dioceses, nor from the religious congregations. No! Our Lord has already, very often, used these means and the world has not paid attention. That is why now it is necessary for each one of us to begin to reform ourselves spiritually. Each person must not only save his own soul, but also the souls that God has placed on our path.”
“If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory. Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in Hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and will save your soul, if—and mark well what I say—if you say the Holy Rosary devoutly every day until death, for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins” (St. Louis de Montfort).
The Rosary is the Ark of Salvation for the End Times
Sister Lucia, in an interview with Fr. Fuentes in 1957, said: “Father, the Most Holy Virgin did not tell me [explicitly] that we are in the last times, but she made me understand this for three reasons.
The first reason is as follows: The devil is about to wage a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin, and a decisive battle is the final battle where one side will be victorious and the other side will suffer defeat.
The second reason is as follows: she said to my cousins as well as to myself, that God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These are the last two remedies, which signify that there will be no others.
The third reason is as follows: God, before He is about to chastise, exhausts all other remedies.
With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves; we will sanctify ourselves; we will console our Lord, and obtain the salvation of many souls” (Sr. Lucia, to Fr. Fuentes, Dec. 26, 1957).
Some Thoughts
“So please do not scorn this beautiful and Heavenly tree, but plant it with your own hands in the garden of your soul, by making the resolution to say your Rosary every day.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
“Therefore let all men, the learned and the ignorant, the just and the sinners, the great and the small, praise and honor Jesus and Mary night and day, by saying the Holy Rosary.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
With each day, the chastisements, that Our Lady has often warned us about, draw ever nearer. She goes throughout the world, like the master of the vineyard, trying to recruit workers for her cause, even at this late stage: “About the eleventh hour, he went out and found others standing, and he saith to them: ‘Why stand you here all the day idle?’” (Matthew 20:6).
Let us think less of surrounding ourselves with amusements, of which Our Lady complained at La Salette, and surround ourselves with the mysteries of the Rosary. We might not be up to saying 30, 40 or 50 Rosaries a day, like St. Padre Pio, but we certainly pray much more than one—if we a serious! Let’s face it, a bare-bones Rosary (5 decades and no other prayers) takes less than 20 minutes!
While we have time, let us build our Ark of Salvation. But to build that Ark, Noe had to put far more than one plank in place per day, otherwise he would have ended up floating in the water, clinging to his single plank. The Rosary is our Ark of Salvation; it is our defense; it is our weapon. Start to use it properly; use it well and use it often.
“Our Lady taught Saint Dominic this excellent method of praying and ordered him to preach it far and wide, so as to reawaken the fervor of Christians and to revive, in their hearts, a love for our Blessed Lord. She also taught it to Blessed Alan de la Roche and said to him in a vision, ‘When people say 150 Hail Marys, that prayer is very helpful to them and a most pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me more, if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of this prayer.’ For the Rosary, said without the meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation, would almost be a body without a soul, excellent matter, but without the form, which is the meditation” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-First-Rose”).
Meditation is the Common Catholic Problem
For most Catholics, the problem with the Rosary is in the area of meditation—most people say it, fewer pray it, and even fewer meditate it. Our Lady has said that the heart and soul of the Rosary is the meditation. It is this that we have drum into our heads and then make the necessary changes—cost what they may—to our Rosary routines so that we begin to meditate the mysteries.
“A Christian who does not meditate on the mysteries of the Rosary is very ungrateful to Our Lord and shows how little he cares for all that our divine Saviour has suffered to save the world. This attitude seems to show that he knows little or nothing of the life of Jesus Christ, and that he has never taken the trouble to find out what He has done and what He went through in order to save us” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Third-Rose”).
“Never will anyone be able to understand the marvelous riches of sanctification which are contained in the prayers and mysteries of the Holy Rosary. This meditation on the mysteries of the life and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ is the source of the most wonderful fruits for those who make use of it.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Fifth-Rose”).
“Today people want things that strike and move them, that leave deep impressions on the soul. Now has there ever been anything in the history of the world more moving than the wonderful story of the life, death, and glory of our Saviour, which is contained in the Holy Rosary? In the fifteen tableaux, the principal scenes or mysteries of His life unfold before our eyes.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Fifth-Rose”).
St. Augustine assures us that there is no spiritual exercise more fruitful, or more useful, than the frequent reflection on the sufferings of Our Lord. The advice of Saint Thomas Aquinas, is that, before going on the battlefield, one must first of all practice the virtues of that we see in the mysteries of the Rosary.
Solutions to the Meditation Problem
Even though we may be failing in the manner we pray the Rosary, by not meditating on its mysteries properly (or rarely), let us take heart. Knowing where the problem lies is halfway towards fixing the problem. The Rosary mysteries are so rich in advice and instruction; let us take the time to open the package and READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!
If meditation is difficult, then use a book to help you. Read as little or as much as you like before each mystery and then reflect upon it as you then pray the Our Father and the Hail Marys. A simple book could be used where young children are involved. Another idea would be to discuss the mystery among those present, limiting the time of discussion to whatever is practical. Remember, that it is not necessary to meditate all five mysteries in “one-sitting.”
Read or discuss one mystery at length, and then pray the five decades on that mystery. Or read a little of one mystery before each of the five decades. That way, I am sure you will find your Rosaries to be more interesting, more fervent, more profitable as a source of learning and more meritorious before God.
As for what books to use—there are many good accounts of the lives of Our Lord and Our Lady that come from various authors. Some that spring to mind are:
►The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by Blessed Anna Catherine Emmerich.
►The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by Blessed Anna Catherine Emmerich.
►The Mystical City of God, by Venerable Mary of Agreda
►The Life of Mary as seen by the Mystics, by Raphael Brown.
In addition to these are many other books on the Passion and Death of Our Lord.
Article 6
Friday October 6th, 2023
Fight While You Can!
Friday October 6th, 2023
Fight While You Can!
We Are At War!
“The life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “Be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God” (2 Kings 10:12). “Our God will fight for us” (2 Esdras 4:20). “That the nations might know His power, that it is not easy to fight against God” (Ecclesiasticus 46:8). “And they shall fight against thee, and shall not prevail: for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee” (Jeremias 1:19). “The Lord is as a man of war, Almighty is His Name!” (Exodus 15:3). “He teacheth my hands to war: and maketh my arms like a bow of brass” (2 Kings 22:35). “Blessed be the Lord my God, Who teacheth my hands to fight, and my fingers to war” (Psalm 143:1). “All men shall prepare their hands to fight” (Deuteronomy 20:9). “That their children might learn to fight with their enemies, and to be trained up to war” (Judges 3:2).
How are those hands and fingers to be trained up to war? By being hands raised in prayer—fingers gliding over the ‘bullets’ or beads of the Rosary. Like little David against Goliath, who goes into battle armed with five pebbles and a sling in his hand—symbolic of today’s Rosary beads with its five decades.
While Moses stood on the mount, overlooking the battle of the Israelites with Amalec, he held out his arms in the form of a cross—symbolic of arms raised in prayer and symbolic of Christ dying on another mount, Mount Calvary. As long as his arms were in this position, the Israelites had the upper hand in the battle; yet whenever he would tire and let his arms drop, Amalec would gain the upper hand in the battle. This reminds us of Christ’s admonition “that we ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1) and St. Paul’s similar command: “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). “And Moses said to Josue: ‘Choose out men: and go out and fight against Amalec. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill, having the rod of God in my hand!’ Josue did as Moses had spoken, and he fought against Amalec; but Moses, Aaron and Hur, went up upon the top of the hill. And when Moses lifted up his hands, Israel overcame: but if he let them down a little, Amalec overcame. And Moses’ hands were heavy: so they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat on it: and Aaron and Hur held up his hands on both sides. And it came to pass that his hands were not weary until sunset. And Josue put Amalec and his people to flight, by the edge of the sword” (Exodus 17:9-13).
Chief Weapons for the Fight
Our two arms or weapons are chiefly the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Rosary. We must not flag or tire in using these arms in our battles with our enemies. Our Lady of La Salette complains: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven; and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession.” Our Lady of Good Success says: “Offer your sacrifices and prayers to shorten the duration of this terrible catastrophe!” At Lourdes she demands: “Pray for sinners … Penance! Penance! Penance! … Kiss the ground as a penance for sinners.” The Angel of Portugal told the three children at Fatima: “Pray! Pray a great deal. Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice! Above all accept and bear with submission all the suffering the Lord will send you.” Our Lady says at Fatima: “Pray the Rosary daily… Pray! Pray very much! And make sacrifices for sinners! Continue always to pray the Rosary, every day.” At Akita Our Lady said: “Pray in reparation for the sins of men … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men ... Continue to pray very much...very much! … Be faithful and fervent in prayer to console the Master … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary ... Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary.”
The Rosary is THE Weapon
St. Padre Pio was a living example of the requests and demands that Our Lady made regarding prayer in general and the Rosary in particular. He used to call the Rosary “THE weapon” and would use that weapon many times a day—anywhere from 30 to 50 Rosaries being prayed each day.
Sister Lucia of Fatima adds: “The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary, to such an extent, that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or, above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
Our Lady Calls Us To The Fight
“I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world. It is time they came out and filled the world with light. Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children. I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see. For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent” (Our Lady of La Salette).
Fighting the Devil
Though we speak of the “triple enemy” as being (1) the devil, (2) the world, and (3) the flesh—our chief enemy is Satan and his devils. They rule the world and they can influence our flesh too. “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places” (Ephesians 6:12). “Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour; whom resist ye, strong in Faith” (1 Peter 5:8). “The dragon was angry against the woman: and went to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God” (Apocalypse 12:17). The best weapons are those that Our Lady has asked for at Lourdes and Fatima—namely, prayer and penance. Our Lord tells us the same thing: “But this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:20).
Fighting the World
Speaking to Pontius Pilate, Jesus said: “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Speaking to the Scribes and Pharisees, “Jesus said to them: ‘You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world” (John 8:23). Speaking of His followers, Jesus said: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16).
St. James admonishes us saying: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4). “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19). Our Lady warned that, in our days, “the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement” (Our Lady of La Salette). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
Fighting Those Within the Church
We see Jesus fighting the chief religious leaders of His day—the Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees—on a doctrinal, moral and spiritual level: “Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: ‘The Scribes and the Pharisees have sat on the chair of Moses. All things whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not; for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy and insupportable burdens, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but with a finger of their own they will not move them. And all their works they do for to be seen of men. And they love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues and salutations in the market place.
“But woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you shut the Kingdom of Heaven against men. Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you go round about the sea and the land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, you make him the child of Hell twofold more than yourselves. Woe to you blind guides. Ye foolish and blind! Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you tithe mint, and anise, and cumin, and have left the weightier things of the law; judgment, and mercy, and Faith. These things you ought to have done, and not to leave those undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanness. Thou blind Pharisee, first make clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside may become clean. Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness. So you also outwardly indeed appear to men just; but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. You serpents, generation of vipers, how will you flee from the judgment of Hell?’”
Jesus also fights against the materialism that has swamped and suffocated spirituality: “Jesus went into the Temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves: and He said to them: ‘It is written, “My house shall be called the house of prayer” but you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Matthew 21:12-13).
Fighting Our Own Families and Relatives
Even our own families will hate us! Our Lord was not joking when He said: “Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household” (Matthew 10:34-36). “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no; but separation. For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three” (Luke 12:51-52). “They shall deliver you up to councils, and in the synagogues you shall be beaten, and you shall stand before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony unto them. And the brother shall betray his brother unto death, and the father his son; and children shall rise up against the parents, and shall work their death. And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake. But he that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Mark 13:9-13).
Sin Weakens Us in the Fight
“When thou goest out to war against thy enemies, thou shalt keep thyself from every evil thing” (Deuteronomy 23:9). “Dearly beloved, I beseech you to refrain yourselves from carnal desires, which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11). “Now we know that God doth not hear sinners” (John 9:31).
This Is Not a Short War—It is a Lifelong War
► “There was war between Roboam and Jeroboam all the time of his life” (3 Kings 15:6).
► “Josue made war a long time against these kings” (Josue 11:18).
► “And there was a great war against the Philistines all the days of Saul” (1 Kings 14:52).
► “Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David” (2 Kings 3:1).
A Brutal War!
When God goes to war, He really goes to war and takes no prisoners: “And Samuel said to Saul: ‘The Lord sent me to anoint thee king over His People Israel. Now, therefore, hearken thou unto the voice of the Lord! Thus saith the Lord of hosts: ‘I have reckoned up all that Amalec hath done to Israel: I how he opposed them in the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now therefore go, and smite Amalec, and utterly destroy all that he hath: spare him not, nor covet any thing that is his: but slay both man and woman, child and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass” (1 Kings 15:1-3).
When Our Chastisement Comes, God Will Take No Prisoners
At La Salette Our Lady warns: “Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other for … years. The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God.”
At Akita, Our Lady tells us: “As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son.”
At Fatima, she says that “the good will be martyred and various nations will be annihilated.”
We Do Not Fight Alone
“The Lord God, Who is your leader, Himself will fight for you, as He did in Egypt in the sight of all” (Deuteronomy 1:30). “Fear them not: for the Lord your God will fight for you” (Deuteronomy 3:22). “The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man; as a man of war shall He stir up zeal. He shall shout and cry. He shall prevail against His enemies” (Isaias 42:13). “For the success of war is not in the multitude of the army, but strength cometh from Heaven” (1 Machabees 3:19). “The Lord of the world, without any rams or engines of war, threw down the walls of Jericho in the time of Josue” (2 Machabees 12:15).
This will also be done in our times: “Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified” (Our Lady of La Salette).
God Will Help Us as He Helped David
“And David spoke to the men that stood by him, saying: ‘What shall be given to the man that shall kill this Philistine, and shall take away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?’ And the people answered him the same words saying: ‘These things shall be given to the man that shall slay him.’ And the words which David spoke were heard, and were repeated before Saul.
“The Lord will deliver me from this Philistine!”
“And when David was brought to Saul, David said to Saul: ‘Let not any man’s heart be dismayed in him! I, thy servant will go, and will fight against the Philistine!’ And Saul said to David: ‘Thou art not able to withstand this Philistine, nor to fight against him: for thou art but a boy, but he is a warrior from his youth!’
“And David said to Saul: ‘Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, or a bear, and took a ram out of the midst of the flock: and I pursued after them, and struck them, and delivered it out of their mouth: and they rose up against me, and I caught them by the throat, and I strangled and killed them. For I, thy servant, have killed both a lion and a bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be also as one of them. I will go now, and take away the reproach of the people: for who is this uncircumcised Philistine, who hath dared to curse the army of the living God? The Lord who delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine!’
“Go, and the Lord be with thee!”
“And Saul said to David: ‘Go, and the Lord be with thee!’ And Saul clothed David with his garments, and put a helmet of brass upon his head, and armed him with a coat of mail. And David having girded his sword upon his armor began to try if he could walk in armor: for he was not accustomed to it. And David said to Saul: ‘I cannot go thus, for I am not used to it!’ And he laid them off, and he took his staff, which he had always in his hands: and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them into the shepherd’s scrip, which he had with him, and he took a sling in his hand, and went forth against the Philistine.
“The Lord will deliver thee into my hand!”
“And the Philistine came on, and drew near to David, and his armor-bearer before him. And when the Philistine looked, and beheld David, he despised him. For he was a young man, ruddy, and of a comely countenance. And the Philistine said to David: ‘Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with a staff?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And he said to David: ‘Come to me, and I will give thy flesh to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the Earth!’
“And David said to the Philistine: ‘Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, which thou hast defied! This day, and the Lord will deliver thee into my hand, and I will slay thee, and take away thy head from thee: and I will give the carcasses of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the Earth: that all the Earth may know that there is a God in Israel! And all this assembly shall know, that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for it is His battle, and He will deliver you into our hands!’
“David made haste, and ran to the fight”
“And when the Philistine arose and was coming, and drew nigh to meet David, David made haste, and ran to the fight to meet the Philistine. And he put his hand into his scrip, and took a stone, and cast it with the sling, and fetching it about struck the Philistine in the forehead: and the stone was fixed in his forehead, and he fell on his face upon the earth. And David prevailed over the Philistine, with a sling and a stone, and he struck, and slew the Philistine. And as David had no sword in his hand, he ran, and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath, and slew him, and cut off his head. And the Philistines seeing that their champion was dead, fled away” (1 Kings 17:26-51).
Any Volunteers?
“Who shall begin to fight? And he said: ‘Thou!’” (3 Kings 20:14). Are we not Soldiers of Christ by virtue of the Sacrament of Confirmation that we have received? Or did we receive it under false pretenses? “Terrible kings, hearing, shall be afraid of me: I shall be found good and valiant in war” (Wisdom 8:15). “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the Faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Our Lord encourages us in the fight, saying: “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul―but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell!” (Matthew 10:28).
“The life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “Be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God” (2 Kings 10:12). “Our God will fight for us” (2 Esdras 4:20). “That the nations might know His power, that it is not easy to fight against God” (Ecclesiasticus 46:8). “And they shall fight against thee, and shall not prevail: for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee” (Jeremias 1:19). “The Lord is as a man of war, Almighty is His Name!” (Exodus 15:3). “He teacheth my hands to war: and maketh my arms like a bow of brass” (2 Kings 22:35). “Blessed be the Lord my God, Who teacheth my hands to fight, and my fingers to war” (Psalm 143:1). “All men shall prepare their hands to fight” (Deuteronomy 20:9). “That their children might learn to fight with their enemies, and to be trained up to war” (Judges 3:2).
How are those hands and fingers to be trained up to war? By being hands raised in prayer—fingers gliding over the ‘bullets’ or beads of the Rosary. Like little David against Goliath, who goes into battle armed with five pebbles and a sling in his hand—symbolic of today’s Rosary beads with its five decades.
While Moses stood on the mount, overlooking the battle of the Israelites with Amalec, he held out his arms in the form of a cross—symbolic of arms raised in prayer and symbolic of Christ dying on another mount, Mount Calvary. As long as his arms were in this position, the Israelites had the upper hand in the battle; yet whenever he would tire and let his arms drop, Amalec would gain the upper hand in the battle. This reminds us of Christ’s admonition “that we ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1) and St. Paul’s similar command: “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). “And Moses said to Josue: ‘Choose out men: and go out and fight against Amalec. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill, having the rod of God in my hand!’ Josue did as Moses had spoken, and he fought against Amalec; but Moses, Aaron and Hur, went up upon the top of the hill. And when Moses lifted up his hands, Israel overcame: but if he let them down a little, Amalec overcame. And Moses’ hands were heavy: so they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat on it: and Aaron and Hur held up his hands on both sides. And it came to pass that his hands were not weary until sunset. And Josue put Amalec and his people to flight, by the edge of the sword” (Exodus 17:9-13).
Chief Weapons for the Fight
Our two arms or weapons are chiefly the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Rosary. We must not flag or tire in using these arms in our battles with our enemies. Our Lady of La Salette complains: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven; and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession.” Our Lady of Good Success says: “Offer your sacrifices and prayers to shorten the duration of this terrible catastrophe!” At Lourdes she demands: “Pray for sinners … Penance! Penance! Penance! … Kiss the ground as a penance for sinners.” The Angel of Portugal told the three children at Fatima: “Pray! Pray a great deal. Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice! Above all accept and bear with submission all the suffering the Lord will send you.” Our Lady says at Fatima: “Pray the Rosary daily… Pray! Pray very much! And make sacrifices for sinners! Continue always to pray the Rosary, every day.” At Akita Our Lady said: “Pray in reparation for the sins of men … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men ... Continue to pray very much...very much! … Be faithful and fervent in prayer to console the Master … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary ... Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary.”
The Rosary is THE Weapon
St. Padre Pio was a living example of the requests and demands that Our Lady made regarding prayer in general and the Rosary in particular. He used to call the Rosary “THE weapon” and would use that weapon many times a day—anywhere from 30 to 50 Rosaries being prayed each day.
Sister Lucia of Fatima adds: “The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary, to such an extent, that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or, above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
Our Lady Calls Us To The Fight
“I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world. It is time they came out and filled the world with light. Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children. I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see. For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent” (Our Lady of La Salette).
Fighting the Devil
Though we speak of the “triple enemy” as being (1) the devil, (2) the world, and (3) the flesh—our chief enemy is Satan and his devils. They rule the world and they can influence our flesh too. “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places” (Ephesians 6:12). “Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour; whom resist ye, strong in Faith” (1 Peter 5:8). “The dragon was angry against the woman: and went to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God” (Apocalypse 12:17). The best weapons are those that Our Lady has asked for at Lourdes and Fatima—namely, prayer and penance. Our Lord tells us the same thing: “But this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:20).
Fighting the World
Speaking to Pontius Pilate, Jesus said: “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Speaking to the Scribes and Pharisees, “Jesus said to them: ‘You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world” (John 8:23). Speaking of His followers, Jesus said: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16).
St. James admonishes us saying: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4). “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19). Our Lady warned that, in our days, “the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement” (Our Lady of La Salette). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
Fighting Those Within the Church
We see Jesus fighting the chief religious leaders of His day—the Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees—on a doctrinal, moral and spiritual level: “Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: ‘The Scribes and the Pharisees have sat on the chair of Moses. All things whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not; for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy and insupportable burdens, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but with a finger of their own they will not move them. And all their works they do for to be seen of men. And they love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues and salutations in the market place.
“But woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you shut the Kingdom of Heaven against men. Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you go round about the sea and the land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, you make him the child of Hell twofold more than yourselves. Woe to you blind guides. Ye foolish and blind! Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you tithe mint, and anise, and cumin, and have left the weightier things of the law; judgment, and mercy, and Faith. These things you ought to have done, and not to leave those undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanness. Thou blind Pharisee, first make clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside may become clean. Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness. So you also outwardly indeed appear to men just; but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. You serpents, generation of vipers, how will you flee from the judgment of Hell?’”
Jesus also fights against the materialism that has swamped and suffocated spirituality: “Jesus went into the Temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves: and He said to them: ‘It is written, “My house shall be called the house of prayer” but you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Matthew 21:12-13).
Fighting Our Own Families and Relatives
Even our own families will hate us! Our Lord was not joking when He said: “Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household” (Matthew 10:34-36). “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no; but separation. For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three” (Luke 12:51-52). “They shall deliver you up to councils, and in the synagogues you shall be beaten, and you shall stand before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony unto them. And the brother shall betray his brother unto death, and the father his son; and children shall rise up against the parents, and shall work their death. And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake. But he that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Mark 13:9-13).
Sin Weakens Us in the Fight
“When thou goest out to war against thy enemies, thou shalt keep thyself from every evil thing” (Deuteronomy 23:9). “Dearly beloved, I beseech you to refrain yourselves from carnal desires, which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11). “Now we know that God doth not hear sinners” (John 9:31).
This Is Not a Short War—It is a Lifelong War
► “There was war between Roboam and Jeroboam all the time of his life” (3 Kings 15:6).
► “Josue made war a long time against these kings” (Josue 11:18).
► “And there was a great war against the Philistines all the days of Saul” (1 Kings 14:52).
► “Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David” (2 Kings 3:1).
A Brutal War!
When God goes to war, He really goes to war and takes no prisoners: “And Samuel said to Saul: ‘The Lord sent me to anoint thee king over His People Israel. Now, therefore, hearken thou unto the voice of the Lord! Thus saith the Lord of hosts: ‘I have reckoned up all that Amalec hath done to Israel: I how he opposed them in the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now therefore go, and smite Amalec, and utterly destroy all that he hath: spare him not, nor covet any thing that is his: but slay both man and woman, child and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass” (1 Kings 15:1-3).
When Our Chastisement Comes, God Will Take No Prisoners
At La Salette Our Lady warns: “Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other for … years. The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God.”
At Akita, Our Lady tells us: “As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son.”
At Fatima, she says that “the good will be martyred and various nations will be annihilated.”
We Do Not Fight Alone
“The Lord God, Who is your leader, Himself will fight for you, as He did in Egypt in the sight of all” (Deuteronomy 1:30). “Fear them not: for the Lord your God will fight for you” (Deuteronomy 3:22). “The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man; as a man of war shall He stir up zeal. He shall shout and cry. He shall prevail against His enemies” (Isaias 42:13). “For the success of war is not in the multitude of the army, but strength cometh from Heaven” (1 Machabees 3:19). “The Lord of the world, without any rams or engines of war, threw down the walls of Jericho in the time of Josue” (2 Machabees 12:15).
This will also be done in our times: “Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified” (Our Lady of La Salette).
God Will Help Us as He Helped David
“And David spoke to the men that stood by him, saying: ‘What shall be given to the man that shall kill this Philistine, and shall take away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?’ And the people answered him the same words saying: ‘These things shall be given to the man that shall slay him.’ And the words which David spoke were heard, and were repeated before Saul.
“The Lord will deliver me from this Philistine!”
“And when David was brought to Saul, David said to Saul: ‘Let not any man’s heart be dismayed in him! I, thy servant will go, and will fight against the Philistine!’ And Saul said to David: ‘Thou art not able to withstand this Philistine, nor to fight against him: for thou art but a boy, but he is a warrior from his youth!’
“And David said to Saul: ‘Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, or a bear, and took a ram out of the midst of the flock: and I pursued after them, and struck them, and delivered it out of their mouth: and they rose up against me, and I caught them by the throat, and I strangled and killed them. For I, thy servant, have killed both a lion and a bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be also as one of them. I will go now, and take away the reproach of the people: for who is this uncircumcised Philistine, who hath dared to curse the army of the living God? The Lord who delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine!’
“Go, and the Lord be with thee!”
“And Saul said to David: ‘Go, and the Lord be with thee!’ And Saul clothed David with his garments, and put a helmet of brass upon his head, and armed him with a coat of mail. And David having girded his sword upon his armor began to try if he could walk in armor: for he was not accustomed to it. And David said to Saul: ‘I cannot go thus, for I am not used to it!’ And he laid them off, and he took his staff, which he had always in his hands: and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them into the shepherd’s scrip, which he had with him, and he took a sling in his hand, and went forth against the Philistine.
“The Lord will deliver thee into my hand!”
“And the Philistine came on, and drew near to David, and his armor-bearer before him. And when the Philistine looked, and beheld David, he despised him. For he was a young man, ruddy, and of a comely countenance. And the Philistine said to David: ‘Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with a staff?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And he said to David: ‘Come to me, and I will give thy flesh to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the Earth!’
“And David said to the Philistine: ‘Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, which thou hast defied! This day, and the Lord will deliver thee into my hand, and I will slay thee, and take away thy head from thee: and I will give the carcasses of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the Earth: that all the Earth may know that there is a God in Israel! And all this assembly shall know, that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for it is His battle, and He will deliver you into our hands!’
“David made haste, and ran to the fight”
“And when the Philistine arose and was coming, and drew nigh to meet David, David made haste, and ran to the fight to meet the Philistine. And he put his hand into his scrip, and took a stone, and cast it with the sling, and fetching it about struck the Philistine in the forehead: and the stone was fixed in his forehead, and he fell on his face upon the earth. And David prevailed over the Philistine, with a sling and a stone, and he struck, and slew the Philistine. And as David had no sword in his hand, he ran, and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath, and slew him, and cut off his head. And the Philistines seeing that their champion was dead, fled away” (1 Kings 17:26-51).
Any Volunteers?
“Who shall begin to fight? And he said: ‘Thou!’” (3 Kings 20:14). Are we not Soldiers of Christ by virtue of the Sacrament of Confirmation that we have received? Or did we receive it under false pretenses? “Terrible kings, hearing, shall be afraid of me: I shall be found good and valiant in war” (Wisdom 8:15). “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the Faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Our Lord encourages us in the fight, saying: “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul―but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell!” (Matthew 10:28).
Article 5
Thursday October 5th, 2023
Make and Take!
Thursday October 5th, 2023
Make and Take!
Everyone Wears Many Habits!
We are all creatures of habit. It is the way we were made to function. That, too, is what the spiritual life is all about—habits. A habit is a frequently repeated action to the point that it becomes an accustomed action. Good habits are called virtues, whereas bad habits are called vice. A sin is not necessarily a vice. Only when it becomes habitual can it a sin be called a vice. Likewise, a good action is not necessarily a virtue. It is only when it is performed habitually that the good action becomes a virtue.
Where are going with this? Well, many, if not most, of our daily actions are habits or habitual actions. We may have a habit of going to bed at a certain time and rising at a certain time—and that habit can be hard to break, be it good or bad. In the morning, we have a habitual way of getting ready in the morning, before launching ourselves into the day. Once we have flossed, brushed, shaved and showered, there might be the habitual breakfast waiting for us. We use habitual greetings with the family. We have an habitual way of starting the car; an habitual route we take to work or school; an habitual schedule once at work; we mostly buy the same foods each week, etc., etc.
The same often applies to our spiritual life. We usually have habitual morning and night prayers (if we remember to say them). We say more or less the same prayers in preparation for Mass and in thanksgiving after Holy Communion. We might even have an habitual place where we like to sit in the church. Even the liturgy is habitual. Every year we have the same readings on the same Sundays and feast days.
Rosaries and Habits
This takes us to the praying the Rosary. We probably are also habitual in our manner of praying the Rosary. By this I mean that we might have a certain time or times of the day when we pray it. We may well have a certain manner in praying it, for example it may be habitually kneeling or sitting, or perhaps while driving or walking. Another Rosary habit is the way in which we pray the Rosary. It may be habitually fast, or habitually distracted, or, God forbid, habitually forgotten!
It is on this point that we can turn our focus, because if we habitually say the Rosary, if we habitually say it attentively, if we habitually say it slowly, if we habitually say several Rosaries each day—then we can say that our daily Rosary is truly a virtue of ours.
However, if we habitually miss or forget to pray our Rosary, if we say it more than we pray it, if we say it distractedly, with haste and without any zeal—then we can truly say that our Rosary is truly a vice of ours.
Virtue will be rewarded by God, but vice has to be punished. “Ah, then!” you say, “It is better, then, that I don’t Rosary at all, in that way I won’t get punished!”
Well, not quite. For Heaven expects ALL of us to be saying our Rosaries. It seems like Our Lady of Fatima made it more of an obligation than an option. Your argument might be comparable to the man who has received several speeding tickets for driving too fast and inattentively on his way to work. So, he says to himself, “Since I keep getting speeding tickets while driving to work, I had better not go to work, then I won’t get fined by the police!” True, but though you won’t get fined by the police, you will get fired by the boss. That will end up being more expensive in the long run!
Most of us have some, if not many, bad habits in our prayer life and perhaps especially in our “Rosary life.” The Rosary is such a powerful prayer, that I think it really is worth our while to stop “leaking money” by running up fines with Heaven, and start learning to pray it the way Heaven wants prayed.
Make and Take Time
This month of the Rosary is a perfect time for that “New Rosary Resolution”! Start simple and get the basics right first, then go on from there. For this month of October (but hopefully for the rest of your life) quite simply MAKE TIME for the Rosary and TAKE TIME in praying your Rosary. What I mean is this. Don’t make the Rosary a mere accessory to your life, make it the focal point of your life. Don’t just “fit-it-in-somewhere” but build the day around the Rosary.
After the Mass and the Divine Office, there is no better or more important prayer than the Rosary. We don’t just “fit-the-Mass-in-somewhere”! The Mass has it time and place, and everything and everybody else has to fit and plan around that. We send Our Lady a message, for better or worse, by the place we give to Rosary in our day. Do games, entertainment, leisure come before the Rosary? If so, then we have manifest how cheaply we look upon the Mother of God. So let us MAKE TIME for the Rosary and make everything else fit around it.
Secondly, TAKE TIME with the Rosary—meaning that you should take your time praying the Rosary, and not rush through it in order to go do something “better” or “more exciting.” If that is our attitude, then, once again, we manifest how cheaply we look upon the Mother of God. She is treated like a visit to an unliked grandparent. Once we arrive at their home, we are thinking about how soon we can leave and go home.
TAKING YOUR TIME means praying or talking to Heaven more SLOWLY. The speed with which some people—not all and probably not you—pray the Rosary is quite astonishing. They would never speak to anyone in real life at that speed for very long, nor could they even if they wanted to! Let us slow down. As St. Louis de Montfort writes:
“It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly. Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should.” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-First Rose”).
Are You Underpraying?
Too many people “underpray” their Rosary! What do we mean by that? We are quite simply saying that we are all capable of far more than we think! Many souls wait for a perfect moment to pray their Rosary: “Oh, I’ll wait until I get home tonight!” “I just can’t seem to find the time to say it!” “Wow! What a busy day, I don’t even have time to pray!”
What is the perfect time to pray? Anytime and all the time! St. Paul tells us: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) ... which is just what Jesus said: “we ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1).
“You must be joking!” you say, “That’s insanity! That’s just not possible!” Well, not really. As Scripture says, “Jesus beholding, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible.’” (Matthew 19:26). Besides, we are taught that God never commands the impossible. But Jesus commands we ought always to pray. Therefore it must be possible. But how? And especially, how can that be possible for the Rosary?
First of all let us analyze ourselves. When we really think about it, there is not one moment of the day that we stop thinking! It might be thinking about whether or not to get out of bed, or hit the snooze button; it may be thinking about what we are going to have for breakfast and what we have to do today; it may be thinking as we read, as we drive, or as we observe others; it might be thinking during Mass and Thanksgiving; thinking about our immediate duties at work or at home—we are thinking, thinking, thinking all day long! We even think in bed as we fall asleep! Arguably, you could say we ‘think’ throughout our dreams!!!
Nobody complains about not having time to think, do they? Now, what is prayer? The Church and the saints teach us that “Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God.” In other words, prayer is thinking about God!
The next thing we have to do is convince ourselves that there nothing better, or more important, or more profitable for us than to think about God. This is merely saying in another way what Our Lord said: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” (Luke 12:31) and “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind” (Luke 10:27).
There is More Time in the Day than You Think!
Plug the sink. Turn the tap on so that it barely drips. Go you own way and come back at the end of the day and see how much water is collected by little drips.
We should “Drip Our Rosaries” in the same way. You may not be able to say five decades at any given moment throughout the day, but one decade will most likely be possible. All it takes is about three minutes! Walking from one office to another. Tea or coffee break. Walking to and back from the restroom. Sweeping the floor. Loading the washing machine. Doing the dishes. Taking out the trash. The list is endless. It is just a question of prioritizing and creating a habit.
If Jesus said that we ought always to pray, then He knows that this must entail praying as we work and live out our daily lives. Jesus and Mary do not mind that. In fact, it shows and proves that we love them.
You will be amazed at how many decades you manage to get through in a day, using that principle. And don’t worry if you lose count of your Hail Marys or decades. Jesus and Mary know, and that is all that matters. Numbers can lead to pride or routine. Leave the numbers to God.
Another thing that you may find helpful, is to avoid worrying about meditating all five or all fifteen decades in a day. That is not necessary. Take one decade a day if you like. Dwell upon the mystery while you shower, eat, drive, work, etc. Again, it is not abnormal, because we all think without ceasing every day. Just think about the mystery you have chosen as often as you can. Sandwich it in between decades of the Rosary. It is like a daily project, where you look at the mystery from all angles throughout the day.
If the mystery turns out to be really fruitful, continue the same mystery the next day, and the next, and the next—if it is still working for you. If not, move onto another. In this way the Rosary becomes something deeper, more personal, more meaningful and less boring, less monotonous, less burdensome.
We are all creatures of habit. It is the way we were made to function. That, too, is what the spiritual life is all about—habits. A habit is a frequently repeated action to the point that it becomes an accustomed action. Good habits are called virtues, whereas bad habits are called vice. A sin is not necessarily a vice. Only when it becomes habitual can it a sin be called a vice. Likewise, a good action is not necessarily a virtue. It is only when it is performed habitually that the good action becomes a virtue.
Where are going with this? Well, many, if not most, of our daily actions are habits or habitual actions. We may have a habit of going to bed at a certain time and rising at a certain time—and that habit can be hard to break, be it good or bad. In the morning, we have a habitual way of getting ready in the morning, before launching ourselves into the day. Once we have flossed, brushed, shaved and showered, there might be the habitual breakfast waiting for us. We use habitual greetings with the family. We have an habitual way of starting the car; an habitual route we take to work or school; an habitual schedule once at work; we mostly buy the same foods each week, etc., etc.
The same often applies to our spiritual life. We usually have habitual morning and night prayers (if we remember to say them). We say more or less the same prayers in preparation for Mass and in thanksgiving after Holy Communion. We might even have an habitual place where we like to sit in the church. Even the liturgy is habitual. Every year we have the same readings on the same Sundays and feast days.
Rosaries and Habits
This takes us to the praying the Rosary. We probably are also habitual in our manner of praying the Rosary. By this I mean that we might have a certain time or times of the day when we pray it. We may well have a certain manner in praying it, for example it may be habitually kneeling or sitting, or perhaps while driving or walking. Another Rosary habit is the way in which we pray the Rosary. It may be habitually fast, or habitually distracted, or, God forbid, habitually forgotten!
It is on this point that we can turn our focus, because if we habitually say the Rosary, if we habitually say it attentively, if we habitually say it slowly, if we habitually say several Rosaries each day—then we can say that our daily Rosary is truly a virtue of ours.
However, if we habitually miss or forget to pray our Rosary, if we say it more than we pray it, if we say it distractedly, with haste and without any zeal—then we can truly say that our Rosary is truly a vice of ours.
Virtue will be rewarded by God, but vice has to be punished. “Ah, then!” you say, “It is better, then, that I don’t Rosary at all, in that way I won’t get punished!”
Well, not quite. For Heaven expects ALL of us to be saying our Rosaries. It seems like Our Lady of Fatima made it more of an obligation than an option. Your argument might be comparable to the man who has received several speeding tickets for driving too fast and inattentively on his way to work. So, he says to himself, “Since I keep getting speeding tickets while driving to work, I had better not go to work, then I won’t get fined by the police!” True, but though you won’t get fined by the police, you will get fired by the boss. That will end up being more expensive in the long run!
Most of us have some, if not many, bad habits in our prayer life and perhaps especially in our “Rosary life.” The Rosary is such a powerful prayer, that I think it really is worth our while to stop “leaking money” by running up fines with Heaven, and start learning to pray it the way Heaven wants prayed.
Make and Take Time
This month of the Rosary is a perfect time for that “New Rosary Resolution”! Start simple and get the basics right first, then go on from there. For this month of October (but hopefully for the rest of your life) quite simply MAKE TIME for the Rosary and TAKE TIME in praying your Rosary. What I mean is this. Don’t make the Rosary a mere accessory to your life, make it the focal point of your life. Don’t just “fit-it-in-somewhere” but build the day around the Rosary.
After the Mass and the Divine Office, there is no better or more important prayer than the Rosary. We don’t just “fit-the-Mass-in-somewhere”! The Mass has it time and place, and everything and everybody else has to fit and plan around that. We send Our Lady a message, for better or worse, by the place we give to Rosary in our day. Do games, entertainment, leisure come before the Rosary? If so, then we have manifest how cheaply we look upon the Mother of God. So let us MAKE TIME for the Rosary and make everything else fit around it.
Secondly, TAKE TIME with the Rosary—meaning that you should take your time praying the Rosary, and not rush through it in order to go do something “better” or “more exciting.” If that is our attitude, then, once again, we manifest how cheaply we look upon the Mother of God. She is treated like a visit to an unliked grandparent. Once we arrive at their home, we are thinking about how soon we can leave and go home.
TAKING YOUR TIME means praying or talking to Heaven more SLOWLY. The speed with which some people—not all and probably not you—pray the Rosary is quite astonishing. They would never speak to anyone in real life at that speed for very long, nor could they even if they wanted to! Let us slow down. As St. Louis de Montfort writes:
“It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly. Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should.” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-First Rose”).
Are You Underpraying?
Too many people “underpray” their Rosary! What do we mean by that? We are quite simply saying that we are all capable of far more than we think! Many souls wait for a perfect moment to pray their Rosary: “Oh, I’ll wait until I get home tonight!” “I just can’t seem to find the time to say it!” “Wow! What a busy day, I don’t even have time to pray!”
What is the perfect time to pray? Anytime and all the time! St. Paul tells us: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) ... which is just what Jesus said: “we ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1).
“You must be joking!” you say, “That’s insanity! That’s just not possible!” Well, not really. As Scripture says, “Jesus beholding, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible.’” (Matthew 19:26). Besides, we are taught that God never commands the impossible. But Jesus commands we ought always to pray. Therefore it must be possible. But how? And especially, how can that be possible for the Rosary?
First of all let us analyze ourselves. When we really think about it, there is not one moment of the day that we stop thinking! It might be thinking about whether or not to get out of bed, or hit the snooze button; it may be thinking about what we are going to have for breakfast and what we have to do today; it may be thinking as we read, as we drive, or as we observe others; it might be thinking during Mass and Thanksgiving; thinking about our immediate duties at work or at home—we are thinking, thinking, thinking all day long! We even think in bed as we fall asleep! Arguably, you could say we ‘think’ throughout our dreams!!!
Nobody complains about not having time to think, do they? Now, what is prayer? The Church and the saints teach us that “Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God.” In other words, prayer is thinking about God!
The next thing we have to do is convince ourselves that there nothing better, or more important, or more profitable for us than to think about God. This is merely saying in another way what Our Lord said: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” (Luke 12:31) and “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind” (Luke 10:27).
There is More Time in the Day than You Think!
Plug the sink. Turn the tap on so that it barely drips. Go you own way and come back at the end of the day and see how much water is collected by little drips.
We should “Drip Our Rosaries” in the same way. You may not be able to say five decades at any given moment throughout the day, but one decade will most likely be possible. All it takes is about three minutes! Walking from one office to another. Tea or coffee break. Walking to and back from the restroom. Sweeping the floor. Loading the washing machine. Doing the dishes. Taking out the trash. The list is endless. It is just a question of prioritizing and creating a habit.
If Jesus said that we ought always to pray, then He knows that this must entail praying as we work and live out our daily lives. Jesus and Mary do not mind that. In fact, it shows and proves that we love them.
You will be amazed at how many decades you manage to get through in a day, using that principle. And don’t worry if you lose count of your Hail Marys or decades. Jesus and Mary know, and that is all that matters. Numbers can lead to pride or routine. Leave the numbers to God.
Another thing that you may find helpful, is to avoid worrying about meditating all five or all fifteen decades in a day. That is not necessary. Take one decade a day if you like. Dwell upon the mystery while you shower, eat, drive, work, etc. Again, it is not abnormal, because we all think without ceasing every day. Just think about the mystery you have chosen as often as you can. Sandwich it in between decades of the Rosary. It is like a daily project, where you look at the mystery from all angles throughout the day.
If the mystery turns out to be really fruitful, continue the same mystery the next day, and the next, and the next—if it is still working for you. If not, move onto another. In this way the Rosary becomes something deeper, more personal, more meaningful and less boring, less monotonous, less burdensome.
Article 4
Wednday October 4th, 2023
It's a Fake World!
Wednday October 4th, 2023
It's a Fake World!
False Focus
As St. Louis de Montfort writes: “It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-First Rose”). The devil knows this too, and, so, it is in his best interests to make sure that our Hail Mary or our Rosary is not said properly. This is a perennial battle that everyone has to face—whether it be pope, bishop or priest, or man, woman and child—it will be so to our dying day.
A Fake World
Unfortunately, in our modern-day existence, quantity and speed have replaced the ancient values placed on quality and thoroughness. Not that quality is totally disregarded, but it often comes second to quantity. A bottom-line principle that can be seen in the lives of many people is that they want to pay less for things, so that they can afford to buy lots of different things. Now of course, one’s income obviously plays a large part in this, but many of the rich even play the same game. Manufacturers are often more focused on the quantity they can produce, more so than on the quality. If they can make something “look real” then there is no point spending extra money making the real thing. So we have fake stone or brick facades for houses; we have fake furs; fake foods; fake wood; fake gold; fake marble; fake candles; fake glass, etc., etc. We are living in a fake world!
Fake Spirtuality
The sad part is that this over-spills into our intellectual, moral and spiritual lives. We fake knowledge, we fake behavior, and we fake piety. We learn superficially—just enough to be able to make it look like we know a lot. Trivia becomes more popular than in-depth knowledge. We become a race of “Tips-and-Tricks”—but we are only tricking ourselves. Morally, the world has never been as sinful as it is today, yet we put on a kind of ‘moral-make-up’ to hide the sinfulness and focus on the sins of others to make us feel better in our own miserable state. Spiritually, we cover the facade of our Temple of the Holy Ghost (which St Paul says we are), with pseudo-gold bricks’. Financially, we are prepared to fall into serious debt, in order to appear, to the world around us, as something that we are not, but simply want to be. I guess that would make us “fake wannabees”!
Fake Pharisees
The Pharisees were a bit like this in their day, and this brought down upon them the wrath of Jesus—the whole of chapter 23 of Matthew is dedicated to Our Lord venting against the Pharisees, which is something unparalleled in the whole of Scripture. Jesus says of them: “All their works they do for to be seen of men ... they love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues ... Ye foolish and blind; for which is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? ... Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanness. Thou blind Pharisee, first make clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside may become clean. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness. So you also outwardly indeed appear to men just; but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”
Real Sinner with Real Love
Yet at the same time, Jesus shows quite the opposite attitude to a sinner, who, objectively speaking, was far, far worse than the Pharisees—Mary Magdalen. She was a whore; she was possessed by seven devils (symbolic of all the seven capital sins) and had been caught in adultery. Jesus’ response to her was the exact opposite of the “Woes” that he pronounced against the Pharisees. In fact, Jesus said of her: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less” (Luke 7:47).
There is the answer! There is the secret! There is the clue to what we need to change the power of our prayers. From being ridiculous to reverential; from puny to powerful; from being farcical to frightening. Wouldn’t you like your prayers to be so powerful that would be almost infallibly heard and answered? The key element, or trunk or root, to that problem is the virtue of charity or love. The degree of one’s charity can change the prayer from being a mere firework (a passing flash in the sky) to an atom-bomb or a nuclear bomb. If you’ve seen the size of the atom-bomb dropped on Hiroshima, you will notice that it relatively small in relation to the power that it packs—in fact, the part that does the damage is a very small part within the large casing.
Get Real!
It can be so with our prayers, and that is why St. Louis de Montfort says: “It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly.” The charity or love that we say our prayers with, greatly increase their value and power. Our Lady had such a great and sincere love of God, that the slightest prayer of hers was capable of moving mountains. This is why the devils themselves admitted to the power of her prayers during an exorcism: “We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us; one single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints.” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Third Rose”). Let us spend this month of October examining and improving our manner of praying, and the first thing to do is to restore the primacy of QUALITY over mere quantity.
As St. Louis de Montfort writes: “It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-First Rose”). The devil knows this too, and, so, it is in his best interests to make sure that our Hail Mary or our Rosary is not said properly. This is a perennial battle that everyone has to face—whether it be pope, bishop or priest, or man, woman and child—it will be so to our dying day.
A Fake World
Unfortunately, in our modern-day existence, quantity and speed have replaced the ancient values placed on quality and thoroughness. Not that quality is totally disregarded, but it often comes second to quantity. A bottom-line principle that can be seen in the lives of many people is that they want to pay less for things, so that they can afford to buy lots of different things. Now of course, one’s income obviously plays a large part in this, but many of the rich even play the same game. Manufacturers are often more focused on the quantity they can produce, more so than on the quality. If they can make something “look real” then there is no point spending extra money making the real thing. So we have fake stone or brick facades for houses; we have fake furs; fake foods; fake wood; fake gold; fake marble; fake candles; fake glass, etc., etc. We are living in a fake world!
Fake Spirtuality
The sad part is that this over-spills into our intellectual, moral and spiritual lives. We fake knowledge, we fake behavior, and we fake piety. We learn superficially—just enough to be able to make it look like we know a lot. Trivia becomes more popular than in-depth knowledge. We become a race of “Tips-and-Tricks”—but we are only tricking ourselves. Morally, the world has never been as sinful as it is today, yet we put on a kind of ‘moral-make-up’ to hide the sinfulness and focus on the sins of others to make us feel better in our own miserable state. Spiritually, we cover the facade of our Temple of the Holy Ghost (which St Paul says we are), with pseudo-gold bricks’. Financially, we are prepared to fall into serious debt, in order to appear, to the world around us, as something that we are not, but simply want to be. I guess that would make us “fake wannabees”!
Fake Pharisees
The Pharisees were a bit like this in their day, and this brought down upon them the wrath of Jesus—the whole of chapter 23 of Matthew is dedicated to Our Lord venting against the Pharisees, which is something unparalleled in the whole of Scripture. Jesus says of them: “All their works they do for to be seen of men ... they love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues ... Ye foolish and blind; for which is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? ... Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanness. Thou blind Pharisee, first make clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside may become clean. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness. So you also outwardly indeed appear to men just; but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”
Real Sinner with Real Love
Yet at the same time, Jesus shows quite the opposite attitude to a sinner, who, objectively speaking, was far, far worse than the Pharisees—Mary Magdalen. She was a whore; she was possessed by seven devils (symbolic of all the seven capital sins) and had been caught in adultery. Jesus’ response to her was the exact opposite of the “Woes” that he pronounced against the Pharisees. In fact, Jesus said of her: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less” (Luke 7:47).
There is the answer! There is the secret! There is the clue to what we need to change the power of our prayers. From being ridiculous to reverential; from puny to powerful; from being farcical to frightening. Wouldn’t you like your prayers to be so powerful that would be almost infallibly heard and answered? The key element, or trunk or root, to that problem is the virtue of charity or love. The degree of one’s charity can change the prayer from being a mere firework (a passing flash in the sky) to an atom-bomb or a nuclear bomb. If you’ve seen the size of the atom-bomb dropped on Hiroshima, you will notice that it relatively small in relation to the power that it packs—in fact, the part that does the damage is a very small part within the large casing.
Get Real!
It can be so with our prayers, and that is why St. Louis de Montfort says: “It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly.” The charity or love that we say our prayers with, greatly increase their value and power. Our Lady had such a great and sincere love of God, that the slightest prayer of hers was capable of moving mountains. This is why the devils themselves admitted to the power of her prayers during an exorcism: “We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us; one single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints.” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Third Rose”). Let us spend this month of October examining and improving our manner of praying, and the first thing to do is to restore the primacy of QUALITY over mere quantity.
Article 3
Tuesday October 3rd, 2023
C'mon! Get Serious!
Tuesday October 3rd, 2023
C'mon! Get Serious!
Don’t Mess with Our Lady!
Speaking of his meeting with Sister Lucia on December 26th, 1957, Fr. Fuentes said: “The first thing she said to me was: ‘Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good, nor the bad. The good continue on with their life of virtue and apostolate, but they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners keep following the road of evil, because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them.’”
He That Loves Danger…
Our Lady is not an ornament, nor an option to be taken seriously or disregarded. She is the Mother of God, the Queen of Prophets, and, if necessary, Queen of Martyrs. If God deems it necessary to send His greatest creature to Earth with a message, then we ignore it at our own peril. Yet that is what the world as a whole, and most individuals (perhaps ourselves included) have done. Consequently, that peril is coming round the corner sometime soon—sooner rather than later—while we—like the proverbial frog happily and obliviously sitting in the gently, yet ever increasingly, heated water—see no danger, feel no danger, foresee no danger, yet are in grave danger. As Scripture says: “A hard heart shall fear evil at the last: and he that loveth danger shall perish in it” (Ecclesiasticus 3:27). Our Lady turns up the heat with ever increasing intensity—even speaking of fire raining from Heaven — and the Catholic world sits immobile in the waters of wrath, refusing to jump into action. “He that loveth danger shall perish in it.”
If Men Will Not Listen…
What does that mean? It means this:
La Salette, France, 1846: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son. It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it ... God will strike in an unprecedented way. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together ... The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God.” (Our Lady of La Salette, 1846).
Fatima, Portugal, 1917: The water temperature rises over the next 70 years to Fatima, where Our Lady continues turning up the temperature: “I want you to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended ... The [World] War is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out [hence, war is a punishment for sin]… If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be annihilated.” (Our Lady of Fatima, 1917).
Akita, Japan, 1973: In the meantime, nothing of substance is done. By the time Our Lady appears in Akita, Japan, in 1973, the world has grown worse, not better. The heat gets hotter as she mentions fire from Heaven! She warns: “Listen to what I have to say to you … Listen well to what I have to say to you … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful” (Our Lady of Akita, October 1973). Result? No change! The Catholic Frog still sits croaking sweetly, while the devil rubs his hands in glee, anticipating his meal of countless souls.
The Price Paid in Souls
La Salette, France, 1846: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith little by little, even in those dedicated to God [lose your Faith and you lose your soul] … Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death. Several will abandon the Faith [and so lose their souls], and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion [also lose their souls] … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God ... People will think of nothing but amusement” (Our Lady of La Salette, 1846).
Fatima, Portugal, 1917: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them” (Our Lady of Fatima, 1917).
Akita, Japan, 1973: “The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them” (Our Lady of Akita, 1973).
Why, O Why?
Annihilation of nations is a lesser evil than sin. Shocking? Yes, but true! Sin is the greatest evil in world—even what we mistakenly call “a teeny-weeny sin”! Not only the worst Mortal Sin, but also the least Venial Sin, is the GREATEST EVIL IN THE WORLD. That is what our Faith teaches and that is what we cringe at when we hear it said: “Mortal Sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, and a greater evil than disease, or war ... Mortal Sin must be a most terrible thing indeed, to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the eternal punishment of sinners who die with even only one Mortal Sin” (The Catechism, My Catholic Faith, chapter 22, “Mortal Sin”). If an eternal Hell is created to punish just one single Mortal Sin, how on Earth can war, flooding, earthquakes, pestilence, disease, death or fire from Heaven be thought to be worse than Hell? No matter what punishment Heaven sends us, it will still be like being tickled in comparison to the punishment of Hell.
As for Venial Sin, the same catechism says: “Although Venial Sin is not a grievous offense against God, it is, nevertheless, a great moral evil, next alone to Mortal Sin. We are prone to look upon Venial Sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that IT IS SECOND ONLY IN EVIL CONSEQUENCE TO MORTAL SIN. In Holy Scripture we see, from many examples, how God regards Venial Sin. Even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God’s mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished. He was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land [and died at its borders]” (The Catechism, My Catholic Faith, chapter 23, “Venial Sin”).
I Don’t Like All That!!!
Like it or not, that is reality, that is the truth. Like a child, who goes into a state of denial at having done something wrong, we refuse to see things this clinically. It is too harsh! God is love! God is not like that! Well of course God is loving and merciful, but He is also just and angry. We cannot pick and choose the bits we like in God and throw out the rest! If God is just loving and merciful, then why is Our Lady using language like: “God will strike in an unprecedented way. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together ... The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God. The Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be annihilated”?
If God is just loving and merciful, then Our Lady must have been having a bad day when she said all this! But no, Our Lady knows God better than we could ever know Him—and she does not let highly imaginative wishful thinking cloud her judgment.
Time for Wages to be Paid
As already said—Sin is the greatest evil in the world. The greatest things are also the most expensive things, the most costly things. Holy Scripture tells us that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). This is not an Old Testament quote, whereby one could argue that the Old Testament times saw God being less merciful than New Testament times. It is St. Paul who gives the wage for sin, and it is also consistent with the Old Testament wages, where God says: “Behold all souls are mine: the soul that sinneth, the same shall die” (Ezechiel 18:4). A little further on, in the same chapter, God again reiterates the wage for sin: “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:20). God then goes on to explain the interaction between His justice and mercy more clearly, and answers the possible complaints:
“But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done: in his justice, which he hath wrought, he shall live. Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? But if the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity according to all the abominations which the wicked man useth to work, shall he live? All his justices, which he hath done, shall not be remembered: in the prevarication, by which he hath prevaricated, and in his sin, which he hath committed, in them he shall die. And you have said: ‘The way of the Lord is not right!’ Hear ye, O house of Israel: Is it My way that is not right, and are not rather your ways perverse? For when the just turneth himself away from his justice, and committeth iniquity, he shall die therein: in the injustice that he hath wrought he shall die. And when the wicked turneth himself away from his wickedness, which he hath wrought, and doeth judgment, and justice: he shall save his soul alive. Because he considereth and turneth away himself from all his iniquities which he hath wrought, he shall surely live, and not die. And the children of Israel say: ‘The way of the Lord is not right!’ Are not My ways right, O house of Israel, and are not rather your ways perverse? Therefore will I judge every man according to his ways, O house of Israel, saith the Lord God. Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities: and iniquity shall not be your ruin” (Ezechiel 18:21-30).
Am I My Brother’s Keeper?
“Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him. And the Lord said to Cain: ‘Where is thy brother Abel?’ And he answered, ‘I know not: am I my brother’s keeper?’ And the Lord said to him: ‘What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to Me from the Earth. Now, therefore, cursed shalt thou be upon the Earth” (Genesis 4:8-11).
This opposition within the family is later seen with Jacob and Esau; with Joseph and his brothers and Our Lord eve speaks of it in His day, in relation to His teaching dividing families: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no; but separation. For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three” (Luke 12:51-52).
Our Lady also speaks of this division in the families of Religious Orders, as well as regular families: “God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family … a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops” (La Salette) … “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres” (Akita).
We Are the Keepers!
“For this is the declaration, which you have heard from the beginning, that you should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of the wicked one, and killed his brother. And wherefore did he kill him? Because his own works were wicked: and his brother’s just. Wonder not, brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not, abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in himself. In this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that hath the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him: how doth the charity of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed, and in truth” (1 John 3:11-18). We have plenty of substance! We have what can save the world, or at this late stage, at least mitigate the punishments of God. We can run out of money to give, but we cannot run out of Rosaries to give (pray). St. Padre Pio would pray anywhere from 30 to 50 Rosaries (not decades, but Rosaries) each day. Little 8-year-old Francisco was no slouch either!
This is essentially what Our Lady stated and required at Lourdes, Fatima and Akita—that we pray and suffer for sinners, who are our brothers and sisters. “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (1 John 1:8). “For you were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8). St. Peter even admits this, saying to Jesus: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Luke 5:8).
The sinners of the world are certainly our brothers and sisters—all part of the family. At Lourdes Our Lady makes Bernadette do penance for sinners, commanding her to “Kiss the ground as a penance for sinners.” At Fatima Our Lady even asks little children to get serious about saving the souls of sinners: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners?” She makes the children the keepers of their sinful brothers and sisters throughout the world.
Sleeper Keepers
Yet those who are supposed to be the “Keepers” have turned out to be “Sleepers.” This brings us back to response to Our Lady’s requests, as cited by Fr. Fuentes as a result of his meeting with Sister Lucia on December 26th, 1957, Fr. Fuentes said: “The first thing she said to me was: ‘Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good, nor the bad. The good continue on with their life of virtue and apostolate, but they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners keep following the road of evil, because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them.’”
It is reminiscent of Our Lord’s parable in the Gospel: “A certain man had two sons; and coming to the first, he said: Son, go work today in my vineyard. And he answering, said: ‘I will not!’ But afterwards, being moved with repentance, he went. And coming to the other, he said in like manner. And he answering, said: ‘I go, Sir!’ and he went not” (Matthew 21:28-30).
The Catholic world has been asked to comply with Our Lady’s messages and warnings and it has barely done so. With less than 4% of Catholics praying the Rosary daily, and less than 2% praying it more than once a week, and only 2% praying it once a week every week—we are in a perilous mess! This can’t be the best kept secret in the world, yet few people know it because few people care to know it; and those who do know it, couldn’t care less and do little or nothing to get people in their own circles to change.
Hitting the Nail on the Head
Our Lady hit the nail on the head, as regards the reason for this failure, when she said: “The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God ... The love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement … The priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness [and will] let themselves be dazzled by the false glamor of honors and human greatness, while others are blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness, that immense evil which in religious houses destroys their fervor.”
Speaking of his meeting with Sister Lucia on December 26th, 1957, Fr. Fuentes said: “The first thing she said to me was: ‘Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good, nor the bad. The good continue on with their life of virtue and apostolate, but they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners keep following the road of evil, because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them.’”
He That Loves Danger…
Our Lady is not an ornament, nor an option to be taken seriously or disregarded. She is the Mother of God, the Queen of Prophets, and, if necessary, Queen of Martyrs. If God deems it necessary to send His greatest creature to Earth with a message, then we ignore it at our own peril. Yet that is what the world as a whole, and most individuals (perhaps ourselves included) have done. Consequently, that peril is coming round the corner sometime soon—sooner rather than later—while we—like the proverbial frog happily and obliviously sitting in the gently, yet ever increasingly, heated water—see no danger, feel no danger, foresee no danger, yet are in grave danger. As Scripture says: “A hard heart shall fear evil at the last: and he that loveth danger shall perish in it” (Ecclesiasticus 3:27). Our Lady turns up the heat with ever increasing intensity—even speaking of fire raining from Heaven — and the Catholic world sits immobile in the waters of wrath, refusing to jump into action. “He that loveth danger shall perish in it.”
If Men Will Not Listen…
What does that mean? It means this:
La Salette, France, 1846: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son. It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it ... God will strike in an unprecedented way. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together ... The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God.” (Our Lady of La Salette, 1846).
Fatima, Portugal, 1917: The water temperature rises over the next 70 years to Fatima, where Our Lady continues turning up the temperature: “I want you to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended ... The [World] War is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out [hence, war is a punishment for sin]… If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be annihilated.” (Our Lady of Fatima, 1917).
Akita, Japan, 1973: In the meantime, nothing of substance is done. By the time Our Lady appears in Akita, Japan, in 1973, the world has grown worse, not better. The heat gets hotter as she mentions fire from Heaven! She warns: “Listen to what I have to say to you … Listen well to what I have to say to you … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful” (Our Lady of Akita, October 1973). Result? No change! The Catholic Frog still sits croaking sweetly, while the devil rubs his hands in glee, anticipating his meal of countless souls.
The Price Paid in Souls
La Salette, France, 1846: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith little by little, even in those dedicated to God [lose your Faith and you lose your soul] … Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death. Several will abandon the Faith [and so lose their souls], and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion [also lose their souls] … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God ... People will think of nothing but amusement” (Our Lady of La Salette, 1846).
Fatima, Portugal, 1917: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them” (Our Lady of Fatima, 1917).
Akita, Japan, 1973: “The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them” (Our Lady of Akita, 1973).
Why, O Why?
Annihilation of nations is a lesser evil than sin. Shocking? Yes, but true! Sin is the greatest evil in world—even what we mistakenly call “a teeny-weeny sin”! Not only the worst Mortal Sin, but also the least Venial Sin, is the GREATEST EVIL IN THE WORLD. That is what our Faith teaches and that is what we cringe at when we hear it said: “Mortal Sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, and a greater evil than disease, or war ... Mortal Sin must be a most terrible thing indeed, to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the eternal punishment of sinners who die with even only one Mortal Sin” (The Catechism, My Catholic Faith, chapter 22, “Mortal Sin”). If an eternal Hell is created to punish just one single Mortal Sin, how on Earth can war, flooding, earthquakes, pestilence, disease, death or fire from Heaven be thought to be worse than Hell? No matter what punishment Heaven sends us, it will still be like being tickled in comparison to the punishment of Hell.
As for Venial Sin, the same catechism says: “Although Venial Sin is not a grievous offense against God, it is, nevertheless, a great moral evil, next alone to Mortal Sin. We are prone to look upon Venial Sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that IT IS SECOND ONLY IN EVIL CONSEQUENCE TO MORTAL SIN. In Holy Scripture we see, from many examples, how God regards Venial Sin. Even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God’s mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished. He was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land [and died at its borders]” (The Catechism, My Catholic Faith, chapter 23, “Venial Sin”).
I Don’t Like All That!!!
Like it or not, that is reality, that is the truth. Like a child, who goes into a state of denial at having done something wrong, we refuse to see things this clinically. It is too harsh! God is love! God is not like that! Well of course God is loving and merciful, but He is also just and angry. We cannot pick and choose the bits we like in God and throw out the rest! If God is just loving and merciful, then why is Our Lady using language like: “God will strike in an unprecedented way. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together ... The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God. The Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be annihilated”?
If God is just loving and merciful, then Our Lady must have been having a bad day when she said all this! But no, Our Lady knows God better than we could ever know Him—and she does not let highly imaginative wishful thinking cloud her judgment.
Time for Wages to be Paid
As already said—Sin is the greatest evil in the world. The greatest things are also the most expensive things, the most costly things. Holy Scripture tells us that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). This is not an Old Testament quote, whereby one could argue that the Old Testament times saw God being less merciful than New Testament times. It is St. Paul who gives the wage for sin, and it is also consistent with the Old Testament wages, where God says: “Behold all souls are mine: the soul that sinneth, the same shall die” (Ezechiel 18:4). A little further on, in the same chapter, God again reiterates the wage for sin: “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:20). God then goes on to explain the interaction between His justice and mercy more clearly, and answers the possible complaints:
“But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done: in his justice, which he hath wrought, he shall live. Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? But if the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity according to all the abominations which the wicked man useth to work, shall he live? All his justices, which he hath done, shall not be remembered: in the prevarication, by which he hath prevaricated, and in his sin, which he hath committed, in them he shall die. And you have said: ‘The way of the Lord is not right!’ Hear ye, O house of Israel: Is it My way that is not right, and are not rather your ways perverse? For when the just turneth himself away from his justice, and committeth iniquity, he shall die therein: in the injustice that he hath wrought he shall die. And when the wicked turneth himself away from his wickedness, which he hath wrought, and doeth judgment, and justice: he shall save his soul alive. Because he considereth and turneth away himself from all his iniquities which he hath wrought, he shall surely live, and not die. And the children of Israel say: ‘The way of the Lord is not right!’ Are not My ways right, O house of Israel, and are not rather your ways perverse? Therefore will I judge every man according to his ways, O house of Israel, saith the Lord God. Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities: and iniquity shall not be your ruin” (Ezechiel 18:21-30).
Am I My Brother’s Keeper?
“Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him. And the Lord said to Cain: ‘Where is thy brother Abel?’ And he answered, ‘I know not: am I my brother’s keeper?’ And the Lord said to him: ‘What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to Me from the Earth. Now, therefore, cursed shalt thou be upon the Earth” (Genesis 4:8-11).
This opposition within the family is later seen with Jacob and Esau; with Joseph and his brothers and Our Lord eve speaks of it in His day, in relation to His teaching dividing families: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no; but separation. For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three” (Luke 12:51-52).
Our Lady also speaks of this division in the families of Religious Orders, as well as regular families: “God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family … a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops” (La Salette) … “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres” (Akita).
We Are the Keepers!
“For this is the declaration, which you have heard from the beginning, that you should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of the wicked one, and killed his brother. And wherefore did he kill him? Because his own works were wicked: and his brother’s just. Wonder not, brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not, abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in himself. In this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that hath the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him: how doth the charity of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed, and in truth” (1 John 3:11-18). We have plenty of substance! We have what can save the world, or at this late stage, at least mitigate the punishments of God. We can run out of money to give, but we cannot run out of Rosaries to give (pray). St. Padre Pio would pray anywhere from 30 to 50 Rosaries (not decades, but Rosaries) each day. Little 8-year-old Francisco was no slouch either!
This is essentially what Our Lady stated and required at Lourdes, Fatima and Akita—that we pray and suffer for sinners, who are our brothers and sisters. “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (1 John 1:8). “For you were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8). St. Peter even admits this, saying to Jesus: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Luke 5:8).
The sinners of the world are certainly our brothers and sisters—all part of the family. At Lourdes Our Lady makes Bernadette do penance for sinners, commanding her to “Kiss the ground as a penance for sinners.” At Fatima Our Lady even asks little children to get serious about saving the souls of sinners: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners?” She makes the children the keepers of their sinful brothers and sisters throughout the world.
Sleeper Keepers
Yet those who are supposed to be the “Keepers” have turned out to be “Sleepers.” This brings us back to response to Our Lady’s requests, as cited by Fr. Fuentes as a result of his meeting with Sister Lucia on December 26th, 1957, Fr. Fuentes said: “The first thing she said to me was: ‘Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good, nor the bad. The good continue on with their life of virtue and apostolate, but they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners keep following the road of evil, because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them.’”
It is reminiscent of Our Lord’s parable in the Gospel: “A certain man had two sons; and coming to the first, he said: Son, go work today in my vineyard. And he answering, said: ‘I will not!’ But afterwards, being moved with repentance, he went. And coming to the other, he said in like manner. And he answering, said: ‘I go, Sir!’ and he went not” (Matthew 21:28-30).
The Catholic world has been asked to comply with Our Lady’s messages and warnings and it has barely done so. With less than 4% of Catholics praying the Rosary daily, and less than 2% praying it more than once a week, and only 2% praying it once a week every week—we are in a perilous mess! This can’t be the best kept secret in the world, yet few people know it because few people care to know it; and those who do know it, couldn’t care less and do little or nothing to get people in their own circles to change.
Hitting the Nail on the Head
Our Lady hit the nail on the head, as regards the reason for this failure, when she said: “The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God ... The love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement … The priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness [and will] let themselves be dazzled by the false glamor of honors and human greatness, while others are blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness, that immense evil which in religious houses destroys their fervor.”
Article 2
Monday October 2nd, 2023
Why Our Rosaries Usually Fail to Produce Results
Monday October 2nd, 2023
Why Our Rosaries Usually Fail to Produce Results
Spinning Wheels, Barren Rosary
Have you ever spun your wheels of your car? In winter time, with snow and ice on the ground, it can sometimes be hard for your car wheels to get traction―and so, not matter how hard you press down you accelerator pedal, you end up going nowhere, or you move very little! The same can be said about praying the Holy Rosary―we pray and pray, but seem to be getting nowhere! We pray hard and fast―and still get nowhere! We say many Rosaries―and nothing happens!
Lessons from a Master
St. Louis de Montfort speaks of this problem in his book, The Secret of the Rosary, wherein he writes:
“A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly. Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should …
“To say the Holy Rosary with advantage, one must be in a state of grace, or at least be fully determined to give up sin, for all our theology teaches us that good works and prayers are dead works if they are done in a state of mortal sin.
“The stronger our Faith the more merit our Rosary will have. This Faith must be lively and informed by charity; in other words, to recite the Rosary properly it is necessary to be in God’s grace, or at least seeking it.
“In order to pray well, it is not enough to give expression to our petitions by means of that most excellent of all prayers, the Rosary, but we must also pray with great attention, for God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin.
Who on Earth Are You Talking To?
“How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? How can we expect him to be pleased if, while in the presence of His tremendous Majesty, we give in to distractions, like a child running after a butterfly? People who do that forfeit God’s blessing, which is changed into a curse for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: “Cursed be the one who does God’s work negligently” (Jeremias 48:10).
“When the Rosary is well said, it gives Jesus and Mary more glory and is more meritorious for the soul than any other prayer. But it is also the hardest prayer to say well and to persevere in, owing especially to the distractions which almost inevitably attend the constant repetition of the same words. Of course, you cannot say your Rosary without having a few involuntary distractions; it is even difficult to say a Hail Mary without your imagination troubling you a little, for it is never still; but you can say it without voluntary distractions, and you must take all sorts of precautions to lessen involuntary distractions and to control your imagination.
“To do this, put yourself in the presence of God and imagine that God and his Blessed Mother are watching you, and that your guardian angel is at your right hand, taking your Hail Marys, if they are well said, and using them like roses to make crowns for Jesus and Mary. Our imagination, which is hardly still a minute, makes our task harder, and then of course there is the devil, who never tires of trying to distract us and keep us from praying. To what ends does not the evil one go against us while we are engaged in saying our Rosary against him. Remember that at your left hand is the devil, ready to pounce on every Hail Mary that comes his way and to write it down in his book of death, if they are not said with attention, devotion, and reverence.
Meditation is the Key
“Our Lady also taught it to Blessed Alan de la Roche and said to him in a vision, “When people say 150 Hail Marys, that prayer is very helpful to them and a most pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me more if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of this prayer.” For the Rosary said without the meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation would almost be a body without a soul, excellent matter, but without the form, which is the meditation.
“Above all, do not fail to offer up each decade in honor of one of the mysteries, and try to form a picture in your mind of Jesus and Mary in connection with that mystery … We must not only say the Rosary with our lips in honor of Jesus and Mary, but also meditate upon the sacred mysteries while we are saying it … A Christian who does not meditate on the mysteries of the Rosary is very ungrateful to Our Lord and shows how little he cares for all that our divine Savior has suffered to save the world. This attitude seems to show that he knows little or nothing of the life of Jesus Christ, and that he has never taken the trouble to find out what He has done and what He went through in order to save us. A Christian of that kind ought to fear that, not having known Jesus Christ or having put Him out of his mind, Jesus will reject him on the Day of Judgment with the reproach: “I tell you solemnly, I do not know you!”
“We read in the life of Blessed Hermann of the Order of the Premonstratensians, that at one time when he used to say the Rosary attentively and devoutly while meditating on the mysteries, Our Lady used to appear to him resplendent in breathtaking majesty and beauty. But, as time went on, his fervor cooled and he fell into the way of saying his Rosary hurriedly and without giving it his full attention. Then one day Our Lady appeared to him again, but this time she was far from beautiful, and her face was furrowed and drawn with sadness. Blessed Hermann was appalled at the change in her, and Our Lady explained, “This is how I look to you, Hermann, because this is how you are treating me; as a woman to be despised and of no importance. Why do you no longer greet me with respect and attention while meditating on my mysteries and praising my privileges?”
Tackling the Pitfalls
“Being human, we easily become tired and slipshod, but the devil makes these difficulties worse when we are saying the Rosary. Before we even begin, he makes us feel bored, distracted, or exhausted; and when we have started praying, he oppresses us from all sides, and when after much difficulty and many distractions, we have finished, he whispers to us, “What you have just said is worthless. It is useless for you to say the Rosary. You had better get on with other things. It is only a waste of time to pray without paying attention to what you are saying; half‑an‑hour’s meditation or some spiritual reading would be much better. Tomorrow, when you are not feeling so sluggish, you’ll pray better; leave the rest of your Rosary till then.” By tricks of this kind the devil gets us to give up the Rosary altogether or to say it less often, and we keep putting it off or change to some other devotion.
“Dear friend, do not listen to the devil, but be of good heart, even if your imagination has been bothering you throughout your Rosary, filling your mind with all kinds of distracting thoughts, so long as you tried your best to get rid of them as soon as you noticed them. Always remember that the best Rosary is the one with the most merit, and there is more merit in praying when it is hard than when it is easy. Prayer is all the harder when it is, naturally speaking, distasteful to the soul and is filled with those annoying little ants and flies running about in your imagination, against your will, and scarcely allowing you the time to enjoy a little peace and appreciate the beauty of what you are saying.
“Even if you have to fight distractions all through your whole Rosary, be sure to fight well, arms in hand: that is to say, do not stop saying your Rosary even if it is difficult to say and you have no sensible devotion. It is a terrible battle, but one that is profitable to the faithful soul. If you put down your arms, that is, if you give up the Rosary, you will be admitting defeat and then the devil, having got what he wanted, will leave you in peace, and on the Day of Judgment will taunt you because of your faithlessness and lack of courage. “He who is faithful in little things will also be faithful in those that are greater” (Luke 16:10).
“He who is faithful in rejecting the smallest distractions when he says even the smallest prayer, will also be faithful in great things. Nothing is more certain, since the Holy Spirit has told us so. So all of you, who have made up your minds to say the Rosary every day, be of good heart. Do not let the multitude of flies (as I call the distractions that make war on you during prayer) make you abandon the company of Jesus and Mary, in whose holy presence you are when saying the Rosary. In what follows I shall give you suggestions for diminishing distractions in prayer.
“After you have invoked the Holy Spirit, in order to say your Rosary well, place yourself for a moment in the presence of God and make the offering of the decades in the way I will show you later. Before beginning a decade, pause for a moment or two, depending on how much time you have, and contemplate the mystery that you are about to honor in that decade. Always be sure to ask, by this mystery and through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, for one of the virtues that shines forth most in this mystery or one of which you are in particular need.
The Two Great Pitfalls
“Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin.
“The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will.
“It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it!
“Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before.
Pause, Pause, Pause, Pause, Pause!
“I beg you to restrain your natural haste when saying your Rosary, and make some pauses in the middle of the Our Father and Hail Mary, and a smaller one after the words of the Our Father and Hail Mary which I have marked with a cross, as follows:
OUR FATHER, Who art in Heaven, X hallowed by Thy Name, X Thy kingdom come, X Thy will be done X on Earth as it is in Heaven. X Give us this day X our daily bread, X and forgive us our trespasses X as we forgive those who trespass against us, X and lead us not into temptation, X but deliver us from evil. X Amen.
HAIL, MARY, full of grace, X the Lord is with thee, X blessed art thou among women, X and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. X Holy Mary, Mother of God, X pray for us sinners, now X and at the hour of our death. X Amen.
GLORY BE to the Father X and to the Son X and to the Holy Ghost, X as it was in the beginning, X is now and ever shall be, X world without end. X Amen.
“At first, you may find it difficult to make these pauses because of your bad habit of saying prayers in a hurry; but a decade said recollectedly in this way will be worth more than thousands of Rosaries said in a hurry, without pausing or reflecting.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, extracts from various parts of the book).
Prayer is Essential for Salvation
The most simple definition of prayer is the following: “Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God.” Prayer is a conversation―silent or spoken―with God in Heaven. If you want to go to Heaven, then you had better start communicating with Heaven―and communicating well. If you want a favor from someone, then you have to talk to that person and talk nicely and not offend them in any way! The same is true of God! Our Lord warns: “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me!’” (Matthew 7:21-23). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). And one of those “things” which He says we must do is pray―“And He spoke also a parable to them, that we ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1), and of those prayers He adds: “And I say to you―Ask and it shall be given you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you!” (Luke 11:9), whilst warning us against insincerity: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8).
Not All Prayer and Sacrifice is Good Prayer and Sacrifice
Yet that “asking, seeking and knocking” by prayer cannot be just any old kind of prayer. God is the greatest and most perfect being―we cannot offer Him any old kind of prayer, we cannot give Him second best―which was the fault of Cain and which is why God rejected Cain’s sacrifice while accepting Abel’s sacrifice: “The Lord had respect to Abel and to his offerings. But to Cain and his offerings He had no respect” (Genesis 4:4-5). Scripture adds: “By Faith Abel offered to God a sacrifice exceeding that of Cain” (Hebrews 11:4). In using the words “by Faith” we can deduce that Abel’s mind and heart were fully engaged in his offerings to God. Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd. “Abel offered of the firstlings of his flock, and of their fat” ― the firstling was regarded as the most precious (Genesis 4:4), but Cain did not offer the first-fruits or best fruits of the land, but just regular fruits: “Cain offered, of the fruits of the earth, gifts to the Lord” (Genesis 4:3). If Abel is giving God the equivalent of filet mignon, Cain is giving God ground beef. This is a difference in both Faith and works. By Faith, Abel gives God everything. Cain merely phones it in. Abel’s heart is focused on God, Cain’s heart is not.
Prayer―asking, seeking, knocking―shows our need for God, His grace and His help. Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Unfortunately, in this modern-day false sense of independence, we also tend to try and do things without God. Why ask God when you can do it yourself? Our Lord just shot down that false claim by saying: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” What is it about the word “nothing” that we do not understand? Our Lord, by saying “Without Me, you can do nothing!” is automatically saying “You must do everything with Me, by Me, through Me, in Me!” Yes―everything! Down to the tiniest details! Jesus tells us that “even the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:30) God is so great that He is able to take infinite interest in the most intimate details of our lives. There is nothing so small that it escapes His notice, and there is no concern too trivial to bring before Him. God―Father Son and Holy Ghost―is to be involved in EVERYTHING and is not meant to be relegated to the closet and brought out from the closet only in important matters! If―when we make our True Devotion Consecration to Mary―we consecrate to Jesus through Mary ALL our thoughts, ALL our words, ALL our actions, ALL our belongings, etc. ― then ALL means ALL and not just some thoughts, words, actions and belongings. ALL means EVERYTHING―great and small, important and unimportant, joyful and sorrowful, a pin-prick or major surgery, a penny or a million dollars, one single step or a thousand steps, etc.
Our Lady Reveals What is Needed
At her modern-day apparitions, Our Lady repeatedly asked for prayers and sacrifices (penances). At Lourdes she strongly insisted upon penance―repeating firmly three times: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” At Fatima she said: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” At La Salette she complained that “the chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! People only think of amusements!” Among prayers she particularly insisted upon the Rosary: “Say many Rosaries!” (Fatima, May 1917). “Say the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, June 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). “Continue to say the Rosary every day! Pray, pray very much!” (Fatima, August 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (Fatima, September 1917). “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, October 1917). “Pray very much! … Be faithful and fervent in prayer! … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach!” (Akita, 1973).
Nevertheless, we should first give Our Lady “quality” Rosaries before we try giving “quantity” Rosaries. Our Rosaries should be an offering like Abel’s―the best; and not like Cain’s offering―second best. What makes a Rosary a good Rosary? The easiest thing to fix in bad Rosaries is the speed in which we “say” them rather than “pray” them. If prayer is a conversation with God, the Angels and Saints―then we should pray just like we talk to other people. Our conversation and the sentences we use are interspersed with pauses―we do talk as though we have “verbal diarrhea”! Yet when we pray the Rosary it is usually as though we are having a bad bout of “verbal diarrhea”! We take in a deep breath and then we start: “HailMaryfullofgracetheLordiswiththeeBlessedartthouamongwomenandblessedisthefruitoftheywombJesus!” Then we draw another deep breath and continue: “HolyMaryMotherofGodprayforussinnersnowandatthehourofourdeathAmen!” How do you think our family, friends, neighbors and work colleagues would react if regularly talked to them with “verbal diarrhea”? They would not be around us for very long and would quickly walk away in disgust! Or imagine going to an interview for a very important job with the prospective employer and talking like that all through the interview―are you going to land the job? Yet that is how we talk to our “prospective Employer”―God―Whom we hope will employ for eternity in Heaven!
Our Lady of La Salette asked the two children, Melanie and Matthieu, “Do you say your prayers properly, my children?” They sheepishly answered: “Oh! No, Madame, not so much!” At Fatima, Lucia admits that prior to Our Lady’s apparitions the three children said the Rosary very badly―instead of saying the entire Hail Mary, they would simply say: “Ave Maria! Amen!” so that they would have more time to play! In this fashion, you could say a five-decade Rosary in around 90 seconds! Nevertheless, the children at La Salette and Fatima radically improved the way they prayed after Our Lady appeared to them. Do we really need Our Lady to personally appear to us to make us pray better?
Have you ever spun your wheels of your car? In winter time, with snow and ice on the ground, it can sometimes be hard for your car wheels to get traction―and so, not matter how hard you press down you accelerator pedal, you end up going nowhere, or you move very little! The same can be said about praying the Holy Rosary―we pray and pray, but seem to be getting nowhere! We pray hard and fast―and still get nowhere! We say many Rosaries―and nothing happens!
Lessons from a Master
St. Louis de Montfort speaks of this problem in his book, The Secret of the Rosary, wherein he writes:
“A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly. Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should …
“To say the Holy Rosary with advantage, one must be in a state of grace, or at least be fully determined to give up sin, for all our theology teaches us that good works and prayers are dead works if they are done in a state of mortal sin.
“The stronger our Faith the more merit our Rosary will have. This Faith must be lively and informed by charity; in other words, to recite the Rosary properly it is necessary to be in God’s grace, or at least seeking it.
“In order to pray well, it is not enough to give expression to our petitions by means of that most excellent of all prayers, the Rosary, but we must also pray with great attention, for God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin.
Who on Earth Are You Talking To?
“How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? How can we expect him to be pleased if, while in the presence of His tremendous Majesty, we give in to distractions, like a child running after a butterfly? People who do that forfeit God’s blessing, which is changed into a curse for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: “Cursed be the one who does God’s work negligently” (Jeremias 48:10).
“When the Rosary is well said, it gives Jesus and Mary more glory and is more meritorious for the soul than any other prayer. But it is also the hardest prayer to say well and to persevere in, owing especially to the distractions which almost inevitably attend the constant repetition of the same words. Of course, you cannot say your Rosary without having a few involuntary distractions; it is even difficult to say a Hail Mary without your imagination troubling you a little, for it is never still; but you can say it without voluntary distractions, and you must take all sorts of precautions to lessen involuntary distractions and to control your imagination.
“To do this, put yourself in the presence of God and imagine that God and his Blessed Mother are watching you, and that your guardian angel is at your right hand, taking your Hail Marys, if they are well said, and using them like roses to make crowns for Jesus and Mary. Our imagination, which is hardly still a minute, makes our task harder, and then of course there is the devil, who never tires of trying to distract us and keep us from praying. To what ends does not the evil one go against us while we are engaged in saying our Rosary against him. Remember that at your left hand is the devil, ready to pounce on every Hail Mary that comes his way and to write it down in his book of death, if they are not said with attention, devotion, and reverence.
Meditation is the Key
“Our Lady also taught it to Blessed Alan de la Roche and said to him in a vision, “When people say 150 Hail Marys, that prayer is very helpful to them and a most pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me more if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of this prayer.” For the Rosary said without the meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation would almost be a body without a soul, excellent matter, but without the form, which is the meditation.
“Above all, do not fail to offer up each decade in honor of one of the mysteries, and try to form a picture in your mind of Jesus and Mary in connection with that mystery … We must not only say the Rosary with our lips in honor of Jesus and Mary, but also meditate upon the sacred mysteries while we are saying it … A Christian who does not meditate on the mysteries of the Rosary is very ungrateful to Our Lord and shows how little he cares for all that our divine Savior has suffered to save the world. This attitude seems to show that he knows little or nothing of the life of Jesus Christ, and that he has never taken the trouble to find out what He has done and what He went through in order to save us. A Christian of that kind ought to fear that, not having known Jesus Christ or having put Him out of his mind, Jesus will reject him on the Day of Judgment with the reproach: “I tell you solemnly, I do not know you!”
“We read in the life of Blessed Hermann of the Order of the Premonstratensians, that at one time when he used to say the Rosary attentively and devoutly while meditating on the mysteries, Our Lady used to appear to him resplendent in breathtaking majesty and beauty. But, as time went on, his fervor cooled and he fell into the way of saying his Rosary hurriedly and without giving it his full attention. Then one day Our Lady appeared to him again, but this time she was far from beautiful, and her face was furrowed and drawn with sadness. Blessed Hermann was appalled at the change in her, and Our Lady explained, “This is how I look to you, Hermann, because this is how you are treating me; as a woman to be despised and of no importance. Why do you no longer greet me with respect and attention while meditating on my mysteries and praising my privileges?”
Tackling the Pitfalls
“Being human, we easily become tired and slipshod, but the devil makes these difficulties worse when we are saying the Rosary. Before we even begin, he makes us feel bored, distracted, or exhausted; and when we have started praying, he oppresses us from all sides, and when after much difficulty and many distractions, we have finished, he whispers to us, “What you have just said is worthless. It is useless for you to say the Rosary. You had better get on with other things. It is only a waste of time to pray without paying attention to what you are saying; half‑an‑hour’s meditation or some spiritual reading would be much better. Tomorrow, when you are not feeling so sluggish, you’ll pray better; leave the rest of your Rosary till then.” By tricks of this kind the devil gets us to give up the Rosary altogether or to say it less often, and we keep putting it off or change to some other devotion.
“Dear friend, do not listen to the devil, but be of good heart, even if your imagination has been bothering you throughout your Rosary, filling your mind with all kinds of distracting thoughts, so long as you tried your best to get rid of them as soon as you noticed them. Always remember that the best Rosary is the one with the most merit, and there is more merit in praying when it is hard than when it is easy. Prayer is all the harder when it is, naturally speaking, distasteful to the soul and is filled with those annoying little ants and flies running about in your imagination, against your will, and scarcely allowing you the time to enjoy a little peace and appreciate the beauty of what you are saying.
“Even if you have to fight distractions all through your whole Rosary, be sure to fight well, arms in hand: that is to say, do not stop saying your Rosary even if it is difficult to say and you have no sensible devotion. It is a terrible battle, but one that is profitable to the faithful soul. If you put down your arms, that is, if you give up the Rosary, you will be admitting defeat and then the devil, having got what he wanted, will leave you in peace, and on the Day of Judgment will taunt you because of your faithlessness and lack of courage. “He who is faithful in little things will also be faithful in those that are greater” (Luke 16:10).
“He who is faithful in rejecting the smallest distractions when he says even the smallest prayer, will also be faithful in great things. Nothing is more certain, since the Holy Spirit has told us so. So all of you, who have made up your minds to say the Rosary every day, be of good heart. Do not let the multitude of flies (as I call the distractions that make war on you during prayer) make you abandon the company of Jesus and Mary, in whose holy presence you are when saying the Rosary. In what follows I shall give you suggestions for diminishing distractions in prayer.
“After you have invoked the Holy Spirit, in order to say your Rosary well, place yourself for a moment in the presence of God and make the offering of the decades in the way I will show you later. Before beginning a decade, pause for a moment or two, depending on how much time you have, and contemplate the mystery that you are about to honor in that decade. Always be sure to ask, by this mystery and through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, for one of the virtues that shines forth most in this mystery or one of which you are in particular need.
The Two Great Pitfalls
“Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin.
“The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will.
“It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it!
“Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before.
Pause, Pause, Pause, Pause, Pause!
“I beg you to restrain your natural haste when saying your Rosary, and make some pauses in the middle of the Our Father and Hail Mary, and a smaller one after the words of the Our Father and Hail Mary which I have marked with a cross, as follows:
OUR FATHER, Who art in Heaven, X hallowed by Thy Name, X Thy kingdom come, X Thy will be done X on Earth as it is in Heaven. X Give us this day X our daily bread, X and forgive us our trespasses X as we forgive those who trespass against us, X and lead us not into temptation, X but deliver us from evil. X Amen.
HAIL, MARY, full of grace, X the Lord is with thee, X blessed art thou among women, X and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. X Holy Mary, Mother of God, X pray for us sinners, now X and at the hour of our death. X Amen.
GLORY BE to the Father X and to the Son X and to the Holy Ghost, X as it was in the beginning, X is now and ever shall be, X world without end. X Amen.
“At first, you may find it difficult to make these pauses because of your bad habit of saying prayers in a hurry; but a decade said recollectedly in this way will be worth more than thousands of Rosaries said in a hurry, without pausing or reflecting.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, extracts from various parts of the book).
Prayer is Essential for Salvation
The most simple definition of prayer is the following: “Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God.” Prayer is a conversation―silent or spoken―with God in Heaven. If you want to go to Heaven, then you had better start communicating with Heaven―and communicating well. If you want a favor from someone, then you have to talk to that person and talk nicely and not offend them in any way! The same is true of God! Our Lord warns: “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me!’” (Matthew 7:21-23). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). And one of those “things” which He says we must do is pray―“And He spoke also a parable to them, that we ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1), and of those prayers He adds: “And I say to you―Ask and it shall be given you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you!” (Luke 11:9), whilst warning us against insincerity: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8).
Not All Prayer and Sacrifice is Good Prayer and Sacrifice
Yet that “asking, seeking and knocking” by prayer cannot be just any old kind of prayer. God is the greatest and most perfect being―we cannot offer Him any old kind of prayer, we cannot give Him second best―which was the fault of Cain and which is why God rejected Cain’s sacrifice while accepting Abel’s sacrifice: “The Lord had respect to Abel and to his offerings. But to Cain and his offerings He had no respect” (Genesis 4:4-5). Scripture adds: “By Faith Abel offered to God a sacrifice exceeding that of Cain” (Hebrews 11:4). In using the words “by Faith” we can deduce that Abel’s mind and heart were fully engaged in his offerings to God. Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd. “Abel offered of the firstlings of his flock, and of their fat” ― the firstling was regarded as the most precious (Genesis 4:4), but Cain did not offer the first-fruits or best fruits of the land, but just regular fruits: “Cain offered, of the fruits of the earth, gifts to the Lord” (Genesis 4:3). If Abel is giving God the equivalent of filet mignon, Cain is giving God ground beef. This is a difference in both Faith and works. By Faith, Abel gives God everything. Cain merely phones it in. Abel’s heart is focused on God, Cain’s heart is not.
Prayer―asking, seeking, knocking―shows our need for God, His grace and His help. Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Unfortunately, in this modern-day false sense of independence, we also tend to try and do things without God. Why ask God when you can do it yourself? Our Lord just shot down that false claim by saying: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” What is it about the word “nothing” that we do not understand? Our Lord, by saying “Without Me, you can do nothing!” is automatically saying “You must do everything with Me, by Me, through Me, in Me!” Yes―everything! Down to the tiniest details! Jesus tells us that “even the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:30) God is so great that He is able to take infinite interest in the most intimate details of our lives. There is nothing so small that it escapes His notice, and there is no concern too trivial to bring before Him. God―Father Son and Holy Ghost―is to be involved in EVERYTHING and is not meant to be relegated to the closet and brought out from the closet only in important matters! If―when we make our True Devotion Consecration to Mary―we consecrate to Jesus through Mary ALL our thoughts, ALL our words, ALL our actions, ALL our belongings, etc. ― then ALL means ALL and not just some thoughts, words, actions and belongings. ALL means EVERYTHING―great and small, important and unimportant, joyful and sorrowful, a pin-prick or major surgery, a penny or a million dollars, one single step or a thousand steps, etc.
Our Lady Reveals What is Needed
At her modern-day apparitions, Our Lady repeatedly asked for prayers and sacrifices (penances). At Lourdes she strongly insisted upon penance―repeating firmly three times: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” At Fatima she said: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” At La Salette she complained that “the chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! People only think of amusements!” Among prayers she particularly insisted upon the Rosary: “Say many Rosaries!” (Fatima, May 1917). “Say the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, June 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). “Continue to say the Rosary every day! Pray, pray very much!” (Fatima, August 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (Fatima, September 1917). “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, October 1917). “Pray very much! … Be faithful and fervent in prayer! … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach!” (Akita, 1973).
Nevertheless, we should first give Our Lady “quality” Rosaries before we try giving “quantity” Rosaries. Our Rosaries should be an offering like Abel’s―the best; and not like Cain’s offering―second best. What makes a Rosary a good Rosary? The easiest thing to fix in bad Rosaries is the speed in which we “say” them rather than “pray” them. If prayer is a conversation with God, the Angels and Saints―then we should pray just like we talk to other people. Our conversation and the sentences we use are interspersed with pauses―we do talk as though we have “verbal diarrhea”! Yet when we pray the Rosary it is usually as though we are having a bad bout of “verbal diarrhea”! We take in a deep breath and then we start: “HailMaryfullofgracetheLordiswiththeeBlessedartthouamongwomenandblessedisthefruitoftheywombJesus!” Then we draw another deep breath and continue: “HolyMaryMotherofGodprayforussinnersnowandatthehourofourdeathAmen!” How do you think our family, friends, neighbors and work colleagues would react if regularly talked to them with “verbal diarrhea”? They would not be around us for very long and would quickly walk away in disgust! Or imagine going to an interview for a very important job with the prospective employer and talking like that all through the interview―are you going to land the job? Yet that is how we talk to our “prospective Employer”―God―Whom we hope will employ for eternity in Heaven!
Our Lady of La Salette asked the two children, Melanie and Matthieu, “Do you say your prayers properly, my children?” They sheepishly answered: “Oh! No, Madame, not so much!” At Fatima, Lucia admits that prior to Our Lady’s apparitions the three children said the Rosary very badly―instead of saying the entire Hail Mary, they would simply say: “Ave Maria! Amen!” so that they would have more time to play! In this fashion, you could say a five-decade Rosary in around 90 seconds! Nevertheless, the children at La Salette and Fatima radically improved the way they prayed after Our Lady appeared to them. Do we really need Our Lady to personally appear to us to make us pray better?
Article 1
Sunday October 1st, 2023
The Rosary is THE Weapon!
Sunday October 1st, 2023
The Rosary is THE Weapon!
Simple but Powerful
When we speak of weapons today, we envisage high-end technology weapons, complicated to make and sometimes complicated to use. Soldiers receive incredible amounts of training to be qualified to use such weapons. Imagine what knowledge, expertise, experimentation and money that has to go into the manufacturing of such weapons!
God is not man―and God’s ways are not our ways: “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). God―since He is almighty―makes all things easy: “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Luke 18:27). The things that men toil over―God can do in no time at all! Just think of the time, money and effort spent in medicines and surgery to try and restore the health of a sick a person! Christ achieved that in mere seconds. At His mere command of only a few words―the lame could walk again; the blind could see again; the deaf could hear again; the dumb could speak again, etc. “All they that had any sick with diverse diseases, brought them to Jesus. But He, laying His hands on every one of them, healed them” (Luke 4:40). “They brought to Him many that were possessed with devils―and he cast out the spirits with His word, and all that were sick He healed” (Matthew 8:16).
We see God the Son act in the same simple, but powerful way, in the miracles that he performed. Not much fuss, just simple actions or simple commands:
► The leper said “‘Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.’ And Jesus stretching forth His hand, touched him, saying: ‘I will, be thou made clean!’ And forthwith his leprosy was cleansed.” (Matthew 8:2-3). Simple, but powerful!
► “And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying, and sick of a fever: and He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose and ministered to them.” (Matthew 8:14-15). Simple, but powerful!
► “And behold they brought to Him one sick of the palsy, lying in a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, … said: ‘Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house!’ And he arose, and went into his house.” (Matthew 9:2-7). Simple, but powerful!
► “Jesus said: ‘Give place, for the girl is not dead, but sleepeth!’ And they laughed Him to scorn. And when the multitude was put forth, He went in, and took her by the hand. And the maid arose.” (Matthew 9:24-25). Simple, but powerful!
► “And when He was come to the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus saith to them, ‘Do you believe, that I can do this unto you?’ They say to him, ‘Yea, Lord!’ Then He touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith, be it done unto you!’ And their eyes were opened.” (Matthew 9:28-30). Simple, but powerful!
► “They besought Jesus that they might touch but the hem of His garment. And as many as touched, were made whole.” (Matthew 14:36). Simple, but powerful!
► “And taking the seven loaves and the fishes, and giving thanks, He brake, and gave to His disciples, and the disciples to the people. And they did all eat, and had their fill. And they took up seven baskets full, of what remained of the fragments. And they that did eat, were four thousand men, beside children and women.” (Matthew 15:26:38). Simple, but powerful!
► “Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out of him, and the child was cured from that hour.” (Matthew 17:17).
► “And behold two blind men, sitting by the way side, cried out, saying: O Lord, Thou son of David, have mercy on us .... And Jesus stood, and called them, and said: ‘What will ye that I do to you?’ They say to Him: ‘Lord, that our eyes be opened!’ And Jesus having compassion on them, touched their eyes. And immediately they saw, and followed Him.” (Matthew 20:20-34). Simple, but powerful!
► “And Jesus entered again into the synagogue, and there was a man there who had a withered hand ... He saith to the man: ‘Stretch forth thy hand!’ And he stretched it forth: and his hand was restored unto him.” (Mark 3:1-5).
► “As Jesus was in the ship: and there were other ships with Him. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that the ship was filled. And He was sleeping; and they awake Him, and say to Him: ‘Master, doth it not concern Thee that we perish?’ And rising up, He rebuked the wind, and said to the sea: Peace, be still. And the wind ceased: and there was made a great calm.” (Mark 4:36-39). Simple, but powerful!
► “And whithersoever he entered, into towns or into villages or cities, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that they might touch but the hem of His garment: and as many as touched Him were made whole.” (Mark 6:56). Simple, but powerful!
► “When Jesus had said these things, He cried with a loud voice: ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ And he, that had been dead, came forth, bound feet and hands with winding bands; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them: ‘Loose him, and let him go!’” (John 11:43:44). Simple, but powerful!
Back in the time of Noe, God wiped out the entire world without any nuclear weapons―just by producing 40 days and nights of torrential rain all over the Earth. That is some our weather controlling scientists cannot do!
With God nothing is impossible! As the Archangel Gabriel said to Mary, at the Annunciation “No word shall be impossible with God!” (Luke 1:37). Which was later echoed by Jesus, when He said “With God all things are possible!” Matthew 19:26). With God, the impossible is simply possible—because God is God, and whatever He wants, happens!
Compare that to strenuous, belabored, long-drawn-out, time consuming and often unsuccessful attempts of man. Yet man proudly and pompously persists in his preferred path of trying to “go it alone” and do without God!
The Sacraments convey that same simplicity and power. At Baptism, can we fully grasp the incredible things that happen at the simple, but powerful, words “I baptize thee, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” while simple water is simply poured on the one being baptized? Miracles of grace suddenly take place! The baptized has Original Sin and all their personal sins removed; grace is poured into the soul; the Gifts of the Holy Ghost are planted within the soul; the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity come into the soul; the person becomes an adopted child of God and an heir to the kingdom of Heaven! Simple words and actions, but an awesome and powerful result!
The same can be said of the Sacrament of Confession. Even though the priest may say additional prayers while giving absolution from sin, the key words are “I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen” while making a sign of the cross over the penitent. The worst crimes, the most shameful sins, no matter how many times committed, can be forgiven and forgotten by God using those simple words and actions.
When there is an impossibility to get to Confession, in such a case it is possible (though not guaranteed) that one short true act of perfect contrition (which is more than a mere mechanical, lukewarm, automatic churning-out of the words of a formula) can remove all guilt of sin and restore grace to the soul (provided one intends to confess those sins at the soonest possible time). Note, that we say TRUE and PERFECT act of contrition! This is sorrow that is based upon a true love of God, not a fear of His punishments. It is amazing what God will do when He sees that we TRULY mean those words “I am sorry!” “I love you!”
The same applies to the Consecration at Mass, when God, using the ministry of His servants, the priests, changes mere bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of His Only-Begotten Son. What brings about such an awesome miracle? Again, like the Sacrament of Confession, even though more words are used, the essential words are the simple ones of “This is My Body” and “This is My Blood.” Simple words, beautiful result! Simply beautiful!
Even the Saints Did It
Even the saints did things similar to those of Jesus in simple but powerful ways.
By the power of God, Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to cross and escape the pursuing Egyptian army: “And when Moses had stretched forth his hand over the sea, the Lord took it away by a strong and burning wind blowing all the night, and turned it into dry ground: and the water was divided. And the children of Israel went in through the midst of the sea dried up―for the water was as a wall on their right hand and on their left” (Exodus 14:21-22).
“Moses prayed to the Lord and fire came down from Heaven, and consumed the holocaust! So also Solomon prayed, and fire came down from Heaven and consumed the holocaust!” (2 Machabees 2:10). “When Solomon had made an end of his prayer, fire came down from Heaven, and consumed the holocausts and the victims and the majesty of the Lord filled the house” (2 Paralipomenon 7:1).
“Elias the prophet stood up as a fire, and his word burnt like a torch!” (Ecclesiasticus 48:1). At the end of his life on Earth, “a fiery chariot and fiery horses took Elias by a whirlwind up into Heaven” (4 Kings 2:11). Elias was also known for his “fiery escapades” whereby he obtained from God fire from Heaven. In his spiritual duel with the pagan prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, Elias calls down fire from Heaven to inflame his water-sodden sacrifice (3 Kings 18:19). On another occasion, Elias commanded fire to fall from Heaven and consume a captain with his fifty soldiers―and then repeated the same miracle when the net band of soldiers came to get him the captain of fifty: “And there came down fire from Heaven, and consumed him, and the fifty that were with him” (4 Kings 1:10-12).
The Prophet Elias “stretched, and measured himself upon the child three times, and cried to the Lord, and said: ‘O Lord my God, let the soul of this child, I beseech thee, return into his body!’ And the Lord heard the voice of Elias: and the soul of the child returned into him, and he revived.” (3 Kings 21-22).
The Prophet Eliseus tells Naaman the leper, to simply wash seven times in the Jordan. Naaman thought this was ridiculously simplistic and was about to go home, until his servant persuaded him to try it—and lo and behold, he was cured (4 Kings 1-14).
A boy with a simple sling shot and one pebble kills Goliath, whom the weapons and soldiers of the Israelites had failed to defeat. “David chose five smooth stones out of the brook and he took a sling in his hand, and went forth against the Philistine [Goliath] … And when the Philistine arose and was coming, and drew nigh to meet David, David made haste, and ran to the fight to meet the Philistine. And he put his hand into his scrip and took a stone, and cast it with the sling, and struck the Philistine in the forehead. And the stone was fixed in his forehead, and he fell on his face upon the earth. And David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and he struck and slew the Philistine. And, as David had no sword in his hand, he ran and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword and drew it out of the sheath, and slew him and cut off his head. And the Philistines, seeing that their champion was dead, fled away” (1 Kings 17:40, 48-51).
Modern Day Pebbles
You could say that the five smooth stones or pebbles that David took out of the waters of the brook, represent the five decades of the Rosary. The beads of our Rosaries should be worn-down smooth through its constant use in prayer. The Rosary beads, on their chain, loosely resemble a sling―and we should be slinging our Hail Marys at our enemies: Satan, the world and our own flesh with its sinful tendencies.
Sister Lucia of Fatima says that Our Lady revealed to her that the Rosary is weapon and tool that we should use in all our needs and problems today: “Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world. As for the Holy Rosary, Father, in these last times in which we are living, the Blessed Virgin has given a new efficacy to the praying of the Holy Rosary. This in such a way that there is no problem that cannot be resolved by praying the Rosary, no matter how difficult it is ― be it temporal or above all spiritual ― in the spiritual life of each of us, or the lives of our families, be they our families in the world or Religious Communities, or even in the lives of peoples and nations. I repeat, there is no problem, as difficult as it may be, that we cannot resolve at this time by praying the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves, sanctify ourselves, console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.” (Sister Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
It is hardly surprising that St. Padre Pio―who was alive throughout the years of Lucia’s life on Earth―used to say: “The Rosary is THE weapon!” As a true son of Our Lady, Padre Pio loved the Rosary and is reputed to have said the five-decade Rosary as many as 35 to 50 times per day (which is 175 to 250 decades per day). In many photographs, he is shown with his right hand hidden within the pocket, where he always kept his Rosary beads. Indeed, he urged all Catholics to “love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for the Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world.”
In a letter to Dom Umberto Maria Pasquale, an Italian Salesian priest, Sister Lucia of Fatima wrote: “The decadence which exists in the world is without doubt the consequence of a lack the spirit of prayer. It was in anticipation of this confusion that the Blessed Virgin recommended the recitation of the Rosary with such insistence. And, as the Rosary is, after the Mass, the most appropriate prayer for preserving the Faith in souls, the devil has unleashed his struggle against it. Unfortunately, we see the disasters he has caused ... We must defend souls against errors which can make them stray from the good road. I cannot help them other than by my poor and humble prayers and my sacrifices; but you, Fr. Umberto, you have a much more extended field of action to develop your apostolate. We cannot and we must not stop ourselves, nor allow, as Our Lord says, the sons of darkness to be more wise than the children of Light ... The Rosary is the most powerful weapon for defending ourselves on the field of battle.”
Padre Pio and THE Weapon
It is hardly surprising that St. Padre Pio―who was alive throughout the years of Lucia’s life on Earth―used to say: “The Rosary is THE weapon!” As a true son of Our Lady, Padre Pio loved the Rosary and is reputed to have said the five-decade Rosary as many as 35 to 50 times per day (which is 175 to 250 decades per day). In many photographs, he is shown with his right hand hidden within the pocket, where he always kept his Rosary beads. Indeed, he urged all Catholics to “love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for the Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world.”
Concerning the Rosary, Our Lady herself said to Padre Pio: “With this weapon you will win!” Later, to Padre (Fr.) Onorato Marcucci, grabbing the Rosary that he had put on the nightstand for a few seconds, Padre Pio said: “With this—one wins the battles!”
Convinced of the power of the Rosary, Padre Pio always held the Rosary in his hands. He used to carry, permanently, a Rosary in his hands and would pray it many times a day. Padre Marcellino testified that he had to help Padre Pio wash his hands one at a time, “because he didn’t want to let go of the Rosary beads, and passed the Rosary from one hand to the other.” One person said: “We always saw him with his Rosary in his hand — in the friary, in the halls, on the stairs, in the sacristy, in the Church, even in the brief interval when going to and coming from the confessional.” Padre Pio always wore the Rosary around his arm at night. Father Marcellino testified that he had to help Padre Pio wash his hands one at a time “because he didn’t want to leave the Rosary beads, and passed the Rosary from one hand to the other.”
Another person testifed: “When he reached the end of his life, he did not talk to us anymore, we told him our thoughts. We asked for help. And all he did was to show us the Rosary, always, always.” A few days before his death, as Padre Pio was getting into bed, he said to the friars who were in his room: “Give me my weapon!” And the friars, surprised and curious, asked him: “Where is the weapon? We cannot see anything!” Padre Pio replied: “It is in my habit, which you have just hung up!” After having gone through the pockets of his religious habit, the friars said to him: “Padre, there is no weapon in your habit! . . . We can only find your Rosary beads there!” Padre Pio immediately said: “And is this not a weapon? ... The true weapon?!”
Answering another question on how many Rosaries he was accustomed to praying, Padre Pio replied: “Some days I say forty Rosaries, some other days fifty. How do I do it?—How do you manage not to say any?” Padre Pio insisted: “Recite the Rosary and recite it always and as much as you can.” When his death was approaching, he recommended the Rosary to his spiritual children by saying: “Love Our Lady and make her loved. Always recite the Rosary.”
Padre Pio instructed his spiritual children: “In all the free time you have, once you have finished your duties of state, you should kneel down and pray the Rosary. Pray the Rosary before the Blessed Sacrament, or before a crucifix.” To Enedina Mori, Padre Pio said: “When you get tired reciting the Rosary, rest a bit, and then restart again!”
The Devil Admits the Power of the Rosary
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2106) chief exorcist of Rome, said that every single Hail Mary is like a hammer blow to a devil’s head (of course, the devil has no body and therefore no head―since he is an angelic spirit―but Fr. Amorth is speaking metaphorically): “One day a colleague of mine heard the devil say during an exorcism: ‘Every Hail Mary is like a blow on my head! If Christians knew how powerful the Rosary was, it would be my end!’ The secret that makes this prayer so effective is that the Rosary is both prayer and meditation ... Spread this powerful prayer of exorcism! Anyone who goes to Mary and prays the Rosary cannot be touched by Satan. Is it any wonder that anyone who prays the Rosary from the heart is so blessed and protected and powerful in their prayers for others?”
In his Secret of the Rosary, by St. Louis de Montfort recounts the incident that St. Dominic had with the devils during a particular exorcism that he was performing: “When St. Dominic was preaching the Rosary near Carcassone, an Albigensian was brought to him who was possessed by the devil. The Saint exorcised him in the presence of a great crowd of people. The devils possessing this man were forced to answer St. Dominic’s questions. They said: (1) that there were fifteen thousand of them in the body of that poor man, because he had attacked the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary; (2) that by the Rosary which he preached, he put fear and horror into the depths of Hell, and that he was the man they hated most throughout the world because of the souls he snatched from them by the devotion of the Rosary.
“St. Dominic put his Rosary round the neck of the possessed man and asked them who, of all the saints in Heaven, was the one they feared most. At this they let out unearthly screams and used all their cunning so as not to answer the question. Then the devils kept quiet and would not say another word, completely disregarding St. Dominic’s orders. So he knelt down and said a prayer to Our Lady. St. Dominic had scarcely finished this prayer when he saw the Blessed Virgin near at hand surrounded by a multitude of angels. She struck the possessed man with a golden rod that she held and said: “Answer my servant Dominic at once!”
“Then the devils started screaming: ‘Oh, you who are our enemy, our downfall and our destruction! Why have you come from Heaven to torture us so grievously? You who snatch the souls of sinners from the very jaws of Hell! Must we, in spite of ourselves, tell the whole truth and confess before everyone, who it is who is the cause of our shame and our ruin? Then listen, you Christians! This Mother of Jesus is most powerful in saving her servants from falling into Hell! She destroys the darkness of our wiles and subtlety! She uncovers our hidden plots, breaks our snares, and makes our temptations useless and ineffective! We have to say, however reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us! One single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity, is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints! We fear her more than all the other saints in Heaven together, and we have no success with her faithful servants! Many Christians―who call on her at the hour of death and who really ought to be damned according to our ordinary standards―are saved by her intercession! And if she did not counter our plans and our efforts, we should have overcome the Church and destroyed it long before this, and caused all the Orders in the Church to fall into error and infidelity! Now that we are forced to speak, we must also tell you that nobody who perseveres in saying the Rosary will be damned, because she obtains for her servants the grace of true contrition for their sins by which they obtain pardon and mercy!’” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Third Rose”).
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist of Rome, adds: “Mary helps greatly. The devil is terrified of Our Lady. He is terrified because Our Lady crushes his head. I have often been asked if Mary was tempted by the devil. Definitely! From her birth until her death! But she always conquered! And the devil, on certain occasions, has praised Mary, because God obliges him to say the truth. On one occasion an exorcist friend of mine asked the devil what most hurts him of Our Lady, what most annoys him. He responded: ‘The fact that she is the purest of all creatures and that I am the filthiest; that she is the most obedient of all creatures and that I am the most rebellious; that she is the one who committed no sin and thus always conquered me!’”
The Importance of Faith
When Holy Scripture speaks of Faith, it also includes hope and confidence with that Faith. Believing in God in theory alone is fine, but believing in God and confidently hoping that God will positively act in your life is far better. Our Lord performed miracles especially for those persons whose Faith was boosted by hope and confidence―as we see in the following examples (which are not exhaustive, but only samples).
“The blind men came to Him and Jesus said to them: ‘Do you believe that I can do this unto you?’ They said to Him: ‘Yes, Lord!’ Then he touched their eyes, saying: ‘According to your faith, be it done unto you!’” (Matthew 9:28-29)
“And behold a leper came and adored Him, saying: ‘Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean!’ And Jesus, stretching forth His hand, touched him, saying: ‘I will―be thou made clean!’ And forthwith his leprosy was cleansed” (Matthew 8:2-3).
“And when he had entered into Capharnaum, there came to him a centurion, beseeching Him and saying: ‘Lord, my servant lies at home sick of the palsy, and is grieviously tormented!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘I will come and heal him!’ And the centurion said: ‘Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof! Only say the word, and my servant shall be healed!’ And Jesus hearing this, marveled and said to them that followed Him: ‘Amen I say to you―I have not found so great faith in Israel!’” (Matthew 8:5-10).
The Canaanite women, whose daughter was afflicted by a devil, was repeatedly turned away and rejected by Apostles and then also Jesus. Nevertheless―despite the clear rejection and even insults―she “took it on the chin” and kept on coming and begging for help. Finally, Jesus said to her: Then Jesus answering, said to her: “‘O woman, great is thy faith! Be it done to thee as thou wilt!’ And her daughter was cured from that hour” (Matthew 15:28).
“And behold they brought to Him one sick of the palsy lying in a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the man sick of the palsy: ‘Be of good heart, son, thy sins are forgiven thee!’” (Matthew 9:2).
“And a woman who was suffering from an issue of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered many things from many physicians, having spent all the money that she had, was nothing for the better, but rather worse. When she had heard of Jesus, she came into the crowd behind him and touched His garment―for she said to herself: ‘If I shall touch but his garment, I shall be cured!’ And immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the evil. And immediately Jesus, knowing in Himself the power that had proceeded from Him, turning to the multitude, said: ‘Who touched My garments?’ The woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before Him and told him all the truth. And Jesus said to her: ‘Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole! Go in peace and be thou healed of thy disease!’” (Mark 5:25-34).
Moving Mountains by Faith
Hence it is that Jesus said: “Amen I say to you, if you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here to there!’ and it shall remove―and nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 17:19). However, pride and presumption will move nothing! A humble reliance upon God, great confidence in God, and a firm belief that God will act―are essential requirements when seeking to “tap-into” the power of God and obtain a miracle. To this should be added the need of being in state of sanctifying grace and not in a state of mortal sin.
The miracle of moving the mountain was actually achieved by several saints―one of whom was St. Simon the Tanner (Cobbler, Shoemaker), who lived in the 10th century. According to a traditional story, Caliph Al-Muizz, who reigned from 972–975, used to invite religious leaders to debate in his presence. In one such debate, the patriarch Abraham was asked to debate with a Jew named Yaqub Ibn Killis. Abraham got the upper hand in the debate and, as a consequence, Ibn Killis tried to discredit Abraham by quoting the verse where Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew: “Amen I say to you, if you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here to there!’ and it shall remove!’” and demanded that the patriarch Abraham prove that his religion is right by means of this. After hearing Ibn Killis say this, the Caliph asked Abraham: “What sayest thou concerning this word? Is it in your Gospel or not?” The patriarch answered: “Yes, it is in it.” After hearing Abraham answer, the Caliph demanded that this very miracle be performed by Abraham’s hand―or else he and all the Copts would be killed by the sword. The patriarch asked for three days to complete the miracle. Abraham gathered together a group of monks, priests and elders. He told them stay in the church for three days doing penance.
On the morning of the third day, Abraham was praying when he saw the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Holy Virgin told him to go to the great market, adding: “There thou wilt find a one-eyed man carrying on his shoulder a jar full of water! Seize him―for he it is at whose hands this miracle shall be manifested.” Abraham obeyed Our Lady and went to the market where he met the man the Holy Virgin spoke of. The man was Simon the Tanner, who had plucked out his eye because of a passage from the Bible: “And if thy right eye should scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it far from thee! For it is better for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than thy whole body be cast into Hell! And if thy right hand scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it far from thee! For it is better for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than thy whole body be cast into Hell!” (Matthew 5:29–30). Simon told Abraham to go out with his priests and all his people to the mountain with the Caliph and all his soldiers. Simon then told Abraham to cry out: “O Lord, have mercy!” three times and each time to make the sign of the cross over the mountain. The patriarch obeyed the instruction of Simon and the mountain was lifted. After the miracle was performed in the presence of the Caliph, the patriarch Abraham turned left and right looking for Simon, but he had disappeared and no one could find him. The Caliph turned to Abraham and said: “O Patriarch, I have recognized the truthfulness of your faith!” Shortly after the miracle took place, Caliph Al-Muizz decided to convert to Christianity, abdicated from the throne in favor of his son and entered a monastery―the rigid, immovable mountain of the Caliph’s soul had also been moved!
We Have a Lot of Mountains to Move!
Today, you could say that we have not just one mountain to move―nor could you even say that we have a whole mountain range to move! No―it is far more than that! We have mountain ranges everywhere throughout the world that we have to move! There is so much sin and so many sinners in the world today, that Our Lady said to Blessed Sister Elena Aiello (1895-1961) that the world today (back in 1956!!!). Our Lady said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!” (Our Lady, December 8th, 1956).
At Fatima, in May of 1917, Our Lady asked the three young children―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―if they would sacrifice themselves for sinners: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer!” Our Lady, at every single apparition in 1917, would insist upon the Rosary being prayed every single day. In July of 1917, Our Lady showed the three children a terrifying vision of Hell―of which Lucia later said that they would have died on the spot had not the grace of God kept them alive. After this vision of Hell, Our Lady said:
“You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you! Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! When you pray the Rosary, say after each mystery: ‘O my Jesus, forgive us! Save us from the fire of Hell! Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are most in need!’ If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved!” She later added: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
When we speak of weapons today, we envisage high-end technology weapons, complicated to make and sometimes complicated to use. Soldiers receive incredible amounts of training to be qualified to use such weapons. Imagine what knowledge, expertise, experimentation and money that has to go into the manufacturing of such weapons!
God is not man―and God’s ways are not our ways: “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). God―since He is almighty―makes all things easy: “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Luke 18:27). The things that men toil over―God can do in no time at all! Just think of the time, money and effort spent in medicines and surgery to try and restore the health of a sick a person! Christ achieved that in mere seconds. At His mere command of only a few words―the lame could walk again; the blind could see again; the deaf could hear again; the dumb could speak again, etc. “All they that had any sick with diverse diseases, brought them to Jesus. But He, laying His hands on every one of them, healed them” (Luke 4:40). “They brought to Him many that were possessed with devils―and he cast out the spirits with His word, and all that were sick He healed” (Matthew 8:16).
We see God the Son act in the same simple, but powerful way, in the miracles that he performed. Not much fuss, just simple actions or simple commands:
► The leper said “‘Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.’ And Jesus stretching forth His hand, touched him, saying: ‘I will, be thou made clean!’ And forthwith his leprosy was cleansed.” (Matthew 8:2-3). Simple, but powerful!
► “And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying, and sick of a fever: and He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose and ministered to them.” (Matthew 8:14-15). Simple, but powerful!
► “And behold they brought to Him one sick of the palsy, lying in a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, … said: ‘Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house!’ And he arose, and went into his house.” (Matthew 9:2-7). Simple, but powerful!
► “Jesus said: ‘Give place, for the girl is not dead, but sleepeth!’ And they laughed Him to scorn. And when the multitude was put forth, He went in, and took her by the hand. And the maid arose.” (Matthew 9:24-25). Simple, but powerful!
► “And when He was come to the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus saith to them, ‘Do you believe, that I can do this unto you?’ They say to him, ‘Yea, Lord!’ Then He touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith, be it done unto you!’ And their eyes were opened.” (Matthew 9:28-30). Simple, but powerful!
► “They besought Jesus that they might touch but the hem of His garment. And as many as touched, were made whole.” (Matthew 14:36). Simple, but powerful!
► “And taking the seven loaves and the fishes, and giving thanks, He brake, and gave to His disciples, and the disciples to the people. And they did all eat, and had their fill. And they took up seven baskets full, of what remained of the fragments. And they that did eat, were four thousand men, beside children and women.” (Matthew 15:26:38). Simple, but powerful!
► “Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out of him, and the child was cured from that hour.” (Matthew 17:17).
► “And behold two blind men, sitting by the way side, cried out, saying: O Lord, Thou son of David, have mercy on us .... And Jesus stood, and called them, and said: ‘What will ye that I do to you?’ They say to Him: ‘Lord, that our eyes be opened!’ And Jesus having compassion on them, touched their eyes. And immediately they saw, and followed Him.” (Matthew 20:20-34). Simple, but powerful!
► “And Jesus entered again into the synagogue, and there was a man there who had a withered hand ... He saith to the man: ‘Stretch forth thy hand!’ And he stretched it forth: and his hand was restored unto him.” (Mark 3:1-5).
► “As Jesus was in the ship: and there were other ships with Him. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that the ship was filled. And He was sleeping; and they awake Him, and say to Him: ‘Master, doth it not concern Thee that we perish?’ And rising up, He rebuked the wind, and said to the sea: Peace, be still. And the wind ceased: and there was made a great calm.” (Mark 4:36-39). Simple, but powerful!
► “And whithersoever he entered, into towns or into villages or cities, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that they might touch but the hem of His garment: and as many as touched Him were made whole.” (Mark 6:56). Simple, but powerful!
► “When Jesus had said these things, He cried with a loud voice: ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ And he, that had been dead, came forth, bound feet and hands with winding bands; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them: ‘Loose him, and let him go!’” (John 11:43:44). Simple, but powerful!
Back in the time of Noe, God wiped out the entire world without any nuclear weapons―just by producing 40 days and nights of torrential rain all over the Earth. That is some our weather controlling scientists cannot do!
With God nothing is impossible! As the Archangel Gabriel said to Mary, at the Annunciation “No word shall be impossible with God!” (Luke 1:37). Which was later echoed by Jesus, when He said “With God all things are possible!” Matthew 19:26). With God, the impossible is simply possible—because God is God, and whatever He wants, happens!
Compare that to strenuous, belabored, long-drawn-out, time consuming and often unsuccessful attempts of man. Yet man proudly and pompously persists in his preferred path of trying to “go it alone” and do without God!
The Sacraments convey that same simplicity and power. At Baptism, can we fully grasp the incredible things that happen at the simple, but powerful, words “I baptize thee, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” while simple water is simply poured on the one being baptized? Miracles of grace suddenly take place! The baptized has Original Sin and all their personal sins removed; grace is poured into the soul; the Gifts of the Holy Ghost are planted within the soul; the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity come into the soul; the person becomes an adopted child of God and an heir to the kingdom of Heaven! Simple words and actions, but an awesome and powerful result!
The same can be said of the Sacrament of Confession. Even though the priest may say additional prayers while giving absolution from sin, the key words are “I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen” while making a sign of the cross over the penitent. The worst crimes, the most shameful sins, no matter how many times committed, can be forgiven and forgotten by God using those simple words and actions.
When there is an impossibility to get to Confession, in such a case it is possible (though not guaranteed) that one short true act of perfect contrition (which is more than a mere mechanical, lukewarm, automatic churning-out of the words of a formula) can remove all guilt of sin and restore grace to the soul (provided one intends to confess those sins at the soonest possible time). Note, that we say TRUE and PERFECT act of contrition! This is sorrow that is based upon a true love of God, not a fear of His punishments. It is amazing what God will do when He sees that we TRULY mean those words “I am sorry!” “I love you!”
The same applies to the Consecration at Mass, when God, using the ministry of His servants, the priests, changes mere bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of His Only-Begotten Son. What brings about such an awesome miracle? Again, like the Sacrament of Confession, even though more words are used, the essential words are the simple ones of “This is My Body” and “This is My Blood.” Simple words, beautiful result! Simply beautiful!
Even the Saints Did It
Even the saints did things similar to those of Jesus in simple but powerful ways.
By the power of God, Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to cross and escape the pursuing Egyptian army: “And when Moses had stretched forth his hand over the sea, the Lord took it away by a strong and burning wind blowing all the night, and turned it into dry ground: and the water was divided. And the children of Israel went in through the midst of the sea dried up―for the water was as a wall on their right hand and on their left” (Exodus 14:21-22).
“Moses prayed to the Lord and fire came down from Heaven, and consumed the holocaust! So also Solomon prayed, and fire came down from Heaven and consumed the holocaust!” (2 Machabees 2:10). “When Solomon had made an end of his prayer, fire came down from Heaven, and consumed the holocausts and the victims and the majesty of the Lord filled the house” (2 Paralipomenon 7:1).
“Elias the prophet stood up as a fire, and his word burnt like a torch!” (Ecclesiasticus 48:1). At the end of his life on Earth, “a fiery chariot and fiery horses took Elias by a whirlwind up into Heaven” (4 Kings 2:11). Elias was also known for his “fiery escapades” whereby he obtained from God fire from Heaven. In his spiritual duel with the pagan prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, Elias calls down fire from Heaven to inflame his water-sodden sacrifice (3 Kings 18:19). On another occasion, Elias commanded fire to fall from Heaven and consume a captain with his fifty soldiers―and then repeated the same miracle when the net band of soldiers came to get him the captain of fifty: “And there came down fire from Heaven, and consumed him, and the fifty that were with him” (4 Kings 1:10-12).
The Prophet Elias “stretched, and measured himself upon the child three times, and cried to the Lord, and said: ‘O Lord my God, let the soul of this child, I beseech thee, return into his body!’ And the Lord heard the voice of Elias: and the soul of the child returned into him, and he revived.” (3 Kings 21-22).
The Prophet Eliseus tells Naaman the leper, to simply wash seven times in the Jordan. Naaman thought this was ridiculously simplistic and was about to go home, until his servant persuaded him to try it—and lo and behold, he was cured (4 Kings 1-14).
A boy with a simple sling shot and one pebble kills Goliath, whom the weapons and soldiers of the Israelites had failed to defeat. “David chose five smooth stones out of the brook and he took a sling in his hand, and went forth against the Philistine [Goliath] … And when the Philistine arose and was coming, and drew nigh to meet David, David made haste, and ran to the fight to meet the Philistine. And he put his hand into his scrip and took a stone, and cast it with the sling, and struck the Philistine in the forehead. And the stone was fixed in his forehead, and he fell on his face upon the earth. And David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and he struck and slew the Philistine. And, as David had no sword in his hand, he ran and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword and drew it out of the sheath, and slew him and cut off his head. And the Philistines, seeing that their champion was dead, fled away” (1 Kings 17:40, 48-51).
Modern Day Pebbles
You could say that the five smooth stones or pebbles that David took out of the waters of the brook, represent the five decades of the Rosary. The beads of our Rosaries should be worn-down smooth through its constant use in prayer. The Rosary beads, on their chain, loosely resemble a sling―and we should be slinging our Hail Marys at our enemies: Satan, the world and our own flesh with its sinful tendencies.
Sister Lucia of Fatima says that Our Lady revealed to her that the Rosary is weapon and tool that we should use in all our needs and problems today: “Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world. As for the Holy Rosary, Father, in these last times in which we are living, the Blessed Virgin has given a new efficacy to the praying of the Holy Rosary. This in such a way that there is no problem that cannot be resolved by praying the Rosary, no matter how difficult it is ― be it temporal or above all spiritual ― in the spiritual life of each of us, or the lives of our families, be they our families in the world or Religious Communities, or even in the lives of peoples and nations. I repeat, there is no problem, as difficult as it may be, that we cannot resolve at this time by praying the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves, sanctify ourselves, console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.” (Sister Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
It is hardly surprising that St. Padre Pio―who was alive throughout the years of Lucia’s life on Earth―used to say: “The Rosary is THE weapon!” As a true son of Our Lady, Padre Pio loved the Rosary and is reputed to have said the five-decade Rosary as many as 35 to 50 times per day (which is 175 to 250 decades per day). In many photographs, he is shown with his right hand hidden within the pocket, where he always kept his Rosary beads. Indeed, he urged all Catholics to “love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for the Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world.”
In a letter to Dom Umberto Maria Pasquale, an Italian Salesian priest, Sister Lucia of Fatima wrote: “The decadence which exists in the world is without doubt the consequence of a lack the spirit of prayer. It was in anticipation of this confusion that the Blessed Virgin recommended the recitation of the Rosary with such insistence. And, as the Rosary is, after the Mass, the most appropriate prayer for preserving the Faith in souls, the devil has unleashed his struggle against it. Unfortunately, we see the disasters he has caused ... We must defend souls against errors which can make them stray from the good road. I cannot help them other than by my poor and humble prayers and my sacrifices; but you, Fr. Umberto, you have a much more extended field of action to develop your apostolate. We cannot and we must not stop ourselves, nor allow, as Our Lord says, the sons of darkness to be more wise than the children of Light ... The Rosary is the most powerful weapon for defending ourselves on the field of battle.”
Padre Pio and THE Weapon
It is hardly surprising that St. Padre Pio―who was alive throughout the years of Lucia’s life on Earth―used to say: “The Rosary is THE weapon!” As a true son of Our Lady, Padre Pio loved the Rosary and is reputed to have said the five-decade Rosary as many as 35 to 50 times per day (which is 175 to 250 decades per day). In many photographs, he is shown with his right hand hidden within the pocket, where he always kept his Rosary beads. Indeed, he urged all Catholics to “love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for the Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world.”
Concerning the Rosary, Our Lady herself said to Padre Pio: “With this weapon you will win!” Later, to Padre (Fr.) Onorato Marcucci, grabbing the Rosary that he had put on the nightstand for a few seconds, Padre Pio said: “With this—one wins the battles!”
Convinced of the power of the Rosary, Padre Pio always held the Rosary in his hands. He used to carry, permanently, a Rosary in his hands and would pray it many times a day. Padre Marcellino testified that he had to help Padre Pio wash his hands one at a time, “because he didn’t want to let go of the Rosary beads, and passed the Rosary from one hand to the other.” One person said: “We always saw him with his Rosary in his hand — in the friary, in the halls, on the stairs, in the sacristy, in the Church, even in the brief interval when going to and coming from the confessional.” Padre Pio always wore the Rosary around his arm at night. Father Marcellino testified that he had to help Padre Pio wash his hands one at a time “because he didn’t want to leave the Rosary beads, and passed the Rosary from one hand to the other.”
Another person testifed: “When he reached the end of his life, he did not talk to us anymore, we told him our thoughts. We asked for help. And all he did was to show us the Rosary, always, always.” A few days before his death, as Padre Pio was getting into bed, he said to the friars who were in his room: “Give me my weapon!” And the friars, surprised and curious, asked him: “Where is the weapon? We cannot see anything!” Padre Pio replied: “It is in my habit, which you have just hung up!” After having gone through the pockets of his religious habit, the friars said to him: “Padre, there is no weapon in your habit! . . . We can only find your Rosary beads there!” Padre Pio immediately said: “And is this not a weapon? ... The true weapon?!”
Answering another question on how many Rosaries he was accustomed to praying, Padre Pio replied: “Some days I say forty Rosaries, some other days fifty. How do I do it?—How do you manage not to say any?” Padre Pio insisted: “Recite the Rosary and recite it always and as much as you can.” When his death was approaching, he recommended the Rosary to his spiritual children by saying: “Love Our Lady and make her loved. Always recite the Rosary.”
Padre Pio instructed his spiritual children: “In all the free time you have, once you have finished your duties of state, you should kneel down and pray the Rosary. Pray the Rosary before the Blessed Sacrament, or before a crucifix.” To Enedina Mori, Padre Pio said: “When you get tired reciting the Rosary, rest a bit, and then restart again!”
The Devil Admits the Power of the Rosary
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2106) chief exorcist of Rome, said that every single Hail Mary is like a hammer blow to a devil’s head (of course, the devil has no body and therefore no head―since he is an angelic spirit―but Fr. Amorth is speaking metaphorically): “One day a colleague of mine heard the devil say during an exorcism: ‘Every Hail Mary is like a blow on my head! If Christians knew how powerful the Rosary was, it would be my end!’ The secret that makes this prayer so effective is that the Rosary is both prayer and meditation ... Spread this powerful prayer of exorcism! Anyone who goes to Mary and prays the Rosary cannot be touched by Satan. Is it any wonder that anyone who prays the Rosary from the heart is so blessed and protected and powerful in their prayers for others?”
In his Secret of the Rosary, by St. Louis de Montfort recounts the incident that St. Dominic had with the devils during a particular exorcism that he was performing: “When St. Dominic was preaching the Rosary near Carcassone, an Albigensian was brought to him who was possessed by the devil. The Saint exorcised him in the presence of a great crowd of people. The devils possessing this man were forced to answer St. Dominic’s questions. They said: (1) that there were fifteen thousand of them in the body of that poor man, because he had attacked the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary; (2) that by the Rosary which he preached, he put fear and horror into the depths of Hell, and that he was the man they hated most throughout the world because of the souls he snatched from them by the devotion of the Rosary.
“St. Dominic put his Rosary round the neck of the possessed man and asked them who, of all the saints in Heaven, was the one they feared most. At this they let out unearthly screams and used all their cunning so as not to answer the question. Then the devils kept quiet and would not say another word, completely disregarding St. Dominic’s orders. So he knelt down and said a prayer to Our Lady. St. Dominic had scarcely finished this prayer when he saw the Blessed Virgin near at hand surrounded by a multitude of angels. She struck the possessed man with a golden rod that she held and said: “Answer my servant Dominic at once!”
“Then the devils started screaming: ‘Oh, you who are our enemy, our downfall and our destruction! Why have you come from Heaven to torture us so grievously? You who snatch the souls of sinners from the very jaws of Hell! Must we, in spite of ourselves, tell the whole truth and confess before everyone, who it is who is the cause of our shame and our ruin? Then listen, you Christians! This Mother of Jesus is most powerful in saving her servants from falling into Hell! She destroys the darkness of our wiles and subtlety! She uncovers our hidden plots, breaks our snares, and makes our temptations useless and ineffective! We have to say, however reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us! One single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity, is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints! We fear her more than all the other saints in Heaven together, and we have no success with her faithful servants! Many Christians―who call on her at the hour of death and who really ought to be damned according to our ordinary standards―are saved by her intercession! And if she did not counter our plans and our efforts, we should have overcome the Church and destroyed it long before this, and caused all the Orders in the Church to fall into error and infidelity! Now that we are forced to speak, we must also tell you that nobody who perseveres in saying the Rosary will be damned, because she obtains for her servants the grace of true contrition for their sins by which they obtain pardon and mercy!’” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Third Rose”).
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist of Rome, adds: “Mary helps greatly. The devil is terrified of Our Lady. He is terrified because Our Lady crushes his head. I have often been asked if Mary was tempted by the devil. Definitely! From her birth until her death! But she always conquered! And the devil, on certain occasions, has praised Mary, because God obliges him to say the truth. On one occasion an exorcist friend of mine asked the devil what most hurts him of Our Lady, what most annoys him. He responded: ‘The fact that she is the purest of all creatures and that I am the filthiest; that she is the most obedient of all creatures and that I am the most rebellious; that she is the one who committed no sin and thus always conquered me!’”
The Importance of Faith
When Holy Scripture speaks of Faith, it also includes hope and confidence with that Faith. Believing in God in theory alone is fine, but believing in God and confidently hoping that God will positively act in your life is far better. Our Lord performed miracles especially for those persons whose Faith was boosted by hope and confidence―as we see in the following examples (which are not exhaustive, but only samples).
“The blind men came to Him and Jesus said to them: ‘Do you believe that I can do this unto you?’ They said to Him: ‘Yes, Lord!’ Then he touched their eyes, saying: ‘According to your faith, be it done unto you!’” (Matthew 9:28-29)
“And behold a leper came and adored Him, saying: ‘Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean!’ And Jesus, stretching forth His hand, touched him, saying: ‘I will―be thou made clean!’ And forthwith his leprosy was cleansed” (Matthew 8:2-3).
“And when he had entered into Capharnaum, there came to him a centurion, beseeching Him and saying: ‘Lord, my servant lies at home sick of the palsy, and is grieviously tormented!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘I will come and heal him!’ And the centurion said: ‘Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof! Only say the word, and my servant shall be healed!’ And Jesus hearing this, marveled and said to them that followed Him: ‘Amen I say to you―I have not found so great faith in Israel!’” (Matthew 8:5-10).
The Canaanite women, whose daughter was afflicted by a devil, was repeatedly turned away and rejected by Apostles and then also Jesus. Nevertheless―despite the clear rejection and even insults―she “took it on the chin” and kept on coming and begging for help. Finally, Jesus said to her: Then Jesus answering, said to her: “‘O woman, great is thy faith! Be it done to thee as thou wilt!’ And her daughter was cured from that hour” (Matthew 15:28).
“And behold they brought to Him one sick of the palsy lying in a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the man sick of the palsy: ‘Be of good heart, son, thy sins are forgiven thee!’” (Matthew 9:2).
“And a woman who was suffering from an issue of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered many things from many physicians, having spent all the money that she had, was nothing for the better, but rather worse. When she had heard of Jesus, she came into the crowd behind him and touched His garment―for she said to herself: ‘If I shall touch but his garment, I shall be cured!’ And immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the evil. And immediately Jesus, knowing in Himself the power that had proceeded from Him, turning to the multitude, said: ‘Who touched My garments?’ The woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before Him and told him all the truth. And Jesus said to her: ‘Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole! Go in peace and be thou healed of thy disease!’” (Mark 5:25-34).
Moving Mountains by Faith
Hence it is that Jesus said: “Amen I say to you, if you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here to there!’ and it shall remove―and nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 17:19). However, pride and presumption will move nothing! A humble reliance upon God, great confidence in God, and a firm belief that God will act―are essential requirements when seeking to “tap-into” the power of God and obtain a miracle. To this should be added the need of being in state of sanctifying grace and not in a state of mortal sin.
The miracle of moving the mountain was actually achieved by several saints―one of whom was St. Simon the Tanner (Cobbler, Shoemaker), who lived in the 10th century. According to a traditional story, Caliph Al-Muizz, who reigned from 972–975, used to invite religious leaders to debate in his presence. In one such debate, the patriarch Abraham was asked to debate with a Jew named Yaqub Ibn Killis. Abraham got the upper hand in the debate and, as a consequence, Ibn Killis tried to discredit Abraham by quoting the verse where Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew: “Amen I say to you, if you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here to there!’ and it shall remove!’” and demanded that the patriarch Abraham prove that his religion is right by means of this. After hearing Ibn Killis say this, the Caliph asked Abraham: “What sayest thou concerning this word? Is it in your Gospel or not?” The patriarch answered: “Yes, it is in it.” After hearing Abraham answer, the Caliph demanded that this very miracle be performed by Abraham’s hand―or else he and all the Copts would be killed by the sword. The patriarch asked for three days to complete the miracle. Abraham gathered together a group of monks, priests and elders. He told them stay in the church for three days doing penance.
On the morning of the third day, Abraham was praying when he saw the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Holy Virgin told him to go to the great market, adding: “There thou wilt find a one-eyed man carrying on his shoulder a jar full of water! Seize him―for he it is at whose hands this miracle shall be manifested.” Abraham obeyed Our Lady and went to the market where he met the man the Holy Virgin spoke of. The man was Simon the Tanner, who had plucked out his eye because of a passage from the Bible: “And if thy right eye should scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it far from thee! For it is better for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than thy whole body be cast into Hell! And if thy right hand scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it far from thee! For it is better for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than thy whole body be cast into Hell!” (Matthew 5:29–30). Simon told Abraham to go out with his priests and all his people to the mountain with the Caliph and all his soldiers. Simon then told Abraham to cry out: “O Lord, have mercy!” three times and each time to make the sign of the cross over the mountain. The patriarch obeyed the instruction of Simon and the mountain was lifted. After the miracle was performed in the presence of the Caliph, the patriarch Abraham turned left and right looking for Simon, but he had disappeared and no one could find him. The Caliph turned to Abraham and said: “O Patriarch, I have recognized the truthfulness of your faith!” Shortly after the miracle took place, Caliph Al-Muizz decided to convert to Christianity, abdicated from the throne in favor of his son and entered a monastery―the rigid, immovable mountain of the Caliph’s soul had also been moved!
We Have a Lot of Mountains to Move!
Today, you could say that we have not just one mountain to move―nor could you even say that we have a whole mountain range to move! No―it is far more than that! We have mountain ranges everywhere throughout the world that we have to move! There is so much sin and so many sinners in the world today, that Our Lady said to Blessed Sister Elena Aiello (1895-1961) that the world today (back in 1956!!!). Our Lady said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!” (Our Lady, December 8th, 1956).
At Fatima, in May of 1917, Our Lady asked the three young children―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―if they would sacrifice themselves for sinners: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer!” Our Lady, at every single apparition in 1917, would insist upon the Rosary being prayed every single day. In July of 1917, Our Lady showed the three children a terrifying vision of Hell―of which Lucia later said that they would have died on the spot had not the grace of God kept them alive. After this vision of Hell, Our Lady said:
“You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you! Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! When you pray the Rosary, say after each mystery: ‘O my Jesus, forgive us! Save us from the fire of Hell! Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are most in need!’ If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved!” She later added: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
SEPTEMBER DAILY THOUGHTS
THE MONTH OF OUR LADY'S SEVEN SORROWS
THE MONTH OF OUR LADY'S SEVEN SORROWS
Article 17
Friday September 29th & Saturday September 30th, 2023
Ignore St. Michael at Your Own Peril!
Friday September 29th & Saturday September 30th, 2023
Ignore St. Michael at Your Own Peril!
What’s in a Name?
The names we give things often reflect the nature, purpose or use the thing that we name. The name clearly indicates the nature, purpose or use of the thing. For example, “lawn-mower” is a thing that mows lawns; “hedge-trimmer” is a thing used to trim hedges; a “hair-cutter” is a person who cuts hair; etc. God gave Adam the task of naming the things that God had created according to this principle: “And the Lord God―having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the Earth and all the fowls of the air―brought them to Adam to see what he would call them―for whatsoever Adam called any living creature, the same is its name. And Adam called all the beasts by their names, and all the fowls of the air, and all the cattle of the field … And the Lord God built the rib, which he took from Adam, into a woman and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: ‘This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh! She shall be called woman―because she was taken out of man!’” (Genesis 2:19-23).
We see this same principle in the naming of Jesus Christ, whereby His Name explains His nature and purpose―“Jesus” means “Savior” and “Christ” means “Anointed”―thus Jesus Christ is the Savior anointed and appointed by God for the salvation of mankind. “Thou shalt call His Name Jesus. For He shall save His people from their sins!” (Matthew 1:21).
God―either directly or through His angels―would often command a certain name to be given to a person. One such example is seen in the case of Abram, whose name God changes to Abraham: “And God said to him: ‘My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations! Neither shall thy name be called any more Abram―but thou shalt be called Abraham, because I have made thee a father of many nations. And I will make thee increase exceedingly, and I will make nations out of thee!” (Genesis 17:4-6). In the Hebrew language “Abram” means “a high father”, but the word “Abraham” means “the father of the multitude”.
Similarly, with Moses―the name “Moses” is of Hebrew origin and means “drawn out of the water” ― which not only describes the origins of Moses, but also what he would later do. To avoid the killing of male Hebrew babies ordered by Pharao, Moses was placed in basket and left to float amid bulrushes on the River Nile. The basket and its baby was found by the daughter of Pharao, “and she adopted him for a son, and called him Moses, saying: ‘Because I took him out of the water!’” (Exodus 2:10). Moses was drawn out of the water―and later, when leading the Hebrews out of Egypt during the Exodus, Moses would draw his people through the waters of the Red Sea, having (by the power of God) miraculously parted the waters so that they could all walk across on the river bed; he then drew the two banks of parted waters back together after they had crossed and thus drowned the pursuing Egyptian army chariots that were pursuing them―thus saving his people. He would again use water to save his people in the desert, by the power of God, in miraculously drawing torrents of water out of mountain rocks on two occasions.
The Name “Michael”
Michael was first derived from the Hebrew name Mikha’el, meaning “who is like God?” in Latin, “Quis sicut Deus?” The meaning of his name is not a statement that Michael is like God―but it is a rhetorical question that was aimed at Lucifer, which intends to say that no person was like God, not even Lucifer who was the highest of all angels. “Who is like God?” is to be taken in the sense of “Who dare make himself to be like God?”
St. Michael’s position of honor was merited in the battle which he waged against Lucifer and the rebellious Angels before the creation of the world. When God created the Angels as magnificent spirits of light and love which in countless hosts surround His Heavenly throne, He bestowed upon them most eminent gifts of nature and of grace. But before admitting them to the unveiled vision of His glory in Heaven, He placed them under probation, just as later He subjected mankind to a trial of obedience in the persons of Adam and Eve.
The nature of the trial is not known with certainty. Learned and saintly theologians hold that the Heavenly Father revealed to the Angels the future Incarnation of His Divine Son, whom they were to adore in His sacred humanity. At the same time He revealed to them the surpassing dignity and glory of Mary, whom, as the Mother of God, they were to venerate as their Queen.
Lucifer, one of the most glorious and exalted princes of the Heavenly court, dazzled by the splendor of his own gifts, rebelled at the thought that human nature should be preferred to his own Angelic nature. He would not acknowledge that a woman inferior to him in nature should at some future time be made his queen, and that the seed of that woman should be preferred to himself for the honor of the hypostatic union. Desiring for himself the prerogatives of the God-man, Lucifer raised his great battle-cry of rebellion: “I will be like unto the Most High!” (Isaias 14:14).
Some have held that in their pride, a third of the Angels took up Lucifer’s rebellious cry. At the same instant another Angel, opposed to the proud Lucifer, prostrated himself before the throne of God. With an act of profound adoration, he opposed the cry of the rebellious Angels with his own battle-cry of love and loyalty: “Michael”--“Who is like unto God?” or more precisely, “Who dare make himself to be like God?”
The fearlessness and fidelity of this mighty champion roused the faithful Angels, who rallied to his standard, repeating with one accord: “Who is like unto God?” Then followed that tremendous battle between the good and the bad Angels which St. John describes in the Book of the Apocalypse: “And there was a battle in Heaven―Michael and his Angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his Angels. And they did not prevail, neither was their place found any more in Heaven. And that great dragon was cast down, the ancient serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan, who led astray the whole world” (Apocalypse 12:7-9).
Ever since, throughout history, St. Michael has battled the Satan and his followers, and will still gladly do so today―if we ask him. So that we would ask him, Pope Leo XIII composed a special prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. In the 1880s, the Pope experienced an auditory vision (in hearing only) of Our Lord conversing with Satan about the Catholic Church [read more here]. The proud Satan boasted that he could destroy Our Lord’s Church if only he would be given a free reign and some time in order to do so. Our Lord gave him the permission and 100 years to try and achieve his boast. What the Pope saw in that vision left him shaken and caused him to write the prayer begging St. Michael’s intercession, ordering it said after all Low Masses.
Satan―using his infiltrators into the Church as well as the hordes of gullible non-infiltrators―has managed to gradually whittle down Pope Leo XIII’s original prayer of 595 words down to the more common version that we are familiar with that only has 57 words! In other words, 90% was thrown out of the window! Today, not even the 57 word prayer to St. Michael is said after Mass! You can also reasonably imagine that 99% of Catholics do not even say the 57 word prayer at home―and maybe only 1 in 100,000 Catholics says the original 595 word original version of Pope Leo XIII. You can find the original version at the end of the Novena to St. Michael [click here] and also on the page dedicated to St. Michael [click here].
Both the shortened 57 word prayer, and even more so the original 575 word prayer, have fallen out of favor today in some more modern circles, and that is not only a great shame, but also an immense tragedy―as we can clearly see by the terrible damage that Satan has managed to wreak within the Catholic Church in particular and in the world in general, from the time of Pope Leo’s vision in the 1880s. St. Michael is a warrior angel, and the leader of Heaven’s armies―we are the Soldiers of Christ who have been thrown into a battle with angelic forces and powers. We are obliged to fight or commit treason! Human efforts alone are not sufficient! Just as they say: “Fight fire with fire!” So too can it be said: “Fight angels with angels!” and “Fight the fire of Hell with the fire of God’s love!” In a war, your weapons must be of at least equal capacity and effectiveness as those of the enemy. In spiritual warfare, you cannot fight with mere human weapons―you also need angelic support. St. Michael and the angels of Heaven are the normal means of support that God has given us―we neglect them at our own peril.
In the original St. Michael prayer, we ask him to “defend us in the battle … in the terrible warfare we are waging against the principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the evil spirits! … Fight this day the battle of the Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee! … Satan, who seduces the whole world, has taken courage! … With all wicked spirits he wanders about, invading the Earth, in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ! Seeking to seize, slay and cast into eternal perdition souls destined for glory! … These crafty enemies have filled and inebriated the Church with gall and bitterness … Where the See of Peter and the Chair of Truth has been set up as the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous designs! … O invincible Prince, bring help―against the attacks of the lost spirits―to the people of God, and give them the victory! … Pray to God, that He may put Satan under our feet, so that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church … Do thou again make Satan captive in the abyss, so that he may no longer seduce the nations! … Help us against Satan and all the other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of souls. Amen.” Those extracts above only constitute 45% of the original prayer by Pope Leo XIII.
Do You Need St. Michael?
Need help? Need protection? Need guidance? Just look at the world around you? If you still have some common sense left; if you still have a healthy Faith; if you have not been seduced by the world―then you cannot fail to see that Satan currently controls the world. Don’t expect to see Satan in actual control! Don’t expect to see Satan strutting around dressed in red; having an ugly face with wings and a tail; brandishing a pitchfork, etc. Satan prefers to delegate and control through others―just like the Elite of this world, who, being Satan’s stooges, prefer to remain in background and direct and control everything from behind the scenes.
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, said: Today, Satan has free hands … Satan continually tries to dominate the world ― the whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Satanism is on the increase. Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office! … The Devil does not like to be seen … Satan’s biggest triumph is mankind’s conviction that he doesn’t exist ... He makes people believe that Hell does not exist, that sin does not exist, and that he is nothing but one more experience to try out ... When we jeer at the Devil and tell ourselves that he does not exist, that is when he is happiest!”
Once you fail to realize the invisible battle that is going on behind the scenes; once you think you have nothing to fear from the devil; once you think you can deal with the devil on your own―then you are in one Hell of a mess! No human being―without the assistance of God―can overcome Satan. The power of the angels―good or bad angels―is unimaginable. Your guardian angel―if God were to permit it, and if the angel wanted to do it―could destroy the entire universe single-handed, so to speak (angels, of course, have no hands, nor any body parts). What can you in comparison to that? No contest! Pitting a human being against an angel is like pitting a new born baby against a highly trained soldier! No contest! Even the victories of the good angels over the bad angels is brought about by the power of God. That is why, in the abbreviated St. Michael prayer, we say: “Do thou, by the power of God, cast into Hell Satan and all other wicked spirits.”
The Armies of Heaven and Hell
You may wonder why on earth God lets Satan “rule the roost” on Earth and why God lets Satan bring about the damnation of the vast majority of mankind. Why does God not just step-in and put an end to all of Satan’s infernal work? Even when God walked among us―as Jesus Christ―He still expected man to play a part in salvation. Our Lord was not going to “spoon-feed” us, nor give us “everything on a plate”! Our Lord delegated some of His work to His Apostles and disciples and the words He uses clearly indicates that He does not want us to be idle in the spiritual matters and about salvation:
“The Lord appointed also another seventy-two and He sent them, two and two, before His face into every city and place where He Himself was to come. And he said to them: ‘The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few! Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that He send laborers into His harvest! … Pray always and faint not! … The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away! … If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me! … He that hears you, hears Me; and he that despises you, despises Me; and he that despises Me, despises Him that sent Me! … Going, therefore, teach ye all nations―baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost―teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!’” (Luke 10:1-2, 16; 18:1; 9:23; Matthew 11:12; 28:19-20).
God has made both the angels and men with a free will. Heaven is not an automatic freebie―neither for the angels nor men. Just as the angels were tested and tried―whereby it is said that one-third of the angels failed the test and rebelled against God―so too is mankind tested and tried before being allowed to enter Heaven. The majority fail the test and most of God’s Chosen People―the Israelites in the Old Testament and Catholics in the New Testament―fail the test. God will help anyone and everyone to achieve salvation―but it must be on God’s terms and not on our terms. We are meant to struggle and fight for Heaven: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) … “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12).
It is in this sense that the Angel of Portugal―whom some think was St. Michael the Archangel―recruited the three children at Fatima (Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta) into God’s army, saying: Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
Our Lady of Fatima also indicated the need for our active participation in the work of saving souls, when she said to the three Fatima children: Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
Just as you body parts work together as a team in order to keep you healthy and alive, so too must the various parts of the Mystical Body of Christ work together to help each other maintain spiritual health and attain salvation―each one of us has received a gift, and we must use it to serve and help one another (1 Peter 4:10). God could intervene directly in the life of each and every one of us, in order to protect us from all evil and to lead us all safely to Heaven. Yet just as any parent will not do every single thing for its child, but expects the child to learn to look after itself―so too does God refuse to spoil us by doing every single thing for us. You are obliged to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12) while always relying upon and cooperating with God’s grace: “Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves―but our sufficiency is from God!” (2 Corinthians 3:5) … “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) … “My grace is sufficient for thee!” (2 Corinthians 12:9) … “I can do all these things in Him who strengthens me!” (Philippians 4:13).
Both in the natural sphere and the supernatural sphere, we are not independent but interdependent. Through the Sacrament of Confirmation, you were made a Soldier of Christ. Christ’s Church is united army and not a bunch of independent soldiers―Our Lord points out that “if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand” (Mark 3:24-25). With regard to His followers, Christ desired “that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us” (John 17:21). The method of Satan is time-tested and proved to work tactic of “divide and conquer” ― which has worked for him from the time of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, to this present day. He seeks to divide the Catholic Church, nations, states, cities, communities, parishes, schools, families, relatives, friends and neighbors.
The Armies of Hell Seek to Divide and Conquer
As much as God seeks unity, Satan seeks disunity―he destroys the unity between Eve and God to bring about the Original Sin; he divided Cain and Abel; he divided Abraham’s servants and Lot’s servants; he divided Joseph and his brothers; he divided the Hebrews from Moses in the desert; he divided Saul and David; he divided the Kingdom of Israel into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms; he divided the Jews in the time of the Machabees with most becoming liberal pro-Greece and few remaining traditional. From the time that Christ founded His Church, Satan has caused divisions throughout all centuries―with the major ones being:
(1) The Arian Heresy which caused major divisions for over 50 years in the 4th century;
(2) The 11th century East–West Schism, also known as “The Great Schism” or “Schism of 1054”, is the ongoing break of communion between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox.
(3) The Western Schism, also known as the Papal Schism, was a split within the Catholic Church lasting from 1378 to 1417, during which time there were two opposing groups of Catholic clergy, residing in Rome (Italy) and Avignon (France), each with its own set of cardinals and bishops, from whom each side elected men who both claimed to be the true pope. For a short while they were joined by a third pope in 1409, when a Church Council in Pisa (Italy) deposed and excommunicated the two popes in Rome and Avignon!
(4) In the early 16th century, certain Catholic protestors such as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, John Wycliffe, John Knox, William Tyndale were all Catholic priests, Philipp Melanchthon (Catholic Professor), John Calvin (Catholic lawyer). The Protestant Reformation reformed nothing and only led it adherents into a Protestant Schism which quickly became a Protestant Heresy. True reform can only come from within the Church and not through schism or heresy.
The names we give things often reflect the nature, purpose or use the thing that we name. The name clearly indicates the nature, purpose or use of the thing. For example, “lawn-mower” is a thing that mows lawns; “hedge-trimmer” is a thing used to trim hedges; a “hair-cutter” is a person who cuts hair; etc. God gave Adam the task of naming the things that God had created according to this principle: “And the Lord God―having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the Earth and all the fowls of the air―brought them to Adam to see what he would call them―for whatsoever Adam called any living creature, the same is its name. And Adam called all the beasts by their names, and all the fowls of the air, and all the cattle of the field … And the Lord God built the rib, which he took from Adam, into a woman and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: ‘This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh! She shall be called woman―because she was taken out of man!’” (Genesis 2:19-23).
We see this same principle in the naming of Jesus Christ, whereby His Name explains His nature and purpose―“Jesus” means “Savior” and “Christ” means “Anointed”―thus Jesus Christ is the Savior anointed and appointed by God for the salvation of mankind. “Thou shalt call His Name Jesus. For He shall save His people from their sins!” (Matthew 1:21).
God―either directly or through His angels―would often command a certain name to be given to a person. One such example is seen in the case of Abram, whose name God changes to Abraham: “And God said to him: ‘My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations! Neither shall thy name be called any more Abram―but thou shalt be called Abraham, because I have made thee a father of many nations. And I will make thee increase exceedingly, and I will make nations out of thee!” (Genesis 17:4-6). In the Hebrew language “Abram” means “a high father”, but the word “Abraham” means “the father of the multitude”.
Similarly, with Moses―the name “Moses” is of Hebrew origin and means “drawn out of the water” ― which not only describes the origins of Moses, but also what he would later do. To avoid the killing of male Hebrew babies ordered by Pharao, Moses was placed in basket and left to float amid bulrushes on the River Nile. The basket and its baby was found by the daughter of Pharao, “and she adopted him for a son, and called him Moses, saying: ‘Because I took him out of the water!’” (Exodus 2:10). Moses was drawn out of the water―and later, when leading the Hebrews out of Egypt during the Exodus, Moses would draw his people through the waters of the Red Sea, having (by the power of God) miraculously parted the waters so that they could all walk across on the river bed; he then drew the two banks of parted waters back together after they had crossed and thus drowned the pursuing Egyptian army chariots that were pursuing them―thus saving his people. He would again use water to save his people in the desert, by the power of God, in miraculously drawing torrents of water out of mountain rocks on two occasions.
The Name “Michael”
Michael was first derived from the Hebrew name Mikha’el, meaning “who is like God?” in Latin, “Quis sicut Deus?” The meaning of his name is not a statement that Michael is like God―but it is a rhetorical question that was aimed at Lucifer, which intends to say that no person was like God, not even Lucifer who was the highest of all angels. “Who is like God?” is to be taken in the sense of “Who dare make himself to be like God?”
St. Michael’s position of honor was merited in the battle which he waged against Lucifer and the rebellious Angels before the creation of the world. When God created the Angels as magnificent spirits of light and love which in countless hosts surround His Heavenly throne, He bestowed upon them most eminent gifts of nature and of grace. But before admitting them to the unveiled vision of His glory in Heaven, He placed them under probation, just as later He subjected mankind to a trial of obedience in the persons of Adam and Eve.
The nature of the trial is not known with certainty. Learned and saintly theologians hold that the Heavenly Father revealed to the Angels the future Incarnation of His Divine Son, whom they were to adore in His sacred humanity. At the same time He revealed to them the surpassing dignity and glory of Mary, whom, as the Mother of God, they were to venerate as their Queen.
Lucifer, one of the most glorious and exalted princes of the Heavenly court, dazzled by the splendor of his own gifts, rebelled at the thought that human nature should be preferred to his own Angelic nature. He would not acknowledge that a woman inferior to him in nature should at some future time be made his queen, and that the seed of that woman should be preferred to himself for the honor of the hypostatic union. Desiring for himself the prerogatives of the God-man, Lucifer raised his great battle-cry of rebellion: “I will be like unto the Most High!” (Isaias 14:14).
Some have held that in their pride, a third of the Angels took up Lucifer’s rebellious cry. At the same instant another Angel, opposed to the proud Lucifer, prostrated himself before the throne of God. With an act of profound adoration, he opposed the cry of the rebellious Angels with his own battle-cry of love and loyalty: “Michael”--“Who is like unto God?” or more precisely, “Who dare make himself to be like God?”
The fearlessness and fidelity of this mighty champion roused the faithful Angels, who rallied to his standard, repeating with one accord: “Who is like unto God?” Then followed that tremendous battle between the good and the bad Angels which St. John describes in the Book of the Apocalypse: “And there was a battle in Heaven―Michael and his Angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his Angels. And they did not prevail, neither was their place found any more in Heaven. And that great dragon was cast down, the ancient serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan, who led astray the whole world” (Apocalypse 12:7-9).
Ever since, throughout history, St. Michael has battled the Satan and his followers, and will still gladly do so today―if we ask him. So that we would ask him, Pope Leo XIII composed a special prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. In the 1880s, the Pope experienced an auditory vision (in hearing only) of Our Lord conversing with Satan about the Catholic Church [read more here]. The proud Satan boasted that he could destroy Our Lord’s Church if only he would be given a free reign and some time in order to do so. Our Lord gave him the permission and 100 years to try and achieve his boast. What the Pope saw in that vision left him shaken and caused him to write the prayer begging St. Michael’s intercession, ordering it said after all Low Masses.
Satan―using his infiltrators into the Church as well as the hordes of gullible non-infiltrators―has managed to gradually whittle down Pope Leo XIII’s original prayer of 595 words down to the more common version that we are familiar with that only has 57 words! In other words, 90% was thrown out of the window! Today, not even the 57 word prayer to St. Michael is said after Mass! You can also reasonably imagine that 99% of Catholics do not even say the 57 word prayer at home―and maybe only 1 in 100,000 Catholics says the original 595 word original version of Pope Leo XIII. You can find the original version at the end of the Novena to St. Michael [click here] and also on the page dedicated to St. Michael [click here].
Both the shortened 57 word prayer, and even more so the original 575 word prayer, have fallen out of favor today in some more modern circles, and that is not only a great shame, but also an immense tragedy―as we can clearly see by the terrible damage that Satan has managed to wreak within the Catholic Church in particular and in the world in general, from the time of Pope Leo’s vision in the 1880s. St. Michael is a warrior angel, and the leader of Heaven’s armies―we are the Soldiers of Christ who have been thrown into a battle with angelic forces and powers. We are obliged to fight or commit treason! Human efforts alone are not sufficient! Just as they say: “Fight fire with fire!” So too can it be said: “Fight angels with angels!” and “Fight the fire of Hell with the fire of God’s love!” In a war, your weapons must be of at least equal capacity and effectiveness as those of the enemy. In spiritual warfare, you cannot fight with mere human weapons―you also need angelic support. St. Michael and the angels of Heaven are the normal means of support that God has given us―we neglect them at our own peril.
In the original St. Michael prayer, we ask him to “defend us in the battle … in the terrible warfare we are waging against the principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the evil spirits! … Fight this day the battle of the Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee! … Satan, who seduces the whole world, has taken courage! … With all wicked spirits he wanders about, invading the Earth, in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ! Seeking to seize, slay and cast into eternal perdition souls destined for glory! … These crafty enemies have filled and inebriated the Church with gall and bitterness … Where the See of Peter and the Chair of Truth has been set up as the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous designs! … O invincible Prince, bring help―against the attacks of the lost spirits―to the people of God, and give them the victory! … Pray to God, that He may put Satan under our feet, so that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church … Do thou again make Satan captive in the abyss, so that he may no longer seduce the nations! … Help us against Satan and all the other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of souls. Amen.” Those extracts above only constitute 45% of the original prayer by Pope Leo XIII.
Do You Need St. Michael?
Need help? Need protection? Need guidance? Just look at the world around you? If you still have some common sense left; if you still have a healthy Faith; if you have not been seduced by the world―then you cannot fail to see that Satan currently controls the world. Don’t expect to see Satan in actual control! Don’t expect to see Satan strutting around dressed in red; having an ugly face with wings and a tail; brandishing a pitchfork, etc. Satan prefers to delegate and control through others―just like the Elite of this world, who, being Satan’s stooges, prefer to remain in background and direct and control everything from behind the scenes.
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, said: Today, Satan has free hands … Satan continually tries to dominate the world ― the whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Satanism is on the increase. Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office! … The Devil does not like to be seen … Satan’s biggest triumph is mankind’s conviction that he doesn’t exist ... He makes people believe that Hell does not exist, that sin does not exist, and that he is nothing but one more experience to try out ... When we jeer at the Devil and tell ourselves that he does not exist, that is when he is happiest!”
Once you fail to realize the invisible battle that is going on behind the scenes; once you think you have nothing to fear from the devil; once you think you can deal with the devil on your own―then you are in one Hell of a mess! No human being―without the assistance of God―can overcome Satan. The power of the angels―good or bad angels―is unimaginable. Your guardian angel―if God were to permit it, and if the angel wanted to do it―could destroy the entire universe single-handed, so to speak (angels, of course, have no hands, nor any body parts). What can you in comparison to that? No contest! Pitting a human being against an angel is like pitting a new born baby against a highly trained soldier! No contest! Even the victories of the good angels over the bad angels is brought about by the power of God. That is why, in the abbreviated St. Michael prayer, we say: “Do thou, by the power of God, cast into Hell Satan and all other wicked spirits.”
The Armies of Heaven and Hell
You may wonder why on earth God lets Satan “rule the roost” on Earth and why God lets Satan bring about the damnation of the vast majority of mankind. Why does God not just step-in and put an end to all of Satan’s infernal work? Even when God walked among us―as Jesus Christ―He still expected man to play a part in salvation. Our Lord was not going to “spoon-feed” us, nor give us “everything on a plate”! Our Lord delegated some of His work to His Apostles and disciples and the words He uses clearly indicates that He does not want us to be idle in the spiritual matters and about salvation:
“The Lord appointed also another seventy-two and He sent them, two and two, before His face into every city and place where He Himself was to come. And he said to them: ‘The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few! Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that He send laborers into His harvest! … Pray always and faint not! … The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away! … If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me! … He that hears you, hears Me; and he that despises you, despises Me; and he that despises Me, despises Him that sent Me! … Going, therefore, teach ye all nations―baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost―teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!’” (Luke 10:1-2, 16; 18:1; 9:23; Matthew 11:12; 28:19-20).
God has made both the angels and men with a free will. Heaven is not an automatic freebie―neither for the angels nor men. Just as the angels were tested and tried―whereby it is said that one-third of the angels failed the test and rebelled against God―so too is mankind tested and tried before being allowed to enter Heaven. The majority fail the test and most of God’s Chosen People―the Israelites in the Old Testament and Catholics in the New Testament―fail the test. God will help anyone and everyone to achieve salvation―but it must be on God’s terms and not on our terms. We are meant to struggle and fight for Heaven: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) … “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12).
It is in this sense that the Angel of Portugal―whom some think was St. Michael the Archangel―recruited the three children at Fatima (Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta) into God’s army, saying: Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
Our Lady of Fatima also indicated the need for our active participation in the work of saving souls, when she said to the three Fatima children: Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
Just as you body parts work together as a team in order to keep you healthy and alive, so too must the various parts of the Mystical Body of Christ work together to help each other maintain spiritual health and attain salvation―each one of us has received a gift, and we must use it to serve and help one another (1 Peter 4:10). God could intervene directly in the life of each and every one of us, in order to protect us from all evil and to lead us all safely to Heaven. Yet just as any parent will not do every single thing for its child, but expects the child to learn to look after itself―so too does God refuse to spoil us by doing every single thing for us. You are obliged to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12) while always relying upon and cooperating with God’s grace: “Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves―but our sufficiency is from God!” (2 Corinthians 3:5) … “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) … “My grace is sufficient for thee!” (2 Corinthians 12:9) … “I can do all these things in Him who strengthens me!” (Philippians 4:13).
Both in the natural sphere and the supernatural sphere, we are not independent but interdependent. Through the Sacrament of Confirmation, you were made a Soldier of Christ. Christ’s Church is united army and not a bunch of independent soldiers―Our Lord points out that “if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand” (Mark 3:24-25). With regard to His followers, Christ desired “that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us” (John 17:21). The method of Satan is time-tested and proved to work tactic of “divide and conquer” ― which has worked for him from the time of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, to this present day. He seeks to divide the Catholic Church, nations, states, cities, communities, parishes, schools, families, relatives, friends and neighbors.
The Armies of Hell Seek to Divide and Conquer
As much as God seeks unity, Satan seeks disunity―he destroys the unity between Eve and God to bring about the Original Sin; he divided Cain and Abel; he divided Abraham’s servants and Lot’s servants; he divided Joseph and his brothers; he divided the Hebrews from Moses in the desert; he divided Saul and David; he divided the Kingdom of Israel into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms; he divided the Jews in the time of the Machabees with most becoming liberal pro-Greece and few remaining traditional. From the time that Christ founded His Church, Satan has caused divisions throughout all centuries―with the major ones being:
(1) The Arian Heresy which caused major divisions for over 50 years in the 4th century;
(2) The 11th century East–West Schism, also known as “The Great Schism” or “Schism of 1054”, is the ongoing break of communion between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox.
(3) The Western Schism, also known as the Papal Schism, was a split within the Catholic Church lasting from 1378 to 1417, during which time there were two opposing groups of Catholic clergy, residing in Rome (Italy) and Avignon (France), each with its own set of cardinals and bishops, from whom each side elected men who both claimed to be the true pope. For a short while they were joined by a third pope in 1409, when a Church Council in Pisa (Italy) deposed and excommunicated the two popes in Rome and Avignon!
(4) In the early 16th century, certain Catholic protestors such as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, John Wycliffe, John Knox, William Tyndale were all Catholic priests, Philipp Melanchthon (Catholic Professor), John Calvin (Catholic lawyer). The Protestant Reformation reformed nothing and only led it adherents into a Protestant Schism which quickly became a Protestant Heresy. True reform can only come from within the Church and not through schism or heresy.
Article 16
Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday September 25th, 26th, 27th, 2023
Modern Day Swords of Sorrow in Mary's Heart!
Part 7: Putting Jesus in the Tomb and the Modern World
Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday September 25th, 26th, 27th, 2023
Modern Day Swords of Sorrow in Mary's Heart!
Part 7: Putting Jesus in the Tomb and the Modern World
Dead and Buried!
That is what Our Lady had to witness back then―and that is what Our Lady is witnessing today! Just as the majority of Jews wanted Jesus dead and buried around 2,000 years ago, so too does the majority of world wants Jesus dead and buried today! Likewise, at the time of Our Lord’s Passion and Death, there were also many who were basically indifferent towards Jesus and His plight―whether He was “alive and kicking” or “dead and buried”―they simply couldn’t care any less! For them, Jesus was a passing spectacle, the latest bit of news, and once He passed away, life would go on as normal!
Our Lord Himself said it―the world is not His kingdom: “I am not of this world! … My kingdom is not of this world! … “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).” (John 8:23; 18:36; 7:7). He tells us that Satan is the prince of this world: “The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he hath not anything … The prince of this world is already judged ... Now shall the prince of this world be cast out!” (John 12:31; 16:11; 14:30).
Hence it is that Holy Scripture further warns: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Satan uses the things of this world to tempt persons away from God―with power, riches and impurity being among the chief temptations. Is that not the doctrine, or gospel, or agenda of those who are worldly? They seek as much power and control as possible! They seek to accumulate as much wealth as possible: in money and possessions. They seek to indulge in as many pleasures of the flesh as possible―whether it be in thought, sight, word or action.
Three-Fold Hatred of Christ
As Holy Scripture says: “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). There are three chief areas in which Christ is attacked, killed and buried. These are through:
(1) Anti-Christian Persecution
(2) Anti-Christian Secularization (in the Political and Financial Domain)
(3) Anti-Christian Culture (in the Social Domain)
(1) ANTI-CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION: Christians have always been persecuted and always will be persecuted. Yet what most people are not aware of is that the 20th and 21st centuries (1900-2023), taken together, have seen more Christian martyrs than all of the other centuries combined. The US-based Pew Research Center estimated that Christians of all denominations constituted the largest religious group in the world in 2022, at 2.3 billion, or 31% of the global population. Islam is next with 1.9 billion or 25% of the global population. Secular / Non-religious / Agnostic / Atheist groups account for 1.2 billion or 16% of the population. Hinduism also has 1.2 billion followers, or 16% of the population. Buddhism comes next with 506 million or 7% of the global population. Then come 17 other minor religions with a combined total of 772 million. All of which gives around 7.9 billion people.
From those numbers you can clearly see that, even though Christianity (Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants combined) is the largest single religion, it is nevertheless in the minority with the total global population―giving only 3 Christians out of every ten persons. On the other hand, a report by Pew Research Center estimated that 90% of Christians live in countries where they are in a majority. Over the past year, 360 million Christians lived in places where they experienced high levels of persecution and discrimination. According to the Pew Research Center, more than 80% of the world’s governments interfered with their citizens’ religious worship in some way in 2019. For example, Islamic countries often view other religions as heretical, an affront to Allah, which is considered an extremely serious crime. Communist countries, by comparison, often outlaw all religion—which Karl Marx famously deemed the “opiate of the masses”—preferring that the government be the only authority guiding people’s concept of fairness and one’s role in society.
Politicians create laws―they legislate. Technically, in a democracy, the people should be able to decide what laws they want and do not want―but in most democracies, it the persons that the people elect into government who end up making the laws. Now, not all countries are democracies. In some countries the power to make the rules doesn't come from the people. Oligarchy means “rule by the few.” And autocracy means “one person rule.” In both of these cases, it's not the people who are making the decisions or electing their leaders. In some autocracies there is a king or a queen―that is called a monarchy. In other places there is a dictator or a supreme leader. Human laws SHOULD be in harmony with God’s Laws and subject to God’s Laws―but that is not always the case and this opposition to God’s Law by contrary human laws is increasing all the time. Some countries are more guilty than others. The most blatant and obvious human law opposition to God’s Law is seen in cases such as abortion, contraception, sterilization, divorce with remarriage, same-sex marriages, homosexual behavior, adultery, cohabitation without marriage, etc. Even prostitution is now legal or partially legal in 84 countries; it is illegal in 76 countries; with 68 countries have unavailable information on its status.
Legalized sin is what we are increasingly seeing in the world around us―it is not as though sin is decreasing, it is increasing greatly and it in many cases it is doing this under the so-called protection of the law. “Woe to them that make wicked laws―when they write laws, they write injustice!” (Isaias 10:1). “Acting wickedly against the laws of God does not go unpunished!” (2 Machabees 4:17). “Leaving the commandment of God, you hold the traditions of men!” (Mark 7:8) … “You savor not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men” (Matthew 16:23) … “Walk not after the laws of the nations!” (Leviticus 20:23) … “We ought to obey God, rather than men!” (Acts 5:29). “The laws of the people are vain!” (Jeremias 10:3). “When they knew God, they have not glorified Him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. They changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator!” (Romans 1:21-25).
Even Christian countries, who might have Christian rulers, a Christian government and Christian legislators―they are, of the most part, Christians in name only. That is proved by the fact that these Christian countries, rulers, governments and legislators have increasingly introduced anti-Christian laws that are in opposition to God’s Law. Among the chief nations of the world, there are no truly Christian countries or nations. “God looked down from Heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, or did seek God. All have gone aside, they are become unprofitable together, there is none that doth good, no not one. They are corrupted, and become abominable in iniquities! There is none that doth good. They have not called upon God! The fool said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’” (Psalm 52:1-6).
The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5) are not laws devised by Moses and given only to Israel. They were binding before the time of Moses, as well as during and after Jesus Christ’s life. In fact, the Ten Commandments have been in full force and effect since creation―they were, in essence, written into our hearts by God: “I will give My laws in their hearts, and on their minds will I write them!” (Hebrews 10:16). You could call them “common sense” laws ― which any person of good will should recognize and obey. They are still binding on us today! They are not just “Church rituals” or “good suggestions,” but the very code of conduct required by our God―Who did not only create Catholics, nor just Christians, but He created all of mankind, each and every soul that has ever lived! He is the Creator and He is ultimate Lawmaker. Yet that is not how the world sees thing today! Most countries with their governments wrongly imagine that the following of God’s Laws is only an option and that man can override, overturn and change the Laws of God into laws that man prefers. “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3).
Whether or not Christianity is legal or illegal in a given country can be difficult to determine. There are two main reasons for this confusion. First, the laws themselves can be convoluted and often appear to contradict themselves. What’s more, the regimes that are most likely to restrict freedom of religion are the same regimes that are more likely to be secretive and/or deceptive about differences between the letter of the law and its real-world implementation.
What does it mean for Christianity to be illegal? The severity of the laws (and the punishments for breaking them) vary depending upon the specific country. In most cases, it means Christians cannot gather to worship together in churches. Nor can they publicly express their Faith or attempt to preach the Gospel and attempt to lead others to adopt that Faith. It frequently also means that simply owning a Bible or talking about Christianity—even among family members in the privacy of one’s own home—can result in imprisonment or death.
For example, the constitution of North Korea specifically establishes freedom of religion—however, it adds that “religion must not be used as a pretext for drawing in foreign forces or for harming the State or social order.” This vague stipulation is used by the government to implement one of the most religiously oppressive regimes in the world. Similarly, Afghanistan’s constitution names Islam as the state religion, but promises practitioners of other religions are free to worship “within the limits of the law.” However, acts made illegal by those “limits of the law” include sharing one’s Christian Faith, speaking negatively of Islam, or publishing materials that contradict Islamic principles. Converting from Islam to another religion is also illegal and is punishable by imprisonment, confiscation of property, or even the death sentence. Since the USA is become more and more Communist with each passing decade or even every year―(remember that Sister Lucia of Fatima said it was revealed to her that Communism would take over the whole world, including the USA)―it will not be long before the State has a stranglehold and control over all religion, ruling, dictating, censoring, sanctioning and imprisoning whenever it wants. It will then in place into the
(2) ANTI-CHRISTIAN SECULARIZATION: Such severe persecution can often blind us from seeing a much more subtle, hidden, “soft” persecution in the Western civilizations and nations. In a sense, just as Mary and Joseph could not find a place to stay in Bethlehem at the time of Christ’s birth―so too, today, Christ again finds it hard to find places that will take Him in and give Him a dwelling place. Christ has either been kicked-out or shoved into the closet in so many public schools, government buildings, public buildings, business establishments, financial institutions, and a whole host of other places. It is either a case of “We don’t want You here!” or “We have no time for You here!” How appropriate and applicable are the following words of Holy Scripture: “God looked down from Heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, or did seek God. All have gone aside, they are become unprofitable together, there is none that doth good, no not one. They are corrupted, and become abominable in iniquities! There is none that doth good. They have not called upon God! The fool said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’” (Psalm 52:1-6).
All branches of a nation should be infused with Christian principles. No nation is exempt from this―as Christ Himself said: “Going, therefore, teach ye all nations―baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost! Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20). If all the nations of the world are not converted and baptized―then that is our fault, the fault of both the Catholic clergy and the laity. The laity are not exempt from the obligation and responsibility of bringing others to the Faith―because even if very few of them can actively and effectively evangelize others, they can nevertheless pray much and offer many sacrifices for the conversion of souls―for those prayers and sacrifices draw down the necessary graces from Heaven for the conversion of souls. Sadly, they do not do that. Our Lady of Fatima clearly stated that: “Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” She is not just talking about Catholic sinners―but also Protestant and pagan sinners, who not have the one true Faith. It must be remembered that the laity supply the ammunition (prayers and sacrifices) that the clergy can use on the front line of the battle against the world and its conversion to the Faith. Why else would the laity be called “Soldiers of Christ” as a result of receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation? Additionally, the laity can do much passive evangelizing by the showing the example of an exemplary and virtuous Catholic life to all those that they live, work and mix with: “You are the salt of the Earth! ... You are the light of the world! … So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:13-16).
Traditional American Christians have long been on the losing end of culture-war contests—on school prayer, same-sex marriage, abortion, transgenderism, the labeling of sin as being sinful is becoming a “hate crime”, and many other issues, all of which have added to the sense that true religious expression is under attack. This smothering and stifling of the Faith eventually becomes corrosive and erosive of the Faith, gradually wearing it down and wearing it out. According to recent Pew Research reports, the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as religiously affiliated has shrunk―while the percentage describing themselves as unaffiliated to any religions has grown from 2007 to 2022. The percentage who say they are “absolutely certain” God exists fell to 63% from 71% during this time period, while the religiously non-affiliated has grown to 32%. This ever-increasing secularism has catapulted mockery and rejection of Christianity and other forms of religious traditionalism into the mainstream and set a new low for what counts as civil criticism of people’s most-cherished beliefs. The more people lose belief in God, then the less likely is it that those people want to see God represented in the world around them―because it quietly, consciously or unconsciously eats away at the conscience. Hence Christ warned His followers: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own―but because you are not of the world, for I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know ye, that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
Some of the faithful have paid unexpected prices for their beliefs lately: a teacher in New Jersey was suspended for giving a student a Bible; a football coach in Washington was placed on leave for saying a prayer on the field at the end of a game; the fire chief in Atlanta was fired for self-publishing a book defending Christian moral teaching; a Marine was court-martialed for pasting a Bible verse above her desk; and there are many other examples of the new intolerance. Anti-Christian activists hurl smears like “bigot” and “hater” at Americans who hold traditional beliefs about marriage and accuse anti-abortion Christians of waging a supposed “war on women.”
Some Christian institutions face pressure to conform to secularist ideology—or else. Religious schools and colleges have had their accreditation questioned. Some secularists argue that Christian schools don’t deserve accreditation, period. Activists have targeted home-schooling for being a Christian thing; atheist Richard Dawkins and others have even called it tantamount to child abuse. Student groups like InterVarsity have been kicked off campuses. Christian charities, including adoption agencies, Catholic hospitals and crisis pregnancy centers have become objects of attack.
(3) ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTURE: What is meant by the word “culture”? Let us mention several definitions of “culture” to give us a broad encompassing view. It is defined as: (1) “The customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.” (2) “The customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.” (3) “The characteristic features of everyday existence―such as diversions or a way of life―shared by people in a place or time.” (4) “The set of shared values, goals, attitudes, conventions, practices that characterizes a nation, a race, a community or body of people, an institution or organization.” (5) “Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to generation.” If you blend together all these similar definitions, then you would come up with something like: “A nation’s, race’s, or a society’s culture includes the customary and widespread beliefs, morality, values, attitudes, goals, practices, customs, arts and general behavior that has been adopted the majority of the people within that society.” The culture of a nation or group of people can be either good or evil. Hence we can have a “Christian culture” and a “Non-Christian culture” ― a moral culture and an immoral culture; a virtuous culture and a sinful culture; etc.
Culture (from the Latin cultura, stemming from colere, meaning “to cultivate”) generally refers to patterns of human activity. Culture can be defined as all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called “the way of life for an entire society.” As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, art, norms of behavior, such as law and morality, and systems of belief.
Based upon the above definitions, it does not take a “rocket-scientist” or a genius to see that that today’s world culture is radically anti-Christian. The beliefs, morality, attitudes, goals, values, language, codes of behavior, fashions, art, music, media content is far from being Christian. It is closer to being Satanic than it is to being Christian. It is a sinful culture and, as Holy Scripture says: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8) ― and, on the point of sin, Our Lady said to Blessed Elena Aiello, way back in less sinful times that we see today: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! … Sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!” Our Lady of Good Success, foreseeing and speaking of our current times, said: “The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times! Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty! There will be almost no virgin souls in the world! The evil will invade childhood innocence! … Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women!”
How true those words of Our Lady have turned out to be! Today’s modern culture has increasingly accepted pornography, impure behavior, immodest fashions, sex outside of marriage, homosexual relations, etc. In just over 60 years, we have come to a point where what we look upon as normal and acceptable today, would have been considered to be indecent and outrageous 60 years ago! In the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s you could not wear the “reveal-all-and-hide-nothing” swimwear that is worn today on beaches (and on streets too!)―persons would be either ticketed and fined, or removed from public view by police, or forced to cover-up. Today, the fight is over allowing full nudity on beaches! In movies, the “first movie kiss” was more like a few pecks on the lips, lasted a few seconds and shocked society―today, society watches long passionate kissing with much more besides, and does not even blink an eyelid, but actually enjoys the titillation! Some movies have full-blown simulated sex-scenes with full or almost full nudity―and nobody protests, it is just the way things are today, anything goes! As for illegal drug use and alcohol abuse―the numbers are always going up and the age of those who use them is going down, as more and more children are being introduced to drugs and alcohol. Around 275 million people (1 in 28 of the world’s population) used illegal drugs worldwide in the last year, while over 36 million people (1 in 200 of the world’s population) suffered from drug use disorders, according to the 2021 World Drug Report, released today by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Cultural changes form, deform and reform societies. Modern culture has deformed our current society―even though te advocates and supporters of modern culture would say the opposite! Culture is the foundation of any society. Culture represents society―it could be metaphorically said to be the clothes that a society wears that sets one society apart from another society. Each culture has its language, tradition, customs, art, and lifestyles. It varies according to the choice of people, their preferences, religion, education, fashion, weather, and area. In the last 100 years, the world has rigorously changed. The way people think, their lifestyle, preferences, everything has been modified. It is a major change throughout the history of the world. The shift from traditional to modern culture has been one of man’s greatest falls from grace.
Today’s culture increasingly dethrones Christ, dethrones God, dethrones the morality instituted by God, and also has begun to dethrone the Natural Law and Moral Law of God. The new god is man who, like Lucifer, cries out: “I will not serve!” Dependence upon God has been replaced by the spirit of an ever-growing independence. The modern culture prides itself upon independence―but there is no real independence and can be no real, total, universal independence. The whole of God’s creation is founded upon dependence―our own human body mirrors that dependence, whereby all our body parts depend upon other body parts for continued existence, growth and health. Likewise, our whole body and our whole soul necessarily and inescapably depend on outside factors for their continued existence, growth and well-being. There are laws of nature―which are laws created by God―that we must follow if we are to maintain growth, well-being and safety. Yet man is beginning to break those laws, reform those laws, ignore those laws and replace them with man-made laws. We see this in major and minor ways. The attempt to change the gender of persons; attempts to be able make “test-tube-babies” by making artificial embryos from stem cells; embryonic manipulations; transplanting organs from animals into humans; killing humans to harvest their organs; aborting babies to use their organs; making cosmetics from tissue from aborted babies; attempts to control, reduce, or even eliminate certain groups of persons through eugenics, euthanasia, forced sterilization and other means.
Apart from these attacks upon human nature created by God, today’s modern culture permits the satanically prideful attempts in tampering with and modifying the laws of nature―laws that were created and imposed by God. Science often seeks to rule God out of the equation in the matter of creation―some scientists seem to have revulsion for the idea that God created everything, and so they try to come up with a whole host of alternatives to God creating the universe. We also see things like scientists tampering with the natural weather through geoengineering the Earth’s atmosphere; tampering with seeds and plants with GMO (genetically modifying organisms); we now have lab-made meat, milk, cheese, etc.
That is what Our Lady had to witness back then―and that is what Our Lady is witnessing today! Just as the majority of Jews wanted Jesus dead and buried around 2,000 years ago, so too does the majority of world wants Jesus dead and buried today! Likewise, at the time of Our Lord’s Passion and Death, there were also many who were basically indifferent towards Jesus and His plight―whether He was “alive and kicking” or “dead and buried”―they simply couldn’t care any less! For them, Jesus was a passing spectacle, the latest bit of news, and once He passed away, life would go on as normal!
Our Lord Himself said it―the world is not His kingdom: “I am not of this world! … My kingdom is not of this world! … “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).” (John 8:23; 18:36; 7:7). He tells us that Satan is the prince of this world: “The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he hath not anything … The prince of this world is already judged ... Now shall the prince of this world be cast out!” (John 12:31; 16:11; 14:30).
Hence it is that Holy Scripture further warns: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Satan uses the things of this world to tempt persons away from God―with power, riches and impurity being among the chief temptations. Is that not the doctrine, or gospel, or agenda of those who are worldly? They seek as much power and control as possible! They seek to accumulate as much wealth as possible: in money and possessions. They seek to indulge in as many pleasures of the flesh as possible―whether it be in thought, sight, word or action.
Three-Fold Hatred of Christ
As Holy Scripture says: “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). There are three chief areas in which Christ is attacked, killed and buried. These are through:
(1) Anti-Christian Persecution
(2) Anti-Christian Secularization (in the Political and Financial Domain)
(3) Anti-Christian Culture (in the Social Domain)
(1) ANTI-CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION: Christians have always been persecuted and always will be persecuted. Yet what most people are not aware of is that the 20th and 21st centuries (1900-2023), taken together, have seen more Christian martyrs than all of the other centuries combined. The US-based Pew Research Center estimated that Christians of all denominations constituted the largest religious group in the world in 2022, at 2.3 billion, or 31% of the global population. Islam is next with 1.9 billion or 25% of the global population. Secular / Non-religious / Agnostic / Atheist groups account for 1.2 billion or 16% of the population. Hinduism also has 1.2 billion followers, or 16% of the population. Buddhism comes next with 506 million or 7% of the global population. Then come 17 other minor religions with a combined total of 772 million. All of which gives around 7.9 billion people.
From those numbers you can clearly see that, even though Christianity (Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants combined) is the largest single religion, it is nevertheless in the minority with the total global population―giving only 3 Christians out of every ten persons. On the other hand, a report by Pew Research Center estimated that 90% of Christians live in countries where they are in a majority. Over the past year, 360 million Christians lived in places where they experienced high levels of persecution and discrimination. According to the Pew Research Center, more than 80% of the world’s governments interfered with their citizens’ religious worship in some way in 2019. For example, Islamic countries often view other religions as heretical, an affront to Allah, which is considered an extremely serious crime. Communist countries, by comparison, often outlaw all religion—which Karl Marx famously deemed the “opiate of the masses”—preferring that the government be the only authority guiding people’s concept of fairness and one’s role in society.
Politicians create laws―they legislate. Technically, in a democracy, the people should be able to decide what laws they want and do not want―but in most democracies, it the persons that the people elect into government who end up making the laws. Now, not all countries are democracies. In some countries the power to make the rules doesn't come from the people. Oligarchy means “rule by the few.” And autocracy means “one person rule.” In both of these cases, it's not the people who are making the decisions or electing their leaders. In some autocracies there is a king or a queen―that is called a monarchy. In other places there is a dictator or a supreme leader. Human laws SHOULD be in harmony with God’s Laws and subject to God’s Laws―but that is not always the case and this opposition to God’s Law by contrary human laws is increasing all the time. Some countries are more guilty than others. The most blatant and obvious human law opposition to God’s Law is seen in cases such as abortion, contraception, sterilization, divorce with remarriage, same-sex marriages, homosexual behavior, adultery, cohabitation without marriage, etc. Even prostitution is now legal or partially legal in 84 countries; it is illegal in 76 countries; with 68 countries have unavailable information on its status.
Legalized sin is what we are increasingly seeing in the world around us―it is not as though sin is decreasing, it is increasing greatly and it in many cases it is doing this under the so-called protection of the law. “Woe to them that make wicked laws―when they write laws, they write injustice!” (Isaias 10:1). “Acting wickedly against the laws of God does not go unpunished!” (2 Machabees 4:17). “Leaving the commandment of God, you hold the traditions of men!” (Mark 7:8) … “You savor not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men” (Matthew 16:23) … “Walk not after the laws of the nations!” (Leviticus 20:23) … “We ought to obey God, rather than men!” (Acts 5:29). “The laws of the people are vain!” (Jeremias 10:3). “When they knew God, they have not glorified Him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. They changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator!” (Romans 1:21-25).
Even Christian countries, who might have Christian rulers, a Christian government and Christian legislators―they are, of the most part, Christians in name only. That is proved by the fact that these Christian countries, rulers, governments and legislators have increasingly introduced anti-Christian laws that are in opposition to God’s Law. Among the chief nations of the world, there are no truly Christian countries or nations. “God looked down from Heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, or did seek God. All have gone aside, they are become unprofitable together, there is none that doth good, no not one. They are corrupted, and become abominable in iniquities! There is none that doth good. They have not called upon God! The fool said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’” (Psalm 52:1-6).
The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5) are not laws devised by Moses and given only to Israel. They were binding before the time of Moses, as well as during and after Jesus Christ’s life. In fact, the Ten Commandments have been in full force and effect since creation―they were, in essence, written into our hearts by God: “I will give My laws in their hearts, and on their minds will I write them!” (Hebrews 10:16). You could call them “common sense” laws ― which any person of good will should recognize and obey. They are still binding on us today! They are not just “Church rituals” or “good suggestions,” but the very code of conduct required by our God―Who did not only create Catholics, nor just Christians, but He created all of mankind, each and every soul that has ever lived! He is the Creator and He is ultimate Lawmaker. Yet that is not how the world sees thing today! Most countries with their governments wrongly imagine that the following of God’s Laws is only an option and that man can override, overturn and change the Laws of God into laws that man prefers. “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3).
Whether or not Christianity is legal or illegal in a given country can be difficult to determine. There are two main reasons for this confusion. First, the laws themselves can be convoluted and often appear to contradict themselves. What’s more, the regimes that are most likely to restrict freedom of religion are the same regimes that are more likely to be secretive and/or deceptive about differences between the letter of the law and its real-world implementation.
What does it mean for Christianity to be illegal? The severity of the laws (and the punishments for breaking them) vary depending upon the specific country. In most cases, it means Christians cannot gather to worship together in churches. Nor can they publicly express their Faith or attempt to preach the Gospel and attempt to lead others to adopt that Faith. It frequently also means that simply owning a Bible or talking about Christianity—even among family members in the privacy of one’s own home—can result in imprisonment or death.
For example, the constitution of North Korea specifically establishes freedom of religion—however, it adds that “religion must not be used as a pretext for drawing in foreign forces or for harming the State or social order.” This vague stipulation is used by the government to implement one of the most religiously oppressive regimes in the world. Similarly, Afghanistan’s constitution names Islam as the state religion, but promises practitioners of other religions are free to worship “within the limits of the law.” However, acts made illegal by those “limits of the law” include sharing one’s Christian Faith, speaking negatively of Islam, or publishing materials that contradict Islamic principles. Converting from Islam to another religion is also illegal and is punishable by imprisonment, confiscation of property, or even the death sentence. Since the USA is become more and more Communist with each passing decade or even every year―(remember that Sister Lucia of Fatima said it was revealed to her that Communism would take over the whole world, including the USA)―it will not be long before the State has a stranglehold and control over all religion, ruling, dictating, censoring, sanctioning and imprisoning whenever it wants. It will then in place into the
(2) ANTI-CHRISTIAN SECULARIZATION: Such severe persecution can often blind us from seeing a much more subtle, hidden, “soft” persecution in the Western civilizations and nations. In a sense, just as Mary and Joseph could not find a place to stay in Bethlehem at the time of Christ’s birth―so too, today, Christ again finds it hard to find places that will take Him in and give Him a dwelling place. Christ has either been kicked-out or shoved into the closet in so many public schools, government buildings, public buildings, business establishments, financial institutions, and a whole host of other places. It is either a case of “We don’t want You here!” or “We have no time for You here!” How appropriate and applicable are the following words of Holy Scripture: “God looked down from Heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, or did seek God. All have gone aside, they are become unprofitable together, there is none that doth good, no not one. They are corrupted, and become abominable in iniquities! There is none that doth good. They have not called upon God! The fool said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’” (Psalm 52:1-6).
All branches of a nation should be infused with Christian principles. No nation is exempt from this―as Christ Himself said: “Going, therefore, teach ye all nations―baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost! Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20). If all the nations of the world are not converted and baptized―then that is our fault, the fault of both the Catholic clergy and the laity. The laity are not exempt from the obligation and responsibility of bringing others to the Faith―because even if very few of them can actively and effectively evangelize others, they can nevertheless pray much and offer many sacrifices for the conversion of souls―for those prayers and sacrifices draw down the necessary graces from Heaven for the conversion of souls. Sadly, they do not do that. Our Lady of Fatima clearly stated that: “Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” She is not just talking about Catholic sinners―but also Protestant and pagan sinners, who not have the one true Faith. It must be remembered that the laity supply the ammunition (prayers and sacrifices) that the clergy can use on the front line of the battle against the world and its conversion to the Faith. Why else would the laity be called “Soldiers of Christ” as a result of receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation? Additionally, the laity can do much passive evangelizing by the showing the example of an exemplary and virtuous Catholic life to all those that they live, work and mix with: “You are the salt of the Earth! ... You are the light of the world! … So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:13-16).
Traditional American Christians have long been on the losing end of culture-war contests—on school prayer, same-sex marriage, abortion, transgenderism, the labeling of sin as being sinful is becoming a “hate crime”, and many other issues, all of which have added to the sense that true religious expression is under attack. This smothering and stifling of the Faith eventually becomes corrosive and erosive of the Faith, gradually wearing it down and wearing it out. According to recent Pew Research reports, the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as religiously affiliated has shrunk―while the percentage describing themselves as unaffiliated to any religions has grown from 2007 to 2022. The percentage who say they are “absolutely certain” God exists fell to 63% from 71% during this time period, while the religiously non-affiliated has grown to 32%. This ever-increasing secularism has catapulted mockery and rejection of Christianity and other forms of religious traditionalism into the mainstream and set a new low for what counts as civil criticism of people’s most-cherished beliefs. The more people lose belief in God, then the less likely is it that those people want to see God represented in the world around them―because it quietly, consciously or unconsciously eats away at the conscience. Hence Christ warned His followers: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own―but because you are not of the world, for I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know ye, that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
Some of the faithful have paid unexpected prices for their beliefs lately: a teacher in New Jersey was suspended for giving a student a Bible; a football coach in Washington was placed on leave for saying a prayer on the field at the end of a game; the fire chief in Atlanta was fired for self-publishing a book defending Christian moral teaching; a Marine was court-martialed for pasting a Bible verse above her desk; and there are many other examples of the new intolerance. Anti-Christian activists hurl smears like “bigot” and “hater” at Americans who hold traditional beliefs about marriage and accuse anti-abortion Christians of waging a supposed “war on women.”
Some Christian institutions face pressure to conform to secularist ideology—or else. Religious schools and colleges have had their accreditation questioned. Some secularists argue that Christian schools don’t deserve accreditation, period. Activists have targeted home-schooling for being a Christian thing; atheist Richard Dawkins and others have even called it tantamount to child abuse. Student groups like InterVarsity have been kicked off campuses. Christian charities, including adoption agencies, Catholic hospitals and crisis pregnancy centers have become objects of attack.
(3) ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTURE: What is meant by the word “culture”? Let us mention several definitions of “culture” to give us a broad encompassing view. It is defined as: (1) “The customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.” (2) “The customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.” (3) “The characteristic features of everyday existence―such as diversions or a way of life―shared by people in a place or time.” (4) “The set of shared values, goals, attitudes, conventions, practices that characterizes a nation, a race, a community or body of people, an institution or organization.” (5) “Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to generation.” If you blend together all these similar definitions, then you would come up with something like: “A nation’s, race’s, or a society’s culture includes the customary and widespread beliefs, morality, values, attitudes, goals, practices, customs, arts and general behavior that has been adopted the majority of the people within that society.” The culture of a nation or group of people can be either good or evil. Hence we can have a “Christian culture” and a “Non-Christian culture” ― a moral culture and an immoral culture; a virtuous culture and a sinful culture; etc.
Culture (from the Latin cultura, stemming from colere, meaning “to cultivate”) generally refers to patterns of human activity. Culture can be defined as all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called “the way of life for an entire society.” As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, art, norms of behavior, such as law and morality, and systems of belief.
Based upon the above definitions, it does not take a “rocket-scientist” or a genius to see that that today’s world culture is radically anti-Christian. The beliefs, morality, attitudes, goals, values, language, codes of behavior, fashions, art, music, media content is far from being Christian. It is closer to being Satanic than it is to being Christian. It is a sinful culture and, as Holy Scripture says: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8) ― and, on the point of sin, Our Lady said to Blessed Elena Aiello, way back in less sinful times that we see today: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! … Sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!” Our Lady of Good Success, foreseeing and speaking of our current times, said: “The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times! Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty! There will be almost no virgin souls in the world! The evil will invade childhood innocence! … Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women!”
How true those words of Our Lady have turned out to be! Today’s modern culture has increasingly accepted pornography, impure behavior, immodest fashions, sex outside of marriage, homosexual relations, etc. In just over 60 years, we have come to a point where what we look upon as normal and acceptable today, would have been considered to be indecent and outrageous 60 years ago! In the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s you could not wear the “reveal-all-and-hide-nothing” swimwear that is worn today on beaches (and on streets too!)―persons would be either ticketed and fined, or removed from public view by police, or forced to cover-up. Today, the fight is over allowing full nudity on beaches! In movies, the “first movie kiss” was more like a few pecks on the lips, lasted a few seconds and shocked society―today, society watches long passionate kissing with much more besides, and does not even blink an eyelid, but actually enjoys the titillation! Some movies have full-blown simulated sex-scenes with full or almost full nudity―and nobody protests, it is just the way things are today, anything goes! As for illegal drug use and alcohol abuse―the numbers are always going up and the age of those who use them is going down, as more and more children are being introduced to drugs and alcohol. Around 275 million people (1 in 28 of the world’s population) used illegal drugs worldwide in the last year, while over 36 million people (1 in 200 of the world’s population) suffered from drug use disorders, according to the 2021 World Drug Report, released today by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Cultural changes form, deform and reform societies. Modern culture has deformed our current society―even though te advocates and supporters of modern culture would say the opposite! Culture is the foundation of any society. Culture represents society―it could be metaphorically said to be the clothes that a society wears that sets one society apart from another society. Each culture has its language, tradition, customs, art, and lifestyles. It varies according to the choice of people, their preferences, religion, education, fashion, weather, and area. In the last 100 years, the world has rigorously changed. The way people think, their lifestyle, preferences, everything has been modified. It is a major change throughout the history of the world. The shift from traditional to modern culture has been one of man’s greatest falls from grace.
Today’s culture increasingly dethrones Christ, dethrones God, dethrones the morality instituted by God, and also has begun to dethrone the Natural Law and Moral Law of God. The new god is man who, like Lucifer, cries out: “I will not serve!” Dependence upon God has been replaced by the spirit of an ever-growing independence. The modern culture prides itself upon independence―but there is no real independence and can be no real, total, universal independence. The whole of God’s creation is founded upon dependence―our own human body mirrors that dependence, whereby all our body parts depend upon other body parts for continued existence, growth and health. Likewise, our whole body and our whole soul necessarily and inescapably depend on outside factors for their continued existence, growth and well-being. There are laws of nature―which are laws created by God―that we must follow if we are to maintain growth, well-being and safety. Yet man is beginning to break those laws, reform those laws, ignore those laws and replace them with man-made laws. We see this in major and minor ways. The attempt to change the gender of persons; attempts to be able make “test-tube-babies” by making artificial embryos from stem cells; embryonic manipulations; transplanting organs from animals into humans; killing humans to harvest their organs; aborting babies to use their organs; making cosmetics from tissue from aborted babies; attempts to control, reduce, or even eliminate certain groups of persons through eugenics, euthanasia, forced sterilization and other means.
Apart from these attacks upon human nature created by God, today’s modern culture permits the satanically prideful attempts in tampering with and modifying the laws of nature―laws that were created and imposed by God. Science often seeks to rule God out of the equation in the matter of creation―some scientists seem to have revulsion for the idea that God created everything, and so they try to come up with a whole host of alternatives to God creating the universe. We also see things like scientists tampering with the natural weather through geoengineering the Earth’s atmosphere; tampering with seeds and plants with GMO (genetically modifying organisms); we now have lab-made meat, milk, cheese, etc.
Article 15
Saturday September 23rd & Sunday September 24th, 2023
Modern Day Swords of Sorrow in Mary's Heart!
Part 6: Receiving the Dead Body of Jesus and the Modern World
Saturday September 23rd & Sunday September 24th, 2023
Modern Day Swords of Sorrow in Mary's Heart!
Part 6: Receiving the Dead Body of Jesus and the Modern World
Holding a Dead Body
Imagine the sorrow of Our Lady having to hold her dead Son in her arms! The Author of Life dead in her arms! To all onlookers it must have seemed like total abject failure! As the two disciples on the road to Emmaus would say, Jesus promised to do so much, to bring about enormous change, to free Israel from Roman occupation―and now here He was, DEAD! He was at the prime of His life―thirty-three years old―and now He was DEAD! He had only just started His public ministry three years ago and had only reached a tiny minority of the world―and now He had been stopped in His tracks and was DEAD!
There are some parents that can relate to that―those who have suffered the tragic loss of a child to death, for whom they held such high hopes in life, who perhaps promised so much, who was on road to inevitable success in life! Then, all of a sudden, the unforeseen and the unexpected happened―an accident, or disease, or an act of violence claimed the life of their child and robbed them of their hopes and dreams for the future of their child.
The unexpected loss of a loved-one to the jaws of death is always painful and hard to take. To look at their lifeless body is gut-wrenching! And the greater their promise and potential had been, then so much the greater is the pain of loss. Yet there is something that is much worse than all that! What is that? It is the soul with no life―that is to say, the soul that has died supernaturally, a soul without the life of sanctifying grace within it, a soul that is dead to God, a soul that has lost the means of getting to eternal life in Heaven―a soul in the state of mortal sin. The word “mortal” signifies death. Hence we have the word “mortuary” which is a place used for the storage of human corpses; statistics often speak of “mortalities” which means deaths; we speak of “mortal wounds” which are wounds that can kill and bring death; we also have the word “mortification” which is a compound of the Latin words: “mors, mortis” meaning “death”; and “facere” and “-ficare” meaning “to make, to do”―hence, literally, “to do to death”, that is to say, to kill―and mortification “kills” our evil tendencies, temptations and sins. Whereas mortal sin kills the life of sanctifying grace in the soul―changing our status of being alive to God, to being dead to God.
Dead or Alive? To What and Whom?
In this sense―since the soul is more important than the body (as the Church teaches us)―the death of the body to this world is nowhere near as tragic as the death of soul towards God. When we read of the things that Our Lady has said in her apparitions―nowhere do we find her lamenting the death of the body in this world, but we see that she has lots to say about the “death” of the soul in eternity. Now, we all know that souls never die―but by “death of the soul” is meant the damnation of the soul in Hell, because the soul has lost eternal life in Heaven. Sadly we place too much importance on the temporary life in this world, and not enough importance is given to eternal life in Heaven. Our Lord says: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). It is better to be dead to this world and alive to God, than to be alive to this world and dead to God!
Our Lady did not come to Fatima lamenting the number of deaths in the world―she came lamenting the number of souls that were falling into Hell after death in this world: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” She did not ask for prayers and sacrifices for the cure of sick in this world and the eradication and removal of diseases in this world―she came asking for prayers and sacrifices for the removal of sin and for the cure of those diseased with sin.
Blessed Queen Blanche, the mother of St. Louis IX, King of France, would say to him: “I love you, my dear son, with all the tenderness a mother is capable of―but I would infinitely rather see you fall down dead at my feet, than that you should ever commit a mortal sin.” That is the spirit of Our Lady, that is spirit of a true Catholic mother, that should be (but isn’t) our spirit too! They say, “Dead men don’t talk!” Well, you can also say, “Dead souls don’t talk with God!” ― because when we commit mortal sin, our soul is dead with regard to God, we do not want Him, we prefer sin to God and through sin we end up talking with Satan: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8) and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23) ... “By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death … Death reigned from Adam” (Romans 5:12-14). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15). Live for God, not for the world.
We should not forget―but we do forget―that sin is the greatest evil in the world, as the Catechism tells us: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin.” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). “Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
Our Lord, several occasions warns us about placing too much importance on life in this world: “Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it! And whosoever shall lose it, shall preserve it!” (Luke 17:33) … “For he that wants to save his life, shall lose it―and he that shall lose his life for My sake, shall find it!” (Matthew 16:25) … “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel, shall save it!” (Mark 8:35) ... “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; for he that shall lose his life for My sake, shall save it!” (Luke 9:24) ... “He that finds his life, shall lose it―and he that shall lose his life for Me, shall find it” (Matthew 10:39).
The Lament of Our Lady
Our Lady speaks along the same lines to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “All the world must be crucified and dead within you! You must have no memory of it; retain none of its images, pay no attention to it; nor have any inclination towards any of its creatures. The shortest and the most secure course to follow, both for thee and for all men, is to welcome bitterness and sorrow and put aside ease and pleasure of the senses, and to resolve not to allow them to become dissipated or enjoy greater freedom than the strict rule of reason permits. Separate thyself from all earthly things; withdraw thyself from what is visible, forsake all the creatures, deny thyself, close thy senses to the deceits and fables of the world! Close up thy senses and consider thyself as dead to them! Live retired and dead to the world! Live crucified with Christ, entirely dead to this earthly life!
“Among all these dangers and difficulties, those of the flesh are not the least―for human weakness, always present and always active, withdraws many from grace. Sacrifice your own inclination and repress all your appetites and passions; and when, by this efficacious determination you are dead to all the movements of self, then force your body to make up the losses which it has caused to the soul through its passions and earthly affections. Always seek to keep your body in strict subjection, allowing it to partake only of those comforts which serve to keep it in proper condition for the activity of the soul, and do not pander to the body’s passions and appetites. Mortify and crush it―until it is dead to all that is delightful to the senses, so that even the common actions necessary for life shall appear to thee more painful than agreeable, taste more of bitterness than of dangerous enjoyment.
“Bodily penances are so appropriate and fitted to mortal creatures, that the ignorance of this truth and the neglect and contempt of bodily mortification is the cause of the damnation of many souls and brings many more into the danger of eternal loss. In their blind deception they follow darkness as their light, taste the bitter as sweet, take deadly poison for remedy of their souls, and hold that for wisdom which is nothing but diabolical and earthly ignorance. In contempt of their own salvation, they care not about the salvation of others and, their Faith being dead and their love extinct, they sorrow not for the loss of souls created by God and redeemed by the Blood of my Son!” (Our Lady’s words to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
Who the Hell Cares? Seems Like Only Satan Cares!
How true that it is ― “they sorrow not for the loss of souls” ― Our Lady of Fatima requested lots of prayers and sacrifices for the vast multitude of souls who are “dead in sin”, who are, so to speak, “lifeless corpses” that she is holding, and she gets very little return to her demands for prayer and sacrifice. As Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on the road of goodness with their life of virtue and apostolate without paying attention to this Message―they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners, the bad―because of their sins―do not see God’s chastisement about to fall upon them presently, and keep following the road of evil through sin, ignoring the Message, because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But, Father, you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way!” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
How can we possibly excuse ourselves? We will try the murderous Cain’s lame excuse: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” We are part of the Mystical Body of Christ―therefore Christ’s attitude, goals and efforts must also be our attitude, goals and efforts―otherwise we amputate ourselves from His Mystical Body. As He would say: “Why do you call Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). He came to help sinners, to seek and save that which is lost, to call sinners to penance: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! ... I came to call sinners to penance! ... The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 19:10; 5:32; 9:56).
So what are we doing? Are we following His lead? Are we doing the same? Are we seeking to save those who are lost? Are we offering many prayers and sacrifices for the conversion and resurrection from the death of sin? Are we teaching this to our children, students, parishioners? Or are we preoccupied and engrossed with our own everyday worldly lives―too busy to try and save sinners by many prayers and sacrifices? “We have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that loves not, abides in death. Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in himself! ... He that has the substance of this world [prayers and sacrifices = spiritual dollars and cents], and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him: how does the charity of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:14-17).
St. John of the Cross, a Doctor of the Church, tells us that at our final judgment after death, we shall be judged upon charity alone―the charity we showed to God and to neighbour―for those are the supreme commandments upon which whole law is built upon: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these! On these two commandments depends the whole law and the prophets!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
Good Samaritan or Bad Samaritan?
You may or may not know that the Samaritans and the Jews were mutual enemies in biblical times―they both believed in the same God, but had some varying and opposing beliefs about God―you could say that it was much like it is with Catholics (the Jews) and the Protestants (the Samaritans). Jesus would sometimes antagonize the Jews by making the Samaritan the hero in His parables―this is the case in the following parable, which we call “The Parable of Good Samaritan.”
“A certain lawyer stood up, tempting Jesus, and saying: ‘Master, what must I do to possess eternal life?’ But Jesus said to him: ‘What is written in the law? How readest thou?’ He, answering, said: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Thou hast answered right! Do this, and thou shalt live!’ But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus: ‘And who is my neighbor?’ And Jesus answering, said: ‘A certain man [a Jew] went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead. And it chanced, that a certain priest [a fellow Jew] went down the same way―and, seeing him, passed by. In like manner also a Levite [another fellow Jew], when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But a certain Samaritan [a mutual enemy of the Jews], being on his journey, came near him; and, seeing him [the Jew], was moved with compassion [towards his enemy]. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine; and, setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn and took care of him [his enemy]. And the next day he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said: “Take care of him [my enemy]! And whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay thee!” Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbor to him that fell among the robbers?’ But the lawyer said: ‘He that showed mercy to him!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Go, and do thou in like manner!’” (Luke 10:25-37).
We can link this parable about the Good Samaritan [the enemy of Jews] to Our Lord’s counsels about how to deal with enemies: “You have heard that it hath been said: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth!’ … You have heard that it hath been said: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy!’ But I say to you ― Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! And pray for them that persecute and calumniate you, so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust! For if you only love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans [sinners] do this? And if you only salute your brethren―what do you do that is more? Do not also the heathens [pagans] do this? Therefore be perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” [Matthew 5:38, 5:43-48).
In the same vein, St Paul writes: “If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink. For, doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head!” (Romans 12:20). St. Paul here refers to the Old Testament: “If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him water to drink―for thou shalt heap hot coals upon his head, and the Lord will reward thee!” (Proverbs 25:22). Wow! That sounds like something we all would like―to heap hot coals on the heads of our enemies! Yet it is not quite meant as we would like it to mean―because we are mean, sometimes very mean, to our enemies; whereas God is kind and seeks to be merciful to His enemies (and we all have been God’s enemies at one time or another, some more, others less, but enemies nevertheless). We might desire the death or even damnation of our enemies―but God says: “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (Ezechiel 18:23).
Sometimes we might wish to tell someone to “Go to Hell!” or tell them to “Drop dead!” ― but not so with God! Even as Christ died on the Cross, He begged: “Father! Forgive them! For they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). As Our Lady held the dead body of Jesus in her arms, she did not curse nor wish the death and damnation of those who had plotted to kill Jesus (the Scribes, Pharisees and Priests), nor him who ordered Jesus to be killed (Pontius Pilate), nor those who actually killed Jesus (the Roman soldiers). Just as her Son had said on the Cross: “Father! Forgive them! For they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34), so, too, must Mary have said in her Sorrowful Heart when her dead Son lay in her arms. Is that what we say of our enemies? Our Lord said: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends!” (John 15:13) ― but He did more than that ― He laid down His life for His enemies, of whom we were one at some time or another! Hence, St. John writes: “Because He has laid down His life for us, then we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren!” (1 John 3:16). And who are our “brethren”? The question is much like the question that the lawyer asked Jesus: “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan, which essentially said that even your enemy is you neighbor―and, likewise, we must count our enemies among our brethren! And “then we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren!” (1 John 3:16).
Tough, eh? Jesus never said that getting to Heaven would be easy! “For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees―you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12).
Imagine the sorrow of Our Lady having to hold her dead Son in her arms! The Author of Life dead in her arms! To all onlookers it must have seemed like total abject failure! As the two disciples on the road to Emmaus would say, Jesus promised to do so much, to bring about enormous change, to free Israel from Roman occupation―and now here He was, DEAD! He was at the prime of His life―thirty-three years old―and now He was DEAD! He had only just started His public ministry three years ago and had only reached a tiny minority of the world―and now He had been stopped in His tracks and was DEAD!
There are some parents that can relate to that―those who have suffered the tragic loss of a child to death, for whom they held such high hopes in life, who perhaps promised so much, who was on road to inevitable success in life! Then, all of a sudden, the unforeseen and the unexpected happened―an accident, or disease, or an act of violence claimed the life of their child and robbed them of their hopes and dreams for the future of their child.
The unexpected loss of a loved-one to the jaws of death is always painful and hard to take. To look at their lifeless body is gut-wrenching! And the greater their promise and potential had been, then so much the greater is the pain of loss. Yet there is something that is much worse than all that! What is that? It is the soul with no life―that is to say, the soul that has died supernaturally, a soul without the life of sanctifying grace within it, a soul that is dead to God, a soul that has lost the means of getting to eternal life in Heaven―a soul in the state of mortal sin. The word “mortal” signifies death. Hence we have the word “mortuary” which is a place used for the storage of human corpses; statistics often speak of “mortalities” which means deaths; we speak of “mortal wounds” which are wounds that can kill and bring death; we also have the word “mortification” which is a compound of the Latin words: “mors, mortis” meaning “death”; and “facere” and “-ficare” meaning “to make, to do”―hence, literally, “to do to death”, that is to say, to kill―and mortification “kills” our evil tendencies, temptations and sins. Whereas mortal sin kills the life of sanctifying grace in the soul―changing our status of being alive to God, to being dead to God.
Dead or Alive? To What and Whom?
In this sense―since the soul is more important than the body (as the Church teaches us)―the death of the body to this world is nowhere near as tragic as the death of soul towards God. When we read of the things that Our Lady has said in her apparitions―nowhere do we find her lamenting the death of the body in this world, but we see that she has lots to say about the “death” of the soul in eternity. Now, we all know that souls never die―but by “death of the soul” is meant the damnation of the soul in Hell, because the soul has lost eternal life in Heaven. Sadly we place too much importance on the temporary life in this world, and not enough importance is given to eternal life in Heaven. Our Lord says: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). It is better to be dead to this world and alive to God, than to be alive to this world and dead to God!
Our Lady did not come to Fatima lamenting the number of deaths in the world―she came lamenting the number of souls that were falling into Hell after death in this world: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” She did not ask for prayers and sacrifices for the cure of sick in this world and the eradication and removal of diseases in this world―she came asking for prayers and sacrifices for the removal of sin and for the cure of those diseased with sin.
Blessed Queen Blanche, the mother of St. Louis IX, King of France, would say to him: “I love you, my dear son, with all the tenderness a mother is capable of―but I would infinitely rather see you fall down dead at my feet, than that you should ever commit a mortal sin.” That is the spirit of Our Lady, that is spirit of a true Catholic mother, that should be (but isn’t) our spirit too! They say, “Dead men don’t talk!” Well, you can also say, “Dead souls don’t talk with God!” ― because when we commit mortal sin, our soul is dead with regard to God, we do not want Him, we prefer sin to God and through sin we end up talking with Satan: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8) and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23) ... “By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death … Death reigned from Adam” (Romans 5:12-14). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15). Live for God, not for the world.
We should not forget―but we do forget―that sin is the greatest evil in the world, as the Catechism tells us: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin.” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). “Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
Our Lord, several occasions warns us about placing too much importance on life in this world: “Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it! And whosoever shall lose it, shall preserve it!” (Luke 17:33) … “For he that wants to save his life, shall lose it―and he that shall lose his life for My sake, shall find it!” (Matthew 16:25) … “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel, shall save it!” (Mark 8:35) ... “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; for he that shall lose his life for My sake, shall save it!” (Luke 9:24) ... “He that finds his life, shall lose it―and he that shall lose his life for Me, shall find it” (Matthew 10:39).
The Lament of Our Lady
Our Lady speaks along the same lines to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “All the world must be crucified and dead within you! You must have no memory of it; retain none of its images, pay no attention to it; nor have any inclination towards any of its creatures. The shortest and the most secure course to follow, both for thee and for all men, is to welcome bitterness and sorrow and put aside ease and pleasure of the senses, and to resolve not to allow them to become dissipated or enjoy greater freedom than the strict rule of reason permits. Separate thyself from all earthly things; withdraw thyself from what is visible, forsake all the creatures, deny thyself, close thy senses to the deceits and fables of the world! Close up thy senses and consider thyself as dead to them! Live retired and dead to the world! Live crucified with Christ, entirely dead to this earthly life!
“Among all these dangers and difficulties, those of the flesh are not the least―for human weakness, always present and always active, withdraws many from grace. Sacrifice your own inclination and repress all your appetites and passions; and when, by this efficacious determination you are dead to all the movements of self, then force your body to make up the losses which it has caused to the soul through its passions and earthly affections. Always seek to keep your body in strict subjection, allowing it to partake only of those comforts which serve to keep it in proper condition for the activity of the soul, and do not pander to the body’s passions and appetites. Mortify and crush it―until it is dead to all that is delightful to the senses, so that even the common actions necessary for life shall appear to thee more painful than agreeable, taste more of bitterness than of dangerous enjoyment.
“Bodily penances are so appropriate and fitted to mortal creatures, that the ignorance of this truth and the neglect and contempt of bodily mortification is the cause of the damnation of many souls and brings many more into the danger of eternal loss. In their blind deception they follow darkness as their light, taste the bitter as sweet, take deadly poison for remedy of their souls, and hold that for wisdom which is nothing but diabolical and earthly ignorance. In contempt of their own salvation, they care not about the salvation of others and, their Faith being dead and their love extinct, they sorrow not for the loss of souls created by God and redeemed by the Blood of my Son!” (Our Lady’s words to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
Who the Hell Cares? Seems Like Only Satan Cares!
How true that it is ― “they sorrow not for the loss of souls” ― Our Lady of Fatima requested lots of prayers and sacrifices for the vast multitude of souls who are “dead in sin”, who are, so to speak, “lifeless corpses” that she is holding, and she gets very little return to her demands for prayer and sacrifice. As Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on the road of goodness with their life of virtue and apostolate without paying attention to this Message―they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners, the bad―because of their sins―do not see God’s chastisement about to fall upon them presently, and keep following the road of evil through sin, ignoring the Message, because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But, Father, you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way!” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
How can we possibly excuse ourselves? We will try the murderous Cain’s lame excuse: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” We are part of the Mystical Body of Christ―therefore Christ’s attitude, goals and efforts must also be our attitude, goals and efforts―otherwise we amputate ourselves from His Mystical Body. As He would say: “Why do you call Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). He came to help sinners, to seek and save that which is lost, to call sinners to penance: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! ... I came to call sinners to penance! ... The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 19:10; 5:32; 9:56).
So what are we doing? Are we following His lead? Are we doing the same? Are we seeking to save those who are lost? Are we offering many prayers and sacrifices for the conversion and resurrection from the death of sin? Are we teaching this to our children, students, parishioners? Or are we preoccupied and engrossed with our own everyday worldly lives―too busy to try and save sinners by many prayers and sacrifices? “We have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that loves not, abides in death. Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in himself! ... He that has the substance of this world [prayers and sacrifices = spiritual dollars and cents], and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him: how does the charity of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:14-17).
St. John of the Cross, a Doctor of the Church, tells us that at our final judgment after death, we shall be judged upon charity alone―the charity we showed to God and to neighbour―for those are the supreme commandments upon which whole law is built upon: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these! On these two commandments depends the whole law and the prophets!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
Good Samaritan or Bad Samaritan?
You may or may not know that the Samaritans and the Jews were mutual enemies in biblical times―they both believed in the same God, but had some varying and opposing beliefs about God―you could say that it was much like it is with Catholics (the Jews) and the Protestants (the Samaritans). Jesus would sometimes antagonize the Jews by making the Samaritan the hero in His parables―this is the case in the following parable, which we call “The Parable of Good Samaritan.”
“A certain lawyer stood up, tempting Jesus, and saying: ‘Master, what must I do to possess eternal life?’ But Jesus said to him: ‘What is written in the law? How readest thou?’ He, answering, said: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Thou hast answered right! Do this, and thou shalt live!’ But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus: ‘And who is my neighbor?’ And Jesus answering, said: ‘A certain man [a Jew] went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead. And it chanced, that a certain priest [a fellow Jew] went down the same way―and, seeing him, passed by. In like manner also a Levite [another fellow Jew], when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But a certain Samaritan [a mutual enemy of the Jews], being on his journey, came near him; and, seeing him [the Jew], was moved with compassion [towards his enemy]. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine; and, setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn and took care of him [his enemy]. And the next day he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said: “Take care of him [my enemy]! And whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay thee!” Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbor to him that fell among the robbers?’ But the lawyer said: ‘He that showed mercy to him!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Go, and do thou in like manner!’” (Luke 10:25-37).
We can link this parable about the Good Samaritan [the enemy of Jews] to Our Lord’s counsels about how to deal with enemies: “You have heard that it hath been said: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth!’ … You have heard that it hath been said: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy!’ But I say to you ― Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! And pray for them that persecute and calumniate you, so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust! For if you only love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans [sinners] do this? And if you only salute your brethren―what do you do that is more? Do not also the heathens [pagans] do this? Therefore be perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” [Matthew 5:38, 5:43-48).
In the same vein, St Paul writes: “If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink. For, doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head!” (Romans 12:20). St. Paul here refers to the Old Testament: “If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him water to drink―for thou shalt heap hot coals upon his head, and the Lord will reward thee!” (Proverbs 25:22). Wow! That sounds like something we all would like―to heap hot coals on the heads of our enemies! Yet it is not quite meant as we would like it to mean―because we are mean, sometimes very mean, to our enemies; whereas God is kind and seeks to be merciful to His enemies (and we all have been God’s enemies at one time or another, some more, others less, but enemies nevertheless). We might desire the death or even damnation of our enemies―but God says: “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (Ezechiel 18:23).
Sometimes we might wish to tell someone to “Go to Hell!” or tell them to “Drop dead!” ― but not so with God! Even as Christ died on the Cross, He begged: “Father! Forgive them! For they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). As Our Lady held the dead body of Jesus in her arms, she did not curse nor wish the death and damnation of those who had plotted to kill Jesus (the Scribes, Pharisees and Priests), nor him who ordered Jesus to be killed (Pontius Pilate), nor those who actually killed Jesus (the Roman soldiers). Just as her Son had said on the Cross: “Father! Forgive them! For they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34), so, too, must Mary have said in her Sorrowful Heart when her dead Son lay in her arms. Is that what we say of our enemies? Our Lord said: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends!” (John 15:13) ― but He did more than that ― He laid down His life for His enemies, of whom we were one at some time or another! Hence, St. John writes: “Because He has laid down His life for us, then we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren!” (1 John 3:16). And who are our “brethren”? The question is much like the question that the lawyer asked Jesus: “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan, which essentially said that even your enemy is you neighbor―and, likewise, we must count our enemies among our brethren! And “then we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren!” (1 John 3:16).
Tough, eh? Jesus never said that getting to Heaven would be easy! “For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees―you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12).
Article 14
Friday September 22nd, 2023
Modern Day Swords of Sorrow in Mary's Heart!
Part 5: The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus and the Modern World
Friday September 22nd, 2023
Modern Day Swords of Sorrow in Mary's Heart!
Part 5: The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus and the Modern World
One Time Sacrifice―Long Time Sacrifice―Perpetual Sacrifice
As they say, “It ain’t over till it’s over!” Some literally hold and say that Christ died for us all once on Calvary and that this is the only sacrifice that is necessary or required. They quote Holy Scripture on this point: “Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many … For in that he died to sin, he died once” (Hebrews 9:28, Romans 6:10). This is usually the viewpoint of Protestants in opposition to the Catholic Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which they claim is a needless sacrilegious re-sacrificing―just like a needless repetition of the Sacraments of Baptism or Confirmation would also be regarded as sacrilegious by Catholics. If Christ died once and He died for all sins, then why bother having something like the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? Is it not needless? Is it sacrilegious? Should it be stopped and discontinued? Satan would be the first to vote for a discontinuation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―which is a prolongation and perpetual re-presentation of Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross―because Satan knows full well that the Sacrifice of the Cross defeated him on Calvary and its extended power, or prolonged power, or perpetual power is what still hinders and thwarts his work today.
Yes―it is true that Christ died once for our sins and does not need to die again, and again, and again, and again. Yet that does not mean that Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross has ended, has been packed away, and stored in some closet for eternity. The Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross was the greatest action that history has ever seen or will see―and just like a movie that we rate as the greatest movie ever made, we want to watch that movie again and again and again. We watch the movie repeatedly, but the movie is not re-made again and again and again by the actors, producers, and film crew. They made it once―we watch it again and again and again, year after year. Or it may be a video of our favorite sports team winning a trophy, which we watch again and again and again―this does not mean that the players have to take to the field and play again and again and again each time someone watches the video. They played in the final and won the trophy once―we relive that victory many, many times. Each time we watch the video of the victory does not mean that the original players on the team have to go through the pain, the bruises, the agony and the suffering that they endured all those years ago in winning the trophy―yet we benefit from the joy we get in reliving their victory each time we watch the video. We grow in appreciation of their achievement and we praise their efforts.
As regards the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Church teaches, through the Council of Trent (Session 22, Chapter II): “In this divine Sacrifice, which is celebrated in the Mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, who once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the Cross … The Victim [Jesus] is one and the same, Who is now offering by the ministry of priests, Who then offered Himself on the cross―the manner alone of offering being different―that was a bloody one, this an unbloody one.”
The Council of Trent is saying that for Jesus “the manner of offering is different” for the Sacrifice on the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Mass, and that “in this divine Sacrifice, which is celebrated in the Mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, who once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the Cross.” In other words, it is not the priest who offers Mass―it is Christ who offers Mass through the priest, using the priest as His instrument. We tend to forget that when are assisting at Mass―we tend to primarily associate the Mass with the priest who offers it―but it is not really the priest who offers Mass, but Christ. The priest is a mere instrument in the hands of Christ, like a paintbrush is in the hand of an artist―we do not say the paintbrush painted the picture, we say the artist painted the picture and we don’t make much of a fuss about which paintbrush he used.
Time for Time or No Time?
The Sacrifice of the Cross is perpetuated throughout all time―how can this be? Time―as we know it―exists only in this life. In Heaven there is no time in our sense of time―a past time, a present time, and a future time. Everything is in the present. It would be presumptuous for us to demand an explanation on how that can be―and nor could our puny minds grasp and understand that concept, just like we cannot really grasp eternity for we are mere finite creatures; nor can we grasp how God can be extremely merciful and extremely just at one and the same time; nor can we grasp how the souls in Purgatory, who are in unimaginable pain and agony yet are happier that the happiest person on Earth and would not change places with anyone on Earth!
As one scientist writes: “Is time just a concept we humans constructed? Theoretically speaking time does exist in physics―but physicists do not understand the flow of time. Although it influences us so much―time remains only a vague concept of something we hardly understand. It has no independent reality outside my perception. Instead, time is a function of our relationship with the physical world and although we might rely on it in our everyday lives, it does not exist outside us. Like a ruler or a weighing scale, clocks offer us merely a symbol of reality, not reality itself. Time is basically an illusion created by the mind to aid us in our temporal existence. Without the neurons to create a virtual perception of the past and the future based on all our experiences―there is no actual existence of the past and the future. All that there is, is the present.” Time to wake up, huh?
One must have a nuanced understanding of time. One must distinguish chronological time from kairotic time as found in Sacred Scripture. In the Bible, chronos refers to chronological time–past, present, and future–specific deeds which have an end point. Kairos or kairotic time refers to God’s eternal time―the time of the present moment which recapitulates the entire past as well as contains the entire future. Therefore, while Our Lord’s saving event occurred chronologically about the year AD 33, in the kairotic sense of time it is an ever-present reality which touches our lives here and now. In this sense, the crucifixion of Christ is “eternally present” and it is supernaturally “brought to us” in each and every Sacrifice of the Mass whenever it is validly offered.
Time for Sin? Sin in Time? Or Timeless Sin?
What can be said of Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross, can also be said of our sins―they are timeless. When Christ died as a result of and in payment for our sins―He did not see all the past sins in the past, nor did He see all our future sins in the future―He saw all sins in the present. That is an unimaginable, indescribable and innumerable number of sins!
The current world population is estimated to be around 8 billion (8,000 million) people. It is estimated that, in the existence of mankind since Adam and Eve, around 100 to 120 billion people have inhabited this planet. Life expectancy has varied over the centuries―but let us be super conservative and place the average life of a person at only 50 years. How much did they sin? Again, only God knows―but taking away the childhood years below the age of reason (let us increase that to 10 years old to be safe)―you are left with around 40 years of potential sinning. An average person (not a holy person) would probably easily commit at least 5 sins an hour (thoughts, words, actions, neglect) which, over 12 hours, would give 60 sins per day, which becomes around 22,000 sins per year, and 876,000 per 40 years of one single person’s sinful life.
Now if 100 to 120 billion people have lived on Earth since Adam and Eve, then you are multiplying 100 to 120 million people by the 876,000 sins EACH SINGLE PERSON on average might have committed in the lifetime. If we go with 100 billion people having ever lived on Earth, then that comes to a total of 87 million billion sins, or 87 million times 1,000 million, or 87,000,000,000,000,000 sins. Remember, all the above estimates are on the low side! All those sins were present before Christ in His Passion and Death on the Cross. No wonder He said to His Apostles, James and John: “Can you drink of the chalice that I drink of? Or be baptized with the baptism wherewith I am baptized?” (Mark 10:38). To add to Our Lord’s agony, He would have seen that the vast majority of those 100 to 120 billion persons as being damned―by not having cooperated with God's graces, despite His merciful and undeservedly kind efforts to save them!
Our Lady would have―to some extent―shared some of this knowledge as she sorrowfully stood at the foot of Cross, watching her Son die, almost in vain, for the sins of mankind who would think little of it and do nothing about it. Now that she is in Heaven, she sees perfectly the number of those saved and those damned and the vast multitudes who neglected to profit from what Our Lord did and obtained for them!
Crucified by Our Sins
She also sees clearly how it was that our sins crucified Christ―even the sins of those who were not yet born, such as we ourselves. The guilt for sins committed before the coming of Christ into this world will not be as great as the guilt incurred by those who were born after Christ’s Passion and Death―and especially those of us who have been thoroughly taught the Faith, yet still continue to sin as though we had no Faith! Since there is no time with God―and everything is the present moment―then our sins were present upon Calvary as Christ died for sin on His Cross. Our sins crucified Him just as much as the sins of those living in Christ’s time and those living before Christ’s time.
We are guilty by crucifying Him ourselves through our acts of sin. This is a tough one to swallow, but we personally continue to participate in the crucifixion of Jesus every single day. Tradition has been handed down by all the Christians who have come before us. The very first Christians recognized that sinners were the authors and the ministers of all the sufferings that the Divine Redeemer endured, and that it was not merely an act of the Jews who were condemning Him, or the Roman soldiers who were carrying it out. In other words, this is not an invented form of “Catholic guilt,” but a true understanding of the reality of what the crucifixion actually meant to the earliest followers of Christ. That understanding was then passed down through the generations to us in the Church―which is what we call Tradition (with a capital “T”).
So, our sins today, are a participation in the actual crucifixion of Our Lord. Scripture supports this―Pontius Pilate is surrendering to the crowd calling for the crucifixion of Jesus, but he is quick to declare himself innocent in the situation. The crowd responds “His Blood be upon us and upon our children!” (Matthew 27:25). Even though they are not all physically going to nail Jesus to the cross, they take full responsibility for what is about to happen. What’s even more important for us today is that that their words equally passed the responsibility on to the generations that will come after them, which includes us. In essence, with every sin we commit, we are standing with the crowd, condemning Jesus to death. When you go to Mass on Palm Sunday and participate in the Gospel reading of the Passion of Christ, recall the reality of how your sins affect Christ each time you say: “Crucify Him!”
St. Francis of Assisi illustrates how the understanding of our participation in the crucifixion goes back for centuries. St. Francis says that anyone who continues to relapse into their sins is guilty. It goes without saying that since we are all sinners, St. Francis is referring to every single one of us. He goes on to explain that through all of our disorders and wrongdoings, we crucify Him again and again in our hearts, because He lives in our hearts. The fact that we do this now, today, is much worse than the actual people who stood there on the day of His crucifixion demanding that His life be taken. At the time, they did not yet fully know that Jesus was their Lord and Savior. However, we profess to know who Jesus is and yet we willfully choose to commit this violence against Him. Reflecting on what they knew at the time, versus what we know now and how we continue to respond to that knowledge by sinning nevertheless―should stir something in us. St. Francis concludes by excusing even the demons of fault, which is a strong statement on the power of our sins. He says: “Nor did demons crucify Him―it is you who have crucified Him and still crucify Him when you take delight in your vices and sins.”
Gravity and Punishment
We do well to shake ourselves out of our complacency about sin and remind ourselves of its gravity! The Catechisms tell us: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God’s mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
“Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
Even though our sins cannot kill Jesus again and again and again―requiring Him to resurrect again and again and again―our sins nevertheless are an attack on Christ. You can go to jail for attempted murder and not just for actual murder. The US law states: “Every person who attempts to commit any crime, but fails, or is prevented or intercepted in its perpetration, shall be punished.” There are two elements that a prosecutor must prove in order for a defendant to be convicted of attempting a crime. First, they must show that the defendant took a direct step toward committing the crime, even if that step was ultimately unsuccessful. Secondly, they must show that the defendant had the intention to commit the crime. A direct step refers to an action that is meant to put previous preparation or plans into action. By taking this step, the defendant is indicating their intent to commit the crime. The prosecutor must show that the defendant took an action beyond preparation, such as physically restraining the victim or prying open a window. Many people are under the misconception that attempting a crime without being successful will result in minimal penalties. However, that is simply not the case. Like premeditated murder, attempted premeditated murder is punishable by life in prison.
Sometimes we hear the excuse: “But I didn’t do anything!” There are cases where not doing anything is both a sin (in God’s Law) and a crime (under human laws). This is called “negligence” ― or a failure to do something that you should have done. According to human law, negligence is the failure to behave with the level of care that a reasonable person would have exercised under the same circumstances. Either a person’s actions or omissions of actions can be found negligent. The omission of actions is considered negligent only when the person had a duty to act. Catholics―being Soldiers of Christ―have duty to act, for Our Lord calls His followers the “light of the world” and “the salt of Earth” and “a city on a mountain that cannot be hid”, requiring that they “let their light shine before men” and that they “confess Christ before men” (Matthew 5:13-16; 10:32). We cannot bury our talent or God-given duty in the ground―but we must use it. The servant who neglected to use what the Lord gave him was severely punished (Matthew 25:14-30). In the parable of the Sheep and the Goats (the Saved and the Damned), it was neglect that led to the damnation of the Goats: “Then He shall say to them also that shall be on His left hand: ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels! For I was hungry, and you gave Me not to eat! I was thirsty, and you gave Me not to drink! I was a stranger, and you took Me not in! Naked, and you covered Me not! Sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me!’ Then they shall answer Him, saying: ‘Lord! When did we see Thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to Thee?’ Then He shall answer them, saying: ‘Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me!’ And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting.” (Matthew 25:41-46).
Christ’s army, Christ’s soldiers are largely inactive or have gone AWOL (absent-without-leave). Similarly to the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, Christ has sent Our Lady with His commands as to what His soldiers should be doing. Our Lady has met with little cooperation from Christ’s soldiers―and she could say to the “Goats”: “I asked you to pray the Rosary very much―and you did not! I asked for many sacrifices―and you performed little or none! I asked penances―and you did nothing! I asked for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart―and you did not do it! I asked for devotion to the my Immaculate Heart―and you have not done it! I asked you to accept all the sufferings that God would send you―and you do nothing but complain!” What is end verdict to all that? What is judgment that is warranted and deserved because of that? What happens to soldiers when they ignore the orders of their superiors?
All of these things are like the nails that pierced Christ’s Hands and Feet; like the thorns that pierced His Head; like the lance that pierced His Side and Heart! Our Lady looks upon our disobedience with great sorrow―like mother who looks upon her rebellious children! Yes―our sins crucified Christ, and, horrendously, we continue to crucify Him day after day by our attachment to sin and our neglect of virtues.
As they say, “It ain’t over till it’s over!” Some literally hold and say that Christ died for us all once on Calvary and that this is the only sacrifice that is necessary or required. They quote Holy Scripture on this point: “Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many … For in that he died to sin, he died once” (Hebrews 9:28, Romans 6:10). This is usually the viewpoint of Protestants in opposition to the Catholic Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which they claim is a needless sacrilegious re-sacrificing―just like a needless repetition of the Sacraments of Baptism or Confirmation would also be regarded as sacrilegious by Catholics. If Christ died once and He died for all sins, then why bother having something like the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? Is it not needless? Is it sacrilegious? Should it be stopped and discontinued? Satan would be the first to vote for a discontinuation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―which is a prolongation and perpetual re-presentation of Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross―because Satan knows full well that the Sacrifice of the Cross defeated him on Calvary and its extended power, or prolonged power, or perpetual power is what still hinders and thwarts his work today.
Yes―it is true that Christ died once for our sins and does not need to die again, and again, and again, and again. Yet that does not mean that Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross has ended, has been packed away, and stored in some closet for eternity. The Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross was the greatest action that history has ever seen or will see―and just like a movie that we rate as the greatest movie ever made, we want to watch that movie again and again and again. We watch the movie repeatedly, but the movie is not re-made again and again and again by the actors, producers, and film crew. They made it once―we watch it again and again and again, year after year. Or it may be a video of our favorite sports team winning a trophy, which we watch again and again and again―this does not mean that the players have to take to the field and play again and again and again each time someone watches the video. They played in the final and won the trophy once―we relive that victory many, many times. Each time we watch the video of the victory does not mean that the original players on the team have to go through the pain, the bruises, the agony and the suffering that they endured all those years ago in winning the trophy―yet we benefit from the joy we get in reliving their victory each time we watch the video. We grow in appreciation of their achievement and we praise their efforts.
As regards the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Church teaches, through the Council of Trent (Session 22, Chapter II): “In this divine Sacrifice, which is celebrated in the Mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, who once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the Cross … The Victim [Jesus] is one and the same, Who is now offering by the ministry of priests, Who then offered Himself on the cross―the manner alone of offering being different―that was a bloody one, this an unbloody one.”
The Council of Trent is saying that for Jesus “the manner of offering is different” for the Sacrifice on the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Mass, and that “in this divine Sacrifice, which is celebrated in the Mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, who once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the Cross.” In other words, it is not the priest who offers Mass―it is Christ who offers Mass through the priest, using the priest as His instrument. We tend to forget that when are assisting at Mass―we tend to primarily associate the Mass with the priest who offers it―but it is not really the priest who offers Mass, but Christ. The priest is a mere instrument in the hands of Christ, like a paintbrush is in the hand of an artist―we do not say the paintbrush painted the picture, we say the artist painted the picture and we don’t make much of a fuss about which paintbrush he used.
Time for Time or No Time?
The Sacrifice of the Cross is perpetuated throughout all time―how can this be? Time―as we know it―exists only in this life. In Heaven there is no time in our sense of time―a past time, a present time, and a future time. Everything is in the present. It would be presumptuous for us to demand an explanation on how that can be―and nor could our puny minds grasp and understand that concept, just like we cannot really grasp eternity for we are mere finite creatures; nor can we grasp how God can be extremely merciful and extremely just at one and the same time; nor can we grasp how the souls in Purgatory, who are in unimaginable pain and agony yet are happier that the happiest person on Earth and would not change places with anyone on Earth!
As one scientist writes: “Is time just a concept we humans constructed? Theoretically speaking time does exist in physics―but physicists do not understand the flow of time. Although it influences us so much―time remains only a vague concept of something we hardly understand. It has no independent reality outside my perception. Instead, time is a function of our relationship with the physical world and although we might rely on it in our everyday lives, it does not exist outside us. Like a ruler or a weighing scale, clocks offer us merely a symbol of reality, not reality itself. Time is basically an illusion created by the mind to aid us in our temporal existence. Without the neurons to create a virtual perception of the past and the future based on all our experiences―there is no actual existence of the past and the future. All that there is, is the present.” Time to wake up, huh?
One must have a nuanced understanding of time. One must distinguish chronological time from kairotic time as found in Sacred Scripture. In the Bible, chronos refers to chronological time–past, present, and future–specific deeds which have an end point. Kairos or kairotic time refers to God’s eternal time―the time of the present moment which recapitulates the entire past as well as contains the entire future. Therefore, while Our Lord’s saving event occurred chronologically about the year AD 33, in the kairotic sense of time it is an ever-present reality which touches our lives here and now. In this sense, the crucifixion of Christ is “eternally present” and it is supernaturally “brought to us” in each and every Sacrifice of the Mass whenever it is validly offered.
Time for Sin? Sin in Time? Or Timeless Sin?
What can be said of Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross, can also be said of our sins―they are timeless. When Christ died as a result of and in payment for our sins―He did not see all the past sins in the past, nor did He see all our future sins in the future―He saw all sins in the present. That is an unimaginable, indescribable and innumerable number of sins!
The current world population is estimated to be around 8 billion (8,000 million) people. It is estimated that, in the existence of mankind since Adam and Eve, around 100 to 120 billion people have inhabited this planet. Life expectancy has varied over the centuries―but let us be super conservative and place the average life of a person at only 50 years. How much did they sin? Again, only God knows―but taking away the childhood years below the age of reason (let us increase that to 10 years old to be safe)―you are left with around 40 years of potential sinning. An average person (not a holy person) would probably easily commit at least 5 sins an hour (thoughts, words, actions, neglect) which, over 12 hours, would give 60 sins per day, which becomes around 22,000 sins per year, and 876,000 per 40 years of one single person’s sinful life.
Now if 100 to 120 billion people have lived on Earth since Adam and Eve, then you are multiplying 100 to 120 million people by the 876,000 sins EACH SINGLE PERSON on average might have committed in the lifetime. If we go with 100 billion people having ever lived on Earth, then that comes to a total of 87 million billion sins, or 87 million times 1,000 million, or 87,000,000,000,000,000 sins. Remember, all the above estimates are on the low side! All those sins were present before Christ in His Passion and Death on the Cross. No wonder He said to His Apostles, James and John: “Can you drink of the chalice that I drink of? Or be baptized with the baptism wherewith I am baptized?” (Mark 10:38). To add to Our Lord’s agony, He would have seen that the vast majority of those 100 to 120 billion persons as being damned―by not having cooperated with God's graces, despite His merciful and undeservedly kind efforts to save them!
Our Lady would have―to some extent―shared some of this knowledge as she sorrowfully stood at the foot of Cross, watching her Son die, almost in vain, for the sins of mankind who would think little of it and do nothing about it. Now that she is in Heaven, she sees perfectly the number of those saved and those damned and the vast multitudes who neglected to profit from what Our Lord did and obtained for them!
Crucified by Our Sins
She also sees clearly how it was that our sins crucified Christ―even the sins of those who were not yet born, such as we ourselves. The guilt for sins committed before the coming of Christ into this world will not be as great as the guilt incurred by those who were born after Christ’s Passion and Death―and especially those of us who have been thoroughly taught the Faith, yet still continue to sin as though we had no Faith! Since there is no time with God―and everything is the present moment―then our sins were present upon Calvary as Christ died for sin on His Cross. Our sins crucified Him just as much as the sins of those living in Christ’s time and those living before Christ’s time.
We are guilty by crucifying Him ourselves through our acts of sin. This is a tough one to swallow, but we personally continue to participate in the crucifixion of Jesus every single day. Tradition has been handed down by all the Christians who have come before us. The very first Christians recognized that sinners were the authors and the ministers of all the sufferings that the Divine Redeemer endured, and that it was not merely an act of the Jews who were condemning Him, or the Roman soldiers who were carrying it out. In other words, this is not an invented form of “Catholic guilt,” but a true understanding of the reality of what the crucifixion actually meant to the earliest followers of Christ. That understanding was then passed down through the generations to us in the Church―which is what we call Tradition (with a capital “T”).
So, our sins today, are a participation in the actual crucifixion of Our Lord. Scripture supports this―Pontius Pilate is surrendering to the crowd calling for the crucifixion of Jesus, but he is quick to declare himself innocent in the situation. The crowd responds “His Blood be upon us and upon our children!” (Matthew 27:25). Even though they are not all physically going to nail Jesus to the cross, they take full responsibility for what is about to happen. What’s even more important for us today is that that their words equally passed the responsibility on to the generations that will come after them, which includes us. In essence, with every sin we commit, we are standing with the crowd, condemning Jesus to death. When you go to Mass on Palm Sunday and participate in the Gospel reading of the Passion of Christ, recall the reality of how your sins affect Christ each time you say: “Crucify Him!”
St. Francis of Assisi illustrates how the understanding of our participation in the crucifixion goes back for centuries. St. Francis says that anyone who continues to relapse into their sins is guilty. It goes without saying that since we are all sinners, St. Francis is referring to every single one of us. He goes on to explain that through all of our disorders and wrongdoings, we crucify Him again and again in our hearts, because He lives in our hearts. The fact that we do this now, today, is much worse than the actual people who stood there on the day of His crucifixion demanding that His life be taken. At the time, they did not yet fully know that Jesus was their Lord and Savior. However, we profess to know who Jesus is and yet we willfully choose to commit this violence against Him. Reflecting on what they knew at the time, versus what we know now and how we continue to respond to that knowledge by sinning nevertheless―should stir something in us. St. Francis concludes by excusing even the demons of fault, which is a strong statement on the power of our sins. He says: “Nor did demons crucify Him―it is you who have crucified Him and still crucify Him when you take delight in your vices and sins.”
Gravity and Punishment
We do well to shake ourselves out of our complacency about sin and remind ourselves of its gravity! The Catechisms tell us: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God’s mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
“Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
Even though our sins cannot kill Jesus again and again and again―requiring Him to resurrect again and again and again―our sins nevertheless are an attack on Christ. You can go to jail for attempted murder and not just for actual murder. The US law states: “Every person who attempts to commit any crime, but fails, or is prevented or intercepted in its perpetration, shall be punished.” There are two elements that a prosecutor must prove in order for a defendant to be convicted of attempting a crime. First, they must show that the defendant took a direct step toward committing the crime, even if that step was ultimately unsuccessful. Secondly, they must show that the defendant had the intention to commit the crime. A direct step refers to an action that is meant to put previous preparation or plans into action. By taking this step, the defendant is indicating their intent to commit the crime. The prosecutor must show that the defendant took an action beyond preparation, such as physically restraining the victim or prying open a window. Many people are under the misconception that attempting a crime without being successful will result in minimal penalties. However, that is simply not the case. Like premeditated murder, attempted premeditated murder is punishable by life in prison.
Sometimes we hear the excuse: “But I didn’t do anything!” There are cases where not doing anything is both a sin (in God’s Law) and a crime (under human laws). This is called “negligence” ― or a failure to do something that you should have done. According to human law, negligence is the failure to behave with the level of care that a reasonable person would have exercised under the same circumstances. Either a person’s actions or omissions of actions can be found negligent. The omission of actions is considered negligent only when the person had a duty to act. Catholics―being Soldiers of Christ―have duty to act, for Our Lord calls His followers the “light of the world” and “the salt of Earth” and “a city on a mountain that cannot be hid”, requiring that they “let their light shine before men” and that they “confess Christ before men” (Matthew 5:13-16; 10:32). We cannot bury our talent or God-given duty in the ground―but we must use it. The servant who neglected to use what the Lord gave him was severely punished (Matthew 25:14-30). In the parable of the Sheep and the Goats (the Saved and the Damned), it was neglect that led to the damnation of the Goats: “Then He shall say to them also that shall be on His left hand: ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels! For I was hungry, and you gave Me not to eat! I was thirsty, and you gave Me not to drink! I was a stranger, and you took Me not in! Naked, and you covered Me not! Sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me!’ Then they shall answer Him, saying: ‘Lord! When did we see Thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to Thee?’ Then He shall answer them, saying: ‘Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me!’ And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting.” (Matthew 25:41-46).
Christ’s army, Christ’s soldiers are largely inactive or have gone AWOL (absent-without-leave). Similarly to the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, Christ has sent Our Lady with His commands as to what His soldiers should be doing. Our Lady has met with little cooperation from Christ’s soldiers―and she could say to the “Goats”: “I asked you to pray the Rosary very much―and you did not! I asked for many sacrifices―and you performed little or none! I asked penances―and you did nothing! I asked for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart―and you did not do it! I asked for devotion to the my Immaculate Heart―and you have not done it! I asked you to accept all the sufferings that God would send you―and you do nothing but complain!” What is end verdict to all that? What is judgment that is warranted and deserved because of that? What happens to soldiers when they ignore the orders of their superiors?
All of these things are like the nails that pierced Christ’s Hands and Feet; like the thorns that pierced His Head; like the lance that pierced His Side and Heart! Our Lady looks upon our disobedience with great sorrow―like mother who looks upon her rebellious children! Yes―our sins crucified Christ, and, horrendously, we continue to crucify Him day after day by our attachment to sin and our neglect of virtues.
Article 13
Thursday September 21st, 2023
Modern Day Swords of Sorrow in Mary's Heart!
Part 4: Meeting Jesus Carrying His Cross and the Modern World
Thursday September 21st, 2023
Modern Day Swords of Sorrow in Mary's Heart!
Part 4: Meeting Jesus Carrying His Cross and the Modern World
Modern-Day Cross?
If we were Jesus, how would we carry His cross today? Perhaps we would be tempted to rent a U-Haul truck, throw the cross in the back, and drive it to Calvary! Or we would hire a removals company to do it for us! Or perhaps we would look around for a Styrofoam cross that we could lift effortlessly with one hand! Or if none of those options were available, perhaps we would attach wheels and soft padding to the Cross, so that it could roll along its way to Calvary and not rub so much on our shoulders! In any case, modern day man has little love and no real conception of what the Cross is all about―because the modern world is all about comfort, ease and elimination of difficulties and discomfort. Nor do they have much of an idea of what it was like for Christ to carry His Cross to Calvary, nor what physical state He was in. All of this naturally produces a lack of appreciation for what Jesus did; a lack of motivation to follow Him with our God-given mini-crosses; mainly due to a lack of comprehension of the purpose of the Cross.
Self-Drive Cars & Self-Drive Crosses
The modern world is all about eliminating as much work, toil, difficulty, discomfort, pain and expense as possible. Hence we can drive and fly instead of having to walk; we have power tools that save us time and energy―electric or gas powered central heating, air-conditioning, fans, air-filtration, air-humidifiers, refrigerators, freezers, stoves, dishwashers, washing machines, clothes dryers, electric irons, knitting machines, sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, floor polishers, power washers, lawn mowers, rotary tillers, seed-sowers, leaf/grass blowers, snow blowers, hedge-trimmers, weed whackers, chipper/shredders, chain-saws, circular saws, concrete saw, concrete mixers, lathes, disc sanders, floor sanders, drills, jackhammers, nail guns, power screwdrivers, power wrenches, etc. We have kitchen appliances that basically do everything for us―choppers, slicers, grinders, mincers, blenders, pulverizers, juicers, peelers, roasters, braisers, bakers, boilers, steamers, pressure-cookers, slow cookers and microwave fast cookers, waffle-makers, etc.
With modern technology making ever more rapid and exponential advances―to the point where we are now seeing driverless cars or self-drive cars; virtual reality; artificial intelligence; robots, etc.―perhaps they could invent for us some kind of ‘carryless’ crosses, or self-carrying crosses; or virtual reality crosses where we simply put on a virtual reality headset that makes us seem to carry a cross without actually having to carry it! Or perhaps we could have drone-assisted crosses which would take most of the weight off our shoulders by wires attached from drone to cross. Or, for those with lots of money, jet-propelled crosses, or helicopter crosses, or motorized crosses. Hey! The sky is the limit―it you can think it, then you can do it!
Anti-Christ, Anti-Christian and Anti-Cross
The modern world is, increasingly, anti-Christ and anti-Christian. It refuses the Laws of Christ that it does not like and introduces anti-Christian legislation according to its own liking. We clearly see this in issues such as abortion, LGBTQ matters, same-sex marriages, transgenderism, divorce and remarriage, contraception, permissiveness, promiscuity and even pornography. Legislation allows Satanism and blasphemy. Monuments of the Ten Commandments and Nativity Scenes are banned from governmental property. The true Faith cannot be taught in public schools. You can be arrested and imprisoned or fined for protesting against abortion―whereas the killers who perform abortions walk away free and unhindered. Catholic politicians and legislators are afraid to live their Catholicism because it will lose votes and lose their jobs―and so they vote-in anti-Catholic legislation. The list goes on and on.
The world is focused on pride and acquiring more and more wealth and possessions―whereas Christ and true Christianity is the focused on the opposite: “Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart!” says Christ (Matthew 11:29) … “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!” (Matthew 19:21) … “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? … Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 16:26; 19:23-24).
Yet despite these words of Christ, the anti-Christian world (and anti-Christian Catholics) blindly race along the paths of pleasures, possessions, wealth, comfort, ease and entertainment. Christ has warned us: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46) … “If I say the truth, you believe Me not! … If I say the truth to you, why do you not believe Me? … If you believe not … you shall die in your sin!” (John 8:45-46, 24). Yet the majority of Catholics are just as blind as the Scribes, Pharisees and the Chosen People were blind―of whom Our Lord said: “Leave them alone! They are blind and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit” (Matthew 15:14) ― and most Catholics do fall into the pit of Hell, because they do not follow the instructions of Our Lord and neglect to carry His Cross. Without the Cross there is no salvation! That is why Holy Mother Church, in her liturgy for Good Friday, speaks of the Cross as “our only hope” and our “salvation” ― “Ave Crux, spes unica!” “Hail, O Cross, our sole hope!” “In Cruce salus” “Salvation is in the Cross”. That is why Our Lord insisted so strongly on the Cross: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Mary and Jesus During the Carrying of the Cross
It is well worth reading the account from The Mystical City of God that addresses Our Lord’s carrying of the Cross, His meeting with Our Lady on the way to Calvary, and Our Lady’s “behind-the-scenes” involvement in several circumstances connected with the event. Here is the relevant passage:
Another hidden and astonishing miracle was wrought by the right hand of God through the instrumentality of the blessed Mary against Lucifer and his infernal spirits. It took place in the following manner:
“The devil and his associates, though they could not understand the humiliation of the Lord, were most attentive to all that happened in the Passion of the Lord. Now, when He took upon Himself the Cross, all these enemies felt a new and mysterious tremor and weakness, which caused in them great consternation and confused distress. Conscious of these feelings, the prince of darkness feared, that in the Passion and Death of Christ our Lord, some dire and irreparable destruction of his reign was imminent. In order not to be overtaken by some adversity, the devil resolved to turn back and flee with all his followers to the caverns of Hell. But when he sought to execute this plan, he was prevented by the great Queen of all creation; for God―enlightening her and indicating to her what she was to do―at the same time invested her with His power.
“The heavenly Mother, turning toward Lucifer and his squadrons, by her imperial command hindered them from fleeing; ordered them to await and witness the Passion to the very end on Mount Calvary. The demons could not resist the command of the mighty Queen―for they recognized and felt the divine power operating in her. Subject to her power and command, they followed Christ, as if they were many prisoners being dragged along in chains to Calvary, where the Eternal Wisdom had decreed to triumph over them from the throne of the Cross. There is nothing which can describe the discouragement and dismay, which, from that moment, began to oppress Lucifer and his demons. According to our way of speaking, they walked along to Calvary like criminals condemned to a terrible death, and seized by the dismay and consternation of an inevitable punishment. This punishment of the demon was in conformity with his malicious nature and proportioned to the evil committed by him, in introducing death and sin into the world, which God Himself was now about to remedy by undergoing death.
“Our Savior proceeded on the way to Calvary bearing upon His shoulders His Cross, from which He was to subject and govern the world, meriting thereby that His Name should be exalted above all other names and rescuing the human race from the tyrannical power of the demon over the sons of Adam. In order to destroy this tyrant and break his reign and the yoke of our servitude, Christ our Savior placed the Cross upon His own shoulders―that is to say, upon that place, where are carried both the yoke of slavery and the scepter of royal power. He wished to indicate thereby, that He removed the demon of this power and transferred it to His own shoulders, in order that thenceforward the captive children of Adam should recognize Him for their legitimate Lord and true King. All mortals were to follow Him in the way of the Cross and learn that, by this Cross, they were subjected to His power, and now become His vassals and servants, purchased by His own lifeblood.
“The Jews and ministers of the Passion were ignorant of this mystery of the Cross―hidden from princes of this world―and they dared not touch the Cross of the Savior, because they considered it to be the wood of disgrace and shame. Yet their error is not so great as our own―since the mystery of the Cross, has already been revealed to us. If we blame them for being ignorant of what they ought to have known, how much should we blame ourselves, who, knowing and confessing Christ the Redeemer, nevertheless persecute and crucify Him by our offenses? As the Jews―and all of that blind multitude―avoided the touch of the Cross of Him, who was so innocently sentenced to die upon it, He opened with the Cross a passage and cleared for Himself a way. His persecutors looked upon His glorious dishonor as a disease and they fled from its approach, though all the rest of the streets were full of shouting and clamoring people, who crowded aside as the herald advanced proclaiming the sentence.
“The executioners, lacking all human compassion and kindness, dragged our Savior Jesus along with incredible cruelty and insults. Some of them jerked Him forward by the ropes, in order to speed up His passage, while others pulled from behind in order to retard it. On account of this jerking and the weight of the Cross, they caused Him to sway to and fro and to often to fall to the ground. By the hard knocks He thus received on the rough stones, great wounds were opened, especially on the two knees and they were widened at each repeated fall. The heavy Cross also inflicted a wound on the shoulder on which it was carried. The unsteadiness caused the Cross sometimes to knock against His sacred Head, and sometimes caused the Head to fall against the Cross―thus the thorns of His crown penetrated deeper and wounded the parts, which they had not yet reached. To these torments of the body, the ministers of evil added many insulting words and disgusting affronts, ejecting their impure spittle and throwing the dirt of the pavement into His face so mercilessly, that they blinded the eyes that looked upon them with such divine mercy. Thus they, of their own account, condemned themselves to the loss of the graces, with which His very looks were full. By the haste with which they dragged Him along in their eagerness to see Him die, they did not allow Him to catch His breath; for His most innocent body, having been in so few hours overwhelmed with such a storm of torments, was so weakened and bruised, that to all appearances He was ready to yield up life under His pains and sorrows.
“From the house of Pilate the sorrowful and stricken Mother followed with the multitudes on the way of her divine Son, accompanied by St. John and some devout women. As the surging crowds hindered her from getting very near to the Lord, she asked the eternal Father to be permitted to stand at the foot of the Cross of her blessed Son and see Him die with her own eyes. With the divine consent, she ordered her holy angels to manage things in such a way as to make it possible for her to execute her wishes. The holy angels obeyed her with great reverence; and they speedily led the Queen through some side street, in order that she might meet her Son. Thus it came that both of Them met face to face in sweetest recognition of each Other and in mutual renewal of each Other’s interior sorrows. Yet They did not speak to one another, nor would the fierce cruelty of the executioners have permitted such a thing. But the most prudent Mother adored her divine Son and true God, laden with the Cross; and interiorly besought Him, that, since she could not relieve Him of the weight of the Cross, and since she was not permitted to command her holy angels to lighten it, He would inspire these ministers of cruelty to find someone to assist Him. This prayer was heard by the Lord; and so it happened, that Simon of Cyrene was afterwards forced to carry the Cross with the Lord. The Pharisees and the executioners were moved to this measure for different motives―some of them out of natural compassion, others for fear lest Christ, the Author of life, should lose His life by exhaustion before it could be taken from Him on the Cross.
“Beyond all human thought and estimation was the sorrow of the most sincere Virgin Mother while she witnessed with her own eyes her Son carrying the Cross to Mount Calvary―for she alone could fittingly know and love Him according to His true worth. It would have been impossible for her to live through this ordeal, if the Divine Power had not strengthened her and preserved her life. With bitterest sorrow she addressed the Lord and spoke to Him in her heart: ‘My Son and eternal God, light of my eyes and life of my soul, receive, O Lord, the sacrifice of my not being able to relieve Thee of the burden of the Cross and carry it myself! For it is I, who am a daughter of Adam, who should die upon it in love of Thee, as Thou now wish to die out of a most ardent love of the human race. Would that the hearts and the wills of men would not give such thankless return for all that Thou endurest! O who will speak to the hearts of the mortals to teach them what they owe to Thee, since Thou hast paid so dearly for their salvation from ruin!’ Other most prudent and exalted sentiments besides these were conceived by the great Lady, that cannot be expressed by words.
“There were other women among the crowds, who followed the Savior in bitter tears and lamentations. These compassionate disciples of the Lord were at that time ignorant of the true reason for their tears, since they wept over His sufferings and injuries, and not over the cause of these sufferings―sin. At this point, Simon of Cyrene, the father of the disciples Alexander and Rufus, happened to come along. This Simon was now forced by the Jews to carry the Cross a part of the way. They themselves would not touch it, they would not even come near it―since it was the instrument of punishment for Jesus, whom they held to be a notorious evildoer. By this pretended caution and avoidance of His Cross they sought to impress the people with a horror for Jesus. The Cyrenean took hold of the Cross, and Jesus was made to follow between the two thieves, in order that all might believe Him to be a criminal and malefactor just like them. The Virgin Mother walked very closely behind Jesus, as she had desired and asked from the eternal Father. To His divine Will she so conformed herself in all the labors and torments of her Son, that, witnessing with her own eyes and partaking of all the sufferings of her Son in her blessed soul and in her body, she never allowed any sentiment or wish to arise, interiorly or exteriorly, which could be interpreted as regret for the sacrifice she had made in offering her Son for the death of the Cross and its sufferings. Her charity and love of men, and her grace and holiness, were so great, that she vanquished all these movements of her human nature.” (Taken from The Mystical City of God, by the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
The Words of the Sorrowful Mother
Our Lady addressed the following words to the Venerable Mary of Agreda concerning this carrying of the Cross by her Divine Son: “Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside. Laborious exertions are very painful and averse to human nature, according to the flesh; while the fruits of the spirit are more hidden and few guide themselves by the spiritual light. On this account there are so many among mortals, who, forgetful of the eternal truths, seek the flesh and the continual indulgence of its pleasures. They ardently seek honors and fly from injuries; they strive after riches, and despise poverty; they thirst for pleasures and dread mortification. All these are enemies of the Cross of Christ, and with dreadful aversion they flee from it, thinking it to be a sheer disgrace―just like those who crucified Christ, the Lord.
“Another deceit has spread through the world! Many imagine that they are following Christ, even though they neither suffer afflictions, nor engage in any exertion or labor! They are merely content with avoiding boldness in committing sins, and place all their perfection in a certain prudence, or hollow self-love, which prevents them from denying anything to the desires of their own will and from practicing any virtues that would bring pain to their flesh. They would easily escape this deception, if they would consider that my Son was, not only the Redeemer, but their Teacher; and that He left in this world the treasures of His Redemption, not only as a remedy against its eternal ruin, but as a necessary medicine for the sickness of sin in human nature. Although He well could do it, He chose not a life of softness and ease for the flesh, but one full of labors and pains―for He judged His instructions to be incomplete and insufficient to redeem man, if He failed to teach them how to overcome the demon, the flesh and their own self. He wished to drive into their minds, that this magnificent victory is gained by the Cross, by labors, penances, mortifications and the acceptance of contempt―all of which are the trademarks and evidences of true love and the special watchwords of the predestined.
“Understand the value of the holy Cross and the honor which it confers upon disgrace and tribulations! Embrace the Cross and bear it with joy―in imitation of my Son and your Master. In this mortal life, let your glory be in tribulations, persecutions, contempt, infirmities, poverty, humiliations and in whatever is painful and opposed to the preferences of mortal flesh. Seek no rest or consolation in any earthly thing. Do not dwell in your thoughts upon what you are having to endure, nor seek to relieve yourself by seeking the compassion of others. Much less must you make much of, or try to impress others with the list of the persecutions, or afflictions from creatures. Nor should it ever be heard from your lips, how much you endure; nor should you compare your sufferings with those of others. I do not wish to say, that it is a sin to accept of some reasonable and moderate alleviation, or to mention thy afflictions. But much alleviation, if not a sin, would be an infidelity to the Lord; for this generation is under more obligation than many generations of men―and your response in suffering and love will be defective and wanting, if it is not complete and loyal in all respects. So faithful does the Lord wish your correspondence to the Cross to be, that you must not allow thy weak nature even one sigh for mere natural relief and consolation. If love alone drives you, then you will allow yourself to be carried along by its sweet force and rest in it alone; and the love of the Cross would immediately dispense with such natural relief, in the same way as I have done in my total self-sacrifice. Let this be a general rule ― that all human consolation is an imperfection and a danger, and that you should welcome only that, which the Most High Himself sends to directly or through His holy angels.”
No Change in Our Lady’s Words Today―No Change in Man’s Response!
God never changes: “God is not a man, that He should be changed” (Numbers 23:19). “With God there is no change, nor shadow of alteration” (James 1:17). Since God is Truth itself ― “I am the truth!” (John 14:6) ― then truth does not change. Our depth of understanding of the truth can change, but truth cannot change. Neither does Our Lady change her message today from that which she said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda in the 1600s ― which is to say that the doctrine of the Cross does not change, it is the same today as it was in the 1600s and the same as it was in the days of Christ’s life on Earth. Our Lady even calls little children to the Cross and suffering! At Fatima, she said to Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―aged 10, 9 and 7: Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” In other words, Our Lady calls them to the Cross, to carry the Cross―with the same dispositions that Christ her Son had ― for the conversion and salvation of sinners!
When Our Lady encountered Jesus with His Cross on the way to Calvary, she could have ‘lightened the load’ so to speak, or obtained some other miracle from God to alleviate or even totally remove the Cross from Christ―but, as stated above, “she could not relieve Him of the weight of the Cross, since she was not permitted [by God] to command her holy angels to lighten it, she therefore interiorly besought the Lord, that He would inspire these ministers of cruelty to find someone to assist Him. This prayer was heard by the Lord; and so it happened, that Simon of Cyrene was afterwards forced to carry the Cross with the Lord ... She never allowed any sentiment or wish to arise, interiorly or exteriorly, which could be interpreted as regret for the sacrifice she had made in offering her Son for the death of the Cross and its sufferings.”
Neither will Our Lady’s behavior change in accompanying those who carry the Cross today―she will not remove the Cross, even though she may obtain assistance and some comfort for souls in carrying the Cross. She shows this attitude to the three children at Fatima: Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … But the grace of God will be your comfort! … My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God!” Thus, although she will not remove the Cross, she will do all she can to help us carry the Cross meritoriously and successfully.
Carrying the Cross is the Solution Today
The Cross is central and essential for the ills of today. There is no way out of this current spiritual, political, financial, social and natural mess other than by suffering under the Cross. We either accept it willingly, or have it imposed upon us forcibly. If we do not carry the Cross supernaturally and meritoriously, then we will still have a cross to carry begrudgingly and despairingly as the tyrannical world will put us under their crosses. The Cross exists because of sin. The Cross is a remedy for sin. Therefore, it is only logical that if sin increases, then the weight of Cross must also increase. That is what Our Lady has indicated on numerous occasions:
At Fatima, both Our Lady and the Angel spoke of the Cross, which is to sacrifice oneself for sinners. The Angel scolded the children who were playing: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!” Our Lady later added: Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
To Blessed Sister Elena Aiello (1895-1961)―mystic, stigmatic, victim soul, prophetess and foundress of the Minim Tertiaries of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ―Our Lady, in an apparition on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, 1956, said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
At another time she told Blessed Elena: “Today, more than ever, men are, resisting the calls from Heaven, and are blaspheming God, while wallowing in the mire of sin. The justice of our Father is most offended. Men live in their obstinacy of sin. The wrath of God is near. Soon the world will be afflicted with great calamities, bloody revolutions, frightful hurricanes, and the overflowing of rivers and the seas. The justice of the Father requires reparation — I ask prayers, penance and sacrifice, otherwise many will be lost! The justice of God is weighing upon the world. Mankind, defiled in the mire, soon will be washed in its own blood, by disease; by famine; by earthquakes; by cloudbursts, tornadoes, floods, and terrible storms; and by war. If men do not amend their ways, a terrifying scourge of fire will come down from Heaven upon all the nations of the world, and men will be punished according to the debts contracted with Divine justice. Men have been warned in time to turn to God by doing penance, and thus they could avoid these punishments. But men ignore all these warnings, and are unwilling to be convinced. See how the souls are falling into Hell. See how high the flames are, and the souls who fall into them like flakes of snow, looking like transparent embers! How many sparks! How many cries of hate, and of despair! How much pain!
At Akita, in Japan, in 1973, Our Lady more or less said the same thing: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them. As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son [the Cross = the Mass = Sacrifice & Suffering]. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire souls to console Him and soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. Souls who will console Him and who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful.”
Just to drive home the gravity of our present situation, it is well worth repeating what was said in an earlier article concerning the number of sins committed daily―and to which Our Lady refers to in her comments to Blessed Elean Aiello, saying: “If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief!” If you take the world’s population of almost 8,000 million people (8 billion) and divide that number by the total number of seconds that there are in 24 hours―which is 86,400 seconds―then you get over 92,000 (92,592) persons for each second of the day. If every person in the world would only commit ONE SINGLE SIN A DAY and no more, then Our Lady’s Sorrowful Heart is being pierced over 92,000 times per second. If every person would ONLY COMMIT TEN SINS PER DAY, then Our Lady’s Sorrowful Heart would be pierced almost 1 million times per second (925,920 times per second). Yet are ten sins per day the average? No, it is much more than that―it is easy to commit 10 sins per hour!
If it was your mother or your wife that was being attacked by a mob, who were continuously kicking, punching and stabbing her―would you just stand by and helplessly watch, or would you at least try to do something to help your mother or wife? Well, Our Lady has done far, far, far more for you in your life than your wife or mother! Are we going to stand around and do nothing? It is not as though we have to charge into an angry armed mob and fight them off physically! The assistance that Our Lady is asking for is that we say many, many prayers and perform many, many sacrifices (for the sins of others) and penances (for our own sins). Yet as Sr. Lucia said in 1957: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!”
If we were Jesus, how would we carry His cross today? Perhaps we would be tempted to rent a U-Haul truck, throw the cross in the back, and drive it to Calvary! Or we would hire a removals company to do it for us! Or perhaps we would look around for a Styrofoam cross that we could lift effortlessly with one hand! Or if none of those options were available, perhaps we would attach wheels and soft padding to the Cross, so that it could roll along its way to Calvary and not rub so much on our shoulders! In any case, modern day man has little love and no real conception of what the Cross is all about―because the modern world is all about comfort, ease and elimination of difficulties and discomfort. Nor do they have much of an idea of what it was like for Christ to carry His Cross to Calvary, nor what physical state He was in. All of this naturally produces a lack of appreciation for what Jesus did; a lack of motivation to follow Him with our God-given mini-crosses; mainly due to a lack of comprehension of the purpose of the Cross.
Self-Drive Cars & Self-Drive Crosses
The modern world is all about eliminating as much work, toil, difficulty, discomfort, pain and expense as possible. Hence we can drive and fly instead of having to walk; we have power tools that save us time and energy―electric or gas powered central heating, air-conditioning, fans, air-filtration, air-humidifiers, refrigerators, freezers, stoves, dishwashers, washing machines, clothes dryers, electric irons, knitting machines, sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, floor polishers, power washers, lawn mowers, rotary tillers, seed-sowers, leaf/grass blowers, snow blowers, hedge-trimmers, weed whackers, chipper/shredders, chain-saws, circular saws, concrete saw, concrete mixers, lathes, disc sanders, floor sanders, drills, jackhammers, nail guns, power screwdrivers, power wrenches, etc. We have kitchen appliances that basically do everything for us―choppers, slicers, grinders, mincers, blenders, pulverizers, juicers, peelers, roasters, braisers, bakers, boilers, steamers, pressure-cookers, slow cookers and microwave fast cookers, waffle-makers, etc.
With modern technology making ever more rapid and exponential advances―to the point where we are now seeing driverless cars or self-drive cars; virtual reality; artificial intelligence; robots, etc.―perhaps they could invent for us some kind of ‘carryless’ crosses, or self-carrying crosses; or virtual reality crosses where we simply put on a virtual reality headset that makes us seem to carry a cross without actually having to carry it! Or perhaps we could have drone-assisted crosses which would take most of the weight off our shoulders by wires attached from drone to cross. Or, for those with lots of money, jet-propelled crosses, or helicopter crosses, or motorized crosses. Hey! The sky is the limit―it you can think it, then you can do it!
Anti-Christ, Anti-Christian and Anti-Cross
The modern world is, increasingly, anti-Christ and anti-Christian. It refuses the Laws of Christ that it does not like and introduces anti-Christian legislation according to its own liking. We clearly see this in issues such as abortion, LGBTQ matters, same-sex marriages, transgenderism, divorce and remarriage, contraception, permissiveness, promiscuity and even pornography. Legislation allows Satanism and blasphemy. Monuments of the Ten Commandments and Nativity Scenes are banned from governmental property. The true Faith cannot be taught in public schools. You can be arrested and imprisoned or fined for protesting against abortion―whereas the killers who perform abortions walk away free and unhindered. Catholic politicians and legislators are afraid to live their Catholicism because it will lose votes and lose their jobs―and so they vote-in anti-Catholic legislation. The list goes on and on.
The world is focused on pride and acquiring more and more wealth and possessions―whereas Christ and true Christianity is the focused on the opposite: “Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart!” says Christ (Matthew 11:29) … “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!” (Matthew 19:21) … “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? … Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 16:26; 19:23-24).
Yet despite these words of Christ, the anti-Christian world (and anti-Christian Catholics) blindly race along the paths of pleasures, possessions, wealth, comfort, ease and entertainment. Christ has warned us: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46) … “If I say the truth, you believe Me not! … If I say the truth to you, why do you not believe Me? … If you believe not … you shall die in your sin!” (John 8:45-46, 24). Yet the majority of Catholics are just as blind as the Scribes, Pharisees and the Chosen People were blind―of whom Our Lord said: “Leave them alone! They are blind and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit” (Matthew 15:14) ― and most Catholics do fall into the pit of Hell, because they do not follow the instructions of Our Lord and neglect to carry His Cross. Without the Cross there is no salvation! That is why Holy Mother Church, in her liturgy for Good Friday, speaks of the Cross as “our only hope” and our “salvation” ― “Ave Crux, spes unica!” “Hail, O Cross, our sole hope!” “In Cruce salus” “Salvation is in the Cross”. That is why Our Lord insisted so strongly on the Cross: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Mary and Jesus During the Carrying of the Cross
It is well worth reading the account from The Mystical City of God that addresses Our Lord’s carrying of the Cross, His meeting with Our Lady on the way to Calvary, and Our Lady’s “behind-the-scenes” involvement in several circumstances connected with the event. Here is the relevant passage:
Another hidden and astonishing miracle was wrought by the right hand of God through the instrumentality of the blessed Mary against Lucifer and his infernal spirits. It took place in the following manner:
“The devil and his associates, though they could not understand the humiliation of the Lord, were most attentive to all that happened in the Passion of the Lord. Now, when He took upon Himself the Cross, all these enemies felt a new and mysterious tremor and weakness, which caused in them great consternation and confused distress. Conscious of these feelings, the prince of darkness feared, that in the Passion and Death of Christ our Lord, some dire and irreparable destruction of his reign was imminent. In order not to be overtaken by some adversity, the devil resolved to turn back and flee with all his followers to the caverns of Hell. But when he sought to execute this plan, he was prevented by the great Queen of all creation; for God―enlightening her and indicating to her what she was to do―at the same time invested her with His power.
“The heavenly Mother, turning toward Lucifer and his squadrons, by her imperial command hindered them from fleeing; ordered them to await and witness the Passion to the very end on Mount Calvary. The demons could not resist the command of the mighty Queen―for they recognized and felt the divine power operating in her. Subject to her power and command, they followed Christ, as if they were many prisoners being dragged along in chains to Calvary, where the Eternal Wisdom had decreed to triumph over them from the throne of the Cross. There is nothing which can describe the discouragement and dismay, which, from that moment, began to oppress Lucifer and his demons. According to our way of speaking, they walked along to Calvary like criminals condemned to a terrible death, and seized by the dismay and consternation of an inevitable punishment. This punishment of the demon was in conformity with his malicious nature and proportioned to the evil committed by him, in introducing death and sin into the world, which God Himself was now about to remedy by undergoing death.
“Our Savior proceeded on the way to Calvary bearing upon His shoulders His Cross, from which He was to subject and govern the world, meriting thereby that His Name should be exalted above all other names and rescuing the human race from the tyrannical power of the demon over the sons of Adam. In order to destroy this tyrant and break his reign and the yoke of our servitude, Christ our Savior placed the Cross upon His own shoulders―that is to say, upon that place, where are carried both the yoke of slavery and the scepter of royal power. He wished to indicate thereby, that He removed the demon of this power and transferred it to His own shoulders, in order that thenceforward the captive children of Adam should recognize Him for their legitimate Lord and true King. All mortals were to follow Him in the way of the Cross and learn that, by this Cross, they were subjected to His power, and now become His vassals and servants, purchased by His own lifeblood.
“The Jews and ministers of the Passion were ignorant of this mystery of the Cross―hidden from princes of this world―and they dared not touch the Cross of the Savior, because they considered it to be the wood of disgrace and shame. Yet their error is not so great as our own―since the mystery of the Cross, has already been revealed to us. If we blame them for being ignorant of what they ought to have known, how much should we blame ourselves, who, knowing and confessing Christ the Redeemer, nevertheless persecute and crucify Him by our offenses? As the Jews―and all of that blind multitude―avoided the touch of the Cross of Him, who was so innocently sentenced to die upon it, He opened with the Cross a passage and cleared for Himself a way. His persecutors looked upon His glorious dishonor as a disease and they fled from its approach, though all the rest of the streets were full of shouting and clamoring people, who crowded aside as the herald advanced proclaiming the sentence.
“The executioners, lacking all human compassion and kindness, dragged our Savior Jesus along with incredible cruelty and insults. Some of them jerked Him forward by the ropes, in order to speed up His passage, while others pulled from behind in order to retard it. On account of this jerking and the weight of the Cross, they caused Him to sway to and fro and to often to fall to the ground. By the hard knocks He thus received on the rough stones, great wounds were opened, especially on the two knees and they were widened at each repeated fall. The heavy Cross also inflicted a wound on the shoulder on which it was carried. The unsteadiness caused the Cross sometimes to knock against His sacred Head, and sometimes caused the Head to fall against the Cross―thus the thorns of His crown penetrated deeper and wounded the parts, which they had not yet reached. To these torments of the body, the ministers of evil added many insulting words and disgusting affronts, ejecting their impure spittle and throwing the dirt of the pavement into His face so mercilessly, that they blinded the eyes that looked upon them with such divine mercy. Thus they, of their own account, condemned themselves to the loss of the graces, with which His very looks were full. By the haste with which they dragged Him along in their eagerness to see Him die, they did not allow Him to catch His breath; for His most innocent body, having been in so few hours overwhelmed with such a storm of torments, was so weakened and bruised, that to all appearances He was ready to yield up life under His pains and sorrows.
“From the house of Pilate the sorrowful and stricken Mother followed with the multitudes on the way of her divine Son, accompanied by St. John and some devout women. As the surging crowds hindered her from getting very near to the Lord, she asked the eternal Father to be permitted to stand at the foot of the Cross of her blessed Son and see Him die with her own eyes. With the divine consent, she ordered her holy angels to manage things in such a way as to make it possible for her to execute her wishes. The holy angels obeyed her with great reverence; and they speedily led the Queen through some side street, in order that she might meet her Son. Thus it came that both of Them met face to face in sweetest recognition of each Other and in mutual renewal of each Other’s interior sorrows. Yet They did not speak to one another, nor would the fierce cruelty of the executioners have permitted such a thing. But the most prudent Mother adored her divine Son and true God, laden with the Cross; and interiorly besought Him, that, since she could not relieve Him of the weight of the Cross, and since she was not permitted to command her holy angels to lighten it, He would inspire these ministers of cruelty to find someone to assist Him. This prayer was heard by the Lord; and so it happened, that Simon of Cyrene was afterwards forced to carry the Cross with the Lord. The Pharisees and the executioners were moved to this measure for different motives―some of them out of natural compassion, others for fear lest Christ, the Author of life, should lose His life by exhaustion before it could be taken from Him on the Cross.
“Beyond all human thought and estimation was the sorrow of the most sincere Virgin Mother while she witnessed with her own eyes her Son carrying the Cross to Mount Calvary―for she alone could fittingly know and love Him according to His true worth. It would have been impossible for her to live through this ordeal, if the Divine Power had not strengthened her and preserved her life. With bitterest sorrow she addressed the Lord and spoke to Him in her heart: ‘My Son and eternal God, light of my eyes and life of my soul, receive, O Lord, the sacrifice of my not being able to relieve Thee of the burden of the Cross and carry it myself! For it is I, who am a daughter of Adam, who should die upon it in love of Thee, as Thou now wish to die out of a most ardent love of the human race. Would that the hearts and the wills of men would not give such thankless return for all that Thou endurest! O who will speak to the hearts of the mortals to teach them what they owe to Thee, since Thou hast paid so dearly for their salvation from ruin!’ Other most prudent and exalted sentiments besides these were conceived by the great Lady, that cannot be expressed by words.
“There were other women among the crowds, who followed the Savior in bitter tears and lamentations. These compassionate disciples of the Lord were at that time ignorant of the true reason for their tears, since they wept over His sufferings and injuries, and not over the cause of these sufferings―sin. At this point, Simon of Cyrene, the father of the disciples Alexander and Rufus, happened to come along. This Simon was now forced by the Jews to carry the Cross a part of the way. They themselves would not touch it, they would not even come near it―since it was the instrument of punishment for Jesus, whom they held to be a notorious evildoer. By this pretended caution and avoidance of His Cross they sought to impress the people with a horror for Jesus. The Cyrenean took hold of the Cross, and Jesus was made to follow between the two thieves, in order that all might believe Him to be a criminal and malefactor just like them. The Virgin Mother walked very closely behind Jesus, as she had desired and asked from the eternal Father. To His divine Will she so conformed herself in all the labors and torments of her Son, that, witnessing with her own eyes and partaking of all the sufferings of her Son in her blessed soul and in her body, she never allowed any sentiment or wish to arise, interiorly or exteriorly, which could be interpreted as regret for the sacrifice she had made in offering her Son for the death of the Cross and its sufferings. Her charity and love of men, and her grace and holiness, were so great, that she vanquished all these movements of her human nature.” (Taken from The Mystical City of God, by the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
The Words of the Sorrowful Mother
Our Lady addressed the following words to the Venerable Mary of Agreda concerning this carrying of the Cross by her Divine Son: “Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside. Laborious exertions are very painful and averse to human nature, according to the flesh; while the fruits of the spirit are more hidden and few guide themselves by the spiritual light. On this account there are so many among mortals, who, forgetful of the eternal truths, seek the flesh and the continual indulgence of its pleasures. They ardently seek honors and fly from injuries; they strive after riches, and despise poverty; they thirst for pleasures and dread mortification. All these are enemies of the Cross of Christ, and with dreadful aversion they flee from it, thinking it to be a sheer disgrace―just like those who crucified Christ, the Lord.
“Another deceit has spread through the world! Many imagine that they are following Christ, even though they neither suffer afflictions, nor engage in any exertion or labor! They are merely content with avoiding boldness in committing sins, and place all their perfection in a certain prudence, or hollow self-love, which prevents them from denying anything to the desires of their own will and from practicing any virtues that would bring pain to their flesh. They would easily escape this deception, if they would consider that my Son was, not only the Redeemer, but their Teacher; and that He left in this world the treasures of His Redemption, not only as a remedy against its eternal ruin, but as a necessary medicine for the sickness of sin in human nature. Although He well could do it, He chose not a life of softness and ease for the flesh, but one full of labors and pains―for He judged His instructions to be incomplete and insufficient to redeem man, if He failed to teach them how to overcome the demon, the flesh and their own self. He wished to drive into their minds, that this magnificent victory is gained by the Cross, by labors, penances, mortifications and the acceptance of contempt―all of which are the trademarks and evidences of true love and the special watchwords of the predestined.
“Understand the value of the holy Cross and the honor which it confers upon disgrace and tribulations! Embrace the Cross and bear it with joy―in imitation of my Son and your Master. In this mortal life, let your glory be in tribulations, persecutions, contempt, infirmities, poverty, humiliations and in whatever is painful and opposed to the preferences of mortal flesh. Seek no rest or consolation in any earthly thing. Do not dwell in your thoughts upon what you are having to endure, nor seek to relieve yourself by seeking the compassion of others. Much less must you make much of, or try to impress others with the list of the persecutions, or afflictions from creatures. Nor should it ever be heard from your lips, how much you endure; nor should you compare your sufferings with those of others. I do not wish to say, that it is a sin to accept of some reasonable and moderate alleviation, or to mention thy afflictions. But much alleviation, if not a sin, would be an infidelity to the Lord; for this generation is under more obligation than many generations of men―and your response in suffering and love will be defective and wanting, if it is not complete and loyal in all respects. So faithful does the Lord wish your correspondence to the Cross to be, that you must not allow thy weak nature even one sigh for mere natural relief and consolation. If love alone drives you, then you will allow yourself to be carried along by its sweet force and rest in it alone; and the love of the Cross would immediately dispense with such natural relief, in the same way as I have done in my total self-sacrifice. Let this be a general rule ― that all human consolation is an imperfection and a danger, and that you should welcome only that, which the Most High Himself sends to directly or through His holy angels.”
No Change in Our Lady’s Words Today―No Change in Man’s Response!
God never changes: “God is not a man, that He should be changed” (Numbers 23:19). “With God there is no change, nor shadow of alteration” (James 1:17). Since God is Truth itself ― “I am the truth!” (John 14:6) ― then truth does not change. Our depth of understanding of the truth can change, but truth cannot change. Neither does Our Lady change her message today from that which she said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda in the 1600s ― which is to say that the doctrine of the Cross does not change, it is the same today as it was in the 1600s and the same as it was in the days of Christ’s life on Earth. Our Lady even calls little children to the Cross and suffering! At Fatima, she said to Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―aged 10, 9 and 7: Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” In other words, Our Lady calls them to the Cross, to carry the Cross―with the same dispositions that Christ her Son had ― for the conversion and salvation of sinners!
When Our Lady encountered Jesus with His Cross on the way to Calvary, she could have ‘lightened the load’ so to speak, or obtained some other miracle from God to alleviate or even totally remove the Cross from Christ―but, as stated above, “she could not relieve Him of the weight of the Cross, since she was not permitted [by God] to command her holy angels to lighten it, she therefore interiorly besought the Lord, that He would inspire these ministers of cruelty to find someone to assist Him. This prayer was heard by the Lord; and so it happened, that Simon of Cyrene was afterwards forced to carry the Cross with the Lord ... She never allowed any sentiment or wish to arise, interiorly or exteriorly, which could be interpreted as regret for the sacrifice she had made in offering her Son for the death of the Cross and its sufferings.”
Neither will Our Lady’s behavior change in accompanying those who carry the Cross today―she will not remove the Cross, even though she may obtain assistance and some comfort for souls in carrying the Cross. She shows this attitude to the three children at Fatima: Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … But the grace of God will be your comfort! … My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God!” Thus, although she will not remove the Cross, she will do all she can to help us carry the Cross meritoriously and successfully.
Carrying the Cross is the Solution Today
The Cross is central and essential for the ills of today. There is no way out of this current spiritual, political, financial, social and natural mess other than by suffering under the Cross. We either accept it willingly, or have it imposed upon us forcibly. If we do not carry the Cross supernaturally and meritoriously, then we will still have a cross to carry begrudgingly and despairingly as the tyrannical world will put us under their crosses. The Cross exists because of sin. The Cross is a remedy for sin. Therefore, it is only logical that if sin increases, then the weight of Cross must also increase. That is what Our Lady has indicated on numerous occasions:
At Fatima, both Our Lady and the Angel spoke of the Cross, which is to sacrifice oneself for sinners. The Angel scolded the children who were playing: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!” Our Lady later added: Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
To Blessed Sister Elena Aiello (1895-1961)―mystic, stigmatic, victim soul, prophetess and foundress of the Minim Tertiaries of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ―Our Lady, in an apparition on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, 1956, said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
At another time she told Blessed Elena: “Today, more than ever, men are, resisting the calls from Heaven, and are blaspheming God, while wallowing in the mire of sin. The justice of our Father is most offended. Men live in their obstinacy of sin. The wrath of God is near. Soon the world will be afflicted with great calamities, bloody revolutions, frightful hurricanes, and the overflowing of rivers and the seas. The justice of the Father requires reparation — I ask prayers, penance and sacrifice, otherwise many will be lost! The justice of God is weighing upon the world. Mankind, defiled in the mire, soon will be washed in its own blood, by disease; by famine; by earthquakes; by cloudbursts, tornadoes, floods, and terrible storms; and by war. If men do not amend their ways, a terrifying scourge of fire will come down from Heaven upon all the nations of the world, and men will be punished according to the debts contracted with Divine justice. Men have been warned in time to turn to God by doing penance, and thus they could avoid these punishments. But men ignore all these warnings, and are unwilling to be convinced. See how the souls are falling into Hell. See how high the flames are, and the souls who fall into them like flakes of snow, looking like transparent embers! How many sparks! How many cries of hate, and of despair! How much pain!
At Akita, in Japan, in 1973, Our Lady more or less said the same thing: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them. As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son [the Cross = the Mass = Sacrifice & Suffering]. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire souls to console Him and soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. Souls who will console Him and who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful.”
Just to drive home the gravity of our present situation, it is well worth repeating what was said in an earlier article concerning the number of sins committed daily―and to which Our Lady refers to in her comments to Blessed Elean Aiello, saying: “If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief!” If you take the world’s population of almost 8,000 million people (8 billion) and divide that number by the total number of seconds that there are in 24 hours―which is 86,400 seconds―then you get over 92,000 (92,592) persons for each second of the day. If every person in the world would only commit ONE SINGLE SIN A DAY and no more, then Our Lady’s Sorrowful Heart is being pierced over 92,000 times per second. If every person would ONLY COMMIT TEN SINS PER DAY, then Our Lady’s Sorrowful Heart would be pierced almost 1 million times per second (925,920 times per second). Yet are ten sins per day the average? No, it is much more than that―it is easy to commit 10 sins per hour!
If it was your mother or your wife that was being attacked by a mob, who were continuously kicking, punching and stabbing her―would you just stand by and helplessly watch, or would you at least try to do something to help your mother or wife? Well, Our Lady has done far, far, far more for you in your life than your wife or mother! Are we going to stand around and do nothing? It is not as though we have to charge into an angry armed mob and fight them off physically! The assistance that Our Lady is asking for is that we say many, many prayers and perform many, many sacrifices (for the sins of others) and penances (for our own sins). Yet as Sr. Lucia said in 1957: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!”
Article 12
Tuesday September 19th & Wednesday September 20th, 2023
Modern Day Swords of Sorrow in Mary's Heart!
Part 3: The Three-Day Loss of Jesus and the Modern World
Tuesday September 19th & Wednesday September 20th, 2023
Modern Day Swords of Sorrow in Mary's Heart!
Part 3: The Three-Day Loss of Jesus and the Modern World
A World of Profits, Gains and Losses
Ask people what makes the world go around―and the answers you will get will have more to do with “money makes the world go round” rather than “grace makes the world go round”. We live in a time where “the money god” has dethroned the “the One True God”. People are more concerned about how rich they are in money, rather than how rich they are in grace. They will say to you: “You can keep your grace! Grace cannot buy me a car or pay my bills! I need money, not grace!” Yet on Judgment Day, when they have died, no amount of money will buy them Heaven―only those who have grace in the soul (and not money in their wallet) will be allowed into Heaven for eternity.
That is why Our Lord says: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Hence He adds: “Labor not for the meat which perishes―but for that which endures unto life everlasting, which the Son of man will give you!” (John 6:27) ... “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other! You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
The rich young man―who was well-intentioned and a follower of God’s laws―whom Jesus encountered, was a living example of someone who was trying to have God and material riches. Our Lord told him to sell his possessions, give the proceeds to the poor and then come and follow Him. The rich young man could not do it―he was too attached to his possessions! “And behold, a certain rich young man, a ruler, running up and kneeling before Him, asked Him: ‘Good Master, what shall I do that I may receive life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he was very rich and had great possessions. And Jesus, seeing him become sorrowful, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (combined account of Matthew 19:16-24; Mark 10:17-23; Luke 18:18-25).
Jesus went in one direction, the rich young man went in another direction. It is not that the rich young man was an evil man―he was a good man, but not perfect. That is why “Jesus, looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!” Jesus and the rich young man went in different directions. The rich young man was too attached to his possessions ― whereas the plan of God is to progressively detach from all persons, places and things so as to focus on Him alone. Purgatory achieves that in a way that is a million times more painful than any separation from persons, places and things could possible cause in this life. Why pay millions of times over the odds in Purgatory when it can be done in a much less painful manner here and now?
This is why Holy Scripture adds: “Go now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries, which shall come upon you! Your riches are corrupted: and your garments are moth-eaten! Your gold and silver is cankered: and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire! You have stored up to yourselves wrath against the last days!” (James 5:1-3).
Walking in a Different Direction to Jesus
Mary and Joseph also headed in a different direction to Jesus. They were fooled by their assumptions and presumptions―thinking that Jesus was with them, when in actual fact He was not. Did that make Mary and Joseph bad? No! God often hides His plans from His saints and beloved ones―and He often shows them that their ways are not His ways; and that their assumptions and presumptions about Him are often misguided and wrong: “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). That is what Jesus meant when He said to Mary and Joseph when they finally found Him in the Temple after three days of searching: “How is it that you sought Me? Did you not know, that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49) ― in other words: “My ways are exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9). We see that to be very true in the case of the Apostles.
On one occasion James and John wanted to call down fire from Heaven to destroy a Samaritan town that had just rejected Our Lord: “When His disciples, James and John, had seen this, they said: ‘Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven, and consume them?’ And turning, He rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:52-56). Their ways were not His ways!
On another occasion, Peter refused to come to terms with the fact that Our Lord would be arrested, tortured and killed: Jesus began to show to His disciples, that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the ancients and Scribes and Chief Priests, and be put to death. And Peter taking Him, began to rebuke Him, saying: ‘Lord, be it far from Thee! This shall not be unto Thee!’ Jesus, turning, said to Peter: ‘Go behind Me, Satan! Thou art a scandal unto Me, because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!’” (Matthew 16:21-23). The thoughts of Peter were not the thoughts of Jesus: “My ways are exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9).
Another instance with Peter was in the Garden of Gethsemane, at the moment that Jesus was arrested. Peter takes a direction that is not Our Lord’s direction. Peter drew his sword and began to take swipes with it―at one point cutting-off the ear of one of those who had to come to arrest Jesus. Jesus tells Peter to put the sword away―Peter’s way is not Jesus’ way: “But they laid hands on Jesus, and held Him … Then Simon Peter, having a sword, stretching forth his hand, drew out his sword, and struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. And the name of the servant was Malchus ... Then Jesus said to Peter: ‘Put up your sword back into its place into the scabbard! For all that take the sword shall perish with the sword! Do you think that I cannot ask My Father, and He will immediately give Me more than twelve legions of angels? How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that so it must be done? The chalice which My Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?’” (Matthew 26:51-54; Mark 14:46-47; John 18:10). Once again, the thoughts and ways of Peter were not the thoughts and ways of Christ: “My ways are exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9).
In a similar vein, Our Lord had to explain the need for His Passion and Death to two of His disciples, after the Resurrection. These two saddened, disheartened, depressed disciples were walking away from Jerusalem―like Mary and Joseph over 20 years earlier. Unlike Mary and Joseph―who thought Jesus was with them―these two knew full well that Jesus was not with them―they had seen Him die on the cross! Jesus then―unrecognizably―joins them on the road: “And behold, the same day, two of them went to a town which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, named Emmaus. And they talked together of all these things which had happened [the Passion and Death of Jesus]. And it came to pass, that while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus Himself, also drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held, that they should not know Him. And He said to them: ‘What are these discourses that you hold one with another as you walk, and are sad?’ And the one of them, whose name was Cleophas, answering, said to Him: ‘Art Thou only a stranger to Jerusalem, and hast not known the things that have been done there in these days?’ To whom Jesus said: ‘What things?’ And they said: ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, Who was a prophet―mighty in work and word before God and all the people; and how our chief priests and princes delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we hoped, that it was He that should have redeemed Israel! And now, besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done! Yea, and certain women also of our company frightened us, who, before it was light, were at the sepulcher, and, not finding His body, came to us, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, who say that He is alive. And some of our people went to the sepulcher, and found it so as the women had said, but Him they found not!’ Then Jesus said to them: ‘O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?’ And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them in all the Scriptures, the things that were concerning Him. And they drew near to the town where they were going, and Jesus made it look as though He would go farther. But they constrained Him; saying: ‘Stay with us, because it is towards evening and the day is now far spent!’ And He went in with them. And it came to pass, whilst He was at table with them, He took bread, and blessed, and broke, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew Him―and He vanished out of their sight” (Luke 24:13-31). Jesus showed them that their way was not His way. They had got lost by following their mode of reasoning about the Passion―and Christ put them back on track and showed them His way.
When it comes to the question of how to get to Heaven, then, once again, our ways and thoughts are not Our Lord’s ways and thoughts! Our Lord clearly tells us the way, direction and manner of getting to Heaven: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). The way of the cross is the way of Jesus―but it is not our way! We do not seek the cross―we seek comfort! We often ditch the cross and plunge ourselves in the pleasures of the world. Similarly, Our Lord says: “I am not of this world! … My kingdom is not of this world! … The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 8:23; 18:36; 7:7). Yet we love the world for what it offers us! In doing so, we love the enemies of Jesus and God: “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). Unfortunately, those words do not stop us from conforming ourselves to this world, immersing ourselves into this world, enjoying this world and even loving this world! We have lost our way! We are on the wrong road! We are walking away from Christ! We have lost Christ or are in the process of losing―while all the time assuming and presuming, like Mary and Joseph, that Jesus is walking with us!
Sadly, tragically, unbelievably and inexplicably―most souls of Christians who have ever lived, have all assumed and presumed that they were walking a safe and certain road to Heaven. This is true of most Catholics―and even more so true of Protestants. The Protestants are often talking of “Walking with Lord”―assuming and presuming that the Lord is walking with them, but He is not! They have assumed and presumed to create their own religion that is tailor-made to their own human preferences, but not tailored to divine preferences. They assume and presume that all you have to do is believe in Jesus and you are saved! Their man made slogans show the shallowness and presumptuousness of their hopes and beliefs: “Accept Jesus as your personal Savior! … Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved! … Faith alone suffices!” Or as Martin Luther wrote: “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ more strongly―Who triumphed over sin, death, and the world! As long as we live here, we must sin!” [in the sense of “we cannot avoid sin”].
Dangerous Beliefs and Dangerous Roads
Whether it be Catholics or Protestants―most are walking along dangerous roads that will not lead to Heaven, because they hold on to dangerous beliefs that have come from themselves and not from God. Simple common sense―but common sense is no longer common―will tell you that Christ is One, Truth is One, but the Protestant belief in truths in not always “one” but “several” ― because beliefs about any particular truth can vary and even be contradictory from one Protestant faith to another. For instance, not all Protestant denominations believe the Jesus Christ is both God and man; similarly beliefs vary on what is the Holy Eucharist; likewise on Our Lady―some belief in the Virgin birth (Mary being a virgin before and after birth); the list could on and on. Yet how can it be true that Christ is man and not God, and also be true that Christ is God and man? How can it be true that Christ did not really rise from dead, and also true that He rose from the dead?
Once the original Protestant leaders split from the Catholic Church, they created the “genes” (so to speak) for easy splits among themselves from that time onwards. Independence from the authority of the Catholic Church gave birth to independence among themselves; questioning the Catholic Church’s teaching gave birth to having their own teachings questioned and rejected. That is why today (depending on whose statistics you personally choose to follow―now that sounds Protestant, doesn’t it) you have anywhere from 20,000 to over 30,000 independent varieties, shades, flavors and offshoots of all the major Protestant branches! Not that they all believe something different on every single possible point or teaching―but they differ in some ways, some more, some less. Yet all of them claim to have the truth―even though some of those “truths” are different and even contradictory among all those Protestant groups! Everyone believes that Jesus is walking with them! To do that, Jesus must be walking in hundreds or thousands of different directions!
Yet today’s Catholics are no better than the Protestants! In fact, today’s Catholics can no longer be called true Catholics―for they have taken on the Protestant mentality of private interpretation, which rapidly degenerates into a “believe whatever you want to believe” mentality, which, for the most part, is the Catholic mentality of this modern age. It is not for nothing that Our Lord―in speaking of latter day of the world―said: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). Apparently not! For today Catholics think like Protestants, talk like Protestants, act like Protestants and worship like Protestants. Catholics today choose, like Protestants, what they want to believe and what they will not believe. Hence, increasing numbers of Catholics:
● No longer believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.
● No longer believe in the need for the Sacrament of Confession.
● No longer believe that certain behaviors are mortal sins―such as contraception, divorce with remarriage, homosexuality, living together instead of marrying, masturbation, unnatural sexual relations, drunkenness, recreational drug use, immodesty, pornography, blasphemy, etc.
● Believe that they can be a good Catholic without going to Mass every Sunday
● Are supporters of same-sex marriages and the ordination of women to the priesthood.
The list―as always―could go on and on. The fact is that Catholics are becoming less and less Catholic with each year; some have even lost the Faith; yet they assume and presume that they are “walking with Jesus” and that one day they will simply “walk into Heaven”! Hell is full of people who had such assumptions and presumptions! As they say: “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions!” You could also say: “The road to Hell is paved with assumptions and presumptions!”
What is it that damns souls? It is the two-sided coin of (1) mortal sin and (2) an absence of sanctifying grace. When you commit mortal sin, you kick-out sanctifying grace from your soul. Sanctifying grace makes you belong to God―whereas mortal sin makes you belong to the devil: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8) and further on it says that there is “a sin which is not to death … and there is a sin unto death” (1 John 5:16). This, of course, refers to Venial Sin (a sin not unto death, because it does not kill sanctifying grace in the soul) and Mortal Sin (a sin unto death, which does kill sanctifying grace in the soul). Venial Sin, however, is like flirting with the devil, which gradually leads to a full seduction by the devil (Mortal Sin) if continued and not repressed. Deliberate and unrepented Venial Sin disposes us little by little to commit Mortal Sin. Once we get more and more comfortable with ever bigger and bigger Venial Sins, there comes a time when we become more and more comfortable with the smallest Mortal Sins―and then we start the whole process over again with Mortal Sins, by becoming more and more comfortable with ever greater Mortal Sins. We get to the point where we think that Mortal Sin looks like Venial Sin and we imagine that sin is unavoidable, inevitable, almost like a normal part of life! We walk along a dangerous path with the false conviction that it is not dangerous.
As Fr. Gabriel Amorth, former chief exorcist of Rome, said: “The most common way a demon can enter into someone’s life is through a habitual state of Mortal Sin.” Another exorcist, Fr. Aga Tarog, warns: “Mortal Sin is the primary entry point for demonic possession!” This merely echoes what was quoted above: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). The vast majority of mankind―even Catholics―live in a habitual state of mortal sin―they are walking a very precarious path and a dangerous demonic road. What makes it worse is that they have covered their eyes and have blinded themselves to the danger; they have covered their ears so as not hear the warnings about the dangerous path they have chosen: “The heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears have they heard heavily, and their eyes they have shut; lest perhaps they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Acts 28:27).
Searching in All the Wrong Places
When Mary and Joseph discovered that they had lost Jesus, they were obliged to retrace their steps back to Jerusalem. They had already walked for three days since leaving Jerusalem―so it was an easy, comfortable, slightly inconvenient task like getting off the bus after a couple of hours and taking another bus in the opposite direction back to Jerusalem. Once they arrived back in Jerusalem, they began to search all over the city for Jesus―but they were looking in the wrong places in search for their lost love and happiness.
In a similar fashion, we often search for happiness in the wrong places, in the wrong people, in the wrong things―stupidly imagining that they will give us the joy and happiness that we crave! Some seek to find joy and happiness in money; others in power and control; some seek it in entertainment; others in alcohol and drugs; some seek it in sexual encounters or pornography; others in sports and pastimes―once again, the list could be endless. Yet their thoughts and ideas of happiness are not God’s thoughts and ideas of happiness. “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink” (Romans 14:17) … “Whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:19). “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also … You cannot serve God and mammon! Therefore be not anxious for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall wear! Is not life more than the meat: and the body more than the clothing? … Therefore, be not anxious saying: ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘With what shall we be clothed?’ Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you!” (Matthew 6:19-33).
True lasting happiness cannot be found in this world and the persons, places and things of this world―it can only be found with God and in God in Heaven. In his Letter to the Friends of the Cross, St. Louis de Montfort writes: “No, the cursed Earth on which we live cannot give us happiness! We cannot see clearly in this darkened land! We are never perfectly calm on this troubled sea! We are never without warfare in a world of temptation and battlefields! We cannot escape scratches on a thorn-covered Earth!”
St. John Chrysostom goes as far as to say: “If I were given the preference, I would gladly leave Heaven to suffer for the God of Heaven. I would prefer the darkness of a dungeon to the thrones of the highest Heaven and the heaviest of crosses to the glory of the Seraphim. Suffering for me is of greater value than the gift of miracles, the power to command the infernal spirits, to master the physical universe, to stop the sun in its course and to raise the dead to life. Peter and Paul are more glorious in the shackles of a dungeon than in being lifted to the third Heaven and presented with the keys to Paradise.”
That is why Our Lord did not promise happiness in this world to His Apostles―instead He promised them happiness in Heaven through having to suffer in this world: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20). “We are made as the refuse of this world, the off-scouring of all―even until now!” (1 Corinthians 4:13). Likewise, Our Lady of Lourdes did not promise St. Bernadette happiness on Earth, but happiness in Heaven: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life―but in the next life!” That is why Our Lord tells us to rejoice and find happiness in suffering here below, in this valley of tears: “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for the sake of justice―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven! Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake! Be glad and rejoice―for your reward is very great in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:10-12). “We suffer great persecutions on account of the reward!” (Psalm 68:8; 118:112). Most Catholics seek rewards here on Earth and are indifferent, or neglectful or oblivious to the rewards of Heaven: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Convert and Get Back on the Road to God
Do not assume and presume that you are automatically going to Heaven! That is what the vast majority of souls did who are now in Hell. Our Lord shot down these assumptions and presumptions on many occasions. The Jews―being the so-called “Chosen People of God”―prided themselves upon being the “Sons of Abraham” the original root out of whom God raised up His “Chosen People.” The Jews proudly and presumptuously said to Jesus: “‘We are the seed of Abraham! … Abraham is our father! … We have one Father, even God!’ … Jesus answered: ‘I know that you are the children of Abraham! … If you be the children of Abraham, then do the works of Abraham! If God were your Father, you would indeed love Me! But now you seek to kill Me! Why? Because you are of your father the devil, and the desires and works of your father you will do!” (John 8:33-44). Today, many say: “We are Catholics! We are Conservative Catholics! We are Traditional Catholics! We are God’s Chosen People! We are the One True Church! We shall go to Heaven!” Too many Catholics are like the Pharisee that Jesus condemns in his parable about the Pharisee and the Publican. The proud, puffed-up, Pharisee says: “I am not like the rest of men! I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess!” (Luke 18:11).
Not so fast, buddy! Common sense―which is no longer common―tells us that until the 1960s there was nothing else than Traditional Catholicism (even though the seeds of Liberalism and Modernism had already been sown in the Church almost 200 years earlier). Back in the heyday of Christianity―which we call “Christendom”―from the 11th to 13th centuries, Traditional Catholicism was at its peak and prime! Yet St. Thomas Aquinas and other saints of that time [read here], would tell us that most souls were being damned and were going to Hell! St. Thomas Aquinas (1235-1274), Doctor of the Church writes: “There are a select few who are saved! … Those who are saved are in the minority!” (Summa Theologica, Ia, q.23, articles 7 & 8). St. Anselm (1033-1109), also a Doctor of the Church, writes: “If thou wouldst be certain of being in the number of the elect, strive to be one of the few, not of the many. And if thou wouldst be quite sure of thy salvation, strive to be among the fewest of the few… Do not follow the great majority of mankind, but follow those who enter upon the narrow way, who renounce the world, who give themselves to prayer, and who never relax their efforts by day or by night, that they may attain everlasting blessedness.”
So if you are a “Conservative Catholic” or a “Traditional Catholic”, in one sense you can and should rejoice―for it is better than being a “Liberal Catholic”, or a “Modernist Catholic”, or a “Fallen-Away Catholic” or an Apostate! Yet, at the same time, you should also be trembling in your boots, for, as Holy Scripture says: “That servant who knew the will of his lord, and prepared not himself, and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes! But he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with fewer stripes. And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:47-48). Hence we are told: “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12) … “And think not to say within yourselves: ‘We have Abraham for our father!’ For I tell you that God is able raise up children to Abraham out of these stones!” (Matthew 3:9).
St. Louis de Montfort’s Picture of Assumption and Presumption
In his booklet, Letter to the Friends of the Cross [read here], St. Louis de Montfort paints a striking and frightening picure of the vast majority of Christians who are full of assumptions and presumptions: “There are the two groups that appear before you each day―the followers of Christ and the followers of the world … The world’s group, the devil’s in fact, is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendid clothing. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded―even though they are broad and ever broadening―with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver. These worldlings rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure!’ they shout, “Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play! God is good, He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples; we shall not die!” And so they continue.” Full of assumptions and presumptions!
St. Louis continues: “The Christians you see around you, fashionably attired, supersensitive, excessively haughty and sedate, are neither true disciples nor true members of the crucified Jesus. To think otherwise would be an insult to your thorn-crowned Head and His Gospel truth My God! How many would-be Christians there are who imagine they are members of the Savior when in reality they are His most insidious persecutors, for while blessing themselves with the sign of the Cross, they crucify Him in their hearts” ― hearts that are full of assumptions and presumptions!
Leaving the Last Word to Our Lady
Our Lady speaks of presumption to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, saying: “The presumption and pride of worldly wisdom is more powerful in its devotees, than humility and true self-knowledge is in the children of light. They fall into this presumption because they judge of the familiar communication of man with God according to the imperfect insight of mortals, presuming to act towards God according to the friendly communication that human creatures have with one another―measuring the reverence and respect that is due to God by the familiarity and equality which human love shows to one another. The demons gain and increase their tyrannical influence over souls in the early years of man’s life, drawing them into small and insignificant faults in their childhood, hoping that they will be able to induce men to commit so much the greater and the more frequent sins in later years. By these they draw them on to a state of blind presumption! The minds of carnal men―with a most perverse blindness―continue to make much of the visible and fictitious goods of this world, because they never taste or recognize the highest and truest Good, they take no thought or appreciation of it. Mercy is almost extinct, purity of heart is sullied and infringed upon, humility, truth, justice and all virtues are oppressed and debased―while pride, luxury, avarice, vanity with other grave vices reign and are exalted. Let them realize how strong has grown in them the hellish seed of pride, of presumption, vanity, self-esteem, avarice, hypocrisy, deceitfulness, and all other vices!
“The way of death is trodden by innumerable wicked ones, who are unaware of their own ignorance, presumption and insipid pride. How ugly, abominable, horrible and monstrous the world is in the sight of God and the saints on account of the enormous abominations, which men commit against this lovable virtue by the poison of presumption. Look how some follow like brutes after the horrors of sensuality, how gluttony degrades others, how some follow after pleasures of play and vanity, how others are dominated by pride and the false presumption of mortals, how many are entangled in avarice and the desire of gain, how they all follow the impulse of passions, seeking in this life only pleasure, while in the life to come they pile up for themselves eternal torments and incur the loss of the beatific vision of their God and Lord. The holy angels are, as it were, struck with horror and cover their eyes at the sight―full of astonishment that the Most High bears with them and suffers such boldness and presumption!
“If, in the glory which I now enjoy, I could be sorrowful, then one of the reasons for being so would be the dreadful carelessness and presumption with which mortals approach to receive the sacred Body and Blood of my divine Son―some of them are unclean and abominable, others are without veneration and respect, and nearly all of them are without attention, without appreciation or consideration for the value of that food―which is nothing less than God Himself! ... Also, bear in mind the reverence with which you should recite the Credo, Pater and Ave, and do not make thyself guilty of the thoughtless rudeness of many of the faithful in this matter. The frequency with which these prayers and divine words are repeated in the Church should not hinder the proper reverence due to them. This presumption arises from pronouncing them merely by the lips, without meditating upon their meaning!
“Who then shall be so presumptuous in this mortal life as not to fear the danger of eternal ruin, no matter how many favors he has received from the Almighty? Be warned not to fall into the foolish presumption of the worldly, who with very reprehensible vanity and pride, most hateful in the sight of God, despise His ministers and preachers, because they do not speak in accordance with their own depraved tastes. How can Catholics then, under these circumstances, imagine that the sins of others were greater or more grievous than their own? There is much more bold disrespect in their presumption and temerity against God―for they know God better and they owe God much more, but yet they offend God with more deliberation and knowledge than the ignorant! How can they presume that their punishment shall not be more lamentable?”
Ask people what makes the world go around―and the answers you will get will have more to do with “money makes the world go round” rather than “grace makes the world go round”. We live in a time where “the money god” has dethroned the “the One True God”. People are more concerned about how rich they are in money, rather than how rich they are in grace. They will say to you: “You can keep your grace! Grace cannot buy me a car or pay my bills! I need money, not grace!” Yet on Judgment Day, when they have died, no amount of money will buy them Heaven―only those who have grace in the soul (and not money in their wallet) will be allowed into Heaven for eternity.
That is why Our Lord says: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Hence He adds: “Labor not for the meat which perishes―but for that which endures unto life everlasting, which the Son of man will give you!” (John 6:27) ... “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other! You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
The rich young man―who was well-intentioned and a follower of God’s laws―whom Jesus encountered, was a living example of someone who was trying to have God and material riches. Our Lord told him to sell his possessions, give the proceeds to the poor and then come and follow Him. The rich young man could not do it―he was too attached to his possessions! “And behold, a certain rich young man, a ruler, running up and kneeling before Him, asked Him: ‘Good Master, what shall I do that I may receive life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he was very rich and had great possessions. And Jesus, seeing him become sorrowful, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (combined account of Matthew 19:16-24; Mark 10:17-23; Luke 18:18-25).
Jesus went in one direction, the rich young man went in another direction. It is not that the rich young man was an evil man―he was a good man, but not perfect. That is why “Jesus, looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!” Jesus and the rich young man went in different directions. The rich young man was too attached to his possessions ― whereas the plan of God is to progressively detach from all persons, places and things so as to focus on Him alone. Purgatory achieves that in a way that is a million times more painful than any separation from persons, places and things could possible cause in this life. Why pay millions of times over the odds in Purgatory when it can be done in a much less painful manner here and now?
This is why Holy Scripture adds: “Go now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries, which shall come upon you! Your riches are corrupted: and your garments are moth-eaten! Your gold and silver is cankered: and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire! You have stored up to yourselves wrath against the last days!” (James 5:1-3).
Walking in a Different Direction to Jesus
Mary and Joseph also headed in a different direction to Jesus. They were fooled by their assumptions and presumptions―thinking that Jesus was with them, when in actual fact He was not. Did that make Mary and Joseph bad? No! God often hides His plans from His saints and beloved ones―and He often shows them that their ways are not His ways; and that their assumptions and presumptions about Him are often misguided and wrong: “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). That is what Jesus meant when He said to Mary and Joseph when they finally found Him in the Temple after three days of searching: “How is it that you sought Me? Did you not know, that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49) ― in other words: “My ways are exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9). We see that to be very true in the case of the Apostles.
On one occasion James and John wanted to call down fire from Heaven to destroy a Samaritan town that had just rejected Our Lord: “When His disciples, James and John, had seen this, they said: ‘Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven, and consume them?’ And turning, He rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:52-56). Their ways were not His ways!
On another occasion, Peter refused to come to terms with the fact that Our Lord would be arrested, tortured and killed: Jesus began to show to His disciples, that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the ancients and Scribes and Chief Priests, and be put to death. And Peter taking Him, began to rebuke Him, saying: ‘Lord, be it far from Thee! This shall not be unto Thee!’ Jesus, turning, said to Peter: ‘Go behind Me, Satan! Thou art a scandal unto Me, because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!’” (Matthew 16:21-23). The thoughts of Peter were not the thoughts of Jesus: “My ways are exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9).
Another instance with Peter was in the Garden of Gethsemane, at the moment that Jesus was arrested. Peter takes a direction that is not Our Lord’s direction. Peter drew his sword and began to take swipes with it―at one point cutting-off the ear of one of those who had to come to arrest Jesus. Jesus tells Peter to put the sword away―Peter’s way is not Jesus’ way: “But they laid hands on Jesus, and held Him … Then Simon Peter, having a sword, stretching forth his hand, drew out his sword, and struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. And the name of the servant was Malchus ... Then Jesus said to Peter: ‘Put up your sword back into its place into the scabbard! For all that take the sword shall perish with the sword! Do you think that I cannot ask My Father, and He will immediately give Me more than twelve legions of angels? How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that so it must be done? The chalice which My Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?’” (Matthew 26:51-54; Mark 14:46-47; John 18:10). Once again, the thoughts and ways of Peter were not the thoughts and ways of Christ: “My ways are exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9).
In a similar vein, Our Lord had to explain the need for His Passion and Death to two of His disciples, after the Resurrection. These two saddened, disheartened, depressed disciples were walking away from Jerusalem―like Mary and Joseph over 20 years earlier. Unlike Mary and Joseph―who thought Jesus was with them―these two knew full well that Jesus was not with them―they had seen Him die on the cross! Jesus then―unrecognizably―joins them on the road: “And behold, the same day, two of them went to a town which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, named Emmaus. And they talked together of all these things which had happened [the Passion and Death of Jesus]. And it came to pass, that while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus Himself, also drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held, that they should not know Him. And He said to them: ‘What are these discourses that you hold one with another as you walk, and are sad?’ And the one of them, whose name was Cleophas, answering, said to Him: ‘Art Thou only a stranger to Jerusalem, and hast not known the things that have been done there in these days?’ To whom Jesus said: ‘What things?’ And they said: ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, Who was a prophet―mighty in work and word before God and all the people; and how our chief priests and princes delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we hoped, that it was He that should have redeemed Israel! And now, besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done! Yea, and certain women also of our company frightened us, who, before it was light, were at the sepulcher, and, not finding His body, came to us, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, who say that He is alive. And some of our people went to the sepulcher, and found it so as the women had said, but Him they found not!’ Then Jesus said to them: ‘O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?’ And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them in all the Scriptures, the things that were concerning Him. And they drew near to the town where they were going, and Jesus made it look as though He would go farther. But they constrained Him; saying: ‘Stay with us, because it is towards evening and the day is now far spent!’ And He went in with them. And it came to pass, whilst He was at table with them, He took bread, and blessed, and broke, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew Him―and He vanished out of their sight” (Luke 24:13-31). Jesus showed them that their way was not His way. They had got lost by following their mode of reasoning about the Passion―and Christ put them back on track and showed them His way.
When it comes to the question of how to get to Heaven, then, once again, our ways and thoughts are not Our Lord’s ways and thoughts! Our Lord clearly tells us the way, direction and manner of getting to Heaven: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). The way of the cross is the way of Jesus―but it is not our way! We do not seek the cross―we seek comfort! We often ditch the cross and plunge ourselves in the pleasures of the world. Similarly, Our Lord says: “I am not of this world! … My kingdom is not of this world! … The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 8:23; 18:36; 7:7). Yet we love the world for what it offers us! In doing so, we love the enemies of Jesus and God: “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). Unfortunately, those words do not stop us from conforming ourselves to this world, immersing ourselves into this world, enjoying this world and even loving this world! We have lost our way! We are on the wrong road! We are walking away from Christ! We have lost Christ or are in the process of losing―while all the time assuming and presuming, like Mary and Joseph, that Jesus is walking with us!
Sadly, tragically, unbelievably and inexplicably―most souls of Christians who have ever lived, have all assumed and presumed that they were walking a safe and certain road to Heaven. This is true of most Catholics―and even more so true of Protestants. The Protestants are often talking of “Walking with Lord”―assuming and presuming that the Lord is walking with them, but He is not! They have assumed and presumed to create their own religion that is tailor-made to their own human preferences, but not tailored to divine preferences. They assume and presume that all you have to do is believe in Jesus and you are saved! Their man made slogans show the shallowness and presumptuousness of their hopes and beliefs: “Accept Jesus as your personal Savior! … Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved! … Faith alone suffices!” Or as Martin Luther wrote: “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ more strongly―Who triumphed over sin, death, and the world! As long as we live here, we must sin!” [in the sense of “we cannot avoid sin”].
Dangerous Beliefs and Dangerous Roads
Whether it be Catholics or Protestants―most are walking along dangerous roads that will not lead to Heaven, because they hold on to dangerous beliefs that have come from themselves and not from God. Simple common sense―but common sense is no longer common―will tell you that Christ is One, Truth is One, but the Protestant belief in truths in not always “one” but “several” ― because beliefs about any particular truth can vary and even be contradictory from one Protestant faith to another. For instance, not all Protestant denominations believe the Jesus Christ is both God and man; similarly beliefs vary on what is the Holy Eucharist; likewise on Our Lady―some belief in the Virgin birth (Mary being a virgin before and after birth); the list could on and on. Yet how can it be true that Christ is man and not God, and also be true that Christ is God and man? How can it be true that Christ did not really rise from dead, and also true that He rose from the dead?
Once the original Protestant leaders split from the Catholic Church, they created the “genes” (so to speak) for easy splits among themselves from that time onwards. Independence from the authority of the Catholic Church gave birth to independence among themselves; questioning the Catholic Church’s teaching gave birth to having their own teachings questioned and rejected. That is why today (depending on whose statistics you personally choose to follow―now that sounds Protestant, doesn’t it) you have anywhere from 20,000 to over 30,000 independent varieties, shades, flavors and offshoots of all the major Protestant branches! Not that they all believe something different on every single possible point or teaching―but they differ in some ways, some more, some less. Yet all of them claim to have the truth―even though some of those “truths” are different and even contradictory among all those Protestant groups! Everyone believes that Jesus is walking with them! To do that, Jesus must be walking in hundreds or thousands of different directions!
Yet today’s Catholics are no better than the Protestants! In fact, today’s Catholics can no longer be called true Catholics―for they have taken on the Protestant mentality of private interpretation, which rapidly degenerates into a “believe whatever you want to believe” mentality, which, for the most part, is the Catholic mentality of this modern age. It is not for nothing that Our Lord―in speaking of latter day of the world―said: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). Apparently not! For today Catholics think like Protestants, talk like Protestants, act like Protestants and worship like Protestants. Catholics today choose, like Protestants, what they want to believe and what they will not believe. Hence, increasing numbers of Catholics:
● No longer believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.
● No longer believe in the need for the Sacrament of Confession.
● No longer believe that certain behaviors are mortal sins―such as contraception, divorce with remarriage, homosexuality, living together instead of marrying, masturbation, unnatural sexual relations, drunkenness, recreational drug use, immodesty, pornography, blasphemy, etc.
● Believe that they can be a good Catholic without going to Mass every Sunday
● Are supporters of same-sex marriages and the ordination of women to the priesthood.
The list―as always―could go on and on. The fact is that Catholics are becoming less and less Catholic with each year; some have even lost the Faith; yet they assume and presume that they are “walking with Jesus” and that one day they will simply “walk into Heaven”! Hell is full of people who had such assumptions and presumptions! As they say: “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions!” You could also say: “The road to Hell is paved with assumptions and presumptions!”
What is it that damns souls? It is the two-sided coin of (1) mortal sin and (2) an absence of sanctifying grace. When you commit mortal sin, you kick-out sanctifying grace from your soul. Sanctifying grace makes you belong to God―whereas mortal sin makes you belong to the devil: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8) and further on it says that there is “a sin which is not to death … and there is a sin unto death” (1 John 5:16). This, of course, refers to Venial Sin (a sin not unto death, because it does not kill sanctifying grace in the soul) and Mortal Sin (a sin unto death, which does kill sanctifying grace in the soul). Venial Sin, however, is like flirting with the devil, which gradually leads to a full seduction by the devil (Mortal Sin) if continued and not repressed. Deliberate and unrepented Venial Sin disposes us little by little to commit Mortal Sin. Once we get more and more comfortable with ever bigger and bigger Venial Sins, there comes a time when we become more and more comfortable with the smallest Mortal Sins―and then we start the whole process over again with Mortal Sins, by becoming more and more comfortable with ever greater Mortal Sins. We get to the point where we think that Mortal Sin looks like Venial Sin and we imagine that sin is unavoidable, inevitable, almost like a normal part of life! We walk along a dangerous path with the false conviction that it is not dangerous.
As Fr. Gabriel Amorth, former chief exorcist of Rome, said: “The most common way a demon can enter into someone’s life is through a habitual state of Mortal Sin.” Another exorcist, Fr. Aga Tarog, warns: “Mortal Sin is the primary entry point for demonic possession!” This merely echoes what was quoted above: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). The vast majority of mankind―even Catholics―live in a habitual state of mortal sin―they are walking a very precarious path and a dangerous demonic road. What makes it worse is that they have covered their eyes and have blinded themselves to the danger; they have covered their ears so as not hear the warnings about the dangerous path they have chosen: “The heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears have they heard heavily, and their eyes they have shut; lest perhaps they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Acts 28:27).
Searching in All the Wrong Places
When Mary and Joseph discovered that they had lost Jesus, they were obliged to retrace their steps back to Jerusalem. They had already walked for three days since leaving Jerusalem―so it was an easy, comfortable, slightly inconvenient task like getting off the bus after a couple of hours and taking another bus in the opposite direction back to Jerusalem. Once they arrived back in Jerusalem, they began to search all over the city for Jesus―but they were looking in the wrong places in search for their lost love and happiness.
In a similar fashion, we often search for happiness in the wrong places, in the wrong people, in the wrong things―stupidly imagining that they will give us the joy and happiness that we crave! Some seek to find joy and happiness in money; others in power and control; some seek it in entertainment; others in alcohol and drugs; some seek it in sexual encounters or pornography; others in sports and pastimes―once again, the list could be endless. Yet their thoughts and ideas of happiness are not God’s thoughts and ideas of happiness. “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink” (Romans 14:17) … “Whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:19). “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also … You cannot serve God and mammon! Therefore be not anxious for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall wear! Is not life more than the meat: and the body more than the clothing? … Therefore, be not anxious saying: ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘With what shall we be clothed?’ Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you!” (Matthew 6:19-33).
True lasting happiness cannot be found in this world and the persons, places and things of this world―it can only be found with God and in God in Heaven. In his Letter to the Friends of the Cross, St. Louis de Montfort writes: “No, the cursed Earth on which we live cannot give us happiness! We cannot see clearly in this darkened land! We are never perfectly calm on this troubled sea! We are never without warfare in a world of temptation and battlefields! We cannot escape scratches on a thorn-covered Earth!”
St. John Chrysostom goes as far as to say: “If I were given the preference, I would gladly leave Heaven to suffer for the God of Heaven. I would prefer the darkness of a dungeon to the thrones of the highest Heaven and the heaviest of crosses to the glory of the Seraphim. Suffering for me is of greater value than the gift of miracles, the power to command the infernal spirits, to master the physical universe, to stop the sun in its course and to raise the dead to life. Peter and Paul are more glorious in the shackles of a dungeon than in being lifted to the third Heaven and presented with the keys to Paradise.”
That is why Our Lord did not promise happiness in this world to His Apostles―instead He promised them happiness in Heaven through having to suffer in this world: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20). “We are made as the refuse of this world, the off-scouring of all―even until now!” (1 Corinthians 4:13). Likewise, Our Lady of Lourdes did not promise St. Bernadette happiness on Earth, but happiness in Heaven: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life―but in the next life!” That is why Our Lord tells us to rejoice and find happiness in suffering here below, in this valley of tears: “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for the sake of justice―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven! Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake! Be glad and rejoice―for your reward is very great in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:10-12). “We suffer great persecutions on account of the reward!” (Psalm 68:8; 118:112). Most Catholics seek rewards here on Earth and are indifferent, or neglectful or oblivious to the rewards of Heaven: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Convert and Get Back on the Road to God
Do not assume and presume that you are automatically going to Heaven! That is what the vast majority of souls did who are now in Hell. Our Lord shot down these assumptions and presumptions on many occasions. The Jews―being the so-called “Chosen People of God”―prided themselves upon being the “Sons of Abraham” the original root out of whom God raised up His “Chosen People.” The Jews proudly and presumptuously said to Jesus: “‘We are the seed of Abraham! … Abraham is our father! … We have one Father, even God!’ … Jesus answered: ‘I know that you are the children of Abraham! … If you be the children of Abraham, then do the works of Abraham! If God were your Father, you would indeed love Me! But now you seek to kill Me! Why? Because you are of your father the devil, and the desires and works of your father you will do!” (John 8:33-44). Today, many say: “We are Catholics! We are Conservative Catholics! We are Traditional Catholics! We are God’s Chosen People! We are the One True Church! We shall go to Heaven!” Too many Catholics are like the Pharisee that Jesus condemns in his parable about the Pharisee and the Publican. The proud, puffed-up, Pharisee says: “I am not like the rest of men! I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess!” (Luke 18:11).
Not so fast, buddy! Common sense―which is no longer common―tells us that until the 1960s there was nothing else than Traditional Catholicism (even though the seeds of Liberalism and Modernism had already been sown in the Church almost 200 years earlier). Back in the heyday of Christianity―which we call “Christendom”―from the 11th to 13th centuries, Traditional Catholicism was at its peak and prime! Yet St. Thomas Aquinas and other saints of that time [read here], would tell us that most souls were being damned and were going to Hell! St. Thomas Aquinas (1235-1274), Doctor of the Church writes: “There are a select few who are saved! … Those who are saved are in the minority!” (Summa Theologica, Ia, q.23, articles 7 & 8). St. Anselm (1033-1109), also a Doctor of the Church, writes: “If thou wouldst be certain of being in the number of the elect, strive to be one of the few, not of the many. And if thou wouldst be quite sure of thy salvation, strive to be among the fewest of the few… Do not follow the great majority of mankind, but follow those who enter upon the narrow way, who renounce the world, who give themselves to prayer, and who never relax their efforts by day or by night, that they may attain everlasting blessedness.”
So if you are a “Conservative Catholic” or a “Traditional Catholic”, in one sense you can and should rejoice―for it is better than being a “Liberal Catholic”, or a “Modernist Catholic”, or a “Fallen-Away Catholic” or an Apostate! Yet, at the same time, you should also be trembling in your boots, for, as Holy Scripture says: “That servant who knew the will of his lord, and prepared not himself, and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes! But he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with fewer stripes. And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:47-48). Hence we are told: “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12) … “And think not to say within yourselves: ‘We have Abraham for our father!’ For I tell you that God is able raise up children to Abraham out of these stones!” (Matthew 3:9).
St. Louis de Montfort’s Picture of Assumption and Presumption
In his booklet, Letter to the Friends of the Cross [read here], St. Louis de Montfort paints a striking and frightening picure of the vast majority of Christians who are full of assumptions and presumptions: “There are the two groups that appear before you each day―the followers of Christ and the followers of the world … The world’s group, the devil’s in fact, is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendid clothing. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded―even though they are broad and ever broadening―with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver. These worldlings rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure!’ they shout, “Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play! God is good, He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples; we shall not die!” And so they continue.” Full of assumptions and presumptions!
St. Louis continues: “The Christians you see around you, fashionably attired, supersensitive, excessively haughty and sedate, are neither true disciples nor true members of the crucified Jesus. To think otherwise would be an insult to your thorn-crowned Head and His Gospel truth My God! How many would-be Christians there are who imagine they are members of the Savior when in reality they are His most insidious persecutors, for while blessing themselves with the sign of the Cross, they crucify Him in their hearts” ― hearts that are full of assumptions and presumptions!
Leaving the Last Word to Our Lady
Our Lady speaks of presumption to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, saying: “The presumption and pride of worldly wisdom is more powerful in its devotees, than humility and true self-knowledge is in the children of light. They fall into this presumption because they judge of the familiar communication of man with God according to the imperfect insight of mortals, presuming to act towards God according to the friendly communication that human creatures have with one another―measuring the reverence and respect that is due to God by the familiarity and equality which human love shows to one another. The demons gain and increase their tyrannical influence over souls in the early years of man’s life, drawing them into small and insignificant faults in their childhood, hoping that they will be able to induce men to commit so much the greater and the more frequent sins in later years. By these they draw them on to a state of blind presumption! The minds of carnal men―with a most perverse blindness―continue to make much of the visible and fictitious goods of this world, because they never taste or recognize the highest and truest Good, they take no thought or appreciation of it. Mercy is almost extinct, purity of heart is sullied and infringed upon, humility, truth, justice and all virtues are oppressed and debased―while pride, luxury, avarice, vanity with other grave vices reign and are exalted. Let them realize how strong has grown in them the hellish seed of pride, of presumption, vanity, self-esteem, avarice, hypocrisy, deceitfulness, and all other vices!
“The way of death is trodden by innumerable wicked ones, who are unaware of their own ignorance, presumption and insipid pride. How ugly, abominable, horrible and monstrous the world is in the sight of God and the saints on account of the enormous abominations, which men commit against this lovable virtue by the poison of presumption. Look how some follow like brutes after the horrors of sensuality, how gluttony degrades others, how some follow after pleasures of play and vanity, how others are dominated by pride and the false presumption of mortals, how many are entangled in avarice and the desire of gain, how they all follow the impulse of passions, seeking in this life only pleasure, while in the life to come they pile up for themselves eternal torments and incur the loss of the beatific vision of their God and Lord. The holy angels are, as it were, struck with horror and cover their eyes at the sight―full of astonishment that the Most High bears with them and suffers such boldness and presumption!
“If, in the glory which I now enjoy, I could be sorrowful, then one of the reasons for being so would be the dreadful carelessness and presumption with which mortals approach to receive the sacred Body and Blood of my divine Son―some of them are unclean and abominable, others are without veneration and respect, and nearly all of them are without attention, without appreciation or consideration for the value of that food―which is nothing less than God Himself! ... Also, bear in mind the reverence with which you should recite the Credo, Pater and Ave, and do not make thyself guilty of the thoughtless rudeness of many of the faithful in this matter. The frequency with which these prayers and divine words are repeated in the Church should not hinder the proper reverence due to them. This presumption arises from pronouncing them merely by the lips, without meditating upon their meaning!
“Who then shall be so presumptuous in this mortal life as not to fear the danger of eternal ruin, no matter how many favors he has received from the Almighty? Be warned not to fall into the foolish presumption of the worldly, who with very reprehensible vanity and pride, most hateful in the sight of God, despise His ministers and preachers, because they do not speak in accordance with their own depraved tastes. How can Catholics then, under these circumstances, imagine that the sins of others were greater or more grievous than their own? There is much more bold disrespect in their presumption and temerity against God―for they know God better and they owe God much more, but yet they offend God with more deliberation and knowledge than the ignorant! How can they presume that their punishment shall not be more lamentable?”
Article 11
Sunday September 17th & Monday September 18th, 2023
Modern Day Swords of Sorrow in Mary's Heart!
Part 2: The Flight into Egypt and the Modern World
Sunday September 17th & Monday September 18th, 2023
Modern Day Swords of Sorrow in Mary's Heart!
Part 2: The Flight into Egypt and the Modern World
A Sword of Many Edges!
This Second Sorrow―the Flight of the Holy Family to Egypt―was caused by the murderous intentions of King Herod the Great, the king of ancient Judea, who was a brutal, ruthless, vindictive and dangerously high-strung tyrant. He had many of his subjects killed on suspicion of plotting against him and commanded the slaughtering of babies in and around Bethlehem after being informed that a new king of the Jews had been born there. Among the victims of the murderous paranoia, that ultimately drove him to the brink of insanity, were his three oldest sons and the wife he loved most―all of whom he killed.
We tend to think of Mary and Joseph’s flight into Egypt from only one perspective―that of fleeing from a murderous King Herod who was seeking to kill Jesus in order to jealously protect his crown and rule. That, of course is true! Yet we risk forgetting that while Jesus, Mary and Joseph were fleeing to Egypt, Herod’s soldiers were slaughtering the babies in and around Bethlehem in the hope that would kill the baby Jesus in the mass slaughter―because Herod feared that Jesus would take his throne and kingship away from him. At some point, Mary would learned about the massacre of the babies―whom we call “The Holy Innocents”―and this, no doubt, added to her sorrow of having to flee to strange country to avoid having her baby Jesus murdered.
It would have been unthinkable for Mary not to flee―and therefore expose her Divine Child to the murderous killing. God, through one of His angels, told Joseph that he was to immediately leave Bethlehem and flee to Egypt―which Joseph promptly obeyed, regardless of what repugnance, misgivings, questions, or doubts he might have had concerning the command. “And after the three wise men were departed, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in sleep to Joseph, saying: ‘Arise, and take the Child and His Mother, and flee into Egypt―and be there until I shall tell thee! For it will come to pass that Herod will seek the Child to destroy him!’ Joseph arose, and took the Child and His Mother by night, and retired into Egypt―and he was there until the death of Herod” (Matthew 2:13-14).
The escape of the Holy Family was unknown to Herod as he sent in his soldiers to murder all the babies in and around Bethlehem: “Then Herod, seeing that he was deluded by the wise men [who had not returned to tell Herod of the whereabouts of Jesus], was exceedingly angry; and sending [soldiers] killed all the men children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under―according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men” (Matthew 2:16).
In speaking of this, Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Jesus began to suffer as soon as He was born into the world―for He and I were banished by Herod into a desert. These events are for the instruction of kings and princes and for the other faithful―for instance, the prompt obedience and humility of the Magi [the three wise men, or three kings], which men should imitate, and the stubborn wickedness of Herod, which they are to fear and abhor―for each reaped the fruit of his actions. The three kings reaped the fruit of their justice and the other virtues which they practiced; while Herod reaped the fruits of the ambition and pride by which he had usurped the government, and of other vices into which he cast himself without restriction or moderation. The Magi and Herod pursued opposite courses: the Magi met the first inspirations and graces by the practice of the good works; thus they disposed themselves by many virtues for being called and drawn by divine revelation to the knowledge of the mysteries of the Incarnation, the birth of the divine Word and the Redemption of the human race; and through this to the happiness and perfection of the way of life. But Herod, on the other hand, by his hard-heartedness and neglect of the helps, which God offered him for the practice of virtue, was drawn into the abyss of his measureless pride and ambition. These vices hurled him into such vast precipices of cruelty as to be the first one among men to seek the life of the Redeemer of the world under the cloak of simulated devotion and piety. In giving vent to his furious rage, he took away the life of the innocent children and attempted by so foul a measure to advance his damned and perverse undertaking.” (Our Lady’s words to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
So What About Today?
Where does all this fit in today? How is this applicable to modern-times? How do all the surrounding events of the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt affect and apply to us here and now? If we take out of the equation all the historical persons (Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the angel, the Magi, Herod, the soldiers, the babies) and the historical places (Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Egypt, the desert) and the timeframe (1st century AD) and simply look at the general principles that surround and emerge from this Second Sorrow of Our Lady―the Flight into Egypt―and then see if and how they apply to what we are living and seeing around us today.
So what do we have? Tyrannical rule. Ambition and jealousy that lead to a desire to eliminate a perceived threat to one’s position and authority. Lies and hypocrisy. Uncontrolled anger and rage leading to mass murder of innocent persons in an attempt to eliminate a competitor ― even babies and one’s own wife and children. Persecution of perceived opponents that forces them to flee into exile.
Tyrannical rule has become the norm for most governments of the world―some rule ruthlessly, others rule with a false smile on the face. Some are obviously tyrannical, others are insidiously tyrannical. It’s a case of the proverbial “hard-cop and soft-cop” routine. Some love to see your death and others love you to death. Just as Herod depopulated Bethlehem, so too the tyrannical rulers of today wish to depopulate the world―the once so-called “conspiracy theory” is now openly stated on the mainstream media (e.g. Bill Gates) and the United Nations committees. Not even Google censors and hides the depopulation agenda anymore! As is shown by the following Google listed report:
“Texas Distinguished Scientist of 2006, University of Texas ecologist Eric Pianka told a meeting of the Texas Academy of Science that 90% of his fellow human beings must die in order to save the planet. Professor Pianka said the Earth, as we know it, will not survive without drastic measures. He asserted that the only feasible solution to saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10% of the present number. War and famine would not do, he explained. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved.”
Overpopulation or Overpropagandization?
The false propaganda about world overpopulation has led to fears and agendas that seek to depopulate the world. Is the world really that overpopulated? Theoretically, the entire world population can fit in Texas, which is 268,581 square miles. In Texas, each person will get at least one thousand square feet which is not much but enough. A 1,000 sq. ft. home is one where you can comfortably fit a kitchen, dining area, and two to three bedrooms. You could, in theory, house the entire population of Earth into Texas, at a population density of 27,000 people per square mile. This is about the same population density as New York City and substantially less than Paris, for example. Hence, you would have to effectively build a single, vast city across the entire state to house the whole world there. The rest of the planet would be uninhabited. Overpopulation? Rubbish and garbage!
How many people have ever lived on Earth? The whacky evolutionists―for whom “science” is their own unscientific imagination―try to fool you into thinking that the human race has existed for over 50,000 years and that over 110 billion people have been born since that time. Creationists and biblical scholars say that the human race has existed for just over 6,000 years (4,000 years before Christ and 2,000 years after Christ) and estimate a total number for the human race as being around 38 to 40 billion. Regardless of which number you choose to follow―since you can fit the present world population of around 8 billion into Texas, and since you could fit 14 Texases into the United States, then the United States could even hold the evolutionist whacky total of 110 billion people with room for another 2 billion! And each person would have around 1,000 square feet to live in! Overpopulation my foot! There is no overpopulation―just overpropagandization! Most people do no research and can’t do math―so they believingly drink whatever Kool-Aid is offered them.
Modern Day Satanic Overpopulation
Herod was fanatical tyrant who was paranoid about losing his authority and control. Well, as Holy Scripture says: “Nothing under the sun is new” (Ecclesiastes 1:1). Today, the same situation exists―both in the natural and supernatural domains. Just as Satan played his part in Herod’s pride, ambition, paranoia, tyranny, remorseless cruelty and murderous activities―so too is Satan playing a major role today in the pride, ambition, paranoia, tyranny, remorseless cruelty and murderous activities of the modern-day Herods that infest the worlds of finance and politics; a s well playing a major part in influencing the modern-day soldiers and servants of Herod, who are the worldly folk and puppets of the big money men who rule from their thrones behind the scenes. Remember―Our Lord calls Satan “the prince of this world” (Luke 12:31) and “He that committeth sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). As the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth said: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … The whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican! … The demon tempts the authorities of the Church ― just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
One of the ways a person can become possessed is by stubborn, repeated, long-term mortal sin―Fr. Amorth says: “The most common way a demon can enter into someone’s life is through a habitual state of mortal sin.” Another exorcist, Fr. Aga Tarog, warns: “Mortal sin is the primary entry point for demonic possession!” This merely echoes what was quoted above: “He that committeth sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). The vast majority of mankind―even Catholics―live in a habitual state of mortal sin. That indicates that Satan must be having a “field day” and his harvest is great and his reapers are not a few! “Be sober and watch―because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). Our Lord says that Satan is all about death: “The devil … was a murderer from the beginning! … The thief comes to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly!” (John 8:44; 10:10). Our Lord brings us life―supernatural life―through sanctifying grace; whereas Satan brings death―the death of mortal sin which kills sanctifying grace in the soul. When Our Lord touches a person, He heals and even brings back from the dead―when Satan touches a person, he contaminates with venial sin, or even brings the death of mortal sin. “Good is set against evil, and life against death―so also is the sinner against a just man!” (Ecclesiasticus 33:15).
As Our Lord says: “There is no good tree that brings forth evil fruit; nor an evil tree that brings forth good fruit. For every tree is known by its fruit. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Men do not gather figs from thorns; nor from a bramble bush do they gather the grape! … Either make the tree good and its fruit good: or make the tree evil, and its fruit evil. For by the fruit the tree is known! … Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit! A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit! Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire! Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them! (Luke 6:43-44; Matthew 12:33; 7:16-20).
The tree of Satan is evil and its fruits are evil―and since Satan is the prince of this world (Luke 12:31), then the “trees” of this world are evil and they produce evil fruit. Our Lord says: “My kingdom is not of this world!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7). Hence Scripture adds: “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19) ― because the prince of this world, Satan, is wickedness personified. That is why we are not supposed to be friendly with the world―for the world is an enemy of God: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4)
The World’s (and Satan's) Fruits of Lies and Death
Satan is a liar and a murder. Our Lord says: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him! When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44). Most of the governing bodies of the world are minions, stooges and puppets of Satan―even the big money men, the so-called “Elites”, are not really rulers, but mere servants of Satan. They have bought into the temptation that Christ refused to buy into when He was tempted by Satan in the desert. Satan offered Him power, glory and riches if Jesus would only bow down to him and serve him: “The devil took Him up into a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: ‘All these will I give Thee, if, falling down, Thou wilt adore me!’” (Matthew 4:8-9).
Regardless of what you may think and believe―there are only to possible roads to take: (1) the road to Heaven and salvation, and (2) the road to Hell and damnation. We either walk the narrow path uphill with Christ carrying our cross; or we can walk the big broad well-paved downhill road with Satan to Hell, having fun along the way. Christ is the truth (John 14:6) and Satan is a liar (John 8:44)―we can either love the truth and ignore and hate the lie; or we can love the lie and ignore and hate the truth. Isn’t it strange how most people perceive politicians to be liars? Trump, Biden, Bush, and Obama were all accused of being liars, even pathological liars.
A recent Gallup poll showed that politicians are viewed as one of the least honest professional groups. A large study, that examined the inclination to lie among politicians, found that those politicians who are most willing to lie tend to be more successful in getting reelected. Therefore, politicians may see lying as something important for survival in the world of politics. Politicians represent broad constituencies of diverse views and opposing opinions―the only realistic way in which they can attract enough votes to get elected is by agreeing with as many people as possible―even if those people disagree among themselves and hold opposing opinions to each other. It is hard to do that without fudging the truth. Politicians it is challenging to be completely honest without upsetting some voters. Additionally, politicians work to hype their accomplishments and downplay or undermine the successes of their adversaries.
People don’t lie without a reason. It is easier to tell the truth than to lie, so people only lie when they are incentivized to do so. Psychologists state that people lie when (1) they see some benefit of lying, (2) they think the risks of lying are acceptable, and (3) they can morally justify their dishonesty. Dishonest politicians may regularly see the benefit of lying, feel like they can get away with lying, and see their lying as a necessary part of the job rather than a deep character flaw. This brings to mind the comments made in Director from 1981 to 1987, to President Reagan during a Presidential Briefing in 1981: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
Around the same time, the Russian KGB (Russian Intelligence/Secret Service) defector, Yuri Bezmenov, who sought refuge in Canada and USA, revealed that one of the Communist tactics was “Ideological Subversion” ― which is a method of cultural warfare; it is a slow method that seeks to change the perception of reality, where, despite the availability of abundance of information, citizens of a country cannot make out the reality. Bezmenov said: “Most of the American politicians, media, and educational system train another generation of people who think they are living at the peacetime. False. United States is in a state of war; undeclared, total war against the basic principles and foundations of the American system. And the initiator of this war is the world Communist system, or the world Communist conspiracy. Only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage by the KGB. The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion, or psychological warfare. What it basically does is to change the perception of reality of every American that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.”
Those comments (Casey in 1981 and Bezmenov in 1984) are clearly seen to have come to fruition in our day―we are clearly living in an era of “fake news” where each side accuses the other side of pushing “fake news” as being the truth while hiding the real truth. The truth―when it shows a person or government in bad light―is often mockingly labeled as being a “conspiracy theory” and is then officially claimed to have been “debunked” and proved to be false―while the deceptions and lies are rammed down our throats and called “truths”. To make matters more confusing, there is the “controlled opposition” tactic, whereby a government, entity or person will deliberately create “fake opposition” to itself and then come out with craziest of crazy conspiracy theories which seek to discredit the “true conspiracy theories” by association! This leads to the common man scratching his head in frustration and wondering “What is the truth?”
Once you manage to confuse the minds of people as to what is the truth in any given matter or subject, you can proceed to use psychological warfare to brainwash the person into believing what you want them to believe. One of the key ways to do that is a constant repetition of your message, a veritable bombardment of propaganda. Hitler’s propagandist, Joseph Goebbels said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Furthermore, if you control the chief media outlets―television, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc.―then you can guarantee that your message is relentlessly hammered into the heads of today’s “dumbed-down” population. We get to the point where whatever is heard most often becomes the “truth” in non-discerning minds.
The Devil in the Details
As the saying goes: “Power corrupts―and absolute power corrupts absolutely!” 90% of the media in the United States is controlled by just six corporations: AT&T, CBS, Comcast, Disney, News Corp and Viacom―however, there are two major investment companies that are among the top investors in each of those six corporations, they are Vanguard Group, Inc. and Blackrock Inc. In actual fact, four investment companies―(1) Vanguard Group, Inc., (2) BlackRock Inc., (3) Berkshire Hathaway, Inc, (4) State Street Corporation―are to be found among the top 5 largest investors in ALL OF THE 500 LARGEST COMPANIES IN THE USA. Sometimes all four are among the “Top Five Investors” for each company, and in almost all of the 500 largest companies at least three of these investors are among the “Top Five Investors.” They are the controlling investors in all the major banks, healthcare enterprises, information technology and computing, industry, plane and car manufacturing, etc. [see the full list here: https://blackrockvanguardwatch.com/].
No matter what industry you look at, the top shareholders, and therefore decision makers, are the same: Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street and/or Berkshire Hathaway. In virtually every major company, you find these names among the top 10 institutional investors. Their tentacles are into everything! They have a say in everything! They forego or pass upon many of the financial dividends, profits and rewards for their investment, preferring instead to exchange those for having a control of the company they invest, so that they can dictate direction and policies. Furthermore, Vanguard Group, Inc., BlackRock Inc., Berkshire Hathaway, Inc, and State Street Corporation are the largest investors in each other’s investment company! Talk about a “closed-shop” and monopoly! These four companies have their “front-men”, their official boardrooms and staff―but nobody can find out the names of the hidden investors for those four companies.
Bloomberg is a privately held financial, software, data, and media company―trusted for its business and financial information, delivering trusted data, news, and insights that bring transparency. Bloomberg has referred to BlackRock as the “fourth branch of government,” due to its close relationship with the central banks. BlackRock actually lends money to the central bank, the federal reserve, and is their principal adviser. Dozens of BlackRock employees have held senior positions in the White House under the Bush, Obama and Biden administrations. BlackRock also developed the computer system that the central banks use.
Investing in Murder and Death
Vanguard also sponsored Planned Parenthood―its highest donation for one year being $10 million (in 2015). Yet even more financial support is given to Planned Parenthood through the multitude of companies which Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street and Hathaway Berkshire have invested in and control―one such company being Intel, which is a large financial donor to the cause of abortion―but Intel is not the only one.
Similarly, Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street and Hathaway Berkshire control vast areas of the Healthcare sector―again, having a major say in all policies because they are the largest investors in Healthcare companies such as Johnson & Johnson, UnitedHealth Group, Pfizer, Moderna, Merck & Co., Eli Lilly & Co., CVS Health, HCA Healthcare, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Humana and tens more. Thus they have a stranglehold on medical policies. Notice that they control the Healthcare companies that produced the major Covid vaccines―Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Moderna. The number of deaths that the Covid vaccines have provoked is unbelievable―but if you own the media, then you can choose to not report that particular aspect of news!
Nevertheless, some people―experts in the field―did speak out about what was happening. One such person was Dr. Michael Yeadon, Pfizer’s former Vice President and Chief Scientist for Allergy & Respiratory, who spent 32 years in the industry leading new medicines research and retired in 2011 from the pharmaceutical giant (Pfizer) having reached the most senior research position in his field. He addressed the “demonstrably false” propaganda from governments in response to COVID-19, including the “lie” of dangerous variants, the totalitarian potential for “vaccine passports,” and the strong possibility we are dealing with something which could lead far beyond the carnage experienced in the wars and massacres of the 20th century.
Dr. Michael Yeadon stated, back in 2021: “I have realized that my government and its advisers are lying in the faces of the people about everything to do with this Coronavirus. Absolutely everything! This idea of asymptomatic transmission when you don’t have symptoms, but you are a source of a virus―is a fallacy! So too is the idea that lockdowns work; that masks have a protective value; that variants of the virus are scary things; and that we even need to close international borders in case some of these nasty foreign variants get in! On top of the current list of gene-based vaccines―that we have miraculously made―there will be some ‘top-up’ vaccines to cope with the immune escaping variants. Everything I have just told you―every single one of those thing―is demonstrably false. But our entire national policy is based on these all being broadly right―but they are all wrong!”
“There is no question in my mind that very significant powerbrokers, around the world, have either planned to take advantage of the next pandemic or created the pandemic. One of those two things is true―because the reason it must be true is that dozens and dozens of governments are all saying the same lies and doing the same inefficacious things that demonstrably end up costing lives. They are all talking the same sort of future script―which is: ‘We don’t want you to move around because of these pesky varmints, these “variants”’— which I call ‘same-iants’, because they are pretty much the same — but they are all saying this and they are all saying: ‘Don’t worry! There will be “top-up” vaccines that will cope with the potential escapees!’
“Governments and their advisers are lying to you saying that variants are different enough from the current virus that, even if you are immune from natural exposure or vaccination to the present virus, you are a risk and you need to come and get this top-up vaccine. Neither of those are true! They are all saying this when it is obviously nonsense! Governments and their advisors in multiple countries are lying about variants ― the variants are not really different, you do not need a ‘top-up’ vaccine! If I can show you that one major thing that governments around the world are telling the people is a lie, you should take my 32 years of experienced opinion that says, most of it, if not all of it, is a lie! I think the end game is going to be: ‘Everyone receives a vaccine!’… Everyone on the planet is going to find themselves persuaded, cajoled, not quite mandated, hemmed-in to take a jab. I’m very worried that pathway will be used for mass depopulation―because I can’t think of any benign explanation! If you wanted to introduce a characteristic which could be harmful and one that could even be lethal, and you can even tune it and put in it some gene that will cause liver injury over a nine-month period, or, cause your kidneys to fail―that would be quite possible. Biotechnology provides you with limitless ways, frankly, to injure or kill billions of people.
“Stop and think: ‘Why is my government lying to me about something so fundamental?’ Because, I think the answer is, they are going to kill you using this method. They’re going to kill you and your family. The eugenicists [those who try to eliminate undesirable people] have got hold of the levers of power and this is a really artful way of getting you to line-up and receive some unspecified thing that will damage you. It won’t kill you right after receiving the needle, because you would spot that. It could be something that will produce normal disease, at various times between vaccination and the death. In this way it will be plausibly deniable―because there will be something else going on in the world at that time [which can be blamed for the death], so that it will look normal. That’s what I would do if I wanted to get rid of 90% or 95% of the world’s population. And I think that’s what they are doing.” (Dr. Michael Yeadon, former Pfizer Vice President and Chief Scientist for Allergy & Respiratory).
What Dr. Michael Yeadon says has also been said by thousands of highly-rated doctors and scientists throughout the world―those who keep silent or follow the propaganda are those who are afraid of reprisals and fear losing their jobs and salaries. Yet do not think that this is all over with―what we experienced was merely the first wave, there will be more to come, especially since the purveyors of this culture of death rejoiced to see the naïve, gullible, dumbed-down “sheeple” happily lining up to take their death jab! As Dr. Yeadon said―those deaths will not occur immediately―that would be too obvious―but little by little so that one cannot be sure of the real reasons behind those deaths.
More Modern Day Herodian Depopulation Massacres
The culture of death and destruction that came with the Coronavirus circus was nothing other than a continuation or expansion of a much earlier established culture of death in the form of abortion. It is what fits the brutal murderous King Herod best and projects Herod into the 20th and 21st centuries. Abortion is the present day equivalent of Herod’s “Massacre of the Holy Innocents”―but it has gone way beyond the relatively few babies that Herod butchered in his day. Herod killed all the male babies of Bethlehem and the surrounding area, who were aged two and under―a number estimated to be somewhere between 20 and 40 babies―and he only did this once. The present day King Herods―the leaders and legislators of the world’s nations―are doing this each and every day for over 50 years, ever since Roe vs. Wade made abortion legal in the USA in January of 1973.
The USA has butchered over 65 million innocent helpless babies since 1973―while throughout the entire world, that number is a fraction under 2,000 million (2 billion) babies. In the USA that translates to 1,300,000 (1.3 million) on average per year, or 108,000 per month, or 25,000 per week, or 3,751 per day, or 148 per hour, or 5 every 2 minutes. Worldwide it is 40 million per year; or 3,330,000 per month; or per 770,000 per week; or 109,890 per day; or 4,578 per hour, or 76 per minute, or just over 1 per second.
We don’t really care that much―do we? In theory, perhaps―but little or nothing is done in practice! What can we do? We can at least pray and offer sacrifices to draw down from Heaven the graces needed to turn things around―for, as Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Again: “He that has the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17). We have the substance readily and easily available―prayer and sacrifice―but we are not using it as we should and as much as we should. Daily distractions take preference! What God said to Cain, He could just as well say to us: “And the Lord said to Cain: ‘Where is thy brother Abel?’ And Cain answered: ‘I know not! Am I my brother’s keeper?’ And the Lord said to Cain: ‘What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood cries to Me from the earth! Now, therefore, cursed shalt thou be upon the Earth, which has opened her mouth and received the blood of thy brother at thy hand!’” (Genesis 4:9-11).
As one Catholic bishop recently wrote: “Abortion is an act of worship to Satan. It is a human sacrifice offered to demons … Abortion is a horrendous crime because, beyond depriving the child of earthly life, it also deprives the child of the beatific vision, destining him for Limbo, because he is deprived of the grace of Baptism. Abortion is a horrendous crime because it seeks to snatch from God the souls He desired to exist, whom He created and loved, and for whom He offered His life on the Cross. Abortion is a horrendous crime because it makes the mother believe that it is licit to kill the creature she ought to defend most of all, even at the cost of her own life; and with this crime that mother becomes an assassin, and, if she does not repent, she condemns herself to eternal damnation, very often living also in her daily life the most excruciating remorse. Abortion is a horrendous crime because it attacks the innocent precisely because of his innocence, recalling the ritual murders of children committed in the sects of yesterday and today. We know well that the globalist cabal is bound by the pactum sceleris [criminal conspiracy] of pedophilia and other horrendous crimes, and that members of power, high finance, entertainment, and information are bound to that pact. The world is dripping with innocent blood that has been shed by an elite of subversives devoted to Satan and declared enemies of Christ. No human law can ever trample on the divine and natural Law, which commands: “Thou shalt not kill!” No nation can hope for prosperity and harmony as long as it allows this daily massacre accompanied by the complicit silence of politicians who call themselves “Catholics” but who contradict the Gospel by approving iniquitous laws.”
Some people wrongly claim that abortion numbers have decreased―this is not true. The reason behind the “apparent” decrease of abortions is that surgical abortions performed in the abortion clinics are being gradually replaced by abortions provoked at home using the newly developed abortion pill. It is estimated that since the introduction of the abortion pill in 2000, the abortion pill accounted for ever-increasing numbers of abortions. Medication abortions voluntarily reported by 33 U.S. States to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have increased as a percentage of total abortions every year since the approval of Mifepristone: 1.0% in 2000, 2.9% in 2001, 5.2% in 2002, 7.9% in 2003; 9.3% in 2004; 9.9% in 2005; 10.6% in 2006; 13.1% in 2007; 39% in 2017; and 53% of all US abortions as of 2020.
To those who seek abortion or perform abortions or assist in the abortion, the following words of Our Lord are perfectly applicable: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning!” (John 8:44). Fr. Gabriele Amorth, recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, also confirmed that participation in the act of abortion is an act that will leave a person open to demonic influence, if not outright demonic possession.
Our Lady’s Heart Pierced Each Second of the Day
The murder of each baby through one abortion method or another―leading to an average of one baby murdered each and every second of the day and night―is just one of the manners in which her Sorrowful Heart is being stabbed repeatedly without any respite. Add to that the innumerable other sins that 8 billion people commit every day and the whole thing becomes overwhelming! It is not without reason that Holy Mother Church ascribes to Our Lady the following passage from Holy Scripture.
Holy Church applies these words of Jeremias to the Sorrowful Mother: “O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow! … For great as the sea is thy destruction! Who shall heal thee?” (Lamentations 1:12). Yes, who shall heal thee, Our Lady? She herself, as Our Lady of Fatima, tells Sister Lucia in 1925 how we can help relieve her sorrows. On December 10th, 1925, the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by the Child Jesus, appeared to Lucia in her cell. The Child Jesus spoke first: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.” Then Mary said: “My daughter, look at my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, try to console me!”
It is no exaggeration when Our Lord and Our Lady say that Mary’s Heart is pierced “at every moment.” In fact, it is pierced thousands of times each and every second of the day and night! If you take the world’s population of almost 8,000 million people (8 billion) and divide that number by the total number of seconds that there are in 24 hours―which is 86,400 seconds―then you get over 92,000 (92,592) persons for each second of the day. If every person in the world would only commit ONE SINGLE SIN A DAY and no more, then Our Lady’s Sorrowful Heart is being pierced over 92,000 times per second. If every person would ONLY COMMIT TEN SINS PER DAY, then Our Lady’s Sorrowful Heart would be pierced almost 1 million times per second (925,920 times per second). Yet is ten sins per day the average? No it is much more than that―it is easy to commit 10 sins per hour!
In view of those calculations, you can see that Our Lady was not exaggerating when she said the following words to Blessed Elena Aiello, on December 8th, 1956: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
Yet we are not dying of grief―we are not even grieved in the slightest! We look somewhat indifferently upon the endless tsunami of sin that is committed each and every day and night! We don’t lose any sleep over it―and we certainly pray very little about it―and even more certainly we rarely, if ever, make sacrifices in reparation for it! Hey, Our Lady! You look after you own Heart! I have mine to look after!
This Second Sorrow―the Flight of the Holy Family to Egypt―was caused by the murderous intentions of King Herod the Great, the king of ancient Judea, who was a brutal, ruthless, vindictive and dangerously high-strung tyrant. He had many of his subjects killed on suspicion of plotting against him and commanded the slaughtering of babies in and around Bethlehem after being informed that a new king of the Jews had been born there. Among the victims of the murderous paranoia, that ultimately drove him to the brink of insanity, were his three oldest sons and the wife he loved most―all of whom he killed.
We tend to think of Mary and Joseph’s flight into Egypt from only one perspective―that of fleeing from a murderous King Herod who was seeking to kill Jesus in order to jealously protect his crown and rule. That, of course is true! Yet we risk forgetting that while Jesus, Mary and Joseph were fleeing to Egypt, Herod’s soldiers were slaughtering the babies in and around Bethlehem in the hope that would kill the baby Jesus in the mass slaughter―because Herod feared that Jesus would take his throne and kingship away from him. At some point, Mary would learned about the massacre of the babies―whom we call “The Holy Innocents”―and this, no doubt, added to her sorrow of having to flee to strange country to avoid having her baby Jesus murdered.
It would have been unthinkable for Mary not to flee―and therefore expose her Divine Child to the murderous killing. God, through one of His angels, told Joseph that he was to immediately leave Bethlehem and flee to Egypt―which Joseph promptly obeyed, regardless of what repugnance, misgivings, questions, or doubts he might have had concerning the command. “And after the three wise men were departed, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in sleep to Joseph, saying: ‘Arise, and take the Child and His Mother, and flee into Egypt―and be there until I shall tell thee! For it will come to pass that Herod will seek the Child to destroy him!’ Joseph arose, and took the Child and His Mother by night, and retired into Egypt―and he was there until the death of Herod” (Matthew 2:13-14).
The escape of the Holy Family was unknown to Herod as he sent in his soldiers to murder all the babies in and around Bethlehem: “Then Herod, seeing that he was deluded by the wise men [who had not returned to tell Herod of the whereabouts of Jesus], was exceedingly angry; and sending [soldiers] killed all the men children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under―according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men” (Matthew 2:16).
In speaking of this, Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Jesus began to suffer as soon as He was born into the world―for He and I were banished by Herod into a desert. These events are for the instruction of kings and princes and for the other faithful―for instance, the prompt obedience and humility of the Magi [the three wise men, or three kings], which men should imitate, and the stubborn wickedness of Herod, which they are to fear and abhor―for each reaped the fruit of his actions. The three kings reaped the fruit of their justice and the other virtues which they practiced; while Herod reaped the fruits of the ambition and pride by which he had usurped the government, and of other vices into which he cast himself without restriction or moderation. The Magi and Herod pursued opposite courses: the Magi met the first inspirations and graces by the practice of the good works; thus they disposed themselves by many virtues for being called and drawn by divine revelation to the knowledge of the mysteries of the Incarnation, the birth of the divine Word and the Redemption of the human race; and through this to the happiness and perfection of the way of life. But Herod, on the other hand, by his hard-heartedness and neglect of the helps, which God offered him for the practice of virtue, was drawn into the abyss of his measureless pride and ambition. These vices hurled him into such vast precipices of cruelty as to be the first one among men to seek the life of the Redeemer of the world under the cloak of simulated devotion and piety. In giving vent to his furious rage, he took away the life of the innocent children and attempted by so foul a measure to advance his damned and perverse undertaking.” (Our Lady’s words to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
So What About Today?
Where does all this fit in today? How is this applicable to modern-times? How do all the surrounding events of the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt affect and apply to us here and now? If we take out of the equation all the historical persons (Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the angel, the Magi, Herod, the soldiers, the babies) and the historical places (Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Egypt, the desert) and the timeframe (1st century AD) and simply look at the general principles that surround and emerge from this Second Sorrow of Our Lady―the Flight into Egypt―and then see if and how they apply to what we are living and seeing around us today.
So what do we have? Tyrannical rule. Ambition and jealousy that lead to a desire to eliminate a perceived threat to one’s position and authority. Lies and hypocrisy. Uncontrolled anger and rage leading to mass murder of innocent persons in an attempt to eliminate a competitor ― even babies and one’s own wife and children. Persecution of perceived opponents that forces them to flee into exile.
Tyrannical rule has become the norm for most governments of the world―some rule ruthlessly, others rule with a false smile on the face. Some are obviously tyrannical, others are insidiously tyrannical. It’s a case of the proverbial “hard-cop and soft-cop” routine. Some love to see your death and others love you to death. Just as Herod depopulated Bethlehem, so too the tyrannical rulers of today wish to depopulate the world―the once so-called “conspiracy theory” is now openly stated on the mainstream media (e.g. Bill Gates) and the United Nations committees. Not even Google censors and hides the depopulation agenda anymore! As is shown by the following Google listed report:
“Texas Distinguished Scientist of 2006, University of Texas ecologist Eric Pianka told a meeting of the Texas Academy of Science that 90% of his fellow human beings must die in order to save the planet. Professor Pianka said the Earth, as we know it, will not survive without drastic measures. He asserted that the only feasible solution to saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10% of the present number. War and famine would not do, he explained. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved.”
Overpopulation or Overpropagandization?
The false propaganda about world overpopulation has led to fears and agendas that seek to depopulate the world. Is the world really that overpopulated? Theoretically, the entire world population can fit in Texas, which is 268,581 square miles. In Texas, each person will get at least one thousand square feet which is not much but enough. A 1,000 sq. ft. home is one where you can comfortably fit a kitchen, dining area, and two to three bedrooms. You could, in theory, house the entire population of Earth into Texas, at a population density of 27,000 people per square mile. This is about the same population density as New York City and substantially less than Paris, for example. Hence, you would have to effectively build a single, vast city across the entire state to house the whole world there. The rest of the planet would be uninhabited. Overpopulation? Rubbish and garbage!
How many people have ever lived on Earth? The whacky evolutionists―for whom “science” is their own unscientific imagination―try to fool you into thinking that the human race has existed for over 50,000 years and that over 110 billion people have been born since that time. Creationists and biblical scholars say that the human race has existed for just over 6,000 years (4,000 years before Christ and 2,000 years after Christ) and estimate a total number for the human race as being around 38 to 40 billion. Regardless of which number you choose to follow―since you can fit the present world population of around 8 billion into Texas, and since you could fit 14 Texases into the United States, then the United States could even hold the evolutionist whacky total of 110 billion people with room for another 2 billion! And each person would have around 1,000 square feet to live in! Overpopulation my foot! There is no overpopulation―just overpropagandization! Most people do no research and can’t do math―so they believingly drink whatever Kool-Aid is offered them.
Modern Day Satanic Overpopulation
Herod was fanatical tyrant who was paranoid about losing his authority and control. Well, as Holy Scripture says: “Nothing under the sun is new” (Ecclesiastes 1:1). Today, the same situation exists―both in the natural and supernatural domains. Just as Satan played his part in Herod’s pride, ambition, paranoia, tyranny, remorseless cruelty and murderous activities―so too is Satan playing a major role today in the pride, ambition, paranoia, tyranny, remorseless cruelty and murderous activities of the modern-day Herods that infest the worlds of finance and politics; a s well playing a major part in influencing the modern-day soldiers and servants of Herod, who are the worldly folk and puppets of the big money men who rule from their thrones behind the scenes. Remember―Our Lord calls Satan “the prince of this world” (Luke 12:31) and “He that committeth sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). As the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth said: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … The whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican! … The demon tempts the authorities of the Church ― just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
One of the ways a person can become possessed is by stubborn, repeated, long-term mortal sin―Fr. Amorth says: “The most common way a demon can enter into someone’s life is through a habitual state of mortal sin.” Another exorcist, Fr. Aga Tarog, warns: “Mortal sin is the primary entry point for demonic possession!” This merely echoes what was quoted above: “He that committeth sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). The vast majority of mankind―even Catholics―live in a habitual state of mortal sin. That indicates that Satan must be having a “field day” and his harvest is great and his reapers are not a few! “Be sober and watch―because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). Our Lord says that Satan is all about death: “The devil … was a murderer from the beginning! … The thief comes to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly!” (John 8:44; 10:10). Our Lord brings us life―supernatural life―through sanctifying grace; whereas Satan brings death―the death of mortal sin which kills sanctifying grace in the soul. When Our Lord touches a person, He heals and even brings back from the dead―when Satan touches a person, he contaminates with venial sin, or even brings the death of mortal sin. “Good is set against evil, and life against death―so also is the sinner against a just man!” (Ecclesiasticus 33:15).
As Our Lord says: “There is no good tree that brings forth evil fruit; nor an evil tree that brings forth good fruit. For every tree is known by its fruit. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Men do not gather figs from thorns; nor from a bramble bush do they gather the grape! … Either make the tree good and its fruit good: or make the tree evil, and its fruit evil. For by the fruit the tree is known! … Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit! A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit! Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire! Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them! (Luke 6:43-44; Matthew 12:33; 7:16-20).
The tree of Satan is evil and its fruits are evil―and since Satan is the prince of this world (Luke 12:31), then the “trees” of this world are evil and they produce evil fruit. Our Lord says: “My kingdom is not of this world!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7). Hence Scripture adds: “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19) ― because the prince of this world, Satan, is wickedness personified. That is why we are not supposed to be friendly with the world―for the world is an enemy of God: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4)
The World’s (and Satan's) Fruits of Lies and Death
Satan is a liar and a murder. Our Lord says: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him! When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44). Most of the governing bodies of the world are minions, stooges and puppets of Satan―even the big money men, the so-called “Elites”, are not really rulers, but mere servants of Satan. They have bought into the temptation that Christ refused to buy into when He was tempted by Satan in the desert. Satan offered Him power, glory and riches if Jesus would only bow down to him and serve him: “The devil took Him up into a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: ‘All these will I give Thee, if, falling down, Thou wilt adore me!’” (Matthew 4:8-9).
Regardless of what you may think and believe―there are only to possible roads to take: (1) the road to Heaven and salvation, and (2) the road to Hell and damnation. We either walk the narrow path uphill with Christ carrying our cross; or we can walk the big broad well-paved downhill road with Satan to Hell, having fun along the way. Christ is the truth (John 14:6) and Satan is a liar (John 8:44)―we can either love the truth and ignore and hate the lie; or we can love the lie and ignore and hate the truth. Isn’t it strange how most people perceive politicians to be liars? Trump, Biden, Bush, and Obama were all accused of being liars, even pathological liars.
A recent Gallup poll showed that politicians are viewed as one of the least honest professional groups. A large study, that examined the inclination to lie among politicians, found that those politicians who are most willing to lie tend to be more successful in getting reelected. Therefore, politicians may see lying as something important for survival in the world of politics. Politicians represent broad constituencies of diverse views and opposing opinions―the only realistic way in which they can attract enough votes to get elected is by agreeing with as many people as possible―even if those people disagree among themselves and hold opposing opinions to each other. It is hard to do that without fudging the truth. Politicians it is challenging to be completely honest without upsetting some voters. Additionally, politicians work to hype their accomplishments and downplay or undermine the successes of their adversaries.
People don’t lie without a reason. It is easier to tell the truth than to lie, so people only lie when they are incentivized to do so. Psychologists state that people lie when (1) they see some benefit of lying, (2) they think the risks of lying are acceptable, and (3) they can morally justify their dishonesty. Dishonest politicians may regularly see the benefit of lying, feel like they can get away with lying, and see their lying as a necessary part of the job rather than a deep character flaw. This brings to mind the comments made in Director from 1981 to 1987, to President Reagan during a Presidential Briefing in 1981: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
Around the same time, the Russian KGB (Russian Intelligence/Secret Service) defector, Yuri Bezmenov, who sought refuge in Canada and USA, revealed that one of the Communist tactics was “Ideological Subversion” ― which is a method of cultural warfare; it is a slow method that seeks to change the perception of reality, where, despite the availability of abundance of information, citizens of a country cannot make out the reality. Bezmenov said: “Most of the American politicians, media, and educational system train another generation of people who think they are living at the peacetime. False. United States is in a state of war; undeclared, total war against the basic principles and foundations of the American system. And the initiator of this war is the world Communist system, or the world Communist conspiracy. Only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage by the KGB. The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion, or psychological warfare. What it basically does is to change the perception of reality of every American that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.”
Those comments (Casey in 1981 and Bezmenov in 1984) are clearly seen to have come to fruition in our day―we are clearly living in an era of “fake news” where each side accuses the other side of pushing “fake news” as being the truth while hiding the real truth. The truth―when it shows a person or government in bad light―is often mockingly labeled as being a “conspiracy theory” and is then officially claimed to have been “debunked” and proved to be false―while the deceptions and lies are rammed down our throats and called “truths”. To make matters more confusing, there is the “controlled opposition” tactic, whereby a government, entity or person will deliberately create “fake opposition” to itself and then come out with craziest of crazy conspiracy theories which seek to discredit the “true conspiracy theories” by association! This leads to the common man scratching his head in frustration and wondering “What is the truth?”
Once you manage to confuse the minds of people as to what is the truth in any given matter or subject, you can proceed to use psychological warfare to brainwash the person into believing what you want them to believe. One of the key ways to do that is a constant repetition of your message, a veritable bombardment of propaganda. Hitler’s propagandist, Joseph Goebbels said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Furthermore, if you control the chief media outlets―television, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc.―then you can guarantee that your message is relentlessly hammered into the heads of today’s “dumbed-down” population. We get to the point where whatever is heard most often becomes the “truth” in non-discerning minds.
The Devil in the Details
As the saying goes: “Power corrupts―and absolute power corrupts absolutely!” 90% of the media in the United States is controlled by just six corporations: AT&T, CBS, Comcast, Disney, News Corp and Viacom―however, there are two major investment companies that are among the top investors in each of those six corporations, they are Vanguard Group, Inc. and Blackrock Inc. In actual fact, four investment companies―(1) Vanguard Group, Inc., (2) BlackRock Inc., (3) Berkshire Hathaway, Inc, (4) State Street Corporation―are to be found among the top 5 largest investors in ALL OF THE 500 LARGEST COMPANIES IN THE USA. Sometimes all four are among the “Top Five Investors” for each company, and in almost all of the 500 largest companies at least three of these investors are among the “Top Five Investors.” They are the controlling investors in all the major banks, healthcare enterprises, information technology and computing, industry, plane and car manufacturing, etc. [see the full list here: https://blackrockvanguardwatch.com/].
No matter what industry you look at, the top shareholders, and therefore decision makers, are the same: Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street and/or Berkshire Hathaway. In virtually every major company, you find these names among the top 10 institutional investors. Their tentacles are into everything! They have a say in everything! They forego or pass upon many of the financial dividends, profits and rewards for their investment, preferring instead to exchange those for having a control of the company they invest, so that they can dictate direction and policies. Furthermore, Vanguard Group, Inc., BlackRock Inc., Berkshire Hathaway, Inc, and State Street Corporation are the largest investors in each other’s investment company! Talk about a “closed-shop” and monopoly! These four companies have their “front-men”, their official boardrooms and staff―but nobody can find out the names of the hidden investors for those four companies.
Bloomberg is a privately held financial, software, data, and media company―trusted for its business and financial information, delivering trusted data, news, and insights that bring transparency. Bloomberg has referred to BlackRock as the “fourth branch of government,” due to its close relationship with the central banks. BlackRock actually lends money to the central bank, the federal reserve, and is their principal adviser. Dozens of BlackRock employees have held senior positions in the White House under the Bush, Obama and Biden administrations. BlackRock also developed the computer system that the central banks use.
Investing in Murder and Death
Vanguard also sponsored Planned Parenthood―its highest donation for one year being $10 million (in 2015). Yet even more financial support is given to Planned Parenthood through the multitude of companies which Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street and Hathaway Berkshire have invested in and control―one such company being Intel, which is a large financial donor to the cause of abortion―but Intel is not the only one.
Similarly, Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street and Hathaway Berkshire control vast areas of the Healthcare sector―again, having a major say in all policies because they are the largest investors in Healthcare companies such as Johnson & Johnson, UnitedHealth Group, Pfizer, Moderna, Merck & Co., Eli Lilly & Co., CVS Health, HCA Healthcare, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Humana and tens more. Thus they have a stranglehold on medical policies. Notice that they control the Healthcare companies that produced the major Covid vaccines―Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Moderna. The number of deaths that the Covid vaccines have provoked is unbelievable―but if you own the media, then you can choose to not report that particular aspect of news!
Nevertheless, some people―experts in the field―did speak out about what was happening. One such person was Dr. Michael Yeadon, Pfizer’s former Vice President and Chief Scientist for Allergy & Respiratory, who spent 32 years in the industry leading new medicines research and retired in 2011 from the pharmaceutical giant (Pfizer) having reached the most senior research position in his field. He addressed the “demonstrably false” propaganda from governments in response to COVID-19, including the “lie” of dangerous variants, the totalitarian potential for “vaccine passports,” and the strong possibility we are dealing with something which could lead far beyond the carnage experienced in the wars and massacres of the 20th century.
Dr. Michael Yeadon stated, back in 2021: “I have realized that my government and its advisers are lying in the faces of the people about everything to do with this Coronavirus. Absolutely everything! This idea of asymptomatic transmission when you don’t have symptoms, but you are a source of a virus―is a fallacy! So too is the idea that lockdowns work; that masks have a protective value; that variants of the virus are scary things; and that we even need to close international borders in case some of these nasty foreign variants get in! On top of the current list of gene-based vaccines―that we have miraculously made―there will be some ‘top-up’ vaccines to cope with the immune escaping variants. Everything I have just told you―every single one of those thing―is demonstrably false. But our entire national policy is based on these all being broadly right―but they are all wrong!”
“There is no question in my mind that very significant powerbrokers, around the world, have either planned to take advantage of the next pandemic or created the pandemic. One of those two things is true―because the reason it must be true is that dozens and dozens of governments are all saying the same lies and doing the same inefficacious things that demonstrably end up costing lives. They are all talking the same sort of future script―which is: ‘We don’t want you to move around because of these pesky varmints, these “variants”’— which I call ‘same-iants’, because they are pretty much the same — but they are all saying this and they are all saying: ‘Don’t worry! There will be “top-up” vaccines that will cope with the potential escapees!’
“Governments and their advisers are lying to you saying that variants are different enough from the current virus that, even if you are immune from natural exposure or vaccination to the present virus, you are a risk and you need to come and get this top-up vaccine. Neither of those are true! They are all saying this when it is obviously nonsense! Governments and their advisors in multiple countries are lying about variants ― the variants are not really different, you do not need a ‘top-up’ vaccine! If I can show you that one major thing that governments around the world are telling the people is a lie, you should take my 32 years of experienced opinion that says, most of it, if not all of it, is a lie! I think the end game is going to be: ‘Everyone receives a vaccine!’… Everyone on the planet is going to find themselves persuaded, cajoled, not quite mandated, hemmed-in to take a jab. I’m very worried that pathway will be used for mass depopulation―because I can’t think of any benign explanation! If you wanted to introduce a characteristic which could be harmful and one that could even be lethal, and you can even tune it and put in it some gene that will cause liver injury over a nine-month period, or, cause your kidneys to fail―that would be quite possible. Biotechnology provides you with limitless ways, frankly, to injure or kill billions of people.
“Stop and think: ‘Why is my government lying to me about something so fundamental?’ Because, I think the answer is, they are going to kill you using this method. They’re going to kill you and your family. The eugenicists [those who try to eliminate undesirable people] have got hold of the levers of power and this is a really artful way of getting you to line-up and receive some unspecified thing that will damage you. It won’t kill you right after receiving the needle, because you would spot that. It could be something that will produce normal disease, at various times between vaccination and the death. In this way it will be plausibly deniable―because there will be something else going on in the world at that time [which can be blamed for the death], so that it will look normal. That’s what I would do if I wanted to get rid of 90% or 95% of the world’s population. And I think that’s what they are doing.” (Dr. Michael Yeadon, former Pfizer Vice President and Chief Scientist for Allergy & Respiratory).
What Dr. Michael Yeadon says has also been said by thousands of highly-rated doctors and scientists throughout the world―those who keep silent or follow the propaganda are those who are afraid of reprisals and fear losing their jobs and salaries. Yet do not think that this is all over with―what we experienced was merely the first wave, there will be more to come, especially since the purveyors of this culture of death rejoiced to see the naïve, gullible, dumbed-down “sheeple” happily lining up to take their death jab! As Dr. Yeadon said―those deaths will not occur immediately―that would be too obvious―but little by little so that one cannot be sure of the real reasons behind those deaths.
More Modern Day Herodian Depopulation Massacres
The culture of death and destruction that came with the Coronavirus circus was nothing other than a continuation or expansion of a much earlier established culture of death in the form of abortion. It is what fits the brutal murderous King Herod best and projects Herod into the 20th and 21st centuries. Abortion is the present day equivalent of Herod’s “Massacre of the Holy Innocents”―but it has gone way beyond the relatively few babies that Herod butchered in his day. Herod killed all the male babies of Bethlehem and the surrounding area, who were aged two and under―a number estimated to be somewhere between 20 and 40 babies―and he only did this once. The present day King Herods―the leaders and legislators of the world’s nations―are doing this each and every day for over 50 years, ever since Roe vs. Wade made abortion legal in the USA in January of 1973.
The USA has butchered over 65 million innocent helpless babies since 1973―while throughout the entire world, that number is a fraction under 2,000 million (2 billion) babies. In the USA that translates to 1,300,000 (1.3 million) on average per year, or 108,000 per month, or 25,000 per week, or 3,751 per day, or 148 per hour, or 5 every 2 minutes. Worldwide it is 40 million per year; or 3,330,000 per month; or per 770,000 per week; or 109,890 per day; or 4,578 per hour, or 76 per minute, or just over 1 per second.
We don’t really care that much―do we? In theory, perhaps―but little or nothing is done in practice! What can we do? We can at least pray and offer sacrifices to draw down from Heaven the graces needed to turn things around―for, as Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Again: “He that has the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17). We have the substance readily and easily available―prayer and sacrifice―but we are not using it as we should and as much as we should. Daily distractions take preference! What God said to Cain, He could just as well say to us: “And the Lord said to Cain: ‘Where is thy brother Abel?’ And Cain answered: ‘I know not! Am I my brother’s keeper?’ And the Lord said to Cain: ‘What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood cries to Me from the earth! Now, therefore, cursed shalt thou be upon the Earth, which has opened her mouth and received the blood of thy brother at thy hand!’” (Genesis 4:9-11).
As one Catholic bishop recently wrote: “Abortion is an act of worship to Satan. It is a human sacrifice offered to demons … Abortion is a horrendous crime because, beyond depriving the child of earthly life, it also deprives the child of the beatific vision, destining him for Limbo, because he is deprived of the grace of Baptism. Abortion is a horrendous crime because it seeks to snatch from God the souls He desired to exist, whom He created and loved, and for whom He offered His life on the Cross. Abortion is a horrendous crime because it makes the mother believe that it is licit to kill the creature she ought to defend most of all, even at the cost of her own life; and with this crime that mother becomes an assassin, and, if she does not repent, she condemns herself to eternal damnation, very often living also in her daily life the most excruciating remorse. Abortion is a horrendous crime because it attacks the innocent precisely because of his innocence, recalling the ritual murders of children committed in the sects of yesterday and today. We know well that the globalist cabal is bound by the pactum sceleris [criminal conspiracy] of pedophilia and other horrendous crimes, and that members of power, high finance, entertainment, and information are bound to that pact. The world is dripping with innocent blood that has been shed by an elite of subversives devoted to Satan and declared enemies of Christ. No human law can ever trample on the divine and natural Law, which commands: “Thou shalt not kill!” No nation can hope for prosperity and harmony as long as it allows this daily massacre accompanied by the complicit silence of politicians who call themselves “Catholics” but who contradict the Gospel by approving iniquitous laws.”
Some people wrongly claim that abortion numbers have decreased―this is not true. The reason behind the “apparent” decrease of abortions is that surgical abortions performed in the abortion clinics are being gradually replaced by abortions provoked at home using the newly developed abortion pill. It is estimated that since the introduction of the abortion pill in 2000, the abortion pill accounted for ever-increasing numbers of abortions. Medication abortions voluntarily reported by 33 U.S. States to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have increased as a percentage of total abortions every year since the approval of Mifepristone: 1.0% in 2000, 2.9% in 2001, 5.2% in 2002, 7.9% in 2003; 9.3% in 2004; 9.9% in 2005; 10.6% in 2006; 13.1% in 2007; 39% in 2017; and 53% of all US abortions as of 2020.
To those who seek abortion or perform abortions or assist in the abortion, the following words of Our Lord are perfectly applicable: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning!” (John 8:44). Fr. Gabriele Amorth, recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, also confirmed that participation in the act of abortion is an act that will leave a person open to demonic influence, if not outright demonic possession.
Our Lady’s Heart Pierced Each Second of the Day
The murder of each baby through one abortion method or another―leading to an average of one baby murdered each and every second of the day and night―is just one of the manners in which her Sorrowful Heart is being stabbed repeatedly without any respite. Add to that the innumerable other sins that 8 billion people commit every day and the whole thing becomes overwhelming! It is not without reason that Holy Mother Church ascribes to Our Lady the following passage from Holy Scripture.
Holy Church applies these words of Jeremias to the Sorrowful Mother: “O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow! … For great as the sea is thy destruction! Who shall heal thee?” (Lamentations 1:12). Yes, who shall heal thee, Our Lady? She herself, as Our Lady of Fatima, tells Sister Lucia in 1925 how we can help relieve her sorrows. On December 10th, 1925, the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by the Child Jesus, appeared to Lucia in her cell. The Child Jesus spoke first: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.” Then Mary said: “My daughter, look at my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, try to console me!”
It is no exaggeration when Our Lord and Our Lady say that Mary’s Heart is pierced “at every moment.” In fact, it is pierced thousands of times each and every second of the day and night! If you take the world’s population of almost 8,000 million people (8 billion) and divide that number by the total number of seconds that there are in 24 hours―which is 86,400 seconds―then you get over 92,000 (92,592) persons for each second of the day. If every person in the world would only commit ONE SINGLE SIN A DAY and no more, then Our Lady’s Sorrowful Heart is being pierced over 92,000 times per second. If every person would ONLY COMMIT TEN SINS PER DAY, then Our Lady’s Sorrowful Heart would be pierced almost 1 million times per second (925,920 times per second). Yet is ten sins per day the average? No it is much more than that―it is easy to commit 10 sins per hour!
In view of those calculations, you can see that Our Lady was not exaggerating when she said the following words to Blessed Elena Aiello, on December 8th, 1956: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
Yet we are not dying of grief―we are not even grieved in the slightest! We look somewhat indifferently upon the endless tsunami of sin that is committed each and every day and night! We don’t lose any sleep over it―and we certainly pray very little about it―and even more certainly we rarely, if ever, make sacrifices in reparation for it! Hey, Our Lady! You look after you own Heart! I have mine to look after!
Article 10
Saturday September 16th, 2023
Modern Day Swords of Sorrow in Mary's Heart!
Part 1: Simeon's Prophecy in the Modern World
Saturday September 16th, 2023
Modern Day Swords of Sorrow in Mary's Heart!
Part 1: Simeon's Prophecy in the Modern World
The Swords of Today
As we meditate upon the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, it only seems normal to try and envisage what those Seven Sorrows could be in relation to today. Of course, it would be pretentious to try and superimpose arbitrarily selected situations from today upon the situations experienced by Our Lady during her life on Earth―but, since “nothing under the sun is new” (Ecclesiastes 1:10), then surely it is possible that we are essentially seeing the same things today as Our Lady saw in her day, although covered with different leaves or feathers! Let us briefly explain in concrete terms what is meant by that rather confusing claim!
Since we will be superimposing modern day sorrows upon Our Lady’s Seven Sorrows, let us first remind ourselves what those Seven Sorrows are―for it is important to define the terms we will be using so that everyone knows what we are talking about. Our Lady’s Seven Sorrows are as follows:
The 1st Sorrow: The painful prophecy made by Simeon during the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple, which stated: “Behold this Child [Jesus] is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel―and for a sign which shall be contradicted! And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, so that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed!” (Luke 2:34-35).
The 2nd Sorrow: Upon the command of an angel, having to flee to Egypt in order to escape the murderous plot of King Herod, who sought to kill Jesus. The pain and sorrow of having to leave everything behind―home, possessions, family, friends, native country―and having to cross a desert with a baby, and go into a country whose language she could not speak, where she had no family or friends, nor home.
The 3rd Sorrow: The three-day painful loss of the Child Jesus when Mary and Joseph were returning from an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The anguish felt at losing a child is immense for any parent―but this was no ordinary child! This Child was the Son of God! Imagine the soul-searching that Mary and Joseph must have gone through during those days while searching for Jesus! Racking their brains to see if and where they were at fault for losing the Son of God!
The 4th Sorrow: Mary’s pain and sorrow at her face-to-face meeting with Jesus as she sees His bloody, wounded, torn and scourged body and thorn-crowned head, struggling to carry His cross to Calvary. Like any mother, she desired to help her Son―she could have performed a miracle through her prayers―yet she knew and understood that this was the way it had to be for the salvation of souls.
The 5th Sorrow: If meeting Jesus carrying His cross was extremely painful―then what must have been the pain and sorrow in seeing Him nailed to the cross and hung up to die, while many of the crowd looked upon Him and mocked Him to scorn! Finally, seeing her Son’s side and heart being pierced with lance!
The 6th Sorrow: Mary receives the dead body of Christ into her arms. No parent envisages outliving their child. Every parent grieves when the life of their child is cut short by a premature death. The life of the prematurely deceased child is seen to be a failure. Likewise with Jesus. Many―even His own Apostles and disciples―looked upon His gruesome death as being a failure to Christ’s mission. To them―it was all over―after just barely three years of work! Their hopes and dreams were in tatters!
The 7th Sorrow: Placing Jesus in the tomb and walking away. We all know the graveside pain and sorrow as we bury a loved one―whether it a parent, a child, a relative, a close friend, a benefactor, etc. As the coffin is lowered into earth, on a natural level our spirits are also lowered, and we remember that man was made out of the earth by God and back to the earth he will one day return: “And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth; and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7) … “Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return!” (Genesis 3:19) … “Man, born of a woman, lives for a short time and is filled with many miseries. He cometh forth like a flower and is destroyed!” (Job 14:1-2) … “In the morning man shall grow up like grass; in the morning he shall flourish and pass away; in the evening he shall fall, grow dry, and wither!” (Psalm 89:6).
In brief―those are the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady. Do those Seven Sorrows also apply to our lives today? Can something similar be found in our modern world? Could we say that there are Seven Modern Swords of Sorrow piercing the Sorrowful Heart of Mary? The answer to those questions has to be an affirmative and confirmative “Yes!” Our Lady herself has confirmed to the truth of it in her modern-day apparitions.
The Recent Centuries Have Caused Sorrow for Our Lady
► OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS: In 1619, Our Lord invited Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame) to share His cross more profoundly, she was asked to accompany Our Lord in the major steps of His sorrowful passion. “I will be with you always,” He promised. “Unite yourself to My Aggrieved Heart and, in the company of My Most Holy Mother, bear these tribulations!” Our Lady told Mother Mariana: “A golden quill, marked with my name, is for all the priests who write of my sorrows!”
► OUR LADY TO MARY OF AGREDA: To the Venerable Mary of Agreda (1602-1665), Our Lady said: “As the Mother of clemency, it is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for failing to call upon me, so many souls should be lost! ... This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict yourself, lament and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls!”
► OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE: In 1846, the children to whom Our Lady of La Salette appeared―Mélanie and Maximin―saw her sitting on a stone, with her face in her hands, her elbows were on her knees and—to their dismay—she was crying and weeping. These tears are La Salette’s most powerful unspoken message. The beautiful Lady weeps―but she never refers to her tears, never so much as alludes to them. They are meant to speak for themselves―and they do. When we read the message of La Salette, we must remember that the message was spoken by someone in tears. Mélanie and Maximin never forgot to say that the Lady wept all the while she spoke. The “tears flowed and flowed” they said. The tears should be remembered for another reason. They highlight the words and give urgency and crucial importance to the entire message. This Mother is desolate, downtrodden; anguished, crouched down, with tears in her eyes.
► OUR LADY OF FATIMA: At her final apparition at Fatima, on October 13th, 1917, Our Lady was seen to appear as Our Lady of Sorrows. Several years later, Our Lady again appeared to Sister Lucia of Fatima, holding her Sorrowful Heart in her hand. Sister Lucia of Fatima says: “In front of the palm of Our Lady’s right hand there was a heart encircled with thorns which pierced it. We understood that it was the Immaculate Heart of Mary, outraged by the sins of humanity, and that she wanted reparation.”
On December 10th, 1925, the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by the Child Jesus, again appeared to Sr. Lucia of Fatima in her convent. The Child Jesus spoke first: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.” Then Mary said: “Look at my Heart surrounded with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude! You, at least, try to console me!”
On June 13th, 1929, in the convent chapel at Tuy in Spain, Sister Lucia was alone, praying, when… “Suddenly the whole chapel was illumined by a supernatural light, and above the altar appeared a Cross of light … Beneath the right arm of the Cross was Our Lady and in her hand was her Immaculate Heart. It was Our Lady of Fatima, with her Immaculate Heart in her left hand, without sword or roses, but with a crown of thorns and flames.” (Personal account by Sr. Lucia of Fatima of her vision at Tuy, June 13th, 1929).
► OUR LADY TO ELENA AIELLO: In the 1950s, Our Lady said to the stigmatic and mystic Blessed Elena Aiello: “Great is my sorrow to see that men do not change!” (April 7th, 1950) … “My Heart is sorrowful over so many sufferings in a world of impending ruin. The justice of our Father is most offended. Men live in their obstinacy of sin!” (April 16th, 1954) … “Look upon my Heart pierced by the thorns of so many sins; my face, disfigured by sorrow; my eyes, filled with tears. The cause of such great sorrow is the sight of so many souls going to Hell, and because the Church is wounded – inwardly and outwardly! By uniting their tears to those of my Sorrowful Heart, priests and religious will obtain great graces for the salvation of poor sinners!” (April 8th, 1955) … “My Motherly Heart is bleeding, because the enemy is at our doors! Men are offending God too much! If I were to show you the number of sins committed in a single day, you would die of horror and sorrow!” (December 8th, 1956).
► OUR LADY OF AKITA: In 1973, in Akita Japan, a statue of Our Lady in the convent of the Our Lady of Akita is the title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with a wooden statue that not only miraculously spoke to Sr. Agnes Sasagawa, but also visibly wept 101 times between 1973 and 1981 ― witnessed by over 2,000 people over that time frame ― as well as bleeding from a wound in the hand of the statue. On July 6th, 1973, a few of the sisters noticed drops of blood flowing from the statue’s right hand. On four occasions, this act of blood flow repeated itself. The wound in the statue’s hand remained until September 29th, 1973, when it disappeared. On September 29th, the day the wound on the statue disappeared, the sisters noticed the statue had now begun to “sweat”, especially on the forehead and neck. Two years later, on January 4th, 1975, the statue of the Blessed Virgin began to weep. It continued to weep at intervals for the next 6 years and eight months. It wept on 101 occasions. The tears, sweat and blood from the statue were sent for laboratory analysis, who ascertained that the composition corresponded to “human liquid” ― that is to say, human blood, human sweat and human tears. Professor Sagisaka of the Faculty of Legal Medicine of the University of Akita, confirmed that the blood, tears and sweat were real and of human origin.
The Akita apparitions were approved as authentic and worthy of belief by the diocesan Bishop, John Shojiro Ito, in 1984, following scientific verification of a miracle associated with the apparitions: the weeping of tears on 101 occasions and the shedding of blood by a wooden statue of the Virgin at the convent where Sr. Agnes Sasagawa resided—before she was hounded from it, in 1998 at the instigation of the new modernist bishop. The 101 “lachyrmations” (weepings) of the statue were witnessed four times by Bishop Ito himself and 98 times by Sr. Agnes Sasagawa’s spiritual advisor, Father Thomas Aquinas Teiji Yasuda, S.V.D.
So What are the Modern Day Swords and Tears of Our Lady?
When we speak of the traditional Seven Sorrows or Seven Swords of Sorrow that pierced Our Lady Heart―we do not mean to say that she only had seven sorrows throughout her whole life! That would be ridiculous and diametrically opposed to the truth. Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “My life was a continual suffering! ... The sorrow which I suffered is so little noticed by the living! … I suffered much more than the martyrs in all their torments! … My Son and I embraced the way of the Cross and suffering for the whole course of our natural life! … My Son and I suffered so much for creatures and for their salvation! … For them We suffered and endured such bitter sorrows!”
In all honesty, it would be impossible to reduce all of Our Lady’s modern-day sorrows to merely seven―even seven chief ones―in view of what she said to Blessed Elena Aiello way back in what we might wrongly call the “less sinful days” of 1956. Back then Our Lady said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
If the sins were so numerous and the world was that bad in 1956―then what on earth would Our Lady say about the world today? We shudder to think―and shudder we should! Nevertheless, since the Church traditionally presents us with Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, then let us see if we can superimpose modern-day elements upon those seven traditional ones―both from a personal perspective in our own lives and also in the public sphere or the life of the world at large.
1st Sorrow: The Prophecy of St. Simeon
The painful prophecy concerning the future made by Simeon during the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple, which stated: “Behold this Child [Jesus] is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel―and for a sign which shall be contradicted! And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, so that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed!” (Luke 2:34-35). Simeon essentially tells Mary this: Jesus is going to be a great divider. Jesus is going to represent a crossroads in the lives of those He encounters. Jesus is going to―by virtue of His life and His death and all of His ministry―be the kind of individual that people find it impossible to be neutral around. It will not be possible for men and women to be neutral in relationship to Jesus. What Simeon is saying to Mary is not only applicable to Mary back then, it is also applicable to us in our families and circles, as well as the world at large today. What does this mean for our day and age; for our personal lives and those around us?
Talking of prophecies that foretell pain and suffering, Our Lady herself―the Queen of Prophets―has made quite a few prophecies in recent times concerning the swords that will pierce our hearts in the near future―in addition to the prophecies made by Our Lord back in the Gospels. Some are already piercing our hearts at this very moment.
Our Lord, in speaking of the latter times of the world, those in which we are now living, says: “When you shall hear of wars and seditions―be not terrified, for these things must first come to pass―but the end is not yet come. Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom! And there shall be great earthquakes in different places, and pestilences, and famines, and terrors from Heaven, and there shall be great signs. Now all these are the beginnings of sorrows. But before all these things, they will lay their hands upon you, and persecute you―delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for My Name’s sake! And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends; and some of you they will put to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Luke 21:9-17; Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10).
If, according to Simeon’s prophecy, Our Lady’s heart would be pierced by a sword―then that is exactly what Our Lord seems to be promising everyone by these following words, which seem to echo and further elaborate on the idea of sword that Simeon mentions: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
In her modern-day apparitions, Our Lady’s prophecies echo those of Our Lord and add further details: “Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy the Church … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness, and the Church will witness a frightful crisis … Churches will be locked up or desecrated … and altars will be sacked … Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death ... All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family ... There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases … A general war will follow which will be appalling ... Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … Water and fire will give the Earth’s globe convulsions and terrible earthquakes which will swallow up mountains and cities ... Nations will be annihilated … Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will strike in an unprecedented way. God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … The Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful.” (A selection and compilation of quotes by Our Lady of Good Success; Our Lady of La Salette; Our Lady of Fatima; and Our Lady of Akita).
Prior to prophesying about the sword of sorrow that would pierce Mary’s Heart, St. Simeon, while holding the Infant Jesus in his arms, said to God: “My eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples! A light of revelation for the Gentiles!” (Luke 2:30-31). The Gospel says of Christ that He was “was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it! … He came unto His own, and His own received Him not! … The light came into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light―for their works were evil!” (John 1:4-5, 11; 3:19). Christ, who is meant to be our cornerstone, upon Whom we should build the temple of our soul, has become for many not a cornerstone, but a stone that makes them stumble (1 Peter 2:7-8) ― as Simeon prophesied: “this Child [Jesus] is set for the fall of many!”
Who are those who stumble, trip and fall over this cornerstone? They are the people who want to serve both the world and Christ―they give their heart to the world and they give lip-service to God. They refuse to see the world as being an enemy of God, despite Scripture saying: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). As Our Lord said―you cannot serve God and the world [mammon]: “No man can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father! … Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say? … Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 7:21; Luke 6:46; Mark 7:6).
St. Simeon, in his prophecy, says: “Behold this Child [Jesus] is set for a sign which shall be contradicted!” What does “contradicted” mean? It is a compound word made up of two Latin words: “contra” meaning “against”, and “dicere” meaning “to speak” ― hence, “to contradict” means to “speak against” someone or something or some teaching or some statement. Today, most of the world speaks against Christ and His teaching; most reject some or all of His teachings; they speak out against the One True Church; they refuse to follow His Laws in governing their own lands and countries; they pick and choose what to accept; they allow serious sins under the protection of legislation―while still giving lip-service to Christ. This is not only true of nations, but also families and individuals. Christ and His teaching will be the salvation of some; but also the fall and damnation of many due their rejection of His teachings and laws. The loss of so many souls brings sorrow to Our Lady’s Heart―it is sword of sorrow that pierces her Heart.
All can ultimately be gathered together under the common denominators of we either serve and follow Christ, or we serve and follow the world (and its prince, Satan) ― everything we think, say or do will fall under either of those categories. If we sin―then we serve Satan and follow him: “He that committeth sin is of the devil!” (1 John 3:8). Jesus said: “Whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin” (John 8:34). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). If we serve and follow Christ, then we should be casting sin aside and fighting the temptations to sin: “They that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24). Could it be said of us: “You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin!” (Hebrews 12:4). After Jesus said to the sick man, who had been ill for 38 years: “Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14).
Christ, as He said, “Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household!” (Matthew 10:34-36). It is sorrowful to take up the sword against your own family members―“the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17) … “For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12)―but Christ says He will “fight against them with the sword of My mouth” (Apocalypse 2:16). Hence, we have to first of all stand up for Christ―and if our family and friends stand up for the world, then we must oppose them with the word of God―we must speak out against them: “Everyone, therefore, that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven! But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 10:32-33).
Yes, we must love our parents, our children, our brothers, sisters, relatives and friends, etc. ― but not at the expense of God, not at the expense of allowing them to offend God: “He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:32-37). So as St. Simeon prophesied: “Behold this Child [Jesus] is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel―and for a sign which shall be contradicted!” (Luke 2:34), and as Our Lord Himself later said: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, no; but separation. For, from henceforth, there shall be five in one house divided―three against two, and two against three! The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! … And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Luke 12:51-53; 21:17). “If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand!” (Mark 3:25). That is the division that Simeon prophesied―that is the sword of sorrow that pierces Our Lady’s Heart―that is the sorrow that must pierce our hearts as we seek to obey the command: “Love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
What is true for the family, must also be true for our race, our nation, our Faith―Our Lord’s words can be modified to also say: “He that loveth their nation or race more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth those of the same Faith more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” For not all nations desire, seek and follow Christ―and this must be opposed and not tolerated: “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3).
Whether it be within family, amongst relatives and friends, or outside those circles, even to the very pinnacle of the nation in which we live―we must oppose all rejection, denial and opposition to Christ, His teachings and laws. We firstly oppose these persons by prayer and sacrifice―seeking their conversion, which is the desire of Christ: “You have heard that it hath been said: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy!’ But I say to you, Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you!” (Matthew 5:43-44) … “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10) … “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56).
Our Lady of Fatima begged that we pray and make sacrifices for the conversion of sinners: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
Let us not fool ourselves that WE can change the world! Let us not exaggerate the efforts that WE make! Let us not pride ourselves on OUR knowledge of the state of things in the Church and the world! We cannot convert anyone! We cannot give anyone the Faith! We cannot do least or tiniest bit of good without the assistance of God’s grace―as Jesus said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). It is God Who converts people by His grace―not ours! It is God Who gives the Faith to souls―and not we ourselves: “Faith is a supernatural gift of God, freely given” says the Catechism. Therefore, we must obtain the graces of God that He is kindly prepared to give―even though we do not merit or deserve them because of our many sins. How do we obtain those graces? The normal means is through a correct and efficient use of the Sacraments and the Sacramentals. Prayer, sacrifices and penances are Sacramentals―and thus Our Lady asks that we pray and make sacrifices for the conversion of sinners, and do penance for our own sins. In doing this, we―to some degree―withdraw a sword of sorrow from her Heart, and remove some of the many thorns piercing it.
As we meditate upon the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, it only seems normal to try and envisage what those Seven Sorrows could be in relation to today. Of course, it would be pretentious to try and superimpose arbitrarily selected situations from today upon the situations experienced by Our Lady during her life on Earth―but, since “nothing under the sun is new” (Ecclesiastes 1:10), then surely it is possible that we are essentially seeing the same things today as Our Lady saw in her day, although covered with different leaves or feathers! Let us briefly explain in concrete terms what is meant by that rather confusing claim!
Since we will be superimposing modern day sorrows upon Our Lady’s Seven Sorrows, let us first remind ourselves what those Seven Sorrows are―for it is important to define the terms we will be using so that everyone knows what we are talking about. Our Lady’s Seven Sorrows are as follows:
The 1st Sorrow: The painful prophecy made by Simeon during the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple, which stated: “Behold this Child [Jesus] is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel―and for a sign which shall be contradicted! And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, so that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed!” (Luke 2:34-35).
The 2nd Sorrow: Upon the command of an angel, having to flee to Egypt in order to escape the murderous plot of King Herod, who sought to kill Jesus. The pain and sorrow of having to leave everything behind―home, possessions, family, friends, native country―and having to cross a desert with a baby, and go into a country whose language she could not speak, where she had no family or friends, nor home.
The 3rd Sorrow: The three-day painful loss of the Child Jesus when Mary and Joseph were returning from an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The anguish felt at losing a child is immense for any parent―but this was no ordinary child! This Child was the Son of God! Imagine the soul-searching that Mary and Joseph must have gone through during those days while searching for Jesus! Racking their brains to see if and where they were at fault for losing the Son of God!
The 4th Sorrow: Mary’s pain and sorrow at her face-to-face meeting with Jesus as she sees His bloody, wounded, torn and scourged body and thorn-crowned head, struggling to carry His cross to Calvary. Like any mother, she desired to help her Son―she could have performed a miracle through her prayers―yet she knew and understood that this was the way it had to be for the salvation of souls.
The 5th Sorrow: If meeting Jesus carrying His cross was extremely painful―then what must have been the pain and sorrow in seeing Him nailed to the cross and hung up to die, while many of the crowd looked upon Him and mocked Him to scorn! Finally, seeing her Son’s side and heart being pierced with lance!
The 6th Sorrow: Mary receives the dead body of Christ into her arms. No parent envisages outliving their child. Every parent grieves when the life of their child is cut short by a premature death. The life of the prematurely deceased child is seen to be a failure. Likewise with Jesus. Many―even His own Apostles and disciples―looked upon His gruesome death as being a failure to Christ’s mission. To them―it was all over―after just barely three years of work! Their hopes and dreams were in tatters!
The 7th Sorrow: Placing Jesus in the tomb and walking away. We all know the graveside pain and sorrow as we bury a loved one―whether it a parent, a child, a relative, a close friend, a benefactor, etc. As the coffin is lowered into earth, on a natural level our spirits are also lowered, and we remember that man was made out of the earth by God and back to the earth he will one day return: “And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth; and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7) … “Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return!” (Genesis 3:19) … “Man, born of a woman, lives for a short time and is filled with many miseries. He cometh forth like a flower and is destroyed!” (Job 14:1-2) … “In the morning man shall grow up like grass; in the morning he shall flourish and pass away; in the evening he shall fall, grow dry, and wither!” (Psalm 89:6).
In brief―those are the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady. Do those Seven Sorrows also apply to our lives today? Can something similar be found in our modern world? Could we say that there are Seven Modern Swords of Sorrow piercing the Sorrowful Heart of Mary? The answer to those questions has to be an affirmative and confirmative “Yes!” Our Lady herself has confirmed to the truth of it in her modern-day apparitions.
The Recent Centuries Have Caused Sorrow for Our Lady
► OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS: In 1619, Our Lord invited Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame) to share His cross more profoundly, she was asked to accompany Our Lord in the major steps of His sorrowful passion. “I will be with you always,” He promised. “Unite yourself to My Aggrieved Heart and, in the company of My Most Holy Mother, bear these tribulations!” Our Lady told Mother Mariana: “A golden quill, marked with my name, is for all the priests who write of my sorrows!”
► OUR LADY TO MARY OF AGREDA: To the Venerable Mary of Agreda (1602-1665), Our Lady said: “As the Mother of clemency, it is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for failing to call upon me, so many souls should be lost! ... This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict yourself, lament and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls!”
► OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE: In 1846, the children to whom Our Lady of La Salette appeared―Mélanie and Maximin―saw her sitting on a stone, with her face in her hands, her elbows were on her knees and—to their dismay—she was crying and weeping. These tears are La Salette’s most powerful unspoken message. The beautiful Lady weeps―but she never refers to her tears, never so much as alludes to them. They are meant to speak for themselves―and they do. When we read the message of La Salette, we must remember that the message was spoken by someone in tears. Mélanie and Maximin never forgot to say that the Lady wept all the while she spoke. The “tears flowed and flowed” they said. The tears should be remembered for another reason. They highlight the words and give urgency and crucial importance to the entire message. This Mother is desolate, downtrodden; anguished, crouched down, with tears in her eyes.
► OUR LADY OF FATIMA: At her final apparition at Fatima, on October 13th, 1917, Our Lady was seen to appear as Our Lady of Sorrows. Several years later, Our Lady again appeared to Sister Lucia of Fatima, holding her Sorrowful Heart in her hand. Sister Lucia of Fatima says: “In front of the palm of Our Lady’s right hand there was a heart encircled with thorns which pierced it. We understood that it was the Immaculate Heart of Mary, outraged by the sins of humanity, and that she wanted reparation.”
On December 10th, 1925, the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by the Child Jesus, again appeared to Sr. Lucia of Fatima in her convent. The Child Jesus spoke first: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.” Then Mary said: “Look at my Heart surrounded with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude! You, at least, try to console me!”
On June 13th, 1929, in the convent chapel at Tuy in Spain, Sister Lucia was alone, praying, when… “Suddenly the whole chapel was illumined by a supernatural light, and above the altar appeared a Cross of light … Beneath the right arm of the Cross was Our Lady and in her hand was her Immaculate Heart. It was Our Lady of Fatima, with her Immaculate Heart in her left hand, without sword or roses, but with a crown of thorns and flames.” (Personal account by Sr. Lucia of Fatima of her vision at Tuy, June 13th, 1929).
► OUR LADY TO ELENA AIELLO: In the 1950s, Our Lady said to the stigmatic and mystic Blessed Elena Aiello: “Great is my sorrow to see that men do not change!” (April 7th, 1950) … “My Heart is sorrowful over so many sufferings in a world of impending ruin. The justice of our Father is most offended. Men live in their obstinacy of sin!” (April 16th, 1954) … “Look upon my Heart pierced by the thorns of so many sins; my face, disfigured by sorrow; my eyes, filled with tears. The cause of such great sorrow is the sight of so many souls going to Hell, and because the Church is wounded – inwardly and outwardly! By uniting their tears to those of my Sorrowful Heart, priests and religious will obtain great graces for the salvation of poor sinners!” (April 8th, 1955) … “My Motherly Heart is bleeding, because the enemy is at our doors! Men are offending God too much! If I were to show you the number of sins committed in a single day, you would die of horror and sorrow!” (December 8th, 1956).
► OUR LADY OF AKITA: In 1973, in Akita Japan, a statue of Our Lady in the convent of the Our Lady of Akita is the title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with a wooden statue that not only miraculously spoke to Sr. Agnes Sasagawa, but also visibly wept 101 times between 1973 and 1981 ― witnessed by over 2,000 people over that time frame ― as well as bleeding from a wound in the hand of the statue. On July 6th, 1973, a few of the sisters noticed drops of blood flowing from the statue’s right hand. On four occasions, this act of blood flow repeated itself. The wound in the statue’s hand remained until September 29th, 1973, when it disappeared. On September 29th, the day the wound on the statue disappeared, the sisters noticed the statue had now begun to “sweat”, especially on the forehead and neck. Two years later, on January 4th, 1975, the statue of the Blessed Virgin began to weep. It continued to weep at intervals for the next 6 years and eight months. It wept on 101 occasions. The tears, sweat and blood from the statue were sent for laboratory analysis, who ascertained that the composition corresponded to “human liquid” ― that is to say, human blood, human sweat and human tears. Professor Sagisaka of the Faculty of Legal Medicine of the University of Akita, confirmed that the blood, tears and sweat were real and of human origin.
The Akita apparitions were approved as authentic and worthy of belief by the diocesan Bishop, John Shojiro Ito, in 1984, following scientific verification of a miracle associated with the apparitions: the weeping of tears on 101 occasions and the shedding of blood by a wooden statue of the Virgin at the convent where Sr. Agnes Sasagawa resided—before she was hounded from it, in 1998 at the instigation of the new modernist bishop. The 101 “lachyrmations” (weepings) of the statue were witnessed four times by Bishop Ito himself and 98 times by Sr. Agnes Sasagawa’s spiritual advisor, Father Thomas Aquinas Teiji Yasuda, S.V.D.
So What are the Modern Day Swords and Tears of Our Lady?
When we speak of the traditional Seven Sorrows or Seven Swords of Sorrow that pierced Our Lady Heart―we do not mean to say that she only had seven sorrows throughout her whole life! That would be ridiculous and diametrically opposed to the truth. Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “My life was a continual suffering! ... The sorrow which I suffered is so little noticed by the living! … I suffered much more than the martyrs in all their torments! … My Son and I embraced the way of the Cross and suffering for the whole course of our natural life! … My Son and I suffered so much for creatures and for their salvation! … For them We suffered and endured such bitter sorrows!”
In all honesty, it would be impossible to reduce all of Our Lady’s modern-day sorrows to merely seven―even seven chief ones―in view of what she said to Blessed Elena Aiello way back in what we might wrongly call the “less sinful days” of 1956. Back then Our Lady said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
If the sins were so numerous and the world was that bad in 1956―then what on earth would Our Lady say about the world today? We shudder to think―and shudder we should! Nevertheless, since the Church traditionally presents us with Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, then let us see if we can superimpose modern-day elements upon those seven traditional ones―both from a personal perspective in our own lives and also in the public sphere or the life of the world at large.
1st Sorrow: The Prophecy of St. Simeon
The painful prophecy concerning the future made by Simeon during the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple, which stated: “Behold this Child [Jesus] is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel―and for a sign which shall be contradicted! And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, so that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed!” (Luke 2:34-35). Simeon essentially tells Mary this: Jesus is going to be a great divider. Jesus is going to represent a crossroads in the lives of those He encounters. Jesus is going to―by virtue of His life and His death and all of His ministry―be the kind of individual that people find it impossible to be neutral around. It will not be possible for men and women to be neutral in relationship to Jesus. What Simeon is saying to Mary is not only applicable to Mary back then, it is also applicable to us in our families and circles, as well as the world at large today. What does this mean for our day and age; for our personal lives and those around us?
Talking of prophecies that foretell pain and suffering, Our Lady herself―the Queen of Prophets―has made quite a few prophecies in recent times concerning the swords that will pierce our hearts in the near future―in addition to the prophecies made by Our Lord back in the Gospels. Some are already piercing our hearts at this very moment.
Our Lord, in speaking of the latter times of the world, those in which we are now living, says: “When you shall hear of wars and seditions―be not terrified, for these things must first come to pass―but the end is not yet come. Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom! And there shall be great earthquakes in different places, and pestilences, and famines, and terrors from Heaven, and there shall be great signs. Now all these are the beginnings of sorrows. But before all these things, they will lay their hands upon you, and persecute you―delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for My Name’s sake! And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends; and some of you they will put to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Luke 21:9-17; Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10).
If, according to Simeon’s prophecy, Our Lady’s heart would be pierced by a sword―then that is exactly what Our Lord seems to be promising everyone by these following words, which seem to echo and further elaborate on the idea of sword that Simeon mentions: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
In her modern-day apparitions, Our Lady’s prophecies echo those of Our Lord and add further details: “Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy the Church … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness, and the Church will witness a frightful crisis … Churches will be locked up or desecrated … and altars will be sacked … Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death ... All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family ... There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases … A general war will follow which will be appalling ... Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … Water and fire will give the Earth’s globe convulsions and terrible earthquakes which will swallow up mountains and cities ... Nations will be annihilated … Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will strike in an unprecedented way. God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … The Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful.” (A selection and compilation of quotes by Our Lady of Good Success; Our Lady of La Salette; Our Lady of Fatima; and Our Lady of Akita).
Prior to prophesying about the sword of sorrow that would pierce Mary’s Heart, St. Simeon, while holding the Infant Jesus in his arms, said to God: “My eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples! A light of revelation for the Gentiles!” (Luke 2:30-31). The Gospel says of Christ that He was “was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it! … He came unto His own, and His own received Him not! … The light came into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light―for their works were evil!” (John 1:4-5, 11; 3:19). Christ, who is meant to be our cornerstone, upon Whom we should build the temple of our soul, has become for many not a cornerstone, but a stone that makes them stumble (1 Peter 2:7-8) ― as Simeon prophesied: “this Child [Jesus] is set for the fall of many!”
Who are those who stumble, trip and fall over this cornerstone? They are the people who want to serve both the world and Christ―they give their heart to the world and they give lip-service to God. They refuse to see the world as being an enemy of God, despite Scripture saying: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). As Our Lord said―you cannot serve God and the world [mammon]: “No man can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father! … Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say? … Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 7:21; Luke 6:46; Mark 7:6).
St. Simeon, in his prophecy, says: “Behold this Child [Jesus] is set for a sign which shall be contradicted!” What does “contradicted” mean? It is a compound word made up of two Latin words: “contra” meaning “against”, and “dicere” meaning “to speak” ― hence, “to contradict” means to “speak against” someone or something or some teaching or some statement. Today, most of the world speaks against Christ and His teaching; most reject some or all of His teachings; they speak out against the One True Church; they refuse to follow His Laws in governing their own lands and countries; they pick and choose what to accept; they allow serious sins under the protection of legislation―while still giving lip-service to Christ. This is not only true of nations, but also families and individuals. Christ and His teaching will be the salvation of some; but also the fall and damnation of many due their rejection of His teachings and laws. The loss of so many souls brings sorrow to Our Lady’s Heart―it is sword of sorrow that pierces her Heart.
All can ultimately be gathered together under the common denominators of we either serve and follow Christ, or we serve and follow the world (and its prince, Satan) ― everything we think, say or do will fall under either of those categories. If we sin―then we serve Satan and follow him: “He that committeth sin is of the devil!” (1 John 3:8). Jesus said: “Whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin” (John 8:34). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). If we serve and follow Christ, then we should be casting sin aside and fighting the temptations to sin: “They that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24). Could it be said of us: “You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin!” (Hebrews 12:4). After Jesus said to the sick man, who had been ill for 38 years: “Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14).
Christ, as He said, “Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household!” (Matthew 10:34-36). It is sorrowful to take up the sword against your own family members―“the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17) … “For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12)―but Christ says He will “fight against them with the sword of My mouth” (Apocalypse 2:16). Hence, we have to first of all stand up for Christ―and if our family and friends stand up for the world, then we must oppose them with the word of God―we must speak out against them: “Everyone, therefore, that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven! But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 10:32-33).
Yes, we must love our parents, our children, our brothers, sisters, relatives and friends, etc. ― but not at the expense of God, not at the expense of allowing them to offend God: “He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:32-37). So as St. Simeon prophesied: “Behold this Child [Jesus] is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel―and for a sign which shall be contradicted!” (Luke 2:34), and as Our Lord Himself later said: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, no; but separation. For, from henceforth, there shall be five in one house divided―three against two, and two against three! The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! … And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Luke 12:51-53; 21:17). “If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand!” (Mark 3:25). That is the division that Simeon prophesied―that is the sword of sorrow that pierces Our Lady’s Heart―that is the sorrow that must pierce our hearts as we seek to obey the command: “Love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
What is true for the family, must also be true for our race, our nation, our Faith―Our Lord’s words can be modified to also say: “He that loveth their nation or race more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth those of the same Faith more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” For not all nations desire, seek and follow Christ―and this must be opposed and not tolerated: “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3).
Whether it be within family, amongst relatives and friends, or outside those circles, even to the very pinnacle of the nation in which we live―we must oppose all rejection, denial and opposition to Christ, His teachings and laws. We firstly oppose these persons by prayer and sacrifice―seeking their conversion, which is the desire of Christ: “You have heard that it hath been said: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy!’ But I say to you, Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you!” (Matthew 5:43-44) … “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10) … “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56).
Our Lady of Fatima begged that we pray and make sacrifices for the conversion of sinners: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
Let us not fool ourselves that WE can change the world! Let us not exaggerate the efforts that WE make! Let us not pride ourselves on OUR knowledge of the state of things in the Church and the world! We cannot convert anyone! We cannot give anyone the Faith! We cannot do least or tiniest bit of good without the assistance of God’s grace―as Jesus said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). It is God Who converts people by His grace―not ours! It is God Who gives the Faith to souls―and not we ourselves: “Faith is a supernatural gift of God, freely given” says the Catechism. Therefore, we must obtain the graces of God that He is kindly prepared to give―even though we do not merit or deserve them because of our many sins. How do we obtain those graces? The normal means is through a correct and efficient use of the Sacraments and the Sacramentals. Prayer, sacrifices and penances are Sacramentals―and thus Our Lady asks that we pray and make sacrifices for the conversion of sinners, and do penance for our own sins. In doing this, we―to some degree―withdraw a sword of sorrow from her Heart, and remove some of the many thorns piercing it.
Article 9
Friday September 15th, 2023, Feast of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady
Our Lady Pours Out Her Sorrowful Heart!
Friday September 15th, 2023, Feast of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady
Our Lady Pours Out Her Sorrowful Heart!
Let the Sorrowful Hearts Speak
Today being the feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is only fitting that we let our Sorrowful Mother and her Sorrowful Son—the Man of Sorrows—do most of the talking, while we, like Mary Magdalen place ourselves at their feet—either listening attentively to their words, or weeping sincerely over their feet for our may sins.
Our Lord Wants…
Berthe Petit (1870-1943) was a Belgian Franciscan tertiary, mystic, stigmatist, who for many years led a life of hidden sufferings in the world, a voluntary victim for the expiation of sin. She received repeated revelations from Our Lord of His desire that the whole world should be publicly dedicated to the SORROWFUL and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Here are some extracts of what Our Lord said:
“Teach souls to love the Heart of My Mother pierced with sorrow that transfixed My Own Heart.”
“My Mother’s Heart has the right to the title of Sorrowful. I desire that it be set before her title of Immaculate, because she herself has won it. The Church has recognized what I Myself did for My Mother: her Immaculate Conception. Now it is necessary, and it is My wish, that this title, which is, by right, My Mother’s, should be understood and recognized. This title she earned by her identification with all My sufferings, by her sorrow, her sacrifice, her immolation on Calvary, and indeed for the salvation of mankind.”
“My desire flows from My love on Calvary. In giving John to My Mother as a son, I entrusted the whole world to her Sorrowful Motherhood.”
“The title of Immaculate belongs to the whole being of My Mother and not specially to her Heart. The title flows from my gratuitous gift to the Virgin, who was to give Me birth. My Mother has acquired, from her Heart, the title of ‘Sorrowful’ by sharing generously in all the sufferings of My Heart and My Body—from the crib to the cross. There is not one of these Sorrows which did not pierce the Heart of My Mother. Living image of My crucified Body, her virginal flesh bore the invisible marks of My wounds, as her Heart felt the Sorrows of My own. Nothing could ever tarnish the incorruptibility of her Immaculate Heart. The title of ‘Sorrowful’ belongs, therefore, to the Heart of My Mother, and more than any other, this title is dear to her, because it springs from the union of her Heart with Mine in the redemption of humanity. This title has been acquired by her through her full participation in My Calvary, and it precedes the gratuitous title ‘Immaculate’ which My love bestowed upon her by a singular privilege.”
“The time is now ripe and I wish mankind to turn to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother. Let this prayer be uttered by every soul: ‘Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!’ Let this prayer dictated by My Love as a supreme succor be approved and indulgenced, no longer partially and for a small portion of My flock, but for the whole universe, so that it may spread as a refreshing and purifying balm of reparation that will appease My anger. This Devotion to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother will restore Faith and Hope to broken hearts and to ruined families: it will help to repair the destruction: it will sweeten sorrow. It will be a new strength for My Church, bringing souls, not only to confidence in My Heart, but also to abandonment to the Sorrowful Heart of My Mother.”
“It is hearts that must be changed. This will be accomplished only by the Devotion proclaimed, explained, preached and recommended everywhere. Recourse to My Mother under the title I wish for her universally, is the last help I shall give before the end of time.”
“This is the last help which I give before the end of time: the recourse to My Mother under the title which I desire shall be hers throughout the whole world!”
“In the hour of triumph” Our Lord said to Berthe one day “it will be made clearly manifest that I Myself have inspired, in those whom I have freely chosen, a devotion similar to that given to My own Heart. It is as a Son that I have conceived this devotion for My Mother. It is as God that I impose it.”
“Let every soul cry out: ‘Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!’”
Fatima and the Sorrowful Heart of Mary
Our Lady explicitly spoke of her Sorrowful Heart at her fifth apparition at Fatima: “Continue to pray the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war. In October Our Lord will come, as well as Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Carmel” (Our Lady at Fatima, September 13th).
By 1925, Lucia, who was now 18, had become a postulant with the Sisters of St. Dorothy at Pontevedra in Spain, and on Thursday, December 10th, 1925, the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by the Child Jesus on a little cloud, appeared to her in her cell. Lucia recounted that Mary rested her hand on her shoulder, while showing her a Heart encircled by thorns in her other hand. The Child Jesus spoke first: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.”
Then Mary said: “My daughter, look at my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, try to console me, and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months go to confession and receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for a quarter of an hour while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”
Soul to Soul with Our Sorrowful Mother
On this feast of the Seven Sorrows, it might be a good idea to have a ‘soul to soul’ conversation with our Sorrowful Mother, and let her tell us some of the things that cause her pain. We speak of the Seven Swords of Sorrow that pierced her Sorrowful Heart, but there are not only Seven Sorrows, they must be as innumerable as the grains of sand on the beach or the stars in the sky. We often say, “A problem shared is a problem halved!” Perhaps Our Lady will share some of her anxieties and sufferings with us! We will take her at her word by the words she spoke to the Venerable Mary of Agreda—whose body still remains incorrupt today, just as Our Lady’s words are still as incorrupt today as they were back in the 1600s.
Holy Soul
The physical body of the Venerable Mary of Agreda is incorruptible, that is, not subject to rot and decay after death. During an opening of her casket in 1909, a cursory scientific examination was performed on the body. In 1989, a Spanish physician, named Andreas Medina, participated in another examination of Sister Maria de Jesus de Agreda, as she lay in the convent of the Conceptionist nuns, the same monastery where she had lived in the 17th century. Dr. Medina told investigative journalist Javier Sierra, in 1991: “What most surprised me about that case is that when we compared the state of the body, as it was described in the medical report from 1909, with how it appeared in 1989, we realized it had absolutely not deteriorated at all in the last eighty years.” Complete photographic and other evidence was obtained by investigators before her casket was re-sealed. Now, her incorrupt body can be visited in the Church of the Convent of Agreda.
Listen to Your Mother
The following passages are all excerpts taken from the words spoken by Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, as recounted in her book, The Mystical City of God. The words that follow are almost exclusively the words of Our Lady, as she dictated them to the Venerable Sister Maria de Jesus de Agreda. A short comment or liasing phrase may be inserted here or there. The subtitles are, of course, added to give or create a uniformity of thought.
Many Called, Few Chosen…Why?
“By the divine teaching, thou knowest the mysteries of the Passion and Death of Christ and the one true way of life, which is the Cross; and thou knowest that not all who are called, are chosen. Many there are who wish to follow Christ, but very few truly dispose themselves to imitate Him; for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross they cast it aside. Laborious exertions are very painful and averse to human nature according to the flesh. On this account there are so many among mortals, who seek the flesh and the continual indulgence of its pleasures. They ardently seek honors and fly from injuries: they strive after riches, and despise poverty; they long after pleasure and dread mortification. All these are enemies of the Cross of Christ and with dreadful aversion they fly from it” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Backward Souls
“Many other souls have reached the heights of perfection and have then fallen most unfortunately, arriving at a state in which they almost despaired, or found themselves incapable of rising. This sad state causes many things. The first is the dismay and endless confusion of one who feels that he has fallen from an exalted state of virtue; for he knows that he has not only lost great blessings, but now he does not expect to obtain greater ones than those of the past and those he has lost; nor can he guarantee more firmness with himself in keeping those he can obtain, through renewed efforts, than he has shown in the past with those blessings he acquired but has now lost through his ingratitude” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Hopeless Souls
“From this dangerous distrust of self, in not knowing if he will do better in the future, originates lukewarmness, lack of fervor and diligence, absence of zeal and devotion; such a heavy and distrustful heart extinguishes all these in the soul, just as the opposite, the liveliness of ardent hope, overcomes many difficulties, and strengthens weak human creatures to undertake great works” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Negligent Irreverent Souls
“Another obstacle there is, not less formidable, namely: that the souls accustomed to the blessings of God, either through their office—as priests and religious—or by the exercise of virtues and the abundance of divine favors—as spiritual minded persons—these souls usually aggravate their sins by a certain contempt of these very blessings and a certain abuse of divine things. For, because of the abundance of the divine favors, they fall into a dangerous dullness of mind. They begin to think little of the divine favors and become irreverent. Thus failing to cooperate with God’s grace, they hinder its effect. They lose the grace of holy fear of the Lord, which arouses and stimulates the will to obey the divine commandments and to be alert in the avoidance of sin and pursuit of eternal life in the friendship of God” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Lukewarm Souls
“This is an evident danger for lukewarm priests, who frequent the Holy Eucharist and other Sacraments, without fear and reverence; also for the souls of the learned and wise, as well as those who hold some power in this world, who are so reluctant to correct and amend their lives. They have lost the appreciation and veneration of the remedial helps of the Church, namely, the Sacraments, preaching and instruction. Thus, these medicines, which for other sinners are so salutary and counteract ignorance, end up weakening those who are the physicians of the spiritual life” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
“The worldlings in their lukewarmness are moved, neither by the duty of conforming to their Father and Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Sinful Souls
“Ordinarily the demons have no power over souls, unless they gain entrance by some venial or mortal fault. Mortal sin gives them a sort of direct right over those who commit it; while venial sin weakens the strength of the soul and invites their attacks. Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous lukewarmness” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Careless Neglectful Souls
“The same enemy instills into the parents a base neglectfulness and carnal love for their offspring; and he incites the teachers to carelessness, so that the children find no support against evil in their education, but become depraved and spoiled by many bad habits, losing sight of virtue and of their good inclinations and going the way of perdition” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Unrestrained Souls
They live amid the darkness of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and show no care for where they walk, even if it is to the most dangerous precipices” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Tormented Souls
“Imagine what ought to be the grief of losing God really by sin! But this wisdom seems far from the mind of carnal men: with a most perverse blindness they continue to acquire and make much of the visible and fictitious goods of the world, and they torment themselves and are disconsolate, whenever it fails them. Because they never taste, or recognize, the highest and truest Good, they take no thought or reckoning of It. O sorrow, how easily Charity [which is a love of God, first and foremost] is wasted and set aside for any kind of pleasure, and how often Faith remains without any fruit and is involved in death!” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Faithless Souls
“If the faithful do not feel these and even more wonderful effects of Faith, it is not because Faith has not the strength and efficacy to produce them, but it is because some of the faithful are so forgetting and negligent, while others give themselves up so much to a carnal and bestial life and thereby counteract the blessing of Faith. They think so rarely of it, that they might as well not have received it at all. As they live like the infidels, who have never enjoyed its advantages, and, as they gradually become conscious of their unhappy infidelity, they fall into greater wickedness than the unbelievers. For such is the result of their abominable ingratitude and contempt for this exalted and sovereign gift of their Faith” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Unhappy Souls
“Hence thou canst judge of the blind ignorance with which their deadly enemies have fascinated mortals, since all men, in the inordinate desire and pursuit of happiness, neglect the divine law, where alone it can be found; and hence few really attain happiness” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Pleasure-Seeking Souls
“Consider then, whether anything deserves greater pity, than to see so many men misled into danger and made forgetful of it; how some of them cast themselves into it, on account of their lightheartedness, some of them for trivial reasons, others for a short and instantaneous pleasure, others through negligence, and yet others on account of their inordinate appetites” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, fromThe Mystical City of God).
Fearless Souls
“In this life, any punishment or tribulation fills mortals with fear and dread, but the guilt of sin does not fill them with dread. Men are entirely taken up by that which is visible, and they therefore do not look upon the ultimate consequences of sin, which is the eternal punishment of Hell. The human heart becomes so forgetful that it remains, as if it were stupefied, in its wickedness, because it does not feel it present in its senses. Though it could see and feel it by Faith, its Faith is itself listless and dead. (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Blind Souls
“O most unhappy blindness of mortals! O lukewarm negligence, that holds so many souls in deceit! There are not words or sentences sufficient to describe this terrible and tremendous danger. Fear and flee such an unhappy state, and deliver thyself up to all the troubles and torments of life, which pass soon, rather than incur such a danger; for nothing will be lacking to thee, if thou do not lose God. Be convinced that there are no small faults! Fear greatly the small things, for in despising small faults the Most High knows, that the human heart invites other greater ones” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Preoccupied Souls
“In conversing with or worshiping the Most High, they fail to form a worthy concept of His infinite greatness, and fail to free themselves from thoughts of their earthly occupations, which thus make them lukewarm and carnal, unworthy and unfit for the magnificent communication with God [through prayer]. And this ill-bred coarseness entails another disorder: namely, that whenever they talk with their neighbors, they do it without order, measure or discretion; they become entangled in their outward actions, and losing the memory and presence of God in the excitement of their passions, and become completely entangled in what is earthly” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Thankless Souls
“If the children of the Holy Church would pause in their vain occupations and be ashamed of their lukewarm forgetfulness and repudiate their vile ingratitude. Let them be undeceived, for most terrible punishments await them” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Lost Souls
“They are surrounded by innumerable enemies [the invisible devils], who pursue them with diabolical treachery, unceasing vigilance, unquenchable wrath and restless diligence. What wonder then, that from such extremes, or rather from such unequal combat, irreparable defeats should arise among the mortals? And that, since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the damned should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men? May God preserve thee from such a misfortune; and do thou weep and deplore the misfortunes of thy brethren, continually asking for their salvation, as far as is possible” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Fervent Souls
“The fulfillment of the precepts of the Lord must not be cold and lukewarm, but most fervent and devoted” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
“Thou must continue without intervals of lukewarmness, lest thou disgust Him. At all times and in all places, occupations and operations, thou must keep God in sight. I command thee to treat Him with a magnanimous heart, with decorum and reverence, with deep felt fear of the soul. And whatever pertains to His divine worship, I desire that thou handle with all attention and care. Above all, in order to enter into His presence by prayer and petitions, free thyself from all sensible and earthly images” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
“It is necessary, that thou live retired within thyself, forgetful of all the visible and terrestrial things, most attentive to the divine light, which assists thee and protects thy sensible faculties with double vestments against the influences of lukewarmness and coldness on the way of perfection; and it is necessary, that thou resist the incitements of thy unruly passions” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Abandoned Souls
“Receive knowledge and enlightenment for avoiding such dangerous and gross lukewarmness. Jesus withdraws from the lukewarm and negligent souls, or deals with them only according to the general rules of His divine Providence … [which will then bring about] “the losses sustained by them through their lukewarmness and negligence” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Deluded Souls Fooling Themselves
“Another deceit has spread through the world: many imagine that they are following Christ their Master, though they neither suffer affliction nor engage in any exertion or labor. They are content with avoiding boldness in committing sins, and place all their perfection in a certain prudence or hollow self-love, which prevents them from denying anything to their will and from practicing any virtues at the cost of their flesh. They would easily escape this deception, if they would consider that my Son, although He well could do it, He chose not a life of softness and ease for the flesh, but one full of labors and pains; for He judged his instructions to be incomplete and insufficient, if He failed to teach them how to overcome the demon, the flesh and their own self. He wished to inculcate, that this magnificent victory is gained by the Cross, by labors, penances, mortifications and the acceptance of contempt: all of which are the trademarks and evidences of true love and the special watchwords of the predestined” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Souls Giving “Bottom-Dollar” for Heaven
“Tell me then, my daughter: if my Lord and Master has made Himself the Life and the Way for men through His Passion and Death, is it not evident that, in order to go that way and live up to this Truth, they must follow Christ crucified, afflicted, scourged and affronted? Consider the ignorance of men who wish to come to the Father without following Christ, since they expect to reign with God without suffering, or imitating His Passion, without even a thought of accepting any part of His Suffering and Death, or of thanking Him for it. They want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as those of Eternal Life, while Christ their Creator has suffered the most bitter pains and torments, in order to enter Heaven and to show them, by His example, how they are to find the Way of Light” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Our Lady is Angry and Incensed!
“All the faithful in such a dangerous and dreadful state of carelessness, when they have the Passion and Death of my Divine Son before their eyes. What then are the thoughts of the Angels and Saints, and what are my thoughts, in beholding this world and the small return made by heartless and ungrateful men for all our pains; and the lack of attention displayed by mortals through their lukewarmness and negligence? I am much incensed to find so few who console me and who try to console my Son in His sorrows. This hardness of heart will cause great confusion to them, on the Day of Judgment; since they will then see, with irreparable sorrow, not only that they were ungrateful, but were also inhuman and cruel towards my Divine Son, towards me and towards themselves” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
“I tell thee truly, only my intercession and the merits of His, Son, which I offer to the Eternal Father, can delay the punishment and placate His wrath, and delay the destruction of the world and the severe chastisement of the children of the Church, who know His will and fail to fulfill it” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
False and Fake Piety
“Weigh in thy heart, how much it cost my Lord to reconcile mankind to the Eternal Father and regain for them His friendship. Weep and afflict thyself that so many should live in such forgetfulness! And that so many should labor, with all their might, at destroying and losing what was bought by the Blood of God. Awaken in thy heart the deepest grief, that, in His Holy Church, there should be many followers of the hypocritical and sacrilegious priests who, under cover of a false piety, still condemn Christ; that pride and sumptuousness, with other grave vices, should be placed in authority and exalted, while humility, truth, justice and all virtues be so oppressed and debased, while avarice and vanity should prevail. Few know the poverty of Christ, and fewer embrace it. Holy Faith is hindered, and is not spread among the nations, on account of the boundless ambition of the mighty of this earth. The Faith, in many Catholics, is inactive and dead, and, what should be living, is near to death and to eternal perdition. The counsels of the Gospel are forgotten, its precepts trodden under foot, true charity is almost extinct” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Reformed Souls
Let us take these words to heart and reform our souls! Who is there, among us, who can say: “I am good enough! I have no need to change anything in my life! I have nobody else to reach and convert! I have paid all my debts for past sin! I will go straight to Heaven with no fear of Purgatory or Hell!” If there is someone like that out there reading this—then please pray for the rest of us!!
The Science of Saints
“My daughter, in all that thou art made to understand and write concerning these mysteries, thou drawest upon thyself, and upon mortals, a severe judgment, if thou dost not overcome thy pusillanimity, ingratitude and baseness, by meditating day and night on the Passion and Death of Jesus crucified. This is the great Science of the Saints, so little heeded by the worldly, it is the Bread of Life and the Spiritual Food of the little ones, which gives Wisdom to them and the lack of which starves the lovers of this proud world . In this science I wish thee to be studious and wise, for with it thou canst buy thyself all good things. My Son and Lord taught us this Science when He said: ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life: no one cometh to My Father except through Me’ (John 14:6).” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
The School of Saints
“My most holy Son and myself are trying to find, among those who have arrived at the Way of the Cross, some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine Science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the sons of Adam, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If thou wishest to be our disciple enter into this school, in which alone is taught the Doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights. With this wisdom, the earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible; nor the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the bleary-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors, and so full of ignorant admiration for costly grandeur” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
“By such standards must thou measure the value of suffering, which the worldly will not understand. Since they are unworthy of heavenly knowledge, they despise it in proportion to their ignorance. Rejoice and congratulate thyself in thy sufferings, and whenever the Almighty deigns to send thee any, hasten to meet it and welcome it as one of his blessings and pledges of his glorious love” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Don’t Just Listen ... Do Something
“With meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass. For he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was” (James 1:21-24).
Today being the feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is only fitting that we let our Sorrowful Mother and her Sorrowful Son—the Man of Sorrows—do most of the talking, while we, like Mary Magdalen place ourselves at their feet—either listening attentively to their words, or weeping sincerely over their feet for our may sins.
Our Lord Wants…
Berthe Petit (1870-1943) was a Belgian Franciscan tertiary, mystic, stigmatist, who for many years led a life of hidden sufferings in the world, a voluntary victim for the expiation of sin. She received repeated revelations from Our Lord of His desire that the whole world should be publicly dedicated to the SORROWFUL and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Here are some extracts of what Our Lord said:
“Teach souls to love the Heart of My Mother pierced with sorrow that transfixed My Own Heart.”
“My Mother’s Heart has the right to the title of Sorrowful. I desire that it be set before her title of Immaculate, because she herself has won it. The Church has recognized what I Myself did for My Mother: her Immaculate Conception. Now it is necessary, and it is My wish, that this title, which is, by right, My Mother’s, should be understood and recognized. This title she earned by her identification with all My sufferings, by her sorrow, her sacrifice, her immolation on Calvary, and indeed for the salvation of mankind.”
“My desire flows from My love on Calvary. In giving John to My Mother as a son, I entrusted the whole world to her Sorrowful Motherhood.”
“The title of Immaculate belongs to the whole being of My Mother and not specially to her Heart. The title flows from my gratuitous gift to the Virgin, who was to give Me birth. My Mother has acquired, from her Heart, the title of ‘Sorrowful’ by sharing generously in all the sufferings of My Heart and My Body—from the crib to the cross. There is not one of these Sorrows which did not pierce the Heart of My Mother. Living image of My crucified Body, her virginal flesh bore the invisible marks of My wounds, as her Heart felt the Sorrows of My own. Nothing could ever tarnish the incorruptibility of her Immaculate Heart. The title of ‘Sorrowful’ belongs, therefore, to the Heart of My Mother, and more than any other, this title is dear to her, because it springs from the union of her Heart with Mine in the redemption of humanity. This title has been acquired by her through her full participation in My Calvary, and it precedes the gratuitous title ‘Immaculate’ which My love bestowed upon her by a singular privilege.”
“The time is now ripe and I wish mankind to turn to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother. Let this prayer be uttered by every soul: ‘Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!’ Let this prayer dictated by My Love as a supreme succor be approved and indulgenced, no longer partially and for a small portion of My flock, but for the whole universe, so that it may spread as a refreshing and purifying balm of reparation that will appease My anger. This Devotion to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother will restore Faith and Hope to broken hearts and to ruined families: it will help to repair the destruction: it will sweeten sorrow. It will be a new strength for My Church, bringing souls, not only to confidence in My Heart, but also to abandonment to the Sorrowful Heart of My Mother.”
“It is hearts that must be changed. This will be accomplished only by the Devotion proclaimed, explained, preached and recommended everywhere. Recourse to My Mother under the title I wish for her universally, is the last help I shall give before the end of time.”
“This is the last help which I give before the end of time: the recourse to My Mother under the title which I desire shall be hers throughout the whole world!”
“In the hour of triumph” Our Lord said to Berthe one day “it will be made clearly manifest that I Myself have inspired, in those whom I have freely chosen, a devotion similar to that given to My own Heart. It is as a Son that I have conceived this devotion for My Mother. It is as God that I impose it.”
“Let every soul cry out: ‘Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!’”
Fatima and the Sorrowful Heart of Mary
Our Lady explicitly spoke of her Sorrowful Heart at her fifth apparition at Fatima: “Continue to pray the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war. In October Our Lord will come, as well as Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Carmel” (Our Lady at Fatima, September 13th).
By 1925, Lucia, who was now 18, had become a postulant with the Sisters of St. Dorothy at Pontevedra in Spain, and on Thursday, December 10th, 1925, the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by the Child Jesus on a little cloud, appeared to her in her cell. Lucia recounted that Mary rested her hand on her shoulder, while showing her a Heart encircled by thorns in her other hand. The Child Jesus spoke first: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.”
Then Mary said: “My daughter, look at my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, try to console me, and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months go to confession and receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for a quarter of an hour while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”
Soul to Soul with Our Sorrowful Mother
On this feast of the Seven Sorrows, it might be a good idea to have a ‘soul to soul’ conversation with our Sorrowful Mother, and let her tell us some of the things that cause her pain. We speak of the Seven Swords of Sorrow that pierced her Sorrowful Heart, but there are not only Seven Sorrows, they must be as innumerable as the grains of sand on the beach or the stars in the sky. We often say, “A problem shared is a problem halved!” Perhaps Our Lady will share some of her anxieties and sufferings with us! We will take her at her word by the words she spoke to the Venerable Mary of Agreda—whose body still remains incorrupt today, just as Our Lady’s words are still as incorrupt today as they were back in the 1600s.
Holy Soul
The physical body of the Venerable Mary of Agreda is incorruptible, that is, not subject to rot and decay after death. During an opening of her casket in 1909, a cursory scientific examination was performed on the body. In 1989, a Spanish physician, named Andreas Medina, participated in another examination of Sister Maria de Jesus de Agreda, as she lay in the convent of the Conceptionist nuns, the same monastery where she had lived in the 17th century. Dr. Medina told investigative journalist Javier Sierra, in 1991: “What most surprised me about that case is that when we compared the state of the body, as it was described in the medical report from 1909, with how it appeared in 1989, we realized it had absolutely not deteriorated at all in the last eighty years.” Complete photographic and other evidence was obtained by investigators before her casket was re-sealed. Now, her incorrupt body can be visited in the Church of the Convent of Agreda.
Listen to Your Mother
The following passages are all excerpts taken from the words spoken by Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, as recounted in her book, The Mystical City of God. The words that follow are almost exclusively the words of Our Lady, as she dictated them to the Venerable Sister Maria de Jesus de Agreda. A short comment or liasing phrase may be inserted here or there. The subtitles are, of course, added to give or create a uniformity of thought.
Many Called, Few Chosen…Why?
“By the divine teaching, thou knowest the mysteries of the Passion and Death of Christ and the one true way of life, which is the Cross; and thou knowest that not all who are called, are chosen. Many there are who wish to follow Christ, but very few truly dispose themselves to imitate Him; for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross they cast it aside. Laborious exertions are very painful and averse to human nature according to the flesh. On this account there are so many among mortals, who seek the flesh and the continual indulgence of its pleasures. They ardently seek honors and fly from injuries: they strive after riches, and despise poverty; they long after pleasure and dread mortification. All these are enemies of the Cross of Christ and with dreadful aversion they fly from it” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Backward Souls
“Many other souls have reached the heights of perfection and have then fallen most unfortunately, arriving at a state in which they almost despaired, or found themselves incapable of rising. This sad state causes many things. The first is the dismay and endless confusion of one who feels that he has fallen from an exalted state of virtue; for he knows that he has not only lost great blessings, but now he does not expect to obtain greater ones than those of the past and those he has lost; nor can he guarantee more firmness with himself in keeping those he can obtain, through renewed efforts, than he has shown in the past with those blessings he acquired but has now lost through his ingratitude” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Hopeless Souls
“From this dangerous distrust of self, in not knowing if he will do better in the future, originates lukewarmness, lack of fervor and diligence, absence of zeal and devotion; such a heavy and distrustful heart extinguishes all these in the soul, just as the opposite, the liveliness of ardent hope, overcomes many difficulties, and strengthens weak human creatures to undertake great works” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Negligent Irreverent Souls
“Another obstacle there is, not less formidable, namely: that the souls accustomed to the blessings of God, either through their office—as priests and religious—or by the exercise of virtues and the abundance of divine favors—as spiritual minded persons—these souls usually aggravate their sins by a certain contempt of these very blessings and a certain abuse of divine things. For, because of the abundance of the divine favors, they fall into a dangerous dullness of mind. They begin to think little of the divine favors and become irreverent. Thus failing to cooperate with God’s grace, they hinder its effect. They lose the grace of holy fear of the Lord, which arouses and stimulates the will to obey the divine commandments and to be alert in the avoidance of sin and pursuit of eternal life in the friendship of God” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Lukewarm Souls
“This is an evident danger for lukewarm priests, who frequent the Holy Eucharist and other Sacraments, without fear and reverence; also for the souls of the learned and wise, as well as those who hold some power in this world, who are so reluctant to correct and amend their lives. They have lost the appreciation and veneration of the remedial helps of the Church, namely, the Sacraments, preaching and instruction. Thus, these medicines, which for other sinners are so salutary and counteract ignorance, end up weakening those who are the physicians of the spiritual life” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
“The worldlings in their lukewarmness are moved, neither by the duty of conforming to their Father and Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Sinful Souls
“Ordinarily the demons have no power over souls, unless they gain entrance by some venial or mortal fault. Mortal sin gives them a sort of direct right over those who commit it; while venial sin weakens the strength of the soul and invites their attacks. Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous lukewarmness” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Careless Neglectful Souls
“The same enemy instills into the parents a base neglectfulness and carnal love for their offspring; and he incites the teachers to carelessness, so that the children find no support against evil in their education, but become depraved and spoiled by many bad habits, losing sight of virtue and of their good inclinations and going the way of perdition” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Unrestrained Souls
They live amid the darkness of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and show no care for where they walk, even if it is to the most dangerous precipices” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Tormented Souls
“Imagine what ought to be the grief of losing God really by sin! But this wisdom seems far from the mind of carnal men: with a most perverse blindness they continue to acquire and make much of the visible and fictitious goods of the world, and they torment themselves and are disconsolate, whenever it fails them. Because they never taste, or recognize, the highest and truest Good, they take no thought or reckoning of It. O sorrow, how easily Charity [which is a love of God, first and foremost] is wasted and set aside for any kind of pleasure, and how often Faith remains without any fruit and is involved in death!” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Faithless Souls
“If the faithful do not feel these and even more wonderful effects of Faith, it is not because Faith has not the strength and efficacy to produce them, but it is because some of the faithful are so forgetting and negligent, while others give themselves up so much to a carnal and bestial life and thereby counteract the blessing of Faith. They think so rarely of it, that they might as well not have received it at all. As they live like the infidels, who have never enjoyed its advantages, and, as they gradually become conscious of their unhappy infidelity, they fall into greater wickedness than the unbelievers. For such is the result of their abominable ingratitude and contempt for this exalted and sovereign gift of their Faith” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Unhappy Souls
“Hence thou canst judge of the blind ignorance with which their deadly enemies have fascinated mortals, since all men, in the inordinate desire and pursuit of happiness, neglect the divine law, where alone it can be found; and hence few really attain happiness” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Pleasure-Seeking Souls
“Consider then, whether anything deserves greater pity, than to see so many men misled into danger and made forgetful of it; how some of them cast themselves into it, on account of their lightheartedness, some of them for trivial reasons, others for a short and instantaneous pleasure, others through negligence, and yet others on account of their inordinate appetites” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, fromThe Mystical City of God).
Fearless Souls
“In this life, any punishment or tribulation fills mortals with fear and dread, but the guilt of sin does not fill them with dread. Men are entirely taken up by that which is visible, and they therefore do not look upon the ultimate consequences of sin, which is the eternal punishment of Hell. The human heart becomes so forgetful that it remains, as if it were stupefied, in its wickedness, because it does not feel it present in its senses. Though it could see and feel it by Faith, its Faith is itself listless and dead. (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Blind Souls
“O most unhappy blindness of mortals! O lukewarm negligence, that holds so many souls in deceit! There are not words or sentences sufficient to describe this terrible and tremendous danger. Fear and flee such an unhappy state, and deliver thyself up to all the troubles and torments of life, which pass soon, rather than incur such a danger; for nothing will be lacking to thee, if thou do not lose God. Be convinced that there are no small faults! Fear greatly the small things, for in despising small faults the Most High knows, that the human heart invites other greater ones” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Preoccupied Souls
“In conversing with or worshiping the Most High, they fail to form a worthy concept of His infinite greatness, and fail to free themselves from thoughts of their earthly occupations, which thus make them lukewarm and carnal, unworthy and unfit for the magnificent communication with God [through prayer]. And this ill-bred coarseness entails another disorder: namely, that whenever they talk with their neighbors, they do it without order, measure or discretion; they become entangled in their outward actions, and losing the memory and presence of God in the excitement of their passions, and become completely entangled in what is earthly” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Thankless Souls
“If the children of the Holy Church would pause in their vain occupations and be ashamed of their lukewarm forgetfulness and repudiate their vile ingratitude. Let them be undeceived, for most terrible punishments await them” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Lost Souls
“They are surrounded by innumerable enemies [the invisible devils], who pursue them with diabolical treachery, unceasing vigilance, unquenchable wrath and restless diligence. What wonder then, that from such extremes, or rather from such unequal combat, irreparable defeats should arise among the mortals? And that, since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the damned should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men? May God preserve thee from such a misfortune; and do thou weep and deplore the misfortunes of thy brethren, continually asking for their salvation, as far as is possible” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Fervent Souls
“The fulfillment of the precepts of the Lord must not be cold and lukewarm, but most fervent and devoted” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
“Thou must continue without intervals of lukewarmness, lest thou disgust Him. At all times and in all places, occupations and operations, thou must keep God in sight. I command thee to treat Him with a magnanimous heart, with decorum and reverence, with deep felt fear of the soul. And whatever pertains to His divine worship, I desire that thou handle with all attention and care. Above all, in order to enter into His presence by prayer and petitions, free thyself from all sensible and earthly images” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
“It is necessary, that thou live retired within thyself, forgetful of all the visible and terrestrial things, most attentive to the divine light, which assists thee and protects thy sensible faculties with double vestments against the influences of lukewarmness and coldness on the way of perfection; and it is necessary, that thou resist the incitements of thy unruly passions” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Abandoned Souls
“Receive knowledge and enlightenment for avoiding such dangerous and gross lukewarmness. Jesus withdraws from the lukewarm and negligent souls, or deals with them only according to the general rules of His divine Providence … [which will then bring about] “the losses sustained by them through their lukewarmness and negligence” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Deluded Souls Fooling Themselves
“Another deceit has spread through the world: many imagine that they are following Christ their Master, though they neither suffer affliction nor engage in any exertion or labor. They are content with avoiding boldness in committing sins, and place all their perfection in a certain prudence or hollow self-love, which prevents them from denying anything to their will and from practicing any virtues at the cost of their flesh. They would easily escape this deception, if they would consider that my Son, although He well could do it, He chose not a life of softness and ease for the flesh, but one full of labors and pains; for He judged his instructions to be incomplete and insufficient, if He failed to teach them how to overcome the demon, the flesh and their own self. He wished to inculcate, that this magnificent victory is gained by the Cross, by labors, penances, mortifications and the acceptance of contempt: all of which are the trademarks and evidences of true love and the special watchwords of the predestined” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Souls Giving “Bottom-Dollar” for Heaven
“Tell me then, my daughter: if my Lord and Master has made Himself the Life and the Way for men through His Passion and Death, is it not evident that, in order to go that way and live up to this Truth, they must follow Christ crucified, afflicted, scourged and affronted? Consider the ignorance of men who wish to come to the Father without following Christ, since they expect to reign with God without suffering, or imitating His Passion, without even a thought of accepting any part of His Suffering and Death, or of thanking Him for it. They want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as those of Eternal Life, while Christ their Creator has suffered the most bitter pains and torments, in order to enter Heaven and to show them, by His example, how they are to find the Way of Light” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Our Lady is Angry and Incensed!
“All the faithful in such a dangerous and dreadful state of carelessness, when they have the Passion and Death of my Divine Son before their eyes. What then are the thoughts of the Angels and Saints, and what are my thoughts, in beholding this world and the small return made by heartless and ungrateful men for all our pains; and the lack of attention displayed by mortals through their lukewarmness and negligence? I am much incensed to find so few who console me and who try to console my Son in His sorrows. This hardness of heart will cause great confusion to them, on the Day of Judgment; since they will then see, with irreparable sorrow, not only that they were ungrateful, but were also inhuman and cruel towards my Divine Son, towards me and towards themselves” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
“I tell thee truly, only my intercession and the merits of His, Son, which I offer to the Eternal Father, can delay the punishment and placate His wrath, and delay the destruction of the world and the severe chastisement of the children of the Church, who know His will and fail to fulfill it” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
False and Fake Piety
“Weigh in thy heart, how much it cost my Lord to reconcile mankind to the Eternal Father and regain for them His friendship. Weep and afflict thyself that so many should live in such forgetfulness! And that so many should labor, with all their might, at destroying and losing what was bought by the Blood of God. Awaken in thy heart the deepest grief, that, in His Holy Church, there should be many followers of the hypocritical and sacrilegious priests who, under cover of a false piety, still condemn Christ; that pride and sumptuousness, with other grave vices, should be placed in authority and exalted, while humility, truth, justice and all virtues be so oppressed and debased, while avarice and vanity should prevail. Few know the poverty of Christ, and fewer embrace it. Holy Faith is hindered, and is not spread among the nations, on account of the boundless ambition of the mighty of this earth. The Faith, in many Catholics, is inactive and dead, and, what should be living, is near to death and to eternal perdition. The counsels of the Gospel are forgotten, its precepts trodden under foot, true charity is almost extinct” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Reformed Souls
Let us take these words to heart and reform our souls! Who is there, among us, who can say: “I am good enough! I have no need to change anything in my life! I have nobody else to reach and convert! I have paid all my debts for past sin! I will go straight to Heaven with no fear of Purgatory or Hell!” If there is someone like that out there reading this—then please pray for the rest of us!!
The Science of Saints
“My daughter, in all that thou art made to understand and write concerning these mysteries, thou drawest upon thyself, and upon mortals, a severe judgment, if thou dost not overcome thy pusillanimity, ingratitude and baseness, by meditating day and night on the Passion and Death of Jesus crucified. This is the great Science of the Saints, so little heeded by the worldly, it is the Bread of Life and the Spiritual Food of the little ones, which gives Wisdom to them and the lack of which starves the lovers of this proud world . In this science I wish thee to be studious and wise, for with it thou canst buy thyself all good things. My Son and Lord taught us this Science when He said: ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life: no one cometh to My Father except through Me’ (John 14:6).” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
The School of Saints
“My most holy Son and myself are trying to find, among those who have arrived at the Way of the Cross, some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine Science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the sons of Adam, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If thou wishest to be our disciple enter into this school, in which alone is taught the Doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights. With this wisdom, the earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible; nor the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the bleary-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors, and so full of ignorant admiration for costly grandeur” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
“By such standards must thou measure the value of suffering, which the worldly will not understand. Since they are unworthy of heavenly knowledge, they despise it in proportion to their ignorance. Rejoice and congratulate thyself in thy sufferings, and whenever the Almighty deigns to send thee any, hasten to meet it and welcome it as one of his blessings and pledges of his glorious love” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Don’t Just Listen ... Do Something
“With meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass. For he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was” (James 1:21-24).
Article 8
Thursday September 14th, 2023, the Finding and Exaltation of the Holy Cross
The Most Unpopular Feast of the Year!
Thursday September 14th, 2023, the Finding and Exaltation of the Holy Cross
The Most Unpopular Feast of the Year!
Friend or Foe?
Are you a friend of the Cross or are you an enemy of the Cross? Today is the day when we need to be tested, proved and sifted! Do you seek the Cross or do you flee from the Cross? Do you love the Cross or do you hate the cross? Is the Cross found on your back and shoulders or is it found in the closet or basement? Is the cross a familiar friend or a frightening foe?
The Message
Is it “Get the message across!” Or “Get the message? A cross!” Our Lord tried to get the message across to everyone! Get the message―a cross. “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23). “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27). “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Get the message? A cross! Get the message across―in you parish, your school, your home, your workplace. It is not for nothing that Holy Mother Church says in her liturgy: “In cruce salus!” ― meaning, “In the cross is salvation!” ― and “Ave crux, spes unica!” ― meaning, “Hail cross, our sole hope!”
St. Paul―enamored with the cross―writes: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18) … “God forbid that I should glory in anything, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14). St. Peter adds: “If you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice that, when His glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:13).
Unpopular Message
Unfortunately, there are few takers of the cross! “For many walk, of whom I have told you often―and now tell you weeping―that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:18-19).
Our Lady said the something similar to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … It was not necessary to suffer so much! … Yet He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! … But the worldlings, in their torpidity, are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion!
“My most holy Son and myself are trying to find some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the sons of Adam, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If thou wish to be Our disciple, then enter into this school―in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment―nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good. Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, and willingly enter upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, and to carry it after Christ. Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
The Imitation of Christ
We read the same message in the Imitation of Christ, which says: “Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him. But if Jesus hides Himself and leaves them for a while, they fall either into complaints or into deep dejection.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 11: “Few Love the Cross of Jesus”).
The Cross is the Key to Heaven
The next chapter elaborates upon this: “To many the saying, “Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24) seems hard, but it will be much harder to hear that final word: “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire” (Matthew 25:41). Those who hear the word of the cross and follow it willingly now, need not fear that they will hear of eternal damnation on the Day of Judgment. This sign of the cross will be in the heavens when the Lord comes to judge. Then all the servants of the cross, who during life made themselves one with the Crucified, will draw near with great trust to Christ, the judge.
“Why, then, do you fear to take up the cross when through it you can win a kingdom? In the cross is salvation, in the cross is life, in the cross is protection from enemies, in the cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness, in the cross is strength of mind, in the cross is joy of spirit, in the cross is highest virtue, in the cross is perfect holiness. There is no salvation of soul nor hope of everlasting life except in the cross. Take up your cross, therefore, and follow Jesus, and you shall enter eternal life. He Himself opened the way before you in carrying His cross, and upon it He died for you, that you, too, might take up your cross and long to die upon it. If you die with Him, you shall also live with Him, and if you share His suffering, you shall also share His glory.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12: “The Royal Road of the Cross”).
The Cross is Everywhere and Inescapable
The Imitation of Christ continues: “Behold, in the cross is everything, and upon your dying on the cross everything depends. There is no other way to life and to true inward peace than the way of the holy cross and daily mortification. Go where you will, seek what you will―you will not find a higher way, nor a less exalted but safer way, than the way of the holy cross. Arrange and order everything to suit your will and judgment, and still you will find that some suffering must always be borne―willingly or unwillingly―and thus you will always find the cross. You cannot escape, you cannot be relieved by any remedy or comfort―but must bear with it as long as God wills. For He wishes you to learn to bear trial without consolation, to submit yourself wholly to Him that you may become more humble through suffering. No one understands the passion of Christ so thoroughly or heartily as the man whose lot it is to suffer something similar himself. The cross, therefore, is always ready; it awaits you everywhere. No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it—you will find a cross in everything.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12: “The Royal Road of the Cross”).
The Cross is Straight and Narrow Path to Heaven
“If you carry the cross willingly, it will carry and lead you to the desired goal where indeed there shall be no more suffering, but here there shall be. If you carry it unwillingly, you create a burden for yourself and increase the load, though still you have to bear it. If you cast away one cross, you will find another and perhaps a heavier one. Do you expect to escape what no mortal man can ever avoid? Which of the saints was without a cross or trial on this Earth? Not even Jesus Christ, our Lord, Whose every hour on Earth knew the pain of His passion. How is it that you look for another way than this, the royal way of the holy cross? The whole life of Christ was a cross and a martyrdom―and do you seek rest and enjoyment for yourself? You deceive yourself, you are mistaken if you seek anything but to suffer, for this mortal life is full of miseries and marked with crosses on all sides. Indeed, the more spiritual progress a person makes, so much heavier will he frequently find the cross, because as his love increases, the pain of his exile also increases.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12: “The Royal Road of the Cross”).
“It is the grace of Christ, and not the virtue of man, which can and does bring it about that through fervor of spirit frail flesh learns to love and to gain what it naturally hates and shuns. To carry the cross, to love the cross, to chastise the body and bring it to subjection, to flee honors, to endure contempt gladly, to despise self and wish to be despised, to suffer any adversity and loss, to desire no prosperous days on Earth — this is not man’s way. If you rely upon yourself, you can do none of these things, but if you trust in the Lord, strength will be given you from Heaven and the world and the flesh will be made subject to your word. You will not even fear your enemy, the devil, if you are armed with Faith and signed with the cross of Christ.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12: “The Royal Road of the Cross”).
“Set yourself, then, like a good and faithful servant of Christ, to bear bravely the cross of your Lord, Who out of love was crucified for you. Be ready to suffer many adversities and many kinds of trouble in this miserable life. Drink the chalice of the Lord with affection it you wish to be His friend and to have part with Him. Leave consolation to God; let Him do as most pleases Him. On your part, be ready to bear sufferings and consider them the greatest consolation, for even though you alone were to undergo them all, the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come. When you shall have come to the point where suffering is sweet and acceptable for the sake of Christ, then consider yourself fortunate, for you have found paradise on Earth. But as long as suffering irks you and you seek to escape, so long will you be unfortunate, and the tribulation you seek to evade will follow you everywhere.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12: “The Royal Road of the Cross”).
“To suffer, then, remains your lot, if you mean to love Jesus and serve Him forever. If you were but worthy to suffer something for the name of Jesus, what great glory would be in store for you! With good reason, then, ought you to be willing to suffer a little for Christ since many suffer much more for the world. No man is fit to enjoy Heaven unless he has resigned himself to suffer hardship for Christ. Nothing is more acceptable to God, nothing more helpful for you on this Earth than to suffer willingly for Christ. If you had to make a choice, you ought to wish rather to suffer for Christ than to enjoy many consolations. Our merit and progress consist not in many pleasures and comforts but rather in enduring great afflictions and sufferings. If, indeed, there were anything better or more useful for man’s salvation than suffering, Christ would have shown it by word and example. But He clearly exhorts the disciples who follow Him, and all who wish to follow Him, to carry the cross, saying: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23). Therefore, through much suffering we must enter into the kingdom of God.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12: “The Royal Road of the Cross”).
Boo! Hiss! Nah!
You have to admit that we are not very “gung-ho” about the cross! We have been raised in a modern world where the bottom-line in everything is to make it as easy and cheap as possible! We naturally avoid things that are hard and choose those that are easier. If we HAVE TO carry a cross, then we would prefer it to be hollow, made of lightweight plastic, have a fur-lining, and auto-drive wheels on its base so that we don’t have to drag it along.
This should remind you of the humorous story of the man who was dissatisfied with the cross that Jesus had given him. So, first thing in the morning, he takes his cross back to the Supermarket of Crosses and complains to Jesus, at “Customer Service”, that the cross which he was given is just not good enough―it is far too heavy, it rubs against the skin too much, leaves lots of splinters behind, it is too long, does not sit and fit correctly, etc.
Jesus tells him to go and throw his cross on the big pile of crosses in the supermarket and dig through the pile to find a cross that was more according to his likes and tastes.
The man happily tosses his cross on the pile and starts sifting through the other crosses on the pile―but cannot seem to find one that will sit well with him and satisfy him.
After a few hours Our Lord asks: “How are you doing? Have you found one to your liking yet?”
The man replies: “No! But I will keep on looking! There looks to be tens of thousands to pick from! Just give me some more time! I’ll find something to my liking!”
“Okay!” says Our Lord, “But just remember―the Supermarket of Crosses closes at 9:00 p.m.”
With that, the man goes back to feverishly sorting through the pile of crosses.
Eventually Our Lord shouts out that the Supermarket of Crosses is closing in 5 minutes and that he had better choose one before closing time. Eventually, the man finds one that seems acceptable to him and smilingly carries it past Jesus on his way out of the supermarket. Jesus asks the man if he is happy with it. The man replies that it is the lightest one that he could find after almost a whole day of looking and searching. Jesus then remarks: “I hate to tell you this―but that is the cross that you came in with this morning!”
Crisis Crossroads! Crossroads Sign!
At Akita, on October 13th, 1973, Our Lady spoke of mankind being at a historical “crossroads” with regard to its fate, and she mentioned something about a “sign” at those “crossroads”, saying that “The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!” We all know what the Rosary is—but what is this mysterious “sign” of which she speaks? To take the “sign” in its proper context, here is the rest of the message that surrounds or embodies that “sign”:
“As I told you before (on August 3rd, 1973), if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests. The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres ... Churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord. The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them. Speak with courage … encourage one another to pray and to accomplish works of reparation. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved” (Our Lady of Akita, October 13th, 1973).
Don’t fool yourself about the road that we are on and these historic “crossroads” which we are undoubtedly rapidly approaching—whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not—we are there, they are in view, and, what happens in the near future, is largely down to the “turning” that we decide to take at those “crossroads”. (1) We can turn around and turn away from the “crossroads”, ignore the “crossroads” and go back to what we are doing. (2) We can turn to the left or the right, meaning we can turn to excess or neglect, despair or presumption, over-exaggerate or underestimate the danger. (3) Or we can cross the crossroads by going straight ahead, on the straight and narrow road that leads out this predicament and this mess. We cannot stand forever at these crossroads, thinking about what our decision should be, holding-up the “traffic-of-life”! Decisions! Decisions! It’s your choice. It’s your life. It’s your soul. It’s your responsibility. It’s your fate!
This is not “Virtual Reality” but “Real Reality”! This will not be “Reality TV” but “Reality for Thee”―as Our Lady said: “sparing neither priests nor faithful.” As the prophecies warn us, this terrible chastisement for sin will come about at a time when nobody is expecting it—there will be false peace and a false feeling of complacency in the world and then it will “come out of the blue”! O how easily we are fooled by the complacency of the world! How ready we are to believe the opposite of what Heaven tells us—just because the news is unpleasant, or even downright terrifying. Burying one’s head in the sand has never been easier! Especially since the modern way of “burying your head in the sand” means burying your head in the TV, the internet, the smartphone, the social-scene, sports and hobbies!
St. Louis de Montfort’s Letter to You (a Friend of the Cross)
Let us finish with some of the key extracts from St. Louis de Montfort’s booklet, Letter to the Friends of the Cross :
“Friends of the Cross, you are a group of crusaders united to fight against the world, not like those religious, men and women, who leave the world for fear of being overcome, but like brave, intrepid warriors on the battlefront, refusing to retreat or even to yield an inch. Be brave. Fight with all your might. Demons are united for your destruction, but you be united for their overthrow!
“You call yourselves “Friends of the Cross.” What a wonderful name! I must admit that it charms and fascinates me! Its splendor dazzles me―but the weight of it frightens me! A Friend of the Cross is one chosen by God from among ten thousand! A Friend of the Cross is a mighty king, a hero who triumphs over the devil, the world and the flesh and their threefold concupiscence. He overthrows the pride of Satan by his love for humiliation, he triumphs over the world’s greed by his love for poverty and he restrains the sensuality of the flesh by his love for suffering!
“A Friend of the Cross is a holy man, separated from visible things. His heart is lifted high above all that is frail and perishable; “his conversation is in Heaven” (Philippians 3:20); he journeys here below like a stranger and pilgrim. He keeps his heart free from the world, looks upon it with an unconcerned glance of his left eye and disdainfully tramples it under foot.
“My dear Friends of the Cross, does every act of yours justify what the eminent name you bear implies? Or at least are you, with the grace of God, in the shadow of Calvary’s Cross and of Our Lady of Pity, really eager and truly striving to attain this goal? Is the way you follow the one that leads to this goal? Is it the true way of life, the narrow way, the thorn-strewn way to Calvary? Or are you unconsciously traveling the world’s broad road, the road to perdition? Do you realize that there is a highroad which to all appearances is straight and safe for man to travel, but which in reality leads to death?
“Dear Brethren, these are the two groups that appear before you each day―the followers of Christ and the followers of the world. Our loving Savior’s group is to the right, scaling a narrow path made all the narrower by the world’s corruption. Our kind Master is in the lead, barefooted, thorn-crowned, robed in His blood and weighted with a heavy cross. There is only a handful of people who follow Him―but they are the bravest of the brave. His gentle voice is not heard above the noise of the world, nor do men have the courage to follow Him in poverty, suffering, humiliation and in the other crosses His servants must bear all the days of their life.
“To the left is the world’s group, the devil’s in fact, which is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendid in array. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded, although they are broad and ever broadening with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver (Matthew 7:13-14).
“To the right, the little flock that follows Jesus can speak only of tears, penance, prayer and contempt for worldly things. Sobbing in their grief, they can be heard repeating: “Let us suffer, let us weep, let us fast, let us pray, let us hide, let us humble ourselves, let us be poor, let us mortify ourselves! For he who has not the spirit of Christ, the spirit of the Cross, is none of Christ’s. Those who are Christ’s have crucified their flesh with its concupiscence. We must be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ or else be damned!” Friends of the Cross spur each other on with such divine words.
“Worldlings, on the contrary, rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. “Enjoy life, peace and pleasure,” they shout, “Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play! God is good, He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples; we shall not die!” And so they continue.
“Let us fly from the corrupting concupiscence and enticements of a corrupt world (2 Peter 1:4). Let us love Jesus in the right way, standing by Him through the heaviest of crosses. Let us meditate seriously on these remarkable words of our beloved Master which sum up the Christian life in its perfection: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24).
Christian perfection consists in (1) willing to become a saint: “If any man will come after Me”; (2) in self-denial: “Let him deny himself”; (3) in suffering: “Let him take up his cross”; (4) in doing: “Let him follow Me.” Understand this, dear Friends of the Cross, should there be anyone among you who has not this firm resolve, he is just limping along on one foot, flying with one wing, and undeserving of your company, since he is not worthy to be called a Friend of the Cross.
Far be from the Company of the Friends of the Cross those who pride themselves in suffering, the worldly-wise elated geniuses and self-conceited individuals who are stubborn and puffed-up with their lights and talents. Far be they from us, those endless talkers who make plenty of noise but bring forth no other fruit than vainglory. Far from us those high-browed devotees, everywhere displaying the self-sufficient pride of Lucifer: “I am not like the rest!” (Luke 18:11). Far be from us those who must always justify themselves when blamed, resist when attacked and exalt themselves when humbled. Be careful not to admit into your fellowship those frail, sensitive persons who are afraid of the slightest pinprick, who sob and sigh when faced with the lightest suffering, who have never experienced a hair-shirt, a discipline or any other penitential instrument, and who, with their fashionable devotions, mingle the most artful delicacy and the most refined lack of mortification.
Let him ‘carry’ the cross, and not drag it, not shoulder it off, not lighten it, nor hide it. Let him hold it high in hand, without impatience or peevishness, without voluntary complaint or grumbling, without dividing or softening, without shame or human respect. Let him place it on his forehead and say with St. Paul: “God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14).
The ‘cross’ ― it is the ‘cross’ he must carry for there is nothing more necessary, more useful, more agreeable and more glorious than suffering for Jesus Christ. All of you are sinners and there is not a single one who is not deserving of Hell; I myself deserve it the most. These sins of ours must be punished either here or hereafter. If they are punished in this world, they will not be punished in the world to come. If we agree to God’s punishing here below, this punishment will be light and momentary; blended with merit and sweetness and followed up with reward both in time and eternity. But if the punishment due to our sins is held over for the next world, then God’s avenging justice, which means fire and blood, will see to the punishing. What horrible punishment! How incomprehensible, how unspeakable! “Who knoweth the power of thy anger?” (Psalm 89:11). Punishment devoid of mercy (James 2:13), pity, mitigation or merit, without limit and without end. Yes, without end! That mortal sin of a moment that you committed, that deliberate evil thought which now escapes your memory, the word that is gone with the wind, that act of such short duration against God’s law—they shall all be punished for an eternity, punished with the devils of Hell, as long as God is God! The God of vengeance will have no pity on your torments or your sobs and tears, violent enough to cleave the rocks. Suffering and still more suffering, without merit without mercy and without end!
“Do we think of this, my dear Brothers and Sisters, when we have some trial to undergo here below? Blessed indeed are we who have the privilege of exchanging an eternal and fruitless penalty for a temporary and meritorious suffering, just by patiently carrying our cross. What debts we still have to pay! How many sins we have committed which, despite a sincere confession and heartfelt contrition, will have to be atoned for in Purgatory for many a century, simply because in this world we were satisfied with a few insignificant penances! Let us settle our debts with good grace here below in cheerfully bearing our crosses, for in the world to come everything must be expiated, even the idle word (Matthew 12:36) and even to the last farthing. If we could lay hands on the devil’s death-register in which he has noted down all our sins and the penalty to be paid, what a heavy debit we would find and how joyfully we would suffer many years here on Earth rather than a single day in the world to come!” (St. Louis de Montfort’s booklet, Letter to the Friends of the Cross).
Are you a friend of the Cross or are you an enemy of the Cross? Today is the day when we need to be tested, proved and sifted! Do you seek the Cross or do you flee from the Cross? Do you love the Cross or do you hate the cross? Is the Cross found on your back and shoulders or is it found in the closet or basement? Is the cross a familiar friend or a frightening foe?
The Message
Is it “Get the message across!” Or “Get the message? A cross!” Our Lord tried to get the message across to everyone! Get the message―a cross. “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23). “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27). “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Get the message? A cross! Get the message across―in you parish, your school, your home, your workplace. It is not for nothing that Holy Mother Church says in her liturgy: “In cruce salus!” ― meaning, “In the cross is salvation!” ― and “Ave crux, spes unica!” ― meaning, “Hail cross, our sole hope!”
St. Paul―enamored with the cross―writes: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18) … “God forbid that I should glory in anything, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14). St. Peter adds: “If you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice that, when His glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:13).
Unpopular Message
Unfortunately, there are few takers of the cross! “For many walk, of whom I have told you often―and now tell you weeping―that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:18-19).
Our Lady said the something similar to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … It was not necessary to suffer so much! … Yet He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! … But the worldlings, in their torpidity, are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion!
“My most holy Son and myself are trying to find some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the sons of Adam, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If thou wish to be Our disciple, then enter into this school―in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment―nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good. Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, and willingly enter upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, and to carry it after Christ. Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
The Imitation of Christ
We read the same message in the Imitation of Christ, which says: “Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him. But if Jesus hides Himself and leaves them for a while, they fall either into complaints or into deep dejection.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 11: “Few Love the Cross of Jesus”).
The Cross is the Key to Heaven
The next chapter elaborates upon this: “To many the saying, “Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24) seems hard, but it will be much harder to hear that final word: “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire” (Matthew 25:41). Those who hear the word of the cross and follow it willingly now, need not fear that they will hear of eternal damnation on the Day of Judgment. This sign of the cross will be in the heavens when the Lord comes to judge. Then all the servants of the cross, who during life made themselves one with the Crucified, will draw near with great trust to Christ, the judge.
“Why, then, do you fear to take up the cross when through it you can win a kingdom? In the cross is salvation, in the cross is life, in the cross is protection from enemies, in the cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness, in the cross is strength of mind, in the cross is joy of spirit, in the cross is highest virtue, in the cross is perfect holiness. There is no salvation of soul nor hope of everlasting life except in the cross. Take up your cross, therefore, and follow Jesus, and you shall enter eternal life. He Himself opened the way before you in carrying His cross, and upon it He died for you, that you, too, might take up your cross and long to die upon it. If you die with Him, you shall also live with Him, and if you share His suffering, you shall also share His glory.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12: “The Royal Road of the Cross”).
The Cross is Everywhere and Inescapable
The Imitation of Christ continues: “Behold, in the cross is everything, and upon your dying on the cross everything depends. There is no other way to life and to true inward peace than the way of the holy cross and daily mortification. Go where you will, seek what you will―you will not find a higher way, nor a less exalted but safer way, than the way of the holy cross. Arrange and order everything to suit your will and judgment, and still you will find that some suffering must always be borne―willingly or unwillingly―and thus you will always find the cross. You cannot escape, you cannot be relieved by any remedy or comfort―but must bear with it as long as God wills. For He wishes you to learn to bear trial without consolation, to submit yourself wholly to Him that you may become more humble through suffering. No one understands the passion of Christ so thoroughly or heartily as the man whose lot it is to suffer something similar himself. The cross, therefore, is always ready; it awaits you everywhere. No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it—you will find a cross in everything.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12: “The Royal Road of the Cross”).
The Cross is Straight and Narrow Path to Heaven
“If you carry the cross willingly, it will carry and lead you to the desired goal where indeed there shall be no more suffering, but here there shall be. If you carry it unwillingly, you create a burden for yourself and increase the load, though still you have to bear it. If you cast away one cross, you will find another and perhaps a heavier one. Do you expect to escape what no mortal man can ever avoid? Which of the saints was without a cross or trial on this Earth? Not even Jesus Christ, our Lord, Whose every hour on Earth knew the pain of His passion. How is it that you look for another way than this, the royal way of the holy cross? The whole life of Christ was a cross and a martyrdom―and do you seek rest and enjoyment for yourself? You deceive yourself, you are mistaken if you seek anything but to suffer, for this mortal life is full of miseries and marked with crosses on all sides. Indeed, the more spiritual progress a person makes, so much heavier will he frequently find the cross, because as his love increases, the pain of his exile also increases.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12: “The Royal Road of the Cross”).
“It is the grace of Christ, and not the virtue of man, which can and does bring it about that through fervor of spirit frail flesh learns to love and to gain what it naturally hates and shuns. To carry the cross, to love the cross, to chastise the body and bring it to subjection, to flee honors, to endure contempt gladly, to despise self and wish to be despised, to suffer any adversity and loss, to desire no prosperous days on Earth — this is not man’s way. If you rely upon yourself, you can do none of these things, but if you trust in the Lord, strength will be given you from Heaven and the world and the flesh will be made subject to your word. You will not even fear your enemy, the devil, if you are armed with Faith and signed with the cross of Christ.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12: “The Royal Road of the Cross”).
“Set yourself, then, like a good and faithful servant of Christ, to bear bravely the cross of your Lord, Who out of love was crucified for you. Be ready to suffer many adversities and many kinds of trouble in this miserable life. Drink the chalice of the Lord with affection it you wish to be His friend and to have part with Him. Leave consolation to God; let Him do as most pleases Him. On your part, be ready to bear sufferings and consider them the greatest consolation, for even though you alone were to undergo them all, the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come. When you shall have come to the point where suffering is sweet and acceptable for the sake of Christ, then consider yourself fortunate, for you have found paradise on Earth. But as long as suffering irks you and you seek to escape, so long will you be unfortunate, and the tribulation you seek to evade will follow you everywhere.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12: “The Royal Road of the Cross”).
“To suffer, then, remains your lot, if you mean to love Jesus and serve Him forever. If you were but worthy to suffer something for the name of Jesus, what great glory would be in store for you! With good reason, then, ought you to be willing to suffer a little for Christ since many suffer much more for the world. No man is fit to enjoy Heaven unless he has resigned himself to suffer hardship for Christ. Nothing is more acceptable to God, nothing more helpful for you on this Earth than to suffer willingly for Christ. If you had to make a choice, you ought to wish rather to suffer for Christ than to enjoy many consolations. Our merit and progress consist not in many pleasures and comforts but rather in enduring great afflictions and sufferings. If, indeed, there were anything better or more useful for man’s salvation than suffering, Christ would have shown it by word and example. But He clearly exhorts the disciples who follow Him, and all who wish to follow Him, to carry the cross, saying: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23). Therefore, through much suffering we must enter into the kingdom of God.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12: “The Royal Road of the Cross”).
Boo! Hiss! Nah!
You have to admit that we are not very “gung-ho” about the cross! We have been raised in a modern world where the bottom-line in everything is to make it as easy and cheap as possible! We naturally avoid things that are hard and choose those that are easier. If we HAVE TO carry a cross, then we would prefer it to be hollow, made of lightweight plastic, have a fur-lining, and auto-drive wheels on its base so that we don’t have to drag it along.
This should remind you of the humorous story of the man who was dissatisfied with the cross that Jesus had given him. So, first thing in the morning, he takes his cross back to the Supermarket of Crosses and complains to Jesus, at “Customer Service”, that the cross which he was given is just not good enough―it is far too heavy, it rubs against the skin too much, leaves lots of splinters behind, it is too long, does not sit and fit correctly, etc.
Jesus tells him to go and throw his cross on the big pile of crosses in the supermarket and dig through the pile to find a cross that was more according to his likes and tastes.
The man happily tosses his cross on the pile and starts sifting through the other crosses on the pile―but cannot seem to find one that will sit well with him and satisfy him.
After a few hours Our Lord asks: “How are you doing? Have you found one to your liking yet?”
The man replies: “No! But I will keep on looking! There looks to be tens of thousands to pick from! Just give me some more time! I’ll find something to my liking!”
“Okay!” says Our Lord, “But just remember―the Supermarket of Crosses closes at 9:00 p.m.”
With that, the man goes back to feverishly sorting through the pile of crosses.
Eventually Our Lord shouts out that the Supermarket of Crosses is closing in 5 minutes and that he had better choose one before closing time. Eventually, the man finds one that seems acceptable to him and smilingly carries it past Jesus on his way out of the supermarket. Jesus asks the man if he is happy with it. The man replies that it is the lightest one that he could find after almost a whole day of looking and searching. Jesus then remarks: “I hate to tell you this―but that is the cross that you came in with this morning!”
Crisis Crossroads! Crossroads Sign!
At Akita, on October 13th, 1973, Our Lady spoke of mankind being at a historical “crossroads” with regard to its fate, and she mentioned something about a “sign” at those “crossroads”, saying that “The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!” We all know what the Rosary is—but what is this mysterious “sign” of which she speaks? To take the “sign” in its proper context, here is the rest of the message that surrounds or embodies that “sign”:
“As I told you before (on August 3rd, 1973), if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests. The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres ... Churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord. The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them. Speak with courage … encourage one another to pray and to accomplish works of reparation. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved” (Our Lady of Akita, October 13th, 1973).
Don’t fool yourself about the road that we are on and these historic “crossroads” which we are undoubtedly rapidly approaching—whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not—we are there, they are in view, and, what happens in the near future, is largely down to the “turning” that we decide to take at those “crossroads”. (1) We can turn around and turn away from the “crossroads”, ignore the “crossroads” and go back to what we are doing. (2) We can turn to the left or the right, meaning we can turn to excess or neglect, despair or presumption, over-exaggerate or underestimate the danger. (3) Or we can cross the crossroads by going straight ahead, on the straight and narrow road that leads out this predicament and this mess. We cannot stand forever at these crossroads, thinking about what our decision should be, holding-up the “traffic-of-life”! Decisions! Decisions! It’s your choice. It’s your life. It’s your soul. It’s your responsibility. It’s your fate!
This is not “Virtual Reality” but “Real Reality”! This will not be “Reality TV” but “Reality for Thee”―as Our Lady said: “sparing neither priests nor faithful.” As the prophecies warn us, this terrible chastisement for sin will come about at a time when nobody is expecting it—there will be false peace and a false feeling of complacency in the world and then it will “come out of the blue”! O how easily we are fooled by the complacency of the world! How ready we are to believe the opposite of what Heaven tells us—just because the news is unpleasant, or even downright terrifying. Burying one’s head in the sand has never been easier! Especially since the modern way of “burying your head in the sand” means burying your head in the TV, the internet, the smartphone, the social-scene, sports and hobbies!
St. Louis de Montfort’s Letter to You (a Friend of the Cross)
Let us finish with some of the key extracts from St. Louis de Montfort’s booklet, Letter to the Friends of the Cross :
“Friends of the Cross, you are a group of crusaders united to fight against the world, not like those religious, men and women, who leave the world for fear of being overcome, but like brave, intrepid warriors on the battlefront, refusing to retreat or even to yield an inch. Be brave. Fight with all your might. Demons are united for your destruction, but you be united for their overthrow!
“You call yourselves “Friends of the Cross.” What a wonderful name! I must admit that it charms and fascinates me! Its splendor dazzles me―but the weight of it frightens me! A Friend of the Cross is one chosen by God from among ten thousand! A Friend of the Cross is a mighty king, a hero who triumphs over the devil, the world and the flesh and their threefold concupiscence. He overthrows the pride of Satan by his love for humiliation, he triumphs over the world’s greed by his love for poverty and he restrains the sensuality of the flesh by his love for suffering!
“A Friend of the Cross is a holy man, separated from visible things. His heart is lifted high above all that is frail and perishable; “his conversation is in Heaven” (Philippians 3:20); he journeys here below like a stranger and pilgrim. He keeps his heart free from the world, looks upon it with an unconcerned glance of his left eye and disdainfully tramples it under foot.
“My dear Friends of the Cross, does every act of yours justify what the eminent name you bear implies? Or at least are you, with the grace of God, in the shadow of Calvary’s Cross and of Our Lady of Pity, really eager and truly striving to attain this goal? Is the way you follow the one that leads to this goal? Is it the true way of life, the narrow way, the thorn-strewn way to Calvary? Or are you unconsciously traveling the world’s broad road, the road to perdition? Do you realize that there is a highroad which to all appearances is straight and safe for man to travel, but which in reality leads to death?
“Dear Brethren, these are the two groups that appear before you each day―the followers of Christ and the followers of the world. Our loving Savior’s group is to the right, scaling a narrow path made all the narrower by the world’s corruption. Our kind Master is in the lead, barefooted, thorn-crowned, robed in His blood and weighted with a heavy cross. There is only a handful of people who follow Him―but they are the bravest of the brave. His gentle voice is not heard above the noise of the world, nor do men have the courage to follow Him in poverty, suffering, humiliation and in the other crosses His servants must bear all the days of their life.
“To the left is the world’s group, the devil’s in fact, which is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendid in array. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded, although they are broad and ever broadening with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver (Matthew 7:13-14).
“To the right, the little flock that follows Jesus can speak only of tears, penance, prayer and contempt for worldly things. Sobbing in their grief, they can be heard repeating: “Let us suffer, let us weep, let us fast, let us pray, let us hide, let us humble ourselves, let us be poor, let us mortify ourselves! For he who has not the spirit of Christ, the spirit of the Cross, is none of Christ’s. Those who are Christ’s have crucified their flesh with its concupiscence. We must be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ or else be damned!” Friends of the Cross spur each other on with such divine words.
“Worldlings, on the contrary, rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. “Enjoy life, peace and pleasure,” they shout, “Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play! God is good, He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples; we shall not die!” And so they continue.
“Let us fly from the corrupting concupiscence and enticements of a corrupt world (2 Peter 1:4). Let us love Jesus in the right way, standing by Him through the heaviest of crosses. Let us meditate seriously on these remarkable words of our beloved Master which sum up the Christian life in its perfection: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24).
Christian perfection consists in (1) willing to become a saint: “If any man will come after Me”; (2) in self-denial: “Let him deny himself”; (3) in suffering: “Let him take up his cross”; (4) in doing: “Let him follow Me.” Understand this, dear Friends of the Cross, should there be anyone among you who has not this firm resolve, he is just limping along on one foot, flying with one wing, and undeserving of your company, since he is not worthy to be called a Friend of the Cross.
Far be from the Company of the Friends of the Cross those who pride themselves in suffering, the worldly-wise elated geniuses and self-conceited individuals who are stubborn and puffed-up with their lights and talents. Far be they from us, those endless talkers who make plenty of noise but bring forth no other fruit than vainglory. Far from us those high-browed devotees, everywhere displaying the self-sufficient pride of Lucifer: “I am not like the rest!” (Luke 18:11). Far be from us those who must always justify themselves when blamed, resist when attacked and exalt themselves when humbled. Be careful not to admit into your fellowship those frail, sensitive persons who are afraid of the slightest pinprick, who sob and sigh when faced with the lightest suffering, who have never experienced a hair-shirt, a discipline or any other penitential instrument, and who, with their fashionable devotions, mingle the most artful delicacy and the most refined lack of mortification.
Let him ‘carry’ the cross, and not drag it, not shoulder it off, not lighten it, nor hide it. Let him hold it high in hand, without impatience or peevishness, without voluntary complaint or grumbling, without dividing or softening, without shame or human respect. Let him place it on his forehead and say with St. Paul: “God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14).
The ‘cross’ ― it is the ‘cross’ he must carry for there is nothing more necessary, more useful, more agreeable and more glorious than suffering for Jesus Christ. All of you are sinners and there is not a single one who is not deserving of Hell; I myself deserve it the most. These sins of ours must be punished either here or hereafter. If they are punished in this world, they will not be punished in the world to come. If we agree to God’s punishing here below, this punishment will be light and momentary; blended with merit and sweetness and followed up with reward both in time and eternity. But if the punishment due to our sins is held over for the next world, then God’s avenging justice, which means fire and blood, will see to the punishing. What horrible punishment! How incomprehensible, how unspeakable! “Who knoweth the power of thy anger?” (Psalm 89:11). Punishment devoid of mercy (James 2:13), pity, mitigation or merit, without limit and without end. Yes, without end! That mortal sin of a moment that you committed, that deliberate evil thought which now escapes your memory, the word that is gone with the wind, that act of such short duration against God’s law—they shall all be punished for an eternity, punished with the devils of Hell, as long as God is God! The God of vengeance will have no pity on your torments or your sobs and tears, violent enough to cleave the rocks. Suffering and still more suffering, without merit without mercy and without end!
“Do we think of this, my dear Brothers and Sisters, when we have some trial to undergo here below? Blessed indeed are we who have the privilege of exchanging an eternal and fruitless penalty for a temporary and meritorious suffering, just by patiently carrying our cross. What debts we still have to pay! How many sins we have committed which, despite a sincere confession and heartfelt contrition, will have to be atoned for in Purgatory for many a century, simply because in this world we were satisfied with a few insignificant penances! Let us settle our debts with good grace here below in cheerfully bearing our crosses, for in the world to come everything must be expiated, even the idle word (Matthew 12:36) and even to the last farthing. If we could lay hands on the devil’s death-register in which he has noted down all our sins and the penalty to be paid, what a heavy debit we would find and how joyfully we would suffer many years here on Earth rather than a single day in the world to come!” (St. Louis de Montfort’s booklet, Letter to the Friends of the Cross).
Article 7
Wednesday September 13th, 2023, the day of the 5th Fatima Apparition
Roping Kids Into Penance!
Wednesday September 13th, 2023, the day of the 5th Fatima Apparition
Roping Kids Into Penance!
Our Lady of “The Rope”
It was on this day―September 13th, 1917―that Our Lady of Fatima, in her 5th apparition, told the three children that God was pleased with the many penances that they doing, but, as regards the penance of the rope, they should continue doing it, but she told them not to wear the rope at night while they were sleeping.
So what is this “rope” all about? You are about to get “roped-in” as we explain! Sister Lucia herself―in her written Memoirs―tells us about the “rope”. She writes: “One day, as we were walking along the road with our sheep, I found a piece of rope that had fallen off a cart. I picked it up and, just for fun, I tied it round my arm. Before long, I noticed that the rope was hurting me. ‘Look, this hurts!’ I said to my cousins [Francisco and Jacinta]. ‘We could tie it round our waists and offer this sacrifice to God!’ The poor children promptly fell in with my suggestion. We then set about dividing it between the three of us, by placing it across a stone and striking it with the sharp edge of another one that served as a knife. Either because of the thickness or roughness of the rope, or because we sometimes tied it too tightly, this instrument of penance often caused us terrible suffering. Now and then, Jacinta could not keep back her tears, so great was the discomfort this caused her. Whenever I urged her to remove it, she replied: ‘No! I want to offer this sacrifice to Our Lord in reparation, and for the conversion of sinners!’”
It was not long before all three children―Lucia (aged 10), Francisco (aged 9) and Jacinta (aged 7)―were wearing their ropes tightly bound around their waists, but underneath their clothing so that nobody would know. God knew! Our Lady knew! Thus it was that on this September 13th apparition Our Lady said to them: “God is pleased with your sacrifices! But He does not want you to sleep with the rope on, but only to wear it during the daytime!”
Francisco and Jacinta wore their ropes until the time they became sick and approached their death. Lucia recalls: “One day, Francisco gave me the rope that I have already spoken about, saying: ‘Take it away before my mother sees it. I don’t feel able to wear it any more around my waist!’” As for Jacinta, Lucia says: “A few days after falling ill, Jacinta gave me the rope she had been wearing, and said: ‘Keep it for me; I’m afraid my mother may see it! If I get better, I want it back again!’ This cord had three knots, and was somewhat stained with blood. I kept it hidden until I finally left my mother’s home. Then, not knowing what to do with it, I burned it, and Francisco’s as well!”
Our Lady Arrested and Sued!
In our modern world, Our Lady’s demands, statements and treatment of the three young children would see her arrested and sued in court on the basis of cruelty to children! At her first apparition she asks the three young children―aged 10, 9 and 7―to sacrifice themselves for sinners and tells them: “… offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners … You are going to have much to suffer!” Then she scares the living daylights out of them by not just talking of Hell, but actually showing them Hell!
Sister Lucia later described the experience thus: “We saw a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned]. The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration [devastating fire] ― at one moment raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke; and then in the next moment, they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright — it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me. The demons were distinguished [from the souls of the damned] by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. That vision only lasted for a moment―thanks to our good Heavenly Mother―who at the first apparition had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear.”
On top of that, Our Lady―who, let us not forget, was in total control of all circumstances and could have arranged anything she wanted according to God’s Providence―Our Lady then allows the children to be kidnapped by the local Freemasonic mayor, to then be placed in a prison and threatened with being killed in boiling oil! Our Lady allowed that to happen despite having it in her power to prevent it! The legal courts would have a field day!
Our Lady Disrupts and Destroys Family Life
You can also say that Our Lady disrupted and almost destroyed family life―especially in the case of Lucia―whose mother would not believe Our Lady was appearing to Lucia, and, as a consequence, tried to “beat the truth out of her” by repeated beatings and psychological torment within the privacy of the home. Remember―Our Lady could have directed Divine Providence or the angels to prevent all this negativity and destruction, but she did not. Sister Lucia tells us:
► BEATINGS: “The news of what had happened was spreading. My mother was getting worried, and wanted at all costs to make me deny what I had said. One day, before I set out with the flock, she was determined to make me confess that I was telling lies, and to this end she spared neither caresses, nor threats, nor even the broomstick. To all this she received nothing but a mute silence, or the confirmation of all that I had already said. She told me to go and let out the sheep, and during the day to consider well that she had never tolerated a single lie among her children, and much less would she allow a lie of this kind. She warned me that she would force me, that very evening, to go to those people whom I had deceived, confess that I had lied and ask their pardon …
“My mother became more and more upset at the way things were progressing. This led her to make yet another attempt to force me to confess that I had lied … I was overwhelmed with bitterness. I could see that my mother was deeply distressed, and that she wanted at all costs to compel me, as she put it, to admit that I had lied. I wanted so much to do as she wished, but the only way I could do so was to tell a lie! From the cradle, she had instilled into her children a great horror of Iying, and she used to chastise severely any one of us who told an untruth. After bitter complaints, she would turn to me, saying: ‘Make up your mind which you want! Either undo all this deception by telling these people that you’ve lied, or I’ll lock you up in a dark room where you won’t even see the light of the sun. After all the troubles I’ve been through, and now a thing like this to happen!’ My sisters sided with my mother, and all around me the atmosphere was one of utter scorn and contempt.
► INTERROGATIONS: “Around that time, our parish priest came to know of what was happening, and sent word to my mother to take me to his house. My mother felt she could breathe again, thinking the priest was going to take responsibility for these events on himself. She therefore said to me: ‘Tomorrow, we’re going to Mass―the first thing in the morning! Then, you are going to the Reverend Father’s house. Just let him compel you to tell the truth―no matter how he does it! Let him punish you! Let him do whatever he likes with you! Just so long as he forces you to admit that you have lied; and then I’ll be satisfied!’ My sisters also took my mother’s part and invented endless threats, just to frighten me about the interview with the parish priest. Early in the morning, she called me and told me she was taking me to see the parish priest, saying: ‘When you get there, go down on your knees, tell him that you’ve lied, and ask his pardon!’ As we walked along, my mother preached me a fine sermon. At a certain point, I said to her, trembling: ‘But, mother, how can I say that I did not see, when I did see?’ My mother was silent. As we drew near the priest’s house, she declared: ‘Just you listen to me! What I want is that you should tell the truth. If you saw, say so! But if you didn’t see, admit that you lied.’ Without another word, we climbed the stairs, and the good priest received us in his study with the greatest kindness and even, I might almost say, with affection.
“The interrogation was very minute and, I would even venture to say, tiresome. He questioned me seriously, but most courteously, and resorted to various stratagems to see if I would contradict myself, or be inconsistent in my statements. Finally, he dismissed us, shrugging his shoulders, as if to imply: I don’t know what to make of all this!’ He concluded with this brief observation: ‘It doesn’t seem to me like a revelation from Heaven. It is usual in such cases for Our Lord to tell the souls to whom He makes such communications to give their confessor or parish priest an account of what has happened. But this child, on the contrary, keeps it to herself as far as she can. This may also be a deceit of the devil. We shall see. The future will show us what we are to think about it all!’
► MENTAL ANGUISH: “How much this reflection made me suffer, only God knows! I began then to have doubts as to whether these manifestations might be from the devil, who was seeking by these means to make me lose my soul. As I heard people say that the devil always brings conflict and disorder, I began to think that, truly, ever since I had started seeing these things, our home was no longer the same, for joy and peace had fled. I lost all enthusiasm for making sacrifices and acts of mortification, and ended up hesitating as to whether it wouldn’t be better to say that I had been Iying, and so put an end to the whole thing. I had a dream which only increased the darkness of my spirit. I saw the devil laughing at having deceived me, as he tried to drag me down to Hell. On finding myself in his clutches, I began to scream so loudly and call on Our Lady for help that I awakened my mother. She called out to me in alarm, and asked me what was the matter. I can’t recall what I told her, but I do remember that I was so paralyzed with fear that I couldn’t sleep any more that night. This dream left my soul clouded over with real fear and anguish. My one relief was to go off by myself to some solitary place, there to weep to my heart’s content.
► HAULED BEFORE THE AUTHORITIES: “Not many days later, our parents were notified [on August 10th] to the effect that all three of us, Jacinta, Francisco and myself, together with our fathers, were to appear at a given hour on the following day before the Administration in Vila Nova de Ourém. Francisco’s and Jacinta’s father said: “I’m not going to take my children, nor present them before any tribunal! Why, they’re not old enough to be responsible for their actions! I’ll go myself and see what they want!’ My father thought differently and said: ‘As for my girl, I’m taking her! Let her answer for herself! I don’t understand a thing about this!’ They all took advantage of this occasion to frighten us in every way they could. At the Administration office [on August 11th], I was interrogated by the Administrator [Mayor/Magistrate, Arturo Santos, a Freemason], in the presence of my father, my uncle and several other gentlemen who were strangers to me. The Administrator was determined to force me to reveal the secret and to promise him never again to return to the Cova da Iria. To attain his end, he spared neither promises, nor even threats. Seeing that he was getting nowhere, he dismissed me, protesting however, that he would achieve his end, even if this meant that he had to take my life. He finally let us go home.
► THE BLAME GAME: “In my own family, there was fresh trouble, and the blame for this was thrown on me. The Cova da Iria was a piece of land belonging to my parents. In the hollow, it was more fertile, and there we cultivated maize, greens, peas and other vegetables. On the slopes grew olive trees, oaks and holm oaks. Now, ever since the people began to go there, we had been unable to cultivate anything at all. Everything was trampled on. As the majority came mounted, their animals ate up all they could find and wrecked the whole place. My mother bewailed her loss: ‘You, now,’ she said to me, ‘when you want something to eat, go and ask the Lady for it!’ My sisters chimed in with: ‘Yes, you can have what grows in the Cova da Iria!’ These remarks cut me to the heart, so much so that I hardly dared to take a piece of bread to eat. To force me to tell the truth, as she said, my mother, more often than not, beat me soundly with the broom-handle or a stick from the woodpile near the fireplace. By a special grace from Our Lord, I never experienced the slightest thought or feeling of resentment regarding her manner of acting towards me.
► KIDNAPPED: “Then an order came from the Administrator [Mayor/Magistrate, Arturo Santos], telling me to go to my aunt’s house, where he was awaiting me [on the morning of August 13th, the day Our Lady was to next appear]. My father got the notification and it was he who took me there. When I arrived, the Administrator was in a room with my cousins. He interrogated us there, and made fresh attempts to force us to reveal the secret and to promise that we would not go back to the Cova da Iria. As he achieved nothing, he gave orders to my father and my uncle to take us to the parish priest’s house. What I felt most deeply and what caused me most suffering on that occasion was my being completely abandoned by my family; and it was the same for my little cousins.”
The Mayor/Magistrate of Vila Nova de Ourem, Arturo Santos, a Freemason, said that he had converted and believed the children. He convinced the fathers of the children that he desired to “attend the miracle” with them later that same day, but that he first wanted to take them to meet with the village priest. After being questioned by the village priest, the Administrator had the children get into his carriage. The carriage at first made for the Cova da Iria, but suddenly turned and flew off in the other direction. The Administrator attempted to calm the children by saying that they were first going to meet with the priest at Ourem. Finally he arrived in triumph at his house, believing that by keeping the children from the Cova, nothing supernatural would happen and the business of the apparitions would be given up. When they arrived at the Mayor’s house, the children were shut up in a room and told that they would not be let out until they had revealed the Secret. The following day they were forced to undergo nine interrogations, but the children, strengthened by a special grace, remained steadfast. The Mayor/Magistrate, Arturo Santos, wanted to learn the Secret from them at any cost―but he could neither extract it nor trick the children into contradicting each other. He even called in a doctor to accuse the children of hallucinations and hysteria. The doctor’s conclusions have never been published. This fact speaks volumes, for had the doctor’s conclusion been that the children were hallucinating, the Administrator would have wasted no time in publishing the doctor’s testimony.
► IMPRISONED: The Mayor then put the children into a prison cell full of other prisoners. They were then interrogated separately, after which the Mayor threatened to boil them in oil if they still refused to divulge the Secret of Fatima. In the presence of the children he ordered that a cauldron of oil be heated, and threatened to put the children in the cauldron if they did not cooperate. The children believed threat― but determined that they would die rather than reveal the secret.
Lucia resumes her account: “Some time later, we were put in prison. In prison, when we noticed that it was already past midday, and that they would not let us go to the Cova da Iria, Francisco said: ‘Perhaps Our Lady will come and appear to us here!’ On the following day, Francisco could not hide his distress, and almost in tears, he said: ‘Our Lady must have been very sad because we didn’t go to the Cova da Iria, and she won’t appear to us again. I would so love to see her!’ What made Jacinta suffer most, was to feel that their parents had abandoned them. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she would say: ‘Neither your parents nor mine have come to see us. They don’t bother about us anymore!’
“After being separated for a while, we were reunited in one of the other rooms of the prison. When they told us they were coming soon to take us away to be fried alive, Jacinta went aside and stood by a window overlooking the cattle market. I thought at first that she was trying to distract her thoughts with the view, but I soon realized that she was crying. I went over and drew her close to me, asking her why she was crying: ‘Because we are going to die,’ she replied, ‘without ever seeing our parents again―not even our mothers!’ With tears running down her cheeks, she added: ‘I would at least like to see my mother!’ With her face bathed in tears, she joined her hands, raised her eyes to Heaven and made her offering: ‘O my Jesus! This is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, for the Holy Father, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary!’ The prisoners who were present at this scene, sought to console us: ‘But all you have to do,’ they said, ‘is to tell the Administrator the secret! What does it matter whether the Lady wants you to or not!’ ‘Never!’ was Jacinta’s vigorous reply, ‘I’d rather die!’
The Magistrate did not yet give up. The guard came in to remind them that soon they would be thrown into the burning oil. The thought of being able to die together for Our Lady made them all the happier. The Magistrate finally admitted, after further fruitless questioning, that he could accomplish nothing. Then, out of fear of what the enraged people might do, he eventually released the three children from their ordeals in prison―having missed their rendezvous with Our Lady on August 13th, due to their being kidnapped on the morning of August 13th and then being imprisoned until August 15th. He himself took them in his carriage to Fatima, hardly realizing that the Church was celebrating on that day, August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven.
Penance Made in Heaven
The three little children of Fatima―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―were selected for a life of penance. God does not ask the impossible―if God gives a command, then He also gives the graces to be able carry out that command. Why did God choose three little children―aged 10, 9 and 7―to bear the heavy burdens described above? Partially, because God wants to show us that everyone is capable of penance and sacrifices; and partially to shame us adults by showing us even little children can carry heavy burdens and make massive sacrifices! A life of penance and sacrifice is not an option but an obligation! Our Lord Himself explicitly, clearly and irrefutably said this to be the case: “No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3-5). As for sacrifice: “He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Who Is To Blame?
Is that what parents are teaching their own little children? Is that what teachers are teaching to their students? Is that what priests are preaching to their flocks―not just older sheep, but also young little lambs? Or are we teaching them (or at least allowing them) to play instead of pray; to seek gratification instead of mortification; to prefer what is nice rather than sacrifice? Are we allowing them to mingle with and enjoy the world, without pointing out to them that world is the enemy of God and Christ: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
We Give Children More Junk Than Faith
Obviously, most children are not being raised as soldiers who are prepared to fight the world―but are being raised to enjoy the world! Most Catholic children prefer to have smartphones rather than Rosaries in their hands! Most prefer to browse social media or the internet rather than browse the Bible! Most prefer to go to a party, a social, a sports game, a movie, or eat-out somewhere rather than go to Mass! Most prefer to play rather than pray! The ultimate responsibility and fault is to be laid at the feet of the parents, the teachers and priests. They have a grave obligation to raise the children that God has granted and entrusted to them in a Christian, Chris-like manner―and not in a worldly manner. If children do not see their parents, teachers and priests putting Christ first and above all things―then the youngsters most certainly not do so! If the parents are seen to love and give more time to worldly things and little time to God―then how on earth are their children going to do any better?
Sure―it’s a hard job raising Christian children in today’s pagan, atheistic, worldly environment―but with God nothing is impossible: “And Jesus said to them: ‘With men this is impossible―but with God all things are possible!’” (Matthew 19:26). The problem is, we rely too much on ourselves and too little on God! We limit ourselves to human methods and neglect to pull in the grace of God. We pray too little for our children; we rarely or never have Masses offered for them; we offer far too few sacrifices on their behalf; we have little to offer them as regards the Faith because our knowledge of the Faith is flimsy, superficial, shaky and limited to a few small areas that interest us! We hardly know our Catechism; we rarely read the Bible or other spiritual books; we never meditate the Rosary, we just “say” it; we know little or nothing about Apologetics and so are unable to promote and defend the Faith; we rarely read the Lives of the Saints, but we read the gossip about the lives of worldly people in our newspapers, magazines or online. As the philosophic axiom states: “Nobody can give what they do not have!”
No Washing of Hands! No Lame Excuses!
We cannot play at being Pontius Pilate, who symbolically washed his hands: “And Pilate seeing that he prevailed nothing, but that rather a tumult was made; taking water washed his hands before the people, saying: ‘I am innocent of the blood of this just man; look you to it!’” (Matthew 27:24). We cannot be like the murderous Cain: “Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him. And the Lord said to Cain: ‘Where is thy brother Abel?’ And Cain answered: ‘I know not! Am I my brother’s keeper?’ And the Lord said to him: ‘What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to Me from the earth. Now, therefore, cursed shalt thou be upon the Earth!’” (Genesis 4:8-11).
We cannot wash our hands of the failures, indifference, lukewarmness, sins, apostasy or falling-away from the Faith by our children, students, or parishioners. We cannot make lame excuses and say with Cain: “Am I my child’s (student’s/parishioner’s) keeper?” We cannot “pass-the-buck” or shift the blame entirely! Sure―they have their own free will! Nevertheless, did you do everything in your power to raise them in a way that God would be proud of? Most importantly, did you use the supernatural tools and weapons that God makes available to us―that make the impossible to be possible? If we will not pray ASSIDUOUSLY, FREQUENTLY and SINCERELY for those entrusted to our care―then we can be sure the devils will “pick-them-off” with ease: “The devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour! Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9). If your Faith is not strong, then their Faith will not be strong, and so they will not be able to resist! Our Lord―speaking our times―said: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). We do not need to rocket-scientists to answer that question today―just looking around us is a clear indication of the answer!
The penances and sacrifices of the three little children at Fatima―aged only 10, 9 and 7―are a serious indictment and conviction for most Catholics and their children in the world today. We have to be humble and honest, raising our hands in surrender, saying: “Guilty as charged!” Yet admission of guilt is not the end of the matter! When crime is committed, when sins are committed, then, where applicable, restitution or reparation is necessary―without which there can be no forgiveness. If your children have turned out less than desirable in God’s eyes, then you still have to try and redress and change the situation. That means doing now what you should have been doing way back then when you were first forming them. Teachers and priests find themselves in similar situations―have been placed in positions of influence, they have neglected to truly shepherd their sheep. If the devil has snatched your children/students/parishioners away from the Faith and the practice of the Faith, or if he has at least made them lukewarm―then it has to be in large part due to insufficiencies in their formative years.
Your children might not be possessed by the devil―very few people are―but they will most certainly be oppressed by the devil, as most people are due to sin: “He that commits sin is of the devil!” (1 John 3:8). When a certain man brought to Jesus his son, who was afflicted by the demon, Our Lord said to him: “This kind is not cast out except by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). Isn’t it shameful that we will fast in order to lose weight so that we look nicer―but we are not nice enough to fast for our wayward children in order to make them look nicer in God’s eyes and in order to save their souls! Yet three little children―aged only 10, 9 and 7―were prepared to fast in order to save the souls of sinners that they did not even know! Let us pray to the now deceased children of Fatima that they might “rope” us into the same spirit of penance that they had!
Here are just some of the penances that Lucia mentions that she, Francisco and Jacinta practiced:
● When shepherding the sheep for the day, they would give away their packed lunches to other children or even the sheep.
● They would go without water despite the hot sun.
● They would wear ropes tied painfully tight around the waists day and night (until Our Lady forbade it during the night).
● They would gladly put up with a multitude of irritating persons, creatures, insects, things, noises, tastes, etc.
● They would decline offers of snacks.
● They would gladly take on difficult tasks.
● They happily accepted the terrible pains of their final illnesses before death.
● They would forego keeping company of many of their loved ones, even though it was very painful to do so.
● They gladly accepted persecutions, threats, insults, mockeries and mistrust.
● They accepted mistreatment by family members.
As Lucia herself said, she could go on forever giving precise examples of the penances and sacrifices that they performed for the salvation of sinners. They truly lived a life of sacrifice―day after day. If only our children could be “roped” into doing the same thing for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart today and for the salvation of ever increasing numbers of souls who are on the verge of eternal damnation!
It was on this day―September 13th, 1917―that Our Lady of Fatima, in her 5th apparition, told the three children that God was pleased with the many penances that they doing, but, as regards the penance of the rope, they should continue doing it, but she told them not to wear the rope at night while they were sleeping.
So what is this “rope” all about? You are about to get “roped-in” as we explain! Sister Lucia herself―in her written Memoirs―tells us about the “rope”. She writes: “One day, as we were walking along the road with our sheep, I found a piece of rope that had fallen off a cart. I picked it up and, just for fun, I tied it round my arm. Before long, I noticed that the rope was hurting me. ‘Look, this hurts!’ I said to my cousins [Francisco and Jacinta]. ‘We could tie it round our waists and offer this sacrifice to God!’ The poor children promptly fell in with my suggestion. We then set about dividing it between the three of us, by placing it across a stone and striking it with the sharp edge of another one that served as a knife. Either because of the thickness or roughness of the rope, or because we sometimes tied it too tightly, this instrument of penance often caused us terrible suffering. Now and then, Jacinta could not keep back her tears, so great was the discomfort this caused her. Whenever I urged her to remove it, she replied: ‘No! I want to offer this sacrifice to Our Lord in reparation, and for the conversion of sinners!’”
It was not long before all three children―Lucia (aged 10), Francisco (aged 9) and Jacinta (aged 7)―were wearing their ropes tightly bound around their waists, but underneath their clothing so that nobody would know. God knew! Our Lady knew! Thus it was that on this September 13th apparition Our Lady said to them: “God is pleased with your sacrifices! But He does not want you to sleep with the rope on, but only to wear it during the daytime!”
Francisco and Jacinta wore their ropes until the time they became sick and approached their death. Lucia recalls: “One day, Francisco gave me the rope that I have already spoken about, saying: ‘Take it away before my mother sees it. I don’t feel able to wear it any more around my waist!’” As for Jacinta, Lucia says: “A few days after falling ill, Jacinta gave me the rope she had been wearing, and said: ‘Keep it for me; I’m afraid my mother may see it! If I get better, I want it back again!’ This cord had three knots, and was somewhat stained with blood. I kept it hidden until I finally left my mother’s home. Then, not knowing what to do with it, I burned it, and Francisco’s as well!”
Our Lady Arrested and Sued!
In our modern world, Our Lady’s demands, statements and treatment of the three young children would see her arrested and sued in court on the basis of cruelty to children! At her first apparition she asks the three young children―aged 10, 9 and 7―to sacrifice themselves for sinners and tells them: “… offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners … You are going to have much to suffer!” Then she scares the living daylights out of them by not just talking of Hell, but actually showing them Hell!
Sister Lucia later described the experience thus: “We saw a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned]. The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration [devastating fire] ― at one moment raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke; and then in the next moment, they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright — it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me. The demons were distinguished [from the souls of the damned] by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. That vision only lasted for a moment―thanks to our good Heavenly Mother―who at the first apparition had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear.”
On top of that, Our Lady―who, let us not forget, was in total control of all circumstances and could have arranged anything she wanted according to God’s Providence―Our Lady then allows the children to be kidnapped by the local Freemasonic mayor, to then be placed in a prison and threatened with being killed in boiling oil! Our Lady allowed that to happen despite having it in her power to prevent it! The legal courts would have a field day!
Our Lady Disrupts and Destroys Family Life
You can also say that Our Lady disrupted and almost destroyed family life―especially in the case of Lucia―whose mother would not believe Our Lady was appearing to Lucia, and, as a consequence, tried to “beat the truth out of her” by repeated beatings and psychological torment within the privacy of the home. Remember―Our Lady could have directed Divine Providence or the angels to prevent all this negativity and destruction, but she did not. Sister Lucia tells us:
► BEATINGS: “The news of what had happened was spreading. My mother was getting worried, and wanted at all costs to make me deny what I had said. One day, before I set out with the flock, she was determined to make me confess that I was telling lies, and to this end she spared neither caresses, nor threats, nor even the broomstick. To all this she received nothing but a mute silence, or the confirmation of all that I had already said. She told me to go and let out the sheep, and during the day to consider well that she had never tolerated a single lie among her children, and much less would she allow a lie of this kind. She warned me that she would force me, that very evening, to go to those people whom I had deceived, confess that I had lied and ask their pardon …
“My mother became more and more upset at the way things were progressing. This led her to make yet another attempt to force me to confess that I had lied … I was overwhelmed with bitterness. I could see that my mother was deeply distressed, and that she wanted at all costs to compel me, as she put it, to admit that I had lied. I wanted so much to do as she wished, but the only way I could do so was to tell a lie! From the cradle, she had instilled into her children a great horror of Iying, and she used to chastise severely any one of us who told an untruth. After bitter complaints, she would turn to me, saying: ‘Make up your mind which you want! Either undo all this deception by telling these people that you’ve lied, or I’ll lock you up in a dark room where you won’t even see the light of the sun. After all the troubles I’ve been through, and now a thing like this to happen!’ My sisters sided with my mother, and all around me the atmosphere was one of utter scorn and contempt.
► INTERROGATIONS: “Around that time, our parish priest came to know of what was happening, and sent word to my mother to take me to his house. My mother felt she could breathe again, thinking the priest was going to take responsibility for these events on himself. She therefore said to me: ‘Tomorrow, we’re going to Mass―the first thing in the morning! Then, you are going to the Reverend Father’s house. Just let him compel you to tell the truth―no matter how he does it! Let him punish you! Let him do whatever he likes with you! Just so long as he forces you to admit that you have lied; and then I’ll be satisfied!’ My sisters also took my mother’s part and invented endless threats, just to frighten me about the interview with the parish priest. Early in the morning, she called me and told me she was taking me to see the parish priest, saying: ‘When you get there, go down on your knees, tell him that you’ve lied, and ask his pardon!’ As we walked along, my mother preached me a fine sermon. At a certain point, I said to her, trembling: ‘But, mother, how can I say that I did not see, when I did see?’ My mother was silent. As we drew near the priest’s house, she declared: ‘Just you listen to me! What I want is that you should tell the truth. If you saw, say so! But if you didn’t see, admit that you lied.’ Without another word, we climbed the stairs, and the good priest received us in his study with the greatest kindness and even, I might almost say, with affection.
“The interrogation was very minute and, I would even venture to say, tiresome. He questioned me seriously, but most courteously, and resorted to various stratagems to see if I would contradict myself, or be inconsistent in my statements. Finally, he dismissed us, shrugging his shoulders, as if to imply: I don’t know what to make of all this!’ He concluded with this brief observation: ‘It doesn’t seem to me like a revelation from Heaven. It is usual in such cases for Our Lord to tell the souls to whom He makes such communications to give their confessor or parish priest an account of what has happened. But this child, on the contrary, keeps it to herself as far as she can. This may also be a deceit of the devil. We shall see. The future will show us what we are to think about it all!’
► MENTAL ANGUISH: “How much this reflection made me suffer, only God knows! I began then to have doubts as to whether these manifestations might be from the devil, who was seeking by these means to make me lose my soul. As I heard people say that the devil always brings conflict and disorder, I began to think that, truly, ever since I had started seeing these things, our home was no longer the same, for joy and peace had fled. I lost all enthusiasm for making sacrifices and acts of mortification, and ended up hesitating as to whether it wouldn’t be better to say that I had been Iying, and so put an end to the whole thing. I had a dream which only increased the darkness of my spirit. I saw the devil laughing at having deceived me, as he tried to drag me down to Hell. On finding myself in his clutches, I began to scream so loudly and call on Our Lady for help that I awakened my mother. She called out to me in alarm, and asked me what was the matter. I can’t recall what I told her, but I do remember that I was so paralyzed with fear that I couldn’t sleep any more that night. This dream left my soul clouded over with real fear and anguish. My one relief was to go off by myself to some solitary place, there to weep to my heart’s content.
► HAULED BEFORE THE AUTHORITIES: “Not many days later, our parents were notified [on August 10th] to the effect that all three of us, Jacinta, Francisco and myself, together with our fathers, were to appear at a given hour on the following day before the Administration in Vila Nova de Ourém. Francisco’s and Jacinta’s father said: “I’m not going to take my children, nor present them before any tribunal! Why, they’re not old enough to be responsible for their actions! I’ll go myself and see what they want!’ My father thought differently and said: ‘As for my girl, I’m taking her! Let her answer for herself! I don’t understand a thing about this!’ They all took advantage of this occasion to frighten us in every way they could. At the Administration office [on August 11th], I was interrogated by the Administrator [Mayor/Magistrate, Arturo Santos, a Freemason], in the presence of my father, my uncle and several other gentlemen who were strangers to me. The Administrator was determined to force me to reveal the secret and to promise him never again to return to the Cova da Iria. To attain his end, he spared neither promises, nor even threats. Seeing that he was getting nowhere, he dismissed me, protesting however, that he would achieve his end, even if this meant that he had to take my life. He finally let us go home.
► THE BLAME GAME: “In my own family, there was fresh trouble, and the blame for this was thrown on me. The Cova da Iria was a piece of land belonging to my parents. In the hollow, it was more fertile, and there we cultivated maize, greens, peas and other vegetables. On the slopes grew olive trees, oaks and holm oaks. Now, ever since the people began to go there, we had been unable to cultivate anything at all. Everything was trampled on. As the majority came mounted, their animals ate up all they could find and wrecked the whole place. My mother bewailed her loss: ‘You, now,’ she said to me, ‘when you want something to eat, go and ask the Lady for it!’ My sisters chimed in with: ‘Yes, you can have what grows in the Cova da Iria!’ These remarks cut me to the heart, so much so that I hardly dared to take a piece of bread to eat. To force me to tell the truth, as she said, my mother, more often than not, beat me soundly with the broom-handle or a stick from the woodpile near the fireplace. By a special grace from Our Lord, I never experienced the slightest thought or feeling of resentment regarding her manner of acting towards me.
► KIDNAPPED: “Then an order came from the Administrator [Mayor/Magistrate, Arturo Santos], telling me to go to my aunt’s house, where he was awaiting me [on the morning of August 13th, the day Our Lady was to next appear]. My father got the notification and it was he who took me there. When I arrived, the Administrator was in a room with my cousins. He interrogated us there, and made fresh attempts to force us to reveal the secret and to promise that we would not go back to the Cova da Iria. As he achieved nothing, he gave orders to my father and my uncle to take us to the parish priest’s house. What I felt most deeply and what caused me most suffering on that occasion was my being completely abandoned by my family; and it was the same for my little cousins.”
The Mayor/Magistrate of Vila Nova de Ourem, Arturo Santos, a Freemason, said that he had converted and believed the children. He convinced the fathers of the children that he desired to “attend the miracle” with them later that same day, but that he first wanted to take them to meet with the village priest. After being questioned by the village priest, the Administrator had the children get into his carriage. The carriage at first made for the Cova da Iria, but suddenly turned and flew off in the other direction. The Administrator attempted to calm the children by saying that they were first going to meet with the priest at Ourem. Finally he arrived in triumph at his house, believing that by keeping the children from the Cova, nothing supernatural would happen and the business of the apparitions would be given up. When they arrived at the Mayor’s house, the children were shut up in a room and told that they would not be let out until they had revealed the Secret. The following day they were forced to undergo nine interrogations, but the children, strengthened by a special grace, remained steadfast. The Mayor/Magistrate, Arturo Santos, wanted to learn the Secret from them at any cost―but he could neither extract it nor trick the children into contradicting each other. He even called in a doctor to accuse the children of hallucinations and hysteria. The doctor’s conclusions have never been published. This fact speaks volumes, for had the doctor’s conclusion been that the children were hallucinating, the Administrator would have wasted no time in publishing the doctor’s testimony.
► IMPRISONED: The Mayor then put the children into a prison cell full of other prisoners. They were then interrogated separately, after which the Mayor threatened to boil them in oil if they still refused to divulge the Secret of Fatima. In the presence of the children he ordered that a cauldron of oil be heated, and threatened to put the children in the cauldron if they did not cooperate. The children believed threat― but determined that they would die rather than reveal the secret.
Lucia resumes her account: “Some time later, we were put in prison. In prison, when we noticed that it was already past midday, and that they would not let us go to the Cova da Iria, Francisco said: ‘Perhaps Our Lady will come and appear to us here!’ On the following day, Francisco could not hide his distress, and almost in tears, he said: ‘Our Lady must have been very sad because we didn’t go to the Cova da Iria, and she won’t appear to us again. I would so love to see her!’ What made Jacinta suffer most, was to feel that their parents had abandoned them. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she would say: ‘Neither your parents nor mine have come to see us. They don’t bother about us anymore!’
“After being separated for a while, we were reunited in one of the other rooms of the prison. When they told us they were coming soon to take us away to be fried alive, Jacinta went aside and stood by a window overlooking the cattle market. I thought at first that she was trying to distract her thoughts with the view, but I soon realized that she was crying. I went over and drew her close to me, asking her why she was crying: ‘Because we are going to die,’ she replied, ‘without ever seeing our parents again―not even our mothers!’ With tears running down her cheeks, she added: ‘I would at least like to see my mother!’ With her face bathed in tears, she joined her hands, raised her eyes to Heaven and made her offering: ‘O my Jesus! This is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, for the Holy Father, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary!’ The prisoners who were present at this scene, sought to console us: ‘But all you have to do,’ they said, ‘is to tell the Administrator the secret! What does it matter whether the Lady wants you to or not!’ ‘Never!’ was Jacinta’s vigorous reply, ‘I’d rather die!’
The Magistrate did not yet give up. The guard came in to remind them that soon they would be thrown into the burning oil. The thought of being able to die together for Our Lady made them all the happier. The Magistrate finally admitted, after further fruitless questioning, that he could accomplish nothing. Then, out of fear of what the enraged people might do, he eventually released the three children from their ordeals in prison―having missed their rendezvous with Our Lady on August 13th, due to their being kidnapped on the morning of August 13th and then being imprisoned until August 15th. He himself took them in his carriage to Fatima, hardly realizing that the Church was celebrating on that day, August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven.
Penance Made in Heaven
The three little children of Fatima―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―were selected for a life of penance. God does not ask the impossible―if God gives a command, then He also gives the graces to be able carry out that command. Why did God choose three little children―aged 10, 9 and 7―to bear the heavy burdens described above? Partially, because God wants to show us that everyone is capable of penance and sacrifices; and partially to shame us adults by showing us even little children can carry heavy burdens and make massive sacrifices! A life of penance and sacrifice is not an option but an obligation! Our Lord Himself explicitly, clearly and irrefutably said this to be the case: “No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3-5). As for sacrifice: “He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Who Is To Blame?
Is that what parents are teaching their own little children? Is that what teachers are teaching to their students? Is that what priests are preaching to their flocks―not just older sheep, but also young little lambs? Or are we teaching them (or at least allowing them) to play instead of pray; to seek gratification instead of mortification; to prefer what is nice rather than sacrifice? Are we allowing them to mingle with and enjoy the world, without pointing out to them that world is the enemy of God and Christ: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
We Give Children More Junk Than Faith
Obviously, most children are not being raised as soldiers who are prepared to fight the world―but are being raised to enjoy the world! Most Catholic children prefer to have smartphones rather than Rosaries in their hands! Most prefer to browse social media or the internet rather than browse the Bible! Most prefer to go to a party, a social, a sports game, a movie, or eat-out somewhere rather than go to Mass! Most prefer to play rather than pray! The ultimate responsibility and fault is to be laid at the feet of the parents, the teachers and priests. They have a grave obligation to raise the children that God has granted and entrusted to them in a Christian, Chris-like manner―and not in a worldly manner. If children do not see their parents, teachers and priests putting Christ first and above all things―then the youngsters most certainly not do so! If the parents are seen to love and give more time to worldly things and little time to God―then how on earth are their children going to do any better?
Sure―it’s a hard job raising Christian children in today’s pagan, atheistic, worldly environment―but with God nothing is impossible: “And Jesus said to them: ‘With men this is impossible―but with God all things are possible!’” (Matthew 19:26). The problem is, we rely too much on ourselves and too little on God! We limit ourselves to human methods and neglect to pull in the grace of God. We pray too little for our children; we rarely or never have Masses offered for them; we offer far too few sacrifices on their behalf; we have little to offer them as regards the Faith because our knowledge of the Faith is flimsy, superficial, shaky and limited to a few small areas that interest us! We hardly know our Catechism; we rarely read the Bible or other spiritual books; we never meditate the Rosary, we just “say” it; we know little or nothing about Apologetics and so are unable to promote and defend the Faith; we rarely read the Lives of the Saints, but we read the gossip about the lives of worldly people in our newspapers, magazines or online. As the philosophic axiom states: “Nobody can give what they do not have!”
No Washing of Hands! No Lame Excuses!
We cannot play at being Pontius Pilate, who symbolically washed his hands: “And Pilate seeing that he prevailed nothing, but that rather a tumult was made; taking water washed his hands before the people, saying: ‘I am innocent of the blood of this just man; look you to it!’” (Matthew 27:24). We cannot be like the murderous Cain: “Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him. And the Lord said to Cain: ‘Where is thy brother Abel?’ And Cain answered: ‘I know not! Am I my brother’s keeper?’ And the Lord said to him: ‘What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to Me from the earth. Now, therefore, cursed shalt thou be upon the Earth!’” (Genesis 4:8-11).
We cannot wash our hands of the failures, indifference, lukewarmness, sins, apostasy or falling-away from the Faith by our children, students, or parishioners. We cannot make lame excuses and say with Cain: “Am I my child’s (student’s/parishioner’s) keeper?” We cannot “pass-the-buck” or shift the blame entirely! Sure―they have their own free will! Nevertheless, did you do everything in your power to raise them in a way that God would be proud of? Most importantly, did you use the supernatural tools and weapons that God makes available to us―that make the impossible to be possible? If we will not pray ASSIDUOUSLY, FREQUENTLY and SINCERELY for those entrusted to our care―then we can be sure the devils will “pick-them-off” with ease: “The devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour! Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9). If your Faith is not strong, then their Faith will not be strong, and so they will not be able to resist! Our Lord―speaking our times―said: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). We do not need to rocket-scientists to answer that question today―just looking around us is a clear indication of the answer!
The penances and sacrifices of the three little children at Fatima―aged only 10, 9 and 7―are a serious indictment and conviction for most Catholics and their children in the world today. We have to be humble and honest, raising our hands in surrender, saying: “Guilty as charged!” Yet admission of guilt is not the end of the matter! When crime is committed, when sins are committed, then, where applicable, restitution or reparation is necessary―without which there can be no forgiveness. If your children have turned out less than desirable in God’s eyes, then you still have to try and redress and change the situation. That means doing now what you should have been doing way back then when you were first forming them. Teachers and priests find themselves in similar situations―have been placed in positions of influence, they have neglected to truly shepherd their sheep. If the devil has snatched your children/students/parishioners away from the Faith and the practice of the Faith, or if he has at least made them lukewarm―then it has to be in large part due to insufficiencies in their formative years.
Your children might not be possessed by the devil―very few people are―but they will most certainly be oppressed by the devil, as most people are due to sin: “He that commits sin is of the devil!” (1 John 3:8). When a certain man brought to Jesus his son, who was afflicted by the demon, Our Lord said to him: “This kind is not cast out except by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). Isn’t it shameful that we will fast in order to lose weight so that we look nicer―but we are not nice enough to fast for our wayward children in order to make them look nicer in God’s eyes and in order to save their souls! Yet three little children―aged only 10, 9 and 7―were prepared to fast in order to save the souls of sinners that they did not even know! Let us pray to the now deceased children of Fatima that they might “rope” us into the same spirit of penance that they had!
Here are just some of the penances that Lucia mentions that she, Francisco and Jacinta practiced:
● When shepherding the sheep for the day, they would give away their packed lunches to other children or even the sheep.
● They would go without water despite the hot sun.
● They would wear ropes tied painfully tight around the waists day and night (until Our Lady forbade it during the night).
● They would gladly put up with a multitude of irritating persons, creatures, insects, things, noises, tastes, etc.
● They would decline offers of snacks.
● They would gladly take on difficult tasks.
● They happily accepted the terrible pains of their final illnesses before death.
● They would forego keeping company of many of their loved ones, even though it was very painful to do so.
● They gladly accepted persecutions, threats, insults, mockeries and mistrust.
● They accepted mistreatment by family members.
As Lucia herself said, she could go on forever giving precise examples of the penances and sacrifices that they performed for the salvation of sinners. They truly lived a life of sacrifice―day after day. If only our children could be “roped” into doing the same thing for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart today and for the salvation of ever increasing numbers of souls who are on the verge of eternal damnation!
Article 6
Tuesday September 12th, 2023, Feast of the Holy Name of Mary
The Untapped Power of the Name of Mary!
Tuesday September 12th, 2023, Feast of the Holy Name of Mary
The Untapped Power of the Name of Mary!
Name that Feast!
On the day of this day’s largely forgotten or ignored feast―the Holy Name of Mary (September 12th)―let us ponder a little and reflect upon the purpose and power of names. However, before we temporarily lose sight of the name of “Mary” while doing so, let us first of all―in honor of her name―absorb a few inspiring lines written on her holy name. In one of his homilies for the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, St. Bernard (1090-1153) reformer of the Benedictine Order and founder of Cistercian Order, Abbot and Doctor of the Church, writes:
“‘And the Virgin’s name was Mary’ (Luke 1:27). Let us speak a little about this name, which is said to mean ‘star of the sea’, and which so well befits the Virgin Mother. Rightly is she likened to a star. As a star emits a ray without being dimmed, so the Virgin brought forth her Son without receiving any injury. The ray takes naught from the brightness of the star, nor the Son from His Mother’s virginal integrity. This is the noble star risen out of Jacob, whose ray illumines the whole world, whose splendor shines in the heavens, penetrates the abyss, and, traversing the whole earth, gives warmth rather to souls than to bodies, cherishing virtues, withering vices. Mary is that bright and incomparable star, whom we need to see raised above this vast sea, shining by her merits, and giving us light by her example.
“All of you, who see yourselves amid the tides of the world, tossed by storms and tempests rather than walking on the land, do not turn your eyes away from this shining star, unless you want to be overwhelmed by the hurricane. If temptation storms, or you fall upon the rocks of tribulation, look to the star: Call upon Mary! If you are tossed by the waves of pride or ambition, detraction or envy, look to the star, call upon Mary. If anger or avarice or the desires of the flesh dash against the ship o f your soul, turn your eyes to Mary. If troubled by the enormity of your crimes, ashamed of your guilty conscience, terrified by dread of the judgment, you begin to sink into the gulf of sadness or the abyss of despair, think of Mary. In dangers, in anguish, in doubt, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let her name be even on your lips, ever in your heart; and the better to obtain the help of her prayers, imitate the example of her life. Following her, thou strayest not; invoking her, thou despairest not; thinking of her, thou wanderest not; upheld by her, thou fallest not; shielded by her, thou fearest not; guided by her, thou growest not weary; favored by her, thou reachest the goal. And thus dost thou experience in thyself how good is that saying: ‘And the Virgin’s name was Mary.”
The Church commemorates numerous occasions on which It invoked the name of Mary and received her heavenly protection. During the pontificate of Pope Innocent III, Saint Dominic Guzman established the Order of Preachers to combat the Albigensian heresy that all material things were evil. He trained his priests to live a holy life, to use their minds, and to pray the Rosary. On September 12th 1213, the Christian forces under Simon de Montfort won a decisive victory over the heretics at Muret in southern France. Likewise, on the first Sunday of October, the Church recalls the victory of the Christian naval forces under Don Juan of Austria against the 300-odd ships of the Moslem Turk, Selim II, in 1571. Again on September 12th 1683, after a forced march begun in Poland on the August 15th feast of the Assumption, John Sobieski turned back the 300,000 Moslem invaders besieging Vienna. And, once again, on August 5th 1716, under the patronage of Mary, Our Lady of the Snows, Prince Eugene claimed her victory at Peterwardein; shortly thereafter raising the siege of Corfu and later reclaiming Belgrade. The feast of the Holy Name of Mary was inscribed in the calendar of the Universal Church by Pope Innocent XI “as a perpetual memorial of the great blessing of that signal victory won at Vienna in Austria over the cruel Turkish tyrant who had been grinding down the Christian people.”
Today we stand in need of innumerable victories in many different domains―religious, political, cultural, social, financial, etc. ― all of which have become slaves of the devil, the world and sinfulness. It is once again to Mary that we must turn―for God has ruled that in our day and age, she is one who is lead us to victory once again.
Name That Person!
There is no one more qualified or better in handing-out names than God Himself. There are two ways in which God gave a name to a person in the Bible. Some people were given a name before they were born (or shortly after), while others were renamed by God later in life. In biblical times, a person’s name carried great deal of significance, and was VERY important. A person’s name could be chosen based on number of things. For example, something reflecting: how God had played a role in his birth, his character, his future life, his birth order, a physical trait, where he was born, and more. When God gave names, it generally reflected something to do with Him.
Firstly, here is list of persons whom God named personally―even if God uses an angel as a messenger, the name is not the angel’s personal choice, but the angel merely relays and delivers the name that God has chosen. Besides these following names, it is universally presumed (though not mentioned in the Bible) that the name “Adam” was given by God Himself:
► ISMAEL: “Behold, said he, thou art with child, and thou shalt bring forth a son: and thou shalt call his name Ismael, because the Lord hath heard thy affliction” (Genesis 16:11). Ismael means: “God hears”―he was the first child to whom God gave his name before birth.
► ISAAC: “God said to Abraham: ‘Sara thy wife shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name Isaac, and I will establish My covenant with him for a perpetual covenant, and with his seed after him” (Genesis 17:19). Isaac was the first child to whom God gave his name before birth. Isaac means “laughter” Thus the name God gave signified what would happen in the future.
► JEZRAHEL: “The word of the Lord, that came to Osee and the Lord said to Osee: ‘Go, take thee a wife of fornications, and have of her children of fornications―for the land by fornication shall depart from the Lord!’ So he went, and took Gomer the daughter of Debelaim: and she conceived and bore him a son. And the Lord said to him: ‘Call his name Jezrahel―for, yet a little while, and I will visit the blood of Jezrahel upon the house of Jehu, and I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel!’” (Osee 1:1-4). Thus the name God gave signified what would happen in the future.
► LO-RUHAMAH: “And she conceived again, and bore a daughter, and the Lord said to him: ‘Call her name, “Without Mercy”―for I will not add any more to have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will utterly forget them!’” (Osee 1:6).
► LO-AMMI: “And she conceived, and bore a son. And the Lord said: ‘Call his name, “Not my people”―for you are not my people, and I will not be yours!” (Osee 1:9). Thus the name God gave signified what would happen in the future.
►JOHN THE BAPTIST: “And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. [12] And Zachary seeing him, was troubled, and fear fell upon him. [13] But the angel said to him: Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John!’ … Now Elizabeth's full time of being delivered was come, and she brought forth a son … And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they called him by his father’s name―Zachary. And his mother answering, said: ‘Not so! But he shall be called John!’ And they said to her: ‘There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name!’ And they made signs to his father, how he would have him called. And demanding a writing table, he wrote, saying: ‘John is his name!’” (Luke 1:13, 1:57-63). The name John means “God is gracious”, or “God has shown a favor” in the sense of “God is kind”.
► JESUS: “The angel of the Lord appeared to him in his sleep, saying: Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a Son: and thou shalt call His Name Jesus. For He shall save his people from their sins … And Joseph rising up from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and took unto him his wife. And he knew her not till she brought forth her firstborn Son: and he called His Name Jesus” (Matthew 1:20-21,24-25); “And the angel said to her: ‘Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call His Name Jesus!’ … And after eight days were accomplished, that the Child should be circumcised, His Name was called Jesus―which was called by the angel, before He was conceived in the womb” (Luke 1:31; 2:21). The name Jesus means “Savior”. The name Jesus is derived from the Hebrew name “Yeshua”, which is based on the Semitic root meaning “to deliver; to rescue.”
Now, here is a list of the people whose name was changed by God to a new name:
► ABRAM to ABRAHAM: “Abram fell flat on his face. And God said to him: ‘My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name be called any more Abram: but thou shalt be called Abraham―because I have made thee a father of many nations. And I will make thee increase, exceedingly, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee!’” (Genesis 17:3-6). The name Abraham therefore means “father of many nations.”
► SARAI to SARA: “God said also to Abraham: ‘Sarai―thy wife―thou shalt not call Sarai, but Sara. And I will bless her, and of her I will give thee a son, whom I will bless, and he shall become nations, and kings of people shall spring from him” (Genesis 17:15) The name Sara means “royal lady” or “princess.”
► JACOB to ISRAEL: Jacob had wrestled all through the night with the angel sent to him by God. When dawn came, the angel “said to him [Jacob]: ‘Let me go! For it is break of day!’ He [Jacob] answered: ‘I will not let thee go unless thou bless me!’ And the angel said: ‘What is thy name?’ He answered: ‘Jacob.’ But the angel said: ‘Thy name shall not be called Jacob, but Israel―for if thou hast been strong against God, and how much more shalt thou prevail against men!’ … And [later] God appeared again to Jacob, after he returned from Mesopotamia of Syria, and He blessed him, saying: ‘Thou shalt not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name!’ And He called him Israel” (Genesis 32:26-28; 35:9-10).
► SOLOMON to AMIABLE TO THE LORD (beloved of the Lord): “And David comforted Bethsabee his wife, and went in unto her, and slept with her: and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon, and the Lord loved him. And He sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet, and called his name, Amiable to the Lord, because the Lord loved him” (2 Kings 12:24-25).
► SIMON to PETER: “Jesus saith to them: ‘But whom do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered and said: ‘Thou art Christ―the Son of the living God!’ And Jesus, answering, said to him: ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona! Because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father Who is in Heaven! And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it!’” (Matthew 16:15-18).
So What About the Name “Mary”
Holy Scripture succinctly mentions Our Lady’s name in the phrase: “And the virgin’ s name was Mary” (Luke 1:27)―which is part of the account of Annunciation. Those few words encapsulate that short sweet name of Mary! Yet though the name is short―there has been no shortage of discussion and debate over the meaning of the name “Mary”! Because ancient texts of the Egyptian and Judeo-Aramaic languages omit vowels, scholars often argue over possible meanings of words. Context and etymology are essential factors to unlocking the correct meaning. Nonetheless, ambiguity often persists, such as the meaning of the name Mary. The word “maris” in Latin means “sea” and is quite similar to “Maria”. St. Louis de Montfort alludes to this in his book, True Devotion to Mary, wherein he writes: “God the Father made an assemblage of all the waters and He named it the sea (mare). He made an assemblage of all His graces and he called it Mary (Maria).”
However, the name Mary is clearly not Latin in origin, but finds its roots in the Egyptian name, Miriam. Here is where the etymology becomes complicated―because there are over 100 possibilities of what the name Miriam means in Egyptian. Possible meanings range from “bitterness,” “beautiful,” and “love.” Yet strangely enough―or should we say “providentially”―all of those interpretations, and others besides, are most fitting for the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Because ancient texts of the Egyptian and Judeo-Aramaic languages omit vowels, scholars often argue over possible meanings of words. Context and etymology are essential factors to unlocking the correct meaning. Nonetheless, ambiguity often persists, such as the meaning of the name Mary. The word “maris” in Latin means “sea” and is quite similar to “Maria”. However, the name Mary is clearly not Latin in origin, but finds its roots in the Egyptian name, Miriam. Here is where the etymology becomes complicated―because there are over 100 possibilities of what the name Miriam means in Egyptian. Possible meanings range from “bitterness,” “beautiful,” and “love.”
Consequently, it is helpful to look at the Hebrew version of “Miriam”, which is “Miryam” or “Maryam”. Wide variations also exist in the meaning of the name “Maryam”, such as “rebellion,” and “sea of bitterness.” Keeping in mind that a name represents the soul in Hebrew, and some persons argue that such translations are unacceptable for a young girl―but is that true? Are they unacceptable? More on that in a moment. The second part of this name, “yam”, does, in fact, mean “sea”; however, the first part, “mar”, has several possible meanings. “Mar” literally means “bitter”, which is why some believe that “Maryam” means “bitter sea” or “sea of bitterness”. Nonetheless, in Hebrew, the adjective follows the substantive, which means “bitter sea” would appear as “Yam mar” and not “Mar yam”.
Miryam [or Maryam] was the name of the sister of Moses; and the ancient rabbinical scholars seeing in it a symbol of the slavery of the Israelites at the hands of the Egyptians, held that Miryam was given this name, because she was born during the time of the oppression of her people—a time of “bitterness”. The Old Testament, being the chronicle of the ”Time of Expectation” of the Redeemer, is filled with various “types,” or foreshadowings of people and events which would be made manifest during the ”Time of Redemption,” when Christ walked the earth. Yet we can only look at them ”through a glass darkly,” so to speak, under the guidance of the Catholic Church, which alone possesses the authority to interpret the sacred texts. Miryam [or Maryam], the sister of Moses is a “type” or prefiguration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Miryam was a prophetess, who sang a canticle of thanksgiving, after the safe crossing of the Red Sea and the destruction of Pharaoh’s army; Mary prophesied in her canticle, the Magnificat, that all generations would honor her by calling her “blessed”, and she sang of how God would overturn the proud and raise-up the humble. Miryam supported her brother, Moses, the liberator of his people; just as Mary, as the Co-Redemptrix, united her sufferings to those of Jesus on Calvary, for Mary labored alongside the Redeemer, the true Liberator of His people. Just as Jesus was the “antitype” [i.e., the fulfillment] of Moses, so was Our Lady the “antitype” of Miryam, the fullest realization of the courageous woman standing beside, and laboring with, the one who comes to free captives.
Eusebius of Caesarea, who composed a dictionary of proper names in the Bible, translated “Maryam” as “drop of the sea.” When St. Jerome (4th century AD) translated this dictionary into Latin, he rendered “drop of the sea” as “stilla maris”. Some believe that a scribal error caused “stilla” to become “stella”. However, Jerome elsewhere made a case for “Star of the sea,” by suggesting that “mar” was a contraction of “ma’or”, which means “luminary” or “star”.
Spiritual Significance―Is Mary Our GPS to Heaven?
As citizens of the 21st century, navigating our way with GPS, we little realize how vital the North Star was to travelers in previous times. This trustworthy star guided sailors across the sea and travelers across the desert. Because it remains apparently fixed in the same location throughout the night, it served as a sure reference point in the heavens. Unlike shooting stars―that dazzle the eyes for a moment and fade away―the North Star remains steady. In her role as a caring Mother, Mary likewise is comparable to this constancy.
Purity, radiance, and beauty ― such qualities of a star are also applicable to the Virgin; however, the North Star fits her in particular because of its role as a guide to travelers. As our life on earth is similar to a tempestuous sea journey, so Mary remains firm in the heavens, guiding souls to the eternal shores. Byzantine Christians call her Hodegitria or “She who knows the way.” According to their understanding, as well as Catholic understanding, she knows the way to Jesus and to Heaven.
As the Romans thought of the god Polaris as occupying the north pole of the heavens, so Christians think of Mary as occupying the center of Heaven, as the greatest of the saints. “One is the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon, and another the glory of the stars. For star differeth from star in glory” (1 Corinthians 15:41). Though there are brighter stars than Polaris, its location is the reason for its importance. For Christians, Mary’s importance is primarily because of her proximity to God, as Jesus’ mother. Contrary to a common belief among Protestants and pagans, Catholics do not worship Mary; rather, they venerate her as the Mother of Jesus and the greatest of saints.
Stella Maris: Development During the Middle Ages
The understanding of Mary’s name as Star of the sea took firm hold among Western Christians during the Middle Ages. St. Isidore, a seventh-century bishop from Seville, reaffirmed this understanding in his Etymologiae. In the eighth century, St. Alcuin of York dedicated a Marian altar with the inscription, lux et stella maris, “light and star of the sea.” St. Paschasius Radbertus wrote in the ninth century that the “Star of the Sea” should be our guide to Christ, “lest we capsize amid the storm-tossed waves of the sea.”
Some of the most beautiful Gregorian chants that emerged during the Middle Ages, such as Ave Maris Stella (9th century) and Alma Redemptoris Mater (12th century), include this image. The latter hymn, Alma Redemptoris Mater, sung during Advent, says, “Loving mother of the Redeemer, who remains the open gate of heaven and star of the sea, help the fallen people who strive to rise again.”
St. Bernard (11th century), composed an inspired homily regarding Mary as Star of the Sea. He recommends that all who are traveling on the troubled waters of life should look to Mary. “Mary’s name is said to mean, ‘star of the sea,’” he says, “If the winds of temptation surge, if you run aground on the shoals of troubles, look to this star, call upon Mary! If you are tossed by the winds of pride or ambition or detraction or jealousy, look to this star, call upon Mary! If anger, greed, or the allurements of the flesh dash against the boat of your mind, look to Mary! In dangers, in straits, in perplexity, think of Mary, call upon Mary… Let her name be always in your mouth, and in your heart, and if you would ask for and obtain the help of her prayers, do not forget the example of how she lived.”
As the Scholastic Era developed, several important theologians supported this meaning of Mary’s name. St. Bonaventure says for instance, “This name is most fitting for Mary, who is to us a star above the sea. She guides to a landfall in Heaven those who navigate the sea of this world…Well do we compare Mary to a star of the sea, because of her shining purity, her brightness, all that she does for us.” St. Thomas Aquinas endorsed this understanding of Mary’s name, saying, “Thus the name ‘Mary,’ which is rendered ‘Star of the Sea,’ suits her, because just as sailors on the ocean are guided to a harbor by a star, so Christians are guided to glory by Mary.” The Carmelite Order, founded principally to honor the Virgin Mary, developed strong devotion to this image. Stella Maris is the name of their principal monastery located on Mt. Carmel in Israel.
There is No Mary Without Sorrow or Bitterness
Those theological “sugar seekers” or “sugar eaters”, who seek or prefer to reject the “negative” sounding interpretations of the name “Mary” or “Maryam” or “Miriam”―meaning the interpretations that refer to the name as “bitter sea” or “sea of bitterness”―fail to understand the whole Theology of Redemption.
Already from the beginning of the human race―with Adam and Eve―we have this “taste of bitterness” due to sin and the payment for sin: “And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labor and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return” (Genesis 3:17-19). Is that sweet or bitter? Well, it’s bitter-sweet―for through that bitterness comes the sweet chance of salvation and Heaven.
Just before their Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites were commanded to eat the Paschal lamb with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs These bitter herbs consisted of such plants as chicory, bitter cresses, hawkweeds, sow-thistles and wild lettuces, which grow abundantly in the peninsula of Sinai, in Palestine and in Egypt: “And they shall eat the flesh that night roasted at the fire, and unleavened bread with wild lettuce” (Exodus 12:8). They were later commanded to repeat this eating of the Paschal lamb and bitter herbs as they wandered through the desert for 40 years. The purpose of this observance was to recall to the minds of the Israelites their deliverance from the bitter bondage of the Egyptians. The 40 years of wandering in the desert was a punishment for failing to enter the Promised Land at the first command of God. So they were made to pay for this rejection of God by 40 years of bitterness before finally entering the sweetness of the Promised Land. “The Lord spoke to Moses in the desert of Sinai, the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, in the first month, saying: ‘Let the children of Israel make the phase [phase = eating of the lamb and bitter herbs] in its due time … In the second month, on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening, they shall eat it with unleavened bread and wild lettuce [a bitter herb]” (Number 9:1-11).
Later, we again see the connection between Mary and bitterness. “Mary [Maryam or Miriam] the prophetess, the sister of Aaron [and Moses], took a timbrel in her hand: and all the women went forth after her with timbrels and with dances. And she began the song to them, saying: ‘Let us sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously magnified, the horse and his rider he hath thrown into the sea!’ And Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went forth into the wilderness of Sur: and they marched three days through the wilderness, and found no water. And they came into Mara [meaning “bitterness”―Mara? Mary?], and they could not drink the waters of Mara, because they were bitter: whereupon he gave a name also agreeable to the place, calling it Mara, that is, bitterness. And the people murmured against Moses, saying: ‘What shall we drink?’ But he cried to the Lord, and he showed him a tree [a symbol of the Tree of Christ’s Cross and the Holy Eucharist that comes from the Sacrifice of Calvary―the Mass], which when he had cast into the waters, they were turned into sweetness” (Exodus 15:20-25). “Was not bitter water made sweet with wood?” (Ecclesiasticus 38:5). “There bitter fountains were made sweet for them to drink, and for forty years they received food from Heaven” (Judith 5:15). So too does frequent assistance at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and frequent reception of the Holy Eucharist sweeten the Lord’s Cross that everyone, without exception, has to carry.
Let Us Not Screw Up Our Faces at the Bitterness―Lest We Screw-Up Our Salvation
Thus there should no revulsion, nor reticence, nor rejection of the interpretation of the name “Mary” or “Maryam” as meaning ”Bitter sea” (mara = bitter; yam = sea). In the prayer, Hail Holy Queen, do we not include both elements of bitterness and sweetness? We say “poor banished children of Eve” (bitter, huh?), and “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears” (bitter, huh?), and “this our exile” (bitter, huh?)―and then we ask Our Lady―calling her “Sweet Virgin Mary”―to turn her eyes of mercy towards us. Do we speak of this life as “the sea of life” on which we sail? The waters of this “sea of life” are mainly made up from our “bitter tears” that fill up this “valley of tears.”
The interpretation given by St. Bonaventure, also calls to mind Our Lady’s Seven Sorrows and the sword which “pierced” her soul on Calvary, recalling the lamentation of the mother-in-law of Ruth, who had lost a husband and two sons: ”Call me not Noemi [meaning, beautiful], but call me Mara, [meaning, bitter] for the Almighty hath quite filled me with bitterness” (Ruth 1:20). Maror are ”bitter herbs,” such as are found on the seder plate at a Passover meal.
We say of people that “they have a hard shell, but a soft center”, or that they are “hard on the outside but soft on the inside”, or that “their bark is worse than their bite”―meaning that, like a candy that we suck-on, once we have melted the exterior, we find something different in the interior. Things can be “bitter-sweet” or “sweetly-bitter”. The external coating of sin―though often sweet in taste―has a very bitter center by its consequences, thus it is “sweet-bitter”―sweet at first, but bitter in the end. Whereas the Cross of Christ, though it has bitter exterior, once we have “sucked on it” for a while, we finally penetrate its sweet interior. St. Simon of Cyrene was much like this―he was forced to carry the Cross of Christ and initially chaffed and complained under it, but gradually he came to understand, appreciate and love the Cross of Christ― “bitter-sweet”, being bitter in the beginning, but sweet in the end.
Our Lord repeatedly says: “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal” (John 12:24-25). “Whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospel, shall save it” (Mark 8:35). “For he that will save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it” (Matthew 16:25). “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; for he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall save it” (Luke 9:24). “Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose it, shall preserve it” (Luke 17:33).
“I do not promise to make you happy in this world (negative), but in the next (positive)!” says Our Lady to St. Bernadette at Lourdes. In other words, you will have bitterness in this life (negative), but sweetness in the next (positive)―which is pretty much the same thing as Our Lord said: “He who seeks to save his life (positive) will lose it (negative), but he who loses his life (negative) for My sake, will find it (positive). Dying to self is bitter―but spiritually it eventually brings sweetness. The negative leads to a positive.
All God’s Creation Has a Positive-Negative
Everything that God has created has a “positive element” and at the same time a “negative element.” Just like the Sun, and other Planets (and batteries) have a magnetic field with a positive and negative polarity, so too does the Earth―whereby the North Pole has a negative polarity and the South Pole a positive polarity. Similarly, in the seasons, we have a polarization between the positivity of maximum heat (summer-time) and the negativity of minimum heat (winter-time). In each person’s life there is the positivity of birth and the negativity of death―and during the life that comes in between birth and death, we have the positivity of health and the negativity of illness; the positivity of joys and the negativity of sorrows; the positivity of success and the negativity of failure; the positivity of being liked and the negativity of being disliked. There can be no life without both the positive and the negative―likewise there cannot be any eternal life in Heaven without the positive and negative.
Thus, looking at the name of Mary, we see that it must inescapably contain both bitterness and sweetness. To a certain extent we see this in her titles―not least the titles by which Our Lord and God wish Mary to be invoked by in our day and age―the “Sorrowful [negative/bitter] and Immaculate [positive/sweet] Heart of Mary.” The various statements made by Our Lord to His visionary, the Belgian Franciscan Tertiary, Berthe Petit. In October, 1920, Our Lord exalted the merits of the Sorrows of His Mother in these terms:
“The title of ‘Immaculate’ [a positive aspect] belongs to the whole being of My Mother and not specially to her Heart. This title flows from my gratuitous gift to the Virgin who was to give Me birth. My Mother has acquired for her Heart the title of Sorrowful by sharing generously in all the sufferings of My Heart and My Body from the crib to the cross. There is not one of these Sorrows which did not pierce the Heart of My Mother. Living image of My crucified Body, her virginal flesh bore the invisible marks of My wounds as her Heart felt the Sorrows of My own. Nothing could ever tarnish the incorruptibility of her Immaculate Heart. The title of `Sorrowful’ [a negative aspect] belongs therefore to the Heart of My Mother, and more than any other, this title is dear to her because it springs from the union of her Heart with Mine in the redemption of humanity. This title has been acquired by her through her full participation in My Calvary, and it precedes the gratuitous title `Immaculate’ which My love bestowed upon her by a singular privilege.”
On other occasions Our Lord said to Berthe Petit: “The time is now ripe and I wish mankind to turn to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother” … “The world must be dedicated to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother, as it is dedicated to Mine!” … “It is My wish that the nations should turn to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother. Let one and the same cry arise from every soul: Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!” … “Recourse to My Mother under the title I wish for her universally, is the last help I shall give before the end of time!” … “My Church will revive through the spread of the Devotion and the Consecration which I wish to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother” … “Recourse to My Mother, will bring about, above all, the conversion of a multitude of straying and sinful souls―the pity of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother will implore Mercy for them from My Heart.”
Saintly Explanations
Throughout the centuries, Saints and scholars have put forth different interpretations for the name “Mary.” A mixture of etymology and devotion has combined to produce an interesting array of meanings:
In his book, The Wondrous Childhood of the Most Holy Mother of God, St. John Eudes (+1680) offers meditations on seventeen interpretations of the name “Mary” ― taken from the writings of ”the Holy Fathers and by some celebrated Doctors.” Among these various interpretations are “God born of my race,” (St. Ambrose); ”Rain of the sea, falling at convenient time and season,” (St. Peter Canisius); “Myrrh of the Sea,” (St. Jerome); and “The hope of those who voyage on the stormy sea of this world.” (St. Epiphanius) It is quite clear—from Scripture, Tradition and history—that the Church owes so much to Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer and our Mother “in the order of grace.” How does the gratitude and affection of her spiritual children manifest itself in the beautiful Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, and what does this cherished name mean to those who love and venerate the Mother of God?
“Mary means enlightener, because she brought forth the Light of the world. In the Syriac tongue, Mary signifies Lady” (St. Isidore of Seville +636).
“This most holy, sweet and worthy name was ‘eminently fitted to so holy, sweet and worthy a virgin. For Mary means a bitter sea, star of the sea, the illuminated or illuminatrix. Mary is interpreted Lady. Mary is a bitter sea to the demons; to men, she is the Star of the sea; to the angels, she is Illuminatrix; and to all creatures, she is Lady” (St. Bonaventure +1274).
The interpretation “Lady” for Mary was also proposed by St. Jerome, based on the Aramaic word, mar, meaning “Lord”. This would render the meaning “Lady” in the regal or noble sense, as in “Lord and Lady.” Catholic sensibility, however, recognizing in Mary the simple dignity of a Mother, as well as the grandeur of a Queen, did not hesitate to add an affectionate touch to this majestic title. Mary is not just “Lady”, she is “Madonna” or “Notre Dame” meaning, she is “Our Lady”. This aspect of Mary --“Lady” or “Mistress” — is close to Our Lord’s Heart.
“Let me say something concerning this name also, which is interpreted to mean ‘Star of the Sea’, and admirably suits the Virgin Mother.” (St. Bernard +1153).
“Mary means Star of the sea, for as mariners are guided to port by the ocean star, so Christians attain to glory through Mary’s maternal intercession” (St. Thomas Aquinas +1274).
“God the Father gathered all the waters together and called them the seas or ‘maria’ [Latin for’ sea’]. He gathered all His grace together and called it Mary or Maria ... This immense treasury is none other than Mary whom the Saints call the ‘treasury of the Lord.’ From her fullness all men are made rich” (St. Louis de Montfort +1716).
This fascinating—and very, very Catholic—desire to explore the meaning and depths of the holy name of “Mary” is not merely a pious pursuit, unrelated to any theological concerns. In the various interpretations set forth, a wealth of Marian doctrine is made manifest, not in the clinical language of theology, but in rich, colorful meditations on Our Lady’s name, and sacred truths are explored and taught in language easily comprehended and appreciated by all.
On the day of this day’s largely forgotten or ignored feast―the Holy Name of Mary (September 12th)―let us ponder a little and reflect upon the purpose and power of names. However, before we temporarily lose sight of the name of “Mary” while doing so, let us first of all―in honor of her name―absorb a few inspiring lines written on her holy name. In one of his homilies for the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, St. Bernard (1090-1153) reformer of the Benedictine Order and founder of Cistercian Order, Abbot and Doctor of the Church, writes:
“‘And the Virgin’s name was Mary’ (Luke 1:27). Let us speak a little about this name, which is said to mean ‘star of the sea’, and which so well befits the Virgin Mother. Rightly is she likened to a star. As a star emits a ray without being dimmed, so the Virgin brought forth her Son without receiving any injury. The ray takes naught from the brightness of the star, nor the Son from His Mother’s virginal integrity. This is the noble star risen out of Jacob, whose ray illumines the whole world, whose splendor shines in the heavens, penetrates the abyss, and, traversing the whole earth, gives warmth rather to souls than to bodies, cherishing virtues, withering vices. Mary is that bright and incomparable star, whom we need to see raised above this vast sea, shining by her merits, and giving us light by her example.
“All of you, who see yourselves amid the tides of the world, tossed by storms and tempests rather than walking on the land, do not turn your eyes away from this shining star, unless you want to be overwhelmed by the hurricane. If temptation storms, or you fall upon the rocks of tribulation, look to the star: Call upon Mary! If you are tossed by the waves of pride or ambition, detraction or envy, look to the star, call upon Mary. If anger or avarice or the desires of the flesh dash against the ship o f your soul, turn your eyes to Mary. If troubled by the enormity of your crimes, ashamed of your guilty conscience, terrified by dread of the judgment, you begin to sink into the gulf of sadness or the abyss of despair, think of Mary. In dangers, in anguish, in doubt, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let her name be even on your lips, ever in your heart; and the better to obtain the help of her prayers, imitate the example of her life. Following her, thou strayest not; invoking her, thou despairest not; thinking of her, thou wanderest not; upheld by her, thou fallest not; shielded by her, thou fearest not; guided by her, thou growest not weary; favored by her, thou reachest the goal. And thus dost thou experience in thyself how good is that saying: ‘And the Virgin’s name was Mary.”
The Church commemorates numerous occasions on which It invoked the name of Mary and received her heavenly protection. During the pontificate of Pope Innocent III, Saint Dominic Guzman established the Order of Preachers to combat the Albigensian heresy that all material things were evil. He trained his priests to live a holy life, to use their minds, and to pray the Rosary. On September 12th 1213, the Christian forces under Simon de Montfort won a decisive victory over the heretics at Muret in southern France. Likewise, on the first Sunday of October, the Church recalls the victory of the Christian naval forces under Don Juan of Austria against the 300-odd ships of the Moslem Turk, Selim II, in 1571. Again on September 12th 1683, after a forced march begun in Poland on the August 15th feast of the Assumption, John Sobieski turned back the 300,000 Moslem invaders besieging Vienna. And, once again, on August 5th 1716, under the patronage of Mary, Our Lady of the Snows, Prince Eugene claimed her victory at Peterwardein; shortly thereafter raising the siege of Corfu and later reclaiming Belgrade. The feast of the Holy Name of Mary was inscribed in the calendar of the Universal Church by Pope Innocent XI “as a perpetual memorial of the great blessing of that signal victory won at Vienna in Austria over the cruel Turkish tyrant who had been grinding down the Christian people.”
Today we stand in need of innumerable victories in many different domains―religious, political, cultural, social, financial, etc. ― all of which have become slaves of the devil, the world and sinfulness. It is once again to Mary that we must turn―for God has ruled that in our day and age, she is one who is lead us to victory once again.
Name That Person!
There is no one more qualified or better in handing-out names than God Himself. There are two ways in which God gave a name to a person in the Bible. Some people were given a name before they were born (or shortly after), while others were renamed by God later in life. In biblical times, a person’s name carried great deal of significance, and was VERY important. A person’s name could be chosen based on number of things. For example, something reflecting: how God had played a role in his birth, his character, his future life, his birth order, a physical trait, where he was born, and more. When God gave names, it generally reflected something to do with Him.
Firstly, here is list of persons whom God named personally―even if God uses an angel as a messenger, the name is not the angel’s personal choice, but the angel merely relays and delivers the name that God has chosen. Besides these following names, it is universally presumed (though not mentioned in the Bible) that the name “Adam” was given by God Himself:
► ISMAEL: “Behold, said he, thou art with child, and thou shalt bring forth a son: and thou shalt call his name Ismael, because the Lord hath heard thy affliction” (Genesis 16:11). Ismael means: “God hears”―he was the first child to whom God gave his name before birth.
► ISAAC: “God said to Abraham: ‘Sara thy wife shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name Isaac, and I will establish My covenant with him for a perpetual covenant, and with his seed after him” (Genesis 17:19). Isaac was the first child to whom God gave his name before birth. Isaac means “laughter” Thus the name God gave signified what would happen in the future.
► JEZRAHEL: “The word of the Lord, that came to Osee and the Lord said to Osee: ‘Go, take thee a wife of fornications, and have of her children of fornications―for the land by fornication shall depart from the Lord!’ So he went, and took Gomer the daughter of Debelaim: and she conceived and bore him a son. And the Lord said to him: ‘Call his name Jezrahel―for, yet a little while, and I will visit the blood of Jezrahel upon the house of Jehu, and I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel!’” (Osee 1:1-4). Thus the name God gave signified what would happen in the future.
► LO-RUHAMAH: “And she conceived again, and bore a daughter, and the Lord said to him: ‘Call her name, “Without Mercy”―for I will not add any more to have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will utterly forget them!’” (Osee 1:6).
► LO-AMMI: “And she conceived, and bore a son. And the Lord said: ‘Call his name, “Not my people”―for you are not my people, and I will not be yours!” (Osee 1:9). Thus the name God gave signified what would happen in the future.
►JOHN THE BAPTIST: “And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. [12] And Zachary seeing him, was troubled, and fear fell upon him. [13] But the angel said to him: Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John!’ … Now Elizabeth's full time of being delivered was come, and she brought forth a son … And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they called him by his father’s name―Zachary. And his mother answering, said: ‘Not so! But he shall be called John!’ And they said to her: ‘There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name!’ And they made signs to his father, how he would have him called. And demanding a writing table, he wrote, saying: ‘John is his name!’” (Luke 1:13, 1:57-63). The name John means “God is gracious”, or “God has shown a favor” in the sense of “God is kind”.
► JESUS: “The angel of the Lord appeared to him in his sleep, saying: Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a Son: and thou shalt call His Name Jesus. For He shall save his people from their sins … And Joseph rising up from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and took unto him his wife. And he knew her not till she brought forth her firstborn Son: and he called His Name Jesus” (Matthew 1:20-21,24-25); “And the angel said to her: ‘Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call His Name Jesus!’ … And after eight days were accomplished, that the Child should be circumcised, His Name was called Jesus―which was called by the angel, before He was conceived in the womb” (Luke 1:31; 2:21). The name Jesus means “Savior”. The name Jesus is derived from the Hebrew name “Yeshua”, which is based on the Semitic root meaning “to deliver; to rescue.”
Now, here is a list of the people whose name was changed by God to a new name:
► ABRAM to ABRAHAM: “Abram fell flat on his face. And God said to him: ‘My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name be called any more Abram: but thou shalt be called Abraham―because I have made thee a father of many nations. And I will make thee increase, exceedingly, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee!’” (Genesis 17:3-6). The name Abraham therefore means “father of many nations.”
► SARAI to SARA: “God said also to Abraham: ‘Sarai―thy wife―thou shalt not call Sarai, but Sara. And I will bless her, and of her I will give thee a son, whom I will bless, and he shall become nations, and kings of people shall spring from him” (Genesis 17:15) The name Sara means “royal lady” or “princess.”
► JACOB to ISRAEL: Jacob had wrestled all through the night with the angel sent to him by God. When dawn came, the angel “said to him [Jacob]: ‘Let me go! For it is break of day!’ He [Jacob] answered: ‘I will not let thee go unless thou bless me!’ And the angel said: ‘What is thy name?’ He answered: ‘Jacob.’ But the angel said: ‘Thy name shall not be called Jacob, but Israel―for if thou hast been strong against God, and how much more shalt thou prevail against men!’ … And [later] God appeared again to Jacob, after he returned from Mesopotamia of Syria, and He blessed him, saying: ‘Thou shalt not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name!’ And He called him Israel” (Genesis 32:26-28; 35:9-10).
► SOLOMON to AMIABLE TO THE LORD (beloved of the Lord): “And David comforted Bethsabee his wife, and went in unto her, and slept with her: and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon, and the Lord loved him. And He sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet, and called his name, Amiable to the Lord, because the Lord loved him” (2 Kings 12:24-25).
► SIMON to PETER: “Jesus saith to them: ‘But whom do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered and said: ‘Thou art Christ―the Son of the living God!’ And Jesus, answering, said to him: ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona! Because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father Who is in Heaven! And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it!’” (Matthew 16:15-18).
So What About the Name “Mary”
Holy Scripture succinctly mentions Our Lady’s name in the phrase: “And the virgin’ s name was Mary” (Luke 1:27)―which is part of the account of Annunciation. Those few words encapsulate that short sweet name of Mary! Yet though the name is short―there has been no shortage of discussion and debate over the meaning of the name “Mary”! Because ancient texts of the Egyptian and Judeo-Aramaic languages omit vowels, scholars often argue over possible meanings of words. Context and etymology are essential factors to unlocking the correct meaning. Nonetheless, ambiguity often persists, such as the meaning of the name Mary. The word “maris” in Latin means “sea” and is quite similar to “Maria”. St. Louis de Montfort alludes to this in his book, True Devotion to Mary, wherein he writes: “God the Father made an assemblage of all the waters and He named it the sea (mare). He made an assemblage of all His graces and he called it Mary (Maria).”
However, the name Mary is clearly not Latin in origin, but finds its roots in the Egyptian name, Miriam. Here is where the etymology becomes complicated―because there are over 100 possibilities of what the name Miriam means in Egyptian. Possible meanings range from “bitterness,” “beautiful,” and “love.” Yet strangely enough―or should we say “providentially”―all of those interpretations, and others besides, are most fitting for the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Because ancient texts of the Egyptian and Judeo-Aramaic languages omit vowels, scholars often argue over possible meanings of words. Context and etymology are essential factors to unlocking the correct meaning. Nonetheless, ambiguity often persists, such as the meaning of the name Mary. The word “maris” in Latin means “sea” and is quite similar to “Maria”. However, the name Mary is clearly not Latin in origin, but finds its roots in the Egyptian name, Miriam. Here is where the etymology becomes complicated―because there are over 100 possibilities of what the name Miriam means in Egyptian. Possible meanings range from “bitterness,” “beautiful,” and “love.”
Consequently, it is helpful to look at the Hebrew version of “Miriam”, which is “Miryam” or “Maryam”. Wide variations also exist in the meaning of the name “Maryam”, such as “rebellion,” and “sea of bitterness.” Keeping in mind that a name represents the soul in Hebrew, and some persons argue that such translations are unacceptable for a young girl―but is that true? Are they unacceptable? More on that in a moment. The second part of this name, “yam”, does, in fact, mean “sea”; however, the first part, “mar”, has several possible meanings. “Mar” literally means “bitter”, which is why some believe that “Maryam” means “bitter sea” or “sea of bitterness”. Nonetheless, in Hebrew, the adjective follows the substantive, which means “bitter sea” would appear as “Yam mar” and not “Mar yam”.
Miryam [or Maryam] was the name of the sister of Moses; and the ancient rabbinical scholars seeing in it a symbol of the slavery of the Israelites at the hands of the Egyptians, held that Miryam was given this name, because she was born during the time of the oppression of her people—a time of “bitterness”. The Old Testament, being the chronicle of the ”Time of Expectation” of the Redeemer, is filled with various “types,” or foreshadowings of people and events which would be made manifest during the ”Time of Redemption,” when Christ walked the earth. Yet we can only look at them ”through a glass darkly,” so to speak, under the guidance of the Catholic Church, which alone possesses the authority to interpret the sacred texts. Miryam [or Maryam], the sister of Moses is a “type” or prefiguration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Miryam was a prophetess, who sang a canticle of thanksgiving, after the safe crossing of the Red Sea and the destruction of Pharaoh’s army; Mary prophesied in her canticle, the Magnificat, that all generations would honor her by calling her “blessed”, and she sang of how God would overturn the proud and raise-up the humble. Miryam supported her brother, Moses, the liberator of his people; just as Mary, as the Co-Redemptrix, united her sufferings to those of Jesus on Calvary, for Mary labored alongside the Redeemer, the true Liberator of His people. Just as Jesus was the “antitype” [i.e., the fulfillment] of Moses, so was Our Lady the “antitype” of Miryam, the fullest realization of the courageous woman standing beside, and laboring with, the one who comes to free captives.
Eusebius of Caesarea, who composed a dictionary of proper names in the Bible, translated “Maryam” as “drop of the sea.” When St. Jerome (4th century AD) translated this dictionary into Latin, he rendered “drop of the sea” as “stilla maris”. Some believe that a scribal error caused “stilla” to become “stella”. However, Jerome elsewhere made a case for “Star of the sea,” by suggesting that “mar” was a contraction of “ma’or”, which means “luminary” or “star”.
Spiritual Significance―Is Mary Our GPS to Heaven?
As citizens of the 21st century, navigating our way with GPS, we little realize how vital the North Star was to travelers in previous times. This trustworthy star guided sailors across the sea and travelers across the desert. Because it remains apparently fixed in the same location throughout the night, it served as a sure reference point in the heavens. Unlike shooting stars―that dazzle the eyes for a moment and fade away―the North Star remains steady. In her role as a caring Mother, Mary likewise is comparable to this constancy.
Purity, radiance, and beauty ― such qualities of a star are also applicable to the Virgin; however, the North Star fits her in particular because of its role as a guide to travelers. As our life on earth is similar to a tempestuous sea journey, so Mary remains firm in the heavens, guiding souls to the eternal shores. Byzantine Christians call her Hodegitria or “She who knows the way.” According to their understanding, as well as Catholic understanding, she knows the way to Jesus and to Heaven.
As the Romans thought of the god Polaris as occupying the north pole of the heavens, so Christians think of Mary as occupying the center of Heaven, as the greatest of the saints. “One is the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon, and another the glory of the stars. For star differeth from star in glory” (1 Corinthians 15:41). Though there are brighter stars than Polaris, its location is the reason for its importance. For Christians, Mary’s importance is primarily because of her proximity to God, as Jesus’ mother. Contrary to a common belief among Protestants and pagans, Catholics do not worship Mary; rather, they venerate her as the Mother of Jesus and the greatest of saints.
Stella Maris: Development During the Middle Ages
The understanding of Mary’s name as Star of the sea took firm hold among Western Christians during the Middle Ages. St. Isidore, a seventh-century bishop from Seville, reaffirmed this understanding in his Etymologiae. In the eighth century, St. Alcuin of York dedicated a Marian altar with the inscription, lux et stella maris, “light and star of the sea.” St. Paschasius Radbertus wrote in the ninth century that the “Star of the Sea” should be our guide to Christ, “lest we capsize amid the storm-tossed waves of the sea.”
Some of the most beautiful Gregorian chants that emerged during the Middle Ages, such as Ave Maris Stella (9th century) and Alma Redemptoris Mater (12th century), include this image. The latter hymn, Alma Redemptoris Mater, sung during Advent, says, “Loving mother of the Redeemer, who remains the open gate of heaven and star of the sea, help the fallen people who strive to rise again.”
St. Bernard (11th century), composed an inspired homily regarding Mary as Star of the Sea. He recommends that all who are traveling on the troubled waters of life should look to Mary. “Mary’s name is said to mean, ‘star of the sea,’” he says, “If the winds of temptation surge, if you run aground on the shoals of troubles, look to this star, call upon Mary! If you are tossed by the winds of pride or ambition or detraction or jealousy, look to this star, call upon Mary! If anger, greed, or the allurements of the flesh dash against the boat of your mind, look to Mary! In dangers, in straits, in perplexity, think of Mary, call upon Mary… Let her name be always in your mouth, and in your heart, and if you would ask for and obtain the help of her prayers, do not forget the example of how she lived.”
As the Scholastic Era developed, several important theologians supported this meaning of Mary’s name. St. Bonaventure says for instance, “This name is most fitting for Mary, who is to us a star above the sea. She guides to a landfall in Heaven those who navigate the sea of this world…Well do we compare Mary to a star of the sea, because of her shining purity, her brightness, all that she does for us.” St. Thomas Aquinas endorsed this understanding of Mary’s name, saying, “Thus the name ‘Mary,’ which is rendered ‘Star of the Sea,’ suits her, because just as sailors on the ocean are guided to a harbor by a star, so Christians are guided to glory by Mary.” The Carmelite Order, founded principally to honor the Virgin Mary, developed strong devotion to this image. Stella Maris is the name of their principal monastery located on Mt. Carmel in Israel.
There is No Mary Without Sorrow or Bitterness
Those theological “sugar seekers” or “sugar eaters”, who seek or prefer to reject the “negative” sounding interpretations of the name “Mary” or “Maryam” or “Miriam”―meaning the interpretations that refer to the name as “bitter sea” or “sea of bitterness”―fail to understand the whole Theology of Redemption.
Already from the beginning of the human race―with Adam and Eve―we have this “taste of bitterness” due to sin and the payment for sin: “And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labor and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return” (Genesis 3:17-19). Is that sweet or bitter? Well, it’s bitter-sweet―for through that bitterness comes the sweet chance of salvation and Heaven.
Just before their Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites were commanded to eat the Paschal lamb with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs These bitter herbs consisted of such plants as chicory, bitter cresses, hawkweeds, sow-thistles and wild lettuces, which grow abundantly in the peninsula of Sinai, in Palestine and in Egypt: “And they shall eat the flesh that night roasted at the fire, and unleavened bread with wild lettuce” (Exodus 12:8). They were later commanded to repeat this eating of the Paschal lamb and bitter herbs as they wandered through the desert for 40 years. The purpose of this observance was to recall to the minds of the Israelites their deliverance from the bitter bondage of the Egyptians. The 40 years of wandering in the desert was a punishment for failing to enter the Promised Land at the first command of God. So they were made to pay for this rejection of God by 40 years of bitterness before finally entering the sweetness of the Promised Land. “The Lord spoke to Moses in the desert of Sinai, the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, in the first month, saying: ‘Let the children of Israel make the phase [phase = eating of the lamb and bitter herbs] in its due time … In the second month, on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening, they shall eat it with unleavened bread and wild lettuce [a bitter herb]” (Number 9:1-11).
Later, we again see the connection between Mary and bitterness. “Mary [Maryam or Miriam] the prophetess, the sister of Aaron [and Moses], took a timbrel in her hand: and all the women went forth after her with timbrels and with dances. And she began the song to them, saying: ‘Let us sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously magnified, the horse and his rider he hath thrown into the sea!’ And Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went forth into the wilderness of Sur: and they marched three days through the wilderness, and found no water. And they came into Mara [meaning “bitterness”―Mara? Mary?], and they could not drink the waters of Mara, because they were bitter: whereupon he gave a name also agreeable to the place, calling it Mara, that is, bitterness. And the people murmured against Moses, saying: ‘What shall we drink?’ But he cried to the Lord, and he showed him a tree [a symbol of the Tree of Christ’s Cross and the Holy Eucharist that comes from the Sacrifice of Calvary―the Mass], which when he had cast into the waters, they were turned into sweetness” (Exodus 15:20-25). “Was not bitter water made sweet with wood?” (Ecclesiasticus 38:5). “There bitter fountains were made sweet for them to drink, and for forty years they received food from Heaven” (Judith 5:15). So too does frequent assistance at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and frequent reception of the Holy Eucharist sweeten the Lord’s Cross that everyone, without exception, has to carry.
Let Us Not Screw Up Our Faces at the Bitterness―Lest We Screw-Up Our Salvation
Thus there should no revulsion, nor reticence, nor rejection of the interpretation of the name “Mary” or “Maryam” as meaning ”Bitter sea” (mara = bitter; yam = sea). In the prayer, Hail Holy Queen, do we not include both elements of bitterness and sweetness? We say “poor banished children of Eve” (bitter, huh?), and “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears” (bitter, huh?), and “this our exile” (bitter, huh?)―and then we ask Our Lady―calling her “Sweet Virgin Mary”―to turn her eyes of mercy towards us. Do we speak of this life as “the sea of life” on which we sail? The waters of this “sea of life” are mainly made up from our “bitter tears” that fill up this “valley of tears.”
The interpretation given by St. Bonaventure, also calls to mind Our Lady’s Seven Sorrows and the sword which “pierced” her soul on Calvary, recalling the lamentation of the mother-in-law of Ruth, who had lost a husband and two sons: ”Call me not Noemi [meaning, beautiful], but call me Mara, [meaning, bitter] for the Almighty hath quite filled me with bitterness” (Ruth 1:20). Maror are ”bitter herbs,” such as are found on the seder plate at a Passover meal.
We say of people that “they have a hard shell, but a soft center”, or that they are “hard on the outside but soft on the inside”, or that “their bark is worse than their bite”―meaning that, like a candy that we suck-on, once we have melted the exterior, we find something different in the interior. Things can be “bitter-sweet” or “sweetly-bitter”. The external coating of sin―though often sweet in taste―has a very bitter center by its consequences, thus it is “sweet-bitter”―sweet at first, but bitter in the end. Whereas the Cross of Christ, though it has bitter exterior, once we have “sucked on it” for a while, we finally penetrate its sweet interior. St. Simon of Cyrene was much like this―he was forced to carry the Cross of Christ and initially chaffed and complained under it, but gradually he came to understand, appreciate and love the Cross of Christ― “bitter-sweet”, being bitter in the beginning, but sweet in the end.
Our Lord repeatedly says: “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal” (John 12:24-25). “Whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospel, shall save it” (Mark 8:35). “For he that will save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it” (Matthew 16:25). “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; for he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall save it” (Luke 9:24). “Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose it, shall preserve it” (Luke 17:33).
“I do not promise to make you happy in this world (negative), but in the next (positive)!” says Our Lady to St. Bernadette at Lourdes. In other words, you will have bitterness in this life (negative), but sweetness in the next (positive)―which is pretty much the same thing as Our Lord said: “He who seeks to save his life (positive) will lose it (negative), but he who loses his life (negative) for My sake, will find it (positive). Dying to self is bitter―but spiritually it eventually brings sweetness. The negative leads to a positive.
All God’s Creation Has a Positive-Negative
Everything that God has created has a “positive element” and at the same time a “negative element.” Just like the Sun, and other Planets (and batteries) have a magnetic field with a positive and negative polarity, so too does the Earth―whereby the North Pole has a negative polarity and the South Pole a positive polarity. Similarly, in the seasons, we have a polarization between the positivity of maximum heat (summer-time) and the negativity of minimum heat (winter-time). In each person’s life there is the positivity of birth and the negativity of death―and during the life that comes in between birth and death, we have the positivity of health and the negativity of illness; the positivity of joys and the negativity of sorrows; the positivity of success and the negativity of failure; the positivity of being liked and the negativity of being disliked. There can be no life without both the positive and the negative―likewise there cannot be any eternal life in Heaven without the positive and negative.
Thus, looking at the name of Mary, we see that it must inescapably contain both bitterness and sweetness. To a certain extent we see this in her titles―not least the titles by which Our Lord and God wish Mary to be invoked by in our day and age―the “Sorrowful [negative/bitter] and Immaculate [positive/sweet] Heart of Mary.” The various statements made by Our Lord to His visionary, the Belgian Franciscan Tertiary, Berthe Petit. In October, 1920, Our Lord exalted the merits of the Sorrows of His Mother in these terms:
“The title of ‘Immaculate’ [a positive aspect] belongs to the whole being of My Mother and not specially to her Heart. This title flows from my gratuitous gift to the Virgin who was to give Me birth. My Mother has acquired for her Heart the title of Sorrowful by sharing generously in all the sufferings of My Heart and My Body from the crib to the cross. There is not one of these Sorrows which did not pierce the Heart of My Mother. Living image of My crucified Body, her virginal flesh bore the invisible marks of My wounds as her Heart felt the Sorrows of My own. Nothing could ever tarnish the incorruptibility of her Immaculate Heart. The title of `Sorrowful’ [a negative aspect] belongs therefore to the Heart of My Mother, and more than any other, this title is dear to her because it springs from the union of her Heart with Mine in the redemption of humanity. This title has been acquired by her through her full participation in My Calvary, and it precedes the gratuitous title `Immaculate’ which My love bestowed upon her by a singular privilege.”
On other occasions Our Lord said to Berthe Petit: “The time is now ripe and I wish mankind to turn to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother” … “The world must be dedicated to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother, as it is dedicated to Mine!” … “It is My wish that the nations should turn to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother. Let one and the same cry arise from every soul: Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!” … “Recourse to My Mother under the title I wish for her universally, is the last help I shall give before the end of time!” … “My Church will revive through the spread of the Devotion and the Consecration which I wish to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother” … “Recourse to My Mother, will bring about, above all, the conversion of a multitude of straying and sinful souls―the pity of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother will implore Mercy for them from My Heart.”
Saintly Explanations
Throughout the centuries, Saints and scholars have put forth different interpretations for the name “Mary.” A mixture of etymology and devotion has combined to produce an interesting array of meanings:
In his book, The Wondrous Childhood of the Most Holy Mother of God, St. John Eudes (+1680) offers meditations on seventeen interpretations of the name “Mary” ― taken from the writings of ”the Holy Fathers and by some celebrated Doctors.” Among these various interpretations are “God born of my race,” (St. Ambrose); ”Rain of the sea, falling at convenient time and season,” (St. Peter Canisius); “Myrrh of the Sea,” (St. Jerome); and “The hope of those who voyage on the stormy sea of this world.” (St. Epiphanius) It is quite clear—from Scripture, Tradition and history—that the Church owes so much to Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer and our Mother “in the order of grace.” How does the gratitude and affection of her spiritual children manifest itself in the beautiful Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, and what does this cherished name mean to those who love and venerate the Mother of God?
“Mary means enlightener, because she brought forth the Light of the world. In the Syriac tongue, Mary signifies Lady” (St. Isidore of Seville +636).
“This most holy, sweet and worthy name was ‘eminently fitted to so holy, sweet and worthy a virgin. For Mary means a bitter sea, star of the sea, the illuminated or illuminatrix. Mary is interpreted Lady. Mary is a bitter sea to the demons; to men, she is the Star of the sea; to the angels, she is Illuminatrix; and to all creatures, she is Lady” (St. Bonaventure +1274).
The interpretation “Lady” for Mary was also proposed by St. Jerome, based on the Aramaic word, mar, meaning “Lord”. This would render the meaning “Lady” in the regal or noble sense, as in “Lord and Lady.” Catholic sensibility, however, recognizing in Mary the simple dignity of a Mother, as well as the grandeur of a Queen, did not hesitate to add an affectionate touch to this majestic title. Mary is not just “Lady”, she is “Madonna” or “Notre Dame” meaning, she is “Our Lady”. This aspect of Mary --“Lady” or “Mistress” — is close to Our Lord’s Heart.
“Let me say something concerning this name also, which is interpreted to mean ‘Star of the Sea’, and admirably suits the Virgin Mother.” (St. Bernard +1153).
“Mary means Star of the sea, for as mariners are guided to port by the ocean star, so Christians attain to glory through Mary’s maternal intercession” (St. Thomas Aquinas +1274).
“God the Father gathered all the waters together and called them the seas or ‘maria’ [Latin for’ sea’]. He gathered all His grace together and called it Mary or Maria ... This immense treasury is none other than Mary whom the Saints call the ‘treasury of the Lord.’ From her fullness all men are made rich” (St. Louis de Montfort +1716).
This fascinating—and very, very Catholic—desire to explore the meaning and depths of the holy name of “Mary” is not merely a pious pursuit, unrelated to any theological concerns. In the various interpretations set forth, a wealth of Marian doctrine is made manifest, not in the clinical language of theology, but in rich, colorful meditations on Our Lady’s name, and sacred truths are explored and taught in language easily comprehended and appreciated by all.
Article 5
Sunday September 10th & Monday September 11th, 2023
Our Lady is Looking for Fighters!
Sunday September 10th & Monday September 11th, 2023
Our Lady is Looking for Fighters!
Enjoying Your Day?
Are you sitting comfortably? Did you enjoy your Sunday dinner? Are having a good time? Are the children playing? Watching television? Surfing the internet or social media? Chatting on the phone? Out socializing? Out making most of the warm weather? It is not quite what Our Lady has in mind for us! Our Lady of Good Success warned of our “easy-going” times when she said: “Unbridled luxury and extravagance will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! O, if men only understood how to appreciate the time given to them and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!”” … while Our Lady of La Salette further warned: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance … People will think of nothing but amusement!”
Heaven Might Not Be Enjoying Your Day!
Your day might not be Heaven’s day―your way might not be Heaven’s way: “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). We amass riches―Heaven says give away your riches: “Jesus said to the rich young man: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven―and then come follow Me!’” (Matthew 19:21).
Even the three little children of Fatima had fallen into this love for “amusements” ― which was criticized and rebuked by the Angel of Portugal when he appeared to them while they were playing. Hey! Little children are supposed play, aren’t they? Well, yes, but they should also pray and not just play―and, according to the Angel, pray more than play! The Angel appeared to the playing children and rebuked them, saying: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
Our Lady of Fatima, at her first appearance, would later back-up the Angel’s words by asking the children: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort!” Heck―today, in this modern over-sensitive prickly world, those words of Our Lady would be looked upon as a threat―and some would not hesitate to sue her for frightening little children! Furthermore, she even shows them a real vision of Hell to scare them even more―Lucia said they would have died on the spot out or terror, had not the grace of God kept them alive! Boy! They would have a field-day in the courts suing Our Lady for that!
Our Lady came looking―not for “armchair Catholics”, nor “couch-potato Catholics”, not “cafeteria Catholics”―but she came looking for “battlefield Catholics” who would fight and suffer for Our Lord, Our Lady and our Faith. As Sister Lucia of Fatima would later say: “The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle! It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground!” Those words make us recall what Our Lord said in the Gospels: “He that is not with Me, is against Me!” (Matthew 12:30).
Our Lord Came to Fight
Our Lord did come to bring peace and comfort, fun and entertainment on this Earth―He came to call us to the fight! “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
Wrong Idea of Life
We have the wrong idea of life―we want our life to be easy and comfortable; we want our life to be fun and enjoyable; we want to be a rich as we can; we want to be accepted by the world and so we jump through all the hoops that the world places in front of us in order to get all these things. If that is our attitude, then we have the wrong idea of what is supposed to be about! Yes―St. Thomas Aquinas says that it is normal for every person to seek out happiness―but in what basket are we seeking that happiness? The basket of the world, or the basket of Heaven. Our Lord was pretty clear and unambiguous on the matter when He said: “He that loves his life [in this world] shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal!” (John 12:25). “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). “Blessed is the man that hath not gone after gold, nor put his trust in money nor in treasures” (Ecclesiasticus 31:8). “The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches chokes up the word [of God]!” (Matthew 13:22).
When you read the serious and acclaimed spiritual masters―which most people do not read―then you will see that the path to Heaven is a path of progressive detachment from persons, places and possessions. Life is not a case of “keeping-your-cake-and-eating-it”―which is impossible―for you either keep it or you eat it, not both. You cannot be with the world and against it―all at the same time. Our Lord is not on the side of the world―He came into this world to save us from slavery to the world, which is a slavery to sin and Satan―for Satan is “prince of this world” (John 12:31). “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30) … “My kingdom is not of this world! … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To those who wish to be part of the world, He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His true followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His true followers He points out: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
Hence Holy Scripture says: “Whatsoever is born of God, overcomes the world! And this is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). “Wonder not if the world hate you!” (1 John 3:13) ― for the world hates Christ and all that Christ stands for, which is summarized by the Catholic Faith. Regardless of who Donald Trump is working for―his recent public statement at the Republican Summer Dinner Party in Montgomery, Alabama, is “right-on-the-button”. He said: “I tell you―they are really after the Catholics! They are after the Catholic Church―it’s incredible! I don’t how many Catholics are in―but they are after the Catholic Church! They are after parents and school boards!” (Donald Trump at the ALGOP Summer Dinner, Montgomery, Alabama, August 4th, 2023).
The Catholic Church has always been the enemy of the world―as Our Lord said above. The more that we follow the world and its attitudes, maxims, fashions, ideas, ways of operating, etc., then the more we become enemies of God and Christ. “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life―which is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:15-16). “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27). “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). “Whatsoever is born of God, overcomes the world, and this is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:2-4)
The Right Idea of Life
What, then, is the right idea of life? Our Lord said: “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly!” (John 10:10). Scripture adds: “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men … the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil!” (John 1:4; 3:19). Our Lord is the Life ― “Jesus said: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by Me!’” (John 14:6) ... “I am the Bread of life! … I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven!” (John 6:48, 41) … “I am the resurrection and the life! He that believes in Me, although he be dead, shall live!” (John 11:25). “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd gives His life for His sheep!” (John 10:11). “Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it―and whosoever shall lose it, shall preserve it!” (Luke 17:33). “He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal!” (John 12:25). “He that finds his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for Me, shall find it! He that does not take up his cross to follow Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:32-39).
Heaven is the reward for the work we do here on Earth: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). “He that sows in his flesh, of the flesh he shall also shall reap corruption! (Galatians 6:8). A life of work is often painful―and the life of a Christian has to be the life of the cross: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). The cross is the key to life―eternal life. If we wish to follow Christ into eternal life, then we must carry His cross―there is no other way apart from the way of the cross, but, even though it makes us sorrowful, it leads us eternal joy and happiness: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” says Our Lord (John 16:20).
Along the same lines, Our Lady said to St. Bernadette of Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next!” To the Venerable Mary of Agreda she said: “Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? To be pardoned without penance? Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment! Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, and willingly enter upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, and to carry it after Christ. Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness!”
“The Church would not be entangled in its present difficulties, if a number of the souls belonging to it had taken it upon themselves to defend the cause and honor of God ... My Son and I continue to look for some souls to defend the glory and honor of God and fight the battles against Hell for the confusion and crushing of the demons. Hence I desire that you dispose yourself, by divine grace, for this battle and not to wonder at the strength of the demon ... The Most High will lend you His strength, so that you can fight His battles with His and your enemies ... Fight the battles of the Lord against His enemies and―in His Name and mine―crush their head, reign over their pride and cast them into Hell. Learn the manner of resisting and overcoming the powers of Hell. The surest way of fighting the demon is to despise him, looking upon him as the enemy of the Most High, who has lost all fear of God and all hope of good; who, in his stubbornness, has deprived himself of all means of recovery and is without sorrow for his wickedness. Relying on this indubitable truth you should show yourself far superior to him, being exalted and unflinching in your thoughts, and treat him as a despiser of the honor and worship of his God. Knowing that you are defending so just a cause, do not let your courage sink―but resist and counteract him with great strength and valor in all his attempts, as if you were fighting at the side of the Lord Himself―for there is no doubt that His Majesty assists all those that enter loyally into His battles. The inconstancy of souls in virtuously fighting against the demons, is not excusable. The bent of passion―always drawing man toward the sensible and pleasurable―suddenly presents itself across the path of duty, and the demons, with diabolical astuteness, seek to exaggerate the hardship and disagreeableness of mortification, representing it as dangerous to health and life. Thus Satan deludes innumerable souls.” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
That is why Holy Scripture warns us that life is not a bed of roses, nor is it a “cake-walk”, nor “walk-in-the-park”―but that “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) and that “the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). Therefore, we are told: “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). So, “fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12) … “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14).
Forgotten Soldiers? Forgetful Soldiers? Fleeing Soldiers?
What is widely forgotten these days is the fact that EVERY SINGLE CATHOLIC is born to be a Soldier for Christ. Every single Catholic soul is either a soldier in potential or a soldier in fact. It is the Sacrament of Confirmation that officially and indelibly makes us soldiers of Christ by imprinting upon us the irremovable and permanent character and mark of a soldier. Prior to Confirmation, the child should already be in the training process for becoming a soldier. Look at how Our Lady chose and trained the three children at Fatima―aged only 7, 9 and 10―to where they ended up doing far more and suffering far more as children than many adults were doing!
Speaking of “child soldiers”―in the Old Testament we see the case of the David, while still a boy in his early teens, taking on and defeating Goliath―when the men of Israel were afraid to do so! In more recent times, we have the example of St. Joan of Arc, who, at the age of 13, Joan began to hear voices, which she determined had been sent by God to give her a mission of overwhelming importance―to save France by expelling its enemies. At the age of 16, with no military training, Joan convinced crown prince Charles of Valois to allow her to lead a French army to the besieged city of Orléans, where they achieved a stunning victory.
Throughout history and in many cultures, children have been involved in military campaigns. Some children are recruited by force while others choose to join up, often to escape poverty or because they expect military life to offer a rite of passage to maturity. The earliest mentions of minors being involved in wars come from antiquity. It was customary for youths in the Mediterranean basin to serve as aides, charioteers and armor bearers to adult warriors. The Roman Empire made use of youths in war. Several Roman legionaries were known to have enlisted children aged 14 in the Imperial Roman army. In medieval Europe young boys from about twelve years of age were used as military aides. The so-called Children's Crusade, in 1212, recruited thousands of children as untrained soldiers with confidence that divine power would enable them to conquer the enemy, although none of the children entered combat. All of this exemplifies an era in which entire families took part in a war effort.
Young boys often took part in battles during early modern warfare. When Napoleon was faced with invasion by a massive Allied force in 1814 he conscripted many teenagers for his armies. Orphans of the Imperial Guard fought in the Netherlands with Marshal MacDonald and were between the ages of 14 and 17. Many of the conscripts who reported to the ranks in 1814 were referred to as “Marie Louises” after the Empress Marie Louise of France; they were also known as “The Infants of the Emperor.” These soldiers were in their mid-teens. During the age of sail, young boys formed part of the crew of British Royal Navy ships and were responsible for many essential tasks including bringing powder and shot from the ship's magazine to the gun crews. During the American Civil War a young boy, Bugler John Cook, served in the US Army at the age of 15 and received the Medal of Honor for his acts during the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American history. Several other minors, including 11-year-old Willie Johnston, have also received the Medal of Honor. By a law signed by Nicholas I of Russia in 1827 a disproportionate number of boys were forced into military training establishments to serve in the army. The 25-year conscription term officially commenced at the age of 18, but boys as young as eight were routinely taken to fulfill the quota.
For example, thousands of children participated on all sides of the First World War and the Second World War. During the First World War, boys as young as 12 were caught up in the overwhelming tide of patriotism and in huge numbers enlisted for active service. In the Second World War, children under the age of 18 were widely used by all sides in formal and informal military roles. Children were readily indoctrinated into the prevailing ideology of the warring parties, quickly trained, and often sent to the front line; many were wounded or killed. The lack of a legal definition of a child, combined with the absence of a system for verifying the ages of prospective child recruits, contributed to the extensive use of children in the war.
Modern Day Child Soldiers
Besides the spiritual sphere, in the secular sphere you also see the recruitment of child soldiers. Already back in the 1990s, the Bishop of Bondo, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Africa, reported that 30% of the troops withdrawing from his area were between 14 and 15 years old. Further north in Sierra Leone another report spoke of the release of rebel soldiers by the government ― 57 boys, between nine and 17. From Colombia in South America reports came of a government military counter-offensive, in which most of the rebels killed were aged between nine and 14. The above instances are samplings of a problem that involved anywhere from 300,000 to 1 million children in 50 nations, aged under 18, who served as regular soldiers, guerrilla fighters, spies, porters, cooks―even suicide commandos―some as young as seven-years-old. Some children enlist voluntarily, others are forced. Even despite United Nations efforts to stamp-out the use of children in warfare, the problem remains―even though the 50 nations using children for warfare has “officially” been reduced to 10 nations. Armed groups and forces also freed more than 12,000 children from their ranks following UN intervention. However, estimates as to the numbers of children used are pretty much the same. The problem is that countries say one thing “officially” and do the opposite “unofficially”.
A Culture of Weaponry Creates Child Soldiers
The existence of child soldiers is partly due to the proliferation of small arms. Modern technology puts a destructive power into the hands of infants that has never been known before in history. One of the great multi-national industries of the world is in arms production. In some countries, advertisements for hand guns can be found in daily newspapers. Often they use a language so extolling their beauty and effectiveness that one easily forgets that guns are intended to maim and kill people. There are airline companies that use their captive film-watching audience to advertise national arms industries. In one that I personally saw, the voice of the presenter had the friendly and confident tone that one might hear on the radio offering a package tour to the Holy Land or a new toy for children. The effect is to “sanitize” products with lethal purposes, making them seem “user-friendly” and therefore “people-friendly.”
The technology of miniaturization is also part of the arms trade: Small is beautiful. That is why the AK-47 assault gun and the M-16 rifle can turn a nine year old into a lethal weapon. Children have been used in war since time immemorial, but as drummers, porters, cooks, messengers, spies, and sex objects. But only recently have weapons become small enough to make any little David a Goliath-killer. When swords were the main weapons available, a ten year old was no match for a 20 year old seasoned soldier. Today a ten year old can fire 600 rounds per minute into his target. The M-16 is even called the “transistor radio” of weapons. Light arms are also cheap, solidly constructed and durable. An AK-47 costs between US$10 and US$30 and is a lifetime investment; they last, passed on from generation to generation. When many people own them―55 million have been produced since 1947―they become part of the culture, like tricycles and wristwatches.
Where is the Culture of Spiritual Weaponry?
Most children today would prefer to have in their hands―a smartphone rather than a Rosary. They would prefer to wear some fashionable jewellery or some statement-making pendant round their necks rather than a Brown Scapular or a Miraculous Medal. They will spend hours watching television or browsing the internet or social media―but can find little or no time and interest to browse religious books and religious websites. They have received the Sacrament of Confirmation in vain―they are not really Soldiers of Christ, perhaps in name only―but more like Betrayers of Christ by their acceptance and love of the world and its attitudes, practices, maxims, fashions and lifestyle. With all the graphic violence available on screens today―people prefer to focus physical violence and warfare, rather than focus on the spiritual violence and spiritual warfare. They have a good idea of how to fight physically―but little or no idea of how to fight spiritually.
Most children today would prefer to have in their hands―a smartphone rather than a Rosary. They would prefer to wear some fashionable jewellery or some statement-making pendant round their necks rather than a Brown Scapular or a Miraculous Medal. They will spend hours watching television or browsing the internet or social media―but can find little or no time and interest to browse religious books and religious websites. They have received the Sacrament of Confirmation in vain―they are not really Soldiers of Christ, perhaps in name only―but more like Betrayers of Christ by their acceptance and love of the world and its attitudes, practices, maxims, fashions and lifestyle. With all the graphic violence available on screens today―people prefer to focus physical violence and warfare, rather than focus on the spiritual violence and spiritual warfare. They have a good idea of how to fight physically―but little or no idea of how to fight spiritually.
Yet fight we must―it is not a option that is left to our personal preferences. As already stated―by reason of having received the Sacrament of Confirmation, we have been indelibly and irrevocably made to be Soldiers of Christ. Whcih is why Holy Scripture says: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). Perhaps one of the reasons why most Catholic souls are condemned and lost is that they refuse to fight for Christ while at the same time enjoying the company of His enemies―the world. As Sister Lucia said―we have entered a period of time which sees a final battle between Our Lady and Satan―a battle in which we MUST take sides, we cannot remain neutral, we cannot be mere spectators.
In 1846, Our Lady of La Salette, no doubt speaking of this forthcoming battle, stated: “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you―provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light―you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … I shall fight at their side!”
Are you sitting comfortably? Did you enjoy your Sunday dinner? Are having a good time? Are the children playing? Watching television? Surfing the internet or social media? Chatting on the phone? Out socializing? Out making most of the warm weather? It is not quite what Our Lady has in mind for us! Our Lady of Good Success warned of our “easy-going” times when she said: “Unbridled luxury and extravagance will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! O, if men only understood how to appreciate the time given to them and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!”” … while Our Lady of La Salette further warned: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance … People will think of nothing but amusement!”
Heaven Might Not Be Enjoying Your Day!
Your day might not be Heaven’s day―your way might not be Heaven’s way: “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). We amass riches―Heaven says give away your riches: “Jesus said to the rich young man: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven―and then come follow Me!’” (Matthew 19:21).
Even the three little children of Fatima had fallen into this love for “amusements” ― which was criticized and rebuked by the Angel of Portugal when he appeared to them while they were playing. Hey! Little children are supposed play, aren’t they? Well, yes, but they should also pray and not just play―and, according to the Angel, pray more than play! The Angel appeared to the playing children and rebuked them, saying: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
Our Lady of Fatima, at her first appearance, would later back-up the Angel’s words by asking the children: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort!” Heck―today, in this modern over-sensitive prickly world, those words of Our Lady would be looked upon as a threat―and some would not hesitate to sue her for frightening little children! Furthermore, she even shows them a real vision of Hell to scare them even more―Lucia said they would have died on the spot out or terror, had not the grace of God kept them alive! Boy! They would have a field-day in the courts suing Our Lady for that!
Our Lady came looking―not for “armchair Catholics”, nor “couch-potato Catholics”, not “cafeteria Catholics”―but she came looking for “battlefield Catholics” who would fight and suffer for Our Lord, Our Lady and our Faith. As Sister Lucia of Fatima would later say: “The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle! It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground!” Those words make us recall what Our Lord said in the Gospels: “He that is not with Me, is against Me!” (Matthew 12:30).
Our Lord Came to Fight
Our Lord did come to bring peace and comfort, fun and entertainment on this Earth―He came to call us to the fight! “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
Wrong Idea of Life
We have the wrong idea of life―we want our life to be easy and comfortable; we want our life to be fun and enjoyable; we want to be a rich as we can; we want to be accepted by the world and so we jump through all the hoops that the world places in front of us in order to get all these things. If that is our attitude, then we have the wrong idea of what is supposed to be about! Yes―St. Thomas Aquinas says that it is normal for every person to seek out happiness―but in what basket are we seeking that happiness? The basket of the world, or the basket of Heaven. Our Lord was pretty clear and unambiguous on the matter when He said: “He that loves his life [in this world] shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal!” (John 12:25). “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). “Blessed is the man that hath not gone after gold, nor put his trust in money nor in treasures” (Ecclesiasticus 31:8). “The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches chokes up the word [of God]!” (Matthew 13:22).
When you read the serious and acclaimed spiritual masters―which most people do not read―then you will see that the path to Heaven is a path of progressive detachment from persons, places and possessions. Life is not a case of “keeping-your-cake-and-eating-it”―which is impossible―for you either keep it or you eat it, not both. You cannot be with the world and against it―all at the same time. Our Lord is not on the side of the world―He came into this world to save us from slavery to the world, which is a slavery to sin and Satan―for Satan is “prince of this world” (John 12:31). “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30) … “My kingdom is not of this world! … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To those who wish to be part of the world, He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His true followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His true followers He points out: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
Hence Holy Scripture says: “Whatsoever is born of God, overcomes the world! And this is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). “Wonder not if the world hate you!” (1 John 3:13) ― for the world hates Christ and all that Christ stands for, which is summarized by the Catholic Faith. Regardless of who Donald Trump is working for―his recent public statement at the Republican Summer Dinner Party in Montgomery, Alabama, is “right-on-the-button”. He said: “I tell you―they are really after the Catholics! They are after the Catholic Church―it’s incredible! I don’t how many Catholics are in―but they are after the Catholic Church! They are after parents and school boards!” (Donald Trump at the ALGOP Summer Dinner, Montgomery, Alabama, August 4th, 2023).
The Catholic Church has always been the enemy of the world―as Our Lord said above. The more that we follow the world and its attitudes, maxims, fashions, ideas, ways of operating, etc., then the more we become enemies of God and Christ. “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life―which is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:15-16). “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27). “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). “Whatsoever is born of God, overcomes the world, and this is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:2-4)
The Right Idea of Life
What, then, is the right idea of life? Our Lord said: “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly!” (John 10:10). Scripture adds: “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men … the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil!” (John 1:4; 3:19). Our Lord is the Life ― “Jesus said: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by Me!’” (John 14:6) ... “I am the Bread of life! … I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven!” (John 6:48, 41) … “I am the resurrection and the life! He that believes in Me, although he be dead, shall live!” (John 11:25). “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd gives His life for His sheep!” (John 10:11). “Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it―and whosoever shall lose it, shall preserve it!” (Luke 17:33). “He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal!” (John 12:25). “He that finds his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for Me, shall find it! He that does not take up his cross to follow Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:32-39).
Heaven is the reward for the work we do here on Earth: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). “He that sows in his flesh, of the flesh he shall also shall reap corruption! (Galatians 6:8). A life of work is often painful―and the life of a Christian has to be the life of the cross: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). The cross is the key to life―eternal life. If we wish to follow Christ into eternal life, then we must carry His cross―there is no other way apart from the way of the cross, but, even though it makes us sorrowful, it leads us eternal joy and happiness: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” says Our Lord (John 16:20).
Along the same lines, Our Lady said to St. Bernadette of Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next!” To the Venerable Mary of Agreda she said: “Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? To be pardoned without penance? Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment! Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, and willingly enter upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, and to carry it after Christ. Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness!”
“The Church would not be entangled in its present difficulties, if a number of the souls belonging to it had taken it upon themselves to defend the cause and honor of God ... My Son and I continue to look for some souls to defend the glory and honor of God and fight the battles against Hell for the confusion and crushing of the demons. Hence I desire that you dispose yourself, by divine grace, for this battle and not to wonder at the strength of the demon ... The Most High will lend you His strength, so that you can fight His battles with His and your enemies ... Fight the battles of the Lord against His enemies and―in His Name and mine―crush their head, reign over their pride and cast them into Hell. Learn the manner of resisting and overcoming the powers of Hell. The surest way of fighting the demon is to despise him, looking upon him as the enemy of the Most High, who has lost all fear of God and all hope of good; who, in his stubbornness, has deprived himself of all means of recovery and is without sorrow for his wickedness. Relying on this indubitable truth you should show yourself far superior to him, being exalted and unflinching in your thoughts, and treat him as a despiser of the honor and worship of his God. Knowing that you are defending so just a cause, do not let your courage sink―but resist and counteract him with great strength and valor in all his attempts, as if you were fighting at the side of the Lord Himself―for there is no doubt that His Majesty assists all those that enter loyally into His battles. The inconstancy of souls in virtuously fighting against the demons, is not excusable. The bent of passion―always drawing man toward the sensible and pleasurable―suddenly presents itself across the path of duty, and the demons, with diabolical astuteness, seek to exaggerate the hardship and disagreeableness of mortification, representing it as dangerous to health and life. Thus Satan deludes innumerable souls.” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
That is why Holy Scripture warns us that life is not a bed of roses, nor is it a “cake-walk”, nor “walk-in-the-park”―but that “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) and that “the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). Therefore, we are told: “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). So, “fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12) … “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14).
Forgotten Soldiers? Forgetful Soldiers? Fleeing Soldiers?
What is widely forgotten these days is the fact that EVERY SINGLE CATHOLIC is born to be a Soldier for Christ. Every single Catholic soul is either a soldier in potential or a soldier in fact. It is the Sacrament of Confirmation that officially and indelibly makes us soldiers of Christ by imprinting upon us the irremovable and permanent character and mark of a soldier. Prior to Confirmation, the child should already be in the training process for becoming a soldier. Look at how Our Lady chose and trained the three children at Fatima―aged only 7, 9 and 10―to where they ended up doing far more and suffering far more as children than many adults were doing!
Speaking of “child soldiers”―in the Old Testament we see the case of the David, while still a boy in his early teens, taking on and defeating Goliath―when the men of Israel were afraid to do so! In more recent times, we have the example of St. Joan of Arc, who, at the age of 13, Joan began to hear voices, which she determined had been sent by God to give her a mission of overwhelming importance―to save France by expelling its enemies. At the age of 16, with no military training, Joan convinced crown prince Charles of Valois to allow her to lead a French army to the besieged city of Orléans, where they achieved a stunning victory.
Throughout history and in many cultures, children have been involved in military campaigns. Some children are recruited by force while others choose to join up, often to escape poverty or because they expect military life to offer a rite of passage to maturity. The earliest mentions of minors being involved in wars come from antiquity. It was customary for youths in the Mediterranean basin to serve as aides, charioteers and armor bearers to adult warriors. The Roman Empire made use of youths in war. Several Roman legionaries were known to have enlisted children aged 14 in the Imperial Roman army. In medieval Europe young boys from about twelve years of age were used as military aides. The so-called Children's Crusade, in 1212, recruited thousands of children as untrained soldiers with confidence that divine power would enable them to conquer the enemy, although none of the children entered combat. All of this exemplifies an era in which entire families took part in a war effort.
Young boys often took part in battles during early modern warfare. When Napoleon was faced with invasion by a massive Allied force in 1814 he conscripted many teenagers for his armies. Orphans of the Imperial Guard fought in the Netherlands with Marshal MacDonald and were between the ages of 14 and 17. Many of the conscripts who reported to the ranks in 1814 were referred to as “Marie Louises” after the Empress Marie Louise of France; they were also known as “The Infants of the Emperor.” These soldiers were in their mid-teens. During the age of sail, young boys formed part of the crew of British Royal Navy ships and were responsible for many essential tasks including bringing powder and shot from the ship's magazine to the gun crews. During the American Civil War a young boy, Bugler John Cook, served in the US Army at the age of 15 and received the Medal of Honor for his acts during the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American history. Several other minors, including 11-year-old Willie Johnston, have also received the Medal of Honor. By a law signed by Nicholas I of Russia in 1827 a disproportionate number of boys were forced into military training establishments to serve in the army. The 25-year conscription term officially commenced at the age of 18, but boys as young as eight were routinely taken to fulfill the quota.
For example, thousands of children participated on all sides of the First World War and the Second World War. During the First World War, boys as young as 12 were caught up in the overwhelming tide of patriotism and in huge numbers enlisted for active service. In the Second World War, children under the age of 18 were widely used by all sides in formal and informal military roles. Children were readily indoctrinated into the prevailing ideology of the warring parties, quickly trained, and often sent to the front line; many were wounded or killed. The lack of a legal definition of a child, combined with the absence of a system for verifying the ages of prospective child recruits, contributed to the extensive use of children in the war.
Modern Day Child Soldiers
Besides the spiritual sphere, in the secular sphere you also see the recruitment of child soldiers. Already back in the 1990s, the Bishop of Bondo, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Africa, reported that 30% of the troops withdrawing from his area were between 14 and 15 years old. Further north in Sierra Leone another report spoke of the release of rebel soldiers by the government ― 57 boys, between nine and 17. From Colombia in South America reports came of a government military counter-offensive, in which most of the rebels killed were aged between nine and 14. The above instances are samplings of a problem that involved anywhere from 300,000 to 1 million children in 50 nations, aged under 18, who served as regular soldiers, guerrilla fighters, spies, porters, cooks―even suicide commandos―some as young as seven-years-old. Some children enlist voluntarily, others are forced. Even despite United Nations efforts to stamp-out the use of children in warfare, the problem remains―even though the 50 nations using children for warfare has “officially” been reduced to 10 nations. Armed groups and forces also freed more than 12,000 children from their ranks following UN intervention. However, estimates as to the numbers of children used are pretty much the same. The problem is that countries say one thing “officially” and do the opposite “unofficially”.
A Culture of Weaponry Creates Child Soldiers
The existence of child soldiers is partly due to the proliferation of small arms. Modern technology puts a destructive power into the hands of infants that has never been known before in history. One of the great multi-national industries of the world is in arms production. In some countries, advertisements for hand guns can be found in daily newspapers. Often they use a language so extolling their beauty and effectiveness that one easily forgets that guns are intended to maim and kill people. There are airline companies that use their captive film-watching audience to advertise national arms industries. In one that I personally saw, the voice of the presenter had the friendly and confident tone that one might hear on the radio offering a package tour to the Holy Land or a new toy for children. The effect is to “sanitize” products with lethal purposes, making them seem “user-friendly” and therefore “people-friendly.”
The technology of miniaturization is also part of the arms trade: Small is beautiful. That is why the AK-47 assault gun and the M-16 rifle can turn a nine year old into a lethal weapon. Children have been used in war since time immemorial, but as drummers, porters, cooks, messengers, spies, and sex objects. But only recently have weapons become small enough to make any little David a Goliath-killer. When swords were the main weapons available, a ten year old was no match for a 20 year old seasoned soldier. Today a ten year old can fire 600 rounds per minute into his target. The M-16 is even called the “transistor radio” of weapons. Light arms are also cheap, solidly constructed and durable. An AK-47 costs between US$10 and US$30 and is a lifetime investment; they last, passed on from generation to generation. When many people own them―55 million have been produced since 1947―they become part of the culture, like tricycles and wristwatches.
Where is the Culture of Spiritual Weaponry?
Most children today would prefer to have in their hands―a smartphone rather than a Rosary. They would prefer to wear some fashionable jewellery or some statement-making pendant round their necks rather than a Brown Scapular or a Miraculous Medal. They will spend hours watching television or browsing the internet or social media―but can find little or no time and interest to browse religious books and religious websites. They have received the Sacrament of Confirmation in vain―they are not really Soldiers of Christ, perhaps in name only―but more like Betrayers of Christ by their acceptance and love of the world and its attitudes, practices, maxims, fashions and lifestyle. With all the graphic violence available on screens today―people prefer to focus physical violence and warfare, rather than focus on the spiritual violence and spiritual warfare. They have a good idea of how to fight physically―but little or no idea of how to fight spiritually.
Most children today would prefer to have in their hands―a smartphone rather than a Rosary. They would prefer to wear some fashionable jewellery or some statement-making pendant round their necks rather than a Brown Scapular or a Miraculous Medal. They will spend hours watching television or browsing the internet or social media―but can find little or no time and interest to browse religious books and religious websites. They have received the Sacrament of Confirmation in vain―they are not really Soldiers of Christ, perhaps in name only―but more like Betrayers of Christ by their acceptance and love of the world and its attitudes, practices, maxims, fashions and lifestyle. With all the graphic violence available on screens today―people prefer to focus physical violence and warfare, rather than focus on the spiritual violence and spiritual warfare. They have a good idea of how to fight physically―but little or no idea of how to fight spiritually.
Yet fight we must―it is not a option that is left to our personal preferences. As already stated―by reason of having received the Sacrament of Confirmation, we have been indelibly and irrevocably made to be Soldiers of Christ. Whcih is why Holy Scripture says: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). Perhaps one of the reasons why most Catholic souls are condemned and lost is that they refuse to fight for Christ while at the same time enjoying the company of His enemies―the world. As Sister Lucia said―we have entered a period of time which sees a final battle between Our Lady and Satan―a battle in which we MUST take sides, we cannot remain neutral, we cannot be mere spectators.
In 1846, Our Lady of La Salette, no doubt speaking of this forthcoming battle, stated: “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you―provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light―you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … I shall fight at their side!”
Article 4
Friday September 8th, 2023, Our Lady's Birthday & Saturday September 9th, 2023
What a Day! What a Woman!
Friday September 8th, 2023, Our Lady's Birthday & Saturday September 9th, 2023
What a Day! What a Woman!
Especially Special!
Birthdays are great days! Birthdays of great people are even greater days! The birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the greatest birthday there is―apart from the birthday of Our Lord Jesus Christ! As the Legion of Mary prayer says―which is taken from Holy Scripture itself―“Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?” (Canticles 6:9). Who is she indeed!
► ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT, in his book True Devotion to Mary, writes: “Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High! … Mary is the admirable Mother of the Son! … Mary is the faithful spouse of the Holy Ghost, to whom He alone has entrance! Mary is the sanctuary and the repose of the Holy Trinity, where God dwells more magnificently and more divinely than in any other place in the universe! … She is the grand and divine world of God, where there are beauties and treasures unspeakable! … The saints have said admirable things of this holy city of God; and, as they themselves avow, they were never more eloquent and more content than when they spoke of her. Yet, after all they have said, they cry out that the height of her merits cannot be fully seen; that the breadth of her charity is in truth immeasurable; that the length of her power is incomprehensible; and finally, that the depth of her humility, and of all her virtues and graces, is an abyss which never can be sounded. O height incomprehensible! O breadth unspeakable! O length immeasurable! O abyss impenetrable! …
“Every day, from one end of the Earth to the other―in the highest heights of the heavens and in the profoundest depths of the abysses―everything preaches, everything publishes, the admirable Mary! … The whole Earth is full of her glory, especially among Christians, by whom she is taken as the protectress of many kingdoms, provinces, dioceses and cities. Many cathedrals are consecrated to God under her name. There is not a church without an altar in her honor, not a country, nor a region, where there are not some miraculous images where all sorts of evils are cured and all sorts of good gifts obtained. Who can count the confraternities and congregations in her honor? How many religious orders have been founded in her name and under her protection? How many members in these confraternities, and how many religious men and women in all these orders, who publish her praises and confess her mercies! There is scarcely a sinner who, even in his hardness, has not some spark of confidence in her. Nay, the very devils in Hell respect her while they fear her! After that, we must cry out with the saints: “De Maria numquam satis!”—“Of Mary there is never enough!” We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought! She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service!” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).
► FR. FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER (1814–1863), had studied the writings of St. Louis de Montfort for many years, and, shortly before his death, published his own personal translation from the original French of St. Louis’ book True Devotion to Mary in 1862. In the Preface of his translation Fr. Faber writes:
“All those who are likely to read this book [True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort], love God, and lament that they do not love Him more; all desire something for His glory—the spread of some good work, the success of some devotion, the coming of some good time. One man has been striving for years to overcome a particular fault, and has not succeeded. Another mourns―and almost wonders while he mourns―that so few of his relations and friends have been converted to the Faith. One grieves that he has not devotion enough; another that he has a cross to carry, which is a peculiarly impossible cross to him; while a third has domestic troubles and family unhappiness, which feel almost incompatible with his salvation―and for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy.
“But what is the remedy that is wanted? What is the remedy indicated by God Himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady―but, remember, nothing short of an immense one! Mary is not half enough preached! Devotion to her is low and thin and poor! It is frightened out of its wits by the sneers of heresy! It is always invoking human respect and carnal prudence, wishing to make Mary so little of a Mary―that Protestants may feel at ease about her! Its ignorance of theology makes it unsubstantial and unworthy! It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be! It has no Faith in itself! Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls, which might be saints, wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized.
“Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background! Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them! It is the miserable, unworthy shadow, which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin, that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines! Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother. I cannot think of a higher work, or a broader vocation, for anyone―than the simple spreading of this peculiar devotion of the Venerable [St. Louis-Marie] Grignion de Montfort. Let a man but try it for himself, and his surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations it causes in his soul, will soon convince him of its otherwise almost incredible efficacy as a means for the salvation of men, and for the coming of the kingdom of Christ! Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our Faith, and how different would our Communions be! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our sole Lord and Savior, her dearest and most blessed Son!” (Fr. Frederick William Faber, Preface to his translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary).
► ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI, in his book The Glories of Mary, writes: “The praise of Mary is an inexhaustible fount! The more it is enlarged, then the fuller it gets, and the more you fill it, then so much the more is it enlarged! In short, this Blessed Virgin is so great and so sublime that the more she is praised the more there remains to praise; so much so, says an ancient writer, that if all the tongues of men were put together, and even if each of their members was changed into a tongue, they would not suffice to praise her as much as she deserves! Worldly lovers often speak of those whom they love, and praise them, in order that the object of their affections may be praised and extolled by others. There are some who pretend to be lovers of Mary―and yet seldom either speak of her, or endeavor to excite others to love her―their love cannot be great. It is not thus that true lovers of this amiable Lady act―they desire to praise her on all occasions, and to see her loved by the whole world, and never lose an opportunity, either in public or in private, of enkindling in the hearts of others those blessed flames of love with which they themselves burn towards their beloved Queen! … Who is ignorant of the promise made by Mary herself, in the words of Ecclesiastes, to those who endeavor to make her known and loved here below: ‘They that explain me shall have life everlasting!’ (Ecclesiasticus 24:31) ― for this passage is applied to her by the Church, in the office of the Immaculate Conception.”
► ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, in his sermon on The Name of Mary, writes: “Let us now say a few words about this name, which means ‘star of the sea’, and is so becoming to the Virgin Mother. Surely she is very fittingly likened to a star. The star sends forth its rays without harm to itself. In the same way the Virgin brought forth her son with no injury to herself. The ray no more diminishes the star’s brightness than does the Son his mother’s integrity. She indeed is that noble star risen out of Jacob whose beam enlightens the earthly globe. She it is whose brightness both twinkles in the highest heaven and pierces the pit of hell, and is shed upon the earth, warming our hearts far more than our bodies, fostering virtue and cauterizing vice. She, I tell you, is that splendid and wondrous star suspended as by necessity over this great wide sea, radiant with merit and brilliant in example.
“O you, whoever you are, who feel that in the tidal wave of this world you are nearer to being tossed about among the squalls and gales than treading on dry land, if you do not want to founder in the tempest, do not avert your eyes from the brightness of this star. When the wind of temptation blows up within you, when you strike upon the rock of tribulation, gaze up at this star, call out to Mary. Whether you are being tossed about by the waves of pride or ambition or slander or jealousy, call out to Mary. When rage or greed or fleshly desires are battering the boat of your soul, gaze up at Mary. When the immensity of your sins weighs you down and you are bewildered by the loathsomeness of your conscience, when the terrifying thought of judgment appalls you and you begin to founder in the gulf of sadness and despair, think of Mary. In dangers, in hardships, in every doubt, think of Mary, call out to Mary. Keep her in your mouth, keep her in your heart. Follow the example of her life and you will obtain the favor of her prayer. Following her you will never go astray. Asking her help, you will never despair. Keeping her in your thoughts, you will never wander away. With your hand in hers, you will never stumble. With her protecting you, you will not be afraid. With her leading you, you will never tire. Her kindness will see you through to the end!”
Many Saints Chime Her Praises
There is not one saint who has not been devoted to the Holy Mother of God―even though not all have had the same degree of devotion―some more, some less. On our birthday, we receive congratulatory cards from all our family, relatives and friends. Here are just a few grains of sand from the vast beach of praise that has been given to Our Lady by the saints:
“Therefore a certain Star has risen for us today―Our Lady, Saint Mary. Her name means ‘Star of the sea’―no doubt the Star of this sea which is the world. Therefore, we ought to lift up our eyes to this Star that has appeared on Earth today, in order that she may lead us; in order that she may enlighten us; in order that she may show us these steps so that we shall know them; in order that she may help us so that we may be able to ascend. And therefore it is a beautiful thing that Mary is placed in this stairway of which we are speaking―there where we must begin to climb. As the Evangelist says, Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, so immediately, at the very moment of our conversion, she appears to us and receives us into her care and enlightens us in her light and accompanies us along this laborious path” (St. Aelred).
“Seek refuge in Mary because she is the city of refuge. We know that Moses set up three cities of refuge for anyone who inadvertently killed his neighbor. Now the Lord has established a refuge of mercy, Mary, even for those who deliberately commit evil. Mary provides shelter and strength for the sinner!” (St. Anthony of Padua, Doctor of the Church).
“O sinner, be not discouraged, but have recourse to Mary in all you necessities. Call her to your assistance, for such is the divine Will that she should help in every kind of necessity!” (St. Basil the Great, Father and Doctor of the Church).
“If you invoke the blessed Virgin when you are tempted, she will come at once to your help, and Satan will leave you!” (St. John Vianney).
“Mary means ‘Star of the Sea’. As sailors are guided into port by the shining of a star, so Christians are guided to Heaven by Mary!” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church).
“In trial or difficulty I have recourse to Mother Mary, whose glance alone is enough to dissipate every fear” (St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church).
“You must know that when you ‘Hail Mary!’, she immediately greets you! Don’t think that she is one of those rude women of whom there are so many! On the contrary, she is utterly courteous and pleasant. If you greet her, she will answer you right away and converse with you!” (St. Bernardine of Siena).
“Mary is that happy ark, in which those who take refuge will never suffer the shipwreck of eternal perdition! Go to this Mother of Mercy, and show her the wounds which thy sins have left on thy soul! She will then certainly entreat her Son to pardon thee all. And this divine Son, who loves her so tenderly, will most certainly grant her petition!” (St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Doctor of the Church).
“Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did. Jesus honored her before all ages, and will honor her for all ages. No one comes to Jesus, nor even gets near Him, no one is saved or sanctified, if he too will not honor her!” (St. Maximilian Kolbe).
“No matter how sinful one may have been, if he has devotion to Mary, it is impossible that he be lost!” (St. Hilary of Poitiers, Doctor of the Church).
“My only desire is to see Mary, who has saved me and who will save me from the clutches of Satan!” (Blessed Bartolo Longo).
“Men do not fear a powerful hostile army as the powers of Hell fear the name and protection of Mary!” (St. Bonaventure, Doctor of the Church).
“The conflict with Hell cannot be maintained very long by men, even the most clever. The ‘Immaculata’ alone has from God the promise of victory over Satan. She seeks souls that will consecrate themselves entirely to her, that will become in her hands forceful instruments for the defeat of Satan and the spread of God’s kingdom!” (St. Maximilian Kolbe).
“How many time I have entrusted to this Mother [the Virgin Mary] the painful anxieties of my heart! And how many times she has consoled me! With what great attention she accompanied me to the altar this morning! It seemed to me that she had nothing else to think about but me, filling my heart with holy sentiments! I felt a mysterious fire in my heart, which I could not understand. I felt the need to put ice on in order to extinguish the fire that was consuming me!” (St. Padre Pio).
“A son of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a man who unceasingly expends himself to light the fire of divine love in the world. Nothing stops him!” (St. Anthony Mary Claret).
“Mary has been called an Ark―more spacious than that of Noe. For only two animals of every kind were brought into the Ark of Noe. But under the mantle of Mary, the righteous and sinners all find their place.” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church).
“Let those who think that the Church pays too much attention to Mary give heed to the fact that Our Blessed Lord Himself gave ten times as much of His life to her as He gave to His Apostles!” (Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen) ― by this he means Our Lord spent the first 30 years of His life with Mary and only 3 years of His life with the Apostles.
Now Listen to Your Mother
It would be strange indeed if the “birthday boy” or “birthday girl”―whose birthday everyone comes together to celebrate―would stay silent and never say a word. Let us then listen to words of Our Lady on this her birthday―and birthday week―words that she has spoken over the centuries:
Our Lady of Guadalupe said to St. Juan Diego: “Listen, my dear little son, and let this penetrate your heart! Do not be troubled or weighed down with grief! Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain! Am I not here―I who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else you need? Let nothing else worry you or disturb you!”
Our Lady of Fatima said to the three children: “Are you suffering a great deal? Don’t lose heart! I will never forsake you! My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God!”
The Blessed Virgin Mary said to St. Bridget of Sweden: “As a mother makes every effort to save her son when she sees him exposed to the sword of the enemy, so do I, and will I ever do for my children―however sinful they might be―if they come to me for help! Nobody in the world is so great a sinner―provided that he says in his heart that my Son is the Creator and Redeemer of the universe and that my Son is dear to him in his inmost heart―that I am not prepared to come to him immediately, like a loving mother to her son, and hug him and say: ‘What would you like, my son?’ Even if he had deserved the lowest punishment in Hell, nevertheless, if only he has the intention of not caring for worldly honors, or greed, or carnal lust, such as the Church condemns, and desires nothing but his own sustenance, then he and I will right away get along quite well together! I am the Mother of Mercy and the gate of entrance for sinners to God! There is no sinner living on Earth who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion―for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one is so entirely cast-off by God―unless already in Hell―that he could not return and enjoy His mercy if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners!”
Birthdays are great days! Birthdays of great people are even greater days! The birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the greatest birthday there is―apart from the birthday of Our Lord Jesus Christ! As the Legion of Mary prayer says―which is taken from Holy Scripture itself―“Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?” (Canticles 6:9). Who is she indeed!
► ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT, in his book True Devotion to Mary, writes: “Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High! … Mary is the admirable Mother of the Son! … Mary is the faithful spouse of the Holy Ghost, to whom He alone has entrance! Mary is the sanctuary and the repose of the Holy Trinity, where God dwells more magnificently and more divinely than in any other place in the universe! … She is the grand and divine world of God, where there are beauties and treasures unspeakable! … The saints have said admirable things of this holy city of God; and, as they themselves avow, they were never more eloquent and more content than when they spoke of her. Yet, after all they have said, they cry out that the height of her merits cannot be fully seen; that the breadth of her charity is in truth immeasurable; that the length of her power is incomprehensible; and finally, that the depth of her humility, and of all her virtues and graces, is an abyss which never can be sounded. O height incomprehensible! O breadth unspeakable! O length immeasurable! O abyss impenetrable! …
“Every day, from one end of the Earth to the other―in the highest heights of the heavens and in the profoundest depths of the abysses―everything preaches, everything publishes, the admirable Mary! … The whole Earth is full of her glory, especially among Christians, by whom she is taken as the protectress of many kingdoms, provinces, dioceses and cities. Many cathedrals are consecrated to God under her name. There is not a church without an altar in her honor, not a country, nor a region, where there are not some miraculous images where all sorts of evils are cured and all sorts of good gifts obtained. Who can count the confraternities and congregations in her honor? How many religious orders have been founded in her name and under her protection? How many members in these confraternities, and how many religious men and women in all these orders, who publish her praises and confess her mercies! There is scarcely a sinner who, even in his hardness, has not some spark of confidence in her. Nay, the very devils in Hell respect her while they fear her! After that, we must cry out with the saints: “De Maria numquam satis!”—“Of Mary there is never enough!” We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought! She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service!” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).
► FR. FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER (1814–1863), had studied the writings of St. Louis de Montfort for many years, and, shortly before his death, published his own personal translation from the original French of St. Louis’ book True Devotion to Mary in 1862. In the Preface of his translation Fr. Faber writes:
“All those who are likely to read this book [True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort], love God, and lament that they do not love Him more; all desire something for His glory—the spread of some good work, the success of some devotion, the coming of some good time. One man has been striving for years to overcome a particular fault, and has not succeeded. Another mourns―and almost wonders while he mourns―that so few of his relations and friends have been converted to the Faith. One grieves that he has not devotion enough; another that he has a cross to carry, which is a peculiarly impossible cross to him; while a third has domestic troubles and family unhappiness, which feel almost incompatible with his salvation―and for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy.
“But what is the remedy that is wanted? What is the remedy indicated by God Himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady―but, remember, nothing short of an immense one! Mary is not half enough preached! Devotion to her is low and thin and poor! It is frightened out of its wits by the sneers of heresy! It is always invoking human respect and carnal prudence, wishing to make Mary so little of a Mary―that Protestants may feel at ease about her! Its ignorance of theology makes it unsubstantial and unworthy! It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be! It has no Faith in itself! Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls, which might be saints, wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized.
“Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background! Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them! It is the miserable, unworthy shadow, which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin, that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines! Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother. I cannot think of a higher work, or a broader vocation, for anyone―than the simple spreading of this peculiar devotion of the Venerable [St. Louis-Marie] Grignion de Montfort. Let a man but try it for himself, and his surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations it causes in his soul, will soon convince him of its otherwise almost incredible efficacy as a means for the salvation of men, and for the coming of the kingdom of Christ! Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our Faith, and how different would our Communions be! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our sole Lord and Savior, her dearest and most blessed Son!” (Fr. Frederick William Faber, Preface to his translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary).
► ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI, in his book The Glories of Mary, writes: “The praise of Mary is an inexhaustible fount! The more it is enlarged, then the fuller it gets, and the more you fill it, then so much the more is it enlarged! In short, this Blessed Virgin is so great and so sublime that the more she is praised the more there remains to praise; so much so, says an ancient writer, that if all the tongues of men were put together, and even if each of their members was changed into a tongue, they would not suffice to praise her as much as she deserves! Worldly lovers often speak of those whom they love, and praise them, in order that the object of their affections may be praised and extolled by others. There are some who pretend to be lovers of Mary―and yet seldom either speak of her, or endeavor to excite others to love her―their love cannot be great. It is not thus that true lovers of this amiable Lady act―they desire to praise her on all occasions, and to see her loved by the whole world, and never lose an opportunity, either in public or in private, of enkindling in the hearts of others those blessed flames of love with which they themselves burn towards their beloved Queen! … Who is ignorant of the promise made by Mary herself, in the words of Ecclesiastes, to those who endeavor to make her known and loved here below: ‘They that explain me shall have life everlasting!’ (Ecclesiasticus 24:31) ― for this passage is applied to her by the Church, in the office of the Immaculate Conception.”
► ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, in his sermon on The Name of Mary, writes: “Let us now say a few words about this name, which means ‘star of the sea’, and is so becoming to the Virgin Mother. Surely she is very fittingly likened to a star. The star sends forth its rays without harm to itself. In the same way the Virgin brought forth her son with no injury to herself. The ray no more diminishes the star’s brightness than does the Son his mother’s integrity. She indeed is that noble star risen out of Jacob whose beam enlightens the earthly globe. She it is whose brightness both twinkles in the highest heaven and pierces the pit of hell, and is shed upon the earth, warming our hearts far more than our bodies, fostering virtue and cauterizing vice. She, I tell you, is that splendid and wondrous star suspended as by necessity over this great wide sea, radiant with merit and brilliant in example.
“O you, whoever you are, who feel that in the tidal wave of this world you are nearer to being tossed about among the squalls and gales than treading on dry land, if you do not want to founder in the tempest, do not avert your eyes from the brightness of this star. When the wind of temptation blows up within you, when you strike upon the rock of tribulation, gaze up at this star, call out to Mary. Whether you are being tossed about by the waves of pride or ambition or slander or jealousy, call out to Mary. When rage or greed or fleshly desires are battering the boat of your soul, gaze up at Mary. When the immensity of your sins weighs you down and you are bewildered by the loathsomeness of your conscience, when the terrifying thought of judgment appalls you and you begin to founder in the gulf of sadness and despair, think of Mary. In dangers, in hardships, in every doubt, think of Mary, call out to Mary. Keep her in your mouth, keep her in your heart. Follow the example of her life and you will obtain the favor of her prayer. Following her you will never go astray. Asking her help, you will never despair. Keeping her in your thoughts, you will never wander away. With your hand in hers, you will never stumble. With her protecting you, you will not be afraid. With her leading you, you will never tire. Her kindness will see you through to the end!”
Many Saints Chime Her Praises
There is not one saint who has not been devoted to the Holy Mother of God―even though not all have had the same degree of devotion―some more, some less. On our birthday, we receive congratulatory cards from all our family, relatives and friends. Here are just a few grains of sand from the vast beach of praise that has been given to Our Lady by the saints:
“Therefore a certain Star has risen for us today―Our Lady, Saint Mary. Her name means ‘Star of the sea’―no doubt the Star of this sea which is the world. Therefore, we ought to lift up our eyes to this Star that has appeared on Earth today, in order that she may lead us; in order that she may enlighten us; in order that she may show us these steps so that we shall know them; in order that she may help us so that we may be able to ascend. And therefore it is a beautiful thing that Mary is placed in this stairway of which we are speaking―there where we must begin to climb. As the Evangelist says, Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, so immediately, at the very moment of our conversion, she appears to us and receives us into her care and enlightens us in her light and accompanies us along this laborious path” (St. Aelred).
“Seek refuge in Mary because she is the city of refuge. We know that Moses set up three cities of refuge for anyone who inadvertently killed his neighbor. Now the Lord has established a refuge of mercy, Mary, even for those who deliberately commit evil. Mary provides shelter and strength for the sinner!” (St. Anthony of Padua, Doctor of the Church).
“O sinner, be not discouraged, but have recourse to Mary in all you necessities. Call her to your assistance, for such is the divine Will that she should help in every kind of necessity!” (St. Basil the Great, Father and Doctor of the Church).
“If you invoke the blessed Virgin when you are tempted, she will come at once to your help, and Satan will leave you!” (St. John Vianney).
“Mary means ‘Star of the Sea’. As sailors are guided into port by the shining of a star, so Christians are guided to Heaven by Mary!” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church).
“In trial or difficulty I have recourse to Mother Mary, whose glance alone is enough to dissipate every fear” (St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church).
“You must know that when you ‘Hail Mary!’, she immediately greets you! Don’t think that she is one of those rude women of whom there are so many! On the contrary, she is utterly courteous and pleasant. If you greet her, she will answer you right away and converse with you!” (St. Bernardine of Siena).
“Mary is that happy ark, in which those who take refuge will never suffer the shipwreck of eternal perdition! Go to this Mother of Mercy, and show her the wounds which thy sins have left on thy soul! She will then certainly entreat her Son to pardon thee all. And this divine Son, who loves her so tenderly, will most certainly grant her petition!” (St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Doctor of the Church).
“Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did. Jesus honored her before all ages, and will honor her for all ages. No one comes to Jesus, nor even gets near Him, no one is saved or sanctified, if he too will not honor her!” (St. Maximilian Kolbe).
“No matter how sinful one may have been, if he has devotion to Mary, it is impossible that he be lost!” (St. Hilary of Poitiers, Doctor of the Church).
“My only desire is to see Mary, who has saved me and who will save me from the clutches of Satan!” (Blessed Bartolo Longo).
“Men do not fear a powerful hostile army as the powers of Hell fear the name and protection of Mary!” (St. Bonaventure, Doctor of the Church).
“The conflict with Hell cannot be maintained very long by men, even the most clever. The ‘Immaculata’ alone has from God the promise of victory over Satan. She seeks souls that will consecrate themselves entirely to her, that will become in her hands forceful instruments for the defeat of Satan and the spread of God’s kingdom!” (St. Maximilian Kolbe).
“How many time I have entrusted to this Mother [the Virgin Mary] the painful anxieties of my heart! And how many times she has consoled me! With what great attention she accompanied me to the altar this morning! It seemed to me that she had nothing else to think about but me, filling my heart with holy sentiments! I felt a mysterious fire in my heart, which I could not understand. I felt the need to put ice on in order to extinguish the fire that was consuming me!” (St. Padre Pio).
“A son of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a man who unceasingly expends himself to light the fire of divine love in the world. Nothing stops him!” (St. Anthony Mary Claret).
“Mary has been called an Ark―more spacious than that of Noe. For only two animals of every kind were brought into the Ark of Noe. But under the mantle of Mary, the righteous and sinners all find their place.” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church).
“Let those who think that the Church pays too much attention to Mary give heed to the fact that Our Blessed Lord Himself gave ten times as much of His life to her as He gave to His Apostles!” (Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen) ― by this he means Our Lord spent the first 30 years of His life with Mary and only 3 years of His life with the Apostles.
Now Listen to Your Mother
It would be strange indeed if the “birthday boy” or “birthday girl”―whose birthday everyone comes together to celebrate―would stay silent and never say a word. Let us then listen to words of Our Lady on this her birthday―and birthday week―words that she has spoken over the centuries:
Our Lady of Guadalupe said to St. Juan Diego: “Listen, my dear little son, and let this penetrate your heart! Do not be troubled or weighed down with grief! Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain! Am I not here―I who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else you need? Let nothing else worry you or disturb you!”
Our Lady of Fatima said to the three children: “Are you suffering a great deal? Don’t lose heart! I will never forsake you! My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God!”
The Blessed Virgin Mary said to St. Bridget of Sweden: “As a mother makes every effort to save her son when she sees him exposed to the sword of the enemy, so do I, and will I ever do for my children―however sinful they might be―if they come to me for help! Nobody in the world is so great a sinner―provided that he says in his heart that my Son is the Creator and Redeemer of the universe and that my Son is dear to him in his inmost heart―that I am not prepared to come to him immediately, like a loving mother to her son, and hug him and say: ‘What would you like, my son?’ Even if he had deserved the lowest punishment in Hell, nevertheless, if only he has the intention of not caring for worldly honors, or greed, or carnal lust, such as the Church condemns, and desires nothing but his own sustenance, then he and I will right away get along quite well together! I am the Mother of Mercy and the gate of entrance for sinners to God! There is no sinner living on Earth who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion―for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one is so entirely cast-off by God―unless already in Hell―that he could not return and enjoy His mercy if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners!”
Article 3
Thursday September 7th, 2023, Birthday of the Legion of Mary (1921)
Will the Legion of Mary be the Weapon of Mary's Triumph?
Thursday September 7th, 2023, Birthday of the Legion of Mary (1921)
Will the Legion of Mary be the Weapon of Mary's Triumph?
What Tools or Weapons Will Mary Use For Her Triumph?
If you dig around and research for the “ins-and-outs” of the forthcoming “Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” then you are likely to be a little confused! How on earth will it happen? We know―or should know―that it will not be an event that we are likely to miss if we are not paying attention! It won’t be as though someone has to dig us in the ribs and say: “Hey! The Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary happened last month and you missed it!” No―the event will be a “right-smack-between-the-eyes” punch! Our Lady herself said: “I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss. Thus the Church will be finally free of his cruel tyranny ... In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!” So this “marvelous way”, that Our Lady refers to, is not going to need advertizing, texting, e-mailing, calling around, etc. It is going to be a whopper of the triumph!
But what “punches” will Our Lady throw? What tools or weapons will she use? Yes―of course―she could achieve all that without any tools or weapons. Nevertheless, she has been talking a lot about weapons and tools at her modern-day apparitions―not to forget the fact that stupendous victories (but not worldwide victories over the whole world) have been won by the use of Heaven’s weapons in the past. One common thread seems to be the Holy Rosary―which remains a standard and favorite weapon or tool of Our Lady ever since she promoted the Rosary through St. Dominic in the early 1200s. Anyhow―let us piece together the jigsaw-puzzle of Our Lady’s apparitions and their chief messages to see if something clear comes out of all the fog.
► ROME 1200s: One Day, Through the Rosary and the Scapular, Mary Will Save the World
In the pages of an ancient history of the Carmelite Order (written in mediaeval Latin by a forgotten writer named Ventimiglia) the author of this book found the following account of a meeting of three future saints―St. Dominic (1170-1221), St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) and St. Angelus of Jerusalem (1185-1220):
“Three famous men of God met on a street corner in Rome. They were Friar Dominic, busy gathering recruits to a new Religious Order of Preachers; Brother Francis, the friend of birds and beasts and especially dear to the poor; and Angelus of Jerusalem, who had been invited to Rome from Mount Carmel, in Palestine, because of his fame as a preacher. At their chance meeting, by the light of the Holy Spirit each of the three men recognized each other and, in the course of their conversation (as recorded by various followers who were present), they made prophecies to each other. Saint Angelus foretold the stigmata of Saint Francis, and Saint Dominic said: ‘One day, Brother Angelus, to your Order of Carmel the Most Blessed Virgin Mary will give a devotion to be known as the Brown Scapular, and to my Order of Preachers she will give a devotion to be known as the Rosary. And one day, through the Rosary and the Scapular, she will save the world!’”
This happened in the opening years of the 1200s. St. Dominic received the Rosary in 1214 and St. Simon Stock received the Scapular of Mount Carmel in 1251. Both the Rosary and Scapular were to take their place among the ranks of the many Sacramentals of the Church.
As regards the Rosary, when giving it to St. Dominic, Our Lady uses the language of the Church militant! She does not speak of the Rosary in a sentimental manner! No―she refers to it as battering ram against heresy! Our Lady said to St. Dominic: “I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the battering ram has always been the Angelic Psalter which is the foundation stone of the New Testament. Therefore if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
What is a Psalter? What is Our Lady’s Psalter? The Psalter generally refers to the 150 Psalms in the Bible’s Book of Psalms―being called “Psalter” for short. During the course of a week, all 150 Psalms would be chanted from the Psalter (The Book of Psalms) by monks as a part of the Divine Office throughout Christian history, and the original usage of beads or knotted rope was as an aid to praying the Divine Office’s psalms. These prayer beads eventually became used for the recitation of the modern day Rosary―for in the Middle-Ages, common lay people wanted to join their prayers to those of the monks who daily recited the Psalms. Since most people were illiterate and neither the time nor the ability to read all the 150 Psalms, they would say a simplified, abbreviated 150 prayers in the form of the Hail Mary. Thus, with time, the Rosary developed around the recitation of 150 Hail Mary’s, one for each Psalm, using beads to keep track of the number of prayers. For centuries, the Rosary was known as “Our Lady’s Psalter.”
For those who could read and wanted to unite their prayers to those of the monks and nuns, there was developed the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary―which was a shorter form of the Divine Office in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary which appeared in the 9th or 10th century and is a shortened form of the Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary that is found in the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office). It has long been the Church’s daily liturgical prayer to Our Lady, and these hours of praise have been used by priests, religious and the laity throughout the centuries.
The Sabbatine Privilege
The Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel has promised to save those who wear the Scapular from the fires of Hell; she will also shorten their stay in Purgatory if they should pass from this world still owing some debt of punishment. This promise is found in a Bull of Pope John XXII. The Blessed Virgin appeared to him and, speaking of those who wear the Brown Scapular, said: “I, the Mother of Grace, shall descend on the Saturday after their death and whomsoever I shall find in Purgatory I shall free so that I may lead them to the holy mountain of life everlasting.”
The Blessed Virgin assigned certain conditions which must be fulfilled:
(1) Wear the Brown Scapular continuously.
(2) Observe chastity according to one’s state in life (married/single).
(3) Recite daily the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin ― which in recent times can now be substituted by observing the fasts of the Church together with abstaining from meat on Wednesdays and Saturdays; OR, with permission of a priest, saying five decades of Our Lady’s most Holy Rosary; OR, with permission of a priest, substitute some other good work for the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
► QUITO, ECUADOR 1600s: Our Lady Puts the Focus on Prayer and Penance
Our Lady of Good Success speaks of prayer and penance indirectly, by painting a picture of what the neglect of prayer and penance will produce: “The secular clergy priests will become careless in their sacred duties and will become attached to wealth and riches , which they will unduly strive to obtain [no penance / no sacrifice / no mortification]. Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger! Unbridled luxury [no penance / no sacrifice / no mortification] will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! … Oh if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! But they let themselves be dazzled by the false glamour of honors and human greatness, while others are blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness [no prayer, no penance]―that immense evil which in religious houses destroys their virtues! Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not understand their importance―for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found [prayer, penance, sacrifice] the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware from where comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. Oh, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt [of prayer, penance and sacrifice] is the fundamental cause for their downfall!”
► RUE DU BAC, PARIS, FRANCE 1830: Our Lady Gives the World the Miraculous Medal
Here Our Lady presents us with another Sacramental of the Church―the Miraculous Medal (which is the popular name for its real name: The Medal of the Immaculate Conception) as well as making us focus on the Holy Eucharist. As regards the Holy Eucharist, Our Lady says: “Come to the foot of the altar! There graces will be shed―great and small― upon all who ask for them. Graces will be especially shed upon those who ask for them! This indicates that we have to play our part―Heaven will not spoon feed us! Our Lady again repeated this aspect when she gave us the Miraculous Medal. St. Catherine Labouré saw rays of light coming from some rings on Our Lady’s hands, but not from other rings―Our Lady explained that the rings that gave no light were symbolic of graces that we are not given because we do not ask for them. The bottom line here is the importance of the Holy Eucharist, the Sacramentals of the Church (blessed Rosaries, Scapulars and Medals) and the need to petition Heaven with prayers.
► LA SALETTE 1846: Our Lady Puts the Focus on Prayer and Penance
Our Lady laments that Catholics “have neglected prayer and penance” which has opened the door to the devil. As a result of this neglect of prayer and penance, “a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls.” The Faith will be abandoned by many and terrible catastrophes―moral and physical―will be suffered until “prayers, penances and tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession.” No specific mention is made of the Rosary, nor the Scapular, nor the recently given (1830) Miraculous Medal―but there is an insistence upon prayer and penance and a warning as to what will happen if we neglect it.
► FATIMA 1917: Our Lady Puts the Focus on the Devotion to Immaculate Heart, the Rosary and Sacrifices (Penance)
Prior to Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima, the Angel of Portugal appeared to the three children on three occasions. His general focus was on the Holy Eucharist, prayer and sacrifices. Having brought with him the Holy Eucharist, he prostrated himself before the Eucharist and adored, telling the children: “Pray with me! … My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love Thee! I beg pardon of Thee for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love Thee! Pray in this way.” He then chided them for playing too much and praying and sacrificing too little: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
Our Lady’s chief requests focused upon devotion to her Immaculate Heart and to her as Queen of the Holy Rosary, asking for many prayers and sacrifices to save souls from Hell. “Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you! … Jesus wants to make me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world. I promise salvation to whoever embraces it! You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” Furthermore, at her final apparition at Fatima on October 13th 1917, Our Lady, dressed as Our Lady of Mount Carmel, held out a Brown Scapular to the world―which Sister Lucia affirmed was Our Lady’s desire that everyone wear the Brown Scapular.
► SISTER LUCIA 1957: Sister Lucia puts focus on Rosary and Devotion to the Immaculate Heart
Sister Lucia―who received more messages from Our Lady and Our Lord after the six 1917 apparitions―further underlined the chief weapons that Heaven wants us to use. She was shown a vision of Christ crucified above an altar, with His Precious Blood dripping into a chalice and onto a host that were both suspended in mid-air―alongside stood Our Lady with her Immaculate Heart in her hand. “Above the altar appeared a Cross of light. A chalice and a large Host that were suspended in the air. Nailed to the Cross was the body of another man. Drops of blood were falling from the face of Jesus crucified and from the wound in His side. These drops ran down onto the Host and fell into the chalice. Beneath the right arm of the Cross was Our Lady and in her hand was her Immaculate Heart. Under the left arm of the Cross, large letters formed these words: ‘Grace and Mercy!’” This vision fits very well with what we shall see at Akita in 1973 ― which Our Lady referred to as “the Sign left by my Son.”
In addition to this, Sister Lucia further added: “God is giving two last remedies to the world―the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others! …The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary―to such an extent, that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or, above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
► AKITA, JAPAN, 1973: Two Last Weapons―the Holy Rosary and the Sign left Jesus Christ
In 1973, at Akita in Japan, Our Lady revealed that the two last weapons at our disposal are the Holy Rosary and the “Sign” left by her Son―which has to be the Holy Eucharist, for it is a “Sign” of the Cross and Crucifixion of Christ on Calvary that is perpetually continued in each Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, as well as being a Sacrament―the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar―and all Sacraments are signs of the graces that they produce and bestow upon us.
Our Lady of Akita says: “I wish, with my Son, for souls who will console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger! … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
So What’s In the Bag?
So what is Our Lady asking for? What is the job description that she is presenting? What are the qualifications that she is asking for? Who fits the bill? Who gets the job? Let us look at those things.
Without following any certain order―either chronologically or by importance―the following things are found to be in the mix. Devotion to the Holy Eucharist in its entirety (Sacrifice and Sacrament); devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and Our Lady of the Rosary; devotion to the Holy Rosary; the wearing of the Brown Scapular; wearing of the Miraculous Medal; and a concern for the conversion and salvation of sinners through much prayer, penance and sacrifice.
Now, it is quite possible for an individual person to do all those things. However, in a time of war, one soldier―no matter how good―is not sufficient to fight a war. You need an army, not an individual. Even if there were many such individuals, history and experience shows that those who are united together into an army fare far better than a disorganized bunch of individuals.
In his books, True Devotion to Mary [TDM] and his Letter to the Friends of the Cross [LFC], St. Louis de Montfort touches upon this warfare, the qualities required of the soldiers and the need of a united army of soldiers fighting under Our Lady’s banner. Here are some extracts:
“Friends of the Cross, you are a group of crusaders united to fight against the world, not like those religious, men and women, who leave the world for fear of being overcome, but like brave, intrepid warriors on the battlefront, refusing to retreat or even to yield an inch. Be brave. Fight with all your might. Bind yourselves together in that strong union of heart and mind which is far superior, far more terrifying to the world and Hell than the armed forces of a well-organized kingdom are to its enemies. Demons are united for your destruction, but you be united for their overthrow; the avaricious are united to barter and hoard up gold and silver, but you must combine your efforts in the pursuit of the eternal treasures hidden in the Cross; reprobates unite to make merry, but you must be united to suffer.
“A Friend of the Cross is one chosen by God from among ten thousand who merely have reason and sense for their only guide … A Friend of the Cross is a mighty king, a hero who triumphs over the devil, the world and the flesh … He overthrows the pride of Satan by his love for humiliation; he triumphs over the world’s greed by his love for poverty; and he restrains the sensuality of the flesh by his love for suffering … A Friend of the Cross is a holy man, separated from visible things. He keeps his heart free from the world … A Friend of the Cross is a trophy which the crucified Christ won on Calvary in union with His Blessed Mother … Thus, a perfect Friend of the Cross is a true Christ-bearer, or rather another Christ, so much so that he can truthfully say: “I live now not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20). My dear Friends of the Cross, does every act of yours justify what the eminent name you bear implies? Are you, with the grace of God, in the shadow of Calvary’s Cross and of Our Lady of Compassion, really eager and truly striving to attain this goal? Is the way you follow the one that leads to this goal? Is it the true way of life, the narrow way, the thorn-strewn way to Calvary? Or are you unconsciously traveling the world’s broad road, the road to perdition? Do you realize that there is a highroad which to all appearances is straight and safe for man to travel, but which in reality leads to death?”
In True Devotion to Mary, St. Louis writes: “When Mary has struck her roots in a soul, she produces there marvels of grace, which she alone can produce … Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints who shall come at the end of the world are reserved for her ... Devotion to our Blessed Lady is necessary to salvation … If devotion to the most holy Virgin Mary is necessary to all men simply for working out their salvation, it is still more so for those who are called to any special perfection … At the end of the world and, indeed soon, the Most High with His holy Mother has to form for Himself great saints, who shall surpass most of the other saints in sanctity … These great souls, full of grace and zeal, shall be chosen to match themselves against the enemies of God, who shall rage on all sides―and they shall be singularly devout to our Blessed Lady … With the one hand they shall fight, overthrow and crush the heretics with their heresies, the schismatics with their schisms, the idolaters with their idolatries and the sinners with their impieties. With the other hand they shall build the temple and the mystical city of God, which is the most holy Virgin. By their words and their examples they shall draw the whole world to true devotion to Mary. This shall bring upon them many enemies, but shall also bring many victories and much glory for God alone.”
“Mary must shine forth more than ever in mercy, in might and in grace, in these latter times―in mercy, to bring back and lovingly receive the poor strayed sinners, who shall be converted and shall return to the Catholic Church; in might, against the enemies of God, idolaters, schismatics, Mahometans, Jews and souls hardened in impiety, who shall rise in terrible revolt against God to seduce all those who shall oppose them and to make them fall by promises and threats; and, finally, she must shine forth in grace, in order to animate and sustain the valiant soldiers and faithful servants of Jesus Christ, who shall battle for His interests … The devil will raise up cruel persecutions and will put terrible snares before the faithful servants and true children of Mary … The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world (for it is the same thing) have always, up to this time, persecuted those who belong to our Blessed Lady, and will, in the future, persecute them more than ever but it gives Satan more trouble to conquer them than it does to conquer others ... But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel: that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world’s esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But, in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity, superior to all other creatures by their lively zeal, and so well sustained with God’s assistance that, with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph.”
“They shall be like sharp arrows in the hand of the powerful Mary to pierce her enemies. They shall be well purified by the fire of great tribulation, and closely adhering to God, who shall carry the gold of love in their heart, the incense of prayer in their spirit, and the myrrh of mortification in their body. They shall be everywhere the good odor of Jesus Christ to the poor and to the little, while at the same time, they shall be an odor of death to the great, to the rich and to the proud worldlings … They shall thunder against sin; they shall storm against the world; they shall strike the devil and his crew … They shall be the true apostles of the latter times … They shall be true disciples of Jesus Christ, walking in the footsteps of His poverty, humility, contempt of the world, charity; teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not accepting persons; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in their own behavior. These are the great men who are to come; but Mary is the one who, by order of the Most High, shall form them for the purpose of extending His empire over that of the impious, the idolaters and the Mahometans. But when and how shall this be? God alone knows. As for us, we have but to hold our tongues, to pray, to sigh and to wait: ‘With expectation I have waited!’ (Psalm 39:2).”
You could say that all of the above more than amply fits the job description outlined by Our Lady in the aforementioned apparitions! The persons that St. Louis de Montfort describes are perfect candidates for the job! Yet St. Louis speaks of Mary forming them―that is to say, training them and teaching them. How can she do this? What on earth can she use to achieve this? It is our contention that God has providentially instituted the Legion of Mary whereto, wherein and whereby such soldiers of Mary can be recruited, trained and sent out to battle. Let us explain this supposition.
What is the Legion of Mary
To quote the Official Handbook of the Legion of Mary [abbreviated below as OHOLM], “The Legion of Mary is an Association of Catholics who, with the sanction of the Church and under the powerful leadership of Mary Immaculate, Mediatrix of all Graces (who is to Satan and his legionaries — terrible as an army set in battle array), have formed themselves into a Legion for service in the warfare which is perpetually waged by the Church against the world and its evil powers … Who are the enemy? They are the wicked who resist the will of God. Therefore let us throw ourselves determinedly into the warfare of Christ and submit ourselves to His glorious commands ... The object of the Legion of Mary is the glory of God through the sanctification of its members by prayer and active co-operation, under ecclesiastical guidance, in Mary’s and the Church’s work of crushing the head of the serpent and advancing the reign of Christ … The Legion aims to bring Mary to the world as the infallible means of winning the world to Jesus … The Legion of Mary is at the disposal of the Bishop of the Diocese and the Parish Priest for any and every form of Social Service and Catholic Action which these authorities may deem suitable to the Legionaries and useful for the welfare of the Church ...
“Therefore, the Legion of Mary is organized on the model of an army―principally on that of the army of ancient Rome―but the army and the arms of Legionaries of Mary are not of this world … The warfare of Legionaries is not of this world, and must be waged according to the tactics of Heaven … The Legion speaks to its members in terms of an army and battles. This is fitting, for the Legion is the instrument and visible operation of her who is like an army in battle array and who wages an intense warfare for the soul of every man ... The Legionaries hope to render themselves worthy of their great heavenly Queen by their loyalty, their virtues, and their courage … There will ever be places, as recent events have instanced, where Catholic zeal must be prepared to face the instruments of death or torture. Many Legionaries have thus triumphantly passed through the gates of glory. Generally, however, Legionary devotedness will have a humbler stage, but still one giving ample opportunity for the practice of a quiet but true heroism.” (OHOLM). Wow! No mincing words there, eh? Straight to the point at the opening paragraphs of chapter 1 of the Handbook.
The Legion Handbook goes on to say: “The spirit of the Legion of Mary is that of Mary herself ... Under God, the Legion is built upon devotion to Mary … The Legion’s trust in Mary is limitless, knowing that by the ordinance of God, her power is without limit. All that He could give to Mary, He has given to her. God has constituted her a special means of grace. Indeed we place ourselves in the very flood-tide of grace, for she is the spouse of the Holy Ghost: she is the channel of every grace which Jesus Christ has won. We receive nothing which we do not owe to a positive intervention on her part … In the actual exercise of our apostolate, our great means of action consists in depending upon Mary, in keeping ourselves so closely united to Mary that in all things and everywhere we act as instruments of Mary and are, as it were, the ‘heel’ of that Immaculate Virgin. It is less our apostolate that we carry on than Mary’s own apostolate. She herself acts with us, in us, by us, to the degree in which we make our life one of entire subjection to her.
“The honoring of the Legion devotion to Mary by serious meditation and zealous practice is placed on each member as a solemn trusteeship to the Legion … To say that Mary is in the soul of the faithful Legionary would be to picture a union infinitely less effective than that which actually exists … In the Mass, Holy Communion, Adoration, the Rosary, the Stations of the Cross, and other Devotions, the Legionary soul must seek, as it were, to identify itself with Mary … forgetting itself and its own resources to depend on her. The soul of the Legionary becomes so filled with the image and thought of her that the two souls are but one soul. The Legionary, lost in the depth of Mary’s soul, shares her Faith, her humility, her Immaculate Heart―and swiftly is transformed into Christ.”
“Especially does the Legion aspire after her profound humility, her perfect obedience, her angelical sweetness, her continual prayer, her universal mortification, her altogether spotless purity, her heroic patience, her heavenly wisdom, her self‑sacrificing courageous love of God, and above all her Faith, that virtue which has in her alone been found in its utmost extent and never equaled. Inspired by this love and faith of Mary, her Legion attempts any and every work, and complains not of impossibility, because it conceives that it may and can do all things! … ” (OHOLM) ― which fits in perfectly with God’s desire to establish devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the world, as well as Our Lady’s requests for prayer, sacrifices and penance.
Our Lady of Fatima placed our focus upon the many souls that fall into Hell because there is nobody to pray and offer sacrifices for them. The Legion of Mary members not only pray, but they sacrifice themselves for the salvation of souls. The Legion Handbook states: “The Legion apostolate will involve the approaching of many who would prefer to remain remote from good influences, and who will manifest their distaste for receiving a visit from those whose mission is good, not evil. These may all be won over, but not without the exercise of a patient and brave spirit. Sour looks, the sting of insult and rebuff, ridicule and adverse criticism, weariness of body and spirit, pangs from failure and from base ingratitude, the bitter cold and the blinding rain, dirt and vermin and evil smells, dark passages and sordid surroundings, the laying aside of pleasures, the taking-on of the anxieties which come in plenty with the work, the anguish which the contemplation of irreligion and depravity brings to the sensitive soul, sorrow from sorrows wholeheartedly shared — there is little glamour about these things, but if sweetly borne, counted even a joy, and persevered in unto the end, they will come, in the weighing-up, very near to that love, greater than which no man hath, that he lay down his life for his friend … Real achievement is dependent upon sustained effort, which in turn is the outcome of an unconquerable will to win. Essential to the perseverance of such a will is that it bend not often nor at all. Therefore, the Legion enjoins on its branches and its members a universal attitude of refusal to accept defeat, or to court it by a tendency to grade items of work in terms of the “promising,” the “unpromising,” the “hopeless,” etc. A readiness to brand as “hopeless” proclaims that, so far as the Legion is concerned, a priceless soul is free to pursue unchecked its reckless course to Hell.” (OHOLM).
If you dig around and research for the “ins-and-outs” of the forthcoming “Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” then you are likely to be a little confused! How on earth will it happen? We know―or should know―that it will not be an event that we are likely to miss if we are not paying attention! It won’t be as though someone has to dig us in the ribs and say: “Hey! The Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary happened last month and you missed it!” No―the event will be a “right-smack-between-the-eyes” punch! Our Lady herself said: “I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss. Thus the Church will be finally free of his cruel tyranny ... In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!” So this “marvelous way”, that Our Lady refers to, is not going to need advertizing, texting, e-mailing, calling around, etc. It is going to be a whopper of the triumph!
But what “punches” will Our Lady throw? What tools or weapons will she use? Yes―of course―she could achieve all that without any tools or weapons. Nevertheless, she has been talking a lot about weapons and tools at her modern-day apparitions―not to forget the fact that stupendous victories (but not worldwide victories over the whole world) have been won by the use of Heaven’s weapons in the past. One common thread seems to be the Holy Rosary―which remains a standard and favorite weapon or tool of Our Lady ever since she promoted the Rosary through St. Dominic in the early 1200s. Anyhow―let us piece together the jigsaw-puzzle of Our Lady’s apparitions and their chief messages to see if something clear comes out of all the fog.
► ROME 1200s: One Day, Through the Rosary and the Scapular, Mary Will Save the World
In the pages of an ancient history of the Carmelite Order (written in mediaeval Latin by a forgotten writer named Ventimiglia) the author of this book found the following account of a meeting of three future saints―St. Dominic (1170-1221), St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) and St. Angelus of Jerusalem (1185-1220):
“Three famous men of God met on a street corner in Rome. They were Friar Dominic, busy gathering recruits to a new Religious Order of Preachers; Brother Francis, the friend of birds and beasts and especially dear to the poor; and Angelus of Jerusalem, who had been invited to Rome from Mount Carmel, in Palestine, because of his fame as a preacher. At their chance meeting, by the light of the Holy Spirit each of the three men recognized each other and, in the course of their conversation (as recorded by various followers who were present), they made prophecies to each other. Saint Angelus foretold the stigmata of Saint Francis, and Saint Dominic said: ‘One day, Brother Angelus, to your Order of Carmel the Most Blessed Virgin Mary will give a devotion to be known as the Brown Scapular, and to my Order of Preachers she will give a devotion to be known as the Rosary. And one day, through the Rosary and the Scapular, she will save the world!’”
This happened in the opening years of the 1200s. St. Dominic received the Rosary in 1214 and St. Simon Stock received the Scapular of Mount Carmel in 1251. Both the Rosary and Scapular were to take their place among the ranks of the many Sacramentals of the Church.
As regards the Rosary, when giving it to St. Dominic, Our Lady uses the language of the Church militant! She does not speak of the Rosary in a sentimental manner! No―she refers to it as battering ram against heresy! Our Lady said to St. Dominic: “I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the battering ram has always been the Angelic Psalter which is the foundation stone of the New Testament. Therefore if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
What is a Psalter? What is Our Lady’s Psalter? The Psalter generally refers to the 150 Psalms in the Bible’s Book of Psalms―being called “Psalter” for short. During the course of a week, all 150 Psalms would be chanted from the Psalter (The Book of Psalms) by monks as a part of the Divine Office throughout Christian history, and the original usage of beads or knotted rope was as an aid to praying the Divine Office’s psalms. These prayer beads eventually became used for the recitation of the modern day Rosary―for in the Middle-Ages, common lay people wanted to join their prayers to those of the monks who daily recited the Psalms. Since most people were illiterate and neither the time nor the ability to read all the 150 Psalms, they would say a simplified, abbreviated 150 prayers in the form of the Hail Mary. Thus, with time, the Rosary developed around the recitation of 150 Hail Mary’s, one for each Psalm, using beads to keep track of the number of prayers. For centuries, the Rosary was known as “Our Lady’s Psalter.”
For those who could read and wanted to unite their prayers to those of the monks and nuns, there was developed the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary―which was a shorter form of the Divine Office in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary which appeared in the 9th or 10th century and is a shortened form of the Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary that is found in the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office). It has long been the Church’s daily liturgical prayer to Our Lady, and these hours of praise have been used by priests, religious and the laity throughout the centuries.
The Sabbatine Privilege
The Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel has promised to save those who wear the Scapular from the fires of Hell; she will also shorten their stay in Purgatory if they should pass from this world still owing some debt of punishment. This promise is found in a Bull of Pope John XXII. The Blessed Virgin appeared to him and, speaking of those who wear the Brown Scapular, said: “I, the Mother of Grace, shall descend on the Saturday after their death and whomsoever I shall find in Purgatory I shall free so that I may lead them to the holy mountain of life everlasting.”
The Blessed Virgin assigned certain conditions which must be fulfilled:
(1) Wear the Brown Scapular continuously.
(2) Observe chastity according to one’s state in life (married/single).
(3) Recite daily the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin ― which in recent times can now be substituted by observing the fasts of the Church together with abstaining from meat on Wednesdays and Saturdays; OR, with permission of a priest, saying five decades of Our Lady’s most Holy Rosary; OR, with permission of a priest, substitute some other good work for the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
► QUITO, ECUADOR 1600s: Our Lady Puts the Focus on Prayer and Penance
Our Lady of Good Success speaks of prayer and penance indirectly, by painting a picture of what the neglect of prayer and penance will produce: “The secular clergy priests will become careless in their sacred duties and will become attached to wealth and riches , which they will unduly strive to obtain [no penance / no sacrifice / no mortification]. Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger! Unbridled luxury [no penance / no sacrifice / no mortification] will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! … Oh if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! But they let themselves be dazzled by the false glamour of honors and human greatness, while others are blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness [no prayer, no penance]―that immense evil which in religious houses destroys their virtues! Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not understand their importance―for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found [prayer, penance, sacrifice] the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware from where comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. Oh, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt [of prayer, penance and sacrifice] is the fundamental cause for their downfall!”
► RUE DU BAC, PARIS, FRANCE 1830: Our Lady Gives the World the Miraculous Medal
Here Our Lady presents us with another Sacramental of the Church―the Miraculous Medal (which is the popular name for its real name: The Medal of the Immaculate Conception) as well as making us focus on the Holy Eucharist. As regards the Holy Eucharist, Our Lady says: “Come to the foot of the altar! There graces will be shed―great and small― upon all who ask for them. Graces will be especially shed upon those who ask for them! This indicates that we have to play our part―Heaven will not spoon feed us! Our Lady again repeated this aspect when she gave us the Miraculous Medal. St. Catherine Labouré saw rays of light coming from some rings on Our Lady’s hands, but not from other rings―Our Lady explained that the rings that gave no light were symbolic of graces that we are not given because we do not ask for them. The bottom line here is the importance of the Holy Eucharist, the Sacramentals of the Church (blessed Rosaries, Scapulars and Medals) and the need to petition Heaven with prayers.
► LA SALETTE 1846: Our Lady Puts the Focus on Prayer and Penance
Our Lady laments that Catholics “have neglected prayer and penance” which has opened the door to the devil. As a result of this neglect of prayer and penance, “a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls.” The Faith will be abandoned by many and terrible catastrophes―moral and physical―will be suffered until “prayers, penances and tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession.” No specific mention is made of the Rosary, nor the Scapular, nor the recently given (1830) Miraculous Medal―but there is an insistence upon prayer and penance and a warning as to what will happen if we neglect it.
► FATIMA 1917: Our Lady Puts the Focus on the Devotion to Immaculate Heart, the Rosary and Sacrifices (Penance)
Prior to Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima, the Angel of Portugal appeared to the three children on three occasions. His general focus was on the Holy Eucharist, prayer and sacrifices. Having brought with him the Holy Eucharist, he prostrated himself before the Eucharist and adored, telling the children: “Pray with me! … My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love Thee! I beg pardon of Thee for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love Thee! Pray in this way.” He then chided them for playing too much and praying and sacrificing too little: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
Our Lady’s chief requests focused upon devotion to her Immaculate Heart and to her as Queen of the Holy Rosary, asking for many prayers and sacrifices to save souls from Hell. “Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you! … Jesus wants to make me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world. I promise salvation to whoever embraces it! You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” Furthermore, at her final apparition at Fatima on October 13th 1917, Our Lady, dressed as Our Lady of Mount Carmel, held out a Brown Scapular to the world―which Sister Lucia affirmed was Our Lady’s desire that everyone wear the Brown Scapular.
► SISTER LUCIA 1957: Sister Lucia puts focus on Rosary and Devotion to the Immaculate Heart
Sister Lucia―who received more messages from Our Lady and Our Lord after the six 1917 apparitions―further underlined the chief weapons that Heaven wants us to use. She was shown a vision of Christ crucified above an altar, with His Precious Blood dripping into a chalice and onto a host that were both suspended in mid-air―alongside stood Our Lady with her Immaculate Heart in her hand. “Above the altar appeared a Cross of light. A chalice and a large Host that were suspended in the air. Nailed to the Cross was the body of another man. Drops of blood were falling from the face of Jesus crucified and from the wound in His side. These drops ran down onto the Host and fell into the chalice. Beneath the right arm of the Cross was Our Lady and in her hand was her Immaculate Heart. Under the left arm of the Cross, large letters formed these words: ‘Grace and Mercy!’” This vision fits very well with what we shall see at Akita in 1973 ― which Our Lady referred to as “the Sign left by my Son.”
In addition to this, Sister Lucia further added: “God is giving two last remedies to the world―the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others! …The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary―to such an extent, that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or, above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
► AKITA, JAPAN, 1973: Two Last Weapons―the Holy Rosary and the Sign left Jesus Christ
In 1973, at Akita in Japan, Our Lady revealed that the two last weapons at our disposal are the Holy Rosary and the “Sign” left by her Son―which has to be the Holy Eucharist, for it is a “Sign” of the Cross and Crucifixion of Christ on Calvary that is perpetually continued in each Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, as well as being a Sacrament―the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar―and all Sacraments are signs of the graces that they produce and bestow upon us.
Our Lady of Akita says: “I wish, with my Son, for souls who will console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger! … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
So What’s In the Bag?
So what is Our Lady asking for? What is the job description that she is presenting? What are the qualifications that she is asking for? Who fits the bill? Who gets the job? Let us look at those things.
Without following any certain order―either chronologically or by importance―the following things are found to be in the mix. Devotion to the Holy Eucharist in its entirety (Sacrifice and Sacrament); devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and Our Lady of the Rosary; devotion to the Holy Rosary; the wearing of the Brown Scapular; wearing of the Miraculous Medal; and a concern for the conversion and salvation of sinners through much prayer, penance and sacrifice.
Now, it is quite possible for an individual person to do all those things. However, in a time of war, one soldier―no matter how good―is not sufficient to fight a war. You need an army, not an individual. Even if there were many such individuals, history and experience shows that those who are united together into an army fare far better than a disorganized bunch of individuals.
In his books, True Devotion to Mary [TDM] and his Letter to the Friends of the Cross [LFC], St. Louis de Montfort touches upon this warfare, the qualities required of the soldiers and the need of a united army of soldiers fighting under Our Lady’s banner. Here are some extracts:
“Friends of the Cross, you are a group of crusaders united to fight against the world, not like those religious, men and women, who leave the world for fear of being overcome, but like brave, intrepid warriors on the battlefront, refusing to retreat or even to yield an inch. Be brave. Fight with all your might. Bind yourselves together in that strong union of heart and mind which is far superior, far more terrifying to the world and Hell than the armed forces of a well-organized kingdom are to its enemies. Demons are united for your destruction, but you be united for their overthrow; the avaricious are united to barter and hoard up gold and silver, but you must combine your efforts in the pursuit of the eternal treasures hidden in the Cross; reprobates unite to make merry, but you must be united to suffer.
“A Friend of the Cross is one chosen by God from among ten thousand who merely have reason and sense for their only guide … A Friend of the Cross is a mighty king, a hero who triumphs over the devil, the world and the flesh … He overthrows the pride of Satan by his love for humiliation; he triumphs over the world’s greed by his love for poverty; and he restrains the sensuality of the flesh by his love for suffering … A Friend of the Cross is a holy man, separated from visible things. He keeps his heart free from the world … A Friend of the Cross is a trophy which the crucified Christ won on Calvary in union with His Blessed Mother … Thus, a perfect Friend of the Cross is a true Christ-bearer, or rather another Christ, so much so that he can truthfully say: “I live now not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20). My dear Friends of the Cross, does every act of yours justify what the eminent name you bear implies? Are you, with the grace of God, in the shadow of Calvary’s Cross and of Our Lady of Compassion, really eager and truly striving to attain this goal? Is the way you follow the one that leads to this goal? Is it the true way of life, the narrow way, the thorn-strewn way to Calvary? Or are you unconsciously traveling the world’s broad road, the road to perdition? Do you realize that there is a highroad which to all appearances is straight and safe for man to travel, but which in reality leads to death?”
In True Devotion to Mary, St. Louis writes: “When Mary has struck her roots in a soul, she produces there marvels of grace, which she alone can produce … Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints who shall come at the end of the world are reserved for her ... Devotion to our Blessed Lady is necessary to salvation … If devotion to the most holy Virgin Mary is necessary to all men simply for working out their salvation, it is still more so for those who are called to any special perfection … At the end of the world and, indeed soon, the Most High with His holy Mother has to form for Himself great saints, who shall surpass most of the other saints in sanctity … These great souls, full of grace and zeal, shall be chosen to match themselves against the enemies of God, who shall rage on all sides―and they shall be singularly devout to our Blessed Lady … With the one hand they shall fight, overthrow and crush the heretics with their heresies, the schismatics with their schisms, the idolaters with their idolatries and the sinners with their impieties. With the other hand they shall build the temple and the mystical city of God, which is the most holy Virgin. By their words and their examples they shall draw the whole world to true devotion to Mary. This shall bring upon them many enemies, but shall also bring many victories and much glory for God alone.”
“Mary must shine forth more than ever in mercy, in might and in grace, in these latter times―in mercy, to bring back and lovingly receive the poor strayed sinners, who shall be converted and shall return to the Catholic Church; in might, against the enemies of God, idolaters, schismatics, Mahometans, Jews and souls hardened in impiety, who shall rise in terrible revolt against God to seduce all those who shall oppose them and to make them fall by promises and threats; and, finally, she must shine forth in grace, in order to animate and sustain the valiant soldiers and faithful servants of Jesus Christ, who shall battle for His interests … The devil will raise up cruel persecutions and will put terrible snares before the faithful servants and true children of Mary … The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world (for it is the same thing) have always, up to this time, persecuted those who belong to our Blessed Lady, and will, in the future, persecute them more than ever but it gives Satan more trouble to conquer them than it does to conquer others ... But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel: that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world’s esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But, in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity, superior to all other creatures by their lively zeal, and so well sustained with God’s assistance that, with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph.”
“They shall be like sharp arrows in the hand of the powerful Mary to pierce her enemies. They shall be well purified by the fire of great tribulation, and closely adhering to God, who shall carry the gold of love in their heart, the incense of prayer in their spirit, and the myrrh of mortification in their body. They shall be everywhere the good odor of Jesus Christ to the poor and to the little, while at the same time, they shall be an odor of death to the great, to the rich and to the proud worldlings … They shall thunder against sin; they shall storm against the world; they shall strike the devil and his crew … They shall be the true apostles of the latter times … They shall be true disciples of Jesus Christ, walking in the footsteps of His poverty, humility, contempt of the world, charity; teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not accepting persons; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in their own behavior. These are the great men who are to come; but Mary is the one who, by order of the Most High, shall form them for the purpose of extending His empire over that of the impious, the idolaters and the Mahometans. But when and how shall this be? God alone knows. As for us, we have but to hold our tongues, to pray, to sigh and to wait: ‘With expectation I have waited!’ (Psalm 39:2).”
You could say that all of the above more than amply fits the job description outlined by Our Lady in the aforementioned apparitions! The persons that St. Louis de Montfort describes are perfect candidates for the job! Yet St. Louis speaks of Mary forming them―that is to say, training them and teaching them. How can she do this? What on earth can she use to achieve this? It is our contention that God has providentially instituted the Legion of Mary whereto, wherein and whereby such soldiers of Mary can be recruited, trained and sent out to battle. Let us explain this supposition.
What is the Legion of Mary
To quote the Official Handbook of the Legion of Mary [abbreviated below as OHOLM], “The Legion of Mary is an Association of Catholics who, with the sanction of the Church and under the powerful leadership of Mary Immaculate, Mediatrix of all Graces (who is to Satan and his legionaries — terrible as an army set in battle array), have formed themselves into a Legion for service in the warfare which is perpetually waged by the Church against the world and its evil powers … Who are the enemy? They are the wicked who resist the will of God. Therefore let us throw ourselves determinedly into the warfare of Christ and submit ourselves to His glorious commands ... The object of the Legion of Mary is the glory of God through the sanctification of its members by prayer and active co-operation, under ecclesiastical guidance, in Mary’s and the Church’s work of crushing the head of the serpent and advancing the reign of Christ … The Legion aims to bring Mary to the world as the infallible means of winning the world to Jesus … The Legion of Mary is at the disposal of the Bishop of the Diocese and the Parish Priest for any and every form of Social Service and Catholic Action which these authorities may deem suitable to the Legionaries and useful for the welfare of the Church ...
“Therefore, the Legion of Mary is organized on the model of an army―principally on that of the army of ancient Rome―but the army and the arms of Legionaries of Mary are not of this world … The warfare of Legionaries is not of this world, and must be waged according to the tactics of Heaven … The Legion speaks to its members in terms of an army and battles. This is fitting, for the Legion is the instrument and visible operation of her who is like an army in battle array and who wages an intense warfare for the soul of every man ... The Legionaries hope to render themselves worthy of their great heavenly Queen by their loyalty, their virtues, and their courage … There will ever be places, as recent events have instanced, where Catholic zeal must be prepared to face the instruments of death or torture. Many Legionaries have thus triumphantly passed through the gates of glory. Generally, however, Legionary devotedness will have a humbler stage, but still one giving ample opportunity for the practice of a quiet but true heroism.” (OHOLM). Wow! No mincing words there, eh? Straight to the point at the opening paragraphs of chapter 1 of the Handbook.
The Legion Handbook goes on to say: “The spirit of the Legion of Mary is that of Mary herself ... Under God, the Legion is built upon devotion to Mary … The Legion’s trust in Mary is limitless, knowing that by the ordinance of God, her power is without limit. All that He could give to Mary, He has given to her. God has constituted her a special means of grace. Indeed we place ourselves in the very flood-tide of grace, for she is the spouse of the Holy Ghost: she is the channel of every grace which Jesus Christ has won. We receive nothing which we do not owe to a positive intervention on her part … In the actual exercise of our apostolate, our great means of action consists in depending upon Mary, in keeping ourselves so closely united to Mary that in all things and everywhere we act as instruments of Mary and are, as it were, the ‘heel’ of that Immaculate Virgin. It is less our apostolate that we carry on than Mary’s own apostolate. She herself acts with us, in us, by us, to the degree in which we make our life one of entire subjection to her.
“The honoring of the Legion devotion to Mary by serious meditation and zealous practice is placed on each member as a solemn trusteeship to the Legion … To say that Mary is in the soul of the faithful Legionary would be to picture a union infinitely less effective than that which actually exists … In the Mass, Holy Communion, Adoration, the Rosary, the Stations of the Cross, and other Devotions, the Legionary soul must seek, as it were, to identify itself with Mary … forgetting itself and its own resources to depend on her. The soul of the Legionary becomes so filled with the image and thought of her that the two souls are but one soul. The Legionary, lost in the depth of Mary’s soul, shares her Faith, her humility, her Immaculate Heart―and swiftly is transformed into Christ.”
“Especially does the Legion aspire after her profound humility, her perfect obedience, her angelical sweetness, her continual prayer, her universal mortification, her altogether spotless purity, her heroic patience, her heavenly wisdom, her self‑sacrificing courageous love of God, and above all her Faith, that virtue which has in her alone been found in its utmost extent and never equaled. Inspired by this love and faith of Mary, her Legion attempts any and every work, and complains not of impossibility, because it conceives that it may and can do all things! … ” (OHOLM) ― which fits in perfectly with God’s desire to establish devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the world, as well as Our Lady’s requests for prayer, sacrifices and penance.
Our Lady of Fatima placed our focus upon the many souls that fall into Hell because there is nobody to pray and offer sacrifices for them. The Legion of Mary members not only pray, but they sacrifice themselves for the salvation of souls. The Legion Handbook states: “The Legion apostolate will involve the approaching of many who would prefer to remain remote from good influences, and who will manifest their distaste for receiving a visit from those whose mission is good, not evil. These may all be won over, but not without the exercise of a patient and brave spirit. Sour looks, the sting of insult and rebuff, ridicule and adverse criticism, weariness of body and spirit, pangs from failure and from base ingratitude, the bitter cold and the blinding rain, dirt and vermin and evil smells, dark passages and sordid surroundings, the laying aside of pleasures, the taking-on of the anxieties which come in plenty with the work, the anguish which the contemplation of irreligion and depravity brings to the sensitive soul, sorrow from sorrows wholeheartedly shared — there is little glamour about these things, but if sweetly borne, counted even a joy, and persevered in unto the end, they will come, in the weighing-up, very near to that love, greater than which no man hath, that he lay down his life for his friend … Real achievement is dependent upon sustained effort, which in turn is the outcome of an unconquerable will to win. Essential to the perseverance of such a will is that it bend not often nor at all. Therefore, the Legion enjoins on its branches and its members a universal attitude of refusal to accept defeat, or to court it by a tendency to grade items of work in terms of the “promising,” the “unpromising,” the “hopeless,” etc. A readiness to brand as “hopeless” proclaims that, so far as the Legion is concerned, a priceless soul is free to pursue unchecked its reckless course to Hell.” (OHOLM).
Article 2
Wednesday September 6th, 2023
Only a Miracle Can Do It!
Wednesday September 6th, 2023
Only a Miracle Can Do It!
Do You Believe in Miracles?
The question has to be asked: “Do you believe in miracles?” You had better believe in miracles! For it is only a miracle that can save the world from where it is headed today! While we complacently, indifferently, lackadaisically, presumptuously and foolishly spend our time immersed in worldly, entertaining, fun activities―the world is immersed in a swamp of sin out of which it is impossible to escape without divine intervention. Most of us have been bitten with “Titanic Bug” or have caught the “Titanic Virus” which seems to imagine that this world is unsinkable! Yet Our Lady has repeatedly and clearly warned us that this will not be the case in view of the tsunami of sins that we throw at Heaven each and every day! As she warned Blessed Elena Aiello―back in the far less sinful 1950s:
“People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! Materialism marches on ever fomenting bloody strifes and fratricidal struggles. Clear signs warn that peace is in danger. That scourge, like the shadow of a dark cloud, is now moving across mankind―only my power, as Mother of God, is preventing the outbreak of the storm. All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
Regarding the annihilation of nations, it is important to note that during the Father Fuentes interview, Sister Lucia said that Our Blessed Mother had told herself, Jacinta and Francisco “many times ... that many nations will disappear from the face of the Earth.” We only have the one recorded instance in July 1917, but Lucia said Our Lady spoke of the annihilation of many nations “many times!” (Frère François, Tragedy and Triumph, p. 27).
Our Lady of Good Success had already alluded to this: “The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty.”
“As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead!” (Our Lady of Akita, 1973).
All Will Seem Lost!
She had already indicated at her other apparitions that things had gone out of control so much that only she could help the world: “The moment will come when the danger will be enormous―it will seem that all is lost! There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved! Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” She speaks of a miraculous triumph over Satan and evil: “I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss. Thus the Church will be finally free of his cruel tyranny ... In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
Yet, at the same time―to disturb our complacency and presumptuousness―she adds that prior to this miraculous triumph most of mankind will be wiped out by God’s just chastisement, the good will die as well as the bad; priests as well the faithful! The list of scourges that God will send Himself or the scourges that He will permit His enemies to use upon the world, is long and frightening: Fire from the skies (both man-made and fire from Heaven), floods, earthquakes, plagues, famines, wars (both local and worldwide), widespread murder, and more besides! Only a miracle can save us―but miracles are not free! Miracles have to be paid for in advance by Faith, by prayer, by penance and by general suffering. Hence Our Lady said: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … People will think of nothing but amusement!” ― that is why we find ourselves in this mess! It is only prayer, penance and the sacrifice of worldliness that will pay the price of the miracle or miracles that are needed. Our Lady adds: “Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession.”
Hmm! All of God’s people begging forgiveness and mercy by their prayers, penances and tears? Not quite there, are we? When only 4% of God’s people pray the Rosary daily and only 15% to 20% fulfill their Sunday Mass attendance which binds under pain of mortal sin―somehow that “all of God’s people” and “begging mercy and forgiveness” by “prayers, penances and tears” seems like a million miles away, don’t you think? The chastisement, however, cannot be a million miles away! Instead, most of God’s people are living in mortal sin―just by not going to Sunday Mass! Do they confess it? No―because hardly anyone goes to Confession anymore. Surveys show that 50% never go to Confession!
We do not need an isolated miracle from Heaven―such as the cure of one person―we need a worldwide miracle from Heaven! We need a miracle of a magnitude that has never been seen before! Why? Because the state of the world is worse than it has ever been before? How do we know that? Our Lady said so―that is how we know: “Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … Nature is asking for vengeance because of man, and she trembles, with dread, at what must happen to the Earth stained with crime! … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! …Tremble, Earth, and you who proclaim yourselves as serving Jesus Christ and who, on the inside, only adore yourselves! Tremble, for God will hand you over to His enemy, because the holy places are in a state of corruption! … The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events! Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God! … People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge [the Great Flood in Noe’s time]! If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge [the Great Flood in Noe’s time], such as one never seen before. Materialism marches on ever fomenting bloody strifes and fratricidal struggles. Clear signs warn that peace is in danger. That scourge, like the shadow of a dark cloud, is now moving across mankind―only my power, as Mother of God, is preventing the outbreak of the storm. All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth! … Cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes! … Nations shall be annihilated!” (Combination of Our Lady of Good Success, La Salette, Fatima, Akita and her words to Bl. Elena Aiello).
We Just Don’t Give a Damn!
We have become the proverbial frog in the pan of slowly heated water, where the water reaches boiling point so slowly that the frog becomes accustomed to the temperature of heated water until it is too late to jump out to safety! Our Lady of La Salette speaks of the devil being unleashed upon the world as a punishment, but that he will work imperceptibly, “little by little” ― and that is what we are seeing. We get used to each successive stage of totalitarianism that is gradually surrounding and strangling the Faith. We do little or nothing to combat it―and we mist certainly do not use the weapons that Our Lady has said we must use―the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Rosary: “The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!” (Our Lady of Akita).
On this point, Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed Our Lady’s disappointment at being “stonewalled” by us: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!” (Sister Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
If we do not play our part―God is not going to play His part. “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:8). “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). St. Augustine―a Father and Doctor of the Church―tells us that “God created us without us: but He did not will to save us without us!” Some translate the Latin into the singular: “God, Who created you without you, will not save you without you!” In other words, God created you without your cooperation, but God will not save you without your cooperation. In her apparitions, Our Lady has told more than enough times what we must do on our part to obtain God’s merciful help―but we do not do it, or too few people are doing it. That is why God does not step in and solve the world’s numerous crises―spiritual, political and material.
The Need For and the Power of Faith
While He was on Earth, Our Lord performed miracles galore! Only a tiny fraction of them are mentioned in the Gospels―as St. John writes in the very last verse of his Gospel: “There are also many other things which Jesus did; which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written!” (John 21:25). Multitudes of miracles are included in one mere sentence and are neither listed nor explained: “Many followed him, and he healed them all!” (Matthew 12:15) … “And when the sun was down, all they that had any sick with diverse diseases, brought them to Him. And He, laying his hands on every one of them, healed them” (Luke 4:40).
Already back in the Middle-Ages, a mystic soul asked Our Lord why they were no longer seeing the caliber and magnitude of miracles that were witnessed in the early Church, during the time of Our Lord and the Apostles. Our Lord simply said: “Because of your lack of Faith!” In the Gospels we often read of Our Lord both performing miracles and promising miracles to His followers―but the prerequisite for those miracles was Faith (that is to believe united to confidence).
“And Jesus said to them: ‘Where is your Faith?’” (Luke 8:25) … “O you of little Faith! Why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31) … “Why are you fearful? Have you no Faith yet?” (Mark 4:40) … “Jesus said to him: ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes!’” (Mark 9:22) … “All things, whatsoever you ask when you pray, believe that you shall receive them; and they shall come unto you!” (Mark 11:24) … “And the Lord said: “If you had Faith like to a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry tree: ‘Be thou rooted up and be thou transplanted into the sea!’ ― and it would obey you” (Luke 17:6) … “Amen I say to you, if you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here to there!’ ― and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 17:19) … Amen, I say to you, if you shall have Faith, and stagger not, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Take up and cast thyself into the sea!’ ― and it shall be done” (Matthew 21:21).
It was the Faith (believe in the power of Jesus and confidence that He will graciously use it) that obtained miracles for those who came to Him. He repeatedly demanded Faith and praised Faith in those seeking His miraculous intervention: “Jesus, seeing their Faith, said to the man sick of the palsy: ‘Be of good heart, thy sins are forgiven thee!’” (Matthew 9:2) … “Jesus turning and seeing her, said: ‘Be of good heart, daughter, thy Faith has made thee whole!’ And the woman was made whole from that hour” (Matthew 9:22) … “Daughter, thy Faith has made thee whole! Go in peace, and be thou cured of thy disease!” (Mark 5:34) … “He said to her: Daughter! Thy Faith has made thee whole! Go thy way in peace!’” (Luke 8:48) … “Jesus said to her: ‘O woman, great is your Faith! Be it done to you as you wish!’ And her daughter was cured from that hour” (Matthew 15:28) … “Jesus said to him: ‘Receive thy sight! Thy Faith has made thee whole!’” (Luke 18:42) … “According to your Faith, be it done unto you!” (Matthew 9:29) … “Whose Faith when He saw, He said: ‘Man, thy sins are forgiven thee!’” (Luke 5:20) … “And He said to the woman: ‘Thy Faith has made thee safe! Go in peace!’” (Luke 7:50) … “And He said to him: ‘Arise! Go thy way! For thy Faith hath made thee whole!’” (Luke 17:19).
The Apostles Fail in Faith
Our Lord did not spare His Apostles from the shame of having insufficient Faith in Him―as we see in the case of Peter, who, when He saw Our Lord walking upon the waves of the stormy lake, asked that Our Lord bid him [Peter] to come to Him by also having him walk over the waves. At first Peter’s Faith held firm, but then he started to fear and doubt―at which point he sank into the stormy waves, crying out to Our Lord for help. “And immediately Jesus stretching forth His hand took hold of him, and said to him: ‘O thou of little Faith! Why didst thou doubt?’” (Matthew 14:31).
On another occasion, when Our Lord had sent His Apostles out to preach and cure, they failed in one particular case to cast out a demon and the boy in question had to be personally brought to Jesus for the cure. Our Lord rebuked His Apostles for lacking the Faith required to cure the boy: “There came to Jesus a man, falling down on his knees before Him, saying: ‘Lord! I have brought my son to Thee, having a dumb spirit! Have pity on my son! For he is a lunatic and suffers much! For he falls often into the fire and often into the water! Who, wheresoever this spirit takes him, he dashes him, and he foams, and gnashes with the teeth, and pines away! And I brought him to Thy disciples and spoke to Thy disciples to cast him out, and they could not cure him!’
“Then Jesus answered and said: ‘O unbelieving and perverse generation! How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him here to Me!’ And they brought him to Jesus. And immediately the spirit troubled him; and, being thrown down upon the ground, he rolled about foaming. And Jesus asked his father: ‘How long a time is it since this happened to him?’ The father said: ‘From his infancy! And often the spirit casts him into the fire and into waters to destroy him. But if Thou canst do anything, help us, having compassion on us!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes!’ And immediately the father of the boy crying out with tears, said: ‘I do believe, Lord! Help my unbelief!’ Jesus threatened the unclean spirit, saying to him: ‘Deaf and dumb spirit, I command thee, go out of him; and enter not any more into him!’ And crying out and greatly tearing him, the devil went out of him, and he became as dead, so that many said: ‘He is dead!’ But Jesus, taking him by the hand, lifted him up and he arose. And the child was cured from that hour.
“And when Jesus had come into the house, His disciples came secretly to Jesus and said: ‘Why could we not cast him out?’ Jesus said to them: ‘Because of your unbelief! For, amen I say to you, if you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here to there, and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you! But this kind of devil is not cast out except by prayer and fasting!’” (Matthew 17:20; Mark 9:28) ― and the demons that possess the world today will be cast out except by Faith, prayer and fasting! Yet that is where we are failing―our Faith is weak, or prayers are rare and distracted, and our fasting is basically non-existent.
Christ Abandoned by His Soldiers
The “Catholic Army” of Soldiers of Christ has, for the most part, committed treason and surrendered to the enemy―the world. What makes matters worse is that nobody really feels bad about it! O the utter stupidity! What insane blindness! A mass spiritual suicide! What a slap in the face of Christ Who came to save us from this world! Yet most Catholics prefer to embrace this world far more than wish to embrace Christ with His teachings and commands. Christ commands prayer and penance. The world commands play and fun. Christ says: “A rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:23-24). Yet Catholics seek to be as rich as they possibly can! Christ said to the rich young man with many possessions: “Go sell all whatever thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven! And then come and follow Me!” (Luke 18:22).
In His Sermon on the Mount, Christ had said: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). Elsewhere He said: “For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Our Lord clearly and emphatically states that the world is His enemy and that the world is ruled by its prince, the devil, who is Christ’s ultimate enemy: “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To His false followers, the worldlings, He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His true followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
That is the whole point of the Christian life―a progressive detachment from the world and the things of this world. Yet we―and the especially the younger generation―are engaged in a progressive attachment to the world! Is Christ going to perform a stupendous miracle for people like that? Such people refuse Christ and His teaching―they rewrite His teachings and change them into what they would prefer them to be, they water them down and make them more acceptable to their lukewarm selves. That is not what earns miracles from Christ―as we read in the Gospels: “Jesus said to them: ‘A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and in his own house, and among his own kindred!’ And He could not do any miracles there” (Mark 6:5) … “And He wrought not many miracles there, because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58). What Our Lord refers to here is the lack of cooperation and lack of belief He was encountering in His own country, the area in which He lived and even among His own relatives―that is why He refused to do miracles there. How much more does that not apply to us―His family members in the Mystical Body of Christ who live in His “country” of the Catholic Faith? “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
Our Lady the Troubleshooter
As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “In the beginnings of the Church, the Lord He showed his bounty by such great miracles and wonders―frequently sending the Holy Ghost in a visible manner, working miracles in those who accepted the Creed. The power of God worked through the Apostles and disciples, because in them there was no hindrance to His eternal and holy will of which they were true instruments and executors, followers of truth and true imitators of Christ. Hence they were elevated to participate in the attributes of God, especially as regards working such great miracles for themselves and for other souls. However, it is not proper that the doings of creatures in this mortal life should be miraculously governed by the divine power. Whatever can be obtained by human efforts, is not to be expected by a miracle, nor must one try to exempt himself from labor in the hope of a supernatural intervention on the part of God. The Lord, while living on Earth, did not resort to miracles in order to escape the necessity of taking food or of following ordinary human occupations.
“After the Apostles, other children were born to the Church, in which, from generation to generation, this divine power and its effects were transplanted―the innumerable martyrs who shed their blood for Christ and gave their lives for the holy Faith, the founders of religious orders, the great saints who flourished in them, the doctors, the bishops, the prelates and apostolic men, through whom the kindness and power of God was so abundantly manifested. How pleasing to God is the service of those who labor with solicitude toward removing the obstacles which men place to their salvation and the communication of His favors to them! God dispenses his infinite treasures of the souls through the ministry of the prelates, priests, preachers, and teachers of his divine word.
“This infinite kindness of God is just as great now, as in the first ages of the Church; the inclination of the highest Goodness to enrich souls is not changed, nor can it be; his kind generosity has not diminished; the love of His Church is always at its height; His mercy is just as much concerned at the miseries of men, which in our times have become innumerable; the clamour of the sheep of Christ is louder than ever; the prelates, priests and ministers are more numerous than ever. If this is so, to what is to be attributed the loss of so many souls and the ruin of the Christian people? Why is it that the infidels not only do not enter the Church, but subject it to so much affliction and sorrow? Why is it that the prelates and ministers do not shine before the world, exhibiting the splendours of Christ, as in the ages gone by and in the primitive Church?
“Consider the wicked disposition of mortals in the present age, in which the light of the Gospel has been spread and confirmed by so many miracles wrought by God in His Church. In spite of all this, there are so few who are perfect and who seek a greater participation in the fruits and benefits of the Redemption. Although the number of fools is so great and the vices are become so measureless, there are those who think that also the perfect are numerous―but there are fewer than one thinks, and many less than there should be.
“Deplore the difference between the state of the Holy Church in our times and that of those primitive times! The ancient beauty, in which the Apostles founded the Church, is lost! In the beginnings of the evangelical Church, the Lord showed His kindness by great miracles and wonders―frequently sending the Holy Ghost in a visible manner, working miracles in those who accepted the Creed. Today the Church seeks deceitful powders [cosmetics] and paints to cover the horrid ugliness of vice. To the greater confusion of the negligent ministers of the Church in our days, I desire that they might all be angelic rather than merely human in their holiness and perfection! If only they would not pervert the order established by God and lived up to the dignity to which they are called and chosen before all others.
“Consider how the stones of the sanctuary are scattered about in streets of the city (Lamentations 4:1). See how the priests of the Lord have assimilated themselves to the people (Isaias 24:2), when, on the contrary, they should raise the people to the holiness, which is due to priesthood. The sacerdotal dignity and the precious vestments of virtue are soiled by contagion with the worldly; the anointed of the Lord, consecrated solely to his worship and service, have lapsed from their noble and godlike station; they have lost their beauty in debasing themselves to vile actions, unworthy of their exalted position among men. They love vanity; they indulge greed and avarice; they serve their own interest; they love money, they place their hopes in treasures of silver and gold; they submit to the flatteries and to the slavery of the worldly and powerful; and, to their still lower degradation, they subject themselves to the petty whims of women, and sometimes make themselves participants in their counsels of malice and wickedness. There is hardly a sheep in the fold of Christ [the faithful], who recognizes in these bishops and priest the voice of its true Pastor [Christ], or receives from them the nourishment of virtue and holiness, which they should show forth. How shall the heavenly Physician confide to such administrators the medicine of life? Or how can these guilty ones intercede and mediate mercy for those who are less, or even equally, guilty? Let thy tears flow over this loss and ruin! These are the reasons why the prelates and priests of our times do not perform the miracles of the Apostles and disciples―and those others in the primitive Church who imitated their lives by an ardent zeal for the honor of the Lord and the conversion of souls.
“On this account the treasures of the Blood and death of Christ in the Church do not bear the same fruits, either in His priests and ministers, nor in the other mortals! For if they neglect and forget to make them fruitful in themselves―then how can they expect them to flow over on the rest of the human family? On this account the infidels are not converted on learning of the true Faith, although they live within sight of the princes of the Church, the ministers and preachers of the Gospel. The Church in our times is richer in buildings, temporal goods, rents and possessions; it abounds with educated and learned men, great prelacies, and multiplied dignities. As all these advantages are due to the Blood of Christ, they ought all to be used in His honor and service, promoting the conversion of souls, supporting and helping His poor and enhancing the worship and veneration of His Holy Name. Is this the use made of the temporal riches of the Church? Let the captives answer, whether or not they are ransomed by the financial income of the Church; let the infidels testify, whether they are converted or not; whether heresies are exterminated at the expense of the ecclesiastical treasures.
“What is most deplorable, is how they dishonor the High-priest Christ and in their lives depart just as far from the imitation of Christ and the Apostles, as the most profane men of the world. If the preaching of the divine word by these ministers is so dead and without power of vivifying the hearers, then it is not the fault of truth or of the Holy Scriptures; but it is because of the abuse and of the distorted intentions of those that preach it. They seek to compromise the glory of Christ with their own selfish honor and vain esteem; they compromise the spiritual goods, with base acquisition of stipends; and if those two selfish ends are reached, they care not for other results of their preaching―which should be the sanctification and salvation of souls. Therefore they wander away from the pure and sincere doctrine, and sometimes even from the truth recorded in the Scriptures and explained by holy teachers―instead, they slime it over with their own ingenious subtleties, seeking to cause rather the pleasure and admiration of their hearers than their advancement in holiness. When these adulterated divine truths reach the ears of the sinners, they produce an admiration of the preacher, rather than a love of Christ; they no power or efficacy for penetrating the hearts, but are only a delight the ears.”
The Sole Soul Solution
It is frustrating and tragic how we refuse the solutions that Heaven has offered and look to other solutions! Heaven gives us supernatural solutions and we look for natural solutions. Heaven has ruled that Our Lady is the solution and we look for a human person here on Earth for our solution. Heaven has said the solution will be miraculous and we look for a no-miraculous human-powered solution. It ain’t gonna work! The solution is not a politician or politics. It is not money or power. It is not turning out on the streets in protest. It is not in posting on internet blogs and websites. It is not threats and violence. It is not in boycotts or economic sanctions. The solution is from up above and it must be paid for on our knees with Rosaries in our hands and no food in our (oversized?) bellies!
All of this reminds us the solution that God gave Gedeon when the Israelites were threatened by conquest by the Madianites. Gedeon―the fifth of the Judges who were the leaders of Israel at the time―found the Israelite army greatly outnumbered by the Madianites: with 135,000 Madianites against Gedeon’s army of 32,000—who were outnumbered by more than 4 to 1. Human wisdom and prudence, seeing oneself so sorely outnumbered, would see this as a time to go out and recruit more warriors. However, without God we can do nothing, and it might be that, after the victory that the Lord would give them, the soldiers might think it had been by their own strength and ability that they had won the victory.
So, the Lord commanded Gedeon, not to recruit soldiers, but to further reduce the number under his command: “lest Israel should glory against me, and say: I was delivered by my own strength” (Judges 7:2). Any who were “afraid and trembling” were told they could go home. Some 22,000 departed, leaving only 10,000 to fight the 135,000 Madianites. So, they went from being outnumbered by more than 4 to 1, to now being outnumbered by more than 13 to 1.
No doubt Gedeon was surprised to hear what the Lord said next: “The people are still too many, bring them to the waters, and there I will try them” (Judges 7:4). At the site to which the Lord had directed Gideon’s army there was drinkable water. The army stopped to drink and 9,700 knelt down on their knees, so they might drink directly from the stream. The other 300 cupped their hands and took water into them, drinking it from their hands as a dog would lap water from his bowl. “By the 300 hundred men, that lapped water, I will save you, and deliver Madian into thy hand: but let all the rest of the people return to their place” (Judges 7:7). And so it was!
God likes to do with the minimum. He likes to have everything stacked against Him and His Chosen Ones. He delights in bringing off the seemingly impossible. With “Gedeon’s Three Hundred”, God kept increasing the odds against them―from being outnumbered by more than 4 to 1 (135,000 versus 32,000); to more than 13 to 1 (135,000 versus 10,000); and finally to a ridiculous and seemingly impossible situation of being outnumbered by 450 to 1 (135,000 versus 300). God wanted the Israelites to go into battle heavily outnumbered, so that God Himself could claim the eventual victory against those impossible odds. Here is the account in abbreviated form:
“The children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord: and He delivered them into the hand of Madianites for seven years. And they were grievously oppressed by them. And they made themselves dens and eaves in the mountains, and strong holds to resist. And when Israel had sown [their crops], Madian and Amalec, and the rest of the eastern nations came up and pitching their tents among them, wasted all things and they left nothing at all in Israel for sustenance of life, nor sheep, nor oxen, nor asses. And Israel was humbled exceedingly in the sight of the Madianites. And they cried to the Lord desiring help against the Madianites … And an angel of the Lord came and appeared to Gedeon, and said: ‘The Lord is with thee, O most valiant of men ... Go in this thy strength, and thou shalt deliver Israel out of the hand of Madian! Know that I have sent thee!’” (Judges 6:1-14).
“Then Gedeon, rising up early and all the people with him, came to the fountain that is called Harad. Now the camp of Madian was in the valley on the north side of the high hill. The Lord said to Gedeon: ‘The people that are with thee are many, and Madian shall not be delivered into their hands: lest Israel should glory against Me, and say: “I was delivered by my own strength!” Speak to the people, and proclaim in the hearing of all—“Whosoever is fearful and timorous, let him return!”‘ So two and twenty thousand men went away from mount Galaad and returned home, and only ten thousand remained.
“And the Lord said to Gedeon: ‘The people are still too many, bring them to the waters, and there I will try them: and of whom I shall say to thee, “This shall go with thee!” Let him go: whom I shall forbid to go, let him return.’
And when the people were come down to the waters, the Lord said to Gedeon: ‘They that shall lap the water with their tongues, as dogs are wont to lap, thou shalt set apart by themselves: but they that shall drink bowing down their knees, shall be on the other side.’ And the number of them that had lapped water, casting it with the hand to their mouth, was three hundred men: and all the rest of the multitude had drunk kneeling. And the Lord said to Gedeon: ‘By the three hundred men, that lapped water, I will save you, and deliver Madian into thy hand: but let all the rest of the people return to their place’” (Judges 7:1-7).
The result was that the 300 soldiers under Gedeon―by the grace and help of God―slew 120,000 Madianites and only 15,000 remained, therefore indicating that the Madianite army totaled 135,000 men: “For fifteen thousand men were left of all the troops of the eastern people, and one hundred and twenty thousand warriors that drew the sword, were slain” (Judges 8:10).
Similarly, God only chose 12 Apostles and 72 disciples and commanded them to go into the world and “teach ye all nations baptizing them” (Matthew 28:19): “And when day was come, He called unto Him His disciples; and He chose twelve of them―whom also He named Apostles” (Luke 6:13). “He called unto Him whom He would Himself and they came to Him. And He made that Twelve should be with Him” (Mark 3:13-14). “Having called His Twelve disciples [the Apostles]…” (Matthew 10:1), “the Lord appointed another seventy-two [disciples], and He sent them two and two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was to come. And He said to them: ‘The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few! Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send laborers into His harvest! Go! Behold I send you as lambs among wolves!’” (Luke 10:1-2), “And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Matthew 10:22). Scholars and scientists and mathematicians estimate the world’s population at the time of Christ was, to round off the number, around 300 million―so his 84 followers (12 Apostles plus 72 disciples) would be outnumbered by around 3.5 million to 1. Even if you take the number of disciples at the time of Pentecost, at the descent of the Holy Ghost, “the number of persons together was about an hundred and twenty” (Acts 1:15)―which would mean being outnumbered by the world at a ratio of 2.3 million to 1. God rarely makes things easy! So there is no need to lose heart when the odds are stacked against you!
In both cases―Gedeon and the Church―it was not human power, human weapons, human know-how, human resources, that won the day. It God that won the day in a miraculous way. Think of the countless miracles God performed in the early days of the Church to protect His chosen ones and to spread the Faith! Yet think of the fervor, devotion, zeal, courage and grit among those early Christians. They were not the “couch-potatoes” that we are today. They were not “keyboard-warriors” but real warriors who “put-their-money-where-their-mouth-was” by shedding their blood for the Faith if required!
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady bewailed the worldliness into which the Church had fallen: “Do not be surprised that the Catholic Church, once having had such an exalted position in its beginnings, should now be brought to such low level, nor be astonished that God has so much forsaken the prelates, ministers and preachers of his word, who are concerned about outward show and like worldly applause too much! There are some priests and ministers, who are not infected with these lamentable vices. With those that are zealous, God is most generous―but they are few in number, as can be seen from the ruin of the Christian people and from the contempt into which the priests and preachers of the Gospel have fallen. For if the number of the perfect and the zealous workers were great, then without a doubt sinners would reform and amend their lives; many infidels would be converted; all would look upon and hear with reverence and fear such preachers, priests and prelates, they would respect them for their dignity and holiness, and not for their worldly talents. Hence bewail such a sad state, and invite Heaven and Earth to help thee in thy weeping―for there are few who feel sorrow about this state of affairs! This is the greatest of all the injuries committed against the Lord by the children of the Church.”
The Sole Soul Solution is in Your Hands!
We live in an era of excuses. We pass the buck and point the finger at others to distract from our deficiencies. If others can be made to look at someone else in the “blame game”, then it takes away attention from you. “Attack is the best form of defense” they say―attack someone else before they attack you. When we are not doing what we should be doing, then we pipe-in with: “Well, nobody else is doing it! Why should I?” If that is our modus operandi or manner of acting, then we should also say: “Well, if everyone else is going to Hell, then so should I!” If we follow the majority, then we MOST CERTAINLY will end up in Hell―as Our Lord and His Saints repeatedly tell us:
“And a certain man said to Jesus: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But Jesus said: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able!’” (Luke 13:23-24) … “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14). To which the Saints add: “There are many who arrive at the Faith, but few who are led into the heavenly kingdom!” (Pope St. Gregory the Great) … “How few are the Elect!” (St. Hilary of Poitiers) …, Doctor of the Church: “There are a select few who are saved! Those who are saved are in the minority!” (St. Thomas Aquinas) … “If you want to be certain of being in the number of the Elect, then strive to be one of the few, and not one of the majority! And if you want to be quite certain of your salvation, then strive to be among the fewest of the few! Do not follow the great majority of mankind!” (St. Anselm).
Having His chosen ones heavily outnumbered has never been a problem for God―the problem is getting people off their backsides and onto their knees! Yes―as stated in the title of this article “Only A Miracle Can Do It”―the turnaround in this evil world will take a miracle and, as we saw in account about Gedeon, it is God who wants the credit for turning things around and He does not want man undeservedly taking credit for it. Nevertheless, as St. Augustine writes, “God created us without us: but He did not will to save us without us!” Some translate the Latin into the singular: “God, Who created you without you, will not save you without you!” In other words, God created you without your cooperation, but God will not save you without your cooperation. We can apply this to the point of our discussion―miracles. Therefore, it could just as well be said: “God, who can do miracles without you, will not do miracles without your cooperation!”
God cured the lame man by the gate into the Temple, but God used St. Peter and St. John as tools for His miracle―and Peter and John gave God credit for the miracle, rather than take credit themselves: “Peter and John went up into the temple … and a certain man who was lame from his mother’s womb, was at the gate of the Temple … asked to receive an alms. But Peter with John fastening his eyes upon him, said: ‘Silver and gold I have none; but what I have, I will give thee! In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise, and walk!’ … And he, leaping up, stood and walked, and went in with them into the Temple, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened to him ... But Peter said to the people: ‘Ye men of Israel, why do wonder at this? Or why do look you upon us, as if by our own strength or power we had made this man walk? God through his Son Jesus, in through Faith in His Name, and by the Faith which is in this man, has given him perfect health in the sight of you all!’” (Acts 3:1-16).
The same is true of most other miracles―that do not come directly from God, but through the instrumentality of persons whom God uses as tools for His miracles. Take, for example, a miracle that happens thousands of times each day―the miraculous changing of mere bread and wine into the living Body, Soul, Blood and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ by the act of transubstantiation during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! It is not the priest who performs the miracle, but Christ Himself who performs the miracle through the instrumentality of the priest who is mere tool in hands of Christ, just the bread and wine are mere tools in the hands of the priest.
The Miracle Producing Weapons
On that point, let us return to what Our Lady of Akita (1973) said were the only two weapons left to us in this escalating battle with Satan, Hell and the world―those two weapons being the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Rosary: “The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son! [the Mass] … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) tells us of the enormous power of just one single Mass: “Mass, badly celebrated, is an enormous evil. Ah! It is not a matter of indifference how it is said! . . . I have had a great vision on the mystery of Holy Mass and I have seen that whatever good has existed since creation, is owing to the Mass … Our Lady said what is most painful for me to repeat―that if only one priest offered the unbloody Sacrifice as worthily and with the same sentiments as the Apostles, he could ward off all calamities from the Church!”
Along the same lines, St. Leonard of Port Maurice (1676-1751) says: “The principal excellence of the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass consists in being essentially, and in the very highest degree, identical with that which was offered on the Cross of Calvary … I believe that were it not for the Holy Mass, at this moment the world would be in the abyss, unable to bear up under the mighty load of its iniquities! Mass is the powerful prop that holds the world on its base!”
Likewise, St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968), who said: “It would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than to do without Holy Mass! … If we only knew how God regards this Sacrifice, we would risk our lives to be present at a single Mass!” We have to note that even St. Padre Pio did not reach that level of devotion that Our Lady spoke of regarding the way in which the Apostles offered each Mass―for the tragic Second Vatican Council took place while Padre Pio was still alive and saying Masses.
Going back to what Our Lady said about the Mass to Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich―let us say, by analogy, that the kind of fervent Mass that Our Lady was referring to, as offered by the Apostles, was like a bar of gold. A bar of gold typically weighs in at 400 troy ounces (27.5 pounds), and measures 7 inches x 3 and 5/8 inches x 1 and 3/4 inches. At current gold prices ($1,931 per ounce), one single bar of gold would be worth around $772,400 or three-quarters of a million dollars. So you see, one single bar of gold has massive purchasing power! However, if a priest today does not have the same devotion, fervor and intensity as the Apostles in offering his daily Mass, then you could say that his Mass is not a bar of gold, but a mere golden coin―which is usually 1 ounce in weight. So that Mass―said with less devotion, fervor and intensity―instead of being worth more than a ¾ of a million dollars ($772,400), it is only worth $1,931. In that case you would need 400 Masses to be said to be the equivalent of one single Mass said by the Apostles!
For the time being, we will leave aside further discussion on the power of the Mass―which will be covered in greater detail in a forthcoming article. Let us briefly mention the other miraculous weapon that Our Lady of Akita spoke of―the Holy Rosary.
Around 20 years, or so, before her apparitions at Akita in Japan (1973), Our Lady had revealed the power of the Holy Rosary to Sister Lucia of Fatima, who tells us: “As for the Holy Rosary, in these last times in which we are living, the Blessed Virgin has given a new efficacy to the praying of the Holy Rosary. This in such a way that there is no problem that cannot be resolved by praying the Rosary, no matter how difficult it is ― be it temporal or above all spiritual ― in the spiritual life of each of us, or the lives of our families, be they our families in the world or Religious Communities, or even in the lives of peoples and nations. I repeat, there is no problem, as difficult as it may be, that we cannot resolve at this time by praying the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves, sanctify ourselves, console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls!” (Sister Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
We see the truth of what Our Lady revealed in the many Rosary miracles that have taken place over the centuries and especially in the 20th century:
► MIRACLE OF THE SUN AT FATIMA, 1917: The most well-known miracle, which is associated with the Rosary, is the miracle related to the appearances of the Virgin Mary in Fatima, Portugal in 1917. Here, three children claimed that a lady appeared to them on multiple occasions, referring to herself as the “Lady of the Rosary”, asking that they “pray the Rosary every day” and also asking the three children to give other messages to the people of the world. Since people would most likely not believe the children regarding these appearances, the “Lady of the Rosary” promised to perform a public miracle as proof. At her final appearance to the children, on October 13th, 1917, over 70,000 people had gathered at the site of the appearances, in expectation of the miracle that the children mentioned she would perform. That afternoon, an inexplicable miracle of the sun was experienced, by over 70,000 people. This was printed in Fatima newspapers the following day, which gave credence to the message the Virgin Mary had communicated to the three children. These appearances are very well documented, in case anyone should like to read the incredible interviews with the people who were there. Newspaper articles and accounts, from some of the people there the day of the miracle (including skeptics!), also testified to the miracle.
► ROSARY MIRACLE AT HIROSHIMA, JAPAN — AUGUST 6TH, 1945: When the Americans dropped two Atom-Bombs on Japan in 1945, in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was a house, the parish rectory, eight blocks (about half-a-mile) from where the A-Bomb went off in Hiroshima, Japan. This rectory was few houses away from the parish church, which was completely destroyed, but the house survived, and so did the eight German Jesuit missionaries―with no ill effects and no traces of radiation in their bodies―because, as they said, they prayed the Rosary in that house faithfully every day.
► ROSARY MIRACLE IN AUSTRIA, 1955 — RUSSIANS PULLOUT OF AUSTRIA: After World War ll. the Allies turned over Catholic Austria to communist Russia. For three years the Austrian people endured this tyranny. Then, a Franciscan priest, Father Petrus, remembered how the Christians, although greatly outnumbered, had defeated the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto by means of the Holy Rosary; and so he launched a Rosary crusade. Through it, 700,000 people, one tenth of the Austrian population, pledged to say the Rosary daily, so that the Soviets would leave their country. Austria was valuable to the Russians, because of its strategic location, rich mineral deposits and oil reserves. Yet on May 13th, 1955, the anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, the Russians signed the agreement to leave Austria, and they did so without one person being killed and without one shot being fired. It is the only time that the militant atheistic forces of Marxism have ever peacefully left a country in which they held power. Military strategists and historians are baffled as to why the Russians pulled out. But we are not -- it was the power of the Rosary. This is just one of countless stories about the power of the Rosary!
► ROSARY MIRACLE IN BRAZIL, 1962: In 1962, there was a looming threat of communist takeover in Brazil. A woman there, named Dona Amelia Bastos, was known to have formed a Rosary rally, among the Brazilian women there, to do their part in opposing this looming threat. Their goal was simply to pray the Rosary in large groups, asking the Virgin Mary for help in opposing the Communist takeover, which the President of Brazil was leaning toward at the time. In Belo Horizonte 20,000 women, reciting the Rosary aloud, broke-up a Communist rally. In Sao Paulo, 600,000 women, praying the Rosary, in one of the most moving demonstrations in Brazilian history, caused the President of Brazil to flee the country and not a single death was encountered, while sparing the country from the Communist takeover.
The Rosary truly is the weapon, as St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina used to say—he himself prayed the Rosary anywhere from 30 to 50 times a day, that is to say 150 to 250 decades of the Rosary daily; but a weapon is only as good as the soldier using it. The Rosary can be used well and correctly, or it can be used wrongly and badly. You can use a rifle to shoot at the enemy, or you can shoot yourself in the foot.
As St. Louis de Montfort writes: “To say the Holy Rosary with advantage, one must be in a state of grace … The stronger our Faith the more merit our Rosary will have … In order to pray well we must also pray with great attention―for God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin. How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? …
“A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly … Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin.
“The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will.
“It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
St. Louis further adds: “Our Lady said to Blessed Alan de la Roche in a vision: ‘When people say 150 Hail Marys, that prayer is very helpful to them and a most pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me more if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of this prayer.’ For the Rosary said without the meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation would almost be a body without a soul, excellent matter, but without the form, which is the meditation.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
Let us make proper use of our Rosary! Let us pray the Rosary much better than before! Then let us pray many Rosaries each day! We are at war! Let us also make proper use of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! Let us have many Masses offered against today’s enemies of the Church and for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary―in this way we will pay for the miracles that are to come!
The question has to be asked: “Do you believe in miracles?” You had better believe in miracles! For it is only a miracle that can save the world from where it is headed today! While we complacently, indifferently, lackadaisically, presumptuously and foolishly spend our time immersed in worldly, entertaining, fun activities―the world is immersed in a swamp of sin out of which it is impossible to escape without divine intervention. Most of us have been bitten with “Titanic Bug” or have caught the “Titanic Virus” which seems to imagine that this world is unsinkable! Yet Our Lady has repeatedly and clearly warned us that this will not be the case in view of the tsunami of sins that we throw at Heaven each and every day! As she warned Blessed Elena Aiello―back in the far less sinful 1950s:
“People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! Materialism marches on ever fomenting bloody strifes and fratricidal struggles. Clear signs warn that peace is in danger. That scourge, like the shadow of a dark cloud, is now moving across mankind―only my power, as Mother of God, is preventing the outbreak of the storm. All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
Regarding the annihilation of nations, it is important to note that during the Father Fuentes interview, Sister Lucia said that Our Blessed Mother had told herself, Jacinta and Francisco “many times ... that many nations will disappear from the face of the Earth.” We only have the one recorded instance in July 1917, but Lucia said Our Lady spoke of the annihilation of many nations “many times!” (Frère François, Tragedy and Triumph, p. 27).
Our Lady of Good Success had already alluded to this: “The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty.”
“As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead!” (Our Lady of Akita, 1973).
All Will Seem Lost!
She had already indicated at her other apparitions that things had gone out of control so much that only she could help the world: “The moment will come when the danger will be enormous―it will seem that all is lost! There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved! Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” She speaks of a miraculous triumph over Satan and evil: “I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss. Thus the Church will be finally free of his cruel tyranny ... In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
Yet, at the same time―to disturb our complacency and presumptuousness―she adds that prior to this miraculous triumph most of mankind will be wiped out by God’s just chastisement, the good will die as well as the bad; priests as well the faithful! The list of scourges that God will send Himself or the scourges that He will permit His enemies to use upon the world, is long and frightening: Fire from the skies (both man-made and fire from Heaven), floods, earthquakes, plagues, famines, wars (both local and worldwide), widespread murder, and more besides! Only a miracle can save us―but miracles are not free! Miracles have to be paid for in advance by Faith, by prayer, by penance and by general suffering. Hence Our Lady said: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … People will think of nothing but amusement!” ― that is why we find ourselves in this mess! It is only prayer, penance and the sacrifice of worldliness that will pay the price of the miracle or miracles that are needed. Our Lady adds: “Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession.”
Hmm! All of God’s people begging forgiveness and mercy by their prayers, penances and tears? Not quite there, are we? When only 4% of God’s people pray the Rosary daily and only 15% to 20% fulfill their Sunday Mass attendance which binds under pain of mortal sin―somehow that “all of God’s people” and “begging mercy and forgiveness” by “prayers, penances and tears” seems like a million miles away, don’t you think? The chastisement, however, cannot be a million miles away! Instead, most of God’s people are living in mortal sin―just by not going to Sunday Mass! Do they confess it? No―because hardly anyone goes to Confession anymore. Surveys show that 50% never go to Confession!
We do not need an isolated miracle from Heaven―such as the cure of one person―we need a worldwide miracle from Heaven! We need a miracle of a magnitude that has never been seen before! Why? Because the state of the world is worse than it has ever been before? How do we know that? Our Lady said so―that is how we know: “Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … Nature is asking for vengeance because of man, and she trembles, with dread, at what must happen to the Earth stained with crime! … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! …Tremble, Earth, and you who proclaim yourselves as serving Jesus Christ and who, on the inside, only adore yourselves! Tremble, for God will hand you over to His enemy, because the holy places are in a state of corruption! … The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events! Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God! … People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge [the Great Flood in Noe’s time]! If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge [the Great Flood in Noe’s time], such as one never seen before. Materialism marches on ever fomenting bloody strifes and fratricidal struggles. Clear signs warn that peace is in danger. That scourge, like the shadow of a dark cloud, is now moving across mankind―only my power, as Mother of God, is preventing the outbreak of the storm. All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth! … Cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes! … Nations shall be annihilated!” (Combination of Our Lady of Good Success, La Salette, Fatima, Akita and her words to Bl. Elena Aiello).
We Just Don’t Give a Damn!
We have become the proverbial frog in the pan of slowly heated water, where the water reaches boiling point so slowly that the frog becomes accustomed to the temperature of heated water until it is too late to jump out to safety! Our Lady of La Salette speaks of the devil being unleashed upon the world as a punishment, but that he will work imperceptibly, “little by little” ― and that is what we are seeing. We get used to each successive stage of totalitarianism that is gradually surrounding and strangling the Faith. We do little or nothing to combat it―and we mist certainly do not use the weapons that Our Lady has said we must use―the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Rosary: “The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!” (Our Lady of Akita).
On this point, Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed Our Lady’s disappointment at being “stonewalled” by us: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!” (Sister Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
If we do not play our part―God is not going to play His part. “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:8). “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). St. Augustine―a Father and Doctor of the Church―tells us that “God created us without us: but He did not will to save us without us!” Some translate the Latin into the singular: “God, Who created you without you, will not save you without you!” In other words, God created you without your cooperation, but God will not save you without your cooperation. In her apparitions, Our Lady has told more than enough times what we must do on our part to obtain God’s merciful help―but we do not do it, or too few people are doing it. That is why God does not step in and solve the world’s numerous crises―spiritual, political and material.
The Need For and the Power of Faith
While He was on Earth, Our Lord performed miracles galore! Only a tiny fraction of them are mentioned in the Gospels―as St. John writes in the very last verse of his Gospel: “There are also many other things which Jesus did; which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written!” (John 21:25). Multitudes of miracles are included in one mere sentence and are neither listed nor explained: “Many followed him, and he healed them all!” (Matthew 12:15) … “And when the sun was down, all they that had any sick with diverse diseases, brought them to Him. And He, laying his hands on every one of them, healed them” (Luke 4:40).
Already back in the Middle-Ages, a mystic soul asked Our Lord why they were no longer seeing the caliber and magnitude of miracles that were witnessed in the early Church, during the time of Our Lord and the Apostles. Our Lord simply said: “Because of your lack of Faith!” In the Gospels we often read of Our Lord both performing miracles and promising miracles to His followers―but the prerequisite for those miracles was Faith (that is to believe united to confidence).
“And Jesus said to them: ‘Where is your Faith?’” (Luke 8:25) … “O you of little Faith! Why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31) … “Why are you fearful? Have you no Faith yet?” (Mark 4:40) … “Jesus said to him: ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes!’” (Mark 9:22) … “All things, whatsoever you ask when you pray, believe that you shall receive them; and they shall come unto you!” (Mark 11:24) … “And the Lord said: “If you had Faith like to a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry tree: ‘Be thou rooted up and be thou transplanted into the sea!’ ― and it would obey you” (Luke 17:6) … “Amen I say to you, if you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here to there!’ ― and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 17:19) … Amen, I say to you, if you shall have Faith, and stagger not, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Take up and cast thyself into the sea!’ ― and it shall be done” (Matthew 21:21).
It was the Faith (believe in the power of Jesus and confidence that He will graciously use it) that obtained miracles for those who came to Him. He repeatedly demanded Faith and praised Faith in those seeking His miraculous intervention: “Jesus, seeing their Faith, said to the man sick of the palsy: ‘Be of good heart, thy sins are forgiven thee!’” (Matthew 9:2) … “Jesus turning and seeing her, said: ‘Be of good heart, daughter, thy Faith has made thee whole!’ And the woman was made whole from that hour” (Matthew 9:22) … “Daughter, thy Faith has made thee whole! Go in peace, and be thou cured of thy disease!” (Mark 5:34) … “He said to her: Daughter! Thy Faith has made thee whole! Go thy way in peace!’” (Luke 8:48) … “Jesus said to her: ‘O woman, great is your Faith! Be it done to you as you wish!’ And her daughter was cured from that hour” (Matthew 15:28) … “Jesus said to him: ‘Receive thy sight! Thy Faith has made thee whole!’” (Luke 18:42) … “According to your Faith, be it done unto you!” (Matthew 9:29) … “Whose Faith when He saw, He said: ‘Man, thy sins are forgiven thee!’” (Luke 5:20) … “And He said to the woman: ‘Thy Faith has made thee safe! Go in peace!’” (Luke 7:50) … “And He said to him: ‘Arise! Go thy way! For thy Faith hath made thee whole!’” (Luke 17:19).
The Apostles Fail in Faith
Our Lord did not spare His Apostles from the shame of having insufficient Faith in Him―as we see in the case of Peter, who, when He saw Our Lord walking upon the waves of the stormy lake, asked that Our Lord bid him [Peter] to come to Him by also having him walk over the waves. At first Peter’s Faith held firm, but then he started to fear and doubt―at which point he sank into the stormy waves, crying out to Our Lord for help. “And immediately Jesus stretching forth His hand took hold of him, and said to him: ‘O thou of little Faith! Why didst thou doubt?’” (Matthew 14:31).
On another occasion, when Our Lord had sent His Apostles out to preach and cure, they failed in one particular case to cast out a demon and the boy in question had to be personally brought to Jesus for the cure. Our Lord rebuked His Apostles for lacking the Faith required to cure the boy: “There came to Jesus a man, falling down on his knees before Him, saying: ‘Lord! I have brought my son to Thee, having a dumb spirit! Have pity on my son! For he is a lunatic and suffers much! For he falls often into the fire and often into the water! Who, wheresoever this spirit takes him, he dashes him, and he foams, and gnashes with the teeth, and pines away! And I brought him to Thy disciples and spoke to Thy disciples to cast him out, and they could not cure him!’
“Then Jesus answered and said: ‘O unbelieving and perverse generation! How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him here to Me!’ And they brought him to Jesus. And immediately the spirit troubled him; and, being thrown down upon the ground, he rolled about foaming. And Jesus asked his father: ‘How long a time is it since this happened to him?’ The father said: ‘From his infancy! And often the spirit casts him into the fire and into waters to destroy him. But if Thou canst do anything, help us, having compassion on us!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes!’ And immediately the father of the boy crying out with tears, said: ‘I do believe, Lord! Help my unbelief!’ Jesus threatened the unclean spirit, saying to him: ‘Deaf and dumb spirit, I command thee, go out of him; and enter not any more into him!’ And crying out and greatly tearing him, the devil went out of him, and he became as dead, so that many said: ‘He is dead!’ But Jesus, taking him by the hand, lifted him up and he arose. And the child was cured from that hour.
“And when Jesus had come into the house, His disciples came secretly to Jesus and said: ‘Why could we not cast him out?’ Jesus said to them: ‘Because of your unbelief! For, amen I say to you, if you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here to there, and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you! But this kind of devil is not cast out except by prayer and fasting!’” (Matthew 17:20; Mark 9:28) ― and the demons that possess the world today will be cast out except by Faith, prayer and fasting! Yet that is where we are failing―our Faith is weak, or prayers are rare and distracted, and our fasting is basically non-existent.
Christ Abandoned by His Soldiers
The “Catholic Army” of Soldiers of Christ has, for the most part, committed treason and surrendered to the enemy―the world. What makes matters worse is that nobody really feels bad about it! O the utter stupidity! What insane blindness! A mass spiritual suicide! What a slap in the face of Christ Who came to save us from this world! Yet most Catholics prefer to embrace this world far more than wish to embrace Christ with His teachings and commands. Christ commands prayer and penance. The world commands play and fun. Christ says: “A rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:23-24). Yet Catholics seek to be as rich as they possibly can! Christ said to the rich young man with many possessions: “Go sell all whatever thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven! And then come and follow Me!” (Luke 18:22).
In His Sermon on the Mount, Christ had said: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). Elsewhere He said: “For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Our Lord clearly and emphatically states that the world is His enemy and that the world is ruled by its prince, the devil, who is Christ’s ultimate enemy: “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To His false followers, the worldlings, He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His true followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
That is the whole point of the Christian life―a progressive detachment from the world and the things of this world. Yet we―and the especially the younger generation―are engaged in a progressive attachment to the world! Is Christ going to perform a stupendous miracle for people like that? Such people refuse Christ and His teaching―they rewrite His teachings and change them into what they would prefer them to be, they water them down and make them more acceptable to their lukewarm selves. That is not what earns miracles from Christ―as we read in the Gospels: “Jesus said to them: ‘A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and in his own house, and among his own kindred!’ And He could not do any miracles there” (Mark 6:5) … “And He wrought not many miracles there, because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58). What Our Lord refers to here is the lack of cooperation and lack of belief He was encountering in His own country, the area in which He lived and even among His own relatives―that is why He refused to do miracles there. How much more does that not apply to us―His family members in the Mystical Body of Christ who live in His “country” of the Catholic Faith? “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
Our Lady the Troubleshooter
As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “In the beginnings of the Church, the Lord He showed his bounty by such great miracles and wonders―frequently sending the Holy Ghost in a visible manner, working miracles in those who accepted the Creed. The power of God worked through the Apostles and disciples, because in them there was no hindrance to His eternal and holy will of which they were true instruments and executors, followers of truth and true imitators of Christ. Hence they were elevated to participate in the attributes of God, especially as regards working such great miracles for themselves and for other souls. However, it is not proper that the doings of creatures in this mortal life should be miraculously governed by the divine power. Whatever can be obtained by human efforts, is not to be expected by a miracle, nor must one try to exempt himself from labor in the hope of a supernatural intervention on the part of God. The Lord, while living on Earth, did not resort to miracles in order to escape the necessity of taking food or of following ordinary human occupations.
“After the Apostles, other children were born to the Church, in which, from generation to generation, this divine power and its effects were transplanted―the innumerable martyrs who shed their blood for Christ and gave their lives for the holy Faith, the founders of religious orders, the great saints who flourished in them, the doctors, the bishops, the prelates and apostolic men, through whom the kindness and power of God was so abundantly manifested. How pleasing to God is the service of those who labor with solicitude toward removing the obstacles which men place to their salvation and the communication of His favors to them! God dispenses his infinite treasures of the souls through the ministry of the prelates, priests, preachers, and teachers of his divine word.
“This infinite kindness of God is just as great now, as in the first ages of the Church; the inclination of the highest Goodness to enrich souls is not changed, nor can it be; his kind generosity has not diminished; the love of His Church is always at its height; His mercy is just as much concerned at the miseries of men, which in our times have become innumerable; the clamour of the sheep of Christ is louder than ever; the prelates, priests and ministers are more numerous than ever. If this is so, to what is to be attributed the loss of so many souls and the ruin of the Christian people? Why is it that the infidels not only do not enter the Church, but subject it to so much affliction and sorrow? Why is it that the prelates and ministers do not shine before the world, exhibiting the splendours of Christ, as in the ages gone by and in the primitive Church?
“Consider the wicked disposition of mortals in the present age, in which the light of the Gospel has been spread and confirmed by so many miracles wrought by God in His Church. In spite of all this, there are so few who are perfect and who seek a greater participation in the fruits and benefits of the Redemption. Although the number of fools is so great and the vices are become so measureless, there are those who think that also the perfect are numerous―but there are fewer than one thinks, and many less than there should be.
“Deplore the difference between the state of the Holy Church in our times and that of those primitive times! The ancient beauty, in which the Apostles founded the Church, is lost! In the beginnings of the evangelical Church, the Lord showed His kindness by great miracles and wonders―frequently sending the Holy Ghost in a visible manner, working miracles in those who accepted the Creed. Today the Church seeks deceitful powders [cosmetics] and paints to cover the horrid ugliness of vice. To the greater confusion of the negligent ministers of the Church in our days, I desire that they might all be angelic rather than merely human in their holiness and perfection! If only they would not pervert the order established by God and lived up to the dignity to which they are called and chosen before all others.
“Consider how the stones of the sanctuary are scattered about in streets of the city (Lamentations 4:1). See how the priests of the Lord have assimilated themselves to the people (Isaias 24:2), when, on the contrary, they should raise the people to the holiness, which is due to priesthood. The sacerdotal dignity and the precious vestments of virtue are soiled by contagion with the worldly; the anointed of the Lord, consecrated solely to his worship and service, have lapsed from their noble and godlike station; they have lost their beauty in debasing themselves to vile actions, unworthy of their exalted position among men. They love vanity; they indulge greed and avarice; they serve their own interest; they love money, they place their hopes in treasures of silver and gold; they submit to the flatteries and to the slavery of the worldly and powerful; and, to their still lower degradation, they subject themselves to the petty whims of women, and sometimes make themselves participants in their counsels of malice and wickedness. There is hardly a sheep in the fold of Christ [the faithful], who recognizes in these bishops and priest the voice of its true Pastor [Christ], or receives from them the nourishment of virtue and holiness, which they should show forth. How shall the heavenly Physician confide to such administrators the medicine of life? Or how can these guilty ones intercede and mediate mercy for those who are less, or even equally, guilty? Let thy tears flow over this loss and ruin! These are the reasons why the prelates and priests of our times do not perform the miracles of the Apostles and disciples―and those others in the primitive Church who imitated their lives by an ardent zeal for the honor of the Lord and the conversion of souls.
“On this account the treasures of the Blood and death of Christ in the Church do not bear the same fruits, either in His priests and ministers, nor in the other mortals! For if they neglect and forget to make them fruitful in themselves―then how can they expect them to flow over on the rest of the human family? On this account the infidels are not converted on learning of the true Faith, although they live within sight of the princes of the Church, the ministers and preachers of the Gospel. The Church in our times is richer in buildings, temporal goods, rents and possessions; it abounds with educated and learned men, great prelacies, and multiplied dignities. As all these advantages are due to the Blood of Christ, they ought all to be used in His honor and service, promoting the conversion of souls, supporting and helping His poor and enhancing the worship and veneration of His Holy Name. Is this the use made of the temporal riches of the Church? Let the captives answer, whether or not they are ransomed by the financial income of the Church; let the infidels testify, whether they are converted or not; whether heresies are exterminated at the expense of the ecclesiastical treasures.
“What is most deplorable, is how they dishonor the High-priest Christ and in their lives depart just as far from the imitation of Christ and the Apostles, as the most profane men of the world. If the preaching of the divine word by these ministers is so dead and without power of vivifying the hearers, then it is not the fault of truth or of the Holy Scriptures; but it is because of the abuse and of the distorted intentions of those that preach it. They seek to compromise the glory of Christ with their own selfish honor and vain esteem; they compromise the spiritual goods, with base acquisition of stipends; and if those two selfish ends are reached, they care not for other results of their preaching―which should be the sanctification and salvation of souls. Therefore they wander away from the pure and sincere doctrine, and sometimes even from the truth recorded in the Scriptures and explained by holy teachers―instead, they slime it over with their own ingenious subtleties, seeking to cause rather the pleasure and admiration of their hearers than their advancement in holiness. When these adulterated divine truths reach the ears of the sinners, they produce an admiration of the preacher, rather than a love of Christ; they no power or efficacy for penetrating the hearts, but are only a delight the ears.”
The Sole Soul Solution
It is frustrating and tragic how we refuse the solutions that Heaven has offered and look to other solutions! Heaven gives us supernatural solutions and we look for natural solutions. Heaven has ruled that Our Lady is the solution and we look for a human person here on Earth for our solution. Heaven has said the solution will be miraculous and we look for a no-miraculous human-powered solution. It ain’t gonna work! The solution is not a politician or politics. It is not money or power. It is not turning out on the streets in protest. It is not in posting on internet blogs and websites. It is not threats and violence. It is not in boycotts or economic sanctions. The solution is from up above and it must be paid for on our knees with Rosaries in our hands and no food in our (oversized?) bellies!
All of this reminds us the solution that God gave Gedeon when the Israelites were threatened by conquest by the Madianites. Gedeon―the fifth of the Judges who were the leaders of Israel at the time―found the Israelite army greatly outnumbered by the Madianites: with 135,000 Madianites against Gedeon’s army of 32,000—who were outnumbered by more than 4 to 1. Human wisdom and prudence, seeing oneself so sorely outnumbered, would see this as a time to go out and recruit more warriors. However, without God we can do nothing, and it might be that, after the victory that the Lord would give them, the soldiers might think it had been by their own strength and ability that they had won the victory.
So, the Lord commanded Gedeon, not to recruit soldiers, but to further reduce the number under his command: “lest Israel should glory against me, and say: I was delivered by my own strength” (Judges 7:2). Any who were “afraid and trembling” were told they could go home. Some 22,000 departed, leaving only 10,000 to fight the 135,000 Madianites. So, they went from being outnumbered by more than 4 to 1, to now being outnumbered by more than 13 to 1.
No doubt Gedeon was surprised to hear what the Lord said next: “The people are still too many, bring them to the waters, and there I will try them” (Judges 7:4). At the site to which the Lord had directed Gideon’s army there was drinkable water. The army stopped to drink and 9,700 knelt down on their knees, so they might drink directly from the stream. The other 300 cupped their hands and took water into them, drinking it from their hands as a dog would lap water from his bowl. “By the 300 hundred men, that lapped water, I will save you, and deliver Madian into thy hand: but let all the rest of the people return to their place” (Judges 7:7). And so it was!
God likes to do with the minimum. He likes to have everything stacked against Him and His Chosen Ones. He delights in bringing off the seemingly impossible. With “Gedeon’s Three Hundred”, God kept increasing the odds against them―from being outnumbered by more than 4 to 1 (135,000 versus 32,000); to more than 13 to 1 (135,000 versus 10,000); and finally to a ridiculous and seemingly impossible situation of being outnumbered by 450 to 1 (135,000 versus 300). God wanted the Israelites to go into battle heavily outnumbered, so that God Himself could claim the eventual victory against those impossible odds. Here is the account in abbreviated form:
“The children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord: and He delivered them into the hand of Madianites for seven years. And they were grievously oppressed by them. And they made themselves dens and eaves in the mountains, and strong holds to resist. And when Israel had sown [their crops], Madian and Amalec, and the rest of the eastern nations came up and pitching their tents among them, wasted all things and they left nothing at all in Israel for sustenance of life, nor sheep, nor oxen, nor asses. And Israel was humbled exceedingly in the sight of the Madianites. And they cried to the Lord desiring help against the Madianites … And an angel of the Lord came and appeared to Gedeon, and said: ‘The Lord is with thee, O most valiant of men ... Go in this thy strength, and thou shalt deliver Israel out of the hand of Madian! Know that I have sent thee!’” (Judges 6:1-14).
“Then Gedeon, rising up early and all the people with him, came to the fountain that is called Harad. Now the camp of Madian was in the valley on the north side of the high hill. The Lord said to Gedeon: ‘The people that are with thee are many, and Madian shall not be delivered into their hands: lest Israel should glory against Me, and say: “I was delivered by my own strength!” Speak to the people, and proclaim in the hearing of all—“Whosoever is fearful and timorous, let him return!”‘ So two and twenty thousand men went away from mount Galaad and returned home, and only ten thousand remained.
“And the Lord said to Gedeon: ‘The people are still too many, bring them to the waters, and there I will try them: and of whom I shall say to thee, “This shall go with thee!” Let him go: whom I shall forbid to go, let him return.’
And when the people were come down to the waters, the Lord said to Gedeon: ‘They that shall lap the water with their tongues, as dogs are wont to lap, thou shalt set apart by themselves: but they that shall drink bowing down their knees, shall be on the other side.’ And the number of them that had lapped water, casting it with the hand to their mouth, was three hundred men: and all the rest of the multitude had drunk kneeling. And the Lord said to Gedeon: ‘By the three hundred men, that lapped water, I will save you, and deliver Madian into thy hand: but let all the rest of the people return to their place’” (Judges 7:1-7).
The result was that the 300 soldiers under Gedeon―by the grace and help of God―slew 120,000 Madianites and only 15,000 remained, therefore indicating that the Madianite army totaled 135,000 men: “For fifteen thousand men were left of all the troops of the eastern people, and one hundred and twenty thousand warriors that drew the sword, were slain” (Judges 8:10).
Similarly, God only chose 12 Apostles and 72 disciples and commanded them to go into the world and “teach ye all nations baptizing them” (Matthew 28:19): “And when day was come, He called unto Him His disciples; and He chose twelve of them―whom also He named Apostles” (Luke 6:13). “He called unto Him whom He would Himself and they came to Him. And He made that Twelve should be with Him” (Mark 3:13-14). “Having called His Twelve disciples [the Apostles]…” (Matthew 10:1), “the Lord appointed another seventy-two [disciples], and He sent them two and two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was to come. And He said to them: ‘The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few! Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send laborers into His harvest! Go! Behold I send you as lambs among wolves!’” (Luke 10:1-2), “And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Matthew 10:22). Scholars and scientists and mathematicians estimate the world’s population at the time of Christ was, to round off the number, around 300 million―so his 84 followers (12 Apostles plus 72 disciples) would be outnumbered by around 3.5 million to 1. Even if you take the number of disciples at the time of Pentecost, at the descent of the Holy Ghost, “the number of persons together was about an hundred and twenty” (Acts 1:15)―which would mean being outnumbered by the world at a ratio of 2.3 million to 1. God rarely makes things easy! So there is no need to lose heart when the odds are stacked against you!
In both cases―Gedeon and the Church―it was not human power, human weapons, human know-how, human resources, that won the day. It God that won the day in a miraculous way. Think of the countless miracles God performed in the early days of the Church to protect His chosen ones and to spread the Faith! Yet think of the fervor, devotion, zeal, courage and grit among those early Christians. They were not the “couch-potatoes” that we are today. They were not “keyboard-warriors” but real warriors who “put-their-money-where-their-mouth-was” by shedding their blood for the Faith if required!
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady bewailed the worldliness into which the Church had fallen: “Do not be surprised that the Catholic Church, once having had such an exalted position in its beginnings, should now be brought to such low level, nor be astonished that God has so much forsaken the prelates, ministers and preachers of his word, who are concerned about outward show and like worldly applause too much! There are some priests and ministers, who are not infected with these lamentable vices. With those that are zealous, God is most generous―but they are few in number, as can be seen from the ruin of the Christian people and from the contempt into which the priests and preachers of the Gospel have fallen. For if the number of the perfect and the zealous workers were great, then without a doubt sinners would reform and amend their lives; many infidels would be converted; all would look upon and hear with reverence and fear such preachers, priests and prelates, they would respect them for their dignity and holiness, and not for their worldly talents. Hence bewail such a sad state, and invite Heaven and Earth to help thee in thy weeping―for there are few who feel sorrow about this state of affairs! This is the greatest of all the injuries committed against the Lord by the children of the Church.”
The Sole Soul Solution is in Your Hands!
We live in an era of excuses. We pass the buck and point the finger at others to distract from our deficiencies. If others can be made to look at someone else in the “blame game”, then it takes away attention from you. “Attack is the best form of defense” they say―attack someone else before they attack you. When we are not doing what we should be doing, then we pipe-in with: “Well, nobody else is doing it! Why should I?” If that is our modus operandi or manner of acting, then we should also say: “Well, if everyone else is going to Hell, then so should I!” If we follow the majority, then we MOST CERTAINLY will end up in Hell―as Our Lord and His Saints repeatedly tell us:
“And a certain man said to Jesus: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But Jesus said: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able!’” (Luke 13:23-24) … “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14). To which the Saints add: “There are many who arrive at the Faith, but few who are led into the heavenly kingdom!” (Pope St. Gregory the Great) … “How few are the Elect!” (St. Hilary of Poitiers) …, Doctor of the Church: “There are a select few who are saved! Those who are saved are in the minority!” (St. Thomas Aquinas) … “If you want to be certain of being in the number of the Elect, then strive to be one of the few, and not one of the majority! And if you want to be quite certain of your salvation, then strive to be among the fewest of the few! Do not follow the great majority of mankind!” (St. Anselm).
Having His chosen ones heavily outnumbered has never been a problem for God―the problem is getting people off their backsides and onto their knees! Yes―as stated in the title of this article “Only A Miracle Can Do It”―the turnaround in this evil world will take a miracle and, as we saw in account about Gedeon, it is God who wants the credit for turning things around and He does not want man undeservedly taking credit for it. Nevertheless, as St. Augustine writes, “God created us without us: but He did not will to save us without us!” Some translate the Latin into the singular: “God, Who created you without you, will not save you without you!” In other words, God created you without your cooperation, but God will not save you without your cooperation. We can apply this to the point of our discussion―miracles. Therefore, it could just as well be said: “God, who can do miracles without you, will not do miracles without your cooperation!”
God cured the lame man by the gate into the Temple, but God used St. Peter and St. John as tools for His miracle―and Peter and John gave God credit for the miracle, rather than take credit themselves: “Peter and John went up into the temple … and a certain man who was lame from his mother’s womb, was at the gate of the Temple … asked to receive an alms. But Peter with John fastening his eyes upon him, said: ‘Silver and gold I have none; but what I have, I will give thee! In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise, and walk!’ … And he, leaping up, stood and walked, and went in with them into the Temple, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened to him ... But Peter said to the people: ‘Ye men of Israel, why do wonder at this? Or why do look you upon us, as if by our own strength or power we had made this man walk? God through his Son Jesus, in through Faith in His Name, and by the Faith which is in this man, has given him perfect health in the sight of you all!’” (Acts 3:1-16).
The same is true of most other miracles―that do not come directly from God, but through the instrumentality of persons whom God uses as tools for His miracles. Take, for example, a miracle that happens thousands of times each day―the miraculous changing of mere bread and wine into the living Body, Soul, Blood and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ by the act of transubstantiation during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! It is not the priest who performs the miracle, but Christ Himself who performs the miracle through the instrumentality of the priest who is mere tool in hands of Christ, just the bread and wine are mere tools in the hands of the priest.
The Miracle Producing Weapons
On that point, let us return to what Our Lady of Akita (1973) said were the only two weapons left to us in this escalating battle with Satan, Hell and the world―those two weapons being the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Rosary: “The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son! [the Mass] … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) tells us of the enormous power of just one single Mass: “Mass, badly celebrated, is an enormous evil. Ah! It is not a matter of indifference how it is said! . . . I have had a great vision on the mystery of Holy Mass and I have seen that whatever good has existed since creation, is owing to the Mass … Our Lady said what is most painful for me to repeat―that if only one priest offered the unbloody Sacrifice as worthily and with the same sentiments as the Apostles, he could ward off all calamities from the Church!”
Along the same lines, St. Leonard of Port Maurice (1676-1751) says: “The principal excellence of the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass consists in being essentially, and in the very highest degree, identical with that which was offered on the Cross of Calvary … I believe that were it not for the Holy Mass, at this moment the world would be in the abyss, unable to bear up under the mighty load of its iniquities! Mass is the powerful prop that holds the world on its base!”
Likewise, St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968), who said: “It would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than to do without Holy Mass! … If we only knew how God regards this Sacrifice, we would risk our lives to be present at a single Mass!” We have to note that even St. Padre Pio did not reach that level of devotion that Our Lady spoke of regarding the way in which the Apostles offered each Mass―for the tragic Second Vatican Council took place while Padre Pio was still alive and saying Masses.
Going back to what Our Lady said about the Mass to Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich―let us say, by analogy, that the kind of fervent Mass that Our Lady was referring to, as offered by the Apostles, was like a bar of gold. A bar of gold typically weighs in at 400 troy ounces (27.5 pounds), and measures 7 inches x 3 and 5/8 inches x 1 and 3/4 inches. At current gold prices ($1,931 per ounce), one single bar of gold would be worth around $772,400 or three-quarters of a million dollars. So you see, one single bar of gold has massive purchasing power! However, if a priest today does not have the same devotion, fervor and intensity as the Apostles in offering his daily Mass, then you could say that his Mass is not a bar of gold, but a mere golden coin―which is usually 1 ounce in weight. So that Mass―said with less devotion, fervor and intensity―instead of being worth more than a ¾ of a million dollars ($772,400), it is only worth $1,931. In that case you would need 400 Masses to be said to be the equivalent of one single Mass said by the Apostles!
For the time being, we will leave aside further discussion on the power of the Mass―which will be covered in greater detail in a forthcoming article. Let us briefly mention the other miraculous weapon that Our Lady of Akita spoke of―the Holy Rosary.
Around 20 years, or so, before her apparitions at Akita in Japan (1973), Our Lady had revealed the power of the Holy Rosary to Sister Lucia of Fatima, who tells us: “As for the Holy Rosary, in these last times in which we are living, the Blessed Virgin has given a new efficacy to the praying of the Holy Rosary. This in such a way that there is no problem that cannot be resolved by praying the Rosary, no matter how difficult it is ― be it temporal or above all spiritual ― in the spiritual life of each of us, or the lives of our families, be they our families in the world or Religious Communities, or even in the lives of peoples and nations. I repeat, there is no problem, as difficult as it may be, that we cannot resolve at this time by praying the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves, sanctify ourselves, console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls!” (Sister Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
We see the truth of what Our Lady revealed in the many Rosary miracles that have taken place over the centuries and especially in the 20th century:
► MIRACLE OF THE SUN AT FATIMA, 1917: The most well-known miracle, which is associated with the Rosary, is the miracle related to the appearances of the Virgin Mary in Fatima, Portugal in 1917. Here, three children claimed that a lady appeared to them on multiple occasions, referring to herself as the “Lady of the Rosary”, asking that they “pray the Rosary every day” and also asking the three children to give other messages to the people of the world. Since people would most likely not believe the children regarding these appearances, the “Lady of the Rosary” promised to perform a public miracle as proof. At her final appearance to the children, on October 13th, 1917, over 70,000 people had gathered at the site of the appearances, in expectation of the miracle that the children mentioned she would perform. That afternoon, an inexplicable miracle of the sun was experienced, by over 70,000 people. This was printed in Fatima newspapers the following day, which gave credence to the message the Virgin Mary had communicated to the three children. These appearances are very well documented, in case anyone should like to read the incredible interviews with the people who were there. Newspaper articles and accounts, from some of the people there the day of the miracle (including skeptics!), also testified to the miracle.
► ROSARY MIRACLE AT HIROSHIMA, JAPAN — AUGUST 6TH, 1945: When the Americans dropped two Atom-Bombs on Japan in 1945, in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was a house, the parish rectory, eight blocks (about half-a-mile) from where the A-Bomb went off in Hiroshima, Japan. This rectory was few houses away from the parish church, which was completely destroyed, but the house survived, and so did the eight German Jesuit missionaries―with no ill effects and no traces of radiation in their bodies―because, as they said, they prayed the Rosary in that house faithfully every day.
► ROSARY MIRACLE IN AUSTRIA, 1955 — RUSSIANS PULLOUT OF AUSTRIA: After World War ll. the Allies turned over Catholic Austria to communist Russia. For three years the Austrian people endured this tyranny. Then, a Franciscan priest, Father Petrus, remembered how the Christians, although greatly outnumbered, had defeated the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto by means of the Holy Rosary; and so he launched a Rosary crusade. Through it, 700,000 people, one tenth of the Austrian population, pledged to say the Rosary daily, so that the Soviets would leave their country. Austria was valuable to the Russians, because of its strategic location, rich mineral deposits and oil reserves. Yet on May 13th, 1955, the anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, the Russians signed the agreement to leave Austria, and they did so without one person being killed and without one shot being fired. It is the only time that the militant atheistic forces of Marxism have ever peacefully left a country in which they held power. Military strategists and historians are baffled as to why the Russians pulled out. But we are not -- it was the power of the Rosary. This is just one of countless stories about the power of the Rosary!
► ROSARY MIRACLE IN BRAZIL, 1962: In 1962, there was a looming threat of communist takeover in Brazil. A woman there, named Dona Amelia Bastos, was known to have formed a Rosary rally, among the Brazilian women there, to do their part in opposing this looming threat. Their goal was simply to pray the Rosary in large groups, asking the Virgin Mary for help in opposing the Communist takeover, which the President of Brazil was leaning toward at the time. In Belo Horizonte 20,000 women, reciting the Rosary aloud, broke-up a Communist rally. In Sao Paulo, 600,000 women, praying the Rosary, in one of the most moving demonstrations in Brazilian history, caused the President of Brazil to flee the country and not a single death was encountered, while sparing the country from the Communist takeover.
The Rosary truly is the weapon, as St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina used to say—he himself prayed the Rosary anywhere from 30 to 50 times a day, that is to say 150 to 250 decades of the Rosary daily; but a weapon is only as good as the soldier using it. The Rosary can be used well and correctly, or it can be used wrongly and badly. You can use a rifle to shoot at the enemy, or you can shoot yourself in the foot.
As St. Louis de Montfort writes: “To say the Holy Rosary with advantage, one must be in a state of grace … The stronger our Faith the more merit our Rosary will have … In order to pray well we must also pray with great attention―for God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin. How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? …
“A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly … Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin.
“The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will.
“It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
St. Louis further adds: “Our Lady said to Blessed Alan de la Roche in a vision: ‘When people say 150 Hail Marys, that prayer is very helpful to them and a most pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me more if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of this prayer.’ For the Rosary said without the meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation would almost be a body without a soul, excellent matter, but without the form, which is the meditation.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
Let us make proper use of our Rosary! Let us pray the Rosary much better than before! Then let us pray many Rosaries each day! We are at war! Let us also make proper use of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! Let us have many Masses offered against today’s enemies of the Church and for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary―in this way we will pay for the miracles that are to come!
Article 1
Saturday September 2nd & Sunday September 3rd & Monday September 4th, 2023
Look Who Is Crying
Saturday September 2nd & Sunday September 3rd & Monday September 4th, 2023
Look Who Is Crying
There is More to Tears than Meets the Eye!
Some people see crying as a weakness― it can be, but that is not always the case. People who cry are sometimes called “Cry babies!” Yes, babies do cry―but children cry, adults cry, even Our Lord and Our Lady cried and you cannot call them “cry babies”. Holy Scripture even tells us to cry! “There is a time to weep, and a time to laugh! A time to mourn, and a time to dance!” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). Jesus also speaks of weeping and crying. To the crowds He said: “Blessed are ye that weep now―for you shall laugh! … Woe to you that now laugh―for you shall mourn and weep!” (Luke 6:21, 25) ― to which Scripture adds: “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep! Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into sorrow! … Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries, which shall come upon you!” (James 4:9; 5:1). To His disciples, at the Last Supper, He said: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20). To the women of Jerusalem, who were weeping for Him as He was carrying His cross to Calvary, He said: “Weep not over Me―but weep for yourselves, and for your children!” (Luke 23:28). When St. Peter denied Our Lord three times during the Passion, realizing his sin, “he began to weep” (Mark 14:72). “And Peter remembered the word of Jesus which He had said: ‘Before the cock crow, thou wilt deny Me three times!’ And going forth, he wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:75). Tradition tells us that Peter would often weep over this for the rest of his life―to the point where his cheeks were furrowed from his tears!
Weeping for Sin
Following the example of St. Peter, we are told to weep for sins and offenses against God and neighbor: “Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning” (Joel 2:12). “Let us be penitent and with many tears let us beg His pardon!” (Judith 8:14). “The priests, the Lord's ministers, shall weep and shall say: ‘Spare, O Lord, spare Thy people!’” (Joel 2:17). “Esdras was thus praying, and beseeching, and weeping, and lying before the temple of God and an exceedingly great assembly of men and women and children, wept with much lamentation!” (1 Esdras 10:1). “With fasting, wailing, and weeping, many used sackcloth and ashes for their bed!” (Esther 4:3). “They wept, and fasted, and prayed before the Lord!” (Baruch 1:5). “They craved mercy of the Lord with weeping and fasting, lying prostrate on the ground for three days continually” (2 Machabees 13:12). “My face is swollen with weeping, and my eyelids are dim!” (Job 16:17). “For I did eat ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping!” (Psalms 101:10). “In their streets they are girded with sackcloth, and in their streets all shall howl and come down weeping!” (Isaias 15:3). “The Lord God, in that day, shall call for weeping and to mourning” (Isaias 22:12). “They shall come with weeping and I will bring them back in mercy!” (Jeremias 31:9). “Thou hast wept before Me, I also have heard thee, saith the Lord” (4 Kings 22:19).
If we fail to weep for sin now―in this life―then we risk weeping for our sins eternally in the next life: “The children of the kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness―where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! … And they shall cast them into the furnace of fire―where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! … And shall cast them into the furnace of fire―and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! … Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! … And they shall separate him and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! … And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 8:12; 13:42; 13:50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30). “There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!” (Luke 13:28).
Even Jesus Wept
Jesus Himself wept on occasions: “And Jesus wept” at the death of Lazarus (John 11:35). He also wept over Jerusalem and the fate that would befall it for having rejected Him and His teachings: “And when He drew near, seeing the city, Jesus wept over it, saying: ‘If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are to thy peace; but now they are hidden from thy eyes! For the days shall come upon thee, and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side, and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee―and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation!’” (Luke 19:41-45).
Our Lady Wept and Spoke of the Need for Tears
In speaking of the terrible times that are to befall us in this present age, Our Lady of Good Success said in the 1600s: “Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears, in the privacy of your heart. Implore our Celestial Father that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times!” Our Lady of La Salette added: “Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession … At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent!”
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda (1602-1665), Our Lady said: “Remember the sorrows and the tears which the knowledge of the sins of men and the desire to prevent them has caused me! ... I wept over the sins of sinners more than they all did! ... I multiplied my prayers, tears, sighs and supplications! ... I wept over the eternal perdition incurred by so many! ... Since thou hast so often offended the Lord, call upon his mercy, weep and wash thyself from thy sins with copious tears! Weep over thy sins, and forget and reject all visible things, so that henceforth thou have no thought for any other thing outside of God! … Weep over thy faults and those of thy fellowmen! … Weep thou over their sins and at the same time try to make up for them! … In the sight of God, most agreeable are the tears shed for the sins of others, which are forgotten by those that have committed them! … Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous tepidity! … Feel grief and shed bitter tears at seeing so many children of the Church treat the Holy Eucharist with irreverence and without any fear or decorum. Weep then over this misfortune; weep, because there are few who weep over it! ... Weep ceaselessly over the terrible loss sustained by so many insane and thankless souls, who are forgetful of God, of their duty and of their own selves … and lose their chance of salvation or bring upon themselves eternal damnation! … Weep thou in seeing them laugh at their eternal damnation! … Bewail such a sad state, and invite Heaven and Earth to help you in your weeping―for there are few who sorrow on account of it! … I invite thee to let thy tears flow over this loss and ruin ... tears from thy inmost heart! ... Shed tears for the sins which the mortals commit against God! ... Weep in over the ruin of so many souls! Let them seek their delight only in the tears, which they pour out on account of their sins! … Thou ought to shed tears of blood because of the calamities that will be coming over the children of Adam!”
St. Catherine Labouré relates how she saw Our Lady weeping during one of the apparitions at the Rue du Bac in 1830: “The Virgin Mary in tears proceeded to describe the great trials that would come upon France and the world!” St. Catherine then gives to us Our Lady’s own words: “There will be victims! … There will be victims among the clergy of Paris. Monsignor, the archbishop … (Our Lady could not continue this sentence because of her weeping). My child, the Cross will be treated with contempt! They will hurl it to the ground! Blood will flow! They will open up again the side of Our Lord. The streets will stream with blood! Monsignor the archbishop will be stripped of his garments … (once again, she was unable to continue due to her tears). My child, the whole world will be in sadness!”
Melanie Calvat, one of two seers at the apparition of Our Lady of La Salette in 1846, spoke of Our Lady weeping during this apparition: “This beautiful Lady stood up, she calmly crossed her arms while watching us, and said to us: ‘Come, my children, fear not! I am here to proclaim great news to you!’ When I was up close to the beautiful Lady, she began to speak and, from her beautiful eyes, tears started to flow!”
Blessed Elena Aiello speaks of Our Lady in the 1950s, weeping while warning of the world’s ruin: “The Madonna appeared to me with an expression of profound sorrow and with tears on her cheeks, saying: ‘Listen attentively and reveal to all―because men, in spite of repeated warnings, are not returning to God! They refuse grace, and are not listening to my voice! Men ignore all these warnings, and are unwilling to be convinced that my tears are plain signs to serve notice that tragic events are hanging over the world, and that the hours of great trials are at hand! Great calamities will come upon the world, which will bring confusion, tears, struggles and pain! … Look upon my Heart pierced by the thorns of so many sins; my face disfigured by sorrow; my eyes filled with tears! The cause of such great sadness is the sight of so many souls going to Hell and for so many sufferings in a world that is going towards its ruin! The justice of God is weighing upon the world! Mankind, defiled in the mire, soon will be washed in its own blood, by disease; by famine; by earthquakes; by cloudbursts, tornadoes, floods, and terrible storms; and by war!”
At Akita, in Japan, in 1973, Sr. Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa heard a voice coming from the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the chapel where she was praying. Later blood, sweat and tears began to stream from the statue. It continued to weep at intervals for the next 6 years and eight months. It wept on 101 occasions. The tears, sweat and blood from the statue were sent for laboratory analysis. This was conducted by Professor Sagisaka of the Faculty of Legal Medicine of the University of Akita, confirmed that the blood, tears and sweat were real and of human origin.
Sister Lucia of Fatima warned that Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary would come without many sufferings and tears being shed: “The final triumph of Mary’s Heart is certain, but it will take place after a terrible purification of sinful mankind in a baptism of fire, blood and tears!”
Every time we pray the “Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy” prayer, we speak of “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears”―is that what we are really doing, or do we just flippantly say those words? Are we actually laughing and joking in this valley of worldliness? Isn't this line ― “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears” ― a little melodramatic? It can appear a little loopy when you first read it. "Valley of tears" almost sounds poetic, like it could be the title of a film or a book. Yet when you realize ― truly realize from the depths of both your mind and heart ― what sin really is, it is impossible not to weep! We weep in face of evil, don’t we? We sometimes weep when we are punished. We weep we lose someone or something we love, don’t we? Well, sin is the greatest evil in world and mortal sin deserves eternal punishment in Hell―and through mortal sin we lose God and the grace of God! Sin brought about the beatings, scourging, crucifixion and death of the innocent Son of God, Jesus Christ!
“Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
“Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
The Loss of the Sense of Sin and the Need for Tears
Sin should beget tears―although it rarely does that! We are no longer afraid of sin; we have cheapened the gravity of sin; we no longer see sin as losing God; we no longer see punishment on the flip side of coin of sin! We underplay and devaluate the reality of sin―and at the same time we exaggerate and inflate the mercy of God. We become like Martin Luther, who would say: “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly! Christ triumphed over sin, death, and the world! As long as we live here, we must sin!” [in the sense of “we cannot avoid sin”]. In other words―do no worry or be afraid to sin, Christ will forgive you whatever you might do! That is a sin a gross presumption! That is a devaluation of sin and a presumptuous inflation of the mercy of God. What about the words of the Old Testament and Our Lord’s own words in New Testament, which contradict Luther and such Catholics: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:10-11). “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14).
Modern day popes―even the Liberal and Modernist ones―have lamented what they perceive to be a worldwide loss of the sense of sin:
● Pope Pius XII remarked in 1946: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin!”
● Pope John Paul II, in 2005, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin!”
● Pope Benedict XVI, in 2011, said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. If we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, then we cannot speak of sin ... The meaning of sin ― which is a different thing from ‘guilt feelings’ as understood in psychology ― is only grasped in discovering the meaning of God!”
● Pope Francis, in 2014, stated: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble!”
The Moral Virus
This loss of the sense of sin has become a true moral virus (or, more correctly, an immoral virus), which cannot fail to affect and infect even the best of Catholics. As the saying goes: “You cannot leave clothes for long in a smoky room without them taking on the smell of smoke!” Similarly, you could say: “You cannot live in worldly environment for very long without taking on some of that worldliness!” Or again: “You cannot live in sinful environment for very long without taking on some of the sins that surround you!”
Fr. Felix Salvany, in his masterpiece of a book, Liberalism Is A Sin, writes along the same lines:
“Physical science tells us that floating through the atmosphere are innumerable disease germs seeking a suitable nidus [a nest or breeding place] in which to settle and propagate and that we are constantly breathing these germs into the lungs. If the [immune] system be depleted or weakened, the dangerous microbe takes up its abode within us, and propagating its own kind with astonishing rapidity, undermines and ravages our health. The only safeguard against the encroachments of this insidious enemy, which we cannot escape, is a vigorous and healthy body with adequate powers of resistance to repel the invader.
“It is equally true that we are subject to like infectious attacks in the spiritual order. Swarming in the atmosphere of our spiritual lives are innumerable deadly germs, ever ready to fasten upon the depleted and weakened soul and, propagating its contagion through every faculty, destroy the spiritual life. Against the menace of this ever-threatening danger, whose advances we cannot avoid in our present circumstances, the ever-healthy soul alone can be prepared. To escape the contagion, the power of resistance must be equal to the emergencies of the attack, and that power will be in proportion to our spiritual health. To be prepared is to be armed, but to be prepared is not sufficient; we must possess the interior strength to throw off the germ. There must be no condition in the soul to make a suitable nidus [a nest or breeding place] for an enemy so insidious and so efficacious as to need only the slightest point of contact whence to spread its deadly contagion.
“It is not only through the avenues of disordered passions that this spiritual disease may gain an entrance; it may make its inroad through the intellect, and this under a disguise often calculated to deceive the unwary and incautious. That we may know our danger, we must appreciate the possible shapes in which it may come. Here is just the difficulty; the uniform of the enemy is so various, changeable, sometimes even of our own colors, that if we rely upon the outward semblance alone, we shall be more often deceived than certain of his identity. As we are addressing ourselves to those who live amidst the peculiar circumstances of our American life … let us then consider these surroundings in a general way for the moment.
“First, as to some patent facts: The population of this country [USA] is at present something over 330 million [2020 estimates]. Of these, 70 million are Catholics, and according to their claim, 140 million are Protestants, leaving a population of 120 million or more who do not profess any form of Christianity at all [2020 estimates]. Amongst the 140 million Protestants, every shade and variety of belief in the Christian dispensation find easy lodgment … the adjustments of creeds are loose and easy. Lack of any decisive authority renders any exact standard of belief impossible. Outside of these various bodies of loosely professed Christians stands a still larger mass of our population who are either absolutely indifferent to Christianity or positively reject it. In other words, we have here to reckon with a body, to all practical purposes, that is infidel. This mass comprises over 35% of our population, holding itself aloof from Christianity [Catholic and Protestant], and in some instances virulently antagonistic to it.
[NOTE: When you add together the Protestants with the non-believers, it produces a total in excess of 78 percent of our population, but currently enhanced to an even more frightening percentage by the vast majority of Catholics today—2020—around 80% (or 56 million) of the 70 million Catholics, who either do not practice their Faith at all, or irregularly, or who are ignorant of its teachings (especially with regard to morality), or, in practice, simply disregard those teachings—bringing the total of practical non-believing and infidel people, including bad Catholics, to around 97 percent, if we can presume there to be today approximately 14 million believing, regularly practicing Catholics in the USA out of a population of 330 million (2020 stats)].
“In distinct religious opposition to this combined mass of infidelity (non-believers) and Protestantism, Catholics find themselves sharply and radically opposed. We live in the midst of this religious anarchy. Some [2020 stats] 260 million of our population can, in one sense or other, be considered anti-Catholic. From this mass—heretical and infidel—exhales an atmosphere filled with germs poisonous and fatal to Catholic life, if permitted to take root in the Catholic heart. The mere force of gravitation―which the larger mass ever exercises upon the smaller―is a power which the most energetic vigor alone can resist. Under this dangerous influence, a deadly inertia tends to creep over the souls of incautious persons, and can only to be overcome by the liveliest exercise of Catholic Faith. To this danger we are daily exposed, ever coming into contact in a thousand ways, in almost every relation of life, with anti-Catholic thought and customs.
“It is natural that Protestantism and infidelity should find public expression. What our [2020 stats] 260 million non-Catholic population thinks in these matters, naturally seeks and finds open expression. They have their organs and their literature where we find their current opinions publicly uttered. Their views upon religion, morality, politics, the constitution of society are perpetually marshaled before us. In the pulpit and in the press they are reiterated day after day. In magazine and newspaper they constantly speak from every line. Our literature is permeated and saturated with non-Catholic dogmatism. On all sides do we find this opposing spirit. We cannot escape from it. It enfolds and embraces us. Its breath is perpetually in our faces. It enters in by eye and ear. From birth to death, it enslaves us in its offensive garments. It now soothes and flatters, now hates and curses, now threatens, now praises. But it is most dangerous when it comes to us under the form of “liberality.” It is especially powerful for seduction in this guise. And it is under this aspect that we wish to consider it. For it is as Liberalism that Protestantism and Infidelity make their most devastating inroads upon the domain of the Faith. Out of these non-Catholic and anti-Catholic conditions thus predominating amongst us springs this monster of our times, Liberalism!
Virus of Hellish Laughter
Once we gradually lose the sense of sin―and it is always a gradual process―we will start to find some sins funny. This amusement at sin, of course, will not begin with seeing mortal sin as being funny, but some venial sins as being funny―such as mockery, getting someone to believe a lie, flirtation, setting someone up for a humiliation, laughing at the misfortune of others, laughing at the sins of others, using certain foul words, etc. Once the sense of sin diminishes, the fun of sin increases. The devils will not succeed in making you sin if they represent sin as something frightening―the only way they will succeed is in making you see sin as something that is fun, entertaining, profitable and pleasurable―so that you can laugh your way to Hell. Holy Scripture speaks of this: “A fool works mischief as it were for sport!” (Proverbs 10:23). “A fool will laugh at sin” (Proverbs 14:9). Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “You should weep in seeing them laugh at their eternal damnation!”
In his book, Confessions, St. Augustine admits that he would enjoy sin: “I relished and enjoyed my own sins! … Late one night a band of ruffians, myself included, went off to shake down the fruit from a pear tree and carry it away. We stole an enormous quantity of pears, not to eat them ourselves, but simply to throw them to the pigs. Perhaps we ate some of them, but our real pleasure consisted in doing something that was forbidden. It was not the pears that my unhappy soul desired―I had plenty of my own at home, better than those. I only picked them so that I might steal. For no sooner had I picked them than I threw them away, and tasted nothing in them except my own sin, which I relished and enjoyed. We were tickled to laughter by the prank we had played―because no one suspected us of it although the owners were furious. Why was it, then, that I thought it fun not to have been the only culprit? Perhaps it was because we do not easily laugh when we are alone! I am quite sure that I would never have done this thing on my own. To do it by myself would have been no fun and I should not have done it.”
St. Augustine also confesses to falling into habitual sexual sins from the time of his adolescence until his conversion. When, as an adolescent he was sent away to another city to continue his studies [much like going away to college in these days], Augustine’s mother, St. Monica, earnestly warned him about his lack of sexual restraint. When she told him, “above all do not seduce any woman who is a wife”, Augustine merely laughed at her advice. These admissions or confessions of St. Augustine are worth some serious meditation upon the nature of sin, the nature of pleasure, forbidden fruit, and the companionship of fools―which is foolish world in which we live and whose foolishness we absorb, just as Augustine did!
St. Monica, Augustine’s mother, was by no means a saint at that time. She was to a certain extent permissive of Augustine’s sexual sins―and his father was even more permissive of them, he was proud of Augustine’s sexual misbehavior! Yet it was Augustine’s sinfulness―and more importantly, the grace of God―that gradually transformed her into a saint. St. Monica became very closely connected to her son’s conversion. She spent seventeen years shedding tears over his sinfulness, begging God for his soul. When her son embraced the Manichean heresy, she asked a Catholic bishop to speak to him and refute his errors. The bishop told her it was unwise to have that conversation with her son because he was “not ripe for instructions,” and that, in time, he would discover the truth simply by reading the Manicheans’ books. This answer would not pacify the mother. She was relentless in her visits to the bishop, incessant with her tears for her son’s conversion. Finally, losing his patience, the bishop said to her: “Leave me alone and go in peace! It cannot be that the son of these tears should be lost!” He was correct; the son of tears discovered the Truth and offered his life to him.
Monica’s Tearful “Chinese-Water-Torture”
Each tear of Monica’s could, perhaps, be compared to the Chinese Water Torture, whereby a strapped-down prisoner has water slowly drip in drops upon the bridge of his nose between his eyes from some form of “dripping machine”. The forehead was found to be the most suitable point for this form of torture because of its sensitivity: prisoners could see each drop coming, and after long durations were gradually driven frantic as a perceived hollow would form in the center of the forehead. The process causes fear and mental deterioration on the subject until his resistance finally breaks. Each tear of Monica earned the drops of grace that finally broke Augustine’s sinful resistance.
Monica’s endless tears for her son eventually produced tears of sorrow in her son. Monica’s tears brought torrents of heavenly tears―in the form of grace―that bombarded Augustine incessantly in one way or another, either through exterior events or provoking interior thoughts and self-examination. Finally, Augustine broke down and, as he admits, almost had a nervous breakdown. In the garden of his friend’s house in Milan, after long struggles with “old attachments” that kept him from embracing the life of continence, Augustine gave way to the “storm” of tears that had been welling up inside of him, expressing his great remorse for his sinfulness, which proved to be invincible to his own strength. He wept because he felt he was the “captive” of his “sins,” and while crying, he kept repeating, “How long shall I go on saying ‘tomorrow, tomorrow’? Why not now? Why not make an end of my ugly sins at this moment?”
Augustine’s tears signify a moment of his sinfulness and powerlessness when dealing with the consequences of his wounded nature. This recognition makes him look for a different source of strength through which he can overcome his weaknesses. He lifts his gaze to God and discovers the mystery of grace, which alone has the power to change the hardest of hearts and heal the most festering of wounds. Tears are the beginning of the road to holiness for this hopeless sinner. He would afterwards write:
“God, You ‘sent down Your help from above’ (Psalm 144:7), and rescued my soul from the depths of this darkness―because my mother, Your faithful servant, wept to You for me, shedding more tears for my spiritual death than other mothers shed for the bodily death of a son. For in her Faith and in the spirit which she had from You, she looked on me as dead. You heard her and did not despise the tears which streamed down and watered the earth in every place where she bowed her head in prayer!”
Monica’s tears of sorrow for the sins Augustine was committing, brought about tears of sorrow in Augustine for the sins he had committed. Like mother, like son―in this case. A good tearful tree (Monica) producing good tearful fruit (Augustine). St. Ephrem the Syrian (303–373), a Doctor of the Church, considered tears to be sacramental signs of divine mercy. He instructs: “Give God weeping, and increase the tears in your eyes―for through your tears and [God’s] goodness, the soul which has been dead will be restored!” Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi reportedly wept for days on end! St. Padre Pio cried during the Mass. It was not weeping so much as it was deep, involuntary sobbing. He cried from the depths of his soul. Giant tears cascaded from his closed eyes onto his beard. When he beat his breast during the Confiteor, it was as if he was accusing himself of all the sins committed by man. When he spoke about his heavenly Mother, as he called her, he could hardly contain his emotion. When he recited a special prayer to the Most Holy Mary, he often could not keep back the tears and the emotion in the tone of his voice. And sometimes he was seized by such violent sobbing that he could not continue the recitation of the prayer.
Sacramental Tears?
Are tears a “Sacrament”? No―but tears could be called “Sacramentals”. Both Sacraments and Sacramentals are sources of grace. Sacraments give grace “ex opere operato” (that is to say, by the performance of the rite of the Sacrament by the minister of the Sacrament, and then its consequent valid reception by a person. Sacramentals give grace “ex opere operantis” (that is to say, the grace that Sacramentals give depends upon the dispositions, and degree of devotion and fervor with which the recipient uses the Sacramental―the more devotion you have, the more grace you get). In actual fact, Sacraments give you a minimal level of grace if you have no devotion at all―but that amount of grace increases in proportion to your increase in fervor and devotion.
There are only 7 Sacraments of the Church (Baptism, Confession, Holy Eucharist, Confirmation, Matrimony, Holy Orders, Extreme-Unction) which are all instituted by Christ, but, in addition to those guaranteed grace-giving Sacraments, there are numerous Sacramentals instituted by the Church (which are not limited in number like the Sacraments) that also potentially (and not automatically) give grace―such as the many prayers and blessings of persons, places and things: holy water, blessed statues, images, scapulars, rosaries, chaplets, medals, candles, oils, wine, food, etc. Merely saying any prayer―whether out loud or silently in your mind―is a Sacramental, but it depends upon the degree or level of Faith and fervor with which you say that prayer as to how much grace you will receive for saying it. It is possible not to receive any grace at all―if you are totally lacking in that Faith and fervor.
Tears can be source of grace if they are linked to prayer. Tears can increase our devotion and fervor. Yet tears can also be fake “crocodile tears”. Tears are usually closely connected to our emotions, our mind and our heart―they are sometimes an indication of the degree of our emotion, our love, our fear, our pain, etc. St. Padre Pio celebrated Mass with great emotion, carefully performing every aspect of it. When it came time for Padre Pio to celebrate Mass, he would become very emotional, with full knowledge of what he was doing. He once said: “All that Jesus has suffered in His Passion, I also suffer inadequately, as far as is possible for a human being. And all this against my unworthiness, and thanks only to His goodness.”
Apart from any merit on his own part, he believed that he was allowed to relive Jesus’ Passion in a direct way each time he offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that Padre Pio was very emotional during Mass, often visibly crying, as many have described as a result of observing him during Mass. As one observer said: “At the altar, Padre Pio was transfigured. His face was sometimes deathly pale, then radiant, and sometimes bathed in tears. There was an intensity in his fervor; there were painful contractions of his body. Great silent sobs shook him from time to time. Everything about him told us how intensely he was living the Passion of Christ. One had the impression that space and time had been canceled between that altar and the hill of Calvary.” He would sometimes take as much as three hours to complete the Mass.
One reason behind the length of Padre Pio’s Mass was his attention to detail in every rubric. A colleague, Fr. Giovanni of Baggio, observed: “He seemed to be meditating on every word, and to be carried out of himself by every action of the rite. He read with emotion, in a low and almost weary voice, unhurriedly, pronouncing each word distinctly.” Another priest, Father Clement Naef, noted that Padre Pio seemed to spend ten to fifteen minutes adoring the consecrated bread and wine. Towards the end of his life Padre Pio was not able to sustain such a long Mass, and his Masses were only about an hour long. He would say: “Give free course to your tears, because that is the work of God in you, and do not be concerned about what bystanders might think!”
Every day Padre Pio would usually pray anywhere from 30 to 50 Rosaries consisting of five-decades each. When asked by someone: “How can you pray so many Rosaries in day?” Padre Pio responded: “And how is it that you pray so few each day?” Likewise, we could envisage someone asking him: “Why is it that you cry so much every day?” and Padre Pio replying: “Why is it that you cry so little?” We are all guilty of committing many sins―why is it that cry so little about having committed the greatest evils in the world?
“Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin!” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). “Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us!” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
Tears and Repentance
Repentance may be defined as a virtue that makes the will of a sinner grieve over sin and to make reparation to God for the injury it does to His rights. Repentance comes from the will, by acts of regret, resolution, and reparation. Repentance does not consist in emotional sorrow, and it does not need to be sensibly felt or joined with tears. Tears do not harm repentance, they can even help deepen repentance―but, by themselves, tears are not repentance, just like leaves are not part of a tree unless they are attached to it. Leaves by themselves do not constitute a tree―but leaves on a tree can enhance the tree.
Fr. Heribert Jone, in his Moral Theology (§572) states that the Intense sorrow of the penitent is one of several reasons that are sufficient to excuse the priest from imposing a grave penance. Fr. Dominic Prummer, in his Handbook of Moral Theology (§674), states that a grave penance should be imposed for a grave sin, but there are just causes permitting the imposition of a smaller penance, such as deep and unusual contrition. Tears can be an indication deep and unusual contrition―but as said above, tears by themselves without the sorrow and resolution of the will (heart), are not an indication of true sorrow for sin. There are many people who can turn on their faucet of tears any time they want―and those tears are usually “crocodile tears”. It is a little like Our Lord’s words to the Jews: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honors Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8) ― which you could change into: “Hypocrites! This people shed tears with their eyes: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8).
St. Ambrose of Milan, who received the converted and tearful St. Augustine into the Church, wrote on the subject of tears: “Peter became saddened and wept because he erred like all men. I cannot find what he said―I find only that he wept. I read his tears―I do not read what he gave in recompense. But what cannot be excused, can be cleansed. Tears speak of the offence without horrifying. Tears recognize the sin without causing one to blush. Tears do not ask forgiveness, but they merit it. I discovered why Peter remained silent, so that asking for forgiveness so quickly he would not further increase his guilt. First we must weep―excellent tears so that they cleanse the guilt―then we must pray. Indeed, those who see Christ’s gaze begin to weep. Peter denied Him a first time, but did not shed a tear―because the Lord’s gaze did not meet his. He denied Him a second time and again he did not shed a tear―because the Lord’s gaze had not yet come upon him. He denied Him a third time―this time Christ’s gaze fell upon him and he wept bitterly. Gaze upon us, Lord Jesus, so that we may learn to weep for our sins!”
“The Lord, the God of hosts shall call to weeping and to mourning, to shaving the head, and to clothing with sackcloth!” (Isaias 22:12). “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you! Cleanse your hands, ye sinners―and purify your hearts, ye double minded! Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep! Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into sorrow!” (James 4:8-9). “I have declared to Thee my life, O Lord, Thou hast set my tears in Thy sight!” (Psalm 55:9). “An afflicted spirit, a contrite and humbled heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise!” (Psalms 50:19).
Tears are a God-given gift in both the natural and supernatural spheres. Nothing in God’s creation is pointless or useless―and that includes tears. St. Thomas Aquinas says that the natural reflects the supernatural―for we see and know something of God by looking at His creation and creatures. He also says that the supernatural builds upon the foundations of the natural―as grace builds on nature and perfects nature, but it cannot perfect something that is not there in the first place.
Natural Benefits of Tears and Crying
In the natural sphere, crying is a natural response to a range of emotions, from deep sadness and grief to extreme happiness and joy. But is crying good for your health? The answer appears to be yes. Crying is an important safety valve, largely because keeping difficult feelings inside — what psychologists call repressive coping — can be bad for our health. Researchers note that, on average, American women cry 3.5 times each month, while American men cry about 1.9 times each month. These figures may take some of us by surprise, especially as our society has often looked at crying — particularly by men — as a sign of weakness and lack of emotional stamina. Having a good cry can sometimes be just what the doctor ordered. In fact, some psychologists even suggest that we may be doing ourselves a disservice by not tearing up regularly. Like the ocean, tears are saltwater―and just as bathing in the saltwater ocean is healthy for you, so too is bathing yourself in your tears.
The Japanese are such strong believers in the health benefits of crying that they've taken that wisdom to the next level. Some cities in Japan now have “crying clubs” called rui-katsu (meaning, literally, “tear-seeking”), where people come together to indulge in good old-fashioned sobfests. To help the tears flow, participants watch tearjerker movies, shows, news reports, interviews, etc. The premise? Crying releases stress, and is therefore is a great practice when it comes to staying mentally healthy. Dr. Stephen Sideroff, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at UCLA, says: “Letting down one’s guard and one’s defenses by crying is a very positive, healthy thing. The same thing happens when you watch a movie and it touches you and you cry... That is a process of opening into yourself ... it is like a lock and key. Crying in a group can validate [the practice] and tell you that it is something that’s okay to do. For a lot of people, it can make it easier to cry.”
Scientists divide the liquid product of crying into three distinct categories: reflex tears, continuous tears, and emotional tears.
► BASAL TEARS: The tear ducts constantly secrete basal tears, which are a protein-rich antibacterial liquid that help to keep the eyes moist every time a person blinks.
► REFLEX TEARS: These are tears triggered by irritants such as wind, smoke, or onions. They are released to flush out these irritants and protect the eye.
► EMOTIONAL TEARS: Humans shed tears in response to a range of emotions. These tears contain a higher level of stress hormones than other types of tears.
The first two categories perform the important function of removing debris such as smoke and dust from our eyes, and lubricating our eyes to help protect them from infection. Their content is 98% water. It is the third category, emotional tears (which flush stress hormones and other toxins out of our system), that potentially offers the most health benefits.
► CRYING HELPS DETOX THE BODY ― Humans produce three kinds of tears: reflex, continuous, and emotional. Each of these serves the purpose of helping to detox and cleanse your body. Reflect tears clean out debris from your eyes, such as smoke and dust, helping protect them. Continuous tears protect your eyes from infection by keeping them moist. Emotional tears contain stress hormones and other toxins that they flush from your body.
► CRYING BALANCES EMOTIONS ― Crying is often associated with negative feelings, such as feeling sad, angry, lonely, and more. However, humans cry when they experience happiness, fear, stress, and other emotions. For these reasons, crying can help bring emotional equilibrium by helping your body recover from various strong, complex emotions.
► CRYING HELPS IMPROVE YOUR MOOD ― Many people associate crying with feeling sad and making them feel worse, but in reality, crying can help improve your mood ― emotional tears release stress hormones. Your stress level lowers when you cry, which can help you sleep better and strengthen your immune system. You should feel better after a good cry once these hormones leave your body, leaving you feeling better than before.
► CRYING HELPS HEAL GRIEF ― If you have ever gone through the grieving process, you understand that it takes time to move through the various stages. Crying can help you through each step of grief as it aids in accepting losing a loved one. While crying does not work for everyone during this process, some find comfort in releasing emotions and helping them process their loss.
► CRYING HELPS TO SOOTHE ― When you cry, your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activates. Your PNS helps your body digest food and rest better. Any symptoms of stress, such as stomach aches and restlessness, can be relieved after crying. This will help you self-soothe and feel better. The benefits aren’t immediate, however. It may take several minutes of shedding tears before you feel the soothing effects of crying.
► CRYING LESSENS PAIN ― Whether you are experiencing physical or emotional pain, crying can help lessen the severity of this pain. Researchers have established that crying releases oxytocin and endogenous opioids, also known as endorphins. These feel-good chemicals help ease both physical and emotional pain. Endorphins are released while you cry, helping numb the pain and gradually give you a sense of overall calm. Once the endorphins are released, your body may go into somewhat of a numb stage. This process also plays a role in self-soothing as well as lessening the intensity of pain felt. Oxytocin can give you a sense of calm or well-being. Popular culture has always known the value of a good cry as a way to feel better.
► CRYING FIGHTS INFECTION ― When you don’t cry for a long time or are not producing tears, your eyes can become dry. Dry eyes can lead to discomfort and an inability to fight infection. By crying, your eyes will be more lubricated to alleviate the discomfort and help keep your eyes free of infection.
► CRYING ALERTS YOU TO SOMETHING WRONG ― Sometimes you may be suppressing painful emotions without realizing it. Crying can help you recognize that something is wrong, whether it be emotional or a physical situation you are in. Once you realize that something is going on, you can take the proper steps to identify precisely what that is. From there, you can cope with your emotions healthily to avoid further suppressing them.
► CRYING GETS YOU THE SUPPORT YOU NEED ― Feeling down can cause you to isolate or simply not tell those around you that you are struggling. However, crying can notify those close to you that you need help. This begins when you are a baby, as crying is an attachment behavior that babies engage in to receive attention, support and help from others. Crying for support doesn’t stop when you are an infant―it can continue into adulthood. Others see that you are struggling when you cry, and will often come to give you comfort and assistance.
Supernatural vs. Natural Tears
This gift of tears differs from normal tears, both in what triggers it―it is triggered by an experience of God, not by natural pain or sorrow or joy―and it also differs in how it occurs physiologically—generally, these the gift of tears are abundant, but they are not accompanied by the usual kind of sobbing, shaking, or the distortion of the facial muscles. Some spiritual writers distinguish between the gift of tears and tears that arise from merely human sensibilities, even when prompted by the beauty of spiritual realities. Tears, when bestowed by the Holy Spirit, are not an end in themselves to be analyzed, but they are meant to point us to a spiritual end, whether that end be conversion, contemplation, consolation, or more fervent prayer. They are not the racking, uncontrollable sobs of merely human grief. They go deeper.
Someone who has a particularly sensitive nature may often be moved to natural tears by thinking of or experiencing beautiful spiritual realities. This can be a very good thing, but it may not be, strictly speaking, the same as the gift of tears. Likewise, someone may go through periods or moments when their natural sensitivity is heightened (by stress or exhaustion, for instance), and this could make them more susceptible to shed tears in response to normal emotional stimulation―perception of beauty, sorrow at sin, etc. This type of crying can be emotionally renewing and of great benefit for the person (crying releases many hormones and toxins that are known to reduce stress levels), even though it may not, strictly speaking, be the gift of tears.
The gift of tears is spiritual grace and gift from the Holy Spirit that is bestowed on someone to bring about a healing flow through the tears that are shed. One must recognize one’s tendency toward weeping or the expression of deep emotions through tears in order to differentiate between the natural versus spiritual gift of tears. Natural tears are often mistaken for this supernatural gift, especially when they occur during or after an intense spiritual experience. The best distinction of the spiritual gift of tears is by the resulting fruit. We must always remember that by our fruits they will know us. The fruit of such tears leads both the recipient of this gift and others who witness it to joy and abiding peace. This definition casts aside the false idea that the gift of tears includes anyone who cries from a touching spiritual or emotional sentiment. This definition casts aside the false idea that the gift of tears includes anyone who cries from a touching spiritual or emotional sentiment. If our imagined gift of tears makes us feel proud, promoted, special, elevated, set aside from others, superior to others, etc. — then it is not of divine origin, but natural or even a trick of the devil.
St. Teresa of Avila, who was well known for her spiritual ecstasies, likened the gift of tears to the state of contemplation. Contemplation, we know, is divergent from meditation in that one must be invited by God to enter into contemplation. In meditation, we can discipline ourselves to ponder a profound mystery of faith, but contemplation is an unheeded gift that comes as God wills. Very similarly are we granted the gift of tears—at a time or place we neither expect nor desire through our own will. We may be caught off guard when the tears begin, but our hearts are elevated to a state of immense joy as we interiorly praise and honor God. The gift of tears is one way the Holy Spirit infuses Himself into a person’s soul through the action of crying or weeping. During the infusion of this gift, a person may be unable to articulate what is happening inside him or her. The person may also notice that they are in a state of prayer without words, that is more of a subconscious offering of love—a wordless means of communicating with God. The gift of tears may very well lead one to experience a taste of the unitive spiritual state, but as it quickly arrives, it almost always leaves just as rapidly―leaving us wondering whether this was just superficial and hypocritical!
The gift of tears is considered a charismatic gift, a manifold of spiritual blessings to whomever the Holy Spirit grants it. People who receive this gift may experience it only once or perhaps multiple times―but the gift itself is NOT an indication of one’s level of holiness, NOR the achievement of perfect union with God. Many saints declared the importance of accepting such unexpected spiritual consolations with gratitude, but they warned against the distraction of loving the gift more than the Giver. In other words, we should not focus our attention on any spiritual charism that happens to bless our lives, but instead approach it with sincere and heartfelt thanksgiving, while allowing it to become a fleeting memory of the past that we do not continually go back to. It is merely passing, temporary, non-essential foreshadowing of eternal happiness, which is meant to encourage and inspire the recipient on his or her spiritual journey, but is not meant to the focal point of that journey, nor a distraction.
We must be careful not to seek particular experiences, such as raptures or ecstasies and other types of consolations or divine revelations. Even if they should happen to us, we must be cautious for two reasons. The first is to avoid becoming attached to the gift itself more than God the Giver. Authentic love cannot occur in a distracted and wandering heart, which is the temptation for one who has received an extraordinary spiritual charism. The second reason we must remain vigilant when we receive a spiritual gift is that the devil often uses these to lure us away from God through distraction and attachment. We cannot be absolutely certain that a spiritual gift, whether it is the gift of tears, contemplation, or something else, is derived from God. The ultimate tempter knows how to stealthily entice us even through such seemingly benevolent experiences, such as these.
We Do Not Weep Enough!
The gift of tears is under-appreciated today. And yet, this grace has inspired reverence throughout the Church’s tradition. A response of the heart, prompted by the Holy Spirit, it is akin to those “groanings which cannot be uttered.” (Romans 8:26) The tears that fill our eyes, unbidden, may express sorrow for sin. Or perhaps they come from compassion, a sharing of another person’s grief. Or perhaps from the overwhelming knowledge and sense of God’s presence. Whatever prompts them, they are a deep affective response to spiritual realities.
Scripture is full of weeping, from Joseph’s tears in Genesis, all the way to Revelation. We see tears frequently in the Old Testament: tears of repentance, tears of lamentation, tears of sorrow. The prophets weep: Isaias “drenching” with tears those for whom he prays; Jeremias—known as the weeping prophet—compares his eyes to a fountain. God weeps over His errant people. Israel weeps in repentance, and God cannot resist. In the New Testament, Christ weeps, touched by the sorrow of Martha and Mary at the death of Lazarus. Mary Magdalen washes Jesus’ feet with tears of repentance and love. Peter weeps bitterly after denying his Lord three times and meeting Jesus’ sorrowful gaze. St. Paul weeps tears of admonishment: “Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears” he tells the Ephesians. (Acts 20:31) In early Christian tradition, the Desert Fathers held the gift of tears in high regard, calling the gift of tears a “second baptism.” The doctrine of penthos, or tears of compunction, appeared often in patristic works and remains at the heart of Eastern Christianity.
Likewise the saints weep, one after another. From St. Catherine of Sienna, to whom Christ dictated a treatise on tears, to St. Ignatius, who often became tearful while celebrating Mass because he was overcome by the beauty of the worship and the profundity of God’s love. His tears arose from his relationship with God, which was deeply intimate. St. Ignatius wrote about these experiences in his Spiritual Exercises, in the section on Discernment of Spirits: “God and the good angels will also act on your soul in these contrary ways [we will only quote what he says about tears]: He will bring forth tears―these are not tears of sorrow, but tears that heal. Tears will cleanse when you open your heart to God’s cleansing mercy and when you are filled with a holy sorrow for sin. The tears perceive the freedom that awaits.” As a novice, St. Padre Pio took to placing a large handkerchief on the floor in front of him to soak up his tears―for his constant tears were leaving traces on the stone floor of the choir where he prayed. St. John Vianney could not speak of sinners and sins without weeping. “Tears are the heart’s blood,” said St. Augustine, referring to the tears of his mother Monica—tears which purchased his conversion.
Acknowledging the spiritual efficacy of tears, the Church even offers a Mass “For the Gift of Tears,” with its beautiful Collect: “Almighty and most gentle God, who brought forth from the rock a fountain of living water for your thirsty people, bring forth we pray, from the hardness of our heart, tears of sorrow, that we may lament our sins and merit forgiveness from your mercy.”
Tears are “the work of God in you,” says St. Padre Pio. Our Lady of La Salette should etch into our minds and hearts her strong, silent image―with her head in hands, weeping for the sins of mankind. We need to weep more. Keeping a “stiff upper lip” is a survival mechanism, but it can isolate us and keep us safely distanced from the evils of our times. The message of the tears of Our Lady of Sorrows is that have gone too far. We need to weep with Mary, Mater dolorosa, as we say in the Stabat Mater:
“Let me mingle tears with thee, mourning Him who mourned for me, all the days that I may live!
By the cross with thee to stay, there with thee to weep and pray, is all I ask of thee to give!”
Some people see crying as a weakness― it can be, but that is not always the case. People who cry are sometimes called “Cry babies!” Yes, babies do cry―but children cry, adults cry, even Our Lord and Our Lady cried and you cannot call them “cry babies”. Holy Scripture even tells us to cry! “There is a time to weep, and a time to laugh! A time to mourn, and a time to dance!” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). Jesus also speaks of weeping and crying. To the crowds He said: “Blessed are ye that weep now―for you shall laugh! … Woe to you that now laugh―for you shall mourn and weep!” (Luke 6:21, 25) ― to which Scripture adds: “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep! Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into sorrow! … Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries, which shall come upon you!” (James 4:9; 5:1). To His disciples, at the Last Supper, He said: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20). To the women of Jerusalem, who were weeping for Him as He was carrying His cross to Calvary, He said: “Weep not over Me―but weep for yourselves, and for your children!” (Luke 23:28). When St. Peter denied Our Lord three times during the Passion, realizing his sin, “he began to weep” (Mark 14:72). “And Peter remembered the word of Jesus which He had said: ‘Before the cock crow, thou wilt deny Me three times!’ And going forth, he wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:75). Tradition tells us that Peter would often weep over this for the rest of his life―to the point where his cheeks were furrowed from his tears!
Weeping for Sin
Following the example of St. Peter, we are told to weep for sins and offenses against God and neighbor: “Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning” (Joel 2:12). “Let us be penitent and with many tears let us beg His pardon!” (Judith 8:14). “The priests, the Lord's ministers, shall weep and shall say: ‘Spare, O Lord, spare Thy people!’” (Joel 2:17). “Esdras was thus praying, and beseeching, and weeping, and lying before the temple of God and an exceedingly great assembly of men and women and children, wept with much lamentation!” (1 Esdras 10:1). “With fasting, wailing, and weeping, many used sackcloth and ashes for their bed!” (Esther 4:3). “They wept, and fasted, and prayed before the Lord!” (Baruch 1:5). “They craved mercy of the Lord with weeping and fasting, lying prostrate on the ground for three days continually” (2 Machabees 13:12). “My face is swollen with weeping, and my eyelids are dim!” (Job 16:17). “For I did eat ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping!” (Psalms 101:10). “In their streets they are girded with sackcloth, and in their streets all shall howl and come down weeping!” (Isaias 15:3). “The Lord God, in that day, shall call for weeping and to mourning” (Isaias 22:12). “They shall come with weeping and I will bring them back in mercy!” (Jeremias 31:9). “Thou hast wept before Me, I also have heard thee, saith the Lord” (4 Kings 22:19).
If we fail to weep for sin now―in this life―then we risk weeping for our sins eternally in the next life: “The children of the kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness―where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! … And they shall cast them into the furnace of fire―where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! … And shall cast them into the furnace of fire―and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! … Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! … And they shall separate him and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! … And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 8:12; 13:42; 13:50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30). “There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!” (Luke 13:28).
Even Jesus Wept
Jesus Himself wept on occasions: “And Jesus wept” at the death of Lazarus (John 11:35). He also wept over Jerusalem and the fate that would befall it for having rejected Him and His teachings: “And when He drew near, seeing the city, Jesus wept over it, saying: ‘If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are to thy peace; but now they are hidden from thy eyes! For the days shall come upon thee, and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side, and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee―and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation!’” (Luke 19:41-45).
Our Lady Wept and Spoke of the Need for Tears
In speaking of the terrible times that are to befall us in this present age, Our Lady of Good Success said in the 1600s: “Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears, in the privacy of your heart. Implore our Celestial Father that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times!” Our Lady of La Salette added: “Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession … At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent!”
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda (1602-1665), Our Lady said: “Remember the sorrows and the tears which the knowledge of the sins of men and the desire to prevent them has caused me! ... I wept over the sins of sinners more than they all did! ... I multiplied my prayers, tears, sighs and supplications! ... I wept over the eternal perdition incurred by so many! ... Since thou hast so often offended the Lord, call upon his mercy, weep and wash thyself from thy sins with copious tears! Weep over thy sins, and forget and reject all visible things, so that henceforth thou have no thought for any other thing outside of God! … Weep over thy faults and those of thy fellowmen! … Weep thou over their sins and at the same time try to make up for them! … In the sight of God, most agreeable are the tears shed for the sins of others, which are forgotten by those that have committed them! … Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous tepidity! … Feel grief and shed bitter tears at seeing so many children of the Church treat the Holy Eucharist with irreverence and without any fear or decorum. Weep then over this misfortune; weep, because there are few who weep over it! ... Weep ceaselessly over the terrible loss sustained by so many insane and thankless souls, who are forgetful of God, of their duty and of their own selves … and lose their chance of salvation or bring upon themselves eternal damnation! … Weep thou in seeing them laugh at their eternal damnation! … Bewail such a sad state, and invite Heaven and Earth to help you in your weeping―for there are few who sorrow on account of it! … I invite thee to let thy tears flow over this loss and ruin ... tears from thy inmost heart! ... Shed tears for the sins which the mortals commit against God! ... Weep in over the ruin of so many souls! Let them seek their delight only in the tears, which they pour out on account of their sins! … Thou ought to shed tears of blood because of the calamities that will be coming over the children of Adam!”
St. Catherine Labouré relates how she saw Our Lady weeping during one of the apparitions at the Rue du Bac in 1830: “The Virgin Mary in tears proceeded to describe the great trials that would come upon France and the world!” St. Catherine then gives to us Our Lady’s own words: “There will be victims! … There will be victims among the clergy of Paris. Monsignor, the archbishop … (Our Lady could not continue this sentence because of her weeping). My child, the Cross will be treated with contempt! They will hurl it to the ground! Blood will flow! They will open up again the side of Our Lord. The streets will stream with blood! Monsignor the archbishop will be stripped of his garments … (once again, she was unable to continue due to her tears). My child, the whole world will be in sadness!”
Melanie Calvat, one of two seers at the apparition of Our Lady of La Salette in 1846, spoke of Our Lady weeping during this apparition: “This beautiful Lady stood up, she calmly crossed her arms while watching us, and said to us: ‘Come, my children, fear not! I am here to proclaim great news to you!’ When I was up close to the beautiful Lady, she began to speak and, from her beautiful eyes, tears started to flow!”
Blessed Elena Aiello speaks of Our Lady in the 1950s, weeping while warning of the world’s ruin: “The Madonna appeared to me with an expression of profound sorrow and with tears on her cheeks, saying: ‘Listen attentively and reveal to all―because men, in spite of repeated warnings, are not returning to God! They refuse grace, and are not listening to my voice! Men ignore all these warnings, and are unwilling to be convinced that my tears are plain signs to serve notice that tragic events are hanging over the world, and that the hours of great trials are at hand! Great calamities will come upon the world, which will bring confusion, tears, struggles and pain! … Look upon my Heart pierced by the thorns of so many sins; my face disfigured by sorrow; my eyes filled with tears! The cause of such great sadness is the sight of so many souls going to Hell and for so many sufferings in a world that is going towards its ruin! The justice of God is weighing upon the world! Mankind, defiled in the mire, soon will be washed in its own blood, by disease; by famine; by earthquakes; by cloudbursts, tornadoes, floods, and terrible storms; and by war!”
At Akita, in Japan, in 1973, Sr. Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa heard a voice coming from the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the chapel where she was praying. Later blood, sweat and tears began to stream from the statue. It continued to weep at intervals for the next 6 years and eight months. It wept on 101 occasions. The tears, sweat and blood from the statue were sent for laboratory analysis. This was conducted by Professor Sagisaka of the Faculty of Legal Medicine of the University of Akita, confirmed that the blood, tears and sweat were real and of human origin.
Sister Lucia of Fatima warned that Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary would come without many sufferings and tears being shed: “The final triumph of Mary’s Heart is certain, but it will take place after a terrible purification of sinful mankind in a baptism of fire, blood and tears!”
Every time we pray the “Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy” prayer, we speak of “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears”―is that what we are really doing, or do we just flippantly say those words? Are we actually laughing and joking in this valley of worldliness? Isn't this line ― “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears” ― a little melodramatic? It can appear a little loopy when you first read it. "Valley of tears" almost sounds poetic, like it could be the title of a film or a book. Yet when you realize ― truly realize from the depths of both your mind and heart ― what sin really is, it is impossible not to weep! We weep in face of evil, don’t we? We sometimes weep when we are punished. We weep we lose someone or something we love, don’t we? Well, sin is the greatest evil in world and mortal sin deserves eternal punishment in Hell―and through mortal sin we lose God and the grace of God! Sin brought about the beatings, scourging, crucifixion and death of the innocent Son of God, Jesus Christ!
“Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
“Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
The Loss of the Sense of Sin and the Need for Tears
Sin should beget tears―although it rarely does that! We are no longer afraid of sin; we have cheapened the gravity of sin; we no longer see sin as losing God; we no longer see punishment on the flip side of coin of sin! We underplay and devaluate the reality of sin―and at the same time we exaggerate and inflate the mercy of God. We become like Martin Luther, who would say: “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly! Christ triumphed over sin, death, and the world! As long as we live here, we must sin!” [in the sense of “we cannot avoid sin”]. In other words―do no worry or be afraid to sin, Christ will forgive you whatever you might do! That is a sin a gross presumption! That is a devaluation of sin and a presumptuous inflation of the mercy of God. What about the words of the Old Testament and Our Lord’s own words in New Testament, which contradict Luther and such Catholics: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:10-11). “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14).
Modern day popes―even the Liberal and Modernist ones―have lamented what they perceive to be a worldwide loss of the sense of sin:
● Pope Pius XII remarked in 1946: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin!”
● Pope John Paul II, in 2005, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin!”
● Pope Benedict XVI, in 2011, said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. If we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, then we cannot speak of sin ... The meaning of sin ― which is a different thing from ‘guilt feelings’ as understood in psychology ― is only grasped in discovering the meaning of God!”
● Pope Francis, in 2014, stated: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble!”
The Moral Virus
This loss of the sense of sin has become a true moral virus (or, more correctly, an immoral virus), which cannot fail to affect and infect even the best of Catholics. As the saying goes: “You cannot leave clothes for long in a smoky room without them taking on the smell of smoke!” Similarly, you could say: “You cannot live in worldly environment for very long without taking on some of that worldliness!” Or again: “You cannot live in sinful environment for very long without taking on some of the sins that surround you!”
Fr. Felix Salvany, in his masterpiece of a book, Liberalism Is A Sin, writes along the same lines:
“Physical science tells us that floating through the atmosphere are innumerable disease germs seeking a suitable nidus [a nest or breeding place] in which to settle and propagate and that we are constantly breathing these germs into the lungs. If the [immune] system be depleted or weakened, the dangerous microbe takes up its abode within us, and propagating its own kind with astonishing rapidity, undermines and ravages our health. The only safeguard against the encroachments of this insidious enemy, which we cannot escape, is a vigorous and healthy body with adequate powers of resistance to repel the invader.
“It is equally true that we are subject to like infectious attacks in the spiritual order. Swarming in the atmosphere of our spiritual lives are innumerable deadly germs, ever ready to fasten upon the depleted and weakened soul and, propagating its contagion through every faculty, destroy the spiritual life. Against the menace of this ever-threatening danger, whose advances we cannot avoid in our present circumstances, the ever-healthy soul alone can be prepared. To escape the contagion, the power of resistance must be equal to the emergencies of the attack, and that power will be in proportion to our spiritual health. To be prepared is to be armed, but to be prepared is not sufficient; we must possess the interior strength to throw off the germ. There must be no condition in the soul to make a suitable nidus [a nest or breeding place] for an enemy so insidious and so efficacious as to need only the slightest point of contact whence to spread its deadly contagion.
“It is not only through the avenues of disordered passions that this spiritual disease may gain an entrance; it may make its inroad through the intellect, and this under a disguise often calculated to deceive the unwary and incautious. That we may know our danger, we must appreciate the possible shapes in which it may come. Here is just the difficulty; the uniform of the enemy is so various, changeable, sometimes even of our own colors, that if we rely upon the outward semblance alone, we shall be more often deceived than certain of his identity. As we are addressing ourselves to those who live amidst the peculiar circumstances of our American life … let us then consider these surroundings in a general way for the moment.
“First, as to some patent facts: The population of this country [USA] is at present something over 330 million [2020 estimates]. Of these, 70 million are Catholics, and according to their claim, 140 million are Protestants, leaving a population of 120 million or more who do not profess any form of Christianity at all [2020 estimates]. Amongst the 140 million Protestants, every shade and variety of belief in the Christian dispensation find easy lodgment … the adjustments of creeds are loose and easy. Lack of any decisive authority renders any exact standard of belief impossible. Outside of these various bodies of loosely professed Christians stands a still larger mass of our population who are either absolutely indifferent to Christianity or positively reject it. In other words, we have here to reckon with a body, to all practical purposes, that is infidel. This mass comprises over 35% of our population, holding itself aloof from Christianity [Catholic and Protestant], and in some instances virulently antagonistic to it.
[NOTE: When you add together the Protestants with the non-believers, it produces a total in excess of 78 percent of our population, but currently enhanced to an even more frightening percentage by the vast majority of Catholics today—2020—around 80% (or 56 million) of the 70 million Catholics, who either do not practice their Faith at all, or irregularly, or who are ignorant of its teachings (especially with regard to morality), or, in practice, simply disregard those teachings—bringing the total of practical non-believing and infidel people, including bad Catholics, to around 97 percent, if we can presume there to be today approximately 14 million believing, regularly practicing Catholics in the USA out of a population of 330 million (2020 stats)].
“In distinct religious opposition to this combined mass of infidelity (non-believers) and Protestantism, Catholics find themselves sharply and radically opposed. We live in the midst of this religious anarchy. Some [2020 stats] 260 million of our population can, in one sense or other, be considered anti-Catholic. From this mass—heretical and infidel—exhales an atmosphere filled with germs poisonous and fatal to Catholic life, if permitted to take root in the Catholic heart. The mere force of gravitation―which the larger mass ever exercises upon the smaller―is a power which the most energetic vigor alone can resist. Under this dangerous influence, a deadly inertia tends to creep over the souls of incautious persons, and can only to be overcome by the liveliest exercise of Catholic Faith. To this danger we are daily exposed, ever coming into contact in a thousand ways, in almost every relation of life, with anti-Catholic thought and customs.
“It is natural that Protestantism and infidelity should find public expression. What our [2020 stats] 260 million non-Catholic population thinks in these matters, naturally seeks and finds open expression. They have their organs and their literature where we find their current opinions publicly uttered. Their views upon religion, morality, politics, the constitution of society are perpetually marshaled before us. In the pulpit and in the press they are reiterated day after day. In magazine and newspaper they constantly speak from every line. Our literature is permeated and saturated with non-Catholic dogmatism. On all sides do we find this opposing spirit. We cannot escape from it. It enfolds and embraces us. Its breath is perpetually in our faces. It enters in by eye and ear. From birth to death, it enslaves us in its offensive garments. It now soothes and flatters, now hates and curses, now threatens, now praises. But it is most dangerous when it comes to us under the form of “liberality.” It is especially powerful for seduction in this guise. And it is under this aspect that we wish to consider it. For it is as Liberalism that Protestantism and Infidelity make their most devastating inroads upon the domain of the Faith. Out of these non-Catholic and anti-Catholic conditions thus predominating amongst us springs this monster of our times, Liberalism!
Virus of Hellish Laughter
Once we gradually lose the sense of sin―and it is always a gradual process―we will start to find some sins funny. This amusement at sin, of course, will not begin with seeing mortal sin as being funny, but some venial sins as being funny―such as mockery, getting someone to believe a lie, flirtation, setting someone up for a humiliation, laughing at the misfortune of others, laughing at the sins of others, using certain foul words, etc. Once the sense of sin diminishes, the fun of sin increases. The devils will not succeed in making you sin if they represent sin as something frightening―the only way they will succeed is in making you see sin as something that is fun, entertaining, profitable and pleasurable―so that you can laugh your way to Hell. Holy Scripture speaks of this: “A fool works mischief as it were for sport!” (Proverbs 10:23). “A fool will laugh at sin” (Proverbs 14:9). Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “You should weep in seeing them laugh at their eternal damnation!”
In his book, Confessions, St. Augustine admits that he would enjoy sin: “I relished and enjoyed my own sins! … Late one night a band of ruffians, myself included, went off to shake down the fruit from a pear tree and carry it away. We stole an enormous quantity of pears, not to eat them ourselves, but simply to throw them to the pigs. Perhaps we ate some of them, but our real pleasure consisted in doing something that was forbidden. It was not the pears that my unhappy soul desired―I had plenty of my own at home, better than those. I only picked them so that I might steal. For no sooner had I picked them than I threw them away, and tasted nothing in them except my own sin, which I relished and enjoyed. We were tickled to laughter by the prank we had played―because no one suspected us of it although the owners were furious. Why was it, then, that I thought it fun not to have been the only culprit? Perhaps it was because we do not easily laugh when we are alone! I am quite sure that I would never have done this thing on my own. To do it by myself would have been no fun and I should not have done it.”
St. Augustine also confesses to falling into habitual sexual sins from the time of his adolescence until his conversion. When, as an adolescent he was sent away to another city to continue his studies [much like going away to college in these days], Augustine’s mother, St. Monica, earnestly warned him about his lack of sexual restraint. When she told him, “above all do not seduce any woman who is a wife”, Augustine merely laughed at her advice. These admissions or confessions of St. Augustine are worth some serious meditation upon the nature of sin, the nature of pleasure, forbidden fruit, and the companionship of fools―which is foolish world in which we live and whose foolishness we absorb, just as Augustine did!
St. Monica, Augustine’s mother, was by no means a saint at that time. She was to a certain extent permissive of Augustine’s sexual sins―and his father was even more permissive of them, he was proud of Augustine’s sexual misbehavior! Yet it was Augustine’s sinfulness―and more importantly, the grace of God―that gradually transformed her into a saint. St. Monica became very closely connected to her son’s conversion. She spent seventeen years shedding tears over his sinfulness, begging God for his soul. When her son embraced the Manichean heresy, she asked a Catholic bishop to speak to him and refute his errors. The bishop told her it was unwise to have that conversation with her son because he was “not ripe for instructions,” and that, in time, he would discover the truth simply by reading the Manicheans’ books. This answer would not pacify the mother. She was relentless in her visits to the bishop, incessant with her tears for her son’s conversion. Finally, losing his patience, the bishop said to her: “Leave me alone and go in peace! It cannot be that the son of these tears should be lost!” He was correct; the son of tears discovered the Truth and offered his life to him.
Monica’s Tearful “Chinese-Water-Torture”
Each tear of Monica’s could, perhaps, be compared to the Chinese Water Torture, whereby a strapped-down prisoner has water slowly drip in drops upon the bridge of his nose between his eyes from some form of “dripping machine”. The forehead was found to be the most suitable point for this form of torture because of its sensitivity: prisoners could see each drop coming, and after long durations were gradually driven frantic as a perceived hollow would form in the center of the forehead. The process causes fear and mental deterioration on the subject until his resistance finally breaks. Each tear of Monica earned the drops of grace that finally broke Augustine’s sinful resistance.
Monica’s endless tears for her son eventually produced tears of sorrow in her son. Monica’s tears brought torrents of heavenly tears―in the form of grace―that bombarded Augustine incessantly in one way or another, either through exterior events or provoking interior thoughts and self-examination. Finally, Augustine broke down and, as he admits, almost had a nervous breakdown. In the garden of his friend’s house in Milan, after long struggles with “old attachments” that kept him from embracing the life of continence, Augustine gave way to the “storm” of tears that had been welling up inside of him, expressing his great remorse for his sinfulness, which proved to be invincible to his own strength. He wept because he felt he was the “captive” of his “sins,” and while crying, he kept repeating, “How long shall I go on saying ‘tomorrow, tomorrow’? Why not now? Why not make an end of my ugly sins at this moment?”
Augustine’s tears signify a moment of his sinfulness and powerlessness when dealing with the consequences of his wounded nature. This recognition makes him look for a different source of strength through which he can overcome his weaknesses. He lifts his gaze to God and discovers the mystery of grace, which alone has the power to change the hardest of hearts and heal the most festering of wounds. Tears are the beginning of the road to holiness for this hopeless sinner. He would afterwards write:
“God, You ‘sent down Your help from above’ (Psalm 144:7), and rescued my soul from the depths of this darkness―because my mother, Your faithful servant, wept to You for me, shedding more tears for my spiritual death than other mothers shed for the bodily death of a son. For in her Faith and in the spirit which she had from You, she looked on me as dead. You heard her and did not despise the tears which streamed down and watered the earth in every place where she bowed her head in prayer!”
Monica’s tears of sorrow for the sins Augustine was committing, brought about tears of sorrow in Augustine for the sins he had committed. Like mother, like son―in this case. A good tearful tree (Monica) producing good tearful fruit (Augustine). St. Ephrem the Syrian (303–373), a Doctor of the Church, considered tears to be sacramental signs of divine mercy. He instructs: “Give God weeping, and increase the tears in your eyes―for through your tears and [God’s] goodness, the soul which has been dead will be restored!” Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi reportedly wept for days on end! St. Padre Pio cried during the Mass. It was not weeping so much as it was deep, involuntary sobbing. He cried from the depths of his soul. Giant tears cascaded from his closed eyes onto his beard. When he beat his breast during the Confiteor, it was as if he was accusing himself of all the sins committed by man. When he spoke about his heavenly Mother, as he called her, he could hardly contain his emotion. When he recited a special prayer to the Most Holy Mary, he often could not keep back the tears and the emotion in the tone of his voice. And sometimes he was seized by such violent sobbing that he could not continue the recitation of the prayer.
Sacramental Tears?
Are tears a “Sacrament”? No―but tears could be called “Sacramentals”. Both Sacraments and Sacramentals are sources of grace. Sacraments give grace “ex opere operato” (that is to say, by the performance of the rite of the Sacrament by the minister of the Sacrament, and then its consequent valid reception by a person. Sacramentals give grace “ex opere operantis” (that is to say, the grace that Sacramentals give depends upon the dispositions, and degree of devotion and fervor with which the recipient uses the Sacramental―the more devotion you have, the more grace you get). In actual fact, Sacraments give you a minimal level of grace if you have no devotion at all―but that amount of grace increases in proportion to your increase in fervor and devotion.
There are only 7 Sacraments of the Church (Baptism, Confession, Holy Eucharist, Confirmation, Matrimony, Holy Orders, Extreme-Unction) which are all instituted by Christ, but, in addition to those guaranteed grace-giving Sacraments, there are numerous Sacramentals instituted by the Church (which are not limited in number like the Sacraments) that also potentially (and not automatically) give grace―such as the many prayers and blessings of persons, places and things: holy water, blessed statues, images, scapulars, rosaries, chaplets, medals, candles, oils, wine, food, etc. Merely saying any prayer―whether out loud or silently in your mind―is a Sacramental, but it depends upon the degree or level of Faith and fervor with which you say that prayer as to how much grace you will receive for saying it. It is possible not to receive any grace at all―if you are totally lacking in that Faith and fervor.
Tears can be source of grace if they are linked to prayer. Tears can increase our devotion and fervor. Yet tears can also be fake “crocodile tears”. Tears are usually closely connected to our emotions, our mind and our heart―they are sometimes an indication of the degree of our emotion, our love, our fear, our pain, etc. St. Padre Pio celebrated Mass with great emotion, carefully performing every aspect of it. When it came time for Padre Pio to celebrate Mass, he would become very emotional, with full knowledge of what he was doing. He once said: “All that Jesus has suffered in His Passion, I also suffer inadequately, as far as is possible for a human being. And all this against my unworthiness, and thanks only to His goodness.”
Apart from any merit on his own part, he believed that he was allowed to relive Jesus’ Passion in a direct way each time he offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that Padre Pio was very emotional during Mass, often visibly crying, as many have described as a result of observing him during Mass. As one observer said: “At the altar, Padre Pio was transfigured. His face was sometimes deathly pale, then radiant, and sometimes bathed in tears. There was an intensity in his fervor; there were painful contractions of his body. Great silent sobs shook him from time to time. Everything about him told us how intensely he was living the Passion of Christ. One had the impression that space and time had been canceled between that altar and the hill of Calvary.” He would sometimes take as much as three hours to complete the Mass.
One reason behind the length of Padre Pio’s Mass was his attention to detail in every rubric. A colleague, Fr. Giovanni of Baggio, observed: “He seemed to be meditating on every word, and to be carried out of himself by every action of the rite. He read with emotion, in a low and almost weary voice, unhurriedly, pronouncing each word distinctly.” Another priest, Father Clement Naef, noted that Padre Pio seemed to spend ten to fifteen minutes adoring the consecrated bread and wine. Towards the end of his life Padre Pio was not able to sustain such a long Mass, and his Masses were only about an hour long. He would say: “Give free course to your tears, because that is the work of God in you, and do not be concerned about what bystanders might think!”
Every day Padre Pio would usually pray anywhere from 30 to 50 Rosaries consisting of five-decades each. When asked by someone: “How can you pray so many Rosaries in day?” Padre Pio responded: “And how is it that you pray so few each day?” Likewise, we could envisage someone asking him: “Why is it that you cry so much every day?” and Padre Pio replying: “Why is it that you cry so little?” We are all guilty of committing many sins―why is it that cry so little about having committed the greatest evils in the world?
“Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin!” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). “Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us!” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
Tears and Repentance
Repentance may be defined as a virtue that makes the will of a sinner grieve over sin and to make reparation to God for the injury it does to His rights. Repentance comes from the will, by acts of regret, resolution, and reparation. Repentance does not consist in emotional sorrow, and it does not need to be sensibly felt or joined with tears. Tears do not harm repentance, they can even help deepen repentance―but, by themselves, tears are not repentance, just like leaves are not part of a tree unless they are attached to it. Leaves by themselves do not constitute a tree―but leaves on a tree can enhance the tree.
Fr. Heribert Jone, in his Moral Theology (§572) states that the Intense sorrow of the penitent is one of several reasons that are sufficient to excuse the priest from imposing a grave penance. Fr. Dominic Prummer, in his Handbook of Moral Theology (§674), states that a grave penance should be imposed for a grave sin, but there are just causes permitting the imposition of a smaller penance, such as deep and unusual contrition. Tears can be an indication deep and unusual contrition―but as said above, tears by themselves without the sorrow and resolution of the will (heart), are not an indication of true sorrow for sin. There are many people who can turn on their faucet of tears any time they want―and those tears are usually “crocodile tears”. It is a little like Our Lord’s words to the Jews: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honors Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8) ― which you could change into: “Hypocrites! This people shed tears with their eyes: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8).
St. Ambrose of Milan, who received the converted and tearful St. Augustine into the Church, wrote on the subject of tears: “Peter became saddened and wept because he erred like all men. I cannot find what he said―I find only that he wept. I read his tears―I do not read what he gave in recompense. But what cannot be excused, can be cleansed. Tears speak of the offence without horrifying. Tears recognize the sin without causing one to blush. Tears do not ask forgiveness, but they merit it. I discovered why Peter remained silent, so that asking for forgiveness so quickly he would not further increase his guilt. First we must weep―excellent tears so that they cleanse the guilt―then we must pray. Indeed, those who see Christ’s gaze begin to weep. Peter denied Him a first time, but did not shed a tear―because the Lord’s gaze did not meet his. He denied Him a second time and again he did not shed a tear―because the Lord’s gaze had not yet come upon him. He denied Him a third time―this time Christ’s gaze fell upon him and he wept bitterly. Gaze upon us, Lord Jesus, so that we may learn to weep for our sins!”
“The Lord, the God of hosts shall call to weeping and to mourning, to shaving the head, and to clothing with sackcloth!” (Isaias 22:12). “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you! Cleanse your hands, ye sinners―and purify your hearts, ye double minded! Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep! Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into sorrow!” (James 4:8-9). “I have declared to Thee my life, O Lord, Thou hast set my tears in Thy sight!” (Psalm 55:9). “An afflicted spirit, a contrite and humbled heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise!” (Psalms 50:19).
Tears are a God-given gift in both the natural and supernatural spheres. Nothing in God’s creation is pointless or useless―and that includes tears. St. Thomas Aquinas says that the natural reflects the supernatural―for we see and know something of God by looking at His creation and creatures. He also says that the supernatural builds upon the foundations of the natural―as grace builds on nature and perfects nature, but it cannot perfect something that is not there in the first place.
Natural Benefits of Tears and Crying
In the natural sphere, crying is a natural response to a range of emotions, from deep sadness and grief to extreme happiness and joy. But is crying good for your health? The answer appears to be yes. Crying is an important safety valve, largely because keeping difficult feelings inside — what psychologists call repressive coping — can be bad for our health. Researchers note that, on average, American women cry 3.5 times each month, while American men cry about 1.9 times each month. These figures may take some of us by surprise, especially as our society has often looked at crying — particularly by men — as a sign of weakness and lack of emotional stamina. Having a good cry can sometimes be just what the doctor ordered. In fact, some psychologists even suggest that we may be doing ourselves a disservice by not tearing up regularly. Like the ocean, tears are saltwater―and just as bathing in the saltwater ocean is healthy for you, so too is bathing yourself in your tears.
The Japanese are such strong believers in the health benefits of crying that they've taken that wisdom to the next level. Some cities in Japan now have “crying clubs” called rui-katsu (meaning, literally, “tear-seeking”), where people come together to indulge in good old-fashioned sobfests. To help the tears flow, participants watch tearjerker movies, shows, news reports, interviews, etc. The premise? Crying releases stress, and is therefore is a great practice when it comes to staying mentally healthy. Dr. Stephen Sideroff, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at UCLA, says: “Letting down one’s guard and one’s defenses by crying is a very positive, healthy thing. The same thing happens when you watch a movie and it touches you and you cry... That is a process of opening into yourself ... it is like a lock and key. Crying in a group can validate [the practice] and tell you that it is something that’s okay to do. For a lot of people, it can make it easier to cry.”
Scientists divide the liquid product of crying into three distinct categories: reflex tears, continuous tears, and emotional tears.
► BASAL TEARS: The tear ducts constantly secrete basal tears, which are a protein-rich antibacterial liquid that help to keep the eyes moist every time a person blinks.
► REFLEX TEARS: These are tears triggered by irritants such as wind, smoke, or onions. They are released to flush out these irritants and protect the eye.
► EMOTIONAL TEARS: Humans shed tears in response to a range of emotions. These tears contain a higher level of stress hormones than other types of tears.
The first two categories perform the important function of removing debris such as smoke and dust from our eyes, and lubricating our eyes to help protect them from infection. Their content is 98% water. It is the third category, emotional tears (which flush stress hormones and other toxins out of our system), that potentially offers the most health benefits.
► CRYING HELPS DETOX THE BODY ― Humans produce three kinds of tears: reflex, continuous, and emotional. Each of these serves the purpose of helping to detox and cleanse your body. Reflect tears clean out debris from your eyes, such as smoke and dust, helping protect them. Continuous tears protect your eyes from infection by keeping them moist. Emotional tears contain stress hormones and other toxins that they flush from your body.
► CRYING BALANCES EMOTIONS ― Crying is often associated with negative feelings, such as feeling sad, angry, lonely, and more. However, humans cry when they experience happiness, fear, stress, and other emotions. For these reasons, crying can help bring emotional equilibrium by helping your body recover from various strong, complex emotions.
► CRYING HELPS IMPROVE YOUR MOOD ― Many people associate crying with feeling sad and making them feel worse, but in reality, crying can help improve your mood ― emotional tears release stress hormones. Your stress level lowers when you cry, which can help you sleep better and strengthen your immune system. You should feel better after a good cry once these hormones leave your body, leaving you feeling better than before.
► CRYING HELPS HEAL GRIEF ― If you have ever gone through the grieving process, you understand that it takes time to move through the various stages. Crying can help you through each step of grief as it aids in accepting losing a loved one. While crying does not work for everyone during this process, some find comfort in releasing emotions and helping them process their loss.
► CRYING HELPS TO SOOTHE ― When you cry, your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activates. Your PNS helps your body digest food and rest better. Any symptoms of stress, such as stomach aches and restlessness, can be relieved after crying. This will help you self-soothe and feel better. The benefits aren’t immediate, however. It may take several minutes of shedding tears before you feel the soothing effects of crying.
► CRYING LESSENS PAIN ― Whether you are experiencing physical or emotional pain, crying can help lessen the severity of this pain. Researchers have established that crying releases oxytocin and endogenous opioids, also known as endorphins. These feel-good chemicals help ease both physical and emotional pain. Endorphins are released while you cry, helping numb the pain and gradually give you a sense of overall calm. Once the endorphins are released, your body may go into somewhat of a numb stage. This process also plays a role in self-soothing as well as lessening the intensity of pain felt. Oxytocin can give you a sense of calm or well-being. Popular culture has always known the value of a good cry as a way to feel better.
► CRYING FIGHTS INFECTION ― When you don’t cry for a long time or are not producing tears, your eyes can become dry. Dry eyes can lead to discomfort and an inability to fight infection. By crying, your eyes will be more lubricated to alleviate the discomfort and help keep your eyes free of infection.
► CRYING ALERTS YOU TO SOMETHING WRONG ― Sometimes you may be suppressing painful emotions without realizing it. Crying can help you recognize that something is wrong, whether it be emotional or a physical situation you are in. Once you realize that something is going on, you can take the proper steps to identify precisely what that is. From there, you can cope with your emotions healthily to avoid further suppressing them.
► CRYING GETS YOU THE SUPPORT YOU NEED ― Feeling down can cause you to isolate or simply not tell those around you that you are struggling. However, crying can notify those close to you that you need help. This begins when you are a baby, as crying is an attachment behavior that babies engage in to receive attention, support and help from others. Crying for support doesn’t stop when you are an infant―it can continue into adulthood. Others see that you are struggling when you cry, and will often come to give you comfort and assistance.
Supernatural vs. Natural Tears
This gift of tears differs from normal tears, both in what triggers it―it is triggered by an experience of God, not by natural pain or sorrow or joy―and it also differs in how it occurs physiologically—generally, these the gift of tears are abundant, but they are not accompanied by the usual kind of sobbing, shaking, or the distortion of the facial muscles. Some spiritual writers distinguish between the gift of tears and tears that arise from merely human sensibilities, even when prompted by the beauty of spiritual realities. Tears, when bestowed by the Holy Spirit, are not an end in themselves to be analyzed, but they are meant to point us to a spiritual end, whether that end be conversion, contemplation, consolation, or more fervent prayer. They are not the racking, uncontrollable sobs of merely human grief. They go deeper.
Someone who has a particularly sensitive nature may often be moved to natural tears by thinking of or experiencing beautiful spiritual realities. This can be a very good thing, but it may not be, strictly speaking, the same as the gift of tears. Likewise, someone may go through periods or moments when their natural sensitivity is heightened (by stress or exhaustion, for instance), and this could make them more susceptible to shed tears in response to normal emotional stimulation―perception of beauty, sorrow at sin, etc. This type of crying can be emotionally renewing and of great benefit for the person (crying releases many hormones and toxins that are known to reduce stress levels), even though it may not, strictly speaking, be the gift of tears.
The gift of tears is spiritual grace and gift from the Holy Spirit that is bestowed on someone to bring about a healing flow through the tears that are shed. One must recognize one’s tendency toward weeping or the expression of deep emotions through tears in order to differentiate between the natural versus spiritual gift of tears. Natural tears are often mistaken for this supernatural gift, especially when they occur during or after an intense spiritual experience. The best distinction of the spiritual gift of tears is by the resulting fruit. We must always remember that by our fruits they will know us. The fruit of such tears leads both the recipient of this gift and others who witness it to joy and abiding peace. This definition casts aside the false idea that the gift of tears includes anyone who cries from a touching spiritual or emotional sentiment. This definition casts aside the false idea that the gift of tears includes anyone who cries from a touching spiritual or emotional sentiment. If our imagined gift of tears makes us feel proud, promoted, special, elevated, set aside from others, superior to others, etc. — then it is not of divine origin, but natural or even a trick of the devil.
St. Teresa of Avila, who was well known for her spiritual ecstasies, likened the gift of tears to the state of contemplation. Contemplation, we know, is divergent from meditation in that one must be invited by God to enter into contemplation. In meditation, we can discipline ourselves to ponder a profound mystery of faith, but contemplation is an unheeded gift that comes as God wills. Very similarly are we granted the gift of tears—at a time or place we neither expect nor desire through our own will. We may be caught off guard when the tears begin, but our hearts are elevated to a state of immense joy as we interiorly praise and honor God. The gift of tears is one way the Holy Spirit infuses Himself into a person’s soul through the action of crying or weeping. During the infusion of this gift, a person may be unable to articulate what is happening inside him or her. The person may also notice that they are in a state of prayer without words, that is more of a subconscious offering of love—a wordless means of communicating with God. The gift of tears may very well lead one to experience a taste of the unitive spiritual state, but as it quickly arrives, it almost always leaves just as rapidly―leaving us wondering whether this was just superficial and hypocritical!
The gift of tears is considered a charismatic gift, a manifold of spiritual blessings to whomever the Holy Spirit grants it. People who receive this gift may experience it only once or perhaps multiple times―but the gift itself is NOT an indication of one’s level of holiness, NOR the achievement of perfect union with God. Many saints declared the importance of accepting such unexpected spiritual consolations with gratitude, but they warned against the distraction of loving the gift more than the Giver. In other words, we should not focus our attention on any spiritual charism that happens to bless our lives, but instead approach it with sincere and heartfelt thanksgiving, while allowing it to become a fleeting memory of the past that we do not continually go back to. It is merely passing, temporary, non-essential foreshadowing of eternal happiness, which is meant to encourage and inspire the recipient on his or her spiritual journey, but is not meant to the focal point of that journey, nor a distraction.
We must be careful not to seek particular experiences, such as raptures or ecstasies and other types of consolations or divine revelations. Even if they should happen to us, we must be cautious for two reasons. The first is to avoid becoming attached to the gift itself more than God the Giver. Authentic love cannot occur in a distracted and wandering heart, which is the temptation for one who has received an extraordinary spiritual charism. The second reason we must remain vigilant when we receive a spiritual gift is that the devil often uses these to lure us away from God through distraction and attachment. We cannot be absolutely certain that a spiritual gift, whether it is the gift of tears, contemplation, or something else, is derived from God. The ultimate tempter knows how to stealthily entice us even through such seemingly benevolent experiences, such as these.
We Do Not Weep Enough!
The gift of tears is under-appreciated today. And yet, this grace has inspired reverence throughout the Church’s tradition. A response of the heart, prompted by the Holy Spirit, it is akin to those “groanings which cannot be uttered.” (Romans 8:26) The tears that fill our eyes, unbidden, may express sorrow for sin. Or perhaps they come from compassion, a sharing of another person’s grief. Or perhaps from the overwhelming knowledge and sense of God’s presence. Whatever prompts them, they are a deep affective response to spiritual realities.
Scripture is full of weeping, from Joseph’s tears in Genesis, all the way to Revelation. We see tears frequently in the Old Testament: tears of repentance, tears of lamentation, tears of sorrow. The prophets weep: Isaias “drenching” with tears those for whom he prays; Jeremias—known as the weeping prophet—compares his eyes to a fountain. God weeps over His errant people. Israel weeps in repentance, and God cannot resist. In the New Testament, Christ weeps, touched by the sorrow of Martha and Mary at the death of Lazarus. Mary Magdalen washes Jesus’ feet with tears of repentance and love. Peter weeps bitterly after denying his Lord three times and meeting Jesus’ sorrowful gaze. St. Paul weeps tears of admonishment: “Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears” he tells the Ephesians. (Acts 20:31) In early Christian tradition, the Desert Fathers held the gift of tears in high regard, calling the gift of tears a “second baptism.” The doctrine of penthos, or tears of compunction, appeared often in patristic works and remains at the heart of Eastern Christianity.
Likewise the saints weep, one after another. From St. Catherine of Sienna, to whom Christ dictated a treatise on tears, to St. Ignatius, who often became tearful while celebrating Mass because he was overcome by the beauty of the worship and the profundity of God’s love. His tears arose from his relationship with God, which was deeply intimate. St. Ignatius wrote about these experiences in his Spiritual Exercises, in the section on Discernment of Spirits: “God and the good angels will also act on your soul in these contrary ways [we will only quote what he says about tears]: He will bring forth tears―these are not tears of sorrow, but tears that heal. Tears will cleanse when you open your heart to God’s cleansing mercy and when you are filled with a holy sorrow for sin. The tears perceive the freedom that awaits.” As a novice, St. Padre Pio took to placing a large handkerchief on the floor in front of him to soak up his tears―for his constant tears were leaving traces on the stone floor of the choir where he prayed. St. John Vianney could not speak of sinners and sins without weeping. “Tears are the heart’s blood,” said St. Augustine, referring to the tears of his mother Monica—tears which purchased his conversion.
Acknowledging the spiritual efficacy of tears, the Church even offers a Mass “For the Gift of Tears,” with its beautiful Collect: “Almighty and most gentle God, who brought forth from the rock a fountain of living water for your thirsty people, bring forth we pray, from the hardness of our heart, tears of sorrow, that we may lament our sins and merit forgiveness from your mercy.”
Tears are “the work of God in you,” says St. Padre Pio. Our Lady of La Salette should etch into our minds and hearts her strong, silent image―with her head in hands, weeping for the sins of mankind. We need to weep more. Keeping a “stiff upper lip” is a survival mechanism, but it can isolate us and keep us safely distanced from the evils of our times. The message of the tears of Our Lady of Sorrows is that have gone too far. We need to weep with Mary, Mater dolorosa, as we say in the Stabat Mater:
“Let me mingle tears with thee, mourning Him who mourned for me, all the days that I may live!
By the cross with thee to stay, there with thee to weep and pray, is all I ask of thee to give!”
DAILY THOUGHTS FOR AUGUST
MONTH OF THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY
MONTH OF THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY
Article 14
Wednesday August 30th & Thursday August 31st & Friday September 1st, 2023
Guilty or Not Guilty?
Wednesday August 30th & Thursday August 31st & Friday September 1st, 2023
Guilty or Not Guilty?
When is Guilty and Not-Guilty Not True?
It seems like it is black and white, doesn’t it? “Guilty” is guilty and “not-guilty” is not-guilty! “Guilty” means as guilty as Hell and “not-guilty” means as innocent as a babe! Or does it? Could “guilty” be “not-guilty” and could “not-guilty” be “guilty”? With the former US President, Donald Trump, has six scheduled criminal and civil trials over the next nine months, with the possibility of a seventh before the 2024 GOP National Convention, in which he has or will no doubt plead “not-guilty.” Is he lying when he pleads “not-guilty”? If he is guilty, should he be honest and plead “guilty”? If he is guilty, then is he a liar if he pleads “not-guilty”? What about you? If you are indicted and brought to court on a criminal or civil charge―and you know you are guilty of the offense―are you bound to confess your guilt by pleading “guilty” and would be sinning by lying if you pleaded “not-guilty”?
The difficulty can be resolved by a further clarification of what is legally understood by the terms “guilty” and “not-guilty.” All persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty―or at least that is how it should be. We must understand the legal definitions of the terms “guilty”, “not guilty”, and “innocent”, as well as “beyond a reasonable doubt”. While in lay usage the term “not guilty” is often synonymous with “innocent” ― in American criminal jurisprudence they are not the same thing.
“Not guilty” is merely a legal decision by the jury that the prosecution has not met its burden of showing proof beyond all reasonable doubt. Thus, a person who is found “not-guilty” is not necessarily “innocent” or he could be “innocent” ― the “not-guilty” verdict is simply based upon proof and not fact. Many a true criminal has walked out of court smiling at being given a “not-guilty” verdict―whereas they were “guilty as Hell”, but it could not be sufficiently proved. Therefore, to sum-up, the term “not-guilty” can mean one of two things: (1) “not-guilty” according to the evidence provided, but “guilty” in reality before God; or (2) “not-guilty” according to the evidence provided, and also “not-guilty” in reality before God.
According to human law, there is no law that requires any defendant to plead guilty. It doesn’t matter if 50 people see the person do the crime, or if the police caught them in the act, or there are multiple videos that show the person committing the offense, etc. They accused have the right to due process―which means they can enter the “not guilty” plea, and put the burden of proof on the prosecution in front of the jury. They also have the right to a defense―an attorney who does what he can to establish reasonable doubt. Jurors are instructed to follow the rules of law and consider only the evidence the prosecutor and defense present at trial. They are to disregard any other information they have come across about the case outside of the court―easier said than done!
Guilt in Moral Theology
Fr. McHugh & Fr. Callan, in their book, Moral Theology―A Complete Course Based on St. Thomas Aquinas, speaks of various scenarios. Here is the verbatim quote concerning pleas of “guilty” and “not-guilty” in the presence of a court of law:
§1975. The Defendant
The party who is required to make answer to the charges of the plaintiff or prosecutor is known as the defendant or the accused. We shall now speak of the ways in which he may be guilty of injustice, and shall consider the following cases:
(a) the defendant in civil cases; (b) the accused in criminal cases who is innocent; (c) the accused in criminal cases who is guilty.
§1976. The Duties of the Defendant in Civil Cases
(a) Before Sentence.―If the cause of the plaintiff is clearly just, the defendant as a matter of justice should recognize the claim and withdraw from the case. But a defendant may take exception to arguments offered by the plaintiff which, though actually valid, are not juridically made.
(b) After Sentence.―If the cause of the plaintiff is clearly just but loses in court, the defendant is obliged in conscience to pay the claim, even though the plaintiff does not appeal the case; he is also obliged in conscience to indemnify the plaintiff for the expenses of litigation, if the latter lost the case on account of unjust means employed by the defendant.
§1977. The Duties of One Who Has Been Arrested on a Criminal Charge
(a) If the accused person is innocent, he may take to flight, or even offer positive resistance, provided he does no injury to those who attack him, and public scandal or disorder does not result from the resistance. This is according to natural law, which permits one to use self-defense against unjust aggression; but since the positive law requires the accused to submit to arrest that is not manifestly unlawful, and empowers the officers to employ force against those who resist, it seems that generally the accused should permit himself to be taken under protest, if he cannot escape.
(b) If the accused person is guilty, he may take to flight, since he has not yet been sentenced as guilty, nor officially deprived of his liberty; but he may not offer resistance to those who are sent to apprehend him, since their aggression against him is not unjust. The accused person, if not yet convicted, may even use indifferent means to escape from prison, such as sawing his way out or eluding the vigilance of the guards; but he may not employ sinful means, such as bribery of officials.
§1978. Duty of the Accused to Plead Guilty, if Questioned by the Judge
(a) If the accused is innocent, he may not plead guilty, as is clear. If to escape most grave evils he did plead guilty, he would be guilty of lying (if under oath, of perjury), but not of self-defamation; for, as the owner of his reputation, he has the right to sacrifice his reputation in order to escape greater evils. Neither would he be guilty of suicide, according to some, if the death penalty were the consequence of the confession; for his purpose would be to avoid what he dreaded more than death.
(b) If the accused is guilty, he must reply truthfully, if the judge has the right to ask the question; for if the judge has the right to question, then the accused has the obligation to answer, even though unpleasant things will befall him in consequence.
(c) If the accused is guilty, but the judge has no right to ask about his guilt (that is, if the judge does not question juridically or according to law, or if he questions from a false presumption of guilt), or if the accusation cannot be proved juridically by law, then the accused is not obliged to answer. He may keep silence or evade the truth, but it is not lawful to lie.
END OF QUOTE BY FATHERS McHUGH & CALLAN
Has the Law become Corrupted?
Law is much more than a whimsical, spur-of-the-moment, spontaneous, instantaneous, preferential, subjective “Do as I say!” concoction! Law is not a “flavor-of-the-season” dish, concocted to please the palate of the present ruling body! Law has to be based on objective moral truth. The government website (uscourts.gov) will tell you that “The U.S. Constitution is the nation’s fundamental law. It codifies the core values of the people. Courts have the responsibility to interpret the Constitution's meaning, as well as the meaning of any laws passed by Congress. If any law passed by Congress conflicts with the Constitution, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents. Nor does this conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the judicial to the legislative power. It only supposed that the power of the people is superior to both; and that where the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws, rather than by those which are not fundamental.”
All of the above sounds “fine-and-dandy”, “hunky-dory”, “all peaches and cream” ― but it is a reversal of how it should be reality. What is law? Well, from a purely non-scholarly or non-academic point of view we can all see―if we still have some common sense left in us, though common sense is no longer common anymore―that there are good laws and bad laws. As Our Lord said, “Beware of false prophets [legistlators/governors], who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves! By their fruits [laws] you shall know them. Every good tree brings forth good fruit [good laws], and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit [evil laws]. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit [evil laws], neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit [good laws]. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit [good laws], shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire! Wherefore by their fruits [laws] you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:15-20).
Legal Stew & Legal Pudding
So what are the laws of land? In which direction are they heading? What legal fruits are we bearing? Let us take a brief look at the “legal-stew” and the “ingredients” that have been gradually added over the years? As the proverb says: “The proof of the pudding is in the eating!” What kind of legal pudding have they been ramming-down our throats and making us swallow over these decades of legal cooking? In just a moment, we shall have a look at what the “master-chef” St. Thomas Aquinas has to say about law and legal recipes―but, for now, let us simply look at some the “dishes” or legal “fruits” that have been concocted and served to us over the recent decades and compare them to God’s legal “dishes and fruits”.
1st Commandment: “I am the Lord thy God! Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me!”
Today, God is no longer God for most nations―despite hypocritical slogans like: “In God we trust!” … “One nation under God!” One aspect of dethroning God is the refusal to allow religion to be taught in America’s public school system! Yet Satanism has been allowed a religious tax exempt status! The prohibiting of displaying God’s Ten Commandments in governmental public places! The prohibition of Christmas Nativity Scenes that clearly show God―the Son of God―in the manger! The other aspect of dethroning God is the enthronement of science as the new god―which we especially saw in the recent plannedemic with the continual mantra of “Follow the science! Follow the science!” What happened to following God? There are innumerable other idols or gods that have stolen time and attention from the One True God―everyone has their own personal, preferential idols: money; possessions (especially electronic idols such as computers, smartphones, televisions, etc.); fun and entertainment; sports; fashions; alcohol; drugs; sexual exploits (fornication, adultery, masturbation); pornography; and many other persons, places and things that have taken the place of God for time and attention. As Our Lady said: “People will only think of amusements and there will be unbridled luxury will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times … Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty! … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals!”
2nd Commandment: “Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain!”
This commandment generally and mainly deals with the sin of blasphemy. Fr. McHugh & Fr. Callan explain that “Blasphemy signifies damage done to reputation or character; it refers to insults or calumnies offered to God, and is threefold. Blasphemy can be committed (1) only in thought; (2) or in spoken words, or in their written or printed representations; (c) or by acts or gestures. Blasphemy attributes to God something that is false, or it denies something true. It is blasphemy to say that God is a tyrant or the cause of sin, or that man is able to overcome God. It is also blasphemy to deny that God is able to perform miracles, that His testimony is true, etc. Or when person in anger at God says scornfully: “God is good!” It includes the vain use of the Divine Name out of irreverence. There is also blasphemy that attacks what is especially dear to God, which consists in remarks or acts that are derogatory to the Blessed Virgin, the Saints, the Sacraments, the crucifix, the Bible, etc. Blasphemy is expressed even by short words, or by a grunt or snort of contempt. To utter the Name of Our Lord in a contumelious way signifies that one regards Him as of no account. The word “hocus-pocus” is sometimes used in derision of transubstantiation at Mass. Blasphemy is expressed by acts that signify disbelief and dishonor, for example, to spit or shake one’s fist at Heaven, to turn up the nose or make a wry face at the mention of God, to trample in the dust a crucifix, etc. Blasphemy that is directly against God Himself is worse than blasphemy against the Saints; blasphemy against the Blessed Virgin is worse than blasphemy against other friends of God; blasphemy that ascribes evil to God is greater than blasphemy that denies Him some perfection; blasphemy that excuses itself or boasts is worse than blasphemy that is more concealed; blasphemy that expressly intends to dishonor God is graver than blasphemy that only implicitly intends this. Unbelief is the greatest of sins after hatred of God, but blasphemy is the greatest of the sins against Faith, since to inner unbelief it adds external denial and insult.” (Fr. McHugh & Fr. Callan, Moral Theology―A Complete Course Based on St. Thomas Aquinas).
Today, about one quarter of the world's countries and territories―most of them Muslim-majority nations―still have anti-blasphemy laws. Pakistan is among the countries where blasphemy is punishable by death. In many instances, the accused are killed by mobs before legal proceedings even begin. Blasphemy is defined as the act of insulting God. In ancient Rome and Greece, blasphemy was associated with treason. In England, prohibition of blasphemy found its way into the law by the end of the 17th century―the English Act of 1698 stated that denying the Christian religion undermined the authority of the state and was blasphemous. Today, although blasphemy laws remain in some Western societies, prosecutions for blasphemy against Christianity have fallen out of favor in much of the Western world. In the United States, statutes criminalizing blasphemy still exist in Michigan, Wyoming, South Carolina and Oklahoma. However, in contrast, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution makes prosecutions for blasphemy impossible.
Today, we witness an ever-increasing tendency to blasphemy―both frequency and also as to who is the object of that blasphemy: that is to say, God, Our Lord, Our Lady, the Saints, the Faith, etc. We have especially seen lots of blasphemous art and blasphemous movies―where Our Lord, Our Lady and certain Saints have been depicted in sinful scenes, derogatory or mocking poses, or depicted in worldly fashion. Nothing is said or done to remove most of these blasphemous attacks. In fact, there is more of a “hullabaloo” about “cultural blasphemies” that target the LGBT homosexuals and lesbians and transgenderists, or people of another color or race―speak out against them and you are guilty of the modern day “cultural blasphemy”. This comes under the newly created “religious vilification laws” that prohibit speech that incites hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of persons on the basis of their religious belief or activity. Unless threats are involved, the laws do not carry the criminal sanction of imprisonment, only the possibility of fines, injunctions, and simply the time and money involved in defending against an allegation of religious vilification.
As for God―no reaction, no protection, no enforcement of the quasi-defunct laws of blasphemy that might still exist in some countries―those blasphemy laws are merely like old statues that remind us a bygone age, which no longer has any bearing on our present day. “Blaspheme” man and you could go to prison―blaspheme God and nobody even blinks and you might even receive applause and laughter! O the hypocrisy! Whatever happened to God’s law that commands: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). This is no longer the case with modern secular laws―it is now a case of love the LGBTQ with all your heart, mind, soul and strength―and woe to you if you don’t or if you discriminate against such sins! “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil! That put darkness for light, and light for darkness! That put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20).
Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres was favored with many apparitions by Our Lord and Our Lady in the late 1500s and early 1600s. In 1582, as she was praying before the altar, she saw the tabernacle open and Christ Himself emerged, suffering as He had on Calvary. She saw three swords hanging over the head of Christ. On each was written, “I shall punish heresy, blasphemy and impurity!” With this, she was given to understand all that would take place in our present days. She heard the voice of the Eternal Father saying: “This punishment will be for the 20th century.” Our Lady of Good Success would later, in 1610, repeat the same message to Mother Mariana: The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation, and those who should speak out will be silent!” Around 300 years later, Our Lady of Fatima, accompanied by the Child Jesus, reappeared to Sister Lucia of Fatima on December 10th, 1925. The Child Jesus spoke first: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.” Then Our Lady said: “My daughter, look at my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Try to console me! I promise to assist, at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months go to confession and receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for a quarter of an hour while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.” She explained later that this related to the five main types of blasphemies and offences committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary: that is against the Immaculate Conception; against Mary’s Virginity; against her Divine Maternity and her spiritual motherhood of mankind; for the offences of those who encourage in the hearts of children indifference, contempt and even hatred of her, and finally as reparation for those who outrage her in her holy images.
3rd Commandment: “Thou shalt keep Holy the Lord's Day!”
As the saying goes: “Nothing is sacred anymore!” ― and one prime area where that is true is in the keeping (or not keeping) the Lord’s Day. Sacred Sunday has degenerated into a Secular Sunday or Sports Sunday or Socializing Sunday or Shopping Sunday. We are so accustomed to stores being open on Sundays that it seems like they have always operated that way. But the general practice of stores opening on Sundays, all-year-round, didn’t start in America until the early 1970s. The Sunday-closing practice was a carryover from the centuries-old laws that prohibited non-essential commercial activity on Sundays―such things as dining is restaurants, travel orientated businesses, medical facilities, etc. were functioning all 7 days of the week. But in late 1969, change was in the wind―and non-essential stores increasingly kept their doors open on Sundays.
In the UK, large shops were required by law to be closed on a Sunday as a result of the Shops Act 1950. Over 40 years later, The Sunday Trading Act 1994 changed the law regarding Sunday shop opening hours in England and Wales. There are no equivalent restrictions in Scotland, but there are similar restrictions in Northern Ireland. Currently, under the Sunday Trading Act 1994, a distinction is made between large and small shops with regard to permissible trading hours. A shop is classified as being large if it is over 3,000 square feet in size. On Sundays, large shops may open for no more than 6 continual hours between the period 10am and 6pm. All large shops must close on Easter Sunday and on Christmas Day. In contrast, there are no opening restrictions for small shops (under 3,000 square feet). In effect, a small shop could open twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year, including Easter Sunday and Christmas Day, if the owner so wished.
As drastic a change as this was at the time, another Sunday-opening event, that took place about 25 years earlier, made even bigger news—movie theaters started showing movies on Sundays. Theaters had been barred by a city ordinance and by state law from opening on Sunday, but cities had the option of exempting themselves from the state law, which several cities did―and that number grew quickly.
Professional sports on Sundays in USA go back to the start of the 20th century. Baseball took a brick out the Lord’s Day by 1902, but it was rare. Only into the 1920s did it become more common to play on Sunday. American Football followed suit in the 1930s with the legal permission being left to each individual state’s preferences. In the 1950s and 1960s, most teams frequently scheduled doubleheaders on Sunday to maximize attendance and financial profit. Nowadays, professional sports leagues schedule games on Sundays in the United States as normal practice.
It is very hard to find precise statistics as to how many people work on Sundays―the typical statistical report clumps together both Saturday and Sunday under the generic term “weekend” without making any distinctions. Here is a chart that shows the stats for Europe. Nothing comparable was found for the USA.
It seems like it is black and white, doesn’t it? “Guilty” is guilty and “not-guilty” is not-guilty! “Guilty” means as guilty as Hell and “not-guilty” means as innocent as a babe! Or does it? Could “guilty” be “not-guilty” and could “not-guilty” be “guilty”? With the former US President, Donald Trump, has six scheduled criminal and civil trials over the next nine months, with the possibility of a seventh before the 2024 GOP National Convention, in which he has or will no doubt plead “not-guilty.” Is he lying when he pleads “not-guilty”? If he is guilty, should he be honest and plead “guilty”? If he is guilty, then is he a liar if he pleads “not-guilty”? What about you? If you are indicted and brought to court on a criminal or civil charge―and you know you are guilty of the offense―are you bound to confess your guilt by pleading “guilty” and would be sinning by lying if you pleaded “not-guilty”?
The difficulty can be resolved by a further clarification of what is legally understood by the terms “guilty” and “not-guilty.” All persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty―or at least that is how it should be. We must understand the legal definitions of the terms “guilty”, “not guilty”, and “innocent”, as well as “beyond a reasonable doubt”. While in lay usage the term “not guilty” is often synonymous with “innocent” ― in American criminal jurisprudence they are not the same thing.
“Not guilty” is merely a legal decision by the jury that the prosecution has not met its burden of showing proof beyond all reasonable doubt. Thus, a person who is found “not-guilty” is not necessarily “innocent” or he could be “innocent” ― the “not-guilty” verdict is simply based upon proof and not fact. Many a true criminal has walked out of court smiling at being given a “not-guilty” verdict―whereas they were “guilty as Hell”, but it could not be sufficiently proved. Therefore, to sum-up, the term “not-guilty” can mean one of two things: (1) “not-guilty” according to the evidence provided, but “guilty” in reality before God; or (2) “not-guilty” according to the evidence provided, and also “not-guilty” in reality before God.
According to human law, there is no law that requires any defendant to plead guilty. It doesn’t matter if 50 people see the person do the crime, or if the police caught them in the act, or there are multiple videos that show the person committing the offense, etc. They accused have the right to due process―which means they can enter the “not guilty” plea, and put the burden of proof on the prosecution in front of the jury. They also have the right to a defense―an attorney who does what he can to establish reasonable doubt. Jurors are instructed to follow the rules of law and consider only the evidence the prosecutor and defense present at trial. They are to disregard any other information they have come across about the case outside of the court―easier said than done!
Guilt in Moral Theology
Fr. McHugh & Fr. Callan, in their book, Moral Theology―A Complete Course Based on St. Thomas Aquinas, speaks of various scenarios. Here is the verbatim quote concerning pleas of “guilty” and “not-guilty” in the presence of a court of law:
§1975. The Defendant
The party who is required to make answer to the charges of the plaintiff or prosecutor is known as the defendant or the accused. We shall now speak of the ways in which he may be guilty of injustice, and shall consider the following cases:
(a) the defendant in civil cases; (b) the accused in criminal cases who is innocent; (c) the accused in criminal cases who is guilty.
§1976. The Duties of the Defendant in Civil Cases
(a) Before Sentence.―If the cause of the plaintiff is clearly just, the defendant as a matter of justice should recognize the claim and withdraw from the case. But a defendant may take exception to arguments offered by the plaintiff which, though actually valid, are not juridically made.
(b) After Sentence.―If the cause of the plaintiff is clearly just but loses in court, the defendant is obliged in conscience to pay the claim, even though the plaintiff does not appeal the case; he is also obliged in conscience to indemnify the plaintiff for the expenses of litigation, if the latter lost the case on account of unjust means employed by the defendant.
§1977. The Duties of One Who Has Been Arrested on a Criminal Charge
(a) If the accused person is innocent, he may take to flight, or even offer positive resistance, provided he does no injury to those who attack him, and public scandal or disorder does not result from the resistance. This is according to natural law, which permits one to use self-defense against unjust aggression; but since the positive law requires the accused to submit to arrest that is not manifestly unlawful, and empowers the officers to employ force against those who resist, it seems that generally the accused should permit himself to be taken under protest, if he cannot escape.
(b) If the accused person is guilty, he may take to flight, since he has not yet been sentenced as guilty, nor officially deprived of his liberty; but he may not offer resistance to those who are sent to apprehend him, since their aggression against him is not unjust. The accused person, if not yet convicted, may even use indifferent means to escape from prison, such as sawing his way out or eluding the vigilance of the guards; but he may not employ sinful means, such as bribery of officials.
§1978. Duty of the Accused to Plead Guilty, if Questioned by the Judge
(a) If the accused is innocent, he may not plead guilty, as is clear. If to escape most grave evils he did plead guilty, he would be guilty of lying (if under oath, of perjury), but not of self-defamation; for, as the owner of his reputation, he has the right to sacrifice his reputation in order to escape greater evils. Neither would he be guilty of suicide, according to some, if the death penalty were the consequence of the confession; for his purpose would be to avoid what he dreaded more than death.
(b) If the accused is guilty, he must reply truthfully, if the judge has the right to ask the question; for if the judge has the right to question, then the accused has the obligation to answer, even though unpleasant things will befall him in consequence.
(c) If the accused is guilty, but the judge has no right to ask about his guilt (that is, if the judge does not question juridically or according to law, or if he questions from a false presumption of guilt), or if the accusation cannot be proved juridically by law, then the accused is not obliged to answer. He may keep silence or evade the truth, but it is not lawful to lie.
END OF QUOTE BY FATHERS McHUGH & CALLAN
Has the Law become Corrupted?
Law is much more than a whimsical, spur-of-the-moment, spontaneous, instantaneous, preferential, subjective “Do as I say!” concoction! Law is not a “flavor-of-the-season” dish, concocted to please the palate of the present ruling body! Law has to be based on objective moral truth. The government website (uscourts.gov) will tell you that “The U.S. Constitution is the nation’s fundamental law. It codifies the core values of the people. Courts have the responsibility to interpret the Constitution's meaning, as well as the meaning of any laws passed by Congress. If any law passed by Congress conflicts with the Constitution, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents. Nor does this conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the judicial to the legislative power. It only supposed that the power of the people is superior to both; and that where the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws, rather than by those which are not fundamental.”
All of the above sounds “fine-and-dandy”, “hunky-dory”, “all peaches and cream” ― but it is a reversal of how it should be reality. What is law? Well, from a purely non-scholarly or non-academic point of view we can all see―if we still have some common sense left in us, though common sense is no longer common anymore―that there are good laws and bad laws. As Our Lord said, “Beware of false prophets [legistlators/governors], who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves! By their fruits [laws] you shall know them. Every good tree brings forth good fruit [good laws], and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit [evil laws]. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit [evil laws], neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit [good laws]. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit [good laws], shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire! Wherefore by their fruits [laws] you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:15-20).
Legal Stew & Legal Pudding
So what are the laws of land? In which direction are they heading? What legal fruits are we bearing? Let us take a brief look at the “legal-stew” and the “ingredients” that have been gradually added over the years? As the proverb says: “The proof of the pudding is in the eating!” What kind of legal pudding have they been ramming-down our throats and making us swallow over these decades of legal cooking? In just a moment, we shall have a look at what the “master-chef” St. Thomas Aquinas has to say about law and legal recipes―but, for now, let us simply look at some the “dishes” or legal “fruits” that have been concocted and served to us over the recent decades and compare them to God’s legal “dishes and fruits”.
1st Commandment: “I am the Lord thy God! Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me!”
Today, God is no longer God for most nations―despite hypocritical slogans like: “In God we trust!” … “One nation under God!” One aspect of dethroning God is the refusal to allow religion to be taught in America’s public school system! Yet Satanism has been allowed a religious tax exempt status! The prohibiting of displaying God’s Ten Commandments in governmental public places! The prohibition of Christmas Nativity Scenes that clearly show God―the Son of God―in the manger! The other aspect of dethroning God is the enthronement of science as the new god―which we especially saw in the recent plannedemic with the continual mantra of “Follow the science! Follow the science!” What happened to following God? There are innumerable other idols or gods that have stolen time and attention from the One True God―everyone has their own personal, preferential idols: money; possessions (especially electronic idols such as computers, smartphones, televisions, etc.); fun and entertainment; sports; fashions; alcohol; drugs; sexual exploits (fornication, adultery, masturbation); pornography; and many other persons, places and things that have taken the place of God for time and attention. As Our Lady said: “People will only think of amusements and there will be unbridled luxury will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times … Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty! … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals!”
2nd Commandment: “Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain!”
This commandment generally and mainly deals with the sin of blasphemy. Fr. McHugh & Fr. Callan explain that “Blasphemy signifies damage done to reputation or character; it refers to insults or calumnies offered to God, and is threefold. Blasphemy can be committed (1) only in thought; (2) or in spoken words, or in their written or printed representations; (c) or by acts or gestures. Blasphemy attributes to God something that is false, or it denies something true. It is blasphemy to say that God is a tyrant or the cause of sin, or that man is able to overcome God. It is also blasphemy to deny that God is able to perform miracles, that His testimony is true, etc. Or when person in anger at God says scornfully: “God is good!” It includes the vain use of the Divine Name out of irreverence. There is also blasphemy that attacks what is especially dear to God, which consists in remarks or acts that are derogatory to the Blessed Virgin, the Saints, the Sacraments, the crucifix, the Bible, etc. Blasphemy is expressed even by short words, or by a grunt or snort of contempt. To utter the Name of Our Lord in a contumelious way signifies that one regards Him as of no account. The word “hocus-pocus” is sometimes used in derision of transubstantiation at Mass. Blasphemy is expressed by acts that signify disbelief and dishonor, for example, to spit or shake one’s fist at Heaven, to turn up the nose or make a wry face at the mention of God, to trample in the dust a crucifix, etc. Blasphemy that is directly against God Himself is worse than blasphemy against the Saints; blasphemy against the Blessed Virgin is worse than blasphemy against other friends of God; blasphemy that ascribes evil to God is greater than blasphemy that denies Him some perfection; blasphemy that excuses itself or boasts is worse than blasphemy that is more concealed; blasphemy that expressly intends to dishonor God is graver than blasphemy that only implicitly intends this. Unbelief is the greatest of sins after hatred of God, but blasphemy is the greatest of the sins against Faith, since to inner unbelief it adds external denial and insult.” (Fr. McHugh & Fr. Callan, Moral Theology―A Complete Course Based on St. Thomas Aquinas).
Today, about one quarter of the world's countries and territories―most of them Muslim-majority nations―still have anti-blasphemy laws. Pakistan is among the countries where blasphemy is punishable by death. In many instances, the accused are killed by mobs before legal proceedings even begin. Blasphemy is defined as the act of insulting God. In ancient Rome and Greece, blasphemy was associated with treason. In England, prohibition of blasphemy found its way into the law by the end of the 17th century―the English Act of 1698 stated that denying the Christian religion undermined the authority of the state and was blasphemous. Today, although blasphemy laws remain in some Western societies, prosecutions for blasphemy against Christianity have fallen out of favor in much of the Western world. In the United States, statutes criminalizing blasphemy still exist in Michigan, Wyoming, South Carolina and Oklahoma. However, in contrast, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution makes prosecutions for blasphemy impossible.
Today, we witness an ever-increasing tendency to blasphemy―both frequency and also as to who is the object of that blasphemy: that is to say, God, Our Lord, Our Lady, the Saints, the Faith, etc. We have especially seen lots of blasphemous art and blasphemous movies―where Our Lord, Our Lady and certain Saints have been depicted in sinful scenes, derogatory or mocking poses, or depicted in worldly fashion. Nothing is said or done to remove most of these blasphemous attacks. In fact, there is more of a “hullabaloo” about “cultural blasphemies” that target the LGBT homosexuals and lesbians and transgenderists, or people of another color or race―speak out against them and you are guilty of the modern day “cultural blasphemy”. This comes under the newly created “religious vilification laws” that prohibit speech that incites hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of persons on the basis of their religious belief or activity. Unless threats are involved, the laws do not carry the criminal sanction of imprisonment, only the possibility of fines, injunctions, and simply the time and money involved in defending against an allegation of religious vilification.
As for God―no reaction, no protection, no enforcement of the quasi-defunct laws of blasphemy that might still exist in some countries―those blasphemy laws are merely like old statues that remind us a bygone age, which no longer has any bearing on our present day. “Blaspheme” man and you could go to prison―blaspheme God and nobody even blinks and you might even receive applause and laughter! O the hypocrisy! Whatever happened to God’s law that commands: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). This is no longer the case with modern secular laws―it is now a case of love the LGBTQ with all your heart, mind, soul and strength―and woe to you if you don’t or if you discriminate against such sins! “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil! That put darkness for light, and light for darkness! That put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20).
Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres was favored with many apparitions by Our Lord and Our Lady in the late 1500s and early 1600s. In 1582, as she was praying before the altar, she saw the tabernacle open and Christ Himself emerged, suffering as He had on Calvary. She saw three swords hanging over the head of Christ. On each was written, “I shall punish heresy, blasphemy and impurity!” With this, she was given to understand all that would take place in our present days. She heard the voice of the Eternal Father saying: “This punishment will be for the 20th century.” Our Lady of Good Success would later, in 1610, repeat the same message to Mother Mariana: The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation, and those who should speak out will be silent!” Around 300 years later, Our Lady of Fatima, accompanied by the Child Jesus, reappeared to Sister Lucia of Fatima on December 10th, 1925. The Child Jesus spoke first: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.” Then Our Lady said: “My daughter, look at my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Try to console me! I promise to assist, at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months go to confession and receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for a quarter of an hour while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.” She explained later that this related to the five main types of blasphemies and offences committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary: that is against the Immaculate Conception; against Mary’s Virginity; against her Divine Maternity and her spiritual motherhood of mankind; for the offences of those who encourage in the hearts of children indifference, contempt and even hatred of her, and finally as reparation for those who outrage her in her holy images.
3rd Commandment: “Thou shalt keep Holy the Lord's Day!”
As the saying goes: “Nothing is sacred anymore!” ― and one prime area where that is true is in the keeping (or not keeping) the Lord’s Day. Sacred Sunday has degenerated into a Secular Sunday or Sports Sunday or Socializing Sunday or Shopping Sunday. We are so accustomed to stores being open on Sundays that it seems like they have always operated that way. But the general practice of stores opening on Sundays, all-year-round, didn’t start in America until the early 1970s. The Sunday-closing practice was a carryover from the centuries-old laws that prohibited non-essential commercial activity on Sundays―such things as dining is restaurants, travel orientated businesses, medical facilities, etc. were functioning all 7 days of the week. But in late 1969, change was in the wind―and non-essential stores increasingly kept their doors open on Sundays.
In the UK, large shops were required by law to be closed on a Sunday as a result of the Shops Act 1950. Over 40 years later, The Sunday Trading Act 1994 changed the law regarding Sunday shop opening hours in England and Wales. There are no equivalent restrictions in Scotland, but there are similar restrictions in Northern Ireland. Currently, under the Sunday Trading Act 1994, a distinction is made between large and small shops with regard to permissible trading hours. A shop is classified as being large if it is over 3,000 square feet in size. On Sundays, large shops may open for no more than 6 continual hours between the period 10am and 6pm. All large shops must close on Easter Sunday and on Christmas Day. In contrast, there are no opening restrictions for small shops (under 3,000 square feet). In effect, a small shop could open twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year, including Easter Sunday and Christmas Day, if the owner so wished.
As drastic a change as this was at the time, another Sunday-opening event, that took place about 25 years earlier, made even bigger news—movie theaters started showing movies on Sundays. Theaters had been barred by a city ordinance and by state law from opening on Sunday, but cities had the option of exempting themselves from the state law, which several cities did―and that number grew quickly.
Professional sports on Sundays in USA go back to the start of the 20th century. Baseball took a brick out the Lord’s Day by 1902, but it was rare. Only into the 1920s did it become more common to play on Sunday. American Football followed suit in the 1930s with the legal permission being left to each individual state’s preferences. In the 1950s and 1960s, most teams frequently scheduled doubleheaders on Sunday to maximize attendance and financial profit. Nowadays, professional sports leagues schedule games on Sundays in the United States as normal practice.
It is very hard to find precise statistics as to how many people work on Sundays―the typical statistical report clumps together both Saturday and Sunday under the generic term “weekend” without making any distinctions. Here is a chart that shows the stats for Europe. Nothing comparable was found for the USA.
Generally, it is the god of money or the idol of profit that has dictated and facilitated the gradual introduction of a policy or attitude of “Stuff the Lord’s Day―We want to make money and play!” Governmental legislation is only too pleased to accommodate that attitude―some countries more, some less―yet the desecration of the Lord’s Day exists everywhere and is on the increase even in the most conservative countries.
4th Commandment: “Honor thy father and thy mother!”
This commandment is merely the tip of an iceberg of honor that should be shown to everyone―both to those in authority over us and also to those over whom we have authority and to our fellow man. Nevertheless, just as “charity begins at home”―so too does honor begin at home. If we do not learn how to show honor with the family setting, then we are unlikely to show much honor outside of the family setting. Holy Scripture not only speaks of children having to show honor to their parents, but it also commands parents to honor their children and for spouses to honor each other. This commandment is the very principle of what might be called the spirit of the family. You could say that this Fourth Commandment is a Family Commandment―one for our immediate family (parents and children) and our extended family (not just family relatives, but also the whole human family).
The family’s role in society is irreplaceable since it is the only true channel for the existence and perfection of society including Church and State. Families, practicing the Fourth Commandment, are the true foundation of any organic Christian society―like cells that make up a body―in this case the Mystical Body of Christ. We see this in the Church when Our Lord Jesus Christ addressed his followers as “My brothers and sisters,” and when He instructed us to pray to our Father in Heaven. We call the Church, Holy Mother Church and we call Mary, our Heavenly Mother. We use titles like for the clergy and the religious such as “Holy Father”, “Reverend Father”, and “Mother Superior”. All these are expressions of the “spirit of the family” which stretches far beyond the limits of our immediate family at home.
Many American families have the impression that the Fourth Commandment is mainly directed at children, as if children are freed from this obligation to honor their parents once they become adults. They take this freedom so seriously that some states even have laws granting emancipation at the early age of sixteen. In California, it’s fourteen. Did God intend a statute of limitations for the Fourth Commandment? Is the application of this commandment different for a thirteen-year-old than it is for a thirty-one-year-old; one who has attained the age of sixteen or sixty-one? Is the meaning of the commandment simply “to obey?” Then why did God use the mandate “honor” instead of simply “obey?” Does God solely expect us “honor” our parents while being free to “dishonor” anyone and everyone else? To really understand this commandment, we need to delve into the meaning of “honor.”
Few authors have written about honor and it is one of hardest things to define. One thing is certain―honor is ranked very highly as we can see from the sinful duels that men would enter into―duels often resulting in death―in order to defend their honor which had been blackened by the words or actions of another person. Honor involves the esteem and good reputation that we have in face of others―it is a quality that shines forth. We value honor―as can be seen from things such as a bumper sticker that says: “My son/daughter is an honor student in whatever school”; or we use the word “honor” in expressions like, “It’s an honor to meet you,” or “Can you do the honors?”, or “Can you do me the honor of…”; or when we address a judge as “your honor,” and a prominent political figures as “the honorable Mr. Smith”; or a Marine recruitment billboard that says, “Honor” giving the impression that the word defines the soul of the Marine. Whether we realize it or not, honor means a lot. The book of Ecclesiastics points out that “For the glory of a man is from the honor of his father, and a father without honor is the disgrace of the son” (Ecclesiasticus 3:13).
Hebrews use the word honor to describe a person of importance or value. The Romans use honor to describe a person of respectability and high esteem. The Greeks, however, use the word honor to describe a person of great renown, glory, splendor and almost divine quality. Some Catholic scholars define honor as the esteem given to the standards of excellence we see in people, especially when they reflect God―and, as Christians, we have to reflect God: “I am the Almighty God! Walk before Me and be perfect!” (Genesis 17:1). “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” says Jesus (Matthew 5:48). One has honor by holding oneself to standards of excellence and perfection―which may or may not be recognized immediately.
People from other countries are shocked at how poorly many Americans treat their parents, and elders in general. Not only do their children treat disrespectfully, they sponge off them as long as possible, and then shuffle them off to nursing homes, while ignoring the great wisdom they have to offer. The modern media culture is one of the great offenders here―depicting parents and the aged as objects of ridicule, clueless buffoons, who are hopelessly out of touch with What’s Happening Now. If that is how many (or most) children treat their parents, then how can they be expected to treat God any better? For our earthly father is (or should be) a reflection of our heavenly Father. We come to know our heavenly Father to a certain degree through our earthly father―who should be showing us in a finite degree the perfections that God has in an infinite degree. An infant and a young child―upon hearing the expression “your Father in Heaven”―will immediately relate and associate the heavenly Father with the earthly father, while being told that the heavenly Father is somewhat like the child’s earthly father, but only much better.
Sadly, however, today the family is attacked. As Sr. Lucia of Fatima said: “A time will come when the decisive battle, between the kingdom of Christ and Satan, will be over marriage and the family. And those who will work for the good of the family will experience persecution and tribulation.” We are now witnessing this battle and these attacks upon the God-given structure of the family in both legislative field through laws that are passed and also in the cultural field (especially in the media) as to how the family in general, and parents in particular, are portrayed. Over the recent decades there has been a massive shift in the media (television/movies/sit-coms) from representing families in a traditional structure to a modern version that destroys all traditional family values. Hence we have bumbling incompetent fathers and supermoms―which subtly relegates fatherly authority and subjugates to an increased motherly authority. Add to this the gradual injection of sin into these family depictions―such as extra-marital flirtation, immodest fashions, adultery, fornication, cohabitation, homosexuality, transgenderism, alcoholism, drug addiction, violence, rebellion, etc. All of this indirectly attacks and weakens the traditional family values by depicting these sins as being something normal or at least unavoidable. Those who watch these television shows, movies and sitcoms have their soul weakened in relation to these sins.
Modern day legislation is also “a slap-in-the-face” for God, Who created institution of marriage: “Have you not read, that God, Who made man from the beginning, made them male and female? And He said: ‘For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh!’ Therefore now, they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder!” (Matthew 19:4-6). Yes―marriage belongs to God because marriage was made by God―and God “made them male and female”, not male and male, nor female and female! It was Adam and Eve―not Adam and Steve, nor Anna and Eve! Yet modern-day legislation accepts the sinful unions of man with man, or woman with woman―which is in total diametrical opposition to God’s creation and God’s Law! This is further abominated by the legislative laws that allow divorce and the remarriage of divorced persons―and some of those divorces are “no fault divorces”, with couples divorcing for no reason at all. God said: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder!” That law of God’s has been trashed all around the world―and we have become so accepting of divorce, so “understanding” of divorce, so sympathetic to the divorcees!
Legislation has also divided the family in other ways―in that parental authority has been bypassed, ignored or outright refused. We see this in cases where the State has started to interfere with parental authority by “short-circuiting” their authority in ever-increasing scenarios. For example a child now has rights to contraception and contraceptive devices without the knowledge of the parents―50% of the States in the US legally allow this. As for abortion, the Planned Parenthood website has this advice for children: “Some states say you have to get permission from a parent or older family member to have an abortion. Other states don’t make you get permission, but your parents will have to know that you’re getting an abortion. And some states don’t have any laws about telling your parents or getting their permission. If your state does have parental involvement laws, you may be able to get a judge’s permission to have an abortion without telling your parents. This is called a judicial bypass.”
The child is now increasingly being encouraged and allowed by schools to choose what “gender” it wants to be―and the parents are not notified under the flimsy slogan of “a right to privacy”. There are many other laws that force parents down a certain road which they do not want to go―with the threat of taking away their children if they fail to cooperate with these evil laws.
5th Commandment: “Thou shall not kill!”
If the Fourth Commandment, “Honor they father and thy mother”, was all about honor to be shown to persons, then this Fifth Commandment is all about honor to be shown to human life in general. God of course actually commanded that sinners be killed for certain crimes―and it is not wrong to do so, such as in a legally enforced death penalty that is just. However, this Commandment forbids
St. Thomas Aquinas comments: “Man is bound towards all persons in general to inflict injury on no one: hence the negative precepts, which forbid the doing of those injuries that can be inflicted on one’s neighbor … All injuries that are inflicted on the person of our neighbor, are understood to be forbidden under the head of murder as being the chief injury above all others … In the divine law which tells us we must love God and our neighbor, it is commanded that we not only do good but also avoid evil. The greatest evil that can be done to one’s neighbor is to take his life. This is prohibited in the Commandment: ‘Thou shall not kill.’ Some have held that the killing of man is prohibited altogether. They believe that judges in the civil courts are murderers, who condemn men to death according to the laws. Against this St. Augustine says that God by this Commandment does not take away from Himself the right to kill. Thus, we read: “I will kill and I will make to live” (Deuteronomy 32:39). It is, therefore, lawful for a judge to kill according to a mandate from God, since in this God operates, and every law is a command of God: “By Me kings reign, and lawgivers decree just things” (Proverbs 8:15). And again: “For if you do what is evil, fear; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister” (Romans 13:14). To Moses also it was said: “Wizards you shall not allow to live” [Exodus 22:18]. And thus that which is lawful to God is lawful for His ministers when they act by His mandate. It is evident that God who is the Author of laws, has every right to inflict death on account of sin. For “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Neither does His minister sin in inflicting that punishment. The sense, therefore, of “You shall not kill” is that one shall not kill by one’s own authority.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Ten Commandments).
Yet even if it is the legal judiciary arm of a nation that kills―that act of killing is not always just and lawful. The punishment must fit the crime. The 7th Century BC Draconian Code of Athens (Greece) made death the penalty for every crime committed. The death penalty in Roman Law was different for nobility, freemen and slaves and punished crimes such as the publication of libels and insulting songs, the cutting or grazing of crops planted by a farmer, the burning of a house or a stack of corn near a house, cheating by a patron of his client, perjury, making disturbances at night in the city, willful murder of a freeman or a parent, or theft by a slave. In 438, the Code of Theodosius―a Roman Emperor―made more than 80 crimes punishable by death. Britain influenced the colonies more than any other country and has a long history of punishment by death. Under the reign of Henry VIII, the numbers of those put to death are estimated as high as 72,000. In Britain, the number of capital offenses continually increased until the 1700s at which time there were 222 crimes that were punishable by death. The British principles came to America with the early colonists. Under the Capital Laws of New-England, that went into effect between 1636-1647, the death penalty was meted out for pre-meditated murder, sodomy, witchcraft, adultery, idolatry, blasphemy, assault in anger, rape, statutory rape, man-stealing, perjury in a capital trial, rebellion, manslaughter, poisoning and bestiality. Early laws were accompanied by a scripture from the Old Testament. By 1780, Massachusetts only recognized seven capital crimes: murder, sodomy, burglary, buggery, arson, rape, and treason. Today, all of the prisoners currently on “Death Row” and all of those executed in the modern era of the application of the death penalty, were convicted of murder.
More than an estimated 15,269 Americans have been executed since the inception of the death penalty dating back to colonial times. According to Amnesty International, China executes more people than the rest of the world combined each year―but its actual numbers are classified as a state secret. Conservative estimates place China’s death penalty executions at a minimum of 1,000 per year. The worldwide total averages out at around 1,500 per year. Now presumably―so let us presume then―the vast majority of those executions are of true criminals that deserve the death penalty for the crimes that they have committed. How would you react if you found out that the vast majority of those executed persons had been wrongly executed―meaning that they were innocent of the accusations brought against them? What would think? What would you say? What would you do? Could you excuse yourself in doing nothing at all when you know that innocent blood is being shed? Would you come up with same lame excuse that the murderer Cain gave to God: “Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him. And the Lord said to Cain: ‘Where is thy brother Abel?’ And he answered: ‘I know not! Am I my brother's keeper?’ And the Lord said to him: ‘What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood cries to Me from the earth!’” (Genesis 4:8-10).
If God said that in view of only one innocent person being killed―what must God think if thousands of innocents persons are killed? Let us go a stage further and say: “What would God think if millions of innocent persons are killed?” Some might be thinking of the so-called “Holocaust”―but there is something that is not a so-called “Holocaust” but a real Holocaust. It is not a one-time Holocaust but a daily Holocaust that has been going on for years. Not just targeting people of one race, but people of all races! What is this human Holocaust that is being referred to? It is the Holocaust of Abortion! More than 1.5 BILLION (1,500 million) babies have been aborted worldwide in the past 50 years. An estimated 50 million abortions are carried out throughout the world every year―that is almost 1 MILLION PER WEEK. One in five pregnancies worldwide end in abortion. 42% of all yearly deaths in the world are from abortion. Every two seconds a baby is aborted somewhere in the world. Over 50 million abortions have taken place in the USA since 1973. Once Roe vs. Wade (1973) opened the floodgates to legalized abortion, the USA has seen an average of over 1 million babies murdered every year!
What is the crime that these babies have committed for them to have been given the death penalty and sentenced to death by one grisly method or another? Which court and jury found these babies to be criminals deserving of execution? They were found to be “guilty” without a trial, without evidence, without a defense attorney, without a judge, without fault! They were innocent, yet they were killed! That is murder! This is Holocaust of the greatest imaginable magnitude―a gigantic, heartless, brutal “Massacre of the Innocents”! The greatest crime against humanity that has ever been committed! Why do these women want an abortion? For eight out of every ten women it is the terrible, catastrophic, earth-shattering, spine-chilling reason of (1) bad timing for the pregnancy (36%), or (2) relationship problems (22%), or (3) feeling overwhelmed (18%)! Wow! How heartbreaking!!! Go tell the “guilty” baby that!
Just look at the riots that have taken place in recent years due to one single man or woman being killed by the police! Where are those rioters when it comes to little babies being butchered by abortionists? Heck! One man killed―and people take to streets rioting, burning cars, looting stores, etc. But each day there more than 2,500 babies butchered and barely anyone blinks! Life just goes on! Nothing to see here, folks! Just move on by!
4th Commandment: “Honor thy father and thy mother!”
This commandment is merely the tip of an iceberg of honor that should be shown to everyone―both to those in authority over us and also to those over whom we have authority and to our fellow man. Nevertheless, just as “charity begins at home”―so too does honor begin at home. If we do not learn how to show honor with the family setting, then we are unlikely to show much honor outside of the family setting. Holy Scripture not only speaks of children having to show honor to their parents, but it also commands parents to honor their children and for spouses to honor each other. This commandment is the very principle of what might be called the spirit of the family. You could say that this Fourth Commandment is a Family Commandment―one for our immediate family (parents and children) and our extended family (not just family relatives, but also the whole human family).
The family’s role in society is irreplaceable since it is the only true channel for the existence and perfection of society including Church and State. Families, practicing the Fourth Commandment, are the true foundation of any organic Christian society―like cells that make up a body―in this case the Mystical Body of Christ. We see this in the Church when Our Lord Jesus Christ addressed his followers as “My brothers and sisters,” and when He instructed us to pray to our Father in Heaven. We call the Church, Holy Mother Church and we call Mary, our Heavenly Mother. We use titles like for the clergy and the religious such as “Holy Father”, “Reverend Father”, and “Mother Superior”. All these are expressions of the “spirit of the family” which stretches far beyond the limits of our immediate family at home.
Many American families have the impression that the Fourth Commandment is mainly directed at children, as if children are freed from this obligation to honor their parents once they become adults. They take this freedom so seriously that some states even have laws granting emancipation at the early age of sixteen. In California, it’s fourteen. Did God intend a statute of limitations for the Fourth Commandment? Is the application of this commandment different for a thirteen-year-old than it is for a thirty-one-year-old; one who has attained the age of sixteen or sixty-one? Is the meaning of the commandment simply “to obey?” Then why did God use the mandate “honor” instead of simply “obey?” Does God solely expect us “honor” our parents while being free to “dishonor” anyone and everyone else? To really understand this commandment, we need to delve into the meaning of “honor.”
Few authors have written about honor and it is one of hardest things to define. One thing is certain―honor is ranked very highly as we can see from the sinful duels that men would enter into―duels often resulting in death―in order to defend their honor which had been blackened by the words or actions of another person. Honor involves the esteem and good reputation that we have in face of others―it is a quality that shines forth. We value honor―as can be seen from things such as a bumper sticker that says: “My son/daughter is an honor student in whatever school”; or we use the word “honor” in expressions like, “It’s an honor to meet you,” or “Can you do the honors?”, or “Can you do me the honor of…”; or when we address a judge as “your honor,” and a prominent political figures as “the honorable Mr. Smith”; or a Marine recruitment billboard that says, “Honor” giving the impression that the word defines the soul of the Marine. Whether we realize it or not, honor means a lot. The book of Ecclesiastics points out that “For the glory of a man is from the honor of his father, and a father without honor is the disgrace of the son” (Ecclesiasticus 3:13).
Hebrews use the word honor to describe a person of importance or value. The Romans use honor to describe a person of respectability and high esteem. The Greeks, however, use the word honor to describe a person of great renown, glory, splendor and almost divine quality. Some Catholic scholars define honor as the esteem given to the standards of excellence we see in people, especially when they reflect God―and, as Christians, we have to reflect God: “I am the Almighty God! Walk before Me and be perfect!” (Genesis 17:1). “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” says Jesus (Matthew 5:48). One has honor by holding oneself to standards of excellence and perfection―which may or may not be recognized immediately.
People from other countries are shocked at how poorly many Americans treat their parents, and elders in general. Not only do their children treat disrespectfully, they sponge off them as long as possible, and then shuffle them off to nursing homes, while ignoring the great wisdom they have to offer. The modern media culture is one of the great offenders here―depicting parents and the aged as objects of ridicule, clueless buffoons, who are hopelessly out of touch with What’s Happening Now. If that is how many (or most) children treat their parents, then how can they be expected to treat God any better? For our earthly father is (or should be) a reflection of our heavenly Father. We come to know our heavenly Father to a certain degree through our earthly father―who should be showing us in a finite degree the perfections that God has in an infinite degree. An infant and a young child―upon hearing the expression “your Father in Heaven”―will immediately relate and associate the heavenly Father with the earthly father, while being told that the heavenly Father is somewhat like the child’s earthly father, but only much better.
Sadly, however, today the family is attacked. As Sr. Lucia of Fatima said: “A time will come when the decisive battle, between the kingdom of Christ and Satan, will be over marriage and the family. And those who will work for the good of the family will experience persecution and tribulation.” We are now witnessing this battle and these attacks upon the God-given structure of the family in both legislative field through laws that are passed and also in the cultural field (especially in the media) as to how the family in general, and parents in particular, are portrayed. Over the recent decades there has been a massive shift in the media (television/movies/sit-coms) from representing families in a traditional structure to a modern version that destroys all traditional family values. Hence we have bumbling incompetent fathers and supermoms―which subtly relegates fatherly authority and subjugates to an increased motherly authority. Add to this the gradual injection of sin into these family depictions―such as extra-marital flirtation, immodest fashions, adultery, fornication, cohabitation, homosexuality, transgenderism, alcoholism, drug addiction, violence, rebellion, etc. All of this indirectly attacks and weakens the traditional family values by depicting these sins as being something normal or at least unavoidable. Those who watch these television shows, movies and sitcoms have their soul weakened in relation to these sins.
Modern day legislation is also “a slap-in-the-face” for God, Who created institution of marriage: “Have you not read, that God, Who made man from the beginning, made them male and female? And He said: ‘For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh!’ Therefore now, they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder!” (Matthew 19:4-6). Yes―marriage belongs to God because marriage was made by God―and God “made them male and female”, not male and male, nor female and female! It was Adam and Eve―not Adam and Steve, nor Anna and Eve! Yet modern-day legislation accepts the sinful unions of man with man, or woman with woman―which is in total diametrical opposition to God’s creation and God’s Law! This is further abominated by the legislative laws that allow divorce and the remarriage of divorced persons―and some of those divorces are “no fault divorces”, with couples divorcing for no reason at all. God said: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder!” That law of God’s has been trashed all around the world―and we have become so accepting of divorce, so “understanding” of divorce, so sympathetic to the divorcees!
Legislation has also divided the family in other ways―in that parental authority has been bypassed, ignored or outright refused. We see this in cases where the State has started to interfere with parental authority by “short-circuiting” their authority in ever-increasing scenarios. For example a child now has rights to contraception and contraceptive devices without the knowledge of the parents―50% of the States in the US legally allow this. As for abortion, the Planned Parenthood website has this advice for children: “Some states say you have to get permission from a parent or older family member to have an abortion. Other states don’t make you get permission, but your parents will have to know that you’re getting an abortion. And some states don’t have any laws about telling your parents or getting their permission. If your state does have parental involvement laws, you may be able to get a judge’s permission to have an abortion without telling your parents. This is called a judicial bypass.”
The child is now increasingly being encouraged and allowed by schools to choose what “gender” it wants to be―and the parents are not notified under the flimsy slogan of “a right to privacy”. There are many other laws that force parents down a certain road which they do not want to go―with the threat of taking away their children if they fail to cooperate with these evil laws.
5th Commandment: “Thou shall not kill!”
If the Fourth Commandment, “Honor they father and thy mother”, was all about honor to be shown to persons, then this Fifth Commandment is all about honor to be shown to human life in general. God of course actually commanded that sinners be killed for certain crimes―and it is not wrong to do so, such as in a legally enforced death penalty that is just. However, this Commandment forbids
St. Thomas Aquinas comments: “Man is bound towards all persons in general to inflict injury on no one: hence the negative precepts, which forbid the doing of those injuries that can be inflicted on one’s neighbor … All injuries that are inflicted on the person of our neighbor, are understood to be forbidden under the head of murder as being the chief injury above all others … In the divine law which tells us we must love God and our neighbor, it is commanded that we not only do good but also avoid evil. The greatest evil that can be done to one’s neighbor is to take his life. This is prohibited in the Commandment: ‘Thou shall not kill.’ Some have held that the killing of man is prohibited altogether. They believe that judges in the civil courts are murderers, who condemn men to death according to the laws. Against this St. Augustine says that God by this Commandment does not take away from Himself the right to kill. Thus, we read: “I will kill and I will make to live” (Deuteronomy 32:39). It is, therefore, lawful for a judge to kill according to a mandate from God, since in this God operates, and every law is a command of God: “By Me kings reign, and lawgivers decree just things” (Proverbs 8:15). And again: “For if you do what is evil, fear; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister” (Romans 13:14). To Moses also it was said: “Wizards you shall not allow to live” [Exodus 22:18]. And thus that which is lawful to God is lawful for His ministers when they act by His mandate. It is evident that God who is the Author of laws, has every right to inflict death on account of sin. For “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Neither does His minister sin in inflicting that punishment. The sense, therefore, of “You shall not kill” is that one shall not kill by one’s own authority.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Ten Commandments).
Yet even if it is the legal judiciary arm of a nation that kills―that act of killing is not always just and lawful. The punishment must fit the crime. The 7th Century BC Draconian Code of Athens (Greece) made death the penalty for every crime committed. The death penalty in Roman Law was different for nobility, freemen and slaves and punished crimes such as the publication of libels and insulting songs, the cutting or grazing of crops planted by a farmer, the burning of a house or a stack of corn near a house, cheating by a patron of his client, perjury, making disturbances at night in the city, willful murder of a freeman or a parent, or theft by a slave. In 438, the Code of Theodosius―a Roman Emperor―made more than 80 crimes punishable by death. Britain influenced the colonies more than any other country and has a long history of punishment by death. Under the reign of Henry VIII, the numbers of those put to death are estimated as high as 72,000. In Britain, the number of capital offenses continually increased until the 1700s at which time there were 222 crimes that were punishable by death. The British principles came to America with the early colonists. Under the Capital Laws of New-England, that went into effect between 1636-1647, the death penalty was meted out for pre-meditated murder, sodomy, witchcraft, adultery, idolatry, blasphemy, assault in anger, rape, statutory rape, man-stealing, perjury in a capital trial, rebellion, manslaughter, poisoning and bestiality. Early laws were accompanied by a scripture from the Old Testament. By 1780, Massachusetts only recognized seven capital crimes: murder, sodomy, burglary, buggery, arson, rape, and treason. Today, all of the prisoners currently on “Death Row” and all of those executed in the modern era of the application of the death penalty, were convicted of murder.
More than an estimated 15,269 Americans have been executed since the inception of the death penalty dating back to colonial times. According to Amnesty International, China executes more people than the rest of the world combined each year―but its actual numbers are classified as a state secret. Conservative estimates place China’s death penalty executions at a minimum of 1,000 per year. The worldwide total averages out at around 1,500 per year. Now presumably―so let us presume then―the vast majority of those executions are of true criminals that deserve the death penalty for the crimes that they have committed. How would you react if you found out that the vast majority of those executed persons had been wrongly executed―meaning that they were innocent of the accusations brought against them? What would think? What would you say? What would you do? Could you excuse yourself in doing nothing at all when you know that innocent blood is being shed? Would you come up with same lame excuse that the murderer Cain gave to God: “Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him. And the Lord said to Cain: ‘Where is thy brother Abel?’ And he answered: ‘I know not! Am I my brother's keeper?’ And the Lord said to him: ‘What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood cries to Me from the earth!’” (Genesis 4:8-10).
If God said that in view of only one innocent person being killed―what must God think if thousands of innocents persons are killed? Let us go a stage further and say: “What would God think if millions of innocent persons are killed?” Some might be thinking of the so-called “Holocaust”―but there is something that is not a so-called “Holocaust” but a real Holocaust. It is not a one-time Holocaust but a daily Holocaust that has been going on for years. Not just targeting people of one race, but people of all races! What is this human Holocaust that is being referred to? It is the Holocaust of Abortion! More than 1.5 BILLION (1,500 million) babies have been aborted worldwide in the past 50 years. An estimated 50 million abortions are carried out throughout the world every year―that is almost 1 MILLION PER WEEK. One in five pregnancies worldwide end in abortion. 42% of all yearly deaths in the world are from abortion. Every two seconds a baby is aborted somewhere in the world. Over 50 million abortions have taken place in the USA since 1973. Once Roe vs. Wade (1973) opened the floodgates to legalized abortion, the USA has seen an average of over 1 million babies murdered every year!
What is the crime that these babies have committed for them to have been given the death penalty and sentenced to death by one grisly method or another? Which court and jury found these babies to be criminals deserving of execution? They were found to be “guilty” without a trial, without evidence, without a defense attorney, without a judge, without fault! They were innocent, yet they were killed! That is murder! This is Holocaust of the greatest imaginable magnitude―a gigantic, heartless, brutal “Massacre of the Innocents”! The greatest crime against humanity that has ever been committed! Why do these women want an abortion? For eight out of every ten women it is the terrible, catastrophic, earth-shattering, spine-chilling reason of (1) bad timing for the pregnancy (36%), or (2) relationship problems (22%), or (3) feeling overwhelmed (18%)! Wow! How heartbreaking!!! Go tell the “guilty” baby that!
Just look at the riots that have taken place in recent years due to one single man or woman being killed by the police! Where are those rioters when it comes to little babies being butchered by abortionists? Heck! One man killed―and people take to streets rioting, burning cars, looting stores, etc. But each day there more than 2,500 babies butchered and barely anyone blinks! Life just goes on! Nothing to see here, folks! Just move on by!
Now, you might look at the above numbers and optimistically chime in: “But hey! Look at the recent numbers over the last 10 years―since 2013! The abortion numbers are going down! Things are getting better!” Wake up! The only reason the number of REPORTED abortions is going down is that more and more people are taking advantage of the newly developed ABORTION PILLS that help you have a DIY (Do It Yourself) abortion at home! Messy perhaps―but cheaper and less high-profile than going to an abortion clinic (or murder clinic, which is what it really is). The Abortion Pill was first approved in 2000―but in the early years, only a few thousand women used it. Usage gradually increased over the years. The number has grown rapidly since the process became easier to access. In 2001, only 5% of all abortions were via medication, a figure that rose to almost 25% by 2011 and 39% in 2017. Data published on February 24th, 2022, indicated that medication abortion accounted for 54% of all abortions. Hence, the numbers give a false impression―and the likelihood is that actual abortions are going up in numbers when you add together the known reported abortions with the unknown unreported abortions. Who the heck is going to report that they had DIY pill-provoked home abortion? Nobody!
Abortion is only possible if the law legislates in its favor. Ultimately, it is the lawmakers who make abortion possible. Who are these legislators who create, vote and pass the laws of the land? Who are these persons who have the power to throw out bad laws and create godly laws? Christians (Catholics/Protestants/Orthodox) make up 88% of the voting members of the current 118th Congress. As of January 2023, Catholics make up 27 out of the 100 members (27%) of the United States Senate. In the United States House of Representatives, Catholics make up and 122 out of 435 total members, including the House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and President Joe Biden. So why are they not following Christ and His laws? “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
We would do well to also ponder other forms of killing! St. Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary on the Ten Commandments, writes: “Secondly, one kills another by word of mouth. This is done by giving counsel to anyone against another by provocation, accusation, or detraction: “The sons of men whose teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword” (Psalm 56:5). Thirdly, by lending aid to those who kill, as it is written: “My son, do not go with them ... for their feet run to evil, and they rush to shed blood” (Proverbs 1:15-16). Fourthly, by consenting to the killing: “They are worthy of death, not only they who do such things, but they also who consent to those who do them!” (Romans 1:32). Lastly, one kills another by giving a partial consent when the act could be completely prevented: “Deliver those who are led to death” (Proverbs 24:11); or, if one can prevent the killing, yet does not do so through negligence or avarice. Thus, St. Ambrose says: “Give food to him that is dying of hunger; if you do not, you are his murderer.” We have already considered the killing of the body, but some kill the soul also by drawing the soul away from the life of grace, namely, by inducing the soul to commit mortal sin: “He was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44), that is, in so far as he drew men into sin. Others, however, slay both body and soul. This is possible in two ways: first, by the murder of one with child, whereby the child is killed both in body and soul; and, secondly, by committing suicide.”
6th Commandment: “Thou shall not commit adultery!” 9th Commandment: “Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife!”
Our Lady of Fatima revealed to St. Jacinta of Fatima that is was the sin of impurity that resulted in the damnation of most souls. Today, sins of impurity have been made easily accessible―they are in plentiful supply on the television, on the internet, in books and magazines, in immodest fashions, in advertisements, in musical lyrics, in conversations, in flirtations, in “one-night-stands”―it is almost ubiquitous and universal. 40 million American people regularly visit porn sites. About 200,000 people in the U.S. are considered porn addicts. Just 55% of adults 25 and older believe porn is wrong. Only 43% of teens and 31% of young adults believe porn is bad for society. 64% of Christian men and 15% of Christian women say they watch porn at least once a month. 57% of teens search out porn at least monthly. Nearly 27% of teens receive sexts (sex-text messages) and around 15% are sending them. 51% of male students and 32% of female students first viewed porn before their teenage years.
Our Lady of Good Success was not far wrong when she spoke of the 20th century ushering in a time of widespread impurity: “Lucifer and a large number of demons will be unloosed from Hell ... Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... Masonry will take control of the civil government … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of making it easy for everyone to sin. They will put an end to Faith, little by little. The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals! In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled impurity that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women. The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world!”
How true are those words of Our Lady―Freemason controlled governments “will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of making it easy for everyone to sin … until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total corruption of morals! Unbridled impurity will conquer innumerable souls … Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women. Impurity will permeate the atmosphere … like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world!” We are just about there, huh? That is a pretty precise and realistic description of what we are seeing all around us! How has this happened? As Our Lady said: “Iniquitous laws!” that is to, evil laws made by evil lawmakers: “Every good tree brings forth good fruit [good laws], and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit [evil laws]. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit [evil laws], neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit [good laws]. Wherefore by their fruits [laws] you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:16-20).
Today we see shirtless men everywhere — on the beach, at swimming pools, jogging along neighborhood streets. But 1930s America it was illegal in most states and cities for men to go anywhere shirtless, even at the beach. Laws change and people change with them! Dress codes demanded that people cover their bodies―today’s codes seem to want people to reveal their bodies. Necklines went lower and lower, hemlines went higher and higher―with the 1960s arguably being the watershed for immodest fashions with super-short miniskirts, super-tight bodices, super-low necklines and bikinis. Legislators said less and less―and so the people wore less and less. Now we have arrived at the point where nudity is becoming more and more acceptable on beaches throughout the world.
Here are the legalities of nudity and topless sunbathing for several countries worldwide: (1) Australia: topless sunbathing is legal, with plenty of official nudist beaches. (2) New Zealand: whilst nudity and topless sunbathing is not illegal, you must do it in a designated area; (3) Ireland: it is illegal to sunbathe topless and there are no official nude beaches; (4) USA: In 32 states you there is are no legal worries about nude sunbathing; (5) Canada: its nudity law is rarely enforced as it relies on context, with topless sunbathing being deemed a case that doesn't have the intent to offend; (6) Netherlands: topless sunbathing is common and allowed in designated areas; (7) UK: topless sunbathing is completely legal and nudist beaches exist; (8) Spain: it is completely legal to sunbathe naked or topless and it is a fairly commonly practiced. (9) Hungary: nude beaches are quite common and it is not illegal to sunbathe naked. What was it that Our Lady said? “Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of making it easy for everyone to sin … until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total corruption of morals! Unbridled impurity will conquer innumerable souls … Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women. Impurity will permeate the atmosphere … like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets and public places with an astonishing liberty!”
The laws of man MUST reflect the Laws of God―there is no wiggle-room, no loophole, no option, no choice. You either do it, or you pay the fine―and paying the fine will not be all that fine when you get to Hell! Our Lord said: “He that is not with Me, is against Me!” (Matthew 12:30). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ but do not so the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). He could just as easily say: “Why do you say: ‘In God we trust!’ and ‘One Nation under God!’ but do not do the things which I say? You hypocrites! Why do you sing: ‘God bless America’ when in reality it is a Godless America!” The laws of man must be in agreement and not in opposition to the laws of God!
The following words are more applicable to lawmakers of lawless America: “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! There is no fear of God before their eyes! They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways―there is none that doth good, no not one! They have not called upon God!” (Psalm 13:1-3; Psalm 52:1-6). “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My words … He that loves Me not, keeps not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24). “The law is good, if a man use it lawfully” (1 Timothy 1:8). But “woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20) … “For leaving the commandments of God, you hold to the traditions of men!” (Mark 7:8) … “It is not the hearers of the law that are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified!” (Romans 2:13) … “Fulfill the law of Christ! … Keep the law!” (Galatians 6:2, 13) … “You have received the law and have not kept it!” (Acts 7:53) … “None of you keeps the law!” (John 7:19).
Abortion is only possible if the law legislates in its favor. Ultimately, it is the lawmakers who make abortion possible. Who are these legislators who create, vote and pass the laws of the land? Who are these persons who have the power to throw out bad laws and create godly laws? Christians (Catholics/Protestants/Orthodox) make up 88% of the voting members of the current 118th Congress. As of January 2023, Catholics make up 27 out of the 100 members (27%) of the United States Senate. In the United States House of Representatives, Catholics make up and 122 out of 435 total members, including the House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and President Joe Biden. So why are they not following Christ and His laws? “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
We would do well to also ponder other forms of killing! St. Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary on the Ten Commandments, writes: “Secondly, one kills another by word of mouth. This is done by giving counsel to anyone against another by provocation, accusation, or detraction: “The sons of men whose teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword” (Psalm 56:5). Thirdly, by lending aid to those who kill, as it is written: “My son, do not go with them ... for their feet run to evil, and they rush to shed blood” (Proverbs 1:15-16). Fourthly, by consenting to the killing: “They are worthy of death, not only they who do such things, but they also who consent to those who do them!” (Romans 1:32). Lastly, one kills another by giving a partial consent when the act could be completely prevented: “Deliver those who are led to death” (Proverbs 24:11); or, if one can prevent the killing, yet does not do so through negligence or avarice. Thus, St. Ambrose says: “Give food to him that is dying of hunger; if you do not, you are his murderer.” We have already considered the killing of the body, but some kill the soul also by drawing the soul away from the life of grace, namely, by inducing the soul to commit mortal sin: “He was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44), that is, in so far as he drew men into sin. Others, however, slay both body and soul. This is possible in two ways: first, by the murder of one with child, whereby the child is killed both in body and soul; and, secondly, by committing suicide.”
6th Commandment: “Thou shall not commit adultery!” 9th Commandment: “Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife!”
Our Lady of Fatima revealed to St. Jacinta of Fatima that is was the sin of impurity that resulted in the damnation of most souls. Today, sins of impurity have been made easily accessible―they are in plentiful supply on the television, on the internet, in books and magazines, in immodest fashions, in advertisements, in musical lyrics, in conversations, in flirtations, in “one-night-stands”―it is almost ubiquitous and universal. 40 million American people regularly visit porn sites. About 200,000 people in the U.S. are considered porn addicts. Just 55% of adults 25 and older believe porn is wrong. Only 43% of teens and 31% of young adults believe porn is bad for society. 64% of Christian men and 15% of Christian women say they watch porn at least once a month. 57% of teens search out porn at least monthly. Nearly 27% of teens receive sexts (sex-text messages) and around 15% are sending them. 51% of male students and 32% of female students first viewed porn before their teenage years.
Our Lady of Good Success was not far wrong when she spoke of the 20th century ushering in a time of widespread impurity: “Lucifer and a large number of demons will be unloosed from Hell ... Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... Masonry will take control of the civil government … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of making it easy for everyone to sin. They will put an end to Faith, little by little. The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals! In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled impurity that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women. The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world!”
How true are those words of Our Lady―Freemason controlled governments “will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of making it easy for everyone to sin … until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total corruption of morals! Unbridled impurity will conquer innumerable souls … Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women. Impurity will permeate the atmosphere … like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world!” We are just about there, huh? That is a pretty precise and realistic description of what we are seeing all around us! How has this happened? As Our Lady said: “Iniquitous laws!” that is to, evil laws made by evil lawmakers: “Every good tree brings forth good fruit [good laws], and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit [evil laws]. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit [evil laws], neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit [good laws]. Wherefore by their fruits [laws] you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:16-20).
Today we see shirtless men everywhere — on the beach, at swimming pools, jogging along neighborhood streets. But 1930s America it was illegal in most states and cities for men to go anywhere shirtless, even at the beach. Laws change and people change with them! Dress codes demanded that people cover their bodies―today’s codes seem to want people to reveal their bodies. Necklines went lower and lower, hemlines went higher and higher―with the 1960s arguably being the watershed for immodest fashions with super-short miniskirts, super-tight bodices, super-low necklines and bikinis. Legislators said less and less―and so the people wore less and less. Now we have arrived at the point where nudity is becoming more and more acceptable on beaches throughout the world.
Here are the legalities of nudity and topless sunbathing for several countries worldwide: (1) Australia: topless sunbathing is legal, with plenty of official nudist beaches. (2) New Zealand: whilst nudity and topless sunbathing is not illegal, you must do it in a designated area; (3) Ireland: it is illegal to sunbathe topless and there are no official nude beaches; (4) USA: In 32 states you there is are no legal worries about nude sunbathing; (5) Canada: its nudity law is rarely enforced as it relies on context, with topless sunbathing being deemed a case that doesn't have the intent to offend; (6) Netherlands: topless sunbathing is common and allowed in designated areas; (7) UK: topless sunbathing is completely legal and nudist beaches exist; (8) Spain: it is completely legal to sunbathe naked or topless and it is a fairly commonly practiced. (9) Hungary: nude beaches are quite common and it is not illegal to sunbathe naked. What was it that Our Lady said? “Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of making it easy for everyone to sin … until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total corruption of morals! Unbridled impurity will conquer innumerable souls … Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women. Impurity will permeate the atmosphere … like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets and public places with an astonishing liberty!”
The laws of man MUST reflect the Laws of God―there is no wiggle-room, no loophole, no option, no choice. You either do it, or you pay the fine―and paying the fine will not be all that fine when you get to Hell! Our Lord said: “He that is not with Me, is against Me!” (Matthew 12:30). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ but do not so the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). He could just as easily say: “Why do you say: ‘In God we trust!’ and ‘One Nation under God!’ but do not do the things which I say? You hypocrites! Why do you sing: ‘God bless America’ when in reality it is a Godless America!” The laws of man must be in agreement and not in opposition to the laws of God!
The following words are more applicable to lawmakers of lawless America: “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! There is no fear of God before their eyes! They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways―there is none that doth good, no not one! They have not called upon God!” (Psalm 13:1-3; Psalm 52:1-6). “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My words … He that loves Me not, keeps not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24). “The law is good, if a man use it lawfully” (1 Timothy 1:8). But “woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20) … “For leaving the commandments of God, you hold to the traditions of men!” (Mark 7:8) … “It is not the hearers of the law that are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified!” (Romans 2:13) … “Fulfill the law of Christ! … Keep the law!” (Galatians 6:2, 13) … “You have received the law and have not kept it!” (Acts 7:53) … “None of you keeps the law!” (John 7:19).
Article 13
Monday August 28th & Tuesday August 29th, 2023
Don't Judge Before It's Time!
Monday August 28th & Tuesday August 29th, 2023
Don't Judge Before It's Time!
Quick on the Trigger―Quick to Shoot!
Believe it or not; like it or not; admit it or not ― we are a very judgmental breed! Always have been―always will be! We are almost wired to shoot before asking questions. We jump to conclusions on the flimsiest scraps of evidence. We prefer to interpret things in an evil way, rather than a good way. We look for what is evil and not for what is good. We see the worst in people and not what is best. In judging others―we ignore any good qualities and solely focus on the bad. We have an eye of an eagle for their faults and failings, ready to make mountains out of molehills. Yet when it comes to ourselves―we are as blind as bat to our faults, and make our mountains of sins look like molehills. We are one-sided in our opinions, assessments, and judgments.
This is what led St. Paul to write: “To me it is a very small thing to be judged by you, or by any human court―but neither do I judge my own self! For I myself am not conscious of any wrongdoing, yet am I not thereby justified―for He that judges me is the Lord! Therefore judge not before the time―until the Lord come, Who will bring to light both the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall every man have praise from God!” (1 Corinthians 4:3-5).
It is also what led Our Lord to say: “Why do you see the splinter that is in your brother’s eye; but cannot see the plank that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother: ‘Let me remove the splinter out of your eye!’ ― and behold there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite! First cast out the plank from your own eye, and then you shall be able to see in order to cast out the splinter from your brother’s eye!” (Matthew 7:3-5).
St. John adds: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us … If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him [God] a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10).
Thus St. Paul warns: “You are inexcusable, O man, whosoever you are that judges! For wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you do the same things which you judge! For we know that the judgment of God is, according to truth, against them that do such things! And do you think―O man that judges them who do such things, but do the same yourself―do you think that you shall escape the judgment of God?” (Romans 2:1-3).
To which St. James adds: “Let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak, and slow to anger! For the anger of man does not work the justice of God!” (James 1:19-20).
Shocking Sinners Shocking Conversions
Who would have thought that the Pharisee Saul―who had been persecuting Christians and was an accomplice to the murder of some of them―would end up being a pillar of Christianity as St. Paul? Even after his conversion on the road to Damascus, many were suspicious of him and feared him.
Who would have thought that impure womanizer Augustine―who himself admits that he loved sin of all kinds, especially sexual sins―would end up being a priest, then a bishop, and, after his death canonized as a saint and made to be a Father and a Doctor of the Church?
Sinners Must Start Rising From the Ashes
In case the discouraging thoughts of impossibility―Satan’s favorite “trump card”―should paralyze our efforts before we even start, let us remember some incredible examples of “the phoenix rising from its ashes” in the personages of some big sinners who became great saints―one of which we celebrate today, on August 28th, being St. Augustine. For those discouraged about achieving sanctity, there can be no better thing than to read and study the lives of the great sinners who became great saints. They are walking proof of the words of God in Holy Scripture, Who said: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool” (Isaias 1:18). Let us look at some big sinners “rising out of the ashes” of sin―for the greatest sinners can become the greatest saints. Or, more precisely, the greatest sinners MUST become the greatest saints—so that their great debt for sin can be paid-off by their great penances and virtues of holiness.
► St. Mary Magdalen: Possessed by Seven Devils & Adulteress
Around the time of Our Lord, we think of St. Mary Magdalen, who was possessed by seven devils and caught in adultery. The notion of Mary Magdalene being a repentant sinner, can be traced at least as far back as St. Ephraim the Syrian, in the fourth century, and became the generally accepted view in Western Christianity after the homily of Pope Gregory I (“Gregory the Great”) in about 591. We would find it difficult to find a greater sinner than Mary Magdalen. She was possessed by seven devils and her life of sin was no secret, but well-known by the community. Yet after all that, Holy Scripture tells us: “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus” (John 11:5). It does not say: “Jesus loved Martha and Lazarus, and only tolerated or put up with Mary.” No! St. John says “Jesus loved … Mary!” The New Testament God is no different from the Old Testament God: “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (Ezechiel 18:23). “Go then and learn what this meaneth, ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice!’ For I am not come to call the just, but sinners” (Matthew 9:13). “They that are in health need not a physician, but they that are ill” (Matthew 9:12). She ended up being tremendously devoted to both Our Lord and Our Lady.
► St. Dismas: Robber & Thief
St. Dismas isn’t a saint in the usual or strict sense—for he was never canonized by the Church—but rather a saint by local tradition instead. As the story goes, Dismas asked for Jesus Christ to remember him while he was being crucified next to him. A clue to his past lies in Dismas’ patronage, for he is the patron saint of reformed thieves. Tradition has it that he was converted on Calvary by the prayers of Our Lady.
► St. Callixtus: Thief & Embezzler
St. Callixtus of Rome lived a life of many sins before being taken under the wing of Victor I, a second century pope. Callixtus was a Roman slave whose petty theft and reckless investments resulted in being sentenced to forced labor in the mines of Sardinia. He embezzled money and started a public riot, amongst other criminal affairs, but left that all behind early in the third century when he reformed. Released from the mines by a general pardon, he returned to Rome where Pope St. Victor I gradually brought him to repentance. . He was ordained a priest, served as administrator of one of the catacombs, and ultimately Callixtus went on to become a pope himself, but died a martyr shortly thereafter. His Roman catacombs can be toured today.
► St. Hippolytus: Heretic & First Antipope
Hippolytus was an arrogant, unforgiving man who believed that Christians guilty of mortal sin should be expelled from the Church and never readmitted. In his pride, Hippolytus permitted his followers to elect him as the Church’s first anti-pope. Inspired by the true pope’s holiness, Hippolytus eventually repented of his own sin and was reconciled to the Catholic Church.
► St. Mary of Egypt: Seductress & Whore
At age 12 Mary (344-421) ran away from home to Alexandria, the most exciting city in the Roman Empire. She became an accomplished seductress, who took special pleasure in corrupting innocent young men. Mary was an expert seductress who ensnared any man who caught her eye. Once, on a whim, she joined a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. By the time the ship reached its destination, Mary had seduced the entire crew and all of the pilgrims. She traveled to Jerusalem where a supernatural force prevented her from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. In Jerusalem she realized the enormity of her sins Filled with remorse, Mary sought the Mother of God’s intercession and made a good confession. In penance, Mary lived out her conversion as a hermit, alone in the Jordanian desert.
► St. Augustine: Fornicator and Worldling
Augustine was son of Patricius, a well-to-do pagan, whose ideal of life was to get the most out of it he could, without being too particular as to the means. Patricius, at the age of forty, had married Monica, a girl of seventeen, a Christian on both her father’s and her mother’s side. This marriage alone would seem to imply a certain laxity of Faith in the family; the fact that Monica owed most of her religious and moral training to an old nurse confirms it. Three children were born to them, Augustine the first, but none of them were baptized. Augustine grew up among pagan children, apparently in a pagan school, and his morals from the first were no better than theirs. He could steal, he could cheat, he could lie with the best of them; to do these things cleverly and successfully was a mark of talent rather than of vice. Patricius saw that Augustine had an excellent mind and a wonderful disposition for learning, and with a view to his future preferment, spared nothing to breed him up a scholar. He was sent to Madaura, a prosperous city thirty miles away.
In Madaura, he was his own master; the longing he had always had to do just what he liked, without hindrance from anyone, was allowed free scope. He fell also into vanity, pleasing himself with the pride of surpassing his companions at play, and loving to have his ears scratched with vain praises. A worse curiosity drew him to the dangerous entertainments of those who were older—public shows, plays, and other diversions of the theatre. The most fatal sin was the vice of impurity, into which he fell in the sixteenth year of his age. He was led into this by reading impure plays in Terence, by sloth, by frequenting stage entertainments, and by bad company and example. The consequences were inevitable. Augustine came home from Madaura addicted to the lowest vices. His father, an adulterer himself, looked upon the same excess as a proof of manhood.
The next step in Augustine’s career was to Carthage― the center of learning and pleasure in North Africa, and Augustine craved for both. There he lived, from the age of seventeen, learning and loving as he wished, for there was no one to check or guide him. “I went to Carthage,” he wrote later, “where shameful lust bubbled round me like boiling oil.” Augustine plunged himself headlong into the filth of impurity. At about the age of 17, Augustine began an affair with a young woman in Carthage. Though his mother wanted him to marry a person of his class, the woman remained his lover for over fifteen years and gave birth to his son Adeodatus (372–388). In 385, Augustine ended his relationship with his lover in order to prepare himself to marry a ten-year-old heiress. He had to wait for two years because the legal age of marriage for women was twelve―during which time he plunged himself back into sexual relations with other women. By the time he was able to marry her, however, he had decided instead to remain chaste and become a priest.
► St. Moses the Black: Cut-throat & Gang Leader
Moses was chief of a violent gang of bandits. Fleeing from law enforcement, he took refuge in a monastery. Moses was inspired by the monk’s example and converted. He took a vow never to raise his hand against another human being, even in self-defense. After years of overcoming temptation, Moses was killed by Berber raiders.
► St. Pelagia: Dancer & Courtesan
The beautiful, teenage Saint Pelagia would have been every parent’s nightmare. As legend has it, she was a dancer and courtesan (prostitute) by her early teens. Pelagia’s conversion occurred all of a sudden, following a chance encounter with Saint Nonnus, the bishop of Edessa. The young girl was baptized, gave away her possessions to the poor and lived as a hermit for the rest of her life.
► St. Olga: Murderess
When a neighboring tribe assassinated her husband, Olga (c.879-969), princess of Kiev, went to war. Olga slaughtered her husband’s murderer and she massacred virtually the entire tribe; the few who did survive, she sold into slavery. Years later, while in Constantinople, to make an alliance with the emperor, Olga visited a church, encountered the splendor and beauty of Christianity and was in awe of the magnificence of the liturgy. She took instruction, was baptized and returned to Kiev, zealous to convert her people. Olga tried very hard to convert her people, but hardly anyone would listen to her. Even her family rejected Christianity. Olga died believing that as a missionary, she was a failure. Yet, she planted a seed of Faith which flourished. Today, Catholic and Orthodox Christians of Russia and Ukraine hail her as “Equal to the Apostles.”
► St. Vladimir: Murderer and Rapist
Olga’s grandson Vladimir (956-1015) became prince of Kiev by murdering his older half-brother. Then he raped his sister-in-law and added her to his harem of several hundred women. He built a new temple to all the gods; and sacrificed a father and his son to the false gods. When the emperor at Constantinople sought his help in putting down a rebellion, Vladimir demanded as his reward the emperor’s sister as his wife (actually, the unhappy woman would be Vladimir’s eighth wife). The emperor countered that Vladimir must convert to Christianity. In order to marry the emperor’s sister, Vladimir accepted Christian baptism. Everyone suspected that once he was back in Kiev, Vladimir would return to his old ways, but the grace of baptism changed him. His zeal for the Faith knew no limits and his efforts helped spread Christianity across Russia and Ukraine. He dismissed his extra wives and his harem, tore down the pagan temple, and launched a vigorous campaign to convert his people. The Faith his grandmother, Olga (see above) planted flourished under Vladimir.
► St. Margaret of Cortona: Rich Man’s Mistress
Margaret was only twelve when she became Arsenio’s mistress. After years of cohabitation, she realized her sins when she discovered Arsenio’s murdered corpse. Full of the grace of conversion and determined to start a new life, she went to Cortona where the Franciscans ministered to penitent sinners. There, Margaret pursued a life of prayer, penance, and good works.
► St. Angela of Foligno: Worldly and Flirtatious
Angela was beautiful, wealthy, and vain. As a rich man’s wife she wallowed in luxury. Her passions were expensive clothes and flashy jewels, extravagant meals and rare wines. She dressed and acted in ways that would provoke envy among women and sexual desire among men. When she was not indulging herself, she spent hours gossiping with her friends and maligning her neighbors. In her autobiography Angela discloses that in 1285 she did something so bad that for the first time in her life she began to live in fear of Hell. Her biographers speculate that Angela committed adultery, and given the intensity of her guilt and shame that seems likely. Near de spair, she prayed to St. Francis of Assisi to help her. As Angela prayed the saint appeared to her. “Sister,” St. Francis said, “if you would have asked me sooner I would have complied with your request sooner. Nonetheless, your request is granted.” That same day Angela offered a sincere confession to a priest. As she stepped from the shadowy interior of the church into the bright sunlight of the piazza, Angela resolved to begin a new life. She sold her fine clothes and jewels to relieve the suffering of Foligno’s poor. After the death of her husband, she gave away all her wealth, associated herself with the Franciscans, and with a handful of other holy women dedicated herself to tending the poor and the sick. Blessed Angela’s life teaches us a timeless lesson about our weakness and God’s mercy. All that he requires is that we repent and make a sincere effort to do better in the future.
► St. Thomas Becket: Rich and Cruel
As chancellor of England under Henry II, Thomas Becket (1118-1170) became obscenely wealthy. His wardrobe was larger and more expensive than the king’s. He even had his own private navy. In spite of all his wealth, Becket was cold-hearted and never gave anything to the poor. All that changed after Becket was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury. He gave away all his possessions. He welcomed the poor at his table. And he became a champion of the independence of the Church, for which he was murdered in his own cathedral by four of King Henry’s knights.
► St. Philip Howard: Playboy and Gambler
Son of one of the wealthiest noble families in England, Philip Howard (1557-1595) could afford any pleasure he liked — and he liked them all. At court he was a notorious playboy, gambler and fop. He ran up enormous debts, then sold off his wife’s property to settle them. On one occasion he said publicly that he did not really consider himself to be married. In 1581, he joined other members of the court at the Tower of London, to see a debate between several Anglican ministers and a prisoner, the Jesuit priest, St. Edmund Campion. Although the ministers were armed with books and assistants, Father Campion was alone and had only his memory to rely on, yet he did so well in the debate, that the government canceled the debate before a verdict could be given. Inspired by Father Campion, Howard reconciled with his wife, and they both returned to the Catholic Faith. When they tried to leave the country secretly for the Continent of Europe, where they could practice Catholicism freely, they were stopped and Howard was imprisoned in the Tower of London. He died there 10 years later.
► St. Camillus of Lellis: Drinker, Gambler & Whore-Lover
Camillus de Lellis was born in Italy in the middle of the 16th century. A hot-tempered, troublesome child, he joined the army when he was 16, though his aggressive behavior only grew after that. Camillus was a mercenary soldier with all the worst habits— drinking, gambling, swearing, chasing prostitutes. Years of sinful acts followed before his wholehearted reform in 1575. When his father called for a priest on his deathbed, Camillus began to rethink his life. Guided by St. Philip Neri, his spiritual director, Camillus turned away from sin, dedicated himself to the sick, and formed a religious congregation for nursing the poor. Years of sinful acts followed before his wholehearted reform in 1575. When his father called for a priest on his deathbed, Camillus began to rethink his life. Guided by St. Philip Neri, his spiritual director, Camillus turned away from sin, dedicated himself to the sick, and formed a religious congregation for nursing the poor.
How Would We Have Judged Them?
If we were living at the time of the above mentioned sinners―what would our judgment of them have been? Probably just like the judgment of most their contemporaries ― very negative, condemning and damning. Would we have prayed for them and made sacrifices for them? Probably not―because we pray very little for sinners today and hardly make any sacrifices (if any at all) for the conversion of sinners. In our eyes they would have been Hell-bound. Nobody is saying that we must ignore their sins―sin must hated as the greatest evil in the world―but we are very quick to hate the sinner together with the sin. That is not what Our Lord is all about―as He Himself tells us: “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17) … “The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14) … “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56) … “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) … “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32).
Our Lord Came to Save Souls―We Help Damn Souls!
That is not what most Catholics are like―they are quite the opposite. They do not really care for sinners, nor do they really pray for sinners―apart from saying so with their lips at the start of a Rosary, but their heart is far from sinners. Just as Our Lord said of the Jews: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6) ― He could likewise say: “Hypocrites! You say that you pray for sinners with your lips―but your heart is not really in it!” We might be tempted to use Cain’s reply to God, when asked where his murdered brother Abel was: “And the Lord said to Cain: ‘Where is thy brother Abel?’ And he answered: ‘I know not! Am I my brother’s keeper!’” (Genesis 4:9). Cain murdered his brother Abel―and we, in a similar manner, murder our “brothers” in this world by not praying and sacrificing for their conversion: “You have heard from the beginning, that you should love one another. Not as Cain―who was of the wicked one and killed his brother! Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer! He that hath the substance of this world [the Faith and grace of God], and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how then does the charity of God abide in him? … Let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but by deeds and in truth!” (1 John 3:11-18).
At Fatima, Our Lady asked for prayers and sacrifices from the Catholic world for the conversion of sinners! What happened? Has the world got better or worse? Unmistakably and unimaginably worse! In 1956―which is 39 years after Fatima―Our Lady had to say to Blessed Elena Aiello: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth! … Satan reigns and triumphs on Earth! See how the souls are falling into Hell. See how high the flames are, and the souls who fall into them like flakes of snow, looking like transparent embers! How many sparks! … Men, in spite of repeated warnings, are not returning to God! They refuse grace, and are not listening to my voice! … Priests must unite by prayers and penance! … . Through prayer and penance, my mercy will be able to hold back the hand of God’s justice! … Cry out these things to all, like the very echo of my voice! Let this be known to all―because it will help save many souls and prevent much destruction in the Church and in the world!”
Our Lord also appeared to Blessed Elena Aiello, lamenting: “The world has lowered itself in overflowing corruption! … Men have become ungrateful to My Sacred Heart, and, abusing My Mercy, have transformed the Earth into a scene of crime! Numerous scandals are bringing souls to ruin particularly through the corruption of youth. Stirred-up and unrestrained in the enjoyment of the pleasures of the world, they have degraded their spirit in corruption and sin. The bad example of parents trains the family in scandal and infidelity, instead of virtue and prayer, which is almost dead on the lips of many! … Men are obstinate in their guilt, and do not return to God! … The wills of men do not change! They live in their obstinacy of sin! … There must be more prayers and penances from the souls faithful to Me! … Help Me by suffering, to repair for so many offenses, and thus save, at least in part, humanity that has waded into a swamp of corruption and death!”
Dead Faith Produces No Fruit
Would that be the scenario if we really praying and sacrificing for the conversion of sinners? No it would not! The world would be much different to what it is today! Unpleasant though it may sound―we have nobody else but ourselves to blame for the state of the world today. Our Lord―in speaking of the latter days of the world―said: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). Today, we see the beginnings of a mass apostasy―a mass falling-away from the Faith. Throughout the world, on average, only 15% to 20% attend Sunday Mass regularly (it binds us under pain of mortal sin) and less that 4% pray the Rosary daily. There are almost 1,400 million (1.4 billion) Catholics in the world who have been baptized and were given the Faith―but the vast majority do not practice their Faith and do not believe all that the Faith obliges them to believe. They do not live the Faith―even though they have the Faith. They are in mortal sin and they have no works of Faith to show for their Faith―they are trees with no fruit; they have the Faith, but it is dead. “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith! Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … Do you see that by works a man is justified―and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26).
A Faith that is Dead and Buried
We are reminded of Our Lord’s parable of the talents―wherein we could liken the talent to the Faith. The servants were given various numbers of talents (1 talent = 750 ounces of silver @ today’s price, $26 oz = $19,500 per talent). The one who was given 5 talents, produced another 5 talents as profit; the one who received 2 talents, produced another 2 talents as profit; the one who received only 1 talent, buried it in the ground and showed no profit for what he had been given.
“A man going into a far country, called his servants, and delivered to them his goods. To one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one―to everyone according to his proper ability―and then immediately he took his journey. And he that had received the five talents, went his way, and traded with the same, and gained another five. And in like manner he that had received the two, gained another two. But he that had received the one, going his way dug a hole into the earth and hid his lord’s money. But after a long time, the lord of those servants came, and reckoned with them. And he that had received the five talents coming, brought the other five talents, saying: ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents, behold I have gained another five over and above!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because you have been faithful over a few things, I will place you over many things! Enter into the joy of your lord!’ And he also, that had received the two talents, came and said: ‘Lord, you delivered two talents to me! Behold, I have gained another two!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because you have been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter into the joy of your lord!’ But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that you are a hard man―you reap where you have not sown, and gather where you have not strewn. And, being afraid, I went and hid your talent in the ground! Behold here it is―you can take back that which is yours!’ And his lord, answering, said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not strewn! Therefore you should have entrusted my money to the bankers, so that, at my coming, I should have received my own money back with usury [additional interest]!’ Take away, therefore, the talent from him and give it to him that has ten talents. For to everyone that has, shall be given more, and he shall abound! But from him that has not, that also which he seems to have shall be taken away! And the unprofitable servant cast out into the exterior darkness―where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
Just as in the parable of the talents, God has given us the “talent” of the Faith and all of its potential power―and, like the man who buried his talent in the ground, we have not used the power of the Faith in the way that we should have used it! What is the power of the Faith? Holy Scripture tells us: “This is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “If you had Faith like to a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry tree: ‘Be thou rooted up, and be thou transplanted into the sea!’― and it would obey you!” says Our Lord (Luke 17:6), adding elsewhere: “Amen I say to you! If you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here to there!’ ― and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 17:19). Unfortunately and tragically, we do not “fight the good fight of the Faith” and we are most certainly not seeing “the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” The world is overcoming our Faith and Satan is robbing the Faith of its souls by drawing them into mortal sin―as we are preoccupied with the treasures, pleasures, fun and entertainment of the world which Satan has served-up and dressed-up for us. We spend many hours on those things―and little to no time on fulfilling Our Lady’s and Our Lord’s requests for more prayer and penance!
Heaven Asks For More―We Give Less
At Fatima, Our Lady said: Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”―and to Blessed Elena Aiello, in the 1950’s she added: “Prayer and penance … will help save many souls and prevent much destruction in the Church and in the world!” While Our Lord also said to Blessed Elena in the 1950s: “There must be more prayers and penances from the souls faithful to Me! … Help Me by suffering, to save at least part of humanity that has waded into a swamp of corruption and death!” Just over 20 years later, in Akita, Japan, Our Lady would add: “I desire souls to console and to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father! I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests!”
What do Our Lord and Our Lady ask for? Take out the key words from the above quotes and drill them into your head and your heart: “Souls go to Hell … because nobody sacrifices and prays for them! … Help Me to save at least part of humanity by suffering! … Will you bear all the sufferings God will send you for the conversion of sinners? … You are going to have much to suffer! … Prayer and penance will save many souls! … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger! … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests!”
Our Lady Rejects Nobody―She Seeks to Save Everybody
Would it fitting and appropriate for the Mother of Mercy to turn her back on such wretched popes, bishops and priests? Let us not forget Our Lady’s words to St. Bridget of Sweden―as quoted in Glories of Mary by St. Alphonsus Liguori: “As a mother makes every effort to save her son when she sees him exposed to the sword of the enemy, so do I, and will I ever do for my children―however sinful they might be―if they come to me for help! Nobody in the world is so great a sinner―provided that he says in his heart that my Son is the Creator and Redeemer of the universe and that my Son is dear to him in his inmost heart―that I am not prepared to come to him immediately, like a loving mother to her son, and hug him and say: ‘What would you like, my son?’ Even if he had deserved the lowest punishment in Hell, nevertheless, if only he has the intention of not caring for worldly honors, or greed, or carnal lust, such as the Church condemns, and desires nothing but his own sustenance, then he and I will right away get along quite well together! I am the Mother of Mercy and the gate of entrance for sinners to God! There is no sinner living on Earth who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion―for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one is so entirely cast-off by God―unless already in Hell―that he could not return and enjoy His mercy if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners.” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Glories of Mary).
St. Alphonsus Liguori adds: “O ever blessed and thanked be our God, O most amiable Mary, who made thee so merciful and kind towards the most miserable sinners. St. Bernard says: ‘O Lady, thou dost abhor no sinner, however abandoned and vile he may be, when he has recourse to thee; if he asks thy help, thou wilt extend thy kind hand to draw him from the depths of despair!’ Oh, wretched are those who do not love thee, and who, having it in their power to seek help of thee, do not trust in thee! He who does not implore the aid of Mary is lost―but who has ever been lost that had recourse to her?” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Glories of Mary).
What About Us? Is That Our Approach?
If that is Our Lady’s approach to sinners―what is our approach like? Do we resemble our merciful Mother? Or do we resemble the merciless Satan? Our Lady intercedes. Satan accuses. Our Lady wants mercy. Satan wants no mercy. Our Lady wants everyone’s reconciliation with God. Satan wants nobody’s reconciliation with God. Our Lady wants to see the greatest sinners in Heaven. Satan wants to see the greatest sinners (and the greatest saints) in Hell. Whose side are we on? What evidence do our thoughts, words and actions present before God? Are we truly Catholic in theory and in practice? Or we Catholics only in theory, but not in practice?
Do we want bad or evil popes, bishops, priests, Catholics, Protestants and pagans to be saved or to be lost? Do we want to see them in Heaven or in Hell? Do we want those who are fighting against the Faith, corrupting the Faith, destroying the Faith to be saved or damned? Do we want the child-abusers, adulterers, fornicators, rapists, abortionists, murderers, Satanists, witches, homosexuals, etc. to be saved or damned? Do we want those who have sinned against us terribly to be saved or damned?
Now flip the coin―do you want to be saved? Have you sinned against God? Have you sinned against your neighbor? Have you committed mortal sins? If you have sinned against God―then you have broken the greatest commandment that there is: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). If you have sinned against your neighbor―then you have broken the second greatest commandment that exists: And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). If you have sinned either mortally or venially―then you have committed the greatest evil in the world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). “Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
After having broken the two greatest commandments and after having committed the greatest evils in the world―do you still want to be saved? Do you want to be shown mercy? Do you still expect Christ to forgive you? Do you still expect to go to Heaven? Well what about others? Why you and not them?
Don't Change Christ's Doctrine! Don't Limit His Mercy!
Do not start playing at being God! Do not start tweaking, twisting and changing how God does things! Do not reduce God to your own narrow-minded version of God―a God who is made by you into the image and likeness of you! You are not God and God is not you! As He Himself says: “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). “Is it not lawful for Me to do what I will? Is thy eye evil because I am good? I will also give to this last one even as to thee!” (Matthew 20:15). “There is no man who sins not” (3 Kings 8:46). “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin!’?” (Proverbs 20:9). Who dare say: “I am clean, and without sin! I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me!” (Job 33:9). “Is it My will that a sinner should die, says the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? … If the wicked man does penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all My commandments, then living he shall live, and shall not die! … And you have said: ‘The way of the Lord is not right!’ Hear ye, therefore! Is it My way that is not right, or rather is it not your ways that are perverse? … Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities and iniquity shall not be your ruin! Cast away from you all your transgressions and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dies, says the Lord God, return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32).
Loving Sinners is Hard―Getting to Heaven is Hard!
To love sinners and enemies seems to go against the grain of our nature. Yet Our Lord said: “You have heard that it has been said: ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy!’ But I say to you: Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! And pray for them that persecute and calumniate you! ― so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven―Who makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and makes His rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. For if you only love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even sinners [publicans] do this? And if you only salute your brethren, what do you do that is more? Do not the heathens and pagans also do this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:43-48).
St. Thomas Aquinas explains: “Our Lord said: ‘Love your enemies’ (Matthew 4:44). Love of one’s enemies may be understood in three ways. First, as though we were to love our enemies as such―this is perverse and contrary to charity, since it implies a love of that which is evil in another. Secondly love of one’s enemies may mean that we love them as to their God-given nature: and in this sense charity requires that we should love our enemies, namely, that in loving God and our neighbor, we should not exclude our enemies from the love given to our neighbor in general. Thirdly, love of one’s enemies may be considered as specially directed to them, namely, that we should have a special movement of love towards our enemies. Charity does not require this absolutely, because to have a special movement of love for every individual man would be impossible. Nevertheless charity does require that we should be ready to love our enemies individually, if the necessity were to occur. To love our enemy for God’s sake―without it being necessary for us to do so―belongs to the perfection of charity. For the more we love God, the more do we put enmities aside and show love towards our neighbor. To do good to one’s enemies is the height of perfection.
“So much do we love our friends, that, for their sake, we love all who belong to them―even if they hurt or hate us―so that, in this way, the friendship of charity extends even to our enemies, whom we love out of charity in relation to God … Thus if we loved a certain man very much, then we would love his children also, even though they were unfriendly towards us … In this way charity extends to sinners, whom, out of charity, we love for God’s sake … The charity, whereby we love our neighbor, is a participation of Divine charity … God is the principal object of charity, while our neighbor is loved out of charity for God’s sake … whereas God is loved by charity for His own sake … We ought to look upon every man as our neighbor. Sinners do not cease to be men, for sin does not destroy their human nature. Therefore we ought to love sinners out of charity … It is our duty to hate, in the sinner, his being a sinner, and to love in him as being a man who is capable of [heavenly] bliss; and this is to love him truly, out of charity, for God’s sake.
“When our friends fall into sin, we ought not to deny them friendship, so long as there is hope of their mending their ways, and we ought to help them more readily to regain virtue than to recover money, had they lost it, for as much as virtue is more akin than money to friendship. When, however, they fall into very great wickedness, and become incurable, then we ought no longer to show them friendliness. It is for this reason that both Divine and human laws command such like sinners to be put to death, because there is greater likelihood of their harming others than of their mending their ways. Nevertheless the judge puts this into effect, not out of hatred for the sinners, but out of the love of charity, by reason of which he prefers the public good to the life of the individual.” (Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 23, art. 1 & 2 & 5; q. 25, art. 6 & 7).
Wow! St. Thomas says: “When they fall into great wickedness and become incurable, we should no longer show them friendliness … Divine and human laws command such sinners to be put to death!” Yeah! Let’s go get ‘em! Let’s kill them! Whoopee! Well―first of all―how can we be certain that they are, as St. Thomas says, “incurable”, if we have not administered to them the medicine of many prayers and sacrifices? Our Lady of Fatima asked that we offer many, many prayers and sacrifices for them―she did not tell us to round them up and kill them! Have we offered MANY, MANY prayers and sacrifices for them―or barely any? If we have applied barely any medicine―then we are as guilty as a doctor who sees a patient in a life threatening scenario and neglects to administer the medicines that he has available to him!
The Greatest Law―the Greatest Crime
In human law, the most serious crimes are those that take the life of another person―either deliberately or non-deliberately. Murder is defined as the unlawful killing of a human being. According to Current Law 2023 in the American legal system, murder is divided into three distinct categories: first-, second-, and third-degree murder.
● First Degree Murder is intentional murder and premeditated murder. In other words, the crime was committed with the intent to cause harm to and kill the victim or victims with no regard for human life. The crime was willfully done with a strong desire to end the victim’s life. It is the highest level of crime and is punished accordingly. As first-degree murders are the most severe type of all murder charges, it follows that they also come with the most severe punishments through law enforcement.
● Second Degree Murder is when someone intentionally kills another person without planning or premeditation. Murders in this classification are usually the result of acting impulsively due to rage and with no intent to kill the victim before that moment in time. In such cases, the perpetrators comprehend that their actions could lead to death or considerable damage. Despite not being premeditated, all second-degree murders are carried out with the intent to cause harm of some kind, including the intent to kill. Usually, murders of this type result from provocation, passion, or financial gain. In some states, this is deemed a separate crime known as voluntary manslaughter. When a human being is killed by accident, this is known as involuntary manslaughter or accidental manslaughter. While there is still an intent to cause harm, the victim’s death was not the intention. For example, a person may have pushed someone in a rage only intending to cause pain, but the action resulted in the victim’s death.
● Third-Degree Murder is an unintentional crime committed without planning or premeditation, but resulting in a person’s death. Third-degree murder charges require intent to cause harm to the victim, but not intent to kill. It is usually the result of committing other minor felonies or reckless behavior. When the murder results from committing a reckless act that the defendant knows could cause death, then it is also known as negligent homicide. An unintentional negligence charge is made when another person dies due to someone’s negligence. Prosecutors argue that a reasonable person would have taken more precautions in these cases and that the defendant’s actions were unreasonable.
► THE GREATEST LAW OF THE CHURCH ― The greatest law of the Church flows out of the two greatest commandments of God: (1) to love God with your whole mind, heart, soul and strength, and (2) to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). What, then, is that greatest law of the Church? It is the salvation of souls: “Lex suprema salus animarum est” ― “The supreme law is the salvation of souls”? It explains why Our Lord came to this Earth―to save souls: “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son―so that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “God sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17). “The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14). “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
As Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen said: “Unless souls are saved, nothing is saved!” ― which is merely an echo of Our Lord’s own words: “For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). It is a damning indictment upon Catholics who merely stand by and do little or nothing while souls fall into Hell like snowflakes in a blizzard: “I saw souls falling into Hell like snowflakes!” (St. Teresa of Avila) … “Those cast into Hell were as numerous as snowflakes in midwinter!” (Blessed Anna Maria Taigi) … “I see so many souls lost these days. See, they fall into Hell as leaves fall from the trees at the approach of winter! ... The number of the saved is as few as the number of grapes left after the vineyard-pickers have passed!” (St. John Vianney).
Our Lady appealed to us to help save those damned souls: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... the perdition of so many souls so dear to Jesus Christ and to me! … The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness … Unbridled luxury will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost … There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world … There are not any souls who, by their lives of immolation and sacrifice, appease the Divine Justice … Will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time? … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Pray very much—very much! … Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears! … O, if men only understood how to appreciate the time given to them and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! A considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!”
Believe it or not; like it or not; admit it or not ― we are a very judgmental breed! Always have been―always will be! We are almost wired to shoot before asking questions. We jump to conclusions on the flimsiest scraps of evidence. We prefer to interpret things in an evil way, rather than a good way. We look for what is evil and not for what is good. We see the worst in people and not what is best. In judging others―we ignore any good qualities and solely focus on the bad. We have an eye of an eagle for their faults and failings, ready to make mountains out of molehills. Yet when it comes to ourselves―we are as blind as bat to our faults, and make our mountains of sins look like molehills. We are one-sided in our opinions, assessments, and judgments.
This is what led St. Paul to write: “To me it is a very small thing to be judged by you, or by any human court―but neither do I judge my own self! For I myself am not conscious of any wrongdoing, yet am I not thereby justified―for He that judges me is the Lord! Therefore judge not before the time―until the Lord come, Who will bring to light both the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall every man have praise from God!” (1 Corinthians 4:3-5).
It is also what led Our Lord to say: “Why do you see the splinter that is in your brother’s eye; but cannot see the plank that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother: ‘Let me remove the splinter out of your eye!’ ― and behold there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite! First cast out the plank from your own eye, and then you shall be able to see in order to cast out the splinter from your brother’s eye!” (Matthew 7:3-5).
St. John adds: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us … If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him [God] a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10).
Thus St. Paul warns: “You are inexcusable, O man, whosoever you are that judges! For wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you do the same things which you judge! For we know that the judgment of God is, according to truth, against them that do such things! And do you think―O man that judges them who do such things, but do the same yourself―do you think that you shall escape the judgment of God?” (Romans 2:1-3).
To which St. James adds: “Let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak, and slow to anger! For the anger of man does not work the justice of God!” (James 1:19-20).
Shocking Sinners Shocking Conversions
Who would have thought that the Pharisee Saul―who had been persecuting Christians and was an accomplice to the murder of some of them―would end up being a pillar of Christianity as St. Paul? Even after his conversion on the road to Damascus, many were suspicious of him and feared him.
Who would have thought that impure womanizer Augustine―who himself admits that he loved sin of all kinds, especially sexual sins―would end up being a priest, then a bishop, and, after his death canonized as a saint and made to be a Father and a Doctor of the Church?
Sinners Must Start Rising From the Ashes
In case the discouraging thoughts of impossibility―Satan’s favorite “trump card”―should paralyze our efforts before we even start, let us remember some incredible examples of “the phoenix rising from its ashes” in the personages of some big sinners who became great saints―one of which we celebrate today, on August 28th, being St. Augustine. For those discouraged about achieving sanctity, there can be no better thing than to read and study the lives of the great sinners who became great saints. They are walking proof of the words of God in Holy Scripture, Who said: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool” (Isaias 1:18). Let us look at some big sinners “rising out of the ashes” of sin―for the greatest sinners can become the greatest saints. Or, more precisely, the greatest sinners MUST become the greatest saints—so that their great debt for sin can be paid-off by their great penances and virtues of holiness.
► St. Mary Magdalen: Possessed by Seven Devils & Adulteress
Around the time of Our Lord, we think of St. Mary Magdalen, who was possessed by seven devils and caught in adultery. The notion of Mary Magdalene being a repentant sinner, can be traced at least as far back as St. Ephraim the Syrian, in the fourth century, and became the generally accepted view in Western Christianity after the homily of Pope Gregory I (“Gregory the Great”) in about 591. We would find it difficult to find a greater sinner than Mary Magdalen. She was possessed by seven devils and her life of sin was no secret, but well-known by the community. Yet after all that, Holy Scripture tells us: “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus” (John 11:5). It does not say: “Jesus loved Martha and Lazarus, and only tolerated or put up with Mary.” No! St. John says “Jesus loved … Mary!” The New Testament God is no different from the Old Testament God: “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (Ezechiel 18:23). “Go then and learn what this meaneth, ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice!’ For I am not come to call the just, but sinners” (Matthew 9:13). “They that are in health need not a physician, but they that are ill” (Matthew 9:12). She ended up being tremendously devoted to both Our Lord and Our Lady.
► St. Dismas: Robber & Thief
St. Dismas isn’t a saint in the usual or strict sense—for he was never canonized by the Church—but rather a saint by local tradition instead. As the story goes, Dismas asked for Jesus Christ to remember him while he was being crucified next to him. A clue to his past lies in Dismas’ patronage, for he is the patron saint of reformed thieves. Tradition has it that he was converted on Calvary by the prayers of Our Lady.
► St. Callixtus: Thief & Embezzler
St. Callixtus of Rome lived a life of many sins before being taken under the wing of Victor I, a second century pope. Callixtus was a Roman slave whose petty theft and reckless investments resulted in being sentenced to forced labor in the mines of Sardinia. He embezzled money and started a public riot, amongst other criminal affairs, but left that all behind early in the third century when he reformed. Released from the mines by a general pardon, he returned to Rome where Pope St. Victor I gradually brought him to repentance. . He was ordained a priest, served as administrator of one of the catacombs, and ultimately Callixtus went on to become a pope himself, but died a martyr shortly thereafter. His Roman catacombs can be toured today.
► St. Hippolytus: Heretic & First Antipope
Hippolytus was an arrogant, unforgiving man who believed that Christians guilty of mortal sin should be expelled from the Church and never readmitted. In his pride, Hippolytus permitted his followers to elect him as the Church’s first anti-pope. Inspired by the true pope’s holiness, Hippolytus eventually repented of his own sin and was reconciled to the Catholic Church.
► St. Mary of Egypt: Seductress & Whore
At age 12 Mary (344-421) ran away from home to Alexandria, the most exciting city in the Roman Empire. She became an accomplished seductress, who took special pleasure in corrupting innocent young men. Mary was an expert seductress who ensnared any man who caught her eye. Once, on a whim, she joined a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. By the time the ship reached its destination, Mary had seduced the entire crew and all of the pilgrims. She traveled to Jerusalem where a supernatural force prevented her from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. In Jerusalem she realized the enormity of her sins Filled with remorse, Mary sought the Mother of God’s intercession and made a good confession. In penance, Mary lived out her conversion as a hermit, alone in the Jordanian desert.
► St. Augustine: Fornicator and Worldling
Augustine was son of Patricius, a well-to-do pagan, whose ideal of life was to get the most out of it he could, without being too particular as to the means. Patricius, at the age of forty, had married Monica, a girl of seventeen, a Christian on both her father’s and her mother’s side. This marriage alone would seem to imply a certain laxity of Faith in the family; the fact that Monica owed most of her religious and moral training to an old nurse confirms it. Three children were born to them, Augustine the first, but none of them were baptized. Augustine grew up among pagan children, apparently in a pagan school, and his morals from the first were no better than theirs. He could steal, he could cheat, he could lie with the best of them; to do these things cleverly and successfully was a mark of talent rather than of vice. Patricius saw that Augustine had an excellent mind and a wonderful disposition for learning, and with a view to his future preferment, spared nothing to breed him up a scholar. He was sent to Madaura, a prosperous city thirty miles away.
In Madaura, he was his own master; the longing he had always had to do just what he liked, without hindrance from anyone, was allowed free scope. He fell also into vanity, pleasing himself with the pride of surpassing his companions at play, and loving to have his ears scratched with vain praises. A worse curiosity drew him to the dangerous entertainments of those who were older—public shows, plays, and other diversions of the theatre. The most fatal sin was the vice of impurity, into which he fell in the sixteenth year of his age. He was led into this by reading impure plays in Terence, by sloth, by frequenting stage entertainments, and by bad company and example. The consequences were inevitable. Augustine came home from Madaura addicted to the lowest vices. His father, an adulterer himself, looked upon the same excess as a proof of manhood.
The next step in Augustine’s career was to Carthage― the center of learning and pleasure in North Africa, and Augustine craved for both. There he lived, from the age of seventeen, learning and loving as he wished, for there was no one to check or guide him. “I went to Carthage,” he wrote later, “where shameful lust bubbled round me like boiling oil.” Augustine plunged himself headlong into the filth of impurity. At about the age of 17, Augustine began an affair with a young woman in Carthage. Though his mother wanted him to marry a person of his class, the woman remained his lover for over fifteen years and gave birth to his son Adeodatus (372–388). In 385, Augustine ended his relationship with his lover in order to prepare himself to marry a ten-year-old heiress. He had to wait for two years because the legal age of marriage for women was twelve―during which time he plunged himself back into sexual relations with other women. By the time he was able to marry her, however, he had decided instead to remain chaste and become a priest.
► St. Moses the Black: Cut-throat & Gang Leader
Moses was chief of a violent gang of bandits. Fleeing from law enforcement, he took refuge in a monastery. Moses was inspired by the monk’s example and converted. He took a vow never to raise his hand against another human being, even in self-defense. After years of overcoming temptation, Moses was killed by Berber raiders.
► St. Pelagia: Dancer & Courtesan
The beautiful, teenage Saint Pelagia would have been every parent’s nightmare. As legend has it, she was a dancer and courtesan (prostitute) by her early teens. Pelagia’s conversion occurred all of a sudden, following a chance encounter with Saint Nonnus, the bishop of Edessa. The young girl was baptized, gave away her possessions to the poor and lived as a hermit for the rest of her life.
► St. Olga: Murderess
When a neighboring tribe assassinated her husband, Olga (c.879-969), princess of Kiev, went to war. Olga slaughtered her husband’s murderer and she massacred virtually the entire tribe; the few who did survive, she sold into slavery. Years later, while in Constantinople, to make an alliance with the emperor, Olga visited a church, encountered the splendor and beauty of Christianity and was in awe of the magnificence of the liturgy. She took instruction, was baptized and returned to Kiev, zealous to convert her people. Olga tried very hard to convert her people, but hardly anyone would listen to her. Even her family rejected Christianity. Olga died believing that as a missionary, she was a failure. Yet, she planted a seed of Faith which flourished. Today, Catholic and Orthodox Christians of Russia and Ukraine hail her as “Equal to the Apostles.”
► St. Vladimir: Murderer and Rapist
Olga’s grandson Vladimir (956-1015) became prince of Kiev by murdering his older half-brother. Then he raped his sister-in-law and added her to his harem of several hundred women. He built a new temple to all the gods; and sacrificed a father and his son to the false gods. When the emperor at Constantinople sought his help in putting down a rebellion, Vladimir demanded as his reward the emperor’s sister as his wife (actually, the unhappy woman would be Vladimir’s eighth wife). The emperor countered that Vladimir must convert to Christianity. In order to marry the emperor’s sister, Vladimir accepted Christian baptism. Everyone suspected that once he was back in Kiev, Vladimir would return to his old ways, but the grace of baptism changed him. His zeal for the Faith knew no limits and his efforts helped spread Christianity across Russia and Ukraine. He dismissed his extra wives and his harem, tore down the pagan temple, and launched a vigorous campaign to convert his people. The Faith his grandmother, Olga (see above) planted flourished under Vladimir.
► St. Margaret of Cortona: Rich Man’s Mistress
Margaret was only twelve when she became Arsenio’s mistress. After years of cohabitation, she realized her sins when she discovered Arsenio’s murdered corpse. Full of the grace of conversion and determined to start a new life, she went to Cortona where the Franciscans ministered to penitent sinners. There, Margaret pursued a life of prayer, penance, and good works.
► St. Angela of Foligno: Worldly and Flirtatious
Angela was beautiful, wealthy, and vain. As a rich man’s wife she wallowed in luxury. Her passions were expensive clothes and flashy jewels, extravagant meals and rare wines. She dressed and acted in ways that would provoke envy among women and sexual desire among men. When she was not indulging herself, she spent hours gossiping with her friends and maligning her neighbors. In her autobiography Angela discloses that in 1285 she did something so bad that for the first time in her life she began to live in fear of Hell. Her biographers speculate that Angela committed adultery, and given the intensity of her guilt and shame that seems likely. Near de spair, she prayed to St. Francis of Assisi to help her. As Angela prayed the saint appeared to her. “Sister,” St. Francis said, “if you would have asked me sooner I would have complied with your request sooner. Nonetheless, your request is granted.” That same day Angela offered a sincere confession to a priest. As she stepped from the shadowy interior of the church into the bright sunlight of the piazza, Angela resolved to begin a new life. She sold her fine clothes and jewels to relieve the suffering of Foligno’s poor. After the death of her husband, she gave away all her wealth, associated herself with the Franciscans, and with a handful of other holy women dedicated herself to tending the poor and the sick. Blessed Angela’s life teaches us a timeless lesson about our weakness and God’s mercy. All that he requires is that we repent and make a sincere effort to do better in the future.
► St. Thomas Becket: Rich and Cruel
As chancellor of England under Henry II, Thomas Becket (1118-1170) became obscenely wealthy. His wardrobe was larger and more expensive than the king’s. He even had his own private navy. In spite of all his wealth, Becket was cold-hearted and never gave anything to the poor. All that changed after Becket was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury. He gave away all his possessions. He welcomed the poor at his table. And he became a champion of the independence of the Church, for which he was murdered in his own cathedral by four of King Henry’s knights.
► St. Philip Howard: Playboy and Gambler
Son of one of the wealthiest noble families in England, Philip Howard (1557-1595) could afford any pleasure he liked — and he liked them all. At court he was a notorious playboy, gambler and fop. He ran up enormous debts, then sold off his wife’s property to settle them. On one occasion he said publicly that he did not really consider himself to be married. In 1581, he joined other members of the court at the Tower of London, to see a debate between several Anglican ministers and a prisoner, the Jesuit priest, St. Edmund Campion. Although the ministers were armed with books and assistants, Father Campion was alone and had only his memory to rely on, yet he did so well in the debate, that the government canceled the debate before a verdict could be given. Inspired by Father Campion, Howard reconciled with his wife, and they both returned to the Catholic Faith. When they tried to leave the country secretly for the Continent of Europe, where they could practice Catholicism freely, they were stopped and Howard was imprisoned in the Tower of London. He died there 10 years later.
► St. Camillus of Lellis: Drinker, Gambler & Whore-Lover
Camillus de Lellis was born in Italy in the middle of the 16th century. A hot-tempered, troublesome child, he joined the army when he was 16, though his aggressive behavior only grew after that. Camillus was a mercenary soldier with all the worst habits— drinking, gambling, swearing, chasing prostitutes. Years of sinful acts followed before his wholehearted reform in 1575. When his father called for a priest on his deathbed, Camillus began to rethink his life. Guided by St. Philip Neri, his spiritual director, Camillus turned away from sin, dedicated himself to the sick, and formed a religious congregation for nursing the poor. Years of sinful acts followed before his wholehearted reform in 1575. When his father called for a priest on his deathbed, Camillus began to rethink his life. Guided by St. Philip Neri, his spiritual director, Camillus turned away from sin, dedicated himself to the sick, and formed a religious congregation for nursing the poor.
How Would We Have Judged Them?
If we were living at the time of the above mentioned sinners―what would our judgment of them have been? Probably just like the judgment of most their contemporaries ― very negative, condemning and damning. Would we have prayed for them and made sacrifices for them? Probably not―because we pray very little for sinners today and hardly make any sacrifices (if any at all) for the conversion of sinners. In our eyes they would have been Hell-bound. Nobody is saying that we must ignore their sins―sin must hated as the greatest evil in the world―but we are very quick to hate the sinner together with the sin. That is not what Our Lord is all about―as He Himself tells us: “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17) … “The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14) … “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56) … “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) … “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32).
Our Lord Came to Save Souls―We Help Damn Souls!
That is not what most Catholics are like―they are quite the opposite. They do not really care for sinners, nor do they really pray for sinners―apart from saying so with their lips at the start of a Rosary, but their heart is far from sinners. Just as Our Lord said of the Jews: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6) ― He could likewise say: “Hypocrites! You say that you pray for sinners with your lips―but your heart is not really in it!” We might be tempted to use Cain’s reply to God, when asked where his murdered brother Abel was: “And the Lord said to Cain: ‘Where is thy brother Abel?’ And he answered: ‘I know not! Am I my brother’s keeper!’” (Genesis 4:9). Cain murdered his brother Abel―and we, in a similar manner, murder our “brothers” in this world by not praying and sacrificing for their conversion: “You have heard from the beginning, that you should love one another. Not as Cain―who was of the wicked one and killed his brother! Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer! He that hath the substance of this world [the Faith and grace of God], and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how then does the charity of God abide in him? … Let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but by deeds and in truth!” (1 John 3:11-18).
At Fatima, Our Lady asked for prayers and sacrifices from the Catholic world for the conversion of sinners! What happened? Has the world got better or worse? Unmistakably and unimaginably worse! In 1956―which is 39 years after Fatima―Our Lady had to say to Blessed Elena Aiello: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth! … Satan reigns and triumphs on Earth! See how the souls are falling into Hell. See how high the flames are, and the souls who fall into them like flakes of snow, looking like transparent embers! How many sparks! … Men, in spite of repeated warnings, are not returning to God! They refuse grace, and are not listening to my voice! … Priests must unite by prayers and penance! … . Through prayer and penance, my mercy will be able to hold back the hand of God’s justice! … Cry out these things to all, like the very echo of my voice! Let this be known to all―because it will help save many souls and prevent much destruction in the Church and in the world!”
Our Lord also appeared to Blessed Elena Aiello, lamenting: “The world has lowered itself in overflowing corruption! … Men have become ungrateful to My Sacred Heart, and, abusing My Mercy, have transformed the Earth into a scene of crime! Numerous scandals are bringing souls to ruin particularly through the corruption of youth. Stirred-up and unrestrained in the enjoyment of the pleasures of the world, they have degraded their spirit in corruption and sin. The bad example of parents trains the family in scandal and infidelity, instead of virtue and prayer, which is almost dead on the lips of many! … Men are obstinate in their guilt, and do not return to God! … The wills of men do not change! They live in their obstinacy of sin! … There must be more prayers and penances from the souls faithful to Me! … Help Me by suffering, to repair for so many offenses, and thus save, at least in part, humanity that has waded into a swamp of corruption and death!”
Dead Faith Produces No Fruit
Would that be the scenario if we really praying and sacrificing for the conversion of sinners? No it would not! The world would be much different to what it is today! Unpleasant though it may sound―we have nobody else but ourselves to blame for the state of the world today. Our Lord―in speaking of the latter days of the world―said: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). Today, we see the beginnings of a mass apostasy―a mass falling-away from the Faith. Throughout the world, on average, only 15% to 20% attend Sunday Mass regularly (it binds us under pain of mortal sin) and less that 4% pray the Rosary daily. There are almost 1,400 million (1.4 billion) Catholics in the world who have been baptized and were given the Faith―but the vast majority do not practice their Faith and do not believe all that the Faith obliges them to believe. They do not live the Faith―even though they have the Faith. They are in mortal sin and they have no works of Faith to show for their Faith―they are trees with no fruit; they have the Faith, but it is dead. “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith! Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … Do you see that by works a man is justified―and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26).
A Faith that is Dead and Buried
We are reminded of Our Lord’s parable of the talents―wherein we could liken the talent to the Faith. The servants were given various numbers of talents (1 talent = 750 ounces of silver @ today’s price, $26 oz = $19,500 per talent). The one who was given 5 talents, produced another 5 talents as profit; the one who received 2 talents, produced another 2 talents as profit; the one who received only 1 talent, buried it in the ground and showed no profit for what he had been given.
“A man going into a far country, called his servants, and delivered to them his goods. To one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one―to everyone according to his proper ability―and then immediately he took his journey. And he that had received the five talents, went his way, and traded with the same, and gained another five. And in like manner he that had received the two, gained another two. But he that had received the one, going his way dug a hole into the earth and hid his lord’s money. But after a long time, the lord of those servants came, and reckoned with them. And he that had received the five talents coming, brought the other five talents, saying: ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents, behold I have gained another five over and above!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because you have been faithful over a few things, I will place you over many things! Enter into the joy of your lord!’ And he also, that had received the two talents, came and said: ‘Lord, you delivered two talents to me! Behold, I have gained another two!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because you have been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter into the joy of your lord!’ But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that you are a hard man―you reap where you have not sown, and gather where you have not strewn. And, being afraid, I went and hid your talent in the ground! Behold here it is―you can take back that which is yours!’ And his lord, answering, said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not strewn! Therefore you should have entrusted my money to the bankers, so that, at my coming, I should have received my own money back with usury [additional interest]!’ Take away, therefore, the talent from him and give it to him that has ten talents. For to everyone that has, shall be given more, and he shall abound! But from him that has not, that also which he seems to have shall be taken away! And the unprofitable servant cast out into the exterior darkness―where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
Just as in the parable of the talents, God has given us the “talent” of the Faith and all of its potential power―and, like the man who buried his talent in the ground, we have not used the power of the Faith in the way that we should have used it! What is the power of the Faith? Holy Scripture tells us: “This is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “If you had Faith like to a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry tree: ‘Be thou rooted up, and be thou transplanted into the sea!’― and it would obey you!” says Our Lord (Luke 17:6), adding elsewhere: “Amen I say to you! If you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here to there!’ ― and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 17:19). Unfortunately and tragically, we do not “fight the good fight of the Faith” and we are most certainly not seeing “the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” The world is overcoming our Faith and Satan is robbing the Faith of its souls by drawing them into mortal sin―as we are preoccupied with the treasures, pleasures, fun and entertainment of the world which Satan has served-up and dressed-up for us. We spend many hours on those things―and little to no time on fulfilling Our Lady’s and Our Lord’s requests for more prayer and penance!
Heaven Asks For More―We Give Less
At Fatima, Our Lady said: Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”―and to Blessed Elena Aiello, in the 1950’s she added: “Prayer and penance … will help save many souls and prevent much destruction in the Church and in the world!” While Our Lord also said to Blessed Elena in the 1950s: “There must be more prayers and penances from the souls faithful to Me! … Help Me by suffering, to save at least part of humanity that has waded into a swamp of corruption and death!” Just over 20 years later, in Akita, Japan, Our Lady would add: “I desire souls to console and to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father! I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests!”
What do Our Lord and Our Lady ask for? Take out the key words from the above quotes and drill them into your head and your heart: “Souls go to Hell … because nobody sacrifices and prays for them! … Help Me to save at least part of humanity by suffering! … Will you bear all the sufferings God will send you for the conversion of sinners? … You are going to have much to suffer! … Prayer and penance will save many souls! … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger! … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests!”
Our Lady Rejects Nobody―She Seeks to Save Everybody
Would it fitting and appropriate for the Mother of Mercy to turn her back on such wretched popes, bishops and priests? Let us not forget Our Lady’s words to St. Bridget of Sweden―as quoted in Glories of Mary by St. Alphonsus Liguori: “As a mother makes every effort to save her son when she sees him exposed to the sword of the enemy, so do I, and will I ever do for my children―however sinful they might be―if they come to me for help! Nobody in the world is so great a sinner―provided that he says in his heart that my Son is the Creator and Redeemer of the universe and that my Son is dear to him in his inmost heart―that I am not prepared to come to him immediately, like a loving mother to her son, and hug him and say: ‘What would you like, my son?’ Even if he had deserved the lowest punishment in Hell, nevertheless, if only he has the intention of not caring for worldly honors, or greed, or carnal lust, such as the Church condemns, and desires nothing but his own sustenance, then he and I will right away get along quite well together! I am the Mother of Mercy and the gate of entrance for sinners to God! There is no sinner living on Earth who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion―for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one is so entirely cast-off by God―unless already in Hell―that he could not return and enjoy His mercy if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners.” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Glories of Mary).
St. Alphonsus Liguori adds: “O ever blessed and thanked be our God, O most amiable Mary, who made thee so merciful and kind towards the most miserable sinners. St. Bernard says: ‘O Lady, thou dost abhor no sinner, however abandoned and vile he may be, when he has recourse to thee; if he asks thy help, thou wilt extend thy kind hand to draw him from the depths of despair!’ Oh, wretched are those who do not love thee, and who, having it in their power to seek help of thee, do not trust in thee! He who does not implore the aid of Mary is lost―but who has ever been lost that had recourse to her?” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Glories of Mary).
What About Us? Is That Our Approach?
If that is Our Lady’s approach to sinners―what is our approach like? Do we resemble our merciful Mother? Or do we resemble the merciless Satan? Our Lady intercedes. Satan accuses. Our Lady wants mercy. Satan wants no mercy. Our Lady wants everyone’s reconciliation with God. Satan wants nobody’s reconciliation with God. Our Lady wants to see the greatest sinners in Heaven. Satan wants to see the greatest sinners (and the greatest saints) in Hell. Whose side are we on? What evidence do our thoughts, words and actions present before God? Are we truly Catholic in theory and in practice? Or we Catholics only in theory, but not in practice?
Do we want bad or evil popes, bishops, priests, Catholics, Protestants and pagans to be saved or to be lost? Do we want to see them in Heaven or in Hell? Do we want those who are fighting against the Faith, corrupting the Faith, destroying the Faith to be saved or damned? Do we want the child-abusers, adulterers, fornicators, rapists, abortionists, murderers, Satanists, witches, homosexuals, etc. to be saved or damned? Do we want those who have sinned against us terribly to be saved or damned?
Now flip the coin―do you want to be saved? Have you sinned against God? Have you sinned against your neighbor? Have you committed mortal sins? If you have sinned against God―then you have broken the greatest commandment that there is: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). If you have sinned against your neighbor―then you have broken the second greatest commandment that exists: And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). If you have sinned either mortally or venially―then you have committed the greatest evil in the world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). “Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
After having broken the two greatest commandments and after having committed the greatest evils in the world―do you still want to be saved? Do you want to be shown mercy? Do you still expect Christ to forgive you? Do you still expect to go to Heaven? Well what about others? Why you and not them?
Don't Change Christ's Doctrine! Don't Limit His Mercy!
Do not start playing at being God! Do not start tweaking, twisting and changing how God does things! Do not reduce God to your own narrow-minded version of God―a God who is made by you into the image and likeness of you! You are not God and God is not you! As He Himself says: “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). “Is it not lawful for Me to do what I will? Is thy eye evil because I am good? I will also give to this last one even as to thee!” (Matthew 20:15). “There is no man who sins not” (3 Kings 8:46). “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin!’?” (Proverbs 20:9). Who dare say: “I am clean, and without sin! I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me!” (Job 33:9). “Is it My will that a sinner should die, says the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? … If the wicked man does penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all My commandments, then living he shall live, and shall not die! … And you have said: ‘The way of the Lord is not right!’ Hear ye, therefore! Is it My way that is not right, or rather is it not your ways that are perverse? … Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities and iniquity shall not be your ruin! Cast away from you all your transgressions and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dies, says the Lord God, return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32).
Loving Sinners is Hard―Getting to Heaven is Hard!
To love sinners and enemies seems to go against the grain of our nature. Yet Our Lord said: “You have heard that it has been said: ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy!’ But I say to you: Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! And pray for them that persecute and calumniate you! ― so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven―Who makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and makes His rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. For if you only love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even sinners [publicans] do this? And if you only salute your brethren, what do you do that is more? Do not the heathens and pagans also do this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:43-48).
St. Thomas Aquinas explains: “Our Lord said: ‘Love your enemies’ (Matthew 4:44). Love of one’s enemies may be understood in three ways. First, as though we were to love our enemies as such―this is perverse and contrary to charity, since it implies a love of that which is evil in another. Secondly love of one’s enemies may mean that we love them as to their God-given nature: and in this sense charity requires that we should love our enemies, namely, that in loving God and our neighbor, we should not exclude our enemies from the love given to our neighbor in general. Thirdly, love of one’s enemies may be considered as specially directed to them, namely, that we should have a special movement of love towards our enemies. Charity does not require this absolutely, because to have a special movement of love for every individual man would be impossible. Nevertheless charity does require that we should be ready to love our enemies individually, if the necessity were to occur. To love our enemy for God’s sake―without it being necessary for us to do so―belongs to the perfection of charity. For the more we love God, the more do we put enmities aside and show love towards our neighbor. To do good to one’s enemies is the height of perfection.
“So much do we love our friends, that, for their sake, we love all who belong to them―even if they hurt or hate us―so that, in this way, the friendship of charity extends even to our enemies, whom we love out of charity in relation to God … Thus if we loved a certain man very much, then we would love his children also, even though they were unfriendly towards us … In this way charity extends to sinners, whom, out of charity, we love for God’s sake … The charity, whereby we love our neighbor, is a participation of Divine charity … God is the principal object of charity, while our neighbor is loved out of charity for God’s sake … whereas God is loved by charity for His own sake … We ought to look upon every man as our neighbor. Sinners do not cease to be men, for sin does not destroy their human nature. Therefore we ought to love sinners out of charity … It is our duty to hate, in the sinner, his being a sinner, and to love in him as being a man who is capable of [heavenly] bliss; and this is to love him truly, out of charity, for God’s sake.
“When our friends fall into sin, we ought not to deny them friendship, so long as there is hope of their mending their ways, and we ought to help them more readily to regain virtue than to recover money, had they lost it, for as much as virtue is more akin than money to friendship. When, however, they fall into very great wickedness, and become incurable, then we ought no longer to show them friendliness. It is for this reason that both Divine and human laws command such like sinners to be put to death, because there is greater likelihood of their harming others than of their mending their ways. Nevertheless the judge puts this into effect, not out of hatred for the sinners, but out of the love of charity, by reason of which he prefers the public good to the life of the individual.” (Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 23, art. 1 & 2 & 5; q. 25, art. 6 & 7).
Wow! St. Thomas says: “When they fall into great wickedness and become incurable, we should no longer show them friendliness … Divine and human laws command such sinners to be put to death!” Yeah! Let’s go get ‘em! Let’s kill them! Whoopee! Well―first of all―how can we be certain that they are, as St. Thomas says, “incurable”, if we have not administered to them the medicine of many prayers and sacrifices? Our Lady of Fatima asked that we offer many, many prayers and sacrifices for them―she did not tell us to round them up and kill them! Have we offered MANY, MANY prayers and sacrifices for them―or barely any? If we have applied barely any medicine―then we are as guilty as a doctor who sees a patient in a life threatening scenario and neglects to administer the medicines that he has available to him!
The Greatest Law―the Greatest Crime
In human law, the most serious crimes are those that take the life of another person―either deliberately or non-deliberately. Murder is defined as the unlawful killing of a human being. According to Current Law 2023 in the American legal system, murder is divided into three distinct categories: first-, second-, and third-degree murder.
● First Degree Murder is intentional murder and premeditated murder. In other words, the crime was committed with the intent to cause harm to and kill the victim or victims with no regard for human life. The crime was willfully done with a strong desire to end the victim’s life. It is the highest level of crime and is punished accordingly. As first-degree murders are the most severe type of all murder charges, it follows that they also come with the most severe punishments through law enforcement.
● Second Degree Murder is when someone intentionally kills another person without planning or premeditation. Murders in this classification are usually the result of acting impulsively due to rage and with no intent to kill the victim before that moment in time. In such cases, the perpetrators comprehend that their actions could lead to death or considerable damage. Despite not being premeditated, all second-degree murders are carried out with the intent to cause harm of some kind, including the intent to kill. Usually, murders of this type result from provocation, passion, or financial gain. In some states, this is deemed a separate crime known as voluntary manslaughter. When a human being is killed by accident, this is known as involuntary manslaughter or accidental manslaughter. While there is still an intent to cause harm, the victim’s death was not the intention. For example, a person may have pushed someone in a rage only intending to cause pain, but the action resulted in the victim’s death.
● Third-Degree Murder is an unintentional crime committed without planning or premeditation, but resulting in a person’s death. Third-degree murder charges require intent to cause harm to the victim, but not intent to kill. It is usually the result of committing other minor felonies or reckless behavior. When the murder results from committing a reckless act that the defendant knows could cause death, then it is also known as negligent homicide. An unintentional negligence charge is made when another person dies due to someone’s negligence. Prosecutors argue that a reasonable person would have taken more precautions in these cases and that the defendant’s actions were unreasonable.
► THE GREATEST LAW OF THE CHURCH ― The greatest law of the Church flows out of the two greatest commandments of God: (1) to love God with your whole mind, heart, soul and strength, and (2) to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). What, then, is that greatest law of the Church? It is the salvation of souls: “Lex suprema salus animarum est” ― “The supreme law is the salvation of souls”? It explains why Our Lord came to this Earth―to save souls: “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son―so that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “God sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17). “The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14). “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
As Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen said: “Unless souls are saved, nothing is saved!” ― which is merely an echo of Our Lord’s own words: “For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). It is a damning indictment upon Catholics who merely stand by and do little or nothing while souls fall into Hell like snowflakes in a blizzard: “I saw souls falling into Hell like snowflakes!” (St. Teresa of Avila) … “Those cast into Hell were as numerous as snowflakes in midwinter!” (Blessed Anna Maria Taigi) … “I see so many souls lost these days. See, they fall into Hell as leaves fall from the trees at the approach of winter! ... The number of the saved is as few as the number of grapes left after the vineyard-pickers have passed!” (St. John Vianney).
Our Lady appealed to us to help save those damned souls: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... the perdition of so many souls so dear to Jesus Christ and to me! … The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness … Unbridled luxury will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost … There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world … There are not any souls who, by their lives of immolation and sacrifice, appease the Divine Justice … Will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time? … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Pray very much—very much! … Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears! … O, if men only understood how to appreciate the time given to them and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! A considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!”
Article 12
Saturday August 26th & Sunday August 27th, 2023
Augustine the Sinner & You!
Saturday August 26th & Sunday August 27th, 2023
Augustine the Sinner & You!
August and Augustine―Aghast and Disgusting!
Quite fittingly, August contains the feast of its namesake, St. Augustine (354-430). On August 28th we celebrate the feast of St. Augustine―who could easily be taken to be a patron saint of our sinful times! Crime (which is sin) happens all year-round, but experts say there is no other season that correlates to the steady increase in crime more than the hot summer months. Augustine was born in hot North Africa (in what today is known as Algeria). His passions were just as hot throughout all of his youth and early manhood! Our Lady of Good Success and Our Lady of Fatima, speaking of the sins of our times, stated that impurity is the sin that damns most souls―and it was with impurity (as well as many other sins) that Augustine was plagued.
Born to a pagan father (Patricius, or in English, Patrick) and a Christian mother (Monica) in the town of Tagaste―his life leaves us aghast! His pagan father, Patricius, a middle-income farmer, known for his violent temper and immoral lifestyle. Augustine’s mother, known today as St. Monica, struggled with alcohol at an early age, but overcame that vice. She was raised a Christian and wholeheartedly embraced her Catholic Faith. Despite suffering due to her pagan husband’s temper and adulterous behavior, Monica was a model of charity, and her prayers eventually converted her whole family―as Scripture says: “The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife; and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband” (1 Corinthians 7:14). Nevertheless, Patricius worked hard to get Augustine the best education in rhetoric that he could, first at Madaura, twenty miles away, from age eleven to fifteen, then, after a year at home, in the thriving nearby city of Carthage, to continue his education from age seventeen to twenty―once he could find someone to pay for it. This took several months, and Augustine’s idleness during that time only led him into greater mischief. His father died that year, but a wealthy citizen of Tagaste offered to sponsor Augustine’s education.
St. Augustine knew all about sin―he was immersed in sin for over 30 years before finally being baptized. Augustine’s father had not permitted his children to receive baptism, despite their mother’s pleas. Nevertheless, Monica ensured their catechetical formation from an early age, as well as an education in the classics. Monica’s Faith instilled within Augustine an awareness of Christ his Savior, but that awareness never fully penetrated his young mind. Instead, he became a troublemaker. For instance, he and his friends once stole some pears, not because they were hungry, or because the pears tasted good, but merely for the thrill of it. By the time he arrived in Carthage, he was ripe for a life of sin. Many of the other students lived immorally, the theaters stirred up his passions, and he became intoxicated by his literary successes. He later recounted in his Confessions, “I loved my own undoing. I loved my error—not that for which I erred, but the error itself … seeking nothing from the shameful deed except shame itself. It was a love of sin.” Augustine writes in his book written after his conversion, he was attracted to sin, he loved sin, he tried as many sins as he could, he enjoyed sinning. It is Augustine who infamously said: “Lord make me chaste, but not yet!”
A Life of Lust
This infamous prayer of the young Augustine of Hippo ― “Lord make me chaste, but not yet!” ― reflects the inner conflict of any soul who recognizes what is the virtuous thing to do, yet fears and neglects to do it due to the demanding struggle against human urges and passions that it would require. In his book, Confessions, St. Augustine was not afraid to admit his utter powerlessness in the face of sexual temptation. Before Augustine left for the city of Carthage to study for three years, his mother warned him earnestly “not to commit fornication and, above all, not to seduce any man’s wife.” But Augustine would later write in his book, Confessions: “I went to Carthage, where I found myself in the midst of a hissing cauldron of lust!” As a young man, he had given in to the attraction of sexual pleasure. He wrote: “I was tied down by this disease of the flesh. Its deadly pleasures were a chain that I dragged along with me, yet I was afraid to be freed from it ... I was a prisoner of habit, suffering cruel torments through trying to satisfy a lust that could never be satisfied.” Those words equally apply to so many souls today, living in our world of impurity, of which Our Lady of Good Success foretellingly said: “The spirit of impurity will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world!”
Shortly after his arrival in Carthage, Augustine took a lover with whom he lived in sin for fifteen years, whom he would never marry―but who bore him his only son, the illegitimate Adeodatus (which ironically means “Given by God”). He was brutally honest about why he chose to live with this woman: “I had chosen her for no special reason but that my restless passions had alighted on her!” He was faithful to his mistress throughout their fifteen years together, yet he could see that his love for her, marked by lust, was very different from the love he would expect in a proper marriage. This difference was most apparent in the attitude to children. Whereas marriage is contracted for the purpose of being open to new life, his irregular and sinful union was, in his own words, “a bargain struck for lust, in which the birth of children is begrudged, though, if they come, we cannot help but love them.”
The power of sin enchained Augustine and used him as a net to ensnare others, but a far greater power was already at work. His saintly mother, Monica, had been praying for him for years with such weeping and longing that her local bishop reassured her: “Go in peace! It cannot be that the son of these tears should be lost!”
A Mother Who Never Gave Up!
When Augustine completed his studies in Carthage around the age of nineteen, he returned home to Tagaste with his girlfriend and son and began teaching grammar at a local school. When he told his mother he was considering becoming a Manichaean (a heresy of those times), she threw him out of her house―but she later reconciled with him, due to divine inspiration that she received. He was so successful as a teacher that he was invited back to Carthage a few years later to teach Rhetoric. After several successful years, he received an invitation to Rome―which was a great honor. When he informed his mother, she told him that she was going with him―to which he reluctantly agreed. However, Augustine tricked his mother and left for Rome without her. In Rome, he became disgusted with the students who cheated him out of tuition fees, and after a few years, accepted a position in Milan. It was in Milan, when Augustine was thirty years old, that his mother finally caught up with him.
Still searching for the truth, Augustine met the future saint, Bishop Ambrose of Milan. Ambrose was a great thinker and preacher. He also paid attention to Augustine, listening to him, offering him friendship, and answering his many questions. Ambrose introduced him to the proper reading of the Bible, especially helping him with his difficulties with the Old Testament. When Ambrose came into conflict with the Empress Justina, who was trying to take his Cathedral and make it Arian (the Arian heresy was rife at the time), Ambrose stood his ground in an act of great courage and defiance. She backed off and Augustine was greatly impressed.
God Steps In
Yet he did not become a Christian then, because he thought he could never live a pure life. One day, however, he heard about two men who had suddenly been converted on reading the life of St. Anthony of the Desert, and he felt terribly ashamed of himself. “What are we doing?” he cried to his friend and impure colleague, Alipius, “Unlearned people are taking Heaven by force, while we, with all our knowledge, are so cowardly that we keep rolling around in the mud of our sins!”
Full of bitter sorrow, Augustine flung himself out into the garden and cried out to God, “How much longer, O Lord? Why does not this hour put an end to my sins?” Just then he heard a child singing, “Take up and read!” Thinking that God intended him to hear those words, he picked up the Bible next to him and randomly opened to Romans 13:13-14 which read: “Let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and licentiousness, not in rivalry and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.” This passage affected him so deeply that it was the spark that lit fuse to his eventual conversion.
Augustine now began to spend more time with good Catholic friends and had lengthy conversations, which helped him immensely. His mother’s presence was also a great support. Although she was uneducated, her wisdom and insight into the truth were undeniable, and she always held her own ground with her well-educated son. She even tried to organize a marriage for Augustine to a suitably Catholic lady and so managed to get him to leave his lover with whom he had been living for fifteen years. This attempt at virtue only revealed how weak and vice-ridden Augustine really was. He later recalled:
“Meanwhile I was sinning more and more. The woman with whom I had been living was torn from my side as an obstacle to my marriage and this was a blow which crushed my heart to bleeding, because I loved her dearly ... I was still held firm in the bonds of the woman’s love … She went back to Africa, vowing never to give herself to any other man … But I was too unhappy and too weak to imitate this example shown to me by a woman. I was impatient at the delay of two years that had to pass before the girl I had asked to marry became my wife, and, because I was more a slave of lust than a true lover of marriage, I took another mistress, without the sanction of wedlock. This meant that the disease of my soul would continue unabated, in fact it would persist into the state of marriage.”
His fiancée had a lucky escape, being spared marriage to this immature, sex-obsessed cheat. Through the incessant prayers and sacrifices of his mother St. Monica, also the influence of St. Ambrose and his spiritual father Simplicianus, Augustine was already being swayed to embrace the truth of the Catholic Faith, yet his mind was being held back by the sinful habits that chained his will. He knew the truth, but he could not pay the price for this great treasure, which was the renunciation of his sins, especially sexual immorality. He admitted: “I was quite sure that it was better for me to give myself up to God’s love, than to surrender to my own lust. But while I wanted to follow the first course and was convinced that it was right, I was still a slave to the pleasures of the second.”
The Conversion of Augustine
The underlying foundation for Augustine was the incessant and fervent hope of his holy mother, St. Monica. No matter how bad things became, she continually prayed and made sacrifices for his future conversion. She would seek out and recruit the assisting prayers of priests and bishops to her cause.
In his book, Confessions, Augustine writes of the torments that he underwent in the long, drawn-out, painful process of his conversion:
“I sick and tormented, accusing myself far more severely than was normal to me, tossing and turning in my chain until it was utterly broken, with which I now was slightly, but still held. And You, O Lord, pressed upon me in my inward soul by a severe mercy, redoubling the lashes of fear and shame, lest I should again give way, and that same slender remaining chain, not being totally broken off, might recover strength and enchain me all the more. For I said mentally: ‘Let it be done now! Let it be done now!’ And as I spoke, I almost came to a resolution. I almost converted―yet I did it not. But I did not fall back into my old condition, but took up my position, hard though it was, and drew breath. And I tried again, but wanted very little to reach it [his conversion], and somewhat less, and then all but touched and grasped it; and yet came not to it, nor touched, nor grasped it, hesitating to die unto death, and to live unto life. The sins, whereto I had been habituated, prevailed more with me than the better way of life, which I had not tried. And the very moment in which I was to become another man, the nearer it approached me, the greater horror did it strike into me―but it did not strike me back, nor turn me aside, but kept me in suspense!
“The very toys of toys, and vanities of vanities, my old mistresses, still enthralled me; they shook my fleshly garment, and whispered softly: ‘Will you leave us? Will we, from this moment, be with you no more for ever?’ And what did they suggest to me in the words? What is it that they suggested, O my God? Let Your mercy turn it aside from the soul of Your servant. What impurities did they suggest! What shame! I half heard them―not openly showing themselves and contradicting me―but muttering, as it were, behind my back, and furtively tugging me as I was departing, to make me look back upon them. Yet they did delay me―so that I hesitated to burst and shake myself free from them, and to leap over to where I was called. A sinful habit was saying to me: ‘Do you think you can live without them?’”
“The taunts had begun to sound much less persuasive, however; for a revelation was coming to me from that country toward which I was facing, but into which I trembled to cross. There I beheld the chaste, dignified figure of Continence. Calm and cheerful was her manner, though modest, pure and honorable her charm as she coaxed me to come and hesitate no longer, stretching kindly hands to welcome and embrace me, hands filled with a wealth of heartening examples. A multitude of boys and girls were there, a great crowd of youth and persons of every age, venerable widows and women grown old in their virginity―and in all of them I saw this that this same Continence was by no means sterile, but the fruitful. She was smiling at me, but with a challenging smile, as though to say: “Can you not do what these men have done, these women? Could any of them achieve it by their own strength, without the Lord their God? He it was, the Lord their God, who granted me to them. Why try to stand by yourself, only to lose your footing? Cast yourself on him and do not be afraid: he will not step back and let you fall. Cast yourself upon him trustfully; he will support and heal you.” And I was bitterly ashamed, because I could still hear the murmurs of those frivolities, and I was still in suspense, still hanging back. Again Continence appealed to me, as though urging, “Close your ears against those unclean parts of you which belong to the Earth and let them be put to death. They tell you titillating tales, but have nothing to do with the law of the Lord your God.” All this argument in my heart raged only between myself and myself.”
“It was no iron chain imposed by anyone else that fettered me, but the iron of my own will. The enemy had my power of willing in his clutches, and from it had forged a chain to bind me. The truth is that disordered lust springs from a perverted will; when lust is pandered to, a habit is formed; when habit is not checked, it hardens into compulsion. These were like interlinking rings forming what I have described as a chain, and my harsh servitude used it to keep me under duress.
“A new will had begun to emerge in me, the will to worship you disinterestedly and enjoy you, O God, our only sure happiness―but my new will was not yet capable of surmounting that earlier will, which had been strengthened by sinful custom. And so the two wills fought it out—the old and the new, the one carnal, the other spiritual—and, in their struggle, tore my soul apart. I thus came to understand, from my own experience what I had read, how the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit strives against the flesh (Galatians 5:17). I was aligned with both … I was convinced by the truth and had no answer whatever, except the sluggish, drowsy words: “Just a minute!” “One more minute!” “Let me have a little longer!” But these “minutes” never diminished, and my “little longer” lasted excessively long … A different law in my bodily members was warring against the law of my mind, imprisoning me under the law of sin, which held sway in my lower self. For the law of sin is that brute force of habit by which the mind is dragged along and held fast against its will, and deservedly so, because it slipped into the sinful habit willingly.”
“Such things I said, weeping in the most bitter sorrow of my heart. And suddenly, I heard a voice from some nearby house, a boy’s voice or a girl’s voice, I do not know―but it was a sort of sing-song repeated again and again, “Take and read! Take and read!” I stopped weeping and immediately began to search my mind most carefully as to whether children were accustomed to chant these words in any kind of game, and I could not remember that I had ever heard any such thing. Keeping back the flood of my tears, I arose, interpreting the incident as certainly being a divine command to open my book of Scripture and read the passage at which I should open. I snatched it up, opened it, and in silence read the passage upon which my eyes first fell: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in orgies and impurities, not in contention and envy, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its concupiscences” (Romans 13:13-14). I had no wish to read further―and no need. For in that instant, with the very ending of the sentence, it was as though a light of utter confidence shone in my heart, and all the darkness of uncertainty vanished away. Then we [Augustine and his friend Alypius] went in to my mother and told her, to her great joy. We related how it had come about―she was filled with triumphant exultation, and praised You, Who are mighty, beyond what we ask or conceive―for she saw that You had given her more than with all her pitiful weeping she had ever asked. For You converted me to Yourself!” (St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 8).
Making Up For Lost Time
Augustine’s conversion occurred in September, 386, when Augustine was thirty-two. He would be baptized, become a priest, a bishop, a famous Catholic writer, a founder of religious priests, and one of the greatest saints that ever lived. From being a great sinner, he would make reparation by becoming a great saint! “Too late have I loved You!” he once cried to God, but with his holy life he certainly made up for the sins he committed before his conversion. He became very devout and charitable, too. On the wall of his room he had the following sentence written in large letters: “Here we do not speak evil of anyone!” St. Augustine overcame strong heresies, practiced great poverty and supported the poor, preached very often and prayed with great fervor right up until his death.
After his baptism, he gave up running his school and retired to spend the winter in a country house near Milan, which a friend lent to him. Monica, Navigius, Adeodatus (his son by his lover), Alipius, two cousins, and several friends were with him there. Augustine gave himself up to prayer, study, and conversation. He strove to get firm control over his passions and to prepare himself for a new life.
Returning to Milan, Augustine was baptized, with Alipius and the much-loved Adeodatus, by Bishop Ambrose (St. Ambrose) on the Eve of Easter, 387 AD. Resolving to re-establish himself in Africa, he traveled to the port of Ostia, accompanied by his mother, brother, son, and friends. Monica was taken ill at Ostia and soon died. To her life and final days, Augustine devoted some of the most moving chapters of the Confessions. He now went back to Rome to speak publicly against the heretical Manichaeans―whom he had almost joined―and a year passed before he left Rome and took ship for Africa. At Tagaste, his place of birth, he settled with friends in his old home, and stayed there for nearly three years, cut off from temporal concerns, serving God by prayer, fasting, and good works. All things in the house were held in common―Augustine even gave up title to the family property. Soon his life was again made desolate by the death of his illegitimate son by his lover, Adeodatus, a brilliant boy of seventeen―who had recently been baptized with his father, Augustine. In a short period of time, Augustine had lost both his mother, Monica, and his son, Adeodatus, to death.
In his sermons Augustine urges meditation on “the Last Things” ― Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell ― for “even if the Lord’s day, the Last Judgment, might be some distance away, is your Last Day, the day of death, far off?” He insists on the necessity of penance, “For sin must be punished either by the penitent sinner or by God, his judge; and God, who has promised pardon to the penitent sinner, has nowhere promised a tomorrow to do penance in to someone who delays his conversion.” He has much to say of almsgiving, and declares that failure in this duty was the cause of the destruction of most of those who perish, since it is the only sin Christ mentions in the Last Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46).
From a False Love of Lust to a True Love of Christ
Much like St. Paul after his conversion on the road to Damscus, Augustine made rapid progress along the path to holiness after his conversion. It seems as though his attitude towards God ― “Too late have I loved You!”― spurred hom on to make up for lost time. His rapid growth in holiness was not unnoticed―and people were constantly telling him that he should become a priest. Augustine did not wish to become a priest, and he was also aware that an attempt might be made to give him a bishopric; by this time he was even more famed for his saintliness than for his learning. He therefore avoided visiting any cities in which the sees of bishops were vacant.
In 391 he was in the city of Hippo, whose bishop, Valerius, had spoken to the people of his need for a priest to assist him. So when Augustine appeared in church, the congregation swept him forward to Valerius, entreating the bishop to ordain him priest. Augustine yielded and was ordained in 391 (four years after his conversion). Bishop Valerius gave him some months to prepare for his ministry. When Augustine moved to Hippo, he established a small community in a house adjoining the church, similar to the monastic household at Tagaste. Valerius, who had an impediment in his speech, appointed Augustine to deliver his sermons for him. Augustine also preached his own sermons. He felt that preaching was his most important duty, and this activity continued up to the very end of life. Nearly a hundred of his sermons still exist, many of them not written out by him, but taken down in shorthand as he delivered them.
In 395, eight years after his conversion, Augustine was further promoted and consecrated a bishop and coadjutor to Bishop Valerius, and, on Valerius’ death soon after, he succeeded him as the ruling bishop of that area. He now established a regular common life in the episcopal residence, and required all priests, deacons, and sub-deacons, who lived with him, to renounce their property and accept the rule he set up there. Only those who would bind themselves to such a life were accepted for Holy Orders. His biographer, Possidius, tells us that the furnishings of the house were extremely plain. He would have no silver utensils except spoons; the dishes were of earthenware, wood, and stone; the fare was frugal, and while wine was supplied to guests, the quantity was strictly limited. At meals Augustine preferred reading or literary conversation to secular talk. All clerics who lived with him ate at the same table. Thus, the mode of life instituted by the Apostles and carried out in the early history of the Church was adopted by the good bishop of Hippo. He also founded a community of religious women over whom his sister Perpetua was abbess. Augustine wrote the nuns a letter in which he laid down the broad, ascetic principles of the religious life. This letter, along with two sermons he preached on the subject, comprises the so-called Rule of St. Augustine, which has been the basis for the constitutions of many orders of canons regular, friars, and nuns.
To selected overseers among his clergy, Augustine committed the entire care of temporal matters, receiving their accounts at the end of the year. To others he entrusted the building and management of hospitals and churches. He would never accept any estate or gift when the donation seemed unfair to an heir. But the revenues of his church were freely spent, and Possidius says that sometimes sacred vessels were melted down to raise funds for redeeming of captives―an act for which he had the precedent set by Ambrose. He persuaded his people to provide clothing for all the poor of each parish once a year. In times of hardship he was not afraid to contract heavy debts to aid the distressed. His concern for the spiritual welfare of his people was boundless. “I do not wish to be saved without you,” he told them. “Why am I in the world? Not only to live in Jesus Christ; but to live in Him with you. This is my passion, my honor, my glory, my joy, and my riches.”
Few men have been endowed with a more generous and affectionate nature than Augustine. He talked freely with unbelievers, and often invited them to his table, although he sometimes declined to eat with Christians whose conduct was evil. He was rigorous in subjecting such offenders to canonical penance and the censures of the Church; but, in his opposition to wrong-doing, he never forgot the precepts of charity, humility and good manners. He followed Ambrose’s example in refusing to persuade men to become soldiers and he took no part in match-making.
St. Augustine’s letters show an astonishing breadth of interests. Some are learned treatises on points of Christian doctrine and conduct, others are full of practical counsel. In his letter to Ecdicia he explains the duties of a wife, telling her she ought not wear black clothes, since her husband disliked them; she might be humble in spirit while rich and colorful in dress. In all things reasonable, he tells her, she should agree with her husband as to the method of educating their son, and leave the chief care of it to him; he reproves her for having given goods and money to the poor without his consent, and tells her to ask his pardon for it. In like manner, he always impressed on husbands the respect, tender affection, and consideration which they owed their wives.
Love-Hate Relationship
You may have heard the expression: “Love the sinner, hate the sin!” Many think that it comes from the Bible, but it is nowhere to be found in the Bible―in that exact form: “Love the sinner, hate the sin!” So where did it come from? It came from the great sinner who became a great saint―St. Augustine. His Letter #211 (written around 424 AD) contains the phrase “Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum” which roughly translates to “With love for mankind and hatred of sins.” The phrase has become more famous as “Love the sinner, but hate the sin!” or “Hate the sin and not the sinner!”
On this “love-hate” matter, we must also add that we all have a tendency to love sin and hate paying for it through penance―whereas we should hate sin and love penance! God is just and fair―if you have sinned against Him, then you should pay for those sins. If we were just and fair―then we would have no problem in paying for our sins through penance, for paying in this life is literally millions of times less expensive than paying in the next life in either Purgatory or Hell! God is willing to forgive us the GUILT our sins―no matter how many or how serious they may have been―but he will not remove the DEBT of our sins: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow―and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool!” (Isaias 1:18). Nevertheless Jesus said: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! … I came to call sinners to penance! … No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 19:10; 5:3; 13:3-5). “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? … If the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do justice, then living he shall live, and shall not die! … Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities and iniquity shall not be your ruin! Cast away from you all your transgressions by which you have transgressed, and make unto yourselves a new heart and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dies, says the Lord God, return and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32).
Scripture speaks of this debt for sin on numerous occasions: “The wages of sin” (Romans 6:23) … “Pay what thou owest!” (Matthew 18:28) … “Cast him into prison, until he paid the debt!” (Matthew 18:30) … “His lord, being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt!” (Matthew 18:34) … “Thou shalt not go out from there, until thou pay the very last penny!” (Luke 12:59). Unfortunately, “God has given him time for penance, but he abuses it in his pride!” (Job 24:23).
It is amazing how patient and humble God is by having billions and trillions of offensive sins being thrown in his face each and every day―while seemingly keeping calm throughout the whole process. That does not mean that God is a doormat upon whom the whole world can wipe their dirty sinful shoes. As Holy Scripture warns: “The Lord does not delay His promise [of punishment], as some imagine, but He deals patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9) … “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8) … “My son, have you sinned? Then do so no more!―But for your former sins also pray that they may be forgiven thee!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1) … “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) … “But for your former sins pray that they may be forgiven!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1) … “God now declares unto men, that all should everywhere do penance!” (Acts 17:30) … “I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3-5).
We might vengefully remember the sins of others who have offended us, but it is not so with God: “I am He that blots out thy iniquities for My own sake, and I will not remember thy sins!” (Isaias 43:25) … “I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more!” (Jeremias 31:34). “I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more!” (Hebrews 8:12) ... “Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more!” (Hebrews 10:17) … “Therefore be penitent and be converted, so that your sins may be blotted out!” (Acts 3:19). Unlike us, God holds no grudges―but He expects the guilt of sin to be acknowledged by confession and the debt of sin to be paid for by penance. Actually, doing penance also acknowledges the guilt of sin―for why would you pay damages for something you haven’t done? Only Christ does that―for He paid for our sins despite having done no wrong Himself. Yet though He paid for our sins―He does expect to co-pay by doing penance: “I am come to call sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32).
Augustine Gives Hope to Sinners
St. Augustine tells us of the struggles he had during his conversion process, whereby the devil led him to despair of ever abandoning his sins of lust and acquiring holiness. Then he seemed to hear the voice of Continence say to him: “Can you not do what these men have done, these women? Could any of them achieve it by their own strength, without the Lord their God? He it was, the Lord their God, Who granted me [continence] to them. Why try to stand by yourself, only to lose your footing? Cast yourself on Him and do not be afraid! He will not step back and let you fall. Cast yourself upon Him trustfully! He will support and heal you!” (Confessions, Book 8). God inspired him with the following thought: “If they, why not I? If these men and women could become saints, why cannot I with the help of Him Who is all-powerful?”
Quite fittingly, August contains the feast of its namesake, St. Augustine (354-430). On August 28th we celebrate the feast of St. Augustine―who could easily be taken to be a patron saint of our sinful times! Crime (which is sin) happens all year-round, but experts say there is no other season that correlates to the steady increase in crime more than the hot summer months. Augustine was born in hot North Africa (in what today is known as Algeria). His passions were just as hot throughout all of his youth and early manhood! Our Lady of Good Success and Our Lady of Fatima, speaking of the sins of our times, stated that impurity is the sin that damns most souls―and it was with impurity (as well as many other sins) that Augustine was plagued.
Born to a pagan father (Patricius, or in English, Patrick) and a Christian mother (Monica) in the town of Tagaste―his life leaves us aghast! His pagan father, Patricius, a middle-income farmer, known for his violent temper and immoral lifestyle. Augustine’s mother, known today as St. Monica, struggled with alcohol at an early age, but overcame that vice. She was raised a Christian and wholeheartedly embraced her Catholic Faith. Despite suffering due to her pagan husband’s temper and adulterous behavior, Monica was a model of charity, and her prayers eventually converted her whole family―as Scripture says: “The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife; and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband” (1 Corinthians 7:14). Nevertheless, Patricius worked hard to get Augustine the best education in rhetoric that he could, first at Madaura, twenty miles away, from age eleven to fifteen, then, after a year at home, in the thriving nearby city of Carthage, to continue his education from age seventeen to twenty―once he could find someone to pay for it. This took several months, and Augustine’s idleness during that time only led him into greater mischief. His father died that year, but a wealthy citizen of Tagaste offered to sponsor Augustine’s education.
St. Augustine knew all about sin―he was immersed in sin for over 30 years before finally being baptized. Augustine’s father had not permitted his children to receive baptism, despite their mother’s pleas. Nevertheless, Monica ensured their catechetical formation from an early age, as well as an education in the classics. Monica’s Faith instilled within Augustine an awareness of Christ his Savior, but that awareness never fully penetrated his young mind. Instead, he became a troublemaker. For instance, he and his friends once stole some pears, not because they were hungry, or because the pears tasted good, but merely for the thrill of it. By the time he arrived in Carthage, he was ripe for a life of sin. Many of the other students lived immorally, the theaters stirred up his passions, and he became intoxicated by his literary successes. He later recounted in his Confessions, “I loved my own undoing. I loved my error—not that for which I erred, but the error itself … seeking nothing from the shameful deed except shame itself. It was a love of sin.” Augustine writes in his book written after his conversion, he was attracted to sin, he loved sin, he tried as many sins as he could, he enjoyed sinning. It is Augustine who infamously said: “Lord make me chaste, but not yet!”
A Life of Lust
This infamous prayer of the young Augustine of Hippo ― “Lord make me chaste, but not yet!” ― reflects the inner conflict of any soul who recognizes what is the virtuous thing to do, yet fears and neglects to do it due to the demanding struggle against human urges and passions that it would require. In his book, Confessions, St. Augustine was not afraid to admit his utter powerlessness in the face of sexual temptation. Before Augustine left for the city of Carthage to study for three years, his mother warned him earnestly “not to commit fornication and, above all, not to seduce any man’s wife.” But Augustine would later write in his book, Confessions: “I went to Carthage, where I found myself in the midst of a hissing cauldron of lust!” As a young man, he had given in to the attraction of sexual pleasure. He wrote: “I was tied down by this disease of the flesh. Its deadly pleasures were a chain that I dragged along with me, yet I was afraid to be freed from it ... I was a prisoner of habit, suffering cruel torments through trying to satisfy a lust that could never be satisfied.” Those words equally apply to so many souls today, living in our world of impurity, of which Our Lady of Good Success foretellingly said: “The spirit of impurity will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world!”
Shortly after his arrival in Carthage, Augustine took a lover with whom he lived in sin for fifteen years, whom he would never marry―but who bore him his only son, the illegitimate Adeodatus (which ironically means “Given by God”). He was brutally honest about why he chose to live with this woman: “I had chosen her for no special reason but that my restless passions had alighted on her!” He was faithful to his mistress throughout their fifteen years together, yet he could see that his love for her, marked by lust, was very different from the love he would expect in a proper marriage. This difference was most apparent in the attitude to children. Whereas marriage is contracted for the purpose of being open to new life, his irregular and sinful union was, in his own words, “a bargain struck for lust, in which the birth of children is begrudged, though, if they come, we cannot help but love them.”
The power of sin enchained Augustine and used him as a net to ensnare others, but a far greater power was already at work. His saintly mother, Monica, had been praying for him for years with such weeping and longing that her local bishop reassured her: “Go in peace! It cannot be that the son of these tears should be lost!”
A Mother Who Never Gave Up!
When Augustine completed his studies in Carthage around the age of nineteen, he returned home to Tagaste with his girlfriend and son and began teaching grammar at a local school. When he told his mother he was considering becoming a Manichaean (a heresy of those times), she threw him out of her house―but she later reconciled with him, due to divine inspiration that she received. He was so successful as a teacher that he was invited back to Carthage a few years later to teach Rhetoric. After several successful years, he received an invitation to Rome―which was a great honor. When he informed his mother, she told him that she was going with him―to which he reluctantly agreed. However, Augustine tricked his mother and left for Rome without her. In Rome, he became disgusted with the students who cheated him out of tuition fees, and after a few years, accepted a position in Milan. It was in Milan, when Augustine was thirty years old, that his mother finally caught up with him.
Still searching for the truth, Augustine met the future saint, Bishop Ambrose of Milan. Ambrose was a great thinker and preacher. He also paid attention to Augustine, listening to him, offering him friendship, and answering his many questions. Ambrose introduced him to the proper reading of the Bible, especially helping him with his difficulties with the Old Testament. When Ambrose came into conflict with the Empress Justina, who was trying to take his Cathedral and make it Arian (the Arian heresy was rife at the time), Ambrose stood his ground in an act of great courage and defiance. She backed off and Augustine was greatly impressed.
God Steps In
Yet he did not become a Christian then, because he thought he could never live a pure life. One day, however, he heard about two men who had suddenly been converted on reading the life of St. Anthony of the Desert, and he felt terribly ashamed of himself. “What are we doing?” he cried to his friend and impure colleague, Alipius, “Unlearned people are taking Heaven by force, while we, with all our knowledge, are so cowardly that we keep rolling around in the mud of our sins!”
Full of bitter sorrow, Augustine flung himself out into the garden and cried out to God, “How much longer, O Lord? Why does not this hour put an end to my sins?” Just then he heard a child singing, “Take up and read!” Thinking that God intended him to hear those words, he picked up the Bible next to him and randomly opened to Romans 13:13-14 which read: “Let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and licentiousness, not in rivalry and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.” This passage affected him so deeply that it was the spark that lit fuse to his eventual conversion.
Augustine now began to spend more time with good Catholic friends and had lengthy conversations, which helped him immensely. His mother’s presence was also a great support. Although she was uneducated, her wisdom and insight into the truth were undeniable, and she always held her own ground with her well-educated son. She even tried to organize a marriage for Augustine to a suitably Catholic lady and so managed to get him to leave his lover with whom he had been living for fifteen years. This attempt at virtue only revealed how weak and vice-ridden Augustine really was. He later recalled:
“Meanwhile I was sinning more and more. The woman with whom I had been living was torn from my side as an obstacle to my marriage and this was a blow which crushed my heart to bleeding, because I loved her dearly ... I was still held firm in the bonds of the woman’s love … She went back to Africa, vowing never to give herself to any other man … But I was too unhappy and too weak to imitate this example shown to me by a woman. I was impatient at the delay of two years that had to pass before the girl I had asked to marry became my wife, and, because I was more a slave of lust than a true lover of marriage, I took another mistress, without the sanction of wedlock. This meant that the disease of my soul would continue unabated, in fact it would persist into the state of marriage.”
His fiancée had a lucky escape, being spared marriage to this immature, sex-obsessed cheat. Through the incessant prayers and sacrifices of his mother St. Monica, also the influence of St. Ambrose and his spiritual father Simplicianus, Augustine was already being swayed to embrace the truth of the Catholic Faith, yet his mind was being held back by the sinful habits that chained his will. He knew the truth, but he could not pay the price for this great treasure, which was the renunciation of his sins, especially sexual immorality. He admitted: “I was quite sure that it was better for me to give myself up to God’s love, than to surrender to my own lust. But while I wanted to follow the first course and was convinced that it was right, I was still a slave to the pleasures of the second.”
The Conversion of Augustine
The underlying foundation for Augustine was the incessant and fervent hope of his holy mother, St. Monica. No matter how bad things became, she continually prayed and made sacrifices for his future conversion. She would seek out and recruit the assisting prayers of priests and bishops to her cause.
In his book, Confessions, Augustine writes of the torments that he underwent in the long, drawn-out, painful process of his conversion:
“I sick and tormented, accusing myself far more severely than was normal to me, tossing and turning in my chain until it was utterly broken, with which I now was slightly, but still held. And You, O Lord, pressed upon me in my inward soul by a severe mercy, redoubling the lashes of fear and shame, lest I should again give way, and that same slender remaining chain, not being totally broken off, might recover strength and enchain me all the more. For I said mentally: ‘Let it be done now! Let it be done now!’ And as I spoke, I almost came to a resolution. I almost converted―yet I did it not. But I did not fall back into my old condition, but took up my position, hard though it was, and drew breath. And I tried again, but wanted very little to reach it [his conversion], and somewhat less, and then all but touched and grasped it; and yet came not to it, nor touched, nor grasped it, hesitating to die unto death, and to live unto life. The sins, whereto I had been habituated, prevailed more with me than the better way of life, which I had not tried. And the very moment in which I was to become another man, the nearer it approached me, the greater horror did it strike into me―but it did not strike me back, nor turn me aside, but kept me in suspense!
“The very toys of toys, and vanities of vanities, my old mistresses, still enthralled me; they shook my fleshly garment, and whispered softly: ‘Will you leave us? Will we, from this moment, be with you no more for ever?’ And what did they suggest to me in the words? What is it that they suggested, O my God? Let Your mercy turn it aside from the soul of Your servant. What impurities did they suggest! What shame! I half heard them―not openly showing themselves and contradicting me―but muttering, as it were, behind my back, and furtively tugging me as I was departing, to make me look back upon them. Yet they did delay me―so that I hesitated to burst and shake myself free from them, and to leap over to where I was called. A sinful habit was saying to me: ‘Do you think you can live without them?’”
“The taunts had begun to sound much less persuasive, however; for a revelation was coming to me from that country toward which I was facing, but into which I trembled to cross. There I beheld the chaste, dignified figure of Continence. Calm and cheerful was her manner, though modest, pure and honorable her charm as she coaxed me to come and hesitate no longer, stretching kindly hands to welcome and embrace me, hands filled with a wealth of heartening examples. A multitude of boys and girls were there, a great crowd of youth and persons of every age, venerable widows and women grown old in their virginity―and in all of them I saw this that this same Continence was by no means sterile, but the fruitful. She was smiling at me, but with a challenging smile, as though to say: “Can you not do what these men have done, these women? Could any of them achieve it by their own strength, without the Lord their God? He it was, the Lord their God, who granted me to them. Why try to stand by yourself, only to lose your footing? Cast yourself on him and do not be afraid: he will not step back and let you fall. Cast yourself upon him trustfully; he will support and heal you.” And I was bitterly ashamed, because I could still hear the murmurs of those frivolities, and I was still in suspense, still hanging back. Again Continence appealed to me, as though urging, “Close your ears against those unclean parts of you which belong to the Earth and let them be put to death. They tell you titillating tales, but have nothing to do with the law of the Lord your God.” All this argument in my heart raged only between myself and myself.”
“It was no iron chain imposed by anyone else that fettered me, but the iron of my own will. The enemy had my power of willing in his clutches, and from it had forged a chain to bind me. The truth is that disordered lust springs from a perverted will; when lust is pandered to, a habit is formed; when habit is not checked, it hardens into compulsion. These were like interlinking rings forming what I have described as a chain, and my harsh servitude used it to keep me under duress.
“A new will had begun to emerge in me, the will to worship you disinterestedly and enjoy you, O God, our only sure happiness―but my new will was not yet capable of surmounting that earlier will, which had been strengthened by sinful custom. And so the two wills fought it out—the old and the new, the one carnal, the other spiritual—and, in their struggle, tore my soul apart. I thus came to understand, from my own experience what I had read, how the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit strives against the flesh (Galatians 5:17). I was aligned with both … I was convinced by the truth and had no answer whatever, except the sluggish, drowsy words: “Just a minute!” “One more minute!” “Let me have a little longer!” But these “minutes” never diminished, and my “little longer” lasted excessively long … A different law in my bodily members was warring against the law of my mind, imprisoning me under the law of sin, which held sway in my lower self. For the law of sin is that brute force of habit by which the mind is dragged along and held fast against its will, and deservedly so, because it slipped into the sinful habit willingly.”
“Such things I said, weeping in the most bitter sorrow of my heart. And suddenly, I heard a voice from some nearby house, a boy’s voice or a girl’s voice, I do not know―but it was a sort of sing-song repeated again and again, “Take and read! Take and read!” I stopped weeping and immediately began to search my mind most carefully as to whether children were accustomed to chant these words in any kind of game, and I could not remember that I had ever heard any such thing. Keeping back the flood of my tears, I arose, interpreting the incident as certainly being a divine command to open my book of Scripture and read the passage at which I should open. I snatched it up, opened it, and in silence read the passage upon which my eyes first fell: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in orgies and impurities, not in contention and envy, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its concupiscences” (Romans 13:13-14). I had no wish to read further―and no need. For in that instant, with the very ending of the sentence, it was as though a light of utter confidence shone in my heart, and all the darkness of uncertainty vanished away. Then we [Augustine and his friend Alypius] went in to my mother and told her, to her great joy. We related how it had come about―she was filled with triumphant exultation, and praised You, Who are mighty, beyond what we ask or conceive―for she saw that You had given her more than with all her pitiful weeping she had ever asked. For You converted me to Yourself!” (St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 8).
Making Up For Lost Time
Augustine’s conversion occurred in September, 386, when Augustine was thirty-two. He would be baptized, become a priest, a bishop, a famous Catholic writer, a founder of religious priests, and one of the greatest saints that ever lived. From being a great sinner, he would make reparation by becoming a great saint! “Too late have I loved You!” he once cried to God, but with his holy life he certainly made up for the sins he committed before his conversion. He became very devout and charitable, too. On the wall of his room he had the following sentence written in large letters: “Here we do not speak evil of anyone!” St. Augustine overcame strong heresies, practiced great poverty and supported the poor, preached very often and prayed with great fervor right up until his death.
After his baptism, he gave up running his school and retired to spend the winter in a country house near Milan, which a friend lent to him. Monica, Navigius, Adeodatus (his son by his lover), Alipius, two cousins, and several friends were with him there. Augustine gave himself up to prayer, study, and conversation. He strove to get firm control over his passions and to prepare himself for a new life.
Returning to Milan, Augustine was baptized, with Alipius and the much-loved Adeodatus, by Bishop Ambrose (St. Ambrose) on the Eve of Easter, 387 AD. Resolving to re-establish himself in Africa, he traveled to the port of Ostia, accompanied by his mother, brother, son, and friends. Monica was taken ill at Ostia and soon died. To her life and final days, Augustine devoted some of the most moving chapters of the Confessions. He now went back to Rome to speak publicly against the heretical Manichaeans―whom he had almost joined―and a year passed before he left Rome and took ship for Africa. At Tagaste, his place of birth, he settled with friends in his old home, and stayed there for nearly three years, cut off from temporal concerns, serving God by prayer, fasting, and good works. All things in the house were held in common―Augustine even gave up title to the family property. Soon his life was again made desolate by the death of his illegitimate son by his lover, Adeodatus, a brilliant boy of seventeen―who had recently been baptized with his father, Augustine. In a short period of time, Augustine had lost both his mother, Monica, and his son, Adeodatus, to death.
In his sermons Augustine urges meditation on “the Last Things” ― Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell ― for “even if the Lord’s day, the Last Judgment, might be some distance away, is your Last Day, the day of death, far off?” He insists on the necessity of penance, “For sin must be punished either by the penitent sinner or by God, his judge; and God, who has promised pardon to the penitent sinner, has nowhere promised a tomorrow to do penance in to someone who delays his conversion.” He has much to say of almsgiving, and declares that failure in this duty was the cause of the destruction of most of those who perish, since it is the only sin Christ mentions in the Last Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46).
From a False Love of Lust to a True Love of Christ
Much like St. Paul after his conversion on the road to Damscus, Augustine made rapid progress along the path to holiness after his conversion. It seems as though his attitude towards God ― “Too late have I loved You!”― spurred hom on to make up for lost time. His rapid growth in holiness was not unnoticed―and people were constantly telling him that he should become a priest. Augustine did not wish to become a priest, and he was also aware that an attempt might be made to give him a bishopric; by this time he was even more famed for his saintliness than for his learning. He therefore avoided visiting any cities in which the sees of bishops were vacant.
In 391 he was in the city of Hippo, whose bishop, Valerius, had spoken to the people of his need for a priest to assist him. So when Augustine appeared in church, the congregation swept him forward to Valerius, entreating the bishop to ordain him priest. Augustine yielded and was ordained in 391 (four years after his conversion). Bishop Valerius gave him some months to prepare for his ministry. When Augustine moved to Hippo, he established a small community in a house adjoining the church, similar to the monastic household at Tagaste. Valerius, who had an impediment in his speech, appointed Augustine to deliver his sermons for him. Augustine also preached his own sermons. He felt that preaching was his most important duty, and this activity continued up to the very end of life. Nearly a hundred of his sermons still exist, many of them not written out by him, but taken down in shorthand as he delivered them.
In 395, eight years after his conversion, Augustine was further promoted and consecrated a bishop and coadjutor to Bishop Valerius, and, on Valerius’ death soon after, he succeeded him as the ruling bishop of that area. He now established a regular common life in the episcopal residence, and required all priests, deacons, and sub-deacons, who lived with him, to renounce their property and accept the rule he set up there. Only those who would bind themselves to such a life were accepted for Holy Orders. His biographer, Possidius, tells us that the furnishings of the house were extremely plain. He would have no silver utensils except spoons; the dishes were of earthenware, wood, and stone; the fare was frugal, and while wine was supplied to guests, the quantity was strictly limited. At meals Augustine preferred reading or literary conversation to secular talk. All clerics who lived with him ate at the same table. Thus, the mode of life instituted by the Apostles and carried out in the early history of the Church was adopted by the good bishop of Hippo. He also founded a community of religious women over whom his sister Perpetua was abbess. Augustine wrote the nuns a letter in which he laid down the broad, ascetic principles of the religious life. This letter, along with two sermons he preached on the subject, comprises the so-called Rule of St. Augustine, which has been the basis for the constitutions of many orders of canons regular, friars, and nuns.
To selected overseers among his clergy, Augustine committed the entire care of temporal matters, receiving their accounts at the end of the year. To others he entrusted the building and management of hospitals and churches. He would never accept any estate or gift when the donation seemed unfair to an heir. But the revenues of his church were freely spent, and Possidius says that sometimes sacred vessels were melted down to raise funds for redeeming of captives―an act for which he had the precedent set by Ambrose. He persuaded his people to provide clothing for all the poor of each parish once a year. In times of hardship he was not afraid to contract heavy debts to aid the distressed. His concern for the spiritual welfare of his people was boundless. “I do not wish to be saved without you,” he told them. “Why am I in the world? Not only to live in Jesus Christ; but to live in Him with you. This is my passion, my honor, my glory, my joy, and my riches.”
Few men have been endowed with a more generous and affectionate nature than Augustine. He talked freely with unbelievers, and often invited them to his table, although he sometimes declined to eat with Christians whose conduct was evil. He was rigorous in subjecting such offenders to canonical penance and the censures of the Church; but, in his opposition to wrong-doing, he never forgot the precepts of charity, humility and good manners. He followed Ambrose’s example in refusing to persuade men to become soldiers and he took no part in match-making.
St. Augustine’s letters show an astonishing breadth of interests. Some are learned treatises on points of Christian doctrine and conduct, others are full of practical counsel. In his letter to Ecdicia he explains the duties of a wife, telling her she ought not wear black clothes, since her husband disliked them; she might be humble in spirit while rich and colorful in dress. In all things reasonable, he tells her, she should agree with her husband as to the method of educating their son, and leave the chief care of it to him; he reproves her for having given goods and money to the poor without his consent, and tells her to ask his pardon for it. In like manner, he always impressed on husbands the respect, tender affection, and consideration which they owed their wives.
Love-Hate Relationship
You may have heard the expression: “Love the sinner, hate the sin!” Many think that it comes from the Bible, but it is nowhere to be found in the Bible―in that exact form: “Love the sinner, hate the sin!” So where did it come from? It came from the great sinner who became a great saint―St. Augustine. His Letter #211 (written around 424 AD) contains the phrase “Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum” which roughly translates to “With love for mankind and hatred of sins.” The phrase has become more famous as “Love the sinner, but hate the sin!” or “Hate the sin and not the sinner!”
On this “love-hate” matter, we must also add that we all have a tendency to love sin and hate paying for it through penance―whereas we should hate sin and love penance! God is just and fair―if you have sinned against Him, then you should pay for those sins. If we were just and fair―then we would have no problem in paying for our sins through penance, for paying in this life is literally millions of times less expensive than paying in the next life in either Purgatory or Hell! God is willing to forgive us the GUILT our sins―no matter how many or how serious they may have been―but he will not remove the DEBT of our sins: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow―and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool!” (Isaias 1:18). Nevertheless Jesus said: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! … I came to call sinners to penance! … No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 19:10; 5:3; 13:3-5). “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? … If the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do justice, then living he shall live, and shall not die! … Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities and iniquity shall not be your ruin! Cast away from you all your transgressions by which you have transgressed, and make unto yourselves a new heart and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dies, says the Lord God, return and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32).
Scripture speaks of this debt for sin on numerous occasions: “The wages of sin” (Romans 6:23) … “Pay what thou owest!” (Matthew 18:28) … “Cast him into prison, until he paid the debt!” (Matthew 18:30) … “His lord, being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt!” (Matthew 18:34) … “Thou shalt not go out from there, until thou pay the very last penny!” (Luke 12:59). Unfortunately, “God has given him time for penance, but he abuses it in his pride!” (Job 24:23).
It is amazing how patient and humble God is by having billions and trillions of offensive sins being thrown in his face each and every day―while seemingly keeping calm throughout the whole process. That does not mean that God is a doormat upon whom the whole world can wipe their dirty sinful shoes. As Holy Scripture warns: “The Lord does not delay His promise [of punishment], as some imagine, but He deals patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9) … “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8) … “My son, have you sinned? Then do so no more!―But for your former sins also pray that they may be forgiven thee!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1) … “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) … “But for your former sins pray that they may be forgiven!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1) … “God now declares unto men, that all should everywhere do penance!” (Acts 17:30) … “I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3-5).
We might vengefully remember the sins of others who have offended us, but it is not so with God: “I am He that blots out thy iniquities for My own sake, and I will not remember thy sins!” (Isaias 43:25) … “I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more!” (Jeremias 31:34). “I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more!” (Hebrews 8:12) ... “Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more!” (Hebrews 10:17) … “Therefore be penitent and be converted, so that your sins may be blotted out!” (Acts 3:19). Unlike us, God holds no grudges―but He expects the guilt of sin to be acknowledged by confession and the debt of sin to be paid for by penance. Actually, doing penance also acknowledges the guilt of sin―for why would you pay damages for something you haven’t done? Only Christ does that―for He paid for our sins despite having done no wrong Himself. Yet though He paid for our sins―He does expect to co-pay by doing penance: “I am come to call sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32).
Augustine Gives Hope to Sinners
St. Augustine tells us of the struggles he had during his conversion process, whereby the devil led him to despair of ever abandoning his sins of lust and acquiring holiness. Then he seemed to hear the voice of Continence say to him: “Can you not do what these men have done, these women? Could any of them achieve it by their own strength, without the Lord their God? He it was, the Lord their God, Who granted me [continence] to them. Why try to stand by yourself, only to lose your footing? Cast yourself on Him and do not be afraid! He will not step back and let you fall. Cast yourself upon Him trustfully! He will support and heal you!” (Confessions, Book 8). God inspired him with the following thought: “If they, why not I? If these men and women could become saints, why cannot I with the help of Him Who is all-powerful?”
Article 11
Wednesday August 23rd & Thursday August 24th, 2023
Let Mary Save Your Family
Wednesday August 23rd & Thursday August 24th, 2023
Let Mary Save Your Family
Does Your Family Need Saving?
Ask yourself if your family needs saving. Is that a stupid question or what? Saving from what? Well―there can a “saving” on a natural level and “saving” on a supernatural level. On the natural level there are many ever-increasing dangers that we need to be protected and saved from, as the neo-pagan, secular, power and money orientated world tightens its noose around our necks. The supernatural level of saving obviously refers to saving our souls from damnation in Hell.
► DONALD TRUMP: To quote one of mouthpieces of the behind-the-scenes invisible power merchants, Donald Trump (do you really naively believe that politicians rule countries and the world?), who recently said and tweeted: “I tell you, they are really after the Catholics! They are after the Catholic Church―it’s incredible! I don’t how many Catholics are in―but they are after the Catholic Church! They are after parents and school boards!” (Donald Trump at the ALGOP Summer Dinner, Montgomery, Alabama, August 4th, 2023).
► KARL MARX & JOSEF STALIN: Strange Trump comments? Not really! Our Lady warned Sister Lucia of Fatima that Communism would take over the whole world! What is the Communist view of religion in general, and Christianity in particular? As Karl Marx, co-author of the The Communist Manifesto, declared: “Communism begins where atheism begins!” Joseph Stalin, as the second leader of the Soviet Union, tried to enforce militant atheism on the republic. The new “socialist man,” Stalin argued, was an atheist one, free of the religious chains. The “Godless Five-Year Plan,” launched in 1928, gave local cells of the anti-religious organization, League of Militant Atheists, new tools to disestablish religion. Churches were closed and stripped of their property, as well as any educational or welfare activities that went beyond simply banning the liturgy. Leaders of the Church were imprisoned and sometimes executed, on the grounds of being anti-revolutionary. The few clergy who remained were replaced by those deemed to be sympathetic to the Communist regime, making the Church still more toothless as a possible focal point for dissent or counter-revolution.
As regards America, Stalin wrote: “America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within! ... Ideas are more powerful than guns! ... The writer is the engineer of the human soul! ... The press must grow day in and day out—it is our Party's sharpest and most powerful weapon! ... Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed! ... I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how they will vote; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how! ... Is God on your side? Is He a Conservative? The Devil is on my side, he is a good Communist!” (Joseph Stalin, led the Soviet Union from the mid–1920s until 1953).
On July 15th, 1946, the American Catholic historian, Professor William Thomas Walsh, interviewed SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA at her convent in Vilar, Portugal. Lucia told him that Communism would take over the entire world. Shocked at this, he asked her for confirmation of what she had just said. “Does this mean, in your opinion, that every country, without exception, will be overcome by Communism?” asked Professor Walsh. “Yes!” replied Lucia. Walsh wanted to be positive about the answer and therefore repeated the question adding: “And does that mean the United States of America, too?” Sister Lucia answered “Yes!” the USA would also fall to Communism.
► YURI BEZMENOV (1939–1993), a Russian agent of the KGB―Russia’s internal security, foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence and secret police―defected to the West in 1970. After being screened by USA intelligence, he mainly lived in Canada and a few years in Los Angeles. In a series of interviews and lectures, Bezmenov stated: “The main emphasis of the KGB is NOT in the area of intelligence” ― the KGB is focused on “either ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare―the goal of which is to change the perception of reality of every American, so that, despite of the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country. It’s a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages.”
“The first one being “demoralization.” It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy, exposing them to the ideology of [their] enemy. The results you can see ... The people who graduated in the 1960s―dropouts or half-baked intellectuals―are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, and educational systems. You are stuck with them. They are contaminated. For these people the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. The demoralization process in the United States is basically completed already for the last 25 years. Most of it is done by Americans to Americans―thanks to lack of moral standards.”
“The next stage is destabilization.... It only takes 2 to 5 years to destabilize a nation. This time what matters are the essentials―economy, foreign relations, and defense systems. And you can see it quite clearly that in some ... sensitive areas such as defense and the economy, the influence of Marxist-Leninist ideas in the United States is absolutely fantastic. I could never believe it 14 years ago, when I landed in this part of the world, that the process would go that fast. Most of the American politicians, media, and educational system train another generation of people who think they are living at the peacetime. False. The United States is in a state of war; undeclared, total war against the basic principles and foundations of the American system.”
“The next stage, of course, is crisis and involves a revolutionary change of power. This is a major step may take only up to six weeks to bring a country to the verge of crisis. This is where a cataclysmic event upsets and divides the country thereby creating panic among the citizens. And after crisis―with its violent change of power, structure, and economy―you have the so-called period of normalization. This can take up to two decades to complete―but it may last indefinitely.”
► ST. METHODIUS (died in 311) had already prophesied: “A day will come when the enemies of Christ will boast of having conquered the whole world. They will say: ‘Christians cannot escape now!’” So as for Donald Trump’s statement ― “I tell you, they are really after the Catholics! They are after the Catholic Church―it’s incredible! I don’t how many Catholics are in―but they are after the Catholic Church!” ― there is nothing new there, it was already known a long time ago!
► ST. AUGUSTINE: St. Augustine, already in the 300s and 400s said that there is a war between the City of God and the City of Man in his book On The City of God Against The Pagans (Latin: De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos), often abbreviated to simply The City of God. Augustine stated that two loves have formed two cities―the love of self has formed the earthly city, the City of Man; whereas the love of God has formed the heavenly city, the City of God. The earthly city is characterized and driven by pride, self-love and self-aggrandizement―while those in the heavenly city honor God in all things, trusting only Him for all wisdom and giving glory to only Him. Christ is the ruler of the City of God and Satan is the ruler of the world. “What agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what part do the faithful have with unbelievers?” (2 Corinthians 6:15). “The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he has not anything!” says Our Lord (John 12:31). There can be no peace between them―and there never has been peace between them. St. Augustine writes: “We see then that the two cities were created by two kinds of love: the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt of God, the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far contempt of self. In fact, the earthly city glories in itself, the Heavenly City glories in the Lord. The former looks for glory from men, the latter finds its highest glory in God!”
► OUR LORD, JESUS CHRIST: Do you need more evidence? Well then, go back to Our Lord’s days on Earth and listen to what He had to say―it is nothing other than what St. Augustine said, what Stalin said, what Karl Marx said and what Trump said: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! … He that is not with Me, is against Me! … For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! … He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
Speaking of the City of God and the City of Man―though not in those exact terms―Our Lord adds: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
► NEW TESTAMENT: The New Testament writers―the Apostles and Saints―add to Our Lord’s clear statement of His Kingdom being opposed to kingdom of man, when they say: “Whatsoever is born of God, overcomes the world! And this is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). “Wonder not, brethren, if the world hate you!” (1 John 3:13). “They are of the world―therefore of the world they speak, and the world hears them!” (1 John 4:5). “For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world!” (1 John 2:16). “For they that are according to the flesh, mind the things that are of the flesh―but they that are according to the spirit, mind the things that are of the spirit. For the wisdom of the flesh is death―but the wisdom of the spirit is life and peace. Because the wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God―for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be. And they who are in the flesh, cannot please God.” (Romans 8:5-8). “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27). “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).
► OUR LADY: Our Lady, in speaking to Sr. Lucia of Fatima, also warned of the terrible dangers of the “Last Days” or “End Times” ― a period that Our Lady said that we have already entered. This does not mean the world will end any time soon ― for we have yet to see Our Lady’s promised triumph of the Immaculate Heart; followed by a period of peace; followed by the Antichrist. Nevertheless, tough times are coming and we can clearly see the beginnings of those tough times as evidenced by recent (and increasing) draconian measures inflicted by the governments of the world. Our Lady’s earlier warnings―at Quito, Ecuador; at La Salette, France; and Akita, Japan―are already there to be seen, even though they are at a stage of infancy and not yet fully grown. Our Lady said:
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God! … God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family” (O. L. of La Salette). “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects” (O.L. of Good Success) … “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises!” (O. L. of Akita) … “Many will turn upon Religion, who nourished them at her breast! Many people will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church, impelled by the malice of the devil!” (O.L. of Good Success) … “They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption … (O.L. of Good Success) … “bringing souls to ruin particularly through the corruption of youth. Stirred-up and unrestrained in the enjoyment of the pleasures of the world, they have degraded their soul in corruption and sin. The bad example of parents trains the family in scandal and infidelity, instead of virtue and prayer, which is almost dead on the lips of many. Stained and withered is the fountain of Faith and sanctity the home!” (O.L. to Bl. Elena Aiello) … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times … making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children! ... Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty! There will be almost no virgin souls in the world! Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women!” (O.L. of Good Success).
Along the lines of Donald Trump’s comment that “They are really after the Catholics! They are after the Catholic Church!” Our Lady had already foretold that to us a long time ago: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government, will see a cruel persecution of all religious communities … During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God ... The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them … How the Church will suffer during this dark night! … The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis ... Churches will be locked up or desecrated … and altars will be sacked … Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death. Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... This night will be most horrible, for, humanly speaking, evil will seem to triumph … There will be occasions when all will seem to be lost and paralyzed ... People will believe that all is lost!” So Trump is telling us nothing new, nothing that we should not have already known and expected!
Moral Mess
We have entered an era where morality is twisted, adjusted, ignored and even attacked. The new “morality” has introduced the so-called “hate-crimes” and even “thought-crimes” that have become legally punishable. The “hate-crimes” are a mixture of correct and incorrect rulings. For example, it is a hate-crime to discriminate by words or actions against racial ethnicity or national identity, religion, economic class, or disability―which to a certain degree is fine (but Our Lord will tell you that is only one religion that He will accept). Yet it is also a hate-crime to discriminate against unnatural sexual orientation, unnatural gender identity, Satanism, abortion, contraception and a whole host of other sinful behaviors. Human legislation has kicked-out and discriminated against Divine Legislation: “Leaving the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men!” (Mark 7:8). “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). God reply is: “Woe to you blind guides! … Ye foolish and blind!” (Matthew 23:16-17) … “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil! That put darkness for light, and light for darkness! That put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20).
Yet we have to live amidst these dangers and we risk taking on some of those woeful errors! How many Catholics have had abortions? How many practice contraception? How many indulge in unnatural sexual relations? How many have tried to change their God-given gender? How many happily indulge in the world’s accepted mortal sins―such as adultery, fornication, masturbation, drunkenness, drug-abuse, pornography, immodesty, blasphemy, etc.? The numbers are NOT SMALL and they are increasing! Just like a toxic Catholic virus, these attitudes and behaviors spread from one Catholic family to another―due to their close contact and overly trusting attitude. Hey! If Catholics do this, that or the other―it must be okay! After all, they are Catholics, right?
Yet we have to live amidst these dangers and we risk taking on some of those woeful errors! How many Catholics have had abortions? How many practice contraception? How many indulge in unnatural sexual relations? How many have tried to change their God-given gender? How many happily indulge in the world’s accepted mortal sins―such as adultery, fornication, masturbation, drunkenness, drug-abuse, pornography, immodesty, blasphemy, etc.? The numbers are NOT SMALL and they are increasing! Just like a toxic Catholic virus, these attitudes and behaviors spread from one Catholic family to another―due to their close contact and overly trusting attitude. Hey! If Catholics do this, that or the other―it must be okay! After all, they are Catholics, right?
The words of OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS AND LA SALETTE come back to mind hauntingly: “The love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … Unbridled luxury will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! … People will only think of amusements … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion … The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom! … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle! … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws, making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church ... The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times! … The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis ... Churches will be locked up or desecrated … and altars will be sacked … Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death!”
So when Donald Trump says: “I tell you, they are really after the Catholics! They are after the Catholic Church―it’s incredible! I don’t how many Catholics are in―but they are after the Catholic Church! They are after parents and school boards!” ― then he is not making things up, regardless of whose side he is really on. SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA revealed to us: “The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground … The Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin and, as you know, what most offends God and what will gain him the greatest number of souls in the shortest time is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them! … For this reason, Father, it is my mission not just to speak about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to also tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin!” (Sr. Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th 1957).
Yes, the devil waging war against the Blessed Virgin―and as the OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS stated: “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects …Masonry will take control of the civil government and will enact iniquitous laws, making it easy for everyone to live in sin” and “He that commits sin is of the devil!” (1 John 3:8)―and we are committing sins like crazy, as OUR LADY pointed out to BLESSED ELENA AIELLO in 1957: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! The world is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [the Great Flood in Noe’s times]. All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and all the nations shall be!”
Lost Sense of Sin Leads to Lost Souls
Those words are echoed by one pope after another in recent times.
● Pope Pius XII said in 1946: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin!”
● Pope John Paul II, in 2005, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin!”
● Pope Benedict XVI, in 2011, said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man.”
● Pope Francis, in 2014, said: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble!”
What is the true sense of sin? Our Catechisms tell us that sin―whether mortal sins or even venial sins―is the greatest evil in the world! “Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). “Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
When you lose the sense of sin, then you do not confess your sins as you should confess them. You imagine that some of your mortal sins are only venial sins. You no longer take the Sacrament of Confession seriously―or you even stop going! ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI, the patron saint of moral theologians, writes: “The preacher should, likewise, often speak against bad confessions, in which sins are concealed through shame. This is an evil not of rare occurrence, but frequent, especially in small country districts, which consigns innumerable souls to Hell!” If that was true in his day (the 1700s), how much more true is it not today? Very few people recall the five conditions required for a valid Confession on the part of the penitent―(1) thorough examination of conscience and not a one-minute microwaved examination; (2) sufficient sorrow for sin―and not just mere embarrassment; (3) a firm purpose of amendment (which means plans)―and not a vague purpose of amendment: “O, you know, I should really stop doing this!” (4) clear confession of your sin to a priest―and not a “fudged”, disguised, watered-down, misrepresented, vague, smoke-screened, partially honest, camouflaged confession, which fails to mention (for mortal sins) the exact number committed and the exact kind (not just “being impure”, but was it alone, with another, with a married person, a child, a religious, family member, opposite sex or same sex, etc.); (5) doing the penance the priest imposes. How many bad confessions have you made, or how many bad confessions have your family members made? Heck! It is impossible to go to Hell if you always make good confessions! Why the heck, then, are most souls falling into Hell―as revealed by Our Lord, Our Lady and many saints and theologians? Besides having committed mortal sins, they fall into Hell because they did not confess correctly! Perhaps it is time for your―and your family members―to review how you are making your confessions, and how sharp your conscience is, or perhaps like most of the world you have lost the sense of sin?
Do Our Sins Need Washing Away by a Heavenly Shower of Water and Fire?
So, yes―we are in great danger of contamination by sin as we live in this modern moral mess which Our Lady says is even worse than the moral mess in the time Noe―and which resulted in God punishing the world with the Great Flood of Water to wash away the Great Flood of Sin at that time: “The Earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity … God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the Earth, and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times … repented that he had made man on the Earth … And being touched inwardly with sorrow of heart, He said: ‘I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the Earth! … I will rain upon the Earth forty days and forty nights; and I will destroy every substance that I have made, from the face of the Earth!’ … And the flood was forty days upon the earth, and the waters increased … They overflowed exceedingly and filled all on the face of the Earth … And the waters prevailed beyond measure upon the Earth! And all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered―the water was fifteen cubits [22 feet] higher than the mountains which it covered. And all flesh was destroyed that moved upon the Earth―birds, cattle, beasts, all creeping and all men! And God destroyed all the substance that was upon the Earth, from man to beast, creeping things and birds of the air―they were destroyed from the Earth. Only Noe remained with those that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the Earth a hundred and fifty days” (Genesis 6:5 to 7:25).
Since sin is the greatest evil in the world―then it stands to reason that sin is not cheap! “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8) ― that “corruption” means punishment, not only in Hell or Purgatory, but also in this life. “Sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned!” (Romans 5:12-14). “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “The soul that sins, the same shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15). The world found out the truth of those words in Noe’s time―and we are going to find out the truth of those in our times. Our Lady has often appealed that we stop sinning but we have ignored her warnings:
“Many men in this world afflict the Lord … People are offending God too much! … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended! … Men live in their obstinacy of sin. The wrath of God is near! … The sins of men are the cause of all the troubles on this Earth. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … Sins cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door… If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge [the Great Flood in Noe’s time], such as one never seen before! Fire will fall from Heaven and wipe out a great part of humanity … The Earth will be struck by calamities of all kinds! There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases. In addition to plague and famine which will be widespread. There will be a series of wars, until the last war … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. A general war will follow which will be appalling. Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy. Men will beat their heads against walls, call for their death, and on another side death will be their torment. Blood will flow on all sides!”
All of that flows over us with no effect―like water flowing off a ducks back! “It won’t happen in my lifetime!” we say, “It won’t happen to me! Besides, it’s all Private Revelation―I don’t have to believe it!” The fact that it will happen does not depend upon whether or not you believe it! Your belief or disbelief changes nothing. Is God cruel? No―it is sin that is cruel to God. The greater the honor of a person―the greater is the offense committed against that person. Using physical force or violence against the Pope is punished by excommunication―using force or violence against a bishop receives a lesser punishment; and if it is against a priest, then an even lesser punishment. God is the Supreme Being and Infinite Being―hence offences against God are supreme and infinite. In our casual approach to sin we do not think about or consider these things―we merely sin: “O what the heck! It’s no big deal! I’ll just confess it!” How many souls in Hell had that attitude?
In our morally messy times―which are even worse than Noe’s times―Our Lady and other prophecies have indicated that we will be punished by both water and fire. In her various apparitions as Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, and Our Lady of Akita, the Blessed Virgin warned: “The spirit of impurity will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … Without virginity, it will be necessary for fire from Heaven to rain down upon lands in order to purify them … Water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed ... Water and fire will give the Earth’s globe convulsions and terrible earthquakes which will swallow up mountains and cities ... Nations will be annihilated … The fire of Heaven will fall and consume cities. All the universe will be struck with terror and many will let themselves be led astray, because they have not worshiped the true Christ. The fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead! The persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like!”
SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA warned: “The final triumph of Mary’s Heart is certain, and it will be definitive! But it will take place ‘in the end’― that is to say, after a terrible purification of sinful mankind in a baptism of fire, blood and tears!” (Sister Lucia of Fatima).
To BLESSED ELENA AIELLO, in 1950s, OUR LADY said: “Tremendous will be the upheaval of the whole world, because men — as at the time of the Deluge — have lost God’s way, and are ruled by the spirit of Satan … The world has become as a flooded valley, overflowing with filth and mud. Some of the most difficult trials of Divine Justice are yet to come, before the deluge of fire! … Mankind, defiled in the mire, soon will be washed in its own blood, by disease; by famine; by earthquakes; by cloudbursts, tornadoes, floods, and terrible storms; and by war ... Great calamities will come upon the world, which will bring confusion, tears, struggles and pain … If men do not amend their ways, a terrifying scourge of fire will come down from Heaven upon all the nations of the world … Some nations will be purified, while others will disappear entirely! … Great earthquakes will swallow up entire cities and countries, and will bring epidemics, famine, and terrible destruction ― especially where the sons of darkness are [pagan or anti-God nations] … The Earth will be shaken by fearful earthquakes which will open deep abysses. Provinces and cities will be destroyed, and all will cry out that the end of the world has come! … If I were not bent over the Earth to cover all with my maternal love, the tempest of fire would have already broken upon the nations of the world! … See how Russia will burn! And all this fire is not that which will fall from the hands of men, but will be hurled directly from the angels (at the time of the great chastisement or purification that will come upon the Earth) ... In these tragic hours, the world has need of prayers and penance, because the Pope, the priests, and the Church are in danger ... If we do not pray, Russia will march upon all of Europe! Therefore I ask prayers, penance and sacrifice, so I may act as a Mediatrix with my Son in order to save souls! … Pray, and lose no time, lest it be too late!” OUR LORD added: “The world will be once more afflicted with great calamity; with bloody revolutions; with great earthquakes; with famines; with epidemics; with fearful hurricanes; and with floods from rivers and seas. But if men do not return to God, purifying fires will fall from the Heavens, like snowstorms, on all peoples, and a great part of humanity will be destroyed!”
Saints, Popes and Churchmen Warn of Dangers
ST. COLUMBA (521-597): “Listen! Listen to what will happen in the latter days of the world! There will be great wars; unjust laws will be enacted; the Church will be despoiled of her property; people will read and write a great deal; but charity and humility will be laughed to scorn, and the common people will believe in false ideas!”
BLESSED ANN CATHERINE EMMERICH: “The Church is in great danger… I see that in this place (Rome) the (Catholic) Church is being so cleverly undermined, that there will hardly remain a hundred or so priests who have not been deceived. They all work for destruction, even the clergy ... Many pastors allowed themselves to be taken up with ideas that were dangerous to the Church … I saw the Church of St. Peter in ruins, and so many of the clergy were themselves busy at this work of destruction – none of them wishing to do it openly in front of others! … Then I saw that everything that pertained to Protestantism was gradually gaining the upper hand, and the Catholic religion fell into complete decadence … The great devastation is now at hand! ... “I saw a secret sect relentlessly undermining the great Church … When the Church had been for the most part destroyed (by the secret sect), and when only the sanctuary and the altar were still standing, I saw the wreckers (of the secret sect) enter the Church with the Beast … In those days, Faith will fall very low, and it will be preserved in some places only, in a few cottages and in a few families which God has protected from disasters and wars” (Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, 1774-1824).
CARDINAL MANNING (1808-1892): “The opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus, Biegas, Suarez, Bellarmine and Bosius is that Rome shall apostatize from the Faith, and return to its ancient paganism. Then the Church shall be scattered, driven into the wilderness, and shall be for a time, as it was in the beginning, invisible; hidden in catacombs, in dens, in mountains, in lurking places; for a time it shall be swept, as it were, from the face of the Earth. Such is the universal testimony of the Fathers of the early Church.”
POPE ST. PIUS V (1504-1572): “All the evils of the world are due to lukewarm Catholics!”
POPE PIUS IX (1792-1878): “Liberal Catholics are the worst enemies of the Church!”
POPE ST. PIUS X (1835-1914): “Attempting to reconcile our Faith with the modern mentality leads not only to weakening of that Faith, but to its total destruction! … The greatest obstacle in the apostolate of the Church is the timidity, or rather the cowardice, of the faithful! In our time more than ever before, the greatest asset of the liars is the cowardice and weakness of good men, and all the vigor of Satan’s reign is due to the easy-going weakness of Catholics.... And this reproach can be leveled at the weak and timid Catholics of all countries!”
POPE PIUS XI (1876-1958): “We believe that the present hour is a dread phase of the events foretold by Christ. It seems that darkness is about to fall on the world. Humanity is in the grip of a supreme crisis! … I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a Divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith! … A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God!”
MARIE-JULIE JAHENNY (1850-1941), mystic and stigmatic, was told, by Our Lord and Our Lady, of the conspiracy to change the Faith in our present times: “I give you a warning. The disciples who are not of My Gospel are now working hard to remake a Mass that contains words that are odious in my sight. Already they have prepared everything. Even prior to the great crisis, they are going to devise unwholesome doctrines. When the fatal hour arrives, when the Faith of my priests is put to the test, it will be (these new texts) that will be celebrated. It will be a time of persecution when the enemies of the Faith and of Holy Religion will impose their formulas. All the works approved by the infallible Church will at a certain moment, cease to exist as they are at this present time. They will have lost nothing of their greatness, but they will be as if non-existing. That period will not last long but it will seem like an eternity for the children of the Church who will become like orphans. Things will be in a worse condition than any period of the past. For a long time, every Holy Sacrifice will be prohibited. There will not remain any trace of the Holy Sacrifice, and no apparent trace of Faith. The worst sins will be committed without shame or regret. Real pastors will be replaced by others formed by Hell, initiated in all vices, all iniquities, perfidious, who will cover souls with filth. They will be new preachers of new sacraments, new churches, new baptisms, new confraternities!”
The Apostle St. Peter also appeared to Marie-Julie Jahenny, saying: “The Church will know of suffering before it is entirely closed! The Church will not perish, but it is going to suffer―it will be suffering for a long time, suffering everywhere! It will undergo the direst outrages, not to mention the large number of its children who will deny it. The number of those souls, forever separated from God, will rise beyond three quarters of the Church.”
Tsunami of Sin is Drowning Families
A Tsunami of dangers and sins is already battering mankind―and it is highly likely, if not absolutely certain, that your family has been hit in one way or another. Our Lady of Good Success speaks of “the spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times … Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty!” Whereas Our Lady of Fatima indicated that, already back in 1917, it was sins of impurity that were the common sins throughout the world and the most common cause of damnation ― adultery, fornication, cohabitation, masturbation, impure glances and thoughts, impure conversation, etc. Statistics show that the most visited websites are porn websites. Catholic priests tell us that the most common sins that are confessed in the confessional are sins of impurity. That spirit of impurity is fanned, provoked and encouraged by the appallingly immodest fashions of today―only those who have lost the sense of sin would disagree with that observation. Even among Conservative and Traditional Catholics you will find these problems.
Add to these dangers the complacency of those weak Catholics who excuse their sinfulness by saying: “But everyone else is doing it!” Right! But most of those are in the process of damning their souls! Yet today’s youth are very partial to imitating their peers―even when those peers are peering at Hell! There is a fatal impression and false belief that there is safety in numbers―if most people are doing it, then it must alright. Sin is sin―no matter how many or how few people do it. It is not a democracy, it is not subject to human vote―it is God’s decision and ruling, not man’s!
The Catholic world has also been infected and plagued by the immoral viruses of sin in all its many different kinds. It is as though Satan has tailor-made temptation and sin to specifically fit each and every one of us―perfectly measured, cut and fitted to our characters, temperaments, personal likes and dislikes! Yet, as Our Lady revealed to St. Jacinta of Fatima, it is sins of the flesh, sins of impurity―in all the shapes and flavors, thoughts words and actions―that are top of rankings as regards the most common “damners”. Jacinta said: “More souls go to Hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason!” Our Lady had already foretold this as Our Lady of Good Success, around 300 years earlier in the 1600s. Speaking of the future 20th century, she said: The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals! … In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled impurity which will ensnare into sin, and conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! … Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women … The spirit of impurity will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty! There will be almost no virgin souls in the world!”
God's Solution is Being Ignored
Sin ultimately can only be defeated by supernatural means. It is only God’s grace that drive out sin from our souls―of ourselves and by ourselves we are powerless to drive away and keep away both mortal sin and venial sin. God―in these modern times―has given us the solution that He wants us to use. That solution is His Holy Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mediatrix of All Graces. Who are we to question and dispute God’s decisions and rulings? Our Lady herself has repeatedly informed us God’s designs in using her as the remedy for the evils of our day.
As Our Lady of Good Success she said: “Know that I am merciful and understanding! Let them come to me! … When tribulations of spirit and sufferings of the body oppress them and they seem to be drowning in this bottomless sea, let them gaze at my holy image, and I will always be there ready to listen to their cries and soothe their pain. Tell them that they should always run to their Mother with confidence and love! … Let men in the future realize how powerful I am in placating Divine Justice and obtaining mercy and pardon for every sinner, who comes to me with a contrite heart. For I am the Mother of Mercy and in me there is only goodness and love … My hour will arrive when I, in an amazing manner, will overthrow proud Satan, crushing him under my feet, chaining him in the infernal abyss, leaving the Church free of his cruel tyranny.”
As Our Lady of La Salette, she again spoke of victory against all the odds: “Priests and religious orders will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls … Rome will lose the Faith! ... The true Faith will be forgotten … People will think of nothing but amusement ... Evil books will be abundant on Earth .. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin … and men will become more and more perverted ... People will believe that all is lost!
“But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God! I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world, in poverty, humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification! Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession. It is time they came out and filled the world with light! I shall fight at their side! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you―provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent! All those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. Water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified! And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God!”
As Our Lady of Fatima she revealed that God wanted all the world to devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and that many would be saved through this devotion. She also promised that her Immaculate Heart would triumph over all evil: “Jesus wants to make me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world. I promise salvation to whoever embraces it!” (June 1917) … You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary―because only she can help you!” (July 1917).
As Our Lady of Akita, she echoes her previous messages and warnings: “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved! … I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this! … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary!”
Our Lady is God’s chosen Ark of Refuge―the Refuge of Sinner, the Ark of Salvation, the Help of Christians, the Mother of Mercy, the Comforter of the Afflicted. God wants us to turn to His masterpiece―Mary. She is one that God has chosen to our Ark by which we can safely sail over the tempests and storms of temptation, tribulation and persecution to the port of Heaven. St. Bernard has this beautiful passage that reflects this:
“When the storm of temptation arises, when you are midst the reefs and shoals of tribulation, fix your gaze upon the Star of the Sea―call upon Mary! If tossed by the rising tide of pride and ambition, if lost upon the troubled waters of scandal and contention―look then at the Star, invoke her name! Do the billows of anger, of avarice, of lust batter against your soul―cast thy eyes upon Mary! Does the greatness of your crime fill your soul with terror? Does your wretched conscience beat you down in shame and the fear of judgment paralyze your heart?―then, when about to sink to the depths of despondency, to plunge headlong into despair, then think of Mary! In perils and in sorrows and in fears―think of her, call upon her name! Let her name be ever on your lips and the thought of her be ever in your heart! Follow her―so that the power of her intercession may attend to your needs! Imitate her―for in her footsteps you cannot go astray! Call upon her―and you will not despair! Think of her―and you cannot fail. If she holds you by the hand―how can you fall? Under her protection you shall know no fear! Under her guidance you shall not falter! Under her patronage you shall surely reach the goal!” (St. Bernard of Clairvaux).
Ask yourself if your family needs saving. Is that a stupid question or what? Saving from what? Well―there can a “saving” on a natural level and “saving” on a supernatural level. On the natural level there are many ever-increasing dangers that we need to be protected and saved from, as the neo-pagan, secular, power and money orientated world tightens its noose around our necks. The supernatural level of saving obviously refers to saving our souls from damnation in Hell.
► DONALD TRUMP: To quote one of mouthpieces of the behind-the-scenes invisible power merchants, Donald Trump (do you really naively believe that politicians rule countries and the world?), who recently said and tweeted: “I tell you, they are really after the Catholics! They are after the Catholic Church―it’s incredible! I don’t how many Catholics are in―but they are after the Catholic Church! They are after parents and school boards!” (Donald Trump at the ALGOP Summer Dinner, Montgomery, Alabama, August 4th, 2023).
► KARL MARX & JOSEF STALIN: Strange Trump comments? Not really! Our Lady warned Sister Lucia of Fatima that Communism would take over the whole world! What is the Communist view of religion in general, and Christianity in particular? As Karl Marx, co-author of the The Communist Manifesto, declared: “Communism begins where atheism begins!” Joseph Stalin, as the second leader of the Soviet Union, tried to enforce militant atheism on the republic. The new “socialist man,” Stalin argued, was an atheist one, free of the religious chains. The “Godless Five-Year Plan,” launched in 1928, gave local cells of the anti-religious organization, League of Militant Atheists, new tools to disestablish religion. Churches were closed and stripped of their property, as well as any educational or welfare activities that went beyond simply banning the liturgy. Leaders of the Church were imprisoned and sometimes executed, on the grounds of being anti-revolutionary. The few clergy who remained were replaced by those deemed to be sympathetic to the Communist regime, making the Church still more toothless as a possible focal point for dissent or counter-revolution.
As regards America, Stalin wrote: “America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within! ... Ideas are more powerful than guns! ... The writer is the engineer of the human soul! ... The press must grow day in and day out—it is our Party's sharpest and most powerful weapon! ... Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed! ... I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how they will vote; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how! ... Is God on your side? Is He a Conservative? The Devil is on my side, he is a good Communist!” (Joseph Stalin, led the Soviet Union from the mid–1920s until 1953).
On July 15th, 1946, the American Catholic historian, Professor William Thomas Walsh, interviewed SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA at her convent in Vilar, Portugal. Lucia told him that Communism would take over the entire world. Shocked at this, he asked her for confirmation of what she had just said. “Does this mean, in your opinion, that every country, without exception, will be overcome by Communism?” asked Professor Walsh. “Yes!” replied Lucia. Walsh wanted to be positive about the answer and therefore repeated the question adding: “And does that mean the United States of America, too?” Sister Lucia answered “Yes!” the USA would also fall to Communism.
► YURI BEZMENOV (1939–1993), a Russian agent of the KGB―Russia’s internal security, foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence and secret police―defected to the West in 1970. After being screened by USA intelligence, he mainly lived in Canada and a few years in Los Angeles. In a series of interviews and lectures, Bezmenov stated: “The main emphasis of the KGB is NOT in the area of intelligence” ― the KGB is focused on “either ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare―the goal of which is to change the perception of reality of every American, so that, despite of the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country. It’s a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages.”
“The first one being “demoralization.” It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy, exposing them to the ideology of [their] enemy. The results you can see ... The people who graduated in the 1960s―dropouts or half-baked intellectuals―are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, and educational systems. You are stuck with them. They are contaminated. For these people the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. The demoralization process in the United States is basically completed already for the last 25 years. Most of it is done by Americans to Americans―thanks to lack of moral standards.”
“The next stage is destabilization.... It only takes 2 to 5 years to destabilize a nation. This time what matters are the essentials―economy, foreign relations, and defense systems. And you can see it quite clearly that in some ... sensitive areas such as defense and the economy, the influence of Marxist-Leninist ideas in the United States is absolutely fantastic. I could never believe it 14 years ago, when I landed in this part of the world, that the process would go that fast. Most of the American politicians, media, and educational system train another generation of people who think they are living at the peacetime. False. The United States is in a state of war; undeclared, total war against the basic principles and foundations of the American system.”
“The next stage, of course, is crisis and involves a revolutionary change of power. This is a major step may take only up to six weeks to bring a country to the verge of crisis. This is where a cataclysmic event upsets and divides the country thereby creating panic among the citizens. And after crisis―with its violent change of power, structure, and economy―you have the so-called period of normalization. This can take up to two decades to complete―but it may last indefinitely.”
► ST. METHODIUS (died in 311) had already prophesied: “A day will come when the enemies of Christ will boast of having conquered the whole world. They will say: ‘Christians cannot escape now!’” So as for Donald Trump’s statement ― “I tell you, they are really after the Catholics! They are after the Catholic Church―it’s incredible! I don’t how many Catholics are in―but they are after the Catholic Church!” ― there is nothing new there, it was already known a long time ago!
► ST. AUGUSTINE: St. Augustine, already in the 300s and 400s said that there is a war between the City of God and the City of Man in his book On The City of God Against The Pagans (Latin: De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos), often abbreviated to simply The City of God. Augustine stated that two loves have formed two cities―the love of self has formed the earthly city, the City of Man; whereas the love of God has formed the heavenly city, the City of God. The earthly city is characterized and driven by pride, self-love and self-aggrandizement―while those in the heavenly city honor God in all things, trusting only Him for all wisdom and giving glory to only Him. Christ is the ruler of the City of God and Satan is the ruler of the world. “What agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what part do the faithful have with unbelievers?” (2 Corinthians 6:15). “The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he has not anything!” says Our Lord (John 12:31). There can be no peace between them―and there never has been peace between them. St. Augustine writes: “We see then that the two cities were created by two kinds of love: the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt of God, the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far contempt of self. In fact, the earthly city glories in itself, the Heavenly City glories in the Lord. The former looks for glory from men, the latter finds its highest glory in God!”
► OUR LORD, JESUS CHRIST: Do you need more evidence? Well then, go back to Our Lord’s days on Earth and listen to what He had to say―it is nothing other than what St. Augustine said, what Stalin said, what Karl Marx said and what Trump said: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! … He that is not with Me, is against Me! … For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! … He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
Speaking of the City of God and the City of Man―though not in those exact terms―Our Lord adds: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
► NEW TESTAMENT: The New Testament writers―the Apostles and Saints―add to Our Lord’s clear statement of His Kingdom being opposed to kingdom of man, when they say: “Whatsoever is born of God, overcomes the world! And this is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). “Wonder not, brethren, if the world hate you!” (1 John 3:13). “They are of the world―therefore of the world they speak, and the world hears them!” (1 John 4:5). “For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world!” (1 John 2:16). “For they that are according to the flesh, mind the things that are of the flesh―but they that are according to the spirit, mind the things that are of the spirit. For the wisdom of the flesh is death―but the wisdom of the spirit is life and peace. Because the wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God―for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be. And they who are in the flesh, cannot please God.” (Romans 8:5-8). “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27). “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).
► OUR LADY: Our Lady, in speaking to Sr. Lucia of Fatima, also warned of the terrible dangers of the “Last Days” or “End Times” ― a period that Our Lady said that we have already entered. This does not mean the world will end any time soon ― for we have yet to see Our Lady’s promised triumph of the Immaculate Heart; followed by a period of peace; followed by the Antichrist. Nevertheless, tough times are coming and we can clearly see the beginnings of those tough times as evidenced by recent (and increasing) draconian measures inflicted by the governments of the world. Our Lady’s earlier warnings―at Quito, Ecuador; at La Salette, France; and Akita, Japan―are already there to be seen, even though they are at a stage of infancy and not yet fully grown. Our Lady said:
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God! … God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family” (O. L. of La Salette). “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects” (O.L. of Good Success) … “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises!” (O. L. of Akita) … “Many will turn upon Religion, who nourished them at her breast! Many people will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church, impelled by the malice of the devil!” (O.L. of Good Success) … “They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption … (O.L. of Good Success) … “bringing souls to ruin particularly through the corruption of youth. Stirred-up and unrestrained in the enjoyment of the pleasures of the world, they have degraded their soul in corruption and sin. The bad example of parents trains the family in scandal and infidelity, instead of virtue and prayer, which is almost dead on the lips of many. Stained and withered is the fountain of Faith and sanctity the home!” (O.L. to Bl. Elena Aiello) … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times … making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children! ... Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty! There will be almost no virgin souls in the world! Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women!” (O.L. of Good Success).
Along the lines of Donald Trump’s comment that “They are really after the Catholics! They are after the Catholic Church!” Our Lady had already foretold that to us a long time ago: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government, will see a cruel persecution of all religious communities … During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God ... The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them … How the Church will suffer during this dark night! … The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis ... Churches will be locked up or desecrated … and altars will be sacked … Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death. Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... This night will be most horrible, for, humanly speaking, evil will seem to triumph … There will be occasions when all will seem to be lost and paralyzed ... People will believe that all is lost!” So Trump is telling us nothing new, nothing that we should not have already known and expected!
Moral Mess
We have entered an era where morality is twisted, adjusted, ignored and even attacked. The new “morality” has introduced the so-called “hate-crimes” and even “thought-crimes” that have become legally punishable. The “hate-crimes” are a mixture of correct and incorrect rulings. For example, it is a hate-crime to discriminate by words or actions against racial ethnicity or national identity, religion, economic class, or disability―which to a certain degree is fine (but Our Lord will tell you that is only one religion that He will accept). Yet it is also a hate-crime to discriminate against unnatural sexual orientation, unnatural gender identity, Satanism, abortion, contraception and a whole host of other sinful behaviors. Human legislation has kicked-out and discriminated against Divine Legislation: “Leaving the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men!” (Mark 7:8). “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). God reply is: “Woe to you blind guides! … Ye foolish and blind!” (Matthew 23:16-17) … “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil! That put darkness for light, and light for darkness! That put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20).
Yet we have to live amidst these dangers and we risk taking on some of those woeful errors! How many Catholics have had abortions? How many practice contraception? How many indulge in unnatural sexual relations? How many have tried to change their God-given gender? How many happily indulge in the world’s accepted mortal sins―such as adultery, fornication, masturbation, drunkenness, drug-abuse, pornography, immodesty, blasphemy, etc.? The numbers are NOT SMALL and they are increasing! Just like a toxic Catholic virus, these attitudes and behaviors spread from one Catholic family to another―due to their close contact and overly trusting attitude. Hey! If Catholics do this, that or the other―it must be okay! After all, they are Catholics, right?
Yet we have to live amidst these dangers and we risk taking on some of those woeful errors! How many Catholics have had abortions? How many practice contraception? How many indulge in unnatural sexual relations? How many have tried to change their God-given gender? How many happily indulge in the world’s accepted mortal sins―such as adultery, fornication, masturbation, drunkenness, drug-abuse, pornography, immodesty, blasphemy, etc.? The numbers are NOT SMALL and they are increasing! Just like a toxic Catholic virus, these attitudes and behaviors spread from one Catholic family to another―due to their close contact and overly trusting attitude. Hey! If Catholics do this, that or the other―it must be okay! After all, they are Catholics, right?
The words of OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS AND LA SALETTE come back to mind hauntingly: “The love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … Unbridled luxury will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! … People will only think of amusements … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion … The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom! … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle! … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws, making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church ... The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times! … The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis ... Churches will be locked up or desecrated … and altars will be sacked … Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death!”
So when Donald Trump says: “I tell you, they are really after the Catholics! They are after the Catholic Church―it’s incredible! I don’t how many Catholics are in―but they are after the Catholic Church! They are after parents and school boards!” ― then he is not making things up, regardless of whose side he is really on. SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA revealed to us: “The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground … The Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin and, as you know, what most offends God and what will gain him the greatest number of souls in the shortest time is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them! … For this reason, Father, it is my mission not just to speak about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to also tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin!” (Sr. Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th 1957).
Yes, the devil waging war against the Blessed Virgin―and as the OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS stated: “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects …Masonry will take control of the civil government and will enact iniquitous laws, making it easy for everyone to live in sin” and “He that commits sin is of the devil!” (1 John 3:8)―and we are committing sins like crazy, as OUR LADY pointed out to BLESSED ELENA AIELLO in 1957: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! The world is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [the Great Flood in Noe’s times]. All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and all the nations shall be!”
Lost Sense of Sin Leads to Lost Souls
Those words are echoed by one pope after another in recent times.
● Pope Pius XII said in 1946: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin!”
● Pope John Paul II, in 2005, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin!”
● Pope Benedict XVI, in 2011, said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man.”
● Pope Francis, in 2014, said: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble!”
What is the true sense of sin? Our Catechisms tell us that sin―whether mortal sins or even venial sins―is the greatest evil in the world! “Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). “Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
When you lose the sense of sin, then you do not confess your sins as you should confess them. You imagine that some of your mortal sins are only venial sins. You no longer take the Sacrament of Confession seriously―or you even stop going! ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI, the patron saint of moral theologians, writes: “The preacher should, likewise, often speak against bad confessions, in which sins are concealed through shame. This is an evil not of rare occurrence, but frequent, especially in small country districts, which consigns innumerable souls to Hell!” If that was true in his day (the 1700s), how much more true is it not today? Very few people recall the five conditions required for a valid Confession on the part of the penitent―(1) thorough examination of conscience and not a one-minute microwaved examination; (2) sufficient sorrow for sin―and not just mere embarrassment; (3) a firm purpose of amendment (which means plans)―and not a vague purpose of amendment: “O, you know, I should really stop doing this!” (4) clear confession of your sin to a priest―and not a “fudged”, disguised, watered-down, misrepresented, vague, smoke-screened, partially honest, camouflaged confession, which fails to mention (for mortal sins) the exact number committed and the exact kind (not just “being impure”, but was it alone, with another, with a married person, a child, a religious, family member, opposite sex or same sex, etc.); (5) doing the penance the priest imposes. How many bad confessions have you made, or how many bad confessions have your family members made? Heck! It is impossible to go to Hell if you always make good confessions! Why the heck, then, are most souls falling into Hell―as revealed by Our Lord, Our Lady and many saints and theologians? Besides having committed mortal sins, they fall into Hell because they did not confess correctly! Perhaps it is time for your―and your family members―to review how you are making your confessions, and how sharp your conscience is, or perhaps like most of the world you have lost the sense of sin?
Do Our Sins Need Washing Away by a Heavenly Shower of Water and Fire?
So, yes―we are in great danger of contamination by sin as we live in this modern moral mess which Our Lady says is even worse than the moral mess in the time Noe―and which resulted in God punishing the world with the Great Flood of Water to wash away the Great Flood of Sin at that time: “The Earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity … God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the Earth, and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times … repented that he had made man on the Earth … And being touched inwardly with sorrow of heart, He said: ‘I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the Earth! … I will rain upon the Earth forty days and forty nights; and I will destroy every substance that I have made, from the face of the Earth!’ … And the flood was forty days upon the earth, and the waters increased … They overflowed exceedingly and filled all on the face of the Earth … And the waters prevailed beyond measure upon the Earth! And all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered―the water was fifteen cubits [22 feet] higher than the mountains which it covered. And all flesh was destroyed that moved upon the Earth―birds, cattle, beasts, all creeping and all men! And God destroyed all the substance that was upon the Earth, from man to beast, creeping things and birds of the air―they were destroyed from the Earth. Only Noe remained with those that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the Earth a hundred and fifty days” (Genesis 6:5 to 7:25).
Since sin is the greatest evil in the world―then it stands to reason that sin is not cheap! “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8) ― that “corruption” means punishment, not only in Hell or Purgatory, but also in this life. “Sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned!” (Romans 5:12-14). “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “The soul that sins, the same shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15). The world found out the truth of those words in Noe’s time―and we are going to find out the truth of those in our times. Our Lady has often appealed that we stop sinning but we have ignored her warnings:
“Many men in this world afflict the Lord … People are offending God too much! … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended! … Men live in their obstinacy of sin. The wrath of God is near! … The sins of men are the cause of all the troubles on this Earth. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … Sins cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door… If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge [the Great Flood in Noe’s time], such as one never seen before! Fire will fall from Heaven and wipe out a great part of humanity … The Earth will be struck by calamities of all kinds! There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases. In addition to plague and famine which will be widespread. There will be a series of wars, until the last war … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. A general war will follow which will be appalling. Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy. Men will beat their heads against walls, call for their death, and on another side death will be their torment. Blood will flow on all sides!”
All of that flows over us with no effect―like water flowing off a ducks back! “It won’t happen in my lifetime!” we say, “It won’t happen to me! Besides, it’s all Private Revelation―I don’t have to believe it!” The fact that it will happen does not depend upon whether or not you believe it! Your belief or disbelief changes nothing. Is God cruel? No―it is sin that is cruel to God. The greater the honor of a person―the greater is the offense committed against that person. Using physical force or violence against the Pope is punished by excommunication―using force or violence against a bishop receives a lesser punishment; and if it is against a priest, then an even lesser punishment. God is the Supreme Being and Infinite Being―hence offences against God are supreme and infinite. In our casual approach to sin we do not think about or consider these things―we merely sin: “O what the heck! It’s no big deal! I’ll just confess it!” How many souls in Hell had that attitude?
In our morally messy times―which are even worse than Noe’s times―Our Lady and other prophecies have indicated that we will be punished by both water and fire. In her various apparitions as Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, and Our Lady of Akita, the Blessed Virgin warned: “The spirit of impurity will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … Without virginity, it will be necessary for fire from Heaven to rain down upon lands in order to purify them … Water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed ... Water and fire will give the Earth’s globe convulsions and terrible earthquakes which will swallow up mountains and cities ... Nations will be annihilated … The fire of Heaven will fall and consume cities. All the universe will be struck with terror and many will let themselves be led astray, because they have not worshiped the true Christ. The fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead! The persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like!”
SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA warned: “The final triumph of Mary’s Heart is certain, and it will be definitive! But it will take place ‘in the end’― that is to say, after a terrible purification of sinful mankind in a baptism of fire, blood and tears!” (Sister Lucia of Fatima).
To BLESSED ELENA AIELLO, in 1950s, OUR LADY said: “Tremendous will be the upheaval of the whole world, because men — as at the time of the Deluge — have lost God’s way, and are ruled by the spirit of Satan … The world has become as a flooded valley, overflowing with filth and mud. Some of the most difficult trials of Divine Justice are yet to come, before the deluge of fire! … Mankind, defiled in the mire, soon will be washed in its own blood, by disease; by famine; by earthquakes; by cloudbursts, tornadoes, floods, and terrible storms; and by war ... Great calamities will come upon the world, which will bring confusion, tears, struggles and pain … If men do not amend their ways, a terrifying scourge of fire will come down from Heaven upon all the nations of the world … Some nations will be purified, while others will disappear entirely! … Great earthquakes will swallow up entire cities and countries, and will bring epidemics, famine, and terrible destruction ― especially where the sons of darkness are [pagan or anti-God nations] … The Earth will be shaken by fearful earthquakes which will open deep abysses. Provinces and cities will be destroyed, and all will cry out that the end of the world has come! … If I were not bent over the Earth to cover all with my maternal love, the tempest of fire would have already broken upon the nations of the world! … See how Russia will burn! And all this fire is not that which will fall from the hands of men, but will be hurled directly from the angels (at the time of the great chastisement or purification that will come upon the Earth) ... In these tragic hours, the world has need of prayers and penance, because the Pope, the priests, and the Church are in danger ... If we do not pray, Russia will march upon all of Europe! Therefore I ask prayers, penance and sacrifice, so I may act as a Mediatrix with my Son in order to save souls! … Pray, and lose no time, lest it be too late!” OUR LORD added: “The world will be once more afflicted with great calamity; with bloody revolutions; with great earthquakes; with famines; with epidemics; with fearful hurricanes; and with floods from rivers and seas. But if men do not return to God, purifying fires will fall from the Heavens, like snowstorms, on all peoples, and a great part of humanity will be destroyed!”
Saints, Popes and Churchmen Warn of Dangers
ST. COLUMBA (521-597): “Listen! Listen to what will happen in the latter days of the world! There will be great wars; unjust laws will be enacted; the Church will be despoiled of her property; people will read and write a great deal; but charity and humility will be laughed to scorn, and the common people will believe in false ideas!”
BLESSED ANN CATHERINE EMMERICH: “The Church is in great danger… I see that in this place (Rome) the (Catholic) Church is being so cleverly undermined, that there will hardly remain a hundred or so priests who have not been deceived. They all work for destruction, even the clergy ... Many pastors allowed themselves to be taken up with ideas that were dangerous to the Church … I saw the Church of St. Peter in ruins, and so many of the clergy were themselves busy at this work of destruction – none of them wishing to do it openly in front of others! … Then I saw that everything that pertained to Protestantism was gradually gaining the upper hand, and the Catholic religion fell into complete decadence … The great devastation is now at hand! ... “I saw a secret sect relentlessly undermining the great Church … When the Church had been for the most part destroyed (by the secret sect), and when only the sanctuary and the altar were still standing, I saw the wreckers (of the secret sect) enter the Church with the Beast … In those days, Faith will fall very low, and it will be preserved in some places only, in a few cottages and in a few families which God has protected from disasters and wars” (Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, 1774-1824).
CARDINAL MANNING (1808-1892): “The opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus, Biegas, Suarez, Bellarmine and Bosius is that Rome shall apostatize from the Faith, and return to its ancient paganism. Then the Church shall be scattered, driven into the wilderness, and shall be for a time, as it was in the beginning, invisible; hidden in catacombs, in dens, in mountains, in lurking places; for a time it shall be swept, as it were, from the face of the Earth. Such is the universal testimony of the Fathers of the early Church.”
POPE ST. PIUS V (1504-1572): “All the evils of the world are due to lukewarm Catholics!”
POPE PIUS IX (1792-1878): “Liberal Catholics are the worst enemies of the Church!”
POPE ST. PIUS X (1835-1914): “Attempting to reconcile our Faith with the modern mentality leads not only to weakening of that Faith, but to its total destruction! … The greatest obstacle in the apostolate of the Church is the timidity, or rather the cowardice, of the faithful! In our time more than ever before, the greatest asset of the liars is the cowardice and weakness of good men, and all the vigor of Satan’s reign is due to the easy-going weakness of Catholics.... And this reproach can be leveled at the weak and timid Catholics of all countries!”
POPE PIUS XI (1876-1958): “We believe that the present hour is a dread phase of the events foretold by Christ. It seems that darkness is about to fall on the world. Humanity is in the grip of a supreme crisis! … I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a Divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith! … A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God!”
MARIE-JULIE JAHENNY (1850-1941), mystic and stigmatic, was told, by Our Lord and Our Lady, of the conspiracy to change the Faith in our present times: “I give you a warning. The disciples who are not of My Gospel are now working hard to remake a Mass that contains words that are odious in my sight. Already they have prepared everything. Even prior to the great crisis, they are going to devise unwholesome doctrines. When the fatal hour arrives, when the Faith of my priests is put to the test, it will be (these new texts) that will be celebrated. It will be a time of persecution when the enemies of the Faith and of Holy Religion will impose their formulas. All the works approved by the infallible Church will at a certain moment, cease to exist as they are at this present time. They will have lost nothing of their greatness, but they will be as if non-existing. That period will not last long but it will seem like an eternity for the children of the Church who will become like orphans. Things will be in a worse condition than any period of the past. For a long time, every Holy Sacrifice will be prohibited. There will not remain any trace of the Holy Sacrifice, and no apparent trace of Faith. The worst sins will be committed without shame or regret. Real pastors will be replaced by others formed by Hell, initiated in all vices, all iniquities, perfidious, who will cover souls with filth. They will be new preachers of new sacraments, new churches, new baptisms, new confraternities!”
The Apostle St. Peter also appeared to Marie-Julie Jahenny, saying: “The Church will know of suffering before it is entirely closed! The Church will not perish, but it is going to suffer―it will be suffering for a long time, suffering everywhere! It will undergo the direst outrages, not to mention the large number of its children who will deny it. The number of those souls, forever separated from God, will rise beyond three quarters of the Church.”
Tsunami of Sin is Drowning Families
A Tsunami of dangers and sins is already battering mankind―and it is highly likely, if not absolutely certain, that your family has been hit in one way or another. Our Lady of Good Success speaks of “the spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times … Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty!” Whereas Our Lady of Fatima indicated that, already back in 1917, it was sins of impurity that were the common sins throughout the world and the most common cause of damnation ― adultery, fornication, cohabitation, masturbation, impure glances and thoughts, impure conversation, etc. Statistics show that the most visited websites are porn websites. Catholic priests tell us that the most common sins that are confessed in the confessional are sins of impurity. That spirit of impurity is fanned, provoked and encouraged by the appallingly immodest fashions of today―only those who have lost the sense of sin would disagree with that observation. Even among Conservative and Traditional Catholics you will find these problems.
Add to these dangers the complacency of those weak Catholics who excuse their sinfulness by saying: “But everyone else is doing it!” Right! But most of those are in the process of damning their souls! Yet today’s youth are very partial to imitating their peers―even when those peers are peering at Hell! There is a fatal impression and false belief that there is safety in numbers―if most people are doing it, then it must alright. Sin is sin―no matter how many or how few people do it. It is not a democracy, it is not subject to human vote―it is God’s decision and ruling, not man’s!
The Catholic world has also been infected and plagued by the immoral viruses of sin in all its many different kinds. It is as though Satan has tailor-made temptation and sin to specifically fit each and every one of us―perfectly measured, cut and fitted to our characters, temperaments, personal likes and dislikes! Yet, as Our Lady revealed to St. Jacinta of Fatima, it is sins of the flesh, sins of impurity―in all the shapes and flavors, thoughts words and actions―that are top of rankings as regards the most common “damners”. Jacinta said: “More souls go to Hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason!” Our Lady had already foretold this as Our Lady of Good Success, around 300 years earlier in the 1600s. Speaking of the future 20th century, she said: The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals! … In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled impurity which will ensnare into sin, and conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! … Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women … The spirit of impurity will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty! There will be almost no virgin souls in the world!”
God's Solution is Being Ignored
Sin ultimately can only be defeated by supernatural means. It is only God’s grace that drive out sin from our souls―of ourselves and by ourselves we are powerless to drive away and keep away both mortal sin and venial sin. God―in these modern times―has given us the solution that He wants us to use. That solution is His Holy Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mediatrix of All Graces. Who are we to question and dispute God’s decisions and rulings? Our Lady herself has repeatedly informed us God’s designs in using her as the remedy for the evils of our day.
As Our Lady of Good Success she said: “Know that I am merciful and understanding! Let them come to me! … When tribulations of spirit and sufferings of the body oppress them and they seem to be drowning in this bottomless sea, let them gaze at my holy image, and I will always be there ready to listen to their cries and soothe their pain. Tell them that they should always run to their Mother with confidence and love! … Let men in the future realize how powerful I am in placating Divine Justice and obtaining mercy and pardon for every sinner, who comes to me with a contrite heart. For I am the Mother of Mercy and in me there is only goodness and love … My hour will arrive when I, in an amazing manner, will overthrow proud Satan, crushing him under my feet, chaining him in the infernal abyss, leaving the Church free of his cruel tyranny.”
As Our Lady of La Salette, she again spoke of victory against all the odds: “Priests and religious orders will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls … Rome will lose the Faith! ... The true Faith will be forgotten … People will think of nothing but amusement ... Evil books will be abundant on Earth .. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin … and men will become more and more perverted ... People will believe that all is lost!
“But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God! I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world, in poverty, humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification! Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession. It is time they came out and filled the world with light! I shall fight at their side! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you―provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent! All those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. Water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified! And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God!”
As Our Lady of Fatima she revealed that God wanted all the world to devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and that many would be saved through this devotion. She also promised that her Immaculate Heart would triumph over all evil: “Jesus wants to make me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world. I promise salvation to whoever embraces it!” (June 1917) … You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary―because only she can help you!” (July 1917).
As Our Lady of Akita, she echoes her previous messages and warnings: “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved! … I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this! … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary!”
Our Lady is God’s chosen Ark of Refuge―the Refuge of Sinner, the Ark of Salvation, the Help of Christians, the Mother of Mercy, the Comforter of the Afflicted. God wants us to turn to His masterpiece―Mary. She is one that God has chosen to our Ark by which we can safely sail over the tempests and storms of temptation, tribulation and persecution to the port of Heaven. St. Bernard has this beautiful passage that reflects this:
“When the storm of temptation arises, when you are midst the reefs and shoals of tribulation, fix your gaze upon the Star of the Sea―call upon Mary! If tossed by the rising tide of pride and ambition, if lost upon the troubled waters of scandal and contention―look then at the Star, invoke her name! Do the billows of anger, of avarice, of lust batter against your soul―cast thy eyes upon Mary! Does the greatness of your crime fill your soul with terror? Does your wretched conscience beat you down in shame and the fear of judgment paralyze your heart?―then, when about to sink to the depths of despondency, to plunge headlong into despair, then think of Mary! In perils and in sorrows and in fears―think of her, call upon her name! Let her name be ever on your lips and the thought of her be ever in your heart! Follow her―so that the power of her intercession may attend to your needs! Imitate her―for in her footsteps you cannot go astray! Call upon her―and you will not despair! Think of her―and you cannot fail. If she holds you by the hand―how can you fall? Under her protection you shall know no fear! Under her guidance you shall not falter! Under her patronage you shall surely reach the goal!” (St. Bernard of Clairvaux).
Article 10
Monday August 21st & Tuesday August 22nd, 2023
A Practical Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Monday August 21st & Tuesday August 22nd, 2023
A Practical Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
All Feathers―No Bird? All Leaves―No Fruit?
A bird is not just about feathers― as the proverb says: “Fine feathers do not make fine birds!” Feathers are the superficial covering for the bird―but feathers alone do not make a bird. Just like a tree is more than just leaves. A tree is a tree with or without leaves―but leaves are not part of a tree unless they are attached to a real tree. Some trees are meant to produce fruit―and they are imperfect trees unless they produce that fruit, no matter how many beautiful leaves they may have. Do you remember the incident where Our Lord went searching for some fruit to eat and came to a fig tree that was full of leaves, but no fruit? He cursed it and the whole tree immediately withered and died!
“When they came out from Bethany, Jesus was hungry. And when He had seen afar off a fig tree having leaves, He came if perhaps He might find anything on it. And when He was come to it, He found nothing but leaves. And He said to it: ‘May no man hereafter eat fruit of thee any more for ever!’ … And when evening was come, Jesus went forth out of the city and they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter remembering, said to him: ‘Rabbi, behold the fig tree, which thou didst curse, is withered away!’” (Mark 11:12-21). “And seeing a certain fig tree by the wayside, He came to it, and found nothing on it but leaves only, and He said to it: ‘May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever!’ And immediately the fig tree withered away” (Matthew 21:19).
Along the same lines, there is the parable about the unfruitful fig tree: “Jesus spoke also this parable: ‘A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. So he said to the dresser of the vineyard: “Behold, for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none! Cut it down therefore! Why is it encumbering the ground?” But the vinedresser answering, said to him: “Lord, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it and dung it! Perhaps happily it bears fruit! But if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down!”’” (Luke 13:6-9).
“I am the true vine and My Father is the gardener. I am the vine and you are the branches! In this is my Father glorified―that you bring forth very much fruit, and become my disciples! I have chosen you and have appointed you, that you should go and should bring forth fruit! Every branch in Me, that bears not fruit, He will take away. And every branch that bears fruit, He will purge it, so that it may bring forth more fruit! Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. He that abides in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit. If anyone does not abide in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he will burn! If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, then you shall ask whatever you want and it shall be done unto you!” (John 15:1-8, 16).
Just as a fruit tree must produce fruit―so too must devotion produce fruit. “Faith without works is dead!” (James 2:20).
“But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith!” (James 2:18). Our Lord refers to devotion without fruit or works when He says to the Jews: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8). A cowboy hat does not make a cowboy―it is, as they say, “Big hat, but no cattle!” A gun with no ammunition is like a fruit tree with no fruit―useless. There are some who talk about devotion, but have no real devotion. We say of such folk: “All talk and no action!” or “All bark and no bite!” Holy Scripture alludes to this phenomenon in the Old Testament, where God complains of His watchmen lacking bark and bite: “His watchmen are all blind, they are all ignorant! Dumb dogs not able to bark, seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams!” (Isaias 56:10).
Fruitless Devotion?
Do those above things describe the kind of devotion we have to God in general and the Immaculate Heart of Mary in particular? Are we all talk and no action? Perhaps we don’t even talk! Don’t even pray! Don’t even read about God and Our Lady! “They have a mouth, but they speak not! They have eyes, but they see not!” (Psalms 134:16). At Fatima, Our Lady clearly said: “Jesus wants to make me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world. I promise salvation to whoever embraces it―these souls will be dear to God! … You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved!” So what are you doing about it? A lot? A little? Barely anything? Or nothing? “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6).
Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is “low, and thin, and poor” ― those are the words of Fr. Frederick William Faber, from the Preface of his own personal translation from the original French version of St. Louis de Montfort’s book, True Devotion to Mary. In that Preface―written in 1858, almost 60 years before Our Lady’s words at Fatima―Fr. Faber laments the poor state of devotion to Our Lady in the following words:
“All those who are likely to read this book [True Devotion to Mary], love God, and lament that they do not love Him more; all desire something for His glory—the spread of some good work, the success of some devotion, the coming of some good time. One man has been striving for years to overcome a particular fault, and has not succeeded. Another mourns, and almost wonders while he mourns, that so few of his relations and friends have been converted to the Faith. One grieves that he has not devotion enough; another that he has a cross to carry which is a peculiarly impossible cross to him; while a third has domestic troubles and family unhappinesses which feel almost incompatible with his salvation; and for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy.
“But what is the remedy that is wanted? What is the remedy indicated by God Himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady; but, remember, nothing short of an immense one! Here in England, Mary is not half enough preached! Devotion to her is low and thin and poor! It is frightened out of its wits by the sneers of heresy! It is always invoking human respect and carnal prudence, wishing to make Mary so little of a Mary that Protestants may feel at ease about her! Its ignorance of theology makes it unsubstantial and unworthy! It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be! It has no faith in itself! Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls which might be saints wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized! Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background! Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them! It is the miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines!
“Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother! I cannot think of a higher work or a broader vocation for anyone than the simple spreading of this peculiar devotion of the Venerable Grignion de Montfort! Let a man but try it for himself, and his surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations it causes in his soul, will soon convince him of its otherwise almost incredible efficacy as a means for the salvation of men, and for the coming of the kingdom of Christ! Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our Faith, and how different would our Communions be! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our sole Lord and Savior, her dearest and most blessed Son!” (From the Preface of Fr. Frederick William Faber, in his own personal translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s book, True Devotion to Mary).
Charity Begins at Home―Devotion Begins at Home
There is a proverb―not biblical―that says: “Charity begins at home!” What this means to say is that we should be learning how to be charitable from our very earliest years of existence in a loving, charitable environment that the family home should manifest. If the parents are charitable, then the children learn from that example to also be charitable. If the parents are uncharitable, then the children will imitate that uncharitableness. The secular proverb, “Like father, like son” is based upon the biblical proverb, “As the mother was, so also is her daughter” (Ezechiel 16:44). If “God is charity” (1 John 4:8), then so too should the family home be charitable.
Devotion is defined as being a high level of charity, the pinnacle of charity and love. Thus when Our Lady of Fatima says: “Jesus to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world!” and “God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart!” ― then Our Lady is not just speaking about a love for her Immaculate Heart, but she speaking about a high level of love, the pinnacle of love, which is shown by the word “devotion”.
There is absolutely no doubt that each and every household, each and every family, each and every family member is capable of the highest devotion―the problem is that they are devoted to the wrong things! They are devoted to things of this world―rather than being devoted to things of Heaven. “What does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” says Our Lord (Matthew 16:26). If you were the proverbial “fly-on-the-wall” in the homes of the world, you would witness astounding manifestations of devotion―but it would be for worldly things. People spend hours and hours watching television, browsing the internet, surfing social media, listening to music, chatting on the phone, playing sports, working on their pet projects, cooking, cleaning, making additions to the house, gardening, exercising, beautifying themselves, shopping and window shopping, gossiping, having barbecues and cookouts, socializing, etc. The time, energy and fervor given to God is ridiculously low and embarrassing when compared to the time, energy and fervor given to those pastimes and occupations! We certainly are capable of devotion―but we show nothing of it to God and Our Lady.
By simply doing this―and neglecting God―we are breaking the greatest commandment that there is! “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). What do you think the government and judiciary would do to you if you broke the greatest law of the land? There are still over 40 categories of Federal Law that carry the death penalty if they are broken. Yet we break God’s laws with ease, with complacency, with feelings of impunity―and the greatest of those laws is the law of love and devotion. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
A Divided City Shall Fall―A Divided Soul Shall Fall
We are made of body and soul―something spiritual and something physical. We apply our body and soul to everyday living―we do physical work with our body and we do intellectual work with our soul or mind. Both are put use and need to be used if we are to have any chance of living a normal life. Persons with crippled bodies or crippled minds cannot lead a normal life. Furthermore, there should be no “divorce” between our body and soul―that is to say, between things we think and the things we say; between the things we believe and the things we do; between how we talk and how we act. God is all about unity― “Be careful to keep the unity of the Spirit! One body and one Spirit. One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism!” (Ephesians 4:5). “If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand!” (Mark 3:24) … “Every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate! And every city or house divided against itself shall not stand!” (Matthew 12:25). That is why Our Lord warns: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
Hence Our Lord adds: “Every one therefore that hears these my words, and does them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock―and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock. And every one that hears these my words, and does not do them, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand―and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof!” (Matthe7:24-27). Devotion is our rock―devotion to Our Lady is our rock in these turbulent times―as she herself said: Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917) … “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!” (Akita, 1973).
Our Lady of Fatima echoed the above words of Our Lord―Sister Lucia repeats what Our Lady said to her: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them!” (Sr. Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Optimism Bias or Optimism By Asses
Do you think you are a better-than-average driver? Chances are you do. And do you know what? So do 80-90% of other drivers! Think about that for a second―not everyone can be above average. There are a variety of things in which we all think we are above average, including health, popularity, memory, attractiveness, and even academic and job performance. In fact, there are so many things that we think we are good at that there is name for it: optimism bias.
Optimism bias is the belief that each of us is more likely to experience good outcomes and less likely to experience bad outcomes. The key to optimism bias is that we disregard the reality of an overall situation because we think we are excluded from the potential negative effects. This is why warning labels don’t seem to work. You have probably seen warning labels spelling out the health consequences of cigarettes. But in spite of those labels, about 500,000 people die from using tobacco products every year. You have heard warnings about not driving while intoxicated. Yet about 10,000 people die every year in alcohol-related traffic accidents. Optimism bias. It won't happen to me! I will be okay!
You might believe that World War Three is on the horizon, but you also probably think that you, personally, will be okay when someone drops the first nuke. That’s because around 80 percent of people, across all age groups and genders, suffer from what social psychologists call optimism bias. It’s that enduring, against-all-odds belief that things are going to work out on an individual level, and it’s a nice feeling―until the opposite happens! They believe that bad things won’t happen in the future, because nothing bad has happened in the past. It’s a form of denial and self-delusion.
We can also see that optimism bias at work in the Faith. Everyone thinks that they are a better Catholic than they really are! Think about this then―Our Lord said to one of His mystics (not just an average person like us): “If you could see yourself as I see you, then you would die in terror!” No room left for optimism bias there, huh? The modern-day Church has also taken on the optimism bias in the sense that most people seem to imagine that everyone who dies goes to Heaven! Our Lord, Our Lady, many saints and theologians say the opposite. It is a fair bet that everyone in Hell was guilty of optimism bias while still on Earth ― “Oh I’ll be alright! I won’t go to Hell!” Well guess where they are now!
Similarly with the matter of devotion. Almost everyone thinks that their devotion to God in general, and Our Lady or the Immaculate Heart of Mary in particular, is above average. How do we know that? Well because if you do not have enough of something, then you make efforts to get more of it. If you feel that you a short of devotion, then you would make efforts to increase your devotion. We do not see many―if any―making efforts to increase their devotion. Rather, it is a case of the same old, same old, same old―year after year. Yet when you look at those levels of devotion―you can clearly see that they are pretty low. There is little or no attempt to attend extra weekday Masses―being satisfied with the Sunday Mass; saying fast, hurried, distracted Rosaries and prayers; Rosary prayers merely said without the mysteries being meditated; little preparation before Holy Mass and Holy Communion, and most of it is done with little fervor or feeling, flying along on auto-pilot; rushed thanksgivings (or no thanksgivings) after Holy Communion and Mass as they rush off to do better, more important, more appealing things; little or no spiritual reading―especially the “heavyweight” kind that could really impact your life, with preference being given to the light fluffy stuff; no daily examination of conscience; no program for the acquisition and perfection of virtues―they just “wing-it”. The list could go on and on. All of this betrays a lack of devotion and shows a minimalist attitude to the Faith, God and Our Lady.
Re-Devotioning Our Devotionless Devotions!
You may have heard or read Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale about The Emperor’s New Clothes, wherein two tricksters pose as weavers and tailors of an invisible set of clothes. They tell the emperor that only intelligent people are able to see the invisible cloth and that it could not be seen by those who are stupid―by which ruse they manage to make the emperor believe that the clothes really exist, because the emperor did not want to appear to be stupid. He purchases the invisible cloth from them at a very high price, thinking that he could use it to see who was intelligent and who was stupid in his empire. Of course, in reality there was no invisible cloth and no invisible clothes―yet nobody was prepared to say the truth for fear of being thought to be stupid. The emperor, not wanting to thought of as stupid by others, but wanting to parade his new suit of (invisible) clothes to all the people, ended up going to the parade naked!
It is like that with our devotion or devotions. We imagine them to be what they are not and we imagine ourselves to be devoted when we are not. St. Francis de Sales has some words to say on this imaginary devotion issue in his book, Introduction to the Devout Life, wherein he writes: “There is only one true devotion while there is a very large number of false and meaningless ones. So if you cannot recognize true devotion, you could be deceived and waste time in following some devotion that is irrelevant and irrational. Each person represents devotion according to his liking and imagination. He who is in the habit of fasting will think that just because he fasts he is very devout―even though his heart is filled with hatred. He will not take a sip of wine, or even of water, anxious about sobriety―but he has no scruples to sip the blood of his neighbor by speaking ill of him or by making false statements about him. Another considers himself devout because of the very great number of prayers he recites every day―even though soon after this he speaks words that are annoying, full of pride and hurtful to those in his house and to his neighbors. Another very gladly opens his purse to give alms to the poor―but cannot take any gentleness from his heart to forgive his enemies. Yet another will forgive his enemies―but will not pay what he owes unless he is legally forced to do so. All such persons are generally looked upon as devout whereas in fact they are not.”
What St. Francis de Sales is saying is that we all have a tendency to make mountains out of our molehills of devotion―while at the same time making our mountains of sins look like mere molehills! He further points out our tendency to pick and choose only those virtues that we like, while ignoring other virtues that we do not like or that will cost us too much―thus we mix virtue with sin. A glass of wine that only has a little poison in it, is nevertheless a poisonous drink―the poison does not have to be greater in proportion to the wine. Likewise, you don’t have to commit lots and lots of mortal sins in order to go to Hell―one single mortal sin will suffice, even if the rest of your life is virtuous!
Back to Kindergarten
What is the point of all this? It is to point out that the practice of devotion must be wholehearted and not halfhearted. It cannot be a service of both God and the world. Devotion is like sanctity―nobody is a saint when they first start out on the road to Heaven, but they had better become a saint before they die, for only saints go to Heaven. Those who choose not to try and achieve sanctity, will end up―not in Heaven―but in either Purgatory or Hell. Neither place is pleasant, but very painful. Devotion is a high level of charity and love. Mediocrity and devotion are opposites and cannot be reconciled. To try pass off mediocrity for devotion is hypocrisy. Thus the first step towards acquiring a true devotion is to humbly acknowledge that we have a long way to go and that we are in the kindergarten class or lower grades in the school of devotion. If we exaggerate our level of devotion, then God will let us fail and fall in our pride.
True Devotion Comes from a Humble Heart
Devotion to the immaculate Heart of Mary is primarily based upon the Sacred Scriptures. In the New Testament, there are two references to the Heart of Mary in the Gospel according to St. Luke: “Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19) and again later, Luke writes: “His Mother kept all these words in her heart” (Luke 2:51). Likewise, for a true devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, you need to keep Mary in your mind and heart―you need to ponder Mary, to wonder about Mary, to listen to Mary, to obey her requests. It was the Heart of Mary which humbly expressed her “yes” or “fiat” to God: “Be it done unto me according to Thy word!” This was her humble response to the message sent through the angel at the Annunciation. By her humble loving consent, Mary first conceived Christ in her heart and then in her womb. The importance of the heart is often stressed by Holy Scripture. Our Lord demands not mere lip service, but service from the heart. He calls some of the Pharisees and Jews hypocrites for being content with mere lip-service: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). In the Book of Deuteronomy we are told, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5). When Our Lord Jesus Christ was asked which was the first commandment, He answered: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment!” (Mark 12:29-30).
Nevertheless, fictional love, theoretical love, virtual love, lip-love is not what God and Our Lady want. Just as “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:20), likewise love without works is dead. If Our Lord says: “If you love Me, keep My commandments!” ― then Our Lady says the same thing: “Keep my requests and demands!” Just as Our Lord says: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46), Our Lady could say: “Why do you say to Me, ‘Hail Mary! Hail Mary!’ and do not the things which I say?” In her apparitions, Our Lady has not come to show-off her clothes, nor has she come for us to admire her beauty―she has come to be heard and we need to listen to her words and “keep all her words in our heart, pondering them in our heart.” Just as we digest and assimilate food so that it becomes a part of our body―so too must we digest and assimilate the words of Our Lady so that they become a part of our soul, a part of our spirit, making us “one heart and one soul” with Mary (Acts 4:32). Mary is not a statue that we bring out of the closet for a few minutes each day to pray and talk to her! Adapting St. Paul’s phrase about Christ, we should say: “I live, now not I; but Mary lives in me!” (Galatians 2:20). Once we have assimilated the spirit of Mary, then we can say that Mary lives in us.
Know First, Talk Afterwards
If we can talk sports at home for hours on end, or talk about the television shows we’ve watched, or the music we’ve heard, or talk about our work and hobbies, trips and vacations, our relatives, friends and neighbors―then why can’t we talk about Mary for hours on end? One basic reason is that we know very little about Mary―apart from the superficial things that everyone is or should be acquainted with. You cannot talk about what you do not know―and you cannot love what you do not know. What is there to stop you learning something new about Mary each and every day? You could then communicate your new found knowledge to the rest of the family―and perhaps listen to their new found knowledge of Mary too! God is not going to download that information into your brain―you have go out and dig for the information.
If we can talk sports at home for hours on end, or talk about the television shows we’ve watched, or the music we’ve heard, or talk about our work and hobbies, trips and vacations, our relatives, friends and neighbors―then why can’t we talk about Mary for hours on end? One basic reason is that we know very little about Mary―apart from the superficial things that everyone is or should be acquainted with. You cannot talk about what you do not know―and you cannot love what you do not know. What is there to stop you learning something new about Mary each and every day? You could then communicate your new found knowledge to the rest of the family―and perhaps listen to their new found knowledge of Mary too! God is not going to download that information into your brain―you have go out and dig for the information. The better you know and understand Mary, the better will your prayers be and the more powerful will your prayers be―for you will start becoming “one heart and one soul” with Mary. So rather than just pray and pray and pray more and more and more to Mary―take time to know whom you are praying to and get to understand the mind and outlook of Mary. It will save you a lot of grief in the long run! We see an indication of this in the Catechism answer to the question as to why God made us―“God made us to know Him, Love Him and Serve Him.” Notice that knowledge comes first―it is not just a haphazard ordering―KNOW, LOVE, SERVE―but a logical ordering. For we must first know something before we can love it―and you are not likely to serve for very long someone whom you do not love. God has wired us to love what is good―thus by knowing Mary more (who the greatest good after God), we cannot but help loving her more.
There are multiple ways in which you and your family can grow in knowledge of Mary―the chief ways that any knowledge comes into our minds is by visual and auditory means, that is to say, what we see, what we read and what we hear. Some people love reading, others prefer listening, while others prefer visually watching something. With today’s modern technology, it is not hard to find Marian materials in your preferred medium―books, videos, books or sermons on tape/CD. There can be no real excuse for finding Marian materials, because they are everywhere and easily found on the internet. The only real reason for not doing so is not a lack of availability, but a lack of enthusiasm―most people are just not interested in Mary (unless they are trying to get something for themselves from her through prayer!). For most people, there are thousands of better, more interesting things to do than getting to know Mary! What an insult to the Mother of God! What an insult to God too! For Mary is His masterpiece―and we can’t be bothered to study His masterpiece!
The books and articles about Mary―whether hard-copies, digital books, or online―cover an immense variety of topics concerning Mary.
(1) You can read about her life as she has revealed to certain mystics;
(2) Or you can read about her apparitions and the messages she gave;
(3) Then you have her feasts―which are literally at least one feast for every day of the year. Our Calendar pages will set you off on that path with a brief overview for every day of the year, which you can then research and study further if you wish;
(4) There are countless sermons on Mary by Church Fathers, Saints, Blesseds, Venerables, popes and theologians.
(5) You also have papal encyclicals on Mary by various popes.
(6) Read about the lives of saints who were particularly devoted to Mary.
(7) There are materials available about the multitude of shrines to Our Lady throughout the world.
(8) You can also find lots of material on the various Sacramentals of Mary―her scapulars and medals and chaplets.
(9) Many books and articles are available that explain the many virtues and privileges of Mary.
(10) Also books on the role of Mary in the spiritual life. Spiritual theology ranks higher than Dogmatic and Moral theology.
(11) Books giving meditations on Mary―meditations often take the theological aspect and apply it to practical use.
(12) Books or articles that supply you with meditations for all the 15 Mysteries of the Holy Rosary.
(13) Numerous prayers dedicate to Mary―these are wonderful springboard for learning to compose your own prayers.
(14) Lots of hymns in honor of Mary―hymns are instructive and often express key teachings about their subject.
Don’t try and lamely say that after reading such things that your love and appreciation of Mary will not increase! Of course it will―but you have to make the effort to find and read these things! Nor try the lame excuse that you have no time to do these things! Mary plays a key role in a person’s salvation―are you saying you have no time to work on your salvation? Holy Mother Church puts these words in the mouth of Mary: “He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord!” (Proverbs 8:35; Epistle from the Mass of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th). Also: “Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits! For my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb! My memory is unto everlasting generations. They that eat me, shall yet hunger: and they that drink me, shall yet thirst! He that listens to me, shall not be confounded; and they that work by me, shall not sin! They that explain me shall have life everlasting!” (Ecclesiasticus 24:26-31; Epistle from the Mass of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, July 16th).
Practical Aspect of Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
St. Louis de Montfort, in his book True Devotion to Mary, has a section entitled: “Common Practices, both Interior and Exterior”, wherein he lists some practical ways in which we can show our devotion to Our Lady. Here are those suggestions:
“There are several INTERIOR PRACTICES of true devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Here are the principal ones, stated compendiously:
(1) to honor her as the worthy Mother of God, with the worship of hyperdulia; that is to say, to esteem her and honor her above all the other saints, as the masterpiece of grace, and the first after Jesus Christ, true God and true Man;
(2) to meditate on her virtues, her privileges and her actions;
(3) to contemplate her grandeurs;
(4) to make acts of love, of praise, of gratitude to her;
(5) to invoke her cordially;
(6) to offer ourselves to her and unite ourselves with her;
(7) to do all our actions with the view of pleasing her;
(8) to begin, to continue and to finish all our actions by her, in her, with her and for her, in order that we may do them by Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ, with Jesus Christ and for Jesus Christ, our Last End. We will presently explain this last practice.
“True devotion to Our Lady also has several EXTERIOR PRACTICES, of which the following are the principal ones:
(1) to enroll ourselves in her confraternities and enter her congregations;
(2) to join the religious orders instituted in her honor;
(3) to proclaim her praises [by the written or the spoken word];
(4) to give alms, to fast and to undergo outward and inward mortifications in her honor;
(5) to wear her liveries, such as the Rosary, the Scapular or the little chain;
(6) to recite with attention, devotion and modesty the Holy Rosary.
(7) to say a chaplet of six or seven decades in honor of the years which we believe Our Lady lived on Earth;
(8) to recite the Little Crown of the Blessed Virgin, composed of three Our Fathers and twelve Hail Mary’s, in honor of her crown of twelve stars or privileges;
(9) to pray the Little Office of Our Lady, so universally received and recited in the Church;
(10) to say the Little Psalter of the holy Virgin, which St. Bonaventure composed in her honor;
(11) to pray fourteen Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s in honor of her fourteen joys;
(12) to recite some other prayers, hymns and canticles of the Church, such as the Salve Regina, the Alma, the Ave Regina Coelorum, or the Regina Coeli, according to the different seasons; or the Ave Maris Stella, the O Gloriosa Domina, the Magnificat, or some other practices of devotion, of which books are full;
(13) to sing, or have sung, spiritual canticles in her honor;
(14) to make a number of genuflections or reverences, while saying, for example, every morning, sixty or a hundred times, Ave Maria, Virgo Fidelis (“Hail Mary, Faithful Virgin”), to obtain from God through her the grace to be faithful to the graces of God during the day; and then again in the evening, Ave Maria, Mater Misericordiae (“Hail Mary, Mother of Mercy”) to ask pardon of God through her for the sins that we have committed during the day;
(15) to take care of her confraternities, to adorn her altars, to crown and ornament her images;
(16) to carry her images, or to have them carried, in procession, and to carry a picture or an image of her about our own persons, as a mighty arm against the evil spirit;
(17) to have copies of her name or picture made and placed in churches, or in houses, or on the gates and entrances into cities, churches and houses;
(18) to special and solemn consecrate ourselves to her in manner.
(Taken from St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary, chapter 3, Article 2, Section 2: “Practices”).
A bird is not just about feathers― as the proverb says: “Fine feathers do not make fine birds!” Feathers are the superficial covering for the bird―but feathers alone do not make a bird. Just like a tree is more than just leaves. A tree is a tree with or without leaves―but leaves are not part of a tree unless they are attached to a real tree. Some trees are meant to produce fruit―and they are imperfect trees unless they produce that fruit, no matter how many beautiful leaves they may have. Do you remember the incident where Our Lord went searching for some fruit to eat and came to a fig tree that was full of leaves, but no fruit? He cursed it and the whole tree immediately withered and died!
“When they came out from Bethany, Jesus was hungry. And when He had seen afar off a fig tree having leaves, He came if perhaps He might find anything on it. And when He was come to it, He found nothing but leaves. And He said to it: ‘May no man hereafter eat fruit of thee any more for ever!’ … And when evening was come, Jesus went forth out of the city and they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter remembering, said to him: ‘Rabbi, behold the fig tree, which thou didst curse, is withered away!’” (Mark 11:12-21). “And seeing a certain fig tree by the wayside, He came to it, and found nothing on it but leaves only, and He said to it: ‘May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever!’ And immediately the fig tree withered away” (Matthew 21:19).
Along the same lines, there is the parable about the unfruitful fig tree: “Jesus spoke also this parable: ‘A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. So he said to the dresser of the vineyard: “Behold, for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none! Cut it down therefore! Why is it encumbering the ground?” But the vinedresser answering, said to him: “Lord, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it and dung it! Perhaps happily it bears fruit! But if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down!”’” (Luke 13:6-9).
“I am the true vine and My Father is the gardener. I am the vine and you are the branches! In this is my Father glorified―that you bring forth very much fruit, and become my disciples! I have chosen you and have appointed you, that you should go and should bring forth fruit! Every branch in Me, that bears not fruit, He will take away. And every branch that bears fruit, He will purge it, so that it may bring forth more fruit! Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. He that abides in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit. If anyone does not abide in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he will burn! If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, then you shall ask whatever you want and it shall be done unto you!” (John 15:1-8, 16).
Just as a fruit tree must produce fruit―so too must devotion produce fruit. “Faith without works is dead!” (James 2:20).
“But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith!” (James 2:18). Our Lord refers to devotion without fruit or works when He says to the Jews: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8). A cowboy hat does not make a cowboy―it is, as they say, “Big hat, but no cattle!” A gun with no ammunition is like a fruit tree with no fruit―useless. There are some who talk about devotion, but have no real devotion. We say of such folk: “All talk and no action!” or “All bark and no bite!” Holy Scripture alludes to this phenomenon in the Old Testament, where God complains of His watchmen lacking bark and bite: “His watchmen are all blind, they are all ignorant! Dumb dogs not able to bark, seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams!” (Isaias 56:10).
Fruitless Devotion?
Do those above things describe the kind of devotion we have to God in general and the Immaculate Heart of Mary in particular? Are we all talk and no action? Perhaps we don’t even talk! Don’t even pray! Don’t even read about God and Our Lady! “They have a mouth, but they speak not! They have eyes, but they see not!” (Psalms 134:16). At Fatima, Our Lady clearly said: “Jesus wants to make me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world. I promise salvation to whoever embraces it―these souls will be dear to God! … You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved!” So what are you doing about it? A lot? A little? Barely anything? Or nothing? “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6).
Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is “low, and thin, and poor” ― those are the words of Fr. Frederick William Faber, from the Preface of his own personal translation from the original French version of St. Louis de Montfort’s book, True Devotion to Mary. In that Preface―written in 1858, almost 60 years before Our Lady’s words at Fatima―Fr. Faber laments the poor state of devotion to Our Lady in the following words:
“All those who are likely to read this book [True Devotion to Mary], love God, and lament that they do not love Him more; all desire something for His glory—the spread of some good work, the success of some devotion, the coming of some good time. One man has been striving for years to overcome a particular fault, and has not succeeded. Another mourns, and almost wonders while he mourns, that so few of his relations and friends have been converted to the Faith. One grieves that he has not devotion enough; another that he has a cross to carry which is a peculiarly impossible cross to him; while a third has domestic troubles and family unhappinesses which feel almost incompatible with his salvation; and for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy.
“But what is the remedy that is wanted? What is the remedy indicated by God Himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady; but, remember, nothing short of an immense one! Here in England, Mary is not half enough preached! Devotion to her is low and thin and poor! It is frightened out of its wits by the sneers of heresy! It is always invoking human respect and carnal prudence, wishing to make Mary so little of a Mary that Protestants may feel at ease about her! Its ignorance of theology makes it unsubstantial and unworthy! It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be! It has no faith in itself! Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls which might be saints wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized! Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background! Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them! It is the miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines!
“Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother! I cannot think of a higher work or a broader vocation for anyone than the simple spreading of this peculiar devotion of the Venerable Grignion de Montfort! Let a man but try it for himself, and his surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations it causes in his soul, will soon convince him of its otherwise almost incredible efficacy as a means for the salvation of men, and for the coming of the kingdom of Christ! Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our Faith, and how different would our Communions be! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our sole Lord and Savior, her dearest and most blessed Son!” (From the Preface of Fr. Frederick William Faber, in his own personal translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s book, True Devotion to Mary).
Charity Begins at Home―Devotion Begins at Home
There is a proverb―not biblical―that says: “Charity begins at home!” What this means to say is that we should be learning how to be charitable from our very earliest years of existence in a loving, charitable environment that the family home should manifest. If the parents are charitable, then the children learn from that example to also be charitable. If the parents are uncharitable, then the children will imitate that uncharitableness. The secular proverb, “Like father, like son” is based upon the biblical proverb, “As the mother was, so also is her daughter” (Ezechiel 16:44). If “God is charity” (1 John 4:8), then so too should the family home be charitable.
Devotion is defined as being a high level of charity, the pinnacle of charity and love. Thus when Our Lady of Fatima says: “Jesus to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world!” and “God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart!” ― then Our Lady is not just speaking about a love for her Immaculate Heart, but she speaking about a high level of love, the pinnacle of love, which is shown by the word “devotion”.
There is absolutely no doubt that each and every household, each and every family, each and every family member is capable of the highest devotion―the problem is that they are devoted to the wrong things! They are devoted to things of this world―rather than being devoted to things of Heaven. “What does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” says Our Lord (Matthew 16:26). If you were the proverbial “fly-on-the-wall” in the homes of the world, you would witness astounding manifestations of devotion―but it would be for worldly things. People spend hours and hours watching television, browsing the internet, surfing social media, listening to music, chatting on the phone, playing sports, working on their pet projects, cooking, cleaning, making additions to the house, gardening, exercising, beautifying themselves, shopping and window shopping, gossiping, having barbecues and cookouts, socializing, etc. The time, energy and fervor given to God is ridiculously low and embarrassing when compared to the time, energy and fervor given to those pastimes and occupations! We certainly are capable of devotion―but we show nothing of it to God and Our Lady.
By simply doing this―and neglecting God―we are breaking the greatest commandment that there is! “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). What do you think the government and judiciary would do to you if you broke the greatest law of the land? There are still over 40 categories of Federal Law that carry the death penalty if they are broken. Yet we break God’s laws with ease, with complacency, with feelings of impunity―and the greatest of those laws is the law of love and devotion. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
A Divided City Shall Fall―A Divided Soul Shall Fall
We are made of body and soul―something spiritual and something physical. We apply our body and soul to everyday living―we do physical work with our body and we do intellectual work with our soul or mind. Both are put use and need to be used if we are to have any chance of living a normal life. Persons with crippled bodies or crippled minds cannot lead a normal life. Furthermore, there should be no “divorce” between our body and soul―that is to say, between things we think and the things we say; between the things we believe and the things we do; between how we talk and how we act. God is all about unity― “Be careful to keep the unity of the Spirit! One body and one Spirit. One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism!” (Ephesians 4:5). “If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand!” (Mark 3:24) … “Every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate! And every city or house divided against itself shall not stand!” (Matthew 12:25). That is why Our Lord warns: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
Hence Our Lord adds: “Every one therefore that hears these my words, and does them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock―and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock. And every one that hears these my words, and does not do them, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand―and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof!” (Matthe7:24-27). Devotion is our rock―devotion to Our Lady is our rock in these turbulent times―as she herself said: Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917) … “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!” (Akita, 1973).
Our Lady of Fatima echoed the above words of Our Lord―Sister Lucia repeats what Our Lady said to her: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them!” (Sr. Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Optimism Bias or Optimism By Asses
Do you think you are a better-than-average driver? Chances are you do. And do you know what? So do 80-90% of other drivers! Think about that for a second―not everyone can be above average. There are a variety of things in which we all think we are above average, including health, popularity, memory, attractiveness, and even academic and job performance. In fact, there are so many things that we think we are good at that there is name for it: optimism bias.
Optimism bias is the belief that each of us is more likely to experience good outcomes and less likely to experience bad outcomes. The key to optimism bias is that we disregard the reality of an overall situation because we think we are excluded from the potential negative effects. This is why warning labels don’t seem to work. You have probably seen warning labels spelling out the health consequences of cigarettes. But in spite of those labels, about 500,000 people die from using tobacco products every year. You have heard warnings about not driving while intoxicated. Yet about 10,000 people die every year in alcohol-related traffic accidents. Optimism bias. It won't happen to me! I will be okay!
You might believe that World War Three is on the horizon, but you also probably think that you, personally, will be okay when someone drops the first nuke. That’s because around 80 percent of people, across all age groups and genders, suffer from what social psychologists call optimism bias. It’s that enduring, against-all-odds belief that things are going to work out on an individual level, and it’s a nice feeling―until the opposite happens! They believe that bad things won’t happen in the future, because nothing bad has happened in the past. It’s a form of denial and self-delusion.
We can also see that optimism bias at work in the Faith. Everyone thinks that they are a better Catholic than they really are! Think about this then―Our Lord said to one of His mystics (not just an average person like us): “If you could see yourself as I see you, then you would die in terror!” No room left for optimism bias there, huh? The modern-day Church has also taken on the optimism bias in the sense that most people seem to imagine that everyone who dies goes to Heaven! Our Lord, Our Lady, many saints and theologians say the opposite. It is a fair bet that everyone in Hell was guilty of optimism bias while still on Earth ― “Oh I’ll be alright! I won’t go to Hell!” Well guess where they are now!
Similarly with the matter of devotion. Almost everyone thinks that their devotion to God in general, and Our Lady or the Immaculate Heart of Mary in particular, is above average. How do we know that? Well because if you do not have enough of something, then you make efforts to get more of it. If you feel that you a short of devotion, then you would make efforts to increase your devotion. We do not see many―if any―making efforts to increase their devotion. Rather, it is a case of the same old, same old, same old―year after year. Yet when you look at those levels of devotion―you can clearly see that they are pretty low. There is little or no attempt to attend extra weekday Masses―being satisfied with the Sunday Mass; saying fast, hurried, distracted Rosaries and prayers; Rosary prayers merely said without the mysteries being meditated; little preparation before Holy Mass and Holy Communion, and most of it is done with little fervor or feeling, flying along on auto-pilot; rushed thanksgivings (or no thanksgivings) after Holy Communion and Mass as they rush off to do better, more important, more appealing things; little or no spiritual reading―especially the “heavyweight” kind that could really impact your life, with preference being given to the light fluffy stuff; no daily examination of conscience; no program for the acquisition and perfection of virtues―they just “wing-it”. The list could go on and on. All of this betrays a lack of devotion and shows a minimalist attitude to the Faith, God and Our Lady.
Re-Devotioning Our Devotionless Devotions!
You may have heard or read Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale about The Emperor’s New Clothes, wherein two tricksters pose as weavers and tailors of an invisible set of clothes. They tell the emperor that only intelligent people are able to see the invisible cloth and that it could not be seen by those who are stupid―by which ruse they manage to make the emperor believe that the clothes really exist, because the emperor did not want to appear to be stupid. He purchases the invisible cloth from them at a very high price, thinking that he could use it to see who was intelligent and who was stupid in his empire. Of course, in reality there was no invisible cloth and no invisible clothes―yet nobody was prepared to say the truth for fear of being thought to be stupid. The emperor, not wanting to thought of as stupid by others, but wanting to parade his new suit of (invisible) clothes to all the people, ended up going to the parade naked!
It is like that with our devotion or devotions. We imagine them to be what they are not and we imagine ourselves to be devoted when we are not. St. Francis de Sales has some words to say on this imaginary devotion issue in his book, Introduction to the Devout Life, wherein he writes: “There is only one true devotion while there is a very large number of false and meaningless ones. So if you cannot recognize true devotion, you could be deceived and waste time in following some devotion that is irrelevant and irrational. Each person represents devotion according to his liking and imagination. He who is in the habit of fasting will think that just because he fasts he is very devout―even though his heart is filled with hatred. He will not take a sip of wine, or even of water, anxious about sobriety―but he has no scruples to sip the blood of his neighbor by speaking ill of him or by making false statements about him. Another considers himself devout because of the very great number of prayers he recites every day―even though soon after this he speaks words that are annoying, full of pride and hurtful to those in his house and to his neighbors. Another very gladly opens his purse to give alms to the poor―but cannot take any gentleness from his heart to forgive his enemies. Yet another will forgive his enemies―but will not pay what he owes unless he is legally forced to do so. All such persons are generally looked upon as devout whereas in fact they are not.”
What St. Francis de Sales is saying is that we all have a tendency to make mountains out of our molehills of devotion―while at the same time making our mountains of sins look like mere molehills! He further points out our tendency to pick and choose only those virtues that we like, while ignoring other virtues that we do not like or that will cost us too much―thus we mix virtue with sin. A glass of wine that only has a little poison in it, is nevertheless a poisonous drink―the poison does not have to be greater in proportion to the wine. Likewise, you don’t have to commit lots and lots of mortal sins in order to go to Hell―one single mortal sin will suffice, even if the rest of your life is virtuous!
Back to Kindergarten
What is the point of all this? It is to point out that the practice of devotion must be wholehearted and not halfhearted. It cannot be a service of both God and the world. Devotion is like sanctity―nobody is a saint when they first start out on the road to Heaven, but they had better become a saint before they die, for only saints go to Heaven. Those who choose not to try and achieve sanctity, will end up―not in Heaven―but in either Purgatory or Hell. Neither place is pleasant, but very painful. Devotion is a high level of charity and love. Mediocrity and devotion are opposites and cannot be reconciled. To try pass off mediocrity for devotion is hypocrisy. Thus the first step towards acquiring a true devotion is to humbly acknowledge that we have a long way to go and that we are in the kindergarten class or lower grades in the school of devotion. If we exaggerate our level of devotion, then God will let us fail and fall in our pride.
True Devotion Comes from a Humble Heart
Devotion to the immaculate Heart of Mary is primarily based upon the Sacred Scriptures. In the New Testament, there are two references to the Heart of Mary in the Gospel according to St. Luke: “Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19) and again later, Luke writes: “His Mother kept all these words in her heart” (Luke 2:51). Likewise, for a true devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, you need to keep Mary in your mind and heart―you need to ponder Mary, to wonder about Mary, to listen to Mary, to obey her requests. It was the Heart of Mary which humbly expressed her “yes” or “fiat” to God: “Be it done unto me according to Thy word!” This was her humble response to the message sent through the angel at the Annunciation. By her humble loving consent, Mary first conceived Christ in her heart and then in her womb. The importance of the heart is often stressed by Holy Scripture. Our Lord demands not mere lip service, but service from the heart. He calls some of the Pharisees and Jews hypocrites for being content with mere lip-service: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). In the Book of Deuteronomy we are told, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5). When Our Lord Jesus Christ was asked which was the first commandment, He answered: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment!” (Mark 12:29-30).
Nevertheless, fictional love, theoretical love, virtual love, lip-love is not what God and Our Lady want. Just as “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:20), likewise love without works is dead. If Our Lord says: “If you love Me, keep My commandments!” ― then Our Lady says the same thing: “Keep my requests and demands!” Just as Our Lord says: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46), Our Lady could say: “Why do you say to Me, ‘Hail Mary! Hail Mary!’ and do not the things which I say?” In her apparitions, Our Lady has not come to show-off her clothes, nor has she come for us to admire her beauty―she has come to be heard and we need to listen to her words and “keep all her words in our heart, pondering them in our heart.” Just as we digest and assimilate food so that it becomes a part of our body―so too must we digest and assimilate the words of Our Lady so that they become a part of our soul, a part of our spirit, making us “one heart and one soul” with Mary (Acts 4:32). Mary is not a statue that we bring out of the closet for a few minutes each day to pray and talk to her! Adapting St. Paul’s phrase about Christ, we should say: “I live, now not I; but Mary lives in me!” (Galatians 2:20). Once we have assimilated the spirit of Mary, then we can say that Mary lives in us.
Know First, Talk Afterwards
If we can talk sports at home for hours on end, or talk about the television shows we’ve watched, or the music we’ve heard, or talk about our work and hobbies, trips and vacations, our relatives, friends and neighbors―then why can’t we talk about Mary for hours on end? One basic reason is that we know very little about Mary―apart from the superficial things that everyone is or should be acquainted with. You cannot talk about what you do not know―and you cannot love what you do not know. What is there to stop you learning something new about Mary each and every day? You could then communicate your new found knowledge to the rest of the family―and perhaps listen to their new found knowledge of Mary too! God is not going to download that information into your brain―you have go out and dig for the information.
If we can talk sports at home for hours on end, or talk about the television shows we’ve watched, or the music we’ve heard, or talk about our work and hobbies, trips and vacations, our relatives, friends and neighbors―then why can’t we talk about Mary for hours on end? One basic reason is that we know very little about Mary―apart from the superficial things that everyone is or should be acquainted with. You cannot talk about what you do not know―and you cannot love what you do not know. What is there to stop you learning something new about Mary each and every day? You could then communicate your new found knowledge to the rest of the family―and perhaps listen to their new found knowledge of Mary too! God is not going to download that information into your brain―you have go out and dig for the information. The better you know and understand Mary, the better will your prayers be and the more powerful will your prayers be―for you will start becoming “one heart and one soul” with Mary. So rather than just pray and pray and pray more and more and more to Mary―take time to know whom you are praying to and get to understand the mind and outlook of Mary. It will save you a lot of grief in the long run! We see an indication of this in the Catechism answer to the question as to why God made us―“God made us to know Him, Love Him and Serve Him.” Notice that knowledge comes first―it is not just a haphazard ordering―KNOW, LOVE, SERVE―but a logical ordering. For we must first know something before we can love it―and you are not likely to serve for very long someone whom you do not love. God has wired us to love what is good―thus by knowing Mary more (who the greatest good after God), we cannot but help loving her more.
There are multiple ways in which you and your family can grow in knowledge of Mary―the chief ways that any knowledge comes into our minds is by visual and auditory means, that is to say, what we see, what we read and what we hear. Some people love reading, others prefer listening, while others prefer visually watching something. With today’s modern technology, it is not hard to find Marian materials in your preferred medium―books, videos, books or sermons on tape/CD. There can be no real excuse for finding Marian materials, because they are everywhere and easily found on the internet. The only real reason for not doing so is not a lack of availability, but a lack of enthusiasm―most people are just not interested in Mary (unless they are trying to get something for themselves from her through prayer!). For most people, there are thousands of better, more interesting things to do than getting to know Mary! What an insult to the Mother of God! What an insult to God too! For Mary is His masterpiece―and we can’t be bothered to study His masterpiece!
The books and articles about Mary―whether hard-copies, digital books, or online―cover an immense variety of topics concerning Mary.
(1) You can read about her life as she has revealed to certain mystics;
(2) Or you can read about her apparitions and the messages she gave;
(3) Then you have her feasts―which are literally at least one feast for every day of the year. Our Calendar pages will set you off on that path with a brief overview for every day of the year, which you can then research and study further if you wish;
(4) There are countless sermons on Mary by Church Fathers, Saints, Blesseds, Venerables, popes and theologians.
(5) You also have papal encyclicals on Mary by various popes.
(6) Read about the lives of saints who were particularly devoted to Mary.
(7) There are materials available about the multitude of shrines to Our Lady throughout the world.
(8) You can also find lots of material on the various Sacramentals of Mary―her scapulars and medals and chaplets.
(9) Many books and articles are available that explain the many virtues and privileges of Mary.
(10) Also books on the role of Mary in the spiritual life. Spiritual theology ranks higher than Dogmatic and Moral theology.
(11) Books giving meditations on Mary―meditations often take the theological aspect and apply it to practical use.
(12) Books or articles that supply you with meditations for all the 15 Mysteries of the Holy Rosary.
(13) Numerous prayers dedicate to Mary―these are wonderful springboard for learning to compose your own prayers.
(14) Lots of hymns in honor of Mary―hymns are instructive and often express key teachings about their subject.
Don’t try and lamely say that after reading such things that your love and appreciation of Mary will not increase! Of course it will―but you have to make the effort to find and read these things! Nor try the lame excuse that you have no time to do these things! Mary plays a key role in a person’s salvation―are you saying you have no time to work on your salvation? Holy Mother Church puts these words in the mouth of Mary: “He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord!” (Proverbs 8:35; Epistle from the Mass of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th). Also: “Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits! For my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb! My memory is unto everlasting generations. They that eat me, shall yet hunger: and they that drink me, shall yet thirst! He that listens to me, shall not be confounded; and they that work by me, shall not sin! They that explain me shall have life everlasting!” (Ecclesiasticus 24:26-31; Epistle from the Mass of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, July 16th).
Practical Aspect of Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
St. Louis de Montfort, in his book True Devotion to Mary, has a section entitled: “Common Practices, both Interior and Exterior”, wherein he lists some practical ways in which we can show our devotion to Our Lady. Here are those suggestions:
“There are several INTERIOR PRACTICES of true devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Here are the principal ones, stated compendiously:
(1) to honor her as the worthy Mother of God, with the worship of hyperdulia; that is to say, to esteem her and honor her above all the other saints, as the masterpiece of grace, and the first after Jesus Christ, true God and true Man;
(2) to meditate on her virtues, her privileges and her actions;
(3) to contemplate her grandeurs;
(4) to make acts of love, of praise, of gratitude to her;
(5) to invoke her cordially;
(6) to offer ourselves to her and unite ourselves with her;
(7) to do all our actions with the view of pleasing her;
(8) to begin, to continue and to finish all our actions by her, in her, with her and for her, in order that we may do them by Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ, with Jesus Christ and for Jesus Christ, our Last End. We will presently explain this last practice.
“True devotion to Our Lady also has several EXTERIOR PRACTICES, of which the following are the principal ones:
(1) to enroll ourselves in her confraternities and enter her congregations;
(2) to join the religious orders instituted in her honor;
(3) to proclaim her praises [by the written or the spoken word];
(4) to give alms, to fast and to undergo outward and inward mortifications in her honor;
(5) to wear her liveries, such as the Rosary, the Scapular or the little chain;
(6) to recite with attention, devotion and modesty the Holy Rosary.
(7) to say a chaplet of six or seven decades in honor of the years which we believe Our Lady lived on Earth;
(8) to recite the Little Crown of the Blessed Virgin, composed of three Our Fathers and twelve Hail Mary’s, in honor of her crown of twelve stars or privileges;
(9) to pray the Little Office of Our Lady, so universally received and recited in the Church;
(10) to say the Little Psalter of the holy Virgin, which St. Bonaventure composed in her honor;
(11) to pray fourteen Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s in honor of her fourteen joys;
(12) to recite some other prayers, hymns and canticles of the Church, such as the Salve Regina, the Alma, the Ave Regina Coelorum, or the Regina Coeli, according to the different seasons; or the Ave Maris Stella, the O Gloriosa Domina, the Magnificat, or some other practices of devotion, of which books are full;
(13) to sing, or have sung, spiritual canticles in her honor;
(14) to make a number of genuflections or reverences, while saying, for example, every morning, sixty or a hundred times, Ave Maria, Virgo Fidelis (“Hail Mary, Faithful Virgin”), to obtain from God through her the grace to be faithful to the graces of God during the day; and then again in the evening, Ave Maria, Mater Misericordiae (“Hail Mary, Mother of Mercy”) to ask pardon of God through her for the sins that we have committed during the day;
(15) to take care of her confraternities, to adorn her altars, to crown and ornament her images;
(16) to carry her images, or to have them carried, in procession, and to carry a picture or an image of her about our own persons, as a mighty arm against the evil spirit;
(17) to have copies of her name or picture made and placed in churches, or in houses, or on the gates and entrances into cities, churches and houses;
(18) to special and solemn consecrate ourselves to her in manner.
(Taken from St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary, chapter 3, Article 2, Section 2: “Practices”).
Article 9
Friday August 18th & Saturday August 19th, 2023
Love Your Way Into Heaven!
Friday August 18th & Saturday August 19th, 2023
Love Your Way Into Heaven!
Ultimately, Only Love Matters!
Only love matters! That sounds like an over-simplification, doesn’t it? But is it? If God is love―then what else matters? “God is charity!” (1 John 4:8). Sure, there are other virtues―but “but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Our Lord also tells us that love is above and beyond all else, when He says: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these! On these two commandments depends the whole law and the prophets!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). To simplify that, what Our Lord is essentially saying is: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these! On these two commandments depends the whole law!” To this Holy Scripture adds: “If then you fulfill the royal law―‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!’―then you do well!” (James 2:8). “Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law!” (Romans 13:10). Which is why St. John of the Cross warns that on the Day of Judgment we will be judged upon our charity: “At the end of our life, we shall all be judged by charity!”
That is why sins against charity are greater than other sins―for God is charity, and the greatest commandment is not to believe in God, but to love God. The degree of a soul’s sanctity coincides with the degree of love in the soul. The greater the love of God and neighbor, the greater the holiness of the soul―and it is only sanctity and holiness that gain entrance to Heaven―therefore we need that charity that produces that sanctity and holiness. “Charity is the bond of perfection” (Colossians 3:14)―without charity we are without God. “If we love one another, God abides in us, and His charity is perfected in us … He that abides in charity, abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:12, 16)―without charity we are without God. Hence Scripture says: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)―without charity we are without God.
We cannot just love God and refuse to love our neighbor: “If any man say: ‘I love God!’ and hates his brother [neighbor/fellow man], then he is a liar! For he that does not love his brother [neighbor/fellow man] whom he sees, how can he love God Whom he cannot see? And this commandment we have from God, that he, who loves God, (must) love also his brother” (1 John 4:20-21). “Let us love one another, for charity is of God―and every one that loves, is born of God! He that loves not, knows not God―for God is charity!” (1 John 4:7-8).
Who is My Neighbor?
A lawyer asked Our Lord this question: “Who is my neighbor?” and Our Lord’s answer was to tell the lawyer the parable about the Good Samaritan. Today, our idea of the Good Samaritan is linked to the Good Samaritan organization whose “mission is to extend Christian Hospitality through a continuum of care to those in need or at risk, regardless of race or religious belief.” In the days of Christ, the Samaritans were the enemies of the Jews. There was no love lost between them―one group hated the other. In 975 BC the Kingdom of Israel divided into two nations―in the north was what remained of the Kingdom of Israel, composed of the ten tribes, with Samaria as its capital city―while the Kingdom of Juda was made up of Juda and Benjamin in the south with Jerusalem as its capital. The animosity between the Jews (inhabitants of the southern kingdom of Juda,) and Israelites began immediately after the division. The northern Kingdom of Israel soon fell away from God into idolatry and, as a punishment from God, were conquered by the Assyrians, they began to intermarry with the Assyrians, contrary to Deuteronomy 7:3-5. This is why the Jews hated the Samaritans as “dogs,” or “half-breeds” ― as Our Lord would later say to Samaritan woman who begged His help: “It is not good to take the bread of the children, and cast it to the dogs!” (Matthew 15:27; Mark 7:27). Thus, the Jews looked upon themselves as being faithful and looked upon the Samaritans as being unfaithful. Yet Our Lord made the Samaritan the hero or “good-guy” of His parable, and made the Jews to be the villains or the “bad-guys”:
“And behold a certain lawyer stood up, tempting Jesus, saying: ‘Master, what must I do to possess eternal life?’ Jesus said to him: ‘What is written in the law? How readest thou?’ The lawyer answering, said: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind―and thy neighbor as thyself!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Thou hast answered correctly! Do this, and thou shalt live!’ But the lawyer, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus: ‘And who is my neighbor?’ Jesus answering, said: ‘A certain man [a Jew] went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and, having wounded him, went away, leaving him half dead. And it happened that a certain priest [also a Jew] went down the same way―and seeing him [a fellow Jew], passed by! In like manner also a Levite [also a Jew], when he was near the place and saw him [a fellow Jew], passed by. But a certain Samaritan [an enemy of the Jews] being on his journey, came near him [the Jew]; and seeing him, was moved with compassion. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine―and, setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day the Samaritan [an enemy of the Jews] gave money to the inn-keeper and said: “Take care of him [the Jew who was his enemy]! And whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay thee!” Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbor to him [the Jew] that fell among the robbers?’ The lawyer said: ‘He [the Samaritan who was the enemy of the Jews] that showed mercy to him [the Jew]!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Go, and do thou in like manner!’” (Luke 10:25-37) ― in other words: “Go and show mercy and kindness to your enemies!” [The full extent of this love of enemies will be further explained in more detail later, below]. You can imagine how much the Jews must have been seething within themselves in hearing Jesus make a hero out of their enemy, and casting their own race as the villains!
What was true then is still true today―we have a tendency to hate our enemies and wish vengeance upon them, rather love our enemies and take pity upon them: “Because iniquity will abound, the charity of many shall grow cold” (Matthew 24:12) ... “I have something against thee―because you have left the charity you once had!” (Apocalypse 2:4). Could that be said of us? Have we lost our former level of charity? Has sin made our charity grow cold? Our Lord’s words are equally applicable both then and now, when He says:
“Blessed are they that suffer persecution for the sake of justice … Blessed are you when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake! Be glad and rejoice―for your reward is very great in Heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you! … You have heard that it has been said: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy!’ But I say to you: ‘Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! Pray for them that persecute and calumniate you!’ ― so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and makes it rain upon the just and the unjust. For if you only love them that love you―what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans do this? And if you only salute your brethren―what do you do that is more? Do not the heathens also do this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:10-12, 43-48) ― and the heavenly Father is love, not hatred: “God is charity!” (1 John 4:8) and “Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth!” (1 Timothy 2:4).
Love, Love and More Love
St. Jerome, Father and Doctor of the Church, tells a story about the Apostle St. John, who lived to be over 100 years old. When John was old and frail, unable to walk, his disciples would carry him to the place where he would offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the early Christians on the Lord’s Day. Every week these were his words to the congregation: “Little children, love one another!” This went on week after week, until at last―more than a little weary of these repeated words―his disciples asked him: “Master, why do you always say this?” St. John replied: “Because it is the Lord’s command―and if this only is done, it is enough!”
That is why St. Augustine, another Father and Doctor of the Church (and a contemporary of St. Jerome), further adds in one of his sermons: “Love God and do what you will!” ― but that is not a license to sin, but a license to love, a license to love what God loves and to hate what God hates: “You that love the Lord―hate evil!” (Psalm 96:10). If we truly love God, then we will not do anything to offend the One Whom we love! St. Augustine further explains things in the same sermon: “If you hold your peace, hold your peace out of love. If you cry out, cry out in love. If you correct someone, correct them out of love. If you spare them, spare them out of love. Let the root of love be in you―nothing can spring from it but good!”
Today, especially, most of the world has a hard time with loving one another―at least loving one another in the way that Our Lord taught us to love and expected us to love! God gave us the power to love so that we might love what is good and holy: “Seek ye good, and not evil, that you may live! Hate evil and love good!” (Amos 5:14-15). Today, that power is increasingly abused to love what is evil, sinful and unholy! God says: “They repaid Me evil for good, and hatred for My love!” (Psalm 108:5). Holy Scripture condemns that abuse of love: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20). “O generation of vipers, how can you speak good things, whereas you are evil?” (Matthew 12:34).
Yet that is precisely what a love has become today―a love of sin, a love of evil, of love of what God forbids. Such “love” cannot be called love in the true sense, for our God-given power to love is meant to be directed towards what is good and not evil: “Hate evil and love good!” (Amos 5:15). “Decline from evil and do good” (Psalm 36:27). “Let love be without pretence. Hating that which is evil, cleaving to that which is good!” (Romans 12:9). “You that love the Lord―hate evil!” (Psalm 96:10). “Turn away from evil and do good!” (Psalm 33:15). “If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat―if he thirst, give him water to drink. For thou shalt heap hot coals upon his head, and the Lord will reward thee!” (Proverbs 25:21-22). St. Paul repeats that in the New Testament: “If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat―if he thirst, give him to drink. For, doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good!” (Romans 12:20-21).
The Pitfalls to Heaven!
God wants everyone to be saved―but very few souls are saved! Why? The simplistic answer would be: “They are damned because, when they die, they are not in a state of grace!” True―but then what is it that makes them lose the state of grace? Mortal sin, of course. Where there is mortal sin, there too is the devil: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). The devil will try to lead you into mortal sin―most commonly by acclimatizing you through many venial sins: “Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). The devil’s introductory tactic is temptation: “Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1) … “Because you were acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should test and prove you!” (Tobias 12:13) … “When you come into the service of God, prepare your soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). The chief and initial temptation of Satan is that of Pride―“for pride is the beginning of all sin” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). Pride was the Original Sin of Satan, with his proud rebellious cry to God: “I will not serve!”―and, being infernally proud, Satan tried to tempt Our Lord to pride in the desert:
“And the tempter coming said to Jesus: ‘If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made into bread!’ Jesus answered: ‘It is written, “Not in bread alone does man live, but in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God!’ Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, and set Him upon the pinnacle of the Temple, and said to Him: ‘If Thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written: “That God has given His angels charge over Thee, and in their hands shall they bear Thee up, lest perhaps thou dash Thy foot against a stone!”’ Jesus said to him: ‘It is written again: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God!”’ Again the devil took him up into a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: ‘All these will I give thee, if falling down Thou wilt adore me!’ Then Jesus said to him: ‘Begone, Satan! For it is written: “The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve!”’ Then the devil left him.” (Matthew 4:1-11).
Satan tried to tempt Our Lord to pride―to show off His powers―and he also tempts us with pride, “for pride is the beginning of all sin” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). He tempted Eve with pride:
“Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth and he said to the woman: Why has God commanded you not to eat of every tree of paradise?’ And the woman answered him: ‘We do eat the fruit of the trees that are in paradise! But God has commanded us that we should not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of paradise, and that we should not touch it―lest perhaps we die!’ And the serpent said to the woman: ‘No! You shall not die! For God knows that in whatever day you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil!’ And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat and fair to the eyes and delightful to behold―and she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat.” (Genesis 3:1-6). Satan aroused Eve’s pride and she pridefully fell for the temptation that she could be like God―she “chewed over” that thought in her mind before swallowing the temptation and then finally chewing and swallowing the forbidden fruit.
Heaven Shuts and Hell Opens Gates to Pride
Love opens the gates of Heaven and Pride opens the gates of Hell. Heaven shuts it gates to Pride whereas Hell lovingly opens it gates to Pride! “Pride is brought down to Hell!” (Isaias 14:11). God wants nothing to do with the prideful: “Why is earth and ashes proud?” (Ecclesiasticus 10:9). “Their mouth speaks proud things!” (Jude 1:16). “Pride is the beginning of all sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). “The beginning of the pride of man is to fall away from God!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:14). “Pride was not made for men!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:22). “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5). “Pride is hateful before God!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:7). “I hate arrogance and pride!” (Proverbs 8:13). “I detest pride!” (Amos 6:8). “Pride goeth before destruction: and the spirit is lifted up before a fall!” (Proverbs 16:18). “The proud shall fall!” (Ecclesiasticus 23:8). “Being puffed up with pride, he will fall into the judgment of the devil!” (1 Timothy 3:6). “Pride is brought down to Hell!” (Isaias 14:11).
The virus of pride has always existed―beginning with Satan, then Adam and Eve, and then this infernal virus has been passed onto us through Original Sin―which the theologians tell us is essentially a sin of pride and disobedience. Thus we are all born naturally proud and inclined to disobedience. Satan’s cry of “I will not serve!” becomes our modern-day: “Nobody is going to tell me what to do!”
Unfortunately, never has the world been as proud and independence minded as it is today. Everyone talks and insists upon the “Rights of Man”―but few talk and insist upon the Rights of God! There can be no independence from God―it is spiritual suicide and independence from God leads to dependence on Satan (or rather, slavery to Satan). Independence shuts the doors on God, but opens the doors to Satan. Fr. Tanquerey, in his book The Spiritual Life, writes: “A lust for freedom and independence ever inclines us to swerve from Divine Authority. The cause lurks in our pride.” This infernal pride is false kind of love―it is an excessive love of self. True―we are told by Our Lord to love ourselves: “Love thy neighbor as thyself”―however, pride does not know where a reasonable love of self should stop and proceeds to enter the realm of unreasonable and an exaggerated love of self.
St. Thomas Aquinas defined pride as the inordinate love of our own excellence. The proud man wishes to appear superior to what he really is―and so there is falsity in his life. St. Augustine says pride is a perverse love of greatness by not bearing with the equality of our fellow men and by wishing to impose our domination on them. There is little true love to be found in pride and enormous amounts of self-love, selfish-love, self-centered love. St. John Eudes warns: “Pride is an illusion, a lie and a theft. And since it is a truth of Faith that we are nothing, he who esteems himself and thinks that he is someone is a seducer who deceives himself.” While St. John Baptist de la Salle adds: “Pride makes us forgetful of our eternal interests. It causes us to neglect totally the care of our soul.”
St. Vincent de Paul says: “Remember that Jesus Christ, referring to the humility of the publican, said that his prayer was heard. If this was said of a man whose life was evil, what may we not hope for if we are really humble? What, on the other hand, was the lot of the Pharisee? Here was a man praying, fasting and doing many good works, and in spite of all that he was censured by God. Why was this? Simply because he prided himself on his good works, and took satisfaction out of them as though they were of his own doing. Here we see a just man lacking humility and declared evil, and a sinner, conscious of his guilt and moved to a real sense of humility, justified because of his lowliness of heart. You must ask God to give you power to fight against this sin of pride which is your greatest enemy—the root of all that is evil, and the failure of all that is good. For God resists the proud!”
St. Bernard tells us: “If tossed by the rising tide of pride and ambition, then fix thy gaze upon the Star of the Sea, call upon Mary, invoke her name!” St. Alphonsus Liguori adds: “Oh, how many who were once proud have become humble by devotion to Mary!”
The Only Way is the Way of Love
Our Lord has often revealed Himself to His saints and mystics and given them many instructions for the spiritual life and the attainment of perfection, sanctity and holiness. It is only saints who can get into Heaven. Father Bartholomew Gottemoller, O.C.S.O., compiled a wonderful little book entitled, Words of Love, wherein he assembled some key quotes that Our Lord made to three of those mystic souls―Sr. Josefa Menendez, Sr. Consolata Betrone and Sr. Mary of the Trinity. The main focus of Our Lord was on love―His love for us; our love for Him; and our love for our neighbor. Here is just a tiny selection of those quotes:
► Words of Our Lord to Sr. Josefa Menendez
“What I want is love! I am in search of love. I love souls and I look for a response of love.... I am Love and desire only love! Just as I sacrificed Myself as a victim of love, so I want you to be a victim―love never refuses anything! The obstinacy of a guilty soul wounds My Heart deeply, but the tender affection of one who loves Me, not only heals the wound, but turns away the effects of My Father’s Justice … When a soul loves Me, she can make up for many who offend Me, and this relieves My Heart! … I still have many souls who love Me and belong to Me. A single one of them can purchase pardon for a great many others who are cold and ungrateful … I yearn for souls.... I thirst for them, and want to save them! … I want you to give Me souls. Only love in all you do is required. Suffer because you love, work because you love, and above all abandon yourself to love … They need do nothing extraordinary to attain to a high degree of love … If their infidelities wound Me deeply, their love consoles and delights My Heart to such a degree that I, so to speak, forget the sins of many others on their account!”
► Words of Our Lord to Sr. Consolata Betrone
“Poor souls! They think that in order to reach Me it is necessary to live an austere, penitential life! ... See how they misrepresent Me! … Do not make Me out to be a God of rigor, whereas I am nothing but a God of Love! Write ‘The Gentle Heart of Jesus’; for everyone knows that I am holy, but not all know that I am gentle! … My creatures make Me out as one who is fear-inspiring rather than kind; and I, on the other hand, delight in being always and solely kind. What is it that I require? Love, and love only―for he who loves Me, serves Me! … Write this down, Consolata—that for one act of love from You I would create Heaven! … I long to have My creatures serve Me out of love! … Love Me! Love Me alone! Love is everything―and so you will be giving Me everything! Love is everything! … I prefer an act of love and a Communion of love to any other gift ... I thirst for love … I desire to be loved; I crave the love of My creatures! When they will come to love Me, then they will no longer offend Me. When two people really love each other, they never offend each other ... Love Me, and you will be happy; and the more you love Me, the happier you will be! Oh, if people would only love Me, what happiness would reign in this unhappy world!”
► Words of Our Lord to Sr. Mary of the Trinity
“I ask only for love. Ah, what are you doing about it? … Love Me more—oh, much more!—than human beings love one another! … Love without limit! Love to folly! … A love that does not exaggerate―is not love, it is affection … I seek a heart whose love for Me is boundless … If you knew how I need to find souls who love Me … To love Me is to have confidence in Me, not to doubt Me: it is to rely on Me ... I am not known, and because I am not known, people do not know how to love Me, I who have so loved men … Each one of you in your own sphere, however obscure, can give Me nobly, heroically, love for love … It is love that makes reparation, because that which offends God in sin is the absence of love … Leave all. Let there no longer be anything else in the world for you, but the love between you and Me!”
Only love matters! That sounds like an over-simplification, doesn’t it? But is it? If God is love―then what else matters? “God is charity!” (1 John 4:8). Sure, there are other virtues―but “but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Our Lord also tells us that love is above and beyond all else, when He says: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these! On these two commandments depends the whole law and the prophets!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). To simplify that, what Our Lord is essentially saying is: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these! On these two commandments depends the whole law!” To this Holy Scripture adds: “If then you fulfill the royal law―‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!’―then you do well!” (James 2:8). “Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law!” (Romans 13:10). Which is why St. John of the Cross warns that on the Day of Judgment we will be judged upon our charity: “At the end of our life, we shall all be judged by charity!”
That is why sins against charity are greater than other sins―for God is charity, and the greatest commandment is not to believe in God, but to love God. The degree of a soul’s sanctity coincides with the degree of love in the soul. The greater the love of God and neighbor, the greater the holiness of the soul―and it is only sanctity and holiness that gain entrance to Heaven―therefore we need that charity that produces that sanctity and holiness. “Charity is the bond of perfection” (Colossians 3:14)―without charity we are without God. “If we love one another, God abides in us, and His charity is perfected in us … He that abides in charity, abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:12, 16)―without charity we are without God. Hence Scripture says: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)―without charity we are without God.
We cannot just love God and refuse to love our neighbor: “If any man say: ‘I love God!’ and hates his brother [neighbor/fellow man], then he is a liar! For he that does not love his brother [neighbor/fellow man] whom he sees, how can he love God Whom he cannot see? And this commandment we have from God, that he, who loves God, (must) love also his brother” (1 John 4:20-21). “Let us love one another, for charity is of God―and every one that loves, is born of God! He that loves not, knows not God―for God is charity!” (1 John 4:7-8).
Who is My Neighbor?
A lawyer asked Our Lord this question: “Who is my neighbor?” and Our Lord’s answer was to tell the lawyer the parable about the Good Samaritan. Today, our idea of the Good Samaritan is linked to the Good Samaritan organization whose “mission is to extend Christian Hospitality through a continuum of care to those in need or at risk, regardless of race or religious belief.” In the days of Christ, the Samaritans were the enemies of the Jews. There was no love lost between them―one group hated the other. In 975 BC the Kingdom of Israel divided into two nations―in the north was what remained of the Kingdom of Israel, composed of the ten tribes, with Samaria as its capital city―while the Kingdom of Juda was made up of Juda and Benjamin in the south with Jerusalem as its capital. The animosity between the Jews (inhabitants of the southern kingdom of Juda,) and Israelites began immediately after the division. The northern Kingdom of Israel soon fell away from God into idolatry and, as a punishment from God, were conquered by the Assyrians, they began to intermarry with the Assyrians, contrary to Deuteronomy 7:3-5. This is why the Jews hated the Samaritans as “dogs,” or “half-breeds” ― as Our Lord would later say to Samaritan woman who begged His help: “It is not good to take the bread of the children, and cast it to the dogs!” (Matthew 15:27; Mark 7:27). Thus, the Jews looked upon themselves as being faithful and looked upon the Samaritans as being unfaithful. Yet Our Lord made the Samaritan the hero or “good-guy” of His parable, and made the Jews to be the villains or the “bad-guys”:
“And behold a certain lawyer stood up, tempting Jesus, saying: ‘Master, what must I do to possess eternal life?’ Jesus said to him: ‘What is written in the law? How readest thou?’ The lawyer answering, said: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind―and thy neighbor as thyself!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Thou hast answered correctly! Do this, and thou shalt live!’ But the lawyer, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus: ‘And who is my neighbor?’ Jesus answering, said: ‘A certain man [a Jew] went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and, having wounded him, went away, leaving him half dead. And it happened that a certain priest [also a Jew] went down the same way―and seeing him [a fellow Jew], passed by! In like manner also a Levite [also a Jew], when he was near the place and saw him [a fellow Jew], passed by. But a certain Samaritan [an enemy of the Jews] being on his journey, came near him [the Jew]; and seeing him, was moved with compassion. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine―and, setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day the Samaritan [an enemy of the Jews] gave money to the inn-keeper and said: “Take care of him [the Jew who was his enemy]! And whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay thee!” Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbor to him [the Jew] that fell among the robbers?’ The lawyer said: ‘He [the Samaritan who was the enemy of the Jews] that showed mercy to him [the Jew]!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Go, and do thou in like manner!’” (Luke 10:25-37) ― in other words: “Go and show mercy and kindness to your enemies!” [The full extent of this love of enemies will be further explained in more detail later, below]. You can imagine how much the Jews must have been seething within themselves in hearing Jesus make a hero out of their enemy, and casting their own race as the villains!
What was true then is still true today―we have a tendency to hate our enemies and wish vengeance upon them, rather love our enemies and take pity upon them: “Because iniquity will abound, the charity of many shall grow cold” (Matthew 24:12) ... “I have something against thee―because you have left the charity you once had!” (Apocalypse 2:4). Could that be said of us? Have we lost our former level of charity? Has sin made our charity grow cold? Our Lord’s words are equally applicable both then and now, when He says:
“Blessed are they that suffer persecution for the sake of justice … Blessed are you when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake! Be glad and rejoice―for your reward is very great in Heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you! … You have heard that it has been said: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy!’ But I say to you: ‘Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! Pray for them that persecute and calumniate you!’ ― so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and makes it rain upon the just and the unjust. For if you only love them that love you―what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans do this? And if you only salute your brethren―what do you do that is more? Do not the heathens also do this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:10-12, 43-48) ― and the heavenly Father is love, not hatred: “God is charity!” (1 John 4:8) and “Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth!” (1 Timothy 2:4).
Love, Love and More Love
St. Jerome, Father and Doctor of the Church, tells a story about the Apostle St. John, who lived to be over 100 years old. When John was old and frail, unable to walk, his disciples would carry him to the place where he would offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the early Christians on the Lord’s Day. Every week these were his words to the congregation: “Little children, love one another!” This went on week after week, until at last―more than a little weary of these repeated words―his disciples asked him: “Master, why do you always say this?” St. John replied: “Because it is the Lord’s command―and if this only is done, it is enough!”
That is why St. Augustine, another Father and Doctor of the Church (and a contemporary of St. Jerome), further adds in one of his sermons: “Love God and do what you will!” ― but that is not a license to sin, but a license to love, a license to love what God loves and to hate what God hates: “You that love the Lord―hate evil!” (Psalm 96:10). If we truly love God, then we will not do anything to offend the One Whom we love! St. Augustine further explains things in the same sermon: “If you hold your peace, hold your peace out of love. If you cry out, cry out in love. If you correct someone, correct them out of love. If you spare them, spare them out of love. Let the root of love be in you―nothing can spring from it but good!”
Today, especially, most of the world has a hard time with loving one another―at least loving one another in the way that Our Lord taught us to love and expected us to love! God gave us the power to love so that we might love what is good and holy: “Seek ye good, and not evil, that you may live! Hate evil and love good!” (Amos 5:14-15). Today, that power is increasingly abused to love what is evil, sinful and unholy! God says: “They repaid Me evil for good, and hatred for My love!” (Psalm 108:5). Holy Scripture condemns that abuse of love: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20). “O generation of vipers, how can you speak good things, whereas you are evil?” (Matthew 12:34).
Yet that is precisely what a love has become today―a love of sin, a love of evil, of love of what God forbids. Such “love” cannot be called love in the true sense, for our God-given power to love is meant to be directed towards what is good and not evil: “Hate evil and love good!” (Amos 5:15). “Decline from evil and do good” (Psalm 36:27). “Let love be without pretence. Hating that which is evil, cleaving to that which is good!” (Romans 12:9). “You that love the Lord―hate evil!” (Psalm 96:10). “Turn away from evil and do good!” (Psalm 33:15). “If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat―if he thirst, give him water to drink. For thou shalt heap hot coals upon his head, and the Lord will reward thee!” (Proverbs 25:21-22). St. Paul repeats that in the New Testament: “If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat―if he thirst, give him to drink. For, doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good!” (Romans 12:20-21).
The Pitfalls to Heaven!
God wants everyone to be saved―but very few souls are saved! Why? The simplistic answer would be: “They are damned because, when they die, they are not in a state of grace!” True―but then what is it that makes them lose the state of grace? Mortal sin, of course. Where there is mortal sin, there too is the devil: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). The devil will try to lead you into mortal sin―most commonly by acclimatizing you through many venial sins: “Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). The devil’s introductory tactic is temptation: “Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1) … “Because you were acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should test and prove you!” (Tobias 12:13) … “When you come into the service of God, prepare your soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). The chief and initial temptation of Satan is that of Pride―“for pride is the beginning of all sin” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). Pride was the Original Sin of Satan, with his proud rebellious cry to God: “I will not serve!”―and, being infernally proud, Satan tried to tempt Our Lord to pride in the desert:
“And the tempter coming said to Jesus: ‘If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made into bread!’ Jesus answered: ‘It is written, “Not in bread alone does man live, but in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God!’ Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, and set Him upon the pinnacle of the Temple, and said to Him: ‘If Thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written: “That God has given His angels charge over Thee, and in their hands shall they bear Thee up, lest perhaps thou dash Thy foot against a stone!”’ Jesus said to him: ‘It is written again: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God!”’ Again the devil took him up into a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: ‘All these will I give thee, if falling down Thou wilt adore me!’ Then Jesus said to him: ‘Begone, Satan! For it is written: “The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve!”’ Then the devil left him.” (Matthew 4:1-11).
Satan tried to tempt Our Lord to pride―to show off His powers―and he also tempts us with pride, “for pride is the beginning of all sin” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). He tempted Eve with pride:
“Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth and he said to the woman: Why has God commanded you not to eat of every tree of paradise?’ And the woman answered him: ‘We do eat the fruit of the trees that are in paradise! But God has commanded us that we should not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of paradise, and that we should not touch it―lest perhaps we die!’ And the serpent said to the woman: ‘No! You shall not die! For God knows that in whatever day you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil!’ And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat and fair to the eyes and delightful to behold―and she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat.” (Genesis 3:1-6). Satan aroused Eve’s pride and she pridefully fell for the temptation that she could be like God―she “chewed over” that thought in her mind before swallowing the temptation and then finally chewing and swallowing the forbidden fruit.
Heaven Shuts and Hell Opens Gates to Pride
Love opens the gates of Heaven and Pride opens the gates of Hell. Heaven shuts it gates to Pride whereas Hell lovingly opens it gates to Pride! “Pride is brought down to Hell!” (Isaias 14:11). God wants nothing to do with the prideful: “Why is earth and ashes proud?” (Ecclesiasticus 10:9). “Their mouth speaks proud things!” (Jude 1:16). “Pride is the beginning of all sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). “The beginning of the pride of man is to fall away from God!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:14). “Pride was not made for men!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:22). “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5). “Pride is hateful before God!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:7). “I hate arrogance and pride!” (Proverbs 8:13). “I detest pride!” (Amos 6:8). “Pride goeth before destruction: and the spirit is lifted up before a fall!” (Proverbs 16:18). “The proud shall fall!” (Ecclesiasticus 23:8). “Being puffed up with pride, he will fall into the judgment of the devil!” (1 Timothy 3:6). “Pride is brought down to Hell!” (Isaias 14:11).
The virus of pride has always existed―beginning with Satan, then Adam and Eve, and then this infernal virus has been passed onto us through Original Sin―which the theologians tell us is essentially a sin of pride and disobedience. Thus we are all born naturally proud and inclined to disobedience. Satan’s cry of “I will not serve!” becomes our modern-day: “Nobody is going to tell me what to do!”
Unfortunately, never has the world been as proud and independence minded as it is today. Everyone talks and insists upon the “Rights of Man”―but few talk and insist upon the Rights of God! There can be no independence from God―it is spiritual suicide and independence from God leads to dependence on Satan (or rather, slavery to Satan). Independence shuts the doors on God, but opens the doors to Satan. Fr. Tanquerey, in his book The Spiritual Life, writes: “A lust for freedom and independence ever inclines us to swerve from Divine Authority. The cause lurks in our pride.” This infernal pride is false kind of love―it is an excessive love of self. True―we are told by Our Lord to love ourselves: “Love thy neighbor as thyself”―however, pride does not know where a reasonable love of self should stop and proceeds to enter the realm of unreasonable and an exaggerated love of self.
St. Thomas Aquinas defined pride as the inordinate love of our own excellence. The proud man wishes to appear superior to what he really is―and so there is falsity in his life. St. Augustine says pride is a perverse love of greatness by not bearing with the equality of our fellow men and by wishing to impose our domination on them. There is little true love to be found in pride and enormous amounts of self-love, selfish-love, self-centered love. St. John Eudes warns: “Pride is an illusion, a lie and a theft. And since it is a truth of Faith that we are nothing, he who esteems himself and thinks that he is someone is a seducer who deceives himself.” While St. John Baptist de la Salle adds: “Pride makes us forgetful of our eternal interests. It causes us to neglect totally the care of our soul.”
St. Vincent de Paul says: “Remember that Jesus Christ, referring to the humility of the publican, said that his prayer was heard. If this was said of a man whose life was evil, what may we not hope for if we are really humble? What, on the other hand, was the lot of the Pharisee? Here was a man praying, fasting and doing many good works, and in spite of all that he was censured by God. Why was this? Simply because he prided himself on his good works, and took satisfaction out of them as though they were of his own doing. Here we see a just man lacking humility and declared evil, and a sinner, conscious of his guilt and moved to a real sense of humility, justified because of his lowliness of heart. You must ask God to give you power to fight against this sin of pride which is your greatest enemy—the root of all that is evil, and the failure of all that is good. For God resists the proud!”
St. Bernard tells us: “If tossed by the rising tide of pride and ambition, then fix thy gaze upon the Star of the Sea, call upon Mary, invoke her name!” St. Alphonsus Liguori adds: “Oh, how many who were once proud have become humble by devotion to Mary!”
The Only Way is the Way of Love
Our Lord has often revealed Himself to His saints and mystics and given them many instructions for the spiritual life and the attainment of perfection, sanctity and holiness. It is only saints who can get into Heaven. Father Bartholomew Gottemoller, O.C.S.O., compiled a wonderful little book entitled, Words of Love, wherein he assembled some key quotes that Our Lord made to three of those mystic souls―Sr. Josefa Menendez, Sr. Consolata Betrone and Sr. Mary of the Trinity. The main focus of Our Lord was on love―His love for us; our love for Him; and our love for our neighbor. Here is just a tiny selection of those quotes:
► Words of Our Lord to Sr. Josefa Menendez
“What I want is love! I am in search of love. I love souls and I look for a response of love.... I am Love and desire only love! Just as I sacrificed Myself as a victim of love, so I want you to be a victim―love never refuses anything! The obstinacy of a guilty soul wounds My Heart deeply, but the tender affection of one who loves Me, not only heals the wound, but turns away the effects of My Father’s Justice … When a soul loves Me, she can make up for many who offend Me, and this relieves My Heart! … I still have many souls who love Me and belong to Me. A single one of them can purchase pardon for a great many others who are cold and ungrateful … I yearn for souls.... I thirst for them, and want to save them! … I want you to give Me souls. Only love in all you do is required. Suffer because you love, work because you love, and above all abandon yourself to love … They need do nothing extraordinary to attain to a high degree of love … If their infidelities wound Me deeply, their love consoles and delights My Heart to such a degree that I, so to speak, forget the sins of many others on their account!”
► Words of Our Lord to Sr. Consolata Betrone
“Poor souls! They think that in order to reach Me it is necessary to live an austere, penitential life! ... See how they misrepresent Me! … Do not make Me out to be a God of rigor, whereas I am nothing but a God of Love! Write ‘The Gentle Heart of Jesus’; for everyone knows that I am holy, but not all know that I am gentle! … My creatures make Me out as one who is fear-inspiring rather than kind; and I, on the other hand, delight in being always and solely kind. What is it that I require? Love, and love only―for he who loves Me, serves Me! … Write this down, Consolata—that for one act of love from You I would create Heaven! … I long to have My creatures serve Me out of love! … Love Me! Love Me alone! Love is everything―and so you will be giving Me everything! Love is everything! … I prefer an act of love and a Communion of love to any other gift ... I thirst for love … I desire to be loved; I crave the love of My creatures! When they will come to love Me, then they will no longer offend Me. When two people really love each other, they never offend each other ... Love Me, and you will be happy; and the more you love Me, the happier you will be! Oh, if people would only love Me, what happiness would reign in this unhappy world!”
► Words of Our Lord to Sr. Mary of the Trinity
“I ask only for love. Ah, what are you doing about it? … Love Me more—oh, much more!—than human beings love one another! … Love without limit! Love to folly! … A love that does not exaggerate―is not love, it is affection … I seek a heart whose love for Me is boundless … If you knew how I need to find souls who love Me … To love Me is to have confidence in Me, not to doubt Me: it is to rely on Me ... I am not known, and because I am not known, people do not know how to love Me, I who have so loved men … Each one of you in your own sphere, however obscure, can give Me nobly, heroically, love for love … It is love that makes reparation, because that which offends God in sin is the absence of love … Leave all. Let there no longer be anything else in the world for you, but the love between you and Me!”
Article 8
Wednesday August 16th & Thursday August 17th, 2023
You Need a Marian Immersion Conversion!
Wednesday August 16th & Thursday August 17th, 2023
You Need a Marian Immersion Conversion!
Immerse Yourself in Mary
We are currently in the middle of two great feasts of Our Lady―the Assumption of Our Lady on August 15th and the Immaculate Heart of Mary on August 22nd. It is the perfect time to immerse ourselves into devotion to Our Lady in this Age of Mary. She is the focal point for our times―that is what God wants. At Fatima, in 1917, Our Lady stated: “Jesus wants to use you to make me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world! … You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved!” Speaking of herself in the third person, Our Lady of Fatima added: “Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” At Akita, in 1973, Our Lady further said: “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
This is nothing new―the saints have always insisted upon the power of Our Lady and the necessity of her in our quest for salvation. What is more important than salvation? It means eternal happiness! What else can compare or compete with that? What is a meager 60, 70 or 80 years of limited happiness on Earth in comparison to eternal happiness in Heaven? 1 million years, 1 billion years, 1 trillion years, 1 quadrillion years, 1 quintillion years, or go as high as you want―the final number is like a speck of dust on the entire Earth. As Our Lord said: “What does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). To which Holy Scripture adds: “Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love Him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Salvation should be at the top of the “Things To Do” list of every sane person―but, unfortunately, that is not the case!
Help On Offer―Help Refused
St. Alphonsus Liguori writes: “This Mother of Mercy is all kindness and all sweetness―not only with the just, but also with sinners and those who are in despair―so that when she beholds them turning towards her, and sees that they are with sincerity seeking her help, she at once welcomes them, aids them, and obtains their pardon from her Son. She neglects none, however unworthy they may be, and refuses to none her protection; she consoles all; and no sooner do they call upon her, than she hastens to their help. With her gentleness she often wins their devotion, and raises those sinners who are most averse to God, and who are the most deeply plunged in the lethargy of their vices that she may dispose them to receive divine grace, and at last render themselves worthy of eternal glory. God has created this his beloved daughter with a disposition so kind and compassionate, that no one can hesitate to have recourse to her intercession” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Glories of Mary).
St. Bernard of Clairvaux similarly says: “And the Virgin’s Name was Mary.” Let us speak a little about this Name, which is said to mean “Star of the Sea,” and which so well befits the Virgin Mother. Quite rightly she is likened to a star. As a star emits a ray without being dimmed, so the Virgin brought forth her Son without receiving any injury. The ray of light takes nothing away from the brightness of the star, nor does the Son take anything away from His Mother’s virginal integrity. This is the noble star risen out of Jacob, whose rays illumine the whole world, whose splendor shines in the heavens, penetrates the abyss, and, traversing the whole Earth―giving warmth to souls rather than to bodies; cherishing virtues and withering vices. Mary is that bright and incomparable Star, whom we need to see raised above this vast sea, shining by her merits, and giving us light by her example.
“All of you, who see yourselves amid the tides of the world, tossed by storms and tempests, rather than walking on the land―do not turn your eyes away from this shining Star, unless you want to be overwhelmed by the hurricane! If you find yourself in storms of temptation, or if you fall upon the rocks of tribulation―then look to the Star―call upon Mary! If you are tossed around by the waves of pride or ambition, detraction or envy―then look to the Star―call upon Mary! If anger, or avarice, or the desires of the flesh crash against the ship of your soul―turn your eyes to Mary! If you are troubled by the enormity of your sins and crimes; if you are ashamed of your guilty conscience; if you are terrified by dread of the judgment; if you begin to sink into the gulf of sadness or the depths of despair―think of Mary! In all dangers, in anguish, in doubt―think of Mary, call upon Mary! Let her Name be ever on your lips, ever in your heart; and the better to obtain the help of her prayers, imitate the example of her life. Following her, you will not stray; invoking her, you will not despair; thinking of her, you will go astray; upheld by her, you will not fall; shielded by her, you will not fear; guided by her, you will not grow weary; favored by her, you will reach the goal! And thus you will experience in yourself how good is that saying: ‘And the Virgin’s Name was Mary!’”
Our Blessed Mother holds such a place in the economy of our redemption that some do not hesitate to state that devotion to her is a necessary condition of salvation.
“They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish!” (St. Albert the Great, Doctor of the Church).
“They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation.” (St. Bonaventure, Doctor of the Church)
“A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost.” (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Father of the Church).
If a lack of devotion to her is a mark of eternal reprobation a constant love for her must be a sign of eternal salvation. Many spiritual writers state that devotion to Mary is a sign of predestination.
“It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church).
“He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost.” (St. Anselm, Doctor of the Church).
“As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified.” (St. Antonine).
Our Lady is always willing to help―even the worst sinners―but few there are who seek out her help. As she said to St. Bridget of Sweden: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on Earth a sinner who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion―for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed [by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned], is so entirely cast-off by God, that he may not return and enjoy His mercy, if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners.”
Triumph and Tragedy!
Sister Lucia of Fatima tells us both triumph and tragedy―Our Lady has given us the tools for aiding her in the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but at the same time the tragedy is that very few people are listening to and putting into practice her message. Sister Lucia explains:
“Our Lady told me, as well as my cousins, that God is giving two last remedies to the world―the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, means that they are the final ones, and that there will be no others! If we despise and reject this last means― the salvation that is put in our hands ― Heaven will no longer pardon us. As for the Holy Rosary, Father, in these last times in which we are living, the Blessed Virgin has given a new efficacy to the praying of the Holy Rosary. This in such a way that there is no problem that cannot be resolved by praying the Rosary, no matter how difficult it is ― be it temporal or above all spiritual ― in the spiritual life of each of us, or the lives of our families, be they our families in the world or Religious Communities, or even in the lives of peoples and nations. I repeat, there is no problem, as difficult as it may be, that we cannot resolve at this time by praying the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves, sanctify ourselves, console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls!
“The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!” (Sister Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
True Devotion―Not Half-Hearted Devotion
If God has decided that Our Lady is truly the only one who can help us now―then truly a true devotion to Our Lady is required, and not merely a half-hearted devotion; or a mechanical auto-pilot devotion; or a mere lip-service devotion that lacks heart. Our Lord demands true devotion, true love, true commitment―which is why He said in the Gospels: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honors Me with their lips―but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8)―which is also a sentiment He echoed to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame) in the early 1600s: “Alas! If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small spineless imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me! ... But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing! — according to My example ― for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross! ... Woe to souls like this! Woe!”
Then, in the same century, in 1673, Our Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and lamented: “My Divine Heart is so passionately inflamed with love for men! … Behold this Heart which has so loved men that It spared nothing―even going so far as to exhaust and consume Itself to prove to them Its love! And in return I receive― from the greater part of men―nothing but ingratitude, by the contempt, irreverence, sacrileges and coldness with which they treat Me! … If they would only give Me some return of love―but they have only coldness and contempt for all My endeavors to do them good. This is more grievous to Me than all that I endured in My Passion!”
What applies to Our Lord also applies to Our Lady―she does not want or need a half-hearted devotion with its “halfway measures … coldness … indifference … lack of confidence … irreverence” ― of which Our Lord complains ― but a true devotion, a sincere devotion, a heartfelt devotion, a totally committed devotion, a constant devotion, an enthusiastic devotion which echoes and replicates the manner with which we are commanded to love God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). In other words, Our Lady wants “the real thing” and not some substitute, half-baked, micro-waved scraps.
Most probably you have some kind of devotion to Our Lady―but is it worthy of Our Lady? Is it a devotion that is way beyond and above any other kind of devotion that you have for someone or something else? Heck! You salvation depends upon it! Avoidance of damnation depends upon it! When your life depends upon finding the right doctor and the right medicine―would you not put whole-hearted efforts into securing them? Well salvation is more important than that―eternal life is more important than earthly life! Whether you realize this or not―ALL the Gospels mention the importance of this several times: “He that loves his life shall lose it―and he that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal!” (John 12:25) … “For what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26) … “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36) … “For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, and cast away himself?” (Luke 9:25) … “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel, shall save it!” (Mark 8:35) … “Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it―and whosoever shall lose it, shall preserve it!” (Luke 17:33) … “He that finds his life, shall lose it―and he that shall lose his life for Me, shall find it!” (Matthew 10:39) … “For what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself, and cast away himself?” (Luke 9:25) … “For he that will save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it!” (Matthew 16:25) … “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; for he that shall lose his life for My sake, shall save it!” (Luke 9:24). Let the Gospel words of Our Lord, like nails of truth, be hammered into our thick hard heads!
So What is Devotion?
What is devotion, then? The Dictionary defines “devotion” as being a “love, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a person, activity, or cause.” Devotion implies a high level of love. The word “devotion” comes from the Latin verb “devovere” (past particple = “devotus”), meaning “to avow oneself to, or to give oneself entirely to a deity or cause of some kind.” Thus devotion to Mary implicitly requires this total consecration of ourselves to her, and through her to God. St. Louis de Montfort writes: “The most perfect consecration to Jesus Christ is nothing else but a perfect and entire consecration of ourselves to the Blessed Virgin … This devotion consists, then, in giving ourselves entirely to Our Lady, in order to belong entirely to Jesus through her.”
We promise all of this in St. Louis de Montfort’s formula for the Act of Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “I give myself entirely to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom, to carry my cross after Him all the days of my life and to be more faithful to Him than I have ever been before. In the presence of all the heavenly court, I choose thee this day for my Mother and Mistress. I deliver and consecrate to thee, as thy slave, my body and soul, my goods, both interior and exterior, and even the value of all my good actions, past, present and future; leaving to thee the entire and full right of disposing of me and all that belongs to me, without exception, according to thy good pleasure, for the greater glory of God, in time and in eternity! … Receive, O benignant Virgin, this little offering of my slavery! … I declare that I wish henceforth, as thy true slave, to seek thy honor and to obey thee in all things! … O faithful Virgin, make me in all things so perfect a disciple, imitator and slave of the Incarnate Wisdom, Jesus Christ thy Son, that I may attain, by thine intercession and by thine example, to the fullness of His age on Earth and of His glory in Heaven! Amen!”
Total Consecration is a Total Immersion!
Love knows no limits! Love is not restrained or held back! Love loves to love! Total consecration to Mary means a total immersion in Mary, a total immersion in devotion to Mary. It like Baptisms of old―wherein the whole person was immersed in the water and submerged in water―not like our modern-day Baptisms where a little bit of water is trickled on the forehead. If water is a symbol grace―which it is―then who wants just a trickle of grace? We should want to immersed and submerged in grace! Yes―both Baptism by immersion and submersion, as well as Baptism with water trickled on the forehead, are both true Baptisms. Similarly, there are various degrees or levels of devotion. St. Louis de Montfort, speaking of brand of True Devotion to Mary, writes: “As the essential of this devotion consists in the interior [not just the exterior and superficial]―which it ought to form―it will not be equally understood by everybody. Some will stop at what is exterior in it, and will go no further―and these will be the greatest number. Some, in small number, will enter into its inward spirit; but they will only mount one step. Who will mount to the second step? Who will get as far as the third? Lastly, who will so advance as to make this devotion his habitual state?” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, §119).
As you sow, so shall you reap; and "he who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly" (2 Corinthians 9:6). If you hold back, restrain and fail to grow in your devotion to Our Lady, then proportionately she will hold back graces from you. The more you give―the more you get. The less you give―the less you get. Love is reciprocal (give and take) and love is proportionate (you get as you give). If your “pipeline of love” is narrow―the both the outflowing love and inflowing love will be restricted and minimal. We see this to be true if we examine the Three Ways of the Spiritual Life (the Three Stages or Levels of the Spiritual Life)―(1) the Way of Beginners in the Purgative Way; (2) the Way of the Proficient in the Illuminative Way; and (3) the Way of the Perfect in the Unitive Way.
► THE WAY OF BEGINNERS IN THE PURGATIVE WAY ― A beginner in the spiritual life has a faith that is more inclined to fear God than to truly love God―the beginner tries to keep away from sin through a fear of God’s punishments. “We must fear God out of love, not love Him out of fear!” says St. Francis de Sales. When the beginner confesses his sins, he has attrition for his sins (sorrow for sin based on a fear of God’s punishments), but little or no contrition for his sins (sorrow for sin based upon a love for God at having offended God’s feelings). The Sacrament of Confession takes away his guilt, but does not take away all the temporal punishment due to his sins―because his love is minimal. “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:8). “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). The level of love that corresponds to this stage of beginners is the very basic and lowest level of love―the keeping of God’s Commandments: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My words … He that does not love Me, keeps not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
► THE WAY OF THE PROFICIENT IN THE ILLUMINATIVE WAY ― The proficient soul who is making much progress in the spiritual life, is increasingly led to avoid sin―not so much out of a fear of God’s punishments―but more by a growing love of God. Yes―he fears God’s punishments, but he is increasingly motivated and inspired by a growing love of God. He acts less and less out of a SELFISH attitude of fearing God’s punishments due the pain they will bring upon him; and he acts more and more out of a SELFLESS attitude that fears sin because of the pain it will bring to God. Nevertheless―as stated―this level is still in the “growing stage”. It is not the minimal meager love of God that is shown by the beginner―but neither is it the perfect love of God as shown by those who are in the third way―the Way of Perfection. The level of love that corresponds to this Way of the Proficient is above the basic and lowest level of love―the keeping of God’s Commandments―and adds to this basic level the love of prayer, which is desire to talk to God. We talk to the one’s we love, don’t we? The more we love them―the more we talk with them.
► THE WAY OF THE PERFECT IN THE UNITIVE WAY ― The perfect soul has grown in love so much that there is no longer any deliberate venial sin in his life and all the more so, no more mortal sin in his life. Love is no longer selfish in any way, but it increasingly selfless. The level of love that corresponds to this Way of the Perfect―not only keeps the Commandments; not only loves to talk with God through prayer―but is now also desirous of suffering for God, even to the point of giving up one’s life for God. “He who wishes to love God does not truly love Him if he has not an ardent and constant desire to suffer for His sake!” says St. Aloysius Gonzaga. “Whoever loves does all things without suffering, or, if he is suffering, he loves his suffering!” adds St. Augustine. To this, St. Bernard further adds: “Under the influence of fear, we bear the Cross of Christ with patience. Under the more inspiring influence of hope, we carry the Cross with a firm and valiant heart. But under the consuming power of love, we embrace the Cross with ardor.” Whereas St. Margaret Mary Alacoque stresses: “The Heart of Jesus desires to be everything to the heart that It loves. But that will only be by suffering for Him!” This is the level spoken of by Our Lord when He said: “Greater love than this no man has―that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Thus martyrdom―laying down one’s life for the sake of God and the Faith―is the pinnacle of love.
The different degrees of these Three Ways of the Spiritual Life are clearly seen in how souls carry their crosses: “Under the influence of fear, we bear the Cross of Christ with patience. Under the more inspiring influence of hope, we carry the Cross with a firm and valiant heart. But under the consuming power of love, we embrace the Cross with ardor.” (St. Bernard).
We Need Total Immersion in Love
St. John of the Cross says that on the Day of Judgment we will be judged upon our charity: “At the end of our life, we shall all be judged by charity!” Charity is what gives life to whatever we do. It is the life and soul and direction of our virtues. Without love we are nothing! “He that loveth not, knows not God―for God is charity!” (1 John 4:8). “Charity, which is the bond of perfection” Colossians 3:14). Hence Holy Scripture states: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The saints paint a clear picture of the importance of Charity and Love in the quest for perfection and holiness: “You ask me for a method of attaining perfection. I know of love—and only love. Love can do all things.” (St. Thérèse of Lisieux). “Perfection of life is the perfection of love. For love is the life of the soul.” (St. Francis de Sales). “Charity may be a very short word, but with its tremendous meaning of pure love, it sums up man’s entire relation to God and to his neighbor. As Our Lord explained: ‘It is on charity that all the Law and the prophets depend.’” (St. Aelred of Rievaulx). “All is contained in these brief words: ‘Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with thy soul, and with all thy strength: and love thy neighbor as thyself.’” (St. Augustine). “Not without reward is God loved―although He should be loved without thought of reward.” (St. Bernard). “What a weakness it is to love Jesus Christ only when He caresses us, and to be cold immediately He afflicts us. This is not true love. Those who love thus, love themselves too much to love God with all their heart.” (St. Margaret Mary Alacoque). “We should love God because He is God, and the measure of our love should be to love Him without measure.” (St. Bernard). “To love God as He ought to be loved, we must be detached from all temporal love. We must love nothing but Him, or if we love anything else, we must love it only for His sake.” (St. Peter Claver).
Charity is first and foremost a love of God―only secondarily is it a love of neighbor, but that love of neighbor must not be for the neighbor’s sake (rich, good looking, strong, witty, skilled, etc.), but for God’s sake in the sense that the neighbor is a creature made in the image and likeness of God just as we are. Hence, even our enemies are our neighbors. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:37).
Devotion and Charity
What is the connection or link between “Devotion” and “Charity”? Are they one and the same thing, or are they different to each other? If―as Our Lady of Fatima said―God wants to establish in the world devotion to her Immaculate Heart―then it seems important to know what is really meant by devotion. For the answer to that, let us turn St. Francis de Sales and his book, Introduction to the Devout Life, where he discusses and explains “devotion” at length. Here is what he has to say:
“There is only one true devotion―while there is a very large number of false and meaningless ones. So if you cannot recognize true devotion, you could be deceived and waste time in following some devotion that is irrelevant and irrational. Each person represents devotion according to his liking and imagination. He who is in the habit of fasting will think that because he fasts he is very devout―even though his heart is filled with hatred. He will not take a sip of wine, or even of water, anxious about sobriety―but he has no scruples to sip the blood of his neighbor by speaking ill or by false statements. Another person considers himself devout because of the very great number of prayers he recites every day―even though soon after this he speaks words that are annoying, full of pride and hurtful to those in his house and to his neighbors. Another person very gladly opens his purse to give alms to the poor―but cannot take any gentleness from his heart to forgive his enemies. Yet another person will forgive his enemies―but will not pay what he owes unless he is legally forced to do so. All such persons are generally looked upon as devout―whereas in fact they are not.
“True devotion presupposes, not a partial, but a thorough love of God. For inasmuch as divine love adorns the soul, it is called grace, making us pleasing to the Divine Majesty; inasmuch as it gives us the strength to do good, it is called charity; but when it has arrived at that degree of perfection, by which it not only makes us act well, but also work diligently, frequently, and readily, then it is called devotion.
“As ostriches never fly; as hens fly low, heavily, and but seldom; and as eagles, doves, and swallows fly aloft, swiftly and frequently, so sinners fly, not towards God, but direct all their courses on the earth, and towards worldly objects: and good people who have not as yet attained to devotion fly towards God by their good works, but rarely, slowly, and heavily; whereas devout souls fly up to Him by more frequent, prompt, and lofty flights.
“In short, devotion is nothing but that spiritual agility and liveliness, by which charity works in us, or we by her, promptly and lovingly; and, as it is the business of charity to make us observe all God’s commandments generally and without exception, so it is the part of devotion to make us observe them cheerfully and with diligence.
“Therefore, whoever does not keep all of God’s commandments cannot be considered either good or devout, because to be good one must have charity. To be devout one must, not only have charity, but a great liveliness, cheerfulness and promptness in doing charitable actions.
“Since devotion is to be found at a certain level of charity that is extraordinary―it makes us prompt, active and earnest in keeping all of God’s commandments. But, more than this, it rouses us to do as many good works as we can, promptly and lovingly, even though they are in no way commanded, but rather only counseled or inspired.
“A man, who has recently recovered from some illness, walks only as much as he needs to, but slowly and with difficulty. So also, a sinner, healed of his sinfulness, moves ahead only to the extent that God commands him, and too slowly and with difficulty―until he acquires devotion. After that, like a man in good health he not only walks, but runs joyfully in the way of God’s commandments (Psalm 118:32). Even more, he moves ahead and runs in the paths of God’s counsels and inspirations.
“To conclude―charity and devotion differ no more one from another than the fire does from the flame―for charity is a spiritual fire which, when inflamed, is called devotion. In fact, devotion adds to the fire of charity only the flame which makes charity prompt, active and diligent―not only to keep God’s commandments, but also to put into practice His counsels and inspirations.” (St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, chapter 1: “Description of True Devotion”).
So although everyone would like to classify themselves as having “devotion” ― true devotion is not your everyday, humdrum, distracted, hurried, minimalist, “get-it-over-as-fast-as-you-can” kind of devotion. True devotion is the result of a long journey and rugged climb up the mountain of God, which started out as a mere baby devotion or seedling devotion, but which has grown into a true tree of devotion having withstood the heat, droughts, storms, rains, floods and earthquakes that have consistently tried to stop its growth and even destroy it. True devotion is not common―just like salvation is not common. Yet, just as God wants all men to be saved, so too does He want all men to be truly devoted. We all love God to some degree―but few love Him “with their whole heart, and with their whole soul, and with their whole mind, and with their whole strength!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Someone who has a true devotion would truly be loving God with their whole heart, mind, soul and strength―their devotion would have grown from a tiny seed of devotion into a tree of devotion. As Our Lord said: “The Kingdom of Heaven [perfection] is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. Which is the least indeed of all seeds; but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come, and dwell in the branches thereof!” (Matthew 13:31-32). Devotion is like that grain of mustard seed―it needs to be planted in the field of sanctifying grace in the soul and it needs to grow up and become a tree―the tree of true devotion!
The Three Ways―The Three Degrees
The spiritual masters―going back to the earliest times―divide the spiritual life into three general phases, stages, ways or paths―all of which must be walked along in our journey to Heaven. Likewise, the spiritual writers divide the virtue of Charity into three distinct degrees or levels that correspond with the Three Ways of the Spiritual Life. St. Thomas Aquinas deals with the varying degrees of Charity in his Summa Theologica (IIa-IIae, q. 24, article 9: “Whether charity is rightly distinguished into three degrees, beginning, progress, and perfection?”). He firstly quotes St. Augustine: “Augustine says: ‘As soon as charity is born it takes food’ ― which refers to beginners; then, ‘after taking food, it waxes strong’ ― which refers to those who are progressing; ‘and when it has become strong it is perfected’ ― which refers to the perfect. Therefore there are three degrees of charity. The spiritual increase of charity may be considered in respect of a certain likeness to the growth of the human body. For although the growth of the body may be divided into many parts―yet it has certain fixed divisions. That is why we speak of a man being an infant until he has the use of reason, after which we distinguish another state of man wherein he begins to speak and to use his reason, while there is again a third state, that of puberty when he begins to acquire the power of generation, and so on until he arrives at perfection.
“In like manner the different degrees of charity are distinguished according to the different pursuits to which man is brought by the increase of charity. For at first it is incumbent on man to occupy himself chiefly with avoiding sin and resisting his concupiscences, which move him in opposition to charity―and this concerns beginners, in whom charity has to be fed or fostered lest it be destroyed. In the second place, man’s chief pursuit is to aim at progress in good―and this is the pursuit of the proficient, whose chief aim is to strengthen their charity by adding to it. While man’s third pursuit is to aim chiefly at union with and enjoyment of God―this belongs to the perfect, who desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ.
“In like manner we observe in objects in motion―that at first there is withdrawal and departure from one place, then there is the approach to the other place, and thirdly, the arrival at the other place. All these distinct degrees― the beginning, the middle, and the end―can be seen in the increase of charity.
“Although those who are beginners in charity may progress, yet the chief care that besets them is to resist the sins which disturb them by their attacks. Afterwards, however, when they come to feel this attack less, they begin to tend to perfection with greater security―yet with one hand doing the work of perfection, and with the other holding the sword to defend oneself against the attacks of sin and temptation.
“Even the perfect make progress in charity―but this is not their chief care, for their aim is principally directed towards union with God. And though both the beginner and the proficient also seek this, yet their principal care is chiefly about other things―with the beginner it is about avoiding sin; and with the proficient it is about progressing in virtue.”
(Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 24, article 9)
Step by Step―Degree by Degree
There are degrees of HOW MUCH we want something. We see this in the words of Our Lord to the young man who had many possessions. The young man WANTED to go to Heaven, but he also WANTED TO DO THE MINIMUM to get there. To his question on what he had to DO to get there, Our Lord said: “If you WANT to enter into life, keep the commandments!” (Matthew 19:17). The young man replied that he had kept the commandments since his childhood―which shows him to have the minimum level of charity: “If you love Me, keep My commandments!” (John 14:15). But then Our Lord tries to encourage him from merely doing the MINUMUM into doing the MAXIMUM, in other words to increase his desire, to increase his want. “Jesus said to him: ‘If you WANT to be perfect, go sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions.” (Matthew 19:21-22).
Do I WANT to give myself entirely to Jesus through Mary? Do I REALLY WANT to give myself to them? Or am I attached to myself and the world so much, that what I am REALLY WANTING is to both save my soul, yet still remain attached to myself and things of this life? This is the case with most people! They are primarily concerned about themselves and the world, they want dual-citizenship! They want to be ‘good’ citizens of the world, and ‘good’ citizens of Heaven. Yet Our Lord said: “No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the raiment?” (Matthew 6:24-25).
We all know the saying: “He who desires the end, must necessarily desire the means to that end!” We know that is true in theory, just like we know we cannot serve God and mammon in theory; but, in practice, are we seeking to do the opposite? Like most of the world, WE WANT THINGS FOR FREE! We want to get to Heaven; we want to avoid Hell; we want to save our souls—but we don’t want to do ALL that it takes to get there! We want a discount; we want a reduced fare; we want a ‘freebie’ if at all possible! This is what the young man with many possessions wanted, and he could not bring himself round to sacrificing what Jesus asked for! It says in the Gospel that Jesus LOVED him! He must have sensed Jesus’ love in some way; yet he preferred his petty possessions (creatures) to Jesus (the Creator).
It is well worth quoting the Gospel passage of the encounter between Jesus and the rich young man: “And behold, a certain rich young man, a ruler, running up and kneeling before Him, asked Him: ‘Good Master, what shall I do that I may receive life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he was very rich and had great possessions. And Jesus, seeing him become sorrowful, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (combined account of Matthew 19:16-24; Mark 10:17-23; Luke 18:18-25).
Sadly, most of us are the same―devoted to a degree, but not devoted enough! We want to serve God and mammon―we want to go to Heaven but also enjoys the pleasures, riches and delights of Earth. The gospel that the world preaches is fittingly summarized by St. Louis de Montfort in his description of the worldly folk: “The world’s group is the devil’s in fact, which is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendid in dress. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded, although they are broad and ever broadening with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver. The worldlings rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure!’ they shout, ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat! Let us drink! Let us sing! Let us dance! Let us play! God is good! He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples! We shall not die!’ And so they continue.” (St. Louis de Montfort, Letter to the Friends of the Cross).
Sadly, most of us are the same―devoted to a degree, but not devoted enough! We want to serve God and mammon―we want to go to Heaven but also enjoys the pleasures, riches and delights of Earth. We may even ask the same question as Jesus’ followers asked, who had witnessed the encounter with the rich young man: “The disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’” (Matthew 19:25). Jesus replied: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:28). So, the good news is that IF WE NO LONGER WANT TO BE LIKE THAT; IF WE WANT TO CHANGE, even though we may FEEL powerless to change, then Jesus, through His Holy Mother, will bring about that miracle of grace within you. You have to WANT and you have to ASK! The grace will then come to help you DO, not without any pain, but it will help you with the pain too!
Perfect Charity Guarantees Salvation
Speaking of pain―the Cross of Christ can change and perfect your weak Charity to the point where salvation can almost be guaranteed―if you carry with great love. In his Letter to the Friends of the Cross, in the section entitled “Fourteen Rules for Carrying the Cross”, St. Louis de Montfort, for the Ninth Rule, states:
“The love you are told to have for the Cross is not sensible love, for this would be impossible to human nature. It is important to note the three kinds of love: sensible love, rational love and love that is faithful and supreme; in other words, the love that springs from the lower part of man, the flesh; the love that springs from the superior part, his reason; and the love that springs from the supreme part of man, from the summit of his soul, which is the intellect enlightened by Faith.
“God does not ask you to love the Cross with the will of the flesh. Since the flesh is the subject of evil and corruption, all that proceeds from it is evil and it cannot, of itself, submit to the will of God and His crucifying law. It was this aspect of His human nature which Our Lord referred to when He cried out, in the Garden of Olives: ‘Father―not My will, but Thine be done!’ (Luke 22:42). If the lower powers of Our Lord’s human nature, though holy, could not love the Cross without interruption, then with still greater reason, will our human nature, which is very much vitiated, repel it. At times, like many of the saints, we too may experience a feeling of even sensible joy in our sufferings, but that joy does not come from the flesh though it is in the flesh. It flows from our superior powers, so completely filled with the divine joy of the Holy Ghost, that it spreads to our lower powers. Thus a person who is undergoing the most unbearable torture is able to say: ‘My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God!’ (Ps. 83:3).
“There is another love for the Cross which I call rational, since it springs from the higher part of man, his reason. This love is wholly spiritual. Since it arises from the knowledge of the happiness there is in suffering for God, it can be and really is perceived by the soul. It also gives the soul inward strength and joy. Though this rational and perceptible joy is beneficial, even very beneficial, it is not an indispensable part of joyous, divine suffering.
“This is why there is another love, which the masters of the spiritual life call the love of the summit and highest point of the soul and which the philosophers call the love of the intellect. When we possess this love, even though we experience no sensible joy or rational pleasure, we love and relish, in the light of pure faith, the cross we must bear, even though the lower part of our nature may often be in a state of warfare and alarm and may moan and groan, weep and sigh for relief and thus we repeat with Jesus Christ: ‘Father―not My will, but Thine be done!’ (Luke 22:42), or with the Blessed Virgin: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord―be it done to me according to Thy word!’ (Luke 1:38). It is with one of these two higher loves that we should accept and love our cross.” (St. Louis de Montfort, Letter to the Friends of the Cross).
Carrying the cross with perfect love is a guarantee of salvation―just like sorrow for sin with perfect contrition (sorrow based on a deep love of God and not just a fear of Him) can wipe away, not only the guilt of mortal and venial sin, but also all the punishment that is due to debt incurred by those sins. In other words, with an act of perfect contrition a soul can enter Heaven without the need of paying its debts in the fires of Purgatory. Our Lord indicated this when He said of the great sinner, Mary Magdalen: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much!” (Luke 7:47) ― to which Holy Scripture adds: “Charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12). “Before all things, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves―for charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).
On Calvary, three crosses were on display―Our Lord’s cross and the crosses of the two robbers. One of the robbers―whom we today affectionately call “The Good Thief” whom Tradition tells us was called Dismas―by the humble acceptance of his cross and fate, managed to steal Heaven as his final act of stealing! “One of those robbers, who were hanging on the cross, blasphemed Jesus, saying: ‘If thou be Christ, save Thyself and us!’ But the other robber answering, rebuked him, saying: ‘Do you not fear God, seeing you art condemned under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds―but this man hath done no evil!’ And he said to Jesus: ‘Lord! Remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day you shall be with Me in paradise!’” (Luke 23:39-43). It was not the cross that saved him, but his love of Jesus and his love of the cross through which he was justly paying for sins.
Though already quoted above―these saintly quotes deserve mention again in this context: “He who wishes to love God does not truly love Him if he has not an ardent and constant desire to suffer for His sake!” says St. Aloysius Gonzaga. “Whoever loves does all things without suffering, or, if he is suffering, he loves his suffering!” adds St. Augustine. To this, St. Bernard further adds: “Under the influence of fear, we bear the Cross of Christ with patience. Under the more inspiring influence of hope, we carry the Cross with a firm and valiant heart. But under the consuming power of love, we embrace the Cross with ardor.” Whereas St. Margaret Mary Alacoque stresses: “The Heart of Jesus desires to be everything to the heart that It loves. But that will only be by suffering for Him!”
In case we wishfully think and imagine that there is some other way to Heaven―let us remind ourselves of Our Lord’s own words: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23). Come after Him? To where? To Heaven of course! … “And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that does not take up his cross, and does not follow Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … Yet He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! … But the worldlings, in their lukewarmness, are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … They do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! … To those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation.”
Simon of Cyrene was forced to help Jesus carry His cross to Calvary! He did not volunteer―he was suddenly dragged out of the crowd by the Roman soldiers and forced to take the cross of Jesus upon his own shoulders! There is no doubt that he was shocked and angry at being forced to undergo this suffering and humiliation. He was probably cursing his luck at being in the wrong place at the wrong time―but with God’s Providence there is never a wrong place and wrong time. What Simon started off hating, ended up being something he eventually loved―you can be sure that his encounter with Jesus and the grace of Jesus saw to that! Simon ended up becoming St. Simon and ended up in Heaven!
There are many times when we―like Simon―resent being picked out of the crowd and being forced to carry a cross we were not looking for, a cross that we never expected, and a cross that we resented! Yet―if we are to call ourselves devoted Christians―we have to say with Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt!” (Matthew 26:39). God knows best and He knows the best way to save your soul and get you to Heaven! As Simon of Cyrene grew in devotion under the cross of Christ―so too must we grown in devotion under the cross of Christ! There is no other way to Heaven than the Way of the Cross! Just as Our Lady accompanied Our Lord on His Way of the Cross, she will also accompany you on your Way of the Cross!
We are currently in the middle of two great feasts of Our Lady―the Assumption of Our Lady on August 15th and the Immaculate Heart of Mary on August 22nd. It is the perfect time to immerse ourselves into devotion to Our Lady in this Age of Mary. She is the focal point for our times―that is what God wants. At Fatima, in 1917, Our Lady stated: “Jesus wants to use you to make me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world! … You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved!” Speaking of herself in the third person, Our Lady of Fatima added: “Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” At Akita, in 1973, Our Lady further said: “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
This is nothing new―the saints have always insisted upon the power of Our Lady and the necessity of her in our quest for salvation. What is more important than salvation? It means eternal happiness! What else can compare or compete with that? What is a meager 60, 70 or 80 years of limited happiness on Earth in comparison to eternal happiness in Heaven? 1 million years, 1 billion years, 1 trillion years, 1 quadrillion years, 1 quintillion years, or go as high as you want―the final number is like a speck of dust on the entire Earth. As Our Lord said: “What does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). To which Holy Scripture adds: “Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love Him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Salvation should be at the top of the “Things To Do” list of every sane person―but, unfortunately, that is not the case!
Help On Offer―Help Refused
St. Alphonsus Liguori writes: “This Mother of Mercy is all kindness and all sweetness―not only with the just, but also with sinners and those who are in despair―so that when she beholds them turning towards her, and sees that they are with sincerity seeking her help, she at once welcomes them, aids them, and obtains their pardon from her Son. She neglects none, however unworthy they may be, and refuses to none her protection; she consoles all; and no sooner do they call upon her, than she hastens to their help. With her gentleness she often wins their devotion, and raises those sinners who are most averse to God, and who are the most deeply plunged in the lethargy of their vices that she may dispose them to receive divine grace, and at last render themselves worthy of eternal glory. God has created this his beloved daughter with a disposition so kind and compassionate, that no one can hesitate to have recourse to her intercession” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Glories of Mary).
St. Bernard of Clairvaux similarly says: “And the Virgin’s Name was Mary.” Let us speak a little about this Name, which is said to mean “Star of the Sea,” and which so well befits the Virgin Mother. Quite rightly she is likened to a star. As a star emits a ray without being dimmed, so the Virgin brought forth her Son without receiving any injury. The ray of light takes nothing away from the brightness of the star, nor does the Son take anything away from His Mother’s virginal integrity. This is the noble star risen out of Jacob, whose rays illumine the whole world, whose splendor shines in the heavens, penetrates the abyss, and, traversing the whole Earth―giving warmth to souls rather than to bodies; cherishing virtues and withering vices. Mary is that bright and incomparable Star, whom we need to see raised above this vast sea, shining by her merits, and giving us light by her example.
“All of you, who see yourselves amid the tides of the world, tossed by storms and tempests, rather than walking on the land―do not turn your eyes away from this shining Star, unless you want to be overwhelmed by the hurricane! If you find yourself in storms of temptation, or if you fall upon the rocks of tribulation―then look to the Star―call upon Mary! If you are tossed around by the waves of pride or ambition, detraction or envy―then look to the Star―call upon Mary! If anger, or avarice, or the desires of the flesh crash against the ship of your soul―turn your eyes to Mary! If you are troubled by the enormity of your sins and crimes; if you are ashamed of your guilty conscience; if you are terrified by dread of the judgment; if you begin to sink into the gulf of sadness or the depths of despair―think of Mary! In all dangers, in anguish, in doubt―think of Mary, call upon Mary! Let her Name be ever on your lips, ever in your heart; and the better to obtain the help of her prayers, imitate the example of her life. Following her, you will not stray; invoking her, you will not despair; thinking of her, you will go astray; upheld by her, you will not fall; shielded by her, you will not fear; guided by her, you will not grow weary; favored by her, you will reach the goal! And thus you will experience in yourself how good is that saying: ‘And the Virgin’s Name was Mary!’”
Our Blessed Mother holds such a place in the economy of our redemption that some do not hesitate to state that devotion to her is a necessary condition of salvation.
“They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish!” (St. Albert the Great, Doctor of the Church).
“They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation.” (St. Bonaventure, Doctor of the Church)
“A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost.” (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Father of the Church).
If a lack of devotion to her is a mark of eternal reprobation a constant love for her must be a sign of eternal salvation. Many spiritual writers state that devotion to Mary is a sign of predestination.
“It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church).
“He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost.” (St. Anselm, Doctor of the Church).
“As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified.” (St. Antonine).
Our Lady is always willing to help―even the worst sinners―but few there are who seek out her help. As she said to St. Bridget of Sweden: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on Earth a sinner who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion―for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed [by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned], is so entirely cast-off by God, that he may not return and enjoy His mercy, if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners.”
Triumph and Tragedy!
Sister Lucia of Fatima tells us both triumph and tragedy―Our Lady has given us the tools for aiding her in the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but at the same time the tragedy is that very few people are listening to and putting into practice her message. Sister Lucia explains:
“Our Lady told me, as well as my cousins, that God is giving two last remedies to the world―the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, means that they are the final ones, and that there will be no others! If we despise and reject this last means― the salvation that is put in our hands ― Heaven will no longer pardon us. As for the Holy Rosary, Father, in these last times in which we are living, the Blessed Virgin has given a new efficacy to the praying of the Holy Rosary. This in such a way that there is no problem that cannot be resolved by praying the Rosary, no matter how difficult it is ― be it temporal or above all spiritual ― in the spiritual life of each of us, or the lives of our families, be they our families in the world or Religious Communities, or even in the lives of peoples and nations. I repeat, there is no problem, as difficult as it may be, that we cannot resolve at this time by praying the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves, sanctify ourselves, console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls!
“The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!” (Sister Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
True Devotion―Not Half-Hearted Devotion
If God has decided that Our Lady is truly the only one who can help us now―then truly a true devotion to Our Lady is required, and not merely a half-hearted devotion; or a mechanical auto-pilot devotion; or a mere lip-service devotion that lacks heart. Our Lord demands true devotion, true love, true commitment―which is why He said in the Gospels: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honors Me with their lips―but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8)―which is also a sentiment He echoed to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame) in the early 1600s: “Alas! If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small spineless imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me! ... But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing! — according to My example ― for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross! ... Woe to souls like this! Woe!”
Then, in the same century, in 1673, Our Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and lamented: “My Divine Heart is so passionately inflamed with love for men! … Behold this Heart which has so loved men that It spared nothing―even going so far as to exhaust and consume Itself to prove to them Its love! And in return I receive― from the greater part of men―nothing but ingratitude, by the contempt, irreverence, sacrileges and coldness with which they treat Me! … If they would only give Me some return of love―but they have only coldness and contempt for all My endeavors to do them good. This is more grievous to Me than all that I endured in My Passion!”
What applies to Our Lord also applies to Our Lady―she does not want or need a half-hearted devotion with its “halfway measures … coldness … indifference … lack of confidence … irreverence” ― of which Our Lord complains ― but a true devotion, a sincere devotion, a heartfelt devotion, a totally committed devotion, a constant devotion, an enthusiastic devotion which echoes and replicates the manner with which we are commanded to love God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). In other words, Our Lady wants “the real thing” and not some substitute, half-baked, micro-waved scraps.
Most probably you have some kind of devotion to Our Lady―but is it worthy of Our Lady? Is it a devotion that is way beyond and above any other kind of devotion that you have for someone or something else? Heck! You salvation depends upon it! Avoidance of damnation depends upon it! When your life depends upon finding the right doctor and the right medicine―would you not put whole-hearted efforts into securing them? Well salvation is more important than that―eternal life is more important than earthly life! Whether you realize this or not―ALL the Gospels mention the importance of this several times: “He that loves his life shall lose it―and he that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal!” (John 12:25) … “For what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26) … “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36) … “For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, and cast away himself?” (Luke 9:25) … “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel, shall save it!” (Mark 8:35) … “Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it―and whosoever shall lose it, shall preserve it!” (Luke 17:33) … “He that finds his life, shall lose it―and he that shall lose his life for Me, shall find it!” (Matthew 10:39) … “For what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself, and cast away himself?” (Luke 9:25) … “For he that will save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it!” (Matthew 16:25) … “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; for he that shall lose his life for My sake, shall save it!” (Luke 9:24). Let the Gospel words of Our Lord, like nails of truth, be hammered into our thick hard heads!
So What is Devotion?
What is devotion, then? The Dictionary defines “devotion” as being a “love, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a person, activity, or cause.” Devotion implies a high level of love. The word “devotion” comes from the Latin verb “devovere” (past particple = “devotus”), meaning “to avow oneself to, or to give oneself entirely to a deity or cause of some kind.” Thus devotion to Mary implicitly requires this total consecration of ourselves to her, and through her to God. St. Louis de Montfort writes: “The most perfect consecration to Jesus Christ is nothing else but a perfect and entire consecration of ourselves to the Blessed Virgin … This devotion consists, then, in giving ourselves entirely to Our Lady, in order to belong entirely to Jesus through her.”
We promise all of this in St. Louis de Montfort’s formula for the Act of Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “I give myself entirely to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom, to carry my cross after Him all the days of my life and to be more faithful to Him than I have ever been before. In the presence of all the heavenly court, I choose thee this day for my Mother and Mistress. I deliver and consecrate to thee, as thy slave, my body and soul, my goods, both interior and exterior, and even the value of all my good actions, past, present and future; leaving to thee the entire and full right of disposing of me and all that belongs to me, without exception, according to thy good pleasure, for the greater glory of God, in time and in eternity! … Receive, O benignant Virgin, this little offering of my slavery! … I declare that I wish henceforth, as thy true slave, to seek thy honor and to obey thee in all things! … O faithful Virgin, make me in all things so perfect a disciple, imitator and slave of the Incarnate Wisdom, Jesus Christ thy Son, that I may attain, by thine intercession and by thine example, to the fullness of His age on Earth and of His glory in Heaven! Amen!”
Total Consecration is a Total Immersion!
Love knows no limits! Love is not restrained or held back! Love loves to love! Total consecration to Mary means a total immersion in Mary, a total immersion in devotion to Mary. It like Baptisms of old―wherein the whole person was immersed in the water and submerged in water―not like our modern-day Baptisms where a little bit of water is trickled on the forehead. If water is a symbol grace―which it is―then who wants just a trickle of grace? We should want to immersed and submerged in grace! Yes―both Baptism by immersion and submersion, as well as Baptism with water trickled on the forehead, are both true Baptisms. Similarly, there are various degrees or levels of devotion. St. Louis de Montfort, speaking of brand of True Devotion to Mary, writes: “As the essential of this devotion consists in the interior [not just the exterior and superficial]―which it ought to form―it will not be equally understood by everybody. Some will stop at what is exterior in it, and will go no further―and these will be the greatest number. Some, in small number, will enter into its inward spirit; but they will only mount one step. Who will mount to the second step? Who will get as far as the third? Lastly, who will so advance as to make this devotion his habitual state?” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, §119).
As you sow, so shall you reap; and "he who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly" (2 Corinthians 9:6). If you hold back, restrain and fail to grow in your devotion to Our Lady, then proportionately she will hold back graces from you. The more you give―the more you get. The less you give―the less you get. Love is reciprocal (give and take) and love is proportionate (you get as you give). If your “pipeline of love” is narrow―the both the outflowing love and inflowing love will be restricted and minimal. We see this to be true if we examine the Three Ways of the Spiritual Life (the Three Stages or Levels of the Spiritual Life)―(1) the Way of Beginners in the Purgative Way; (2) the Way of the Proficient in the Illuminative Way; and (3) the Way of the Perfect in the Unitive Way.
► THE WAY OF BEGINNERS IN THE PURGATIVE WAY ― A beginner in the spiritual life has a faith that is more inclined to fear God than to truly love God―the beginner tries to keep away from sin through a fear of God’s punishments. “We must fear God out of love, not love Him out of fear!” says St. Francis de Sales. When the beginner confesses his sins, he has attrition for his sins (sorrow for sin based on a fear of God’s punishments), but little or no contrition for his sins (sorrow for sin based upon a love for God at having offended God’s feelings). The Sacrament of Confession takes away his guilt, but does not take away all the temporal punishment due to his sins―because his love is minimal. “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:8). “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). The level of love that corresponds to this stage of beginners is the very basic and lowest level of love―the keeping of God’s Commandments: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My words … He that does not love Me, keeps not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
► THE WAY OF THE PROFICIENT IN THE ILLUMINATIVE WAY ― The proficient soul who is making much progress in the spiritual life, is increasingly led to avoid sin―not so much out of a fear of God’s punishments―but more by a growing love of God. Yes―he fears God’s punishments, but he is increasingly motivated and inspired by a growing love of God. He acts less and less out of a SELFISH attitude of fearing God’s punishments due the pain they will bring upon him; and he acts more and more out of a SELFLESS attitude that fears sin because of the pain it will bring to God. Nevertheless―as stated―this level is still in the “growing stage”. It is not the minimal meager love of God that is shown by the beginner―but neither is it the perfect love of God as shown by those who are in the third way―the Way of Perfection. The level of love that corresponds to this Way of the Proficient is above the basic and lowest level of love―the keeping of God’s Commandments―and adds to this basic level the love of prayer, which is desire to talk to God. We talk to the one’s we love, don’t we? The more we love them―the more we talk with them.
► THE WAY OF THE PERFECT IN THE UNITIVE WAY ― The perfect soul has grown in love so much that there is no longer any deliberate venial sin in his life and all the more so, no more mortal sin in his life. Love is no longer selfish in any way, but it increasingly selfless. The level of love that corresponds to this Way of the Perfect―not only keeps the Commandments; not only loves to talk with God through prayer―but is now also desirous of suffering for God, even to the point of giving up one’s life for God. “He who wishes to love God does not truly love Him if he has not an ardent and constant desire to suffer for His sake!” says St. Aloysius Gonzaga. “Whoever loves does all things without suffering, or, if he is suffering, he loves his suffering!” adds St. Augustine. To this, St. Bernard further adds: “Under the influence of fear, we bear the Cross of Christ with patience. Under the more inspiring influence of hope, we carry the Cross with a firm and valiant heart. But under the consuming power of love, we embrace the Cross with ardor.” Whereas St. Margaret Mary Alacoque stresses: “The Heart of Jesus desires to be everything to the heart that It loves. But that will only be by suffering for Him!” This is the level spoken of by Our Lord when He said: “Greater love than this no man has―that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Thus martyrdom―laying down one’s life for the sake of God and the Faith―is the pinnacle of love.
The different degrees of these Three Ways of the Spiritual Life are clearly seen in how souls carry their crosses: “Under the influence of fear, we bear the Cross of Christ with patience. Under the more inspiring influence of hope, we carry the Cross with a firm and valiant heart. But under the consuming power of love, we embrace the Cross with ardor.” (St. Bernard).
We Need Total Immersion in Love
St. John of the Cross says that on the Day of Judgment we will be judged upon our charity: “At the end of our life, we shall all be judged by charity!” Charity is what gives life to whatever we do. It is the life and soul and direction of our virtues. Without love we are nothing! “He that loveth not, knows not God―for God is charity!” (1 John 4:8). “Charity, which is the bond of perfection” Colossians 3:14). Hence Holy Scripture states: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The saints paint a clear picture of the importance of Charity and Love in the quest for perfection and holiness: “You ask me for a method of attaining perfection. I know of love—and only love. Love can do all things.” (St. Thérèse of Lisieux). “Perfection of life is the perfection of love. For love is the life of the soul.” (St. Francis de Sales). “Charity may be a very short word, but with its tremendous meaning of pure love, it sums up man’s entire relation to God and to his neighbor. As Our Lord explained: ‘It is on charity that all the Law and the prophets depend.’” (St. Aelred of Rievaulx). “All is contained in these brief words: ‘Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with thy soul, and with all thy strength: and love thy neighbor as thyself.’” (St. Augustine). “Not without reward is God loved―although He should be loved without thought of reward.” (St. Bernard). “What a weakness it is to love Jesus Christ only when He caresses us, and to be cold immediately He afflicts us. This is not true love. Those who love thus, love themselves too much to love God with all their heart.” (St. Margaret Mary Alacoque). “We should love God because He is God, and the measure of our love should be to love Him without measure.” (St. Bernard). “To love God as He ought to be loved, we must be detached from all temporal love. We must love nothing but Him, or if we love anything else, we must love it only for His sake.” (St. Peter Claver).
Charity is first and foremost a love of God―only secondarily is it a love of neighbor, but that love of neighbor must not be for the neighbor’s sake (rich, good looking, strong, witty, skilled, etc.), but for God’s sake in the sense that the neighbor is a creature made in the image and likeness of God just as we are. Hence, even our enemies are our neighbors. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:37).
Devotion and Charity
What is the connection or link between “Devotion” and “Charity”? Are they one and the same thing, or are they different to each other? If―as Our Lady of Fatima said―God wants to establish in the world devotion to her Immaculate Heart―then it seems important to know what is really meant by devotion. For the answer to that, let us turn St. Francis de Sales and his book, Introduction to the Devout Life, where he discusses and explains “devotion” at length. Here is what he has to say:
“There is only one true devotion―while there is a very large number of false and meaningless ones. So if you cannot recognize true devotion, you could be deceived and waste time in following some devotion that is irrelevant and irrational. Each person represents devotion according to his liking and imagination. He who is in the habit of fasting will think that because he fasts he is very devout―even though his heart is filled with hatred. He will not take a sip of wine, or even of water, anxious about sobriety―but he has no scruples to sip the blood of his neighbor by speaking ill or by false statements. Another person considers himself devout because of the very great number of prayers he recites every day―even though soon after this he speaks words that are annoying, full of pride and hurtful to those in his house and to his neighbors. Another person very gladly opens his purse to give alms to the poor―but cannot take any gentleness from his heart to forgive his enemies. Yet another person will forgive his enemies―but will not pay what he owes unless he is legally forced to do so. All such persons are generally looked upon as devout―whereas in fact they are not.
“True devotion presupposes, not a partial, but a thorough love of God. For inasmuch as divine love adorns the soul, it is called grace, making us pleasing to the Divine Majesty; inasmuch as it gives us the strength to do good, it is called charity; but when it has arrived at that degree of perfection, by which it not only makes us act well, but also work diligently, frequently, and readily, then it is called devotion.
“As ostriches never fly; as hens fly low, heavily, and but seldom; and as eagles, doves, and swallows fly aloft, swiftly and frequently, so sinners fly, not towards God, but direct all their courses on the earth, and towards worldly objects: and good people who have not as yet attained to devotion fly towards God by their good works, but rarely, slowly, and heavily; whereas devout souls fly up to Him by more frequent, prompt, and lofty flights.
“In short, devotion is nothing but that spiritual agility and liveliness, by which charity works in us, or we by her, promptly and lovingly; and, as it is the business of charity to make us observe all God’s commandments generally and without exception, so it is the part of devotion to make us observe them cheerfully and with diligence.
“Therefore, whoever does not keep all of God’s commandments cannot be considered either good or devout, because to be good one must have charity. To be devout one must, not only have charity, but a great liveliness, cheerfulness and promptness in doing charitable actions.
“Since devotion is to be found at a certain level of charity that is extraordinary―it makes us prompt, active and earnest in keeping all of God’s commandments. But, more than this, it rouses us to do as many good works as we can, promptly and lovingly, even though they are in no way commanded, but rather only counseled or inspired.
“A man, who has recently recovered from some illness, walks only as much as he needs to, but slowly and with difficulty. So also, a sinner, healed of his sinfulness, moves ahead only to the extent that God commands him, and too slowly and with difficulty―until he acquires devotion. After that, like a man in good health he not only walks, but runs joyfully in the way of God’s commandments (Psalm 118:32). Even more, he moves ahead and runs in the paths of God’s counsels and inspirations.
“To conclude―charity and devotion differ no more one from another than the fire does from the flame―for charity is a spiritual fire which, when inflamed, is called devotion. In fact, devotion adds to the fire of charity only the flame which makes charity prompt, active and diligent―not only to keep God’s commandments, but also to put into practice His counsels and inspirations.” (St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, chapter 1: “Description of True Devotion”).
So although everyone would like to classify themselves as having “devotion” ― true devotion is not your everyday, humdrum, distracted, hurried, minimalist, “get-it-over-as-fast-as-you-can” kind of devotion. True devotion is the result of a long journey and rugged climb up the mountain of God, which started out as a mere baby devotion or seedling devotion, but which has grown into a true tree of devotion having withstood the heat, droughts, storms, rains, floods and earthquakes that have consistently tried to stop its growth and even destroy it. True devotion is not common―just like salvation is not common. Yet, just as God wants all men to be saved, so too does He want all men to be truly devoted. We all love God to some degree―but few love Him “with their whole heart, and with their whole soul, and with their whole mind, and with their whole strength!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Someone who has a true devotion would truly be loving God with their whole heart, mind, soul and strength―their devotion would have grown from a tiny seed of devotion into a tree of devotion. As Our Lord said: “The Kingdom of Heaven [perfection] is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. Which is the least indeed of all seeds; but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come, and dwell in the branches thereof!” (Matthew 13:31-32). Devotion is like that grain of mustard seed―it needs to be planted in the field of sanctifying grace in the soul and it needs to grow up and become a tree―the tree of true devotion!
The Three Ways―The Three Degrees
The spiritual masters―going back to the earliest times―divide the spiritual life into three general phases, stages, ways or paths―all of which must be walked along in our journey to Heaven. Likewise, the spiritual writers divide the virtue of Charity into three distinct degrees or levels that correspond with the Three Ways of the Spiritual Life. St. Thomas Aquinas deals with the varying degrees of Charity in his Summa Theologica (IIa-IIae, q. 24, article 9: “Whether charity is rightly distinguished into three degrees, beginning, progress, and perfection?”). He firstly quotes St. Augustine: “Augustine says: ‘As soon as charity is born it takes food’ ― which refers to beginners; then, ‘after taking food, it waxes strong’ ― which refers to those who are progressing; ‘and when it has become strong it is perfected’ ― which refers to the perfect. Therefore there are three degrees of charity. The spiritual increase of charity may be considered in respect of a certain likeness to the growth of the human body. For although the growth of the body may be divided into many parts―yet it has certain fixed divisions. That is why we speak of a man being an infant until he has the use of reason, after which we distinguish another state of man wherein he begins to speak and to use his reason, while there is again a third state, that of puberty when he begins to acquire the power of generation, and so on until he arrives at perfection.
“In like manner the different degrees of charity are distinguished according to the different pursuits to which man is brought by the increase of charity. For at first it is incumbent on man to occupy himself chiefly with avoiding sin and resisting his concupiscences, which move him in opposition to charity―and this concerns beginners, in whom charity has to be fed or fostered lest it be destroyed. In the second place, man’s chief pursuit is to aim at progress in good―and this is the pursuit of the proficient, whose chief aim is to strengthen their charity by adding to it. While man’s third pursuit is to aim chiefly at union with and enjoyment of God―this belongs to the perfect, who desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ.
“In like manner we observe in objects in motion―that at first there is withdrawal and departure from one place, then there is the approach to the other place, and thirdly, the arrival at the other place. All these distinct degrees― the beginning, the middle, and the end―can be seen in the increase of charity.
“Although those who are beginners in charity may progress, yet the chief care that besets them is to resist the sins which disturb them by their attacks. Afterwards, however, when they come to feel this attack less, they begin to tend to perfection with greater security―yet with one hand doing the work of perfection, and with the other holding the sword to defend oneself against the attacks of sin and temptation.
“Even the perfect make progress in charity―but this is not their chief care, for their aim is principally directed towards union with God. And though both the beginner and the proficient also seek this, yet their principal care is chiefly about other things―with the beginner it is about avoiding sin; and with the proficient it is about progressing in virtue.”
(Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 24, article 9)
Step by Step―Degree by Degree
There are degrees of HOW MUCH we want something. We see this in the words of Our Lord to the young man who had many possessions. The young man WANTED to go to Heaven, but he also WANTED TO DO THE MINIMUM to get there. To his question on what he had to DO to get there, Our Lord said: “If you WANT to enter into life, keep the commandments!” (Matthew 19:17). The young man replied that he had kept the commandments since his childhood―which shows him to have the minimum level of charity: “If you love Me, keep My commandments!” (John 14:15). But then Our Lord tries to encourage him from merely doing the MINUMUM into doing the MAXIMUM, in other words to increase his desire, to increase his want. “Jesus said to him: ‘If you WANT to be perfect, go sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions.” (Matthew 19:21-22).
Do I WANT to give myself entirely to Jesus through Mary? Do I REALLY WANT to give myself to them? Or am I attached to myself and the world so much, that what I am REALLY WANTING is to both save my soul, yet still remain attached to myself and things of this life? This is the case with most people! They are primarily concerned about themselves and the world, they want dual-citizenship! They want to be ‘good’ citizens of the world, and ‘good’ citizens of Heaven. Yet Our Lord said: “No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the raiment?” (Matthew 6:24-25).
We all know the saying: “He who desires the end, must necessarily desire the means to that end!” We know that is true in theory, just like we know we cannot serve God and mammon in theory; but, in practice, are we seeking to do the opposite? Like most of the world, WE WANT THINGS FOR FREE! We want to get to Heaven; we want to avoid Hell; we want to save our souls—but we don’t want to do ALL that it takes to get there! We want a discount; we want a reduced fare; we want a ‘freebie’ if at all possible! This is what the young man with many possessions wanted, and he could not bring himself round to sacrificing what Jesus asked for! It says in the Gospel that Jesus LOVED him! He must have sensed Jesus’ love in some way; yet he preferred his petty possessions (creatures) to Jesus (the Creator).
It is well worth quoting the Gospel passage of the encounter between Jesus and the rich young man: “And behold, a certain rich young man, a ruler, running up and kneeling before Him, asked Him: ‘Good Master, what shall I do that I may receive life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he was very rich and had great possessions. And Jesus, seeing him become sorrowful, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (combined account of Matthew 19:16-24; Mark 10:17-23; Luke 18:18-25).
Sadly, most of us are the same―devoted to a degree, but not devoted enough! We want to serve God and mammon―we want to go to Heaven but also enjoys the pleasures, riches and delights of Earth. The gospel that the world preaches is fittingly summarized by St. Louis de Montfort in his description of the worldly folk: “The world’s group is the devil’s in fact, which is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendid in dress. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded, although they are broad and ever broadening with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver. The worldlings rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure!’ they shout, ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat! Let us drink! Let us sing! Let us dance! Let us play! God is good! He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples! We shall not die!’ And so they continue.” (St. Louis de Montfort, Letter to the Friends of the Cross).
Sadly, most of us are the same―devoted to a degree, but not devoted enough! We want to serve God and mammon―we want to go to Heaven but also enjoys the pleasures, riches and delights of Earth. We may even ask the same question as Jesus’ followers asked, who had witnessed the encounter with the rich young man: “The disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’” (Matthew 19:25). Jesus replied: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:28). So, the good news is that IF WE NO LONGER WANT TO BE LIKE THAT; IF WE WANT TO CHANGE, even though we may FEEL powerless to change, then Jesus, through His Holy Mother, will bring about that miracle of grace within you. You have to WANT and you have to ASK! The grace will then come to help you DO, not without any pain, but it will help you with the pain too!
Perfect Charity Guarantees Salvation
Speaking of pain―the Cross of Christ can change and perfect your weak Charity to the point where salvation can almost be guaranteed―if you carry with great love. In his Letter to the Friends of the Cross, in the section entitled “Fourteen Rules for Carrying the Cross”, St. Louis de Montfort, for the Ninth Rule, states:
“The love you are told to have for the Cross is not sensible love, for this would be impossible to human nature. It is important to note the three kinds of love: sensible love, rational love and love that is faithful and supreme; in other words, the love that springs from the lower part of man, the flesh; the love that springs from the superior part, his reason; and the love that springs from the supreme part of man, from the summit of his soul, which is the intellect enlightened by Faith.
“God does not ask you to love the Cross with the will of the flesh. Since the flesh is the subject of evil and corruption, all that proceeds from it is evil and it cannot, of itself, submit to the will of God and His crucifying law. It was this aspect of His human nature which Our Lord referred to when He cried out, in the Garden of Olives: ‘Father―not My will, but Thine be done!’ (Luke 22:42). If the lower powers of Our Lord’s human nature, though holy, could not love the Cross without interruption, then with still greater reason, will our human nature, which is very much vitiated, repel it. At times, like many of the saints, we too may experience a feeling of even sensible joy in our sufferings, but that joy does not come from the flesh though it is in the flesh. It flows from our superior powers, so completely filled with the divine joy of the Holy Ghost, that it spreads to our lower powers. Thus a person who is undergoing the most unbearable torture is able to say: ‘My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God!’ (Ps. 83:3).
“There is another love for the Cross which I call rational, since it springs from the higher part of man, his reason. This love is wholly spiritual. Since it arises from the knowledge of the happiness there is in suffering for God, it can be and really is perceived by the soul. It also gives the soul inward strength and joy. Though this rational and perceptible joy is beneficial, even very beneficial, it is not an indispensable part of joyous, divine suffering.
“This is why there is another love, which the masters of the spiritual life call the love of the summit and highest point of the soul and which the philosophers call the love of the intellect. When we possess this love, even though we experience no sensible joy or rational pleasure, we love and relish, in the light of pure faith, the cross we must bear, even though the lower part of our nature may often be in a state of warfare and alarm and may moan and groan, weep and sigh for relief and thus we repeat with Jesus Christ: ‘Father―not My will, but Thine be done!’ (Luke 22:42), or with the Blessed Virgin: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord―be it done to me according to Thy word!’ (Luke 1:38). It is with one of these two higher loves that we should accept and love our cross.” (St. Louis de Montfort, Letter to the Friends of the Cross).
Carrying the cross with perfect love is a guarantee of salvation―just like sorrow for sin with perfect contrition (sorrow based on a deep love of God and not just a fear of Him) can wipe away, not only the guilt of mortal and venial sin, but also all the punishment that is due to debt incurred by those sins. In other words, with an act of perfect contrition a soul can enter Heaven without the need of paying its debts in the fires of Purgatory. Our Lord indicated this when He said of the great sinner, Mary Magdalen: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much!” (Luke 7:47) ― to which Holy Scripture adds: “Charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12). “Before all things, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves―for charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).
On Calvary, three crosses were on display―Our Lord’s cross and the crosses of the two robbers. One of the robbers―whom we today affectionately call “The Good Thief” whom Tradition tells us was called Dismas―by the humble acceptance of his cross and fate, managed to steal Heaven as his final act of stealing! “One of those robbers, who were hanging on the cross, blasphemed Jesus, saying: ‘If thou be Christ, save Thyself and us!’ But the other robber answering, rebuked him, saying: ‘Do you not fear God, seeing you art condemned under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds―but this man hath done no evil!’ And he said to Jesus: ‘Lord! Remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day you shall be with Me in paradise!’” (Luke 23:39-43). It was not the cross that saved him, but his love of Jesus and his love of the cross through which he was justly paying for sins.
Though already quoted above―these saintly quotes deserve mention again in this context: “He who wishes to love God does not truly love Him if he has not an ardent and constant desire to suffer for His sake!” says St. Aloysius Gonzaga. “Whoever loves does all things without suffering, or, if he is suffering, he loves his suffering!” adds St. Augustine. To this, St. Bernard further adds: “Under the influence of fear, we bear the Cross of Christ with patience. Under the more inspiring influence of hope, we carry the Cross with a firm and valiant heart. But under the consuming power of love, we embrace the Cross with ardor.” Whereas St. Margaret Mary Alacoque stresses: “The Heart of Jesus desires to be everything to the heart that It loves. But that will only be by suffering for Him!”
In case we wishfully think and imagine that there is some other way to Heaven―let us remind ourselves of Our Lord’s own words: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23). Come after Him? To where? To Heaven of course! … “And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that does not take up his cross, and does not follow Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … Yet He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! … But the worldlings, in their lukewarmness, are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … They do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! … To those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation.”
Simon of Cyrene was forced to help Jesus carry His cross to Calvary! He did not volunteer―he was suddenly dragged out of the crowd by the Roman soldiers and forced to take the cross of Jesus upon his own shoulders! There is no doubt that he was shocked and angry at being forced to undergo this suffering and humiliation. He was probably cursing his luck at being in the wrong place at the wrong time―but with God’s Providence there is never a wrong place and wrong time. What Simon started off hating, ended up being something he eventually loved―you can be sure that his encounter with Jesus and the grace of Jesus saw to that! Simon ended up becoming St. Simon and ended up in Heaven!
There are many times when we―like Simon―resent being picked out of the crowd and being forced to carry a cross we were not looking for, a cross that we never expected, and a cross that we resented! Yet―if we are to call ourselves devoted Christians―we have to say with Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt!” (Matthew 26:39). God knows best and He knows the best way to save your soul and get you to Heaven! As Simon of Cyrene grew in devotion under the cross of Christ―so too must we grown in devotion under the cross of Christ! There is no other way to Heaven than the Way of the Cross! Just as Our Lady accompanied Our Lord on His Way of the Cross, she will also accompany you on your Way of the Cross!
Article 7
Monday August 14th, 2023, the Vigil of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven
Tuesday August 15th, 2023, Feast of the Assumption
Hope For Heaven Your Home!
Monday August 14th, 2023, the Vigil of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven
Tuesday August 15th, 2023, Feast of the Assumption
Hope For Heaven Your Home!
Hopeless in Defining Hope!
Hope is perhaps the most difficult of the three theological virtues to understand. Our knowledge about the theological virtue of Hope is hopeless! We might know how to spell the word, but we know precious little about it! Faith and Charity are far better known, grasped and understood. Even St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, devotes less time to Hope than he does to Faith and Charity. He devotes 16 questions (sections) to Faith, 24 questions (sections) to Charity, but only 6 questions (sections) to Hope. Is there any hope for Hope? Hopefully! For without hope there is no hope!
The Dictionary defines “Hope” as follows: “Noun: a desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment―as in, “I hope it does not rain today!”; someone or something on which the expectation of fulfillment or success is placed―as in, “I hope that you will be able to help me!”; Verb: to cherish a desire with anticipation; to want something to happen or be true―as in, “I am hoping to get to Heaven!”; to place trust in; to rely upon.”
Hope or the act of hoping can have different objects and different ways. There is what we could call natural hope―whereby hope is placed upon natural things. There is also a superior kind of hope―supernatural Hope―whereby hope is placed in things above and outside the natural sphere. We can hope in our own strength, knowledge, skills and efforts―or we can hope in the strength, knowledge, skills and efforts of others. We can hope in material or human resources―men, tools, weapons, books, internet, AI or whatever else. We can also hope in God and His divine resources―Grace, Divine Providence, His Mercy, Angels, Saints, etc. Common sense (which is no longer all that common) would tell us that it is wiser to hope in God than men; upon the supernatural than the merely natural; upon the spiritual more than the material.
The Facts of Life
Hope is a theological virtue which means that this supernatural gift comes from God and leads us back to God. Hope helps us desire God and helps us desire those things that will lead to God and Heaven. We receive the supernatural gift of hope from God in Baptism. Hope allows the possibility for Christians to trust in God, especially with things that seem difficult or impossible to receive, such as salvation.
The simple robust Penny Catechism lays down the basics for life in Question 2: “Why did God make you? God made me to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in Heaven.” In Question 8 it says: “What must you do to save your soul? To save my soul I must worship God by Faith, Hope and Charity―that is, I must believe in Him, I must hope in Him, and I must love Him with my whole heart.” In Questions 135 to 138, the Penny Catechism further states: “Will Faith alone save us? Faith alone will not save us without good works―we must also have Hope and Charity. What is Hope? Hope is a supernatural gift of God, by which we firmly trust that God will give us eternal life and all means necessary to obtain it, if we do what he requires of us. Why must we hope in God? We must hope in God because he is infinitely good, infinitely powerful, and faithful to his promises. Can we do any good work of ourselves towards our salvation? We can do no good work of ourselves towards our salvation―we need the help of God's grace.” Thus it was that Jesus said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
Yet that does not mean that Jesus is going to do everything for us, while just sit back, munch on snacks and twiddle our thumbs! Jesus also tells us that we must work with Him, we must play our part―He is the Master and we are the apprentices. The apprentice does not stand by idly watching his Master work all day long! The apprentice has work to do―and the Master will set him to work and oversee that work, ensuring that it is done correctly.
The “Sit-Sip-Stare-Sola” Spirituality!
Based upon the Scriptural passage: “By grace you are saved through Faith, and not of yourselves―for it is the gift of God―not of works, so that no man may glory!” (Ephesians 2:8-9), many Protestants proclaim and prize the saying: “Faith alone!” (Latin: Sola Fide!) which leads to offspring sayings such as: “Just believe in Jesus and you are saved!” … “Justified by Faith alone!” As one Protestant website says: “Grace alone means that God loves, forgives, and saves us not because of who we are or what we do, but because of the work of Christ. Our best efforts can never be good enough to earn salvation, but God declares us righteous for Christ’s sake. We receive that grace through Faith alone. God even gives us the Faith that trusts Him. We are not saved by obeying a list of do’s and don’ts, but by grace through Faith in Christ. Our salvation is in God’s hands.”
This misguided, misstated, mistaken mantra that preaches that God saves us ― “not because of who we are or what we do; … our best efforts can never be good enough to earn salvation; … we are not saved by obeying a list of do’s and don’ts” ― this mentality easily leads people into an indifference to sin, indifference to penance for sin, indifference to the practice of virtue, etc. If all that does not matter―then why bother thinking about it and doing it? Jesus saves! That is all that matters―believe that and you are saved! Faith is supreme! Just flick-on Faith like a switch―and you are switched from sinner to saint! Great, huh? Thus it was that Martin Luther, the chief lynchpin of the Protestant Reformation (Revolution), wrote: “Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong [or sin boldly], but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world!” All you have to do is sit, sip, sin, and stare at the “solas”! Getting to Heaven just couldn’t get any easier than that!
The “Faith Alone” principle is just one part of the “Five Solas” of the Protestants. The “Five Solas” are specific Latin slogans that emerged from the Protestant Reformation which take doctrinal positions that stand in opposition to the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Those “five sola” slogans are:
● Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone or Solely Scripture)
● Sola Gratia (Grace Alone or Solely Grace)
● Sola Fide (Faith Alone or Solely Faith)
● Solus Christus (Christ Alone or Solely Christ)
● Soli Deo Gloria (To God Alone Be Glory or Solely To God Be Glory)
Sola Stultitia
Perhaps there is one “Sola” missing from the above list of “Five Solas” ― you could add “Sola Stultitia” (Stupidity Alone or Solely Stupid), which would aptly describe the stupidity of soul that accepts and holds onto such stupid doctrines. It is Stupidity Alone that believes such false principles―which can be debunked in a couple of minutes using those very same “solas” by relying upon “Scripture Alone” and “Christ Alone”.
► FAITH ALONE: The foolish statement that “Faith Alone” saves souls is patently ridiculous as is shown by the following quotes from “Scripture Alone”. The Protestants stupidly take just one quote that suits them and ignore or sweep under the carpet those quotes that contradict their foolishness. Hence they have thrown out seven books of the Old Testament that risk embarrassing their faulty theological principles. The “Faith Alone” Scripture reference is: “By grace you are saved through Faith” (Ephesians 2:8). If we really wanted, we could add lots of other quotes from Scripture that would seem to uphold this false Protestant principle―so let us do so, for there is nothing to fear from the truth! Here are some that they could use to bolster their false “Faith Alone” argument:
Jesus said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). In other words, without Me you cannot save your soul and get to Heaven. Elsewhere Jesus says: “He that believes shall be saved―but he that does not believe shall be condemned!” (Mark 16:16) … “This is the work of God―that you believe in Him Whom He has sent!” (John 6:29). Wow! Pretty convincing, huh? How about this next one? Jesus said to Nicodemus: “The Son of man Who is in Heaven descended from Heaven, that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish but may have life everlasting! For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; so that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting! For God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him! He that believes in Him is not judged!” (John 3:13-18). Wow! Are the Protestants right? Just believe and you are saved?
Unfortunately, that is not the case and the Protestants are way off track―it is not the track to Heaven that they are walking! The “left-over” books of Holy Scripture that Protestantism has not thrown-out are more than enough to dispel this wishful thinking of Protestantism. You cannot take just a likeable part of Holy Scripture and willfully ignore the parts that you don’t like! Holy Scripture is one cohesive whole! It is much like a sentence that someone writes―you have take the whole sentence; you cannot just pick and choose some of the words. For example, take the sentence: “If the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and be converted from his ways; and keep all My commandments; and do judgment and justice―then I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done, and living he shall live and shall not die, saith the Lord God” (Ezechiel 18:21-24). If you refuse to take all that is said, and pick and choose only what you want, then you can make the sentence say: “The wicked … shall live and not die … I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done, saith the Lord God” ― entirely throwing away the parts that require that the wicked man “do penance for all his sins, be converted from his ways; keep all commandments; and do judgment and justice.”
Faith Alone is Going Nowhere!
So here are the missing parts that the “Faith Alone” followers fail to take into consideration―this is not rocket-science, or deep theology―it is simply looking at Scripture quotes which are usually pretty simple and self-evident:
Yes―Faith saves, but not Faith alone. Scripture, besides saying “By grace you are saved through Faith” (Ephesians 2:8) and “He that believes shall be saved!” (Mark 16:16), also says things like: “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith! Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … Do you see that by works a man is justified―and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26).
Yes―“Without Faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6), but Scripture points out that among the three theological virtues―Faith, Hope and Charity―it is not Faith that is the greatest, but Charity: “There remain Faith, Hope, and Charity, these three―but the greatest of these is Charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13). In the same Epistle and chapter, St. Paul points out that Faith without Charity is useless: “If I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:2). What is Charity? Charity is more than mere believing ― Charity is all about doing: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words … If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love … This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you” (John 14:15, 14:21-24; 15:10; 15:12). “For this is the charity of God―that we keep His commandments!” (1 John 5:3).
Keeping His commandments goes beyond believing in His commandments. “Keeping” entails doing something―it means work; it means keeping away from occasions of sin; it means fighting temptations; it means praying for grace to be able to keep them! That shoots down the earlier Protestant quote: “We are not saved by obeying a list of do’s and don’ts!” It is not “Faith Alone” that saves, but Faith and Works that save―yet any works that we do must be done through the grace of God which Christ has obtained for us.
Yes―as the Protestants keep insisting: “He saved us―not by the works of justice which we have done―but according to his mercy” (Titus 3:5). However, this simply means that we―of ourselves, by ourselves, with all the good we might do―cannot save ourselves with Christ: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Nevertheless, we have to produce works―to join them to His works―if we wish to be saved. Once again: “Faith without works is dead!” (James 2:20). Our Lord Himself said: “Let your light [works] shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:16). Lack of works leads to damnation―as is shown in the following accounts:
In the Parable about the Sheep and the Goats (the Saved and the Damned), addressing the Goats (the damned): “Then He shall say to them also that shall be on His left hand: ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels! For I was hungry, and you did not give Me to eat! I was thirsty, and you did not give Me to drink! I was a stranger, and you did not take Me in! I was naked, and you did not cover Me! I was sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me!’ Then they also shall answer Him, saying: ‘Lord! When did we see Thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to Thee?’ Then He shall answer them, saying: ‘Amen I say to you, as long as you did not do it to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me!’ And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting!” (Matthew 25:31-46). Lack of works brought them damnation!
In Holy Scripture, Jesus points out that lack of works and actions will result in damnation―despite having Faith in God: “Not everyone that says to Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that DOES [“doing” means working and producing works] the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).Hey! Those who were condemned did not only have Faith, they not only believed, but they were also prophesying, casting out demons and performing many miracles!!! Yet they were condemned!
“Faith Alone”? No way! “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12). Why? Because “every man’s work shall be manifest―for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is!” (1 Corinthians 3:13). If “Faith Alone” suffices for salvation, then all this testing by fire is a waste of fire and energy! If “Faith Alone” suffices for salvation―then forget the testing, forget the fire, forget the works―just come on in, make yourself comfortable and enjoy Heaven for eternity, no questions asked!
Assuming You Are Assumed Into Heaven
Do you want to go to Heaven? Of course you do! If not, you want to go to a psychiatrist! Who the hell wants to go to Hell? Or even Purgatory for that matter! St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that the fires of Purgatory are the same fires as those of Hell! Not even those who like a warm climate should want to go Purgatory if there is a better option available! If you have doubts―then go stick your hand over a flame for a moment and see if you want to endure flames many times hotter for years and years in Purgatory! Only someone who is insane would want that kind of situation! Yet, “the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15).
Do you want to go to Heaven? Well, it is not by “Faith Alone” that you will get there! You need to roll up your sleeves and do some serious work! As Our Lord said: “I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) … “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Thus Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “My most holy Son and myself are trying to find some soul, whom We can instruct in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom which rejects the salutary discipline of sufferings. If you wish to be Our disciple, then enter into this school―in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment―nor do I count anyone as a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good. Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, and willingly enter upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, and to carry it after Christ. Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Hoping for Heaven
Hope is not meant to be a do-nothing-just-watch, idle, lazy, passive virtue. Hope is meant to lead to action. Just as “Faith without works is dead!” (James 2:20), likewise Hope without works is also dead (or hopelessly dead!). If you like, Faith points out the road to Heaven―but Hope must set out on that road to Heaven. Heaven will not come to us―we must go to Heaven. Sitting around and doing little or nothing about it will not get us to Heaven―it might get us part of way there, but that is still failure. Hope without action is mere wishful thinking! Hope is a start―but hope needs action to win victories. Hope is a spark that needs to produce a fire―you could say, the fire of love or charity. Theologians tell us that imperfect Hope leads to Charity, and then that Charity perfects the imperfect Hope.
Do not doubt that God wants to have you reach Heaven. “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool” (Isaias 1:18). Our Lord Himself said: “For God so loved the world, as to give His only-begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him!” (John 3:16-17). “Go then and learn what this means: ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice!’ For I am not come to call the just―but sinners!” (Matthew 9:13) … “They that are well have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. For I came not to call the just, but sinners!” (Mark 2:17) … “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32).
St. Alphonsus Liguori says: “God, as the Apostle Paul says, ‘wants all men to be saved,’ (1 Timothy 2:4); but He also wishes us all to labor for our own salvation―at least by adopting the means of overcoming our enemies, and of obeying Him when He calls us to repentance. Sinners hear the calls of God, but they forget them, and continue to offend Him. God is ready to heal those who sincerely wish to amend their lives, but cannot take pity on the obstinate sinner. The Lord pardons sins, but He cannot pardon those who are determined to offend Him.”
Entrust Your Hopes to Our Lady
As regards getting to Heaven, Our Lady hopes for you more than you do for yourself! Put your hopes in Our Lady and her intercessory help. She herself said to St. Bridget of Sweden: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on Earth a sinner who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion―for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed [by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned], is so entirely cast-off by God, that he may not return and enjoy His mercy, if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them.” And then Our Lady concluded by saying: “Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners! … As a mother who sees her son exposed to the sword of the enemy, makes every effort to save him―so do I, and will I ever do, for my children, sinful though they be, if they come to me for help!”
That is why some of the greatest saints tell us that, without Mary intercession, we have little hope of salvation―because God and Our Lord have ruled that we must go to Them through Their masterpiece, which is the Blessed Virgin Mary. Christ gave us to her and her to us as He died on the Cross: “Mother―behold thy son! … Son―behold thy Mother!” (John 19:26-27). At Fatima, Our Lady stated: “Jesus wants to use you to make me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world … You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved!”
Our Blessed Mother holds such a place in the economy of our redemption that some do not hesitate to state that devotion to her is a necessary condition of salvation.
“They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish!” (St. Albert the Great, Doctor of the Church).
“They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation!” (St. Bonaventure, Doctor of the Church)
“A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost!” (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Father of the Church).
If a lack of devotion to her is a mark of eternal reprobation a constant love for her must be a sign of eternal salvation. Many spiritual writers state that devotion to Mary is a sign of predestination.
“It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church).
“He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost!” (St. Anselm, Doctor of the Church).
“As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified!” (St. Antonine).
Hope is perhaps the most difficult of the three theological virtues to understand. Our knowledge about the theological virtue of Hope is hopeless! We might know how to spell the word, but we know precious little about it! Faith and Charity are far better known, grasped and understood. Even St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, devotes less time to Hope than he does to Faith and Charity. He devotes 16 questions (sections) to Faith, 24 questions (sections) to Charity, but only 6 questions (sections) to Hope. Is there any hope for Hope? Hopefully! For without hope there is no hope!
The Dictionary defines “Hope” as follows: “Noun: a desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment―as in, “I hope it does not rain today!”; someone or something on which the expectation of fulfillment or success is placed―as in, “I hope that you will be able to help me!”; Verb: to cherish a desire with anticipation; to want something to happen or be true―as in, “I am hoping to get to Heaven!”; to place trust in; to rely upon.”
Hope or the act of hoping can have different objects and different ways. There is what we could call natural hope―whereby hope is placed upon natural things. There is also a superior kind of hope―supernatural Hope―whereby hope is placed in things above and outside the natural sphere. We can hope in our own strength, knowledge, skills and efforts―or we can hope in the strength, knowledge, skills and efforts of others. We can hope in material or human resources―men, tools, weapons, books, internet, AI or whatever else. We can also hope in God and His divine resources―Grace, Divine Providence, His Mercy, Angels, Saints, etc. Common sense (which is no longer all that common) would tell us that it is wiser to hope in God than men; upon the supernatural than the merely natural; upon the spiritual more than the material.
The Facts of Life
Hope is a theological virtue which means that this supernatural gift comes from God and leads us back to God. Hope helps us desire God and helps us desire those things that will lead to God and Heaven. We receive the supernatural gift of hope from God in Baptism. Hope allows the possibility for Christians to trust in God, especially with things that seem difficult or impossible to receive, such as salvation.
The simple robust Penny Catechism lays down the basics for life in Question 2: “Why did God make you? God made me to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in Heaven.” In Question 8 it says: “What must you do to save your soul? To save my soul I must worship God by Faith, Hope and Charity―that is, I must believe in Him, I must hope in Him, and I must love Him with my whole heart.” In Questions 135 to 138, the Penny Catechism further states: “Will Faith alone save us? Faith alone will not save us without good works―we must also have Hope and Charity. What is Hope? Hope is a supernatural gift of God, by which we firmly trust that God will give us eternal life and all means necessary to obtain it, if we do what he requires of us. Why must we hope in God? We must hope in God because he is infinitely good, infinitely powerful, and faithful to his promises. Can we do any good work of ourselves towards our salvation? We can do no good work of ourselves towards our salvation―we need the help of God's grace.” Thus it was that Jesus said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
Yet that does not mean that Jesus is going to do everything for us, while just sit back, munch on snacks and twiddle our thumbs! Jesus also tells us that we must work with Him, we must play our part―He is the Master and we are the apprentices. The apprentice does not stand by idly watching his Master work all day long! The apprentice has work to do―and the Master will set him to work and oversee that work, ensuring that it is done correctly.
The “Sit-Sip-Stare-Sola” Spirituality!
Based upon the Scriptural passage: “By grace you are saved through Faith, and not of yourselves―for it is the gift of God―not of works, so that no man may glory!” (Ephesians 2:8-9), many Protestants proclaim and prize the saying: “Faith alone!” (Latin: Sola Fide!) which leads to offspring sayings such as: “Just believe in Jesus and you are saved!” … “Justified by Faith alone!” As one Protestant website says: “Grace alone means that God loves, forgives, and saves us not because of who we are or what we do, but because of the work of Christ. Our best efforts can never be good enough to earn salvation, but God declares us righteous for Christ’s sake. We receive that grace through Faith alone. God even gives us the Faith that trusts Him. We are not saved by obeying a list of do’s and don’ts, but by grace through Faith in Christ. Our salvation is in God’s hands.”
This misguided, misstated, mistaken mantra that preaches that God saves us ― “not because of who we are or what we do; … our best efforts can never be good enough to earn salvation; … we are not saved by obeying a list of do’s and don’ts” ― this mentality easily leads people into an indifference to sin, indifference to penance for sin, indifference to the practice of virtue, etc. If all that does not matter―then why bother thinking about it and doing it? Jesus saves! That is all that matters―believe that and you are saved! Faith is supreme! Just flick-on Faith like a switch―and you are switched from sinner to saint! Great, huh? Thus it was that Martin Luther, the chief lynchpin of the Protestant Reformation (Revolution), wrote: “Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong [or sin boldly], but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world!” All you have to do is sit, sip, sin, and stare at the “solas”! Getting to Heaven just couldn’t get any easier than that!
The “Faith Alone” principle is just one part of the “Five Solas” of the Protestants. The “Five Solas” are specific Latin slogans that emerged from the Protestant Reformation which take doctrinal positions that stand in opposition to the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Those “five sola” slogans are:
● Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone or Solely Scripture)
● Sola Gratia (Grace Alone or Solely Grace)
● Sola Fide (Faith Alone or Solely Faith)
● Solus Christus (Christ Alone or Solely Christ)
● Soli Deo Gloria (To God Alone Be Glory or Solely To God Be Glory)
Sola Stultitia
Perhaps there is one “Sola” missing from the above list of “Five Solas” ― you could add “Sola Stultitia” (Stupidity Alone or Solely Stupid), which would aptly describe the stupidity of soul that accepts and holds onto such stupid doctrines. It is Stupidity Alone that believes such false principles―which can be debunked in a couple of minutes using those very same “solas” by relying upon “Scripture Alone” and “Christ Alone”.
► FAITH ALONE: The foolish statement that “Faith Alone” saves souls is patently ridiculous as is shown by the following quotes from “Scripture Alone”. The Protestants stupidly take just one quote that suits them and ignore or sweep under the carpet those quotes that contradict their foolishness. Hence they have thrown out seven books of the Old Testament that risk embarrassing their faulty theological principles. The “Faith Alone” Scripture reference is: “By grace you are saved through Faith” (Ephesians 2:8). If we really wanted, we could add lots of other quotes from Scripture that would seem to uphold this false Protestant principle―so let us do so, for there is nothing to fear from the truth! Here are some that they could use to bolster their false “Faith Alone” argument:
Jesus said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). In other words, without Me you cannot save your soul and get to Heaven. Elsewhere Jesus says: “He that believes shall be saved―but he that does not believe shall be condemned!” (Mark 16:16) … “This is the work of God―that you believe in Him Whom He has sent!” (John 6:29). Wow! Pretty convincing, huh? How about this next one? Jesus said to Nicodemus: “The Son of man Who is in Heaven descended from Heaven, that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish but may have life everlasting! For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; so that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting! For God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him! He that believes in Him is not judged!” (John 3:13-18). Wow! Are the Protestants right? Just believe and you are saved?
Unfortunately, that is not the case and the Protestants are way off track―it is not the track to Heaven that they are walking! The “left-over” books of Holy Scripture that Protestantism has not thrown-out are more than enough to dispel this wishful thinking of Protestantism. You cannot take just a likeable part of Holy Scripture and willfully ignore the parts that you don’t like! Holy Scripture is one cohesive whole! It is much like a sentence that someone writes―you have take the whole sentence; you cannot just pick and choose some of the words. For example, take the sentence: “If the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and be converted from his ways; and keep all My commandments; and do judgment and justice―then I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done, and living he shall live and shall not die, saith the Lord God” (Ezechiel 18:21-24). If you refuse to take all that is said, and pick and choose only what you want, then you can make the sentence say: “The wicked … shall live and not die … I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done, saith the Lord God” ― entirely throwing away the parts that require that the wicked man “do penance for all his sins, be converted from his ways; keep all commandments; and do judgment and justice.”
Faith Alone is Going Nowhere!
So here are the missing parts that the “Faith Alone” followers fail to take into consideration―this is not rocket-science, or deep theology―it is simply looking at Scripture quotes which are usually pretty simple and self-evident:
Yes―Faith saves, but not Faith alone. Scripture, besides saying “By grace you are saved through Faith” (Ephesians 2:8) and “He that believes shall be saved!” (Mark 16:16), also says things like: “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith! Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … Do you see that by works a man is justified―and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26).
Yes―“Without Faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6), but Scripture points out that among the three theological virtues―Faith, Hope and Charity―it is not Faith that is the greatest, but Charity: “There remain Faith, Hope, and Charity, these three―but the greatest of these is Charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13). In the same Epistle and chapter, St. Paul points out that Faith without Charity is useless: “If I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:2). What is Charity? Charity is more than mere believing ― Charity is all about doing: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words … If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love … This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you” (John 14:15, 14:21-24; 15:10; 15:12). “For this is the charity of God―that we keep His commandments!” (1 John 5:3).
Keeping His commandments goes beyond believing in His commandments. “Keeping” entails doing something―it means work; it means keeping away from occasions of sin; it means fighting temptations; it means praying for grace to be able to keep them! That shoots down the earlier Protestant quote: “We are not saved by obeying a list of do’s and don’ts!” It is not “Faith Alone” that saves, but Faith and Works that save―yet any works that we do must be done through the grace of God which Christ has obtained for us.
Yes―as the Protestants keep insisting: “He saved us―not by the works of justice which we have done―but according to his mercy” (Titus 3:5). However, this simply means that we―of ourselves, by ourselves, with all the good we might do―cannot save ourselves with Christ: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Nevertheless, we have to produce works―to join them to His works―if we wish to be saved. Once again: “Faith without works is dead!” (James 2:20). Our Lord Himself said: “Let your light [works] shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:16). Lack of works leads to damnation―as is shown in the following accounts:
In the Parable about the Sheep and the Goats (the Saved and the Damned), addressing the Goats (the damned): “Then He shall say to them also that shall be on His left hand: ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels! For I was hungry, and you did not give Me to eat! I was thirsty, and you did not give Me to drink! I was a stranger, and you did not take Me in! I was naked, and you did not cover Me! I was sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me!’ Then they also shall answer Him, saying: ‘Lord! When did we see Thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to Thee?’ Then He shall answer them, saying: ‘Amen I say to you, as long as you did not do it to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me!’ And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting!” (Matthew 25:31-46). Lack of works brought them damnation!
In Holy Scripture, Jesus points out that lack of works and actions will result in damnation―despite having Faith in God: “Not everyone that says to Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that DOES [“doing” means working and producing works] the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).Hey! Those who were condemned did not only have Faith, they not only believed, but they were also prophesying, casting out demons and performing many miracles!!! Yet they were condemned!
“Faith Alone”? No way! “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12). Why? Because “every man’s work shall be manifest―for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is!” (1 Corinthians 3:13). If “Faith Alone” suffices for salvation, then all this testing by fire is a waste of fire and energy! If “Faith Alone” suffices for salvation―then forget the testing, forget the fire, forget the works―just come on in, make yourself comfortable and enjoy Heaven for eternity, no questions asked!
Assuming You Are Assumed Into Heaven
Do you want to go to Heaven? Of course you do! If not, you want to go to a psychiatrist! Who the hell wants to go to Hell? Or even Purgatory for that matter! St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that the fires of Purgatory are the same fires as those of Hell! Not even those who like a warm climate should want to go Purgatory if there is a better option available! If you have doubts―then go stick your hand over a flame for a moment and see if you want to endure flames many times hotter for years and years in Purgatory! Only someone who is insane would want that kind of situation! Yet, “the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15).
Do you want to go to Heaven? Well, it is not by “Faith Alone” that you will get there! You need to roll up your sleeves and do some serious work! As Our Lord said: “I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) … “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Thus Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “My most holy Son and myself are trying to find some soul, whom We can instruct in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom which rejects the salutary discipline of sufferings. If you wish to be Our disciple, then enter into this school―in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment―nor do I count anyone as a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good. Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, and willingly enter upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, and to carry it after Christ. Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Hoping for Heaven
Hope is not meant to be a do-nothing-just-watch, idle, lazy, passive virtue. Hope is meant to lead to action. Just as “Faith without works is dead!” (James 2:20), likewise Hope without works is also dead (or hopelessly dead!). If you like, Faith points out the road to Heaven―but Hope must set out on that road to Heaven. Heaven will not come to us―we must go to Heaven. Sitting around and doing little or nothing about it will not get us to Heaven―it might get us part of way there, but that is still failure. Hope without action is mere wishful thinking! Hope is a start―but hope needs action to win victories. Hope is a spark that needs to produce a fire―you could say, the fire of love or charity. Theologians tell us that imperfect Hope leads to Charity, and then that Charity perfects the imperfect Hope.
Do not doubt that God wants to have you reach Heaven. “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool” (Isaias 1:18). Our Lord Himself said: “For God so loved the world, as to give His only-begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him!” (John 3:16-17). “Go then and learn what this means: ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice!’ For I am not come to call the just―but sinners!” (Matthew 9:13) … “They that are well have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. For I came not to call the just, but sinners!” (Mark 2:17) … “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32).
St. Alphonsus Liguori says: “God, as the Apostle Paul says, ‘wants all men to be saved,’ (1 Timothy 2:4); but He also wishes us all to labor for our own salvation―at least by adopting the means of overcoming our enemies, and of obeying Him when He calls us to repentance. Sinners hear the calls of God, but they forget them, and continue to offend Him. God is ready to heal those who sincerely wish to amend their lives, but cannot take pity on the obstinate sinner. The Lord pardons sins, but He cannot pardon those who are determined to offend Him.”
Entrust Your Hopes to Our Lady
As regards getting to Heaven, Our Lady hopes for you more than you do for yourself! Put your hopes in Our Lady and her intercessory help. She herself said to St. Bridget of Sweden: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on Earth a sinner who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion―for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed [by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned], is so entirely cast-off by God, that he may not return and enjoy His mercy, if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them.” And then Our Lady concluded by saying: “Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners! … As a mother who sees her son exposed to the sword of the enemy, makes every effort to save him―so do I, and will I ever do, for my children, sinful though they be, if they come to me for help!”
That is why some of the greatest saints tell us that, without Mary intercession, we have little hope of salvation―because God and Our Lord have ruled that we must go to Them through Their masterpiece, which is the Blessed Virgin Mary. Christ gave us to her and her to us as He died on the Cross: “Mother―behold thy son! … Son―behold thy Mother!” (John 19:26-27). At Fatima, Our Lady stated: “Jesus wants to use you to make me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world … You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved!”
Our Blessed Mother holds such a place in the economy of our redemption that some do not hesitate to state that devotion to her is a necessary condition of salvation.
“They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish!” (St. Albert the Great, Doctor of the Church).
“They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation!” (St. Bonaventure, Doctor of the Church)
“A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost!” (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Father of the Church).
If a lack of devotion to her is a mark of eternal reprobation a constant love for her must be a sign of eternal salvation. Many spiritual writers state that devotion to Mary is a sign of predestination.
“It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church).
“He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost!” (St. Anselm, Doctor of the Church).
“As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified!” (St. Antonine).
Article 6
Saturday August 12th & Sunday August 13th, 2023
Your Assumption or Presumption
Saturday August 12th & Sunday August 13th, 2023
Your Assumption or Presumption
It Happens to Everyone!
Assumption or Ascension, Presumption or Pretension!!?? Death spares nobody! Death is the wage for sin: “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23) and “Every one shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16). Who dare say: “I am clean, and without sin! I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me!” (Job 33:9) … “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin!’?” (Proverbs 20:9). “All have sinned!” (Romans 3:23) ... “There is no man who sins not” (3 Kings 8:46) ... “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10). “There is no just man upon Earth that does good and sins not!” (Ecclesiastes 7:21). Therefore, if we have all sinned, then we must all die. Our Lord and Our Lady―who were not conceived, nor born with Original Sin and who committed no sins in their lifetime―also chose to pass through the doors of death! How, then, can we sinners expect to be exempt from passing through those same doors?
As we draw near to the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven (August 15th), we would do well to think about our potential “assumption” into Heaven after our death. The word “assumption” is rooted in the Latin verb “assumere”, which means “to take to oneself.” The doctrine of Mary’s Assumption teaches that Jesus took His Mother to Himself in Heaven at the end of her life, just as Henoch (Enoch) and Elias (Elijah) had been taken up body and soul, presumably to Heaven, at the end of their lives: “And Henoch walked with God, and was seen no more―because God took him” (Genesis 5:24) … “And as Elias and Eliseus went on, walking and talking together, behold a fiery chariot and fiery horses parted them both asunder―and Elias went up by a whirlwind into Heaven” (4 Kings 2:11). Neither of them died, and so neither left their bodies behind when they were taken up off this Earth by God.
It is important to understand that the Assumption of Mary is not like the Ascension of Jesus. Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven by His own power. On the other hand, Mary was taken up into Heaven―body and soul―by the power of God. The only way anyone can get into Heaven is if they are “assumed” into Heaven by God. Just as Jesus said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5)―the same is true for getting into Heaven. You cannot “ascend” into Heaven as Jesus did under His own power―you have to be “assumed” or “taken into” Heaven by God’s power. The word “assumption” comes directly from Latin “assumptionem” (“assumptio” in the nominative case), which means “a taking up, take to oneself, receiving, acceptance, adoption.” It is God who “takes you up” to Heaven; He “takes you to Himself”; He “receives you”; He “accepts you”; He “adopts you.” It is His choice, His decision, His power―not yours.
Assumption Presumption?
Is your assumption a presumption? Do you presume God will assume you into Heaven? Are you becoming, or have you become presumptuous? What is presumption? What does “being presumptuous” mean? The Dictionary defines “presumption” as “(1) an idea that is taken to be true, and often used as the basis for other ideas, although it is not known for certain; (2) behavior perceived as arrogant, disrespectful, and transgressing the limits of what is permitted or appropriate.” As for “presumptuous”, the Dictionary defines it as an adjective meaning “excessively bold or forward.” It is used to describe someone behaving in an entitled or over-familiar way―and therefore coming across as being rude or arrogant.
Are you presumptuous about getting to Heaven? Are you complacent about it―in the sense of “I am sure of getting to Heaven!” Are you of the opinion that it doesn’t really matter how much you sin―you will just confess those sins and everything will be “hunky-dory” and “fine-and-dandy”? Are you a “safe-bet” for getting into Heaven? Is it a foregone conclusion that you will get there? Apart from the Satanists, there is probably nobody who wants to go to Hell! Yet how is it that Our Lord, Our Lady, many saints and theologians tell us that most souls are damned? Yet―if you pardon the “French”, as they say―who the hell thought they would end up in Hell? The vast majority presumed that they would go to Heaven―some perhaps thought they would take in a trip to Purgatory before going to Heaven―but surely very, very few thought that they would go to Hell! Hell was a helluva surprise for them! Hell is full of surprises!
Our Lord and Holy Scripture try to dispel our presumptuous presumptions about our assumption into Heaven. They warn us with a variety of statements that should puncture our presumptuous balloons: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12). “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14). “Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leads to life―and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). “Hast thou sinned? Do so no more!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin! And say not: ‘The mercy of the Lord is great, He will have mercy on the multitude of my sins!’” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5-6).
What Leads to Hell?
They say “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions!” You could add to that: “The road to Hell is paved with plentiful presumptions!” Most of those who are the road to Hell presume the road will lead them to Heaven! “A fool will laugh at sin!” (Proverbs 14:9) … “The number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). With regard to this, Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “How many are the men who have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! … Countless numbers have fallen into Hell! … Lucifer has hurled into Hell so great a number of souls and continues so to hurl them every day! … I will not tell thee how many souls are lost, in order to not cause thee to die of sorrow at this loss! I have already told thee, that the number of those foreknown as doomed, is so great, and of those that save themselves is so small, that it is not expedient to say more in particular! Weep ceaselessly over the terrible loss sustained by so many insane and thankless souls, who are forgetful of God, of their duty and of their own selves … and lose their chance of salvation and bring upon themselves eternal damnation.”
“The neglect and contempt of bodily mortification causes the loss of many souls and bring many more into the danger of eternal loss ... Many there are who wish to follow Christ, but very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored! Worldly wisdom looks upon the person, not at the state of the souls, nor at virtue, but at outward ostentation and appearance. Each one ordinarily seeks to advance his honor and vainglory, struggling to be applauded and renowned. The learned and those who think themselves wise, wish to be applauded and looked up to, bragging about their knowledge. The unlearned try to appear wise … All of them are pursuing the same deceit of seeking to appear what they are not in fact, and fail in reality to come up to what they appear to be! … The presumption and pride of worldly wisdom is more powerful in its devotees, than humility and true self-knowledge is in the children of light!” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
Yes―it is unconfessed and unforgiven mortal sin that leads souls to Hell. Nevertheless, it is ultimately pride and presumption that leads then into mortal sin: “Pride is the beginning of all sin! He that holds it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). Their pride puts them above and beyond obediently keeping the Commandments of God; and their presumption tells them that mortal sin does not matter (and all the more so venial sin), because God will forgive them the next time they decide to confess their mortal sin(s).
The sin of presumption is the distortion and the abuse of the theological virtue of Hope. It may be defined as the condition of a soul that, because of a badly regulated reliance on God’s mercy and power, hopes for salvation without doing anything to deserve it, or for pardon of his sins without repenting of them. It is an unwarranted or habitual expectation that eternal life will be gained without God’s assistance, or that salvation will be granted regardless of one’s personal sins or one’s response to God’s grace. In other words, it is an unwarranted attitude and belief that one will enjoy salvation without seeking reconciliation and forgiveness for one’s sins and without paying the debt for sin.
As Our Lord said: “No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3-5). One cannot sin simply because God is forgiving. On this point Our Lord said to the woman caught in adultery: “‘Woman, where are they that accused thee? Has no man condemned thee?’ She said: ‘No man, Lord!’ And Jesus said: ‘Neither will I condemn thee! Go, and now sin no more!’” (John 8:3-11). To the man he cured of a 38 year long sickness, Our Lord said: “Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). In other words, do not presume upon My mercy if you stubbornly continue to sin!
One wonders how sincere a person’s love for God is when he is so readily willing to sin simply because God is forgiving. God cannot be fooled. He reads hearts and knows our sincerity. To decide to sin is to offend God. To decide to sin because one knows that he can be forgiven is to sin twice. It is to use God, reducing him to a utility at the service of our whim. It is to laugh at his passion and death. Unfortunately, most people are guilty of presumption towards God to a greater or a lesser degree. The Baltimore Catechism (QQ. 1183 & 1184) states:
“Presumption is a rash expectation of salvation without making proper use of the necessary means to obtain it. We may be guilty of presumption:
(1) By putting off confession when in a state of mortal sin;
(2) By delaying the amendment of our lives and repentance for past sins;
(3) By being indifferent about the number of times we yield to any temptation after we have once yielded and broken our resolution to resist it;
(4) By thinking we can avoid sin without avoiding its near occasion;
(5) By relying too much on ourselves and neglecting to follow the advice of our confessor in regard to the sins we confess.”
Pride and Presumption
It was Our Lady’s deep humility that led to her assumption into the heights of Heaven. Quite opposed to Our Lady’s humility and assumption, many souls find themselves seduced by the heights of pride and presumption which ultimately lead them to the depths of Hell. As Our Lady said in her Magnificat: “He [God] has regarded the humility of His handmaid … He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He has put down the mighty from their seat and has exalted the humble!” (Luke 1:48-52) ... “Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled―and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted!” (Matthew 23:12) ... “God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). “O Lord God … You humble them that presume of themselves and glory in their own strength!” (Judith 6:15). “God has seen that the presumption of their heart is wicked” (Ecclesiasticus 18:10). “O wicked presumption! Whence camest thou to cover the Earth with thy malice and deceitfulness?” (Ecclesiasticus 37:3).
Most people have neither the time nor the inclination to carefully read some of the many masterful books that exist on the spiritual life―which are really road maps to Heaven. Therefore, here are some extracts―taken from various different parts of the book―from one of those masterful books on the spiritual life―written by Fr. Adolphe Tanquerey, entitled: The Spiritual Life: A Treatise On Ascetical And Mystical Theology. The chosen extracts have been combined together into a cohesive and logical whole on the subject of pride and presumption. The following paragraphs from Fr. Tanquerey’s book, paint a clear picture of the dangers of pride and presumption!
“Adam’s sin was disobedience and pride. Pride is a profound depravity; it is the worship of self; man becomes his own god through excessive self-love. This pride is accompanied by vanity, which inordinately seeks the esteem, the approval, the praise of men. It gives rise to boasting; to speaking of self and of one’s achievements; to ostentation [showing-off] which courts the public eye with finery and display; to hypocrisy which makes a show of virtue while being careless about its practice. From a stupid pride we claim for ourselves the glory that belongs to God alone. Pride is the source of many sins―such as sins of presumption―which are punished by lamentable falls and enslavement to shameful vices; sins of dissimulation [pretense, disguise and concealment] because of the hardship of confessing certain sins; sins of resistance to superiors, of envy and jealousy towards the neighbor, etc.
“Pride makes faith [trust] in superiors and obedience to superiors difficult. One wants to be self-sufficient. The more confidence one has in one’s own judgment, then the more reluctantly does one accept the teachings of Faith, and the more easily does one submit these teachings to criticism and to personal interpretation. In like manner, one trusts one’s own wisdom so much, that it is with repugnance that others are consulted―especially superiors. We seek the satisfaction of our pride and the triumph of our ideas. That is why regrettable mistakes occur.
The Inclination to Pride is manifested in six principal ways [especially in those who are Beginners in the Spiritual Life]:
(1) Whilst aiming at fervor and remaining faithful to their spiritual exercises, these beginners take complacency in their works and hold themselves in too high esteem. They presumptuously plan many projects and carry out scarcely any.
(2) They speak of the things of the spiritual life to give lessons to others, rather than to put these lessons into practice themselves, and they harshly condemn those who do not approve of their type of spirituality.
(3) Some of them cannot stand rivalry. If a rival happens to appear, they condemn him and belittle him.
(4) They seek the good graces and the intimacy of their spiritual director, and if the latter does not approve of their ways, then they look for another who will be more accommodating. The better to succeed in this, they tone down their faults, and, if they happen to fall into a grave sin, they accuse it to another confessor and not to their regular confessor and director.
(5) Should they commit a grievous sin, they get out of sorts with themselves and lose heart, peeved at not having reached sanctity as yet.
(6) They love to attract notice by outward manifestations of their piety, and readily speak to others of their good works and their success.
“First of all, spiritual beginners should be on their guard against the two excesses opposed to hope: presumption and despair. Presumption consists in expecting from God Heaven and the graces necessary to reach it, without willing to take the means He has ordained. One presumes on the Divine Goodness, by neglecting God’s commandments, persuading oneself that God is too good to sentence one to damnation. This is to forget, that if God is good, He is likewise just and holy, and that He hates iniquity. Again, one may through pride presume on one’s own strength, rushing into the midst of dangers and occasions of sin, and forgetting that he that loves danger will perish in it.
“Even for devout souls there is the danger of pride and presumption. Because one is possessed of good and noble sentiments, of holy desires, of fine projects for spiritual progress; because one experiences sensible fervor, and in such moments scorns the pleasures and goods and vanities of this world; one then becomes easily persuaded that one is far more advanced in the spiritual life than one really is, and one may even wonder whether one has reached the heights of perfection!
“‘God resists the proud’ (James 4:6). Pride is the source of many sins, such as sins of presumption. The proud man trusts in himself and presumes overmuch in his own strength. The chief defects born of pride are presumption, ambition, and vain-glory. Through presumption one exposes oneself to danger and falls. We must avoid that proud presumption that thrusts us into the midst of dangers, under the pretence that we are possessed of sufficient strength to triumph over them. This was the sin of St. Peter ― who at the moment Christ was prophesying the desertion of the Apostles―exclaimed: ‘Although all shall be scandalized in Thee, I will not!’ Let us, on the contrary, be mindful of the words of St. Paul: ‘Wherefore, he that thinks himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall!’ (1 Corinthians 10:12) ― for if the spirit be willing, the flesh is weak, and safety lies only in the humble mistrust of self. The presumptuous would like to emerge hastily from the discipline of penance and promptly arrive at the desired union with God. But alas―many an unforeseen obstacle appears; they then lose heart, retrace their steps and at times fall into grievous faults. Many a soul falls into impurity through pride and presumption.
“Presumption, added, to pride, begets ambition―that is to say, the inordinate love of honors, love of dignities, love of having authority over others. Humility creates a void within the soul, emptying it of its egotism, its pride, and its presumption. There must be an entire absence of anything like over-eagerness, impatience, and, above all, anything like presumption in our desires. If we lack self-knowledge, it is morally impossible to perfect ourselves. The reason is that we then entertain illusions concerning our state, and we can fall into a presumptuous optimism that makes us believe we are already perfect.
“We must carefully exclude presumption, which, by having us rely too much on our own will and our own strength, would deprive us of manifold graces and expose us to additional imprudences and further falls. The devil, who acting upon the imagination and upon the feelings, is able to produce certain sensible emotions, which he will use to urge us on to ill-considered austerities [taking on too much penance and sacrifice], to vanity and to presumption―soon to be followed by discouragement. Through presumption, instead of reflecting before acting, of asking light from the Holy Ghost and following it, spiritual beginners thrust themselves headlong into action. Instead of taking counsel with their spiritual director, they act first, and afterwards confront him with the accomplished fact. They may easily be lead to illusions and are often the outcome of some ill-considered impulse of generosity which has its origin in presumption. Hence, numerous imprudences and many wasted efforts. The presumptuous soon lose heart after the first failures.
“Presumption consists in an inordinate desire and hope whereby we want to do things which are beyond our strength. It proceeds from too high an opinion of ourselves, of our natural faculties, of our knowledge, of our strength, of our virtues. Through presumption we think ourselves invincible and at times expose ourselves to danger, or think ourselves to be safe and so we begin to relax, when we ought to redouble our efforts and forge ahead.
“(a) From the intellectual point of view―we think ourselves capable of approaching and solving the most difficult questions, or at least of undertaking studies which are beyond the reach of our talents. We easily persuade ourselves that we abound in judgment and wisdom, and, instead of learning how to doubt, we settle with finality the most controversial or disputed questions.
“(b) From the moral point of view―we fancy that we are possessed of sufficient light to be our own guides, and that it is hardly profitable to consult a spiritual director. We convince ourselves that, in spite of past faults, we need fear no relapses, and we imprudently walk into occasions of sin, and then we fall. From this come discouragement and vexation that often result in fresh falls.
“(c) From the spiritual point of view―we have but little relish for hidden and mortifying virtues, preferring those that are more brilliant. Instead of building upon the sound foundation of humility, we dream about greatness of soul, about strength of character, about a magnanimous spirit, about apostolic zeal, and about the imaginary successes we lay in store for the future. The first serious temptations, however, make us aware that the will is still weak and wavering. At times we make little of the ordinary ways of prayer, and of what are called the little exercises of piety, aspiring to extraordinary graces while we are still only at the beginning of the spiritual life.
“Because we presume overmuch on our strength, and because we consider ourselves superior to others, we want to dominate them, to rule them and impose upon them our ideas. This disorder, says St. Thomas, may show itself in three ways: (1) One seeks for undeserved honors, honors which are above oneself; (2) one seeks them for oneself, for one’s own glory, and not for the glory of God; (3) one takes delight in honors for their own sake, without making them redound to the good of others; contrary to the order established by God, Who requires superiors to procure the welfare of those under them.” (Fr. Adolphe Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life: A Treatise On Ascetical And Mystical Theology).
St. Thomas Aquinas has this to say on Presumption: “Presumption denotes an inordinate hope. As to the hope whereby a man relies on the power of God, there may be presumption through immoderation, in the fact that a man tends to some good as though it were possible by the power and mercy of God, whereas it is not possible, for instance, if a man hope to obtain pardon without repenting, or glory without merits. This presumption is, properly, the sin against the Holy Ghost. Hence presumption whereby a man relies on God inordinately, is a more grievous sin than the presumption of trusting in one’s own power, since to rely on the Divine power for obtaining what is unbecoming to God, is to depreciate the Divine power, and it is evident that it is a graver sin to detract from the Divine power than to exaggerate one’s own.
“Moreover presumption is conformed to a false intellect. Just as it is false that God does not pardon the repentant, or that He does not turn sinners to repentance, so too is it false that He grants forgiveness to those who persevere in their sins, and that He gives glory to those who cease from good works. To sin with the intention of persevering in sin and through the hope of being pardoned, is presumptuous, and this does not diminish, but increases sin.
“Presumption is twofold; one whereby a man relies on his own power, when he attempts something beyond his power, as though it were possible to him. Such like presumption clearly arises from vainglory; for it is owing to a great desire for glory, that a man attempts things beyond his power, and especially novelties which call for greater admiration. Hence Gregory states explicitly that presumption of novelties is a daughter of vainglory.
“The other presumption is an inordinate trust in the Divine mercy or power, consisting in the hope of obtaining glory without merits, or pardon without repentance. Such like presumption seems to arise directly from pride, as though man thought so much of himself as to esteem that God would not punish him or exclude him from glory, however much he might be a sinner.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 22, articles 1 to 4).
Common Denominators in Hell
It has to be said that Pride and Presumption are the common denominators (or common damninators) among all the souls that are in Hell right now―and for all the souls headed that way. Yes―as Our Lady of Fatima revealed to Jacinta, sins of impurity and lust in thought, word and action are the most common sins that damn souls in this modern age (19th/20th/21st centuries)―but Pride is the daddy of all sin: “Pride is the beginning of all sin! He that holds it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15).
Presumption is the proud child of pride―it presumes on God’s mercy regardless of what it does, like a spoiled child who thinks it can get away with anything and never be punished by its parents. The sin of presumption is common among those who obstinately cling to habitual sins and then claim that they will simply rely upon God’s mercy when they die. We often hear that God will have to accept them “as they are”, understanding that they “did the best they could.” This is the presumptuous mantra of those who use contraception, adhere to homosexuality, reject the necessity of Sacramental Confession, frequently miss Sunday Mass, or commit some other habitual mortal sin―whether it be impurity, drunkenness, drug abuse, revealing the mortal sins of others, telling grave lies about others, receiving Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin, stealing, cheating, etc., etc.
Our Lord gives the following example of what will happen to the presumptuous on the Day of Judgment―they will have a presumption of their assumption into Heaven, but the opposite will happen: “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23). Do not push your luck too far! As Jesus said: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God!” (Matthew 4:7).
Jesus makes it clear that there are some who will come to Him presuming their entrance into Heaven but their presumption will be met with these frightening words: “I never knew you! Depart from Me!” Presumption is a dangerous sin. It’s dangerous for two reasons. Firstly, when people are presumptuous, they are living in denial of the truth. In regard to God, presumption means that the persons act as if they are in a relationship with God when they are not. They may say holy things, act holy and even believe they are holy―while in fact they do not know our Lord at all. Thus, presumption is living in denial of the truth. Secondly, presumption is dangerous because the presumptuous person will not repent of his or her own sin. They do not look at their sins truthfully―they put a spin on sin and make it seem less sinful or not even sinful at all. Their false knowledge, their twisting of the truth, their denial of truth makes it impossible for them to admit their sins. Without admitting their sins, they cannot subsequently admit their need to change and then actually make that change. They remain steeped in their false thinking and steeped in their sins.
To help deaden and drug their consciences they resort to angrily pointing out the sins of others―or, on the other hand, they feel good about the sins of others, telling themselves―as St. Louis de Montfort so aptly says: “Worldlings, on the contrary, rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure!’ they shout, ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play! God is good, He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples! We shall not die!’ And so they continue.” (St. Louis de Montfort so aptly says, The Secret of Mary). Presumption happens. When you think you own the truth and are only slightly ― or not at all ― open to being taught by anyone, you are presumptuous. When you believe that God’s mercy allows you to keep sinning or that you are incapable of serious sin, you are presumptuous. When you believe that you are entitled to benefits without incurring costs, you are presumptuous. When you think you are better than anyone else, you are presumptuous.
Increasing numbers of sinners think and declare: “I am a good person!”― despite having a long history of despicable sinful behavior? Today’s legalization of various perverse behaviors―from divorce to homosexuality, from contraception to abortion, from immodesty to pornography―only helps to fuel the self-deception of poor presumptuous reprobates! They take Our Lord for granted, believing that an all-merciful God would never send anyone to Hell. Even though have no time for God and happily break His laws, they are quick to argue that they are no worse than the rest of the human race. In fact, they will argue that they are better than most people and will quickly point out a few acts of kindness which they say supports their argument. Even Al Capone funded soup kitchens for the poor during the Great Depression. Many a serial killer―when they weren’t killing―were thought to be good spouses and parents, kind and thoughtful neighbors, excellent workers, etc. Their conclusion that “I am a good person” is founded on this twisted logic. They hang their hat on the false belief that an all-loving God will take them into Heaven when they die, regardless of the state of their soul. Yet they believe that they have no obligation to attend Holy Mass each and every Sunday, no obligation to follow God’s laws. A free pass into Heaven is their right!
Antidotes to Presumption
Here are five anti-presumption exercises that anyone can perform on a daily basis:
► Cultivate a habit of immense gratitude. Nothing shatters the spiritual sclerosis of presumption more than being thankful for what you have. A daily, relentless habit of counting our blessings is the best way to soften a heart in danger of becoming hardened by the trials of life, the failures of men, or the sinister attitude that God owes us something. In fact, start right now! Look around. Everything in the garden of your life is a gift, even the crosses that Christ has planted there. Stop moaning! Stop groaning! Stop murmuring! Start thanking God for the wisdom with which He organizes your life and helps you pay for the debt of sin!
► Drink deeply of the Church’s life of grace. Consuming the grace of God is the antidote to consuming “all that is in the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the world, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). It takes good soil, disciplined cultivation, and months of favorable weather conditions to bring a crop to harvest. So with the virtues of your soul. When secular pursuits, basic laziness, and a pervasive and invasive entertainment mindset replace the daily feeding of your soul, then all you can look forward to is a harvest of weeds. Only a long-term commitment to grace through the Sacraments ― primarily the Eucharist and Confession ― will produce long-term fruits of the Spirit.
► Avoid pop culture fads of all types, especially the most noxious variety. How many Catholics and other Christians have read salacious, presumptuous, tabloid trash dressed up as sophisticated literature? Even if these aren’t temptations for you, the world provides plenty of other soul-killing fads to eat-away-at and destroy the veil of sanctity that should shield all souls and families against the devil and all his works and all his empty promises. Out with them! “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
► Be a devotion hound. Doctrine is the “hardware” of two thousand years of solid teaching. It is a necessary, solid foundation for our life of Faith. Devotions, however, are the spiritual “software” programs that infuse spiritual life into our souls and make it possible for us to benefit more from the Sacraments. All the great saints of Church history have sought to enliven Faith, Hope, and Charity through heartfelt devotions that give meaning and fervor to the more arid dimensions of our religious practice. Be a devotion hound, and strengthen your soul. If you’re not sure where to start, try these: The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; Eucharistic Adoration; Scripture reading; the Holy Rosary; Daily Meditation; reading the lives of the saints. Stick with these and they will burn away any presumption that tries to accumulate in your heart.
► Invest in Faith. It’s a cliché, I know, but we only appreciate those things for which we make sacrifices. If the salvation of your soul isn’t worth making a serious daily sacrifice, then nothing is. Tithing to your parish or charitable organizations, corporal and spiritual works of mercy, instructing your kids (and their friends) in the faith, etc. – these are not extraordinary practices. They are a matter of Christian living, and if they are lacking, it’s time to look at your spiritual investment portfolio and start making some deposits. Being a spiritual investor is the other side of the coin of being a grateful person. Like the dutiful stewards in Parable of the Talents (Matthew 14:25-30) you show gratitude best by giving back.
Gratefulness, grace, sacrifice, investment, devotion are all antidotes to the sin of presuming too much on God’s goodness. He does, after all, deserve our undying gratitude for everything!
Assumption or Ascension, Presumption or Pretension!!?? Death spares nobody! Death is the wage for sin: “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23) and “Every one shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16). Who dare say: “I am clean, and without sin! I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me!” (Job 33:9) … “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin!’?” (Proverbs 20:9). “All have sinned!” (Romans 3:23) ... “There is no man who sins not” (3 Kings 8:46) ... “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10). “There is no just man upon Earth that does good and sins not!” (Ecclesiastes 7:21). Therefore, if we have all sinned, then we must all die. Our Lord and Our Lady―who were not conceived, nor born with Original Sin and who committed no sins in their lifetime―also chose to pass through the doors of death! How, then, can we sinners expect to be exempt from passing through those same doors?
As we draw near to the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven (August 15th), we would do well to think about our potential “assumption” into Heaven after our death. The word “assumption” is rooted in the Latin verb “assumere”, which means “to take to oneself.” The doctrine of Mary’s Assumption teaches that Jesus took His Mother to Himself in Heaven at the end of her life, just as Henoch (Enoch) and Elias (Elijah) had been taken up body and soul, presumably to Heaven, at the end of their lives: “And Henoch walked with God, and was seen no more―because God took him” (Genesis 5:24) … “And as Elias and Eliseus went on, walking and talking together, behold a fiery chariot and fiery horses parted them both asunder―and Elias went up by a whirlwind into Heaven” (4 Kings 2:11). Neither of them died, and so neither left their bodies behind when they were taken up off this Earth by God.
It is important to understand that the Assumption of Mary is not like the Ascension of Jesus. Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven by His own power. On the other hand, Mary was taken up into Heaven―body and soul―by the power of God. The only way anyone can get into Heaven is if they are “assumed” into Heaven by God. Just as Jesus said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5)―the same is true for getting into Heaven. You cannot “ascend” into Heaven as Jesus did under His own power―you have to be “assumed” or “taken into” Heaven by God’s power. The word “assumption” comes directly from Latin “assumptionem” (“assumptio” in the nominative case), which means “a taking up, take to oneself, receiving, acceptance, adoption.” It is God who “takes you up” to Heaven; He “takes you to Himself”; He “receives you”; He “accepts you”; He “adopts you.” It is His choice, His decision, His power―not yours.
Assumption Presumption?
Is your assumption a presumption? Do you presume God will assume you into Heaven? Are you becoming, or have you become presumptuous? What is presumption? What does “being presumptuous” mean? The Dictionary defines “presumption” as “(1) an idea that is taken to be true, and often used as the basis for other ideas, although it is not known for certain; (2) behavior perceived as arrogant, disrespectful, and transgressing the limits of what is permitted or appropriate.” As for “presumptuous”, the Dictionary defines it as an adjective meaning “excessively bold or forward.” It is used to describe someone behaving in an entitled or over-familiar way―and therefore coming across as being rude or arrogant.
Are you presumptuous about getting to Heaven? Are you complacent about it―in the sense of “I am sure of getting to Heaven!” Are you of the opinion that it doesn’t really matter how much you sin―you will just confess those sins and everything will be “hunky-dory” and “fine-and-dandy”? Are you a “safe-bet” for getting into Heaven? Is it a foregone conclusion that you will get there? Apart from the Satanists, there is probably nobody who wants to go to Hell! Yet how is it that Our Lord, Our Lady, many saints and theologians tell us that most souls are damned? Yet―if you pardon the “French”, as they say―who the hell thought they would end up in Hell? The vast majority presumed that they would go to Heaven―some perhaps thought they would take in a trip to Purgatory before going to Heaven―but surely very, very few thought that they would go to Hell! Hell was a helluva surprise for them! Hell is full of surprises!
Our Lord and Holy Scripture try to dispel our presumptuous presumptions about our assumption into Heaven. They warn us with a variety of statements that should puncture our presumptuous balloons: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12). “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14). “Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leads to life―and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). “Hast thou sinned? Do so no more!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin! And say not: ‘The mercy of the Lord is great, He will have mercy on the multitude of my sins!’” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5-6).
What Leads to Hell?
They say “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions!” You could add to that: “The road to Hell is paved with plentiful presumptions!” Most of those who are the road to Hell presume the road will lead them to Heaven! “A fool will laugh at sin!” (Proverbs 14:9) … “The number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). With regard to this, Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “How many are the men who have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! … Countless numbers have fallen into Hell! … Lucifer has hurled into Hell so great a number of souls and continues so to hurl them every day! … I will not tell thee how many souls are lost, in order to not cause thee to die of sorrow at this loss! I have already told thee, that the number of those foreknown as doomed, is so great, and of those that save themselves is so small, that it is not expedient to say more in particular! Weep ceaselessly over the terrible loss sustained by so many insane and thankless souls, who are forgetful of God, of their duty and of their own selves … and lose their chance of salvation and bring upon themselves eternal damnation.”
“The neglect and contempt of bodily mortification causes the loss of many souls and bring many more into the danger of eternal loss ... Many there are who wish to follow Christ, but very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored! Worldly wisdom looks upon the person, not at the state of the souls, nor at virtue, but at outward ostentation and appearance. Each one ordinarily seeks to advance his honor and vainglory, struggling to be applauded and renowned. The learned and those who think themselves wise, wish to be applauded and looked up to, bragging about their knowledge. The unlearned try to appear wise … All of them are pursuing the same deceit of seeking to appear what they are not in fact, and fail in reality to come up to what they appear to be! … The presumption and pride of worldly wisdom is more powerful in its devotees, than humility and true self-knowledge is in the children of light!” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
Yes―it is unconfessed and unforgiven mortal sin that leads souls to Hell. Nevertheless, it is ultimately pride and presumption that leads then into mortal sin: “Pride is the beginning of all sin! He that holds it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). Their pride puts them above and beyond obediently keeping the Commandments of God; and their presumption tells them that mortal sin does not matter (and all the more so venial sin), because God will forgive them the next time they decide to confess their mortal sin(s).
The sin of presumption is the distortion and the abuse of the theological virtue of Hope. It may be defined as the condition of a soul that, because of a badly regulated reliance on God’s mercy and power, hopes for salvation without doing anything to deserve it, or for pardon of his sins without repenting of them. It is an unwarranted or habitual expectation that eternal life will be gained without God’s assistance, or that salvation will be granted regardless of one’s personal sins or one’s response to God’s grace. In other words, it is an unwarranted attitude and belief that one will enjoy salvation without seeking reconciliation and forgiveness for one’s sins and without paying the debt for sin.
As Our Lord said: “No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3-5). One cannot sin simply because God is forgiving. On this point Our Lord said to the woman caught in adultery: “‘Woman, where are they that accused thee? Has no man condemned thee?’ She said: ‘No man, Lord!’ And Jesus said: ‘Neither will I condemn thee! Go, and now sin no more!’” (John 8:3-11). To the man he cured of a 38 year long sickness, Our Lord said: “Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). In other words, do not presume upon My mercy if you stubbornly continue to sin!
One wonders how sincere a person’s love for God is when he is so readily willing to sin simply because God is forgiving. God cannot be fooled. He reads hearts and knows our sincerity. To decide to sin is to offend God. To decide to sin because one knows that he can be forgiven is to sin twice. It is to use God, reducing him to a utility at the service of our whim. It is to laugh at his passion and death. Unfortunately, most people are guilty of presumption towards God to a greater or a lesser degree. The Baltimore Catechism (QQ. 1183 & 1184) states:
“Presumption is a rash expectation of salvation without making proper use of the necessary means to obtain it. We may be guilty of presumption:
(1) By putting off confession when in a state of mortal sin;
(2) By delaying the amendment of our lives and repentance for past sins;
(3) By being indifferent about the number of times we yield to any temptation after we have once yielded and broken our resolution to resist it;
(4) By thinking we can avoid sin without avoiding its near occasion;
(5) By relying too much on ourselves and neglecting to follow the advice of our confessor in regard to the sins we confess.”
Pride and Presumption
It was Our Lady’s deep humility that led to her assumption into the heights of Heaven. Quite opposed to Our Lady’s humility and assumption, many souls find themselves seduced by the heights of pride and presumption which ultimately lead them to the depths of Hell. As Our Lady said in her Magnificat: “He [God] has regarded the humility of His handmaid … He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He has put down the mighty from their seat and has exalted the humble!” (Luke 1:48-52) ... “Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled―and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted!” (Matthew 23:12) ... “God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). “O Lord God … You humble them that presume of themselves and glory in their own strength!” (Judith 6:15). “God has seen that the presumption of their heart is wicked” (Ecclesiasticus 18:10). “O wicked presumption! Whence camest thou to cover the Earth with thy malice and deceitfulness?” (Ecclesiasticus 37:3).
Most people have neither the time nor the inclination to carefully read some of the many masterful books that exist on the spiritual life―which are really road maps to Heaven. Therefore, here are some extracts―taken from various different parts of the book―from one of those masterful books on the spiritual life―written by Fr. Adolphe Tanquerey, entitled: The Spiritual Life: A Treatise On Ascetical And Mystical Theology. The chosen extracts have been combined together into a cohesive and logical whole on the subject of pride and presumption. The following paragraphs from Fr. Tanquerey’s book, paint a clear picture of the dangers of pride and presumption!
“Adam’s sin was disobedience and pride. Pride is a profound depravity; it is the worship of self; man becomes his own god through excessive self-love. This pride is accompanied by vanity, which inordinately seeks the esteem, the approval, the praise of men. It gives rise to boasting; to speaking of self and of one’s achievements; to ostentation [showing-off] which courts the public eye with finery and display; to hypocrisy which makes a show of virtue while being careless about its practice. From a stupid pride we claim for ourselves the glory that belongs to God alone. Pride is the source of many sins―such as sins of presumption―which are punished by lamentable falls and enslavement to shameful vices; sins of dissimulation [pretense, disguise and concealment] because of the hardship of confessing certain sins; sins of resistance to superiors, of envy and jealousy towards the neighbor, etc.
“Pride makes faith [trust] in superiors and obedience to superiors difficult. One wants to be self-sufficient. The more confidence one has in one’s own judgment, then the more reluctantly does one accept the teachings of Faith, and the more easily does one submit these teachings to criticism and to personal interpretation. In like manner, one trusts one’s own wisdom so much, that it is with repugnance that others are consulted―especially superiors. We seek the satisfaction of our pride and the triumph of our ideas. That is why regrettable mistakes occur.
The Inclination to Pride is manifested in six principal ways [especially in those who are Beginners in the Spiritual Life]:
(1) Whilst aiming at fervor and remaining faithful to their spiritual exercises, these beginners take complacency in their works and hold themselves in too high esteem. They presumptuously plan many projects and carry out scarcely any.
(2) They speak of the things of the spiritual life to give lessons to others, rather than to put these lessons into practice themselves, and they harshly condemn those who do not approve of their type of spirituality.
(3) Some of them cannot stand rivalry. If a rival happens to appear, they condemn him and belittle him.
(4) They seek the good graces and the intimacy of their spiritual director, and if the latter does not approve of their ways, then they look for another who will be more accommodating. The better to succeed in this, they tone down their faults, and, if they happen to fall into a grave sin, they accuse it to another confessor and not to their regular confessor and director.
(5) Should they commit a grievous sin, they get out of sorts with themselves and lose heart, peeved at not having reached sanctity as yet.
(6) They love to attract notice by outward manifestations of their piety, and readily speak to others of their good works and their success.
“First of all, spiritual beginners should be on their guard against the two excesses opposed to hope: presumption and despair. Presumption consists in expecting from God Heaven and the graces necessary to reach it, without willing to take the means He has ordained. One presumes on the Divine Goodness, by neglecting God’s commandments, persuading oneself that God is too good to sentence one to damnation. This is to forget, that if God is good, He is likewise just and holy, and that He hates iniquity. Again, one may through pride presume on one’s own strength, rushing into the midst of dangers and occasions of sin, and forgetting that he that loves danger will perish in it.
“Even for devout souls there is the danger of pride and presumption. Because one is possessed of good and noble sentiments, of holy desires, of fine projects for spiritual progress; because one experiences sensible fervor, and in such moments scorns the pleasures and goods and vanities of this world; one then becomes easily persuaded that one is far more advanced in the spiritual life than one really is, and one may even wonder whether one has reached the heights of perfection!
“‘God resists the proud’ (James 4:6). Pride is the source of many sins, such as sins of presumption. The proud man trusts in himself and presumes overmuch in his own strength. The chief defects born of pride are presumption, ambition, and vain-glory. Through presumption one exposes oneself to danger and falls. We must avoid that proud presumption that thrusts us into the midst of dangers, under the pretence that we are possessed of sufficient strength to triumph over them. This was the sin of St. Peter ― who at the moment Christ was prophesying the desertion of the Apostles―exclaimed: ‘Although all shall be scandalized in Thee, I will not!’ Let us, on the contrary, be mindful of the words of St. Paul: ‘Wherefore, he that thinks himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall!’ (1 Corinthians 10:12) ― for if the spirit be willing, the flesh is weak, and safety lies only in the humble mistrust of self. The presumptuous would like to emerge hastily from the discipline of penance and promptly arrive at the desired union with God. But alas―many an unforeseen obstacle appears; they then lose heart, retrace their steps and at times fall into grievous faults. Many a soul falls into impurity through pride and presumption.
“Presumption, added, to pride, begets ambition―that is to say, the inordinate love of honors, love of dignities, love of having authority over others. Humility creates a void within the soul, emptying it of its egotism, its pride, and its presumption. There must be an entire absence of anything like over-eagerness, impatience, and, above all, anything like presumption in our desires. If we lack self-knowledge, it is morally impossible to perfect ourselves. The reason is that we then entertain illusions concerning our state, and we can fall into a presumptuous optimism that makes us believe we are already perfect.
“We must carefully exclude presumption, which, by having us rely too much on our own will and our own strength, would deprive us of manifold graces and expose us to additional imprudences and further falls. The devil, who acting upon the imagination and upon the feelings, is able to produce certain sensible emotions, which he will use to urge us on to ill-considered austerities [taking on too much penance and sacrifice], to vanity and to presumption―soon to be followed by discouragement. Through presumption, instead of reflecting before acting, of asking light from the Holy Ghost and following it, spiritual beginners thrust themselves headlong into action. Instead of taking counsel with their spiritual director, they act first, and afterwards confront him with the accomplished fact. They may easily be lead to illusions and are often the outcome of some ill-considered impulse of generosity which has its origin in presumption. Hence, numerous imprudences and many wasted efforts. The presumptuous soon lose heart after the first failures.
“Presumption consists in an inordinate desire and hope whereby we want to do things which are beyond our strength. It proceeds from too high an opinion of ourselves, of our natural faculties, of our knowledge, of our strength, of our virtues. Through presumption we think ourselves invincible and at times expose ourselves to danger, or think ourselves to be safe and so we begin to relax, when we ought to redouble our efforts and forge ahead.
“(a) From the intellectual point of view―we think ourselves capable of approaching and solving the most difficult questions, or at least of undertaking studies which are beyond the reach of our talents. We easily persuade ourselves that we abound in judgment and wisdom, and, instead of learning how to doubt, we settle with finality the most controversial or disputed questions.
“(b) From the moral point of view―we fancy that we are possessed of sufficient light to be our own guides, and that it is hardly profitable to consult a spiritual director. We convince ourselves that, in spite of past faults, we need fear no relapses, and we imprudently walk into occasions of sin, and then we fall. From this come discouragement and vexation that often result in fresh falls.
“(c) From the spiritual point of view―we have but little relish for hidden and mortifying virtues, preferring those that are more brilliant. Instead of building upon the sound foundation of humility, we dream about greatness of soul, about strength of character, about a magnanimous spirit, about apostolic zeal, and about the imaginary successes we lay in store for the future. The first serious temptations, however, make us aware that the will is still weak and wavering. At times we make little of the ordinary ways of prayer, and of what are called the little exercises of piety, aspiring to extraordinary graces while we are still only at the beginning of the spiritual life.
“Because we presume overmuch on our strength, and because we consider ourselves superior to others, we want to dominate them, to rule them and impose upon them our ideas. This disorder, says St. Thomas, may show itself in three ways: (1) One seeks for undeserved honors, honors which are above oneself; (2) one seeks them for oneself, for one’s own glory, and not for the glory of God; (3) one takes delight in honors for their own sake, without making them redound to the good of others; contrary to the order established by God, Who requires superiors to procure the welfare of those under them.” (Fr. Adolphe Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life: A Treatise On Ascetical And Mystical Theology).
St. Thomas Aquinas has this to say on Presumption: “Presumption denotes an inordinate hope. As to the hope whereby a man relies on the power of God, there may be presumption through immoderation, in the fact that a man tends to some good as though it were possible by the power and mercy of God, whereas it is not possible, for instance, if a man hope to obtain pardon without repenting, or glory without merits. This presumption is, properly, the sin against the Holy Ghost. Hence presumption whereby a man relies on God inordinately, is a more grievous sin than the presumption of trusting in one’s own power, since to rely on the Divine power for obtaining what is unbecoming to God, is to depreciate the Divine power, and it is evident that it is a graver sin to detract from the Divine power than to exaggerate one’s own.
“Moreover presumption is conformed to a false intellect. Just as it is false that God does not pardon the repentant, or that He does not turn sinners to repentance, so too is it false that He grants forgiveness to those who persevere in their sins, and that He gives glory to those who cease from good works. To sin with the intention of persevering in sin and through the hope of being pardoned, is presumptuous, and this does not diminish, but increases sin.
“Presumption is twofold; one whereby a man relies on his own power, when he attempts something beyond his power, as though it were possible to him. Such like presumption clearly arises from vainglory; for it is owing to a great desire for glory, that a man attempts things beyond his power, and especially novelties which call for greater admiration. Hence Gregory states explicitly that presumption of novelties is a daughter of vainglory.
“The other presumption is an inordinate trust in the Divine mercy or power, consisting in the hope of obtaining glory without merits, or pardon without repentance. Such like presumption seems to arise directly from pride, as though man thought so much of himself as to esteem that God would not punish him or exclude him from glory, however much he might be a sinner.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 22, articles 1 to 4).
Common Denominators in Hell
It has to be said that Pride and Presumption are the common denominators (or common damninators) among all the souls that are in Hell right now―and for all the souls headed that way. Yes―as Our Lady of Fatima revealed to Jacinta, sins of impurity and lust in thought, word and action are the most common sins that damn souls in this modern age (19th/20th/21st centuries)―but Pride is the daddy of all sin: “Pride is the beginning of all sin! He that holds it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15).
Presumption is the proud child of pride―it presumes on God’s mercy regardless of what it does, like a spoiled child who thinks it can get away with anything and never be punished by its parents. The sin of presumption is common among those who obstinately cling to habitual sins and then claim that they will simply rely upon God’s mercy when they die. We often hear that God will have to accept them “as they are”, understanding that they “did the best they could.” This is the presumptuous mantra of those who use contraception, adhere to homosexuality, reject the necessity of Sacramental Confession, frequently miss Sunday Mass, or commit some other habitual mortal sin―whether it be impurity, drunkenness, drug abuse, revealing the mortal sins of others, telling grave lies about others, receiving Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin, stealing, cheating, etc., etc.
Our Lord gives the following example of what will happen to the presumptuous on the Day of Judgment―they will have a presumption of their assumption into Heaven, but the opposite will happen: “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23). Do not push your luck too far! As Jesus said: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God!” (Matthew 4:7).
Jesus makes it clear that there are some who will come to Him presuming their entrance into Heaven but their presumption will be met with these frightening words: “I never knew you! Depart from Me!” Presumption is a dangerous sin. It’s dangerous for two reasons. Firstly, when people are presumptuous, they are living in denial of the truth. In regard to God, presumption means that the persons act as if they are in a relationship with God when they are not. They may say holy things, act holy and even believe they are holy―while in fact they do not know our Lord at all. Thus, presumption is living in denial of the truth. Secondly, presumption is dangerous because the presumptuous person will not repent of his or her own sin. They do not look at their sins truthfully―they put a spin on sin and make it seem less sinful or not even sinful at all. Their false knowledge, their twisting of the truth, their denial of truth makes it impossible for them to admit their sins. Without admitting their sins, they cannot subsequently admit their need to change and then actually make that change. They remain steeped in their false thinking and steeped in their sins.
To help deaden and drug their consciences they resort to angrily pointing out the sins of others―or, on the other hand, they feel good about the sins of others, telling themselves―as St. Louis de Montfort so aptly says: “Worldlings, on the contrary, rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure!’ they shout, ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play! God is good, He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples! We shall not die!’ And so they continue.” (St. Louis de Montfort so aptly says, The Secret of Mary). Presumption happens. When you think you own the truth and are only slightly ― or not at all ― open to being taught by anyone, you are presumptuous. When you believe that God’s mercy allows you to keep sinning or that you are incapable of serious sin, you are presumptuous. When you believe that you are entitled to benefits without incurring costs, you are presumptuous. When you think you are better than anyone else, you are presumptuous.
Increasing numbers of sinners think and declare: “I am a good person!”― despite having a long history of despicable sinful behavior? Today’s legalization of various perverse behaviors―from divorce to homosexuality, from contraception to abortion, from immodesty to pornography―only helps to fuel the self-deception of poor presumptuous reprobates! They take Our Lord for granted, believing that an all-merciful God would never send anyone to Hell. Even though have no time for God and happily break His laws, they are quick to argue that they are no worse than the rest of the human race. In fact, they will argue that they are better than most people and will quickly point out a few acts of kindness which they say supports their argument. Even Al Capone funded soup kitchens for the poor during the Great Depression. Many a serial killer―when they weren’t killing―were thought to be good spouses and parents, kind and thoughtful neighbors, excellent workers, etc. Their conclusion that “I am a good person” is founded on this twisted logic. They hang their hat on the false belief that an all-loving God will take them into Heaven when they die, regardless of the state of their soul. Yet they believe that they have no obligation to attend Holy Mass each and every Sunday, no obligation to follow God’s laws. A free pass into Heaven is their right!
Antidotes to Presumption
Here are five anti-presumption exercises that anyone can perform on a daily basis:
► Cultivate a habit of immense gratitude. Nothing shatters the spiritual sclerosis of presumption more than being thankful for what you have. A daily, relentless habit of counting our blessings is the best way to soften a heart in danger of becoming hardened by the trials of life, the failures of men, or the sinister attitude that God owes us something. In fact, start right now! Look around. Everything in the garden of your life is a gift, even the crosses that Christ has planted there. Stop moaning! Stop groaning! Stop murmuring! Start thanking God for the wisdom with which He organizes your life and helps you pay for the debt of sin!
► Drink deeply of the Church’s life of grace. Consuming the grace of God is the antidote to consuming “all that is in the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the world, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). It takes good soil, disciplined cultivation, and months of favorable weather conditions to bring a crop to harvest. So with the virtues of your soul. When secular pursuits, basic laziness, and a pervasive and invasive entertainment mindset replace the daily feeding of your soul, then all you can look forward to is a harvest of weeds. Only a long-term commitment to grace through the Sacraments ― primarily the Eucharist and Confession ― will produce long-term fruits of the Spirit.
► Avoid pop culture fads of all types, especially the most noxious variety. How many Catholics and other Christians have read salacious, presumptuous, tabloid trash dressed up as sophisticated literature? Even if these aren’t temptations for you, the world provides plenty of other soul-killing fads to eat-away-at and destroy the veil of sanctity that should shield all souls and families against the devil and all his works and all his empty promises. Out with them! “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
► Be a devotion hound. Doctrine is the “hardware” of two thousand years of solid teaching. It is a necessary, solid foundation for our life of Faith. Devotions, however, are the spiritual “software” programs that infuse spiritual life into our souls and make it possible for us to benefit more from the Sacraments. All the great saints of Church history have sought to enliven Faith, Hope, and Charity through heartfelt devotions that give meaning and fervor to the more arid dimensions of our religious practice. Be a devotion hound, and strengthen your soul. If you’re not sure where to start, try these: The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; Eucharistic Adoration; Scripture reading; the Holy Rosary; Daily Meditation; reading the lives of the saints. Stick with these and they will burn away any presumption that tries to accumulate in your heart.
► Invest in Faith. It’s a cliché, I know, but we only appreciate those things for which we make sacrifices. If the salvation of your soul isn’t worth making a serious daily sacrifice, then nothing is. Tithing to your parish or charitable organizations, corporal and spiritual works of mercy, instructing your kids (and their friends) in the faith, etc. – these are not extraordinary practices. They are a matter of Christian living, and if they are lacking, it’s time to look at your spiritual investment portfolio and start making some deposits. Being a spiritual investor is the other side of the coin of being a grateful person. Like the dutiful stewards in Parable of the Talents (Matthew 14:25-30) you show gratitude best by giving back.
Gratefulness, grace, sacrifice, investment, devotion are all antidotes to the sin of presuming too much on God’s goodness. He does, after all, deserve our undying gratitude for everything!
Article 5
Thursday August 10th & Friday August 11th, 2023
You Must Become Another Vianney for Today!
Thursday August 10th & Friday August 11th, 2023
You Must Become Another Vianney for Today!
The Few and the Many
Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, stated: “Give all power to the many, and they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, and they will oppress the many. Both, therefore, ought to have the power, that each may defend itself against the other!” Allegedly, Alexander Hamilton was one of the few among the Founding Fathers who were not Freemasons―though some historians claim that he was a Freemason. Whatever may be the case, the focus of this is not on Hamilton’s Freemasonic membership, but upon Hamilton’s words: “Give all power to the many, and they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, and they will oppress the many.”
Another angle on the “the few and the many” is given by Our Lord, when He says: “Many are called, but few chosen!” (Matthew 20:16) … “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leads to life and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14).
► NOE: “The few and the many” are seen in the time of the Great Flood―which was a punishment for sin―where few survived (Noe and his family) and many were lost (the rest of the world). As Our Lord said: “As in the days of Noe, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, even until that day in which Noe entered into the ark―and they knew not till the flood came, and took them all away!” (Matthew 24:37-39).
► ABRAHAM: “The few and the many” are seen in the case of Sodom and Gomorrha, where one man, Abraham, pleaded for God to spare the many sinners if only a few just men could be found in that filthy sinful pit: “The Lord said: The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is multiplied, and their sin is become exceedingly grievous! But Abraham stood before the Lord, and said: ‘Will Thou destroy the just with the wicked? If there be fifty just-men in the city, shall they perish with all? Will Thou not spare that place for the sake of the fifty just? Far be it from Thee to do this thing―to slay the just with the wicked!’ And the Lord said to him: ‘If I find in Sodom fifty just men within the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake!’ And Abraham answered: ‘What if there be five less than fifty just persons? Will Thou, for forty-five destroy the whole city?’ And the Lord said: ‘I will not destroy it, if I find forty-five just men!’ And again Abraham said to the Lord: ‘But if forty just men be found there―what will Thou do?’ The Lord said: ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of forty just men!’ Abraham replied: ‘Lord, be not angry, I beseech Thee, if I speak more! What if thirty just men shall be found there?’ The Lord answered: ‘I will not do it, if I find thirty just men there!’ Abraham said: ‘What if twenty just men be found there?’ The Lord said: ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty just men!’ Again Abraham said: ‘I beseech Thee, be not angry, Lord, if I speak yet once more! What if ten should be found there?’ And the Lord said: ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of ten!’” (Genesis 18:20-32). We all know what the tragic ending was for Sodom and Gomorrha―not even ten just men could be found and so, “the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven. And He destroyed these cities, and all the country round about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all things that spring from the earth” (Genesis 19:24-25).
► GEDEON: Another instance of “the few and many” is seen in time of the Old Testament Judges with Gedeon―the fifth of the Judges―who were the leaders of Israel at the time. The Israelite army was greatly outnumbered by the Madianites―with 135,000 Madianites against Gedeon’s army of 32,000—outnumbered by more than 4 to 1. The Lord commanded Gedeon, not to recruit soldiers, but to further reduce the number he had already gathered: “The people that are with thee are many, and Madian shall not be delivered into their hands: lest Israel should glory against me, and say: I was delivered by my own strength. Speak to the people and proclaim: ‘Whosoever is fearful and timorous, let him return home!’ So twenty- two thousand men went away and returned home, and only ten thousand remained” (Judges 7:2). So, they went from being outnumbered by more than 4 to 1, to now being outnumbered by more than 13 to 1. No doubt Gedeon was surprised to hear what the Lord said next: “The people are still too many, bring them to the waters, and there I will try them” (Judges 7:4). At the site to which the Lord had directed Gedeon’s army there was drinkable water. The army stopped to drink and 9,700 knelt down on their knees, so they might drink directly from the stream. The other 300 cupped their hands and took water into them, drinking it from their hands as a dog would lap water from his bowl. “By the 300 hundred men, that lapped water, I will save you, and deliver Madian into thy hand: but let all the rest of the people return to their place” (Judges 7:7). And so it was! The few overcame the many despite being outnumbered by by 450 to 1 (135,000 versus 300). God wanted the Israelites to go into battle heavily outnumbered, so that God Himself could claim the eventual victory against those impossible odds. The 300 soldiers under Gedeon―by the grace and help of God―slew 120,000 Madianites and only 15,000 remained: “For fifteen thousand men were left of all the troops of the eastern people, and one hundred and twenty thousand warriors that drew the sword, were slain” (Judges 8:10).
► DAVID: Another similar account of “the few and many” ― or perhaps “the small and the big”―can be seen in the case of little David and the giant Goliath. David was only a gutsy teenage shepherd with a mere sling and pebbles―not yet old enough to serve in Saul’s army―whereas Goliath was a giant of man and seasoned soldier, armed to the teeth. All the Israelite army was terrified of Goliath and his challenge to duel anyone the Israelites cared to send out to fight him. David, on the other hand, disregarded the human odds stacked against him and went to fight Goliath trusting in the help of God.
“There went out a man from the camp of the Philistines named Goliath, whose height was six cubits and a span [at least 7 feet six inches to 9 feet six inches]. And he had a helmet of brass upon his head, and he was clothed with a coat of mail with scales, and the weight of his coat of mail was five thousand sicles of brass [125 lbs]. And he had greaves of brass on his legs, and a buckler of brass covered his shoulders [brass is very heavy]. And the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and the head of his spear weighed six hundred sicles of iron [15 lbs].
“And standing he cried out to the bands of Israel: ‘Choose out a man of you, and let him come down and fight hand to hand. If he be able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be servants to you! But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants, and shall serve us! Give me a man and let him fight with me hand to hand!’ And Saul and all the Israelites hearing these words of the Philistine were dismayed, and greatly afraid.
“And David spoke to the men that stood by him, saying: ‘Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?’ And David said to King Saul: ‘Let not any man’s heart be dismayed by him! I, thy servant, will go and will fight against the Philistine!’ And Saul said to David: ‘Thou art not able to withstand this Philistine, nor to fight against him: for thou art but a boy, but he is a warrior from his youth!’
“And David said to Saul: ‘Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, or a bear, and took a ram out of the midst of the flock: and I pursued after them, and struck them, and delivered it out of their mouth: and they rose up against me, and I caught them by the throat, and I strangled and killed them. For I, thy servant, have killed both a lion and a bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be also as one of them. I will go now, and take away the reproach of the people: for who is this uncircumcised Philistine, who hath dared to curse the army of the living God? The Lord who delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine!’ And Saul said to David: ‘Go, and the Lord be with thee!’
“And Saul clothed David with his garments, and put a helmet of brass upon his head, and armed him with a coat of mail. And David having girded his sword upon his armor, began to try if he could walk in armor: for he was not accustomed to it. And David said to Saul: ‘I cannot go thus, for I am not used to it!’ And he took them off, And he took his staff, which he had always in his hands: and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them into the shepherd’s scrip, which he had with him, and he took a sling in his hand, and went forth against the Philistine.
“And the Philistine came and drew near to David and said: ‘Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with a staff?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And he said to David: ‘Come to me, and I will give thy flesh to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the Earth! Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield―but I come to thee in the Name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, which thou hast defied. This day, and the Lord will deliver thee into my hand, and I will slay thee, and take away thy head from thee: and I will give the carcasses of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the Earth: that all the Earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know, that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for it is His battle, and He will deliver you into our hands!’
“And when the Philistine arose and was coming, and drew nigh to meet David, David made haste, and ran to the fight to meet the Philistine. And he put his hand into his scrip, and took a stone, and cast it with the sling, and fetching it about struck the Philistine in the forehead: and the stone was fixed in his forehead, and he fell on his face upon the earth. And David prevailed over the Philistine, with a sling and a stone, and he struck, and slew the Philistine. And, as David had no sword in his hand, he ran, and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath, and slew him, and cut off his head. And the Philistines seeing that their champion was dead, fled away. And the men of Israel and Juda rising up shouted, and pursued the Philistines” (1 Kings 17:1-52).
► THE MACHABEES: In 329 BC, the famous Greek Emperor, Alexander the Great, who had conquered the Persian empire, took possession of Judaea and Jerusalem; but he was favorable to the Jews and allowed them to practice their religion. Alexander’s dream to found a world kingdom held together, not only through the person and power of the ruler, but through unity of language, customs, and mental outlook. He endeavored to bring about a marriage between Greek and Oriental culture, with the Greek culture being dominant. Greek colonists settled in the cities, and new cities were founded peopled by Greeks. Everywhere throughout the empire the colonists spoke Greek. These colonists spread the Greek pagan ideas and customs. The Greeks pointed with pride to their gymnasia, baths, theaters, temples. The Jews could not isolate themselves from this new movement. But in the year 200 BC Judea fell under the domination of the kings of Syria—known as the Seleucids or Syrian Greeks, under whom the Jews experienced the pressure of Greek civilization in a much stronger degree. Thus arose two opposing groups―(1) the pious Jews who adhered to the morality and religion of their fathers, and (2) the Liberals who befriended the Greeks and were lukewarm in matters of religion. Gradually, the Jews began to abandon their religious principles and increasingly accepted the pagan Greek culture.
A gymnasium was built below the Acra (citadel) in Jerusalem, in close proximity to the Temple, where the youths of Jerusalem were taught Greek sports. Even priests became addicted to the games and neglected the altar for the gymnasium. Many, ashamed of what a true Jew gloried in, had the marks of circumcision removed, so as to avoid being recognized as Jews when naked in the baths, or the gymnasium. Sporting games were played completely naked. The body could be “covered” only with a thin coat of oil. Likewise, the baths promoted nudity.
Things got tougher under the Syrian-Greek King Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who stormed Jerusalem in 169 BC with a large army. He killed 40,000 inhabitants, plundered and desecrated the Temple. He proclaimed Greek paganism to be the religion of the state. Upon leaving, he took many of the women and children captive, or sold them as slaves. All the Jews were forbidden, under pain of death, to practice any religion but that of the state. They did not dare to circumcise their male children, or observe their Sabbaths and festivals, or offer sacrifice to the true God. The king ordered the Holy Books to be torn and burnt; he profaned the Temple, and forbade the observance of the divine laws under the penalty of death. Antiochus was determined to break down the loyalty of the Jews to their nation and to their religion.
One particular faithful Jew, Mattathias the Hasmonean―the spark for the Machabean Revolt―was especially furious at what was happening. In 167 BC, the king who reigned over the region had sent his officers to Mattathias’s hometown in Judea. The officers were tried to force Mattathias, his five sons, and their neighbors, to perform sacrifices to the Greek pagan gods. When another Jew stepped forward to make the sacrifice, Mattathias killed the faithless Jew on the altar. The king’s officer was next to be killed. Finally, Mattathias tore down the altar. The Machabean Revolt was born. The revolt is also known by the name Machabee, after the most renowned of Mattathias’s sons, Judas the Machabee or Judas Machabeus (which means “Judas the Hammer”). When Mattathias died, two years into the revolt, his sons carried on. In the end, the Machabees recaptured Jerusalem and regained their freedom. The family of Mattathias and Judas ruled until the rise of the Herods in 63 BC. Again, an example of what the few can achieve against the many.
► APOSTLES & DISCIPLES: Similarly, God only chose 12 Apostles and 72 disciples and commanded them to go into the world and “teach ye all nations baptizing them” (Matthew 28:19): “And when day was come, He called unto Him His disciples; and He chose twelve of them―whom also He named Apostles” (Luke 6:13). “He called unto Him whom He would Himself and they came to Him. And He made that Twelve should be with Him” (Mark 3:13-14). “Having called His Twelve disciples [the Apostles]…” (Matthew 10:1), “the Lord appointed another seventy-two [disciples], and He sent them two and two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was to come. And He said to them: ‘The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few! Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send laborers into His harvest! Go! Behold I send you as lambs among wolves!’” (Luke 10:1-2), “And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Matthew 10:22). Scholars and scientists and mathematicians estimate the world’s population at the time of Christ was, to round off the number, around 300 million―so his 84 followers (12 Apostles plus 72 disciples) would be outnumbered by around 3.5 million to 1. Even if you take the number of disciples at the time of Pentecost, at the descent of the Holy Ghost, “the number of persons together was about an hundred and twenty” (Acts 1:15)―which would mean being outnumbered by the world at a ratio of 2.3 million to 1. God rarely makes things easy! So there is no need to lose heart when the odds are stacked against you!
► OUR LORD & OUR LADY: Similarly, we see the case of “the few and the many” in the case of Our Lord and Our Lady in particular, and then Our Lord and the Apostles in general. Our Lord and Our Lady were the lowest possible number in the term “few”―being conceived and born without sin, and not having committed the slightest sin in their entire lives, they pleaded for the many―just like Abraham. Our Lord said: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! … The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 19:10; 9:56). As He died on the cross, He was still pleading for the many: “Father, forgive them! For they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). Our Lord also sent out His “little flock” into the whole world to convert the many nations of the Earth: “Fear not, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you a Kingdom!” (Luke 12:32) … “Therefore, go teach all nations―baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost―teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20).
► YEAST & DOUGH: Likewise in the Parable of the Leaven or Yeast, where a little yeast raises the whole dough: “Whereunto shall I esteem the Kingdom of God to be like? It is like to leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened” (Luke 13:20-21) … “The Kingdom of Heaven is like to leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened” (Matthew 13:33).
What About Today?
The examples are truly numerous throughout history―both in the secular sphere and the religious sphere. We skip over the rest of them to arrive at the focal point of this article―a person that we should all try to imitate in whatever sphere we live and operate―that person being St. John Vianney, to whom the devil exasperatingly said: “If there were three like you in France, then my reign in France would come to an end!” Is that not what we want today? For today the devil literally rules everywhere, as stated by the recently deceased (2016) former chief-exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … The whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican! … The demon tempts the authorities of the Church ― just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
The words of the devil to St. John Vianney show us the solution: “If there were three like you in France, then my reign in France would come to an end!” ― which, in today’s context, could read: “If there were just a few thousand or even a few hundred persons in the world living like St. John Vianney, then my reign in world would come to an end!”
Any takers? Any volunteers? That is exactly what Our Lady of Akita was suggesting when she said: Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I desire this!”
The Vianney Blueprint
For a thorough examination of the life of St. John Vianney, there is no better book than The Curé D'Ars: St. Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney by Abbé (Father) Francis Trochu, who interviewed the witnesses to Vianney’s saintly life, and who quotes copiously from his beatification papers―the result of an investigative process by the Church which seeks to find, not only the good in the life of the candidate to sainthood, but also any evil to be found by a church-appointed “devil’s advocate.” The book is almost 600 pages long and contains the detail necessary for a comprehensive understanding of what happened in St. John Vianney’s life―rather than the glib, gloss-over, superficial, say as little as you can, quick-read books that are available.
Obviously, a mere article such as this is far from being a book―and cannot replace the necessary detail contained in the above book. We will simply lay out certain categories wherein St. John Vianney’s life can be imitated with certain recommendations for each category―as well as taking a selection of quotes from his sermons, which you can find in full in the 426-page book, Sermons of the Cure d'Ars, St. John Vianney: For the Sundays and Feasts of the Year.
Building on Solid Foundations
Before we lay out a St. John Vianney blueprint for sanctity and salvation, it is important to clarify and state some foundational principles regarding God, salvation and damnation. It is important that you always have these truths before your eyes and in your mind―and that you communicate these truths to your family members, not just once, but regularly, so that they become part and parcel of everyone’s life.
► GOD WANTS TO SAVE EVERYONE: It is important to understand from the very beginning that God does not desire the damnation of anyone, but desires the salvation of everyone. “God will have all men to be saved!” (1 Timothy 2:4). Jesus said: “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17) … “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56) … “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) … “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32).
► FEW ARE SAVED: The saints and theologians tell us that few go to Heaven and many go to Hell. The thought is unpleasant, but it is foolishness and insanity to ignore that truth. The truth will not change just because we choose to deliberately ignore it! It is not how God wants it to be―it is we ourselves who make it to be so. “And a certain man said to Jesus: ‘Lord, are they few that are saved?’ Jesus said: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate! For many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able!’” (Luke 13:23-24) … “Many are called―but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14) … “Enter ye in at the narrow gate! For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction―and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leads to life―and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). Those are just a few of the words of our Savior on the fewness of those who are saved. Our Lady of Fatima adds: “Many souls go to Hell!”
Our Lady also said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “The number of those damned is so great, and the number of those that save themselves is so small, that it is not useful to say more in particular. The widespread ruin and damnation among Catholics all originates and flows from the forgetfulness and contempt of the works of Christ and His Redemption. The eternal Father rigorously chastises the servants who know the will of their Lord and refuse to fulfill it! Instead they follow their pleasures; place no restraint on their passionate desires; and care not where they walk―even if it is to the most dangerous precipices! The number of fools is infinite, and the number of the damned is also uncountable!”
Many saints say the same thing: “There are many who arrive at the Faith, but few who are led into the heavenly kingdom!” (Pope St. Gregory the Great, 540-604). “The majority of men shall not see God!” (St. Justin Martyr, 100-165, Father of the Church). “Out of one hundred thousand sinners who continue in sin until death, scarcely one will be saved!” (St. Jerome, 347-420, Doctor and Father of the Church). “How many of the inhabitants of this city may perhaps be saved? What I am about to tell you is very terrible, yet I will not conceal it from you. Out of this thickly populated city with its thousands of inhabitants not one hundred people will be saved. I even doubt whether there will be as many as that!” (St. John Chrysostom, 347-407, Doctor and Father of the Church). “It is certain that few are saved!” (St. Augustine, 354-430, Doctor and Father of the Church). “There are a select few who are saved! … Those who are saved are in the minority!” (St. Thomas Aquinas, 1235-1274, Doctor of the Church). “Everyone desires to be saved but the greater part is lost! … The greater part of men choose to be damned rather than to love Almighty God!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, 1696-1787, Doctor of the Church). Many more quotes could be added, but you get the picture [read more here]. These quotes are not intended to discourage―for nobody should think they will be automatically damned. Nevertheless, it is a scary reality for those who neglect to take, or will not take, or refuses to take the means to be saved.
► GOD DAMNS NOBODY―SOULS DAMN THEMSELVES: “The greater part of men choose to be damned rather than to love Almighty God!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, 1696-1787, Doctor of the Church). Let nobody pull a sour face and grumble that God does not want to save everyone! The problem is that not everyone wants to do what it takes to be saved! They want to be paid without doing any work! Who is it that draws up the terms of the contract of salvation? You or God? Who sets the admission price for Heaven? You or God? Who marks or grades or judges your lifelong exam paper? You or God? If you want to go to Heaven, then it has to be on God’s terms and not on your terms!
God has created your soul for Heaven―but you can derail His plans very easily. He has―for better or worse―give you a free will. That freedom of will means that you are free to choose what means you will take to get Heaven―it is not supposed to be a freedom to sin. Yet that is what most people choose to do―they choose to sin. The consequences of sin have been made abundantly clear by God on many occasions―here is a mere handful: “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15). “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16). “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). “Do not bind sin to sin―for even in one thou shalt not be unpunished!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:8). “Hast thou sinned? Do so no more!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1). “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:11). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin! And say not: ‘The mercy of the Lord is great, He will have mercy on the multitude of my sins!’” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5-6). “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption [disease and death]. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8).
► EVERYONE IS A SINNER: “By one man sin entered into this world [like a virus―the virus of Original Sin], and through sin came death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned!” (Romans 5:12). “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God!” (Romans 3:23). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10). Unfortunately, due to our pride and lack of humility, we do not like to classify ourselves as sinners and seek to put on cosmetics that hide our sinfulness. We hate it when we are looked upon as sinners by others―and will often hate them just because they pointed out the truth of our sinfulness! That is not a recipe for holiness, nor is it the right way to Heaven!
► EVERYONE IS CALLED TO BE A SAINT―ANYONE CAN BE A SAINT: Do you want to go to Heaven? Then you have to be saint! There is no exception; no loophole; no ifs and buts; no turning a blind eye. Heaven is not like a passenger airplane―with first class seats (for the saints) and economy seats (for the mediocre and lukewarm). Every seat is first class and you have got to pay. Only saints go to Heaven―and Heaven is a first class place! God and Holy Scripture make this abundantly clear: “I am the Almighty God! Walk before Me and be perfect!” (Genesis 17:1). “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). “You shall be holy unto Me, because I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from other people, that you should be Mine!” (Leviticus 20:26). “You shall be to Me a holy nation!” (Exodus 19:6). “Be a holy people of the Lord thy God!” (Deuteronomy 26:19). “Without holiness no man shall see God” (Hebrews 12:14). “There shall not enter into it [Heaven] anything defiled, or that worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they that are written in the book of life of the Lamb!” (Apocalypse 21:27).
That holiness is attainable by anyone and everyone―even the worst sinner on Earth can become a saint, because “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). God Himself says: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow―and if they be red as crimson, they shall be made white as wool!” (Isaias 1:18). “And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you―and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh!” (Ezechiel 36:26). “I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live! Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways!” (Ezechiel 33:11). Thus, God forgave Adam and Eve their guilt even though He punished them with death; God spared the lives of the sinful Israelites in the desert due to the prayer of Moses; King David was forgiven his adultery and murder and attained Heaven; Our Lord forgave the sinful Mary Magdalen and cast out the seven demons from her and made her a saint; on Calvary Our Lord also forgave the thief on the cross and made him a saint; Our Lord, after His ascension, also forgave Paul his murderous deeds of arresting Christians and bring them to trial and sometimes execution, and made him a saint.
In the history of the Church since the times of Our Lord, we see many great sinners become great saints. There is no time to give an account of their lives, but here is just a handful of names that you could research into yourself:
► St. Callixtus: Thief & Embezzler
► St. Hippolytus: Heretic & First Antipope
► St. Mary of Egypt: Seductress & Whore
► St. Augustine: Fornicator and Worldling
► St. Moses the Black: Cut-throat & Gang Leader
► St. Pelagia: Dancer & Courtesan
► St. Olga: Murderess
► St. Vladimir: Murderer and Rapist
► St. Margaret of Cortona: Rich Man’s Mistress
► St. Angela of Foligno: Worldly and Flirtatious
► St. Thomas Becket: Rich and Cruel
► St. Philip Howard: Playboy and Gambler
► St. Camillus of Lellis: Drinker, Gambler & Whore-Lover
► NO HEAVEN WITHOUT PENANCE: Since―as was pointed out above―we are all sinners, then we all have incurred a debt for our sins. Since sin is the greatest evil in the world (even venial), then our debt has to be pretty large. That is why some souls―if they avoid Hell―spend enormous lengths of time in the fires of Purgatory. Just think of Amelia―the friend of Lucia in Fatima―who died aged 18, but of whom Our Lady of Fatima said that she would stay in the fires of Purgatory until the world ends! The world is not ending any time soon―and so far that 18-year-old girl has spent almost 6 lifetimes in Purgatory! Sin is no joke or fun occupation! Sin is expensive and it has to paid for in this world (at a heavily discounted price) or in Purgatory or Hell.
Penance is the usual way by which we can pay for the debt of our sins: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just men who need not penance! … There shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance!” (Luke 5:3; 13:3-5; 15:7-10) ... “God now declares unto men, that all should everywhere do penance!” (Acts 17:30) ... “The Lord delays not His promise, as some imagine, but deals patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9) ... “God has given him place for penance, and he abuses it in his pride!” (Job 24:23) … “Let him do penance for his sin!” (Leviticus 5:5).
► NO HEAVEN WITHOUT LOTS OF PRAYER: Prayer is simply defined as “the raising of the mind and heart to God” ― and there are millions of variations by which we can do that. Prayer includes, among many other things, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; visiting the Blessed Sacrament; the Divine Office; the Holy Rosary and all the other innumerable prayers of various types that can be said. Prayer is a communication with God and Heaven―without prayer, you are not going to get to Heaven. Prayer should not be an isolated thing that is performed for a few minutes a day―prayer is way of life. It is like the breath of life―we cannot survive without breathing and we cannot survive without praying. Why do most souls go to Hell? Mortal sins! Why do they commit mortal sins? They don’t pray enough! Holy Scripture and Our Lord tell us: “Pray that ye enter not into temptation!” (Matthew 26:41). “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) … “We ought always to pray, and not to faint!” (Luke 18:1). “Pray for them that persecute and calumniate you!” (Matthew 5:44) … “Pray to thy Father in secret” (Matthew 6:6). “Jesus went out into a mountain to pray, and He passed the whole night in the prayer of God” (Luke 6:12). You want to go to Heaven? Pray! Pray a lot! Pray from the heart, not the lips―as Jesus said: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6).
At all of Our Lady’s modern-day apparitions, prayer is demanded: “The salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents!” (O.L. of Good Success) … “Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger!” (O.L. of Akita) … “Say many Rosaries!” (O.L. of Fatima, May 1917). “Say the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, June 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). “Continue to say the Rosary every day! Pray, pray very much!” (Fatima, August 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (Fatima, September 1917). “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, October 1917). “Pray very much! … Be faithful and fervent in prayer! … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach!” (Akita, 1973).
At Fatima, the Angel of Portugal told the three little children to pray much—they were busy playing and he rebuked them, telling them to cease playing and pray without ceasing: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High” (Angel of Portugal, Fatima, summer of 1916).
Hence the saints say: “What more excellent than prayer? What more useful and profitable? … As our body cannot live without nourishment, so our soul cannot spiritually be kept alive without prayer!” (St. Augustine) … “Prayer is the bridge over temptations” (St. John Climacus) … “What time is there in which we have no need of God? None! Therefore at all times, and in all cases, in all affairs we need to have recourse to Him by prayer!” (Pope St. Celestine) … “What God decided from all eternity to grant us by His Divine Providence, He will give it to us by means of prayer, and on this depends the deliverance, salvation, conversion and cure of many souls and the progress and perfection of others. Prayer brings abundant gifts and graces to the world!” (St. Thomas Aquinas) … “When prayer is poured forth, sins are covered!” (St. Ambrose) … “It is simply impossible to lead, without the aid of prayer, a virtuous life!” (St. John Chrysostom) … “He knows how to live well, who knows how to pray well!” (St. Augustine) … “He who prays most receives most!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori). Do you want to be sure of getting to Heaven? PRAY! PRAY MUCH!
► NO HEAVEN WITHOUT MERCY AND FORGIVENESS: We have become a very “finger-pointing”, “vindictive”, “vengeance-seeking” and “unforgiving” class of people. Mercy is mainly reserved for ourselves―but not for others. Our Lord is very unforgiving on this point: “You have heard it said: ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy!’ But I say to you: ‘Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! Pray for them that persecute and calumniate you!’ so that you may be the children of your Father Heaven, who makes His sun rise and rain fall upon the good and bad, upon the just and the unjust! If you only love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not sinners also do this? If you salute your friends only, what do you that is more? Do not heathens also the do this? Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:43-48) … “Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7) … “But judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy!” (James 2:13) ... “For if you will forgive men their offences, then your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences!” (Matthew 6:14-15).
“Then came Peter unto Him and said: ‘Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?’ Jesus said to him: ‘I say you not just seven times; but seventy times seven times! Therefore is the Kingdom of Heaven likened to a king, who wanted to take an account of his servants. And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him, that owed him ten thousand talents (1 talent was 750 ounces of silver. At today’s silver prices of $22 an ounce, that would put the 10,000 talents at just over $165 million). And as he could not pay his debt, his lord commanded that he, and his wife and children and all that he had, should be sold and payment to be made. But that servant falling down, begged him, saying: “Have patience with me, and I will pay you all that I owe!” And the lord of that servant, being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt.
“‘But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him an hundred pence (the Roman penny was the eighth part of an ounce of silver. At today’s silver prices, a hundred pence would be just over $275): and laying hold of him, throttled him, saying: “Pay what you owe me!” And his fellow servant falling down, begged him, saying: “Have patience with me, and I will pay you all that I owe!” But he would not listen―and went and cast him into prison, till he paid the debt.
“‘Now his fellow servants, seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him and said to him: “You wicked servant! I forgave thee all the debt, because you begged me! Should you not then have had the same compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had compassion on you?” And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers, until he paid all the debt. So also shall My heavenly Father do to you, if you do not forgive everyone from your hearts!’” (Matthew 18:21-35).
► NO HEAVEN WITHOUT CHARITY: If “God is charity” (1 John 4:8), how do you expect to get access to Heaven without charity? There are three fundamental virtues that we exercise in our dealings and relationship with God―Faith, Hope and Charity―and Scripture tells us that Charity is the greatest of the three: “There remain Faith, Hope, and Charity, these three―but the greatest of these is Charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13). This is why Holy Scripture adds that, without Charity, all the things that we might do are spiritually worthless and valueless: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Hence we are commanded: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “Let us love God, because God has first loved us!” (1 John 4:19). “Charity is of God. And every one that loves, is born of God, and knows God!” (1 John 4:7). “Charity is of God―and every one that loves, is born of God” (1 John 4:7). “If then you fulfill the royal law, according to the Scriptures ― ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!’― then you do well” (James 2:8). “Owe no man anything, but to love one another. For he that loves his neighbor, has fulfilled the law!” (Romans 13:8). “The love of our neighbor works no evil. Love therefore is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10). “For all the law is fulfilled in one word: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!’” (Galatians 5:14). Nevertheless, the love of God precedes the love of neighbor: “He that loves a father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loves a son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:37).
It should be stressed that the love of God is not a flimsy, “virtual-reality”, “airy-fairy”, “wishy-washy”, “drip from the lip”, “cotton-candy” or “candy-floss” kind of love ― which professes a love of God in theory, but does nothing to prove it in practice! Of such Our Lord says: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). Just as “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:20), so too is charity dead without works to prove and affirm it. The very minimum, basic, no-frills, starting-point of charity is obedience to God and His commandments―just like a child has to prove his or her charity by obeying parents. Thus Our Lord says: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say? … If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My words … He that does not love Me, keeps not My words!” (Luke 6:46; John 14:15, 14:21-24). Yet after that basic starting point, the steps of charity ascend one-by-one to suffering for God/Christ and even dying for God/Christ: “He who wishes to love God does not truly love Him if he has not an ardent and constant desire to suffer for His sake” (St. Aloysius Gonzaga, 1568-1591). As Jesus said: “Greater love than this no man has―that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Laying down your life for Christ is the pinnacle of charity―which is what martyrdom is.
Hence the saints say: “Charity is the form, mover, mother and root of all the virtues.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274). “The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.” (Pope St. Gregory the Great, d. 604). “He who does not acquire the love of God will scarcely persevere in the grace of God, for it is very difficult to renounce sin merely through fear of chastisement” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, 1696-1787). “Perfection of life is the perfection of love. For love is the life of the soul” (St. Francis de Sales, 1567-1622). “You ask me for a method of attaining perfection. I know of love—and only love. Love can do all things! … If the greatest sinner on Earth should repent at the moment of death, and draw his last breath in an act of love; neither the many graces he had abused, nor the many sins he had committed would stand in his way. Our Lord would receive him into His mercy” (St. Thérèse of Lisieux, 1873-1897). “To love God as He ought to be loved, we must be detached from all temporal love. We must love nothing but Him, or if we love anything else, we must love it only for His sake” (St. Peter Claver, 1581-1654).
Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, stated: “Give all power to the many, and they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, and they will oppress the many. Both, therefore, ought to have the power, that each may defend itself against the other!” Allegedly, Alexander Hamilton was one of the few among the Founding Fathers who were not Freemasons―though some historians claim that he was a Freemason. Whatever may be the case, the focus of this is not on Hamilton’s Freemasonic membership, but upon Hamilton’s words: “Give all power to the many, and they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, and they will oppress the many.”
Another angle on the “the few and the many” is given by Our Lord, when He says: “Many are called, but few chosen!” (Matthew 20:16) … “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leads to life and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14).
► NOE: “The few and the many” are seen in the time of the Great Flood―which was a punishment for sin―where few survived (Noe and his family) and many were lost (the rest of the world). As Our Lord said: “As in the days of Noe, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, even until that day in which Noe entered into the ark―and they knew not till the flood came, and took them all away!” (Matthew 24:37-39).
► ABRAHAM: “The few and the many” are seen in the case of Sodom and Gomorrha, where one man, Abraham, pleaded for God to spare the many sinners if only a few just men could be found in that filthy sinful pit: “The Lord said: The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is multiplied, and their sin is become exceedingly grievous! But Abraham stood before the Lord, and said: ‘Will Thou destroy the just with the wicked? If there be fifty just-men in the city, shall they perish with all? Will Thou not spare that place for the sake of the fifty just? Far be it from Thee to do this thing―to slay the just with the wicked!’ And the Lord said to him: ‘If I find in Sodom fifty just men within the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake!’ And Abraham answered: ‘What if there be five less than fifty just persons? Will Thou, for forty-five destroy the whole city?’ And the Lord said: ‘I will not destroy it, if I find forty-five just men!’ And again Abraham said to the Lord: ‘But if forty just men be found there―what will Thou do?’ The Lord said: ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of forty just men!’ Abraham replied: ‘Lord, be not angry, I beseech Thee, if I speak more! What if thirty just men shall be found there?’ The Lord answered: ‘I will not do it, if I find thirty just men there!’ Abraham said: ‘What if twenty just men be found there?’ The Lord said: ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty just men!’ Again Abraham said: ‘I beseech Thee, be not angry, Lord, if I speak yet once more! What if ten should be found there?’ And the Lord said: ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of ten!’” (Genesis 18:20-32). We all know what the tragic ending was for Sodom and Gomorrha―not even ten just men could be found and so, “the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven. And He destroyed these cities, and all the country round about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all things that spring from the earth” (Genesis 19:24-25).
► GEDEON: Another instance of “the few and many” is seen in time of the Old Testament Judges with Gedeon―the fifth of the Judges―who were the leaders of Israel at the time. The Israelite army was greatly outnumbered by the Madianites―with 135,000 Madianites against Gedeon’s army of 32,000—outnumbered by more than 4 to 1. The Lord commanded Gedeon, not to recruit soldiers, but to further reduce the number he had already gathered: “The people that are with thee are many, and Madian shall not be delivered into their hands: lest Israel should glory against me, and say: I was delivered by my own strength. Speak to the people and proclaim: ‘Whosoever is fearful and timorous, let him return home!’ So twenty- two thousand men went away and returned home, and only ten thousand remained” (Judges 7:2). So, they went from being outnumbered by more than 4 to 1, to now being outnumbered by more than 13 to 1. No doubt Gedeon was surprised to hear what the Lord said next: “The people are still too many, bring them to the waters, and there I will try them” (Judges 7:4). At the site to which the Lord had directed Gedeon’s army there was drinkable water. The army stopped to drink and 9,700 knelt down on their knees, so they might drink directly from the stream. The other 300 cupped their hands and took water into them, drinking it from their hands as a dog would lap water from his bowl. “By the 300 hundred men, that lapped water, I will save you, and deliver Madian into thy hand: but let all the rest of the people return to their place” (Judges 7:7). And so it was! The few overcame the many despite being outnumbered by by 450 to 1 (135,000 versus 300). God wanted the Israelites to go into battle heavily outnumbered, so that God Himself could claim the eventual victory against those impossible odds. The 300 soldiers under Gedeon―by the grace and help of God―slew 120,000 Madianites and only 15,000 remained: “For fifteen thousand men were left of all the troops of the eastern people, and one hundred and twenty thousand warriors that drew the sword, were slain” (Judges 8:10).
► DAVID: Another similar account of “the few and many” ― or perhaps “the small and the big”―can be seen in the case of little David and the giant Goliath. David was only a gutsy teenage shepherd with a mere sling and pebbles―not yet old enough to serve in Saul’s army―whereas Goliath was a giant of man and seasoned soldier, armed to the teeth. All the Israelite army was terrified of Goliath and his challenge to duel anyone the Israelites cared to send out to fight him. David, on the other hand, disregarded the human odds stacked against him and went to fight Goliath trusting in the help of God.
“There went out a man from the camp of the Philistines named Goliath, whose height was six cubits and a span [at least 7 feet six inches to 9 feet six inches]. And he had a helmet of brass upon his head, and he was clothed with a coat of mail with scales, and the weight of his coat of mail was five thousand sicles of brass [125 lbs]. And he had greaves of brass on his legs, and a buckler of brass covered his shoulders [brass is very heavy]. And the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and the head of his spear weighed six hundred sicles of iron [15 lbs].
“And standing he cried out to the bands of Israel: ‘Choose out a man of you, and let him come down and fight hand to hand. If he be able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be servants to you! But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants, and shall serve us! Give me a man and let him fight with me hand to hand!’ And Saul and all the Israelites hearing these words of the Philistine were dismayed, and greatly afraid.
“And David spoke to the men that stood by him, saying: ‘Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?’ And David said to King Saul: ‘Let not any man’s heart be dismayed by him! I, thy servant, will go and will fight against the Philistine!’ And Saul said to David: ‘Thou art not able to withstand this Philistine, nor to fight against him: for thou art but a boy, but he is a warrior from his youth!’
“And David said to Saul: ‘Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, or a bear, and took a ram out of the midst of the flock: and I pursued after them, and struck them, and delivered it out of their mouth: and they rose up against me, and I caught them by the throat, and I strangled and killed them. For I, thy servant, have killed both a lion and a bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be also as one of them. I will go now, and take away the reproach of the people: for who is this uncircumcised Philistine, who hath dared to curse the army of the living God? The Lord who delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine!’ And Saul said to David: ‘Go, and the Lord be with thee!’
“And Saul clothed David with his garments, and put a helmet of brass upon his head, and armed him with a coat of mail. And David having girded his sword upon his armor, began to try if he could walk in armor: for he was not accustomed to it. And David said to Saul: ‘I cannot go thus, for I am not used to it!’ And he took them off, And he took his staff, which he had always in his hands: and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them into the shepherd’s scrip, which he had with him, and he took a sling in his hand, and went forth against the Philistine.
“And the Philistine came and drew near to David and said: ‘Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with a staff?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And he said to David: ‘Come to me, and I will give thy flesh to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the Earth! Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield―but I come to thee in the Name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, which thou hast defied. This day, and the Lord will deliver thee into my hand, and I will slay thee, and take away thy head from thee: and I will give the carcasses of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the Earth: that all the Earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know, that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for it is His battle, and He will deliver you into our hands!’
“And when the Philistine arose and was coming, and drew nigh to meet David, David made haste, and ran to the fight to meet the Philistine. And he put his hand into his scrip, and took a stone, and cast it with the sling, and fetching it about struck the Philistine in the forehead: and the stone was fixed in his forehead, and he fell on his face upon the earth. And David prevailed over the Philistine, with a sling and a stone, and he struck, and slew the Philistine. And, as David had no sword in his hand, he ran, and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath, and slew him, and cut off his head. And the Philistines seeing that their champion was dead, fled away. And the men of Israel and Juda rising up shouted, and pursued the Philistines” (1 Kings 17:1-52).
► THE MACHABEES: In 329 BC, the famous Greek Emperor, Alexander the Great, who had conquered the Persian empire, took possession of Judaea and Jerusalem; but he was favorable to the Jews and allowed them to practice their religion. Alexander’s dream to found a world kingdom held together, not only through the person and power of the ruler, but through unity of language, customs, and mental outlook. He endeavored to bring about a marriage between Greek and Oriental culture, with the Greek culture being dominant. Greek colonists settled in the cities, and new cities were founded peopled by Greeks. Everywhere throughout the empire the colonists spoke Greek. These colonists spread the Greek pagan ideas and customs. The Greeks pointed with pride to their gymnasia, baths, theaters, temples. The Jews could not isolate themselves from this new movement. But in the year 200 BC Judea fell under the domination of the kings of Syria—known as the Seleucids or Syrian Greeks, under whom the Jews experienced the pressure of Greek civilization in a much stronger degree. Thus arose two opposing groups―(1) the pious Jews who adhered to the morality and religion of their fathers, and (2) the Liberals who befriended the Greeks and were lukewarm in matters of religion. Gradually, the Jews began to abandon their religious principles and increasingly accepted the pagan Greek culture.
A gymnasium was built below the Acra (citadel) in Jerusalem, in close proximity to the Temple, where the youths of Jerusalem were taught Greek sports. Even priests became addicted to the games and neglected the altar for the gymnasium. Many, ashamed of what a true Jew gloried in, had the marks of circumcision removed, so as to avoid being recognized as Jews when naked in the baths, or the gymnasium. Sporting games were played completely naked. The body could be “covered” only with a thin coat of oil. Likewise, the baths promoted nudity.
Things got tougher under the Syrian-Greek King Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who stormed Jerusalem in 169 BC with a large army. He killed 40,000 inhabitants, plundered and desecrated the Temple. He proclaimed Greek paganism to be the religion of the state. Upon leaving, he took many of the women and children captive, or sold them as slaves. All the Jews were forbidden, under pain of death, to practice any religion but that of the state. They did not dare to circumcise their male children, or observe their Sabbaths and festivals, or offer sacrifice to the true God. The king ordered the Holy Books to be torn and burnt; he profaned the Temple, and forbade the observance of the divine laws under the penalty of death. Antiochus was determined to break down the loyalty of the Jews to their nation and to their religion.
One particular faithful Jew, Mattathias the Hasmonean―the spark for the Machabean Revolt―was especially furious at what was happening. In 167 BC, the king who reigned over the region had sent his officers to Mattathias’s hometown in Judea. The officers were tried to force Mattathias, his five sons, and their neighbors, to perform sacrifices to the Greek pagan gods. When another Jew stepped forward to make the sacrifice, Mattathias killed the faithless Jew on the altar. The king’s officer was next to be killed. Finally, Mattathias tore down the altar. The Machabean Revolt was born. The revolt is also known by the name Machabee, after the most renowned of Mattathias’s sons, Judas the Machabee or Judas Machabeus (which means “Judas the Hammer”). When Mattathias died, two years into the revolt, his sons carried on. In the end, the Machabees recaptured Jerusalem and regained their freedom. The family of Mattathias and Judas ruled until the rise of the Herods in 63 BC. Again, an example of what the few can achieve against the many.
► APOSTLES & DISCIPLES: Similarly, God only chose 12 Apostles and 72 disciples and commanded them to go into the world and “teach ye all nations baptizing them” (Matthew 28:19): “And when day was come, He called unto Him His disciples; and He chose twelve of them―whom also He named Apostles” (Luke 6:13). “He called unto Him whom He would Himself and they came to Him. And He made that Twelve should be with Him” (Mark 3:13-14). “Having called His Twelve disciples [the Apostles]…” (Matthew 10:1), “the Lord appointed another seventy-two [disciples], and He sent them two and two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was to come. And He said to them: ‘The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few! Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send laborers into His harvest! Go! Behold I send you as lambs among wolves!’” (Luke 10:1-2), “And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Matthew 10:22). Scholars and scientists and mathematicians estimate the world’s population at the time of Christ was, to round off the number, around 300 million―so his 84 followers (12 Apostles plus 72 disciples) would be outnumbered by around 3.5 million to 1. Even if you take the number of disciples at the time of Pentecost, at the descent of the Holy Ghost, “the number of persons together was about an hundred and twenty” (Acts 1:15)―which would mean being outnumbered by the world at a ratio of 2.3 million to 1. God rarely makes things easy! So there is no need to lose heart when the odds are stacked against you!
► OUR LORD & OUR LADY: Similarly, we see the case of “the few and the many” in the case of Our Lord and Our Lady in particular, and then Our Lord and the Apostles in general. Our Lord and Our Lady were the lowest possible number in the term “few”―being conceived and born without sin, and not having committed the slightest sin in their entire lives, they pleaded for the many―just like Abraham. Our Lord said: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! … The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 19:10; 9:56). As He died on the cross, He was still pleading for the many: “Father, forgive them! For they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). Our Lord also sent out His “little flock” into the whole world to convert the many nations of the Earth: “Fear not, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you a Kingdom!” (Luke 12:32) … “Therefore, go teach all nations―baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost―teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20).
► YEAST & DOUGH: Likewise in the Parable of the Leaven or Yeast, where a little yeast raises the whole dough: “Whereunto shall I esteem the Kingdom of God to be like? It is like to leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened” (Luke 13:20-21) … “The Kingdom of Heaven is like to leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened” (Matthew 13:33).
What About Today?
The examples are truly numerous throughout history―both in the secular sphere and the religious sphere. We skip over the rest of them to arrive at the focal point of this article―a person that we should all try to imitate in whatever sphere we live and operate―that person being St. John Vianney, to whom the devil exasperatingly said: “If there were three like you in France, then my reign in France would come to an end!” Is that not what we want today? For today the devil literally rules everywhere, as stated by the recently deceased (2016) former chief-exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … The whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican! … The demon tempts the authorities of the Church ― just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
The words of the devil to St. John Vianney show us the solution: “If there were three like you in France, then my reign in France would come to an end!” ― which, in today’s context, could read: “If there were just a few thousand or even a few hundred persons in the world living like St. John Vianney, then my reign in world would come to an end!”
Any takers? Any volunteers? That is exactly what Our Lady of Akita was suggesting when she said: Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I desire this!”
The Vianney Blueprint
For a thorough examination of the life of St. John Vianney, there is no better book than The Curé D'Ars: St. Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney by Abbé (Father) Francis Trochu, who interviewed the witnesses to Vianney’s saintly life, and who quotes copiously from his beatification papers―the result of an investigative process by the Church which seeks to find, not only the good in the life of the candidate to sainthood, but also any evil to be found by a church-appointed “devil’s advocate.” The book is almost 600 pages long and contains the detail necessary for a comprehensive understanding of what happened in St. John Vianney’s life―rather than the glib, gloss-over, superficial, say as little as you can, quick-read books that are available.
Obviously, a mere article such as this is far from being a book―and cannot replace the necessary detail contained in the above book. We will simply lay out certain categories wherein St. John Vianney’s life can be imitated with certain recommendations for each category―as well as taking a selection of quotes from his sermons, which you can find in full in the 426-page book, Sermons of the Cure d'Ars, St. John Vianney: For the Sundays and Feasts of the Year.
Building on Solid Foundations
Before we lay out a St. John Vianney blueprint for sanctity and salvation, it is important to clarify and state some foundational principles regarding God, salvation and damnation. It is important that you always have these truths before your eyes and in your mind―and that you communicate these truths to your family members, not just once, but regularly, so that they become part and parcel of everyone’s life.
► GOD WANTS TO SAVE EVERYONE: It is important to understand from the very beginning that God does not desire the damnation of anyone, but desires the salvation of everyone. “God will have all men to be saved!” (1 Timothy 2:4). Jesus said: “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17) … “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56) … “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) … “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32).
► FEW ARE SAVED: The saints and theologians tell us that few go to Heaven and many go to Hell. The thought is unpleasant, but it is foolishness and insanity to ignore that truth. The truth will not change just because we choose to deliberately ignore it! It is not how God wants it to be―it is we ourselves who make it to be so. “And a certain man said to Jesus: ‘Lord, are they few that are saved?’ Jesus said: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate! For many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able!’” (Luke 13:23-24) … “Many are called―but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14) … “Enter ye in at the narrow gate! For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction―and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leads to life―and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). Those are just a few of the words of our Savior on the fewness of those who are saved. Our Lady of Fatima adds: “Many souls go to Hell!”
Our Lady also said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “The number of those damned is so great, and the number of those that save themselves is so small, that it is not useful to say more in particular. The widespread ruin and damnation among Catholics all originates and flows from the forgetfulness and contempt of the works of Christ and His Redemption. The eternal Father rigorously chastises the servants who know the will of their Lord and refuse to fulfill it! Instead they follow their pleasures; place no restraint on their passionate desires; and care not where they walk―even if it is to the most dangerous precipices! The number of fools is infinite, and the number of the damned is also uncountable!”
Many saints say the same thing: “There are many who arrive at the Faith, but few who are led into the heavenly kingdom!” (Pope St. Gregory the Great, 540-604). “The majority of men shall not see God!” (St. Justin Martyr, 100-165, Father of the Church). “Out of one hundred thousand sinners who continue in sin until death, scarcely one will be saved!” (St. Jerome, 347-420, Doctor and Father of the Church). “How many of the inhabitants of this city may perhaps be saved? What I am about to tell you is very terrible, yet I will not conceal it from you. Out of this thickly populated city with its thousands of inhabitants not one hundred people will be saved. I even doubt whether there will be as many as that!” (St. John Chrysostom, 347-407, Doctor and Father of the Church). “It is certain that few are saved!” (St. Augustine, 354-430, Doctor and Father of the Church). “There are a select few who are saved! … Those who are saved are in the minority!” (St. Thomas Aquinas, 1235-1274, Doctor of the Church). “Everyone desires to be saved but the greater part is lost! … The greater part of men choose to be damned rather than to love Almighty God!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, 1696-1787, Doctor of the Church). Many more quotes could be added, but you get the picture [read more here]. These quotes are not intended to discourage―for nobody should think they will be automatically damned. Nevertheless, it is a scary reality for those who neglect to take, or will not take, or refuses to take the means to be saved.
► GOD DAMNS NOBODY―SOULS DAMN THEMSELVES: “The greater part of men choose to be damned rather than to love Almighty God!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, 1696-1787, Doctor of the Church). Let nobody pull a sour face and grumble that God does not want to save everyone! The problem is that not everyone wants to do what it takes to be saved! They want to be paid without doing any work! Who is it that draws up the terms of the contract of salvation? You or God? Who sets the admission price for Heaven? You or God? Who marks or grades or judges your lifelong exam paper? You or God? If you want to go to Heaven, then it has to be on God’s terms and not on your terms!
God has created your soul for Heaven―but you can derail His plans very easily. He has―for better or worse―give you a free will. That freedom of will means that you are free to choose what means you will take to get Heaven―it is not supposed to be a freedom to sin. Yet that is what most people choose to do―they choose to sin. The consequences of sin have been made abundantly clear by God on many occasions―here is a mere handful: “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15). “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16). “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). “Do not bind sin to sin―for even in one thou shalt not be unpunished!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:8). “Hast thou sinned? Do so no more!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1). “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:11). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin! And say not: ‘The mercy of the Lord is great, He will have mercy on the multitude of my sins!’” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5-6). “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption [disease and death]. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8).
► EVERYONE IS A SINNER: “By one man sin entered into this world [like a virus―the virus of Original Sin], and through sin came death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned!” (Romans 5:12). “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God!” (Romans 3:23). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10). Unfortunately, due to our pride and lack of humility, we do not like to classify ourselves as sinners and seek to put on cosmetics that hide our sinfulness. We hate it when we are looked upon as sinners by others―and will often hate them just because they pointed out the truth of our sinfulness! That is not a recipe for holiness, nor is it the right way to Heaven!
► EVERYONE IS CALLED TO BE A SAINT―ANYONE CAN BE A SAINT: Do you want to go to Heaven? Then you have to be saint! There is no exception; no loophole; no ifs and buts; no turning a blind eye. Heaven is not like a passenger airplane―with first class seats (for the saints) and economy seats (for the mediocre and lukewarm). Every seat is first class and you have got to pay. Only saints go to Heaven―and Heaven is a first class place! God and Holy Scripture make this abundantly clear: “I am the Almighty God! Walk before Me and be perfect!” (Genesis 17:1). “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). “You shall be holy unto Me, because I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from other people, that you should be Mine!” (Leviticus 20:26). “You shall be to Me a holy nation!” (Exodus 19:6). “Be a holy people of the Lord thy God!” (Deuteronomy 26:19). “Without holiness no man shall see God” (Hebrews 12:14). “There shall not enter into it [Heaven] anything defiled, or that worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they that are written in the book of life of the Lamb!” (Apocalypse 21:27).
That holiness is attainable by anyone and everyone―even the worst sinner on Earth can become a saint, because “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). God Himself says: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow―and if they be red as crimson, they shall be made white as wool!” (Isaias 1:18). “And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you―and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh!” (Ezechiel 36:26). “I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live! Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways!” (Ezechiel 33:11). Thus, God forgave Adam and Eve their guilt even though He punished them with death; God spared the lives of the sinful Israelites in the desert due to the prayer of Moses; King David was forgiven his adultery and murder and attained Heaven; Our Lord forgave the sinful Mary Magdalen and cast out the seven demons from her and made her a saint; on Calvary Our Lord also forgave the thief on the cross and made him a saint; Our Lord, after His ascension, also forgave Paul his murderous deeds of arresting Christians and bring them to trial and sometimes execution, and made him a saint.
In the history of the Church since the times of Our Lord, we see many great sinners become great saints. There is no time to give an account of their lives, but here is just a handful of names that you could research into yourself:
► St. Callixtus: Thief & Embezzler
► St. Hippolytus: Heretic & First Antipope
► St. Mary of Egypt: Seductress & Whore
► St. Augustine: Fornicator and Worldling
► St. Moses the Black: Cut-throat & Gang Leader
► St. Pelagia: Dancer & Courtesan
► St. Olga: Murderess
► St. Vladimir: Murderer and Rapist
► St. Margaret of Cortona: Rich Man’s Mistress
► St. Angela of Foligno: Worldly and Flirtatious
► St. Thomas Becket: Rich and Cruel
► St. Philip Howard: Playboy and Gambler
► St. Camillus of Lellis: Drinker, Gambler & Whore-Lover
► NO HEAVEN WITHOUT PENANCE: Since―as was pointed out above―we are all sinners, then we all have incurred a debt for our sins. Since sin is the greatest evil in the world (even venial), then our debt has to be pretty large. That is why some souls―if they avoid Hell―spend enormous lengths of time in the fires of Purgatory. Just think of Amelia―the friend of Lucia in Fatima―who died aged 18, but of whom Our Lady of Fatima said that she would stay in the fires of Purgatory until the world ends! The world is not ending any time soon―and so far that 18-year-old girl has spent almost 6 lifetimes in Purgatory! Sin is no joke or fun occupation! Sin is expensive and it has to paid for in this world (at a heavily discounted price) or in Purgatory or Hell.
Penance is the usual way by which we can pay for the debt of our sins: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just men who need not penance! … There shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance!” (Luke 5:3; 13:3-5; 15:7-10) ... “God now declares unto men, that all should everywhere do penance!” (Acts 17:30) ... “The Lord delays not His promise, as some imagine, but deals patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9) ... “God has given him place for penance, and he abuses it in his pride!” (Job 24:23) … “Let him do penance for his sin!” (Leviticus 5:5).
► NO HEAVEN WITHOUT LOTS OF PRAYER: Prayer is simply defined as “the raising of the mind and heart to God” ― and there are millions of variations by which we can do that. Prayer includes, among many other things, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; visiting the Blessed Sacrament; the Divine Office; the Holy Rosary and all the other innumerable prayers of various types that can be said. Prayer is a communication with God and Heaven―without prayer, you are not going to get to Heaven. Prayer should not be an isolated thing that is performed for a few minutes a day―prayer is way of life. It is like the breath of life―we cannot survive without breathing and we cannot survive without praying. Why do most souls go to Hell? Mortal sins! Why do they commit mortal sins? They don’t pray enough! Holy Scripture and Our Lord tell us: “Pray that ye enter not into temptation!” (Matthew 26:41). “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) … “We ought always to pray, and not to faint!” (Luke 18:1). “Pray for them that persecute and calumniate you!” (Matthew 5:44) … “Pray to thy Father in secret” (Matthew 6:6). “Jesus went out into a mountain to pray, and He passed the whole night in the prayer of God” (Luke 6:12). You want to go to Heaven? Pray! Pray a lot! Pray from the heart, not the lips―as Jesus said: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6).
At all of Our Lady’s modern-day apparitions, prayer is demanded: “The salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents!” (O.L. of Good Success) … “Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger!” (O.L. of Akita) … “Say many Rosaries!” (O.L. of Fatima, May 1917). “Say the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, June 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). “Continue to say the Rosary every day! Pray, pray very much!” (Fatima, August 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (Fatima, September 1917). “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, October 1917). “Pray very much! … Be faithful and fervent in prayer! … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach!” (Akita, 1973).
At Fatima, the Angel of Portugal told the three little children to pray much—they were busy playing and he rebuked them, telling them to cease playing and pray without ceasing: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High” (Angel of Portugal, Fatima, summer of 1916).
Hence the saints say: “What more excellent than prayer? What more useful and profitable? … As our body cannot live without nourishment, so our soul cannot spiritually be kept alive without prayer!” (St. Augustine) … “Prayer is the bridge over temptations” (St. John Climacus) … “What time is there in which we have no need of God? None! Therefore at all times, and in all cases, in all affairs we need to have recourse to Him by prayer!” (Pope St. Celestine) … “What God decided from all eternity to grant us by His Divine Providence, He will give it to us by means of prayer, and on this depends the deliverance, salvation, conversion and cure of many souls and the progress and perfection of others. Prayer brings abundant gifts and graces to the world!” (St. Thomas Aquinas) … “When prayer is poured forth, sins are covered!” (St. Ambrose) … “It is simply impossible to lead, without the aid of prayer, a virtuous life!” (St. John Chrysostom) … “He knows how to live well, who knows how to pray well!” (St. Augustine) … “He who prays most receives most!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori). Do you want to be sure of getting to Heaven? PRAY! PRAY MUCH!
► NO HEAVEN WITHOUT MERCY AND FORGIVENESS: We have become a very “finger-pointing”, “vindictive”, “vengeance-seeking” and “unforgiving” class of people. Mercy is mainly reserved for ourselves―but not for others. Our Lord is very unforgiving on this point: “You have heard it said: ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy!’ But I say to you: ‘Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! Pray for them that persecute and calumniate you!’ so that you may be the children of your Father Heaven, who makes His sun rise and rain fall upon the good and bad, upon the just and the unjust! If you only love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not sinners also do this? If you salute your friends only, what do you that is more? Do not heathens also the do this? Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:43-48) … “Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7) … “But judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy!” (James 2:13) ... “For if you will forgive men their offences, then your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences!” (Matthew 6:14-15).
“Then came Peter unto Him and said: ‘Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?’ Jesus said to him: ‘I say you not just seven times; but seventy times seven times! Therefore is the Kingdom of Heaven likened to a king, who wanted to take an account of his servants. And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him, that owed him ten thousand talents (1 talent was 750 ounces of silver. At today’s silver prices of $22 an ounce, that would put the 10,000 talents at just over $165 million). And as he could not pay his debt, his lord commanded that he, and his wife and children and all that he had, should be sold and payment to be made. But that servant falling down, begged him, saying: “Have patience with me, and I will pay you all that I owe!” And the lord of that servant, being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt.
“‘But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him an hundred pence (the Roman penny was the eighth part of an ounce of silver. At today’s silver prices, a hundred pence would be just over $275): and laying hold of him, throttled him, saying: “Pay what you owe me!” And his fellow servant falling down, begged him, saying: “Have patience with me, and I will pay you all that I owe!” But he would not listen―and went and cast him into prison, till he paid the debt.
“‘Now his fellow servants, seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him and said to him: “You wicked servant! I forgave thee all the debt, because you begged me! Should you not then have had the same compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had compassion on you?” And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers, until he paid all the debt. So also shall My heavenly Father do to you, if you do not forgive everyone from your hearts!’” (Matthew 18:21-35).
► NO HEAVEN WITHOUT CHARITY: If “God is charity” (1 John 4:8), how do you expect to get access to Heaven without charity? There are three fundamental virtues that we exercise in our dealings and relationship with God―Faith, Hope and Charity―and Scripture tells us that Charity is the greatest of the three: “There remain Faith, Hope, and Charity, these three―but the greatest of these is Charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13). This is why Holy Scripture adds that, without Charity, all the things that we might do are spiritually worthless and valueless: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Hence we are commanded: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “Let us love God, because God has first loved us!” (1 John 4:19). “Charity is of God. And every one that loves, is born of God, and knows God!” (1 John 4:7). “Charity is of God―and every one that loves, is born of God” (1 John 4:7). “If then you fulfill the royal law, according to the Scriptures ― ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!’― then you do well” (James 2:8). “Owe no man anything, but to love one another. For he that loves his neighbor, has fulfilled the law!” (Romans 13:8). “The love of our neighbor works no evil. Love therefore is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10). “For all the law is fulfilled in one word: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!’” (Galatians 5:14). Nevertheless, the love of God precedes the love of neighbor: “He that loves a father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loves a son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:37).
It should be stressed that the love of God is not a flimsy, “virtual-reality”, “airy-fairy”, “wishy-washy”, “drip from the lip”, “cotton-candy” or “candy-floss” kind of love ― which professes a love of God in theory, but does nothing to prove it in practice! Of such Our Lord says: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). Just as “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:20), so too is charity dead without works to prove and affirm it. The very minimum, basic, no-frills, starting-point of charity is obedience to God and His commandments―just like a child has to prove his or her charity by obeying parents. Thus Our Lord says: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say? … If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My words … He that does not love Me, keeps not My words!” (Luke 6:46; John 14:15, 14:21-24). Yet after that basic starting point, the steps of charity ascend one-by-one to suffering for God/Christ and even dying for God/Christ: “He who wishes to love God does not truly love Him if he has not an ardent and constant desire to suffer for His sake” (St. Aloysius Gonzaga, 1568-1591). As Jesus said: “Greater love than this no man has―that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Laying down your life for Christ is the pinnacle of charity―which is what martyrdom is.
Hence the saints say: “Charity is the form, mover, mother and root of all the virtues.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274). “The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.” (Pope St. Gregory the Great, d. 604). “He who does not acquire the love of God will scarcely persevere in the grace of God, for it is very difficult to renounce sin merely through fear of chastisement” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, 1696-1787). “Perfection of life is the perfection of love. For love is the life of the soul” (St. Francis de Sales, 1567-1622). “You ask me for a method of attaining perfection. I know of love—and only love. Love can do all things! … If the greatest sinner on Earth should repent at the moment of death, and draw his last breath in an act of love; neither the many graces he had abused, nor the many sins he had committed would stand in his way. Our Lord would receive him into His mercy” (St. Thérèse of Lisieux, 1873-1897). “To love God as He ought to be loved, we must be detached from all temporal love. We must love nothing but Him, or if we love anything else, we must love it only for His sake” (St. Peter Claver, 1581-1654).
Article 4
Tuesday August 8th, Feast of St. John Vianney & Wednesday August 9th, 2023
The Curé of Ars Your Cure for Today
Tuesday August 8th, Feast of St. John Vianney & Wednesday August 9th, 2023
The Curé of Ars Your Cure for Today
A Merry-Go-Round of Feast Days!
Much like St. Dominic―whose feast we recently celebrated―St. John Vianney experienced a merry-go-round in the liturgical calendar. Born in 1786, he died in 1859 on August 4th. In 1874, Pope Pius IX proclaimed him “Venerable.” Then, in 1905, he was beatified (title of “Blessed”) by Pope St. Pius X, who proposed him as a model to the parochial clergy. He was canonized in 1925 Pope Pius XI. In 1928 his feast day was inserted into the General Roman Calendar for celebration on August 9th. Pope Pius XI, in 1929, on the 50th anniversary of his own priesthood, made him patron saint of parish priests. Pope John XXIII’s 1960 revision, in which the Vigil of Saint Lawrence was given a higher rank, moved the feast of St. John Vianney to August 8th. Finally, the 1969 revision of the Liturgical Calendar placed his feast on August 4th, the day of his death. The upside of all this is that, if you wanted, you could celebrate his feast on all three dates! In these hideous times we certainly cannot get enough of St. John Vianney!
A Parish Priest for Today!
If ever there was a need for St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, then it is today! Not just one Curé of Ars―but many! It is not for nothing that in 1929, Pope Pius XI named him patron saint of parish priests throughout the world! We are living in a time when, according to Our Lady’s prophecies, “the work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises! … The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord! … The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … They will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … . Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth! … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs. In these unhappy times, people will only think of amusements and there will be unbridled luxury that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost!” (Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Akita).
A Revolutionary Priest
On May 8th, 1786―just three years before the outbreak of the French Revolution― St. John Vianney was born in the French town of Dardilly, France (near Lyon), and was baptized the same day. His parents, Matthieu Vianney and his wife Marie, were devout Catholics who helped the poor. From his earliest years he was noted for his candor, piety, love for the Blessed Virgin, and charity for the poor. As an eight year old boy, keeping sheep, he would lead the other children to kneel before an image of the Mother of God, teaching them the Rosary by word and example. He also loved to work in the fields and meditate on divine things. He said his Rosary like an angel. John desired to become a priest―and eventually reached the altar and priesthood more through his piety rather than his intellectual talents―he was not the smartest kid on the block, but he most certainly was the holiest kid! It was because of his deep piety and holiness that the bishop decided to ordain him to the priesthood―even though his performance in his studies did not warrant it.
The late 1700s were traumatic times in France―which was on the verge of the infamous 1789 French Revolution. St. John Vianney was a mere 3-year-old when the French Revolution exploded with its persecution of the Catholic religion in general and priests and religious in particular. The Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne lived and died at this terrible and traumatic time [read more here]. The new revolutionary authorities suppressed the Church, abolished the Catholic monarchy, nationalized Church property, exiled 30,000 priests, and killed hundreds more. By 1790, the anticlerical (persecution of priests and religious) terror phase of the French Revolution forced many loyal priests to hide from the Revolutionary government and its supporters, in order to continue administering the Sacraments in their areas.
All this time dark clouds, big with havoc and disaster, had been gathering over the fair land of France. On November 26th, 1790, the so-called “Civil Constitution” of the clergy was passed by the National Assembly. All ecclesiastics who refused the oath to this Constitution within a week, were to be deprived of their benefices. By a decree of the Legislative Assembly, two years later, the non-jurors (priests who refused the oath to this Constitution) were to be banished. The following year saw the outbreak of a fierce and bloody persecution.
The Reign of Terror (1793 to 1794) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervor, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. However, the prospect of the guillotine, which was working a bloody overtime in most parts of the unhappy country. During this dire time in history, priests faced the horrors of execution. To avoid this heinous punishment, priests would by frequent change their place of residence and disguise themselves as peddlers and farmers, or some other disguise, so as to be able to minister to the religious needs of the faithful remnant. Since churches were closed down, priests were obliged to say Mass in secrecy, in places such as farmhouses.
Even though to do so had been declared illegal, the Vianneys traveled to distant farms to attend Masses celebrated by priests on the run. Realizing that such priests risked their lives day by day, Vianney began to look upon them as heroes. He received his First Holy Communion catechetical instruction in a private home from two nuns whose communities had been dissolved during the Revolution. He made his First Holy Communion at the age of 13 in a neighbor’s kitchen; during the Mass, the windows were covered so that the light of the candles could not be seen from outside.
The Revolution gradually subsided in its acts of terror, but the damage had already been done to the Faith. The Catholic Church was re-established in France in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, resulting in religious peace throughout the country, culminating in a Concordat.
Desire for the Priesthood
By the age of seventeen, John Vianney had grown in maturity and was very passionate about his vocation to win souls for the Lord. When confronting his mother about his strong vocation for the priesthood, she was abundantly pleased with her son, embracing him while tears of joy streamed down her cheeks. However, his father’s mind was seemingly made up: Matthew Vianney needed his boy to help out on the farm because he was getting older and suffered from rheumatism. Additionally, Matthew had just paid the dowry of John’s sister Catherine and had recently bought John’s brother Francis out from the army. Not only was Matthew Vianney certain he could not give up his son because of all of the labor that he contributed, but he was a poor man. By this time, John Vianney was concerned about his future vocation and longed for an education. Matthew, his father, did not see how he could afford John’s education for the priesthood. With his mother’s love and understanding of her son’s ardent vocation, she and John Vianney began to pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in two years’ time, his father gave his consent. He was 20 when his father allowed him to leave the farm to be taught at a “presbytery-school” in the neighboring village of Écully, conducted by Fr. Balley. The school taught arithmetic, history, geography and Latin. Vianney struggled with school, especially with Latin, since his past education had been interrupted by the French Revolution. Only because of Vianney’s deepest desire to be a priest—and Fr. Balley’s patience—did he persevere.
Army Deserter and Fugitive
Vianney’s studies were interrupted in 1809 when he was drafted into Napoleon’s armies. He would have been exempt, as an ecclesiastical student, but Napoleon had withdrawn the exemption in certain dioceses because of his need for soldiers in his fight against Spain. Two days after he had to report at Lyons, he became ill and was hospitalized, during which time his draft left without him. Once released from the hospital, on January 5th, he was sent to Roanne for another draft. He went into a church to pray, and fell behind the group. He met a young man who volunteered to guide him back to his group, but instead led him deep into the mountains of Le Forez, to the village of Les Noes, where deserters had gathered.
Vianney lived there for fourteen months, hidden in the byre attached to a farmhouse, and under the care of Claudine Fayot, a widow with four children. He assumed the name Jerome Vincent, and under that name, he opened a school for village children. Since the harsh weather isolated the town during the winter, the deserters were safe from gendarmes. However, after the snow melted, gendarmes came to the town constantly, searching for deserters. During these searches, Vianney hid inside stacks of fermenting hay in Fayot’s barn. An imperial proclamation in March 1810 granted amnesty to all deserters, enabling Vianney to go back legally to Écully, where he resumed his studies.
Poor Scholar―Great Priest
St. John Vianney had trouble learning―it almost cost him the priesthood! After the Imperial amnesty for deserters, Vianney went back legally to Écully, where he resumed his studies. Although John Vianney was then quickly enrolled in Father Balley’s classes for his priestly vocation, he was indeed much older than the other boys and had difficulty with memorizing, especially when learning Latin. At one point, one of his classmates, Matthias Loras, (who was working as John’s tutor) became entirely frustrated with John Vianney’s confusion about the lesson. Acting upon his frustration, Matthias boxed John’s ears in front of the entire class. John Vianney, portraying the virtue of humility, got down on his knees and sincerely asked for Matthias’ forgiveness.
Nevertheless, he was tonsured in 1811, and in 1812 he went to the minor seminary at Verrières-en-Forez. In autumn of 1813, he was sent to the major seminary at Lyons. Considered too slow, he was returned to Fr. Balley. However, Fr. Balley persuaded the vicar general that Vianney’s piety was great enough to compensate for his ignorance, and the seminarian received minor orders and the subdiaconate on July 2nd, 1814, was ordained a deacon in June 1815, and was ordained priest on August 12th, 1815, in the Couvent des Minimes de Grenoble. He said his first Mass the next day, and was appointed the assistant to Fr. Balley in Écully. He would not be there for very long―barely 120 weeks!
Lukewarm, Irreligious, Indifferent, Sinful Parish
St. John Vianney had been given a parish where―just as Our Lady warned for our days―people were far more interested in play, entertainment and amusements. When St. John Vianney arrived in his little parish of Ars, he found the spiritual level of the parish to be as pathetic as our spiritual levels are today. Ars was known as a community that enjoyed its dancing, drunkenness, and swearing. With four taverns to serve the 60 houses in Ars, few people went to church. Although the church was in disrepair, morals were lacking, and Mass attendance was scarce. Daily Mass was attended by only two or three elderly women. For the most trivial excuse, men neglected Sunday Mass. In his little parish of Ars, Our Lady’s words were incarnated because the Christian spirit had decayed and there was a general corruption of customs.
St. John Vianney was a priest ahead of his time―putting into practice many of things that Our Lady requested in her modern-day apparitions. He was already aware of Our Lady of Good Success (1600s) and Our Lady of La Salette (1846) having even personally interviewed, in 1850, one the La Salette seers, Maximin Giraud (La Salette was only 120 miles from Ars). Vianney’s life was focused exactly upon the things that Our Lady was and would be mentioning in her apparitions―he lived a life of severe penance; he prayed the Rosary assiduously; he was greatly focused upon the Sacrifice of the Mass and Blessed Sacrament of the Altar; he worked tirelessly for the conversion of sinners; he continuously spoke out against worldliness.
These are all things that Our Lady had requested and would request―before and after the life of St. John Vianney (1786-1859)―which included her apparitions in Quito, Ecuador, in the 1600s as Our Lady of Good Success; at Rue du Bac, Paris, in 1830, as Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal; at La Salette, France, in 1846; at Lourdes in 1858; at Pontmain, France, in 1871; at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917; and at Akita, Japan, in 1973. St. John Vianney was already living Our Lady’s messages to the full―and the results that he obtained were truly remarkable.
Prayer, Penance and Preaching
St. John Vianney’s method to reform Ars and bring its inhabitants to God basically consisted of Prayer, Penance and Preaching. Prayer was especially focused on the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Holy Eucharist and the Rosary―and it was relentless, fulfilling the Scriptural command: “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). The penances that he chose to perform were frightening but also frighteningly effective. The preaching was two-pronged: (1) it involved a soft approach of informal preaching that consisted in visiting families in their homes and talking about everyday things that were of interest to them, and (2) formally preaching from the pulpit where he did not mince his words or hide any truths.
Above all he prayed. When others were doubting that John Vianney had a vocation, Fr. Balley supported him, seeing in John a true vocation, a deep love for the Blessed Mother, and a profound prayer life. He prayed a lot as a child. He prayed a lot in his teens. He prayed a lot when he started studies for the priesthood. He prayed a lot as priest. If he was not praying in the church, then he was praying as he was walking to visit the families of Ars. His Breviary and Rosary were always in his hands. It is said that “Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God”―in that case, John’s mind and heart were in Heaven while his feet were on Earth! Our Lord had said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) and John was not going to do anything without Our Lord! Prayer brings about far more than we could ever imagine―and so John devoted his life to prayer―that is how he could achieve in faithless, lukewarm, sinful Ars far more than anyone could have imagined.
To prayer he joined the most awe-inspiring austerities. He made his own instruments of penance, or at least “improved” them by weighting them with bits of metal or iron hooks. His bed was the bare floor, for he gave away almost at once the mattress he had brought from Écully. Subsequently he used to speak of the terrible penances of those days as his “youthful follies.” He would go without food for several days at a stretch. There was no housekeeper at the presbytery. Until 1827 the staple of his food was potatoes, an occasional boiled egg and a kind of tough, indigestible, flat cake made of flour, salt, and water which the people called matefaims. At one time he tried to live on grass, but he had to confess that such a diet proved impossible. He himself reveals his mind, as regards all this, in the words he addressed to a young priest: “The devil,” he said, “is not much afraid of the discipline [scourging oneself with a whip] and hair-shirts―what he really fears is the curtailing of food, drink and sleep.” That is why―either by his own choice or the devil’s constant nightly disruptions―he would only get 2 to 3 hours sleep a night.
As for preaching, Fr. Vianney’s realized that you must first try to “win over your audience” if you want to preach to them and bring about major changes. Therefore, his first care was to establish contact with his flock. He made a point of visiting every household in the parish. In those first days he still found time to walk in the fields, his Breviary and Rosary in his hands. He would speak to the peasants about the state of the crops, the weather, their families―so as to win their goodwill.
St. John Vianney preached relentlessly to them for twenty-five years about the importance of practicing modesty, avoiding blasphemy, profanity and obscenity, and unlawful work on Sunday. In his wonderful sermons from the pulpit, with great pastoral zeal, St. John Vianney would castigate these men and women for their vile behavior as well as exclaim the greatness and beauty of surrendering ourselves every day to the will of Our Father. Truly only wanting the conversion of his parish, in the pulpit he would touch the weak spots of these men and women. Over 100 years earlier, Our Lady of Good Success, in speaking of terrible times to come, lamented: “The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation, and those who should speak out will be silent” (Our Lady of Good Success) ― that was not the case with St. John Vianney, he spoke out all the time!
A Priest Ahead of His Time
St. John Vianney was tailor-made for such a scenario and experienced much of the above in the microcosm of his little parish which would later strike the Church as a whole. The devil hates those who do the Lord's work―and St. John Vianney was certainly doing the Lord’s work, and doing it well―too well for Hell to stand by and watch!
Our Lady had warned that Lucifer and his demons would be unleashed from Hell and would put an end to the Faith little by little. She added: “The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord! … The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … They will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain!” St. John Vianney experienced first-hand the attacks of the devil―even to the point of actually visibly seeing the devil at times, and frequently being harassed by his voice and preternatural torments, tricks and terrors.
Satan prefers to be forgotten and invisible so that he can do his work all the more proficiently. If this tactic does not work, then he has recourse to all sorts of manifestations to unsettle a soul. With St. John Vianney none of his tactics were successful. Thus, the devil assumed a bodily form to terrify the priest, which he managed to do for a time. Imagine yourself being dragged out of bed by the ankles, as he was, on many occasions, or hearing hideous screams, or Satan himself singing in the night. Vianney’s tormentor appeared to be unceasingly occupied in devising new modes of attack. No longer content with disturbing his unfortunate victim by frightful noises and knocking of doors, he now sometimes hid under his bed; and the whole night long the poor Curé’s repose was interrupted and his ear distracted by piercing cries, or mournful groans, or smothered sighs. Sometimes on these occasions he raised a hue and cry at his door, imitating alternately the growling of a bear, the barking of a dog, and the howling of a wolf. This is what happened to the Curé d’Ars from 1824 to 1858, hundreds of times a year.
Fr. Vianney’s own account of the origin of these persecutions is as follows: “It was about nine o’clock at night―I was just going to bed, when the demon came to torment me for the first time. Three heavy blows were leveled at the door of my court-yard: you would have thought someone was trying to break it open by force. I opened my window, and asked ‘Who is there?’ but I saw nothing, and commending myself to God, I quietly retired to rest. I had not, however, gone to sleep, before I was again startled by three still louder knocks, not now at the outer door, but at that on the staircase, which led to my chamber. I rose up, and cried out a second time, ‘Who is there?’ No one replied. At the first commencement of these noises at night, I imagined that they were caused by robbers, and fearing lest the beautiful ornaments of the Viscount d’Ars might be in danger of being carried off, I thought it well to take precautions. Accordingly, I had two courageous men to sleep in the house, who were ready to assist me in case of need. They came several nights successively. They heard the noise, but discovering nothing, they were convinced that it proceeded from other causes than the malice of men. I myself soon came to the same conclusion; for one night in the midst of winter, three violent knocks were heard. I rose quickly from my bed, and went down into the court-yard, expecting to see the intruders making their escape, and intending to call for help; but, to my astonishment, I saw nothing, I heard nothing, and, what is more, I discovered no traces of foot-marks upon the snow. I resigned myself to God’s will, praying Him to be my guard and protector, and to surround me with His angels if my enemy should again return to torment me.”
It lasted, not for days or months, but for thirty-five years, with different phases, and under different forms, but almost without intermission. At midnight three violent knocks against the door of the presbytery generally warned the Curé d’Ars of the presence of his enemy; these knocks were followed by others more or less heavy, according as his sleep was more or less profound. After having diverted himself by making a frightful uproar on the staircase, the demon entered the room, seized the curtains of the bed, shook them so furiously that the poor inmate never could understand why they were not torn to atoms. Sometimes the malignant spirit knocked like someone who was demanding admittance, and the next moment, without the door being opened, he was in the room, moving about the chairs, deranging the furniture, rummaging everywhere, calling the Curé with a mocking voice, ‘Vianney, Vianney!’ and adding to his name the most outrageous insults and threats. “Eater of truffles, we shall have you, we shall have you! We hold you, we hold you!”
At other times, without giving himself the trouble to mount, he hailed Vianney from the court-yard, and, after having vociferated for a long time, he would imitate a charge of cavalry, or the noise of an army in march. Sometimes he drove nails into the floor, with heavy strokes as of a hammer, sometimes he cut wood, sometimes sawed and planed planks like a carpenter actively employed in the interior of a house, or he would play upon the table, the chimneypiece, and especially upon the water-jug, always choosing in preference the most sonorous objects.
Sometimes the Curé heard in the hall below him a noise like that of a horse bounding up to the ceiling and again falling down heavily on his four feet. At other times it was the noise of a great flock of sheep grazing above his head. One night when he was more than usually disquieted, he said: “My God, I willingly make to Thee the sacrifice of some hours’ sleep for the conversion of sinners!” Immediately the infernal troupe disappeared, and all was silent. All these details were given by Fr. Vianney himself.
If the object of Fr. Vianney’s invisible persecutor was to strike terror into his heart, he succeeded only too well; for the poor Curé confessed that in the early times, before the cause was known of these mysterious noises, which were renewed every night for hours together, he was often ready to die with fear in his bed. His health, indeed, was so much affected by the strain upon his nerves, caused by the terrible apprehension he endured, that he visibly declined. Kind friends offered to keep watch around the house, and to sleep in the room adjoining his own; and several young men, who were armed, stationed themselves near the church, where they could command a view of all the approaches to the presbytery.
After a while he stopped being terrified; all that Satan could bring about was a loss of sleep, which was at most only 2 to 3 hours anyway. One night the bed was set aflame, still to no avail. The devil was heard to say: “If there were three such priests as you in France, my kingdom in France would be ruined.”
St. John Vianney Offers You His Cures and Remedies
God never changes: “For I am the Lord, and I change not!” (Malachias 3:6). “Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today; and the same for ever!” (Hebrews 13:8). Jesus calls Himself the Truth: “I am the way and the truth!” (John 14:6). Therefore, the truth never changes and the way never changes. What worked for St. John Vianney, will also work for you! In essence, what worked for St. John Vianney is the very same program that Our Lady has told us to follow―prayer, penance and preaching.
Much like St. Dominic―whose feast we recently celebrated―St. John Vianney experienced a merry-go-round in the liturgical calendar. Born in 1786, he died in 1859 on August 4th. In 1874, Pope Pius IX proclaimed him “Venerable.” Then, in 1905, he was beatified (title of “Blessed”) by Pope St. Pius X, who proposed him as a model to the parochial clergy. He was canonized in 1925 Pope Pius XI. In 1928 his feast day was inserted into the General Roman Calendar for celebration on August 9th. Pope Pius XI, in 1929, on the 50th anniversary of his own priesthood, made him patron saint of parish priests. Pope John XXIII’s 1960 revision, in which the Vigil of Saint Lawrence was given a higher rank, moved the feast of St. John Vianney to August 8th. Finally, the 1969 revision of the Liturgical Calendar placed his feast on August 4th, the day of his death. The upside of all this is that, if you wanted, you could celebrate his feast on all three dates! In these hideous times we certainly cannot get enough of St. John Vianney!
A Parish Priest for Today!
If ever there was a need for St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, then it is today! Not just one Curé of Ars―but many! It is not for nothing that in 1929, Pope Pius XI named him patron saint of parish priests throughout the world! We are living in a time when, according to Our Lady’s prophecies, “the work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises! … The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord! … The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … They will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … . Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth! … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs. In these unhappy times, people will only think of amusements and there will be unbridled luxury that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost!” (Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Akita).
A Revolutionary Priest
On May 8th, 1786―just three years before the outbreak of the French Revolution― St. John Vianney was born in the French town of Dardilly, France (near Lyon), and was baptized the same day. His parents, Matthieu Vianney and his wife Marie, were devout Catholics who helped the poor. From his earliest years he was noted for his candor, piety, love for the Blessed Virgin, and charity for the poor. As an eight year old boy, keeping sheep, he would lead the other children to kneel before an image of the Mother of God, teaching them the Rosary by word and example. He also loved to work in the fields and meditate on divine things. He said his Rosary like an angel. John desired to become a priest―and eventually reached the altar and priesthood more through his piety rather than his intellectual talents―he was not the smartest kid on the block, but he most certainly was the holiest kid! It was because of his deep piety and holiness that the bishop decided to ordain him to the priesthood―even though his performance in his studies did not warrant it.
The late 1700s were traumatic times in France―which was on the verge of the infamous 1789 French Revolution. St. John Vianney was a mere 3-year-old when the French Revolution exploded with its persecution of the Catholic religion in general and priests and religious in particular. The Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne lived and died at this terrible and traumatic time [read more here]. The new revolutionary authorities suppressed the Church, abolished the Catholic monarchy, nationalized Church property, exiled 30,000 priests, and killed hundreds more. By 1790, the anticlerical (persecution of priests and religious) terror phase of the French Revolution forced many loyal priests to hide from the Revolutionary government and its supporters, in order to continue administering the Sacraments in their areas.
All this time dark clouds, big with havoc and disaster, had been gathering over the fair land of France. On November 26th, 1790, the so-called “Civil Constitution” of the clergy was passed by the National Assembly. All ecclesiastics who refused the oath to this Constitution within a week, were to be deprived of their benefices. By a decree of the Legislative Assembly, two years later, the non-jurors (priests who refused the oath to this Constitution) were to be banished. The following year saw the outbreak of a fierce and bloody persecution.
The Reign of Terror (1793 to 1794) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervor, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. However, the prospect of the guillotine, which was working a bloody overtime in most parts of the unhappy country. During this dire time in history, priests faced the horrors of execution. To avoid this heinous punishment, priests would by frequent change their place of residence and disguise themselves as peddlers and farmers, or some other disguise, so as to be able to minister to the religious needs of the faithful remnant. Since churches were closed down, priests were obliged to say Mass in secrecy, in places such as farmhouses.
Even though to do so had been declared illegal, the Vianneys traveled to distant farms to attend Masses celebrated by priests on the run. Realizing that such priests risked their lives day by day, Vianney began to look upon them as heroes. He received his First Holy Communion catechetical instruction in a private home from two nuns whose communities had been dissolved during the Revolution. He made his First Holy Communion at the age of 13 in a neighbor’s kitchen; during the Mass, the windows were covered so that the light of the candles could not be seen from outside.
The Revolution gradually subsided in its acts of terror, but the damage had already been done to the Faith. The Catholic Church was re-established in France in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, resulting in religious peace throughout the country, culminating in a Concordat.
Desire for the Priesthood
By the age of seventeen, John Vianney had grown in maturity and was very passionate about his vocation to win souls for the Lord. When confronting his mother about his strong vocation for the priesthood, she was abundantly pleased with her son, embracing him while tears of joy streamed down her cheeks. However, his father’s mind was seemingly made up: Matthew Vianney needed his boy to help out on the farm because he was getting older and suffered from rheumatism. Additionally, Matthew had just paid the dowry of John’s sister Catherine and had recently bought John’s brother Francis out from the army. Not only was Matthew Vianney certain he could not give up his son because of all of the labor that he contributed, but he was a poor man. By this time, John Vianney was concerned about his future vocation and longed for an education. Matthew, his father, did not see how he could afford John’s education for the priesthood. With his mother’s love and understanding of her son’s ardent vocation, she and John Vianney began to pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in two years’ time, his father gave his consent. He was 20 when his father allowed him to leave the farm to be taught at a “presbytery-school” in the neighboring village of Écully, conducted by Fr. Balley. The school taught arithmetic, history, geography and Latin. Vianney struggled with school, especially with Latin, since his past education had been interrupted by the French Revolution. Only because of Vianney’s deepest desire to be a priest—and Fr. Balley’s patience—did he persevere.
Army Deserter and Fugitive
Vianney’s studies were interrupted in 1809 when he was drafted into Napoleon’s armies. He would have been exempt, as an ecclesiastical student, but Napoleon had withdrawn the exemption in certain dioceses because of his need for soldiers in his fight against Spain. Two days after he had to report at Lyons, he became ill and was hospitalized, during which time his draft left without him. Once released from the hospital, on January 5th, he was sent to Roanne for another draft. He went into a church to pray, and fell behind the group. He met a young man who volunteered to guide him back to his group, but instead led him deep into the mountains of Le Forez, to the village of Les Noes, where deserters had gathered.
Vianney lived there for fourteen months, hidden in the byre attached to a farmhouse, and under the care of Claudine Fayot, a widow with four children. He assumed the name Jerome Vincent, and under that name, he opened a school for village children. Since the harsh weather isolated the town during the winter, the deserters were safe from gendarmes. However, after the snow melted, gendarmes came to the town constantly, searching for deserters. During these searches, Vianney hid inside stacks of fermenting hay in Fayot’s barn. An imperial proclamation in March 1810 granted amnesty to all deserters, enabling Vianney to go back legally to Écully, where he resumed his studies.
Poor Scholar―Great Priest
St. John Vianney had trouble learning―it almost cost him the priesthood! After the Imperial amnesty for deserters, Vianney went back legally to Écully, where he resumed his studies. Although John Vianney was then quickly enrolled in Father Balley’s classes for his priestly vocation, he was indeed much older than the other boys and had difficulty with memorizing, especially when learning Latin. At one point, one of his classmates, Matthias Loras, (who was working as John’s tutor) became entirely frustrated with John Vianney’s confusion about the lesson. Acting upon his frustration, Matthias boxed John’s ears in front of the entire class. John Vianney, portraying the virtue of humility, got down on his knees and sincerely asked for Matthias’ forgiveness.
Nevertheless, he was tonsured in 1811, and in 1812 he went to the minor seminary at Verrières-en-Forez. In autumn of 1813, he was sent to the major seminary at Lyons. Considered too slow, he was returned to Fr. Balley. However, Fr. Balley persuaded the vicar general that Vianney’s piety was great enough to compensate for his ignorance, and the seminarian received minor orders and the subdiaconate on July 2nd, 1814, was ordained a deacon in June 1815, and was ordained priest on August 12th, 1815, in the Couvent des Minimes de Grenoble. He said his first Mass the next day, and was appointed the assistant to Fr. Balley in Écully. He would not be there for very long―barely 120 weeks!
Lukewarm, Irreligious, Indifferent, Sinful Parish
St. John Vianney had been given a parish where―just as Our Lady warned for our days―people were far more interested in play, entertainment and amusements. When St. John Vianney arrived in his little parish of Ars, he found the spiritual level of the parish to be as pathetic as our spiritual levels are today. Ars was known as a community that enjoyed its dancing, drunkenness, and swearing. With four taverns to serve the 60 houses in Ars, few people went to church. Although the church was in disrepair, morals were lacking, and Mass attendance was scarce. Daily Mass was attended by only two or three elderly women. For the most trivial excuse, men neglected Sunday Mass. In his little parish of Ars, Our Lady’s words were incarnated because the Christian spirit had decayed and there was a general corruption of customs.
St. John Vianney was a priest ahead of his time―putting into practice many of things that Our Lady requested in her modern-day apparitions. He was already aware of Our Lady of Good Success (1600s) and Our Lady of La Salette (1846) having even personally interviewed, in 1850, one the La Salette seers, Maximin Giraud (La Salette was only 120 miles from Ars). Vianney’s life was focused exactly upon the things that Our Lady was and would be mentioning in her apparitions―he lived a life of severe penance; he prayed the Rosary assiduously; he was greatly focused upon the Sacrifice of the Mass and Blessed Sacrament of the Altar; he worked tirelessly for the conversion of sinners; he continuously spoke out against worldliness.
These are all things that Our Lady had requested and would request―before and after the life of St. John Vianney (1786-1859)―which included her apparitions in Quito, Ecuador, in the 1600s as Our Lady of Good Success; at Rue du Bac, Paris, in 1830, as Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal; at La Salette, France, in 1846; at Lourdes in 1858; at Pontmain, France, in 1871; at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917; and at Akita, Japan, in 1973. St. John Vianney was already living Our Lady’s messages to the full―and the results that he obtained were truly remarkable.
Prayer, Penance and Preaching
St. John Vianney’s method to reform Ars and bring its inhabitants to God basically consisted of Prayer, Penance and Preaching. Prayer was especially focused on the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Holy Eucharist and the Rosary―and it was relentless, fulfilling the Scriptural command: “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). The penances that he chose to perform were frightening but also frighteningly effective. The preaching was two-pronged: (1) it involved a soft approach of informal preaching that consisted in visiting families in their homes and talking about everyday things that were of interest to them, and (2) formally preaching from the pulpit where he did not mince his words or hide any truths.
Above all he prayed. When others were doubting that John Vianney had a vocation, Fr. Balley supported him, seeing in John a true vocation, a deep love for the Blessed Mother, and a profound prayer life. He prayed a lot as a child. He prayed a lot in his teens. He prayed a lot when he started studies for the priesthood. He prayed a lot as priest. If he was not praying in the church, then he was praying as he was walking to visit the families of Ars. His Breviary and Rosary were always in his hands. It is said that “Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God”―in that case, John’s mind and heart were in Heaven while his feet were on Earth! Our Lord had said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) and John was not going to do anything without Our Lord! Prayer brings about far more than we could ever imagine―and so John devoted his life to prayer―that is how he could achieve in faithless, lukewarm, sinful Ars far more than anyone could have imagined.
To prayer he joined the most awe-inspiring austerities. He made his own instruments of penance, or at least “improved” them by weighting them with bits of metal or iron hooks. His bed was the bare floor, for he gave away almost at once the mattress he had brought from Écully. Subsequently he used to speak of the terrible penances of those days as his “youthful follies.” He would go without food for several days at a stretch. There was no housekeeper at the presbytery. Until 1827 the staple of his food was potatoes, an occasional boiled egg and a kind of tough, indigestible, flat cake made of flour, salt, and water which the people called matefaims. At one time he tried to live on grass, but he had to confess that such a diet proved impossible. He himself reveals his mind, as regards all this, in the words he addressed to a young priest: “The devil,” he said, “is not much afraid of the discipline [scourging oneself with a whip] and hair-shirts―what he really fears is the curtailing of food, drink and sleep.” That is why―either by his own choice or the devil’s constant nightly disruptions―he would only get 2 to 3 hours sleep a night.
As for preaching, Fr. Vianney’s realized that you must first try to “win over your audience” if you want to preach to them and bring about major changes. Therefore, his first care was to establish contact with his flock. He made a point of visiting every household in the parish. In those first days he still found time to walk in the fields, his Breviary and Rosary in his hands. He would speak to the peasants about the state of the crops, the weather, their families―so as to win their goodwill.
St. John Vianney preached relentlessly to them for twenty-five years about the importance of practicing modesty, avoiding blasphemy, profanity and obscenity, and unlawful work on Sunday. In his wonderful sermons from the pulpit, with great pastoral zeal, St. John Vianney would castigate these men and women for their vile behavior as well as exclaim the greatness and beauty of surrendering ourselves every day to the will of Our Father. Truly only wanting the conversion of his parish, in the pulpit he would touch the weak spots of these men and women. Over 100 years earlier, Our Lady of Good Success, in speaking of terrible times to come, lamented: “The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation, and those who should speak out will be silent” (Our Lady of Good Success) ― that was not the case with St. John Vianney, he spoke out all the time!
A Priest Ahead of His Time
St. John Vianney was tailor-made for such a scenario and experienced much of the above in the microcosm of his little parish which would later strike the Church as a whole. The devil hates those who do the Lord's work―and St. John Vianney was certainly doing the Lord’s work, and doing it well―too well for Hell to stand by and watch!
Our Lady had warned that Lucifer and his demons would be unleashed from Hell and would put an end to the Faith little by little. She added: “The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord! … The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … They will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain!” St. John Vianney experienced first-hand the attacks of the devil―even to the point of actually visibly seeing the devil at times, and frequently being harassed by his voice and preternatural torments, tricks and terrors.
Satan prefers to be forgotten and invisible so that he can do his work all the more proficiently. If this tactic does not work, then he has recourse to all sorts of manifestations to unsettle a soul. With St. John Vianney none of his tactics were successful. Thus, the devil assumed a bodily form to terrify the priest, which he managed to do for a time. Imagine yourself being dragged out of bed by the ankles, as he was, on many occasions, or hearing hideous screams, or Satan himself singing in the night. Vianney’s tormentor appeared to be unceasingly occupied in devising new modes of attack. No longer content with disturbing his unfortunate victim by frightful noises and knocking of doors, he now sometimes hid under his bed; and the whole night long the poor Curé’s repose was interrupted and his ear distracted by piercing cries, or mournful groans, or smothered sighs. Sometimes on these occasions he raised a hue and cry at his door, imitating alternately the growling of a bear, the barking of a dog, and the howling of a wolf. This is what happened to the Curé d’Ars from 1824 to 1858, hundreds of times a year.
Fr. Vianney’s own account of the origin of these persecutions is as follows: “It was about nine o’clock at night―I was just going to bed, when the demon came to torment me for the first time. Three heavy blows were leveled at the door of my court-yard: you would have thought someone was trying to break it open by force. I opened my window, and asked ‘Who is there?’ but I saw nothing, and commending myself to God, I quietly retired to rest. I had not, however, gone to sleep, before I was again startled by three still louder knocks, not now at the outer door, but at that on the staircase, which led to my chamber. I rose up, and cried out a second time, ‘Who is there?’ No one replied. At the first commencement of these noises at night, I imagined that they were caused by robbers, and fearing lest the beautiful ornaments of the Viscount d’Ars might be in danger of being carried off, I thought it well to take precautions. Accordingly, I had two courageous men to sleep in the house, who were ready to assist me in case of need. They came several nights successively. They heard the noise, but discovering nothing, they were convinced that it proceeded from other causes than the malice of men. I myself soon came to the same conclusion; for one night in the midst of winter, three violent knocks were heard. I rose quickly from my bed, and went down into the court-yard, expecting to see the intruders making their escape, and intending to call for help; but, to my astonishment, I saw nothing, I heard nothing, and, what is more, I discovered no traces of foot-marks upon the snow. I resigned myself to God’s will, praying Him to be my guard and protector, and to surround me with His angels if my enemy should again return to torment me.”
It lasted, not for days or months, but for thirty-five years, with different phases, and under different forms, but almost without intermission. At midnight three violent knocks against the door of the presbytery generally warned the Curé d’Ars of the presence of his enemy; these knocks were followed by others more or less heavy, according as his sleep was more or less profound. After having diverted himself by making a frightful uproar on the staircase, the demon entered the room, seized the curtains of the bed, shook them so furiously that the poor inmate never could understand why they were not torn to atoms. Sometimes the malignant spirit knocked like someone who was demanding admittance, and the next moment, without the door being opened, he was in the room, moving about the chairs, deranging the furniture, rummaging everywhere, calling the Curé with a mocking voice, ‘Vianney, Vianney!’ and adding to his name the most outrageous insults and threats. “Eater of truffles, we shall have you, we shall have you! We hold you, we hold you!”
At other times, without giving himself the trouble to mount, he hailed Vianney from the court-yard, and, after having vociferated for a long time, he would imitate a charge of cavalry, or the noise of an army in march. Sometimes he drove nails into the floor, with heavy strokes as of a hammer, sometimes he cut wood, sometimes sawed and planed planks like a carpenter actively employed in the interior of a house, or he would play upon the table, the chimneypiece, and especially upon the water-jug, always choosing in preference the most sonorous objects.
Sometimes the Curé heard in the hall below him a noise like that of a horse bounding up to the ceiling and again falling down heavily on his four feet. At other times it was the noise of a great flock of sheep grazing above his head. One night when he was more than usually disquieted, he said: “My God, I willingly make to Thee the sacrifice of some hours’ sleep for the conversion of sinners!” Immediately the infernal troupe disappeared, and all was silent. All these details were given by Fr. Vianney himself.
If the object of Fr. Vianney’s invisible persecutor was to strike terror into his heart, he succeeded only too well; for the poor Curé confessed that in the early times, before the cause was known of these mysterious noises, which were renewed every night for hours together, he was often ready to die with fear in his bed. His health, indeed, was so much affected by the strain upon his nerves, caused by the terrible apprehension he endured, that he visibly declined. Kind friends offered to keep watch around the house, and to sleep in the room adjoining his own; and several young men, who were armed, stationed themselves near the church, where they could command a view of all the approaches to the presbytery.
After a while he stopped being terrified; all that Satan could bring about was a loss of sleep, which was at most only 2 to 3 hours anyway. One night the bed was set aflame, still to no avail. The devil was heard to say: “If there were three such priests as you in France, my kingdom in France would be ruined.”
St. John Vianney Offers You His Cures and Remedies
God never changes: “For I am the Lord, and I change not!” (Malachias 3:6). “Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today; and the same for ever!” (Hebrews 13:8). Jesus calls Himself the Truth: “I am the way and the truth!” (John 14:6). Therefore, the truth never changes and the way never changes. What worked for St. John Vianney, will also work for you! In essence, what worked for St. John Vianney is the very same program that Our Lady has told us to follow―prayer, penance and preaching.
Article 3
Sunday August 6th & Monday August 7th, 2023
The Transfiguration & You
Sunday August 6th & Monday August 7th, 2023
The Transfiguration & You
Try’n Figure This Out!
Today, August 6th, the Church traditionally celebrates the feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Most feasts are celebrated once―yet the Gospel of the Transfiguration is not only read on August 6th, but the Gospel is also read at Mass on the Second Sunday of Lent, and ALSO the Ember Saturday of Lent, which is usually the Saturday before the Second Sunday of Lent! Why on earth does the Church give the exact same reading, by the exact same Evangelist, two days running?!! Why—if the feast of the Transfiguration was normally on August 6th― why then have the very same Gospel reading of the Transfiguration for two consecutive days during Lent? Has the Church run-out of readings? Does it have to fill a void or gap by repeating the same text the next day?
The Gospel on the Transfiguration
“And after six days Jesus taketh with Him Peter and James and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain, apart by themselves, to pray. And whilst He prayed, the shape of His countenance was altered, His face did shine as the sun: and His garments became white as snow—white and glittering. And there appeared to them Elias with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus. And they spoke of His decease that He should accomplish in Jerusalem. But Peter and they that were with Him were heavy with sleep. And waking, they saw His glory, and the two men that stood with Him. And Peter said to Jesus: ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here! If thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles (tents), one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias!’ And as he was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud, saying: ‘This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him!’ And the disciples hearing, fell upon their face, and were very much afraid. And Jesus came and touched them: and said to them: ‘Arise, and fear not!’ And they lifting up their eyes and immediately looking about, they saw no man any more, but Jesus only with them. And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying: ‘Tell the vision to no man, till the Son of man be risen from the dead!’” (Matthew 17:1–9, Mark 9:1–8, Luke 9:28–36).
Figuring Out the Transfiguration
The Transfiguration of Christ is the culminating point of His public life before He enters the “final scene” of His life with His Passion and Death, just as His Baptism was the starting point of His public life, and His Ascension marked the end of His public life. Moreover, this glorious event has been related in detail by St. Matthew (17:1-6), St. Mark (9:1-8), and St. Luke (9:28-36), while St. Peter (2 Peter 1:16-18) and St. John (1:14), two of the privileged witnesses, make allusion to it.
About a week after His stay in Cæsarea Philippi, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John and led them to a high mountain apart, where He was transfigured before their amazed eyes. St. Matthew and St. Mark express this phenomenon by the Greek word “metemorphothe”, which the Latin Vulgate translates as “transfiguratus est.” Sts. Matthew, Mark and Luke (the Synoptics) explain the true meaning of the word, by adding a description of the effects: “His face did shine as the sun: and His garments became white as snow,” according to the Latin Vulgate, or “as light,” according to the Greek text.
His Glory Can Be Our Glory—If We…
This dazzling brightness which shone forth from His whole Body was produced by an interior shining of the glory of His Divinity. False Judaism had rejected the Messias, and now true Judaism, represented by Moses and Elias, the Law and the Prophets, recognized and adored Him, while for the second time (the first time was at the baptism of Jesus) God the Father proclaimed Him His only-begotten and well-loved Son.
By this glorious manifestation, Our Lord, Who had just foretold His Passion to the Apostles (Matthew 16:21), and Who had just spoken with Moses and Elias of the trials which awaited Him at Jerusalem, strengthened the Faith of His three favored Apostles and tried to prepare them for the terrible struggle of which they were to soon be witnesses in Gethsemane, by giving them a foretaste of the glory and heavenly delights to which we attain by suffering. Argh! Ouch! There goes that word again—suffering!!
Only One Road, Only One Way
Yet without suffering—and penance is suffering—we cannot get to Heaven. Our Lord said it two ways: “No, I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). “And he said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23). “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Boo! Hiss! Boo! Is there no other way to Heaven? Nope! That’s the only road—take it, or leave it!
The Starting Blocks of Lent
With there being three Gospel Mass readings on the Transfiguration during every year, we can deduce that it must be very important for us to hear this Gospel three times. Lent can be looked upon the starting blocks of the race to Heaven. Lent should not be looked upon as a “Forty-Day-Flash-in-the-Pan”, but as an introduction to a new way of life. Thus after having read the “double-barreled” Gospel on Ember Saturday and the next day, the Second Sunday of Lent, we look upon that as being the start of our annual race for holiness and Heaven. At the start of the Septuagesima season, the Church gave us the Epistle of St. Paul concerning the race. We are told: “Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain!” (1 Corinthians 9:24). Our Lord speaks in similar terms when He says: “For many are called, but few chosen!” (Matthew 20:16) and Matthew has Our Lord saying the same thing later: “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14).
This is what St. Paul’s tries to communicate in his follow-up to the analogy about the race: “For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: and did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the desert” (1 Corinthians 10:1-5), further adding:
“Now these things were done in a figure of us, that we should not covet evil things as they also coveted. Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them, as it is written: The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ: as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents. Neither do you murmur: as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them in figure: and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:6-12).
Transfiguration―A Call to Holiness
We speak of “The Holy Family”―Jesus, Mary and Joseph―yet every family is called to be holy! Is your family holy? Does your family want to be holy? Are you on the path to holiness? Our Lord says: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). God Himself says: “Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy! … You shall be holy, because I am holy!” (Leviticus 19:2; 11:46). Is that your goal? Is that the goal of your family? Is that your goal―not just in theory―but in practice? Do you realize that ONLY SAINTS go to Heaven? “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” says Our Lord (Matthew 11:12). Are you sure that you and your family are on the way to holiness, sanctity and saintliness? If not, then you are planning on throwing yourself and your family into the fires of Purgatory, or the fires of Hell? What sane person wants to throw themselves into a fire―whether it be for a few decades, a few centuries, or for eternity? We do well to take to heart the words of St. Louis de Montfort, as written in The Secret of Mary, where he paints a clear picture of our calling in life:
“Chosen soul, living image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, God wants you to become holy like Him in this life, and glorious like Him in the next (Matthew 5:48). It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being. What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God! A marvelous work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving His grace abundantly and in an extraordinary manner. The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this.”
St. Louis continues: “Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God.”
“The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these, but we are sure that grace will be given to all, though not in the same measure, although, in His infinite goodness, He always gives sufficient grace to each. A person who corresponds to great graces performs great works, and one who corresponds to lesser graces performs lesser works. The value and high standard of our actions corresponds to the value and perfection of the grace given by God and responded to by the faithful soul. No one can contest these principles. It all comes to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary).
Finding Mary in the Liturgical Year
The Liturgical Year is filled with many feast of Mary and months dedicated to Mary. You and your family should have a profound devotion to Mary―for Our Lady said at Fatima (speaking in the “third person” of herself): “Only she can help you!” While at Akita, Japan, in 1973, she said: “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach!” Are you and your family profoundly devoted to Mary―or are you more devoted to your smartphone, television, internet, social media
The Transfigurations of Lent and August
The Liturgical Year is meant to transfigure us, or transform us—not just during the Forty Days of Lent, but for the rest of the year and for the rest of our lives. What is the point of taking two steps forward during Lent, only to take two steps backwards, or even more steps backward after Lent? What is the point of making a meal and then throwing it in the trash can? What is the point of building a house, only to knock it down? What’s the point of being faithful to your spouse for one week, if you commit adultery for the next three weeks? What’s the point of being “pious” on Sunday, if you live like a devil for the rest of the week? If we do not continue at a higher spiritual level after Lent is over, then the only winner of the race is the devil! Thus, this August re-reading of the Gospel of the Transfiguration serves as a refresher, or another crack of the whip, that keeps us running on the cross-laden narrow path to Heaven―that so few find, and even less take.
In that wonderful book of meditations, Divine Intimacy, its Carmelite author, Fr. Gabriel writes: “In order to confirm the Faith of the Apostles, who were shaken by the announcement of His Passion, Jesus permitted some rays from His blessed soul to shine forth for a few brief instants on Thabor, when Peter, James, and John saw Him transfigured … The three were enraptured by it, and yet Jesus had revealed to them only one ray of His glory, for no human creature could have borne the complete vision. Glory is the fruit of grace: the grace possessed by Jesus in an infinite degree is reflected in an infinite glory transfiguring Him entirely. Something similar happens to us: grace will transform us ‘from glory to glory’ (2 Corinthians 3:18), until one day it will bring us to the Beatific Vision of God in Heaven. But while grace transfigures, sin, on the other hand, darkens and disfigures whoever becomes its victim.
“Today’s Gospel … brings out the close connection between the Transfiguration and the Passion of Jesus. Moses and Elias appeared on Thabor on either side of the Savior. They conversed with Him, and as St. Luke explains, talked specifically about His coming Passion … The divine Master wished to teach His disciples in this way that it was impossible—for Him as well as for them—to reach the glory of the Transfiguration without passing through suffering. It was the same lesson that He would give later to the two disciples at Emmaus: ‘Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and so to enter into His glory?’ (Luke 24:26). What has been disfigured by sin cannot regain its original supernatural beauty except by way of purifying suffering” (Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, Divine Intimacy).
Suffering Transfigures or Transforms into Christ
The word “transfiguration” comes from the Latin roots trans- (“across”) and figura (“form, shape”). It thus signifies a change of form or appearance. This is what happened to Jesus in the event known as the Transfiguration: His appearance changed and became glorious.
This is exactly what should happen to us and all true Christians—there should be a change of form or shape. We should change from unclean to clean; from sinner to saint. St. Paul mentions this change many a time in Holy Scripture—one such instance is as follows:
“You have heard Him, and have been taught in Him—as the truth is in Jesus—to put off, according to former conversation, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desire of error. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind: and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth” (Ephesians 4:21-24). “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer. For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ” (Romans 6:5-8).
This transformation from sin to virtue, from darkness to light, from lost to saved, from death to life—is what Lent instigates or begins, and is something that should not end with the end of Lent. Pope St. Leo the Great (400-461) gave a homily on the Transfiguration of the Lord, on the Saturday before the Second Sunday in Lent. There are few nuggets worth mining and banking from that homily. Speaking of the Transfiguration, Pope St. Leo says:
“The Savior of mankind, Jesus Christ, in founding that Faith, recalls the wicked to righteousness and the dead to life” … “In order that the Apostles might entertain constant courage with their whole heart, and have no tremblings about the harshness of taking up the cross, and that they might not be ashamed of the punishment of Christ, nor think what He endured disgraceful for themselves, Jesus took Peter and James and his brother John, and ascending a very high mountain with them apart, showed them the brightness of His glory” … “that they who wished to follow Him should deny themselves, and count the loss of temporal things as light in the hope of things eternal” … “In this Transfiguration the foremost object was to remove the offense of the cross from the disciple’s heart, and to prevent their Faith being disturbed by the humiliation of His voluntary Passion by revealing to them the excellence of His hidden dignity” … “The blessed Apostle, Paul, bears witness to the self-same thing, and says: ‘For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us’ (Romans 8:18): and again, ‘For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. For when Christ our life shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory’ (Colossians 3:3).”
The holy Pope continues: “The Apostle Peter, excited by the revelation of these mysteries, despising and scorning mundane and earthly things, was seized with a sort of frenzied craving for the things eternal, and, being filled with rapture at the whole vision, desired to make his abode with Jesus in the place where he had been blessed with the manifestation of His glory. Which is why Peter says: ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here! If you want, let us make three tents, one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elias. But to this proposal the Lord made no answer, signifying that the world could not be saved, except by Christ’s death, and, by the Lord’s example, the faithful were called upon, … amidst the trials of this life, to ask for the power of endurance, rather than the glory, because the joyousness of reigning cannot precede the times of suffering.”
Pain, Gall, Thorns, Cross
In other words—no pain, no pay! No gall, no glory! No thorns, no throne! No cross, no crown! How we hate the very thought of that!?! Yet the way of the cross, or the pain of the passion, is the only way to Heaven. Pope St. Leo, in speaking of the words of God the Father during the Transfiguration—“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him!”—“For when the Father said: ‘This is My beloved Son, in Whom, etc.”, was it not clearly meant … Hear Him, Who opens the way to Heaven, and by the punishment of the cross prepares for you the steps of ascent to the Kingdom? Why do you tremble at being redeemed? Why do you fear to be healed of your wounds? Let that happen which Christ wills and I will. Cast away all fleshly fear, and arm yourselves with faithful constancy; for it is unworthy that you should fear, in the Savior’s Passion, what by His good gift you shall not have to fear even at your own end ... Let no one be ashamed of Christ’s cross, through which the world was redeemed. And let not any one fear to suffer for righteousness’ sake, or doubt of the fulfilment of the promises, for this reason, that through toil we pass to rest and through death to life.” (Pope St. Leo the Great, homily on the Transfiguration).
The White Shining Garment
In the ceremony of Baptism, the newly baptized person was required to remove his or her old clothes and put on a white robe, which signified sin being expelled and grace being poured in to the soul. We stain that robe by sin and we wash that robe by penance—which we can imagine as rubbing the stained robe on the rock by the river’s edge in bygone times. If the robe could speak, it would yelp in pain! Yet penance and tribulations wash the robe of our soul—that we have stained by sin—and gradually return it to its former whiteness. The dirtier it is, the more scrubbing on the stone of penance will be required.
Purgatory Scrubs the Robe Clean
If we refuse or neglect to wash clean the robe of our soul while still on Earth, then we take the stains to Purgatory, or, God forbid, Hell. It is there that our robe is scrubbed, washed and whitened, as it undergoes its own kind of ‘transfiguration’ or transformation, being configured to become more Christlike. When we read of the apparitions of the souls in Purgatory to people on Earth, it is not uncommon to see them clothed in white and finally ascending to Heaven in a bright light of glory—similar to Our Lord’s appearance during His Transfiguration on Mount Thabor.
We read in recorded in Fr. Schouppe’s book Purgatory, of the Life of St. Magdalen de Pazzi, written by her confessor, Father Cepari, of the Company of Jesus, that this servant of God was made witness of the deliverance of a soul under the following circumstances: One of her sisters in religion had died some time previous, when the saint being one day in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, saw issue from the earth the soul of that sister, still captive in the dungeons of Purgatory. She was enveloped in a mantle of flames, under which a robe of dazzling whiteness protected her from the fierce heat of the fire; and she remained an entire hour at the foot of the altar, adoring in inexpressible annihilation the hidden God of the Eucharist.
In another instance, recorded in Fr. Schouppe’s book Purgatory, on the Feast of All Saints, a young girl of rare piety saw appear before her a lady of her acquaintance who had died some time previously. The apparition was clad in white, with a veil of the same color on her head, and holding in her hand a long Rosary, a token of the tender devotion she had always professed towards the Queen of Heaven. She implored the charity of her pious friend, saying that she had made a vow to have three Masses celebrated at the altar of the Blessed Virgin, and that, not having been able to accomplish her vow, this debt added to her sufferings. She then begged her to pay it in her place.
The young person willingly granted the alms asked of her, and when the three Masses had been celebrated, the deceased again appeared, expressing her joy and gratitude. She ever continued to appear each month of November, and almost always in the church. Her friend saw her there in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, over whelmed with an awe of which nothing can give an idea; not yet being able to see God face to face, she seemed to wish to indemnify herself by contemplating Him at least under the Eucharistic species.
During the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, at the moment of the elevation, her face became so radiant that she might have been taken for a seraph descended from Heaven. The young girl, filled with admiration, declared that she had never seen anything so beautiful.
A third instance we can look at, again recorded in Fr. Schouppe’s book Purgatory, is that of a Franciscan Tertiaries in Foligno, a sister named Teresa Gesta, who was mistress of novices, and had charge of the sacristy of the community. Sister Teresa was a model of fervor and charity. She died suddenly, November 4th, 1859, of a stroke of apoplexy.
Twelve days later, a sister named Anna Felicia, who succeeded her in office, went to the sacristy and was about to enter, when she heard moans which appeared to come from the interior of the room. Somewhat afraid, she hastened to open the door; there was no one. Again she heard moans, and so distinctly that, notwithstanding her ordinary courage, she felt herself over powered by fear. “Jesus! Mary!” she cried, “What can that be?”
She had not finished speaking when she heard a plaintive voice, accompanied with a painful sigh, “O my God, how I suffer!” The sister, stupefied, immediately recognized the voice of poor Sister Teresa. Then the room was filled with a thick smoke, and the spirit of Sister Teresa appeared, she cried aloud, “Behold a proof of the mercy of God.” Saying these words, she struck the upper panel of the door, and there left the print of her right hand, burnt in the wood as with a red-hot iron. She then disappeared.
Sister Anna Felicia was left half dead with fright. She burst forth into loud cries for help. One of her companions ran, then a second, and finally the whole community. They pressed around her, astonished to find a strong odor of burnt wood. Sister Anna Felicia told what had occurred, and showed them the terrible impression on the door. They instantly recognized the hand of Sister Teresa, which had been remarkably small.
Terrified, they took to flight and ran to the choir, where they passed the night in prayer and penance for the departed, and the following morning all received Holy Communion for the repose of her soul. The news spread outside the convent walls, and many communities in the city united their prayers with those of the Franciscans.
On the third day, Sister Anna Felicia, on going in the evening to her cell, heard herself called by her name, and recognized perfectly the voice of Sister Teresa. At the same instant a globe of brilliant light appeared before her, illuminating her cell with the brightness of daylight.
She then heard Sister Teresa pronounce these words in a joyful and triumphant voice: “I died on a Friday, the day of the Passion, and behold, on a Friday, I enter into eternal glory! Be strong to bear the cross, be courageous to suffer, love poverty.” Then adding, affectionately, “Adieu, adieu, adieu!” she became transfigured, and like a light, white, and dazzling cloud, rose towards Heaven and disappeared. (All the above accounts are to be found in Fr. Schouppe’s book Purgatory).
Life’s Laundry
Let us, therefore, profit from this feast―now and during Lent―and make it a time of doing our spiritual ‘laundry’, wherein we try to remove as many stains as possible from the stained robe of our soul. We all know those ominous words from the Book of Job: “God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride!” (Job 24:23), not to mention those chilling words of Our Lord: “No, I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3).
Unless you do your laundry, your robe will perish! St. Augustine, in one of his sermons on the Transfiguration, says: “What wonder if the Church is signified by white raiment, when you hear the Prophet Isaiah saying, ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow’? … Endure, labor hard, bear thy measure of torture; that thou mayest possess what is meant by the white raiment of the Lord, through the brightness and the beauty of an upright laboring in charity.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his sermon on the Transfiguration, adds: “Brethren, let us labor during the remainder of our lives to gain Heaven. Heaven is so great a good, that, to purchase it for us, Jesus Christ has sacrificed His life on the cross. Be assured, that the greatest of all the torments of the damned in Hell, arise from the thought of having lost Heaven through their own fault … How great is the sweetness which a soul experiences, when, in the time of prayer, God, by a ray of his own light, shows to her His goodness and His mercies towards her …
“But in this life we do not see God as He really is: we see him as it were in. the dark. “We see now through a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Here below God is hidden from, our view; we can see Him only with the eyes of Faith: how great shall be our happiness when the veil shall be raised, and we shall be permitted to behold God face to face! We shall then see His beauty, His greatness, His perfection, His amiableness, and His immense love for our souls.
“The goods of this earth do not satisfy our desires: at first they gratify the senses; but when we become accustomed to them they cease to delight. But the joys of Paradise constantly satiate and content the heart. ‘I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear’ (Psalm 16:15). Justly, then, has St. Augustine said, that to gain the eternal glory of Paradise, we should cheerfully embrace eternal labor.
“Let us, then, brethren, courageously resolve to bear patiently with all the sufferings, which shall come upon us, during the remaining days of our lives: to secure Heaven they are all little and nothing. Rejoice then; for all these pains, sorrows, and persecutions shall, if we are saved, be to us a source of never-ending joys and delights. ‘Your sorrows shall be turned into joy’ (John 16:20).
“When, then, the crosses of this life afflict us, let us raise our eyes to Heaven, and console ourselves with the hope of Paradise. At the end of her life, St. Mary of Egypt, the reformed prostitute and seductress, was asked, by the Abbot St. Zozimus, how she had been able to live for forty-seven years in the desert, where he found her dying. She answered: ‘With the hope of Paradise!’ If we be animated with the same hope, we shall not feel the tribulations of this life. Have courage! Let us love God and labor for Heaven. There the saint expects us, Mary expects us, Jesus Christ expects us; He holds in His hand a crown to make each of us a king in that eternal kingdom.” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, sermon on the Transfiguration).
Transubstantiation and Transfiguration
We can loosely compare the Eucharistic Transubstantiation to the Transfiguration, or our spiritual transfiguration. Even today Christ comes to us on Earth in transfigured form. Of course we do not see Him with our bodily eyes. But we do see Him with our bodily eyes in the members of His Mystical Body―in the little child, in the poor, in the priest, in our neighbor. With our spiritual eyes of Faith, we also see Him especially in the Holy Eucharist with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity under the appearances of bread and wine. With the eyes of Faith we must recognize Him as the transfigured Lord when, in the Eucharist, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, He offers up His Body and His Blood in the continuation of the Passion—a Passion that He was discussing with Moses and Elias during His transfiguration on Mount Tabor.
The Eucharist is our food and nourishment for the life of grace. As theology teaches, “Graces perfects nature” ― and the Holy Eucharist is a source of grace “par excellence”. The Holy Eucharist―containing as it does the Author of all grace―can ‘transfigure’ us, or transform us, from worldly creatures into holy creatures. As already quoted above, St. Louis de Montfort speaks of this transformation or ‘transfiguration’ thus: “What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God! A marvelous work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving His grace abundantly and in an extraordinary manner. The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this.”
Just as Christ changes bread into His Body and wine into His Blood, He can also change you into a saint. Yet that depends upon how malleable we make ourselves in His hands. If we resist the changes He would like to make, then little or even nothing will happen―and we will remain as worldly and lukewarm as we currently are. Change is never easy and spiritual changes are even harder. We must WANT to change! We must WANT to be holy! We must WANT to be saints! Merely saying so with our lips is not good enough―we must WANT it in our hearts with all sincerity: “This people honoureth Me with their lips―but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8).
Sinners that we are, we must come to Our Lord like the leper and the blind man: “Behold a leper came and adored Him, saying: ‘Lord, if thou wilt [if You want], thou canst make me clean!’ And Jesus stretching forth his hand, touched him, saying: ‘I will [I do want], be thou made clean. And forthwith his leprosy was cleansed!” (Matthew 8:2-3). A blind man brought to Jesus “and Jesus said to him: ‘What wilt thou [what do you want] that I should do to thee?’ And the blind man said to Him: ‘Rabboni, that I may see!’ And Jesus saith to him: ‘Go thy way! Thy faith hath made thee whole!’ And immediately he saw, and followed Him in the way” (Mark 10:51-52).
Are you and your family struck and contaminated with ‘leprosy’ of worldliness; the ‘leprosy’ of lukewarmness; or the ‘leprosy’ of sin? If so, Our Lord can cure you―but you have to WANT to be cured; you have to WANT to leave behind and abandon your worldliness, your lukewarmness and your sinfulness! You cannot keep them and serve God! “No man can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). Today, the vast majority of Catholics are trying to serve those two masters―it will not end well for them, it will end badly! Already, at the best of times, most souls are lost ― “Be not deceived! God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! … Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Luke 13:24; Matthew 7:13-14).
Confession and Transfiguration
The Sacrament of Confession is today greatly neglected and underestimated as means of transforming our lives. The Church’s exorcists tell us that Confession is more powerful than an exorcism―because Confession is a Sacrament, whereas an exorcism is only a Sacramental.
As one exorcist, FR. PAOLO CARLIN, said: “The Sacraments are the armor that protects soul and body. The Eucharist puts us in intimate communion with Jesus, the teacher and strength of Christians. Reconciliation, or confession, brings us closer to God. Confession is more powerful than exorcism inasmuch as it is, like all the Sacraments, a direct action of God in our lives, and furthermore, it exercises humility, which contrasts with Satan’s pride.”
The recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, FR. GABRIELE AMORTH, echoes the above sentiments: “Confession is more effective than an exorcism! Satan is much more enraged when we take souls away from him through confession, than when we take away bodies through exorcism ... I am convinced that a good Confession, which is a very powerful Sacrament, is much more efficacious than an exorcism, which is only a sacramental.”
MSGR. JOHN ESSEFF, an exorcist for 40 years, adds: “Confession is more powerful than exorcism. One is a Sacrament and the other is a blessing. One Confession is worth 100 exorcisms. The devil wants to destroy the soul and the soul is healed by Confession. If people want to decrease the work of Satan, they should increase the use of Confession. Once the Confessional line gets thin, the activity of Satan increases. To decrease the work of Satan, increase the use of Confession.”
The problem most people encounter with Confession can be summed up by the phrase: “The more you need it, the less you want it!” Satan knows the power of Confession, he knows its healing power, he knows its transforming power, he knows it sanctifying power―that is why he fights “tooth-and-nail” to keep us away from Confession. If we have committed a mortal sin, Satan will try to rationalize it away and convince us that it wasn’t a mortal sin, but only a venial sin. Or he will play upon our emotions and make us feel increasingly embarrassed and ashamed of what we have done―so much so that we become afraid of having to confess it to the priest, and so we stay away. Or, if Satan cannot prevent us going to Confession, then he will try to make us confess our sins badly, wrongly, making us “fudge” over things, perhaps failing to mention the correct number of mortal sins that we are guilty of, or by making us confess them in a way that makes them sound to be venial sins, etc.
Two Legs to Heaven
It is sometimes said that the “two legs” by which we run in the race for Heaven are (1) the Sacrament of Confession, and (2) the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist (which automatically include the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Holy Communion). The “leg” of the Holy Eucharist can rightly be called our strongest “leg”―for it Christ Himself that is really present in the Holy Eucharist with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Christ is God and you just can’t beat God―hence the Holy Eucharist (Holy Mass and Holy Communion) is our strongest “leg”. The Sacrament of Confession is our weaker “leg” and it exists for our weaknesses―that is to say, our sins, or our spiritual injuries and wounds. You could also say that the Holy Eucharist is the “spiritual gym” where we “workout”; and the Sacrament of Confession is our hospital “emergency room” where we are treated for injury and our wounds are healed.
However, we can easily injure or even break our “legs”! We can break the “leg” of Holy Communion by making a sacrilegious Communion in a state of mortal sin. Likewise, we can also break the “leg” of Confession by making a sacrilegious Confession by hiding a mortal sin through shame; or by deliberately admitting to a smaller number of mortal sins than we actually committed; or failing to mention the necessary things about committing the sin―for example, saying you were impure with another person, without mentioning if that person was single or married or religious or of your own family or a child or if you forced yourself on that person, etc. All of these differing circumstances aggravate a mortal sin in differing degrees. If you fail to mention those necessary details, then you have made a bad (sacrilegious) Confession. How sad it is to see that most Catholics no longer care about mentioning these kinds of details any more―thus proving the truth of what St. Alphonsus Liguori lamented: “Bad confessions, in which sins are concealed through shame, not of rare occurrence, but frequent, especially in small country districts! This is an evil which consigns innumerable souls to Hell.” (Sunday Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori).
So what shape are your “legs” in? What is the shape of your family’s “legs”? Are they in good shape? Are they able to run, or are they injured, or even broken. Holy Scripture speaks of a race to Heaven in which everyone must run―are you able to run, or can you barely walk? “Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it! And everyone that strives for the mastery [the prize, the victory], refrains himself from all things―and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown―but we an incorruptible one. I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty, I so fight, not as one beating the air, but I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection―lest, perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway!” (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).
Sadly, most do end up being cast away, or castaways―for they do not take their spiritual life seriously enough. St. Paul warns us of this by bringing up the example of God’s Chosen People, whom Moses led out Egypt (a symbol of sin) to the Promised Land (a symbol of Heaven) while spending 40 years in the desert (a symbol of an austere and mortified life on Earth)―yet with most of them God was not pleased:
“For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers [the Chosen People in the time of Moses] were all under the cloud, and all [miraculously] passed through the sea [the Red Sea]. And all in Moses were baptized―in the cloud and in the sea. And did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink―and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased―for they were overthrown in the desert [by their murmurings, complaints, rebellion and idolatry]. Now these things were done in a figure of us, that we should not covet evil things as they also coveted. Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them, as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play!’ [which is pretty much our existence today!] Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand! Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents! Neither do you murmur as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them in figure, and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore he that thinks himself to stand, let him take heed, lest he fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:1-12).
Figure on Being Transfigured Before You Can Get Into Heaven
We read of Jesus, in the Gospel of the Transfiguration, that “whilst He prayed, the shape of His countenance was altered, His face did shine as the sun: and His garments became white as snow—white and glittering” (Luke 9:29). We, too, have to alter our “face” through prayer―we have to face life differently to how we currently face it. We have to see things more with the eyes of God, rather than our own myopic human eyes that are filled with, not merely splinters, but planks! (Matthew 7:3-5). We have to realize and accept that God’s way of thinking, seeing and doing things is not our measly, narrow-minded, prejudiced way of thinking, seeing and doing things: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9).
We have to be transfigured from our tarnished, weak, humanistic lifestyle so as to cloth ourselves with Christ’s “garments white as snow―white and glittering.” In other words, as Holy Scripture states: “To put off the old man, who is corrupted according to the desire of error. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth” (Ephesians 4:22-24). “For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). “For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the daylight―not in rioting [unrestrained behavior] and drunkenness, not in sexual actions and impurities, not in contention and envy―but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences!” (Romans 13:11-14). “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, partyings, and such like. Of which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God!” (Galatians 5:19-21). “Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err! Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor scoffers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
Today, August 6th, the Church traditionally celebrates the feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Most feasts are celebrated once―yet the Gospel of the Transfiguration is not only read on August 6th, but the Gospel is also read at Mass on the Second Sunday of Lent, and ALSO the Ember Saturday of Lent, which is usually the Saturday before the Second Sunday of Lent! Why on earth does the Church give the exact same reading, by the exact same Evangelist, two days running?!! Why—if the feast of the Transfiguration was normally on August 6th― why then have the very same Gospel reading of the Transfiguration for two consecutive days during Lent? Has the Church run-out of readings? Does it have to fill a void or gap by repeating the same text the next day?
The Gospel on the Transfiguration
“And after six days Jesus taketh with Him Peter and James and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain, apart by themselves, to pray. And whilst He prayed, the shape of His countenance was altered, His face did shine as the sun: and His garments became white as snow—white and glittering. And there appeared to them Elias with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus. And they spoke of His decease that He should accomplish in Jerusalem. But Peter and they that were with Him were heavy with sleep. And waking, they saw His glory, and the two men that stood with Him. And Peter said to Jesus: ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here! If thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles (tents), one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias!’ And as he was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud, saying: ‘This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him!’ And the disciples hearing, fell upon their face, and were very much afraid. And Jesus came and touched them: and said to them: ‘Arise, and fear not!’ And they lifting up their eyes and immediately looking about, they saw no man any more, but Jesus only with them. And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying: ‘Tell the vision to no man, till the Son of man be risen from the dead!’” (Matthew 17:1–9, Mark 9:1–8, Luke 9:28–36).
Figuring Out the Transfiguration
The Transfiguration of Christ is the culminating point of His public life before He enters the “final scene” of His life with His Passion and Death, just as His Baptism was the starting point of His public life, and His Ascension marked the end of His public life. Moreover, this glorious event has been related in detail by St. Matthew (17:1-6), St. Mark (9:1-8), and St. Luke (9:28-36), while St. Peter (2 Peter 1:16-18) and St. John (1:14), two of the privileged witnesses, make allusion to it.
About a week after His stay in Cæsarea Philippi, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John and led them to a high mountain apart, where He was transfigured before their amazed eyes. St. Matthew and St. Mark express this phenomenon by the Greek word “metemorphothe”, which the Latin Vulgate translates as “transfiguratus est.” Sts. Matthew, Mark and Luke (the Synoptics) explain the true meaning of the word, by adding a description of the effects: “His face did shine as the sun: and His garments became white as snow,” according to the Latin Vulgate, or “as light,” according to the Greek text.
His Glory Can Be Our Glory—If We…
This dazzling brightness which shone forth from His whole Body was produced by an interior shining of the glory of His Divinity. False Judaism had rejected the Messias, and now true Judaism, represented by Moses and Elias, the Law and the Prophets, recognized and adored Him, while for the second time (the first time was at the baptism of Jesus) God the Father proclaimed Him His only-begotten and well-loved Son.
By this glorious manifestation, Our Lord, Who had just foretold His Passion to the Apostles (Matthew 16:21), and Who had just spoken with Moses and Elias of the trials which awaited Him at Jerusalem, strengthened the Faith of His three favored Apostles and tried to prepare them for the terrible struggle of which they were to soon be witnesses in Gethsemane, by giving them a foretaste of the glory and heavenly delights to which we attain by suffering. Argh! Ouch! There goes that word again—suffering!!
Only One Road, Only One Way
Yet without suffering—and penance is suffering—we cannot get to Heaven. Our Lord said it two ways: “No, I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). “And he said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23). “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Boo! Hiss! Boo! Is there no other way to Heaven? Nope! That’s the only road—take it, or leave it!
The Starting Blocks of Lent
With there being three Gospel Mass readings on the Transfiguration during every year, we can deduce that it must be very important for us to hear this Gospel three times. Lent can be looked upon the starting blocks of the race to Heaven. Lent should not be looked upon as a “Forty-Day-Flash-in-the-Pan”, but as an introduction to a new way of life. Thus after having read the “double-barreled” Gospel on Ember Saturday and the next day, the Second Sunday of Lent, we look upon that as being the start of our annual race for holiness and Heaven. At the start of the Septuagesima season, the Church gave us the Epistle of St. Paul concerning the race. We are told: “Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain!” (1 Corinthians 9:24). Our Lord speaks in similar terms when He says: “For many are called, but few chosen!” (Matthew 20:16) and Matthew has Our Lord saying the same thing later: “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14).
This is what St. Paul’s tries to communicate in his follow-up to the analogy about the race: “For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: and did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the desert” (1 Corinthians 10:1-5), further adding:
“Now these things were done in a figure of us, that we should not covet evil things as they also coveted. Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them, as it is written: The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ: as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents. Neither do you murmur: as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them in figure: and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:6-12).
Transfiguration―A Call to Holiness
We speak of “The Holy Family”―Jesus, Mary and Joseph―yet every family is called to be holy! Is your family holy? Does your family want to be holy? Are you on the path to holiness? Our Lord says: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). God Himself says: “Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy! … You shall be holy, because I am holy!” (Leviticus 19:2; 11:46). Is that your goal? Is that the goal of your family? Is that your goal―not just in theory―but in practice? Do you realize that ONLY SAINTS go to Heaven? “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” says Our Lord (Matthew 11:12). Are you sure that you and your family are on the way to holiness, sanctity and saintliness? If not, then you are planning on throwing yourself and your family into the fires of Purgatory, or the fires of Hell? What sane person wants to throw themselves into a fire―whether it be for a few decades, a few centuries, or for eternity? We do well to take to heart the words of St. Louis de Montfort, as written in The Secret of Mary, where he paints a clear picture of our calling in life:
“Chosen soul, living image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, God wants you to become holy like Him in this life, and glorious like Him in the next (Matthew 5:48). It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being. What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God! A marvelous work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving His grace abundantly and in an extraordinary manner. The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this.”
St. Louis continues: “Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God.”
“The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these, but we are sure that grace will be given to all, though not in the same measure, although, in His infinite goodness, He always gives sufficient grace to each. A person who corresponds to great graces performs great works, and one who corresponds to lesser graces performs lesser works. The value and high standard of our actions corresponds to the value and perfection of the grace given by God and responded to by the faithful soul. No one can contest these principles. It all comes to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary).
Finding Mary in the Liturgical Year
The Liturgical Year is filled with many feast of Mary and months dedicated to Mary. You and your family should have a profound devotion to Mary―for Our Lady said at Fatima (speaking in the “third person” of herself): “Only she can help you!” While at Akita, Japan, in 1973, she said: “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach!” Are you and your family profoundly devoted to Mary―or are you more devoted to your smartphone, television, internet, social media
The Transfigurations of Lent and August
The Liturgical Year is meant to transfigure us, or transform us—not just during the Forty Days of Lent, but for the rest of the year and for the rest of our lives. What is the point of taking two steps forward during Lent, only to take two steps backwards, or even more steps backward after Lent? What is the point of making a meal and then throwing it in the trash can? What is the point of building a house, only to knock it down? What’s the point of being faithful to your spouse for one week, if you commit adultery for the next three weeks? What’s the point of being “pious” on Sunday, if you live like a devil for the rest of the week? If we do not continue at a higher spiritual level after Lent is over, then the only winner of the race is the devil! Thus, this August re-reading of the Gospel of the Transfiguration serves as a refresher, or another crack of the whip, that keeps us running on the cross-laden narrow path to Heaven―that so few find, and even less take.
In that wonderful book of meditations, Divine Intimacy, its Carmelite author, Fr. Gabriel writes: “In order to confirm the Faith of the Apostles, who were shaken by the announcement of His Passion, Jesus permitted some rays from His blessed soul to shine forth for a few brief instants on Thabor, when Peter, James, and John saw Him transfigured … The three were enraptured by it, and yet Jesus had revealed to them only one ray of His glory, for no human creature could have borne the complete vision. Glory is the fruit of grace: the grace possessed by Jesus in an infinite degree is reflected in an infinite glory transfiguring Him entirely. Something similar happens to us: grace will transform us ‘from glory to glory’ (2 Corinthians 3:18), until one day it will bring us to the Beatific Vision of God in Heaven. But while grace transfigures, sin, on the other hand, darkens and disfigures whoever becomes its victim.
“Today’s Gospel … brings out the close connection between the Transfiguration and the Passion of Jesus. Moses and Elias appeared on Thabor on either side of the Savior. They conversed with Him, and as St. Luke explains, talked specifically about His coming Passion … The divine Master wished to teach His disciples in this way that it was impossible—for Him as well as for them—to reach the glory of the Transfiguration without passing through suffering. It was the same lesson that He would give later to the two disciples at Emmaus: ‘Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and so to enter into His glory?’ (Luke 24:26). What has been disfigured by sin cannot regain its original supernatural beauty except by way of purifying suffering” (Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, Divine Intimacy).
Suffering Transfigures or Transforms into Christ
The word “transfiguration” comes from the Latin roots trans- (“across”) and figura (“form, shape”). It thus signifies a change of form or appearance. This is what happened to Jesus in the event known as the Transfiguration: His appearance changed and became glorious.
This is exactly what should happen to us and all true Christians—there should be a change of form or shape. We should change from unclean to clean; from sinner to saint. St. Paul mentions this change many a time in Holy Scripture—one such instance is as follows:
“You have heard Him, and have been taught in Him—as the truth is in Jesus—to put off, according to former conversation, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desire of error. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind: and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth” (Ephesians 4:21-24). “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer. For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ” (Romans 6:5-8).
This transformation from sin to virtue, from darkness to light, from lost to saved, from death to life—is what Lent instigates or begins, and is something that should not end with the end of Lent. Pope St. Leo the Great (400-461) gave a homily on the Transfiguration of the Lord, on the Saturday before the Second Sunday in Lent. There are few nuggets worth mining and banking from that homily. Speaking of the Transfiguration, Pope St. Leo says:
“The Savior of mankind, Jesus Christ, in founding that Faith, recalls the wicked to righteousness and the dead to life” … “In order that the Apostles might entertain constant courage with their whole heart, and have no tremblings about the harshness of taking up the cross, and that they might not be ashamed of the punishment of Christ, nor think what He endured disgraceful for themselves, Jesus took Peter and James and his brother John, and ascending a very high mountain with them apart, showed them the brightness of His glory” … “that they who wished to follow Him should deny themselves, and count the loss of temporal things as light in the hope of things eternal” … “In this Transfiguration the foremost object was to remove the offense of the cross from the disciple’s heart, and to prevent their Faith being disturbed by the humiliation of His voluntary Passion by revealing to them the excellence of His hidden dignity” … “The blessed Apostle, Paul, bears witness to the self-same thing, and says: ‘For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us’ (Romans 8:18): and again, ‘For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. For when Christ our life shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory’ (Colossians 3:3).”
The holy Pope continues: “The Apostle Peter, excited by the revelation of these mysteries, despising and scorning mundane and earthly things, was seized with a sort of frenzied craving for the things eternal, and, being filled with rapture at the whole vision, desired to make his abode with Jesus in the place where he had been blessed with the manifestation of His glory. Which is why Peter says: ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here! If you want, let us make three tents, one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elias. But to this proposal the Lord made no answer, signifying that the world could not be saved, except by Christ’s death, and, by the Lord’s example, the faithful were called upon, … amidst the trials of this life, to ask for the power of endurance, rather than the glory, because the joyousness of reigning cannot precede the times of suffering.”
Pain, Gall, Thorns, Cross
In other words—no pain, no pay! No gall, no glory! No thorns, no throne! No cross, no crown! How we hate the very thought of that!?! Yet the way of the cross, or the pain of the passion, is the only way to Heaven. Pope St. Leo, in speaking of the words of God the Father during the Transfiguration—“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him!”—“For when the Father said: ‘This is My beloved Son, in Whom, etc.”, was it not clearly meant … Hear Him, Who opens the way to Heaven, and by the punishment of the cross prepares for you the steps of ascent to the Kingdom? Why do you tremble at being redeemed? Why do you fear to be healed of your wounds? Let that happen which Christ wills and I will. Cast away all fleshly fear, and arm yourselves with faithful constancy; for it is unworthy that you should fear, in the Savior’s Passion, what by His good gift you shall not have to fear even at your own end ... Let no one be ashamed of Christ’s cross, through which the world was redeemed. And let not any one fear to suffer for righteousness’ sake, or doubt of the fulfilment of the promises, for this reason, that through toil we pass to rest and through death to life.” (Pope St. Leo the Great, homily on the Transfiguration).
The White Shining Garment
In the ceremony of Baptism, the newly baptized person was required to remove his or her old clothes and put on a white robe, which signified sin being expelled and grace being poured in to the soul. We stain that robe by sin and we wash that robe by penance—which we can imagine as rubbing the stained robe on the rock by the river’s edge in bygone times. If the robe could speak, it would yelp in pain! Yet penance and tribulations wash the robe of our soul—that we have stained by sin—and gradually return it to its former whiteness. The dirtier it is, the more scrubbing on the stone of penance will be required.
Purgatory Scrubs the Robe Clean
If we refuse or neglect to wash clean the robe of our soul while still on Earth, then we take the stains to Purgatory, or, God forbid, Hell. It is there that our robe is scrubbed, washed and whitened, as it undergoes its own kind of ‘transfiguration’ or transformation, being configured to become more Christlike. When we read of the apparitions of the souls in Purgatory to people on Earth, it is not uncommon to see them clothed in white and finally ascending to Heaven in a bright light of glory—similar to Our Lord’s appearance during His Transfiguration on Mount Thabor.
We read in recorded in Fr. Schouppe’s book Purgatory, of the Life of St. Magdalen de Pazzi, written by her confessor, Father Cepari, of the Company of Jesus, that this servant of God was made witness of the deliverance of a soul under the following circumstances: One of her sisters in religion had died some time previous, when the saint being one day in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, saw issue from the earth the soul of that sister, still captive in the dungeons of Purgatory. She was enveloped in a mantle of flames, under which a robe of dazzling whiteness protected her from the fierce heat of the fire; and she remained an entire hour at the foot of the altar, adoring in inexpressible annihilation the hidden God of the Eucharist.
In another instance, recorded in Fr. Schouppe’s book Purgatory, on the Feast of All Saints, a young girl of rare piety saw appear before her a lady of her acquaintance who had died some time previously. The apparition was clad in white, with a veil of the same color on her head, and holding in her hand a long Rosary, a token of the tender devotion she had always professed towards the Queen of Heaven. She implored the charity of her pious friend, saying that she had made a vow to have three Masses celebrated at the altar of the Blessed Virgin, and that, not having been able to accomplish her vow, this debt added to her sufferings. She then begged her to pay it in her place.
The young person willingly granted the alms asked of her, and when the three Masses had been celebrated, the deceased again appeared, expressing her joy and gratitude. She ever continued to appear each month of November, and almost always in the church. Her friend saw her there in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, over whelmed with an awe of which nothing can give an idea; not yet being able to see God face to face, she seemed to wish to indemnify herself by contemplating Him at least under the Eucharistic species.
During the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, at the moment of the elevation, her face became so radiant that she might have been taken for a seraph descended from Heaven. The young girl, filled with admiration, declared that she had never seen anything so beautiful.
A third instance we can look at, again recorded in Fr. Schouppe’s book Purgatory, is that of a Franciscan Tertiaries in Foligno, a sister named Teresa Gesta, who was mistress of novices, and had charge of the sacristy of the community. Sister Teresa was a model of fervor and charity. She died suddenly, November 4th, 1859, of a stroke of apoplexy.
Twelve days later, a sister named Anna Felicia, who succeeded her in office, went to the sacristy and was about to enter, when she heard moans which appeared to come from the interior of the room. Somewhat afraid, she hastened to open the door; there was no one. Again she heard moans, and so distinctly that, notwithstanding her ordinary courage, she felt herself over powered by fear. “Jesus! Mary!” she cried, “What can that be?”
She had not finished speaking when she heard a plaintive voice, accompanied with a painful sigh, “O my God, how I suffer!” The sister, stupefied, immediately recognized the voice of poor Sister Teresa. Then the room was filled with a thick smoke, and the spirit of Sister Teresa appeared, she cried aloud, “Behold a proof of the mercy of God.” Saying these words, she struck the upper panel of the door, and there left the print of her right hand, burnt in the wood as with a red-hot iron. She then disappeared.
Sister Anna Felicia was left half dead with fright. She burst forth into loud cries for help. One of her companions ran, then a second, and finally the whole community. They pressed around her, astonished to find a strong odor of burnt wood. Sister Anna Felicia told what had occurred, and showed them the terrible impression on the door. They instantly recognized the hand of Sister Teresa, which had been remarkably small.
Terrified, they took to flight and ran to the choir, where they passed the night in prayer and penance for the departed, and the following morning all received Holy Communion for the repose of her soul. The news spread outside the convent walls, and many communities in the city united their prayers with those of the Franciscans.
On the third day, Sister Anna Felicia, on going in the evening to her cell, heard herself called by her name, and recognized perfectly the voice of Sister Teresa. At the same instant a globe of brilliant light appeared before her, illuminating her cell with the brightness of daylight.
She then heard Sister Teresa pronounce these words in a joyful and triumphant voice: “I died on a Friday, the day of the Passion, and behold, on a Friday, I enter into eternal glory! Be strong to bear the cross, be courageous to suffer, love poverty.” Then adding, affectionately, “Adieu, adieu, adieu!” she became transfigured, and like a light, white, and dazzling cloud, rose towards Heaven and disappeared. (All the above accounts are to be found in Fr. Schouppe’s book Purgatory).
Life’s Laundry
Let us, therefore, profit from this feast―now and during Lent―and make it a time of doing our spiritual ‘laundry’, wherein we try to remove as many stains as possible from the stained robe of our soul. We all know those ominous words from the Book of Job: “God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride!” (Job 24:23), not to mention those chilling words of Our Lord: “No, I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3).
Unless you do your laundry, your robe will perish! St. Augustine, in one of his sermons on the Transfiguration, says: “What wonder if the Church is signified by white raiment, when you hear the Prophet Isaiah saying, ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow’? … Endure, labor hard, bear thy measure of torture; that thou mayest possess what is meant by the white raiment of the Lord, through the brightness and the beauty of an upright laboring in charity.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his sermon on the Transfiguration, adds: “Brethren, let us labor during the remainder of our lives to gain Heaven. Heaven is so great a good, that, to purchase it for us, Jesus Christ has sacrificed His life on the cross. Be assured, that the greatest of all the torments of the damned in Hell, arise from the thought of having lost Heaven through their own fault … How great is the sweetness which a soul experiences, when, in the time of prayer, God, by a ray of his own light, shows to her His goodness and His mercies towards her …
“But in this life we do not see God as He really is: we see him as it were in. the dark. “We see now through a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Here below God is hidden from, our view; we can see Him only with the eyes of Faith: how great shall be our happiness when the veil shall be raised, and we shall be permitted to behold God face to face! We shall then see His beauty, His greatness, His perfection, His amiableness, and His immense love for our souls.
“The goods of this earth do not satisfy our desires: at first they gratify the senses; but when we become accustomed to them they cease to delight. But the joys of Paradise constantly satiate and content the heart. ‘I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear’ (Psalm 16:15). Justly, then, has St. Augustine said, that to gain the eternal glory of Paradise, we should cheerfully embrace eternal labor.
“Let us, then, brethren, courageously resolve to bear patiently with all the sufferings, which shall come upon us, during the remaining days of our lives: to secure Heaven they are all little and nothing. Rejoice then; for all these pains, sorrows, and persecutions shall, if we are saved, be to us a source of never-ending joys and delights. ‘Your sorrows shall be turned into joy’ (John 16:20).
“When, then, the crosses of this life afflict us, let us raise our eyes to Heaven, and console ourselves with the hope of Paradise. At the end of her life, St. Mary of Egypt, the reformed prostitute and seductress, was asked, by the Abbot St. Zozimus, how she had been able to live for forty-seven years in the desert, where he found her dying. She answered: ‘With the hope of Paradise!’ If we be animated with the same hope, we shall not feel the tribulations of this life. Have courage! Let us love God and labor for Heaven. There the saint expects us, Mary expects us, Jesus Christ expects us; He holds in His hand a crown to make each of us a king in that eternal kingdom.” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, sermon on the Transfiguration).
Transubstantiation and Transfiguration
We can loosely compare the Eucharistic Transubstantiation to the Transfiguration, or our spiritual transfiguration. Even today Christ comes to us on Earth in transfigured form. Of course we do not see Him with our bodily eyes. But we do see Him with our bodily eyes in the members of His Mystical Body―in the little child, in the poor, in the priest, in our neighbor. With our spiritual eyes of Faith, we also see Him especially in the Holy Eucharist with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity under the appearances of bread and wine. With the eyes of Faith we must recognize Him as the transfigured Lord when, in the Eucharist, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, He offers up His Body and His Blood in the continuation of the Passion—a Passion that He was discussing with Moses and Elias during His transfiguration on Mount Tabor.
The Eucharist is our food and nourishment for the life of grace. As theology teaches, “Graces perfects nature” ― and the Holy Eucharist is a source of grace “par excellence”. The Holy Eucharist―containing as it does the Author of all grace―can ‘transfigure’ us, or transform us, from worldly creatures into holy creatures. As already quoted above, St. Louis de Montfort speaks of this transformation or ‘transfiguration’ thus: “What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God! A marvelous work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving His grace abundantly and in an extraordinary manner. The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this.”
Just as Christ changes bread into His Body and wine into His Blood, He can also change you into a saint. Yet that depends upon how malleable we make ourselves in His hands. If we resist the changes He would like to make, then little or even nothing will happen―and we will remain as worldly and lukewarm as we currently are. Change is never easy and spiritual changes are even harder. We must WANT to change! We must WANT to be holy! We must WANT to be saints! Merely saying so with our lips is not good enough―we must WANT it in our hearts with all sincerity: “This people honoureth Me with their lips―but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8).
Sinners that we are, we must come to Our Lord like the leper and the blind man: “Behold a leper came and adored Him, saying: ‘Lord, if thou wilt [if You want], thou canst make me clean!’ And Jesus stretching forth his hand, touched him, saying: ‘I will [I do want], be thou made clean. And forthwith his leprosy was cleansed!” (Matthew 8:2-3). A blind man brought to Jesus “and Jesus said to him: ‘What wilt thou [what do you want] that I should do to thee?’ And the blind man said to Him: ‘Rabboni, that I may see!’ And Jesus saith to him: ‘Go thy way! Thy faith hath made thee whole!’ And immediately he saw, and followed Him in the way” (Mark 10:51-52).
Are you and your family struck and contaminated with ‘leprosy’ of worldliness; the ‘leprosy’ of lukewarmness; or the ‘leprosy’ of sin? If so, Our Lord can cure you―but you have to WANT to be cured; you have to WANT to leave behind and abandon your worldliness, your lukewarmness and your sinfulness! You cannot keep them and serve God! “No man can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). Today, the vast majority of Catholics are trying to serve those two masters―it will not end well for them, it will end badly! Already, at the best of times, most souls are lost ― “Be not deceived! God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! … Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Luke 13:24; Matthew 7:13-14).
Confession and Transfiguration
The Sacrament of Confession is today greatly neglected and underestimated as means of transforming our lives. The Church’s exorcists tell us that Confession is more powerful than an exorcism―because Confession is a Sacrament, whereas an exorcism is only a Sacramental.
As one exorcist, FR. PAOLO CARLIN, said: “The Sacraments are the armor that protects soul and body. The Eucharist puts us in intimate communion with Jesus, the teacher and strength of Christians. Reconciliation, or confession, brings us closer to God. Confession is more powerful than exorcism inasmuch as it is, like all the Sacraments, a direct action of God in our lives, and furthermore, it exercises humility, which contrasts with Satan’s pride.”
The recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, FR. GABRIELE AMORTH, echoes the above sentiments: “Confession is more effective than an exorcism! Satan is much more enraged when we take souls away from him through confession, than when we take away bodies through exorcism ... I am convinced that a good Confession, which is a very powerful Sacrament, is much more efficacious than an exorcism, which is only a sacramental.”
MSGR. JOHN ESSEFF, an exorcist for 40 years, adds: “Confession is more powerful than exorcism. One is a Sacrament and the other is a blessing. One Confession is worth 100 exorcisms. The devil wants to destroy the soul and the soul is healed by Confession. If people want to decrease the work of Satan, they should increase the use of Confession. Once the Confessional line gets thin, the activity of Satan increases. To decrease the work of Satan, increase the use of Confession.”
The problem most people encounter with Confession can be summed up by the phrase: “The more you need it, the less you want it!” Satan knows the power of Confession, he knows its healing power, he knows its transforming power, he knows it sanctifying power―that is why he fights “tooth-and-nail” to keep us away from Confession. If we have committed a mortal sin, Satan will try to rationalize it away and convince us that it wasn’t a mortal sin, but only a venial sin. Or he will play upon our emotions and make us feel increasingly embarrassed and ashamed of what we have done―so much so that we become afraid of having to confess it to the priest, and so we stay away. Or, if Satan cannot prevent us going to Confession, then he will try to make us confess our sins badly, wrongly, making us “fudge” over things, perhaps failing to mention the correct number of mortal sins that we are guilty of, or by making us confess them in a way that makes them sound to be venial sins, etc.
Two Legs to Heaven
It is sometimes said that the “two legs” by which we run in the race for Heaven are (1) the Sacrament of Confession, and (2) the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist (which automatically include the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Holy Communion). The “leg” of the Holy Eucharist can rightly be called our strongest “leg”―for it Christ Himself that is really present in the Holy Eucharist with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Christ is God and you just can’t beat God―hence the Holy Eucharist (Holy Mass and Holy Communion) is our strongest “leg”. The Sacrament of Confession is our weaker “leg” and it exists for our weaknesses―that is to say, our sins, or our spiritual injuries and wounds. You could also say that the Holy Eucharist is the “spiritual gym” where we “workout”; and the Sacrament of Confession is our hospital “emergency room” where we are treated for injury and our wounds are healed.
However, we can easily injure or even break our “legs”! We can break the “leg” of Holy Communion by making a sacrilegious Communion in a state of mortal sin. Likewise, we can also break the “leg” of Confession by making a sacrilegious Confession by hiding a mortal sin through shame; or by deliberately admitting to a smaller number of mortal sins than we actually committed; or failing to mention the necessary things about committing the sin―for example, saying you were impure with another person, without mentioning if that person was single or married or religious or of your own family or a child or if you forced yourself on that person, etc. All of these differing circumstances aggravate a mortal sin in differing degrees. If you fail to mention those necessary details, then you have made a bad (sacrilegious) Confession. How sad it is to see that most Catholics no longer care about mentioning these kinds of details any more―thus proving the truth of what St. Alphonsus Liguori lamented: “Bad confessions, in which sins are concealed through shame, not of rare occurrence, but frequent, especially in small country districts! This is an evil which consigns innumerable souls to Hell.” (Sunday Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori).
So what shape are your “legs” in? What is the shape of your family’s “legs”? Are they in good shape? Are they able to run, or are they injured, or even broken. Holy Scripture speaks of a race to Heaven in which everyone must run―are you able to run, or can you barely walk? “Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it! And everyone that strives for the mastery [the prize, the victory], refrains himself from all things―and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown―but we an incorruptible one. I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty, I so fight, not as one beating the air, but I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection―lest, perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway!” (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).
Sadly, most do end up being cast away, or castaways―for they do not take their spiritual life seriously enough. St. Paul warns us of this by bringing up the example of God’s Chosen People, whom Moses led out Egypt (a symbol of sin) to the Promised Land (a symbol of Heaven) while spending 40 years in the desert (a symbol of an austere and mortified life on Earth)―yet with most of them God was not pleased:
“For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers [the Chosen People in the time of Moses] were all under the cloud, and all [miraculously] passed through the sea [the Red Sea]. And all in Moses were baptized―in the cloud and in the sea. And did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink―and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased―for they were overthrown in the desert [by their murmurings, complaints, rebellion and idolatry]. Now these things were done in a figure of us, that we should not covet evil things as they also coveted. Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them, as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play!’ [which is pretty much our existence today!] Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand! Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents! Neither do you murmur as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them in figure, and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore he that thinks himself to stand, let him take heed, lest he fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:1-12).
Figure on Being Transfigured Before You Can Get Into Heaven
We read of Jesus, in the Gospel of the Transfiguration, that “whilst He prayed, the shape of His countenance was altered, His face did shine as the sun: and His garments became white as snow—white and glittering” (Luke 9:29). We, too, have to alter our “face” through prayer―we have to face life differently to how we currently face it. We have to see things more with the eyes of God, rather than our own myopic human eyes that are filled with, not merely splinters, but planks! (Matthew 7:3-5). We have to realize and accept that God’s way of thinking, seeing and doing things is not our measly, narrow-minded, prejudiced way of thinking, seeing and doing things: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9).
We have to be transfigured from our tarnished, weak, humanistic lifestyle so as to cloth ourselves with Christ’s “garments white as snow―white and glittering.” In other words, as Holy Scripture states: “To put off the old man, who is corrupted according to the desire of error. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth” (Ephesians 4:22-24). “For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). “For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the daylight―not in rioting [unrestrained behavior] and drunkenness, not in sexual actions and impurities, not in contention and envy―but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences!” (Romans 13:11-14). “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, partyings, and such like. Of which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God!” (Galatians 5:19-21). “Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err! Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor scoffers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
Article 20
Friday August 4th, Feast of St. Dominic & Saturday August 5th, 2023
St. Dominic, the Rosary & You
Friday August 4th, Feast of St. Dominic & Saturday August 5th, 2023
St. Dominic, the Rosary & You
On this feast day―or during these multiple feast days―honoring St. Dominic (the 1216 founder of the Dominican Religious Order―Ordinis Praedicatorum―also called Order of Friars Preachers, or simply Order of Preachers, with its abbreviation of O.P.), let us refresh our memories (or learn for the first time) some of the key points about St. Dominic’s life that have relevance for our day and age.
Head-Spinning, Musical Chair, Wandering Saint
We say “multiple feast days” because St. Dominic has been moved around quite a bit since his canonization in 1234 by Pope Gregory IX. St. Dominic died on August 6th, and so naturally one would think that August 6th would be his feast day. But Pope Gregory XI declared that St. Dominic’s feast would be celebrated on August 5th, because the August 6th slot was occupied by the feast of Pope Saint Sixtus II, who was martyred in Rome in 258, so St. Dominic had to be content with August 5th instead of August 6th. This remained the case until 1558, when Pope Paul IV ordered the general observance on August 5th of the titular feast of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, the feast of Our Lady of the Snows, and the transfer of St Dominic’s feast back one day to August 4th. Then in 1859, Saint John-Marie Vianney, the Curé d’Ars, died on August 4th. He was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1925, and his feast was added to the calendar in 1928, to be observed on August 9th―but St. John Vianney also found himself “transferred” and was given a new feast day of August 8th. Then came the Second Vatican Council with its “musical chairs” approach of changing a lot of accepted feast days and giving them new dates. Hence, St. Dominic had to “pack his bags” once more and move from August 4th to August 8th, and St. John Vianney “packed his bags” and moved from August 8th to August 4th. The Traditional calendar and the so-called “Extraordinary Rite” calendar celebrate St. Dominic on August 4th and St. John Vianney on August 8th. Is your head spinning yet? Not as much as the heads of St. Dominic and St. John Vianney!! Life is tough when you’re a saint, huh?
Dominic, Dogs & Dog Collars
Blessed Jordan of Saxony (1190–1237) was a German priest who was elected to succeed St. Dominic upon his death. He wrote a biography of St. Dominic entitled Libellus de principiis Ordinis Praedicatorum (“Booklet on the beginnings of the Order of Preachers”) ― a Latin text which is both the earliest biography of Dominic and the first narrative history of the foundation of the Order. In the Libellus, Blessed Jordan recounts a vision that Dominic’s mother had when she was carrying Dominic in her womb during pregnancy:
“Before his mother conceived him, she saw in a vision that she would bear in her womb a dog who, with a burning torch in his mouth and leaping from her womb, seemed to set the whole Earth on fire. This was to signify that her child would be an eminent preacher who, by “barking” sacred knowledge, would rouse to vigilance souls drowsy with sin, as well as scatter throughout the world the fire which the Lord Jesus Christ came to cast upon the Earth.”
Holy Scripture speaks of priests as being dogs of God: “His watchmen are all blind, they are all ignorant―dumb dogs, not able to bark, seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams!” (Isaias 56:10). St. Dominic would not be a dumb dog incapable of barking! Dominic came out barking and barked all his life! God spoke of His people as being sheep: “I will set up one Shepherd over them, and He shall feed them … He shall feed them, and He shall be their Shepherd!” (Ezechiel 34:23). Our Lord spoke of His followers as being a flock of sheep: “I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for his sheep … I am the Good Shepherd and I know Mine, and Mine know Me―and I lay down my life for My sheep!” (John 10:11-15) … “I was sent to the sheep that are lost” (Matthew 15:24) … “Fear not, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you a kingdom!” (Luke 12:3) … “There shall be one fold and one shepherd!” (John 10:16).
The shepherd needs assistance―and that usually comes in the form of sheepdogs. In Biblical times dogs were used as shepherds and guardians of the flocks and home. Job speaks of “the dogs of my flock” (Job 30:1). In the quote in the above paragraph we see God refer to his watchmen as being dogs who were required to bark. Sheep are typically unable to defend themselves from predators and are far more likely to run than address a threat head-on. Worse yet, sheep are annoyed by the presence of sheepdogs who are constantly circling them, nipping at their heels and trying to herd them in one direction or another. Sheep don’t even usually know they have a need for protection; they are largely unaware of danger until it is too late. For this reason, they are usually impatient with the sheepdogs in their midst.
Priests and religious are the chief sheepdogs of Christ―though parents and teachers are also included. All have a duty of assisting the “Good Shepherd” in protecting his flock and leading the flock to Heaven. A collar is a sign of a person’s religious calling, and helps others in the community to identify them. Historically speaking, collars started to be worn around the sixth century as a way for clergy to be easily identified outside the church. The priest’s collar has received the nickname of “dog collar” in view of the fact that the collar encompasses the neck just like the collar that dogs wear by which they are attached by a leash to their master. The priest, in a similar sense, should be attached to his master―Jesus Christ. You could compare the “dog collar” to a “yoke” ― a yoke is a wooden beam sometimes used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs. Our Lord says: “Take up my yoke upon you! … For My yoke is sweet and my burden light!” (Matthew 11:30). Holy Scripture adds: “Submit your neck to the yoke, and let your soul receive discipline” (Ecclesiasticus 51:34) … “It is good for a man, when he has borne the yoke from his youth!” (Lamentations 3:27). What does it mean to take Christ’s yoke upon us? It means humbly doing His will and allowing Him to guide and direct our lives.
Dominic the Dog
Even though dogs were valuable guardians and protectors of sheep and men, they were nevertheless looked down upon. The very name of Religious Order that Dominic founded―the Dominicans―showed both him and them to be “Dogs of the Lord.” Dominicanus in Latin, can be a play on words in that it can be interpreted as “Domini canis” which in English means “Dog of the Lord.” A dog bearing a torch in its mouth became a symbol for the Dominicans.
St. Dominic wore the yoke of Christ from the earliest moments of his life and in him we can clearly see the truth of the words: … “It is good for a man, when he has borne the yoke from his youth!” (Lamentations 3:27). Blessed Jordan of Saxony writes of Dominic: “He was born of devout and reputable parents. When he was still a baby under the care of a nurse, he was often caught getting out of his bed―as though he already hated the delights of the flesh. He preferred the floor to the bed as a source of bodily repose. And, from that time on, he had the practice of refusing the softness of the bed and slept most frequently on the floor ... Even as a child, not yet beyond a nurse’s care, he often forsook his bed and, as though already beginning to distrust the pleasures of the flesh, chose rather to lie on the ground than rest in bodily comfort on his bed. From this grew his custom of shunning the softness of beds and sleeping most often on the ground … From his very childhood, divine grace was working in him and promoting his spiritual progress.”
“From his earliest days he had a good disposition and his infancy augured a greatness which his future would reveal. He did not engage in play or join those who walk in frivolity, but, after the example of gentle Jacob, he avoided the rovings of Esau, preferring not to leave the bosom of Mother Church and the familiar tabernacles of a quiet, holy life. You could see at once the child and the man, since the fewness of his years showed his childhood, but his maturity of conduct and firmness of character bespoke the adult man. He shunned the attractions and follies of the world in order to walk in the perfect way. To the end he kept the bright ornament of virginity unspotted for his Lord, and was the lover of poverty.”
“While he was a student at Palencia, a famine arose and almost all Spain was stricken. Being moved with pity for the poor at the sight of their misery, he resolved at once to put into practice our Lord’s counsel and do all he could to relieve the wants of the dying poor. He sold all his belongings, even his books, which he very much needed in that city. Establishing a center for almsgiving, he distributed his goods and gave them to the poor. This example so stirred the souls of his fellow-students and masters in theology that, seeing how stingy their own help had been in comparison with this young man’s generosity, they began to give alms in greater abundance.” Dominic reportedly told his astonished fellow students, “Would you have me study from these dead skins [books] when men are dying of hunger?”
He would rise in the middle of the night to pray; he was extremely moderate in eating and drinking, and modest in all his ways. He detested all worldly amusements, avoided all questionable society, was compassionate towards the poor, and sought all his pleasure in prayer, in visiting the churches and in study.
Spiritual Dogs and Spiritual Doggedness
Dominic’s entire family were spiritually dogged. Unholy parents will not raise holy children. Holy Scripture says: “As the mother was, so also is her daughter” (Ezechiel 16:44), from which we get our proverb: “Like father like son!” or “Like mother like daughter!” Scripture adds: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:8). To which Our Lord adds: “By their fruits you shall know them! Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? Every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire! Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:16-20).
Dominic came from a good family tree―hence he turned out to be “good fruit”. Blessed Jordan of Saxony―who personally knew Dominic and after his death succeeded Dominic as the General of the Dominican Order―writes the following concerning Dominic’s good “family tree” and “family roots”:
“He was born of devout and reputable parents … From infancy Dominic was carefully reared by his parents and a maternal uncle, a priest, who lost no time training him in the practices of the Church. In this way Dominic, whom God had destined to be a vessel of election, was from his earliest years surrounded with an odor of holiness which always clung to him ... Born of pious parents and trained with a recognition that matters of religion are the most important things in life, the boy started to manifest his talents, having received from the Lord sweet blessings ... From his very childhood, divine grace was working in him and promoting his spiritual progress.
“His mother was most merciful. Once, when Dominic’s father, went on a trip. Dominic’s mother, seeing the misery of the poor and afflicted neighbors―having already given them many of her goods―his mother completely emptied and distributed to the poor a huge vessel of wine which she had―and this was made known throughout the whole area. When her husband was returning, his neighbors went to meet him. Some of these persons were whispering about the wine that had been given to the poor. When he reached his home, he told his wife to have the neighbors return the wine that they had received from the aforementioned vessel. Fearing considerable embarrassment for herself, she quickly went to the cellar where the empty wine vessel was, and, kneeling, asked the Lord, saying: “Lord Jesus Christ, although I am unworthy to be heard on the basis of my merits, Yet hear me for the sake of your servant, my son, whom I have given over to your service!” For the mother knew the holiness of her son, and rising, fully confident, she went immediately to the empty vessel and found it full of wine. Giving thanks to the Giver of all Graces, she had this wine served abundantly to her husband and others, and everyone was surprised.”
The Guzman family―Dominic’s family name―turned out to be quite a holy family! St. Dominic’s mother, Joanna of Aza, would eventually, in 1828, be beatified by the Church through Pope Leo XII. Of Dominic’s father, Felix Guzman, little is known, except that he was in every sense the worthy head of a family of saints. The example of such parents was not without its effect upon their children. Not only St. Dominic, but also brothers, Antonio and Manés, were distinguished for their extraordinary sanctity. His brother Manés, who, following in the footsteps of Dominic, became a Dominican Friar Preacher. The family’s oldest son, Antonio, became a secular priest and, having distributed his patrimony to the poor, entered a hospital where he spent his life ministering to the sick.
Blessed Jordan of Saxony continues: “Dominic had two brothers, both unusually virtuous. One of them [Antonio], a priest entirely devoted to works of mercy in a hospice for the poor, was known for his miracles during and after his life. The other brother, whose name was Manés, led a saintly contemplative life. After serving God for a long time in the Dominican Order, he died a peaceful death. There were also two nephews, both of whom led a holy and praiseworthy life in the Dominican Order.”
The Guzman family turned out to be an excellent family tree with much good fruit―5 members: father, mother and three sons; all three sons had a religious vocation: two priests and one friar; one son founded a religious order that exists to this day; the mother ended up being beatified (Blessed Joanna of Aza, also called Blessed Jane); one brother also being beatified (Blessed Manés de Guzman, also spelled Mannes de Guzman); and one brother canonized a saint (St. Dominic de Guzman). The other two members of the Guzman family―the father, Felix, and the eldest son, Antonio, both led very holy lives without being beatified or canonized by the Church.
Holiness has “Gone to the Dogs” in Families Today
If only today’s families would produce similar fruits―how much better would this world be! It is religious vocations that earn blessings for this world, as stated by Our Lady of Good Success: “No one on the face of the Earth is aware from where comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents … Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils!”
Our Lady spoke of family duties to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, saying: “The parents are naturally bound to instruct their children, from their infancy, in the knowledge of God and to direct them with solicitous care, so that they may, at the same time, see their ultimate end and seek it in their first acts of the intellect and will. Parents should with great watchfulness withdraw them from the childishness and puerile trickishness―to which depraved nature will incline them if left without direction. If the fathers and mothers would be solicitous to prevent these vanities and perverted habits of their children and would instruct them from their infancy in the knowledge of their God and Creator, then they would afterwards easily accustom them to know and adore Him. From the first dawn of reason, as soon as the child obtains knowledge God by the light of Faith, the soul must exert itself never to lose Him from her sight, always fearing Him, loving Him, and reverencing Him.”
Sadly and unfortunately, most parents are more concerned about teaching their children about secular, material, worldly things than spiritual and religious things. Part of that comes from the fact that most parents know very little indeed about the Faith in comparison to mountains of knowledge that they possess about non-religious things. As the saying goes: “You cannot give what you do not have!” In most families religious ignorance is passed on from one generation to next generation―which consequently endangers the salvation of each generation. Too many families are too complacent about their salvation―totally ignorant of, or totally ignoring the words of Our Lord concerning the difficulty of salvation:
“For what shall it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36). “Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! … Enter in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leads to life―and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Luke 13:24; Matthew 7:13-14; 22:14). “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21-22). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to Me―for the Kingdom of Heaven is for such!” (Matthew 19:14). “And whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in Me; it would be better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and he were cast into the sea!” (Mark 9:41).
The spiritual stupidity, ignorance and indifference in some families is astounding and incomprehensible! Truly Our Lord can say: “Leave them alone! They are blind and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit” (Matthew 15:14). “The heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut―lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them!” (Matthew 13:15).
Deaf Dogs and Dumb Dogs and Disobedient Dogs
Our Lady told St. Dominic to use the Rosary as a weapon with which to fight the Albigensian Heresy. St. Louis de Montfort describes the event: “St. Dominic, seeing that the gravity of people’s sins was hindering the conversion of the Albigensians, withdrew into a forest near Toulouse, France, where he prayed continuously for three days and three nights. During this time he did nothing but weep and do harsh penances, in order to appease the anger of God. He used his discipline (whip) so much that his body was lacerated, and finally he fell into a coma. At this point Our Lady appeared to him, accompanied by three angels, and she said: ‘Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world? I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the principal weapon has always been the Angelic Psalter [the Rosary], which is the foundation‑stone of the New Testament. Therefore, if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter [Rosary]’”
Today, Our Lady has stated the Rosary is weapon that is to be used in all circumstances and problems. Sister Lucia of Fatima informs us: “The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary, to such an extent, that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or, above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
Our Lady herself insisted upon that many times. At Fatima, in 1917, speaking of herself in the third person, she said: “Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” At Akita, in 1973, she said the same thing: “The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary!”
Yet hardly anyone listens and those who do listen fail to make the most of the Rosary―as Scripture says: “They are all ignorant―dumb dogs not able to bark, seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams!” (Isaias 56:10). It is estimated that only 3% of Catholics pray the Rosary daily! Sister Lucia explains: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!”
Head-Spinning, Musical Chair, Wandering Saint
We say “multiple feast days” because St. Dominic has been moved around quite a bit since his canonization in 1234 by Pope Gregory IX. St. Dominic died on August 6th, and so naturally one would think that August 6th would be his feast day. But Pope Gregory XI declared that St. Dominic’s feast would be celebrated on August 5th, because the August 6th slot was occupied by the feast of Pope Saint Sixtus II, who was martyred in Rome in 258, so St. Dominic had to be content with August 5th instead of August 6th. This remained the case until 1558, when Pope Paul IV ordered the general observance on August 5th of the titular feast of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, the feast of Our Lady of the Snows, and the transfer of St Dominic’s feast back one day to August 4th. Then in 1859, Saint John-Marie Vianney, the Curé d’Ars, died on August 4th. He was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1925, and his feast was added to the calendar in 1928, to be observed on August 9th―but St. John Vianney also found himself “transferred” and was given a new feast day of August 8th. Then came the Second Vatican Council with its “musical chairs” approach of changing a lot of accepted feast days and giving them new dates. Hence, St. Dominic had to “pack his bags” once more and move from August 4th to August 8th, and St. John Vianney “packed his bags” and moved from August 8th to August 4th. The Traditional calendar and the so-called “Extraordinary Rite” calendar celebrate St. Dominic on August 4th and St. John Vianney on August 8th. Is your head spinning yet? Not as much as the heads of St. Dominic and St. John Vianney!! Life is tough when you’re a saint, huh?
Dominic, Dogs & Dog Collars
Blessed Jordan of Saxony (1190–1237) was a German priest who was elected to succeed St. Dominic upon his death. He wrote a biography of St. Dominic entitled Libellus de principiis Ordinis Praedicatorum (“Booklet on the beginnings of the Order of Preachers”) ― a Latin text which is both the earliest biography of Dominic and the first narrative history of the foundation of the Order. In the Libellus, Blessed Jordan recounts a vision that Dominic’s mother had when she was carrying Dominic in her womb during pregnancy:
“Before his mother conceived him, she saw in a vision that she would bear in her womb a dog who, with a burning torch in his mouth and leaping from her womb, seemed to set the whole Earth on fire. This was to signify that her child would be an eminent preacher who, by “barking” sacred knowledge, would rouse to vigilance souls drowsy with sin, as well as scatter throughout the world the fire which the Lord Jesus Christ came to cast upon the Earth.”
Holy Scripture speaks of priests as being dogs of God: “His watchmen are all blind, they are all ignorant―dumb dogs, not able to bark, seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams!” (Isaias 56:10). St. Dominic would not be a dumb dog incapable of barking! Dominic came out barking and barked all his life! God spoke of His people as being sheep: “I will set up one Shepherd over them, and He shall feed them … He shall feed them, and He shall be their Shepherd!” (Ezechiel 34:23). Our Lord spoke of His followers as being a flock of sheep: “I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for his sheep … I am the Good Shepherd and I know Mine, and Mine know Me―and I lay down my life for My sheep!” (John 10:11-15) … “I was sent to the sheep that are lost” (Matthew 15:24) … “Fear not, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you a kingdom!” (Luke 12:3) … “There shall be one fold and one shepherd!” (John 10:16).
The shepherd needs assistance―and that usually comes in the form of sheepdogs. In Biblical times dogs were used as shepherds and guardians of the flocks and home. Job speaks of “the dogs of my flock” (Job 30:1). In the quote in the above paragraph we see God refer to his watchmen as being dogs who were required to bark. Sheep are typically unable to defend themselves from predators and are far more likely to run than address a threat head-on. Worse yet, sheep are annoyed by the presence of sheepdogs who are constantly circling them, nipping at their heels and trying to herd them in one direction or another. Sheep don’t even usually know they have a need for protection; they are largely unaware of danger until it is too late. For this reason, they are usually impatient with the sheepdogs in their midst.
Priests and religious are the chief sheepdogs of Christ―though parents and teachers are also included. All have a duty of assisting the “Good Shepherd” in protecting his flock and leading the flock to Heaven. A collar is a sign of a person’s religious calling, and helps others in the community to identify them. Historically speaking, collars started to be worn around the sixth century as a way for clergy to be easily identified outside the church. The priest’s collar has received the nickname of “dog collar” in view of the fact that the collar encompasses the neck just like the collar that dogs wear by which they are attached by a leash to their master. The priest, in a similar sense, should be attached to his master―Jesus Christ. You could compare the “dog collar” to a “yoke” ― a yoke is a wooden beam sometimes used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs. Our Lord says: “Take up my yoke upon you! … For My yoke is sweet and my burden light!” (Matthew 11:30). Holy Scripture adds: “Submit your neck to the yoke, and let your soul receive discipline” (Ecclesiasticus 51:34) … “It is good for a man, when he has borne the yoke from his youth!” (Lamentations 3:27). What does it mean to take Christ’s yoke upon us? It means humbly doing His will and allowing Him to guide and direct our lives.
Dominic the Dog
Even though dogs were valuable guardians and protectors of sheep and men, they were nevertheless looked down upon. The very name of Religious Order that Dominic founded―the Dominicans―showed both him and them to be “Dogs of the Lord.” Dominicanus in Latin, can be a play on words in that it can be interpreted as “Domini canis” which in English means “Dog of the Lord.” A dog bearing a torch in its mouth became a symbol for the Dominicans.
St. Dominic wore the yoke of Christ from the earliest moments of his life and in him we can clearly see the truth of the words: … “It is good for a man, when he has borne the yoke from his youth!” (Lamentations 3:27). Blessed Jordan of Saxony writes of Dominic: “He was born of devout and reputable parents. When he was still a baby under the care of a nurse, he was often caught getting out of his bed―as though he already hated the delights of the flesh. He preferred the floor to the bed as a source of bodily repose. And, from that time on, he had the practice of refusing the softness of the bed and slept most frequently on the floor ... Even as a child, not yet beyond a nurse’s care, he often forsook his bed and, as though already beginning to distrust the pleasures of the flesh, chose rather to lie on the ground than rest in bodily comfort on his bed. From this grew his custom of shunning the softness of beds and sleeping most often on the ground … From his very childhood, divine grace was working in him and promoting his spiritual progress.”
“From his earliest days he had a good disposition and his infancy augured a greatness which his future would reveal. He did not engage in play or join those who walk in frivolity, but, after the example of gentle Jacob, he avoided the rovings of Esau, preferring not to leave the bosom of Mother Church and the familiar tabernacles of a quiet, holy life. You could see at once the child and the man, since the fewness of his years showed his childhood, but his maturity of conduct and firmness of character bespoke the adult man. He shunned the attractions and follies of the world in order to walk in the perfect way. To the end he kept the bright ornament of virginity unspotted for his Lord, and was the lover of poverty.”
“While he was a student at Palencia, a famine arose and almost all Spain was stricken. Being moved with pity for the poor at the sight of their misery, he resolved at once to put into practice our Lord’s counsel and do all he could to relieve the wants of the dying poor. He sold all his belongings, even his books, which he very much needed in that city. Establishing a center for almsgiving, he distributed his goods and gave them to the poor. This example so stirred the souls of his fellow-students and masters in theology that, seeing how stingy their own help had been in comparison with this young man’s generosity, they began to give alms in greater abundance.” Dominic reportedly told his astonished fellow students, “Would you have me study from these dead skins [books] when men are dying of hunger?”
He would rise in the middle of the night to pray; he was extremely moderate in eating and drinking, and modest in all his ways. He detested all worldly amusements, avoided all questionable society, was compassionate towards the poor, and sought all his pleasure in prayer, in visiting the churches and in study.
Spiritual Dogs and Spiritual Doggedness
Dominic’s entire family were spiritually dogged. Unholy parents will not raise holy children. Holy Scripture says: “As the mother was, so also is her daughter” (Ezechiel 16:44), from which we get our proverb: “Like father like son!” or “Like mother like daughter!” Scripture adds: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:8). To which Our Lord adds: “By their fruits you shall know them! Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? Every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire! Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:16-20).
Dominic came from a good family tree―hence he turned out to be “good fruit”. Blessed Jordan of Saxony―who personally knew Dominic and after his death succeeded Dominic as the General of the Dominican Order―writes the following concerning Dominic’s good “family tree” and “family roots”:
“He was born of devout and reputable parents … From infancy Dominic was carefully reared by his parents and a maternal uncle, a priest, who lost no time training him in the practices of the Church. In this way Dominic, whom God had destined to be a vessel of election, was from his earliest years surrounded with an odor of holiness which always clung to him ... Born of pious parents and trained with a recognition that matters of religion are the most important things in life, the boy started to manifest his talents, having received from the Lord sweet blessings ... From his very childhood, divine grace was working in him and promoting his spiritual progress.
“His mother was most merciful. Once, when Dominic’s father, went on a trip. Dominic’s mother, seeing the misery of the poor and afflicted neighbors―having already given them many of her goods―his mother completely emptied and distributed to the poor a huge vessel of wine which she had―and this was made known throughout the whole area. When her husband was returning, his neighbors went to meet him. Some of these persons were whispering about the wine that had been given to the poor. When he reached his home, he told his wife to have the neighbors return the wine that they had received from the aforementioned vessel. Fearing considerable embarrassment for herself, she quickly went to the cellar where the empty wine vessel was, and, kneeling, asked the Lord, saying: “Lord Jesus Christ, although I am unworthy to be heard on the basis of my merits, Yet hear me for the sake of your servant, my son, whom I have given over to your service!” For the mother knew the holiness of her son, and rising, fully confident, she went immediately to the empty vessel and found it full of wine. Giving thanks to the Giver of all Graces, she had this wine served abundantly to her husband and others, and everyone was surprised.”
The Guzman family―Dominic’s family name―turned out to be quite a holy family! St. Dominic’s mother, Joanna of Aza, would eventually, in 1828, be beatified by the Church through Pope Leo XII. Of Dominic’s father, Felix Guzman, little is known, except that he was in every sense the worthy head of a family of saints. The example of such parents was not without its effect upon their children. Not only St. Dominic, but also brothers, Antonio and Manés, were distinguished for their extraordinary sanctity. His brother Manés, who, following in the footsteps of Dominic, became a Dominican Friar Preacher. The family’s oldest son, Antonio, became a secular priest and, having distributed his patrimony to the poor, entered a hospital where he spent his life ministering to the sick.
Blessed Jordan of Saxony continues: “Dominic had two brothers, both unusually virtuous. One of them [Antonio], a priest entirely devoted to works of mercy in a hospice for the poor, was known for his miracles during and after his life. The other brother, whose name was Manés, led a saintly contemplative life. After serving God for a long time in the Dominican Order, he died a peaceful death. There were also two nephews, both of whom led a holy and praiseworthy life in the Dominican Order.”
The Guzman family turned out to be an excellent family tree with much good fruit―5 members: father, mother and three sons; all three sons had a religious vocation: two priests and one friar; one son founded a religious order that exists to this day; the mother ended up being beatified (Blessed Joanna of Aza, also called Blessed Jane); one brother also being beatified (Blessed Manés de Guzman, also spelled Mannes de Guzman); and one brother canonized a saint (St. Dominic de Guzman). The other two members of the Guzman family―the father, Felix, and the eldest son, Antonio, both led very holy lives without being beatified or canonized by the Church.
Holiness has “Gone to the Dogs” in Families Today
If only today’s families would produce similar fruits―how much better would this world be! It is religious vocations that earn blessings for this world, as stated by Our Lady of Good Success: “No one on the face of the Earth is aware from where comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents … Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils!”
Our Lady spoke of family duties to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, saying: “The parents are naturally bound to instruct their children, from their infancy, in the knowledge of God and to direct them with solicitous care, so that they may, at the same time, see their ultimate end and seek it in their first acts of the intellect and will. Parents should with great watchfulness withdraw them from the childishness and puerile trickishness―to which depraved nature will incline them if left without direction. If the fathers and mothers would be solicitous to prevent these vanities and perverted habits of their children and would instruct them from their infancy in the knowledge of their God and Creator, then they would afterwards easily accustom them to know and adore Him. From the first dawn of reason, as soon as the child obtains knowledge God by the light of Faith, the soul must exert itself never to lose Him from her sight, always fearing Him, loving Him, and reverencing Him.”
Sadly and unfortunately, most parents are more concerned about teaching their children about secular, material, worldly things than spiritual and religious things. Part of that comes from the fact that most parents know very little indeed about the Faith in comparison to mountains of knowledge that they possess about non-religious things. As the saying goes: “You cannot give what you do not have!” In most families religious ignorance is passed on from one generation to next generation―which consequently endangers the salvation of each generation. Too many families are too complacent about their salvation―totally ignorant of, or totally ignoring the words of Our Lord concerning the difficulty of salvation:
“For what shall it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36). “Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! … Enter in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leads to life―and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Luke 13:24; Matthew 7:13-14; 22:14). “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21-22). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to Me―for the Kingdom of Heaven is for such!” (Matthew 19:14). “And whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in Me; it would be better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and he were cast into the sea!” (Mark 9:41).
The spiritual stupidity, ignorance and indifference in some families is astounding and incomprehensible! Truly Our Lord can say: “Leave them alone! They are blind and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit” (Matthew 15:14). “The heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut―lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them!” (Matthew 13:15).
Deaf Dogs and Dumb Dogs and Disobedient Dogs
Our Lady told St. Dominic to use the Rosary as a weapon with which to fight the Albigensian Heresy. St. Louis de Montfort describes the event: “St. Dominic, seeing that the gravity of people’s sins was hindering the conversion of the Albigensians, withdrew into a forest near Toulouse, France, where he prayed continuously for three days and three nights. During this time he did nothing but weep and do harsh penances, in order to appease the anger of God. He used his discipline (whip) so much that his body was lacerated, and finally he fell into a coma. At this point Our Lady appeared to him, accompanied by three angels, and she said: ‘Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world? I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the principal weapon has always been the Angelic Psalter [the Rosary], which is the foundation‑stone of the New Testament. Therefore, if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter [Rosary]’”
Today, Our Lady has stated the Rosary is weapon that is to be used in all circumstances and problems. Sister Lucia of Fatima informs us: “The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary, to such an extent, that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or, above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
Our Lady herself insisted upon that many times. At Fatima, in 1917, speaking of herself in the third person, she said: “Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” At Akita, in 1973, she said the same thing: “The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary!”
Yet hardly anyone listens and those who do listen fail to make the most of the Rosary―as Scripture says: “They are all ignorant―dumb dogs not able to bark, seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams!” (Isaias 56:10). It is estimated that only 3% of Catholics pray the Rosary daily! Sister Lucia explains: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!”
Article 19
Tuesday August 1st to Thursday August 3rd, 2023
We Have a Shortage of Big Macs in this Crisis
Tuesday August 1st to Thursday August 3rd, 2023
We Have a Shortage of Big Macs in this Crisis
Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man!
When the going gets tough, the tough get going! Cometh the hour, cometh the man! Big men are made for big moments! The first “big man” of the Bible is without doubt Noe. The world had become incredibly sinful and God decided that He had been offended too many times―thus God chose to wipe out the world with a flood. Noe was the man who stood out from this sinful mess and was chosen by God as the means of preserving the human race after the flood. “Big man” Noe was told to build a “Big Boat” ― what we today call Noe’s Ark ― it was one heck of task for one man and few sons. The boat that God ordered was to be 450 feet long × 72 feet wide × 43 ft high. That is 1½ football fields in length; as wide as 6 lanes on an interstate or 12 cars side by side; and higher than a four-story building. Noe had to build it by hand without the aid of any modern power tools of lifting equipment, etc.
Take also the case of Moses, a man with stuttering speech defect―who was called by God to oppose the Egyptian Pharao and demand that he release the millions of unarmed Hebrew slaves from Egypt, so that they could go to their Promised Land. Moses had no army and no supporters backing him up! Yet that one “big man” came out victorious against all the odds.
Or, if you cannot find big man, a little big man will do! Take the case of little David―who turned out to be bigger than all the big men in Israel’s army by his courage in taking on and defeating Goliath, while chopping-off his head in the process―when all the “big men” were too afraid to fight Goliath. Yet David’s solution to a giant problem was a tiny pebble! Big problem―small solution!
On that note, of chopping-off heads, you may recall, from the Book of Judith, that no big men could be found to defeat Holofernes and his Assyrian army―in which case a little big woman would suffice! Nabuchodonosor, King of the Assyrians, had sent Holofernes, the general of his armies, to take vengeance on Israel and other countries, which had refused to come to the assistance of Nabuchodonosor’s in his most recent war. City after city was destroyed and their inhabitants killed by Holofernes’ army. The Jewish city of Bethulia was saved by Judith, a Hebrew widow, who entered the camp of Holofernes, captivated him by her beauty, got him drunk and then beheaded him while he slept in his drunken stupor. Judith returned to Bethulia with the severed head of Holofernes and the leaderless Assyrian army was put to flight and defeated.
No Big Bang Solutions
They say that big problems require little solutions―meaning that we won’t solve a big problem with one big bang! Only God can do that! Yet God rarely ever does that―Our Lord could have converted the entire world in His lifetime, or even in one single day, or in a minute―by some stupendous worldwide miracle accompanied by irresistible graces that nobody could refuse! On the contrary, He lived a hidden life for 30 of His 33 years on Earth―and chose a meager band of Twelve Apostles and a few hundred disciples for the task of converting and baptizing the whole world. To make matters worse, He ‘abandoned’ them by ascending into Heaven and leaving them behind to get on with the job: “Go teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20).
From Weak Men to Big Men by the Grace of God
It took around 1400 years just to Christianize Europe―and the world is still not Christianized and baptized! God could have done it by Himself in an instant―but He chose to use fallible, weak men to do the work, and He worked through them. As St. Paul―one of the biggest men of the New Testament times, writes: “I am the least of the Apostles, who am not worthy to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am; and His grace has not been void in me! I have labored more abundantly than all they―yet not I, but the grace of God with me!” (1 Corinthians 15:9-10) … “God has sent us forth as Apostles, as it were men appointed to death! We are made a spectacle to the world and to men! We are fools for Christ’s sake! We are weak! … We rejoice that we are weak!” (1 Corinthians 4:10; 2 Corinthians 13:9). “For myself I will glory in nothing except in my infirmities … lest any man should think of me above that which he sees in me, or by anything he hears from me! And lest the greatness of the revelations given to me should exalt me, there was given me an angel of Satan to buffet me. For which thing I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee―for power is made perfect in infirmity!’ Gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. For which cause I please myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ. For when I am weak, then am I powerful!” (2 Corinthians 12:10).
Big Men Made Under Big Crosses
When God created your soul―He created your soul for greatness and glory. Yet that greatness and glory is only acquired through suffering and shame! Big men [and women] are forged in big trials and under big crosses! Our Lord Himself warned us of this truth: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that does not take up his cross and does not follow Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
St. Paul―one of the biggest men of his time―writes: “Many walk―of whom I have told you often and now tell you weeping―that they are enemies of the cross of Christ! Whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:18-19). “God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ―by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14). “With Christ I am nailed to the cross!” (Galatians 2:19). “We preach Christ crucified … For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2). “And they that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24). “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6). “The word of the cross, to them that perish, is foolishness―but to them that are saved, that is to us, it is the power of God!” (1 Corinthians 1:18).
Our Lord foretold the sufferings of St. Paul: “This man is to Me a vessel of election, to carry My Name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake!” (Acts 9:15-16).
St. Paul then goes on to describe some of those sufferings: “Even unto this hour we hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no fixed abode; and we labor, working with our own hands: we are reviled, and we bless; we are persecuted, and we suffer it. We are blasphemed, and we pray for them! We are made to look like the garbage of this world, the off-scouring of all―even until now!” (1 Corinthians 4:11). “They are the ministers of Christ―I speak as one less wise (tongue in cheek)―I am more than they! Having many more labors, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Three times was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness!” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27).
St. Paul then tells us that we will also have similar sufferings: “All who will live a godly life in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution!” (2 Timothy 3:12). It is these persecutions that Our Lord spoke of when He said: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
To which Jesus adds: “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake! Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you!” (Matthew 5:11-12). To the worldly people He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). “My kingdom is not of this world!” (John 18:36). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
Tackling the Evil World
God is not a loser. No matter how much evil there is in the world, God will not ultimately lose―evil will be the loser. “Where sin abounded, grace did more abound!” (Romans 5:20). “God gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Therefore be steadfast and unmovable; always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain!” (1 Corinthians 15:57-58). “Because He that is in you [Christ] is greater than he that is in the world [Satan, the prince of this world]!” (1 John 4:4).
We need to tackle the big problem of evil one day at a time, one step at a time: “Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow―for the morrow will be solicitous for itself! Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof!” (Matthew 6:34) ― or, as they say: “Focus on today―tomorrow might never come!”
When facing gigantic problems, one can easily be discouraged―and Satan will help you in that department! Looking at the mountain that has to be scaled seems an impossibility―but the mountain can only be conquered by thousands of steps. The first step is often the hardest. The first step is always a step of Faith. Our Lord said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) ― so don’t even think of doing anything without Him! Our Lord would often ask: “Do you believe that I can do this unto you? … If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth” (Matthew 9:28; Mark 9:22). Yet the Faith of many is weak: “There are some of you that believe not!” (John 6:65). Even the Faith of many Conservative or Traditional Catholics is weak! We should cry out with man who wanted a miracle for his possessed son: “I do believe, Lord! Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:22-23) ― which translates as: “I would like to believe, Lord! I want to believe! But I am finding hard to believe! Help me believe, Lord!”
Our Lord said: “If you have Faith like a grain of mustard seed [the smallest of seeds], you shall say to this mountain, ‘Remove from here!’ and it shall remove―and nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 17:19). Similarly, when Jesus had miraculously made a fig tree wither, He said: “Amen, I say to you, if you shall have Faith, and stagger not, not only this of the fig tree shall you do, but also if you shall say to this mountain: ‘Take up and cast thyself into the sea!’ ― it shall be done!” (Matthew 21:21). Holy Scripture adds: “This is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith” (1 John 5:4).
Yet the world seems to be overcoming us―with more and more Catholics abandoning the Faith each year; and of those who still remain in the Faith, less than 20% practice one of the basic essentials of the Faith―regular Sunday Mass attendance. Seems like we desperately need a few grains of mustard seed Faith in our present crisis, doesn’t it? Our Lady of Fatima said to Sister Lucia of Fatima that we have entered the End Times. It is not without reason that Our Lord―speaking of those End Times―prophetically said: “The Son of man, when He comes, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). Without Faith, there will be no victory―“This is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith” (1 John 5:4). For the time being, it looks like the world has overcome the Faith (in most persons).
As Our Lady warned in her modern-day apparitions: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God! … Many people will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church, impelled by the malice of the devil! … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises! … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay! … The true Faith to the Lord will be forgotten! … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops! … The small number of souls who, hidden, will preserve the treasure of the Faith and the virtues will suffer an unspeakably cruel and slow martyrdom!”
Prophecies mention the two apostasies that will take place in the End Times―which Our Lady of Fatima said that we have already entered―the Minor Apostasy (which has already begun) and the Great Apostasy (during the future time of the Antichrist).
St. Anthony the Abbot, also known as St. Anthony the Great (251-356), prophesied of our times: “Men will surrender to the spirit of the age ... They will say: ‘Things are complex! The Church must be brought up to date and made meaningful to the day’s problems!’”
The Prophecy of St. Nilus, who lived around 400 AD: “Christian pastors, bishops, and priests will become vain men, completely failing to distinguish the right-hand way from the left. At that time the morals and traditions of Christians and of the Church will change. The Churches of God will be deprived of God-fearing and pious pastors, and woe to the Christians remaining in the world at that time―they will completely lose their Faith because they will lack the opportunity of seeing the light of knowledge from anyone at all.”
St. Methodius of Patara was a bishop who was martyred in the 4th century. An excerpt from his prophecy for our times says: “Many will doubt whether the Catholic Faith is the true and only saving one.”
The Maria Laach Monastery Prophecy was long ago recorded in a German monastery in the 16th century: “The twentieth century will bring death and destruction, apostasy from the Church, discord in families, cities and governments.”
Mathias Lang―also known as “Stormberger” (1753-1820)―was illiterate and had no education, yet he predicted many things like airplanes, telephones and much more. He prophesied of our times, saying: “Religious Faith will decline; priests will not be respected.”
Blessed Rembordt, in the 18th century, prophesied: “They will try to set up a new kingdom of Christ from which the true Faith will be banished.”
Sister Jeanne Royer, prophesied in the 18th century: “A false religion will appear which will deny the unity of God and will oppose the Church ... The Faith and our holy Religion will become weaker in almost every Christian kingdom. God has permitted that they should be chastised by the wicked, in order to awaken them from their apathy.”
Pope St. Pius X received the following vision: “I saw one of my successors taking to flight over the bodies of his brethren. He will take refuge in disguise somewhere and after a short retirement he will die a cruel death. The present wickedness of the world is only the beginning of the sorrows which must take place before the end of the world.”
Msgr. Eugenio Pacelli―the future Pope Pius XII―while serving as the Secretary of State under Pope Pius XI, made the following astonishing prophecy about a coming upheaval in the Church: “Suppose, dear friend, that Communism [one of ‘the errors of Russia’ mentioned in the Message of Fatima] was only the most visible of the instruments of subversion to be used against the Church and the traditions of Divine Revelation … I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul … I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject Her ornaments and make Her feel remorse for Her historical past. A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask: ‘Where have they taken Him?’”
Father Joseph Schweigl, in 1952, was entrusted by Pope Pius XII with a secret mission to interview Sister Lucy about the Third Secret. He subsequently stated: “I cannot reveal anything of what I learned at Fatima concerning the Third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts―one concerns the Pope; the other logically (although I must say nothing) would have to be the continuation of the words: ‘In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved...etc.’”
Father Jose Valinho―Sister Lucy’s nephew―related his opinion of the contents of the Third Secret. Father Valinho stated: “I believe that (the third) part of the secret concerns the Church from within, perhaps doctrinal difficulties, a crisis of unity, rebellion. The last sentence my aunt [Lucia] wrote, which precedes the part that is still unknown, says: ‘In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, etc.’ … Therefore, people elsewhere in the Church might waver on dogma. But this is just speculation.”
Cardinal Oddi―who was a personal friend of Pope John XXIII and who had spoken to him regarding the Secret―gave the following testimony to Italian journalist, Lucio Brunelli, in the journal Il Sabato, on March 17th, 1990: “It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev [the Russian leader at that time]. The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against apostasy in the Church.”
Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi―who was the personal papal theologian to Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II―revealed in a personal communication to a Professor Baumgartner in Salzburg: “In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.”
Father Malachi Martin was the secretary to Cardinal Bea (who was one of the close advisors to Pope John XXIII). Father Malachi Martin was given the Third of Fatima to read. He stated that if the Secret were made public, the confessionals and churches would be filled with parishioners on their knees. He also stated that something very relevant to the United States is mentioned in the Secret. He stated that the central element of the Secret is awful, and that it concerns apostasy.
Father Joseph Ratzinger (the future Benedict XVI), while teaching as a professor of theology in his native Germany, gave a series of radio conferences in 1969, which were later published in the book, Faith and the Future. He wrote: “The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep, and who live from the pure fullness of their Faith ... The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day; who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality … From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge ― a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices [buildings] that she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so will she loose many of her social privileges ... It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek … As a small society, she will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members ... The Church will be a more spiritual Church … It will be hard-going for the Church … But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church … And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals … But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of Faith.”
From what has been quoted above, it is evidently clear that the current crisis and the future of this current crisis is primarily focused upon the Faith―for if “the victory which overcomes the world is our Faith” (1 John 5:4), then it is the Faith that is going to be attacked by the world, with the intention of destroying the Faith. Let us not be fooled into thinking that it is the world that is attacking the Faith―it is Satan, “the prince of this world” (John 12:31) who is attacking the Faith and he is using faithless persons and worldly persons to achieve his goal.
As Sister Lucia of Fatima stated: “The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground … The Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin and, as you know, what most offends God and what will gain him the greatest number of souls in the shortest time is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them!”
How can the devil seize souls? He can easily seize souls by first of all having them commit a mortal and then trying to arrange for the death in a state of mortal sin. It takes no rocket scientist to figure out that most of the world and most of the Catholic world are living in a state of mortal sin―just look the sinful material on television, the internet, in social media, in music, and in the fashions on the street. One deliberate sinful secret look is all it takes to commit a mortal sin: “Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). It is not for nothing that Our Lady of Fatima revealed that the sin that ends up damning most souls is the sin of impurity―whether it be in thought, word, or deed. If impurity or immodesty is not to your liking, then there are plenty of other mortal sins the devil will dangle before you―missing Sunday Mass; fudging/disguising/misrepresenting/understating your mortal sins in Confession and thus making an invalid Confession; seriously insulting parents or those in authority; disobedience in serious matters; failing to correct those for whom you are responsible when they sin mortally; watching television shows or listening to music that can eventually lead to a loss of Faith; revealing the unknown mortal sins of others; seriously damaging another person’s reputation; telling serious lies about others; indulging in hatred/revenge; serious acts of violence; serious theft; practicing contraception; having an abortion or provoking an abortion by the abortion pill; etc., etc.
Satan will then anesthetize the conscience and put it to sleep, while he somehow tries to arrange for their death. The anesthetic is working perfectly―for a whole list of popes, beginning with Pope Pius XII, have lamented that the world in general and Catholics in particular have lost the sense of sin.
● Pope Pius XII said in 1946: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin!”
● Pope John Paul II, in 2005, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin!”
● Pope Benedict XVI, in 2011, said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. If we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, then we cannot speak of sin ... The meaning of sin ― which is a different thing from ‘guilt feelings’ as understood in psychology ― is only grasped in discovering the meaning of God!”
● Pope Francis, in 2014, said: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble!”
From Death to Grace to Death of Body to Eternal Death and Damnation
Once mortal sin becomes normal and the sense of sin has been lost―the final stage to ensure the soul is lost and damned is to somehow lead the person into death. Today―death seems to coming like snowflakes in a blizzard, with 75% of the world having been jabbed with the “vaccine” and the rest susceptible to shedding by the vaccinated. The government census reported that the annual increase in deaths in 2020 was the largest in 100 years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in January of 2022 that from February 2020 to January 2022 (24 month period), there have been 942,431 excess deaths in the U.S. Note―it says EXCESS deaths, not deaths―therefore 942,431 OVER THE AVERAGE DEATH RATE. J Scott Davison, CEO of insurance company OneAmerica, said “Death rates are up 40 percent over what they were pre-pandemic.” To illustrate just how severe the current death rate is, Davison said a 1 in 200-year catastrophe would likely only cause a 10 percent increase over pre-pandemic deaths. Davison said that even if COVID-19 is not listed on a person’s death certificate, that doesn’t mean the virus didn’t play a role. For example, Davison said a person can contract COVID-19 and recover, but the virus could have triggered a separate illness that eventually leads to death: “It may not all be Covid on their death certificates, but deaths are up in just huge, huge numbers!” The chart below gives you a visual indication of the spike in deaths that have occurred over the last couple of years―a spike that has never been seen before. With 75% of the world's population vaccinated, those high annual numbers are here to stay and will only increase.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going! Cometh the hour, cometh the man! Big men are made for big moments! The first “big man” of the Bible is without doubt Noe. The world had become incredibly sinful and God decided that He had been offended too many times―thus God chose to wipe out the world with a flood. Noe was the man who stood out from this sinful mess and was chosen by God as the means of preserving the human race after the flood. “Big man” Noe was told to build a “Big Boat” ― what we today call Noe’s Ark ― it was one heck of task for one man and few sons. The boat that God ordered was to be 450 feet long × 72 feet wide × 43 ft high. That is 1½ football fields in length; as wide as 6 lanes on an interstate or 12 cars side by side; and higher than a four-story building. Noe had to build it by hand without the aid of any modern power tools of lifting equipment, etc.
Take also the case of Moses, a man with stuttering speech defect―who was called by God to oppose the Egyptian Pharao and demand that he release the millions of unarmed Hebrew slaves from Egypt, so that they could go to their Promised Land. Moses had no army and no supporters backing him up! Yet that one “big man” came out victorious against all the odds.
Or, if you cannot find big man, a little big man will do! Take the case of little David―who turned out to be bigger than all the big men in Israel’s army by his courage in taking on and defeating Goliath, while chopping-off his head in the process―when all the “big men” were too afraid to fight Goliath. Yet David’s solution to a giant problem was a tiny pebble! Big problem―small solution!
On that note, of chopping-off heads, you may recall, from the Book of Judith, that no big men could be found to defeat Holofernes and his Assyrian army―in which case a little big woman would suffice! Nabuchodonosor, King of the Assyrians, had sent Holofernes, the general of his armies, to take vengeance on Israel and other countries, which had refused to come to the assistance of Nabuchodonosor’s in his most recent war. City after city was destroyed and their inhabitants killed by Holofernes’ army. The Jewish city of Bethulia was saved by Judith, a Hebrew widow, who entered the camp of Holofernes, captivated him by her beauty, got him drunk and then beheaded him while he slept in his drunken stupor. Judith returned to Bethulia with the severed head of Holofernes and the leaderless Assyrian army was put to flight and defeated.
No Big Bang Solutions
They say that big problems require little solutions―meaning that we won’t solve a big problem with one big bang! Only God can do that! Yet God rarely ever does that―Our Lord could have converted the entire world in His lifetime, or even in one single day, or in a minute―by some stupendous worldwide miracle accompanied by irresistible graces that nobody could refuse! On the contrary, He lived a hidden life for 30 of His 33 years on Earth―and chose a meager band of Twelve Apostles and a few hundred disciples for the task of converting and baptizing the whole world. To make matters worse, He ‘abandoned’ them by ascending into Heaven and leaving them behind to get on with the job: “Go teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20).
From Weak Men to Big Men by the Grace of God
It took around 1400 years just to Christianize Europe―and the world is still not Christianized and baptized! God could have done it by Himself in an instant―but He chose to use fallible, weak men to do the work, and He worked through them. As St. Paul―one of the biggest men of the New Testament times, writes: “I am the least of the Apostles, who am not worthy to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am; and His grace has not been void in me! I have labored more abundantly than all they―yet not I, but the grace of God with me!” (1 Corinthians 15:9-10) … “God has sent us forth as Apostles, as it were men appointed to death! We are made a spectacle to the world and to men! We are fools for Christ’s sake! We are weak! … We rejoice that we are weak!” (1 Corinthians 4:10; 2 Corinthians 13:9). “For myself I will glory in nothing except in my infirmities … lest any man should think of me above that which he sees in me, or by anything he hears from me! And lest the greatness of the revelations given to me should exalt me, there was given me an angel of Satan to buffet me. For which thing I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee―for power is made perfect in infirmity!’ Gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. For which cause I please myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ. For when I am weak, then am I powerful!” (2 Corinthians 12:10).
Big Men Made Under Big Crosses
When God created your soul―He created your soul for greatness and glory. Yet that greatness and glory is only acquired through suffering and shame! Big men [and women] are forged in big trials and under big crosses! Our Lord Himself warned us of this truth: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that does not take up his cross and does not follow Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
St. Paul―one of the biggest men of his time―writes: “Many walk―of whom I have told you often and now tell you weeping―that they are enemies of the cross of Christ! Whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:18-19). “God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ―by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14). “With Christ I am nailed to the cross!” (Galatians 2:19). “We preach Christ crucified … For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2). “And they that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24). “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6). “The word of the cross, to them that perish, is foolishness―but to them that are saved, that is to us, it is the power of God!” (1 Corinthians 1:18).
Our Lord foretold the sufferings of St. Paul: “This man is to Me a vessel of election, to carry My Name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake!” (Acts 9:15-16).
St. Paul then goes on to describe some of those sufferings: “Even unto this hour we hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no fixed abode; and we labor, working with our own hands: we are reviled, and we bless; we are persecuted, and we suffer it. We are blasphemed, and we pray for them! We are made to look like the garbage of this world, the off-scouring of all―even until now!” (1 Corinthians 4:11). “They are the ministers of Christ―I speak as one less wise (tongue in cheek)―I am more than they! Having many more labors, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Three times was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness!” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27).
St. Paul then tells us that we will also have similar sufferings: “All who will live a godly life in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution!” (2 Timothy 3:12). It is these persecutions that Our Lord spoke of when He said: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
To which Jesus adds: “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake! Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you!” (Matthew 5:11-12). To the worldly people He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). “My kingdom is not of this world!” (John 18:36). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
Tackling the Evil World
God is not a loser. No matter how much evil there is in the world, God will not ultimately lose―evil will be the loser. “Where sin abounded, grace did more abound!” (Romans 5:20). “God gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Therefore be steadfast and unmovable; always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain!” (1 Corinthians 15:57-58). “Because He that is in you [Christ] is greater than he that is in the world [Satan, the prince of this world]!” (1 John 4:4).
We need to tackle the big problem of evil one day at a time, one step at a time: “Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow―for the morrow will be solicitous for itself! Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof!” (Matthew 6:34) ― or, as they say: “Focus on today―tomorrow might never come!”
When facing gigantic problems, one can easily be discouraged―and Satan will help you in that department! Looking at the mountain that has to be scaled seems an impossibility―but the mountain can only be conquered by thousands of steps. The first step is often the hardest. The first step is always a step of Faith. Our Lord said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) ― so don’t even think of doing anything without Him! Our Lord would often ask: “Do you believe that I can do this unto you? … If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth” (Matthew 9:28; Mark 9:22). Yet the Faith of many is weak: “There are some of you that believe not!” (John 6:65). Even the Faith of many Conservative or Traditional Catholics is weak! We should cry out with man who wanted a miracle for his possessed son: “I do believe, Lord! Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:22-23) ― which translates as: “I would like to believe, Lord! I want to believe! But I am finding hard to believe! Help me believe, Lord!”
Our Lord said: “If you have Faith like a grain of mustard seed [the smallest of seeds], you shall say to this mountain, ‘Remove from here!’ and it shall remove―and nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 17:19). Similarly, when Jesus had miraculously made a fig tree wither, He said: “Amen, I say to you, if you shall have Faith, and stagger not, not only this of the fig tree shall you do, but also if you shall say to this mountain: ‘Take up and cast thyself into the sea!’ ― it shall be done!” (Matthew 21:21). Holy Scripture adds: “This is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith” (1 John 5:4).
Yet the world seems to be overcoming us―with more and more Catholics abandoning the Faith each year; and of those who still remain in the Faith, less than 20% practice one of the basic essentials of the Faith―regular Sunday Mass attendance. Seems like we desperately need a few grains of mustard seed Faith in our present crisis, doesn’t it? Our Lady of Fatima said to Sister Lucia of Fatima that we have entered the End Times. It is not without reason that Our Lord―speaking of those End Times―prophetically said: “The Son of man, when He comes, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). Without Faith, there will be no victory―“This is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith” (1 John 5:4). For the time being, it looks like the world has overcome the Faith (in most persons).
As Our Lady warned in her modern-day apparitions: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God! … Many people will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church, impelled by the malice of the devil! … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises! … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay! … The true Faith to the Lord will be forgotten! … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops! … The small number of souls who, hidden, will preserve the treasure of the Faith and the virtues will suffer an unspeakably cruel and slow martyrdom!”
Prophecies mention the two apostasies that will take place in the End Times―which Our Lady of Fatima said that we have already entered―the Minor Apostasy (which has already begun) and the Great Apostasy (during the future time of the Antichrist).
St. Anthony the Abbot, also known as St. Anthony the Great (251-356), prophesied of our times: “Men will surrender to the spirit of the age ... They will say: ‘Things are complex! The Church must be brought up to date and made meaningful to the day’s problems!’”
The Prophecy of St. Nilus, who lived around 400 AD: “Christian pastors, bishops, and priests will become vain men, completely failing to distinguish the right-hand way from the left. At that time the morals and traditions of Christians and of the Church will change. The Churches of God will be deprived of God-fearing and pious pastors, and woe to the Christians remaining in the world at that time―they will completely lose their Faith because they will lack the opportunity of seeing the light of knowledge from anyone at all.”
St. Methodius of Patara was a bishop who was martyred in the 4th century. An excerpt from his prophecy for our times says: “Many will doubt whether the Catholic Faith is the true and only saving one.”
The Maria Laach Monastery Prophecy was long ago recorded in a German monastery in the 16th century: “The twentieth century will bring death and destruction, apostasy from the Church, discord in families, cities and governments.”
Mathias Lang―also known as “Stormberger” (1753-1820)―was illiterate and had no education, yet he predicted many things like airplanes, telephones and much more. He prophesied of our times, saying: “Religious Faith will decline; priests will not be respected.”
Blessed Rembordt, in the 18th century, prophesied: “They will try to set up a new kingdom of Christ from which the true Faith will be banished.”
Sister Jeanne Royer, prophesied in the 18th century: “A false religion will appear which will deny the unity of God and will oppose the Church ... The Faith and our holy Religion will become weaker in almost every Christian kingdom. God has permitted that they should be chastised by the wicked, in order to awaken them from their apathy.”
Pope St. Pius X received the following vision: “I saw one of my successors taking to flight over the bodies of his brethren. He will take refuge in disguise somewhere and after a short retirement he will die a cruel death. The present wickedness of the world is only the beginning of the sorrows which must take place before the end of the world.”
Msgr. Eugenio Pacelli―the future Pope Pius XII―while serving as the Secretary of State under Pope Pius XI, made the following astonishing prophecy about a coming upheaval in the Church: “Suppose, dear friend, that Communism [one of ‘the errors of Russia’ mentioned in the Message of Fatima] was only the most visible of the instruments of subversion to be used against the Church and the traditions of Divine Revelation … I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul … I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject Her ornaments and make Her feel remorse for Her historical past. A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask: ‘Where have they taken Him?’”
Father Joseph Schweigl, in 1952, was entrusted by Pope Pius XII with a secret mission to interview Sister Lucy about the Third Secret. He subsequently stated: “I cannot reveal anything of what I learned at Fatima concerning the Third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts―one concerns the Pope; the other logically (although I must say nothing) would have to be the continuation of the words: ‘In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved...etc.’”
Father Jose Valinho―Sister Lucy’s nephew―related his opinion of the contents of the Third Secret. Father Valinho stated: “I believe that (the third) part of the secret concerns the Church from within, perhaps doctrinal difficulties, a crisis of unity, rebellion. The last sentence my aunt [Lucia] wrote, which precedes the part that is still unknown, says: ‘In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, etc.’ … Therefore, people elsewhere in the Church might waver on dogma. But this is just speculation.”
Cardinal Oddi―who was a personal friend of Pope John XXIII and who had spoken to him regarding the Secret―gave the following testimony to Italian journalist, Lucio Brunelli, in the journal Il Sabato, on March 17th, 1990: “It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev [the Russian leader at that time]. The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against apostasy in the Church.”
Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi―who was the personal papal theologian to Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II―revealed in a personal communication to a Professor Baumgartner in Salzburg: “In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.”
Father Malachi Martin was the secretary to Cardinal Bea (who was one of the close advisors to Pope John XXIII). Father Malachi Martin was given the Third of Fatima to read. He stated that if the Secret were made public, the confessionals and churches would be filled with parishioners on their knees. He also stated that something very relevant to the United States is mentioned in the Secret. He stated that the central element of the Secret is awful, and that it concerns apostasy.
Father Joseph Ratzinger (the future Benedict XVI), while teaching as a professor of theology in his native Germany, gave a series of radio conferences in 1969, which were later published in the book, Faith and the Future. He wrote: “The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep, and who live from the pure fullness of their Faith ... The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day; who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality … From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge ― a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices [buildings] that she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so will she loose many of her social privileges ... It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek … As a small society, she will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members ... The Church will be a more spiritual Church … It will be hard-going for the Church … But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church … And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals … But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of Faith.”
From what has been quoted above, it is evidently clear that the current crisis and the future of this current crisis is primarily focused upon the Faith―for if “the victory which overcomes the world is our Faith” (1 John 5:4), then it is the Faith that is going to be attacked by the world, with the intention of destroying the Faith. Let us not be fooled into thinking that it is the world that is attacking the Faith―it is Satan, “the prince of this world” (John 12:31) who is attacking the Faith and he is using faithless persons and worldly persons to achieve his goal.
As Sister Lucia of Fatima stated: “The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground … The Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin and, as you know, what most offends God and what will gain him the greatest number of souls in the shortest time is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them!”
How can the devil seize souls? He can easily seize souls by first of all having them commit a mortal and then trying to arrange for the death in a state of mortal sin. It takes no rocket scientist to figure out that most of the world and most of the Catholic world are living in a state of mortal sin―just look the sinful material on television, the internet, in social media, in music, and in the fashions on the street. One deliberate sinful secret look is all it takes to commit a mortal sin: “Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). It is not for nothing that Our Lady of Fatima revealed that the sin that ends up damning most souls is the sin of impurity―whether it be in thought, word, or deed. If impurity or immodesty is not to your liking, then there are plenty of other mortal sins the devil will dangle before you―missing Sunday Mass; fudging/disguising/misrepresenting/understating your mortal sins in Confession and thus making an invalid Confession; seriously insulting parents or those in authority; disobedience in serious matters; failing to correct those for whom you are responsible when they sin mortally; watching television shows or listening to music that can eventually lead to a loss of Faith; revealing the unknown mortal sins of others; seriously damaging another person’s reputation; telling serious lies about others; indulging in hatred/revenge; serious acts of violence; serious theft; practicing contraception; having an abortion or provoking an abortion by the abortion pill; etc., etc.
Satan will then anesthetize the conscience and put it to sleep, while he somehow tries to arrange for their death. The anesthetic is working perfectly―for a whole list of popes, beginning with Pope Pius XII, have lamented that the world in general and Catholics in particular have lost the sense of sin.
● Pope Pius XII said in 1946: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin!”
● Pope John Paul II, in 2005, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin!”
● Pope Benedict XVI, in 2011, said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. If we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, then we cannot speak of sin ... The meaning of sin ― which is a different thing from ‘guilt feelings’ as understood in psychology ― is only grasped in discovering the meaning of God!”
● Pope Francis, in 2014, said: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble!”
From Death to Grace to Death of Body to Eternal Death and Damnation
Once mortal sin becomes normal and the sense of sin has been lost―the final stage to ensure the soul is lost and damned is to somehow lead the person into death. Today―death seems to coming like snowflakes in a blizzard, with 75% of the world having been jabbed with the “vaccine” and the rest susceptible to shedding by the vaccinated. The government census reported that the annual increase in deaths in 2020 was the largest in 100 years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in January of 2022 that from February 2020 to January 2022 (24 month period), there have been 942,431 excess deaths in the U.S. Note―it says EXCESS deaths, not deaths―therefore 942,431 OVER THE AVERAGE DEATH RATE. J Scott Davison, CEO of insurance company OneAmerica, said “Death rates are up 40 percent over what they were pre-pandemic.” To illustrate just how severe the current death rate is, Davison said a 1 in 200-year catastrophe would likely only cause a 10 percent increase over pre-pandemic deaths. Davison said that even if COVID-19 is not listed on a person’s death certificate, that doesn’t mean the virus didn’t play a role. For example, Davison said a person can contract COVID-19 and recover, but the virus could have triggered a separate illness that eventually leads to death: “It may not all be Covid on their death certificates, but deaths are up in just huge, huge numbers!” The chart below gives you a visual indication of the spike in deaths that have occurred over the last couple of years―a spike that has never been seen before. With 75% of the world's population vaccinated, those high annual numbers are here to stay and will only increase.
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The above numbers in red shown the gigantic, unprecedented spike in deaths. Research shows that those who were not vaccinated had a far lesser death rate than those were vaccinated. For Satan, mortal sin is baking the cake―death following mortal sin is the icing on the cake. “Be sober and watch―because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). “Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat!” (Luke 22:31).
Back in 1956, Our Lady lamented to Blessed Elena Aiello: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!” If that was Our Lady’s view back in 1956―before television really took off; before the internet; before pornography being freely available; before the ultra-immodest fashions of today; before drug availability, legalized homosexuality; universal contraception and abortion, etc.―then what would she say today? If back in 1956 the world was in a worse state than at the time of Noe and the Great Flood, then it is exponentially worse today.
Fight or Flee
Our Lady warned: “There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed! … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects! … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy the Church! … The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God! ... The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people! … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings!”
So what does Heaven expect us to do? Holy Scripture speaks of our Christian life as being a life of warfare and not fleeing: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) ... “Be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God!” (2 Kings 10:12) ... “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12) ... “You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” ― and all the other true enemies of God (Hebrews 12:4) ... “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he has engaged himself!” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4).
Our Lady of La Salette calls us to that fight: “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven! I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side! God will take care of His faithful servants. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Then Jesus Christ will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like!”
The Big Macs or Machabees of Today
Our Lady of La Salette calls us to that fight: “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven! I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side! God will take care of His faithful servants. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Then Jesus Christ will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like!”
St. Louis de Montfort prophetically speaks of these Apostles of Our Lady of the End Times: “Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints who shall come at the end of the world are reserved for her … The greatest saints, the souls richest in graces and virtues, shall be the most assiduous in praying to our Blessed Lady … At the end of the world and, indeed, soon, the Most High with His holy Mother has to form for Himself great saints, who shall surpass most of the other saints in sanctity … These great souls, full of grace and zeal, shall be chosen to match themselves against the enemies of God, who shall rage on all sides; and they shall be singularly devout to our Blessed Lady―illuminated by her light, strengthened with her nourishment, led by her spirit, supported by her arm and sheltered under her protection―so that they shall fight with one hand and build with the other. With the one hand they shall fight, overthrow and crush the heretics with their heresies, the schismatics with their schisms, the idolaters with their idolatries and the sinners with their impieties. With the other hand they shall build the temple of the true Solomon that is to say, the most holy Virgin. By their words and their examples they shall draw the whole world to true devotion to Mary. This shall bring upon them many enemies, but shall also bring many victories and much glory for God alone.
“God has never made and formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and grow even to the end. It is between Mary, His worthy Mother, and the devil—between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin, and the children and tools of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies, which God has set up against the devil, is His holy Mother Mary … God has not only set an enmity, but enmities, not simply between Mary and the devil, but between the race of the holy Virgin and the race of the devil; God has set enmities, antipathies and secret hatreds between the true children and servants of Mary and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love for each other. They have no sympathy for each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world (for it is the same thing) have always, up to this time, persecuted those who belong to our Blessed Lady, and will, in the future, persecute them more than ever … The power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel―that is to say, against her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world’s esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But, in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity, superior to all other creatures by their lively zeal, and so well sustained with God’s assistance that, with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph.
“But who shall those servants, slaves and children of Mary be? They shall be the ministers of the Lord who, like a burning fire, shall kindle the fire of divine love everywhere. They shall be like sharp arrows in the hand of the powerful Mary to pierce her enemies. They shall be well purified by the fire of great tribulation, and closely adhering to God; they shall carry the gold of love in their heart, the incense of prayer in their spirit, and the myrrh of mortification in their body. They shall be everywhere the good odor of Jesus Christ to the poor and to the little, while at the same time, they shall be an odor of death to the great, to the rich and to the proud worldlings. They shall be clouds thundering and flying through the air at the least breath of the Holy Ghost; who, detaching themselves from everything and troubling themselves about nothing, shall shower forth the rain of the Word of God. They shall thunder against sin; they shall storm against the world; they shall strike the devil and his crew; and they shall pierce through and through, for life or for death, with their two-edged sword of the Word of God, all those to whom they shall be sent on the part of the Most High.
“They shall be the true apostles of the latter times, to whom the Lord shall give the word and the might to work marvels and to carry off with glory the spoils of His enemies. They shall sleep without gold or silver, and, what is more, without anxiety, in the midst of the other priests, ecclesiastics, and clerics; and yet they shall have the silvered wings of the dove to go, with the pure intention of the glory of God and the salvation of souls, wheresoever the Holy Ghost shall call them. Nor shall they leave behind them, in the places where they have preached, anything but the gold of charity, which is the fulfillment of the whole law. In a word, we know that they shall be true disciples of Jesus Christ, walking in the footsteps of His poverty, humility, contempt of the world, charity; teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not flattering persons; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in their own behavior. These are the great men who are to come; but Mary is the one who, by order of the Most High, shall form them for the purpose of extending His empire over that of the impious, the idolaters and the Mahometans. But when and how shall this be? God alone knows. As for us, we have but to hold our tongues, to pray, to sigh and to wait: ‘With expectation I have waited!’ (Psalm 39:2).” St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, Chapter 1).
So Big Mac―Where Are You?
So what are you waiting for? Heaven is waiting for you! God wants you to be a “Big Mac” ― that is to say, a “Big Machabean Soldier” who fights for the Faith. The Machabean resistance [read more here] to pagan Greek inculturation and the watering down of their God-given Faith is something that teaches us a lesson for our own day. For in our day and age, we are being watered-down and destroyed by a neo-pagan culture that is leading to “One World Government”, just as the Greek Emperor, Alexander the Great, was aiming at a “One World Government” in his own day. By the Sacrament of Confirmation you were made to be a Soldier of Christ! A soldier fights! Are you fighting for Christ―or is it only fighting between your family, relatives, friends, work colleagues and neighbors? We have too many fighters fighting in the wrong fights! We all know what we need to do―or we should know! Our Lady has told us enough times and laid out a strategy for us―but we “do our own thing”! That is why Sister Lucia of Fatima stated: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!”
Neglecting to use what has been given to us in this monumental battle brings to mind Our Lord's parable about the talents: “A man going into a far country, called his servants, and delivered to them his goods. To one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one―to everyone according to his proper ability―and then immediately he took his journey. And he that had received the five talents, went his way, and traded with the same, and gained another five. And in like manner he that had received the two, gained another two. But he that had received the one, going his way dug a hole into the earth and hid his lord’s money. But after a long time, the lord of those servants came, and reckoned with them. And he that had received the five talents coming, brought the other five talents, saying: ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents, behold I have gained another five over and above!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because you have been faithful over a few things, I will place you over many things! Enter into the joy of your lord!’ And he also, that had received the two talents, came and said: ‘Lord, you delivered two talents to me! Behold, I have gained another two!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because you have been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter into the joy of your lord!’ But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that you are a hard man―you reap where you have not sown, and gather where you have not strewn. And, being afraid, I went and hid your talent in the ground! Behold here it is―you can take back that which is yours!’ And his lord, answering, said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not strewn! Therefore you ought to have committed my money to the bankers, so that, at my coming, I should have received my own money back with usury [additional interest]!’ Take away, therefore, the talent from him and give it to him that has ten talents. For to everyone that has, shall be given, and he shall abound! But from him that has not, that also which he seems to have shall be taken away! And the unprofitable servant cast out into the exterior darkness―where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
Back in 1956, Our Lady lamented to Blessed Elena Aiello: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!” If that was Our Lady’s view back in 1956―before television really took off; before the internet; before pornography being freely available; before the ultra-immodest fashions of today; before drug availability, legalized homosexuality; universal contraception and abortion, etc.―then what would she say today? If back in 1956 the world was in a worse state than at the time of Noe and the Great Flood, then it is exponentially worse today.
Fight or Flee
Our Lady warned: “There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed! … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects! … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy the Church! … The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God! ... The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people! … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings!”
So what does Heaven expect us to do? Holy Scripture speaks of our Christian life as being a life of warfare and not fleeing: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) ... “Be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God!” (2 Kings 10:12) ... “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12) ... “You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” ― and all the other true enemies of God (Hebrews 12:4) ... “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he has engaged himself!” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4).
Our Lady of La Salette calls us to that fight: “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven! I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side! God will take care of His faithful servants. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Then Jesus Christ will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like!”
The Big Macs or Machabees of Today
Our Lady of La Salette calls us to that fight: “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven! I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side! God will take care of His faithful servants. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Then Jesus Christ will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like!”
St. Louis de Montfort prophetically speaks of these Apostles of Our Lady of the End Times: “Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints who shall come at the end of the world are reserved for her … The greatest saints, the souls richest in graces and virtues, shall be the most assiduous in praying to our Blessed Lady … At the end of the world and, indeed, soon, the Most High with His holy Mother has to form for Himself great saints, who shall surpass most of the other saints in sanctity … These great souls, full of grace and zeal, shall be chosen to match themselves against the enemies of God, who shall rage on all sides; and they shall be singularly devout to our Blessed Lady―illuminated by her light, strengthened with her nourishment, led by her spirit, supported by her arm and sheltered under her protection―so that they shall fight with one hand and build with the other. With the one hand they shall fight, overthrow and crush the heretics with their heresies, the schismatics with their schisms, the idolaters with their idolatries and the sinners with their impieties. With the other hand they shall build the temple of the true Solomon that is to say, the most holy Virgin. By their words and their examples they shall draw the whole world to true devotion to Mary. This shall bring upon them many enemies, but shall also bring many victories and much glory for God alone.
“God has never made and formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and grow even to the end. It is between Mary, His worthy Mother, and the devil—between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin, and the children and tools of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies, which God has set up against the devil, is His holy Mother Mary … God has not only set an enmity, but enmities, not simply between Mary and the devil, but between the race of the holy Virgin and the race of the devil; God has set enmities, antipathies and secret hatreds between the true children and servants of Mary and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love for each other. They have no sympathy for each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world (for it is the same thing) have always, up to this time, persecuted those who belong to our Blessed Lady, and will, in the future, persecute them more than ever … The power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel―that is to say, against her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world’s esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But, in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity, superior to all other creatures by their lively zeal, and so well sustained with God’s assistance that, with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph.
“But who shall those servants, slaves and children of Mary be? They shall be the ministers of the Lord who, like a burning fire, shall kindle the fire of divine love everywhere. They shall be like sharp arrows in the hand of the powerful Mary to pierce her enemies. They shall be well purified by the fire of great tribulation, and closely adhering to God; they shall carry the gold of love in their heart, the incense of prayer in their spirit, and the myrrh of mortification in their body. They shall be everywhere the good odor of Jesus Christ to the poor and to the little, while at the same time, they shall be an odor of death to the great, to the rich and to the proud worldlings. They shall be clouds thundering and flying through the air at the least breath of the Holy Ghost; who, detaching themselves from everything and troubling themselves about nothing, shall shower forth the rain of the Word of God. They shall thunder against sin; they shall storm against the world; they shall strike the devil and his crew; and they shall pierce through and through, for life or for death, with their two-edged sword of the Word of God, all those to whom they shall be sent on the part of the Most High.
“They shall be the true apostles of the latter times, to whom the Lord shall give the word and the might to work marvels and to carry off with glory the spoils of His enemies. They shall sleep without gold or silver, and, what is more, without anxiety, in the midst of the other priests, ecclesiastics, and clerics; and yet they shall have the silvered wings of the dove to go, with the pure intention of the glory of God and the salvation of souls, wheresoever the Holy Ghost shall call them. Nor shall they leave behind them, in the places where they have preached, anything but the gold of charity, which is the fulfillment of the whole law. In a word, we know that they shall be true disciples of Jesus Christ, walking in the footsteps of His poverty, humility, contempt of the world, charity; teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not flattering persons; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in their own behavior. These are the great men who are to come; but Mary is the one who, by order of the Most High, shall form them for the purpose of extending His empire over that of the impious, the idolaters and the Mahometans. But when and how shall this be? God alone knows. As for us, we have but to hold our tongues, to pray, to sigh and to wait: ‘With expectation I have waited!’ (Psalm 39:2).” St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, Chapter 1).
So Big Mac―Where Are You?
So what are you waiting for? Heaven is waiting for you! God wants you to be a “Big Mac” ― that is to say, a “Big Machabean Soldier” who fights for the Faith. The Machabean resistance [read more here] to pagan Greek inculturation and the watering down of their God-given Faith is something that teaches us a lesson for our own day. For in our day and age, we are being watered-down and destroyed by a neo-pagan culture that is leading to “One World Government”, just as the Greek Emperor, Alexander the Great, was aiming at a “One World Government” in his own day. By the Sacrament of Confirmation you were made to be a Soldier of Christ! A soldier fights! Are you fighting for Christ―or is it only fighting between your family, relatives, friends, work colleagues and neighbors? We have too many fighters fighting in the wrong fights! We all know what we need to do―or we should know! Our Lady has told us enough times and laid out a strategy for us―but we “do our own thing”! That is why Sister Lucia of Fatima stated: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!”
Neglecting to use what has been given to us in this monumental battle brings to mind Our Lord's parable about the talents: “A man going into a far country, called his servants, and delivered to them his goods. To one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one―to everyone according to his proper ability―and then immediately he took his journey. And he that had received the five talents, went his way, and traded with the same, and gained another five. And in like manner he that had received the two, gained another two. But he that had received the one, going his way dug a hole into the earth and hid his lord’s money. But after a long time, the lord of those servants came, and reckoned with them. And he that had received the five talents coming, brought the other five talents, saying: ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents, behold I have gained another five over and above!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because you have been faithful over a few things, I will place you over many things! Enter into the joy of your lord!’ And he also, that had received the two talents, came and said: ‘Lord, you delivered two talents to me! Behold, I have gained another two!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because you have been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter into the joy of your lord!’ But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that you are a hard man―you reap where you have not sown, and gather where you have not strewn. And, being afraid, I went and hid your talent in the ground! Behold here it is―you can take back that which is yours!’ And his lord, answering, said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not strewn! Therefore you ought to have committed my money to the bankers, so that, at my coming, I should have received my own money back with usury [additional interest]!’ Take away, therefore, the talent from him and give it to him that has ten talents. For to everyone that has, shall be given, and he shall abound! But from him that has not, that also which he seems to have shall be taken away! And the unprofitable servant cast out into the exterior darkness―where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
Article 18
Sunday July 30th & Monday July 31st, 2023
The License of Love
Sunday July 30th & Monday July 31st, 2023
The License of Love
Do You Need a License?
The requirement for licenses grows with every year. A license proves that you have the right to use something or do something. A mere tip-of-the-iceberg indicatation where licenses are required is: to get married, drive a car, drive a motorcycle, buy a gun, use software, teach in public schools, practice medicine, practice law, build a house, sell real estate, run a pub, manufacture, import, export, operate a forklift, breed dogs, fish, hunt, use a trademark, use a song, use someone else’s intellectual, artistic, photographic, or musical work, sell alcohol, fly a plane, etc. Even your passport is type of license―it is your license to travel, which enables you to enter other countries and return to your home country.
To obtain a license you must demonstrate that you can meet certain state standards for a particular career or activity. Although you may have heard the term “certification” used interchangeably with “licensure”, a major difference is that certifications are not required, though still helpful in qualifying for a competitive job, while licensure is legally required to practice certain professions.
The purpose of licenses is to (1) protect the public, (2) grant licenses to qualified individuals only, (3) ensure ongoing competence and high standards of practice, (4) punish violations of standards of professional conduct by revoking licenses, (5) serve the best interests of both the public and the licensed profession.
Church Licenses
In the broad sense of the word, the Church even uses “licenses” in relation to the Sacraments and Salvation. In this sense, Baptism is a “license” of sorts in that it gives you permission to receive the other six Sacraments of the Church. For example, if you wish to make your First Holy Communion, or receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, then you will normally be asked to show proof of your Baptism. If you wish to receive the Sacraments of Matrimony or Holy Orders, you have to furnish proof of your Baptism, First Holy Communion and Confirmation. If you are not baptized, you cannot receive Holy Communion, nor the other Sacraments―you would sin gravely and commit a Mortal Sin if you did. Baptism is also our “license” or “passport” to enter Heaven: “He that is baptized shall be saved” (Mark 16:16) in these sense that Baptism gives us Sanctifying Grace―which is the mode by which God dwells in the soul. In this sense, Sanctifying Grace is also a “license” of sorts because it gives us the right to enter Heaven, whereas Mortal Sin destroys Sanctifying Grace and thereby loses the “license” or “passport” to Heaven.
License of Love
Another aspect of Baptism is that it gives you what we could call “The License of Love”―that is to say, it makes you an adopted child of God and guarantees that you will be loved by God; and secondly, this “License of Love” requires that you love God in return―just as in any parent-child relationship. “God is love” [“God is charity”] (1 John 4:8) and therefore you become a “child of love” who must love God in return: “Love God, because God has first loved us!” (1 John 4:19). Furthermore, God says: “I love them that love Me! … I enrich them that love Me!” (Proverbs 8:17, 21) … “Everyone that loves is born of God. He that does not love, does not know God―for God is charity” (1 John 4:7-8). Being God’s “children of love”, we are commanded to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Jesus―being God Himself―adds: “He that loves Me shall be loved by My Father and I will love him” (John 14:21).
Furthermore, since you are not the only “child of love” that God has put into this world, you are also commanded to love your “brothers” and “sisters”―namely everyone else―because they too have been made in the image and likeness of God: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!” (Mark 12:31). “If any man say: ‘I love God!’ and hates his brother, then he is a liar! For he that does love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God Whom he sees not? And this commandment we have from God―that he, who loves God, must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20-21). Love of God and love of neighbor are connected. We cannot love God correctly and truly if we do not love our neighbors―and we cannot truly and correctly love our neighbors if we do not love God.
Tough Love
Our Lord even adds a painful twist to the “License of Love” when He says: “You have heard that it has been said: ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy!’ But I say to you: Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! And pray for them that persecute and calumniate you! ― so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven―Who makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and makes His rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. For if you only love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even sinners [publicans] do this? And if you only salute your brethren, what do you do that is more? Do not the heathens and pagans do this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:43-48).
Your “License of Love” does not exempt your from loving your enemies! In fact, the act of loving our enemies is what tests, examines, scrutinizes and proves our love. It is what Our Lord Himself did on Calvary as He died on the cross―He prayed for His enemies: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34) and He also showed loving mercy to the thief on the cross―whom we call the “Good Thief”―who was a lifelong enemy of God because he had spent his life breaking God’s commandments: “Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in paradise!’” (Luke 23:43). Are you not an enemy of God―or at least have you not been an enemy of God in the past―and did God stop loving you? Did God refuse to show you mercy when to you asked for mercy (often with only a minimal sorrow for sin in your heart)? No―God did not turn His back on you; God did not send you away―despite your half-baked sorrow for your sins, God showed His love for you His enemy by forgiving you!
In addition to that, if you won't forgive your enemies here on Earth, what will you do when you arrive (hopefully) in Heaven and see all your enemies standing there (having been forgiven by God, but not forgiven by you)? Will you refuse to go into Heaven and be friends with your enemies? Will you choose to go to Hell to get away and avoid your enemies who are in Heaven? Or will you ask God to forgive you and let you into Heaven, but not to forgive your enemies and throw them into Hell? Or will you forgive your enemies so that you can get into Heaven? Well―if you will decide to forgive your enemies upon arriving at the Gates of Heaven and seeing them already in Heaven, then why not forgive them now here on Earth? Our Lord addresses this point when He says: “If you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences!” (Matthew 6:14-15).
Universal Love
Our God-given “License of Love” has more clauses than the merely selfish clause of you being loved by God. We have to love in return―wholly, totally, thoroughly, at all times, in all places, in all things―pleasant and unpleasant―and part of that unpleasant side is the loving of our enemies, and not just our friends. For Our Lord Himself has said that what we do to others, we do to God―“As long as you did it to one of the least of My brethren, you did it to Me! … As long as you did it not to one of the least of My brethren, neither did you do it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40, 45). Who are these “least of My brethren” that Our Lord refers? They are sinners, the biggest sinners―and into that category, no doubt in our personal estimation, we also place our personal enemies! They are the ones we ‘love’ to hate! The sinners, the evildoers, our enemies, those who have wronged us in some way, etc. Jesus shows us how to love those who are unlovable―by being with the leper, the sinner, the outcast and the one on the edge. Not only are we God’s children, but others are God’s children too, even the worst of people, sinful people, very sinful people―and God’s wants everyone to be saved, even though everyone will not be saved due to their lack of cooperation with God―as St. Augustine says: “God, Who created you without you, will not save you without you!” In other words, God created you without your cooperation, but God will not save you without your cooperation.
St. Thomas Aquinas explains: “Our Lord said: ‘Love your enemies’ (Matthew 4:44). Love of one’s enemies may be understood in three ways. First, as though we were to love our enemies as such―this is perverse and contrary to charity, since it implies love of that which is evil in another. Secondly love of one’s enemies may mean that we love them as to their nature in general: and in this sense charity requires that we should love our enemies, namely, that in loving God and our neighbor, we should not exclude our enemies from the love given to our neighbor in general. Thirdly, love of one’s enemies may be considered as specially directed to them, namely, that we should have a special movement of love towards our enemies. Charity does not require this absolutely, because to have a special movement of love for every individual man would be impossible. Nevertheless charity does require that we should be ready to love our enemies individually, if the necessity were to occur. To love his enemy for God’s sake, without it being necessary for him to do so, belongs to the perfection of charity. For the more he loves God, the more does he put enmities aside and show love towards his neighbor. To do good to one’s enemies is the height of perfection.
“So much do we love our friends, that, for their sake, we love all who belong to them―even if they hurt or hate us―so that, in this way, the friendship of charity extends even to our enemies, whom we love out of charity in relation to God … Thus if we loved a certain man very much, then we would love his children also, even though they were unfriendly towards us … In this way charity extends to sinners, whom, out of charity, we love for God’s sake … The charity, whereby we love our neighbor, is a participation of Divine charity … God is the principal object of charity, while our neighbor is loved out of charity for God’s sake … whereas God is loved by charity for His own sake … We ought to look upon every man as our neighbor. Sinners do not cease to be men, for sin does not destroy nature. Therefore we ought to love sinners out of charity … It is our duty to hate, in the sinner, his being a sinner, and to love in him as being a man who is capable of [heavenly] bliss; and this is to love him truly, out of charity, for God’s sake.
“When our friends fall into sin, we ought not to deny them friendship, so long as there is hope of their mending their ways, and we ought to help them more readily to regain virtue than to recover money, had they lost it, for as much as virtue is more akin than money to friendship. When, however, they fall into very great wickedness, and become incurable, then we ought no longer to show them friendliness. It is for this reason that both Divine and human laws command such like sinners to be put to death, because there is greater likelihood of their harming others than of their mending their ways. Nevertheless the judge puts this into effect, not out of hatred for the sinners, but out of the love of charity, by reason of which he prefers the public good to the life of the individual.” (Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 23, art. 1 & 2 & 5; q. 25, art. 6 & 7).
Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin
We are supposed to love the sinner while hating his sin―just like the surgeon loves the patient and hates the diseased organ that he is going to remove or amputate. Mere hatred of the disease will not make the disease go away―something has to be done about it, either applying medicine or cutting-out or amputating the diseased part of the body. We can do “surgery” on evil sinful persons by applying the medicine of prayer and sacrifice, as well as embracing a true devotion to Mary―as Our Lady requested at Fatima: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
The “License of Love” is an Obligation to Love
The Mystical Doctor of the Church, St. John of the Cross adds: “At the end of our life we will be judged on our love!” Another well-known Doctor of the Church, the author of one of the greatest masterpieces on love, The Treatise on Love, St. Francis de Sales very neatly says: “The measure with which we should love God is to love Him without measure.” Elsewhere he writes: “Charity―as queen of all virtues, queen of all commandments, all counsels, and, in short, of all laws and all Christian actions―gives to all of them their rank, order, time, and value.” (St. Francis de Sales, Love of God, 8, 6). The Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine, adds: “Love God and do what you will!” ― but that is not a license to sin, but a license to love, a license to love what God loves and to hate what God hates. If we truly love God, then we will not do anything to offend the One Whom we love!
Holy Scripture adds: “If then you fulfill the royal law, according to the Scriptures―‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!’―then you do well” (James 2:8). “Owe no man anything, but to love one another. For he that loves his neighbor, has fulfilled the law!” (Romans 13:8). “The love of our neighbor works no evil. Love therefore is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10). “For all the law is fulfilled in one word: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!’” (Galatians 5:14).
And Who Is My Neighbor?
Everyone has their own idea about who their neighbor is―and we see this to also be the case in Holy Scripture: “A certain lawyer stood up, tempting Jesus, said: ‘Master! What must I do to possess eternal life?’ Jesus said to him: ‘What is written in the law?’ He answering, said: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind―and thy neighbor as thyself!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Thou hast answered correctly! Do this and thou shalt live!’ But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus: ‘And who is my neighbor?’
“Jesus, answering, said to him: ‘A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead. And it chanced, that a certain priest went down the same way: and seeing him, passed by. In like manner also a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But a certain Samaritan being on his journey, came near him; and seeing him, was moved with compassion. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two pence, and gave to the host, and said: “Take care of him! And whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay thee!” Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbor to him that fell among the robbers?’ But he said: ‘He that showed mercy to him.’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Go, and do thou in like manner!’” (Luke 10:30-37).
In case you do not know, the reason that Jesus deliberately chose the Samaritan to be the hero of His parable was the fact that the Jews and the Samaritans were enemies. For hundreds of years the Jews and the people of Samaria had been enemies. The nation of Israel was divided into two separate kingdoms. The Kingdom of Israel was composed of the ten tribes to the north, and the Kingdom of Juda was made up of the tribes of Juda and Benjamin. The animosity between the Jews (inhabitants of the Juda, the southern kingdom) and Israelites of the northern kingdom, began immediately after the division, as Samaria was chosen to be capital city of the northern kingdom and Jerusalem was the capital of the southern kingdom. They did not agree about where God’s people should worship, and had other religious and political disputes. Jews worshiped at the Temple in Jerusalem. The Samaritans had made another place for worship on Mount Garizim. Our Lord’s parable―spoken to the Jews of Juda, made a hero of their enemy by having their enemy (the Samaritan) come to aid of the Jew (the man who had been robbed, stripped, beaten and left for dead).
The requirement for licenses grows with every year. A license proves that you have the right to use something or do something. A mere tip-of-the-iceberg indicatation where licenses are required is: to get married, drive a car, drive a motorcycle, buy a gun, use software, teach in public schools, practice medicine, practice law, build a house, sell real estate, run a pub, manufacture, import, export, operate a forklift, breed dogs, fish, hunt, use a trademark, use a song, use someone else’s intellectual, artistic, photographic, or musical work, sell alcohol, fly a plane, etc. Even your passport is type of license―it is your license to travel, which enables you to enter other countries and return to your home country.
To obtain a license you must demonstrate that you can meet certain state standards for a particular career or activity. Although you may have heard the term “certification” used interchangeably with “licensure”, a major difference is that certifications are not required, though still helpful in qualifying for a competitive job, while licensure is legally required to practice certain professions.
The purpose of licenses is to (1) protect the public, (2) grant licenses to qualified individuals only, (3) ensure ongoing competence and high standards of practice, (4) punish violations of standards of professional conduct by revoking licenses, (5) serve the best interests of both the public and the licensed profession.
Church Licenses
In the broad sense of the word, the Church even uses “licenses” in relation to the Sacraments and Salvation. In this sense, Baptism is a “license” of sorts in that it gives you permission to receive the other six Sacraments of the Church. For example, if you wish to make your First Holy Communion, or receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, then you will normally be asked to show proof of your Baptism. If you wish to receive the Sacraments of Matrimony or Holy Orders, you have to furnish proof of your Baptism, First Holy Communion and Confirmation. If you are not baptized, you cannot receive Holy Communion, nor the other Sacraments―you would sin gravely and commit a Mortal Sin if you did. Baptism is also our “license” or “passport” to enter Heaven: “He that is baptized shall be saved” (Mark 16:16) in these sense that Baptism gives us Sanctifying Grace―which is the mode by which God dwells in the soul. In this sense, Sanctifying Grace is also a “license” of sorts because it gives us the right to enter Heaven, whereas Mortal Sin destroys Sanctifying Grace and thereby loses the “license” or “passport” to Heaven.
License of Love
Another aspect of Baptism is that it gives you what we could call “The License of Love”―that is to say, it makes you an adopted child of God and guarantees that you will be loved by God; and secondly, this “License of Love” requires that you love God in return―just as in any parent-child relationship. “God is love” [“God is charity”] (1 John 4:8) and therefore you become a “child of love” who must love God in return: “Love God, because God has first loved us!” (1 John 4:19). Furthermore, God says: “I love them that love Me! … I enrich them that love Me!” (Proverbs 8:17, 21) … “Everyone that loves is born of God. He that does not love, does not know God―for God is charity” (1 John 4:7-8). Being God’s “children of love”, we are commanded to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Jesus―being God Himself―adds: “He that loves Me shall be loved by My Father and I will love him” (John 14:21).
Furthermore, since you are not the only “child of love” that God has put into this world, you are also commanded to love your “brothers” and “sisters”―namely everyone else―because they too have been made in the image and likeness of God: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!” (Mark 12:31). “If any man say: ‘I love God!’ and hates his brother, then he is a liar! For he that does love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God Whom he sees not? And this commandment we have from God―that he, who loves God, must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20-21). Love of God and love of neighbor are connected. We cannot love God correctly and truly if we do not love our neighbors―and we cannot truly and correctly love our neighbors if we do not love God.
Tough Love
Our Lord even adds a painful twist to the “License of Love” when He says: “You have heard that it has been said: ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy!’ But I say to you: Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! And pray for them that persecute and calumniate you! ― so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven―Who makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and makes His rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. For if you only love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even sinners [publicans] do this? And if you only salute your brethren, what do you do that is more? Do not the heathens and pagans do this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:43-48).
Your “License of Love” does not exempt your from loving your enemies! In fact, the act of loving our enemies is what tests, examines, scrutinizes and proves our love. It is what Our Lord Himself did on Calvary as He died on the cross―He prayed for His enemies: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34) and He also showed loving mercy to the thief on the cross―whom we call the “Good Thief”―who was a lifelong enemy of God because he had spent his life breaking God’s commandments: “Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in paradise!’” (Luke 23:43). Are you not an enemy of God―or at least have you not been an enemy of God in the past―and did God stop loving you? Did God refuse to show you mercy when to you asked for mercy (often with only a minimal sorrow for sin in your heart)? No―God did not turn His back on you; God did not send you away―despite your half-baked sorrow for your sins, God showed His love for you His enemy by forgiving you!
In addition to that, if you won't forgive your enemies here on Earth, what will you do when you arrive (hopefully) in Heaven and see all your enemies standing there (having been forgiven by God, but not forgiven by you)? Will you refuse to go into Heaven and be friends with your enemies? Will you choose to go to Hell to get away and avoid your enemies who are in Heaven? Or will you ask God to forgive you and let you into Heaven, but not to forgive your enemies and throw them into Hell? Or will you forgive your enemies so that you can get into Heaven? Well―if you will decide to forgive your enemies upon arriving at the Gates of Heaven and seeing them already in Heaven, then why not forgive them now here on Earth? Our Lord addresses this point when He says: “If you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences!” (Matthew 6:14-15).
Universal Love
Our God-given “License of Love” has more clauses than the merely selfish clause of you being loved by God. We have to love in return―wholly, totally, thoroughly, at all times, in all places, in all things―pleasant and unpleasant―and part of that unpleasant side is the loving of our enemies, and not just our friends. For Our Lord Himself has said that what we do to others, we do to God―“As long as you did it to one of the least of My brethren, you did it to Me! … As long as you did it not to one of the least of My brethren, neither did you do it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40, 45). Who are these “least of My brethren” that Our Lord refers? They are sinners, the biggest sinners―and into that category, no doubt in our personal estimation, we also place our personal enemies! They are the ones we ‘love’ to hate! The sinners, the evildoers, our enemies, those who have wronged us in some way, etc. Jesus shows us how to love those who are unlovable―by being with the leper, the sinner, the outcast and the one on the edge. Not only are we God’s children, but others are God’s children too, even the worst of people, sinful people, very sinful people―and God’s wants everyone to be saved, even though everyone will not be saved due to their lack of cooperation with God―as St. Augustine says: “God, Who created you without you, will not save you without you!” In other words, God created you without your cooperation, but God will not save you without your cooperation.
St. Thomas Aquinas explains: “Our Lord said: ‘Love your enemies’ (Matthew 4:44). Love of one’s enemies may be understood in three ways. First, as though we were to love our enemies as such―this is perverse and contrary to charity, since it implies love of that which is evil in another. Secondly love of one’s enemies may mean that we love them as to their nature in general: and in this sense charity requires that we should love our enemies, namely, that in loving God and our neighbor, we should not exclude our enemies from the love given to our neighbor in general. Thirdly, love of one’s enemies may be considered as specially directed to them, namely, that we should have a special movement of love towards our enemies. Charity does not require this absolutely, because to have a special movement of love for every individual man would be impossible. Nevertheless charity does require that we should be ready to love our enemies individually, if the necessity were to occur. To love his enemy for God’s sake, without it being necessary for him to do so, belongs to the perfection of charity. For the more he loves God, the more does he put enmities aside and show love towards his neighbor. To do good to one’s enemies is the height of perfection.
“So much do we love our friends, that, for their sake, we love all who belong to them―even if they hurt or hate us―so that, in this way, the friendship of charity extends even to our enemies, whom we love out of charity in relation to God … Thus if we loved a certain man very much, then we would love his children also, even though they were unfriendly towards us … In this way charity extends to sinners, whom, out of charity, we love for God’s sake … The charity, whereby we love our neighbor, is a participation of Divine charity … God is the principal object of charity, while our neighbor is loved out of charity for God’s sake … whereas God is loved by charity for His own sake … We ought to look upon every man as our neighbor. Sinners do not cease to be men, for sin does not destroy nature. Therefore we ought to love sinners out of charity … It is our duty to hate, in the sinner, his being a sinner, and to love in him as being a man who is capable of [heavenly] bliss; and this is to love him truly, out of charity, for God’s sake.
“When our friends fall into sin, we ought not to deny them friendship, so long as there is hope of their mending their ways, and we ought to help them more readily to regain virtue than to recover money, had they lost it, for as much as virtue is more akin than money to friendship. When, however, they fall into very great wickedness, and become incurable, then we ought no longer to show them friendliness. It is for this reason that both Divine and human laws command such like sinners to be put to death, because there is greater likelihood of their harming others than of their mending their ways. Nevertheless the judge puts this into effect, not out of hatred for the sinners, but out of the love of charity, by reason of which he prefers the public good to the life of the individual.” (Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 23, art. 1 & 2 & 5; q. 25, art. 6 & 7).
Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin
We are supposed to love the sinner while hating his sin―just like the surgeon loves the patient and hates the diseased organ that he is going to remove or amputate. Mere hatred of the disease will not make the disease go away―something has to be done about it, either applying medicine or cutting-out or amputating the diseased part of the body. We can do “surgery” on evil sinful persons by applying the medicine of prayer and sacrifice, as well as embracing a true devotion to Mary―as Our Lady requested at Fatima: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
The “License of Love” is an Obligation to Love
The Mystical Doctor of the Church, St. John of the Cross adds: “At the end of our life we will be judged on our love!” Another well-known Doctor of the Church, the author of one of the greatest masterpieces on love, The Treatise on Love, St. Francis de Sales very neatly says: “The measure with which we should love God is to love Him without measure.” Elsewhere he writes: “Charity―as queen of all virtues, queen of all commandments, all counsels, and, in short, of all laws and all Christian actions―gives to all of them their rank, order, time, and value.” (St. Francis de Sales, Love of God, 8, 6). The Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine, adds: “Love God and do what you will!” ― but that is not a license to sin, but a license to love, a license to love what God loves and to hate what God hates. If we truly love God, then we will not do anything to offend the One Whom we love!
Holy Scripture adds: “If then you fulfill the royal law, according to the Scriptures―‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!’―then you do well” (James 2:8). “Owe no man anything, but to love one another. For he that loves his neighbor, has fulfilled the law!” (Romans 13:8). “The love of our neighbor works no evil. Love therefore is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10). “For all the law is fulfilled in one word: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!’” (Galatians 5:14).
And Who Is My Neighbor?
Everyone has their own idea about who their neighbor is―and we see this to also be the case in Holy Scripture: “A certain lawyer stood up, tempting Jesus, said: ‘Master! What must I do to possess eternal life?’ Jesus said to him: ‘What is written in the law?’ He answering, said: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind―and thy neighbor as thyself!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Thou hast answered correctly! Do this and thou shalt live!’ But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus: ‘And who is my neighbor?’
“Jesus, answering, said to him: ‘A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead. And it chanced, that a certain priest went down the same way: and seeing him, passed by. In like manner also a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But a certain Samaritan being on his journey, came near him; and seeing him, was moved with compassion. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two pence, and gave to the host, and said: “Take care of him! And whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay thee!” Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbor to him that fell among the robbers?’ But he said: ‘He that showed mercy to him.’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Go, and do thou in like manner!’” (Luke 10:30-37).
In case you do not know, the reason that Jesus deliberately chose the Samaritan to be the hero of His parable was the fact that the Jews and the Samaritans were enemies. For hundreds of years the Jews and the people of Samaria had been enemies. The nation of Israel was divided into two separate kingdoms. The Kingdom of Israel was composed of the ten tribes to the north, and the Kingdom of Juda was made up of the tribes of Juda and Benjamin. The animosity between the Jews (inhabitants of the Juda, the southern kingdom) and Israelites of the northern kingdom, began immediately after the division, as Samaria was chosen to be capital city of the northern kingdom and Jerusalem was the capital of the southern kingdom. They did not agree about where God’s people should worship, and had other religious and political disputes. Jews worshiped at the Temple in Jerusalem. The Samaritans had made another place for worship on Mount Garizim. Our Lord’s parable―spoken to the Jews of Juda, made a hero of their enemy by having their enemy (the Samaritan) come to aid of the Jew (the man who had been robbed, stripped, beaten and left for dead).
Article 17
Friday July 28th & Saturday July 29th, 2023
Breaking Into Heaven
Friday July 28th & Saturday July 29th, 2023
Breaking Into Heaven
Can Anyone Break Into Heaven?
Has anyone ever broken into Heaven? Can anyone break into Heaven? Is Heaven’s security too tight? What about the Good Thief? Did he break into Heaven? Are there souls in Heaven who should not be there? All of these are interesting questions and bring to mind the poem about being shocked about seeing certain souls in Heaven:
I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven’s door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp--
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash!
There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money! Twice!
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.
Jerry, who I always thought
Was rotting away in Hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well!
I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?
I would love to hear Your take.
How’d all these sinners get up here?
God must’ve made a mistake!’
‘And why’s everyone so quiet,
So somber? ― Please give me a clue!’
‘Hush, child,’ He said, ‘it’s because they’re all in shock!
No one thought they’d be seeing you!’
That poem triggers thoughts about the “Gates of Heaven” and the popular perception of St. Peter being the gatekeeper of Heaven―since Our Lord had given Peter the keys to Kingdom of Heaven: “Thou art Peter … I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon Earth, it shall be bound also in Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loosen upon Earth, it shall be loosened also in Heaven!” (Matthew 16:18-19). Consequently there is the story about Jesus walking around Heaven with St. Peter and they keep bumping into people who were some of worst sinners on Earth! Peter, unsuccessfully tries to shove these persons behind a tree or a rock before Our Lord can see them―for fear that Jesus will think that Peter is “sleeping on the job.” Each time Our Lord sees one of them, He looks at Peter with a silent stare. Eventually Peter breaks down and weeps, saying in exasperation: “Lord! I know what you must be thinking! But I swear―I am not sleeping on the job! I don’t know how they got into Heaven! When each one of them appeared before me at the Gates of Heaven, I told them to go to Hell!” Our Lord smiles and says to Peter: “I know, I know! The fact is that every time you shut the Gates of Heaven in their faces and tell them to go to Hell, My Mother goes and opens one of the windows for them!”
Sin is the Greatest Evil
The above poem and story are all the more remarkable in view of what Holy Scripture and the Catechism teaches about the gravity, effects and consequences of sin. Let us―for a few paragraphs―contemplate the unpleasant consequences of sin, before returning to Our Lady opening windows for sinners!
St. Peter warns us against sin and its punishment, pointing out that there will come “false prophets” and “lying teachers among the people, who shall bring in sects of perdition, bringing upon themselves swift destruction! Many shall follow their depraved conduct! Their judgment and their perdition now hangs over them, and slumbers not. For God did not spare the angels that sinned, but delivered them to the lower Hell, unto torments! God did not spare the original world, but only preserved Noe, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly! God reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes, making them an example to those that might afterwards act wickedly! The Lord knows how to deliver the godly, but to reserve the unjust to be tormented in Day of Judgment―especially those who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government, who are audacious, self-willed, speaking proud words of vanity and blasphemers. Having their heart well practiced in covetousness! Having eyes full of adultery and of sin that does not cease! They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done! For it had been better for them not to have known the way of God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, than after they have known it, to turn back from that holy commandment which was delivered to them and be again entangled in and overcome by the pollutions of the world―their latter state is become unto them worse than their former state. Leaving the right way they have gone astray, they themselves become the slaves of corruption! For, that of the true proverb has happened to them: ‘The dog returns to his vomit’ and, ‘The sow that was washed, returns to her wallowing in the mire!’” (2 Peter 2:1-22).
We do not see things the way that God sees them! God Himself says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9). Sin is our greatest evil. Unfortunately, most people do not see sin in the same way that God sees sin―even though our Catechisms tell us: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). Holy Scripture indicates the same idea in a more round-about way: “God hates iniquity!” (Judith 5:21). “There is no man who sins not” (3 Kings 8:46). “For all have sinned!” (Romans 3:23). “They have sinned against God and are not of His children―in their filth, they are a wicked and perverse generation!” (Deuteronomy 32:5). “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). “And the Lord said: ‘He that has sinned against Me, him will I strike out of My book!’” (Exodus 32:33). “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “The soul that sins, the same shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15). “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23).
Fiery Punishment for the Greatest Evil
Not only is physical death the wage for sin―but it is also followed by eternal torments! Our Lord made that clear on numerous occasions: “If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he will burn!” (John 15:6) … “Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels! … Where their worm dies not, and the fire is not extinguished!” (Matthew 25:41; Mark 9:43) … “In the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from Heaven and destroyed them all!” (Luke 17:29) … “The chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire!” (Matthew 3:12) … “Gather up the cockle and bind it into bundles to burn!” (Matthew 13:30) … “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire!” (Matthew 7:19) … “At the end of the world the angels shall go out and shall separate the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 13:48-49) … “If thy hand or thy foot scandalize thee, cut it off and cast it from thee! It is better for thee to go into [eternal] life maimed or lame, than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire!” (Matthew 18:8).
“Every tree therefore that does not yield good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire!” (Matthew 3:10). “The unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars―they shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone!” (Apocalypse 21:8) … “They shall be tormented with fire and brimstone” (Apocalypse 14:10) ... “Sodom and Gomorrha, and the neighboring cities, having given themselves to fornication, were made an example by suffering the punishment of eternal fire!” (Jude 1:7) … “And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven” (Genesis 19:24) … “Fire and perdition are reserved for the ungodly men in the Day of Judgment!” (2 Peter 3:7). “Whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the pool of fire!” (Apocalypse 20:15) … “These were cast alive into the pool of fire, burning with brimstone” (Apocalypse 19:20).
Concerning the fear that these words or images may create in our souls, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “Fear of God’s chastisements is helpful for our salvation, though it diminishes with the growth of charity. The more the saints love God, the more they fear to be separated from Him. Servile fear (the fear of punishment) diminishes with progress in charity, filial fear (the loving fear of a child) grows continually, because the more we love God, the more we fear sin and separation from Him. St. Catherine of Siena says that, with progress in charity, filial fear grows until mundane fear disappears completely. Mundane fear is always bad. The fear of suffering is good, if it does not become servilely servile, if it does not dispose us to sin. Filial fear is always good. It grows with charity.” Holy Scripture adds: “Fear is not in charity … He that fears [punishment] is not perfected in charity … Perfect charity casts out fear!” (1 John 4:18).
Instant Wipe-Out!
The above quotes and pretty grim and gruesome! The debt for sin is pretty grim and gruesome! How would you like it if all your enormous financial debts were wiped-out by merely uttering a few words? Or, how happy would you be in court of law, if the judge were to wipe-out a well deserved life sentence in prison or death penalty for your crime of having killed somebody ―just because of something you said to him? The truth of the matter is that this will never happen―because nobody on Earth would do that for just a few words. Yet there is someone in Heaven who actually is that generous that He would forgive you, not only your guilt for the sins you have committed, but He would also take away all the punishment that your sins have earned! Yes―of course―that person is God. It can only be God!
Yet what is it―on your part―that can make God show such undeserved generosity? The answer is found in a four-letter-word! Yes―a four-letter-word can actually get you into Heaven and get all your due punishment utterly dissolved! What is that four-letter-word? That four-letter-word is LOVE! Not just any kind of love―and certainly not a fake love that easily drips from lips―but a love that bursts from the heart, an explosive love, a dynamite kind of love, a love that is capable of blowing open the Gates of Heaven. That kind of love is also dynamite to our stony sin-hardened hearts―breaking and making them crumble into humble pieces! It has to be a heartbreaking love―which is heartbreaking contrition.
If there is one thing that God cannot resist; one thing that weakens Him, so to speak; one thing that makes Him do the unthinkable in wiping away your guilt and the accompanying just punishments for your sins―that “thing” is something that we call “PERFECT CONTRITION” or “A PERFECT ACT OF CONTRITION” or “A CONTRITION OF LOVE”. The word “contrition” comes from Latin verb “conterere” and its past-participle “contritus” which literally means “worn down, ground to pieces, pounded to pieces, crushed, crumbled, wiped out, wiped away, wiped off, etc.” It is used in Church Latin in a figurative sense of “crushed in spirit by a sense of sin.” There are two kinds of sorrow for sin―one is ATTRITION, which is sorrow that is based on a fear of God’s punishments for sin, and this is the most common kind of sorrow that most people have. The other kind of sorrow―a far more superior sorrow―is that of CONTRITION, which is a sorrow that is based on a love of God rather than a fear of God. Contrition is being sorry on the grounds of having hurt someone who you love very much and who loves you―it is sorrow at having hurt a loved-one.
Perfect contrition has the power of removing all guilt of sin and all punishment due to sin. Is this a joke? Is it make-believe? Is it a fairy-tale? Wishful thinking? No―it is reality! A stupendous reality! A mind-boggling reality! A heart-warming reality! A reality that goes beyond the limits and boundaries of the mercy that we know here on Earth! Is it only a select few that can find access to such unimaginable mercy? No―it is open to each and every member of mankind. However, it is NOT UNCONDITIONAL MERCY regardless of what we feel and what we do―it is a mercy that has certain conditions attached to it. It is those conditions that we shall now examine and explain.
The Power of Love
If “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26) ― then you would think that all things are possible to charity! God Himself, Who is charity itself, says: “I am the Lord the God! Shall anything be hard for Me?” (Jeremias 32:27). God―being charity itself―manifests that charity through mercy: “I am the Lord thy God, … showing mercy unto thousands to them that love Me and keep My commandments!” (Exodus 20:6). If you want to acquire the power of charity in your own life, then you must begin by sowing the basic seed of charity: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word … He that loves Me not, keeps not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
Our Lord has stated that a strong Faith can bring about miracles from God: “If you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed … nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 17:19)―but Charity is even greater than Faith: “There are Faith, Hope, and Charity―these three―but the greatest of these is Charity!” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Not only is Charity the greatest virtue―it is also the greatest commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). The second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor who is made in the image and likeness of God: “And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). We cannot just love God and refuse to love our neighbor: “If any man say: ‘I love God!’ and hates his brother [neighbor/fellow man], then he is a liar! For he that does not love his brother [neighbor/fellow man] whom he sees, how can he love God Whom he cannot see?” (1 John 4:20). That is why sins against charity are greater than other sins―for God is charity, and the greatest commandment is not to believe in God, but to love God. The degree of a soul’s sanctity coincides with the degree of love in the soul. The greater the love of God and neighbor, the greater the holiness of the soul.
God Wants Fanatical Love
When you think about it―God is asking for a fanatical love of Him! What would we call someone who loves a sport/hobby/job with their whole heart, whole mind, whole soul and whole strength? We would call them a “fan” of something who has increased their love from a mere “fan” to that of a “fanatic”! What is fanaticism? Fanaticism is defined as “a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal or an obsessive enthusiasm; the pursuit or defense of something in an extreme and passionate way that goes beyond normality.” Isn’t that what sanctity or holiness is? In modern times “fanaticism” has been given negative sense―just like sanctity and holiness―but the word originates from the Latin noun “fanum” meaning “temple, shrine, sanctuary, consecrated place,” and Latin “-isma, -ismus”, from Greek “-ismos”, which is noun ending signifying the practice or teaching of a thing. The Latin word “fanaticus” means “enthusiastic, inspired by a god, a zealous person, person affected by enthusiasm.” Is that not what God from us? Of course He does! What else could “love with thy whole soul, whole mind, whole strength” possibly mean if not an extreme enthusiasm. God is extreme―extremely kind, extremely merciful, extremely powerful, extremely just, etc―and He wants us to be extreme―for if someone is perfect then they are extremely good. God can NEVER be loved too much―because He is infinite, He is infinitely good and therefore infinitely loveable. Why is it that most souls go to Hell (or Purgatory if they are lucky)? It is because they never became fanatics about God! Many were fanatical about something else than God!
Even the modern-day negative connotation of the word “fanatic” or “fanaticism” meaning “unwilling or unable to accept a differing point of view” is still fine by us―because we cannot accept another god except the One True God; we cannot accept a teaching that does not agree with the teaching of the One True God; we cannot accept another religion except the religion founded by the One True God (which since New Testament times is Catholicism―the only true form of Christianity).
Hence it is that we read that Faith―even if it can perform miracles―is worthless without Charity: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26) and “Faith works by charity” (Galatians 5:6). Faith is a springboard that should lead to Charity―we cannot love what we do not know―and Faith is all about knowing God and believing God, whereas Charity is all about loving God and proving that love by keeping His commandments and then suffering for His sake―even to the point of laying down our lives: “Greater love than this no man has―that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
The Imitation of Christ has a beautiful chapter describing the effects or the power of love: “Love is an excellent thing, a very great blessing, indeed. It makes every difficulty easy and bears all wrongs with calmness and evenness of temper. For it bears a burden without being weighed-down, and makes sweet all that is bitter. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, and does not plead impossibility―because it believes that it may and can do all things. Wearied―it is not tired. Pressed―it is not straitened. Alarmed―it is not confused, but like a living flame, a burning torch, it forces its way upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle. For this reason, it is able to do all, performing and effecting much, where he, who does not love, fails and falls. Love often knows no limits, but overflows all bounds. Love tends upward―it will not be held down by anything low. One who is in love flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free, not bound. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, long-suffering, and manly. Love is circumspect, humble, and upright. It is neither soft nor light, nor focused upon vain things. It is sober and chaste, firm and quiet, guarded in all the senses. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, or higher, or wider; nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in Heaven or on Earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is above all created things. If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice!” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 5: “The Wonderful Effect of Divine Love”).
The ultimate power of love or charity is the forgiveness of sins. Our Lord said of Mary Magdalen: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much” (Luke 7:47). The Old Testament had already affirmed this truth: “Charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12)―which is why St. Peter, in the New Testament, writes: “Before all things, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves―for charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). The greater the love, the greater the forgiveness. Love loves to forgive―mercy is a room in the mansion of charity―but love loves it own: “I love them that love Me!” (Proverbs 8:17) … “showing mercy unto thousands to them that love Me” (Exodus 20:6) … “showing mercy unto many thousands to them that love Me!” (Deuteronomy 5:10). Who are you most likely to forgive? Are you more disposed to forgive someone who loves you, or someone who does not love you, or someone who hates you? The answer is pretty obvious―or it should be! So that brings up the next question―“What is your love of God like? Is it lip-love, lip-service, words only―or is it sincere, from the heart and fervent?” The degree or level of your love is an indication of the likelihood of your salvation. Are you really and truly, sincerely and effectively trying to love God with your WHOLE heart, with your WHOLE mind, with your WHOLE soul and with your WHOLE strength? (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
Magnificent Mercy
The mercy of God extends beyond the borders of our puny limited minds―for as God says: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unjust man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him― for He is bountiful to forgive. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:7-9).
Contrition in General
God, in His justice, will allot to you the level of mercy that your contrition for sin deserves. Contrition is a pain of the soul and a hatred for sins committed. It must be accompanied by a good purpose, that is to say, a firm resolution to correct oneself and to sin no more.
► Contrition must be INTERIOR. What do we mean when we say that contrition must be interior? We mean that it is an interior act of the mind and will. In order for contrition to be real, it is necessary that it be interior, meaning that it comes from the depths of the heart; it must not then be a simple formula uttered without reflection. It is something independent of spoken words. The mind and heart must determine everything that is said in the Act of Contrition. Perfect Contrition is not necessarily shown by sighs or tears, etc. All those displays may be an exterior indicator, but they are not the interior essence of contrition. The essence of contrition resides in the soul and in the will ― it is determined to run away from sin and return to God.
► Contrition must be SOVEREIGN ― which is to say that our sorrow for sin must be far beyond the sorrow that we would have for anything in this world. Sin is the greatest evil. God’s grace and friendship are far greater in value than anything in this world; therefore, our sorrow at losing them by sin should be greater far than our sorrow at losing anything else.
► Contrition must be UNIVERSAL, that is to say, it must be understood to apply to all sins committed — at least of all mortal sins. The act of contrition must include all of the mortal sins. One may never keep even one pet sin. One either leaves all of his sins behind, or he keeps all of them for God’s just judgment at the moment of death. Sins when left alone will never pass away. For example, if you have committed ten mortal sins and you are sorry for nine mortal sins in Confession, but are not sorry for the tenth—then none of the ten mortal sins are forgiven—all ten remain in your soul.
► Contrition must be INTENSE. The word “detest” best expresses the intensity that we should have. We cannot be lukewarm or indifferent to sin. Sin is the greatest evil in the world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). We cannot simply say that we just “do not like sin”, but we must “detest” sin in the most intense way and our desire to not sin again must also be intense.
► Contrition must contain a FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT ― a firm resolution of sinning no more. Too many people only have a VAGUE purpose of amendment―they are imprecise, they do not make firm plans on how to avoid. Their purpose of amendment is in WORD ONLY. On the contrary, we must be prepared to avoid the occasions of sin and seriously make plans on how we will achieve that goal. Every person, place, or object that we have reason to know would be an occasion or cause to us of committing sin, must be carefully avoided. No matter how dear they may be to us; no matter how hard we may find it to avoid them, avoid them we must, or else our contrition is not contrition. It is only a mockery, a delusion, and a snare of the devil. A priest is not at liberty to give absolution to anyone who is not prepared to avoid the immediate occasions of sin.
The man that has a firm, real resolution of sinning no more does not easily relapse into sin. Where there is true contrition God gives His grace; and the grace of God does solid, substantial work, which is not likely to be blown down with every slight wind of temptation. Where there is true contrition the penitent yields, not without great efforts and struggle, and not until after he has fought a long and brave fight with the enemy. The relapsing sinner, on the contrary, shows that he has only a half purpose; not a firm full purpose. His will is half for God, and half for the devil. He is a double-minded man; and “a double-minded man is inconstant in all his ways” (James 1:8).
► Contrition must be SUPREME. When we say that the act of contrition must be supreme, we are saying that we must determine that we would rather die than commit a mortal sin. We must hate mortal sin (venial sin too, if possible) even more than death itself. Just think how careful we are about our lives. We will avoid the company of those who have a contagious sickness in order to save our life. We could take a leaf out of the book of St. Dominic Savio, who, as one of his resolutions before making his First Holy Communion, was: “Death rather than sin!”
► Contrition must also be SUPERNATURAL and not purely natural, for that has no use. This is why contrition, like every other good thing, must come from God and from His grace―that is what makes it supernatural. Only the grace of God can engender it in us. Contrition, whether perfect or imperfect, is a gift which we cannot have unless it be given us by God. However, God always grants us the necessary grace provided that we ask it of Him, provided that we possess good will and a sincere and supernatural repentance. Actual grace is the supernatural assistance that enlightens the mind to know the will of God and strengthens the will to do the will of God. Hence, before starting the act of contrition, it is good to ask for this special grace. Without it, the act of contrition is useless.
Secondly, the act must be supernatural as to “motive.” If our repentance is based on a motive of interest, or for a purely natural reason (for instance, temporal evils, shame, or illness), then we will only have natural contrition, without any merit. However, if it is based on some truth of the Faith (such as Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, God, etc.), then we will truly possess a supernatural contrition. This supernatural contrition can be, in turn, PERFECT or IMPERFECT — and here we are come to our topic of Perfect Contrition.
Types of Contrition
The two general divisions of contrition are (1) PERFECT CONTRITION, (2) IMPERFECT CONTRITION and (3) FALSE CONTRITION. Let us first of all explain them briefly before taking a closer look at them.
PERFECT CONTRITION: The superior contrition is Perfect Contrition ― which has to do with the fact that we have offended God Who is all good and desiring of our love. It is based upon a sorrow of having offended someone whom we love and who loves us. Fear takes a back seat―while love is in the driving seat: “Perfect charity casts out fear, because fear has pain. And he that fears, is not perfected in charity” (1 John 4:18). Perfect love will not only cast out fear, but it will also cast out sin and any love for sin.
IMPERFECT CONTRITION: The inferior motive (Imperfect Contrition) has to do with the dread of the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell. Together with the Sacraments of Baptism and Penance, the inferior motive (fearing the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell) is sufficient for forgiveness of all sins. However, outside of those Sacraments, only the superior motive (a sorrow―based on love, not fear―for having offended God who is all good) will suffice for the forgiveness of all sins.
FALSE CONTRITION: A false, faked or pretended contrition is the most common kind of contrition. False contrition is an attempt to either fool God, for the priest, or fool ourselves―or a mixture of these—because, tragically, most people don’t work hard at sinning no more. They don’t really hate all of their sins (only some sins) and do not strive to be perfect out of a fear of going to Hell or out of the love of God. They know that they will go back to their sins, just as they know they will go back to Confession. It becomes a revolving door between the rooms of sin and sanctifying grace. What these souls fail to realize is that their confessions are invalid because of this lack of true sorrow for sin and a lack of firm purpose of amendment.
Perfect Contrition
Let us look at Perfect Contrition in some more detail. Is there a way we can obtain the greatest mercy from God? Yes there is―it can be achieved by what we call “A PERFECT ACT OF CONTRITION.” Just as there degrees of mercy, there are also degrees of contrition. In a few words, Perfect Contrition is contrition based on the motive of love, and Imperfect Contrition is that which is based on the fear of God. Perfect Contrition is that which flows from the perfect love of God. Now, our love of God is perfect if we love Him because He is infinitely perfect, infinitely beautiful, and infinitely good (love of benevolence), or because He has shown us His love in a wonderful way (love of gratitude). Our love of God is imperfect, if we love Him because we expect something from Him.
Our contrition is perfect when we are sorry for our sins because sin offends God, Whom we love above all things for His own sake. Our Lord alluded to this when speaking of Mary Magdalen to Simon the Pharisee: “‘Wherefore I say to thee, her sins, many as they are, shall be forgiven her, because she has loved much. But he, to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ And He said to her, ‘Thy sins are forgiven.’ And they, who were at table with Him, began to say within themselves, ‘Who is this Man, who even forgives sins?’ But He said to the woman, ‘Thy Faith has saved thee! Go in peace!’” (Luke 7:47-50).
(1) This contrition arises from a pure and perfect love of God. If we have a perfect love of God, our contrition for sins will be perfect. It ought not to be difficult for us to have a perfect love of God. We generally love our parents not for the food and clothes they give us, but for themselves, because we see their self-sacrifice, their unselfishness, and other good qualities. Thus we shall be sorry, not only because we fear punishment or dread the loss of His gifts, but because we offend the good God, to Whom nothing is more evil than sin. If we can love our parents spontaneously, not for any reward we expect or punishment we wish to avoid, why can we not love God, Who is infinitely more lovable than our parents? If we love God spontaneously, because He is lovable in Himself, our love is perfect.
Where there is true contrition, there is a complete change of life: the “old man” is exchanged for the “new.” As Scripture says: “Put off the old man, who is corrupted, and put on the new man, who is created in justice and holiness of truth. Wherefore putting away sin, be angry, and sin not!” (Ephesians 4:22-26). The sinful pleasures, once loved, are now hated; the dangerous occasions of sin are avoided; the soul is filled with hope in the merciful forgiveness of God, and filled also with a desire to keep His commandments for the time to come.
(2) It is easy to make an act of Perfect Contrition if we sincerely love God. We can excite ourselves to it by thinking of the Passion, of how good God is, how many favors He has granted us, and how ungrateful we have been to Him in return for His goodness. By thinking of God’s gifts, we realize a little the goodness of God and His worthiness to be loved for His own sake. We then feel sorry for having offended our Benefactor by the sins we have committed. But do not delude yourself with the thought that you will put off your repentance till the moment of death, and that then you will make an act of Perfect Contrition. Perfect Contrition is a grace given only to those of good will, and if anyone were to abandon himself to a life of sin with the hope of a death-bed repentance, he would find himself face to face with a Judge Who will say, “You will seek Me, but you will die in your sins!” (John 8:21).
(3) If we happen to be assisting at a deathbed, and no priest is available, we should help the dying person make an act of Perfect Contrition―or it may even be ourselves on our own deathbed. First of all, we must bear in mind that Perfect Contrition is a grace―a great grace― from God. Everyone should constantly pray for it. Get the dying person to beg often: “My God! Give me perfect sorrow for my sins!” If (by interiorly praying for them) you can get them to sincerely mean those words, then Our Lord will answer the prayer and the grace will be given. Is it difficult to make an act of Perfect Contrition? No doubt it is more difficult to make an act of Perfect Contrition than an Imperfect one, which suffices when we go to Confession. But still, there is no one who, if he sincerely wishes it, cannot, with the grace of God, make an act of Perfect Contrition. Sorrow is in the will, not in the senses or feelings. All that is needed is that we repent because we love God above everything else; that is all. True it is that Perfect Contrition has its degrees, but it is none the less perfect because it does not reach the intensity and sublimity of the sorrow of St. Peter, of St. Mary Magdalene, or of St. Aloysius. Such a degree is very desirable, but is by no means necessary. A lesser degree, but, provided it proceeds from the love of God, and not through fear of His punishments, is quite sufficient.
(4) We should form the habit of making an act of Perfect Contrition as often as possible. How can we be sure our act of Perfect Contrition is actually perfect? We cannot know! Yet we must exercise our Faith, Hope and Charity in raising our hearts to God with a pure a love as possible, and say at least some words such as: “O my God, I am sorry that I ever offended Thee, because Thou art so good, and I love Thee!”
Imperfect Contrition
Our contrition is imperfect when we are sorry for our sins because they are hateful in themselves, or because we fear God’s punishment. If, in the act of Imperfect Contrition, fear of Hell is the prevailing motive; then the sinner is more in love with himself than he is with God.
(1) Imperfect Contrition is called attrition. The fear of Hell is a common motive of attrition. It is a good motive, but it is imperfect, because it arises from fear of God’s punishments, and not from pure love for Him. A mother sent her three young sons to take a big jar of honey to their grandmother. On the way the boys stopped to play. They stumbled over the jar, breaking it and spilling the honey. They all began to weep. The first said, “Mother will surely spank us?” The second cried, “She will be so displeased she will give us no cookies!” And the third wept, “Mother will surely be sad!” The first two boys had attrition: one had the fear of punishment, and the second had sorrow at the loss of reward. The third child had Perfect Contrition, for he thought only of the sadness and offense he caused to one he loved.
(2) To receive the Sacrament of Penance worthily, Imperfect Contrition is sufficient. However, an act of attrition cannot obtain forgiveness of mortal sin without the absolution of a priest. Even if we feel only attrition for our sins, we can easily develop it into Perfect Contrition by remembering what we should be without God. We should always try to have Perfect Contrition in the Sacrament of Penance. Nevertheless, as stated above, Perfect Contrition is a grace given only to those of good will, and if anyone were to abandon himself to a life of sin with the hope of a death-bed repentance, he would find himself face to face with a Judge Who will say, “You will seek Me, but you will die in your sins!” (John 8:21). Perfect Contrition requires the desire not to sin again. If you do not have that desire, you cannot have Perfect Contrition. Nevertheless, Imperfect Contrition cannot remove the entire punishment that is still due to our confessed―even after we have confessed and they have been forgiven. Only Perfect Contrition is capable of doing that.
(3) A purely servile fear of God is not sufficient for Imperfect Contrition. That is one which makes a person avoid sin only because of punishment: so that, if there were no punishment, he would not be sorry, but ready and resolved to sin, regardless of the laws of God. To receive the Sacrament of Penance worthily, purely servile fear would not be sufficient. We call this fear “servile” because it is the fear of slaves, afraid of a hard taskmaster; they would quickly disobey his commands were they not afraid of his whips. Shall we look upon God thus? Servile fear does not make the sinner turn away from his sin. The “fear of God” that produces attrition is called filial fear. It is a fear of God’s punishments that makes the sinner turn away from sin and return sincerely to God; it is the fear that a good son who has offended his father seriously feels when he begs forgiveness.
False Contrition
False contrition or false sorrow for sin is the most common kind of contrition or sorrow. False contrition is an attempt to either fool God, for the priest, or fool ourselves―or a mixture of these— because, tragically, most people don’t work hard at sinning no more. They don’t really hate all of their sins (only some sins) and do not strive to be perfect out of a fear of going to Hell or out of the love of God. Or they work hard for a short while, and then all efforts are thrown out the window ― like a failed diet ― it hasn’t become a way of life from a true hatred for their sins. That is why the path to Heaven is narrow and only “many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:23-24) ― because they lack the necessary saving sanctifying grace in their souls.
Where there is true contrition the penitent yields, not without great efforts and struggle, and not until after he has fought a long and brave fight with the enemy. The relapsing sinner, on the contrary, shows that he has only a half purpose; not a firm full purpose. His will is half for God, and half for the devil. He is a double-minded man; and “a double-minded man is inconstant in all his ways” (James 1:8). The best sign for knowing whether the contrition was good or bad, is the amendment of life, or the relapse of the sinner. “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matthew 7:20). Judging ourselves by this test, we should fear that when we received the Sacrament of Penance we often had only a false and a bad contrition for our sins! “Be not without fear for sins forgiven” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) ― that is to say, sins that are supposed to have been forgiven.
What if we thought our contrition sufficient, when in reality it was defective? Then would be a great mistake! The Sacrament of Penance received unworthily, would be to us a source of ruin and damnation! Penance is a plank after shipwreck; and, as in time of shipwreck few save themselves by a plank, so it is only a few that save themselves by the plank of penance. True penitents, it is to be feared, are very rare. The time of St. Ambrose was remarkable for its illustrious penitents, and yet the Saint goes so far as to say: “I have more easily found him who shall have preserved his innocence unspotted, than he who, after a fall, shall have done worthy penance.”
Fr. Leonard Goffine, in his liturgical book, The Church’s Year, writes: “If sinners intend to repent on their deathbed for fear of punishment, they usually find that God in His justice will no longer give them the grace of repentance, for he who, when he can repent will not repent, cannot when he will. ‘Who will not listen at the time of grace,’ says St. Gregory, ‘will not be listened to in the time of anxiety!’ And it is to be feared that he who postpones penance until old age, will not find justice where he looked for mercy.”
So we must always ask ourselves and answer this question: “Just why are you sorry for your sins? Is it because you fear God, or because you love God? Or are you just mechanically saying you are sorry out of routine, without really being afraid of God, nor loving God?”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, a Doctor of the Church and the patron saint of moral theologians, writes: “The preacher should often speak out against bad confessions, in which sins are concealed through shame. This is an evil not of rare occurrence, but frequent, especially in small country districts, which consigns innumerable souls to Hell. Hence it is very useful to mention, from time to time, some example of souls that were damned by willfully concealing sins in confession.” If the concealing or “fudging” of sins is so common according to St. Alphonsus―then how much more common is the lack of sufficient contrition for sins even if they are not concealed? All of this is tantamount to a spiritual suicide!
The Wonderful Effects of Perfect Contrition
You can really call Perfect Contrition the Key to Heaven. Who gets to go to Heaven? Before you can enter Heaven, you must free of the guilt of mortal sin, (2) you must be in state of sanctifying grace; and (3) you must have paid your debts for your mortal and venial sins.
Our Lord said of Mary Magdalen: “Wherefore I say to thee: Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much!” (Luke 7:47). The Venerable St. Bede, commenting on this, writes: “What is love but fire; what is sin but rust? Hence it is said: ‘Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much!’―as though to say―“She has burned away the rust of sin entirely, because she is inflamed with the fire of love.”
Once you have confessed your mortal sins properly, but with imperfect contrition, then the guilt for sin is taken away―but the debt for those sins remains. Too many people falsely imagine that the Sacrament of Confession automatically takes away both the guilt and the debt. However, if your sorrow for sin is intense enough, then it is possible for the Sacrament of Confession to remove not only your guilt but also your debt. If you confess your sins with perfect contrition, then ALL the guilt and debt are taken away―and if, at that moment, you died, then you could walk straight into Heaven. However, if your contrition is imperfect, then ALL the guilt is taken away in Confession, but a certain amount of debt remains that you will have to pay through penance, until the debt is eventually removed. If you die with the debt unpaid―even though you are in a state of sanctifying grace―you will not go to Heaven, but to fires of Purgatory to pay the remainder of the debt.
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us: “Mortal sin turns us away from God, it induces a debt of eternal punishment … Whosoever sins against the eternal Good should be punished eternally ... In venial sins, he incurs a debt, not of eternal punishment, but of temporal punishment. Consequently when guilt is pardoned through grace, the soul ceases to be turned away from God, through being united to God by grace―so, at the same time, the debt of punishment is taken away, although a debt of some temporal punishment may yet remain ... A debt of some punishment remains after the guilt has been forgiven ... The entire debt of punishment is not remitted at once after the first act of Penance (Confession)―by which the guilt is remitted―but only when all the acts of Penance have been completed ... Man, by bearing punishment patiently with the help of Divine grace, is thereby released from the debt of temporal punishment … Contrition is the cause of the forgiveness of sin … The intensity of contrition may be regarded in two ways. First, on the part of charity, which causes the displeasure―and in this way it may happen that the act of charity is so intense that the contrition resulting therefrom merits not only the removal of guilt, but also the remission of all punishment. Secondly, on the part of the sensible sorrow, which the will excites in contrition―and since this sorrow is also a kind of punishment, it may be so intense as to suffice for the remission of both guilt and punishment … Although the sorrow of contrition is finite in its intensity, even as the punishment due for mortal sin is finite; yet it derives infinite power from charity, whereby it is quickened, and so it avails for the remission of both guilt and punishment” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 3a, q. 86, art 4; Supplement, q. 5, art. 2).
Has anyone ever broken into Heaven? Can anyone break into Heaven? Is Heaven’s security too tight? What about the Good Thief? Did he break into Heaven? Are there souls in Heaven who should not be there? All of these are interesting questions and bring to mind the poem about being shocked about seeing certain souls in Heaven:
I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven’s door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp--
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash!
There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money! Twice!
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.
Jerry, who I always thought
Was rotting away in Hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well!
I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?
I would love to hear Your take.
How’d all these sinners get up here?
God must’ve made a mistake!’
‘And why’s everyone so quiet,
So somber? ― Please give me a clue!’
‘Hush, child,’ He said, ‘it’s because they’re all in shock!
No one thought they’d be seeing you!’
That poem triggers thoughts about the “Gates of Heaven” and the popular perception of St. Peter being the gatekeeper of Heaven―since Our Lord had given Peter the keys to Kingdom of Heaven: “Thou art Peter … I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon Earth, it shall be bound also in Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loosen upon Earth, it shall be loosened also in Heaven!” (Matthew 16:18-19). Consequently there is the story about Jesus walking around Heaven with St. Peter and they keep bumping into people who were some of worst sinners on Earth! Peter, unsuccessfully tries to shove these persons behind a tree or a rock before Our Lord can see them―for fear that Jesus will think that Peter is “sleeping on the job.” Each time Our Lord sees one of them, He looks at Peter with a silent stare. Eventually Peter breaks down and weeps, saying in exasperation: “Lord! I know what you must be thinking! But I swear―I am not sleeping on the job! I don’t know how they got into Heaven! When each one of them appeared before me at the Gates of Heaven, I told them to go to Hell!” Our Lord smiles and says to Peter: “I know, I know! The fact is that every time you shut the Gates of Heaven in their faces and tell them to go to Hell, My Mother goes and opens one of the windows for them!”
Sin is the Greatest Evil
The above poem and story are all the more remarkable in view of what Holy Scripture and the Catechism teaches about the gravity, effects and consequences of sin. Let us―for a few paragraphs―contemplate the unpleasant consequences of sin, before returning to Our Lady opening windows for sinners!
St. Peter warns us against sin and its punishment, pointing out that there will come “false prophets” and “lying teachers among the people, who shall bring in sects of perdition, bringing upon themselves swift destruction! Many shall follow their depraved conduct! Their judgment and their perdition now hangs over them, and slumbers not. For God did not spare the angels that sinned, but delivered them to the lower Hell, unto torments! God did not spare the original world, but only preserved Noe, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly! God reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes, making them an example to those that might afterwards act wickedly! The Lord knows how to deliver the godly, but to reserve the unjust to be tormented in Day of Judgment―especially those who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government, who are audacious, self-willed, speaking proud words of vanity and blasphemers. Having their heart well practiced in covetousness! Having eyes full of adultery and of sin that does not cease! They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done! For it had been better for them not to have known the way of God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, than after they have known it, to turn back from that holy commandment which was delivered to them and be again entangled in and overcome by the pollutions of the world―their latter state is become unto them worse than their former state. Leaving the right way they have gone astray, they themselves become the slaves of corruption! For, that of the true proverb has happened to them: ‘The dog returns to his vomit’ and, ‘The sow that was washed, returns to her wallowing in the mire!’” (2 Peter 2:1-22).
We do not see things the way that God sees them! God Himself says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9). Sin is our greatest evil. Unfortunately, most people do not see sin in the same way that God sees sin―even though our Catechisms tell us: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). Holy Scripture indicates the same idea in a more round-about way: “God hates iniquity!” (Judith 5:21). “There is no man who sins not” (3 Kings 8:46). “For all have sinned!” (Romans 3:23). “They have sinned against God and are not of His children―in their filth, they are a wicked and perverse generation!” (Deuteronomy 32:5). “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). “And the Lord said: ‘He that has sinned against Me, him will I strike out of My book!’” (Exodus 32:33). “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “The soul that sins, the same shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15). “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23).
Fiery Punishment for the Greatest Evil
Not only is physical death the wage for sin―but it is also followed by eternal torments! Our Lord made that clear on numerous occasions: “If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he will burn!” (John 15:6) … “Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels! … Where their worm dies not, and the fire is not extinguished!” (Matthew 25:41; Mark 9:43) … “In the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from Heaven and destroyed them all!” (Luke 17:29) … “The chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire!” (Matthew 3:12) … “Gather up the cockle and bind it into bundles to burn!” (Matthew 13:30) … “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire!” (Matthew 7:19) … “At the end of the world the angels shall go out and shall separate the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 13:48-49) … “If thy hand or thy foot scandalize thee, cut it off and cast it from thee! It is better for thee to go into [eternal] life maimed or lame, than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire!” (Matthew 18:8).
“Every tree therefore that does not yield good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire!” (Matthew 3:10). “The unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars―they shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone!” (Apocalypse 21:8) … “They shall be tormented with fire and brimstone” (Apocalypse 14:10) ... “Sodom and Gomorrha, and the neighboring cities, having given themselves to fornication, were made an example by suffering the punishment of eternal fire!” (Jude 1:7) … “And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven” (Genesis 19:24) … “Fire and perdition are reserved for the ungodly men in the Day of Judgment!” (2 Peter 3:7). “Whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the pool of fire!” (Apocalypse 20:15) … “These were cast alive into the pool of fire, burning with brimstone” (Apocalypse 19:20).
Concerning the fear that these words or images may create in our souls, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “Fear of God’s chastisements is helpful for our salvation, though it diminishes with the growth of charity. The more the saints love God, the more they fear to be separated from Him. Servile fear (the fear of punishment) diminishes with progress in charity, filial fear (the loving fear of a child) grows continually, because the more we love God, the more we fear sin and separation from Him. St. Catherine of Siena says that, with progress in charity, filial fear grows until mundane fear disappears completely. Mundane fear is always bad. The fear of suffering is good, if it does not become servilely servile, if it does not dispose us to sin. Filial fear is always good. It grows with charity.” Holy Scripture adds: “Fear is not in charity … He that fears [punishment] is not perfected in charity … Perfect charity casts out fear!” (1 John 4:18).
Instant Wipe-Out!
The above quotes and pretty grim and gruesome! The debt for sin is pretty grim and gruesome! How would you like it if all your enormous financial debts were wiped-out by merely uttering a few words? Or, how happy would you be in court of law, if the judge were to wipe-out a well deserved life sentence in prison or death penalty for your crime of having killed somebody ―just because of something you said to him? The truth of the matter is that this will never happen―because nobody on Earth would do that for just a few words. Yet there is someone in Heaven who actually is that generous that He would forgive you, not only your guilt for the sins you have committed, but He would also take away all the punishment that your sins have earned! Yes―of course―that person is God. It can only be God!
Yet what is it―on your part―that can make God show such undeserved generosity? The answer is found in a four-letter-word! Yes―a four-letter-word can actually get you into Heaven and get all your due punishment utterly dissolved! What is that four-letter-word? That four-letter-word is LOVE! Not just any kind of love―and certainly not a fake love that easily drips from lips―but a love that bursts from the heart, an explosive love, a dynamite kind of love, a love that is capable of blowing open the Gates of Heaven. That kind of love is also dynamite to our stony sin-hardened hearts―breaking and making them crumble into humble pieces! It has to be a heartbreaking love―which is heartbreaking contrition.
If there is one thing that God cannot resist; one thing that weakens Him, so to speak; one thing that makes Him do the unthinkable in wiping away your guilt and the accompanying just punishments for your sins―that “thing” is something that we call “PERFECT CONTRITION” or “A PERFECT ACT OF CONTRITION” or “A CONTRITION OF LOVE”. The word “contrition” comes from Latin verb “conterere” and its past-participle “contritus” which literally means “worn down, ground to pieces, pounded to pieces, crushed, crumbled, wiped out, wiped away, wiped off, etc.” It is used in Church Latin in a figurative sense of “crushed in spirit by a sense of sin.” There are two kinds of sorrow for sin―one is ATTRITION, which is sorrow that is based on a fear of God’s punishments for sin, and this is the most common kind of sorrow that most people have. The other kind of sorrow―a far more superior sorrow―is that of CONTRITION, which is a sorrow that is based on a love of God rather than a fear of God. Contrition is being sorry on the grounds of having hurt someone who you love very much and who loves you―it is sorrow at having hurt a loved-one.
Perfect contrition has the power of removing all guilt of sin and all punishment due to sin. Is this a joke? Is it make-believe? Is it a fairy-tale? Wishful thinking? No―it is reality! A stupendous reality! A mind-boggling reality! A heart-warming reality! A reality that goes beyond the limits and boundaries of the mercy that we know here on Earth! Is it only a select few that can find access to such unimaginable mercy? No―it is open to each and every member of mankind. However, it is NOT UNCONDITIONAL MERCY regardless of what we feel and what we do―it is a mercy that has certain conditions attached to it. It is those conditions that we shall now examine and explain.
The Power of Love
If “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26) ― then you would think that all things are possible to charity! God Himself, Who is charity itself, says: “I am the Lord the God! Shall anything be hard for Me?” (Jeremias 32:27). God―being charity itself―manifests that charity through mercy: “I am the Lord thy God, … showing mercy unto thousands to them that love Me and keep My commandments!” (Exodus 20:6). If you want to acquire the power of charity in your own life, then you must begin by sowing the basic seed of charity: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word … He that loves Me not, keeps not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
Our Lord has stated that a strong Faith can bring about miracles from God: “If you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed … nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 17:19)―but Charity is even greater than Faith: “There are Faith, Hope, and Charity―these three―but the greatest of these is Charity!” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Not only is Charity the greatest virtue―it is also the greatest commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). The second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor who is made in the image and likeness of God: “And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). We cannot just love God and refuse to love our neighbor: “If any man say: ‘I love God!’ and hates his brother [neighbor/fellow man], then he is a liar! For he that does not love his brother [neighbor/fellow man] whom he sees, how can he love God Whom he cannot see?” (1 John 4:20). That is why sins against charity are greater than other sins―for God is charity, and the greatest commandment is not to believe in God, but to love God. The degree of a soul’s sanctity coincides with the degree of love in the soul. The greater the love of God and neighbor, the greater the holiness of the soul.
God Wants Fanatical Love
When you think about it―God is asking for a fanatical love of Him! What would we call someone who loves a sport/hobby/job with their whole heart, whole mind, whole soul and whole strength? We would call them a “fan” of something who has increased their love from a mere “fan” to that of a “fanatic”! What is fanaticism? Fanaticism is defined as “a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal or an obsessive enthusiasm; the pursuit or defense of something in an extreme and passionate way that goes beyond normality.” Isn’t that what sanctity or holiness is? In modern times “fanaticism” has been given negative sense―just like sanctity and holiness―but the word originates from the Latin noun “fanum” meaning “temple, shrine, sanctuary, consecrated place,” and Latin “-isma, -ismus”, from Greek “-ismos”, which is noun ending signifying the practice or teaching of a thing. The Latin word “fanaticus” means “enthusiastic, inspired by a god, a zealous person, person affected by enthusiasm.” Is that not what God from us? Of course He does! What else could “love with thy whole soul, whole mind, whole strength” possibly mean if not an extreme enthusiasm. God is extreme―extremely kind, extremely merciful, extremely powerful, extremely just, etc―and He wants us to be extreme―for if someone is perfect then they are extremely good. God can NEVER be loved too much―because He is infinite, He is infinitely good and therefore infinitely loveable. Why is it that most souls go to Hell (or Purgatory if they are lucky)? It is because they never became fanatics about God! Many were fanatical about something else than God!
Even the modern-day negative connotation of the word “fanatic” or “fanaticism” meaning “unwilling or unable to accept a differing point of view” is still fine by us―because we cannot accept another god except the One True God; we cannot accept a teaching that does not agree with the teaching of the One True God; we cannot accept another religion except the religion founded by the One True God (which since New Testament times is Catholicism―the only true form of Christianity).
Hence it is that we read that Faith―even if it can perform miracles―is worthless without Charity: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26) and “Faith works by charity” (Galatians 5:6). Faith is a springboard that should lead to Charity―we cannot love what we do not know―and Faith is all about knowing God and believing God, whereas Charity is all about loving God and proving that love by keeping His commandments and then suffering for His sake―even to the point of laying down our lives: “Greater love than this no man has―that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
The Imitation of Christ has a beautiful chapter describing the effects or the power of love: “Love is an excellent thing, a very great blessing, indeed. It makes every difficulty easy and bears all wrongs with calmness and evenness of temper. For it bears a burden without being weighed-down, and makes sweet all that is bitter. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, and does not plead impossibility―because it believes that it may and can do all things. Wearied―it is not tired. Pressed―it is not straitened. Alarmed―it is not confused, but like a living flame, a burning torch, it forces its way upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle. For this reason, it is able to do all, performing and effecting much, where he, who does not love, fails and falls. Love often knows no limits, but overflows all bounds. Love tends upward―it will not be held down by anything low. One who is in love flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free, not bound. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, long-suffering, and manly. Love is circumspect, humble, and upright. It is neither soft nor light, nor focused upon vain things. It is sober and chaste, firm and quiet, guarded in all the senses. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, or higher, or wider; nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in Heaven or on Earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is above all created things. If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice!” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 5: “The Wonderful Effect of Divine Love”).
The ultimate power of love or charity is the forgiveness of sins. Our Lord said of Mary Magdalen: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much” (Luke 7:47). The Old Testament had already affirmed this truth: “Charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12)―which is why St. Peter, in the New Testament, writes: “Before all things, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves―for charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). The greater the love, the greater the forgiveness. Love loves to forgive―mercy is a room in the mansion of charity―but love loves it own: “I love them that love Me!” (Proverbs 8:17) … “showing mercy unto thousands to them that love Me” (Exodus 20:6) … “showing mercy unto many thousands to them that love Me!” (Deuteronomy 5:10). Who are you most likely to forgive? Are you more disposed to forgive someone who loves you, or someone who does not love you, or someone who hates you? The answer is pretty obvious―or it should be! So that brings up the next question―“What is your love of God like? Is it lip-love, lip-service, words only―or is it sincere, from the heart and fervent?” The degree or level of your love is an indication of the likelihood of your salvation. Are you really and truly, sincerely and effectively trying to love God with your WHOLE heart, with your WHOLE mind, with your WHOLE soul and with your WHOLE strength? (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
Magnificent Mercy
The mercy of God extends beyond the borders of our puny limited minds―for as God says: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unjust man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him― for He is bountiful to forgive. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:7-9).
Contrition in General
God, in His justice, will allot to you the level of mercy that your contrition for sin deserves. Contrition is a pain of the soul and a hatred for sins committed. It must be accompanied by a good purpose, that is to say, a firm resolution to correct oneself and to sin no more.
► Contrition must be INTERIOR. What do we mean when we say that contrition must be interior? We mean that it is an interior act of the mind and will. In order for contrition to be real, it is necessary that it be interior, meaning that it comes from the depths of the heart; it must not then be a simple formula uttered without reflection. It is something independent of spoken words. The mind and heart must determine everything that is said in the Act of Contrition. Perfect Contrition is not necessarily shown by sighs or tears, etc. All those displays may be an exterior indicator, but they are not the interior essence of contrition. The essence of contrition resides in the soul and in the will ― it is determined to run away from sin and return to God.
► Contrition must be SOVEREIGN ― which is to say that our sorrow for sin must be far beyond the sorrow that we would have for anything in this world. Sin is the greatest evil. God’s grace and friendship are far greater in value than anything in this world; therefore, our sorrow at losing them by sin should be greater far than our sorrow at losing anything else.
► Contrition must be UNIVERSAL, that is to say, it must be understood to apply to all sins committed — at least of all mortal sins. The act of contrition must include all of the mortal sins. One may never keep even one pet sin. One either leaves all of his sins behind, or he keeps all of them for God’s just judgment at the moment of death. Sins when left alone will never pass away. For example, if you have committed ten mortal sins and you are sorry for nine mortal sins in Confession, but are not sorry for the tenth—then none of the ten mortal sins are forgiven—all ten remain in your soul.
► Contrition must be INTENSE. The word “detest” best expresses the intensity that we should have. We cannot be lukewarm or indifferent to sin. Sin is the greatest evil in the world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). We cannot simply say that we just “do not like sin”, but we must “detest” sin in the most intense way and our desire to not sin again must also be intense.
► Contrition must contain a FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT ― a firm resolution of sinning no more. Too many people only have a VAGUE purpose of amendment―they are imprecise, they do not make firm plans on how to avoid. Their purpose of amendment is in WORD ONLY. On the contrary, we must be prepared to avoid the occasions of sin and seriously make plans on how we will achieve that goal. Every person, place, or object that we have reason to know would be an occasion or cause to us of committing sin, must be carefully avoided. No matter how dear they may be to us; no matter how hard we may find it to avoid them, avoid them we must, or else our contrition is not contrition. It is only a mockery, a delusion, and a snare of the devil. A priest is not at liberty to give absolution to anyone who is not prepared to avoid the immediate occasions of sin.
The man that has a firm, real resolution of sinning no more does not easily relapse into sin. Where there is true contrition God gives His grace; and the grace of God does solid, substantial work, which is not likely to be blown down with every slight wind of temptation. Where there is true contrition the penitent yields, not without great efforts and struggle, and not until after he has fought a long and brave fight with the enemy. The relapsing sinner, on the contrary, shows that he has only a half purpose; not a firm full purpose. His will is half for God, and half for the devil. He is a double-minded man; and “a double-minded man is inconstant in all his ways” (James 1:8).
► Contrition must be SUPREME. When we say that the act of contrition must be supreme, we are saying that we must determine that we would rather die than commit a mortal sin. We must hate mortal sin (venial sin too, if possible) even more than death itself. Just think how careful we are about our lives. We will avoid the company of those who have a contagious sickness in order to save our life. We could take a leaf out of the book of St. Dominic Savio, who, as one of his resolutions before making his First Holy Communion, was: “Death rather than sin!”
► Contrition must also be SUPERNATURAL and not purely natural, for that has no use. This is why contrition, like every other good thing, must come from God and from His grace―that is what makes it supernatural. Only the grace of God can engender it in us. Contrition, whether perfect or imperfect, is a gift which we cannot have unless it be given us by God. However, God always grants us the necessary grace provided that we ask it of Him, provided that we possess good will and a sincere and supernatural repentance. Actual grace is the supernatural assistance that enlightens the mind to know the will of God and strengthens the will to do the will of God. Hence, before starting the act of contrition, it is good to ask for this special grace. Without it, the act of contrition is useless.
Secondly, the act must be supernatural as to “motive.” If our repentance is based on a motive of interest, or for a purely natural reason (for instance, temporal evils, shame, or illness), then we will only have natural contrition, without any merit. However, if it is based on some truth of the Faith (such as Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, God, etc.), then we will truly possess a supernatural contrition. This supernatural contrition can be, in turn, PERFECT or IMPERFECT — and here we are come to our topic of Perfect Contrition.
Types of Contrition
The two general divisions of contrition are (1) PERFECT CONTRITION, (2) IMPERFECT CONTRITION and (3) FALSE CONTRITION. Let us first of all explain them briefly before taking a closer look at them.
PERFECT CONTRITION: The superior contrition is Perfect Contrition ― which has to do with the fact that we have offended God Who is all good and desiring of our love. It is based upon a sorrow of having offended someone whom we love and who loves us. Fear takes a back seat―while love is in the driving seat: “Perfect charity casts out fear, because fear has pain. And he that fears, is not perfected in charity” (1 John 4:18). Perfect love will not only cast out fear, but it will also cast out sin and any love for sin.
IMPERFECT CONTRITION: The inferior motive (Imperfect Contrition) has to do with the dread of the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell. Together with the Sacraments of Baptism and Penance, the inferior motive (fearing the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell) is sufficient for forgiveness of all sins. However, outside of those Sacraments, only the superior motive (a sorrow―based on love, not fear―for having offended God who is all good) will suffice for the forgiveness of all sins.
FALSE CONTRITION: A false, faked or pretended contrition is the most common kind of contrition. False contrition is an attempt to either fool God, for the priest, or fool ourselves―or a mixture of these—because, tragically, most people don’t work hard at sinning no more. They don’t really hate all of their sins (only some sins) and do not strive to be perfect out of a fear of going to Hell or out of the love of God. They know that they will go back to their sins, just as they know they will go back to Confession. It becomes a revolving door between the rooms of sin and sanctifying grace. What these souls fail to realize is that their confessions are invalid because of this lack of true sorrow for sin and a lack of firm purpose of amendment.
Perfect Contrition
Let us look at Perfect Contrition in some more detail. Is there a way we can obtain the greatest mercy from God? Yes there is―it can be achieved by what we call “A PERFECT ACT OF CONTRITION.” Just as there degrees of mercy, there are also degrees of contrition. In a few words, Perfect Contrition is contrition based on the motive of love, and Imperfect Contrition is that which is based on the fear of God. Perfect Contrition is that which flows from the perfect love of God. Now, our love of God is perfect if we love Him because He is infinitely perfect, infinitely beautiful, and infinitely good (love of benevolence), or because He has shown us His love in a wonderful way (love of gratitude). Our love of God is imperfect, if we love Him because we expect something from Him.
Our contrition is perfect when we are sorry for our sins because sin offends God, Whom we love above all things for His own sake. Our Lord alluded to this when speaking of Mary Magdalen to Simon the Pharisee: “‘Wherefore I say to thee, her sins, many as they are, shall be forgiven her, because she has loved much. But he, to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ And He said to her, ‘Thy sins are forgiven.’ And they, who were at table with Him, began to say within themselves, ‘Who is this Man, who even forgives sins?’ But He said to the woman, ‘Thy Faith has saved thee! Go in peace!’” (Luke 7:47-50).
(1) This contrition arises from a pure and perfect love of God. If we have a perfect love of God, our contrition for sins will be perfect. It ought not to be difficult for us to have a perfect love of God. We generally love our parents not for the food and clothes they give us, but for themselves, because we see their self-sacrifice, their unselfishness, and other good qualities. Thus we shall be sorry, not only because we fear punishment or dread the loss of His gifts, but because we offend the good God, to Whom nothing is more evil than sin. If we can love our parents spontaneously, not for any reward we expect or punishment we wish to avoid, why can we not love God, Who is infinitely more lovable than our parents? If we love God spontaneously, because He is lovable in Himself, our love is perfect.
Where there is true contrition, there is a complete change of life: the “old man” is exchanged for the “new.” As Scripture says: “Put off the old man, who is corrupted, and put on the new man, who is created in justice and holiness of truth. Wherefore putting away sin, be angry, and sin not!” (Ephesians 4:22-26). The sinful pleasures, once loved, are now hated; the dangerous occasions of sin are avoided; the soul is filled with hope in the merciful forgiveness of God, and filled also with a desire to keep His commandments for the time to come.
(2) It is easy to make an act of Perfect Contrition if we sincerely love God. We can excite ourselves to it by thinking of the Passion, of how good God is, how many favors He has granted us, and how ungrateful we have been to Him in return for His goodness. By thinking of God’s gifts, we realize a little the goodness of God and His worthiness to be loved for His own sake. We then feel sorry for having offended our Benefactor by the sins we have committed. But do not delude yourself with the thought that you will put off your repentance till the moment of death, and that then you will make an act of Perfect Contrition. Perfect Contrition is a grace given only to those of good will, and if anyone were to abandon himself to a life of sin with the hope of a death-bed repentance, he would find himself face to face with a Judge Who will say, “You will seek Me, but you will die in your sins!” (John 8:21).
(3) If we happen to be assisting at a deathbed, and no priest is available, we should help the dying person make an act of Perfect Contrition―or it may even be ourselves on our own deathbed. First of all, we must bear in mind that Perfect Contrition is a grace―a great grace― from God. Everyone should constantly pray for it. Get the dying person to beg often: “My God! Give me perfect sorrow for my sins!” If (by interiorly praying for them) you can get them to sincerely mean those words, then Our Lord will answer the prayer and the grace will be given. Is it difficult to make an act of Perfect Contrition? No doubt it is more difficult to make an act of Perfect Contrition than an Imperfect one, which suffices when we go to Confession. But still, there is no one who, if he sincerely wishes it, cannot, with the grace of God, make an act of Perfect Contrition. Sorrow is in the will, not in the senses or feelings. All that is needed is that we repent because we love God above everything else; that is all. True it is that Perfect Contrition has its degrees, but it is none the less perfect because it does not reach the intensity and sublimity of the sorrow of St. Peter, of St. Mary Magdalene, or of St. Aloysius. Such a degree is very desirable, but is by no means necessary. A lesser degree, but, provided it proceeds from the love of God, and not through fear of His punishments, is quite sufficient.
(4) We should form the habit of making an act of Perfect Contrition as often as possible. How can we be sure our act of Perfect Contrition is actually perfect? We cannot know! Yet we must exercise our Faith, Hope and Charity in raising our hearts to God with a pure a love as possible, and say at least some words such as: “O my God, I am sorry that I ever offended Thee, because Thou art so good, and I love Thee!”
Imperfect Contrition
Our contrition is imperfect when we are sorry for our sins because they are hateful in themselves, or because we fear God’s punishment. If, in the act of Imperfect Contrition, fear of Hell is the prevailing motive; then the sinner is more in love with himself than he is with God.
(1) Imperfect Contrition is called attrition. The fear of Hell is a common motive of attrition. It is a good motive, but it is imperfect, because it arises from fear of God’s punishments, and not from pure love for Him. A mother sent her three young sons to take a big jar of honey to their grandmother. On the way the boys stopped to play. They stumbled over the jar, breaking it and spilling the honey. They all began to weep. The first said, “Mother will surely spank us?” The second cried, “She will be so displeased she will give us no cookies!” And the third wept, “Mother will surely be sad!” The first two boys had attrition: one had the fear of punishment, and the second had sorrow at the loss of reward. The third child had Perfect Contrition, for he thought only of the sadness and offense he caused to one he loved.
(2) To receive the Sacrament of Penance worthily, Imperfect Contrition is sufficient. However, an act of attrition cannot obtain forgiveness of mortal sin without the absolution of a priest. Even if we feel only attrition for our sins, we can easily develop it into Perfect Contrition by remembering what we should be without God. We should always try to have Perfect Contrition in the Sacrament of Penance. Nevertheless, as stated above, Perfect Contrition is a grace given only to those of good will, and if anyone were to abandon himself to a life of sin with the hope of a death-bed repentance, he would find himself face to face with a Judge Who will say, “You will seek Me, but you will die in your sins!” (John 8:21). Perfect Contrition requires the desire not to sin again. If you do not have that desire, you cannot have Perfect Contrition. Nevertheless, Imperfect Contrition cannot remove the entire punishment that is still due to our confessed―even after we have confessed and they have been forgiven. Only Perfect Contrition is capable of doing that.
(3) A purely servile fear of God is not sufficient for Imperfect Contrition. That is one which makes a person avoid sin only because of punishment: so that, if there were no punishment, he would not be sorry, but ready and resolved to sin, regardless of the laws of God. To receive the Sacrament of Penance worthily, purely servile fear would not be sufficient. We call this fear “servile” because it is the fear of slaves, afraid of a hard taskmaster; they would quickly disobey his commands were they not afraid of his whips. Shall we look upon God thus? Servile fear does not make the sinner turn away from his sin. The “fear of God” that produces attrition is called filial fear. It is a fear of God’s punishments that makes the sinner turn away from sin and return sincerely to God; it is the fear that a good son who has offended his father seriously feels when he begs forgiveness.
False Contrition
False contrition or false sorrow for sin is the most common kind of contrition or sorrow. False contrition is an attempt to either fool God, for the priest, or fool ourselves―or a mixture of these— because, tragically, most people don’t work hard at sinning no more. They don’t really hate all of their sins (only some sins) and do not strive to be perfect out of a fear of going to Hell or out of the love of God. Or they work hard for a short while, and then all efforts are thrown out the window ― like a failed diet ― it hasn’t become a way of life from a true hatred for their sins. That is why the path to Heaven is narrow and only “many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:23-24) ― because they lack the necessary saving sanctifying grace in their souls.
Where there is true contrition the penitent yields, not without great efforts and struggle, and not until after he has fought a long and brave fight with the enemy. The relapsing sinner, on the contrary, shows that he has only a half purpose; not a firm full purpose. His will is half for God, and half for the devil. He is a double-minded man; and “a double-minded man is inconstant in all his ways” (James 1:8). The best sign for knowing whether the contrition was good or bad, is the amendment of life, or the relapse of the sinner. “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matthew 7:20). Judging ourselves by this test, we should fear that when we received the Sacrament of Penance we often had only a false and a bad contrition for our sins! “Be not without fear for sins forgiven” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) ― that is to say, sins that are supposed to have been forgiven.
What if we thought our contrition sufficient, when in reality it was defective? Then would be a great mistake! The Sacrament of Penance received unworthily, would be to us a source of ruin and damnation! Penance is a plank after shipwreck; and, as in time of shipwreck few save themselves by a plank, so it is only a few that save themselves by the plank of penance. True penitents, it is to be feared, are very rare. The time of St. Ambrose was remarkable for its illustrious penitents, and yet the Saint goes so far as to say: “I have more easily found him who shall have preserved his innocence unspotted, than he who, after a fall, shall have done worthy penance.”
Fr. Leonard Goffine, in his liturgical book, The Church’s Year, writes: “If sinners intend to repent on their deathbed for fear of punishment, they usually find that God in His justice will no longer give them the grace of repentance, for he who, when he can repent will not repent, cannot when he will. ‘Who will not listen at the time of grace,’ says St. Gregory, ‘will not be listened to in the time of anxiety!’ And it is to be feared that he who postpones penance until old age, will not find justice where he looked for mercy.”
So we must always ask ourselves and answer this question: “Just why are you sorry for your sins? Is it because you fear God, or because you love God? Or are you just mechanically saying you are sorry out of routine, without really being afraid of God, nor loving God?”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, a Doctor of the Church and the patron saint of moral theologians, writes: “The preacher should often speak out against bad confessions, in which sins are concealed through shame. This is an evil not of rare occurrence, but frequent, especially in small country districts, which consigns innumerable souls to Hell. Hence it is very useful to mention, from time to time, some example of souls that were damned by willfully concealing sins in confession.” If the concealing or “fudging” of sins is so common according to St. Alphonsus―then how much more common is the lack of sufficient contrition for sins even if they are not concealed? All of this is tantamount to a spiritual suicide!
The Wonderful Effects of Perfect Contrition
You can really call Perfect Contrition the Key to Heaven. Who gets to go to Heaven? Before you can enter Heaven, you must free of the guilt of mortal sin, (2) you must be in state of sanctifying grace; and (3) you must have paid your debts for your mortal and venial sins.
Our Lord said of Mary Magdalen: “Wherefore I say to thee: Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much!” (Luke 7:47). The Venerable St. Bede, commenting on this, writes: “What is love but fire; what is sin but rust? Hence it is said: ‘Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much!’―as though to say―“She has burned away the rust of sin entirely, because she is inflamed with the fire of love.”
Once you have confessed your mortal sins properly, but with imperfect contrition, then the guilt for sin is taken away―but the debt for those sins remains. Too many people falsely imagine that the Sacrament of Confession automatically takes away both the guilt and the debt. However, if your sorrow for sin is intense enough, then it is possible for the Sacrament of Confession to remove not only your guilt but also your debt. If you confess your sins with perfect contrition, then ALL the guilt and debt are taken away―and if, at that moment, you died, then you could walk straight into Heaven. However, if your contrition is imperfect, then ALL the guilt is taken away in Confession, but a certain amount of debt remains that you will have to pay through penance, until the debt is eventually removed. If you die with the debt unpaid―even though you are in a state of sanctifying grace―you will not go to Heaven, but to fires of Purgatory to pay the remainder of the debt.
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us: “Mortal sin turns us away from God, it induces a debt of eternal punishment … Whosoever sins against the eternal Good should be punished eternally ... In venial sins, he incurs a debt, not of eternal punishment, but of temporal punishment. Consequently when guilt is pardoned through grace, the soul ceases to be turned away from God, through being united to God by grace―so, at the same time, the debt of punishment is taken away, although a debt of some temporal punishment may yet remain ... A debt of some punishment remains after the guilt has been forgiven ... The entire debt of punishment is not remitted at once after the first act of Penance (Confession)―by which the guilt is remitted―but only when all the acts of Penance have been completed ... Man, by bearing punishment patiently with the help of Divine grace, is thereby released from the debt of temporal punishment … Contrition is the cause of the forgiveness of sin … The intensity of contrition may be regarded in two ways. First, on the part of charity, which causes the displeasure―and in this way it may happen that the act of charity is so intense that the contrition resulting therefrom merits not only the removal of guilt, but also the remission of all punishment. Secondly, on the part of the sensible sorrow, which the will excites in contrition―and since this sorrow is also a kind of punishment, it may be so intense as to suffice for the remission of both guilt and punishment … Although the sorrow of contrition is finite in its intensity, even as the punishment due for mortal sin is finite; yet it derives infinite power from charity, whereby it is quickened, and so it avails for the remission of both guilt and punishment” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 3a, q. 86, art 4; Supplement, q. 5, art. 2).
Article 16
Wednesday July 26th & Thursday July 27th, 2023
Counting on the Mercy of God
Wednesday July 26th & Thursday July 27th, 2023
Counting on the Mercy of God
Counting Upon God
If you can’t count upon God―then who can you count on? If God is on our side, who can stand against us? “If God be for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31) ... “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses―but we will call upon the Name of the Lord our God!” (Psalm 19:8) … “They trust in their weapons―but we trust in the Almighty Lord, Who in a moment can utterly destroy both them that come against us, and the whole world!” (2 Machabees 8:18). “So may it be with those, O Lord, who trust in their numbers, and in their chariots, and in their lances, and in their shields, and in their arrows, and glory in their spears!” (Judith 9:9) … “It is good to trust in the Lord, rather than to trust in princes!” (Psalm 117:9) ... “Put not your trust in princes! … Say to the Lord: ‘Thou art my protector, and my refuge! My God, in Him will I trust!’” (Psalm 145:2; 90:2) … “O Lord my God, in Thee have I put my trust! Save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me!” (Psalm 7:2) … “God is the shield of all that trust in Him!” (2 Kings 22:31) … “God saves them that trust in Him!” (Daniel 13:60) … “The Lord is my firmament, my refuge, and my deliverer. My God is my helper, and in Him will I put my trust. He is my protector, my salvation, and my support!” (Psalm 17:3). “In God I have put my trust―I will not fear what flesh can do against me!” (Psalm 55:5) …
Let Sinners Count on God’s Mercy!
Are you a sinner? Then take hope and trust in God’s caring mercy for you. God Himself tells you: “Is it My will that a sinner should die, says the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live!” (Ezechiel 18:23) … “I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked person turn away from his wicked ways and live! Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways and why will you die?” (Ezechiel 33:11) ... “If the wicked person does penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all My commandments, and does judgment and justice, then living he shall live and he shall not die! I will not remember all his iniquities that he has done―for in the justice which he has wrought, he shall live! … Cast away from you all your transgressions by which you have transgressed, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit―and why will you die?” (Ezechiel 18:21-22, 31).
God does not desire your damnation―He even sent His Son to suffer and die for you! “God first loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins!” (1 John 4:10) … “He is the propitiation for our sins―and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world!” (1 John 2:2) … “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17) ... “The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14) ... “Know that He appeared so as to take away our sins” (1 John 3:5) … “Christ was delivered up for our sins!” (Romans 4:25) … “Christ died for all!” (2 Corinthians 5:15) … “God showed His charity towards us―because, when we were still sinners, Christ died for us! … When we were enemies of God through sin, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son!” (Romans 5:8-10) ... “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3) … “He gave Himself for our sins, so that he might deliver us from this present wicked world, according to the will of God and our Father!” (Galatians 1:4).
Christ Himself reinforces these truths, saying: “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32). We find those truths reiterated in Christ’s later revelations. To Sr. Josefa Menendez, Our Lord said: “My Heart takes comfort in forgiving. I have no greater desire, no greater joy, than when I can pardon a soul. When a soul returns to Me after a fall, the comfort she gives Me is a gain for her, for I regard her with very great love! I will make known that the measure of My love and mercy for fallen souls is limitless! I want to forgive them! It rests Me to forgive! … Never shall I weary of repentant sinners, nor cease from hoping for their return, and the greater their distress, the greater My welcome! … I pursue sinners as justice pursues criminals. But justice seeks them in order to punish, I, in order to forgive! … My Heart is not so much wounded by sin, as torn with grief that they will not take refuge with Me after it! … I want them all [souls] to have confidence in My mercy, to expect all from My clemency, and never to doubt My readiness to forgive. I am God, but a God of love! I am a Father, but a Father full of compassion and never harsh. My Heart is infinitely holy but also infinitely wise, and knowing human frailty and infirmity, stoops to poor sinners with infinite mercy! … Oh! If souls only realized how I wait for them in mercy. I am the love of all loves, and it is My joy to forgive! … Poor sinners, how blind they are! I want only to forgive them, and they seek only to offend Me. That is My great sorrow; that so many are lost and that they do not all come to Me to be forgiven!” (Our Lord to Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love).
Those words are simply an echo of Holy Scripture which seeks to give the sinner confidence in the mercy of God: “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 144:8-9) ... “He delights in mercy. He will have mercy on us! He will put away our iniquities and He will cast all our sins into the bottom of the sea!” (Micheas 7:18-19) … “I am He that blot out thy iniquities, for My own sake, and I will not remember thy sins!” (Isaias 43:25) … “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow―and if they be red as crimson, they shall be made white as wool!” (Isaias 1:18).
Count on Changing if You Count on Mercy!
If we want to count on God’s mercy, then we also have to count on changing our sinful lives. The infinite mercy of God does not give us a license to sin infinitely! The infinite mercy of God does not mean that can get way without having to pay for sin! These false ideas are clearly and easily shot-down by the words of Our Lord and Holy Scripture. Even though Our Lord said: “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56) ... “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) ― He also said: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32) … “Go, and now sin no more!’” (John 8:11) … “Do penance!” (Matthew 4:17) … “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). “He then began to upbraid the cities wherein they had not done penance” (Matthew 11:20).
Sin is sin―and that will never change! God hates sin―and God will never change: “For I am the Lord, and I change not!” (Malachias 3:6) … “With Whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration!” (James 1:17). If you want to be sure that you can count on God’s mercy, YOU have to change YOUR life: “If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above! Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth! Mortify yourself from fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, and covetousness! … Put away anger, indignation, malice, blasphemy, filthy speech out of your mouth! Do not lie to one another! Strip yourselves of the old man with his evil deeds, and put on the new man, according to the image of God Who created him! Put on the bowels of mercy … bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another―even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so do you also!” (Colossians 3:1-13). “Cast off the old man, who is corrupted, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind! Put on the new man, who God created in justice and holiness!” (Ephesians 4:22-24). “Make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!” (Ezechiel 18:31). “I will give you a new heart and will put a new spirit within you! And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh!” (Ezechiel 36:26).
“Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption [death and damnation]. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8). Who on Earth does not need to change for the better? Everyone needs to change for the better―because everyone is a sinner: “Thy heart is not right in the sight of God!” (Acts 8:21) … “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin!’?” (Proverbs 20:9). Who dare say: “I am clean, and without sin! I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me!” (Job 33:9) “There is no just man upon Earth that does good and sins not!” (Ecclesiastes 7:21). “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God!” (Romans 3:23). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10).
Change from Worldliness and Sinfulness to Godliness and Holiness
“Christ died for all so that they who live, may no longer live for themselves, but for Him Who died for them! … I live, now not I―but Christ lives in me! … If then any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away, all things are made new! … The world is crucified to me, and I to the world! … Be not conformed to this world, but be reformed in the newness of your mind! … Awake, ye just, and sin not! … Reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus our Lord! … Whosoever is born of God, does not commit sin! … He that commits sin is of the devil! … “The unjust has said within himself that he would sin―there is no fear of God before his eyes!” (Psalm 35:2) … The fear of the Lord drives out sin! … Being made free from sin, become servants to God! … We shall have many good things if we fear God and depart from all sin, and do that which is good!” (2 Corinthians 5:15-17, Galatians 2:20; 6:14; 1 Corinthians 15:34; Romans 12:2; 6:11; 6:22; 1 John 3:8-9; Ecclesiasticus 1:27; Tobias 4:23).
Time for Change Eventually Runs Out!
We look around us and we see sinners sinning with apparent impunity―imagining that nothing will happen to them. Holy Scripture warns of this: “In the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts, saying: ‘Where is Christ’s promise or His coming?’ … Be not ignorant―one day with the Lord is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day! The Lord delays not His promise, as some imagine, but deals patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance! But the day of the Lord’s coming shall come unexpectedly like a thief! … The day of the Lord shall so come, as a thief in the night! For when they shall say to each other: ‘We have peace and security!’ then all of a sudden destruction shall come upon them, and they shall not escape! … You ought, then, to be in holy conversation and godliness … diligent, so that you may be found to be unspotted and blameless before Him!” (2 Peter 3:3-14; 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3).
Some Things Never Change!
We are forever changing―changing our minds, changing our opinions, changing our desires, changing our goals―but God does not change! “The heart of a man changes” (Ecclesiasticus 13:31). “I am the Lord, and I change not!” (Malachias 3:6) … “With God there is no change, nor shadow of alteration!” (James 1:17). There is no change in God’s views and opinions of sin―they always have been and always will be the same: “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23) … “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56) … “Sin hath reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21) … “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15) … “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16).
Most Protestants are victims of the misguided and erroneous belief that Christ has paid for all our sins by His death on the cross―and that we don’t have to pay for sin, since Christ already paid for the debt of everyone’s sins! They will quote Scriptural passages such as the following:
“Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many” (Hebrews 9:28). “Who His own self bore our sins in His Body upon the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). “Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust” (1 Peter 3:18). “He is the propitiation for our sins―and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world!” (1 John 2:2). “When you were dead in your offences and sins” (Ephesians 2:1) ... “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3) … “that He might be a propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17) … “Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us” (Galatians 1:4]). “In Whom we have redemption and the remission of sins through His Blood” (Ephesians 1:7). “Jesus Christ has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own Blood!” (Apocalypse 1:5). “The Blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
Nevertheless, all that does not change the fact that sin has to be confessed, not repeated, and must be paid for. Yes―Christ has technically paid for sin―”Christ died once for our sins” (1 Peter 3:18)―but we must prove the sincerity of our alleged hatred for sin by “co-paying” with Christ. “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make God to be a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10).
Payment for Sin Gives No Change!
When it comes to paying for sin, we are told: “Charity covers a multitude of sins!” (1 Peter 4:8)―we speak of “covering” costs, “covering” debts, etc. Therefore, in this context, “covering” is the same as “paying”. If charity “covers” a multitude of sins, then it means that charity “pays” for a multitude of sins. Why bother saying “Charity covers a multitude of sins!” if Christ has paid for all our sins, why bother saying that charity pays for many sins? By “co-paying” for our sins we (1) admit that we have sinned―why pay a fine if you have done nothing wrong? (2) By “co-paying” we also take responsibility for our sins and the damage they caused―why pay for repairs if there nothing to repair, or if you have not broken anything? (3) By “co-paying” we also experience some kind of loss or pain―why accept pain or punishment if you have done nothing wrong?
It also has to be said that penance also pays for sin. If Christ paid every last penny of our sinful debt with God―leaving us with nothing at all to pay for―then why would Holy Scripture and Christ say the following:
“John was in the desert baptizing, and preaching the baptism of penance … And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins … And John the Baptist came preaching and saying: ‘Do penance! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! … Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance! … Every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire!’” (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3, 9; Matthew 3:1-2, 8).
Christ Himself said: “I came to call sinners to penance! … From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say: ‘Do penance, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein were done the most of his miracles, for that they had not done penance: ‘Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida! For if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles and mighty works that have been wrought in you, they would have done penance in sackcloth and ashes long ago! … The men of Ninive shall rise in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they did penance at the preaching of Jonas; and behold someone more than Jonas is here! … I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … Again I say to you; except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance! … I say to you, there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance!’ … And Jesus said to them that penance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name, unto all nations! … And they, going forth, preached that men should do penance!” (Matthew 4:17; 11:20-21; Luke 5:32; 10:13; 11:32; 13:3-5; 15:7, 10; 24:46-67; Mark 6:12).
The Apostles preached penance: “Peter said to them: ‘Do penance … for the remission of your sins!’” (Acts 2:38) … “Know you not that God leads you to penance?” (Romans 2:4) … “God now declares unto men that all should everywhere do penance!” (Acts 17:30). “The Lord deals patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9). “Be zealous therefore, and do penance!” (Apocalypse 3:19). “Do penance for thy wickedness; and pray to God that this may be forgiven thee!” (Acts 8:22).
From the earliest days of the Church, penance has been preached, understood, accepted and performed. At first, post-Baptism repentance mostly was practiced for grievous, scandalous, public sins like murder (including abortion), apostasy or adultery. These sins resulted in severe, lengthy and public penances. By the second century, especially in the East, people widely held that penance for mortal sin was available only once in a lifetime — that is, as there was (is) no second Baptism, there was no second penance. Those who sinned again were at the mercy of God. Between A.D. 387-90, St. Ambrose wrote: “Rightly are they reproved who think that they can do penance repeatedly; for they are making a farce of Christ. Indeed, if they truly did penance, they would take no thought of repeating it afterwards. For just as there is one Baptism, so, too, is there one penance, which, however, is done publicly; for it is necessary to repent of daily sin; this latter, however, is of lesser faults, the former of the more grave.”
Our Lady’s words show that there is no change in the demand for penance. In Quito (Ecuador), in the 1600s, Our Lady of Good Success said: ““Communities can only be preserved at the cost of much penance!” At La Salette (France), in 1846, Our Lady lamented: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance!” She added that eventually everyone would be brought to their knees: “After all these chastisements will have arrived, many will recognize the hand of God on them, they will convert, and do penance for their sins.… Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy!” At Lourdes (France), in 1858, Our Lady repeatedly demanded: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” At Akita (Japan), in 1973, Our Lady pointed out: “Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger!”
Sister Lucia of Fatima passed on Heaven’s revelations to us, saying: “The chastisement from Heaven is imminent … if the world does not pray and do penance! … We are in of losing our souls for all eternity if we remain fixed in sin! … We should not wait for a call from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to the world to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No, Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed. So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually!” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
If you can’t count upon God―then who can you count on? If God is on our side, who can stand against us? “If God be for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31) ... “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses―but we will call upon the Name of the Lord our God!” (Psalm 19:8) … “They trust in their weapons―but we trust in the Almighty Lord, Who in a moment can utterly destroy both them that come against us, and the whole world!” (2 Machabees 8:18). “So may it be with those, O Lord, who trust in their numbers, and in their chariots, and in their lances, and in their shields, and in their arrows, and glory in their spears!” (Judith 9:9) … “It is good to trust in the Lord, rather than to trust in princes!” (Psalm 117:9) ... “Put not your trust in princes! … Say to the Lord: ‘Thou art my protector, and my refuge! My God, in Him will I trust!’” (Psalm 145:2; 90:2) … “O Lord my God, in Thee have I put my trust! Save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me!” (Psalm 7:2) … “God is the shield of all that trust in Him!” (2 Kings 22:31) … “God saves them that trust in Him!” (Daniel 13:60) … “The Lord is my firmament, my refuge, and my deliverer. My God is my helper, and in Him will I put my trust. He is my protector, my salvation, and my support!” (Psalm 17:3). “In God I have put my trust―I will not fear what flesh can do against me!” (Psalm 55:5) …
Let Sinners Count on God’s Mercy!
Are you a sinner? Then take hope and trust in God’s caring mercy for you. God Himself tells you: “Is it My will that a sinner should die, says the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live!” (Ezechiel 18:23) … “I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked person turn away from his wicked ways and live! Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways and why will you die?” (Ezechiel 33:11) ... “If the wicked person does penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all My commandments, and does judgment and justice, then living he shall live and he shall not die! I will not remember all his iniquities that he has done―for in the justice which he has wrought, he shall live! … Cast away from you all your transgressions by which you have transgressed, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit―and why will you die?” (Ezechiel 18:21-22, 31).
God does not desire your damnation―He even sent His Son to suffer and die for you! “God first loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins!” (1 John 4:10) … “He is the propitiation for our sins―and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world!” (1 John 2:2) … “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17) ... “The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14) ... “Know that He appeared so as to take away our sins” (1 John 3:5) … “Christ was delivered up for our sins!” (Romans 4:25) … “Christ died for all!” (2 Corinthians 5:15) … “God showed His charity towards us―because, when we were still sinners, Christ died for us! … When we were enemies of God through sin, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son!” (Romans 5:8-10) ... “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3) … “He gave Himself for our sins, so that he might deliver us from this present wicked world, according to the will of God and our Father!” (Galatians 1:4).
Christ Himself reinforces these truths, saying: “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32). We find those truths reiterated in Christ’s later revelations. To Sr. Josefa Menendez, Our Lord said: “My Heart takes comfort in forgiving. I have no greater desire, no greater joy, than when I can pardon a soul. When a soul returns to Me after a fall, the comfort she gives Me is a gain for her, for I regard her with very great love! I will make known that the measure of My love and mercy for fallen souls is limitless! I want to forgive them! It rests Me to forgive! … Never shall I weary of repentant sinners, nor cease from hoping for their return, and the greater their distress, the greater My welcome! … I pursue sinners as justice pursues criminals. But justice seeks them in order to punish, I, in order to forgive! … My Heart is not so much wounded by sin, as torn with grief that they will not take refuge with Me after it! … I want them all [souls] to have confidence in My mercy, to expect all from My clemency, and never to doubt My readiness to forgive. I am God, but a God of love! I am a Father, but a Father full of compassion and never harsh. My Heart is infinitely holy but also infinitely wise, and knowing human frailty and infirmity, stoops to poor sinners with infinite mercy! … Oh! If souls only realized how I wait for them in mercy. I am the love of all loves, and it is My joy to forgive! … Poor sinners, how blind they are! I want only to forgive them, and they seek only to offend Me. That is My great sorrow; that so many are lost and that they do not all come to Me to be forgiven!” (Our Lord to Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love).
Those words are simply an echo of Holy Scripture which seeks to give the sinner confidence in the mercy of God: “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 144:8-9) ... “He delights in mercy. He will have mercy on us! He will put away our iniquities and He will cast all our sins into the bottom of the sea!” (Micheas 7:18-19) … “I am He that blot out thy iniquities, for My own sake, and I will not remember thy sins!” (Isaias 43:25) … “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow―and if they be red as crimson, they shall be made white as wool!” (Isaias 1:18).
Count on Changing if You Count on Mercy!
If we want to count on God’s mercy, then we also have to count on changing our sinful lives. The infinite mercy of God does not give us a license to sin infinitely! The infinite mercy of God does not mean that can get way without having to pay for sin! These false ideas are clearly and easily shot-down by the words of Our Lord and Holy Scripture. Even though Our Lord said: “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56) ... “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) ― He also said: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32) … “Go, and now sin no more!’” (John 8:11) … “Do penance!” (Matthew 4:17) … “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). “He then began to upbraid the cities wherein they had not done penance” (Matthew 11:20).
Sin is sin―and that will never change! God hates sin―and God will never change: “For I am the Lord, and I change not!” (Malachias 3:6) … “With Whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration!” (James 1:17). If you want to be sure that you can count on God’s mercy, YOU have to change YOUR life: “If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above! Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth! Mortify yourself from fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, and covetousness! … Put away anger, indignation, malice, blasphemy, filthy speech out of your mouth! Do not lie to one another! Strip yourselves of the old man with his evil deeds, and put on the new man, according to the image of God Who created him! Put on the bowels of mercy … bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another―even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so do you also!” (Colossians 3:1-13). “Cast off the old man, who is corrupted, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind! Put on the new man, who God created in justice and holiness!” (Ephesians 4:22-24). “Make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!” (Ezechiel 18:31). “I will give you a new heart and will put a new spirit within you! And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh!” (Ezechiel 36:26).
“Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption [death and damnation]. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8). Who on Earth does not need to change for the better? Everyone needs to change for the better―because everyone is a sinner: “Thy heart is not right in the sight of God!” (Acts 8:21) … “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin!’?” (Proverbs 20:9). Who dare say: “I am clean, and without sin! I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me!” (Job 33:9) “There is no just man upon Earth that does good and sins not!” (Ecclesiastes 7:21). “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God!” (Romans 3:23). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10).
Change from Worldliness and Sinfulness to Godliness and Holiness
“Christ died for all so that they who live, may no longer live for themselves, but for Him Who died for them! … I live, now not I―but Christ lives in me! … If then any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away, all things are made new! … The world is crucified to me, and I to the world! … Be not conformed to this world, but be reformed in the newness of your mind! … Awake, ye just, and sin not! … Reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus our Lord! … Whosoever is born of God, does not commit sin! … He that commits sin is of the devil! … “The unjust has said within himself that he would sin―there is no fear of God before his eyes!” (Psalm 35:2) … The fear of the Lord drives out sin! … Being made free from sin, become servants to God! … We shall have many good things if we fear God and depart from all sin, and do that which is good!” (2 Corinthians 5:15-17, Galatians 2:20; 6:14; 1 Corinthians 15:34; Romans 12:2; 6:11; 6:22; 1 John 3:8-9; Ecclesiasticus 1:27; Tobias 4:23).
Time for Change Eventually Runs Out!
We look around us and we see sinners sinning with apparent impunity―imagining that nothing will happen to them. Holy Scripture warns of this: “In the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts, saying: ‘Where is Christ’s promise or His coming?’ … Be not ignorant―one day with the Lord is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day! The Lord delays not His promise, as some imagine, but deals patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance! But the day of the Lord’s coming shall come unexpectedly like a thief! … The day of the Lord shall so come, as a thief in the night! For when they shall say to each other: ‘We have peace and security!’ then all of a sudden destruction shall come upon them, and they shall not escape! … You ought, then, to be in holy conversation and godliness … diligent, so that you may be found to be unspotted and blameless before Him!” (2 Peter 3:3-14; 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3).
Some Things Never Change!
We are forever changing―changing our minds, changing our opinions, changing our desires, changing our goals―but God does not change! “The heart of a man changes” (Ecclesiasticus 13:31). “I am the Lord, and I change not!” (Malachias 3:6) … “With God there is no change, nor shadow of alteration!” (James 1:17). There is no change in God’s views and opinions of sin―they always have been and always will be the same: “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23) … “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56) … “Sin hath reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21) … “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15) … “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16).
Most Protestants are victims of the misguided and erroneous belief that Christ has paid for all our sins by His death on the cross―and that we don’t have to pay for sin, since Christ already paid for the debt of everyone’s sins! They will quote Scriptural passages such as the following:
“Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many” (Hebrews 9:28). “Who His own self bore our sins in His Body upon the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). “Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust” (1 Peter 3:18). “He is the propitiation for our sins―and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world!” (1 John 2:2). “When you were dead in your offences and sins” (Ephesians 2:1) ... “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3) … “that He might be a propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17) … “Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us” (Galatians 1:4]). “In Whom we have redemption and the remission of sins through His Blood” (Ephesians 1:7). “Jesus Christ has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own Blood!” (Apocalypse 1:5). “The Blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
Nevertheless, all that does not change the fact that sin has to be confessed, not repeated, and must be paid for. Yes―Christ has technically paid for sin―”Christ died once for our sins” (1 Peter 3:18)―but we must prove the sincerity of our alleged hatred for sin by “co-paying” with Christ. “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make God to be a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10).
Payment for Sin Gives No Change!
When it comes to paying for sin, we are told: “Charity covers a multitude of sins!” (1 Peter 4:8)―we speak of “covering” costs, “covering” debts, etc. Therefore, in this context, “covering” is the same as “paying”. If charity “covers” a multitude of sins, then it means that charity “pays” for a multitude of sins. Why bother saying “Charity covers a multitude of sins!” if Christ has paid for all our sins, why bother saying that charity pays for many sins? By “co-paying” for our sins we (1) admit that we have sinned―why pay a fine if you have done nothing wrong? (2) By “co-paying” we also take responsibility for our sins and the damage they caused―why pay for repairs if there nothing to repair, or if you have not broken anything? (3) By “co-paying” we also experience some kind of loss or pain―why accept pain or punishment if you have done nothing wrong?
It also has to be said that penance also pays for sin. If Christ paid every last penny of our sinful debt with God―leaving us with nothing at all to pay for―then why would Holy Scripture and Christ say the following:
“John was in the desert baptizing, and preaching the baptism of penance … And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins … And John the Baptist came preaching and saying: ‘Do penance! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! … Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance! … Every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire!’” (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3, 9; Matthew 3:1-2, 8).
Christ Himself said: “I came to call sinners to penance! … From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say: ‘Do penance, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein were done the most of his miracles, for that they had not done penance: ‘Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida! For if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles and mighty works that have been wrought in you, they would have done penance in sackcloth and ashes long ago! … The men of Ninive shall rise in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they did penance at the preaching of Jonas; and behold someone more than Jonas is here! … I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … Again I say to you; except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance! … I say to you, there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance!’ … And Jesus said to them that penance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name, unto all nations! … And they, going forth, preached that men should do penance!” (Matthew 4:17; 11:20-21; Luke 5:32; 10:13; 11:32; 13:3-5; 15:7, 10; 24:46-67; Mark 6:12).
The Apostles preached penance: “Peter said to them: ‘Do penance … for the remission of your sins!’” (Acts 2:38) … “Know you not that God leads you to penance?” (Romans 2:4) … “God now declares unto men that all should everywhere do penance!” (Acts 17:30). “The Lord deals patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9). “Be zealous therefore, and do penance!” (Apocalypse 3:19). “Do penance for thy wickedness; and pray to God that this may be forgiven thee!” (Acts 8:22).
From the earliest days of the Church, penance has been preached, understood, accepted and performed. At first, post-Baptism repentance mostly was practiced for grievous, scandalous, public sins like murder (including abortion), apostasy or adultery. These sins resulted in severe, lengthy and public penances. By the second century, especially in the East, people widely held that penance for mortal sin was available only once in a lifetime — that is, as there was (is) no second Baptism, there was no second penance. Those who sinned again were at the mercy of God. Between A.D. 387-90, St. Ambrose wrote: “Rightly are they reproved who think that they can do penance repeatedly; for they are making a farce of Christ. Indeed, if they truly did penance, they would take no thought of repeating it afterwards. For just as there is one Baptism, so, too, is there one penance, which, however, is done publicly; for it is necessary to repent of daily sin; this latter, however, is of lesser faults, the former of the more grave.”
Our Lady’s words show that there is no change in the demand for penance. In Quito (Ecuador), in the 1600s, Our Lady of Good Success said: ““Communities can only be preserved at the cost of much penance!” At La Salette (France), in 1846, Our Lady lamented: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance!” She added that eventually everyone would be brought to their knees: “After all these chastisements will have arrived, many will recognize the hand of God on them, they will convert, and do penance for their sins.… Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy!” At Lourdes (France), in 1858, Our Lady repeatedly demanded: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” At Akita (Japan), in 1973, Our Lady pointed out: “Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger!”
Sister Lucia of Fatima passed on Heaven’s revelations to us, saying: “The chastisement from Heaven is imminent … if the world does not pray and do penance! … We are in of losing our souls for all eternity if we remain fixed in sin! … We should not wait for a call from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to the world to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No, Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed. So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually!” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Article 15
Monday July 24th & Tuesday July 25th, 2023
Give Mercy In Order to Get Mercy
Monday July 24th & Tuesday July 25th, 2023
Give Mercy In Order to Get Mercy
Snack on Some Merciful Snacks!
Mercy is sweet! Some might think sin is sweet―but sin turns bitter once you bite into it! Mercy is sweeter than sin! We all desire sweet mercy! There is nothing sweeter to our taste! Here are a few one bit tasters on mercy that you can snack on before we serve up the main meal of mercy:
“The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works!” (Psalm 144:9).
“Grow unto salvation … laying away all malice, and all guile, and dissimulations, and envies, and all detractions … you have tasted that the Lord is sweet!” (1 Peter 2:1-3).
“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy!” (Romans 9:15).
“If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow―and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool!” (Isaias 1:18).
“The Lord is gracious and merciful; patient and plenteous in mercy!” (Psalm 144:8).
“Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful!” (Luke 6:36).
“Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, being merciful!” (1 Peter 3:8).
“Be ye kind one to another; merciful, forgiving one another, even as God has forgiven you in Christ!” (Ephesians 4:32).
“If you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences!” (Matthew 6:14).
“Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7).
“Judgment without mercy to him that has not shown mercy!” (James 2:13).
Tastes good, huh? There is nothing that delights our palate as much as the sweet taste of mercy! Yet if we seek to feast on mercy on our Day of Judgment, then we must take care to have served mercy to others while still here on Earth! “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who sows in blessings [mercy], shall also reap blessings [mercy]” (2 Corinthians 9:6).
The Riches and Depths of God’s Mercy
The first thing to “get straight” in our minds is that our idea of mercy might not be what God’s idea of mercy is: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unjust man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God―for He is bountiful to forgive. For My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:7-9).
“Who has forwarded the spirit of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor, and has taught Him?” (Isaias 40:13). “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?” (Romans 11:34). “For the Lord said to Moses: ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy!’” (Romans 9:15). “O the Lord, the Lord God―merciful and gracious, patient and of much compassion, and true! Who shows mercy unto thousands! Who takes away iniquity, and wickedness, and sin! And no man, of himself, is innocent before thee!” (Exodus 34:6-7). Which is why the prophet Baruch cries out: “Hear, O Lord, and have mercy! For Thou art a merciful God! Have pity on us! For we have sinned before Thee!” (Baruch 3:2).
In the Second Book of Paralipomenon (sometimes called the Book of Chronicles), we see the mercy of God being emphatically repeated many times: “Give ye glory to the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endures for ever” (1 Paralipomenon 16:34). “Give praise to the Lord: because His mercy endures for ever.” (1 Paralipomenon 16:41).
“They began to praise the Lord, and to say: ‘Give glory to the Lord for He is good, for His mercy endures for ever!’” (2 Paralipomenon 5:13). “Moreover all the children of Israel saw the fire coming down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house, and falling down with their faces to the ground, upon the stone pavement, they adored and praised the Lord: because He is good, because His mercy endures for ever!” (2 Paralipomenon 7:3). “Praise the Lord: because His mercy endures for ever!” (2 Paralipomenon 7:6). “Give glory to the Lord, for His mercy endures for ever!” (2 Paralipomenon 20:21).
Yet it is not only that book of the Bible that says this—we find the same echoed elsewhere, showing that it is not an isolated thought and sentiment. “And they sung together hymns, and praise to the Lord because He is good, for His mercy endures for ever!” (1 Esdras 3:11). “Give all of you glory to Him, because He is good, because His mercy endures for ever” (Judith 13:21).
The Book of Psalms is even more replete with this exultation in and exaltation of the mercy of God: “The Lord is sweet, His mercy endures for ever!” (Psalms 99:5). Some people have a tough time thinking God can be sweet—which is strange, since most people have a “sweet-tooth” and we consume enormous amounts of sugar (directly or indirectly) each year! Perhaps some Catholics need to “sweeten” their sense of justice, so as to temper its bitterness, and then perhaps they may be able to taste the mercies of God: “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). “The just are merciful, and show mercy” (Proverbs 13:13). “Judgment without mercy to him that has not shown mercy!” (James 2:13).
The Book of Psalms continues: “The Lord is merciful and just, and our God shows mercy!” (Psalm 114:5). “Alleluia. Give glory to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures for ever!” (Psalm 105:1). The very next Psalm opens with the same words: “Give glory to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures for ever!” (Psalm 106:1). A later Psalm (117) repeats the same message four times in its first four verses! “Give praise to Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endures for ever! Let Israel now say that He is good: that His mercy endures for ever! Let the house of Aaron now say, that His mercy endures for ever! Let them that fear the Lord now say, that His mercy endures for ever!” (Psalm 117:1-4).
If you think that is “going overboard”, then wait till you get to Psalm 135! Every single verse of the Psalm hammers home the mercy of God!
“Praise the Lord, for He is good―for His mercy endures for ever.
Praise ye the God of gods―for His mercy endures for ever.
Praise ye the Lord of lords―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who alone doth great wonders―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who made the heavens in understanding―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who established the earth above the waters―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who made the great lights―for His mercy endures for ever.
The sun to rule over the day―for His mercy endures for ever.
The moon and the stars to rule the night―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who smote Egypt with their firstborn―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who brought Israel from among them―for His mercy endures for ever.
With a mighty hand and a stretched out arm―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who divided the Red Sea into parts―for His mercy endures for ever.
And brought out Israel through the midst thereof―for His mercy endures for ever.
And overthrew Pharao and his army in the Red Sea―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who led His people through the desert―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who smote great kings―for His mercy endures for ever.
And slew strong kings―for His mercy endures for ever.
Sehon king of the Amorrhites―for His mercy endures for ever.
And Og king of Basan―for His mercy endures for ever.
And He gave their land for an inheritance―for His mercy endures for ever.
For an inheritance to His servant Israel: for His mercy endures for ever
For He was mindful of us in our affliction―for His mercy endures for ever.
And He redeemed us from our enemies―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who gives food to all flesh―for His mercy endures for ever.
Give glory to the God of Heaven―for His mercy endures for ever.
Give glory to the Lord of lords―for His mercy endures for ever.” (Psalm 135:1-27).
Had enough of mercy yet? Sick and tired of mercy yet? You had better not be! Our list or catalogue of sins is far longer than that Psalm! Even the number of our sins of one single day—be they mortal or venial—are far more numerous than the 27 mentions of mercy in that Psalm! How many sins have you committed in your whole lifetime? Do not forget that sin―whether it be mortal or venial―is the GREATEST EVIL ON EARTH! “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). How many times have you committed the greatest evil on Earth? How many times have you been forgiven? How much mercy has God shown to you?
Mercy Runs in God’s Family
Holy Scripture says: “As the mother was, so also is her daughter!” (Ezechiel 16:44), from which we get our more known proverb: “Like father like son―Like mother like daughter!” The Latin version of this expression is “Qualis pater, talis filius―Qualis mater, talis filia.” All of which means that a son or daughter shows similarities to his or her father or mother in mannerisms, interests, behavior, etc. This would be fine if we only imitated the good qualities of our parents―but unfortunately we also imitate their bad characteristics.
We should not only imitate our earthly parents, but also the qualities of our heavenly Father too! Our Lord commands: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). If―as Holy Scripture tells us―“The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 144:9), then Our Lord could just have well as said: “Be you therefore merciful, as also your heavenly Father is merciful!” ― because He says, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). Mercy is like blood that circulates throughout the body―you could say that mercy is the Precious Blood of Jesus that should circulate throughout the Mystical Body of Christ. We should ensure we actually help that merciful Blood circulate―and not be the cause of a blood clot, which can lead to a stroke and even death. We receive the Blood of Christ and we should pass on the Blood of Christ―we receive mercy through His Blood and we should show mercy. “I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you” (1 Corinthians 11:23).
Mass Mercy in the Mass of Mercy
We go to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―which could be said to be the “Altar of Mercy” for it is the same Sacrifice as that of Calvary―in order to receive the fruits of Christ’s merciful Sacrifice. The whole liturgy of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is loaded with admission of sinful guilt and pleas for mercy:
In the Confiteor and the prayers immediately following, we say: “I confess to Almighty God … that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault! … Pray to the Lord our God for me! … May almighty God be merciful to thee, forgiving thy sins! … May the almighty and merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution, and remission of our sins! … Take away from us our iniquities! … Forgive me all my sins!” (Confiteor) … In the Kyrie Eleison, we say: “Lord have mercy! Christ have mercy! Lord have mercy!” (Kyrie) … In the Gloria in Excelsis Deo, we pray: “O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father. Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us! Who takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer! Who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us!”
During the Offertory we pray: “Accept … this unspotted host … for my innumerable sins, offenses, and negligences! … We offer Thee, O Lord, the chalice of salvation, beseeching Thy clemency! … Redeem me, and have mercy on me!” … In the Canon of the Mass, we pray: “We offer this sacrifice … for the redemption, health and salvation! … Preserve us from eternal damnation!” At the Consecration―the very heart of the Mass―Our Lord, through the mouth of the priest, tells us: “This is the chalice of My Blood … which shall be shed for you and for many, unto the remission of sins!” In the second part of the Canon of the Mass, we pray: “To us, Thy sinful servants, confiding in the multitude of Thy mercies, grant us fellowship with Thy holy Apostles and Martyrs … and with all Thy Saints, into whose company we beseech Thee to admit us, not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offenses!”
During the Pater Noster (Our Father) and the prayer that follows, we pray: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us! … Mercifully grant that, through the assistance of Thy mercy, we may always be free from sin!” In the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God), we repeatedly beg: “Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us!” In the prayers immediately following, we pray: “Deliver me by this, Thy most sacred Body and Blood, from all my iniquities and from all evils! … Let not the partaking of Thy Body, O Lord, Jesus Christ, which I, though unworthy, presume to receive, turn to my judgment and condemnation; but let it, through Thy mercy, become a safeguard and remedy, both for soul and body!” After which we repeatedly insist: “Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof; say but the word, and my soul shall be healed!” At the end of Mass, before the Last Gospel, we pray: “May … my homage be pleasing to Thee … and grant that the Sacrifice which I, though unworthy, have offered up in the sight of Thy Majesty, may be acceptable to Thee, and through Thy mercy, be a propitiation for me!”
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is truly an Altar of Mercy, upon which Christ mystically perpetuates His death and the shedding of His Precious Blood throughout all centuries whenever and wherever the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered.
It was on Calvary that Christ showed mass mercy! He prayed for the very persons who were guilty of plotting His murder and those who were actually murdering Him on the cross: “And Jesus said: ‘Father, forgive them! For they know not what they do!’” (Luke 23:34). When the “Good Thief” begged for mercy―knowing full well that he had no right to mercy and did not deserve mercy―Our Lord showed him mercy: “And one of those robbers who were hanged on the cross, blasphemed Him, saying: ‘If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us!’ But the other robber, answering, rebuked him, saying: ‘Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly―for we receive the due reward of our deeds―but this Man has done no evil!’ And he said to Jesus: ‘Lord, remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in paradise!’” (Luke 23:39-43).
Scandalized by His Mercy
The self-righteous Scribes and Pharisees were shocked and scandalized at the mercy that Jesus showed to sinners―their attitude to sinners was to keep as far away as possible from them, but Jesus would eat and drink and socialize with them: “And it came to pass, that as He sat at meat in His house, many publicans and sinners came, and sat down with Jesus and His disciples―for they were many, who also followed Him. And the Scribes and Pharisees, seeing that he ate with publicans and sinners, said to His disciples: Why does your Master eat with publicans and sinners?’ But Jesus hearing it, said: ‘The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say: “Behold a man that is a glutton and a wine drinker, a friend of publicans and sinners!” They that are that are well and healthy do not need a physician, but they that are sick and ill. Go then and learn what this means, “I will have mercy and not sacrifice!” For I am not come to call the just, but sinners! … I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save! … The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!’” (Matthew 9:10-13; 11:19; Mark 2:15-17; Luke 5:32; 9:56; 19:10).
Physical Mercy and Moral Mercy
Our Lord showed mercy for physical sickness and He showed mercy for moral sickness―and often the two were connected. When He cured the man at the poolside, who had been sick for 38 years, He said to him: “Behold thou art made whole! [healed from your physical illness] Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). This connection is also seen when Our Lord said to a sick man: “‘So that you may know that the Son of man has power on Earth to forgive sins!’ He then said to the man sick of palsy: ‘Arise! Take up thy bed, and go into thy house!’” (Matthew 9:6) ― thus Our Lord heals the sickness of both body and soul. He raised persons from the dead; He cured the lame, the cripples and the paralyzed; He healed the blind; He brought health back to lepers; He restored the power of hearing and speaking to the deaf and the dumb; He cast out devils; He forgave sins!
“Many followed Him, and He healed them all” (Matthew 12:15). “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching and preaching and healing all manner of sickness and every infirmity, among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria, and they presented to Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and such as were possessed by devils, and lunatics, and those that had palsy―and He cured them” (Matthew 4:23-24). “And Jesus said to them: ‘Go and relate what you have heard and seen! The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor have the Gospel preached to them!’” (Matthew 11:5). “There was offered to Him one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb―and He healed him” (Matthew 12:22). “There was a man who had a withered hand, and Jesus said to the man: ‘Stretch forth thy hand!’ And he stretched it forth and it was restored to health, just as the other hand” (Matthew 12:10-13).
Hence we also have the Corporal Works of Mercy and the Spiritual Works of Mercy―by which we can show mercy to the bodies and souls of others, showing physical or material mercy as well as showing spiritual mercy to others.
► Corporal Works of Mercy
(1) to feed the hungry; (2) to give drink to the thirsty; (3) to clothe the naked; (4) to visit the imprisoned; (5) to shelter the homeless; (6) to visit the sick; (7) to bury the dead.
► Spiritual Works of Mercy
(1) to admonish the sinner; (2) to instruct the ignorant; (3) to counsel the doubtful; (4) to comfort the sorrowful; (5) to bear wrongs patiently; (6) to forgive all injuries; (7) to pray for the living and the dead.
Like Son, Like Mother
Since mercy runs in God’s family, it should be of no surprise to see the Mother of God and the Mother of Jesus Christ show mercy on innumerable occasions. Mary is our Mother of Mercy! Our Lady, in the prayer and hymn Salve Regina, is called the “Mother of Mercy”―“Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy! Hail, our life, our sweetness and our hope!” St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his book, The Glories of Mary, quotes the words addressed by Our Lady herself to St. Bridget, by which Our Lady stresses her mercy: “The Blessed Virgin herself revealed this to St. Bridget, saying: ‘As a mother who sees her son exposed to the sword of the enemy, makes every effort to save him, thus do I, and will I ever do for my children, sinful though they be, if they come to me for help’” (quoted by St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary).
The Blessed Virgin herself further revealed to St. Bridget: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the door through which sinners are brought to God. There is no sinner on Earth who is so accursed as to be deprived of my mercy; for all―if they receive nothing else through my intercession―receive the grace of being less tempted by the devils than they would otherwise have been. No one―unless the irrevocable sentence has been pronounced (that is, the sentence pronounced upon the damned)―is so cast off by God that he will not return to Him, and enjoy His mercy, if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of my Son towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore, miserable will he be, and miserable will he be to all eternity, who, in this life, having had it in his power to invoke me―who am so compassionate to all, and so desirous to assist sinners―is miserable enough not to invoke me, and so is damned.”
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady similarly said: “God has, in His goodness, opened up His mercies through me and my intercession, constituting me as Mother, Advocate, Protectress and Helper of all men. All those devoted to me, who should call upon me at the hour of death, constituting me as their Advocate, shall be under my special protection in that hour, shall have me as a defence against the demons, as a help and protection, and shall be presented by me before the tribunal of His mercy and there experience my intercession. Even though I am most punctual and generous in fulfilling all these offices, the result is inadequate. As the Mother of clemency, it is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for failing to call upon me, so many souls should be lost! ... This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict yourself, lament and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls! ... But my kind and clement love exceeds all this malice, detains justice and still inclines the infinite Goodness toward men. The Most High still wishes to give generously of His infinite treasures and resolves to favor those who know how to gain my intercession before God.”
Does Mercy Run in Your Family?
Speaking of the need to show mercy, Our Lady revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda that “Mercy is almost extinct! … None grant pardon! … Be willing to bear and suffer, forgive and love all who offend thee! … The sons of perdition are ignorant of the treasure of suffering injuries and of pardoning them, and they make a boast of vengeance. On the other hand, he who pardons injuries generously and forgets them, becomes noble and excellent, and does not pay vile tribute to the fierce and irrational brutality of revenge. If the vice of revenge is so contrary even to humans, consider how much it is opposed to grace and how hateful and abominable vengeful persons are in the eyes of my most holy Son, Who suffered and died for no other purpose than to forgive and to obtain the pardon of the Almighty for the injuries committed by the human race! The vindictive man merits that God should destroy him with all his might. Between the person who pardons and suffers injuries, and the vindictive man who wants revenge, there is the same difference as between Christ and the devil. By being merciful a person exhibits a most perfect image of the heavenly Father.
“To suffer injuries calmly and to pardon them entirely for the sake of the Lord, will be more acceptable in His eyes, than if you choose, of your own will, to do the most severe penance and shed your own blood for Him. Humble yourself before those who persecute you, love them and pray for them; thereby you shall turn the heart of God towards you and you will rise to the perfection of holiness, and you shall overcome Hell in all things. Satan was confounded many times by my humility and meekness, and his fury could not tolerate the sight of these virtues. From them he fled more swiftly than the sun’s rays. I gained great victories for my soul and won glorious triumphs for the exaltation of God. When any person rose up against me, I conceived no anger toward that person, for I knew in reality the person was an instrument of God, directed by his Providence for my special good. This knowledge and the consideration, that it was a creature of my Lord, capable of grace, excited me to love it truly with a greater fervor, and I did not rest until I could reward this benefit of persecution by obtaining for that persecuting person the reward of eternal life, as far as was possible.
“Therefore, strive after and labor for the imitation of that example! Show yourself to be most meek, peaceful and agreeable toward those, who persecute you! Truly esteem them in your heart, and do not stand in the way of the Lord’s vengeance by taking vengeance on God’s instruments yourself [‘Revenge is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.’ Romans 12:19], nor despise the inestimable jewel of injuries. Learn how for injuries you must return blessings to all who commit them against you and yours―just as you have seen me do, when I was grieved by the wounding of the side of my dead Son. As far as possible, always give good for evil, return benefits for injuries, show love for hate, substitute praise for blame, give blessings for malediction. In this way you will be a perfect child of your heavenly Father, a beloved friend of your Lord and myself. I assure you that you cannot do anything more adapted to the obtaining of the efficacious graces from Almighty God. The prayer, which you offer in a forgiving spirit, is powerful not only for your own good, but also for the good of the person that offends you―for the kind heart of my Son is easily moved, when He sees that persons imitate Him in pardoning offenders and in praying for them; for they thereby participate in His most ardent charity manifested on the Cross … Those that are kind and sweet toward their enemies and persecutors, and who forget injuries, resemble on that account more particularly my Divine Son―for Christ always went about seeking to pardon and to load with blessings those who were in sin” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
The Gravity of Unforgiveness, Hatred and Vengeance
“I wish reveal to you the some chief faults that bring about the just reproach and indignation of the Most High against mortals. The cause of this reproach against men, is the inhuman perversity of men in persisting to treat each other with so much lack of humility and love. In this they commit three faults, which displease the Most High very much and which cause the Almighty and me to withhold many mercies.
(1) The first fault is that men concentrate all their interest upon earthly and trivial affairs, exciting themselves without reason, swelling with indignation, creating discords, quarrels, indulging in detractions and harsh words, sometimes rising up to most wicked and inhuman vengeance or mortal hatred of one another.
(2) The second is that when―through lack of mortification and being incited by the temptation of the devil―they fall into one of these faults of hatred and vengeance, they do not at once seek to rid themselves of it, nor strive to be again reconciled―as should be done by brothers in the presence of a just judge. Thus they reject God as their merciful Father and force Him to become the severe and rigid Judge of their sins―for no faults excite Him to exercise his severity than the sins of revenge and hate.
(3) The third offense, which causes his great indignation, is, that sometimes, when a brother comes in order to be reconciled, the person who was offended will not receive him and asks a greater satisfaction than that which he knows would be accepted by the Lord. Everyone who has grievously offended desires that God should receive and pardon them, whenever they approach God with humility and contrition! But those same persons―who are nothing but dust and ashes―seek to be revenged upon their brothers who have offended them and will not content themselves with the same kind of satisfaction, which God Himself readily accepts for their own sins.
“Of all the sins, which the children of the Church commit, none is more horrible than these in the eyes of the Most High. The sins of hate and vengeance shall be punished with greater severity than other sins on the Judgment Day; and in this life these vices will soonest drive away the infinite mercy of God and cause eternal punishment of men, unless they amend in sorrow. You must bewail the wickedness and evils of this ―that is the sin, which grieves the Holy Ghost ― [for “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and we should “be kind one to another; merciful, forgiving one another, even as God has forgiven you in Christ!” (Ephesians 4:32)]. What thing is more unbecoming, or hateful and monstrous, than to see creatures of the Earth, the food of worms and corruption, rise up against one another in pride and arrogance? You will not find words strong enough to describe this wickedness! Never think for a moment that the guilt can be small, for all these sins are weighty in the sight of God” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
We Live in a Merciless World
If you were to say that we live in a merciless world, someone would object and contrarily say that never has the world been as merciful as it is today! They could point to the following facts to back up their statement:
(1) Abortion―the mortal sin of murder or infanticide―is today acceptable and legalized in most places.
(2) Homosexuality―and all its LGBT derivatives―all of which are mortal sins―is today legalized and acceptable.
(3) Satanism―which is inherently opposed to God―is increasingly finding governmental backing and has even been given tax-exempt status (one imagines that they will eternally pay their taxes in Hell).
(4) Euthanasia―so-called “Mercy Killing” is gradually making its way into legislation with Oregon, Washington D.C., Hawaii, Washington, Maine, Colorado, New Jersey, California, and Vermont ruling in its favor. As usual, numbers of supportive states will grow.
(5) Divorce and Remarriage has long since been accepted―but today the so-called “No Fault Divorce” has been legalized in over 30% of the US States. “No-Fault Divorce” refers to divorce in which the spouse filing for divorce doesn't need to prove any fault. The spouse considering divorce does not have to prove the other spouse did anything wrong.
That is just the tip of the modern-day “Mercy-Iceberg” or just one layer of the “Mercy-Cake” that has seduced and sunk most souls in our falsely named “Age of Mercy”. According to the World Health Organization, roughly 73 million induced abortions occur worldwide each year―try telling those murdered babies about mercy! Some say abortions are decreasing―but that is a false assessment in view of the ever increasing popularity of the abortion pill that is now estimated to be responsible for over half of the abortions.
Marriage divorce statistics reveal that roughly every 36 seconds, there is a divorce occurring somewhere in the US. Whether you want to present the number as 16,800 divorces weekly, or 876,000 divorces on a yearly level, it still amounts to quite a few people permanently separating. When looking at first marriages only, the current divorce rate is 41%. The percentage goes up significantly if we're talking about second marriages, where divorces happen in 60% of the cases. Lastly, 73% of third marriages end up in a divorce, which is saying something. Try telling the children of those wrecked marriages about mercy! Try telling an innocent spouse in those divorces about mercy!
Current statistics show that 70% of couples live together (in sin) before marriage. Between half and two-thirds of Americans think living together before committing to marriage will help couples forge a lasting relationship and a marriage that endures. Already by the late 1990s, more than 60% of high school students in the U.S. had accepted the idea that “it is usually a good idea for a couple to live together before getting married in order to find out whether they really get along.”
Homosexuality and all its family, relatives and friends (a.k.a. LGBT which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender―or today the extended ever-growing crowd of LGBTQQIP2SA which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Pansexual, Two-Spirited, and Asexual) has changed its mask from being sinful to being acceptable. Not even young children are spared the perverse barrage of propaganda lies being spouted by these groups! They even twist biblical verses and pervert their true meaning in an attempt to have their perversities “canonized”! Scripture says of such: “Woe to you that call evil good, and call good evil! Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20).
Mercy in Not an Acceptance of Sin
As the spiritual writers consistently say―we should be hard upon ourselves and our own faults, but be merciful towards others and their faults, without condoning or accepting sin. For “he that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8) and we must “seek good, and not evil! Hate evil, and love good!” (Amos 5:14-15). “Turn away from evil and do good!” (Psalm 33:15) … “Decline from evil and do good!” (Psalm 36:27). “Let him decline from evil, and do good!” (1 Peter 3:11). If you pursue evil―then it is not the mercy of God, but the justice of God that will pursue you! “There is no good for him that is always occupied in evil―for the Highest hates sinners, and has mercy on the penitent!” (Ecclesiasticus 12:3).
Sharing God's Mercy
Yet―if you seek God mercy, then you must share God’s mercy, you must give God’s mercy to others. The parable that Jesus told about the unmerciful servant should be a warning to all of us: “The Kingdom of Heaven likened to a king, who would take an account of his servants. And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him, that owed him ten thousand talents (1 talent was 750 ounces of silver. At today’s silver prices of around $26 an ounce, that would put the 10,000 talents at just over $195,000,000 or $195 million). And as he had not wherewith to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. But that servant falling down, besought him, saying: “Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!” And the lord of that servant being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt.
“‘But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him an hundred pence (the Roman penny was the eighth part of an ounce. At today’s silver prices, a hundred pence would be $325): and laying hold of him, throttled him, saying: “Pay what thou owest!” And his fellow servant falling down, besought him, saying: “Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!” And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he paid the debt.
“‘Now his fellow servants seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him and said to him: “Thou wicked servant! I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest me! Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow servant, even as I had compassion on thee?” And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers, until he paid all the debt. So also shall My heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not everyone his brother from your hearts!’” (Matthew 18:23-35).
We should note that the debt of 10,000 talents (or $195 million in today’s money) was 600,000 times more than the debt of 100 pence ($325 in today’s money).
We All Need God's Mercy
Who is there that has no need of the mercy of God? Nobody―apart from the sinless and immaculate Blessed Virgin Mary. “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin!’?” (Proverbs 20:9). Who dare say: “I am clean, and without sin! I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me!” (Job 33:9) … “There is no just man upon Earth that does good and sins not!” (Ecclesiastes 7:21) … “For all have sinned, and do need the glory [mercy and grace) of God!” (Romans 3:23) … “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10) … “For a just man shall fall seven times” (Proverbs 24:16) … “For our iniquities are multiplied over our heads, and our sins are grown up even unto Heaven!” (1 Esdras 9:6).
When we see others sin―we ought to remember the words of Our Lord: “Why seest thou the splinter that is in thy brother’s eye; and seest not the plank that is in thy own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy brother: ‘Let me cast the splinter out of thy eye!’ ― and behold there is a plank in thy own eye? Thou hypocrite! Cast out first the plank in thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the splinter out of thy brother’s eye!” (Matthew 7:3-5). “If thy brother sin against thee, reprove him: and if he do penance, forgive him. And if he sin against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day be converted unto thee, saying, ‘I repent!’― then forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4).
“And when you shall stand to pray, forgive, if you have anything against any man; that your Father also, Who is in Heaven, may forgive you your sins. But if you will not forgive, neither will your Father that is in Heaven, forgive you your sins” (Mark 11:25-26).
“Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). “But judgment without mercy to him that has not shown mercy! Mercy exalts itself above judgment!” (James 2:13). “For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged!” (Matthew 7:2). “Wherefore you are inexcusable, O man, whosoever you are that judges. For wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you do the same things which you judge and condemn! … O man, who does such things, do you think that you will escape the judgment of God?” (Romans 2:1-3).
Mercy is sweet! Some might think sin is sweet―but sin turns bitter once you bite into it! Mercy is sweeter than sin! We all desire sweet mercy! There is nothing sweeter to our taste! Here are a few one bit tasters on mercy that you can snack on before we serve up the main meal of mercy:
“The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works!” (Psalm 144:9).
“Grow unto salvation … laying away all malice, and all guile, and dissimulations, and envies, and all detractions … you have tasted that the Lord is sweet!” (1 Peter 2:1-3).
“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy!” (Romans 9:15).
“If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow―and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool!” (Isaias 1:18).
“The Lord is gracious and merciful; patient and plenteous in mercy!” (Psalm 144:8).
“Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful!” (Luke 6:36).
“Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, being merciful!” (1 Peter 3:8).
“Be ye kind one to another; merciful, forgiving one another, even as God has forgiven you in Christ!” (Ephesians 4:32).
“If you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences!” (Matthew 6:14).
“Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7).
“Judgment without mercy to him that has not shown mercy!” (James 2:13).
Tastes good, huh? There is nothing that delights our palate as much as the sweet taste of mercy! Yet if we seek to feast on mercy on our Day of Judgment, then we must take care to have served mercy to others while still here on Earth! “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who sows in blessings [mercy], shall also reap blessings [mercy]” (2 Corinthians 9:6).
The Riches and Depths of God’s Mercy
The first thing to “get straight” in our minds is that our idea of mercy might not be what God’s idea of mercy is: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unjust man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God―for He is bountiful to forgive. For My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:7-9).
“Who has forwarded the spirit of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor, and has taught Him?” (Isaias 40:13). “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?” (Romans 11:34). “For the Lord said to Moses: ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy!’” (Romans 9:15). “O the Lord, the Lord God―merciful and gracious, patient and of much compassion, and true! Who shows mercy unto thousands! Who takes away iniquity, and wickedness, and sin! And no man, of himself, is innocent before thee!” (Exodus 34:6-7). Which is why the prophet Baruch cries out: “Hear, O Lord, and have mercy! For Thou art a merciful God! Have pity on us! For we have sinned before Thee!” (Baruch 3:2).
In the Second Book of Paralipomenon (sometimes called the Book of Chronicles), we see the mercy of God being emphatically repeated many times: “Give ye glory to the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endures for ever” (1 Paralipomenon 16:34). “Give praise to the Lord: because His mercy endures for ever.” (1 Paralipomenon 16:41).
“They began to praise the Lord, and to say: ‘Give glory to the Lord for He is good, for His mercy endures for ever!’” (2 Paralipomenon 5:13). “Moreover all the children of Israel saw the fire coming down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house, and falling down with their faces to the ground, upon the stone pavement, they adored and praised the Lord: because He is good, because His mercy endures for ever!” (2 Paralipomenon 7:3). “Praise the Lord: because His mercy endures for ever!” (2 Paralipomenon 7:6). “Give glory to the Lord, for His mercy endures for ever!” (2 Paralipomenon 20:21).
Yet it is not only that book of the Bible that says this—we find the same echoed elsewhere, showing that it is not an isolated thought and sentiment. “And they sung together hymns, and praise to the Lord because He is good, for His mercy endures for ever!” (1 Esdras 3:11). “Give all of you glory to Him, because He is good, because His mercy endures for ever” (Judith 13:21).
The Book of Psalms is even more replete with this exultation in and exaltation of the mercy of God: “The Lord is sweet, His mercy endures for ever!” (Psalms 99:5). Some people have a tough time thinking God can be sweet—which is strange, since most people have a “sweet-tooth” and we consume enormous amounts of sugar (directly or indirectly) each year! Perhaps some Catholics need to “sweeten” their sense of justice, so as to temper its bitterness, and then perhaps they may be able to taste the mercies of God: “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). “The just are merciful, and show mercy” (Proverbs 13:13). “Judgment without mercy to him that has not shown mercy!” (James 2:13).
The Book of Psalms continues: “The Lord is merciful and just, and our God shows mercy!” (Psalm 114:5). “Alleluia. Give glory to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures for ever!” (Psalm 105:1). The very next Psalm opens with the same words: “Give glory to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures for ever!” (Psalm 106:1). A later Psalm (117) repeats the same message four times in its first four verses! “Give praise to Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endures for ever! Let Israel now say that He is good: that His mercy endures for ever! Let the house of Aaron now say, that His mercy endures for ever! Let them that fear the Lord now say, that His mercy endures for ever!” (Psalm 117:1-4).
If you think that is “going overboard”, then wait till you get to Psalm 135! Every single verse of the Psalm hammers home the mercy of God!
“Praise the Lord, for He is good―for His mercy endures for ever.
Praise ye the God of gods―for His mercy endures for ever.
Praise ye the Lord of lords―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who alone doth great wonders―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who made the heavens in understanding―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who established the earth above the waters―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who made the great lights―for His mercy endures for ever.
The sun to rule over the day―for His mercy endures for ever.
The moon and the stars to rule the night―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who smote Egypt with their firstborn―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who brought Israel from among them―for His mercy endures for ever.
With a mighty hand and a stretched out arm―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who divided the Red Sea into parts―for His mercy endures for ever.
And brought out Israel through the midst thereof―for His mercy endures for ever.
And overthrew Pharao and his army in the Red Sea―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who led His people through the desert―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who smote great kings―for His mercy endures for ever.
And slew strong kings―for His mercy endures for ever.
Sehon king of the Amorrhites―for His mercy endures for ever.
And Og king of Basan―for His mercy endures for ever.
And He gave their land for an inheritance―for His mercy endures for ever.
For an inheritance to His servant Israel: for His mercy endures for ever
For He was mindful of us in our affliction―for His mercy endures for ever.
And He redeemed us from our enemies―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who gives food to all flesh―for His mercy endures for ever.
Give glory to the God of Heaven―for His mercy endures for ever.
Give glory to the Lord of lords―for His mercy endures for ever.” (Psalm 135:1-27).
Had enough of mercy yet? Sick and tired of mercy yet? You had better not be! Our list or catalogue of sins is far longer than that Psalm! Even the number of our sins of one single day—be they mortal or venial—are far more numerous than the 27 mentions of mercy in that Psalm! How many sins have you committed in your whole lifetime? Do not forget that sin―whether it be mortal or venial―is the GREATEST EVIL ON EARTH! “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). How many times have you committed the greatest evil on Earth? How many times have you been forgiven? How much mercy has God shown to you?
Mercy Runs in God’s Family
Holy Scripture says: “As the mother was, so also is her daughter!” (Ezechiel 16:44), from which we get our more known proverb: “Like father like son―Like mother like daughter!” The Latin version of this expression is “Qualis pater, talis filius―Qualis mater, talis filia.” All of which means that a son or daughter shows similarities to his or her father or mother in mannerisms, interests, behavior, etc. This would be fine if we only imitated the good qualities of our parents―but unfortunately we also imitate their bad characteristics.
We should not only imitate our earthly parents, but also the qualities of our heavenly Father too! Our Lord commands: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). If―as Holy Scripture tells us―“The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 144:9), then Our Lord could just have well as said: “Be you therefore merciful, as also your heavenly Father is merciful!” ― because He says, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). Mercy is like blood that circulates throughout the body―you could say that mercy is the Precious Blood of Jesus that should circulate throughout the Mystical Body of Christ. We should ensure we actually help that merciful Blood circulate―and not be the cause of a blood clot, which can lead to a stroke and even death. We receive the Blood of Christ and we should pass on the Blood of Christ―we receive mercy through His Blood and we should show mercy. “I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you” (1 Corinthians 11:23).
Mass Mercy in the Mass of Mercy
We go to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―which could be said to be the “Altar of Mercy” for it is the same Sacrifice as that of Calvary―in order to receive the fruits of Christ’s merciful Sacrifice. The whole liturgy of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is loaded with admission of sinful guilt and pleas for mercy:
In the Confiteor and the prayers immediately following, we say: “I confess to Almighty God … that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault! … Pray to the Lord our God for me! … May almighty God be merciful to thee, forgiving thy sins! … May the almighty and merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution, and remission of our sins! … Take away from us our iniquities! … Forgive me all my sins!” (Confiteor) … In the Kyrie Eleison, we say: “Lord have mercy! Christ have mercy! Lord have mercy!” (Kyrie) … In the Gloria in Excelsis Deo, we pray: “O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father. Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us! Who takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer! Who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us!”
During the Offertory we pray: “Accept … this unspotted host … for my innumerable sins, offenses, and negligences! … We offer Thee, O Lord, the chalice of salvation, beseeching Thy clemency! … Redeem me, and have mercy on me!” … In the Canon of the Mass, we pray: “We offer this sacrifice … for the redemption, health and salvation! … Preserve us from eternal damnation!” At the Consecration―the very heart of the Mass―Our Lord, through the mouth of the priest, tells us: “This is the chalice of My Blood … which shall be shed for you and for many, unto the remission of sins!” In the second part of the Canon of the Mass, we pray: “To us, Thy sinful servants, confiding in the multitude of Thy mercies, grant us fellowship with Thy holy Apostles and Martyrs … and with all Thy Saints, into whose company we beseech Thee to admit us, not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offenses!”
During the Pater Noster (Our Father) and the prayer that follows, we pray: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us! … Mercifully grant that, through the assistance of Thy mercy, we may always be free from sin!” In the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God), we repeatedly beg: “Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us!” In the prayers immediately following, we pray: “Deliver me by this, Thy most sacred Body and Blood, from all my iniquities and from all evils! … Let not the partaking of Thy Body, O Lord, Jesus Christ, which I, though unworthy, presume to receive, turn to my judgment and condemnation; but let it, through Thy mercy, become a safeguard and remedy, both for soul and body!” After which we repeatedly insist: “Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof; say but the word, and my soul shall be healed!” At the end of Mass, before the Last Gospel, we pray: “May … my homage be pleasing to Thee … and grant that the Sacrifice which I, though unworthy, have offered up in the sight of Thy Majesty, may be acceptable to Thee, and through Thy mercy, be a propitiation for me!”
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is truly an Altar of Mercy, upon which Christ mystically perpetuates His death and the shedding of His Precious Blood throughout all centuries whenever and wherever the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered.
It was on Calvary that Christ showed mass mercy! He prayed for the very persons who were guilty of plotting His murder and those who were actually murdering Him on the cross: “And Jesus said: ‘Father, forgive them! For they know not what they do!’” (Luke 23:34). When the “Good Thief” begged for mercy―knowing full well that he had no right to mercy and did not deserve mercy―Our Lord showed him mercy: “And one of those robbers who were hanged on the cross, blasphemed Him, saying: ‘If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us!’ But the other robber, answering, rebuked him, saying: ‘Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly―for we receive the due reward of our deeds―but this Man has done no evil!’ And he said to Jesus: ‘Lord, remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in paradise!’” (Luke 23:39-43).
Scandalized by His Mercy
The self-righteous Scribes and Pharisees were shocked and scandalized at the mercy that Jesus showed to sinners―their attitude to sinners was to keep as far away as possible from them, but Jesus would eat and drink and socialize with them: “And it came to pass, that as He sat at meat in His house, many publicans and sinners came, and sat down with Jesus and His disciples―for they were many, who also followed Him. And the Scribes and Pharisees, seeing that he ate with publicans and sinners, said to His disciples: Why does your Master eat with publicans and sinners?’ But Jesus hearing it, said: ‘The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say: “Behold a man that is a glutton and a wine drinker, a friend of publicans and sinners!” They that are that are well and healthy do not need a physician, but they that are sick and ill. Go then and learn what this means, “I will have mercy and not sacrifice!” For I am not come to call the just, but sinners! … I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save! … The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!’” (Matthew 9:10-13; 11:19; Mark 2:15-17; Luke 5:32; 9:56; 19:10).
Physical Mercy and Moral Mercy
Our Lord showed mercy for physical sickness and He showed mercy for moral sickness―and often the two were connected. When He cured the man at the poolside, who had been sick for 38 years, He said to him: “Behold thou art made whole! [healed from your physical illness] Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). This connection is also seen when Our Lord said to a sick man: “‘So that you may know that the Son of man has power on Earth to forgive sins!’ He then said to the man sick of palsy: ‘Arise! Take up thy bed, and go into thy house!’” (Matthew 9:6) ― thus Our Lord heals the sickness of both body and soul. He raised persons from the dead; He cured the lame, the cripples and the paralyzed; He healed the blind; He brought health back to lepers; He restored the power of hearing and speaking to the deaf and the dumb; He cast out devils; He forgave sins!
“Many followed Him, and He healed them all” (Matthew 12:15). “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching and preaching and healing all manner of sickness and every infirmity, among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria, and they presented to Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and such as were possessed by devils, and lunatics, and those that had palsy―and He cured them” (Matthew 4:23-24). “And Jesus said to them: ‘Go and relate what you have heard and seen! The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor have the Gospel preached to them!’” (Matthew 11:5). “There was offered to Him one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb―and He healed him” (Matthew 12:22). “There was a man who had a withered hand, and Jesus said to the man: ‘Stretch forth thy hand!’ And he stretched it forth and it was restored to health, just as the other hand” (Matthew 12:10-13).
Hence we also have the Corporal Works of Mercy and the Spiritual Works of Mercy―by which we can show mercy to the bodies and souls of others, showing physical or material mercy as well as showing spiritual mercy to others.
► Corporal Works of Mercy
(1) to feed the hungry; (2) to give drink to the thirsty; (3) to clothe the naked; (4) to visit the imprisoned; (5) to shelter the homeless; (6) to visit the sick; (7) to bury the dead.
► Spiritual Works of Mercy
(1) to admonish the sinner; (2) to instruct the ignorant; (3) to counsel the doubtful; (4) to comfort the sorrowful; (5) to bear wrongs patiently; (6) to forgive all injuries; (7) to pray for the living and the dead.
Like Son, Like Mother
Since mercy runs in God’s family, it should be of no surprise to see the Mother of God and the Mother of Jesus Christ show mercy on innumerable occasions. Mary is our Mother of Mercy! Our Lady, in the prayer and hymn Salve Regina, is called the “Mother of Mercy”―“Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy! Hail, our life, our sweetness and our hope!” St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his book, The Glories of Mary, quotes the words addressed by Our Lady herself to St. Bridget, by which Our Lady stresses her mercy: “The Blessed Virgin herself revealed this to St. Bridget, saying: ‘As a mother who sees her son exposed to the sword of the enemy, makes every effort to save him, thus do I, and will I ever do for my children, sinful though they be, if they come to me for help’” (quoted by St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary).
The Blessed Virgin herself further revealed to St. Bridget: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the door through which sinners are brought to God. There is no sinner on Earth who is so accursed as to be deprived of my mercy; for all―if they receive nothing else through my intercession―receive the grace of being less tempted by the devils than they would otherwise have been. No one―unless the irrevocable sentence has been pronounced (that is, the sentence pronounced upon the damned)―is so cast off by God that he will not return to Him, and enjoy His mercy, if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of my Son towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore, miserable will he be, and miserable will he be to all eternity, who, in this life, having had it in his power to invoke me―who am so compassionate to all, and so desirous to assist sinners―is miserable enough not to invoke me, and so is damned.”
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady similarly said: “God has, in His goodness, opened up His mercies through me and my intercession, constituting me as Mother, Advocate, Protectress and Helper of all men. All those devoted to me, who should call upon me at the hour of death, constituting me as their Advocate, shall be under my special protection in that hour, shall have me as a defence against the demons, as a help and protection, and shall be presented by me before the tribunal of His mercy and there experience my intercession. Even though I am most punctual and generous in fulfilling all these offices, the result is inadequate. As the Mother of clemency, it is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for failing to call upon me, so many souls should be lost! ... This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict yourself, lament and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls! ... But my kind and clement love exceeds all this malice, detains justice and still inclines the infinite Goodness toward men. The Most High still wishes to give generously of His infinite treasures and resolves to favor those who know how to gain my intercession before God.”
Does Mercy Run in Your Family?
Speaking of the need to show mercy, Our Lady revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda that “Mercy is almost extinct! … None grant pardon! … Be willing to bear and suffer, forgive and love all who offend thee! … The sons of perdition are ignorant of the treasure of suffering injuries and of pardoning them, and they make a boast of vengeance. On the other hand, he who pardons injuries generously and forgets them, becomes noble and excellent, and does not pay vile tribute to the fierce and irrational brutality of revenge. If the vice of revenge is so contrary even to humans, consider how much it is opposed to grace and how hateful and abominable vengeful persons are in the eyes of my most holy Son, Who suffered and died for no other purpose than to forgive and to obtain the pardon of the Almighty for the injuries committed by the human race! The vindictive man merits that God should destroy him with all his might. Between the person who pardons and suffers injuries, and the vindictive man who wants revenge, there is the same difference as between Christ and the devil. By being merciful a person exhibits a most perfect image of the heavenly Father.
“To suffer injuries calmly and to pardon them entirely for the sake of the Lord, will be more acceptable in His eyes, than if you choose, of your own will, to do the most severe penance and shed your own blood for Him. Humble yourself before those who persecute you, love them and pray for them; thereby you shall turn the heart of God towards you and you will rise to the perfection of holiness, and you shall overcome Hell in all things. Satan was confounded many times by my humility and meekness, and his fury could not tolerate the sight of these virtues. From them he fled more swiftly than the sun’s rays. I gained great victories for my soul and won glorious triumphs for the exaltation of God. When any person rose up against me, I conceived no anger toward that person, for I knew in reality the person was an instrument of God, directed by his Providence for my special good. This knowledge and the consideration, that it was a creature of my Lord, capable of grace, excited me to love it truly with a greater fervor, and I did not rest until I could reward this benefit of persecution by obtaining for that persecuting person the reward of eternal life, as far as was possible.
“Therefore, strive after and labor for the imitation of that example! Show yourself to be most meek, peaceful and agreeable toward those, who persecute you! Truly esteem them in your heart, and do not stand in the way of the Lord’s vengeance by taking vengeance on God’s instruments yourself [‘Revenge is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.’ Romans 12:19], nor despise the inestimable jewel of injuries. Learn how for injuries you must return blessings to all who commit them against you and yours―just as you have seen me do, when I was grieved by the wounding of the side of my dead Son. As far as possible, always give good for evil, return benefits for injuries, show love for hate, substitute praise for blame, give blessings for malediction. In this way you will be a perfect child of your heavenly Father, a beloved friend of your Lord and myself. I assure you that you cannot do anything more adapted to the obtaining of the efficacious graces from Almighty God. The prayer, which you offer in a forgiving spirit, is powerful not only for your own good, but also for the good of the person that offends you―for the kind heart of my Son is easily moved, when He sees that persons imitate Him in pardoning offenders and in praying for them; for they thereby participate in His most ardent charity manifested on the Cross … Those that are kind and sweet toward their enemies and persecutors, and who forget injuries, resemble on that account more particularly my Divine Son―for Christ always went about seeking to pardon and to load with blessings those who were in sin” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
The Gravity of Unforgiveness, Hatred and Vengeance
“I wish reveal to you the some chief faults that bring about the just reproach and indignation of the Most High against mortals. The cause of this reproach against men, is the inhuman perversity of men in persisting to treat each other with so much lack of humility and love. In this they commit three faults, which displease the Most High very much and which cause the Almighty and me to withhold many mercies.
(1) The first fault is that men concentrate all their interest upon earthly and trivial affairs, exciting themselves without reason, swelling with indignation, creating discords, quarrels, indulging in detractions and harsh words, sometimes rising up to most wicked and inhuman vengeance or mortal hatred of one another.
(2) The second is that when―through lack of mortification and being incited by the temptation of the devil―they fall into one of these faults of hatred and vengeance, they do not at once seek to rid themselves of it, nor strive to be again reconciled―as should be done by brothers in the presence of a just judge. Thus they reject God as their merciful Father and force Him to become the severe and rigid Judge of their sins―for no faults excite Him to exercise his severity than the sins of revenge and hate.
(3) The third offense, which causes his great indignation, is, that sometimes, when a brother comes in order to be reconciled, the person who was offended will not receive him and asks a greater satisfaction than that which he knows would be accepted by the Lord. Everyone who has grievously offended desires that God should receive and pardon them, whenever they approach God with humility and contrition! But those same persons―who are nothing but dust and ashes―seek to be revenged upon their brothers who have offended them and will not content themselves with the same kind of satisfaction, which God Himself readily accepts for their own sins.
“Of all the sins, which the children of the Church commit, none is more horrible than these in the eyes of the Most High. The sins of hate and vengeance shall be punished with greater severity than other sins on the Judgment Day; and in this life these vices will soonest drive away the infinite mercy of God and cause eternal punishment of men, unless they amend in sorrow. You must bewail the wickedness and evils of this ―that is the sin, which grieves the Holy Ghost ― [for “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and we should “be kind one to another; merciful, forgiving one another, even as God has forgiven you in Christ!” (Ephesians 4:32)]. What thing is more unbecoming, or hateful and monstrous, than to see creatures of the Earth, the food of worms and corruption, rise up against one another in pride and arrogance? You will not find words strong enough to describe this wickedness! Never think for a moment that the guilt can be small, for all these sins are weighty in the sight of God” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
We Live in a Merciless World
If you were to say that we live in a merciless world, someone would object and contrarily say that never has the world been as merciful as it is today! They could point to the following facts to back up their statement:
(1) Abortion―the mortal sin of murder or infanticide―is today acceptable and legalized in most places.
(2) Homosexuality―and all its LGBT derivatives―all of which are mortal sins―is today legalized and acceptable.
(3) Satanism―which is inherently opposed to God―is increasingly finding governmental backing and has even been given tax-exempt status (one imagines that they will eternally pay their taxes in Hell).
(4) Euthanasia―so-called “Mercy Killing” is gradually making its way into legislation with Oregon, Washington D.C., Hawaii, Washington, Maine, Colorado, New Jersey, California, and Vermont ruling in its favor. As usual, numbers of supportive states will grow.
(5) Divorce and Remarriage has long since been accepted―but today the so-called “No Fault Divorce” has been legalized in over 30% of the US States. “No-Fault Divorce” refers to divorce in which the spouse filing for divorce doesn't need to prove any fault. The spouse considering divorce does not have to prove the other spouse did anything wrong.
That is just the tip of the modern-day “Mercy-Iceberg” or just one layer of the “Mercy-Cake” that has seduced and sunk most souls in our falsely named “Age of Mercy”. According to the World Health Organization, roughly 73 million induced abortions occur worldwide each year―try telling those murdered babies about mercy! Some say abortions are decreasing―but that is a false assessment in view of the ever increasing popularity of the abortion pill that is now estimated to be responsible for over half of the abortions.
Marriage divorce statistics reveal that roughly every 36 seconds, there is a divorce occurring somewhere in the US. Whether you want to present the number as 16,800 divorces weekly, or 876,000 divorces on a yearly level, it still amounts to quite a few people permanently separating. When looking at first marriages only, the current divorce rate is 41%. The percentage goes up significantly if we're talking about second marriages, where divorces happen in 60% of the cases. Lastly, 73% of third marriages end up in a divorce, which is saying something. Try telling the children of those wrecked marriages about mercy! Try telling an innocent spouse in those divorces about mercy!
Current statistics show that 70% of couples live together (in sin) before marriage. Between half and two-thirds of Americans think living together before committing to marriage will help couples forge a lasting relationship and a marriage that endures. Already by the late 1990s, more than 60% of high school students in the U.S. had accepted the idea that “it is usually a good idea for a couple to live together before getting married in order to find out whether they really get along.”
Homosexuality and all its family, relatives and friends (a.k.a. LGBT which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender―or today the extended ever-growing crowd of LGBTQQIP2SA which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Pansexual, Two-Spirited, and Asexual) has changed its mask from being sinful to being acceptable. Not even young children are spared the perverse barrage of propaganda lies being spouted by these groups! They even twist biblical verses and pervert their true meaning in an attempt to have their perversities “canonized”! Scripture says of such: “Woe to you that call evil good, and call good evil! Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20).
Mercy in Not an Acceptance of Sin
As the spiritual writers consistently say―we should be hard upon ourselves and our own faults, but be merciful towards others and their faults, without condoning or accepting sin. For “he that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8) and we must “seek good, and not evil! Hate evil, and love good!” (Amos 5:14-15). “Turn away from evil and do good!” (Psalm 33:15) … “Decline from evil and do good!” (Psalm 36:27). “Let him decline from evil, and do good!” (1 Peter 3:11). If you pursue evil―then it is not the mercy of God, but the justice of God that will pursue you! “There is no good for him that is always occupied in evil―for the Highest hates sinners, and has mercy on the penitent!” (Ecclesiasticus 12:3).
Sharing God's Mercy
Yet―if you seek God mercy, then you must share God’s mercy, you must give God’s mercy to others. The parable that Jesus told about the unmerciful servant should be a warning to all of us: “The Kingdom of Heaven likened to a king, who would take an account of his servants. And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him, that owed him ten thousand talents (1 talent was 750 ounces of silver. At today’s silver prices of around $26 an ounce, that would put the 10,000 talents at just over $195,000,000 or $195 million). And as he had not wherewith to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. But that servant falling down, besought him, saying: “Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!” And the lord of that servant being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt.
“‘But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him an hundred pence (the Roman penny was the eighth part of an ounce. At today’s silver prices, a hundred pence would be $325): and laying hold of him, throttled him, saying: “Pay what thou owest!” And his fellow servant falling down, besought him, saying: “Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!” And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he paid the debt.
“‘Now his fellow servants seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him and said to him: “Thou wicked servant! I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest me! Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow servant, even as I had compassion on thee?” And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers, until he paid all the debt. So also shall My heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not everyone his brother from your hearts!’” (Matthew 18:23-35).
We should note that the debt of 10,000 talents (or $195 million in today’s money) was 600,000 times more than the debt of 100 pence ($325 in today’s money).
We All Need God's Mercy
Who is there that has no need of the mercy of God? Nobody―apart from the sinless and immaculate Blessed Virgin Mary. “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin!’?” (Proverbs 20:9). Who dare say: “I am clean, and without sin! I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me!” (Job 33:9) … “There is no just man upon Earth that does good and sins not!” (Ecclesiastes 7:21) … “For all have sinned, and do need the glory [mercy and grace) of God!” (Romans 3:23) … “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10) … “For a just man shall fall seven times” (Proverbs 24:16) … “For our iniquities are multiplied over our heads, and our sins are grown up even unto Heaven!” (1 Esdras 9:6).
When we see others sin―we ought to remember the words of Our Lord: “Why seest thou the splinter that is in thy brother’s eye; and seest not the plank that is in thy own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy brother: ‘Let me cast the splinter out of thy eye!’ ― and behold there is a plank in thy own eye? Thou hypocrite! Cast out first the plank in thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the splinter out of thy brother’s eye!” (Matthew 7:3-5). “If thy brother sin against thee, reprove him: and if he do penance, forgive him. And if he sin against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day be converted unto thee, saying, ‘I repent!’― then forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4).
“And when you shall stand to pray, forgive, if you have anything against any man; that your Father also, Who is in Heaven, may forgive you your sins. But if you will not forgive, neither will your Father that is in Heaven, forgive you your sins” (Mark 11:25-26).
“Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). “But judgment without mercy to him that has not shown mercy! Mercy exalts itself above judgment!” (James 2:13). “For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged!” (Matthew 7:2). “Wherefore you are inexcusable, O man, whosoever you are that judges. For wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you do the same things which you judge and condemn! … O man, who does such things, do you think that you will escape the judgment of God?” (Romans 2:1-3).
Article 14
Sunday July 23rd, 2023
Is Heaven a Haven of Sinners?
Sunday July 23rd, 2023
Is Heaven a Haven of Sinners?
What the Hell Are They Doing Here?
If you were to wander into Heaven, you might be forgiven for thinking of some of the people you would find there: “What the Hell are they doing here? How the Hell did they get into Heaven?” For those discouraged about achieving sanctity, there can be no better thing than to read and study the lives of the great sinners who became great saints. They are walking proof of the words of God in Holy Scripture, Who said: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool” (Isaias 1:18).
Around the time of Our Lord, we think of St. Mary Magdalen, who was possessed by seven devils and caught in adultery. Then there is St. Dismas, the Good Thief on the cross, who, by his sufferings and sorrow for sin, steals Heaven with his dying breath. There too, on Calvary, in the Roman legionary, St. Longinus, who pierces Our Lord’s heart with his spear, and ends up being pierced with sorrow in his own heart—finally converting, leaving the military and becoming a saint. Then there is St. Paul the persecutor and killer of Christians, who converts and becomes a pillar of the Faith and paying for his sins through a lifetime of suffering.
A little later in time, as the Church grows, we have St. Callixtus of Rome, who had a very sinful life before being taken under the wing of Victor I, a second century pope. Callixtus went on to become a pope himself, and died a martyr shortly thereafter, thereby sufficiently paying his debts for sin.
St. Mary of Egypt (c.344-c.421), at the age of 12, ran away from home to Alexandria, the most ‘exciting’ city in the Roman Empire. She became an accomplished seductress and prostitute, who took special pleasure in corrupting innocent young men.
The beautiful, teenage St. Pelagia was a dancer and prostittue by her early teens. Pelagia’s conversion occurred all of a sudden, following a chance encounter with Saint Nonnus, the bishop of Edessa.
Another sinner turned saint was St. Olga (879-969). When a neighboring tribe assassinated her husband, St. Olga, princess of Kiev, slaughtered her husband’s murderer and almost all of his people. In vengeance, she massacred virtually the entire tribe; the few who did survive she sold into slavery.
Heaven’s Surprise
I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven’s door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp--
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash!
There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.
Herb, who I always thought
Was rotting away in Hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.
I nudged Jesus, “What’s the deal?
I would love to hear your take!”
“How’d all these sinners get up here?
God must’ve made a mistake!”
‘And why’s everyone so quiet, so somber?”
“Give me a clue!’
“My Friend,” He said, “They’re all in shock!”
“They never thought they’d be seeing you!”
Museum or Hospital?
As St. Augustine says: “The Church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital of sinners … There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future” (St. Augustine of Hippo, Doctor of the Church—sinners need a good doctor!).
Saints can seem remote and distant, close to God, but far from people. But they’re more like us than we give them credit for. Their lives were like ours, full of dilemmas and struggles, with bad choices as well as good. But their goodness won out in the end, as ours can. Interest in angels is quite popular at the moment, but it is the saints who are really like us in both their strengths and frailties. They came to Heaven’s Hospital wounded by sin, and they found a cure—sometimes a painful cure—in Christ’s care.
Sinners Who Changed and Became Saints
► St. Dismas: Robber & Thief
St. Dismas isn’t a saint in the usual or strict sense—for he was never canonized by the Church—but rather a saint by local tradition instead. As the story goes, Dismas asked for Jesus Christ to remember him while he was being crucified next to him. A clue to his past lies in Dismas’ patronage, for he is the patron saint of reformed thieves.
► St. Callixtus: Thief & Embezzler
St. Callixtus of Rome lived a life of many sins before being taken under the wing of Victor I, a second century pope. Callixtus was a Roman slave whose petty theft and reckless investments resulted in being sentenced to forced labor in the mines of Sardinia. He embezzled money and started a public riot, amongst other criminal affairs, but left that all behind early in the third century when he reformed.
Released from the mines by a general pardon, he returned to Rome where Pope St. Victor I gradually brought him to repentance. . He was ordained a priest, served as administrator of one of the catacombs, and ultimately Callixtus went on to become a pope himself, but died a martyr shortly thereafter. His Roman catacombs can be toured today.
► St. Hippolytus: Heretic & First Antipope
Hippolytus was an arrogant, unforgiving man who believed that Christians guilty of mortal sin should be expelled from the Church and never readmitted. In his pride, Hippolytus permitted his followers to elect him as the Church’s first anti-pope. Inspired by the true pope’s holiness, Hippolytus eventually repented of his own sin and was reconciled to the Catholic Church.
► St. Mary of Egypt: Seductress & Whore
At age 12 Mary (344-421) ran away from home to Alexandria, the most exciting city in the Roman Empire. She became an accomplished seductress, who took special pleasure in corrupting innocent young men. Mary was an expert seductress who ensnared any man who caught her eye. Once, on a whim, she joined a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. By the time the ship reached its destination, Mary had seduced the entire crew and all of the pilgrims. She traveled to Jerusalem where a supernatural force prevented her from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. In Jerusalem she realized the enormity of her sins Filled with remorse, Mary sought the Mother of God’s intercession and made a good confession. In penance, Mary lived out her conversion as a hermit, alone in the Jordanian desert.
► St. Moses the Black: Cut-throat & Gang Leader
Moses was chief of a violent gang of bandits. Fleeing from law enforcement, he took refuge in a monastery. Moses was inspired by the monk’s example and converted. He took a vow never to raise his hand against another human being, even in self-defense. After years of overcoming temptation, Moses was killed by Berber raiders.
► St. Pelagia: Dancer & Courtesan
The beautiful, teenage Saint Pelagia would have been every parent’s nightmare. As legend has it, she was a dancer and courtesan (prostitute) by her early teens. Pelagia’s conversion occurred all of a sudden, following a chance encounter with Saint Nonnus, the bishop of Edessa. The young girl was baptized, gave away her possessions to the poor and lived as a hermit for the rest of her life.
► St. Olga: Murderess
When a neighboring tribe assassinated her husband, Olga (c.879-969), princess of Kiev, went to war. Olga slaughtered her husband’s murderer and she massacred virtually the entire tribe; the few who did survive, she sold into slavery.
Years later, while in Constantinople, to make an alliance with the emperor, Olga visited a church, encountered the splendor and beauty of Christianity and was in awe of the magnificence of the liturgy. She took instruction, was baptized and returned to Kiev, zealous to convert her people. Olga tried very hard to convert her people, but hardly anyone would listen to her. Even her family rejected Christianity.
Olga died believing that as a missionary, she was a failure. Yet, she planted a seed of Faith which flourished. Today, Catholic and Orthodox Christians of Russia and Ukraine hail her as “Equal to the Apostles.”
► St. Vladimir: Murderer and Rapist
Olga’s grandson Vladimir (956-1015) became prince of Kiev by murdering his older half-brother. Then he raped his sister-in-law and added her to his harem of several hundred women.
He built a new temple to all the gods; and sacrificed a father and his son to the false gods. When the emperor at Constantinople sought his help in putting down a rebellion, Vladimir demanded as his reward the emperor’s sister as his wife (actually, the unhappy woman would be Vladimir’s eighth wife). The emperor countered that Vladimir must convert to Christianity. In order to marry the emperor’s sister, Vladimir accepted Christian baptism.
Everyone suspected that once he was back in Kiev, Vladimir would return to his old ways, but the grace of baptism changed him. His zeal for the Faith knew no limits and his efforts helped spread Christianity across Russia and Ukraine. He dismissed his extra wives and his harem, tore down the pagan temple, and launched a vigorous campaign to convert his people. The Faith his grandmother, Olga (see above) planted flourished under Vladimir.
► St. Margaret of Cortona: Rich Man’s Mistress
Margaret was only twelve when she became Arsenio’s mistress. After years of cohabitation, she realized her sins when she discovered Arsenio’s murdered corpse. Full of the grace of conversion and determined to start a new life, she went to Cortona where the Franciscans ministered to penitent sinners. There, Margaret pursued a life of prayer, penance, and good works.
► St. Angela of Foligno: Worldly and Flirtatious
Angela was beautiful, wealthy, and vain. As a rich man’s wife she wallowed in luxury. Her passions were expensive clothes and flashy jewels, extravagant meals and rare wines. She dressed and acted in ways that would provoke envy among women and sexual desire among men.
When she was not indulging herself, she spent hours gossiping with her friends and maligning her neighbors. In her autobiography Angela discloses that in 1285 she did something so bad that for the first time in her life she began to live in fear of Hell. Her biographers speculate that Angela committed adultery, and given the intensity of her guilt and shame that seems likely.
Near despair, she prayed to St. Francis of Assisi to help her. As Angela prayed the saint appeared to her. “Sister,” St. Francis said, “if you would have asked me sooner I would have complied with your request sooner. Nonetheless, your request is granted.” That same day Angela offered a sincere confession to a priest.
As she stepped from the shadowy interior of the church into the bright sunlight of the piazza, Angela resolved to begin a new life. She sold her fine clothes and jewels to relieve the suffering of Foligno’s poor. After the death of her husband, she gave away all her wealth, associated herself with the Franciscans, and with a handful of other holy women dedicated herself to tending the poor and the sick. Blessed Angela’s life teaches us a timeless lesson about our weakness and God’s mercy. All that he requires is that we repent and make a sincere effort to do better in the future.
► St. Thomas Becket: Rich and Cruel
As chancellor of England under Henry II, Thomas Becket (1118-1170) became obscenely wealthy. His wardrobe was larger and more expensive than the king’s. He even had his own private navy. In spite of all his wealth, Becket was cold-hearted and never gave anything to the poor. All that changed after Becket was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. He gave away all his possessions. He welcomed the poor at his table. And he became a champion of the independence of the Church, for which he was murdered in his own cathedral by four of King Henry’s knights.
► St. Philip Howard: Playboy and Gambler
Son of one of the wealthiest noble families in England, Philip Howard (1557-1595) could afford any pleasure he liked — and he liked them all. At court he was a notorious playboy, gambler and fop. He ran up enormous debts, then sold off his wife’s property to settle them. On one occasion he said publicly that he did not really consider himself to be married. In 1581, he joined other members of the court at the Tower of London, to see a debate between several Anglican ministers and a prisoner, the Jesuit priest, St. Edmund Campion. Although the ministers were armed with books and assistants, Father Campion was alone and had only his memory to rely on, yet he did so well in the debate, that the government canceled the debate before a verdict could be given. Inspired by Father Campion, Howard reconciled with his wife, and they both returned to the Catholic Faith. When they tried to leave the country secretly for the Continent of Europe, where they could practice Catholicism freely, they were stopped and Howard was imprisoned in the Tower of London. He died there 10 years later.
► St. Camillus of Lellis: Drinker, Gambler & Whore-Lover
Camillus de Lellis was born in Italy in the middle of the 16th century. A hot-tempered, troublesome child, he joined the army when he was 16, though his aggressive behavior only grew after that. Camillus was a mercenary soldier with all the worst habits— drinking, gambling, swearing, chasing prostitutes. Years of sinful acts followed before his wholehearted reform in 1575. When his father called for a priest on his deathbed, Camillus began to rethink his life. Guided by St. Philip Neri, his spiritual director, Camillus turned away from sin, dedicated himself to the sick, and formed a religious congregation for nursing the poor.
These sinners got to Heaven, but they had to make themselves acceptable first! Who knows how much time they may have spent in Purgatory in addition to having suffered for their sins after conversion. With God nothing is impossible—unless we stubbornly resist and reject His graces that move us to change!
Years of sinful acts followed before his wholehearted reform in 1575. When his father called for a priest on his deathbed, Camillus began to rethink his life. Guided by St. Philip Neri, his spiritual director, Camillus turned away from sin, dedicated himself to the sick, and formed a religious congregation for nursing the poor.
These sinners got to Heaven, but they had to make themselves acceptable first! Who knows how much time they may have spent in Purgatory in addition to having suffered for their sins after conversion. With God nothing is impossible—unless we stubbornly resist and reject His graces that move us to change!
You’d Better Believe It and Want It!
Let it be said and let it be understood and let it be believed and let it be desired: God expects you to be a saint and Our Lady will help you be a saint! Don’t question it and don’t doubt it! It is not, as you may think, an act of pride to want and expect to be a saint—it is an act of insanity not to do so! What’s the alternative to not wanting to and actually becoming a saint in this life? It is either Hell or Purgatory! Either way, it is insanity! Why pay a thousand times more or pay eternally for what could have been bought at a fraction of the effort and pain here below? You are expected to be a saint. Are you a sinner? You can be a saint! Are you depressed and discourages by your sins? You must become a saint! Only saints go to Heaven!
Even the Saints Were Worldly and Sinful
This does not mean that it is acceptable to be worldly and sinful, but it is an encouragement for us—for if they were once worldly and sinful like we are, then we can also be as saintly as they were! Not just can be, but MUST be! The problem is that most people say that if the saints were worldly, then we can be and remain worldly! This is the blindness of the worldly and the lukewarm, who twist truth to make excuses for their tepidity and sinfulness.
There have been many saints who were sinners, but that does not mean we have a license to sin. The saints have been punished for their sins—make no mistake about that! Ponder these words of the Sacred Heart spoken to St. Margaret Mary: “I cannot bear tepid and cowardly souls, and, if I am gentle in bearing with thy weakness, I shall not be less severe and exact in correcting and punishing thy infidelities!”
All the Apostles suffered intensely after Our Lord ascended into Heaven—they were all martyred, except St. John, though they tried to boil him alive! St. Paul, for persecuting Christians, suffered greatly afterwards—Our Lord had forewarned this: “For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake” (Acts 9:16).
If we want to imitate the saints in sin, then we must also take on board their sufferings for sin! Read the lives of those saints or soon to be canonized saints: Mary Magdalen, Dismas the Thief, Augustine of Hippo, Hippolytus, Callixtus, Camillus, Moses the Black, Mary of Egypt, Olga of Kiev, Vladimir of Kiev, Margaret of Cortona, Angela of Foligno, Pelagia, Thomas Becket, Philip Howard, John of God, Matthew Talbot and many others. If we want to sin as they did, are we prepared to pay the price that they paid?
It’s the First Step That Counts―the First Step is Always the Hardest
Mary Magdalen shows the path and steps to Heaven that are possible for all sinners―humility, repentance, contrition, compunction, renouncement of all worldly thing, a great love of God and penance. If Mary Magdalen was possessed by seven devils, then these are the seven steps back to God. Yet, as they say, “The first step is the hardest!” Why so? Because the first step is that of humility―which is the exact opposite of what led us into sin and what keeps us in sin―which is, of course, PRIDE. The spiritual writers tell us that pride is the last thing to collapse in the spiritual warfare we must all wage in our quest for Heaven.
Once we, through our pride, have turned away from God and walked off the narrow path that leads to Heaven, in preference for the broad, wide, easy, gratifying road that leads to sin and Hell―then, in order to make an “about-face” or a “U-Turn” back towards God, we must first “swallow our pride” and “eat some humble-pie.” The proud person will be full of excuses and finger-pointing―the humble person will have no excuses and will point the finger at himself. That―in this proud and boastful world―is very hard to do. Yet there can be no conversion without humility―just as there is no sin that is not based on pride.
► STEP 1―HUMILITY: What do we have that we have not received from God? Nothing―except our own sins! The only “self-made” work, the only “I did it by myself!” product, the only “man-made or made by me” thing that we can boast of is sin. And what a production-line we have! What a massive output we produce! Our factory of sin produces more sins that we can handle! “Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights!” (James 1:17). “For who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). “What glory is it committing sin?” (1 Peter 2:20). “Let us humble our souls before Him, and continuing in an humble spirit, in His service!” (Judith 8:16). “The greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God … Humble thyself to God” (Ecclesiasticus 3:20; 12:19). Our Lord Himself says: “Learn of Me, because I am meek, and humble of heart―and you shall find rest to your souls!” (Matthew 11:29). Our Lord further shows the opposing fruits of pride and humility in the following parable:
“And to some who trusted in themselves as just, and despised others, Jesus spoke also this parable: ‘Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a Publican. The Pharisee, standing, prayed thus with himself: “O God, I give Thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men! Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican! I fast twice in a week! I give tithes of all that I possess!” And the Publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards Heaven; but struck his breast, saying: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner!” I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other: because everyone that exalts himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbles himself, shall be exalted!’” (Luke 18:9-14).
Another parable further illustrates the power of and the need for humility: “A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father: ‘Father, give me the portion of substance that falleth to me!’ And he divided unto them his substance. And not many days after, the younger son, gathering all together, went abroad into a far country: and there wasted his substance, living riotously. And after he had spent all, there came a mighty famine in that country; and he began to be in want. And he went and cleaved to one of the citizens of that country. And he sent him into his farm to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him. And returning to himself, he said: ‘How many hired servants in my father’s house abound with bread, and I here perish with hunger? I will arise, and will go to my father, and say to him: “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee! I am not worthy to be called thy son! Make me as one of thy hired servants!”‘ And rising up he came to his father. And when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and running to him fell upon his neck, and kissed him. And the son said to him: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee! I am not now worthy to be called thy son!’ And the father said to his servants: ‘Bring forth quickly the first robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet! And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and make mer: y! Because this my son was dead, and is come to life again―was lost, and is found!’ And they began to be merry” (Luke 15:11-24).
Without that first step of humility and a humble recognition that, ultimately, it is YOU that is blameworthy and guilty of sin, then nothing can happen. Humility has to be the spark, the first step, the digging deep in the soil (“humus”) of self to find and remove the rocks, roots and weeds of sin.
► STEP 2―REPENTANCE: The parable of the Prodigal Son shows us how humiliations lead to humility and also how that humility should lead to repentance: “The younger son, gathering all together, went abroad into a far country: and there wasted his substance, living riotously. And after he had spent all, there came a mighty famine in that country; and he began to be in want. And he went and cleaved to one of the citizens of that country. And he sent him into his farm to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him [one humiliation after another]. And returning to himself [the humiliations take effect], he said: ‘How many hired servants in my father’s house abound with bread, and I here perish with hunger? I will arise, and will go to my father [humility sprouts], and say to him: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee! I am not worthy to be called thy son! [humility leads to repentance] Make me as one of thy hired servants!’” Repentance is a humble acknowledgment or admission that we have done wrong, that we wish that we had not done that wrong. It is the precursor of contrition. It needs contrition to perfect it. Remember that Judas ‘repented’ but without contrition.
► STEP 3―CONTRITION: Interior repentance has been called by theologians “contrition”. It is defined explicitly by the Council of Trent (Sess. XIV, ch. iv de Contritione): “a sorrow of soul and a hatred of sin committed, with a firm purpose of not sinning in the future”. The word contrition itself in a moral sense is not of frequent occurrence in Scripture (cf. Psalm 50:19). Etymologically it implies a breaking of something that has become hardened. St. Thomas Aquinas explains its particular use: “Since it is requisite for the remission of sin that a man cast away entirely the liking for sin which implies a sort of continuity and solidity in his mind, the act which obtains forgiveness is termed by a figure of speech ‘contrition’“ (In Lib. Sent. IV, dist. xvii; cf. Supplem. III, Q. i, a. 1). This sorrow of soul is not merely intellectual or speculative sorrow for the wrong that has been done, nor is it a mere remorse of conscience, or simply a resolve to amend; it is a real pain and bitterness of soul together with a hatred and horror for sin committed; and this hatred for sin leads to the resolve to sin no more. The early Christian writers in speaking of the nature of contrition sometimes insist on the feeling of sorrow, sometimes on the detestation of the wrong committed (St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom). Nearly all the medieval theologians hold that contrition is based principally on the detestation of sin. This detestation presupposes a knowledge of the heinousness of sin, and this knowledge begets sorrow and pain of soul. “A sin is committed by the consent, so it is blotted out by the dissent of the rational will; hence contrition is essentially sorrow. But it should be noted that sorrow has a twofold signification--dissent of the will and the consequent feeling; the former is of the essence of contrition, the latter is its effect” (St. Bonaventure).
► STEP 4―COMPUNCTION: Very simply stated, compunction is an abiding sorrow for sin, a permanent sorrow for one’s past sins, that thereby keeps contrition ‘alive’ and thus guarantees and perfects both our repentance and our humility. Tradition tells us that the cheeks of St. Peter were ‘furrowed’ by the ever present tears he shed over his past failings and betrayal of Christ. It is said that after his conversion, Saint Ignatius of Loyola could not stop weeping. He shed tears all the time. This is so much the case that only through the gift of tears do we really understand the spiritual exercises that he proposed. Saint Teresa of Ávila also recommends this way of tears. In them is found a mysterious consolation that only God’s presence can give. For great mystics like Saint Teresa of Ávila or Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the heart-piercing awareness of the Lord’s presence that they sought by faith often caused them to weep — both exteriorly and interiorly. Compunction, in fact, means to be pierced to the heart. These tears, whether physical or spiritual, make the virtues of our spiritual life grow and flourish. Teresa of Ávila described this kind of devotion as water for the flower garden of our hearts, the place where Christian virtues are meant to flourish.
Compunction is like a perpetual reminder or “pricking” of conscience associated with some sinful act. Give yourself to this compunction of heart. Make a firm decision of amendment, say an act of contrition or simply tell God in your own words your understanding of the wrongness of your action. Yes, we must trust in God’s mercy but we must temper our trust with fear of God’s judgment. It is often related to this generation how previous generations focused far too much on God’s fearful judgment, instilling the fear of Hell as a means to teach and instruct others to strive for virtue. It would seem, that in these present modern times, the pendulum has swung to an over-emphasis on God’s mercy. Yes, Our Lord is merciful, but He is equally just. This equates to a balance that is oft missing in our understanding of sin and our way of living. If we trust in God’s mercy―to the point that we blindly believe we can do anything, even the worst of sins and He’ll just happily invite us to Heaven after death―then this is a grave misunderstanding of God. If we follow our hearts blindly and without proper formation according to God’s ways ― ignoring the pricking action of compunction―we run a grave risk of joining the many who enter upon the wide road that leads to destruction and Hell. Thomas à Kempis, in his book The Imitation of Christ, has a whole chapter dedicated to compunction―and is well worth the read. Here are just a few extracts:
“If thou wouldst make any progress, keep thyself in the fear of God, and be not too free; curb all thy senses under discipline, and give not thyself up to foolish mirth. Give thyself to compunction of heart, and thou shalt find devotion. Compunction opens the way to much good, which dissipation tends to lose quickly ... Through levity of heart and neglect of our defects we feel not the sorrows of the soul; and we often vainly laugh when in all reason we should weep ... Happy is the man that can cast away all the hindrance of distraction, and recollect himself in the unity of holy compunction ... If thou canst let men alone, they will let thee alone to do whatever thou hast to do. Busy not thyself in matters which belong to others; and entangle not thyself in the affairs of the great. Have always an eye upon thyself in the first place, and admonish thyself preferably to all thy dearest friends ... Oftentimes it is better and safer for a man not to have many consolations in this life, especially such as are according to the flesh. Still, that we have not Divine comfort is our own fault, because we seek not compunction of heart, and do not wholly renounce vain and outward satisfactions. Know that thou art unworthy of heavenly consolation, but rather deservest much tribulation. When a man hath perfect compunction, then the whole world is to him burdensome and distasteful. A good man findeth abundant matter for sorrow and tears ... And the more strictly he doth consider himself, the greater is his sorrow. The subjects of just sorrow and interior compunction are our sins and vices, in which we are so enrapt, that we are seldom able to fix our mind on heavenly things ... Didst thou also well ponder in thy heart the future pains of Hell or Purgatory, methinks thou wouldst bear willingly labor and sorrow, and fear no kind of austerity. But because these things reach not the heart, and we still love flattering pleasure, therefore we remain cold and very slothful ... Pray, therefore, humbly to the Lord, to give unto thee the spirit of compunction; and say with the Prophet: ‘Feed me, O Lord, with, the food of tears, and give me to drink the tears in measure!’” (Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, Chapter 21: “Of Compunction Of Heart”). Some translations use the words “sorrow of heart” for the word compunction.
► STEP 5―RENOUNCEMENT OF ALL WORDLY THINGS: The world is the devil’s princedom―he is the ruler of the world with his spirit of worldliness. Worldliness begets sinfulness and sinfulness leads to Hell. This is why Our Lord and Holy Scripture are so brutal in their condemnation of the world and worldliness―warning us of the dire consequences for dallying with and befriending the world. That is our problem―we do not want to detach ourselves from the world―we want both the world and Heaven, which is tantamount to saying that we want to friends with both the devil and God!
“The devil took Him [Jesus] up into a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: ‘All these will I give Thee, if falling down Thou wilt adore me!’ Then Jesus saith to him: ‘Begone, Satan! For it is written, “The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve!”‘ Then the devil left Him” (Matthew 4:8-11).
Our Lord Himself tells us: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
“And behold, a certain rich young man, running up and kneeling before Him, asked Him: ‘Good Master, what shall I do that I may receive life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he was very rich and had great possessions. And Jesus, seeing him become sorrowful, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ (combined account of Matthew 19:16-29; Mark 10:17-31; Luke 18:18-25).
This is why Holy Scripture adds: “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). “For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world!” (1 John 2:16). “If then you be dead with Christ from the elements of this world, why do you still act as though living in the world?” (Colossians 2:20). “Adulterers! Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). “We have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God; that we may know the things that are given us from God! … Use this world, as if [you] used it not: for the fashion of this world passeth away!” (1 Corinthians 2:12; 7:31). “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27). “For we brought nothing into this world: and certainly we can carry nothing out!” (1 Timothy 6:7). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Go now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries, which shall come upon you! Your riches are corrupted: and your garments are moth-eaten! Your gold and silver is cankered: and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire! You have stored up to yourselves wrath against the last days!” (James 5:1-3).
Which is why St. Paul says what we ought to say: “God forbid that I should glory in anything, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14).
► STEP 6―GREAT LOVE OF GOD: Make no mistake about it―God should be the greatest love in your life! God should be the primary love of your life! If you have little love for God, then you have little chance of salvation―because salvation means the forgiveness of all our sins, and Jesus said of Mary Magdalen: “Many sins are forgiven her, for she has loved MUCH” (Luke 7:47). For some crazy reason, we willingly and readily dispense ourselves from the supreme Commandment of God―as three of the four Evangelists testify: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Mark 12:30-31) … “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself!” (Luke 10:27). “Jesus said to him: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets!’” (Matthew 2:37-40).
Jesus later adds: ““If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15) … “He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me. And he that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father: and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21) … “If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him” (John 14:23) … “He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words” (John 14:24) ... “You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you” (John 15:14) … “If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love; as I also have kept My Father’s commandments, and do abide in His love” (John 15:10).
Can’t be any clearer than that, huh? Yet it is equally clear that most souls refuse to love God in this manner―that is why most souls are lost! “This people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify Me [and say they love Me], but their heart is far from Me!” (Isaias 29:13). “‘Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth [loveth] Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me’” (Mark 7:6). “Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me. And in vain do they worship Me, teaching doctrines and commandments of men!’” (Matthew 15:7-8).
► STEP 7―PENANCE: The ultimate proof of love is suffering and not mere words: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)―and what better friend do we have than Our Lord Jesus Christ? But, as Our Lord says: ... “You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you” (John 15:14). What does Our Lord command? Well, besides the carrying of the cross and the keeping of the commandments, Our Lord commands that we do penance for the times we have not carried the cross and have not kept the commandments! “No, I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). “No, I say to you; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:5). However, in place of penance, we want pleasure―and most of our life is an endless pursuit of more and more penance! It will not end well!
At Lourdes, Our Lady emphatically stated three times: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” At Fatima, Our Lady came asking for many penances and sacrifices: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Our Lady of Fatima, August 1917). Alas, rather than pray very much, we play very much!
These are the Seven Steps (an purely arbitrary number) that will help us correct our ways, change our direction, and head for Heaven―so that one day, like all the other aforementioned great sinners, we might scrape into eternal bliss and shock everyone else who is there!
Heaven’s Surprise
I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven’s door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp--
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash!
There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.
Herb, who I always thought
Was rotting away in Hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.
I nudged Jesus, “What’s the deal?
I would love to hear your take!”
“How’d all these sinners get up here?
God must’ve made a mistake!”
‘And why’s everyone so quiet, so somber?”
“Give me a clue!’
“My Friend,” He said, “They’re all in shock!”
“They never thought they’d be seeing you!”
If you were to wander into Heaven, you might be forgiven for thinking of some of the people you would find there: “What the Hell are they doing here? How the Hell did they get into Heaven?” For those discouraged about achieving sanctity, there can be no better thing than to read and study the lives of the great sinners who became great saints. They are walking proof of the words of God in Holy Scripture, Who said: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool” (Isaias 1:18).
Around the time of Our Lord, we think of St. Mary Magdalen, who was possessed by seven devils and caught in adultery. Then there is St. Dismas, the Good Thief on the cross, who, by his sufferings and sorrow for sin, steals Heaven with his dying breath. There too, on Calvary, in the Roman legionary, St. Longinus, who pierces Our Lord’s heart with his spear, and ends up being pierced with sorrow in his own heart—finally converting, leaving the military and becoming a saint. Then there is St. Paul the persecutor and killer of Christians, who converts and becomes a pillar of the Faith and paying for his sins through a lifetime of suffering.
A little later in time, as the Church grows, we have St. Callixtus of Rome, who had a very sinful life before being taken under the wing of Victor I, a second century pope. Callixtus went on to become a pope himself, and died a martyr shortly thereafter, thereby sufficiently paying his debts for sin.
St. Mary of Egypt (c.344-c.421), at the age of 12, ran away from home to Alexandria, the most ‘exciting’ city in the Roman Empire. She became an accomplished seductress and prostitute, who took special pleasure in corrupting innocent young men.
The beautiful, teenage St. Pelagia was a dancer and prostittue by her early teens. Pelagia’s conversion occurred all of a sudden, following a chance encounter with Saint Nonnus, the bishop of Edessa.
Another sinner turned saint was St. Olga (879-969). When a neighboring tribe assassinated her husband, St. Olga, princess of Kiev, slaughtered her husband’s murderer and almost all of his people. In vengeance, she massacred virtually the entire tribe; the few who did survive she sold into slavery.
Heaven’s Surprise
I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven’s door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp--
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash!
There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.
Herb, who I always thought
Was rotting away in Hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.
I nudged Jesus, “What’s the deal?
I would love to hear your take!”
“How’d all these sinners get up here?
God must’ve made a mistake!”
‘And why’s everyone so quiet, so somber?”
“Give me a clue!’
“My Friend,” He said, “They’re all in shock!”
“They never thought they’d be seeing you!”
Museum or Hospital?
As St. Augustine says: “The Church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital of sinners … There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future” (St. Augustine of Hippo, Doctor of the Church—sinners need a good doctor!).
Saints can seem remote and distant, close to God, but far from people. But they’re more like us than we give them credit for. Their lives were like ours, full of dilemmas and struggles, with bad choices as well as good. But their goodness won out in the end, as ours can. Interest in angels is quite popular at the moment, but it is the saints who are really like us in both their strengths and frailties. They came to Heaven’s Hospital wounded by sin, and they found a cure—sometimes a painful cure—in Christ’s care.
Sinners Who Changed and Became Saints
► St. Dismas: Robber & Thief
St. Dismas isn’t a saint in the usual or strict sense—for he was never canonized by the Church—but rather a saint by local tradition instead. As the story goes, Dismas asked for Jesus Christ to remember him while he was being crucified next to him. A clue to his past lies in Dismas’ patronage, for he is the patron saint of reformed thieves.
► St. Callixtus: Thief & Embezzler
St. Callixtus of Rome lived a life of many sins before being taken under the wing of Victor I, a second century pope. Callixtus was a Roman slave whose petty theft and reckless investments resulted in being sentenced to forced labor in the mines of Sardinia. He embezzled money and started a public riot, amongst other criminal affairs, but left that all behind early in the third century when he reformed.
Released from the mines by a general pardon, he returned to Rome where Pope St. Victor I gradually brought him to repentance. . He was ordained a priest, served as administrator of one of the catacombs, and ultimately Callixtus went on to become a pope himself, but died a martyr shortly thereafter. His Roman catacombs can be toured today.
► St. Hippolytus: Heretic & First Antipope
Hippolytus was an arrogant, unforgiving man who believed that Christians guilty of mortal sin should be expelled from the Church and never readmitted. In his pride, Hippolytus permitted his followers to elect him as the Church’s first anti-pope. Inspired by the true pope’s holiness, Hippolytus eventually repented of his own sin and was reconciled to the Catholic Church.
► St. Mary of Egypt: Seductress & Whore
At age 12 Mary (344-421) ran away from home to Alexandria, the most exciting city in the Roman Empire. She became an accomplished seductress, who took special pleasure in corrupting innocent young men. Mary was an expert seductress who ensnared any man who caught her eye. Once, on a whim, she joined a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. By the time the ship reached its destination, Mary had seduced the entire crew and all of the pilgrims. She traveled to Jerusalem where a supernatural force prevented her from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. In Jerusalem she realized the enormity of her sins Filled with remorse, Mary sought the Mother of God’s intercession and made a good confession. In penance, Mary lived out her conversion as a hermit, alone in the Jordanian desert.
► St. Moses the Black: Cut-throat & Gang Leader
Moses was chief of a violent gang of bandits. Fleeing from law enforcement, he took refuge in a monastery. Moses was inspired by the monk’s example and converted. He took a vow never to raise his hand against another human being, even in self-defense. After years of overcoming temptation, Moses was killed by Berber raiders.
► St. Pelagia: Dancer & Courtesan
The beautiful, teenage Saint Pelagia would have been every parent’s nightmare. As legend has it, she was a dancer and courtesan (prostitute) by her early teens. Pelagia’s conversion occurred all of a sudden, following a chance encounter with Saint Nonnus, the bishop of Edessa. The young girl was baptized, gave away her possessions to the poor and lived as a hermit for the rest of her life.
► St. Olga: Murderess
When a neighboring tribe assassinated her husband, Olga (c.879-969), princess of Kiev, went to war. Olga slaughtered her husband’s murderer and she massacred virtually the entire tribe; the few who did survive, she sold into slavery.
Years later, while in Constantinople, to make an alliance with the emperor, Olga visited a church, encountered the splendor and beauty of Christianity and was in awe of the magnificence of the liturgy. She took instruction, was baptized and returned to Kiev, zealous to convert her people. Olga tried very hard to convert her people, but hardly anyone would listen to her. Even her family rejected Christianity.
Olga died believing that as a missionary, she was a failure. Yet, she planted a seed of Faith which flourished. Today, Catholic and Orthodox Christians of Russia and Ukraine hail her as “Equal to the Apostles.”
► St. Vladimir: Murderer and Rapist
Olga’s grandson Vladimir (956-1015) became prince of Kiev by murdering his older half-brother. Then he raped his sister-in-law and added her to his harem of several hundred women.
He built a new temple to all the gods; and sacrificed a father and his son to the false gods. When the emperor at Constantinople sought his help in putting down a rebellion, Vladimir demanded as his reward the emperor’s sister as his wife (actually, the unhappy woman would be Vladimir’s eighth wife). The emperor countered that Vladimir must convert to Christianity. In order to marry the emperor’s sister, Vladimir accepted Christian baptism.
Everyone suspected that once he was back in Kiev, Vladimir would return to his old ways, but the grace of baptism changed him. His zeal for the Faith knew no limits and his efforts helped spread Christianity across Russia and Ukraine. He dismissed his extra wives and his harem, tore down the pagan temple, and launched a vigorous campaign to convert his people. The Faith his grandmother, Olga (see above) planted flourished under Vladimir.
► St. Margaret of Cortona: Rich Man’s Mistress
Margaret was only twelve when she became Arsenio’s mistress. After years of cohabitation, she realized her sins when she discovered Arsenio’s murdered corpse. Full of the grace of conversion and determined to start a new life, she went to Cortona where the Franciscans ministered to penitent sinners. There, Margaret pursued a life of prayer, penance, and good works.
► St. Angela of Foligno: Worldly and Flirtatious
Angela was beautiful, wealthy, and vain. As a rich man’s wife she wallowed in luxury. Her passions were expensive clothes and flashy jewels, extravagant meals and rare wines. She dressed and acted in ways that would provoke envy among women and sexual desire among men.
When she was not indulging herself, she spent hours gossiping with her friends and maligning her neighbors. In her autobiography Angela discloses that in 1285 she did something so bad that for the first time in her life she began to live in fear of Hell. Her biographers speculate that Angela committed adultery, and given the intensity of her guilt and shame that seems likely.
Near despair, she prayed to St. Francis of Assisi to help her. As Angela prayed the saint appeared to her. “Sister,” St. Francis said, “if you would have asked me sooner I would have complied with your request sooner. Nonetheless, your request is granted.” That same day Angela offered a sincere confession to a priest.
As she stepped from the shadowy interior of the church into the bright sunlight of the piazza, Angela resolved to begin a new life. She sold her fine clothes and jewels to relieve the suffering of Foligno’s poor. After the death of her husband, she gave away all her wealth, associated herself with the Franciscans, and with a handful of other holy women dedicated herself to tending the poor and the sick. Blessed Angela’s life teaches us a timeless lesson about our weakness and God’s mercy. All that he requires is that we repent and make a sincere effort to do better in the future.
► St. Thomas Becket: Rich and Cruel
As chancellor of England under Henry II, Thomas Becket (1118-1170) became obscenely wealthy. His wardrobe was larger and more expensive than the king’s. He even had his own private navy. In spite of all his wealth, Becket was cold-hearted and never gave anything to the poor. All that changed after Becket was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. He gave away all his possessions. He welcomed the poor at his table. And he became a champion of the independence of the Church, for which he was murdered in his own cathedral by four of King Henry’s knights.
► St. Philip Howard: Playboy and Gambler
Son of one of the wealthiest noble families in England, Philip Howard (1557-1595) could afford any pleasure he liked — and he liked them all. At court he was a notorious playboy, gambler and fop. He ran up enormous debts, then sold off his wife’s property to settle them. On one occasion he said publicly that he did not really consider himself to be married. In 1581, he joined other members of the court at the Tower of London, to see a debate between several Anglican ministers and a prisoner, the Jesuit priest, St. Edmund Campion. Although the ministers were armed with books and assistants, Father Campion was alone and had only his memory to rely on, yet he did so well in the debate, that the government canceled the debate before a verdict could be given. Inspired by Father Campion, Howard reconciled with his wife, and they both returned to the Catholic Faith. When they tried to leave the country secretly for the Continent of Europe, where they could practice Catholicism freely, they were stopped and Howard was imprisoned in the Tower of London. He died there 10 years later.
► St. Camillus of Lellis: Drinker, Gambler & Whore-Lover
Camillus de Lellis was born in Italy in the middle of the 16th century. A hot-tempered, troublesome child, he joined the army when he was 16, though his aggressive behavior only grew after that. Camillus was a mercenary soldier with all the worst habits— drinking, gambling, swearing, chasing prostitutes. Years of sinful acts followed before his wholehearted reform in 1575. When his father called for a priest on his deathbed, Camillus began to rethink his life. Guided by St. Philip Neri, his spiritual director, Camillus turned away from sin, dedicated himself to the sick, and formed a religious congregation for nursing the poor.
These sinners got to Heaven, but they had to make themselves acceptable first! Who knows how much time they may have spent in Purgatory in addition to having suffered for their sins after conversion. With God nothing is impossible—unless we stubbornly resist and reject His graces that move us to change!
Years of sinful acts followed before his wholehearted reform in 1575. When his father called for a priest on his deathbed, Camillus began to rethink his life. Guided by St. Philip Neri, his spiritual director, Camillus turned away from sin, dedicated himself to the sick, and formed a religious congregation for nursing the poor.
These sinners got to Heaven, but they had to make themselves acceptable first! Who knows how much time they may have spent in Purgatory in addition to having suffered for their sins after conversion. With God nothing is impossible—unless we stubbornly resist and reject His graces that move us to change!
You’d Better Believe It and Want It!
Let it be said and let it be understood and let it be believed and let it be desired: God expects you to be a saint and Our Lady will help you be a saint! Don’t question it and don’t doubt it! It is not, as you may think, an act of pride to want and expect to be a saint—it is an act of insanity not to do so! What’s the alternative to not wanting to and actually becoming a saint in this life? It is either Hell or Purgatory! Either way, it is insanity! Why pay a thousand times more or pay eternally for what could have been bought at a fraction of the effort and pain here below? You are expected to be a saint. Are you a sinner? You can be a saint! Are you depressed and discourages by your sins? You must become a saint! Only saints go to Heaven!
Even the Saints Were Worldly and Sinful
This does not mean that it is acceptable to be worldly and sinful, but it is an encouragement for us—for if they were once worldly and sinful like we are, then we can also be as saintly as they were! Not just can be, but MUST be! The problem is that most people say that if the saints were worldly, then we can be and remain worldly! This is the blindness of the worldly and the lukewarm, who twist truth to make excuses for their tepidity and sinfulness.
There have been many saints who were sinners, but that does not mean we have a license to sin. The saints have been punished for their sins—make no mistake about that! Ponder these words of the Sacred Heart spoken to St. Margaret Mary: “I cannot bear tepid and cowardly souls, and, if I am gentle in bearing with thy weakness, I shall not be less severe and exact in correcting and punishing thy infidelities!”
All the Apostles suffered intensely after Our Lord ascended into Heaven—they were all martyred, except St. John, though they tried to boil him alive! St. Paul, for persecuting Christians, suffered greatly afterwards—Our Lord had forewarned this: “For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake” (Acts 9:16).
If we want to imitate the saints in sin, then we must also take on board their sufferings for sin! Read the lives of those saints or soon to be canonized saints: Mary Magdalen, Dismas the Thief, Augustine of Hippo, Hippolytus, Callixtus, Camillus, Moses the Black, Mary of Egypt, Olga of Kiev, Vladimir of Kiev, Margaret of Cortona, Angela of Foligno, Pelagia, Thomas Becket, Philip Howard, John of God, Matthew Talbot and many others. If we want to sin as they did, are we prepared to pay the price that they paid?
It’s the First Step That Counts―the First Step is Always the Hardest
Mary Magdalen shows the path and steps to Heaven that are possible for all sinners―humility, repentance, contrition, compunction, renouncement of all worldly thing, a great love of God and penance. If Mary Magdalen was possessed by seven devils, then these are the seven steps back to God. Yet, as they say, “The first step is the hardest!” Why so? Because the first step is that of humility―which is the exact opposite of what led us into sin and what keeps us in sin―which is, of course, PRIDE. The spiritual writers tell us that pride is the last thing to collapse in the spiritual warfare we must all wage in our quest for Heaven.
Once we, through our pride, have turned away from God and walked off the narrow path that leads to Heaven, in preference for the broad, wide, easy, gratifying road that leads to sin and Hell―then, in order to make an “about-face” or a “U-Turn” back towards God, we must first “swallow our pride” and “eat some humble-pie.” The proud person will be full of excuses and finger-pointing―the humble person will have no excuses and will point the finger at himself. That―in this proud and boastful world―is very hard to do. Yet there can be no conversion without humility―just as there is no sin that is not based on pride.
► STEP 1―HUMILITY: What do we have that we have not received from God? Nothing―except our own sins! The only “self-made” work, the only “I did it by myself!” product, the only “man-made or made by me” thing that we can boast of is sin. And what a production-line we have! What a massive output we produce! Our factory of sin produces more sins that we can handle! “Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights!” (James 1:17). “For who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). “What glory is it committing sin?” (1 Peter 2:20). “Let us humble our souls before Him, and continuing in an humble spirit, in His service!” (Judith 8:16). “The greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God … Humble thyself to God” (Ecclesiasticus 3:20; 12:19). Our Lord Himself says: “Learn of Me, because I am meek, and humble of heart―and you shall find rest to your souls!” (Matthew 11:29). Our Lord further shows the opposing fruits of pride and humility in the following parable:
“And to some who trusted in themselves as just, and despised others, Jesus spoke also this parable: ‘Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a Publican. The Pharisee, standing, prayed thus with himself: “O God, I give Thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men! Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican! I fast twice in a week! I give tithes of all that I possess!” And the Publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards Heaven; but struck his breast, saying: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner!” I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other: because everyone that exalts himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbles himself, shall be exalted!’” (Luke 18:9-14).
Another parable further illustrates the power of and the need for humility: “A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father: ‘Father, give me the portion of substance that falleth to me!’ And he divided unto them his substance. And not many days after, the younger son, gathering all together, went abroad into a far country: and there wasted his substance, living riotously. And after he had spent all, there came a mighty famine in that country; and he began to be in want. And he went and cleaved to one of the citizens of that country. And he sent him into his farm to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him. And returning to himself, he said: ‘How many hired servants in my father’s house abound with bread, and I here perish with hunger? I will arise, and will go to my father, and say to him: “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee! I am not worthy to be called thy son! Make me as one of thy hired servants!”‘ And rising up he came to his father. And when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and running to him fell upon his neck, and kissed him. And the son said to him: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee! I am not now worthy to be called thy son!’ And the father said to his servants: ‘Bring forth quickly the first robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet! And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and make mer: y! Because this my son was dead, and is come to life again―was lost, and is found!’ And they began to be merry” (Luke 15:11-24).
Without that first step of humility and a humble recognition that, ultimately, it is YOU that is blameworthy and guilty of sin, then nothing can happen. Humility has to be the spark, the first step, the digging deep in the soil (“humus”) of self to find and remove the rocks, roots and weeds of sin.
► STEP 2―REPENTANCE: The parable of the Prodigal Son shows us how humiliations lead to humility and also how that humility should lead to repentance: “The younger son, gathering all together, went abroad into a far country: and there wasted his substance, living riotously. And after he had spent all, there came a mighty famine in that country; and he began to be in want. And he went and cleaved to one of the citizens of that country. And he sent him into his farm to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him [one humiliation after another]. And returning to himself [the humiliations take effect], he said: ‘How many hired servants in my father’s house abound with bread, and I here perish with hunger? I will arise, and will go to my father [humility sprouts], and say to him: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee! I am not worthy to be called thy son! [humility leads to repentance] Make me as one of thy hired servants!’” Repentance is a humble acknowledgment or admission that we have done wrong, that we wish that we had not done that wrong. It is the precursor of contrition. It needs contrition to perfect it. Remember that Judas ‘repented’ but without contrition.
► STEP 3―CONTRITION: Interior repentance has been called by theologians “contrition”. It is defined explicitly by the Council of Trent (Sess. XIV, ch. iv de Contritione): “a sorrow of soul and a hatred of sin committed, with a firm purpose of not sinning in the future”. The word contrition itself in a moral sense is not of frequent occurrence in Scripture (cf. Psalm 50:19). Etymologically it implies a breaking of something that has become hardened. St. Thomas Aquinas explains its particular use: “Since it is requisite for the remission of sin that a man cast away entirely the liking for sin which implies a sort of continuity and solidity in his mind, the act which obtains forgiveness is termed by a figure of speech ‘contrition’“ (In Lib. Sent. IV, dist. xvii; cf. Supplem. III, Q. i, a. 1). This sorrow of soul is not merely intellectual or speculative sorrow for the wrong that has been done, nor is it a mere remorse of conscience, or simply a resolve to amend; it is a real pain and bitterness of soul together with a hatred and horror for sin committed; and this hatred for sin leads to the resolve to sin no more. The early Christian writers in speaking of the nature of contrition sometimes insist on the feeling of sorrow, sometimes on the detestation of the wrong committed (St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom). Nearly all the medieval theologians hold that contrition is based principally on the detestation of sin. This detestation presupposes a knowledge of the heinousness of sin, and this knowledge begets sorrow and pain of soul. “A sin is committed by the consent, so it is blotted out by the dissent of the rational will; hence contrition is essentially sorrow. But it should be noted that sorrow has a twofold signification--dissent of the will and the consequent feeling; the former is of the essence of contrition, the latter is its effect” (St. Bonaventure).
► STEP 4―COMPUNCTION: Very simply stated, compunction is an abiding sorrow for sin, a permanent sorrow for one’s past sins, that thereby keeps contrition ‘alive’ and thus guarantees and perfects both our repentance and our humility. Tradition tells us that the cheeks of St. Peter were ‘furrowed’ by the ever present tears he shed over his past failings and betrayal of Christ. It is said that after his conversion, Saint Ignatius of Loyola could not stop weeping. He shed tears all the time. This is so much the case that only through the gift of tears do we really understand the spiritual exercises that he proposed. Saint Teresa of Ávila also recommends this way of tears. In them is found a mysterious consolation that only God’s presence can give. For great mystics like Saint Teresa of Ávila or Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the heart-piercing awareness of the Lord’s presence that they sought by faith often caused them to weep — both exteriorly and interiorly. Compunction, in fact, means to be pierced to the heart. These tears, whether physical or spiritual, make the virtues of our spiritual life grow and flourish. Teresa of Ávila described this kind of devotion as water for the flower garden of our hearts, the place where Christian virtues are meant to flourish.
Compunction is like a perpetual reminder or “pricking” of conscience associated with some sinful act. Give yourself to this compunction of heart. Make a firm decision of amendment, say an act of contrition or simply tell God in your own words your understanding of the wrongness of your action. Yes, we must trust in God’s mercy but we must temper our trust with fear of God’s judgment. It is often related to this generation how previous generations focused far too much on God’s fearful judgment, instilling the fear of Hell as a means to teach and instruct others to strive for virtue. It would seem, that in these present modern times, the pendulum has swung to an over-emphasis on God’s mercy. Yes, Our Lord is merciful, but He is equally just. This equates to a balance that is oft missing in our understanding of sin and our way of living. If we trust in God’s mercy―to the point that we blindly believe we can do anything, even the worst of sins and He’ll just happily invite us to Heaven after death―then this is a grave misunderstanding of God. If we follow our hearts blindly and without proper formation according to God’s ways ― ignoring the pricking action of compunction―we run a grave risk of joining the many who enter upon the wide road that leads to destruction and Hell. Thomas à Kempis, in his book The Imitation of Christ, has a whole chapter dedicated to compunction―and is well worth the read. Here are just a few extracts:
“If thou wouldst make any progress, keep thyself in the fear of God, and be not too free; curb all thy senses under discipline, and give not thyself up to foolish mirth. Give thyself to compunction of heart, and thou shalt find devotion. Compunction opens the way to much good, which dissipation tends to lose quickly ... Through levity of heart and neglect of our defects we feel not the sorrows of the soul; and we often vainly laugh when in all reason we should weep ... Happy is the man that can cast away all the hindrance of distraction, and recollect himself in the unity of holy compunction ... If thou canst let men alone, they will let thee alone to do whatever thou hast to do. Busy not thyself in matters which belong to others; and entangle not thyself in the affairs of the great. Have always an eye upon thyself in the first place, and admonish thyself preferably to all thy dearest friends ... Oftentimes it is better and safer for a man not to have many consolations in this life, especially such as are according to the flesh. Still, that we have not Divine comfort is our own fault, because we seek not compunction of heart, and do not wholly renounce vain and outward satisfactions. Know that thou art unworthy of heavenly consolation, but rather deservest much tribulation. When a man hath perfect compunction, then the whole world is to him burdensome and distasteful. A good man findeth abundant matter for sorrow and tears ... And the more strictly he doth consider himself, the greater is his sorrow. The subjects of just sorrow and interior compunction are our sins and vices, in which we are so enrapt, that we are seldom able to fix our mind on heavenly things ... Didst thou also well ponder in thy heart the future pains of Hell or Purgatory, methinks thou wouldst bear willingly labor and sorrow, and fear no kind of austerity. But because these things reach not the heart, and we still love flattering pleasure, therefore we remain cold and very slothful ... Pray, therefore, humbly to the Lord, to give unto thee the spirit of compunction; and say with the Prophet: ‘Feed me, O Lord, with, the food of tears, and give me to drink the tears in measure!’” (Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, Chapter 21: “Of Compunction Of Heart”). Some translations use the words “sorrow of heart” for the word compunction.
► STEP 5―RENOUNCEMENT OF ALL WORDLY THINGS: The world is the devil’s princedom―he is the ruler of the world with his spirit of worldliness. Worldliness begets sinfulness and sinfulness leads to Hell. This is why Our Lord and Holy Scripture are so brutal in their condemnation of the world and worldliness―warning us of the dire consequences for dallying with and befriending the world. That is our problem―we do not want to detach ourselves from the world―we want both the world and Heaven, which is tantamount to saying that we want to friends with both the devil and God!
“The devil took Him [Jesus] up into a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: ‘All these will I give Thee, if falling down Thou wilt adore me!’ Then Jesus saith to him: ‘Begone, Satan! For it is written, “The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve!”‘ Then the devil left Him” (Matthew 4:8-11).
Our Lord Himself tells us: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
“And behold, a certain rich young man, running up and kneeling before Him, asked Him: ‘Good Master, what shall I do that I may receive life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he was very rich and had great possessions. And Jesus, seeing him become sorrowful, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ (combined account of Matthew 19:16-29; Mark 10:17-31; Luke 18:18-25).
This is why Holy Scripture adds: “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). “For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world!” (1 John 2:16). “If then you be dead with Christ from the elements of this world, why do you still act as though living in the world?” (Colossians 2:20). “Adulterers! Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). “We have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God; that we may know the things that are given us from God! … Use this world, as if [you] used it not: for the fashion of this world passeth away!” (1 Corinthians 2:12; 7:31). “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27). “For we brought nothing into this world: and certainly we can carry nothing out!” (1 Timothy 6:7). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Go now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries, which shall come upon you! Your riches are corrupted: and your garments are moth-eaten! Your gold and silver is cankered: and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire! You have stored up to yourselves wrath against the last days!” (James 5:1-3).
Which is why St. Paul says what we ought to say: “God forbid that I should glory in anything, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14).
► STEP 6―GREAT LOVE OF GOD: Make no mistake about it―God should be the greatest love in your life! God should be the primary love of your life! If you have little love for God, then you have little chance of salvation―because salvation means the forgiveness of all our sins, and Jesus said of Mary Magdalen: “Many sins are forgiven her, for she has loved MUCH” (Luke 7:47). For some crazy reason, we willingly and readily dispense ourselves from the supreme Commandment of God―as three of the four Evangelists testify: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Mark 12:30-31) … “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself!” (Luke 10:27). “Jesus said to him: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets!’” (Matthew 2:37-40).
Jesus later adds: ““If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15) … “He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me. And he that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father: and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21) … “If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him” (John 14:23) … “He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words” (John 14:24) ... “You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you” (John 15:14) … “If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love; as I also have kept My Father’s commandments, and do abide in His love” (John 15:10).
Can’t be any clearer than that, huh? Yet it is equally clear that most souls refuse to love God in this manner―that is why most souls are lost! “This people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify Me [and say they love Me], but their heart is far from Me!” (Isaias 29:13). “‘Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth [loveth] Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me’” (Mark 7:6). “Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me. And in vain do they worship Me, teaching doctrines and commandments of men!’” (Matthew 15:7-8).
► STEP 7―PENANCE: The ultimate proof of love is suffering and not mere words: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)―and what better friend do we have than Our Lord Jesus Christ? But, as Our Lord says: ... “You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you” (John 15:14). What does Our Lord command? Well, besides the carrying of the cross and the keeping of the commandments, Our Lord commands that we do penance for the times we have not carried the cross and have not kept the commandments! “No, I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). “No, I say to you; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:5). However, in place of penance, we want pleasure―and most of our life is an endless pursuit of more and more penance! It will not end well!
At Lourdes, Our Lady emphatically stated three times: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” At Fatima, Our Lady came asking for many penances and sacrifices: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Our Lady of Fatima, August 1917). Alas, rather than pray very much, we play very much!
These are the Seven Steps (an purely arbitrary number) that will help us correct our ways, change our direction, and head for Heaven―so that one day, like all the other aforementioned great sinners, we might scrape into eternal bliss and shock everyone else who is there!
Heaven’s Surprise
I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven’s door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp--
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash!
There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.
Herb, who I always thought
Was rotting away in Hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.
I nudged Jesus, “What’s the deal?
I would love to hear your take!”
“How’d all these sinners get up here?
God must’ve made a mistake!”
‘And why’s everyone so quiet, so somber?”
“Give me a clue!’
“My Friend,” He said, “They’re all in shock!”
“They never thought they’d be seeing you!”
Article 13
Saturday July 22nd, 2023
Mary Magdalen ― A Saint for Today
Saturday July 22nd, 2023
Mary Magdalen ― A Saint for Today
Great Sinners Can Become Great Saints
There are few feasts that elicit more interest and admiration than that of St. Mary Magdalen. We could almost call her the “Saint of our Age”—since there are so many persons, in our day and age, that have gone down the road that the Mary Magdalen unfortunately trod, before she converted and went from being a sinner to a saint. She is not just a sinner, but a great sinner, who became a great saint. That was and still is whole purpose of Our Lord’s mission that culminated with His Passion and Death: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32) and He died on the cross with Mary Magdalen at His feet, while with His last breath He was calling the “Good Thief”—St. Dismas—to repentance and Paradise: “And Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in paradise!’” (Luke 23:43).
Great Woman of the New Testament
Mary Magdalen or Mary of Magdala and sometimes called "The Magdalene", is a key religious figure in Christianity. She is usually thought of as the second-most important woman in the New Testament, after Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Mary Magdalene traveled with Jesus as one of His followers. She was present at Jesus’ two most important moments: the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Her repentance was great and prolonged, so much so that Jesus said: “Amen, I say to you, wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which she hath done, shall be told for a memorial of her!” (Mark 14:9).
The notion of Mary Magdalene being a repentant sinner, can be traced at least as far back as St. Ephraim the Syrian, in the fourth century, and became the generally accepted view in Western Christianity after the homily of Pope Gregory I (“Gregory the Great”) in about 591. Gregory is one o
f the most influential and authoritative popes, and, in a famous series of sermons on Mary Magdalene, given in Rome, he identified Magdalen, not only with the anonymous sinner with the perfume in Luke’s Gospel, but also with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus; this interpretation is often called the “composite Magdalene” in modern parlance.
Who is this Mary?
The Greek Fathers, as a whole, and today’s modern scholars, distinguish three persons:
• Mary the “sinner” of Luke 7:36-50;
• Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus, Luke 10:38-42 and John 11; and
• Mary Magdalen, from whom seven devils were cast out.
On the other hand most of the Latins (Roman or Western Church) and traditional scholars and exegetes of Scripture, hold that these three were one and the same. It is conceivable that St. John, just because he is writing so long after the event, and at a time when Mary was dead, wishes to point out to us that she was really the same as the “sinner.” In the same way, St. Luke may have veiled her identity, precisely because he did not wish to defame someone who was still living; Luke does something similar in the case of St. Matthew, whom he refrains from identifying as Levi the Publican (5:7), and conceals the fact. If this argument of the traditional Western Church holds good, then “Mary of Bethany” and the “sinner” are one and the same. Furthermore, an examination of St. John’s Gospel makes it almost impossible to deny the identity of “Mary of Bethany” with “Mary Magdalen”.
Pope St. Gregory the Great says: “Whenever I ponder the penitential spirit of Mary Magdalene, I feel more like weeping than speaking. For the tears of this sinful woman will soften even a heart of stone, towards the idea of doing penance. Having reflected on what she had done, she did not wish to set bounds to what she should do. She came in, uninvited, after the meal had begun, and brought her tears to the banquet. See with what grief she must burn, when she is not ashamed to weep even at a banquet.
“This woman, whom Luke calls “a sinful woman,” is called Mary by John. We think she is that Mary from whom, according to Mark’s testimony, seven devils were driven out. What would be designated by seven devils but the totality of vice? The number seven is a fitting figure for a totality. For example, all time is perceived in terms of the seven days. And so Mary had seven devils, because she abounded in all the vices.
“But note that she looked at the stains of her sinfulness and then ran to be washed at the fountain of mercy. The dinner guests did not embarrass her. For since she was, inwardly, so deeply ashamed of herself, she considered the outward embarrassment as nothing. What should we admire, brothers: Mary’s coming or the Lord’s receiving her? “Receiving”, or should I say, or “drawing her” to Himself? I should rather say: “drawing her to Himself and receiving her.” For there is no doubt that He, who in His gentleness received her outwardly, was, in His mercy, drawing her inwardly” (Pope St. Gregory the Great, Homily 33 on the Gospels).
Living Proof of Jesus’ Mission
St. Mary Magdalen was a living proof of the mission of Jesus. He had come to save souls, seek out and convert the lost sheep, and bring them to penance and salvation: “Thou shalt call His name Jesus. For He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Jesus Himself says: “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) … “I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24) … “What man of you that hath an hundred sheep: and if he shall lose one of them, doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go after that which was lost, until he find it?” (Luke 15:4) … “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance” (Luke 5:32) … “Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance” (Matthew 3:8).
Symbol of Hope
Mary Magdalen fits the above bill perfectly. Her conversion and her salvation should give hope to every sinner—both great and small. Nevertheless, we must remember that conversions are not automatic and without a price. Neither are they cases of being “born into Heaven with a silver spoon in our mouths”! Conversion is not cheap and Heaven is not cheap. For that matter, Mary Magdalen did not get away cheaply—but she gives hope to even the greatest of sinners, in that, if they are willing to cooperate and work with the grace of God, like she did, then forgiveness and Heaven is attainable, much as it was for her.
Does Jesus Love Sinners?
There is no person, not matter how bad that they be, that Jesus does not love. In one sense—and do not misinterpret this statement—the greater the sinner, the greater the compassionate love Jesus has for the sinner. If he came to save sinners from their sins, then He gets more glory from saving a big sinner than a little sinner—just like a fisherman gets more glory upon catching a big fish, than a little fish. Big sinners are a “big catch” for Jesus.
However, in saying that Jesus loves sinners and that the bigger the sinner, the more He loves them, does not mean that He approves, likes, “turns a blind-eye” or allows those sins to go unpunished! On the contrary, His justice demands that even if a sinner is forgiven, he or she has to pay for their sin—we either pay of our own accord, through penance, or we take what God “dishes-out” by way of punishment and penance for our sins--“For whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth: and, as a father in the son, he pleaseth Himself” (Proverbs 3:12). “For whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth; and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth” (Hebrews 12:6).
The Example of Sodom and Gomorrha
This love of the sinner and hatred for sin is well shown in God’s attitude to Sodom and Gomorrha. Despite the terrible Sodom and Gomorrha, God was still prepared to spare and save them. Abraham ‘bargained’ and ‘argued’ with God and we see that, on the one hand, God was prepared to spare them at a ‘discount price’, but, on the other hand, since that ‘discount price’ was not paid, they paid in another, far more painful way!
“And the Lord said: The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is multiplied, and their sin is become exceedingly grievous ... but Abraham, as yet, stood before the Lord. And drawing near he said: ‘Wilt Thou destroy the just with the wicked? If there be fifty just men in the city, shall they perish withal? And wilt Thou not spare that place for the sake of the fifty just, if they be therein? Far be it from Thee to do this thing, and to slay the just with the wicked, and for the just to be in like case as the wicked, this is not beseeming Thee: Thou who judgest all the Earth, wilt not make this judgment.’ And the Lord said to him: ‘If I find in Sodom fifty just within the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.’ And Abraham answered, and said: ‘Seeing I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord, whereas I am dust and ashes. What if there be five less than fifty just persons? Wilt Thou for five and forty destroy the whole city?’ And He said: ‘I will not destroy it, if I find five and forty. And again he said to Him: ‘But if forty be found there, what wilt Thou do?’ He said: ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of forty.’ ‘Lord’, saith he, ‘be not angry, I beseech thee, if I speak. What if thirty shall be found there?’ He answered: ‘I will not do it, if I find thirty there.’ ‘Seeing’, saith he, ‘I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord. What if twenty be found there?’ He said: ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.’ ‘I beseech thee’, saith he, ‘be not angry, Lord, if I speak yet once more: What if ten should be found there?’ And He said: ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.’ And the Lord departed, after He had left speaking to Abraham: and Abraham returned to his place.” (Exodus 18:20-33).
Mercy at a Price
Of course, we know that not even ten just men were to be found and God destroyed both Sodom and Gomorrha, while Abraham and his family fled the city just before the destruction. Nevertheless, see God’s mercy on offer in His ‘bargaining’ with Abraham, to find a way of showing mercy to those sinners. But it was not to be—the ‘discount price’ was not met and so mercy was not given. We have to cooperate with God and pay the asking price, then these following words will come true: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool” (Isaias 1:18). But the conditions are: “Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14) and “Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance” (Matthew 3:8).
An End to Sin
The words that Our Lord spoke, after curing the man who had been sick for thirty-eight years, seem to show the displeasure of God and punishment of man that is brought about by sin: “Afterwards, Jesus findeth him in the temple, and saith to him: ‘Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!’” (John 5:14). Jesus had said those very same words to Mary Magdalen, and we can presume that she took them to heart and did her best to conform to them: “Jesus lifting up himself, said to her: ‘Woman, where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee?’ Who said: ‘No man, Lord!’ And Jesus said: ‘Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more!’” (John 8:10-11).
Mary the Sinner Was Loved By Jesus
When you think of what Mary Magdalen’s past must have been like, then, from a merely human perspective, one would be tempted to be repulsed by her—in most parishes and families she most certainly would evoke such a reaction. Possessed by seven devils! Public sinner! Caught in adultery! Yet she finds herself not only forgiven by Our Lord, but ends up being among His closest followers—finding her way into the “inner sanctum” or the very heart of operations! “And it came to pass afterwards, that Jesus traveled through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God; and the twelve with Him; and certain women, who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities; and Mary who is called Magdalen, out of whom seven devils were gone forth; … and many others who ministered unto Him of their substance” (Luke 8:1-2).
Being forgiven is one thing, but being taken on as “one of the ‘family’” is quite another! “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus” (John 11:5). No doubt Our Lady loved her too! We somehow just cannot imagine Our Lady giving her the “silent treatment” or the “cold shoulder” or turning her nose up at her! We read in St. Alphonsus Liguori’s The Glories of Mary, that Our Lady declared to the venerable sister Mary Villani: “Next to the title of mother of God, I glory most in being named the advocate of sinners.” A little further in The Glories of Mary, we read: “St. Bernard writes that Mary becomes all things to all men, and opens to all the bowels of her mercy, that all may receive of her; the captive his freedom; the sick man health; the afflicted consolation; the sinner pardon, and God glory: hence there is no one, since she is the sun, who does not partake of her warmth.”
Key Element in Mercy
This leads us to another very important point in the element of mercy. The universal principle of “As you sow, so shall you reap” also applies to mercy. We are all eager recipients of mercy, but are we just as eager in dispensing mercy? Our Lord puts it so very simply, clearly, bluntly and incontestably: “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7), to which the Holy Ghost adds, speaking through St. James: “For judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy” (James 2:13).
For many, the showing of mercy is like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone! Even the best among us find it hard. St. Peter was trying to find a loophole from having to show mercy: “Then came Peter unto Jesus and said: ‘Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?’ Jesus saith to him: ‘I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times!’” (Matthew 18:21-22). Isn’t that what Our Lord has done to us? How many times have you gone to Confession? How many times have you been forgiven? How many times have you been refused forgiveness?
A Parable of Mercy and No Mercy
This theme prompted Our Lord to tell the following parable about a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants: “And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him, that owed him ten thousand talents. And as he had not wherewith to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.
“But that servant falling down, besought him, saying: ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!’ And the lord of that servant being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt. But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him an hundred pence: and laying hold of him, throttled him, saying: ‘Pay what thou owest!’ And his fellow servant falling down, besought him, saying: ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!’ And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he paid the debt.
“Now his fellow servants seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him; and said to him: ‘Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest me! Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow servant, even as I had compassion on thee?’ And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt. So also shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not, everyone his brother, from your hearts!” (Matthew 18:24-35).
Superficial Understanding
We read these parables too superficially, without researching any deeper to discover more that rests on the surface, and thereby we fail to grasp and understand the true depth of meaning of Our Lord’s words. We are content with only a cursory understanding and have neither the time nor the inclination to dig deeper. A talent was seven hundred and fifty ounces of silver and so ten thousand talents came to 7,500,000 ounces (7½ million ounces) ― at today’s silver prices of $25 per ounce, 10,000 talents would be over $195 million. The Roman penny was the eighth part of an ounce of silver—so a hundred pence would be a mere 12½ ounces of silver compared to the larger debt of 7½ million ounces―which, at today’s silver prices of $25 per ounce, is a debt of $312 and 50 cents, compared to a debt of $195 million! Our Lord is painting a striking picture here. With the forgiveness of the large debt, it encourages us in seeing that even very grave sins can be cured and forgiven—showing the extreme kindness of the God of mercy.
On the other hand, we see that the God of Justice can also be very true to His word--“Judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy” (James 2:13). “For mercy and wrath are with Him. He is mighty to forgive, and to pour out indignation” (Ecclesiasticus 16:12). Once again, we come back to the sowing and reaping principle: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:7). “For there is no good for him that is always occupied in evil, and that giveth no alms: for the Highest hateth sinners, and hath mercy on the penitent” (Ecclesiasticus 12:3).
Mercy is So Precious, Its Abuse is a Great Crime
Holy Scripture tells that mercy is exceedingly precious—hence its abuse must consequently rank among the greatest crimes and sins. “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all: and His tender mercies are over all his works” (Psalm 144:8-9). These peddlers of unconditional mercy make a doormat out of God, upon which we can endlessly and indifferently scrape, drag and wipe our sinfully dirty boots. This is nothing other than the sin of presumption—I will sin in what I want, and sin as much as I want, and God will still forgive me!
St. Alphonsus Liguori has some words to say about this: “ ‘But God is merciful!’ Behold another common delusion by which the devil encourages sinners to persevere in a life of sin! A certain author has said, that more souls have been sent to Hell by the mercy of God than by His justice. This is indeed the case; for men are induced by the deceits of the devil to persevere in sin, through confidence in Gods mercy; and thus they are lost. ‘God is merciful!’ Who denies it? But, great as His mercy, how many does He every day send to Hell? God is merciful, but He is also just, and is, therefore, obliged to punish those who offend Him. ‘And His mercy,’ says the divine Mother, ‘to them that fear Him’ (Luke 1:50). But with regard to those who abuse His mercy and despise Him, He exercises justice. The Lord pardons sins, but He cannot pardon the determination to commit sin. St. Augustine says, that he who sins, with the intention of repenting after his sins, is not a penitent but a scoffer. But the Apostle tells us that God will not be mocked. ‘Be not deceived! God is not mocked!’ (Galatians 6:7). It would be a mockery of God to insult Him as often and as much as you pleased, and afterwards to expect eternal glory” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sermon for Quinquagesima Sunday).
In another sermon, for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, St. Alphonsus Liguori says: “St. Augustine says that the devil deludes Christians in two ways―by despair and hope. After a person has committed sin, the enemy, by placing before his eyes the rigor of divine justice, tempts him to despair of the mercy of God. But, before he sins, the devil by representing to him the divine mercy, labors to make him fearless of the chastisement due to sin. Hence the saint gives the following advice: ‘After sin, hope for mercy; before sin, fear justice.’ If, after sin, you despair of God’s pardon, you offend him by a new and more grievous sin. Have recourse to his mercy, and he will pardon you. But, before sin, fear God’s justice, and trust not to his mercy; for, they who abuse the mercy of God to offend him, do not deserve to be treated with mercy. Abulensis says, that the man who offends justice may have recourse to mercy; but to whom can they have recourse, who offend and provoke mercy against themselves?
“When you intend to commit sin, who, I ask, promises you mercy from God? Certainly God does not promise it. It is the devil that promises it, that you may lose God and be damned. ‘Beware,’ says St. John Chrysostom, ‘never to attend to that dog that promises thee mercy from God’ (Homily 50, ad Pop). If, beloved sinners, you have hitherto offended God, hope and tremble: if you desire to give up sin, and if you detest it, hope; because God promises pardon to all who repent of the evil they have done. But if you intend to continue in your sinful course, tremble lest God should wait no longer for you, but cast you into Hell. Why does God wait for sinners? Is it that they may continue to insult Him? No; He waits for them that they may renounce sin, and that thus He may have pity on them, and forgive them. ‘Therefore the Lord waiteth, that He may have mercy on you’ (Isaias 30:1; 30:8). But when He sees that the time—which He gave them to weep over their past iniquities—is spent in multiplying their sins, He begins to inflict chastisement, and He cuts them off in the state of sin, that, by dying, they may cease to offend Him” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost).
The Compassion and Mercy of God
Yet Our Lord hopes to break through the hard hearts of the stubborn, callous, presumptive sinners with His mercy. St. Alphonsus, in his sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, says: “When Jesus Christ was near His passion, He went one day to Samaria―the Samaritans refused to receive Him. Indignant at the insult offered by the Samaritans to their Master, St. James and St. John, turning to Jesus, said: ‘Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?’ (Luke 9:54). But Jesus, Who was all sweetness, even to those who insulted Him, answered: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of Man came not to destroy souls, but to save’ (Luke 9:55-56). He severely rebuked the disciples. What spirit is this, He said, which possesses you? It is not My spirit! Mine is the spirit of patience and compassion―for I am come, not to destroy, but to save the souls of men: and you speak of fire, of punishment, and of vengeance. Hence, in another place, He said to His disciples: ‘Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart’ (Matthew 11:29 ). I do not wish of you to learn of Me to chastise, but to be meek, and to bear and pardon injuries” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Fourth Sunday of Lent).
The Pharisees murmured against Jesus Christ, because he received sinners and eat with them. “This Man receiveth sinners and eateth with them” (Luke 15:2). In answer to their murmurings Our Lord said: If any of you had a hundred sheep, and lost one of them, would he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go in search of the lost sheep? Would he not continue his search until he found it? And having found it, would he not carry it on his shoulders, and, rejoicing, say to his friends and neighbors: “Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost?” (Luke 15:6). In conclusion, the Son of God said: “I say to you, there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than, upon ninety-nine just, that need not penance.” There is more joy in Heaven upon one sinner who returns to God, than upon many just who preserve the grace of God.
Are You Listening?
Our Lord said to the Apostles “He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me!” (Luke 10:16). Preachers are, as St. Paul says, his ambassadors. “For Christ, therefore, we are ambassadors; God, as it were, exhorting by us.” (2 Corinthians 5:20). You have fled from Christ many a time and He has so often invited you to repentance by means of confessors and preachers. Who was it that spoke to you when they exhorted you to penance? The priest? The preacher? It was the Lord! Hence St. Paul writes to the sinners of Corinth: “For Christ, we beseech you, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).
In explaining these words St. John Chrysostom says that Jesus Christ himself entreats you, the sinner! And what does He entreat you to do? To make peace with God. It is not God that acts like an enemy, but you act like an enemy; that is, God does not refuse to make peace with sinners, but they are unwilling to be reconciled with him.
Nevertheless, God does not cease to continue to call them by so many interior inspirations, remorse of conscience, and terrors of chastisements. In the same way God has spoken to you in your life, and, seeing that you ignored His words, He has had recourse to various kinds of scourges; He has called you to repentance by such and such a persecution, by such and such temporal losses or setbacks, by this or that mishap or accident, by the death of a relative, by sickness which may have even brought you to the brink of the grave.
He has, according to holy David, placed before your eyes the instruments of your damnation, not that you might be condemned to eternal misery, but that you might be delivered from Hell, which you deserved. “Thou hast given a warning to them that fear Thee, that they may flee from before the bow, that thy beloved may be delivered” (Psalm 59:6). You regarded certain afflictions as misfortunes; but they were mercies from God; they were the voices of God calling on you to renounce sin, to change your life, so that you might escape damnation.
Ignoring the Merciful Calls of God
By your ingratitude you deserved that He should give up calling you; but He has continued to invite you to return to Him. And who is it that has called you? It is a God of infinite majesty, who is to be one day your judge, and on whom your eternal happiness or misery depends. And what are you but a miserable worm deserving Hell? Why has He called you? To restore to you the life of grace which you have lost by sin. “Return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:32).
If we only understood the value of the gifts of God! To acquire the grace of God, it would be but a little thing to spend a hundred years in a desert―fasting and doing other penances! But God offered it to you at a discounted price, for a single act of sincere sorrow! Yet you refused that act—perhaps you mouthed it with your lips, but it did not truly come from the heart—and, after your refusal, He has not abandoned you, but has still sought you, saying: “And why will you die, house of Israel?” (Ezechiel 18:31). Like a father weeping and following his son, who has voluntarily thrown himself into the sea, God has sought after you, saying, through compassion to each of you: My son, why dost thou bring thyself to eternal misery? “Why will you die, house of Israel?”
The Merciful Patience of God
Consider, too, his patience in waiting for your return to Him. That great servant of God, Doña Sancia Carillo, a penitent of Blessed Father John D’Avila, used to say, that the consideration of God’s patience with sinners, made her desire to build a church, and entitle it “The Patience of God.” How much patience has God not shown towards you! If the sins and offences which you have committed against God, had been done to your best friends, or even to your parents, they surely would have long since sought some kind of revenge, or would have abandoned you. When you insulted the Lord, He was able to chastise you; you repeated the insult, and He did not punish your guilt, but preserved your life, and provided you with sustenance. He, as it were, pretended not to see the injuries you offered to Him, so that you might enter into yourselves, realize what you were doing and cease to offend him. “Thou overlookest the sins of men for the sake of repentance” (Wisdom 11:24).
But how can it be, that God, Who cannot stand a single sin, ends up bearing in silence with so many? “Thy eyes are too pure to behold evil, and Thou canst not look on iniquity. Why lookest Thou upon them that do unjust things, and boldest thy peace?” (Habacuc 1:13). God sees us sinners prefer our own advantage before His honor; He sees that the thieves, instead of restoring what they have stolen, continuing to commit theft; He sees that the unchaste, instead of being ashamed of their impurities, end up even boasting and laughing about them before others; He sees that the scandalous, not content with the sins which they themselves commit, seek also to draw others into rebellion Him; He sees all this, and holds His peace, and does not inflict vengeance.
Waiting For Repentance
St. Thomas Aquinas says that all creatures―including earth, fire, air and water― would wish to punish the sinner, and to avenge the injuries which he does to the Creator, because they all obey God by a natural instinct; but God, through his mercy, restrains them. God waits patiently for us to enter into ourselves and to see ourselves as we really are. Yet we merely and rashly abuse His mercy and offer new insults to His majesty! He has waited so long for sinners and restrained Himself from inflicting a just and deserved punishment; but we interpret that as signifying that the sins we commit must not be such a big deal! Instead of converting, we have become more wicked.
Why so much patience with such ungrateful souls? Why does He continue to wait for our repentance? Why does He not chastise our wickedness? The Prophet Isaias answers: “The Lord waiteth that he may have mercy on you” (Isaias 30:18). God waits for sinners that they may one day repent, and that after their repentance, he may pardon and save them. “As I live, saith the Lord, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezechiel 33:11). Note that it says “that the wicked turn from his way”—which means that we must be honest in admitting and confessing our sins, accepting the blame for them, sincerely wishing to change our life, and ready to pay for our past sins.
St. Augustine goes so far as to say that the Lord―if he were not God―would be guilty on account of His excessive patience towards sinners. By waiting for those who abuse his patience to multiply their sins, God appears to do an injustice to His own divine honor. St. Augustine continues: “We sin; we adhere to sin (some of us become familiar and intimate with sin, and sleep for months and years in this miserable state); we rejoice at sin (some of us go so far as to boast of our wickedness); and thou art appeased! We provoke Thee to anger, yet Thou dost invite us to mercy.” We and God appear to be, as it were, engaged in a contest, in which we labor and do our best to provoke Him to chastise our guilt, and He invites us to repentance, penance and pardon. This means that we must be honest in admitting our sins, sincere in wishing to change our life, and ready to pay for our sins.
Why Such Patience?
Job exclaimed, what is man, that God should entertain so great an esteem for him? Why does God love him so tenderly? “What is man that Thou shouldst magnify him? Or why dost Thou set Thy heart upon him?” (Job 7:17). St. Denis the Areopagite says, that God seeks after sinners like a despised lover, entreating them not to destroy themselves. Why, ungrateful souls, do you flee from Me? I love you and desire nothing but your welfare. “Ah, sinners!” says St. Teresa, “remember that He who now calls and seeks after you, is that same God Who shall one day be your judge. If you are lost, the great mercies which He now shows you, shall be the greatest torments which, you shall suffer in Hell.”
If a person who has rebelled against an earthly king, should dare go into the presence of his king to ask for pardon, the king would most likely banishes the rebel instantly from his sight, and would not condescend to even look at him. But God does not treat us in this manner, if we go with humility before Him, to implore mercy and forgiveness, with a sincere desire to change. “The Lord your God is merciful, and will not turn away His face from you if you return to Him” (2 Paralipomenon 30:9). God cannot turn away His face from those who cast themselves at His feet with a humble and contrite heart. Jesus Himself has insisted that He will not reject any one who returns to Him. “And him that cometh to Me, I will not cast out” (John 6:37).
But how can He reject those whom He Himself invites to return, and promises to embrace? ”Return to Me, saith the Lord, and I will receive thee” (Jeremias 3:1). In another place he says: Sinners, I ought to turn my back on you, because you first turned your back on Me; but be converted to Me, and I will be converted to you. “Turn to Me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn to you, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zacharias 1:3). Yet that conversion entails that we must be honest in admitting our sins, sincere in wishing to change our life, and ready to pay for our sins.
Return To Him—Abuse Not His Patience and Mercy
Oh with what compassion and tenderness does God embrace a sinner that returns to Him! This tenderness Jesus Christ wished to declare to us when He said that He is the Good Pastor, Who, as soon as He finds the lost sheep, embraces it and places it on His own shoulders. “And when he hath found it, doth he not lay it upon his shoulders rejoicing?” (Luke 15:5). This tenderness also appears in the parable of the Prodigal Son, in which Jesus Christ tells us that He is the good father, Who, when His lost son returns, goes to meet Him, embraces and kisses Him, and, as it were, melts away through joy in receiving him. “And running to him, he fell upon his neck and kissed him” (Luke 15:20).
God insists that when sinners repent of their iniquities, He will forget all their sins, as if they had never offended Him. “But, if the wicked do penance for all the sins which he hath committed ... living, he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done” (Ezechiel 18:21-22). By the Prophet Isaias, the Lord goes so far as to say: “Come and accuse Me, saith the Lord. If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow” (Isaias 1:18).
Note well the words, “Come and accuse Me.” As if the Lord said: “Sinners, come to me, and if I do not pardon and embrace you, reprove Me, upbraid Me with violating My promise.” But no! God cannot despise a humble and contrite heart. “A contrite and humble heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 1:19). Yet, once again, it must be stressed that we must be honest in admitting our sins, sincere in wishing to change our life, and ready to pay for our sins.
To show mercy and grant pardon to sinners, God regards as benefitting to His own glory. “And therefore shall He be exalted sparing you” (Isaias 30:18). Holy Mother Church says that God displays His omnipotence in granting pardon and mercy to sinners, as we read in one of the Church’s prayers: “O God, who manifested Thy omnipotence in sparing and showing mercy.” Do not imagine, dearly beloved sinners, that God requires of you to labor for a long time before He grants you pardon: as soon as you wish for forgiveness, He is ready to give it.
See what Holy Scripture says: “Weeping, thou shalt not weep, He will surely have pity on thee” (Isaias 30:19). You shall not have to weep for a long time: as soon as you shall have shed the first tear through sorrow for your sins, God will have mercy on you. “At the voice of thy cry, as soon as He shall hear, He will answer thee” (Isaias 30:19). The moment He shall hear you say: “Forgive me, my God, forgive me!” He will instantly answer and grant your pardon.
Patience Has Its Limits
We must not push that patience too far, for, as Our Lady of Akita warns: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord … if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them!”
There are few feasts that elicit more interest and admiration than that of St. Mary Magdalen. We could almost call her the “Saint of our Age”—since there are so many persons, in our day and age, that have gone down the road that the Mary Magdalen unfortunately trod, before she converted and went from being a sinner to a saint. She is not just a sinner, but a great sinner, who became a great saint. That was and still is whole purpose of Our Lord’s mission that culminated with His Passion and Death: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32) and He died on the cross with Mary Magdalen at His feet, while with His last breath He was calling the “Good Thief”—St. Dismas—to repentance and Paradise: “And Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in paradise!’” (Luke 23:43).
Great Woman of the New Testament
Mary Magdalen or Mary of Magdala and sometimes called "The Magdalene", is a key religious figure in Christianity. She is usually thought of as the second-most important woman in the New Testament, after Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Mary Magdalene traveled with Jesus as one of His followers. She was present at Jesus’ two most important moments: the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Her repentance was great and prolonged, so much so that Jesus said: “Amen, I say to you, wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which she hath done, shall be told for a memorial of her!” (Mark 14:9).
The notion of Mary Magdalene being a repentant sinner, can be traced at least as far back as St. Ephraim the Syrian, in the fourth century, and became the generally accepted view in Western Christianity after the homily of Pope Gregory I (“Gregory the Great”) in about 591. Gregory is one o
f the most influential and authoritative popes, and, in a famous series of sermons on Mary Magdalene, given in Rome, he identified Magdalen, not only with the anonymous sinner with the perfume in Luke’s Gospel, but also with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus; this interpretation is often called the “composite Magdalene” in modern parlance.
Who is this Mary?
The Greek Fathers, as a whole, and today’s modern scholars, distinguish three persons:
• Mary the “sinner” of Luke 7:36-50;
• Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus, Luke 10:38-42 and John 11; and
• Mary Magdalen, from whom seven devils were cast out.
On the other hand most of the Latins (Roman or Western Church) and traditional scholars and exegetes of Scripture, hold that these three were one and the same. It is conceivable that St. John, just because he is writing so long after the event, and at a time when Mary was dead, wishes to point out to us that she was really the same as the “sinner.” In the same way, St. Luke may have veiled her identity, precisely because he did not wish to defame someone who was still living; Luke does something similar in the case of St. Matthew, whom he refrains from identifying as Levi the Publican (5:7), and conceals the fact. If this argument of the traditional Western Church holds good, then “Mary of Bethany” and the “sinner” are one and the same. Furthermore, an examination of St. John’s Gospel makes it almost impossible to deny the identity of “Mary of Bethany” with “Mary Magdalen”.
Pope St. Gregory the Great says: “Whenever I ponder the penitential spirit of Mary Magdalene, I feel more like weeping than speaking. For the tears of this sinful woman will soften even a heart of stone, towards the idea of doing penance. Having reflected on what she had done, she did not wish to set bounds to what she should do. She came in, uninvited, after the meal had begun, and brought her tears to the banquet. See with what grief she must burn, when she is not ashamed to weep even at a banquet.
“This woman, whom Luke calls “a sinful woman,” is called Mary by John. We think she is that Mary from whom, according to Mark’s testimony, seven devils were driven out. What would be designated by seven devils but the totality of vice? The number seven is a fitting figure for a totality. For example, all time is perceived in terms of the seven days. And so Mary had seven devils, because she abounded in all the vices.
“But note that she looked at the stains of her sinfulness and then ran to be washed at the fountain of mercy. The dinner guests did not embarrass her. For since she was, inwardly, so deeply ashamed of herself, she considered the outward embarrassment as nothing. What should we admire, brothers: Mary’s coming or the Lord’s receiving her? “Receiving”, or should I say, or “drawing her” to Himself? I should rather say: “drawing her to Himself and receiving her.” For there is no doubt that He, who in His gentleness received her outwardly, was, in His mercy, drawing her inwardly” (Pope St. Gregory the Great, Homily 33 on the Gospels).
Living Proof of Jesus’ Mission
St. Mary Magdalen was a living proof of the mission of Jesus. He had come to save souls, seek out and convert the lost sheep, and bring them to penance and salvation: “Thou shalt call His name Jesus. For He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Jesus Himself says: “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) … “I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24) … “What man of you that hath an hundred sheep: and if he shall lose one of them, doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go after that which was lost, until he find it?” (Luke 15:4) … “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance” (Luke 5:32) … “Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance” (Matthew 3:8).
Symbol of Hope
Mary Magdalen fits the above bill perfectly. Her conversion and her salvation should give hope to every sinner—both great and small. Nevertheless, we must remember that conversions are not automatic and without a price. Neither are they cases of being “born into Heaven with a silver spoon in our mouths”! Conversion is not cheap and Heaven is not cheap. For that matter, Mary Magdalen did not get away cheaply—but she gives hope to even the greatest of sinners, in that, if they are willing to cooperate and work with the grace of God, like she did, then forgiveness and Heaven is attainable, much as it was for her.
Does Jesus Love Sinners?
There is no person, not matter how bad that they be, that Jesus does not love. In one sense—and do not misinterpret this statement—the greater the sinner, the greater the compassionate love Jesus has for the sinner. If he came to save sinners from their sins, then He gets more glory from saving a big sinner than a little sinner—just like a fisherman gets more glory upon catching a big fish, than a little fish. Big sinners are a “big catch” for Jesus.
However, in saying that Jesus loves sinners and that the bigger the sinner, the more He loves them, does not mean that He approves, likes, “turns a blind-eye” or allows those sins to go unpunished! On the contrary, His justice demands that even if a sinner is forgiven, he or she has to pay for their sin—we either pay of our own accord, through penance, or we take what God “dishes-out” by way of punishment and penance for our sins--“For whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth: and, as a father in the son, he pleaseth Himself” (Proverbs 3:12). “For whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth; and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth” (Hebrews 12:6).
The Example of Sodom and Gomorrha
This love of the sinner and hatred for sin is well shown in God’s attitude to Sodom and Gomorrha. Despite the terrible Sodom and Gomorrha, God was still prepared to spare and save them. Abraham ‘bargained’ and ‘argued’ with God and we see that, on the one hand, God was prepared to spare them at a ‘discount price’, but, on the other hand, since that ‘discount price’ was not paid, they paid in another, far more painful way!
“And the Lord said: The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is multiplied, and their sin is become exceedingly grievous ... but Abraham, as yet, stood before the Lord. And drawing near he said: ‘Wilt Thou destroy the just with the wicked? If there be fifty just men in the city, shall they perish withal? And wilt Thou not spare that place for the sake of the fifty just, if they be therein? Far be it from Thee to do this thing, and to slay the just with the wicked, and for the just to be in like case as the wicked, this is not beseeming Thee: Thou who judgest all the Earth, wilt not make this judgment.’ And the Lord said to him: ‘If I find in Sodom fifty just within the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.’ And Abraham answered, and said: ‘Seeing I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord, whereas I am dust and ashes. What if there be five less than fifty just persons? Wilt Thou for five and forty destroy the whole city?’ And He said: ‘I will not destroy it, if I find five and forty. And again he said to Him: ‘But if forty be found there, what wilt Thou do?’ He said: ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of forty.’ ‘Lord’, saith he, ‘be not angry, I beseech thee, if I speak. What if thirty shall be found there?’ He answered: ‘I will not do it, if I find thirty there.’ ‘Seeing’, saith he, ‘I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord. What if twenty be found there?’ He said: ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.’ ‘I beseech thee’, saith he, ‘be not angry, Lord, if I speak yet once more: What if ten should be found there?’ And He said: ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.’ And the Lord departed, after He had left speaking to Abraham: and Abraham returned to his place.” (Exodus 18:20-33).
Mercy at a Price
Of course, we know that not even ten just men were to be found and God destroyed both Sodom and Gomorrha, while Abraham and his family fled the city just before the destruction. Nevertheless, see God’s mercy on offer in His ‘bargaining’ with Abraham, to find a way of showing mercy to those sinners. But it was not to be—the ‘discount price’ was not met and so mercy was not given. We have to cooperate with God and pay the asking price, then these following words will come true: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool” (Isaias 1:18). But the conditions are: “Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14) and “Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance” (Matthew 3:8).
An End to Sin
The words that Our Lord spoke, after curing the man who had been sick for thirty-eight years, seem to show the displeasure of God and punishment of man that is brought about by sin: “Afterwards, Jesus findeth him in the temple, and saith to him: ‘Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!’” (John 5:14). Jesus had said those very same words to Mary Magdalen, and we can presume that she took them to heart and did her best to conform to them: “Jesus lifting up himself, said to her: ‘Woman, where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee?’ Who said: ‘No man, Lord!’ And Jesus said: ‘Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more!’” (John 8:10-11).
Mary the Sinner Was Loved By Jesus
When you think of what Mary Magdalen’s past must have been like, then, from a merely human perspective, one would be tempted to be repulsed by her—in most parishes and families she most certainly would evoke such a reaction. Possessed by seven devils! Public sinner! Caught in adultery! Yet she finds herself not only forgiven by Our Lord, but ends up being among His closest followers—finding her way into the “inner sanctum” or the very heart of operations! “And it came to pass afterwards, that Jesus traveled through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God; and the twelve with Him; and certain women, who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities; and Mary who is called Magdalen, out of whom seven devils were gone forth; … and many others who ministered unto Him of their substance” (Luke 8:1-2).
Being forgiven is one thing, but being taken on as “one of the ‘family’” is quite another! “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus” (John 11:5). No doubt Our Lady loved her too! We somehow just cannot imagine Our Lady giving her the “silent treatment” or the “cold shoulder” or turning her nose up at her! We read in St. Alphonsus Liguori’s The Glories of Mary, that Our Lady declared to the venerable sister Mary Villani: “Next to the title of mother of God, I glory most in being named the advocate of sinners.” A little further in The Glories of Mary, we read: “St. Bernard writes that Mary becomes all things to all men, and opens to all the bowels of her mercy, that all may receive of her; the captive his freedom; the sick man health; the afflicted consolation; the sinner pardon, and God glory: hence there is no one, since she is the sun, who does not partake of her warmth.”
Key Element in Mercy
This leads us to another very important point in the element of mercy. The universal principle of “As you sow, so shall you reap” also applies to mercy. We are all eager recipients of mercy, but are we just as eager in dispensing mercy? Our Lord puts it so very simply, clearly, bluntly and incontestably: “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7), to which the Holy Ghost adds, speaking through St. James: “For judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy” (James 2:13).
For many, the showing of mercy is like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone! Even the best among us find it hard. St. Peter was trying to find a loophole from having to show mercy: “Then came Peter unto Jesus and said: ‘Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?’ Jesus saith to him: ‘I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times!’” (Matthew 18:21-22). Isn’t that what Our Lord has done to us? How many times have you gone to Confession? How many times have you been forgiven? How many times have you been refused forgiveness?
A Parable of Mercy and No Mercy
This theme prompted Our Lord to tell the following parable about a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants: “And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him, that owed him ten thousand talents. And as he had not wherewith to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.
“But that servant falling down, besought him, saying: ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!’ And the lord of that servant being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt. But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him an hundred pence: and laying hold of him, throttled him, saying: ‘Pay what thou owest!’ And his fellow servant falling down, besought him, saying: ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!’ And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he paid the debt.
“Now his fellow servants seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him; and said to him: ‘Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest me! Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow servant, even as I had compassion on thee?’ And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt. So also shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not, everyone his brother, from your hearts!” (Matthew 18:24-35).
Superficial Understanding
We read these parables too superficially, without researching any deeper to discover more that rests on the surface, and thereby we fail to grasp and understand the true depth of meaning of Our Lord’s words. We are content with only a cursory understanding and have neither the time nor the inclination to dig deeper. A talent was seven hundred and fifty ounces of silver and so ten thousand talents came to 7,500,000 ounces (7½ million ounces) ― at today’s silver prices of $25 per ounce, 10,000 talents would be over $195 million. The Roman penny was the eighth part of an ounce of silver—so a hundred pence would be a mere 12½ ounces of silver compared to the larger debt of 7½ million ounces―which, at today’s silver prices of $25 per ounce, is a debt of $312 and 50 cents, compared to a debt of $195 million! Our Lord is painting a striking picture here. With the forgiveness of the large debt, it encourages us in seeing that even very grave sins can be cured and forgiven—showing the extreme kindness of the God of mercy.
On the other hand, we see that the God of Justice can also be very true to His word--“Judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy” (James 2:13). “For mercy and wrath are with Him. He is mighty to forgive, and to pour out indignation” (Ecclesiasticus 16:12). Once again, we come back to the sowing and reaping principle: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:7). “For there is no good for him that is always occupied in evil, and that giveth no alms: for the Highest hateth sinners, and hath mercy on the penitent” (Ecclesiasticus 12:3).
Mercy is So Precious, Its Abuse is a Great Crime
Holy Scripture tells that mercy is exceedingly precious—hence its abuse must consequently rank among the greatest crimes and sins. “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all: and His tender mercies are over all his works” (Psalm 144:8-9). These peddlers of unconditional mercy make a doormat out of God, upon which we can endlessly and indifferently scrape, drag and wipe our sinfully dirty boots. This is nothing other than the sin of presumption—I will sin in what I want, and sin as much as I want, and God will still forgive me!
St. Alphonsus Liguori has some words to say about this: “ ‘But God is merciful!’ Behold another common delusion by which the devil encourages sinners to persevere in a life of sin! A certain author has said, that more souls have been sent to Hell by the mercy of God than by His justice. This is indeed the case; for men are induced by the deceits of the devil to persevere in sin, through confidence in Gods mercy; and thus they are lost. ‘God is merciful!’ Who denies it? But, great as His mercy, how many does He every day send to Hell? God is merciful, but He is also just, and is, therefore, obliged to punish those who offend Him. ‘And His mercy,’ says the divine Mother, ‘to them that fear Him’ (Luke 1:50). But with regard to those who abuse His mercy and despise Him, He exercises justice. The Lord pardons sins, but He cannot pardon the determination to commit sin. St. Augustine says, that he who sins, with the intention of repenting after his sins, is not a penitent but a scoffer. But the Apostle tells us that God will not be mocked. ‘Be not deceived! God is not mocked!’ (Galatians 6:7). It would be a mockery of God to insult Him as often and as much as you pleased, and afterwards to expect eternal glory” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sermon for Quinquagesima Sunday).
In another sermon, for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, St. Alphonsus Liguori says: “St. Augustine says that the devil deludes Christians in two ways―by despair and hope. After a person has committed sin, the enemy, by placing before his eyes the rigor of divine justice, tempts him to despair of the mercy of God. But, before he sins, the devil by representing to him the divine mercy, labors to make him fearless of the chastisement due to sin. Hence the saint gives the following advice: ‘After sin, hope for mercy; before sin, fear justice.’ If, after sin, you despair of God’s pardon, you offend him by a new and more grievous sin. Have recourse to his mercy, and he will pardon you. But, before sin, fear God’s justice, and trust not to his mercy; for, they who abuse the mercy of God to offend him, do not deserve to be treated with mercy. Abulensis says, that the man who offends justice may have recourse to mercy; but to whom can they have recourse, who offend and provoke mercy against themselves?
“When you intend to commit sin, who, I ask, promises you mercy from God? Certainly God does not promise it. It is the devil that promises it, that you may lose God and be damned. ‘Beware,’ says St. John Chrysostom, ‘never to attend to that dog that promises thee mercy from God’ (Homily 50, ad Pop). If, beloved sinners, you have hitherto offended God, hope and tremble: if you desire to give up sin, and if you detest it, hope; because God promises pardon to all who repent of the evil they have done. But if you intend to continue in your sinful course, tremble lest God should wait no longer for you, but cast you into Hell. Why does God wait for sinners? Is it that they may continue to insult Him? No; He waits for them that they may renounce sin, and that thus He may have pity on them, and forgive them. ‘Therefore the Lord waiteth, that He may have mercy on you’ (Isaias 30:1; 30:8). But when He sees that the time—which He gave them to weep over their past iniquities—is spent in multiplying their sins, He begins to inflict chastisement, and He cuts them off in the state of sin, that, by dying, they may cease to offend Him” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost).
The Compassion and Mercy of God
Yet Our Lord hopes to break through the hard hearts of the stubborn, callous, presumptive sinners with His mercy. St. Alphonsus, in his sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, says: “When Jesus Christ was near His passion, He went one day to Samaria―the Samaritans refused to receive Him. Indignant at the insult offered by the Samaritans to their Master, St. James and St. John, turning to Jesus, said: ‘Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?’ (Luke 9:54). But Jesus, Who was all sweetness, even to those who insulted Him, answered: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of Man came not to destroy souls, but to save’ (Luke 9:55-56). He severely rebuked the disciples. What spirit is this, He said, which possesses you? It is not My spirit! Mine is the spirit of patience and compassion―for I am come, not to destroy, but to save the souls of men: and you speak of fire, of punishment, and of vengeance. Hence, in another place, He said to His disciples: ‘Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart’ (Matthew 11:29 ). I do not wish of you to learn of Me to chastise, but to be meek, and to bear and pardon injuries” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Fourth Sunday of Lent).
The Pharisees murmured against Jesus Christ, because he received sinners and eat with them. “This Man receiveth sinners and eateth with them” (Luke 15:2). In answer to their murmurings Our Lord said: If any of you had a hundred sheep, and lost one of them, would he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go in search of the lost sheep? Would he not continue his search until he found it? And having found it, would he not carry it on his shoulders, and, rejoicing, say to his friends and neighbors: “Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost?” (Luke 15:6). In conclusion, the Son of God said: “I say to you, there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than, upon ninety-nine just, that need not penance.” There is more joy in Heaven upon one sinner who returns to God, than upon many just who preserve the grace of God.
Are You Listening?
Our Lord said to the Apostles “He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me!” (Luke 10:16). Preachers are, as St. Paul says, his ambassadors. “For Christ, therefore, we are ambassadors; God, as it were, exhorting by us.” (2 Corinthians 5:20). You have fled from Christ many a time and He has so often invited you to repentance by means of confessors and preachers. Who was it that spoke to you when they exhorted you to penance? The priest? The preacher? It was the Lord! Hence St. Paul writes to the sinners of Corinth: “For Christ, we beseech you, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).
In explaining these words St. John Chrysostom says that Jesus Christ himself entreats you, the sinner! And what does He entreat you to do? To make peace with God. It is not God that acts like an enemy, but you act like an enemy; that is, God does not refuse to make peace with sinners, but they are unwilling to be reconciled with him.
Nevertheless, God does not cease to continue to call them by so many interior inspirations, remorse of conscience, and terrors of chastisements. In the same way God has spoken to you in your life, and, seeing that you ignored His words, He has had recourse to various kinds of scourges; He has called you to repentance by such and such a persecution, by such and such temporal losses or setbacks, by this or that mishap or accident, by the death of a relative, by sickness which may have even brought you to the brink of the grave.
He has, according to holy David, placed before your eyes the instruments of your damnation, not that you might be condemned to eternal misery, but that you might be delivered from Hell, which you deserved. “Thou hast given a warning to them that fear Thee, that they may flee from before the bow, that thy beloved may be delivered” (Psalm 59:6). You regarded certain afflictions as misfortunes; but they were mercies from God; they were the voices of God calling on you to renounce sin, to change your life, so that you might escape damnation.
Ignoring the Merciful Calls of God
By your ingratitude you deserved that He should give up calling you; but He has continued to invite you to return to Him. And who is it that has called you? It is a God of infinite majesty, who is to be one day your judge, and on whom your eternal happiness or misery depends. And what are you but a miserable worm deserving Hell? Why has He called you? To restore to you the life of grace which you have lost by sin. “Return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:32).
If we only understood the value of the gifts of God! To acquire the grace of God, it would be but a little thing to spend a hundred years in a desert―fasting and doing other penances! But God offered it to you at a discounted price, for a single act of sincere sorrow! Yet you refused that act—perhaps you mouthed it with your lips, but it did not truly come from the heart—and, after your refusal, He has not abandoned you, but has still sought you, saying: “And why will you die, house of Israel?” (Ezechiel 18:31). Like a father weeping and following his son, who has voluntarily thrown himself into the sea, God has sought after you, saying, through compassion to each of you: My son, why dost thou bring thyself to eternal misery? “Why will you die, house of Israel?”
The Merciful Patience of God
Consider, too, his patience in waiting for your return to Him. That great servant of God, Doña Sancia Carillo, a penitent of Blessed Father John D’Avila, used to say, that the consideration of God’s patience with sinners, made her desire to build a church, and entitle it “The Patience of God.” How much patience has God not shown towards you! If the sins and offences which you have committed against God, had been done to your best friends, or even to your parents, they surely would have long since sought some kind of revenge, or would have abandoned you. When you insulted the Lord, He was able to chastise you; you repeated the insult, and He did not punish your guilt, but preserved your life, and provided you with sustenance. He, as it were, pretended not to see the injuries you offered to Him, so that you might enter into yourselves, realize what you were doing and cease to offend him. “Thou overlookest the sins of men for the sake of repentance” (Wisdom 11:24).
But how can it be, that God, Who cannot stand a single sin, ends up bearing in silence with so many? “Thy eyes are too pure to behold evil, and Thou canst not look on iniquity. Why lookest Thou upon them that do unjust things, and boldest thy peace?” (Habacuc 1:13). God sees us sinners prefer our own advantage before His honor; He sees that the thieves, instead of restoring what they have stolen, continuing to commit theft; He sees that the unchaste, instead of being ashamed of their impurities, end up even boasting and laughing about them before others; He sees that the scandalous, not content with the sins which they themselves commit, seek also to draw others into rebellion Him; He sees all this, and holds His peace, and does not inflict vengeance.
Waiting For Repentance
St. Thomas Aquinas says that all creatures―including earth, fire, air and water― would wish to punish the sinner, and to avenge the injuries which he does to the Creator, because they all obey God by a natural instinct; but God, through his mercy, restrains them. God waits patiently for us to enter into ourselves and to see ourselves as we really are. Yet we merely and rashly abuse His mercy and offer new insults to His majesty! He has waited so long for sinners and restrained Himself from inflicting a just and deserved punishment; but we interpret that as signifying that the sins we commit must not be such a big deal! Instead of converting, we have become more wicked.
Why so much patience with such ungrateful souls? Why does He continue to wait for our repentance? Why does He not chastise our wickedness? The Prophet Isaias answers: “The Lord waiteth that he may have mercy on you” (Isaias 30:18). God waits for sinners that they may one day repent, and that after their repentance, he may pardon and save them. “As I live, saith the Lord, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezechiel 33:11). Note that it says “that the wicked turn from his way”—which means that we must be honest in admitting and confessing our sins, accepting the blame for them, sincerely wishing to change our life, and ready to pay for our past sins.
St. Augustine goes so far as to say that the Lord―if he were not God―would be guilty on account of His excessive patience towards sinners. By waiting for those who abuse his patience to multiply their sins, God appears to do an injustice to His own divine honor. St. Augustine continues: “We sin; we adhere to sin (some of us become familiar and intimate with sin, and sleep for months and years in this miserable state); we rejoice at sin (some of us go so far as to boast of our wickedness); and thou art appeased! We provoke Thee to anger, yet Thou dost invite us to mercy.” We and God appear to be, as it were, engaged in a contest, in which we labor and do our best to provoke Him to chastise our guilt, and He invites us to repentance, penance and pardon. This means that we must be honest in admitting our sins, sincere in wishing to change our life, and ready to pay for our sins.
Why Such Patience?
Job exclaimed, what is man, that God should entertain so great an esteem for him? Why does God love him so tenderly? “What is man that Thou shouldst magnify him? Or why dost Thou set Thy heart upon him?” (Job 7:17). St. Denis the Areopagite says, that God seeks after sinners like a despised lover, entreating them not to destroy themselves. Why, ungrateful souls, do you flee from Me? I love you and desire nothing but your welfare. “Ah, sinners!” says St. Teresa, “remember that He who now calls and seeks after you, is that same God Who shall one day be your judge. If you are lost, the great mercies which He now shows you, shall be the greatest torments which, you shall suffer in Hell.”
If a person who has rebelled against an earthly king, should dare go into the presence of his king to ask for pardon, the king would most likely banishes the rebel instantly from his sight, and would not condescend to even look at him. But God does not treat us in this manner, if we go with humility before Him, to implore mercy and forgiveness, with a sincere desire to change. “The Lord your God is merciful, and will not turn away His face from you if you return to Him” (2 Paralipomenon 30:9). God cannot turn away His face from those who cast themselves at His feet with a humble and contrite heart. Jesus Himself has insisted that He will not reject any one who returns to Him. “And him that cometh to Me, I will not cast out” (John 6:37).
But how can He reject those whom He Himself invites to return, and promises to embrace? ”Return to Me, saith the Lord, and I will receive thee” (Jeremias 3:1). In another place he says: Sinners, I ought to turn my back on you, because you first turned your back on Me; but be converted to Me, and I will be converted to you. “Turn to Me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn to you, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zacharias 1:3). Yet that conversion entails that we must be honest in admitting our sins, sincere in wishing to change our life, and ready to pay for our sins.
Return To Him—Abuse Not His Patience and Mercy
Oh with what compassion and tenderness does God embrace a sinner that returns to Him! This tenderness Jesus Christ wished to declare to us when He said that He is the Good Pastor, Who, as soon as He finds the lost sheep, embraces it and places it on His own shoulders. “And when he hath found it, doth he not lay it upon his shoulders rejoicing?” (Luke 15:5). This tenderness also appears in the parable of the Prodigal Son, in which Jesus Christ tells us that He is the good father, Who, when His lost son returns, goes to meet Him, embraces and kisses Him, and, as it were, melts away through joy in receiving him. “And running to him, he fell upon his neck and kissed him” (Luke 15:20).
God insists that when sinners repent of their iniquities, He will forget all their sins, as if they had never offended Him. “But, if the wicked do penance for all the sins which he hath committed ... living, he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done” (Ezechiel 18:21-22). By the Prophet Isaias, the Lord goes so far as to say: “Come and accuse Me, saith the Lord. If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow” (Isaias 1:18).
Note well the words, “Come and accuse Me.” As if the Lord said: “Sinners, come to me, and if I do not pardon and embrace you, reprove Me, upbraid Me with violating My promise.” But no! God cannot despise a humble and contrite heart. “A contrite and humble heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 1:19). Yet, once again, it must be stressed that we must be honest in admitting our sins, sincere in wishing to change our life, and ready to pay for our sins.
To show mercy and grant pardon to sinners, God regards as benefitting to His own glory. “And therefore shall He be exalted sparing you” (Isaias 30:18). Holy Mother Church says that God displays His omnipotence in granting pardon and mercy to sinners, as we read in one of the Church’s prayers: “O God, who manifested Thy omnipotence in sparing and showing mercy.” Do not imagine, dearly beloved sinners, that God requires of you to labor for a long time before He grants you pardon: as soon as you wish for forgiveness, He is ready to give it.
See what Holy Scripture says: “Weeping, thou shalt not weep, He will surely have pity on thee” (Isaias 30:19). You shall not have to weep for a long time: as soon as you shall have shed the first tear through sorrow for your sins, God will have mercy on you. “At the voice of thy cry, as soon as He shall hear, He will answer thee” (Isaias 30:19). The moment He shall hear you say: “Forgive me, my God, forgive me!” He will instantly answer and grant your pardon.
Patience Has Its Limits
We must not push that patience too far, for, as Our Lady of Akita warns: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord … if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them!”
Article 12
Thursday July 20th & Friday July 21st, 2023
We Need Eliases Today! Anyone?
Thursday July 20th & Friday July 21st, 2023
We Need Eliases Today! Anyone?
Any Volunteers?
The world is in a mess and the Church is in a mess! As Our Lady said to Blessed Elena Aiello back in 1956: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
What can be done? Our Lady of La Salette gave an indication: “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession. It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!”
Similarly, at Akita in Japan, in 1973, Our Lady said: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
At Fatima, Our Lady even recruited children for the fight―ages 10, 9 and 7. She said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
Numbers do matter to God―as already stated in the previous article, when Israel was faced with an invading army of 135,000 Madianites, all that Israel could raise by way of soldiers was a meager 32,000 men ― thus they were outnumbered by more than 4 to 1. When Gedeon told God he had managed to gather only 32,000 men, God reduced the number by telling Gedeon: “ ‘The people that are with thee are too many, and Madian shall not be delivered into their hands―lest Israel should glory against Me, and say: “I was delivered by my own strength!” Speak to the people, and proclaim in the hearing of all—“Whosoever is fearful and timorous, let him return home!”’ So twenty-two thousand men went away and returned home, and only ten thousand remained.” They went from being outnumbered by over 4 to 1 ― to now being outnumbered by more than 13 to 1 (with 135,000 Madianites versus 10,000 Israelites).
No doubt Gedeon was surprised to hear what the Lord said next: “The people are still too many, bring them to the waters, and there I will try them” (Judges 7:4). At the site to which the Lord had directed Gideon’s army there was drinkable water. The army stopped to drink and 9,700 put their weapons aside and knelt down on their knees, so they might drink directly from the stream. The other 300 cupped one hand and raised it to their mouths, drinking it from one hand, while holding their weapons in their other hand. “By the 300 hundred men, that lapped water, I will save you, and deliver Madian into thy hand: but let all the rest of the people return to their place” (Judges 7:7). And so it was! First they were outnumbered by over 4 to 1; then it was 13 to 1; and now it was 450 to 1 (135,000 versus 300). God wanted the Israelites to go into battle heavily outnumbered, so that God Himself could claim the eventual victory against those impossible odds. It will be much the same with the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary―it has to be a triumph that is totally against the odds, unexpected, unimaginable, so that we cannot say that WE DID IT, but it will be clear that OUR LADY DID IT.
No Spectators
Yet even though Our Lady will clearly be the “prime mover” in the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart―that does not mean that we just stand by and merely watch while munching on our favorite snacks and sipping our favorite drinks! Sister Lucia warned us that there can no neutrality, no bystanders, no spectators in what she calls the final battle between Our Lady and Satan: “The Most Holy Virgin has made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She has told me that the devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Virgin, and a decisive battle is a final battle, in which one side wins, the other side loses. Also, starting with the present time, we belong either to God, or we belong to the demon—there is no middle ground.” (Sr. Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Our Lord said: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that will not take up his cross and follow Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). The same is true of Our Lady―she will defeat Satan, but she requires us to be her instruments. As St. Augustine said: “God created you without your cooperation, but God will not save you without your cooperation!” Not that you can save yourself―you can’t―only God can save your soul, but He will not tolerate you standing around and doing nothing to help the process. Likewise with Our Lady―hence she says: “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! … I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
Yes―SHE is one who will bring the victory―BUT she also requires our participation: “I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful! I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! … Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession! … The blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent! … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this! … I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Already souls who wish to pray are on the way to being gathered together … Will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time? … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears, in the privacy of your heart. Implore our Celestial Father that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times! … Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!”
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady revealed: “Fear the danger of not attending to the divine calls, for that is the cause of the loss of innumerable souls ... Men are lost in forgetful rest and sleep―as if there were no vigilant and powerful enemies. This dreadful carelessness arises from two causes: on the one hand men are so taken up with their earthly and material life, that they do not feel any other evils except those on a physical and material nature. Anything that is interior seems harmless in their estimation. On the other hand, since the princes of darkness are invisible and unperceived by any of the senses and since carnal men neither touch, nor feel, nor see them―the result is that they forget the fear of them. Yet for this very reason they ought to be more attentive and careful, since invisible enemies are more cunning and skillful in injuring us by their treachery ... How many men have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! … Countless numbers have fallen into Hell! … Lucifer has hurled into Hell so great a number of souls and continues so to hurl them every day!”
“The neglect and contempt of bodily mortification cause the loss of many souls and bring many more into the danger of eternal loss. I will not tell thee how many souls are lost, in order to not cause thee to die of sorrow at this loss! I have already told thee, that the number of those foreknown as doomed, is so great, and of those that save themselves is so small, that it is not expedient to say more in particular. Weep ceaselessly over the terrible loss sustained by so many insane and thankless souls, who are forgetful of God, of their duty and of their own selves … and lose their chance of salvation or bring upon themselves eternal damnation.”
“So great is my love for sinners, that if they would only call upon me in time and with sincerity, none of them would perish! But the sinners and the reprobate do no such thing―because the wounds of sin do not distress them, and, the more often they are committed, the less regret or sorrow do they cause! ... As the Mother of clemency, it is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for failing to call upon me, so many souls should be lost! ... This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict yourself, lament and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls!” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
Saints and Only Saints
Only saints get to enter Heaven! That is a truth that is too little preached, too little discussed and too little thought about. There is no “wiggle-room” here―no loopholes―no other options―no dispensations―no free passes. If you are a saint, then the gates of Heaven and open to you―if you are not a saint, then the gates of Heaven are closed to you and you must go to either the fires of Hell or the fires of Purgatory. In the Old Testament God Himself says: “You shall be holy, because I am holy!” (Leviticus 11:46) … “You shall be holy men to Me!” (Exodus 22:31) … “You shall be to Me a holy nation!” (Exodus 19:6) … “Sanctify yourselves, and be ye holy because I am the Lord your God!” (Leviticus 20:7). Nothing changes in the New Testament. Our Lord Himself says: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). The New Testament adds: “He chose us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight” (Ephesians 1:4) … “According to Him that has called you, Who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy! Because it is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy!’” (1 Peter 1:15-16). It is an insult to God to expect to get to Heaven without wanting to attain holiness, without wanting to be a saint and without making the necessary efforts to become a saint.
We Are Expected to Become Saints on Earth
We were baptized to be saints. We find the following words at various points in the Ritual for Baptism: “Lead a life that will truly make you fit to be a dwelling place for God … Grow more perfect daily … Put off the old man and put on the new man … Take this white robe and keep it spotless until you arrive at the judgment seat … Take this burning candle as a reminder to keep your baptismal innocence.”
Sanctity is perfection and God commands: “I am the Almighty God―walk before Me and be perfect!” (Genesis 17:1) … “Thou shalt be perfect and without stains before the Lord thy God!” (Deuteronomy 18:13). Our Lord commands: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48) ... “Everyone shall be perfect!” (Luke 6:40). Holy Scripture adds: “Be perfect, failing in nothing!” (James 1:4) … “Stand in all things perfect!” (Ephesians 6:13) … “Be perfect!” (1 Corinthians 1:10) … “Be perfect!” (1 Corinthians 14:20) … “Be perfect!” (2 Corinthians 13:11).
St. Paul speaks of us being “called to be saints” (Romans 8:28). He even speaks of living Christians as being saints: “I shall go to Jerusalem, to minister unto the saints … the saints that are in Jerusalem” (Romans 15:25-26). He often starts his letters by addressing the living saints in various churches: “To all the saints who are at Philippi” (Philippians 1:1) … “To the saints who are at Colossa” (Colossians 1:2) … “The saints that are in Jerusalem” (Romans 15:26) … “To all the saints who are at Ephesus” (Ephesians 1:1) ... “To all that are at Rome, called to be saints” (Romans 1:7) … “To the church of God that is at Corinth, called to be saints” (1 Corinthians 1:2) … “All the saints that are in all Achaia” (2 Corinthians 1:1). He adds: “Salute Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympias, and all the saints that are with them” (Romans 16:15). Elsewhere he says: “I teach in all the churches of the saints” (1 Corinthians 14:33). “Fornication and all uncleanness, or covetousness―let it not so much as be named among you, as becomes saints!” (Ephesians 5:3).
If we refuse or neglect to strive for sanctity and holiness, then Our Lord warns us with a variety of analogies: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men!” (Matthew 5:13) ... “Every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down and shall be cast into the fire!” (Matthew 7:17-19) … “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. And he said to the dresser of the vineyard: ‘Behold, for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none! Cut it down therefore! Why does it encumber the ground?’ But the dresser, answering, said to him: ‘Lord, leave it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and dung it! And perhaps happily it will bear fruit―but if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down!’” (Luke 13:6-9). As Our Lord says: “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23) ... “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
Sanctification From Within With God and Grace
Sanctification takes place within our souls. It is God Who sanctifies―“I am the Lord who sanctifies you!” (Leviticus 22:32)―and God dwells within us by His sanctifying grace. It is through that sanctifying grace that God sanctifies us. Our Lord said: “The Kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:2) … “Know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you!” (John 14:20). “If any one loves Me, he will keep My words, and My Father will love him and We will come to him, and will make our abode with him” (John 14:23) ... “I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever … the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, Whom the Father will send in My Name” (John 14:16, 26). Hence Holy Scripture adds: “Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God and you are not your own! For you bear God in your body!” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). “You are of God ... God abides in us … Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world! They are of the world: therefore of the world they speak, and the world hears them!” (1 John 4:4-5, 12). “God works in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will” (Philippians 2:13). Thus St. Paul says: “And I live now not I―but Christ lives in me!” (Galatians 2:20).
So What Is Holiness?
In the book, Holiness ― A Guide for Beginners, the Benedictine monk, Dom Hubert Van Zeller, gives us a simple but clear introduction to holiness:
“Anyone can be holy, or rather act holy, so long as others are saying: ‘There’s a saint for you!’ ― but sooner or later this sort of holiness wears off. Either the person sees the trap, becomes humble, and goes ahead toward real holiness, or keeping up the act becomes too much of a strain and there’s a swing toward worldliness and perhaps to a lasting unholiness. The whole secret of sanctity is that it is a thing of grace, and so cannot be switched on as a part to be played.
“This means that however determined you are to be a saint, you will not become one if you rely on your own strength of mind. The only thing that can get you to sanctity is God’s grace. You will need all the strength of mind you have just to work together with God’s grace, but if you imagine that making good, strong resolutions will carry you the whole way, you are wrong. About the first thing to happen will be that God lets you break some of those good, strong resolutions before you get properly started. This will be to put you in your place, and show you that you can do nothing without Him.
“Once you are decently humbled, knowing that left to yourself you cannot even carry out the things that you very much want to carry out, you are getting ready to be used. You are being softened up like a steak. When all the toughness and pride and glamorized ideas of holiness have been beaten out of you by the down-to-earth action of truth, then God has got something there on which He can work. Without false notions and fancy plans, you can now begin to fall in with the true notions of holiness and with the plan God has in mind for you. It stands to reason. God is not going to reward anyone else’s work but His own! You cannot expect Him to recognize a holiness that He has done nothing to bring about. When you get right down to it, there is only one real goodness, one perfection, one sanctity, and that is God’s. When man invents a holiness of his own, God lets him look for it but does not help him find it, because a holiness of one’s own does not exist, and it is a waste of time searching for it. It is as if someone were to look for moonlight without the moon. Once you admit that all moonlight is bound to come from one particular place, and that it is a thing you cannot make yourself, you have learned something.
“Another thing to notice right at the beginning about holiness is that there is no cut-and-dried pattern about it. It is what God wants out of you, and because you are not exactly the same as anyone else, the holiness that is to be yours will not be exactly like anyone else’s. The model of all holiness is Our Lord, and unless you grow to be like Him, you will never get anywhere in holiness, but this does not mean that all, who follow Him, will end up exactly alike. Our Lord appeals to us in His way, and we answer Him in our way. If twenty artists are told to paint a picture of the Crucifixion, they will all show the same thing, but in twenty different ways. There will be twenty quite separate pictures, no two alike. This is how God wants our response to be―each one his own. Now, just as it would show a weakness in one of those twenty artists to copy as closely as possible the painting of the artist next to him, so it would be a weakness for one follower of Our Lord to copy as closely as possible the particular holiness of another follower. He should make it his first job to follow Our Lord. The ways by which others have followed Our Lord can be a tremendous help, but Our Lord wants something out of you that is your own to give and is not just a copy of somebody else. God wants an original reproduction of Himself, not a forgery.
“All right then, what is it that the saints do that makes them into saints? The answer is that they do two things: on the one side they keep clear of anything that they think is going to get in the way of grace, and on the other they head directly for Our Lord. The only thing to be added to this is that they do it for the glory of God and not for what they can get out of it. They are the ones who seek first the kingdom of God, and for the King’s sake rather than for their own, and who are ready to wait as long as God likes for the day when “all these things” shall be added to them (Mathew 6:33). So it is not that the saints do particularly ‘saintly’ things (like fierce penances, whole nights spent on their knees, miracles, prophecies, or raptures in prayer); it is more that they do all things in a particularly saintly way, in exactly the way that they feel God wants. To them the only thing in the world that matters is God’s will. They know that by doing God’s will as perfectly as they can, they are imitating Our Lord, they are expressing Charity, and they are being true to the best that is in them.” (Dom Hubert Van Zeller, Holiness ― A Guide for Beginners, Chapter 1: “What Holiness Is and Is Not”).
Elias―A Saint for Today
Queen Jezabel, a foreigner, influenced her husband King Achab to promote worship of the false god Baal in Israel. She imported into Israel hundreds of priest-prophets. And she had all the true prophets of Israel killed―except for one hundred who were hidden from her. This idolatry is consistent with much of the sad history of the two kingdoms, but particularly the northern. And into this disaster in the making, God sends the great early prophet, Elias.
Elias was the greatest prophet of the Old Testament times. Nine centuries before the coming of Christ, the fiery prophet Elias was burning with zeal for God. The Carmelite Order claims the prophet Elias as their founder. He plays a unique role in this battle that will last until the end of time. He was an indomitable and relentless fighter against idolaters and will return at the end of time to fight against the Antichrist. Every part of the prophet’s life therein narrated bears out the description of the writer of Ecclesiasticus: He was “as a fire, and his word burnt like a torch” (Ecclesiasticus 48:1).
His whole manner of life resembles somewhat that of the pre-Christian Nazarites and the post-Christian Desert Fathers―both of whom who separated themselves from the world― and was a loud protest against his corrupt age. His skin garment and leather girdle (4 Kings, 1:8), his swift foot (3 Kings 18:46), his habit of dwelling in the clefts of the torrents (3 Kings 17:3) or in the caves of the mountains (3 Kings 19:9), of sleeping under a scanty shelter (3 Kings 19:5), betray the true son of the desert. He appears abruptly on the scene of history to announce to King Achab that God had determined to avenge the apostasy and idolatry of Israel and her king by bringing a long drought on the land. His message delivered, Elias vanished into the wilderness as suddenly as he had appeared. He was guided by the spirit of God and was told to go to the brook Carith, to the east of the Jordan, where ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank of the waters of the torrent Carith (3 Kings 17:6).
Elias versus the False Prophets of Baal
Meanwhile King Achab fruitlessly scoured the country in search of Elias. Eventually, Elias decided to confront the king once more, and, suddenly appearing before Achab’s servant, Abdias, and told him summon his master, Achab, to come and meet with Elias (3 Kings 18:7, sq.). When they met, King Achab bitterly criticized the prophet as being the cause of the multi-year drought in Israel. But Elias threw back the charge: “It is not I that have troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house, who have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and have followed Baalim” (3 Kings 18:18). Elias then demanded that King Achab summon all the false prophets of Baal to Mount Carmel, where Elias would challenge them to a spiritual duel. Achab complied and the prophets arrived. The duel took place before a massive crowd of people whom Elias, in the most forcible terms, pressed to choose: “ ‘How long do you halt between two sides? If the Lord be God, then follow Him―but if Baal, then follow him!’ And the people did not answer him a word” (3 Kings 18:21).
“And Elias again said to the people: ‘I only remain a prophet of the Lord―but the prophets of Baal are four hundred and fifty men. Let two bullocks be given us, and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces and lay it upon wood, but put no fire under it! And I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under it. 24 Call ye on the names of your gods, and I will call on the name of my Lord! And the God that shall answer by fire, let him be God!’ And all the people answering said: ‘A very good proposal!’” (3 Kings 18:22-24).
“Then Elias said to the prophets of Baal: ‘Because you are many, choose one bullock and dress it first, and call on the names of your gods, but put no fire under. And they took the bullock which he gave them, and dressed it: and they called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying: O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered: and they leaped over the altar that they had made. And when it was now noon, Elias jested at them, saying: Cry with a louder voice: for he is a God, and perhaps he is talking, or is in an inn, or on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep, and must be awaked. So they cried with a loud voice, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till they were all covered with blood. And after midday was past, and while they were prophesying, the time was come of offering sacrifice, and there was no voice heard, nor did any one answer, nor regard them as they prayed” (3 Kings 18:25-29).
“Elias said to all the people: ‘Come ye unto me!’ And the people coming near unto him, he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. He took twelve stones and he built with the stones an altar to the Name of the Lord. He then made a trench for water around the altar. And he laid the wood in place and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid it upon the wood. And he said: ‘Fill four buckets with water, and pour it upon the burnt offering, and upon the wood!’ And again he said: ‘Do the same the second time!’ And when they had done it the second time, he said: ‘Do the same also the third time!’ And they did so the third time. And the water run round about the altar, and the trench was filled with water” (3 Kings 18:30-35). Elias is really stacking the odds against himself―try lighting something that is completely drenched and sodden!
“And when it was now time to offer the holocaust, Elias the prophet came near and said: ‘O Lord God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Israel, show this day that Thou art the God of Israel, and that according to Thy commandment, I Thy servant have done all these things! Hear me, O Lord! Hear me! So that this people may learn, that Thou art the Lord God, and that Thou hast turned their heart back again!’ Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the holocaust, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw this, they fell on their faces, and they said: ‘The Lord―he is God! The Lord he is God!’ And Elias said to them: ‘Take the prophets of Baal, and let not one of them escape!’ And when they had taken them, Elias brought them down to the torrent Cison, and killed them there” (3 Kings 18:36-40).
Victory Brings Grief
Elias’s triumph was short. The anger of Queen Jezabel, who had sworn to take his life (3 Kings 19:2), caused Elias to flee without delay, and take his refuge beyond the desert of Juda, in the sanctuary of Mount Horeb (also called Mount Sinai).
“King Achab told Queen Jezabel all that Elias had done, and how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. And Jezabel sent a messenger to Elias, saying: ‘Such and such things may the gods do to me―and still more―if, by this hour tomorrow, I make not thy life as the life of one of them!’ Then Elias was afraid, and, rising up, he went to Bersabee of Juda, and left his servant there, and he went forward one day’s journey into the desert. And when he was there, and sat under a juniper tree, he requested for that he might die, and said: ‘It is enough for me, Lord! Take away my soul! For I am no better than my fathers!’ And he cast himself down and slept in the shadow of the juniper tree. And behold an angel of the Lord touched him, and said to him: ‘Arise and eat!’ He looked, and there was at his head a hearth cake and a vessel of water―and he ate and drank, and he fell asleep again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said to him: ‘Arise, eat! For thou hast yet a great way to go!’ And he arose, and ate, and drank, and walked in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights, unto the mountain of God, Horeb. And when he arrived there, he lived in a cave” (3 Kings 19:1-9).
There, in the wilds of the sacred mountain, broken spirited, he poured out his complaint before the Lord―Who then strengthened him by a revelation and restored his Faith. Three commands are laid upon him―(1) to anoint Hazael to be King of Syria, (2) anoint Jehu to be King of Israel, and (3) choose Eliseus to be his own successor. Elias dutifully accomplished those commands.
The next time we hear of Elias, it is in connection with Ochozias, Achab’s son and successor. Having received severe injuries in a fall, this prince sent messengers to the shrine of Beelzebub, god of Accaron, to inquire whether he should recover. They were intercepted by the prophet, who sent them back to their master with the intimation that his injuries would prove fatal. Several bands of men sent by the king to capture Elias were stricken by fire from heaven; finally the man of God appeared in person before Ochozias to confirm his threatening message. Another episode recorded by the chronicler (2 Paralipomenon 21:12) relates how Joram, King of Juda, who had indulged in Baal-worship, received from Elias a letter warning him that all his house would be smitten by a plague, and that he himself was doomed to an early death.
According to 4 Kings 3, Elias’s career ended before the death of Josaphat. This statement is difficult — but not impossible — to harmonize with the preceeding narrative. However this may be, Elias vanished still more mysteriously than he had appeared. Like Enoch, he was “translated”, so that he should not taste death. As he was conversing with his spiritual son Eliseus on the hills of Moab, “a fiery chariot, and fiery horses parted them both asunder, and Elias went up by a whirlwind into heaven” (4 Kings 2:11), and all the efforts to find him made by the skeptic sons of the prophets disbelieving Eliseus’s recital, availed nothing. The memory of Elias has ever remained living in the minds both of Jews and Christians. According to Malachias, God preserved the prophet alive to entrust him, at the end of time, with a glorious mission (Malachias 4:5-6)
The world is in a mess and the Church is in a mess! As Our Lady said to Blessed Elena Aiello back in 1956: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
What can be done? Our Lady of La Salette gave an indication: “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession. It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!”
Similarly, at Akita in Japan, in 1973, Our Lady said: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
At Fatima, Our Lady even recruited children for the fight―ages 10, 9 and 7. She said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
Numbers do matter to God―as already stated in the previous article, when Israel was faced with an invading army of 135,000 Madianites, all that Israel could raise by way of soldiers was a meager 32,000 men ― thus they were outnumbered by more than 4 to 1. When Gedeon told God he had managed to gather only 32,000 men, God reduced the number by telling Gedeon: “ ‘The people that are with thee are too many, and Madian shall not be delivered into their hands―lest Israel should glory against Me, and say: “I was delivered by my own strength!” Speak to the people, and proclaim in the hearing of all—“Whosoever is fearful and timorous, let him return home!”’ So twenty-two thousand men went away and returned home, and only ten thousand remained.” They went from being outnumbered by over 4 to 1 ― to now being outnumbered by more than 13 to 1 (with 135,000 Madianites versus 10,000 Israelites).
No doubt Gedeon was surprised to hear what the Lord said next: “The people are still too many, bring them to the waters, and there I will try them” (Judges 7:4). At the site to which the Lord had directed Gideon’s army there was drinkable water. The army stopped to drink and 9,700 put their weapons aside and knelt down on their knees, so they might drink directly from the stream. The other 300 cupped one hand and raised it to their mouths, drinking it from one hand, while holding their weapons in their other hand. “By the 300 hundred men, that lapped water, I will save you, and deliver Madian into thy hand: but let all the rest of the people return to their place” (Judges 7:7). And so it was! First they were outnumbered by over 4 to 1; then it was 13 to 1; and now it was 450 to 1 (135,000 versus 300). God wanted the Israelites to go into battle heavily outnumbered, so that God Himself could claim the eventual victory against those impossible odds. It will be much the same with the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary―it has to be a triumph that is totally against the odds, unexpected, unimaginable, so that we cannot say that WE DID IT, but it will be clear that OUR LADY DID IT.
No Spectators
Yet even though Our Lady will clearly be the “prime mover” in the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart―that does not mean that we just stand by and merely watch while munching on our favorite snacks and sipping our favorite drinks! Sister Lucia warned us that there can no neutrality, no bystanders, no spectators in what she calls the final battle between Our Lady and Satan: “The Most Holy Virgin has made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She has told me that the devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Virgin, and a decisive battle is a final battle, in which one side wins, the other side loses. Also, starting with the present time, we belong either to God, or we belong to the demon—there is no middle ground.” (Sr. Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Our Lord said: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that will not take up his cross and follow Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). The same is true of Our Lady―she will defeat Satan, but she requires us to be her instruments. As St. Augustine said: “God created you without your cooperation, but God will not save you without your cooperation!” Not that you can save yourself―you can’t―only God can save your soul, but He will not tolerate you standing around and doing nothing to help the process. Likewise with Our Lady―hence she says: “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! … I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
Yes―SHE is one who will bring the victory―BUT she also requires our participation: “I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful! I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! … Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession! … The blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent! … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this! … I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Already souls who wish to pray are on the way to being gathered together … Will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time? … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears, in the privacy of your heart. Implore our Celestial Father that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times! … Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!”
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady revealed: “Fear the danger of not attending to the divine calls, for that is the cause of the loss of innumerable souls ... Men are lost in forgetful rest and sleep―as if there were no vigilant and powerful enemies. This dreadful carelessness arises from two causes: on the one hand men are so taken up with their earthly and material life, that they do not feel any other evils except those on a physical and material nature. Anything that is interior seems harmless in their estimation. On the other hand, since the princes of darkness are invisible and unperceived by any of the senses and since carnal men neither touch, nor feel, nor see them―the result is that they forget the fear of them. Yet for this very reason they ought to be more attentive and careful, since invisible enemies are more cunning and skillful in injuring us by their treachery ... How many men have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! … Countless numbers have fallen into Hell! … Lucifer has hurled into Hell so great a number of souls and continues so to hurl them every day!”
“The neglect and contempt of bodily mortification cause the loss of many souls and bring many more into the danger of eternal loss. I will not tell thee how many souls are lost, in order to not cause thee to die of sorrow at this loss! I have already told thee, that the number of those foreknown as doomed, is so great, and of those that save themselves is so small, that it is not expedient to say more in particular. Weep ceaselessly over the terrible loss sustained by so many insane and thankless souls, who are forgetful of God, of their duty and of their own selves … and lose their chance of salvation or bring upon themselves eternal damnation.”
“So great is my love for sinners, that if they would only call upon me in time and with sincerity, none of them would perish! But the sinners and the reprobate do no such thing―because the wounds of sin do not distress them, and, the more often they are committed, the less regret or sorrow do they cause! ... As the Mother of clemency, it is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for failing to call upon me, so many souls should be lost! ... This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict yourself, lament and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls!” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
Saints and Only Saints
Only saints get to enter Heaven! That is a truth that is too little preached, too little discussed and too little thought about. There is no “wiggle-room” here―no loopholes―no other options―no dispensations―no free passes. If you are a saint, then the gates of Heaven and open to you―if you are not a saint, then the gates of Heaven are closed to you and you must go to either the fires of Hell or the fires of Purgatory. In the Old Testament God Himself says: “You shall be holy, because I am holy!” (Leviticus 11:46) … “You shall be holy men to Me!” (Exodus 22:31) … “You shall be to Me a holy nation!” (Exodus 19:6) … “Sanctify yourselves, and be ye holy because I am the Lord your God!” (Leviticus 20:7). Nothing changes in the New Testament. Our Lord Himself says: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). The New Testament adds: “He chose us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight” (Ephesians 1:4) … “According to Him that has called you, Who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy! Because it is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy!’” (1 Peter 1:15-16). It is an insult to God to expect to get to Heaven without wanting to attain holiness, without wanting to be a saint and without making the necessary efforts to become a saint.
We Are Expected to Become Saints on Earth
We were baptized to be saints. We find the following words at various points in the Ritual for Baptism: “Lead a life that will truly make you fit to be a dwelling place for God … Grow more perfect daily … Put off the old man and put on the new man … Take this white robe and keep it spotless until you arrive at the judgment seat … Take this burning candle as a reminder to keep your baptismal innocence.”
Sanctity is perfection and God commands: “I am the Almighty God―walk before Me and be perfect!” (Genesis 17:1) … “Thou shalt be perfect and without stains before the Lord thy God!” (Deuteronomy 18:13). Our Lord commands: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48) ... “Everyone shall be perfect!” (Luke 6:40). Holy Scripture adds: “Be perfect, failing in nothing!” (James 1:4) … “Stand in all things perfect!” (Ephesians 6:13) … “Be perfect!” (1 Corinthians 1:10) … “Be perfect!” (1 Corinthians 14:20) … “Be perfect!” (2 Corinthians 13:11).
St. Paul speaks of us being “called to be saints” (Romans 8:28). He even speaks of living Christians as being saints: “I shall go to Jerusalem, to minister unto the saints … the saints that are in Jerusalem” (Romans 15:25-26). He often starts his letters by addressing the living saints in various churches: “To all the saints who are at Philippi” (Philippians 1:1) … “To the saints who are at Colossa” (Colossians 1:2) … “The saints that are in Jerusalem” (Romans 15:26) … “To all the saints who are at Ephesus” (Ephesians 1:1) ... “To all that are at Rome, called to be saints” (Romans 1:7) … “To the church of God that is at Corinth, called to be saints” (1 Corinthians 1:2) … “All the saints that are in all Achaia” (2 Corinthians 1:1). He adds: “Salute Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympias, and all the saints that are with them” (Romans 16:15). Elsewhere he says: “I teach in all the churches of the saints” (1 Corinthians 14:33). “Fornication and all uncleanness, or covetousness―let it not so much as be named among you, as becomes saints!” (Ephesians 5:3).
If we refuse or neglect to strive for sanctity and holiness, then Our Lord warns us with a variety of analogies: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men!” (Matthew 5:13) ... “Every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down and shall be cast into the fire!” (Matthew 7:17-19) … “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. And he said to the dresser of the vineyard: ‘Behold, for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none! Cut it down therefore! Why does it encumber the ground?’ But the dresser, answering, said to him: ‘Lord, leave it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and dung it! And perhaps happily it will bear fruit―but if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down!’” (Luke 13:6-9). As Our Lord says: “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23) ... “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
Sanctification From Within With God and Grace
Sanctification takes place within our souls. It is God Who sanctifies―“I am the Lord who sanctifies you!” (Leviticus 22:32)―and God dwells within us by His sanctifying grace. It is through that sanctifying grace that God sanctifies us. Our Lord said: “The Kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:2) … “Know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you!” (John 14:20). “If any one loves Me, he will keep My words, and My Father will love him and We will come to him, and will make our abode with him” (John 14:23) ... “I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever … the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, Whom the Father will send in My Name” (John 14:16, 26). Hence Holy Scripture adds: “Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God and you are not your own! For you bear God in your body!” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). “You are of God ... God abides in us … Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world! They are of the world: therefore of the world they speak, and the world hears them!” (1 John 4:4-5, 12). “God works in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will” (Philippians 2:13). Thus St. Paul says: “And I live now not I―but Christ lives in me!” (Galatians 2:20).
So What Is Holiness?
In the book, Holiness ― A Guide for Beginners, the Benedictine monk, Dom Hubert Van Zeller, gives us a simple but clear introduction to holiness:
“Anyone can be holy, or rather act holy, so long as others are saying: ‘There’s a saint for you!’ ― but sooner or later this sort of holiness wears off. Either the person sees the trap, becomes humble, and goes ahead toward real holiness, or keeping up the act becomes too much of a strain and there’s a swing toward worldliness and perhaps to a lasting unholiness. The whole secret of sanctity is that it is a thing of grace, and so cannot be switched on as a part to be played.
“This means that however determined you are to be a saint, you will not become one if you rely on your own strength of mind. The only thing that can get you to sanctity is God’s grace. You will need all the strength of mind you have just to work together with God’s grace, but if you imagine that making good, strong resolutions will carry you the whole way, you are wrong. About the first thing to happen will be that God lets you break some of those good, strong resolutions before you get properly started. This will be to put you in your place, and show you that you can do nothing without Him.
“Once you are decently humbled, knowing that left to yourself you cannot even carry out the things that you very much want to carry out, you are getting ready to be used. You are being softened up like a steak. When all the toughness and pride and glamorized ideas of holiness have been beaten out of you by the down-to-earth action of truth, then God has got something there on which He can work. Without false notions and fancy plans, you can now begin to fall in with the true notions of holiness and with the plan God has in mind for you. It stands to reason. God is not going to reward anyone else’s work but His own! You cannot expect Him to recognize a holiness that He has done nothing to bring about. When you get right down to it, there is only one real goodness, one perfection, one sanctity, and that is God’s. When man invents a holiness of his own, God lets him look for it but does not help him find it, because a holiness of one’s own does not exist, and it is a waste of time searching for it. It is as if someone were to look for moonlight without the moon. Once you admit that all moonlight is bound to come from one particular place, and that it is a thing you cannot make yourself, you have learned something.
“Another thing to notice right at the beginning about holiness is that there is no cut-and-dried pattern about it. It is what God wants out of you, and because you are not exactly the same as anyone else, the holiness that is to be yours will not be exactly like anyone else’s. The model of all holiness is Our Lord, and unless you grow to be like Him, you will never get anywhere in holiness, but this does not mean that all, who follow Him, will end up exactly alike. Our Lord appeals to us in His way, and we answer Him in our way. If twenty artists are told to paint a picture of the Crucifixion, they will all show the same thing, but in twenty different ways. There will be twenty quite separate pictures, no two alike. This is how God wants our response to be―each one his own. Now, just as it would show a weakness in one of those twenty artists to copy as closely as possible the painting of the artist next to him, so it would be a weakness for one follower of Our Lord to copy as closely as possible the particular holiness of another follower. He should make it his first job to follow Our Lord. The ways by which others have followed Our Lord can be a tremendous help, but Our Lord wants something out of you that is your own to give and is not just a copy of somebody else. God wants an original reproduction of Himself, not a forgery.
“All right then, what is it that the saints do that makes them into saints? The answer is that they do two things: on the one side they keep clear of anything that they think is going to get in the way of grace, and on the other they head directly for Our Lord. The only thing to be added to this is that they do it for the glory of God and not for what they can get out of it. They are the ones who seek first the kingdom of God, and for the King’s sake rather than for their own, and who are ready to wait as long as God likes for the day when “all these things” shall be added to them (Mathew 6:33). So it is not that the saints do particularly ‘saintly’ things (like fierce penances, whole nights spent on their knees, miracles, prophecies, or raptures in prayer); it is more that they do all things in a particularly saintly way, in exactly the way that they feel God wants. To them the only thing in the world that matters is God’s will. They know that by doing God’s will as perfectly as they can, they are imitating Our Lord, they are expressing Charity, and they are being true to the best that is in them.” (Dom Hubert Van Zeller, Holiness ― A Guide for Beginners, Chapter 1: “What Holiness Is and Is Not”).
Elias―A Saint for Today
Queen Jezabel, a foreigner, influenced her husband King Achab to promote worship of the false god Baal in Israel. She imported into Israel hundreds of priest-prophets. And she had all the true prophets of Israel killed―except for one hundred who were hidden from her. This idolatry is consistent with much of the sad history of the two kingdoms, but particularly the northern. And into this disaster in the making, God sends the great early prophet, Elias.
Elias was the greatest prophet of the Old Testament times. Nine centuries before the coming of Christ, the fiery prophet Elias was burning with zeal for God. The Carmelite Order claims the prophet Elias as their founder. He plays a unique role in this battle that will last until the end of time. He was an indomitable and relentless fighter against idolaters and will return at the end of time to fight against the Antichrist. Every part of the prophet’s life therein narrated bears out the description of the writer of Ecclesiasticus: He was “as a fire, and his word burnt like a torch” (Ecclesiasticus 48:1).
His whole manner of life resembles somewhat that of the pre-Christian Nazarites and the post-Christian Desert Fathers―both of whom who separated themselves from the world― and was a loud protest against his corrupt age. His skin garment and leather girdle (4 Kings, 1:8), his swift foot (3 Kings 18:46), his habit of dwelling in the clefts of the torrents (3 Kings 17:3) or in the caves of the mountains (3 Kings 19:9), of sleeping under a scanty shelter (3 Kings 19:5), betray the true son of the desert. He appears abruptly on the scene of history to announce to King Achab that God had determined to avenge the apostasy and idolatry of Israel and her king by bringing a long drought on the land. His message delivered, Elias vanished into the wilderness as suddenly as he had appeared. He was guided by the spirit of God and was told to go to the brook Carith, to the east of the Jordan, where ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank of the waters of the torrent Carith (3 Kings 17:6).
Elias versus the False Prophets of Baal
Meanwhile King Achab fruitlessly scoured the country in search of Elias. Eventually, Elias decided to confront the king once more, and, suddenly appearing before Achab’s servant, Abdias, and told him summon his master, Achab, to come and meet with Elias (3 Kings 18:7, sq.). When they met, King Achab bitterly criticized the prophet as being the cause of the multi-year drought in Israel. But Elias threw back the charge: “It is not I that have troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house, who have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and have followed Baalim” (3 Kings 18:18). Elias then demanded that King Achab summon all the false prophets of Baal to Mount Carmel, where Elias would challenge them to a spiritual duel. Achab complied and the prophets arrived. The duel took place before a massive crowd of people whom Elias, in the most forcible terms, pressed to choose: “ ‘How long do you halt between two sides? If the Lord be God, then follow Him―but if Baal, then follow him!’ And the people did not answer him a word” (3 Kings 18:21).
“And Elias again said to the people: ‘I only remain a prophet of the Lord―but the prophets of Baal are four hundred and fifty men. Let two bullocks be given us, and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces and lay it upon wood, but put no fire under it! And I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under it. 24 Call ye on the names of your gods, and I will call on the name of my Lord! And the God that shall answer by fire, let him be God!’ And all the people answering said: ‘A very good proposal!’” (3 Kings 18:22-24).
“Then Elias said to the prophets of Baal: ‘Because you are many, choose one bullock and dress it first, and call on the names of your gods, but put no fire under. And they took the bullock which he gave them, and dressed it: and they called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying: O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered: and they leaped over the altar that they had made. And when it was now noon, Elias jested at them, saying: Cry with a louder voice: for he is a God, and perhaps he is talking, or is in an inn, or on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep, and must be awaked. So they cried with a loud voice, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till they were all covered with blood. And after midday was past, and while they were prophesying, the time was come of offering sacrifice, and there was no voice heard, nor did any one answer, nor regard them as they prayed” (3 Kings 18:25-29).
“Elias said to all the people: ‘Come ye unto me!’ And the people coming near unto him, he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. He took twelve stones and he built with the stones an altar to the Name of the Lord. He then made a trench for water around the altar. And he laid the wood in place and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid it upon the wood. And he said: ‘Fill four buckets with water, and pour it upon the burnt offering, and upon the wood!’ And again he said: ‘Do the same the second time!’ And when they had done it the second time, he said: ‘Do the same also the third time!’ And they did so the third time. And the water run round about the altar, and the trench was filled with water” (3 Kings 18:30-35). Elias is really stacking the odds against himself―try lighting something that is completely drenched and sodden!
“And when it was now time to offer the holocaust, Elias the prophet came near and said: ‘O Lord God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Israel, show this day that Thou art the God of Israel, and that according to Thy commandment, I Thy servant have done all these things! Hear me, O Lord! Hear me! So that this people may learn, that Thou art the Lord God, and that Thou hast turned their heart back again!’ Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the holocaust, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw this, they fell on their faces, and they said: ‘The Lord―he is God! The Lord he is God!’ And Elias said to them: ‘Take the prophets of Baal, and let not one of them escape!’ And when they had taken them, Elias brought them down to the torrent Cison, and killed them there” (3 Kings 18:36-40).
Victory Brings Grief
Elias’s triumph was short. The anger of Queen Jezabel, who had sworn to take his life (3 Kings 19:2), caused Elias to flee without delay, and take his refuge beyond the desert of Juda, in the sanctuary of Mount Horeb (also called Mount Sinai).
“King Achab told Queen Jezabel all that Elias had done, and how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. And Jezabel sent a messenger to Elias, saying: ‘Such and such things may the gods do to me―and still more―if, by this hour tomorrow, I make not thy life as the life of one of them!’ Then Elias was afraid, and, rising up, he went to Bersabee of Juda, and left his servant there, and he went forward one day’s journey into the desert. And when he was there, and sat under a juniper tree, he requested for that he might die, and said: ‘It is enough for me, Lord! Take away my soul! For I am no better than my fathers!’ And he cast himself down and slept in the shadow of the juniper tree. And behold an angel of the Lord touched him, and said to him: ‘Arise and eat!’ He looked, and there was at his head a hearth cake and a vessel of water―and he ate and drank, and he fell asleep again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said to him: ‘Arise, eat! For thou hast yet a great way to go!’ And he arose, and ate, and drank, and walked in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights, unto the mountain of God, Horeb. And when he arrived there, he lived in a cave” (3 Kings 19:1-9).
There, in the wilds of the sacred mountain, broken spirited, he poured out his complaint before the Lord―Who then strengthened him by a revelation and restored his Faith. Three commands are laid upon him―(1) to anoint Hazael to be King of Syria, (2) anoint Jehu to be King of Israel, and (3) choose Eliseus to be his own successor. Elias dutifully accomplished those commands.
The next time we hear of Elias, it is in connection with Ochozias, Achab’s son and successor. Having received severe injuries in a fall, this prince sent messengers to the shrine of Beelzebub, god of Accaron, to inquire whether he should recover. They were intercepted by the prophet, who sent them back to their master with the intimation that his injuries would prove fatal. Several bands of men sent by the king to capture Elias were stricken by fire from heaven; finally the man of God appeared in person before Ochozias to confirm his threatening message. Another episode recorded by the chronicler (2 Paralipomenon 21:12) relates how Joram, King of Juda, who had indulged in Baal-worship, received from Elias a letter warning him that all his house would be smitten by a plague, and that he himself was doomed to an early death.
According to 4 Kings 3, Elias’s career ended before the death of Josaphat. This statement is difficult — but not impossible — to harmonize with the preceeding narrative. However this may be, Elias vanished still more mysteriously than he had appeared. Like Enoch, he was “translated”, so that he should not taste death. As he was conversing with his spiritual son Eliseus on the hills of Moab, “a fiery chariot, and fiery horses parted them both asunder, and Elias went up by a whirlwind into heaven” (4 Kings 2:11), and all the efforts to find him made by the skeptic sons of the prophets disbelieving Eliseus’s recital, availed nothing. The memory of Elias has ever remained living in the minds both of Jews and Christians. According to Malachias, God preserved the prophet alive to entrust him, at the end of time, with a glorious mission (Malachias 4:5-6)
Article 11
Tuesday July 18th & Wednesday July 19th, 2023
Will the Brown Scapular Really Save the World?
Tuesday July 18th & Wednesday July 19th, 2023
Will the Brown Scapular Really Save the World?
Painters, Paintings, Paint and Paintbrushes
Some people like to refer to a prophecy from the Middle-Ages which says that one day the Brown Scapular will save the world! Is that true? Well―yes and no! The actual prophecy is that “One day Our Lady, through the Scapular and the Rosary, will save the world.” Notice that it is OUR LADY who will save the world―and NOT THE SCAPULAR. However, Our Lady will USE the Rosary and Scapular to save the world.
It is much like an artist and a painting. The artist paints the painting by using a paintbrush and paint―so too will Our Lady use the Scapular and the Rosary to save the world. An artist cannot paint the painting with only a paintbrush but with no paint―nor can he paint the painting with only paint and no paintbrush―both paint and paintbrush are needed. Or to use another analogy―a man who has a car needs gasoline and an ignition system (e.g. spark plugs) to ignite the gasoline so that the car can be driven to a destination―if he only has the gasoline without the ignition system, or he has the ignition system without the gasoline, then he is going nowhere. Likewise a soldier who goes to battle―he needs both a rifle and bullets. If he only has a rifle with no bullets, or just bullets without a rifle―then he cannot fire upon the enemy and he is useless in the battle. Similarly, in the words of Sister Lucia of Fatima, we are told that “the Rosary and the Scapular are inseparable.”
Two Peas in a Pod?
If the Rosary and the Scapular are inseparable, are they “two-peas-in-a-pod”? In other words, are they indistinguishable or what’s the difference? In one sense, you could say that they are “two-peas-in-a-pod” if you take the pod to be Our Lady or devotion to Our Lady―for both the Rosary and the Scapular are representative of such a devotion. They are also “two-peas-in-a-pod” if you take the pod to be spiritual weaponry―for both are incredibly powerful weapons of Our Lady. Pope Pius XI once said that “the Rosary is a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight and to keep oneself from sin.” St. Louis de Montfort says that Rosary “gives us victory over all our enemies.” St. Padre Pio even calls the Rosary as being “THE Weapon.” The difference between the Rosary and the Scapular is that the Rosary can be seen as a weapon of attack, whereas the Scapular can be seen as a weapon of defense. In fact, if you think about it, we carry our Rosary in our hands like a sword, but we wear the Scapular on our chests and backs like armor.
War Requires Attacking and Defensive Weapons
Every soldier, every army, every nation―when going to war and into battle―must have both kinds of weapons, that is to say, offensive weapons with which to attack and defeat the enemy, and also defensive weapons that give protection against the attacks of the enemy. The same is true of spiritual warfare. We even say this in our prayers: “St. Michael the Archangel, DEFEND us in battle, be our PROTECTION against the wickedness and snares of the devil!” Then we add: “CAST DOWN INTO HELL Satan and all wicked spirits who wander throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls!” Thus we are asking St. Michael to both DEFEND and PROTECT us, while also going on the OFFENSIVE and ATTACKING Satan and the other devils. When the Carmelite Religious Order were forced to leave the Holy Land due to persecution by the Saracens (Muslims/Mohammedans) and relocated in various parts of Europe, it also encountered various dangers that threatened the existence of the Carmelites. The then sixth general of the Carmelites, St. Simon Stock, turned to Our Lady for PROTECTION―her response was to give him the Scapular as a pledge and sign of her PROTECTION.
Strictly speaking, a weapon is a tool with which we attack someone. Armor is what we wear to defend ourselves against someone’s attack. Hence, when Our Lady gave St. Dominic the Holy Rosary, she said: “I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the principal weapon has always been the Rosary!” Her choice of words― “warfare” and “weapon”―clearly communicate the idea of going on the ATTACK against an enemy. When Our Lady gave the Scapular to St. Simon Stock, in answer to his plea for protection in threatening times, she said: “This shall be a sign to you and to all Carmelites—whosoever dies wearing this shall not suffer eternal fire.” What is it to be saved from eternal fire? Being saved from the eternal fires is PROTECTION.
Mary is Our Defense
After Our Lady appeared to St. Simon Stock and gave him the Scapular, devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel spread rapidly throughout Europe. Ever-increasing accounts began to circulate of miracles and graces obtained through the intercession of the Blessed Mother and her Scapular. The Scapular became a visible and tangible sign of Mary’s maternal care and protection―and it still continues to this day. You could say that the Brown Scapular serves as both a uniform signifying we are part of Our Lady’s Army, (2) as well as being spiritual body armor that protects us from evil.
The evil spirit is utterly powerless when the wearer of a scapular faces temptation, calling upon the Holy Virgin in this silent devotion. “If you had recommended yourself to me, you would not have run into such danger!” was Our Lady’s gentle reproach to Blessed Alan de la Roche, one of her devoted servants. Speaking of Our Lady, St. Thomas Aquinas says: “In all dangers thou canst obtain salvation of this glorious Virgin! … Also, in every work of virtue thou canst have her for thy helper and a means of protection against dangers!” (Expos. In Salul. Ang.). St. Bernard says: “She opens the abyss of the mercy of God to whomsoever she wills, when she wills, and as she wills; so that there is no sinner, however great, who is lost if Mary protects him!” (In Salve Reg. s. 1). St. Alphonsus Liguori speaks of “the wool of her protection against the thunderbolts of divine justice” ― and the Scapular is made of wool! The Cardinal, St. Robert Bellarmine writes: “Who would ever dare to snatch these children from the bosom of Mary, when they have taken refuge there? What power of Hell, or what temptation, can overcome them, if they place their confidence in the patronage of this great Mother, the Mother of God, and of them?” (De Sept. Verb. l. i. c. 12). When devotion towards Mary begins in a soul, it puts an end to the night of sin, and leads the soul into the light of the path of virtue.
St. Bernard adds: “O man, whoever thou art, understand that in this world thou art tossed about on a stormy and tempestuous sea, rather than walking on solid ground; remember that if thou wouldst avoid being drowned, thou must never turn thine eyes from the brightness of this star, but keep them fixed on it, and call on Mary. In dangers, in straits, in doubts, remember Mary, invoke Mary … Let not her name leave thy lips, let it be ever in thy heart … Following her, thou wilt certainly not go astray ... Imploring her, thou wilt not despair ... If she supports thee, thou canst not fall ... If she protects thee thou has nothing to fear, for thou canst not be lost ... With her for thy guide, thou wilt not be weary; for thy salvation will be worked out with ease!” (De Laud V. M. hom. 2). If Mary undertakes our defense, we are certain of gaining the kingdom of Heaven. St. Germanus says, “O Mother of God, thy protection never ceases, thy intercession is life, and thy patronage never fails!” (In Dorm. B. V. s. 2). Richard of St. Laurence remarks that when the soul is defended by Mary, the devils dare not even accuse it, knowing that the judge never condemned, and never will condemn, a soul protected by his august Mother. He asks: “Who would dare accuse one who is patronized by the Mother of Him who is to judge?” (De Laud V. l. 2, p. 1) Mary not only assists her beloved servants at death and encourages them, but she herself accompanies them to the tribunal-seat of God.
Body Armor
Each branch of the United States armed forces―Army, Navy & Air-Force; Marines; Marine Raiders; Naval Marines; Special Forces; Army Rangers; Navy Seals; Green Berets; National Guard and Coast Guard―all have the need to protect their troops on the battlefield. In combat situations body armor is worn by everyone. In general, the most common type of body armor used by the US Military is a bullet-resistant plate carrier that is worn over the soldier's uniform. In conjunction with bulletproof plates, this type of body armor can stop most small-arms fire and is effective against shrapnel and other high-velocity projectiles. The military also uses heavier body armor for more dangerous situations, these vests provide much better protection against larger caliber bullets and high-velocity projectiles. The US Military has never stopped developing increasingly sophisticated body armor for its soldiers over the past few decades―trying to make the body armor more and more resilient, effective, protective. Each branch of the military has slightly different requirements that are based upon the environment in which they are deployed and weaponry currently being used by the enemy.
Similarly, the Brown Scapular is like body armor, that we wear―with one part of the Scapular on our chest and the other part of the Scapular on our back.
All of this brings to mind the miracle of what could be called “The Bullet Proof Brown Scapular”! A French priest on pilgrimage to Our Lady’s shrine in Einsiedeln, Switzerland, was on his way to Mass when he remembered that he had forgotten his Brown Scapular. Although late, he returned to his room for it. While saying Mass, a young man approached the altar, pulled out a revolver and shot him in the back ― but the priest continued to say Mass. In the sacristy, after Mass, when the vestments were removed, the bullet was found, adhering to his little Brown Scapular. The shocked abbot of the monastery exclaimed: “I thought the man missed you!”
Another incident that manifested the protective power of the Brown Scapular occurred in 1845, when the English ship, King of the Ocean, was lashed by a wild hurricane. The Rev. Fisher, a Protestant minister, together with his wife and children and other passengers, struggled to the deck to pray for mercy and forgiveness, as the end seemed at hand. Among the crew was a young Irishman, John McAuliffe. He opened his shirt—took off his Scapular—made the Sign of the Cross with the Scapular over the angry waves, then threw the Scapular into the ocean. At that very moment the wind and the sea calmed―apart from only one more wave that washed over the deck, bringing with it the Scapular which landed at the boy’s feet. The Rev. Fisher and his family had observed what he had done and miraculous consequences. They questioned the boy. He told them about the Virgin and her Scapular and her Promise of protection in time of danger. So impressed were they that they determined to enter the Church and enjoy a like protection―which is what they did once the ship arrived in Australia.
In May of 1957, a Carmelite priest in Germany published the unusual story of how the Scapular saved a home from fire. An entire row of homes had caught fire in Westboden, Germany. The pious inhabitants of a two-family home, seeing the fire, immediately fastened a Scapular to the main door of the house. Sparks flew over it and around it but stayed unharmed. Within 5 hours 22 homes were reduced to ashes and ruins. This one stood unharmed amidst the destruction. Hundreds of people came to see the place Our Lady had saved.
A Spiritual Shield
Fr. Kilian Lynch, O.Carm., former Carmelite Superior General (1947-1959), in his booklet on the Brown Scapular, writes:
“The spiritual alliance of the Scapular puts our lives and our souls in the safe keeping of Our Lady. The dazzling splendor of her holiness makes her the terror of demons. She is ‘terrible as an army in battle array’ against all the forces of evil that would molest us or attempt to snatch us from under the mantle of her maternal protection. And, as Queen of Angels, she can summon legions of heavenly hosts to our defense. When the king of Syria sent his forces to capture Eliseus, the prophet told his servant to ‘fear no―for there are more with us than with them! And Eliseus prayed, and said: ‘Lord open his eyes, that he may see!’ And the Lord opened the eyes of the servant and he saw―and behold, the mountain was full of horses, and chariots of fire round about Eliseus’ (4 Kings 6:16-17).
“The Queen of the Angels repeats those words to those who are clothed in her Habit [Scapular]: ‘Fear not, for there are more with us than with them!’ She can summon legions of angels to our side and surround us with the power of Heaven. As Daughter of the Eternal Father, Mother of the Word, and Spouse of the Holy Ghost, her prayer is infinitely more powerful than that of any prophet. Even the mention of her name is enough to confound the powers of darkness. When the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, he saw that his master was not alone. Neither are the ‘sons of her choice’ alone in the battle of life. The alliance of the Scapular brings us the strength of Heaven—while we are clothed in the Habit of Our Lady, we are surrounded by the forces at her command. ‘All who see them shall know that they are the seed the Lord hath blessed’ (Isaias 61:9). As long as we live our lives and finish our course, under the sweet protection of her mantle, we have nothing to fear. Our path to Heaven is made easy by her who crushed the serpent’s head!”
Our ultimate enemy is Satan and his devils. Without God’s assistance, man is absolutely no match for Satan―it is no contest, a walkover, a totally one-sided event. Remember that one single angel―if allowed to do so by God―is capable of destroying the entire universe. What man can do that? Nobody! The intellect and power of an angel is far beyond the intellect and power of any man. However, the power of Our Lady―although it is nowhere near the power of God―is nevertheless greater than that of all angels and men put together. That is why, in her modern-day apparitions, she has said things like:
“Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... The work of the devil will infiltrate even the Church … The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God ... Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach ... Those who place their confidence in me will be saved … Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you … There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed ... This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph! … I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful! I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! … Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!” (quotes of Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita).
Satan Hates the Scapular
In 2005, a priest was giving a talk about the growth of satanic worship in the world and how adults and young children are becoming possessed by the devil. When someone asked the priest how to protect oneself from the demonic, besides the obvious path of avoiding things that call upon Satan, the priest answered, “Wear the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel for protection from curses and the devil.”
One can understand why the devil works against those who promote the Scapular after hearing the story of Venerable Francis de Yepes―the brother of St. John of the Cross. One day his Scapular fell off―as he replaced it, the devil howled, “Take off that habit ― it snatches so many souls from us!” Then and there Francis made the devil admit that there are three things which the demons are most afraid of: the Holy Name of Jesus, the Holy Name of Mary, and the Holy Scapular of Carmel. To that list we could add the Holy Rosary.
One day a young woman, before entering the religious life, went to see St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, and, during the conversation, he asked her: “Do you recall, my child, at the certain evening of dancing, where you were? There was a very young man, very handsome, unknown, distinguished, admired, and all the girls wanted to dance with him.”
“Yes, I recall that when he never came to ask me to dance, I was sad ― yet all the other girls were privileged to dance with that young man!”
“You would have liked to dance with him, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes!”
“Do you recall, that when that young man was leaving the dance hall, you saw two blue flames under his feet? And you thought it was an illusion of your eyes? It was not an illusion of your eyes, my daughter. That man was a demon. And if he did not come to you to ask you to dance, it’s for one reason―you were wearing the vestment of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.”
Mount Carmel Victories
The prophecy that Our Lady will one day save the world through the Rosary and the Scapular is strengthened by many Scapular or Mount Carmel related incidents throughout history. Amidst our present day (man-made?) droughts we read of another man-made drought during the 8th century BC. Israel had fallen away from God into idolatry following the lead of its ruler, King Achab: “Achab did evil in the sight of the Lord above, and all that were before him. It was not enough for him to walk in the sins of King Jeroboam, but he also took as his wife Jezabel, daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians. And he went and served Baal and adored him. And he set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal, which he had built in Samaria” (3 Kings 16:30-32).
God’s prophet Elias, through his prayers, brought about a drought upon Israel as a punishment for their idolatry: “Elias said to King Achab: ‘As the Lord liveth―the God of Israel―in whose sight I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years!’” (3 Kings 17:1). Then “after many days, the word of the Lord came to Elias, in the third year, saying: ‘Go and show thyself to King Achab, that I may give rain upon the face of the Earth!’ And Elias went to show himself to King Achab, and there was a grievous famine in Samaria.” (3 Kings 18:1-2).
“Achab came to meet Elias. when he had seen him, he said: ‘Art thou he that troublest Israel?’ And Elias said: ‘I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house have troubled Israel―for you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and have followed Baalim! Nevertheless send now, and gather unto me all Israel, unto Mount Carmel, and the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, and the four hundred prophets of Asherah [a.k.a. the false goddess Ashtoreth], who eat at Queen Jezabel’s table!’ King Achab sent the command to all the children of Israel, and gathered together the prophets together on Mount Carmel.
“And Elias coming to all the people, said: ‘How long do you hesitate between the two sides? If the Lord be God, follow Him! But if Baal be God, then follow him!’ And the people did not answer him a word! And Elias said again to the people: ‘I remain as the only prophet of the Lord―but the prophets of Baal are four hundred and fifty men! Let two bullocks be given us, and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces and lay it upon wood, but put no fire under it! And I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under it! Call ye on the names of your gods, and I will call on the Name of my Lord: and the God that shall answer by fire, let him be God!’ And all the people answering said: ‘A very good proposal!’ Then Elias said to the prophets of Baal: ‘Choose you one bullock and dress it first―because you are many―and call upon the names of your gods, but put no fire under it!’
“And they took the bullock which he gave them, and dressed it: and they called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying: ‘O Baal, hear us!’ But there was no voice, nor any that answered: and they leaped over the altar that they had made And when it was now noon, Elias jested at them, saying: ‘Cry with a louder voice! For he is a God, and perhaps he is talking, or is in an inn, or on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep, and must be awakened!’ So they cried with a loud voice, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till they were all covered with blood. And after midday was past, and while they were prophesying, the time was come of offering sacrifice, and there was no voice heard, nor did any one answer them, nor look upon them as they prayed.
“Elias said to all the people: ‘Come ye unto me!’ And the people coming near unto him, he repaired the altar of the Lord, that was broken down. And he took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying: ‘Israel shall be thy name!’ And he built with the stones an altar to the Name of the Lord: and he made a trench for water, of the breadth of two furrows round about the altar. And he laid the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid it upon the wood. And he said: ‘Fill four buckets with water and pour it upon the burnt offering, and upon the wood!’ And again he said: ‘Do the same the second time!’ And when they had done it the second time, he said: ‘Do the same also the third time!’ And they did so the third time. And the water ran round about the altar, and the trench was filled with water.
“And when it was now time to offer the holocaust, Elias the prophet came near and said: ‘O Lord God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Israel, show this day that Thou art the God of Israel, and that according to Thy commandment, I Thy servant, I have done all these things! Hear me, O Lord, hear me! So that this people may learn that Thou art the Lord God, and that Thou hast turned their heart back again!’ Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the holocaust, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw this, they fell on their faces, and they said: ‘The Lord―He is God! The Lord―He is God!’ And Elias said to them: ‘Take the prophets of Baal, and let not one of them escape!’ And when they had taken them, Elias brought them down to the torrent Cison and killed them there.
“And Elias said to Achab: ‘Go up, eat, and drink! For there is a sound of abundance of rain!’ Achab went up to eat and drink, and Elias went up to the top of Carmel, and, casting himself down upon the earth, put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant: ‘Go up, and look toward the sea!’ And he went up, and looked, and said: ‘There is nothing!’ And again he said to him: ‘Return seven times!’ And at the seventh time, behold, a little cloud arose out of the sea like a man's foot. And he said: Go up and say to Achab: ‘Prepare thy chariot and go down, lest the rain prevent thee!’ And while he turned himself this way and that way, behold the heavens grew dark, with clouds, and wind, and there fell a great rain. And Achab getting up went away to Jezrahel. And the hand of the Lord was upon Elias, and he girded up his loins and ran before Achab, till he came to Jezrahel” (3 Kings 18:1-46).
Our Lord Himself refers to this: “In the days of Elias in Israel, Heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the Earth!” (Luke 4:25). St. James also mentions it: “The continual prayer of a just man avails much. Elias was a man like us―and with prayer he prayed that it might not rain upon the Earth, and it rained not for three years and six months. And he prayed again: and the Heaven gave rain, and the Earth brought forth her fruit” (James 5:26-18).
Even though many blamed Elias for the drought, Elias pointed out that the drought was a necessary punishment for their idolatry―which was even promoted by the kings of Israel at that time. The same is true for our day and age! How true are the following words for our times: “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together: there is none that doth good, no not one!” (Psalm 13:2-3).
Elias―outnumbered by 850 to 1―challenged and defeated the 450 prophets of the false god Baal and the 400 prophets of the false goddess Asherah [a.k.a. Ashtoreth] (3 Kings 18:19). As St. James wrote: “The continual prayer of a just man avails much. Elias was a man like us―and with prayer he prayed that it might not rain upon the Earth, and it rained not for three years and six months. And he prayed again: and the Heaven gave rain, and the Earth brought forth her fruit” (James 5:26-18).
It does not take many to overcome evil―no matter how great the evil might be and no matter how outnumbered we might be. We see this disregard by God for the odds in the case of Gedeon. Gedeon―the fifth of the Judges who were the leaders of Israel at the time―found the Israelite army greatly outnumbered by the Madianites: with 135,000 Madianites against Gedeon’s army of 32,000—who were outnumbered by more than 4 to 1. Human wisdom and prudence, seeing oneself so sorely outnumbered, would see this as a time to go out and recruit more warriors. However, without God we can do nothing, and it might be that, after the victory that the Lord would give them, the soldiers might think it had been by their own strength and ability that they had won the victory.
So, the Lord commanded Gedeon, not to recruit soldiers, but to further reduce the number under his command: “lest Israel should glory against me, and say: I was delivered by my own strength” (Judges 7:2). Any who were “afraid and trembling” were told they could go home. Some 22,000 departed, leaving only 10,000 to fight the 135,000 Madianites. So, they went from being outnumbered by more than 4 to 1, to now being outnumbered by more than 13 to 1.
No doubt Gedeon was surprised to hear what the Lord said next: “The people are still too many, bring them to the waters, and there I will try them” (Judges 7:4). At the site to which the Lord had directed Gideon’s army there was drinkable water. The army stopped to drink and 9,700 knelt down on their knees, so they might drink directly from the stream. The other 300 cupped their hands and took water into them, drinking it from their hands as a dog would lap water from his bowl. “By the 300 hundred men, that lapped water, I will save you, and deliver Madian into thy hand: but let all the rest of the people return to their place” (Judges 7:7). And so it was!
God likes to do with the minimum. He likes to have everything stacked against Him and His Chosen Ones. He delights in bringing off the seemingly impossible. With “Gedeon’s Three Hundred”, God kept increasing the odds against them―from being outnumbered by more than 4 to 1 (135,000 versus 32,000); to more than 13 to 1 (135,000 versus 10,000); and finally to a ridiculous and seemingly impossible situation of being outnumbered by 450 to 1 (135,000 versus 300). God wanted the Israelites to go into battle heavily outnumbered, so that God Himself could claim the eventual victory against those impossible odds.
The Possibility of Impossibility
Let us not cheapen and limit the power of God. Our Lord repeatedly told us that nothing is impossible with God: “He said to them: ‘The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!’” (Luke 18:27). “And Jesus beholding, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible―but with God all things are possible!’” (Matthew 19:26). “And Jesus looking on them, said: ‘With men it is impossible, but not with God―for all things are possible with God!’” (Mark 10:27). “Because no word shall be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). “If God be for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31). “They trust in their weapons, and in their boldness―but we trust in the Almighty Lord, Who can utterly destroy both them that come against us, and the whole world!” (2 Machabees 8:18).
Some people like to refer to a prophecy from the Middle-Ages which says that one day the Brown Scapular will save the world! Is that true? Well―yes and no! The actual prophecy is that “One day Our Lady, through the Scapular and the Rosary, will save the world.” Notice that it is OUR LADY who will save the world―and NOT THE SCAPULAR. However, Our Lady will USE the Rosary and Scapular to save the world.
It is much like an artist and a painting. The artist paints the painting by using a paintbrush and paint―so too will Our Lady use the Scapular and the Rosary to save the world. An artist cannot paint the painting with only a paintbrush but with no paint―nor can he paint the painting with only paint and no paintbrush―both paint and paintbrush are needed. Or to use another analogy―a man who has a car needs gasoline and an ignition system (e.g. spark plugs) to ignite the gasoline so that the car can be driven to a destination―if he only has the gasoline without the ignition system, or he has the ignition system without the gasoline, then he is going nowhere. Likewise a soldier who goes to battle―he needs both a rifle and bullets. If he only has a rifle with no bullets, or just bullets without a rifle―then he cannot fire upon the enemy and he is useless in the battle. Similarly, in the words of Sister Lucia of Fatima, we are told that “the Rosary and the Scapular are inseparable.”
Two Peas in a Pod?
If the Rosary and the Scapular are inseparable, are they “two-peas-in-a-pod”? In other words, are they indistinguishable or what’s the difference? In one sense, you could say that they are “two-peas-in-a-pod” if you take the pod to be Our Lady or devotion to Our Lady―for both the Rosary and the Scapular are representative of such a devotion. They are also “two-peas-in-a-pod” if you take the pod to be spiritual weaponry―for both are incredibly powerful weapons of Our Lady. Pope Pius XI once said that “the Rosary is a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight and to keep oneself from sin.” St. Louis de Montfort says that Rosary “gives us victory over all our enemies.” St. Padre Pio even calls the Rosary as being “THE Weapon.” The difference between the Rosary and the Scapular is that the Rosary can be seen as a weapon of attack, whereas the Scapular can be seen as a weapon of defense. In fact, if you think about it, we carry our Rosary in our hands like a sword, but we wear the Scapular on our chests and backs like armor.
War Requires Attacking and Defensive Weapons
Every soldier, every army, every nation―when going to war and into battle―must have both kinds of weapons, that is to say, offensive weapons with which to attack and defeat the enemy, and also defensive weapons that give protection against the attacks of the enemy. The same is true of spiritual warfare. We even say this in our prayers: “St. Michael the Archangel, DEFEND us in battle, be our PROTECTION against the wickedness and snares of the devil!” Then we add: “CAST DOWN INTO HELL Satan and all wicked spirits who wander throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls!” Thus we are asking St. Michael to both DEFEND and PROTECT us, while also going on the OFFENSIVE and ATTACKING Satan and the other devils. When the Carmelite Religious Order were forced to leave the Holy Land due to persecution by the Saracens (Muslims/Mohammedans) and relocated in various parts of Europe, it also encountered various dangers that threatened the existence of the Carmelites. The then sixth general of the Carmelites, St. Simon Stock, turned to Our Lady for PROTECTION―her response was to give him the Scapular as a pledge and sign of her PROTECTION.
Strictly speaking, a weapon is a tool with which we attack someone. Armor is what we wear to defend ourselves against someone’s attack. Hence, when Our Lady gave St. Dominic the Holy Rosary, she said: “I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the principal weapon has always been the Rosary!” Her choice of words― “warfare” and “weapon”―clearly communicate the idea of going on the ATTACK against an enemy. When Our Lady gave the Scapular to St. Simon Stock, in answer to his plea for protection in threatening times, she said: “This shall be a sign to you and to all Carmelites—whosoever dies wearing this shall not suffer eternal fire.” What is it to be saved from eternal fire? Being saved from the eternal fires is PROTECTION.
Mary is Our Defense
After Our Lady appeared to St. Simon Stock and gave him the Scapular, devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel spread rapidly throughout Europe. Ever-increasing accounts began to circulate of miracles and graces obtained through the intercession of the Blessed Mother and her Scapular. The Scapular became a visible and tangible sign of Mary’s maternal care and protection―and it still continues to this day. You could say that the Brown Scapular serves as both a uniform signifying we are part of Our Lady’s Army, (2) as well as being spiritual body armor that protects us from evil.
The evil spirit is utterly powerless when the wearer of a scapular faces temptation, calling upon the Holy Virgin in this silent devotion. “If you had recommended yourself to me, you would not have run into such danger!” was Our Lady’s gentle reproach to Blessed Alan de la Roche, one of her devoted servants. Speaking of Our Lady, St. Thomas Aquinas says: “In all dangers thou canst obtain salvation of this glorious Virgin! … Also, in every work of virtue thou canst have her for thy helper and a means of protection against dangers!” (Expos. In Salul. Ang.). St. Bernard says: “She opens the abyss of the mercy of God to whomsoever she wills, when she wills, and as she wills; so that there is no sinner, however great, who is lost if Mary protects him!” (In Salve Reg. s. 1). St. Alphonsus Liguori speaks of “the wool of her protection against the thunderbolts of divine justice” ― and the Scapular is made of wool! The Cardinal, St. Robert Bellarmine writes: “Who would ever dare to snatch these children from the bosom of Mary, when they have taken refuge there? What power of Hell, or what temptation, can overcome them, if they place their confidence in the patronage of this great Mother, the Mother of God, and of them?” (De Sept. Verb. l. i. c. 12). When devotion towards Mary begins in a soul, it puts an end to the night of sin, and leads the soul into the light of the path of virtue.
St. Bernard adds: “O man, whoever thou art, understand that in this world thou art tossed about on a stormy and tempestuous sea, rather than walking on solid ground; remember that if thou wouldst avoid being drowned, thou must never turn thine eyes from the brightness of this star, but keep them fixed on it, and call on Mary. In dangers, in straits, in doubts, remember Mary, invoke Mary … Let not her name leave thy lips, let it be ever in thy heart … Following her, thou wilt certainly not go astray ... Imploring her, thou wilt not despair ... If she supports thee, thou canst not fall ... If she protects thee thou has nothing to fear, for thou canst not be lost ... With her for thy guide, thou wilt not be weary; for thy salvation will be worked out with ease!” (De Laud V. M. hom. 2). If Mary undertakes our defense, we are certain of gaining the kingdom of Heaven. St. Germanus says, “O Mother of God, thy protection never ceases, thy intercession is life, and thy patronage never fails!” (In Dorm. B. V. s. 2). Richard of St. Laurence remarks that when the soul is defended by Mary, the devils dare not even accuse it, knowing that the judge never condemned, and never will condemn, a soul protected by his august Mother. He asks: “Who would dare accuse one who is patronized by the Mother of Him who is to judge?” (De Laud V. l. 2, p. 1) Mary not only assists her beloved servants at death and encourages them, but she herself accompanies them to the tribunal-seat of God.
Body Armor
Each branch of the United States armed forces―Army, Navy & Air-Force; Marines; Marine Raiders; Naval Marines; Special Forces; Army Rangers; Navy Seals; Green Berets; National Guard and Coast Guard―all have the need to protect their troops on the battlefield. In combat situations body armor is worn by everyone. In general, the most common type of body armor used by the US Military is a bullet-resistant plate carrier that is worn over the soldier's uniform. In conjunction with bulletproof plates, this type of body armor can stop most small-arms fire and is effective against shrapnel and other high-velocity projectiles. The military also uses heavier body armor for more dangerous situations, these vests provide much better protection against larger caliber bullets and high-velocity projectiles. The US Military has never stopped developing increasingly sophisticated body armor for its soldiers over the past few decades―trying to make the body armor more and more resilient, effective, protective. Each branch of the military has slightly different requirements that are based upon the environment in which they are deployed and weaponry currently being used by the enemy.
Similarly, the Brown Scapular is like body armor, that we wear―with one part of the Scapular on our chest and the other part of the Scapular on our back.
All of this brings to mind the miracle of what could be called “The Bullet Proof Brown Scapular”! A French priest on pilgrimage to Our Lady’s shrine in Einsiedeln, Switzerland, was on his way to Mass when he remembered that he had forgotten his Brown Scapular. Although late, he returned to his room for it. While saying Mass, a young man approached the altar, pulled out a revolver and shot him in the back ― but the priest continued to say Mass. In the sacristy, after Mass, when the vestments were removed, the bullet was found, adhering to his little Brown Scapular. The shocked abbot of the monastery exclaimed: “I thought the man missed you!”
Another incident that manifested the protective power of the Brown Scapular occurred in 1845, when the English ship, King of the Ocean, was lashed by a wild hurricane. The Rev. Fisher, a Protestant minister, together with his wife and children and other passengers, struggled to the deck to pray for mercy and forgiveness, as the end seemed at hand. Among the crew was a young Irishman, John McAuliffe. He opened his shirt—took off his Scapular—made the Sign of the Cross with the Scapular over the angry waves, then threw the Scapular into the ocean. At that very moment the wind and the sea calmed―apart from only one more wave that washed over the deck, bringing with it the Scapular which landed at the boy’s feet. The Rev. Fisher and his family had observed what he had done and miraculous consequences. They questioned the boy. He told them about the Virgin and her Scapular and her Promise of protection in time of danger. So impressed were they that they determined to enter the Church and enjoy a like protection―which is what they did once the ship arrived in Australia.
In May of 1957, a Carmelite priest in Germany published the unusual story of how the Scapular saved a home from fire. An entire row of homes had caught fire in Westboden, Germany. The pious inhabitants of a two-family home, seeing the fire, immediately fastened a Scapular to the main door of the house. Sparks flew over it and around it but stayed unharmed. Within 5 hours 22 homes were reduced to ashes and ruins. This one stood unharmed amidst the destruction. Hundreds of people came to see the place Our Lady had saved.
A Spiritual Shield
Fr. Kilian Lynch, O.Carm., former Carmelite Superior General (1947-1959), in his booklet on the Brown Scapular, writes:
“The spiritual alliance of the Scapular puts our lives and our souls in the safe keeping of Our Lady. The dazzling splendor of her holiness makes her the terror of demons. She is ‘terrible as an army in battle array’ against all the forces of evil that would molest us or attempt to snatch us from under the mantle of her maternal protection. And, as Queen of Angels, she can summon legions of heavenly hosts to our defense. When the king of Syria sent his forces to capture Eliseus, the prophet told his servant to ‘fear no―for there are more with us than with them! And Eliseus prayed, and said: ‘Lord open his eyes, that he may see!’ And the Lord opened the eyes of the servant and he saw―and behold, the mountain was full of horses, and chariots of fire round about Eliseus’ (4 Kings 6:16-17).
“The Queen of the Angels repeats those words to those who are clothed in her Habit [Scapular]: ‘Fear not, for there are more with us than with them!’ She can summon legions of angels to our side and surround us with the power of Heaven. As Daughter of the Eternal Father, Mother of the Word, and Spouse of the Holy Ghost, her prayer is infinitely more powerful than that of any prophet. Even the mention of her name is enough to confound the powers of darkness. When the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, he saw that his master was not alone. Neither are the ‘sons of her choice’ alone in the battle of life. The alliance of the Scapular brings us the strength of Heaven—while we are clothed in the Habit of Our Lady, we are surrounded by the forces at her command. ‘All who see them shall know that they are the seed the Lord hath blessed’ (Isaias 61:9). As long as we live our lives and finish our course, under the sweet protection of her mantle, we have nothing to fear. Our path to Heaven is made easy by her who crushed the serpent’s head!”
Our ultimate enemy is Satan and his devils. Without God’s assistance, man is absolutely no match for Satan―it is no contest, a walkover, a totally one-sided event. Remember that one single angel―if allowed to do so by God―is capable of destroying the entire universe. What man can do that? Nobody! The intellect and power of an angel is far beyond the intellect and power of any man. However, the power of Our Lady―although it is nowhere near the power of God―is nevertheless greater than that of all angels and men put together. That is why, in her modern-day apparitions, she has said things like:
“Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... The work of the devil will infiltrate even the Church … The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God ... Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach ... Those who place their confidence in me will be saved … Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you … There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed ... This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph! … I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful! I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! … Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!” (quotes of Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita).
Satan Hates the Scapular
In 2005, a priest was giving a talk about the growth of satanic worship in the world and how adults and young children are becoming possessed by the devil. When someone asked the priest how to protect oneself from the demonic, besides the obvious path of avoiding things that call upon Satan, the priest answered, “Wear the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel for protection from curses and the devil.”
One can understand why the devil works against those who promote the Scapular after hearing the story of Venerable Francis de Yepes―the brother of St. John of the Cross. One day his Scapular fell off―as he replaced it, the devil howled, “Take off that habit ― it snatches so many souls from us!” Then and there Francis made the devil admit that there are three things which the demons are most afraid of: the Holy Name of Jesus, the Holy Name of Mary, and the Holy Scapular of Carmel. To that list we could add the Holy Rosary.
One day a young woman, before entering the religious life, went to see St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, and, during the conversation, he asked her: “Do you recall, my child, at the certain evening of dancing, where you were? There was a very young man, very handsome, unknown, distinguished, admired, and all the girls wanted to dance with him.”
“Yes, I recall that when he never came to ask me to dance, I was sad ― yet all the other girls were privileged to dance with that young man!”
“You would have liked to dance with him, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes!”
“Do you recall, that when that young man was leaving the dance hall, you saw two blue flames under his feet? And you thought it was an illusion of your eyes? It was not an illusion of your eyes, my daughter. That man was a demon. And if he did not come to you to ask you to dance, it’s for one reason―you were wearing the vestment of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.”
Mount Carmel Victories
The prophecy that Our Lady will one day save the world through the Rosary and the Scapular is strengthened by many Scapular or Mount Carmel related incidents throughout history. Amidst our present day (man-made?) droughts we read of another man-made drought during the 8th century BC. Israel had fallen away from God into idolatry following the lead of its ruler, King Achab: “Achab did evil in the sight of the Lord above, and all that were before him. It was not enough for him to walk in the sins of King Jeroboam, but he also took as his wife Jezabel, daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians. And he went and served Baal and adored him. And he set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal, which he had built in Samaria” (3 Kings 16:30-32).
God’s prophet Elias, through his prayers, brought about a drought upon Israel as a punishment for their idolatry: “Elias said to King Achab: ‘As the Lord liveth―the God of Israel―in whose sight I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years!’” (3 Kings 17:1). Then “after many days, the word of the Lord came to Elias, in the third year, saying: ‘Go and show thyself to King Achab, that I may give rain upon the face of the Earth!’ And Elias went to show himself to King Achab, and there was a grievous famine in Samaria.” (3 Kings 18:1-2).
“Achab came to meet Elias. when he had seen him, he said: ‘Art thou he that troublest Israel?’ And Elias said: ‘I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house have troubled Israel―for you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and have followed Baalim! Nevertheless send now, and gather unto me all Israel, unto Mount Carmel, and the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, and the four hundred prophets of Asherah [a.k.a. the false goddess Ashtoreth], who eat at Queen Jezabel’s table!’ King Achab sent the command to all the children of Israel, and gathered together the prophets together on Mount Carmel.
“And Elias coming to all the people, said: ‘How long do you hesitate between the two sides? If the Lord be God, follow Him! But if Baal be God, then follow him!’ And the people did not answer him a word! And Elias said again to the people: ‘I remain as the only prophet of the Lord―but the prophets of Baal are four hundred and fifty men! Let two bullocks be given us, and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces and lay it upon wood, but put no fire under it! And I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under it! Call ye on the names of your gods, and I will call on the Name of my Lord: and the God that shall answer by fire, let him be God!’ And all the people answering said: ‘A very good proposal!’ Then Elias said to the prophets of Baal: ‘Choose you one bullock and dress it first―because you are many―and call upon the names of your gods, but put no fire under it!’
“And they took the bullock which he gave them, and dressed it: and they called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying: ‘O Baal, hear us!’ But there was no voice, nor any that answered: and they leaped over the altar that they had made And when it was now noon, Elias jested at them, saying: ‘Cry with a louder voice! For he is a God, and perhaps he is talking, or is in an inn, or on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep, and must be awakened!’ So they cried with a loud voice, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till they were all covered with blood. And after midday was past, and while they were prophesying, the time was come of offering sacrifice, and there was no voice heard, nor did any one answer them, nor look upon them as they prayed.
“Elias said to all the people: ‘Come ye unto me!’ And the people coming near unto him, he repaired the altar of the Lord, that was broken down. And he took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying: ‘Israel shall be thy name!’ And he built with the stones an altar to the Name of the Lord: and he made a trench for water, of the breadth of two furrows round about the altar. And he laid the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid it upon the wood. And he said: ‘Fill four buckets with water and pour it upon the burnt offering, and upon the wood!’ And again he said: ‘Do the same the second time!’ And when they had done it the second time, he said: ‘Do the same also the third time!’ And they did so the third time. And the water ran round about the altar, and the trench was filled with water.
“And when it was now time to offer the holocaust, Elias the prophet came near and said: ‘O Lord God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Israel, show this day that Thou art the God of Israel, and that according to Thy commandment, I Thy servant, I have done all these things! Hear me, O Lord, hear me! So that this people may learn that Thou art the Lord God, and that Thou hast turned their heart back again!’ Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the holocaust, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw this, they fell on their faces, and they said: ‘The Lord―He is God! The Lord―He is God!’ And Elias said to them: ‘Take the prophets of Baal, and let not one of them escape!’ And when they had taken them, Elias brought them down to the torrent Cison and killed them there.
“And Elias said to Achab: ‘Go up, eat, and drink! For there is a sound of abundance of rain!’ Achab went up to eat and drink, and Elias went up to the top of Carmel, and, casting himself down upon the earth, put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant: ‘Go up, and look toward the sea!’ And he went up, and looked, and said: ‘There is nothing!’ And again he said to him: ‘Return seven times!’ And at the seventh time, behold, a little cloud arose out of the sea like a man's foot. And he said: Go up and say to Achab: ‘Prepare thy chariot and go down, lest the rain prevent thee!’ And while he turned himself this way and that way, behold the heavens grew dark, with clouds, and wind, and there fell a great rain. And Achab getting up went away to Jezrahel. And the hand of the Lord was upon Elias, and he girded up his loins and ran before Achab, till he came to Jezrahel” (3 Kings 18:1-46).
Our Lord Himself refers to this: “In the days of Elias in Israel, Heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the Earth!” (Luke 4:25). St. James also mentions it: “The continual prayer of a just man avails much. Elias was a man like us―and with prayer he prayed that it might not rain upon the Earth, and it rained not for three years and six months. And he prayed again: and the Heaven gave rain, and the Earth brought forth her fruit” (James 5:26-18).
Even though many blamed Elias for the drought, Elias pointed out that the drought was a necessary punishment for their idolatry―which was even promoted by the kings of Israel at that time. The same is true for our day and age! How true are the following words for our times: “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together: there is none that doth good, no not one!” (Psalm 13:2-3).
Elias―outnumbered by 850 to 1―challenged and defeated the 450 prophets of the false god Baal and the 400 prophets of the false goddess Asherah [a.k.a. Ashtoreth] (3 Kings 18:19). As St. James wrote: “The continual prayer of a just man avails much. Elias was a man like us―and with prayer he prayed that it might not rain upon the Earth, and it rained not for three years and six months. And he prayed again: and the Heaven gave rain, and the Earth brought forth her fruit” (James 5:26-18).
It does not take many to overcome evil―no matter how great the evil might be and no matter how outnumbered we might be. We see this disregard by God for the odds in the case of Gedeon. Gedeon―the fifth of the Judges who were the leaders of Israel at the time―found the Israelite army greatly outnumbered by the Madianites: with 135,000 Madianites against Gedeon’s army of 32,000—who were outnumbered by more than 4 to 1. Human wisdom and prudence, seeing oneself so sorely outnumbered, would see this as a time to go out and recruit more warriors. However, without God we can do nothing, and it might be that, after the victory that the Lord would give them, the soldiers might think it had been by their own strength and ability that they had won the victory.
So, the Lord commanded Gedeon, not to recruit soldiers, but to further reduce the number under his command: “lest Israel should glory against me, and say: I was delivered by my own strength” (Judges 7:2). Any who were “afraid and trembling” were told they could go home. Some 22,000 departed, leaving only 10,000 to fight the 135,000 Madianites. So, they went from being outnumbered by more than 4 to 1, to now being outnumbered by more than 13 to 1.
No doubt Gedeon was surprised to hear what the Lord said next: “The people are still too many, bring them to the waters, and there I will try them” (Judges 7:4). At the site to which the Lord had directed Gideon’s army there was drinkable water. The army stopped to drink and 9,700 knelt down on their knees, so they might drink directly from the stream. The other 300 cupped their hands and took water into them, drinking it from their hands as a dog would lap water from his bowl. “By the 300 hundred men, that lapped water, I will save you, and deliver Madian into thy hand: but let all the rest of the people return to their place” (Judges 7:7). And so it was!
God likes to do with the minimum. He likes to have everything stacked against Him and His Chosen Ones. He delights in bringing off the seemingly impossible. With “Gedeon’s Three Hundred”, God kept increasing the odds against them―from being outnumbered by more than 4 to 1 (135,000 versus 32,000); to more than 13 to 1 (135,000 versus 10,000); and finally to a ridiculous and seemingly impossible situation of being outnumbered by 450 to 1 (135,000 versus 300). God wanted the Israelites to go into battle heavily outnumbered, so that God Himself could claim the eventual victory against those impossible odds.
The Possibility of Impossibility
Let us not cheapen and limit the power of God. Our Lord repeatedly told us that nothing is impossible with God: “He said to them: ‘The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!’” (Luke 18:27). “And Jesus beholding, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible―but with God all things are possible!’” (Matthew 19:26). “And Jesus looking on them, said: ‘With men it is impossible, but not with God―for all things are possible with God!’” (Mark 10:27). “Because no word shall be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). “If God be for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31). “They trust in their weapons, and in their boldness―but we trust in the Almighty Lord, Who can utterly destroy both them that come against us, and the whole world!” (2 Machabees 8:18).
Article 10
Sunday July 16th, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel & Monday, July 17th, 2023
The Most Important Time of Your Life
Sunday July 16th, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel & Monday, July 17th, 2023
The Most Important Time of Your Life
A Fruitful Time ― A Time for Fruit
Today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel―and that invariably links our thoughts to the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Mount Carmel is on the north-western coast of the Holy Land. The Hebrew word for Carmel means “Beautiful Garden”. Truly that is what Our Lady is, the beautiful and fruitful garden, that brought forth the fruit of her womb, Jesus Christ, our God and Savior. That is also what we should be―fruitful trees and vines for the Lord. As Jesus said: “You have not chosen Me―but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit; and your fruit should remain!” (John 15:16).
What fruit have you produced in your life. Our Lord expects fruit! “And seeing a certain fig tree by the way side, Jesus came to it and found nothing on it―but leaves only―and he said to it: ‘May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever!’ And immediately the fig tree withered away … And when evening was come, he went forth out of the city. And when they passed by in the morning they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter, remembering, said to Jesus: ‘Rabbi, behold the fig tree, which thou didst curse―is withered away!’” (Matthew 21:19; Mark 11:19-21). Is our fig tree fruitless and withered? Is our family tree fruitless and withered? God wants fruit!
At the Last Supper, Our Lord said: “I am the true vine; and My Father is the gardener. Every branch in Me, that bears not fruit, He will take away! And every one that bears fruit, He will purge it, so that it may bring forth more fruit! … I am the vine and you are the branches! He that abides in Me and I in him, the same will bear much fruit―for, without Me, you can do nothing! If any one does not abide in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he will burn ... In this is My Father glorified; that you bring forth very much fruit!” (John 15:1-8).
“He spoke also this parable: ‘A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. And he said to the dresser of the vineyard: “Behold, for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none! Why is it encumbering the ground? Cut it down therefore!” But the dresser, answering, said to him: ‘Lord, leave it alone this year also, until I dig about it, and dung it. And perhaps happily it bears fruit: but if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down!”’” (Luke 13:6-9).
Life should not be fruitless, but fruitful! That is equally true of our natural life and our supernatural life. We plant seeds expecting them to bear fruit―likewise God has planted us in this world and planted His grace in our souls so that we might bear fruit.
“And Jesus spoke to them many things in parables, saying: ‘Behold the sower went forth to sow seed. And whilst he sowed some fell by the wayside, and it was trodden down and the birds of the air came and ate it up. And other some fell upon rocks and stony ground, where they had not much earth―and they sprung up immediately, because they had no deepness of earth and no moisture. And when the sun was risen they were scorched―and, because they had not root, they withered away. And others fell among thorns―and the thorns grew up and choked them. And others fell upon good ground: and they brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold.
“Hear you therefore the explanation of the parable of the sower. Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. He that sows is he that sows the word of God. And they by the way side are they that hear the word. When any one hears the word of the kingdom and understands it not, the devil comes, and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts, lest believing they should be saved. And he that received the seed upon the rocks and upon stony ground, is he that hears the word, and immediately receives it with joy. However, he has he no roots in himself, for they believe for a while, and in time of temptation, and when there arises tribulation and persecution because of the word, he is presently scandalized and falls away. And he that received the seed among thorns, is he that hears the word, and going their way, is choked with the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and pleasures of this life, and the lusts after other things―these, entering in, choke up the word, and he becomes fruitless. But he that received the seed upon good ground, is he that hears the word, and understands, and bears fruit, and yields one a hundredfold, and another sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold!” (Matthew 13:3-23; Mark 4:4-20; Luke 8:5-15).
The fruit that Heaven likes best is the fruit of penance: “Bring forth fruit worthy of penance! … Every tree therefore that doth not yield good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire!” (Matthew 3:8-10) … “Every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down and shall be cast into the fire!” (Matthew 7:17-19).
The Most Important Time of Your Life
What is the most important time of your life? Death is the most important time of life! To put it another way―the state of soul that you find yourself in at the time of death is the most important aspect of your life. You either die being alive to God―or you die being dead to God! If you are in a state of sanctifying grace, then you are alive to God. If you are in a state of mortal sin, then you are dead to God. The most important thing is not what you have done all your life―but the state that you find yourself in at the moment of death. In theory―you might have been the worst sinner the world has ever seen all throughout your life, but you could still save your soul by being in a state of sanctifying grace at the moment of death. Or, on the other hand, you could have lived in a state of grace for most of your life, but if you find yourself in a state of mortal sin at the time of death, then you will be damned.
God Himself states those truths in the Book of Ezechiel: “The soul that sins, the same shall die! But if the wicked man does penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all My commandments, and does judgment and justice, then living he shall live and shall not die! I will not remember all his iniquities that he has done―in his justice, which he has wrought, he shall live. Is it My will that a sinner should die, says the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways and live? But if the just man turns himself away from his justice, and does iniquity―shall he live? All his justices, which he has done, shall not be remembered and in his sins, which he has committed, in them he shall die! And you have said: ‘The way of the Lord is not right!’ Hear ye, therefore, O house of Israel: Is it My way that is not right, and are not rather your ways perverse? For when the just man turns himself away from his justice and commits iniquity, then he shall die therein―in the injustice that he has wrought, he shall die. And when the wicked turns himself away from his wickedness, which he hath wrought, and does judgment and justice―he shall save his soul alive. Because he considers and turns himself away from all his iniquities which he has wrought, he shall surely live and not die! And the children of Israel say: ‘The way of the Lord is not right!’ Are not My ways right, O house of Israel, and are not rather your ways perverse? Therefore will I judge every man according to his ways! Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin! Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dies, says the Lord God, return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32).
“God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17). Along the same lines, Our Lord says: “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world!” (John 12:47) ― but if the world does not want to convert and be saved, then Christ will be forced to judge and condemn. “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). Our Lord has come seek and save those who are lost―but if the lost do not want to be found, then they will be lost forever: “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) ... “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32) … “God now declares unto men, that all should everywhere do penance!” (Acts 17:30) ... “No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3-5) ... “If you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sin!” (John 8:24).
The moment of death is the most important time in our life―for we do not want to die in our sins, but be freed from our sins so that we can die in God’s grace and not in our sins! We would love to hear God promise: “Thou shalt die in peace!” (Jeremias 34:5). God does promise that through Our Lady of Mount Carmel and her Brown Scapular―as she herself said to St. Simon Stock when she personally presented him with the Scapular: “This shall be a sign to you and to all Carmelites—whosoever dies wearing this shall not suffer eternal fire!” Nevertheless, as St. Augustine says: “God, Who created you without you, will not save you without you!” In other words, God created you without your cooperation, but God will not save you without your cooperation. Likewise, Our Lady will not save you without your cooperation―and the Scapular Promise is not a one-sided promise, or “one-way-street”―it requires that you cooperate with Our Lady in order to activate that Scapular Promise. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! [Neither is Our Lady!] For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who sows in blessings, shall also reap blessings” (2 Corinthians 9:6).
The Brown Scapular is a Battle for Souls
The Brown Scapular is not an ornament; it is not a good-luck charm; it is not a piece of fashionable clothing. The Scapular is a Sacramental of Holy Mother Church which is able to draw down God’s assisting graces from Heaven for the ultimate goal of sanctifying our lives by those graces in helping us to become more and more holy and eventually save our souls from damnation by making them fit for Heaven. The wearing of the Scapular requires efforts on our part if we are to merit those assisting graces and save our souls. When a priest enrolled you in the Scapular he said, “Receive this blessed Scapular and ask the most Holy Virgin that, by her merits, it may be worn with no stain of sin and may protect you from all harm and bring you into everlasting life.” If we sincerely resolve to and actually do battle sin, then what follows in these stories below, will give you a very brief idea of how Our Blessed Mother keeps her promise.
Not many years ago, a priest was called to the bedside of a man who had fallen away from the Sacraments for many years. He did not want to see the priest; he would not even talk to him. The priest asked him to look at the little Scapular that he was holding, “Will you wear this if I put it on?” He asked nothing more. The man reluctantly agreed to wear it. Within the hour he wanted to go to confession and make his peace with God. For over 700 years Our Lady has been working in this way through her Scapular.
On the very day that Our Lady gave the Scapular to St. Simon Stock, he was hurriedly called by the Lord Peter of Linton: “Come quickly, Father, my brother is dying in despair!” St. Simon Stock placed his large Scapular over the dying man; He repented immediately and died a friend of God. That night the dead man appeared to his brother: “I have been saved through the most powerful Queen and the habit of that man as a shield!”
St. Alphonsus tells us: “Modern heretics make a mockery of wearing the Scapular. They decry it as so much trifling nonsense.” Yet we know that Pontiffs have approved it. It is remarkable that just 25 years after the vision of 1251; Pope Gregory X (1210-1276) was buried wearing the Scapular. When his tomb was opened 600 years after his death, his Scapular was found intact.
The Scapular was also found LIKE NEW in the graves of St. John Bosco and St. Alphonsus Liguori, although everything else in their graves, that was corruptible, had decayed. St. Alphonsus Liguori says: “It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.” Notice, however, that he says: “Serves her faithfully and commends himself to her protection.” If we look upon the Scapular as a ‘good-luck-charm’ or a license or dispensation to sin, then we are insulting Our Lady and risking our salvation. St. Alphonsus says about devotion to Mary in general: “When we declare that it is impossible for a servant of Mary to be lost, we do not mean those who, by their devotion to Mary, think themselves warranted to sin freely. We state that these reckless people, because of their presumption, deserve to be treated with rigor and not with kindness. We speak here of the servants of Mary who, to the fidelity with which they honor and invoke her, join the desire to amend their lives. I hold it morally impossible that these be lost.”
You will understand why the devil works against those who promote the Scapular when you hear the story of Venerable Francis Ypes. One day his Scapular fell off. As he replaced it, the devil howled, “Take it off! Take off the habit which snatches so many souls from us.” Then Francis made the devil admit that there are 3 things of which the demons are most afraid: the Holy Name of Jesus, the Holy Name of Mary, and the Holy Scapular of Carmel.
Every month a shipment of 1000 slaves would arrive at Cartegena, South America. St. Peter Claver—Apostle of the Negroes—used the Scapular to insure the salvation of his converts. Peter Claver organized catechists to give them instruction, and before they were sold, he saw that they were baptized. Many ecclesiastics accused the Saint of indiscreet zeal, but Peter reminded them that he had baptized and enrolled all in Our Lady’s Scapular. He was confident that Mary would watch over each one. Imagine! St. Peter Claver was responsible for over 300,000 converts.
In 1845, the English ship, King of the Ocean, was lashed by a wild hurricane. The Rev. Fisher, a Protestant minister, together with his wife and children and other passengers, struggled to the deck to pray for mercy and forgiveness, as the end seemed at hand. Among the crew was a young Irishman, John McAuliffe. He opened his shirt—took off his Scapular—made the Sign of the Cross over the angry waves, then threw the Scapular into the ocean. At that very moment the wind and the sea calmed, apart from one more big wave which washed over the deck, bringing with it the Scapular which landed at the boy’s feet. The Rev. Fisher and his family had observed what he had done. They questioned the boy. He told them about the Virgin and her Scapular and her Promise of protection in time of danger. So impressed were they that they determined to enter the Church and enjoy a like protection―which is what they did once the ship arrived at its destination in Australia.
A French priest on pilgrimage to Our Lady’s shrine in Einsiedeln, Switzerland, was on his way to Mass when he remembered that he had forgotten his Scapular. Although late, he returned to his room for it. While saying Mass, a young man approached the altar, pulled out a revolver and shot him in the back ― but the priest continued to say Mass. In the sacristy the abbot exclaimed, “I thought the man missed you!” When the vestments were removed, the bullet was found, adhering to his little brown Scapular.
In May of 1957, a Carmelite priest in Germany published the unusual story of how the Scapular saved a home from fire. An entire row of homes had caught fire in Westboden, Germany. The pious inhabitants of a two-family home, seeing the fire, immediately fastened a Scapular to the main door of the house. Sparks flew over it and around it but stayed unharmed. Within 5 hours 22 homes were reduced to ashes and ruins. This one stood unharmed midst the destruction. Hundreds of people came to see the place Our Lady had saved.
The Scapular is for Everyone
These are not the only Scapular miracles―they are merely a small selection, the tip of the iceberg of Our Lady’s miraculous intervention and protection for those of her spiritual children who wear the Scapular faithfully, fervently and devotedly as part of their devotion to Our Lady in general, and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in particular. Sister Lucia of Fatima reported that, during the final apparition of Our Lady at Fatima on October 13th, 1917, Our Lady at one point was seen as Our Lady of Mount Carmel, holding out the Scapular to the world as she disappeared into the skies at her very last appearance at Fatima. Sister Lucia explained that Our Lady did so because “she wants everyone to wear it!” At the end of the 40's, while conversing with three Carmelite priests―Father Donald O'Callagham, Father Albert Ward and Father Luis Gonzaga de Oliveira―Sister Lucia recalled that the Blessed Virgin Mary wished that the devotion of the holy Scapular be propagated. On October 15th, 1950, Sister Lucia also said to Father Howard Rafferty, a priest sent to question her in the name of the Father General of the Carmelites: “Our Lady held the Scapular in her hands because she wants us all to wear it!” Lucia further said: “The Rosary and the Scapular are inseparable” and that the reason for wearing the Scapular is because it is our “Sign of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” The whole notion of “consecration” carries with it the idea of “service.” When we consecrate ourselves to Mary, we enter her service.
Too many people expect Mary to serve them, rather than them having to serve Mary! As we sow, so shall we reap! Scripture tells us: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who sows in blessings, shall also reap blessings” (2 Corinthians 9:6) and also “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Psalm 125:5). Our Lady did not promise to make St. Bernadette happy in this life, but in the next. The same applies to us.
Not Everyone is for the Scapular
Even though Our Lady wants everyone to wear the Brown Scapular, not everyone wants to the wear the Brown Scapular! It was common practice to enroll children in the Brown Scapular at their First Holy Communion. Unfortunately, unless to keep informing, teaching and explaining the Scapular to them―and also adults―then the Scapular quickly loses its appeal, it seems cumbersome, it doesn’t fit with revealing fashions, it is an embarrassment, and so it is quickly forgotten and set aside. After searching for a LONG time on statistics as to how many Catholics wear the Brown Scapular, nothing has yet been found. Nevertheless, one can guess that the number is extremely small―because if less than 20% of Catholics regularly attend Sunday Mass, and only 3% to 4% of Catholics pray the Rosary daily (which is what Our Lady has explicitly requested), then you can confidently estimate that Scapular wearers will be a much lower percentage than 3% to 4% ― perhaps even less than 1%.
You would imagine that a promise of salvation would arouse more interest and enthusiasm than that! But salvation is not what is on the mind of most people. Today, fun trumps salvation, and the world and what it offers trumps Heaven and what it offers. It is not uncommon to find―among the few who do wear the Brown Scapular―a high degree of worldliness and a certain nonchalance or indifference about sin. It is as though they live under the false impression that the Brown Scapular is a kind of “Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free” card, or a “Avoid-Hell-At-No-Cost” card. Even in this world, all insurance policies require that YOU PAY for the insurance guarantee. The same is true of the Scapular―we are expected to something on our side in order to obtain the promise of being saved from Hell. Freedom to sin is not part of Our Lady’s insurance policy! Mercy is not be abused! Our Lady promises to help even the worst sinner in the world―IF, and take note of that word “IF”―if the sinner is sorry for those sins and wishes to leave those sins behind and amend his or her life.
The Scapular is Not a License to Sin
The Scapular Promise means that whoever is clothed in the Brown Scapular will not die in mortal sin. If a person falls into mortal sin, then Mary will provide the grace necessary to encourage that soul to seek confession and be forgiven of their sins. The Scapular Promise assures us that those who are devoted to Mary through the Brown Scapular will receive the grace of final perseverance and/or contrition at the hour of their death. Free will is not surrendered in the spiritual life (either ours or God’s), but Mary promises that all who sincerely seek God and salvation will receive it through their devotion to her.
Yes―there have been some miracles where souls have tried to throw away their Scapular, but have been unable to do so―but these are exceptions, for as Holy Scripture says: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! [Neither is Our Lady!] For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8). Our Lady would be making a mockery of God and her Son if, through the Brown Scapular, she was giving everyone a license to sin, saying (like Martin Luther said): “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly!” or “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe in my Scapular Promise even more boldly!” That would be blasphemous! Usually, it is a case of “as we live, so shall we die” ― if we prefer to live in habitual sin, then we will die our sins: “You shall seek Me, and you shall die in your sin!” (John 8:21).
There is one account [read more about Scapular miracles here] where during the Spanish civil war in the 1930s, seven Spanish Communists were sentenced to death because of their crimes. A Carmelite priest tried to prepare the men for death―but they refused. As a last resort, he brought the men cigarettes, food and wine, assuring them that he would not talk religion. In a short while, they were all friendly, so he asked them for one small favor: “Will you permit me to place a Scapular on each of you?” Six agreed; one refused. It was not long before all fallen-away Catholic Spanish Communist Scapular wearers went to confession. The seventh continued to refuse. Only to please them, he put on a Scapular―but he would do nothing more, he would not make his peace with God in Confession. The morning came, and as the moment of execution drew near, the seventh man made it clear that he was not going to ask for the priest. Although wearing the Scapular, he was determined to go to his death an enemy of God. Finally, the command was given, the firing squad did its deadly work, and seven lifeless bodies lay sprawled in the dust. Mysteriously, a Scapular was found approximately 50 paces from the bodies. Six men died WITH Mary’s Scapular; the seventh died WITHOUT the Scapular.
St. Claude Colombière (the confessor of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque) gives us the solution to the mystery of the missing Scapular: “You ask, ‘What if I desire to die in my sins?’ I answer, ‘Then you will die in your sins, BUT YOU WILL NOT DIE IN YOUR SCAPULAR.’” St. Claude tells the story of a man who tried to drown himself three times. He was rescued against his will. At last he realized that he was wearing his Scapular. Determined to take his life, he tore the Scapular from his neck and leaped into the water. Without Mary’s protective garment he accomplished his wish, and died in his sins. Our Lady had repeatedly tried to keep him alive so that he could repent and save his soul―but he was too stubborn. So he died in his sins.
On the contrary, when we are blessed and clothed with the Brown Scapular, the Church (through the priest) tells us: “Receive this blessed Scapular and ask the most holy Virgin that, by her merits, it may be worn with no stain of sin and may protect you from all harm and bring you into everlasting life.” In other words, Our Lady will keep her part of the bargain (and save your soul) if you keep your side of the bargain and strive to wear the Scapular with no stain of sin.
It is the same with your insurance policies. The insurance company promises to pay for damages incurred while driving IF you are not breaking the law (a.k.a. sinning) in one way or another. As one insurance attorney writes: “Even if you have the right kinds of coverage, in adequate amounts, your insurer can deny your claim if you were in violation of state law when the accident happened. One example of that would be driving without a valid license. Another is if you were driving while intoxicated.” If you break the law while driving, you are liable to be fined or even put in prison. That is basically how it is with the Brown Scapular Promise―it promises mercy if you do not abuse that mercy! When the most important time of our life arrives―namely death, immediately followed by Divine Judgment―we will need all the coverage that we can get! Don’t mess it up by abusing the Scapular!
Today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel―and that invariably links our thoughts to the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Mount Carmel is on the north-western coast of the Holy Land. The Hebrew word for Carmel means “Beautiful Garden”. Truly that is what Our Lady is, the beautiful and fruitful garden, that brought forth the fruit of her womb, Jesus Christ, our God and Savior. That is also what we should be―fruitful trees and vines for the Lord. As Jesus said: “You have not chosen Me―but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit; and your fruit should remain!” (John 15:16).
What fruit have you produced in your life. Our Lord expects fruit! “And seeing a certain fig tree by the way side, Jesus came to it and found nothing on it―but leaves only―and he said to it: ‘May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever!’ And immediately the fig tree withered away … And when evening was come, he went forth out of the city. And when they passed by in the morning they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter, remembering, said to Jesus: ‘Rabbi, behold the fig tree, which thou didst curse―is withered away!’” (Matthew 21:19; Mark 11:19-21). Is our fig tree fruitless and withered? Is our family tree fruitless and withered? God wants fruit!
At the Last Supper, Our Lord said: “I am the true vine; and My Father is the gardener. Every branch in Me, that bears not fruit, He will take away! And every one that bears fruit, He will purge it, so that it may bring forth more fruit! … I am the vine and you are the branches! He that abides in Me and I in him, the same will bear much fruit―for, without Me, you can do nothing! If any one does not abide in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he will burn ... In this is My Father glorified; that you bring forth very much fruit!” (John 15:1-8).
“He spoke also this parable: ‘A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. And he said to the dresser of the vineyard: “Behold, for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none! Why is it encumbering the ground? Cut it down therefore!” But the dresser, answering, said to him: ‘Lord, leave it alone this year also, until I dig about it, and dung it. And perhaps happily it bears fruit: but if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down!”’” (Luke 13:6-9).
Life should not be fruitless, but fruitful! That is equally true of our natural life and our supernatural life. We plant seeds expecting them to bear fruit―likewise God has planted us in this world and planted His grace in our souls so that we might bear fruit.
“And Jesus spoke to them many things in parables, saying: ‘Behold the sower went forth to sow seed. And whilst he sowed some fell by the wayside, and it was trodden down and the birds of the air came and ate it up. And other some fell upon rocks and stony ground, where they had not much earth―and they sprung up immediately, because they had no deepness of earth and no moisture. And when the sun was risen they were scorched―and, because they had not root, they withered away. And others fell among thorns―and the thorns grew up and choked them. And others fell upon good ground: and they brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold.
“Hear you therefore the explanation of the parable of the sower. Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. He that sows is he that sows the word of God. And they by the way side are they that hear the word. When any one hears the word of the kingdom and understands it not, the devil comes, and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts, lest believing they should be saved. And he that received the seed upon the rocks and upon stony ground, is he that hears the word, and immediately receives it with joy. However, he has he no roots in himself, for they believe for a while, and in time of temptation, and when there arises tribulation and persecution because of the word, he is presently scandalized and falls away. And he that received the seed among thorns, is he that hears the word, and going their way, is choked with the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and pleasures of this life, and the lusts after other things―these, entering in, choke up the word, and he becomes fruitless. But he that received the seed upon good ground, is he that hears the word, and understands, and bears fruit, and yields one a hundredfold, and another sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold!” (Matthew 13:3-23; Mark 4:4-20; Luke 8:5-15).
The fruit that Heaven likes best is the fruit of penance: “Bring forth fruit worthy of penance! … Every tree therefore that doth not yield good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire!” (Matthew 3:8-10) … “Every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down and shall be cast into the fire!” (Matthew 7:17-19).
The Most Important Time of Your Life
What is the most important time of your life? Death is the most important time of life! To put it another way―the state of soul that you find yourself in at the time of death is the most important aspect of your life. You either die being alive to God―or you die being dead to God! If you are in a state of sanctifying grace, then you are alive to God. If you are in a state of mortal sin, then you are dead to God. The most important thing is not what you have done all your life―but the state that you find yourself in at the moment of death. In theory―you might have been the worst sinner the world has ever seen all throughout your life, but you could still save your soul by being in a state of sanctifying grace at the moment of death. Or, on the other hand, you could have lived in a state of grace for most of your life, but if you find yourself in a state of mortal sin at the time of death, then you will be damned.
God Himself states those truths in the Book of Ezechiel: “The soul that sins, the same shall die! But if the wicked man does penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all My commandments, and does judgment and justice, then living he shall live and shall not die! I will not remember all his iniquities that he has done―in his justice, which he has wrought, he shall live. Is it My will that a sinner should die, says the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways and live? But if the just man turns himself away from his justice, and does iniquity―shall he live? All his justices, which he has done, shall not be remembered and in his sins, which he has committed, in them he shall die! And you have said: ‘The way of the Lord is not right!’ Hear ye, therefore, O house of Israel: Is it My way that is not right, and are not rather your ways perverse? For when the just man turns himself away from his justice and commits iniquity, then he shall die therein―in the injustice that he has wrought, he shall die. And when the wicked turns himself away from his wickedness, which he hath wrought, and does judgment and justice―he shall save his soul alive. Because he considers and turns himself away from all his iniquities which he has wrought, he shall surely live and not die! And the children of Israel say: ‘The way of the Lord is not right!’ Are not My ways right, O house of Israel, and are not rather your ways perverse? Therefore will I judge every man according to his ways! Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin! Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dies, says the Lord God, return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32).
“God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17). Along the same lines, Our Lord says: “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world!” (John 12:47) ― but if the world does not want to convert and be saved, then Christ will be forced to judge and condemn. “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). Our Lord has come seek and save those who are lost―but if the lost do not want to be found, then they will be lost forever: “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) ... “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32) … “God now declares unto men, that all should everywhere do penance!” (Acts 17:30) ... “No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3-5) ... “If you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sin!” (John 8:24).
The moment of death is the most important time in our life―for we do not want to die in our sins, but be freed from our sins so that we can die in God’s grace and not in our sins! We would love to hear God promise: “Thou shalt die in peace!” (Jeremias 34:5). God does promise that through Our Lady of Mount Carmel and her Brown Scapular―as she herself said to St. Simon Stock when she personally presented him with the Scapular: “This shall be a sign to you and to all Carmelites—whosoever dies wearing this shall not suffer eternal fire!” Nevertheless, as St. Augustine says: “God, Who created you without you, will not save you without you!” In other words, God created you without your cooperation, but God will not save you without your cooperation. Likewise, Our Lady will not save you without your cooperation―and the Scapular Promise is not a one-sided promise, or “one-way-street”―it requires that you cooperate with Our Lady in order to activate that Scapular Promise. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! [Neither is Our Lady!] For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who sows in blessings, shall also reap blessings” (2 Corinthians 9:6).
The Brown Scapular is a Battle for Souls
The Brown Scapular is not an ornament; it is not a good-luck charm; it is not a piece of fashionable clothing. The Scapular is a Sacramental of Holy Mother Church which is able to draw down God’s assisting graces from Heaven for the ultimate goal of sanctifying our lives by those graces in helping us to become more and more holy and eventually save our souls from damnation by making them fit for Heaven. The wearing of the Scapular requires efforts on our part if we are to merit those assisting graces and save our souls. When a priest enrolled you in the Scapular he said, “Receive this blessed Scapular and ask the most Holy Virgin that, by her merits, it may be worn with no stain of sin and may protect you from all harm and bring you into everlasting life.” If we sincerely resolve to and actually do battle sin, then what follows in these stories below, will give you a very brief idea of how Our Blessed Mother keeps her promise.
Not many years ago, a priest was called to the bedside of a man who had fallen away from the Sacraments for many years. He did not want to see the priest; he would not even talk to him. The priest asked him to look at the little Scapular that he was holding, “Will you wear this if I put it on?” He asked nothing more. The man reluctantly agreed to wear it. Within the hour he wanted to go to confession and make his peace with God. For over 700 years Our Lady has been working in this way through her Scapular.
On the very day that Our Lady gave the Scapular to St. Simon Stock, he was hurriedly called by the Lord Peter of Linton: “Come quickly, Father, my brother is dying in despair!” St. Simon Stock placed his large Scapular over the dying man; He repented immediately and died a friend of God. That night the dead man appeared to his brother: “I have been saved through the most powerful Queen and the habit of that man as a shield!”
St. Alphonsus tells us: “Modern heretics make a mockery of wearing the Scapular. They decry it as so much trifling nonsense.” Yet we know that Pontiffs have approved it. It is remarkable that just 25 years after the vision of 1251; Pope Gregory X (1210-1276) was buried wearing the Scapular. When his tomb was opened 600 years after his death, his Scapular was found intact.
The Scapular was also found LIKE NEW in the graves of St. John Bosco and St. Alphonsus Liguori, although everything else in their graves, that was corruptible, had decayed. St. Alphonsus Liguori says: “It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.” Notice, however, that he says: “Serves her faithfully and commends himself to her protection.” If we look upon the Scapular as a ‘good-luck-charm’ or a license or dispensation to sin, then we are insulting Our Lady and risking our salvation. St. Alphonsus says about devotion to Mary in general: “When we declare that it is impossible for a servant of Mary to be lost, we do not mean those who, by their devotion to Mary, think themselves warranted to sin freely. We state that these reckless people, because of their presumption, deserve to be treated with rigor and not with kindness. We speak here of the servants of Mary who, to the fidelity with which they honor and invoke her, join the desire to amend their lives. I hold it morally impossible that these be lost.”
You will understand why the devil works against those who promote the Scapular when you hear the story of Venerable Francis Ypes. One day his Scapular fell off. As he replaced it, the devil howled, “Take it off! Take off the habit which snatches so many souls from us.” Then Francis made the devil admit that there are 3 things of which the demons are most afraid: the Holy Name of Jesus, the Holy Name of Mary, and the Holy Scapular of Carmel.
Every month a shipment of 1000 slaves would arrive at Cartegena, South America. St. Peter Claver—Apostle of the Negroes—used the Scapular to insure the salvation of his converts. Peter Claver organized catechists to give them instruction, and before they were sold, he saw that they were baptized. Many ecclesiastics accused the Saint of indiscreet zeal, but Peter reminded them that he had baptized and enrolled all in Our Lady’s Scapular. He was confident that Mary would watch over each one. Imagine! St. Peter Claver was responsible for over 300,000 converts.
In 1845, the English ship, King of the Ocean, was lashed by a wild hurricane. The Rev. Fisher, a Protestant minister, together with his wife and children and other passengers, struggled to the deck to pray for mercy and forgiveness, as the end seemed at hand. Among the crew was a young Irishman, John McAuliffe. He opened his shirt—took off his Scapular—made the Sign of the Cross over the angry waves, then threw the Scapular into the ocean. At that very moment the wind and the sea calmed, apart from one more big wave which washed over the deck, bringing with it the Scapular which landed at the boy’s feet. The Rev. Fisher and his family had observed what he had done. They questioned the boy. He told them about the Virgin and her Scapular and her Promise of protection in time of danger. So impressed were they that they determined to enter the Church and enjoy a like protection―which is what they did once the ship arrived at its destination in Australia.
A French priest on pilgrimage to Our Lady’s shrine in Einsiedeln, Switzerland, was on his way to Mass when he remembered that he had forgotten his Scapular. Although late, he returned to his room for it. While saying Mass, a young man approached the altar, pulled out a revolver and shot him in the back ― but the priest continued to say Mass. In the sacristy the abbot exclaimed, “I thought the man missed you!” When the vestments were removed, the bullet was found, adhering to his little brown Scapular.
In May of 1957, a Carmelite priest in Germany published the unusual story of how the Scapular saved a home from fire. An entire row of homes had caught fire in Westboden, Germany. The pious inhabitants of a two-family home, seeing the fire, immediately fastened a Scapular to the main door of the house. Sparks flew over it and around it but stayed unharmed. Within 5 hours 22 homes were reduced to ashes and ruins. This one stood unharmed midst the destruction. Hundreds of people came to see the place Our Lady had saved.
The Scapular is for Everyone
These are not the only Scapular miracles―they are merely a small selection, the tip of the iceberg of Our Lady’s miraculous intervention and protection for those of her spiritual children who wear the Scapular faithfully, fervently and devotedly as part of their devotion to Our Lady in general, and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in particular. Sister Lucia of Fatima reported that, during the final apparition of Our Lady at Fatima on October 13th, 1917, Our Lady at one point was seen as Our Lady of Mount Carmel, holding out the Scapular to the world as she disappeared into the skies at her very last appearance at Fatima. Sister Lucia explained that Our Lady did so because “she wants everyone to wear it!” At the end of the 40's, while conversing with three Carmelite priests―Father Donald O'Callagham, Father Albert Ward and Father Luis Gonzaga de Oliveira―Sister Lucia recalled that the Blessed Virgin Mary wished that the devotion of the holy Scapular be propagated. On October 15th, 1950, Sister Lucia also said to Father Howard Rafferty, a priest sent to question her in the name of the Father General of the Carmelites: “Our Lady held the Scapular in her hands because she wants us all to wear it!” Lucia further said: “The Rosary and the Scapular are inseparable” and that the reason for wearing the Scapular is because it is our “Sign of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” The whole notion of “consecration” carries with it the idea of “service.” When we consecrate ourselves to Mary, we enter her service.
Too many people expect Mary to serve them, rather than them having to serve Mary! As we sow, so shall we reap! Scripture tells us: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who sows in blessings, shall also reap blessings” (2 Corinthians 9:6) and also “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Psalm 125:5). Our Lady did not promise to make St. Bernadette happy in this life, but in the next. The same applies to us.
Not Everyone is for the Scapular
Even though Our Lady wants everyone to wear the Brown Scapular, not everyone wants to the wear the Brown Scapular! It was common practice to enroll children in the Brown Scapular at their First Holy Communion. Unfortunately, unless to keep informing, teaching and explaining the Scapular to them―and also adults―then the Scapular quickly loses its appeal, it seems cumbersome, it doesn’t fit with revealing fashions, it is an embarrassment, and so it is quickly forgotten and set aside. After searching for a LONG time on statistics as to how many Catholics wear the Brown Scapular, nothing has yet been found. Nevertheless, one can guess that the number is extremely small―because if less than 20% of Catholics regularly attend Sunday Mass, and only 3% to 4% of Catholics pray the Rosary daily (which is what Our Lady has explicitly requested), then you can confidently estimate that Scapular wearers will be a much lower percentage than 3% to 4% ― perhaps even less than 1%.
You would imagine that a promise of salvation would arouse more interest and enthusiasm than that! But salvation is not what is on the mind of most people. Today, fun trumps salvation, and the world and what it offers trumps Heaven and what it offers. It is not uncommon to find―among the few who do wear the Brown Scapular―a high degree of worldliness and a certain nonchalance or indifference about sin. It is as though they live under the false impression that the Brown Scapular is a kind of “Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free” card, or a “Avoid-Hell-At-No-Cost” card. Even in this world, all insurance policies require that YOU PAY for the insurance guarantee. The same is true of the Scapular―we are expected to something on our side in order to obtain the promise of being saved from Hell. Freedom to sin is not part of Our Lady’s insurance policy! Mercy is not be abused! Our Lady promises to help even the worst sinner in the world―IF, and take note of that word “IF”―if the sinner is sorry for those sins and wishes to leave those sins behind and amend his or her life.
The Scapular is Not a License to Sin
The Scapular Promise means that whoever is clothed in the Brown Scapular will not die in mortal sin. If a person falls into mortal sin, then Mary will provide the grace necessary to encourage that soul to seek confession and be forgiven of their sins. The Scapular Promise assures us that those who are devoted to Mary through the Brown Scapular will receive the grace of final perseverance and/or contrition at the hour of their death. Free will is not surrendered in the spiritual life (either ours or God’s), but Mary promises that all who sincerely seek God and salvation will receive it through their devotion to her.
Yes―there have been some miracles where souls have tried to throw away their Scapular, but have been unable to do so―but these are exceptions, for as Holy Scripture says: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! [Neither is Our Lady!] For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8). Our Lady would be making a mockery of God and her Son if, through the Brown Scapular, she was giving everyone a license to sin, saying (like Martin Luther said): “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly!” or “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe in my Scapular Promise even more boldly!” That would be blasphemous! Usually, it is a case of “as we live, so shall we die” ― if we prefer to live in habitual sin, then we will die our sins: “You shall seek Me, and you shall die in your sin!” (John 8:21).
There is one account [read more about Scapular miracles here] where during the Spanish civil war in the 1930s, seven Spanish Communists were sentenced to death because of their crimes. A Carmelite priest tried to prepare the men for death―but they refused. As a last resort, he brought the men cigarettes, food and wine, assuring them that he would not talk religion. In a short while, they were all friendly, so he asked them for one small favor: “Will you permit me to place a Scapular on each of you?” Six agreed; one refused. It was not long before all fallen-away Catholic Spanish Communist Scapular wearers went to confession. The seventh continued to refuse. Only to please them, he put on a Scapular―but he would do nothing more, he would not make his peace with God in Confession. The morning came, and as the moment of execution drew near, the seventh man made it clear that he was not going to ask for the priest. Although wearing the Scapular, he was determined to go to his death an enemy of God. Finally, the command was given, the firing squad did its deadly work, and seven lifeless bodies lay sprawled in the dust. Mysteriously, a Scapular was found approximately 50 paces from the bodies. Six men died WITH Mary’s Scapular; the seventh died WITHOUT the Scapular.
St. Claude Colombière (the confessor of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque) gives us the solution to the mystery of the missing Scapular: “You ask, ‘What if I desire to die in my sins?’ I answer, ‘Then you will die in your sins, BUT YOU WILL NOT DIE IN YOUR SCAPULAR.’” St. Claude tells the story of a man who tried to drown himself three times. He was rescued against his will. At last he realized that he was wearing his Scapular. Determined to take his life, he tore the Scapular from his neck and leaped into the water. Without Mary’s protective garment he accomplished his wish, and died in his sins. Our Lady had repeatedly tried to keep him alive so that he could repent and save his soul―but he was too stubborn. So he died in his sins.
On the contrary, when we are blessed and clothed with the Brown Scapular, the Church (through the priest) tells us: “Receive this blessed Scapular and ask the most holy Virgin that, by her merits, it may be worn with no stain of sin and may protect you from all harm and bring you into everlasting life.” In other words, Our Lady will keep her part of the bargain (and save your soul) if you keep your side of the bargain and strive to wear the Scapular with no stain of sin.
It is the same with your insurance policies. The insurance company promises to pay for damages incurred while driving IF you are not breaking the law (a.k.a. sinning) in one way or another. As one insurance attorney writes: “Even if you have the right kinds of coverage, in adequate amounts, your insurer can deny your claim if you were in violation of state law when the accident happened. One example of that would be driving without a valid license. Another is if you were driving while intoxicated.” If you break the law while driving, you are liable to be fined or even put in prison. That is basically how it is with the Brown Scapular Promise―it promises mercy if you do not abuse that mercy! When the most important time of our life arrives―namely death, immediately followed by Divine Judgment―we will need all the coverage that we can get! Don’t mess it up by abusing the Scapular!
Article 9
Saturday July 15th, 2023
Make Your Home a Mount Carmel
Saturday July 15th, 2023
Make Your Home a Mount Carmel
What Are You Like?
There can be no neutrality with God and Our Lady. You are either for them or against them. You might SAY that you are FOR them―but does your home life reflect and confirm your words? Our Lord condemns those who support Him in theory with mere words, but fail to support Him in practice from their heart with actions―as they say: “Actions speak louder than words! Hence Our Lord says: “Hypocrites! Well has Isaias prophesied about you, saying: ‘These people honor Me with their lips―but their hearts are far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8) … “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46) … “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23).
As Sister Lucia of Fatima said: “Our Lady told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin―a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground! … We should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid attention! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually! Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his path!”
Yes! We must begin to reform ourselves spiritually! “Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? … Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). No! You are not your own boss! You are not independent of God! “God created Heaven and Earth” (Genesis 1:1). All things belong God because He is maker of all things: “My hand made all these things and all these things were made, saith the Lord” (Isaias 66:2). “I made the Earth and I created man upon it!” (Isaias 45:12). “All souls are mine―as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine!” (Ezechiel 18:4). “The Lord hath made all things for Himself” (Proverbs 16:4). You were made by God to be a living temple of God―a temple wherein He wants to dwell by His Divine Grace.
What is Home Like?
Our Lady revealed to Sister Lucia that Heaven expects a spiritual reformation. Sister Lucia states: “Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his path!” The first and foremost people that God has placed on your path are the persons within your home and family. Your home cannot and must not be a secular home! It must be a spiritual home! You are a member of Christ’s Church―the Catholic Church―and your home must reflect that fact. Our Faith is not a private thing―it is a public thing as well as being private. The Church speaks of the Social Reign of Christ the King―and not just a private reign of Christ the King. Religion is not just a private matter―it is also a public matter. This has to be reflected in the home. Family members must pray―not only privately―but also publicly, that is to say, they must pray together as a family. Just as we are obliged to attend Sunday Mass and pray publicly with other Catholics―so too must family members attend family devotions and give glory to God as a family.
If each one of us is a temple of God, a temple of the Holy Ghost, then the family is like a diocese wherein there are numerous churches under one head―the bishop. Many of Early Church Fathers liken the family to a miniature church, and they like the father of the family to a bishop of a diocese―who has rule over the many churches (temples) in his diocese. This idea of the family being a “miniature church” is especially found in the writings of two of the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church―St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom.
Worldly Homes
There should be no place for worldliness in a Catholic home―Christ wants nothing to do with world―apart from trying to save the world from its worldliness and sinful slavery to its satanic prince: “The prince of this world” (John 12:31). Christ clearly says: “He that is not with Me, is against Me! … Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven! But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 12:30; 10:32-33). “My kingdom is not of this world! … “I am not of the world!” (John 17:16; 18:36) … “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
Hence we are commanded: “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers! What fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God! As God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17). That is a command that is directed at every Catholic.
Holy Scripture drives this point home emphatically: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Unfortunately, most Catholic families are tainted and infected with worldliness. They are trying to prove Our Lord was wrong when He said: “You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24) … “Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:23-24). The modern-day loves mammon (the pleasures, treasures and attractions of the world) and he wants to be as rich as he can. That is not the spirit of Christ. To such worldly families, Christ would address the same words if rebuke as He addressed to St. Peter: “Get behind Me, Satan! Thou art a scandal unto Me! Because you savor not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!” (Matthew 16:23).
Cleansing the Temple of the Family
Such worldly families provoke Christ to do what He did in the Temple of Jerusalem. On two different occasions Jesus had to “cleanse” the Temple in Jerusalem. All four Evangelists describe the cleansing of the Temple. The first time was early in His public ministry, as we read in the second chapter of St. John’s Gospel: “And the Pasch of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found, in the Temple, them that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting. And when He had made, as it were, a scourge of little cords, He drove them all out of the Temple, the sheep also and the oxen, and the money of the changers He poured out, and the tables He overturned. And to them that sold doves He said: ‘Take these things hence and make not the House of My Father a house of traffic!’ And His disciples remembered, that it was written: ‘The zeal of Thy House hath eaten Me up!’” (John 2:13-17).
The second time was just days before His Passion and Death: “And Jesus went into the Temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the Temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves. And He saith to them: ‘It is written, “My House shall be called the House of prayer”― but you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Matthew 21:12-13). “And entering into the Temple, He began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought, saying to them: ‘It is written: “My house is the house of prayer!” But you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Luke 19:45-46).
“And they came to Jerusalem. And when Jesus entered into the Temple, He began to cast out them that sold and bought in the Temple, and overturned the tables of the money-changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves. And He suffered not that any man should carry a vessel through the Temple. And He taught, saying to them: ‘Is it not written, “My House shall be called the House of prayer to all nations”? But you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Mark 11:15-17).
“Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found, sitting in the Temple, them that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money. And when He had made, as it were, a scourge of little cords, He drove [whipped] them all out of the Temple them that sold and bought in the Temple―the sheep also and the oxen. And the money of the changers He poured out, and He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the chairs of them that sold doves. And to them that sold doves He said: ‘Take these things hence, and make not the house of My Father a house of traffic! Is it not written: “My House shall be called the House of prayer to all nations?” But you have made it a den of thieves!’” (John 2:13-16; Mark 11:15-17).
Your family should be a temple of God and a house of prayer! Is it? Or have you made it “a den of thieves” whereby glory, praise and adoration is stolen from God and is instead given to false idols―material possessions, modern technological gadgets, the internet, social-media, entertainment, sports, food, drink, socializing, partying, etc. To assess the status of your family with God, simply look at how much “free-time” is dedicated to God and how much is dedicated to those false idols. You will have your own answer as to whether or not Christ would “cleanse” the temple of your family.
The Family is a Miniature Church
If each one of us is a temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19), then obviously our family is also a temple of God―or a union of individual temples of God―which would be like a diocese, which is a union of individual churches. The family is a little church with the same mission as the Universal Church―just like each part of the Mystical Body of Christ (all the individual Catholics) has the same purpose, goal and mission as the Head of the Mystical Body of Christ (which is Christ). The family is, in reality, the Church in the home, or as St. Augustine said, the “domestic church.” That is to say, the life, nature, and mission of the Church universal is contained in microcosm in the family. Conversely, the family also participates in and reflects the nature of the universal Church. Consequently, the strength and health of society and the Church are based on the vitality of the family. Our need is to recover the true identity and mission of the family so we can become what God intended us become. We need to know and to live out the truth that the family is not primarily a sociological unit―but an ecclesial reality. Just as the soul is more important than the body, so too is the religious aspect of the family more important than the material or physical aspect of the family. Spiritual health is more important than physical health. Spiritual wealth is more important than material wealth.
The role of the family plays an astonishing part in the Old Testament. God’s works of salvation throughout history always has a family structure. He even created the first family―Adam and Eve, man and women in marriage―as an indication that the family structure is important to Him. Even Christ would later come and would be born into a family (Mary and Joseph) to show that God is still following His “family plan”. Satan knows this―and that is why, as Sister Lucia said that it had been revealed to her, that Satan would today make the family as his prime target of attack―for he thinks that if he can destroy the family, then he can destroy the Church.
Salvation—while always being something personal and individual for each person—is never an isolated, individualistic event but always has a corporate family nature. When God saves the world from the flood waters, he chooses Noe because he was a righteous man― and through Noe his family were saved (Genesis 6:18). When God establishes the Covenant with Abraham, it is Abraham and his family that receive the blessing (Genesis 17:7) and not just Abraham alone. He is the starting point of salvation―but the blessing passes through Abraham to his family. Then, through this one man, all the families of the Earth will be blessed (Genesis 12:3). When God delivers the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, the meal of salvation (the Passover) is a family meal and one had to be within the home marked with blood to be saved (Exodus 12:21-23). The very fabric of the Old Testament covenantal family life was woven through with this salvific mission. The family played an active and critical role in the passing on of the covenant from generation to generation.
Punishment of Families
Sin deserves punishment. Our Lord said to one of His mystics that when an individual person does something good, then God allows something good―no matter how little―to happen to everyone in the world. But when we do something sinful, then God allows something negative to happen to everyone in the world. In this sense, our sins are not just a private affair―our sins have public repercussions!
Sometimes God punishes the sinner alone; at other times God allows the punishment for a person’s sins to flow out onto others also. On the one hand we see “Jesus passing by a man who was blind from his birth. And His disciples asked Him: ‘Rabbi! Who has sinned―this man, or his parents―that he should be born blind?’ Jesus answered: ‘Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents―but [he was born blind] that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:1-3). On the other hand, Holy Scriptures says that “the Lord visits the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation” (Numbers 14:18).
Just as blessings fall upon families because of one person, e.g. Noe and Abraham, so too do curses and punishments fall upon families because of one person. The most obvious example of that truth is seen in the case of Adam―his Original Sin brought the sentence of death upon the entire human race! “Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned … Death reigned from Adam!” (Romans 5:12-14). “From the woman came the beginning of sin, and by her we all die!” (Ecclesiasticus 25:33).
We also see a similar fate befall the Chosen People when they refused to obey God and enter the Promised Land at the first time of asking―the result was that God punished them (and their children who were innocent) to an exile of 40 years of wandering in the desert until all the disobedient adults had died―yet the children were made to suffer during that time because of the sin of disobedience of their parents. Likewise with the later destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jews in the Babylonian Captivity―families suffered decades of hardship because of the idolatry of their parents. More of the same came with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD―a result of their rejection of their Messias Jesus Christ, whose death they called for saying: “And the whole people answering, said: ‘His blood be upon us and our children!’” (Matthew 27:25) ― and so it was!
On the level of individuals, we see God punish the future generations of King David due to his sin of adultery with Bethsabee and the murder of her husband, Urias the Hethite. God said to David: “Why therefore hast thou despised the word of the Lord, to do evil in My sight? Thou hast killed Urias the Hethite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house, because thou hast despised Me, and hast taken the wife of Urias the Hethite to be thy wife!” (2 Kings 12:9-10).
Likewise with King David’s son, King Solomon: “Solomon built a temple for Chamos the idol of Moab, and he did the same for all his wives that were pagans, who burnt incense and offered sacrifice to their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his mind was turned away from the Lord the God of Israel, Who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not follow strange gods―but he kept not the things which the Lord commanded him. The Lord therefore said to Solomon: ‘Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My precepts which I have commanded thee, I will divide and rend thy kingdom, and will give it to thy servant. Nevertheless, in thy days I will not do it―for David, thy father’s sake―but I will tear it out of the hand of thy son. Neither will I take away the whole kingdom, but I will give one tribe to thy son for the sake of David My servant!’” (3 Kings 11:7-13).
How Satan Attacks the Miniature Church of the Family
As Sister Lucia of Fatima warned―Satan, today, is focusing upon the family in particular, rather than the Church as a whole. Each family is like a sheep―and Satan, like a wolf or a lion, likes to pick-off the sheep one-by-one. Sister Lucia’s warning is nothing other than what we see Our Lord say in the Gospels: “Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat!” (Luke 22:31) ― to which Holy Scripture adds: “Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8).
Our Lady said much the same thing to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “I wish to warn thee as a solicitous and loving Mother, of the cunning of Satan for the destruction of these works of the Lord. From the very moment in which mortals begin to have the use of their reason, each one of them is followed by many watchful and relentless demons. For as soon as the souls are in a position to raise their thoughts to the knowledge of their God and commence the practice of the virtues infused by Baptism, these demons, with incredible fury and astuteness, seek to root out the divine seed; and if they cannot succeed in this, they try to hinder its growth, and prevent it from bringing forth fruit by engaging men in vicious, useless, or trifling things. Thus they divert their thoughts from Faith and Hope, and from the pursuit of other virtues, leading them to forget that they are Christians and diverting their attention from the knowledge of God and from the mysteries of the Redemption and of life eternal. Moreover the same enemy instills into the parents a base neglectfulness and carnal love for their offspring; and he incites the teachers to carelessness, so that the children find no support against evil in their education, but become depraved and spoiled by many bad habits, losing sight of virtue and of their good inclinations and going the way of perdition.”
Satan and Generational Spirits and Generational Curses
We all know by experience that certain tendencies―both behavioral and biological―do seem to pass down the generations, for better or worse―everything from height, weight, hair or eye color, diseases, deformities, and also behavioral issues such as alcoholism, anger issues, a critical spirit, pride, depression and so forth. As Holy Scripture says: “As the mother was, so also is her daughter!” (Ezechiel 16:44) ― from which we our proverb: “Like father, like son!” ― meaning that children tend to imitate their parents in many things ― and that also includes sin. In this way, sin can be passed-down from one generation to another by observation and imitation. Children see their parents commit some particular sins―the predominant faults of the parents that are therefore committed very often―which then leads the children to copy those sins.
The tendency to commit certain kinds of sins and not others, comes with the temperament that a person is born with. There are certain temperaments―such as cholerics and sanguine―that are inclined to show a great visible anger. Other temperaments―such as the melancholics―tend to be overly perfectionist or overly critical. The Phlegmatic temperament tends to avoid issues, does not like to correct others, and can be lazy. These tendencies to sin are a consequence of Original Sin. Yet we must not forget that where there is sin―there too is the devil, for, as Holy Scripture says: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8).
The Church’s exorcists speak of often encountering what they call “Generational Spirits” and “Generational Curses”. Exorcists refer to evil spirits that are passed from one person to another as “generational spirits.” The reason for labeling these spirits “generational” is that they are most often observed passing from parents to children. Generational spirits are normally passed when one person commits some kind of grave sin, introducing the demon into the household. Once there, he begins the process of tempting and affecting others in the household so that he can attach himself to those other people. The passing of generational spirits is not just between parents and children but may occur when people are in close contact with each other for long periods of time, when they live or work around another person. The process is not mechanical in the sense that it is like an airborne virus that passes. Rather, the passing of generational spirits is a spiritual reality which occurs due to a variety of factors, including:
● The state of the soul of the one being attacked by the generational spirit (someone in the state of grace is less likely to be affected; someone in mortal sin lacks protection);
● The relationship one has to the person (children under the authority of the parents are more susceptible);
● One’s spiritual life (the more one meditates, prays, receives the Sacraments regularly, especially Holy Communion and Confession, the less likely one will be affected);
● One’s use of Sacramentals (such as the Saint Benedict Medal, Scapular, or Holy Water, which provide some protection).
Exorcists tell us that habitual mortal sin opens the door for Satan to enter our lives: “Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The most common way a demon can enter into someone’s life is through a habitual state of mortal sin. Those who live in a state of grace, those who pray most fervently, have a much better chance of obtaining divine intervention against the evil one than those who do not practice their Faith or, worse, who live in a habitual state of mortal sin.” (Fr. Gabriele Amorth, former chief exorcist of Rome). Another exorcist, Fr. Aga Tarog, warns: “Mortal sin is the primary entry point for demonic possession!” Another exorcist adds: “Sin is a far greater danger than the devil! The devil is outside of us. Even in a possession, he cannot possess our soul.”
Fr. Amorth adds: “How can we fall prey to extraordinary satanic activity? By this I mean other than the ordinary activity—temptation—which applies to everyone. We can do so through our own fault or by being completely unaware. We can group the reasons into four categories: (1) with God’s permission, (2) as innocent victims of an evil spell, (3) due to a grave and hardened sinful condition, (4) through association with evil people or places.”
“In the current environment, where we are witnessing the collapse of the family, I have encountered many cases of possessed people who, in addition to other sins, were living in irregular marriages. I have dealt many times with women whose sins included the crime of abortion. I have been confronted with numerous people who, in addition to sexual aberrations, committed other violent actions. Many times I have been faced with homosexuals who were drug addicts and who had committed drug-related sins.” (Fr. Gabriele Amorth, former chief exorcist of Rome).
Entry Points for Mortal Sin
Mortal sin comes into families through various “doors” and “windows”. It may be through actively thinking, saying, doing something―such as impure thoughts (most priests say that by far the most common mortal sins are those of impurity); or thoughts of hatred and vengeance, or speaking grave calumnies (lies) or grave detraction (revealing the unknown mortal sins of others); or impure talk; or blasphemies; or actions such as ‘fudging’, misrepresenting or lying about mortal sins in Confession; making sacrilegious Communions; impure actions with self or others (even tongue-to-tongue kissing and caressing); drunkenness; drug abuse; watching or reading impure or very immodest material; serious violence; abortion; stealing more than trivial amounts; grave disrespect to parents or those in authority; etc. These are just a few of the most common mortal sins committed by people today.
Yet there are also mortal sins of negligence―that is to say not doing or saying things that should be done or said. For example, not teaching one’s children about Faith and Morals; not correcting mortally sinful behavior of family members; deliberately missing Sunday Mass; not saying prayers for a prolonged period of time (several months); not confessing one’s mortal sins at least once a year; not accepting the teaching of the Church, especially on teachings that are dogmas; not avoiding the persons, places and things that lead to mortal sin; etc. Again, these are just the tip of the iceberg of the common mortal sins of today.
The World Laughs at Mortal Sin!
“A fool will laugh at sin, but among the just grace shall abide” (Proverbs 14:9). Unfortunately and tragically, the world merely laughs at the idea of mortal sin and rejects the teaching of the Church on that matter, which says: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). A succession of popes―ranging from Conservative to Liberal and Modernist―all agree and lament the fact that world has lost the sense of sin:
● Pope Pius XII said in 1946: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin!”
● Pope John Paul II, in 2005, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin!”
● Pope Benedict XVI, in 2011, said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. If we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, then we cannot speak of sin ... The meaning of sin ― which is a different thing from ‘guilt feelings’ as understood in psychology ― is only grasped in discovering the meaning of God!”
● Pope Francis, in 2014, said: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble!”
Does Your Family Laugh at Mortal Sin!
“A fool will laugh at sin, but among the just grace shall abide” (Proverbs 14:9). Are mortal sin and sanctifying grace part of a revolving door in your family? Is mortal sin just as regular a resident as sanctifying grace? Do they shove each other out each day like night and day? Is sin treated seriously and banned from the family home? Or does sin have its own room in the home? Is it rare visitor or a regular visitor? Is it made welcome, or at least tolerated? Or is it refused entry?
The former chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, states: “Today, families are among the most targeted by the ordinary action of Satan … Satan hates God and that is why he seeks to convince people to commit sins and thus drag them down to Hell ... His ordinary activity is to tempt man toward evil, to lead him to temptation, to sin, to push him to break divine law ... The devil looks in each person precisely for his weak point and ‘works’ on it, creating his next sinful occasion … The most frequent weak points in man are, from time to time, always the same: pride, money, and lust ... The loss of a sense of sin―that characterizes our era―helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and―by inducing man to sin―he takes man progressively away from the love of God, weakens the consciences of men and women and leads them toward egoism, closing their hearts, planting a lack of forgiveness, and doing everything for money, power, and sex ... Satan uses the idolatry of sex, which reduces the human body to an instrument of sin … Satan seduces with suggestions like ― ‘Everything is lawful!’ ‘What is wrong there?’ ‘Everyone does it!’ … Satan’s power is felt more in periods of history when the sinfulness of the community is more evident … The problem is getting worse. The Devil is gaining ground. We are living in an age when Faith is diminishing! ... Our contemporary religious culture―while not entirely negating the existence of Satan and the other devils―is inclined to diminish their involvement and influence over people ... Today we live in a period of little Faith! ... Young people receive everything from their parents―except the Faith! ... It is purely mathematical―when Faith declines, superstition grows ... When Faith in God declines, then idolatry and irrationality increase! … Whoever lives in indifference, in absent-mindedness, far from God―that person is open to an easy satanic conquest!”
Fighting Satan with Our Lady of Mount Carmel
The prayers by which a person is blessed and clothed with the Brown Scapular, and enrolled in the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, give us an indication of what is expected from us. The Brown Scapular devotion is not a “one-way-street” whereby we get a lot of things and give nothing in return! Love is a “two-way-street” ― it is about giving and not just receiving! There are too many people who look upon the Scapular selfishly ― thinking only of what they can get out of it ― and totally ignoring the fact that Our Lady also wants to get something out of us! There are others who imagine the Scapular to be like a good-luck-charm, or a lucky-rabbits-foot, or even worse, a license to sin with the promise of being saved regardless of how much we sin! St. Alphonsus Liguori addresses such persons with the following words:
“Whilst disgusting her by a wicked life, who would dare even to wish to be the child of Mary? A certain sinner once said to Mary: ‘Show thyself a Mother!’ ― but the Blessed Virgin replied: ‘Show thyself a son!’ … It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection … When we declare that it is impossible for a servant of Mary to be lost, we do not mean those who, by their devotion to Mary, think themselves warranted to sin freely! We state that these reckless people, because of their presumption, deserve to be treated with rigor and not with kindness! We speak here of the servants of Mary who, to the fidelity with which they honor and invoke her, join the desire to amend their lives. I hold it morally impossible that these be lost!”
In the prayers of blessing, enrolling and clothing with the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the priests addresses the following words to God and to the recipient of the Scapular. To God he says: “We earnestly beg Thee, O Lord, to let Thy gracious blessing come upon this garment, in which Thy servant is to be clothed. May it be blessed and endowed with Thy power to repel all vicious assaults of our visible and invisible enemies. Let it please Thee to endow it with such blessing, that he (she), who is to wear it, may likewise put on Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son. Pour out Thy blessing on this habit, so that he (she) who is to wear it, aided from on high, may be filled with true Faith, firm Hope, desired Charity, and may never be separated from Thee.”
To the recipient being enrolled in and clothed with the Scapular, the priest says: “Take, dear brother (sister), this blessed garment, and call on the most Holy Virgin, that, by her merits, you may keep it spotless, be shielded by her from all adversity, and attain everlasting life ... We pray to her that, in the hour of your death, she will crush the head of your adversary, the serpent, so that you may finally and triumphantly possess the palm and crown of the everlasting inheritance.”
Neglect of Our Lady Leads to Loss of Souls
In her revelations to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady warned: “Fear the danger of not attending to the divine calls, for that is the cause of the loss of innumerable souls ... Men are lost in forgetful rest and sleep―as if there were no vigilant and powerful enemies. This dreadful carelessness arises from two causes: on the one hand men are so taken up with their earthly and material life, that they do not feel any other evils except those on a physical and material nature. Anything that is interior seems harmless in their estimation. On the other hand, since the princes of darkness are invisible and unperceived by any of the senses and since carnal men neither touch, nor feel, nor see them―the result is that they forget the fear of them. Yet for this very reason they ought to be more attentive and careful, since invisible enemies are more cunning and skillful in injuring us by their treachery ... How many men have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! … Countless numbers have fallen into Hell! … Lucifer has hurled into Hell so great a number of souls and continues so to hurl them every day!”
“The neglect and contempt of bodily mortification cause the loss of many souls and bring many more into the danger of eternal loss. I will not tell thee how many souls are lost, in order to not cause thee to die of sorrow at this loss! I have already told thee, that the number of those foreknown as doomed, is so great, and of those that save themselves is so small, that it is not expedient to say more in particular. Weep ceaselessly over the terrible loss sustained by so many insane and thankless souls, who are forgetful of God, of their duty and of their own selves … and lose their chance of salvation or bring upon themselves eternal damnation.”
“So great is my love for sinners, that if they would only call upon me in time and with sincerity, none of them would perish! But the sinners and the reprobate do no such thing―because the wounds of sin do not distress them, and, the more often they are committed, the less regret or sorrow do they cause! ... As the Mother of clemency, it is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for failing to call upon me, so many souls should be lost! ... This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict yourself, lament and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls!”
There can be no neutrality with God and Our Lady. You are either for them or against them. You might SAY that you are FOR them―but does your home life reflect and confirm your words? Our Lord condemns those who support Him in theory with mere words, but fail to support Him in practice from their heart with actions―as they say: “Actions speak louder than words! Hence Our Lord says: “Hypocrites! Well has Isaias prophesied about you, saying: ‘These people honor Me with their lips―but their hearts are far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8) … “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46) … “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23).
As Sister Lucia of Fatima said: “Our Lady told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin―a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground! … We should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid attention! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually! Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his path!”
Yes! We must begin to reform ourselves spiritually! “Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? … Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). No! You are not your own boss! You are not independent of God! “God created Heaven and Earth” (Genesis 1:1). All things belong God because He is maker of all things: “My hand made all these things and all these things were made, saith the Lord” (Isaias 66:2). “I made the Earth and I created man upon it!” (Isaias 45:12). “All souls are mine―as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine!” (Ezechiel 18:4). “The Lord hath made all things for Himself” (Proverbs 16:4). You were made by God to be a living temple of God―a temple wherein He wants to dwell by His Divine Grace.
What is Home Like?
Our Lady revealed to Sister Lucia that Heaven expects a spiritual reformation. Sister Lucia states: “Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his path!” The first and foremost people that God has placed on your path are the persons within your home and family. Your home cannot and must not be a secular home! It must be a spiritual home! You are a member of Christ’s Church―the Catholic Church―and your home must reflect that fact. Our Faith is not a private thing―it is a public thing as well as being private. The Church speaks of the Social Reign of Christ the King―and not just a private reign of Christ the King. Religion is not just a private matter―it is also a public matter. This has to be reflected in the home. Family members must pray―not only privately―but also publicly, that is to say, they must pray together as a family. Just as we are obliged to attend Sunday Mass and pray publicly with other Catholics―so too must family members attend family devotions and give glory to God as a family.
If each one of us is a temple of God, a temple of the Holy Ghost, then the family is like a diocese wherein there are numerous churches under one head―the bishop. Many of Early Church Fathers liken the family to a miniature church, and they like the father of the family to a bishop of a diocese―who has rule over the many churches (temples) in his diocese. This idea of the family being a “miniature church” is especially found in the writings of two of the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church―St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom.
Worldly Homes
There should be no place for worldliness in a Catholic home―Christ wants nothing to do with world―apart from trying to save the world from its worldliness and sinful slavery to its satanic prince: “The prince of this world” (John 12:31). Christ clearly says: “He that is not with Me, is against Me! … Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven! But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 12:30; 10:32-33). “My kingdom is not of this world! … “I am not of the world!” (John 17:16; 18:36) … “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
Hence we are commanded: “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers! What fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God! As God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17). That is a command that is directed at every Catholic.
Holy Scripture drives this point home emphatically: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Unfortunately, most Catholic families are tainted and infected with worldliness. They are trying to prove Our Lord was wrong when He said: “You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24) … “Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:23-24). The modern-day loves mammon (the pleasures, treasures and attractions of the world) and he wants to be as rich as he can. That is not the spirit of Christ. To such worldly families, Christ would address the same words if rebuke as He addressed to St. Peter: “Get behind Me, Satan! Thou art a scandal unto Me! Because you savor not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!” (Matthew 16:23).
Cleansing the Temple of the Family
Such worldly families provoke Christ to do what He did in the Temple of Jerusalem. On two different occasions Jesus had to “cleanse” the Temple in Jerusalem. All four Evangelists describe the cleansing of the Temple. The first time was early in His public ministry, as we read in the second chapter of St. John’s Gospel: “And the Pasch of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found, in the Temple, them that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting. And when He had made, as it were, a scourge of little cords, He drove them all out of the Temple, the sheep also and the oxen, and the money of the changers He poured out, and the tables He overturned. And to them that sold doves He said: ‘Take these things hence and make not the House of My Father a house of traffic!’ And His disciples remembered, that it was written: ‘The zeal of Thy House hath eaten Me up!’” (John 2:13-17).
The second time was just days before His Passion and Death: “And Jesus went into the Temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the Temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves. And He saith to them: ‘It is written, “My House shall be called the House of prayer”― but you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Matthew 21:12-13). “And entering into the Temple, He began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought, saying to them: ‘It is written: “My house is the house of prayer!” But you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Luke 19:45-46).
“And they came to Jerusalem. And when Jesus entered into the Temple, He began to cast out them that sold and bought in the Temple, and overturned the tables of the money-changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves. And He suffered not that any man should carry a vessel through the Temple. And He taught, saying to them: ‘Is it not written, “My House shall be called the House of prayer to all nations”? But you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Mark 11:15-17).
“Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found, sitting in the Temple, them that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money. And when He had made, as it were, a scourge of little cords, He drove [whipped] them all out of the Temple them that sold and bought in the Temple―the sheep also and the oxen. And the money of the changers He poured out, and He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the chairs of them that sold doves. And to them that sold doves He said: ‘Take these things hence, and make not the house of My Father a house of traffic! Is it not written: “My House shall be called the House of prayer to all nations?” But you have made it a den of thieves!’” (John 2:13-16; Mark 11:15-17).
Your family should be a temple of God and a house of prayer! Is it? Or have you made it “a den of thieves” whereby glory, praise and adoration is stolen from God and is instead given to false idols―material possessions, modern technological gadgets, the internet, social-media, entertainment, sports, food, drink, socializing, partying, etc. To assess the status of your family with God, simply look at how much “free-time” is dedicated to God and how much is dedicated to those false idols. You will have your own answer as to whether or not Christ would “cleanse” the temple of your family.
The Family is a Miniature Church
If each one of us is a temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19), then obviously our family is also a temple of God―or a union of individual temples of God―which would be like a diocese, which is a union of individual churches. The family is a little church with the same mission as the Universal Church―just like each part of the Mystical Body of Christ (all the individual Catholics) has the same purpose, goal and mission as the Head of the Mystical Body of Christ (which is Christ). The family is, in reality, the Church in the home, or as St. Augustine said, the “domestic church.” That is to say, the life, nature, and mission of the Church universal is contained in microcosm in the family. Conversely, the family also participates in and reflects the nature of the universal Church. Consequently, the strength and health of society and the Church are based on the vitality of the family. Our need is to recover the true identity and mission of the family so we can become what God intended us become. We need to know and to live out the truth that the family is not primarily a sociological unit―but an ecclesial reality. Just as the soul is more important than the body, so too is the religious aspect of the family more important than the material or physical aspect of the family. Spiritual health is more important than physical health. Spiritual wealth is more important than material wealth.
The role of the family plays an astonishing part in the Old Testament. God’s works of salvation throughout history always has a family structure. He even created the first family―Adam and Eve, man and women in marriage―as an indication that the family structure is important to Him. Even Christ would later come and would be born into a family (Mary and Joseph) to show that God is still following His “family plan”. Satan knows this―and that is why, as Sister Lucia said that it had been revealed to her, that Satan would today make the family as his prime target of attack―for he thinks that if he can destroy the family, then he can destroy the Church.
Salvation—while always being something personal and individual for each person—is never an isolated, individualistic event but always has a corporate family nature. When God saves the world from the flood waters, he chooses Noe because he was a righteous man― and through Noe his family were saved (Genesis 6:18). When God establishes the Covenant with Abraham, it is Abraham and his family that receive the blessing (Genesis 17:7) and not just Abraham alone. He is the starting point of salvation―but the blessing passes through Abraham to his family. Then, through this one man, all the families of the Earth will be blessed (Genesis 12:3). When God delivers the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, the meal of salvation (the Passover) is a family meal and one had to be within the home marked with blood to be saved (Exodus 12:21-23). The very fabric of the Old Testament covenantal family life was woven through with this salvific mission. The family played an active and critical role in the passing on of the covenant from generation to generation.
Punishment of Families
Sin deserves punishment. Our Lord said to one of His mystics that when an individual person does something good, then God allows something good―no matter how little―to happen to everyone in the world. But when we do something sinful, then God allows something negative to happen to everyone in the world. In this sense, our sins are not just a private affair―our sins have public repercussions!
Sometimes God punishes the sinner alone; at other times God allows the punishment for a person’s sins to flow out onto others also. On the one hand we see “Jesus passing by a man who was blind from his birth. And His disciples asked Him: ‘Rabbi! Who has sinned―this man, or his parents―that he should be born blind?’ Jesus answered: ‘Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents―but [he was born blind] that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:1-3). On the other hand, Holy Scriptures says that “the Lord visits the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation” (Numbers 14:18).
Just as blessings fall upon families because of one person, e.g. Noe and Abraham, so too do curses and punishments fall upon families because of one person. The most obvious example of that truth is seen in the case of Adam―his Original Sin brought the sentence of death upon the entire human race! “Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned … Death reigned from Adam!” (Romans 5:12-14). “From the woman came the beginning of sin, and by her we all die!” (Ecclesiasticus 25:33).
We also see a similar fate befall the Chosen People when they refused to obey God and enter the Promised Land at the first time of asking―the result was that God punished them (and their children who were innocent) to an exile of 40 years of wandering in the desert until all the disobedient adults had died―yet the children were made to suffer during that time because of the sin of disobedience of their parents. Likewise with the later destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jews in the Babylonian Captivity―families suffered decades of hardship because of the idolatry of their parents. More of the same came with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD―a result of their rejection of their Messias Jesus Christ, whose death they called for saying: “And the whole people answering, said: ‘His blood be upon us and our children!’” (Matthew 27:25) ― and so it was!
On the level of individuals, we see God punish the future generations of King David due to his sin of adultery with Bethsabee and the murder of her husband, Urias the Hethite. God said to David: “Why therefore hast thou despised the word of the Lord, to do evil in My sight? Thou hast killed Urias the Hethite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house, because thou hast despised Me, and hast taken the wife of Urias the Hethite to be thy wife!” (2 Kings 12:9-10).
Likewise with King David’s son, King Solomon: “Solomon built a temple for Chamos the idol of Moab, and he did the same for all his wives that were pagans, who burnt incense and offered sacrifice to their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his mind was turned away from the Lord the God of Israel, Who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not follow strange gods―but he kept not the things which the Lord commanded him. The Lord therefore said to Solomon: ‘Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My precepts which I have commanded thee, I will divide and rend thy kingdom, and will give it to thy servant. Nevertheless, in thy days I will not do it―for David, thy father’s sake―but I will tear it out of the hand of thy son. Neither will I take away the whole kingdom, but I will give one tribe to thy son for the sake of David My servant!’” (3 Kings 11:7-13).
How Satan Attacks the Miniature Church of the Family
As Sister Lucia of Fatima warned―Satan, today, is focusing upon the family in particular, rather than the Church as a whole. Each family is like a sheep―and Satan, like a wolf or a lion, likes to pick-off the sheep one-by-one. Sister Lucia’s warning is nothing other than what we see Our Lord say in the Gospels: “Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat!” (Luke 22:31) ― to which Holy Scripture adds: “Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8).
Our Lady said much the same thing to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “I wish to warn thee as a solicitous and loving Mother, of the cunning of Satan for the destruction of these works of the Lord. From the very moment in which mortals begin to have the use of their reason, each one of them is followed by many watchful and relentless demons. For as soon as the souls are in a position to raise their thoughts to the knowledge of their God and commence the practice of the virtues infused by Baptism, these demons, with incredible fury and astuteness, seek to root out the divine seed; and if they cannot succeed in this, they try to hinder its growth, and prevent it from bringing forth fruit by engaging men in vicious, useless, or trifling things. Thus they divert their thoughts from Faith and Hope, and from the pursuit of other virtues, leading them to forget that they are Christians and diverting their attention from the knowledge of God and from the mysteries of the Redemption and of life eternal. Moreover the same enemy instills into the parents a base neglectfulness and carnal love for their offspring; and he incites the teachers to carelessness, so that the children find no support against evil in their education, but become depraved and spoiled by many bad habits, losing sight of virtue and of their good inclinations and going the way of perdition.”
Satan and Generational Spirits and Generational Curses
We all know by experience that certain tendencies―both behavioral and biological―do seem to pass down the generations, for better or worse―everything from height, weight, hair or eye color, diseases, deformities, and also behavioral issues such as alcoholism, anger issues, a critical spirit, pride, depression and so forth. As Holy Scripture says: “As the mother was, so also is her daughter!” (Ezechiel 16:44) ― from which we our proverb: “Like father, like son!” ― meaning that children tend to imitate their parents in many things ― and that also includes sin. In this way, sin can be passed-down from one generation to another by observation and imitation. Children see their parents commit some particular sins―the predominant faults of the parents that are therefore committed very often―which then leads the children to copy those sins.
The tendency to commit certain kinds of sins and not others, comes with the temperament that a person is born with. There are certain temperaments―such as cholerics and sanguine―that are inclined to show a great visible anger. Other temperaments―such as the melancholics―tend to be overly perfectionist or overly critical. The Phlegmatic temperament tends to avoid issues, does not like to correct others, and can be lazy. These tendencies to sin are a consequence of Original Sin. Yet we must not forget that where there is sin―there too is the devil, for, as Holy Scripture says: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8).
The Church’s exorcists speak of often encountering what they call “Generational Spirits” and “Generational Curses”. Exorcists refer to evil spirits that are passed from one person to another as “generational spirits.” The reason for labeling these spirits “generational” is that they are most often observed passing from parents to children. Generational spirits are normally passed when one person commits some kind of grave sin, introducing the demon into the household. Once there, he begins the process of tempting and affecting others in the household so that he can attach himself to those other people. The passing of generational spirits is not just between parents and children but may occur when people are in close contact with each other for long periods of time, when they live or work around another person. The process is not mechanical in the sense that it is like an airborne virus that passes. Rather, the passing of generational spirits is a spiritual reality which occurs due to a variety of factors, including:
● The state of the soul of the one being attacked by the generational spirit (someone in the state of grace is less likely to be affected; someone in mortal sin lacks protection);
● The relationship one has to the person (children under the authority of the parents are more susceptible);
● One’s spiritual life (the more one meditates, prays, receives the Sacraments regularly, especially Holy Communion and Confession, the less likely one will be affected);
● One’s use of Sacramentals (such as the Saint Benedict Medal, Scapular, or Holy Water, which provide some protection).
Exorcists tell us that habitual mortal sin opens the door for Satan to enter our lives: “Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The most common way a demon can enter into someone’s life is through a habitual state of mortal sin. Those who live in a state of grace, those who pray most fervently, have a much better chance of obtaining divine intervention against the evil one than those who do not practice their Faith or, worse, who live in a habitual state of mortal sin.” (Fr. Gabriele Amorth, former chief exorcist of Rome). Another exorcist, Fr. Aga Tarog, warns: “Mortal sin is the primary entry point for demonic possession!” Another exorcist adds: “Sin is a far greater danger than the devil! The devil is outside of us. Even in a possession, he cannot possess our soul.”
Fr. Amorth adds: “How can we fall prey to extraordinary satanic activity? By this I mean other than the ordinary activity—temptation—which applies to everyone. We can do so through our own fault or by being completely unaware. We can group the reasons into four categories: (1) with God’s permission, (2) as innocent victims of an evil spell, (3) due to a grave and hardened sinful condition, (4) through association with evil people or places.”
“In the current environment, where we are witnessing the collapse of the family, I have encountered many cases of possessed people who, in addition to other sins, were living in irregular marriages. I have dealt many times with women whose sins included the crime of abortion. I have been confronted with numerous people who, in addition to sexual aberrations, committed other violent actions. Many times I have been faced with homosexuals who were drug addicts and who had committed drug-related sins.” (Fr. Gabriele Amorth, former chief exorcist of Rome).
Entry Points for Mortal Sin
Mortal sin comes into families through various “doors” and “windows”. It may be through actively thinking, saying, doing something―such as impure thoughts (most priests say that by far the most common mortal sins are those of impurity); or thoughts of hatred and vengeance, or speaking grave calumnies (lies) or grave detraction (revealing the unknown mortal sins of others); or impure talk; or blasphemies; or actions such as ‘fudging’, misrepresenting or lying about mortal sins in Confession; making sacrilegious Communions; impure actions with self or others (even tongue-to-tongue kissing and caressing); drunkenness; drug abuse; watching or reading impure or very immodest material; serious violence; abortion; stealing more than trivial amounts; grave disrespect to parents or those in authority; etc. These are just a few of the most common mortal sins committed by people today.
Yet there are also mortal sins of negligence―that is to say not doing or saying things that should be done or said. For example, not teaching one’s children about Faith and Morals; not correcting mortally sinful behavior of family members; deliberately missing Sunday Mass; not saying prayers for a prolonged period of time (several months); not confessing one’s mortal sins at least once a year; not accepting the teaching of the Church, especially on teachings that are dogmas; not avoiding the persons, places and things that lead to mortal sin; etc. Again, these are just the tip of the iceberg of the common mortal sins of today.
The World Laughs at Mortal Sin!
“A fool will laugh at sin, but among the just grace shall abide” (Proverbs 14:9). Unfortunately and tragically, the world merely laughs at the idea of mortal sin and rejects the teaching of the Church on that matter, which says: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). A succession of popes―ranging from Conservative to Liberal and Modernist―all agree and lament the fact that world has lost the sense of sin:
● Pope Pius XII said in 1946: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin!”
● Pope John Paul II, in 2005, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin!”
● Pope Benedict XVI, in 2011, said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. If we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, then we cannot speak of sin ... The meaning of sin ― which is a different thing from ‘guilt feelings’ as understood in psychology ― is only grasped in discovering the meaning of God!”
● Pope Francis, in 2014, said: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble!”
Does Your Family Laugh at Mortal Sin!
“A fool will laugh at sin, but among the just grace shall abide” (Proverbs 14:9). Are mortal sin and sanctifying grace part of a revolving door in your family? Is mortal sin just as regular a resident as sanctifying grace? Do they shove each other out each day like night and day? Is sin treated seriously and banned from the family home? Or does sin have its own room in the home? Is it rare visitor or a regular visitor? Is it made welcome, or at least tolerated? Or is it refused entry?
The former chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, states: “Today, families are among the most targeted by the ordinary action of Satan … Satan hates God and that is why he seeks to convince people to commit sins and thus drag them down to Hell ... His ordinary activity is to tempt man toward evil, to lead him to temptation, to sin, to push him to break divine law ... The devil looks in each person precisely for his weak point and ‘works’ on it, creating his next sinful occasion … The most frequent weak points in man are, from time to time, always the same: pride, money, and lust ... The loss of a sense of sin―that characterizes our era―helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and―by inducing man to sin―he takes man progressively away from the love of God, weakens the consciences of men and women and leads them toward egoism, closing their hearts, planting a lack of forgiveness, and doing everything for money, power, and sex ... Satan uses the idolatry of sex, which reduces the human body to an instrument of sin … Satan seduces with suggestions like ― ‘Everything is lawful!’ ‘What is wrong there?’ ‘Everyone does it!’ … Satan’s power is felt more in periods of history when the sinfulness of the community is more evident … The problem is getting worse. The Devil is gaining ground. We are living in an age when Faith is diminishing! ... Our contemporary religious culture―while not entirely negating the existence of Satan and the other devils―is inclined to diminish their involvement and influence over people ... Today we live in a period of little Faith! ... Young people receive everything from their parents―except the Faith! ... It is purely mathematical―when Faith declines, superstition grows ... When Faith in God declines, then idolatry and irrationality increase! … Whoever lives in indifference, in absent-mindedness, far from God―that person is open to an easy satanic conquest!”
Fighting Satan with Our Lady of Mount Carmel
The prayers by which a person is blessed and clothed with the Brown Scapular, and enrolled in the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, give us an indication of what is expected from us. The Brown Scapular devotion is not a “one-way-street” whereby we get a lot of things and give nothing in return! Love is a “two-way-street” ― it is about giving and not just receiving! There are too many people who look upon the Scapular selfishly ― thinking only of what they can get out of it ― and totally ignoring the fact that Our Lady also wants to get something out of us! There are others who imagine the Scapular to be like a good-luck-charm, or a lucky-rabbits-foot, or even worse, a license to sin with the promise of being saved regardless of how much we sin! St. Alphonsus Liguori addresses such persons with the following words:
“Whilst disgusting her by a wicked life, who would dare even to wish to be the child of Mary? A certain sinner once said to Mary: ‘Show thyself a Mother!’ ― but the Blessed Virgin replied: ‘Show thyself a son!’ … It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection … When we declare that it is impossible for a servant of Mary to be lost, we do not mean those who, by their devotion to Mary, think themselves warranted to sin freely! We state that these reckless people, because of their presumption, deserve to be treated with rigor and not with kindness! We speak here of the servants of Mary who, to the fidelity with which they honor and invoke her, join the desire to amend their lives. I hold it morally impossible that these be lost!”
In the prayers of blessing, enrolling and clothing with the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the priests addresses the following words to God and to the recipient of the Scapular. To God he says: “We earnestly beg Thee, O Lord, to let Thy gracious blessing come upon this garment, in which Thy servant is to be clothed. May it be blessed and endowed with Thy power to repel all vicious assaults of our visible and invisible enemies. Let it please Thee to endow it with such blessing, that he (she), who is to wear it, may likewise put on Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son. Pour out Thy blessing on this habit, so that he (she) who is to wear it, aided from on high, may be filled with true Faith, firm Hope, desired Charity, and may never be separated from Thee.”
To the recipient being enrolled in and clothed with the Scapular, the priest says: “Take, dear brother (sister), this blessed garment, and call on the most Holy Virgin, that, by her merits, you may keep it spotless, be shielded by her from all adversity, and attain everlasting life ... We pray to her that, in the hour of your death, she will crush the head of your adversary, the serpent, so that you may finally and triumphantly possess the palm and crown of the everlasting inheritance.”
Neglect of Our Lady Leads to Loss of Souls
In her revelations to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady warned: “Fear the danger of not attending to the divine calls, for that is the cause of the loss of innumerable souls ... Men are lost in forgetful rest and sleep―as if there were no vigilant and powerful enemies. This dreadful carelessness arises from two causes: on the one hand men are so taken up with their earthly and material life, that they do not feel any other evils except those on a physical and material nature. Anything that is interior seems harmless in their estimation. On the other hand, since the princes of darkness are invisible and unperceived by any of the senses and since carnal men neither touch, nor feel, nor see them―the result is that they forget the fear of them. Yet for this very reason they ought to be more attentive and careful, since invisible enemies are more cunning and skillful in injuring us by their treachery ... How many men have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! … Countless numbers have fallen into Hell! … Lucifer has hurled into Hell so great a number of souls and continues so to hurl them every day!”
“The neglect and contempt of bodily mortification cause the loss of many souls and bring many more into the danger of eternal loss. I will not tell thee how many souls are lost, in order to not cause thee to die of sorrow at this loss! I have already told thee, that the number of those foreknown as doomed, is so great, and of those that save themselves is so small, that it is not expedient to say more in particular. Weep ceaselessly over the terrible loss sustained by so many insane and thankless souls, who are forgetful of God, of their duty and of their own selves … and lose their chance of salvation or bring upon themselves eternal damnation.”
“So great is my love for sinners, that if they would only call upon me in time and with sincerity, none of them would perish! But the sinners and the reprobate do no such thing―because the wounds of sin do not distress them, and, the more often they are committed, the less regret or sorrow do they cause! ... As the Mother of clemency, it is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for failing to call upon me, so many souls should be lost! ... This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict yourself, lament and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls!”
Article 8
Friday July 14th, 2023
Carmel Countdown
Friday July 14th, 2023
Carmel Countdown
Mary is the Hope of Sinners
As we draw near to the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (July 16th), we should likewise draw nearer to Our Lady―especially in her role as a merciful Mother. What most people think of with regard to the feast of Our Lady of Mounts Carmel―is her merciful promise to save from Hell all those who devoutly and faithfully wear the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. What greater mercy is there than to saved from Hell?
Day and Night
In the first chapter of the Book of Genesis we read that God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night (Genesis 1:16). The renowned Cardinal Hugo says that “Christ is the greater light to rule the just, and Mary the lesser to rule the sinners”— meaning that the sun is a figure of Jesus Christ, whose light is enjoyed by all those who are living in daylight, that is to say, in a state of divine grace. The moon is a figure of Mary, who enlightens those who are living in the night of sin.
Merciful Moonlight
Since Mary is this merciful light that God has created for the benefit of poor sinners, what should those souls do, who have so unfortunate, or so foolish, as to fall into the night of sin? Pope Innocent III replies: “Whoever is in the night of sin, let him cast his eyes on the moon, let him implore Mary.” Since the sinner has lost the light of the sun of justice, by losing the grace of God; let him turn to the moon, and beseech Mary and she will certainly give him the sinner enough light to see the misery of his state, and strength to leave it without delay by returning to God through confession. St. Methodius says “that by the prayers of Mary almost innumerable sinners are converted.”
Refuge of Sinners
One of the most encouraging titles that appeals to poor sinners, and under which the Church teaches us to invoke Mary in the Litany of Loreto, is that of “Refuge of Sinners.” In Judea, in ancient times, there were cities of refuge, in which criminals, who fled there for protection, were exempt from the punishments which they had deserved. In the Middle Ages, a criminal who managed to make it to a church, could claim “sanctuary” in that church, and would not be handed over to the powers of justice as long as he remained in that church. Nowadays these cities and this power of “sanctuary” are no longer available—though there are some countries to which a criminal escape for safe haven, of they did not have an extradition agreement with the country from which he was fleeing.
Heavenly City of Refuge
Yet, in the supernatural realm, there is still a safe haven, or “sanctuary” to be found. There is only one, that is Mary, of whom the Psalmist says “Glorious things are said of thee, O city of God” (Psalm 86:3). This city differs from the ancient cities— for in the earthly cities, refuge was limited. Not all kinds of criminals could find refuge there, nor was the protection extended to every kind of crime. However, in the heavenly city, under the mantle of Mary, all sinners, without exception, find refuge for every sin that they may have committed, provided only that they go there to seek for this protection and seek to leave sin behind. “I am the city of refuge,” says St. John Damascene, in the name of our Queen, “to all who fly to me.”
And it is sufficient to have recourse to her, for whoever has the good fortune to enter this city need not speak to be saved. “Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fenced city, and let us be silent there” (Jeremias 8:14), say the words of the prophet Jeremias. According to St. Albert the Great, this city is the most holy Virgin and it is fenced-in with grace and glory. One commentary on this passage says: “And let us be silent there, because we dare not invoke the Lord, Whom we have offended, yet is she that will invoke and ask for us.” For if we do not dare, in our wretchedness and consequent humility, to ask Our Lord to forgive us, it will suffice for us to enter this city and be silent, for Mary will speak and ask all that we require. And for this reason, all sinners are exhorted to take refuge under the mantle of Mary, “the only hope of sinners,” as she is also called in a sermon by an ancient writer, found in the works of St. Augustine.
Hospital for Sinners
St. Ephrem, addressing the Blessed Virgin, says, “Thou art the only advocate of sinners, and of all who are unprotected” and then he salutes her in the following words: “Hail, refuge and hospital of sinners!”—a true refuge, in which alone they can hope for a welcome and help. Another author states that this was the meaning of David, when he said, “For He hath hidden me in his tabernacle” (Psalm 26:5). What can this tabernacle of God be, unless it is Mary! St. Germanus, speaking of Mary, says: “A tabernacle made by God, in which He alone entered to accomplish the great work of the redemption of man.”
St. Basil of Seleucia makes a good point when he says: “If God could grant such a power to some who were only his servants, so that not only their touch, but even their shadows healed the sick, who were placed for this purpose in the public streets, how much greater must be the power that He has granted to Mary, who was not only his handmaid, but his Mother?” We may indeed say that Our Lord has given us Mary as a public infirmary or hospital, in which all who are sick, poor, and destitute can be received. But now I ask, in hospitals that have been built expressly for the poor, who have the greatest claim to admission? Certainly those who are most sick and those who are in the greatest need!
And for this reason should any one find himself devoid of merit and overwhelmed with spiritual infirmities, that is to say, sin, he can thus address Mary: “O Lady, thou art the refuge of the sick poor! Reject me not! For as I am the poorest and the most infirm of all! I have the greatest right to be welcomed by thee!”
Star of Mary
In the revelations of St. Bridget, Mary is called the “Star preceding the sun,” which means that when devotion towards the divine Mother begins to manifest itself in a soul, that is in a state of sin, it is a certain that before long God will enrich it with His grace. St. Bonaventure, in order to give or even revive the confidence of sinners in the protection of Mary, places before them the picture of a tempestuous sea, into which sinners have already fallen from the ship of divine grace; they are already beaten about on every side by remorse of conscience and by fear of the judgments of God; they are without light or guide, and are on the point of losing the last breath of what little hope remains and risk falling into despair. At that moment, Our Lord points out Mary to them, who is commonly called the “Star of the Sea,” raises His voice and says, “O poor lost sinners, despair not; raise up your eyes, and look upon this beautiful Star; breathe again with confidence, for this Star will save you from this tempest, and will guide you into the port of salvation.” St. Bernard says the same thing: “If you do not want to be lost in the tempest, cast your eyes on the Star, and invoke Mary.”
Mary Changes Lives
The holy Blosius (1606-1660) declares that “she is the only refuge of those who have offended God, the asylum of all who are oppressed by temptation, calamity, or persecution. This Mother is all mercy, benignity, and sweetness, not only to the just, but also to despairing sinners; so that no sooner does she perceive them coming to her, and seeking her health from their hearts, than she aids them, welcomes them, and obtains their pardon from her Son. She knows not how to despise any one, however unworthy he may be of mercy, and therefore denies her protection to none; she consoles all, and is no sooner called upon than she helps whoever it may be that invokes her. She, by her sweetness, often awakens and draws sinners to her devotion, who are the greatest enmity with God and those who are most deeply plunged in the lethargy of sin; and then, by the same means, she stirs them into action, and prepares them for grace, and thus makes them fit for the Kingdom of Heaven. God has created this His beloved daughter with so compassionate and sweet a disposition, that no one can fear to have recourse to her.” Blosius later concludes his passage in these words: “It is impossible for anyone to perish who attentively, and with humility, cultivates devotion towards this divine Mother”
In Ecclesiasticus Mary is called a plane-tree—these are trees that stand tall and high above most other trees, and are of a hardy nature, coping with all kinds of rough climates and terrains. “As a plane-tree I was exalted” (Ecclesiasticus 24:19). And she is called a “plane-tree” that sinners may understand that as the plane-tree gives shelter to travelers from the heat of the sun, so does Mary invite them to take shelter under her protection from the wrath of God, which has been justly enkindled against them on account of their sinfulness.
Holding Back God’s Sword of Justice
St. Bonaventure remarks that the prophet Isaias complained of the times in which he lived, saying, Behold thou art angry, and we have sinned . . . there is none . . . that riseth up and taketh hold of thee” (Isaias 64:5). Bonaventure comments upon Isaias’ words and the time he lived in with the following words: “It is true, O Lord, that at the time there was none to raise up sinners and without thy wrath, for Mary was not yet born … there was no one who could thus dare to restrain the arm of God.” But now, if God is angry with a sinner, and Mary takes him under her protection, she withholds the avenging arm of her Son, and saves him. “And so,” continues St. Bonaventure, “no one can be found more fit for this office than Mary, who seizes the sword of divine justice with her own hands to prevent it from falling upon and punishing the sinner.”
Basil of Seleucia encourages us sinners, saying, “O sinner, be not discouraged, but have recourse to Mary in all thy necessities; call her to thine assistance, for thou wilt always find her ready to help thee; for such is the divine will that she should help all in every kind of necessity.” This Mother of Mercy has so great a desire to save the most abandoned sinners, that she herself goes in search of them, in order to help them; and if they have recourse to her, she knows how to find the means to render them acceptable to God.
The Blessed Virgin herself revealed to St. Bridget “that there is no sinner in the world, however much he may be at enmity with God, who does not return to him and recover his grace, if he has recourse to her and asks her assistance.” The same St. Bridget one day heard Jesus Christ address His mother, and say that “she would be ready to obtain the grace of God for Lucifer himself, if only he humbled himself so far as to seek her aid.” That proud spirit will never humble himself so far as to implore the protection of Mary; but if such a thing were possible, Mary would be sufficiently compassionate, and her prayers would have sufficient power to obtain both forgiveness and salvation for him from God. This shows us the importance and necessity of humility, if we are to obtain the help of Mary. Which is why Our Lord said: “Learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart!” Without humility, it is impossible to please God.
Ark of Salvation
Noah's ark was a true figure of Mary; for as in it all kinds of beasts were saved, so, under the mantle of Mary all sinners—who by their vices, sins and sensuality are already like beasts—find refuge; but with this difference, as a spiritual writer points out, that “while the brutes that entered the ark remained brutes, the wolf remaining a wolf, and a tiger a tiger—under the mantle of Mary, on the other hand, the wolf becomes a lamb, and the tiger a dove.” One day St. Gertrude saw Mary with her mantle open, and under it there were many wild beats of different kinds—leopards, lions, and bears; and she saw that not only did Our Blessed Lady not drive them away, but that she welcomed and caressed them with her kind hand. The saint understood that these wild beasts were miserable sinners, who are welcomed by Mary with sweetness and love the moment they had recourse to her.
Ask and You Shall Receive
It was, then, not without reason that St. Bernard addressed the Blessed Virgin, saying, “Thou, O Lady, dost not reject any sinner who approaches thee, however loathsome and repugnant he may be. If he asks thy assistance, thou dost not disdain to extend thy compassionate hand to him, to extricate him from the gulf of despair.” Let us thank our God eternally for having created a Mother so sweet and kind, even towards the most miserable sinners! Woe to the sinner who ignores Mary and neglects to try and cultivate a love and a devotion to her! He who has not recourse to Mary is lost; but who was ever lost that had recourse to the most Blessed Virgin?
“There is not in the world,” says Blosius, “any sinner, however revolting and wicked, who is despised or rejected by Mary; she can, she wills, and she knows how to reconcile him to her most beloved Son, if only he will seek her assistance.”
St. Bernard cries out: “And who, O Lady, can be without confidence in thee, since thou assistest even those who are in despair? And I doubt not, that whenever we have recourse to thee, we shall obtain all that we desire. Let him, then, who is without hope, hope in thee.”
St. Antonine relates that there was a sinner who was at enmity with God, and who had a vision in which he found himself before the dread tribunal; the devil accused him, and Mary defended him. The enemy produced the catalogue of his sins; it was thrown into the scales of divine justice, and weighed far more than all his good works. But then his great advocate, extending her sweet hand, placed it on the balance, and so caused it to turn in favor of her sinful servant; thus making him understand that she would obtain his pardon if he changed his life; and this he did after the vision, and was entirely converted.
As we draw near to the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (July 16th), we should likewise draw nearer to Our Lady―especially in her role as a merciful Mother. What most people think of with regard to the feast of Our Lady of Mounts Carmel―is her merciful promise to save from Hell all those who devoutly and faithfully wear the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. What greater mercy is there than to saved from Hell?
Day and Night
In the first chapter of the Book of Genesis we read that God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night (Genesis 1:16). The renowned Cardinal Hugo says that “Christ is the greater light to rule the just, and Mary the lesser to rule the sinners”— meaning that the sun is a figure of Jesus Christ, whose light is enjoyed by all those who are living in daylight, that is to say, in a state of divine grace. The moon is a figure of Mary, who enlightens those who are living in the night of sin.
Merciful Moonlight
Since Mary is this merciful light that God has created for the benefit of poor sinners, what should those souls do, who have so unfortunate, or so foolish, as to fall into the night of sin? Pope Innocent III replies: “Whoever is in the night of sin, let him cast his eyes on the moon, let him implore Mary.” Since the sinner has lost the light of the sun of justice, by losing the grace of God; let him turn to the moon, and beseech Mary and she will certainly give him the sinner enough light to see the misery of his state, and strength to leave it without delay by returning to God through confession. St. Methodius says “that by the prayers of Mary almost innumerable sinners are converted.”
Refuge of Sinners
One of the most encouraging titles that appeals to poor sinners, and under which the Church teaches us to invoke Mary in the Litany of Loreto, is that of “Refuge of Sinners.” In Judea, in ancient times, there were cities of refuge, in which criminals, who fled there for protection, were exempt from the punishments which they had deserved. In the Middle Ages, a criminal who managed to make it to a church, could claim “sanctuary” in that church, and would not be handed over to the powers of justice as long as he remained in that church. Nowadays these cities and this power of “sanctuary” are no longer available—though there are some countries to which a criminal escape for safe haven, of they did not have an extradition agreement with the country from which he was fleeing.
Heavenly City of Refuge
Yet, in the supernatural realm, there is still a safe haven, or “sanctuary” to be found. There is only one, that is Mary, of whom the Psalmist says “Glorious things are said of thee, O city of God” (Psalm 86:3). This city differs from the ancient cities— for in the earthly cities, refuge was limited. Not all kinds of criminals could find refuge there, nor was the protection extended to every kind of crime. However, in the heavenly city, under the mantle of Mary, all sinners, without exception, find refuge for every sin that they may have committed, provided only that they go there to seek for this protection and seek to leave sin behind. “I am the city of refuge,” says St. John Damascene, in the name of our Queen, “to all who fly to me.”
And it is sufficient to have recourse to her, for whoever has the good fortune to enter this city need not speak to be saved. “Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fenced city, and let us be silent there” (Jeremias 8:14), say the words of the prophet Jeremias. According to St. Albert the Great, this city is the most holy Virgin and it is fenced-in with grace and glory. One commentary on this passage says: “And let us be silent there, because we dare not invoke the Lord, Whom we have offended, yet is she that will invoke and ask for us.” For if we do not dare, in our wretchedness and consequent humility, to ask Our Lord to forgive us, it will suffice for us to enter this city and be silent, for Mary will speak and ask all that we require. And for this reason, all sinners are exhorted to take refuge under the mantle of Mary, “the only hope of sinners,” as she is also called in a sermon by an ancient writer, found in the works of St. Augustine.
Hospital for Sinners
St. Ephrem, addressing the Blessed Virgin, says, “Thou art the only advocate of sinners, and of all who are unprotected” and then he salutes her in the following words: “Hail, refuge and hospital of sinners!”—a true refuge, in which alone they can hope for a welcome and help. Another author states that this was the meaning of David, when he said, “For He hath hidden me in his tabernacle” (Psalm 26:5). What can this tabernacle of God be, unless it is Mary! St. Germanus, speaking of Mary, says: “A tabernacle made by God, in which He alone entered to accomplish the great work of the redemption of man.”
St. Basil of Seleucia makes a good point when he says: “If God could grant such a power to some who were only his servants, so that not only their touch, but even their shadows healed the sick, who were placed for this purpose in the public streets, how much greater must be the power that He has granted to Mary, who was not only his handmaid, but his Mother?” We may indeed say that Our Lord has given us Mary as a public infirmary or hospital, in which all who are sick, poor, and destitute can be received. But now I ask, in hospitals that have been built expressly for the poor, who have the greatest claim to admission? Certainly those who are most sick and those who are in the greatest need!
And for this reason should any one find himself devoid of merit and overwhelmed with spiritual infirmities, that is to say, sin, he can thus address Mary: “O Lady, thou art the refuge of the sick poor! Reject me not! For as I am the poorest and the most infirm of all! I have the greatest right to be welcomed by thee!”
Star of Mary
In the revelations of St. Bridget, Mary is called the “Star preceding the sun,” which means that when devotion towards the divine Mother begins to manifest itself in a soul, that is in a state of sin, it is a certain that before long God will enrich it with His grace. St. Bonaventure, in order to give or even revive the confidence of sinners in the protection of Mary, places before them the picture of a tempestuous sea, into which sinners have already fallen from the ship of divine grace; they are already beaten about on every side by remorse of conscience and by fear of the judgments of God; they are without light or guide, and are on the point of losing the last breath of what little hope remains and risk falling into despair. At that moment, Our Lord points out Mary to them, who is commonly called the “Star of the Sea,” raises His voice and says, “O poor lost sinners, despair not; raise up your eyes, and look upon this beautiful Star; breathe again with confidence, for this Star will save you from this tempest, and will guide you into the port of salvation.” St. Bernard says the same thing: “If you do not want to be lost in the tempest, cast your eyes on the Star, and invoke Mary.”
Mary Changes Lives
The holy Blosius (1606-1660) declares that “she is the only refuge of those who have offended God, the asylum of all who are oppressed by temptation, calamity, or persecution. This Mother is all mercy, benignity, and sweetness, not only to the just, but also to despairing sinners; so that no sooner does she perceive them coming to her, and seeking her health from their hearts, than she aids them, welcomes them, and obtains their pardon from her Son. She knows not how to despise any one, however unworthy he may be of mercy, and therefore denies her protection to none; she consoles all, and is no sooner called upon than she helps whoever it may be that invokes her. She, by her sweetness, often awakens and draws sinners to her devotion, who are the greatest enmity with God and those who are most deeply plunged in the lethargy of sin; and then, by the same means, she stirs them into action, and prepares them for grace, and thus makes them fit for the Kingdom of Heaven. God has created this His beloved daughter with so compassionate and sweet a disposition, that no one can fear to have recourse to her.” Blosius later concludes his passage in these words: “It is impossible for anyone to perish who attentively, and with humility, cultivates devotion towards this divine Mother”
In Ecclesiasticus Mary is called a plane-tree—these are trees that stand tall and high above most other trees, and are of a hardy nature, coping with all kinds of rough climates and terrains. “As a plane-tree I was exalted” (Ecclesiasticus 24:19). And she is called a “plane-tree” that sinners may understand that as the plane-tree gives shelter to travelers from the heat of the sun, so does Mary invite them to take shelter under her protection from the wrath of God, which has been justly enkindled against them on account of their sinfulness.
Holding Back God’s Sword of Justice
St. Bonaventure remarks that the prophet Isaias complained of the times in which he lived, saying, Behold thou art angry, and we have sinned . . . there is none . . . that riseth up and taketh hold of thee” (Isaias 64:5). Bonaventure comments upon Isaias’ words and the time he lived in with the following words: “It is true, O Lord, that at the time there was none to raise up sinners and without thy wrath, for Mary was not yet born … there was no one who could thus dare to restrain the arm of God.” But now, if God is angry with a sinner, and Mary takes him under her protection, she withholds the avenging arm of her Son, and saves him. “And so,” continues St. Bonaventure, “no one can be found more fit for this office than Mary, who seizes the sword of divine justice with her own hands to prevent it from falling upon and punishing the sinner.”
Basil of Seleucia encourages us sinners, saying, “O sinner, be not discouraged, but have recourse to Mary in all thy necessities; call her to thine assistance, for thou wilt always find her ready to help thee; for such is the divine will that she should help all in every kind of necessity.” This Mother of Mercy has so great a desire to save the most abandoned sinners, that she herself goes in search of them, in order to help them; and if they have recourse to her, she knows how to find the means to render them acceptable to God.
The Blessed Virgin herself revealed to St. Bridget “that there is no sinner in the world, however much he may be at enmity with God, who does not return to him and recover his grace, if he has recourse to her and asks her assistance.” The same St. Bridget one day heard Jesus Christ address His mother, and say that “she would be ready to obtain the grace of God for Lucifer himself, if only he humbled himself so far as to seek her aid.” That proud spirit will never humble himself so far as to implore the protection of Mary; but if such a thing were possible, Mary would be sufficiently compassionate, and her prayers would have sufficient power to obtain both forgiveness and salvation for him from God. This shows us the importance and necessity of humility, if we are to obtain the help of Mary. Which is why Our Lord said: “Learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart!” Without humility, it is impossible to please God.
Ark of Salvation
Noah's ark was a true figure of Mary; for as in it all kinds of beasts were saved, so, under the mantle of Mary all sinners—who by their vices, sins and sensuality are already like beasts—find refuge; but with this difference, as a spiritual writer points out, that “while the brutes that entered the ark remained brutes, the wolf remaining a wolf, and a tiger a tiger—under the mantle of Mary, on the other hand, the wolf becomes a lamb, and the tiger a dove.” One day St. Gertrude saw Mary with her mantle open, and under it there were many wild beats of different kinds—leopards, lions, and bears; and she saw that not only did Our Blessed Lady not drive them away, but that she welcomed and caressed them with her kind hand. The saint understood that these wild beasts were miserable sinners, who are welcomed by Mary with sweetness and love the moment they had recourse to her.
Ask and You Shall Receive
It was, then, not without reason that St. Bernard addressed the Blessed Virgin, saying, “Thou, O Lady, dost not reject any sinner who approaches thee, however loathsome and repugnant he may be. If he asks thy assistance, thou dost not disdain to extend thy compassionate hand to him, to extricate him from the gulf of despair.” Let us thank our God eternally for having created a Mother so sweet and kind, even towards the most miserable sinners! Woe to the sinner who ignores Mary and neglects to try and cultivate a love and a devotion to her! He who has not recourse to Mary is lost; but who was ever lost that had recourse to the most Blessed Virgin?
“There is not in the world,” says Blosius, “any sinner, however revolting and wicked, who is despised or rejected by Mary; she can, she wills, and she knows how to reconcile him to her most beloved Son, if only he will seek her assistance.”
St. Bernard cries out: “And who, O Lady, can be without confidence in thee, since thou assistest even those who are in despair? And I doubt not, that whenever we have recourse to thee, we shall obtain all that we desire. Let him, then, who is without hope, hope in thee.”
St. Antonine relates that there was a sinner who was at enmity with God, and who had a vision in which he found himself before the dread tribunal; the devil accused him, and Mary defended him. The enemy produced the catalogue of his sins; it was thrown into the scales of divine justice, and weighed far more than all his good works. But then his great advocate, extending her sweet hand, placed it on the balance, and so caused it to turn in favor of her sinful servant; thus making him understand that she would obtain his pardon if he changed his life; and this he did after the vision, and was entirely converted.
Article 7
Tuesday July 11th to Thursday July 13th, 2023
Waste of Blood and Suffering
Tuesday July 11th to Thursday July 13th, 2023
Waste of Blood and Suffering
Waste of Food
Roughly a third of the world’s food is wasted. That’s about 1.3 billion tons a year. The world loses an astounding quantity of food every year. It may blow your mind―but a third of all food for human consumption in the world is lost or wasted. How much food waste is there in the United States? Each year, 120 billion pounds of food is wasted in the United States. Around 330 million pounds of food is wasted across the U.S every day. That equates to over 130 billion meals and more than $408 billion in food thrown away each year.
Waste of Water
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the average U.S. home wastes 90 gallons of water per day. That adds up quickly — 10,000 gallons of wasted water per household per year, and over 1 trillion gallons for the whole country if you tally the national average. Water comes out of our faucets/taps at a rate of around 1.5 to 2.5 gallons per minute (average 2 gallons per minute). Too often we needlessly let the water run out of the faucet when there is no real need―we could turn it off for a moment and turn it back on when we need it. Simply using too much water can very easily be done by anyone. Running a very long shower―an average 10 minute shower will use around 25 gallons of water, whereas a bath in a bathtub will use anywhere from 30 to 50 gallons of water. Loading your washing machine too regularly or washing less than full loads in the clothes washer. Typical clothes washers use 35-50 gallons per load whether full or not. Running a dishwasher that is not full. Not using a stopper when filling the sink to wash dishes by hand and therefore rinsing all dishes (at times for way too long) under running water. Leaving the faucet/tap running when brushing your teeth―can result in 5 gallons of water to be wasted (2 gallons per minute). A leaky faucet that drips at the rate of one drip per second, can waste more than 3,000 gallons per year, or almost 10 gallons per day. Using the garden hose to wash down sidewalks instead of using a broom. A garden hose can use more than 10 gallons of water per minute! Watering with a typical sprinkler using a standard 5/8” garden hose for one hour uses about 1,020 gallons of water; if you water for one hour three times per week, that's about 12,240 gallons per month. These are just some of the many examples of how easy it is to waste this valuable resource.
Waste of Money
Some people delight in being able to own and show-off expensive products and things―whether it be a house, a car, a boat or yacht, jewelry, watches, clothes, furniture, paintings, statues, ornaments, wines, beverages, foods, etc. The most expensive wristwatches are priced in the millions of dollars range―with the most expensive being over $50 million dollars. If you want a cheaper one―there are plenty in lower million range, some as ‘cheap’ as $1 million! If you don’t have millions to spend―then there are lots of brands for the ‘poorer’ people, ranging from $100,000 to $900,000.
The most expensive dress in the world currently is the Nightingale of Kuala Lumpur designed by Faisal Abdullah. Released in 2009, the dress is valued at an astounding $30 million. You can buy a floor length mink bathrobe for $21,380; or a Gucci fur jacket for $38,000; or take your pick from a wide variety of dresses in $20,000 to $30,000 range.
Want some expensive underwear? Check out the Dior Briefs at $1,600. How about Nice Laundry’s $1,400 cashmere boxers embroidered with a flying pig in thread that’s coated with 24-karat gold. Want something cheaper? How about Gucci’s Floral Lace Shorts for only $850; or Gucci’s Medusa Silk Boxers for only $875?
Want to drive around in an expensive car? The cheap side of expensive cars starts in the $1million range with 12 models of car available. Stepping up into the $2 million range, you can choose from 14 models. Want something fancier? Then choose from 11 models in the $3 million range. Still not satisfied, then choose one of two cars in the $4 million range. Do you really want to stand out? Then the $5 million range offers you a choice of 3 models. After that you there is one model that costs $6.4 million; another costs $7.4 million; another costs $8 million; another costs $9 million; another costs $10.8 million; another costs $12.8 million; another costs $13.4 million; and the top of the range costs $28 million.
Currently, Buckingham Palace in London is the most expensive house in the world, valued at $1.3 billion. In second place comes Antilia, in Mubai, India, valued at $1 billion. A 105,000-square-foot Los Angeles mega-mansion known as “The One” had an asking price of $500 million and, after bankruptcy is now listed at $295 million, making it the most expensive listing in the U.S. It has 21 bedrooms 42 bathrooms, its own nightclub, a full-service beauty salon, a wellness spa, a home theater that seats 40, a bowling alley, a 10,000-bottle wine cellar, 30-car garage and a 400-foot private outdoor running track. One has to wonder what Our Lord will think of such houses on Judgment Day?
If wine is your delight―then you can get a bottle of Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon 1992, which will cost you over US $500,000―yes, half-a-million dollars! With around 5 glasses per bottle or around 50 sips per bottle―that is around $100,000 per glass of wine or around $10,000 per sip or mouthful! For those who prefer a cheaper wine, you can have a bottle of Chateau Cheval Blanc 1947, for only US $305,000 ($60,000 per glass, or $6,000 per sip), or a bottle of Jeroboam of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1945, for only US $310,000 ($60,000 per glass, or $6,000 per sip). If you want a drastically cheaper wine, then get a bottle of Chateau Lafite 1869, for only US $230,000 ($46,000 per glass, or $6,000 per sip), or a bottle of Chateau Margaux 1787, for US $225,000 ($45,000 per glass, or $5,100 per sip).
If coffee is your love in life―or if you need to sober-up after binging on your expensive wine―then how about trying Black Ivory Coffee from Thailand, at US $1,100 per pound! Of if you prefer a cheaper coffee, how about Kopi Luwak from Indonesia, at US $600 per pound. Finca El Injerto from Guatamela will only set you back US $500 per pound. You can get around 45 cups of coffee per pound of coffee―so the above coffees would cost the following per cup: Black Ivory $24 per cup; Kopi Luwak $13 per cup; Finca El Injerto $11 per cup.
It is of no surprise that Our Lord said: “Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you―It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 19:23-24). To which the Holy Ghost, the author of Holy Scripture, adds: “Gold and silver hath destroyed many” (Ecclesiasticus 8:3) … “When a man shall be made rich, and when the glory of his house shall be increased … When he shall die, he shall take nothing away; nor shall his glory descend with him” (Psalm 48:18) ... “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries which shall come upon you! Your riches are corrupted! Your gold and silver is cankered―and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up to yourselves wrath against the last days!” (James 5:1-3).
Housing expense always tops the list, making up more than 30% of annual spending. Transportation always comes second, followed by food, personal insurance and pensions, health care, and then entertainment.
Roughly a third of the world’s food is wasted. That’s about 1.3 billion tons a year. The world loses an astounding quantity of food every year. It may blow your mind―but a third of all food for human consumption in the world is lost or wasted. How much food waste is there in the United States? Each year, 120 billion pounds of food is wasted in the United States. Around 330 million pounds of food is wasted across the U.S every day. That equates to over 130 billion meals and more than $408 billion in food thrown away each year.
Waste of Water
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the average U.S. home wastes 90 gallons of water per day. That adds up quickly — 10,000 gallons of wasted water per household per year, and over 1 trillion gallons for the whole country if you tally the national average. Water comes out of our faucets/taps at a rate of around 1.5 to 2.5 gallons per minute (average 2 gallons per minute). Too often we needlessly let the water run out of the faucet when there is no real need―we could turn it off for a moment and turn it back on when we need it. Simply using too much water can very easily be done by anyone. Running a very long shower―an average 10 minute shower will use around 25 gallons of water, whereas a bath in a bathtub will use anywhere from 30 to 50 gallons of water. Loading your washing machine too regularly or washing less than full loads in the clothes washer. Typical clothes washers use 35-50 gallons per load whether full or not. Running a dishwasher that is not full. Not using a stopper when filling the sink to wash dishes by hand and therefore rinsing all dishes (at times for way too long) under running water. Leaving the faucet/tap running when brushing your teeth―can result in 5 gallons of water to be wasted (2 gallons per minute). A leaky faucet that drips at the rate of one drip per second, can waste more than 3,000 gallons per year, or almost 10 gallons per day. Using the garden hose to wash down sidewalks instead of using a broom. A garden hose can use more than 10 gallons of water per minute! Watering with a typical sprinkler using a standard 5/8” garden hose for one hour uses about 1,020 gallons of water; if you water for one hour three times per week, that's about 12,240 gallons per month. These are just some of the many examples of how easy it is to waste this valuable resource.
Waste of Money
Some people delight in being able to own and show-off expensive products and things―whether it be a house, a car, a boat or yacht, jewelry, watches, clothes, furniture, paintings, statues, ornaments, wines, beverages, foods, etc. The most expensive wristwatches are priced in the millions of dollars range―with the most expensive being over $50 million dollars. If you want a cheaper one―there are plenty in lower million range, some as ‘cheap’ as $1 million! If you don’t have millions to spend―then there are lots of brands for the ‘poorer’ people, ranging from $100,000 to $900,000.
The most expensive dress in the world currently is the Nightingale of Kuala Lumpur designed by Faisal Abdullah. Released in 2009, the dress is valued at an astounding $30 million. You can buy a floor length mink bathrobe for $21,380; or a Gucci fur jacket for $38,000; or take your pick from a wide variety of dresses in $20,000 to $30,000 range.
Want some expensive underwear? Check out the Dior Briefs at $1,600. How about Nice Laundry’s $1,400 cashmere boxers embroidered with a flying pig in thread that’s coated with 24-karat gold. Want something cheaper? How about Gucci’s Floral Lace Shorts for only $850; or Gucci’s Medusa Silk Boxers for only $875?
Want to drive around in an expensive car? The cheap side of expensive cars starts in the $1million range with 12 models of car available. Stepping up into the $2 million range, you can choose from 14 models. Want something fancier? Then choose from 11 models in the $3 million range. Still not satisfied, then choose one of two cars in the $4 million range. Do you really want to stand out? Then the $5 million range offers you a choice of 3 models. After that you there is one model that costs $6.4 million; another costs $7.4 million; another costs $8 million; another costs $9 million; another costs $10.8 million; another costs $12.8 million; another costs $13.4 million; and the top of the range costs $28 million.
Currently, Buckingham Palace in London is the most expensive house in the world, valued at $1.3 billion. In second place comes Antilia, in Mubai, India, valued at $1 billion. A 105,000-square-foot Los Angeles mega-mansion known as “The One” had an asking price of $500 million and, after bankruptcy is now listed at $295 million, making it the most expensive listing in the U.S. It has 21 bedrooms 42 bathrooms, its own nightclub, a full-service beauty salon, a wellness spa, a home theater that seats 40, a bowling alley, a 10,000-bottle wine cellar, 30-car garage and a 400-foot private outdoor running track. One has to wonder what Our Lord will think of such houses on Judgment Day?
If wine is your delight―then you can get a bottle of Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon 1992, which will cost you over US $500,000―yes, half-a-million dollars! With around 5 glasses per bottle or around 50 sips per bottle―that is around $100,000 per glass of wine or around $10,000 per sip or mouthful! For those who prefer a cheaper wine, you can have a bottle of Chateau Cheval Blanc 1947, for only US $305,000 ($60,000 per glass, or $6,000 per sip), or a bottle of Jeroboam of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1945, for only US $310,000 ($60,000 per glass, or $6,000 per sip). If you want a drastically cheaper wine, then get a bottle of Chateau Lafite 1869, for only US $230,000 ($46,000 per glass, or $6,000 per sip), or a bottle of Chateau Margaux 1787, for US $225,000 ($45,000 per glass, or $5,100 per sip).
If coffee is your love in life―or if you need to sober-up after binging on your expensive wine―then how about trying Black Ivory Coffee from Thailand, at US $1,100 per pound! Of if you prefer a cheaper coffee, how about Kopi Luwak from Indonesia, at US $600 per pound. Finca El Injerto from Guatamela will only set you back US $500 per pound. You can get around 45 cups of coffee per pound of coffee―so the above coffees would cost the following per cup: Black Ivory $24 per cup; Kopi Luwak $13 per cup; Finca El Injerto $11 per cup.
It is of no surprise that Our Lord said: “Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you―It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 19:23-24). To which the Holy Ghost, the author of Holy Scripture, adds: “Gold and silver hath destroyed many” (Ecclesiasticus 8:3) … “When a man shall be made rich, and when the glory of his house shall be increased … When he shall die, he shall take nothing away; nor shall his glory descend with him” (Psalm 48:18) ... “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries which shall come upon you! Your riches are corrupted! Your gold and silver is cankered―and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up to yourselves wrath against the last days!” (James 5:1-3).
Housing expense always tops the list, making up more than 30% of annual spending. Transportation always comes second, followed by food, personal insurance and pensions, health care, and then entertainment.
Wasting Time
In all career fields, the average worker is productive for only 60% or less each day―with 40% of that time being wasted. For office workers, however, that percentage drops drastically―with much more time being wasted. Research has determined that the average office worker is only productive for two hours and 23 minutes each day. Assuming an eight-hour workday, office workers are generally unproductive for five hours and 37 minutes (67% of) each day. That’s a massive chunk of time and employer’s money wasted every day. The rest of their shift is spent on other activities, such as:
Checking social media
Reading news websites or other websites
Discussing out of work activities with colleagues
Making hot drinks
Taking smoking breaks
Text/instant messaging
Eating snacks
Making food in the office
Making calls to family or friends
Searching for new jobs
Furthermore, researchers say it takes people 23 minutes to get fully refocused after an interruption, but luckily, interruptions don’t happen that often, right? Wrong! According to a study conducted by researchers at the University of California, employees are interrupted or distracted by something or someone approximately every three minutes and five seconds. Let’s repeat that―every three minutes and five seconds, and that’s followed by 23 minutes of trying to totally refocus.
Although meetings are not always a gigantic waste of time, research has shown that they are not always productive either. One study yielded the following shocking results about meetings:
91% of employees daydream in meetings
39% of employees have slept in meetings
96% of people have missed at least one “mandatory” meeting
73% of people worked on other work while in a meeting
50% of employees consider meetings wasted time
89% of employees complain about “ineffective or poorly organized meetings”
That is quite a bit of wasted and ill-used time.
How People Spend Their Time Each Day
The chart below gives some indication as to how most people spend their day. Of course, there is no such person as “the average person” and therefore the times indicated will vary from person to person. Please note that the PAID WORK column does not indicate how many hours a person is employed (e.g., from 9am to 5pm), but ONLY how many hours/minutes the person ACTUALLY works between, for example 9am and 5pm―it does not include IDLE TIME or DOWN TIME or time when no work is actually being done. Hence, in the chart below, it lists 251 minutes (4 hours 11 minutes) as being the average time spent doing actual work during a working day of, let's say, 8 hours.
In all career fields, the average worker is productive for only 60% or less each day―with 40% of that time being wasted. For office workers, however, that percentage drops drastically―with much more time being wasted. Research has determined that the average office worker is only productive for two hours and 23 minutes each day. Assuming an eight-hour workday, office workers are generally unproductive for five hours and 37 minutes (67% of) each day. That’s a massive chunk of time and employer’s money wasted every day. The rest of their shift is spent on other activities, such as:
Checking social media
Reading news websites or other websites
Discussing out of work activities with colleagues
Making hot drinks
Taking smoking breaks
Text/instant messaging
Eating snacks
Making food in the office
Making calls to family or friends
Searching for new jobs
Furthermore, researchers say it takes people 23 minutes to get fully refocused after an interruption, but luckily, interruptions don’t happen that often, right? Wrong! According to a study conducted by researchers at the University of California, employees are interrupted or distracted by something or someone approximately every three minutes and five seconds. Let’s repeat that―every three minutes and five seconds, and that’s followed by 23 minutes of trying to totally refocus.
Although meetings are not always a gigantic waste of time, research has shown that they are not always productive either. One study yielded the following shocking results about meetings:
91% of employees daydream in meetings
39% of employees have slept in meetings
96% of people have missed at least one “mandatory” meeting
73% of people worked on other work while in a meeting
50% of employees consider meetings wasted time
89% of employees complain about “ineffective or poorly organized meetings”
That is quite a bit of wasted and ill-used time.
How People Spend Their Time Each Day
The chart below gives some indication as to how most people spend their day. Of course, there is no such person as “the average person” and therefore the times indicated will vary from person to person. Please note that the PAID WORK column does not indicate how many hours a person is employed (e.g., from 9am to 5pm), but ONLY how many hours/minutes the person ACTUALLY works between, for example 9am and 5pm―it does not include IDLE TIME or DOWN TIME or time when no work is actually being done. Hence, in the chart below, it lists 251 minutes (4 hours 11 minutes) as being the average time spent doing actual work during a working day of, let's say, 8 hours.
Below is a chart that breakdowns the time spent by Americans in various chief activities throughout the day. The chart breaks down the US into each individual state. Please notice the highlighted column that shows how much time is spent on religious activities. Please note that the “averages” for religious activities include those persons who do nothing at all with regard to religion―meaning that they do not pray or read religious materials.
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Wasting Time on Screens The latest figures suggest the average person spends upwards of 40% of their waking hours on an internet-connected screen. From smartphones to tablets and smartwatches to TVs―screens are everywhere. Alongside (on the left) you will see a chart that shows the average US screen time viewing from the year 2013 to 2021. The average American spends 7 hours and 4 minutes staring at a screen per day. Globally, the average screen time per day is 6 hours 58 minutes. The average American spends over 2 hours a day on social media. 93.5% of Americans stream TV on the internet. Americans spend an average of 3 hours and 43 minutes on their internet access smartphones per day and an average of 2 hours and 45 minutes watching television. American teenagers from lower-income households (below $35,000 annual household income) spend 9 hours and 19 minutes on their screens each day. That is 2 hours and 3 minutes more than the 7 hours and 16 minutes averaged by teenagers from higher income households ($100,000+ annual household income). Below is a chart showing 20 of the most active screen time users throughout the world: |
What Are They Wasting Time On?
The June 2023, US Bureau of Labor Statistics report (USDL-23-1364), on how Americans used their time, under the section dealing with Leisure and Sports Activities in 2022, gave the following statistics on time usage ON ANY SINGLE DAY:
● On an average day, nearly everyone (95%), age 15 and over, engaged in some sort of leisure and sport activity, such as watching TV, socializing, exercising, etc. Men spent more time in these activities than did women (5.6 hours for men, compared with 4.8 hours for women).
● On average, adults age 75 and over, spent 7.5 hours engaged in leisure and sports activities per day―more than any other age group; those ages 25 to 54 averaged 4.2 hours doing leisure and sports activities per day―less than other age groups.
● Watching TV was the leisure and sports activity that occupied the most time (2.8 hours per day), accounting for over half of all leisure time, on average.
● Playing games and computer use for leisure, and socializing and communicating were the next most common leisure and sports activities after watching TV. On an average day, individuals spent 34 minutes playing games and using a computer for leisure and 34 minutes socializing and communicating. They spent twice as much time socializing on weekend days (53 minutes) as on weekdays (25 minutes).
● Time spent reading for personal interest and playing games or using a computer for leisure varied greatly by age. On an average day, individuals age 75 and over spent 40 minutes reading while those ages 15 to 19 read for 13 minutes. Conversely, individuals age 15 to 19 spent 1 hour and 38 minutes playing games or using a computer on an average day, while those ages 75 and older spent 29 minutes doing so.
● Employed adults, living in households with no children under age 18, engaged in leisure and sports activities for 4.6 hours per day, over an hour more than did employed adults living with a child under age 6 (3.4 hours).
The New Gods and Idols of Today
Today, we have more leisure time (a.k.a. free time) than ever before in the history of mankind. The work that most of us do is light and easy compared to the work that our ancestors had to do. We have power tools, they only had “elbow grease”! We have computers, the internet, Artificial Intelligence, search engines, etc ― they only had pen and paper and had to find out things the hard way! In a certain sense, we were “born with a silver spoon in our mouth” and pretty much have most things “laid on a plate” for us. Most people in the Western World today live like kings and queens compared to the folk who lived 500 or 1,000 years ago. Yet they were just as human just as we are―except they had far less in comparison to us. Modern technology is a very recent development―the things we take for granted today, could not even have been imagined in the past.
Nobody had a car. They had no planes, no trains, no buses. They had no insulated homes, with double-glazed windows, mosquito screens, and window fans. They had no refrigerators, freezers, coolers, electric or gas ovens, microwaves, dishwashers, laundry machines, clothes dryers. They had no television sets, radios, video-players, sound-systems, telephones, smartphones, i-pads, internet, computers. No power tools, electrical kitchen appliances, vacuum cleaners, floor-polishers, generators, water-pumps, running-water, showers, indoor flushing toilets, sewer system. No garbage collection, no mail and parcel deliveries, no house insurance, no medical insurance, no hospital care, no emergency rooms, no x-rays, scans, etc. They had no supermarkets with shelves stocked with supplies that no king or queen of old ever saw or could choose from! Neither did they have the plethora of other stores that we have available today. Life is certainly easier today than at any other time in the history of the world.
Idols Attract and Distract
All of these things have become modern-day idols, modern-day gods, that attract and distract us from the One True God Whom we should be loving with our whole mind, heart, soul and strength: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Instead, we worship our modern-days idols with our whole mind, heart, soul and strength! Going back to the above chart on the time spent on a variety of activities during each day, we see that religious activities are only given an average of 9 minutes a day! Heck! We spend far more time peeing that we do praying! Far time in the bathroom than time with God! Scripture asks: “Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? Or distress? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or persecution? Or the sword?” (Romans 8:35). The answer stares us in the face as we read through the above list of modern-day technological “goodies” ― those are things that we focus upon the most and love the most! They separate us from the love of Christ!
Now, of course, you are above the average―but can it be truly said that you live up to God’s commands in Holy Scripture: “Love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength!” (Mark 12:30) … “Seek first the kingdom of God!” (Luke 12:3) … “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … No man can serve two masters! … You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24) … “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world!” (1 John 2:15) … “Be not conformed to this world!” (Romans 12:2) … “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) … “We ought always to pray, and not to faint!” (Luke 18:1) … “Why do you see the splinter that is in your brother’s eye; and cannot see the plank that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3) … “Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you!” (Matthew 5:44) … “Abound in charity towards one another and towards all men!” (1 Thessalonians 3:12) … “If someone strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other cheek!” (Matthew 5:39) … “Forgive men their offences … not only seven times, but seventy times seven times!” (Matthew 6:14; 18:22) … “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23) … “Whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27), etc., etc.
Wasting Time on Idols―Wasting the Blood of Christ
It is impossible to say that you love God with your whole heart, whole mind, whole soul and whole strength when you spend the whole of your free time watching television, surfing the internet, browsing social media, following sports, listening to music, etc. A few minutes given to God and hours given to those preoccupations. The heart is not with God! “For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also!” (Matthew 6:21). To such people Our Lord says: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips―but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8). If you read a serious book on spirituality, then you will see that the whole purpose of life is to detach ourselves more and more from the world with its material things, and attach ourselves more and more to God and spiritual things.
We, on the contrary―more often than not―cannot wait to detach ourselves from our spiritual duties in order to attach ourselves to our earthly attractions and distractions! The Rosary cannot end fast enough! The Mass cannot finish fast enough! The sermon cannot be short enough! We never, or rarely, dig deeper into the Rosary by actually meditating upon its mysteries―it takes too long! Thanksgiving after Mass is like the express lane checkout at the supermarket―12 items or less. We give God “twelve” words of thanksgiving and off we rush to the parking-lot or cafeteria to gossip our time away! We assist at Mass on “auto-pilot”―we have already read the prayers of the Mass thousands of times and there is nothing in them to excite or move us anymore. The prayers just drip from the lip and fail to jump-start the heart. Our spirituality slowly descends into a “zombie-like” spirituality that becomes meaningless and ineffective. The Precious Blood that Christ offers for us in each and every Mass just flows off us like water flows off a duck’s back. What a waste of Christ’s Precious Blood! What a waste of Christ’s precious suffering!
St. Louis de Montfort―in addressing the poor way in which we pray the Rosary―could also apply the same idea to our poor, halfhearted, distracted attendance at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. St. Louis writes:
“A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly. Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should … How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? How can we expect him to be pleased if, while in the presence of His tremendous Majesty, we give in to distractions, like a child running after a butterfly? People who do that forfeit God’s blessing, which is changed into a curse for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: “Cursed be the one who does God’s work negligently” (Jeremias 48:10).
“Our Lady also taught it to Blessed Alan de la Roche and said to him in a vision, “When people say 150 Hail Marys, that prayer is very helpful to them and a most pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me more if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of this prayer.” For the Rosary said without the meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation would almost be a body without a soul, excellent matter, but without the form, which is the meditation.
“Being human, we easily become tired and slipshod, but the devil makes these difficulties worse when we are saying the Rosary. Before we even begin, he makes us feel bored, distracted, or exhausted; and when we have started praying, he oppresses us from all sides … It is a terrible battle, but one that is profitable to the faithful soul. If you put down your arms, that is, if you give up the Rosary, you will be admitting defeat and then the devil, having got what he wanted, will leave you in peace, and on the Day of Judgment will taunt you because of your faithlessness and lack of courage. “He who is faithful in little things will also be faithful in those that are greater” (Luke 16:10). He who is faithful in rejecting the smallest distractions when he says even the smallest prayer, will also be faithful in great things. Nothing is more certain, since the Holy Spirit has told us so.
“Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin. The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will.
“It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
The June 2023, US Bureau of Labor Statistics report (USDL-23-1364), on how Americans used their time, under the section dealing with Leisure and Sports Activities in 2022, gave the following statistics on time usage ON ANY SINGLE DAY:
● On an average day, nearly everyone (95%), age 15 and over, engaged in some sort of leisure and sport activity, such as watching TV, socializing, exercising, etc. Men spent more time in these activities than did women (5.6 hours for men, compared with 4.8 hours for women).
● On average, adults age 75 and over, spent 7.5 hours engaged in leisure and sports activities per day―more than any other age group; those ages 25 to 54 averaged 4.2 hours doing leisure and sports activities per day―less than other age groups.
● Watching TV was the leisure and sports activity that occupied the most time (2.8 hours per day), accounting for over half of all leisure time, on average.
● Playing games and computer use for leisure, and socializing and communicating were the next most common leisure and sports activities after watching TV. On an average day, individuals spent 34 minutes playing games and using a computer for leisure and 34 minutes socializing and communicating. They spent twice as much time socializing on weekend days (53 minutes) as on weekdays (25 minutes).
● Time spent reading for personal interest and playing games or using a computer for leisure varied greatly by age. On an average day, individuals age 75 and over spent 40 minutes reading while those ages 15 to 19 read for 13 minutes. Conversely, individuals age 15 to 19 spent 1 hour and 38 minutes playing games or using a computer on an average day, while those ages 75 and older spent 29 minutes doing so.
● Employed adults, living in households with no children under age 18, engaged in leisure and sports activities for 4.6 hours per day, over an hour more than did employed adults living with a child under age 6 (3.4 hours).
The New Gods and Idols of Today
Today, we have more leisure time (a.k.a. free time) than ever before in the history of mankind. The work that most of us do is light and easy compared to the work that our ancestors had to do. We have power tools, they only had “elbow grease”! We have computers, the internet, Artificial Intelligence, search engines, etc ― they only had pen and paper and had to find out things the hard way! In a certain sense, we were “born with a silver spoon in our mouth” and pretty much have most things “laid on a plate” for us. Most people in the Western World today live like kings and queens compared to the folk who lived 500 or 1,000 years ago. Yet they were just as human just as we are―except they had far less in comparison to us. Modern technology is a very recent development―the things we take for granted today, could not even have been imagined in the past.
Nobody had a car. They had no planes, no trains, no buses. They had no insulated homes, with double-glazed windows, mosquito screens, and window fans. They had no refrigerators, freezers, coolers, electric or gas ovens, microwaves, dishwashers, laundry machines, clothes dryers. They had no television sets, radios, video-players, sound-systems, telephones, smartphones, i-pads, internet, computers. No power tools, electrical kitchen appliances, vacuum cleaners, floor-polishers, generators, water-pumps, running-water, showers, indoor flushing toilets, sewer system. No garbage collection, no mail and parcel deliveries, no house insurance, no medical insurance, no hospital care, no emergency rooms, no x-rays, scans, etc. They had no supermarkets with shelves stocked with supplies that no king or queen of old ever saw or could choose from! Neither did they have the plethora of other stores that we have available today. Life is certainly easier today than at any other time in the history of the world.
Idols Attract and Distract
All of these things have become modern-day idols, modern-day gods, that attract and distract us from the One True God Whom we should be loving with our whole mind, heart, soul and strength: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Instead, we worship our modern-days idols with our whole mind, heart, soul and strength! Going back to the above chart on the time spent on a variety of activities during each day, we see that religious activities are only given an average of 9 minutes a day! Heck! We spend far more time peeing that we do praying! Far time in the bathroom than time with God! Scripture asks: “Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? Or distress? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or persecution? Or the sword?” (Romans 8:35). The answer stares us in the face as we read through the above list of modern-day technological “goodies” ― those are things that we focus upon the most and love the most! They separate us from the love of Christ!
Now, of course, you are above the average―but can it be truly said that you live up to God’s commands in Holy Scripture: “Love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength!” (Mark 12:30) … “Seek first the kingdom of God!” (Luke 12:3) … “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … No man can serve two masters! … You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24) … “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world!” (1 John 2:15) … “Be not conformed to this world!” (Romans 12:2) … “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) … “We ought always to pray, and not to faint!” (Luke 18:1) … “Why do you see the splinter that is in your brother’s eye; and cannot see the plank that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3) … “Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you!” (Matthew 5:44) … “Abound in charity towards one another and towards all men!” (1 Thessalonians 3:12) … “If someone strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other cheek!” (Matthew 5:39) … “Forgive men their offences … not only seven times, but seventy times seven times!” (Matthew 6:14; 18:22) … “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23) … “Whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27), etc., etc.
Wasting Time on Idols―Wasting the Blood of Christ
It is impossible to say that you love God with your whole heart, whole mind, whole soul and whole strength when you spend the whole of your free time watching television, surfing the internet, browsing social media, following sports, listening to music, etc. A few minutes given to God and hours given to those preoccupations. The heart is not with God! “For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also!” (Matthew 6:21). To such people Our Lord says: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips―but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8). If you read a serious book on spirituality, then you will see that the whole purpose of life is to detach ourselves more and more from the world with its material things, and attach ourselves more and more to God and spiritual things.
We, on the contrary―more often than not―cannot wait to detach ourselves from our spiritual duties in order to attach ourselves to our earthly attractions and distractions! The Rosary cannot end fast enough! The Mass cannot finish fast enough! The sermon cannot be short enough! We never, or rarely, dig deeper into the Rosary by actually meditating upon its mysteries―it takes too long! Thanksgiving after Mass is like the express lane checkout at the supermarket―12 items or less. We give God “twelve” words of thanksgiving and off we rush to the parking-lot or cafeteria to gossip our time away! We assist at Mass on “auto-pilot”―we have already read the prayers of the Mass thousands of times and there is nothing in them to excite or move us anymore. The prayers just drip from the lip and fail to jump-start the heart. Our spirituality slowly descends into a “zombie-like” spirituality that becomes meaningless and ineffective. The Precious Blood that Christ offers for us in each and every Mass just flows off us like water flows off a duck’s back. What a waste of Christ’s Precious Blood! What a waste of Christ’s precious suffering!
St. Louis de Montfort―in addressing the poor way in which we pray the Rosary―could also apply the same idea to our poor, halfhearted, distracted attendance at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. St. Louis writes:
“A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly. Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should … How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? How can we expect him to be pleased if, while in the presence of His tremendous Majesty, we give in to distractions, like a child running after a butterfly? People who do that forfeit God’s blessing, which is changed into a curse for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: “Cursed be the one who does God’s work negligently” (Jeremias 48:10).
“Our Lady also taught it to Blessed Alan de la Roche and said to him in a vision, “When people say 150 Hail Marys, that prayer is very helpful to them and a most pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me more if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of this prayer.” For the Rosary said without the meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation would almost be a body without a soul, excellent matter, but without the form, which is the meditation.
“Being human, we easily become tired and slipshod, but the devil makes these difficulties worse when we are saying the Rosary. Before we even begin, he makes us feel bored, distracted, or exhausted; and when we have started praying, he oppresses us from all sides … It is a terrible battle, but one that is profitable to the faithful soul. If you put down your arms, that is, if you give up the Rosary, you will be admitting defeat and then the devil, having got what he wanted, will leave you in peace, and on the Day of Judgment will taunt you because of your faithlessness and lack of courage. “He who is faithful in little things will also be faithful in those that are greater” (Luke 16:10). He who is faithful in rejecting the smallest distractions when he says even the smallest prayer, will also be faithful in great things. Nothing is more certain, since the Holy Spirit has told us so.
“Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin. The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will.
“It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
Article 6
Sunday July 9th & Monday July 10th, 2023
Dying to Live? Living to Die?
Sunday July 9th & Monday July 10th, 2023
Dying to Live? Living to Die?
Two Sides to Life and Death
Death is the world’s biggest employer! Death employs everyone! Everyone is on the payroll of death! “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). “Death reigned from Adam” (Romans 5:14). “By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin entered death; and death passed upon all men” (Romans 5:12). “Everyone shall die for his own sin” (Deuteronomy 24:16). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Everyone has their own views on life and death. Some fear death; some fear life. Some seek to escape death; some seek to escape this life. Some see death as an enemy, others see death as friend. Some seek to escape problems and hasten death through suicide; others prefer to suffer through their problems and await the moment of death that God will send.
It is not so much death that we should fear―it is life that we should fear, or more precisely, how we live that life. As the proverb says: “As a man lives, so shall he die!” Our Lord says that the devil and the world seek to kill and destroy, whereas He seeks to give us life―eternal life: “The thief only comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly!” (John 10:10). Our Lord tells us not to fear death, but to fear what could follow after death: “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul―but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell!” (Matthew 10:28). Holy Scripture adds: “If the wicked be not converted from his wickedness and from his evil way―he indeed shall die in his iniquity” (Ezechiel 3:19) ― meaning that he will go to Hell. “The wicked man shall be driven out in his wickedness―but the just hath hope in his death!” (Proverbs 14:32). That is why we should pray: “Let my soul die the death of the just, and my last end be like to them!” (Numbers 23:10).
There is, in a certain sense, nothing more important and consequential than death! That is why the Church tells us to OFTEN meditate on the “Four Last Things” ― which are Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. But hardly anybody does that―and if some do meditate on the “Four Last Things”, then it is not OFTEN, but RARELY. This life is only TEMPORARY, our permanent address is NOT Earth. It is the life that begins after death that is more important than life on Earth. Life after death is NOT TEMPORARY, life after death is ETERNAL―it never ends. Hence, it is of paramount importance where we end up AFTER death. Death is merely a gateway to an ETERNAL existence in one of two ETERNAL PLACES, which are HEAVEN and HELL. Hence the importance of meditating OFTEN on the “Four Last Things”, for it brings to mind the huge importance of how we live life on Earth prior to death. The devil knows the power of such meditations and he will do all that he can to distract us from doing so.
On this Sixth Sunday After Pentecost―following the Extraordinary Rite of Mass (a.k.a. the Traditional Tridentine Latin Mass Rite)―the Church presents us with the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, which brings to mind this “life and death” scenario:
“Brethren: All we who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death. For we were buried with Him by means of Baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ has arisen from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall be so in the likeness of His resurrection also. For we know that our old self has been crucified with Him, in order that the body of sin may be destroyed, so that we may no longer be slaves to sin―for he who is dead is acquitted of sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live together with Christ―for we know that Christ, having risen from the dead, dies now no more, death shall no longer have dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives, He lives unto God. Thus do you consider yourselves also as dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans 6:3-11).
Live Me Must―But Live for What?
Life is life―we all have life! We all live! But what are we living for? Who are we living for? What or who guides and rules our life? Simply living life in any way we personally choose to live it, does not guarantee eternal life after this life. As Our Lord Himself said: “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father, Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21) ... “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
As the above Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans says, “We who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, have been baptized into His death … in order that we may walk in newness of life ... For we know that our old self has been crucified with Him, in order that the body of sin may be destroyed, so that we may no longer be slaves to sin ... Thus consider yourselves also as dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord!” We live in a world of sin, a world of which Satan is the prince (John 12:31). Just as the works of Satan are evil and wicked, so too are the works of Satan’s world.
Our Lord clearly and emphatically stated that the world is His enemy and that the world is ruled by its prince, the devil, who is Christ’s ultimate enemy―that He (Christ) was not of this world and that we should not be of this world:
“The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he has not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world … My kingdom is not from here!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
That is why Our Lord’s followers―Saint John, James and Paul―guided by the Holy Ghost, echoed Our Lord’s words in their own Scriptural writings: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Life is a Time to Die
Our Lord tells us: “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat, falling into the ground, dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it―and he that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal!” (John 12:25). We have life so that we might use that life by dying to the world. It is only by dying to the world that we can be assured of eternal life.
Life in this world is not meant to be a holiday, where you can eat all you want, drink all you want and do all you want! Life in this world is a test, an examination, a trial. “Remember the Lord thy God has brought thee for forty years through the desert, to afflict thee and to prove [test] thee, so that the things that were in thy heart might be made known, and whether thou wouldst keep His commandments or not” (Deuteronomy 8:2). “The searcher of hearts and minds is God” (Psalm 7:10). “The Lord tests the just and the wicked” (Psalm 10:6). “O God, hast proved [examined] us―thou hast tried [tested] us by fire, as silver is tried” (Psalm 65:10). “Behold I have refined thee, but not as silver―I have chosen thee in the furnace of poverty” (Isaias 48:10). “I will bring them through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and I will try them as gold is tried!” (Zacharias 13:9). “Count it all a joy when you shall fall into various temptations, knowing that the trying [testing] of your Faith works patience, that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing!” (James 1:2-4).
Our Lady, in her revelations to the Blessed Mary of Agreda, echoes the above sentiments: “My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … But the worldlings, in their torpidity, are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ―but there are very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! … Hence it is that men do not find joy in their tribulations, nor rest in their labors, nor consolation in their sorrows, nor any peace in adversities. For, being altogether different from the saints―who glory in tribulation as the fulfillment of their most earnest desires―these worldlings desire none of it and abhor everything that is painful!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
The Loss of Sense of Sin and the Price of Heaven
For a wide variety of reasons, most people have lost the sense of sin and expense of sin. On top of that, they have also lost the sense of the price of Heaven and what it takes to get there. They look upon sin as a triviality, an unimportant issue, a kind of a “everyone does it, so it doesn’t matter” attitude. Then there are those who are a little more serious about sin, but brush-off it impact and consequences as something minimal―as they go through a “car-wash” confession coming out all clean and sparkly! They do not stop to think about the possibility that their confessions might actually be bad confessions―usually on the grounds of a lack of a FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT. They simply “drive” into their “car-wash” confession and have no real, firm, planned-out purpose on how to stop committing that particular sin―they only have a vague, wishy-washy purpose of amendment, along the lines of: “O I should really stop doing this! But never mind―I can always go to confession and confess it again (and again, and again, and again, etc.).”
Recent post-Second-World-War popes―of all flavors, Conservative, Liberal and Modernist―have all lamented the modern world’s loss of the sense of sin.
● Pope Pius XII said in 1946: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin!”
● Pope John Paul II, in 2005, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin!”
● Pope Benedict XVI, in 2011, said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. If we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, then we cannot speak of sin ... The meaning of sin ― which is a different thing from ‘guilt feelings’ as understood in psychology ― is only grasped in discovering the meaning of God!”
● Pope Francis, in 2014, said: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble!”
The “flip-side” of that coin is that if sin is not a big deal, then getting into Heaven should not be a big deal either―for it is sin that separates us from Heaven and keeps us out of Heaven. If sin is cheap, then getting into Heaven should be cheap too! Yet that is not the teaching of the Church. Our Catechisms tell us the exact opposite:
“Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
“Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
Heaven Without Payment or Pain
As Our Lady said above: “Many there are who wish to follow Christ―but there are very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion!”
As Our Lady says, it truly beggars belief to see the vast majority of Catholics being complacent and illogical about what it takes to save one’s soul. It is an offense to God for them to cheapen salvation and cheapen sin―both are incredibly expensive commodities. Salvation is not a cushy, comfortable, armchair occupation! “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14).
Lulled Into Complacency
In this modern world, everything is much easier than it was, for example, 100, or 200 years ago―and far easier than it was 500 or more years ago. Most people in the civilized Western world live like kings and queens compared to the folk who lived 500 or 1,000 years ago. Yet they were just as human just as we are―except they had far less in comparison to us. Nobody had a car, some did not even have a horse for travel! They had no planes, no trains, no buses. They had no insulated homes, with double-glazed windows, mosquito screens, and window fans. They had no refrigerators, freezers, coolers, electric or gas ovens, microwaves, dishwashers, laundry machines, clothes dryers. They had no television sets, radios, video-players, sound-systems, telephones, smartphones, i-pads, internet, computers. No power tools, electrical kitchen appliances, vacuum cleaners, floor-polishers, generators, water-pumps, running-water, showers, indoor flushing toilets, sewer system. No garbage collection, no mail and parcel deliveries, no house insurance, no medical insurance, no hospital care, no emergency rooms, no x-rays, scans, etc. They had no supermarkets with shelves stocked with supplies that no king or queen of old ever saw or could choose from! Neither did they have the plethora of other stores that we have available today. Life is certainly easier today than at any other time in the history of the world―yet we still find things to complain about!
This ease and comfort of life spreads its tentacles into the spiritual life, whereby we expect similar goods and services in the spiritual domain. If something isn’t easy, we don’t want it! Well, Heaven isn’t easy to attain―so does that mean that we don’t want to go to Heaven? In theory, everyone wants to go to Heaven―but in practice, very few go to Heaven. It is not that Heaven is impossible to attain―the reason why few go to Heaven is that few are willing to make the efforts to get to Heaven. They have a cheap idea of Heaven.
We Don’t Really Want to Die to the World
In the Gospels we read of the encounter between the young rich man and Our Lord. The rich man, obviously, had lots of possessions but he wanted to save his soul. Our Lord told him to keep the Commandments―to which the man replied that he had kept them from his youth. Our Lord then told him that if he wanted to be perfect, then he should sell all that he had, give the money to the poor, and then come and follow Our Lord. The rich young man became sad―because he could not bear the thought of giving up all his possessions!
“And behold, a certain rich young man, a ruler, running up and kneeling before Him, asked Him: ‘Good Master, what shall I do that I may receive life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he was very rich and had great possessions. And Jesus, seeing him become sorrowful, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (combined account of Matthew 19:16-24; Mark 10:17-23; Luke 18:18-25).
Most of us are just like the rich young man. We only give God so much, but not everything! What happened to the commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31)? Total love of God does not allow for a total love of the world―and a partial love of God is cheating God out of the love that is due to Him. That is why Our Lord also said: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
Death is the world’s biggest employer! Death employs everyone! Everyone is on the payroll of death! “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). “Death reigned from Adam” (Romans 5:14). “By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin entered death; and death passed upon all men” (Romans 5:12). “Everyone shall die for his own sin” (Deuteronomy 24:16). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Everyone has their own views on life and death. Some fear death; some fear life. Some seek to escape death; some seek to escape this life. Some see death as an enemy, others see death as friend. Some seek to escape problems and hasten death through suicide; others prefer to suffer through their problems and await the moment of death that God will send.
It is not so much death that we should fear―it is life that we should fear, or more precisely, how we live that life. As the proverb says: “As a man lives, so shall he die!” Our Lord says that the devil and the world seek to kill and destroy, whereas He seeks to give us life―eternal life: “The thief only comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly!” (John 10:10). Our Lord tells us not to fear death, but to fear what could follow after death: “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul―but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell!” (Matthew 10:28). Holy Scripture adds: “If the wicked be not converted from his wickedness and from his evil way―he indeed shall die in his iniquity” (Ezechiel 3:19) ― meaning that he will go to Hell. “The wicked man shall be driven out in his wickedness―but the just hath hope in his death!” (Proverbs 14:32). That is why we should pray: “Let my soul die the death of the just, and my last end be like to them!” (Numbers 23:10).
There is, in a certain sense, nothing more important and consequential than death! That is why the Church tells us to OFTEN meditate on the “Four Last Things” ― which are Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. But hardly anybody does that―and if some do meditate on the “Four Last Things”, then it is not OFTEN, but RARELY. This life is only TEMPORARY, our permanent address is NOT Earth. It is the life that begins after death that is more important than life on Earth. Life after death is NOT TEMPORARY, life after death is ETERNAL―it never ends. Hence, it is of paramount importance where we end up AFTER death. Death is merely a gateway to an ETERNAL existence in one of two ETERNAL PLACES, which are HEAVEN and HELL. Hence the importance of meditating OFTEN on the “Four Last Things”, for it brings to mind the huge importance of how we live life on Earth prior to death. The devil knows the power of such meditations and he will do all that he can to distract us from doing so.
On this Sixth Sunday After Pentecost―following the Extraordinary Rite of Mass (a.k.a. the Traditional Tridentine Latin Mass Rite)―the Church presents us with the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, which brings to mind this “life and death” scenario:
“Brethren: All we who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death. For we were buried with Him by means of Baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ has arisen from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall be so in the likeness of His resurrection also. For we know that our old self has been crucified with Him, in order that the body of sin may be destroyed, so that we may no longer be slaves to sin―for he who is dead is acquitted of sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live together with Christ―for we know that Christ, having risen from the dead, dies now no more, death shall no longer have dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives, He lives unto God. Thus do you consider yourselves also as dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans 6:3-11).
Live Me Must―But Live for What?
Life is life―we all have life! We all live! But what are we living for? Who are we living for? What or who guides and rules our life? Simply living life in any way we personally choose to live it, does not guarantee eternal life after this life. As Our Lord Himself said: “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father, Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21) ... “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
As the above Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans says, “We who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, have been baptized into His death … in order that we may walk in newness of life ... For we know that our old self has been crucified with Him, in order that the body of sin may be destroyed, so that we may no longer be slaves to sin ... Thus consider yourselves also as dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord!” We live in a world of sin, a world of which Satan is the prince (John 12:31). Just as the works of Satan are evil and wicked, so too are the works of Satan’s world.
Our Lord clearly and emphatically stated that the world is His enemy and that the world is ruled by its prince, the devil, who is Christ’s ultimate enemy―that He (Christ) was not of this world and that we should not be of this world:
“The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he has not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world … My kingdom is not from here!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
That is why Our Lord’s followers―Saint John, James and Paul―guided by the Holy Ghost, echoed Our Lord’s words in their own Scriptural writings: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Life is a Time to Die
Our Lord tells us: “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat, falling into the ground, dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it―and he that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal!” (John 12:25). We have life so that we might use that life by dying to the world. It is only by dying to the world that we can be assured of eternal life.
Life in this world is not meant to be a holiday, where you can eat all you want, drink all you want and do all you want! Life in this world is a test, an examination, a trial. “Remember the Lord thy God has brought thee for forty years through the desert, to afflict thee and to prove [test] thee, so that the things that were in thy heart might be made known, and whether thou wouldst keep His commandments or not” (Deuteronomy 8:2). “The searcher of hearts and minds is God” (Psalm 7:10). “The Lord tests the just and the wicked” (Psalm 10:6). “O God, hast proved [examined] us―thou hast tried [tested] us by fire, as silver is tried” (Psalm 65:10). “Behold I have refined thee, but not as silver―I have chosen thee in the furnace of poverty” (Isaias 48:10). “I will bring them through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and I will try them as gold is tried!” (Zacharias 13:9). “Count it all a joy when you shall fall into various temptations, knowing that the trying [testing] of your Faith works patience, that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing!” (James 1:2-4).
Our Lady, in her revelations to the Blessed Mary of Agreda, echoes the above sentiments: “My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … But the worldlings, in their torpidity, are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ―but there are very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! … Hence it is that men do not find joy in their tribulations, nor rest in their labors, nor consolation in their sorrows, nor any peace in adversities. For, being altogether different from the saints―who glory in tribulation as the fulfillment of their most earnest desires―these worldlings desire none of it and abhor everything that is painful!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
The Loss of Sense of Sin and the Price of Heaven
For a wide variety of reasons, most people have lost the sense of sin and expense of sin. On top of that, they have also lost the sense of the price of Heaven and what it takes to get there. They look upon sin as a triviality, an unimportant issue, a kind of a “everyone does it, so it doesn’t matter” attitude. Then there are those who are a little more serious about sin, but brush-off it impact and consequences as something minimal―as they go through a “car-wash” confession coming out all clean and sparkly! They do not stop to think about the possibility that their confessions might actually be bad confessions―usually on the grounds of a lack of a FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT. They simply “drive” into their “car-wash” confession and have no real, firm, planned-out purpose on how to stop committing that particular sin―they only have a vague, wishy-washy purpose of amendment, along the lines of: “O I should really stop doing this! But never mind―I can always go to confession and confess it again (and again, and again, and again, etc.).”
Recent post-Second-World-War popes―of all flavors, Conservative, Liberal and Modernist―have all lamented the modern world’s loss of the sense of sin.
● Pope Pius XII said in 1946: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin!”
● Pope John Paul II, in 2005, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin!”
● Pope Benedict XVI, in 2011, said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. If we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, then we cannot speak of sin ... The meaning of sin ― which is a different thing from ‘guilt feelings’ as understood in psychology ― is only grasped in discovering the meaning of God!”
● Pope Francis, in 2014, said: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble!”
The “flip-side” of that coin is that if sin is not a big deal, then getting into Heaven should not be a big deal either―for it is sin that separates us from Heaven and keeps us out of Heaven. If sin is cheap, then getting into Heaven should be cheap too! Yet that is not the teaching of the Church. Our Catechisms tell us the exact opposite:
“Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
“Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
Heaven Without Payment or Pain
As Our Lady said above: “Many there are who wish to follow Christ―but there are very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion!”
As Our Lady says, it truly beggars belief to see the vast majority of Catholics being complacent and illogical about what it takes to save one’s soul. It is an offense to God for them to cheapen salvation and cheapen sin―both are incredibly expensive commodities. Salvation is not a cushy, comfortable, armchair occupation! “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14).
Lulled Into Complacency
In this modern world, everything is much easier than it was, for example, 100, or 200 years ago―and far easier than it was 500 or more years ago. Most people in the civilized Western world live like kings and queens compared to the folk who lived 500 or 1,000 years ago. Yet they were just as human just as we are―except they had far less in comparison to us. Nobody had a car, some did not even have a horse for travel! They had no planes, no trains, no buses. They had no insulated homes, with double-glazed windows, mosquito screens, and window fans. They had no refrigerators, freezers, coolers, electric or gas ovens, microwaves, dishwashers, laundry machines, clothes dryers. They had no television sets, radios, video-players, sound-systems, telephones, smartphones, i-pads, internet, computers. No power tools, electrical kitchen appliances, vacuum cleaners, floor-polishers, generators, water-pumps, running-water, showers, indoor flushing toilets, sewer system. No garbage collection, no mail and parcel deliveries, no house insurance, no medical insurance, no hospital care, no emergency rooms, no x-rays, scans, etc. They had no supermarkets with shelves stocked with supplies that no king or queen of old ever saw or could choose from! Neither did they have the plethora of other stores that we have available today. Life is certainly easier today than at any other time in the history of the world―yet we still find things to complain about!
This ease and comfort of life spreads its tentacles into the spiritual life, whereby we expect similar goods and services in the spiritual domain. If something isn’t easy, we don’t want it! Well, Heaven isn’t easy to attain―so does that mean that we don’t want to go to Heaven? In theory, everyone wants to go to Heaven―but in practice, very few go to Heaven. It is not that Heaven is impossible to attain―the reason why few go to Heaven is that few are willing to make the efforts to get to Heaven. They have a cheap idea of Heaven.
We Don’t Really Want to Die to the World
In the Gospels we read of the encounter between the young rich man and Our Lord. The rich man, obviously, had lots of possessions but he wanted to save his soul. Our Lord told him to keep the Commandments―to which the man replied that he had kept them from his youth. Our Lord then told him that if he wanted to be perfect, then he should sell all that he had, give the money to the poor, and then come and follow Our Lord. The rich young man became sad―because he could not bear the thought of giving up all his possessions!
“And behold, a certain rich young man, a ruler, running up and kneeling before Him, asked Him: ‘Good Master, what shall I do that I may receive life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he was very rich and had great possessions. And Jesus, seeing him become sorrowful, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (combined account of Matthew 19:16-24; Mark 10:17-23; Luke 18:18-25).
Most of us are just like the rich young man. We only give God so much, but not everything! What happened to the commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31)? Total love of God does not allow for a total love of the world―and a partial love of God is cheating God out of the love that is due to Him. That is why Our Lord also said: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
Article 5
Thursday July 6th to Saturday July 8th, 2023
Wildfire, Hellfire and Godfire
Thursday July 6th to Saturday July 8th, 2023
Wildfire, Hellfire and Godfire
Everyone’s Fired-Up!
Fire can be touchy and painful subject! Yet it something that is held in common on Earth, in Hell, and in Heaven! Quite literally, we cannot survive without fire and God has decided that fire should be eternal. We have fire on Earth, fire in Hell and also fire in Heaven. Some might argue that humans have survived for long periods without fire―but that only means man-made fire. Humans cannot survive without the ‘fire’ of the sun―which supplies Earth with its heat and light―even though it is not a fire in the normal sense of the word, meaning a fire of flames. The Sun’s ‘fire’ comes from the there is no normal “fire” or “flame” in the Sun ― at least not like the flames we have in a fire here on Earth ― because the energy and light and heat is coming from the nuclear reaction within the ball of gasses that make up the Sun. In Hell, the damned will burn with hatred and also burn eternally in the fires of Hell without ever being “burnt-out” or “burnt-up”. In Heaven, the saints will burn forever in a fire of love―since “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and love is often characterized by a burning heart―as in the Sacred Heart of Jesus―and expressions such as “burning with love”. Our Lord Himself said that He had come “to cast fire on the Earth―and what will I, but that it be kindled!” (Luke 12:49).
Fire―like so many other things―can be seen as being a good thing or an evil thing; it can be used for good or for evil; it can bring good outcomes and consequences or evil outcomes and consequences. Let us then look at fire―on Earth, in Hell and in Heaven―to see what there is to be learned and applied to our lives in the here and now.
Fire, Fire Everywhere!
In the Northern Hemisphere, summer is once again upon us! Temperatures rise and fires arise! Currently, Canada can claim that it is their most catastrophic summer. Canada’s 2023 wildfire season is unprecedented by many measures — but this is just the start, it is far from being over! Chief Ken McMullen, the president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs (CAFC) said: “The fires in Canada are really quite unprecedented!” Michael Norton, director of the Northern Forestry Centre with the Canadian Forest Service, said: “It’s no understatement to say that the 2023 fire season is — and will continue to be — record-breaking,” adding that, as of July 6th, 2023, there are 639 active fires across Canada, 351 of which are out of control. The fires are not expected to be extinguished―either by firefighters or a major shift in weather conditions―until after summer ends. Wildfire seasons typically begin around May, ramp up over the summer months and diminish around fall, with July usually being the most active month.
Fires were burning in all of Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories. The sheer number and size of the fires is only part of the reason why they have created such a problem for the country, with one key reason being the geographic spread. In a normal year, provinces might be able to help each other by sending resources to badly affected regions, but this year there are fires in nearly every single province which has caused a huge problem when it comes to figuring out the resourcing of fire-fighting equipment. There have been 3,412 wildfires so far in 2023 — with July and August yet to come. That number of 3,412 (and climbing) is significantly above the 10-year average of 2,452 per year. At the beginning of July, the Canadian government issued a bulletin stating that this is only the beginning and that there will be heightened fire activity for next two months―July and August.
The Canadian army has been mobilized in several provinces as international crews have arrived to help ― most notably South African teams in Alberta and French teams in Quebec. The United States announced that over 600 U.S. firefighters and support personnel have been deployed to help fight the fires. South Korean teams are also expected to arrive in Quebec next week but the geographic scope of the fires still means resources that would usually be able to target one place have to now be spread unevenly. The wildfires have — so far — scorched and consumed over 21 million acres of Canada’s landscape with an ever varying number of 580 to 650 active wildfires reported to be raging at any given time. To give you an idea of what 21 million acres looks like, compare that to total acreage of the following States of the U.S.
Comparative Size of States in Acres (rounded off to the nearest 1 million)
Pennsylvania 29 million acres; Ohio 29 million acres; Virginia 27 million acres; Tennessee 27 million acres; Kentucky 26 million acres; Indiana 23 million acres; Maine 23 million acres; South Carolina 20 million acres; West Virginia 16 million acres; Maryland 8 million acres; Hawaii 7 million acres; Massachusetts 7 million acres; Vermont 6 million acres; New Hampshire 6 million acres; New Jersey 6 million acres; Connecticut 4 million acres; Delaware 2 million acres; Rhode Island 1 million acres. The states in RED PRINT denote those states that would have been scorched in their entirety at least once or more in order to reach the 21 million acres scorched in Canada in one year alone―2023 (and it is not yet over!). Rhode Island―so far―would have burnt to the ground 21 times! The whole of Hawaii or Massachusetts would have been scorched 3 times!
As for the comparative size of European countries in millions of acres: Germany is 88 million acres; Poland is 77 million acres; Italy is 74 million acres; the United Kingdom is 60 million acres; Greece is 32 million acres.
Wildfires Burning at Record Levels
The scale of the environmental catastrophe is unparalleled in the Canada’s recorded history. In just Quebec alone, 3.6 million acres have been scorched in the wildfires―so far―with more no doubt to come! The average annual area that has burned in Quebec over the past 10 years is 24,359 acres per year, meaning that the areas burned just in the last two months are approximately 147 times larger than an average year! Rains have so far failed to provide relief for the ferocious fires as Canadian officials say heavy rains in Quebec have missed areas where wildfires are most active.
One fire, in the western province of British Columbia, is the largest the province has ever seen. The Donnie Creek fire now covers an area larger than the size of Rhode Island. According to the Guinness Book of Records, British Columbia has the unwanted record of hosting the longest burning fire in recorded history. The Chinchaga Fire started in logging slash in British Columbia, Canada, on June 1st, 1950, quickly growing out of control and ending five months later on October 31st, in Alberta, Canada. In that 5-month span, it burned approximately 1.2 million hectares (3 million acres) of boreal forest.
Where There is Fire, There’s Smoke
You have heard the expression: “Where there is smoke, there is fire.” In this case, where there are a lot of fires there is also a lot of smoke! These Canadian fires continue to burn, causing severe air quality issues for much of Canada and the United States. Smoke from the fires has so far triggered air quality alerts in hundreds of cities across North America. But with the typical peak of wildfire season still ahead, dangerous, haze-filled skylines may be a common sight this summer. How long does wildfire smoke stay in the air? It could be weeks or more ―depending upon if the wildfires themselves are brought under control and also the weather system and where and how much the wind blows.
Like other types of smoke from building fires or even cigarettes, wildfire smoke contains a mixture of particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and volatile chemicals. These components differ depending on what material is feeding the flames. Wildfire smoke is a mix of gases and fine particles from burning trees and plants, buildings, and other material. Smoke from wildfires―that burning through poison oak and poison ivy―may contain traces of irritants from those plants. Smoke can also pick up chemicals from plastic and other human-made materials when wildfires burn through cities or housing developments.
Seeing Health Dangers Through the Smokescreen
Three experts from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Forest Service, and the University of California (UC), Davis tell us that as these wildfires increase in prevalence and severity with each year, the long-term effects upon human health may be just beginning. Wildfire smoke can make anyone sick, but people with asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), or heart disease, or who are pregnant and children and responders are especially at risk. Smoke can hurt your eyes, irritate your respiratory system and worsen heart and lung diseases.
Dr. Lisa Miller, an immunologist at UC Davis, points out that the most dangerous part of wildfire smoke is the particulate matter. Wildfire smoke contributes about 40% of fine particulate matter pollution in our atmosphere, and these tiny specks of solid material can be smaller than 2.5 microns—miniscule enough to wreak havoc in human bodies. “Material of this size can readily enter the deep lung and the bloodstream” says Dr. Miller.
Dr. Haczku, a professor of medicine and respiratory immunologist at UC Davis Health. “However, it is less recognized that wildfire smoke elicits inflammatory changes even in healthy people, putting them at risk of developing lung disease. Our results highlight how susceptible the immune system is to environmental exposures such as wildfire smoke inhalation … I was very surprised by the significant pathological changes in these blood immune cells of all healthy volunteers without an apparent presence of major clinical symptoms.”
Dr. Kalhan, a pulmonologist at Northwestern Medicine, Chicago, says: “These are fine particles that actually get inhaled deep into one's lungs. Now, on the way into the lungs, they pass the nose and go through the windpipe and into the lungs. So anyone who is healthy even will feel watery eyes, maybe some nasal irritation, or a sore throat, or a hoarse voice, or even coughing. The particles can then get deep in the lung and cause an inflammatory reaction. Individuals who have chronic lung conditions―such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), can actually have flare-ups of their disease by being exposed to these particles. The other group that can be at risk are people who are prone to heart conditions. That inflammatory reaction that occurs in the lungs can set off an inflammatory reaction throughout the body, which has been associated with risks of having heart attacks and strokes. Single-day exposures to someone who's a healthy young adult probably don't have a huge number of health consequences. But Chicago, the air quality index got almost to 300. So if someone sat outside for the full day in an air quality index of 300, that's like smoking half a pack of cigarettes. But the concerning thing is we're seeing more and more days like this. These aren't one-off experiences. The increased frequency of these days is really worrisome.”
Dr. Robert Lahita stated: “If you look at your car this morning and it’s been parked outside and there is a fine layer of soot over your car, well, it is often going to be inside your lung, inside your chest! And that is a big problem! A lot of people can’t tolerate it!”
Who or What is Behind the Smokescreen
The seemingly never-ending California droughts over the last two decades are merely a microcosm of the macrocosm of drought that is escalating worldwide. Last year (2022), more than 43% of the US was in drought at the end of July, the government’s National Integrated Drought Information System revealed. In May 2022, droughts of different levels of severity affected almost 64% of the United States. The number has been above the 60% mark since September of 2020 with just a short break. While it has risen this high before, it rarely stayed there for so long.
Study whichever news sites you wish ― they all say that drought is quickly increasing worldwide. A United Nations report says that drought frequency and duration has increased by nearly a third globally since 2000. Changing rainfall patterns as a result of climate breakdown are a key driver of drought. The report says drought affects Africa more than any other continent, accounting for 44% of the global total. The report goes on to say that by 2050, drought could affect more than 75% of the world’s population. Population growth is also exposing more people in many regions to the impacts of drought, the report says [Does that mean that we have to depopulate the world??]. The UN report adds that drought is a hidden global crisis that risks becoming “the next pandemic” if countries do not take urgent action on water and land management and tackling the climate emergency. The UN secretary general’s special representative for disaster risk reduction, said: “Drought is on the verge of becoming the next pandemic and there is no vaccine to cure it. Most of the world will be living with water stress in the next few years. Demand will outstrip supply during certain periods. Drought is a major factor in land degradation and the decline of yields for major crops.”
Hey! Even the WEF (World Economic Forum) with their head-honcho, Klaus Schwab, post on their website: “Climate change is contributing to more droughts and water shortages on continents around the world … France is experiencing its worst drought since records began in 1958 and the corn harvest is expected to be almost 20% lower than 2021 … Portugal recorded its hottest July since records began and 99% of the country is in severe or extreme drought ... Around 75% of Romania is affected by drought and cereal crop is predicted to drop by 30 million tones … Even further North, drought has been declared in parts of England, which is expected to result in restrictions on water usage … The BBC reported that the first six months of the year were the driest in England since 1976.”
Drought and Wildfires
As the US government website, specially dedicated to Drought, states: “Drought, combined with warming temperatures, can result in decreased snowpack and stream-flow, increased evaporative demand, dry soils, and large-scale tree deaths, which results in increased potential for large wildfires … These conditions create increased potential for extreme wildfires that spread rapidly, burn with more severity, and are costly to suppress … and crops can be destroyed … Drought can impact drinking water supply, agriculture, and human health … and smoke can affect animal and human health.” Just like vaccines can impact and affect human health―for the worse and not the better!
The US government Fire Service website adds: “The historical and pre-settlement relationships between drought and wildfire are well documented in North America―with forest fire occurrence clearly increasing in response to drought. There is also evidence that drought interacts with other controls to affect fire intensity, severity, extent, and frequency.”
The US government NASA website adds: “Fire depends on two things―(1) having enough fuel and (2) drying that fuel out so it can catch fire. So in the short term, more droughts probably mean more fire, as the vegetation dries out … Droughts can create ideal conditions for wildfires. Lack of rain and low humidity dry out trees and vegetation, providing fuel. In these conditions, a spark from lightning, electrical failures, human error or planned fires can quickly get out of control. Global climate change is predicted to change precipitation and evaporation patterns around the world, leading to wetter climate in some areas and drier in others. Areas that face increasingly severe droughts will also be at risk for more and larger fires … Once we get drier and drier fuels, we should expect more intense fires and higher fire severity … Earth’s warming climate is forecasted to make global precipitation patterns more extreme: Wet areas will become wetter, and dry areas will become drier. Areas such as the American Southwest could see both reduced rainfall and increased soil moisture evaporation due to more intense heat, and, in some cases, the resulting droughts could be more intense than any drought of the past millennium.”
The US government climate website, NOAA, states: “Climate change, including increased heat, extended drought, and a thirsty atmosphere, has been a key driver in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in the western United States during the last two decades. Wildfires require the alignment of a number of factors, including temperature, humidity, and the lack of moisture in fuels, such as trees, shrubs, grasses, and forest debris. A 2016 study found the drying of organic matter enhanced and doubled the number of large fires between 1984 and 2015 in the western United States. A 2021 study, supported by NOAA, concluded that climate change has been the main driver of the increase in fire weather in the western United States.
“Drought and persistent heat set the stage for extraordinary wildfire seasons from 2020 to 2022 across many western states, with all three years far surpassing the average of 1.2 million acres burned since 2016. Extreme fire behavior during this period shocked many wildfire managers, as several huge blazes burned for months, others incinerated entire communities. Research shows that changes in climate create warmer, drier conditions, leading to longer and more active fire seasons. Increases in temperatures caused increased dryness of forest fuels during the fire season. For much of the U.S. West, projections show that an average annual temperature increase, of only 1 degree C, would increase the median burned area per year by as much as 600% in some types of forests.”
The PBS News Hour reported on a study published Monday in the journal Nature Water, which stated that, “based on satellite data, the intensity of extreme drought and rainfall has sharply increased over the past 20 years. These are not merely tough weather events―they are leading to extremes, such as crop failure, infrastructure damage and even humanitarian crises. Researchers say the data confirms that both the frequency and intensity of rainfall and droughts are increasing due to burning fossil fuels and other human activity that releases greenhouse gases ... Drought events outnumbered heavy rain events … The strong link between these climate extremes and rising global average temperatures means continued global warming will mean more drought and rainstorms that are worse by many measures — more frequent, more severe, longer and larger ... According to the U.S. National Integrated Drought Information System, 20% of the annual economic losses from extreme weather events in the U.S. are from floods and droughts. A drastic swing between extreme drought and unprecedented flooding, dubbed “weather whiplash,” is becoming common in some regions.”
Why Keep Harping On About Droughts and Floods?
You may, understandably so, ask the question: “Why are you harping-on about the weather, the droughts and fire? Don’t you have something better to say?” You do have a point―but the point of harping-on about all this leads us to next point―which is HAARP. We want to harp-on about HAARP for a while―and you will soon see why! What is HAARP? The acronym HAARP stands for High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. That probably mystifies you just as much the word HAARP mystified you! What is a High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program?
In simple non-scientific, easy to understand, layman’s terms, it is basically a scientific attempt aimed at studying the properties and behavior of the ionosphere. The “ionosphere” is what divides the Earth’s “atmosphere” from outer space. The “ionosphere” is a 350 mile zone that stretches roughly from 50 miles above the Earth’s surface to 400 miles above Earth’s surface, right at the edge of outer space. Most satellites are to be found in the ionosphere region. The ionosphere can also affect our weather here below. Within the past 15 years, data satellites revealed connections between weather conditions and changes in Earth’s ionosphere.
High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is a research program that was conducted by the United States military from 1993 to 2014. Its purpose was to study the ionosphere, a region of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, where charged particles interact with the Earth’s magnetic field. HAARP was supposed to have closed-down and disbanded in 2014 amid outcry and controversy about what is was really doing behind the scenes. Yet, within a couple of years it was back and running and has been running ever since. Regardless of what the “front-office” or “front-men” said, the military involvement with the HAARP program was not just a hobby that would pass the time away on weekends! The underlying goal of the research was to find a way to harness climate and the weather in such a way as to make it a powerful weapon that could be used in warfare (and, human nature being what it is, outside of warfare too).
Weather warfare? A conspiracy theory, surely! No, not so! The problem of artificial modification of the environment for military or other hostile purposes was brought to the international agenda in the early 1970s. Following the US decision of July 1972 to renounce the use of climate modification techniques for hostile purposes, in 1973 a resolution by the US Senate called for an international agreement “prohibiting the use of any environmental or geophysical modification activity as a weapon of war” and an in-depth review by the Department of Defense of the military aspects of weather and other environmental modification techniques, the USA decided to seek agreement with the Soviet Union to explore the possibilities of an international agreement. In July 1974, USA and USSR (Russia) agreed to hold bilateral discussions on measures to overcome the danger of the use of environmental modification techniques for military purposes and three subsequent rounds of discussions in 1974 and 1975. As for weather warfare and weather control being just a conspiracy theory with no foundation in reality ― then, “Why on earth have bilateral discussions about something that is only a conspiracy theory?”
Weather warfare a conspiracy theory? No way! In 1977, Geneva hosted the Environmental Modification Convention (ENMOD), formally the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, which resulted in an international treaty prohibiting the military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects. The Convention banned weather warfare, which is the use of weather modification techniques for the purposes of inducing damage or destruction. The question is this: “Why on earth have an international convention on environmental modification, and then passing a treaty on the subject, if such research was not already being done before 1977?” Around 33 years later, the Convention on Biological Diversity of 2010 would also ban some forms of weather modification or geo-engineering.
HAARP was in the middle of all this fear and controversy. Yet despite all the public outcry, the work and research on how to harness the environment and weaponize it continued to be done―apart from the brief suspension in 2014, which soon gave way to HAARP’s re-instatement!
The History Channel produced a revealing 45-minute documentary on HAARP and other secret weapons used for electromagnetic warfare. The History Channel is not a supporter or propagator of conspiracy theories! Here are two quotes from the History Channel documentary:
“Electromagnetic weapons ... pack an invisible wallop hundreds of times more powerful than the electrical current in a lightning bolt. One can blast enemy missiles out of the sky, another could be used to blind soldiers on the battlefield, still another to control an unruly crowd by burning the surface of their skin. If detonated over a large city, an electromagnetic weapon could destroy all electronics in seconds. They all use directed energy to create a powerful electromagnetic pulse.”
“Directed energy is such a powerful technology it could be used to heat the ionosphere to turn weather into a weapon of war. Imagine using a flood to destroy a city or tornadoes to decimate an approaching army in the desert. If an electromagnetic pulse went off over a city, basically all the electronic things in your home would wink and go out, and they would be permanently destroyed. The military has spent a huge amount of time on weather modification as a concept for battle environments.”
Where Is This All Leading To?
So what has been the point of HAARP-ing on about all this? Quite simply the fact that we are in the middle of depopulation agenda―which has now been publicly admitted by Bill Gates, the World Economic Forum and the United Nations. There are simply too many people on this planet for their liking―and therefore a large number have to “bye-byes”. There is no better way of achieving this than harnessing the environment and nature to achieve your goals! We have already had most of the world’s population (on average 72%, or almost 3 in 4 persons) receive the killer Covid vaccine, which has and will continue to produce death rates that have shot through the roof. We have had a progressive weakening of our God-given immune system by a variety of methods―electromagnetic waves and frequencies from our electronic technologies that we cannot imagine living without; from the increasingly contaminated and genetically altered foods that are being rammed-down our throats; by inefficient man-made medicines that usually treat only the symptoms and not the causes of diseases (which thereby wears down our immune system even more); by the increasing limitations, bans or prohibitions that are being placed on natural God-made medicines; etc., etc.
What most “sheeple” do not realize is that we are in the middle of a silent, surreptitious, secret war that deceitfully, deceptively and devilishly seeks to depopulate the world. We already are seeing a “depopulation” of the Faith, with increasing numbers of Catholics no longer practicing or even apostatizing from the Faith―and we will also see a similar depopulation in secular field. The “men-behind-the-scenes” or “the money-men” or the “Elite” or call them what you want―they hold the purse strings and they own the world and most of its important enterprises. Hence they are calling the shots and are coordinating all that they own into achieving their nefarious goals. Behind them all, of course is Satan―as Our Lady has said on a number of occasions:
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell ... Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … The demons of the air will perform great wonders on Earth and in the atmosphere, and men will become more and more perverted! … God will allow the demons to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family … They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … Masonry will take control of the civil government and will enact iniquitous laws, making it easy for everyone to live in sin … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy the Church ... Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church.”
Fires of Hell on Earth
Just as Christ said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49) ― similarly, Satan, who seeks to ape God, could also say: “I am come to cast the fires of Hell on Earth―and will I, but that they be kindled?” We have there the antipathy and battle between the fires of love and the fires of hatred―between Christ and Satan. Everyone must burn―we either burn with love, or we burn with hatred. Satan seeks to destroy love―and Christ seeks to destroy hatred. Jesus Himself said: “You have heard that it hath been said: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy!’ But I say to you: ‘Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! And pray for them that persecute and calumniate you!’” (Matthew 5:43-44). Satan seeks to burn down all that is good and godly―Christ seeks to burn up all that is sinful and satanic.
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) former chief exorcist of Rome, said: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … The whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican! … The demon tempts the authorities of the Church ― just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
Know Your Enemy
Sun Tzu was a Chinese military general, strategist, philosopher, and writer who was born in 544 BC. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War―an influential work of military strategy that has affected both Western and East Asian philosophy and military thinking. In The Art of War, he writes: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy―then for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
It is imperative that we know our enemies and know their tactics. Fr. Gabriele Amorth tells us that our enemy, Satan, prefers to be unknown and unseen―so that he might better wreak his havoc and do his damage. You could say that the Satan prefers to be thought of as a “conspiracy theory” that doesn’t really exist! Fr. Amorth says: “The Devil does not like to be seen … Satan’s biggest triumph is mankind’s conviction that he doesn’t exist ... He makes people believe that Hell does not exist, that sin does not exist, and that he is nothing but one more experience to try out ... When we jeer at the Devil and tell ourselves that he does not exist, that is when he is happiest!”
Satan is no conspiracy theory, but a reality―and the reality is that, at the present moment, this “prince of world” (John 12:31) as Our Lord calls him, is ruling the vast majority of the world through the many governments that he has infiltrated with his minions and his many different organizations and “isms” that he has set up―Materialism, Communism, Rationalism, Liberalism, Modernism, Atheism, Agnosticism, etc. That is the reality and no conspiracy theory! If you don’t or can’t believe it , then go argue it out with Our Lady of Good, who foretold: “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … The evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective, making it easy for everyone to live in sin!” (O.L. of Good Success) … “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church” (O.L. of Akita).
Even the Liberal Pope Paul VI said on several occasions that “the smoke of Satan has entered the Church” and has reached the highest places:
► 1972: “We believed that after the [Second Vatican] Council would come a day of sunshine in the history of the Church. But instead there has come a day of clouds and storms, and of darkness ... And how did this come about? We will confide to you … that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the Devil. … It is as if from some mysterious crack, no, it is not mysterious, from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God.” (Pope Paul VI, Address On the Occasion of the Ninth Anniversary of His Election, June 29th, 1972).
► 1972: Some months later, on November 15th of 1972, at a General Audience, Pope Paul VI added: “What are the Church’s greatest needs at the present time? Don’t be surprised at Our answer and don’t write it off as simplistic or even superstitious: one of the Church’s greatest needs is to be defended against the evil we call the Devil … Who can forget the highly significant description of the triple temptation of Christ? Or the many episodes in the Gospel where the Devil crosses the Lord’s path and figures in His teaching? (Matthew 12:43) And how could we forget that Christ, referring three times to the Devil as His adversary, describes him as ‘the prince of this world’?” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11).
► 1977: A few years later he repeated the same concern: “The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the Faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church” (Pope Paul VI, Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions, October 13th, 1977).
The “smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God” and smoke blocks-out the light and brings darkness, “there has come a day of clouds, storms and darkness” ― maybe Satan is also using his own version of HAARP, in order to generate those clouds and storms! Nevertheless, where there is smoke, there also is fire―and where there is fire, there also are the devils of Hellfire! Remember ― “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). If we do not have the “protective clothing” or “armor of God” to shield us from those satanic fires, then we will get burnt! Most people do not have that “armor of God” ― the 7 billion in this world who are not Catholic. The 1 billion (1.4 billion) Catholics who do have that “armor of God” choose not wear it and use it. Hence it is―as Our Lord, Our Lady and many saints and theologians say―that most souls end up being damned in Satan’s fires of Hell. Tragic, but true! What will you do about it? What are you doing about it? Every second of the day around two people die and appear before God for judgment. What is their final judgment? What is their final destination? That is why Our Lady came to Fatima, to tell us: “Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
Spiritual HAARP in the Church
You could say that Satan is playing a spiritual HAARP in the Church by manipulating the ‘climate’ of the Faith―creating storms of scandals; floods of mortal sins; downpours of doubts; droughts of divine grace; earthquakes of heresy; and so on. As Our Lady of Good Success foretold in speaking of our present times:
“During this period, there will be great physical and moral calamities, both public and private … Passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of customs―for Satan will reign almost completely! … Satan will begin to try to destroy the work of God … Many souls will be deprived of innumerable graces! … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs.
“In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury and impurity that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls―who will be lost. During these unfortunate times, evil will invade childhood innocence ... Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women ... The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation, and those who should speak out will be silent!
“Under the appearance of virtue and bad-spirited zeal, Catholics will turn upon the Religion which nourished them at her breast! Impelled by the malice of the devil they will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church ... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom.
“Woe to the children of these times! It will be difficult to receive the Sacrament of Baptism, and also that of Confirmation. Making use of persons in positions of authority, the devil will assiduously try to destroy the Sacrament of Confession … The restoring and life-giving Sacrament of Penance will be forgotten and even scorned by ungrateful men, who in their foolish madness, do not realize that it is the only sure means of salvation after one has lost his baptismal innocence. What is most grievous is that even the ministers of My Most Holy Son do not give to this Sacrament the value that they should―viewing with cold indifference this valuable and precious treasure, which has been placed in their hands for the restoration of souls redeemed by the Blood of the Redeemer. There are those who consider hearing confession as a loss of time and a futile thing!
“The Sacrament of Extreme Unction will be little esteemed. Many people will die without receiving it either because of the negligence of their families, or their false sentimentality that tries to protect the sick from seeing the gravity of their situations, or because they will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church, impelled by the malice of the devil. Thus many souls will be deprived of innumerable graces, consolations and the strength they need to make that great leap from time to eternity.
“The Sacrament of Matrimony will be attacked and profaned in the fullest sense of the word. Masonry―which will then be in power―will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of doing away with this Sacrament. This will make it easy for everyone to live in sin and will encourage the procreation of illegitimate children, born without being incorporated into the Church.
“The Sacred Sacrament of Holy Orders will be ridiculed, oppressed and despised … The secular Clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties … Priests will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them. These corrupted and depraved priests will scandalize the Christian people.
“The same will happen with Holy Communion by the many and horrible sacrileges — both public and also secret — that will occur from profanations of the Holy Eucharist! Often during this epoch, the enemies of Jesus Christ, instigated by the demon, will steal consecrated Hosts from the churches, so that they might profane the Eucharistic Species. My Most Holy Son will see Himself cast upon the ground and trampled upon by irreverent feet.”
“This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings … He will achieve his victories by means of foreign and faithless people so numerous that, like a black cloud, it will obscure the pure heavens … With these people, every type of vice will enter, calling down in turn every type of chastisement, such as plagues, famines, internal fighting and external disputes with other nations, and apostasy, the cause of the perdition of so many souls … There will be a formidable and frightful war, in which both native and foreign blood will flow, including that of secular and regular priests, as well as that of other religious. This night will be most horrible, for, humanly speaking, evil will seem to triumph! … There will be occasions when all will seem to be lost and paralyzed! … It will be necessary for fire from Heaven to rain down upon them in order to purify them!”
“There are not any souls who, by their lives of immolation and sacrifice, appease the Divine Justice―therefore fire will rain from Heaven … Therefore, clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears in the privacy of your heart. Implore our heavenly Father that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times! … Offer your sacrifices and prayers to shorten the duration of this terrible catastrophe!” (Words of Our Lady of Good Success).
A Drought of Grace and Fires of Passions
In the spiritual life, water is a symbol of grace. Just as living things and persons cannot survive for long without water―so too the soul will not keep the roots of its Faith alive without grace. Just as forests―that have been dried-out by drought through lack of water―are all the more susceptible to catch on fire, likewise, souls that have been ‘dried-out’ by a deprivation and drought of grace, are also more susceptible to being inflamed by the fires of their passions.
“Wickedness is kindled as a fire―it shall set afire the thicket of the forest!” (Isaias 9:18). St. Paul speaks of our sinful passions whose only fruit was death: “For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins did work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death” (Romans 7:5). As an example, he speaks of “the passion of lust” (1 Thessalonians 4:5). St. James speaks of the tongue as being a sinful fire: “The tongue is indeed a little member, and boasts of great things. See how a small fire can set afire a great forest. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is placed among our members, which defiles the whole body, and inflames the wheel of our nativity, being set on fire by Hell. For every nature of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of the rest, is tamed, and hath been tamed, by the nature of man! But the tongue no man can tame, an unquiet evil, full of deadly poison. By it we bless God and the Father; and by it we curse men, who are made after the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing! My brethren, these things ought not so to be!” (James 3:5-10).
You are told to keep away from sinners, “lest thou be burnt with the flame of the fire of their sins” (Ecclesiasticus 8:13). “In the congregation of sinners a fire shall be kindled” (Ecclesiasticus 16:7). The sinner “shall not depart out of darkness! The flame shall dry up his branches” (Job 15:30). “The end of the congregation of sinners is a flame of fire!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:10). “They are as stubble―fire hath burnt them! They shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flames!” (Isaias 47:14). “Their sins engulf them―they are always before Me! They delight in their wickedness and their lies. They are all adulterers, burning like an oven whose fire the baker need not stir. Their hearts are like an oven! Their passion smolders all night and in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire. All of them are hot as an oven!” (Osee 7:3-7).
Life is a constant struggle against the fire of our passions and the torrential downpour of temptations that surround us every day. “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). St. Paul―saint though he was―describes this constant battle within himself: “We know that the law is spiritual―but I am carnal, sold under sin! For I do not that good which I want to do―but I do the evil which I hate! … To will or want what is good, is present with me―but to accomplish that which is good, I do not find! For the good which I want to do―I do not do! But the evil which I do not want to do―that I do! … I am delighted with the law of God, according to the interior man, but I see another law in my body, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin that is in my body! Unhappy man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:14-25).
Divine Grace Puts Out Fires
Just as “water quenches a flaming fire” (Ecclesiasticus 3:33), we could also say that grace quenches our sinful passions. “Be penitent and be converted, so that your sins may be blotted out!” (Acts 3:19) … “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just―to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us” (1 John 1:9). “Let us go therefore with confidence to the throne of grace―so that we may obtain mercy and find grace” (Hebrews 4:16) … “The Lord shall wash away the filth” (Isaias 4:4) … “and wash away thy sins” (Acts 22:16) … “Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!” (Psalm 50:4).
The God of Fire and the Fires of God
“Our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). Christ―our God―said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth―and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). We even beg our God―the Holy Ghost―to kindle that fire within us: “Come O Holy Ghost! Fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love!” Just as fire purifies metals, so too does the fire of God purify our souls: “As silver is tried by fire, and gold is tried in the furnace―so the Lord tries the hearts!” (Proverbs 17:3). “Gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:5). “The trial of your faith is much more precious than gold which is tried by the fire” (1 Peter 1:7).
God seems to prefer fire as a symbol of Himself. The first encounter Moses had with God was one that involved fire: “The Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush” (Exodus 3:2). God chose fire as a means of guiding His Chosen People out of Egypt on their way to the Promised Land: “The Lord went before them to show the way by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire―so that He might be the guide of their journey at both times” (Exodus 13:21). During those 40 years in the desert, God again chose fire to symbolize His presence. When the Israelites were encamped around Mount Sinai, “all Mount Sinai was on a smoke: because the Lord was come down upon it in fire, and the smoke arose from it as out of a furnace: and all the mount was terrible” (Exodus 19:18) … “and the glory of the Lord dwelt upon Sinai … and the sight of the glory of the Lord was like a burning fire upon the top of the mount” (Exodus 24:16-17).
Our Lord, God the Son, when He appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, revealing and demanding devotion to His Sacred Heart―He showed her His Heart as furnace of fire for love of mankind. When the resurrected Lord unrecognizably spoke to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, they afterwards said to each other: “Was not our heart burning within us, whilst He spoke in this way, and opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).
God the Holy Ghost came down at Pentecost, upon Our Lady and the Apostles, in the form of tongues of fire: “When the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place―and suddenly there came a sound from Heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues, as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them” (Acts 2:1-3).
Fire can be touchy and painful subject! Yet it something that is held in common on Earth, in Hell, and in Heaven! Quite literally, we cannot survive without fire and God has decided that fire should be eternal. We have fire on Earth, fire in Hell and also fire in Heaven. Some might argue that humans have survived for long periods without fire―but that only means man-made fire. Humans cannot survive without the ‘fire’ of the sun―which supplies Earth with its heat and light―even though it is not a fire in the normal sense of the word, meaning a fire of flames. The Sun’s ‘fire’ comes from the there is no normal “fire” or “flame” in the Sun ― at least not like the flames we have in a fire here on Earth ― because the energy and light and heat is coming from the nuclear reaction within the ball of gasses that make up the Sun. In Hell, the damned will burn with hatred and also burn eternally in the fires of Hell without ever being “burnt-out” or “burnt-up”. In Heaven, the saints will burn forever in a fire of love―since “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and love is often characterized by a burning heart―as in the Sacred Heart of Jesus―and expressions such as “burning with love”. Our Lord Himself said that He had come “to cast fire on the Earth―and what will I, but that it be kindled!” (Luke 12:49).
Fire―like so many other things―can be seen as being a good thing or an evil thing; it can be used for good or for evil; it can bring good outcomes and consequences or evil outcomes and consequences. Let us then look at fire―on Earth, in Hell and in Heaven―to see what there is to be learned and applied to our lives in the here and now.
Fire, Fire Everywhere!
In the Northern Hemisphere, summer is once again upon us! Temperatures rise and fires arise! Currently, Canada can claim that it is their most catastrophic summer. Canada’s 2023 wildfire season is unprecedented by many measures — but this is just the start, it is far from being over! Chief Ken McMullen, the president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs (CAFC) said: “The fires in Canada are really quite unprecedented!” Michael Norton, director of the Northern Forestry Centre with the Canadian Forest Service, said: “It’s no understatement to say that the 2023 fire season is — and will continue to be — record-breaking,” adding that, as of July 6th, 2023, there are 639 active fires across Canada, 351 of which are out of control. The fires are not expected to be extinguished―either by firefighters or a major shift in weather conditions―until after summer ends. Wildfire seasons typically begin around May, ramp up over the summer months and diminish around fall, with July usually being the most active month.
Fires were burning in all of Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories. The sheer number and size of the fires is only part of the reason why they have created such a problem for the country, with one key reason being the geographic spread. In a normal year, provinces might be able to help each other by sending resources to badly affected regions, but this year there are fires in nearly every single province which has caused a huge problem when it comes to figuring out the resourcing of fire-fighting equipment. There have been 3,412 wildfires so far in 2023 — with July and August yet to come. That number of 3,412 (and climbing) is significantly above the 10-year average of 2,452 per year. At the beginning of July, the Canadian government issued a bulletin stating that this is only the beginning and that there will be heightened fire activity for next two months―July and August.
The Canadian army has been mobilized in several provinces as international crews have arrived to help ― most notably South African teams in Alberta and French teams in Quebec. The United States announced that over 600 U.S. firefighters and support personnel have been deployed to help fight the fires. South Korean teams are also expected to arrive in Quebec next week but the geographic scope of the fires still means resources that would usually be able to target one place have to now be spread unevenly. The wildfires have — so far — scorched and consumed over 21 million acres of Canada’s landscape with an ever varying number of 580 to 650 active wildfires reported to be raging at any given time. To give you an idea of what 21 million acres looks like, compare that to total acreage of the following States of the U.S.
Comparative Size of States in Acres (rounded off to the nearest 1 million)
Pennsylvania 29 million acres; Ohio 29 million acres; Virginia 27 million acres; Tennessee 27 million acres; Kentucky 26 million acres; Indiana 23 million acres; Maine 23 million acres; South Carolina 20 million acres; West Virginia 16 million acres; Maryland 8 million acres; Hawaii 7 million acres; Massachusetts 7 million acres; Vermont 6 million acres; New Hampshire 6 million acres; New Jersey 6 million acres; Connecticut 4 million acres; Delaware 2 million acres; Rhode Island 1 million acres. The states in RED PRINT denote those states that would have been scorched in their entirety at least once or more in order to reach the 21 million acres scorched in Canada in one year alone―2023 (and it is not yet over!). Rhode Island―so far―would have burnt to the ground 21 times! The whole of Hawaii or Massachusetts would have been scorched 3 times!
As for the comparative size of European countries in millions of acres: Germany is 88 million acres; Poland is 77 million acres; Italy is 74 million acres; the United Kingdom is 60 million acres; Greece is 32 million acres.
Wildfires Burning at Record Levels
The scale of the environmental catastrophe is unparalleled in the Canada’s recorded history. In just Quebec alone, 3.6 million acres have been scorched in the wildfires―so far―with more no doubt to come! The average annual area that has burned in Quebec over the past 10 years is 24,359 acres per year, meaning that the areas burned just in the last two months are approximately 147 times larger than an average year! Rains have so far failed to provide relief for the ferocious fires as Canadian officials say heavy rains in Quebec have missed areas where wildfires are most active.
One fire, in the western province of British Columbia, is the largest the province has ever seen. The Donnie Creek fire now covers an area larger than the size of Rhode Island. According to the Guinness Book of Records, British Columbia has the unwanted record of hosting the longest burning fire in recorded history. The Chinchaga Fire started in logging slash in British Columbia, Canada, on June 1st, 1950, quickly growing out of control and ending five months later on October 31st, in Alberta, Canada. In that 5-month span, it burned approximately 1.2 million hectares (3 million acres) of boreal forest.
Where There is Fire, There’s Smoke
You have heard the expression: “Where there is smoke, there is fire.” In this case, where there are a lot of fires there is also a lot of smoke! These Canadian fires continue to burn, causing severe air quality issues for much of Canada and the United States. Smoke from the fires has so far triggered air quality alerts in hundreds of cities across North America. But with the typical peak of wildfire season still ahead, dangerous, haze-filled skylines may be a common sight this summer. How long does wildfire smoke stay in the air? It could be weeks or more ―depending upon if the wildfires themselves are brought under control and also the weather system and where and how much the wind blows.
Like other types of smoke from building fires or even cigarettes, wildfire smoke contains a mixture of particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and volatile chemicals. These components differ depending on what material is feeding the flames. Wildfire smoke is a mix of gases and fine particles from burning trees and plants, buildings, and other material. Smoke from wildfires―that burning through poison oak and poison ivy―may contain traces of irritants from those plants. Smoke can also pick up chemicals from plastic and other human-made materials when wildfires burn through cities or housing developments.
Seeing Health Dangers Through the Smokescreen
Three experts from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Forest Service, and the University of California (UC), Davis tell us that as these wildfires increase in prevalence and severity with each year, the long-term effects upon human health may be just beginning. Wildfire smoke can make anyone sick, but people with asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), or heart disease, or who are pregnant and children and responders are especially at risk. Smoke can hurt your eyes, irritate your respiratory system and worsen heart and lung diseases.
Dr. Lisa Miller, an immunologist at UC Davis, points out that the most dangerous part of wildfire smoke is the particulate matter. Wildfire smoke contributes about 40% of fine particulate matter pollution in our atmosphere, and these tiny specks of solid material can be smaller than 2.5 microns—miniscule enough to wreak havoc in human bodies. “Material of this size can readily enter the deep lung and the bloodstream” says Dr. Miller.
Dr. Haczku, a professor of medicine and respiratory immunologist at UC Davis Health. “However, it is less recognized that wildfire smoke elicits inflammatory changes even in healthy people, putting them at risk of developing lung disease. Our results highlight how susceptible the immune system is to environmental exposures such as wildfire smoke inhalation … I was very surprised by the significant pathological changes in these blood immune cells of all healthy volunteers without an apparent presence of major clinical symptoms.”
Dr. Kalhan, a pulmonologist at Northwestern Medicine, Chicago, says: “These are fine particles that actually get inhaled deep into one's lungs. Now, on the way into the lungs, they pass the nose and go through the windpipe and into the lungs. So anyone who is healthy even will feel watery eyes, maybe some nasal irritation, or a sore throat, or a hoarse voice, or even coughing. The particles can then get deep in the lung and cause an inflammatory reaction. Individuals who have chronic lung conditions―such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), can actually have flare-ups of their disease by being exposed to these particles. The other group that can be at risk are people who are prone to heart conditions. That inflammatory reaction that occurs in the lungs can set off an inflammatory reaction throughout the body, which has been associated with risks of having heart attacks and strokes. Single-day exposures to someone who's a healthy young adult probably don't have a huge number of health consequences. But Chicago, the air quality index got almost to 300. So if someone sat outside for the full day in an air quality index of 300, that's like smoking half a pack of cigarettes. But the concerning thing is we're seeing more and more days like this. These aren't one-off experiences. The increased frequency of these days is really worrisome.”
Dr. Robert Lahita stated: “If you look at your car this morning and it’s been parked outside and there is a fine layer of soot over your car, well, it is often going to be inside your lung, inside your chest! And that is a big problem! A lot of people can’t tolerate it!”
Who or What is Behind the Smokescreen
The seemingly never-ending California droughts over the last two decades are merely a microcosm of the macrocosm of drought that is escalating worldwide. Last year (2022), more than 43% of the US was in drought at the end of July, the government’s National Integrated Drought Information System revealed. In May 2022, droughts of different levels of severity affected almost 64% of the United States. The number has been above the 60% mark since September of 2020 with just a short break. While it has risen this high before, it rarely stayed there for so long.
Study whichever news sites you wish ― they all say that drought is quickly increasing worldwide. A United Nations report says that drought frequency and duration has increased by nearly a third globally since 2000. Changing rainfall patterns as a result of climate breakdown are a key driver of drought. The report says drought affects Africa more than any other continent, accounting for 44% of the global total. The report goes on to say that by 2050, drought could affect more than 75% of the world’s population. Population growth is also exposing more people in many regions to the impacts of drought, the report says [Does that mean that we have to depopulate the world??]. The UN report adds that drought is a hidden global crisis that risks becoming “the next pandemic” if countries do not take urgent action on water and land management and tackling the climate emergency. The UN secretary general’s special representative for disaster risk reduction, said: “Drought is on the verge of becoming the next pandemic and there is no vaccine to cure it. Most of the world will be living with water stress in the next few years. Demand will outstrip supply during certain periods. Drought is a major factor in land degradation and the decline of yields for major crops.”
Hey! Even the WEF (World Economic Forum) with their head-honcho, Klaus Schwab, post on their website: “Climate change is contributing to more droughts and water shortages on continents around the world … France is experiencing its worst drought since records began in 1958 and the corn harvest is expected to be almost 20% lower than 2021 … Portugal recorded its hottest July since records began and 99% of the country is in severe or extreme drought ... Around 75% of Romania is affected by drought and cereal crop is predicted to drop by 30 million tones … Even further North, drought has been declared in parts of England, which is expected to result in restrictions on water usage … The BBC reported that the first six months of the year were the driest in England since 1976.”
Drought and Wildfires
As the US government website, specially dedicated to Drought, states: “Drought, combined with warming temperatures, can result in decreased snowpack and stream-flow, increased evaporative demand, dry soils, and large-scale tree deaths, which results in increased potential for large wildfires … These conditions create increased potential for extreme wildfires that spread rapidly, burn with more severity, and are costly to suppress … and crops can be destroyed … Drought can impact drinking water supply, agriculture, and human health … and smoke can affect animal and human health.” Just like vaccines can impact and affect human health―for the worse and not the better!
The US government Fire Service website adds: “The historical and pre-settlement relationships between drought and wildfire are well documented in North America―with forest fire occurrence clearly increasing in response to drought. There is also evidence that drought interacts with other controls to affect fire intensity, severity, extent, and frequency.”
The US government NASA website adds: “Fire depends on two things―(1) having enough fuel and (2) drying that fuel out so it can catch fire. So in the short term, more droughts probably mean more fire, as the vegetation dries out … Droughts can create ideal conditions for wildfires. Lack of rain and low humidity dry out trees and vegetation, providing fuel. In these conditions, a spark from lightning, electrical failures, human error or planned fires can quickly get out of control. Global climate change is predicted to change precipitation and evaporation patterns around the world, leading to wetter climate in some areas and drier in others. Areas that face increasingly severe droughts will also be at risk for more and larger fires … Once we get drier and drier fuels, we should expect more intense fires and higher fire severity … Earth’s warming climate is forecasted to make global precipitation patterns more extreme: Wet areas will become wetter, and dry areas will become drier. Areas such as the American Southwest could see both reduced rainfall and increased soil moisture evaporation due to more intense heat, and, in some cases, the resulting droughts could be more intense than any drought of the past millennium.”
The US government climate website, NOAA, states: “Climate change, including increased heat, extended drought, and a thirsty atmosphere, has been a key driver in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in the western United States during the last two decades. Wildfires require the alignment of a number of factors, including temperature, humidity, and the lack of moisture in fuels, such as trees, shrubs, grasses, and forest debris. A 2016 study found the drying of organic matter enhanced and doubled the number of large fires between 1984 and 2015 in the western United States. A 2021 study, supported by NOAA, concluded that climate change has been the main driver of the increase in fire weather in the western United States.
“Drought and persistent heat set the stage for extraordinary wildfire seasons from 2020 to 2022 across many western states, with all three years far surpassing the average of 1.2 million acres burned since 2016. Extreme fire behavior during this period shocked many wildfire managers, as several huge blazes burned for months, others incinerated entire communities. Research shows that changes in climate create warmer, drier conditions, leading to longer and more active fire seasons. Increases in temperatures caused increased dryness of forest fuels during the fire season. For much of the U.S. West, projections show that an average annual temperature increase, of only 1 degree C, would increase the median burned area per year by as much as 600% in some types of forests.”
The PBS News Hour reported on a study published Monday in the journal Nature Water, which stated that, “based on satellite data, the intensity of extreme drought and rainfall has sharply increased over the past 20 years. These are not merely tough weather events―they are leading to extremes, such as crop failure, infrastructure damage and even humanitarian crises. Researchers say the data confirms that both the frequency and intensity of rainfall and droughts are increasing due to burning fossil fuels and other human activity that releases greenhouse gases ... Drought events outnumbered heavy rain events … The strong link between these climate extremes and rising global average temperatures means continued global warming will mean more drought and rainstorms that are worse by many measures — more frequent, more severe, longer and larger ... According to the U.S. National Integrated Drought Information System, 20% of the annual economic losses from extreme weather events in the U.S. are from floods and droughts. A drastic swing between extreme drought and unprecedented flooding, dubbed “weather whiplash,” is becoming common in some regions.”
Why Keep Harping On About Droughts and Floods?
You may, understandably so, ask the question: “Why are you harping-on about the weather, the droughts and fire? Don’t you have something better to say?” You do have a point―but the point of harping-on about all this leads us to next point―which is HAARP. We want to harp-on about HAARP for a while―and you will soon see why! What is HAARP? The acronym HAARP stands for High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. That probably mystifies you just as much the word HAARP mystified you! What is a High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program?
In simple non-scientific, easy to understand, layman’s terms, it is basically a scientific attempt aimed at studying the properties and behavior of the ionosphere. The “ionosphere” is what divides the Earth’s “atmosphere” from outer space. The “ionosphere” is a 350 mile zone that stretches roughly from 50 miles above the Earth’s surface to 400 miles above Earth’s surface, right at the edge of outer space. Most satellites are to be found in the ionosphere region. The ionosphere can also affect our weather here below. Within the past 15 years, data satellites revealed connections between weather conditions and changes in Earth’s ionosphere.
High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is a research program that was conducted by the United States military from 1993 to 2014. Its purpose was to study the ionosphere, a region of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, where charged particles interact with the Earth’s magnetic field. HAARP was supposed to have closed-down and disbanded in 2014 amid outcry and controversy about what is was really doing behind the scenes. Yet, within a couple of years it was back and running and has been running ever since. Regardless of what the “front-office” or “front-men” said, the military involvement with the HAARP program was not just a hobby that would pass the time away on weekends! The underlying goal of the research was to find a way to harness climate and the weather in such a way as to make it a powerful weapon that could be used in warfare (and, human nature being what it is, outside of warfare too).
Weather warfare? A conspiracy theory, surely! No, not so! The problem of artificial modification of the environment for military or other hostile purposes was brought to the international agenda in the early 1970s. Following the US decision of July 1972 to renounce the use of climate modification techniques for hostile purposes, in 1973 a resolution by the US Senate called for an international agreement “prohibiting the use of any environmental or geophysical modification activity as a weapon of war” and an in-depth review by the Department of Defense of the military aspects of weather and other environmental modification techniques, the USA decided to seek agreement with the Soviet Union to explore the possibilities of an international agreement. In July 1974, USA and USSR (Russia) agreed to hold bilateral discussions on measures to overcome the danger of the use of environmental modification techniques for military purposes and three subsequent rounds of discussions in 1974 and 1975. As for weather warfare and weather control being just a conspiracy theory with no foundation in reality ― then, “Why on earth have bilateral discussions about something that is only a conspiracy theory?”
Weather warfare a conspiracy theory? No way! In 1977, Geneva hosted the Environmental Modification Convention (ENMOD), formally the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, which resulted in an international treaty prohibiting the military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects. The Convention banned weather warfare, which is the use of weather modification techniques for the purposes of inducing damage or destruction. The question is this: “Why on earth have an international convention on environmental modification, and then passing a treaty on the subject, if such research was not already being done before 1977?” Around 33 years later, the Convention on Biological Diversity of 2010 would also ban some forms of weather modification or geo-engineering.
HAARP was in the middle of all this fear and controversy. Yet despite all the public outcry, the work and research on how to harness the environment and weaponize it continued to be done―apart from the brief suspension in 2014, which soon gave way to HAARP’s re-instatement!
The History Channel produced a revealing 45-minute documentary on HAARP and other secret weapons used for electromagnetic warfare. The History Channel is not a supporter or propagator of conspiracy theories! Here are two quotes from the History Channel documentary:
“Electromagnetic weapons ... pack an invisible wallop hundreds of times more powerful than the electrical current in a lightning bolt. One can blast enemy missiles out of the sky, another could be used to blind soldiers on the battlefield, still another to control an unruly crowd by burning the surface of their skin. If detonated over a large city, an electromagnetic weapon could destroy all electronics in seconds. They all use directed energy to create a powerful electromagnetic pulse.”
“Directed energy is such a powerful technology it could be used to heat the ionosphere to turn weather into a weapon of war. Imagine using a flood to destroy a city or tornadoes to decimate an approaching army in the desert. If an electromagnetic pulse went off over a city, basically all the electronic things in your home would wink and go out, and they would be permanently destroyed. The military has spent a huge amount of time on weather modification as a concept for battle environments.”
Where Is This All Leading To?
So what has been the point of HAARP-ing on about all this? Quite simply the fact that we are in the middle of depopulation agenda―which has now been publicly admitted by Bill Gates, the World Economic Forum and the United Nations. There are simply too many people on this planet for their liking―and therefore a large number have to “bye-byes”. There is no better way of achieving this than harnessing the environment and nature to achieve your goals! We have already had most of the world’s population (on average 72%, or almost 3 in 4 persons) receive the killer Covid vaccine, which has and will continue to produce death rates that have shot through the roof. We have had a progressive weakening of our God-given immune system by a variety of methods―electromagnetic waves and frequencies from our electronic technologies that we cannot imagine living without; from the increasingly contaminated and genetically altered foods that are being rammed-down our throats; by inefficient man-made medicines that usually treat only the symptoms and not the causes of diseases (which thereby wears down our immune system even more); by the increasing limitations, bans or prohibitions that are being placed on natural God-made medicines; etc., etc.
What most “sheeple” do not realize is that we are in the middle of a silent, surreptitious, secret war that deceitfully, deceptively and devilishly seeks to depopulate the world. We already are seeing a “depopulation” of the Faith, with increasing numbers of Catholics no longer practicing or even apostatizing from the Faith―and we will also see a similar depopulation in secular field. The “men-behind-the-scenes” or “the money-men” or the “Elite” or call them what you want―they hold the purse strings and they own the world and most of its important enterprises. Hence they are calling the shots and are coordinating all that they own into achieving their nefarious goals. Behind them all, of course is Satan―as Our Lady has said on a number of occasions:
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell ... Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … The demons of the air will perform great wonders on Earth and in the atmosphere, and men will become more and more perverted! … God will allow the demons to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family … They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … Masonry will take control of the civil government and will enact iniquitous laws, making it easy for everyone to live in sin … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy the Church ... Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church.”
Fires of Hell on Earth
Just as Christ said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49) ― similarly, Satan, who seeks to ape God, could also say: “I am come to cast the fires of Hell on Earth―and will I, but that they be kindled?” We have there the antipathy and battle between the fires of love and the fires of hatred―between Christ and Satan. Everyone must burn―we either burn with love, or we burn with hatred. Satan seeks to destroy love―and Christ seeks to destroy hatred. Jesus Himself said: “You have heard that it hath been said: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy!’ But I say to you: ‘Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! And pray for them that persecute and calumniate you!’” (Matthew 5:43-44). Satan seeks to burn down all that is good and godly―Christ seeks to burn up all that is sinful and satanic.
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) former chief exorcist of Rome, said: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … The whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican! … The demon tempts the authorities of the Church ― just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
Know Your Enemy
Sun Tzu was a Chinese military general, strategist, philosopher, and writer who was born in 544 BC. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War―an influential work of military strategy that has affected both Western and East Asian philosophy and military thinking. In The Art of War, he writes: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy―then for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
It is imperative that we know our enemies and know their tactics. Fr. Gabriele Amorth tells us that our enemy, Satan, prefers to be unknown and unseen―so that he might better wreak his havoc and do his damage. You could say that the Satan prefers to be thought of as a “conspiracy theory” that doesn’t really exist! Fr. Amorth says: “The Devil does not like to be seen … Satan’s biggest triumph is mankind’s conviction that he doesn’t exist ... He makes people believe that Hell does not exist, that sin does not exist, and that he is nothing but one more experience to try out ... When we jeer at the Devil and tell ourselves that he does not exist, that is when he is happiest!”
Satan is no conspiracy theory, but a reality―and the reality is that, at the present moment, this “prince of world” (John 12:31) as Our Lord calls him, is ruling the vast majority of the world through the many governments that he has infiltrated with his minions and his many different organizations and “isms” that he has set up―Materialism, Communism, Rationalism, Liberalism, Modernism, Atheism, Agnosticism, etc. That is the reality and no conspiracy theory! If you don’t or can’t believe it , then go argue it out with Our Lady of Good, who foretold: “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … The evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective, making it easy for everyone to live in sin!” (O.L. of Good Success) … “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church” (O.L. of Akita).
Even the Liberal Pope Paul VI said on several occasions that “the smoke of Satan has entered the Church” and has reached the highest places:
► 1972: “We believed that after the [Second Vatican] Council would come a day of sunshine in the history of the Church. But instead there has come a day of clouds and storms, and of darkness ... And how did this come about? We will confide to you … that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the Devil. … It is as if from some mysterious crack, no, it is not mysterious, from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God.” (Pope Paul VI, Address On the Occasion of the Ninth Anniversary of His Election, June 29th, 1972).
► 1972: Some months later, on November 15th of 1972, at a General Audience, Pope Paul VI added: “What are the Church’s greatest needs at the present time? Don’t be surprised at Our answer and don’t write it off as simplistic or even superstitious: one of the Church’s greatest needs is to be defended against the evil we call the Devil … Who can forget the highly significant description of the triple temptation of Christ? Or the many episodes in the Gospel where the Devil crosses the Lord’s path and figures in His teaching? (Matthew 12:43) And how could we forget that Christ, referring three times to the Devil as His adversary, describes him as ‘the prince of this world’?” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11).
► 1977: A few years later he repeated the same concern: “The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the Faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church” (Pope Paul VI, Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions, October 13th, 1977).
The “smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God” and smoke blocks-out the light and brings darkness, “there has come a day of clouds, storms and darkness” ― maybe Satan is also using his own version of HAARP, in order to generate those clouds and storms! Nevertheless, where there is smoke, there also is fire―and where there is fire, there also are the devils of Hellfire! Remember ― “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). If we do not have the “protective clothing” or “armor of God” to shield us from those satanic fires, then we will get burnt! Most people do not have that “armor of God” ― the 7 billion in this world who are not Catholic. The 1 billion (1.4 billion) Catholics who do have that “armor of God” choose not wear it and use it. Hence it is―as Our Lord, Our Lady and many saints and theologians say―that most souls end up being damned in Satan’s fires of Hell. Tragic, but true! What will you do about it? What are you doing about it? Every second of the day around two people die and appear before God for judgment. What is their final judgment? What is their final destination? That is why Our Lady came to Fatima, to tell us: “Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
Spiritual HAARP in the Church
You could say that Satan is playing a spiritual HAARP in the Church by manipulating the ‘climate’ of the Faith―creating storms of scandals; floods of mortal sins; downpours of doubts; droughts of divine grace; earthquakes of heresy; and so on. As Our Lady of Good Success foretold in speaking of our present times:
“During this period, there will be great physical and moral calamities, both public and private … Passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of customs―for Satan will reign almost completely! … Satan will begin to try to destroy the work of God … Many souls will be deprived of innumerable graces! … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs.
“In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury and impurity that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls―who will be lost. During these unfortunate times, evil will invade childhood innocence ... Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women ... The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation, and those who should speak out will be silent!
“Under the appearance of virtue and bad-spirited zeal, Catholics will turn upon the Religion which nourished them at her breast! Impelled by the malice of the devil they will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church ... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom.
“Woe to the children of these times! It will be difficult to receive the Sacrament of Baptism, and also that of Confirmation. Making use of persons in positions of authority, the devil will assiduously try to destroy the Sacrament of Confession … The restoring and life-giving Sacrament of Penance will be forgotten and even scorned by ungrateful men, who in their foolish madness, do not realize that it is the only sure means of salvation after one has lost his baptismal innocence. What is most grievous is that even the ministers of My Most Holy Son do not give to this Sacrament the value that they should―viewing with cold indifference this valuable and precious treasure, which has been placed in their hands for the restoration of souls redeemed by the Blood of the Redeemer. There are those who consider hearing confession as a loss of time and a futile thing!
“The Sacrament of Extreme Unction will be little esteemed. Many people will die without receiving it either because of the negligence of their families, or their false sentimentality that tries to protect the sick from seeing the gravity of their situations, or because they will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church, impelled by the malice of the devil. Thus many souls will be deprived of innumerable graces, consolations and the strength they need to make that great leap from time to eternity.
“The Sacrament of Matrimony will be attacked and profaned in the fullest sense of the word. Masonry―which will then be in power―will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of doing away with this Sacrament. This will make it easy for everyone to live in sin and will encourage the procreation of illegitimate children, born without being incorporated into the Church.
“The Sacred Sacrament of Holy Orders will be ridiculed, oppressed and despised … The secular Clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties … Priests will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them. These corrupted and depraved priests will scandalize the Christian people.
“The same will happen with Holy Communion by the many and horrible sacrileges — both public and also secret — that will occur from profanations of the Holy Eucharist! Often during this epoch, the enemies of Jesus Christ, instigated by the demon, will steal consecrated Hosts from the churches, so that they might profane the Eucharistic Species. My Most Holy Son will see Himself cast upon the ground and trampled upon by irreverent feet.”
“This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings … He will achieve his victories by means of foreign and faithless people so numerous that, like a black cloud, it will obscure the pure heavens … With these people, every type of vice will enter, calling down in turn every type of chastisement, such as plagues, famines, internal fighting and external disputes with other nations, and apostasy, the cause of the perdition of so many souls … There will be a formidable and frightful war, in which both native and foreign blood will flow, including that of secular and regular priests, as well as that of other religious. This night will be most horrible, for, humanly speaking, evil will seem to triumph! … There will be occasions when all will seem to be lost and paralyzed! … It will be necessary for fire from Heaven to rain down upon them in order to purify them!”
“There are not any souls who, by their lives of immolation and sacrifice, appease the Divine Justice―therefore fire will rain from Heaven … Therefore, clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears in the privacy of your heart. Implore our heavenly Father that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times! … Offer your sacrifices and prayers to shorten the duration of this terrible catastrophe!” (Words of Our Lady of Good Success).
A Drought of Grace and Fires of Passions
In the spiritual life, water is a symbol of grace. Just as living things and persons cannot survive for long without water―so too the soul will not keep the roots of its Faith alive without grace. Just as forests―that have been dried-out by drought through lack of water―are all the more susceptible to catch on fire, likewise, souls that have been ‘dried-out’ by a deprivation and drought of grace, are also more susceptible to being inflamed by the fires of their passions.
“Wickedness is kindled as a fire―it shall set afire the thicket of the forest!” (Isaias 9:18). St. Paul speaks of our sinful passions whose only fruit was death: “For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins did work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death” (Romans 7:5). As an example, he speaks of “the passion of lust” (1 Thessalonians 4:5). St. James speaks of the tongue as being a sinful fire: “The tongue is indeed a little member, and boasts of great things. See how a small fire can set afire a great forest. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is placed among our members, which defiles the whole body, and inflames the wheel of our nativity, being set on fire by Hell. For every nature of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of the rest, is tamed, and hath been tamed, by the nature of man! But the tongue no man can tame, an unquiet evil, full of deadly poison. By it we bless God and the Father; and by it we curse men, who are made after the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing! My brethren, these things ought not so to be!” (James 3:5-10).
You are told to keep away from sinners, “lest thou be burnt with the flame of the fire of their sins” (Ecclesiasticus 8:13). “In the congregation of sinners a fire shall be kindled” (Ecclesiasticus 16:7). The sinner “shall not depart out of darkness! The flame shall dry up his branches” (Job 15:30). “The end of the congregation of sinners is a flame of fire!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:10). “They are as stubble―fire hath burnt them! They shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flames!” (Isaias 47:14). “Their sins engulf them―they are always before Me! They delight in their wickedness and their lies. They are all adulterers, burning like an oven whose fire the baker need not stir. Their hearts are like an oven! Their passion smolders all night and in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire. All of them are hot as an oven!” (Osee 7:3-7).
Life is a constant struggle against the fire of our passions and the torrential downpour of temptations that surround us every day. “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). St. Paul―saint though he was―describes this constant battle within himself: “We know that the law is spiritual―but I am carnal, sold under sin! For I do not that good which I want to do―but I do the evil which I hate! … To will or want what is good, is present with me―but to accomplish that which is good, I do not find! For the good which I want to do―I do not do! But the evil which I do not want to do―that I do! … I am delighted with the law of God, according to the interior man, but I see another law in my body, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin that is in my body! Unhappy man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:14-25).
Divine Grace Puts Out Fires
Just as “water quenches a flaming fire” (Ecclesiasticus 3:33), we could also say that grace quenches our sinful passions. “Be penitent and be converted, so that your sins may be blotted out!” (Acts 3:19) … “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just―to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us” (1 John 1:9). “Let us go therefore with confidence to the throne of grace―so that we may obtain mercy and find grace” (Hebrews 4:16) … “The Lord shall wash away the filth” (Isaias 4:4) … “and wash away thy sins” (Acts 22:16) … “Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!” (Psalm 50:4).
The God of Fire and the Fires of God
“Our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). Christ―our God―said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth―and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). We even beg our God―the Holy Ghost―to kindle that fire within us: “Come O Holy Ghost! Fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love!” Just as fire purifies metals, so too does the fire of God purify our souls: “As silver is tried by fire, and gold is tried in the furnace―so the Lord tries the hearts!” (Proverbs 17:3). “Gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:5). “The trial of your faith is much more precious than gold which is tried by the fire” (1 Peter 1:7).
God seems to prefer fire as a symbol of Himself. The first encounter Moses had with God was one that involved fire: “The Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush” (Exodus 3:2). God chose fire as a means of guiding His Chosen People out of Egypt on their way to the Promised Land: “The Lord went before them to show the way by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire―so that He might be the guide of their journey at both times” (Exodus 13:21). During those 40 years in the desert, God again chose fire to symbolize His presence. When the Israelites were encamped around Mount Sinai, “all Mount Sinai was on a smoke: because the Lord was come down upon it in fire, and the smoke arose from it as out of a furnace: and all the mount was terrible” (Exodus 19:18) … “and the glory of the Lord dwelt upon Sinai … and the sight of the glory of the Lord was like a burning fire upon the top of the mount” (Exodus 24:16-17).
Our Lord, God the Son, when He appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, revealing and demanding devotion to His Sacred Heart―He showed her His Heart as furnace of fire for love of mankind. When the resurrected Lord unrecognizably spoke to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, they afterwards said to each other: “Was not our heart burning within us, whilst He spoke in this way, and opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).
God the Holy Ghost came down at Pentecost, upon Our Lady and the Apostles, in the form of tongues of fire: “When the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place―and suddenly there came a sound from Heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues, as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them” (Acts 2:1-3).
Article 4
Wednesday July 5th, 2023
From the Illusion of Independence, Back to the Reality of Dependence!
Wednesday July 5th, 2023
From the Illusion of Independence, Back to the Reality of Dependence!
The Dream is Over! Time to Wake-Up!
Independence Day came and went! Nothing changed! We are still slaves of the world! We are no more independent today than we were yesterday! Independence is an illusion, a fairy tale, an illogical state that has been hyped-up to seem real, but is no more real than Superman, Batman, Bigfoot, Dracula, Frankenstein and Mickey Mouse! Independence is just as possible as it is for a cow to jump over the moon! Independence is merely wishful thinking, a vain dream, a non-reality. For anyone to claim that they are independent is as foolish and brash as it would be for anyone to claim that they are God! In fact, only God is independent―the rest of creation is dependent upon God!
There is nobody in this world―even in the natural sphere―who is independent, even though they will brashly argue that they are! There is nobody who can do everything without the need of anyone else. The billionaires are not independent―for they need doctors to cure them or at least maintain their health; they need servants to clean their mansions and palaces; gardeners to cut the acres and acres of lawns and tend to the trees and plants; they need security guards to guard them; they need advisers to guide them; they need lawyers to defend them or look after legal issues; they need friends to socialize with; they need plumbers, electricians, maintenance crews, mechanics to fix their luxurious cars and perhaps clean them too; etc. All of that consists of human dependence―but those billionaires also depend on non-human things, such as their smartphones, computers, expensive wristwatches, cars, household appliances, central-heating, air-conditioning, solar panels, and supplies of gas, electricity and water, etc. So not even billionaires are independent―even though they act as though they are.
Go On! Try Being Truly Independent!
If you want independence, then go tell your doctor to get lost, tell your plumber, electrician, car mechanic that you will no longer need them―for you are independent of them and will no longer depend on them. Take you phone back to the phone company and cancel your account and have them shutdown your internet service―because you are independent of them and will no longer depend on them. Throw out your television, because you will not depend on anyone or anything for entertainment, since you are independent. Stop going to the stores for food, clothes, medicine and household goods―you are independent now, and you will be growing your own food, making your own clothes, and making all your households goods and furniture from scratch. Cut-off you gas, electricity and water supplies, for your now independent and you will find your own gas, make your electricity and find your own water. Cancel your trash collection contract and tell them that you are now independent and will be disposing of your own trash. Since you will have no running water coming out of your pipes, you will have to find alternative ways to wash the dishes, wash your laundry, wash yourself and dispose of your excrement and urine―because you are now independent. Take the children out of school and tell the teachers that you are independent now, and that you will no longer depend on them for the education of your children.
Wake-Up to Reality!
“Without Me, you can do nothing!” said Our Lord (John 5:15)―so where is independence to found in that statement? What is it about the word “nothing” that we do not understand? “Nothing” means “not-a-single-thing, zero, zilch, nichts, niets, nada, ništa, nic, nekas” ― or whatever other language may be your native tongue. When Our Lord says “Without Me, you can do nothing!” He means “You cannot be independent from Me!” As Scripture says: “For in Him we live, and move, and are!” (Acts 17:28).
“Jesus said: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by Me!’” (John 14:6)―to which Scripture adds: “There is no other name, under Heaven, given to men, whereby we must be saved!” (Acts 4:12). Jesus Himself said: “For if you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sin!” (John 8:24). So how are you going to save your soul independently of Him?
All that we have comes from God―as Holy Scripture testifies many times: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … All things were made by Him and without Him was made nothing that was made!” (John 1:1-3). All things were made by Him―where does man find independence in all of that? Nowhere! There is only dependence to be found―dependence upon God. As Scripture says: “Know ye that the Lord He is God! He made us, and not we ourselves!” (Psalm 99:3).
Again Scripture adds: “For who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). “Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights!” (James 1:17).
We Are Servants―Not Independent Operators
“A vain man is lifted up into pride and thinks himself born free” (Job 11:12). We are not independent, but we are servants or even slaves! We must choose whom we wish to serve―to serve God and Heaven, or to serve Satan and his princedom, the world. Our Lord speaks of us as being servants and not independent beings―telling us that, as servants, we cannot serve two masters: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). “For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16).
As Christians and Catholics, we should seek to be free and independent from the world, so that we can be servants or slaves of God―yet the worldly folk seek to be free and independent from God, so that they can be servants and slaves of the world. And who rules the world? Who is prince of this world? Satan. As Jesus said: “The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” … The prince of this world is already judged! … Now shall the prince of this world be cast out!” (John 14:30; 16:11; 12:31). Our Lord seeks to give us happiness in Heaven, not on Earth: “Know the difference between My service, and the service of a kingdom of the Earth!” (2 Paralipomenon 12:8) … “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36).
Satan tempts us away from the service of God by dangling in front of us the power, pleasures and treasures that world can offer―Satan tried to tempt Our Lord the same way: “The devil took Him up into a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: ‘All these will I give Thee, if falling down Thou wilt adore me!’ Then Jesus saith to him: ‘Begone, Satan! For it is written: “The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve!”’ Then the devil left Him” (Matthew 4:8-10). Yes, “Him only shalt thou serve” ― which rules out all independence. Likewise, in response to the questions “Who made you?” and “Why did God make you?” the Catechism answers: “God made me!” and “God made me to know Him, love Him and SERVE Him in this world!”
Yes, God made us! We did not make ourselves! “Know ye that the Lord, He is God! He made us, and not we ourselves! We are his people!” (Psalm 99:3). Having made us, He owns us―we are not independent of Him. We live in the world that He created―we did not create the world. We breathe the air that He created―we do make our own air. We drink the water that He created and continuously recycles―we cannot do that ourselves. He made the bodies that we walk around in―making them able to propagate. He made each and every soul that inhabits those bodies. He made the soil, the plants, the trees and all other things that supply our food. He made the sun that enables those things to grow.
We are SERVANTS of God and not independent operators. If we choose to become independent to God (which can never really happen anyway― except through the illusion and delusion of our illogical minds), then we automatically become servants or slaves of the world and its prince, Satan. Our Lord has clearly indicated that implication, by saying: “He that is not with Me, is against Me!” (Matthew 12:30). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do! He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth―because truth is not in him! When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44).
Just as Our Lord says: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” ― we could apply that to the prayer, the Our Father, which we should be praying many times daily. “Why do you call Me ‘Father’ and why do you say to Me, ‘Thy will be done!’ and then go and ignore My will and fail to obey Me, your ‘Father’?” The Our Father is a prayer that admits dependence, pledges obedience and service―it is the very anti-thesis of independence.
Likewise with the Hail Mary―we shown our dependence upon Our Lady when we say: “Pray for us sinners!” Hey! If we are independent―then we have no need of Mary! But independently of her, we have little hope of Mercy―for she is the Mother of Mercy, of whom the saints say the following. St. Albert the Great (a Doctor of the Church), says: “They who are not thy servants [that is to say, “independent”, for a servant is dependent], O Mary, shall perish.” St. Bonaventure (a Doctor of the Church) repeats the same thought when he says: “They who neglect the service [in other words, those who choose to be independent] of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation.” St. Ignatius of Antioch (a Father of the Church), a martyr of the second century, writes: “A sinner can be saved only through [and not independently of] the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost.”
The Liturgy of Dependence
A quick overview of the Liturgy of Holy Mother Church will clearly show a constant spirit of dependence upon God. Here are some excerpts―for brevity’s sake, they are only a line, even though many lines could have been quoted from each day.
“O Lord, come that we may be rescued by Thy protection from the threatening dangers” (1st Sunday Advent).
“Give ear, O Thou that rulest” (2nd Sunday Advent).
“Enlighten the darkness of our minds!” (3rd Sunday Advent).
“Grant us the help of Thy heavenly power!” (Ember Wednesday in Advent).
“O almighty God, Who dost govern all things!” (2nd Sunday after Epiphany).
“O almighty God, look mercifully upon our weakness and protect us!” (3rd Sunday after Epiphany).
“O God, Who knowest the frailty of our nature, grant us health of mind and body!” (4th Sunday after Epiphany).
“O Lord, keep safe Thy household, since their only hope is to lean on Thy grace!” (5th Sunday after Epiphany).
“Thou art a helper in time of tribulation!” (Septuagesima Sunday).
“We put not our trust in anything we do!” (Sexagesima Sunday).
“Be a protector and a house of refuge, O God!” (Quinquagesima Sunday).
“Grant us help, O Lord!” (Ash Wednesday).
“Cast thy care upon the Lord, and He will sustain thee!” (Thursday after Ash Wednesday).
“The Lord became my helper … Thou hast upheld me!” (Friday after Ash Wednesday).
“Serve the Lord with fear and embrace discipline!” (Saturday after Ash Wednesday).
“Abide under the protection of the God of Heaven!” (1st Sunday of Lent).
“Thou hast been our refuge!” (Tuesday after 1st Sunday of Lent).
“Deliver from all our necessities, O God! Forgive us our sins and guide our wayward hearts!” (Ember Wednesday of Lent).
“Deliver me from my necessities, O Lord!” (Ember Friday of Lent).
“O Lord, in Thee have I put my trust―save me!” (Ember Saturday of Lent).
“To Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul! In Thee I put my trust!” (2nd Sunday of Lent).
“Be Thou my helper and deliver, O Lord!” (Monday after 2nd Sunday of Lent).
“Cast thy care upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee!” (Tuesday after 2nd Sunday of Lent).
“O Lord my God, do not depart from me, come and help me!” (Wednesday after 2nd Sunday of Lent).
“O God, come to my assistance! O Lord make haste to help me!” (Thursday after 2nd Sunday of Lent).
“In my trouble I cried to the Lord!” (Friday after 2nd Sunday of Lent).
“Pluck my feet out of the snare and have mercy on me―for I am alone and poor!” (3rd Sunday of Lent).
We will stop here―at the 3rd Sunday of Lent, which not even the halfway point of the Liturgical year. So where is INDEPENDENCE? Only in Hell! Well, not really―for in Hell you will be a slave of Satan! In Heaven there will only be TOTAL DEPENDENCE! So we had better start getting used to DEPENDENCE here below! What have been the fruits of independence? You would have to be a liar of gross proportions to try and pass-off independence as having many good fruits! Independence is a virus that creates more and more independence―thus breaking up more and more the unity that comes from God. Adam and Eve chose to be independent from God and rebelled against His commands―the result was that nature rebelled against Adam and Eve, and the harmony that once existed to perfection, was now seriously damaged. Parents rebel against authority, only to find that soon their children rebel against them. As you sow, so shall you reap!
The Mass of the Dependence
What is true of the Liturgy is also true of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is daily offered as means of help to the independent and fallen human race. From the very beginning of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and right to the very end of Mass, we state our DEPENDENCE upon God. Here are just a few extracts from the Ordinary of the Mass:
“Thou, O God, art my strength!” (Prayers at the Foot of the Altar). If we were independent then we would not need God to give us strength―we would have sufficient strength of ourselves.
“Our help is in the Name of the Lord!” (Prayers at the Foot of the Altar). If you are independent, then you don’t need any help.
“Grant us pardon, absolution, and remission of our sins … and grant us Thy salvation” (Confiteor). The word “grant” implies dependence. An independent person would not depend upon God to grant these things. How can you obtain pardon, mercy and salvation independently of God?
“Lord have mercy, etc. Christ have mercy, etc. Lord have mercy, etc.” (Kyrie). We depend on God’s compassion and mercy for our salvation―an independent person cannot forgive themselves and grant themselves mercy.
“We give Thee thanks…” (Gloria). We give thanks for having receive something we did not have and for something we need. We need God and we need His mercy, no matter how independent we think we are.
“I believe in one God, the Father almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of all things, visible and invisible … Begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for us men, and for our salvation, came down from Heaven.” (Credo). We live in a world that is God’s creation and not our own creation. All the things in the world that we use were ultimately made by God, or made by someone else who used the things that God had already made. That is called dependence upon God and not independence from God.
“Accept, almighty and eternal God, this unspotted host … for my innumerable sins, offenses, and negligences … that it may avail me for salvation unto life everlasting.” (Offertory). No matter how independent we may imagine ourselves to be, we cannot forgive our own sins, nor can we hope for salvation by our own independent efforts.
“Grant that … we may be made partakers of His divine nature” (Offertory). Once again the word “grant” implies a dependence and need for something we do not have.
“We offer Thee, O Lord, the chalice of salvation, beseeching Thy clemency … for our salvation!” (Offertory). What chalice? A chalice of our deeds and merits? No! The chalice of Christ’s Passion and Death which has earned for us a chance―not a guarantee―of salvation. Independently of Christ’s Passion and Death there is no salvation for us.
“Receive this oblation which we make to Thee, in memory of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ … that it may avail unto our salvation!” (Offertory). Once again―the “oblation” is not OUR oblation, but the oblation of Christ made on our behalf―which obviously points to dependence, not independence.
“Accept and bless these gifts, presents, holy unspotted Sacrifices, which in the first place we offer Thee for Thy holy Catholic Church to which vouchsafe to grant peace, as also to preserve, unite, and govern it throughout the world” (Canon of the Mass). Not even the Church is independent, but it is governed by God and is dependent upon God for peace and unity.
“That we may in all things be defended by the help of Thy protection … Dispose our days in Thy peace” (Canon of the Mass). An independent person needs no protection, especially not in “all things”! Asking God to “dispose” means asking Him to arrange things, which obviously means dependence.
“We offer unto Thy most excellent Majesty of Thine own gifts, bestowed upon us” (Canon of the Mass). Notice that we are not offering our own independent gifts, but gifts that God given us to offer―which, again, shows a dependence on God.
“Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven!” (Our Father). We are saying that we prefer doing His will rather than doing our own independent will.
“Forgive us our trespasses!” (Our Father). No matter how independent we think we are, we are incapable of forgiving ourselves.
“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil … Deliver us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, from all evils, past, present, and to come! … Through the assistance of Thy mercy may we be always free from sin, and secure from all disturbance!”” (Our Father and the prayer that follows it). Neither can we overcome temptation and evil without depending upon the help of God’s Providence and His grace.
“Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us!” (Agnus Dei). We cannot take away our own sins, even less so the sins of the whole world! It is upon Christ that we hope and depend upon for that mercy!
“Look not upon my sins, but the Faith of Thy Church … deliver me by this Thy most sacred Body and Blood, from all my iniquities and from all evils; and make me always cleave to Thy commandments, and suffer me never to be separated from Thee … Let not the partaking of Thy Body, O Lord, turn to my judgment and condemnation; but let it, through Thy mercy, become a safeguard and remedy, both for soul and body” (Prayers after the Agnus Dei). These are not the words of an independent person, but of someone greatly dependent on God’s help and mercy.
“I confess to almighty God, to the blessed Mary ever Virgin, blessed Michael the Archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, to all the Saints, and to you, Father, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault!” (Confiteor before Communion). For the second time in the Mass we once again confess our guilt before God! For an independent person that is hard to do―for independence almost invariably is accompanied by pride.
“Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh away the sins of the world!” (Before the Domine non sum dingus). Yes, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, takes away the sins of the world and not we ourselves. We are dependent upon Christ for forgiveness and mercy! When it comes to sin, that is what independence achieves by itself―all that we are capable of doing with God’s help and assistance and preservation is to sin, sin and sin again. That is ultimate fruit of “going it alone”.
Finally, the Last Gospel, is like a crowning moment as a reminder of our dependence upon God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made! In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men; and the Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. He was the true Light, which enlightens every man that cometh into this world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him to them He gave power to become sons of God, to them that believe in His Name, who are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
Our Lord Wants Our Dependence
In that wonderful little book by Fr. Robert Gottemoller, Words of Love, which is a compilation of extracts from three other biographers of three mystic souls―Sr. Josefa Menendez (1890-1923), Sr. Mary of the Holy Trinity (1901-1942)and Sr. Consolata Betrone (1903-1946)―we read of Our Lord’s desire to be “center-stage” and being “allowed to act” in our lives, with ourselves taking a secondary role of just loving Him, suffering for Him, and allowing Him to run things according to His will and not our will. Here are some of those extracts:
“As you are very small, you must let yourself be controlled and guided by My fatherly hand which is powerful and infinitely strong .... I will mold you as is best for My glory and for souls .... Do not fear, for I am looking after you with jealous care, such care as the tenderest of mothers takes of her little child.” (Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love, p. 180).
“Rely on Me with closed eyes, without anxiety, content ... yes, like a babe sleeping in its mother’s arms. Are you not like babes carried in the arms of God?” (Sr. Mary of the Trinity, The Spiritual Legacy of Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity, Fr. Silvere Van Den Broek, O.F.M., no. 265).
“Consolata, you know that I am thinking of everything, that I am providing for everything down to the smallest detail. Therefore, do not let one thought enter your mind, not one outside interest.... Have no fear! I am taking care of you! You must think only of loving Me! I will think of everything else, even to the smallest details! … You see, Consolata, sanctity means self-forgetfulness in everything, in thoughts, desires, words ... You have only one duty―to obey Me. I require a docile will which permits Me to act … Let Me do everything! You will see that I will do everything, and do it well! … I delight to work in a soul. You see, I love to do everything Myself; and from this soul I ask only that she love Me … Allow Me to do it all! I will do everything; but you should, at every moment, give Me what I ask for with much love!” (Sr. Consolata Betrone, Jesus Appeals to the World, by Lorenzo Sales, I.M.C., pp. 109, 153-154).
“Do not worry, Josefa, about what you can and what you cannot do. You know very well that you can do nothing. But I am He who can and will do all. Yes, I will do all, even what seems to you impossible.... I will supply for all that you lack or cannot do. I ask you only for your liberty. All I need is to possess your will, for this I cannot find a substitute.” (Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love, p. 401, 1st ed.).
[Words of St. Madeleine-Sophie Barat to Josefa]: “I come to tell you this from Him ... Jesus Himself is arranging everything, and difficult as it may appear to creatures, He ordains each event in the way best for His plans.” (Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love, p. 433).
“I want what you do not want, but I can do what you cannot do. It is not for you to choose, but to surrender.” (Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love, p. 78).
“Remember this: Everything is a means in My Hands; I make all work together to fulfill My will.” (Sr. Mary of the Trinity, The Spiritual Legacy of Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity, Fr. Silvere Van Den Broek, O.F.M., no. 132).
“Let Me act; you are not competent to do anything―it is not your province.” (Sr. Mary of the Trinity, The Spiritual Legacy of Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity, Fr. Silvere Van Den Broek, O.F.M., no. 114).
“The most important work is not that which you do, it is that which you allow Me to do among you … Your value does not lie in your personal capabilities, however brilliant they may be, but in your capacity to receive your Creator and allow Him to live and shine through you! … “Oh, if you would leave Me to act; I would splendidly transform each one of your lives. But you oppose Me by your desires, your tastes, your resistance. My omnipotent Love is limited by the limit of your generosity! … All souls could rapidly attain to the plenitude of their sanctity if they allowed Me to act, without resisting! … Most religious give Me their work and their talents—I have sufficient talents at My disposal; what I desire is the soul, to make it My place of rest and of work, to live anew in it in humanity. Yes―My place of work―because a soul that would give herself to Me without reserve, how I would use her for the glory of God and of the Church, for the salvation of other souls, to a degree that you cannot imagine!” (Sr. Mary of the Trinity, The Spiritual Legacy of Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity, Fr. Silvere Van Den Broek, O.F.M., nos. 31, 90, 99, 608, 308).
Independence Day came and went! Nothing changed! We are still slaves of the world! We are no more independent today than we were yesterday! Independence is an illusion, a fairy tale, an illogical state that has been hyped-up to seem real, but is no more real than Superman, Batman, Bigfoot, Dracula, Frankenstein and Mickey Mouse! Independence is just as possible as it is for a cow to jump over the moon! Independence is merely wishful thinking, a vain dream, a non-reality. For anyone to claim that they are independent is as foolish and brash as it would be for anyone to claim that they are God! In fact, only God is independent―the rest of creation is dependent upon God!
There is nobody in this world―even in the natural sphere―who is independent, even though they will brashly argue that they are! There is nobody who can do everything without the need of anyone else. The billionaires are not independent―for they need doctors to cure them or at least maintain their health; they need servants to clean their mansions and palaces; gardeners to cut the acres and acres of lawns and tend to the trees and plants; they need security guards to guard them; they need advisers to guide them; they need lawyers to defend them or look after legal issues; they need friends to socialize with; they need plumbers, electricians, maintenance crews, mechanics to fix their luxurious cars and perhaps clean them too; etc. All of that consists of human dependence―but those billionaires also depend on non-human things, such as their smartphones, computers, expensive wristwatches, cars, household appliances, central-heating, air-conditioning, solar panels, and supplies of gas, electricity and water, etc. So not even billionaires are independent―even though they act as though they are.
Go On! Try Being Truly Independent!
If you want independence, then go tell your doctor to get lost, tell your plumber, electrician, car mechanic that you will no longer need them―for you are independent of them and will no longer depend on them. Take you phone back to the phone company and cancel your account and have them shutdown your internet service―because you are independent of them and will no longer depend on them. Throw out your television, because you will not depend on anyone or anything for entertainment, since you are independent. Stop going to the stores for food, clothes, medicine and household goods―you are independent now, and you will be growing your own food, making your own clothes, and making all your households goods and furniture from scratch. Cut-off you gas, electricity and water supplies, for your now independent and you will find your own gas, make your electricity and find your own water. Cancel your trash collection contract and tell them that you are now independent and will be disposing of your own trash. Since you will have no running water coming out of your pipes, you will have to find alternative ways to wash the dishes, wash your laundry, wash yourself and dispose of your excrement and urine―because you are now independent. Take the children out of school and tell the teachers that you are independent now, and that you will no longer depend on them for the education of your children.
Wake-Up to Reality!
“Without Me, you can do nothing!” said Our Lord (John 5:15)―so where is independence to found in that statement? What is it about the word “nothing” that we do not understand? “Nothing” means “not-a-single-thing, zero, zilch, nichts, niets, nada, ništa, nic, nekas” ― or whatever other language may be your native tongue. When Our Lord says “Without Me, you can do nothing!” He means “You cannot be independent from Me!” As Scripture says: “For in Him we live, and move, and are!” (Acts 17:28).
“Jesus said: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by Me!’” (John 14:6)―to which Scripture adds: “There is no other name, under Heaven, given to men, whereby we must be saved!” (Acts 4:12). Jesus Himself said: “For if you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sin!” (John 8:24). So how are you going to save your soul independently of Him?
All that we have comes from God―as Holy Scripture testifies many times: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … All things were made by Him and without Him was made nothing that was made!” (John 1:1-3). All things were made by Him―where does man find independence in all of that? Nowhere! There is only dependence to be found―dependence upon God. As Scripture says: “Know ye that the Lord He is God! He made us, and not we ourselves!” (Psalm 99:3).
Again Scripture adds: “For who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). “Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights!” (James 1:17).
We Are Servants―Not Independent Operators
“A vain man is lifted up into pride and thinks himself born free” (Job 11:12). We are not independent, but we are servants or even slaves! We must choose whom we wish to serve―to serve God and Heaven, or to serve Satan and his princedom, the world. Our Lord speaks of us as being servants and not independent beings―telling us that, as servants, we cannot serve two masters: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). “For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16).
As Christians and Catholics, we should seek to be free and independent from the world, so that we can be servants or slaves of God―yet the worldly folk seek to be free and independent from God, so that they can be servants and slaves of the world. And who rules the world? Who is prince of this world? Satan. As Jesus said: “The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” … The prince of this world is already judged! … Now shall the prince of this world be cast out!” (John 14:30; 16:11; 12:31). Our Lord seeks to give us happiness in Heaven, not on Earth: “Know the difference between My service, and the service of a kingdom of the Earth!” (2 Paralipomenon 12:8) … “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36).
Satan tempts us away from the service of God by dangling in front of us the power, pleasures and treasures that world can offer―Satan tried to tempt Our Lord the same way: “The devil took Him up into a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: ‘All these will I give Thee, if falling down Thou wilt adore me!’ Then Jesus saith to him: ‘Begone, Satan! For it is written: “The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve!”’ Then the devil left Him” (Matthew 4:8-10). Yes, “Him only shalt thou serve” ― which rules out all independence. Likewise, in response to the questions “Who made you?” and “Why did God make you?” the Catechism answers: “God made me!” and “God made me to know Him, love Him and SERVE Him in this world!”
Yes, God made us! We did not make ourselves! “Know ye that the Lord, He is God! He made us, and not we ourselves! We are his people!” (Psalm 99:3). Having made us, He owns us―we are not independent of Him. We live in the world that He created―we did not create the world. We breathe the air that He created―we do make our own air. We drink the water that He created and continuously recycles―we cannot do that ourselves. He made the bodies that we walk around in―making them able to propagate. He made each and every soul that inhabits those bodies. He made the soil, the plants, the trees and all other things that supply our food. He made the sun that enables those things to grow.
We are SERVANTS of God and not independent operators. If we choose to become independent to God (which can never really happen anyway― except through the illusion and delusion of our illogical minds), then we automatically become servants or slaves of the world and its prince, Satan. Our Lord has clearly indicated that implication, by saying: “He that is not with Me, is against Me!” (Matthew 12:30). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do! He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth―because truth is not in him! When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44).
Just as Our Lord says: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” ― we could apply that to the prayer, the Our Father, which we should be praying many times daily. “Why do you call Me ‘Father’ and why do you say to Me, ‘Thy will be done!’ and then go and ignore My will and fail to obey Me, your ‘Father’?” The Our Father is a prayer that admits dependence, pledges obedience and service―it is the very anti-thesis of independence.
Likewise with the Hail Mary―we shown our dependence upon Our Lady when we say: “Pray for us sinners!” Hey! If we are independent―then we have no need of Mary! But independently of her, we have little hope of Mercy―for she is the Mother of Mercy, of whom the saints say the following. St. Albert the Great (a Doctor of the Church), says: “They who are not thy servants [that is to say, “independent”, for a servant is dependent], O Mary, shall perish.” St. Bonaventure (a Doctor of the Church) repeats the same thought when he says: “They who neglect the service [in other words, those who choose to be independent] of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation.” St. Ignatius of Antioch (a Father of the Church), a martyr of the second century, writes: “A sinner can be saved only through [and not independently of] the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost.”
The Liturgy of Dependence
A quick overview of the Liturgy of Holy Mother Church will clearly show a constant spirit of dependence upon God. Here are some excerpts―for brevity’s sake, they are only a line, even though many lines could have been quoted from each day.
“O Lord, come that we may be rescued by Thy protection from the threatening dangers” (1st Sunday Advent).
“Give ear, O Thou that rulest” (2nd Sunday Advent).
“Enlighten the darkness of our minds!” (3rd Sunday Advent).
“Grant us the help of Thy heavenly power!” (Ember Wednesday in Advent).
“O almighty God, Who dost govern all things!” (2nd Sunday after Epiphany).
“O almighty God, look mercifully upon our weakness and protect us!” (3rd Sunday after Epiphany).
“O God, Who knowest the frailty of our nature, grant us health of mind and body!” (4th Sunday after Epiphany).
“O Lord, keep safe Thy household, since their only hope is to lean on Thy grace!” (5th Sunday after Epiphany).
“Thou art a helper in time of tribulation!” (Septuagesima Sunday).
“We put not our trust in anything we do!” (Sexagesima Sunday).
“Be a protector and a house of refuge, O God!” (Quinquagesima Sunday).
“Grant us help, O Lord!” (Ash Wednesday).
“Cast thy care upon the Lord, and He will sustain thee!” (Thursday after Ash Wednesday).
“The Lord became my helper … Thou hast upheld me!” (Friday after Ash Wednesday).
“Serve the Lord with fear and embrace discipline!” (Saturday after Ash Wednesday).
“Abide under the protection of the God of Heaven!” (1st Sunday of Lent).
“Thou hast been our refuge!” (Tuesday after 1st Sunday of Lent).
“Deliver from all our necessities, O God! Forgive us our sins and guide our wayward hearts!” (Ember Wednesday of Lent).
“Deliver me from my necessities, O Lord!” (Ember Friday of Lent).
“O Lord, in Thee have I put my trust―save me!” (Ember Saturday of Lent).
“To Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul! In Thee I put my trust!” (2nd Sunday of Lent).
“Be Thou my helper and deliver, O Lord!” (Monday after 2nd Sunday of Lent).
“Cast thy care upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee!” (Tuesday after 2nd Sunday of Lent).
“O Lord my God, do not depart from me, come and help me!” (Wednesday after 2nd Sunday of Lent).
“O God, come to my assistance! O Lord make haste to help me!” (Thursday after 2nd Sunday of Lent).
“In my trouble I cried to the Lord!” (Friday after 2nd Sunday of Lent).
“Pluck my feet out of the snare and have mercy on me―for I am alone and poor!” (3rd Sunday of Lent).
We will stop here―at the 3rd Sunday of Lent, which not even the halfway point of the Liturgical year. So where is INDEPENDENCE? Only in Hell! Well, not really―for in Hell you will be a slave of Satan! In Heaven there will only be TOTAL DEPENDENCE! So we had better start getting used to DEPENDENCE here below! What have been the fruits of independence? You would have to be a liar of gross proportions to try and pass-off independence as having many good fruits! Independence is a virus that creates more and more independence―thus breaking up more and more the unity that comes from God. Adam and Eve chose to be independent from God and rebelled against His commands―the result was that nature rebelled against Adam and Eve, and the harmony that once existed to perfection, was now seriously damaged. Parents rebel against authority, only to find that soon their children rebel against them. As you sow, so shall you reap!
The Mass of the Dependence
What is true of the Liturgy is also true of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is daily offered as means of help to the independent and fallen human race. From the very beginning of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and right to the very end of Mass, we state our DEPENDENCE upon God. Here are just a few extracts from the Ordinary of the Mass:
“Thou, O God, art my strength!” (Prayers at the Foot of the Altar). If we were independent then we would not need God to give us strength―we would have sufficient strength of ourselves.
“Our help is in the Name of the Lord!” (Prayers at the Foot of the Altar). If you are independent, then you don’t need any help.
“Grant us pardon, absolution, and remission of our sins … and grant us Thy salvation” (Confiteor). The word “grant” implies dependence. An independent person would not depend upon God to grant these things. How can you obtain pardon, mercy and salvation independently of God?
“Lord have mercy, etc. Christ have mercy, etc. Lord have mercy, etc.” (Kyrie). We depend on God’s compassion and mercy for our salvation―an independent person cannot forgive themselves and grant themselves mercy.
“We give Thee thanks…” (Gloria). We give thanks for having receive something we did not have and for something we need. We need God and we need His mercy, no matter how independent we think we are.
“I believe in one God, the Father almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of all things, visible and invisible … Begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for us men, and for our salvation, came down from Heaven.” (Credo). We live in a world that is God’s creation and not our own creation. All the things in the world that we use were ultimately made by God, or made by someone else who used the things that God had already made. That is called dependence upon God and not independence from God.
“Accept, almighty and eternal God, this unspotted host … for my innumerable sins, offenses, and negligences … that it may avail me for salvation unto life everlasting.” (Offertory). No matter how independent we may imagine ourselves to be, we cannot forgive our own sins, nor can we hope for salvation by our own independent efforts.
“Grant that … we may be made partakers of His divine nature” (Offertory). Once again the word “grant” implies a dependence and need for something we do not have.
“We offer Thee, O Lord, the chalice of salvation, beseeching Thy clemency … for our salvation!” (Offertory). What chalice? A chalice of our deeds and merits? No! The chalice of Christ’s Passion and Death which has earned for us a chance―not a guarantee―of salvation. Independently of Christ’s Passion and Death there is no salvation for us.
“Receive this oblation which we make to Thee, in memory of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ … that it may avail unto our salvation!” (Offertory). Once again―the “oblation” is not OUR oblation, but the oblation of Christ made on our behalf―which obviously points to dependence, not independence.
“Accept and bless these gifts, presents, holy unspotted Sacrifices, which in the first place we offer Thee for Thy holy Catholic Church to which vouchsafe to grant peace, as also to preserve, unite, and govern it throughout the world” (Canon of the Mass). Not even the Church is independent, but it is governed by God and is dependent upon God for peace and unity.
“That we may in all things be defended by the help of Thy protection … Dispose our days in Thy peace” (Canon of the Mass). An independent person needs no protection, especially not in “all things”! Asking God to “dispose” means asking Him to arrange things, which obviously means dependence.
“We offer unto Thy most excellent Majesty of Thine own gifts, bestowed upon us” (Canon of the Mass). Notice that we are not offering our own independent gifts, but gifts that God given us to offer―which, again, shows a dependence on God.
“Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven!” (Our Father). We are saying that we prefer doing His will rather than doing our own independent will.
“Forgive us our trespasses!” (Our Father). No matter how independent we think we are, we are incapable of forgiving ourselves.
“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil … Deliver us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, from all evils, past, present, and to come! … Through the assistance of Thy mercy may we be always free from sin, and secure from all disturbance!”” (Our Father and the prayer that follows it). Neither can we overcome temptation and evil without depending upon the help of God’s Providence and His grace.
“Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us!” (Agnus Dei). We cannot take away our own sins, even less so the sins of the whole world! It is upon Christ that we hope and depend upon for that mercy!
“Look not upon my sins, but the Faith of Thy Church … deliver me by this Thy most sacred Body and Blood, from all my iniquities and from all evils; and make me always cleave to Thy commandments, and suffer me never to be separated from Thee … Let not the partaking of Thy Body, O Lord, turn to my judgment and condemnation; but let it, through Thy mercy, become a safeguard and remedy, both for soul and body” (Prayers after the Agnus Dei). These are not the words of an independent person, but of someone greatly dependent on God’s help and mercy.
“I confess to almighty God, to the blessed Mary ever Virgin, blessed Michael the Archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, to all the Saints, and to you, Father, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault!” (Confiteor before Communion). For the second time in the Mass we once again confess our guilt before God! For an independent person that is hard to do―for independence almost invariably is accompanied by pride.
“Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh away the sins of the world!” (Before the Domine non sum dingus). Yes, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, takes away the sins of the world and not we ourselves. We are dependent upon Christ for forgiveness and mercy! When it comes to sin, that is what independence achieves by itself―all that we are capable of doing with God’s help and assistance and preservation is to sin, sin and sin again. That is ultimate fruit of “going it alone”.
Finally, the Last Gospel, is like a crowning moment as a reminder of our dependence upon God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made! In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men; and the Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. He was the true Light, which enlightens every man that cometh into this world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him to them He gave power to become sons of God, to them that believe in His Name, who are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
Our Lord Wants Our Dependence
In that wonderful little book by Fr. Robert Gottemoller, Words of Love, which is a compilation of extracts from three other biographers of three mystic souls―Sr. Josefa Menendez (1890-1923), Sr. Mary of the Holy Trinity (1901-1942)and Sr. Consolata Betrone (1903-1946)―we read of Our Lord’s desire to be “center-stage” and being “allowed to act” in our lives, with ourselves taking a secondary role of just loving Him, suffering for Him, and allowing Him to run things according to His will and not our will. Here are some of those extracts:
“As you are very small, you must let yourself be controlled and guided by My fatherly hand which is powerful and infinitely strong .... I will mold you as is best for My glory and for souls .... Do not fear, for I am looking after you with jealous care, such care as the tenderest of mothers takes of her little child.” (Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love, p. 180).
“Rely on Me with closed eyes, without anxiety, content ... yes, like a babe sleeping in its mother’s arms. Are you not like babes carried in the arms of God?” (Sr. Mary of the Trinity, The Spiritual Legacy of Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity, Fr. Silvere Van Den Broek, O.F.M., no. 265).
“Consolata, you know that I am thinking of everything, that I am providing for everything down to the smallest detail. Therefore, do not let one thought enter your mind, not one outside interest.... Have no fear! I am taking care of you! You must think only of loving Me! I will think of everything else, even to the smallest details! … You see, Consolata, sanctity means self-forgetfulness in everything, in thoughts, desires, words ... You have only one duty―to obey Me. I require a docile will which permits Me to act … Let Me do everything! You will see that I will do everything, and do it well! … I delight to work in a soul. You see, I love to do everything Myself; and from this soul I ask only that she love Me … Allow Me to do it all! I will do everything; but you should, at every moment, give Me what I ask for with much love!” (Sr. Consolata Betrone, Jesus Appeals to the World, by Lorenzo Sales, I.M.C., pp. 109, 153-154).
“Do not worry, Josefa, about what you can and what you cannot do. You know very well that you can do nothing. But I am He who can and will do all. Yes, I will do all, even what seems to you impossible.... I will supply for all that you lack or cannot do. I ask you only for your liberty. All I need is to possess your will, for this I cannot find a substitute.” (Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love, p. 401, 1st ed.).
[Words of St. Madeleine-Sophie Barat to Josefa]: “I come to tell you this from Him ... Jesus Himself is arranging everything, and difficult as it may appear to creatures, He ordains each event in the way best for His plans.” (Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love, p. 433).
“I want what you do not want, but I can do what you cannot do. It is not for you to choose, but to surrender.” (Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love, p. 78).
“Remember this: Everything is a means in My Hands; I make all work together to fulfill My will.” (Sr. Mary of the Trinity, The Spiritual Legacy of Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity, Fr. Silvere Van Den Broek, O.F.M., no. 132).
“Let Me act; you are not competent to do anything―it is not your province.” (Sr. Mary of the Trinity, The Spiritual Legacy of Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity, Fr. Silvere Van Den Broek, O.F.M., no. 114).
“The most important work is not that which you do, it is that which you allow Me to do among you … Your value does not lie in your personal capabilities, however brilliant they may be, but in your capacity to receive your Creator and allow Him to live and shine through you! … “Oh, if you would leave Me to act; I would splendidly transform each one of your lives. But you oppose Me by your desires, your tastes, your resistance. My omnipotent Love is limited by the limit of your generosity! … All souls could rapidly attain to the plenitude of their sanctity if they allowed Me to act, without resisting! … Most religious give Me their work and their talents—I have sufficient talents at My disposal; what I desire is the soul, to make it My place of rest and of work, to live anew in it in humanity. Yes―My place of work―because a soul that would give herself to Me without reserve, how I would use her for the glory of God and of the Church, for the salvation of other souls, to a degree that you cannot imagine!” (Sr. Mary of the Trinity, The Spiritual Legacy of Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity, Fr. Silvere Van Den Broek, O.F.M., nos. 31, 90, 99, 608, 308).
Article 3
Tuesday July 4th, 2023
Independence Day in the USA
Debunking Independence, the Modern Day "Heresy"
Tuesday July 4th, 2023
Independence Day in the USA
Debunking Independence, the Modern Day "Heresy"
A LITANY OF DEPENDENCE (click here for its own page)
(the article follows this prayer)
Lord, grant that we may always depend upon Thee!
Christ, grant that we may always depend upon Thee!
Lord, grant that we may always depend upon Thee!
God the Father of Heaven, from Whom all creation comes,
― make us truly dependent upon Thee!
God the Son, upon Whom our salvation depends,
― make us truly dependent upon Thee!
God the Holy Ghost, the source of truth and sanctity,
― make us truly dependent upon Thee!
Holy Trinity, one God, Whose Providence guides all things and events,
― make us truly dependent upon Thee!
Holy Mary, who said: “Be it done unto me according to Thy word!” (Luke 1:38)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Lord Jesus Christ, Who said: “Father, not My will, but Thy will be done!” (Luke 22:42)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Lord and Savior, Who taught us pray: “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven!” (Matthew 6:10)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Instructor in obedience, Who said: “I came down from Heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me!” (John 6:38)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Obedient Servant of the Father, Who said: “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, that I may perfect His work!” (John 4:34)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Example in zeal, Who said to the Father: “I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do!” (John 17:4).
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Leader and Redeemer, Who said: “Follow Me!” (Matthew 19:21).
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Model and Guide, Who said: “Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of Heart!” (Matthew 11:29)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Lord and King, Who said: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice!” (Luke 12:31)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Savior and Redeemer, Who said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our All-Powerful Master, of Whom it was said: “The winds and the sea obey Him! … Even the unclean spirits obey Him!” (Matthew 8:27; Mark 1:27).
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Lawgiver and Savior, Who said: “If you love Me, keep My Commandments!” (John 14:15)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
O Lord of Truth, Who said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life … If I say the truth to you, why do you not believe Me?” (John 14:6; 8:46)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
O Shepherd of souls, Who said: “He that is not with Me, is against Me―and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth!” (Matthew 12:30).
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Lord and Leader, Who said: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
O heavenly Guide, Who said: “Leaving the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men!” (Mark 7:8)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
O Reader of minds and thoughts, Who said: “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” (Matthew 9:4)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Leader and Shepherd, Who said: “Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat!” (Matthew 7:13)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Savior and Redeemer, “the stone which was rejected by the builders, which is become the head of the corner; neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under Heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved!” (Acts 4:11-12)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Lord and Master, Who said: “All power is given to Me in Heaven and on Earth!” (Matthew 28:18)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Master and Teacher, Who said: “Teach ye all nations to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our King and Lord, Who said: “He that hears you, hears Me; he that despises you, despises Me; he that despises Me, despises Him that sent Me!” (Luke 10:16)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Lord and Friend, Who said: “You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you!” (John 15:14)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Friend and Master, Who said: “If anyone love Me, he will keep My word! He that loves Me not, keeps not My words!” (John 14:23-24).
― save us from the spirit of independence!
O Holy Ghost, Author of all Scripture of Whom it is said: “All Scripture is inspired of God … inspired by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21)
― teach us to obey Thy words!
O Holy Ghost, of Whom Jesus said: “The Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, Whom the Father will send in My Name, He will teach you all things and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you!” (John 14:26; 15:26)
― teach us to obey Thy words!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Be subject to God, but resist the devil!” (James 4:7)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Nations shall be subject to Me! … All kings shall serve Him, and shall obey Him!” (Wisdom 8:14; Daniel 7:27)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “It is just to be subject to God, and that a mortal man should not equal himself to God!” (2 Machabees 9:12)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “It is good to obey the holy God!” (Ecclesiasticus 46:12).
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “We ought to obey God, rather than men!” (Acts 5:29).
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Let every soul be subject to higher powers―for there is no power but from God!” (Romans 13:1)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Be subject to princes and powers, to obey at a word, to be ready to do every good work!” (Titus 3:1)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Obey your prelates, and be subject to them. For they watch as having to render an account of your souls!” (Hebrews 13:17)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord … As the Church is subject to Christ, so also let the wives be to their husbands in all things! (Ephesians 5:22-24)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is just! … Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing to the Lord!” (Ephesians 6:1; Colossians 3:20)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Young men, be subject to the elders!” (1 Peter 5:5)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear―not only to the good and gentle, but also to the difficult or wayward.” (1 Peter 2:18)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Be ye subject therefore to every human creature for God’s sake―whether it be to the king as excelling, or to governors as sent by Him for the punishment of evildoers … For such is the will of God!” (1 Peter 2:13-15)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
Most Holy and Interdependent Trinity―Three Persons in One God―teach us how to be interdependent!
Most Holy Trinity―independent from the world―teach us how to be independent from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity―help us realize that we must: “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. For what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever; and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God―as God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people! Wherefore, Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17)
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to realize that our “adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8).
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “know that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God, and that whosoever will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “love not the world, nor the things which are in the world!” (1 John 2:15)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “flee from evil things!” (Proverbs 13:19)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “hate evil and love good!” (Amos 5:15)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to know that “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “fight the good fight of Faith: and to lay a hold on eternal life, whereunto we are called!” (1 Timothy 6:12)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to understand that “no man can serve two masters. For either we will hate the one, and love the other: or we will sustain the one, and despise the other. We cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) so as not to play without ceasing!
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “give thanks to God without ceasing, because … every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (1 Thessalonians 2:13; James 1:17)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to realize that “what have we that we have not received? And if we have received it, why do we glory as if we had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to realize that we “are not able to do so much as the least thing” (Luke 12:26)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to realize that “when we shall have done all these things that are commanded of us, we should say: ‘We are unprofitable servants―we have only done that which we ought to do!’” (Luke 17:10)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “keep ourselves unspotted from this world … not to be not conformed to this world … so that we be not condemned with this world!” (James 1:27; Romans 12:2; 1 Corinthians 11:32).
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to understand that “pride goeth before destruction, and the spirit is lifted up before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Lamb of God, Who “came to seek and save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10)
― teach us true dependence upon God and independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Lamb of God, Who “didst bear our sins in Thy body upon the tree, so that we, being dead to sin, should live unto justice” (2 Peter 2:24)
― teach us true dependence upon God and independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Lamb of God, “propitiation for our sins and also for those of the whole world” (1 John 2:2)
― teach us true dependence upon God and independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
V. “Submit your neck to the yoke, and let your soul receive discipline!” (Ecclesiasticus 51:34)
R. “We shall have many good things if we fear God and depart from all sin, and do that which is good!” (Tobias 4:23)
O God, Who by the grace of the Holy Spirit has poured the gifts of charity into the hearts of Thy faithful, grant unto us and Thy servants and handmaids―for whom we implore Thy clemency―health of soul and body, so that we may love Thee With all our might, and, with our whole love, may execute those things that are pleasing to Thee.
O God, Who rejectest no one, but in Thy loving mercy art appeased by penance, howsoever a man may have sinned, look mercifully upon the prayers of our lowliness and enlighten our hearts, that we may be able to fulfill all Thy precepts.
O God, of Whose mercies there is no number, and of Whose goodness the treasure is infinite; we give thanks to Thee for the gifts Thou hast bestowed upon us, evermore beseeching Thy clemency, so that, as Thou grantest the petitions of them that ask Thee, Thou wilt never forsake them, but will prepare them for the eternal reward to come.
O God, Who resists the proud and bestows Thy grace on the humble, grant us the virtue of true humility, so that we may never provoke Thee to anger by our pride, but rather receive, through humility, the gifts of Thy grace, through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
(THE LITANY IS NOW COMPLETED)
(the article follows this prayer)
Lord, grant that we may always depend upon Thee!
Christ, grant that we may always depend upon Thee!
Lord, grant that we may always depend upon Thee!
God the Father of Heaven, from Whom all creation comes,
― make us truly dependent upon Thee!
God the Son, upon Whom our salvation depends,
― make us truly dependent upon Thee!
God the Holy Ghost, the source of truth and sanctity,
― make us truly dependent upon Thee!
Holy Trinity, one God, Whose Providence guides all things and events,
― make us truly dependent upon Thee!
Holy Mary, who said: “Be it done unto me according to Thy word!” (Luke 1:38)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Lord Jesus Christ, Who said: “Father, not My will, but Thy will be done!” (Luke 22:42)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Lord and Savior, Who taught us pray: “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven!” (Matthew 6:10)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Instructor in obedience, Who said: “I came down from Heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me!” (John 6:38)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Obedient Servant of the Father, Who said: “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, that I may perfect His work!” (John 4:34)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Example in zeal, Who said to the Father: “I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do!” (John 17:4).
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Leader and Redeemer, Who said: “Follow Me!” (Matthew 19:21).
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Model and Guide, Who said: “Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of Heart!” (Matthew 11:29)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Lord and King, Who said: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice!” (Luke 12:31)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Savior and Redeemer, Who said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our All-Powerful Master, of Whom it was said: “The winds and the sea obey Him! … Even the unclean spirits obey Him!” (Matthew 8:27; Mark 1:27).
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Lawgiver and Savior, Who said: “If you love Me, keep My Commandments!” (John 14:15)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
O Lord of Truth, Who said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life … If I say the truth to you, why do you not believe Me?” (John 14:6; 8:46)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
O Shepherd of souls, Who said: “He that is not with Me, is against Me―and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth!” (Matthew 12:30).
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Lord and Leader, Who said: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
O heavenly Guide, Who said: “Leaving the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men!” (Mark 7:8)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
O Reader of minds and thoughts, Who said: “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” (Matthew 9:4)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Leader and Shepherd, Who said: “Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat!” (Matthew 7:13)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Savior and Redeemer, “the stone which was rejected by the builders, which is become the head of the corner; neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under Heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved!” (Acts 4:11-12)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Lord and Master, Who said: “All power is given to Me in Heaven and on Earth!” (Matthew 28:18)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Master and Teacher, Who said: “Teach ye all nations to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our King and Lord, Who said: “He that hears you, hears Me; he that despises you, despises Me; he that despises Me, despises Him that sent Me!” (Luke 10:16)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Lord and Friend, Who said: “You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you!” (John 15:14)
― save us from the spirit of independence!
Our Friend and Master, Who said: “If anyone love Me, he will keep My word! He that loves Me not, keeps not My words!” (John 14:23-24).
― save us from the spirit of independence!
O Holy Ghost, Author of all Scripture of Whom it is said: “All Scripture is inspired of God … inspired by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21)
― teach us to obey Thy words!
O Holy Ghost, of Whom Jesus said: “The Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, Whom the Father will send in My Name, He will teach you all things and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you!” (John 14:26; 15:26)
― teach us to obey Thy words!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Be subject to God, but resist the devil!” (James 4:7)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Nations shall be subject to Me! … All kings shall serve Him, and shall obey Him!” (Wisdom 8:14; Daniel 7:27)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “It is just to be subject to God, and that a mortal man should not equal himself to God!” (2 Machabees 9:12)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “It is good to obey the holy God!” (Ecclesiasticus 46:12).
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “We ought to obey God, rather than men!” (Acts 5:29).
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Let every soul be subject to higher powers―for there is no power but from God!” (Romans 13:1)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Be subject to princes and powers, to obey at a word, to be ready to do every good work!” (Titus 3:1)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Obey your prelates, and be subject to them. For they watch as having to render an account of your souls!” (Hebrews 13:17)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord … As the Church is subject to Christ, so also let the wives be to their husbands in all things! (Ephesians 5:22-24)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is just! … Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing to the Lord!” (Ephesians 6:1; Colossians 3:20)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Young men, be subject to the elders!” (1 Peter 5:5)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear―not only to the good and gentle, but also to the difficult or wayward.” (1 Peter 2:18)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
O Holy Ghost, Who said in Scripture: “Be ye subject therefore to every human creature for God’s sake―whether it be to the king as excelling, or to governors as sent by Him for the punishment of evildoers … For such is the will of God!” (1 Peter 2:13-15)
― sow in our minds and hearts the seeds of dependence!
Most Holy and Interdependent Trinity―Three Persons in One God―teach us how to be interdependent!
Most Holy Trinity―independent from the world―teach us how to be independent from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity―help us realize that we must: “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. For what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever; and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God―as God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people! Wherefore, Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17)
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to realize that our “adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8).
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “know that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God, and that whosoever will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “love not the world, nor the things which are in the world!” (1 John 2:15)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “flee from evil things!” (Proverbs 13:19)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “hate evil and love good!” (Amos 5:15)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to know that “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “fight the good fight of Faith: and to lay a hold on eternal life, whereunto we are called!” (1 Timothy 6:12)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to understand that “no man can serve two masters. For either we will hate the one, and love the other: or we will sustain the one, and despise the other. We cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) so as not to play without ceasing!
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “give thanks to God without ceasing, because … every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (1 Thessalonians 2:13; James 1:17)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to realize that “what have we that we have not received? And if we have received it, why do we glory as if we had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to realize that we “are not able to do so much as the least thing” (Luke 12:26)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to realize that “when we shall have done all these things that are commanded of us, we should say: ‘We are unprofitable servants―we have only done that which we ought to do!’” (Luke 17:10)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to “keep ourselves unspotted from this world … not to be not conformed to this world … so that we be not condemned with this world!” (James 1:27; Romans 12:2; 1 Corinthians 11:32).
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Most Holy Trinity, grant us the grace to understand that “pride goeth before destruction, and the spirit is lifted up before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18)
― and teach us true independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Lamb of God, Who “came to seek and save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10)
― teach us true dependence upon God and independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Lamb of God, Who “didst bear our sins in Thy body upon the tree, so that we, being dead to sin, should live unto justice” (2 Peter 2:24)
― teach us true dependence upon God and independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
Lamb of God, “propitiation for our sins and also for those of the whole world” (1 John 2:2)
― teach us true dependence upon God and independence from the devil, the world, concupiscence, sin and all evil!
V. “Submit your neck to the yoke, and let your soul receive discipline!” (Ecclesiasticus 51:34)
R. “We shall have many good things if we fear God and depart from all sin, and do that which is good!” (Tobias 4:23)
O God, Who by the grace of the Holy Spirit has poured the gifts of charity into the hearts of Thy faithful, grant unto us and Thy servants and handmaids―for whom we implore Thy clemency―health of soul and body, so that we may love Thee With all our might, and, with our whole love, may execute those things that are pleasing to Thee.
O God, Who rejectest no one, but in Thy loving mercy art appeased by penance, howsoever a man may have sinned, look mercifully upon the prayers of our lowliness and enlighten our hearts, that we may be able to fulfill all Thy precepts.
O God, of Whose mercies there is no number, and of Whose goodness the treasure is infinite; we give thanks to Thee for the gifts Thou hast bestowed upon us, evermore beseeching Thy clemency, so that, as Thou grantest the petitions of them that ask Thee, Thou wilt never forsake them, but will prepare them for the eternal reward to come.
O God, Who resists the proud and bestows Thy grace on the humble, grant us the virtue of true humility, so that we may never provoke Thee to anger by our pride, but rather receive, through humility, the gifts of Thy grace, through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
(THE LITANY IS NOW COMPLETED)
An Independent Month!
Every American, of course, knows that July 4th in America’s Independence Day—or perhaps the modern “dumbing-down” has been so successful that perhaps not all Americans are aware of the fact! Yet what most Americans do not realize is that July is choc-full of days of independence! The American Day of Independence of July 4th, is just one of twenty-two Days of Independence celebrated in the month of July.
On July 1st, Canada celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom in 1867.
On July 1st, Burundi, in Africa, celebrates its independence from Belgium in 1962.
On July 1st, Rwanda, in Africa, celebrates its independence from Belgium in 1962.
On July 3rd, Belarus celebrates its independence from the occupying German forces in 1944.
On July 4th, the United States celebrates its independence from Great Britain in 1776.
On July 5th, Venezuela celebrates its independence from Spain in 1811.
On July 5th, Algeria celebrates its independence from France in 1962.
On July 5th, Cape Verde celebrates its independence from Portugal in 1975.
On July 6th, Argentina celebrates its independence from Spain in 1816.
On July 6th, Malawi, in Africa, celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom in 1957.
On July 7th, the Solomon Islands celebrate independence from the United Kingdom in 1978.
On July 7th, South Sudan celebrates independence from Sudan in 2011.
On July 10th, the Bahamas celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom in 1973.
On July 12th, São Tomé and Príncipe, Africa, celebrates its independence from Portugal in 1975.
On July 12th, Kiribati, in Micronesia, celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom in 1979.
On July 14th, France celebrates Bastille Day and its revolutionary independence from the French monarchy in 1790.
On July 17th, Slovakia celebrates its independence from the Czechs in 1992.
On July 19th, Belgium celebrates its independence from the Netherlands in 1931.
On July 26th, Liberia celebrates its independence from American colonization in 1847.
On July 26th, Maldives, in Asia, celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom in 1965.
On July 28th, Peru celebrates its independence from Spain in 1821.
On July 30th, Vanuata, South Pacific, celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom and France in 1980.
Post-Revolutionary Independence
All-in-all, throughout the world in modern times (in the post-Revolutionary period following the American and French Revolutions and the advent and triumph of Liberalism) there have been around 170 declarations of independence, with 57 of them being independence from the United Kingdom. It is peculiarly providential that after England’s King Henry VIII (1491-1547) rebelled and separated himself and his country from the religious jurisdiction of the Catholic Church and the Pope in Rome, making himself the head of the church in England, the same fate later befell England as one country after another separated themselves politically from the massive English Empire throughout the world—that included, among others, America, Canada, Australia, India and large sections of Africa.
It brings to mind the fact that once Adam and Eve declared independence from God, then, as a punishment, all of nature rebelled against Adam and Eve, and was not a favorable and kind to them as the natural world was before their Original Sin. Just as nature―which was below or inferior―rebelled against the rebels Adam and Eve, so have many nations, who have rebelled and declared independence for one reason or another, have found that they, in turn, suffered rebellion from others.
Yet Adam and Eve’s independence from God was not even the first declaration of independence! The first declaration of independence came from Satan, with his famous cry: “Non serviam!” ― “I will not serve!” The result was Hell! Likewise, the modern-day format of independence has followed the satanic suit and the result is the hell that we see around us―mainly due to the spirit of independence―more precisely, an independence from the laws and ways of God.
Modern-Day Independence is Independence From God
Let us not be fooled by the false mask of independence that is being worn in this post-revolutionary world, which cloaks a satanic independence behind the smiling Liberal mask of ‘benevolent’ independence. Yet, because most people have been dumbed-down and know very little history, they are duped by the Liberal mask of independence into believing the falsehoods of modern-day independence worshippers.
The ultimate goal behind the revolutionary dream of independence is an independence from God—which is what makes it satanic, for Satan’s cry was: “Non serviam!”—meaning: “I will not serve!” Satan made the first declaration of independence and he has been encouraging his brand of independence ever since that time. His first recruits were the fallen angels; his next recruits were Adam and Eve; and since that Original Sin (or Original Declaration of Independence) he has sold his brand of independence to billions of duped humans, who, by buying into his independence are now slaves in Hell. By blindfolding them with his blindfold of independence, and making them blindly follow his brand of independence, he has led them to the pit of Hell. As Our Lord said: “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14). You could rephrase that to read: “Leave them alone, let them be independent! They are independent and leaders of the independent! And if the independent lead the others to independence, they will both fall into the pit!”
The following words of Holy Scripture are most appropriately applicable to today’s independently minded Liberals: “The Lord looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! The fool has said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’ There is no fear of God before their eyes! They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways―there is none that does good, no not one! Their throat is an open sepulcher―with their tongues they acted deceitfully; the poison of asps is under their lips! Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness! Their feet are swift to shed blood! Destruction and unhappiness in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known! They have not called upon God! There have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear. God has scattered the bones of them that please men! They have been confounded, because God has despised them!” (Psalm 13:1-3; Psalm 52:1-6).
By Their Independent Fruits You Shall Know Them
As Our Lord said: “Enter ye in at the narrow gate! For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leads to life―and few there are that find it! Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves! By their fruits you shall know them! Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them.
“Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’ Everyone therefore that hears these My words, and does them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock―and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock. And everyone that hears these My words, and does them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand―and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof!” (Matthew 7:14-27).
The following words of Our Lord shoots down the idea of independence from the very beginning: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). The truly Catholic life is one of DEPENDENCE and NOT INDEPENDENCE. The false Catholic life, the Liberal Catholic life, is one of INDEPENDENCE and NOT DEPENDENCE. By their fruits you shall know them. The way of DEPENDENCE ON GOD is straight and narrow, and few there are that find it, and even fewer are they that take it. The road of INDEPENDENCE FROM GOD is broad and wide, and many there are who find themselves upon it. Beware of the false prophets of Liberalism and Independence, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly are ravening wolves. The very first temptation offered by the ‘independent’ Satan ― “I will not serve!” ― was a temptation for independence:
“Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the Earth which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: ‘Why has God commanded you that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?’ [the questioning of legitimate authority]. And the woman answered him, saying: ‘Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat! But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God has commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die!’ And the serpent said to the woman: ‘No, you shall not die the death! For God knows that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil!’” (Genesis 3:1-5).
The enticement and allure was to independence: “in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as Gods”―in other words: “Disobey! Break away! You will see things differently! You don’t have to accept someone else’s point of view or authority! Be your own ruler! Be a law unto yourself! Don’t obey the laws of others―make your own laws!”
The Family of Independence
This independence of thought also shows itself through Naturalism and Humanism, which turns it back on the supernatural and the spiritual, and focuses on the world, nature and humanity, rather than Heaven, grace and the Divinity. This leads us to treasure the natural above the supernatural, things above grace, man above God.
It begets its children of Materialism (greed for things), Rationalism (think what you want in the Natural sphere—nobody tells me what to believe), Modernism (think what you want in the domain of Faith—nobody tells me what to believe about God) and Liberalism (do what you want in the Natural and Religious spheres—nobody tells me what to do, I will do what I want). This is the foundation for all the modern day Revolutions.
It also filters down into the family setting, where independence creeps into family life: the husband becomes more independent from outside authorities, the wife becomes more independent from her husband, the children become more independent from their parents—authority is accepted only if the subordinate agrees with the authority, otherwise there arises a spirit of independence, disobedience and rebellion.
The Illusion of Independence
The Illusion of Independence is exactly what it sounds like: it’s the false belief that we are, can be, or should be completely independent―even though it’s total and utter absurdity. Independence is celebrated everywhere; it is lifted up as a model and an ideal of how we should try to be, and so of course we all scramble to identify as being independent. Yet it is dangerous to believe we’re all independent and dangerous to seek to be independent. It’s really, really dangerous, and for several reasons.
The Shame and Danger of Independence
(1) Tracing independence back to its roots, we find that it is born of the devil, with his cry of “I will not serve!” Do we really want to have those kind of ‘family’ connections? Let us take to mind the words of Scripture: “Thy own wickedness shall reprove thee, and thy apostasy shall rebuke thee. Know thou, and see that it is an evil thing for thee, to have left the Lord thy God. Thou hast broken My yoke, thou hast burst My bands, and thou saidst: ‘I will not serve!’” (Jeremias 2:19-20). “So shall you also perish, if you be disobedient to the voice of the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 8:20).
(2) Adam and Eve chose the route of independence from God and thereby walked into the clutches of punishment and death. A fault and punishment that was repeated and received many times throughout history, as is clearly and frequently shown in Holy Scripture—proving, beyond doubt, that independence from God doesn’t pay!
(3) The Israelites wanted independence from God. From the time of Moses, were a theocracy (theos is Greek for God, -cracy comes from the Greek kratos meaning “a rule, a regime”—meaning that they were ruled, guided and provided for by God. But then they wanted independence from God—they no longer wanted to be a theocracy, but a monarchy, whereby they would be ruled by a human king and not a divine God! “All the ancients of Israel being assembled, came to Samuel and they said to him: ‘Make us a king, to judge us, as all nations have!’ And the word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel, that they should say: Give us a king, to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel: ‘Listen to the voice of the people! They have not rejected thee, but Me, that I should not reign over them!’” (1 Kings 8:4-7).
(4) The Jews rejected the Kingship of Christ to their folly and destruction, crying out to Pilate, when he asked them what he should with their King: “The chief priests answered: ‘We have no king but Caesar!’” (John 19:15).
Their desired king—Caesar—sent his son Titus, in 70 AD―as prophesied by Christ―to raze Jerusalem to the ground and slaughter all its inhabitants (over 1 million), because they rebelled against their own professed allegiance to Ceaser ― “We have no king but Caesar!” — and sought independence from the Roman Emperor! An expensive price to pay for rejecting the Kingship of Christ in favor of the worldly kingship of Caesar—yet an even worse carnage awaits the world today for the very same fault!
(5) Another theocracy (meaning God is king or ruler) was that of the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, which consisted of German-speaking peoples and Northern Italy. The Holy Roman Empire began in 800 AD, with the papal crowning of Charlemagne as emperor. The rulers of the Holy Roman Empire saw themselves as overseeing a theocracy (God’s kingdom) in the sense that the power of the government was welded or joined to that of the Roman Catholic Church—a union of Church and State, like a marriage between husband and wife. After Charlemagne died in 814, the imperial crown was disputed among the various Carolingian rulers of Western Francia and Eastern Francia, with first the western king (Charles the Bald) and then the eastern (Charles the Fat) attaining the prize. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, however, the Carolingian (Charlemagne’s) Empire broke apart (independence), and was never restored. Around 900, autonomous (‘independent’) dukedoms or duchies re-emerged in East Francia―such as Franconia, Bavaria, Swabia, Saxony, and Lotharingia. According to Regino of Prüm, the independent parts of the realm “spewed forth kinglets,” and each independent part elected its own little kinglet “from its own bowels.” After the death of Charles the Fat, those crowned emperor by the pope controlled only territories in Italy, but not in the now ‘independent’ Francia.
East Francia did not turn to the Carolingian ruler of West Francia to take over the realm, but instead elected one of the dukes, Conrad of Franconia, as king of the Eastern Franks (independence). On his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival, Henry the Fowler of Saxony. Eventually Otto I became the Holy Roman Emperor. Otto I continued the work of unifying all German tribes into a single kingdom and greatly expanded the king’s powers at the expense of the aristocracy. Through strategic marriages and personal appointments, Otto installed members of his family in the kingdom’s most important duchies (independence and self-interest and self-advantage go hand-in-hand). Otto transformed the Roman Catholic Church in Germany to strengthen the royal office and subjected its clergy to his personal control (a form of independence from the Church and God for sake of personal advantage). Otto’s later years were marked by conflicts with the papacy (independence) and struggles to stabilize his rule over Italy (others try to secure independence from Otto’s rule). Eventually, the Holy Roman Empire was divided into dozens—eventually hundreds—of individual independent entities governed by kings, dukes, counts, bishops, abbots, and other rulers, collectively known as princes, who governed their land independently from the emperor, whose power was severely restricted by these various local leaders. Such are the fruits of mankind’s ceaseless struggle at securing increasing independence from God’s rule and God’s laws!
Science is Now Independent of God
Science today is the new god, having sought to replace the one true God in Heaven. It rises higher and higher each year with its achievements, and puts down more and more ‘alleged’ miracles of God. It increasingly dismisses much of what God has done as being mere fiction, exaggeration, imagination and legend. In its pride, science professes to know the age of the universe, it pretends that it can know what happened in the universe millions, or billions of years ago―according to the ‘gospel of science.’ Until recently, astronomers estimated that the (so-called) “Big Bang” occurred between 12 and 14 billion years ago―what’s a mere difference of only 2,000,000,000 (2,000 million) between friends? No big deal for “Big Bang” theorists!
To put this in perspective, the Solar System is thought to be 4.5 billion years old and humans have existed for only a few million years―what’s a “few million” years between friends, who cares about exactness in science? Yet science is normally proud of its “religious” adherence to exactness―it looks upon exactness as being one its “scientific commandments”―it proudly proclaims that it is exact to the “nth degree”! Yet these exacting sciences, just “turn-off” exactness when they feel like it! All of this is―do you not think?―very vague and presumptuous! The scientific theories have varied greatly over the last 200 years―and at every stage, with every age, every theory was deemed to be THE truth and almost everyone bowed-down before the god of science, saying “Credo” ― “I believe!” With stupid intelligences and dumb thought processes like that, maybe they did actually evolve out of monkeys after all! But in the end, God will laugh at them, as the following encounter with God and a scientist portrays:
God was sitting in Heaven one day, when a scientist shouted up to Him: “Hey, God! We don’t need You anymore. Science has finally figured out a way to create life out of nothing – in other words, we can now do what you did in the beginning.”
“Oh, is that so? Explain…” replies God.
“Yep! Sure is!” says the scientist, “We’ve now finally figured out how to take dirt and form it into the likeness of You and breathe life into it, thus creating man!”
“Well, that’s very interesting… show Me!”
So the scientist bends down to the Earth, digs up a wheelbarrow full of soil and starts to mold the soil into the shape of a man.
“No, no, no…! Nooooo you don’t!” interrupts God, “Put that soil down! Put it down right now! That’s my soil! I made it! You go make and get your own dirt!”
Hmmm! Who needs who? Who’s independent of whom?
We’re not independent. We are part of a larger system—many larger systems, in fact—that constantly impact our lives and the choices we make. And behind all those systems is Christ the King—who clearly told us: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
Original (Independence) Sin
We have become increasingly independent, especially since the revolutions of independence in Europe and the Americas, beginning in the late 18th century and never having stopped since. The tendency for independence, which is a part of the package of Original Sin and all sin, is fed even more independence by the media and society. They make out independence to be a badge of honor that everyone should strive to obtain. Yet it flies and lies in the face of Jesus, Who said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
Like Adam and Eve, we want to be our own gods—defining what is good and evil; choosing to do what we want, even if it is forbidden by God. We do not like to be told what to do—yet God is constantly telling us what to do: through His Church; our lawful superiors both at home and at work. When we think that our idea of things is better or more practical than God’s, then we have a problem—for ideas have consequences; and bad ideas have bad consequences! The ultimate bad consequence of the bad idea of independence is Hell—as the independently minded Lucifer and his independent minded angels found out.
“If thou wilt hear the voice of the Lord thy God, and do what is right before Him, and obey His commandments, and keep all His precepts [A GOOD IDEA, huh?), none of the evils that I laid upon Egypt, will I bring upon thee―for I am the Lord thy Healer!” (Exodus 15:26). “But if you will not yet for all this obey Me [A BAD IDEA], then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins” (Leviticus 26:18).
The Independence of Liberalism
Liberalism is independence and independence is Liberalism, or freedom from restraint—a freedom to think, believe, say and do what one likes. “It is the declaration of … the absolute independence of the individual and the social reason, [In other words, the opinion of society, or a group, or an individual, takes precedence over Church teaching]. In short it sets itself up as the measure and rule of Faith … It denies everything which it itself does not proclaim. It negates everything which it itself does not affirm. Such is the general negation uttered by Liberalism … Liberalism, in the order of action, is license; recognizing no principle or rule beyond itself” (Fr. Salvany, Liberalism Is A Sin, Chapter 2).
“From the Baptized or even priestly Liberal, who boasts his breadth of mind in his easy toleration of error, to the avowed atheist, who hurls his open defiance against God, the difference is only one of degree. One simply stands on a higher rung of the same ladder than the other. Their common criterion is “liberality” and “independence of mind;” the degree of application will be measured by the individual disposition: … self-interest with one, temperament with another, education impeding a third … human respect may moderate another … family or school … Sometimes Liberalism stalks along in the careless trappings of an easygoing good nature, or a simplicity of character, which invites our affection and allays our suspicion. Its very candor in this guise is an aggression difficult to resist. It does not appear responsible and excites our compassion before it has awakened our aversion. We seem to forgive it before we accuse it. But all the greater is the danger when it appears least possible.” (Fr. Salvany, Liberalism Is A Sin, Chapter 4).
“Liberalism is a world complete in itself … It is the world of Lucifer, disguised in our times under the name of Liberalism, in radical opposition and in perpetual warfare against that society composed of the Children of God, the Church of Jesus Christ … Liberalism strikes at the very foundations of Faith … It is the declaration of … the absolute independence of the individual and the social reason, [In other words, the opinion of society, or a group, or an individual, takes precedence over Church teaching]. In short it sets itself up as the measure and rule of Faith … It denies everything which it itself does not proclaim. It negates everything which it itself does not affirm. Such is the general negation uttered by Liberalism … Liberalism, in the order of action, is license; recognizing no principle or rule beyond itself.” (Fr. Salvany, Liberalism Is A Sin, Chapter 2).
We see this “Do-As-You-Wantness” at all levels of society: Church, Politics, Finance, Legislation, Education, Social, Familial and Individual. Everyone has fostered an area of life where they decide what is right or wrong, what they feel okay about doing and what they won’t do—irrespective of what God, Church, Government, Society or Family say about it. All of this comes down to pride—which Holy Scripture says is the beginning of all sin (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). Fr. Tanquerey, in The Spiritual Life, quotes Bossuet: “Pride, is a profound depravity; it is the worship of self; man becomes his own god through excessive self-love. Forgetful that God is his first beginning and his last end, he overrates himself; he considers himself the sovereign lord and master of those qualities, real or imaginary, which he possesses, without referring them to God. From this arises that spirit of independence, of self-sufficiency … (Fr. Tanquerey, in The Spiritual Life, §204).
Believe What You Want!
Hence, in the Church, in the domain of thought and belief, we see the majority of the laity no longer believing in the Real Presence, no longer believing that you have to go to Mass every Sunday, no longer believing that contraception is wrong, no longer believing that divorce and remarriage is wrong, no longer believing certain sexual behaviors to be wrong, etc. –and yet they still believe themselves to be “Catholics in good standing”!
Act As You Want!
This attitude of believe what you want, spills over into the domain of act as you want. People will come to church dress as they like—which is increasingly immodest dress. They will assist at Mass as they like—which is increasingly distracted and poor assistance. They will observe the Commandments of God and the Church to the degree that they like—which is less and less. They will mix with whomever they like—disregarding the fact the worldliness of these people may well be a danger to the Faith and salvation.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of behavior. It is the modern spirit of independence that is the soul of this kind of behavior, one which has as its motto: “Who are you to tell me what to do?” You see and hear it at home, at school, at work, in the parish, in politics, in finance, and in the general culture of society. “Do not interfere with the sinner! He has his rights! He is independent! We must respect that!” is the general theme of the Rights of Man. No coercion must exercised on wrong doers. Often, the victim even becomes the guilty party!
Sailing Wherever You Want or Sailing Where God Wants?
On the devil’s ship, SSS Seduction, you are totally independent and can do what you want and sail where you want! This is the way of modern independence! We think for ourselves! We accept only what we want to accept. We decide for ourselves! We act by ourselves! Only when things fail, do we go to God—and then we run out of patience with Him when He won’t give us what we tell Him to give us, in the time limit that we set for Him to answer our prayers! O what a mess we are! Rowing round and round frustratingly in circles, unwilling to unfurl our sails to allow God to blow us in the direction HE WANTS.
The, ship, SSS Seduction, sails on the seas of independence and is filled with empty, transitory pleasures that the devil promises will lead to true happiness and eternal independence—but those lies cover the reality of the destination of true and eternal sorrows and eternal slavery. Whereas on the Christ’s ship, the Ark of the Church, we sail where are told to sail, we are promised storms, temporary and painful sorrows that Our Lord says will lead to eternal joy and freedom. On the former ship, we can play now and pay later—on the latter ship, we labor now and rejoice later. The choice is one of instant gratification or eternal gratification; temporary pain or eternal pain; short-lived joy or eternal joy, independence and disobedience or dependence and obedience.
The Cure for Modern Independence is Christ’s Yoke of Dependence
As the famous religious axiom says: “Servire est Regnare” meaning “To Serve is to Reign”. The only real, lasting solution is to take up, once again, the yoke of Christ. “Take up My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For My yoke is sweet and My burden light” (Matthew 11:29-30). The ultimate yoke or dependence is that of the religious life (if properly lived) and Our Lady makes this clear to us: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. O, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!” (Our Lady of Good Success).
The Glorification of Independence and Denigration of Dependence
It is difficult for us to grasp the concept of obedience because we have been educated in a tradition that glorifies independence. It is an alarming and disgusting fact that only 5 tiny nations still hold on to Catholicism as the official religion of the state:
► Costa Rica with a population 5,000,000 (5 million) of which 53% are Catholics (2,600,000).
► El Salvador with a population 7,000,000 (7 million) of which 81% are Catholics (2,700,000).
► Liechtenstein with a population 33,000 of which 53% are Catholics (26,000).
► Malta with a population 428,000 of which 84% are Catholics (361,000).
► Monaco with a population 36,000 of which 82% are Catholics (30,000).
In addition to these there are some cantons of Switzerland that have Catholicism as their official religion, and well Vatican City (population 842 and 100% Catholic).
The disgusting and shameful fact is that just over 12,000,000 (12 million) people―out of a world population of 7,800,000,000 (7.8 billion) live in a country which has Catholicism as the official religion of the state―which is 1 in every 650 people or 0.0015%.
The Sinful Fruits of Independence
Latin America―that is to say, South America and Central America, makes up almost 33% of the Catholic world―in other words, 1 in 3 Catholics live in Latin America. Yet most of Latin America―in its secular governments―is independent of the Catholic Faith and God. They do not accept Catholicism for their state religion. Ever since the South America’s nations gained independence from Spain, governments have struggled with the Catholic hierarchy over the role of the church in relation to the state. Throughout the nineteenth century, liberal politicians and intellectuals—emboldened by Enlightenment ideas about the separation of church and state—tried to restrict the powers, property, and privileges that the clergy had held since the colonial period. Conservatives, by contrast, tried to preserve a central role for the church in the public sphere, especially in education. As a result, the institutional church tended to support conservative governments in the nineteenth century, even though the majority of the Catholic population—and often, the lower-level Catholic clergy—were more Liberal.
Since the 1990s, Latin Americans have become more socially liberal on issues such as same-sex marriage, contraception, and abortion. Argentina legalized same-sex marriage in 2010, and Uruguay in 2013. Mexico City, which hosts an enormous gay-pride parade every year, legalized same-sex marriage in 2010. Currently, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Uruguay all allow same-sex marriages, while Bolivia, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama are in various stages of discussions that will inevitably lead to the acceptance of same-sex marriages. Of the other major South American countries, only Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela still reject same-sex marriages in their legislation―but they are experiencing increased protests and demonstrations against their godly stance.
Although abortion is still widely restricted across the region (and is completely banned in five countries), Mexico City legalized abortion in 2007, and Uruguay voted to legalize abortion in 2012. Argentina came close to legalizing abortion, but it held off for the time being. Guatemala, Venezuela, and Paraguay allow abortion to save the life of the pregnant person; Brazil, Chile, and Panama have similar laws, but also allow abortion in the case of rape. Finally, the Church’s position on contraception is widely ignored in most countries, some of which have initiated state-sponsored programs that distribute contraceptives.
As for the USA, independence has slowly, progressively and relentlessly led America increasingly away from God and down the broad, wide, slippery path towards Hell. Increasing independence from God has leads more and more people into the pit of sin. Abortion, sterilization, contraception, cohabitation without marriage, same-sex marriages, transgenderism, homosexuality, sodomy, pornography, divorce and remarriage, etc. ― all these are abominations to God, but who the hell cares? We are independent! We can do what we want! Regardless of the recent Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe vs. Wade―abortion is still permissible but it is in the hands of each individual state to make whatever provisions it desires or does not desire. Physical clinical abortions have been progressively replaced by DIY abortion provided by the abortion pill―easy and cheap abortion in a convenient pill!
A Return to Dependence on God
The above mentioned tip of the iceberg of sinfulness that results from a false independence will eventually have to be punished: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8). “Knowest thou not, that the kindness of God leads thee to penance? But according to thy hardness and impenitent heart, thou treasure up to thyself wrath, against the day of wrath, and revelation of the just judgment of God, Who will render to every man according to his works. To them indeed, who according to patience in good work, seek glory and honor and incorruption, He will grant eternal life. But to them that are contentious, and who obey not the truth, but give way to iniquity, He will show His wrath and indignation” (Romans 2:4-8).
Holy Scripture is filled with a steady stream of words that remind and reinforce the truth of our dependence upon God―these are just a handful of those quotes:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … All things were made by Him and without Him was made nothing that was made!” (John 1:1-3) …
“The angels and powers and virtues being made subject to Him” (1 Peter 3:22).
“The Lord is the everlasting God, Who hath created the ends of the Earth … It is He that gives strength to the weary, and increases force and might to them that have it not ... They that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength!” (Isaias 40:28-31).
“Have confidence in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not upon thy own prudence. In all thy ways think on Him, and He will direct thy steps. Be not wise in thy own conceit!” (Proverbs 3:5-7).
“He that abideth in Me and I in him―the same beareth much fruit! For without Me you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
“The Lord ruleth me! … He hath brought me up … He hath led me” (Psalm 22:1-3).
“Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it” (Psalm 126:1).
“Thy hand destroyed the Gentiles, and Thou didst afflict and cast them out. For they got not the possession of the land by their own sword; neither did their own arm save them―but Thy right hand and Thy arm!” (Psalm 43:3-4).
“I am the Lord thy God, Who takes thee by the hand, and says to thee: ‘Fear not! I have helped thee!’” (Isaias 41:13).
“The Lord is my helper, I will not fear what man can do unto me. The Lord is my helper … It is good to confide in the Lord, rather than to have confidence in man. It is good to trust in the Lord, rather than to trust in princes!” (Psalm 117:6-9).
“I can do all these things in Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
“He that is mighty, hath done great things to me … He hath showed might in His arm! He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart! He hath put down the mighty from their seat! He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away!” (Luke 1:49-53).
“I am thy God: I have strengthened thee and have helped thee, and the right hand of my just one hath upheld thee!” (Isaias 41:10).
“Thus saith the Lord: ‘Cursed be the man that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord!’” (Jeremias 17:5).
Every American, of course, knows that July 4th in America’s Independence Day—or perhaps the modern “dumbing-down” has been so successful that perhaps not all Americans are aware of the fact! Yet what most Americans do not realize is that July is choc-full of days of independence! The American Day of Independence of July 4th, is just one of twenty-two Days of Independence celebrated in the month of July.
On July 1st, Canada celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom in 1867.
On July 1st, Burundi, in Africa, celebrates its independence from Belgium in 1962.
On July 1st, Rwanda, in Africa, celebrates its independence from Belgium in 1962.
On July 3rd, Belarus celebrates its independence from the occupying German forces in 1944.
On July 4th, the United States celebrates its independence from Great Britain in 1776.
On July 5th, Venezuela celebrates its independence from Spain in 1811.
On July 5th, Algeria celebrates its independence from France in 1962.
On July 5th, Cape Verde celebrates its independence from Portugal in 1975.
On July 6th, Argentina celebrates its independence from Spain in 1816.
On July 6th, Malawi, in Africa, celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom in 1957.
On July 7th, the Solomon Islands celebrate independence from the United Kingdom in 1978.
On July 7th, South Sudan celebrates independence from Sudan in 2011.
On July 10th, the Bahamas celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom in 1973.
On July 12th, São Tomé and Príncipe, Africa, celebrates its independence from Portugal in 1975.
On July 12th, Kiribati, in Micronesia, celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom in 1979.
On July 14th, France celebrates Bastille Day and its revolutionary independence from the French monarchy in 1790.
On July 17th, Slovakia celebrates its independence from the Czechs in 1992.
On July 19th, Belgium celebrates its independence from the Netherlands in 1931.
On July 26th, Liberia celebrates its independence from American colonization in 1847.
On July 26th, Maldives, in Asia, celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom in 1965.
On July 28th, Peru celebrates its independence from Spain in 1821.
On July 30th, Vanuata, South Pacific, celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom and France in 1980.
Post-Revolutionary Independence
All-in-all, throughout the world in modern times (in the post-Revolutionary period following the American and French Revolutions and the advent and triumph of Liberalism) there have been around 170 declarations of independence, with 57 of them being independence from the United Kingdom. It is peculiarly providential that after England’s King Henry VIII (1491-1547) rebelled and separated himself and his country from the religious jurisdiction of the Catholic Church and the Pope in Rome, making himself the head of the church in England, the same fate later befell England as one country after another separated themselves politically from the massive English Empire throughout the world—that included, among others, America, Canada, Australia, India and large sections of Africa.
It brings to mind the fact that once Adam and Eve declared independence from God, then, as a punishment, all of nature rebelled against Adam and Eve, and was not a favorable and kind to them as the natural world was before their Original Sin. Just as nature―which was below or inferior―rebelled against the rebels Adam and Eve, so have many nations, who have rebelled and declared independence for one reason or another, have found that they, in turn, suffered rebellion from others.
Yet Adam and Eve’s independence from God was not even the first declaration of independence! The first declaration of independence came from Satan, with his famous cry: “Non serviam!” ― “I will not serve!” The result was Hell! Likewise, the modern-day format of independence has followed the satanic suit and the result is the hell that we see around us―mainly due to the spirit of independence―more precisely, an independence from the laws and ways of God.
Modern-Day Independence is Independence From God
Let us not be fooled by the false mask of independence that is being worn in this post-revolutionary world, which cloaks a satanic independence behind the smiling Liberal mask of ‘benevolent’ independence. Yet, because most people have been dumbed-down and know very little history, they are duped by the Liberal mask of independence into believing the falsehoods of modern-day independence worshippers.
The ultimate goal behind the revolutionary dream of independence is an independence from God—which is what makes it satanic, for Satan’s cry was: “Non serviam!”—meaning: “I will not serve!” Satan made the first declaration of independence and he has been encouraging his brand of independence ever since that time. His first recruits were the fallen angels; his next recruits were Adam and Eve; and since that Original Sin (or Original Declaration of Independence) he has sold his brand of independence to billions of duped humans, who, by buying into his independence are now slaves in Hell. By blindfolding them with his blindfold of independence, and making them blindly follow his brand of independence, he has led them to the pit of Hell. As Our Lord said: “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14). You could rephrase that to read: “Leave them alone, let them be independent! They are independent and leaders of the independent! And if the independent lead the others to independence, they will both fall into the pit!”
The following words of Holy Scripture are most appropriately applicable to today’s independently minded Liberals: “The Lord looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! The fool has said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’ There is no fear of God before their eyes! They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways―there is none that does good, no not one! Their throat is an open sepulcher―with their tongues they acted deceitfully; the poison of asps is under their lips! Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness! Their feet are swift to shed blood! Destruction and unhappiness in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known! They have not called upon God! There have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear. God has scattered the bones of them that please men! They have been confounded, because God has despised them!” (Psalm 13:1-3; Psalm 52:1-6).
By Their Independent Fruits You Shall Know Them
As Our Lord said: “Enter ye in at the narrow gate! For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leads to life―and few there are that find it! Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves! By their fruits you shall know them! Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them.
“Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’ Everyone therefore that hears these My words, and does them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock―and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock. And everyone that hears these My words, and does them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand―and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof!” (Matthew 7:14-27).
The following words of Our Lord shoots down the idea of independence from the very beginning: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). The truly Catholic life is one of DEPENDENCE and NOT INDEPENDENCE. The false Catholic life, the Liberal Catholic life, is one of INDEPENDENCE and NOT DEPENDENCE. By their fruits you shall know them. The way of DEPENDENCE ON GOD is straight and narrow, and few there are that find it, and even fewer are they that take it. The road of INDEPENDENCE FROM GOD is broad and wide, and many there are who find themselves upon it. Beware of the false prophets of Liberalism and Independence, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly are ravening wolves. The very first temptation offered by the ‘independent’ Satan ― “I will not serve!” ― was a temptation for independence:
“Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the Earth which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: ‘Why has God commanded you that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?’ [the questioning of legitimate authority]. And the woman answered him, saying: ‘Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat! But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God has commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die!’ And the serpent said to the woman: ‘No, you shall not die the death! For God knows that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil!’” (Genesis 3:1-5).
The enticement and allure was to independence: “in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as Gods”―in other words: “Disobey! Break away! You will see things differently! You don’t have to accept someone else’s point of view or authority! Be your own ruler! Be a law unto yourself! Don’t obey the laws of others―make your own laws!”
The Family of Independence
This independence of thought also shows itself through Naturalism and Humanism, which turns it back on the supernatural and the spiritual, and focuses on the world, nature and humanity, rather than Heaven, grace and the Divinity. This leads us to treasure the natural above the supernatural, things above grace, man above God.
It begets its children of Materialism (greed for things), Rationalism (think what you want in the Natural sphere—nobody tells me what to believe), Modernism (think what you want in the domain of Faith—nobody tells me what to believe about God) and Liberalism (do what you want in the Natural and Religious spheres—nobody tells me what to do, I will do what I want). This is the foundation for all the modern day Revolutions.
It also filters down into the family setting, where independence creeps into family life: the husband becomes more independent from outside authorities, the wife becomes more independent from her husband, the children become more independent from their parents—authority is accepted only if the subordinate agrees with the authority, otherwise there arises a spirit of independence, disobedience and rebellion.
The Illusion of Independence
The Illusion of Independence is exactly what it sounds like: it’s the false belief that we are, can be, or should be completely independent―even though it’s total and utter absurdity. Independence is celebrated everywhere; it is lifted up as a model and an ideal of how we should try to be, and so of course we all scramble to identify as being independent. Yet it is dangerous to believe we’re all independent and dangerous to seek to be independent. It’s really, really dangerous, and for several reasons.
The Shame and Danger of Independence
(1) Tracing independence back to its roots, we find that it is born of the devil, with his cry of “I will not serve!” Do we really want to have those kind of ‘family’ connections? Let us take to mind the words of Scripture: “Thy own wickedness shall reprove thee, and thy apostasy shall rebuke thee. Know thou, and see that it is an evil thing for thee, to have left the Lord thy God. Thou hast broken My yoke, thou hast burst My bands, and thou saidst: ‘I will not serve!’” (Jeremias 2:19-20). “So shall you also perish, if you be disobedient to the voice of the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 8:20).
(2) Adam and Eve chose the route of independence from God and thereby walked into the clutches of punishment and death. A fault and punishment that was repeated and received many times throughout history, as is clearly and frequently shown in Holy Scripture—proving, beyond doubt, that independence from God doesn’t pay!
(3) The Israelites wanted independence from God. From the time of Moses, were a theocracy (theos is Greek for God, -cracy comes from the Greek kratos meaning “a rule, a regime”—meaning that they were ruled, guided and provided for by God. But then they wanted independence from God—they no longer wanted to be a theocracy, but a monarchy, whereby they would be ruled by a human king and not a divine God! “All the ancients of Israel being assembled, came to Samuel and they said to him: ‘Make us a king, to judge us, as all nations have!’ And the word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel, that they should say: Give us a king, to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel: ‘Listen to the voice of the people! They have not rejected thee, but Me, that I should not reign over them!’” (1 Kings 8:4-7).
(4) The Jews rejected the Kingship of Christ to their folly and destruction, crying out to Pilate, when he asked them what he should with their King: “The chief priests answered: ‘We have no king but Caesar!’” (John 19:15).
Their desired king—Caesar—sent his son Titus, in 70 AD―as prophesied by Christ―to raze Jerusalem to the ground and slaughter all its inhabitants (over 1 million), because they rebelled against their own professed allegiance to Ceaser ― “We have no king but Caesar!” — and sought independence from the Roman Emperor! An expensive price to pay for rejecting the Kingship of Christ in favor of the worldly kingship of Caesar—yet an even worse carnage awaits the world today for the very same fault!
(5) Another theocracy (meaning God is king or ruler) was that of the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, which consisted of German-speaking peoples and Northern Italy. The Holy Roman Empire began in 800 AD, with the papal crowning of Charlemagne as emperor. The rulers of the Holy Roman Empire saw themselves as overseeing a theocracy (God’s kingdom) in the sense that the power of the government was welded or joined to that of the Roman Catholic Church—a union of Church and State, like a marriage between husband and wife. After Charlemagne died in 814, the imperial crown was disputed among the various Carolingian rulers of Western Francia and Eastern Francia, with first the western king (Charles the Bald) and then the eastern (Charles the Fat) attaining the prize. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, however, the Carolingian (Charlemagne’s) Empire broke apart (independence), and was never restored. Around 900, autonomous (‘independent’) dukedoms or duchies re-emerged in East Francia―such as Franconia, Bavaria, Swabia, Saxony, and Lotharingia. According to Regino of Prüm, the independent parts of the realm “spewed forth kinglets,” and each independent part elected its own little kinglet “from its own bowels.” After the death of Charles the Fat, those crowned emperor by the pope controlled only territories in Italy, but not in the now ‘independent’ Francia.
East Francia did not turn to the Carolingian ruler of West Francia to take over the realm, but instead elected one of the dukes, Conrad of Franconia, as king of the Eastern Franks (independence). On his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival, Henry the Fowler of Saxony. Eventually Otto I became the Holy Roman Emperor. Otto I continued the work of unifying all German tribes into a single kingdom and greatly expanded the king’s powers at the expense of the aristocracy. Through strategic marriages and personal appointments, Otto installed members of his family in the kingdom’s most important duchies (independence and self-interest and self-advantage go hand-in-hand). Otto transformed the Roman Catholic Church in Germany to strengthen the royal office and subjected its clergy to his personal control (a form of independence from the Church and God for sake of personal advantage). Otto’s later years were marked by conflicts with the papacy (independence) and struggles to stabilize his rule over Italy (others try to secure independence from Otto’s rule). Eventually, the Holy Roman Empire was divided into dozens—eventually hundreds—of individual independent entities governed by kings, dukes, counts, bishops, abbots, and other rulers, collectively known as princes, who governed their land independently from the emperor, whose power was severely restricted by these various local leaders. Such are the fruits of mankind’s ceaseless struggle at securing increasing independence from God’s rule and God’s laws!
Science is Now Independent of God
Science today is the new god, having sought to replace the one true God in Heaven. It rises higher and higher each year with its achievements, and puts down more and more ‘alleged’ miracles of God. It increasingly dismisses much of what God has done as being mere fiction, exaggeration, imagination and legend. In its pride, science professes to know the age of the universe, it pretends that it can know what happened in the universe millions, or billions of years ago―according to the ‘gospel of science.’ Until recently, astronomers estimated that the (so-called) “Big Bang” occurred between 12 and 14 billion years ago―what’s a mere difference of only 2,000,000,000 (2,000 million) between friends? No big deal for “Big Bang” theorists!
To put this in perspective, the Solar System is thought to be 4.5 billion years old and humans have existed for only a few million years―what’s a “few million” years between friends, who cares about exactness in science? Yet science is normally proud of its “religious” adherence to exactness―it looks upon exactness as being one its “scientific commandments”―it proudly proclaims that it is exact to the “nth degree”! Yet these exacting sciences, just “turn-off” exactness when they feel like it! All of this is―do you not think?―very vague and presumptuous! The scientific theories have varied greatly over the last 200 years―and at every stage, with every age, every theory was deemed to be THE truth and almost everyone bowed-down before the god of science, saying “Credo” ― “I believe!” With stupid intelligences and dumb thought processes like that, maybe they did actually evolve out of monkeys after all! But in the end, God will laugh at them, as the following encounter with God and a scientist portrays:
God was sitting in Heaven one day, when a scientist shouted up to Him: “Hey, God! We don’t need You anymore. Science has finally figured out a way to create life out of nothing – in other words, we can now do what you did in the beginning.”
“Oh, is that so? Explain…” replies God.
“Yep! Sure is!” says the scientist, “We’ve now finally figured out how to take dirt and form it into the likeness of You and breathe life into it, thus creating man!”
“Well, that’s very interesting… show Me!”
So the scientist bends down to the Earth, digs up a wheelbarrow full of soil and starts to mold the soil into the shape of a man.
“No, no, no…! Nooooo you don’t!” interrupts God, “Put that soil down! Put it down right now! That’s my soil! I made it! You go make and get your own dirt!”
Hmmm! Who needs who? Who’s independent of whom?
We’re not independent. We are part of a larger system—many larger systems, in fact—that constantly impact our lives and the choices we make. And behind all those systems is Christ the King—who clearly told us: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
Original (Independence) Sin
We have become increasingly independent, especially since the revolutions of independence in Europe and the Americas, beginning in the late 18th century and never having stopped since. The tendency for independence, which is a part of the package of Original Sin and all sin, is fed even more independence by the media and society. They make out independence to be a badge of honor that everyone should strive to obtain. Yet it flies and lies in the face of Jesus, Who said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
Like Adam and Eve, we want to be our own gods—defining what is good and evil; choosing to do what we want, even if it is forbidden by God. We do not like to be told what to do—yet God is constantly telling us what to do: through His Church; our lawful superiors both at home and at work. When we think that our idea of things is better or more practical than God’s, then we have a problem—for ideas have consequences; and bad ideas have bad consequences! The ultimate bad consequence of the bad idea of independence is Hell—as the independently minded Lucifer and his independent minded angels found out.
“If thou wilt hear the voice of the Lord thy God, and do what is right before Him, and obey His commandments, and keep all His precepts [A GOOD IDEA, huh?), none of the evils that I laid upon Egypt, will I bring upon thee―for I am the Lord thy Healer!” (Exodus 15:26). “But if you will not yet for all this obey Me [A BAD IDEA], then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins” (Leviticus 26:18).
The Independence of Liberalism
Liberalism is independence and independence is Liberalism, or freedom from restraint—a freedom to think, believe, say and do what one likes. “It is the declaration of … the absolute independence of the individual and the social reason, [In other words, the opinion of society, or a group, or an individual, takes precedence over Church teaching]. In short it sets itself up as the measure and rule of Faith … It denies everything which it itself does not proclaim. It negates everything which it itself does not affirm. Such is the general negation uttered by Liberalism … Liberalism, in the order of action, is license; recognizing no principle or rule beyond itself” (Fr. Salvany, Liberalism Is A Sin, Chapter 2).
“From the Baptized or even priestly Liberal, who boasts his breadth of mind in his easy toleration of error, to the avowed atheist, who hurls his open defiance against God, the difference is only one of degree. One simply stands on a higher rung of the same ladder than the other. Their common criterion is “liberality” and “independence of mind;” the degree of application will be measured by the individual disposition: … self-interest with one, temperament with another, education impeding a third … human respect may moderate another … family or school … Sometimes Liberalism stalks along in the careless trappings of an easygoing good nature, or a simplicity of character, which invites our affection and allays our suspicion. Its very candor in this guise is an aggression difficult to resist. It does not appear responsible and excites our compassion before it has awakened our aversion. We seem to forgive it before we accuse it. But all the greater is the danger when it appears least possible.” (Fr. Salvany, Liberalism Is A Sin, Chapter 4).
“Liberalism is a world complete in itself … It is the world of Lucifer, disguised in our times under the name of Liberalism, in radical opposition and in perpetual warfare against that society composed of the Children of God, the Church of Jesus Christ … Liberalism strikes at the very foundations of Faith … It is the declaration of … the absolute independence of the individual and the social reason, [In other words, the opinion of society, or a group, or an individual, takes precedence over Church teaching]. In short it sets itself up as the measure and rule of Faith … It denies everything which it itself does not proclaim. It negates everything which it itself does not affirm. Such is the general negation uttered by Liberalism … Liberalism, in the order of action, is license; recognizing no principle or rule beyond itself.” (Fr. Salvany, Liberalism Is A Sin, Chapter 2).
We see this “Do-As-You-Wantness” at all levels of society: Church, Politics, Finance, Legislation, Education, Social, Familial and Individual. Everyone has fostered an area of life where they decide what is right or wrong, what they feel okay about doing and what they won’t do—irrespective of what God, Church, Government, Society or Family say about it. All of this comes down to pride—which Holy Scripture says is the beginning of all sin (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). Fr. Tanquerey, in The Spiritual Life, quotes Bossuet: “Pride, is a profound depravity; it is the worship of self; man becomes his own god through excessive self-love. Forgetful that God is his first beginning and his last end, he overrates himself; he considers himself the sovereign lord and master of those qualities, real or imaginary, which he possesses, without referring them to God. From this arises that spirit of independence, of self-sufficiency … (Fr. Tanquerey, in The Spiritual Life, §204).
Believe What You Want!
Hence, in the Church, in the domain of thought and belief, we see the majority of the laity no longer believing in the Real Presence, no longer believing that you have to go to Mass every Sunday, no longer believing that contraception is wrong, no longer believing that divorce and remarriage is wrong, no longer believing certain sexual behaviors to be wrong, etc. –and yet they still believe themselves to be “Catholics in good standing”!
Act As You Want!
This attitude of believe what you want, spills over into the domain of act as you want. People will come to church dress as they like—which is increasingly immodest dress. They will assist at Mass as they like—which is increasingly distracted and poor assistance. They will observe the Commandments of God and the Church to the degree that they like—which is less and less. They will mix with whomever they like—disregarding the fact the worldliness of these people may well be a danger to the Faith and salvation.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of behavior. It is the modern spirit of independence that is the soul of this kind of behavior, one which has as its motto: “Who are you to tell me what to do?” You see and hear it at home, at school, at work, in the parish, in politics, in finance, and in the general culture of society. “Do not interfere with the sinner! He has his rights! He is independent! We must respect that!” is the general theme of the Rights of Man. No coercion must exercised on wrong doers. Often, the victim even becomes the guilty party!
Sailing Wherever You Want or Sailing Where God Wants?
On the devil’s ship, SSS Seduction, you are totally independent and can do what you want and sail where you want! This is the way of modern independence! We think for ourselves! We accept only what we want to accept. We decide for ourselves! We act by ourselves! Only when things fail, do we go to God—and then we run out of patience with Him when He won’t give us what we tell Him to give us, in the time limit that we set for Him to answer our prayers! O what a mess we are! Rowing round and round frustratingly in circles, unwilling to unfurl our sails to allow God to blow us in the direction HE WANTS.
The, ship, SSS Seduction, sails on the seas of independence and is filled with empty, transitory pleasures that the devil promises will lead to true happiness and eternal independence—but those lies cover the reality of the destination of true and eternal sorrows and eternal slavery. Whereas on the Christ’s ship, the Ark of the Church, we sail where are told to sail, we are promised storms, temporary and painful sorrows that Our Lord says will lead to eternal joy and freedom. On the former ship, we can play now and pay later—on the latter ship, we labor now and rejoice later. The choice is one of instant gratification or eternal gratification; temporary pain or eternal pain; short-lived joy or eternal joy, independence and disobedience or dependence and obedience.
The Cure for Modern Independence is Christ’s Yoke of Dependence
As the famous religious axiom says: “Servire est Regnare” meaning “To Serve is to Reign”. The only real, lasting solution is to take up, once again, the yoke of Christ. “Take up My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For My yoke is sweet and My burden light” (Matthew 11:29-30). The ultimate yoke or dependence is that of the religious life (if properly lived) and Our Lady makes this clear to us: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. O, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!” (Our Lady of Good Success).
The Glorification of Independence and Denigration of Dependence
It is difficult for us to grasp the concept of obedience because we have been educated in a tradition that glorifies independence. It is an alarming and disgusting fact that only 5 tiny nations still hold on to Catholicism as the official religion of the state:
► Costa Rica with a population 5,000,000 (5 million) of which 53% are Catholics (2,600,000).
► El Salvador with a population 7,000,000 (7 million) of which 81% are Catholics (2,700,000).
► Liechtenstein with a population 33,000 of which 53% are Catholics (26,000).
► Malta with a population 428,000 of which 84% are Catholics (361,000).
► Monaco with a population 36,000 of which 82% are Catholics (30,000).
In addition to these there are some cantons of Switzerland that have Catholicism as their official religion, and well Vatican City (population 842 and 100% Catholic).
The disgusting and shameful fact is that just over 12,000,000 (12 million) people―out of a world population of 7,800,000,000 (7.8 billion) live in a country which has Catholicism as the official religion of the state―which is 1 in every 650 people or 0.0015%.
The Sinful Fruits of Independence
Latin America―that is to say, South America and Central America, makes up almost 33% of the Catholic world―in other words, 1 in 3 Catholics live in Latin America. Yet most of Latin America―in its secular governments―is independent of the Catholic Faith and God. They do not accept Catholicism for their state religion. Ever since the South America’s nations gained independence from Spain, governments have struggled with the Catholic hierarchy over the role of the church in relation to the state. Throughout the nineteenth century, liberal politicians and intellectuals—emboldened by Enlightenment ideas about the separation of church and state—tried to restrict the powers, property, and privileges that the clergy had held since the colonial period. Conservatives, by contrast, tried to preserve a central role for the church in the public sphere, especially in education. As a result, the institutional church tended to support conservative governments in the nineteenth century, even though the majority of the Catholic population—and often, the lower-level Catholic clergy—were more Liberal.
Since the 1990s, Latin Americans have become more socially liberal on issues such as same-sex marriage, contraception, and abortion. Argentina legalized same-sex marriage in 2010, and Uruguay in 2013. Mexico City, which hosts an enormous gay-pride parade every year, legalized same-sex marriage in 2010. Currently, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Uruguay all allow same-sex marriages, while Bolivia, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama are in various stages of discussions that will inevitably lead to the acceptance of same-sex marriages. Of the other major South American countries, only Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela still reject same-sex marriages in their legislation―but they are experiencing increased protests and demonstrations against their godly stance.
Although abortion is still widely restricted across the region (and is completely banned in five countries), Mexico City legalized abortion in 2007, and Uruguay voted to legalize abortion in 2012. Argentina came close to legalizing abortion, but it held off for the time being. Guatemala, Venezuela, and Paraguay allow abortion to save the life of the pregnant person; Brazil, Chile, and Panama have similar laws, but also allow abortion in the case of rape. Finally, the Church’s position on contraception is widely ignored in most countries, some of which have initiated state-sponsored programs that distribute contraceptives.
As for the USA, independence has slowly, progressively and relentlessly led America increasingly away from God and down the broad, wide, slippery path towards Hell. Increasing independence from God has leads more and more people into the pit of sin. Abortion, sterilization, contraception, cohabitation without marriage, same-sex marriages, transgenderism, homosexuality, sodomy, pornography, divorce and remarriage, etc. ― all these are abominations to God, but who the hell cares? We are independent! We can do what we want! Regardless of the recent Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe vs. Wade―abortion is still permissible but it is in the hands of each individual state to make whatever provisions it desires or does not desire. Physical clinical abortions have been progressively replaced by DIY abortion provided by the abortion pill―easy and cheap abortion in a convenient pill!
A Return to Dependence on God
The above mentioned tip of the iceberg of sinfulness that results from a false independence will eventually have to be punished: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8). “Knowest thou not, that the kindness of God leads thee to penance? But according to thy hardness and impenitent heart, thou treasure up to thyself wrath, against the day of wrath, and revelation of the just judgment of God, Who will render to every man according to his works. To them indeed, who according to patience in good work, seek glory and honor and incorruption, He will grant eternal life. But to them that are contentious, and who obey not the truth, but give way to iniquity, He will show His wrath and indignation” (Romans 2:4-8).
Holy Scripture is filled with a steady stream of words that remind and reinforce the truth of our dependence upon God―these are just a handful of those quotes:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … All things were made by Him and without Him was made nothing that was made!” (John 1:1-3) …
“The angels and powers and virtues being made subject to Him” (1 Peter 3:22).
“The Lord is the everlasting God, Who hath created the ends of the Earth … It is He that gives strength to the weary, and increases force and might to them that have it not ... They that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength!” (Isaias 40:28-31).
“Have confidence in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not upon thy own prudence. In all thy ways think on Him, and He will direct thy steps. Be not wise in thy own conceit!” (Proverbs 3:5-7).
“He that abideth in Me and I in him―the same beareth much fruit! For without Me you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
“The Lord ruleth me! … He hath brought me up … He hath led me” (Psalm 22:1-3).
“Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it” (Psalm 126:1).
“Thy hand destroyed the Gentiles, and Thou didst afflict and cast them out. For they got not the possession of the land by their own sword; neither did their own arm save them―but Thy right hand and Thy arm!” (Psalm 43:3-4).
“I am the Lord thy God, Who takes thee by the hand, and says to thee: ‘Fear not! I have helped thee!’” (Isaias 41:13).
“The Lord is my helper, I will not fear what man can do unto me. The Lord is my helper … It is good to confide in the Lord, rather than to have confidence in man. It is good to trust in the Lord, rather than to trust in princes!” (Psalm 117:6-9).
“I can do all these things in Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
“He that is mighty, hath done great things to me … He hath showed might in His arm! He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart! He hath put down the mighty from their seat! He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away!” (Luke 1:49-53).
“I am thy God: I have strengthened thee and have helped thee, and the right hand of my just one hath upheld thee!” (Isaias 41:10).
“Thus saith the Lord: ‘Cursed be the man that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord!’” (Jeremias 17:5).
Article 2
Sunday July 2nd & Monday July 3rd, 2023
Bloody Salvation!
Sunday July 2nd & Monday July 3rd, 2023
Bloody Salvation!
Understated! Underrated! Unappreciated!
There is a lot of attention paid to the Sacred Heart and the Month of the Sacred Heart―and rightly so. By comparison, the Precious Blood of Jesus and the Month of the Precious Blood gets much less attention―and unfortunately so! In a certain sense, blood is the life of the heart―just like the soul is the life of the body. Without blood, the heart dies. However, without a heart to pump the blood around―the blood also corrupts and dies so to speak. At the end of the day, the heart and blood are like a husband and wife team―they work together and produce life and preserve life in their children. Similarly, the Sacred Heart and the Precious Blood of Jesus work together to produce and preserve the spiritual life of grace in our souls and―even more importantly―they produce the conditions necessary for us to attain eternal life in Heaven
The Blood of Jesus is precious in and of itself. First of all, it is precious in its source: it was drawn from the veins of Mary, the purest of virgins. It is precious above all because it is the Blood of a God; the divinity is united to it, and it is truly a Divine Blood, to which are owed the homage of adoration which we render to God Himself. On Calvary, the Angels adored the blood flowing from the wounds of Jesus and saturating the soil; at the altar they are still there by the thousands, adoring that same Blood hidden under the sacred species.
The Blood of Jesus is precious for God Himself, since it rendered Him the greatest homage of glorification by repairing the dishonor that sin had caused Him, and gave the most touching witness of love. Let us recall that in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, it is the same Blood that is offered again to the heavenly Father; let us always attend Mass as on Calvary, thinking that then we render to the Lord the only homage worthy of Himself.
The Blood of Jesus is precious to our Divine Savior Himself. It is His Blood, the principle of His natural life, which is the cause of all the acts He performed on Earth. But above all, His Blood was precious to Him in His Passion, for it cost Him so many pains when He shed it in the scourging, the crowning of thorns and the horrible torment of the crucifixion.
The Blood of Jesus is also precious to Him in its effects. If there are so many holy souls that love and glorify Him, if in the hearts of so many martyrs, missionaries and virgins there are flames of most pure charity and the greatest zeal for the glory of God, it is due to the Blood of Jesus. If in Heaven there are thousands of Elect who will glorify the Lord eternally, it is also because of the adorable Blood: it is what redeemed and sanctified them.
The Blood of Jesus is also very precious to Mary. It is because she was to provide the first drops of this Blood that God ornamented her with so much grace and sanctity, and that He put them within her as a kind of reflection of His divine perfections. O Mary, you who were the most worthy adorer of the Blood of your Son, teach us how to adore Him and glorify Him.
Above all, the Blood of Jesus is precious to us. If we cast a glance into our past life, we see our poor sinful soul crippled, scarred, withered, defiled, spreading the infection of sin―but when one single drop of the Blood of Jesus falls upon it through absolution in the Sacrament of Confession, it is washed and purified; its ugliness turns into beauty and its infection into sweet perfume. And in the Eucharist―how precious the Blood of Jesus is to us! Yes, the Blood of Jesus should be for us the source of the greatest happiness.
The Blood of Christ Screams Salvation
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass screams out “Salvation!” every time it is offered—yet it seems that those screams are not loud enough to wake up most people to the purpose of the Mass. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the very same thing as the Holy Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary―with this difference: on Calvary, Christ’s sacrifice was a bloody sacrifice; whereas in the Mass, Christ’s sacrifice is an unbloody sacrifice―but His Precious Blood is nevertheless really and truly offered during each and every Mass that is celebrated. It is that Precious Blood of Christ that paid the debt for sin; bought back or ransomed those who had enslaved themselves to Satan through sin; and paid for the graces necessary to save our souls and to attain eternal life in Heaven.
As Holy Scripture teaches: Scripture: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22). And “all have sinned, and lack the glory of God ... God, to the showing of His justice, has proposed a propitiation, that we be justified, freely by His grace, for the remission of former sins through redemption in Christ Jesus, through Faith in His Blood” (Romans 3:23-25). “When we were still sinners, Christ died for us! Therefore, being now justified by His Blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him!” (Romans 5:9). “Taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: ‘Drink ye all of this! For this is My Blood which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins!’” (Matthew 26:28). “This is My Blood, which shall be shed for many!” (Mark 14:24). “This is the chalice, the new testament in My Blood, which shall be shed for you!” (Luke 22:20). “Jesus Christ has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own Blood” (Apocalypse 1:5). “Through His Blood we have redemption, the remission of sins” (Ephesians 1:7). “Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, and that you are not your own! For you are bought with a great price!” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). “You were not redeemed with corruptible things―such as gold or silver―but with the Precious Blood of Christ!” (1 Peter 1:18-19). A costly price! An infinite price! The price of our salvation!
No Better Gift to Receive or to Offer
Because of His loving mercy God sent His Son to redeem us by His Blood. The best gift of God to man is this same Blood, for it is the source of our salvation! St. Augustine writes: “Men who were held in slavery under the devil served the devil and served the demons; but they have been redeemed from captivity. For they could sell themselves, but they could not redeem themselves. The Redeemer came, and paid the price; He shed His blood, and bought the world. The Blood of Christ is salvation to him who wishes it, punishment to him who does not wish it.”
We must also look upon the Precious Blood as the best gift of man to God, for only with the Blood and by the Blood was God’s justice satisfied. St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, when in ecstasy, once exclaimed: “Every time a creature offers up the Precious Blood, by which he was redeemed, he offers a gift of infinite worth, which can be equaled by no other!” Surely we cannot deny that only the most precious gift was and is acceptable to God. Truly of infinite value was every act of Christ, truly all that He did in life was offered to His Father and accepted for our Redemption; and yet, without the Blood we would not have been redeemed. Such is the teaching of Scripture: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22).
Fr. Faber writes: “Every doctrine in theology is a call to the Precious Blood. Every ceremony in the Church tells of it. Every sermon that is preached is an exhortation to the use of it. Every Sacrament is a communication of it. Every supernatural act is a growth of it. Everything that is holy on the Earth is either leaf, bud, blossom, or fruit of the Blood of Jesus. To its fountains, God calls the sinner. There is no remission of sin for the sinner in anything else. It is out of the Precious Blood that men draw martyrdoms, vocations, celibacies, austerities, heroic charities, and all the magnificent graces of high sanctity. The secret nourishment of prayer is from those fountains of the Precious Blood. They kindle the inward fires of self-sacrificing love. They bear a man safely, and even impetuously, over the seeming impossibilities of perseverance. It is by the Blood of Jesus that the soul becomes ever more and more radiant. It is the secret source of all mystical transformations of the soul into the likeness of its Crucified Spouse.”
‘Blood Money’
In a certain sense blood is money. Christ bought us back―from the consequences of sin and slavery to the devil―by paying the price or ransom with His Precious Blood: “Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, but with the Precious Blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19).
We do not really appreciate this price of our redemption—unless, of course, we are one day placed in a similar position where we might have to bloodily lay down our lives for Christ and our sins, not to mention the sins of the world (of which we are partially guilty if we neglect to regularly pray and sacrifice, as Our Lady of Fatima asked, for the conversion of sinners).
When the Jews were seeking the death sentence for Jesus, “the whole people said: ‘His blood be upon us and our children!’” (Matthew 27:25). Words that they lived to regret, for they would pay for shedding the Blood of Jesus by having their own blood shed in the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Christ could have quoted the words of His prophet Jeremias against the Jews: “But know ye, and understand, that if you put me to death, you will shed innocent blood against your own selves, and against this city, and the inhabitants thereof. For in truth the Lord sent me to you, to speak all these words in your hearing” (Jeremias 16:15).
Jesus Himself prophesied: “Amen I say to you there shall not be left here a stone upon a stone that shall not be destroyed … For the days shall come upon thee, and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side, and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee: and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone: because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation” (Matthew 24:2; Luke 19:43-44).
Over one million Jews were bloodily slaughtered by the Romans in that fateful day of reckoning! Sin doesn’t come cheap—it is easy to commit, expensive in price! Forgiveness and salvation do not come cheap―“No one thinks of how much blood it costs” (Dante, Paradise).
Blood On Our Own Heads
God threatens falsehood! “Know that thou shalt be put to death! Thy blood shall be upon thy own head!” (3 Kings 2:37). The Israelites were leading very sinful lives—Isaias compares them to Sodom and Gomorrha. They were sacrificing in the Temple, but also leading lives of sin in the meantime.
This is pretty much the state of the Church and the world today. God is given lip-service, while the world is loved with all the heart. Hypocritically, we praise God to high Heaven while we sin like Hell! What God speaks to sinful Israel through Isaias, His prophet, He could well address to us today, saying:
“Israel has not known Me, and My people have not understood! Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children! They have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they are gone away backwards! For what shall I strike you any more, you that increase transgression?
“The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is sad. From the sole of the foot unto the top of the head, there is no soundness therein! Wounds and bruises and swelling sores―they are not bound up, nor dressed, nor fomented with oil. Your land is desolate, your cities are burnt with fire, your country strangers devour before your face, and it shall be desolate as when wasted by enemies. And the daughter of Sion shall be left as a covert in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, and as a city that is laid waste. Except the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we had been as Sodom, and we should have been like to Gomorrha. Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrha.
“To what purpose do you offer Me the multitude of your victims, saith the Lord? I am full―I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of fatlings, and blood of calves, and lambs, and buck goats. When you came to appear before Me, who required these things at your hands, that you should walk in My courts? Offer sacrifice no more in vain―incense is an abomination to Me. The new moons, and the Sabbaths, and other festivals I will not abide―your assemblies are wicked. My soul hates your new moons, and your solemnities―they are become troublesome to Me, I am weary of bearing them! And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away My eyes from you―and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear―for your hands are full of blood.
“Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your devices from My eyes, cease to do perversely! Learn to do well―seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, defend the widow. And then come, and accuse Me, saith the Lord. If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool. If you be willing, and will listen to Me, you shall eat the good things of the land. But if you will not, and if you will provoke Me to wrath―then the sword shall devour you, because the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it!” (Isaias 1:3-20).
Same old problem, eh? “If you be willing to listen to Me…!” Too busy having fun, no time to listen. “They have ears and hear not!” (Psalm 113:14). “And thy ears shall hear the word of one admonishing thee behind thy back” (Isaias 30:21). “And the Lord hath sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising early, and sending, and you have not hearkened, nor inclined your ears to hear” (Jeremias 25:4). But to those who are willing to listen― “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!” (Matthew 11:15)―Our Lord and Our Lady speak out:
Anemic Souls Destroy Church’s Lifeblood
“Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness ... The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance … The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity. Yes, the priests are asking for vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying my Son again! The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless Sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world. God will strike in an unprecedented way” (Our Lady of Good Success & La Salette).
We Will Pay With Our Blood!
“In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind ... The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God. There will be a formidable and frightful war, in which both native and foreign blood will flow, including that of secular and regular priests as well as that of other religious ... blood will flow on all sides. Churches will be locked up or desecrated. Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death ... France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war ... Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian ... Blood will flow in the streets ... Men will kill each other, massacre each other even in their homes ... A general war will follow which will be appalling ... This night will be most horrible, for, humanly speaking, evil will seem to triumph ... all order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family … With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father. I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His Precious Blood, and beloved souls who console Him forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger” (Our Lady of Good Success, La Salette & Akita).
Why will all these horrendous things happen? Because, as Our Lord said of Jerusalem while He still walked the Earth, “because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation!” (Luke 19:44). Or, as Sr. Lucia of Fatima reports in 1957: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on with their life of virtue and apostolate, but they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners keep following the road of evil because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them.” Truly, we have not known the hour of Our Lady’s visitation—so we shall be visited in another way!
Woe! Woe! Woe! Thrice Woe!
To the same Mother Mariana, to whom Our Lady of Good Success was appearing, Our Lord also warned Mother Mariana that the chastisement would be severe for those religious who squandered so many graces with their pride and vainglory to secure positions of power and rank. He especially condemned the lukewarm: “Alas! If men, and above all, priests and religious souls, would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small inveterate imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me.... But I will not tolerate this. Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me. I desire all or nothing — according to My example, for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross. Moreover, I have continued to live in the Tabernacle under the same roof with these hidden souls, exposing Myself to so many hateful profanations and sacrileges! For I know well all that takes place in My sacramental life! ... Woe to souls like this! Woe!”
“The times will come,” He told her, “when doctrine will be commonly known among the learned and the ignorant. ... Many religious books will be written. But the practice of the virtues and of these doctrines will be found in only a few souls; for this reason, saints will become rare. And precisely for this reason, My priests and My religious will fall into a fatal indifference. Their coldness will extinguish the fire of divine love, afflicting My Loving Heart with these small thorns that you see ... Alas! If you could only know My intense interior suffering ... caused by the lack of correspondence to this deluge of graces with which I inundate My priests and religious and, as a consequence, by the sins that they commit!
Jesus continued: “Know, moreover, that Divine Justice releases terrible chastisements on entire nations, not only for the sins of the people, but especially for those of priests and religious persons. For the latter are called, by the perfection of their state, to be the salt of the Earth, the masters of truth and the deflectors of divine wrath. Straying from their divine mission, they degrade themselves in such a way that, before the eyes of God, they quicken the rigor of the punishments.”
Add to all this the blood shed in abortions. In the USA, since Roe vs. Wade in 1973, an estimated 58 million babies have been killed (aborted), Worldwide, since 1980, the number is an estimated 1,340 million babies killed. Their blood is upon the head of the world and we live in that world.
Add to the aborted babies the escalating shedding of blood through Christian persecution, civil violence and political wars—and you have not just a pool of blood crying out to Heaven for vengeance, but a veritable sea of blood!
Way Out of This Bloody Mess!
At Akita, Japan―in 1973―Our Lady warned: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord ... If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!”
What Our Lady of Good Success said to Mother Mariana, she says to us today—if we can only break ourselves away from having fun and find time to listen and act upon what she says: “Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears in the privacy of your heart, imploring our heavenly Father that, for love of the Eucharistic Heart of my Most Holy Son and His Precious Blood―shed with such generosity and the profound bitterness and sufferings of His cruel Passion and Death―He might take pity on His ministers and bring to an end those ominous times!” (Our Lady of Good Success).
The Rosary, especially, has been given a power that Heaven wants to see us use. Sr. Lucia of Fatima says: The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
But above all―the weapon par excellence, which Our Lady referred to as “the Sign left by my Son”―we have the most powerful weapon of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, wherein the Precious Blood of Jesus becomes present through transubstantiation during the Consecration. Whenever we go to assist at the Sacrifice of the Mass, we go to Calvary to assist at the crucifixion at the foot of the cross with Our Lady, St. John, St. Mary Magdalen and the other women. There is no better place to be! There is no place that allows for more powerful a prayer to be made! There is nothing else in the world that comes anywhere near to the value and power of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! Yet how poorly and/or how rarely we avail ourselves of it!
So...! What are we going to do? Click with the mouse and timidly go to the next page? Or click our fingers and ask for another beer, wine or soda? Or click the remote and turn on the TV? Or let something click in our heads that makes us get down on our knees and ‘click’ through the mysteries of the Rosary and 'click' on the car keys to open the car doors and drive off for an extra Mass or two, or three?
There is a lot of attention paid to the Sacred Heart and the Month of the Sacred Heart―and rightly so. By comparison, the Precious Blood of Jesus and the Month of the Precious Blood gets much less attention―and unfortunately so! In a certain sense, blood is the life of the heart―just like the soul is the life of the body. Without blood, the heart dies. However, without a heart to pump the blood around―the blood also corrupts and dies so to speak. At the end of the day, the heart and blood are like a husband and wife team―they work together and produce life and preserve life in their children. Similarly, the Sacred Heart and the Precious Blood of Jesus work together to produce and preserve the spiritual life of grace in our souls and―even more importantly―they produce the conditions necessary for us to attain eternal life in Heaven
The Blood of Jesus is precious in and of itself. First of all, it is precious in its source: it was drawn from the veins of Mary, the purest of virgins. It is precious above all because it is the Blood of a God; the divinity is united to it, and it is truly a Divine Blood, to which are owed the homage of adoration which we render to God Himself. On Calvary, the Angels adored the blood flowing from the wounds of Jesus and saturating the soil; at the altar they are still there by the thousands, adoring that same Blood hidden under the sacred species.
The Blood of Jesus is precious for God Himself, since it rendered Him the greatest homage of glorification by repairing the dishonor that sin had caused Him, and gave the most touching witness of love. Let us recall that in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, it is the same Blood that is offered again to the heavenly Father; let us always attend Mass as on Calvary, thinking that then we render to the Lord the only homage worthy of Himself.
The Blood of Jesus is precious to our Divine Savior Himself. It is His Blood, the principle of His natural life, which is the cause of all the acts He performed on Earth. But above all, His Blood was precious to Him in His Passion, for it cost Him so many pains when He shed it in the scourging, the crowning of thorns and the horrible torment of the crucifixion.
The Blood of Jesus is also precious to Him in its effects. If there are so many holy souls that love and glorify Him, if in the hearts of so many martyrs, missionaries and virgins there are flames of most pure charity and the greatest zeal for the glory of God, it is due to the Blood of Jesus. If in Heaven there are thousands of Elect who will glorify the Lord eternally, it is also because of the adorable Blood: it is what redeemed and sanctified them.
The Blood of Jesus is also very precious to Mary. It is because she was to provide the first drops of this Blood that God ornamented her with so much grace and sanctity, and that He put them within her as a kind of reflection of His divine perfections. O Mary, you who were the most worthy adorer of the Blood of your Son, teach us how to adore Him and glorify Him.
Above all, the Blood of Jesus is precious to us. If we cast a glance into our past life, we see our poor sinful soul crippled, scarred, withered, defiled, spreading the infection of sin―but when one single drop of the Blood of Jesus falls upon it through absolution in the Sacrament of Confession, it is washed and purified; its ugliness turns into beauty and its infection into sweet perfume. And in the Eucharist―how precious the Blood of Jesus is to us! Yes, the Blood of Jesus should be for us the source of the greatest happiness.
The Blood of Christ Screams Salvation
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass screams out “Salvation!” every time it is offered—yet it seems that those screams are not loud enough to wake up most people to the purpose of the Mass. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the very same thing as the Holy Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary―with this difference: on Calvary, Christ’s sacrifice was a bloody sacrifice; whereas in the Mass, Christ’s sacrifice is an unbloody sacrifice―but His Precious Blood is nevertheless really and truly offered during each and every Mass that is celebrated. It is that Precious Blood of Christ that paid the debt for sin; bought back or ransomed those who had enslaved themselves to Satan through sin; and paid for the graces necessary to save our souls and to attain eternal life in Heaven.
As Holy Scripture teaches: Scripture: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22). And “all have sinned, and lack the glory of God ... God, to the showing of His justice, has proposed a propitiation, that we be justified, freely by His grace, for the remission of former sins through redemption in Christ Jesus, through Faith in His Blood” (Romans 3:23-25). “When we were still sinners, Christ died for us! Therefore, being now justified by His Blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him!” (Romans 5:9). “Taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: ‘Drink ye all of this! For this is My Blood which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins!’” (Matthew 26:28). “This is My Blood, which shall be shed for many!” (Mark 14:24). “This is the chalice, the new testament in My Blood, which shall be shed for you!” (Luke 22:20). “Jesus Christ has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own Blood” (Apocalypse 1:5). “Through His Blood we have redemption, the remission of sins” (Ephesians 1:7). “Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, and that you are not your own! For you are bought with a great price!” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). “You were not redeemed with corruptible things―such as gold or silver―but with the Precious Blood of Christ!” (1 Peter 1:18-19). A costly price! An infinite price! The price of our salvation!
No Better Gift to Receive or to Offer
Because of His loving mercy God sent His Son to redeem us by His Blood. The best gift of God to man is this same Blood, for it is the source of our salvation! St. Augustine writes: “Men who were held in slavery under the devil served the devil and served the demons; but they have been redeemed from captivity. For they could sell themselves, but they could not redeem themselves. The Redeemer came, and paid the price; He shed His blood, and bought the world. The Blood of Christ is salvation to him who wishes it, punishment to him who does not wish it.”
We must also look upon the Precious Blood as the best gift of man to God, for only with the Blood and by the Blood was God’s justice satisfied. St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, when in ecstasy, once exclaimed: “Every time a creature offers up the Precious Blood, by which he was redeemed, he offers a gift of infinite worth, which can be equaled by no other!” Surely we cannot deny that only the most precious gift was and is acceptable to God. Truly of infinite value was every act of Christ, truly all that He did in life was offered to His Father and accepted for our Redemption; and yet, without the Blood we would not have been redeemed. Such is the teaching of Scripture: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22).
Fr. Faber writes: “Every doctrine in theology is a call to the Precious Blood. Every ceremony in the Church tells of it. Every sermon that is preached is an exhortation to the use of it. Every Sacrament is a communication of it. Every supernatural act is a growth of it. Everything that is holy on the Earth is either leaf, bud, blossom, or fruit of the Blood of Jesus. To its fountains, God calls the sinner. There is no remission of sin for the sinner in anything else. It is out of the Precious Blood that men draw martyrdoms, vocations, celibacies, austerities, heroic charities, and all the magnificent graces of high sanctity. The secret nourishment of prayer is from those fountains of the Precious Blood. They kindle the inward fires of self-sacrificing love. They bear a man safely, and even impetuously, over the seeming impossibilities of perseverance. It is by the Blood of Jesus that the soul becomes ever more and more radiant. It is the secret source of all mystical transformations of the soul into the likeness of its Crucified Spouse.”
‘Blood Money’
In a certain sense blood is money. Christ bought us back―from the consequences of sin and slavery to the devil―by paying the price or ransom with His Precious Blood: “Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, but with the Precious Blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19).
We do not really appreciate this price of our redemption—unless, of course, we are one day placed in a similar position where we might have to bloodily lay down our lives for Christ and our sins, not to mention the sins of the world (of which we are partially guilty if we neglect to regularly pray and sacrifice, as Our Lady of Fatima asked, for the conversion of sinners).
When the Jews were seeking the death sentence for Jesus, “the whole people said: ‘His blood be upon us and our children!’” (Matthew 27:25). Words that they lived to regret, for they would pay for shedding the Blood of Jesus by having their own blood shed in the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Christ could have quoted the words of His prophet Jeremias against the Jews: “But know ye, and understand, that if you put me to death, you will shed innocent blood against your own selves, and against this city, and the inhabitants thereof. For in truth the Lord sent me to you, to speak all these words in your hearing” (Jeremias 16:15).
Jesus Himself prophesied: “Amen I say to you there shall not be left here a stone upon a stone that shall not be destroyed … For the days shall come upon thee, and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side, and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee: and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone: because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation” (Matthew 24:2; Luke 19:43-44).
Over one million Jews were bloodily slaughtered by the Romans in that fateful day of reckoning! Sin doesn’t come cheap—it is easy to commit, expensive in price! Forgiveness and salvation do not come cheap―“No one thinks of how much blood it costs” (Dante, Paradise).
Blood On Our Own Heads
God threatens falsehood! “Know that thou shalt be put to death! Thy blood shall be upon thy own head!” (3 Kings 2:37). The Israelites were leading very sinful lives—Isaias compares them to Sodom and Gomorrha. They were sacrificing in the Temple, but also leading lives of sin in the meantime.
This is pretty much the state of the Church and the world today. God is given lip-service, while the world is loved with all the heart. Hypocritically, we praise God to high Heaven while we sin like Hell! What God speaks to sinful Israel through Isaias, His prophet, He could well address to us today, saying:
“Israel has not known Me, and My people have not understood! Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children! They have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they are gone away backwards! For what shall I strike you any more, you that increase transgression?
“The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is sad. From the sole of the foot unto the top of the head, there is no soundness therein! Wounds and bruises and swelling sores―they are not bound up, nor dressed, nor fomented with oil. Your land is desolate, your cities are burnt with fire, your country strangers devour before your face, and it shall be desolate as when wasted by enemies. And the daughter of Sion shall be left as a covert in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, and as a city that is laid waste. Except the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we had been as Sodom, and we should have been like to Gomorrha. Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrha.
“To what purpose do you offer Me the multitude of your victims, saith the Lord? I am full―I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of fatlings, and blood of calves, and lambs, and buck goats. When you came to appear before Me, who required these things at your hands, that you should walk in My courts? Offer sacrifice no more in vain―incense is an abomination to Me. The new moons, and the Sabbaths, and other festivals I will not abide―your assemblies are wicked. My soul hates your new moons, and your solemnities―they are become troublesome to Me, I am weary of bearing them! And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away My eyes from you―and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear―for your hands are full of blood.
“Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your devices from My eyes, cease to do perversely! Learn to do well―seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, defend the widow. And then come, and accuse Me, saith the Lord. If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool. If you be willing, and will listen to Me, you shall eat the good things of the land. But if you will not, and if you will provoke Me to wrath―then the sword shall devour you, because the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it!” (Isaias 1:3-20).
Same old problem, eh? “If you be willing to listen to Me…!” Too busy having fun, no time to listen. “They have ears and hear not!” (Psalm 113:14). “And thy ears shall hear the word of one admonishing thee behind thy back” (Isaias 30:21). “And the Lord hath sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising early, and sending, and you have not hearkened, nor inclined your ears to hear” (Jeremias 25:4). But to those who are willing to listen― “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!” (Matthew 11:15)―Our Lord and Our Lady speak out:
Anemic Souls Destroy Church’s Lifeblood
“Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness ... The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance … The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity. Yes, the priests are asking for vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying my Son again! The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless Sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world. God will strike in an unprecedented way” (Our Lady of Good Success & La Salette).
We Will Pay With Our Blood!
“In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind ... The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God. There will be a formidable and frightful war, in which both native and foreign blood will flow, including that of secular and regular priests as well as that of other religious ... blood will flow on all sides. Churches will be locked up or desecrated. Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death ... France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war ... Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian ... Blood will flow in the streets ... Men will kill each other, massacre each other even in their homes ... A general war will follow which will be appalling ... This night will be most horrible, for, humanly speaking, evil will seem to triumph ... all order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family … With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father. I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His Precious Blood, and beloved souls who console Him forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger” (Our Lady of Good Success, La Salette & Akita).
Why will all these horrendous things happen? Because, as Our Lord said of Jerusalem while He still walked the Earth, “because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation!” (Luke 19:44). Or, as Sr. Lucia of Fatima reports in 1957: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on with their life of virtue and apostolate, but they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners keep following the road of evil because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them.” Truly, we have not known the hour of Our Lady’s visitation—so we shall be visited in another way!
Woe! Woe! Woe! Thrice Woe!
To the same Mother Mariana, to whom Our Lady of Good Success was appearing, Our Lord also warned Mother Mariana that the chastisement would be severe for those religious who squandered so many graces with their pride and vainglory to secure positions of power and rank. He especially condemned the lukewarm: “Alas! If men, and above all, priests and religious souls, would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small inveterate imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me.... But I will not tolerate this. Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me. I desire all or nothing — according to My example, for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross. Moreover, I have continued to live in the Tabernacle under the same roof with these hidden souls, exposing Myself to so many hateful profanations and sacrileges! For I know well all that takes place in My sacramental life! ... Woe to souls like this! Woe!”
“The times will come,” He told her, “when doctrine will be commonly known among the learned and the ignorant. ... Many religious books will be written. But the practice of the virtues and of these doctrines will be found in only a few souls; for this reason, saints will become rare. And precisely for this reason, My priests and My religious will fall into a fatal indifference. Their coldness will extinguish the fire of divine love, afflicting My Loving Heart with these small thorns that you see ... Alas! If you could only know My intense interior suffering ... caused by the lack of correspondence to this deluge of graces with which I inundate My priests and religious and, as a consequence, by the sins that they commit!
Jesus continued: “Know, moreover, that Divine Justice releases terrible chastisements on entire nations, not only for the sins of the people, but especially for those of priests and religious persons. For the latter are called, by the perfection of their state, to be the salt of the Earth, the masters of truth and the deflectors of divine wrath. Straying from their divine mission, they degrade themselves in such a way that, before the eyes of God, they quicken the rigor of the punishments.”
Add to all this the blood shed in abortions. In the USA, since Roe vs. Wade in 1973, an estimated 58 million babies have been killed (aborted), Worldwide, since 1980, the number is an estimated 1,340 million babies killed. Their blood is upon the head of the world and we live in that world.
Add to the aborted babies the escalating shedding of blood through Christian persecution, civil violence and political wars—and you have not just a pool of blood crying out to Heaven for vengeance, but a veritable sea of blood!
Way Out of This Bloody Mess!
At Akita, Japan―in 1973―Our Lady warned: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord ... If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!”
What Our Lady of Good Success said to Mother Mariana, she says to us today—if we can only break ourselves away from having fun and find time to listen and act upon what she says: “Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears in the privacy of your heart, imploring our heavenly Father that, for love of the Eucharistic Heart of my Most Holy Son and His Precious Blood―shed with such generosity and the profound bitterness and sufferings of His cruel Passion and Death―He might take pity on His ministers and bring to an end those ominous times!” (Our Lady of Good Success).
The Rosary, especially, has been given a power that Heaven wants to see us use. Sr. Lucia of Fatima says: The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
But above all―the weapon par excellence, which Our Lady referred to as “the Sign left by my Son”―we have the most powerful weapon of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, wherein the Precious Blood of Jesus becomes present through transubstantiation during the Consecration. Whenever we go to assist at the Sacrifice of the Mass, we go to Calvary to assist at the crucifixion at the foot of the cross with Our Lady, St. John, St. Mary Magdalen and the other women. There is no better place to be! There is no place that allows for more powerful a prayer to be made! There is nothing else in the world that comes anywhere near to the value and power of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! Yet how poorly and/or how rarely we avail ourselves of it!
So...! What are we going to do? Click with the mouse and timidly go to the next page? Or click our fingers and ask for another beer, wine or soda? Or click the remote and turn on the TV? Or let something click in our heads that makes us get down on our knees and ‘click’ through the mysteries of the Rosary and 'click' on the car keys to open the car doors and drive off for an extra Mass or two, or three?
Article 1
Saturday July 1st, 2023
A Bloody Month!
Saturday July 1st, 2023
A Bloody Month!
Heart and Blood
The month of June is the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, while the month of July is the month of the Precious Blood of Jesus. June spills over into July, and July flows out of June like blood flows out of the heart. It is not by chance that we have these two dedicated months side-by-side. There is a wealth of doctrine and spiritual treasure that flows forth from the juxtapositioning of the Sacred Heart of Jesus next to the Precious Blood of Jesus.
What analogy or likeness can we put forth to show the intimate spiritual relationship that springs forth from this co-relation of the Heart and the Blood of Jesus? From a mere physical viewpoint, an immediate relationship jumps to mind—for own bodies testify to the close connection between heart and blood. The two go hand in hand, like body and soul, parents and children, etc. One needs the other; they work together.
Courage of Heart, Shedding One’s Blood
Taken a stage further, we can speak of the courage, in the heart of soldiers, that leads them to shed their blood for their country. Even outside of war and the battlefield, in the modern battlefield of sports, the same courage of heart leads them into combat against an individual opponent or a team, that will sometimes see blood flow. The love of others, in the heart of a person, may lead them to donate their blood for the saving of lives. These are just some of the co-relations we see between heart and blood. In Our Lord, we can say that the Sacred Heart symbolizes the love He has for us and the love we should have for Him; whereas the Precious Blood symbolizes the reparation made by the Sacred Heart and the reparation we should make to the Sacred Heart. Like blood, the reparation comes from the Sacred Heart and flows back to the Sacred Heart.
Heart and Blood Medically
Heart rate and blood pressure are known as vital signs. Each vital sign must be measured separately because each result describes different information about the heart and blood vessels. The rate of the heart beat and the blood pressure are two important measurements to assess the health and wellness of the heart. Normally, the heart rate measures how fast the heart has to work in order to supply the body with oxygen and remove carbon dioxide from the blood.
A fast heart beat at rest may indicate weakened cardiac muscle that has to compensate with pumping blood faster. Unless the person is an athlete, a slow heart beat at rest, may be indicative of an enlarged heart that is straining to pump blood through an oversized organ.
The pulse rate increases during exertion of the body to meet increased oxygen demands during exercise. A healthy heart will not increase the blood pressure, but will cause the arteries to dilate and accommodate the increase of blood flow to the lungs. Known as the recovery time, the amount of time it takes for the heart rate to recover from exercise is measured in seconds to minutes. For instance, after jogging, a person with a heart rate at 120 beats per minute (BPM), recovers their normal heart rate at 77 BPM in less than a minute. Heart rate should also be evaluated by the steady rhythm and force of the beats. The healthier the heart, the faster the pulse will return to a normal resting state. Although this measurement is not completely conclusive by itself, recovery time can be used to assess fitness level of the body.
Jesus and Grace
We can quite easily draw some spiritual parallels from this co-relation of heart and blood. From the perspective of Jesus, His Heart is the reservoir of His Blood, which He sends out to His Mystical Body. The Heart is Jesus Himself, and His Blood is Divine Grace, which gives life to the Mystical Body as blood brings life to the human body. The Blood (Grace) of God is sent out to fulfill His wishes, much as God says in Isaias: “And as the rain and the snow come down from Heaven, and return no more thither, but soak the earth, and water it, and make it to spring, and give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater. So shall My word [blood] be, which shall go forth from My mouth [heart]: it shall not return to Me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it” (Isaias 55:10-11).
Physical exertion requires that the heart to work faster and to pump greater quantities of blood (which carries the important oxygen) to all parts of the body. Likewise, spiritual exertion requires that the Sacred Heart pump more Precious Blood (which carries the important Grace) to all parts of the soul.
Spiritual Coronary Artery Disease
Coronary Artery Disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, affecting millions of Americans. Coronary Artery Disease is a narrowing of the coronary arteries, the vessels that supply blood to the heart muscle, generally due to the buildup of plaques in the arterial walls, a process known as atherosclerosis. Plaques are composed of cholesterol-rich fatty deposits, collagen, other proteins, and excess smooth muscle cells.
Let us paraphrase the above from a spiritual perspective. Jesus is the Heart and we, being members of His Mystical Body, are the arteries into which He pumps His Blood (Grace). Spiritual Coronary Artery Disease is the leading cause of the loss of souls. It is caused by a narrowing of the coronary arteries, generally due to a buildup of worldliness in the souls of the arteries, a process known as lukewarmness or tepidly. Worldliness is composed of fatty deposits of venial sins, self-love, sloth, gluttony and other cardinal sins.
Atherosclerosis (Worldliness), which usually progresses very gradually over a lifetime, thickens and narrows the arterial walls, impeding the flow of blood and starving the heart of the oxygen (grace) and vital nutrients (inspirations of God) which it needs. This can cause muscle cramp-like chest pain called angina (lukewarmness and fear of effort).
Blood clots (venial sins) form more easily on arterial walls roughened by plaque deposits (worldliness) and may block one or more of the narrowed coronary arteries completely and cause a heart attack (mortal sin). Arteries may also narrow suddenly as a result of an arterial spasm (pain resulting from making spiritual efforts). Spasms are most commonly triggered by smoking (breathing in the spirit of the world).
Although Coronary Artery Disease can be a life-threatening (soul-threatening) condition, the outcome of the disease is in many ways up to the patient. Damage to the arteries can be slowed or halted with lifestyle changes, including smoking cessation (quit breathing in the spirit of the world), dietary modifications (stop reading, watching, listening to the worldly media outlets, quit frequenting worldly parties and social gatherings) and regular exercise (Spiritual Exercises: start praying and making sacrifices), or by medications (penances) to lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Additional goals of treatment, which may involve medication (penances) and sometimes surgery (being refused absolution by the priest, or severe Providential punishments sent by God), are to relieve symptoms, ease circulation and prolong life (save the soul).
Blood and Salvation
As Fr. Faber writes, in his book, The Precious Blood: “Salvation! What music is there in that word! To be saved! What is it to be saved? Who can tell? Eye has not seen, nor ear heard. It is a rescue, and from such a shipwreck. It is a rest, and in such an unimaginable home. It is to lie down forever in the bosom of God in an endless rapture of insatiable contentment. ‘Thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save his people from their sins’ (Matthew 1:21). Who else but Jesus can do this, and what else, even from Him, do we require but this? For in this lie all things which we can desire!”
The Blood of Christ
It is the shedding of blood that brings life and salvation. Our Lord said: “Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal” (John 12:24-25). Prior to His Passion and Death, He had spoken of the importance of His Blood: “For My Flesh is meat indeed: and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56-57). At the Last Supper, on the eve of the shedding of His Blood, the Sacred Heart gave His Blood as drink: “In like manner the chalice also, after He had supped, saying: ‘This is the chalice, the new testament in My Blood, which shall be shed for you!’” (Luke 22:20). “This is My blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28). After shedding His Blood in the Agony in the Garden, “His sweat became as drops of blood, trickling down upon the ground” (Luke 22:44), and more bloodshed during the Scourging and Crowning with Thorns, and being nailed to the cross, finally, “one of the soldiers, with a spear, opened His side, and immediately there came out blood and water” (John 19:34).
The courage of His Sacred Heart had led to the voluntary shedding of His Precious Blood. The shedding of the Blood was a proof of the love that was in His Heart: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends!” (John 15:13). He saved us “Neither by the blood of goats, or of calves, but by His own Blood” (Hebrews 9:12). The Precious Blood of Our Lord was shed on the Cross; by It Our Lord won all the graces necessary for the salvation of every human being. But we need to grasp these graces and apply them to ourselves and others. The Precious Blood is a flowing Fountain of spiritual gifts that will never run dry, but our efforts may run dry. We need to make constant efforts, remembering that: “he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved” (Matthew 24:13).
Jesus Testifies to the Power of His Blood
To St. Mechtilde Our Lord once revealed Himself on the altar, with hands extended and Blood streaming from His Wounds: “I show these bleeding Wounds to My Father,” He said, “to appease His wrath. He pardons when He sees the Blood.” Our Lord told Sister Mary of St. Peter: “Ask My Father for as many souls as I shed drops of Blood during My Passion.” By asking for the Precious Blood to be poured out on souls, we prevent Its being, as it were, spilled out on the ground in vain. In His mysterious Providence, God has put the salvation of others in our hands: we must ask for it, and ask fervently and often. One of the best means, of participating in the graces and blessings of the Precious Blood, is to offer It to the Eternal Father. “An offering,” says Father Faber, is “more than a prayer.” In prayer, we are the receivers, but when we make an offering, God receives something from us.
The Carmelite nun, St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, when in ecstasy, once exclaimed: “Every time a creature offers up the Blood, by which he was redeemed, he offers a gift of infinite worth, which can be equaled by no other.” God revealed the practice of making this offering to this saintly Carmelite nun, when He complained to her that so little effort is made, in this world, to disarm His Divine justice against sinners. Acting upon this admonition, St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi offered the Precious Blood fifty times each day, for the living and the dead. She did this with so much fervor that God showed her, on different occasions, the numerous souls who had, thereby, been converted, or delivered from Purgatory.
At another time, when St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi was in ecstasy, she saw all the holy patrons of the city of Florence, accompanied by innumerable other saints, before the throne of God, interceding for sinners. Their petitions, however, remained unanswered. Then the guardian Angels of the poor sinners approached, but their prayers likewise remained unheard. Next came the multitudes of the blessed to make intercession for the guilty souls. While imploring God’s mercy, they were intent, at the same time, upon offering to the Eternal Father the Precious Blood, and, on account of the merits of the Divine Blood, their petitions were granted.
Does This Not Stir Our Blood?
Should not these examples incite us to offer the Precious Blood frequently during the day? Of course, but sadly, we are tempted to relegate the above accounts to the realm of ‘fairy-tales’ and look upon them mere stories that were made up to illustrate some aspect of Faith or Morals—like Aesop’s Fables, which are mere tales that carry with them a moral lesson. Or, at best, we say to ourselves, “All these prayers and offerings and sacrifices are the work of saints—but I am no saint! So I will simply file it away as ‘this has been read: send to archives’ and move on with my life”!
The saints were not born saints, but were mere human beings like you and I. These souls were themselves the pupils, so to speak, of the saints that they read about. They chose to act upon, not archive, what they read. In this way they grew in holiness and, eventually, became saints, or teachers, themselves. We can choose to bury the ‘talents’ that are given to us (through the examples and advice of saints), or we can work upon them and bring some profit to ourselves (cf. Parable of the Talents, Matthew chapter 25).
Confirmation and Shedding Blood
In case we inflate our stock as Catholics, let us remember the Catholics of old and let us remember the admonition of St. Paul: “For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” (Hebrews 12:4). Sin is our greatest enemy. The Catechism tells us that sin is the greatest evil in the world—even “itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny” venial sins! That is why St. Dominic Savio took, as one of his four resolutions at the time of his First Holy Communion, the resolution to avoid sin—he wrote down on paper the pledge: “Death rather than sin!” That is the attitude of a true Soldier for Christ.
Of course, St. Dominic never shed his physical blood for Christ, as did many martyrs, but he must have been wounded by the comments and attitude of many around him—especially those who did not hate sin like he hated sin. He will have bled ‘mystical’ blood in place of physical blood—much like the Sacrifice of the Mass is the re-actualization of the Sacrifice of Calvary, but in an unbloody way. St. Dominic must have ‘sweated mystical drops of blood’ many times throughout his short life in trying to follow the right path, the narrow painful path of Christ that leads to holiness and Heaven. The same is in store for us—we must shed our blood for Christ, either physically like the martyrs, or mystically like St. Dominic and all the other unmartyred saints that made it to Heaven. As Holy Scripture says: “The blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation” (Luke 11:50).
Our Lady Warns of Bloodshed
Our Lady speaks of these blood-shedding martyrdoms—whether physical or mystical—in many of her apparitions, as do many other prophecies by saints and mystics. At La Salette, Our Lady warns: “God will strike in an unprecedented way ... Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered ... The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God ... Italy will be punished for her ambition in wanting to shake off the yoke of the Lord of Lords. And so she will be left to fight a war; blood will flow on all sides. Churches will be locked up or desecrated. Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death ... All order and all justice would be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy would be seen” (Our Lady of La Salette).
“France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling … Men will kill each other, massacre each other even in their homes ... Several cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes. People will believe that all is lost. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of arms and blasphemy. The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession” (Our Lady of La Salette).
Fighting the Good Fight
We have to get out of our hypnotic state that imagines that life is meant to be enjoyed and we are here to have fun—each in his or her own way! “Fight the good fight of faith: lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called” (1 Timothy 6:12), for “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1) and this fight is not a virtual fight; it is not a fight in the imagination; nor a fight that existed in the past but no longer today; nor a fight that some but not all are involved in—it is a perennial fight, a universal fight, an apocalyptic fight! Your salvation rests upon whether or not you fight, whether or not you compromise, whether or not you surrender to the enemy. Just as Our Lord was asked: “And who is my neighbor?” — you may well ask: “And who is my enemy?” Let Holy Scripture answer you:
The Enemy: World, Flesh, Devil
The enemy is the world, the flesh and the devil. “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4). “The whole world is seated in wickedness” (1 John 5:19). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world” (John 15:19).
“The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mark 14:38). “For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death” (Romans 7:5). “Therefore, I myself, with the mind, serve the law of God; but, with the flesh, the law of sin” (Romans 7:25). “For the wisdom of the flesh is death; but the wisdom of the spirit is life and peace. Because the wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be. And they who are in the flesh, cannot please God” (Romans 8:6-8). “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences.” (Romans 13:14).
“Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). “The devil was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him” (John 8:44). “Give not place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:27). “Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). “He that sows the good seed, is the Son of man. And the field, is the world. And the good seed are the children of the kingdom. And the cockle, are the children of the wicked one. And the enemy that sowed them, is the devil. But the harvest is the end of the world” (Matthew 13:37-39). “The devil cometh, and taketh the word out of their heart, lest believing they should be saved” (Luke 8:12). “For the space of forty days; and was tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:2).
Our Lady’s Battle Cry
At La Salette, Our Lady sounds out her battle cry: “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven! I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you―provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light―you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!” (Our Lady of La Salette). Holy Scripture echoes this: “You are the light of the world!” (Matthew 5:14) … “Fight the good fight of Faith! … whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12)
St. Louis de Montfort’s End Time Warriors
This rallying cry of Our Lady fits perfectly with St. Louis de Montfort’s prophetic writings about the saints of end times:
“The formation and the education of the great saints who shall come at the end of the world are reserved for Mary ... I have said that this would come to pass, particularly at the end of the world and indeed soon … These great souls, full of grace and zeal, shall be chosen to match themselves against the enemies of God, who shall rage on all sides; and they shall be singularly devout to our Blessed Lady, illuminated by her light, strengthened with her nourishment, led by her spirit, supported by her arm and sheltered under her protection, so that they shall fight with one hand and build with the other. With the one hand they shall fight, overthrow and crush the heretics with their heresies, the schismatics with their schisms, the idolaters with their idolatries and the sinners with their impieties. With the other hand they shall build the temple of the true Solomon and the mystical city of God, that is to say, the most holy Virgin” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).
“The devil, knowing that he has but little time, and now less than ever, to destroy souls, will every day redouble his efforts and his combats. He will presently raise up cruel persecutions and will put terrible snares before the faithful servants and true children of Mary, whom it gives him more trouble to conquer than it does to conquer others ... These last and cruel persecutions of the devil, shall go on increasing daily till the reign of Antichrist … But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel: that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).
“They shall be clouds thundering and flying through the air at the least breath of the Holy Ghost; who, detaching themselves from everything and troubling themselves about nothing, shall shower forth the rain of the Word of God and of life eternal! They shall thunder against sin; they shall storm against the world; they shall strike the devil and his crew; and they shall pierce through and through, for life or for death, with their two-edged sword of the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17), all those to whom they shall be sent on the part of the Most High! ... They shall be the true apostles of the latter times, to whom the Lord of Hosts shall give the word and the might to work marvels and to carry off with glory the spoils of His enemies!” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).
“In a word, we know that they shall be true disciples of Jesus Christ, walking in the footsteps of His poverty, humility, contempt of the world, charity; teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the Holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not accepting persons; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in their own behavior” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).
Soldiers Are Made, Not Born
This is not empty rhetoric by St. Louis de Montfort—this is a prophetic picture of what we have to be in our day and age. No soldier is born a soldier, but has to be trained and made into a soldier. Looking at St. Louis imagery and comparing it with our own personal state and condition might well be despondent—but it is well worth reading the book by the ex-Communist turned Catholic, Douglas Hyde, entitled Dedication and Leadership, wherein he shows how Communists take the worst imaginable material and train and convert it into a very efficient Communist fighting machine. If the skill of Communists can do that—what can the grace of God do?
The Example of St. Paul
St. Paul gives us an example of a true Soldier for Christ. Referring to the Apostles, he says: “They are the ministers of Christ (I speak as one less wise). I am more; in many more labors, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27).
Let us pray to Our Lady, St. Paul, St. Louis de Montfort and all the saints, especially the martyrs, that we might have a love of the Precious Blood of Jesus; that we believe and use the power of His Precious Blood; that we be ready to shed our own blood for love of Jesus—whether it be shed mystically or physically. As the saying goes: “The Blood of the Martyrs is the Seed of the Church!”
The month of June is the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, while the month of July is the month of the Precious Blood of Jesus. June spills over into July, and July flows out of June like blood flows out of the heart. It is not by chance that we have these two dedicated months side-by-side. There is a wealth of doctrine and spiritual treasure that flows forth from the juxtapositioning of the Sacred Heart of Jesus next to the Precious Blood of Jesus.
What analogy or likeness can we put forth to show the intimate spiritual relationship that springs forth from this co-relation of the Heart and the Blood of Jesus? From a mere physical viewpoint, an immediate relationship jumps to mind—for own bodies testify to the close connection between heart and blood. The two go hand in hand, like body and soul, parents and children, etc. One needs the other; they work together.
Courage of Heart, Shedding One’s Blood
Taken a stage further, we can speak of the courage, in the heart of soldiers, that leads them to shed their blood for their country. Even outside of war and the battlefield, in the modern battlefield of sports, the same courage of heart leads them into combat against an individual opponent or a team, that will sometimes see blood flow. The love of others, in the heart of a person, may lead them to donate their blood for the saving of lives. These are just some of the co-relations we see between heart and blood. In Our Lord, we can say that the Sacred Heart symbolizes the love He has for us and the love we should have for Him; whereas the Precious Blood symbolizes the reparation made by the Sacred Heart and the reparation we should make to the Sacred Heart. Like blood, the reparation comes from the Sacred Heart and flows back to the Sacred Heart.
Heart and Blood Medically
Heart rate and blood pressure are known as vital signs. Each vital sign must be measured separately because each result describes different information about the heart and blood vessels. The rate of the heart beat and the blood pressure are two important measurements to assess the health and wellness of the heart. Normally, the heart rate measures how fast the heart has to work in order to supply the body with oxygen and remove carbon dioxide from the blood.
A fast heart beat at rest may indicate weakened cardiac muscle that has to compensate with pumping blood faster. Unless the person is an athlete, a slow heart beat at rest, may be indicative of an enlarged heart that is straining to pump blood through an oversized organ.
The pulse rate increases during exertion of the body to meet increased oxygen demands during exercise. A healthy heart will not increase the blood pressure, but will cause the arteries to dilate and accommodate the increase of blood flow to the lungs. Known as the recovery time, the amount of time it takes for the heart rate to recover from exercise is measured in seconds to minutes. For instance, after jogging, a person with a heart rate at 120 beats per minute (BPM), recovers their normal heart rate at 77 BPM in less than a minute. Heart rate should also be evaluated by the steady rhythm and force of the beats. The healthier the heart, the faster the pulse will return to a normal resting state. Although this measurement is not completely conclusive by itself, recovery time can be used to assess fitness level of the body.
Jesus and Grace
We can quite easily draw some spiritual parallels from this co-relation of heart and blood. From the perspective of Jesus, His Heart is the reservoir of His Blood, which He sends out to His Mystical Body. The Heart is Jesus Himself, and His Blood is Divine Grace, which gives life to the Mystical Body as blood brings life to the human body. The Blood (Grace) of God is sent out to fulfill His wishes, much as God says in Isaias: “And as the rain and the snow come down from Heaven, and return no more thither, but soak the earth, and water it, and make it to spring, and give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater. So shall My word [blood] be, which shall go forth from My mouth [heart]: it shall not return to Me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it” (Isaias 55:10-11).
Physical exertion requires that the heart to work faster and to pump greater quantities of blood (which carries the important oxygen) to all parts of the body. Likewise, spiritual exertion requires that the Sacred Heart pump more Precious Blood (which carries the important Grace) to all parts of the soul.
Spiritual Coronary Artery Disease
Coronary Artery Disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, affecting millions of Americans. Coronary Artery Disease is a narrowing of the coronary arteries, the vessels that supply blood to the heart muscle, generally due to the buildup of plaques in the arterial walls, a process known as atherosclerosis. Plaques are composed of cholesterol-rich fatty deposits, collagen, other proteins, and excess smooth muscle cells.
Let us paraphrase the above from a spiritual perspective. Jesus is the Heart and we, being members of His Mystical Body, are the arteries into which He pumps His Blood (Grace). Spiritual Coronary Artery Disease is the leading cause of the loss of souls. It is caused by a narrowing of the coronary arteries, generally due to a buildup of worldliness in the souls of the arteries, a process known as lukewarmness or tepidly. Worldliness is composed of fatty deposits of venial sins, self-love, sloth, gluttony and other cardinal sins.
Atherosclerosis (Worldliness), which usually progresses very gradually over a lifetime, thickens and narrows the arterial walls, impeding the flow of blood and starving the heart of the oxygen (grace) and vital nutrients (inspirations of God) which it needs. This can cause muscle cramp-like chest pain called angina (lukewarmness and fear of effort).
Blood clots (venial sins) form more easily on arterial walls roughened by plaque deposits (worldliness) and may block one or more of the narrowed coronary arteries completely and cause a heart attack (mortal sin). Arteries may also narrow suddenly as a result of an arterial spasm (pain resulting from making spiritual efforts). Spasms are most commonly triggered by smoking (breathing in the spirit of the world).
Although Coronary Artery Disease can be a life-threatening (soul-threatening) condition, the outcome of the disease is in many ways up to the patient. Damage to the arteries can be slowed or halted with lifestyle changes, including smoking cessation (quit breathing in the spirit of the world), dietary modifications (stop reading, watching, listening to the worldly media outlets, quit frequenting worldly parties and social gatherings) and regular exercise (Spiritual Exercises: start praying and making sacrifices), or by medications (penances) to lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Additional goals of treatment, which may involve medication (penances) and sometimes surgery (being refused absolution by the priest, or severe Providential punishments sent by God), are to relieve symptoms, ease circulation and prolong life (save the soul).
Blood and Salvation
As Fr. Faber writes, in his book, The Precious Blood: “Salvation! What music is there in that word! To be saved! What is it to be saved? Who can tell? Eye has not seen, nor ear heard. It is a rescue, and from such a shipwreck. It is a rest, and in such an unimaginable home. It is to lie down forever in the bosom of God in an endless rapture of insatiable contentment. ‘Thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save his people from their sins’ (Matthew 1:21). Who else but Jesus can do this, and what else, even from Him, do we require but this? For in this lie all things which we can desire!”
The Blood of Christ
It is the shedding of blood that brings life and salvation. Our Lord said: “Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal” (John 12:24-25). Prior to His Passion and Death, He had spoken of the importance of His Blood: “For My Flesh is meat indeed: and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56-57). At the Last Supper, on the eve of the shedding of His Blood, the Sacred Heart gave His Blood as drink: “In like manner the chalice also, after He had supped, saying: ‘This is the chalice, the new testament in My Blood, which shall be shed for you!’” (Luke 22:20). “This is My blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28). After shedding His Blood in the Agony in the Garden, “His sweat became as drops of blood, trickling down upon the ground” (Luke 22:44), and more bloodshed during the Scourging and Crowning with Thorns, and being nailed to the cross, finally, “one of the soldiers, with a spear, opened His side, and immediately there came out blood and water” (John 19:34).
The courage of His Sacred Heart had led to the voluntary shedding of His Precious Blood. The shedding of the Blood was a proof of the love that was in His Heart: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends!” (John 15:13). He saved us “Neither by the blood of goats, or of calves, but by His own Blood” (Hebrews 9:12). The Precious Blood of Our Lord was shed on the Cross; by It Our Lord won all the graces necessary for the salvation of every human being. But we need to grasp these graces and apply them to ourselves and others. The Precious Blood is a flowing Fountain of spiritual gifts that will never run dry, but our efforts may run dry. We need to make constant efforts, remembering that: “he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved” (Matthew 24:13).
Jesus Testifies to the Power of His Blood
To St. Mechtilde Our Lord once revealed Himself on the altar, with hands extended and Blood streaming from His Wounds: “I show these bleeding Wounds to My Father,” He said, “to appease His wrath. He pardons when He sees the Blood.” Our Lord told Sister Mary of St. Peter: “Ask My Father for as many souls as I shed drops of Blood during My Passion.” By asking for the Precious Blood to be poured out on souls, we prevent Its being, as it were, spilled out on the ground in vain. In His mysterious Providence, God has put the salvation of others in our hands: we must ask for it, and ask fervently and often. One of the best means, of participating in the graces and blessings of the Precious Blood, is to offer It to the Eternal Father. “An offering,” says Father Faber, is “more than a prayer.” In prayer, we are the receivers, but when we make an offering, God receives something from us.
The Carmelite nun, St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, when in ecstasy, once exclaimed: “Every time a creature offers up the Blood, by which he was redeemed, he offers a gift of infinite worth, which can be equaled by no other.” God revealed the practice of making this offering to this saintly Carmelite nun, when He complained to her that so little effort is made, in this world, to disarm His Divine justice against sinners. Acting upon this admonition, St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi offered the Precious Blood fifty times each day, for the living and the dead. She did this with so much fervor that God showed her, on different occasions, the numerous souls who had, thereby, been converted, or delivered from Purgatory.
At another time, when St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi was in ecstasy, she saw all the holy patrons of the city of Florence, accompanied by innumerable other saints, before the throne of God, interceding for sinners. Their petitions, however, remained unanswered. Then the guardian Angels of the poor sinners approached, but their prayers likewise remained unheard. Next came the multitudes of the blessed to make intercession for the guilty souls. While imploring God’s mercy, they were intent, at the same time, upon offering to the Eternal Father the Precious Blood, and, on account of the merits of the Divine Blood, their petitions were granted.
Does This Not Stir Our Blood?
Should not these examples incite us to offer the Precious Blood frequently during the day? Of course, but sadly, we are tempted to relegate the above accounts to the realm of ‘fairy-tales’ and look upon them mere stories that were made up to illustrate some aspect of Faith or Morals—like Aesop’s Fables, which are mere tales that carry with them a moral lesson. Or, at best, we say to ourselves, “All these prayers and offerings and sacrifices are the work of saints—but I am no saint! So I will simply file it away as ‘this has been read: send to archives’ and move on with my life”!
The saints were not born saints, but were mere human beings like you and I. These souls were themselves the pupils, so to speak, of the saints that they read about. They chose to act upon, not archive, what they read. In this way they grew in holiness and, eventually, became saints, or teachers, themselves. We can choose to bury the ‘talents’ that are given to us (through the examples and advice of saints), or we can work upon them and bring some profit to ourselves (cf. Parable of the Talents, Matthew chapter 25).
Confirmation and Shedding Blood
In case we inflate our stock as Catholics, let us remember the Catholics of old and let us remember the admonition of St. Paul: “For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” (Hebrews 12:4). Sin is our greatest enemy. The Catechism tells us that sin is the greatest evil in the world—even “itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny” venial sins! That is why St. Dominic Savio took, as one of his four resolutions at the time of his First Holy Communion, the resolution to avoid sin—he wrote down on paper the pledge: “Death rather than sin!” That is the attitude of a true Soldier for Christ.
Of course, St. Dominic never shed his physical blood for Christ, as did many martyrs, but he must have been wounded by the comments and attitude of many around him—especially those who did not hate sin like he hated sin. He will have bled ‘mystical’ blood in place of physical blood—much like the Sacrifice of the Mass is the re-actualization of the Sacrifice of Calvary, but in an unbloody way. St. Dominic must have ‘sweated mystical drops of blood’ many times throughout his short life in trying to follow the right path, the narrow painful path of Christ that leads to holiness and Heaven. The same is in store for us—we must shed our blood for Christ, either physically like the martyrs, or mystically like St. Dominic and all the other unmartyred saints that made it to Heaven. As Holy Scripture says: “The blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation” (Luke 11:50).
Our Lady Warns of Bloodshed
Our Lady speaks of these blood-shedding martyrdoms—whether physical or mystical—in many of her apparitions, as do many other prophecies by saints and mystics. At La Salette, Our Lady warns: “God will strike in an unprecedented way ... Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered ... The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God ... Italy will be punished for her ambition in wanting to shake off the yoke of the Lord of Lords. And so she will be left to fight a war; blood will flow on all sides. Churches will be locked up or desecrated. Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death ... All order and all justice would be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy would be seen” (Our Lady of La Salette).
“France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling … Men will kill each other, massacre each other even in their homes ... Several cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes. People will believe that all is lost. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of arms and blasphemy. The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession” (Our Lady of La Salette).
Fighting the Good Fight
We have to get out of our hypnotic state that imagines that life is meant to be enjoyed and we are here to have fun—each in his or her own way! “Fight the good fight of faith: lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called” (1 Timothy 6:12), for “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1) and this fight is not a virtual fight; it is not a fight in the imagination; nor a fight that existed in the past but no longer today; nor a fight that some but not all are involved in—it is a perennial fight, a universal fight, an apocalyptic fight! Your salvation rests upon whether or not you fight, whether or not you compromise, whether or not you surrender to the enemy. Just as Our Lord was asked: “And who is my neighbor?” — you may well ask: “And who is my enemy?” Let Holy Scripture answer you:
The Enemy: World, Flesh, Devil
The enemy is the world, the flesh and the devil. “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4). “The whole world is seated in wickedness” (1 John 5:19). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world” (John 15:19).
“The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mark 14:38). “For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death” (Romans 7:5). “Therefore, I myself, with the mind, serve the law of God; but, with the flesh, the law of sin” (Romans 7:25). “For the wisdom of the flesh is death; but the wisdom of the spirit is life and peace. Because the wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be. And they who are in the flesh, cannot please God” (Romans 8:6-8). “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences.” (Romans 13:14).
“Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). “The devil was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him” (John 8:44). “Give not place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:27). “Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). “He that sows the good seed, is the Son of man. And the field, is the world. And the good seed are the children of the kingdom. And the cockle, are the children of the wicked one. And the enemy that sowed them, is the devil. But the harvest is the end of the world” (Matthew 13:37-39). “The devil cometh, and taketh the word out of their heart, lest believing they should be saved” (Luke 8:12). “For the space of forty days; and was tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:2).
Our Lady’s Battle Cry
At La Salette, Our Lady sounds out her battle cry: “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven! I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you―provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light―you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!” (Our Lady of La Salette). Holy Scripture echoes this: “You are the light of the world!” (Matthew 5:14) … “Fight the good fight of Faith! … whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12)
St. Louis de Montfort’s End Time Warriors
This rallying cry of Our Lady fits perfectly with St. Louis de Montfort’s prophetic writings about the saints of end times:
“The formation and the education of the great saints who shall come at the end of the world are reserved for Mary ... I have said that this would come to pass, particularly at the end of the world and indeed soon … These great souls, full of grace and zeal, shall be chosen to match themselves against the enemies of God, who shall rage on all sides; and they shall be singularly devout to our Blessed Lady, illuminated by her light, strengthened with her nourishment, led by her spirit, supported by her arm and sheltered under her protection, so that they shall fight with one hand and build with the other. With the one hand they shall fight, overthrow and crush the heretics with their heresies, the schismatics with their schisms, the idolaters with their idolatries and the sinners with their impieties. With the other hand they shall build the temple of the true Solomon and the mystical city of God, that is to say, the most holy Virgin” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).
“The devil, knowing that he has but little time, and now less than ever, to destroy souls, will every day redouble his efforts and his combats. He will presently raise up cruel persecutions and will put terrible snares before the faithful servants and true children of Mary, whom it gives him more trouble to conquer than it does to conquer others ... These last and cruel persecutions of the devil, shall go on increasing daily till the reign of Antichrist … But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel: that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).
“They shall be clouds thundering and flying through the air at the least breath of the Holy Ghost; who, detaching themselves from everything and troubling themselves about nothing, shall shower forth the rain of the Word of God and of life eternal! They shall thunder against sin; they shall storm against the world; they shall strike the devil and his crew; and they shall pierce through and through, for life or for death, with their two-edged sword of the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17), all those to whom they shall be sent on the part of the Most High! ... They shall be the true apostles of the latter times, to whom the Lord of Hosts shall give the word and the might to work marvels and to carry off with glory the spoils of His enemies!” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).
“In a word, we know that they shall be true disciples of Jesus Christ, walking in the footsteps of His poverty, humility, contempt of the world, charity; teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the Holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not accepting persons; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in their own behavior” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).
Soldiers Are Made, Not Born
This is not empty rhetoric by St. Louis de Montfort—this is a prophetic picture of what we have to be in our day and age. No soldier is born a soldier, but has to be trained and made into a soldier. Looking at St. Louis imagery and comparing it with our own personal state and condition might well be despondent—but it is well worth reading the book by the ex-Communist turned Catholic, Douglas Hyde, entitled Dedication and Leadership, wherein he shows how Communists take the worst imaginable material and train and convert it into a very efficient Communist fighting machine. If the skill of Communists can do that—what can the grace of God do?
The Example of St. Paul
St. Paul gives us an example of a true Soldier for Christ. Referring to the Apostles, he says: “They are the ministers of Christ (I speak as one less wise). I am more; in many more labors, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27).
Let us pray to Our Lady, St. Paul, St. Louis de Montfort and all the saints, especially the martyrs, that we might have a love of the Precious Blood of Jesus; that we believe and use the power of His Precious Blood; that we be ready to shed our own blood for love of Jesus—whether it be shed mystically or physically. As the saying goes: “The Blood of the Martyrs is the Seed of the Church!”
MONTH OF THE SACRED HEART DAILY THOUGHTS
Article 21
Friday June 30th, 2023
If Paul Did It, You Can Do It!
Friday June 30th, 2023
If Paul Did It, You Can Do It!
Your Patron Saint!
Have you ever sinned? Have you ever ignored, put aside, twisted or tweaked some teaching of the Church? Have you ever acted in a proud and haughty manner towards fellow Catholics? Have you been guilty of “finger-pointing” and “finger-wagging” at others? Have you ever exaggerated the faults of others? Have you ever falsely accused them? Have you ever threatened fellow Catholics? Have you ever got on your high horse and gone on a crusade against the perceived failings of others? Have you ever persecuted anyone in one way or another? Have you ever wished for or even taken revenge, vengeance or inflicted punishment of some kind on others unjustly? Have you ever killed anyone or tried to kill anyone―either physically or spiritually (leading them into mortal sin)? St. Paul (or should we say Saul) did all these things and more besides! Judging by the way the world acts today, you could say that world is full of Sauls whom God would like to convert into Pauls!
Saul the Pharisee
Saul was a Pharisee, born to a Pharisee, and studied under one of the most renowned Pharisees of that time―“a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, respected by all the people” (Acts 5:34). We might not have been born into the Pharisee sect, nor to a Pharisee father―but we most certainly have been born into Pharisee world, a world of hypocrisy, a masquerading self-righteousness that seeks to hide that fact that “all have sinned … and every man is a liar” (Romans 3:23; 3:4). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us!” (1 John 1:8).
You could say that today’s world―like the Pharisees of old―is a “finger-pointer” and “finger-wagger”―seeing the speck in the eyes of others, but ignoring the plank in its own eye! The Pharisees on Mount Calvary, watching Christ die, “blasphemed him, wagging their heads” (Matthew 27:39). God says: “Cease to stretch out the finger, and to speak that which profiteth not!” (Isaias 58:9). Incidentally, the word “Satan” is derived from the Hebrew verb “satan”, which means “to oppose” and so from it comes the general meaning of “adversary.” The word “devil” comes from the way the wicked spirit goes about his work―it comes from the Greek verb “diaballo” meaning “to twist, accuse and calumniate.”
That explains to some degree why Our Lord said to the Pharisees: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44). The Pharisees were, of course, “adversaries” who “opposed” Our Lord, “twisting and accusing” what He said, and “calumniating” Him, while seeking some way to murder Him without being found out.
Pharisaical Condemnation by Our Lord
They say “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions” and the Pharisees were certainly full of good intentions! Pharisees were people whom sought to maintain the fervor and the fidelity to the Law of God. St. Paul declares himself to be a Pharisee before the Sanhedrin: “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, son of Pharisees” (Acts 23:6). The Pharisees were not in principle bad people―but not every Pharisee followed the correct principles. They were pious, observant of the Law of God, and sought to please Him. They were so observant of the Law that they became legalists. Much like Catholics today, they would tweak, twist, elaborate the Law of God to suit their own preferences. They had the principles to be good, but they did not use their principles correctly. They made an absolute of outer or external rites of worship, carried out meticulously to the tiniest detail. This led them to leave aside more important things, like the charity and mercy. Sounds like our world today, huh?
As the defenders of the living Word of God—which they insisted should be made available to all—the Pharisees became, by common consent, the unofficial spiritual leaders of Judaism, at a time when the official leadership of the priesthood had become almost entirely materialistic and was soon to be obliterated. However, in assuming this leadership there was of course a danger of smugness and complacency. It would be a mistake to make the whole of Pharisaism a scapegoat for the faults of a few Pharisees. St. Paul was a Pharisee, and was proud of it. So too were Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, and no doubt many others who received the teaching of Christ with open arms.
The Talmud lists seven different types of Pharisee ― just as we could list different types of Catholics―under the following specific characteristics:
(1) the “Sichem-Pharisee,” who is a Pharisee because of the material advantages involved;
(2) the “niqpi-Pharisee,” that is, the “pussyfoot” Pharisee who, with the labored artificiality of his hunched and shuffling gait, makes a great show of his humility;
(3) the “bleeding-Pharisee,” who frequently causes himself bloody injuries by running into walls with closed eyes in avoiding the sight of women;
(4) the “pestle-Pharisee,” who walks all bent over, so that he looks like the pestle in the mortar;
(5) the “what-is-my-duty-that-I-may-do-it Pharisee,” that is, one who no longer shows himself ready to perform all his duties, but rather declares that he can do no more since he is already extremely busy;
(6) the “Pharisee-for-love,” who is motivated not by love of God, but love of money and good business;
(7) the “Pharisee-through-fear,” whose actions are inspired by the fear of God, that is, by true religious feeling.
Of the seven types, therefore, only the last type merits praise, and certainly each type had numerous representatives. Jesus’ invectives were directed against these different types of Pharisaical behavior rather than their teachings, at least in general. Jesus approved some of what the Pharisees taught, but found many of their actions were hypocritical. Likewise for us, Jesus would approve of some aspects of Catholic life today, but would find many aspects of our lives as being hypocritical.
From Saul the Pharisee to Paul the Christian
Saul―later to become Paul―was a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin. At his circumcision, on the eighth day after his birth, he received the name of Saul. His father was, by sect, a Pharisee, and an inhabitant of Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia―a city which had shown a particular support for the cause of the Caesars and had been rewarded for this support by being many privileges and the freedom of Rome. Hence St. Paul, being born at Tarsus, was by privilege also a Roman citizen, to whom several exemptions were granted by the laws of the Roman Empire. His parents sent him as a youth to Jerusalem, where he was educated and instructed in the strictest observance of the law of Moses, by Gamaliel, a learned and noble Jew, a member of the Sanhedrin and a most scrupulous observer of the Jewish law in every point.
Saul happily embraced the sect of the Pharisees, which was of all others the most severe, though, by its pride, it was also the most opposite to the humility of the Gospel. Saul, surpassing all his equals in zeal for the Jewish law and their traditions―which he thought were all for the cause of God―became thereby a blasphemer, a persecutor, and the most outrageous enemy of Christ. St. Augustine says that Paul was one of those who combined together to murder St. Stephen, and by keeping the garments of all who stoned that holy martyr, Paul is said to have stoned him through the hands of all the rest. St Augustine adds that St. Stephen’s prayers for his enemies brought about the conversion of St. Paul: “If Stephen,” said he, “had not prayed, the Church would never have had St. Paul.”
After the martyrdom of St. Stephen, the priests and magistrates of the Jews raised a violent persecution against the Church at Jerusalem, in which Saul stood above all others. By virtue of the power he had received from the high priest, he dragged the Christians out of their houses, loaded them with chains, and thrust them into prison. He brought them to be scourged in the synagogues, and tried by torments to compel them to blaspheme the Name of Christ. And as our Savior had always been painted, by the leading men of the Jews, as an enemy to their law, it was no wonder that this rigorous Pharisee fully persuaded himself that “he ought to do many things contrary to the Name of Jesus of Nazareth” (Acts 26:9).
By the violence he committed, his name became everywhere a terror to the faithful. The persecutors not only raged against their persons, but also seized their estates and what they possessed in common, and left them in such extreme poverty, that the remotest churches afterwards thought it their duty to join in charitable contributions for the relief of those poor persons. All this could not satisfy the fury of Saul: “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). In the fury of his zeal, he applied to the high priest and Sanhedrin for a commission to take up all Jews at Damascus who confessed Jesus Christ, arrest them and bring them tied or bound in chains to Jerusalem, so that they might serve as public examples for the terror of others. Thinking that he was serving God, Saul became the worst enemy of Christians. He hunted them down and dragged them out of their homes, imprisoning them and even having them killed. At this point, you would be tempted to call Saul the patron “saint” of the enemies of the Church that surround us today―who are seeking to do the exact the same thing that Saul was doing around 2,000 years ago!
The Miraculous Conversion of Saul ― From Saul to Paul
What Holy Scripture Tells Us
There are several places in Holy Scripture that deal with St. Paul (or Saul as he was called before his conversion). Let us first of all have a look at what they say.
First of all, in chapter 9 of the Acts of the Apostles, we read:
“And Saul, as yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues: that if he found any men and women of this way, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
“And as he went on his journey, it came to pass that he drew nigh to Damascus; and suddenly a light from heaven shined round about him. And falling on the ground, he heard a voice saying to him: ‘Saul! Saul! Why persecutest thou Me?’ Saul said: ‘Who art Thou, Lord?’
And he answered: ‘I am Jesus whom thou persecutes! It is hard for thee to kick against the goad!’
And he, trembling and astonished, said: ‘Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?’
And the Lord said to him: ‘Arise, and go into the city, and there it shall be told thee what thou must do!’
“Now the men who went in company with him, stood amazed, hearing indeed a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the ground; and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. But they leading him by the hands, brought him to Damascus. And he was there three days, without sight, and he did neither eat nor drink.
“Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias. And the Lord said to him in a vision: ‘Ananias!’
And he said: ‘Behold I am here, Lord!’
And the Lord said to him: ‘Arise, and go into the street that is called Strait, and seek in the house of Judas, one named Saul of Tarsus. For behold he prayeth!’
And Ananias saw a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hands upon him, that he might receive his sight.
But Ananias answered: ‘Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints in Jerusalem. And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that invoke Thy Name!’
And the Lord said to him: ‘Go thy way! For this man is to me a vessel of election, to carry My Name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel! For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake!’
“And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house. And laying his hands upon him, he said: ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus hath sent me, He that appeared to thee in the way as thou camest; that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost!’
And immediately there fell from his eyes as it were scales, and he received his sight; and rising up, he was baptized. And when he had taken meat, he was strengthened. And he was with the disciples that were at Damascus, for some days.
“And immediately he preached Jesus in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God.
And all that heard him, were astonished, and said: ‘Is not this he who persecuted in Jerusalem those that called upon this Name: and came here for that intent, that he might carry them bound to the chief priests?’
But Saul increased much more in strength, and confounded the Jews who dwelt at Damascus, affirming that this is the Christ.
“And when many days were passed, the Jews consulted together to kill him. But their laying in wait was made known to Saul. And they watched the gates also day and night, that they might kill him. But the disciples taking him in the night, conveyed him away by the wall, letting him down in a basket.
“And when he was come into Jerusalem, he tried to join himself to the disciples; and they all were afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the Apostles, and told them how he had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken to him; and how in Damascus he had dealt confidently in the Name of Jesus.
“And he was with them coming in and going out in Jerusalem, and dealing confidently in the name of the Lord. He spoke also to the Gentiles, and disputed with the Greeks; but they sought to kill him. Which when the brethren had known, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him away to Tarsus.” (Acts 9:1-20).
St. Paul’s Personal Account of His Conversion
In various places in the New Testament, St. Paul speaks of his past life, his persecution of the Church and of his conversion to the Faith, also recounting the tremendous sufferings he underwent after his conversion.
“You have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion: how that, beyond measure, I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it. And I made progress in the Jews’ religion above many of my equals in my own nation, being more abundantly zealous for the traditions of my fathers” (Galatians 1:13-14).
“I indeed did formerly think, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which also I did at Jerusalem, and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority of the chief priests: and when they were put to death, I brought the sentence. And oftentimes punishing them, in every synagogue, I compelled them to blaspheme: and being yet more mad against them, I persecuted them even unto foreign cities. Whereupon when I was going to Damascus with authority and permission of the chief priest. At midday, I saw, in the way, a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me, and them that were in company with me. And when we were all fallen down on the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me in the Hebrew tongue: ‘Saul! Saul!’ Why persecutest thou Me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goad!’
And I said: ‘Who art Thou, Lord?’
And the Lord answered: ‘I am Jesus whom thou persecutest! But rise up, and stand upon thy feet! For to this end have I appeared to thee, that I may make thee a minister and a witness of those things which thou hast seen, and of those things wherein I will appear to thee, delivering thee from the people, and from the nations, unto which now I send thee: to open their eyes, that they may be converted from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and a lot among the saints, by the Faith that is in Me!’” (Acts 26:9-18).
In the 22nd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we can read St. Paul’s personal account of his conversion on the road to Damascus:
“Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye the account which I now give unto you! … I am a Jew, born at Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the truth of the law of the fathers, zealous for the law, as also all you are this day―who persecuted this way unto death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. As the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the ancients, from whom also receiving letters to the brethren, I went to Damascus, that I might bring them bound from thence to Jerusalem to be punished.
“And it came to pass, as I was going, and drawing nigh to Damascus at midday, that suddenly from heaven there shone round about me a great light: and falling on the ground, I heard a voice saying to me: ‘Saul! Saul! Why persecutest thou Me?’
And I answered: ‘Who art thou, Lord?’ And He said to me: ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutes!’
And they that were with me, saw indeed the light, but they heard not the voice of him that spoke with me.
And I said: ‘What shall I do, Lord?’
And the Lord said to me: ‘Arise, and go to Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things that thou must do!’
“And whereas I did not see for the brightness of that light, being led by the hand by my companions, I came to Damascus. And one Ananias, a man according to the law, having testimony of all the Jews who dwelt there, coming to me, and standing by me, said to me: ‘Brother Saul, look up!’
And I the same hour looked upon him.
But he said: ‘The God of our fathers hath preordained thee that thou shouldst know His will, and see the Just One, and shouldst hear the voice from His mouth. For thou shalt be his witness to all men, of those things which thou hast seen and heard. And now why tarriest thou? Rise up, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, invoking His Name!’” (Acts 22:1-16).
Our Lord is True to His Word and Makes Paul Suffer
Paul had persecuted Christians—now it Paul that would be persecuted. The persecutor becomes the persecuted. There is a lesson for us there! It is quite simply the fulfillment of Holy Scripture, which warns: “For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you give, it shall be measured to you again” (Matthew 7:2). “In what measure you shall give, it shall be measured to you again, and more shall be given to you!” (Mark 4:24). “For with the same measure that you shall give to others, it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:38).
In speaking of Paul to Ananias, Our Lord foretold that Paul would have to suffer much: “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake!” (Acts 9:16). Later, St. Paul’s own words show the truth of that prophecy:
“I am more; in many more labors, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things which are without: there is my daily instance, the solicitude for all the churches!” (2 Corinthians 11:23-28).
St. John Chrysostom on St. Paul
In his homily on St. Paul of Tarsus, a fellow and later saint, St. John Chrysostom states:
“Paul, more than anyone else, has shown us what man really is, and in what our nobility consists, and of what virtue this particular animal is capable. Each day he aimed ever higher; each day he rose up with greater ardor and faced with new eagerness the dangers that threatened him. He summed up his attitude in the words: I forget what is behind me and push on to what lies ahead [Philippians 4:13]. When he saw death imminent, he bade others share his joy: Rejoice and be glad with me! [cf. Philippians 2:18]. And when danger, injustice and abuse threatened, he said: I am content with weakness, mistreatment and persecution [cf. 2 Corinthians 12:10]. These he called the weapons of righteousness, thus telling us that he derived immense profit from them.
“Thus, amid the traps set for him by his enemies, with exultant heart he turned their every attack into a victory for himself; constantly beaten, abused and cursed, he boasted of it as though he were celebrating a triumphal procession and taking trophies home, and offered thanks to God for it all: Thanks be to God who is always victorious in us! [cf. 1 Corinthians 15:57]. This is why he was far more eager for the shameful abuse that his zeal in preaching brought upon him than we are for the most pleasing honors, more eager for death than we are for life, for poverty than we are for wealth; he yearned for toil far more than others yearn for rest after toil. The one thing he feared, indeed dreaded, was to offend God; nothing else could sway him. Therefore, the only thing he really wanted was always to please God.
“The most important thing of all to him, however, was that he knew himself to be loved by Christ. Enjoying this love, he considered himself happier than anyone else; were he without it, it would be no satisfaction to be the friend of principalities and powers. He preferred to be thus loved and be the least of all, or even to be among the damned, than to be without that love and be among the great and honored.
“To be separated from that love was, in his eyes, the greatest and most extraordinary of torments; the pain of that loss would alone have been hell, and endless, unbearable torture.
“So too, in being loved by Christ he thought of himself as possessing life, the world, the angels, present and future, the kingdom, the promise and countless blessings. Apart from that love nothing saddened or delighted him; for nothing earthly did he regard as bitter or sweet.
“Paul set no store by the things that fill our visible world, any more than a man sets value on the withered grass of the field. As for tyrannical rulers or the people enraged against him, he paid them no more heed than gnats.
“Death itself and pain and whatever torments might come were but child’s play to him, provided that thereby he might bear some burden for the sake of Christ.” (Homily of St. John Chrysostom on St. Paul).
Paul’s Road to Sanctity is Your Road to Sanctity
If St. Paul says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners―of whom I am chief!” (1 Timothy 1:15), then where does that leave us? St. Paul tells us that “all have sinned, and lack the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), while St. John adds: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us! … If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10). Staying on the subject of sin, our Catechisms tell us: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). St. Paul calls himself the greatest sinner in the world, and, according to the Catechism, we commit the greatest evils in world by sinning mortally and/or venially! What then can we say of ourselves? Where do we rank among the greatest sinners in world if we commit the greatest evil in the world?
Just as Christ was prepared to patiently tolerate Saul’s hatred and sinfulness, so too has Christ tolerated our sinfulness―but He tolerates it only so that He can change us from great sinners into great saints. What Christ said of Saul, He also says of us: “This man is to me a vessel of election, to carry My Name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel! For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake!” Despite your sins, Christ wants you to convert, He wants to cure your spiritual blindness, He wants you to carry His Name and witness to His Name in the presence of fellow Catholics and others in the world―but He also will show you many sufferings in the process, and that is all part-and-parcel of the Cross of Christ that every Christian must carry:
Paul’s Way of the Cross is Our Way to Heaven
“And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that does not take up his cross and does not follow Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Conversion usually comes through suffering―just as our salvation came through Christ’s suffering. To partake of salvation we must partake of the suffering that earned that salvation. Thus St. Paul writes: “For unto you it is given for Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him!” (Philippians 1:29). He then goes on to say: “I judge myself to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and him crucified!” (1 Corinthians 2:2). “God forbid that I should glory in anything except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world! … With Christ I am nailed to the cross! And I live, now not I―but Christ lives in me!” (Galatians 6:14; 2:19) … “Be ye followers of me! … For many walk―of whom I have told you often and now tell you weeping―that they are enemies of the cross of Christ!” (Philippians 3:17-18). “For the word of the cross―to them that perish―is foolishness; but to them that are saved, that is, to us, it is the power of God!” (1 Corinthians 1:18). “I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come!” (Romans 8:18). “If we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him!” (Romans 8:17) “If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him!” (2 Timothy 2:12).
Our Lady preaches nothing different! At Fatima, both the Angel of Portugal and Our Lady associate suffering with salvation. The Angel told the three children: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers unceasingly and sacrifice yourselves to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners! In this way, you will draw peace upon your country. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
Our Lady of Fatima spoke along the same lines: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
At Akita, Japan, in 1973, Our Lady said: “I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this!”
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady had already said: “My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … It was not necessary to suffer so much! … Yet He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! … But the worldlings, in their torpidity, are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! … Hence it is that men do not find joy in their tribulations, nor rest in their labors, nor consolation in their sorrows, nor any peace in adversities. For, being altogether different from the saints―who glory in tribulation as the fulfillment of their most earnest desires―these worldlings desire none of it and abhor everything that is painful!
“My most holy Son and myself are trying to find some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the sons of Adam, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If thou wish to be Our disciple, then enter into this school―in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment―nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good. Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, and willingly enter upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, and to carry it after Christ. Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Have you ever sinned? Have you ever ignored, put aside, twisted or tweaked some teaching of the Church? Have you ever acted in a proud and haughty manner towards fellow Catholics? Have you been guilty of “finger-pointing” and “finger-wagging” at others? Have you ever exaggerated the faults of others? Have you ever falsely accused them? Have you ever threatened fellow Catholics? Have you ever got on your high horse and gone on a crusade against the perceived failings of others? Have you ever persecuted anyone in one way or another? Have you ever wished for or even taken revenge, vengeance or inflicted punishment of some kind on others unjustly? Have you ever killed anyone or tried to kill anyone―either physically or spiritually (leading them into mortal sin)? St. Paul (or should we say Saul) did all these things and more besides! Judging by the way the world acts today, you could say that world is full of Sauls whom God would like to convert into Pauls!
Saul the Pharisee
Saul was a Pharisee, born to a Pharisee, and studied under one of the most renowned Pharisees of that time―“a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, respected by all the people” (Acts 5:34). We might not have been born into the Pharisee sect, nor to a Pharisee father―but we most certainly have been born into Pharisee world, a world of hypocrisy, a masquerading self-righteousness that seeks to hide that fact that “all have sinned … and every man is a liar” (Romans 3:23; 3:4). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us!” (1 John 1:8).
You could say that today’s world―like the Pharisees of old―is a “finger-pointer” and “finger-wagger”―seeing the speck in the eyes of others, but ignoring the plank in its own eye! The Pharisees on Mount Calvary, watching Christ die, “blasphemed him, wagging their heads” (Matthew 27:39). God says: “Cease to stretch out the finger, and to speak that which profiteth not!” (Isaias 58:9). Incidentally, the word “Satan” is derived from the Hebrew verb “satan”, which means “to oppose” and so from it comes the general meaning of “adversary.” The word “devil” comes from the way the wicked spirit goes about his work―it comes from the Greek verb “diaballo” meaning “to twist, accuse and calumniate.”
That explains to some degree why Our Lord said to the Pharisees: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44). The Pharisees were, of course, “adversaries” who “opposed” Our Lord, “twisting and accusing” what He said, and “calumniating” Him, while seeking some way to murder Him without being found out.
Pharisaical Condemnation by Our Lord
They say “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions” and the Pharisees were certainly full of good intentions! Pharisees were people whom sought to maintain the fervor and the fidelity to the Law of God. St. Paul declares himself to be a Pharisee before the Sanhedrin: “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, son of Pharisees” (Acts 23:6). The Pharisees were not in principle bad people―but not every Pharisee followed the correct principles. They were pious, observant of the Law of God, and sought to please Him. They were so observant of the Law that they became legalists. Much like Catholics today, they would tweak, twist, elaborate the Law of God to suit their own preferences. They had the principles to be good, but they did not use their principles correctly. They made an absolute of outer or external rites of worship, carried out meticulously to the tiniest detail. This led them to leave aside more important things, like the charity and mercy. Sounds like our world today, huh?
As the defenders of the living Word of God—which they insisted should be made available to all—the Pharisees became, by common consent, the unofficial spiritual leaders of Judaism, at a time when the official leadership of the priesthood had become almost entirely materialistic and was soon to be obliterated. However, in assuming this leadership there was of course a danger of smugness and complacency. It would be a mistake to make the whole of Pharisaism a scapegoat for the faults of a few Pharisees. St. Paul was a Pharisee, and was proud of it. So too were Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, and no doubt many others who received the teaching of Christ with open arms.
The Talmud lists seven different types of Pharisee ― just as we could list different types of Catholics―under the following specific characteristics:
(1) the “Sichem-Pharisee,” who is a Pharisee because of the material advantages involved;
(2) the “niqpi-Pharisee,” that is, the “pussyfoot” Pharisee who, with the labored artificiality of his hunched and shuffling gait, makes a great show of his humility;
(3) the “bleeding-Pharisee,” who frequently causes himself bloody injuries by running into walls with closed eyes in avoiding the sight of women;
(4) the “pestle-Pharisee,” who walks all bent over, so that he looks like the pestle in the mortar;
(5) the “what-is-my-duty-that-I-may-do-it Pharisee,” that is, one who no longer shows himself ready to perform all his duties, but rather declares that he can do no more since he is already extremely busy;
(6) the “Pharisee-for-love,” who is motivated not by love of God, but love of money and good business;
(7) the “Pharisee-through-fear,” whose actions are inspired by the fear of God, that is, by true religious feeling.
Of the seven types, therefore, only the last type merits praise, and certainly each type had numerous representatives. Jesus’ invectives were directed against these different types of Pharisaical behavior rather than their teachings, at least in general. Jesus approved some of what the Pharisees taught, but found many of their actions were hypocritical. Likewise for us, Jesus would approve of some aspects of Catholic life today, but would find many aspects of our lives as being hypocritical.
From Saul the Pharisee to Paul the Christian
Saul―later to become Paul―was a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin. At his circumcision, on the eighth day after his birth, he received the name of Saul. His father was, by sect, a Pharisee, and an inhabitant of Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia―a city which had shown a particular support for the cause of the Caesars and had been rewarded for this support by being many privileges and the freedom of Rome. Hence St. Paul, being born at Tarsus, was by privilege also a Roman citizen, to whom several exemptions were granted by the laws of the Roman Empire. His parents sent him as a youth to Jerusalem, where he was educated and instructed in the strictest observance of the law of Moses, by Gamaliel, a learned and noble Jew, a member of the Sanhedrin and a most scrupulous observer of the Jewish law in every point.
Saul happily embraced the sect of the Pharisees, which was of all others the most severe, though, by its pride, it was also the most opposite to the humility of the Gospel. Saul, surpassing all his equals in zeal for the Jewish law and their traditions―which he thought were all for the cause of God―became thereby a blasphemer, a persecutor, and the most outrageous enemy of Christ. St. Augustine says that Paul was one of those who combined together to murder St. Stephen, and by keeping the garments of all who stoned that holy martyr, Paul is said to have stoned him through the hands of all the rest. St Augustine adds that St. Stephen’s prayers for his enemies brought about the conversion of St. Paul: “If Stephen,” said he, “had not prayed, the Church would never have had St. Paul.”
After the martyrdom of St. Stephen, the priests and magistrates of the Jews raised a violent persecution against the Church at Jerusalem, in which Saul stood above all others. By virtue of the power he had received from the high priest, he dragged the Christians out of their houses, loaded them with chains, and thrust them into prison. He brought them to be scourged in the synagogues, and tried by torments to compel them to blaspheme the Name of Christ. And as our Savior had always been painted, by the leading men of the Jews, as an enemy to their law, it was no wonder that this rigorous Pharisee fully persuaded himself that “he ought to do many things contrary to the Name of Jesus of Nazareth” (Acts 26:9).
By the violence he committed, his name became everywhere a terror to the faithful. The persecutors not only raged against their persons, but also seized their estates and what they possessed in common, and left them in such extreme poverty, that the remotest churches afterwards thought it their duty to join in charitable contributions for the relief of those poor persons. All this could not satisfy the fury of Saul: “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). In the fury of his zeal, he applied to the high priest and Sanhedrin for a commission to take up all Jews at Damascus who confessed Jesus Christ, arrest them and bring them tied or bound in chains to Jerusalem, so that they might serve as public examples for the terror of others. Thinking that he was serving God, Saul became the worst enemy of Christians. He hunted them down and dragged them out of their homes, imprisoning them and even having them killed. At this point, you would be tempted to call Saul the patron “saint” of the enemies of the Church that surround us today―who are seeking to do the exact the same thing that Saul was doing around 2,000 years ago!
The Miraculous Conversion of Saul ― From Saul to Paul
What Holy Scripture Tells Us
There are several places in Holy Scripture that deal with St. Paul (or Saul as he was called before his conversion). Let us first of all have a look at what they say.
First of all, in chapter 9 of the Acts of the Apostles, we read:
“And Saul, as yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues: that if he found any men and women of this way, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
“And as he went on his journey, it came to pass that he drew nigh to Damascus; and suddenly a light from heaven shined round about him. And falling on the ground, he heard a voice saying to him: ‘Saul! Saul! Why persecutest thou Me?’ Saul said: ‘Who art Thou, Lord?’
And he answered: ‘I am Jesus whom thou persecutes! It is hard for thee to kick against the goad!’
And he, trembling and astonished, said: ‘Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?’
And the Lord said to him: ‘Arise, and go into the city, and there it shall be told thee what thou must do!’
“Now the men who went in company with him, stood amazed, hearing indeed a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the ground; and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. But they leading him by the hands, brought him to Damascus. And he was there three days, without sight, and he did neither eat nor drink.
“Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias. And the Lord said to him in a vision: ‘Ananias!’
And he said: ‘Behold I am here, Lord!’
And the Lord said to him: ‘Arise, and go into the street that is called Strait, and seek in the house of Judas, one named Saul of Tarsus. For behold he prayeth!’
And Ananias saw a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hands upon him, that he might receive his sight.
But Ananias answered: ‘Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints in Jerusalem. And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that invoke Thy Name!’
And the Lord said to him: ‘Go thy way! For this man is to me a vessel of election, to carry My Name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel! For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake!’
“And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house. And laying his hands upon him, he said: ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus hath sent me, He that appeared to thee in the way as thou camest; that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost!’
And immediately there fell from his eyes as it were scales, and he received his sight; and rising up, he was baptized. And when he had taken meat, he was strengthened. And he was with the disciples that were at Damascus, for some days.
“And immediately he preached Jesus in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God.
And all that heard him, were astonished, and said: ‘Is not this he who persecuted in Jerusalem those that called upon this Name: and came here for that intent, that he might carry them bound to the chief priests?’
But Saul increased much more in strength, and confounded the Jews who dwelt at Damascus, affirming that this is the Christ.
“And when many days were passed, the Jews consulted together to kill him. But their laying in wait was made known to Saul. And they watched the gates also day and night, that they might kill him. But the disciples taking him in the night, conveyed him away by the wall, letting him down in a basket.
“And when he was come into Jerusalem, he tried to join himself to the disciples; and they all were afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the Apostles, and told them how he had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken to him; and how in Damascus he had dealt confidently in the Name of Jesus.
“And he was with them coming in and going out in Jerusalem, and dealing confidently in the name of the Lord. He spoke also to the Gentiles, and disputed with the Greeks; but they sought to kill him. Which when the brethren had known, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him away to Tarsus.” (Acts 9:1-20).
St. Paul’s Personal Account of His Conversion
In various places in the New Testament, St. Paul speaks of his past life, his persecution of the Church and of his conversion to the Faith, also recounting the tremendous sufferings he underwent after his conversion.
“You have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion: how that, beyond measure, I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it. And I made progress in the Jews’ religion above many of my equals in my own nation, being more abundantly zealous for the traditions of my fathers” (Galatians 1:13-14).
“I indeed did formerly think, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which also I did at Jerusalem, and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority of the chief priests: and when they were put to death, I brought the sentence. And oftentimes punishing them, in every synagogue, I compelled them to blaspheme: and being yet more mad against them, I persecuted them even unto foreign cities. Whereupon when I was going to Damascus with authority and permission of the chief priest. At midday, I saw, in the way, a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me, and them that were in company with me. And when we were all fallen down on the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me in the Hebrew tongue: ‘Saul! Saul!’ Why persecutest thou Me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goad!’
And I said: ‘Who art Thou, Lord?’
And the Lord answered: ‘I am Jesus whom thou persecutest! But rise up, and stand upon thy feet! For to this end have I appeared to thee, that I may make thee a minister and a witness of those things which thou hast seen, and of those things wherein I will appear to thee, delivering thee from the people, and from the nations, unto which now I send thee: to open their eyes, that they may be converted from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and a lot among the saints, by the Faith that is in Me!’” (Acts 26:9-18).
In the 22nd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we can read St. Paul’s personal account of his conversion on the road to Damascus:
“Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye the account which I now give unto you! … I am a Jew, born at Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the truth of the law of the fathers, zealous for the law, as also all you are this day―who persecuted this way unto death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. As the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the ancients, from whom also receiving letters to the brethren, I went to Damascus, that I might bring them bound from thence to Jerusalem to be punished.
“And it came to pass, as I was going, and drawing nigh to Damascus at midday, that suddenly from heaven there shone round about me a great light: and falling on the ground, I heard a voice saying to me: ‘Saul! Saul! Why persecutest thou Me?’
And I answered: ‘Who art thou, Lord?’ And He said to me: ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutes!’
And they that were with me, saw indeed the light, but they heard not the voice of him that spoke with me.
And I said: ‘What shall I do, Lord?’
And the Lord said to me: ‘Arise, and go to Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things that thou must do!’
“And whereas I did not see for the brightness of that light, being led by the hand by my companions, I came to Damascus. And one Ananias, a man according to the law, having testimony of all the Jews who dwelt there, coming to me, and standing by me, said to me: ‘Brother Saul, look up!’
And I the same hour looked upon him.
But he said: ‘The God of our fathers hath preordained thee that thou shouldst know His will, and see the Just One, and shouldst hear the voice from His mouth. For thou shalt be his witness to all men, of those things which thou hast seen and heard. And now why tarriest thou? Rise up, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, invoking His Name!’” (Acts 22:1-16).
Our Lord is True to His Word and Makes Paul Suffer
Paul had persecuted Christians—now it Paul that would be persecuted. The persecutor becomes the persecuted. There is a lesson for us there! It is quite simply the fulfillment of Holy Scripture, which warns: “For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you give, it shall be measured to you again” (Matthew 7:2). “In what measure you shall give, it shall be measured to you again, and more shall be given to you!” (Mark 4:24). “For with the same measure that you shall give to others, it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:38).
In speaking of Paul to Ananias, Our Lord foretold that Paul would have to suffer much: “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake!” (Acts 9:16). Later, St. Paul’s own words show the truth of that prophecy:
“I am more; in many more labors, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things which are without: there is my daily instance, the solicitude for all the churches!” (2 Corinthians 11:23-28).
St. John Chrysostom on St. Paul
In his homily on St. Paul of Tarsus, a fellow and later saint, St. John Chrysostom states:
“Paul, more than anyone else, has shown us what man really is, and in what our nobility consists, and of what virtue this particular animal is capable. Each day he aimed ever higher; each day he rose up with greater ardor and faced with new eagerness the dangers that threatened him. He summed up his attitude in the words: I forget what is behind me and push on to what lies ahead [Philippians 4:13]. When he saw death imminent, he bade others share his joy: Rejoice and be glad with me! [cf. Philippians 2:18]. And when danger, injustice and abuse threatened, he said: I am content with weakness, mistreatment and persecution [cf. 2 Corinthians 12:10]. These he called the weapons of righteousness, thus telling us that he derived immense profit from them.
“Thus, amid the traps set for him by his enemies, with exultant heart he turned their every attack into a victory for himself; constantly beaten, abused and cursed, he boasted of it as though he were celebrating a triumphal procession and taking trophies home, and offered thanks to God for it all: Thanks be to God who is always victorious in us! [cf. 1 Corinthians 15:57]. This is why he was far more eager for the shameful abuse that his zeal in preaching brought upon him than we are for the most pleasing honors, more eager for death than we are for life, for poverty than we are for wealth; he yearned for toil far more than others yearn for rest after toil. The one thing he feared, indeed dreaded, was to offend God; nothing else could sway him. Therefore, the only thing he really wanted was always to please God.
“The most important thing of all to him, however, was that he knew himself to be loved by Christ. Enjoying this love, he considered himself happier than anyone else; were he without it, it would be no satisfaction to be the friend of principalities and powers. He preferred to be thus loved and be the least of all, or even to be among the damned, than to be without that love and be among the great and honored.
“To be separated from that love was, in his eyes, the greatest and most extraordinary of torments; the pain of that loss would alone have been hell, and endless, unbearable torture.
“So too, in being loved by Christ he thought of himself as possessing life, the world, the angels, present and future, the kingdom, the promise and countless blessings. Apart from that love nothing saddened or delighted him; for nothing earthly did he regard as bitter or sweet.
“Paul set no store by the things that fill our visible world, any more than a man sets value on the withered grass of the field. As for tyrannical rulers or the people enraged against him, he paid them no more heed than gnats.
“Death itself and pain and whatever torments might come were but child’s play to him, provided that thereby he might bear some burden for the sake of Christ.” (Homily of St. John Chrysostom on St. Paul).
Paul’s Road to Sanctity is Your Road to Sanctity
If St. Paul says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners―of whom I am chief!” (1 Timothy 1:15), then where does that leave us? St. Paul tells us that “all have sinned, and lack the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), while St. John adds: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us! … If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10). Staying on the subject of sin, our Catechisms tell us: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). St. Paul calls himself the greatest sinner in the world, and, according to the Catechism, we commit the greatest evils in world by sinning mortally and/or venially! What then can we say of ourselves? Where do we rank among the greatest sinners in world if we commit the greatest evil in the world?
Just as Christ was prepared to patiently tolerate Saul’s hatred and sinfulness, so too has Christ tolerated our sinfulness―but He tolerates it only so that He can change us from great sinners into great saints. What Christ said of Saul, He also says of us: “This man is to me a vessel of election, to carry My Name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel! For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake!” Despite your sins, Christ wants you to convert, He wants to cure your spiritual blindness, He wants you to carry His Name and witness to His Name in the presence of fellow Catholics and others in the world―but He also will show you many sufferings in the process, and that is all part-and-parcel of the Cross of Christ that every Christian must carry:
Paul’s Way of the Cross is Our Way to Heaven
“And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that does not take up his cross and does not follow Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Conversion usually comes through suffering―just as our salvation came through Christ’s suffering. To partake of salvation we must partake of the suffering that earned that salvation. Thus St. Paul writes: “For unto you it is given for Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him!” (Philippians 1:29). He then goes on to say: “I judge myself to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and him crucified!” (1 Corinthians 2:2). “God forbid that I should glory in anything except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world! … With Christ I am nailed to the cross! And I live, now not I―but Christ lives in me!” (Galatians 6:14; 2:19) … “Be ye followers of me! … For many walk―of whom I have told you often and now tell you weeping―that they are enemies of the cross of Christ!” (Philippians 3:17-18). “For the word of the cross―to them that perish―is foolishness; but to them that are saved, that is, to us, it is the power of God!” (1 Corinthians 1:18). “I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come!” (Romans 8:18). “If we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him!” (Romans 8:17) “If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him!” (2 Timothy 2:12).
Our Lady preaches nothing different! At Fatima, both the Angel of Portugal and Our Lady associate suffering with salvation. The Angel told the three children: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers unceasingly and sacrifice yourselves to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners! In this way, you will draw peace upon your country. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
Our Lady of Fatima spoke along the same lines: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
At Akita, Japan, in 1973, Our Lady said: “I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this!”
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady had already said: “My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … It was not necessary to suffer so much! … Yet He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! … But the worldlings, in their torpidity, are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! … Hence it is that men do not find joy in their tribulations, nor rest in their labors, nor consolation in their sorrows, nor any peace in adversities. For, being altogether different from the saints―who glory in tribulation as the fulfillment of their most earnest desires―these worldlings desire none of it and abhor everything that is painful!
“My most holy Son and myself are trying to find some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the sons of Adam, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If thou wish to be Our disciple, then enter into this school―in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment―nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good. Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, and willingly enter upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, and to carry it after Christ. Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Article 20
Wednesday June 28th & Thursday June 29th, 2023
The Vigil of Saints Peter and Paul
A Good Time to Look at Papal Controversies!
Wednesday June 28th & Thursday June 29th, 2023
The Vigil of Saints Peter and Paul
A Good Time to Look at Papal Controversies!
Strange Times
We are currently living in strange times―but, nevertheless, times that we were already warned about by Our Lady and other prophecies. On this Vigil of Saints Peter and Paul, it seems a suitable time to look at the papal controversies that have been increasingly raging especially since the Second Vatican Council―the chief controversy being that concerning the papacy and its validity or invalidity. What was a relatively small scale debate in earlier decades, has now escalated to the point where every man and his dog has an opinion on the papacy. The initial seed of Sedevacantism has now sprouted many branches to where everyone and anyone can choose their preferred cocktail flavor concerning papal fallibility, faithlessness, falsehood, fictitiousness, fraudulence, floundering, failure―which then leads to papal fault-finding and papal flagellation.
What are we to think of the various proposed theories that state: (1) the pope is the pope; (2) the pope is not a pope; (3) the pope is ‘pope’ in some ways but not ‘pope’ in other ways. These major categories give birth to their own offspring theories with all kinds of subtle nuances and distinctions and sub-distinctions. Some websites have reams and reams of pages of arguments defending and attacking each of these kinds of theories.
Is it possible that this pope might not be a pope? Yes it is. Is it possible that he is the pope? Yes it is. Is it possible that he is ‘pope’ in certain respects (materially pope) but not in other respects (formally pope)? Yes it is. So who really knows? God knows! We might have what is called “moral certitude”, but only God has “absolute certitude” on the validity of this pope and any other pope that has preceded him. Who can solve the problem? Is it you by blogging and posting on numerous websites? No it is not. You are merely “talking the talking” and that is all you will be able to do. Only God can “walk the walk” in this matter―and any other matter for that matter―for, as Jesus said so clearly and unambiguously: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). What is it that you cannot understand about that statement? Only He can solve the problem by His Divine Grace and His Divine Providence. The only problem is that He needs to be paid before He will start the work and solve the problem. Blogging and posting about the problem will not solve the problem. If anything, it causes even more problems as these bloggers and posters start to imagine themselves to be pseudo-St-Thomas-Aquinasses (notice the last word ends with “asses”) and God-sent theologians!
Satan is a Better Theologian Than You!
The Church teaches that God created angels to be vastly superior to man. The angel who was originally created with the highest natural intelligence is Lucifer (Satan). Pure spirits, with most lucid intelligence and great power, surpass in their nature even the most gifted of men. They have an innate, intuitive, independent, infallibly certain and perfect knowledge; a view of the universe second only to that of God. All of this Angelic knowledge is had without the possibility of misinformation. As a consequence of their revolt, the fallen angels lost their virtue, but not their intelligence or their power. In accord with His Divine Providence, God restrains their activity―but in their nature they remain far superior to man. St. Thomas Aquinas says: “Demons can work miracles, that is, things which rouse man’s astonishment by reason of their being beyond his power and outside his sphere of knowledge … It is to be noted, however, that although these works of the demons, which appear marvelous to us, are not real miracles.” (Summa Theologica, Ia, q. 114, art. 4).
Satan, the most beautiful of all the angels, being aware of his extreme intelligence, rebelled at the idea of being subjected to someone. Satan, being the most intelligent of the angels, has to know his theology if he is to have any chance of leading the Church astray. In Holy Scripture we see Satan trying to lure Jesus into a trap by quoting from Holy Scripture (Matthew 4:3-11): “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written [in Scripture]: ‘That He hath given His angels charge over Thee, and in their hands shall they bear Thee up, lest perhaps Thou dash Thy foot against a stone!’” The devils―due to their angelic intelligence―are experts on Holy Scripture, being able to cite each and every part of Scripture accurately―but with the intention of twisting its meaning to suit their hellish purposes. The crucial point behind the idea of Satan being a theologian is to recognize his perverse desire to turn theology—and especially exegesis—into the weapon against God Himself. This theme may also be found in the works by St. Thomas Aquinas. It is discussed in more systematic way only in the passage from Lectura super Matthaeum, while in other works it appears only in the form of dispersed remarks.
Do you really think that Satan has no part to play in the many theological arguments that take up so much time of so many persons in the world? Don’t be so naïve! How else did Satan manage to divide Catholicism and create so many Protestant sects each with its own particular flavor of theology? Satan is only too pleased to be able to entice souls into the endless maze and labyrinth of theological musing, reasoning, discussion and argumentation―so that he may entangle them in “the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captive at his will” (2 Timothy 2:26)―because he knows that thereby he pulls you away from far more important things―such as loving God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “Avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law. For they are unprofitable and vain!” (Titus 3:9). “Avoid foolish and unlearned questions―knowing that they beget quarrels” (2 Timothy 2:23). “Contend not in words―for it is to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers!” (2 Timothy 2:14).
Too Many Talkers, Not Enough Walkers
“Let us not love in word, nor in tongue―but by deeds and in truth” (1 John 3:18) … “He that has the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him: how does the charity of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17). What is this “substance” that we all have in plentiful supply? It is the “substance” of prayers and sacrifices. Our Lady of Fatima came to ask for this “substance” when she said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Akita also asked that those prayers and sacrifices be offered for the Pope: “With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Pray very much for the Pope, Bishops, and Priests!”
Why pray for the Pope, Bishops and Priests? Because…
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … Evil books will be abundant on Earth and the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God … The priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity. Yes, the priests are asking for vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying my Son again! The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people!” (Our Lady of La Salette).
“The work of the devil will infiltrate even the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against other bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their conferees…churches and altars will be sacked, the Church will be full of those who accept compromise and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord. The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God” (Our Lady of Akita)
To Blessed Elena Aiello, Our Lady said in the 1950’s: “Satan reigns and triumphs on Earth! … No longer do men speak according to the true spirit of the Gospel … The flock is about to be dispersed and the Pope must suffer greatly … The Pope will suffer much, and all this suffering will be like an agony, which will shorten his earthly pilgrimage ... See how the souls are falling into Hell. How many cries of hate, and of despair! How much pain! See how many priestly souls! Look at the sign of their consecration in their transparent hands! What torture, my daughter, in my maternal Heart! Great is my sorrow to see that men do not change! The justice of the Father requires reparation — otherwise many will be lost! … The world has need of prayers and penance, because the Pope, the priests, and the Church are in danger. If we do not pray, Russia will march upon all of Europe! … Russia, spurred on by Satan, will seek to dominate the whole world and, by bloody revolutions, will propagate her false teachings throughout all the nations, especially in Italy. The Church will be persecuted and the Pope and the priests shall suffer much.” (Our Lady to Bl. Elena Aiello).
Sister Lucia reported seeing a vision depicting a bishop dressed in white, who is shot and killed by a band of soldiers, while he is kneeling at the foot of a large wooden cross atop a hill, after having traversed a half-ruined city filled with corpses. The execution of the bishop dressed in white is followed by the execution of many bishops, priests and laity. This prophetic vision of death and destruction should serve as a warning to those who persist in delaying the requests of God, for Our Lord warned Sister Lucia that if the bishops continue to delay the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, then “they will follow him (the murdered King Louis XVI of France) into misfortune” ― for the French kings had also repeatedly ignored and delayed Christ’s demand through St. Margaret Mary Alacoque for the consecration of France to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Our Lord Comes to Save Not Destroy, to Show Mercy, not Hatred
Speaking of enemies, Our Lord says: “You have heard that it hath been said, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you, so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who makes His sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust. For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans do this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you do that is more? Do not the heathens also do this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 7:43-48).
Yet, all of these enemies―some of them charming and others nasty―are precisely the souls that Our Lord came to save! He Himself tells us: “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). His Father, in the Old Testament, said the same thing: “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (Ezechiel 18:23) Jesus comes with the gift of His mercy—which is the greatest of all of His gifts―and He does not wish to exclude anyone from receiving that precious gift: “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 144:8-9). Are we going to exclude anyone from the possibility and chance of obtaining mercy and salvation from God? As Holy Scripture says: “Therefore, whilst we have time, let us work good to ALL men, but especially to those who are of the household of the Faith” (Galatians 6:10)―and like him or not; believe he is pope or not; whether he is a great sinner or not―Francis is still, by virtue of his Baptism, within “the household of the Faith.” If he is on the road to being lost forever in Hell―then it is that kind of person that Our Lord came to save! “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). “They that are well have no need of a physician―but those that are sick! For I came not to call the just, but sinners!” (Mark 2:17) … “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32). “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? … And you have said: ‘The way of the Lord is not right!’ Hear ye, therefore! Is it My way that is not right, and are not rather your ways perverse? … For I desire not the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God, return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32). “Cease to stretch out the finger, and to speak that which profiteth not!” (Isaias 58:9).
Do you have a problem with that? If you do have a problem with that, then you are a problem for God! You do not have the spirit of God. You do not have the attitude that God has towards the sinner. The Apostles, James and John, made that mistake and were rebuked by Our Lord for it: “Jesus sent messengers before His face. And going, they entered into a city of the Samaritans, to prepare them for Him. And they received Him not … and when His disciples, James and John, had seen this, they said: ‘Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?’ And turning, He rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:52-56).
What’s Your Papal Assessment Like?
Regardless of what opinion colors your mind, Francis―pope or not―needs prayers. If he is the pope―then he is in a mess and making an even greater mess by his Liberal and Modernist policies and viewpoints. If he is not the pope―then he is in an even greater mess. You could say that Francis has become the lightning-rod for true Catholicism. The ultimate test of true Catholicism is to pray for your enemies and wish them good! Ouch! Painful, but true. One way or another―Francis has made himself the enemy of the Church. Liberalism and Modernism are enemies of the Church―and if we hold their beliefs, then we make ourselves enemies of the Church. Then there are the more evil and cunning enemies of the Church, who have infiltrated the Church with a view of destroying it from within―they are even greater enemies of the Church.
How does Pope Francis’ pontificate add-up in your eyes? What is the sum of his rule? Is it positive or negative? “Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man: and the number of him is six hundred sixty-six” (Apocalypse 13:18). Aha! You are immediately jumping to rash conclusions and judging this to be going where it will not necessarily be going! You are thinking that this is going to paint Pope Francis as the Antichrist! No. If you think that, then you think very little and should think more and inform yourself more. The Antichrist is supposed to come towards the end of the “period of peace” that will be given to the world AFTER the “Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary”―therefore, since we are yet to witness the terrible degeneration of both Church and world, where all seems lost and evil seems to gain control of the whole world, all of which MUST PRECEDE the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart, then Pope Francis cannot be the Antichrist. What then is he? Well, let us look and learn more about Francis. I doubt that there are very many of those who hammer Francis―and deservedly so in some things―who have taken time to research Francis. All that they know about Francis’ past life, could be written on the back of an envelope, or even on the back of postage stamp.
The Need for Judging and the Danger of Judging
Holy Scripture does not forbid us to judge, but it does tell us to be careful in judging―“Detract not one another, my brethren. He that detracts his brother, or he that judges his brother, detracts the law, and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not just a doer of the law, but a judge! There is one lawgiver, and judge, that is able to destroy and to deliver! But who are you that judges your neighbor?” (James 4:11-13) ― which means to say that the judges of law will receive a far stricter judgment than mere doers of the law. “Judge not, and you shall not be judged! Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned!” (Luke 6:37) … “Judge not, that you may not be judged! For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you measure out, it shall be measured back to you again!” (Matthew 7:1-2). “Therefore judge not before the time―until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts” (1 Corinthians 4:5).
“Thou shalt not do that which is unjust, nor judge unjustly. Respect not the person of the poor, nor honor the countenance of the mighty. But judge thy neighbor according to justice” (Leviticus 19:15). Our Lord says: “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge just judgment” (John 7:24). For there is a grave danger in taking upon ourselves the role of a judge―as Our Lord Himself points-out: “Judge not, that you may not be judged. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you measure unto others, it shall be measured to you again” (Matthew 7:1-2). “Do you not judge within yourselves, and are become judges of unjust thoughts?” (James 2:4). If we wish to take on the role of a judge, then we shall find ourselves judged by God with the same elevated strictness that He will judge all judges― “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48). “For the Lord is judge and there is not with Him respect of person!” (Ecclesiasticus 35:15).
Judgment Requires Action, Not Talk
Our Lord continues: “You judge according to the flesh―I judge not any man. And if I do judge, My judgment is true!” (John 8:15-16). “And if any man hear My words, and keep them not, I do not judge him―for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world!” (John 12:47). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). Our Lord’s primary concern is seek and save that which is lost, not to judge it―though He will judge it also, and says: “If I do judge, My judgment is true!” (John 8:16). Judgment should lead to action―a doctor who examines a patient and judges them to be in need of treatment, HAS TO GIVE THAT PERSON TREATMENT, or at least send them to someone who can treat the patient if the doctor thinks himself unqualified in expertise to do so successfully. Likewise, if we judge that there is a serious problem, then we have to follow-up on that judgment with an appropriate action that seeks to resolve the problem.
Take, once again, the example of a house on fire―whether it be yours or someone else’s house. Once you realize that there is a problem―the house is on fire―common sense, and even moral law, obliges you to do something appropriate and effective about it―inasmuch as you are able. It is not appropriate, nor is it effective, to start calling and texting everyone you know and telling them that your (or someone else’s) house is on fire, nor is it appropriate nor effective to start taking photos of the burning house and sending them, by phone or email, to everyone on your address list, telling them about the house that is on fire. Nor is it appropriate nor effective to start calling all the newspapers and TV and radio stations to tell them about the house on fire. Nor is it appropriate, nor very effective, to run over to the house on fire and throw a bucket of water at it and then go away, just because your one single bucket of water failed to put out the fire. Sure, you took some action―but way too little! The appropriate and effective action that must be taken is to call for the Fire Department and, in the meantime, if at all possible, do something or anything that might help contain or slow down the spreading of the fire―using whatever is readily available. Anything other than that constitutes culpable (blameworthy, guilty) negligence. Our Lord points this out in His parable about the Good Samaritan.
Oil and Wine! Salt and Vinegar!
“A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead. And it so happened that a certain priest went down the same way―and seeing him, passed by. In like manner also a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But a certain Samaritan being on his journey, came near him; and seeing him, was moved with compassion. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two pence, and gave to the host, and said: ‘Take care of him; and whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay thee!’ Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbor to him that fell among the robbers?’ But he said: ‘He that showed mercy to him.’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Go, and do thou in like manner!’” (Luke 10:30-37).
Now, believe it or not, both oil and wine, as well as salt and vinegar, are medicinal agents and act favorably on wounds. What are we doing? Are we pouring oil and wine into the wound, or are we pouring in salt and vinegar? Oil and wine are far more soothing for the wound than salt and vinegar. When we have to deal with sin and sinners―are we more of a “oil and wine” person, or are we a “salt and vinegar” person. We all know the saying: “Rubbing salt into someone’s wounds” ― is that what we do? Do we rub their face in their sins? We also speak of someone being “vinegary” or “sour-faced” ― which reminds us that vinegar can be wine that has gone sour. Thus, where wine symbolizes charity, vinegar can symbolize a lack of charity. In her Sacraments, the Church uses more oil and wine than it uses salt―and as for vinegar, the Church does not use it in her Sacraments, whereas salt is used just once during Baptism, and is also used in creating the Sacramental of Holy Water. The oil is used in the major Sacraments that impart an indelible mark on the soul―Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders, and is also used in Extreme Unction (the Sacrament of the Sick or Last Rites).
Furthermore, oil is a symbol of humility and wine is a symbol of charity. We see Our Lord exercise both humility and charity in dealing with the woman caught in adultery: “And the Scribes and the Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery: and they set her in the midst, and said to Him: ‘Master, this woman was even now taken in adultery! Now Moses in the law commanded us to stone such a one. But what sayest Thou?’ And this they said tempting Him, so that they might accuse Him. But Jesus, bowing Himself down, wrote with His finger on the ground. When therefore they continued asking Him, He lifted up Himself, and said to them: ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her!’ And again stooping down, He wrote on the ground. But they hearing this, went out, one by one, beginning at the eldest. And Jesus alone remained, and the woman standing in the midst. Then Jesus lifting up Himself, said to her: ‘Woman, where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee?’ She said: ‘No man, Lord!’ And Jesus said: ‘Neither will I condemn thee! Go, and now sin no more!’” (John 8:3-11).
Let us be more of the “Oil and Wine” Catholics and less of the “Salt and Vinegar” Catholics―let us pour oil and wine into the wounds of sin, rather than salt and vinegar―even though all of them can aid wounds to heal and prevent re-infection.
Olive Oil is soothing and provides a barrier or sealant to allow the wound to be undisturbed during healing. Modern science has shown it to have anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and anti-bacterial properties which help reduce inflammation and promote healing in a wound by increasing collagen synthesis, stimulating dermal reconstruction, repairing the skin's lipid barrier function and promoting cell proliferation.
Red wine contains compounds called polyphenols, which have been shown to have anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Studies show that red wine polyphenols have benefits for wound healing, such as increasing blood flow and promoting the growth of new blood vessels. The antiseptic chemicals― the pigments malvoside and oenoside―are also found in plentiful supply in wine.
So What Are We Judging?
When a house is on fire, we do not start talking about and focusing on who the house belongs to, or whether or not the house really does belong to the person who is occupying it, or whether or not that person really is who he says he is. When the house is on fire, we do not discuss the moral or sinful state of the people in the house; nor the things they have said and done in the past. Our judgment of the danger―the house that is on fire―should lead us to be concerned about the inhabitants of that house. Regardless of whether they are good people or evil people―we call the Fire Department! The resulting judgment should again lead to further action―such as, for the sake of safety―ensuring the immediate evacuation of the surrounding properties and sheltering their occupants in a safe place―regardless of whether or not those neighbors surrounding the burning house are good persons or evil persons.
Currently, there is a ‘fire’ of controversy raging about Pope Francis―Is he good? Is he bad? Is he pope? Is he not pope? The fact of whether or not he is pope is not and should not be our prime concern. The fact of whether he is good or bad should be our prime concern. If he is bad, then he is on the way to being lost and Our Lord’s PRIME PURPOSE was to come and seek and save that which was lost―just as the Fire Department will, first of all, try to rescue and save the inhabitants in burning house, while, at the same time, try to save what can be saved of the house and protect the surrounding properties from catching the fire, while evacuating, if necessary, the residents.
Similarly, when a person is involved in a serious accident and is rushed to the nearest hospital’s Emergency Room―the doctors are obliged to treat that person, regardless of whether the person is a good person or a bad person. If that person is a drunken driver who has just killed someone by knocking them down while driving in a drunken stupor―that drunken person still has to be admitted to the hospital and treated by the hospital’s doctors. The doctors cannot just stand by the bedside of the critically injured drunkard and lecture him on how evil a person he is―they have to treat him.
Divine Providence Controls Everything
The Providence of God is in total charge of all that happens in creation. Neither devil nor man can do anything without God either wanting it to happen or allowing it to happen. God wants good things to happen, but He will also allow evil things to happen so that He can ultimately showing His omnipotence by bringing good out of evil and also defeating evil.
As the opening of chapter of Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence so clearly says:
“Nothing happens in the universe without God willing and allowing it. This statement must be taken absolutely of everything―with the exception of sin. “Nothing occurs by chance in the whole course of our lives” is the unanimous teaching of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, “and God intervenes everywhere.” … “I am the Lord,” He tells us Himself by the mouth of the prophet Isaias, “and there is none else. I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.” … “It is I who bring both death and life, I who inflict wounds and heal them,” He said to Moses. “The Lord killeth and maketh aive,” it is written in the Canticle of Anna, the mother of Samuel, “He bringeth down to the tomb and He bringeth back again; the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, He humbleth and He exalteth.” … “Shall there be evil (disaster, affliction) in a city which the Lord hath not done?” asks the prophet Amos. “Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches are from God,” Solomon proclaims. And so on in numerous other passages of Scripture.
“Perhaps you will say that while this is true of certain necessary effects, like sickness, death, cold and heat, and other accidents due to natural causes which have no liberty of action―the same cannot be said in the case of things that result from the free will of man. For if―you will object―someone slanders me, robs me, strikes me, persecutes me―how can I attribute his conduct to the will of God Who, far from wishing me to be treated in such a manner, expressly forbids it? So the blame―you will conclude―can only be laid on the will of man, on his ignorance or malice. This is the defense behind which we try to shelter from God and excuse our lack of courage and submission. It is quite useless for us to try and take advantage of this way of reasoning as an excuse for not surrendering to Providence. God Himself has refuted it and we must believe on His word, that, in events of this kind as in all others, nothing occurs except by His order and permission” (Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, chapter 1).
If Francis is not a true pope―then it is not something that escaped God’s eye, or sneaked in while God was not looking. All the infiltrators or “infil-traitors” of the Church are known to God but not known to man―which is why Pope Pius XII admitted that he was aware of the Church being infiltrated, but he was not exactly sure of the identity of those infiltrators. Why has God allowed these men to infiltrate His Holy Church? The answer is always the same―SIN. As they say, “We get the leaders that we deserve!” Over 100 years before Francis arrived in Rome―and over 50 years before John XXIII arrived in Rome―Our Lady had warned us of what was coming and begged for many prayers and sacrifices, especially for the pope, bishops and priests. Lack of prayer and sacrifice leads to a lack of grace―and a lack of grace leads to a lack of strength and protection―and a lack of strength and protection invites infiltration, conquest and defeat. We are where we are―not because we have not blogged and posted enough on the internet, but because we not prayed enough nor sacrificed enough. The many, many, many hours spent on the internet and blogs―posting, proving, arguing, debating, etc. ― is time lost when it comes to using the truly effective weapons that Heaven has indicated to us and provided for us.
That is essentially what Our Lady of Good Success said: “Clamor insistently, without tiring, and weep with bitter tears in the privacy of your heart, imploring our Celestial Father that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times! … Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. O if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live―sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! O if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall! … Some let themselves be dazzled by the false glamour of honors and human greatness, while others are blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness, that immense evil which destroys fervor, humility, and self-renunciation!”
Cockle and the Wheat
Due our minimalist output of prayer and sacrifices―which is like “sleeping-on-the-job”―we have allowed Satan to sow his evil cockle amongst us―and that includes the infiltrators and outright sinners. “Another parable He proposed to them, saying: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and over-sowed cockle among the wheat and went his way. And when the blade was sprung up, and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. And the servants of the good man of the house coming said to him: “Sir! Did you not sow good seed in your field? Why then does it have cockle in it?” And he said to them: “An enemy has done this!” And the servants said to him: “Do you want us to go and gather it up?” And he said: “No! Lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you also uproot the wheat together with it! Suffer both to grow until the harvest, and, in the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers: ‘Gather up first the cockle and bind it into bundles to burn, but gather the wheat into my barn!’” ’” (Matthew 13:24-30).
Today, we have an enormous amount of cockle that is growing alongside that little good wheat is left in the field of the Church. Our Lady of La Salette warned that Satan would successfully sow cockle in the Church: Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... Rome will lose the Faith … The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay ... The true Faith to the Lord will be forgotten … God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family.”
Our Lady of Good Success, referring to our days, speaks of “the small number of souls who, hidden, will preserve the treasure of the Faith and practice virtue.” Even the Liberal and Modernist trained Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “In our days, when in vast areas of the world the Faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God … The real problem, at this moment of our history, is that God is disappearing from the human horizon, and, with the dimming of the light which comes from God, humanity is losing its bearings, with increasingly evident destructive effects.
“The Church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning … She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . She will lose many of her social privileges. . . As a small society, [the Church] will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members ... It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek ... The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain ...
“But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret. And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end―not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of Faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man's home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.”
The above is supported by many ancient prophecies that speak of a time of mass apostasy―a Minor Apostasy and then a Great Apostasy from the Faith. The consequence will obviously see the reduction of the Church to small numbers―just as foretold by Our Lady and many others.
Great Western Schism
If we think we have a problem figuring out if Francis is a true pope or not―then spare a thought for those Catholics who had to live through the Western Schism, also called the Great Schism or the Great Western Schism―which was a period in the history of the Roman Catholic Church―from 1378 to 1417―when there were two, and later three, rival popes, each with his own following, each with his own Sacred College of Cardinals, and each with his own administrative offices. Some might be tempted to call it a “Holy Trinity of Popes” ― yet, unlike the Holy Trinity where each Person of the Trinity is God, in this case not every person of this “Papal Trinity” was pope! A case of three persons but only one Pope! To complicate matters, each pope had the backing and support of several future saints!
King Philip IV of France (reigned 1285–1314) and Pope Boniface VIII (reigned 1294–1303) clashed over the authority of the pope in France, especially over the raising and spending of clerical taxes. Philip used money raised for Church expenses to finance his personal wars. Eventually, King Philip advisors hatched a plan to kidnap Boniface and install a new pope favorable to Philip. William hired mercenaries who attacked and held Boniface prisoner. Townspeople came to the pope’s rescue and freed him, but due to the rough treatment he died a month later.
The death of Pope Boniface VIII provided King Philip IV with the opportunity to influence the papal election of a candidate favorable to France. However, the cardinals elected the holy and peaceful Blessed Benedict XI (reigned 1303–1304), who tried to repair Franco-papal relations―until his reign was cut short with his unexpected death after only eight months (there is some speculation he was poisoned on the orders of King Philip’s advisors). Philip desired that the next papal election would produce a pontiff who could be easily manipulated. The cardinals responded and elected a Frenchmen ― Pope Clement V (reigned 1305–1314).
King Philip presented the new pope with a list of demands that ranged from the bizarre—putting the dead Pope Boniface VIII on trial—to the shocking―moving the papal residence from Rome to France. Clement V agreed to leave Rome and move to France, which he did in 1309. He established the papal residence in the town of Avignon, where it remained for almost 70 years. His successors continued to reside in Avignon until Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome amidst great rejoicing in 1377.
Pope Gregory XI died within a year of returning to Rome and this led to the same college of cardinals electing two different popes! The first elected pope was Pope Urban VI, who, once elected, became harsh and alienated those who had elected him. This led to the college of cardinals electing another Pope, Clement VII, to take Urban’s place! Suddenly, there were two popes; both duly elected by the same college of cardinals, and both legitimate successors to the throne of Peter by ecclesiastical rules. The Western Great Schism had begun. It would last for almost 40 years ― and towards the end there would even be a period of time when there were THREE POPES all “reigning” at the same time!
Christendom was split as to which pope which country would shot its allegiance! The saints themselves were divided: St Catherine of Siena, St. Catherine of Sweden, Bl. Peter of Aragon, Bl. Ursulina of Parma, Philippe d’Alencon, and Gerard de Groote were in the camp of Urban; St. Vincent Ferrer, Bl. Peter of Luxemburg, and St. Colette belonged to the party of Clement. The century’s most famous doctors of law were consulted and most of them decided for Rome. Theologians were divided.
The Council of Pisa met in 1409 to try solving the dispute and attempted to depose both the Roman pope and Avignon antipope as schismatical, heretical, perjured and scandalous―but it then added to the problem by electing a second antipope, Alexander V. He reigned briefly in Pisa from June 26th, 1409, to his death in 1410, when he was succeeded by John XXIII, who won some but not universal support.
The Council of Constance was convened by the Pisan antipope John XXIII in 1414 to resolve the issue. The council was also endorsed by the Roman pope Gregory XII, thus giving it greater legitimacy. The Council of Constance secured the resignations of both the Roman Pope Gregory XII and the Pisan Pope John XXIII, while isolating the Avignon Antipope Benedict XIII, who refused to step down. The Council elected Pope Martin V in 1417, essentially ending the schism.
Learning From the Past
Thus we see that the Church endured a torrid 40 years of doubt and uncertainty as to who was Pope and who was not Pope. The Church survived back then and the Church will survive today. At what cost? Heaven only knows! Yet the problem will not be solved by talking about it, but by praying for God to intervene and restore true order. Constant blogging and posting on the internet is a very poor and impotent tool when compared to prayer and sacrifice. There are too many pseudo-theologians who are blogging and posting in a manner that clearly betrays their lack of the spirit of Christ. As already stated above―Christ came to seek and save that which is lost; and not to destroy. We should take a leaf out of the Holy Scriptures on this feast of St. Peter the Apostle and First Pope, where it speaks of St. Peter’s imprisonment which led to the people praying for him INCESSANTLY: “Peter therefore was kept in prison. But prayer was made without ceasing by the Church unto God for him” (Acts 12:5). Our Lady, in her modern day apparitions has similarly said:
“The secular clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties … They will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger! … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls … and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops! … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God! … Rome will lose the Faith! … Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears! Implore our heavenly Father that He might take pity on His ministers and bring to an end these ominous times! … Prayers, penances and tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners! … Pray very much for the Pope, Bishops, and Priests! … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops!”
Not a word about blogging or posting on the internet―even though Our Lady can see the future and fully understands the internet better than we do. The currency of Heaven, the tools of Heaven, the weapons of Heaven have always been and always will be PRAYER and PENANCE. You can call penance by other names such as SACRIFICE, SUFFERING, etc ― but it ultimately boils down to the same thing―the only difference being whether you are doing it for you own sins (penance) or for the sins and conversion of others (sacrifice), but in both cases you must suffer.
We are currently living in strange times―but, nevertheless, times that we were already warned about by Our Lady and other prophecies. On this Vigil of Saints Peter and Paul, it seems a suitable time to look at the papal controversies that have been increasingly raging especially since the Second Vatican Council―the chief controversy being that concerning the papacy and its validity or invalidity. What was a relatively small scale debate in earlier decades, has now escalated to the point where every man and his dog has an opinion on the papacy. The initial seed of Sedevacantism has now sprouted many branches to where everyone and anyone can choose their preferred cocktail flavor concerning papal fallibility, faithlessness, falsehood, fictitiousness, fraudulence, floundering, failure―which then leads to papal fault-finding and papal flagellation.
What are we to think of the various proposed theories that state: (1) the pope is the pope; (2) the pope is not a pope; (3) the pope is ‘pope’ in some ways but not ‘pope’ in other ways. These major categories give birth to their own offspring theories with all kinds of subtle nuances and distinctions and sub-distinctions. Some websites have reams and reams of pages of arguments defending and attacking each of these kinds of theories.
Is it possible that this pope might not be a pope? Yes it is. Is it possible that he is the pope? Yes it is. Is it possible that he is ‘pope’ in certain respects (materially pope) but not in other respects (formally pope)? Yes it is. So who really knows? God knows! We might have what is called “moral certitude”, but only God has “absolute certitude” on the validity of this pope and any other pope that has preceded him. Who can solve the problem? Is it you by blogging and posting on numerous websites? No it is not. You are merely “talking the talking” and that is all you will be able to do. Only God can “walk the walk” in this matter―and any other matter for that matter―for, as Jesus said so clearly and unambiguously: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). What is it that you cannot understand about that statement? Only He can solve the problem by His Divine Grace and His Divine Providence. The only problem is that He needs to be paid before He will start the work and solve the problem. Blogging and posting about the problem will not solve the problem. If anything, it causes even more problems as these bloggers and posters start to imagine themselves to be pseudo-St-Thomas-Aquinasses (notice the last word ends with “asses”) and God-sent theologians!
Satan is a Better Theologian Than You!
The Church teaches that God created angels to be vastly superior to man. The angel who was originally created with the highest natural intelligence is Lucifer (Satan). Pure spirits, with most lucid intelligence and great power, surpass in their nature even the most gifted of men. They have an innate, intuitive, independent, infallibly certain and perfect knowledge; a view of the universe second only to that of God. All of this Angelic knowledge is had without the possibility of misinformation. As a consequence of their revolt, the fallen angels lost their virtue, but not their intelligence or their power. In accord with His Divine Providence, God restrains their activity―but in their nature they remain far superior to man. St. Thomas Aquinas says: “Demons can work miracles, that is, things which rouse man’s astonishment by reason of their being beyond his power and outside his sphere of knowledge … It is to be noted, however, that although these works of the demons, which appear marvelous to us, are not real miracles.” (Summa Theologica, Ia, q. 114, art. 4).
Satan, the most beautiful of all the angels, being aware of his extreme intelligence, rebelled at the idea of being subjected to someone. Satan, being the most intelligent of the angels, has to know his theology if he is to have any chance of leading the Church astray. In Holy Scripture we see Satan trying to lure Jesus into a trap by quoting from Holy Scripture (Matthew 4:3-11): “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written [in Scripture]: ‘That He hath given His angels charge over Thee, and in their hands shall they bear Thee up, lest perhaps Thou dash Thy foot against a stone!’” The devils―due to their angelic intelligence―are experts on Holy Scripture, being able to cite each and every part of Scripture accurately―but with the intention of twisting its meaning to suit their hellish purposes. The crucial point behind the idea of Satan being a theologian is to recognize his perverse desire to turn theology—and especially exegesis—into the weapon against God Himself. This theme may also be found in the works by St. Thomas Aquinas. It is discussed in more systematic way only in the passage from Lectura super Matthaeum, while in other works it appears only in the form of dispersed remarks.
Do you really think that Satan has no part to play in the many theological arguments that take up so much time of so many persons in the world? Don’t be so naïve! How else did Satan manage to divide Catholicism and create so many Protestant sects each with its own particular flavor of theology? Satan is only too pleased to be able to entice souls into the endless maze and labyrinth of theological musing, reasoning, discussion and argumentation―so that he may entangle them in “the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captive at his will” (2 Timothy 2:26)―because he knows that thereby he pulls you away from far more important things―such as loving God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “Avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law. For they are unprofitable and vain!” (Titus 3:9). “Avoid foolish and unlearned questions―knowing that they beget quarrels” (2 Timothy 2:23). “Contend not in words―for it is to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers!” (2 Timothy 2:14).
Too Many Talkers, Not Enough Walkers
“Let us not love in word, nor in tongue―but by deeds and in truth” (1 John 3:18) … “He that has the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him: how does the charity of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17). What is this “substance” that we all have in plentiful supply? It is the “substance” of prayers and sacrifices. Our Lady of Fatima came to ask for this “substance” when she said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Akita also asked that those prayers and sacrifices be offered for the Pope: “With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Pray very much for the Pope, Bishops, and Priests!”
Why pray for the Pope, Bishops and Priests? Because…
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … Evil books will be abundant on Earth and the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God … The priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity. Yes, the priests are asking for vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying my Son again! The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people!” (Our Lady of La Salette).
“The work of the devil will infiltrate even the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against other bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their conferees…churches and altars will be sacked, the Church will be full of those who accept compromise and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord. The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God” (Our Lady of Akita)
To Blessed Elena Aiello, Our Lady said in the 1950’s: “Satan reigns and triumphs on Earth! … No longer do men speak according to the true spirit of the Gospel … The flock is about to be dispersed and the Pope must suffer greatly … The Pope will suffer much, and all this suffering will be like an agony, which will shorten his earthly pilgrimage ... See how the souls are falling into Hell. How many cries of hate, and of despair! How much pain! See how many priestly souls! Look at the sign of their consecration in their transparent hands! What torture, my daughter, in my maternal Heart! Great is my sorrow to see that men do not change! The justice of the Father requires reparation — otherwise many will be lost! … The world has need of prayers and penance, because the Pope, the priests, and the Church are in danger. If we do not pray, Russia will march upon all of Europe! … Russia, spurred on by Satan, will seek to dominate the whole world and, by bloody revolutions, will propagate her false teachings throughout all the nations, especially in Italy. The Church will be persecuted and the Pope and the priests shall suffer much.” (Our Lady to Bl. Elena Aiello).
Sister Lucia reported seeing a vision depicting a bishop dressed in white, who is shot and killed by a band of soldiers, while he is kneeling at the foot of a large wooden cross atop a hill, after having traversed a half-ruined city filled with corpses. The execution of the bishop dressed in white is followed by the execution of many bishops, priests and laity. This prophetic vision of death and destruction should serve as a warning to those who persist in delaying the requests of God, for Our Lord warned Sister Lucia that if the bishops continue to delay the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, then “they will follow him (the murdered King Louis XVI of France) into misfortune” ― for the French kings had also repeatedly ignored and delayed Christ’s demand through St. Margaret Mary Alacoque for the consecration of France to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Our Lord Comes to Save Not Destroy, to Show Mercy, not Hatred
Speaking of enemies, Our Lord says: “You have heard that it hath been said, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you, so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who makes His sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust. For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans do this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you do that is more? Do not the heathens also do this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 7:43-48).
Yet, all of these enemies―some of them charming and others nasty―are precisely the souls that Our Lord came to save! He Himself tells us: “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). His Father, in the Old Testament, said the same thing: “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (Ezechiel 18:23) Jesus comes with the gift of His mercy—which is the greatest of all of His gifts―and He does not wish to exclude anyone from receiving that precious gift: “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 144:8-9). Are we going to exclude anyone from the possibility and chance of obtaining mercy and salvation from God? As Holy Scripture says: “Therefore, whilst we have time, let us work good to ALL men, but especially to those who are of the household of the Faith” (Galatians 6:10)―and like him or not; believe he is pope or not; whether he is a great sinner or not―Francis is still, by virtue of his Baptism, within “the household of the Faith.” If he is on the road to being lost forever in Hell―then it is that kind of person that Our Lord came to save! “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). “They that are well have no need of a physician―but those that are sick! For I came not to call the just, but sinners!” (Mark 2:17) … “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32). “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? … And you have said: ‘The way of the Lord is not right!’ Hear ye, therefore! Is it My way that is not right, and are not rather your ways perverse? … For I desire not the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God, return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32). “Cease to stretch out the finger, and to speak that which profiteth not!” (Isaias 58:9).
Do you have a problem with that? If you do have a problem with that, then you are a problem for God! You do not have the spirit of God. You do not have the attitude that God has towards the sinner. The Apostles, James and John, made that mistake and were rebuked by Our Lord for it: “Jesus sent messengers before His face. And going, they entered into a city of the Samaritans, to prepare them for Him. And they received Him not … and when His disciples, James and John, had seen this, they said: ‘Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?’ And turning, He rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:52-56).
What’s Your Papal Assessment Like?
Regardless of what opinion colors your mind, Francis―pope or not―needs prayers. If he is the pope―then he is in a mess and making an even greater mess by his Liberal and Modernist policies and viewpoints. If he is not the pope―then he is in an even greater mess. You could say that Francis has become the lightning-rod for true Catholicism. The ultimate test of true Catholicism is to pray for your enemies and wish them good! Ouch! Painful, but true. One way or another―Francis has made himself the enemy of the Church. Liberalism and Modernism are enemies of the Church―and if we hold their beliefs, then we make ourselves enemies of the Church. Then there are the more evil and cunning enemies of the Church, who have infiltrated the Church with a view of destroying it from within―they are even greater enemies of the Church.
How does Pope Francis’ pontificate add-up in your eyes? What is the sum of his rule? Is it positive or negative? “Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man: and the number of him is six hundred sixty-six” (Apocalypse 13:18). Aha! You are immediately jumping to rash conclusions and judging this to be going where it will not necessarily be going! You are thinking that this is going to paint Pope Francis as the Antichrist! No. If you think that, then you think very little and should think more and inform yourself more. The Antichrist is supposed to come towards the end of the “period of peace” that will be given to the world AFTER the “Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary”―therefore, since we are yet to witness the terrible degeneration of both Church and world, where all seems lost and evil seems to gain control of the whole world, all of which MUST PRECEDE the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart, then Pope Francis cannot be the Antichrist. What then is he? Well, let us look and learn more about Francis. I doubt that there are very many of those who hammer Francis―and deservedly so in some things―who have taken time to research Francis. All that they know about Francis’ past life, could be written on the back of an envelope, or even on the back of postage stamp.
The Need for Judging and the Danger of Judging
Holy Scripture does not forbid us to judge, but it does tell us to be careful in judging―“Detract not one another, my brethren. He that detracts his brother, or he that judges his brother, detracts the law, and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not just a doer of the law, but a judge! There is one lawgiver, and judge, that is able to destroy and to deliver! But who are you that judges your neighbor?” (James 4:11-13) ― which means to say that the judges of law will receive a far stricter judgment than mere doers of the law. “Judge not, and you shall not be judged! Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned!” (Luke 6:37) … “Judge not, that you may not be judged! For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you measure out, it shall be measured back to you again!” (Matthew 7:1-2). “Therefore judge not before the time―until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts” (1 Corinthians 4:5).
“Thou shalt not do that which is unjust, nor judge unjustly. Respect not the person of the poor, nor honor the countenance of the mighty. But judge thy neighbor according to justice” (Leviticus 19:15). Our Lord says: “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge just judgment” (John 7:24). For there is a grave danger in taking upon ourselves the role of a judge―as Our Lord Himself points-out: “Judge not, that you may not be judged. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you measure unto others, it shall be measured to you again” (Matthew 7:1-2). “Do you not judge within yourselves, and are become judges of unjust thoughts?” (James 2:4). If we wish to take on the role of a judge, then we shall find ourselves judged by God with the same elevated strictness that He will judge all judges― “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48). “For the Lord is judge and there is not with Him respect of person!” (Ecclesiasticus 35:15).
Judgment Requires Action, Not Talk
Our Lord continues: “You judge according to the flesh―I judge not any man. And if I do judge, My judgment is true!” (John 8:15-16). “And if any man hear My words, and keep them not, I do not judge him―for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world!” (John 12:47). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). Our Lord’s primary concern is seek and save that which is lost, not to judge it―though He will judge it also, and says: “If I do judge, My judgment is true!” (John 8:16). Judgment should lead to action―a doctor who examines a patient and judges them to be in need of treatment, HAS TO GIVE THAT PERSON TREATMENT, or at least send them to someone who can treat the patient if the doctor thinks himself unqualified in expertise to do so successfully. Likewise, if we judge that there is a serious problem, then we have to follow-up on that judgment with an appropriate action that seeks to resolve the problem.
Take, once again, the example of a house on fire―whether it be yours or someone else’s house. Once you realize that there is a problem―the house is on fire―common sense, and even moral law, obliges you to do something appropriate and effective about it―inasmuch as you are able. It is not appropriate, nor is it effective, to start calling and texting everyone you know and telling them that your (or someone else’s) house is on fire, nor is it appropriate nor effective to start taking photos of the burning house and sending them, by phone or email, to everyone on your address list, telling them about the house that is on fire. Nor is it appropriate nor effective to start calling all the newspapers and TV and radio stations to tell them about the house on fire. Nor is it appropriate, nor very effective, to run over to the house on fire and throw a bucket of water at it and then go away, just because your one single bucket of water failed to put out the fire. Sure, you took some action―but way too little! The appropriate and effective action that must be taken is to call for the Fire Department and, in the meantime, if at all possible, do something or anything that might help contain or slow down the spreading of the fire―using whatever is readily available. Anything other than that constitutes culpable (blameworthy, guilty) negligence. Our Lord points this out in His parable about the Good Samaritan.
Oil and Wine! Salt and Vinegar!
“A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead. And it so happened that a certain priest went down the same way―and seeing him, passed by. In like manner also a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But a certain Samaritan being on his journey, came near him; and seeing him, was moved with compassion. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two pence, and gave to the host, and said: ‘Take care of him; and whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay thee!’ Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbor to him that fell among the robbers?’ But he said: ‘He that showed mercy to him.’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Go, and do thou in like manner!’” (Luke 10:30-37).
Now, believe it or not, both oil and wine, as well as salt and vinegar, are medicinal agents and act favorably on wounds. What are we doing? Are we pouring oil and wine into the wound, or are we pouring in salt and vinegar? Oil and wine are far more soothing for the wound than salt and vinegar. When we have to deal with sin and sinners―are we more of a “oil and wine” person, or are we a “salt and vinegar” person. We all know the saying: “Rubbing salt into someone’s wounds” ― is that what we do? Do we rub their face in their sins? We also speak of someone being “vinegary” or “sour-faced” ― which reminds us that vinegar can be wine that has gone sour. Thus, where wine symbolizes charity, vinegar can symbolize a lack of charity. In her Sacraments, the Church uses more oil and wine than it uses salt―and as for vinegar, the Church does not use it in her Sacraments, whereas salt is used just once during Baptism, and is also used in creating the Sacramental of Holy Water. The oil is used in the major Sacraments that impart an indelible mark on the soul―Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders, and is also used in Extreme Unction (the Sacrament of the Sick or Last Rites).
Furthermore, oil is a symbol of humility and wine is a symbol of charity. We see Our Lord exercise both humility and charity in dealing with the woman caught in adultery: “And the Scribes and the Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery: and they set her in the midst, and said to Him: ‘Master, this woman was even now taken in adultery! Now Moses in the law commanded us to stone such a one. But what sayest Thou?’ And this they said tempting Him, so that they might accuse Him. But Jesus, bowing Himself down, wrote with His finger on the ground. When therefore they continued asking Him, He lifted up Himself, and said to them: ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her!’ And again stooping down, He wrote on the ground. But they hearing this, went out, one by one, beginning at the eldest. And Jesus alone remained, and the woman standing in the midst. Then Jesus lifting up Himself, said to her: ‘Woman, where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee?’ She said: ‘No man, Lord!’ And Jesus said: ‘Neither will I condemn thee! Go, and now sin no more!’” (John 8:3-11).
Let us be more of the “Oil and Wine” Catholics and less of the “Salt and Vinegar” Catholics―let us pour oil and wine into the wounds of sin, rather than salt and vinegar―even though all of them can aid wounds to heal and prevent re-infection.
Olive Oil is soothing and provides a barrier or sealant to allow the wound to be undisturbed during healing. Modern science has shown it to have anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and anti-bacterial properties which help reduce inflammation and promote healing in a wound by increasing collagen synthesis, stimulating dermal reconstruction, repairing the skin's lipid barrier function and promoting cell proliferation.
Red wine contains compounds called polyphenols, which have been shown to have anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Studies show that red wine polyphenols have benefits for wound healing, such as increasing blood flow and promoting the growth of new blood vessels. The antiseptic chemicals― the pigments malvoside and oenoside―are also found in plentiful supply in wine.
So What Are We Judging?
When a house is on fire, we do not start talking about and focusing on who the house belongs to, or whether or not the house really does belong to the person who is occupying it, or whether or not that person really is who he says he is. When the house is on fire, we do not discuss the moral or sinful state of the people in the house; nor the things they have said and done in the past. Our judgment of the danger―the house that is on fire―should lead us to be concerned about the inhabitants of that house. Regardless of whether they are good people or evil people―we call the Fire Department! The resulting judgment should again lead to further action―such as, for the sake of safety―ensuring the immediate evacuation of the surrounding properties and sheltering their occupants in a safe place―regardless of whether or not those neighbors surrounding the burning house are good persons or evil persons.
Currently, there is a ‘fire’ of controversy raging about Pope Francis―Is he good? Is he bad? Is he pope? Is he not pope? The fact of whether or not he is pope is not and should not be our prime concern. The fact of whether he is good or bad should be our prime concern. If he is bad, then he is on the way to being lost and Our Lord’s PRIME PURPOSE was to come and seek and save that which was lost―just as the Fire Department will, first of all, try to rescue and save the inhabitants in burning house, while, at the same time, try to save what can be saved of the house and protect the surrounding properties from catching the fire, while evacuating, if necessary, the residents.
Similarly, when a person is involved in a serious accident and is rushed to the nearest hospital’s Emergency Room―the doctors are obliged to treat that person, regardless of whether the person is a good person or a bad person. If that person is a drunken driver who has just killed someone by knocking them down while driving in a drunken stupor―that drunken person still has to be admitted to the hospital and treated by the hospital’s doctors. The doctors cannot just stand by the bedside of the critically injured drunkard and lecture him on how evil a person he is―they have to treat him.
Divine Providence Controls Everything
The Providence of God is in total charge of all that happens in creation. Neither devil nor man can do anything without God either wanting it to happen or allowing it to happen. God wants good things to happen, but He will also allow evil things to happen so that He can ultimately showing His omnipotence by bringing good out of evil and also defeating evil.
As the opening of chapter of Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence so clearly says:
“Nothing happens in the universe without God willing and allowing it. This statement must be taken absolutely of everything―with the exception of sin. “Nothing occurs by chance in the whole course of our lives” is the unanimous teaching of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, “and God intervenes everywhere.” … “I am the Lord,” He tells us Himself by the mouth of the prophet Isaias, “and there is none else. I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.” … “It is I who bring both death and life, I who inflict wounds and heal them,” He said to Moses. “The Lord killeth and maketh aive,” it is written in the Canticle of Anna, the mother of Samuel, “He bringeth down to the tomb and He bringeth back again; the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, He humbleth and He exalteth.” … “Shall there be evil (disaster, affliction) in a city which the Lord hath not done?” asks the prophet Amos. “Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches are from God,” Solomon proclaims. And so on in numerous other passages of Scripture.
“Perhaps you will say that while this is true of certain necessary effects, like sickness, death, cold and heat, and other accidents due to natural causes which have no liberty of action―the same cannot be said in the case of things that result from the free will of man. For if―you will object―someone slanders me, robs me, strikes me, persecutes me―how can I attribute his conduct to the will of God Who, far from wishing me to be treated in such a manner, expressly forbids it? So the blame―you will conclude―can only be laid on the will of man, on his ignorance or malice. This is the defense behind which we try to shelter from God and excuse our lack of courage and submission. It is quite useless for us to try and take advantage of this way of reasoning as an excuse for not surrendering to Providence. God Himself has refuted it and we must believe on His word, that, in events of this kind as in all others, nothing occurs except by His order and permission” (Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, chapter 1).
If Francis is not a true pope―then it is not something that escaped God’s eye, or sneaked in while God was not looking. All the infiltrators or “infil-traitors” of the Church are known to God but not known to man―which is why Pope Pius XII admitted that he was aware of the Church being infiltrated, but he was not exactly sure of the identity of those infiltrators. Why has God allowed these men to infiltrate His Holy Church? The answer is always the same―SIN. As they say, “We get the leaders that we deserve!” Over 100 years before Francis arrived in Rome―and over 50 years before John XXIII arrived in Rome―Our Lady had warned us of what was coming and begged for many prayers and sacrifices, especially for the pope, bishops and priests. Lack of prayer and sacrifice leads to a lack of grace―and a lack of grace leads to a lack of strength and protection―and a lack of strength and protection invites infiltration, conquest and defeat. We are where we are―not because we have not blogged and posted enough on the internet, but because we not prayed enough nor sacrificed enough. The many, many, many hours spent on the internet and blogs―posting, proving, arguing, debating, etc. ― is time lost when it comes to using the truly effective weapons that Heaven has indicated to us and provided for us.
That is essentially what Our Lady of Good Success said: “Clamor insistently, without tiring, and weep with bitter tears in the privacy of your heart, imploring our Celestial Father that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times! … Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. O if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live―sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! O if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall! … Some let themselves be dazzled by the false glamour of honors and human greatness, while others are blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness, that immense evil which destroys fervor, humility, and self-renunciation!”
Cockle and the Wheat
Due our minimalist output of prayer and sacrifices―which is like “sleeping-on-the-job”―we have allowed Satan to sow his evil cockle amongst us―and that includes the infiltrators and outright sinners. “Another parable He proposed to them, saying: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and over-sowed cockle among the wheat and went his way. And when the blade was sprung up, and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. And the servants of the good man of the house coming said to him: “Sir! Did you not sow good seed in your field? Why then does it have cockle in it?” And he said to them: “An enemy has done this!” And the servants said to him: “Do you want us to go and gather it up?” And he said: “No! Lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you also uproot the wheat together with it! Suffer both to grow until the harvest, and, in the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers: ‘Gather up first the cockle and bind it into bundles to burn, but gather the wheat into my barn!’” ’” (Matthew 13:24-30).
Today, we have an enormous amount of cockle that is growing alongside that little good wheat is left in the field of the Church. Our Lady of La Salette warned that Satan would successfully sow cockle in the Church: Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... Rome will lose the Faith … The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay ... The true Faith to the Lord will be forgotten … God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family.”
Our Lady of Good Success, referring to our days, speaks of “the small number of souls who, hidden, will preserve the treasure of the Faith and practice virtue.” Even the Liberal and Modernist trained Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “In our days, when in vast areas of the world the Faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God … The real problem, at this moment of our history, is that God is disappearing from the human horizon, and, with the dimming of the light which comes from God, humanity is losing its bearings, with increasingly evident destructive effects.
“The Church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning … She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . She will lose many of her social privileges. . . As a small society, [the Church] will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members ... It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek ... The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain ...
“But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret. And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end―not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of Faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man's home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.”
The above is supported by many ancient prophecies that speak of a time of mass apostasy―a Minor Apostasy and then a Great Apostasy from the Faith. The consequence will obviously see the reduction of the Church to small numbers―just as foretold by Our Lady and many others.
Great Western Schism
If we think we have a problem figuring out if Francis is a true pope or not―then spare a thought for those Catholics who had to live through the Western Schism, also called the Great Schism or the Great Western Schism―which was a period in the history of the Roman Catholic Church―from 1378 to 1417―when there were two, and later three, rival popes, each with his own following, each with his own Sacred College of Cardinals, and each with his own administrative offices. Some might be tempted to call it a “Holy Trinity of Popes” ― yet, unlike the Holy Trinity where each Person of the Trinity is God, in this case not every person of this “Papal Trinity” was pope! A case of three persons but only one Pope! To complicate matters, each pope had the backing and support of several future saints!
King Philip IV of France (reigned 1285–1314) and Pope Boniface VIII (reigned 1294–1303) clashed over the authority of the pope in France, especially over the raising and spending of clerical taxes. Philip used money raised for Church expenses to finance his personal wars. Eventually, King Philip advisors hatched a plan to kidnap Boniface and install a new pope favorable to Philip. William hired mercenaries who attacked and held Boniface prisoner. Townspeople came to the pope’s rescue and freed him, but due to the rough treatment he died a month later.
The death of Pope Boniface VIII provided King Philip IV with the opportunity to influence the papal election of a candidate favorable to France. However, the cardinals elected the holy and peaceful Blessed Benedict XI (reigned 1303–1304), who tried to repair Franco-papal relations―until his reign was cut short with his unexpected death after only eight months (there is some speculation he was poisoned on the orders of King Philip’s advisors). Philip desired that the next papal election would produce a pontiff who could be easily manipulated. The cardinals responded and elected a Frenchmen ― Pope Clement V (reigned 1305–1314).
King Philip presented the new pope with a list of demands that ranged from the bizarre—putting the dead Pope Boniface VIII on trial—to the shocking―moving the papal residence from Rome to France. Clement V agreed to leave Rome and move to France, which he did in 1309. He established the papal residence in the town of Avignon, where it remained for almost 70 years. His successors continued to reside in Avignon until Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome amidst great rejoicing in 1377.
Pope Gregory XI died within a year of returning to Rome and this led to the same college of cardinals electing two different popes! The first elected pope was Pope Urban VI, who, once elected, became harsh and alienated those who had elected him. This led to the college of cardinals electing another Pope, Clement VII, to take Urban’s place! Suddenly, there were two popes; both duly elected by the same college of cardinals, and both legitimate successors to the throne of Peter by ecclesiastical rules. The Western Great Schism had begun. It would last for almost 40 years ― and towards the end there would even be a period of time when there were THREE POPES all “reigning” at the same time!
Christendom was split as to which pope which country would shot its allegiance! The saints themselves were divided: St Catherine of Siena, St. Catherine of Sweden, Bl. Peter of Aragon, Bl. Ursulina of Parma, Philippe d’Alencon, and Gerard de Groote were in the camp of Urban; St. Vincent Ferrer, Bl. Peter of Luxemburg, and St. Colette belonged to the party of Clement. The century’s most famous doctors of law were consulted and most of them decided for Rome. Theologians were divided.
The Council of Pisa met in 1409 to try solving the dispute and attempted to depose both the Roman pope and Avignon antipope as schismatical, heretical, perjured and scandalous―but it then added to the problem by electing a second antipope, Alexander V. He reigned briefly in Pisa from June 26th, 1409, to his death in 1410, when he was succeeded by John XXIII, who won some but not universal support.
The Council of Constance was convened by the Pisan antipope John XXIII in 1414 to resolve the issue. The council was also endorsed by the Roman pope Gregory XII, thus giving it greater legitimacy. The Council of Constance secured the resignations of both the Roman Pope Gregory XII and the Pisan Pope John XXIII, while isolating the Avignon Antipope Benedict XIII, who refused to step down. The Council elected Pope Martin V in 1417, essentially ending the schism.
Learning From the Past
Thus we see that the Church endured a torrid 40 years of doubt and uncertainty as to who was Pope and who was not Pope. The Church survived back then and the Church will survive today. At what cost? Heaven only knows! Yet the problem will not be solved by talking about it, but by praying for God to intervene and restore true order. Constant blogging and posting on the internet is a very poor and impotent tool when compared to prayer and sacrifice. There are too many pseudo-theologians who are blogging and posting in a manner that clearly betrays their lack of the spirit of Christ. As already stated above―Christ came to seek and save that which is lost; and not to destroy. We should take a leaf out of the Holy Scriptures on this feast of St. Peter the Apostle and First Pope, where it speaks of St. Peter’s imprisonment which led to the people praying for him INCESSANTLY: “Peter therefore was kept in prison. But prayer was made without ceasing by the Church unto God for him” (Acts 12:5). Our Lady, in her modern day apparitions has similarly said:
“The secular clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties … They will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger! … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls … and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops! … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God! … Rome will lose the Faith! … Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears! Implore our heavenly Father that He might take pity on His ministers and bring to an end these ominous times! … Prayers, penances and tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners! … Pray very much for the Pope, Bishops, and Priests! … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops!”
Not a word about blogging or posting on the internet―even though Our Lady can see the future and fully understands the internet better than we do. The currency of Heaven, the tools of Heaven, the weapons of Heaven have always been and always will be PRAYER and PENANCE. You can call penance by other names such as SACRIFICE, SUFFERING, etc ― but it ultimately boils down to the same thing―the only difference being whether you are doing it for you own sins (penance) or for the sins and conversion of others (sacrifice), but in both cases you must suffer.
Article 19
Tuesday June 27th, 2023
Perpetual Help For You
Tuesday June 27th, 2023
Perpetual Help For You
Imagine, If You Can!
Imagine, if you can, what the most helpful kindest, sweetest, compassionate, merciful person would be like! Such a person, you must admit, would always be a mere figure of your imagination and could not exist in reality. Yet there is such a person who really exists and that person greatly exceeds your imaginary figure! That person is the Blessed Virgin Mary! Millions of words have been written on the goodness of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Among those are the following words of St. Louis de Montfort―Apostle of True Devotion to Mary―who writes:
“Every day, from one end of the Earth to the other―in the highest heights of the heavens and in the profoundest depths of the abysses―everything preaches, everything publishes, the admirable Mary! The nine choirs of angels, men of all ages, sexes, conditions and religions, the good and the bad, nay, even the devils themselves, willingly or unwillingly, are compelled by the force of truth to call her “Blessed.” St. Bonaventure tells us that all the angels in Heaven cry out incessantly to her: “Holy, holy, holy Mary, Mother of God and Virgin!” and that they offer to her, millions and millions of times a day, the Angelical Salutation, Ave Maria, prostrating themselves before her, and begging of her, in her graciousness, to honor them with some of her commands. Even St. Michael, as St. Augustine says―although the prince of the heavenly court―is the most zealous in honoring her and causing her to be honored, and is always anxiously awaiting the honor of going at her bidding to render service to some one of her servants.
“The whole Earth is full of her glory, especially among Christians, by whom she is taken as the protectress of many kingdoms, provinces, dioceses and cities. Many cathedrals are consecrated to God under her name. There is not a church without an altar in her honor, not a country, nor a canton, where there are not some miraculous images where all sorts of evils are cured and all sorts of good gifts obtained. Who can count the confraternities and congregations in her honor? How many religious orders have been founded in her name and under her protection? How many members in these confraternities, and how many religious men and women in all these orders, who publish her praises and confess her mercies! There is not a little child who, as it lisps the Hail Mary, does not praise her. There is scarcely a sinner who, even in his obduracy, has not some spark of confidence in her. Nay, the very devils in Hell respect her while they fear her! After that, we must cry out with the saints: “De Maria numquam satis!”—“Of Mary there is never enough!” We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought! She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service!” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, §8 to §10).
St. John Eudes on Mary’s Help Towards Us
St. John Eudes―whom Pope St. Pius X called: Pius X called the “father, doctor, and apostle of the liturgical cult of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary”―writes in his book, The Admirable Heart of Mary, concerning Mary’s help towards us: “Since our incomparable Mother is in Heaven, has so God filled her Heart with the light of His adorable wisdom, that she may know all the subjects under her authority, and rule and govern every creature according to the necessities of each and the dispositions of the Divine Will. Our Lady possesses a special knowledge of those who are most devoted to her; she knows God’s designs concerning them, the road they should follow to reach God, the state and dispositions of their souls, all the accidents that befall them, all their possible perils, the pains they suffer, interiorly and exteriorly. She knows the temptations that assail them, the evil Schemes of their enemies and all their corporal and spiritual needs, so that she may assist, protect, defend and strengthen her faithful followers, obtain from her divine Son the help they need most, and be herself the best of mothers to them. From this you can estimate the happiness and advantages enjoyed by those who make themselves worthy to be numbered among the true children of Our Lady’s loving Heart.”
The Heart of Mary is so full of goodness that St. Bernard thus speaks of her: “Why does a human weakness fear to come unto Mary? Nothing in her is austere, nothing frightful, for she is filled with sweetness. Go over the Gospel story with the greatest attention; if you find therein the least mark of harshness or severity on Mary’s part, the least sign of indignation, you may well fear to appear before her. But if, on the contrary, you find (as you surely will) her virginal Heart full of love, piety, sweetness and goodness, then give thanks to Him who in His infinite mercy has provided such a mediatrix for us” (Sermon De verbis Apocalypse Signum Magnum).
“Her Heart is so alive with pity that she never rejects any suppliant coming to her with humility and confidence,” says Raymund Jourdain (provost of Uzes in 1381 and later Abbot of Celles in the diocese of Bourges. This passage is taken from his Contemplations on the Blessed Virgin). It is this loving confidence that we express as often as we recite that beautiful prayer, attributed by many annotators to St. Bernard, and by others to St. Augustine: “Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help and sought thine intercession, was left unaided!” (The Memorare is usually attributed to St. Bernard).
Her Heart is so filled with bounty that she readily grants whatever we ask of her. St. Bernard says: “O blessed Mary, whoever loves thee honors God; who serves thee pleases God; who invokes thy holy name with a pure heart, will infallibly receive the object of his petition” (St. Bernard quoted by Pelberto, lib. 4, Part 1, art. 2). “Who has ever invoked Mary without being heard?” says Pope Innocent III (Serm. de Assumpt.). The venerable Abbot Blosius adds: “She rejects no one, but lends a favorable ear to the petitions of all!” (In Speculo Spirit. cap. 12). “Heaven and Earth would sooner perish, than Mary refuse her help to such as invoke her seriously and with affection,” reiterates St. Bernard, adding: “Let him be silent in praise of thy mercy, O most Blessed Virgin, who having invoked thee in his necessities, should remember not having received thy help!” (Serm. 4 de Assumpt.).
Her Heart is so good and merciful that she extends her kindness not only to the good but also to the wicked, not only to the faithful but to sinners as well. “In this life, thou art a help to the just and unjust;’ says Raymund Jourdain. “Thou dost aid the just man and the sinner; the former by keeping him in the state of grace, wherefore the Church cans thee the Mother of Grace; the latter by bringing them back to divine Mercy, for which thou art named the Mother of Mercy!” (Contempl. B.M. Part 5. cont. 2).
Our Lady’s Heart is so kind and gentle that she helps not only those who implore her aid, but even the careless souls who neglect to invoke her. Listen again to St. Bernard: “Why should we marvel to see her stretch a helping hand to such as beseech her, if she assist even them who do not pray to her?” (Sermon 4 ― de Assumpt.).
The holy Abbot Blasius has written: “Mary spurns no one; to nobody does she refuse her aid. She comforts and relieves all who seek her assistance; she opens her bountiful Heart to all who implore her intercession; she readily succors all who have recourse to her charity and, by an excess of goodness, she often shows her kindness to persons who do not think of her and have no devotion, gently and effectively drawing them to God by means of the graces she obtains on their behalf. Thus did Divine Bounty constitute Our Iady as a supreme gift to mankind, that all might have recourse without fear and with complete confidence” (In Paradiso animae, chapter 18.).
Her Heart is so merciful that she loves even those who hate her. Mary always renders good for evil because she willingly sacrificed her own beloved Son to save the reprobates who crucified Him. Other Fathers of the Church express the same thoughts and assure us that the almost boundless charity of the Heart of Mary extends to all places, times and things in general, through a most abundant communication and eminent participation of God’s infinite goodness and likewise of His divine providence.
As this adorable providence governs and regulates all things created, from the greatest to the least, both in general and in particular, so also does God’s most powerful and merciful Mother, Queen of the Universe, bestow the affections and care of her royal Heart on all things within her realm and subject to her rule. She leads all created things to the last end for which God made them, namely the glory of His Divine Majesty. But her special care is the guidance of rational beings, above all, of Christians, and most particularly of her own devout children, who strive faithfully to honor, serve and imitate her.
Her maternal Heart protects and cherishes her devotees in a unique manner, having her eyes ever intently fixed upon them. She preserves and guards them as the apple of her eye, and assumes the guidance and conduct of their entire life and actions. She leads them by the hand in all their ways, removing from their path the obstacles and hindrances which might make them stumble, or retard their progress. She obtains the assistance and the means whereby they will receive strength and advance more rapidly. She bears their soul in her arms and on her virginal breast through the dangerous crises where their peril is greatest. She assists them most lovingly in the dark passage from this life into the next world, protecting them valiantly from the efforts and snares of the enemies of salvation. She receives their souls in her sweet and gentle hands at the moment of death, and lovingly folds them in her most charitable Heart. She finally bears them upward to Heaven with unutterable joy and presents them with all-surpassing kindness to her beloved Son.
If such is the miraculous goodness of Mary to those who love and venerate her, how can there possibly be any Christians who hold back from devotion to the center and principle of her benignity, her Admirable Heart? Praise, honor and glory be forever to the Most High, who has thus caused the Heart of this incomparable Mother to reflect to mankind the perfect image of His goodness and all-merciful providence!
(The above paragraphs were taken from The Admirable Heart of Mary, by St. John Eudes, Part 4, Chapter 6).
Advocate and Spiritual Mother
From a Catholic perspective, the intercessory power of the Virgin Mary has biblical and patristic roots. Early Church Fathers such as St. Justin Martyr (A.D. 100-165) and St. Irenaeus (130-202) recognized Mary as the “New Eve” (cf. Genesis 3:15) who became the advocate of Eve. St. Ephrem the Syrian (306-373) spoke of Mary as “the advocate of the abandoned,” and Theoteknos of Livias (550-650) referred to Mary “the advocate of the human race.”
At the wedding feast of Cana (cf. John 2:1-12), Mary showed her intercessory power and her concern for those in need.
At Cana there is shown only one concrete aspect of human need, apparently a small one of little importance―“They have no wine!” But it has a symbolic value―it signifies Mary’s perpetual coming to the aid of mankind. We see there the mediation where Mary places herself between her Son and mankind in the reality of their wants, needs and sufferings. She puts herself “in the middle,” that is to say she acts as a mediatrix―not as an outsider―but in her position as mother. We have been given that Mother as our mediatrix by Christ on the cross, when He said to all of us―in the person of St. John the Apostle who stood beneath his dying Savior―“Son, behold thy Mother!” and to Mary He said: “Mother, behold thy son!”
Mary’s intercessory power is found in her role as Queen Mother prefigured in the Book of Kings. When Bathsheba, King Solomon’s mother, makes a request, the king says to her, “My mother, ask! For I must not turn away thy face!” (3 Kings 2:20)―in other words, “Ask, for I cannot refuse you!” The New Testament also presents Mary as the Mother of all the beloved disciples of her son as represented by John the Apostle standing under the cross (cf. John 19:26-27).
Appeals to the Virgin Mary Throughout Church History
Throughout Church history, Catholics have turned to the Blessed Virgin Mary in times of need. The icon of Mary, Salus Populi Romani, brought by Pope Francis to St. Peter’s Basilica for the March 27th prayer service and the Easter Triduum, has a long tradition of turning to the Blessed Mother in times of special need. According to one legend, the icon was painted by St. Luke the Evangelist and then discovered by St. Helena in Jerusalem in the fourth century. Sixteenth century Church historian Cardinal Cesare Baronius believed the icon was of Byzantine origin, and it was brought to Rome during the pontificate of Pope St. Gregory the Great, who was the Roman pontiff from 590 to 604. When a terrible plague broke out, Pope Gregory carried the icon around Rome in a solemn procession invoking the Madonna’s intercession. The plague ceased, and the icon was placed in the Basilica of St. Mary Major.
Other popes have also prayed before the Marian icon in times of need. During the pontificate of Pope St. Pius V (1566-1572) another plague broke out in Rome. Pius V carried the icon to St. Peter’s Basilica and prayed to Our Lady to help stop the plague, which soon ended thanks to her intercession. Pius V also prayed before the icon to ask for Our Lady’s help in the Battle of Lepanto against the Turkish fleet in 1571. In addition, he initiated a wide-scale Rosary crusade before the battle, and he even placed a replica of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the flagship of the Catholic fleet under Duke Don John of Austria. The outnumbered Catholic fleet, aided by a sudden wind shift, was victorious in the battle on October 7th, 1571, and the Turks reported seeing a woman in the sky that struck terror in their hearts. To show his gratitude to the Blessed Mother, Pius V, established the Feast of Our Lady of Victory for October 7th, which eventually was renamed Our Lady of the Rosary.
When cholera broke out in Rome in 1837, Pope Gregory XVI prayed before the icon of Salus Populi Romani, and the epidemic ended. In thanksgiving to Our Lady, Gregory XVI issued a papal bull entitled Caelestis Regina, announcing the coronation of the icon on August 15th, 1838, the Feast of the Assumption.
Throughout the Middle Ages and into modern times, various Catholic leaders have asked for Our Lady’s intercession in times of battle. Before the August 14th, 1385, Battle of Aljubarrota in Portugal, the future King John I made a vow to the Virgin Mary that he would build a monastery in her honor if the Portuguese army was victorious against the invading Spanish. After the Portuguese won, King John I kept his promise, and the monastery, which was entrusted to the Dominican order, remains a place of pilgrimage in Portugal not far from Fatima.
When the Turco-Mongol conqueror, Tamerlane, invaded Moscow in 1395, Prince Vasili asked that the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir be brought to Moscow. After having a terrifying dream of Our Lady leading an army to protect Moscow, Tamerlane retreated. When Poland was invaded by the Teutonic Knights, the armies of Lithuania and Poland sang the hymn, “Bogurodzica Dziewica” — God’s Virgin Mother — and defeated the Prussians in the battle of Grunwald-Tannenberg, which took place on July 15th, 1410, the feast of St. Vladimir.
Our Lady of Czestochowa is another Marian devotion that has been called upon in distress. In 1655 when Sweden invaded Poland, the monks of Trinity Monastery prayed to Our Lady of Czestochowa, and the Swedes were driven from Poland. After this victory, the Polish King, Jan Kazimierz II, proclaimed Mary the Queen of Poland. Soon after, in 1683, the Turkish troops invaded Vienna in an attempt to take over Europe. The Polish King Jan III Sobieski came to the rescue of the Austrian and Hungarian troops but not before stopping at Czestochowa to pray before the icon of Our Lady. In thanksgiving for this victory, Bl. Innocent XI adopted the local Spanish feast of the Holy Name of Mary and extended it to the General Roman Calendar.
Consecrations to Mary in Times of Distress
Throughout Church history, popes have formally consecrated the world and nations to the Blessed Mother during other times of great distress.
In 1917, Europe was in the midst of the First World War, with death, violence and anarchy reigning. On May 5th, 1917, Pope Benedict XV issued a letter appealing to both Jesus and the Virgin Mary to intervene to stop the war. In this letter, he pleaded for an end to the vast conflict described as “the suicide of civilized Europe.” The Holy Father stated that because “all the graces which the author of every good thing deigns to bestow on the poor children of Adam are, by the loving counsel of his Divine Providence, distributed through the hands of the Most Holy Virgin, we desire that the earnest and confident appeal of her afflicted children may more than ever be addressed in this dreadful hour to the great Mother of God.”
Benedict XV, therefore, asked that the invocation, “Queen of Peace, pray for us,” be added to the Litany of Loreto “so that to Mary, who is the Mother of mercy and omnipotent by grace (Madre di misericordia ed onnipotente per grazia)” may be moved “by the agonizing cries of mothers and wives, the wailing of innocent children, and the sighs of all hearts … to obtain for the stricken world the peace that is asked.” Eight days after this heartfelt appeal for peace, the Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children at Fatima in the “Cova da Iria,” the cove or cradle of peace. She told the children that the war would end, but a worse war would ensue if people did not convert.
Protectress in Time of War
As is known, another horrible conflict, Word War II, broke out, and the world was in turmoil once again. On October 31st, 1942, in the midst of the war, Pope Pius XII consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. After the war ended, the errors of Russia — warned about by Our Lady of Fatima — resulted in the Cold War and the spread of atheistic Communism.
In the final stages of World War II, on August 6th, 1945, an American B-29 Super-fortress bomber dropped the first atomic bomb in history over Hiroshima in Japan. The atomic blast generated an unimaginable ground heat of 6,000° C (10,832° F) and a tremendous wind at the sonic speed 2.7 miles per second or 9,720 miles per hour―which is over 32 times faster than the fastest tornado ever recorded―which was 302 mph. Everything within a 1.2 mile radius of the hypocenter was annihilated, instantly killing 140,000 people. Concrete buildings collapsed to pieces and broken glass flew as far as 10 miles away. The atomic radiation generated by the bomb was so unbelievably strong that many persons, who were even outside of the range of the explosion, lost all bodily functions, their cells underwent apoptosis―a kind of cellular suicide, and died within days. Between the blast itself, the resulting fires throughout the city and the radiation burns, some estimate that 200,000 citizens of Hiroshima lost their lives. Yet, in the midst of burned bodies, charred skeletons, and structural damage, just eight blocks from ground zero (just over half-a-mile), a two story Catholic presbytery miraculously remained intact. When an investigation was made, it was discovered that there survived a community of eight German Jesuit priests who were all found unscathed, with only a few minor injuries.
Father Hubert Schiffer, who headed the priestly community, was 30 years old when the atomic bomb exploded at Hiroshima and lived another 33 years in good health to tell of the miracle. The same is said of the other seven priests of the community. Aside from some slight surface abrasions or scratches, they all lived out their days in full health with no radiation sickness, no loss of hearing, or any other visible long term defects or cancer from radiation. Father Schiffer was thoroughly examined and questioned by more than 200 scientists who were unable to explain how he and his companions had survived the atomic blast. He attributed the miracle to the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He declared: “We believe that we survived because we were living the Message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that home.”
To put into proper scientific perspective just how bewildering this survival tale is, consider the expert testimony of Dr. Stephen Rinehart, a nuclear physicist with the U.S. Department of Defense. He said, ‘Their residence should…have been utterly destroyed with a temperature of 2,000⁰ F and air blast pressures of 100 psi (pounds-per-square inch). Unreinforced masonry or brick walls (representative of commercial construction) are destroyed at 3 psi (pounds-per-square inch), which will also cause car damage and burst windows. At 10 psi, a human will experience severe lung and heart damage, burst eardrums and at 20 psi your limbs can be blown off. Your head will be blown off by 40 psi and no residential or unreinforced commercial construction would be left standing. At 80 psi even reinforced concrete is heavily damaged and no human would be alive because your skull would be crushed. All the cotton clothes would be on fire at 350⁰ F (probably even at 275⁰ F) and your lungs would be inoperative within a minute breathing air―even for a few seconds―at these temperatures.
On May 13th, 1981, an assassin’s bullet narrowly missed striking a lethal blow to Pope John Paul II. He attributed the saving of his life to the intervention of Our Lady of Fatima whose first apparition to the shepherd children occurred on that day―May 13th, 1917. The following May, John Paul II traveled to Fatima to thank Our Lady for saving his life.
Helping Sinners
St. Alphonsus Liguori’s book, The Glories of Mary, is filled with accounts where Our Lady has helped those who are unworthy―namely, sinners. Here are just a few extracts:
► ACCOUNT #1―We read, in the life of Sister Catherine of St. Augustine, that in the place where she resided, there was a woman, of the name of Mary, who in her youth was a sinner, and in her old age continued so obstinate in wickedness, that she was driven out of the city, and reduced to live in a secluded cave; there she died, half consumed by disease, without the sacraments, and was consequently interred in a field like a beast. Sister Catherine, who always recommended the souls of those who departed from this world, with great fervor to God, on hearing the unfortunate end of this poor, poor old woman, never thought of praying for her, and she looked upon her (as did everyone else) as irrevocably lost.
One day, four years afterwards, a suffering soul appeared to her, and exclaimed: “How unfortunate is my lot, Sister Catherine! You recommend the souls of all those that die to God―on my soul alone you do not have not compassion!”
“And who are you!” asked the servant of God.
“I am,” she replied, “that poor Mary who died in the cave.”
“And are you saved?” said Catherine.
“Yes,” she answered, “by the mercy of the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
“And how?”
“When I saw myself at the point of death, loaded with sins, and abandoned by all, I had recourse to the Mother of God, saying, ‘Lady, you are the refuge of abandoned creatures! Behold me, at this moment, abandoned by all! You are my only hope! You alone can help me! Have pity on me!’ The Blessed Virgin obtained, for me the grace to make a sufficient act of contrition. I died, and am saved! And besides this, she, my Queen, obtained for me another favor, which is that my Purgatory should be shortened, by enduring in intensity that which otherwise would have lasted for many years! I now want only a few Masses to be entirely delivered! I beg thee to have them said―and, on my part, I promise always to pray for thee to God and to Mary!”
Sister Catherine immediately arranged to have the Masses said; and, after a few days, that soul again appeared to her, shining like the sun, and said: “I thank thee, Catherine! Behold, I go to Paradise, to sing the mercies of my God, and to pray for thee!”
► ACCOUNT #2―A young nobleman named Eskil was sent by his father, the prince, to Hildesheim, a city of Saxony, to study; but he gave himself up to a disorderly life. He afterwards fell so dangerously ill that he received Extreme Unction. While in this state he had a vision, wherein he found himself shut up in a fiery furnace, and believed himself to already be in Hell; but then seemed to escape from and took refuge in a great palace, where he saw the most Blessed Virgin Mary, who said to him: “You are a very presumptuous man! How dare you appear before me? Depart and go to that fire which you have deserved!” The young man then begged the Blessed Virgin to have mercy on him; and then addressed himself to some persons who were there present, and begged them to recommend him to Mary. They did so, and the divine Mother replied: “But you do not know the wicked life which he leads, and he does not even salute me with a Hail Mary!” His advocates replied: “But he will change his life!” ― and the young man added: “Yes, I sincerely promise to amend, and I will become thy devout client!” The Blessed Virgin’s anger was then appeased, and she said to him: “Well, I accept thy promise! Be faithful to me! And meanwhile, with my blessing, be delivered from death and Hell!” With these words the vision disappeared. Eskil returned to himself, and, blessing Mary, related to others the grace which he had received from her. From that time onwards he led a holy life, always preserving a great devotion to our Blessed Lady. He eventually became the Archbishop of Lunden, in Sweden, where he converted many to the Faith. Towards the end of his life, on account of his age, he renounced his archbishopric and became a monk in Clairvaux, where he lived for four years, and died a holy death. Hence he is numbered by some authors amongst the Cistercian saints.
► ACCOUNT #3―The history of St. Mary of Egypt, in the first book of the lives of the Fathers, is well known. At the age of twelve years she fled from the house of her parents, went to Alexandria, where she led an infamous life as a prostitute and was a scandal to the whole city. After living for sixteen years in sin, she took it into her head to go to Jerusalem.
At the time the feast of the Holy Cross was being celebrated, and, moved rather by curiosity than by devotion, she determined on entering the church; but when at the door, she felt herself repelled by an invisible force. She made a second attempt, and was again unable to enter; and the same thing was repeated a third and a fourth time. Finding her efforts in vain, the unfortunate creature withdrew to a corner of the porch, and there, enlightened from above, understood that it was on account of her infamous life that God had repelled her even from the church.
In that moment she fortunately raised her eyes and beheld a picture of Mary. No sooner did she perceive it, than, sobbing, she exclaimed, “O Mother of God, pity a poor sinner! I know that on account of my sins I deserve not that you should even cast your eyes upon me. But you are the refuge of sinners! For the love of your Son Jesus, help me! Permit me to enter the church―and I promise to change my life, to go and do penance in whatever place you point out to me!”
She immediately heard an internal voice, as it were, that of the Blessed Virgin, replying: “Since you have recourse to me, and wish to change your life, go—enter the church, it is no longer closed against you!” The sinner entered, adored the Cross, and wept bitterly. She then returned to the picture, and said, “Lady, behold I am ready! Where do you want me to go so that I should go to do penance?” “Go,” the Blessed Virgin replied, “across the Jordan, and you wilt find the place of your repose!”
She went to Confession and Communion, and then crossed the river, and finding herself in the desert, she understood that it was in that place she should do penance for her sinful life. During the first seventeen years the assaults of the devil, by which he endeavored to make the saint again fall into sin, were terrible. And what were her means of defense? She constantly recommended herself to Mary, and this most Blessed Virgin obtained for her strength to resist during the whole of this time, after which her combats ceased.
After fifty-seven years spent in the desert, and having attained the age of eighty-seven years, by a disposition of Providence, she encountered the Abbot St. Zosimus. To him she related the history of her life, and entreated him to return the following year, and to bring her the Holy Communion. The saintly Abbot did so, and gave her the Bread of angels. She then requested that he would again return to see her. This also he did, but he found her dead. Her body was encompassed by a bright light, and at her head these words were written, “Bury my body here—it is that of a poor sinner, and intercede with God for me!” A lion came and made a grave with his claws. St. Zosimus buried her, returned to his monastery, and related the wonders of God’s mercy towards this happy sinner.
Prayers of Appeal to Our Lady
One of the earliest known prayers to Mary is the Sub tuum praesidium from the third or fourth century. This prayer reads: “We fly to thy protection, O Holy Mother of God. Do not despise our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin.” This prayer manifests confidence in Mary’s power to deliver us from all danger.
The ancient saying of Prosper of Aquitaine, from the fifth century, that the law of praying establishes the law of believing (legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi), which is usually simplified to read: “lex orandi, lex credendi” — the law of praying is the law of believing. This principle helps us appreciate how some of the most widely used Marian prayers affirm her intercessory power in times of crisis. The Byzantine Akathist Hymn, which probably goes back to the late fifth century or early sixth century, contains the repeated refrain, “O Most holy Theotokos, save us!”, and it speaks of the holy Mother as “worthy of all praise” and appeals to her to “deliver men from every affliction.”
Nations Consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
The countries consecrated to Our Lady in general, or the Immaculate Heart in particular, are (list not complete): Albania, Australia, Austria, Bolivia, Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, England, France, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico, Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, Slovakia, Spain, Tanzania, East Timor, United States, Wales and Zimbabwe.
U.S. Bishops Re-consecrate United States to Mary
On April 22nd, 2022, Archbishop José H. Gomez, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference and Archbishop of Los Angeles, invited all U.S. bishops to join him on May 1st, 2020, in re-consecrating the U.S. to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The re-consecration was timed to coincide with the bishops of Canada, who consecrated their own country to Mary at the same time.
Recent Appeals to Mary Around the World
It is amazing what fear can do! Even in these modern days of Liberalism, Modernism and increasing apostasy, appeals to the Blessed Mother have been made by modern Catholic bishops outside Rome―largely due to the scare created by the recent Plannedemic:
March 25th, 2020 — On the Solemnity of the Annunciation, Portugal and Spain, along with 22 other countries, were consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary at the Shrine of Fatima in Portugal.
March 29th, 2020 — Catholics across the United Kingdom rededicated England to the Blessed Virgin Mary. England was first dedicated as “Our Lady’s Dowry” by King Richard II in 1381. This re-dedication of England had been planned since 2017.
April 12th, 2020 — On Easter Sunday, Cardinal Carlos Agiar, the Archbishop of Mexico City, carried out a consecration to the Virgin Mary in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe on behalf of the Latin American Bishops Council (CELAM) and all the Catholics of Latin America. This act of consecration was made before the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe left on the tilma of St. Juan Diego in 1531. Archbishop Héctor Miguel Cabrejos Virdarte of Trujillo, Peru, and president of CELAM, said that “the present time demands that as pastors, we see and hear the afflictions of our peoples and generate hope by turning our sight to our Mother in Heaven.”
May 1st, 2020 — The Italian bishops’ conference carried out an act of entrustment to the Mother of God on May 1st at the Basilica of Santa Maria del Fonte in Caravaggio within the Province of Bergamo, one of the areas of Italy most afflicted by the Coronavirus. The Basilica in Caravaggio is on the site of a reported 1432 apparition of the Blessed Mother to a young peasant woman, Giannetta Varoli.
Historical Prayers that Beg Our Lady’s Help
During the 11th century, the prayer known as the Memorare was composed in Latin from earlier Eastern sources. Some scholars, though, believe it only reached its present form in the 15th century. This prayer manifests supreme confidence in the intercessory assistance of the Virgin Mary. The prayer reads as follows: “Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protections, implored thy help or sought thy intercession, was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.”
Perhaps the most well-known prayer of appeal to Mary is the Salve Regina, or Hail Holy Queen. This hymn has been attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), but scholars today believe it was more likely written by either Hermann the Lame (1013-1054), who was a monk of Reichenau, Germany, or Adhemar, Bishop of Le Puy, France (d. 1098). The prayer reads:
“Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.”
This hymn appeals to Mary as “Mother of Mercy,” and it asks her to turn her “eyes of mercy toward us.” Pope Gregory IX (reigned 1227-1241) and St. Pope Pius V required the Salve Regina to be chanted or sung after Compline during certain times of the liturgical year. The Salve Regina shows how the Church turns to Mary with mourning and weeping to ask for her help as our Mother of mercy and most gracious advocate.
Imagine, if you can, what the most helpful kindest, sweetest, compassionate, merciful person would be like! Such a person, you must admit, would always be a mere figure of your imagination and could not exist in reality. Yet there is such a person who really exists and that person greatly exceeds your imaginary figure! That person is the Blessed Virgin Mary! Millions of words have been written on the goodness of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Among those are the following words of St. Louis de Montfort―Apostle of True Devotion to Mary―who writes:
“Every day, from one end of the Earth to the other―in the highest heights of the heavens and in the profoundest depths of the abysses―everything preaches, everything publishes, the admirable Mary! The nine choirs of angels, men of all ages, sexes, conditions and religions, the good and the bad, nay, even the devils themselves, willingly or unwillingly, are compelled by the force of truth to call her “Blessed.” St. Bonaventure tells us that all the angels in Heaven cry out incessantly to her: “Holy, holy, holy Mary, Mother of God and Virgin!” and that they offer to her, millions and millions of times a day, the Angelical Salutation, Ave Maria, prostrating themselves before her, and begging of her, in her graciousness, to honor them with some of her commands. Even St. Michael, as St. Augustine says―although the prince of the heavenly court―is the most zealous in honoring her and causing her to be honored, and is always anxiously awaiting the honor of going at her bidding to render service to some one of her servants.
“The whole Earth is full of her glory, especially among Christians, by whom she is taken as the protectress of many kingdoms, provinces, dioceses and cities. Many cathedrals are consecrated to God under her name. There is not a church without an altar in her honor, not a country, nor a canton, where there are not some miraculous images where all sorts of evils are cured and all sorts of good gifts obtained. Who can count the confraternities and congregations in her honor? How many religious orders have been founded in her name and under her protection? How many members in these confraternities, and how many religious men and women in all these orders, who publish her praises and confess her mercies! There is not a little child who, as it lisps the Hail Mary, does not praise her. There is scarcely a sinner who, even in his obduracy, has not some spark of confidence in her. Nay, the very devils in Hell respect her while they fear her! After that, we must cry out with the saints: “De Maria numquam satis!”—“Of Mary there is never enough!” We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought! She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service!” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, §8 to §10).
St. John Eudes on Mary’s Help Towards Us
St. John Eudes―whom Pope St. Pius X called: Pius X called the “father, doctor, and apostle of the liturgical cult of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary”―writes in his book, The Admirable Heart of Mary, concerning Mary’s help towards us: “Since our incomparable Mother is in Heaven, has so God filled her Heart with the light of His adorable wisdom, that she may know all the subjects under her authority, and rule and govern every creature according to the necessities of each and the dispositions of the Divine Will. Our Lady possesses a special knowledge of those who are most devoted to her; she knows God’s designs concerning them, the road they should follow to reach God, the state and dispositions of their souls, all the accidents that befall them, all their possible perils, the pains they suffer, interiorly and exteriorly. She knows the temptations that assail them, the evil Schemes of their enemies and all their corporal and spiritual needs, so that she may assist, protect, defend and strengthen her faithful followers, obtain from her divine Son the help they need most, and be herself the best of mothers to them. From this you can estimate the happiness and advantages enjoyed by those who make themselves worthy to be numbered among the true children of Our Lady’s loving Heart.”
The Heart of Mary is so full of goodness that St. Bernard thus speaks of her: “Why does a human weakness fear to come unto Mary? Nothing in her is austere, nothing frightful, for she is filled with sweetness. Go over the Gospel story with the greatest attention; if you find therein the least mark of harshness or severity on Mary’s part, the least sign of indignation, you may well fear to appear before her. But if, on the contrary, you find (as you surely will) her virginal Heart full of love, piety, sweetness and goodness, then give thanks to Him who in His infinite mercy has provided such a mediatrix for us” (Sermon De verbis Apocalypse Signum Magnum).
“Her Heart is so alive with pity that she never rejects any suppliant coming to her with humility and confidence,” says Raymund Jourdain (provost of Uzes in 1381 and later Abbot of Celles in the diocese of Bourges. This passage is taken from his Contemplations on the Blessed Virgin). It is this loving confidence that we express as often as we recite that beautiful prayer, attributed by many annotators to St. Bernard, and by others to St. Augustine: “Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help and sought thine intercession, was left unaided!” (The Memorare is usually attributed to St. Bernard).
Her Heart is so filled with bounty that she readily grants whatever we ask of her. St. Bernard says: “O blessed Mary, whoever loves thee honors God; who serves thee pleases God; who invokes thy holy name with a pure heart, will infallibly receive the object of his petition” (St. Bernard quoted by Pelberto, lib. 4, Part 1, art. 2). “Who has ever invoked Mary without being heard?” says Pope Innocent III (Serm. de Assumpt.). The venerable Abbot Blosius adds: “She rejects no one, but lends a favorable ear to the petitions of all!” (In Speculo Spirit. cap. 12). “Heaven and Earth would sooner perish, than Mary refuse her help to such as invoke her seriously and with affection,” reiterates St. Bernard, adding: “Let him be silent in praise of thy mercy, O most Blessed Virgin, who having invoked thee in his necessities, should remember not having received thy help!” (Serm. 4 de Assumpt.).
Her Heart is so good and merciful that she extends her kindness not only to the good but also to the wicked, not only to the faithful but to sinners as well. “In this life, thou art a help to the just and unjust;’ says Raymund Jourdain. “Thou dost aid the just man and the sinner; the former by keeping him in the state of grace, wherefore the Church cans thee the Mother of Grace; the latter by bringing them back to divine Mercy, for which thou art named the Mother of Mercy!” (Contempl. B.M. Part 5. cont. 2).
Our Lady’s Heart is so kind and gentle that she helps not only those who implore her aid, but even the careless souls who neglect to invoke her. Listen again to St. Bernard: “Why should we marvel to see her stretch a helping hand to such as beseech her, if she assist even them who do not pray to her?” (Sermon 4 ― de Assumpt.).
The holy Abbot Blasius has written: “Mary spurns no one; to nobody does she refuse her aid. She comforts and relieves all who seek her assistance; she opens her bountiful Heart to all who implore her intercession; she readily succors all who have recourse to her charity and, by an excess of goodness, she often shows her kindness to persons who do not think of her and have no devotion, gently and effectively drawing them to God by means of the graces she obtains on their behalf. Thus did Divine Bounty constitute Our Iady as a supreme gift to mankind, that all might have recourse without fear and with complete confidence” (In Paradiso animae, chapter 18.).
Her Heart is so merciful that she loves even those who hate her. Mary always renders good for evil because she willingly sacrificed her own beloved Son to save the reprobates who crucified Him. Other Fathers of the Church express the same thoughts and assure us that the almost boundless charity of the Heart of Mary extends to all places, times and things in general, through a most abundant communication and eminent participation of God’s infinite goodness and likewise of His divine providence.
As this adorable providence governs and regulates all things created, from the greatest to the least, both in general and in particular, so also does God’s most powerful and merciful Mother, Queen of the Universe, bestow the affections and care of her royal Heart on all things within her realm and subject to her rule. She leads all created things to the last end for which God made them, namely the glory of His Divine Majesty. But her special care is the guidance of rational beings, above all, of Christians, and most particularly of her own devout children, who strive faithfully to honor, serve and imitate her.
Her maternal Heart protects and cherishes her devotees in a unique manner, having her eyes ever intently fixed upon them. She preserves and guards them as the apple of her eye, and assumes the guidance and conduct of their entire life and actions. She leads them by the hand in all their ways, removing from their path the obstacles and hindrances which might make them stumble, or retard their progress. She obtains the assistance and the means whereby they will receive strength and advance more rapidly. She bears their soul in her arms and on her virginal breast through the dangerous crises where their peril is greatest. She assists them most lovingly in the dark passage from this life into the next world, protecting them valiantly from the efforts and snares of the enemies of salvation. She receives their souls in her sweet and gentle hands at the moment of death, and lovingly folds them in her most charitable Heart. She finally bears them upward to Heaven with unutterable joy and presents them with all-surpassing kindness to her beloved Son.
If such is the miraculous goodness of Mary to those who love and venerate her, how can there possibly be any Christians who hold back from devotion to the center and principle of her benignity, her Admirable Heart? Praise, honor and glory be forever to the Most High, who has thus caused the Heart of this incomparable Mother to reflect to mankind the perfect image of His goodness and all-merciful providence!
(The above paragraphs were taken from The Admirable Heart of Mary, by St. John Eudes, Part 4, Chapter 6).
Advocate and Spiritual Mother
From a Catholic perspective, the intercessory power of the Virgin Mary has biblical and patristic roots. Early Church Fathers such as St. Justin Martyr (A.D. 100-165) and St. Irenaeus (130-202) recognized Mary as the “New Eve” (cf. Genesis 3:15) who became the advocate of Eve. St. Ephrem the Syrian (306-373) spoke of Mary as “the advocate of the abandoned,” and Theoteknos of Livias (550-650) referred to Mary “the advocate of the human race.”
At the wedding feast of Cana (cf. John 2:1-12), Mary showed her intercessory power and her concern for those in need.
At Cana there is shown only one concrete aspect of human need, apparently a small one of little importance―“They have no wine!” But it has a symbolic value―it signifies Mary’s perpetual coming to the aid of mankind. We see there the mediation where Mary places herself between her Son and mankind in the reality of their wants, needs and sufferings. She puts herself “in the middle,” that is to say she acts as a mediatrix―not as an outsider―but in her position as mother. We have been given that Mother as our mediatrix by Christ on the cross, when He said to all of us―in the person of St. John the Apostle who stood beneath his dying Savior―“Son, behold thy Mother!” and to Mary He said: “Mother, behold thy son!”
Mary’s intercessory power is found in her role as Queen Mother prefigured in the Book of Kings. When Bathsheba, King Solomon’s mother, makes a request, the king says to her, “My mother, ask! For I must not turn away thy face!” (3 Kings 2:20)―in other words, “Ask, for I cannot refuse you!” The New Testament also presents Mary as the Mother of all the beloved disciples of her son as represented by John the Apostle standing under the cross (cf. John 19:26-27).
Appeals to the Virgin Mary Throughout Church History
Throughout Church history, Catholics have turned to the Blessed Virgin Mary in times of need. The icon of Mary, Salus Populi Romani, brought by Pope Francis to St. Peter’s Basilica for the March 27th prayer service and the Easter Triduum, has a long tradition of turning to the Blessed Mother in times of special need. According to one legend, the icon was painted by St. Luke the Evangelist and then discovered by St. Helena in Jerusalem in the fourth century. Sixteenth century Church historian Cardinal Cesare Baronius believed the icon was of Byzantine origin, and it was brought to Rome during the pontificate of Pope St. Gregory the Great, who was the Roman pontiff from 590 to 604. When a terrible plague broke out, Pope Gregory carried the icon around Rome in a solemn procession invoking the Madonna’s intercession. The plague ceased, and the icon was placed in the Basilica of St. Mary Major.
Other popes have also prayed before the Marian icon in times of need. During the pontificate of Pope St. Pius V (1566-1572) another plague broke out in Rome. Pius V carried the icon to St. Peter’s Basilica and prayed to Our Lady to help stop the plague, which soon ended thanks to her intercession. Pius V also prayed before the icon to ask for Our Lady’s help in the Battle of Lepanto against the Turkish fleet in 1571. In addition, he initiated a wide-scale Rosary crusade before the battle, and he even placed a replica of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the flagship of the Catholic fleet under Duke Don John of Austria. The outnumbered Catholic fleet, aided by a sudden wind shift, was victorious in the battle on October 7th, 1571, and the Turks reported seeing a woman in the sky that struck terror in their hearts. To show his gratitude to the Blessed Mother, Pius V, established the Feast of Our Lady of Victory for October 7th, which eventually was renamed Our Lady of the Rosary.
When cholera broke out in Rome in 1837, Pope Gregory XVI prayed before the icon of Salus Populi Romani, and the epidemic ended. In thanksgiving to Our Lady, Gregory XVI issued a papal bull entitled Caelestis Regina, announcing the coronation of the icon on August 15th, 1838, the Feast of the Assumption.
Throughout the Middle Ages and into modern times, various Catholic leaders have asked for Our Lady’s intercession in times of battle. Before the August 14th, 1385, Battle of Aljubarrota in Portugal, the future King John I made a vow to the Virgin Mary that he would build a monastery in her honor if the Portuguese army was victorious against the invading Spanish. After the Portuguese won, King John I kept his promise, and the monastery, which was entrusted to the Dominican order, remains a place of pilgrimage in Portugal not far from Fatima.
When the Turco-Mongol conqueror, Tamerlane, invaded Moscow in 1395, Prince Vasili asked that the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir be brought to Moscow. After having a terrifying dream of Our Lady leading an army to protect Moscow, Tamerlane retreated. When Poland was invaded by the Teutonic Knights, the armies of Lithuania and Poland sang the hymn, “Bogurodzica Dziewica” — God’s Virgin Mother — and defeated the Prussians in the battle of Grunwald-Tannenberg, which took place on July 15th, 1410, the feast of St. Vladimir.
Our Lady of Czestochowa is another Marian devotion that has been called upon in distress. In 1655 when Sweden invaded Poland, the monks of Trinity Monastery prayed to Our Lady of Czestochowa, and the Swedes were driven from Poland. After this victory, the Polish King, Jan Kazimierz II, proclaimed Mary the Queen of Poland. Soon after, in 1683, the Turkish troops invaded Vienna in an attempt to take over Europe. The Polish King Jan III Sobieski came to the rescue of the Austrian and Hungarian troops but not before stopping at Czestochowa to pray before the icon of Our Lady. In thanksgiving for this victory, Bl. Innocent XI adopted the local Spanish feast of the Holy Name of Mary and extended it to the General Roman Calendar.
Consecrations to Mary in Times of Distress
Throughout Church history, popes have formally consecrated the world and nations to the Blessed Mother during other times of great distress.
In 1917, Europe was in the midst of the First World War, with death, violence and anarchy reigning. On May 5th, 1917, Pope Benedict XV issued a letter appealing to both Jesus and the Virgin Mary to intervene to stop the war. In this letter, he pleaded for an end to the vast conflict described as “the suicide of civilized Europe.” The Holy Father stated that because “all the graces which the author of every good thing deigns to bestow on the poor children of Adam are, by the loving counsel of his Divine Providence, distributed through the hands of the Most Holy Virgin, we desire that the earnest and confident appeal of her afflicted children may more than ever be addressed in this dreadful hour to the great Mother of God.”
Benedict XV, therefore, asked that the invocation, “Queen of Peace, pray for us,” be added to the Litany of Loreto “so that to Mary, who is the Mother of mercy and omnipotent by grace (Madre di misericordia ed onnipotente per grazia)” may be moved “by the agonizing cries of mothers and wives, the wailing of innocent children, and the sighs of all hearts … to obtain for the stricken world the peace that is asked.” Eight days after this heartfelt appeal for peace, the Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children at Fatima in the “Cova da Iria,” the cove or cradle of peace. She told the children that the war would end, but a worse war would ensue if people did not convert.
Protectress in Time of War
As is known, another horrible conflict, Word War II, broke out, and the world was in turmoil once again. On October 31st, 1942, in the midst of the war, Pope Pius XII consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. After the war ended, the errors of Russia — warned about by Our Lady of Fatima — resulted in the Cold War and the spread of atheistic Communism.
In the final stages of World War II, on August 6th, 1945, an American B-29 Super-fortress bomber dropped the first atomic bomb in history over Hiroshima in Japan. The atomic blast generated an unimaginable ground heat of 6,000° C (10,832° F) and a tremendous wind at the sonic speed 2.7 miles per second or 9,720 miles per hour―which is over 32 times faster than the fastest tornado ever recorded―which was 302 mph. Everything within a 1.2 mile radius of the hypocenter was annihilated, instantly killing 140,000 people. Concrete buildings collapsed to pieces and broken glass flew as far as 10 miles away. The atomic radiation generated by the bomb was so unbelievably strong that many persons, who were even outside of the range of the explosion, lost all bodily functions, their cells underwent apoptosis―a kind of cellular suicide, and died within days. Between the blast itself, the resulting fires throughout the city and the radiation burns, some estimate that 200,000 citizens of Hiroshima lost their lives. Yet, in the midst of burned bodies, charred skeletons, and structural damage, just eight blocks from ground zero (just over half-a-mile), a two story Catholic presbytery miraculously remained intact. When an investigation was made, it was discovered that there survived a community of eight German Jesuit priests who were all found unscathed, with only a few minor injuries.
Father Hubert Schiffer, who headed the priestly community, was 30 years old when the atomic bomb exploded at Hiroshima and lived another 33 years in good health to tell of the miracle. The same is said of the other seven priests of the community. Aside from some slight surface abrasions or scratches, they all lived out their days in full health with no radiation sickness, no loss of hearing, or any other visible long term defects or cancer from radiation. Father Schiffer was thoroughly examined and questioned by more than 200 scientists who were unable to explain how he and his companions had survived the atomic blast. He attributed the miracle to the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He declared: “We believe that we survived because we were living the Message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that home.”
To put into proper scientific perspective just how bewildering this survival tale is, consider the expert testimony of Dr. Stephen Rinehart, a nuclear physicist with the U.S. Department of Defense. He said, ‘Their residence should…have been utterly destroyed with a temperature of 2,000⁰ F and air blast pressures of 100 psi (pounds-per-square inch). Unreinforced masonry or brick walls (representative of commercial construction) are destroyed at 3 psi (pounds-per-square inch), which will also cause car damage and burst windows. At 10 psi, a human will experience severe lung and heart damage, burst eardrums and at 20 psi your limbs can be blown off. Your head will be blown off by 40 psi and no residential or unreinforced commercial construction would be left standing. At 80 psi even reinforced concrete is heavily damaged and no human would be alive because your skull would be crushed. All the cotton clothes would be on fire at 350⁰ F (probably even at 275⁰ F) and your lungs would be inoperative within a minute breathing air―even for a few seconds―at these temperatures.
On May 13th, 1981, an assassin’s bullet narrowly missed striking a lethal blow to Pope John Paul II. He attributed the saving of his life to the intervention of Our Lady of Fatima whose first apparition to the shepherd children occurred on that day―May 13th, 1917. The following May, John Paul II traveled to Fatima to thank Our Lady for saving his life.
Helping Sinners
St. Alphonsus Liguori’s book, The Glories of Mary, is filled with accounts where Our Lady has helped those who are unworthy―namely, sinners. Here are just a few extracts:
► ACCOUNT #1―We read, in the life of Sister Catherine of St. Augustine, that in the place where she resided, there was a woman, of the name of Mary, who in her youth was a sinner, and in her old age continued so obstinate in wickedness, that she was driven out of the city, and reduced to live in a secluded cave; there she died, half consumed by disease, without the sacraments, and was consequently interred in a field like a beast. Sister Catherine, who always recommended the souls of those who departed from this world, with great fervor to God, on hearing the unfortunate end of this poor, poor old woman, never thought of praying for her, and she looked upon her (as did everyone else) as irrevocably lost.
One day, four years afterwards, a suffering soul appeared to her, and exclaimed: “How unfortunate is my lot, Sister Catherine! You recommend the souls of all those that die to God―on my soul alone you do not have not compassion!”
“And who are you!” asked the servant of God.
“I am,” she replied, “that poor Mary who died in the cave.”
“And are you saved?” said Catherine.
“Yes,” she answered, “by the mercy of the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
“And how?”
“When I saw myself at the point of death, loaded with sins, and abandoned by all, I had recourse to the Mother of God, saying, ‘Lady, you are the refuge of abandoned creatures! Behold me, at this moment, abandoned by all! You are my only hope! You alone can help me! Have pity on me!’ The Blessed Virgin obtained, for me the grace to make a sufficient act of contrition. I died, and am saved! And besides this, she, my Queen, obtained for me another favor, which is that my Purgatory should be shortened, by enduring in intensity that which otherwise would have lasted for many years! I now want only a few Masses to be entirely delivered! I beg thee to have them said―and, on my part, I promise always to pray for thee to God and to Mary!”
Sister Catherine immediately arranged to have the Masses said; and, after a few days, that soul again appeared to her, shining like the sun, and said: “I thank thee, Catherine! Behold, I go to Paradise, to sing the mercies of my God, and to pray for thee!”
► ACCOUNT #2―A young nobleman named Eskil was sent by his father, the prince, to Hildesheim, a city of Saxony, to study; but he gave himself up to a disorderly life. He afterwards fell so dangerously ill that he received Extreme Unction. While in this state he had a vision, wherein he found himself shut up in a fiery furnace, and believed himself to already be in Hell; but then seemed to escape from and took refuge in a great palace, where he saw the most Blessed Virgin Mary, who said to him: “You are a very presumptuous man! How dare you appear before me? Depart and go to that fire which you have deserved!” The young man then begged the Blessed Virgin to have mercy on him; and then addressed himself to some persons who were there present, and begged them to recommend him to Mary. They did so, and the divine Mother replied: “But you do not know the wicked life which he leads, and he does not even salute me with a Hail Mary!” His advocates replied: “But he will change his life!” ― and the young man added: “Yes, I sincerely promise to amend, and I will become thy devout client!” The Blessed Virgin’s anger was then appeased, and she said to him: “Well, I accept thy promise! Be faithful to me! And meanwhile, with my blessing, be delivered from death and Hell!” With these words the vision disappeared. Eskil returned to himself, and, blessing Mary, related to others the grace which he had received from her. From that time onwards he led a holy life, always preserving a great devotion to our Blessed Lady. He eventually became the Archbishop of Lunden, in Sweden, where he converted many to the Faith. Towards the end of his life, on account of his age, he renounced his archbishopric and became a monk in Clairvaux, where he lived for four years, and died a holy death. Hence he is numbered by some authors amongst the Cistercian saints.
► ACCOUNT #3―The history of St. Mary of Egypt, in the first book of the lives of the Fathers, is well known. At the age of twelve years she fled from the house of her parents, went to Alexandria, where she led an infamous life as a prostitute and was a scandal to the whole city. After living for sixteen years in sin, she took it into her head to go to Jerusalem.
At the time the feast of the Holy Cross was being celebrated, and, moved rather by curiosity than by devotion, she determined on entering the church; but when at the door, she felt herself repelled by an invisible force. She made a second attempt, and was again unable to enter; and the same thing was repeated a third and a fourth time. Finding her efforts in vain, the unfortunate creature withdrew to a corner of the porch, and there, enlightened from above, understood that it was on account of her infamous life that God had repelled her even from the church.
In that moment she fortunately raised her eyes and beheld a picture of Mary. No sooner did she perceive it, than, sobbing, she exclaimed, “O Mother of God, pity a poor sinner! I know that on account of my sins I deserve not that you should even cast your eyes upon me. But you are the refuge of sinners! For the love of your Son Jesus, help me! Permit me to enter the church―and I promise to change my life, to go and do penance in whatever place you point out to me!”
She immediately heard an internal voice, as it were, that of the Blessed Virgin, replying: “Since you have recourse to me, and wish to change your life, go—enter the church, it is no longer closed against you!” The sinner entered, adored the Cross, and wept bitterly. She then returned to the picture, and said, “Lady, behold I am ready! Where do you want me to go so that I should go to do penance?” “Go,” the Blessed Virgin replied, “across the Jordan, and you wilt find the place of your repose!”
She went to Confession and Communion, and then crossed the river, and finding herself in the desert, she understood that it was in that place she should do penance for her sinful life. During the first seventeen years the assaults of the devil, by which he endeavored to make the saint again fall into sin, were terrible. And what were her means of defense? She constantly recommended herself to Mary, and this most Blessed Virgin obtained for her strength to resist during the whole of this time, after which her combats ceased.
After fifty-seven years spent in the desert, and having attained the age of eighty-seven years, by a disposition of Providence, she encountered the Abbot St. Zosimus. To him she related the history of her life, and entreated him to return the following year, and to bring her the Holy Communion. The saintly Abbot did so, and gave her the Bread of angels. She then requested that he would again return to see her. This also he did, but he found her dead. Her body was encompassed by a bright light, and at her head these words were written, “Bury my body here—it is that of a poor sinner, and intercede with God for me!” A lion came and made a grave with his claws. St. Zosimus buried her, returned to his monastery, and related the wonders of God’s mercy towards this happy sinner.
Prayers of Appeal to Our Lady
One of the earliest known prayers to Mary is the Sub tuum praesidium from the third or fourth century. This prayer reads: “We fly to thy protection, O Holy Mother of God. Do not despise our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin.” This prayer manifests confidence in Mary’s power to deliver us from all danger.
The ancient saying of Prosper of Aquitaine, from the fifth century, that the law of praying establishes the law of believing (legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi), which is usually simplified to read: “lex orandi, lex credendi” — the law of praying is the law of believing. This principle helps us appreciate how some of the most widely used Marian prayers affirm her intercessory power in times of crisis. The Byzantine Akathist Hymn, which probably goes back to the late fifth century or early sixth century, contains the repeated refrain, “O Most holy Theotokos, save us!”, and it speaks of the holy Mother as “worthy of all praise” and appeals to her to “deliver men from every affliction.”
Nations Consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
The countries consecrated to Our Lady in general, or the Immaculate Heart in particular, are (list not complete): Albania, Australia, Austria, Bolivia, Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, England, France, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico, Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, Slovakia, Spain, Tanzania, East Timor, United States, Wales and Zimbabwe.
U.S. Bishops Re-consecrate United States to Mary
On April 22nd, 2022, Archbishop José H. Gomez, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference and Archbishop of Los Angeles, invited all U.S. bishops to join him on May 1st, 2020, in re-consecrating the U.S. to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The re-consecration was timed to coincide with the bishops of Canada, who consecrated their own country to Mary at the same time.
Recent Appeals to Mary Around the World
It is amazing what fear can do! Even in these modern days of Liberalism, Modernism and increasing apostasy, appeals to the Blessed Mother have been made by modern Catholic bishops outside Rome―largely due to the scare created by the recent Plannedemic:
March 25th, 2020 — On the Solemnity of the Annunciation, Portugal and Spain, along with 22 other countries, were consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary at the Shrine of Fatima in Portugal.
March 29th, 2020 — Catholics across the United Kingdom rededicated England to the Blessed Virgin Mary. England was first dedicated as “Our Lady’s Dowry” by King Richard II in 1381. This re-dedication of England had been planned since 2017.
April 12th, 2020 — On Easter Sunday, Cardinal Carlos Agiar, the Archbishop of Mexico City, carried out a consecration to the Virgin Mary in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe on behalf of the Latin American Bishops Council (CELAM) and all the Catholics of Latin America. This act of consecration was made before the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe left on the tilma of St. Juan Diego in 1531. Archbishop Héctor Miguel Cabrejos Virdarte of Trujillo, Peru, and president of CELAM, said that “the present time demands that as pastors, we see and hear the afflictions of our peoples and generate hope by turning our sight to our Mother in Heaven.”
May 1st, 2020 — The Italian bishops’ conference carried out an act of entrustment to the Mother of God on May 1st at the Basilica of Santa Maria del Fonte in Caravaggio within the Province of Bergamo, one of the areas of Italy most afflicted by the Coronavirus. The Basilica in Caravaggio is on the site of a reported 1432 apparition of the Blessed Mother to a young peasant woman, Giannetta Varoli.
Historical Prayers that Beg Our Lady’s Help
During the 11th century, the prayer known as the Memorare was composed in Latin from earlier Eastern sources. Some scholars, though, believe it only reached its present form in the 15th century. This prayer manifests supreme confidence in the intercessory assistance of the Virgin Mary. The prayer reads as follows: “Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protections, implored thy help or sought thy intercession, was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.”
Perhaps the most well-known prayer of appeal to Mary is the Salve Regina, or Hail Holy Queen. This hymn has been attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), but scholars today believe it was more likely written by either Hermann the Lame (1013-1054), who was a monk of Reichenau, Germany, or Adhemar, Bishop of Le Puy, France (d. 1098). The prayer reads:
“Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.”
This hymn appeals to Mary as “Mother of Mercy,” and it asks her to turn her “eyes of mercy toward us.” Pope Gregory IX (reigned 1227-1241) and St. Pope Pius V required the Salve Regina to be chanted or sung after Compline during certain times of the liturgical year. The Salve Regina shows how the Church turns to Mary with mourning and weeping to ask for her help as our Mother of mercy and most gracious advocate.
Article 18
Sunday June 25th & Monday June 26th, 2023
Help Is On They Way!
Sunday June 25th & Monday June 26th, 2023
Help Is On They Way!
Groaning, Suffering, Hoping for Help
The Epistle for this Sunday’s Mass (4th Sunday after Pentecost) groans in sufferings and waits for help and deliverance: “The eager longing of creation awaits … in hope … to be delivered from its slavery to corruption … All creation groans and labors in pain … We ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for … the redemption of our body, in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:18-23).
In the Gospel reading for Sunday’s Mass, we Jesus come to the help of Simon Peter, who had been toiling all night fishing―but had caught absolutely no fish: “Jesus said to Simon: ‘Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch!’ And Simon answering, said to Him: ‘Master, we have labored all through the night, and have taken nothing! But, at Thy word, I will lower the net!’ And when they had done this, they enclosed a very great multitude of fishes, and their net broke. And they beckoned to their partners, that were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they were almost sinking” (Luke 5:1-11).
This brings to mind another incident where the Apostles are petrified in their boat during a terrible storm on the lake, which results in them crying out for help: “When Jesus entered into the boat, His disciples followed Him. And behold a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves―but He was asleep. And they came to Him, and awakened Him, crying: ‘Lord, save us! We perish!’ And Jesus said to them: ‘Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?’ Then rising up He commanded the winds and the sea―and there came a great calm” (Matthew 8:23-26).
We read of a similar boating incident: “The boat in the midst of the sea was tossed with the waves―for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to them walking upon the sea. And they seeing Him walk upon the sea, were troubled, crying out for fear: ‘It is an apparition!’ And immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying: ‘Be of good heart! It is I, fear ye not!’ And Peter answered and said: ‘Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come to Thee upon the waters!’ And Jesus said: ‘Come!’ And Peter, going out of the boat, walked upon the water to go to Jesus. But seeing the wind strong, he was afraid―and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying: ‘Lord, save me!’ And immediately Jesus, stretching forth His hand, took hold of him and said to him: ‘O thou of little faith! Why didst thou doubt?’ And when they were come up into the boat, the wind ceased” (Matthew 14:24-32).
How true are Our Lord’s words: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) … “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Luke 18:27).
We Need Help!
“Without Me―you can do nothing!” What is it about those words of Our Lord that we do not understand? Our Lord does not say: “Without Me―there a few things you cannot do!” Nor does He say: “Without Me―you can do most things!” Nor did He say: “There are some things you can without Me!” No―He tells us that THERE IS NOTHING that we are capable of doing without Him. How humbling! Yet how true!
Elsewhere Our Lord speaks of this heavenly micro-management that controls absolutely everything: “Be not solicitous for your life and what you shall eat! Nor for your body and what clothes you shall wear! Is not the life more than just food; and the body more than just clothing? Behold the birds of the air―they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns―and your heavenly Father feeds them! Are not you not of much more value than they? And why are you solicitous about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow―they do not labor, neither do they spin! But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed as beautifully one of these! And if the grass of the field―which is today and tomorrow is cast into the oven―God does so clothe, then how much more you, O ye of little faith! Therefore, be not solicitous, saying: ‘What shall we eat? What shall we drink? With what shall we be clothed?’ For after all these things do the heathens seek! Your Father knows that you have need of all these things! Therefore, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice―and all these things shall be added unto you!” (Matthew 6:25-33).
Help is on the Way!
There are many―even countless―ways in which God can help us! He can help us directly or He can help us through others. One of those ways whereby He helps us through others is by means of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In fact, she even had two popular titles as regards the help that she gives to us. One is “Our Lady Help of Christians” and the other is “Our Lady of Perpetual Help.” The feast of Our Lady Help of Christians is celebrated on May 24th and the feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is celebrated 33 days later (now that’s a mystical number!) on June 27th. Most people are totally oblivious to the existence of these feasts and their dates. Unfortunately, that is to their own loss―for especially in these increasingly difficult and dangerous times that we are currently living in, one would think that we would like to get all the help that we can―but we fail to ask, we fail to notice these feasts, or if we know of them, we waste them by not profiting from the help that they offer to us.
We do well to remember the words of Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Akita concerning her help. At Fatima, speaking of herself in the third person singular, she said: “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” Whereas at Akita, she said: … “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
Our Lady and Sea Storms
In the earlier paragraphs we saw Our Lord come to aid the Apostles in stormy conditions, wherein they cried out for help: “Lord, save us! We perish!” (Matthew 8:25). Our Lady of Perpetual Help―through her icon―also did the same thing.
The original picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is a product of Byzantine art. According to many historians, the picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is a partial copy of The Madonna―a picture that was thought to have been painted by St. Luke the Evangelist. The history of this original icon (the partial copy of St. Luke’s painting), now enshrined in the Redemptorist Church of St. Alphonsus in Rome, can be traced back to the year 1495, when the image, already considered ancient in that time, was enshrined in a church on the island of Crete. For a long time, it was highly venerated on the island of Crete.
In the fifteenth century, the island was conquered by the Turks and numerous inhabitants fled away from the island. One of them, a merchant of Crete, took the holy picture―which had already worked many miracles on that island―and boarded a ship to Rome, Italy. When a great storm arose, the sailors began to despair for their safety. Though they knew nothing about the picture, they prayed fervently to God and to the Virgin. Their prayers were heard and they were saved from the storm.
The following passage, written by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, perfectly reflects the above incident: “When the storm of temptation arises, when you are midst the reefs and shoals of tribulation, fix your gaze upon the Star of the Sea―call upon Mary! If tossed by the rising tide of pride and ambition, if lost upon the troubled waters of scandal and contention―look then at the Star, invoke her name! Do the billows of anger, of avarice, of lust batter against your soul―cast thy eyes upon Mary! Does the greatness of your crime fill your soul with terror? Does your wretched conscience beat you down in shame and the fear of judgment paralyze your heart?―then, when about to sink to the depths of despondency, to plunge headlong into despair, then think of Mary! In perils and in sorrows and in fears―think of her, call upon her name! Let her name be ever on your lips and the thought of her be ever in your heart! Follow her―so that the power of her intercession may attend to your needs! Imitate her―for in her footsteps you cannot go astray! Call upon her―and you will not despair! Think of her―and you cannot fail. If she holds you by the hand―how can you fall? Under her protection you shall know no fear! Under her guidance you shall not falter! Under her patronage you shall surely reach the goal!” (St. Bernard of Clairvaux).
Don’t Need Mary’s Help? Think Again!
There may be some who think that they have no need of Our Lady’s help―then let them listen to the following quotes by some of the saints.
St. Albert the Great (a Doctor of the Church), says: “They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish!”
St. Bonaventure (a Doctor of the Church) repeats the same thought when he says: “They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation!”
St. Ignatius of Antioch (a Father of the Church), a martyr of the second century, writes: “A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost!”
If a lack of devotion to her is a mark of eternal reprobation a constant love for her must be a sign of eternal salvation. Many spiritual writers state that devotion to Mary is a sign of predestination.
St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church) says: “It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection!”
St. Anselm (a Doctor of the Church) writes: “He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost!”
St. Antonine is of the same opinion. He says: “As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified!”
St. John Damascene (a Doctor of the Church) says: “To be devout to you, O holy Virgin, is an arm of salvation which God gives to those whom He wishes to save!”
St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church), in his book, The Glories of Mary, says: “The intercession of Mary is even necessary to salvation. We say ‘necessary’, not absolutely, but morally. This necessity proceeds from the will itself of God, that all graces that He dispenses should pass by the hands of Mary, according to the opinion of St. Bernard.”
St. Louis de Montfort adds: “Devotion to our Blessed Lady is necessary to salvation, and that it is an infallible mark of reprobation to have no esteem and love for the holy Virgin; while on the other hand, it is an infallible mark of predestination to be entirely and truly devoted to her!”
St. Bernardine of Sienna addresses these words to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “O Lady, thou art the dispenser of all graces, and since the grace of salvation can only come through thy hands, our salvation depends on thee!”
Our Lady’s Words of Warning
Our Lady even warns us of the consequences in neglecting to seek her help―as is seen in this following words spoken to St. Bridget of Sweden―which St. Alphonsus Liguori quotes in his book, The Glories of Mary. The Blessed Virgin herself revealed to St. Bridget: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on Earth a sinner who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion―for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed [by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned], is so entirely cast-off by God, that he may not return and enjoy His mercy, if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners.”
What Our Lady is saying here is what Our Lord said in the Gospels: “Ask and it shall be given you! Seek and you shall find! Knock and it shall be opened to you!” (Matthew 7:7; Luke 11:9)―of which St. Teresa of Avila says that if we do not ask then we shall not receive; if we do seek then we shall not find; and if we do not knock then the door shall not be opened to us. If we fail to seek out Our Lady; if we fail to knock on her door; and if we fail to ask for help―then we shall be left helpless. As Holy Scripture says: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! … He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (Galatians 6:8; 2 Corinthians 9:6).
Help Yourself if You Want Help!
You have most certainly heard the expression: “God helps those who help themselves.” You can say the same of Our Lady. What does that mean? It means that God (or Our Lady) will only help you if you are prepared to play your part. God (or Our Lady) will not do everything for you while you just sit back and watch as you guzzle and munch on your favorite beverages and snacks. If you are not prepared to help yourself in the things that you are able to do, then God is unlikely to help with the things you cannot do. St. Augustine (Sermon 169, 11, 13) tells us that God could save us without us lifting a finger―but God will not do so: “He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.” Another translation reads: “God created us without us―but He did not will to save us without us.” As the theological principle says: “God will not do the extraordinary where the ordinary suffices.” In other words, God will not perform a miracle when things can be achieved without a miracle. God will rarely cure you of a disease if there is an easy remedy available―even though it might take some effort and some expense on your part.
St. Augustine goes on to explain that God’s help should be more sought for things pertaining to our justification (returning and keeping ourselves in a state of grace) so that we can achieve salvation―that is what he means when her refers to the word “justice” in the following paragraphs. He points out that God’s help does not exempt us from making our own efforts:
“Remove yourself, remove, I repeat, yourself from yourself―you just get in your own way! If it’s you that are building yourself, it is a ruin you are building. ‘Unless the Lord has built the house, they have labored in vain, who build it!’ (Psalm 127:1). God made you without you! You didn’t, after all, give any consent to God making you! How could you consent, if you didn’t yet exist? So while God made you without you, nevertheless, He does not justify you without you ... So stop wishing to have your own justice [justification/salvation]. Do not have your own justice [justification/salvation]―the Apostle Paul counts it as dung! But the whole thing is from God―not, however as though we were asleep, as though we did not have to make an effort, as though we did not have to be willing. Without your will, there will be no justice [justification/salvation] of God in you. The will, indeed, is only ours, the justice [justification/salvation] is only God’s. There can be such a thing as God’s justice [justification/salvation] without your will, but it [justification/salvation] cannot be in you apart from your will, without your will. You have been shown what you have to do. The law has laid down: ‘Do not do that, nor that; do this and that!’ It has been shown to you, laid down for you, your mind has been opened for you―you have understood what you should do. Beg for the power to do it!
“Do not think that just because you call yourself a Christian, you cannot for that reason stumble over the stone of stumbling. When you abuse God’s grace, you stumble over Him. Let there be justice [justification/salvation] in you―but let it be from grace, let it come to you from God―do not let it be your own! Sigh to obtain it, weep to obtain it, believe in order to obtain it. ‘Whoever calls upon the Name of the Lord,’ He says, ‘shall be saved’ (Romans 10:13; Joel 2:32). Or do you suppose that when it says: ‘Whoever calls upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved’ ― it means saved from malaria, or the pox, or the gout, or any other pain of the body? Not so! But ‘will be saved’ means ‘will be just.’ Because: ‘The doctor is not needed by the healthy, but by the sick.’ He explained that when he said: ‘I have not come to call the just, but sinners!’ (Mark 2:17).” (St. Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, Sermon 169).
The Epistle for this Sunday’s Mass (4th Sunday after Pentecost) groans in sufferings and waits for help and deliverance: “The eager longing of creation awaits … in hope … to be delivered from its slavery to corruption … All creation groans and labors in pain … We ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for … the redemption of our body, in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:18-23).
In the Gospel reading for Sunday’s Mass, we Jesus come to the help of Simon Peter, who had been toiling all night fishing―but had caught absolutely no fish: “Jesus said to Simon: ‘Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch!’ And Simon answering, said to Him: ‘Master, we have labored all through the night, and have taken nothing! But, at Thy word, I will lower the net!’ And when they had done this, they enclosed a very great multitude of fishes, and their net broke. And they beckoned to their partners, that were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they were almost sinking” (Luke 5:1-11).
This brings to mind another incident where the Apostles are petrified in their boat during a terrible storm on the lake, which results in them crying out for help: “When Jesus entered into the boat, His disciples followed Him. And behold a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves―but He was asleep. And they came to Him, and awakened Him, crying: ‘Lord, save us! We perish!’ And Jesus said to them: ‘Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?’ Then rising up He commanded the winds and the sea―and there came a great calm” (Matthew 8:23-26).
We read of a similar boating incident: “The boat in the midst of the sea was tossed with the waves―for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to them walking upon the sea. And they seeing Him walk upon the sea, were troubled, crying out for fear: ‘It is an apparition!’ And immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying: ‘Be of good heart! It is I, fear ye not!’ And Peter answered and said: ‘Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come to Thee upon the waters!’ And Jesus said: ‘Come!’ And Peter, going out of the boat, walked upon the water to go to Jesus. But seeing the wind strong, he was afraid―and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying: ‘Lord, save me!’ And immediately Jesus, stretching forth His hand, took hold of him and said to him: ‘O thou of little faith! Why didst thou doubt?’ And when they were come up into the boat, the wind ceased” (Matthew 14:24-32).
How true are Our Lord’s words: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) … “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Luke 18:27).
We Need Help!
“Without Me―you can do nothing!” What is it about those words of Our Lord that we do not understand? Our Lord does not say: “Without Me―there a few things you cannot do!” Nor does He say: “Without Me―you can do most things!” Nor did He say: “There are some things you can without Me!” No―He tells us that THERE IS NOTHING that we are capable of doing without Him. How humbling! Yet how true!
Elsewhere Our Lord speaks of this heavenly micro-management that controls absolutely everything: “Be not solicitous for your life and what you shall eat! Nor for your body and what clothes you shall wear! Is not the life more than just food; and the body more than just clothing? Behold the birds of the air―they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns―and your heavenly Father feeds them! Are not you not of much more value than they? And why are you solicitous about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow―they do not labor, neither do they spin! But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed as beautifully one of these! And if the grass of the field―which is today and tomorrow is cast into the oven―God does so clothe, then how much more you, O ye of little faith! Therefore, be not solicitous, saying: ‘What shall we eat? What shall we drink? With what shall we be clothed?’ For after all these things do the heathens seek! Your Father knows that you have need of all these things! Therefore, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice―and all these things shall be added unto you!” (Matthew 6:25-33).
Help is on the Way!
There are many―even countless―ways in which God can help us! He can help us directly or He can help us through others. One of those ways whereby He helps us through others is by means of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In fact, she even had two popular titles as regards the help that she gives to us. One is “Our Lady Help of Christians” and the other is “Our Lady of Perpetual Help.” The feast of Our Lady Help of Christians is celebrated on May 24th and the feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is celebrated 33 days later (now that’s a mystical number!) on June 27th. Most people are totally oblivious to the existence of these feasts and their dates. Unfortunately, that is to their own loss―for especially in these increasingly difficult and dangerous times that we are currently living in, one would think that we would like to get all the help that we can―but we fail to ask, we fail to notice these feasts, or if we know of them, we waste them by not profiting from the help that they offer to us.
We do well to remember the words of Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Akita concerning her help. At Fatima, speaking of herself in the third person singular, she said: “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” Whereas at Akita, she said: … “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
Our Lady and Sea Storms
In the earlier paragraphs we saw Our Lord come to aid the Apostles in stormy conditions, wherein they cried out for help: “Lord, save us! We perish!” (Matthew 8:25). Our Lady of Perpetual Help―through her icon―also did the same thing.
The original picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is a product of Byzantine art. According to many historians, the picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is a partial copy of The Madonna―a picture that was thought to have been painted by St. Luke the Evangelist. The history of this original icon (the partial copy of St. Luke’s painting), now enshrined in the Redemptorist Church of St. Alphonsus in Rome, can be traced back to the year 1495, when the image, already considered ancient in that time, was enshrined in a church on the island of Crete. For a long time, it was highly venerated on the island of Crete.
In the fifteenth century, the island was conquered by the Turks and numerous inhabitants fled away from the island. One of them, a merchant of Crete, took the holy picture―which had already worked many miracles on that island―and boarded a ship to Rome, Italy. When a great storm arose, the sailors began to despair for their safety. Though they knew nothing about the picture, they prayed fervently to God and to the Virgin. Their prayers were heard and they were saved from the storm.
The following passage, written by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, perfectly reflects the above incident: “When the storm of temptation arises, when you are midst the reefs and shoals of tribulation, fix your gaze upon the Star of the Sea―call upon Mary! If tossed by the rising tide of pride and ambition, if lost upon the troubled waters of scandal and contention―look then at the Star, invoke her name! Do the billows of anger, of avarice, of lust batter against your soul―cast thy eyes upon Mary! Does the greatness of your crime fill your soul with terror? Does your wretched conscience beat you down in shame and the fear of judgment paralyze your heart?―then, when about to sink to the depths of despondency, to plunge headlong into despair, then think of Mary! In perils and in sorrows and in fears―think of her, call upon her name! Let her name be ever on your lips and the thought of her be ever in your heart! Follow her―so that the power of her intercession may attend to your needs! Imitate her―for in her footsteps you cannot go astray! Call upon her―and you will not despair! Think of her―and you cannot fail. If she holds you by the hand―how can you fall? Under her protection you shall know no fear! Under her guidance you shall not falter! Under her patronage you shall surely reach the goal!” (St. Bernard of Clairvaux).
Don’t Need Mary’s Help? Think Again!
There may be some who think that they have no need of Our Lady’s help―then let them listen to the following quotes by some of the saints.
St. Albert the Great (a Doctor of the Church), says: “They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish!”
St. Bonaventure (a Doctor of the Church) repeats the same thought when he says: “They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation!”
St. Ignatius of Antioch (a Father of the Church), a martyr of the second century, writes: “A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost!”
If a lack of devotion to her is a mark of eternal reprobation a constant love for her must be a sign of eternal salvation. Many spiritual writers state that devotion to Mary is a sign of predestination.
St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church) says: “It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection!”
St. Anselm (a Doctor of the Church) writes: “He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost!”
St. Antonine is of the same opinion. He says: “As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified!”
St. John Damascene (a Doctor of the Church) says: “To be devout to you, O holy Virgin, is an arm of salvation which God gives to those whom He wishes to save!”
St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church), in his book, The Glories of Mary, says: “The intercession of Mary is even necessary to salvation. We say ‘necessary’, not absolutely, but morally. This necessity proceeds from the will itself of God, that all graces that He dispenses should pass by the hands of Mary, according to the opinion of St. Bernard.”
St. Louis de Montfort adds: “Devotion to our Blessed Lady is necessary to salvation, and that it is an infallible mark of reprobation to have no esteem and love for the holy Virgin; while on the other hand, it is an infallible mark of predestination to be entirely and truly devoted to her!”
St. Bernardine of Sienna addresses these words to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “O Lady, thou art the dispenser of all graces, and since the grace of salvation can only come through thy hands, our salvation depends on thee!”
Our Lady’s Words of Warning
Our Lady even warns us of the consequences in neglecting to seek her help―as is seen in this following words spoken to St. Bridget of Sweden―which St. Alphonsus Liguori quotes in his book, The Glories of Mary. The Blessed Virgin herself revealed to St. Bridget: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on Earth a sinner who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion―for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed [by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned], is so entirely cast-off by God, that he may not return and enjoy His mercy, if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners.”
What Our Lady is saying here is what Our Lord said in the Gospels: “Ask and it shall be given you! Seek and you shall find! Knock and it shall be opened to you!” (Matthew 7:7; Luke 11:9)―of which St. Teresa of Avila says that if we do not ask then we shall not receive; if we do seek then we shall not find; and if we do not knock then the door shall not be opened to us. If we fail to seek out Our Lady; if we fail to knock on her door; and if we fail to ask for help―then we shall be left helpless. As Holy Scripture says: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! … He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (Galatians 6:8; 2 Corinthians 9:6).
Help Yourself if You Want Help!
You have most certainly heard the expression: “God helps those who help themselves.” You can say the same of Our Lady. What does that mean? It means that God (or Our Lady) will only help you if you are prepared to play your part. God (or Our Lady) will not do everything for you while you just sit back and watch as you guzzle and munch on your favorite beverages and snacks. If you are not prepared to help yourself in the things that you are able to do, then God is unlikely to help with the things you cannot do. St. Augustine (Sermon 169, 11, 13) tells us that God could save us without us lifting a finger―but God will not do so: “He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.” Another translation reads: “God created us without us―but He did not will to save us without us.” As the theological principle says: “God will not do the extraordinary where the ordinary suffices.” In other words, God will not perform a miracle when things can be achieved without a miracle. God will rarely cure you of a disease if there is an easy remedy available―even though it might take some effort and some expense on your part.
St. Augustine goes on to explain that God’s help should be more sought for things pertaining to our justification (returning and keeping ourselves in a state of grace) so that we can achieve salvation―that is what he means when her refers to the word “justice” in the following paragraphs. He points out that God’s help does not exempt us from making our own efforts:
“Remove yourself, remove, I repeat, yourself from yourself―you just get in your own way! If it’s you that are building yourself, it is a ruin you are building. ‘Unless the Lord has built the house, they have labored in vain, who build it!’ (Psalm 127:1). God made you without you! You didn’t, after all, give any consent to God making you! How could you consent, if you didn’t yet exist? So while God made you without you, nevertheless, He does not justify you without you ... So stop wishing to have your own justice [justification/salvation]. Do not have your own justice [justification/salvation]―the Apostle Paul counts it as dung! But the whole thing is from God―not, however as though we were asleep, as though we did not have to make an effort, as though we did not have to be willing. Without your will, there will be no justice [justification/salvation] of God in you. The will, indeed, is only ours, the justice [justification/salvation] is only God’s. There can be such a thing as God’s justice [justification/salvation] without your will, but it [justification/salvation] cannot be in you apart from your will, without your will. You have been shown what you have to do. The law has laid down: ‘Do not do that, nor that; do this and that!’ It has been shown to you, laid down for you, your mind has been opened for you―you have understood what you should do. Beg for the power to do it!
“Do not think that just because you call yourself a Christian, you cannot for that reason stumble over the stone of stumbling. When you abuse God’s grace, you stumble over Him. Let there be justice [justification/salvation] in you―but let it be from grace, let it come to you from God―do not let it be your own! Sigh to obtain it, weep to obtain it, believe in order to obtain it. ‘Whoever calls upon the Name of the Lord,’ He says, ‘shall be saved’ (Romans 10:13; Joel 2:32). Or do you suppose that when it says: ‘Whoever calls upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved’ ― it means saved from malaria, or the pox, or the gout, or any other pain of the body? Not so! But ‘will be saved’ means ‘will be just.’ Because: ‘The doctor is not needed by the healthy, but by the sick.’ He explained that when he said: ‘I have not come to call the just, but sinners!’ (Mark 2:17).” (St. Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, Sermon 169).
Article 17
Friday June 23rd & Saturday June 24th, 2023
Resurrecting St. John Baptist
Friday June 23rd & Saturday June 24th, 2023
Resurrecting St. John Baptist
What a Man! What a Hero!
Nowadays, we have a warped sense of the word “hero”―especially if we are worldly. The more worldly we are, the more worldly our heroes will be. The worldly hero is not the heavenly hero―just as our ways are not God’s ways: “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). The heroes of God and Heaven are saints―and, in Our Lord’s eyes and opinion, St. John the Baptist was one of the greatest saints and therefore one of the greatest heroes.
Our Lord was somewhat sparing with public accolades about other people―which is hardly surprising since He lived and preached humility: “Learn of Me―for I am meek and humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29). The King of kings chose to be born in a cave or stable, rather than a palace or even a normal house. He said of Himself: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests―but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head!” (Matthew 8:20). He did not have a wardrobe like we do with our plentiful clothes―He would even say to His disciples: “Go and preach! … Do not possess gold, nor silver, nor money in your purses, nor scrip [wallet] for your journey, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor a staff―for the workman is worthy of his meat!” (Matthew 10:7-10).
Yet despite all this, Our Lord publicly says of St. John the Baptist: “Amen I say to you, there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist!” (Matthew 11:11). Why? Because St. John the Baptist was a man according to Our Lord’s own Heart and example. Therefore, St. John the Baptist has a pretty good pedigree and an excellent testimonial given by Christ Himself. Hence, there should be much to glean and learn from St. John the Baptist, especially in this month of June, on the verge of his birthday (June 24th).
Who’s Who?
We need to resurrect St. John the Baptist! When St. John the Baptist appeared on the scene, some of Pharisees, priests and Levites thought he might be the resurrection or reappearance of the Old Testament prophet Elias―who had been miraculously taken up to Heaven over 800 years earlier. “The Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and Levites to him, to ask him: ‘Who art thou?’ And he confessed and did not deny and he confessed: ‘I am not the Christ!’ And they asked him: ‘What then? Art thou Elias?’ And he said: ‘I am not!’ ‘Art thou the prophet?’ And he answered: ‘No!’ They therefore said unto him: ‘Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What sayest thou of thyself?’ He said: ‘“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord” ― as said the prophet Isaias!’ And they that were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him and said to him: ‘Why then dost thou baptize, if thou be not Christ, nor Elias, nor the prophet?’ John answered them, saying: ‘I baptize with water―but there has stood One in the midst of you, Whom you know not! The same is He that shall come after me, Who is preferred before me―the latchet of Whose shoe I am not worthy to loosen!’” (John 1:19-27).
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him. He was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light. Jesus was the true light, which enlightens every man that comes into this world … John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying: ‘This was He of Whom I spoke! He that shall come after me, is preferred before me―because He existed before me!’” (John 1:6-8, 15).
Similarly, after Herod had killed St. John the Baptist, when he heard of the miracles Jesus was performing, Herod thought that Jesus was St. John the Baptist who had resurrected from the dead! “King Herod heard [of Jesus’ miracles] and he said: ‘John the Baptist is risen again from the dead … John whom I beheaded, he is risen again from the dead!’” (Mark 6:14-16).
We need to resurrect St. John the Baptist! When St. John the Baptist appeared on the scene, some of Pharisees, priests and Levites thought he might be the resurrection or reappearance of the Old Testament prophet Elias―who had been miraculously taken up to Heaven over 800 years earlier. “The Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and Levites to him, to ask him: ‘Who art thou?’ And he confessed and did not deny and he confessed: ‘I am not the Christ!’ And they asked him: ‘What then? Art thou Elias?’ And he said: ‘I am not!’ ‘Art thou the prophet?’ And he answered: ‘No!’ They therefore said unto him: ‘Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What sayest thou of thyself?’ He said: ‘“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord” ― as said the prophet Isaias!’ And they that were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him and said to him: ‘Why then dost thou baptize, if thou be not Christ, nor Elias, nor the prophet?’ John answered them, saying: ‘I baptize with water―but there has stood One in the midst of you, Whom you know not! The same is He that shall come after me, Who is preferred before me―the latchet of Whose shoe I am not worthy to loosen!’” (John 1:19-27).
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him. He was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light. Jesus was the true light, which enlightens every man that comes into this world … John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying: ‘This was He of Whom I spoke! He that shall come after me, is preferred before me―because He existed before me!’” (John 1:6-8, 15).
Similarly, after Herod had killed St. John the Baptist, when he heard of the miracles Jesus was performing, Herod thought that Jesus was St. John the Baptist who had resurrected from the dead! “King Herod heard [of Jesus’ miracles] and he said: ‘John the Baptist is risen again from the dead … John whom I beheaded, he is risen again from the dead!’” (Mark 6:14-16).
We Sure Need Lots of “John the Baptists” Today!
As they say: “Cometh the hour! Cometh the man!” The meaning is: When the situation is tough, and when the time comes, a man who can turn the tide and win the situation comes. It means that no matter what the situation; a man will appear who can turn the tide and win the contest.
Saints change the world! Satan and Satanists also change the world―and boy, are they having great success right now! Yes―we know―that in the end Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart will triumph! Yet at what cost? With each passing day, our negligence in complying with Our Lady’s requests and fulfilling her commands is costing millions of souls―over 65 million people die each year in the world. Rounding-off the numbers, that is over 178,000 each day, over 7,400 each hour, and over 120 each minute, or around 2 persons per second―and as Our Lord, Our Lady and the saints tell us, most of souls end up being damned. Does something need to change? Who is going change it? Sure―God can change things in the blink of an eye! Unfortunately, He is not going to do so! Our Lady―like God―could triumph in an instant, but that is not going to happen. As theology tells us: “God will not do the extraordinary if the ordinary suffices.” That is why Our Lady of Fatima came to tell us of massive number of souls falling into Hell―asking US to do something about it, rather than leaving it all to God. We, in a certain sense, have to pay for the work to be done.
“You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
Pretty Damning Evidence!
As a Catholic, you have been given far more than anyone else outside the Faith. Just by being a Catholic you are in a privileged category of only 17% of world’s population (1 out of 6 persons)―because Catholics account for around 1.3 billion within an estimated world population of around 8 billion. You are baptized―those others are not! You have received a Catholic education―they have not! You have the help of sanctifying grace received in Baptism and recovered in Confession (which perfects and sanctifies our human nature)―they do not have it―die without sanctifying grace and you are damned. You have direct access to God in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Holy Eucharist and Holy Communion―they do not! The list could go on endlessly. The bottom line is―God has given you far more spiritual riches; far more spiritual tools; far spiritual helps and remedies; and has invested far more in you than the other 83% of the world’s population. What are you doing with all of this?
If you are a Conservative Catholic (in matters of religion: Faith and Morals), then you are among the minority of Catholics. Estimates are hard to come by―but since over 50% to 60% of Catholics are in acceptance of contraception, abortion, cohabitation, divorce with remarriage, same-sex relations, same-sex marriages, etc. Since most have stopped going to Confession and only around 20% regularly attend Sunday Mass―while most of that 20% is Liberal minded anyway―then true Conservative Catholicism can only be estimated at being around 5% of all Catholics. So, if you are Conservative Catholic (by the grace of God), then you fall into a category of being a favored only 65 million Catholics―which is 1 in 20 Catholics, or 1 out 123 persons of the world’s population.
If you are a Traditional Catholic (that is, a very Conservative Catholic―again, only by the grace of God), then you fall into an estimated category of only around 1 million (minimum estimate) to 7 million (maximum estimate) Catholics. This means being just 1 out of 1,300 Catholics, or 1 out 8,000 people in the entire population of the world. It is from you that God expects the most―because He has given you the most, that is to say, the most perfect form of Catholicism, the most pure form of Catholicism. Are you living up to those expectations of God? As Holy Scripture says: “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required! And to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more! That servant who knew the will of his lord, and prepared not himself, and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes! But he that knew not the will of his lord, and did things worthy of stripes, he shall be beaten with fewer stripes!” (Luke 12:47-48). The Parable of Talents comes to mind:
Are You a Profitable or Unprofitable Catholic
“A man going into a far country, called his servants, and delivered to them his goods. To one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one―to everyone according to his proper ability―and then immediately he took his journey. He that received five talents, traded with the same, and gained other five. He that received the two, gained another two. But he that received one talent, dug a hole in the ground and hid his lord’s money. [1 talent was 750 ounces of silver. At today’s silver prices of around $25 per ounce, that would make 1 talent worth almost $19,000, thus 5 talents would be almost $94,000; 2 talents would be $37,500, and 1 talent would be almost $19,000].
“After a long time, the lord of those servants came and reckoned with them. He that received the five talents, brought the other five talents, saying: ‘Lord, you gave me five talents, behold I have gained other five over and above!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because you have been faithful over a few things, I will place you over many things! Enter into the joy of your lord!’ He that received the two talents, came and said: ‘Lord, you gave me two talents! Behold, I have gained another two!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because you have been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter into the joy of your lord!’
“But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that you are a hard man―you reap where you have not sown, and gather where you have not strewn. And, being afraid, I went and hid your talent in the ground! Behold here it is―you can take back that which is yours!’ And his lord, answering, said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not strewn! Therefore you ought to have committed my money to the bankers, so that, at my coming, I should have received my own money back with usury [additional interest]!’ Take away, therefore, the talent from him and give it to him that has ten talents. For to everyone that has, shall be given, and he shall abound! But from him that has not, that also which he seems to have shall be taken away! And the unprofitable servant cast out into the exterior darkness―where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
“What shall I give to the Lord, for all the things He has given unto me?” (Psalm 115:12). “Freely have you received, freely give!” (Matthew 10:8). Are you a profitable Catholic? What use have you put the graces, gifts, tools and helps that God has so generously bestowed upon you? Can you show a decent profit? “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10) and in Canon Law it says: “…the salvation of souls, which must always be the supreme law in the Church, is to be kept before one’s eyes.” How many souls have you been instrumental in saving―though only God saves souls, we are nevertheless instruments He uses; and we choose to be used or refuse to be used. Or have you neglected to do so?
“If any man says: ‘I love God!’ but hates his brother―then he is a liar! For he that does not love the brother whom he sees, how can he love God, Whom he sees not? This commandment we have from God―that he who loves God, must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20-21) ... “Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer―and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By the charity of God, He has laid down His life for us―and so we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that has the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him? Let us not just love in word, nor in tongue, but in deeds and in truth also!” (1 John 3:15-18).
Let’s Start Walking the Walk, Not Just Talking the Talk!
So―as Our Lady of Fatima lamented: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners!’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
Those are the “John the Baptists” that Our Lady needs to resurrect today! Those above words of Our Lady echo the words of St. John Baptist around 2,000 years ago: “‘Do penance! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! … Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight His paths! Ye brood of vipers, who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance! And think not to say within yourselves: “We have Abraham for our father!” ― for I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones! For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that doth not yield good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire! I indeed baptize you in the water unto penance―but He that shall come after me, is mightier than I, and he will thoroughly cleanse His floor and gather His wheat into the barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire!’ And the same John had his garment of camels' hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins: and his meat was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:2-12).
Learning from and Imitating St. John the Baptist
What do we learn from this man of whom Jesus said: “there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11)? We learn many things that can and should be imitated:
The Archangel Gabriel, when announcing the future birth of St. John the Baptist to his father, St. Zachary, had said: “Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard; and they wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John: and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice in his nativity. For he shall be great before the Lord; and shall drink no wine nor strong drink: and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost―even from his mother’s womb. And he shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias; that he may turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people” (Luke 1:8-17).
► HUMILITY: Humility has to be the foundation of all virtues―just like charity has to be the soul of all virtues. There are many things we can learn from Our Lord, but the only virtues that He explicitly stated we must learn from Him were humility and charity: “Learn of Me, because I am humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29) … “This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you!” (John 15:12).
So great was the power and charisma radiating out from St. John the Baptist, that, after hearing him, many believed he was indeed the long-awaited Messias. John quickly put them right, saying he had come only to prepare the way, and that he was not worthy to unloose the Master’s sandals. Although his preaching and baptizing continued for some months during the Our Lord’s own ministry, John always made plain that he was merely the forerunner. His humility remained incorruptible even when his fame spread to Jerusalem and members of the higher priesthood came to make inquiries and to hear him. His whole desire was to efface himself, which is typified by his words: “He [Christ] must increase, but I must decrease!” (John 3:30).
Humility was his staple diet—in dwelling, in food, in clothing. He lived in humble surroundings; he ate humble food; he dressed humbly; and he had a humble opinion of himself. When the followers who loved him began to wonder if he was the Messias, he finally spoke the words for which he is most famous: “I, indeed, baptize you with water. But one mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose shoe I am not worthy to loosen.” It is humility that attracts the love and graces of God—as Our Lady said in her Magnificat, spoken to St. John’s mother, St. Elizabeth: “He hath regarded the humility of his handmaid … He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.”
► DETACHED FROM THE WORLD: St. John the Baptist—as great as he was in God’s eyes—lived away from the world in the barren, bleak lands of the desert. Our Lady, in speaking of St. John the Baptist to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, said of John: “Do not be surprised that John feared and hesitated to come into the world―knowing of the loss which the world threatened, he feared the risk. This fear served him in good stead for entering securely into the world. The fortunate child began his career with such disgust and abhorrence of all earthly things, that his horror never became less intense. He made no peace with the flesh, nor partook of its poison, nor allowed vanity to enter his senses, nor obstruct his eyes. In abhorrence of the world and of worldly things, he gave his life for justice. The citizen of the true Jerusalem cannot be in peace or in alliance with Babylon; nor is it possible to enjoy at the same time the grace of the Most High and the friendship of his declared enemies―for no one can serve two hostile masters, nor can light and darkness, Christ and Belial, harmonize … In imitation of St. John the Baptist, prepare thy heart for all that the Holy Spirit wishes to work in thee―for His own glory and for the benefit of other souls. As far as depends upon thee, love solitude and withdraw thy soul from the confusion of created things. Whenever thy duty to God forces thee to deal with creatures, seek always thy own sanctification and the edification of thy neighbor, so that in thy outward conversation and communication the zeal of thy spirit may shine forth.”
To the worldly Catholics, Our Lord says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning true Catholics, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His true followers, who are detached from the world, He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
Our Lord Himself points to St. John the Baptist as a model worthy of imitation. Speaking of St. John’s life in the desert, Our Lord says: “What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Behold, they that are clothed in soft garments and expensive clothing, live delicately in the houses of kings! … Amen I say to you, there has not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist! … And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:7-8, 11:11-12; Luke 7:24-28).
How many people can Christ find today who are not attached to the world? Unlike St. John the Baptist, we are for the most part “reeds shaken by the wind.” We “are clothed in soft garments and expensive clothes, and live delicately in our kingly houses.” Most people are clothed in soft garments and their houses are better than the houses of kings in days of old! They have many more astounding possessions today than any king had in bygone days―cars, computers, smartphones, televisions, radios, electricity for indoor lighting and electrical appliances, gas and central heating, gas/electric ovens, refrigerators, freezers, air-conditioning, running water for indoor toilets, baths, showers and laundry and dishwashing machines, power tools, lawnmowers, etc. Most people are more concerned about acquiring and accumulating possessions, much more than they are concerned about possessing God and His grace. Even merely 100 years ago, most of those things were not available. All those comforts have weakened the backbone of most Soldiers of Christ and confined them to the couch or settee, from which they might “talk the talk”, but rarely “walk the walk”!
We reject the idea of fighting for Christ and the notion that “the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” Instead, we prefer the quote: “Follow peace with all men” (Hebrews 12:14) and so we believe in being at peace with everyone―even the enemies of the Church and Christ! It is much easier and less stressful than fighting them! The only fighting that we do is among ourselves! We prefer living in the city to living in St. John the Baptist’s desert. We screw our faces and turn up our noses to John’s diet of locusts, but we do love the taste of honey! As for clothing ourselves in camel hair―the closest compromise for us is buying a $3,000 camel-hair coat! As for doing penance―spending $3,000 on a camel-hair coat is plenty of penance and we don’t need more than that!
This reminds us of the parable of Our Lord about the rich man: “‘Take heed and beware of all covetousness―for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of things which he possesses!’ And He spoke a similitude to them, saying: ‘The land of a certain rich man brought forth plenty of fruits. And he thought within himself, saying: “What shall I do, because I have no more room where to put my fruits?” And he said: “This will I do! I will pull down my barns, and will build greater ones; and into them will I gather all things that are grown to me, and my goods! And I will say to my soul: ‘Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years! Take thy rest! Eat, drink, make good cheer!’” But God said to him: “Thou fool! This very night do they require your soul! And whose shall those things be which you have provided?” So is he that lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God!’” (Luke 12:15-21). “For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
► ATTACHED TO POVERTY: St. John was the son of a priest—thus there was no poverty―he could have had an illustrious and comfortable ‘career’ in the service of the Temple. Yet he deliberately chose a life of poverty in the desert. His Temple was the desert and rich trappings of Jerusalem’s Temple he exchanged for the rich trappings of virtues in his soul. Life was far from comfortable, but life was far richer spiritually. His treasure was in Heaven, where thief cannot break in and steal, nor rust or moth corrupt. As Jesus would say: “Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ How hard is it for them that trust in riches, to enter into the Kingdom of God!’” (Matthew 19:23-24; Mark 10:23-25; Luke 18:24-25) ... “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). Yet today’s Catholics―for the most part―are enthusiastic, experienced and expert “mammonizers.”
► ATTACHED TO PRAYER: What was St. John doing for those many years in the desert before God finally launched his public ministry? Building sand-castles? Counting grains of sand? Sunbathing? Of course, not! His mind and heart would have been raised to God—which is the definition of prayer. Would Jesus give that glowing testimonial of St. John if he was not a man of prayer? Of course not! The desert is conducive to prayer—for there is little else there and little else to do! When God’s future chastisement renders earth desert-like (as prophecies have foretold), then those who survive will have little else to do but pray and clean up the mess.
There are many who give God “lip-service” on Sundays and in the few minutes they might occasionally spend in “lip-service” prayer―whereby they automatically, mechanically and routinely “say”―but don’t really “pray”―the Rosary (only 2% say it daily), or whatever other “lippy” prayers they care to “drip from the lip.” As Jesus said: “Hypocrites! Well has Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honors Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me. In vain do they worship Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-9). Instead of being so focused on bettering our standard of living, we should be focused on bettering our standard of prayer!
► ATTACHED TO PENANCE: The word “PENANCE” is related to words that echo its meaning―penalty and penalizing [as in punishment], penitentiary [as in prison], penitence [as in sorrow for sin], penury [as in extreme poverty]. Penance―as well as all those similar words―entails pain of one kind or another. Pain is a four-letter word that most people find disgusting and revolting. Few people want pain these days―and, the few who do, usually accept pain for all the wrong reasons and wrong goals. An athlete will endure pain in order to try and win an earthly reward. A worker might endure pain for the sake of money. Few there are who endure pain willingly for their sins―like the Good Thief on the cross alongside Christ on Calvary, who said: “We receive the due reward of our deeds!” (Luke 23:29-41).
One of several definitions of “penance” is “voluntary self-punishment inflicted as an outward expression of repentance for having done wrong.” Who has done wrong? Everyone! As Holy Scripture points out: “For all have sinned!” (Romans 3:23) … “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Yes―God forgives sin―but Scripture adds: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). Our Lord echoed those words: “I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). He then repeats Himself: “I say to you―except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:5). And His Apostles spread that message: “And, going forth, they [the Apostles] preached that men should do penance” (Mark 6:12). We can link this to Our Lord’s words to the man whom He had miraculously healed from a 38-year-long disease: “Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14).
Which is why St. John the Baptist insisted: “Do penance―for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2). St. John the Baptist himself preached: “Bring forth fruit worthy of penance!” (Matthew 3:8) ― and he himself practiced what he preached. His whole life was one of great and severe penance! His whole life―far from suggesting the idea of “a reed shaken by the wind” (Matthew 11:7; Luke 7:24)―manifested undaunted courage and constancy in practicing penance. “And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching” (Luke 3:1-3), clothed not in the soft garments of a courtier (Matthew 11:8; Luke 7:24), but in those “of camel’s hair, and a leather girdle about his loins”; he came neither eating nor drinking (Matthew 11:18; Luke 7:33) and “his meat was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6).
The desert where St. John lived and fasted and prayed was actually a grazing land, unfit for growing crops―but able to sustain the life of hermits and herds; nor was it rare in those days for hermits to seek a life of solitude in the desert. The fact that he ate locusts (grasshoppers, if you prefer) invariably draws a shudder―but this was not uncommon, and is not uncommon today, for Arab and African people still dry and save them as protection against famine. Wild honey, on the other hand, sounds quite delicious!
Yet for most people today, the following words of Scripture can easily be applied: “God has given him place for penance, and he abuses it in his pride!” (Job 24:23). Incredibly and shamefully, the modern Catholic Church has reduced obligatory penance in the Church (very few people will do penance unless it is obligatory and bound under the pain of mortal sin). Pope Paul VI, in his Apostolic Constitution on Penance, Paenitemini, of February 1966, reduced obligatory Lenten penance from 40-days of fasting to merely 2-days of fasting (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday)―which is a 95% discount! Unbelievably, the Church reduces the medicine of penance at a time when the disease of sin is increasing and running rampant! A doctor would be sued for malpractice and negligence if he reduced the medicine for a patient at a time when the disease was getting worse! This attitude has, sadly and unfortunately, seeped into and imbued most Catholic families―whose life is being far from being penitential, despite the fact that most of them are committing more and more venial sins (which they even fail to see and recognize), or even committing mortal sins with greater frequency. Parents largely, or totally, fail to instill in their children and understanding of the need for penance as well as practical and daily example, encouragement and enforcement of a penitential spirit in daily family life (and not merely during Lent).
Even though we might eat food without being penitential about it as regards quantity―we can be penitential as regards its taste. The principle to remember is: “Bitter is often better!” The Israelites were told to eat bitter herbs with their lamb at the time of the Passover in Egypt. Lemons and limes are more bitter than their sugary counterpart fruits―but they are also healthier. The rind and pith of lemons and limes are much more bitter than fleshy center of the fruit―but the rind and pith also contain anywhere from 8 to 10 times the amount nutrients (especially Vitamin C) that are contained in the fleshy part of the fruit. The same is true for most fruits and vegetables―the part next to the exterior skin is often more bitter, but usually much better from a health perspective. The green part of the red melon is far for bitter―but far more better for you. Comparatively speaking, water is more ‘bitter’ than fruit juices, but it is also, on the whole, healthier for you than sugary pure fruit juices.
Our Lord recommends taking up the cross―which is painfully bitter―if we wish to follow Him to Heaven. “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23). He redeemed us by bitter sufferings and not by sweet words and consolations. For many souls, the teaching of Christ tastes bitter these days―they prefer the taste of the world. Yet, you could say, the teachings of Christ are bittersweet―bitter tasting at first, but turning to sweetness in the end―whereas the teachings of the world are sweetbitter―sweet tasting at first, but always ending in bitterness―as these words of Scripture seem to indicate: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20).
Penance is bitter―but, like many bitter foods, penance is extremely good for you! Try it! Teach it! Just like St. John Baptist―who “talked the talk” of penance and “walked the walk” of penance! His garment, like the tents of Saul of Tarsus, was cloth woven of camel’s hair, and he wore a leather girdle about his loins. Just like food―especially bitter food―there is a huge variety of penance that you can pick from. All of this dovetails with the message of Our Lady of Fatima: “Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners!”
► ATTACHED TO TRUTH: “Herod had apprehended John and bound him, and put him into prison, because of Herodias, his brother’s wife. For John said to him: ‘It is not lawful for thee to have her!’ And, having a mind to put him to death, he feared the people―because they esteemed him as a prophet … But on Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced before them: and pleased Herod. Whereupon he promised with an oath, to give her whatsoever she would ask of him. But she, being instructed before by her mother, said: ‘Give me here in a dish the head of John the Baptist!’ And the king was struck sad―yet, because of his oath, and for them that sat with him at table, he commanded it to be given. And he sent and beheaded John in the prison. And his head was brought in a dish―and it was given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. And his disciples came and took the body, and buried it, and came and told Jesus” (Matthew 14:3-12).
John rebuked and denounced King Herod on account of his adulterous and incestuous marriage with Herodias―the wife of his half-brother Philip. Most people would just “put-up and shut-up”―because what can one solitary man achieve against a king? But John, even though Herod was not even of the Jewish religion and therefore not bound by Jewish laws, and despite the fact that John was likely to fail in his endeavor, he nevertheless spoke out and, after being imprisoned, lost his life and his head for speaking the truth! Today, we are heading in the same direction―whereby rulers and presidents are ignoring the laws of God and doing whatever they want to do! Who will speak out against them? Who will oppose them? Who is prepared to risk imprisonment and execution for standing up for God and standing against those who oppose God?
As Our Lord said: “Everyone, therefore, that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven. Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:32-37).
Today, some of us clearly see “what is coming down the pike” and that our general worldwide godlessness is leading us to the brink of the chastisements that have been foretold by Our Lady―yet, we are afraid to speak and announce these truths to others, for fear of what they might think of us, say to us, or do to us! “During this epoch the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect, and corruption of morals, unbridled luxury and extravagance, an impious press and secular education. The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation, and those who should speak out will be silent” (Our Lady of Good Success).
► ATTACHED TO GOD: Outside of God, without God, independently of God―we can do nothing for our salvation. We can do a lot of worldly things―but nothing towards our salvation. “For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, but suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). At the Last Supper, Our Lord points out this importance of being attached to God: “I am the true vine; and my Father is the farmer. Every branch in Me, that bears not fruit, He will take away―and every one that bears fruit, He will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit! Abide in Me, and I in you [in other words, be attached to Me like the branch is attached to the vine]. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine―you are the branches! He that abides in Me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit! For without Me―you can do nothing! If anyone abides not in Me [is not attached to Me], he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he will burn! If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask whatever you will, and it shall be done unto you!” (John 15:1-7).
It is absolutely necessary to be attached to God, because, as Our Lord said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5), and, as St. Peter said to Jesus: “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life!” (John 6:69). “Jesus is the stone which was rejected by you the builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other. There is no other name under Heaven whereby we must be saved!” (Acts 4:8-12). Hence Our Lord says, as quoted above: “Everyone, therefore, that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 10:32-33).
► HAVING COURAGE: St. John was not afraid to lay his life on the line for God and His Law. Just like Christ would do some time later. He could have remained silent, but Herod was living in sin. Truth would cost him his life, just as truth cost Jesus His life. For Catholics today, besieged by Liberalism, Modernism and a false Ecumenism with false religions, there is a temptation to turn a blind-eye; to be silent about compromises of the Faith; to go along with these false “–ISMS” and to scornfully say, like Pilate, “What is truth?” St. John may have lost his head, but he did not lose his soul, which reminds us of the words of Our Lord: “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell” (Matthew 10:28).
► HAVING AN APOSTOLIC SPIRIT: The Archangel Gabriel said that St. John would be filled with the Holy Ghost and the spirit of the prophet Elias; and that he would convert many souls to God. “Thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways―to give knowledge of salvation to his people, unto the remission of their sins” (Luke 1:76-77). This is everyone’s calling to a certain degree. That is precisely what we should be doing―informing souls about God and leading them to God: “You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:14-16).
Our Lord said that we should go and preach and teach all nations, every creature and bring them to the Faith (Matthew 28:19-20). Priests alone (today just over 400,000) cannot convert and give spiritual maintenance to 8,000,000,000 souls by themselves—that is a ratio of 1 priest for every 20,000 people. Yet Christ commanded that ALL the world be converted: “Going therefore, teach ye ALL NATIONS; baptizing them [all] in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19). Such a conversion command cannot be accomplished by priests alone―it is the work of the entire Mystical Body of Christ. That is why everyone, through the Sacrament of Confirmation, is made a Soldier for Christ—not only to defend the Faith, but go out and conquer more souls for the Faith and ward-off the attacks of the enemies of the Church. “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12).
Today’s problem is the ego! Too much self, not enough God! Everyone prefers to focus on self, rather than focus on God. We tend to speak more of self, than we speak of God. We think more of self, than we think of God. We act more for ourselves than we act for God. St. John the Baptist spoke a sentence about Christ that we should all take to heart and imprint in our minds: “He must increase, but I must decrease!” (John 3:30).
That should be the chief program and goal in the life of every Catholic―that Christ must increase, and they must decrease―to the point that they can eventually be transformed into replicas of Christ and be able to say with St. Paul: “I live, now not I; but Christ lives in me!” (Galatians 2:20). In other words, “It is no longer I that live, but it is Christ Who lives with me; it is Christ Who lives through me; it is Christ that acts and speaks through me!”
As we say at the end of Canon of the Mass: “Through Him, with Him, in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is Thine almighty Father, forever and ever! Amen!” The Church believes in the mediation of Christ alone and His supreme Priesthood. Only “through Him, with Him and in Him” can we reach the Father. Our Lord Himself said: “No one comes to the Father except through Me!” (John 14:6) and “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). We know that our thoughts, words and actions are only pleasing to God inasmuch as they come through Christ.
► NOT RULED BY HUMAN RESPECT: “The Lord is in Heaven; and there is no respect of persons with Him” (Ephesians 6:9). “There is no respect of persons with God.” (Romans 2:11). “God is not a respecter of persons” (Acts of Apostles 10:34). “There is no respect of persons with God” Colossians 3:25). “Like father, like son” they say―and this is especially true of Christ and His heavenly Father. If His Father had no respect of persons, then neither did Christ―even His enemies admitted that: “Master, we know that Thou art a true speaker! … Neither carest thou for any man―for thou dost not regard the person of men!’” (Matthew 22:15-16). Our Lord did not cave-in to human respect. If necessary, He would rebuke His own Apostles―as St. Peter found out when He tried to prevent Jesus from going to Jerusalem for His appointment with arrest, torture and crucifixion: “Jesus, turning, said to Peter: ‘Go behind Me, Satan! You are a scandal to Me! Because you savor not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!’” (Matthew 16:21-23).
Such was the courage and absence of human respect (fear of what others might think, say or do) on the part of St. John the Baptist. Even before Our Lord had His skirmishes with the Scribes and Pharisees, St. John the Baptist was pointing out their errors and hypocrisy: “And seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, John said to them: ‘Ye brood of vipers! Who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth, therefore, fruit worthy of penance! And think not to say within yourselves: ‘We have Abraham for our father!’ For I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham out of these stones! For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees! Every tree, therefore, that does not yield good fruit―shall be cut down, and cast into the fire!” (Matthew 3:7-10).
Later, St. John the Baptist reproaches King Herod for living in adultery with his own brother’s wife. “For Herod himself had sent and apprehended John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, the wife of Philip his brother, because he had married her. For John said to Herod: ‘It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife!’” (Mark 6:17-18). After a foolish promise to Salome the daughter of Herodias, after she had danced for him, Herod ended up committing murder. “Sending an executioner, Herod commanded that John’s head should be brought in a dish. And he beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in a dish: and gave it to the girl [Salome], and the girl gave it to her mother [Herodias]” (Mark 16:27-28). St. John perhaps knew or sensed his fate before even reprimanding Herod, but he corrected him anyway, not worrying about Herod’s feelings, or his own security or life—the truth was what worried him.
Nowadays, we have a warped sense of the word “hero”―especially if we are worldly. The more worldly we are, the more worldly our heroes will be. The worldly hero is not the heavenly hero―just as our ways are not God’s ways: “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). The heroes of God and Heaven are saints―and, in Our Lord’s eyes and opinion, St. John the Baptist was one of the greatest saints and therefore one of the greatest heroes.
Our Lord was somewhat sparing with public accolades about other people―which is hardly surprising since He lived and preached humility: “Learn of Me―for I am meek and humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29). The King of kings chose to be born in a cave or stable, rather than a palace or even a normal house. He said of Himself: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests―but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head!” (Matthew 8:20). He did not have a wardrobe like we do with our plentiful clothes―He would even say to His disciples: “Go and preach! … Do not possess gold, nor silver, nor money in your purses, nor scrip [wallet] for your journey, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor a staff―for the workman is worthy of his meat!” (Matthew 10:7-10).
Yet despite all this, Our Lord publicly says of St. John the Baptist: “Amen I say to you, there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist!” (Matthew 11:11). Why? Because St. John the Baptist was a man according to Our Lord’s own Heart and example. Therefore, St. John the Baptist has a pretty good pedigree and an excellent testimonial given by Christ Himself. Hence, there should be much to glean and learn from St. John the Baptist, especially in this month of June, on the verge of his birthday (June 24th).
Who’s Who?
We need to resurrect St. John the Baptist! When St. John the Baptist appeared on the scene, some of Pharisees, priests and Levites thought he might be the resurrection or reappearance of the Old Testament prophet Elias―who had been miraculously taken up to Heaven over 800 years earlier. “The Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and Levites to him, to ask him: ‘Who art thou?’ And he confessed and did not deny and he confessed: ‘I am not the Christ!’ And they asked him: ‘What then? Art thou Elias?’ And he said: ‘I am not!’ ‘Art thou the prophet?’ And he answered: ‘No!’ They therefore said unto him: ‘Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What sayest thou of thyself?’ He said: ‘“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord” ― as said the prophet Isaias!’ And they that were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him and said to him: ‘Why then dost thou baptize, if thou be not Christ, nor Elias, nor the prophet?’ John answered them, saying: ‘I baptize with water―but there has stood One in the midst of you, Whom you know not! The same is He that shall come after me, Who is preferred before me―the latchet of Whose shoe I am not worthy to loosen!’” (John 1:19-27).
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him. He was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light. Jesus was the true light, which enlightens every man that comes into this world … John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying: ‘This was He of Whom I spoke! He that shall come after me, is preferred before me―because He existed before me!’” (John 1:6-8, 15).
Similarly, after Herod had killed St. John the Baptist, when he heard of the miracles Jesus was performing, Herod thought that Jesus was St. John the Baptist who had resurrected from the dead! “King Herod heard [of Jesus’ miracles] and he said: ‘John the Baptist is risen again from the dead … John whom I beheaded, he is risen again from the dead!’” (Mark 6:14-16).
We need to resurrect St. John the Baptist! When St. John the Baptist appeared on the scene, some of Pharisees, priests and Levites thought he might be the resurrection or reappearance of the Old Testament prophet Elias―who had been miraculously taken up to Heaven over 800 years earlier. “The Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and Levites to him, to ask him: ‘Who art thou?’ And he confessed and did not deny and he confessed: ‘I am not the Christ!’ And they asked him: ‘What then? Art thou Elias?’ And he said: ‘I am not!’ ‘Art thou the prophet?’ And he answered: ‘No!’ They therefore said unto him: ‘Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What sayest thou of thyself?’ He said: ‘“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord” ― as said the prophet Isaias!’ And they that were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him and said to him: ‘Why then dost thou baptize, if thou be not Christ, nor Elias, nor the prophet?’ John answered them, saying: ‘I baptize with water―but there has stood One in the midst of you, Whom you know not! The same is He that shall come after me, Who is preferred before me―the latchet of Whose shoe I am not worthy to loosen!’” (John 1:19-27).
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him. He was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light. Jesus was the true light, which enlightens every man that comes into this world … John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying: ‘This was He of Whom I spoke! He that shall come after me, is preferred before me―because He existed before me!’” (John 1:6-8, 15).
Similarly, after Herod had killed St. John the Baptist, when he heard of the miracles Jesus was performing, Herod thought that Jesus was St. John the Baptist who had resurrected from the dead! “King Herod heard [of Jesus’ miracles] and he said: ‘John the Baptist is risen again from the dead … John whom I beheaded, he is risen again from the dead!’” (Mark 6:14-16).
We Sure Need Lots of “John the Baptists” Today!
As they say: “Cometh the hour! Cometh the man!” The meaning is: When the situation is tough, and when the time comes, a man who can turn the tide and win the situation comes. It means that no matter what the situation; a man will appear who can turn the tide and win the contest.
Saints change the world! Satan and Satanists also change the world―and boy, are they having great success right now! Yes―we know―that in the end Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart will triumph! Yet at what cost? With each passing day, our negligence in complying with Our Lady’s requests and fulfilling her commands is costing millions of souls―over 65 million people die each year in the world. Rounding-off the numbers, that is over 178,000 each day, over 7,400 each hour, and over 120 each minute, or around 2 persons per second―and as Our Lord, Our Lady and the saints tell us, most of souls end up being damned. Does something need to change? Who is going change it? Sure―God can change things in the blink of an eye! Unfortunately, He is not going to do so! Our Lady―like God―could triumph in an instant, but that is not going to happen. As theology tells us: “God will not do the extraordinary if the ordinary suffices.” That is why Our Lady of Fatima came to tell us of massive number of souls falling into Hell―asking US to do something about it, rather than leaving it all to God. We, in a certain sense, have to pay for the work to be done.
“You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
Pretty Damning Evidence!
As a Catholic, you have been given far more than anyone else outside the Faith. Just by being a Catholic you are in a privileged category of only 17% of world’s population (1 out of 6 persons)―because Catholics account for around 1.3 billion within an estimated world population of around 8 billion. You are baptized―those others are not! You have received a Catholic education―they have not! You have the help of sanctifying grace received in Baptism and recovered in Confession (which perfects and sanctifies our human nature)―they do not have it―die without sanctifying grace and you are damned. You have direct access to God in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Holy Eucharist and Holy Communion―they do not! The list could go on endlessly. The bottom line is―God has given you far more spiritual riches; far more spiritual tools; far spiritual helps and remedies; and has invested far more in you than the other 83% of the world’s population. What are you doing with all of this?
If you are a Conservative Catholic (in matters of religion: Faith and Morals), then you are among the minority of Catholics. Estimates are hard to come by―but since over 50% to 60% of Catholics are in acceptance of contraception, abortion, cohabitation, divorce with remarriage, same-sex relations, same-sex marriages, etc. Since most have stopped going to Confession and only around 20% regularly attend Sunday Mass―while most of that 20% is Liberal minded anyway―then true Conservative Catholicism can only be estimated at being around 5% of all Catholics. So, if you are Conservative Catholic (by the grace of God), then you fall into a category of being a favored only 65 million Catholics―which is 1 in 20 Catholics, or 1 out 123 persons of the world’s population.
If you are a Traditional Catholic (that is, a very Conservative Catholic―again, only by the grace of God), then you fall into an estimated category of only around 1 million (minimum estimate) to 7 million (maximum estimate) Catholics. This means being just 1 out of 1,300 Catholics, or 1 out 8,000 people in the entire population of the world. It is from you that God expects the most―because He has given you the most, that is to say, the most perfect form of Catholicism, the most pure form of Catholicism. Are you living up to those expectations of God? As Holy Scripture says: “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required! And to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more! That servant who knew the will of his lord, and prepared not himself, and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes! But he that knew not the will of his lord, and did things worthy of stripes, he shall be beaten with fewer stripes!” (Luke 12:47-48). The Parable of Talents comes to mind:
Are You a Profitable or Unprofitable Catholic
“A man going into a far country, called his servants, and delivered to them his goods. To one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one―to everyone according to his proper ability―and then immediately he took his journey. He that received five talents, traded with the same, and gained other five. He that received the two, gained another two. But he that received one talent, dug a hole in the ground and hid his lord’s money. [1 talent was 750 ounces of silver. At today’s silver prices of around $25 per ounce, that would make 1 talent worth almost $19,000, thus 5 talents would be almost $94,000; 2 talents would be $37,500, and 1 talent would be almost $19,000].
“After a long time, the lord of those servants came and reckoned with them. He that received the five talents, brought the other five talents, saying: ‘Lord, you gave me five talents, behold I have gained other five over and above!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because you have been faithful over a few things, I will place you over many things! Enter into the joy of your lord!’ He that received the two talents, came and said: ‘Lord, you gave me two talents! Behold, I have gained another two!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because you have been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter into the joy of your lord!’
“But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that you are a hard man―you reap where you have not sown, and gather where you have not strewn. And, being afraid, I went and hid your talent in the ground! Behold here it is―you can take back that which is yours!’ And his lord, answering, said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not strewn! Therefore you ought to have committed my money to the bankers, so that, at my coming, I should have received my own money back with usury [additional interest]!’ Take away, therefore, the talent from him and give it to him that has ten talents. For to everyone that has, shall be given, and he shall abound! But from him that has not, that also which he seems to have shall be taken away! And the unprofitable servant cast out into the exterior darkness―where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
“What shall I give to the Lord, for all the things He has given unto me?” (Psalm 115:12). “Freely have you received, freely give!” (Matthew 10:8). Are you a profitable Catholic? What use have you put the graces, gifts, tools and helps that God has so generously bestowed upon you? Can you show a decent profit? “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10) and in Canon Law it says: “…the salvation of souls, which must always be the supreme law in the Church, is to be kept before one’s eyes.” How many souls have you been instrumental in saving―though only God saves souls, we are nevertheless instruments He uses; and we choose to be used or refuse to be used. Or have you neglected to do so?
“If any man says: ‘I love God!’ but hates his brother―then he is a liar! For he that does not love the brother whom he sees, how can he love God, Whom he sees not? This commandment we have from God―that he who loves God, must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20-21) ... “Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer―and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By the charity of God, He has laid down His life for us―and so we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that has the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him? Let us not just love in word, nor in tongue, but in deeds and in truth also!” (1 John 3:15-18).
Let’s Start Walking the Walk, Not Just Talking the Talk!
So―as Our Lady of Fatima lamented: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners!’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
Those are the “John the Baptists” that Our Lady needs to resurrect today! Those above words of Our Lady echo the words of St. John Baptist around 2,000 years ago: “‘Do penance! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! … Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight His paths! Ye brood of vipers, who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance! And think not to say within yourselves: “We have Abraham for our father!” ― for I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones! For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that doth not yield good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire! I indeed baptize you in the water unto penance―but He that shall come after me, is mightier than I, and he will thoroughly cleanse His floor and gather His wheat into the barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire!’ And the same John had his garment of camels' hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins: and his meat was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:2-12).
Learning from and Imitating St. John the Baptist
What do we learn from this man of whom Jesus said: “there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11)? We learn many things that can and should be imitated:
The Archangel Gabriel, when announcing the future birth of St. John the Baptist to his father, St. Zachary, had said: “Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard; and they wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John: and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice in his nativity. For he shall be great before the Lord; and shall drink no wine nor strong drink: and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost―even from his mother’s womb. And he shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias; that he may turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people” (Luke 1:8-17).
► HUMILITY: Humility has to be the foundation of all virtues―just like charity has to be the soul of all virtues. There are many things we can learn from Our Lord, but the only virtues that He explicitly stated we must learn from Him were humility and charity: “Learn of Me, because I am humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29) … “This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you!” (John 15:12).
So great was the power and charisma radiating out from St. John the Baptist, that, after hearing him, many believed he was indeed the long-awaited Messias. John quickly put them right, saying he had come only to prepare the way, and that he was not worthy to unloose the Master’s sandals. Although his preaching and baptizing continued for some months during the Our Lord’s own ministry, John always made plain that he was merely the forerunner. His humility remained incorruptible even when his fame spread to Jerusalem and members of the higher priesthood came to make inquiries and to hear him. His whole desire was to efface himself, which is typified by his words: “He [Christ] must increase, but I must decrease!” (John 3:30).
Humility was his staple diet—in dwelling, in food, in clothing. He lived in humble surroundings; he ate humble food; he dressed humbly; and he had a humble opinion of himself. When the followers who loved him began to wonder if he was the Messias, he finally spoke the words for which he is most famous: “I, indeed, baptize you with water. But one mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose shoe I am not worthy to loosen.” It is humility that attracts the love and graces of God—as Our Lady said in her Magnificat, spoken to St. John’s mother, St. Elizabeth: “He hath regarded the humility of his handmaid … He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.”
► DETACHED FROM THE WORLD: St. John the Baptist—as great as he was in God’s eyes—lived away from the world in the barren, bleak lands of the desert. Our Lady, in speaking of St. John the Baptist to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, said of John: “Do not be surprised that John feared and hesitated to come into the world―knowing of the loss which the world threatened, he feared the risk. This fear served him in good stead for entering securely into the world. The fortunate child began his career with such disgust and abhorrence of all earthly things, that his horror never became less intense. He made no peace with the flesh, nor partook of its poison, nor allowed vanity to enter his senses, nor obstruct his eyes. In abhorrence of the world and of worldly things, he gave his life for justice. The citizen of the true Jerusalem cannot be in peace or in alliance with Babylon; nor is it possible to enjoy at the same time the grace of the Most High and the friendship of his declared enemies―for no one can serve two hostile masters, nor can light and darkness, Christ and Belial, harmonize … In imitation of St. John the Baptist, prepare thy heart for all that the Holy Spirit wishes to work in thee―for His own glory and for the benefit of other souls. As far as depends upon thee, love solitude and withdraw thy soul from the confusion of created things. Whenever thy duty to God forces thee to deal with creatures, seek always thy own sanctification and the edification of thy neighbor, so that in thy outward conversation and communication the zeal of thy spirit may shine forth.”
To the worldly Catholics, Our Lord says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning true Catholics, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His true followers, who are detached from the world, He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
Our Lord Himself points to St. John the Baptist as a model worthy of imitation. Speaking of St. John’s life in the desert, Our Lord says: “What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Behold, they that are clothed in soft garments and expensive clothing, live delicately in the houses of kings! … Amen I say to you, there has not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist! … And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:7-8, 11:11-12; Luke 7:24-28).
How many people can Christ find today who are not attached to the world? Unlike St. John the Baptist, we are for the most part “reeds shaken by the wind.” We “are clothed in soft garments and expensive clothes, and live delicately in our kingly houses.” Most people are clothed in soft garments and their houses are better than the houses of kings in days of old! They have many more astounding possessions today than any king had in bygone days―cars, computers, smartphones, televisions, radios, electricity for indoor lighting and electrical appliances, gas and central heating, gas/electric ovens, refrigerators, freezers, air-conditioning, running water for indoor toilets, baths, showers and laundry and dishwashing machines, power tools, lawnmowers, etc. Most people are more concerned about acquiring and accumulating possessions, much more than they are concerned about possessing God and His grace. Even merely 100 years ago, most of those things were not available. All those comforts have weakened the backbone of most Soldiers of Christ and confined them to the couch or settee, from which they might “talk the talk”, but rarely “walk the walk”!
We reject the idea of fighting for Christ and the notion that “the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” Instead, we prefer the quote: “Follow peace with all men” (Hebrews 12:14) and so we believe in being at peace with everyone―even the enemies of the Church and Christ! It is much easier and less stressful than fighting them! The only fighting that we do is among ourselves! We prefer living in the city to living in St. John the Baptist’s desert. We screw our faces and turn up our noses to John’s diet of locusts, but we do love the taste of honey! As for clothing ourselves in camel hair―the closest compromise for us is buying a $3,000 camel-hair coat! As for doing penance―spending $3,000 on a camel-hair coat is plenty of penance and we don’t need more than that!
This reminds us of the parable of Our Lord about the rich man: “‘Take heed and beware of all covetousness―for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of things which he possesses!’ And He spoke a similitude to them, saying: ‘The land of a certain rich man brought forth plenty of fruits. And he thought within himself, saying: “What shall I do, because I have no more room where to put my fruits?” And he said: “This will I do! I will pull down my barns, and will build greater ones; and into them will I gather all things that are grown to me, and my goods! And I will say to my soul: ‘Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years! Take thy rest! Eat, drink, make good cheer!’” But God said to him: “Thou fool! This very night do they require your soul! And whose shall those things be which you have provided?” So is he that lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God!’” (Luke 12:15-21). “For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
► ATTACHED TO POVERTY: St. John was the son of a priest—thus there was no poverty―he could have had an illustrious and comfortable ‘career’ in the service of the Temple. Yet he deliberately chose a life of poverty in the desert. His Temple was the desert and rich trappings of Jerusalem’s Temple he exchanged for the rich trappings of virtues in his soul. Life was far from comfortable, but life was far richer spiritually. His treasure was in Heaven, where thief cannot break in and steal, nor rust or moth corrupt. As Jesus would say: “Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ How hard is it for them that trust in riches, to enter into the Kingdom of God!’” (Matthew 19:23-24; Mark 10:23-25; Luke 18:24-25) ... “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). Yet today’s Catholics―for the most part―are enthusiastic, experienced and expert “mammonizers.”
► ATTACHED TO PRAYER: What was St. John doing for those many years in the desert before God finally launched his public ministry? Building sand-castles? Counting grains of sand? Sunbathing? Of course, not! His mind and heart would have been raised to God—which is the definition of prayer. Would Jesus give that glowing testimonial of St. John if he was not a man of prayer? Of course not! The desert is conducive to prayer—for there is little else there and little else to do! When God’s future chastisement renders earth desert-like (as prophecies have foretold), then those who survive will have little else to do but pray and clean up the mess.
There are many who give God “lip-service” on Sundays and in the few minutes they might occasionally spend in “lip-service” prayer―whereby they automatically, mechanically and routinely “say”―but don’t really “pray”―the Rosary (only 2% say it daily), or whatever other “lippy” prayers they care to “drip from the lip.” As Jesus said: “Hypocrites! Well has Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honors Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me. In vain do they worship Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-9). Instead of being so focused on bettering our standard of living, we should be focused on bettering our standard of prayer!
► ATTACHED TO PENANCE: The word “PENANCE” is related to words that echo its meaning―penalty and penalizing [as in punishment], penitentiary [as in prison], penitence [as in sorrow for sin], penury [as in extreme poverty]. Penance―as well as all those similar words―entails pain of one kind or another. Pain is a four-letter word that most people find disgusting and revolting. Few people want pain these days―and, the few who do, usually accept pain for all the wrong reasons and wrong goals. An athlete will endure pain in order to try and win an earthly reward. A worker might endure pain for the sake of money. Few there are who endure pain willingly for their sins―like the Good Thief on the cross alongside Christ on Calvary, who said: “We receive the due reward of our deeds!” (Luke 23:29-41).
One of several definitions of “penance” is “voluntary self-punishment inflicted as an outward expression of repentance for having done wrong.” Who has done wrong? Everyone! As Holy Scripture points out: “For all have sinned!” (Romans 3:23) … “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Yes―God forgives sin―but Scripture adds: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). Our Lord echoed those words: “I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). He then repeats Himself: “I say to you―except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:5). And His Apostles spread that message: “And, going forth, they [the Apostles] preached that men should do penance” (Mark 6:12). We can link this to Our Lord’s words to the man whom He had miraculously healed from a 38-year-long disease: “Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14).
Which is why St. John the Baptist insisted: “Do penance―for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2). St. John the Baptist himself preached: “Bring forth fruit worthy of penance!” (Matthew 3:8) ― and he himself practiced what he preached. His whole life was one of great and severe penance! His whole life―far from suggesting the idea of “a reed shaken by the wind” (Matthew 11:7; Luke 7:24)―manifested undaunted courage and constancy in practicing penance. “And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching” (Luke 3:1-3), clothed not in the soft garments of a courtier (Matthew 11:8; Luke 7:24), but in those “of camel’s hair, and a leather girdle about his loins”; he came neither eating nor drinking (Matthew 11:18; Luke 7:33) and “his meat was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6).
The desert where St. John lived and fasted and prayed was actually a grazing land, unfit for growing crops―but able to sustain the life of hermits and herds; nor was it rare in those days for hermits to seek a life of solitude in the desert. The fact that he ate locusts (grasshoppers, if you prefer) invariably draws a shudder―but this was not uncommon, and is not uncommon today, for Arab and African people still dry and save them as protection against famine. Wild honey, on the other hand, sounds quite delicious!
Yet for most people today, the following words of Scripture can easily be applied: “God has given him place for penance, and he abuses it in his pride!” (Job 24:23). Incredibly and shamefully, the modern Catholic Church has reduced obligatory penance in the Church (very few people will do penance unless it is obligatory and bound under the pain of mortal sin). Pope Paul VI, in his Apostolic Constitution on Penance, Paenitemini, of February 1966, reduced obligatory Lenten penance from 40-days of fasting to merely 2-days of fasting (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday)―which is a 95% discount! Unbelievably, the Church reduces the medicine of penance at a time when the disease of sin is increasing and running rampant! A doctor would be sued for malpractice and negligence if he reduced the medicine for a patient at a time when the disease was getting worse! This attitude has, sadly and unfortunately, seeped into and imbued most Catholic families―whose life is being far from being penitential, despite the fact that most of them are committing more and more venial sins (which they even fail to see and recognize), or even committing mortal sins with greater frequency. Parents largely, or totally, fail to instill in their children and understanding of the need for penance as well as practical and daily example, encouragement and enforcement of a penitential spirit in daily family life (and not merely during Lent).
Even though we might eat food without being penitential about it as regards quantity―we can be penitential as regards its taste. The principle to remember is: “Bitter is often better!” The Israelites were told to eat bitter herbs with their lamb at the time of the Passover in Egypt. Lemons and limes are more bitter than their sugary counterpart fruits―but they are also healthier. The rind and pith of lemons and limes are much more bitter than fleshy center of the fruit―but the rind and pith also contain anywhere from 8 to 10 times the amount nutrients (especially Vitamin C) that are contained in the fleshy part of the fruit. The same is true for most fruits and vegetables―the part next to the exterior skin is often more bitter, but usually much better from a health perspective. The green part of the red melon is far for bitter―but far more better for you. Comparatively speaking, water is more ‘bitter’ than fruit juices, but it is also, on the whole, healthier for you than sugary pure fruit juices.
Our Lord recommends taking up the cross―which is painfully bitter―if we wish to follow Him to Heaven. “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23). He redeemed us by bitter sufferings and not by sweet words and consolations. For many souls, the teaching of Christ tastes bitter these days―they prefer the taste of the world. Yet, you could say, the teachings of Christ are bittersweet―bitter tasting at first, but turning to sweetness in the end―whereas the teachings of the world are sweetbitter―sweet tasting at first, but always ending in bitterness―as these words of Scripture seem to indicate: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20).
Penance is bitter―but, like many bitter foods, penance is extremely good for you! Try it! Teach it! Just like St. John Baptist―who “talked the talk” of penance and “walked the walk” of penance! His garment, like the tents of Saul of Tarsus, was cloth woven of camel’s hair, and he wore a leather girdle about his loins. Just like food―especially bitter food―there is a huge variety of penance that you can pick from. All of this dovetails with the message of Our Lady of Fatima: “Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners!”
► ATTACHED TO TRUTH: “Herod had apprehended John and bound him, and put him into prison, because of Herodias, his brother’s wife. For John said to him: ‘It is not lawful for thee to have her!’ And, having a mind to put him to death, he feared the people―because they esteemed him as a prophet … But on Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced before them: and pleased Herod. Whereupon he promised with an oath, to give her whatsoever she would ask of him. But she, being instructed before by her mother, said: ‘Give me here in a dish the head of John the Baptist!’ And the king was struck sad―yet, because of his oath, and for them that sat with him at table, he commanded it to be given. And he sent and beheaded John in the prison. And his head was brought in a dish―and it was given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. And his disciples came and took the body, and buried it, and came and told Jesus” (Matthew 14:3-12).
John rebuked and denounced King Herod on account of his adulterous and incestuous marriage with Herodias―the wife of his half-brother Philip. Most people would just “put-up and shut-up”―because what can one solitary man achieve against a king? But John, even though Herod was not even of the Jewish religion and therefore not bound by Jewish laws, and despite the fact that John was likely to fail in his endeavor, he nevertheless spoke out and, after being imprisoned, lost his life and his head for speaking the truth! Today, we are heading in the same direction―whereby rulers and presidents are ignoring the laws of God and doing whatever they want to do! Who will speak out against them? Who will oppose them? Who is prepared to risk imprisonment and execution for standing up for God and standing against those who oppose God?
As Our Lord said: “Everyone, therefore, that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven. Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:32-37).
Today, some of us clearly see “what is coming down the pike” and that our general worldwide godlessness is leading us to the brink of the chastisements that have been foretold by Our Lady―yet, we are afraid to speak and announce these truths to others, for fear of what they might think of us, say to us, or do to us! “During this epoch the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect, and corruption of morals, unbridled luxury and extravagance, an impious press and secular education. The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation, and those who should speak out will be silent” (Our Lady of Good Success).
► ATTACHED TO GOD: Outside of God, without God, independently of God―we can do nothing for our salvation. We can do a lot of worldly things―but nothing towards our salvation. “For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, but suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). At the Last Supper, Our Lord points out this importance of being attached to God: “I am the true vine; and my Father is the farmer. Every branch in Me, that bears not fruit, He will take away―and every one that bears fruit, He will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit! Abide in Me, and I in you [in other words, be attached to Me like the branch is attached to the vine]. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine―you are the branches! He that abides in Me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit! For without Me―you can do nothing! If anyone abides not in Me [is not attached to Me], he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he will burn! If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask whatever you will, and it shall be done unto you!” (John 15:1-7).
It is absolutely necessary to be attached to God, because, as Our Lord said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5), and, as St. Peter said to Jesus: “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life!” (John 6:69). “Jesus is the stone which was rejected by you the builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other. There is no other name under Heaven whereby we must be saved!” (Acts 4:8-12). Hence Our Lord says, as quoted above: “Everyone, therefore, that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 10:32-33).
► HAVING COURAGE: St. John was not afraid to lay his life on the line for God and His Law. Just like Christ would do some time later. He could have remained silent, but Herod was living in sin. Truth would cost him his life, just as truth cost Jesus His life. For Catholics today, besieged by Liberalism, Modernism and a false Ecumenism with false religions, there is a temptation to turn a blind-eye; to be silent about compromises of the Faith; to go along with these false “–ISMS” and to scornfully say, like Pilate, “What is truth?” St. John may have lost his head, but he did not lose his soul, which reminds us of the words of Our Lord: “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell” (Matthew 10:28).
► HAVING AN APOSTOLIC SPIRIT: The Archangel Gabriel said that St. John would be filled with the Holy Ghost and the spirit of the prophet Elias; and that he would convert many souls to God. “Thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways―to give knowledge of salvation to his people, unto the remission of their sins” (Luke 1:76-77). This is everyone’s calling to a certain degree. That is precisely what we should be doing―informing souls about God and leading them to God: “You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:14-16).
Our Lord said that we should go and preach and teach all nations, every creature and bring them to the Faith (Matthew 28:19-20). Priests alone (today just over 400,000) cannot convert and give spiritual maintenance to 8,000,000,000 souls by themselves—that is a ratio of 1 priest for every 20,000 people. Yet Christ commanded that ALL the world be converted: “Going therefore, teach ye ALL NATIONS; baptizing them [all] in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19). Such a conversion command cannot be accomplished by priests alone―it is the work of the entire Mystical Body of Christ. That is why everyone, through the Sacrament of Confirmation, is made a Soldier for Christ—not only to defend the Faith, but go out and conquer more souls for the Faith and ward-off the attacks of the enemies of the Church. “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12).
Today’s problem is the ego! Too much self, not enough God! Everyone prefers to focus on self, rather than focus on God. We tend to speak more of self, than we speak of God. We think more of self, than we think of God. We act more for ourselves than we act for God. St. John the Baptist spoke a sentence about Christ that we should all take to heart and imprint in our minds: “He must increase, but I must decrease!” (John 3:30).
That should be the chief program and goal in the life of every Catholic―that Christ must increase, and they must decrease―to the point that they can eventually be transformed into replicas of Christ and be able to say with St. Paul: “I live, now not I; but Christ lives in me!” (Galatians 2:20). In other words, “It is no longer I that live, but it is Christ Who lives with me; it is Christ Who lives through me; it is Christ that acts and speaks through me!”
As we say at the end of Canon of the Mass: “Through Him, with Him, in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is Thine almighty Father, forever and ever! Amen!” The Church believes in the mediation of Christ alone and His supreme Priesthood. Only “through Him, with Him and in Him” can we reach the Father. Our Lord Himself said: “No one comes to the Father except through Me!” (John 14:6) and “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). We know that our thoughts, words and actions are only pleasing to God inasmuch as they come through Christ.
► NOT RULED BY HUMAN RESPECT: “The Lord is in Heaven; and there is no respect of persons with Him” (Ephesians 6:9). “There is no respect of persons with God.” (Romans 2:11). “God is not a respecter of persons” (Acts of Apostles 10:34). “There is no respect of persons with God” Colossians 3:25). “Like father, like son” they say―and this is especially true of Christ and His heavenly Father. If His Father had no respect of persons, then neither did Christ―even His enemies admitted that: “Master, we know that Thou art a true speaker! … Neither carest thou for any man―for thou dost not regard the person of men!’” (Matthew 22:15-16). Our Lord did not cave-in to human respect. If necessary, He would rebuke His own Apostles―as St. Peter found out when He tried to prevent Jesus from going to Jerusalem for His appointment with arrest, torture and crucifixion: “Jesus, turning, said to Peter: ‘Go behind Me, Satan! You are a scandal to Me! Because you savor not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!’” (Matthew 16:21-23).
Such was the courage and absence of human respect (fear of what others might think, say or do) on the part of St. John the Baptist. Even before Our Lord had His skirmishes with the Scribes and Pharisees, St. John the Baptist was pointing out their errors and hypocrisy: “And seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, John said to them: ‘Ye brood of vipers! Who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth, therefore, fruit worthy of penance! And think not to say within yourselves: ‘We have Abraham for our father!’ For I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham out of these stones! For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees! Every tree, therefore, that does not yield good fruit―shall be cut down, and cast into the fire!” (Matthew 3:7-10).
Later, St. John the Baptist reproaches King Herod for living in adultery with his own brother’s wife. “For Herod himself had sent and apprehended John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, the wife of Philip his brother, because he had married her. For John said to Herod: ‘It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife!’” (Mark 6:17-18). After a foolish promise to Salome the daughter of Herodias, after she had danced for him, Herod ended up committing murder. “Sending an executioner, Herod commanded that John’s head should be brought in a dish. And he beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in a dish: and gave it to the girl [Salome], and the girl gave it to her mother [Herodias]” (Mark 16:27-28). St. John perhaps knew or sensed his fate before even reprimanding Herod, but he corrected him anyway, not worrying about Herod’s feelings, or his own security or life—the truth was what worried him.
Article 16
Tuesday June 20th to Thursday June 22nd, 2023
Sowing Wild Oats or Sowing Spiritual Seeds?
Tuesday June 20th to Thursday June 22nd, 2023
Sowing Wild Oats or Sowing Spiritual Seeds?
What on Earth are You Sowing?
The notion of wild oats as a “crop that one will regret sowing” is first seen to be used 1560s, in reference to the folly of sowing these instead of good grain. Wild oats are a weed whose seed looks a lot like certain cereal grains, and is thus hard to separate when sowing. Sowing wild oats was the original model of a useless occupation, indeed, worse than useless. It’s not surprising that the phrase sowing wild oats was applied figuratively to young men who behave in a rather uncontrolled way, who fritter away their time in stupid or idle pastimes. It has also come to mean―in our modern and permissive times―having a lot of sexual relationships. An example of the expression would be: “Paul asked his father if he had sowed his wild oats before getting married.” It is less clear when the meaning changed to its current one. Currently, to “sow wild oats”, more often than not, means (for a man) to have sex with as many women as possible. “Wild oats” here specifically means hypothetical unwanted offspring from those many sexual relationships.
From an agricultural perspective, if you “sow wild oats” you are likely to reap a crop of “tares” or “cockle”―as seen in Our Lord’s parable about the Cockle and the Wheat. He talked about a farmer who planted a crop of wheat. However, during the night, his enemy came along and sowed tares, or weeds, or cockle among the wheat. “Another parable Jesus proposed a parable to them, saying: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and oversowed cockle among the wheat and went his way. And when the blades had sprung up, and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. And the servants of the good man of the house, coming said to him: “Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How is it then that it has cockle?” And he said to them: “An enemy hath done this!” And the servants said to him: “Do you want us to go and gather it up?” And he said: “No, lest perhaps by gathering up the cockle, you also root up the good wheat together with it! Suffer them both to grow until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: ‘Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn―but the wheat gather into my barn!’”’” (Matthew 13:24-29).
Holy Scripture tells us that we shall reap what we sow―if we sow wild oats, we must reap wild oat: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:8).
Sowing Spiritual Seeds
What is “sowing spiritual seeds”? If “sowing wild oats” means sowing the spirit of the world in our lives, then “sowing spiritual seeds” means sowing the spirit of God in our lives. In His parable about the Sower of the Seed, Our Lord tells us that “the seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11) ― which we primarily find in Holy Scripture. Elsewhere we read: “All Scripture―inspired of God―is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice” (2 Timothy 3:16). St. Jerome, a Father and Doctor of the Church, famously said: “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” In that case, there are a lot of ignorant Catholics walking around today who are in grave need of sowing the word of God in their lives! We cannot give what we do not have―if you cannot speak a word of French or German, then you cannot teach those languages; if you cannot cook or repair things, then you cannot pass those skills onto your children; if you have little or no real love for God, then you are unable to teach your children how to love God.
A Bible Full of Seeds
When you really take time to look at Holy Scripture, you will see that it filled with references to farming, seeds, planting, growing and harvesting―both in the natural sense as well as the spiritual sense. For example:
“The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field―which is the least indeed of all seeds; but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and dwell on its branches” (Matthew 13:32) … The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers to work in his vineyard” (Matthew 20:1) … “The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and over-sowed cockle among the wheat and went his way” (Matthew 13:24-25) …
“I am the true vine and My Father is the farmer. Every branch in Me, that bears not fruit, He will take away! And every one that bears fruit, He will purge it, so that it may bring forth more fruit!” (John 15:1-2) … “Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted, shall be rooted up!” (Matthew 15:13) … “I have planted, Apollo watered, but God gave the increase! Therefore, neither he that plants is anything, nor he that waters; but it is God that gives the increase!” (1 Corinthians 3:6-7) … “If we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection” (Romans 6:5) … “What fruit therefore had you then in those things, of which you are now ashamed? For the end of them is death. But now―being made free from sin and becoming servants to God―you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end is life everlasting” (Romans 6:21-22) … “Thy wife as a fruitful vine, on the sides of thy house. Thy children as olive plants, round about thy table” (Psalm 127:3).
“A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, but found none” (Luke 13:6) … “And seeing a certain fig tree by the way side, Jesus came to it and found nothing on it but leaves only, and He said to it: ‘May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever!’ And immediately the fig tree withered away” (Matthew 21:19) … “Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear grapes; or the vine, figs?” (James 3:12) … “See the fig tree, and all the trees―when they now shoot forth their fruit, you know that summer is near. So you also, when you shall see these things come to pass, know that the Kingdom of God is at hand!” (Luke 21:29).
“The God of our fathers has raised up Jesus―Whom you put to death, hanging Him upon a tree!” (Acts 5:30) ... “For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not yield good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire!” (Matthew 3:10) ... “Either make the tree good and its fruit good―or make the tree evil and its fruit evil. For by the fruit the tree is known!” (Matthew 12:33) ... “Every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire!” (Matthew 7:18-19) … “Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance!” (Matthew 3:8) … “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, then it remains alone by itself. But if it dies, then it brings forth much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal!” (John 12:24-25) … “For all flesh is as grass; and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass! The grass is withered, and the flower thereof is fallen away!” (1 Peter 1:24).
“I say to you, lift up your eyes, and see the countries―for they are white already to harvest! And he that reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit unto life everlasting―so that both he that sows and he that reaps may rejoice together! For in this is the saying true: ‘That it is one man that sows, and it is another that reaps!’ I have sent you to reap that in which you did not labor―others have labored, and you have entered into their labors!” (John 4:35-38) … “I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit; and that your fruit should remain!” (John 15:16).
What Seed Are You Planting in Your Seed?
Holy Scripture refers to the children and future children of parents as “seed.” The very first mention is already in the first book of the Bible―Genesis―where God says to Satan: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed! She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel!” (Genesis 3:15). Then “Adam also knew his wife again―and she brought forth a son, and called his name Seth, saying: ‘God hath given me another seed for Abel whom Cain slew!’” (Genesis 4:25). “God also said to Noe: ‘Behold, I will establish My covenant with you, and with your seed after you!’” (Genesis 9:9). “The Lord appeared to Abram [Abraham], and said to him: ‘To thy seed will I give this land! … All the land which thou seest, I will give to thee, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the Earth! If any man be able to number the dust of the Earth, he shall be able to number thy seed also! … Look up to heaven and number the stars, if thou canst. So shall thy seed be! … And in thy seed shall all the nations of the Earth be blessed!’” (Genesis 12:7; 13:15-16; 15:5; 22:18).
You Are a Sower of Seeds & the Soil for Seeds
You are a sower of seeds! Everyone is a sower of seeds! You are also―like everybody else―the soil in which in seeds are sown by others. We all sow seeds in many different ways and we all have seeds sown in us in many different ways. On a physical level, most people sow the seed of children. Children are the living seeds of their parents―as seen in the Scriptural verses in the above paragraph. In this sense, we are all seeds that have been physically sown in the ‘soil’ of the womb of our mothers. Some of those seeds grow up to produce seeds of their own―while others remain ‘seedless’, either by a physical inability to create children of their own, or by a personal desire not to have children of their own, or by pursuing a religious vocation.
On the same physical level, we could also loosely say that all food is like seed that we plant in our stomachs. All food is either good or bad for us. As they say: “You are what you eat!” If you eat healthy food, you are more likely to be healthy yourself. If you eat unhealthy food, then you are more likely to become unhealthy.
Taking things to a higher level―to the level of the mind or soul―absolutely EVERYONE sows seeds in their own minds/souls and they sow seeds in the minds/souls. This is done by what they read, what they say or hear, by what they see and by what they do. In this sense, we are sowing seeds in our own minds and the minds of others thousands of times each day as we go about our daily life. The seeds that we sow in others and the seeds that are sown in us are one of two kinds―they are either good or they are bad; they either lead to health (virtue) or disease (sin); they give and preserve life (eternal life and Heaven) or they lead to death (eternal damnation and Hell). There is absolutely no “wiggle room” or no “loophole” in this. The bottom line is that something either leads to Christ, virtue, salvation and Heaven, or it leads to Satan, sin, damnation and Hell. The only variance is that some things do it faster, other more slowly―but they all lead in one direction or another. Our Lord says: “He that is not with Me, is against Me―and he that gathers not with Me, scatters!” (Matthew 12:30). In 1957, Sister Lucia of Fatima said to Fr. Fuentes: “The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground!” Both God and Satan are continually trying to sow seeds in all of our minds every day, every hour of the day, every minute of the day, every second of the day. God and Satan do not sleep―they do not need sleep like we do―so they are continually at work.
Satan Sowing Satanic Seeds
In the Book of Job we read: “Satan came to stand before the Lord. And the Lord said to him: ‘Whence comest thou?’ And Satan answered and said: ‘I have gone round about the Earth, and walked through it!’” (Job 1:6-7). You can link to the following verses: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8) … “When an unclean spirit is gone out of a man he walks through dry places seeking rest and finds none. Then he says: ‘I will return into my house from where I came out [i.e., the body of some person he possessed]. And coming, he finds it empty, swept, and decorated. He then goes and takes with him seven other evil spirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there―and the last state of that man is made worse than the first [before the devil was thrown out].” (Matthew 12:43-45).
This remarkable verses provide a striking picture of Satanic activity. The devil, in his opposition to God and His program of salvation, evidently never rests. He is not omnipresent like God―because the devil is a finite, though very powerful and brilliant, created being. Therefore to accomplish his goal of damning all souls, he is never at rest but keeps going from place to place and working deception after deception, bringing everyone he can under his influence―by trying to plant his seeds of lies, deceptions, exaggerations and sinful suggestions in the minds and souls of every living being on Earth. That is why we are warned: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8)
The same is true of the demonic spirits who have followed the devil in his rebellion against God. They never rest in seeking to sow the seeds of rebellion, enticing them into as many venial sins and mortal sins as possible, weakening their souls more and more until they can take possession of some person’s body and mind and then control that person’s behavior. “He then goes and takes with him seven other evil spirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there” (Matthew 12:45).
This restlessness―that characterizes the devil and his demons―often also manifests itself in worldly minded. For Satan is “the prince of this world” (John 12:31), and this satanic prince of the world will use the world to manufacture seductive satanic seeds that will seduce those who yield to the pressures of this evil world. “Neither have they rest day nor night, who have adored the beast and his image [in this case, the world], and whoever receives the character of his name [worldliness].” (Apocalypse 14:11).
Our Lord Speaks of Satanic Worldly Seeds
Our Lord alluded to the Seeds of God and the Seeds of Satan in His parable about the sowing of Wheat and Cockle―and this idea is further developed in His parable about the Sower of the Seed. Let us first look at the text of those parables and then comment upon them.
► WHEAT AND COCKLE: “The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and over-sowed cockle among the wheat and went his way. And when the blade was sprung up and had brought forth fruit, then the cockle also appeared. And the servants of the good-man of the house came to him and said: ‘Sir! Did you not sow good seed in your field? Why then does it have cockle?’ And he said to them: ‘An enemy has done this!’ And the servants said to him: ‘Do you want us to go and gather it up?’ And he said: ‘No! Lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you also root up the wheat together with it! Suffer them both to grow until the harvest, and, in the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers: “Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye into my barn!”’” (Matthew 13:24-30).
► SOWER OF THE SEED: “The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field. The sower went out to sow his seed. And whilst he sowed, some fell by the way side, and it was trodden down by men, and the birds of the air came and ate it up. And some seed fell upon stony ground, where it had not much depth of earth, and the seed sprouted and shot up immediately, because there was no deepness of earth. But when the sun was risen, the sprouted seed was scorched, because it had no root and no moisture. And other seed fell among thorns: and the thorns grew up with it and choked it and it yielded no fruit. And others fell upon good ground: and this seed brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold.
“And His disciples asked Him what this parable might be. To whom Jesus said: ‘The parable is this! Hear therefore the [explanation of the] parable of the sower. The seed is the word of God. And they by the way side are they that hear. When any one hears the word of the kingdom, and understands it not, the devil, Satan, comes [the birds of the air] and takes the word [of God], which was sown in his heart, out of his heart―lest believing he should be saved―this is he that received the seed by the way side. And he that received the seed upon the rock or stony ground, is he that hears the word of God, immediately receives it with joy and believes for a while. Yet he has no root in himself, but keeps the word of God only for a time. For, in time of temptation, when tribulation and persecution arises because of the word of God, he is suddenly scandalized [weakened] and he falls away. And he that received the seed among thorns, is he that hears the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the pleasures of this life, choke up the word of God, and the word becomes fruitless and yields no fruit. But he that received the seed upon good ground, is he that hears and understands the word of God in a good and perfect heart, and bring forth fruit in patience; and the yield for one is a hundredfold, for another sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold!’” (Matthew 13:3-8, 13:18-23; Mark 4:3-8; Luke 8:5-15).
The notion of wild oats as a “crop that one will regret sowing” is first seen to be used 1560s, in reference to the folly of sowing these instead of good grain. Wild oats are a weed whose seed looks a lot like certain cereal grains, and is thus hard to separate when sowing. Sowing wild oats was the original model of a useless occupation, indeed, worse than useless. It’s not surprising that the phrase sowing wild oats was applied figuratively to young men who behave in a rather uncontrolled way, who fritter away their time in stupid or idle pastimes. It has also come to mean―in our modern and permissive times―having a lot of sexual relationships. An example of the expression would be: “Paul asked his father if he had sowed his wild oats before getting married.” It is less clear when the meaning changed to its current one. Currently, to “sow wild oats”, more often than not, means (for a man) to have sex with as many women as possible. “Wild oats” here specifically means hypothetical unwanted offspring from those many sexual relationships.
From an agricultural perspective, if you “sow wild oats” you are likely to reap a crop of “tares” or “cockle”―as seen in Our Lord’s parable about the Cockle and the Wheat. He talked about a farmer who planted a crop of wheat. However, during the night, his enemy came along and sowed tares, or weeds, or cockle among the wheat. “Another parable Jesus proposed a parable to them, saying: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and oversowed cockle among the wheat and went his way. And when the blades had sprung up, and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. And the servants of the good man of the house, coming said to him: “Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How is it then that it has cockle?” And he said to them: “An enemy hath done this!” And the servants said to him: “Do you want us to go and gather it up?” And he said: “No, lest perhaps by gathering up the cockle, you also root up the good wheat together with it! Suffer them both to grow until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: ‘Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn―but the wheat gather into my barn!’”’” (Matthew 13:24-29).
Holy Scripture tells us that we shall reap what we sow―if we sow wild oats, we must reap wild oat: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:8).
Sowing Spiritual Seeds
What is “sowing spiritual seeds”? If “sowing wild oats” means sowing the spirit of the world in our lives, then “sowing spiritual seeds” means sowing the spirit of God in our lives. In His parable about the Sower of the Seed, Our Lord tells us that “the seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11) ― which we primarily find in Holy Scripture. Elsewhere we read: “All Scripture―inspired of God―is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice” (2 Timothy 3:16). St. Jerome, a Father and Doctor of the Church, famously said: “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” In that case, there are a lot of ignorant Catholics walking around today who are in grave need of sowing the word of God in their lives! We cannot give what we do not have―if you cannot speak a word of French or German, then you cannot teach those languages; if you cannot cook or repair things, then you cannot pass those skills onto your children; if you have little or no real love for God, then you are unable to teach your children how to love God.
A Bible Full of Seeds
When you really take time to look at Holy Scripture, you will see that it filled with references to farming, seeds, planting, growing and harvesting―both in the natural sense as well as the spiritual sense. For example:
“The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field―which is the least indeed of all seeds; but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and dwell on its branches” (Matthew 13:32) … The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers to work in his vineyard” (Matthew 20:1) … “The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and over-sowed cockle among the wheat and went his way” (Matthew 13:24-25) …
“I am the true vine and My Father is the farmer. Every branch in Me, that bears not fruit, He will take away! And every one that bears fruit, He will purge it, so that it may bring forth more fruit!” (John 15:1-2) … “Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted, shall be rooted up!” (Matthew 15:13) … “I have planted, Apollo watered, but God gave the increase! Therefore, neither he that plants is anything, nor he that waters; but it is God that gives the increase!” (1 Corinthians 3:6-7) … “If we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection” (Romans 6:5) … “What fruit therefore had you then in those things, of which you are now ashamed? For the end of them is death. But now―being made free from sin and becoming servants to God―you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end is life everlasting” (Romans 6:21-22) … “Thy wife as a fruitful vine, on the sides of thy house. Thy children as olive plants, round about thy table” (Psalm 127:3).
“A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, but found none” (Luke 13:6) … “And seeing a certain fig tree by the way side, Jesus came to it and found nothing on it but leaves only, and He said to it: ‘May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever!’ And immediately the fig tree withered away” (Matthew 21:19) … “Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear grapes; or the vine, figs?” (James 3:12) … “See the fig tree, and all the trees―when they now shoot forth their fruit, you know that summer is near. So you also, when you shall see these things come to pass, know that the Kingdom of God is at hand!” (Luke 21:29).
“The God of our fathers has raised up Jesus―Whom you put to death, hanging Him upon a tree!” (Acts 5:30) ... “For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not yield good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire!” (Matthew 3:10) ... “Either make the tree good and its fruit good―or make the tree evil and its fruit evil. For by the fruit the tree is known!” (Matthew 12:33) ... “Every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire!” (Matthew 7:18-19) … “Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance!” (Matthew 3:8) … “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, then it remains alone by itself. But if it dies, then it brings forth much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal!” (John 12:24-25) … “For all flesh is as grass; and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass! The grass is withered, and the flower thereof is fallen away!” (1 Peter 1:24).
“I say to you, lift up your eyes, and see the countries―for they are white already to harvest! And he that reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit unto life everlasting―so that both he that sows and he that reaps may rejoice together! For in this is the saying true: ‘That it is one man that sows, and it is another that reaps!’ I have sent you to reap that in which you did not labor―others have labored, and you have entered into their labors!” (John 4:35-38) … “I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit; and that your fruit should remain!” (John 15:16).
What Seed Are You Planting in Your Seed?
Holy Scripture refers to the children and future children of parents as “seed.” The very first mention is already in the first book of the Bible―Genesis―where God says to Satan: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed! She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel!” (Genesis 3:15). Then “Adam also knew his wife again―and she brought forth a son, and called his name Seth, saying: ‘God hath given me another seed for Abel whom Cain slew!’” (Genesis 4:25). “God also said to Noe: ‘Behold, I will establish My covenant with you, and with your seed after you!’” (Genesis 9:9). “The Lord appeared to Abram [Abraham], and said to him: ‘To thy seed will I give this land! … All the land which thou seest, I will give to thee, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the Earth! If any man be able to number the dust of the Earth, he shall be able to number thy seed also! … Look up to heaven and number the stars, if thou canst. So shall thy seed be! … And in thy seed shall all the nations of the Earth be blessed!’” (Genesis 12:7; 13:15-16; 15:5; 22:18).
You Are a Sower of Seeds & the Soil for Seeds
You are a sower of seeds! Everyone is a sower of seeds! You are also―like everybody else―the soil in which in seeds are sown by others. We all sow seeds in many different ways and we all have seeds sown in us in many different ways. On a physical level, most people sow the seed of children. Children are the living seeds of their parents―as seen in the Scriptural verses in the above paragraph. In this sense, we are all seeds that have been physically sown in the ‘soil’ of the womb of our mothers. Some of those seeds grow up to produce seeds of their own―while others remain ‘seedless’, either by a physical inability to create children of their own, or by a personal desire not to have children of their own, or by pursuing a religious vocation.
On the same physical level, we could also loosely say that all food is like seed that we plant in our stomachs. All food is either good or bad for us. As they say: “You are what you eat!” If you eat healthy food, you are more likely to be healthy yourself. If you eat unhealthy food, then you are more likely to become unhealthy.
Taking things to a higher level―to the level of the mind or soul―absolutely EVERYONE sows seeds in their own minds/souls and they sow seeds in the minds/souls. This is done by what they read, what they say or hear, by what they see and by what they do. In this sense, we are sowing seeds in our own minds and the minds of others thousands of times each day as we go about our daily life. The seeds that we sow in others and the seeds that are sown in us are one of two kinds―they are either good or they are bad; they either lead to health (virtue) or disease (sin); they give and preserve life (eternal life and Heaven) or they lead to death (eternal damnation and Hell). There is absolutely no “wiggle room” or no “loophole” in this. The bottom line is that something either leads to Christ, virtue, salvation and Heaven, or it leads to Satan, sin, damnation and Hell. The only variance is that some things do it faster, other more slowly―but they all lead in one direction or another. Our Lord says: “He that is not with Me, is against Me―and he that gathers not with Me, scatters!” (Matthew 12:30). In 1957, Sister Lucia of Fatima said to Fr. Fuentes: “The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground!” Both God and Satan are continually trying to sow seeds in all of our minds every day, every hour of the day, every minute of the day, every second of the day. God and Satan do not sleep―they do not need sleep like we do―so they are continually at work.
Satan Sowing Satanic Seeds
In the Book of Job we read: “Satan came to stand before the Lord. And the Lord said to him: ‘Whence comest thou?’ And Satan answered and said: ‘I have gone round about the Earth, and walked through it!’” (Job 1:6-7). You can link to the following verses: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8) … “When an unclean spirit is gone out of a man he walks through dry places seeking rest and finds none. Then he says: ‘I will return into my house from where I came out [i.e., the body of some person he possessed]. And coming, he finds it empty, swept, and decorated. He then goes and takes with him seven other evil spirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there―and the last state of that man is made worse than the first [before the devil was thrown out].” (Matthew 12:43-45).
This remarkable verses provide a striking picture of Satanic activity. The devil, in his opposition to God and His program of salvation, evidently never rests. He is not omnipresent like God―because the devil is a finite, though very powerful and brilliant, created being. Therefore to accomplish his goal of damning all souls, he is never at rest but keeps going from place to place and working deception after deception, bringing everyone he can under his influence―by trying to plant his seeds of lies, deceptions, exaggerations and sinful suggestions in the minds and souls of every living being on Earth. That is why we are warned: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8)
The same is true of the demonic spirits who have followed the devil in his rebellion against God. They never rest in seeking to sow the seeds of rebellion, enticing them into as many venial sins and mortal sins as possible, weakening their souls more and more until they can take possession of some person’s body and mind and then control that person’s behavior. “He then goes and takes with him seven other evil spirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there” (Matthew 12:45).
This restlessness―that characterizes the devil and his demons―often also manifests itself in worldly minded. For Satan is “the prince of this world” (John 12:31), and this satanic prince of the world will use the world to manufacture seductive satanic seeds that will seduce those who yield to the pressures of this evil world. “Neither have they rest day nor night, who have adored the beast and his image [in this case, the world], and whoever receives the character of his name [worldliness].” (Apocalypse 14:11).
Our Lord Speaks of Satanic Worldly Seeds
Our Lord alluded to the Seeds of God and the Seeds of Satan in His parable about the sowing of Wheat and Cockle―and this idea is further developed in His parable about the Sower of the Seed. Let us first look at the text of those parables and then comment upon them.
► WHEAT AND COCKLE: “The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and over-sowed cockle among the wheat and went his way. And when the blade was sprung up and had brought forth fruit, then the cockle also appeared. And the servants of the good-man of the house came to him and said: ‘Sir! Did you not sow good seed in your field? Why then does it have cockle?’ And he said to them: ‘An enemy has done this!’ And the servants said to him: ‘Do you want us to go and gather it up?’ And he said: ‘No! Lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you also root up the wheat together with it! Suffer them both to grow until the harvest, and, in the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers: “Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye into my barn!”’” (Matthew 13:24-30).
► SOWER OF THE SEED: “The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field. The sower went out to sow his seed. And whilst he sowed, some fell by the way side, and it was trodden down by men, and the birds of the air came and ate it up. And some seed fell upon stony ground, where it had not much depth of earth, and the seed sprouted and shot up immediately, because there was no deepness of earth. But when the sun was risen, the sprouted seed was scorched, because it had no root and no moisture. And other seed fell among thorns: and the thorns grew up with it and choked it and it yielded no fruit. And others fell upon good ground: and this seed brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold.
“And His disciples asked Him what this parable might be. To whom Jesus said: ‘The parable is this! Hear therefore the [explanation of the] parable of the sower. The seed is the word of God. And they by the way side are they that hear. When any one hears the word of the kingdom, and understands it not, the devil, Satan, comes [the birds of the air] and takes the word [of God], which was sown in his heart, out of his heart―lest believing he should be saved―this is he that received the seed by the way side. And he that received the seed upon the rock or stony ground, is he that hears the word of God, immediately receives it with joy and believes for a while. Yet he has no root in himself, but keeps the word of God only for a time. For, in time of temptation, when tribulation and persecution arises because of the word of God, he is suddenly scandalized [weakened] and he falls away. And he that received the seed among thorns, is he that hears the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the pleasures of this life, choke up the word of God, and the word becomes fruitless and yields no fruit. But he that received the seed upon good ground, is he that hears and understands the word of God in a good and perfect heart, and bring forth fruit in patience; and the yield for one is a hundredfold, for another sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold!’” (Matthew 13:3-8, 13:18-23; Mark 4:3-8; Luke 8:5-15).
Article 15
Sunday June 18th & Monday June 19th, 2023
Focus on Fatherhood!
Sunday June 18th & Monday June 19th, 2023
Focus on Fatherhood!
Where Would You Be Without Your Father?
Every human being―without exception―has a father. Without a father, they would simply not exist. In fact, every human being has TWO fathers! An earthly father who produced the body of every child and a heavenly Father Who created out of nothing the soul of the child. The soul is, of course, far more important than the body―just as Heaven is of far more importance than the Earth. Our body and soul could, in a certain sense, be compared to a house and a family―the family lives in the house and the family is more important than a house, just like the soul which lives in our body and is more important than our body. Without the soul that only God can create, there would be no life―a body without a soul is a corpse.
Where Would You Be Without God the Father?
Similarly, a soul can also be a “house” for God―Who lives in soul by His divine grace, sanctifying grace (also called “habitual grace” for grace should habitually dwell in our soul). A soul without divine sanctifying grace would be, so to speak, a “living, walking, talking corpse” ― because the soul would have cast out God and sanctifying grace through deliberate mortal sin.
Taking it to the next stage, a father who does not have God living in his soul by sanctifying grace, is to his family a “living, walking, talking corpse of a father” who can do little or nothing for the salvation of his family. We all know the saying: “You cannot give what you have not got!” A father who does not have God in his life, who is not ruled and guided by God and His principles, severely cripples his chances of leading his family to God and Heaven. That is what fatherhood is chiefly about―attaining Heaven and salvation and avoiding Hell and damnation. All the rest is merely secondary―as Our Lord says: “For what shall it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36). A father might well put bread on the table, maintain the health of this children, give his children a successful education, see them in good jobs―but all of this (which might last for 60 or 70 years of the child’s life) is insignificant with eternity, where a billion, or trillion, or a zillion years is not even a drop of water in the ocean of eternity!
The Father Cannot Be Independent of God
Just as a baby, infant or young child cannot be independent of its father (and mother), likewise the father cannot be independent of God. “Every house is built by some man―but He that created all things is God” (Hebrews 3:4). All things belong God because He is maker of all things: “My hand made all these things and all these things were made, saith the Lord” (Isaias 66:2). “I made the Earth and I created man upon it! My hand stretched forth the Heavens!” (Isaias 45:12). “Thou hast created all things and for Thy will they were, and have been created” (Apocalypse 4:11). “All souls are mine―as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine!” (Ezechiel 18:4).
An earthly father merely shares in the Fatherhood of God―and his share is a very tiny share indeed. Every father―like all other persons―is creature made by God. A father is not and cannot be independent of God. A father―in a certain sense―is a “co-father” to God. For God created the soul of each and every child that all the earthly fathers of the world have ever begotten, whereas the earthly father merely created the body of only a handful of children that would house the soul that God would create for them. In this sense, an earthly father is the father of a few children, whereas God is the Father of billions of children.
Being a “co-father” to God means being a subsidiary to God, an assistant to God, a subordinate of God, a tool of God. An earthly father is not his own property―he belongs to God; he should reflect God; he should operate according to the principles of God; he should fulfill the will of God in the domain of his own little “drop-of-water-in-the-ocean” family. He is merely a shepherd or teacher employed and appointed by God to shepherd and teach a little portion of God’s massive flock of souls. He is merely a pilot for God, who is meant to fly the plane and passengers that God’s airline has given him to the destination where God wants that plane with its passengers to be flown―which is from Earth to Heaven. The father is merely a sergeant commanding just a handful of soldiers within the immensely larger army of God.
Rebellion Breeds Rebellion
The father is not THE absolute authority in his family, but he only represents a higher authority, THE absolute authority which is God’s authority. Just like the State, the domestic laws imposed by the father of family must reflect Divine Law and Natural Law―the father is not a law unto himself. If he chooses to impose laws that go against the laws of God, or contradict them, water them down―then he will pay for that sooner or later. If he disobeys, break or ignore the Laws of God, then he should not be surprised if his disobedience towards God begets disobedience towards himself and his laws by the other members of the family. As you sow, so shall you reap! While Adam obeyed God’s Laws, all of nature was favorable, benign, advantageous and cooperative with Adam’s needs―and this was simply down to God’s Providence. However, when Adam, the inferior, rebelled against God―His superior―then God’s Providence allowed nature to rebel against Adam.
The Father is a “Bishop” within the “Family Church”
It was the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle who said: “the family is something that precedes and is more necessary than the state.” The family is smallest building block or building brick of the church. It is families―like cells in the human body―that make up the Mystical Body of Christ. What the Church is on a large scale, the family is on a small scale. St. Augustine of Hippo and St. John Chrysostom directly develop the idea of a “domestic church” (ecclesia domestica) and use either that language exactly (St. Augustine) or approximate it (St. John Chrysostom). The family is, in reality, the Church in the home, or as Augustine said, “the domestic church.” That is, the life, nature, and mission of the Church universal is contained in microcosm in the family. Conversely, the family also participates in and reflects the nature of the universal Church. Both St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom well understood this active power of the Holy Spirit transforming the Christian family and saw that the family possessed an ecclesial nature. St. John Chrysostom, like St. Augustine, called the family “the little church” (Greek: micra ekklesia) or “the domestic church” (Latin: domestica ecclesia).
If this is true―if the nature of the family is truly ecclesial―then the mission and the structures and operations of the Church must be also found, in an appropriate form, within the family. This is what the Church Fathers stated. With both these Church Fathers one finds a prolonged understanding of the unique “episcopal-like” or “bishop-like” role of the father as head of the family―who is responsible for its religious education, and who is called to become a Christ-like servant to his family, and thereby serve Christ. For example, St. Augustine saw that the father—acting in a bishop-like role—protecting his family from heresy with the need to exhort his family and explain the Scriptures to them. St. John Chrysostom urged that Christian families have two tables/altars (mensa) in their home―one for food and one for the Word of God. He emphasized the need to be thoroughly grounded in the Scriptures as a protection against evil. For both Fathers, there was a sacred order (hierarchy) in the family.
Temples of God
What is a temple? A temple is a place where God is adored, glorified, worshipped and offered prayer and sacrifice. We are meant to be temples of God―and, consequently, our homes should also be temples of God. This dove-tails or belnds perfectly with what has been said above about families being a “domestic church.” Holy Scripture makes this clear: “Know you not, that you are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? … “Or know you not, that your members are the Temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 3:16-19). “And what agreement hath the Temple of God with idols? For you are the Temple of the living God; as God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’” (2 Corinthians 6:16). “But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the Temple of God is holy―which you are!” [or are supposed to be). (1 Corinthians 3:17). Hence, the father of the family is meant to be a temple of God and he must build or construct a temple of God out of his family.
By the time Jesus came into the world, the Temple of God had become worldly. “And Jesus went into the Temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves, and He said to them: ‘It is written, “My house shall be called the house of prayer”―but you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Matthew 21:12-13).
False Idols in the Temple of the Home
Many fathers have allowed false idols to penetrate and take over the family temple of God―the television, the internet, social media, music, radio, secular books and magazines, etc. ― all of which are given far more time than is given to God. The words of Our Lord come to mind: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). These fathers―much like Solomon in the Old Testament―have allowed entrance to these false idols and false gods through a fear of “rocking-the-boat”, a fear of “stepping-on-the-toes-of-others”, a fear of losing popularity among the rest of the family. Therefore, these fathers just “go-with-the-flow” rather than sacrifice their popularity.
“King Solomon exceeded all the kings of the Earth in riches … King Solomon loved many strange women … And to these was Solomon joined with a most ardent love. And he had seven hundred wives as queens, and three hundred concubines―and the women turned away his heart. And when he was now old, his heart was turned away by women to follow strange gods and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God … Solomon did that which was not pleasing before the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord … Then Solomon built a temple for Chamos the idol of Moab … and for Moloch the idol of the children of Ammon. And he did in this manner for all his wives that were strangers, who burnt incense, and offered sacrifice to their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his mind was turned away from the Lord the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not follow strange gods―but he kept not the things which the Lord commanded him. The Lord therefore said to Solomon: ‘Because you have done this and have not kept My covenant and My precepts which I have commanded thee, I will divide and rend thy kingdom!’” (3 Kings 10:23; 11:1-11).
King Solomon’s heart was turned away from God by wealth, lust, sex and false idols! Is that not the case today with so many “kings of families” ― that is to say, fathers? Already back in 1917 Our Lady warned that the most common sin that damned souls was impurity in all its various forms―looks, thoughts, words and actions. Most priests today―without revealing any confessional secrets―say that the most common sin is impurity in all its forms. Adults commit it, children commit, teenagers commit it, even the aged who are in their 70s and 80s commit it! And what about the false idols? Most homes are loaded with false idols which are adored and worshiped for many hours a day―the television, the internet, social media, videos and video games, music boxes, etc. Ultimately, it is fathers who have been appointed as “kings” of their own “castle” (the home and family). They―like King Solomon―have had their hearts turned away from God and have allowed the hearts of family members to be turned away from God, by allowing all kind of false idols to enter the home and allowing them to be adored and worshiped for hours each day―whereas God barely receives a daily dose of only a few minutes of prayer!
Division and Corruption! Divide and Conquer!
That is exactly what Our Lady had foretold in her apparitions at Quito, Ecuador and La Salette, France: “In these unhappy times … disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement … Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth! … Under the appearance of virtue and bad-spirited zeal, Catholics will turn upon the Religion which nourished them at her breast! Impelled by the malice of the devil, they will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church ... There will be unbridled luxury which―acting thus to snare the rest into sin―will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost ... Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women! The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals! ... In this supreme moment of need of the Church, those who should speak will fall silent! … Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’” (Our Lady of Good Success & La Salette).
Our Lady of La Salette warned: God will allow the demons to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family.” Who reigns “in every family”? It is the father, of course. Hence the demons will target fathers in particular―for if they can corrupt or weaken the father, then it will much easier to corrupt and weaken the family. The Church has always held the principle: “Convert the king and you will be able to convert the people!” The same is true for Satan and Hell: “Corrupt the king and you will be able to corrupt the people!” ― which also means: “Corrupt the government and you will corrupt the nation” and “Corrupt the father and you will corrupt the family!” Sister Lucia of Fatima echoes this truth when she says: “The Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin. What will gain him the greatest number of souls, in the shortest time, is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them!” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Our Lord warned Blessed Elena Aiello, in 1954, against the “Numerous scandals bringing souls to ruin particularly through the corruption of youth. Stirred-up and unrestrained in the enjoyment of the pleasures of the world, they have degraded their soul in corruption and sin. The bad example of parents trains the family in scandal and infidelity, instead of virtue and prayer, which is almost dead on the lips of many. Stained and withered is the fountain of Faith and sanctity the home!” (Our Lord to Blessed Elena Aiello).
Sister Lucia of Fatima was told by Our Lady that Satan was going to target and wage war against the family―for Satan knows that the family is the basic building block of Church, State and Society. Sister Lucia of Fatima told Cardinal Carlo Caffarra that “a time will come when the decisive battle―between the Kingdom of Christ and Satan―will be over marriage and the family. And those who will work for the good of the family will experience persecution and tribulation!” To Fr. Fuentes, Sister Lucia said: “The Most Holy Virgin made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground!”
This is echoed by the revelations of Our Lady of Good Success and La Salette: “From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century, the passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of morals, for Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family ... The Sacrament of Matrimony, which symbolizes the union of Christ with His Church, will be attacked and profaned in the fullest sense of the word ... They will enact evil laws, making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church ... They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption ... During these unfortunate times, evil will invade childhood innocence ... There will be almost no virgin souls in the world! Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women! … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty! … Woe to the children of these times!”
Woe to the Fathers of These Times!
Not only is it a case of “Woe to the children of these times!”―but it is also a case of “Woe to the fathers of those children!” For the most part, children are defenseless against the attacks made against them―they need the protection of their God-appointed guardians, which are the father and mother, but especially the father, who is appointed to be the head of the family. Those in authority will be judged much more severely than those who have no authority―for to whom more is given, more is expected. “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required; and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48).
“Where is the teacher of little ones?” (Isaias 33:18). “The little ones have asked for bread, and there was none to break it unto them!” (Lamentations 4:4) … “Not in bread alone does man live, but in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God!” (Matthew 4:4) … Jesus said to Peter―who was the head of the family of the Apostles and also the Church: “Feed my lambs! Feed my sheep!” (John 21:15-17). Fathers will not be judged on how much their children liked them; or how much fun and games they gave to their children. They will be primarily judged on how well they fed them with the word of God, how well they taught their children to love and obey God; and how charitable and merciful they were to their fellow human beings―for those are the most important things in life: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “Love the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways, and keep His commandments, ceremonies and judgments” (Deuteronomy 30:16).
The words of God should make fathers tremble: “‘Woe to the pastors that destroy and tear the sheep of My pasture!’ saith the Lord … The shepherds have done foolishly and have not sought the Lord! Therefore have they not understood and all their flock is scattered!” (Jeremias 23:1; 10:21) … “They were led away as a flock, because they have no shepherd! My wrath is kindled against the shepherd!” (Zacharias 10:2-3). “Woe to the shepherds that fed themselves! Should not the flocks be fed by the shepherds? You ate the milk, and you clothed yourselves with the wool, and you killed that which was fat―but My flock you did not feed! … The weak you have not strengthened, and that which was sick you have not healed, that which was broken you have not bound up, and that which was driven away you have not brought back again, neither have you sought that which was lost―but you ruled over them with rigor, and with a heavy hand! And My sheep were scattered, because there was no shepherd―and they became the prey of all the beasts of the field, and were scattered! … My sheep have wandered in every mountain and in every high hill! My flocks were scattered upon the face of the Earth, and there was none that sought them, there was none, I say, that sought them! Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord! As I live, saith the Lord God, forasmuch as My flocks have been made a spoil, and My sheep are become a prey to all the beasts of the field―because there was no shepherd; for My shepherds did not seek after My flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not My flocks! Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord! Behold, I Myself will come upon the shepherds, and I will require My flock at their hand!” (Ezechiel 34:2-9). “My people have been a lost flock, their shepherds have caused them to go astray!” (Jeremias 50:6). “The watchmen are all blind, they are all ignorant! Dumb dogs not able to bark! Seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams! … The shepherds themselves knew no understanding! All have turned aside into their own way, every one after his own gain, from the first even to the last, saying ‘Come, let us take wine, and be filled with drunkenness! And it shall be as today, so also tomorrow, and much more!’” (Isaias 56:10-12).
Every human being―without exception―has a father. Without a father, they would simply not exist. In fact, every human being has TWO fathers! An earthly father who produced the body of every child and a heavenly Father Who created out of nothing the soul of the child. The soul is, of course, far more important than the body―just as Heaven is of far more importance than the Earth. Our body and soul could, in a certain sense, be compared to a house and a family―the family lives in the house and the family is more important than a house, just like the soul which lives in our body and is more important than our body. Without the soul that only God can create, there would be no life―a body without a soul is a corpse.
Where Would You Be Without God the Father?
Similarly, a soul can also be a “house” for God―Who lives in soul by His divine grace, sanctifying grace (also called “habitual grace” for grace should habitually dwell in our soul). A soul without divine sanctifying grace would be, so to speak, a “living, walking, talking corpse” ― because the soul would have cast out God and sanctifying grace through deliberate mortal sin.
Taking it to the next stage, a father who does not have God living in his soul by sanctifying grace, is to his family a “living, walking, talking corpse of a father” who can do little or nothing for the salvation of his family. We all know the saying: “You cannot give what you have not got!” A father who does not have God in his life, who is not ruled and guided by God and His principles, severely cripples his chances of leading his family to God and Heaven. That is what fatherhood is chiefly about―attaining Heaven and salvation and avoiding Hell and damnation. All the rest is merely secondary―as Our Lord says: “For what shall it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36). A father might well put bread on the table, maintain the health of this children, give his children a successful education, see them in good jobs―but all of this (which might last for 60 or 70 years of the child’s life) is insignificant with eternity, where a billion, or trillion, or a zillion years is not even a drop of water in the ocean of eternity!
The Father Cannot Be Independent of God
Just as a baby, infant or young child cannot be independent of its father (and mother), likewise the father cannot be independent of God. “Every house is built by some man―but He that created all things is God” (Hebrews 3:4). All things belong God because He is maker of all things: “My hand made all these things and all these things were made, saith the Lord” (Isaias 66:2). “I made the Earth and I created man upon it! My hand stretched forth the Heavens!” (Isaias 45:12). “Thou hast created all things and for Thy will they were, and have been created” (Apocalypse 4:11). “All souls are mine―as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine!” (Ezechiel 18:4).
An earthly father merely shares in the Fatherhood of God―and his share is a very tiny share indeed. Every father―like all other persons―is creature made by God. A father is not and cannot be independent of God. A father―in a certain sense―is a “co-father” to God. For God created the soul of each and every child that all the earthly fathers of the world have ever begotten, whereas the earthly father merely created the body of only a handful of children that would house the soul that God would create for them. In this sense, an earthly father is the father of a few children, whereas God is the Father of billions of children.
Being a “co-father” to God means being a subsidiary to God, an assistant to God, a subordinate of God, a tool of God. An earthly father is not his own property―he belongs to God; he should reflect God; he should operate according to the principles of God; he should fulfill the will of God in the domain of his own little “drop-of-water-in-the-ocean” family. He is merely a shepherd or teacher employed and appointed by God to shepherd and teach a little portion of God’s massive flock of souls. He is merely a pilot for God, who is meant to fly the plane and passengers that God’s airline has given him to the destination where God wants that plane with its passengers to be flown―which is from Earth to Heaven. The father is merely a sergeant commanding just a handful of soldiers within the immensely larger army of God.
Rebellion Breeds Rebellion
The father is not THE absolute authority in his family, but he only represents a higher authority, THE absolute authority which is God’s authority. Just like the State, the domestic laws imposed by the father of family must reflect Divine Law and Natural Law―the father is not a law unto himself. If he chooses to impose laws that go against the laws of God, or contradict them, water them down―then he will pay for that sooner or later. If he disobeys, break or ignore the Laws of God, then he should not be surprised if his disobedience towards God begets disobedience towards himself and his laws by the other members of the family. As you sow, so shall you reap! While Adam obeyed God’s Laws, all of nature was favorable, benign, advantageous and cooperative with Adam’s needs―and this was simply down to God’s Providence. However, when Adam, the inferior, rebelled against God―His superior―then God’s Providence allowed nature to rebel against Adam.
The Father is a “Bishop” within the “Family Church”
It was the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle who said: “the family is something that precedes and is more necessary than the state.” The family is smallest building block or building brick of the church. It is families―like cells in the human body―that make up the Mystical Body of Christ. What the Church is on a large scale, the family is on a small scale. St. Augustine of Hippo and St. John Chrysostom directly develop the idea of a “domestic church” (ecclesia domestica) and use either that language exactly (St. Augustine) or approximate it (St. John Chrysostom). The family is, in reality, the Church in the home, or as Augustine said, “the domestic church.” That is, the life, nature, and mission of the Church universal is contained in microcosm in the family. Conversely, the family also participates in and reflects the nature of the universal Church. Both St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom well understood this active power of the Holy Spirit transforming the Christian family and saw that the family possessed an ecclesial nature. St. John Chrysostom, like St. Augustine, called the family “the little church” (Greek: micra ekklesia) or “the domestic church” (Latin: domestica ecclesia).
If this is true―if the nature of the family is truly ecclesial―then the mission and the structures and operations of the Church must be also found, in an appropriate form, within the family. This is what the Church Fathers stated. With both these Church Fathers one finds a prolonged understanding of the unique “episcopal-like” or “bishop-like” role of the father as head of the family―who is responsible for its religious education, and who is called to become a Christ-like servant to his family, and thereby serve Christ. For example, St. Augustine saw that the father—acting in a bishop-like role—protecting his family from heresy with the need to exhort his family and explain the Scriptures to them. St. John Chrysostom urged that Christian families have two tables/altars (mensa) in their home―one for food and one for the Word of God. He emphasized the need to be thoroughly grounded in the Scriptures as a protection against evil. For both Fathers, there was a sacred order (hierarchy) in the family.
Temples of God
What is a temple? A temple is a place where God is adored, glorified, worshipped and offered prayer and sacrifice. We are meant to be temples of God―and, consequently, our homes should also be temples of God. This dove-tails or belnds perfectly with what has been said above about families being a “domestic church.” Holy Scripture makes this clear: “Know you not, that you are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? … “Or know you not, that your members are the Temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 3:16-19). “And what agreement hath the Temple of God with idols? For you are the Temple of the living God; as God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’” (2 Corinthians 6:16). “But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the Temple of God is holy―which you are!” [or are supposed to be). (1 Corinthians 3:17). Hence, the father of the family is meant to be a temple of God and he must build or construct a temple of God out of his family.
By the time Jesus came into the world, the Temple of God had become worldly. “And Jesus went into the Temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves, and He said to them: ‘It is written, “My house shall be called the house of prayer”―but you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Matthew 21:12-13).
False Idols in the Temple of the Home
Many fathers have allowed false idols to penetrate and take over the family temple of God―the television, the internet, social media, music, radio, secular books and magazines, etc. ― all of which are given far more time than is given to God. The words of Our Lord come to mind: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). These fathers―much like Solomon in the Old Testament―have allowed entrance to these false idols and false gods through a fear of “rocking-the-boat”, a fear of “stepping-on-the-toes-of-others”, a fear of losing popularity among the rest of the family. Therefore, these fathers just “go-with-the-flow” rather than sacrifice their popularity.
“King Solomon exceeded all the kings of the Earth in riches … King Solomon loved many strange women … And to these was Solomon joined with a most ardent love. And he had seven hundred wives as queens, and three hundred concubines―and the women turned away his heart. And when he was now old, his heart was turned away by women to follow strange gods and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God … Solomon did that which was not pleasing before the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord … Then Solomon built a temple for Chamos the idol of Moab … and for Moloch the idol of the children of Ammon. And he did in this manner for all his wives that were strangers, who burnt incense, and offered sacrifice to their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his mind was turned away from the Lord the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not follow strange gods―but he kept not the things which the Lord commanded him. The Lord therefore said to Solomon: ‘Because you have done this and have not kept My covenant and My precepts which I have commanded thee, I will divide and rend thy kingdom!’” (3 Kings 10:23; 11:1-11).
King Solomon’s heart was turned away from God by wealth, lust, sex and false idols! Is that not the case today with so many “kings of families” ― that is to say, fathers? Already back in 1917 Our Lady warned that the most common sin that damned souls was impurity in all its various forms―looks, thoughts, words and actions. Most priests today―without revealing any confessional secrets―say that the most common sin is impurity in all its forms. Adults commit it, children commit, teenagers commit it, even the aged who are in their 70s and 80s commit it! And what about the false idols? Most homes are loaded with false idols which are adored and worshiped for many hours a day―the television, the internet, social media, videos and video games, music boxes, etc. Ultimately, it is fathers who have been appointed as “kings” of their own “castle” (the home and family). They―like King Solomon―have had their hearts turned away from God and have allowed the hearts of family members to be turned away from God, by allowing all kind of false idols to enter the home and allowing them to be adored and worshiped for hours each day―whereas God barely receives a daily dose of only a few minutes of prayer!
Division and Corruption! Divide and Conquer!
That is exactly what Our Lady had foretold in her apparitions at Quito, Ecuador and La Salette, France: “In these unhappy times … disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement … Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth! … Under the appearance of virtue and bad-spirited zeal, Catholics will turn upon the Religion which nourished them at her breast! Impelled by the malice of the devil, they will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church ... There will be unbridled luxury which―acting thus to snare the rest into sin―will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost ... Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women! The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals! ... In this supreme moment of need of the Church, those who should speak will fall silent! … Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’” (Our Lady of Good Success & La Salette).
Our Lady of La Salette warned: God will allow the demons to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family.” Who reigns “in every family”? It is the father, of course. Hence the demons will target fathers in particular―for if they can corrupt or weaken the father, then it will much easier to corrupt and weaken the family. The Church has always held the principle: “Convert the king and you will be able to convert the people!” The same is true for Satan and Hell: “Corrupt the king and you will be able to corrupt the people!” ― which also means: “Corrupt the government and you will corrupt the nation” and “Corrupt the father and you will corrupt the family!” Sister Lucia of Fatima echoes this truth when she says: “The Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin. What will gain him the greatest number of souls, in the shortest time, is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them!” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Our Lord warned Blessed Elena Aiello, in 1954, against the “Numerous scandals bringing souls to ruin particularly through the corruption of youth. Stirred-up and unrestrained in the enjoyment of the pleasures of the world, they have degraded their soul in corruption and sin. The bad example of parents trains the family in scandal and infidelity, instead of virtue and prayer, which is almost dead on the lips of many. Stained and withered is the fountain of Faith and sanctity the home!” (Our Lord to Blessed Elena Aiello).
Sister Lucia of Fatima was told by Our Lady that Satan was going to target and wage war against the family―for Satan knows that the family is the basic building block of Church, State and Society. Sister Lucia of Fatima told Cardinal Carlo Caffarra that “a time will come when the decisive battle―between the Kingdom of Christ and Satan―will be over marriage and the family. And those who will work for the good of the family will experience persecution and tribulation!” To Fr. Fuentes, Sister Lucia said: “The Most Holy Virgin made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground!”
This is echoed by the revelations of Our Lady of Good Success and La Salette: “From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century, the passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of morals, for Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family ... The Sacrament of Matrimony, which symbolizes the union of Christ with His Church, will be attacked and profaned in the fullest sense of the word ... They will enact evil laws, making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church ... They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption ... During these unfortunate times, evil will invade childhood innocence ... There will be almost no virgin souls in the world! Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women! … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty! … Woe to the children of these times!”
Woe to the Fathers of These Times!
Not only is it a case of “Woe to the children of these times!”―but it is also a case of “Woe to the fathers of those children!” For the most part, children are defenseless against the attacks made against them―they need the protection of their God-appointed guardians, which are the father and mother, but especially the father, who is appointed to be the head of the family. Those in authority will be judged much more severely than those who have no authority―for to whom more is given, more is expected. “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required; and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48).
“Where is the teacher of little ones?” (Isaias 33:18). “The little ones have asked for bread, and there was none to break it unto them!” (Lamentations 4:4) … “Not in bread alone does man live, but in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God!” (Matthew 4:4) … Jesus said to Peter―who was the head of the family of the Apostles and also the Church: “Feed my lambs! Feed my sheep!” (John 21:15-17). Fathers will not be judged on how much their children liked them; or how much fun and games they gave to their children. They will be primarily judged on how well they fed them with the word of God, how well they taught their children to love and obey God; and how charitable and merciful they were to their fellow human beings―for those are the most important things in life: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “Love the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways, and keep His commandments, ceremonies and judgments” (Deuteronomy 30:16).
The words of God should make fathers tremble: “‘Woe to the pastors that destroy and tear the sheep of My pasture!’ saith the Lord … The shepherds have done foolishly and have not sought the Lord! Therefore have they not understood and all their flock is scattered!” (Jeremias 23:1; 10:21) … “They were led away as a flock, because they have no shepherd! My wrath is kindled against the shepherd!” (Zacharias 10:2-3). “Woe to the shepherds that fed themselves! Should not the flocks be fed by the shepherds? You ate the milk, and you clothed yourselves with the wool, and you killed that which was fat―but My flock you did not feed! … The weak you have not strengthened, and that which was sick you have not healed, that which was broken you have not bound up, and that which was driven away you have not brought back again, neither have you sought that which was lost―but you ruled over them with rigor, and with a heavy hand! And My sheep were scattered, because there was no shepherd―and they became the prey of all the beasts of the field, and were scattered! … My sheep have wandered in every mountain and in every high hill! My flocks were scattered upon the face of the Earth, and there was none that sought them, there was none, I say, that sought them! Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord! As I live, saith the Lord God, forasmuch as My flocks have been made a spoil, and My sheep are become a prey to all the beasts of the field―because there was no shepherd; for My shepherds did not seek after My flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not My flocks! Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord! Behold, I Myself will come upon the shepherds, and I will require My flock at their hand!” (Ezechiel 34:2-9). “My people have been a lost flock, their shepherds have caused them to go astray!” (Jeremias 50:6). “The watchmen are all blind, they are all ignorant! Dumb dogs not able to bark! Seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams! … The shepherds themselves knew no understanding! All have turned aside into their own way, every one after his own gain, from the first even to the last, saying ‘Come, let us take wine, and be filled with drunkenness! And it shall be as today, so also tomorrow, and much more!’” (Isaias 56:10-12).
Article 14
Saturday June 17th, 2023
God Loves to Love―The World Loves to Hate!
Saturday June 17th, 2023
God Loves to Love―The World Loves to Hate!
God is Love―The World is Hatred
St. John tells us that God is love: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). The world has been handed into the control of Satan, “the prince of this world” (John 12:31). Our Lord says: “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he has not anything!” (John 14:30). To which Holy Scripture adds: “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3).
Obviously, just as there is opposition between God and Satan, so too is there opposition between the followers of Christ and the followers of the world. Our Lord Himself said: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
Our Lord continues: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
“Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19) ... “The works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Yes―the World is Evil
Think what you want―but Our Lord says that world is evil. It was evil before His time; it was evil during His life on Earth; and it has been evil ever since. In the Old Testament, because of sin, God wiped out everyone and everything except Noe and those on his ark: “The Earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity. And when God had seen that the Earth was corrupted and that the wickedness of men was great on the Earth, and that all the thoughts of their hearts were bent upon evil at all times, it repented Him that He had made man on the Earth. And He said: ‘I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the Earth, from man even to beasts, from the creeping thing even to the fowls of the air―for it repents Me that I have made them!’” (Genesis 6:11-12, 5-7).
Even in later times, God still complains about the evil in the world: “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! The fool hath said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’ There is no fear of God before their eyes! They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways―there is none that doth good, no not one! Their throat is an open sepulcher―with their tongues they acted deceitfully; the poison of asps is under their lips! Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness! Their feet are swift to shed blood! Destruction and unhappiness in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known! They have not called upon God! There have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear. God hath scattered the bones of them that please men! They have been confounded, because God hath despised them!” (Psalm 13:1-3; Psalm 52:1-6).
Evil Chosen People
Even the Chosen People of God had become evil to the point that God destroyed the Kingdom of Israel―both the Northern Kingdom (Ten Tribes) and the Southern Kingdom (Two Tribes) by allowing neighboring kings to invade, destroy most of the cities―including the mighty Jerusalem and its Temple of God―and carry away large numbers of captives who were eventually assimilated into their captive pagan environments and thus disappeared from history.
As early as in the time of the Judges, it went wrong. The people worshiped idols and committed all kinds of terrible sins. After a brief time of prosperity during the reign of David and Solomon, it worsened again under the successive kings of Israel (the Northern Kingdom) and Juda (the Southern Kingdom). In 722 BC, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians and the ten tribes were lost up to the present day. The two tribes of Juda lasted 150 years longer and knew some good kings, but the majority of the people sinned grievously against God and their neighbors, despite the continuous admonitions and threats of the prophets. God punished them to bring them to conversion, but in vain. They stuck to their own ways. Finally, after so many years of warnings, God brought upon the people of Juda the judgment about which Moses spoke. God allowed His Chosen People to be conquered, large numbers were killed, and thousands were sent into exile in Babylon because of their sins. In the 30-month siege of Jerusalem (around 589–587 BC) by Babylon, the capital city of the Kingdom of Juda, Jerusalem, fell, following which the Babylonians systematically destroyed the city and the First Temple. The Kingdom of Juda was dissolved and many of its inhabitants were exiled to Babylon.
The same thing happened in New Testament times, following Jerusalem’s condemnation and crucifixion of Christ. In April 70 AD, three days before Passover (which was the time of year when Jerusalem had crucified Christ), the Roman army started besieging Jerusalem, which at the time had a population of around 200,000, which, due to influx of Jewish pilgrims from surrounding areas and countries had swelled to over 1 million (1,000,000). Roman forces overwhelmed the defenders and set fire to the Temple. The Jewish historian of those days, Flavius Josephus, wrote that 1.1 million people, the majority of them Jewish, were killed during the siege ― thousands of them being crucified. Josephus attributes the massive death toll to the celebration of Passover with its massive numbers of pilgrims. Josephus goes on to report that after the Romans killed the armed and elderly people, 97,000 were enslaved.
No Change! Evil Remains!
With God, there is NO CHANGE! “For I am the Lord, and I change not!” (Malachias 3:6). “God is not a man, that He should be changed” (Numbers 23:19). “With God there is no change, nor shadow of alteration” (James 1:17). “Thou art always the selfsame!” (Psalm 101:28). Likewise with Our Lord: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever!” (Hebrews 13:8). Yet it seems that with the world there is NO CHANGE also―as indicated by Our Lady in her modern-day apparitions. “Many men in this world afflict the Lord … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge―such as one never seen before! Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests, nor faithful ... Various nations will be annihilated! The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead!” (Fatima, Akita). Sister Lucia said that Our Blessed Mother had told herself, Jacinta and Francisco “many times ... that many nations will disappear from the face of the Earth.” Why because of sins, because the world is evil!
To Blessed Sister Elena Aiello (1895-1961)―mystic, stigmatic, victim soul, prophetess and foundress of the Minim Tertiaries of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ―Our Lady, in an apparition on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, 1956, said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!” We read those words, but they have little effect upon our thick-skinned souls, because we don't really see the world in the same light as Our Lady sees it. Her words leave us unfazed, unperturbed, unmoved, unconcerned!
The Greatest Evil
We all can come up with a list of evils―but just as there is only one God, there is only really one evil―the EVIL OF SIN. All the other so-called “evils” are merely God-sent medicines for the EVIL OF SIN. As the Catechisms tell us:
“Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
“Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
“Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
So―Do You Love the World or Hate the World?
Let’s be honest and admit that most Catholics love some elements of the world some of the time; and some Catholics love the world all of the time. Most Catholics love the world more than they love God―they think about the world more than they think about God―they turn to the world for solutions more than they turn to God (without Whom we can do nothing [John 15:5]).
If you have any inkling of what the spiritual life is all about, then you will know that the spiritual life is progressive weaning away from the things of the world―just like a mother will wean her baby away from her breast milk. That is why Our Lord and Holy Scripture constantly remind us and warn us of the dangers of becoming attached to the “breast milk” of the world: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Our Lord warns that if we are attached to the “mammon” (riches, treasures and pleasures of the world), then we cannot be attached to Him: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). “He that loves his life [in this world] shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal!” (John 12:25).
“He that is not with Me, is against Me! … Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven! But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven! Do not think that I came to bring peace upon Earth―I came not to bring peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household! He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 12:30; 10:32-36).
The World Hates You (if Your are Truly Christian)
Nobody loves being hated―but, if you wish to follow Christ (and that means TRULY follow with your heart and not just your lips), then you will most certainly be hated! Not by everyone, but by most people―because most people are worldly and it stings their conscience to see anyone who not worldly, but godly. This was the case with St. Stephen, the first martyr, who was hated for his Faith in Christ, which provoked the Jews to violent hatred, “and they, crying out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and with one accord ran violently upon him, and casting him forth out of the city, they stoned him” (Acts 7:56-57). AS Our Lord warned: “You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9). “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
God’s Love/Hate Relationships
God loves those who hate Him―while they hate Him Who loves them. Our Lord said it another way: “You have heard that it has been said: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy!’ But I say to you: ‘Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! And pray for them that persecute and calumniate you! ― so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, and Who makes His sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and His rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans this? And if you salute your brethren only―what do you do that is more? Do not also the heathens this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:43-48).
You might object that the Bible is filled with examples of God hating sinners. Strictly speaking, there is only one thing that God hates―and that is sin. That is why we say: “God loves the sinner, but hates the sin!” This is based upon Holy Scripture, which says: “God will have [wants to have] all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4) … “The charity of God appeared towards us, because God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him. In this is charity―not as though we had first loved God, but because He has first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins ... The Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world! … For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him!” (1 John 4:9-10, 14; John 3:17). That only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Himself said: “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world!” (John 12:47) … “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save! … The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … No, I say to you―but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … No, I say to you again; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 9:56; 19:10; 5:32; 13:3-5).
“If the wicked do penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment and justice, then living he shall live and shall not die! I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done―and in his justice, which he hath wrought, he shall live! Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? … As I live, saith the Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live!” (Ezechiel 18:21-23; 33:11).
Unfortunately, Christ was not welcomed: “He was the true Light, which enlightens every man that comes into this world. The Light shone in darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it! He was in the world and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received him not! … The Light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than the Light―for their works were evil!” (John 1:5-11; 3:19).
St. John tells us that God is love: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). The world has been handed into the control of Satan, “the prince of this world” (John 12:31). Our Lord says: “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he has not anything!” (John 14:30). To which Holy Scripture adds: “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3).
Obviously, just as there is opposition between God and Satan, so too is there opposition between the followers of Christ and the followers of the world. Our Lord Himself said: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
Our Lord continues: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
“Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19) ... “The works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Yes―the World is Evil
Think what you want―but Our Lord says that world is evil. It was evil before His time; it was evil during His life on Earth; and it has been evil ever since. In the Old Testament, because of sin, God wiped out everyone and everything except Noe and those on his ark: “The Earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity. And when God had seen that the Earth was corrupted and that the wickedness of men was great on the Earth, and that all the thoughts of their hearts were bent upon evil at all times, it repented Him that He had made man on the Earth. And He said: ‘I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the Earth, from man even to beasts, from the creeping thing even to the fowls of the air―for it repents Me that I have made them!’” (Genesis 6:11-12, 5-7).
Even in later times, God still complains about the evil in the world: “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! The fool hath said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’ There is no fear of God before their eyes! They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways―there is none that doth good, no not one! Their throat is an open sepulcher―with their tongues they acted deceitfully; the poison of asps is under their lips! Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness! Their feet are swift to shed blood! Destruction and unhappiness in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known! They have not called upon God! There have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear. God hath scattered the bones of them that please men! They have been confounded, because God hath despised them!” (Psalm 13:1-3; Psalm 52:1-6).
Evil Chosen People
Even the Chosen People of God had become evil to the point that God destroyed the Kingdom of Israel―both the Northern Kingdom (Ten Tribes) and the Southern Kingdom (Two Tribes) by allowing neighboring kings to invade, destroy most of the cities―including the mighty Jerusalem and its Temple of God―and carry away large numbers of captives who were eventually assimilated into their captive pagan environments and thus disappeared from history.
As early as in the time of the Judges, it went wrong. The people worshiped idols and committed all kinds of terrible sins. After a brief time of prosperity during the reign of David and Solomon, it worsened again under the successive kings of Israel (the Northern Kingdom) and Juda (the Southern Kingdom). In 722 BC, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians and the ten tribes were lost up to the present day. The two tribes of Juda lasted 150 years longer and knew some good kings, but the majority of the people sinned grievously against God and their neighbors, despite the continuous admonitions and threats of the prophets. God punished them to bring them to conversion, but in vain. They stuck to their own ways. Finally, after so many years of warnings, God brought upon the people of Juda the judgment about which Moses spoke. God allowed His Chosen People to be conquered, large numbers were killed, and thousands were sent into exile in Babylon because of their sins. In the 30-month siege of Jerusalem (around 589–587 BC) by Babylon, the capital city of the Kingdom of Juda, Jerusalem, fell, following which the Babylonians systematically destroyed the city and the First Temple. The Kingdom of Juda was dissolved and many of its inhabitants were exiled to Babylon.
The same thing happened in New Testament times, following Jerusalem’s condemnation and crucifixion of Christ. In April 70 AD, three days before Passover (which was the time of year when Jerusalem had crucified Christ), the Roman army started besieging Jerusalem, which at the time had a population of around 200,000, which, due to influx of Jewish pilgrims from surrounding areas and countries had swelled to over 1 million (1,000,000). Roman forces overwhelmed the defenders and set fire to the Temple. The Jewish historian of those days, Flavius Josephus, wrote that 1.1 million people, the majority of them Jewish, were killed during the siege ― thousands of them being crucified. Josephus attributes the massive death toll to the celebration of Passover with its massive numbers of pilgrims. Josephus goes on to report that after the Romans killed the armed and elderly people, 97,000 were enslaved.
No Change! Evil Remains!
With God, there is NO CHANGE! “For I am the Lord, and I change not!” (Malachias 3:6). “God is not a man, that He should be changed” (Numbers 23:19). “With God there is no change, nor shadow of alteration” (James 1:17). “Thou art always the selfsame!” (Psalm 101:28). Likewise with Our Lord: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever!” (Hebrews 13:8). Yet it seems that with the world there is NO CHANGE also―as indicated by Our Lady in her modern-day apparitions. “Many men in this world afflict the Lord … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge―such as one never seen before! Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests, nor faithful ... Various nations will be annihilated! The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead!” (Fatima, Akita). Sister Lucia said that Our Blessed Mother had told herself, Jacinta and Francisco “many times ... that many nations will disappear from the face of the Earth.” Why because of sins, because the world is evil!
To Blessed Sister Elena Aiello (1895-1961)―mystic, stigmatic, victim soul, prophetess and foundress of the Minim Tertiaries of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ―Our Lady, in an apparition on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, 1956, said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!” We read those words, but they have little effect upon our thick-skinned souls, because we don't really see the world in the same light as Our Lady sees it. Her words leave us unfazed, unperturbed, unmoved, unconcerned!
The Greatest Evil
We all can come up with a list of evils―but just as there is only one God, there is only really one evil―the EVIL OF SIN. All the other so-called “evils” are merely God-sent medicines for the EVIL OF SIN. As the Catechisms tell us:
“Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
“Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
“Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us” (The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata, q. 127).
So―Do You Love the World or Hate the World?
Let’s be honest and admit that most Catholics love some elements of the world some of the time; and some Catholics love the world all of the time. Most Catholics love the world more than they love God―they think about the world more than they think about God―they turn to the world for solutions more than they turn to God (without Whom we can do nothing [John 15:5]).
If you have any inkling of what the spiritual life is all about, then you will know that the spiritual life is progressive weaning away from the things of the world―just like a mother will wean her baby away from her breast milk. That is why Our Lord and Holy Scripture constantly remind us and warn us of the dangers of becoming attached to the “breast milk” of the world: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Our Lord warns that if we are attached to the “mammon” (riches, treasures and pleasures of the world), then we cannot be attached to Him: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). “He that loves his life [in this world] shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal!” (John 12:25).
“He that is not with Me, is against Me! … Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven! But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven! Do not think that I came to bring peace upon Earth―I came not to bring peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household! He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 12:30; 10:32-36).
The World Hates You (if Your are Truly Christian)
Nobody loves being hated―but, if you wish to follow Christ (and that means TRULY follow with your heart and not just your lips), then you will most certainly be hated! Not by everyone, but by most people―because most people are worldly and it stings their conscience to see anyone who not worldly, but godly. This was the case with St. Stephen, the first martyr, who was hated for his Faith in Christ, which provoked the Jews to violent hatred, “and they, crying out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and with one accord ran violently upon him, and casting him forth out of the city, they stoned him” (Acts 7:56-57). AS Our Lord warned: “You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9). “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
God’s Love/Hate Relationships
God loves those who hate Him―while they hate Him Who loves them. Our Lord said it another way: “You have heard that it has been said: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy!’ But I say to you: ‘Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! And pray for them that persecute and calumniate you! ― so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, and Who makes His sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and His rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans this? And if you salute your brethren only―what do you do that is more? Do not also the heathens this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:43-48).
You might object that the Bible is filled with examples of God hating sinners. Strictly speaking, there is only one thing that God hates―and that is sin. That is why we say: “God loves the sinner, but hates the sin!” This is based upon Holy Scripture, which says: “God will have [wants to have] all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4) … “The charity of God appeared towards us, because God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him. In this is charity―not as though we had first loved God, but because He has first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins ... The Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world! … For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him!” (1 John 4:9-10, 14; John 3:17). That only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Himself said: “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world!” (John 12:47) … “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save! … The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … No, I say to you―but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … No, I say to you again; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 9:56; 19:10; 5:32; 13:3-5).
“If the wicked do penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment and justice, then living he shall live and shall not die! I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done―and in his justice, which he hath wrought, he shall live! Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? … As I live, saith the Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live!” (Ezechiel 18:21-23; 33:11).
Unfortunately, Christ was not welcomed: “He was the true Light, which enlightens every man that comes into this world. The Light shone in darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it! He was in the world and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received him not! … The Light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than the Light―for their works were evil!” (John 1:5-11; 3:19).
Article 13
Friday June 16th, 2023, the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Will Jesus Enkindle Fire in Your Heart?
Friday June 16th, 2023, the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Will Jesus Enkindle Fire in Your Heart?
The Purpose of the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
When Pope Pius IX, in 1856, extended the feast of the Sacred Heart to the universal Church, his purpose was, as we see here from his own words, “to urge on the faithful to make a return of love to the wounded Heart of Him Who has loved us and cleansed us from our sins in His blood.” And when he raised the Feast of the Sacred Heart to a higher rite, it was again “that the devotion of love to the Heart of our Redeemer might spread more and more, and penetrate more deeply into the hearts of the faithful, and that thus charity―which has grown cold among many―might be rekindled by the fire of Divine love.”
Fire Burning, or Fire Going Out?
The Sacred Liturgy of Holy Mother Church, in the Antiphon for the Magnificat in the First Vespers of this feast of the Sacred Heart, quotes Our Lord as saying: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth―and what do I wish, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). But has this fire of love been enkindled? We have to be honest and say “No!” There are always exceptions to the rule; you will find souls, here and there, who really do have a sincere devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Even less in number will be those who practice their devotion to the Sacred Heart through the means of the Immaculate Heart of Mary—which is something that was advocated and taught by St. Margaret Mary herself. The devil is very adept at quenching the fires of love that Heaven seeks to enkindle―as Jesus Himself said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what do I wish, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). Pope Pius IX, in the Brief of beatification of Margaret Mary he states: “Jesus had nothing more in view than to enkindle in the hearts of men the fire of love with which His own Heart was inflamed … Therefore He wished that the veneration and cult of His Most Sacred Heart should be established and propagated in the Church.”
Warming Ourselves by the Second-Rate Fires of the World?
Why is our love so lukewarm, so indifferent, or even so cold? Well, the simple, “no brainer’ answer is that we love something else more than the Sacred Heart (or God, or Our Lady, etc.). What is that something else? Quite simply, it is our own self and the world—with its persons, places and things. We seek first, not the kingdom of God and His justice, but we seek first and foremost ourselves and what the world—with all that it contains—can offer us. Those are the idols that have replaced the Sacred Heart (God, Our Lady, etc.). Of course, we all have our excuses and protestations that this is not quite so! But like Adam and Eve, when confronted by God, after their sin, it is excuse upon excuse. As the French say: “Vos excuses vous accusent!” Which means: “Your excuses accuse you!”
Most Souls ARE Lukewarm
Yet Our Lord sees us as we are, not as we imagine ourselves to be; and the truth of the matter is that most souls are lukewarm for a greater or lesser part of their lives. The lukewarmness of souls was already the complaint of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary in 1673! How much worse is not the world today? The Fr. Faber adamantly states this at the end of his chapter on lukewarmness in his book, Growth in Holiness, saying:
“I fear this evil of lukewarmness is very common, and that at this moment it is gnawing the life out of many souls who suspect not its presence there. It is a great grace, a prophecy of a miraculous cure, to find out that we are lukewarm; but we are lost if we do not act with vigor, the moment we make this frightening discovery. It is like going to sleep in the snow, almost a pleasant tingling feeling at the first, and then―lost forever” (Growth in Holiness, chapter 25, “Lukewarmness”).
Another great spiritual authority and master, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., is of the opinion that most souls are not even beginners in the spiritual life. Speaking of the lukewarm or tepid souls, he writes:
“After conversion there ought to be a serious beginning of the purgative life, in which beginners love God by avoiding mortal sin and deliberate venial sin, through exterior and interior mortification and through prayer. But in actual fact this purgative life is found under two very different forms: in some―admittedly very few―this life is intense, generous; it is the narrow way of perfect self-denial described by the saints. In many others the purgative life appears in an attenuated form―varying from good souls, who are a little weak, down to those tepid and retarded souls, who from time to time fall into mortal sin” (The Three Conversions of the Spiritual Life, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange).
The reason that we do not see and admit our lukewarmness is because, as Fr. Faber says, lukewarmness is also a spiritual blindness: “The diseases and evils of the body are in a great degree typical of the miseries and misfortunes of the soul. If we seek the correlative of lukewarmness, we shall find it in blindness. It is a blindness which does not know even its own self, and does not suspect that it is blind, or that other men see better than itself. It is a judicial blindness, because it once saw better itself, and now does not remember either what it saw, or that it ever saw at all” (Growth in Holiness, chapter 25, “Lukewarmness”).
A Change of Heart
If we are honest with God and ourselves, then we will admit that we are in need of a new heart—a better heart, a more sincere heart, a heart that is more pure, more contrite, more courageous, more steadfast, more charitable, more fervent. Our current heart could be said to be “a heart of stone”—insensitive to the needs of God, heartless in committing sins.
As Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). A change of heart without the Sacred Heart will never happen: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:26). God even offers to give us a new heart: “I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels: and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 11:19).
A little further on, God again states: “And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 36:26). “Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit: and why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezechiel 18:31).
New Hearts Don’t Come Cheap!
The Sacred Heart of Jesus will also give you a new heart—but you have to go to Him! Yet the Sacred Heart is not a vending-machine, that automatically gives new hearts for a few cents! New hearts are expensive—and so do not be surprised if you have to put spiritual coin after spiritual coin into the slot before you finally get your new heart! Our Lord may well initially give you a ‘cold-shoulder’ that might seem to you to be a cold-hearted reaction or response. We do well to remind ourselves of the Canaanite woman, who had to beg and beg, while seemingly being cold-heartedly rejected and refused by Our Lord and the Apostles! It is well worth re-reading that account in order to draw a lesson for our lukewarm selves, who, after years of lukewarmness or half-hearted Christian living, may well have to eat some ‘humble-pie’ before Our Lord finally grants us that new heart! Here is that very instructive account:
“And behold a woman of Canaan who came out of those coasts, crying out, said to Him: ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou son of David! My daughter is grievously troubled by the devil!’ Who answered her not a word. And His disciples came and besought Him, saying: ‘Send her away! For she cries after us!’ And He answering, said: ‘I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel!’ But she came and adored him, saying: ‘Lord! Help me!’ Who answering, said: ‘It is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs!’ But she said: ‘Yes, Lord! But even the whelps also eat of the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters!’ Then Jesus answering, said to her: ‘O woman, great is thy faith! Be it done to thee as thou wilt!’ ― and her daughter was cured from that hour” (Matthew 15:22-28).
Trade-In Your Lukewarm Misfiring Heart!
The Sacred Heart of Jesus offers us that new heart. But the new heart “will not take” or won’t work on the old corrupted unpurified blood that destroyed our ‘old’ heart. That is why Holy Scripture says: “Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above; where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth. For you are dead; and your life is hid with Christ in God.
“When Christ shall appear, who is your life, then you also shall appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the Earth; fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is the service of idols. For which things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of unbelief, in which you also walked some time, when you lived in them. But now put you also all away: anger, indignation, malice, blasphemy, filthy speech out of your mouth. Lie not one to another: stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of Him that created him” (Colossians 3:1-10).
Feed the Fire!
Yet what good is a new fiery heart if we let that fire go out? Fires go out if they are not ‘fed’ with new logs or coals, unlike the artificial gas and electric fires, which, even you forget about them, keep on going as long as you do not cut-off the power supply; but other than that, they are effortless to maintain. Whereas logs have to be chopped, and even split, to make firewood. Even coal has to be manually shoveled into the fire.
Similarly with the fire in our soul, there has to be some effort made in order to preserve the fires burning brightly. Books have to be taken off shelves and split open to furnish ‘firewood’ for our minds. Then we have split it even more and read those pages sentence by sentence, and then let those words burn into our minds and hearts. We reap what we sow.
“He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:8).
Heart and Health
The heart is at the heart of our well-being and existence. If the heart is weak, then that weakness will eventually extend itself to our entire being, directly or indirectly. Even our intellectual life will suffer indirectly, as the heart pumps blood to brain, and the brain needs much oxygen to function well, and that oxygen is carried by the blood the heart is supposed to pump.
The same is true of our spiritual life. If our ‘spiritual’ heart is healthy, then the healthier will be our entire spiritual life. “Soundness of heart is the life of the flesh” (Proverbs 14:30). That healthy heart refers to the love in our ‘heart’. This is also the key element in the apparitions and messages of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Love is the Health of the Heart
The heart of our spiritual life is love. Love is and has to be the soul of all that we do. “Let all your things be done in charity!” (1 Corinthians 16:14). “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Therefore, once again: “Let all your things be done in charity” (1 Corinthians 16:14).
God is Love
God Himself is Charity, He is Charity Itself: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). This charity God has mercifully and kindly shown to a world that has not deserved or merited it—it is not as though we had something first for God, that necessitated God to repay us. “Who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be made him?” (Romans 11:35). In fact, the world, by its sins, was more deserving of punishment and damnation than it was deserving of God’s charity! Yet that did not extinguish the charity of God.
Who Loved Who First?
“For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting!” (John 3:16). “God, Who is rich in mercy, for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ, by whose grace you are saved!” (Ephesians 2:4-5). “In this is charity: not as though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins!” (1 John 4:10). “In this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid down His life for us” (1 John 3:16). “Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us” (1 John 4:19). “This only take care of with all diligence, that you love the Lord your God” (Josue 23:11). “That Christ may dwell by Faith in your hearts; that being rooted and founded in charity” (Ephesians 3:17). “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us” (Romans 5:5). “Follow after charity” (1 Corinthians 14:1). “For the charity of Christ presseth us” (2 Corinthians 5:14).
Following After Charity
Will you “follow after charity” (1 Corinthians 14:1)? To “follow after charity” means to leave all things behind in the search for God--”God is charity” (1 John 4:8). “Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My Name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting” (Matthew 19:29). “And Peter began to say unto him: ‘Behold, we have left all things, and have followed thee!’ Jesus answering, said: ‘Amen I say to you, there is no man who hath left house or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, for My sake and for the Gospel, who shall not receive an hundred times as much, now in this time; houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands―along with persecutions―and, in the world to come, life everlasting!’” (Mark 10:28-30). In other words, following Christ will not only receive sweet rewards already in this life, but also not-so-sweet persecutions! Yet the ultimate ‘pay-day’ is beyond our wildest dreams! “As it is written: ‘That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him’” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Do You Have Courage To Leave All For Christ?
Do we have the courage to leave all behind—at least in spirit and attachment—and go to live in the Sacred Heart of Jesus? Let us learn a lesson from the rich young man, who failed to respond to Christ’s call:
“And behold one came and said to Jesus: ‘Good master! What good shall I do that I may have life everlasting? Who said to him: ‘Why asketh thou Me concerning good? One is good―God! But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ He said to Him: ‘Which?’ And Jesus said: ‘Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honor thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!’ The young man saith to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’
“Jesus saith to him: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’
“And when they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus beholding, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible. Then Peter answering, said to him: ‘Behold we have left all things, and have followed Thee! What therefore shall we have?’ And Jesus said to them: ‘Amen, I say to you, that you, who have followed Me, and every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My Name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting!” (Matthew 19:16-29).
The Call of Christ
Christ calls! Christ calls all! Yet few respond to the call of Christ! “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). You have been called―but will you be chosen? The “many” refuse the call of Christ because they are too busy with the call of the material world: “A certain man made a great supper, and invited many. And he sent his servant at the hour of supper to say to them that were invited, that they should come, for now all things are ready. And they began all at once to make excuse. The first said to him: ‘I have bought a farm, and I must needs go out and see it! I pray thee, hold me excused!’ And another said: ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to try them! I pray thee, hold me excused!’ And another said: ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come!’ And the servant returning, told these things to his lord. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant: Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the feeble, and the blind, and the lame! … But I say unto you, that none of those men that were invited, shall taste of my supper!” (Luke 14:16-24). A fearful lesson--”For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). What are you busy with?
When Pope Pius IX, in 1856, extended the feast of the Sacred Heart to the universal Church, his purpose was, as we see here from his own words, “to urge on the faithful to make a return of love to the wounded Heart of Him Who has loved us and cleansed us from our sins in His blood.” And when he raised the Feast of the Sacred Heart to a higher rite, it was again “that the devotion of love to the Heart of our Redeemer might spread more and more, and penetrate more deeply into the hearts of the faithful, and that thus charity―which has grown cold among many―might be rekindled by the fire of Divine love.”
Fire Burning, or Fire Going Out?
The Sacred Liturgy of Holy Mother Church, in the Antiphon for the Magnificat in the First Vespers of this feast of the Sacred Heart, quotes Our Lord as saying: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth―and what do I wish, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). But has this fire of love been enkindled? We have to be honest and say “No!” There are always exceptions to the rule; you will find souls, here and there, who really do have a sincere devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Even less in number will be those who practice their devotion to the Sacred Heart through the means of the Immaculate Heart of Mary—which is something that was advocated and taught by St. Margaret Mary herself. The devil is very adept at quenching the fires of love that Heaven seeks to enkindle―as Jesus Himself said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what do I wish, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). Pope Pius IX, in the Brief of beatification of Margaret Mary he states: “Jesus had nothing more in view than to enkindle in the hearts of men the fire of love with which His own Heart was inflamed … Therefore He wished that the veneration and cult of His Most Sacred Heart should be established and propagated in the Church.”
Warming Ourselves by the Second-Rate Fires of the World?
Why is our love so lukewarm, so indifferent, or even so cold? Well, the simple, “no brainer’ answer is that we love something else more than the Sacred Heart (or God, or Our Lady, etc.). What is that something else? Quite simply, it is our own self and the world—with its persons, places and things. We seek first, not the kingdom of God and His justice, but we seek first and foremost ourselves and what the world—with all that it contains—can offer us. Those are the idols that have replaced the Sacred Heart (God, Our Lady, etc.). Of course, we all have our excuses and protestations that this is not quite so! But like Adam and Eve, when confronted by God, after their sin, it is excuse upon excuse. As the French say: “Vos excuses vous accusent!” Which means: “Your excuses accuse you!”
Most Souls ARE Lukewarm
Yet Our Lord sees us as we are, not as we imagine ourselves to be; and the truth of the matter is that most souls are lukewarm for a greater or lesser part of their lives. The lukewarmness of souls was already the complaint of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary in 1673! How much worse is not the world today? The Fr. Faber adamantly states this at the end of his chapter on lukewarmness in his book, Growth in Holiness, saying:
“I fear this evil of lukewarmness is very common, and that at this moment it is gnawing the life out of many souls who suspect not its presence there. It is a great grace, a prophecy of a miraculous cure, to find out that we are lukewarm; but we are lost if we do not act with vigor, the moment we make this frightening discovery. It is like going to sleep in the snow, almost a pleasant tingling feeling at the first, and then―lost forever” (Growth in Holiness, chapter 25, “Lukewarmness”).
Another great spiritual authority and master, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., is of the opinion that most souls are not even beginners in the spiritual life. Speaking of the lukewarm or tepid souls, he writes:
“After conversion there ought to be a serious beginning of the purgative life, in which beginners love God by avoiding mortal sin and deliberate venial sin, through exterior and interior mortification and through prayer. But in actual fact this purgative life is found under two very different forms: in some―admittedly very few―this life is intense, generous; it is the narrow way of perfect self-denial described by the saints. In many others the purgative life appears in an attenuated form―varying from good souls, who are a little weak, down to those tepid and retarded souls, who from time to time fall into mortal sin” (The Three Conversions of the Spiritual Life, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange).
The reason that we do not see and admit our lukewarmness is because, as Fr. Faber says, lukewarmness is also a spiritual blindness: “The diseases and evils of the body are in a great degree typical of the miseries and misfortunes of the soul. If we seek the correlative of lukewarmness, we shall find it in blindness. It is a blindness which does not know even its own self, and does not suspect that it is blind, or that other men see better than itself. It is a judicial blindness, because it once saw better itself, and now does not remember either what it saw, or that it ever saw at all” (Growth in Holiness, chapter 25, “Lukewarmness”).
A Change of Heart
If we are honest with God and ourselves, then we will admit that we are in need of a new heart—a better heart, a more sincere heart, a heart that is more pure, more contrite, more courageous, more steadfast, more charitable, more fervent. Our current heart could be said to be “a heart of stone”—insensitive to the needs of God, heartless in committing sins.
As Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). A change of heart without the Sacred Heart will never happen: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:26). God even offers to give us a new heart: “I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels: and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 11:19).
A little further on, God again states: “And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 36:26). “Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit: and why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezechiel 18:31).
New Hearts Don’t Come Cheap!
The Sacred Heart of Jesus will also give you a new heart—but you have to go to Him! Yet the Sacred Heart is not a vending-machine, that automatically gives new hearts for a few cents! New hearts are expensive—and so do not be surprised if you have to put spiritual coin after spiritual coin into the slot before you finally get your new heart! Our Lord may well initially give you a ‘cold-shoulder’ that might seem to you to be a cold-hearted reaction or response. We do well to remind ourselves of the Canaanite woman, who had to beg and beg, while seemingly being cold-heartedly rejected and refused by Our Lord and the Apostles! It is well worth re-reading that account in order to draw a lesson for our lukewarm selves, who, after years of lukewarmness or half-hearted Christian living, may well have to eat some ‘humble-pie’ before Our Lord finally grants us that new heart! Here is that very instructive account:
“And behold a woman of Canaan who came out of those coasts, crying out, said to Him: ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou son of David! My daughter is grievously troubled by the devil!’ Who answered her not a word. And His disciples came and besought Him, saying: ‘Send her away! For she cries after us!’ And He answering, said: ‘I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel!’ But she came and adored him, saying: ‘Lord! Help me!’ Who answering, said: ‘It is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs!’ But she said: ‘Yes, Lord! But even the whelps also eat of the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters!’ Then Jesus answering, said to her: ‘O woman, great is thy faith! Be it done to thee as thou wilt!’ ― and her daughter was cured from that hour” (Matthew 15:22-28).
Trade-In Your Lukewarm Misfiring Heart!
The Sacred Heart of Jesus offers us that new heart. But the new heart “will not take” or won’t work on the old corrupted unpurified blood that destroyed our ‘old’ heart. That is why Holy Scripture says: “Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above; where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth. For you are dead; and your life is hid with Christ in God.
“When Christ shall appear, who is your life, then you also shall appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the Earth; fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is the service of idols. For which things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of unbelief, in which you also walked some time, when you lived in them. But now put you also all away: anger, indignation, malice, blasphemy, filthy speech out of your mouth. Lie not one to another: stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of Him that created him” (Colossians 3:1-10).
Feed the Fire!
Yet what good is a new fiery heart if we let that fire go out? Fires go out if they are not ‘fed’ with new logs or coals, unlike the artificial gas and electric fires, which, even you forget about them, keep on going as long as you do not cut-off the power supply; but other than that, they are effortless to maintain. Whereas logs have to be chopped, and even split, to make firewood. Even coal has to be manually shoveled into the fire.
Similarly with the fire in our soul, there has to be some effort made in order to preserve the fires burning brightly. Books have to be taken off shelves and split open to furnish ‘firewood’ for our minds. Then we have split it even more and read those pages sentence by sentence, and then let those words burn into our minds and hearts. We reap what we sow.
“He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:8).
Heart and Health
The heart is at the heart of our well-being and existence. If the heart is weak, then that weakness will eventually extend itself to our entire being, directly or indirectly. Even our intellectual life will suffer indirectly, as the heart pumps blood to brain, and the brain needs much oxygen to function well, and that oxygen is carried by the blood the heart is supposed to pump.
The same is true of our spiritual life. If our ‘spiritual’ heart is healthy, then the healthier will be our entire spiritual life. “Soundness of heart is the life of the flesh” (Proverbs 14:30). That healthy heart refers to the love in our ‘heart’. This is also the key element in the apparitions and messages of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Love is the Health of the Heart
The heart of our spiritual life is love. Love is and has to be the soul of all that we do. “Let all your things be done in charity!” (1 Corinthians 16:14). “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Therefore, once again: “Let all your things be done in charity” (1 Corinthians 16:14).
God is Love
God Himself is Charity, He is Charity Itself: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). This charity God has mercifully and kindly shown to a world that has not deserved or merited it—it is not as though we had something first for God, that necessitated God to repay us. “Who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be made him?” (Romans 11:35). In fact, the world, by its sins, was more deserving of punishment and damnation than it was deserving of God’s charity! Yet that did not extinguish the charity of God.
Who Loved Who First?
“For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting!” (John 3:16). “God, Who is rich in mercy, for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ, by whose grace you are saved!” (Ephesians 2:4-5). “In this is charity: not as though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins!” (1 John 4:10). “In this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid down His life for us” (1 John 3:16). “Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us” (1 John 4:19). “This only take care of with all diligence, that you love the Lord your God” (Josue 23:11). “That Christ may dwell by Faith in your hearts; that being rooted and founded in charity” (Ephesians 3:17). “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us” (Romans 5:5). “Follow after charity” (1 Corinthians 14:1). “For the charity of Christ presseth us” (2 Corinthians 5:14).
Following After Charity
Will you “follow after charity” (1 Corinthians 14:1)? To “follow after charity” means to leave all things behind in the search for God--”God is charity” (1 John 4:8). “Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My Name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting” (Matthew 19:29). “And Peter began to say unto him: ‘Behold, we have left all things, and have followed thee!’ Jesus answering, said: ‘Amen I say to you, there is no man who hath left house or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, for My sake and for the Gospel, who shall not receive an hundred times as much, now in this time; houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands―along with persecutions―and, in the world to come, life everlasting!’” (Mark 10:28-30). In other words, following Christ will not only receive sweet rewards already in this life, but also not-so-sweet persecutions! Yet the ultimate ‘pay-day’ is beyond our wildest dreams! “As it is written: ‘That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him’” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Do You Have Courage To Leave All For Christ?
Do we have the courage to leave all behind—at least in spirit and attachment—and go to live in the Sacred Heart of Jesus? Let us learn a lesson from the rich young man, who failed to respond to Christ’s call:
“And behold one came and said to Jesus: ‘Good master! What good shall I do that I may have life everlasting? Who said to him: ‘Why asketh thou Me concerning good? One is good―God! But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ He said to Him: ‘Which?’ And Jesus said: ‘Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honor thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!’ The young man saith to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’
“Jesus saith to him: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’
“And when they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus beholding, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible. Then Peter answering, said to him: ‘Behold we have left all things, and have followed Thee! What therefore shall we have?’ And Jesus said to them: ‘Amen, I say to you, that you, who have followed Me, and every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My Name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting!” (Matthew 19:16-29).
The Call of Christ
Christ calls! Christ calls all! Yet few respond to the call of Christ! “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). You have been called―but will you be chosen? The “many” refuse the call of Christ because they are too busy with the call of the material world: “A certain man made a great supper, and invited many. And he sent his servant at the hour of supper to say to them that were invited, that they should come, for now all things are ready. And they began all at once to make excuse. The first said to him: ‘I have bought a farm, and I must needs go out and see it! I pray thee, hold me excused!’ And another said: ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to try them! I pray thee, hold me excused!’ And another said: ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come!’ And the servant returning, told these things to his lord. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant: Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the feeble, and the blind, and the lame! … But I say unto you, that none of those men that were invited, shall taste of my supper!” (Luke 14:16-24). A fearful lesson--”For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). What are you busy with?
Article 12
Thursday June 15th, 2023, within the Octave of Corpus Christi
A Heartless World Needs the Sacred Heart
Thursday June 15th, 2023, within the Octave of Corpus Christi
A Heartless World Needs the Sacred Heart
Look and See How Charitable and Nice is the World!
The world would like to portray itself as being caring and charitable—but how many really believe that? Our Lord said: “By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them” (Matthew 7:16-20).
What are the fruits of the world? Ever increasing sin—in the form of crime, immorality, and heartlessness. As Our Lord warned: “You shall be hated by all nations for My Name’s sake. Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another … and because iniquity will have abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold!” (Matthew 24:12).
Heartlessness of Man Brings On Heartless of Heaven
Whether it is Christian world or the pagan world, the heartlessness of the world is appalling! Small wonder that Our Lady warns: “The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs ... Moreover, in these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost ... Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape…!” (Our Lady of Good Success and La Salette).
The ‘Sweet’ Fruits of the Heartless World
Whether the fruits of the world can be said to be sweet or bitter, depends upon whether you look upon the fruits with the spectacles or glasses of God, or the spectacles of the devil.
Heartless Fruit of Abortion
Ten years ago, in 2013, Simon Rabinovitch, in his article, “Data Reveal Scale of China Abortions,” reports that there had been 336 million abortions, 196 million sterilizations and 403 million intrauterine devices used in China since 1971. He notes that Chinese doctors every year abort roughly 7 million babies; sterilize nearly 2 million men and women; and insert 7 million IUDs, though precise numbers are hard to ascertain precisely.
Dr. Brian Clowes, director of education and research at Human Life International, investigated the number of worldwide abortions since 1973 (Roe vs. Wade). The results were staggering! He estimates that there have been more than 1.72 billion abortions (over one thousand seven hundred million—1,750,000,000) over the last 50 years, a trend that is not lessening, but growing exponentially, as more and more countries embrace and legalize contraception and abortion as methods of population control, which is always sold as the “sweet fruit” of so-called ‘civilized’ “family planning” and “reproductive health.”
One Baby Per Second
It is estimated that worldwide, on average a baby is aborted every second of the day. For the time it took you to read this article thus far, around 200 babies have been aborted worldwide. As the world allows abortionists to rip the baby from its mother’s womb, it allows the devil to rip out the heart of the world. Today, false statisticians will tell you that abortions have declined―what they don’t tell you is this: Even though there is some decline in surgical abortions, there is a massive rise in the use of the abortion pill. Today around 50% of abortions are committed in the comfort of one’s own home by using the abortion pill. The wannabe child is heartlessly flushed down the toilet!
Contraceptive Fruit
The typical American woman wants two children. To achieve this goal, she must use contraceptives for roughly three decades. Virtually all American women aged 15–44 who are sexually experienced have at some point used a contraceptive method other than natural family planning (99%). This is also true of Catholic women, 98% of whom have used a contraceptive method other than natural family planning. Today’s modern contraceptive pill is increasingly not a “preventative” pill, but an abortive pill—it doesn’t seek to avoid conception, it just kills it whenever it occurs.
The Less Hearts in the World, the Better!
The globalists and “elitists” have a goal of controlling and eventually reducing the world’s population from its current 7 billion (7,000,000,000) to around half-a-billion, that is 500 million. Numerically, that means eliminating 13 out of 14 people. Abortion and contraception are key tools in this population reduction and control.
Wars—the Punishment For Sin
Heaven has said that wars are one of God’s many ways of punishing sin. Wars also reduce population very effectively, especially with modern weaponry. Thousands can be killed with ‘one big bullet’—as we saw with the Atom Bombs dropped on Japan during the Second World War, in 1945. The real mortality of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan will never be known. The destruction and overwhelming chaos made orderly counting impossible. It is not unlikely that the estimates of killed and wounded in Hiroshima (150,000) and Nagasaki (75,000) are overly conservative and very much on the low side.
For globalists, war has the advantage of being ‘legalized murder.’ Provoke a war, reduce the population! The First World War (1914-1918) is estimated to have killed almost 9 million military and 7 million civilians. The Second World War (1939-1945) is estimated to have killed 20 million military and 30 million civilians.
A lot of dead bodies! However, our current abortion rates blast those figures out of the water! According to current World Health Organization stats (which are always thought to be low in this field), compared to the 16 million dead during the First World War, we would have aborted 200 million babies over the same time span. Compared to the 50 million dead in the Second World War, we would have aborted 300 million babies.
USA Crime Clock
In the USA alone, the FBI Crime Clock for 2018, showed that:
► One violent crime occurred every 25 seconds.
► One Murder every 32 seconds.
► One Forcible Rape every 4 minutes.
► One Robbery every 2 minutes.
► One Aggravated Assault every 40 seconds.
► One Property Crime every 3 seconds.
► One Larceny-Theft every 6 seconds.
► One Motor Vehicle Theft every 42 seconds.
In 2013, Official figures from India’s National Crime Records Bureau reveal that 8,233 young women, many of them new brides, were killed in so-called ‘dowry deaths’ in 2012, because her family failed to meet her husband and in-laws’ demands for higher dowry payments and lavish gifts. That is one woman killed per hour, or so.
Marriage, Infidelity and Divorce
It is estimated that roughly 30 to 60% of all married individuals (in the United States) will engage in infidelity at some point during their marriage. And these numbers are probably on the conservative side, when you consider that close to half of all marriages end in divorce. In a survey, 74 % of men said they would have an affair if they knew they would never get caught, while the number for women was slightly less at 68%.
Speaking of marriage, Our Lord says: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mark 10:9). Yet more and more marriages go asunder and end in divorce—and ‘Catholic’ countries top the list. Belgium sees 71% of marriages ending in divorce; Portugal has 68%; Hungary 67%; Czech Republic 66%; Spain 61%; Luxembourg 60%; Estonia 58%; Cuba 56%; France 55%; USA 53%. Add to those numbers the fact that less and less persons are marrying in the first place, and you see the terrible, sinful state that marriage finds itself in.
The Unfaithful Faithful
The ultimate sins are sins against God, which include sins against Faith, Hope and Charity (the God focused Theological Virtues). The ominous words of Our Lord—”The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on earth?”—ring true today. 80% of Catholics are no longer Catholic by the time they turn 23. This is an American statistic—yet it holds true in varying degrees all around the world. They Catholic youth is dying on its feet.
The Pew Research Center says that “Catholicism has suffered the greatest net loss in the process of religious change. Many people who leave the Catholic Church do so for religious reasons; two-thirds of former Catholics who have become unaffiliated say they left the Catholic faith because they stopped believing in its teachings, as do half of former Catholics who are now Protestant. Fewer than three-in-ten former Catholics, however, say the clergy sexual abuse scandal factored into their decision to leave Catholicism.”
The Unfaithful Clergy
A 2002 Los Angeles Times nationwide poll of 1,854 priests (responding) reported that 9% of priests identified themselves as homosexual, and further 6% percent as “somewhere in between but more on the homosexual side.” Most recently, in 2019, sociologist Paul Sullins estimated that about 17% of Catholic priests in the United States are homosexual in orientation, a rate around 4 to 5 times that of the wider population.
Anonymous studies have also suggested a prevalence of homosexual leanings in the Roman Catholic priesthood.
Studies by Wolf and Sipe from the early 1990s suggest that the percentage of priests in the Catholic Church, who admitted to being gay or were in homosexual relationships, was well above the national average for the United States of America.
Elizabeth Stuart, a former convener of the Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian and Gay Christian movement claimed, “It has been estimated that at least 33 percent of all priests in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States are homosexual.”
According to the Boston Globe, anecdotal press reports from anonymous sources suggest that the incidence of homosexuality in the Roman Catholic priesthood is much higher than in the general population.
A NBC report on chastity and the clergy found that “anywhere from 23 percent to 58 percent” of the Catholic clergy have a homosexual orientation.
In one court case it was claimed that around 70% of US Catholic bishops were homosexuals.
True or exaggerated, it still makes one wonder about Our Lady’s words at La Salette: “The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity. Yes, the priests are asking for vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying my Son again! The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door.”
No Heart For Religion
Priests: After skyrocketing from about 27,000 in 1930 to 58,000 in 1965, the number of priests in the United States dropped to 45,000 in 2002. By 2020, there will be about 31,000 priests--and only 15,000 will be under the age of 70. Right now there are more priests aged 80 to 84 than there are aged 30 to 34.
Seminarians: Between 1965 and 2002, the number of seminarians dropped from 49,000 to 4,700--a 90 percent decrease. Without any students, seminaries across the country have been sold or shuttered. There were 596 seminaries in 1965, and only 200 in 2002.
Sisters: 180,000 sisters were the backbone of the Catholic education and health systems in 1965. In 2002, there were 75,000 sisters, with an average age of 68. By 2020, the number of sisters will drop to 40,000--and of these, only 21,000 will be aged 70 or under. In 1965, 104,000 sisters were teaching, while in 2002 there were only 8,200 teachers.
Brothers: The number of professed brothers decreased from about 12,000 in 1965 to 5,700 in 2002, with a further drop to 3,100 projected for 2020.
Religious Orders: The religious orders will soon be virtually non-existent in the United States. For example, in 1965 there were 5,277 Jesuit priests and 3,559 seminarians; in 2000 there were 3,172 priests and 38 seminarians. There were 2,534 OFM Franciscan priests and 2,251 seminarians in 1965; in 2000 there were 1,492 priests and 60 seminarians. There were 2,434 Christian Brothers in 1965 and 912 seminarians; in 2000 there were 959 Brothers and 7 seminarians. There were 1,148 Redemptorist priests in 1965 and 1,128 seminarians; in 2000 there were 349 priests and 24 seminarians. Every major religious order in the United States mirrors these statistics.
The love of God is dying, as is shown by the lack of desire amongst youth to respond to God’s call to a vocation. St. John Bosco was of the opinion that God called around 1 in 4 persons to a religious vocation—either priest, brother, monk, sister or nun. Now we are lucky if we see 1 in 4,000 respond to the call.
Heartless and Hopeless World
The world has reached a point where it tries paint good as being evil, and tries to convince us that evil is actually good. Holy Scripture—the voice of God—clearly warns us: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter” (Isaias 5:20). St. Paul speaks our ‘end times’ and its heartless people, when he writes: “Know also this, that, in the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God. Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).
St. Peter echoes this: “Knowing this first, that in the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts” (2 Peter 3:3). “Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). “Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption” (Galatians 6:7-8).
A Heartless World Will See a Heartless Judgment
“For judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy” (James 2:13). “Rise up O Lord! Attend to visit all the nations: have no mercy on all them that work iniquity!” (Psalm 58:6). If the world was charitable, then the forthcoming chastisement would not be necessary! However, charity is first and foremost focused upon God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment” (Mark 12:30). “Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God, and His justice” (Matthew 6:33).
A World Without Love
The world does NOT seek God first! One can even say that for the most part, the world does not seek God at all! It seeks self and places self in place of God. Its charity is a false charity, for it is not based upon God and it lacks the grace of God. The world has a heart of stone, not a heart of flesh—or we could say that it is like the Tinman from the Wizard of Oz, who had no heart and was seeking a heart—except that our world is not seeking a real heart, it quite happy with its fake heart and fake charity. A real heat is one that loves God above all things, and loves neighbor for the sake of God, and seeks to lead its neighbor to God and a greater love of God.
Without a love of God in the soul, the soul is fake, hypocritical, self-deluded and going nowhere fast—or, we should rather say, going to Hell fast. St. Paul paints the following picture of a soul without charity (which means a love of God): “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The One Thing Necessary
Seeking and loving God is the most essential thing in life—but this is not the scale of values of the world. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes:
“As everyone can easily understand, the interior life is an elevated form of intimate conversation … with God. Little by little, instead of seeking himself in everything, instead of tending more or less consciously to make himself a center, man tends to seek God in everything, and to substitute for egoism love of God and of souls in Him. This constitutes the interior life. No sincere man will have any difficulty in recognizing it. The one thing necessary which Jesus spoke of to Martha and Mary consists in hearing the word of God and living by it.
“The interior life is something far more profound and more necessary in us than intellectual life, or the cultivation of the sciences, than artistic or literary life, than social or political life. Unfortunately, some great scholars, mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers have no interior life, so to speak, but devote themselves to the study of their science as if God did not exist. In their moments of solitude they have no intimate conversation with Him. Their life appears to be in certain respects the search for the true and the good, but it is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride that we may legitimately question whether it will bear fruit for eternity. Many artists, literary men, and statesmen never rise above this level of purely human activity which is, in short, quite exterior. Do the depths of their souls live by God? It would seem not.
“This shows that the interior life, or the life of the soul with God, well deserves to be called the one thing necessary, since by it we tend to our last end and assure our salvation. This last must not be too widely separated from progressive sanctification, for it is the very way of salvation.
“There are those who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Every sin, even though it should be venial, must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified.
“The interior life of a just man who tends toward God and who already lives by Him is indeed the one thing necessary. To be a saint, neither intellectual culture nor great exterior activity is a requisite; it suffices that we live profoundly by God. This truth is evident in the saints of the early Church; several of those saints were poor people, even slaves” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Faithless and So Heartless
The world will remain heartless as long as it remains faithless. The world will remain heartless as long as it is outside the Catholic Faith and Catholic Church. Faith is not an option for the world and its nations—it is not an option, but an obligation. Our Lord Himself said: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20) ... “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned” (Mark 16:16). All nations must have the Faith. All nations must be Catholic. There is only one kind of one world government that can work—it is that of the Kingship of Christ over all nations. Only such a rule can give the heartless world its heart. It is only when the world enters the Mystical Body of Christ that it will find a Heart that gives it true life and eternal life. That Heart is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, without Whom we can do nothing (John 15:5) and without Whom we are nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The Bitter Fruits of Jerusalem’s Heartless Rejection
Jerusalem heartlessly rejected and crucified Christ and shortly afterwards, in the year 70 AD, Providence saw to it that their heartlessness was repaid when the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem, killed all its inhabitants and razed it to the ground—thus fulfilling Our Lord’s prophecy: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not? Behold, your house shall be left to you, desolate … Amen I say to you there shall not be left here a stone upon a stone that shall not be destroyed.” (Matthew 23:37-38; 24:2). “For the days shall come upon thee, and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side, [44] And beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee: and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone: because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation” (Luke 19:43-44).
What Is Our Fate?
What will become of our generation? What will our rejection of God bring upon us? We have read Our Lady’s warnings many times—perhaps even to the point of being impervious, indifferent or insensitive to them. Is there hope for us? Can anything be done? Something can always be done. We must remember the attitude of God with regard to Sodom, where Abraham was trying to bargain for mercy:
Abraham as yet stood before the Lord. And drawing nigh he said: “Wilt Thou destroy the just with the wicked? If there be fifty just men in the city, shall they perish withal? And wilt Thou not spare that place for the sake of the fifty just, if they be therein? Far be it from Thee to do this thing, and to slay the just with the wicked, and for the just to be in like case as the wicked, this is not beseeming Thee: Thou who judgest all the earth, wilt not make this judgment.”
And the Lord said to him: “If I find in Sodom fifty just within the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”
And Abraham answered, and said: “Seeing I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord, whereas I am dust and ashes. What if there be five less than fifty just persons? Wilt Thou for five and forty destroy the whole city?”
And he said: “I will not destroy it, if I find five and forty.”
And again he said to Him: “But if forty be found there, what wilt Thou do?”
He said: “I will not destroy it for the sake of forty.”
“Lord,” saith he, “be not angry, I beseech Thee, if I speak! What if thirty shall be found there?”
He answered: ‘I will not do it, if I find thirty there.’
“Seeing,” saith he, “I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord. What if twenty be found there?”
He said: “I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.”
“I beseech thee,” saith he, “be not angry, Lord, if I speak yet once more! What if ten should be found there?”
And he said: “I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.” And the Lord departed, after He had left speaking to Abraham: and Abraham returned to his place. (Genesis 18:22-33).
Our Lady Wants To Bargain
What Abraham tried to achieve back then, Our Lady is trying to achieve today. At La Salette she said: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son. It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it. I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually. And all you think little of this. In vain you will pray, in vain you will act, you will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken over for all of you.
“I make an urgent appeal to the Earth. I call on the true disciples of the living God; I call on the true followers of Christ the only true Savior of men; I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me … Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ ... It is time they came out and filled the world with light. Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children. I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see. For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends.”
At Akita, we see overtones of Abraham’s bargaining with God, when Our Lady adds: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair by their suffering and their poverty for the sinners and ingrates ... In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind. With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father. I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His Precious Blood, and beloved souls who console Him forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger.”
The world would like to portray itself as being caring and charitable—but how many really believe that? Our Lord said: “By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them” (Matthew 7:16-20).
What are the fruits of the world? Ever increasing sin—in the form of crime, immorality, and heartlessness. As Our Lord warned: “You shall be hated by all nations for My Name’s sake. Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another … and because iniquity will have abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold!” (Matthew 24:12).
Heartlessness of Man Brings On Heartless of Heaven
Whether it is Christian world or the pagan world, the heartlessness of the world is appalling! Small wonder that Our Lady warns: “The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs ... Moreover, in these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost ... Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape…!” (Our Lady of Good Success and La Salette).
The ‘Sweet’ Fruits of the Heartless World
Whether the fruits of the world can be said to be sweet or bitter, depends upon whether you look upon the fruits with the spectacles or glasses of God, or the spectacles of the devil.
Heartless Fruit of Abortion
Ten years ago, in 2013, Simon Rabinovitch, in his article, “Data Reveal Scale of China Abortions,” reports that there had been 336 million abortions, 196 million sterilizations and 403 million intrauterine devices used in China since 1971. He notes that Chinese doctors every year abort roughly 7 million babies; sterilize nearly 2 million men and women; and insert 7 million IUDs, though precise numbers are hard to ascertain precisely.
Dr. Brian Clowes, director of education and research at Human Life International, investigated the number of worldwide abortions since 1973 (Roe vs. Wade). The results were staggering! He estimates that there have been more than 1.72 billion abortions (over one thousand seven hundred million—1,750,000,000) over the last 50 years, a trend that is not lessening, but growing exponentially, as more and more countries embrace and legalize contraception and abortion as methods of population control, which is always sold as the “sweet fruit” of so-called ‘civilized’ “family planning” and “reproductive health.”
One Baby Per Second
It is estimated that worldwide, on average a baby is aborted every second of the day. For the time it took you to read this article thus far, around 200 babies have been aborted worldwide. As the world allows abortionists to rip the baby from its mother’s womb, it allows the devil to rip out the heart of the world. Today, false statisticians will tell you that abortions have declined―what they don’t tell you is this: Even though there is some decline in surgical abortions, there is a massive rise in the use of the abortion pill. Today around 50% of abortions are committed in the comfort of one’s own home by using the abortion pill. The wannabe child is heartlessly flushed down the toilet!
Contraceptive Fruit
The typical American woman wants two children. To achieve this goal, she must use contraceptives for roughly three decades. Virtually all American women aged 15–44 who are sexually experienced have at some point used a contraceptive method other than natural family planning (99%). This is also true of Catholic women, 98% of whom have used a contraceptive method other than natural family planning. Today’s modern contraceptive pill is increasingly not a “preventative” pill, but an abortive pill—it doesn’t seek to avoid conception, it just kills it whenever it occurs.
The Less Hearts in the World, the Better!
The globalists and “elitists” have a goal of controlling and eventually reducing the world’s population from its current 7 billion (7,000,000,000) to around half-a-billion, that is 500 million. Numerically, that means eliminating 13 out of 14 people. Abortion and contraception are key tools in this population reduction and control.
Wars—the Punishment For Sin
Heaven has said that wars are one of God’s many ways of punishing sin. Wars also reduce population very effectively, especially with modern weaponry. Thousands can be killed with ‘one big bullet’—as we saw with the Atom Bombs dropped on Japan during the Second World War, in 1945. The real mortality of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan will never be known. The destruction and overwhelming chaos made orderly counting impossible. It is not unlikely that the estimates of killed and wounded in Hiroshima (150,000) and Nagasaki (75,000) are overly conservative and very much on the low side.
For globalists, war has the advantage of being ‘legalized murder.’ Provoke a war, reduce the population! The First World War (1914-1918) is estimated to have killed almost 9 million military and 7 million civilians. The Second World War (1939-1945) is estimated to have killed 20 million military and 30 million civilians.
A lot of dead bodies! However, our current abortion rates blast those figures out of the water! According to current World Health Organization stats (which are always thought to be low in this field), compared to the 16 million dead during the First World War, we would have aborted 200 million babies over the same time span. Compared to the 50 million dead in the Second World War, we would have aborted 300 million babies.
USA Crime Clock
In the USA alone, the FBI Crime Clock for 2018, showed that:
► One violent crime occurred every 25 seconds.
► One Murder every 32 seconds.
► One Forcible Rape every 4 minutes.
► One Robbery every 2 minutes.
► One Aggravated Assault every 40 seconds.
► One Property Crime every 3 seconds.
► One Larceny-Theft every 6 seconds.
► One Motor Vehicle Theft every 42 seconds.
In 2013, Official figures from India’s National Crime Records Bureau reveal that 8,233 young women, many of them new brides, were killed in so-called ‘dowry deaths’ in 2012, because her family failed to meet her husband and in-laws’ demands for higher dowry payments and lavish gifts. That is one woman killed per hour, or so.
Marriage, Infidelity and Divorce
It is estimated that roughly 30 to 60% of all married individuals (in the United States) will engage in infidelity at some point during their marriage. And these numbers are probably on the conservative side, when you consider that close to half of all marriages end in divorce. In a survey, 74 % of men said they would have an affair if they knew they would never get caught, while the number for women was slightly less at 68%.
Speaking of marriage, Our Lord says: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mark 10:9). Yet more and more marriages go asunder and end in divorce—and ‘Catholic’ countries top the list. Belgium sees 71% of marriages ending in divorce; Portugal has 68%; Hungary 67%; Czech Republic 66%; Spain 61%; Luxembourg 60%; Estonia 58%; Cuba 56%; France 55%; USA 53%. Add to those numbers the fact that less and less persons are marrying in the first place, and you see the terrible, sinful state that marriage finds itself in.
The Unfaithful Faithful
The ultimate sins are sins against God, which include sins against Faith, Hope and Charity (the God focused Theological Virtues). The ominous words of Our Lord—”The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on earth?”—ring true today. 80% of Catholics are no longer Catholic by the time they turn 23. This is an American statistic—yet it holds true in varying degrees all around the world. They Catholic youth is dying on its feet.
The Pew Research Center says that “Catholicism has suffered the greatest net loss in the process of religious change. Many people who leave the Catholic Church do so for religious reasons; two-thirds of former Catholics who have become unaffiliated say they left the Catholic faith because they stopped believing in its teachings, as do half of former Catholics who are now Protestant. Fewer than three-in-ten former Catholics, however, say the clergy sexual abuse scandal factored into their decision to leave Catholicism.”
The Unfaithful Clergy
A 2002 Los Angeles Times nationwide poll of 1,854 priests (responding) reported that 9% of priests identified themselves as homosexual, and further 6% percent as “somewhere in between but more on the homosexual side.” Most recently, in 2019, sociologist Paul Sullins estimated that about 17% of Catholic priests in the United States are homosexual in orientation, a rate around 4 to 5 times that of the wider population.
Anonymous studies have also suggested a prevalence of homosexual leanings in the Roman Catholic priesthood.
Studies by Wolf and Sipe from the early 1990s suggest that the percentage of priests in the Catholic Church, who admitted to being gay or were in homosexual relationships, was well above the national average for the United States of America.
Elizabeth Stuart, a former convener of the Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian and Gay Christian movement claimed, “It has been estimated that at least 33 percent of all priests in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States are homosexual.”
According to the Boston Globe, anecdotal press reports from anonymous sources suggest that the incidence of homosexuality in the Roman Catholic priesthood is much higher than in the general population.
A NBC report on chastity and the clergy found that “anywhere from 23 percent to 58 percent” of the Catholic clergy have a homosexual orientation.
In one court case it was claimed that around 70% of US Catholic bishops were homosexuals.
True or exaggerated, it still makes one wonder about Our Lady’s words at La Salette: “The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity. Yes, the priests are asking for vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying my Son again! The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door.”
No Heart For Religion
Priests: After skyrocketing from about 27,000 in 1930 to 58,000 in 1965, the number of priests in the United States dropped to 45,000 in 2002. By 2020, there will be about 31,000 priests--and only 15,000 will be under the age of 70. Right now there are more priests aged 80 to 84 than there are aged 30 to 34.
Seminarians: Between 1965 and 2002, the number of seminarians dropped from 49,000 to 4,700--a 90 percent decrease. Without any students, seminaries across the country have been sold or shuttered. There were 596 seminaries in 1965, and only 200 in 2002.
Sisters: 180,000 sisters were the backbone of the Catholic education and health systems in 1965. In 2002, there were 75,000 sisters, with an average age of 68. By 2020, the number of sisters will drop to 40,000--and of these, only 21,000 will be aged 70 or under. In 1965, 104,000 sisters were teaching, while in 2002 there were only 8,200 teachers.
Brothers: The number of professed brothers decreased from about 12,000 in 1965 to 5,700 in 2002, with a further drop to 3,100 projected for 2020.
Religious Orders: The religious orders will soon be virtually non-existent in the United States. For example, in 1965 there were 5,277 Jesuit priests and 3,559 seminarians; in 2000 there were 3,172 priests and 38 seminarians. There were 2,534 OFM Franciscan priests and 2,251 seminarians in 1965; in 2000 there were 1,492 priests and 60 seminarians. There were 2,434 Christian Brothers in 1965 and 912 seminarians; in 2000 there were 959 Brothers and 7 seminarians. There were 1,148 Redemptorist priests in 1965 and 1,128 seminarians; in 2000 there were 349 priests and 24 seminarians. Every major religious order in the United States mirrors these statistics.
The love of God is dying, as is shown by the lack of desire amongst youth to respond to God’s call to a vocation. St. John Bosco was of the opinion that God called around 1 in 4 persons to a religious vocation—either priest, brother, monk, sister or nun. Now we are lucky if we see 1 in 4,000 respond to the call.
Heartless and Hopeless World
The world has reached a point where it tries paint good as being evil, and tries to convince us that evil is actually good. Holy Scripture—the voice of God—clearly warns us: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter” (Isaias 5:20). St. Paul speaks our ‘end times’ and its heartless people, when he writes: “Know also this, that, in the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God. Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).
St. Peter echoes this: “Knowing this first, that in the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts” (2 Peter 3:3). “Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). “Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption” (Galatians 6:7-8).
A Heartless World Will See a Heartless Judgment
“For judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy” (James 2:13). “Rise up O Lord! Attend to visit all the nations: have no mercy on all them that work iniquity!” (Psalm 58:6). If the world was charitable, then the forthcoming chastisement would not be necessary! However, charity is first and foremost focused upon God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment” (Mark 12:30). “Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God, and His justice” (Matthew 6:33).
A World Without Love
The world does NOT seek God first! One can even say that for the most part, the world does not seek God at all! It seeks self and places self in place of God. Its charity is a false charity, for it is not based upon God and it lacks the grace of God. The world has a heart of stone, not a heart of flesh—or we could say that it is like the Tinman from the Wizard of Oz, who had no heart and was seeking a heart—except that our world is not seeking a real heart, it quite happy with its fake heart and fake charity. A real heat is one that loves God above all things, and loves neighbor for the sake of God, and seeks to lead its neighbor to God and a greater love of God.
Without a love of God in the soul, the soul is fake, hypocritical, self-deluded and going nowhere fast—or, we should rather say, going to Hell fast. St. Paul paints the following picture of a soul without charity (which means a love of God): “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The One Thing Necessary
Seeking and loving God is the most essential thing in life—but this is not the scale of values of the world. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes:
“As everyone can easily understand, the interior life is an elevated form of intimate conversation … with God. Little by little, instead of seeking himself in everything, instead of tending more or less consciously to make himself a center, man tends to seek God in everything, and to substitute for egoism love of God and of souls in Him. This constitutes the interior life. No sincere man will have any difficulty in recognizing it. The one thing necessary which Jesus spoke of to Martha and Mary consists in hearing the word of God and living by it.
“The interior life is something far more profound and more necessary in us than intellectual life, or the cultivation of the sciences, than artistic or literary life, than social or political life. Unfortunately, some great scholars, mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers have no interior life, so to speak, but devote themselves to the study of their science as if God did not exist. In their moments of solitude they have no intimate conversation with Him. Their life appears to be in certain respects the search for the true and the good, but it is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride that we may legitimately question whether it will bear fruit for eternity. Many artists, literary men, and statesmen never rise above this level of purely human activity which is, in short, quite exterior. Do the depths of their souls live by God? It would seem not.
“This shows that the interior life, or the life of the soul with God, well deserves to be called the one thing necessary, since by it we tend to our last end and assure our salvation. This last must not be too widely separated from progressive sanctification, for it is the very way of salvation.
“There are those who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Every sin, even though it should be venial, must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified.
“The interior life of a just man who tends toward God and who already lives by Him is indeed the one thing necessary. To be a saint, neither intellectual culture nor great exterior activity is a requisite; it suffices that we live profoundly by God. This truth is evident in the saints of the early Church; several of those saints were poor people, even slaves” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Faithless and So Heartless
The world will remain heartless as long as it remains faithless. The world will remain heartless as long as it is outside the Catholic Faith and Catholic Church. Faith is not an option for the world and its nations—it is not an option, but an obligation. Our Lord Himself said: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20) ... “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned” (Mark 16:16). All nations must have the Faith. All nations must be Catholic. There is only one kind of one world government that can work—it is that of the Kingship of Christ over all nations. Only such a rule can give the heartless world its heart. It is only when the world enters the Mystical Body of Christ that it will find a Heart that gives it true life and eternal life. That Heart is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, without Whom we can do nothing (John 15:5) and without Whom we are nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The Bitter Fruits of Jerusalem’s Heartless Rejection
Jerusalem heartlessly rejected and crucified Christ and shortly afterwards, in the year 70 AD, Providence saw to it that their heartlessness was repaid when the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem, killed all its inhabitants and razed it to the ground—thus fulfilling Our Lord’s prophecy: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not? Behold, your house shall be left to you, desolate … Amen I say to you there shall not be left here a stone upon a stone that shall not be destroyed.” (Matthew 23:37-38; 24:2). “For the days shall come upon thee, and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side, [44] And beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee: and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone: because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation” (Luke 19:43-44).
What Is Our Fate?
What will become of our generation? What will our rejection of God bring upon us? We have read Our Lady’s warnings many times—perhaps even to the point of being impervious, indifferent or insensitive to them. Is there hope for us? Can anything be done? Something can always be done. We must remember the attitude of God with regard to Sodom, where Abraham was trying to bargain for mercy:
Abraham as yet stood before the Lord. And drawing nigh he said: “Wilt Thou destroy the just with the wicked? If there be fifty just men in the city, shall they perish withal? And wilt Thou not spare that place for the sake of the fifty just, if they be therein? Far be it from Thee to do this thing, and to slay the just with the wicked, and for the just to be in like case as the wicked, this is not beseeming Thee: Thou who judgest all the earth, wilt not make this judgment.”
And the Lord said to him: “If I find in Sodom fifty just within the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”
And Abraham answered, and said: “Seeing I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord, whereas I am dust and ashes. What if there be five less than fifty just persons? Wilt Thou for five and forty destroy the whole city?”
And he said: “I will not destroy it, if I find five and forty.”
And again he said to Him: “But if forty be found there, what wilt Thou do?”
He said: “I will not destroy it for the sake of forty.”
“Lord,” saith he, “be not angry, I beseech Thee, if I speak! What if thirty shall be found there?”
He answered: ‘I will not do it, if I find thirty there.’
“Seeing,” saith he, “I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord. What if twenty be found there?”
He said: “I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.”
“I beseech thee,” saith he, “be not angry, Lord, if I speak yet once more! What if ten should be found there?”
And he said: “I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.” And the Lord departed, after He had left speaking to Abraham: and Abraham returned to his place. (Genesis 18:22-33).
Our Lady Wants To Bargain
What Abraham tried to achieve back then, Our Lady is trying to achieve today. At La Salette she said: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son. It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it. I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually. And all you think little of this. In vain you will pray, in vain you will act, you will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken over for all of you.
“I make an urgent appeal to the Earth. I call on the true disciples of the living God; I call on the true followers of Christ the only true Savior of men; I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me … Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ ... It is time they came out and filled the world with light. Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children. I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see. For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends.”
At Akita, we see overtones of Abraham’s bargaining with God, when Our Lady adds: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair by their suffering and their poverty for the sinners and ingrates ... In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind. With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father. I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His Precious Blood, and beloved souls who console Him forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger.”
Article 11
Wednesday June 14th, 2023, within the Octave of Corpus Christi
Is Your Heart Full of Love or Junk?
Wednesday June 14th, 2023, within the Octave of Corpus Christi
Is Your Heart Full of Love or Junk?
Heart Trouble?
The feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is less than 48 hours away! The Sacred Heart will come knocking on the doors of your heart! Will you let Him in? What state of heart will He find you in? Is your heart ready for Him? Have you prepared for Him? Will it be a meeting of hearts? Or will your heart be absent―having been given to the world?
Heart and Health
The heart is at the heart of our well-being and existence. If the heart is weak, then that weakness will eventually extend itself to our entire being, directly or indirectly. Even our intellectual life will suffer indirectly, as the heart pumps blood to brain, and the brain needs much oxygen to function well, and that oxygen is carried by the blood the heart is supposed to pump.
The same is true of our spiritual life. If our ‘spiritual’ heart is healthy, then the healthier will be our entire spiritual life. “Soundness of heart is the life of the flesh” (Proverbs 14:30). That healthy heart refers to the love in our ‘heart’. This is also the key element in the apparitions and messages of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Love is the Health of the Heart
The heart of our spiritual life is love. Love is and has to be the soul of all that we do. “Let all your things be done in charity!” (1 Corinthians 16:14). “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal! And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing! And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Therefore, once again: “Let all your things be done in charity!” (1 Corinthians 16:14).
God is Love
God Himself is Charity, He is Charity Itself: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). This charity God has shown to a world that has not deserved or merited it—it is not as though we had something first, that necessitated God to repay. “Who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be made him?” (Romans 11:35). In fact, the world, by its sins, was more deserving of punishment and damnation than it was deserving of God’s charity! Yet that did not extinguish the charity of God.
Who Loved First?
The love of God for us―ungrateful sinners―is truly immense, as Holy Scripture points out: “For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “God, Who is rich in mercy, for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together in Christ, by whose grace you are saved!” (Ephesians 2:4-5). “In this is charity―not as though we had loved God, but because He has first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins!” (1 John 4:10). “In this we have known the charity of God, because He has laid down His life for us!” (1 John 3:16). “Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us!” (1 John 4:19). “This only take care of with all diligence, that you love the Lord your God” (Josue 23:11). “That Christ may dwell by Faith in your hearts―being rooted and founded in charity!” (Ephesians 3:17). “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us!” (Romans 5:5). “Follow after charity!” (1 Corinthians 14:1). “For the charity of Christ presses us!” (2 Corinthians 5:14).
Heart Failure
Yet despite this great and undeserved love of God, we have failed, on the whole, to fully appreciate and return that love. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that love is reciprocal—it is not just “give”; it is not just “take”; but it is a case of “give and take.” St. Augustine says (De Catech. Rud. iv): “Nothing will incite another more to love you, than that you love him first: for he must have a hard heart, indeed, who not only refuses to love, but declines to return love already given.” Yet this is precisely our guilt, as Our Lord would say to St. Margaret Mary:
“My Divine Heart is so inflamed with love for men, and for you in particular that, being unable any longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its burning Charity, It must needs spread them abroad by your means, and manifest Itself to them (mankind) in order to enrich them with the precious graces of sanctification and salvation necessary to withdraw them from the abyss of perdition.
“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus.”
Heart Full of Junk
If we eat certain wrong foods, they will eventually provoke heart failure and a heart attack. The following quote is from the American Heart Association (AHA) or should that be “Aha!”
“Added sugar was not a significant component of the human diet until the advent of modern food-processing methods. Since then, the intake of sugar has risen steadily. The average U.S. sugar utilization per person, is well over 70lbs per year … Sugar has no nutritional value other than to provide calories. To improve the overall nutrient density of the diet and to help reduce the intake of excess calories, individuals should be sure foods high in added sugar are not displacing foods with essential nutrients or increasing calorie intake.” Their studies and research go on to irrefutably link a high sugar intake with cardio-vascular disease.
The World Serves Junk for the Soul
Similarly, if we replace the good ‘spiritual food’ that our ‘spiritual’ hearts were made for, with the highly sweetened junk ‘food’ offered by the world, we will eventually suffer a ‘spiritual-cardiac-arrest’! By highly sweetened junk food we mean the pleasures, amusements, distractions and fun that world offers, which is meant to displace the spirit of mortification and sacrifice that Heaven wants us to feed our souls upon.
Holy Scripture tells us this: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). “The charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him” (1 John 4:9). However―“He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11).
Good Daily Food
This charity we can find daily in Holy Communion, through which “God has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him.” But, sadly, He is not wanted nor received in Holy Communion—“He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” Instead, souls seek out and stuff themselves upon the vanities of the world—the word “vanity” comes from the Latin word “vanus” which means “empty, fruitless, futile, idle, ineffectual, useless, vain.” Holy Scripture ask us the question: “Why do you love vanity” (Psalm 4:3). The Imitation of Christ, adds:
“For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart and the principles of all the philosophers if we live without grace and the love of God? Vanity of vanities and all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone. This is the greatest wisdom—to seek the Kingdom of Heaven through contempt of the world. It is vanity, therefore, to seek and trust in riches that perish. It is vanity also to court honor and to be puffed up with pride. It is vanity to follow the lusts of the body and to desire things for which severe punishment later must come. It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life. It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come. It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides.” (Book 1, chapter 1).
Change of Heart Needed
“O children, how long will you love childishness, and fools covet those things which are hurtful to themselves, and the unwise hate knowledge?” (Proverbs 1:22). “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13). “Know the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect heart, and a willing mind: for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands all the thoughts of minds. If thou seek Him, thou shalt find Him: but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off for ever!” (1 Paralipomenon 28:9).
Many “are faithless, companions of thieves: they all love bribes, the run after rewards” (Isaias 1:23). “There is not a more wicked thing than to love money: for such a one setteth even his own soul to sale” (Ecclesiasticus 10:10). “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36). “He that received the seed (the word of God) among thorns, is he that hears the word, and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches chokes up the word, and he becometh fruitless” (Matthew 13:22). “For the desire of money is the root of all evils―which some, by coveting, have erred from the Faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows!” (1 Timothy 6:10). “Better is a little to the just, than the great riches of the wicked!” (Psalm 36:16). “Behold these are sinners; and yet abounding in the world they have obtained riches!” (Psalm 72:12). “If riches abound, set not your heart upon them!” (Psalm 61:11).
Other Pleasures Causing Spiritual Cardiac-Arrest
“Challenge not them that love wine―for wine hath destroyed very many” (Ecclesiasticus 31:30). “And when the sons of Babylon were come to her to the bed of love, they defiled her with their fornications, and she was polluted by them, and her soul was glutted with them” (Ezechiel 23:17). “But as for them whose heart walks after their scandals and abominations, I will lay their way upon their head, saith the Lord God” (Ezechiel 11:21). “Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves” (Romans 1:24). “And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold” (Matthew 24:12).
A New Heart
Are we in need of a new heart? A new spiritual heart? Has our heart lost its ability to love God as it should―“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Would God say to us: “But I have something against thee―because thou hast left thy first charity!” (Apocalypse 2:4). “Justify not thyself before God, for He knows the heart!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:5). We, of course, imagine that we love God sufficiently―but “the imagination and thought of man’s heart are prone to evil from his youth!” (Genesis 8:21). “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin!’?” (Proverbs 20:9). “Be mindful therefore from whence thou art fallen: and do penance, and do the first works! Or else I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out of its place, unless thou do penance!” (Apocalypse 2:4-5). “Return to the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul!” (Deuteronomy 30:10). “Not serving to the eye―as it were pleasing men―but, as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart” (Ephesians 6:6). “Covet ye therefore my words, and love them, and you shall have instruction!” (Wisdom 6:12).
Let us beg God to renew our heart and our love: “Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within my bowels!” (Psalm 50:12). “And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you―and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 36:26). “God hath softened my heart, and the Almighty hath troubled me” (Job 23:16). “A contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 50:19). “God gave unto him another heart” (1 Kings 10:9).
The feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is less than 48 hours away! The Sacred Heart will come knocking on the doors of your heart! Will you let Him in? What state of heart will He find you in? Is your heart ready for Him? Have you prepared for Him? Will it be a meeting of hearts? Or will your heart be absent―having been given to the world?
Heart and Health
The heart is at the heart of our well-being and existence. If the heart is weak, then that weakness will eventually extend itself to our entire being, directly or indirectly. Even our intellectual life will suffer indirectly, as the heart pumps blood to brain, and the brain needs much oxygen to function well, and that oxygen is carried by the blood the heart is supposed to pump.
The same is true of our spiritual life. If our ‘spiritual’ heart is healthy, then the healthier will be our entire spiritual life. “Soundness of heart is the life of the flesh” (Proverbs 14:30). That healthy heart refers to the love in our ‘heart’. This is also the key element in the apparitions and messages of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Love is the Health of the Heart
The heart of our spiritual life is love. Love is and has to be the soul of all that we do. “Let all your things be done in charity!” (1 Corinthians 16:14). “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal! And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing! And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Therefore, once again: “Let all your things be done in charity!” (1 Corinthians 16:14).
God is Love
God Himself is Charity, He is Charity Itself: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). This charity God has shown to a world that has not deserved or merited it—it is not as though we had something first, that necessitated God to repay. “Who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be made him?” (Romans 11:35). In fact, the world, by its sins, was more deserving of punishment and damnation than it was deserving of God’s charity! Yet that did not extinguish the charity of God.
Who Loved First?
The love of God for us―ungrateful sinners―is truly immense, as Holy Scripture points out: “For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “God, Who is rich in mercy, for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together in Christ, by whose grace you are saved!” (Ephesians 2:4-5). “In this is charity―not as though we had loved God, but because He has first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins!” (1 John 4:10). “In this we have known the charity of God, because He has laid down His life for us!” (1 John 3:16). “Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us!” (1 John 4:19). “This only take care of with all diligence, that you love the Lord your God” (Josue 23:11). “That Christ may dwell by Faith in your hearts―being rooted and founded in charity!” (Ephesians 3:17). “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us!” (Romans 5:5). “Follow after charity!” (1 Corinthians 14:1). “For the charity of Christ presses us!” (2 Corinthians 5:14).
Heart Failure
Yet despite this great and undeserved love of God, we have failed, on the whole, to fully appreciate and return that love. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that love is reciprocal—it is not just “give”; it is not just “take”; but it is a case of “give and take.” St. Augustine says (De Catech. Rud. iv): “Nothing will incite another more to love you, than that you love him first: for he must have a hard heart, indeed, who not only refuses to love, but declines to return love already given.” Yet this is precisely our guilt, as Our Lord would say to St. Margaret Mary:
“My Divine Heart is so inflamed with love for men, and for you in particular that, being unable any longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its burning Charity, It must needs spread them abroad by your means, and manifest Itself to them (mankind) in order to enrich them with the precious graces of sanctification and salvation necessary to withdraw them from the abyss of perdition.
“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus.”
Heart Full of Junk
If we eat certain wrong foods, they will eventually provoke heart failure and a heart attack. The following quote is from the American Heart Association (AHA) or should that be “Aha!”
“Added sugar was not a significant component of the human diet until the advent of modern food-processing methods. Since then, the intake of sugar has risen steadily. The average U.S. sugar utilization per person, is well over 70lbs per year … Sugar has no nutritional value other than to provide calories. To improve the overall nutrient density of the diet and to help reduce the intake of excess calories, individuals should be sure foods high in added sugar are not displacing foods with essential nutrients or increasing calorie intake.” Their studies and research go on to irrefutably link a high sugar intake with cardio-vascular disease.
The World Serves Junk for the Soul
Similarly, if we replace the good ‘spiritual food’ that our ‘spiritual’ hearts were made for, with the highly sweetened junk ‘food’ offered by the world, we will eventually suffer a ‘spiritual-cardiac-arrest’! By highly sweetened junk food we mean the pleasures, amusements, distractions and fun that world offers, which is meant to displace the spirit of mortification and sacrifice that Heaven wants us to feed our souls upon.
Holy Scripture tells us this: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). “The charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him” (1 John 4:9). However―“He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11).
Good Daily Food
This charity we can find daily in Holy Communion, through which “God has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him.” But, sadly, He is not wanted nor received in Holy Communion—“He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” Instead, souls seek out and stuff themselves upon the vanities of the world—the word “vanity” comes from the Latin word “vanus” which means “empty, fruitless, futile, idle, ineffectual, useless, vain.” Holy Scripture ask us the question: “Why do you love vanity” (Psalm 4:3). The Imitation of Christ, adds:
“For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart and the principles of all the philosophers if we live without grace and the love of God? Vanity of vanities and all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone. This is the greatest wisdom—to seek the Kingdom of Heaven through contempt of the world. It is vanity, therefore, to seek and trust in riches that perish. It is vanity also to court honor and to be puffed up with pride. It is vanity to follow the lusts of the body and to desire things for which severe punishment later must come. It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life. It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come. It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides.” (Book 1, chapter 1).
Change of Heart Needed
“O children, how long will you love childishness, and fools covet those things which are hurtful to themselves, and the unwise hate knowledge?” (Proverbs 1:22). “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13). “Know the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect heart, and a willing mind: for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands all the thoughts of minds. If thou seek Him, thou shalt find Him: but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off for ever!” (1 Paralipomenon 28:9).
Many “are faithless, companions of thieves: they all love bribes, the run after rewards” (Isaias 1:23). “There is not a more wicked thing than to love money: for such a one setteth even his own soul to sale” (Ecclesiasticus 10:10). “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36). “He that received the seed (the word of God) among thorns, is he that hears the word, and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches chokes up the word, and he becometh fruitless” (Matthew 13:22). “For the desire of money is the root of all evils―which some, by coveting, have erred from the Faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows!” (1 Timothy 6:10). “Better is a little to the just, than the great riches of the wicked!” (Psalm 36:16). “Behold these are sinners; and yet abounding in the world they have obtained riches!” (Psalm 72:12). “If riches abound, set not your heart upon them!” (Psalm 61:11).
Other Pleasures Causing Spiritual Cardiac-Arrest
“Challenge not them that love wine―for wine hath destroyed very many” (Ecclesiasticus 31:30). “And when the sons of Babylon were come to her to the bed of love, they defiled her with their fornications, and she was polluted by them, and her soul was glutted with them” (Ezechiel 23:17). “But as for them whose heart walks after their scandals and abominations, I will lay their way upon their head, saith the Lord God” (Ezechiel 11:21). “Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves” (Romans 1:24). “And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold” (Matthew 24:12).
A New Heart
Are we in need of a new heart? A new spiritual heart? Has our heart lost its ability to love God as it should―“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Would God say to us: “But I have something against thee―because thou hast left thy first charity!” (Apocalypse 2:4). “Justify not thyself before God, for He knows the heart!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:5). We, of course, imagine that we love God sufficiently―but “the imagination and thought of man’s heart are prone to evil from his youth!” (Genesis 8:21). “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin!’?” (Proverbs 20:9). “Be mindful therefore from whence thou art fallen: and do penance, and do the first works! Or else I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out of its place, unless thou do penance!” (Apocalypse 2:4-5). “Return to the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul!” (Deuteronomy 30:10). “Not serving to the eye―as it were pleasing men―but, as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart” (Ephesians 6:6). “Covet ye therefore my words, and love them, and you shall have instruction!” (Wisdom 6:12).
Let us beg God to renew our heart and our love: “Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within my bowels!” (Psalm 50:12). “And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you―and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 36:26). “God hath softened my heart, and the Almighty hath troubled me” (Job 23:16). “A contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 50:19). “God gave unto him another heart” (1 Kings 10:9).
Article 10
Tuesday June 13th, 2023, within the Octave of Corpus Christi
Is Your Heart Like His Heart?
“Jesus meek and humble of Heart, make our hearts like unto Thine!”
Tuesday June 13th, 2023, within the Octave of Corpus Christi
Is Your Heart Like His Heart?
“Jesus meek and humble of Heart, make our hearts like unto Thine!”
Do We Mean What We Pray?
We all know the saying: “Say what you mean and mean what you say!” That could be spiritualized into “Pray what you mean and mean what you pray!” We say too many prayers without truly reflecting upon what those prayers are saying. Thus, we end up with a divorce—by praying or saying what we do not really mean to say or pray! Or we pray without fully knowing what we are saying.
Thy Will Be Done! Really?
For example, we say, in the Our Father, “Thy will be done on Earth…” and then we end up muttering, complaining, moaning and groaning, whinging and whining about most of the things that happen to us on any given day. All this shows that we are not saying what we mean when we pray “Thy will be done on Earth…”! We add our own “fine print” or “small print” to the contract of “Thy will be done” which makes it “Thy will be done on Earth … except in the following cases and circumstances…” We forget that the God’s “small print” includes every possible little thing, good and bad, that could possibly happen to us under the clause: “Thy will be done on Earth...”
Enkindle in Us the Fire of Thy Love! Really?
Similarly with our plea to the Holy Ghost, “enkindle in us the fire of Thy love…” We forget that God has told us: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts” (Isaias 55:8-9). God’s love is not a mushy sentimental love that forgives all sins and ignores all sins. That is a Walt Disney invention or a figment of our wishful imaginative thinking! God tells us quite the opposite in Holy Scripture:
In the Old Testament the Holy Ghost, Whose love we implore to be enkindled in us, says: “For whom the Lord loves, He chastises―and as a father in the son He pleases Himself” (Proverbs 3:12). “He that loves his son, frequently chastises him, that he may rejoice in his latter end” (Ecclesiasticus 30:1). In the New Testament, the same loving Holy Ghost tells us: “For whom the Lord loves, He chastises; and He scourges every son whom He receives” (Hebrews 12:6). It could be said that this is the Bible’s version of what we today call “Tough Love”! Yet, though perhaps “Tough Love” is a modern term, most people expect and practice “Soft Love” or “Over-Indulgent Love”—which has brought the world to its sinful knees, as it now awaits the ultimate manifestation of God’s “Tough Love” in the forthcoming chastisement!
“Make Our Hearts Like Unto Thine!” Really?
Another flippant phrase that we are in danger of mindlessly uttering is the invocation that comes after the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus—which is “Jesus meek and humble of Heart, make our hearts like unto Thine!” Do we really know what we are saying? Do we really mean what we say?
Learn of Me to Be Meek and Humble!
This invocation is actually based upon Our Lord’s own words: “Take up My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart―and you shall find rest for your souls!” (Matthew 11:29). Let us look at these two things that Our Savior invites or commands us to learn from. Meekness and humility have, perhaps, more in common than first appears! What is meekness?
Meekness and Anger
Meekness is the opposite of anger. Leaving aside what is called “justified anger”, the other kind of anger usually arises when things do not go our way. Yet at all times, in all places and in all things, everything is going God’s way—nothing on Earth can happen without God actually wanting it to happen (which involves good and virtuous things), or by God allowing it to happen (which involves bad and evil things, from which God will try to bring forth some good result or fruit). When something unfortunate, bad, painful, embarrassing, injurious, insulting, wounding, impoverishing, unhealthy, tragic, costly, persecutory, or dreadful happens to us—then slowly or quickly we become angry. This anger then engenders its offspring of resentment, discontent, vengeance, hatred, malevolence, and many similar feelings.
The Root of Anger
The ultimate root of this anger and lack of meek acceptance of what has happened, comes from the granddaddy of them all—pride. “For pride is the beginning of all sin” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). “Pride goeth before destruction: and the spirit is lifted up before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). “Pride has held them fast” (Psalm 72:6). “The beginning of the pride of man, is to fall off from God. Because his heart is departed from Him that made him―for pride is the beginning of all sin. He that holds it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end” (Ecclesiasticus 10:14-15). “Thy pride is brought down to Hell” (Isaias 14:11).
Hence, we can see how meekness is related, indirectly, to humility—perhaps we could call them cousins. For meekness is the opposite of anger, which comes from pride, and pride is the opposite of humility.
We Are Mixed-Up
Though we may want our hearts to be like unto the Heart of Jesus, sadly we are a mixture of pride and humility, anger and meekness. We want to be humble, but find ourselves acting and reacting out of pride so many times a day. We could almost apply the words of St. Paul on good and evil to our battle between humility and pride: “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal … I do not do that good which I want to do―but the evil which I hate, that I do ... For to want what is good is present within me; but to accomplish that which is good, I find not. For the good which I want to do, I do not; but the evil which I do not want to do, that I do ... I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man, but I see another law in my body, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am―who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:14-25).
Gradual Change of Heart in a Lifetime of War
A change of heart is not a microwave process of a few seconds on the highest setting, nor is a flick of switch—it is a lifelong process that is grueling and taxing-—“The life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12) … “Fight the good fight of Faith: lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called” (1 Timothy 6:12).
A Heart for Perpetual Warfare
Wars (without nuclear weapons) are rarely won in a day—and as Scripture says, the whole “life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1). “Josue made war a long time against these kings” (Josue 11:18) … “And there was a great war against the Philistines all the days of Saul” (1 Kings 14:52) ... “Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David” (2 Kings 3:1) … “And there was war between Roboam and Jeroboam always … There was war, between Roboam and Jeroboam, all the time of his life” (3 Kings 14:30; 15:6) … “And there was war between Asa, and Baasa king of Israel all their days” (3 Kings 15:16).
The devil―who never sleeps or lets up in his war against God and our souls―continually prowls around our soul looking for an opening or a weakness to exploit: “Be sober and watch! Because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in Faith: knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world” (1 Peter 5:6-9). “For the success of war is not in the multitude of the army, but strength comes from Heaven” (1 Machabees 3:19).
Weapons of War for a Courageous Heart
Without the Sacred Heart, we can do nothing: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Our fight is ultimately a spiritual warfare, even though some material weapons might be used: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh” (2 Corinthians 10:3). Though we fight against the world, it is something above this world—the Faith—which shall bring victory: “For whatsoever is born of God, overcomes the world: and this is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith” (1 John 5:4).
Therefore, “put you on the armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore, take unto you the armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth; and having on the breastplate of justice; and your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace; in all things taking the shield of Faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit―which is the word of God―by all prayer and supplication, praying at all times in the spirit” (Ephesians 6:11-18).
A Humble Heart is The Weapon
One piece of armor that St. Paul does not mention is humility—which, in modern terms, we could describe as a “bulletproof vest.” St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, writes: “Humility holds the first place, inasmuch as it expels pride (the source of all sin), which God resists, and makes man open to receive the influx of divine grace ... In this sense, humility is said to be the foundation of the spiritual edifice” (IIa IIae, q. 161, art. 5 ad 2). However, humility is inferior to the theological virtues which unite us to God―but I guess humility doesn’t mind being inferior!!
“Be you humbled, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, casting all your care upon Him, for He hath care of you” (1 Peter 5:6-7). “For God will save the humble people; but will bring down the eyes of the proud” (Psalm 17:28). Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “By abasing us before God, humility raises us above pusillanimity and pride―and prepares us for the contemplation of divine things, for union with God. “God gives grace to the humble’ (James 4:6) and He makes them humble in order to load them with His gifts. Christ delighted in saying: ‘Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart’ (Matthew 11:29). He alone, who was so well established in truth, could speak of His humility without losing it.” A few lines later he says: “a soul cannot have lofty charity without profound humility” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
St. James writes: “Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). St. Paul asks: “Who distinguishes thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory, as if thou had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). Our Lord points out the right way, when He said of Himself: “I seek not my own glory―there is One that seeks and judges!” (John 8:50). What more profound lesson in humility could be taught?
The proud man can learn humility, but he will be proud of it. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less. Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real. As St. Vincent de Paul said: “Humility is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying!” Pride must die in you, or nothing of Heaven can live in you. Which is why St. Thomas Moore poetically calls “Humility, that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot.”
Learning and Living the Lessons of Humility
Many people come from humble beginnings and roots. They may well achieve something through pursuit of knowledge, integrity, hard work, but not without the intervention and agreement of Divine Providence. People may well achieve what the world calls “success” but with that comes the danger of a more severe Final Judgment by God: “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more” (Luke 12:48). We all know the pitfalls of the rich young man with many possessions (Matthew 19:16-24), the parable of the rich man with many fruits that he wanted to pull down his barns and build bigger ones (Luke 12:16-21), and Pontius Pilate who abused the power given to him by God (John 19:11).
Where It All Comes From
There can be no power, wealth or so-called ‘good-fortune’ without God wanting it or allowing it. Those who have these things have no right to be rude or disrespectful to others who do not have them. As the saying goes: “Two things define you―Your patience when you have nothing, and your attitude when you have everything.” Some people, however, get a big thrill from boasting about their accomplishments, or showing off their possessions. They have convinced themselves that they must be better than others. Of course, they are wrong. On the other hand, just as much as it is disgusting for the “haves” to look down on others, it’s equally disgusting for “have-nots” to resent and envy those who have worked hard for what they have.
Be Careful About What You Envy and Desire!
Of course, it is quite possible—even highly likely—that that the rich and powerful have spent too much time acquiring wealth and power, and therefore have been greatly or gravely lacking in their duties to God―but, then, if we envy and desire their riches and power, do we also desire their eternal judgment? Aha! We would like their riches and power, without taking the judgment that comes with it! As Our Lord said: “Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 19:23-24). So be careful over what you desire! “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48).
The Real Thing
The truth is―all the money or power in the world doesn’t make you a better person. It simply means that you have more money and power. Real wealth and real power is in the spiritual domain. Even in the natural domain money can’t buy everything. It can’t buy a close-knit family, good friends, a clear conscience, work-life balance, a happy home, a second chance in life, or good health, among many other things.
So be humble. Humility is a sign of strength, not weakness. People with true humility possess a true inner peace―for false humility can only put-on a pretended inner peace. Truly humble people are modest about their achievements, grounded in their virtues and values, and they have nothing to prove to others. They are down to earth people without pretensions or cravings for recognition, comfortable in their own skin, and quietly and deeply grateful to God, while, at the same time being in fear of how they have used their divine given endowments. Humble people shift their focus from taking to giving, from talking about themselves to listening to others, from hoarding the credit to deflecting the praise, and from being a “know-it-all” to knowing there’s so much more in life that they don’t know and that’s worth learning. There’s no ego, no pretense, and certainly no gamesmanship and manipulation. Humble people are authentic.
Holy Communion Should Transform the Heart
Are we humble enough? Of course not! How can we become more humble? One of the ways is by a frequent, sincere and fruitful reception of the Holy Eucharist. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange says: “Holy Communion ought to incorporate us more and more into Christ, by increasing our humility, Faith, confidence, and especially our charity, in order to make our hearts like to that of the Savior … Each of our Communions should be substantially more fervent than the preceding one … As a stone falls more rapidly as it approaches the Earth―which attracts it―souls should advance more rapidly toward God as they draw near Him and are more attracted by Him … Should a soul thus live daily by the Savior in Mass and Communion, it would certainly arrive at great intimacy with Him, at the intimacy which is that of the mystical life. The Gifts of the Holy Ghost would grow proportionately in it … Christ says to us in Communion, as He said to St. Augustine: ‘I am the bread of the strong ... Thou wilt not convert Me into thee, as the food of thy flesh; but thou shalt be converted into Me’ (Confessions, Book 7, chapter 10). He who truly receives Christ in Holy Communion, is more and more incorporated in Him, living by His thought and by His love” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Growing in the Strength of Humility
It takes a lot of humiliation in order to reach the virtue of humility. Remember that no matter how intelligent, successful, talented, wealthy, strong or good-looking you are, nobody likes a braggard. Nobody likes arrogance. Nobody likes cockiness. “It is better to be humbled with the meek, than to divide spoils with the proud” (Proverbs 16:19). “Pride is hateful before God and men” (Ecclesiasticus 10:7). “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord … as humility is an abomination to the proud” (Proverbs 16:5; Ecclesiasticus 13:24). “Humiliation followeth the proud: and glory shall uphold the humble of spirit” (Proverbs 29:23).
Remind yourself just how small you are in the amazing, wondrous world and universe around you—you are less than a speck of dust compared to the universe and to dust you will one day return—just that though alone should help to become and stay humble. “Why is earth and ashes proud?” (Ecclesiasticus 10:9). On top of that, think of how few of God’s graces you have really cooperated with! Think of how many talents have been underworked and wasted! Think of the many hundreds of thousands of sins that have been committed!
St. Thomas Aquinas—a Strawman?
The spiritual writers tell us that the closer we draw to God, the greater and wider is the chasm that we see separating us from God. It might sound paradoxical, but it much like St. John the Baptist’s famous words about his relationship to Christ: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Or take the reaction and attitude of St. Thomas Aquinas just before his death, when, having been given revelations about God, he had to admit: “Everything that I have written seems like straw to me compared to those things that I have seen and have been revealed to me!”
Attic Humility
The light of God’s grace illumines the darkness of our mind. Without God’s light, we only see things in a human way, a dark way, an imperfect way, partially and not fully. When a room is lit only by a single candle, we cannot see all things clearly. Yet once a number of electric lights are turned-on, then we see all things much more clearly. Likewise in an attic, we may turn on the electric light bulb to see what is up there, and we can see fairly well. Yet if a chink of daylight beams through a hole in the roof, we suddenly see a multitude of specks of dust floating in that bright beam of daylight, which we could not see by the light of the electric light bulb.
Similarly, the more God’s light shines in our soul, the more repulsive we see ourselves to be—even if we have been progressing spiritually by leaps and bounds. For the light of our own viewpoint and mind is far inferior to the light of God’s grace. This is why Our Lord could say to one of His mystics: “If you could see yourself as I see you, then you would die in terror!”
Terrifyingly Wonderful Humility!
Here are some words spoken by Our Lord to three of His mystics—Sr. Josefa Menendez, Sr. Mary of the Trinity and Sr. Consolata Betrone, as recorded by Fr. Gottemoller in his book Words of Love. They should serve as an incentive to truly and firmly desire an increase of the virtue of humility!
To Sr. Josefa Menendez, Our Lord said: “Josefa, why do you love Me?” To which Josefa replied: “Lord, because Thou art so good.” Jesus then said to her: “And I love you because you are so wretched and so lowly … I want you to be very little and very humble, and always joyful … I want you to be holy, very holy, and you will only become so by the path of humility and obedience ... Try to make many acts of humility, Josefa, and do not count the cost. If you but knew how pleasing such acts are to Me … Never does My Heart refuse to forgive a soul that humbles itself, especially when it asks with confidence … Ah! Josefa, leave yourself, such as you are, to My care, and let the sight of your nothingness never lessen your trust, but only confirm you in humility … Souls that see themselves overwhelmed with miseries attribute nothing good to themselves, and their very abjectness clothes them with a certain humility, that they would not have, if they saw themselves to be less imperfect … I will raise up the humble, and make little of their frailties, and even of their falls, provided they have humility and love … A soul will profit even after the greatest sins, if she humbles herself” (Jesus to Sr. Josefa Menendez).
To Sr. Mary of the Trinity, Our Lord revealed: “With ruins, on ruins, I can build magnificently! It gives Me joy to use that which has humbled itself before Me, because My action is free! … It is My joy to respond as God to humble confidence … It is with coal that I make diamonds! What would I not do with a soul―however black she might be―who would give herself to Me! … It is not sins that injure your purity, it is your pride, which, so often, does not wish to acknowledge them!” (Jesus to Sr. Mary of the Trinity).
While to Sr. Consolata Betrone, Our Lord said: “My Heart is won more readily through your wretchedness than through your virtues! Who came away from the Temple justified? The Pharisee or the Publican? The publican! For to Me the sight of a humble and contrite soul is irresistible ... That is the way I am!” (Jesus to Sr. Consolata Betrone).
On one occasion, the devil cried out to Sr. Josefa Menendez, with a yell of rage: “There is no doubt about it! All those who reach highest sanctity are those who have sunk deepest in humility!”
Our Lady said to Sr. Josefa Menendez: “What pleases my Son most, is love and humility!”
As the book, Humility of Heart, by Fr. Bergamo states in its opening chapter: “In Paradise there are many Saints who never gave alms on Earth―their poverty justified them. There are many Saints who never mortified their bodies by fasting, or wearing hair shirts―their bodily infirmities excused them. There are also many Saints who were not virgins―their vocation was otherwise. But in Paradise there is no Saint who was not humble … Pope St. Gregory the Great concludes: ‘Pride is a sure sign of the reprobate, as humility is the sign of the elect’ (Fr. Bergamo, Humility of Heart).
Unfortunately, we live in a world that is seems to be opposed to humility―instead, the world promotes and praises pride, it could even be said to ooze pride. This is nothing new―for Holy Scripture had already said this almost 2,000 years ago: “For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life―which is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16). If we wish to be one of few that get to Heaven, then we need to battle against the natural pride that we are born with―as a result of Original Sin, which was a sin of pride and disobedience, and which has become part of our spiritual DNA.
God rejects the proud and only accepts the humble: “God resists the proud, but to the humble he gives grace” (1 Peter 5:5). “Humiliation follows the proud―but glory shall uphold the humble of spirit” (Proverbs 29:23). “God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). “O Lord, from the beginning the proud have not been acceptable to Thee―but the prayer of the humble has always pleased Thee!” (Judith 9:16). “Thou will save the humble people; but will bring down the eyes of the proud” (Psalm 17:28). “God has abolished the memory of the proud, and has preserved the memory of them that are humble in mind” (Ecclesiasticus 10:21). “The greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God! For great is the power of God alone, and he is honored by the humble!” (Ecclesiasticus 3:20-21). :Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 18:4). “Therefore let us humble our souls before Him and continue in a humble spirit in His service!” (Judith 8:16).
We all know the saying: “Say what you mean and mean what you say!” That could be spiritualized into “Pray what you mean and mean what you pray!” We say too many prayers without truly reflecting upon what those prayers are saying. Thus, we end up with a divorce—by praying or saying what we do not really mean to say or pray! Or we pray without fully knowing what we are saying.
Thy Will Be Done! Really?
For example, we say, in the Our Father, “Thy will be done on Earth…” and then we end up muttering, complaining, moaning and groaning, whinging and whining about most of the things that happen to us on any given day. All this shows that we are not saying what we mean when we pray “Thy will be done on Earth…”! We add our own “fine print” or “small print” to the contract of “Thy will be done” which makes it “Thy will be done on Earth … except in the following cases and circumstances…” We forget that the God’s “small print” includes every possible little thing, good and bad, that could possibly happen to us under the clause: “Thy will be done on Earth...”
Enkindle in Us the Fire of Thy Love! Really?
Similarly with our plea to the Holy Ghost, “enkindle in us the fire of Thy love…” We forget that God has told us: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts” (Isaias 55:8-9). God’s love is not a mushy sentimental love that forgives all sins and ignores all sins. That is a Walt Disney invention or a figment of our wishful imaginative thinking! God tells us quite the opposite in Holy Scripture:
In the Old Testament the Holy Ghost, Whose love we implore to be enkindled in us, says: “For whom the Lord loves, He chastises―and as a father in the son He pleases Himself” (Proverbs 3:12). “He that loves his son, frequently chastises him, that he may rejoice in his latter end” (Ecclesiasticus 30:1). In the New Testament, the same loving Holy Ghost tells us: “For whom the Lord loves, He chastises; and He scourges every son whom He receives” (Hebrews 12:6). It could be said that this is the Bible’s version of what we today call “Tough Love”! Yet, though perhaps “Tough Love” is a modern term, most people expect and practice “Soft Love” or “Over-Indulgent Love”—which has brought the world to its sinful knees, as it now awaits the ultimate manifestation of God’s “Tough Love” in the forthcoming chastisement!
“Make Our Hearts Like Unto Thine!” Really?
Another flippant phrase that we are in danger of mindlessly uttering is the invocation that comes after the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus—which is “Jesus meek and humble of Heart, make our hearts like unto Thine!” Do we really know what we are saying? Do we really mean what we say?
Learn of Me to Be Meek and Humble!
This invocation is actually based upon Our Lord’s own words: “Take up My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart―and you shall find rest for your souls!” (Matthew 11:29). Let us look at these two things that Our Savior invites or commands us to learn from. Meekness and humility have, perhaps, more in common than first appears! What is meekness?
Meekness and Anger
Meekness is the opposite of anger. Leaving aside what is called “justified anger”, the other kind of anger usually arises when things do not go our way. Yet at all times, in all places and in all things, everything is going God’s way—nothing on Earth can happen without God actually wanting it to happen (which involves good and virtuous things), or by God allowing it to happen (which involves bad and evil things, from which God will try to bring forth some good result or fruit). When something unfortunate, bad, painful, embarrassing, injurious, insulting, wounding, impoverishing, unhealthy, tragic, costly, persecutory, or dreadful happens to us—then slowly or quickly we become angry. This anger then engenders its offspring of resentment, discontent, vengeance, hatred, malevolence, and many similar feelings.
The Root of Anger
The ultimate root of this anger and lack of meek acceptance of what has happened, comes from the granddaddy of them all—pride. “For pride is the beginning of all sin” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). “Pride goeth before destruction: and the spirit is lifted up before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). “Pride has held them fast” (Psalm 72:6). “The beginning of the pride of man, is to fall off from God. Because his heart is departed from Him that made him―for pride is the beginning of all sin. He that holds it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end” (Ecclesiasticus 10:14-15). “Thy pride is brought down to Hell” (Isaias 14:11).
Hence, we can see how meekness is related, indirectly, to humility—perhaps we could call them cousins. For meekness is the opposite of anger, which comes from pride, and pride is the opposite of humility.
We Are Mixed-Up
Though we may want our hearts to be like unto the Heart of Jesus, sadly we are a mixture of pride and humility, anger and meekness. We want to be humble, but find ourselves acting and reacting out of pride so many times a day. We could almost apply the words of St. Paul on good and evil to our battle between humility and pride: “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal … I do not do that good which I want to do―but the evil which I hate, that I do ... For to want what is good is present within me; but to accomplish that which is good, I find not. For the good which I want to do, I do not; but the evil which I do not want to do, that I do ... I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man, but I see another law in my body, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am―who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:14-25).
Gradual Change of Heart in a Lifetime of War
A change of heart is not a microwave process of a few seconds on the highest setting, nor is a flick of switch—it is a lifelong process that is grueling and taxing-—“The life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12) … “Fight the good fight of Faith: lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called” (1 Timothy 6:12).
A Heart for Perpetual Warfare
Wars (without nuclear weapons) are rarely won in a day—and as Scripture says, the whole “life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1). “Josue made war a long time against these kings” (Josue 11:18) … “And there was a great war against the Philistines all the days of Saul” (1 Kings 14:52) ... “Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David” (2 Kings 3:1) … “And there was war between Roboam and Jeroboam always … There was war, between Roboam and Jeroboam, all the time of his life” (3 Kings 14:30; 15:6) … “And there was war between Asa, and Baasa king of Israel all their days” (3 Kings 15:16).
The devil―who never sleeps or lets up in his war against God and our souls―continually prowls around our soul looking for an opening or a weakness to exploit: “Be sober and watch! Because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in Faith: knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world” (1 Peter 5:6-9). “For the success of war is not in the multitude of the army, but strength comes from Heaven” (1 Machabees 3:19).
Weapons of War for a Courageous Heart
Without the Sacred Heart, we can do nothing: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Our fight is ultimately a spiritual warfare, even though some material weapons might be used: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh” (2 Corinthians 10:3). Though we fight against the world, it is something above this world—the Faith—which shall bring victory: “For whatsoever is born of God, overcomes the world: and this is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith” (1 John 5:4).
Therefore, “put you on the armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore, take unto you the armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth; and having on the breastplate of justice; and your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace; in all things taking the shield of Faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit―which is the word of God―by all prayer and supplication, praying at all times in the spirit” (Ephesians 6:11-18).
A Humble Heart is The Weapon
One piece of armor that St. Paul does not mention is humility—which, in modern terms, we could describe as a “bulletproof vest.” St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, writes: “Humility holds the first place, inasmuch as it expels pride (the source of all sin), which God resists, and makes man open to receive the influx of divine grace ... In this sense, humility is said to be the foundation of the spiritual edifice” (IIa IIae, q. 161, art. 5 ad 2). However, humility is inferior to the theological virtues which unite us to God―but I guess humility doesn’t mind being inferior!!
“Be you humbled, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, casting all your care upon Him, for He hath care of you” (1 Peter 5:6-7). “For God will save the humble people; but will bring down the eyes of the proud” (Psalm 17:28). Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “By abasing us before God, humility raises us above pusillanimity and pride―and prepares us for the contemplation of divine things, for union with God. “God gives grace to the humble’ (James 4:6) and He makes them humble in order to load them with His gifts. Christ delighted in saying: ‘Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart’ (Matthew 11:29). He alone, who was so well established in truth, could speak of His humility without losing it.” A few lines later he says: “a soul cannot have lofty charity without profound humility” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
St. James writes: “Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). St. Paul asks: “Who distinguishes thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory, as if thou had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). Our Lord points out the right way, when He said of Himself: “I seek not my own glory―there is One that seeks and judges!” (John 8:50). What more profound lesson in humility could be taught?
The proud man can learn humility, but he will be proud of it. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less. Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real. As St. Vincent de Paul said: “Humility is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying!” Pride must die in you, or nothing of Heaven can live in you. Which is why St. Thomas Moore poetically calls “Humility, that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot.”
Learning and Living the Lessons of Humility
Many people come from humble beginnings and roots. They may well achieve something through pursuit of knowledge, integrity, hard work, but not without the intervention and agreement of Divine Providence. People may well achieve what the world calls “success” but with that comes the danger of a more severe Final Judgment by God: “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more” (Luke 12:48). We all know the pitfalls of the rich young man with many possessions (Matthew 19:16-24), the parable of the rich man with many fruits that he wanted to pull down his barns and build bigger ones (Luke 12:16-21), and Pontius Pilate who abused the power given to him by God (John 19:11).
Where It All Comes From
There can be no power, wealth or so-called ‘good-fortune’ without God wanting it or allowing it. Those who have these things have no right to be rude or disrespectful to others who do not have them. As the saying goes: “Two things define you―Your patience when you have nothing, and your attitude when you have everything.” Some people, however, get a big thrill from boasting about their accomplishments, or showing off their possessions. They have convinced themselves that they must be better than others. Of course, they are wrong. On the other hand, just as much as it is disgusting for the “haves” to look down on others, it’s equally disgusting for “have-nots” to resent and envy those who have worked hard for what they have.
Be Careful About What You Envy and Desire!
Of course, it is quite possible—even highly likely—that that the rich and powerful have spent too much time acquiring wealth and power, and therefore have been greatly or gravely lacking in their duties to God―but, then, if we envy and desire their riches and power, do we also desire their eternal judgment? Aha! We would like their riches and power, without taking the judgment that comes with it! As Our Lord said: “Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 19:23-24). So be careful over what you desire! “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48).
The Real Thing
The truth is―all the money or power in the world doesn’t make you a better person. It simply means that you have more money and power. Real wealth and real power is in the spiritual domain. Even in the natural domain money can’t buy everything. It can’t buy a close-knit family, good friends, a clear conscience, work-life balance, a happy home, a second chance in life, or good health, among many other things.
So be humble. Humility is a sign of strength, not weakness. People with true humility possess a true inner peace―for false humility can only put-on a pretended inner peace. Truly humble people are modest about their achievements, grounded in their virtues and values, and they have nothing to prove to others. They are down to earth people without pretensions or cravings for recognition, comfortable in their own skin, and quietly and deeply grateful to God, while, at the same time being in fear of how they have used their divine given endowments. Humble people shift their focus from taking to giving, from talking about themselves to listening to others, from hoarding the credit to deflecting the praise, and from being a “know-it-all” to knowing there’s so much more in life that they don’t know and that’s worth learning. There’s no ego, no pretense, and certainly no gamesmanship and manipulation. Humble people are authentic.
Holy Communion Should Transform the Heart
Are we humble enough? Of course not! How can we become more humble? One of the ways is by a frequent, sincere and fruitful reception of the Holy Eucharist. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange says: “Holy Communion ought to incorporate us more and more into Christ, by increasing our humility, Faith, confidence, and especially our charity, in order to make our hearts like to that of the Savior … Each of our Communions should be substantially more fervent than the preceding one … As a stone falls more rapidly as it approaches the Earth―which attracts it―souls should advance more rapidly toward God as they draw near Him and are more attracted by Him … Should a soul thus live daily by the Savior in Mass and Communion, it would certainly arrive at great intimacy with Him, at the intimacy which is that of the mystical life. The Gifts of the Holy Ghost would grow proportionately in it … Christ says to us in Communion, as He said to St. Augustine: ‘I am the bread of the strong ... Thou wilt not convert Me into thee, as the food of thy flesh; but thou shalt be converted into Me’ (Confessions, Book 7, chapter 10). He who truly receives Christ in Holy Communion, is more and more incorporated in Him, living by His thought and by His love” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Growing in the Strength of Humility
It takes a lot of humiliation in order to reach the virtue of humility. Remember that no matter how intelligent, successful, talented, wealthy, strong or good-looking you are, nobody likes a braggard. Nobody likes arrogance. Nobody likes cockiness. “It is better to be humbled with the meek, than to divide spoils with the proud” (Proverbs 16:19). “Pride is hateful before God and men” (Ecclesiasticus 10:7). “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord … as humility is an abomination to the proud” (Proverbs 16:5; Ecclesiasticus 13:24). “Humiliation followeth the proud: and glory shall uphold the humble of spirit” (Proverbs 29:23).
Remind yourself just how small you are in the amazing, wondrous world and universe around you—you are less than a speck of dust compared to the universe and to dust you will one day return—just that though alone should help to become and stay humble. “Why is earth and ashes proud?” (Ecclesiasticus 10:9). On top of that, think of how few of God’s graces you have really cooperated with! Think of how many talents have been underworked and wasted! Think of the many hundreds of thousands of sins that have been committed!
St. Thomas Aquinas—a Strawman?
The spiritual writers tell us that the closer we draw to God, the greater and wider is the chasm that we see separating us from God. It might sound paradoxical, but it much like St. John the Baptist’s famous words about his relationship to Christ: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Or take the reaction and attitude of St. Thomas Aquinas just before his death, when, having been given revelations about God, he had to admit: “Everything that I have written seems like straw to me compared to those things that I have seen and have been revealed to me!”
Attic Humility
The light of God’s grace illumines the darkness of our mind. Without God’s light, we only see things in a human way, a dark way, an imperfect way, partially and not fully. When a room is lit only by a single candle, we cannot see all things clearly. Yet once a number of electric lights are turned-on, then we see all things much more clearly. Likewise in an attic, we may turn on the electric light bulb to see what is up there, and we can see fairly well. Yet if a chink of daylight beams through a hole in the roof, we suddenly see a multitude of specks of dust floating in that bright beam of daylight, which we could not see by the light of the electric light bulb.
Similarly, the more God’s light shines in our soul, the more repulsive we see ourselves to be—even if we have been progressing spiritually by leaps and bounds. For the light of our own viewpoint and mind is far inferior to the light of God’s grace. This is why Our Lord could say to one of His mystics: “If you could see yourself as I see you, then you would die in terror!”
Terrifyingly Wonderful Humility!
Here are some words spoken by Our Lord to three of His mystics—Sr. Josefa Menendez, Sr. Mary of the Trinity and Sr. Consolata Betrone, as recorded by Fr. Gottemoller in his book Words of Love. They should serve as an incentive to truly and firmly desire an increase of the virtue of humility!
To Sr. Josefa Menendez, Our Lord said: “Josefa, why do you love Me?” To which Josefa replied: “Lord, because Thou art so good.” Jesus then said to her: “And I love you because you are so wretched and so lowly … I want you to be very little and very humble, and always joyful … I want you to be holy, very holy, and you will only become so by the path of humility and obedience ... Try to make many acts of humility, Josefa, and do not count the cost. If you but knew how pleasing such acts are to Me … Never does My Heart refuse to forgive a soul that humbles itself, especially when it asks with confidence … Ah! Josefa, leave yourself, such as you are, to My care, and let the sight of your nothingness never lessen your trust, but only confirm you in humility … Souls that see themselves overwhelmed with miseries attribute nothing good to themselves, and their very abjectness clothes them with a certain humility, that they would not have, if they saw themselves to be less imperfect … I will raise up the humble, and make little of their frailties, and even of their falls, provided they have humility and love … A soul will profit even after the greatest sins, if she humbles herself” (Jesus to Sr. Josefa Menendez).
To Sr. Mary of the Trinity, Our Lord revealed: “With ruins, on ruins, I can build magnificently! It gives Me joy to use that which has humbled itself before Me, because My action is free! … It is My joy to respond as God to humble confidence … It is with coal that I make diamonds! What would I not do with a soul―however black she might be―who would give herself to Me! … It is not sins that injure your purity, it is your pride, which, so often, does not wish to acknowledge them!” (Jesus to Sr. Mary of the Trinity).
While to Sr. Consolata Betrone, Our Lord said: “My Heart is won more readily through your wretchedness than through your virtues! Who came away from the Temple justified? The Pharisee or the Publican? The publican! For to Me the sight of a humble and contrite soul is irresistible ... That is the way I am!” (Jesus to Sr. Consolata Betrone).
On one occasion, the devil cried out to Sr. Josefa Menendez, with a yell of rage: “There is no doubt about it! All those who reach highest sanctity are those who have sunk deepest in humility!”
Our Lady said to Sr. Josefa Menendez: “What pleases my Son most, is love and humility!”
As the book, Humility of Heart, by Fr. Bergamo states in its opening chapter: “In Paradise there are many Saints who never gave alms on Earth―their poverty justified them. There are many Saints who never mortified their bodies by fasting, or wearing hair shirts―their bodily infirmities excused them. There are also many Saints who were not virgins―their vocation was otherwise. But in Paradise there is no Saint who was not humble … Pope St. Gregory the Great concludes: ‘Pride is a sure sign of the reprobate, as humility is the sign of the elect’ (Fr. Bergamo, Humility of Heart).
Unfortunately, we live in a world that is seems to be opposed to humility―instead, the world promotes and praises pride, it could even be said to ooze pride. This is nothing new―for Holy Scripture had already said this almost 2,000 years ago: “For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life―which is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16). If we wish to be one of few that get to Heaven, then we need to battle against the natural pride that we are born with―as a result of Original Sin, which was a sin of pride and disobedience, and which has become part of our spiritual DNA.
God rejects the proud and only accepts the humble: “God resists the proud, but to the humble he gives grace” (1 Peter 5:5). “Humiliation follows the proud―but glory shall uphold the humble of spirit” (Proverbs 29:23). “God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). “O Lord, from the beginning the proud have not been acceptable to Thee―but the prayer of the humble has always pleased Thee!” (Judith 9:16). “Thou will save the humble people; but will bring down the eyes of the proud” (Psalm 17:28). “God has abolished the memory of the proud, and has preserved the memory of them that are humble in mind” (Ecclesiasticus 10:21). “The greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God! For great is the power of God alone, and he is honored by the humble!” (Ecclesiasticus 3:20-21). :Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 18:4). “Therefore let us humble our souls before Him and continue in a humble spirit in His service!” (Judith 8:16).
Article 9
Monday June 12th, 2023, within the Octave of Corpus Christi
Let Jesus Rebuild Your Temple and Altar
Monday June 12th, 2023, within the Octave of Corpus Christi
Let Jesus Rebuild Your Temple and Altar
Your Are a Temple of God!
“Know you not, that you are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? … “Or know you not, that your members are the Temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 3:16-19). “And what agreement hath the Temple of God with idols? For you are the Temple of the living God; as God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’” (2 Corinthians 6:16). “But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the Temple of God is holy―which you are!” [or are supposed to be]. (1 Corinthians 3:17).
The above words can be applied to the Holy Eucharist and Holy Communion also. We could just as well say: “Know you not, that you are the Temple of Jesus Christ, and that Jesus dwells in you when you receive Holy Communion? … “Or know you not, that your members are the Temple of the Holy Eucharist, which is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” Is your temple a holy temple, or is it a worldly temple? Is it a fervent temple or a lukewarm temple? Our souls should be fervent temples of love: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “Take care, with all diligence, that you love the Lord your God!” (Josue 23:11). As Our Lord Himself said: “No man can serve [love] two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon! [the world with its pleasures and treasures]” (Matthew 6:24).
By the time Jesus came into the world, the Temple of God had become worldly. “And Jesus went into the Temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves, and He said to them: ‘It is written, “My house shall be called the house of prayer”―but you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Matthew 21:12-13). The same could be said of our souls as temples of the Holy Eucharist! Perhaps Jesus needs to say: “I will destroy this temple made with hands, and within three days I will build another not made with hands!” (Mark 14:58). Is Christ pleased with the temple of our soul? Or would He say: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot! But, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth! Because thou sayest: ‘I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing!’ and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked! I counsel thee to buy of Me gold [charity], that is fire-tried [fired-up and fervent], that thou mayest be made rich [in love and fervor]; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear! And anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see [yourself as you really are]. Those that I love, I rebuke and chastise! Be zealous therefore, and do penance! Behold, I stand at the gate [of your soul], and knock. If any man shall hear My voice, and open to Me the door [of the soul], I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me!” (Apocalypse 3:15-20).
Covered with the Gold of Charity
We read in Holy Scripture that “there was nothing in the Temple that was not covered with gold: the whole altar of the oracle he covered also with gold” (3 Kings 6:22). Gold is a symbol of charity and “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). All that we do should be “covered with gold” ― that is to say, covered with charity, covered with love. “Let all your things be done in charity” (1 Corinthians 16:14). All our thoughts, all our words and all our actions should be love and charity―for that is how we imitate God: “Everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God! He that does not love, does not know God―for God is charity!” (1 John 4:7-8). “He that does not love, abides in death!” (1 John 3:14). Could Our Lord say of us: “I know you, that you have not the love of God in you!” (John 5:42)?
The Power of the True and Truth
We love what is true! God is no different—especially as He is True and Truth Itself! We hate it when people lie to us. We want to hear the truth. We hate pretense and hypocrisy. We hate fake people. We want the best that we can get. We want true quality. We want the real thing. We only want to marry people who will be true and faithful to us. We want people to be true and honor the contracts and promises they make. Truth has a certain allurement and attraction to it.
Why should God be any different? Are we true to God? Or are we living a “holy lie”? Do we truly love Him above all things―or do we pretend to love Him? Are we truthful with Him? “Let us not love in words, nor in tongue, but by deeds and in truth!” (1 John 3:18) ― or else Christ will say: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Therefore fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth and with your whole heart!” (1 Kings 12:24).
Jesus is Truth and True
Our Lord said of Himself: “I am the Truth! … Every one that is of the truth, hears My voice … I give testimony of Myself, My testimony is true” (John 14:6; 18:37; 8:14). St. Paul says: “This testimony is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the Faith” (Titus 1:13). St. John says that Jesus “was the true light, which enlightens every man that cometh into this world” (John 1:9). St. Peter speaks of Jesus saying: “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). Even His enemies respected His truth, as one Pharisee said: “Master, we know that Thou art a true speaker! … and thou dost not respect any person, but teach the way of God in truth” (Mark 12:14; Luke 20:21). Jesus Himself tells us that He is “the true bread from Heaven” (John 6:32) and that “true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23).
The Spirit of Truth
After ascending into Heaven, Our Lord sent to us the Holy Ghost, Whom He calls “The Spirit of Truth” to abide with us until the end of time. “When the Paraclete cometh, Whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, Who proceeds from the Father, He shall give testimony of Me … The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it sees Him not, nor knows Him: but you shall know Him; because He shall abide with you, and shall be in you” (John 15:26; John 14:17). He will keep us in the truth and help us remain true and faithful to God. “When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will teach you all truth” (John 16:13). “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).
Sanctification in Truth
Our sanctification is found in the truth and must be based upon truth—a truth that is only found in the Word of God, not in the world: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world. Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth … I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth” (John 17:16-19).
Jesus Demands Truth and ‘True-ness’
To be godlike we must be truthful and true: “I am the true vine … Every branch in me, that bears no fruit, My Father will take away” (John 15:1-2). If the Vine is true, then the fruits must also be fruits of truth. Hence, Jesus says: “Let your speech be ‘Yea! Yea! No! No!’ and that which is over and above these, is of evil!” (Matthew 5:37).
Our Lord also says that to ignore the truth or to be without the truth is to be of the devil: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof” (John 8:44).
The Truth and Ourselves
Do we look for the truth? Do we see the truth? Do we believe the truth? Do we accept the truth? Do we love the truth? Do we live by the truth? Do we admit the truth? Even when it hurts? The answer to those questions has to be: “Not entirely!” We love to hear the truth about others—even non-truths or mere gossip about others for that matter—but we hate to be faced with the truth about ourselves, even when it our very own selves that presents that uncomfortable truth.
Truth is not always liked—especially when negative things are pointed out. Our Lord Himself experienced this, as He testifies: “But now you seek to kill Me, a man who has spoken the truth to you! … But if I say the truth, you believe Me not … If I say the truth to you, why do you not believe Me?” (John 8:40; 45-46).
Ignoring the Truth
“Pilate said to Jesus: ‘What is truth?’” (John 18:38). Pilate knew the truth, but couldn’t force himself to follow it and act upon it by setting Jesus free. It could be said that most people actually know the truth, but, because they don’t like the truth, they therefore tend to ignore the truth. It becomes the “Elephant in the room”, meaning that there is an obvious problem or difficult situation that people do not want to talk about for one reason or another—usually due to human respect. This is beautifully depicted in the Danish fairy tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”—sometimes called the “The Emperor With No Clothes.”
Many years ago there lived an emperor who cared only about his clothes and about showing them off. One day he was told by two swindlers that they could make the finest suit of clothes from the most beautiful cloth. This cloth, they said, also had the special capability that it was invisible to anyone who was either stupid, or not fit for his position. Being a bit nervous about whether he himself would be able to see the cloth, the emperor first sent two of his trusted men to see it. Of course, neither would admit that they could not see the cloth and so praised it. All the townspeople had also heard of the cloth and were interested to learn how stupid their neighbors were.
The emperor then allowed himself to be dressed in the clothes for a procession through town, never admitting that he was too unfit and stupid to see what he was wearing. For he was afraid that the other people would think that he was stupid. Of course, all the townspeople wildly praised the magnificent clothes of the emperor, afraid to admit that they could not see them, until a small child said: “But he has nothing on! He’s naked!” I guess that’s where we might get the phrase “the naked truth”!! This “naked truth” was whispered from person to person until everyone in the crowd was shouting that the emperor had nothing on. The emperor heard it and felt that they were correct, but held his head high and finished the procession.
Doesn’t this somehow strike a chord with us in matters of the Faith? We think ourselves to be clothed with goodness knows how many imaginary virtues and merits, which, when it comes to the light of day, are mere exaggerations of our wishful thinking. The words of Our Lord, to one of His mystics, come to mind: “If you could see yourself as I see you, then you would die in terror!”
Terrible Sight!
Thank heavens that the Sacred Heart is God and so He can look at us and not die in terror. I guess it’s the reverse of the vision of Hell that Our Lady gave the three children at Fatima—they would have died in terror had not the grace and assistance of God kept them alive! We really are quite awful and terrible in God’s sight—compared to the blueprint God had in His mind when He made our soul all those years ago. The building or temple of sanctity should be very far advanced by now—but it isn’t. In some cases the foundations have barely been laid! Yet the Sacred Heart has compassion on us and loves us—He does not love our sins, our lukewarmness, our indifference and our rebelliousness, but He loves the other bits.
Let Him Rebuild You!
He is the Master Designer and the Master Builder. As He said to Sister Mary of the Trinity: “With ruins, on ruins, I can build magnificently. It gives Me joy to use that which has humbled itself before Me, because My action is free … It is with coal that I make diamonds. What would I not do with a soul, however black she might be, who would give herself to Me!” (Fr. Gottemoller, Words of Love).
Too Busy Building Our Own Lives!
Sadly, we don’t want to let Him build our lives. We have our own ideas of what we want to build! We know what we want to do with our lives—and He might just spoil our plans and take away our fun! So we never really give Him a chance. The most we are prepared to do is to let Him build one or two little rooms—but the rest will be built according our own plans! How tragic it is to see such people eventually fail and possibly even end up losing their souls.
Our Lord was very clear on this matter: “Everyone therefore that heareth these My words, and doth them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock. And everyone that heareth these My words, and doth them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof” (Matthew 7:24-27).
Altars and Temples of God
The great Patriarchs were ever building altars to the Lord. “Noe built an altar unto the Lord” … “Abram built an altar to the Lord” many times … “Isaac built an altar” many times … “Jacob built an altar” several times … “Moses built an altar” several times … “Gedeon built an altar to the Lord” … “Samuel built also an altar to the Lord” … “Saul built an altar to the Lord” (Genesis 8:20; 13:18; 26:25; 35:7; Exodus 17:15; Judges 6:24; 1 Kings 7:17; 14:35) and the list goes on and on… Where is our altar to Lord? What have we built?
Then David desired to build a magnificent Temple for the Lord, but died before it could be done. His son Solomon took over the project and built a most splendid Temple with which the Lord was pleased. Where is our temple to the Lord? What kind of temple have we built? St. Paul tells us that we are temples of the Holy Ghost: Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy! For the temple of God is holy, which you are!” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). Later in the same epistle, he reiterates the same truth: “Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
This is why we must separate ourselves from the world: “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. For what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God; as God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17).
We cannot escape the fact that we are temples of God and we will have to give an account of what went on in that temple during our life. As the Book of Apocalypse says, speaking of the end of times: “And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and it was said to me: ‘Arise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar and them that adore therein!’” (Apocalypse 11:1).
Seek the Master Builder!
“God, who made the world, and all things therein; He, being Lord of Heaven and Earth, dwells not in temples made with hands” (Acts 17:24). “God is a spirit; and they that adore Him, must adore Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Though Jesus exists also in the Holy Eucharist in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, the life of God primarily takes place in our soul. “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). God seeks to live within us, as Our Lord pointed out at the Last Supper: “If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and my Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him” (John 14:23).
The foundation of our temple to God must be sanctifying grace—if we lose this grace, then the foundations crumble and the temple begins to fall. This foundational grace we received at our Baptism, and, if we had the misfortune to lose it, it was restored and repaired by a good confession of our sins. Without this foundation of grace, there can be no building of a temple to God.
Solomon Fails and Falls in His Heart
Despite the great wisdom and great achievements of Solomon, despite the great work he did for the Lord in building a Temple that was pleasing to Him, Solomon is a lesson to all of us—for he failed and fell from grace. “King Solomon loved many strange women besides the daughter of Pharao, and women of Moab, and of Ammon, and of Edom, and of Sidon, and of the Hethites. Of the nations concerning which the Lord said to the children of Israel: ‘You shall not go in unto them, neither shall any of them come in to yours: for they will most certainly turn away your heart to follow their gods!’ And to these was Solomon joined with a most ardent love. And he had seven hundred wives as queens, and three hundred concubines: and the women turned away his heart. And when he was now old, his heart was turned away by women to follow strange gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.
Solomon Builds Temples to False Gods
But Solomon worshiped Astarthe the goddess of the Sidonians, and Moloch the idol of the Ammonites. And Solomon did that which was not pleasing before the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as David his father. Then Solomon built a temple for Chamos, the idol of Moab, on the hill that is over against Jerusalem, and for Moloch the idol of the children of Ammon. And he did in this manner for all his wives that were strangers, who burnt incense, and offered sacrifice to their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his mind was turned away from the Lord the God of Israel, Who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not follow strange gods: but Solomon did not the things which the Lord commanded him” (3 Kings 11:1-10).
Very many Catholics—feeling that there is safety in numbers—have also failed to do what the Lord has commanded. In their souls, they have built altars to false idols and gods of this world. “For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:21). “Their heart is divided―now they shall perish! The Lord shall break down their idols, He shall destroy their altars!” (Osee 10:2).
“‘If you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory to My Name,’ saith the Lord of hosts, ‘then I will send poverty upon you, and will curse your blessings, yes, I will curse them, because you have not laid it to heart!’” (Malachias 2:2). “For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them!” (Matthew 13:15).
A New Heart
If we are honest with God and ourselves, then we will admit that we are in need of a new heart—a better heart, a more sincere heart, a heart that is more pure, more contrite, more courageous, more steadfast, more charitable, more fervent. Our current heart could be said to be “a heart of stone”—insensitive to the needs of God, heartless in committing sins.
As Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). A change of heart without the Sacred Heart will never happen: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:26). God even offers to give us a new heart: “I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels: and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 11:19).
A little further on, God again states: “And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 36:26). “Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit: and why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezechiel 18:31).
The Sacred Heart of Jesus offers us that new heart. But the new heart “will not take” or won’t work on the old corrupted unpurified blood that destroyed our ‘old’ heart. That is why Holy Scripture says: “Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above; where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead; and your life is hid with Christ in God.
“When Christ shall appear, who is your life, then you also shall appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is the service of idols. For which things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of unbelief, in which you also walked some time, when you lived in them. But now put you also all away: anger, indignation, malice, blasphemy, filthy speech out of your mouth. Lie not one to another: stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of Him that created him” (Colossians 3:1-10).
“Know you not, that you are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? … “Or know you not, that your members are the Temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 3:16-19). “And what agreement hath the Temple of God with idols? For you are the Temple of the living God; as God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’” (2 Corinthians 6:16). “But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the Temple of God is holy―which you are!” [or are supposed to be]. (1 Corinthians 3:17).
The above words can be applied to the Holy Eucharist and Holy Communion also. We could just as well say: “Know you not, that you are the Temple of Jesus Christ, and that Jesus dwells in you when you receive Holy Communion? … “Or know you not, that your members are the Temple of the Holy Eucharist, which is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” Is your temple a holy temple, or is it a worldly temple? Is it a fervent temple or a lukewarm temple? Our souls should be fervent temples of love: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “Take care, with all diligence, that you love the Lord your God!” (Josue 23:11). As Our Lord Himself said: “No man can serve [love] two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon! [the world with its pleasures and treasures]” (Matthew 6:24).
By the time Jesus came into the world, the Temple of God had become worldly. “And Jesus went into the Temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves, and He said to them: ‘It is written, “My house shall be called the house of prayer”―but you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Matthew 21:12-13). The same could be said of our souls as temples of the Holy Eucharist! Perhaps Jesus needs to say: “I will destroy this temple made with hands, and within three days I will build another not made with hands!” (Mark 14:58). Is Christ pleased with the temple of our soul? Or would He say: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot! But, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth! Because thou sayest: ‘I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing!’ and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked! I counsel thee to buy of Me gold [charity], that is fire-tried [fired-up and fervent], that thou mayest be made rich [in love and fervor]; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear! And anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see [yourself as you really are]. Those that I love, I rebuke and chastise! Be zealous therefore, and do penance! Behold, I stand at the gate [of your soul], and knock. If any man shall hear My voice, and open to Me the door [of the soul], I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me!” (Apocalypse 3:15-20).
Covered with the Gold of Charity
We read in Holy Scripture that “there was nothing in the Temple that was not covered with gold: the whole altar of the oracle he covered also with gold” (3 Kings 6:22). Gold is a symbol of charity and “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). All that we do should be “covered with gold” ― that is to say, covered with charity, covered with love. “Let all your things be done in charity” (1 Corinthians 16:14). All our thoughts, all our words and all our actions should be love and charity―for that is how we imitate God: “Everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God! He that does not love, does not know God―for God is charity!” (1 John 4:7-8). “He that does not love, abides in death!” (1 John 3:14). Could Our Lord say of us: “I know you, that you have not the love of God in you!” (John 5:42)?
The Power of the True and Truth
We love what is true! God is no different—especially as He is True and Truth Itself! We hate it when people lie to us. We want to hear the truth. We hate pretense and hypocrisy. We hate fake people. We want the best that we can get. We want true quality. We want the real thing. We only want to marry people who will be true and faithful to us. We want people to be true and honor the contracts and promises they make. Truth has a certain allurement and attraction to it.
Why should God be any different? Are we true to God? Or are we living a “holy lie”? Do we truly love Him above all things―or do we pretend to love Him? Are we truthful with Him? “Let us not love in words, nor in tongue, but by deeds and in truth!” (1 John 3:18) ― or else Christ will say: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Therefore fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth and with your whole heart!” (1 Kings 12:24).
Jesus is Truth and True
Our Lord said of Himself: “I am the Truth! … Every one that is of the truth, hears My voice … I give testimony of Myself, My testimony is true” (John 14:6; 18:37; 8:14). St. Paul says: “This testimony is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the Faith” (Titus 1:13). St. John says that Jesus “was the true light, which enlightens every man that cometh into this world” (John 1:9). St. Peter speaks of Jesus saying: “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). Even His enemies respected His truth, as one Pharisee said: “Master, we know that Thou art a true speaker! … and thou dost not respect any person, but teach the way of God in truth” (Mark 12:14; Luke 20:21). Jesus Himself tells us that He is “the true bread from Heaven” (John 6:32) and that “true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23).
The Spirit of Truth
After ascending into Heaven, Our Lord sent to us the Holy Ghost, Whom He calls “The Spirit of Truth” to abide with us until the end of time. “When the Paraclete cometh, Whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, Who proceeds from the Father, He shall give testimony of Me … The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it sees Him not, nor knows Him: but you shall know Him; because He shall abide with you, and shall be in you” (John 15:26; John 14:17). He will keep us in the truth and help us remain true and faithful to God. “When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will teach you all truth” (John 16:13). “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).
Sanctification in Truth
Our sanctification is found in the truth and must be based upon truth—a truth that is only found in the Word of God, not in the world: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world. Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth … I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth” (John 17:16-19).
Jesus Demands Truth and ‘True-ness’
To be godlike we must be truthful and true: “I am the true vine … Every branch in me, that bears no fruit, My Father will take away” (John 15:1-2). If the Vine is true, then the fruits must also be fruits of truth. Hence, Jesus says: “Let your speech be ‘Yea! Yea! No! No!’ and that which is over and above these, is of evil!” (Matthew 5:37).
Our Lord also says that to ignore the truth or to be without the truth is to be of the devil: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof” (John 8:44).
The Truth and Ourselves
Do we look for the truth? Do we see the truth? Do we believe the truth? Do we accept the truth? Do we love the truth? Do we live by the truth? Do we admit the truth? Even when it hurts? The answer to those questions has to be: “Not entirely!” We love to hear the truth about others—even non-truths or mere gossip about others for that matter—but we hate to be faced with the truth about ourselves, even when it our very own selves that presents that uncomfortable truth.
Truth is not always liked—especially when negative things are pointed out. Our Lord Himself experienced this, as He testifies: “But now you seek to kill Me, a man who has spoken the truth to you! … But if I say the truth, you believe Me not … If I say the truth to you, why do you not believe Me?” (John 8:40; 45-46).
Ignoring the Truth
“Pilate said to Jesus: ‘What is truth?’” (John 18:38). Pilate knew the truth, but couldn’t force himself to follow it and act upon it by setting Jesus free. It could be said that most people actually know the truth, but, because they don’t like the truth, they therefore tend to ignore the truth. It becomes the “Elephant in the room”, meaning that there is an obvious problem or difficult situation that people do not want to talk about for one reason or another—usually due to human respect. This is beautifully depicted in the Danish fairy tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”—sometimes called the “The Emperor With No Clothes.”
Many years ago there lived an emperor who cared only about his clothes and about showing them off. One day he was told by two swindlers that they could make the finest suit of clothes from the most beautiful cloth. This cloth, they said, also had the special capability that it was invisible to anyone who was either stupid, or not fit for his position. Being a bit nervous about whether he himself would be able to see the cloth, the emperor first sent two of his trusted men to see it. Of course, neither would admit that they could not see the cloth and so praised it. All the townspeople had also heard of the cloth and were interested to learn how stupid their neighbors were.
The emperor then allowed himself to be dressed in the clothes for a procession through town, never admitting that he was too unfit and stupid to see what he was wearing. For he was afraid that the other people would think that he was stupid. Of course, all the townspeople wildly praised the magnificent clothes of the emperor, afraid to admit that they could not see them, until a small child said: “But he has nothing on! He’s naked!” I guess that’s where we might get the phrase “the naked truth”!! This “naked truth” was whispered from person to person until everyone in the crowd was shouting that the emperor had nothing on. The emperor heard it and felt that they were correct, but held his head high and finished the procession.
Doesn’t this somehow strike a chord with us in matters of the Faith? We think ourselves to be clothed with goodness knows how many imaginary virtues and merits, which, when it comes to the light of day, are mere exaggerations of our wishful thinking. The words of Our Lord, to one of His mystics, come to mind: “If you could see yourself as I see you, then you would die in terror!”
Terrible Sight!
Thank heavens that the Sacred Heart is God and so He can look at us and not die in terror. I guess it’s the reverse of the vision of Hell that Our Lady gave the three children at Fatima—they would have died in terror had not the grace and assistance of God kept them alive! We really are quite awful and terrible in God’s sight—compared to the blueprint God had in His mind when He made our soul all those years ago. The building or temple of sanctity should be very far advanced by now—but it isn’t. In some cases the foundations have barely been laid! Yet the Sacred Heart has compassion on us and loves us—He does not love our sins, our lukewarmness, our indifference and our rebelliousness, but He loves the other bits.
Let Him Rebuild You!
He is the Master Designer and the Master Builder. As He said to Sister Mary of the Trinity: “With ruins, on ruins, I can build magnificently. It gives Me joy to use that which has humbled itself before Me, because My action is free … It is with coal that I make diamonds. What would I not do with a soul, however black she might be, who would give herself to Me!” (Fr. Gottemoller, Words of Love).
Too Busy Building Our Own Lives!
Sadly, we don’t want to let Him build our lives. We have our own ideas of what we want to build! We know what we want to do with our lives—and He might just spoil our plans and take away our fun! So we never really give Him a chance. The most we are prepared to do is to let Him build one or two little rooms—but the rest will be built according our own plans! How tragic it is to see such people eventually fail and possibly even end up losing their souls.
Our Lord was very clear on this matter: “Everyone therefore that heareth these My words, and doth them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock. And everyone that heareth these My words, and doth them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof” (Matthew 7:24-27).
Altars and Temples of God
The great Patriarchs were ever building altars to the Lord. “Noe built an altar unto the Lord” … “Abram built an altar to the Lord” many times … “Isaac built an altar” many times … “Jacob built an altar” several times … “Moses built an altar” several times … “Gedeon built an altar to the Lord” … “Samuel built also an altar to the Lord” … “Saul built an altar to the Lord” (Genesis 8:20; 13:18; 26:25; 35:7; Exodus 17:15; Judges 6:24; 1 Kings 7:17; 14:35) and the list goes on and on… Where is our altar to Lord? What have we built?
Then David desired to build a magnificent Temple for the Lord, but died before it could be done. His son Solomon took over the project and built a most splendid Temple with which the Lord was pleased. Where is our temple to the Lord? What kind of temple have we built? St. Paul tells us that we are temples of the Holy Ghost: Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy! For the temple of God is holy, which you are!” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). Later in the same epistle, he reiterates the same truth: “Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
This is why we must separate ourselves from the world: “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. For what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God; as God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17).
We cannot escape the fact that we are temples of God and we will have to give an account of what went on in that temple during our life. As the Book of Apocalypse says, speaking of the end of times: “And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and it was said to me: ‘Arise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar and them that adore therein!’” (Apocalypse 11:1).
Seek the Master Builder!
“God, who made the world, and all things therein; He, being Lord of Heaven and Earth, dwells not in temples made with hands” (Acts 17:24). “God is a spirit; and they that adore Him, must adore Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Though Jesus exists also in the Holy Eucharist in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, the life of God primarily takes place in our soul. “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). God seeks to live within us, as Our Lord pointed out at the Last Supper: “If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and my Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him” (John 14:23).
The foundation of our temple to God must be sanctifying grace—if we lose this grace, then the foundations crumble and the temple begins to fall. This foundational grace we received at our Baptism, and, if we had the misfortune to lose it, it was restored and repaired by a good confession of our sins. Without this foundation of grace, there can be no building of a temple to God.
Solomon Fails and Falls in His Heart
Despite the great wisdom and great achievements of Solomon, despite the great work he did for the Lord in building a Temple that was pleasing to Him, Solomon is a lesson to all of us—for he failed and fell from grace. “King Solomon loved many strange women besides the daughter of Pharao, and women of Moab, and of Ammon, and of Edom, and of Sidon, and of the Hethites. Of the nations concerning which the Lord said to the children of Israel: ‘You shall not go in unto them, neither shall any of them come in to yours: for they will most certainly turn away your heart to follow their gods!’ And to these was Solomon joined with a most ardent love. And he had seven hundred wives as queens, and three hundred concubines: and the women turned away his heart. And when he was now old, his heart was turned away by women to follow strange gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.
Solomon Builds Temples to False Gods
But Solomon worshiped Astarthe the goddess of the Sidonians, and Moloch the idol of the Ammonites. And Solomon did that which was not pleasing before the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as David his father. Then Solomon built a temple for Chamos, the idol of Moab, on the hill that is over against Jerusalem, and for Moloch the idol of the children of Ammon. And he did in this manner for all his wives that were strangers, who burnt incense, and offered sacrifice to their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his mind was turned away from the Lord the God of Israel, Who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not follow strange gods: but Solomon did not the things which the Lord commanded him” (3 Kings 11:1-10).
Very many Catholics—feeling that there is safety in numbers—have also failed to do what the Lord has commanded. In their souls, they have built altars to false idols and gods of this world. “For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:21). “Their heart is divided―now they shall perish! The Lord shall break down their idols, He shall destroy their altars!” (Osee 10:2).
“‘If you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory to My Name,’ saith the Lord of hosts, ‘then I will send poverty upon you, and will curse your blessings, yes, I will curse them, because you have not laid it to heart!’” (Malachias 2:2). “For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them!” (Matthew 13:15).
A New Heart
If we are honest with God and ourselves, then we will admit that we are in need of a new heart—a better heart, a more sincere heart, a heart that is more pure, more contrite, more courageous, more steadfast, more charitable, more fervent. Our current heart could be said to be “a heart of stone”—insensitive to the needs of God, heartless in committing sins.
As Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). A change of heart without the Sacred Heart will never happen: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:26). God even offers to give us a new heart: “I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels: and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 11:19).
A little further on, God again states: “And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 36:26). “Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit: and why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezechiel 18:31).
The Sacred Heart of Jesus offers us that new heart. But the new heart “will not take” or won’t work on the old corrupted unpurified blood that destroyed our ‘old’ heart. That is why Holy Scripture says: “Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above; where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead; and your life is hid with Christ in God.
“When Christ shall appear, who is your life, then you also shall appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is the service of idols. For which things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of unbelief, in which you also walked some time, when you lived in them. But now put you also all away: anger, indignation, malice, blasphemy, filthy speech out of your mouth. Lie not one to another: stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of Him that created him” (Colossians 3:1-10).
Article 8
Sunday June 11th, 2023, within the Octave of Corpus Christi
Avoid These False Eucharistic Devotions or “Seven Deadly Devotions”
Sunday June 11th, 2023, within the Octave of Corpus Christi
Avoid These False Eucharistic Devotions or “Seven Deadly Devotions”
Corpus Christi All Over Again!
Even though we celebrated the feast of Corpus Christi this last Thursday, in some places (where the feast is not a holy day of obligation) it is allowed to celebrate it on the Sunday following the official Thursday feast of Corpus Christi. The Feast of Corpus Christi originated in 1246 when Robert de Torote, Bishop of Liège, ordered the festival celebrated in his diocese. He was persuaded to initiate the feast by St. Juliana, prioress of Mont Cornillon near Liège (1222–1258), who had experienced a vision concerning the Holy Eucharist, in that Heaven wanted a special feast day to honor the Holy Eucharist―apart from the sorrowful setting of Holy Thursday, right before Good Friday. This new feast of Corpus Christi did not spread until 1261, when Jacques Pantaléon, formerly Archdeacon of Liège, became pope as Urban IV. In 1264 he ordered the whole Church to observe the feast. Pope Urban’s order was confirmed by Pope Clement V at the Council of Vienne in 1311–1312. By the mid-14th century the feast day was generally accepted, and in the 15th century it became, in effect, one of the principal feasts of the Church.
Loving the Holy Eucharist
We are supposed to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength―“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31)―and God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, is to be found present in the Most Holy Eucharist. Therefore, we should be loving the Holy Eucharist with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength! But are we doing that? In 99.999% of cases the answer has to be NO. Nobody is loving the Holy Eucharist will ALL their heart, ALL their mind, ALL their soul and ALL their strength.
False Eucharistic Devotions or “Seven Deadly Devotions”
St. Louis de Montfort speaking of false devotions to Mary―we can also speak of false devotions to the Holy Eucharist—or, to give the benefit of the doubt, let us call them insufficient devotions to the Holy Eucharist. These would be (1) the merely external devotion, (2) the half-hearted devotion, (3) the lukewarm devotion, (4) the slothful devotion, (5) the self-interested devotion, (6) the “showing-off” devotion, and (7) the “fast-track” devotion.
Just as the Seven Capital Sins have been coined as “The Seven Deadly Sins”, we could likewise coin these as “The Seven Deadly Devotions.” Furthermore, it must be remembered that just as the “Seven Deadly Sins” can also be combined together in any number or mixture in one and the same person, so, too, can we find one or more of these “Seven Deadly Devotions” in one and same person. Each one may not be present all the time, but might come and go, visit from time to time, so to speak, and then give way to another Deadly Devotion.
Let us look at these “Seven Deadly Devotions” in greater detail, so that we can readily and honestly identify them in our own lives and seek to eliminate them and replace them with a true devotion.
In general, what is common to all of these “False Devotions” to the Sacred Heart, is that they lack a true of love God. They fail in being a “True Devotion” because they misplace their love—by loving themselves and other persons, places and things beyond what would be acceptable to God.
(1) Mere External Devotion
There has to be an external devotion to the Sacred Heart, because we are made of both body and soul. The body is ‘external’ or visible. The soul in ‘internal’ and invisible. Our devotion to the Sacred Heart must be both external and internal, visible and invisible, of body and of soul.
However, man has a tendency to be superficial and a minimalist—especially in things that do not revolve around him. God, religion, practicing the Faith, etc. are things that often fall into this category and are given short-shrift. In these areas most people are content to do only the minimal, or even content to pretend. This easily leads to hypocrisy, even by apparently ‘good’ men. This external devotion was one of the faults of the Scribes and Pharisees. Who were so fussy about the “letter of the law” on the outside, that they relegated the “spirit of the law” that should have reigned in their souls—because they were the self-appointed upholders and preservers of the Jewish Law and Religious Traditions.
Our Lord says to them: “Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whitened sepulchers, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness!” (Matthew 23:27). The practiced their religion only partially, only in things they wanted to, being satisfied with outward appearances, and not really entering into the “heart of the matter”.
“Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: ‘The Scribes and the Pharisees have sat on the chair of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not; for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy and insupportable burdens, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but with a finger of their own they will not move them. And all their works they do for to be seen of men!’” (Matthew 23:1-5).
Our Lord preaches and counsels the interior more than the exterior: “When thou dost alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth. That thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father, Who seeth in secret, will repay thee. And when ye pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret: and thy Father, Who seeth in secret, will repay thee” (Matthew 6:3-6).
What St. Louis de Montfort says of external devotees of Mary, could well be applied to the external devotees of the Sacred Heart: “External devotees are persons who make all devotion to our Blessed Lady (Sacred Heart) consist in outward practices. They have no taste except for the exterior of this devotion, because they have no interior spirit of their own. They will say quantities of Rosaries (Litanies to the Sacred Heart) with the greatest precipitation; they will hear many (First Friday) Masses distractedly; they will go, without devotion, to processions; they will enroll themselves in all her confraternities (Sacred Heart Confraternity)–without amending their lives, without doing any violence to their passions, or without imitating the virtues of that most holy Virgin (Sacred Heart). They have no love except for the external part of devotion” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, §96).
This problem―like that of all the other “False Devotions”―stems from a lack of true spiritual love. This is because the visible, tangible, sensible, enjoyable things of life take precedence over the invisible, intangible, tasteless and tough diet of the spiritual life. We like the immediate gratification of “junk food” more than the “bitter herbs” but better and healthier herbs of the spiritual life. Like babies need weaning-off their mothers’ milk, we need to wean ourselves off the milk of the world. Not pleasant, but absolutely necessary. Devotion of the lips will not get us to Heaven, devotion of the heart will.
(2) Half-Hearted Devotion
Concerning half-heartedness, Our Lord says to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame): “Alas! If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small inveterate imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me ... But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing! — according to My example, for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross.”
In a similar vein, Our Lord said: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8). Our Lord said that we are meant to “love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart” (Matthew 22:37). But “the imagination and thought of man’s heart are prone to evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). We have to fight those tendencies whole-heartedly for “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1) and so we must “Fight the good fight of Faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). Yet, no war is won with half-hearted effort. Our Lord Himself warns: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). Somehow that statement does not conjure up an image of half-heartedness!
This should not surprise us—for even in worldly things and occupations men seek those who are fully-committed and not half-hearted. Whoever heard of armies seeking-out half-hearted recruits? Or sports coaches seeking and placing half-hearted players on the starting-roster? Or a teacher being satisfied with half-hearted students, or an employer with half-hearted employees. If the bar is set high in these domains, then how much higher should the bar be set for Heaven?
(3) Lukewarm Devotion
Lukewarmness could be said to be an advanced stage of half-heartedness. It might be said to be half-heartedness that has spread its roots far wide and deep. It could be pictured as incurable half-heartedness—or nearly so. Under the section on half-heartedness we quoted Our Lord as saying: “Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing!” For lukewarmness, the language grows far stronger as His revulsion is all the greater. He said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49)—but lukewarmness is a state of indifference and refusal of this. It does not want to be kindled. It is does not want to be on fire. All of that sounds too hot! A spiritually air-conditioned environment with no exertion and comfort is what the lukewarm soul seeks—not a fiery, hot environment and a cross to carry on top of that!
This is why the language of God is one of anger and rejection: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth. Because thou sayest: ‘I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing!’―and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold fire tried, that thou mayest be made rich; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore, and do penance!” (Apocalypse 3:15-19). Zeal is opposed to lukewarmness. The friction of penance upon the body and the soul, causes heat and tends to produce fires of love, not lukewarm ashes.
Unfortunately, as the above Scripture reading implies, lukewarmness is blind and full of self-deceit, saying to itself—“I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing!” but God retorts: “Anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see! Knowest not that thou art blind, wretched, miserable, poor and naked! I counsel thee to buy of me gold fire tried, that thou mayest be made rich!”
Fr. Faber takes up this idea in his book, Growth in Holiness, in the chapter on Lukewarmness, saying: “The diseases and evils of the body are in a great degree typical of the miseries and misfortunes of the soul. If we seek the correlative of lukewarmness, we shall find it in blindness. It is a blindness which does not know even its own self, and does not suspect that it is blind, or that other men see better than itself ... In the first place conscience becomes untrue ... Bad instincts grow stronger. These instincts lead us to avoid anything which will restore life to the conscience. For their purpose it had best remain under chloroform for life. Thus they make us shrink from anything like vigorous spiritual direction. We suspect we shall be awakened, and driven, and made too good. The discretion of the blind conscience tells us we must be moderate in everything. So in hearing sermons, reading books, cultivating acquaintances, patronizing works of mercy, it draws back from everything that is likely to come too near or hit too hard.”
Thus, in our spiritual life, in our devotions—whether it be to Sacred Heart or the Immaculate Heart—we never get out of first gear. Our spiritual engine is always at idling-speed. We never really put our foot on the gas pedal and move into a higher gear. We don’t really drive, we just sit in the driveway, with engine idling, pretending to drive—like a child who is not yet allowed on the road behind the wheel of a car! Yet in our minds—our blind minds, led on by self-deceit—we somehow convince ourselves that our devotion must be really worth something! The Sacred Heart would repeat the words of the Book of Apocalypse: “Knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold fire tried, that thou mayest be made rich; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore, and do penance!” (Apocalypse 3:17-19).
When the Sacred Heart appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, He said: “My Divine Heart is so full of love for men, and especially for you, hat, unable any longer to keep within Itself the flames of Its burning love, It needs must spread them abroad! [1st Vision, December 27, 1673] … Behold this Heart which has loved men so much that It has left nothing undone, exhausting and consuming Itself in order to prove to them Its love; and I receive in return from most men only ingratitude by their disrespect and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt which they show to Me in this Sacrament of love; and what I feel most keenly, is that these are hearts which are consecrated to Me!” [2nd Vision, June 1675].
The Sacred Heart told St. Margaret Mary that He wanted one particular priest, Fr. Croiset, to write a book concerning the Sacred Heart and His apparitions to St. Margaret Mary. When the work was near completion she told Fr. Croiset that it was so completely in accordance with the wishes of Our Lord, that it would never be necessary to make any change in it. Here is an excerpt from the book regarding lukewarmness:
“What makes this state still more perilous, and obliges Jesus Christ to reject a tepid soul, is, that she is in a certain way, beyond hope, for tepidity is scarcely ever cured. As the sins which a tepid soul commits, are not of that gross and scandalous kind, that horrify a soul which has a little fear remaining, but are purely interior and do not pass beyond the heart, they easily escape the notice of a conscience that is not over particular, and of a soul that pays little attention to herself. Hence, as she does not know the greatness of her malady, she does not take the trouble to remedy it. Whereas, a great sinner, as he easily knows his sins, is in a better state to feel their weight and conceive a horror of them. And in this sense our Lord says, it is better to be cold than lukewarm.
“The most solid practices of devotion are useless to a soul that is in this unhappy state, either because the little profit she derives from the holiest exercises of piety takes from her the desire of making use of them, or because, in consequence of her being used to these holy exercises, they have less effect upon her. The great and terrible truths of salvation, which terrify by their novelty, and shake with their force the greatest sinners, make scarcely any impression on her, in consequence of her having gone over them so frequently and with so little profit. As soon as a soul gives herself up to tepidity, she no longer thinks of anything but herself. She continually seeks after what can give her pleasure. She has a delicacy that sometimes surpasses that of the most sensual persons: a love of self, which, not being weakened by foreign objects, is the stronger from being shut up in herself alone, and is entirely applied in forming for herself an easy and tranquil life. A soul in this state, insensible to the most striking truths of eternity, is still more insensible to the manifest proofs of the love of Jesus Christ for us. She is too far removed from the necessary dispositions for devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to draw any profit from it.
“The marks by which we may know if we are in the dangerous state of tepidity, are:
1. The first sign is a great negligence in all spiritual exercises; prayer without attention, confessions without amendment, communions without preparation and without fruit.
2. The second sign is a continual dissipation of a mind which is scarcely ever attentive to itself or to God, but which continually diffuses itself over all kinds of objects, and occupies itself in a thousand trifles.
3. The third sign is a bad habit of performing her actions without any interior spirit, but either through caprice or habit, scarcely doing anything in which passion, self-love or human respect, have not some share.
4. The fourth sign sloth in acquiring the virtues belonging to her state.
5. The fifth sign is a disgust for spiritual things, and especially an indifference for great virtues. The yoke of Jesus Christ begins to appear heavy; the exercises of piety become burdensome; the maxims of the Gospel regarding the hatred of self, the love of crosses and humiliations, the necessity of doing violence to oneself, of walking by the narrow way, seem impracticable. The continual exercise of modesty, mortification and interior recollection is found insupportable, the life of persons of solid virtue is regarded as unhappy, and the practice of virtue almost impossible.
6. The sixth sign of tepidity is an insensibility of conscience for lesser sins. We no longer feel remorse for our ordinary infidelities, or relapses, and we allow ourselves to commit all sorts of venial sins deliberately” (Fr. Croiset, The Devotion to the Sacred Heart).
(4) Slothful Devotion
“A wise man will fear and will beware of sloth” (Ecclesiasticus 18:27). The modern world, in many ways, conditions and leads us to sloth. The advent of many modern appliances takes away much human labor and time in labor for the accomplishment of so many things—household chores, building and maintenance, intellectual calculations, etc. The “work week” is greatly reduced in hours to what it once was for most people. Leisure and just sitting around have filled many of these new found hours away from work. This slothfulness or laziness or lack of desire to work, quickly spreads into our spiritual life. We pray little, we read little, we sacrifice little—we generally become lazy spiritually.
As Holy Scripture says, as you sow, so shall you reap. “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption” (Galatians 6:8). “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly!” (2 Corinthians 9:6). There are plenty of accounts in Holy Scripture that drive this point home. We shall look at a couple of them. One is found in Our Lord’s parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, which could just as easily be called the Diligent and Slothful Virgins.
“Then shall the Kingdom of Heaven be like to ten virgins, who taking their lamps went out to meet the bridegroom and the bride. And five of them were foolish, and five wise. But the five foolish, having taken their lamps, did not take oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with the lamps. And the bridegroom tarrying, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made: ‘Behold the bridegroom cometh! Go ye forth to meet him!’
“Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise: ‘Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out!’ The wise answered, saying: ‘Lest perhaps there be not enough for us and for you, go ye, rather, to them that sell and buy for yourselves!’ Now whilst they went to buy, the bridegroom came: and they that were ready, went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. But at last came also the other virgins, saying: ‘Lord! Lord! Open to us!’ But he answering said: ‘Amen I say to you, I know you not!’ Watch ye therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:1-13).
The other example is again from a parable of Our Lord’s, about the man who hid his talent in the ground:
“A man going into a far country, called his servants, and delivered to them his goods. And to one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one, to everyone according to his proper ability. He that had received the five talents, went his way, and traded with the same, and gained other five. He that had received the two, gained other two. But he that had received the one, going his way dug into the earth, and hid his lord’s money.
“After a long time the lord of those servants came, and reckoned with them. He that had received the five talents said: ‘Lord, thou didst deliver to me five talents, behold I have gained other five over and above!’ And he that had received the two talents came and said: ‘Lord, thou deliveredst two talents to me: behold I have gained other two!’” The lord was pleased with them and said: “Well done! Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things!”
But to the one that had received the one talent and buried it, the lord said: “Wicked and slothful servant! Thou oughtest therefore to have committed my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received my own with usury! Take ye away therefore the talent from him, and the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 25:14-30).
“Fear casteth down the slothful” (Proverbs 18:8). This was the case with the sleeping Apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane, during Our Lord’s agony. They had been told to pray with Him, but fear overcame them and sleep was their escapism—not just once, but several times. “And when He rose up from prayer, and was come to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow” (Luke 22:45). “When He returned, He found them again asleep, for their eyes were heavy, and they knew not what to answer Him” (Mark 14:40).
Their spiritual negligence in prayer resulted in a lack of grace when it was needed the most—when Our Lord was arrested, they all eventually fled and abandoned Our Lord. Peter stayed a little longer than the others and, in that time, cut-off the ear of the High Priest’s servant—but he, too, then fled out of fear and only followed discreetly at a distance, eventually thrice denying Our Lord that night. Sloth did not pay the Apostles very well. Neither will it pay us well!
(5) Self-Interested Devotion
Self-interest is inextricably linked to self-love. We may not feel it, we might not even know it, and we most certainly would not like to admit it, but self-love is one of the last things to be overcome in the spiritual life. The spiritual masters tell us that it is even present in very spiritual persons—but in a more subtle manner and much better disguised.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes that Beginners in the spiritual life are steeped in self-love and totally unaware of the fact: “They are ignorant of all the self-love and the often unconscious egoism still continuing in them and revealing itself from time to time under a sharp vexation or reproach. Often they have a clearer perception of this self-love in others than in themselves” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Fr. Tanquerey, in The Spiritual Life, quotes Bossuet: “Pride, is a profound depravity; it is the worship of self; man becomes his own god through excessive self-love. Forgetful that God is his first beginning and his last end, he overrates himself; he considers himself the sovereign lord and master of those qualities, real or imaginary, which he possesses, without referring them to God. From this arises that spirit of independence, of self-sufficiency … (Fr. Tanquerey, in The Spiritual Life, §204).
“We must examine the root of the seven capital sins. As St. Thomas says, they all spring from inordinate self-love or egoism, which hinders us from loving God above all else and inclines us to turn away from Him … This inordinate self-love or egoism must not only be moderated, but mortified so that an ordered love of self may prevail in us … Inordinate self-love leads us to death, according to the Savior’s words: ‘He that loveth his life (in an egotistical manner) shall lose it; and he that hateth (or sacrifices) his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal.’ (John 12:25)” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange laments this self-love and self-interest that is the death of a true interior life:
“Unfortunately, some great scholars, mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers have no interior life, so to speak, but devote themselves to the study of their science as if God did not exist. In their moments of solitude they have no intimate conversation with Him. Their life appears to be in certain respects the search for the true and the good … but it is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride that we may legitimately question whether it will bear fruit for eternity.
“Many artists, literary men, and statesmen never rise above this level of purely human activity which is, in short, quite exterior. Do the depths of their souls live by God? It would seem not … To give a clear idea of what the interior life should be, we shall do well to compare it with the intimate conversation that each of us has with himself. If one is faithful, this intimate conversation tends, under the influence of grace, to become elevated, to be transformed, and to become a conversation with God. If not, then it remains human. We shall consider successively these two forms of intimate conversation: the one human, the other more and more divine or supernatural” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
“As soon as a man ceases to be outwardly occupied, to talk with his fellow men, as soon as he is alone, even in the noisy streets of a great city, he begins to carry on a conversation with himself. If he is young, he often thinks of his future; if he is old, he thinks of the past. If a man is fundamentally egotistical, his intimate conversation with himself is inspired by sensuality or pride. In this intimate conversation of the egoist with himself there is a certain very inferior self-knowledge and a no less inferior self-love.
“But the egoist knows little about the spiritual part of his soul and he does not live in this spiritual order. His thoughts almost always fall back on what is inferior in him, and though he often shows intelligence and cleverness, which may even become craftiness and cunning, his intellect, instead of rising, always inclines toward what is inferior to it. The intimate conversation of the egoist with himself, proceeds, thus, to death and is, therefore, not an interior life. His self-love leads him to wish to make himself the center of everything, to draw everything to himself, both persons and things” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
The young rich man, who wanted to be perfect and get to Heaven, said that he had kept all the Commandment since his youth, but he was attached to his accumulated possessions that he could not bear to part from them and enter into a true and fulfilling spirituality following Our Lord: “Jesus saith to him: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:21-23).
In the Acts of the Apostles, we read of Simon the Magician, who, after his conversion, wanted to buy the power of being able to give the Holy Spirit to others—this was very much a self-interested devotion, that was rebuked by St. Peter:
“Now there was a certain man named Simon, who before had been a magician in that city, seducing the people of Samaria, giving out that he was some great one. To whom they all gave ear, from the least to the greatest, saying: This man is the power of God, which is called great. And they were attentive to him, because, for a long time, he had bewitched them with his magical practices. But when they had believed Philip preaching of the kingdom of God, in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Then Simon himself believed also; and being baptized, he adhered to Philip ...
“The Apostles sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they were come, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost ... Then they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost. And when Simon saw, that by the imposition of the hands of the apostles, the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying: ‘Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I shall lay my hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost!’ But Peter said to him: ‘Keep thy money to thyself, to perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money!’” (Acts 8:9-20).
“It is on the ruins of self-love that the love of God is built … As Father Olier puts it: ‘The completeness of perfection in the Christian, presupposes, in him, absolute self-effacement and the death of all self-interest’” (Fr. Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life, §432; §1157).
(6) “Showing-Off” Devotion
“Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: ‘The Scribes and the Pharisees have sat on the chair of Moses … And all their works they do for to be seen of men!’” (Matthew 23:1-5). It was to highlight this sense of self-complacency and ostentation (showing-off) that Our Lord presented the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican:
“And to some, who trusted in themselves as just and despised others, Jesus spoke also this parable: ‘Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: “O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican! I fast twice in a week! I give tithes of all that I possess!” And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards Heaven; but struck his breast, saying: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner!” I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other: because everyone that exalteth himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted!’” (Luke 18:9-14).
The Pharisee had been given more by God and therefore more was expected from him. He chose to measure himself with those who had not been given as much as he had been given. It is like trying to boast about your intelligence by comparing yourself to a kindergartner. Compare yourself to those of your own standing and not those beneath you! “But he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48).
Our Lord preaches and counsels the interior more than the exterior: “Take heed that you do not your justice before men, to be seen by them―otherwise you shall not have a reward of your Father, Who is in Heaven. Therefore, when thou dost an alms-deed, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be honored by men. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward!
“But when thou dost alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth. That thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father, Who seeth in secret, will repay thee. And when ye pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, that love to stand and pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men! Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. But thou when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret: and thy Father, Who seeth in secret, will repay thee” (Matthew 6:1-6). Our Lord here says that our works of justice―fasting, prayer and alms-deeds―ought to be performed, not out of ostentation, or a view to please men, but solely to please God.
Fr. Garrigour-Lagrange writes: “Grace teaches us, therefore, to restrain the senses, to avoid vain complacency and ostentation, humbly to hide those things which are worthy of praise and admiration; and from everything, and in every knowledge, to seek the fruit of utility, and the praise and honor of God” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
(7) “Fast-Track” Devotion
We live in a ‘fast’ world—we expect things to happen quickly. In fact, the world prides itself on being to things fast! The faster, the better! The fastest car! The fastest plane! The fastest runner! The fastest route! The fastest check-out line! The fastest meal prep time! The fastest way to cook! The fastest way to learn! The fastest way to get rich! This obsession with the “fastest”, by implication, paints anything that happens to be slow, in a very bad light.
This syndrome—or should we say “sin-drome”—readily and frequently passes over into the spiritual life. We then get the fastest Mass in town, the fastest Rosary ever prayed, the fastest Confession ever made, the fastest Communion distribution, the fastest way to Heaven, the fastest way to get through spiritual exercises, etc. What it really boils down to is the fastest way to lose your soul and the fastest way to get to Hell!
Did you know that the Church (in its Moral Theology) teaches that for a priest to say a ‘bare’ Mass (no sermon, no Communion of the faithful, no prayers after Mass) in less than 20 minutes would be a mortal sin. I guess even in the spiritual life “Speed Kills”! Yet there is no such penalty for taking a long time to say Mass!
Your super-fast Rosary may get you out of the room quickly, but it also gets you into debt more quickly and prolongs your stay in Purgatory (if you make it to Purgatory!). Look at it this way—every time you say a Rosary, God rewards you (let us put it into modern man’s understanding and say God gives you $50). However, since you rushed through your Rosary prayers, God also has to punish you (and so, depending on how fast you raced through it, you may get a “Speeding Ticket” from God to the tune of anywhere from $100 to $200). Speeding doesn’t pay!
Our Lady revealed to the mystic, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, that if a priest were to SAY JUST ONE MASS with the same respect, attention, devotion, care and fervor that the Apostles used to say Mass, then the evils threatening the Church and the world would be averted. Think about that—think about it SLOWLY! If you don’t, then you may have to think about it SLOWLY and FOR A LONG TIME in Purgatory! “Make haste slowly” as they say!
Refused Banquet Invitations & Cast Out of Banquets
We can easily relate the Holy Eucharist to the parables of Our Lord where He speaks of Great Supper and Marriage Feast, where those who were invited were too preoccupied with material and worldly things and thus refused the invitation. We can be like that by our lack of love, respect, desire and appreciation of the Holy Eucharist. Let us ponder the following passages and see if they, in some way, reflect our attitudes.
“A certain man made a great supper and invited many. And he sent his servant at the hour of supper to say to them that were invited, that they should come, for now all things are ready. And they began all at once to make excuses. The first said to him: ‘I have bought a farm―and I need to go out and see it! I pray thee to hold me excused!’ And another said: ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen and I must go to try them! I pray thee to hold me excused! And another said: ‘I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come!’ And the servant returning, told these things to his lord. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant: ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor, and the feeble, and the blind, and the lame!’ And the servant said: ‘Lord―it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is still more room!’ And the Lord said to the servant: ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled! But I say unto you, that none of those men that were invited, shall taste of my supper!’” (Luke 14:16-24).
“The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a king, who made a marriage for his son. And he sent his servants to call them that were invited to the marriage―and they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying: ‘Tell them that were invited: “Behold, I have prepared my dinner! My calves and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready! Come ye to the marriage!”’ But they neglected and went their own ways―one to his farm, and another to his merchandise. And the rest laid hands on his servants, and having treated them contumeliously, put them to death. But when the king had heard of it, he was angry, and sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers, and burnt their city. Then he said to his servants: ‘The marriage indeed is ready―but they that were invited were not worthy! Go ye therefore into the highways―and as many as you shall find, call to the marriage!’ And his servants going forth into the ways, gathered together all that they found, both bad and good―and the marriage was filled with guests. And the king went in to see the guests―and he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment. And he said to him: ‘Friend, how could you come here not having a wedding garment?’ But he was silent. Then the king said to the waiters: ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! For many are called, but few are chosen!’” (Matthew 22:2-14).
What is that “wedding garment” that Our Lord speaks of? It is something spiritual―it is a spiritual garment that clothes us. What spiritual garment? Is it the garment of Faith? It could be―for Scripture says: “Without Faith it is impossible to please God!” (Hebrews 11:6). However, we could say that Faith―even though it is a spiritual garment―it is nevertheless not a “special” garment like a “wedding garment” but more of an “everyday garment”. There are many that have the Faith, but few make it to the heavenly “wedding feast” or “great supper” ― for, as Our Lord says: “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Faith is certainly a necessary garment―but there is a garment more special than Faith. Holy Scripture tells us: “Now there remain Faith, Hope and Charity―these three―but the greatest of these is Charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13), also adding: “If I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not Charity―then I am nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:2).
Charity is synonymous with sanctifying grace―they are like a husband and wife team, or like the right leg and left leg of the body―they go everywhere together. If one leg leaves a room, the other leg also leaves the room. When charity leaves the soul, then sanctifying grace leaves the soul. There are many who go to Holy Communion without the “wedding garment” of charity and grace, but with cold hearts and in a state of mortal sin! As St. Paul warns: “Whosoever shall eat this Bread, or drink the Chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord! But let a man first prove himself [examine his conscience]―and so let him eat of that Bread, and drink of the Chalice. For he that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself―by not discerning the Body of the Lord! Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep! But if we would judge ourselves, then we would not be judged and we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:27-32).
Since “God is charity” (1 John 4:8), we should approach God with charity―which is why we are commanded: ―“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Without a true love of God in our Holy Communions, we are―in a manner of speaking―naked, lacking the necessary garment, unclothed. We see this in the text from the Book of the Apocalypse, where God says: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot! I would thou wert cold, or hot! But because thou art lukewarm―and neither cold, nor hot―I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth! Because thou sayest: ‘I am rich, and made wealthy and have need of nothing!’ ― and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold [charity], fire-tried [fired-up love], so that thou mayest be made rich [in charity]; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear!” (Apocalypse 3:15-18). We need to approach Our Lord in Holy Communion with a heart “fired-up” with charity―so that He does not say to us: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6) ― Jesus refers to this prophecy of Isaias: “And the Lord said: ‘Forasmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify Me, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Isaias 29:13).
Not only our hearts, but our minds need to “fired-up” with things to say to Him after receiving Holy Communion―and not just the same old, same old, same old “one-liners” or mechanical, repetitive, auto-pilot words that we throw at Him from some prayer-book. Do we draw near to Our Lord in Holy Communion with our mouths and lips only―having left our hearts and minds behind somewhere else, loving and thinking more about something else or someone else? “With their lips they glorify Me, but their heart is far from Me!” Imagine how you would feel when you visited someone you love―and every single time they say exactly same things that they said to in all your previous hundreds or thousands of visits! “Hi [insert your name here]! How are you? You look good! How have you been keeping? How’s the weather been in these parts? The garden looks good! We sure miss you! Can’t stay! Gotta go! Love you! See you next time! Bye!” Same old, same old, same old―every single time! If we would go insane at being treated like that, then what about Our Lord? Our Lord deserves much better than that, doesn’t He? We are more animated, interested, engaging, enthusiastic and spontaneous with most other people in our lives―why not Our Lord?
Even though we celebrated the feast of Corpus Christi this last Thursday, in some places (where the feast is not a holy day of obligation) it is allowed to celebrate it on the Sunday following the official Thursday feast of Corpus Christi. The Feast of Corpus Christi originated in 1246 when Robert de Torote, Bishop of Liège, ordered the festival celebrated in his diocese. He was persuaded to initiate the feast by St. Juliana, prioress of Mont Cornillon near Liège (1222–1258), who had experienced a vision concerning the Holy Eucharist, in that Heaven wanted a special feast day to honor the Holy Eucharist―apart from the sorrowful setting of Holy Thursday, right before Good Friday. This new feast of Corpus Christi did not spread until 1261, when Jacques Pantaléon, formerly Archdeacon of Liège, became pope as Urban IV. In 1264 he ordered the whole Church to observe the feast. Pope Urban’s order was confirmed by Pope Clement V at the Council of Vienne in 1311–1312. By the mid-14th century the feast day was generally accepted, and in the 15th century it became, in effect, one of the principal feasts of the Church.
Loving the Holy Eucharist
We are supposed to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength―“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31)―and God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, is to be found present in the Most Holy Eucharist. Therefore, we should be loving the Holy Eucharist with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength! But are we doing that? In 99.999% of cases the answer has to be NO. Nobody is loving the Holy Eucharist will ALL their heart, ALL their mind, ALL their soul and ALL their strength.
False Eucharistic Devotions or “Seven Deadly Devotions”
St. Louis de Montfort speaking of false devotions to Mary―we can also speak of false devotions to the Holy Eucharist—or, to give the benefit of the doubt, let us call them insufficient devotions to the Holy Eucharist. These would be (1) the merely external devotion, (2) the half-hearted devotion, (3) the lukewarm devotion, (4) the slothful devotion, (5) the self-interested devotion, (6) the “showing-off” devotion, and (7) the “fast-track” devotion.
Just as the Seven Capital Sins have been coined as “The Seven Deadly Sins”, we could likewise coin these as “The Seven Deadly Devotions.” Furthermore, it must be remembered that just as the “Seven Deadly Sins” can also be combined together in any number or mixture in one and the same person, so, too, can we find one or more of these “Seven Deadly Devotions” in one and same person. Each one may not be present all the time, but might come and go, visit from time to time, so to speak, and then give way to another Deadly Devotion.
Let us look at these “Seven Deadly Devotions” in greater detail, so that we can readily and honestly identify them in our own lives and seek to eliminate them and replace them with a true devotion.
In general, what is common to all of these “False Devotions” to the Sacred Heart, is that they lack a true of love God. They fail in being a “True Devotion” because they misplace their love—by loving themselves and other persons, places and things beyond what would be acceptable to God.
(1) Mere External Devotion
There has to be an external devotion to the Sacred Heart, because we are made of both body and soul. The body is ‘external’ or visible. The soul in ‘internal’ and invisible. Our devotion to the Sacred Heart must be both external and internal, visible and invisible, of body and of soul.
However, man has a tendency to be superficial and a minimalist—especially in things that do not revolve around him. God, religion, practicing the Faith, etc. are things that often fall into this category and are given short-shrift. In these areas most people are content to do only the minimal, or even content to pretend. This easily leads to hypocrisy, even by apparently ‘good’ men. This external devotion was one of the faults of the Scribes and Pharisees. Who were so fussy about the “letter of the law” on the outside, that they relegated the “spirit of the law” that should have reigned in their souls—because they were the self-appointed upholders and preservers of the Jewish Law and Religious Traditions.
Our Lord says to them: “Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whitened sepulchers, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness!” (Matthew 23:27). The practiced their religion only partially, only in things they wanted to, being satisfied with outward appearances, and not really entering into the “heart of the matter”.
“Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: ‘The Scribes and the Pharisees have sat on the chair of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not; for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy and insupportable burdens, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but with a finger of their own they will not move them. And all their works they do for to be seen of men!’” (Matthew 23:1-5).
Our Lord preaches and counsels the interior more than the exterior: “When thou dost alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth. That thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father, Who seeth in secret, will repay thee. And when ye pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret: and thy Father, Who seeth in secret, will repay thee” (Matthew 6:3-6).
What St. Louis de Montfort says of external devotees of Mary, could well be applied to the external devotees of the Sacred Heart: “External devotees are persons who make all devotion to our Blessed Lady (Sacred Heart) consist in outward practices. They have no taste except for the exterior of this devotion, because they have no interior spirit of their own. They will say quantities of Rosaries (Litanies to the Sacred Heart) with the greatest precipitation; they will hear many (First Friday) Masses distractedly; they will go, without devotion, to processions; they will enroll themselves in all her confraternities (Sacred Heart Confraternity)–without amending their lives, without doing any violence to their passions, or without imitating the virtues of that most holy Virgin (Sacred Heart). They have no love except for the external part of devotion” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, §96).
This problem―like that of all the other “False Devotions”―stems from a lack of true spiritual love. This is because the visible, tangible, sensible, enjoyable things of life take precedence over the invisible, intangible, tasteless and tough diet of the spiritual life. We like the immediate gratification of “junk food” more than the “bitter herbs” but better and healthier herbs of the spiritual life. Like babies need weaning-off their mothers’ milk, we need to wean ourselves off the milk of the world. Not pleasant, but absolutely necessary. Devotion of the lips will not get us to Heaven, devotion of the heart will.
(2) Half-Hearted Devotion
Concerning half-heartedness, Our Lord says to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame): “Alas! If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small inveterate imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me ... But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing! — according to My example, for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross.”
In a similar vein, Our Lord said: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8). Our Lord said that we are meant to “love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart” (Matthew 22:37). But “the imagination and thought of man’s heart are prone to evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). We have to fight those tendencies whole-heartedly for “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1) and so we must “Fight the good fight of Faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). Yet, no war is won with half-hearted effort. Our Lord Himself warns: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). Somehow that statement does not conjure up an image of half-heartedness!
This should not surprise us—for even in worldly things and occupations men seek those who are fully-committed and not half-hearted. Whoever heard of armies seeking-out half-hearted recruits? Or sports coaches seeking and placing half-hearted players on the starting-roster? Or a teacher being satisfied with half-hearted students, or an employer with half-hearted employees. If the bar is set high in these domains, then how much higher should the bar be set for Heaven?
(3) Lukewarm Devotion
Lukewarmness could be said to be an advanced stage of half-heartedness. It might be said to be half-heartedness that has spread its roots far wide and deep. It could be pictured as incurable half-heartedness—or nearly so. Under the section on half-heartedness we quoted Our Lord as saying: “Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing!” For lukewarmness, the language grows far stronger as His revulsion is all the greater. He said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49)—but lukewarmness is a state of indifference and refusal of this. It does not want to be kindled. It is does not want to be on fire. All of that sounds too hot! A spiritually air-conditioned environment with no exertion and comfort is what the lukewarm soul seeks—not a fiery, hot environment and a cross to carry on top of that!
This is why the language of God is one of anger and rejection: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth. Because thou sayest: ‘I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing!’―and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold fire tried, that thou mayest be made rich; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore, and do penance!” (Apocalypse 3:15-19). Zeal is opposed to lukewarmness. The friction of penance upon the body and the soul, causes heat and tends to produce fires of love, not lukewarm ashes.
Unfortunately, as the above Scripture reading implies, lukewarmness is blind and full of self-deceit, saying to itself—“I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing!” but God retorts: “Anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see! Knowest not that thou art blind, wretched, miserable, poor and naked! I counsel thee to buy of me gold fire tried, that thou mayest be made rich!”
Fr. Faber takes up this idea in his book, Growth in Holiness, in the chapter on Lukewarmness, saying: “The diseases and evils of the body are in a great degree typical of the miseries and misfortunes of the soul. If we seek the correlative of lukewarmness, we shall find it in blindness. It is a blindness which does not know even its own self, and does not suspect that it is blind, or that other men see better than itself ... In the first place conscience becomes untrue ... Bad instincts grow stronger. These instincts lead us to avoid anything which will restore life to the conscience. For their purpose it had best remain under chloroform for life. Thus they make us shrink from anything like vigorous spiritual direction. We suspect we shall be awakened, and driven, and made too good. The discretion of the blind conscience tells us we must be moderate in everything. So in hearing sermons, reading books, cultivating acquaintances, patronizing works of mercy, it draws back from everything that is likely to come too near or hit too hard.”
Thus, in our spiritual life, in our devotions—whether it be to Sacred Heart or the Immaculate Heart—we never get out of first gear. Our spiritual engine is always at idling-speed. We never really put our foot on the gas pedal and move into a higher gear. We don’t really drive, we just sit in the driveway, with engine idling, pretending to drive—like a child who is not yet allowed on the road behind the wheel of a car! Yet in our minds—our blind minds, led on by self-deceit—we somehow convince ourselves that our devotion must be really worth something! The Sacred Heart would repeat the words of the Book of Apocalypse: “Knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold fire tried, that thou mayest be made rich; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore, and do penance!” (Apocalypse 3:17-19).
When the Sacred Heart appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, He said: “My Divine Heart is so full of love for men, and especially for you, hat, unable any longer to keep within Itself the flames of Its burning love, It needs must spread them abroad! [1st Vision, December 27, 1673] … Behold this Heart which has loved men so much that It has left nothing undone, exhausting and consuming Itself in order to prove to them Its love; and I receive in return from most men only ingratitude by their disrespect and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt which they show to Me in this Sacrament of love; and what I feel most keenly, is that these are hearts which are consecrated to Me!” [2nd Vision, June 1675].
The Sacred Heart told St. Margaret Mary that He wanted one particular priest, Fr. Croiset, to write a book concerning the Sacred Heart and His apparitions to St. Margaret Mary. When the work was near completion she told Fr. Croiset that it was so completely in accordance with the wishes of Our Lord, that it would never be necessary to make any change in it. Here is an excerpt from the book regarding lukewarmness:
“What makes this state still more perilous, and obliges Jesus Christ to reject a tepid soul, is, that she is in a certain way, beyond hope, for tepidity is scarcely ever cured. As the sins which a tepid soul commits, are not of that gross and scandalous kind, that horrify a soul which has a little fear remaining, but are purely interior and do not pass beyond the heart, they easily escape the notice of a conscience that is not over particular, and of a soul that pays little attention to herself. Hence, as she does not know the greatness of her malady, she does not take the trouble to remedy it. Whereas, a great sinner, as he easily knows his sins, is in a better state to feel their weight and conceive a horror of them. And in this sense our Lord says, it is better to be cold than lukewarm.
“The most solid practices of devotion are useless to a soul that is in this unhappy state, either because the little profit she derives from the holiest exercises of piety takes from her the desire of making use of them, or because, in consequence of her being used to these holy exercises, they have less effect upon her. The great and terrible truths of salvation, which terrify by their novelty, and shake with their force the greatest sinners, make scarcely any impression on her, in consequence of her having gone over them so frequently and with so little profit. As soon as a soul gives herself up to tepidity, she no longer thinks of anything but herself. She continually seeks after what can give her pleasure. She has a delicacy that sometimes surpasses that of the most sensual persons: a love of self, which, not being weakened by foreign objects, is the stronger from being shut up in herself alone, and is entirely applied in forming for herself an easy and tranquil life. A soul in this state, insensible to the most striking truths of eternity, is still more insensible to the manifest proofs of the love of Jesus Christ for us. She is too far removed from the necessary dispositions for devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to draw any profit from it.
“The marks by which we may know if we are in the dangerous state of tepidity, are:
1. The first sign is a great negligence in all spiritual exercises; prayer without attention, confessions without amendment, communions without preparation and without fruit.
2. The second sign is a continual dissipation of a mind which is scarcely ever attentive to itself or to God, but which continually diffuses itself over all kinds of objects, and occupies itself in a thousand trifles.
3. The third sign is a bad habit of performing her actions without any interior spirit, but either through caprice or habit, scarcely doing anything in which passion, self-love or human respect, have not some share.
4. The fourth sign sloth in acquiring the virtues belonging to her state.
5. The fifth sign is a disgust for spiritual things, and especially an indifference for great virtues. The yoke of Jesus Christ begins to appear heavy; the exercises of piety become burdensome; the maxims of the Gospel regarding the hatred of self, the love of crosses and humiliations, the necessity of doing violence to oneself, of walking by the narrow way, seem impracticable. The continual exercise of modesty, mortification and interior recollection is found insupportable, the life of persons of solid virtue is regarded as unhappy, and the practice of virtue almost impossible.
6. The sixth sign of tepidity is an insensibility of conscience for lesser sins. We no longer feel remorse for our ordinary infidelities, or relapses, and we allow ourselves to commit all sorts of venial sins deliberately” (Fr. Croiset, The Devotion to the Sacred Heart).
(4) Slothful Devotion
“A wise man will fear and will beware of sloth” (Ecclesiasticus 18:27). The modern world, in many ways, conditions and leads us to sloth. The advent of many modern appliances takes away much human labor and time in labor for the accomplishment of so many things—household chores, building and maintenance, intellectual calculations, etc. The “work week” is greatly reduced in hours to what it once was for most people. Leisure and just sitting around have filled many of these new found hours away from work. This slothfulness or laziness or lack of desire to work, quickly spreads into our spiritual life. We pray little, we read little, we sacrifice little—we generally become lazy spiritually.
As Holy Scripture says, as you sow, so shall you reap. “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption” (Galatians 6:8). “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly!” (2 Corinthians 9:6). There are plenty of accounts in Holy Scripture that drive this point home. We shall look at a couple of them. One is found in Our Lord’s parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, which could just as easily be called the Diligent and Slothful Virgins.
“Then shall the Kingdom of Heaven be like to ten virgins, who taking their lamps went out to meet the bridegroom and the bride. And five of them were foolish, and five wise. But the five foolish, having taken their lamps, did not take oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with the lamps. And the bridegroom tarrying, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made: ‘Behold the bridegroom cometh! Go ye forth to meet him!’
“Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise: ‘Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out!’ The wise answered, saying: ‘Lest perhaps there be not enough for us and for you, go ye, rather, to them that sell and buy for yourselves!’ Now whilst they went to buy, the bridegroom came: and they that were ready, went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. But at last came also the other virgins, saying: ‘Lord! Lord! Open to us!’ But he answering said: ‘Amen I say to you, I know you not!’ Watch ye therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:1-13).
The other example is again from a parable of Our Lord’s, about the man who hid his talent in the ground:
“A man going into a far country, called his servants, and delivered to them his goods. And to one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one, to everyone according to his proper ability. He that had received the five talents, went his way, and traded with the same, and gained other five. He that had received the two, gained other two. But he that had received the one, going his way dug into the earth, and hid his lord’s money.
“After a long time the lord of those servants came, and reckoned with them. He that had received the five talents said: ‘Lord, thou didst deliver to me five talents, behold I have gained other five over and above!’ And he that had received the two talents came and said: ‘Lord, thou deliveredst two talents to me: behold I have gained other two!’” The lord was pleased with them and said: “Well done! Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things!”
But to the one that had received the one talent and buried it, the lord said: “Wicked and slothful servant! Thou oughtest therefore to have committed my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received my own with usury! Take ye away therefore the talent from him, and the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 25:14-30).
“Fear casteth down the slothful” (Proverbs 18:8). This was the case with the sleeping Apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane, during Our Lord’s agony. They had been told to pray with Him, but fear overcame them and sleep was their escapism—not just once, but several times. “And when He rose up from prayer, and was come to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow” (Luke 22:45). “When He returned, He found them again asleep, for their eyes were heavy, and they knew not what to answer Him” (Mark 14:40).
Their spiritual negligence in prayer resulted in a lack of grace when it was needed the most—when Our Lord was arrested, they all eventually fled and abandoned Our Lord. Peter stayed a little longer than the others and, in that time, cut-off the ear of the High Priest’s servant—but he, too, then fled out of fear and only followed discreetly at a distance, eventually thrice denying Our Lord that night. Sloth did not pay the Apostles very well. Neither will it pay us well!
(5) Self-Interested Devotion
Self-interest is inextricably linked to self-love. We may not feel it, we might not even know it, and we most certainly would not like to admit it, but self-love is one of the last things to be overcome in the spiritual life. The spiritual masters tell us that it is even present in very spiritual persons—but in a more subtle manner and much better disguised.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes that Beginners in the spiritual life are steeped in self-love and totally unaware of the fact: “They are ignorant of all the self-love and the often unconscious egoism still continuing in them and revealing itself from time to time under a sharp vexation or reproach. Often they have a clearer perception of this self-love in others than in themselves” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Fr. Tanquerey, in The Spiritual Life, quotes Bossuet: “Pride, is a profound depravity; it is the worship of self; man becomes his own god through excessive self-love. Forgetful that God is his first beginning and his last end, he overrates himself; he considers himself the sovereign lord and master of those qualities, real or imaginary, which he possesses, without referring them to God. From this arises that spirit of independence, of self-sufficiency … (Fr. Tanquerey, in The Spiritual Life, §204).
“We must examine the root of the seven capital sins. As St. Thomas says, they all spring from inordinate self-love or egoism, which hinders us from loving God above all else and inclines us to turn away from Him … This inordinate self-love or egoism must not only be moderated, but mortified so that an ordered love of self may prevail in us … Inordinate self-love leads us to death, according to the Savior’s words: ‘He that loveth his life (in an egotistical manner) shall lose it; and he that hateth (or sacrifices) his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal.’ (John 12:25)” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange laments this self-love and self-interest that is the death of a true interior life:
“Unfortunately, some great scholars, mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers have no interior life, so to speak, but devote themselves to the study of their science as if God did not exist. In their moments of solitude they have no intimate conversation with Him. Their life appears to be in certain respects the search for the true and the good … but it is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride that we may legitimately question whether it will bear fruit for eternity.
“Many artists, literary men, and statesmen never rise above this level of purely human activity which is, in short, quite exterior. Do the depths of their souls live by God? It would seem not … To give a clear idea of what the interior life should be, we shall do well to compare it with the intimate conversation that each of us has with himself. If one is faithful, this intimate conversation tends, under the influence of grace, to become elevated, to be transformed, and to become a conversation with God. If not, then it remains human. We shall consider successively these two forms of intimate conversation: the one human, the other more and more divine or supernatural” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
“As soon as a man ceases to be outwardly occupied, to talk with his fellow men, as soon as he is alone, even in the noisy streets of a great city, he begins to carry on a conversation with himself. If he is young, he often thinks of his future; if he is old, he thinks of the past. If a man is fundamentally egotistical, his intimate conversation with himself is inspired by sensuality or pride. In this intimate conversation of the egoist with himself there is a certain very inferior self-knowledge and a no less inferior self-love.
“But the egoist knows little about the spiritual part of his soul and he does not live in this spiritual order. His thoughts almost always fall back on what is inferior in him, and though he often shows intelligence and cleverness, which may even become craftiness and cunning, his intellect, instead of rising, always inclines toward what is inferior to it. The intimate conversation of the egoist with himself, proceeds, thus, to death and is, therefore, not an interior life. His self-love leads him to wish to make himself the center of everything, to draw everything to himself, both persons and things” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
The young rich man, who wanted to be perfect and get to Heaven, said that he had kept all the Commandment since his youth, but he was attached to his accumulated possessions that he could not bear to part from them and enter into a true and fulfilling spirituality following Our Lord: “Jesus saith to him: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:21-23).
In the Acts of the Apostles, we read of Simon the Magician, who, after his conversion, wanted to buy the power of being able to give the Holy Spirit to others—this was very much a self-interested devotion, that was rebuked by St. Peter:
“Now there was a certain man named Simon, who before had been a magician in that city, seducing the people of Samaria, giving out that he was some great one. To whom they all gave ear, from the least to the greatest, saying: This man is the power of God, which is called great. And they were attentive to him, because, for a long time, he had bewitched them with his magical practices. But when they had believed Philip preaching of the kingdom of God, in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Then Simon himself believed also; and being baptized, he adhered to Philip ...
“The Apostles sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they were come, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost ... Then they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost. And when Simon saw, that by the imposition of the hands of the apostles, the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying: ‘Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I shall lay my hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost!’ But Peter said to him: ‘Keep thy money to thyself, to perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money!’” (Acts 8:9-20).
“It is on the ruins of self-love that the love of God is built … As Father Olier puts it: ‘The completeness of perfection in the Christian, presupposes, in him, absolute self-effacement and the death of all self-interest’” (Fr. Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life, §432; §1157).
(6) “Showing-Off” Devotion
“Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: ‘The Scribes and the Pharisees have sat on the chair of Moses … And all their works they do for to be seen of men!’” (Matthew 23:1-5). It was to highlight this sense of self-complacency and ostentation (showing-off) that Our Lord presented the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican:
“And to some, who trusted in themselves as just and despised others, Jesus spoke also this parable: ‘Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: “O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican! I fast twice in a week! I give tithes of all that I possess!” And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards Heaven; but struck his breast, saying: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner!” I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other: because everyone that exalteth himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted!’” (Luke 18:9-14).
The Pharisee had been given more by God and therefore more was expected from him. He chose to measure himself with those who had not been given as much as he had been given. It is like trying to boast about your intelligence by comparing yourself to a kindergartner. Compare yourself to those of your own standing and not those beneath you! “But he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48).
Our Lord preaches and counsels the interior more than the exterior: “Take heed that you do not your justice before men, to be seen by them―otherwise you shall not have a reward of your Father, Who is in Heaven. Therefore, when thou dost an alms-deed, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be honored by men. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward!
“But when thou dost alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth. That thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father, Who seeth in secret, will repay thee. And when ye pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, that love to stand and pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men! Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. But thou when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret: and thy Father, Who seeth in secret, will repay thee” (Matthew 6:1-6). Our Lord here says that our works of justice―fasting, prayer and alms-deeds―ought to be performed, not out of ostentation, or a view to please men, but solely to please God.
Fr. Garrigour-Lagrange writes: “Grace teaches us, therefore, to restrain the senses, to avoid vain complacency and ostentation, humbly to hide those things which are worthy of praise and admiration; and from everything, and in every knowledge, to seek the fruit of utility, and the praise and honor of God” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
(7) “Fast-Track” Devotion
We live in a ‘fast’ world—we expect things to happen quickly. In fact, the world prides itself on being to things fast! The faster, the better! The fastest car! The fastest plane! The fastest runner! The fastest route! The fastest check-out line! The fastest meal prep time! The fastest way to cook! The fastest way to learn! The fastest way to get rich! This obsession with the “fastest”, by implication, paints anything that happens to be slow, in a very bad light.
This syndrome—or should we say “sin-drome”—readily and frequently passes over into the spiritual life. We then get the fastest Mass in town, the fastest Rosary ever prayed, the fastest Confession ever made, the fastest Communion distribution, the fastest way to Heaven, the fastest way to get through spiritual exercises, etc. What it really boils down to is the fastest way to lose your soul and the fastest way to get to Hell!
Did you know that the Church (in its Moral Theology) teaches that for a priest to say a ‘bare’ Mass (no sermon, no Communion of the faithful, no prayers after Mass) in less than 20 minutes would be a mortal sin. I guess even in the spiritual life “Speed Kills”! Yet there is no such penalty for taking a long time to say Mass!
Your super-fast Rosary may get you out of the room quickly, but it also gets you into debt more quickly and prolongs your stay in Purgatory (if you make it to Purgatory!). Look at it this way—every time you say a Rosary, God rewards you (let us put it into modern man’s understanding and say God gives you $50). However, since you rushed through your Rosary prayers, God also has to punish you (and so, depending on how fast you raced through it, you may get a “Speeding Ticket” from God to the tune of anywhere from $100 to $200). Speeding doesn’t pay!
Our Lady revealed to the mystic, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, that if a priest were to SAY JUST ONE MASS with the same respect, attention, devotion, care and fervor that the Apostles used to say Mass, then the evils threatening the Church and the world would be averted. Think about that—think about it SLOWLY! If you don’t, then you may have to think about it SLOWLY and FOR A LONG TIME in Purgatory! “Make haste slowly” as they say!
Refused Banquet Invitations & Cast Out of Banquets
We can easily relate the Holy Eucharist to the parables of Our Lord where He speaks of Great Supper and Marriage Feast, where those who were invited were too preoccupied with material and worldly things and thus refused the invitation. We can be like that by our lack of love, respect, desire and appreciation of the Holy Eucharist. Let us ponder the following passages and see if they, in some way, reflect our attitudes.
“A certain man made a great supper and invited many. And he sent his servant at the hour of supper to say to them that were invited, that they should come, for now all things are ready. And they began all at once to make excuses. The first said to him: ‘I have bought a farm―and I need to go out and see it! I pray thee to hold me excused!’ And another said: ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen and I must go to try them! I pray thee to hold me excused! And another said: ‘I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come!’ And the servant returning, told these things to his lord. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant: ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor, and the feeble, and the blind, and the lame!’ And the servant said: ‘Lord―it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is still more room!’ And the Lord said to the servant: ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled! But I say unto you, that none of those men that were invited, shall taste of my supper!’” (Luke 14:16-24).
“The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a king, who made a marriage for his son. And he sent his servants to call them that were invited to the marriage―and they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying: ‘Tell them that were invited: “Behold, I have prepared my dinner! My calves and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready! Come ye to the marriage!”’ But they neglected and went their own ways―one to his farm, and another to his merchandise. And the rest laid hands on his servants, and having treated them contumeliously, put them to death. But when the king had heard of it, he was angry, and sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers, and burnt their city. Then he said to his servants: ‘The marriage indeed is ready―but they that were invited were not worthy! Go ye therefore into the highways―and as many as you shall find, call to the marriage!’ And his servants going forth into the ways, gathered together all that they found, both bad and good―and the marriage was filled with guests. And the king went in to see the guests―and he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment. And he said to him: ‘Friend, how could you come here not having a wedding garment?’ But he was silent. Then the king said to the waiters: ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! For many are called, but few are chosen!’” (Matthew 22:2-14).
What is that “wedding garment” that Our Lord speaks of? It is something spiritual―it is a spiritual garment that clothes us. What spiritual garment? Is it the garment of Faith? It could be―for Scripture says: “Without Faith it is impossible to please God!” (Hebrews 11:6). However, we could say that Faith―even though it is a spiritual garment―it is nevertheless not a “special” garment like a “wedding garment” but more of an “everyday garment”. There are many that have the Faith, but few make it to the heavenly “wedding feast” or “great supper” ― for, as Our Lord says: “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Faith is certainly a necessary garment―but there is a garment more special than Faith. Holy Scripture tells us: “Now there remain Faith, Hope and Charity―these three―but the greatest of these is Charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13), also adding: “If I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not Charity―then I am nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:2).
Charity is synonymous with sanctifying grace―they are like a husband and wife team, or like the right leg and left leg of the body―they go everywhere together. If one leg leaves a room, the other leg also leaves the room. When charity leaves the soul, then sanctifying grace leaves the soul. There are many who go to Holy Communion without the “wedding garment” of charity and grace, but with cold hearts and in a state of mortal sin! As St. Paul warns: “Whosoever shall eat this Bread, or drink the Chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord! But let a man first prove himself [examine his conscience]―and so let him eat of that Bread, and drink of the Chalice. For he that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself―by not discerning the Body of the Lord! Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep! But if we would judge ourselves, then we would not be judged and we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:27-32).
Since “God is charity” (1 John 4:8), we should approach God with charity―which is why we are commanded: ―“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Without a true love of God in our Holy Communions, we are―in a manner of speaking―naked, lacking the necessary garment, unclothed. We see this in the text from the Book of the Apocalypse, where God says: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot! I would thou wert cold, or hot! But because thou art lukewarm―and neither cold, nor hot―I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth! Because thou sayest: ‘I am rich, and made wealthy and have need of nothing!’ ― and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold [charity], fire-tried [fired-up love], so that thou mayest be made rich [in charity]; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear!” (Apocalypse 3:15-18). We need to approach Our Lord in Holy Communion with a heart “fired-up” with charity―so that He does not say to us: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6) ― Jesus refers to this prophecy of Isaias: “And the Lord said: ‘Forasmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify Me, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Isaias 29:13).
Not only our hearts, but our minds need to “fired-up” with things to say to Him after receiving Holy Communion―and not just the same old, same old, same old “one-liners” or mechanical, repetitive, auto-pilot words that we throw at Him from some prayer-book. Do we draw near to Our Lord in Holy Communion with our mouths and lips only―having left our hearts and minds behind somewhere else, loving and thinking more about something else or someone else? “With their lips they glorify Me, but their heart is far from Me!” Imagine how you would feel when you visited someone you love―and every single time they say exactly same things that they said to in all your previous hundreds or thousands of visits! “Hi [insert your name here]! How are you? You look good! How have you been keeping? How’s the weather been in these parts? The garden looks good! We sure miss you! Can’t stay! Gotta go! Love you! See you next time! Bye!” Same old, same old, same old―every single time! If we would go insane at being treated like that, then what about Our Lord? Our Lord deserves much better than that, doesn’t He? We are more animated, interested, engaging, enthusiastic and spontaneous with most other people in our lives―why not Our Lord?
Article 7
Saturday June 10th, 2023, within the Octave of Corpus Christi
Communicating Your Way to Heaven
Saturday June 10th, 2023, within the Octave of Corpus Christi
Communicating Your Way to Heaven
Hammer This Into Your Head!
As we are still within the Octave of Corpus Christi, let us keep our focus on the Holy Eucharist. Let us not be “one-day-wonders” with regard to one of the greatest feasts in the Church’s Liturgical Year! As we sow, so shall we reap (Galatians 6:8) and if we sow sparingly, we shall reap sparingly (2 Corinthians 9:6). St. Denis teaches that the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist has greater power and efficacy to sanctify souls than all other spiritual means. St. Vincent Ferrer says that a soul derives more profit from one Communion than from fasting a week on bread and water. The Holy Eucharist is, according to the holy Council of Trent, a medicine which delivers us from venial sins, and preserves us from mortal sins. According to St. John Chrysostom, Holy Communion inflames us with the fire of divine love, and makes us objects of terror to the devil.
Very Few Really Care About the Holy Eucharist
Our Lord, on several occasions, has complained of and criticized our neglect of the Blessed Sacrament. To St. Margaret Mary, Our Lord, as the Sacred Heart, said: “My Divine Heart is so inflamed with love for men, and for you in particular that, being unable any longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its burning Charity, It must needs spread them abroad by your means, and manifest Itself to them (mankind) in order to enrich them with the precious graces of sanctification and salvation necessary to withdraw them from the abyss of perdition.
“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus.”
No Change Today!
What was true at the time of St. Margaret Mary (17th century) was still true at the time of Fatima (20th century) which saw the Angel of Peace requiring the three children to make reparation for sins against the Holy Eucharist.
In the Fall of 1916, Angel of Peace appeared to the children with a chalice in his hand, over which was suspended a Host, from which drops of Blood were falling into the chalice. The Angel left the chalice and the Host suspended in the air, and prostrated himself before It. The children imitated him. The Angel then prayed repeatedly this act of reparation: “Most Holy Trinity―Father, Son, and Holy Spirit―I adore thee profoundly. I offer thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles in the world, in reparation for all the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended.”
Then he rose, took the Host, and gave it to Lucia, while the contents of the chalice he gave to Jacinta and Francisco, and said: “Take the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ horribly outraged by thankless men. Make reparation for their sins and crimes; and so comfort your God!”
Paying the Price of Neglect!
A lack of reverence, devotion and adoration of the Holy Eucharist leads to many punishments being inflicted upon the ungrateful and indifferent world. To Mother Mariana de Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame), Our Lord warned that this indifference and ingratitude would compel Him “…to let My Justice fall upon My beloved cloisters ― and even over cities ― when those so near to Me, who belong to Me, reject My spirit, abandoning Me alone in Tabernacles, rarely remembering that I live there especially for love of them, even more than for the rest of the faithful. Alas! If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small inveterate imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me ...
“But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing! — according to My example, for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross. Moreover, I have continued to live in the Tabernacle under the same roof with these hidden souls, exposing Myself to so many hateful profanations and sacrileges! For I know well all that takes place in My sacramental life! ... Woe to souls like this! Woe!” (Our Lord to Mother Mariana, Quito, Ecuador).
We Cannot Love What We Do Not Know
It is true that we cannot love what we do not know—and “knowing” can come by personal experience or through others who tell us of their experiences. This is why St. Thérèse of Lisieux once lamented that Jesus is so little loved because He is so little known. Fr. Frederick Faber says something similar in the Preface of his personal translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary: “Mary is not half enough preached. Hence it is that Jesus is not loved. Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background.”
Cannot Fix What We Fail To Understand
Likewise, if we do not understand the problem, or we cannot recognize the symptoms of a disease, then we will not know how to fix it or we won’t know what medicine to take, or won’t even know that we have to take a medicine!
Lukewarmness, or call it what you want―tepidity, torpor, spiritual sloth, indifference, half-heartedness, etc.―is one of the chief contributors or causes to a neglect of the Blessed Sacrament, an indifference towards It, a lack of desire for It, and a lack of fervor in Its presence. This lukewarmness, unfortunately, as Fr. Faber says, is analogous to the physical ailment of blindness. Lukewarmness is a spiritual blindness, “It is a blindness which does not know even its own self, and does not suspect that it is blind, or that other men see better than itself” (Fr. Faber, Growth in Holiness).
That is why it is so hard to fix, because most of its victims falsely and blindly think that there is nothing to fix! Everything is fine and dandy! They cannot see that the Blessed Sacrament has drifted more and more out their focus.
We are, probably, in the same boat―drifting further and further away from having the Holy Eucharist as the center-point and focal-point of our whole lives. The Eucharist is no longer―or perhaps never was―in the middle of the altar of our daily life and existence. It has been relegated to something that is attended to now and again―usually on Sundays―and, after that, loses Its importance and relevance in our daily, hourly, existence.
What We Have Lost!
In the increasingly Modernist Church of today, the Blessed Sacrament has found itself relegated, more and more, from center-stage to the background. Expositions, Benedictions, Holy Hours and Public Processions of the Blessed Sacrament have become a thing of the past. The Blessed Sacrament is now placed outside of the “social circle” during Mass, no longer being on the altar of sacrifice, but finds Itself behind the priest’s back as the priest faces the people, instead of facing the Lord during most Masses—or, even worse, is relegated and demoted to some side altar, out the way of all the proceedings. “We’ll call You when we need You—it’ll be at Communion time! So You’d better be ready, Lord!”
The way we worship reflects the way we think and believe. Gone are the genuflections that used to be made to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Gone, for the most part, is the reverent and humble kneeling in adoration when receiving Him in Holy Communion. Gone is the reverential behavior in church in the presence of God in the Blessed Sacrament. If the Blessed Sacrament is “kept in the background” then the “fires of love” that we ask of the Holy Ghost and which Jesus came to enkindle in our hearts-—“I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49)—will never spark and will never burst into flames.
No Coals, No Kindling Wood, No Fire
The spiritual life of the majority of Catholics is so cold, or lukewarm at best, because they lack the heavenly ‘coals’ of Holy Communion in their souls, or, if they have the ‘coals’ they unfortunately lack the ‘spark’ and the ‘kindling wood’.
What the saints say is true. St. Denis teaches that the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist has greater power and efficacy to sanctify souls than all other spiritual means. St. Vincent Ferrer says that a soul derives more profit from one Holy Communion than from fasting a week on bread and water. While St. John Chrysostom says that Holy Communion inflames us with the fire of divine love.
The fault and failure in this regard is not a lack of something on the part of the Holy Eucharist, but the fault and failure is to be found with us and our dispositions, or, rather, our lack of the right dispositions. Let us try, during this Octave of Corpus Christi, to both identify and rectify those faults and failures.
Eucharistic Problem Solver!
When St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, first arrived at the obscure little village of Ars, someone said to him with bitterness: “Here there is nothing you can possibly do!” St. John Vianney replied: “That means there is everything to do!” And he began immediately to act. What did he do? He arose at 2:00 in the morning and went to pray near the altar in the dark church. He recited the Divine Office, he made his meditation and he prepared himself for Holy Mass. After the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, he made his thanksgiving; then he remained at prayer until noon. He would be always kneeling on the floor without any support, with a Rosary in his hand and his eyes fixed on the Tabernacle. Ten hours of prayer to start the day! Most of it in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament!
But then―he had to start changing his timetable when things reached a point requiring radical changes in his program. The Eucharistic Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary, little by little, drew souls to that poor parish, until the church did not seem big enough to contain the crowds, and the confessional of the holy priest became swamped with endless lines of penitents. The holy Curate was obliged to hear confessions for ten, fifteen and eighteen hours a day! How did such a transformation ever come about? Devotion to the Holy Eucharist (and Our Lady).
We can ask the same question regarding San Giovanni Rotondo, a town in Gargano, Italy. Until a few decades ago it was an obscure, unknown place. Suddenly, San Giovanni Rotondo became a center of spiritual life and its reputation spread internationally. Here, too, there had been an unpromising, sickly friar; an ancient, dilapidated little Friary; a small neglected church, with altar and Tabernacle left alone to this poor friar, St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, who wore out his beads and his hands in the untiring recitation of anywhere from thirty to fifty Holy Rosaries (150 to 250 decades) each day and spent much time in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament and a very devoted offering of the Sacrifice of the Mass, the source of the Eucharist.
Questions and More Questions
How did the change come about? What caused the wonderful transformation that came to Ars and to San Giovanni Rotondo, so that hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of persons have come there from every part of the Earth? Only God could work such. It is all due to Him, to the divine and infinite power of the Eucharist, to the almighty force of attraction which radiates from every Tabernacle, and which radiated from the Tabernacles of Ars and San Giovanni Rotondo, reaching souls through the ministry of those two priests, true “Ministers of the Tabernacles” and “dispensers of the mysteries of God” (1 Corinthians 4:1).
Let us ask another question: “What is the Eucharist?” It is God among us. It is the Lord Jesus present in the tabernacles of our churches with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. It is Jesus veiled under the appearance of bread, but really and physically present in the consecrated Host, so that He dwells in our midst, works within us and for us, and is at our disposal. The Eucharistic Jesus is the true “Emmanuel”, meaning the “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). However, the key question is: If “God is with us” ― are we with God, or are we somewhere else?
Who’s to Blame?
A man is to be blamed if he dies of starvation when bread is easily and readily accessible to him. The same is true for ourselves. If we die of spiritual starvation and end up in Hell, then we are to be fully blamed for our plight, because the spiritual and supernatural Bread was always accessible to us. Remember again that St. Denis teaches that the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist has greater power and efficacy to sanctify souls than all other spiritual means. St. Vincent Ferrer says that a soul derives more profit from one Holy Communion than from fasting a week on bread and water.
Turning Our Eucharistic Lives Around
Never before have there been so many churches dotting the surface of this Earth! Never before has the Tabernacle been so easily accessible in the history of the Church. Yet never before has the Holy Eucharist been so sadly neglected and undervalued as it is today. Let us not just blame the bishops and priests for this—let us also blame ourselves! The bishops and priests cannot stop you from visiting and adoring the Blessed Sacrament on the altar—and even if churches were to be locked-up and inaccessible, there is nothing to stop a Eucharistic adoration taking place in the Temple of your soul! “Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16).
Exercise Your Heart
St. Peter Eymard declares: “The Eucharist is the supreme proof of the love of Jesus. After this, there is nothing more but Heaven itself.” Yet, how many of us do not know the vast extent of the love contained in the Holy Eucharist. How few have truly tasted and experienced that love? Very few! For as we sow, so shall we reap! “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6).
To explore the riches of the Eucharist, we use the heart. If every Christian must love Jesus Christ―“If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema” (1 Corinthians 16:22)―then love for the Eucharist must spring from the heart and be ever alive in us all. Now even love needs exercise. The heart needs to be exercised to love the true God and long for “The Author of Life” (Acts 3:15).
When St. Margaret Mary Alacoque left the world and consecrated herself to God in the cloister, she made a private vow and wrote it in her blood: “All for the Eucharist; nothing for me!” It is useless to attempt to describe the Saint’s burning love for the Holy Eucharist. In those days, daily Holy Communion was not yet commonly practiced in the Church―that would only arise in the reign of Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914)―prior to that time special permission was required to communicate daily. Suffice it to say that when St. Margaret Mary was not able to receive Holy Communion, she broke out in ardent expressions of love like these: “I have such a desire for Holy Communion that if I had to walk barefoot along a path of fire to obtain It, I would do so with unspeakable joy.”
St. Catherine of Siena said often to her confessor: “Father, I am hungry; for the love of God, give this soul her food, her Lord in the Eucharist.” She also confided: “When I am not able to receive my Lord, I go into the church, and there I look at Him ... I look at Him again ... and this satisfies me.”
When St. Thérèse of Lisieux was very ill, she dragged herself with great effort to church to receive Jesus. One morning, after Holy Communion, she was in her cell, exhausted. One of the Sisters remarked that she should not exert herself so much. The Saint replied: “Oh, what are these sufferings to me in comparison with one Holy Communion?” Her complaint was that she could not receive Holy Communion every day (as stated above, daily Communion was not yet permitted in her times—it was first allowed on a widespread basis by Pope St. Pius X in 1905). Therefore, she ardently pleaded with Jesus: “Remain within me, as You do in the Tabernacle! Do not ever withdraw Your presence from Your little Host!”
St. Gemma Galgani could exclaim in this regard: “I can no longer avoid the thought that in the wonderful scope of His Love, Jesus makes Himself perceptible and shows Himself to His lowliest creature in all the splendors of His Heart.” And what may we say about the “exercises” of the heart of St. Gemma, who desired to be a “tent of love” [the word “tabernaculum” is Latin for “tent”] in which she would keep Jesus always with her? She longed to have a “little place in the ciborium” to be able to stay always with Jesus. She asked that she could become “a flaming ball afire with love” for Jesus.
Holy Communion represents the loftiest point of this exercise of love, Whose consuming flames unite the heart of a creature and Jesus. This we call “exercising the heart.”
Do You Center Your Life on the Eucharist?
Of course not! To some degree, maybe! As much as you ought? No way! But why not? As with most things, the problem lays in our thoughts, our mind, our attitude. If you want to center your life on the Holy Eucharist—and you should want this—then the very first thing you are going to have to do is CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK! Ideas have consequences. We act the way we think—and if we don’t think before acting, then we will begin to think the way we act. Our thoughts give birth to our actions—or that is how it should be. That is why there is a logical order to the catechetical command: “God made us to KNOW Him, love Him and serve Him…” We cannot love what we do not know, and we will serve poorly someone we do not love. If you want to have a life that is centered on the Holy Eucharist, then it all begins in the mind and not in the church or the Tabernacle.
A Change of Mind
Good food and healthy food does not always taste good. As the saying goes: “Bitter is better!” Virtue is rarely easy. Winning a championship or a trophy is rarely achieved without much labor and sweat. In short, what you plant or sow is what you get. If you sow sparingly you will reap sparingly. The Holy Eucharist, grace and virtue are not “freebies” or “bargain-basement deals.” St. Alphonsus Liguori says that “He who prays most receives most.” The same can be said of the Holy Eucharist—he who adores most, gets the most. Drill that into your mind and thoughts.
Another change of mind that must take place in our sense of values—not just in theory, but, more importantly, in practice. Our Lord, like any good teacher, puts it clearly, simply and bluntly: “Seek God first!” (Matthew 6:33) and “Love God with your whole mind, heart, soul and strength!” (Mark 12:30). We do seek God, but not always first. We do love God, but not always above everything else. We know what we should do in theory to save our souls, but, in practice, many of those things are not done. Like the Modernists, we create our own brand of ‘Catholicism’ to cater for our half-heartedness, lukewarmness, laziness and negligence. We find or create excuses that dispense us from seeking God first and loving Him above all else. We criticize the Modernists, yet we are doing the same thing—though on a much lesser scale. We prefer the “Do-It-Yourself-Kit” of the Faith, rather than the one Christ wishes us to have. We don’t want to be wholehearted Catholics, we prefer to be half-hearted or part-time Catholics.
What Spirit Drives You?
St. Leonard of Port Maurice, in his book The Hidden Treasure of the Holy Mass, writes: “Now, tell me whether, when you enter church to hear Mass, you thoroughly well consider that you are going up as it were to Calvary, to be present at the death of the Redeemer. If so, would you go with behavior so unsubdued [laughing, joking, etc.], with dress so flaunting? If the Magdalene had gone to Calvary, to the foot of the Cross, all dressed out, perfumed, and adorned, as when she associated with her lovers, what would have been said of her? What, then, shall be said of you who go to Holy Mass as if you were going to a ball? But what shall be said if you profane those sacred functions of most dread sanctity with nods and becks, with tattle, with laughter, with the petty attentions of courtship, or with graver sacrileges of thought, word, or deed? Wickedness is hideous at any time, and in any place―but sins committed during the time of Mass, and before the altar, draw down after them the curse of God.”
What is Your Mass Attendance Like?
Do you, and your family, approach the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass like you would Calvary? What is your preparation for Mass like? Read about St. Charbal Maklouf—a Maronite monk-priest—who had a great devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. That is all he lived for—he lived and said Mass in a cave, having been given permission to live a hermit-like existence. Already before sunrise, he would be at prayer—reciting his Divine Office (breviary) and other prayers in preparation for his 11:00 a.m. Mass. A monk would come up to his cave from the nearby monastery, to serve Mass and bring him a meager lunch. After Mass, he would spend at least one hour or even two in thanksgiving, before eating his lunch, and would then return to his thanksgiving—which he continued into the early evening. Then he would begin his prayers of preparation for the next day’s Mass. His whole life was centered on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist! His body lies incorrupt to this day.
On the Way to Mass
When you drive to Mass, what is the mood of the passengers in the car? Is it a prayerful mood, or a worldly mood—peppered with worldly or frivolous conversation, perhaps worldly music? If so, it weakens the notion of what the Sacrifice of the Mass is and the serious and awesome action you are about to take part in—there is no greater action taking place anywhere in the world, on any day, than that of the Mass. Perhaps passengers need to be told that henceforth, the approach to traveling to Sunday (daily/weekday) Masses will be different. Prayers could be said; hymns sung or played; suitable spiritual material read out aloud; or at least spiritual conversations held.
Arrival Time for Mass
Do you arrive in plenty of time to make a proper preparation for Mass in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament? Let’s face it—it is GOD HIMSELF that you are visiting when you go to Mass! It is not a commemoration of Calvary; it is not a mere human action; it is not a social function—you are there TO SEE GOD. Is there enough time made for God, or is it a last minute arrival? Or if you do make it on time, does everyone actually GO INSIDE TO SPEAK TO GOD, or do they spend time chatting with other parishioners prior to Mass starting? Worldly talk, frivolous talk, socializing, joking around and laughing? If the Mass is a sacrifice, then sacrifice something yourself and get right in there! The answers to these questions show the value we place on God and whether or not He is “Number One” in our lives.
Assistance at Mass
How do we assist at Mass? Some people clearly show that, even though their bodies are present at Mass, their minds most certainly are not—they gaze around, fidget with their ‘little-ones’, keeping them entertained so that they don’t cry, etc. Others may have a Missal, prayer book or Rosary in their hands—but their heart can be lukewarm and they listlessly, carelessly and mechanically go through the motions of praying, fitting the description of Our Lord: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8). Lining up for Holy Communion is no different to lining up at the supermarket check-out—cold, indifferent, with no devotion or zeal.
Holy Communion
The manner of reception of Holy Communion makes you wonder if they really believe that God is present—but of course more or less than 70% of Catholics do not believe that He is present. Thanksgiving after Communion―if there is one―is frequently seen to be a mechanical repetition of the same old prayers, said without any real feeling and without any personal heart-to-heart conversation with the God that now rests within them! Once Mass is over, hardly anyone stays behind to continue their thanksgiving and to continue talking to their God—because friends beckon in the parking lot or the parish hall, and―instead of a tasteless Host―coffee and donuts with a variety of sweet fillings are available in the parish hall—and the early bird gets the best donuts! I guess the redeeming factor must be that the donut looks like a fat halo! Friends, coffee and donuts are “Number One”—“Number Two”—and “Number Three”—God came in fourth!
False Devotions to the Holy Eucharist
Is there anyone who dare boast that their Eucharistic devotion is as good as it should be? God forbid that there be found such an arrogant soul! How can an infinite God be sufficiently praised and adored by any finite creature. We are all capable and obliged to better and increase our devotion to this, the greatest of Treasures, that we find in our midst.
Any changes that we make, to our Eucharistic devotion, must not and cannot be mere superficial changes. We cannot just “glue-on” a Eucharistic spirit of adoration. It is not something EXTERNAL, but it has to be INTERNAL. Just as St. Louis de Montfort speaks of false devotions to Mary, we can also speak of false devotions to the Holy Eucharist—or, to give the benefit of the doubt, let us call them insufficient devotions to the Holy Eucharist. These would be the half-hearted devotion, the lukewarm devotion, the slothful devotion, the self-interested devotion, the “showing-off” devotion, the “fast-track” devotion.
As we are still within the Octave of Corpus Christi, let us keep our focus on the Holy Eucharist. Let us not be “one-day-wonders” with regard to one of the greatest feasts in the Church’s Liturgical Year! As we sow, so shall we reap (Galatians 6:8) and if we sow sparingly, we shall reap sparingly (2 Corinthians 9:6). St. Denis teaches that the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist has greater power and efficacy to sanctify souls than all other spiritual means. St. Vincent Ferrer says that a soul derives more profit from one Communion than from fasting a week on bread and water. The Holy Eucharist is, according to the holy Council of Trent, a medicine which delivers us from venial sins, and preserves us from mortal sins. According to St. John Chrysostom, Holy Communion inflames us with the fire of divine love, and makes us objects of terror to the devil.
Very Few Really Care About the Holy Eucharist
Our Lord, on several occasions, has complained of and criticized our neglect of the Blessed Sacrament. To St. Margaret Mary, Our Lord, as the Sacred Heart, said: “My Divine Heart is so inflamed with love for men, and for you in particular that, being unable any longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its burning Charity, It must needs spread them abroad by your means, and manifest Itself to them (mankind) in order to enrich them with the precious graces of sanctification and salvation necessary to withdraw them from the abyss of perdition.
“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus.”
No Change Today!
What was true at the time of St. Margaret Mary (17th century) was still true at the time of Fatima (20th century) which saw the Angel of Peace requiring the three children to make reparation for sins against the Holy Eucharist.
In the Fall of 1916, Angel of Peace appeared to the children with a chalice in his hand, over which was suspended a Host, from which drops of Blood were falling into the chalice. The Angel left the chalice and the Host suspended in the air, and prostrated himself before It. The children imitated him. The Angel then prayed repeatedly this act of reparation: “Most Holy Trinity―Father, Son, and Holy Spirit―I adore thee profoundly. I offer thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles in the world, in reparation for all the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended.”
Then he rose, took the Host, and gave it to Lucia, while the contents of the chalice he gave to Jacinta and Francisco, and said: “Take the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ horribly outraged by thankless men. Make reparation for their sins and crimes; and so comfort your God!”
Paying the Price of Neglect!
A lack of reverence, devotion and adoration of the Holy Eucharist leads to many punishments being inflicted upon the ungrateful and indifferent world. To Mother Mariana de Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame), Our Lord warned that this indifference and ingratitude would compel Him “…to let My Justice fall upon My beloved cloisters ― and even over cities ― when those so near to Me, who belong to Me, reject My spirit, abandoning Me alone in Tabernacles, rarely remembering that I live there especially for love of them, even more than for the rest of the faithful. Alas! If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small inveterate imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me ...
“But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing! — according to My example, for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross. Moreover, I have continued to live in the Tabernacle under the same roof with these hidden souls, exposing Myself to so many hateful profanations and sacrileges! For I know well all that takes place in My sacramental life! ... Woe to souls like this! Woe!” (Our Lord to Mother Mariana, Quito, Ecuador).
We Cannot Love What We Do Not Know
It is true that we cannot love what we do not know—and “knowing” can come by personal experience or through others who tell us of their experiences. This is why St. Thérèse of Lisieux once lamented that Jesus is so little loved because He is so little known. Fr. Frederick Faber says something similar in the Preface of his personal translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary: “Mary is not half enough preached. Hence it is that Jesus is not loved. Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background.”
Cannot Fix What We Fail To Understand
Likewise, if we do not understand the problem, or we cannot recognize the symptoms of a disease, then we will not know how to fix it or we won’t know what medicine to take, or won’t even know that we have to take a medicine!
Lukewarmness, or call it what you want―tepidity, torpor, spiritual sloth, indifference, half-heartedness, etc.―is one of the chief contributors or causes to a neglect of the Blessed Sacrament, an indifference towards It, a lack of desire for It, and a lack of fervor in Its presence. This lukewarmness, unfortunately, as Fr. Faber says, is analogous to the physical ailment of blindness. Lukewarmness is a spiritual blindness, “It is a blindness which does not know even its own self, and does not suspect that it is blind, or that other men see better than itself” (Fr. Faber, Growth in Holiness).
That is why it is so hard to fix, because most of its victims falsely and blindly think that there is nothing to fix! Everything is fine and dandy! They cannot see that the Blessed Sacrament has drifted more and more out their focus.
We are, probably, in the same boat―drifting further and further away from having the Holy Eucharist as the center-point and focal-point of our whole lives. The Eucharist is no longer―or perhaps never was―in the middle of the altar of our daily life and existence. It has been relegated to something that is attended to now and again―usually on Sundays―and, after that, loses Its importance and relevance in our daily, hourly, existence.
What We Have Lost!
In the increasingly Modernist Church of today, the Blessed Sacrament has found itself relegated, more and more, from center-stage to the background. Expositions, Benedictions, Holy Hours and Public Processions of the Blessed Sacrament have become a thing of the past. The Blessed Sacrament is now placed outside of the “social circle” during Mass, no longer being on the altar of sacrifice, but finds Itself behind the priest’s back as the priest faces the people, instead of facing the Lord during most Masses—or, even worse, is relegated and demoted to some side altar, out the way of all the proceedings. “We’ll call You when we need You—it’ll be at Communion time! So You’d better be ready, Lord!”
The way we worship reflects the way we think and believe. Gone are the genuflections that used to be made to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Gone, for the most part, is the reverent and humble kneeling in adoration when receiving Him in Holy Communion. Gone is the reverential behavior in church in the presence of God in the Blessed Sacrament. If the Blessed Sacrament is “kept in the background” then the “fires of love” that we ask of the Holy Ghost and which Jesus came to enkindle in our hearts-—“I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49)—will never spark and will never burst into flames.
No Coals, No Kindling Wood, No Fire
The spiritual life of the majority of Catholics is so cold, or lukewarm at best, because they lack the heavenly ‘coals’ of Holy Communion in their souls, or, if they have the ‘coals’ they unfortunately lack the ‘spark’ and the ‘kindling wood’.
What the saints say is true. St. Denis teaches that the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist has greater power and efficacy to sanctify souls than all other spiritual means. St. Vincent Ferrer says that a soul derives more profit from one Holy Communion than from fasting a week on bread and water. While St. John Chrysostom says that Holy Communion inflames us with the fire of divine love.
The fault and failure in this regard is not a lack of something on the part of the Holy Eucharist, but the fault and failure is to be found with us and our dispositions, or, rather, our lack of the right dispositions. Let us try, during this Octave of Corpus Christi, to both identify and rectify those faults and failures.
Eucharistic Problem Solver!
When St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, first arrived at the obscure little village of Ars, someone said to him with bitterness: “Here there is nothing you can possibly do!” St. John Vianney replied: “That means there is everything to do!” And he began immediately to act. What did he do? He arose at 2:00 in the morning and went to pray near the altar in the dark church. He recited the Divine Office, he made his meditation and he prepared himself for Holy Mass. After the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, he made his thanksgiving; then he remained at prayer until noon. He would be always kneeling on the floor without any support, with a Rosary in his hand and his eyes fixed on the Tabernacle. Ten hours of prayer to start the day! Most of it in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament!
But then―he had to start changing his timetable when things reached a point requiring radical changes in his program. The Eucharistic Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary, little by little, drew souls to that poor parish, until the church did not seem big enough to contain the crowds, and the confessional of the holy priest became swamped with endless lines of penitents. The holy Curate was obliged to hear confessions for ten, fifteen and eighteen hours a day! How did such a transformation ever come about? Devotion to the Holy Eucharist (and Our Lady).
We can ask the same question regarding San Giovanni Rotondo, a town in Gargano, Italy. Until a few decades ago it was an obscure, unknown place. Suddenly, San Giovanni Rotondo became a center of spiritual life and its reputation spread internationally. Here, too, there had been an unpromising, sickly friar; an ancient, dilapidated little Friary; a small neglected church, with altar and Tabernacle left alone to this poor friar, St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, who wore out his beads and his hands in the untiring recitation of anywhere from thirty to fifty Holy Rosaries (150 to 250 decades) each day and spent much time in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament and a very devoted offering of the Sacrifice of the Mass, the source of the Eucharist.
Questions and More Questions
How did the change come about? What caused the wonderful transformation that came to Ars and to San Giovanni Rotondo, so that hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of persons have come there from every part of the Earth? Only God could work such. It is all due to Him, to the divine and infinite power of the Eucharist, to the almighty force of attraction which radiates from every Tabernacle, and which radiated from the Tabernacles of Ars and San Giovanni Rotondo, reaching souls through the ministry of those two priests, true “Ministers of the Tabernacles” and “dispensers of the mysteries of God” (1 Corinthians 4:1).
Let us ask another question: “What is the Eucharist?” It is God among us. It is the Lord Jesus present in the tabernacles of our churches with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. It is Jesus veiled under the appearance of bread, but really and physically present in the consecrated Host, so that He dwells in our midst, works within us and for us, and is at our disposal. The Eucharistic Jesus is the true “Emmanuel”, meaning the “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). However, the key question is: If “God is with us” ― are we with God, or are we somewhere else?
Who’s to Blame?
A man is to be blamed if he dies of starvation when bread is easily and readily accessible to him. The same is true for ourselves. If we die of spiritual starvation and end up in Hell, then we are to be fully blamed for our plight, because the spiritual and supernatural Bread was always accessible to us. Remember again that St. Denis teaches that the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist has greater power and efficacy to sanctify souls than all other spiritual means. St. Vincent Ferrer says that a soul derives more profit from one Holy Communion than from fasting a week on bread and water.
Turning Our Eucharistic Lives Around
Never before have there been so many churches dotting the surface of this Earth! Never before has the Tabernacle been so easily accessible in the history of the Church. Yet never before has the Holy Eucharist been so sadly neglected and undervalued as it is today. Let us not just blame the bishops and priests for this—let us also blame ourselves! The bishops and priests cannot stop you from visiting and adoring the Blessed Sacrament on the altar—and even if churches were to be locked-up and inaccessible, there is nothing to stop a Eucharistic adoration taking place in the Temple of your soul! “Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16).
Exercise Your Heart
St. Peter Eymard declares: “The Eucharist is the supreme proof of the love of Jesus. After this, there is nothing more but Heaven itself.” Yet, how many of us do not know the vast extent of the love contained in the Holy Eucharist. How few have truly tasted and experienced that love? Very few! For as we sow, so shall we reap! “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6).
To explore the riches of the Eucharist, we use the heart. If every Christian must love Jesus Christ―“If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema” (1 Corinthians 16:22)―then love for the Eucharist must spring from the heart and be ever alive in us all. Now even love needs exercise. The heart needs to be exercised to love the true God and long for “The Author of Life” (Acts 3:15).
When St. Margaret Mary Alacoque left the world and consecrated herself to God in the cloister, she made a private vow and wrote it in her blood: “All for the Eucharist; nothing for me!” It is useless to attempt to describe the Saint’s burning love for the Holy Eucharist. In those days, daily Holy Communion was not yet commonly practiced in the Church―that would only arise in the reign of Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914)―prior to that time special permission was required to communicate daily. Suffice it to say that when St. Margaret Mary was not able to receive Holy Communion, she broke out in ardent expressions of love like these: “I have such a desire for Holy Communion that if I had to walk barefoot along a path of fire to obtain It, I would do so with unspeakable joy.”
St. Catherine of Siena said often to her confessor: “Father, I am hungry; for the love of God, give this soul her food, her Lord in the Eucharist.” She also confided: “When I am not able to receive my Lord, I go into the church, and there I look at Him ... I look at Him again ... and this satisfies me.”
When St. Thérèse of Lisieux was very ill, she dragged herself with great effort to church to receive Jesus. One morning, after Holy Communion, she was in her cell, exhausted. One of the Sisters remarked that she should not exert herself so much. The Saint replied: “Oh, what are these sufferings to me in comparison with one Holy Communion?” Her complaint was that she could not receive Holy Communion every day (as stated above, daily Communion was not yet permitted in her times—it was first allowed on a widespread basis by Pope St. Pius X in 1905). Therefore, she ardently pleaded with Jesus: “Remain within me, as You do in the Tabernacle! Do not ever withdraw Your presence from Your little Host!”
St. Gemma Galgani could exclaim in this regard: “I can no longer avoid the thought that in the wonderful scope of His Love, Jesus makes Himself perceptible and shows Himself to His lowliest creature in all the splendors of His Heart.” And what may we say about the “exercises” of the heart of St. Gemma, who desired to be a “tent of love” [the word “tabernaculum” is Latin for “tent”] in which she would keep Jesus always with her? She longed to have a “little place in the ciborium” to be able to stay always with Jesus. She asked that she could become “a flaming ball afire with love” for Jesus.
Holy Communion represents the loftiest point of this exercise of love, Whose consuming flames unite the heart of a creature and Jesus. This we call “exercising the heart.”
Do You Center Your Life on the Eucharist?
Of course not! To some degree, maybe! As much as you ought? No way! But why not? As with most things, the problem lays in our thoughts, our mind, our attitude. If you want to center your life on the Holy Eucharist—and you should want this—then the very first thing you are going to have to do is CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK! Ideas have consequences. We act the way we think—and if we don’t think before acting, then we will begin to think the way we act. Our thoughts give birth to our actions—or that is how it should be. That is why there is a logical order to the catechetical command: “God made us to KNOW Him, love Him and serve Him…” We cannot love what we do not know, and we will serve poorly someone we do not love. If you want to have a life that is centered on the Holy Eucharist, then it all begins in the mind and not in the church or the Tabernacle.
A Change of Mind
Good food and healthy food does not always taste good. As the saying goes: “Bitter is better!” Virtue is rarely easy. Winning a championship or a trophy is rarely achieved without much labor and sweat. In short, what you plant or sow is what you get. If you sow sparingly you will reap sparingly. The Holy Eucharist, grace and virtue are not “freebies” or “bargain-basement deals.” St. Alphonsus Liguori says that “He who prays most receives most.” The same can be said of the Holy Eucharist—he who adores most, gets the most. Drill that into your mind and thoughts.
Another change of mind that must take place in our sense of values—not just in theory, but, more importantly, in practice. Our Lord, like any good teacher, puts it clearly, simply and bluntly: “Seek God first!” (Matthew 6:33) and “Love God with your whole mind, heart, soul and strength!” (Mark 12:30). We do seek God, but not always first. We do love God, but not always above everything else. We know what we should do in theory to save our souls, but, in practice, many of those things are not done. Like the Modernists, we create our own brand of ‘Catholicism’ to cater for our half-heartedness, lukewarmness, laziness and negligence. We find or create excuses that dispense us from seeking God first and loving Him above all else. We criticize the Modernists, yet we are doing the same thing—though on a much lesser scale. We prefer the “Do-It-Yourself-Kit” of the Faith, rather than the one Christ wishes us to have. We don’t want to be wholehearted Catholics, we prefer to be half-hearted or part-time Catholics.
What Spirit Drives You?
St. Leonard of Port Maurice, in his book The Hidden Treasure of the Holy Mass, writes: “Now, tell me whether, when you enter church to hear Mass, you thoroughly well consider that you are going up as it were to Calvary, to be present at the death of the Redeemer. If so, would you go with behavior so unsubdued [laughing, joking, etc.], with dress so flaunting? If the Magdalene had gone to Calvary, to the foot of the Cross, all dressed out, perfumed, and adorned, as when she associated with her lovers, what would have been said of her? What, then, shall be said of you who go to Holy Mass as if you were going to a ball? But what shall be said if you profane those sacred functions of most dread sanctity with nods and becks, with tattle, with laughter, with the petty attentions of courtship, or with graver sacrileges of thought, word, or deed? Wickedness is hideous at any time, and in any place―but sins committed during the time of Mass, and before the altar, draw down after them the curse of God.”
What is Your Mass Attendance Like?
Do you, and your family, approach the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass like you would Calvary? What is your preparation for Mass like? Read about St. Charbal Maklouf—a Maronite monk-priest—who had a great devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. That is all he lived for—he lived and said Mass in a cave, having been given permission to live a hermit-like existence. Already before sunrise, he would be at prayer—reciting his Divine Office (breviary) and other prayers in preparation for his 11:00 a.m. Mass. A monk would come up to his cave from the nearby monastery, to serve Mass and bring him a meager lunch. After Mass, he would spend at least one hour or even two in thanksgiving, before eating his lunch, and would then return to his thanksgiving—which he continued into the early evening. Then he would begin his prayers of preparation for the next day’s Mass. His whole life was centered on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist! His body lies incorrupt to this day.
On the Way to Mass
When you drive to Mass, what is the mood of the passengers in the car? Is it a prayerful mood, or a worldly mood—peppered with worldly or frivolous conversation, perhaps worldly music? If so, it weakens the notion of what the Sacrifice of the Mass is and the serious and awesome action you are about to take part in—there is no greater action taking place anywhere in the world, on any day, than that of the Mass. Perhaps passengers need to be told that henceforth, the approach to traveling to Sunday (daily/weekday) Masses will be different. Prayers could be said; hymns sung or played; suitable spiritual material read out aloud; or at least spiritual conversations held.
Arrival Time for Mass
Do you arrive in plenty of time to make a proper preparation for Mass in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament? Let’s face it—it is GOD HIMSELF that you are visiting when you go to Mass! It is not a commemoration of Calvary; it is not a mere human action; it is not a social function—you are there TO SEE GOD. Is there enough time made for God, or is it a last minute arrival? Or if you do make it on time, does everyone actually GO INSIDE TO SPEAK TO GOD, or do they spend time chatting with other parishioners prior to Mass starting? Worldly talk, frivolous talk, socializing, joking around and laughing? If the Mass is a sacrifice, then sacrifice something yourself and get right in there! The answers to these questions show the value we place on God and whether or not He is “Number One” in our lives.
Assistance at Mass
How do we assist at Mass? Some people clearly show that, even though their bodies are present at Mass, their minds most certainly are not—they gaze around, fidget with their ‘little-ones’, keeping them entertained so that they don’t cry, etc. Others may have a Missal, prayer book or Rosary in their hands—but their heart can be lukewarm and they listlessly, carelessly and mechanically go through the motions of praying, fitting the description of Our Lord: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8). Lining up for Holy Communion is no different to lining up at the supermarket check-out—cold, indifferent, with no devotion or zeal.
Holy Communion
The manner of reception of Holy Communion makes you wonder if they really believe that God is present—but of course more or less than 70% of Catholics do not believe that He is present. Thanksgiving after Communion―if there is one―is frequently seen to be a mechanical repetition of the same old prayers, said without any real feeling and without any personal heart-to-heart conversation with the God that now rests within them! Once Mass is over, hardly anyone stays behind to continue their thanksgiving and to continue talking to their God—because friends beckon in the parking lot or the parish hall, and―instead of a tasteless Host―coffee and donuts with a variety of sweet fillings are available in the parish hall—and the early bird gets the best donuts! I guess the redeeming factor must be that the donut looks like a fat halo! Friends, coffee and donuts are “Number One”—“Number Two”—and “Number Three”—God came in fourth!
False Devotions to the Holy Eucharist
Is there anyone who dare boast that their Eucharistic devotion is as good as it should be? God forbid that there be found such an arrogant soul! How can an infinite God be sufficiently praised and adored by any finite creature. We are all capable and obliged to better and increase our devotion to this, the greatest of Treasures, that we find in our midst.
Any changes that we make, to our Eucharistic devotion, must not and cannot be mere superficial changes. We cannot just “glue-on” a Eucharistic spirit of adoration. It is not something EXTERNAL, but it has to be INTERNAL. Just as St. Louis de Montfort speaks of false devotions to Mary, we can also speak of false devotions to the Holy Eucharist—or, to give the benefit of the doubt, let us call them insufficient devotions to the Holy Eucharist. These would be the half-hearted devotion, the lukewarm devotion, the slothful devotion, the self-interested devotion, the “showing-off” devotion, the “fast-track” devotion.
Article 6
Friday June 9th, 2023, within the Octave of Corpus Christi
Un-Holy Communions of Hell
Friday June 9th, 2023, within the Octave of Corpus Christi
Un-Holy Communions of Hell
Greatest Treasure Gets Greatest Abuse
Within this Octave of Corpus Christi, let us continue with a Eucharistic theme, since the Holy Eucharist is God Himself and our greatest Treasure this side of Heaven. In Fr. Muller’s classic book, The Blessed Eucharist, we read in the opening chapter the following:
“A certain man was once thrown into prison. He there suffered so much from hunger, thirst and cold that at last he was almost dead. One day the king determined to pay a visit to the captive, in order to find out how he bore his sufferings. Having put off his royal apparel, he went in disguise to the prison and asked the poor man how he fared, but the prisoner, being very sad and melancholy, scarcely deigned to answer him. When the king had gone away, the jailer said to the criminal: ‘Do you know who was speaking to you? It was the king himself!’ ‘The king!’ exclaimed the captive. ‘O what a wretch I am! If I had known that, then I would have thrown myself at his feet and clasped his knees, and I would not have let him go until he had pardoned me. Alas! What a favorable opportunity I have lost of freeing myself from this dungeon.’ It was thus the poor captive lamented in anguish and despair, but all was unavailing.
“I think, dear Reader, you understand the meaning of this story. The sufferings of this captive represent the wretchedness of man’s condition on this Earth. Our true country is Heaven, and as long as we are living on Earth, we are captives and exiles. We are far from Jesus Christ, our King; far from Mary, our good Mother; far from the Angels and Saints of Heaven; and far from our dear departed friends. But very many Christians are also, in another respect, like the captive of whom I have spoken. They do not know Jesus Christ, their true King, who not only visits them, but dwells very near them. ‘But,’ you will ask, ‘how can Jesus Christ dwell near them without their knowing Him?’ It is because He has put on a strange garment and appears in disguise.
“Our Lord Jesus Christ abides in two places—in Heaven, where He shows Himself undisguised, as He is in reality; and on Earth in the Blessed Sacrament, in which He conceals Himself under the appearance of bread. One day, a certain nun said to St. Teresa of Avila: ‘I wish that I had lived at the time of Jesus Christ, my dear Savior, for then I could have seen how amiable and lovely He is.’ St. Teresa, on hearing this, laughed outright. ‘What!’ said she, ‘do you not know then, dear sister, that the same Jesus Christ is still with us on Earth, that He lives quite near us, in our churches, on our altars, in the Blessed Sacrament?’ Yes, the Blessed Sacrament, or Holy Eucharist, is the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, Our Lord, who is truly, really and substantially present under the outward appearances of bread and wine” (Fr. Muller’s, The Blessed Eucharist).
Painful Neglect
In Holy Communion we receive the God of infinite mercy and love, the God of all sanctity, who comes expressly to pardon our sins and help us to sin no more. He once visited the house of the sinner Zacheus, the Chief Publican, and in that one visit, Zacheus obtained complete pardon of all his sins. How is it possible that the same God of goodness and sweetness can come, not into our houses, but into our very hearts in Holy Communion and not give us the same and even greater graces? He visited Zacheus only once; He visits us every day―if we allow Him. Many, alas, never want, never feel, never grasp and never experience the immense joys and consolation of Holy Communion. This is often traced to a few main causes, which actually mix together like chemicals, to produce further causes.
The chief cause is always love of self and this is mixed with a love of the things and activities of the world that please, excite and satisfy self. God is not loved and thought about as much as we love and think about ourselves. God is not as exciting as the many other available things the world offers us for instant pleasure and gratification. This double-headed preoccupation produces toxic chemicals that destroy our spiritual life and especially our Communions. The chief toxic chemicals are lukewarmness, indifference, little or no preparation for Communion and little or no thanksgiving afterwards, or merely mechanical thanksgiving on “auto-pilot”. This is nothing other than the elements of which the Sacred and Eucharistic Heart of Jesus complained about to St. Margaret Mary.
St. Denis teaches, that the most Holy Sacrament has greater efficacy to sanctify souls than all other spiritual means. St. Vincent Ferrer says, that a soul derives more profit from one Communion than from fasting a week on bread and water. The Eucharist is, according to the holy Council of Trent, a medicine which delivers us from venial, and preserves us from mortal sins. According to St. John Chrysostom, the Holy Communion inflames us with the fire of divine love, and makes us objects of terror to the devil.
Jesus Complains of Neglect
Our Lord, on several occasions, has complained of and criticized our neglect of the Blesses Sacrament. To St. Margaret Mary, Our Lord, as the Sacred Heart, said: “My Divine Heart is so inflamed with love for men, and for you in particular that, being unable any longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its burning Charity, It must needs spread them abroad by your means, and manifest Itself to them (mankind) in order to enrich them with the precious graces of sanctification and salvation necessary to withdraw them from the abyss of perdition!
“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love! In return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude―by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus.”
Alas! How many are there, perhaps, who must admit that, up to this day, they have never or rarely visited Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, thus resembling the niece of the Empress, St. Cunegunda, whose name was Jutta, of whom it is related that she stayed at home, without any plausible reason, while the Blessed Sacrament was exposed in the church. St. Cunegunda, inflamed with holy indignation at this indifference of Jutta, gave her niece a severe slap in the face. The Lord, in punishment of Jutta’s indifference toward Him, allowed the imprint of Cunegunda’s fingers to remain indelibly stamped on her face. This was a lifelong rebuke for her indifference.
To Mother Mariana de Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame), Our Lord complained that the ingratitude and betrayal of religious souls, so dear to His Heart, would compel Him “…to let My Justice fall upon My beloved cloisters ― and even over cities ― when those so near to Me who belong to Me reject My spirit, abandoning Me alone in Tabernacles, rarely remembering that I live there especially for love of them, even more than for the rest of the faithful. Alas! If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small inveterate imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me ... But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing! — according to My example, for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross. Moreover, I have continued to live in the Tabernacle under the same roof with these hidden souls, exposing Myself to so many hateful profanations and sacrileges! For I know well all that takes place in My sacramental life! ... Woe to souls like this! Woe!” (Our Lord to Mother Mariana, Quito, Ecuador).
As You Sow, So Shall You Reap
St. Alphonsus Liguori says that “They who are ungenerous to God well deserve that God should not be generous to them. ‘He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly’ (2 Corinthians 9:6). To such souls the Lord will give the graces common to all, but will probably withhold His special assistance; and without this, as we have seen, they cannot persevere without falling into mortal sin. God himself revealed to Blessed Henry Suso, that, for tepid souls who are content with leading a life exempt from mortal sin, and continue to commit many deliberate venial sins, it is very difficult to preserve themselves in the state of grace. Hence the soul, finding no more nourishment and consolation in her devout exercises, in her prayers, Communions, or visits to the Blessed Sacrament, will soon neglect them, and thus neglecting the means of eternal salvation, she shall be in great danger of being lost” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons, Passion Sunday).
“Two things are necessary in order to draw great fruit from Communion preparation for, and thanksgiving after Communion. As to the preparation, it is certain that the saints derived great profit from their Communions, only because they were careful to prepare themselves well for receiving the Holy Eucharist. It is easy then to understand why so many souls remain subject to the same imperfections, after all their Communions. Cardinal Bona says, that the defect is not in the food, but in the want of preparation for it. For frequent Communion two principal dispositions are necessary. The first is detachment from creatures, and disengagement of the heart from everything that is not God. The more the heart is occupied with earthly concerns, the less room there is in it for divine love. Hence, to give full possession of the whole heart to God, it is necessary to purify it from worldly attachments” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons, Second Sunday After Pentecost).
“O how many miserable souls, devoted to spiritual things, to mental prayer, to frequent Communion, and to a life of holiness, have, by exposing themselves to the occasion of sin, become the slaves of the devil! … It is necessary to detach the heart from earthly things. ‘Detach the heart from creatures,’ says St. Teresa, ‘and you shall find God.’ In a heart filled with earthly affections, there is no room for divine love. Let us therefore continually implore the Lord in our prayers, Communions, and visits to the Blessed Sacrament, to give us His holy love; for this love will expel from our souls all affections for the things of this Earth” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons, Trinity Sunday).
Thanksgiving After Holy Communion
“Thanksgiving after Communion is also necessary. The prayer we make after Communion is the most acceptable to God, and the most profitable to us. After Communion, the soul should be employed in affections and petitions. The affections ought to consist, not only in acts of thanksgiving, but also in acts of humility, of love, and of oblation of ourselves to God. Let us then humble ourselves as much as possible at the sight of a God made our food, after we had offended Him. A learned author says that, for a soul after Communion, the most appropriate sentiment is one of astonishment at the thought of receiving a God. After Communion; we should not only make these affections, but we ought also to present to God with great confidence many petitions for His graces. The time after Communion is a time in which we can gain treasures of divine graces” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons, Second Sunday After Pentecost).
From Whence Come Bad Communions?
Bad Communions or Sacrilegious Communions are made when a soul goes to Holy Communion in a state of Mortal Sin, without having confessed those sins beforehand, or having hidden some mortal sins when making a confession. St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent, which treats of the Concealment of Mortal Sins in Confession, writes: “After we commit sin, the devil seeks to make us dumb, that, through shame, we may conceal our guilt in confession. Thus, he leads us to Hell by a double chain, inducing us, after our transgressions, to consent to a still greater sin the sin of sacrilege. St. Augustine says, that to prevent the sheep from seeking assistance by her cries, the wolf seizes her by the neck, and thus securely carries her away and devours her. The devil acts in a similar manner with the sheep of Jesus Christ.
“After having induced them to yield to [Mortal] sin, he seizes them by the throat, that they may not confess their guilt; and thus he securely brings them to Hell. For those who have sinned grievously, there is no means of salvation except through the confession of their sins. But, what hope of salvation can he have who goes to confession and conceals his sins, and makes use of the tribunal of Penance to offend God, and to make himself doubly the slave of Satan?
“What hope would you entertain of the recovery of the man who, instead of taking the medicine prescribed by his physician, drank a cup of poison? God! What can the Sacrament of Penance be to those who conceal their sins, but a deadly poison, which adds to their guilt the malice of sacrilege? In giving absolution, the confessor dispenses to his patient the Blood of Jesus Christ. What, then, does the sinner do, when he conceals his sins in Confession? He tramples underfoot the Blood of Jesus Christ. And should he afterwards receive the Holy Communion in a state of sin, he is, according to St. John Chrysostom, as guilty as if he threw the consecrated Host into a toilet bowl” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons, Third Sunday in Lent).
From One Sacrilege To Another
Fr. Muller, in his book The Blessed Eucharist, says that there is nothing that gives more honor to God and contributes more to our own welfare than the devout reception of the Holy Eucharist; and there is, on the contrary, nothing more injurious to God and more hurtful to our souls than an unworthy Communion. You will perhaps ask in astonishment: “Are there, then, really people so wicked as knowingly and willfully to make an unworthy Communion?” Alas, there are far too many! I do not mean to say that there are many who receive the Blessed Sacrament unworthily, out of pure malice, with the express purpose of dishonoring God—though even that has happened—but I do say that there are many who wish to enjoy the privileges of a Christian, while leading an immoral life and who dare receive the Author of all purity into a heart that is defiled by mortal sin.
This crime is committed by three classes of persons: First, by all those who are in mortal sin and who go to Communion after having been refused absolution by the priest; secondly, by all those who have willfully concealed a mortal sin in confession; and finally, by all those who, even though they have confessed all their mortal sins, have nevertheless no true sorrow for them, or no firm purpose of amendment. To the latter class belong all those that do not intend to keep the promises they made in Confession; who are not willing to be reconciled to those who have offended them; those who will not restore the property or good name of their neighbor; those who are not fully determined to keep away from taverns, bars, and other such places, that have proved occasions of sin to them; and finally, all those that will not break off sinful and dangerous company.
Now, if we consider the actual state of the world, we cannot help fearing that there are many Christians who make bad Communions. The Catholic priest, therefore, is in duty bound to warn the faithful against this grievous crime. Even in the very first ages of Christianity, in those days of primitive fervor, St. Paul was compelled to warn the Christians of Corinth against this heinous crime, and the few energetic words he addressed to them on that occasion comprehend all that may be said on the subject: “Whosoever shall eat this Bread, or drink the Chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord. So let a man prove himself and so let him eat of that Bread, and drink of the Chalice. For he that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself, by not discerning the Body of the Lord! Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep!” (1 Corinthians 11:27-30).
Mortal Sin Requires Confession Before Communion
In this regard, it is well to recall the teaching of the Church. Holy Communion must be received only while one is in the grace of God. Therefore, when one has committed a mortal sin, even if one has repented of it and has a great desire to receive Holy Communion, it is necessary and indispensible to confess oneself first before receiving Holy Communion, otherwise one commits a most grave sin of sacrilege, for which Jesus said to St. Bridget, “there does not exist on Earth a punishment which is great enough to punish it sufficiently!”
St. Ambrose said that persons who commit this sacrilege “come into church with a few sins, and leave it burdened with many.” St. Cyril wrote something yet stronger: “They who make a sacrilegious Communion receive Satan and Jesus Christ into their hearts — Satan, that they may let him rule, and Jesus Christ, that they may offer Him in sacrifice as a Victim to Satan.”
Thus the Catechism of the Council of Trent (De Eucharistia, v.i) declares: “As of all the sacred mysteries ... none can compare with the ... Eucharist, so likewise for no crime is there heavier punishment to be feared from God than for the unholy or irreligious use by the faithful of that which ... contains the very Author and Source of holiness.”
Punishment for Sacrilegious Communions
Sometimes the punishment for sacrilegious Communions can be great and frightening. St. Peter Julian Eymard—known as the Apostle of the Holy Eucharist—wrote in his book, The Real Presence, the following: “Sinners and profaners of this august Sacrament have been punished publicly for their temerity; Jesus was manifesting His justice. Scarcely had Judas sacrilegiously received the Body of his God than ‘Satan entered into him.’ Before this sacrilegious Communion the devil merely tempted him; after it the devil took possession of him: ‘Satan entered into him.’ (John 12:31). St. Paul attributed the lethargic sleep of the Corinthians and their apathy for good to their lukewarm or sacrilegious Communions: ‘Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep’ (1 Corinthians 11:30). History records terrible instances of unworthy communicants, smitten without warning by the justice of Our Lord, Whom they were insulting in the Eucharist” (St. Peter Julian Eymard, The Real Presence).
Pope Francis Stirs the Communion Pot
Just before publicly releasing (in April, 2016) his Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, in a homily in Rome (March 18th, 2016), Pope Francis was criticizing the ‘legalistic mindset’ of some in the Church who would deny Holy Communion to sinners: “And how many times, in Christian communities today, will they find doors closed! But you cannot, no you cannot! You have sinned, and you cannot! If you want to come, to Mass on Sunday, but that’s it—that’s all you can do! So, what the Holy Spirit creates in the hearts of people, those Christians―with their ‘doctors of the law’ mentality—destroy!” (RomeReports.com, March 18th, 2016).
It seems as though Pope Francis is hitting-out at those who (correctly) argue that people who are divorced and civilly remarried should not be admitted to Holy Communion, because they are objectively living in a state of mortal sin, which is, according to Church Law, incompatible with the reception of the Holy Eucharist.
Why has Mass and Communion suddenly become inseparable? As though one is useless without the other. Is Pope Francis saying that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is useless and pointless without being able to receive the Holy Eucharist? It doesn’t have to be a choice between “Only come to Mass if you can receive Communion” and “Don’t come to Mass if you can’t receive Communion.”
Without actually and explicitly saying it, the Pope is dangerously close to advocating sacrilegious Communions. This is “no big deal” for the majority of Catholics (60% to 80%) who no longer believe that the Holy Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, but is a mere symbol of Him, then of course, refusing Holy Communion to public sinners seems to be a bit silly. Furthermore, many of those same disbelieving Catholics also disbelieve that contraception is wrong, and see nothing wrong with divorce and remarriage anyway! That is where Modernism has led the Church over the last 50 years—and we wonder why Sr. Lucia of Fatima said, that in our day, most souls end up in Hell!
Open Door to Future Sacrilegious Communions?
Chicago’s Archbishop, Blase Cupich, — who participated in the 2015 and 2018 Bishops’ Synods on the Family at Pope Francis’ personal invitation — called Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, a “game changer” that could relax the Church’s approach to Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried and those in same-sex relationships.
In an interview, over seven years ago, with the Chicago Tribune on April 8th, 2016, Archbishop Cupich argued that Amoris Laetitia could normalize his approach to those living, in what the Catholic Church considers to be objectively, sinful situations, such as second marriages, when a first marriage hasn’t been declared null and same-sex relationships. Cupich told the Chicago Tribune: “There’s not really any doctrine as such that’s changed, but there is, I think, a very fresh way that will strike Catholic people in the pews and the priests about how we pastorally deal with people, especially those people whose lives are really very complicated.”
The Chicago Tribune reported that although Amoris Laetitia doesn’t grant comprehensive permission for the divorced and remarried to receive Holy Communion, “it invites them to a conversation and discernment process with their pastors that could lead them to communion one day.” Archbishop Cupich said: “There is a mindset within the life of the church among Catholics that if in fact they do have marriage breakups and they get into a second marriage that [it’s] kind of over for them unless they can get an annulment. The pope is saying that’s not the case. I do think that maybe some priests have been working with people in their own counseling. This is an official way in which we’re being encouraged to stay close to those people and reach out to them.”
Catholic doctrine specifically teaches that unless those who are divorced and re-married have had previous marriages annulled or are living as brother and sister with their second spouse, then they are committing adultery and should not receive Holy Communion. The Chicago Tribune reported: “Cupich said he hopes the pope’s guidelines show divorced and remarried Catholics that they do still belong in the church and give license to priests, like himself, who have been taking that approach for a while.” Cupich implied that Amoris Laetitia should also open the door to the potential for Holy Communion for those in same-sex relationships. Archbishop Cupich said that the conscience is “inviolable” and that he believes divorced and remarried couples could be permitted to receive the sacraments, if they have “come to a decision” to do so “in good conscience” – a theological reasoning that he indicated would also apply to gay couples.
The Chicago Tribune wrote: “Cupich said that although the pope clarifies that same-sex marriage is not analogous to the church’s definition for marriage, when it comes to inclusion in the life of the church, the same guidelines apply. ‘You can’t have one particular approach for a certain group of people and not for everybody,’ the archbishop said. ‘Everyone has the ability to form their conscience well.’”
What Archbishop Cupich failed to clarify was that the Catholic Church teaches that: “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed. This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man ‘takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is, by degrees, almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.’ In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits” (CCC 1790 - 1791).
Archbishop Cupich’s take was echoed by German Cardinal Walter Kasper, the leading proponent of the practice of giving Holy Communion to remarried divorcees. “There are openings there, clearly,” for Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried, Kasper said, according to the German Bishops’ official website. He called the exhortation a “remarkable document.”
Sacrileges in High Places!
In Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1998, President Bill Clinton, a Protestant, received the Holy Eucharist at Queen of the World Church. President Clinton never received Communion in Catholic churches in the United States. But Barry Toiv, a White House spokesman, said the priest, Father Mohlomi Makobane, told White House staff members before Mr. Clinton’s visit to his Soweto church, that “this was the policy of the South African Conference of Bishops, that Communion was open to non-Catholics.” The South African bishops later declared that no such lenient policy exists. In January, however, the bishops did issue rules that allow non-Catholics to receive Communion in certain special circumstances. The Vatican requested clarification of that policy, but those in high places in the Vatican were doing the same thing!!
Non-Catholics are not supposed to be given Holy Communion even though they may be attending Holy Mass. Yet Pope John Paul II gave Holy Communion to British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2004, before he converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism.
In April of 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger gave Holy Communion to the Protestant minister, Rev. Roger Schutz (a.k.a. Brother Roger) of the Swiss Reformed Church and leader of the Taizé Ecumenical Community, at Pope John Paul II’s funeral. Cardinal Ratzinger had already acquired a reputation for giving Holy Communion to Protestants, so the scandal of Brother Roger was not an isolated occurrence.
In August of 2005, Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Vatican Council for Unity of Christians, celebrated Mass for the Taizé Ecumenical Community (Protestant) and their leader, Rev. Roger Schutz (a.k.a. Brother Roger), a Swiss Protestant, and gave them all Holy Communion, regardless of de-nomination. Cardinal Kasper said in the homily, `Yes, the springtime of ecumenism has flowered on the hill of Taizé!’” (reported by The New York Times, August 24th, 2005). This is the same Cardinal Kasper who wants to allow remarried Catholic divorcees and some same-sex married couples to receive Holy Communion.
Some Catholic Pro-Choice candidates had already been refused Holy Communion because of their political positions on abortion, and yet the pro-abortionists, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Chris Dodd and Nancy Pelosi, all Catholics, all took Holy Communion when Pope Benedict visited the USA in 2008.
In 2009, the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who belongs to an evangelical church, was given Communion at a funeral Mass by Archbishop André Richard in New Brunswick for the former Canadian Governor General Romeo LeBlanc. The New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal reported: “But Rev. Fr. Arthur Bourgeois, who delivered the homily, did not have a problem with the prime minister accepting the host. Fr. Bourgeois said: ‘Usually, to partake in Holy Communion in the Catholic Church, you have to be a member of it, but if you’re not, exceptionally sometimes at major occasions (it is different).’”
Online Admissions of Sacrileges
Here are some amazing posts highlighting the problem of sacrilegious Holy Communions. One person posted the following on a Catholic website: “I committed a mortal sin multiple times over a period of time. During this time of uncleanliness I continued to receive Communion. I never realized what I was doing. Then, a week before a scheduled Confession, I realized that I had been receiving Communion sacrilegiously. I still received Communion that week. Why? Because I go to Mass with my parents. If I hadn’t received Communion, they would have questioned me... Question #1: Was that reception of Communion a mortal sin? Question #2: Today is Christmas Eve. In approximately 4.5 hours I will attend Midnight Mass with my parents. What do I do? Receive Communion or not? If not, what do I tell my parents? Please, I need quick. Thanks.”
On the same site, another blogger chimes in: “I’ll be receiving sacrilegiously as well tonight. I used to skip Communion, but my parents were really bothered by it, and my family is more important than following Church teaching for me. I choose to seek Jesus, and, when I receive, I say: ‘Lord, I don’t mean to offend!’ I don’t play this mortal sin game. God is love. Count your blessings. Don’t be stressed out about this. Walk in peace.”
According to most figures, 95% of Catholics have practiced contraception or artificial birth control (though we may not be sure what the margin of error is, we all know that contraception practice is very common), yet the same people receive Holy Communion every Sunday. Whatever one makes of those figures, it is not far wrong to reckon a majority of people are in a state of mortal sin, yet receive Holy Communion. For a society this will bring about disastrous results when Heaven finally decides enough is enough! During the Vatican’s Synod of the Eucharist in 2005, the then prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Cardinal Arinze made the same observation: “The problem we have discussed is that many people don’t go to Mass, and those that come don’t understand — they go to Communion, but not to confession, as if they were immaculate.”
Is Sacrilegious Communion the Worst Sin?
In the most Blessed Sacrament is a twofold reality. The first reality is that which is both signified and contained in the Eucharist Itself, namely, Christ Himself. The second reality is that which is signified, but not contained in the Eucharist, namely, Christ’s Mystical Body, which is the Church.
Now, for this reason, only those who are incorporated into the members of Christ and are one with Him through a living Faith (that is, Faith united to Charity and therefore in a state of grace) may receive the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
Thus, whoever receives Communion while in mortal sin, is guilty of lying to the Blessed Sacrament and of a grave sacrilege. Hence, such a man sins mortally and sacrilegiously (sinning against something that sacred). Sins against God and the Faith are the worst kinds of sin. Sins such as lust and impurity may be more embarrassing, and they, too, are mortal sins, but they are not in the same league as sins against God.
With regard to sins against God, to receive Holy Communion unworthily (i.e. in the state of mortal sin) is in the third class of grave sins against God. The worst sins of all are those by which we offend the Godhead directly, as when we are guilty of unbelief and blasphemy. The second degree of sins against God are those sins which are directed immediately against the sacred Humanity of our Savior, as when the soldiers beat and tortured Our Lord. And, in the third place of gravity, are those sins against the Sacraments and other sacred things ― and among these, sacrileges against the Eucharist seem to be the worst of all.
The Punishments of God
There is a story of King Lothaire, the son of Charlemagne, who was the duke of Lorraine. He had become attracted to a woman in his court, and put away his wife in order to take up with this younger woman. He was ordered by the Pope to cease these relations, or face an excommunication, and he made thousands of false promises of what he would do. Again, he asked to be absolved in Rome and to receive Holy Communion from the Pope. The Pope found that nothing had changed and that Lothaire had no real intention of sending her away. The Pope then celebrated Mass for the King and his nobles. When Holy Communion was about to be distributed, the King went to the altar and the Pope said to him in a distinct voice:
“O king, if you are truly resolved to quit this woman and take back your lawful wife, then receive this Holy Sacrament unto life everlasting; but if you are not sincerely resolved, then do not dare to profane the sacred Body of Jesus Christ and eat your own damnation.”
Lothaire turned pale and trembled, but he had already made a sacrilegious Confession, and now he sealed his doom by adding a sacrilegious Communion. The King and his court left Rome. They arrived in Lucca (not far away) and were attacked with a fever, could not speak and their nails, hair and skin fell off, whereas the members of his court who did not join him in Holy Communion were spared.
St. Cyprian of Carthage tells of a certain young woman who, after an unworthy Communion, was instantly possessed by the devil. She became quite furious and in her rage bit her tongue to pieces and endeavored to kill herself. At last she died in horrible agony.
The lives of the saints are full of examples of those who profaned the sacrament suffering consequences. There is but one more thing, a great quote from St. John Eudes, that “the presence of wayward clergy is the surest sign of God’s displeasure with His people.”
The Angel at Fatima Commands Reparation
In the Fall of 1916, less than a year before Our Lady would make her six apparitions at Fatima, the “Angel of Peace” appeared to the children for the third time. The children saw the angel had in his hand a chalice, over which hung a Host, from which drops of Blood were falling into the chalice.
The Angel left the chalice and the Host suspended in the air, and prostrated himself before It. The children imitated him. The Angel then prayed repeatedly this act of reparation: “Most Holy Trinity―Father, Son, and Holy Spirit―I adore thee profoundly. I offer thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles in the world, in reparation for all the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.”
Then he rose, took the Host, and gave it to Lucia, while the contents of the chalice he gave to Jacinta and Francisco, and said: “Take the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ horribly outraged by thankless men. Make reparation for their sins and crimes; and so comfort your God!”
Let us commit to memory this prayer and say it throughout the day as often as possible. The “outrages, sacrileges and indifference” toward the Blessed Sacrament engendered by the Modernist revolution over the last 50 years are unprecedented, probably the worst in history. Sacrilege is so commonplace that it is no longer recognized as sacrilege. The need for reparation is colossal.
Within this Octave of Corpus Christi, let us continue with a Eucharistic theme, since the Holy Eucharist is God Himself and our greatest Treasure this side of Heaven. In Fr. Muller’s classic book, The Blessed Eucharist, we read in the opening chapter the following:
“A certain man was once thrown into prison. He there suffered so much from hunger, thirst and cold that at last he was almost dead. One day the king determined to pay a visit to the captive, in order to find out how he bore his sufferings. Having put off his royal apparel, he went in disguise to the prison and asked the poor man how he fared, but the prisoner, being very sad and melancholy, scarcely deigned to answer him. When the king had gone away, the jailer said to the criminal: ‘Do you know who was speaking to you? It was the king himself!’ ‘The king!’ exclaimed the captive. ‘O what a wretch I am! If I had known that, then I would have thrown myself at his feet and clasped his knees, and I would not have let him go until he had pardoned me. Alas! What a favorable opportunity I have lost of freeing myself from this dungeon.’ It was thus the poor captive lamented in anguish and despair, but all was unavailing.
“I think, dear Reader, you understand the meaning of this story. The sufferings of this captive represent the wretchedness of man’s condition on this Earth. Our true country is Heaven, and as long as we are living on Earth, we are captives and exiles. We are far from Jesus Christ, our King; far from Mary, our good Mother; far from the Angels and Saints of Heaven; and far from our dear departed friends. But very many Christians are also, in another respect, like the captive of whom I have spoken. They do not know Jesus Christ, their true King, who not only visits them, but dwells very near them. ‘But,’ you will ask, ‘how can Jesus Christ dwell near them without their knowing Him?’ It is because He has put on a strange garment and appears in disguise.
“Our Lord Jesus Christ abides in two places—in Heaven, where He shows Himself undisguised, as He is in reality; and on Earth in the Blessed Sacrament, in which He conceals Himself under the appearance of bread. One day, a certain nun said to St. Teresa of Avila: ‘I wish that I had lived at the time of Jesus Christ, my dear Savior, for then I could have seen how amiable and lovely He is.’ St. Teresa, on hearing this, laughed outright. ‘What!’ said she, ‘do you not know then, dear sister, that the same Jesus Christ is still with us on Earth, that He lives quite near us, in our churches, on our altars, in the Blessed Sacrament?’ Yes, the Blessed Sacrament, or Holy Eucharist, is the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, Our Lord, who is truly, really and substantially present under the outward appearances of bread and wine” (Fr. Muller’s, The Blessed Eucharist).
Painful Neglect
In Holy Communion we receive the God of infinite mercy and love, the God of all sanctity, who comes expressly to pardon our sins and help us to sin no more. He once visited the house of the sinner Zacheus, the Chief Publican, and in that one visit, Zacheus obtained complete pardon of all his sins. How is it possible that the same God of goodness and sweetness can come, not into our houses, but into our very hearts in Holy Communion and not give us the same and even greater graces? He visited Zacheus only once; He visits us every day―if we allow Him. Many, alas, never want, never feel, never grasp and never experience the immense joys and consolation of Holy Communion. This is often traced to a few main causes, which actually mix together like chemicals, to produce further causes.
The chief cause is always love of self and this is mixed with a love of the things and activities of the world that please, excite and satisfy self. God is not loved and thought about as much as we love and think about ourselves. God is not as exciting as the many other available things the world offers us for instant pleasure and gratification. This double-headed preoccupation produces toxic chemicals that destroy our spiritual life and especially our Communions. The chief toxic chemicals are lukewarmness, indifference, little or no preparation for Communion and little or no thanksgiving afterwards, or merely mechanical thanksgiving on “auto-pilot”. This is nothing other than the elements of which the Sacred and Eucharistic Heart of Jesus complained about to St. Margaret Mary.
St. Denis teaches, that the most Holy Sacrament has greater efficacy to sanctify souls than all other spiritual means. St. Vincent Ferrer says, that a soul derives more profit from one Communion than from fasting a week on bread and water. The Eucharist is, according to the holy Council of Trent, a medicine which delivers us from venial, and preserves us from mortal sins. According to St. John Chrysostom, the Holy Communion inflames us with the fire of divine love, and makes us objects of terror to the devil.
Jesus Complains of Neglect
Our Lord, on several occasions, has complained of and criticized our neglect of the Blesses Sacrament. To St. Margaret Mary, Our Lord, as the Sacred Heart, said: “My Divine Heart is so inflamed with love for men, and for you in particular that, being unable any longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its burning Charity, It must needs spread them abroad by your means, and manifest Itself to them (mankind) in order to enrich them with the precious graces of sanctification and salvation necessary to withdraw them from the abyss of perdition!
“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love! In return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude―by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus.”
Alas! How many are there, perhaps, who must admit that, up to this day, they have never or rarely visited Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, thus resembling the niece of the Empress, St. Cunegunda, whose name was Jutta, of whom it is related that she stayed at home, without any plausible reason, while the Blessed Sacrament was exposed in the church. St. Cunegunda, inflamed with holy indignation at this indifference of Jutta, gave her niece a severe slap in the face. The Lord, in punishment of Jutta’s indifference toward Him, allowed the imprint of Cunegunda’s fingers to remain indelibly stamped on her face. This was a lifelong rebuke for her indifference.
To Mother Mariana de Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame), Our Lord complained that the ingratitude and betrayal of religious souls, so dear to His Heart, would compel Him “…to let My Justice fall upon My beloved cloisters ― and even over cities ― when those so near to Me who belong to Me reject My spirit, abandoning Me alone in Tabernacles, rarely remembering that I live there especially for love of them, even more than for the rest of the faithful. Alas! If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small inveterate imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me ... But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing! — according to My example, for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross. Moreover, I have continued to live in the Tabernacle under the same roof with these hidden souls, exposing Myself to so many hateful profanations and sacrileges! For I know well all that takes place in My sacramental life! ... Woe to souls like this! Woe!” (Our Lord to Mother Mariana, Quito, Ecuador).
As You Sow, So Shall You Reap
St. Alphonsus Liguori says that “They who are ungenerous to God well deserve that God should not be generous to them. ‘He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly’ (2 Corinthians 9:6). To such souls the Lord will give the graces common to all, but will probably withhold His special assistance; and without this, as we have seen, they cannot persevere without falling into mortal sin. God himself revealed to Blessed Henry Suso, that, for tepid souls who are content with leading a life exempt from mortal sin, and continue to commit many deliberate venial sins, it is very difficult to preserve themselves in the state of grace. Hence the soul, finding no more nourishment and consolation in her devout exercises, in her prayers, Communions, or visits to the Blessed Sacrament, will soon neglect them, and thus neglecting the means of eternal salvation, she shall be in great danger of being lost” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons, Passion Sunday).
“Two things are necessary in order to draw great fruit from Communion preparation for, and thanksgiving after Communion. As to the preparation, it is certain that the saints derived great profit from their Communions, only because they were careful to prepare themselves well for receiving the Holy Eucharist. It is easy then to understand why so many souls remain subject to the same imperfections, after all their Communions. Cardinal Bona says, that the defect is not in the food, but in the want of preparation for it. For frequent Communion two principal dispositions are necessary. The first is detachment from creatures, and disengagement of the heart from everything that is not God. The more the heart is occupied with earthly concerns, the less room there is in it for divine love. Hence, to give full possession of the whole heart to God, it is necessary to purify it from worldly attachments” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons, Second Sunday After Pentecost).
“O how many miserable souls, devoted to spiritual things, to mental prayer, to frequent Communion, and to a life of holiness, have, by exposing themselves to the occasion of sin, become the slaves of the devil! … It is necessary to detach the heart from earthly things. ‘Detach the heart from creatures,’ says St. Teresa, ‘and you shall find God.’ In a heart filled with earthly affections, there is no room for divine love. Let us therefore continually implore the Lord in our prayers, Communions, and visits to the Blessed Sacrament, to give us His holy love; for this love will expel from our souls all affections for the things of this Earth” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons, Trinity Sunday).
Thanksgiving After Holy Communion
“Thanksgiving after Communion is also necessary. The prayer we make after Communion is the most acceptable to God, and the most profitable to us. After Communion, the soul should be employed in affections and petitions. The affections ought to consist, not only in acts of thanksgiving, but also in acts of humility, of love, and of oblation of ourselves to God. Let us then humble ourselves as much as possible at the sight of a God made our food, after we had offended Him. A learned author says that, for a soul after Communion, the most appropriate sentiment is one of astonishment at the thought of receiving a God. After Communion; we should not only make these affections, but we ought also to present to God with great confidence many petitions for His graces. The time after Communion is a time in which we can gain treasures of divine graces” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons, Second Sunday After Pentecost).
From Whence Come Bad Communions?
Bad Communions or Sacrilegious Communions are made when a soul goes to Holy Communion in a state of Mortal Sin, without having confessed those sins beforehand, or having hidden some mortal sins when making a confession. St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent, which treats of the Concealment of Mortal Sins in Confession, writes: “After we commit sin, the devil seeks to make us dumb, that, through shame, we may conceal our guilt in confession. Thus, he leads us to Hell by a double chain, inducing us, after our transgressions, to consent to a still greater sin the sin of sacrilege. St. Augustine says, that to prevent the sheep from seeking assistance by her cries, the wolf seizes her by the neck, and thus securely carries her away and devours her. The devil acts in a similar manner with the sheep of Jesus Christ.
“After having induced them to yield to [Mortal] sin, he seizes them by the throat, that they may not confess their guilt; and thus he securely brings them to Hell. For those who have sinned grievously, there is no means of salvation except through the confession of their sins. But, what hope of salvation can he have who goes to confession and conceals his sins, and makes use of the tribunal of Penance to offend God, and to make himself doubly the slave of Satan?
“What hope would you entertain of the recovery of the man who, instead of taking the medicine prescribed by his physician, drank a cup of poison? God! What can the Sacrament of Penance be to those who conceal their sins, but a deadly poison, which adds to their guilt the malice of sacrilege? In giving absolution, the confessor dispenses to his patient the Blood of Jesus Christ. What, then, does the sinner do, when he conceals his sins in Confession? He tramples underfoot the Blood of Jesus Christ. And should he afterwards receive the Holy Communion in a state of sin, he is, according to St. John Chrysostom, as guilty as if he threw the consecrated Host into a toilet bowl” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons, Third Sunday in Lent).
From One Sacrilege To Another
Fr. Muller, in his book The Blessed Eucharist, says that there is nothing that gives more honor to God and contributes more to our own welfare than the devout reception of the Holy Eucharist; and there is, on the contrary, nothing more injurious to God and more hurtful to our souls than an unworthy Communion. You will perhaps ask in astonishment: “Are there, then, really people so wicked as knowingly and willfully to make an unworthy Communion?” Alas, there are far too many! I do not mean to say that there are many who receive the Blessed Sacrament unworthily, out of pure malice, with the express purpose of dishonoring God—though even that has happened—but I do say that there are many who wish to enjoy the privileges of a Christian, while leading an immoral life and who dare receive the Author of all purity into a heart that is defiled by mortal sin.
This crime is committed by three classes of persons: First, by all those who are in mortal sin and who go to Communion after having been refused absolution by the priest; secondly, by all those who have willfully concealed a mortal sin in confession; and finally, by all those who, even though they have confessed all their mortal sins, have nevertheless no true sorrow for them, or no firm purpose of amendment. To the latter class belong all those that do not intend to keep the promises they made in Confession; who are not willing to be reconciled to those who have offended them; those who will not restore the property or good name of their neighbor; those who are not fully determined to keep away from taverns, bars, and other such places, that have proved occasions of sin to them; and finally, all those that will not break off sinful and dangerous company.
Now, if we consider the actual state of the world, we cannot help fearing that there are many Christians who make bad Communions. The Catholic priest, therefore, is in duty bound to warn the faithful against this grievous crime. Even in the very first ages of Christianity, in those days of primitive fervor, St. Paul was compelled to warn the Christians of Corinth against this heinous crime, and the few energetic words he addressed to them on that occasion comprehend all that may be said on the subject: “Whosoever shall eat this Bread, or drink the Chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord. So let a man prove himself and so let him eat of that Bread, and drink of the Chalice. For he that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself, by not discerning the Body of the Lord! Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep!” (1 Corinthians 11:27-30).
Mortal Sin Requires Confession Before Communion
In this regard, it is well to recall the teaching of the Church. Holy Communion must be received only while one is in the grace of God. Therefore, when one has committed a mortal sin, even if one has repented of it and has a great desire to receive Holy Communion, it is necessary and indispensible to confess oneself first before receiving Holy Communion, otherwise one commits a most grave sin of sacrilege, for which Jesus said to St. Bridget, “there does not exist on Earth a punishment which is great enough to punish it sufficiently!”
St. Ambrose said that persons who commit this sacrilege “come into church with a few sins, and leave it burdened with many.” St. Cyril wrote something yet stronger: “They who make a sacrilegious Communion receive Satan and Jesus Christ into their hearts — Satan, that they may let him rule, and Jesus Christ, that they may offer Him in sacrifice as a Victim to Satan.”
Thus the Catechism of the Council of Trent (De Eucharistia, v.i) declares: “As of all the sacred mysteries ... none can compare with the ... Eucharist, so likewise for no crime is there heavier punishment to be feared from God than for the unholy or irreligious use by the faithful of that which ... contains the very Author and Source of holiness.”
Punishment for Sacrilegious Communions
Sometimes the punishment for sacrilegious Communions can be great and frightening. St. Peter Julian Eymard—known as the Apostle of the Holy Eucharist—wrote in his book, The Real Presence, the following: “Sinners and profaners of this august Sacrament have been punished publicly for their temerity; Jesus was manifesting His justice. Scarcely had Judas sacrilegiously received the Body of his God than ‘Satan entered into him.’ Before this sacrilegious Communion the devil merely tempted him; after it the devil took possession of him: ‘Satan entered into him.’ (John 12:31). St. Paul attributed the lethargic sleep of the Corinthians and their apathy for good to their lukewarm or sacrilegious Communions: ‘Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep’ (1 Corinthians 11:30). History records terrible instances of unworthy communicants, smitten without warning by the justice of Our Lord, Whom they were insulting in the Eucharist” (St. Peter Julian Eymard, The Real Presence).
Pope Francis Stirs the Communion Pot
Just before publicly releasing (in April, 2016) his Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, in a homily in Rome (March 18th, 2016), Pope Francis was criticizing the ‘legalistic mindset’ of some in the Church who would deny Holy Communion to sinners: “And how many times, in Christian communities today, will they find doors closed! But you cannot, no you cannot! You have sinned, and you cannot! If you want to come, to Mass on Sunday, but that’s it—that’s all you can do! So, what the Holy Spirit creates in the hearts of people, those Christians―with their ‘doctors of the law’ mentality—destroy!” (RomeReports.com, March 18th, 2016).
It seems as though Pope Francis is hitting-out at those who (correctly) argue that people who are divorced and civilly remarried should not be admitted to Holy Communion, because they are objectively living in a state of mortal sin, which is, according to Church Law, incompatible with the reception of the Holy Eucharist.
Why has Mass and Communion suddenly become inseparable? As though one is useless without the other. Is Pope Francis saying that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is useless and pointless without being able to receive the Holy Eucharist? It doesn’t have to be a choice between “Only come to Mass if you can receive Communion” and “Don’t come to Mass if you can’t receive Communion.”
Without actually and explicitly saying it, the Pope is dangerously close to advocating sacrilegious Communions. This is “no big deal” for the majority of Catholics (60% to 80%) who no longer believe that the Holy Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, but is a mere symbol of Him, then of course, refusing Holy Communion to public sinners seems to be a bit silly. Furthermore, many of those same disbelieving Catholics also disbelieve that contraception is wrong, and see nothing wrong with divorce and remarriage anyway! That is where Modernism has led the Church over the last 50 years—and we wonder why Sr. Lucia of Fatima said, that in our day, most souls end up in Hell!
Open Door to Future Sacrilegious Communions?
Chicago’s Archbishop, Blase Cupich, — who participated in the 2015 and 2018 Bishops’ Synods on the Family at Pope Francis’ personal invitation — called Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, a “game changer” that could relax the Church’s approach to Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried and those in same-sex relationships.
In an interview, over seven years ago, with the Chicago Tribune on April 8th, 2016, Archbishop Cupich argued that Amoris Laetitia could normalize his approach to those living, in what the Catholic Church considers to be objectively, sinful situations, such as second marriages, when a first marriage hasn’t been declared null and same-sex relationships. Cupich told the Chicago Tribune: “There’s not really any doctrine as such that’s changed, but there is, I think, a very fresh way that will strike Catholic people in the pews and the priests about how we pastorally deal with people, especially those people whose lives are really very complicated.”
The Chicago Tribune reported that although Amoris Laetitia doesn’t grant comprehensive permission for the divorced and remarried to receive Holy Communion, “it invites them to a conversation and discernment process with their pastors that could lead them to communion one day.” Archbishop Cupich said: “There is a mindset within the life of the church among Catholics that if in fact they do have marriage breakups and they get into a second marriage that [it’s] kind of over for them unless they can get an annulment. The pope is saying that’s not the case. I do think that maybe some priests have been working with people in their own counseling. This is an official way in which we’re being encouraged to stay close to those people and reach out to them.”
Catholic doctrine specifically teaches that unless those who are divorced and re-married have had previous marriages annulled or are living as brother and sister with their second spouse, then they are committing adultery and should not receive Holy Communion. The Chicago Tribune reported: “Cupich said he hopes the pope’s guidelines show divorced and remarried Catholics that they do still belong in the church and give license to priests, like himself, who have been taking that approach for a while.” Cupich implied that Amoris Laetitia should also open the door to the potential for Holy Communion for those in same-sex relationships. Archbishop Cupich said that the conscience is “inviolable” and that he believes divorced and remarried couples could be permitted to receive the sacraments, if they have “come to a decision” to do so “in good conscience” – a theological reasoning that he indicated would also apply to gay couples.
The Chicago Tribune wrote: “Cupich said that although the pope clarifies that same-sex marriage is not analogous to the church’s definition for marriage, when it comes to inclusion in the life of the church, the same guidelines apply. ‘You can’t have one particular approach for a certain group of people and not for everybody,’ the archbishop said. ‘Everyone has the ability to form their conscience well.’”
What Archbishop Cupich failed to clarify was that the Catholic Church teaches that: “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed. This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man ‘takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is, by degrees, almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.’ In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits” (CCC 1790 - 1791).
Archbishop Cupich’s take was echoed by German Cardinal Walter Kasper, the leading proponent of the practice of giving Holy Communion to remarried divorcees. “There are openings there, clearly,” for Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried, Kasper said, according to the German Bishops’ official website. He called the exhortation a “remarkable document.”
Sacrileges in High Places!
In Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1998, President Bill Clinton, a Protestant, received the Holy Eucharist at Queen of the World Church. President Clinton never received Communion in Catholic churches in the United States. But Barry Toiv, a White House spokesman, said the priest, Father Mohlomi Makobane, told White House staff members before Mr. Clinton’s visit to his Soweto church, that “this was the policy of the South African Conference of Bishops, that Communion was open to non-Catholics.” The South African bishops later declared that no such lenient policy exists. In January, however, the bishops did issue rules that allow non-Catholics to receive Communion in certain special circumstances. The Vatican requested clarification of that policy, but those in high places in the Vatican were doing the same thing!!
Non-Catholics are not supposed to be given Holy Communion even though they may be attending Holy Mass. Yet Pope John Paul II gave Holy Communion to British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2004, before he converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism.
In April of 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger gave Holy Communion to the Protestant minister, Rev. Roger Schutz (a.k.a. Brother Roger) of the Swiss Reformed Church and leader of the Taizé Ecumenical Community, at Pope John Paul II’s funeral. Cardinal Ratzinger had already acquired a reputation for giving Holy Communion to Protestants, so the scandal of Brother Roger was not an isolated occurrence.
In August of 2005, Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Vatican Council for Unity of Christians, celebrated Mass for the Taizé Ecumenical Community (Protestant) and their leader, Rev. Roger Schutz (a.k.a. Brother Roger), a Swiss Protestant, and gave them all Holy Communion, regardless of de-nomination. Cardinal Kasper said in the homily, `Yes, the springtime of ecumenism has flowered on the hill of Taizé!’” (reported by The New York Times, August 24th, 2005). This is the same Cardinal Kasper who wants to allow remarried Catholic divorcees and some same-sex married couples to receive Holy Communion.
Some Catholic Pro-Choice candidates had already been refused Holy Communion because of their political positions on abortion, and yet the pro-abortionists, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Chris Dodd and Nancy Pelosi, all Catholics, all took Holy Communion when Pope Benedict visited the USA in 2008.
In 2009, the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who belongs to an evangelical church, was given Communion at a funeral Mass by Archbishop André Richard in New Brunswick for the former Canadian Governor General Romeo LeBlanc. The New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal reported: “But Rev. Fr. Arthur Bourgeois, who delivered the homily, did not have a problem with the prime minister accepting the host. Fr. Bourgeois said: ‘Usually, to partake in Holy Communion in the Catholic Church, you have to be a member of it, but if you’re not, exceptionally sometimes at major occasions (it is different).’”
Online Admissions of Sacrileges
Here are some amazing posts highlighting the problem of sacrilegious Holy Communions. One person posted the following on a Catholic website: “I committed a mortal sin multiple times over a period of time. During this time of uncleanliness I continued to receive Communion. I never realized what I was doing. Then, a week before a scheduled Confession, I realized that I had been receiving Communion sacrilegiously. I still received Communion that week. Why? Because I go to Mass with my parents. If I hadn’t received Communion, they would have questioned me... Question #1: Was that reception of Communion a mortal sin? Question #2: Today is Christmas Eve. In approximately 4.5 hours I will attend Midnight Mass with my parents. What do I do? Receive Communion or not? If not, what do I tell my parents? Please, I need quick. Thanks.”
On the same site, another blogger chimes in: “I’ll be receiving sacrilegiously as well tonight. I used to skip Communion, but my parents were really bothered by it, and my family is more important than following Church teaching for me. I choose to seek Jesus, and, when I receive, I say: ‘Lord, I don’t mean to offend!’ I don’t play this mortal sin game. God is love. Count your blessings. Don’t be stressed out about this. Walk in peace.”
According to most figures, 95% of Catholics have practiced contraception or artificial birth control (though we may not be sure what the margin of error is, we all know that contraception practice is very common), yet the same people receive Holy Communion every Sunday. Whatever one makes of those figures, it is not far wrong to reckon a majority of people are in a state of mortal sin, yet receive Holy Communion. For a society this will bring about disastrous results when Heaven finally decides enough is enough! During the Vatican’s Synod of the Eucharist in 2005, the then prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Cardinal Arinze made the same observation: “The problem we have discussed is that many people don’t go to Mass, and those that come don’t understand — they go to Communion, but not to confession, as if they were immaculate.”
Is Sacrilegious Communion the Worst Sin?
In the most Blessed Sacrament is a twofold reality. The first reality is that which is both signified and contained in the Eucharist Itself, namely, Christ Himself. The second reality is that which is signified, but not contained in the Eucharist, namely, Christ’s Mystical Body, which is the Church.
Now, for this reason, only those who are incorporated into the members of Christ and are one with Him through a living Faith (that is, Faith united to Charity and therefore in a state of grace) may receive the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
Thus, whoever receives Communion while in mortal sin, is guilty of lying to the Blessed Sacrament and of a grave sacrilege. Hence, such a man sins mortally and sacrilegiously (sinning against something that sacred). Sins against God and the Faith are the worst kinds of sin. Sins such as lust and impurity may be more embarrassing, and they, too, are mortal sins, but they are not in the same league as sins against God.
With regard to sins against God, to receive Holy Communion unworthily (i.e. in the state of mortal sin) is in the third class of grave sins against God. The worst sins of all are those by which we offend the Godhead directly, as when we are guilty of unbelief and blasphemy. The second degree of sins against God are those sins which are directed immediately against the sacred Humanity of our Savior, as when the soldiers beat and tortured Our Lord. And, in the third place of gravity, are those sins against the Sacraments and other sacred things ― and among these, sacrileges against the Eucharist seem to be the worst of all.
The Punishments of God
There is a story of King Lothaire, the son of Charlemagne, who was the duke of Lorraine. He had become attracted to a woman in his court, and put away his wife in order to take up with this younger woman. He was ordered by the Pope to cease these relations, or face an excommunication, and he made thousands of false promises of what he would do. Again, he asked to be absolved in Rome and to receive Holy Communion from the Pope. The Pope found that nothing had changed and that Lothaire had no real intention of sending her away. The Pope then celebrated Mass for the King and his nobles. When Holy Communion was about to be distributed, the King went to the altar and the Pope said to him in a distinct voice:
“O king, if you are truly resolved to quit this woman and take back your lawful wife, then receive this Holy Sacrament unto life everlasting; but if you are not sincerely resolved, then do not dare to profane the sacred Body of Jesus Christ and eat your own damnation.”
Lothaire turned pale and trembled, but he had already made a sacrilegious Confession, and now he sealed his doom by adding a sacrilegious Communion. The King and his court left Rome. They arrived in Lucca (not far away) and were attacked with a fever, could not speak and their nails, hair and skin fell off, whereas the members of his court who did not join him in Holy Communion were spared.
St. Cyprian of Carthage tells of a certain young woman who, after an unworthy Communion, was instantly possessed by the devil. She became quite furious and in her rage bit her tongue to pieces and endeavored to kill herself. At last she died in horrible agony.
The lives of the saints are full of examples of those who profaned the sacrament suffering consequences. There is but one more thing, a great quote from St. John Eudes, that “the presence of wayward clergy is the surest sign of God’s displeasure with His people.”
The Angel at Fatima Commands Reparation
In the Fall of 1916, less than a year before Our Lady would make her six apparitions at Fatima, the “Angel of Peace” appeared to the children for the third time. The children saw the angel had in his hand a chalice, over which hung a Host, from which drops of Blood were falling into the chalice.
The Angel left the chalice and the Host suspended in the air, and prostrated himself before It. The children imitated him. The Angel then prayed repeatedly this act of reparation: “Most Holy Trinity―Father, Son, and Holy Spirit―I adore thee profoundly. I offer thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles in the world, in reparation for all the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.”
Then he rose, took the Host, and gave it to Lucia, while the contents of the chalice he gave to Jacinta and Francisco, and said: “Take the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ horribly outraged by thankless men. Make reparation for their sins and crimes; and so comfort your God!”
Let us commit to memory this prayer and say it throughout the day as often as possible. The “outrages, sacrileges and indifference” toward the Blessed Sacrament engendered by the Modernist revolution over the last 50 years are unprecedented, probably the worst in history. Sacrilege is so commonplace that it is no longer recognized as sacrilege. The need for reparation is colossal.
Article 5
Thursday June 8th, 2023, the Feast of Corpus Christi
Our Greatest Treasure & Our Greatest Neglect!
Thursday June 8th, 2023, the Feast of Corpus Christi
Our Greatest Treasure & Our Greatest Neglect!
The Greatest Treasure
We hope that you are making some time to read through some of the wonderful ‘Faith-strengthening’ Eucharistic miracles that God has allowed to happen throughout the world in all centuries [Miracle of Lanciano] and also [Other Eucharistic Miracles]. Through such wondrous signs God calls souls to belief and conversion.
There are increasing numbers of Catholics who are refusing to believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Many think of the Eucharist as a mere symbol of Christ, and look upon the Mass as a mere commemoration of the Last Supper, and not the Sacrifice that it really and truly is! What an offense this must be to Our Lord! If already, in the more believing day of St. Margaret Mary (in the 1600s) Our Lord appeared to her and complained about the lack of love and devotion shown to Him—what would He have to say about our times?
Greatest Neglect
The Holy Eucharist is our “Greatest Treasure” and at the same time it is the modern era’s “Greatest Neglect.” It is impossible to identify the Holy Eucharist too closely with Jesus Christ. We should remember He is in the Holy Eucharist not merely with His substance. Some may say: “Transubstantiation means that the substance of bread and wine become the substance of Jesus Christ.”
No, it is not just an academic definition or philosophical explanation that is relegated to the memory banks of our mind—a cerebral thing. Transubstantiation means the substance of bread and wine are no longer there. The substance of bread and wine is replaced not only by the substance of Christ’s Body and Blood. What replaces the substance of bread and wine is Jesus Christ! Everything that makes Him Christ, replaces what had been the substance of bread and wine. The substance of bread and wine become the whole Christ—that is what we mean by “Body, Soul, Blood and Divinity”—the whole Christ, the living Christ. When we eat a piece of chicken, we have the substance of chicken, but it is a dead chicken. When we receive the Body of Christ in Holy Communion, it is not mere substance, nor a non-living substance, but the entire living substance of Christ!
Living Heart
Therefore, Christ in the Holy Eucharist is here with His human heart and His Sacred Heart. Is it a living heart? Yes! This is seen in the Miracles of Lanciano and Buenos Aires. This is also why the revelations Our Lord made to St. Margaret Mary about promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart were all made from the Holy Eucharist.
Why do we equate the Sacred Heart with the Holy Eucharist? Because the Holy Eucharist is the whole Christ with His human heart. According to St. Margaret Mary, the Sacred Heart is the Holy Eucharist. So it follows that devotion to the Sacred Heart is devotion to the Holy Eucharist. It is infinite Love Incarnate living in our midst in the Blessed Sacrament. When we receive the Holy Eucharist, we receive the living Christ—total, entire, living!
If Jesus causes the Host to become what science today has identified as a human heart—and especially a muscle of the heart that is responsible for the contraction of a human heart, a heart that suffers like that of someone who has been beaten severely about the chest—if He does such things, it is in order to arouse and enliven our Faith in His Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. He thus enables us to see that Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a re-presentation (that is to say, a making present once again) of the entire drama of our salvation: namely, Christ’s Passion and Death on Calvary―but now in an unbloody manner in the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Signs-a-Plenty
Jesus says to His disciples: “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe” (John 4:48). There is no need to actively seek out wondrous signs. But if Jesus chooses to give them to us, then we ought to accept them with meekness and humility in Faith, seeking to understand what He desires to tell us by them. Thanks to these signs, many people have discovered Faith in God—the One God in the Holy Trinity, Who reveals His Son to us: Jesus Christ, Who abides in the tabernacles of the world, Who worked through the Sacraments and Who teaches us through Holy Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church—the triple cord of our Faith, of which Scripture says: “a threefold cord is not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12).
Miracles Seekers Are Often Blind
We have the “Greatest Treasure” staring us in the face, yet we run around trying to fill our minds and hearts with lesser spiritual treasures. We run after apparitions, we study prophecies, we delight over relics, we travel to holy sites where Our Lady or Our Lord might have appeared once, twice or a few times—but the place where Our Lord appears every day, which is the Altar upon which Mass is said, we often leave neglected and we place it way down in our rankings of holy places and things to see and visit. The Imitation of Christ puts it thus:
“Many people travel far to honor the relics of the saints, marveling at their wonderful deeds and at the building of magnificent shrines. They gaze upon and kiss the sacred relics encased in silk and gold; and behold, You are here present before me on the Altar, my God, Saint of saints, Creator of men, and Lord of angels! Often in looking at such things, men are moved by curiosity, by the novelty of the unseen, and they bear away little fruit for the amendment of their lives, especially when they go from place to place lightly and without true contrition. But here in the Sacrament of the Altar You are wholly present, my God, the man Christ Jesus, whence is obtained the full realization of eternal salvation, as often as You are worthily and devoutly received.”
A Mystery that Surpasses our Understanding
The Holy Eucharist—the actual presence of the risen person of Jesus under the appearances of bread and wine—is one of the most important and most difficult truths, revealed to us by Christ. Eucharistic miracles are merely visible confirmations of what He tells us about Himself; namely, that He really does give us His glorified Body and Blood as spiritual food and drink.
Jesus established the Eucharist on the eve of His Passion and Death. During the Last Supper, “Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to His disciples, and said: ‘Take ye, and eat. This is My Body.’ And taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: ‘Drink ye all of this. For this is My Blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins’” (Matthew 26:26-28). When Jesus took and gave the Apostles the bread and wine, He said, “this is My Body….this is My Blood” by which He clearly meant that the bread and wine, which He gave them to eat and drink, really was His Body and Blood, and not some sort of symbol.
Jesus’ Eucharistic Sermon Shocks
Earlier, in the famous Eucharistic sermon recorded by St. John the Evangelist, Jesus said to the Jews: “Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For My Flesh is meat indeed: and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him’” (John 6:54-57).
Shocked by Jesus’ words, the Jews said, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” (John 6:53). Many of Jesus’ disciples were also scandalized. “This saying is hard, and who can hear it?” they objected. Knowing that the truth of the Eucharist was a shock and a scandal to many of His listeners, Jesus responded, not by retracting His words, but by raising the stakes: “Doth this scandalize you? The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life” (John 6: 62-63). Many refused to believe Him: “After this many of His disciples went back; and walked no more with Him” (John 6:67).
Today, we see a repeat of both the incredulity and disbelief in the Real Presence—with anywhere from 65% to 80% of Catholics no longer believing that Jesus is present in the Holy Eucharist—as well as a repeat of “many walked no more with Him”—as only around 15% to 20% come to Mass regularly on Sundays, for the rest it ends up being a “Sin-day” not a Sunday.
Jesus Throws Down the Gauntlet
Our Lord throws down the gauntlet of Faith before His Apostles, just as He does before us: “Then Jesus said to the Twelve: Will you also go away?” (John 6:68). St. Peter replies for them, and for us, with words of Faith—not understanding, but believing nevertheless—“Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known, that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God.” Here Jesus goes to the heart of the mystery, the “Eucharistic Heart” of the mystery and that “Eucharistic Heart” we still have with us in our tabernacles! But though Jesus is really in the tabernacle, is Faith really present in our hearts?
Not all Jesus’ listeners accepted His teaching of the Eucharist. Thus He turned to them, saying, “ ‘But there are some of you that believe not!’ Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray Him” (John 6:65). Judas’ betrayal began with his rejection of Jesus’ teaching about His real presence in the Eucharist. In confirmation of this fact, Jesus said, “‘Have not I chosen you Twelve; and one of you is a devil? Now He meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon―for this same man was about to betray Him, whereas he was one of the Twelve.” (John 6:71-72).
Lack of Faith Today
How many today have not betrayed their Faith in Christ by refusing to believe in His Real Presence—Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity—in the Holy Eucharist? How many refuse to believe that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is more than just a commemoration of the Last Supper, but is also, and more importantly, the unbloody re-offering of Jesus Christ’s Sacrifice on Calvary—in a way, a kind prolongation of that Sacrifice of Calvary throughout time.
The Eucharist is our Pillar of Faith. It is our strengthener and comfort in these increasingly evil days. The Eucharist is the Risen Jesus Himself in His glorified, and thus invisible, humanity. This is the essence of His teaching of the Eucharist (John 6:62-63). By its death and resurrection, the humanity of Jesus takes on a divine nature; it assumes a new order of existence: “For in Him dwells the whole fullness of the deity, bodily” (Colossians 2:9). In His glorified humanity, the Risen Jesus, becoming omnipresent, gives of Himself in the gift of the Eucharist. He shares with us, not only His life of suffering, but also His resurrected life and divine love, so that we may, even here on Earth, experience the reality of Heaven and partake of the life of the Holy Trinity.
Your Transubstantiation
He wishes to work a ‘transubstantiation’ of sorts in our minds and hearts—as He changes the Bread and Wine into Himself, so too does He wish to change us Body and Soul into Himself. Like He said to so many people while He walked upon this Earth: “Do you believe, that I can do this unto you?” (Matthew 9:28). We have to reply with the leper: “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst!” (Luke 5:11). Confronting the mystery of the Eucharist, human reason feels its impotence and limitations. Yet St. Cyril of Jerusalem exhorts us: “Do not see in the bread and wine merely natural elements, because the Lord has expressly said that they are His Body and His Blood―Faith assures you of this, even though your senses suggest otherwise.”
Visiting His Temple, Delighting in the Lord
“One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. That I may see the delight of the Lord, and may visit His temple” (Psalm 26:4). How many souls could truthfully say these words today? The houses of the Lord—the churches—are empty for most, if not all, the day. Few “see the delight of the Lord”—the Holy Eucharist—and “visit His temple”, the tabernacle.
Some souls might spend time in front of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and pride themselves upon it, but why do they not encourage and work ‘tooth-and-nail’ to try get others to do likewise, instead of just priding themselves upon their practices of piety. This smacks of the Pharisee, condemned by Our Lord in His parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, who self-righteously boasts: “And when ye pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, that love to stand and pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men” (Matthew 6:5). “Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: ‘O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican. I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess!’” (Luke 18:10-12).
Modern Day Pharisaical Boast
Today, the boast might be—“I go to Sunday Mass, whereas most Catholics no longer do! I say my Rosary every day, whereas 96% of Catholics do not!” Yet, to whom more is given, more is expected! We should not be comparing ourselves with the sinners below us, but with the saints above us. Then, our position will suddenly look weak and precarious! 96% of Catholics may not pray the Rosary every day, but St. Padre Pio was among those who did pray it every day—and he prayed anywhere from 30 to 50 Rosaries (150 to 250 decades) every day! “Ah, well!” you say, “That was Padre Pio! I am no priest and stigmatic! That’s an unfair example that you are trying to hoist upon us!” Okay! Well what about a little 9-year-old boy, Francisco Marto, one of seers at Fatima, who would also say many Rosaries each day and, like St. Padre Pio, was rarely seen without the Rosary beads in his little hands. “They that fear the Lord, will seek after the things that are well pleasing to Him” (Ecclesiasticus 2:19).
Sacrifice of the Mass—the Greatest Thing in the World
St. Leonard of Port Maurice (1676-1751), in his book The Hidden Treasure of the Holy Mass, writes: “The principal excellence of the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass consists in being essentially, and in the very highest degree, identical with that which was offered on the Cross of Calvary: with this sole difference, that the Sacrifice on the Cross was bloody, and made once for all, and did on that one occasion satisfy fully for all the sins of the world; while the Sacrifice of the Altar is an unbloody sacrifice.” Sadly, today, this notion of the Mass has been, at best, blurred; or, at worst, is no longer believed.
In 1957, 75% of Catholics attended Sunday Mass regularly each week. By 1965 this had dropped to 65%. In 2004, there were only 25% of Catholics attending Sunday Mass regularly each week. Most of the 15% or so, who attend weekly Mass today, are 50 years old or older.
As for belief in the Real Presence (Jesus Christ being really and truly present with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist and Blessed Sacrament), between 60% and 80% of Catholics believe that the Holy Eucharist is only symbolic and not the actual Body and Blood of Christ.
St. Leonard of Port Maurice continues: “Now, tell me whether, when you enter church to hear Mass, you thoroughly well consider that you are going up as it were to Calvary, to be present at the death of the Redeemer. If so, would you go with behavior so unsubdued, with dress so flaunting? If the Magdalene had gone to Calvary, to the foot of the Cross, all dressed out, perfumed, and adorned, as when she associated with her lovers, what would have been said of her? What, then, shall be said of you who go to Holy Mass as if you were going to a ball? But what shall be said if you profane those functions of most dread sanctity with nods and becks, with tattle, with laughter, with the petty attentions of courtship, or with graver sacrileges of thought, word, or deed? Wickedness is hideous at any time, and in any place; but sins committed during the time of Mass, and before the altar, draw down after them the curse of God.”
What is Your Mass Attendance Like?
Do you, and your family, approach the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass like you would Calvary? What is your preparation for Mass like? Read about St. Charbal Maklouf—a Maronite monk-priest—who had a great devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. That is all he lived for—he lived and said Mass in a cave, having been given permission to live a hermit-like existence. Already before sunrise, he would be at prayer—reciting his Divine Office (breviary) and other prayers in preparation for his 11:00 a.m. Mass. A monk would come up to his cave from the nearby monastery, to serve Mass and bring him a meager lunch. After Mass, he would spend at least one hour or even two, before eating his lunch, and would then return to his thanksgiving—which he continued into the early evening. Then he would begin his prayers of preparation for the next day’s Mass. His body lies incorrupt to this day.
On the Way to Mass
When you drive to Mass, what is the mood of the passengers in the car? Is it a prayerful mood, or a worldly mood—peppered with worldly or frivolous conversation, perhaps worldly music? If so, it weakens the notion of what the Sacrifice of the Mass is and the serious and awesome action you are about to take part in—there is no greater action taking place anywhere in the world, on any day, than that of the Mass. Perhaps passengers need to be told that henceforth, the approach to traveling to Sunday (daily/weekday) Masses will be different. Prayers could be said; hymns sung or played on the audio system; suitable spiritual material read out aloud; or at least spiritual conversations held.
Arrival Time for Mass
Do you arrive in plenty of time to make a proper preparation for Mass in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament? Let’s face it—it is GOD HIMSELF that you are visiting when you go to Mass! It is not a commemoration of Calvary; it is not a mere human action; it is not a social function—you are there TO SEE GOD. Is there enough time made for God, or is it a last minute arrival? Or if you do make it on time, does everyone actually GO INSIDE TO SPEAK TO GOD, or do they spend time chatting with other parishioners prior to Mass starting? Worldly talk, frivolous talk, socializing, joking around and laughing? If the Mass is a sacrifice, then sacrifice something yourself and get right in there! The answers to these questions show the value we place on God and whether or not He is “Number One” in our lives.
Assistance at Mass
How do we assist at Mass? Some people clearly show that, even though their bodies are present at Mass, their minds most certainly are not—they gaze around, fidget with their ‘little-ones’, keeping them entertained so that they don’t cry, etc. Others may have a Missal, prayer book or Rosary in their hands—but their heart can be lukewarm and they listlessly, carelessly and mechanically go through the motions of praying, fitting the description of Our Lord: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8). Lining up for Holy Communion is no different to lining up at the supermarket check-out—cold, indifferent, with no devotion or zeal.
Holy Communion
The reception of Holy Communion makes you wonder if they really believe that God is present—but of course between 60% and 80% of Catholics do not believe that He is present. Thanksgiving after Communion, if there is one, is frequently seen to be a mechanical repetition of the same old prayers, said without any real feeling and without any personal heart-to-heart conversation with the God that now rests within them! Once Mass is over, hardly anyone stays behind to continue their thanksgiving and to continue talking to their God—for friends beckon in the parking lot or the parish hall, and, instead of a tasteless Host, coffee and donuts with a variety of sweet fillings are available in the parish hall—and the early bird gets the best donuts! I guess the redeeming factor must be that the donut looks like a fat halo! Friends, coffee and donuts are “Number One”—“Number Two”—and “Number Three”—God came in fourth!
On this feast of Corpus Christi―which is a holy day of obligation in the Universal Calendar of the Church, but not observed as such in most countries―let us strive to rekindle our esteem, appreciation, love and manner of assistance at the greatest Treasure we have this side of Heaven. Let us strive to attend the Sacrifice of the Mass more often; to assist at it with greater reverence and fervor; to make better thanksgivings after Mass, and to visit Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament much more frequently.
If, with the eyes of Faith, we REALLY saw GOD PRESENT in the Holy Eucharist and in the Sacrifice of the Mass, then this should not be too hard. But if our eyes of Faith have become myopic, or even blind, then we will go the way of the majority. It is not a path that we should be taking, for it ends in misery.
We hope that you are making some time to read through some of the wonderful ‘Faith-strengthening’ Eucharistic miracles that God has allowed to happen throughout the world in all centuries [Miracle of Lanciano] and also [Other Eucharistic Miracles]. Through such wondrous signs God calls souls to belief and conversion.
There are increasing numbers of Catholics who are refusing to believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Many think of the Eucharist as a mere symbol of Christ, and look upon the Mass as a mere commemoration of the Last Supper, and not the Sacrifice that it really and truly is! What an offense this must be to Our Lord! If already, in the more believing day of St. Margaret Mary (in the 1600s) Our Lord appeared to her and complained about the lack of love and devotion shown to Him—what would He have to say about our times?
Greatest Neglect
The Holy Eucharist is our “Greatest Treasure” and at the same time it is the modern era’s “Greatest Neglect.” It is impossible to identify the Holy Eucharist too closely with Jesus Christ. We should remember He is in the Holy Eucharist not merely with His substance. Some may say: “Transubstantiation means that the substance of bread and wine become the substance of Jesus Christ.”
No, it is not just an academic definition or philosophical explanation that is relegated to the memory banks of our mind—a cerebral thing. Transubstantiation means the substance of bread and wine are no longer there. The substance of bread and wine is replaced not only by the substance of Christ’s Body and Blood. What replaces the substance of bread and wine is Jesus Christ! Everything that makes Him Christ, replaces what had been the substance of bread and wine. The substance of bread and wine become the whole Christ—that is what we mean by “Body, Soul, Blood and Divinity”—the whole Christ, the living Christ. When we eat a piece of chicken, we have the substance of chicken, but it is a dead chicken. When we receive the Body of Christ in Holy Communion, it is not mere substance, nor a non-living substance, but the entire living substance of Christ!
Living Heart
Therefore, Christ in the Holy Eucharist is here with His human heart and His Sacred Heart. Is it a living heart? Yes! This is seen in the Miracles of Lanciano and Buenos Aires. This is also why the revelations Our Lord made to St. Margaret Mary about promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart were all made from the Holy Eucharist.
Why do we equate the Sacred Heart with the Holy Eucharist? Because the Holy Eucharist is the whole Christ with His human heart. According to St. Margaret Mary, the Sacred Heart is the Holy Eucharist. So it follows that devotion to the Sacred Heart is devotion to the Holy Eucharist. It is infinite Love Incarnate living in our midst in the Blessed Sacrament. When we receive the Holy Eucharist, we receive the living Christ—total, entire, living!
If Jesus causes the Host to become what science today has identified as a human heart—and especially a muscle of the heart that is responsible for the contraction of a human heart, a heart that suffers like that of someone who has been beaten severely about the chest—if He does such things, it is in order to arouse and enliven our Faith in His Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. He thus enables us to see that Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a re-presentation (that is to say, a making present once again) of the entire drama of our salvation: namely, Christ’s Passion and Death on Calvary―but now in an unbloody manner in the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Signs-a-Plenty
Jesus says to His disciples: “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe” (John 4:48). There is no need to actively seek out wondrous signs. But if Jesus chooses to give them to us, then we ought to accept them with meekness and humility in Faith, seeking to understand what He desires to tell us by them. Thanks to these signs, many people have discovered Faith in God—the One God in the Holy Trinity, Who reveals His Son to us: Jesus Christ, Who abides in the tabernacles of the world, Who worked through the Sacraments and Who teaches us through Holy Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church—the triple cord of our Faith, of which Scripture says: “a threefold cord is not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12).
Miracles Seekers Are Often Blind
We have the “Greatest Treasure” staring us in the face, yet we run around trying to fill our minds and hearts with lesser spiritual treasures. We run after apparitions, we study prophecies, we delight over relics, we travel to holy sites where Our Lady or Our Lord might have appeared once, twice or a few times—but the place where Our Lord appears every day, which is the Altar upon which Mass is said, we often leave neglected and we place it way down in our rankings of holy places and things to see and visit. The Imitation of Christ puts it thus:
“Many people travel far to honor the relics of the saints, marveling at their wonderful deeds and at the building of magnificent shrines. They gaze upon and kiss the sacred relics encased in silk and gold; and behold, You are here present before me on the Altar, my God, Saint of saints, Creator of men, and Lord of angels! Often in looking at such things, men are moved by curiosity, by the novelty of the unseen, and they bear away little fruit for the amendment of their lives, especially when they go from place to place lightly and without true contrition. But here in the Sacrament of the Altar You are wholly present, my God, the man Christ Jesus, whence is obtained the full realization of eternal salvation, as often as You are worthily and devoutly received.”
A Mystery that Surpasses our Understanding
The Holy Eucharist—the actual presence of the risen person of Jesus under the appearances of bread and wine—is one of the most important and most difficult truths, revealed to us by Christ. Eucharistic miracles are merely visible confirmations of what He tells us about Himself; namely, that He really does give us His glorified Body and Blood as spiritual food and drink.
Jesus established the Eucharist on the eve of His Passion and Death. During the Last Supper, “Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to His disciples, and said: ‘Take ye, and eat. This is My Body.’ And taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: ‘Drink ye all of this. For this is My Blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins’” (Matthew 26:26-28). When Jesus took and gave the Apostles the bread and wine, He said, “this is My Body….this is My Blood” by which He clearly meant that the bread and wine, which He gave them to eat and drink, really was His Body and Blood, and not some sort of symbol.
Jesus’ Eucharistic Sermon Shocks
Earlier, in the famous Eucharistic sermon recorded by St. John the Evangelist, Jesus said to the Jews: “Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For My Flesh is meat indeed: and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him’” (John 6:54-57).
Shocked by Jesus’ words, the Jews said, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” (John 6:53). Many of Jesus’ disciples were also scandalized. “This saying is hard, and who can hear it?” they objected. Knowing that the truth of the Eucharist was a shock and a scandal to many of His listeners, Jesus responded, not by retracting His words, but by raising the stakes: “Doth this scandalize you? The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life” (John 6: 62-63). Many refused to believe Him: “After this many of His disciples went back; and walked no more with Him” (John 6:67).
Today, we see a repeat of both the incredulity and disbelief in the Real Presence—with anywhere from 65% to 80% of Catholics no longer believing that Jesus is present in the Holy Eucharist—as well as a repeat of “many walked no more with Him”—as only around 15% to 20% come to Mass regularly on Sundays, for the rest it ends up being a “Sin-day” not a Sunday.
Jesus Throws Down the Gauntlet
Our Lord throws down the gauntlet of Faith before His Apostles, just as He does before us: “Then Jesus said to the Twelve: Will you also go away?” (John 6:68). St. Peter replies for them, and for us, with words of Faith—not understanding, but believing nevertheless—“Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known, that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God.” Here Jesus goes to the heart of the mystery, the “Eucharistic Heart” of the mystery and that “Eucharistic Heart” we still have with us in our tabernacles! But though Jesus is really in the tabernacle, is Faith really present in our hearts?
Not all Jesus’ listeners accepted His teaching of the Eucharist. Thus He turned to them, saying, “ ‘But there are some of you that believe not!’ Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray Him” (John 6:65). Judas’ betrayal began with his rejection of Jesus’ teaching about His real presence in the Eucharist. In confirmation of this fact, Jesus said, “‘Have not I chosen you Twelve; and one of you is a devil? Now He meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon―for this same man was about to betray Him, whereas he was one of the Twelve.” (John 6:71-72).
Lack of Faith Today
How many today have not betrayed their Faith in Christ by refusing to believe in His Real Presence—Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity—in the Holy Eucharist? How many refuse to believe that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is more than just a commemoration of the Last Supper, but is also, and more importantly, the unbloody re-offering of Jesus Christ’s Sacrifice on Calvary—in a way, a kind prolongation of that Sacrifice of Calvary throughout time.
The Eucharist is our Pillar of Faith. It is our strengthener and comfort in these increasingly evil days. The Eucharist is the Risen Jesus Himself in His glorified, and thus invisible, humanity. This is the essence of His teaching of the Eucharist (John 6:62-63). By its death and resurrection, the humanity of Jesus takes on a divine nature; it assumes a new order of existence: “For in Him dwells the whole fullness of the deity, bodily” (Colossians 2:9). In His glorified humanity, the Risen Jesus, becoming omnipresent, gives of Himself in the gift of the Eucharist. He shares with us, not only His life of suffering, but also His resurrected life and divine love, so that we may, even here on Earth, experience the reality of Heaven and partake of the life of the Holy Trinity.
Your Transubstantiation
He wishes to work a ‘transubstantiation’ of sorts in our minds and hearts—as He changes the Bread and Wine into Himself, so too does He wish to change us Body and Soul into Himself. Like He said to so many people while He walked upon this Earth: “Do you believe, that I can do this unto you?” (Matthew 9:28). We have to reply with the leper: “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst!” (Luke 5:11). Confronting the mystery of the Eucharist, human reason feels its impotence and limitations. Yet St. Cyril of Jerusalem exhorts us: “Do not see in the bread and wine merely natural elements, because the Lord has expressly said that they are His Body and His Blood―Faith assures you of this, even though your senses suggest otherwise.”
Visiting His Temple, Delighting in the Lord
“One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. That I may see the delight of the Lord, and may visit His temple” (Psalm 26:4). How many souls could truthfully say these words today? The houses of the Lord—the churches—are empty for most, if not all, the day. Few “see the delight of the Lord”—the Holy Eucharist—and “visit His temple”, the tabernacle.
Some souls might spend time in front of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and pride themselves upon it, but why do they not encourage and work ‘tooth-and-nail’ to try get others to do likewise, instead of just priding themselves upon their practices of piety. This smacks of the Pharisee, condemned by Our Lord in His parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, who self-righteously boasts: “And when ye pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, that love to stand and pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men” (Matthew 6:5). “Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: ‘O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican. I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess!’” (Luke 18:10-12).
Modern Day Pharisaical Boast
Today, the boast might be—“I go to Sunday Mass, whereas most Catholics no longer do! I say my Rosary every day, whereas 96% of Catholics do not!” Yet, to whom more is given, more is expected! We should not be comparing ourselves with the sinners below us, but with the saints above us. Then, our position will suddenly look weak and precarious! 96% of Catholics may not pray the Rosary every day, but St. Padre Pio was among those who did pray it every day—and he prayed anywhere from 30 to 50 Rosaries (150 to 250 decades) every day! “Ah, well!” you say, “That was Padre Pio! I am no priest and stigmatic! That’s an unfair example that you are trying to hoist upon us!” Okay! Well what about a little 9-year-old boy, Francisco Marto, one of seers at Fatima, who would also say many Rosaries each day and, like St. Padre Pio, was rarely seen without the Rosary beads in his little hands. “They that fear the Lord, will seek after the things that are well pleasing to Him” (Ecclesiasticus 2:19).
Sacrifice of the Mass—the Greatest Thing in the World
St. Leonard of Port Maurice (1676-1751), in his book The Hidden Treasure of the Holy Mass, writes: “The principal excellence of the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass consists in being essentially, and in the very highest degree, identical with that which was offered on the Cross of Calvary: with this sole difference, that the Sacrifice on the Cross was bloody, and made once for all, and did on that one occasion satisfy fully for all the sins of the world; while the Sacrifice of the Altar is an unbloody sacrifice.” Sadly, today, this notion of the Mass has been, at best, blurred; or, at worst, is no longer believed.
In 1957, 75% of Catholics attended Sunday Mass regularly each week. By 1965 this had dropped to 65%. In 2004, there were only 25% of Catholics attending Sunday Mass regularly each week. Most of the 15% or so, who attend weekly Mass today, are 50 years old or older.
As for belief in the Real Presence (Jesus Christ being really and truly present with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist and Blessed Sacrament), between 60% and 80% of Catholics believe that the Holy Eucharist is only symbolic and not the actual Body and Blood of Christ.
St. Leonard of Port Maurice continues: “Now, tell me whether, when you enter church to hear Mass, you thoroughly well consider that you are going up as it were to Calvary, to be present at the death of the Redeemer. If so, would you go with behavior so unsubdued, with dress so flaunting? If the Magdalene had gone to Calvary, to the foot of the Cross, all dressed out, perfumed, and adorned, as when she associated with her lovers, what would have been said of her? What, then, shall be said of you who go to Holy Mass as if you were going to a ball? But what shall be said if you profane those functions of most dread sanctity with nods and becks, with tattle, with laughter, with the petty attentions of courtship, or with graver sacrileges of thought, word, or deed? Wickedness is hideous at any time, and in any place; but sins committed during the time of Mass, and before the altar, draw down after them the curse of God.”
What is Your Mass Attendance Like?
Do you, and your family, approach the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass like you would Calvary? What is your preparation for Mass like? Read about St. Charbal Maklouf—a Maronite monk-priest—who had a great devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. That is all he lived for—he lived and said Mass in a cave, having been given permission to live a hermit-like existence. Already before sunrise, he would be at prayer—reciting his Divine Office (breviary) and other prayers in preparation for his 11:00 a.m. Mass. A monk would come up to his cave from the nearby monastery, to serve Mass and bring him a meager lunch. After Mass, he would spend at least one hour or even two, before eating his lunch, and would then return to his thanksgiving—which he continued into the early evening. Then he would begin his prayers of preparation for the next day’s Mass. His body lies incorrupt to this day.
On the Way to Mass
When you drive to Mass, what is the mood of the passengers in the car? Is it a prayerful mood, or a worldly mood—peppered with worldly or frivolous conversation, perhaps worldly music? If so, it weakens the notion of what the Sacrifice of the Mass is and the serious and awesome action you are about to take part in—there is no greater action taking place anywhere in the world, on any day, than that of the Mass. Perhaps passengers need to be told that henceforth, the approach to traveling to Sunday (daily/weekday) Masses will be different. Prayers could be said; hymns sung or played on the audio system; suitable spiritual material read out aloud; or at least spiritual conversations held.
Arrival Time for Mass
Do you arrive in plenty of time to make a proper preparation for Mass in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament? Let’s face it—it is GOD HIMSELF that you are visiting when you go to Mass! It is not a commemoration of Calvary; it is not a mere human action; it is not a social function—you are there TO SEE GOD. Is there enough time made for God, or is it a last minute arrival? Or if you do make it on time, does everyone actually GO INSIDE TO SPEAK TO GOD, or do they spend time chatting with other parishioners prior to Mass starting? Worldly talk, frivolous talk, socializing, joking around and laughing? If the Mass is a sacrifice, then sacrifice something yourself and get right in there! The answers to these questions show the value we place on God and whether or not He is “Number One” in our lives.
Assistance at Mass
How do we assist at Mass? Some people clearly show that, even though their bodies are present at Mass, their minds most certainly are not—they gaze around, fidget with their ‘little-ones’, keeping them entertained so that they don’t cry, etc. Others may have a Missal, prayer book or Rosary in their hands—but their heart can be lukewarm and they listlessly, carelessly and mechanically go through the motions of praying, fitting the description of Our Lord: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8). Lining up for Holy Communion is no different to lining up at the supermarket check-out—cold, indifferent, with no devotion or zeal.
Holy Communion
The reception of Holy Communion makes you wonder if they really believe that God is present—but of course between 60% and 80% of Catholics do not believe that He is present. Thanksgiving after Communion, if there is one, is frequently seen to be a mechanical repetition of the same old prayers, said without any real feeling and without any personal heart-to-heart conversation with the God that now rests within them! Once Mass is over, hardly anyone stays behind to continue their thanksgiving and to continue talking to their God—for friends beckon in the parking lot or the parish hall, and, instead of a tasteless Host, coffee and donuts with a variety of sweet fillings are available in the parish hall—and the early bird gets the best donuts! I guess the redeeming factor must be that the donut looks like a fat halo! Friends, coffee and donuts are “Number One”—“Number Two”—and “Number Three”—God came in fourth!
On this feast of Corpus Christi―which is a holy day of obligation in the Universal Calendar of the Church, but not observed as such in most countries―let us strive to rekindle our esteem, appreciation, love and manner of assistance at the greatest Treasure we have this side of Heaven. Let us strive to attend the Sacrifice of the Mass more often; to assist at it with greater reverence and fervor; to make better thanksgivings after Mass, and to visit Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament much more frequently.
If, with the eyes of Faith, we REALLY saw GOD PRESENT in the Holy Eucharist and in the Sacrifice of the Mass, then this should not be too hard. But if our eyes of Faith have become myopic, or even blind, then we will go the way of the majority. It is not a path that we should be taking, for it ends in misery.
Article 4
Monday June 5th & Tuesday June 6th, 2023
The Heart of the Mass
Monday June 5th & Tuesday June 6th, 2023
The Heart of the Mass
The Greatest Treasure
We hope that you are making some time to read through some of the wonderful ‘Faith-strengthening’ Eucharistic miracles that God has allowed to happen throughout the world in all centuries [Miracle of Lanciano and also Other Eucharistic Miracles]. Through such wondrous signs God calls souls to belief and conversion.
There are increasing numbers of Catholics who are refusing to believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Many think of the Eucharist as a mere symbol of Christ, and look upon the Mass as a mere commemoration of the Last Supper, and not the Sacrifice that it really and truly is! What an offense this must be to Our Lord! If already, in the more believing day of St. Margaret Mary (in the 1600s) Our Lord appeared to her and complained about the lack of love and devotion shown to Him—what would He have to say about our times?
Greatest Neglect
The Holy Eucharist is our “Greatest Treasure” and at the same time it is the modern era’s “Greatest Neglect.” It is impossible to identify the Holy Eucharist too closely with Jesus Christ. We should remember He is in the Holy Eucharist not merely with His substance. Some may say: “Transubstantiation means that the substance of bread and wine become the substance of Jesus Christ.”
No, it is not just an academic definition or philosophical explanation that is relegated to the memory banks of our mind—a cerebral thing. Transubstantiation means the substance of bread and wine are no longer there. The substance of bread and wine is replaced not only by the substance of Christ’s Body and Blood. What replaces the substance of bread and wine is Jesus Christ! Everything that makes Him Christ, replaces what had been the substance of bread and wine. The substance of bread and wine become the whole Christ—that is what we mean by “Body, Soul, Blood and Divinity”—the whole Christ, the living Christ. When we eat a piece of chicken, we have the substance of chicken, but it is a dead chicken. When we receive the Body of Christ in Holy Communion, it is not mere substance, nor a non-living substance, but the entire living substance of Christ!
Living Heart
Therefore, Christ in the Holy Eucharist is here with His human heart and His Sacred Heart. Is it a living heart? Yes! This is seen in the Miracles of Lanciano and Buenos Aires. This is also why the revelations Our Lord made to St. Margaret Mary about promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart were all made from the Holy Eucharist.
Why do we equate the Sacred Heart with the Holy Eucharist? Because the Holy Eucharist is the whole Christ with His human heart. According to St. Margaret Mary, the Sacred Heart is the Holy Eucharist. So it follows that devotion to the Sacred Heart is devotion to the Holy Eucharist. It is infinite Love Incarnate living in our midst in the Blessed Sacrament. When we receive the Holy Eucharist, we receive the living Christ—total, entire, living!
If Jesus causes the Host to become what science today has identified as a human heart—and especially a muscle of the heart that is responsible for the contraction of a human heart, a heart that suffers like that of someone who has been beaten severely about the chest—if He does such things, it is in order to arouse and enliven our Faith in His Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. He thus enables us to see that Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a re-presentation (that is to say, a making present once again) of the entire drama of our salvation: namely, Christ’s Passion and Death on Calvary―but now in an unbloody manner in the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Signs-a-Plenty
Jesus says to His disciples: “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe” (John 4:48). There is no need to actively seek out wondrous signs. But if Jesus chooses to give them to us, then we ought to accept them with meekness and humility in Faith, seeking to understand what He desires to tell us by them. Thanks to these signs, many people have discovered Faith in God—the One God in the Holy Trinity, Who reveals His Son to us: Jesus Christ, Who abides in the tabernacles of the world, Who worked through the Sacraments and Who teaches us through Holy Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church—the triple cord of our Faith, of which Scripture says: “a threefold cord is not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12).
Miracles Seekers Are Often Blind
We have the “Greatest Treasure” staring us in the face, yet we run around trying to fill our minds and hearts with lesser spiritual treasures. We run after apparitions, we study prophecies, we delight over relics, we travel to holy sites where Our Lady or Our Lord might have appeared once, twice or a few times—but the place where Our Lord appears every day, which is the Altar upon which Mass is said, we often leave neglected and we place it way down in our rankings of holy places and things to see and visit. The Imitation of Christ puts it thus:
“Many people travel far to honor the relics of the saints, marveling at their wonderful deeds and at the building of magnificent shrines. They gaze upon and kiss the sacred relics encased in silk and gold; and behold, You are here present before me on the Altar, my God, Saint of saints, Creator of men, and Lord of angels! Often in looking at such things, men are moved by curiosity, by the novelty of the unseen, and they bear away little fruit for the amendment of their lives, especially when they go from place to place lightly and without true contrition. But here in the Sacrament of the Altar You are wholly present, my God, the man Christ Jesus, whence is obtained the full realization of eternal salvation, as often as You are worthily and devoutly received.”
A Mystery that Surpasses our Understanding
The Holy Eucharist—the actual presence of the risen person of Jesus under the appearances of bread and wine—is one of the most important and most difficult truths, revealed to us by Christ. Eucharistic miracles are merely visible confirmations of what He tells us about Himself; namely, that He really does give us His glorified Body and Blood as spiritual food and drink.
Jesus established the Eucharist on the eve of His Passion and Death. During the Last Supper, “Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to His disciples, and said: ‘Take ye, and eat. This is My Body.’ And taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: ‘Drink ye all of this. For this is My Blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins’” (Matthew 26:26-28). When Jesus took and gave the Apostles the bread and wine, He said, “this is My Body….this is My Blood” by which He clearly meant that the bread and wine, which He gave them to eat and drink, really was His Body and Blood, and not some sort of symbol.
Jesus’ Eucharistic Sermon Shocks
Earlier, in the famous Eucharistic sermon recorded by St. John the Evangelist, Jesus said to the Jews: “Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For My Flesh is meat indeed: and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him’” (John 6:54-57).
Shocked by Jesus’ words, the Jews said, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” (John 6:53). Many of Jesus’ disciples were also scandalized. “This saying is hard, and who can hear it?” they objected. Knowing that the truth of the Eucharist was a shock and a scandal to many of His listeners, Jesus responded, not by retracting His words, but by raising the stakes: “Doth this scandalize you? The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life” (John 6: 62-63). Many refused to believe Him: “After this many of His disciples went back; and walked no more with Him” (John 6:67).
Today, we see a repeat of both the incredulity and disbelief in the Real Presence—with anywhere from 65% to 80% of Catholics no longer believing that Jesus is present in the Holy Eucharist—as well as a repeat of “many walked no more with Him”—as only around 15% to 20% come to Mass regularly on Sundays, for the rest it ends up being a “Sin-day” not a Sunday.
Jesus Throws Down the Gauntlet
Our Lord throws down the gauntlet of Faith before His Apostles, just as He does before us: “Then Jesus said to the Twelve: Will you also go away?” (John 6:68). St. Peter replies for them, and for us, with words of Faith—not understanding, but believing nevertheless—“Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known, that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God.” Here Jesus goes to the heart of the mystery, the “Eucharistic Heart” of the mystery and that “Eucharistic Heart” we still have with us in our tabernacles! But though Jesus is really in the tabernacle, is Faith really present in our hearts?
Not all Jesus’ listeners accepted His teaching of the Eucharist. Thus He turned to them, saying, “ ‘But there are some of you that believe not!’ Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray Him” (John 6:65). Judas’ betrayal began with his rejection of Jesus’ teaching about His real presence in the Eucharist. In confirmation of this fact, Jesus said, “‘Have not I chosen you Twelve; and one of you is a devil? Now He meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon―for this same man was about to betray Him, whereas he was one of the Twelve.” (John 6:71-72).
Lack of Faith Today
How many today have not betrayed their Faith in Christ by refusing to believe in His Real Presence—Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity—in the Holy Eucharist? How many refuse to believe that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is more than just a commemoration of the Last Supper, but is also, and more importantly, the unbloody re-offering of Jesus Christ’s Sacrifice on Calvary—in a way, a kind prolongation of that Sacrifice of Calvary throughout time.
The Eucharist is our Pillar of Faith. It is our strengthener and comfort in these increasingly evil days. The Eucharist is the Risen Jesus Himself in His glorified, and thus invisible, humanity. This is the essence of His teaching of the Eucharist (John 6:62-63). By its death and resurrection, the humanity of Jesus takes on a divine nature; it assumes a new order of existence: “For in Him dwells the whole fullness of the deity, bodily” (Colossians 2:9). In His glorified humanity, the Risen Jesus, becoming omnipresent, gives of Himself in the gift of the Eucharist. He shares with us, not only His life of suffering, but also His resurrected life and divine love, so that we may, even here on Earth, experience the reality of Heaven and partake of the life of the Holy Trinity.
Your Transubstantiation
He wishes to work a ‘transubstantiation’ of sorts in our minds and hearts—as He changes the Bread and Wine into Himself, so too does He wish to change us Body and Soul into Himself. Like He said to so many people while He walked upon this Earth: “Do you believe, that I can do this unto you?” (Matthew 9:28). We have to reply with the leper: “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst!” (Luke 5:11). Confronting the mystery of the Eucharist, human reason feels its impotence and limitations. Yet St. Cyril of Jerusalem exhorts us: “Do not see in the bread and wine merely natural elements, because the Lord has expressly said that they are His Body and His Blood―Faith assures you of this, even though your senses suggest otherwise.”
Visiting His Temple, Delighting in the Lord
“One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. That I may see the delight of the Lord, and may visit His temple” (Psalm 26:4). How many souls could truthfully say these words today? The houses of the Lord—the churches—are empty for most, if not all, the day. Few “see the delight of the Lord”—the Holy Eucharist—and “visit His temple”, the tabernacle.
Some souls might spend time in front of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and pride themselves upon it, but why do they not encourage and work ‘tooth-and-nail’ to try get others to do likewise, instead of just priding themselves upon their practices of piety. This smacks of the Pharisee, condemned by Our Lord in His parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, who self-righteously boasts: “And when ye pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, that love to stand and pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men” (Matthew 6:5). “Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: ‘O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican. I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess!’” (Luke 18:10-12).
Modern Day Pharisaical Boast
Today, the boast might be—“I go to Sunday Mass, whereas most Catholics no longer do! I say my Rosary every day, whereas 96% of Catholics do not!” Yet, to whom more is given, more is expected! We should not be comparing ourselves with the sinners below us, but with the saints above us. Then, our position will suddenly look weak and precarious! 96% of Catholics may not pray the Rosary every day, but St. Padre Pio was among those who did pray it every day—and he prayed anywhere from 30 to 50 Rosaries (150 to 250 decades) every day! “Ah, well!” you say, “That was Padre Pio! I am no priest and stigmatic! That’s an unfair example that you are trying to hoist upon us!” Okay! Well what about a little 9-year-old boy, Francisco Marto, one of seers at Fatima, who would also say many Rosaries each day and, like St. Padre Pio, was rarely seen without the Rosary beads in his little hands. “They that fear the Lord, will seek after the things that are well pleasing to Him” (Ecclesiasticus 2:19).
Sacrifice of the Mass—the Greatest Thing in the World
St. Leonard of Port Maurice (1676-1751), in his book The Hidden Treasure of the Holy Mass, writes: “The principal excellence of the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass consists in being essentially, and in the very highest degree, identical with that which was offered on the Cross of Calvary: with this sole difference, that the Sacrifice on the Cross was bloody, and made once for all, and did on that one occasion satisfy fully for all the sins of the world; while the Sacrifice of the Altar is an unbloody sacrifice.” Sadly, today, this notion of the Mass has been, at best, blurred; or, at worst, is no longer believed.
In 1957, 75% of Catholics attended Sunday Mass regularly each week. By 1965 this had dropped to 65%. In 2004, there were only 25% of Catholics attending Sunday Mass regularly each week. Most of the 15% or so, who attend weekly Mass today, are 50 years old or older.
As for belief in the Real Presence (Jesus Christ being really and truly present with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist and Blessed Sacrament), between 60% and 80% of Catholics believe that the Holy Eucharist is only symbolic and not the actual Body and Blood of Christ.
St. Leonard of Port Maurice continues: “Now, tell me whether, when you enter church to hear Mass, you thoroughly well consider that you are going up as it were to Calvary, to be present at the death of the Redeemer. If so, would you go with behavior so unsubdued, with dress so flaunting? If the Magdalene had gone to Calvary, to the foot of the Cross, all dressed out, perfumed, and adorned, as when she associated with her lovers, what would have been said of her? What, then, shall be said of you who go to Holy Mass as if you were going to a ball? But what shall be said if you profane those functions of most dread sanctity with nods and becks, with tattle, with laughter, with the petty attentions of courtship, or with graver sacrileges of thought, word, or deed? Wickedness is hideous at any time, and in any place; but sins committed during the time of Mass, and before the altar, draw down after them the curse of God.”
What is Your Mass Attendance Like?
Do you, and your family, approach the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass like you would Calvary? What is your preparation for Mass like? Read about St. Charbal Maklouf—a Maronite monk-priest—who had a great devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. That is all he lived for—he lived and said Mass in a cave, having been given permission to live a hermit-like existence. Already before sunrise, he would be at prayer—reciting his Divine Office (breviary) and other prayers in preparation for his 11:00 a.m. Mass. A monk would come up to his cave from the nearby monastery, to serve Mass and bring him a meager lunch. After Mass, he would spend at least one hour or even two, before eating his lunch, and would then return to his thanksgiving—which he continued into the early evening. Then he would begin his prayers of preparation for the next day’s Mass. His body lies incorrupt to this day.
On the Way to Mass
When you drive to Mass, what is the mood of the passengers in the car? Is it a prayerful mood, or a worldly mood—peppered with worldly or frivolous conversation, perhaps worldly music? If so, it weakens the notion of what the Sacrifice of the Mass is and the serious and awesome action you are about to take part in—there is no greater action taking place anywhere in the world, on any day, than that of the Mass. Perhaps passengers need to be told that henceforth, the approach to traveling to Sunday (daily/weekday) Masses will be different. Prayers could be said; hymns sung or played on the audio system; suitable spiritual material read out aloud; or at least spiritual conversations held.
Arrival Time for Mass
Do you arrive in plenty of time to make a proper preparation for Mass in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament? Let’s face it—it is GOD HIMSELF that you are visiting when you go to Mass! It is not a commemoration of Calvary; it is not a mere human action; it is not a social function—you are there TO SEE GOD. Is there enough time made for God, or is it a last minute arrival? Or if you do make it on time, does everyone actually GO INSIDE TO SPEAK TO GOD, or do they spend time chatting with other parishioners prior to Mass starting? Worldly talk, frivolous talk, socializing, joking around and laughing? If the Mass is a sacrifice, then sacrifice something yourself and get right in there! The answers to these questions show the value we place on God and whether or not He is “Number One” in our lives.
Assistance at Mass
How do we assist at Mass? Some people clearly show that, even though their bodies are present at Mass, their minds most certainly are not—they gaze around, fidget with their ‘little-ones’, keeping them entertained so that they don’t cry, etc. Others may have a Missal, prayer book or Rosary in their hands—but their heart can be lukewarm and they listlessly, carelessly and mechanically go through the motions of praying, fitting the description of Our Lord: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8). Lining up for Holy Communion is no different to lining up at the supermarket check-out—cold, indifferent, with no devotion or zeal.
Holy Communion
The reception of Holy Communion makes you wonder if they really believe that God is present—but of course between 60% and 80% of Catholics do not believe that He is present. Thanksgiving after Communion, if there is one, is frequently seen to be a mechanical repetition of the same old prayers, said without any real feeling and without any personal heart-to-heart conversation with the God that now rests within them! Once Mass is over, hardly anyone stays behind to continue their thanksgiving and to continue talking to their God—for friends beckon in the parking lot or the parish hall, and, instead of a tasteless Host, coffee and donuts with a variety of sweet fillings are available in the parish hall—and the early bird gets the best donuts! I guess the redeeming factor must be that the donut looks like a fat halo! Friends, coffee and donuts are “Number One”—“Number Two”—and “Number Three”—God came in fourth!
On this feast of Corpus Christi―which is a holy day of obligation in the Universal Calendar of the Church, but not observed as such in most countries―let us strive to rekindle our esteem, appreciation, love and manner of assistance at the greatest Treasure we have this side of Heaven. Let us strive to attend the Sacrifice of the Mass more often; to assist at it with greater reverence and fervor; to make better thanksgivings after Mass, and to visit Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament much more frequently.
If, with the eyes of Faith, we REALLY saw GOD PRESENT in the Holy Eucharist and in the Sacrifice of the Mass, then this should not be too hard. But if our eyes of Faith have become myopic, or even blind, then we will go the way of the majority. It is not a path that we should be taking, for it ends in misery.
We hope that you are making some time to read through some of the wonderful ‘Faith-strengthening’ Eucharistic miracles that God has allowed to happen throughout the world in all centuries [Miracle of Lanciano and also Other Eucharistic Miracles]. Through such wondrous signs God calls souls to belief and conversion.
There are increasing numbers of Catholics who are refusing to believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Many think of the Eucharist as a mere symbol of Christ, and look upon the Mass as a mere commemoration of the Last Supper, and not the Sacrifice that it really and truly is! What an offense this must be to Our Lord! If already, in the more believing day of St. Margaret Mary (in the 1600s) Our Lord appeared to her and complained about the lack of love and devotion shown to Him—what would He have to say about our times?
Greatest Neglect
The Holy Eucharist is our “Greatest Treasure” and at the same time it is the modern era’s “Greatest Neglect.” It is impossible to identify the Holy Eucharist too closely with Jesus Christ. We should remember He is in the Holy Eucharist not merely with His substance. Some may say: “Transubstantiation means that the substance of bread and wine become the substance of Jesus Christ.”
No, it is not just an academic definition or philosophical explanation that is relegated to the memory banks of our mind—a cerebral thing. Transubstantiation means the substance of bread and wine are no longer there. The substance of bread and wine is replaced not only by the substance of Christ’s Body and Blood. What replaces the substance of bread and wine is Jesus Christ! Everything that makes Him Christ, replaces what had been the substance of bread and wine. The substance of bread and wine become the whole Christ—that is what we mean by “Body, Soul, Blood and Divinity”—the whole Christ, the living Christ. When we eat a piece of chicken, we have the substance of chicken, but it is a dead chicken. When we receive the Body of Christ in Holy Communion, it is not mere substance, nor a non-living substance, but the entire living substance of Christ!
Living Heart
Therefore, Christ in the Holy Eucharist is here with His human heart and His Sacred Heart. Is it a living heart? Yes! This is seen in the Miracles of Lanciano and Buenos Aires. This is also why the revelations Our Lord made to St. Margaret Mary about promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart were all made from the Holy Eucharist.
Why do we equate the Sacred Heart with the Holy Eucharist? Because the Holy Eucharist is the whole Christ with His human heart. According to St. Margaret Mary, the Sacred Heart is the Holy Eucharist. So it follows that devotion to the Sacred Heart is devotion to the Holy Eucharist. It is infinite Love Incarnate living in our midst in the Blessed Sacrament. When we receive the Holy Eucharist, we receive the living Christ—total, entire, living!
If Jesus causes the Host to become what science today has identified as a human heart—and especially a muscle of the heart that is responsible for the contraction of a human heart, a heart that suffers like that of someone who has been beaten severely about the chest—if He does such things, it is in order to arouse and enliven our Faith in His Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. He thus enables us to see that Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a re-presentation (that is to say, a making present once again) of the entire drama of our salvation: namely, Christ’s Passion and Death on Calvary―but now in an unbloody manner in the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Signs-a-Plenty
Jesus says to His disciples: “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe” (John 4:48). There is no need to actively seek out wondrous signs. But if Jesus chooses to give them to us, then we ought to accept them with meekness and humility in Faith, seeking to understand what He desires to tell us by them. Thanks to these signs, many people have discovered Faith in God—the One God in the Holy Trinity, Who reveals His Son to us: Jesus Christ, Who abides in the tabernacles of the world, Who worked through the Sacraments and Who teaches us through Holy Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church—the triple cord of our Faith, of which Scripture says: “a threefold cord is not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12).
Miracles Seekers Are Often Blind
We have the “Greatest Treasure” staring us in the face, yet we run around trying to fill our minds and hearts with lesser spiritual treasures. We run after apparitions, we study prophecies, we delight over relics, we travel to holy sites where Our Lady or Our Lord might have appeared once, twice or a few times—but the place where Our Lord appears every day, which is the Altar upon which Mass is said, we often leave neglected and we place it way down in our rankings of holy places and things to see and visit. The Imitation of Christ puts it thus:
“Many people travel far to honor the relics of the saints, marveling at their wonderful deeds and at the building of magnificent shrines. They gaze upon and kiss the sacred relics encased in silk and gold; and behold, You are here present before me on the Altar, my God, Saint of saints, Creator of men, and Lord of angels! Often in looking at such things, men are moved by curiosity, by the novelty of the unseen, and they bear away little fruit for the amendment of their lives, especially when they go from place to place lightly and without true contrition. But here in the Sacrament of the Altar You are wholly present, my God, the man Christ Jesus, whence is obtained the full realization of eternal salvation, as often as You are worthily and devoutly received.”
A Mystery that Surpasses our Understanding
The Holy Eucharist—the actual presence of the risen person of Jesus under the appearances of bread and wine—is one of the most important and most difficult truths, revealed to us by Christ. Eucharistic miracles are merely visible confirmations of what He tells us about Himself; namely, that He really does give us His glorified Body and Blood as spiritual food and drink.
Jesus established the Eucharist on the eve of His Passion and Death. During the Last Supper, “Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to His disciples, and said: ‘Take ye, and eat. This is My Body.’ And taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: ‘Drink ye all of this. For this is My Blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins’” (Matthew 26:26-28). When Jesus took and gave the Apostles the bread and wine, He said, “this is My Body….this is My Blood” by which He clearly meant that the bread and wine, which He gave them to eat and drink, really was His Body and Blood, and not some sort of symbol.
Jesus’ Eucharistic Sermon Shocks
Earlier, in the famous Eucharistic sermon recorded by St. John the Evangelist, Jesus said to the Jews: “Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For My Flesh is meat indeed: and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him’” (John 6:54-57).
Shocked by Jesus’ words, the Jews said, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” (John 6:53). Many of Jesus’ disciples were also scandalized. “This saying is hard, and who can hear it?” they objected. Knowing that the truth of the Eucharist was a shock and a scandal to many of His listeners, Jesus responded, not by retracting His words, but by raising the stakes: “Doth this scandalize you? The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life” (John 6: 62-63). Many refused to believe Him: “After this many of His disciples went back; and walked no more with Him” (John 6:67).
Today, we see a repeat of both the incredulity and disbelief in the Real Presence—with anywhere from 65% to 80% of Catholics no longer believing that Jesus is present in the Holy Eucharist—as well as a repeat of “many walked no more with Him”—as only around 15% to 20% come to Mass regularly on Sundays, for the rest it ends up being a “Sin-day” not a Sunday.
Jesus Throws Down the Gauntlet
Our Lord throws down the gauntlet of Faith before His Apostles, just as He does before us: “Then Jesus said to the Twelve: Will you also go away?” (John 6:68). St. Peter replies for them, and for us, with words of Faith—not understanding, but believing nevertheless—“Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known, that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God.” Here Jesus goes to the heart of the mystery, the “Eucharistic Heart” of the mystery and that “Eucharistic Heart” we still have with us in our tabernacles! But though Jesus is really in the tabernacle, is Faith really present in our hearts?
Not all Jesus’ listeners accepted His teaching of the Eucharist. Thus He turned to them, saying, “ ‘But there are some of you that believe not!’ Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray Him” (John 6:65). Judas’ betrayal began with his rejection of Jesus’ teaching about His real presence in the Eucharist. In confirmation of this fact, Jesus said, “‘Have not I chosen you Twelve; and one of you is a devil? Now He meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon―for this same man was about to betray Him, whereas he was one of the Twelve.” (John 6:71-72).
Lack of Faith Today
How many today have not betrayed their Faith in Christ by refusing to believe in His Real Presence—Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity—in the Holy Eucharist? How many refuse to believe that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is more than just a commemoration of the Last Supper, but is also, and more importantly, the unbloody re-offering of Jesus Christ’s Sacrifice on Calvary—in a way, a kind prolongation of that Sacrifice of Calvary throughout time.
The Eucharist is our Pillar of Faith. It is our strengthener and comfort in these increasingly evil days. The Eucharist is the Risen Jesus Himself in His glorified, and thus invisible, humanity. This is the essence of His teaching of the Eucharist (John 6:62-63). By its death and resurrection, the humanity of Jesus takes on a divine nature; it assumes a new order of existence: “For in Him dwells the whole fullness of the deity, bodily” (Colossians 2:9). In His glorified humanity, the Risen Jesus, becoming omnipresent, gives of Himself in the gift of the Eucharist. He shares with us, not only His life of suffering, but also His resurrected life and divine love, so that we may, even here on Earth, experience the reality of Heaven and partake of the life of the Holy Trinity.
Your Transubstantiation
He wishes to work a ‘transubstantiation’ of sorts in our minds and hearts—as He changes the Bread and Wine into Himself, so too does He wish to change us Body and Soul into Himself. Like He said to so many people while He walked upon this Earth: “Do you believe, that I can do this unto you?” (Matthew 9:28). We have to reply with the leper: “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst!” (Luke 5:11). Confronting the mystery of the Eucharist, human reason feels its impotence and limitations. Yet St. Cyril of Jerusalem exhorts us: “Do not see in the bread and wine merely natural elements, because the Lord has expressly said that they are His Body and His Blood―Faith assures you of this, even though your senses suggest otherwise.”
Visiting His Temple, Delighting in the Lord
“One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. That I may see the delight of the Lord, and may visit His temple” (Psalm 26:4). How many souls could truthfully say these words today? The houses of the Lord—the churches—are empty for most, if not all, the day. Few “see the delight of the Lord”—the Holy Eucharist—and “visit His temple”, the tabernacle.
Some souls might spend time in front of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and pride themselves upon it, but why do they not encourage and work ‘tooth-and-nail’ to try get others to do likewise, instead of just priding themselves upon their practices of piety. This smacks of the Pharisee, condemned by Our Lord in His parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, who self-righteously boasts: “And when ye pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, that love to stand and pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men” (Matthew 6:5). “Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: ‘O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican. I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess!’” (Luke 18:10-12).
Modern Day Pharisaical Boast
Today, the boast might be—“I go to Sunday Mass, whereas most Catholics no longer do! I say my Rosary every day, whereas 96% of Catholics do not!” Yet, to whom more is given, more is expected! We should not be comparing ourselves with the sinners below us, but with the saints above us. Then, our position will suddenly look weak and precarious! 96% of Catholics may not pray the Rosary every day, but St. Padre Pio was among those who did pray it every day—and he prayed anywhere from 30 to 50 Rosaries (150 to 250 decades) every day! “Ah, well!” you say, “That was Padre Pio! I am no priest and stigmatic! That’s an unfair example that you are trying to hoist upon us!” Okay! Well what about a little 9-year-old boy, Francisco Marto, one of seers at Fatima, who would also say many Rosaries each day and, like St. Padre Pio, was rarely seen without the Rosary beads in his little hands. “They that fear the Lord, will seek after the things that are well pleasing to Him” (Ecclesiasticus 2:19).
Sacrifice of the Mass—the Greatest Thing in the World
St. Leonard of Port Maurice (1676-1751), in his book The Hidden Treasure of the Holy Mass, writes: “The principal excellence of the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass consists in being essentially, and in the very highest degree, identical with that which was offered on the Cross of Calvary: with this sole difference, that the Sacrifice on the Cross was bloody, and made once for all, and did on that one occasion satisfy fully for all the sins of the world; while the Sacrifice of the Altar is an unbloody sacrifice.” Sadly, today, this notion of the Mass has been, at best, blurred; or, at worst, is no longer believed.
In 1957, 75% of Catholics attended Sunday Mass regularly each week. By 1965 this had dropped to 65%. In 2004, there were only 25% of Catholics attending Sunday Mass regularly each week. Most of the 15% or so, who attend weekly Mass today, are 50 years old or older.
As for belief in the Real Presence (Jesus Christ being really and truly present with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist and Blessed Sacrament), between 60% and 80% of Catholics believe that the Holy Eucharist is only symbolic and not the actual Body and Blood of Christ.
St. Leonard of Port Maurice continues: “Now, tell me whether, when you enter church to hear Mass, you thoroughly well consider that you are going up as it were to Calvary, to be present at the death of the Redeemer. If so, would you go with behavior so unsubdued, with dress so flaunting? If the Magdalene had gone to Calvary, to the foot of the Cross, all dressed out, perfumed, and adorned, as when she associated with her lovers, what would have been said of her? What, then, shall be said of you who go to Holy Mass as if you were going to a ball? But what shall be said if you profane those functions of most dread sanctity with nods and becks, with tattle, with laughter, with the petty attentions of courtship, or with graver sacrileges of thought, word, or deed? Wickedness is hideous at any time, and in any place; but sins committed during the time of Mass, and before the altar, draw down after them the curse of God.”
What is Your Mass Attendance Like?
Do you, and your family, approach the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass like you would Calvary? What is your preparation for Mass like? Read about St. Charbal Maklouf—a Maronite monk-priest—who had a great devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. That is all he lived for—he lived and said Mass in a cave, having been given permission to live a hermit-like existence. Already before sunrise, he would be at prayer—reciting his Divine Office (breviary) and other prayers in preparation for his 11:00 a.m. Mass. A monk would come up to his cave from the nearby monastery, to serve Mass and bring him a meager lunch. After Mass, he would spend at least one hour or even two, before eating his lunch, and would then return to his thanksgiving—which he continued into the early evening. Then he would begin his prayers of preparation for the next day’s Mass. His body lies incorrupt to this day.
On the Way to Mass
When you drive to Mass, what is the mood of the passengers in the car? Is it a prayerful mood, or a worldly mood—peppered with worldly or frivolous conversation, perhaps worldly music? If so, it weakens the notion of what the Sacrifice of the Mass is and the serious and awesome action you are about to take part in—there is no greater action taking place anywhere in the world, on any day, than that of the Mass. Perhaps passengers need to be told that henceforth, the approach to traveling to Sunday (daily/weekday) Masses will be different. Prayers could be said; hymns sung or played on the audio system; suitable spiritual material read out aloud; or at least spiritual conversations held.
Arrival Time for Mass
Do you arrive in plenty of time to make a proper preparation for Mass in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament? Let’s face it—it is GOD HIMSELF that you are visiting when you go to Mass! It is not a commemoration of Calvary; it is not a mere human action; it is not a social function—you are there TO SEE GOD. Is there enough time made for God, or is it a last minute arrival? Or if you do make it on time, does everyone actually GO INSIDE TO SPEAK TO GOD, or do they spend time chatting with other parishioners prior to Mass starting? Worldly talk, frivolous talk, socializing, joking around and laughing? If the Mass is a sacrifice, then sacrifice something yourself and get right in there! The answers to these questions show the value we place on God and whether or not He is “Number One” in our lives.
Assistance at Mass
How do we assist at Mass? Some people clearly show that, even though their bodies are present at Mass, their minds most certainly are not—they gaze around, fidget with their ‘little-ones’, keeping them entertained so that they don’t cry, etc. Others may have a Missal, prayer book or Rosary in their hands—but their heart can be lukewarm and they listlessly, carelessly and mechanically go through the motions of praying, fitting the description of Our Lord: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8). Lining up for Holy Communion is no different to lining up at the supermarket check-out—cold, indifferent, with no devotion or zeal.
Holy Communion
The reception of Holy Communion makes you wonder if they really believe that God is present—but of course between 60% and 80% of Catholics do not believe that He is present. Thanksgiving after Communion, if there is one, is frequently seen to be a mechanical repetition of the same old prayers, said without any real feeling and without any personal heart-to-heart conversation with the God that now rests within them! Once Mass is over, hardly anyone stays behind to continue their thanksgiving and to continue talking to their God—for friends beckon in the parking lot or the parish hall, and, instead of a tasteless Host, coffee and donuts with a variety of sweet fillings are available in the parish hall—and the early bird gets the best donuts! I guess the redeeming factor must be that the donut looks like a fat halo! Friends, coffee and donuts are “Number One”—“Number Two”—and “Number Three”—God came in fourth!
On this feast of Corpus Christi―which is a holy day of obligation in the Universal Calendar of the Church, but not observed as such in most countries―let us strive to rekindle our esteem, appreciation, love and manner of assistance at the greatest Treasure we have this side of Heaven. Let us strive to attend the Sacrifice of the Mass more often; to assist at it with greater reverence and fervor; to make better thanksgivings after Mass, and to visit Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament much more frequently.
If, with the eyes of Faith, we REALLY saw GOD PRESENT in the Holy Eucharist and in the Sacrifice of the Mass, then this should not be too hard. But if our eyes of Faith have become myopic, or even blind, then we will go the way of the majority. It is not a path that we should be taking, for it ends in misery.
Article 4
Monday June 5th & Tuesday June 6th
The Sacred Heart Can Solve Your Problems
Monday June 5th & Tuesday June 6th
The Sacred Heart Can Solve Your Problems
Jesus Comes to Help Not Hurt
Jesus is more of a compassionate helper than a dispassionate judge. He Himself said: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! … I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … Go, then, and learn what this means ― ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice!’ ― For I am not come to call the just, but sinners!” (Luke 19:10; 5:32; Matthew 9:13).
To Sister Josefa Menendez (1890-1923; died aged 33)―a victim soul for Christ―Our Lord said: “The mercy of God is infinite and never refuses to forgive sinners! … Do you not know, Josefa, that the more wretched souls are, the more I love them! ... I love those who after a first fall come to Me for pardon.... I love them still more when they beg pardon for their second sin, and should this happen again―I do not say a million times, but a million million times―I still love them and pardon them, and I will wash in My Blood their last as fully as their first sin. Never shall I weary of repentant sinners, nor cease from hoping for their return, and the greater their distress, the greater My welcome ... I am a Father, but a Father full of compassion and never harsh! … Does not a father love a sick child with special affection? Are not his care and solicitude greater? So is the tenderness and compassion of My Heart more abundant for sinners than for the just! … I pursue sinners as justice pursues criminals. But justice seeks them in order to punish, I, in order to forgive! … Never does My Heart refuse to forgive a soul that humbles itself, especially when it asks with confidence! … My Heart is not so much wounded by sin, as it is torn with grief that sinners will not take refuge with Me after sinning! … Poor sinners, how blind they are! I want only to forgive them, and they seek only to offend Me! That is My great sorrow―that so many souls are lost and that they do not all come to Me to be forgiven!” (Words of Our Lord to Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love).
To another of His mystics, Sister Consolata Betrone (1903-1946)―Our Lord said: “Do not make Me out to be a God of rigor, whereas I am nothing but a God of Love! … Write: ‘The Gentle Heart of Jesus’ ― for everyone knows that I am holy, but not all know that I am gentle!” (Words of Our Lord to Sr. Consolata Betrone, Jesus Appeals to the World, by Fr. Lorenzo Sales, I.M.C.).
The Promises of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary
Our Lord―as the Sacred Heart of Jesus―appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque between 1673 and1675. We see the caring and helpful nature of Our Lord in the promises that He made to St. Margaret Mary. Among the words spoken to her, she heard Jesus make 12 promises to those who would respond to the pleading of His Heart and make an effort to return His love. St. Margaret Mary said of this devotion to the Sacred Heart: “I do not know of any other exercise in the spiritual life that is more calculated to raise a soul in a short amount of time to the height of perfection and to make it taste the true sweetness to be found in the service of Jesus Christ.” Here are those 12 Promises:
(1) I will give them all the graces necessary in their state of life.
(2) I will establish peace in their homes.
(3) I will comfort them in all their afflictions.
(4) I will be their secure refuge during life, and above all, in death.
(5) I will bestow abundant blessings upon all their undertakings.
(6) Sinners will find in My Heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy.
(7) Lukewarm souls shall become fervent.
(8) Fervent souls shall quickly mount to high perfection.
(9) I will bless every place in which an image of My Heart is exposed and honored.
(10) I will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts.
(11) Those who shall promote this devotion shall have their names written in My Heart.
(12) I promise you in the excessive mercy of My Heart that My all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on the First Fridays, in nine consecutive months, the grace of final perseverance; they shall not die in My disgrace, nor without receiving their Sacraments. My divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.
We have all seen those promises at some time or another―perhaps even many times―yet do we really appreciate what those promises are really saying and offering? For the most part―No! These promises are like a magnificent insurance policy for all our spiritual and temporal needs! Yet, like all insurance policies―there is a premium that we have to pay on our part. How do we pay? With what do we pay? The currency is love―the Sacred Heart seeks a return of love for the immense investment of love that He has made in each and every one of us. That is what Our Lord clearly made known in His words to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque:
“My Divine Heart is so passionately inflamed with love for men, that it can no longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its ardent charity, and needs spread them abroad! … Behold this Heart which has so loved men that It spared nothing, even going so far as to exhaust and consume Itself, to prove to them Its love! And in return I receive from the greater part of men nothing but ingratitude, by the contempt, irreverence, sacrileges and coldness with which they treat Me! … If they would only give Me some return of love, I should not reckon all that I have done for them, and I would do yet more if possible. But they have only coldness and contempt for all My endeavors to do them good. This is more grievous to Me than all that I endured in My Passion!”
The Currency of Heaven
Are you a great sinner? Have you an enormous debt of sin to pay off? How can you possibly pay it off? Heaven has given us the currency with which to pay off our debts―it is the currency of love! Our Lord points this out to us at the banquet of Simon the Pharisee:
“And behold a woman that was in the city, a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster box of ointment, and, standing behind at His feet, she began to wash His feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet and anointed them with the ointment. And the Pharisee, who had invited him, seeing it, spoke within himself, saying: ‘This man, if he were a prophet, would know surely who and what manner of woman this is that touches him―that she is a sinner!’ And Jesus answering, said to him: ‘Simon, I have something to say to you! But he said: ‘Master, say it!’ Jesus said: ‘A certain creditor had two debtors―the one who owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And whereas they had not wherewith to pay, he forgave them both. Which therefore of the two loved him most?’ Simon, answering, said: ‘I suppose that he to whom he forgave most!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘You have judged rightly!’ And turning to the woman, He said to Simon: ‘Do you see this woman? I entered into thy house and you gave me no water for my feet―but she, with tears, has washed My feet, and with her hairs has wiped them! You gave me no kiss―but she, since she came in, has not ceased to kiss My feet! My head with oil you did not anoint―but she, with ointment, hath anointed My feet! Wherefore I say to thee―Many sins are forgiven her because she has loved much!” (Luke 7:37-47).
If we have many sins that need forgiving―if we great debts for sin that need forgiving―then we need to show a great love towards the Sacred Heart by gratefully returning the love that He has shown to us! “For charity is of God―and every one that loves, is born of God, and knows God. He that does not love, does not know God―for God is charity! … Let us therefore love God, because God first has loved us!” (1 John 4:7-8). “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “For I am the Lord thy God, … showing mercy unto many thousands, to them that love Me and keep My commandments!” (Deuteronomy 5:10).
Our Lord Himself says: “As the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you! Abide in My love! If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love―as I also have kept My Father’s commandments and do abide in His love! … This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you!” (John 15:9-12). “Before all things, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves―for charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8) … “Charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12).
Without charity we are, so to speak, penniless to pay our debt for sin―“If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). “Let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deeds and in truth!” (1 John 3:18). Unfortunately, most Catholics love in word only, their tongues proclaim a love of God―but their actions cast a doubt on what their tongues are saying! It is of such that Our Lord says: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:23-24).
Love Pays Divine Dividends!
You have no doubt heard the saying: “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours!” Similarly, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!” which is based upon the Scriptural verses: “All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them!” (Matthew 7:12) … “As you would that men should do to you, do you also to them in like manner!” (Luke 6:31).
Fr. Bartholomew Gottemoller, O.C.S.O., in his book, Words of Love, has compiled a selection of quotes of the Sacred Heart that were made to three mystics―Sister Josefa Menendez (1890-1923; died aged 33); Sister Mary of the Trinity (1901-1942; died aged 41); and Sister Consolata Betrone (1903-1946; died aged 43). These extracts cover a wide variety of topics such as: Abandonment to God; God’s love for us; Love of God and neighbor; Confidence; Faith; Generosity; Holiness; Humility; Joy; Mercy; Prayer; Providence; Spiritual Life; Suffering; Trials & Temptations; and more besides.
A general theme or trend throughout all of this is the immense love of the Sacred Heart for us and His desire to everything to benefit our salvation in return for our fervent and focused love for Him. Here are just a few extracts that manifest this:
► TO SISTER JOSEFA MENENDEZ Our Lord said: “You must let yourself be controlled and guided by My fatherly hand, which is powerful and infinitely strong .... I will mold you as is best for My glory and for souls .... Do not fear, for I am looking after you with jealous care! … Do you think that anything happens without My permission? I dispose all things for the good of each and every soul … I want what you do not want, but I can do what you cannot do. It is not for you to choose, but to surrender! … If you could but understand My joy when souls leave Me free and by their deeds say: ‘Lord, Thou art the Master!’ Do you realize how much this comforts Me? Do you think that I am not glorified by it? … I can refuse nothing to one who relies entirely on Me! … I have no need of your strength, but I do need your surrender! … A soul who truly surrenders herself to Me gives Me so much joy that in spite of her miseries and imperfections she becomes a very heaven of delight to Me! … Have no fears, for your shortcomings are repaired by My Heart, and so are those of all souls!” (Words of Our Lord to Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love; quoted by Fr. Gottemoller in Words of Love).
► TO SISTER CONSOLATA BETRONE Our Lord said: “You must think only of loving Me! I will think of everything else, even to the smallest details! … I am thinking of everything, I am providing for everything down to the smallest detail ... Let Me do everything! You will see that I will do everything, and do it well! … Therefore, do not let one thought enter your mind, not one outside interest! .... The most important work is not that which you do, it is that which you allow Me to do … Have no fear! I am taking care of you! … Allow Me to do it all! I will do everything―but you should, at every moment, give Me with much love what I ask for! … I ask only that the soul love Me … Think no longer about yourself, about your perfection, on how to attain to sanctity, or about your defects, your present and future troubles! … Place no limits on your confidence in Me, then I will place no limits on My graces for you! … Do not make Me out to be a God of rigor, whereas I am nothing but a God of Love! … Write: ‘The Gentle Heart of Jesus’ ― for everyone knows that I am holy, but not all know that I am gentle!” (Sr. Consolata Betrone, Jesus Appeals to the World, by Lorenzo Sales, I.M.C.; quoted by Fr. Gottemoller in Words of Love).
► TO SISTER MARY OF THE HOLY TRINITY Our Lord said: “Let Me act―you are not competent to do anything! It is not your province! … Let go of all that is not necessary to you―all that does not lead you directly to Me … I would splendidly transform each one of your lives―but you oppose Me by your desires, your tastes, your resistance! My omnipotent Love is limited by the limit or lack of your generosity! … I can transform all ugliness into beauty―all poverty into spiritual wealth―all sin into a source of grace―all rancor into forgiveness―all bitterness into sweetness―all sadness into joy―all suffering into Redemption, when you give them to Me and let Me act! … With ruins, on ruins, I can build magnificently! … It is with coal that I make diamonds! What would I not do with a soul, however black she might be, who would give herself to Me … The best work that you can do is to obtain My cooperation—and, when you yourself have done all you could do, to then let Me act ... You must do all that you can, and it is only after that, that you can count infallibly on My help! … To those who ask with love, that is to say, with unlimited confidence, I cannot prevent Myself from granting even more, far more than what is asked! … I work with time … Let Me have the pleasure of defending you at the right time! … The future is Mine, what do you fear? … Most souls give Me their work and their talents—I have sufficient talents at My disposal! … The value of your existence is not in what you have done, or said, or suffered―it is in the part of your being that you have given to your Savior; in what you have allowed Me to do with you. Give Me your heart—and your heart means your whole life!” (Sr. Mary of the Trinity, The Spiritual Legacy of Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity, Fr. Silvere Van Den Broek, O.F.M.; quoted by Fr. Gottemoller in Words of Love).
Will You Love? Will You Burn? Or Will You Burn With Love?
The stakes are high and the rewards are high―but the demands are also high! The more you love, the more you get! The less you love, the less you get! “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). Or, as the modern equivalent says: “You get what you pay for!” If you are only going to pay peanuts, you will only get peanuts! Heaven is not cheap, neither is the debt for sin. Remember that most of the saints―apart from martyrs―do not go to Heaven immediately. As many saints and theologians tell us―most souls who make it to Heaven (and there are only saints in Heaven) have to pass through the fires of Purgatory first, in order to pay for any remaining debts for sin. That is why God often does not allow the required miracles to happen and be granted as a result of a particular saints intercession, until that “saint” in the making (in the fires of Purgatory) actually becomes a saint in reality by finally being admitted into Heaven. You can only avoid the fires of Purgatory by a fire of love―for perfect contrition (which is sorrow for sin based upon deep love for God) can not only take away the GUILT of sin, but also remove all the PUNISHMENT that is due for sin either in this world or in Purgatory.
Jesus is more of a compassionate helper than a dispassionate judge. He Himself said: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! … I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … Go, then, and learn what this means ― ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice!’ ― For I am not come to call the just, but sinners!” (Luke 19:10; 5:32; Matthew 9:13).
To Sister Josefa Menendez (1890-1923; died aged 33)―a victim soul for Christ―Our Lord said: “The mercy of God is infinite and never refuses to forgive sinners! … Do you not know, Josefa, that the more wretched souls are, the more I love them! ... I love those who after a first fall come to Me for pardon.... I love them still more when they beg pardon for their second sin, and should this happen again―I do not say a million times, but a million million times―I still love them and pardon them, and I will wash in My Blood their last as fully as their first sin. Never shall I weary of repentant sinners, nor cease from hoping for their return, and the greater their distress, the greater My welcome ... I am a Father, but a Father full of compassion and never harsh! … Does not a father love a sick child with special affection? Are not his care and solicitude greater? So is the tenderness and compassion of My Heart more abundant for sinners than for the just! … I pursue sinners as justice pursues criminals. But justice seeks them in order to punish, I, in order to forgive! … Never does My Heart refuse to forgive a soul that humbles itself, especially when it asks with confidence! … My Heart is not so much wounded by sin, as it is torn with grief that sinners will not take refuge with Me after sinning! … Poor sinners, how blind they are! I want only to forgive them, and they seek only to offend Me! That is My great sorrow―that so many souls are lost and that they do not all come to Me to be forgiven!” (Words of Our Lord to Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love).
To another of His mystics, Sister Consolata Betrone (1903-1946)―Our Lord said: “Do not make Me out to be a God of rigor, whereas I am nothing but a God of Love! … Write: ‘The Gentle Heart of Jesus’ ― for everyone knows that I am holy, but not all know that I am gentle!” (Words of Our Lord to Sr. Consolata Betrone, Jesus Appeals to the World, by Fr. Lorenzo Sales, I.M.C.).
The Promises of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary
Our Lord―as the Sacred Heart of Jesus―appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque between 1673 and1675. We see the caring and helpful nature of Our Lord in the promises that He made to St. Margaret Mary. Among the words spoken to her, she heard Jesus make 12 promises to those who would respond to the pleading of His Heart and make an effort to return His love. St. Margaret Mary said of this devotion to the Sacred Heart: “I do not know of any other exercise in the spiritual life that is more calculated to raise a soul in a short amount of time to the height of perfection and to make it taste the true sweetness to be found in the service of Jesus Christ.” Here are those 12 Promises:
(1) I will give them all the graces necessary in their state of life.
(2) I will establish peace in their homes.
(3) I will comfort them in all their afflictions.
(4) I will be their secure refuge during life, and above all, in death.
(5) I will bestow abundant blessings upon all their undertakings.
(6) Sinners will find in My Heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy.
(7) Lukewarm souls shall become fervent.
(8) Fervent souls shall quickly mount to high perfection.
(9) I will bless every place in which an image of My Heart is exposed and honored.
(10) I will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts.
(11) Those who shall promote this devotion shall have their names written in My Heart.
(12) I promise you in the excessive mercy of My Heart that My all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on the First Fridays, in nine consecutive months, the grace of final perseverance; they shall not die in My disgrace, nor without receiving their Sacraments. My divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.
We have all seen those promises at some time or another―perhaps even many times―yet do we really appreciate what those promises are really saying and offering? For the most part―No! These promises are like a magnificent insurance policy for all our spiritual and temporal needs! Yet, like all insurance policies―there is a premium that we have to pay on our part. How do we pay? With what do we pay? The currency is love―the Sacred Heart seeks a return of love for the immense investment of love that He has made in each and every one of us. That is what Our Lord clearly made known in His words to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque:
“My Divine Heart is so passionately inflamed with love for men, that it can no longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its ardent charity, and needs spread them abroad! … Behold this Heart which has so loved men that It spared nothing, even going so far as to exhaust and consume Itself, to prove to them Its love! And in return I receive from the greater part of men nothing but ingratitude, by the contempt, irreverence, sacrileges and coldness with which they treat Me! … If they would only give Me some return of love, I should not reckon all that I have done for them, and I would do yet more if possible. But they have only coldness and contempt for all My endeavors to do them good. This is more grievous to Me than all that I endured in My Passion!”
The Currency of Heaven
Are you a great sinner? Have you an enormous debt of sin to pay off? How can you possibly pay it off? Heaven has given us the currency with which to pay off our debts―it is the currency of love! Our Lord points this out to us at the banquet of Simon the Pharisee:
“And behold a woman that was in the city, a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster box of ointment, and, standing behind at His feet, she began to wash His feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet and anointed them with the ointment. And the Pharisee, who had invited him, seeing it, spoke within himself, saying: ‘This man, if he were a prophet, would know surely who and what manner of woman this is that touches him―that she is a sinner!’ And Jesus answering, said to him: ‘Simon, I have something to say to you! But he said: ‘Master, say it!’ Jesus said: ‘A certain creditor had two debtors―the one who owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And whereas they had not wherewith to pay, he forgave them both. Which therefore of the two loved him most?’ Simon, answering, said: ‘I suppose that he to whom he forgave most!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘You have judged rightly!’ And turning to the woman, He said to Simon: ‘Do you see this woman? I entered into thy house and you gave me no water for my feet―but she, with tears, has washed My feet, and with her hairs has wiped them! You gave me no kiss―but she, since she came in, has not ceased to kiss My feet! My head with oil you did not anoint―but she, with ointment, hath anointed My feet! Wherefore I say to thee―Many sins are forgiven her because she has loved much!” (Luke 7:37-47).
If we have many sins that need forgiving―if we great debts for sin that need forgiving―then we need to show a great love towards the Sacred Heart by gratefully returning the love that He has shown to us! “For charity is of God―and every one that loves, is born of God, and knows God. He that does not love, does not know God―for God is charity! … Let us therefore love God, because God first has loved us!” (1 John 4:7-8). “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “For I am the Lord thy God, … showing mercy unto many thousands, to them that love Me and keep My commandments!” (Deuteronomy 5:10).
Our Lord Himself says: “As the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you! Abide in My love! If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love―as I also have kept My Father’s commandments and do abide in His love! … This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you!” (John 15:9-12). “Before all things, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves―for charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8) … “Charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12).
Without charity we are, so to speak, penniless to pay our debt for sin―“If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). “Let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deeds and in truth!” (1 John 3:18). Unfortunately, most Catholics love in word only, their tongues proclaim a love of God―but their actions cast a doubt on what their tongues are saying! It is of such that Our Lord says: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:23-24).
Love Pays Divine Dividends!
You have no doubt heard the saying: “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours!” Similarly, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!” which is based upon the Scriptural verses: “All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them!” (Matthew 7:12) … “As you would that men should do to you, do you also to them in like manner!” (Luke 6:31).
Fr. Bartholomew Gottemoller, O.C.S.O., in his book, Words of Love, has compiled a selection of quotes of the Sacred Heart that were made to three mystics―Sister Josefa Menendez (1890-1923; died aged 33); Sister Mary of the Trinity (1901-1942; died aged 41); and Sister Consolata Betrone (1903-1946; died aged 43). These extracts cover a wide variety of topics such as: Abandonment to God; God’s love for us; Love of God and neighbor; Confidence; Faith; Generosity; Holiness; Humility; Joy; Mercy; Prayer; Providence; Spiritual Life; Suffering; Trials & Temptations; and more besides.
A general theme or trend throughout all of this is the immense love of the Sacred Heart for us and His desire to everything to benefit our salvation in return for our fervent and focused love for Him. Here are just a few extracts that manifest this:
► TO SISTER JOSEFA MENENDEZ Our Lord said: “You must let yourself be controlled and guided by My fatherly hand, which is powerful and infinitely strong .... I will mold you as is best for My glory and for souls .... Do not fear, for I am looking after you with jealous care! … Do you think that anything happens without My permission? I dispose all things for the good of each and every soul … I want what you do not want, but I can do what you cannot do. It is not for you to choose, but to surrender! … If you could but understand My joy when souls leave Me free and by their deeds say: ‘Lord, Thou art the Master!’ Do you realize how much this comforts Me? Do you think that I am not glorified by it? … I can refuse nothing to one who relies entirely on Me! … I have no need of your strength, but I do need your surrender! … A soul who truly surrenders herself to Me gives Me so much joy that in spite of her miseries and imperfections she becomes a very heaven of delight to Me! … Have no fears, for your shortcomings are repaired by My Heart, and so are those of all souls!” (Words of Our Lord to Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love; quoted by Fr. Gottemoller in Words of Love).
► TO SISTER CONSOLATA BETRONE Our Lord said: “You must think only of loving Me! I will think of everything else, even to the smallest details! … I am thinking of everything, I am providing for everything down to the smallest detail ... Let Me do everything! You will see that I will do everything, and do it well! … Therefore, do not let one thought enter your mind, not one outside interest! .... The most important work is not that which you do, it is that which you allow Me to do … Have no fear! I am taking care of you! … Allow Me to do it all! I will do everything―but you should, at every moment, give Me with much love what I ask for! … I ask only that the soul love Me … Think no longer about yourself, about your perfection, on how to attain to sanctity, or about your defects, your present and future troubles! … Place no limits on your confidence in Me, then I will place no limits on My graces for you! … Do not make Me out to be a God of rigor, whereas I am nothing but a God of Love! … Write: ‘The Gentle Heart of Jesus’ ― for everyone knows that I am holy, but not all know that I am gentle!” (Sr. Consolata Betrone, Jesus Appeals to the World, by Lorenzo Sales, I.M.C.; quoted by Fr. Gottemoller in Words of Love).
► TO SISTER MARY OF THE HOLY TRINITY Our Lord said: “Let Me act―you are not competent to do anything! It is not your province! … Let go of all that is not necessary to you―all that does not lead you directly to Me … I would splendidly transform each one of your lives―but you oppose Me by your desires, your tastes, your resistance! My omnipotent Love is limited by the limit or lack of your generosity! … I can transform all ugliness into beauty―all poverty into spiritual wealth―all sin into a source of grace―all rancor into forgiveness―all bitterness into sweetness―all sadness into joy―all suffering into Redemption, when you give them to Me and let Me act! … With ruins, on ruins, I can build magnificently! … It is with coal that I make diamonds! What would I not do with a soul, however black she might be, who would give herself to Me … The best work that you can do is to obtain My cooperation—and, when you yourself have done all you could do, to then let Me act ... You must do all that you can, and it is only after that, that you can count infallibly on My help! … To those who ask with love, that is to say, with unlimited confidence, I cannot prevent Myself from granting even more, far more than what is asked! … I work with time … Let Me have the pleasure of defending you at the right time! … The future is Mine, what do you fear? … Most souls give Me their work and their talents—I have sufficient talents at My disposal! … The value of your existence is not in what you have done, or said, or suffered―it is in the part of your being that you have given to your Savior; in what you have allowed Me to do with you. Give Me your heart—and your heart means your whole life!” (Sr. Mary of the Trinity, The Spiritual Legacy of Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity, Fr. Silvere Van Den Broek, O.F.M.; quoted by Fr. Gottemoller in Words of Love).
Will You Love? Will You Burn? Or Will You Burn With Love?
The stakes are high and the rewards are high―but the demands are also high! The more you love, the more you get! The less you love, the less you get! “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). Or, as the modern equivalent says: “You get what you pay for!” If you are only going to pay peanuts, you will only get peanuts! Heaven is not cheap, neither is the debt for sin. Remember that most of the saints―apart from martyrs―do not go to Heaven immediately. As many saints and theologians tell us―most souls who make it to Heaven (and there are only saints in Heaven) have to pass through the fires of Purgatory first, in order to pay for any remaining debts for sin. That is why God often does not allow the required miracles to happen and be granted as a result of a particular saints intercession, until that “saint” in the making (in the fires of Purgatory) actually becomes a saint in reality by finally being admitted into Heaven. You can only avoid the fires of Purgatory by a fire of love―for perfect contrition (which is sorrow for sin based upon deep love for God) can not only take away the GUILT of sin, but also remove all the PUNISHMENT that is due for sin either in this world or in Purgatory.
Article 3
Holy Trinity Sunday June 4th, 2023
The Holy Trinity in Your Life?
Holy Trinity Sunday June 4th, 2023
The Holy Trinity in Your Life?
We Know in Part
The Holy Trinity is a mystery that cannot be fully understood or explained. If anyone professes to you that they fully understand the Holy Trinity—call for a doctor and keep the patient calm and restrained! However, though we cannot fully grasp, understand and explain the Trinity in its inexhaustible depth, we can, nevertheless, grasp something about the Trinity that helps our frail and finite human reason have some idea of this impenetrable mystery.
A supernatural mystery is a truth which we cannot fully understand, but which we firmly believe because we have God’s word for it. A supernatural mystery is above reason, but not contrary to it. No man can explain a mystery; neither can anyone know it unless it is revealed by God. “Great art thou, O Lord, in counsel, and incomprehensible in thought” (Jeremias 32:19).
It is not unreasonable to believe in a supernatural mystery. There are many natural mysteries around us that no one has yet been able to explain, yet we believe them: electricity, magnetism, force, and many of the processes of life. The doctrine of the Blessed Trinity is a strict mystery; that is, we cannot learn it from reason, nor understand it completely, even after it has been revealed to us.
Some Things We Just Cannot Understand
The doctrine contains two truths our reason cannot fully understand: (1) that there is only one God; and (2) that each of the three Persons is God. We can understand each of these truths separately, but not when taken together. The mystery of the Blessed Trinity is not a contradiction. We do not say that there are three gods in one God, nor that the three divine Persons are one Person.
We only say that there are three Persons in one God, that is, three Persons, and one nature or essence. Somewhat similarly, the soul of man has will, understanding, and memory, but it is only one soul. Also, the sun has form, light, and heat, but it is only one sun. Three flames put together make only one flame.
This is why saints like Patrick would use a three-leaf-clover to give the Irish a basic grasp of this mystery, telling them that the Trinity was One God, but Three Persons—like the clover had one stem, but three leaves that came forth from the same stem. One could humanize this botanical example and present the hypothesis of, not Siamese-Twins, but imagine instead Siamese-Triplets! Three-in-one. One being, yet three separate persons! Yet, in the order of nature, this would not be a perfection, but an imperfection—with God there is no such imperfection with its consequent limitations and restraints. Analogies are always imperfect and impractical, even though they help somewhat in understanding a concept.
Eh? What is it?
What do we mean by the Blessed Trinity? The technical, theological, catechetical answer would be: “By the Blessed Trinity we mean one and the same God in three divine Persons.” The Athanasian Creed, which was composed in order to refute the Arian heresy, which held that the Jesus Christ was not fully God, says the following:
“So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity nothing is afore or after, nothing is greater or less; but the whole three Persons are co-eternal together, and co-equal. So that in all things, as in aforesaid, the unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in unity is to be worshiped’’ (Extract from the Athanasian Creed ).
Job Description
The Father is God and the First Person of the Blessed Trinity. Omnipotence, and especially the work of creation, is attributed to God the Father. God the Father could have created millions of beings instead of you yourself; but He chose you out of a love wholly undeserved, saying, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jeremias 31:3). Let us then cry in thanksgiving, “Abba, Father!” (Romans 8:15). Let us show our gratitude by avoiding all that could displease God the Father, by trying to please Him with virtue, by trying to attain an ever greater perfection, in obedience to that command Our Lord’s: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
The Son is God and the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. To God the Son we owe our redemption from sin and eternal death; by His death He gave us life. For us God the Son debased Himself, taking the form of a servant ... “becoming obedient to death, even to death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). In Holy Communion we are united with Him, for He Himself said: “He who eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, abides in Me and I in him” (John 6:57). In return we should be “other Christs,” and, as the Apostle urged, “walk even as He walked.”
The Holy Ghost is God and the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. He manifests Himself in us particularly in our sanctification. The word “Ghost” applied to the Third Person means “Spirit.” In Latin, the word used in “Spiritus.”
At our Baptism God the Holy Ghost purifies us from all sin and fills our souls with divine grace, so that we become truly children of God, sons and heirs, and co-heirs with Jesus Christ. By Baptism, through the reception of sanctifying grace, we become living temples of the Holy Ghost: “Or do you not know that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
Trinitarian Spiritual Life
The Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, can be found to symbolized or reflected in the Three Conversions of the Spiritual Life (cf. the book of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange under that title). The first way, or first conversion, which is called the Way of Beginners or the Purgative Way, can be seen to symbolize God the Father, the Creator, Who creates our soul and sets it out on its path which is intended to lead to Heaven. The second way, or second conversion, which is called the Way of Proficients or the Illuminative Way, can be seen to symbolize Jesus Christ, Who is the Light of the World. The third way, or the third conversion, which is called the Way of the Perfect or the Unitive Way, can be seen to symbolize the Holy Ghost, Who is the Spirit of Unity and Love, that passes to and fro between the Father and the Son, and is meant to lead us to perfection.
It Comes In Threes!
We know of the saying--“It comes in threes!” This is especially true with God! The Holy Trinity is three Persons in One God. That number “Three” is an ever recurring motif that crops-up all throughout our Faith and Holy Scripture. So many important things “come in threes”.
► Besides the three Persons of the Holy Trinity―God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost―we also have the three persons of the Holy Family, which reflect the Trinity on Earth—Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
► The Holy Family essentially lived in three places—Bethlehem, Egypt and Nazareth.
► Our Lord chose to live through all three stages of a human life—childhood, adolescence and adulthood.
► We see the three Magi bring three gifts to Jesus at Bethlehem.
► We read of the three temptations Jesus undergoes from Satan after his 40-day fast in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13)―whereby the devil tempts Him to change stone into bread; to cast Himself from the pinnacle of the Temple; and to bow down and adore him in exchange for all the kingdoms of the world, of which the devil is prince (John 12:31; 14:30).
► Similarly we have, what are called, “the three concupiscences”—“All that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16)
► There are three persons that the Gospels recount of Jesus raising from the dead—Jair’s daughter, the son of the widow of Naim, and Lazarus; we have three persons in a family that Scripture says Jesus loved—Martha, Mary and Lazarus.
► As for the life of Jesus on Earth, it is generally accepted that Jesus lived to the aged of 33 before being killed.
► We speak of the three years of His Public Ministry.
► Our Lord had His three favorite Apostles—Peter, James and John.
► When Christ transfigures on Mount Thabor, flanked by Moses and Elias, in the bewildered presence of Peter, James and John, Peter offers to build three tents there—“if Thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles [meaning: tents], one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias” (Matthew 17:4).
► There is also the triple refusal of Our Lord to the Canaanite woman, before finally granting her wish.
► In the Parable of the Talents, Jesus uses the example of three servants who are given money by their master (Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:12-26).
► Our Lord gives us a “three strikes and you’re out” rule for the correction of sinners: “If thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother. And if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more: that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. And if he will not hear them: tell the Church. And if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican!” (Matthew 18:15-17).
► Similarly, there is the triple denial of Our Lord by St. Peter during the Passion and Our Lord’s triple questioning of St. Peter, after the Resurrection, as to whether or not Peter loved Him.
► Judas “sells” and betrays Jesus for thirty pieces of silver―3x10.
► Our Lord prayed three times in the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest.
► Our Lord underwent a triple judgment by the High Priests, by Pilate and by Herod.
► Tradition has Our Lord falling three times as He carried His cross to Calvary.
► On Calvary, there were three crosses of Jesus and the two thieves.
► At the foot of Christ’s cross there stood three chief followers―Our Lady, St. John and St. Mary Magdalen.
► Another perspective speaks of the “three Marys” on Calvary—“Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother [Mary], and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen” (John 19:25).
► Our Lord spent three days in the tomb—Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday.
The Number Three in Holy Scripture
► There are many more instances in His life where the number “three” plays a part. The number 3 is used 467 times in the Bible.
► The number “three” represents completeness, though to a lesser degree than the number 7. The meaning of the number 3 derives from the fact that it is the first of four spiritually perfect numerals (the others being 7, 10 and 12). There are 27 books in the New Testament, which is 3x3x3, or completeness to the third power.
► Some authors are of the opinion that there were 3 patriarchs before the flood―Abel, Enoch and Noe. After the deluge the 3 patriarchs were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (later renamed Israel).
► Noe had three sons: “And he begot three sons, Sem, Cham, and Japheth … Noe, and Sem, and Cham, and Japheth his sons: his wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, went into the ark” (Genesis 6:10; 7:13).
► The Lord appeared to Abraham under the guise of three men: “The Lord appeared to him in the vale of Mambre as he was sitting at the door of his tent, in the very heat of the day. And when he had lifted up his eyes, there appeared to him three men standing near him” (Genesis 18:1-2).
► There are the three young men that King Nabuchodonosor (Nebuchadnezzar) cast into the fire, but who remained unharmed under the protection of an angel of God.
► We have Gedeon’s famous “three hundred” soldiers―Gedeon ”divided the three hundred men into three parts, and gave them three things: (1) trumpets in their hands, and (2) empty pitchers, and (3) lamps within the pitchers” (Judges 7:16).
► “Jonas was in the whale's belly three days and three nights: so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights” (Matthew 12:40).
► We see strength symbolized by the number three in the verse: “a threefold cord is not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12).
The Number Three in Faith, Liturgy & Sacraments
► In the Faith, we have the three theological virtues—Faith, Hope and Charity.
► We have the three main Archangels—St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael.
► There are three hierarchies of angels, each with three choirs, giving a total of nine choirs. The highest hierarchy are the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones who are associated with the specific functions of love, knowledge, and power. In the middle hierarchy there are Dominations, Virtues, and Powers, who are associated with the universal governance of creation. And the lower hierarchy consists of Principalities, Archangels, and Angels, concerned with the direct administration of creatures in the world.
► In the liturgy of Holy Week, we have the sacred “Triduum” (Three Days)—meaning Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.
► There are the three essential parts of the Mass—the Offertory, the Consecration (Canon) and the Communion.
► We have the three places of Heaven, Purgatory and Hell.
► Then we have the three locations of the Church—the Church Militant on Earth; the Church Suffering in Purgatory and the Church Triumphant in Heaven.
► We can also consider the three chief kinds of saints—the martyrs, the virgins and the confessors.
► There are the three stages of the spiritual life that everyone must pass through before they are allowed into Heaven—the Way of Beginners or the Purgative Way; the Way of Proficients or the Illuminative Way; and the Way of the Perfect or the Unitive Way.
► With regard to sins, we have Original Sin, Mortal Sin and Actual Sin. We say, in the Confiteor (the ”I confess to Almighty God” etc.) that we sin three ways—in our thoughts, words and deeds, and we then strike our breast three times.
► With regard to mortal sin, there are the three essential conditions that must be present for a sin to mortal—(1) the action, word or thought must seriously wrong; (2) we must know that it is seriously wrong at the time we do it; and (3) we must full agree to do it.
► Also, we have the three chief feasts of the Liturgical Year—Christmas, Easter and Pentecost.
► In regard to the Sacraments, there are three essential requirements—valid matter, valid form and right intention.
► In regard to the Sacrament of Baptism, there are three Persons of the Holy Trinity in Whose Name we are baptized—Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
► Also with regard to the Sacrament of Baptism, there are the three minor exorcisms that are performed upon the baptismal candidate in the Rite of Baptism for Adults.
► As regards the Sacraments, there are three Sacraments—Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders―that can be received only once because they imprint on the soul a spiritual mark, called a character, which lasts forever.
In relation to the Holy Eucharist and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the number three is present in many ways.
► Just as the Holy Trinity is one God but three Divine Persons, the Holy Eucharist is Jesus Christ, but can be seen under three forms: (1) The Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist in the Holy Mass, whereby Jesus feeds us with Himself; (2) The Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist in the Holy Mass, whereby Jesus re-presents His Sacrifice of Calvary once more in an unbloody manner; (3) The Holy Eucharist outside of Holy Mass, whereby Jesus resides in the tabernacle, almost like the cave at Bethlehem, as the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.
► In former days, in a Solemn High Mass, there would be three major ministers at the altar: (1) the priest, (2) the deacon and (3) the subdeacon—thus echoing the Holy Trinity as ministers of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
► For centuries, until the late 1960’s, when the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was changed, the Confiteor (the ”I confess to Almighty God” etc.) would be recited three times in the Mass—once by the priest, then immediately after that by the altar servers (and congregation), and thirdly just before Holy Communion again by the altar servers (and congregation).
► Moments after the third Confiteor, as the priest held up the Host, the people in unison with the priest, say three times the Domine non sum dignus (Lord I am not worthy, etc.), while once again striking the breast three times.
► There are three essential requirements for the reception of the Holy Eucharist: (1) One must be a baptized Catholic having attained the age reason; (2) one must be free from mortal sin, i.e. in a state of grace, and (3) one must have kept the required Eucharistic fast time prior to receiving the Holy Eucharist.
► We have three parts to the day—morning, afternoon and evening. While during the night, the Divine Office of the Church’s liturgy has three nocturns of prayer throughout the night. If we have a “midnight” then there must also be first part of the night, then the middle part and finally an end part to the night.
► St. Thomas Aquinas also speaks of the three kinds of work in ascending order of difficulty—the easiest being physical work; even harder is intellectual work; but the hardest work of all is spiritual work.
With a little bit of reflection, you will find many more example of the number “three” scattered throughout Holy Scripture and the Faith.
Secular Threes
Even the secular world has many “threesomes” that can remind us of the Holy Trinity!
► The working day is often divided into three 8-hour shifts.
► In school we were taught to write essays that had 3 parts ― a beginning, a middle and an end.
► In evaluating or looking at time, we have 3 elements ― the past, the present and the future.
► We have the 3 primary colors ― red, yellow and blue.
► In the sport of baseball, there is the rule where the batter is allowed two strikes; a third strike results in an out, commonly called a strikeout.
► In US Law, the “Three Strikes” law was enacted in 1994 and imposes a life sentence for almost any felony after two prior convictions for serious or violent felonies. Your third strike under this law doubles the prison sentence of your third offense. This third offense doesn’t have to be a violent or serious felony; only the first two strikes do.
What’s the Point?
Three is a perfect number and the Holy Trinity is perfection itself. The number “three” can be a profitable subject of study, or it can “bore you to death”. You can linger over it like shopping for, preparing and enjoying a delicious meal, or you can rush through it, just like driving to “fast-food-joint”, going through the “drive-thru” and eating your “fast burger” in the parking lot—it is your choice. Most people today want a “drive-thru” religion, with “fast-thru-sermons”, “fast-thru-communions”, “fast-thru-thanksgivings”, “fast-thru-Rosaries”, etc. That kind of an attitude does not manifest very much love—yet love is what the Holy Trinity is all about. The whole point of our spiritual life is that we should be loving God and growing in that love of God, to the point where we finally can “love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment” (Mark 12:30).
God is—above all things—charity: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). Charity, strictly speaking, is a love of God—and in God there are three Persons. If that love of the Holy Trinity is not there, then nothing is there—as St. Paul rightly writes: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Loving God Needs Proof of Love
That love of God—the Holy Trinity—begins with the keeping of the commandments of God, that is the very foundation of a love of God, the beginnings of a love of God—it is a litmus-test as to how much or how little you love, depending on how much or how little you keep God’s commandments: “If you love Me, keep My commandments ... He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me. And he that loves Me, shall be loved of My Father: and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him. If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him. He that loves Me not, keeps not My words” (John 14:15-24).
This Soul Ain’t Big Enough For All of Us
If the world occupies your heart and soul, the Holy Trinity can find no dwelling space within your soul—there is “no room for Them at the inn!” Yet, if you “seek first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33), and “let the word of Christ dwell in you” (Colossians 3:16) then the Holy Trinity will come and dwell within you. “If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and my Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him” (John 14:23). Creation is attributed to God the Father; redemption to God the Son; and sanctification to God the Holy Ghost. Likewise, the Holy Trinity wants to create a temple for Itself within us; in order to sacrifice within that temple; and to sanctify that temple.
Temple of God
“Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). “Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners; but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone. In Whom all the building, being framed together, grows up into an holy temple in the Lord. In Whom you also are built together into a habitation of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19-22).
“But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are” (1 Corinthians 3:17). “And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves: And He said to them: ‘It is written, “My house shall be called the house of prayer!” but you have made it a den of thieves’” (Matthew 21:12-23).
God the Father—Real Presence in Creation
The Catechism tells us that God is everywhere by His Power, Presence and Essence. St. Paul says: “For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; His eternal power also, and divinity” (Romans 1:20). Yet all around us the work of God the Father is ignored—we ignore or take God the Father’s creation for granted! We are continually moving about in what might be called “God’s World” — where we are constantly surrounded by God’s creation. It is not as though we had to get onto another planet to find and give glory to God. In fact, we are outdone in the singing of praises of God by our lesser ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’!
God is glorified in all His creation, and not only in human beings who can use their minds to speak His praises. Nature praises Him because it gets its existence from Him and works according to His laws. Each separate piece of God’s creation, by existing in the kind of existence God means it to have, gives glory to God. This idea of everything having on it the glow of God’s look — like the warmth of the sun showing in a haze of heat over the water — seems clear enough when we take the trouble to think about it. To the saints, such a view of creation is a settled state of mind. Outward objects are seen and loved as being reflections of Him who made them. That is why St. Paul said that the visible things of creation were there to draw our minds to a knowledge of the invisible Creator (Romans 1:20). That is why St. Francis of Assisi called natural things, like the sky and the sun, by the title of “brother” and “sister.” They were all in the family. They all bore on them the Father’s likeness.
Signposts to God
What a difference it would make to your life if you saw all around you signposts pointing to the presence of God. Not only would nature and human beings proclaim the glory of God, but even in the ordinary happenings from hour to hour and from day to day you would welcome God’s will. You would be drawn at once to show gratitude for the pleasant things that happened, knowing that God had provided them, and the unpleasant ones you would accept as part of your share in the Passion. So it would mean that you could live out your life under what St. Augustine described as the canopy or firmament of God’s will. God the Father should be continually praised and glorified for His creation and creatures that we continually see around us! Start tomorrow! You may feel awkward—because you’ve never or rarely done it before. You may feel hypocritical—because, even you may praise with silent or spoken words of your mind and lips, your heart may have to wait quite some time before it sincerely joins in with your mind and lips. But do it anyway! Why? Because it is a part of Justice—which is a virtue that gives another his due—and God is due praise for what He has created.
The Holy Ghost—Real Presence in the Soul
Devotion to the Holy Ghost is probably the most difficult of all devotions in which to be interested, over which to grow enthusiastic. Christ, our Blessed Mother, the Saints came on earth and lived human lives and conversed with men. But the Holy Ghost never lived on earth as man. His life was never written by man for man. When we consider the Holy Ghost, therefore, we are forced at once into the realm of reason, unaided and unsupported by images so natural to us. There is the difficulty of a mystery too, something we cannot understand. But the chief difficulty that devotion to the Holy Ghost faces is the attempt to build it on a foundation that is not intellectual.
God the Holy Ghost is the Holy Gift
God is good. He is the sovereign Good, and no one but God is really and essentially good. God is also, shall we say for want of a better word, givable. He is in the highest degree communicable. He, being goodness itself, not only can diffuse goodness around, but actually contains in Himself, as goodness does, the inclination to give His goodness, which again is Himself. He has, consequently, in Himself, more than any creature, the power and free inclination to communicate, to give Himself. Moreover, since there is no goodness outside of Him, there is nothing He could hope for from creatures. He is the very essence of unselfishness.
Just as the God the Father gave of His goodness in His creation, and God the Son gave of His goodness in His Sacrifice and Redemption, so too does the Holy Ghost gives of Himself for our sanctification. In a word, God is the ultimate good; He is communicable in the highest degree; He is absolutely free and absolutely disinterested; and, as such, He merits most excellently the name “Gift”. Not only that, but God merits this name of “Gift” more than does any created gift. Do we not say in the Veni Creator – “O heavenly Gift of God most high”?
Love Above Knowledge
In our earthly friendships, there is something that unites us more closely to our friends than mere knowledge does, and this is love. Knowledge may teach us something about them, knowledge may unlock for us, gradually throughout life, ever more wonderful secrets of their goodness and strength and loyalty. But knowledge, of itself, pushes us irresistibly on to something more. The more we know of that which is worth knowing, the more we must love it—for we were made to love that which is good.
It was an axiom, among the medieval theologians, that love is more unifying than knowledge, so that in the real indwelling of the Holy Ghost in our hearts, we must expect to find, not only that He is the object of our intelligence, but also that He truly and sincerely has a place in our hearts. This love or friendship between ourselves and the Holy Ghost—if by “friendship” we mean anything like that of which we have experience in our human relations—implies three things.
True Friendship
First of all, true friendship, if it based upon charity, is of giving to the friend—as God gives to us. Friendship implies that we come for what we can give, far more than that we come for what we can get. “We love because we have helped” is the true order of the origins of friendship than “we help because we have loved.”
Secondly, friendship, to be complete, must be mutual. There may indeed be love when, in this world, some poor, forlorn soul is never requited in its affection, but that is not what we mean by a friend or by friendship. Friendship implies action, a fellow feeling, a desire for each other, a sympathy. Are we not reluctant to go there where we sense that we are not welcome or wanted? If the Holy Ghost does not feel welcome and wanted by us, then He is not going to even think about ‘unpacking-the-suitcase’ and distributing His Gifts! As we sow, so shall we reap!
Thirdly, friendship also implies necessarily a common bond of likeness, or similarity of condition or life, some equality. Of course, it is evident from classic instances that friendship may exist between a poor shepherd and the son of a king (although perhaps Jonathan’s princedom was very little removed from shepherd life (see 1 Kings 18:1‑3), yet the very friendship itself must produce equality between them. Said the Latin proverb: “Friendship either finds or makes men equal.” God is pure, total goodness—what similarity will He find in us? Are we seeking pure, total goodness? Or are we seeking the world? God is not of this world. Jesus said: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world” (John 8:23). Speaking of the Holy Ghost, Jesus also said: “The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, nor knoweth Him” (John 14:17).
True Friendship With God
Therefore, we must expect to find these things reproduced in our friendship with the Spirit of God. He is our friend, not for His need, but for ours. He is our friend, not for what He can get, but for what He can give—eternal life. Again, His friendship is certainly mutual, for as St. John tells: “Let us therefore love God because God first hath loved us” (1 John 4:19). I can say, not only that I love God, but that He is my friend.
The Holy Spirit dwells in me that I may dwell in Him. “Friendship either finds or makes men equal.” It found us apart; it makes us one. He, divine and perfect, came to me, human and imperfect. By grace I am raised to a supernatural level. I know Him in some sort as He is; I am immediately united to Him by the bond of love. As one of the saints writes: “God became man so that He might make us like unto God!”
Is There Room in My Soul?
In these days that follow the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, let us contemplate our relationship to the Trinity. The Divine Persons, almost like Jesus, Mary and Joseph at Bethlehem, are seeking a place to stay—is there room for them in my life?
The Holy Trinity is a mystery that cannot be fully understood or explained. If anyone professes to you that they fully understand the Holy Trinity—call for a doctor and keep the patient calm and restrained! However, though we cannot fully grasp, understand and explain the Trinity in its inexhaustible depth, we can, nevertheless, grasp something about the Trinity that helps our frail and finite human reason have some idea of this impenetrable mystery.
A supernatural mystery is a truth which we cannot fully understand, but which we firmly believe because we have God’s word for it. A supernatural mystery is above reason, but not contrary to it. No man can explain a mystery; neither can anyone know it unless it is revealed by God. “Great art thou, O Lord, in counsel, and incomprehensible in thought” (Jeremias 32:19).
It is not unreasonable to believe in a supernatural mystery. There are many natural mysteries around us that no one has yet been able to explain, yet we believe them: electricity, magnetism, force, and many of the processes of life. The doctrine of the Blessed Trinity is a strict mystery; that is, we cannot learn it from reason, nor understand it completely, even after it has been revealed to us.
Some Things We Just Cannot Understand
The doctrine contains two truths our reason cannot fully understand: (1) that there is only one God; and (2) that each of the three Persons is God. We can understand each of these truths separately, but not when taken together. The mystery of the Blessed Trinity is not a contradiction. We do not say that there are three gods in one God, nor that the three divine Persons are one Person.
We only say that there are three Persons in one God, that is, three Persons, and one nature or essence. Somewhat similarly, the soul of man has will, understanding, and memory, but it is only one soul. Also, the sun has form, light, and heat, but it is only one sun. Three flames put together make only one flame.
This is why saints like Patrick would use a three-leaf-clover to give the Irish a basic grasp of this mystery, telling them that the Trinity was One God, but Three Persons—like the clover had one stem, but three leaves that came forth from the same stem. One could humanize this botanical example and present the hypothesis of, not Siamese-Twins, but imagine instead Siamese-Triplets! Three-in-one. One being, yet three separate persons! Yet, in the order of nature, this would not be a perfection, but an imperfection—with God there is no such imperfection with its consequent limitations and restraints. Analogies are always imperfect and impractical, even though they help somewhat in understanding a concept.
Eh? What is it?
What do we mean by the Blessed Trinity? The technical, theological, catechetical answer would be: “By the Blessed Trinity we mean one and the same God in three divine Persons.” The Athanasian Creed, which was composed in order to refute the Arian heresy, which held that the Jesus Christ was not fully God, says the following:
“So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity nothing is afore or after, nothing is greater or less; but the whole three Persons are co-eternal together, and co-equal. So that in all things, as in aforesaid, the unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in unity is to be worshiped’’ (Extract from the Athanasian Creed ).
Job Description
The Father is God and the First Person of the Blessed Trinity. Omnipotence, and especially the work of creation, is attributed to God the Father. God the Father could have created millions of beings instead of you yourself; but He chose you out of a love wholly undeserved, saying, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jeremias 31:3). Let us then cry in thanksgiving, “Abba, Father!” (Romans 8:15). Let us show our gratitude by avoiding all that could displease God the Father, by trying to please Him with virtue, by trying to attain an ever greater perfection, in obedience to that command Our Lord’s: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
The Son is God and the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. To God the Son we owe our redemption from sin and eternal death; by His death He gave us life. For us God the Son debased Himself, taking the form of a servant ... “becoming obedient to death, even to death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). In Holy Communion we are united with Him, for He Himself said: “He who eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, abides in Me and I in him” (John 6:57). In return we should be “other Christs,” and, as the Apostle urged, “walk even as He walked.”
The Holy Ghost is God and the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. He manifests Himself in us particularly in our sanctification. The word “Ghost” applied to the Third Person means “Spirit.” In Latin, the word used in “Spiritus.”
At our Baptism God the Holy Ghost purifies us from all sin and fills our souls with divine grace, so that we become truly children of God, sons and heirs, and co-heirs with Jesus Christ. By Baptism, through the reception of sanctifying grace, we become living temples of the Holy Ghost: “Or do you not know that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
Trinitarian Spiritual Life
The Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, can be found to symbolized or reflected in the Three Conversions of the Spiritual Life (cf. the book of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange under that title). The first way, or first conversion, which is called the Way of Beginners or the Purgative Way, can be seen to symbolize God the Father, the Creator, Who creates our soul and sets it out on its path which is intended to lead to Heaven. The second way, or second conversion, which is called the Way of Proficients or the Illuminative Way, can be seen to symbolize Jesus Christ, Who is the Light of the World. The third way, or the third conversion, which is called the Way of the Perfect or the Unitive Way, can be seen to symbolize the Holy Ghost, Who is the Spirit of Unity and Love, that passes to and fro between the Father and the Son, and is meant to lead us to perfection.
It Comes In Threes!
We know of the saying--“It comes in threes!” This is especially true with God! The Holy Trinity is three Persons in One God. That number “Three” is an ever recurring motif that crops-up all throughout our Faith and Holy Scripture. So many important things “come in threes”.
► Besides the three Persons of the Holy Trinity―God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost―we also have the three persons of the Holy Family, which reflect the Trinity on Earth—Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
► The Holy Family essentially lived in three places—Bethlehem, Egypt and Nazareth.
► Our Lord chose to live through all three stages of a human life—childhood, adolescence and adulthood.
► We see the three Magi bring three gifts to Jesus at Bethlehem.
► We read of the three temptations Jesus undergoes from Satan after his 40-day fast in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13)―whereby the devil tempts Him to change stone into bread; to cast Himself from the pinnacle of the Temple; and to bow down and adore him in exchange for all the kingdoms of the world, of which the devil is prince (John 12:31; 14:30).
► Similarly we have, what are called, “the three concupiscences”—“All that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16)
► There are three persons that the Gospels recount of Jesus raising from the dead—Jair’s daughter, the son of the widow of Naim, and Lazarus; we have three persons in a family that Scripture says Jesus loved—Martha, Mary and Lazarus.
► As for the life of Jesus on Earth, it is generally accepted that Jesus lived to the aged of 33 before being killed.
► We speak of the three years of His Public Ministry.
► Our Lord had His three favorite Apostles—Peter, James and John.
► When Christ transfigures on Mount Thabor, flanked by Moses and Elias, in the bewildered presence of Peter, James and John, Peter offers to build three tents there—“if Thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles [meaning: tents], one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias” (Matthew 17:4).
► There is also the triple refusal of Our Lord to the Canaanite woman, before finally granting her wish.
► In the Parable of the Talents, Jesus uses the example of three servants who are given money by their master (Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:12-26).
► Our Lord gives us a “three strikes and you’re out” rule for the correction of sinners: “If thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother. And if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more: that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. And if he will not hear them: tell the Church. And if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican!” (Matthew 18:15-17).
► Similarly, there is the triple denial of Our Lord by St. Peter during the Passion and Our Lord’s triple questioning of St. Peter, after the Resurrection, as to whether or not Peter loved Him.
► Judas “sells” and betrays Jesus for thirty pieces of silver―3x10.
► Our Lord prayed three times in the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest.
► Our Lord underwent a triple judgment by the High Priests, by Pilate and by Herod.
► Tradition has Our Lord falling three times as He carried His cross to Calvary.
► On Calvary, there were three crosses of Jesus and the two thieves.
► At the foot of Christ’s cross there stood three chief followers―Our Lady, St. John and St. Mary Magdalen.
► Another perspective speaks of the “three Marys” on Calvary—“Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother [Mary], and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen” (John 19:25).
► Our Lord spent three days in the tomb—Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday.
The Number Three in Holy Scripture
► There are many more instances in His life where the number “three” plays a part. The number 3 is used 467 times in the Bible.
► The number “three” represents completeness, though to a lesser degree than the number 7. The meaning of the number 3 derives from the fact that it is the first of four spiritually perfect numerals (the others being 7, 10 and 12). There are 27 books in the New Testament, which is 3x3x3, or completeness to the third power.
► Some authors are of the opinion that there were 3 patriarchs before the flood―Abel, Enoch and Noe. After the deluge the 3 patriarchs were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (later renamed Israel).
► Noe had three sons: “And he begot three sons, Sem, Cham, and Japheth … Noe, and Sem, and Cham, and Japheth his sons: his wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, went into the ark” (Genesis 6:10; 7:13).
► The Lord appeared to Abraham under the guise of three men: “The Lord appeared to him in the vale of Mambre as he was sitting at the door of his tent, in the very heat of the day. And when he had lifted up his eyes, there appeared to him three men standing near him” (Genesis 18:1-2).
► There are the three young men that King Nabuchodonosor (Nebuchadnezzar) cast into the fire, but who remained unharmed under the protection of an angel of God.
► We have Gedeon’s famous “three hundred” soldiers―Gedeon ”divided the three hundred men into three parts, and gave them three things: (1) trumpets in their hands, and (2) empty pitchers, and (3) lamps within the pitchers” (Judges 7:16).
► “Jonas was in the whale's belly three days and three nights: so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights” (Matthew 12:40).
► We see strength symbolized by the number three in the verse: “a threefold cord is not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12).
The Number Three in Faith, Liturgy & Sacraments
► In the Faith, we have the three theological virtues—Faith, Hope and Charity.
► We have the three main Archangels—St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael.
► There are three hierarchies of angels, each with three choirs, giving a total of nine choirs. The highest hierarchy are the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones who are associated with the specific functions of love, knowledge, and power. In the middle hierarchy there are Dominations, Virtues, and Powers, who are associated with the universal governance of creation. And the lower hierarchy consists of Principalities, Archangels, and Angels, concerned with the direct administration of creatures in the world.
► In the liturgy of Holy Week, we have the sacred “Triduum” (Three Days)—meaning Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.
► There are the three essential parts of the Mass—the Offertory, the Consecration (Canon) and the Communion.
► We have the three places of Heaven, Purgatory and Hell.
► Then we have the three locations of the Church—the Church Militant on Earth; the Church Suffering in Purgatory and the Church Triumphant in Heaven.
► We can also consider the three chief kinds of saints—the martyrs, the virgins and the confessors.
► There are the three stages of the spiritual life that everyone must pass through before they are allowed into Heaven—the Way of Beginners or the Purgative Way; the Way of Proficients or the Illuminative Way; and the Way of the Perfect or the Unitive Way.
► With regard to sins, we have Original Sin, Mortal Sin and Actual Sin. We say, in the Confiteor (the ”I confess to Almighty God” etc.) that we sin three ways—in our thoughts, words and deeds, and we then strike our breast three times.
► With regard to mortal sin, there are the three essential conditions that must be present for a sin to mortal—(1) the action, word or thought must seriously wrong; (2) we must know that it is seriously wrong at the time we do it; and (3) we must full agree to do it.
► Also, we have the three chief feasts of the Liturgical Year—Christmas, Easter and Pentecost.
► In regard to the Sacraments, there are three essential requirements—valid matter, valid form and right intention.
► In regard to the Sacrament of Baptism, there are three Persons of the Holy Trinity in Whose Name we are baptized—Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
► Also with regard to the Sacrament of Baptism, there are the three minor exorcisms that are performed upon the baptismal candidate in the Rite of Baptism for Adults.
► As regards the Sacraments, there are three Sacraments—Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders―that can be received only once because they imprint on the soul a spiritual mark, called a character, which lasts forever.
In relation to the Holy Eucharist and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the number three is present in many ways.
► Just as the Holy Trinity is one God but three Divine Persons, the Holy Eucharist is Jesus Christ, but can be seen under three forms: (1) The Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist in the Holy Mass, whereby Jesus feeds us with Himself; (2) The Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist in the Holy Mass, whereby Jesus re-presents His Sacrifice of Calvary once more in an unbloody manner; (3) The Holy Eucharist outside of Holy Mass, whereby Jesus resides in the tabernacle, almost like the cave at Bethlehem, as the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.
► In former days, in a Solemn High Mass, there would be three major ministers at the altar: (1) the priest, (2) the deacon and (3) the subdeacon—thus echoing the Holy Trinity as ministers of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
► For centuries, until the late 1960’s, when the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was changed, the Confiteor (the ”I confess to Almighty God” etc.) would be recited three times in the Mass—once by the priest, then immediately after that by the altar servers (and congregation), and thirdly just before Holy Communion again by the altar servers (and congregation).
► Moments after the third Confiteor, as the priest held up the Host, the people in unison with the priest, say three times the Domine non sum dignus (Lord I am not worthy, etc.), while once again striking the breast three times.
► There are three essential requirements for the reception of the Holy Eucharist: (1) One must be a baptized Catholic having attained the age reason; (2) one must be free from mortal sin, i.e. in a state of grace, and (3) one must have kept the required Eucharistic fast time prior to receiving the Holy Eucharist.
► We have three parts to the day—morning, afternoon and evening. While during the night, the Divine Office of the Church’s liturgy has three nocturns of prayer throughout the night. If we have a “midnight” then there must also be first part of the night, then the middle part and finally an end part to the night.
► St. Thomas Aquinas also speaks of the three kinds of work in ascending order of difficulty—the easiest being physical work; even harder is intellectual work; but the hardest work of all is spiritual work.
With a little bit of reflection, you will find many more example of the number “three” scattered throughout Holy Scripture and the Faith.
Secular Threes
Even the secular world has many “threesomes” that can remind us of the Holy Trinity!
► The working day is often divided into three 8-hour shifts.
► In school we were taught to write essays that had 3 parts ― a beginning, a middle and an end.
► In evaluating or looking at time, we have 3 elements ― the past, the present and the future.
► We have the 3 primary colors ― red, yellow and blue.
► In the sport of baseball, there is the rule where the batter is allowed two strikes; a third strike results in an out, commonly called a strikeout.
► In US Law, the “Three Strikes” law was enacted in 1994 and imposes a life sentence for almost any felony after two prior convictions for serious or violent felonies. Your third strike under this law doubles the prison sentence of your third offense. This third offense doesn’t have to be a violent or serious felony; only the first two strikes do.
What’s the Point?
Three is a perfect number and the Holy Trinity is perfection itself. The number “three” can be a profitable subject of study, or it can “bore you to death”. You can linger over it like shopping for, preparing and enjoying a delicious meal, or you can rush through it, just like driving to “fast-food-joint”, going through the “drive-thru” and eating your “fast burger” in the parking lot—it is your choice. Most people today want a “drive-thru” religion, with “fast-thru-sermons”, “fast-thru-communions”, “fast-thru-thanksgivings”, “fast-thru-Rosaries”, etc. That kind of an attitude does not manifest very much love—yet love is what the Holy Trinity is all about. The whole point of our spiritual life is that we should be loving God and growing in that love of God, to the point where we finally can “love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment” (Mark 12:30).
God is—above all things—charity: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). Charity, strictly speaking, is a love of God—and in God there are three Persons. If that love of the Holy Trinity is not there, then nothing is there—as St. Paul rightly writes: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Loving God Needs Proof of Love
That love of God—the Holy Trinity—begins with the keeping of the commandments of God, that is the very foundation of a love of God, the beginnings of a love of God—it is a litmus-test as to how much or how little you love, depending on how much or how little you keep God’s commandments: “If you love Me, keep My commandments ... He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me. And he that loves Me, shall be loved of My Father: and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him. If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him. He that loves Me not, keeps not My words” (John 14:15-24).
This Soul Ain’t Big Enough For All of Us
If the world occupies your heart and soul, the Holy Trinity can find no dwelling space within your soul—there is “no room for Them at the inn!” Yet, if you “seek first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33), and “let the word of Christ dwell in you” (Colossians 3:16) then the Holy Trinity will come and dwell within you. “If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and my Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him” (John 14:23). Creation is attributed to God the Father; redemption to God the Son; and sanctification to God the Holy Ghost. Likewise, the Holy Trinity wants to create a temple for Itself within us; in order to sacrifice within that temple; and to sanctify that temple.
Temple of God
“Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). “Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners; but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone. In Whom all the building, being framed together, grows up into an holy temple in the Lord. In Whom you also are built together into a habitation of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19-22).
“But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are” (1 Corinthians 3:17). “And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves: And He said to them: ‘It is written, “My house shall be called the house of prayer!” but you have made it a den of thieves’” (Matthew 21:12-23).
God the Father—Real Presence in Creation
The Catechism tells us that God is everywhere by His Power, Presence and Essence. St. Paul says: “For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; His eternal power also, and divinity” (Romans 1:20). Yet all around us the work of God the Father is ignored—we ignore or take God the Father’s creation for granted! We are continually moving about in what might be called “God’s World” — where we are constantly surrounded by God’s creation. It is not as though we had to get onto another planet to find and give glory to God. In fact, we are outdone in the singing of praises of God by our lesser ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’!
God is glorified in all His creation, and not only in human beings who can use their minds to speak His praises. Nature praises Him because it gets its existence from Him and works according to His laws. Each separate piece of God’s creation, by existing in the kind of existence God means it to have, gives glory to God. This idea of everything having on it the glow of God’s look — like the warmth of the sun showing in a haze of heat over the water — seems clear enough when we take the trouble to think about it. To the saints, such a view of creation is a settled state of mind. Outward objects are seen and loved as being reflections of Him who made them. That is why St. Paul said that the visible things of creation were there to draw our minds to a knowledge of the invisible Creator (Romans 1:20). That is why St. Francis of Assisi called natural things, like the sky and the sun, by the title of “brother” and “sister.” They were all in the family. They all bore on them the Father’s likeness.
Signposts to God
What a difference it would make to your life if you saw all around you signposts pointing to the presence of God. Not only would nature and human beings proclaim the glory of God, but even in the ordinary happenings from hour to hour and from day to day you would welcome God’s will. You would be drawn at once to show gratitude for the pleasant things that happened, knowing that God had provided them, and the unpleasant ones you would accept as part of your share in the Passion. So it would mean that you could live out your life under what St. Augustine described as the canopy or firmament of God’s will. God the Father should be continually praised and glorified for His creation and creatures that we continually see around us! Start tomorrow! You may feel awkward—because you’ve never or rarely done it before. You may feel hypocritical—because, even you may praise with silent or spoken words of your mind and lips, your heart may have to wait quite some time before it sincerely joins in with your mind and lips. But do it anyway! Why? Because it is a part of Justice—which is a virtue that gives another his due—and God is due praise for what He has created.
The Holy Ghost—Real Presence in the Soul
Devotion to the Holy Ghost is probably the most difficult of all devotions in which to be interested, over which to grow enthusiastic. Christ, our Blessed Mother, the Saints came on earth and lived human lives and conversed with men. But the Holy Ghost never lived on earth as man. His life was never written by man for man. When we consider the Holy Ghost, therefore, we are forced at once into the realm of reason, unaided and unsupported by images so natural to us. There is the difficulty of a mystery too, something we cannot understand. But the chief difficulty that devotion to the Holy Ghost faces is the attempt to build it on a foundation that is not intellectual.
God the Holy Ghost is the Holy Gift
God is good. He is the sovereign Good, and no one but God is really and essentially good. God is also, shall we say for want of a better word, givable. He is in the highest degree communicable. He, being goodness itself, not only can diffuse goodness around, but actually contains in Himself, as goodness does, the inclination to give His goodness, which again is Himself. He has, consequently, in Himself, more than any creature, the power and free inclination to communicate, to give Himself. Moreover, since there is no goodness outside of Him, there is nothing He could hope for from creatures. He is the very essence of unselfishness.
Just as the God the Father gave of His goodness in His creation, and God the Son gave of His goodness in His Sacrifice and Redemption, so too does the Holy Ghost gives of Himself for our sanctification. In a word, God is the ultimate good; He is communicable in the highest degree; He is absolutely free and absolutely disinterested; and, as such, He merits most excellently the name “Gift”. Not only that, but God merits this name of “Gift” more than does any created gift. Do we not say in the Veni Creator – “O heavenly Gift of God most high”?
Love Above Knowledge
In our earthly friendships, there is something that unites us more closely to our friends than mere knowledge does, and this is love. Knowledge may teach us something about them, knowledge may unlock for us, gradually throughout life, ever more wonderful secrets of their goodness and strength and loyalty. But knowledge, of itself, pushes us irresistibly on to something more. The more we know of that which is worth knowing, the more we must love it—for we were made to love that which is good.
It was an axiom, among the medieval theologians, that love is more unifying than knowledge, so that in the real indwelling of the Holy Ghost in our hearts, we must expect to find, not only that He is the object of our intelligence, but also that He truly and sincerely has a place in our hearts. This love or friendship between ourselves and the Holy Ghost—if by “friendship” we mean anything like that of which we have experience in our human relations—implies three things.
True Friendship
First of all, true friendship, if it based upon charity, is of giving to the friend—as God gives to us. Friendship implies that we come for what we can give, far more than that we come for what we can get. “We love because we have helped” is the true order of the origins of friendship than “we help because we have loved.”
Secondly, friendship, to be complete, must be mutual. There may indeed be love when, in this world, some poor, forlorn soul is never requited in its affection, but that is not what we mean by a friend or by friendship. Friendship implies action, a fellow feeling, a desire for each other, a sympathy. Are we not reluctant to go there where we sense that we are not welcome or wanted? If the Holy Ghost does not feel welcome and wanted by us, then He is not going to even think about ‘unpacking-the-suitcase’ and distributing His Gifts! As we sow, so shall we reap!
Thirdly, friendship also implies necessarily a common bond of likeness, or similarity of condition or life, some equality. Of course, it is evident from classic instances that friendship may exist between a poor shepherd and the son of a king (although perhaps Jonathan’s princedom was very little removed from shepherd life (see 1 Kings 18:1‑3), yet the very friendship itself must produce equality between them. Said the Latin proverb: “Friendship either finds or makes men equal.” God is pure, total goodness—what similarity will He find in us? Are we seeking pure, total goodness? Or are we seeking the world? God is not of this world. Jesus said: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world” (John 8:23). Speaking of the Holy Ghost, Jesus also said: “The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, nor knoweth Him” (John 14:17).
True Friendship With God
Therefore, we must expect to find these things reproduced in our friendship with the Spirit of God. He is our friend, not for His need, but for ours. He is our friend, not for what He can get, but for what He can give—eternal life. Again, His friendship is certainly mutual, for as St. John tells: “Let us therefore love God because God first hath loved us” (1 John 4:19). I can say, not only that I love God, but that He is my friend.
The Holy Spirit dwells in me that I may dwell in Him. “Friendship either finds or makes men equal.” It found us apart; it makes us one. He, divine and perfect, came to me, human and imperfect. By grace I am raised to a supernatural level. I know Him in some sort as He is; I am immediately united to Him by the bond of love. As one of the saints writes: “God became man so that He might make us like unto God!”
Is There Room in My Soul?
In these days that follow the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, let us contemplate our relationship to the Trinity. The Divine Persons, almost like Jesus, Mary and Joseph at Bethlehem, are seeking a place to stay—is there room for them in my life?
Article 2
Pentecost Friday & Saturday June 2nd & 3rd, 2023
Fight or Flight? Who or What?
Pentecost Friday & Saturday June 2nd & 3rd, 2023
Fight or Flight? Who or What?
Fearful Fight! Frightened Flock!
Without a doubt our Faith demands a frightening fight! Holy Scripture leaves us in no doubt: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14). “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12).
Are we in fear? Are we trembling? Most people are not―they are comfortable at home and never even think of fighting on the spiritual battlefield! They will fight over food on the table, or fight for control of the TV remote control, or fight over who gets to use the computer next, etc. ― but they do not really enter the arena of spiritual warfare, and that, sadly, is why most souls are ultimately lost! Yet such a thought never comes to their mind―and, if it does, it is quickly anesthetized with cookies, candies, chocolate, ice-cream, sodas, beer, wine and spirits―and more television, internet and social media. What wonderful drugs Satan produces in his infernal pharmacy!
Many flee and escape from the spiritual warfare against the world and the devil―but they cannot escape the fact that such a warfare exists and that their souls will judged upon how they fought or did not fight in that warfare. Nor can they escape the frightening fact that most souls end up being damned―largely due to the fact that they refuse or neglect to fight, and end up being taken captive by the world and the devil.
Fear Not, Little Flock!
True Catholics, faithful Catholics, sincere Catholics, practicing Catholics―are a minority among the 1,400 million (1.4 billion) baptized Catholics in the world! How many? Only God knows―but, as Our Lord said: “Many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14) ― which could be paraphrased as: “Many are baptized, but few are saved!” Which is what Our Lord says elsewhere when “a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. But when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: ‘Lord! Open to us!’ And He, answering, shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are!’ Then you shall begin to say: ‘We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!” And He shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are! Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity!’ There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!’… Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Luke 13:23-28; Mark 7:6).
Hence, Our Lord warns us: “Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! … Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leads to life―and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Luke 13:24; Matthew 7:13-14; 22:14).
Yet, despite those frightening words and despite Holy Scripture calling us to the frightening fight―it also tells us not to be afraid. For, if we are faithful Catholics, then we have God on our side. Hence Scripture says: “If God be for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31). “Fear them not―for the Lord your God will fight for you!” (Deuteronomy 3:22). “The Lord your God is in the midst of you, and will fight for you against your enemies, to deliver you from danger!” (Deuteronomy 20:4). “Let not your heart be dismayed, be not afraid!” Fear them not!” (Deuteronomy 20:3). “Do ye manfully, and let your heart be strengthened!” (Psalm 30:25). “Do manfully, and let thy heart take courage!” (Psalm 26:14). “Fear not and let not thy heart be afraid!” (Isaias 7:4). “Let not your heart be troubled!” (John 14:1). “Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid!” (John 14:27). “Strengthen your hearts!” (James 5:8). “Pour out your hearts before Him! God is our helper for ever!” (Psalm 61:9).
Fearing Men, But Not Fearing God
Some people think that fear is a cowardly thing. Not true! We are “wired” by God to fear. Fear is one of the passions that God has put into our human nature. Fearing is not wrong! But fearing the wrong things is wrong! We have become so earthly and worldly that we now fear the wrong things! We fear what the world will think, say and do to us, much more than we fear what God thinks and may do to us! This false fear is often called “human respect”―it sounds okay, doesn’t it? We should give respect to our fellow human beings, shouldn’t we? Yes, but this idea of “human respect” means giving too much respect for what others think. As Our Lady of Good Success said: “Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’” This cursed “human respect” ― which should more correctly be called “fear of human opinions” replaces the respect that should shown towards God.
Fear of God and respect for God is old-fashioned these days! “The Lord has looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They have not called upon the Lord! There is none that does good―no, not one! They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! Their throat is an open sepulcher! With their tongues they acted deceitfully; the poison of asps is under their lips! Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness! Their feet are swift to shed blood! Destruction and unhappiness in their ways and the way of peace they have not known! There is none that does good―no, not even one! There is no fear of God before their eyes! There have they trembled for fear in those things, where there was no need for fear!” (Psalm 13:1-5).
Most Catholics fear how they look in the opinion of the world―that is to say, what the world and its worldlings will think, say or do if Catholics live like Catholics ought to live; think like Catholics ought to think; speak like Catholics ought to speak; and behave like Catholics ought to behave! Yet rather than fear the world, Catholics should fear the words of Our Lord, Who warns: “He that is not with Me, is against Me! … Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven! But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth―I came not to bring peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household! He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 12:30; 10:32-36).
Our Lord then goes on to describe the extent of this division: “Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
“The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7). “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he has not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above! You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world!” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
Fear Sin Above Everything Else
Our Lord tells us that we fear the wrong things: “Fear ye not them that kill the body and are not able to kill the soul―but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell!” (Matthew 10:28). What is that casts souls into Hell? Unrepented sins! Sin is the greatest evil in the world―regardless of what our personal opinion is on the matter: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
Apart from the Blessed Virgin Mary, all are sinners: “By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned!” (Romans 5:12) … “For all have sinned, and lack the glory of God!” (Romans 3:23) … “There is no just man upon Earth that sins not!” (Ecclesiastes 7:21) ... “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10) ... “The wages of sin is death! … The sting of death is sin!” (Romans 6:23; 1 Corinthians 15:56).
“Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) … “Do not bind sin to sin―for even in one sin thou shalt not be unpunished!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:8) … “Hast thou sinned? Do so no more! But for thy former sins pray that they may be forgiven thee!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1) … “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14) … “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:10-11).
Made for Fighting, Not for Having Fun!
If you look at the label attached to your soul, you will see that it says: “Made in Heaven”. On the reverse side of that label it says: “If found, please return to the rightful owner in Heaven”. Your soul was made in Heaven and made for Heaven. You were made by God and for God: “Thus saith the Lord that created thee: … ‘I have created him for My glory, I have formed him, and made him!’” (Isaias 43:1, 7) … “Behold all souls are Mine―as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine!” (Ezechiel 18:4) … “All the Earth is mine!” (Exodus 19:5). “Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature!” (Mark 16:15). “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20).
“Many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:19). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, is the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world! The world passes away, and its desires with it!” (1 John 2:15-17). “Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth!” (Colossians 3:2). “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places!” (Ephesians 6:12).
Rejection of God’s Teaching on Sin
Unfortunately, year after year, we see ever increasing numbers of those “who have said to God: ‘Depart from us! We desire not the knowledge of Thy ways!’” (Job 21:14). From top to bottom―from State down to family―more and more people are rejecting God’s “ownership” of their souls. They declare themselves to be independent of God―which is clearly seen in the false principle of “Separation of State and Religion” ― which is like saying you believe in separation of body from soul: the consequence of which is nothing other than DEATH! We were made to KNOW, LOVE and SERVE GOD―we were not made to think only of ourselves, love only ourselves and serve only ourselves. Yet all the way from STATE down to FAMILY the laws of God are increasingly ignored or outright rejected and cast out.
That is why today we have legalized abortion, contraception, cohabitation, adultery, divorce, remarriage after divorce, same-sex marriages, homosexuality, trangenderism, pornography, masturbation, immodesty in thoughts, words and actions, brothels, prostitution, etc., etc. The list goes on and on. All of these things are seen as being acceptable, good, desirable and fun! None of this is in accordance with the laws and will of God. It does not matter if hundreds of other laws are in agreement with God’s laws―by explicitly refusing just one single law of God, you are refusing all the laws of God implicitly: “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, but offend in one point of law, is become guilty of all” (James 2:10). In the matter of Morals, if you keep all the other Commandments of God, but choose to sin mortally against just one single Commandment, then you will go to Hell if you die in that state of mortal sin―it doesn’t matter how well or how many of the other Commandments you kept and obeyed. In the matter of Faith, to reject just one single dogma of the Catholic Church is to reject all Faith, since Christ is the authority and guarantor of the Church’s dogmas.
Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical, Satis Cognitum (# 9), June 29th, 1896, writes: “Can it be lawful for anyone to reject any one of those truths without by that very fact falling into heresy? – without separating himself from the Church? – without rejecting in one sweeping act the whole of Christian teaching? Such is the nature of Faith that nothing can be more absurd than to accept some things of the Faith and reject others … He who dissents even in one point from divinely revealed truth absolutely rejects all Faith, since he thereby refuses God as the supreme truth and the formal motive of Faith ... There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who accept nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, they infect the Faith taught by Our Lord and handed down by Apostolic Tradition.”
Those sobering words of the Pope apply to growing legions of numbers of Catholics who today accept one, or two or even all of the current heretical opinions of modern-day Catholics who imagine that you can be saved in any religion, since all religions lead to God; or who refuse to believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist; or who believe your mortal sins can be forgiven without needing to go to the Sacrament of Confession; or who believe that you can have women priests; or who accept one or many of the above mentioned list of mortal sins: abortion, contraception, cohabitation, adultery, divorce, remarriage after divorce, same-sex marriages, homosexuality, trangenderism, pornography, immodesty in thoughts, words and actions, etc.
The Catholic world has ceased to fight for the Faith; ceased to stand up for Christ; ceased to speak out against sin; ceased to live a fully Catholic life; ceased to feel guilty of sin. Ever since Pope Pius XII said in 1946: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin!” ― one pope after another (even the Liberal and Modernist popes) have lamented the same truth.
● Pope John Paul II, in 2005, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin!”
● Pope Benedict XVI, in 2011, said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. If we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, then we cannot speak of sin ... The meaning of sin ― which is a different thing from ‘guilt feelings’ as understood in psychology ― is only grasped in discovering the meaning of God!”
● Pope Francis, in 2014, said: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble!”
Most Catholic families today have lost that sense of sin―and if they have not totally lost the sense of sin, they have most definitely partially lost the sense of sin―but partial is almost as bad as total. Why? Because what does it matter if you commit every single mortal sin in the book, or you only commit one, or two or three? Losing the sense of sin over just a few sins will still mean potential damnation―a soul is damned if it dies with one mortal sin on its soul, or if it dies with one thousand mortal sins on its soul. Another way of looking at it is from the angle of poison. Whether someone puts just one single drop of a fatal poison into your drink, or whether they put one hundred drops of that fatal poison into your drink―you are going to die whichever one it is if you drink it. Today, there are a lot of poisonous mortal sins being drunk by Catholics who insist that it is not poisonous! That is what we have to fear―but many don’t fear that at all!
Our Lady is Not Laughing!
Some folk have an unrealistic, ridiculous, illogical, laughable idea of Our Lady―as being a happy-go-lucky, sweet-smiling, carefree, ‘pat-on-the-head, kind of person. They forget that at La Salette she wept tears of sorrow and not laughter. At Fatima, Lucia said that Our Lady never once smiled at the three children! Why? Because of sin! Because of the damnation that sin brings to her adopted children. To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady said: “Fear and abhor sin, even the slightest! … Deplore your faults with true sorrow! ... Acknowledge your fault, confessing it in sorrow! … Humbly and sorrowfully confess your faults with a heartfelt sorrow for your sins! … By Original Sin human nature is depraved, filled with passions, rebellious to reason, inclined to evil and adverse to the spiritual. If the soul allows itself to be carried away by them, it will be precipitated by the first vice into many others. What ought to be the grief of really losing God by sin! But this wisdom seems far from the mind of carnal men―for, with a most perverse blindness, they continue to blindly pursue the deceitful and vile delights of the senses, and abhor all that pertains to the good of their soul! … Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices ...
“Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God? … Full of this deceitful ignorance, they make their recovery impossible ― since all of them are weak and afflicted by many sins, for which the only remedy is suffering! … The wounds of sin do not distress them, and the more often they are committed, the less regret or sorrow do they cause! ... How many men whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―on account of the lack of light of Faith, from the darkness of their unbelief―have thrown themselves into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell! … Lament and grieve over this ruin of so many souls! ... Since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the damned is also uncountable! ... Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16)―fear this sentence and renew in thy heart the care and zeal for thy salvation!”
“The faithful are in such a dangerous and dreadful state of carelessness! Men are lost in forgetful rest and sleep―as if there were no vigilant and powerful enemies. This dreadful carelessness arises from two causes: on the one hand men are so taken up with their earthly and material life, that they do not feel any other evils―except those on a physical and material nature. Anything that is interior seems harmless in their estimation! On the other hand, since the princes of darkness are invisible and unperceived by any of the senses, and since carnal men neither touch, nor feel, nor see them―the result is that they forget the fear of them!” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
Fearless Fools!
At Fatima, after showing the three young children a vision of Hell, Our Lady lamented: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” To the Venerable Mary of Agreda she said: “The number of the damned is uncountable! … The number of those foreknown as doomed is so great, and the number of those that save themselves is so small, that it is not expedient to say more in particular … The demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men!” At Akita, Our Lady added: “The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness!” Yet, if you excuse the language, we just don’t give a damn about the damned! We just go on with our entertainments and amusements; hobbies and sports; shopping and fashions; eating and drinking without a care in the world―except our own personal cares. It is like having a family member seriously injure themselves and who is bleeding to death―but we just want to keep on watching the movie whilst consuming our drinks and snacks! Similarly, our heavenly Mother tells us that innumerable souls from our human family are falling into Hell, and nobody in the human family wants to do anything about it!
We could say that we add considerably to her sadness by refusing to grieve with her over the loss of so many souls and neglect or refuse to pray and offer sacrifices for their conversion and salvation before they die and are judged. Thoughts and talk of Hell and damnation seem to be taboo and forbidden, not only in most Catholic families, but also in sermons at most Catholic parishes! If most souls are being lost―then (pardon the language), why the hell are we not warning people of the dangers of Hell? Heck―we warn little children about much lesser dangers like not drinking cleaning liquids; not putting plastic bags over their heads; not turning on the gas-stove knob; not putting fingers in electrical wall sockets; not playing with knives and other similar dangerous objects; not swallowing sharp objects; not putting hands in a fire; not getting too close to bonfire; not putting certain things in their mouth; not running into or crossing the road without looking for oncoming cars; recognizing and not eating certain poisonous berries and plants; not playing with snakes and other dangerous reptiles or insects; not swinging the cat around by its tail―but we will not warn them of a far, far, far more serious danger―which is that of sin and Hell! Truly, as Holy Scripture says, “the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). We warn others of lesser dangers―but are silent on much more serious dangers! Our Lord castigated the Scribes and Pharisees for the same fault: “Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel!” (Matthew 23:24) and as Our Lady lamented: “The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation, and those who should speak out will be silent!” (Our Lady of Good Success). Our Lady has not been silent on the danger of Hell, nor was Our Lord silent on the matter! Nor were the Saints silent on the matter! Nor should you be silent on the matter!
The Saints were not “fearless fools” but boldly warned us of the vast number of careless and negligent souls who end up being damned [read more here].
St. Augustine, Doctor and Father of the Church, says: “Beyond a doubt the elect are few! ... It is certain that few are saved ... If you wish to imitate the multitude, then you shall not be among the few who shall enter in by the narrow gate.”
St. Anselm, Doctor of the Church, says: “If you would like to be certain of being in the number of the elect, then strive to be one of the few―not of the many! And if you would like to be quite sure of your salvation, then strive to be among the fewest of the few!”
St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church adds: “There are a select few who are saved! … Those who are saved are in the minority.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church, states: “The common opinion is that the greater part of adults is lost … Everyone desires to be saved―but the greater part is lost! … The saints are few, but we must live with the few if we would be saved with the few. O God, too few indeed they are! Yet among those few I wish to be! … In the Great Deluge in the days of Noe, nearly all mankind perished, eight persons alone being saved in the Ark. In our days a deluge, not of water but of sins, continually inundates the Earth, and out of this deluge very few escape―especially among secular people. Scarcely anyone is saved!”
St. John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church, warns: “Behold how many there are who are called, and how few who are chosen! And behold, if you have no care for yourself, your perdition is more certain than your amendment, especially since the way that leads to eternal life is so narrow!”
St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, reveals a vision of souls being damned:“I had the greatest sorrow for the many souls that condemned themselves to Hell ... I saw souls falling into Hell like snowflakes!”
St. Francis Xavier: “Ah, how many souls lose Heaven and are cast into Hell!”
St. Vincent de Paul: “Ah! A great many persons live constantly in the state of damnation!”
St. Louis Marie de Montfort says:“Be one of the small number who find the way to life, and enter by the narrow gate into Heaven. Take care not to follow the majority, so many of whom are lost! … The number of the elect is so small ― so small ― that, were we to know how small it is, we would faint away with grief!”
St. John Vianney reveals: “We shall find out at the day of judgment that the greater number of Christians who are lost were damned because they did not know their own religion … I tremble when I see so many souls lost these days. They fall into Hell as leaves fall from the trees at the approach of winter!”
St. Philip Neri: “So vast a number of miserable souls perish, and so comparatively few are saved!”
Venerable Louis de Granada points out that “a greater number is lost through false confidence than through excessive fear!”
St. Benedict Joseph of Labre relates a vision: “I was watching souls going down into the abyss as thick and fast as snowflakes falling in the winter mist! … Yes, indeed, many will be damned; few will be saved! … Meditate on the horrors of Hell which will last for eternity―just because of one easily-committed mortal sin! Try hard to be among the few who are chosen! Think of the eternal flames of Hell, and how few there are that are saved!”
Does Heaven Want Us To Be Fearful?
Does Our Lord want to live in fear? Well, the answer to that has be both YES and NO. In Holy Scripture, we see verses that tell us to fear, and verses that tell us not to fear. For example, God says: “Fear not, for I am with thee! I am thy God!” (Isaias 41:10)―yet God also says: “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, because I am the Lord!” (Leviticus 19:14). On one hand, Our Lord says: “Fear not, only believe!” (Mark 5:36). On the other hand, Our Lord says: “I will show you whom you shall fear! Fear ye Him, who after He has killed, has power to cast into Hell. Yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:5). Our Lady speaks of fearing God in her Magnificat: “His mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear Him!” (Luke 1:50)―yet the Archangel Gabriel, at the Annunciation, says to Our Lady: “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God!” (Luke 1:30). We also read the following: “Serve ye the Lord with fear and rejoice unto Him with trembling!” (Psalm 2:11) … “With fear and trembling give ye glory to Him” (Tobias 13:6) … “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12). Yet it also says: “Fear is not in charity―but perfect charity casts out fear―because fear has pain. And he that fears, is not perfected in charity!” (1 John 4:18).
The seeming lack of clarity shown by these quotes is neither erroneous nor contradictory. The less experienced a person is, the more that person has to fear. If you are not skilled in sailing a boat, then naturally you would be afraid of sailing a boat across a sea or an ocean. If you are not trained to fly a plane, you would obviously be afraid of having to fly one―and rightfully so! When we start out learning a skill such as those just mentioned, we are usually more afraid at the start of our training―and, as we progress in acquiring the skill being taught, that fear tends to evaporate more and more.
Without a doubt our Faith demands a frightening fight! Holy Scripture leaves us in no doubt: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14). “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12).
Are we in fear? Are we trembling? Most people are not―they are comfortable at home and never even think of fighting on the spiritual battlefield! They will fight over food on the table, or fight for control of the TV remote control, or fight over who gets to use the computer next, etc. ― but they do not really enter the arena of spiritual warfare, and that, sadly, is why most souls are ultimately lost! Yet such a thought never comes to their mind―and, if it does, it is quickly anesthetized with cookies, candies, chocolate, ice-cream, sodas, beer, wine and spirits―and more television, internet and social media. What wonderful drugs Satan produces in his infernal pharmacy!
Many flee and escape from the spiritual warfare against the world and the devil―but they cannot escape the fact that such a warfare exists and that their souls will judged upon how they fought or did not fight in that warfare. Nor can they escape the frightening fact that most souls end up being damned―largely due to the fact that they refuse or neglect to fight, and end up being taken captive by the world and the devil.
Fear Not, Little Flock!
True Catholics, faithful Catholics, sincere Catholics, practicing Catholics―are a minority among the 1,400 million (1.4 billion) baptized Catholics in the world! How many? Only God knows―but, as Our Lord said: “Many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14) ― which could be paraphrased as: “Many are baptized, but few are saved!” Which is what Our Lord says elsewhere when “a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. But when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: ‘Lord! Open to us!’ And He, answering, shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are!’ Then you shall begin to say: ‘We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!” And He shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are! Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity!’ There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!’… Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Luke 13:23-28; Mark 7:6).
Hence, Our Lord warns us: “Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! … Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leads to life―and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Luke 13:24; Matthew 7:13-14; 22:14).
Yet, despite those frightening words and despite Holy Scripture calling us to the frightening fight―it also tells us not to be afraid. For, if we are faithful Catholics, then we have God on our side. Hence Scripture says: “If God be for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31). “Fear them not―for the Lord your God will fight for you!” (Deuteronomy 3:22). “The Lord your God is in the midst of you, and will fight for you against your enemies, to deliver you from danger!” (Deuteronomy 20:4). “Let not your heart be dismayed, be not afraid!” Fear them not!” (Deuteronomy 20:3). “Do ye manfully, and let your heart be strengthened!” (Psalm 30:25). “Do manfully, and let thy heart take courage!” (Psalm 26:14). “Fear not and let not thy heart be afraid!” (Isaias 7:4). “Let not your heart be troubled!” (John 14:1). “Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid!” (John 14:27). “Strengthen your hearts!” (James 5:8). “Pour out your hearts before Him! God is our helper for ever!” (Psalm 61:9).
Fearing Men, But Not Fearing God
Some people think that fear is a cowardly thing. Not true! We are “wired” by God to fear. Fear is one of the passions that God has put into our human nature. Fearing is not wrong! But fearing the wrong things is wrong! We have become so earthly and worldly that we now fear the wrong things! We fear what the world will think, say and do to us, much more than we fear what God thinks and may do to us! This false fear is often called “human respect”―it sounds okay, doesn’t it? We should give respect to our fellow human beings, shouldn’t we? Yes, but this idea of “human respect” means giving too much respect for what others think. As Our Lady of Good Success said: “Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’” This cursed “human respect” ― which should more correctly be called “fear of human opinions” replaces the respect that should shown towards God.
Fear of God and respect for God is old-fashioned these days! “The Lord has looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They have not called upon the Lord! There is none that does good―no, not one! They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! Their throat is an open sepulcher! With their tongues they acted deceitfully; the poison of asps is under their lips! Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness! Their feet are swift to shed blood! Destruction and unhappiness in their ways and the way of peace they have not known! There is none that does good―no, not even one! There is no fear of God before their eyes! There have they trembled for fear in those things, where there was no need for fear!” (Psalm 13:1-5).
Most Catholics fear how they look in the opinion of the world―that is to say, what the world and its worldlings will think, say or do if Catholics live like Catholics ought to live; think like Catholics ought to think; speak like Catholics ought to speak; and behave like Catholics ought to behave! Yet rather than fear the world, Catholics should fear the words of Our Lord, Who warns: “He that is not with Me, is against Me! … Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven! But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth―I came not to bring peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household! He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 12:30; 10:32-36).
Our Lord then goes on to describe the extent of this division: “Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
“The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7). “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he has not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above! You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world!” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
Fear Sin Above Everything Else
Our Lord tells us that we fear the wrong things: “Fear ye not them that kill the body and are not able to kill the soul―but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell!” (Matthew 10:28). What is that casts souls into Hell? Unrepented sins! Sin is the greatest evil in the world―regardless of what our personal opinion is on the matter: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
Apart from the Blessed Virgin Mary, all are sinners: “By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned!” (Romans 5:12) … “For all have sinned, and lack the glory of God!” (Romans 3:23) … “There is no just man upon Earth that sins not!” (Ecclesiastes 7:21) ... “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10) ... “The wages of sin is death! … The sting of death is sin!” (Romans 6:23; 1 Corinthians 15:56).
“Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) … “Do not bind sin to sin―for even in one sin thou shalt not be unpunished!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:8) … “Hast thou sinned? Do so no more! But for thy former sins pray that they may be forgiven thee!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1) … “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14) … “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:10-11).
Made for Fighting, Not for Having Fun!
If you look at the label attached to your soul, you will see that it says: “Made in Heaven”. On the reverse side of that label it says: “If found, please return to the rightful owner in Heaven”. Your soul was made in Heaven and made for Heaven. You were made by God and for God: “Thus saith the Lord that created thee: … ‘I have created him for My glory, I have formed him, and made him!’” (Isaias 43:1, 7) … “Behold all souls are Mine―as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine!” (Ezechiel 18:4) … “All the Earth is mine!” (Exodus 19:5). “Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature!” (Mark 16:15). “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20).
“Many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:19). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, is the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world! The world passes away, and its desires with it!” (1 John 2:15-17). “Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth!” (Colossians 3:2). “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places!” (Ephesians 6:12).
Rejection of God’s Teaching on Sin
Unfortunately, year after year, we see ever increasing numbers of those “who have said to God: ‘Depart from us! We desire not the knowledge of Thy ways!’” (Job 21:14). From top to bottom―from State down to family―more and more people are rejecting God’s “ownership” of their souls. They declare themselves to be independent of God―which is clearly seen in the false principle of “Separation of State and Religion” ― which is like saying you believe in separation of body from soul: the consequence of which is nothing other than DEATH! We were made to KNOW, LOVE and SERVE GOD―we were not made to think only of ourselves, love only ourselves and serve only ourselves. Yet all the way from STATE down to FAMILY the laws of God are increasingly ignored or outright rejected and cast out.
That is why today we have legalized abortion, contraception, cohabitation, adultery, divorce, remarriage after divorce, same-sex marriages, homosexuality, trangenderism, pornography, masturbation, immodesty in thoughts, words and actions, brothels, prostitution, etc., etc. The list goes on and on. All of these things are seen as being acceptable, good, desirable and fun! None of this is in accordance with the laws and will of God. It does not matter if hundreds of other laws are in agreement with God’s laws―by explicitly refusing just one single law of God, you are refusing all the laws of God implicitly: “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, but offend in one point of law, is become guilty of all” (James 2:10). In the matter of Morals, if you keep all the other Commandments of God, but choose to sin mortally against just one single Commandment, then you will go to Hell if you die in that state of mortal sin―it doesn’t matter how well or how many of the other Commandments you kept and obeyed. In the matter of Faith, to reject just one single dogma of the Catholic Church is to reject all Faith, since Christ is the authority and guarantor of the Church’s dogmas.
Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical, Satis Cognitum (# 9), June 29th, 1896, writes: “Can it be lawful for anyone to reject any one of those truths without by that very fact falling into heresy? – without separating himself from the Church? – without rejecting in one sweeping act the whole of Christian teaching? Such is the nature of Faith that nothing can be more absurd than to accept some things of the Faith and reject others … He who dissents even in one point from divinely revealed truth absolutely rejects all Faith, since he thereby refuses God as the supreme truth and the formal motive of Faith ... There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who accept nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, they infect the Faith taught by Our Lord and handed down by Apostolic Tradition.”
Those sobering words of the Pope apply to growing legions of numbers of Catholics who today accept one, or two or even all of the current heretical opinions of modern-day Catholics who imagine that you can be saved in any religion, since all religions lead to God; or who refuse to believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist; or who believe your mortal sins can be forgiven without needing to go to the Sacrament of Confession; or who believe that you can have women priests; or who accept one or many of the above mentioned list of mortal sins: abortion, contraception, cohabitation, adultery, divorce, remarriage after divorce, same-sex marriages, homosexuality, trangenderism, pornography, immodesty in thoughts, words and actions, etc.
The Catholic world has ceased to fight for the Faith; ceased to stand up for Christ; ceased to speak out against sin; ceased to live a fully Catholic life; ceased to feel guilty of sin. Ever since Pope Pius XII said in 1946: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin!” ― one pope after another (even the Liberal and Modernist popes) have lamented the same truth.
● Pope John Paul II, in 2005, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin!”
● Pope Benedict XVI, in 2011, said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. If we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, then we cannot speak of sin ... The meaning of sin ― which is a different thing from ‘guilt feelings’ as understood in psychology ― is only grasped in discovering the meaning of God!”
● Pope Francis, in 2014, said: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble!”
Most Catholic families today have lost that sense of sin―and if they have not totally lost the sense of sin, they have most definitely partially lost the sense of sin―but partial is almost as bad as total. Why? Because what does it matter if you commit every single mortal sin in the book, or you only commit one, or two or three? Losing the sense of sin over just a few sins will still mean potential damnation―a soul is damned if it dies with one mortal sin on its soul, or if it dies with one thousand mortal sins on its soul. Another way of looking at it is from the angle of poison. Whether someone puts just one single drop of a fatal poison into your drink, or whether they put one hundred drops of that fatal poison into your drink―you are going to die whichever one it is if you drink it. Today, there are a lot of poisonous mortal sins being drunk by Catholics who insist that it is not poisonous! That is what we have to fear―but many don’t fear that at all!
Our Lady is Not Laughing!
Some folk have an unrealistic, ridiculous, illogical, laughable idea of Our Lady―as being a happy-go-lucky, sweet-smiling, carefree, ‘pat-on-the-head, kind of person. They forget that at La Salette she wept tears of sorrow and not laughter. At Fatima, Lucia said that Our Lady never once smiled at the three children! Why? Because of sin! Because of the damnation that sin brings to her adopted children. To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady said: “Fear and abhor sin, even the slightest! … Deplore your faults with true sorrow! ... Acknowledge your fault, confessing it in sorrow! … Humbly and sorrowfully confess your faults with a heartfelt sorrow for your sins! … By Original Sin human nature is depraved, filled with passions, rebellious to reason, inclined to evil and adverse to the spiritual. If the soul allows itself to be carried away by them, it will be precipitated by the first vice into many others. What ought to be the grief of really losing God by sin! But this wisdom seems far from the mind of carnal men―for, with a most perverse blindness, they continue to blindly pursue the deceitful and vile delights of the senses, and abhor all that pertains to the good of their soul! … Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices ...
“Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God? … Full of this deceitful ignorance, they make their recovery impossible ― since all of them are weak and afflicted by many sins, for which the only remedy is suffering! … The wounds of sin do not distress them, and the more often they are committed, the less regret or sorrow do they cause! ... How many men whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―on account of the lack of light of Faith, from the darkness of their unbelief―have thrown themselves into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell! … Lament and grieve over this ruin of so many souls! ... Since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the damned is also uncountable! ... Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16)―fear this sentence and renew in thy heart the care and zeal for thy salvation!”
“The faithful are in such a dangerous and dreadful state of carelessness! Men are lost in forgetful rest and sleep―as if there were no vigilant and powerful enemies. This dreadful carelessness arises from two causes: on the one hand men are so taken up with their earthly and material life, that they do not feel any other evils―except those on a physical and material nature. Anything that is interior seems harmless in their estimation! On the other hand, since the princes of darkness are invisible and unperceived by any of the senses, and since carnal men neither touch, nor feel, nor see them―the result is that they forget the fear of them!” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
Fearless Fools!
At Fatima, after showing the three young children a vision of Hell, Our Lady lamented: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” To the Venerable Mary of Agreda she said: “The number of the damned is uncountable! … The number of those foreknown as doomed is so great, and the number of those that save themselves is so small, that it is not expedient to say more in particular … The demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men!” At Akita, Our Lady added: “The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness!” Yet, if you excuse the language, we just don’t give a damn about the damned! We just go on with our entertainments and amusements; hobbies and sports; shopping and fashions; eating and drinking without a care in the world―except our own personal cares. It is like having a family member seriously injure themselves and who is bleeding to death―but we just want to keep on watching the movie whilst consuming our drinks and snacks! Similarly, our heavenly Mother tells us that innumerable souls from our human family are falling into Hell, and nobody in the human family wants to do anything about it!
We could say that we add considerably to her sadness by refusing to grieve with her over the loss of so many souls and neglect or refuse to pray and offer sacrifices for their conversion and salvation before they die and are judged. Thoughts and talk of Hell and damnation seem to be taboo and forbidden, not only in most Catholic families, but also in sermons at most Catholic parishes! If most souls are being lost―then (pardon the language), why the hell are we not warning people of the dangers of Hell? Heck―we warn little children about much lesser dangers like not drinking cleaning liquids; not putting plastic bags over their heads; not turning on the gas-stove knob; not putting fingers in electrical wall sockets; not playing with knives and other similar dangerous objects; not swallowing sharp objects; not putting hands in a fire; not getting too close to bonfire; not putting certain things in their mouth; not running into or crossing the road without looking for oncoming cars; recognizing and not eating certain poisonous berries and plants; not playing with snakes and other dangerous reptiles or insects; not swinging the cat around by its tail―but we will not warn them of a far, far, far more serious danger―which is that of sin and Hell! Truly, as Holy Scripture says, “the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). We warn others of lesser dangers―but are silent on much more serious dangers! Our Lord castigated the Scribes and Pharisees for the same fault: “Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel!” (Matthew 23:24) and as Our Lady lamented: “The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation, and those who should speak out will be silent!” (Our Lady of Good Success). Our Lady has not been silent on the danger of Hell, nor was Our Lord silent on the matter! Nor were the Saints silent on the matter! Nor should you be silent on the matter!
The Saints were not “fearless fools” but boldly warned us of the vast number of careless and negligent souls who end up being damned [read more here].
St. Augustine, Doctor and Father of the Church, says: “Beyond a doubt the elect are few! ... It is certain that few are saved ... If you wish to imitate the multitude, then you shall not be among the few who shall enter in by the narrow gate.”
St. Anselm, Doctor of the Church, says: “If you would like to be certain of being in the number of the elect, then strive to be one of the few―not of the many! And if you would like to be quite sure of your salvation, then strive to be among the fewest of the few!”
St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church adds: “There are a select few who are saved! … Those who are saved are in the minority.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church, states: “The common opinion is that the greater part of adults is lost … Everyone desires to be saved―but the greater part is lost! … The saints are few, but we must live with the few if we would be saved with the few. O God, too few indeed they are! Yet among those few I wish to be! … In the Great Deluge in the days of Noe, nearly all mankind perished, eight persons alone being saved in the Ark. In our days a deluge, not of water but of sins, continually inundates the Earth, and out of this deluge very few escape―especially among secular people. Scarcely anyone is saved!”
St. John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church, warns: “Behold how many there are who are called, and how few who are chosen! And behold, if you have no care for yourself, your perdition is more certain than your amendment, especially since the way that leads to eternal life is so narrow!”
St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, reveals a vision of souls being damned:“I had the greatest sorrow for the many souls that condemned themselves to Hell ... I saw souls falling into Hell like snowflakes!”
St. Francis Xavier: “Ah, how many souls lose Heaven and are cast into Hell!”
St. Vincent de Paul: “Ah! A great many persons live constantly in the state of damnation!”
St. Louis Marie de Montfort says:“Be one of the small number who find the way to life, and enter by the narrow gate into Heaven. Take care not to follow the majority, so many of whom are lost! … The number of the elect is so small ― so small ― that, were we to know how small it is, we would faint away with grief!”
St. John Vianney reveals: “We shall find out at the day of judgment that the greater number of Christians who are lost were damned because they did not know their own religion … I tremble when I see so many souls lost these days. They fall into Hell as leaves fall from the trees at the approach of winter!”
St. Philip Neri: “So vast a number of miserable souls perish, and so comparatively few are saved!”
Venerable Louis de Granada points out that “a greater number is lost through false confidence than through excessive fear!”
St. Benedict Joseph of Labre relates a vision: “I was watching souls going down into the abyss as thick and fast as snowflakes falling in the winter mist! … Yes, indeed, many will be damned; few will be saved! … Meditate on the horrors of Hell which will last for eternity―just because of one easily-committed mortal sin! Try hard to be among the few who are chosen! Think of the eternal flames of Hell, and how few there are that are saved!”
Does Heaven Want Us To Be Fearful?
Does Our Lord want to live in fear? Well, the answer to that has be both YES and NO. In Holy Scripture, we see verses that tell us to fear, and verses that tell us not to fear. For example, God says: “Fear not, for I am with thee! I am thy God!” (Isaias 41:10)―yet God also says: “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, because I am the Lord!” (Leviticus 19:14). On one hand, Our Lord says: “Fear not, only believe!” (Mark 5:36). On the other hand, Our Lord says: “I will show you whom you shall fear! Fear ye Him, who after He has killed, has power to cast into Hell. Yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:5). Our Lady speaks of fearing God in her Magnificat: “His mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear Him!” (Luke 1:50)―yet the Archangel Gabriel, at the Annunciation, says to Our Lady: “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God!” (Luke 1:30). We also read the following: “Serve ye the Lord with fear and rejoice unto Him with trembling!” (Psalm 2:11) … “With fear and trembling give ye glory to Him” (Tobias 13:6) … “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12). Yet it also says: “Fear is not in charity―but perfect charity casts out fear―because fear has pain. And he that fears, is not perfected in charity!” (1 John 4:18).
The seeming lack of clarity shown by these quotes is neither erroneous nor contradictory. The less experienced a person is, the more that person has to fear. If you are not skilled in sailing a boat, then naturally you would be afraid of sailing a boat across a sea or an ocean. If you are not trained to fly a plane, you would obviously be afraid of having to fly one―and rightfully so! When we start out learning a skill such as those just mentioned, we are usually more afraid at the start of our training―and, as we progress in acquiring the skill being taught, that fear tends to evaporate more and more.
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This also applies to the spiritual life. The more we acquire the love of God by keeping His commandments―“If you love Me, keep My commandments!” (John 14:15)―then the less we start to fear the anger of God towards those who do not keep His commandments. What is happening is that our fear grows from one kind of fear into another kind of fear―we progress from merely being afraid of God’s punishments for sin, into a superior kind of fear that now fears to offend God because we love Him and we don’t like offending those whom we love. The fear of sinning due to God’s punishments for sin is called “servile fear” (the fear of a servant towards his master), whereas the fear of offending God by sinning because we love Him is called “filial fear” (the fear of a loving child towards his father).
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When we start work in a new job, it is not uncommon to have a servile fear of the boss―a fear of being punished for breaking any rules. “The fear of the Lord driveth out sin” (Ecclesiasticus 1:27). Yet the longer we work for that boss, and get to know, appreciate and love that boss more as time goes on―then it can happen that we are afraid of the breaking the rules for fear of punishment by our master (boss), but there is now a fear of offending a person whom we respect, like and love. As Holy Scripture says: “Perfect charity casts out fear!” (1 John 4:18).
Morphing from Fear to Wisdom and Love
Fear is not a bad thing―God has placed the passion of fear into our human nature. Yet, as with virtue, it has to be balanced―no exaggeration and no neglect. Too much fear can be dangerous thing―too little fear can be a dangerous thing. The way to look at it is to see fear as a seed, a starting point, a beginning that is meant to grow into other things―as in the life of a butterfly, we have the four stages of growth: egg, larva, pupa, and adult; or as in the case of a tree: from conception (seed), to birth (sprout), to infancy (seedling), to juvenile (sapling), to adult (mature tree). We can look at fear in a similar vein. Or, take if you like, the human person―the embryo, the baby, the child, adolescent and adult. In all cases lack of maturity in growth means an increased fragility. The egg, larva and pupa of the butterfly are all extremely fragile. If they could think and speak, then they would tell you that are afraid for their existence. Similarly with the seed, sprout, seedling and sapling of a tree―they would also exhibit a fear, because they have not yet reached a maturity with powerful roots, trunk and branches.
So too for the embryo, infancy, childhood and adolescence of a human person―the younger they are, the less mature they are, the more fragile they are, and the more fearful they are. That fear gradually recedes over the years as the person grows slowly into a mature adult. That growing process includes growth in knowledge and skill―and, usually, increased knowledge and increased skill erodes the fears based upon ignorance and incompetence. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom! … The root of wisdom is to fear the Lord!” (Ecclesiasticus 1:16, 25). Wisdom is the pinnacle that is higher than the mountains of knowledge and understanding. Wisdom is defined as knowing all things in relation to their ultimate cause―which, of course, is God.
Wisdom is the partner of charity―what charity is to the will, wisdom is to the mind. We cannot love what we do not know―and we will only love a little what we only know a little about. The more we get to know God, then the more we automatically should grow in the love of God. With that increase in knowledge and competence also comes an increase in courage―for, as stated above, “Perfect charity casts out fear!” (1 John 4:18). The flip side of that coin is―if fear decreases, courage must be automatically increasing. So you could say: “Perfect charity casts out fear and gives birth to courage!” The greater the charity, the greater the courage.
Our Lord points this out when He says: “Greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends!” (John 15:13). Thus, there are some soldiers who voluntarily enlist to fight for and defend their country, even at the risk of being killed in battle, out of a true love for their country. There are mothers and fathers who will willingly lay down their lives to protect their children whom they love. There are also Catholics who are willing to fight for and defend the Faith to the point of laying down their lives for the love of God and Christ. Such a great love guarantees salvation―for sin is forgiven in proportion to our love for God: “Charity covers all sins!” (Proverbs 10:12). “Before all things, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves―for charity covers a multitude of sins!” (1 Peter 4:8). “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much!” (Luke 7:47).
Fighting for Our Lady
It is to such a great degree of love―which automatically is a courageous degree of love―that Our Lady appeals to in this current plight and battle with the forces of evil―consisting of the world and its prince, the devil (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world!” (John 18:36) ... “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15) ... “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19).
Thus Our Lady of La Salette calls us to the fight against the world and its prince, the devil: “I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!”
St. Louis de Montfort speaks of these battles of the End Times in his book, True Devotion to Mary. Here are a few extracts on that topic:
“Mary will produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints―who shall come at the end of the world―are reserved for her … The Most High, with His holy Mother, has to form for Himself great saints, who shall surpass most of the other saints in sanctity … These great souls, full of grace and zeal, shall be chosen to match themselves against the enemies of God, who shall rage on all sides; and they shall be singularly devout to our Blessed Lady … They shall fight with one hand and build with the other. With the one hand they shall fight, overthrow and crush the heretics with their heresies, the schismatics with their schisms, the idolaters with their idolatries and the sinners with their impieties. With the other hand they shall … draw the whole world to true devotion to Mary. This shall bring upon them many enemies, but shall also bring many victories and much glory for God alone …
“Mary must be terrible to the devil and his crew, as an army ranged in battle, principally in these latter times, because the devil―knowing that he has but little time, and now less than ever, to destroy souls―will every day redouble his efforts and his combats. He will presently raise up cruel persecutions and will put terrible snares before the faithful servants and true children of Mary, whom it gives him more trouble to conquer than it does to conquer others.
“The power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel: that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world’s esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But, in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall … crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph.
“They shall be the ministers of the Lord who, like a burning fire, shall kindle the fire of divine love everywhere. They shall be “like sharp arrows in the hand of the powerful” Mary to pierce her enemies (Psalm 126:4). They shall be the sons of Levi, well purified by the fire of great tribulation, and closely adhering to God (1 Corinthians 6:17), who shall carry the gold of love in their heart, the incense of prayer in their spirit, and the myrrh of mortification in their body. They shall be everywhere the good odor of Jesus Christ to the poor and to the little, while at the same time, they shall be an odor of death to the great, to the rich and to the proud worldlings. They shall be clouds thundering and flying through the air at the least breath of the Holy Ghost; who, detaching themselves from everything and troubling themselves about nothing, shall shower forth the rain of the Word of God and of life eternal. They shall thunder against sin; they shall storm against the world; they shall strike the devil and his crew; and they shall pierce with their two-edged sword of the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17), all those to whom they shall be sent on the part of the Most High. They shall be the true apostles of the latter times … with the pure intention of the glory of God and the salvation of souls, wheresoever the Holy Ghost shall call them. Nor shall they leave behind them, in the places where they have preached, anything but the gold of charity, which is the fulfillment of the whole law (Romans 13:10).
“In a word, we know that they shall be true disciples of Jesus Christ, walking in the footsteps of His poverty, humility, contempt of the world, charity; teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not showing human respect; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts … These are the great men who are to come; but Mary is the one who, by order of the Most High, shall fashion them for the purpose of extending His empire over that of the impious, the idolaters and the Mahometans. But when and how shall this be? God alone knows. As for us, we have but to hold our tongues, to pray, to sigh and to wait: ‘With expectation I have waited!’ (Psalm 39:2).” (Extracts from Chapter 1 of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary).
Morphing from Fear to Wisdom and Love
Fear is not a bad thing―God has placed the passion of fear into our human nature. Yet, as with virtue, it has to be balanced―no exaggeration and no neglect. Too much fear can be dangerous thing―too little fear can be a dangerous thing. The way to look at it is to see fear as a seed, a starting point, a beginning that is meant to grow into other things―as in the life of a butterfly, we have the four stages of growth: egg, larva, pupa, and adult; or as in the case of a tree: from conception (seed), to birth (sprout), to infancy (seedling), to juvenile (sapling), to adult (mature tree). We can look at fear in a similar vein. Or, take if you like, the human person―the embryo, the baby, the child, adolescent and adult. In all cases lack of maturity in growth means an increased fragility. The egg, larva and pupa of the butterfly are all extremely fragile. If they could think and speak, then they would tell you that are afraid for their existence. Similarly with the seed, sprout, seedling and sapling of a tree―they would also exhibit a fear, because they have not yet reached a maturity with powerful roots, trunk and branches.
So too for the embryo, infancy, childhood and adolescence of a human person―the younger they are, the less mature they are, the more fragile they are, and the more fearful they are. That fear gradually recedes over the years as the person grows slowly into a mature adult. That growing process includes growth in knowledge and skill―and, usually, increased knowledge and increased skill erodes the fears based upon ignorance and incompetence. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom! … The root of wisdom is to fear the Lord!” (Ecclesiasticus 1:16, 25). Wisdom is the pinnacle that is higher than the mountains of knowledge and understanding. Wisdom is defined as knowing all things in relation to their ultimate cause―which, of course, is God.
Wisdom is the partner of charity―what charity is to the will, wisdom is to the mind. We cannot love what we do not know―and we will only love a little what we only know a little about. The more we get to know God, then the more we automatically should grow in the love of God. With that increase in knowledge and competence also comes an increase in courage―for, as stated above, “Perfect charity casts out fear!” (1 John 4:18). The flip side of that coin is―if fear decreases, courage must be automatically increasing. So you could say: “Perfect charity casts out fear and gives birth to courage!” The greater the charity, the greater the courage.
Our Lord points this out when He says: “Greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends!” (John 15:13). Thus, there are some soldiers who voluntarily enlist to fight for and defend their country, even at the risk of being killed in battle, out of a true love for their country. There are mothers and fathers who will willingly lay down their lives to protect their children whom they love. There are also Catholics who are willing to fight for and defend the Faith to the point of laying down their lives for the love of God and Christ. Such a great love guarantees salvation―for sin is forgiven in proportion to our love for God: “Charity covers all sins!” (Proverbs 10:12). “Before all things, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves―for charity covers a multitude of sins!” (1 Peter 4:8). “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much!” (Luke 7:47).
Fighting for Our Lady
It is to such a great degree of love―which automatically is a courageous degree of love―that Our Lady appeals to in this current plight and battle with the forces of evil―consisting of the world and its prince, the devil (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world!” (John 18:36) ... “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15) ... “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19).
Thus Our Lady of La Salette calls us to the fight against the world and its prince, the devil: “I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!”
St. Louis de Montfort speaks of these battles of the End Times in his book, True Devotion to Mary. Here are a few extracts on that topic:
“Mary will produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints―who shall come at the end of the world―are reserved for her … The Most High, with His holy Mother, has to form for Himself great saints, who shall surpass most of the other saints in sanctity … These great souls, full of grace and zeal, shall be chosen to match themselves against the enemies of God, who shall rage on all sides; and they shall be singularly devout to our Blessed Lady … They shall fight with one hand and build with the other. With the one hand they shall fight, overthrow and crush the heretics with their heresies, the schismatics with their schisms, the idolaters with their idolatries and the sinners with their impieties. With the other hand they shall … draw the whole world to true devotion to Mary. This shall bring upon them many enemies, but shall also bring many victories and much glory for God alone …
“Mary must be terrible to the devil and his crew, as an army ranged in battle, principally in these latter times, because the devil―knowing that he has but little time, and now less than ever, to destroy souls―will every day redouble his efforts and his combats. He will presently raise up cruel persecutions and will put terrible snares before the faithful servants and true children of Mary, whom it gives him more trouble to conquer than it does to conquer others.
“The power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel: that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world’s esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But, in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall … crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph.
“They shall be the ministers of the Lord who, like a burning fire, shall kindle the fire of divine love everywhere. They shall be “like sharp arrows in the hand of the powerful” Mary to pierce her enemies (Psalm 126:4). They shall be the sons of Levi, well purified by the fire of great tribulation, and closely adhering to God (1 Corinthians 6:17), who shall carry the gold of love in their heart, the incense of prayer in their spirit, and the myrrh of mortification in their body. They shall be everywhere the good odor of Jesus Christ to the poor and to the little, while at the same time, they shall be an odor of death to the great, to the rich and to the proud worldlings. They shall be clouds thundering and flying through the air at the least breath of the Holy Ghost; who, detaching themselves from everything and troubling themselves about nothing, shall shower forth the rain of the Word of God and of life eternal. They shall thunder against sin; they shall storm against the world; they shall strike the devil and his crew; and they shall pierce with their two-edged sword of the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17), all those to whom they shall be sent on the part of the Most High. They shall be the true apostles of the latter times … with the pure intention of the glory of God and the salvation of souls, wheresoever the Holy Ghost shall call them. Nor shall they leave behind them, in the places where they have preached, anything but the gold of charity, which is the fulfillment of the whole law (Romans 13:10).
“In a word, we know that they shall be true disciples of Jesus Christ, walking in the footsteps of His poverty, humility, contempt of the world, charity; teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not showing human respect; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts … These are the great men who are to come; but Mary is the one who, by order of the Most High, shall fashion them for the purpose of extending His empire over that of the impious, the idolaters and the Mahometans. But when and how shall this be? God alone knows. As for us, we have but to hold our tongues, to pray, to sigh and to wait: ‘With expectation I have waited!’ (Psalm 39:2).” (Extracts from Chapter 1 of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary).
Article 1
Pentecost Thursday June 1st, 2023
Do You Have the Heart for It?
Pentecost Thursday June 1st, 2023
Do You Have the Heart for It?
Heart and Health
The heart is at the heart of our well-being and existence. If the heart is weak, then that weakness will eventually extend itself to our entire being, directly or indirectly. Even our intellectual life will suffer indirectly, as the heart pumps blood to brain, and the brain needs much oxygen to function well, and that oxygen is carried by the blood the heart is supposed to pump.
The same is true of our spiritual life. If our ‘spiritual’ heart is healthy, then the healthier will be our entire spiritual life. “Soundness of heart is the life of the flesh” (Proverbs 14:30). That healthy heart refers to the love in our ‘heart’. This is also the key element in the apparitions and messages of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Love is the Health of the Heart
The heart of our spiritual life is love. Love is and has to be the soul of all that we do. “Let all your things be done in charity!” (1 Corinthians 16:14). “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal! And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing! And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Therefore, once again: “Let all your things be done in charity” (1 Corinthians 16:14).
God is Love
God Himself is Charity, He is Charity Itself: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). This charity God has shown to a world that has not deserved or merited it—it is not as though we had something first, that necessitated God to repay. “Who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be made him?” (Romans 11:35). In fact, the world, by its sins, was more deserving of punishment and damnation than it was deserving of God’s charity! Yet that did not extinguish the charity of God.
Who Loved First?
“For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “God, Who is rich in mercy, for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ, by whose grace you are saved!” (Ephesians 2:4-5). “In this is charity―not as though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins!” (1 John 4:10). “In this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid down His life for us!” (1 John 3:16). “Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us!” (1 John 4:19). “This only take care of with all diligence, that you love the Lord your God!” (Josue 23:11). “That Christ may dwell by Faith in your hearts; that being rooted and founded in charity” (Ephesians 3:17). “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us!” (Romans 5:5). “Follow after charity!” (1 Corinthians 14:1). “For the charity of Christ presseth us!” (2 Corinthians 5:14).
Heart Failure
Yet despite this great and undeserved love of God, we have failed, on the whole, to fully appreciate and return that love. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that love is reciprocal—it is not just “give”; it is not just “take”; but it is a case of “give and take.” St. Augustine says (De Catech. Rud. iv): “Nothing will incite another more to love you, than that you love him first: for he must have a hard heart, indeed, who not only refuses to love, but declines to return love already given.” Yet this is precisely our guilt, as Our Lord would say to St. Margaret Mary:
“My Divine Heart is so inflamed with love for men, and for you in particular that, being unable any longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its burning Charity! It needs to spread them abroad by your means, and manifest Itself to them (mankind) in order to enrich them with the precious graces of sanctification and salvation necessary to withdraw them from the abyss of perdition!
“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love! And in return, I receive, from the greater part, only ingratitude by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love! But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus!”
Heart Full of Junk
If we eat certain wrong foods, they will eventually provoke heart failure and a heart attack. The following quote is from the American Heart Association (AHA) or should that be Aha!
“Added sugar was not a significant component of the human diet until the advent of modern food-processing methods. Since then, the intake of sugar has risen steadily. The average US sugar utilization per capita on the basis of food disappearance data was 120 lbs per year in 1970, and it reached 150 lbs per year in 1995 (almost half-a-pound per day)… Sugar has no nutritional value other than to provide calories. To improve the overall nutrient density of the diet and to help reduce the intake of excess calories, individuals should be sure foods high in added sugar are not displacing foods with essential nutrients or increasing calorie intake.” Their studies and research go on to irrefutably link a high sugar intake with cardio-vascular disease.
The World Serves Junk for the Soul
Similarly, if we replace the good ‘spiritual food’ that our ‘spiritual’ hearts were made for, with the highly sweetened junk ‘food’ offered by the world, we will eventually suffer a ‘spiritual-cardiac-arrest’! By highly sweetened junk food we mean the pleasures, amusements, distractions and fun that world offers, which is meant to displace the spirit of mortification and sacrifice that Heaven wants us to feed our souls upon.
Holy Scripture tells us this: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). “The charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him” (1 John 4:9). Sadly, “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11).
Good Daily Food
This charity we can find daily in Holy Communion, through which “God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him.” But, sadly, He is not wanted nor received in Holy Communion—“He came unto His own, and His own received Him not!” Instead, souls seek out and stuff themselves upon the vanities of the world—the word “vanity” comes from the Latin word “vanus” which means “empty, fruitless, futile, idle, ineffectual, useless, vain.” Holy Scripture ask us the question: “Why do you love vanity?” (Psalm 4:3). The Imitation of Christ, adds:
“For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart and the principles of all the philosophers if we live without grace and the love of God? Vanity of vanities and all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone. This is the greatest wisdom—to seek the Kingdom of Heaven through contempt of the world. It is vanity, therefore, to seek and trust in riches that perish! It is vanity also to court honor and to be puffed up with pride! It is vanity to follow the lusts of the body and to desire things for which severe punishment later must come! It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life! It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come! It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides!” (Book 1, chapter 1).
Change of Heart Needed
“O children, how long will you love childishness, and fools covet those things which are hurtful to themselves, and the unwise hate knowledge?” (Proverbs 1:22). “No servant can serve two masters―for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Luke 16:13). “Know the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect heart, and a willing mind: for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands all the thoughts of minds. If thou seek Him, thou shalt find Him: but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off for ever!” (1 Paralipomenon 28:9).
Many “are faithless, companions of thieves: they all love bribes, the run after rewards” (Isaias 1:23). “There is not a more wicked thing than to love money―for such a one sets even his own soul to sale!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:10). “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36). “He that received the seed (the word of God) among thorns, is he that hears the word, and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches chokes up the word, and he becomes fruitless!” (Matthew 13:22). “For the desire of money is the root of all evils; which some coveting have erred from the Faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows!” (1 Timothy 6:10). “Better is a little to the just, than the great riches of the wicked” (Psalm 36:16). “Behold these are sinners; and yet abounding in the world they have obtained riches!” (Psalm 72:12). “If riches abound, set not your heart upon them!” (Psalm 61:11).
Other Pleasures Causing Spiritual Cardiac-Arrest
“Challenge not them that love wine―for wine hath destroyed very many!” (Ecclesiasticus 31:30). “And when the sons of Babylon were come to her to the bed of love, they defiled her with their fornications, and she was polluted by them, and her soul was glutted with them!” (Ezechiel 23:17). “But as for them whose heart walks after their scandals and abominations, I will lay their way upon their head, saith the Lord God” (Ezechiel 11:21). “Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves!” (Romans 1:24). “And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold!” (Matthew 24:12).
A New Heart
“But I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first charity” (Apocalypse 2:4). “Justify not thyself before God, for he knows the heart” (Ecclesiasticus 7:5). “The imagination and thought of man’s heart are prone to evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin!’?” (Proverbs 20:9). “Be mindful therefore from whence thou art fallen―and do penance, and do the first works! Or else I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out of its place, except thou do penance!” (Apocalypse 2:4-5). “Return to the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul!” (Deuteronomy 30:10). “Not serving to the eye, as it were pleasing men, but, as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart” (Ephesians 6:6). “Covet ye therefore my words, and love them, and you shall have instruction!” (Wisdom 6:12).
“Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within my bowels!” (Psalm 50:12). The Lord says: “I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you―and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 36:26). “God hath softened my heart, and the Almighty hath troubled me!” (Job 23:16). “A contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise!” (Psalm 50:19). “God gave unto him another heart!” (1 Kings 10:9).
The heart is at the heart of our well-being and existence. If the heart is weak, then that weakness will eventually extend itself to our entire being, directly or indirectly. Even our intellectual life will suffer indirectly, as the heart pumps blood to brain, and the brain needs much oxygen to function well, and that oxygen is carried by the blood the heart is supposed to pump.
The same is true of our spiritual life. If our ‘spiritual’ heart is healthy, then the healthier will be our entire spiritual life. “Soundness of heart is the life of the flesh” (Proverbs 14:30). That healthy heart refers to the love in our ‘heart’. This is also the key element in the apparitions and messages of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Love is the Health of the Heart
The heart of our spiritual life is love. Love is and has to be the soul of all that we do. “Let all your things be done in charity!” (1 Corinthians 16:14). “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal! And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing! And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Therefore, once again: “Let all your things be done in charity” (1 Corinthians 16:14).
God is Love
God Himself is Charity, He is Charity Itself: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). This charity God has shown to a world that has not deserved or merited it—it is not as though we had something first, that necessitated God to repay. “Who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be made him?” (Romans 11:35). In fact, the world, by its sins, was more deserving of punishment and damnation than it was deserving of God’s charity! Yet that did not extinguish the charity of God.
Who Loved First?
“For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “God, Who is rich in mercy, for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ, by whose grace you are saved!” (Ephesians 2:4-5). “In this is charity―not as though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins!” (1 John 4:10). “In this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid down His life for us!” (1 John 3:16). “Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us!” (1 John 4:19). “This only take care of with all diligence, that you love the Lord your God!” (Josue 23:11). “That Christ may dwell by Faith in your hearts; that being rooted and founded in charity” (Ephesians 3:17). “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us!” (Romans 5:5). “Follow after charity!” (1 Corinthians 14:1). “For the charity of Christ presseth us!” (2 Corinthians 5:14).
Heart Failure
Yet despite this great and undeserved love of God, we have failed, on the whole, to fully appreciate and return that love. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that love is reciprocal—it is not just “give”; it is not just “take”; but it is a case of “give and take.” St. Augustine says (De Catech. Rud. iv): “Nothing will incite another more to love you, than that you love him first: for he must have a hard heart, indeed, who not only refuses to love, but declines to return love already given.” Yet this is precisely our guilt, as Our Lord would say to St. Margaret Mary:
“My Divine Heart is so inflamed with love for men, and for you in particular that, being unable any longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its burning Charity! It needs to spread them abroad by your means, and manifest Itself to them (mankind) in order to enrich them with the precious graces of sanctification and salvation necessary to withdraw them from the abyss of perdition!
“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love! And in return, I receive, from the greater part, only ingratitude by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love! But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus!”
Heart Full of Junk
If we eat certain wrong foods, they will eventually provoke heart failure and a heart attack. The following quote is from the American Heart Association (AHA) or should that be Aha!
“Added sugar was not a significant component of the human diet until the advent of modern food-processing methods. Since then, the intake of sugar has risen steadily. The average US sugar utilization per capita on the basis of food disappearance data was 120 lbs per year in 1970, and it reached 150 lbs per year in 1995 (almost half-a-pound per day)… Sugar has no nutritional value other than to provide calories. To improve the overall nutrient density of the diet and to help reduce the intake of excess calories, individuals should be sure foods high in added sugar are not displacing foods with essential nutrients or increasing calorie intake.” Their studies and research go on to irrefutably link a high sugar intake with cardio-vascular disease.
The World Serves Junk for the Soul
Similarly, if we replace the good ‘spiritual food’ that our ‘spiritual’ hearts were made for, with the highly sweetened junk ‘food’ offered by the world, we will eventually suffer a ‘spiritual-cardiac-arrest’! By highly sweetened junk food we mean the pleasures, amusements, distractions and fun that world offers, which is meant to displace the spirit of mortification and sacrifice that Heaven wants us to feed our souls upon.
Holy Scripture tells us this: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). “The charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him” (1 John 4:9). Sadly, “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11).
Good Daily Food
This charity we can find daily in Holy Communion, through which “God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him.” But, sadly, He is not wanted nor received in Holy Communion—“He came unto His own, and His own received Him not!” Instead, souls seek out and stuff themselves upon the vanities of the world—the word “vanity” comes from the Latin word “vanus” which means “empty, fruitless, futile, idle, ineffectual, useless, vain.” Holy Scripture ask us the question: “Why do you love vanity?” (Psalm 4:3). The Imitation of Christ, adds:
“For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart and the principles of all the philosophers if we live without grace and the love of God? Vanity of vanities and all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone. This is the greatest wisdom—to seek the Kingdom of Heaven through contempt of the world. It is vanity, therefore, to seek and trust in riches that perish! It is vanity also to court honor and to be puffed up with pride! It is vanity to follow the lusts of the body and to desire things for which severe punishment later must come! It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life! It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come! It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides!” (Book 1, chapter 1).
Change of Heart Needed
“O children, how long will you love childishness, and fools covet those things which are hurtful to themselves, and the unwise hate knowledge?” (Proverbs 1:22). “No servant can serve two masters―for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Luke 16:13). “Know the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect heart, and a willing mind: for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands all the thoughts of minds. If thou seek Him, thou shalt find Him: but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off for ever!” (1 Paralipomenon 28:9).
Many “are faithless, companions of thieves: they all love bribes, the run after rewards” (Isaias 1:23). “There is not a more wicked thing than to love money―for such a one sets even his own soul to sale!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:10). “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36). “He that received the seed (the word of God) among thorns, is he that hears the word, and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches chokes up the word, and he becomes fruitless!” (Matthew 13:22). “For the desire of money is the root of all evils; which some coveting have erred from the Faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows!” (1 Timothy 6:10). “Better is a little to the just, than the great riches of the wicked” (Psalm 36:16). “Behold these are sinners; and yet abounding in the world they have obtained riches!” (Psalm 72:12). “If riches abound, set not your heart upon them!” (Psalm 61:11).
Other Pleasures Causing Spiritual Cardiac-Arrest
“Challenge not them that love wine―for wine hath destroyed very many!” (Ecclesiasticus 31:30). “And when the sons of Babylon were come to her to the bed of love, they defiled her with their fornications, and she was polluted by them, and her soul was glutted with them!” (Ezechiel 23:17). “But as for them whose heart walks after their scandals and abominations, I will lay their way upon their head, saith the Lord God” (Ezechiel 11:21). “Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves!” (Romans 1:24). “And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold!” (Matthew 24:12).
A New Heart
“But I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first charity” (Apocalypse 2:4). “Justify not thyself before God, for he knows the heart” (Ecclesiasticus 7:5). “The imagination and thought of man’s heart are prone to evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin!’?” (Proverbs 20:9). “Be mindful therefore from whence thou art fallen―and do penance, and do the first works! Or else I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out of its place, except thou do penance!” (Apocalypse 2:4-5). “Return to the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul!” (Deuteronomy 30:10). “Not serving to the eye, as it were pleasing men, but, as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart” (Ephesians 6:6). “Covet ye therefore my words, and love them, and you shall have instruction!” (Wisdom 6:12).
“Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within my bowels!” (Psalm 50:12). The Lord says: “I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you―and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 36:26). “God hath softened my heart, and the Almighty hath troubled me!” (Job 23:16). “A contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise!” (Psalm 50:19). “God gave unto him another heart!” (1 Kings 10:9).
SEASON OF PENTECOST DAILY THOUGHTS
Article 32
Pentecost Tuesday & Wednesday May 30th & May 31st, 2023
Led By The Spirit ― But Which One?
Pentecost Tuesday & Wednesday May 30th & May 31st, 2023
Led By The Spirit ― But Which One?
Are You Fooled? Ever Been Scammed?
This modern world is filled with scams, swindles, frauds and cons. In the USA alone, one in ten adults will fall victim to a scam or fraud every year. There were over 3 million REPORTED scams in 2021 and 2.5 million in 2022. That must be only the tip of the iceberg if you estimate NON-REPORTED scams. According to new data from the FTC, almost $8.8 billion was lost to various kinds of fraud in 2022. In just one area of scamming―investment scams―consumers reported losing more than $3.8 billion to investment scams—more than any other category of scam in 2022.
The different ways in which you can be scammed, conned, defrauded, swindled, etc. are as numerous as the people on the planet―there are innumerable nuances and shades and tweaks on any one scam you wish to examine. Every person is “scamable”―it is merely of finding the “tailor-made” foolproof scam for each person. There are lists of most popular scams, such as the one below, but they barely scratch the surface―or, if they do, then are multiple variations and permutations of each scam.
Advance Fee Scams
Tech Support Scams
Phishing
Emergency Scams
IRS or Government Imposter Scams
Foreign Money Exchange Scams
Counterfeit Cashier's Checks
Bogus Debts
Home Repair Scams
Business Opportunities or Employment Scams
Shopping Sprees
Nothing New Under The Sun
As Holy Scripture says: “Nothing under the sun is new!” (Ecclesiastes 1:10) and that includes scams! Even though the Scripture does not use our modern terminology of “scam and scammer; con and conman; swindle and swindler―the Bible is full of scams, cons and swindles. The first scammer or swindler was the serpent―or Satan. The first person to be scammed, conned, or swindled was Eve―and Adam came right after. Satan conned Eve out of all their “spiritual wealth” or “life savings”― which was sanctifying grace. The loss of sanctifying grace through sin meant the loss of life and ultimately brought death: “God commanded him, saying: ‘Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat! But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat! For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death!’” (Genesis 2:17). Then along came Satan the serpent and scammer and said: “No, you shall not die the death! For God knows that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods―knowing good and evil!” (Genesis 3:4-5). Satan’s successful scam brought death to Adam and Eve. As Our Lord would later say of Satan: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth―because truth is not in him! When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44)
Satan’s successful scam brought death to Adam and Eve. As Our Lord would later say of Satan: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth―because truth is not in him! When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44). Scripture further warns: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour― whom resist ye, strong in Faith: knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world!” (1 Peter 5:8-9).
Consequently, St. Paul warns: “I fear lest, just as the serpent seduced Eve by his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted! … For if he that comes preaches another Christ―whom we have not preached―or if you receive another Spirit, whom you have not received from us; or another gospel which you have not received from us; you might well accept it!” (2 Corinthians 11:3-4).
If we know our Faith and live our Faith intensely, then we will spot the Satanic scams―for our knowledge of the Faith will alert us to false teachings and suggestions. Scripture warns us abundantly that scammers, swindlers, fraudsters and conmen will come and that they will try to fool even the elect! “For there shall rise up false Christs and false prophets, and they shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to seduce and deceive― if it were possible―even the elect! … For many will come in My Name, and they will seduce many!” (Matthew 24:5, 24:24; Mark 13:22). We will see that these “false apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder―for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light!” (2 Corinthians 11:13-14) ― “that old serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who seduces the whole world!” (Apocalypse 12:0). “By the snares of the devil they are held captive” (2 Timothy 2:26). “But though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, then let him be anathema!” (Galatians 1:8). “May no man deceive you by loftiness of words!” (Colossians 2:4). “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves!” (Matthew 7:15). “He that enters not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up another way―the same is a thief and a robber! … I am the door of the sheep. All others―as many as have come―are thieves and robbers! … The thief comes to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly!” (John 10:1-10).
Days of Devilish Darkness and Deception
If you are well-informed about the Faith and are reasonably well-read on the current state of the Catholic Church, then you will undoubtedly agree that we are living in what could be called the “Dark Days of Deception”. Our Lord, speaking of the so-called “End Times” or “Last Days” speaks of false Christs and false prophets who will seduce and deceive the masses, and even the elect ― lamenting the fact that “the Son of man, when He comes, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). Our Lady of Fatima indicated to Sister Lucia that we have already entered those “End Times” or “Last Days” ― which does mean that the world will end any time soon, because we must first witness the promised Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which will be followed by a period of peace before the Antichrist arrives on the scene.
Our Lady’s modern day apparitions are in full agreement with the Scriptural prophecy of Our Lord about the lack of Faith on Earth in the “End Times” or “Last Days”. Our Lady states: “For a while the Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness … How the Church will suffer during this dark night! … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God! … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord ... Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … The Holy Eucharist will be subject to many horrible sacrileges and profanations—both public and secret. It will be difficult to receive the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. The Sacrament of Penance will be forgotten and even scorned. The Sacrament of Matrimony will be attacked and profaned. The Sacrament of Extreme Unction will be little esteemed. The Sacred Sacrament of Holy Orders will be ridiculed, oppressed and despised―vocations to the priesthood will be lost ...
“The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … The true Faith will be forgotten … [only a] small number of souls will preserve the treasures of the Faith … The Gospel of Jesus Christ having been forgotten … the devil will preach another gospel contrary to that of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ … A great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... During these years, the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government, which will see a cruel persecution of all religious communities … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective, making it easy for everyone to live in sin. The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness.” (Our Lady’s words at Quito, La Salette, Akita).
Emmerich’s Visions of Devilish Darkness and Deception
Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824)― a mystic, Marian visionary, ecstatic and stigmatist―was the recipient of many God-given revelations and visions―one series of which was on the topic of the Two Churches and Two Popes. What she was shown is particularly relevant to this discussion of the “End Times” or “Last Days” with its “false Christs, false prophets, wolves in the clothing of sheep” and the lack of Faith, or a time of apostasy. Here is a compilation from the several visions that she was shown concerning our times:
“I a long processions of bishops [The four different sessions of the Second Vatican Council, held from 1962 to 1965, had between 2,000 and 2,500 bishops in daily attendance]. Their thoughts and utterances were made known to me through images issuing from their mouths. Their faults towards religion were shown by external deformities ... I saw what I believe to be nearly all the bishops of the world [the Second Vatican Council assembled all the bishops in the world], but only a small number were perfectly sound. A concession was demanded from the clergy which could not be granted. I saw that many pastors allowed themselves to be taken up with ideas that were dangerous to the Church. I saw many older priests, especially one, who wept bitterly. A few younger ones were also weeping. But others, and the lukewarm among them, readily did what was demanded. It was as if people were splitting into two camps ... ... Priests were among them! … Priests allowed everything and said Mass with much irreverence. I saw that few of them were still godly priests ... I saw some good pious bishops; but they were weak and wavering, their cowardice often got the upper hand … The local clergy grew lukewarm, and I saw a great circle of darkness ever widening …
“I now see that in this place [Rome], the [Catholic] Church is being so cleverly undermined, that there hardly remain a hundred or so priests who have not been deceived. They all work for destruction ― even the clergy ... I see many excommunicated ecclesiastics who do not seem to be concerned about it, nor even aware of it. Yet, they are (ipso facto) excommunicated whenever they cooperate with enterprises, enter into associations, and embrace opinions on which an anathema has been cast [i.e. become Freemasons] … Most priests were lured by the glittering, but false knowledge of modern teachers, and they all contributed to the work of destruction. I saw the secret sect [Freemasons] relentlessly undermining the great Church! … A great devastation is now near at hand! …
They were building a large, strange, and extravagant church there in Rome … I did not see a single angel, nor a single saint helping in the work ... There was nothing holy in it. They had preaching and singing, but nothing else [which possibly implies the absence of the true Sacrifice of the Mass in this new church], and only very few attended it. People were kneading bread [dough] in the crypt below ... but it would not rise, nor did they receive the Body of Our Lord, but only bread. Those who were in error, through no fault of their own―and who piously and ardently longed for the Body of Jesus―were spiritually consoled, but not by their communion ... There―in the strange big church―all the work was being done mechanically according to set rules and formulae. Everything was being done according to human reason ... All in this church belonged to the Earth, returned to the Earth. All was dead, the work of human skill, a church of the latest style, a church of man’s invention like the new heterodox church in Rome … There was something proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed very successful. I saw the fatal consequences of this counterfeit church … All sorts of abominations were perpetrated there … I saw how harmful would be the consequences of this false church. I saw it increase in size; I saw heretics of all kinds flocking to the city of Rome.
“Everyone was to be admitted in it in order to be united and have equal rights―Evangelicals, Catholics, sects of every description [all of which describes the current false spirit of Ecumenism that invaded the Church at the Council] ... The Protestant doctrine and that of the schismatic Greeks is to spread everywhere! … Then I saw that everything pertaining to Protestantism was gradually gaining the upper hand, and the Catholic religion fell into complete decadence ... I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions ... Then I saw darkness spreading around and people no longer seeking the true Church … The Church is in great danger! It was shown to me that there were almost no Christians left in the old acceptation of the word! … The Church is completely isolated and as if completely deserted. It seems that everyone is running away. Everywhere I see great misery, hatred, treason, rancor, confusion and utter blindness … Then my Guide [Jesus] said: ‘This is Babel’ … I saw very clearly the errors, the aberrations and the countless sins of men. I saw the folly and the wickedness of their actions, against all truth and all reason ...
“I also saw the various regions of the Earth. My Guide [Jesus] named Europe and pointing to a small and sandy region, He uttered these words: ‘Here is Prussia [East Germany], the enemy.’ Then He showed me another place, to the north, and He said: ‘This is Moskva, the land of Moscow, bringing many evils.’ … I saw in all places Catholics oppressed, annoyed, harassed, restricted, and deprived of freedom, churches were closed, and great misery prevailed everywhere with war and bloodshed. In those days, Faith will fall very low, and it will be preserved in some places only, in a few cottages and in a few families which God has protected from disasters and wars.”
“I see that when the Second Coming of Christ approaches, a bad priest [Francis?] will do much harm to the Church. When the time of the reign of Antichrist is near, a false religion will appear which will be opposed to the unity of God and His Church. This will cause the greatest schism the world has ever known. The nearer the time of the end, the more the darkness of Satan will spread on Earth, the greater will be the number of the children of corruption, and the number of the just will correspondingly diminish … I see in the future religion falling so low that it will be practiced only here and there in farmhouses and in families protected by God during the horrors of war ... I saw the battle also. The enemies were far more numerous, but the small army of the faithful cut down whole rows of enemy soldiers. During the battle, the Blessed Virgin stood on a hill, wearing a suit of armor. It was a terrible war. At the end, only a few fighters for the just cause survived, but the victory was theirs!”
The Future Pope Pius XII Speaks of a Dark Future!
The Secretary of State under Pope Pius XI, Msgr. Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli―prior to his own elevation to the papacy in 1939 as Pope Pius XII―made the following astonishing prophecy about a coming upheaval in the Church: “Suppose, dear friend, that Communism [one of “the errors of Russia” mentioned in the Message of Fatima] was only the most visible of the instruments of subversion to be used against the Church and the traditions of Divine Revelation … I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucia of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul. … I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject Her ornaments and make Her feel remorse for Her historical past. A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask: ‘Where have they taken Him?’”
Archbishop Fulton Sheen on the Dark Days of Deception
In 1948, three years before being consecrated a bishop, Fr. Fulton Sheen published a book entitled, Communism and the Conscience of the West, in which we have these following passages referring to deceptions which Sheen foresaw in the immediate future:
“The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulfur, nor carry a trident, nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes him, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himself as ‘I am Who am,’ and the Devil as ‘I am who am not.’ Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first “red.” Rather is he described as an angel fallen from Heaven, as ‘the Prince of this world,’ whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. His logic is simple: if there is no Heaven there is no Hell; if there is no Hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge; and if there is no judgment, then evil is good and good is evil. But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect — and certainly no devil ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect. How will he come in this new age to win followers to his religion?
“The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty — not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. The third temptation — in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms of the world would be His [cf. Matthew 4:8-9] — will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion — one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God’s.
“Christ’s Church, the Catholic Church, will be one; and the false Prophet will create the other. The False Church will be worldly, ecumenical, and global. It will be a loose federation of churches and religions, forming some type of global association―a world parliament of churches. It will be emptied of all Divine content, it will be the mystical body of the Antichrist. The mystical body on Earth today will have its Judas Iscariot, and he will be the false prophet. Satan will recruit him from our Bishops. He will set up a counter-church which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the Mystical Body of Christ. In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one―he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. But the twentieth century will join the counter-church, because it claims to be infallible when its visible head speaks ‘ex cathedra’ from Moscow on the subject of economics and politics, and as chief shepherd of world Communism.” (Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West, 1948, pp. 22-25).
Bella Dodd and the School of Darkness
Dr. Bella Visono Dodd (1904 – April 29th, 1969) was a member of the Communist Party of America (CPUSA) in the 1930s and 1940s who later became a vocal anti-Communist. After her defection from the Communist Party in 1949, she testified that one of her jobs, as a Communist agent, was to encourage young radicals to enter Roman Catholic Seminaries. She was born in Picerno, Italy, in 1904 and baptized a Catholic. She came to America when aged only six―but her practice of the Catholic Faith ceased―even though she always called herself a Catholic. In 1917, she entered Evander Childs High School. Four years later she attended Hunter College, and received her master’s studies at Columbia University working toward a doctorate in philosophy, then switching to the legal division. Later, she graduated from the School of Law at New York University where she received a Degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence.
A schoolteacher and lawyer by profession, Bella Dodd was an organizer for the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) from 1932–1948, and, from 1944 to 1948, sat on the CPUSA’s National Council. She also served as head of the New York State Teachers Union. She was expelled from the CPUSA, in 1949, for representing a landlord in a legal dispute with a renter, which was a violation of Party bylaws which would not recognize or defend the right to own private property. In 1952, she publicly announced that she had been received back into the Roman Catholic Church by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York.
Bella Dodd, who was one of the leaders (National Council) of the Communist Party of America (CPUSA) in the 1930s and 1940s, later explained what she did while working as a Communist. Dr. Dodd served as legal counsel (attorney) for the Communists. Her book, School of Darkness (1954) reveals that Communism was perpetrated by financiers “to control the common man” and to advance world tyranny.
Bella Dodd made a public affidavit― witnessed by a number of people, including Paul and Johnine Leininger―in which she stated: “In the late 1920s and 1930s, directives were sent from Moscow to all Communist Party organizations. In order to destroy the [Roman] Catholic Church from within, party members were to be planted in seminaries and within diocesan organizations... I, myself, put some 1,200 men in [Roman] Catholic seminaries.” Dr. Alice von Hildebrand confirmed that Bella Dodd had publicly stated the same things to which she attested in her public affidavit. Mrs. Johnine Leininger confirmed that other people could also verify that Bella Dodd had made these statements regarding the infiltration of Communists into Roman Catholic seminaries. Mrs. Leininger has also said that she herself knows some Roman Catholic priests who were “sleepers” ― an espionage term for individuals or groups who refrain from any subversive, espionage, and/or infiltrator functions until they become “active”. Leininger stated that she knew of several priests who faithfully taught the Catholic religion until they became bishops or were promoted to other influential posts, and then, upon becoming “active”, immediately exhibited hostility to that same Faith which they had previously professed.
In front of the US House Un-American Activities Committee, speaking as a former high-ranking official of the American Communist Party, Bella Dodd also spoke about the plans of a Communist infiltration of Catholic Church: “In the 1930s we put eleven hundred men into the priesthood [she means seminaries], in order to destroy the Church from within. The idea was for these men to be ordained, and then climb the ladder of influence and authority as Monsignors and Bishops.” Around ten years before the Second Vatican Council she stated that: “Right now they are in the highest places in the Church” — where they were working to bring about change in order to weaken the Church’s effectiveness against Communism. She also said that these changes would be so drastic that “you will not recognize the Catholic Church.” Which is exactly the same thing that Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich saw in her visions of the new church replacing the True Church.
Pope Paul VI and the Diabolical Darkness
What Bella Dodd said around 10 years before the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), Pope Paul VI echoed around 10 (7 to 12) years after the Second Vatican Council.
► 1972: “We believed that after the [Second Vatican] Council would come a day of sunshine in the history of the Church. But instead there has come a day of clouds and storms, and of darkness ... And how did this come about? We will confide to you … that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the Devil. … It is as if from some mysterious crack, no, it is not mysterious, from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God.” (Pope Paul VI, Address On the Occasion of the Ninth Anniversary of His Election, June 29th, 1972).
► 1972: Some months later, on November 15th of 1972, at a General Audience, Pope Paul VI added: “What are the Church’s greatest needs at the present time? Don’t be surprised at Our answer and don’t write it off as simplistic or even superstitious: one of the Church’s greatest needs is to be defended against the evil we call the Devil … Who can forget the highly significant description of the triple temptation of Christ? Or the many episodes in the Gospel where the Devil crosses the Lord’s path and figures in His teaching? (Matthew 12:43) And how could we forget that Christ, referring three times to the Devil as His adversary, describes him as ‘the prince of this world’?” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11).
► 1977: A few years later he repeated the same concern: “The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the Faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church” (Pope Paul VI, Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions, October 13th, 1977).
In an interview that Pope Paul VI gave to his close friend, Jean Guitton, not long before the pope died, Guitton asked Pope Paul VI about his often-quoted remark regarding “the smoke of Satan”, to which Pope Paul VI replied: “Yes, the smoke of Satan is in the sanctuary! Due to the presence of Satan, Catholics are destined to become an infinitesimally small part of humanity.”
Padre Pio Predicts False Church
The recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth―a close friend of St. Padre Pio―stated: “Primarily, today we live in a period of little Faith ... We are living in an age when Faith is diminishing ... What we do know is that the problem is getting worse. The Devil is gaining ground. If you abandon God, the Devil will take his place ... When we abandon God, we give ourselves to practices that open the door to Satan ... One day Padre Pio said to me very sorrowfully: ‘You know what, Gabriele? It is Satan who has been introduced into the bosom of the Church and within a very short time he will come to rule a false Church!’”
On another occasion, Fr. Amorth said: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … The whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican! … The demon tempts the authorities of the Church ― just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry ... The devil is everywhere, and works undisturbed ― and precisely those who disturb him less are the priests! … Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
St. John Bosco Warns of a 20th Century Council
A prophecy attributed to St. John Bosco concerning the turn of the millennium, which is apparently related to his “Dream of the Two Pillars” [click here]. The prophecy seems to be genuine enough, and also appears to be connected to Don Bosco’s prophetic dream “March of the 200 Days”. The prophecy in question directly refers to the turn of the millennium as a prophetic turning point after a period of chaos in the Church (the Great Apostasy), following an Ecumenical Council in the 20th century―there was only one Ecumenical Council in the 20th century, and that was the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). St. John Bosco said: “There will be an Ecumenical Council in the next century, after which there will be chaos in the Church. Tranquility will not return until the Pope succeeds in anchoring the boat of Peter between the twin pillars of Eucharistic Devotion and Devotion to Our Lady.”
Another prophecy―often called “The 200 Day March”―originated from a dream given by God to St. John Bosco. This occurred between May 24th and June 24th, 1873. The vision is related from the Volume 10 of the Biographical Memoirs of St. John Bosco:
“It was a dark night, and men could no longer find their way back to their own countries … At that moment from the Vatican came forth, as in procession, a multitude of men and women, young children, monks, nuns, and priests, and at their head was the Pope. But a furious storm broke out, somewhat darkening the light, as if light and darkness were locked in battle. Meanwhile the long procession reached a small square littered with dead and wounded, many of whom cried for help. The ranks of the procession thinned considerably. After a two-hundred day march, all realized that they were no longer in Rome … The Pontiff became distressed to see how few were his followers …
“At that moment two angels appeared, bearing a banner which they presented to the Supreme Pontiff, saying: ‘Take the banner of her who battles and routs the most powerful armies on Earth. Your enemies have vanished―with tears and sighs your children plead for your return!’ [return to Rome]. On hearing this, the Pontiff moved on [back to Rome], and the ranks began to swell. Upon reaching the Holy City, the Pontiff wept at the sight of its desolate citizens, for many of them were no longer. He then entered St. Peter's and intoned the ‘Te Deum’ [a hymn of praise and thanksgiving], to which a chorus of angels responded, singing: ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis’ [Glory to God in the highest, and peace on Earth to men of good will]. When the song was over, all darkness vanished and a blazing sun shone. From the start of the exile until the intoning of the Te Deum, the sun rose 200 times” ― hence a period of 200 days.
Upon reading this, curiosity began to creep in―a gut feeling asked: “How long―how many days―was the Second Vatican Council?” Upon researching the question, the following facts emerged:
The Second Vatican Council, which took place in a time span of 1962 to 1965, was divided into four sessions:
1ST SESSION: 1962 from October 11th to December 8th ― which gives a total of 59 days.
2ND SESSION: 1963 from September 29th to December 4th ― which gives a total of 67 days.
3RD SESSION: 1964 from September 14th to November 21st ― which gives a total of 69 days.
4TH SESSION: 1965 from September 14th to December 8th ― which gives a total of 86 days.
When you add all those days together, you get 281 days or 40 weeks and 1 day.
If you look at the scheduling of those sessions, then you will see that they worked a “five-day-week” with no sessions on Saturdays and Sundays. 40 weeks of 5 days gives you 200 days (plus the 1 day left over). Is that the “200 Day March” away from Rome led by the pope (Second Vaticacn Council) that St. John Bosco saw in his dream or vision? Only God knows! But the numbers fit and the consequences of the march away from Rome also fit―with ever dwindling numbers in the procession!
Oddi Light on Dark Council?
Cardinal Silvio Oddi, who died in 2001, was one of the most outspoken conservative prelates of his time. He also has a special place in the history of the debate about the message of Fatima, inasmuch as he insistently tried to get Pope John XXIII to publish the Third Secret of Fatima. In the early 1960s, when acting as Pope John XXIII’s secretary, Cardinal Oddi told the Pope: “Most Holy Father, there is one thing for which I cannot forgive you!” The Pope, surprised, asked what it was. Oddi replied that he had not revealed the Third Secret of Fatima, conveyed to three Portuguese children by the Virgin Mary in 1917, which had been scheduled for release in 1960. “I asked him [Pope John XXIII] during an audience in 1960―the year when the obligation, to keep the [Third] Secret [of Fatima] a secret, had come to an end--why he had not made public the last part of the message of Fatima. He responded with a weary sigh. He then said: ‘Don’t bring that subject up with me, please! … Let’s not talk about it!’” Oddi said he had already delivered a hundred sermons and speeches on the subject. Pope John XXIII replied: “I told you not to mention it!”
Cardinal Oddi explains: “What happened in 1960 that might have been seen in connection with the Secret of Fatima? The most important event is without a doubt the launching of the preparatory phase of the Second Vatican Council. Therefore I would not be surprised if the Secret had something to do with the convocation of Vatican II … From the attitude Pope John showed during our conversation, I deduced ― but it is only a hypothesis ― that the Secret might contain a part that could have a rather unpleasant ring to it. John XXIII had convened the Council with the precise intention of directing the forces of the Church toward the solution of the problems that concern all of humanity, beginning from within … But we all know that many sad things have also taken place. They took place in conjunction with the Council. I am thinking, for example, of the number of priests who have abandoned the priesthood―it is said that there have been 80,000 ... I would not be surprised if the Third Secret alluded to dark times for the Church: grave confusions and troubling apostasies within Catholicism itself … If we consider the grave crisis we have lived through since the Council, the signs that this prophecy has been fulfilled do not seem to be lacking.” In an interview with the Italian journalist, Lucio Brunelli, in the journal Il Sabato, Cardinal Oddi said: “It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev [the President of the Soviet Union at that time]. The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against apostasy in the Church.”
Alonso Goes Along With Oddi
Father Joaquin Alonso, who for sixteen years was the official archivist of Fatima, wrote a monumental work on the Fatima Message, entitled Fatima Texts and Critical Studies. This book, which consists of 24 volumes containing 5,396 documents, was withheld from publication by the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, Msgr. Alberto Cosme do Amaral, at its completion in 1975. Since then, only two of the 24 volumes have been released for publication, and these were heavily edited. Before his death in 1981, Father Alonso stated the following important conclusions concerning the Third Secret:
“It is therefore completely probable that the text makes concrete references to the crisis of faith within the Church and to the negligence of the pastors themselves [and the] internal struggles in the very bosom of the Church and of grave pastoral negligence by the upper hierarchy.
“In the period preceding the great triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, terrible things are to happen. These form the content of the third part of the Secret. What are they? If ‘in Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved’, …it can be clearly deduced from this that in other parts of the Church these dogmas are going to become obscure or even lost altogether.
“Thus it is quite possible that in this intermediate period which is in question (after 1960 and before the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary), the text makes concrete references to the crisis of the Faith of the Church and to the negligence of the pastors themselves.
“Does the unpublished text speak of concrete circumstances? It is very possible that it speaks not only of a real crisis of the Faith in the Church during this in-between period, but like the secret of La Salette, for example, there are more concrete references to the internal struggles of Catholics, or to the fall of priests and religious. Perhaps it even refers to the failures of the upper hierarchy of the Church. For that matter, none of this is foreign to other communications Sister Lucy has had on this subject.”
Father Alonso also believed that the Third Secret concerned “internal struggles in the very bosom of the Church and of grave pastoral negligence by the upper hierarchy,” and of “deficiencies of the upper hierarchy of the Church.” Interestingly and significantly, Sister Lucy never corrected these conclusions of Father Alonso, even though she had never hesitated to correct other statements by clerics and various authors concerning Fatima when they were in error. As the official Fatima archivist, Fr. Alonso had access to the documents and to Sister Lucy herself. Thus, his testimony is of capital importance.
Pope Francis, Freemasonry and a New Church
The election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the papal throne brought about unprecedented rejoicing among the Freemasons of the world. Usually popes would be criticized and attacked―but not Pope Francis! He seemed to the “darling” of the Freemasons. Here are just a few of the many accolades given to him by Freemasonry [read more here].
On March 15th, 2013, the Freemason website of the Virtual Grand Lodge of Italy, GLVDI, published a statement (though dated March 13th, 2013) of Grand Master Luciano Nistri concerning the election of the new pope: “The Catholic Church has chosen as Pope the Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio who … in his first words of greeting, fostered a desire for dialogue with the world and with mankind, nurturing the vivid hope for laymen and nonbelievers that change is underway. Maybe this is really what the world expects and what it expected―a new church that knows how to reconnect love with truth … It is that same hope for which the world—especially Latin America, where the Masons Simon Bolivar, Salvador Allende and the same Giuseppe Garibaldi—has always longed for. A message that Freemasonry itself perceives as a sharp break with the past ... To the new Pontiff we send our best wishes for his good work for years to come!”
On March 14th, 2013, the Freemason, Gustavo Raffi, Grand Master of the Grand Orient Lodge of Italy, saluted and praised the new Pope and said, prophetically: “Perhaps in the Church nothing will be as before!”
On August 25th, 2014, on the website of the Brazilian Freemasonry, Grand Orient do Brasil, the Mason Barbosa Nunes praised Pope Francis because he is building a new church: “Jorge Mario Bergoglio, ‘Pope Francis,’ formerly called ‘Cardinal of the Argentine Poor’ for his social role. He continues to assume the greater representation of the Catholic Church and of head of state. He has not stopped, he is taking safe steps to build a new church. A new style in the Vatican.”
On September 21st, 2013, Gustavo Raffi, the Grand Master of Freemasonic Grand Orient of Italy, stated: “Pope Francis launches messages of humanity that are in tune with what we [Freemasons] have been saying for years.”
In 2013, the Italian journalists Giacomo Galeazzi and Ferruccio Pinotti publish the book, Masonic Vatican. Galeazzi-Pinotti wrote: “In the last 30-35 years, several Jesuits were in a positive way interested in Freemasonry; they took part in public debates, at conferences organized by the Grand Orient of Italy, have written articles and books on philosophical thought on the history of Freemasonry — in other words, they tried to understand and then very often ended up sharing the philosophical approach [of Freemasons].”
Galeazzi-Pinotti also reported some statements made by the Mason Nicola Spinello. When asked about the relationship between Jesuits and Freemasons, the Mason Spinello replied: “What is the relationship between the Jesuits and the Freemasons? Jesuits and Freemasonry have always had a great mutual speculative interest!” Then to the question: “The pope is from Argentina, and in Argentina, there is a great Masonic tradition; he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, do you think that he may have had relationships with Freemasonry?” the Mason Spinello replied: “Exactly the opposite would astonish me, namely: if he did not have them [these relationships]. The Masonic tradition in Argentina is very powerful! … I believe that this pope is the realization of a design that has long wanted to be adopted.”
Another Freemason, the Catanian Grand Master Vincenzo Di Benedetto, head of the Most Serene Grand Lodge of Piazza del Gesù, was asked the question: “Various sources indicate the existence of Masonic Lodges in the Vatican―do you consider it possible?” He replied without hesitation: “Yes, absolutely, regardless of whether you use the name [Masonic] or not.”
This modern world is filled with scams, swindles, frauds and cons. In the USA alone, one in ten adults will fall victim to a scam or fraud every year. There were over 3 million REPORTED scams in 2021 and 2.5 million in 2022. That must be only the tip of the iceberg if you estimate NON-REPORTED scams. According to new data from the FTC, almost $8.8 billion was lost to various kinds of fraud in 2022. In just one area of scamming―investment scams―consumers reported losing more than $3.8 billion to investment scams—more than any other category of scam in 2022.
The different ways in which you can be scammed, conned, defrauded, swindled, etc. are as numerous as the people on the planet―there are innumerable nuances and shades and tweaks on any one scam you wish to examine. Every person is “scamable”―it is merely of finding the “tailor-made” foolproof scam for each person. There are lists of most popular scams, such as the one below, but they barely scratch the surface―or, if they do, then are multiple variations and permutations of each scam.
Advance Fee Scams
Tech Support Scams
Phishing
Emergency Scams
IRS or Government Imposter Scams
Foreign Money Exchange Scams
Counterfeit Cashier's Checks
Bogus Debts
Home Repair Scams
Business Opportunities or Employment Scams
Shopping Sprees
Nothing New Under The Sun
As Holy Scripture says: “Nothing under the sun is new!” (Ecclesiastes 1:10) and that includes scams! Even though the Scripture does not use our modern terminology of “scam and scammer; con and conman; swindle and swindler―the Bible is full of scams, cons and swindles. The first scammer or swindler was the serpent―or Satan. The first person to be scammed, conned, or swindled was Eve―and Adam came right after. Satan conned Eve out of all their “spiritual wealth” or “life savings”― which was sanctifying grace. The loss of sanctifying grace through sin meant the loss of life and ultimately brought death: “God commanded him, saying: ‘Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat! But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat! For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death!’” (Genesis 2:17). Then along came Satan the serpent and scammer and said: “No, you shall not die the death! For God knows that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods―knowing good and evil!” (Genesis 3:4-5). Satan’s successful scam brought death to Adam and Eve. As Our Lord would later say of Satan: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth―because truth is not in him! When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44)
Satan’s successful scam brought death to Adam and Eve. As Our Lord would later say of Satan: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth―because truth is not in him! When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44). Scripture further warns: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour― whom resist ye, strong in Faith: knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world!” (1 Peter 5:8-9).
Consequently, St. Paul warns: “I fear lest, just as the serpent seduced Eve by his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted! … For if he that comes preaches another Christ―whom we have not preached―or if you receive another Spirit, whom you have not received from us; or another gospel which you have not received from us; you might well accept it!” (2 Corinthians 11:3-4).
If we know our Faith and live our Faith intensely, then we will spot the Satanic scams―for our knowledge of the Faith will alert us to false teachings and suggestions. Scripture warns us abundantly that scammers, swindlers, fraudsters and conmen will come and that they will try to fool even the elect! “For there shall rise up false Christs and false prophets, and they shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to seduce and deceive― if it were possible―even the elect! … For many will come in My Name, and they will seduce many!” (Matthew 24:5, 24:24; Mark 13:22). We will see that these “false apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder―for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light!” (2 Corinthians 11:13-14) ― “that old serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who seduces the whole world!” (Apocalypse 12:0). “By the snares of the devil they are held captive” (2 Timothy 2:26). “But though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, then let him be anathema!” (Galatians 1:8). “May no man deceive you by loftiness of words!” (Colossians 2:4). “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves!” (Matthew 7:15). “He that enters not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up another way―the same is a thief and a robber! … I am the door of the sheep. All others―as many as have come―are thieves and robbers! … The thief comes to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly!” (John 10:1-10).
Days of Devilish Darkness and Deception
If you are well-informed about the Faith and are reasonably well-read on the current state of the Catholic Church, then you will undoubtedly agree that we are living in what could be called the “Dark Days of Deception”. Our Lord, speaking of the so-called “End Times” or “Last Days” speaks of false Christs and false prophets who will seduce and deceive the masses, and even the elect ― lamenting the fact that “the Son of man, when He comes, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). Our Lady of Fatima indicated to Sister Lucia that we have already entered those “End Times” or “Last Days” ― which does mean that the world will end any time soon, because we must first witness the promised Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which will be followed by a period of peace before the Antichrist arrives on the scene.
Our Lady’s modern day apparitions are in full agreement with the Scriptural prophecy of Our Lord about the lack of Faith on Earth in the “End Times” or “Last Days”. Our Lady states: “For a while the Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness … How the Church will suffer during this dark night! … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God! … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord ... Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … The Holy Eucharist will be subject to many horrible sacrileges and profanations—both public and secret. It will be difficult to receive the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. The Sacrament of Penance will be forgotten and even scorned. The Sacrament of Matrimony will be attacked and profaned. The Sacrament of Extreme Unction will be little esteemed. The Sacred Sacrament of Holy Orders will be ridiculed, oppressed and despised―vocations to the priesthood will be lost ...
“The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … The true Faith will be forgotten … [only a] small number of souls will preserve the treasures of the Faith … The Gospel of Jesus Christ having been forgotten … the devil will preach another gospel contrary to that of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ … A great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... During these years, the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government, which will see a cruel persecution of all religious communities … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective, making it easy for everyone to live in sin. The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness.” (Our Lady’s words at Quito, La Salette, Akita).
Emmerich’s Visions of Devilish Darkness and Deception
Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824)― a mystic, Marian visionary, ecstatic and stigmatist―was the recipient of many God-given revelations and visions―one series of which was on the topic of the Two Churches and Two Popes. What she was shown is particularly relevant to this discussion of the “End Times” or “Last Days” with its “false Christs, false prophets, wolves in the clothing of sheep” and the lack of Faith, or a time of apostasy. Here is a compilation from the several visions that she was shown concerning our times:
“I a long processions of bishops [The four different sessions of the Second Vatican Council, held from 1962 to 1965, had between 2,000 and 2,500 bishops in daily attendance]. Their thoughts and utterances were made known to me through images issuing from their mouths. Their faults towards religion were shown by external deformities ... I saw what I believe to be nearly all the bishops of the world [the Second Vatican Council assembled all the bishops in the world], but only a small number were perfectly sound. A concession was demanded from the clergy which could not be granted. I saw that many pastors allowed themselves to be taken up with ideas that were dangerous to the Church. I saw many older priests, especially one, who wept bitterly. A few younger ones were also weeping. But others, and the lukewarm among them, readily did what was demanded. It was as if people were splitting into two camps ... ... Priests were among them! … Priests allowed everything and said Mass with much irreverence. I saw that few of them were still godly priests ... I saw some good pious bishops; but they were weak and wavering, their cowardice often got the upper hand … The local clergy grew lukewarm, and I saw a great circle of darkness ever widening …
“I now see that in this place [Rome], the [Catholic] Church is being so cleverly undermined, that there hardly remain a hundred or so priests who have not been deceived. They all work for destruction ― even the clergy ... I see many excommunicated ecclesiastics who do not seem to be concerned about it, nor even aware of it. Yet, they are (ipso facto) excommunicated whenever they cooperate with enterprises, enter into associations, and embrace opinions on which an anathema has been cast [i.e. become Freemasons] … Most priests were lured by the glittering, but false knowledge of modern teachers, and they all contributed to the work of destruction. I saw the secret sect [Freemasons] relentlessly undermining the great Church! … A great devastation is now near at hand! …
They were building a large, strange, and extravagant church there in Rome … I did not see a single angel, nor a single saint helping in the work ... There was nothing holy in it. They had preaching and singing, but nothing else [which possibly implies the absence of the true Sacrifice of the Mass in this new church], and only very few attended it. People were kneading bread [dough] in the crypt below ... but it would not rise, nor did they receive the Body of Our Lord, but only bread. Those who were in error, through no fault of their own―and who piously and ardently longed for the Body of Jesus―were spiritually consoled, but not by their communion ... There―in the strange big church―all the work was being done mechanically according to set rules and formulae. Everything was being done according to human reason ... All in this church belonged to the Earth, returned to the Earth. All was dead, the work of human skill, a church of the latest style, a church of man’s invention like the new heterodox church in Rome … There was something proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed very successful. I saw the fatal consequences of this counterfeit church … All sorts of abominations were perpetrated there … I saw how harmful would be the consequences of this false church. I saw it increase in size; I saw heretics of all kinds flocking to the city of Rome.
“Everyone was to be admitted in it in order to be united and have equal rights―Evangelicals, Catholics, sects of every description [all of which describes the current false spirit of Ecumenism that invaded the Church at the Council] ... The Protestant doctrine and that of the schismatic Greeks is to spread everywhere! … Then I saw that everything pertaining to Protestantism was gradually gaining the upper hand, and the Catholic religion fell into complete decadence ... I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions ... Then I saw darkness spreading around and people no longer seeking the true Church … The Church is in great danger! It was shown to me that there were almost no Christians left in the old acceptation of the word! … The Church is completely isolated and as if completely deserted. It seems that everyone is running away. Everywhere I see great misery, hatred, treason, rancor, confusion and utter blindness … Then my Guide [Jesus] said: ‘This is Babel’ … I saw very clearly the errors, the aberrations and the countless sins of men. I saw the folly and the wickedness of their actions, against all truth and all reason ...
“I also saw the various regions of the Earth. My Guide [Jesus] named Europe and pointing to a small and sandy region, He uttered these words: ‘Here is Prussia [East Germany], the enemy.’ Then He showed me another place, to the north, and He said: ‘This is Moskva, the land of Moscow, bringing many evils.’ … I saw in all places Catholics oppressed, annoyed, harassed, restricted, and deprived of freedom, churches were closed, and great misery prevailed everywhere with war and bloodshed. In those days, Faith will fall very low, and it will be preserved in some places only, in a few cottages and in a few families which God has protected from disasters and wars.”
“I see that when the Second Coming of Christ approaches, a bad priest [Francis?] will do much harm to the Church. When the time of the reign of Antichrist is near, a false religion will appear which will be opposed to the unity of God and His Church. This will cause the greatest schism the world has ever known. The nearer the time of the end, the more the darkness of Satan will spread on Earth, the greater will be the number of the children of corruption, and the number of the just will correspondingly diminish … I see in the future religion falling so low that it will be practiced only here and there in farmhouses and in families protected by God during the horrors of war ... I saw the battle also. The enemies were far more numerous, but the small army of the faithful cut down whole rows of enemy soldiers. During the battle, the Blessed Virgin stood on a hill, wearing a suit of armor. It was a terrible war. At the end, only a few fighters for the just cause survived, but the victory was theirs!”
The Future Pope Pius XII Speaks of a Dark Future!
The Secretary of State under Pope Pius XI, Msgr. Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli―prior to his own elevation to the papacy in 1939 as Pope Pius XII―made the following astonishing prophecy about a coming upheaval in the Church: “Suppose, dear friend, that Communism [one of “the errors of Russia” mentioned in the Message of Fatima] was only the most visible of the instruments of subversion to be used against the Church and the traditions of Divine Revelation … I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucia of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul. … I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject Her ornaments and make Her feel remorse for Her historical past. A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask: ‘Where have they taken Him?’”
Archbishop Fulton Sheen on the Dark Days of Deception
In 1948, three years before being consecrated a bishop, Fr. Fulton Sheen published a book entitled, Communism and the Conscience of the West, in which we have these following passages referring to deceptions which Sheen foresaw in the immediate future:
“The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulfur, nor carry a trident, nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes him, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himself as ‘I am Who am,’ and the Devil as ‘I am who am not.’ Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first “red.” Rather is he described as an angel fallen from Heaven, as ‘the Prince of this world,’ whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. His logic is simple: if there is no Heaven there is no Hell; if there is no Hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge; and if there is no judgment, then evil is good and good is evil. But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect — and certainly no devil ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect. How will he come in this new age to win followers to his religion?
“The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty — not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. The third temptation — in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms of the world would be His [cf. Matthew 4:8-9] — will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion — one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God’s.
“Christ’s Church, the Catholic Church, will be one; and the false Prophet will create the other. The False Church will be worldly, ecumenical, and global. It will be a loose federation of churches and religions, forming some type of global association―a world parliament of churches. It will be emptied of all Divine content, it will be the mystical body of the Antichrist. The mystical body on Earth today will have its Judas Iscariot, and he will be the false prophet. Satan will recruit him from our Bishops. He will set up a counter-church which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the Mystical Body of Christ. In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one―he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. But the twentieth century will join the counter-church, because it claims to be infallible when its visible head speaks ‘ex cathedra’ from Moscow on the subject of economics and politics, and as chief shepherd of world Communism.” (Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West, 1948, pp. 22-25).
Bella Dodd and the School of Darkness
Dr. Bella Visono Dodd (1904 – April 29th, 1969) was a member of the Communist Party of America (CPUSA) in the 1930s and 1940s who later became a vocal anti-Communist. After her defection from the Communist Party in 1949, she testified that one of her jobs, as a Communist agent, was to encourage young radicals to enter Roman Catholic Seminaries. She was born in Picerno, Italy, in 1904 and baptized a Catholic. She came to America when aged only six―but her practice of the Catholic Faith ceased―even though she always called herself a Catholic. In 1917, she entered Evander Childs High School. Four years later she attended Hunter College, and received her master’s studies at Columbia University working toward a doctorate in philosophy, then switching to the legal division. Later, she graduated from the School of Law at New York University where she received a Degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence.
A schoolteacher and lawyer by profession, Bella Dodd was an organizer for the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) from 1932–1948, and, from 1944 to 1948, sat on the CPUSA’s National Council. She also served as head of the New York State Teachers Union. She was expelled from the CPUSA, in 1949, for representing a landlord in a legal dispute with a renter, which was a violation of Party bylaws which would not recognize or defend the right to own private property. In 1952, she publicly announced that she had been received back into the Roman Catholic Church by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York.
Bella Dodd, who was one of the leaders (National Council) of the Communist Party of America (CPUSA) in the 1930s and 1940s, later explained what she did while working as a Communist. Dr. Dodd served as legal counsel (attorney) for the Communists. Her book, School of Darkness (1954) reveals that Communism was perpetrated by financiers “to control the common man” and to advance world tyranny.
Bella Dodd made a public affidavit― witnessed by a number of people, including Paul and Johnine Leininger―in which she stated: “In the late 1920s and 1930s, directives were sent from Moscow to all Communist Party organizations. In order to destroy the [Roman] Catholic Church from within, party members were to be planted in seminaries and within diocesan organizations... I, myself, put some 1,200 men in [Roman] Catholic seminaries.” Dr. Alice von Hildebrand confirmed that Bella Dodd had publicly stated the same things to which she attested in her public affidavit. Mrs. Johnine Leininger confirmed that other people could also verify that Bella Dodd had made these statements regarding the infiltration of Communists into Roman Catholic seminaries. Mrs. Leininger has also said that she herself knows some Roman Catholic priests who were “sleepers” ― an espionage term for individuals or groups who refrain from any subversive, espionage, and/or infiltrator functions until they become “active”. Leininger stated that she knew of several priests who faithfully taught the Catholic religion until they became bishops or were promoted to other influential posts, and then, upon becoming “active”, immediately exhibited hostility to that same Faith which they had previously professed.
In front of the US House Un-American Activities Committee, speaking as a former high-ranking official of the American Communist Party, Bella Dodd also spoke about the plans of a Communist infiltration of Catholic Church: “In the 1930s we put eleven hundred men into the priesthood [she means seminaries], in order to destroy the Church from within. The idea was for these men to be ordained, and then climb the ladder of influence and authority as Monsignors and Bishops.” Around ten years before the Second Vatican Council she stated that: “Right now they are in the highest places in the Church” — where they were working to bring about change in order to weaken the Church’s effectiveness against Communism. She also said that these changes would be so drastic that “you will not recognize the Catholic Church.” Which is exactly the same thing that Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich saw in her visions of the new church replacing the True Church.
Pope Paul VI and the Diabolical Darkness
What Bella Dodd said around 10 years before the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), Pope Paul VI echoed around 10 (7 to 12) years after the Second Vatican Council.
► 1972: “We believed that after the [Second Vatican] Council would come a day of sunshine in the history of the Church. But instead there has come a day of clouds and storms, and of darkness ... And how did this come about? We will confide to you … that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the Devil. … It is as if from some mysterious crack, no, it is not mysterious, from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God.” (Pope Paul VI, Address On the Occasion of the Ninth Anniversary of His Election, June 29th, 1972).
► 1972: Some months later, on November 15th of 1972, at a General Audience, Pope Paul VI added: “What are the Church’s greatest needs at the present time? Don’t be surprised at Our answer and don’t write it off as simplistic or even superstitious: one of the Church’s greatest needs is to be defended against the evil we call the Devil … Who can forget the highly significant description of the triple temptation of Christ? Or the many episodes in the Gospel where the Devil crosses the Lord’s path and figures in His teaching? (Matthew 12:43) And how could we forget that Christ, referring three times to the Devil as His adversary, describes him as ‘the prince of this world’?” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11).
► 1977: A few years later he repeated the same concern: “The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the Faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church” (Pope Paul VI, Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions, October 13th, 1977).
In an interview that Pope Paul VI gave to his close friend, Jean Guitton, not long before the pope died, Guitton asked Pope Paul VI about his often-quoted remark regarding “the smoke of Satan”, to which Pope Paul VI replied: “Yes, the smoke of Satan is in the sanctuary! Due to the presence of Satan, Catholics are destined to become an infinitesimally small part of humanity.”
Padre Pio Predicts False Church
The recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth―a close friend of St. Padre Pio―stated: “Primarily, today we live in a period of little Faith ... We are living in an age when Faith is diminishing ... What we do know is that the problem is getting worse. The Devil is gaining ground. If you abandon God, the Devil will take his place ... When we abandon God, we give ourselves to practices that open the door to Satan ... One day Padre Pio said to me very sorrowfully: ‘You know what, Gabriele? It is Satan who has been introduced into the bosom of the Church and within a very short time he will come to rule a false Church!’”
On another occasion, Fr. Amorth said: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … The whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican! … The demon tempts the authorities of the Church ― just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry ... The devil is everywhere, and works undisturbed ― and precisely those who disturb him less are the priests! … Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
St. John Bosco Warns of a 20th Century Council
A prophecy attributed to St. John Bosco concerning the turn of the millennium, which is apparently related to his “Dream of the Two Pillars” [click here]. The prophecy seems to be genuine enough, and also appears to be connected to Don Bosco’s prophetic dream “March of the 200 Days”. The prophecy in question directly refers to the turn of the millennium as a prophetic turning point after a period of chaos in the Church (the Great Apostasy), following an Ecumenical Council in the 20th century―there was only one Ecumenical Council in the 20th century, and that was the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). St. John Bosco said: “There will be an Ecumenical Council in the next century, after which there will be chaos in the Church. Tranquility will not return until the Pope succeeds in anchoring the boat of Peter between the twin pillars of Eucharistic Devotion and Devotion to Our Lady.”
Another prophecy―often called “The 200 Day March”―originated from a dream given by God to St. John Bosco. This occurred between May 24th and June 24th, 1873. The vision is related from the Volume 10 of the Biographical Memoirs of St. John Bosco:
“It was a dark night, and men could no longer find their way back to their own countries … At that moment from the Vatican came forth, as in procession, a multitude of men and women, young children, monks, nuns, and priests, and at their head was the Pope. But a furious storm broke out, somewhat darkening the light, as if light and darkness were locked in battle. Meanwhile the long procession reached a small square littered with dead and wounded, many of whom cried for help. The ranks of the procession thinned considerably. After a two-hundred day march, all realized that they were no longer in Rome … The Pontiff became distressed to see how few were his followers …
“At that moment two angels appeared, bearing a banner which they presented to the Supreme Pontiff, saying: ‘Take the banner of her who battles and routs the most powerful armies on Earth. Your enemies have vanished―with tears and sighs your children plead for your return!’ [return to Rome]. On hearing this, the Pontiff moved on [back to Rome], and the ranks began to swell. Upon reaching the Holy City, the Pontiff wept at the sight of its desolate citizens, for many of them were no longer. He then entered St. Peter's and intoned the ‘Te Deum’ [a hymn of praise and thanksgiving], to which a chorus of angels responded, singing: ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis’ [Glory to God in the highest, and peace on Earth to men of good will]. When the song was over, all darkness vanished and a blazing sun shone. From the start of the exile until the intoning of the Te Deum, the sun rose 200 times” ― hence a period of 200 days.
Upon reading this, curiosity began to creep in―a gut feeling asked: “How long―how many days―was the Second Vatican Council?” Upon researching the question, the following facts emerged:
The Second Vatican Council, which took place in a time span of 1962 to 1965, was divided into four sessions:
1ST SESSION: 1962 from October 11th to December 8th ― which gives a total of 59 days.
2ND SESSION: 1963 from September 29th to December 4th ― which gives a total of 67 days.
3RD SESSION: 1964 from September 14th to November 21st ― which gives a total of 69 days.
4TH SESSION: 1965 from September 14th to December 8th ― which gives a total of 86 days.
When you add all those days together, you get 281 days or 40 weeks and 1 day.
If you look at the scheduling of those sessions, then you will see that they worked a “five-day-week” with no sessions on Saturdays and Sundays. 40 weeks of 5 days gives you 200 days (plus the 1 day left over). Is that the “200 Day March” away from Rome led by the pope (Second Vaticacn Council) that St. John Bosco saw in his dream or vision? Only God knows! But the numbers fit and the consequences of the march away from Rome also fit―with ever dwindling numbers in the procession!
Oddi Light on Dark Council?
Cardinal Silvio Oddi, who died in 2001, was one of the most outspoken conservative prelates of his time. He also has a special place in the history of the debate about the message of Fatima, inasmuch as he insistently tried to get Pope John XXIII to publish the Third Secret of Fatima. In the early 1960s, when acting as Pope John XXIII’s secretary, Cardinal Oddi told the Pope: “Most Holy Father, there is one thing for which I cannot forgive you!” The Pope, surprised, asked what it was. Oddi replied that he had not revealed the Third Secret of Fatima, conveyed to three Portuguese children by the Virgin Mary in 1917, which had been scheduled for release in 1960. “I asked him [Pope John XXIII] during an audience in 1960―the year when the obligation, to keep the [Third] Secret [of Fatima] a secret, had come to an end--why he had not made public the last part of the message of Fatima. He responded with a weary sigh. He then said: ‘Don’t bring that subject up with me, please! … Let’s not talk about it!’” Oddi said he had already delivered a hundred sermons and speeches on the subject. Pope John XXIII replied: “I told you not to mention it!”
Cardinal Oddi explains: “What happened in 1960 that might have been seen in connection with the Secret of Fatima? The most important event is without a doubt the launching of the preparatory phase of the Second Vatican Council. Therefore I would not be surprised if the Secret had something to do with the convocation of Vatican II … From the attitude Pope John showed during our conversation, I deduced ― but it is only a hypothesis ― that the Secret might contain a part that could have a rather unpleasant ring to it. John XXIII had convened the Council with the precise intention of directing the forces of the Church toward the solution of the problems that concern all of humanity, beginning from within … But we all know that many sad things have also taken place. They took place in conjunction with the Council. I am thinking, for example, of the number of priests who have abandoned the priesthood―it is said that there have been 80,000 ... I would not be surprised if the Third Secret alluded to dark times for the Church: grave confusions and troubling apostasies within Catholicism itself … If we consider the grave crisis we have lived through since the Council, the signs that this prophecy has been fulfilled do not seem to be lacking.” In an interview with the Italian journalist, Lucio Brunelli, in the journal Il Sabato, Cardinal Oddi said: “It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev [the President of the Soviet Union at that time]. The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against apostasy in the Church.”
Alonso Goes Along With Oddi
Father Joaquin Alonso, who for sixteen years was the official archivist of Fatima, wrote a monumental work on the Fatima Message, entitled Fatima Texts and Critical Studies. This book, which consists of 24 volumes containing 5,396 documents, was withheld from publication by the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, Msgr. Alberto Cosme do Amaral, at its completion in 1975. Since then, only two of the 24 volumes have been released for publication, and these were heavily edited. Before his death in 1981, Father Alonso stated the following important conclusions concerning the Third Secret:
“It is therefore completely probable that the text makes concrete references to the crisis of faith within the Church and to the negligence of the pastors themselves [and the] internal struggles in the very bosom of the Church and of grave pastoral negligence by the upper hierarchy.
“In the period preceding the great triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, terrible things are to happen. These form the content of the third part of the Secret. What are they? If ‘in Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved’, …it can be clearly deduced from this that in other parts of the Church these dogmas are going to become obscure or even lost altogether.
“Thus it is quite possible that in this intermediate period which is in question (after 1960 and before the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary), the text makes concrete references to the crisis of the Faith of the Church and to the negligence of the pastors themselves.
“Does the unpublished text speak of concrete circumstances? It is very possible that it speaks not only of a real crisis of the Faith in the Church during this in-between period, but like the secret of La Salette, for example, there are more concrete references to the internal struggles of Catholics, or to the fall of priests and religious. Perhaps it even refers to the failures of the upper hierarchy of the Church. For that matter, none of this is foreign to other communications Sister Lucy has had on this subject.”
Father Alonso also believed that the Third Secret concerned “internal struggles in the very bosom of the Church and of grave pastoral negligence by the upper hierarchy,” and of “deficiencies of the upper hierarchy of the Church.” Interestingly and significantly, Sister Lucy never corrected these conclusions of Father Alonso, even though she had never hesitated to correct other statements by clerics and various authors concerning Fatima when they were in error. As the official Fatima archivist, Fr. Alonso had access to the documents and to Sister Lucy herself. Thus, his testimony is of capital importance.
Pope Francis, Freemasonry and a New Church
The election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the papal throne brought about unprecedented rejoicing among the Freemasons of the world. Usually popes would be criticized and attacked―but not Pope Francis! He seemed to the “darling” of the Freemasons. Here are just a few of the many accolades given to him by Freemasonry [read more here].
On March 15th, 2013, the Freemason website of the Virtual Grand Lodge of Italy, GLVDI, published a statement (though dated March 13th, 2013) of Grand Master Luciano Nistri concerning the election of the new pope: “The Catholic Church has chosen as Pope the Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio who … in his first words of greeting, fostered a desire for dialogue with the world and with mankind, nurturing the vivid hope for laymen and nonbelievers that change is underway. Maybe this is really what the world expects and what it expected―a new church that knows how to reconnect love with truth … It is that same hope for which the world—especially Latin America, where the Masons Simon Bolivar, Salvador Allende and the same Giuseppe Garibaldi—has always longed for. A message that Freemasonry itself perceives as a sharp break with the past ... To the new Pontiff we send our best wishes for his good work for years to come!”
On March 14th, 2013, the Freemason, Gustavo Raffi, Grand Master of the Grand Orient Lodge of Italy, saluted and praised the new Pope and said, prophetically: “Perhaps in the Church nothing will be as before!”
On August 25th, 2014, on the website of the Brazilian Freemasonry, Grand Orient do Brasil, the Mason Barbosa Nunes praised Pope Francis because he is building a new church: “Jorge Mario Bergoglio, ‘Pope Francis,’ formerly called ‘Cardinal of the Argentine Poor’ for his social role. He continues to assume the greater representation of the Catholic Church and of head of state. He has not stopped, he is taking safe steps to build a new church. A new style in the Vatican.”
On September 21st, 2013, Gustavo Raffi, the Grand Master of Freemasonic Grand Orient of Italy, stated: “Pope Francis launches messages of humanity that are in tune with what we [Freemasons] have been saying for years.”
In 2013, the Italian journalists Giacomo Galeazzi and Ferruccio Pinotti publish the book, Masonic Vatican. Galeazzi-Pinotti wrote: “In the last 30-35 years, several Jesuits were in a positive way interested in Freemasonry; they took part in public debates, at conferences organized by the Grand Orient of Italy, have written articles and books on philosophical thought on the history of Freemasonry — in other words, they tried to understand and then very often ended up sharing the philosophical approach [of Freemasons].”
Galeazzi-Pinotti also reported some statements made by the Mason Nicola Spinello. When asked about the relationship between Jesuits and Freemasons, the Mason Spinello replied: “What is the relationship between the Jesuits and the Freemasons? Jesuits and Freemasonry have always had a great mutual speculative interest!” Then to the question: “The pope is from Argentina, and in Argentina, there is a great Masonic tradition; he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, do you think that he may have had relationships with Freemasonry?” the Mason Spinello replied: “Exactly the opposite would astonish me, namely: if he did not have them [these relationships]. The Masonic tradition in Argentina is very powerful! … I believe that this pope is the realization of a design that has long wanted to be adopted.”
Another Freemason, the Catanian Grand Master Vincenzo Di Benedetto, head of the Most Serene Grand Lodge of Piazza del Gesù, was asked the question: “Various sources indicate the existence of Masonic Lodges in the Vatican―do you consider it possible?” He replied without hesitation: “Yes, absolutely, regardless of whether you use the name [Masonic] or not.”
Article 31
Pentecost Sunday May 28th & Pentecost Monday May 29th, 2023
Pentecost ― A Time to Set Your Spiritual Life Alight!
Pentecost Sunday May 28th & Pentecost Monday May 29th, 2023
Pentecost ― A Time to Set Your Spiritual Life Alight!
God and Fire
God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost have all represented by fire in one form or another. “The Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush―and Moses saw that the bush was on fire and was not burnt” (Exodus 3:2). During the Exodus from Egypt, “the Lord went before them to show the way by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire―so that He might be the guide of their journey at both times. There never failed the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, before the people” (Exodus 13:21-22). When the Israelites were encamped around Mount Sinai, “Moses brought them forth from the place of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the bottom of the mountain. And all Mount Sinai was in smoke, because the Lord had come down upon it in fire … And the glory of the Lord dwelt upon Sinai … and the sight of the glory of the Lord was like a burning fire upon the top of the mount! And the Lord spoke from the midst of the fire” (Exodus 19:17-18; 24:16-17; Deuteronomy 4:12). “He spoke to us out of the midst of fire” (Deuteronomy 5:4). “He showed thee His exceeding great fire, and thou didst hear His words out of the midst of the fire” (Deuteronomy 4:36). “People should hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of fire” (Deuteronomy 4:33). “‘Are not My words as a fire?’ said the Lord” (Jeremias 23:29). “Our God is a consuming fire!” (Hebrews 12:29).
God the Son Himself said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled!” (Luke 12:49). St. John the Baptist said of Jesus: “He shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire!” (Matthew 3:11). When the resurrected Lord unrecognizably spoke to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, they afterwards said to each other: “Was not our heart burning within us, whilst He spoke in this way, and opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32). Our Lord, when He appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, revealing and demanding devotion to His Sacred Heart―He showed her His Heart as furnace of fire for love of mankind.
As regards God the Holy Ghost, we beg the kindling of that fire in the prayer to Holy Ghost, when we pray: “Come, O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love!” The Holy Ghost came down at Pentecost, upon Our Lady and the Apostles, in the form of tongues of fire: “When the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place―and suddenly there came a sound from Heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues, as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them” (Acts 2:1-3).
In the Old Testament, we horses and chariots of fire sent from Heaven to the prophets Elias and Eliseus: “And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elias into Heaven by a whirlwind, that Elias and Eliseus were walking and talking together, and behold, a fiery chariot and fiery horses divided them both from one another, and Elias went up by a whirlwind into Heaven.” (4 Kings 2:1-11).
Again we see horses and chariots of fire coming from Heaven when the King of Syrian was at war with Israel and wanted to capture the prophet Eliseus, so he “sent horses and chariots, and the strength of an army, and they came by night, and beset the city. The servant of Eliseus went out and saw an army round about the city, with horses and chariots and he told him, saying: ‘Alas, alas, alas, my lord! What shall we do?’ But Eliseus answered: ‘Fear not―for there are more with us than with them!’ And Eliseus prayed and said: ‘Lord, open his eyes that he may see!’ And the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about Eliseus!” (4 Kings 6:14-17).
Another prophet, Isaias, also speaks of chariots and the God of fire: “For behold the Lord will come with fire, and His chariots are like a whirlwind, to render his wrath in indignation, and His rebuke with flames of fire―for the Lord shall judge by fire!” (Isaias 66:15-16). Our Lord echoes this on several occasions: “Every tree that does not yield good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire!” (Matthew 3:10) … “He shall cast them into the furnace of fire, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 13:42) … Depart from Me into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41) … “And in the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from Heaven and destroyed them all!” (Luke 17:29). To which Scripture adds: “On the day of the Lord, every man’s work shall be manifest―because it shall be revealed in fire and the fire shall try every man’s work, to see of what sort it is!” (1 Corinthians 3:13).
Fire in the Liturgy―Liturgy On-Fire!
Fire is one of the most expressive and most ancient of liturgical symbols. The ancient pagan religions gave to fire such a great importance that caused it to be adored as a god. The sun―as the principle of heat and light for the Earth―was regarded as a fiery mass and had its share in this worship. After the time of Christ, Christianity adapted this belief, but refused to give deify and worship heat and light. The symbolism of fire naturally found its way into the liturgical rites of the Church. This, however, was nothing new―but a continuation of the religious use of fire that took place in the Old Testament religious ceremonies and worship of God.
● In the Old Testament, God commanded that a fire burn perpetually on God’s altar in the Temple as a symbol of the perpetual presence of the eternal God among them: “The fire on the altar shall always burn, and the priest shall feed it, putting wood on it every day in the morning … This is the perpetual fire which shall never go out on the altar.” (Leviticus 6:12-13). Similarly, today we perpetually burn a sanctuary light by the tabernacle in our churches and chapels―as a sign of Christ’s presence among us in the Holy Eucharist in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. “And putting fire under the wood, they shall burn offerings upon the altar for a holocaust―for an oblation of most sweet savor to the Lord” (Leviticus 3:5). “Every sacrifice of the priest shall be consumed with fire” (Leviticus 6:23). On occasion, God would miraculously send fire from Heaven to burn and devour the offerings on the altar: “And behold a fire, coming forth from the Lord, devoured the holocaust, and the fat that was upon the altar―which, when the multitude saw, they praised the Lord, falling on their faces” (Leviticus 9:24).
● The beginning of the Easter Divine Office also reflects ancient beliefs. The first ceremony consisted in the blessing of the New Fire, which was to furnish light for the whole Service. It was the daily custom, in the first ages of the Church, to strike a flame from a flint before Vespers; from this the lamps and candles were lit for the celebration of that Hour, and the light thus procured was kept up in the church till the Vespers of the following day. The Church at Rome observed this custom with great solemnity on Maundy Thursday morning, and the New Fire received a special blessing. We learn, from a letter written in the eight century by Pope St. Zachary to St. Boniface the Archbishop of Mainz, that three lamps were lit from this fire, which were then removed to some safe place, and care taken that their light be not extinguished. It was from these lamps that the light for Holy Saturday night was taken. The new fire is struck from a flint and is blessed with this prayer.
“Lord God, Almighty Father, inextinguishable light, Who hast created all light, bless this fire sanctified and blessed by Thee, Who hast enlightened the whole world; make us enlightened by that light and inflamed with the fire of Thy brightness; and as Thou didst enlighten Moses when he went out of Egypt, so illuminate our hearts and senses that we may attain life and light everlasting through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
● Fr. Goffine, writing on the use fire in the liturgy, says: “In ancient times it was customary to strike a new fire every day, bless it, and light the candles from it, and later this was done every Saturday; in the eleventh century this ceremony was restricted to Holy Saturday. The fire is struck from a stone to indicate, that Christ is the light of the world, and the Stone which the Jews rejected has now become the Corner stone of His Church (Psalm 117:22); that the divine Son, the light of the world, was apparently extinguished at His death, but at His resurrection shone anew; that all those who witness this ceremony today be spiritually enlightened hereafter. This fire is blessed, because the Church blesses everything that is used for divine service, and because the light and fire represent Christ, who brought the fire of love upon Earth with which to enkindle our hearts” (Fr. Goffine, The Church’s Year).
● The large Paschal Candle representing Christ, which is lit in total darkness—symbolizing the darkness of a world that tries to do without Christ—and from that Paschal Candle we light our smaller candles. Again, the Paschal Candle is made of beeswax, but the smaller candles are not. The more candles that are lit from the Paschal Candle, the more light is shed around and everything brightens up.
● On Holy Thursday, at the consecration of the holy chrism (oil), there was collected in all the lamps of the Lateran basilica a quantity of oil sufficient to fill three large vases deposited in the corner of the church. Wicks burned in this oil until the night of Holy Saturday, when there were lighted from these lamps the candles and other lights, that were used during the Paschal Vigil (Eve of Easter) ceremonies—during which there is the blessing of the fire and the paschal candle at the beginning of Easter Eve.
● When the Paschal or Easter Vigil fire has been lit and blessed the three-branched candle (representing the Holy Trinity) is lighted with that blessed fire and the deacon then chants the “Exultet”, a chant still preserved in the Roman Liturgy. In the Eastern Church, the Easter ceremony of the new fire occupies a place of considerable importance in the paschal ritual of the Greek Church at Jerusalem. In the West we see the Irish, as early as the sixth century, lighting large fires at nightfall on the Eve of Easter.
● The feast of the Purification or Candlemas (February 2nd) has a celebrated rite with ancient prayers concerning the emission of liturgical fire and light. One of these prayers invokes Christ as “Thy servant Moses didst command the purest oil to be prepared for lamps to burn continuously before Thee: vouchsafe to pour forth the grace of Thy blessing ☩ upon these candles: that they may so afford us light outwardly that by Thy gift, the gift of Thy Spirit may never be wanting inwardly to our minds. … As these candles are enkindled with visible fire to dispel the darkness of night, so may our hearts illumined by invisible fire, that is, by the splendor of the Holy Spirit, in order to free from the blindness of all vice.” … “being worthily inflamed with the holy fire of Thy most sweet charity, we may deserve to be presented in the holy temple of Thy glory”
● The flame of the candles represents God, His divinity and grace. God the Father appeared to Moses in the burning bush; God the Son showed Himself as a burning heart to St. Margaret Mary; God the Holy Ghost came down upon Our Lady and the Apostles in the form of tongues of fire at Pentecost. God chooses fire to show both His love, His mercy and His justice. Those in Heaven experience the fire of His love; those in Purgatory experience the fire of His mercy; those in Hell experience the fire of His justice. We even say, in the prayer to the Holy Ghost, “Come O Holy Ghost … enkindle in us the fire of Thy love.” Without God and His grace in our souls (candles), we are useless, just like an extinguished candle. A candle was made to burn, not to be extinguished. It should spend its life giving light to those around, as Our Lord said: “Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:15).
Temples of the Holy Ghost
One dominant thought that should be a focal point on this feast of Pentecost is the fact that, as baptized Christians, we are temples of the Holy Ghost! How little do we think of that and, even worse, how little do live out that truth in our lives! Holy Scripture clearly tells us: “Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? … Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). Our Lord had already emphasized this implicitly at the Last Supper, when He said: “And I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, that He may abide with you for ever. The Spirit of truth, Whom the world cannot receive, because it sees Him not, nor knows Him: but you shall know Him; because He shall abide with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:16-17).
The Holy Ghost Lives in the Temple of Your Soul
Let’s face it and let’s admit it―we do not really live our life as if the Holy Ghost were always present within us. Now, of course, we drive out the Holy Ghost, along with sanctifying grace and charity, when we commit a mortal sins―but at the times when are in a state of sanctifying grace, how profoundly are we aware of the fact that the Holy Ghost (in fact, the whole Trinity) is living within our soul through the means of grace. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that sanctifying grace elevates our souls, giving them a created participation in the very life of the Trinity. The Father tenderly told St. Catherine of Siena: “I call the soul ‘Heaven’ because I make Heaven wherever I dwell by grace.” Perhaps no other saint so strongly urges us to live consciously in the presence of the Trinity dwelling within us than St. John of the Cross. He reminds us that when we truly love someone, there is nothing we desire as much as our loved one’s intimate presence and companionship. St. Augustine’s words to the Lord ― “I sought You outside of myself, but all the while You were within me!” ― so deeply touched St. John of the Cross that he begs us to dwell “within” our souls, where the Divine Persons intimately live.
Through Baptism we become members of the Mystical Body of Christ, with the Holy Trinity infusing into our souls the magnificent gifts of sanctifying grace, the supernatural virtues, and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, all flowing from the Lord, our Head, to us. Hence you become “the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you … Your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own!” (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). That is why Our Lord said: “The Kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:21). “If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and will make our abode with him!” (John 14:23).
We were consecrated temples of the Holy Ghost on the day of our Baptism. This is clearly set down in the Ritual for the administration of the Sacrament of Baptism: the priest breathes three times in the face of the one who is going to be baptized and says: “Go out from him, unclean spirit, and give place to the Most Holy Ghost!” And, making the Sign of the Cross on the forehead and breast of the person, he says: “Be faithful to the heavenly precepts, and may your actions be such that you may now enter the temple of God!” Then, a few moments later, during the exorcism, he orders the devil to go out from the creature of God, whom the Lord has deigned to call, “in order that he may become a temple of the living God and the Holy Ghost may dwell in him.” Before the regenerating baptismal water is poured, the person being baptized is freed from the empire of the devil and made to renounce the satanic works and pomps; then, when his will is confirmed in its desire to be consecrated to God, he is baptized, and the Holy Ghost takes possession of His temple.
Every Christian is a temple of the Holy Ghost; every Christian is consecrated to Him; and nothing else may be done in that temple in which God dwells except that which will give glory to Him. The Apostle St. Paul taught that even the most ordinary actions of the Christian should be done to this end: “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or do anything else―do all for the glory of God!” (1 Corinthians 10:31) ― of that is one of the means by which we can worship the Holy Ghost in the temple of our soul. True devotion to the Holy Ghost is not something separate from the Christian life; it is the Christian life thoroughly understood, seriously practiced, and deeply enjoyed.
Run-Down, Dilapidated, Unworthy Temples
How differently would you behave at home if some important person was visiting you and your family―a pope, a bishop, a president, a senator, or such like! You and your family would be “on your best behavior”! You would be careful as to what kind of language you used; what kind of clothes you wore; what kind of topics or subjects you would talk about, what activities you would indulge in; what kind of television show or music you would watch and listen to, etc. Yet just because we cannot “see” the Holy Ghost living within us and among us, we “let our hair down” and “let loose” with tongue, and “anything goes”, so to speak!
Many Catholics―even though they believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist and the Tabernacle―nevertheless, by their actions and behavior, manifest a spirit of indifference, carelessness, neglect and offense by the way they behave in the presence of the Holy Eucharist―needlessly talking and joking, quickly departing, barely or distractedly praying (or by their lack of presence before the Holy Eucharist―rarely or never visiting the Holy Eucharist). So, too, with the real presence of the Holy Ghost within the ‘tabernacle’ of our soul―we rarely pay attention to Him, rarely or never talk to Him, are not afraid of misbehaving in His presence, not guarding our tongue in His presence, etc. The words of Our Lord―concerning the Temple―come to mind: “Jesus went up to Jerusalem and went into the Temple of God. And He found, sitting in the Temple, them that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money. And when He had made, as it were, a scourge of little cords, He drove [whipped] them all out of the Temple them that sold and bought in the Temple―the sheep also and the oxen. And the money of the changers He poured out, and He overthrew the tables of the moneychangers and the chairs of them that sold doves. And to them that sold doves He said: ‘Take these things out of here and make not the House of My Father a house of traffic! Is it not written: “My House shall be called the House of prayer to all nations?” But you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Matthew 21:12-13; John 2:13-16; Mark 11:15-17)
A Christian Family is a Mini-Church
This idea of the soul being the temple of the Holy Ghost is closely allied to the idea of the home being a “mini-church”. The family is, in reality, the Church in the home, or, as St. Augustine said, the “domestic church.” The life, nature, and mission of the universal Church is contained in miniature form in the family. In the New Testament, the purpose of the Old Testament family of Abraham—which alone had received the promised blessing of salvation from God—is fulfilled when the Holy Ghost is given: “That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that we may receive the promise of the Spirit by Faith” (Galatians 3:14). The family is transformed at its core as the Holy Ghost begins to live in its members: “You are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you … Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). The family is now ordered to and participates in something far greater than itself―it is an integral part of the Church, the Body of Christ, and it must reflect the Church in the home―for God is actually present through the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. The Christian family now becomes a privileged place where the Holy Ghost is bringing its members to salvation and helping them grow in holiness.
Are you―and your family―allowing the Holy Ghost to “run-the-show” and lead you along HIS desired paths (not YOUR desired paths) to salvation? Or have you taken one of the many side-roads that lead to the world and worldliness? The Holy Ghost―the true Author of Holy Scripture―tells us: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). We never those warnings any more ― especially since the Second Vatican Council which tried to open the doors of the Church to the world! What a horrendous policy, horrendous miscalculation and monstrous failure! The Second Vatican Council sure did open the doors of the Church to the world―and most Catholics left the Church for the world! Today, less than 20% attend Sunday Mass regularly, around 50% no longer go to Confession (while sin totals rise), and over 50% hold and believe the ‘gospel’ of the world on things like abortion, contraception, homosexuality, same-sex-marriages, divorce and remarriage, cohabitation, etc.! That is not being led by the Holy Ghost―that is being led by the world and the “prince of this world, Satan” (John 14:30).
Our Lord wants unity―“Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name whom Thou has given Me―so that they may be one, as we also are one!” (John 17:11)―at least that was the hopeful theory. Nevertheless, Our Lord knew that not everyone would want to be united to Christ and God―which is why He said: “Many are called, but few are chosen! … Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that lead to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that lead to life and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 22:14; 7:13-14). Our Lord knew that His teaching would be accepted by a few and rejected by many―hence He said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth―and what will I, but that it be kindled! … Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided―three against two, and two against three! And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:17-22; 10:32-37; Luke 12:49-53).
The Liberal Families of Today
To try and please everyone―just to keep the peace―is nothing other than two-faced hypocritical Liberalism; and, as the title of the excellent book by Fr. Salvany states: “Liberalism Is A Sin.” Liberalism brings about division between God and man. The Liberal Catholic seeks to serve two masters―God and the world, or God and himself or herself―whereas Our Lord has categorically stated that we cannot have two masters: “No man can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other! You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24).
In his book, Fr. Salvany points out that Liberalism is “rejecting the principle of authority in religion” in favor of “the dictates of private judgment … The individual or sect interprets as it pleases—rejecting or accepting what it chooses. This is popularly called liberty of conscience … Hence we find Liberalism laying down the following principles: (1) entire independence of God and God’s authority, absolute division between public life and religion; that Liberalism denies the absolute jurisdiction of Jesus Christ, Who is God, over individuals and over society; (2) Liberalism claims entire independence of society in everything which does not proceed from itself; Liberalism denies everything which it itself does not proclaim; it denies the possibility of any truth which it does not comprehend; (3) Liberalism demands the right of the people to make their own laws; (4) Liberalism claims freedom of thought in politics, morals, religion and the unrestrained liberty of the press ... The Liberal Catholic calls himself a Catholic because he firmly believes Catholicity to be the veritable revelation of the Son of God; he calls himself a Liberal Catholic because he believes that no one can impose upon him any belief which his individual judgment does not measure as perfectly rational. What is not rational he rejects; he is intellectually free to accept or reject. What appears good he assents to, but he is intellectually bound to no one. Thus, unwittingly, he falls an easy victim to the snare set by the devil for the intellectually proud ... Such are the radical principles of Liberalism … Liberalism, whether in the doctrinal or practical order, is a sin. In the doctrinal order, it is heresy, and consequently a mortal sin against Faith. In the practical order, it is a sin against the commandments of God and of the Church, for it virtually transgresses all commandments.”
Unfortunately, most Catholic families today are either totally Liberal (all family members being Liberals), or partially Liberal (with some or most family members being Liberals)―and that Liberalism, within itself, is of varying degrees. Some are only Liberal in a few things, while others are Liberals in pretty much everything. The bottom line in all of this is that these Liberals have implicitly declared war on God in general, and declared war on the Holy Ghost in particular: “Know you not that the friendship of this [Liberal] world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this [Liberal] world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).
God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost have all represented by fire in one form or another. “The Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush―and Moses saw that the bush was on fire and was not burnt” (Exodus 3:2). During the Exodus from Egypt, “the Lord went before them to show the way by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire―so that He might be the guide of their journey at both times. There never failed the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, before the people” (Exodus 13:21-22). When the Israelites were encamped around Mount Sinai, “Moses brought them forth from the place of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the bottom of the mountain. And all Mount Sinai was in smoke, because the Lord had come down upon it in fire … And the glory of the Lord dwelt upon Sinai … and the sight of the glory of the Lord was like a burning fire upon the top of the mount! And the Lord spoke from the midst of the fire” (Exodus 19:17-18; 24:16-17; Deuteronomy 4:12). “He spoke to us out of the midst of fire” (Deuteronomy 5:4). “He showed thee His exceeding great fire, and thou didst hear His words out of the midst of the fire” (Deuteronomy 4:36). “People should hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of fire” (Deuteronomy 4:33). “‘Are not My words as a fire?’ said the Lord” (Jeremias 23:29). “Our God is a consuming fire!” (Hebrews 12:29).
God the Son Himself said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled!” (Luke 12:49). St. John the Baptist said of Jesus: “He shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire!” (Matthew 3:11). When the resurrected Lord unrecognizably spoke to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, they afterwards said to each other: “Was not our heart burning within us, whilst He spoke in this way, and opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32). Our Lord, when He appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, revealing and demanding devotion to His Sacred Heart―He showed her His Heart as furnace of fire for love of mankind.
As regards God the Holy Ghost, we beg the kindling of that fire in the prayer to Holy Ghost, when we pray: “Come, O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love!” The Holy Ghost came down at Pentecost, upon Our Lady and the Apostles, in the form of tongues of fire: “When the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place―and suddenly there came a sound from Heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues, as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them” (Acts 2:1-3).
In the Old Testament, we horses and chariots of fire sent from Heaven to the prophets Elias and Eliseus: “And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elias into Heaven by a whirlwind, that Elias and Eliseus were walking and talking together, and behold, a fiery chariot and fiery horses divided them both from one another, and Elias went up by a whirlwind into Heaven.” (4 Kings 2:1-11).
Again we see horses and chariots of fire coming from Heaven when the King of Syrian was at war with Israel and wanted to capture the prophet Eliseus, so he “sent horses and chariots, and the strength of an army, and they came by night, and beset the city. The servant of Eliseus went out and saw an army round about the city, with horses and chariots and he told him, saying: ‘Alas, alas, alas, my lord! What shall we do?’ But Eliseus answered: ‘Fear not―for there are more with us than with them!’ And Eliseus prayed and said: ‘Lord, open his eyes that he may see!’ And the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about Eliseus!” (4 Kings 6:14-17).
Another prophet, Isaias, also speaks of chariots and the God of fire: “For behold the Lord will come with fire, and His chariots are like a whirlwind, to render his wrath in indignation, and His rebuke with flames of fire―for the Lord shall judge by fire!” (Isaias 66:15-16). Our Lord echoes this on several occasions: “Every tree that does not yield good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire!” (Matthew 3:10) … “He shall cast them into the furnace of fire, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 13:42) … Depart from Me into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41) … “And in the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from Heaven and destroyed them all!” (Luke 17:29). To which Scripture adds: “On the day of the Lord, every man’s work shall be manifest―because it shall be revealed in fire and the fire shall try every man’s work, to see of what sort it is!” (1 Corinthians 3:13).
Fire in the Liturgy―Liturgy On-Fire!
Fire is one of the most expressive and most ancient of liturgical symbols. The ancient pagan religions gave to fire such a great importance that caused it to be adored as a god. The sun―as the principle of heat and light for the Earth―was regarded as a fiery mass and had its share in this worship. After the time of Christ, Christianity adapted this belief, but refused to give deify and worship heat and light. The symbolism of fire naturally found its way into the liturgical rites of the Church. This, however, was nothing new―but a continuation of the religious use of fire that took place in the Old Testament religious ceremonies and worship of God.
● In the Old Testament, God commanded that a fire burn perpetually on God’s altar in the Temple as a symbol of the perpetual presence of the eternal God among them: “The fire on the altar shall always burn, and the priest shall feed it, putting wood on it every day in the morning … This is the perpetual fire which shall never go out on the altar.” (Leviticus 6:12-13). Similarly, today we perpetually burn a sanctuary light by the tabernacle in our churches and chapels―as a sign of Christ’s presence among us in the Holy Eucharist in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. “And putting fire under the wood, they shall burn offerings upon the altar for a holocaust―for an oblation of most sweet savor to the Lord” (Leviticus 3:5). “Every sacrifice of the priest shall be consumed with fire” (Leviticus 6:23). On occasion, God would miraculously send fire from Heaven to burn and devour the offerings on the altar: “And behold a fire, coming forth from the Lord, devoured the holocaust, and the fat that was upon the altar―which, when the multitude saw, they praised the Lord, falling on their faces” (Leviticus 9:24).
● The beginning of the Easter Divine Office also reflects ancient beliefs. The first ceremony consisted in the blessing of the New Fire, which was to furnish light for the whole Service. It was the daily custom, in the first ages of the Church, to strike a flame from a flint before Vespers; from this the lamps and candles were lit for the celebration of that Hour, and the light thus procured was kept up in the church till the Vespers of the following day. The Church at Rome observed this custom with great solemnity on Maundy Thursday morning, and the New Fire received a special blessing. We learn, from a letter written in the eight century by Pope St. Zachary to St. Boniface the Archbishop of Mainz, that three lamps were lit from this fire, which were then removed to some safe place, and care taken that their light be not extinguished. It was from these lamps that the light for Holy Saturday night was taken. The new fire is struck from a flint and is blessed with this prayer.
“Lord God, Almighty Father, inextinguishable light, Who hast created all light, bless this fire sanctified and blessed by Thee, Who hast enlightened the whole world; make us enlightened by that light and inflamed with the fire of Thy brightness; and as Thou didst enlighten Moses when he went out of Egypt, so illuminate our hearts and senses that we may attain life and light everlasting through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
● Fr. Goffine, writing on the use fire in the liturgy, says: “In ancient times it was customary to strike a new fire every day, bless it, and light the candles from it, and later this was done every Saturday; in the eleventh century this ceremony was restricted to Holy Saturday. The fire is struck from a stone to indicate, that Christ is the light of the world, and the Stone which the Jews rejected has now become the Corner stone of His Church (Psalm 117:22); that the divine Son, the light of the world, was apparently extinguished at His death, but at His resurrection shone anew; that all those who witness this ceremony today be spiritually enlightened hereafter. This fire is blessed, because the Church blesses everything that is used for divine service, and because the light and fire represent Christ, who brought the fire of love upon Earth with which to enkindle our hearts” (Fr. Goffine, The Church’s Year).
● The large Paschal Candle representing Christ, which is lit in total darkness—symbolizing the darkness of a world that tries to do without Christ—and from that Paschal Candle we light our smaller candles. Again, the Paschal Candle is made of beeswax, but the smaller candles are not. The more candles that are lit from the Paschal Candle, the more light is shed around and everything brightens up.
● On Holy Thursday, at the consecration of the holy chrism (oil), there was collected in all the lamps of the Lateran basilica a quantity of oil sufficient to fill three large vases deposited in the corner of the church. Wicks burned in this oil until the night of Holy Saturday, when there were lighted from these lamps the candles and other lights, that were used during the Paschal Vigil (Eve of Easter) ceremonies—during which there is the blessing of the fire and the paschal candle at the beginning of Easter Eve.
● When the Paschal or Easter Vigil fire has been lit and blessed the three-branched candle (representing the Holy Trinity) is lighted with that blessed fire and the deacon then chants the “Exultet”, a chant still preserved in the Roman Liturgy. In the Eastern Church, the Easter ceremony of the new fire occupies a place of considerable importance in the paschal ritual of the Greek Church at Jerusalem. In the West we see the Irish, as early as the sixth century, lighting large fires at nightfall on the Eve of Easter.
● The feast of the Purification or Candlemas (February 2nd) has a celebrated rite with ancient prayers concerning the emission of liturgical fire and light. One of these prayers invokes Christ as “Thy servant Moses didst command the purest oil to be prepared for lamps to burn continuously before Thee: vouchsafe to pour forth the grace of Thy blessing ☩ upon these candles: that they may so afford us light outwardly that by Thy gift, the gift of Thy Spirit may never be wanting inwardly to our minds. … As these candles are enkindled with visible fire to dispel the darkness of night, so may our hearts illumined by invisible fire, that is, by the splendor of the Holy Spirit, in order to free from the blindness of all vice.” … “being worthily inflamed with the holy fire of Thy most sweet charity, we may deserve to be presented in the holy temple of Thy glory”
● The flame of the candles represents God, His divinity and grace. God the Father appeared to Moses in the burning bush; God the Son showed Himself as a burning heart to St. Margaret Mary; God the Holy Ghost came down upon Our Lady and the Apostles in the form of tongues of fire at Pentecost. God chooses fire to show both His love, His mercy and His justice. Those in Heaven experience the fire of His love; those in Purgatory experience the fire of His mercy; those in Hell experience the fire of His justice. We even say, in the prayer to the Holy Ghost, “Come O Holy Ghost … enkindle in us the fire of Thy love.” Without God and His grace in our souls (candles), we are useless, just like an extinguished candle. A candle was made to burn, not to be extinguished. It should spend its life giving light to those around, as Our Lord said: “Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:15).
Temples of the Holy Ghost
One dominant thought that should be a focal point on this feast of Pentecost is the fact that, as baptized Christians, we are temples of the Holy Ghost! How little do we think of that and, even worse, how little do live out that truth in our lives! Holy Scripture clearly tells us: “Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? … Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). Our Lord had already emphasized this implicitly at the Last Supper, when He said: “And I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, that He may abide with you for ever. The Spirit of truth, Whom the world cannot receive, because it sees Him not, nor knows Him: but you shall know Him; because He shall abide with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:16-17).
The Holy Ghost Lives in the Temple of Your Soul
Let’s face it and let’s admit it―we do not really live our life as if the Holy Ghost were always present within us. Now, of course, we drive out the Holy Ghost, along with sanctifying grace and charity, when we commit a mortal sins―but at the times when are in a state of sanctifying grace, how profoundly are we aware of the fact that the Holy Ghost (in fact, the whole Trinity) is living within our soul through the means of grace. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that sanctifying grace elevates our souls, giving them a created participation in the very life of the Trinity. The Father tenderly told St. Catherine of Siena: “I call the soul ‘Heaven’ because I make Heaven wherever I dwell by grace.” Perhaps no other saint so strongly urges us to live consciously in the presence of the Trinity dwelling within us than St. John of the Cross. He reminds us that when we truly love someone, there is nothing we desire as much as our loved one’s intimate presence and companionship. St. Augustine’s words to the Lord ― “I sought You outside of myself, but all the while You were within me!” ― so deeply touched St. John of the Cross that he begs us to dwell “within” our souls, where the Divine Persons intimately live.
Through Baptism we become members of the Mystical Body of Christ, with the Holy Trinity infusing into our souls the magnificent gifts of sanctifying grace, the supernatural virtues, and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, all flowing from the Lord, our Head, to us. Hence you become “the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you … Your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own!” (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). That is why Our Lord said: “The Kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:21). “If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and will make our abode with him!” (John 14:23).
We were consecrated temples of the Holy Ghost on the day of our Baptism. This is clearly set down in the Ritual for the administration of the Sacrament of Baptism: the priest breathes three times in the face of the one who is going to be baptized and says: “Go out from him, unclean spirit, and give place to the Most Holy Ghost!” And, making the Sign of the Cross on the forehead and breast of the person, he says: “Be faithful to the heavenly precepts, and may your actions be such that you may now enter the temple of God!” Then, a few moments later, during the exorcism, he orders the devil to go out from the creature of God, whom the Lord has deigned to call, “in order that he may become a temple of the living God and the Holy Ghost may dwell in him.” Before the regenerating baptismal water is poured, the person being baptized is freed from the empire of the devil and made to renounce the satanic works and pomps; then, when his will is confirmed in its desire to be consecrated to God, he is baptized, and the Holy Ghost takes possession of His temple.
Every Christian is a temple of the Holy Ghost; every Christian is consecrated to Him; and nothing else may be done in that temple in which God dwells except that which will give glory to Him. The Apostle St. Paul taught that even the most ordinary actions of the Christian should be done to this end: “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or do anything else―do all for the glory of God!” (1 Corinthians 10:31) ― of that is one of the means by which we can worship the Holy Ghost in the temple of our soul. True devotion to the Holy Ghost is not something separate from the Christian life; it is the Christian life thoroughly understood, seriously practiced, and deeply enjoyed.
Run-Down, Dilapidated, Unworthy Temples
How differently would you behave at home if some important person was visiting you and your family―a pope, a bishop, a president, a senator, or such like! You and your family would be “on your best behavior”! You would be careful as to what kind of language you used; what kind of clothes you wore; what kind of topics or subjects you would talk about, what activities you would indulge in; what kind of television show or music you would watch and listen to, etc. Yet just because we cannot “see” the Holy Ghost living within us and among us, we “let our hair down” and “let loose” with tongue, and “anything goes”, so to speak!
Many Catholics―even though they believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist and the Tabernacle―nevertheless, by their actions and behavior, manifest a spirit of indifference, carelessness, neglect and offense by the way they behave in the presence of the Holy Eucharist―needlessly talking and joking, quickly departing, barely or distractedly praying (or by their lack of presence before the Holy Eucharist―rarely or never visiting the Holy Eucharist). So, too, with the real presence of the Holy Ghost within the ‘tabernacle’ of our soul―we rarely pay attention to Him, rarely or never talk to Him, are not afraid of misbehaving in His presence, not guarding our tongue in His presence, etc. The words of Our Lord―concerning the Temple―come to mind: “Jesus went up to Jerusalem and went into the Temple of God. And He found, sitting in the Temple, them that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money. And when He had made, as it were, a scourge of little cords, He drove [whipped] them all out of the Temple them that sold and bought in the Temple―the sheep also and the oxen. And the money of the changers He poured out, and He overthrew the tables of the moneychangers and the chairs of them that sold doves. And to them that sold doves He said: ‘Take these things out of here and make not the House of My Father a house of traffic! Is it not written: “My House shall be called the House of prayer to all nations?” But you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Matthew 21:12-13; John 2:13-16; Mark 11:15-17)
A Christian Family is a Mini-Church
This idea of the soul being the temple of the Holy Ghost is closely allied to the idea of the home being a “mini-church”. The family is, in reality, the Church in the home, or, as St. Augustine said, the “domestic church.” The life, nature, and mission of the universal Church is contained in miniature form in the family. In the New Testament, the purpose of the Old Testament family of Abraham—which alone had received the promised blessing of salvation from God—is fulfilled when the Holy Ghost is given: “That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that we may receive the promise of the Spirit by Faith” (Galatians 3:14). The family is transformed at its core as the Holy Ghost begins to live in its members: “You are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you … Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). The family is now ordered to and participates in something far greater than itself―it is an integral part of the Church, the Body of Christ, and it must reflect the Church in the home―for God is actually present through the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. The Christian family now becomes a privileged place where the Holy Ghost is bringing its members to salvation and helping them grow in holiness.
Are you―and your family―allowing the Holy Ghost to “run-the-show” and lead you along HIS desired paths (not YOUR desired paths) to salvation? Or have you taken one of the many side-roads that lead to the world and worldliness? The Holy Ghost―the true Author of Holy Scripture―tells us: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). We never those warnings any more ― especially since the Second Vatican Council which tried to open the doors of the Church to the world! What a horrendous policy, horrendous miscalculation and monstrous failure! The Second Vatican Council sure did open the doors of the Church to the world―and most Catholics left the Church for the world! Today, less than 20% attend Sunday Mass regularly, around 50% no longer go to Confession (while sin totals rise), and over 50% hold and believe the ‘gospel’ of the world on things like abortion, contraception, homosexuality, same-sex-marriages, divorce and remarriage, cohabitation, etc.! That is not being led by the Holy Ghost―that is being led by the world and the “prince of this world, Satan” (John 14:30).
Our Lord wants unity―“Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name whom Thou has given Me―so that they may be one, as we also are one!” (John 17:11)―at least that was the hopeful theory. Nevertheless, Our Lord knew that not everyone would want to be united to Christ and God―which is why He said: “Many are called, but few are chosen! … Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that lead to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that lead to life and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 22:14; 7:13-14). Our Lord knew that His teaching would be accepted by a few and rejected by many―hence He said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth―and what will I, but that it be kindled! … Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided―three against two, and two against three! And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:17-22; 10:32-37; Luke 12:49-53).
The Liberal Families of Today
To try and please everyone―just to keep the peace―is nothing other than two-faced hypocritical Liberalism; and, as the title of the excellent book by Fr. Salvany states: “Liberalism Is A Sin.” Liberalism brings about division between God and man. The Liberal Catholic seeks to serve two masters―God and the world, or God and himself or herself―whereas Our Lord has categorically stated that we cannot have two masters: “No man can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other! You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24).
In his book, Fr. Salvany points out that Liberalism is “rejecting the principle of authority in religion” in favor of “the dictates of private judgment … The individual or sect interprets as it pleases—rejecting or accepting what it chooses. This is popularly called liberty of conscience … Hence we find Liberalism laying down the following principles: (1) entire independence of God and God’s authority, absolute division between public life and religion; that Liberalism denies the absolute jurisdiction of Jesus Christ, Who is God, over individuals and over society; (2) Liberalism claims entire independence of society in everything which does not proceed from itself; Liberalism denies everything which it itself does not proclaim; it denies the possibility of any truth which it does not comprehend; (3) Liberalism demands the right of the people to make their own laws; (4) Liberalism claims freedom of thought in politics, morals, religion and the unrestrained liberty of the press ... The Liberal Catholic calls himself a Catholic because he firmly believes Catholicity to be the veritable revelation of the Son of God; he calls himself a Liberal Catholic because he believes that no one can impose upon him any belief which his individual judgment does not measure as perfectly rational. What is not rational he rejects; he is intellectually free to accept or reject. What appears good he assents to, but he is intellectually bound to no one. Thus, unwittingly, he falls an easy victim to the snare set by the devil for the intellectually proud ... Such are the radical principles of Liberalism … Liberalism, whether in the doctrinal or practical order, is a sin. In the doctrinal order, it is heresy, and consequently a mortal sin against Faith. In the practical order, it is a sin against the commandments of God and of the Church, for it virtually transgresses all commandments.”
Unfortunately, most Catholic families today are either totally Liberal (all family members being Liberals), or partially Liberal (with some or most family members being Liberals)―and that Liberalism, within itself, is of varying degrees. Some are only Liberal in a few things, while others are Liberals in pretty much everything. The bottom line in all of this is that these Liberals have implicitly declared war on God in general, and declared war on the Holy Ghost in particular: “Know you not that the friendship of this [Liberal] world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this [Liberal] world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).
Article 30
Saturday May 27th, 2023
Preparing for Pentecost : Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost
#7 The Gift of Wisdom ― For Foolish Catholics!
Saturday May 27th, 2023
Preparing for Pentecost : Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost
#7 The Gift of Wisdom ― For Foolish Catholics!
Who Needs Wisdom?
Who is it that needs wisdom? Fools need wisdom―for fools are unwise! “Wisdom is too high for a fool!” (Proverbs 24:7). “Understand, ye senseless among the people! And, you fools, be wise at last!” (Psalm 93:8). “The number of fools is infinite” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools!” (Romans 1:22). “The fool esteems all men to be fools, whereas he himself is a fool!” (Ecclesiastes 10:3). “A friend of fools shall become like them!” (Proverbs 13:20). “The heart of the wise is where there is mourning, but the heart of fools is where there is mirth” (Ecclesiastes 7:5). “He that trusts in his own heart, is a fool―but he that walks wisely, he shall be saved” (Proverbs 28:26).
God Speaks of Wisdom in Scripture
“All wisdom is from the Lord God!” (Ecclesiasticus 1:1). “For wisdom came forth from God … the wisdom of God is great!” (Ecclesiasticus 15:10, 19). “The desire of wisdom brings one to the everlasting kingdom!” (Wisdom 6:21). “For God loves none but him that dwells with wisdom!” (Wisdom 7:28). “Get wisdom―because it is better than gold!” (Proverbs 16:16). “Better is wisdom than weapons of war!” (Ecclesiastes 9:18). “Wisdom is better than strength―and a wise man is better than a strong man!” (Wisdom 6:1). “Wisdom has delivered from sorrow!” (Wisdom 10:9). “He that rejects wisdom and discipline, is unhappy and his hope is vain!” (Wisdom 3:11). “I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me!” (Wisdom 7:7). “And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding, and knowledge!” (Exodus 31:3). “And God has given to me to speak … because He is the guide of wisdom and the director of the wise!” (Wisdom 7:15).
The Wisdom of De Montfort
St. Louis de Montfort, in his book Love of Eternal Wisdom, speaks of true and false wisdom: “There is the Wisdom of God, the only true Wisdom that deserves to be loved as a great Treasure. There is also the wisdom of the corrupt world which must be condemned and detested as evil and pernicious. Moreover, there is the wisdom of the philosophers which we must despise when it is not true philosophy, and because it is often dangerous to salvation.
“The wisdom of the world is that of which it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise’ (1 Corinthians 1:19) according to the world. ‘The wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God’ (Romans 8:7) … ‘This is not the wisdom descending from above, but earthly, sensual, devilish’ (James 3:15). This worldly wisdom consists in the exact compliance with the maxims and the fashions of the world; in a continuous trend toward greatness and esteem. It is a secret and unceasing pursuit of pleasures and personal interests, not in a gross and open manner so as to cause scandal, but in a secret, deceitful and scheming fashion. Otherwise, it would not be what the world calls wisdom, but rank licentiousness.
“Those who proceed according to the wisdom of the world are those who know how to manage well their affairs and to arrange things to their temporal advantage without appearing to do so; who know the art of deceiving and how to cleverly cheat without being noticed; who say or do one thing and have another thing in mind; who are thoroughly acquainted with the way and the flattery of the world; who know how to please everybody in order to reach their goal, not troubling much about the honor and interests of God; who make a secret but deadly fusion of truth with untruth, of the Gospel with the world, of virtue with vice, of Jesus Christ with Satan; who wish to pass as honest people but not as religious men; who despise and corrupt or readily condemn every religious practice which does not conform to their own. In short, the worldly wise are those who, being guided only by their human senses and reason, seek only to appear as Christian and honest folk, without troubling much to please God or to do penance for the sins which they have committed against His divine Majesty.
“THE EARTHLY WISDOM spoken of by St. James is an excessive striving for worldly goods. The worldly-wise make a secret profession of this type of wisdom when they allow themselves to become attached to their earthly possessions, when they strive to become rich, when they go to law and bring useless actions against others in order to acquire or to keep temporal goods; when their every thought, word and deed is mainly directed toward obtaining or retaining something temporal. As to working out their eternal salvation and making use of the means to do so, such as reception of the Sacraments and prayer, they accomplish these duties only carelessly, in a very off-hand manner, once in a while, and for the sake of appearances.
“SENSUAL WISDOM is a lustful desire for pleasure. The worldly wise make a profession of it when they seek only the satisfaction of the senses; when they are inordinately fond of entertainment; when they shun whatever mortifies and inconveniences the body, such as fasting and other austerities; when they continually think of eating, drinking, playing, laughing, amusing themselves and having an agreeable time; when they eagerly seek after soft beds, merry games, sumptuous feasts and fashionable society. Then, after having unscrupulously indulged in all these pleasures—perhaps without displeasing the world or injuring their health—they look for “the least scrupulous” confessor (such is the name they give to those easygoing confessors who shirk their duty) that they may receive from him, at little cost, the peaceful sanction of their soft and effeminate life, and a plenary indulgence for all their sins. I say, at little cost, for these sensually wise want as penance the recitation of only a few prayers, or the giving of an alms, because they dislike what afflicts the body.
“DEVILISH WISDOM consists in an unlawful striving for human esteem and honors. This is the wisdom which the worldly wise profess when they aim, although not openly, at greatness, honors, dignities and high positions; when they wish to be seen, esteemed, praised and applauded by men; when in their studies, their works, their endeavors their words and actions, they seek only the good opinion and praise of men so that they may be looked upon as pious people, as men of learning, as great leaders, as clever lawyers, as people of boundless and distinguished merit, or deserving of high consideration; while they cannot bear an insult or a rebuke; or they cover up their faults and make a show of their fine qualities.” (St. Louis de Montfort, Love of Eternal Wisdom).
Tasting True Wisdom
The word “wisdom” comes from the Latin word “sapientia.” The very sound is delicious. “Sapientia” actually means “tasting knowledge”—knowledge that is delightful and not merely notional or abstract. It is like the experience of tasting fruit, a very different experience from reading about it in a dictionary.
Is it really possible to taste God? The answer is yes--“O taste and see that the Lord is sweet!” (Psalm 33:9)—but we cannot bring it about by our own efforts. We can only prepare ourselves for it by reducing the obvious obstacles we can perceive and by allowing the action of divine love to purify our unconscious motivation. “Wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins!” (Wisdom 1:4). “You have found Wisdom,” says St. Bernardine of Sienna, “if you weep for the sins of your past life, if you value as naught that which this world most desires, and if all your longing is centered around your eternal happiness!”
True Wisdom
Wisdom imparts to us a knowledge and a love of everything divine, in the highest possible way, and enables us also to judge created things after a divine standard. It is a summing up of all the Gifts, their blossom and their perfection. It is the last step we make in our ascent to God. “The fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom! … The root of Wisdom is to fear the Lord!” (Ecclesiasticus 1:16; 1:25).
The Gift of Wisdom is, therefore, a participation of God’s Wisdom. This close union with God necessarily means participation in God’s Wisdom. “But he who is joined to the Lord,” says St. Paul, “is one spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:17). Hence, it follows that the Gift of Wisdom is not for Saints alone; no, it exists in the soul of each and every one of the faithful who is free from mortal sin; and we all possess as much of it as is necessary for salvation.
The Gift of Wisdom gives to the soul is incomparably superior to all human sciences, even theology, which already possesses something of divine. For that reason, a simple and uneducated soul, who lacks the theological knowledge acquired by study, may sometimes possess, through the Gift of Wisdom, a profound knowledge of divine things that causes amazement even to eminent theologians. Such was the case of St. Teresa and many other souls who had no scientific studies whatsoever.
The Nature of the Gift of Wisdom
The Gift of Wisdom is a supernatural habit, inseparable from Charity (a love of God), by which we judge rightly concerning God and divine things through their ultimate and highest causes under the special instinct of the Holy Ghost, Who makes us taste these things by a certain connaturality and sympathy. We shall explain this definition in order to gain a clear idea of the true nature of this great Gift.
“It is a supernatural habit”: Like all the Gifts of the Holy Ghost, it is infused by God in the soul together with grace and the infused virtues.
“Inseparable from Charity”: It is precisely the Gift of Wisdom that perfects charity by giving it the divine modality it lacks as long as Charity is subject to the rule of human reason, even illumined by Faith. By reason of its connection with Charity, all the souls in the state of grace possess the Gift of Wisdom as a habit—though in differing degrees—and it is incompatible with mortal sin. The same is true of all the other Gifts.
“By which we judge rightly”: In this, as in other things, it is distinguished from the Gift of Understanding. It is proper to the Gift of Understanding to have a penetrating and profound intuition of the truths of Faith in the order of simple apprehension, without making any judgment concerning them. Such a judgment is made by the other intellectual Gifts, but in different ways: The Gift of Wisdom judges concerning divine things; the Gift of Knowledge judges concerning created things; the Gift of Counsel judges concerning the application of these things to our concrete actions.
Seeing Things God’s Way
Too often we try to make God see things our way, yet God says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways! For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9). The Gift of Wisdom provides us with God’s view of things, a kind of divine perspective on reality that penetrates through events and perceives the divine presence and action at work, even in very tragic and painful situations. To see God in suffering is indeed a high level of the Gift of Wisdom. Some things are to be learned in this perspective that cannot be learned in any other way.
The Necessity of the Gift of Wisdom
The Gift of Wisdom is absolutely necessary if the virtue of charity is to develop to its full perfection and plenitude. Precisely because charity is the most excellent of all the virtues and the most perfect and divine, it demands by its very nature the divine regulation of the divine wisdom. Left to itself, or to the control of man in the ascetical state, it would have to be regulated by human reason according to the human mode. But this human atmosphere asphyxiates it, preventing it from flying to the heights.
Charity is a divine virtue and has wings for soaring to Heaven, but it is obliged to move along the Earth, because it is under the control of human reason and because, in a certain sense, it is necessary to compromise, in accordance with prudence, due to its weak condition. Only when it begins to receive the full influence of the Gift of Wisdom is there given to Charity the divine atmosphere and modality that it needs as the most perfect of all the theological virtues. Then Charity begins to breathe and to expand in its proper element.
As an inevitable consequence, it begins to grow and to increase rapidly, carrying the soul with it as if in flight, soaring to regions of the mystical life and to the very summit of perfection, which it never could have done if it had remained under the control of human reason in the purely ascetical state.
The Mystical State is Meant For Everyone
From this sublime doctrine follow two inevitable conclusions. The first is that the mystical state—the habitual or predominant regime of the Gifts—is not something abnormal and extraordinary in the full development of the Christian life, but it is the normal atmosphere which grace, as a divine form, demands―so that it can develop in all its virtualities through the operative principles of the infused virtues, and especially through the theological virtues (Faith, Hope and Charity), which are substantially divine. Therefore, the mystical state ought to be something normal in the Christian life, and it is, as a matter of fact, normal in every perfect Christian.
Who’s the Boss? Gift or Virtue?
The second conclusion is that an actuation or activation of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost in merely the human mode—a kind of demotion for the Gifts—besides being impossible and absurd, would be utterly useless for the perfection of the infused virtues, and especially the theological virtues. The theological virtues are superior by their nature to the Gifts themselves. The Theological Virtues have as direct and immediate object God Himself (believed, hoped for or loved), while the Gifts fall directly upon the Infused Virtues (something very distinct from God) to perfect them.
An analogy―though imperfect―would liken the Gifts of the Holy Ghost to gasoline, oil and water that you put into a car (which represents the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity). The car (Theological Virtues) is more important the gasoline, oil and water (the Gifts of the Holy Ghost)―which are there to perfect the car and help it work and run.
Therefore it is evident that the Theological Virtues are, by their own nature, superior to the Gifts of the Holy Ghost themselves. On the other hand, looked upon from the perspective of their way of acting, the Gifts of the Holy Ghost are superior to all Infused Virtues—including the Theological ones—by their divine way of acting (being direct and immediate instruments of the Holy Ghost, and not instruments of the soul in a state of grace, like the virtues). More briefly, the theological virtues are superior to the Gifts by their theological nature, while the Gifts are superior to them by their divine operation (Cf. St. Thomas, Summa, Ia-IIae, q. 68, art. 8).
Effects of the Gift of Wisdom
By reason of its elevation and grandeur and by reason of the sublimity of the virtue that it perfects, the effects which wisdom produces in the soul are truly remarkable. The following are the more characteristic effects of this Gift.
(1) It Gives to the Saints a Divine Sense By Which They Judge All Things
This is the most impressive of all the effects of the Gift of Wisdom so far as they are manifested externally. One would say that the saints have completely lost the human instinct, or the human manner of judgment, and that it has been replaced by a certain divine instinct by which they judge all things. They see everything from God’s point of view―whether it is the little, commonplace episodes of daily life, or the great international events. In all things they see the hand of God. They never attach their attention to immediate secondary causes, but pass them by, to arrive immediately at the Supreme Cause of all that happens, Who governs and rules them from above.
The saints would have to do a great violence to themselves in order to descend to the point of view that judges from a purely human and rational standard. An insult, or any other injury, that is done to them causes them to turn immediately to God―Who is the one who wishes or permits that they be exercised in patience and thus increase their glory. They do not dwell for an instant on the secondary cause―which is the evil or malice of men―but they rise immediately to God and judge all things from the divine heights. They do not consider something (whether sickness, persecution, death, or the like) disgraceful in the way that the men of the world do, but they consider as disgraceful only that which God would consider such―namely, sin, lukewarmness, infidelity to grace, and so on. Like St. Teresa of Avila, they do not understand how the world can consider as treasures those little baubles that sparkle and glitter―because they see clearly that there is no treasure apart from God and the things that lead to God. As St. Aloysius Gonzaga used to say: “Of what avail is this to me for eternity, for the glory of God?” This is the Saints’ only differential criteria for judging the value of things.
The Gift of Wisdom shone most brilliantly in St. Thomas Aquinas, among many other saints. He possessed a remarkable supernatural instinct in discovering in all things the divine aspect by which they were related to God. There is no other way of explaining his divine instinct and insight except that the Gift of Wisdom operated in him in an eminent degree (Cf. Antoine Gardeil, O.P., The Gifts of the Holy Ghost in the Dominican Saints (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1937), chap. 8).
In modern times, an admirable example of the operation of the Gift of Wisdom is Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity. According to Father Philipon, who studied her case profoundly, the Gift of Wisdom was the outstanding characteristic of the doctrine and life of this saintly Carmelite nun of Dijon (Cf. M. M. Philipon, The Spiritual Doctrine of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, chap. 8, n. 8). She was perfectly aware of her sublime vocation and even succeeded in contemplating the Trinity, so that she experienced the distinct Persons of the Trinity present in her soul. The greatest trials and sufferings were unable to disturb for a moment her inexpressible peace of soul. No matter what misfortunes befell her, she remained as unmoved and tranquil as if her soul were already in eternity.
(2) It Makes the Saints Live the Mysteries of Faith in an Entirely Divine Manner
As Father Philipon says: “The Gift of Wisdom is the royal Gift―by it, souls enter most closely into participation of the deiform mode of divine knowledge. Short of the beatific vision―which is the fullest measure of this Gift―it is impossible to rise any higher. It is the gaze of the ‘Word breathing forth love’ communicated to the soul, which judges of everything in the light of the highest and most divine causes, and judges them also for the highest reasons ‘after the manner of God.’
“The divinized soul that has been introduced by charity into the intimacy of the Divine Persons and, as it were, into the heart of the Trinity is so moved by the Spirit of Love that it contemplates all things from this center, this indivisible point from which they appear to it as they do to God Himself. Thus does it view the divine attributes, creation, redemption, glory, the hypostatic order, the smallest happenings in the world. So far as it is possible to mere creatures, it tends to see from the same angle of vision as that from which God sees Himself and the whole universe. It is the deiform manner of contemplation in the light of the experience of the Deity that fills the soul with inexpressible sweetness (Summa, Ia-IIae, q. 112, a. 5).
“To understand this, we must understand that God can only see things in Himself: in His causality. It is not directly in themselves that He knows His creatures, or in the movement of contingent and temporal causes which govern their activity. He beholds them eternally in His Son. He judges of every event of Providence in the light of His Essence and His Glory” (Fr. M. M. Philipon, The Spiritual Doctrine of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, chap. 8, n. 8, pp. 181-182).
The soul that becomes a participant in this divine mode of knowledge by means of the Gift of Wisdom penetrates into the unsounded depths of the Divinity, and it contemplates all things through the divine. One would say that St. Paul was thinking of such souls when he wrote: “The Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10).
(3) It Makes Them Live in Union with the three Divine Persons
It makes them live in union with the three Divine Persons through an inexpressible participation in Their Trinitarian life. We look again to Father Philipon:
“While the Gift of Knowledge acts by an ascending movement, raising the soul from creatures to God, and the Gift of Understanding penetrates all God’s mysteries from without and within by a simple loving gaze, the Gift of Wisdom may be said never to leave the very heart of the Trinity. It looks at everything from that indivisible center. Thus deiform, the soul can see things only from Their highest and most divine motives. The whole movement of the universe, down to its tiniest atoms, thus lies beneath its gaze in the all-pure light of the Trinity and of the divine attributes, and it beholds them in order, according to the rhythm with which these things proceed from God. Creation, redemption, hypostatic order―it sees all, even evil, ordained to the greater glory of the Trinity.
“Finally, it looks aloft, rising above justice, mercy, prudence and all the divine attributes. Then it suddenly discovers all these uncreated perfections in their eternal Source―in the Godhead of Father, Son and Holy Ghost―which infinitely surpasses all our narrow human concepts and leaves God incomprehensible and inexpressible, even to the gaze of the blessed, and even to the beatified gaze of Christ. It beholds that God, Who is supereminent in His simplicity, is simultaneously Unity in Trinity, indivisible Essence and fellowship of three living Persons, really distinct according to an order of procession that does not affect their consubstantial Equality.
“Human eye could never have discovered such a mystery, nor could human ear have caught such harmonies, and the human heart could never have suspected such beatitude had not the Godhead stooped to us by grace in Christ, in order that we might enter into the unfathomable depths of God under the guidance of His own Spirit” (Fr. M. M. Philipon, The Spiritual Doctrine of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, chap. 8, n. 8, p. 183).
The soul that has reached these heights never departs from God. If the duties of one’s state should so demand, it gives itself externally to all types of work, even the most absorbing work, with an unbelievable activity; but in the most profound center of the soul, as St. John of the Cross used to say, it experiences and perceives the divine company of the Three, and does not abandon Them for an instant. In such souls, Martha and Mary have been joined in an inexpressible manner, so that the prodigious activity of Martha in no way compromises the peace and tranquility of Mary, who remains day and night in silent contemplation at the feet of the Divine Master. For such a soul, life on Earth is the beginning of eternal beatitude.
(4) It Raises the Virtue of Charity to Heroism
This is precisely the purpose of the Gift of Wisdom. Freed from human bondage and receiving in full the divine atmosphere that the Gift gives, the fire of charity reaches tremendous proportions. It is incredible what the love of God can do in souls that are under the operations of the Gift of Wisdom. Its most impressive effect is the complete and total death of self.
Such souls love God with a pure love only for His infinite goodness and without the mixture of any human motive or self-interest. True, they do not renounce their hope of Heaven; they desire it more than ever, but they desire it primarily because there they shall be able to love God with even greater intensity and without any interruption. If it were possible to glorify God more in Hell than in Heaven, they would without hesitation prefer the eternal torments. It is the definitive triumph of grace and the total death of one’s own self. Then one begins to fulfill the first commandment of the law of God in all the fullness that is compatible with the state of misery and weakness on Earth.
This sentiment has been experienced by many saints. We mention only St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who expresses it with such simple yet sublime delicacy: “One evening, not knowing in what words to tell Jesus how much I loved Him, and how much I wished that He might be everywhere honored and served, the sad thought forced itself upon my mind that, from the depths of Hell, there would never go up to Him one single act of love. From my inmost heart I then cried out that I would gladly be cast into that place of torment and blasphemy to make Him eternally loved even there. Of course this could not be for His glory, since He desires only our happiness, but love must needs speak foolishly!” (Autobiography, chap. 5).
As regards one’s neighbor, charity also reaches a sublime perfection through the Gift of Wisdom. Accustomed to seeing God in all things, even in the most tiny details of daily life, the saints see Him in a very special manner in their neighbor. They love their neighbor with a profound tenderness that is completely supernatural and divine. They serve their neighbor with heroic abnegation, which is at the same time filled with naturalness and simplicity. Seeing Christ in the poor, in those who suffer, in the heart of all their brothers, they hasten to aid their brethren with a soul that is filled with love. They are happy to deprive themselves of even the necessities of life in order to give them to their neighbor, whose interest they place and prefer before their own, as they would put the interests of Christ before their own. Personal egoism, in relation to neighbor, is completely dead. Sometimes the love of charity that inflames their heart is so great, that it is manifested externally in the divine madness, which is so disconcerting to human prudence. St. Francis of Assisi embraced a tree as a creature of God, desiring to embrace all creation―because it came from the hands of God.
(5) It Gives to All the Virtues Their Ultimate Perfection
This is an inevitable consequence of the previous effect. Perfected by the Gift of Wisdom, charity extends the divine influence to all the other virtues, because Charity is the true form or soul of all the other virtues, as St. Thomas teaches. The whole pattern and organism of the Christian life experiences the divine influence of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost, the perfect plenitude that is seen in the virtues of the saints and is sought in vain in souls which are less advanced.
By reason of the influence of the Gift of Wisdom through Charity, all the Christian virtues are cultivated, and they acquire a godlike modality that admits of countless shades and manifestations, according to the personal character and particular type of life of the saints. But in any case they are all so sublime that one could not say which of them is most exquisite. Having died definitively to self, being perfect in every type of virtue, the soul has arrived at the summit of the mount of sanctity, where it reads that sublime inscription written by St. John of the Cross: “Here on this mountain dwell only the honor and glory of God.”
Opposed Vices
To the Gift of Wisdom is opposed the vice of spiritual dullness or stupidity (St. Thomas. Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 46). It consists in a certain defect of judgment and lack of spiritual sense, or a spiritual dullness, which prevents one from discerning or judging the things of God by taste or contact with God that comes from the Gift of Wisdom. Worse yet is the vice of foolishness or stupidity, which prevents a person from judging in any way of divine things. Dullness is opposed to the Gift of Wisdom by privation; foolishness or stupidity is opposed to it by negation (St. Thomas. Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 46, art. 1).
We suffer from this stupidity whenever we somehow greatly esteem and value the nothingness of this world, or when we think that there is value in anything which is not the possession of the God, the Supreme Good, or what leads to it. Hence, if we are not saints, we must admit that we are really stupid, however painful this might be to self-love (I. Menendez-Reigada, Los dones del Espiritu Santo y la perfeccion cristiana, p. 595).
When this stupidity or dullness is voluntary―because a man is submerged in earthly things to the point that he has lost sight, or has become incapable of contemplating the divine―then it is a true sin, according to the teaching of St. Paul, who says that the animal man does not comprehend the things of the Spirit of God (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:14). And since there is nothing that so brutalizes and animalizes man, until submerging him entirely in the mud of Earth, as the vice of lust, it is primarily from lust that spiritual dullness proceeds, although the vice of anger also contributes to it, in so far as anger’s violent movements impede right judgment (St. Thomas, Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 46, art. 3).
The Means to Foster This Gift
Apart from the general means―such as recollection, a life of prayer, fidelity to grace, deep humility, frequent invocation of the Holy Ghost, and so on―we can dispose ourselves for the actuation of the Gift of Wisdom by using the following means, which are perfectly within our reach with the help of ordinary grace:
(a) To make an effort to see all things from God’s point of view.
How many pious souls, even among those who are consecrated to God, fall into the habit of judging things from a purely natural and human point of view—when not a totally worldly point of view! Their spiritual myopia is such that they never elevate their gaze above the purely human causes to see God’s designs in everything that happens. If they are annoyed by others—even inadvertently—they get mad and feel offended.
If a superior corrects them, right away they consider him demanding, tyrannical and cruel. If he orders them to do something that is not to their liking, they complain of his “lack of understanding,” his “unawareness of reality,” his “incapacity to govern.” If he humiliates them, they raise a terrible fuss. They have to be treated with the caution one would have toward a worldly person entirely lacking supernatural spirit. It is not surprising that the world is in such a bad state when those who should give the good example are often this way!
The Gift of Wisdom will never act in such souls. Such an imperfect and human spirit completely suffocates the habit of the Gifts. Unless they make some effort to elevate their gaze to Heaven and, setting aside the secondary causes, see the hand of God in all the events of their life-whether prosperous or not—their poor and painful spiritual life will always remain on the ground. To learn how to fly it is necessary to keep flapping toward the heights, whatever the cost and sacrifice.
(b) To combat the wisdom of the world, which is nothingness in the eyes of God.
It is St. Paul who terms it so (1 Corinthians 3:19). The world considers as wise those who are fools in God’s eyes (1 Corinthians 1:25), and by an unavoidable antithesis, the wise in the eyes of God are fools according to the world (1 Corinthians 1:27, 3:18). And since the world is full of stupidity and foolishness, Sacred Scripture says that “the number of fools is infinite” (Ecclesiastes. 1:15).
Father Lallemant writes: “In fact, the generality of mankind have a depraved taste, and they may justly be called fools, because they act like fools, placing their last end, at least practically, in the creature and not in God. Each has some object to which he is attached, and to which he refers everything―entertaining neither affection nor passion, except in connection with it; and this is to be a fool indeed!
“If we want to know if we are of the number of wise men or fools, then let us examine our tastes and distastes―either with respect to God and divine things, or with respect to creatures and the things of Earth. From which of them springs our satisfaction and our dissatisfaction? In which does our heart find its repose and its contentment?
“This sort of examination is an excellent means of acquiring purity of heart. We ought to familiarize ourselves with the practice, examining our likes and dislikes frequently during the day, and trying, little by little, to refer them to God.
“There are three sorts of wisdom condemned in Scripture, which are so many veritable follies. (1) ‘Terrena’―earthly wisdom, when a man has no taste but for riches; (2) ‘animalis’―sensual wisdom, when he has no taste but for bodily pleasures; (3) ‘diabolica’―devilish wisdom, when he has no taste apart from his own superiority.
“There is a folly that is true wisdom before God. To love poverty, contempt, crosses, persecutions; this is to be a fool according to the world’s esteem. And yet the wisdom which is a Gift of the Holy Ghost is nothing else but this same folly which has a taste only for what Our Lord and the saints delighted in. Now Jesus Christ, in everything that He touched during His mortal life, as poverty, abjection, the cross, left a sweet odor, a delicious savor; but few souls have their senses sufficiently purified to perceive this odor and to taste this savor, which are altogether supernatural.
“The saints have run to the odor of these ointments (Canticles 1:3), like St. Ignatius, who took delight in seeing himself made a mock of; St. Francis, who so passionately loved abjection, that he performed actions for the purpose of making himself ridiculous; St. Dominic, who was more gratified at Carcassonne, where he was generally insulted, than at Toulouse, where he was honored by all the world” (Spiritual Teaching, pp. 132-133, IV, chap. 4, art. 1).
(c) Not to be attached to things of this world, however good and useful.
Science, art, human culture, material progress of the nations, and so on, are good and useful in themselves if they are directed and ordered righteously. However, if we dedicate ourselves to them with too much eagerness and ardor, they will not fail to seriously harm us. Once
our taste is used to the savor of creatures, it will experience a certain dullness toward savoring the things of God, so superior in every way.
A multitude of souls are paralyzed in their spiritual life because they allow themselves to be absorbed in the disorderly appetite of science, even sacred or theological science. They lose the taste for the interior life, they abandon or shorten prayer, they absorb themselves in intellectual work and neglect the “only necessary thing,” of which Our Lord speaks in the Gospel (Luke 10:42). What a shame this is and how they will regret it in the next life, when it will be too late!
Father Lallemant continues: “How unlike are the judgements of God to the judgements of men! Divine wisdom is a folly in the judgement of men, and human wisdom is folly in the judgement of God. It is for us to see to which of these two judgements we will conform our own. One or the other we must take as the rule of our actions. If we have a taste for praises and honors, so far we are fools; and the more relish we have for being esteemed and honored, the more foolish we are. As, on the contrary, the more love we have for humiliation and the cross, the wiser we are.
“It is monstrous that even in religion there should be found persons who have no taste for anything but what makes them of importance in the eyes of the world; who do all their actions, for the twenty or thirty years of their religious life, only that they may attain some end which they have in view; who scarcely feel either joy or sadness except with reference thereto, or at least are more affected by that than by anything else. As for all that regards God and perfection, it is insipid to them; they feel no relish for it.
“This is a fearful state, and worthy of being deplored with tears of blood. For of what perfection are such religious capable? And what fruit can they gather from their labors among others? But what confusion will be theirs at the hour of death, when it shall be disclosed to them that, during the whole course of their life, they have neither sought nor relished anything but show and vanity, like people of the world. Let such persons be ever so melancholy, only utter a word that gives them a hope of some advancement, however false it may be, and you will instantly see a change come over their countenance, and their heart expand with joy as at the news of some great success.
“For the rest, as they have no taste for devotion, they treat its practices as follies, the amusement of weak minds, and not only guide their conduct by these erroneous principles of an earthly and devilish wisdom, but communicate their sentiments also to others, teaching them maxims altogether contrary to those of Our Lord and the Gospel, the rigor of which they try to soften by forced interpretations that fall in with the inclinations of corrupt nature; supporting themselves by other passages of Scripture ill understood, on which they build their own ruin” (Spiritual Teaching, pp. 133-134).
(d) Not to be attached to spiritual consolations, but pass from them to God.
God wants us only for Himself to such an extent that He desires our complete detachment even from the spiritual consolations which He at times so abundantly provides in prayer. Such consolations are certainly extremely important for our spiritual advancement (J. G. Arintero, O.P., Cuestiones misticas, 1, art. 6), but only as an incentive and encouragement to seek God with a greater ardor. To desire them so as to dwell on them and enjoy them as the ultimate end of our prayer would be evil and immoral; and even considering them as an intermediate end, subordinated to God, would be a great imperfection, of which we would have to purify ourselves if desirous of attaining perfect union with God (St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The Dark Night of the Soul, passim).
We have to be ready and willing to serve God in darkness as in light, in dryness as in consolation, in aridity as in spiritual delight. We have to seek directly the God of consolations, not the consolations of God. Consolations are like the sauce or seasoning which makes it easier to eat the strong food that really nourishes the body; the seasoning by itself does not nourish the body and can even harm the palate, making the palate insensitive to useful foods prepared without it. This is evil and has to be avoided at all costs if we want the Gift of Wisdom to begin acting intensively in us.
Who is it that needs wisdom? Fools need wisdom―for fools are unwise! “Wisdom is too high for a fool!” (Proverbs 24:7). “Understand, ye senseless among the people! And, you fools, be wise at last!” (Psalm 93:8). “The number of fools is infinite” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools!” (Romans 1:22). “The fool esteems all men to be fools, whereas he himself is a fool!” (Ecclesiastes 10:3). “A friend of fools shall become like them!” (Proverbs 13:20). “The heart of the wise is where there is mourning, but the heart of fools is where there is mirth” (Ecclesiastes 7:5). “He that trusts in his own heart, is a fool―but he that walks wisely, he shall be saved” (Proverbs 28:26).
God Speaks of Wisdom in Scripture
“All wisdom is from the Lord God!” (Ecclesiasticus 1:1). “For wisdom came forth from God … the wisdom of God is great!” (Ecclesiasticus 15:10, 19). “The desire of wisdom brings one to the everlasting kingdom!” (Wisdom 6:21). “For God loves none but him that dwells with wisdom!” (Wisdom 7:28). “Get wisdom―because it is better than gold!” (Proverbs 16:16). “Better is wisdom than weapons of war!” (Ecclesiastes 9:18). “Wisdom is better than strength―and a wise man is better than a strong man!” (Wisdom 6:1). “Wisdom has delivered from sorrow!” (Wisdom 10:9). “He that rejects wisdom and discipline, is unhappy and his hope is vain!” (Wisdom 3:11). “I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me!” (Wisdom 7:7). “And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding, and knowledge!” (Exodus 31:3). “And God has given to me to speak … because He is the guide of wisdom and the director of the wise!” (Wisdom 7:15).
The Wisdom of De Montfort
St. Louis de Montfort, in his book Love of Eternal Wisdom, speaks of true and false wisdom: “There is the Wisdom of God, the only true Wisdom that deserves to be loved as a great Treasure. There is also the wisdom of the corrupt world which must be condemned and detested as evil and pernicious. Moreover, there is the wisdom of the philosophers which we must despise when it is not true philosophy, and because it is often dangerous to salvation.
“The wisdom of the world is that of which it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise’ (1 Corinthians 1:19) according to the world. ‘The wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God’ (Romans 8:7) … ‘This is not the wisdom descending from above, but earthly, sensual, devilish’ (James 3:15). This worldly wisdom consists in the exact compliance with the maxims and the fashions of the world; in a continuous trend toward greatness and esteem. It is a secret and unceasing pursuit of pleasures and personal interests, not in a gross and open manner so as to cause scandal, but in a secret, deceitful and scheming fashion. Otherwise, it would not be what the world calls wisdom, but rank licentiousness.
“Those who proceed according to the wisdom of the world are those who know how to manage well their affairs and to arrange things to their temporal advantage without appearing to do so; who know the art of deceiving and how to cleverly cheat without being noticed; who say or do one thing and have another thing in mind; who are thoroughly acquainted with the way and the flattery of the world; who know how to please everybody in order to reach their goal, not troubling much about the honor and interests of God; who make a secret but deadly fusion of truth with untruth, of the Gospel with the world, of virtue with vice, of Jesus Christ with Satan; who wish to pass as honest people but not as religious men; who despise and corrupt or readily condemn every religious practice which does not conform to their own. In short, the worldly wise are those who, being guided only by their human senses and reason, seek only to appear as Christian and honest folk, without troubling much to please God or to do penance for the sins which they have committed against His divine Majesty.
“THE EARTHLY WISDOM spoken of by St. James is an excessive striving for worldly goods. The worldly-wise make a secret profession of this type of wisdom when they allow themselves to become attached to their earthly possessions, when they strive to become rich, when they go to law and bring useless actions against others in order to acquire or to keep temporal goods; when their every thought, word and deed is mainly directed toward obtaining or retaining something temporal. As to working out their eternal salvation and making use of the means to do so, such as reception of the Sacraments and prayer, they accomplish these duties only carelessly, in a very off-hand manner, once in a while, and for the sake of appearances.
“SENSUAL WISDOM is a lustful desire for pleasure. The worldly wise make a profession of it when they seek only the satisfaction of the senses; when they are inordinately fond of entertainment; when they shun whatever mortifies and inconveniences the body, such as fasting and other austerities; when they continually think of eating, drinking, playing, laughing, amusing themselves and having an agreeable time; when they eagerly seek after soft beds, merry games, sumptuous feasts and fashionable society. Then, after having unscrupulously indulged in all these pleasures—perhaps without displeasing the world or injuring their health—they look for “the least scrupulous” confessor (such is the name they give to those easygoing confessors who shirk their duty) that they may receive from him, at little cost, the peaceful sanction of their soft and effeminate life, and a plenary indulgence for all their sins. I say, at little cost, for these sensually wise want as penance the recitation of only a few prayers, or the giving of an alms, because they dislike what afflicts the body.
“DEVILISH WISDOM consists in an unlawful striving for human esteem and honors. This is the wisdom which the worldly wise profess when they aim, although not openly, at greatness, honors, dignities and high positions; when they wish to be seen, esteemed, praised and applauded by men; when in their studies, their works, their endeavors their words and actions, they seek only the good opinion and praise of men so that they may be looked upon as pious people, as men of learning, as great leaders, as clever lawyers, as people of boundless and distinguished merit, or deserving of high consideration; while they cannot bear an insult or a rebuke; or they cover up their faults and make a show of their fine qualities.” (St. Louis de Montfort, Love of Eternal Wisdom).
Tasting True Wisdom
The word “wisdom” comes from the Latin word “sapientia.” The very sound is delicious. “Sapientia” actually means “tasting knowledge”—knowledge that is delightful and not merely notional or abstract. It is like the experience of tasting fruit, a very different experience from reading about it in a dictionary.
Is it really possible to taste God? The answer is yes--“O taste and see that the Lord is sweet!” (Psalm 33:9)—but we cannot bring it about by our own efforts. We can only prepare ourselves for it by reducing the obvious obstacles we can perceive and by allowing the action of divine love to purify our unconscious motivation. “Wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins!” (Wisdom 1:4). “You have found Wisdom,” says St. Bernardine of Sienna, “if you weep for the sins of your past life, if you value as naught that which this world most desires, and if all your longing is centered around your eternal happiness!”
True Wisdom
Wisdom imparts to us a knowledge and a love of everything divine, in the highest possible way, and enables us also to judge created things after a divine standard. It is a summing up of all the Gifts, their blossom and their perfection. It is the last step we make in our ascent to God. “The fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom! … The root of Wisdom is to fear the Lord!” (Ecclesiasticus 1:16; 1:25).
The Gift of Wisdom is, therefore, a participation of God’s Wisdom. This close union with God necessarily means participation in God’s Wisdom. “But he who is joined to the Lord,” says St. Paul, “is one spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:17). Hence, it follows that the Gift of Wisdom is not for Saints alone; no, it exists in the soul of each and every one of the faithful who is free from mortal sin; and we all possess as much of it as is necessary for salvation.
The Gift of Wisdom gives to the soul is incomparably superior to all human sciences, even theology, which already possesses something of divine. For that reason, a simple and uneducated soul, who lacks the theological knowledge acquired by study, may sometimes possess, through the Gift of Wisdom, a profound knowledge of divine things that causes amazement even to eminent theologians. Such was the case of St. Teresa and many other souls who had no scientific studies whatsoever.
The Nature of the Gift of Wisdom
The Gift of Wisdom is a supernatural habit, inseparable from Charity (a love of God), by which we judge rightly concerning God and divine things through their ultimate and highest causes under the special instinct of the Holy Ghost, Who makes us taste these things by a certain connaturality and sympathy. We shall explain this definition in order to gain a clear idea of the true nature of this great Gift.
“It is a supernatural habit”: Like all the Gifts of the Holy Ghost, it is infused by God in the soul together with grace and the infused virtues.
“Inseparable from Charity”: It is precisely the Gift of Wisdom that perfects charity by giving it the divine modality it lacks as long as Charity is subject to the rule of human reason, even illumined by Faith. By reason of its connection with Charity, all the souls in the state of grace possess the Gift of Wisdom as a habit—though in differing degrees—and it is incompatible with mortal sin. The same is true of all the other Gifts.
“By which we judge rightly”: In this, as in other things, it is distinguished from the Gift of Understanding. It is proper to the Gift of Understanding to have a penetrating and profound intuition of the truths of Faith in the order of simple apprehension, without making any judgment concerning them. Such a judgment is made by the other intellectual Gifts, but in different ways: The Gift of Wisdom judges concerning divine things; the Gift of Knowledge judges concerning created things; the Gift of Counsel judges concerning the application of these things to our concrete actions.
Seeing Things God’s Way
Too often we try to make God see things our way, yet God says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways! For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9). The Gift of Wisdom provides us with God’s view of things, a kind of divine perspective on reality that penetrates through events and perceives the divine presence and action at work, even in very tragic and painful situations. To see God in suffering is indeed a high level of the Gift of Wisdom. Some things are to be learned in this perspective that cannot be learned in any other way.
The Necessity of the Gift of Wisdom
The Gift of Wisdom is absolutely necessary if the virtue of charity is to develop to its full perfection and plenitude. Precisely because charity is the most excellent of all the virtues and the most perfect and divine, it demands by its very nature the divine regulation of the divine wisdom. Left to itself, or to the control of man in the ascetical state, it would have to be regulated by human reason according to the human mode. But this human atmosphere asphyxiates it, preventing it from flying to the heights.
Charity is a divine virtue and has wings for soaring to Heaven, but it is obliged to move along the Earth, because it is under the control of human reason and because, in a certain sense, it is necessary to compromise, in accordance with prudence, due to its weak condition. Only when it begins to receive the full influence of the Gift of Wisdom is there given to Charity the divine atmosphere and modality that it needs as the most perfect of all the theological virtues. Then Charity begins to breathe and to expand in its proper element.
As an inevitable consequence, it begins to grow and to increase rapidly, carrying the soul with it as if in flight, soaring to regions of the mystical life and to the very summit of perfection, which it never could have done if it had remained under the control of human reason in the purely ascetical state.
The Mystical State is Meant For Everyone
From this sublime doctrine follow two inevitable conclusions. The first is that the mystical state—the habitual or predominant regime of the Gifts—is not something abnormal and extraordinary in the full development of the Christian life, but it is the normal atmosphere which grace, as a divine form, demands―so that it can develop in all its virtualities through the operative principles of the infused virtues, and especially through the theological virtues (Faith, Hope and Charity), which are substantially divine. Therefore, the mystical state ought to be something normal in the Christian life, and it is, as a matter of fact, normal in every perfect Christian.
Who’s the Boss? Gift or Virtue?
The second conclusion is that an actuation or activation of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost in merely the human mode—a kind of demotion for the Gifts—besides being impossible and absurd, would be utterly useless for the perfection of the infused virtues, and especially the theological virtues. The theological virtues are superior by their nature to the Gifts themselves. The Theological Virtues have as direct and immediate object God Himself (believed, hoped for or loved), while the Gifts fall directly upon the Infused Virtues (something very distinct from God) to perfect them.
An analogy―though imperfect―would liken the Gifts of the Holy Ghost to gasoline, oil and water that you put into a car (which represents the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity). The car (Theological Virtues) is more important the gasoline, oil and water (the Gifts of the Holy Ghost)―which are there to perfect the car and help it work and run.
Therefore it is evident that the Theological Virtues are, by their own nature, superior to the Gifts of the Holy Ghost themselves. On the other hand, looked upon from the perspective of their way of acting, the Gifts of the Holy Ghost are superior to all Infused Virtues—including the Theological ones—by their divine way of acting (being direct and immediate instruments of the Holy Ghost, and not instruments of the soul in a state of grace, like the virtues). More briefly, the theological virtues are superior to the Gifts by their theological nature, while the Gifts are superior to them by their divine operation (Cf. St. Thomas, Summa, Ia-IIae, q. 68, art. 8).
Effects of the Gift of Wisdom
By reason of its elevation and grandeur and by reason of the sublimity of the virtue that it perfects, the effects which wisdom produces in the soul are truly remarkable. The following are the more characteristic effects of this Gift.
(1) It Gives to the Saints a Divine Sense By Which They Judge All Things
This is the most impressive of all the effects of the Gift of Wisdom so far as they are manifested externally. One would say that the saints have completely lost the human instinct, or the human manner of judgment, and that it has been replaced by a certain divine instinct by which they judge all things. They see everything from God’s point of view―whether it is the little, commonplace episodes of daily life, or the great international events. In all things they see the hand of God. They never attach their attention to immediate secondary causes, but pass them by, to arrive immediately at the Supreme Cause of all that happens, Who governs and rules them from above.
The saints would have to do a great violence to themselves in order to descend to the point of view that judges from a purely human and rational standard. An insult, or any other injury, that is done to them causes them to turn immediately to God―Who is the one who wishes or permits that they be exercised in patience and thus increase their glory. They do not dwell for an instant on the secondary cause―which is the evil or malice of men―but they rise immediately to God and judge all things from the divine heights. They do not consider something (whether sickness, persecution, death, or the like) disgraceful in the way that the men of the world do, but they consider as disgraceful only that which God would consider such―namely, sin, lukewarmness, infidelity to grace, and so on. Like St. Teresa of Avila, they do not understand how the world can consider as treasures those little baubles that sparkle and glitter―because they see clearly that there is no treasure apart from God and the things that lead to God. As St. Aloysius Gonzaga used to say: “Of what avail is this to me for eternity, for the glory of God?” This is the Saints’ only differential criteria for judging the value of things.
The Gift of Wisdom shone most brilliantly in St. Thomas Aquinas, among many other saints. He possessed a remarkable supernatural instinct in discovering in all things the divine aspect by which they were related to God. There is no other way of explaining his divine instinct and insight except that the Gift of Wisdom operated in him in an eminent degree (Cf. Antoine Gardeil, O.P., The Gifts of the Holy Ghost in the Dominican Saints (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1937), chap. 8).
In modern times, an admirable example of the operation of the Gift of Wisdom is Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity. According to Father Philipon, who studied her case profoundly, the Gift of Wisdom was the outstanding characteristic of the doctrine and life of this saintly Carmelite nun of Dijon (Cf. M. M. Philipon, The Spiritual Doctrine of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, chap. 8, n. 8). She was perfectly aware of her sublime vocation and even succeeded in contemplating the Trinity, so that she experienced the distinct Persons of the Trinity present in her soul. The greatest trials and sufferings were unable to disturb for a moment her inexpressible peace of soul. No matter what misfortunes befell her, she remained as unmoved and tranquil as if her soul were already in eternity.
(2) It Makes the Saints Live the Mysteries of Faith in an Entirely Divine Manner
As Father Philipon says: “The Gift of Wisdom is the royal Gift―by it, souls enter most closely into participation of the deiform mode of divine knowledge. Short of the beatific vision―which is the fullest measure of this Gift―it is impossible to rise any higher. It is the gaze of the ‘Word breathing forth love’ communicated to the soul, which judges of everything in the light of the highest and most divine causes, and judges them also for the highest reasons ‘after the manner of God.’
“The divinized soul that has been introduced by charity into the intimacy of the Divine Persons and, as it were, into the heart of the Trinity is so moved by the Spirit of Love that it contemplates all things from this center, this indivisible point from which they appear to it as they do to God Himself. Thus does it view the divine attributes, creation, redemption, glory, the hypostatic order, the smallest happenings in the world. So far as it is possible to mere creatures, it tends to see from the same angle of vision as that from which God sees Himself and the whole universe. It is the deiform manner of contemplation in the light of the experience of the Deity that fills the soul with inexpressible sweetness (Summa, Ia-IIae, q. 112, a. 5).
“To understand this, we must understand that God can only see things in Himself: in His causality. It is not directly in themselves that He knows His creatures, or in the movement of contingent and temporal causes which govern their activity. He beholds them eternally in His Son. He judges of every event of Providence in the light of His Essence and His Glory” (Fr. M. M. Philipon, The Spiritual Doctrine of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, chap. 8, n. 8, pp. 181-182).
The soul that becomes a participant in this divine mode of knowledge by means of the Gift of Wisdom penetrates into the unsounded depths of the Divinity, and it contemplates all things through the divine. One would say that St. Paul was thinking of such souls when he wrote: “The Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10).
(3) It Makes Them Live in Union with the three Divine Persons
It makes them live in union with the three Divine Persons through an inexpressible participation in Their Trinitarian life. We look again to Father Philipon:
“While the Gift of Knowledge acts by an ascending movement, raising the soul from creatures to God, and the Gift of Understanding penetrates all God’s mysteries from without and within by a simple loving gaze, the Gift of Wisdom may be said never to leave the very heart of the Trinity. It looks at everything from that indivisible center. Thus deiform, the soul can see things only from Their highest and most divine motives. The whole movement of the universe, down to its tiniest atoms, thus lies beneath its gaze in the all-pure light of the Trinity and of the divine attributes, and it beholds them in order, according to the rhythm with which these things proceed from God. Creation, redemption, hypostatic order―it sees all, even evil, ordained to the greater glory of the Trinity.
“Finally, it looks aloft, rising above justice, mercy, prudence and all the divine attributes. Then it suddenly discovers all these uncreated perfections in their eternal Source―in the Godhead of Father, Son and Holy Ghost―which infinitely surpasses all our narrow human concepts and leaves God incomprehensible and inexpressible, even to the gaze of the blessed, and even to the beatified gaze of Christ. It beholds that God, Who is supereminent in His simplicity, is simultaneously Unity in Trinity, indivisible Essence and fellowship of three living Persons, really distinct according to an order of procession that does not affect their consubstantial Equality.
“Human eye could never have discovered such a mystery, nor could human ear have caught such harmonies, and the human heart could never have suspected such beatitude had not the Godhead stooped to us by grace in Christ, in order that we might enter into the unfathomable depths of God under the guidance of His own Spirit” (Fr. M. M. Philipon, The Spiritual Doctrine of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, chap. 8, n. 8, p. 183).
The soul that has reached these heights never departs from God. If the duties of one’s state should so demand, it gives itself externally to all types of work, even the most absorbing work, with an unbelievable activity; but in the most profound center of the soul, as St. John of the Cross used to say, it experiences and perceives the divine company of the Three, and does not abandon Them for an instant. In such souls, Martha and Mary have been joined in an inexpressible manner, so that the prodigious activity of Martha in no way compromises the peace and tranquility of Mary, who remains day and night in silent contemplation at the feet of the Divine Master. For such a soul, life on Earth is the beginning of eternal beatitude.
(4) It Raises the Virtue of Charity to Heroism
This is precisely the purpose of the Gift of Wisdom. Freed from human bondage and receiving in full the divine atmosphere that the Gift gives, the fire of charity reaches tremendous proportions. It is incredible what the love of God can do in souls that are under the operations of the Gift of Wisdom. Its most impressive effect is the complete and total death of self.
Such souls love God with a pure love only for His infinite goodness and without the mixture of any human motive or self-interest. True, they do not renounce their hope of Heaven; they desire it more than ever, but they desire it primarily because there they shall be able to love God with even greater intensity and without any interruption. If it were possible to glorify God more in Hell than in Heaven, they would without hesitation prefer the eternal torments. It is the definitive triumph of grace and the total death of one’s own self. Then one begins to fulfill the first commandment of the law of God in all the fullness that is compatible with the state of misery and weakness on Earth.
This sentiment has been experienced by many saints. We mention only St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who expresses it with such simple yet sublime delicacy: “One evening, not knowing in what words to tell Jesus how much I loved Him, and how much I wished that He might be everywhere honored and served, the sad thought forced itself upon my mind that, from the depths of Hell, there would never go up to Him one single act of love. From my inmost heart I then cried out that I would gladly be cast into that place of torment and blasphemy to make Him eternally loved even there. Of course this could not be for His glory, since He desires only our happiness, but love must needs speak foolishly!” (Autobiography, chap. 5).
As regards one’s neighbor, charity also reaches a sublime perfection through the Gift of Wisdom. Accustomed to seeing God in all things, even in the most tiny details of daily life, the saints see Him in a very special manner in their neighbor. They love their neighbor with a profound tenderness that is completely supernatural and divine. They serve their neighbor with heroic abnegation, which is at the same time filled with naturalness and simplicity. Seeing Christ in the poor, in those who suffer, in the heart of all their brothers, they hasten to aid their brethren with a soul that is filled with love. They are happy to deprive themselves of even the necessities of life in order to give them to their neighbor, whose interest they place and prefer before their own, as they would put the interests of Christ before their own. Personal egoism, in relation to neighbor, is completely dead. Sometimes the love of charity that inflames their heart is so great, that it is manifested externally in the divine madness, which is so disconcerting to human prudence. St. Francis of Assisi embraced a tree as a creature of God, desiring to embrace all creation―because it came from the hands of God.
(5) It Gives to All the Virtues Their Ultimate Perfection
This is an inevitable consequence of the previous effect. Perfected by the Gift of Wisdom, charity extends the divine influence to all the other virtues, because Charity is the true form or soul of all the other virtues, as St. Thomas teaches. The whole pattern and organism of the Christian life experiences the divine influence of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost, the perfect plenitude that is seen in the virtues of the saints and is sought in vain in souls which are less advanced.
By reason of the influence of the Gift of Wisdom through Charity, all the Christian virtues are cultivated, and they acquire a godlike modality that admits of countless shades and manifestations, according to the personal character and particular type of life of the saints. But in any case they are all so sublime that one could not say which of them is most exquisite. Having died definitively to self, being perfect in every type of virtue, the soul has arrived at the summit of the mount of sanctity, where it reads that sublime inscription written by St. John of the Cross: “Here on this mountain dwell only the honor and glory of God.”
Opposed Vices
To the Gift of Wisdom is opposed the vice of spiritual dullness or stupidity (St. Thomas. Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 46). It consists in a certain defect of judgment and lack of spiritual sense, or a spiritual dullness, which prevents one from discerning or judging the things of God by taste or contact with God that comes from the Gift of Wisdom. Worse yet is the vice of foolishness or stupidity, which prevents a person from judging in any way of divine things. Dullness is opposed to the Gift of Wisdom by privation; foolishness or stupidity is opposed to it by negation (St. Thomas. Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 46, art. 1).
We suffer from this stupidity whenever we somehow greatly esteem and value the nothingness of this world, or when we think that there is value in anything which is not the possession of the God, the Supreme Good, or what leads to it. Hence, if we are not saints, we must admit that we are really stupid, however painful this might be to self-love (I. Menendez-Reigada, Los dones del Espiritu Santo y la perfeccion cristiana, p. 595).
When this stupidity or dullness is voluntary―because a man is submerged in earthly things to the point that he has lost sight, or has become incapable of contemplating the divine―then it is a true sin, according to the teaching of St. Paul, who says that the animal man does not comprehend the things of the Spirit of God (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:14). And since there is nothing that so brutalizes and animalizes man, until submerging him entirely in the mud of Earth, as the vice of lust, it is primarily from lust that spiritual dullness proceeds, although the vice of anger also contributes to it, in so far as anger’s violent movements impede right judgment (St. Thomas, Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 46, art. 3).
The Means to Foster This Gift
Apart from the general means―such as recollection, a life of prayer, fidelity to grace, deep humility, frequent invocation of the Holy Ghost, and so on―we can dispose ourselves for the actuation of the Gift of Wisdom by using the following means, which are perfectly within our reach with the help of ordinary grace:
(a) To make an effort to see all things from God’s point of view.
How many pious souls, even among those who are consecrated to God, fall into the habit of judging things from a purely natural and human point of view—when not a totally worldly point of view! Their spiritual myopia is such that they never elevate their gaze above the purely human causes to see God’s designs in everything that happens. If they are annoyed by others—even inadvertently—they get mad and feel offended.
If a superior corrects them, right away they consider him demanding, tyrannical and cruel. If he orders them to do something that is not to their liking, they complain of his “lack of understanding,” his “unawareness of reality,” his “incapacity to govern.” If he humiliates them, they raise a terrible fuss. They have to be treated with the caution one would have toward a worldly person entirely lacking supernatural spirit. It is not surprising that the world is in such a bad state when those who should give the good example are often this way!
The Gift of Wisdom will never act in such souls. Such an imperfect and human spirit completely suffocates the habit of the Gifts. Unless they make some effort to elevate their gaze to Heaven and, setting aside the secondary causes, see the hand of God in all the events of their life-whether prosperous or not—their poor and painful spiritual life will always remain on the ground. To learn how to fly it is necessary to keep flapping toward the heights, whatever the cost and sacrifice.
(b) To combat the wisdom of the world, which is nothingness in the eyes of God.
It is St. Paul who terms it so (1 Corinthians 3:19). The world considers as wise those who are fools in God’s eyes (1 Corinthians 1:25), and by an unavoidable antithesis, the wise in the eyes of God are fools according to the world (1 Corinthians 1:27, 3:18). And since the world is full of stupidity and foolishness, Sacred Scripture says that “the number of fools is infinite” (Ecclesiastes. 1:15).
Father Lallemant writes: “In fact, the generality of mankind have a depraved taste, and they may justly be called fools, because they act like fools, placing their last end, at least practically, in the creature and not in God. Each has some object to which he is attached, and to which he refers everything―entertaining neither affection nor passion, except in connection with it; and this is to be a fool indeed!
“If we want to know if we are of the number of wise men or fools, then let us examine our tastes and distastes―either with respect to God and divine things, or with respect to creatures and the things of Earth. From which of them springs our satisfaction and our dissatisfaction? In which does our heart find its repose and its contentment?
“This sort of examination is an excellent means of acquiring purity of heart. We ought to familiarize ourselves with the practice, examining our likes and dislikes frequently during the day, and trying, little by little, to refer them to God.
“There are three sorts of wisdom condemned in Scripture, which are so many veritable follies. (1) ‘Terrena’―earthly wisdom, when a man has no taste but for riches; (2) ‘animalis’―sensual wisdom, when he has no taste but for bodily pleasures; (3) ‘diabolica’―devilish wisdom, when he has no taste apart from his own superiority.
“There is a folly that is true wisdom before God. To love poverty, contempt, crosses, persecutions; this is to be a fool according to the world’s esteem. And yet the wisdom which is a Gift of the Holy Ghost is nothing else but this same folly which has a taste only for what Our Lord and the saints delighted in. Now Jesus Christ, in everything that He touched during His mortal life, as poverty, abjection, the cross, left a sweet odor, a delicious savor; but few souls have their senses sufficiently purified to perceive this odor and to taste this savor, which are altogether supernatural.
“The saints have run to the odor of these ointments (Canticles 1:3), like St. Ignatius, who took delight in seeing himself made a mock of; St. Francis, who so passionately loved abjection, that he performed actions for the purpose of making himself ridiculous; St. Dominic, who was more gratified at Carcassonne, where he was generally insulted, than at Toulouse, where he was honored by all the world” (Spiritual Teaching, pp. 132-133, IV, chap. 4, art. 1).
(c) Not to be attached to things of this world, however good and useful.
Science, art, human culture, material progress of the nations, and so on, are good and useful in themselves if they are directed and ordered righteously. However, if we dedicate ourselves to them with too much eagerness and ardor, they will not fail to seriously harm us. Once
our taste is used to the savor of creatures, it will experience a certain dullness toward savoring the things of God, so superior in every way.
A multitude of souls are paralyzed in their spiritual life because they allow themselves to be absorbed in the disorderly appetite of science, even sacred or theological science. They lose the taste for the interior life, they abandon or shorten prayer, they absorb themselves in intellectual work and neglect the “only necessary thing,” of which Our Lord speaks in the Gospel (Luke 10:42). What a shame this is and how they will regret it in the next life, when it will be too late!
Father Lallemant continues: “How unlike are the judgements of God to the judgements of men! Divine wisdom is a folly in the judgement of men, and human wisdom is folly in the judgement of God. It is for us to see to which of these two judgements we will conform our own. One or the other we must take as the rule of our actions. If we have a taste for praises and honors, so far we are fools; and the more relish we have for being esteemed and honored, the more foolish we are. As, on the contrary, the more love we have for humiliation and the cross, the wiser we are.
“It is monstrous that even in religion there should be found persons who have no taste for anything but what makes them of importance in the eyes of the world; who do all their actions, for the twenty or thirty years of their religious life, only that they may attain some end which they have in view; who scarcely feel either joy or sadness except with reference thereto, or at least are more affected by that than by anything else. As for all that regards God and perfection, it is insipid to them; they feel no relish for it.
“This is a fearful state, and worthy of being deplored with tears of blood. For of what perfection are such religious capable? And what fruit can they gather from their labors among others? But what confusion will be theirs at the hour of death, when it shall be disclosed to them that, during the whole course of their life, they have neither sought nor relished anything but show and vanity, like people of the world. Let such persons be ever so melancholy, only utter a word that gives them a hope of some advancement, however false it may be, and you will instantly see a change come over their countenance, and their heart expand with joy as at the news of some great success.
“For the rest, as they have no taste for devotion, they treat its practices as follies, the amusement of weak minds, and not only guide their conduct by these erroneous principles of an earthly and devilish wisdom, but communicate their sentiments also to others, teaching them maxims altogether contrary to those of Our Lord and the Gospel, the rigor of which they try to soften by forced interpretations that fall in with the inclinations of corrupt nature; supporting themselves by other passages of Scripture ill understood, on which they build their own ruin” (Spiritual Teaching, pp. 133-134).
(d) Not to be attached to spiritual consolations, but pass from them to God.
God wants us only for Himself to such an extent that He desires our complete detachment even from the spiritual consolations which He at times so abundantly provides in prayer. Such consolations are certainly extremely important for our spiritual advancement (J. G. Arintero, O.P., Cuestiones misticas, 1, art. 6), but only as an incentive and encouragement to seek God with a greater ardor. To desire them so as to dwell on them and enjoy them as the ultimate end of our prayer would be evil and immoral; and even considering them as an intermediate end, subordinated to God, would be a great imperfection, of which we would have to purify ourselves if desirous of attaining perfect union with God (St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The Dark Night of the Soul, passim).
We have to be ready and willing to serve God in darkness as in light, in dryness as in consolation, in aridity as in spiritual delight. We have to seek directly the God of consolations, not the consolations of God. Consolations are like the sauce or seasoning which makes it easier to eat the strong food that really nourishes the body; the seasoning by itself does not nourish the body and can even harm the palate, making the palate insensitive to useful foods prepared without it. This is evil and has to be avoided at all costs if we want the Gift of Wisdom to begin acting intensively in us.
Article 29
Friday May 26th, 2023
Preparing for Pentecost : Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost
#6 The Gift of Understanding ― For the Surface, Superficial Thinkers!
Friday May 26th, 2023
Preparing for Pentecost : Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost
#6 The Gift of Understanding ― For the Surface, Superficial Thinkers!
No Depth of Understanding!
In this increasingly superficial world with its little depth of knowledge and understanding, the Holy Ghost’s Gift of Understanding makes us penetrate divine truths―which is something that certainly lacking among modern-day Catholics. It is common knowledge and admitted by many scholarly writers and observers, that the levels of education have fallen dramatically and drastically over the last 60 to 70 years. With the advent of modern technology―such as television, computers, internet, smartphones and social media―less and less people are able to think and understand as they used to do. Nowadays, they just ask the computer or AI (Artificial Intelligence) to think for them! Studies have shown that college students could not pass an 8th Grade exam paper from around 100 years ago! Most Catholic adults could not even pass a First Communion Test or a Confirmation Test! Most don’t even know the Ten Commandments! Some are unable to name the three Members of the Holy Trinity―others don’t even know that the Trinity has three Persons! The media has for many decades communicated with the general public at a vocabulary level of 5th to 8th Grade!
St. Thérèse of Lisieux used to lament that Jesus is so little loved because he is so little known―which the same concept as the philosophical axiom which states that you cannot love what you do not know―which also implies that you only love a little what you know little about! However, knowledge and understanding are two different things―you might know what a computer is, but you might not understand how it works; you might know what a computer-chip is, but not understand how it works; you may know what the law of gravity is, but lack the understanding to explain in detail; scientists and doctors are able to recognize a disease, but lack the understanding on how to cure it; from the weird sounds that you car makes you know that something is wrong with the car, but you lack the understanding to figure out exactly what is wrong with it. Yes―cannot love what we do not know―but we will love even more those things that we not only know, but also understand. Understanding can build upon the foundation of knowledge and thus increase the degree of love. If the greatest commandment is all about loving ― “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31) ― then anything that can increase that love is bound to be of the greatest interest and importance!
I Wanna Know! I Wanna Know!
Everyone by nature wants to know—or at least be “in the know.” The advent of the internet and search engines fuels this desire to know everything about everyone everywhere! The ‘knowledge’ that most people have today is not acquired through traditional research, study, analysis and learning―but it is merely a “parrot-fashion” repetition of what turned-up after their “Google Search” ― without them really knowing whether the internet opinion or statement is true or false. There is little or no real intelligence that is able to filter-out the misinformation, disinformation, propaganda and outright lies. A lot of people know a lot of things―but they do not know if what they know is really worth knowing at all! We have arrived at the point where many people suffer from “information constipation” ― meaning that a lot of information goes into the mind, but little or nothing comes out of the mind! As Holy Scripture says: “Even a fool, if he will hold his tongue, shall be counted as being wise―and if he close his lips, shall be counted as a man of understanding” (Proverbs 17:28). “There is that fool after he was lifted up on high [with pride about what he things he knows]―for if he had understood, he would have laid his hand upon his mouth” (Proverbs 30:32). “Understand, ye senseless among the people! And, you fools, be wise at last!” (Psalm 93:8).
Between the Lines—Below the Surface
Some words express our thoughts with admirable accuracy. Though they may not be precise definitions, they are exact expressions of the object signified. Such is the Latin word “intelligere” (intus-legere: “to read interiorly, to penetrate”).
Let us try to be more precise. The Latins called it an “inner reading” — [which is another way of saying that which “stands under” or “stands beneath” the surface of things; therefore, a “deeper” knowledge, rather than a surface or superficial knowledge]. Understanding, then, is that power of the human soul, to descend beneath the surface of things, to pry into the hidden reality, it is that which breaks through the surface-shell, to reach the real substance therein enclosed.
Abstract
In the natural order, intelligence is the ability to perceive the abstract, the immaterial truth—we can contemplate abstract things like justice, mercy, fidelity, etc., which do not exist by themselves in a concrete way, like a tree for example. We understand and calculate with numbers and fractions, even though they do not exist in the concrete. In the supernatural order, intelligence penetrates higher truths. As the natural light of human reason makes us understand visible and sensible (see, hear, touch, taste, etc.) things, the supernatural light of the Gift of Understanding, of which we shall speak in this article, serves to penetrate supernatural truths and to reveal their intimate depths.
Understanding is More Than Knowing
On a purely natural and rational level, to know is not always to understand. I may know how to say a phrase in a foreign language without necessarily understanding what it means. I may know that my car won’t start, but I do not understand why. St. Ignatius Loyola, in his Spiritual Exercises, points out that it is not great knowledge which profits the soul, but the penetration and savoring of spiritual things. To find spiritual profit, we do not have to multiply readings and meditations: we should rather go to the heart of some few truths, understand them as much as we can, and delight in them. When the Spiritual Exercises are made correctly and well―or during a day of some other spiritual retreat, or simply whenever we meditate attentively on some supernatural truth or teaching―it seems that our soul is transformed, that we become another being. With the new light that has been given to us, our soul has a changed attitude toward spiritual things.
Through Him, With Him, In Him
Without God we can do nothing—“Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). God is our light―“Jesus spoke to them, saying: ‘I am the light of the world: he that follows Me, walks not in darkness, but shall have the light of life … As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world’” (John 8:12; 9:5). “Wherefore He says: ‘Rise thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead―and Christ shall enlighten thee!’” (Ephesians 5:14).The teachings of God are meant “to enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death―to direct our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:79). When Christ ascended into Heaven, He sent us the Paraclete: “And I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever. The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it sees Him not, nor knows Him―but you shall know Him, because He shall abide with you, and shall be in you … The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, Whom the Father will send in My Name, He will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you!” (John 14:16-17, 26).
Who Truly Understands Without God?
“God looked down from Heaven on the children of men―to see if there were any that did understand, or did seek God” (Psalm 52:3). “The steps of man are guided by the Lord―but who is the man that can understand his own way?” (Proverbs 20:24). “All men are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of God―and who, by these good things that are seen, could not understand Him that is, neither by attending to the works have acknowledged Who was the Workman!” (Wisdom 13:1). “And who shall understand His ways?” (Ecclesiasticus 16:21). “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). “The senseless man shall not know, nor will the fool understand these things!” (Psalm 91:7). “Who, as it were, on purpose have revolted from Him, and would not understand all His ways” (Job 34:27). “Understand, ye senseless among the people: and, you fools, be wise at last!” (Psalm 93:8). “O that they would be wise and would understand, and would provide for their last end!” (Deuteronomy 32:29). “They that trust in Him, shall understand the truth!” (Wisdom 3:9).
Limited Intelligence
But man’s intelligence, be it ever so powerful and penetrating, is none the less a created power; hence it is a limited power, and by itself it can never overstep the limits set down to it by God. But, man is created for a supernatural end, for Heaven, and the means given him by God are contained in Revelation; they are a set of truths exceeding the natural capacity of the understanding. Now, if these are really means to our end, we must use them, and to use them we must first know them; but as they are above the power of the human mind, we need some supernatural aid, some Heavenly light to penetrate them. This supernatural light which the Holy Ghost gives to man is called the Gift of Understanding.
Gift of Understanding Surpasses Natural Understanding
This light of the Gift of Understanding does not proceed from the natural understanding; as no amount of reasoning of the most intelligent mind that the world ever saw or will see, could prove that God is one and at the same time three. The Gift of Understanding comes from the Holy Ghost and perfects our natural reason. Just as it is by natural reason that we grasp all natural truths, so it is by the supernatural Gift of Understanding we know those truths which exceed the power of our natural reason―such as the truth of the Blessed Trinity, the Incarnation, or the Redemption.
This is a distinct Gift. It is not human reason; neither is it the same as the theological virtue of Faith, whose characteristic it is to make us adhere to truths that are beyond the light of natural reason, because God has revealed them. The supernatural Gift of Understanding helps us to penetrate the depths of such supernatural truths, and to know them as far as that is possible for a creature of Earth. It differs also from the Gift of Knowledge―whose purpose is to distinguish, with certitude, truth from error. Such, therefore, is the hierarchy or order in the degrees of our knowledge of revealed truths. We know of their existence by Faith, we are rendered sure of their truth by Knowledge, then, the Gift of Understanding gives us as clear an insight of them as man can have here below.
Thus, we see that this supernatural Gift of Understanding is a special power for the intellect, given to those who, cooperating with the light of Faith and cooperating with the Spirit of God, receive over and above the light of natural reason, a power helping them to grasp the hidden meaning of truths beyond the natural range of human reason. This knowledge, like a powerful search-light, casts its penetrating rays, not only over the surface, but into the deep ocean of all the articles of Faith. It is not superficial―it is deep. It does remain on the surface of things―it penetrates the depth of things. It shows how they are all intimately connected, it points out their superiority over anything this Earth could give, over any truth soever, of which human reason may claim parentage, and it shows their beauty to be surpassing the splendor of any earthly truth.
The Gift of Understanding, then, is a supernatural habit, quality or perfection, with which our intelligence is enabled to know and comprehend the truths of Catholic Faith and all that are connected with them in greater depth; and by thus knowing them better and deeper, we are then led to love those teachings and truth, and, consequently, to live in conformity with the deeper knowledge of these teachings and truths.
The Three Lights
There are three lights that guide us in our passage through life―namely, Natural Human Reason, Supernatural Faith and the Supernatural Gift of Understanding. Reason is merely a weak oil-lamp, shining only a feeble glimmering light, and often glimmers most when we most need its assistance. It is barely sufficient to pierce the surface of the blackness of night, and will only let us see or make-out the objects that nearest at hand. Faith is like blazing torchlight, illumining and manifesting the way; but, alas, the rays of Faith do not go beyond a very limited horizon. Just look at Catholics―who certainly have the Faith, but whose knowledge is only very limited and superficial. Their knowledge is like bonfire―very limited as to how far it will shed its light―walk away ten or twenty yards and you are standing in darkness.
To give another example: I enter my room one evening, an hour after sunset, with my own eyes, unaided by any other light, I can barely distinguish the objects around me. I then light my lamp, and now, I can see them clearly. I can read and write at my desk with ease, though I cannot read my paper, ten feet from my light. Now, suppose I enter this same room at midday, I see everything clearly and distinctly and without the slightest effort.
The supernatural Gift of Understanding is the summer sun at noonday, dispelling all darkness and clouds, and shedding its penetrating light on everything beneath. The difference is clear. The Gift of Understanding does for us in the order of supernatural truths what the summer sun does in the order of natural ones. All these, truths are contained in Holy Scripture, but they are there in an obscure way, hidden under some mysterious veil of words or expressions; but the Gift we are considering pierces this veil or makes it transparent. It enables us to understand what we believe from the time we believe it explicitly.
The Apostles and the Gift of Understanding
The Apostles, before Pentecost, had reason and Faith―yet we are told that they knew not the Scriptures “And they understood none of these things, and this word was hid from them, and they understood not the things that were said” (Luke 18:34). “When Jesus was risen again from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had said” (John 2:22).
Nevertheless, in the immediate days after Our Lord’s resurrection, when Jesus appeared on various occasions to His Apostles and disciples, before the Apostles had received the Gifts of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost: “They, hearing that He was alive, did not believe! And after that He appeared in another shape to two disciples walking, as they were going into the country [to Emmaus]. Then Jesus said to them: ‘O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into his glory?’ And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, Jesus explained to them in all the Scriptures, the things that were written concerning Him … And they, going back to Jerusalem, told it to the rest [of the Apostles and disciples] ― but neither did the Apostles believe them. At length Jesus appeared to the Eleven [Apostles] while they were at table, and He upbraided them with their lack of belief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He was risen again! … Then He opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures” (Mark 16:11-14; Luke 24:26-27, 45). Even at His last moment on Earth, when He was about to ascend into Heaven, “seeing Him they adored―but some doubted!” (Matthew 28:17).
The Spirit of Understanding, in all its full glory, descended upon those poor uneducated Apostles at Pentecost―enlightening and informing them―making them, there and then, real suns in the sky of Heavenly doctrine, and their rays illumined the entire world. See how St. Peter expounded the Scriptures to the assembled nations on the first Pentecost morning; and see how the Spirit of Understanding enlightened the minds of his hearers, so that “they received his word, were baptized, and there were added on that day about three thousand souls … and the Lord increased daily such as should be saved.” (Acts 2:41, 47). With the skill of a master, St. Peter painted a verbal picture of the reign of Jesus, whilst his hearers―the Jews―truly penitent, confessing their guilt, embraced the truth, just like the child who, after a long absence, embraces his loving mother.
Raising Our Minds to New Heights
This Gift of Understanding not only aids our minds to know and understand Holy Scripture, but also it helps us to find the truth wherever it may be present. For some, this truth is manifested and verified in the science of theology. A case in point is St. Thomas Aquinas. He handles the most sublime truths with an ease and a grace which baffle all comprehension. In his case it was the Spirit of Understanding that passed into the “dumb Sicilian ox and, by his mouth, spoke to the world.” As Our Lord said: “Take no thought how or what to speak―for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak!” (Matthew 10:19).
For others, this Gift of Understanding is manifested and verified in philosophy, as is admirably portrayed in the life of St. Catherine, whose deep knowledge made the pagan philosophers blush for shame. For others still, this Gift of Understanding shines forth in their ordinary actions or conversations; and, thank God, it is more frequent than we think. And this is due to no human power, nor human aid, nor natural light―no, it is Faith perfected by the supernatural Gift of Understanding.
If people― Catholics especially―would only make that small effort required to possess such a treasure, what a veritable gold-mine would sermons, religious instruction and the history of the Church become! They would no longer be vain, boring sounds, but entering by the ear, they would be engraved on the heart, producing abundant fruit. What is the effort that is required? God will usually not manifest or “trigger” the Gift of Understanding in us until He sees that we are seriously trying to live the Faith―by learning and growing in our knowledge of the Faith, and are making good progress in growing in the many virtues that are required of us. Once He sees our seriousness about the Faith and the serious efforts we are making―then God will, in proportion, “trigger”, or activate, or manifest His supernatural Gift of Understanding within us.
Understanding Persecution
Today is not the first time that we are baffled by the fact that the Church is always persecuted and the world is always prosperous; and yet, we must believe that God is still in control over the world and the Church. Nation after nation has abandoned God. This is surely hard to understand, impossible to grasp, unless, by the light of the Gift of Understanding, we see in this Jesus Himself, our Head, persecuted, abandoned and contradicted by all, and yet He lives on. As it was with Jesus, our Head, so, too, it is with His Mystical Body, the Church. This warfare, though it becomes more brutal and savage with each century and decade, can never prevail against the Church. These events and countless others—the whole history of the world and Church—point always to the hand of God behind everything, when read and analyzed under the light of the supernatural Gift of Understanding.
This Gift of Understanding also acts upon our will. For, the clearer the mind sees a thing, then the more the heart loves it and adheres to it. Once we know and understand and love our Faith, then we are safe― Hell, with its deceit, the sophistry of the proud independent mind with its lies, the world with its derision, may all beat against the Ark of Faith, but in vain. We merely say “Credo” or “I believe” and nothing can disturb us. But, as with the wind shaking a tender oak tree, only serves to drive its roots more firmly into the ground; likewise, such storms and persecutions from outside only purify and strengthen our Faith, making us more fervent in serving God, more resistant against temptation, more resigned in poverty, more cheerful in adversity, more detached from life, and more constant in our endeavors and aspirations to the only reality of the future—God and Heaven. Yet, once again it must be stated that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost are not activated and manifest automatically and to same degree in all persons―it all depends upon our prior efforts in advancing in the virtues―especially the theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity, as well as other moral virtues. As we sow, so shall we reap: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6)
Effects of the Gift of Understanding
The Gift of Understanding produces admirable effects in the soul, and all of them perfect the virtue of Faith to the degree of incredible intensity and certainty that was attained in the saints. The Gift of Understanding reveals truths with such clarity that, without uncovering the mystery entirely, it gives souls such an unshakable security concerning the truth of our Faith, that they could not imagine the existence of unbelieving or undecided persons in matters of Faith. This is seen in mystical souls, in whom the Gift of Understanding has developed to an eminent degree. They would be more inclined to disbelieve anything that they saw with their own eyes, rather than to doubt in the slightest degree any of the truths of Faith.
This Gift of Understanding is most useful for theologians, and St. Thomas Aquinas possessed it to an extraordinary degree. It enables the theologian to penetrate into the depths of the revealed truth and to deduce later, by means of theological reasoning (discursus), the conclusions that are implicitly contained in these truths. The Angelic Doctor himself points out six different ways in which the Gift of Understanding enables us to penetrate into the depths and mystery of the truths of Faith (Cf. Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 8, art. 1). Here are those six ways:
(1) It enables us to see the substance of things hidden under their accidental manifestations. In other words, it helps us see beneath the surface of things; it gives much more depth to superficial knowledge; it simplifies the complex. By the power of this divine instinct, the mystics perceive the Divine reality that is hidden under the Eucharistic veils. From this follows their obsession with the Eucharist, an obsession that becomes in them a veritable martyrdom of hunger and thirst. In their visits to the tabernacle they do not pour out many prayers or meditate, but merely contemplate the Divine Prisoner of Love with a simple and penetrating gaze that fills their souls with infinite peace and tenderness. As in the case of the simple peasant man, whom the St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, daily saw sitting and staring at the tabernacle in his little church in Ars. Eventually St. John Vianney asked the peasant what he was doing by simply sitting and staring, with no prayer book or Rosary in his hands. To which the peasant man, possessed by the Holy Ghost, simply replied: “I look at Him and He looks at me!”
(2) It discloses the hidden meaning of Sacred Scripture. This is what the Lord with the two disciples at Emmaus when “He opened their understanding so that they could understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45). All the mystics have experienced this phenomenon. Without any biblical study, or any human assistance, the Holy Ghost suddenly discloses to them, with a most vivid intensity, the profound meaning of some statement in Scripture that immerses them in a deluge of light.
(3) It reveals to us the mysterious significance of symbols and figures. Thus St. Paul saw Christ in the rock that gushed forth with living water to appease the thirst of the Israelites in the desert: “And the rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4). St. John of the Cross reveals to us―with a startling mystical intuition―the moral, analogical and parabolic meaning of many of the symbols and figures of the Old Testament that reached their full realization or fulfillment in the New Testament, or in the life of grace.
(4) It reveals spiritual realities to us under sensible appearances. The Liturgy of the Church is filled with sublime symbolism that, for the most part, escapes the notice of superficial souls. But the saints experience a great veneration and respect for the “smallest ceremony of the Church” (St. Teresa, The Life, p. 226, chap. 33, n. 5), which floods their soul with devotion and tenderness. The Gift of Understanding enables them to see the sublime realities that are hidden beneath those symbols and sensible signs.
(5) It enables us to contemplate the effects that are contained in causes. As Father Philipon writes: “There is another aspect of the Gift of Understanding that is particularly noticeable in the case of contemplative theologians. After the hard work of human study, everything suddenly becomes luminous, under an impulse of the Spirit. A new world is seen … Christ-the-Priest, the One Mediator between Heaven and Earth, or Mary the Virgin Co-Redemptrix, bearing spiritually in her womb all the members of the Mystical Body; the Unity of Essence with the Trinity of Persons … All are truths which the Gift of Understanding can penetrate effortlessly and fruitfully in the very light of God” (Fr. M. M. Philipon, O.P., The Spiritual Doctrine of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, p. 180-181, chap. 8, n. 7).
(6) It makes us see causes through their effects. Father Philipon continues: “Inversely, the Gift of Understanding reveals God and His almighty causality of effects, without working the long, discursive journeyings of human thought left to its own resources, but by a simple, comparative gaze and by intuition, ‘after the manner of God.’ In almost imperceptible signs and in the smallest events of its life, a soul, that is attentive to the Holy Ghost, suddenly discovers God’s providential plan in its regard” (M. M. Philipon, O.P., The Spiritual Doctrine of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, p.180-181, chap. 8, n. 7).
Such are the principal effects that the activation of the Gift of Understanding produces in the soul. One can see that, perfected by this Gift of Understanding, the virtue of Faith reaches an astounding intensity. The veils of mystery are never parted in this life—“we see now through a glass in a dark manner” (1 Corinthians 13:12)―but its unfathomable depths are penetrated by the soul with an experience that is so clear and deep, that it approaches the intuitive vision. St. Thomas Aquinas, a model of serenity and reserve in all his statements, writes the following words: “In this very life, when the eye of the spirit is purified by the Gift of Understanding, one can, in a certain way, see God” (Summa, Ia-IIae, q. 69, art. 2, ad 3).
Opposed Vices
St. Thomas dedicates an entire question to the study of the vices that are opposed to the Gift of Understanding (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 15). They are mainly two: (1) spiritual blindness and (2) dullness of the spiritual sense. In a simplistic way, you could say one is totally blind, the other is partially blind.
The verses of Holy Scripture that could possibly apply to these two states are: “O foolish people without understanding: who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and hear not!” (Jeremias 5:21) … “Seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand!” (Matthew 13:13) … “Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a provoking house: who have eyes to see, and see not: and ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a provoking house” (Ezechiel 12:2) ... “The sensual man perceives not these things that are of the Spirit of God―for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand” (1 Corinthians 2:14) ... “They have not known, nor understood: for their eyes are covered that they may not see, and that they may not understand with their heart” (Isaias 44:18) … “Do you not yet know nor understand? Have you still your heart blinded? Having eyes, see you not? And having ears, hear you not? Neither do you remember!” (Mark 8:17-18) … “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14).
The first, SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS, is the complete lack of vision (blindness); the second, DULLNESS OF THE SPIRITUAL SENSE, is a notable weakening of vision (myopia). Both of them proceed from carnal sins (lust and gluttony), and, because of that, there is nothing that is such an impediment to the light of the intellect—even naturally speaking—as the vehement attachment to the corporal, fleshly, material, physical things that are contrary to it. For that reason, LUST, with its greater vehemence, produces spiritual blindness, which excludes almost completely the knowledge and appreciation of spiritual goods, and GLUTTONY produces dullness of the spiritual sense, which weakens man as regards this knowledge and appreciation in a way similar to the blunting or dulling of a sharp and pointed object—a nail, for example—that should easily penetrate a wall (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 15, art. 3). This again proves the earlier mentioned point that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost will only work in proportion to the efforts we are making in growing spiritually, especially in growth of virtues―and lust and gluttony are not virtues, but vices.
A contemporary author writes: “This blindness of mind is that which is suffered by all lukewarm souls; for they possess the Gift of Understanding, but their mind is engulfed with the things of this world. They are lacking in interior recollection and the spirit of prayer; they are constantly pouring themselves [into the things of the world] out through the channels of the senses, without any attentive or constant consideration of divine truths. Hence they never arrive at discovering the exalted clarity that is hidden in their obscurity. For that reason we see that very frequently they are easily deceived and mistaken when they speak of spiritual things; or of the delicacy and fine points of divine love; or of the first stages of the mystical life; or of the heights of sanctity―and that, sometimes, they engage themselves in external works that are covered with the veil of human evaluations, and they consider as exaggerations, or eccentricities, the delicacies that the Holy Ghost asks of souls.
“These are the souls who wish ‘to go by the cow-path,’ as one says rustically. They are attached to the Earth, and for that reason the Holy Ghost cannot raise them into the air with His divine motion and breathing. They are busy making sand-piles, by which they think they can reach Heaven. They suffer that spiritual blindness that prevents them from seeing the infinite holiness of God; the marvel that grace works in souls; the heroism of abnegation that He asks of souls to correspond to His immense love; the foolishness of love, by which the soul is led to the folly of the Cross. Such lukewarm souls think nothing of venial sins and perceive [notice, see] only those sins that are more serious―as a result, they ignore what are commonly called “imperfections”. They are blind because they never take into their hands the torch that would give light in this dark space (2 Peter 1:19), and many times, in their presumption, they attempt to guide others who are blind! (Matthew 15:14).
“He who suffers such a blindness, or shortsightedness in his interior vision, which prevents him from penetrating the things of Faith, cannot be free of fault [sin], because of his negligence and carelessness, or because of the boredom that he experiences in regard to spiritual things―since he loves more those things that appeal to the senses” (I. Menendez-Reigada, O.P., Los dones del Espiritu Santo y la perfeccion cristiana, pp. 593-94).
Hello Sin! Goodbye Holy Ghost!
History certainly repeats itself. A Catholic can have the Faith, but if, by mortal sin, he has lost its life-giving principle of activity, then Holy Scripture is nothing more than a sealed book, whose very appearance brings fatigue and, what is still worse, disgust! Why? Because with his soul being in the state of mortal sin, the Holy Ghost justly withdraws all His Gifts from that soul.
How many of us read and do not understand! And it is our own fault! Nevertheless, Holy Scripture is the word of God, a letter from our Father’s home, the bread of our souls, the mirror of our hearts and the guide of our lives. It is the Book we should read the most―but we read it the least. It is the Book we should understand most, whereas we understand it least of all. The reason is not far to seek―it is because we have not the Gift of Understanding; and we have not this Gift because our souls are not free from sin, and we are not working hard at growing spiritually in general, and growing in the virtues in particular. God will not reward sinfulness, lukewarmness, indifference and neglect! Once again, God will only reward us in proportion to the efforts we are making. The Gifts of the Holy Ghost are precious items―and, as Our Lord said: “Give not that which is holy to dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine!” (Matthew 7:6).
Unmoved By Religion
You believe in God, in Jesus, in Calvary, in Heaven and in Hell. These are consoling and terrible truths yet despite knowing of these things, you admit that they make only a slight impression on you. Why? Because the Gift of Understanding is lacking. And if you do not have the Gift of Understanding, then you have its contraries, the base, low vices of gluttony, avarice and lust. Here is how a Doctor of the Church explains it. Gluttony is an inordinate love of eating and drinking. It is the flesh fighting and conquering the spirit. It is man in company with the lower creation; and if this inordinate love becomes a habit, it throws the entire man on bended knee before his new god—his stomach: “Whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:19). Gluttony, as the Church Fathers teach us, leads to lust. Avarice can also be said to part of this family of covetousness―for gluttony covets or desires good and drink; lust covets and desires impurity and sex; avarice covets and desires wealth and possessions. All of these forms of covetousness blind the mind and prevent the soul from looking further afield for its happiness and joy.
The first effect of this disorder is that the intelligence becomes dull. The soul and body are like two plates of a balance, when the one mounts the other descends. So, by excess of eating and drinking the body develops and the mind becomes heavy, lazy and unfit for study and for all intellectual activity. The more we eat, the less we think. For the slave of gluttony, the most important truths are as if they were not. St. Paul says, “The sensual man perceives not the things that are of the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:14) but “the things that are of the Spirit” are that series of supernatural truths which make up the deposit of Catholic belief.
A second effect of this vice is a senseless worldly hilarity which may be manifested in countless ways: this is nothing more than the victorious battle-cry of the flesh, when it has conquered the mind or soul. This is nothing more than the lack of the Spirit of Understanding. For, the glutton does not see that life is a trial and that Christian life should be a perpetual penance. He makes it a perpetual pleasure. He forgets or despises these words of Divine Truth, “Unless you do penance, you shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). For the glutton, Heavenly truths really “waste their sweetness in the desert air.”
Means to Foster This Gift
As we have said repeatedly, the actuation or activation of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost depends entirely on the Divine Spirit Himself. However, the soul can do much by disposing itself, with the help of grace, for this divine actuation or activation. “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). St. Teresa of Avila, a Doctor of the Church, writes: “Although this work is performed by the Lord, and we can do nothing to make His Majesty grant us this favor, we can do a great deal to prepare ourselves for it” (St. Teresa, Interior Castle, Fifth Mansions, chap. 2, n. 1). The Saint is referring to the contemplative prayer of union, which is an effect of the Gifts of Understanding and Wisdom. The following points are the principal means of disposing oneself for this divine actuation or activation of the Gift of Understanding:
(1) To enliven Faith with the help of ordinary grace. Just as it is with muscles, the infused virtues are perfected by their increasingly intense practice. This is an excellent disposition which will allow the Holy Ghost to perfect the virtues with His Gifts, if the soul does all that it can by the ascetical practices (spiritual exercises) that are within its reach and capacity. It is a fact that God, according to His ordinary providence, gives His graces to those who are best disposed. Yet how few are the number of souls who seriously seek to acquire, practice and grow in all the virtues! St. Teresa of Avila speaks beautifully on this point in many ways. “Unless you have omitted to prepare yourselves for your work, you need have no fear that it will be lost!” (The Way of Perfection, chap. 18, n. 3). “Their disposition [exercise of virtues] is such that He will grant them any favor!” (Interior Castle, Third Mansions, chap. 1, n. 5).
(2) Perfect purity of soul and body. As we have already seen, the sixth beatitude, which pertains to the clean of heart, corresponds to the Gift of Understanding: “Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God!” (Matthew 5:8). Only through perfect cleanness of soul and body is one made capable of seeing God―seeing God in this life, by the profound illumination of the Gift of Understanding in the obscurity of Faith; seeing God in the next life, through the clear vision of glory. Impurity is incompatible with either one.
(3) Interior recollection. The Holy Ghost is the friend of recollection and solitude. Only there does He speak in silence to souls. “I will lead her into the wilderness: and I will speak to her heart” (Osee 2:14). “When you shall pray, enter into your room and, having shut the door, pray to your Father in secret―and your Father, Who sees in secret, will repay you!” (Matthew 6:6). “And having dismissed the multitude, Jesus went into a mountain to pray alone” (Matthew 14:23) … “And rising very early, going out, Jesus went into a desert place, and there He prayed” (Mark 1:35). “And Jesus retired into the desert and prayed” (Luke 5:16). “And when Jesus had dismissed them, He went up to the mountain to pray” (Mark 6:46).
The soul that is a friend of dissipation and worldliness will never perceive the word of God in its interior: “Go forth and stand upon the mountain before the Lord! And behold, the Lord passes, and a great and strong wind before the Lord over throwing the mountains, and breaking the rocks in pieces―the Lord is not in the wind! And after the wind an earthquake―the Lord is not in the earthquake! And after the earthquake a fire―the Lord is not in the fire! And after the fire―a whistling of a gentle air!” That is quiet voice of God (3 Kings 19:11-12). “And thy ears shall hear the word of one admonishing thee behind thy back: ‘This is the way! Walk ye in it! And go not aside―neither to the right hand, nor to the left!’” (Isaias 30:21).
It is necessary to empty oneself of all created things, to retire to the cell of one’s own heart in order to live there with the Divine Guest, until the soul gradually succeeds in always preserving the sense of God’s presence, even amidst the most absorbing occupations. When the soul has done all that it can to be recollected and detached from the world, the Holy Ghost will do the rest: “The Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth … shall abide with you, and shall be in you ... He will convict the world of sin! … He will teach you all truth. The things that are to come, He shall show you!” (John 14:16-17; 15:26; 16:7-13).
(4) Fidelity to grace. The soul must be always attentive and careful not to deny the Holy Ghost any sacrifice that He may ask. “Oh, today if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts” (Psalm 94:8). Not only must the soul avoid every voluntary thought, however small, that would sadden the Holy Ghost—according to the mysterious expression of St. Paul: “And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God” (Ephesians 4:30)—but it must positively second all His divine movements until it can say with Christ: “I do always the things that please Him” (John 8:29). Our love of God is shown by our fidelity or faithfulness to God―as Christ says: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24). On the other hand, Christ also says: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
It does not matter if sometimes the sacrifices that He asks of us seem to be beyond our strength. With God’s grace, all things are possible. “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13) … “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Luke 18:27). And there is always left to us the recourse of prayer, to ask the Lord in advance for that which He wishes us to give to Him: “Grant what Thou dost command and command what Thou wilt” (St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 10, chapter 29). In any case, in order to avoid anxiety in the matter of fidelity to grace, we should always rely on the rule and counsel of a wise and experienced spiritual director.
(5) Invoking the Holy Ghost. We cannot practice any of these methods without the help and antecedent grace of the Holy Ghost. For that reason we must invoke Him frequently and with the greatest possible fervor, remembering the promise of Jesus to send the Holy Ghost to us (John 14:16-17).
The hymns “Come Holy Ghost” and “Come O Creator Spirit Blest”, and the liturgical prayer (collect) for the feast of Pentecost, should be, after the Our Father and the Hail Mary, the favorite prayers of interior souls. We should repeat them often until we attain that true understanding that the Holy Ghost can give us.
And, in imitation of the Apostles, when they retired to the Cenacle to await the coming of the Paraclete, we should associate our supplications with those of the Immaculate Heart of Mary— “All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with … Mary the mother of Jesus” (Acts 1:14)—the Virgin most faithful and the Heavenly spouse of the Holy Ghost.
The beautiful invocation of the litany of the Blessed Virgin, “Virgin most faithful, pray for us,” should be one of the favorite ejaculations of the souls that thirst for God. The Divine Spirit will be communicated to us in the measure of our fidelity to grace, and this fidelity must be obtained through Mary, the universal Mediatrix of all graces by will of God.
In this increasingly superficial world with its little depth of knowledge and understanding, the Holy Ghost’s Gift of Understanding makes us penetrate divine truths―which is something that certainly lacking among modern-day Catholics. It is common knowledge and admitted by many scholarly writers and observers, that the levels of education have fallen dramatically and drastically over the last 60 to 70 years. With the advent of modern technology―such as television, computers, internet, smartphones and social media―less and less people are able to think and understand as they used to do. Nowadays, they just ask the computer or AI (Artificial Intelligence) to think for them! Studies have shown that college students could not pass an 8th Grade exam paper from around 100 years ago! Most Catholic adults could not even pass a First Communion Test or a Confirmation Test! Most don’t even know the Ten Commandments! Some are unable to name the three Members of the Holy Trinity―others don’t even know that the Trinity has three Persons! The media has for many decades communicated with the general public at a vocabulary level of 5th to 8th Grade!
St. Thérèse of Lisieux used to lament that Jesus is so little loved because he is so little known―which the same concept as the philosophical axiom which states that you cannot love what you do not know―which also implies that you only love a little what you know little about! However, knowledge and understanding are two different things―you might know what a computer is, but you might not understand how it works; you might know what a computer-chip is, but not understand how it works; you may know what the law of gravity is, but lack the understanding to explain in detail; scientists and doctors are able to recognize a disease, but lack the understanding on how to cure it; from the weird sounds that you car makes you know that something is wrong with the car, but you lack the understanding to figure out exactly what is wrong with it. Yes―cannot love what we do not know―but we will love even more those things that we not only know, but also understand. Understanding can build upon the foundation of knowledge and thus increase the degree of love. If the greatest commandment is all about loving ― “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31) ― then anything that can increase that love is bound to be of the greatest interest and importance!
I Wanna Know! I Wanna Know!
Everyone by nature wants to know—or at least be “in the know.” The advent of the internet and search engines fuels this desire to know everything about everyone everywhere! The ‘knowledge’ that most people have today is not acquired through traditional research, study, analysis and learning―but it is merely a “parrot-fashion” repetition of what turned-up after their “Google Search” ― without them really knowing whether the internet opinion or statement is true or false. There is little or no real intelligence that is able to filter-out the misinformation, disinformation, propaganda and outright lies. A lot of people know a lot of things―but they do not know if what they know is really worth knowing at all! We have arrived at the point where many people suffer from “information constipation” ― meaning that a lot of information goes into the mind, but little or nothing comes out of the mind! As Holy Scripture says: “Even a fool, if he will hold his tongue, shall be counted as being wise―and if he close his lips, shall be counted as a man of understanding” (Proverbs 17:28). “There is that fool after he was lifted up on high [with pride about what he things he knows]―for if he had understood, he would have laid his hand upon his mouth” (Proverbs 30:32). “Understand, ye senseless among the people! And, you fools, be wise at last!” (Psalm 93:8).
Between the Lines—Below the Surface
Some words express our thoughts with admirable accuracy. Though they may not be precise definitions, they are exact expressions of the object signified. Such is the Latin word “intelligere” (intus-legere: “to read interiorly, to penetrate”).
Let us try to be more precise. The Latins called it an “inner reading” — [which is another way of saying that which “stands under” or “stands beneath” the surface of things; therefore, a “deeper” knowledge, rather than a surface or superficial knowledge]. Understanding, then, is that power of the human soul, to descend beneath the surface of things, to pry into the hidden reality, it is that which breaks through the surface-shell, to reach the real substance therein enclosed.
Abstract
In the natural order, intelligence is the ability to perceive the abstract, the immaterial truth—we can contemplate abstract things like justice, mercy, fidelity, etc., which do not exist by themselves in a concrete way, like a tree for example. We understand and calculate with numbers and fractions, even though they do not exist in the concrete. In the supernatural order, intelligence penetrates higher truths. As the natural light of human reason makes us understand visible and sensible (see, hear, touch, taste, etc.) things, the supernatural light of the Gift of Understanding, of which we shall speak in this article, serves to penetrate supernatural truths and to reveal their intimate depths.
Understanding is More Than Knowing
On a purely natural and rational level, to know is not always to understand. I may know how to say a phrase in a foreign language without necessarily understanding what it means. I may know that my car won’t start, but I do not understand why. St. Ignatius Loyola, in his Spiritual Exercises, points out that it is not great knowledge which profits the soul, but the penetration and savoring of spiritual things. To find spiritual profit, we do not have to multiply readings and meditations: we should rather go to the heart of some few truths, understand them as much as we can, and delight in them. When the Spiritual Exercises are made correctly and well―or during a day of some other spiritual retreat, or simply whenever we meditate attentively on some supernatural truth or teaching―it seems that our soul is transformed, that we become another being. With the new light that has been given to us, our soul has a changed attitude toward spiritual things.
Through Him, With Him, In Him
Without God we can do nothing—“Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). God is our light―“Jesus spoke to them, saying: ‘I am the light of the world: he that follows Me, walks not in darkness, but shall have the light of life … As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world’” (John 8:12; 9:5). “Wherefore He says: ‘Rise thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead―and Christ shall enlighten thee!’” (Ephesians 5:14).The teachings of God are meant “to enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death―to direct our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:79). When Christ ascended into Heaven, He sent us the Paraclete: “And I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever. The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it sees Him not, nor knows Him―but you shall know Him, because He shall abide with you, and shall be in you … The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, Whom the Father will send in My Name, He will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you!” (John 14:16-17, 26).
Who Truly Understands Without God?
“God looked down from Heaven on the children of men―to see if there were any that did understand, or did seek God” (Psalm 52:3). “The steps of man are guided by the Lord―but who is the man that can understand his own way?” (Proverbs 20:24). “All men are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of God―and who, by these good things that are seen, could not understand Him that is, neither by attending to the works have acknowledged Who was the Workman!” (Wisdom 13:1). “And who shall understand His ways?” (Ecclesiasticus 16:21). “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). “The senseless man shall not know, nor will the fool understand these things!” (Psalm 91:7). “Who, as it were, on purpose have revolted from Him, and would not understand all His ways” (Job 34:27). “Understand, ye senseless among the people: and, you fools, be wise at last!” (Psalm 93:8). “O that they would be wise and would understand, and would provide for their last end!” (Deuteronomy 32:29). “They that trust in Him, shall understand the truth!” (Wisdom 3:9).
Limited Intelligence
But man’s intelligence, be it ever so powerful and penetrating, is none the less a created power; hence it is a limited power, and by itself it can never overstep the limits set down to it by God. But, man is created for a supernatural end, for Heaven, and the means given him by God are contained in Revelation; they are a set of truths exceeding the natural capacity of the understanding. Now, if these are really means to our end, we must use them, and to use them we must first know them; but as they are above the power of the human mind, we need some supernatural aid, some Heavenly light to penetrate them. This supernatural light which the Holy Ghost gives to man is called the Gift of Understanding.
Gift of Understanding Surpasses Natural Understanding
This light of the Gift of Understanding does not proceed from the natural understanding; as no amount of reasoning of the most intelligent mind that the world ever saw or will see, could prove that God is one and at the same time three. The Gift of Understanding comes from the Holy Ghost and perfects our natural reason. Just as it is by natural reason that we grasp all natural truths, so it is by the supernatural Gift of Understanding we know those truths which exceed the power of our natural reason―such as the truth of the Blessed Trinity, the Incarnation, or the Redemption.
This is a distinct Gift. It is not human reason; neither is it the same as the theological virtue of Faith, whose characteristic it is to make us adhere to truths that are beyond the light of natural reason, because God has revealed them. The supernatural Gift of Understanding helps us to penetrate the depths of such supernatural truths, and to know them as far as that is possible for a creature of Earth. It differs also from the Gift of Knowledge―whose purpose is to distinguish, with certitude, truth from error. Such, therefore, is the hierarchy or order in the degrees of our knowledge of revealed truths. We know of their existence by Faith, we are rendered sure of their truth by Knowledge, then, the Gift of Understanding gives us as clear an insight of them as man can have here below.
Thus, we see that this supernatural Gift of Understanding is a special power for the intellect, given to those who, cooperating with the light of Faith and cooperating with the Spirit of God, receive over and above the light of natural reason, a power helping them to grasp the hidden meaning of truths beyond the natural range of human reason. This knowledge, like a powerful search-light, casts its penetrating rays, not only over the surface, but into the deep ocean of all the articles of Faith. It is not superficial―it is deep. It does remain on the surface of things―it penetrates the depth of things. It shows how they are all intimately connected, it points out their superiority over anything this Earth could give, over any truth soever, of which human reason may claim parentage, and it shows their beauty to be surpassing the splendor of any earthly truth.
The Gift of Understanding, then, is a supernatural habit, quality or perfection, with which our intelligence is enabled to know and comprehend the truths of Catholic Faith and all that are connected with them in greater depth; and by thus knowing them better and deeper, we are then led to love those teachings and truth, and, consequently, to live in conformity with the deeper knowledge of these teachings and truths.
The Three Lights
There are three lights that guide us in our passage through life―namely, Natural Human Reason, Supernatural Faith and the Supernatural Gift of Understanding. Reason is merely a weak oil-lamp, shining only a feeble glimmering light, and often glimmers most when we most need its assistance. It is barely sufficient to pierce the surface of the blackness of night, and will only let us see or make-out the objects that nearest at hand. Faith is like blazing torchlight, illumining and manifesting the way; but, alas, the rays of Faith do not go beyond a very limited horizon. Just look at Catholics―who certainly have the Faith, but whose knowledge is only very limited and superficial. Their knowledge is like bonfire―very limited as to how far it will shed its light―walk away ten or twenty yards and you are standing in darkness.
To give another example: I enter my room one evening, an hour after sunset, with my own eyes, unaided by any other light, I can barely distinguish the objects around me. I then light my lamp, and now, I can see them clearly. I can read and write at my desk with ease, though I cannot read my paper, ten feet from my light. Now, suppose I enter this same room at midday, I see everything clearly and distinctly and without the slightest effort.
The supernatural Gift of Understanding is the summer sun at noonday, dispelling all darkness and clouds, and shedding its penetrating light on everything beneath. The difference is clear. The Gift of Understanding does for us in the order of supernatural truths what the summer sun does in the order of natural ones. All these, truths are contained in Holy Scripture, but they are there in an obscure way, hidden under some mysterious veil of words or expressions; but the Gift we are considering pierces this veil or makes it transparent. It enables us to understand what we believe from the time we believe it explicitly.
The Apostles and the Gift of Understanding
The Apostles, before Pentecost, had reason and Faith―yet we are told that they knew not the Scriptures “And they understood none of these things, and this word was hid from them, and they understood not the things that were said” (Luke 18:34). “When Jesus was risen again from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had said” (John 2:22).
Nevertheless, in the immediate days after Our Lord’s resurrection, when Jesus appeared on various occasions to His Apostles and disciples, before the Apostles had received the Gifts of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost: “They, hearing that He was alive, did not believe! And after that He appeared in another shape to two disciples walking, as they were going into the country [to Emmaus]. Then Jesus said to them: ‘O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into his glory?’ And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, Jesus explained to them in all the Scriptures, the things that were written concerning Him … And they, going back to Jerusalem, told it to the rest [of the Apostles and disciples] ― but neither did the Apostles believe them. At length Jesus appeared to the Eleven [Apostles] while they were at table, and He upbraided them with their lack of belief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He was risen again! … Then He opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures” (Mark 16:11-14; Luke 24:26-27, 45). Even at His last moment on Earth, when He was about to ascend into Heaven, “seeing Him they adored―but some doubted!” (Matthew 28:17).
The Spirit of Understanding, in all its full glory, descended upon those poor uneducated Apostles at Pentecost―enlightening and informing them―making them, there and then, real suns in the sky of Heavenly doctrine, and their rays illumined the entire world. See how St. Peter expounded the Scriptures to the assembled nations on the first Pentecost morning; and see how the Spirit of Understanding enlightened the minds of his hearers, so that “they received his word, were baptized, and there were added on that day about three thousand souls … and the Lord increased daily such as should be saved.” (Acts 2:41, 47). With the skill of a master, St. Peter painted a verbal picture of the reign of Jesus, whilst his hearers―the Jews―truly penitent, confessing their guilt, embraced the truth, just like the child who, after a long absence, embraces his loving mother.
Raising Our Minds to New Heights
This Gift of Understanding not only aids our minds to know and understand Holy Scripture, but also it helps us to find the truth wherever it may be present. For some, this truth is manifested and verified in the science of theology. A case in point is St. Thomas Aquinas. He handles the most sublime truths with an ease and a grace which baffle all comprehension. In his case it was the Spirit of Understanding that passed into the “dumb Sicilian ox and, by his mouth, spoke to the world.” As Our Lord said: “Take no thought how or what to speak―for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak!” (Matthew 10:19).
For others, this Gift of Understanding is manifested and verified in philosophy, as is admirably portrayed in the life of St. Catherine, whose deep knowledge made the pagan philosophers blush for shame. For others still, this Gift of Understanding shines forth in their ordinary actions or conversations; and, thank God, it is more frequent than we think. And this is due to no human power, nor human aid, nor natural light―no, it is Faith perfected by the supernatural Gift of Understanding.
If people― Catholics especially―would only make that small effort required to possess such a treasure, what a veritable gold-mine would sermons, religious instruction and the history of the Church become! They would no longer be vain, boring sounds, but entering by the ear, they would be engraved on the heart, producing abundant fruit. What is the effort that is required? God will usually not manifest or “trigger” the Gift of Understanding in us until He sees that we are seriously trying to live the Faith―by learning and growing in our knowledge of the Faith, and are making good progress in growing in the many virtues that are required of us. Once He sees our seriousness about the Faith and the serious efforts we are making―then God will, in proportion, “trigger”, or activate, or manifest His supernatural Gift of Understanding within us.
Understanding Persecution
Today is not the first time that we are baffled by the fact that the Church is always persecuted and the world is always prosperous; and yet, we must believe that God is still in control over the world and the Church. Nation after nation has abandoned God. This is surely hard to understand, impossible to grasp, unless, by the light of the Gift of Understanding, we see in this Jesus Himself, our Head, persecuted, abandoned and contradicted by all, and yet He lives on. As it was with Jesus, our Head, so, too, it is with His Mystical Body, the Church. This warfare, though it becomes more brutal and savage with each century and decade, can never prevail against the Church. These events and countless others—the whole history of the world and Church—point always to the hand of God behind everything, when read and analyzed under the light of the supernatural Gift of Understanding.
This Gift of Understanding also acts upon our will. For, the clearer the mind sees a thing, then the more the heart loves it and adheres to it. Once we know and understand and love our Faith, then we are safe― Hell, with its deceit, the sophistry of the proud independent mind with its lies, the world with its derision, may all beat against the Ark of Faith, but in vain. We merely say “Credo” or “I believe” and nothing can disturb us. But, as with the wind shaking a tender oak tree, only serves to drive its roots more firmly into the ground; likewise, such storms and persecutions from outside only purify and strengthen our Faith, making us more fervent in serving God, more resistant against temptation, more resigned in poverty, more cheerful in adversity, more detached from life, and more constant in our endeavors and aspirations to the only reality of the future—God and Heaven. Yet, once again it must be stated that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost are not activated and manifest automatically and to same degree in all persons―it all depends upon our prior efforts in advancing in the virtues―especially the theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity, as well as other moral virtues. As we sow, so shall we reap: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6)
Effects of the Gift of Understanding
The Gift of Understanding produces admirable effects in the soul, and all of them perfect the virtue of Faith to the degree of incredible intensity and certainty that was attained in the saints. The Gift of Understanding reveals truths with such clarity that, without uncovering the mystery entirely, it gives souls such an unshakable security concerning the truth of our Faith, that they could not imagine the existence of unbelieving or undecided persons in matters of Faith. This is seen in mystical souls, in whom the Gift of Understanding has developed to an eminent degree. They would be more inclined to disbelieve anything that they saw with their own eyes, rather than to doubt in the slightest degree any of the truths of Faith.
This Gift of Understanding is most useful for theologians, and St. Thomas Aquinas possessed it to an extraordinary degree. It enables the theologian to penetrate into the depths of the revealed truth and to deduce later, by means of theological reasoning (discursus), the conclusions that are implicitly contained in these truths. The Angelic Doctor himself points out six different ways in which the Gift of Understanding enables us to penetrate into the depths and mystery of the truths of Faith (Cf. Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 8, art. 1). Here are those six ways:
(1) It enables us to see the substance of things hidden under their accidental manifestations. In other words, it helps us see beneath the surface of things; it gives much more depth to superficial knowledge; it simplifies the complex. By the power of this divine instinct, the mystics perceive the Divine reality that is hidden under the Eucharistic veils. From this follows their obsession with the Eucharist, an obsession that becomes in them a veritable martyrdom of hunger and thirst. In their visits to the tabernacle they do not pour out many prayers or meditate, but merely contemplate the Divine Prisoner of Love with a simple and penetrating gaze that fills their souls with infinite peace and tenderness. As in the case of the simple peasant man, whom the St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, daily saw sitting and staring at the tabernacle in his little church in Ars. Eventually St. John Vianney asked the peasant what he was doing by simply sitting and staring, with no prayer book or Rosary in his hands. To which the peasant man, possessed by the Holy Ghost, simply replied: “I look at Him and He looks at me!”
(2) It discloses the hidden meaning of Sacred Scripture. This is what the Lord with the two disciples at Emmaus when “He opened their understanding so that they could understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45). All the mystics have experienced this phenomenon. Without any biblical study, or any human assistance, the Holy Ghost suddenly discloses to them, with a most vivid intensity, the profound meaning of some statement in Scripture that immerses them in a deluge of light.
(3) It reveals to us the mysterious significance of symbols and figures. Thus St. Paul saw Christ in the rock that gushed forth with living water to appease the thirst of the Israelites in the desert: “And the rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4). St. John of the Cross reveals to us―with a startling mystical intuition―the moral, analogical and parabolic meaning of many of the symbols and figures of the Old Testament that reached their full realization or fulfillment in the New Testament, or in the life of grace.
(4) It reveals spiritual realities to us under sensible appearances. The Liturgy of the Church is filled with sublime symbolism that, for the most part, escapes the notice of superficial souls. But the saints experience a great veneration and respect for the “smallest ceremony of the Church” (St. Teresa, The Life, p. 226, chap. 33, n. 5), which floods their soul with devotion and tenderness. The Gift of Understanding enables them to see the sublime realities that are hidden beneath those symbols and sensible signs.
(5) It enables us to contemplate the effects that are contained in causes. As Father Philipon writes: “There is another aspect of the Gift of Understanding that is particularly noticeable in the case of contemplative theologians. After the hard work of human study, everything suddenly becomes luminous, under an impulse of the Spirit. A new world is seen … Christ-the-Priest, the One Mediator between Heaven and Earth, or Mary the Virgin Co-Redemptrix, bearing spiritually in her womb all the members of the Mystical Body; the Unity of Essence with the Trinity of Persons … All are truths which the Gift of Understanding can penetrate effortlessly and fruitfully in the very light of God” (Fr. M. M. Philipon, O.P., The Spiritual Doctrine of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, p. 180-181, chap. 8, n. 7).
(6) It makes us see causes through their effects. Father Philipon continues: “Inversely, the Gift of Understanding reveals God and His almighty causality of effects, without working the long, discursive journeyings of human thought left to its own resources, but by a simple, comparative gaze and by intuition, ‘after the manner of God.’ In almost imperceptible signs and in the smallest events of its life, a soul, that is attentive to the Holy Ghost, suddenly discovers God’s providential plan in its regard” (M. M. Philipon, O.P., The Spiritual Doctrine of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, p.180-181, chap. 8, n. 7).
Such are the principal effects that the activation of the Gift of Understanding produces in the soul. One can see that, perfected by this Gift of Understanding, the virtue of Faith reaches an astounding intensity. The veils of mystery are never parted in this life—“we see now through a glass in a dark manner” (1 Corinthians 13:12)―but its unfathomable depths are penetrated by the soul with an experience that is so clear and deep, that it approaches the intuitive vision. St. Thomas Aquinas, a model of serenity and reserve in all his statements, writes the following words: “In this very life, when the eye of the spirit is purified by the Gift of Understanding, one can, in a certain way, see God” (Summa, Ia-IIae, q. 69, art. 2, ad 3).
Opposed Vices
St. Thomas dedicates an entire question to the study of the vices that are opposed to the Gift of Understanding (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 15). They are mainly two: (1) spiritual blindness and (2) dullness of the spiritual sense. In a simplistic way, you could say one is totally blind, the other is partially blind.
The verses of Holy Scripture that could possibly apply to these two states are: “O foolish people without understanding: who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and hear not!” (Jeremias 5:21) … “Seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand!” (Matthew 13:13) … “Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a provoking house: who have eyes to see, and see not: and ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a provoking house” (Ezechiel 12:2) ... “The sensual man perceives not these things that are of the Spirit of God―for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand” (1 Corinthians 2:14) ... “They have not known, nor understood: for their eyes are covered that they may not see, and that they may not understand with their heart” (Isaias 44:18) … “Do you not yet know nor understand? Have you still your heart blinded? Having eyes, see you not? And having ears, hear you not? Neither do you remember!” (Mark 8:17-18) … “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14).
The first, SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS, is the complete lack of vision (blindness); the second, DULLNESS OF THE SPIRITUAL SENSE, is a notable weakening of vision (myopia). Both of them proceed from carnal sins (lust and gluttony), and, because of that, there is nothing that is such an impediment to the light of the intellect—even naturally speaking—as the vehement attachment to the corporal, fleshly, material, physical things that are contrary to it. For that reason, LUST, with its greater vehemence, produces spiritual blindness, which excludes almost completely the knowledge and appreciation of spiritual goods, and GLUTTONY produces dullness of the spiritual sense, which weakens man as regards this knowledge and appreciation in a way similar to the blunting or dulling of a sharp and pointed object—a nail, for example—that should easily penetrate a wall (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 15, art. 3). This again proves the earlier mentioned point that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost will only work in proportion to the efforts we are making in growing spiritually, especially in growth of virtues―and lust and gluttony are not virtues, but vices.
A contemporary author writes: “This blindness of mind is that which is suffered by all lukewarm souls; for they possess the Gift of Understanding, but their mind is engulfed with the things of this world. They are lacking in interior recollection and the spirit of prayer; they are constantly pouring themselves [into the things of the world] out through the channels of the senses, without any attentive or constant consideration of divine truths. Hence they never arrive at discovering the exalted clarity that is hidden in their obscurity. For that reason we see that very frequently they are easily deceived and mistaken when they speak of spiritual things; or of the delicacy and fine points of divine love; or of the first stages of the mystical life; or of the heights of sanctity―and that, sometimes, they engage themselves in external works that are covered with the veil of human evaluations, and they consider as exaggerations, or eccentricities, the delicacies that the Holy Ghost asks of souls.
“These are the souls who wish ‘to go by the cow-path,’ as one says rustically. They are attached to the Earth, and for that reason the Holy Ghost cannot raise them into the air with His divine motion and breathing. They are busy making sand-piles, by which they think they can reach Heaven. They suffer that spiritual blindness that prevents them from seeing the infinite holiness of God; the marvel that grace works in souls; the heroism of abnegation that He asks of souls to correspond to His immense love; the foolishness of love, by which the soul is led to the folly of the Cross. Such lukewarm souls think nothing of venial sins and perceive [notice, see] only those sins that are more serious―as a result, they ignore what are commonly called “imperfections”. They are blind because they never take into their hands the torch that would give light in this dark space (2 Peter 1:19), and many times, in their presumption, they attempt to guide others who are blind! (Matthew 15:14).
“He who suffers such a blindness, or shortsightedness in his interior vision, which prevents him from penetrating the things of Faith, cannot be free of fault [sin], because of his negligence and carelessness, or because of the boredom that he experiences in regard to spiritual things―since he loves more those things that appeal to the senses” (I. Menendez-Reigada, O.P., Los dones del Espiritu Santo y la perfeccion cristiana, pp. 593-94).
Hello Sin! Goodbye Holy Ghost!
History certainly repeats itself. A Catholic can have the Faith, but if, by mortal sin, he has lost its life-giving principle of activity, then Holy Scripture is nothing more than a sealed book, whose very appearance brings fatigue and, what is still worse, disgust! Why? Because with his soul being in the state of mortal sin, the Holy Ghost justly withdraws all His Gifts from that soul.
How many of us read and do not understand! And it is our own fault! Nevertheless, Holy Scripture is the word of God, a letter from our Father’s home, the bread of our souls, the mirror of our hearts and the guide of our lives. It is the Book we should read the most―but we read it the least. It is the Book we should understand most, whereas we understand it least of all. The reason is not far to seek―it is because we have not the Gift of Understanding; and we have not this Gift because our souls are not free from sin, and we are not working hard at growing spiritually in general, and growing in the virtues in particular. God will not reward sinfulness, lukewarmness, indifference and neglect! Once again, God will only reward us in proportion to the efforts we are making. The Gifts of the Holy Ghost are precious items―and, as Our Lord said: “Give not that which is holy to dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine!” (Matthew 7:6).
Unmoved By Religion
You believe in God, in Jesus, in Calvary, in Heaven and in Hell. These are consoling and terrible truths yet despite knowing of these things, you admit that they make only a slight impression on you. Why? Because the Gift of Understanding is lacking. And if you do not have the Gift of Understanding, then you have its contraries, the base, low vices of gluttony, avarice and lust. Here is how a Doctor of the Church explains it. Gluttony is an inordinate love of eating and drinking. It is the flesh fighting and conquering the spirit. It is man in company with the lower creation; and if this inordinate love becomes a habit, it throws the entire man on bended knee before his new god—his stomach: “Whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:19). Gluttony, as the Church Fathers teach us, leads to lust. Avarice can also be said to part of this family of covetousness―for gluttony covets or desires good and drink; lust covets and desires impurity and sex; avarice covets and desires wealth and possessions. All of these forms of covetousness blind the mind and prevent the soul from looking further afield for its happiness and joy.
The first effect of this disorder is that the intelligence becomes dull. The soul and body are like two plates of a balance, when the one mounts the other descends. So, by excess of eating and drinking the body develops and the mind becomes heavy, lazy and unfit for study and for all intellectual activity. The more we eat, the less we think. For the slave of gluttony, the most important truths are as if they were not. St. Paul says, “The sensual man perceives not the things that are of the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:14) but “the things that are of the Spirit” are that series of supernatural truths which make up the deposit of Catholic belief.
A second effect of this vice is a senseless worldly hilarity which may be manifested in countless ways: this is nothing more than the victorious battle-cry of the flesh, when it has conquered the mind or soul. This is nothing more than the lack of the Spirit of Understanding. For, the glutton does not see that life is a trial and that Christian life should be a perpetual penance. He makes it a perpetual pleasure. He forgets or despises these words of Divine Truth, “Unless you do penance, you shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). For the glutton, Heavenly truths really “waste their sweetness in the desert air.”
Means to Foster This Gift
As we have said repeatedly, the actuation or activation of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost depends entirely on the Divine Spirit Himself. However, the soul can do much by disposing itself, with the help of grace, for this divine actuation or activation. “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). St. Teresa of Avila, a Doctor of the Church, writes: “Although this work is performed by the Lord, and we can do nothing to make His Majesty grant us this favor, we can do a great deal to prepare ourselves for it” (St. Teresa, Interior Castle, Fifth Mansions, chap. 2, n. 1). The Saint is referring to the contemplative prayer of union, which is an effect of the Gifts of Understanding and Wisdom. The following points are the principal means of disposing oneself for this divine actuation or activation of the Gift of Understanding:
(1) To enliven Faith with the help of ordinary grace. Just as it is with muscles, the infused virtues are perfected by their increasingly intense practice. This is an excellent disposition which will allow the Holy Ghost to perfect the virtues with His Gifts, if the soul does all that it can by the ascetical practices (spiritual exercises) that are within its reach and capacity. It is a fact that God, according to His ordinary providence, gives His graces to those who are best disposed. Yet how few are the number of souls who seriously seek to acquire, practice and grow in all the virtues! St. Teresa of Avila speaks beautifully on this point in many ways. “Unless you have omitted to prepare yourselves for your work, you need have no fear that it will be lost!” (The Way of Perfection, chap. 18, n. 3). “Their disposition [exercise of virtues] is such that He will grant them any favor!” (Interior Castle, Third Mansions, chap. 1, n. 5).
(2) Perfect purity of soul and body. As we have already seen, the sixth beatitude, which pertains to the clean of heart, corresponds to the Gift of Understanding: “Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God!” (Matthew 5:8). Only through perfect cleanness of soul and body is one made capable of seeing God―seeing God in this life, by the profound illumination of the Gift of Understanding in the obscurity of Faith; seeing God in the next life, through the clear vision of glory. Impurity is incompatible with either one.
(3) Interior recollection. The Holy Ghost is the friend of recollection and solitude. Only there does He speak in silence to souls. “I will lead her into the wilderness: and I will speak to her heart” (Osee 2:14). “When you shall pray, enter into your room and, having shut the door, pray to your Father in secret―and your Father, Who sees in secret, will repay you!” (Matthew 6:6). “And having dismissed the multitude, Jesus went into a mountain to pray alone” (Matthew 14:23) … “And rising very early, going out, Jesus went into a desert place, and there He prayed” (Mark 1:35). “And Jesus retired into the desert and prayed” (Luke 5:16). “And when Jesus had dismissed them, He went up to the mountain to pray” (Mark 6:46).
The soul that is a friend of dissipation and worldliness will never perceive the word of God in its interior: “Go forth and stand upon the mountain before the Lord! And behold, the Lord passes, and a great and strong wind before the Lord over throwing the mountains, and breaking the rocks in pieces―the Lord is not in the wind! And after the wind an earthquake―the Lord is not in the earthquake! And after the earthquake a fire―the Lord is not in the fire! And after the fire―a whistling of a gentle air!” That is quiet voice of God (3 Kings 19:11-12). “And thy ears shall hear the word of one admonishing thee behind thy back: ‘This is the way! Walk ye in it! And go not aside―neither to the right hand, nor to the left!’” (Isaias 30:21).
It is necessary to empty oneself of all created things, to retire to the cell of one’s own heart in order to live there with the Divine Guest, until the soul gradually succeeds in always preserving the sense of God’s presence, even amidst the most absorbing occupations. When the soul has done all that it can to be recollected and detached from the world, the Holy Ghost will do the rest: “The Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth … shall abide with you, and shall be in you ... He will convict the world of sin! … He will teach you all truth. The things that are to come, He shall show you!” (John 14:16-17; 15:26; 16:7-13).
(4) Fidelity to grace. The soul must be always attentive and careful not to deny the Holy Ghost any sacrifice that He may ask. “Oh, today if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts” (Psalm 94:8). Not only must the soul avoid every voluntary thought, however small, that would sadden the Holy Ghost—according to the mysterious expression of St. Paul: “And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God” (Ephesians 4:30)—but it must positively second all His divine movements until it can say with Christ: “I do always the things that please Him” (John 8:29). Our love of God is shown by our fidelity or faithfulness to God―as Christ says: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24). On the other hand, Christ also says: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
It does not matter if sometimes the sacrifices that He asks of us seem to be beyond our strength. With God’s grace, all things are possible. “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13) … “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Luke 18:27). And there is always left to us the recourse of prayer, to ask the Lord in advance for that which He wishes us to give to Him: “Grant what Thou dost command and command what Thou wilt” (St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 10, chapter 29). In any case, in order to avoid anxiety in the matter of fidelity to grace, we should always rely on the rule and counsel of a wise and experienced spiritual director.
(5) Invoking the Holy Ghost. We cannot practice any of these methods without the help and antecedent grace of the Holy Ghost. For that reason we must invoke Him frequently and with the greatest possible fervor, remembering the promise of Jesus to send the Holy Ghost to us (John 14:16-17).
The hymns “Come Holy Ghost” and “Come O Creator Spirit Blest”, and the liturgical prayer (collect) for the feast of Pentecost, should be, after the Our Father and the Hail Mary, the favorite prayers of interior souls. We should repeat them often until we attain that true understanding that the Holy Ghost can give us.
And, in imitation of the Apostles, when they retired to the Cenacle to await the coming of the Paraclete, we should associate our supplications with those of the Immaculate Heart of Mary— “All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with … Mary the mother of Jesus” (Acts 1:14)—the Virgin most faithful and the Heavenly spouse of the Holy Ghost.
The beautiful invocation of the litany of the Blessed Virgin, “Virgin most faithful, pray for us,” should be one of the favorite ejaculations of the souls that thirst for God. The Divine Spirit will be communicated to us in the measure of our fidelity to grace, and this fidelity must be obtained through Mary, the universal Mediatrix of all graces by will of God.
Article 28
Thursday May 25th, 2023
Preparing for Pentecost : Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost
#5 The Gift of Counsel ― For the Confused and Clueless!
Thursday May 25th, 2023
Preparing for Pentecost : Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost
#5 The Gift of Counsel ― For the Confused and Clueless!
“Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord? Or who hath been His counselor and has taught Him?” (Isaias 40:13) … “For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14).
Counsel, in general, is an advice, which is the result of our own or of another’s reflection, and which influences the line of action to be taken in some event or issue of our lives, or of some special undertaking. We may even say that counsel is an advice given by somebody.
Uncertainty in Life
How often in our lives are we not in serious doubt! Our minds are harassed from every side, no matter where we turn we are greeted by indecision. This is especially true today ― when, more than ever, we are torn between our Faith and the world. We may long for some ray of light to guide us in a serious undertaking, but it is not forthcoming. How can that cloud, that thick shadow of doubt, be laid aside? How are we to enter into the sunlight of certitude? What is our usual everyday solution? Usually, we ask for advice, we seek counsel. We seek out the most wise and reputable adviser possible—it may be the best priest, the best doctor, the best lawyer, the best broker, the best mechanic, etc., that we know or can afford. If we are young, we consult those placed over us, our parents or our guides, and we cast away all anxious doubt by relying on their decision; in religion we seek the advice of our superiors; and in the world we ask counsel from our dearest friend, who is always ready to help us, who perhaps has often or always advised us in our anxieties, and whose advice has always proven trustworthy.
Seeking Advice
At all events, whenever we are in doubt as to the course to follow, we seek counsel. Moreover, this is what Holy Scripture tells us to do, “Seek counsel always of a good wise man” (Tobias 4:19). Our fortune, honor or even life may depend upon the counsel that we receive! And if we truly had our own interests seriously at heart, and if our souls were not so disposed to pride and independence, how happy and contented we should be to seek counsel from others! How many useless regrets! How many bitter tears it would spare us!
If man needs advice so often on worldly affairs―on the business of every-day life―how much more does he not need it on things regarding the world of the supernatural? It is also clear that man’s willingness to follow a piece of advice becomes greater in proportion as the advice brings light, knowledge and certainty and excludes all doubt. If this is true of human advice, how much more true is it for the Gift of Counsel, which does all this and more, and in a way far superior to the ability of any human adviser.
Divine Advice
Souls who are free from mortal sin; whose are in the state of grace; receive, from the Divine Spirit, advice concerning their supernatural destiny, so that they may reach Heaven in all security, in all certainty. The doubts—which may cloud the path along the steep, narrow and dangerous mountain pass that leads from Earth to Heaven—are melted away before the powerful and penetrating rays of this heavenly sun. The sun we speak of is none other than the light conveyed by the Holy Ghost in one of His seven Gifts―that of Counsel. However, it must be pointed out and stressed that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost will only work in our souls in proportion to the degree in which have worked at acquiring virtues―God is not going to reward spiritual sloth and religious indifference and lukewarmness!
Advice and Freedom
St. Thomas Aquinas says that the Gift of Counsel leads us on, and guides us, in all the undertakings whose final end or goal is eternal life. It matters little whether these undertakings are absolutely necessary or not; as, for him who obeys God’s law, who does God’s will in all things, all paths lead to Heaven, nor, is any one of them, taken separately, strictly necessary. Again, as the advice of any man does not oppose or destroy our personal freedom, so also the Gift of Counsel is no enemy of human freedom, it only elevates and perfects it, in a supernatural way.
Where Am I Headed?
The object of my existence here below is to gain Heaven. What is the surest way, the most practical means of reaching Heaven? Am I to live in the world? If so, am I to remain single or should I marry? Or am I to enter into the sanctuary of God’s holy priesthood (men) or the Religious life (men and women)? If so, am I to be a secular priest, or a priest within a Religious Order? If the latter, am I to enter a contemplative Order, or one devoted to the active ministry? And, finally, of these which one is to be the object of my choice? St. John Bosco was of the opinion that one-out-of four persons is called to the priesthood or Religious life. How many have failed to fulfill God’s wishes due to a lack of light and direction? The Gift of Counsel would have given that light and direction—but let us not forget that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost will only work at full steam after we have spent a decent length of time in the apprenticeship of acquiring and practicing the virtues. Today’s world is not very conducive to a successful apprenticeship!
Various Paths—Various Destinations
I look around me, and without going beyond the family circle perhaps, I find different members following different paths to the one destined goal—Eternity and Heaven. My parents, brothers, sisters, relatives and friends may have chosen different courses—some taking paths that lead to God, others taking paths that lead away from God and are worldly. Will I follow the beaten path of the world outside, or the narrow passage of the chosen few? Here, I am face to face with the business of my own salvation; and I am in doubt. Who shall rid me of my difficulties? I cannot expect much light from men, for no one knows my mind better than myself. All alone, it is only prayer to the Father of Light that will assist me. I pray. I pray intensely. In an instant my mind is made up, all doubt has vanished, profound peace floods the soul; and the light given is nothing else than the Gift of Counsel.
Yet, we must keep repeating the fact that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost will usually only work best if we have persevered for a certain time in the acquisition and practice of the many virtues. All the Gifts of the Holy will only work in proportion to the efforts we have put into the acquisition of virtues―Holy Scripture gives us the principle for this, or “a rule-of-thumb”, when it says: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting! … He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who sows in blessings, shall also reap blessings!” (Galatians 6:8; 2 Corinthians 9:6). God is not going to reward laziness, lukewarmness and indifference!
Led, Yet Free
Those led by the Spirit of God, lose nothing of their liberty, but they lose all of their doubts. The Gift of Counsel enlightens our mind and urges us to leap up to do the will of God, instead of plunging down into pride by doing our own will. In a single simple supernatural intuition―under the enlightenment of the Holy Ghost―the soul sees, as far as is opportune, the end, goal, target, purpose of its action and the means which are best adapted to the circumstances in achieving that goal.
How human liberty is preserved by the Gift of Counsel is a mystery of the movement of the Holy Ghost. In the intimate instruction or inspiration, which the Holy Ghost gives to the soul in Counsel, there seems to be no alternative but to obey. The Holy Ghost does not negotiate or engage in arbitration, but asks complete acceptance, since such is the law of grace: “For it is God Who works in you―both to will and to accomplish―according to His good will” (Philippians 2:13).
In surrendering all personal deliberation to God, the soul that is obedient to the Gift of Counsel, does not lose its liberty. On the contrary, it gains a sureness and determination, which rebukes the false elation of pride. Knowing the will of God, with a certitude inspired by the Spirit of God, the soul has no need of a more humanly acceptable explanation to assure it that, following the promptings of Gift of Counsel, the soul is both pre-eminently free and prudent. Obedience to God is at once the greatest of human sacrifices and its most clear-cut perfection. Complete obedience is the work of the Gift of Counsel. In its scope are works more pleasing to God than acts of sacrifice performed in the virtue of Religion, and from it proceed acts which rise above, not only the perversity of men, but even their best efforts.
Not Fully Understanding, But Still Confident
The soul with the Gift of Counsel does not ask for a clear realization and understanding of every aspect of each situation. It asks only a sign of God’s will, a smile of approval or a frown of warning, interiorly manifested through the Holy Ghost. The ordinary signs of God’s will—His prohibitions, precepts, permissions, exteriorly revealed counsels, or the pattern of his own acts—may be lacking, but the Gift of Counsel grants an interior assurance in an act of discernment of good from evil, the greater good from the lesser, in each situation which would confound the soul functioning under ordinary prudential judgments.
When the will of God is manifested interiorly, even if no exterior obligation or law binds it, the soul finds itself with the choice of either serving God or sinning. Yet the soul is not told what to do and then left without further assistance from the Holy Ghost. It is also instructed concerning the immediate circumstances of its act and any possible impediments. St. Peter was told by God to evangelize and baptize the Gentiles―although prudence and Jewish Law would tell him that “it is not permissible for a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him” (Acts 10:28 ff.). Nevertheless, following the promptings of the Holy Ghost through His Gift of Counsel, Peter still came to the no-Jew Cornelius, so that “the grace of the Holy Ghost was poured out upon the Gentiles also” (Acts 10:45).
Hey God! No Trespassing!
Many lukewarm or worldly souls, imagine that the Holy Ghost and His Gift of Counsel are ‘trespassing’ upon modern man’s independence―and see this as a reason to deny the Holy Ghost entry into the soul. These lukewarm and worldly souls may happily be the slaves of every kind of bad habit and sin, or the dupes of any kind of deception, but to serve the will of God under inspiration seems repugnant. They will not serve Him Whose counsels they have not shared. Because they cannot understand precisely how the Holy Ghost works within the soul, to conceive within it right intentions and judgments, therefore, they militantly defend their puny exaggerated human liberty at whatever price ― “who mind earthly things” (Philippians 3:19). “They liked not to have God in their knowledge” (Romans 1:28). “Who have said to God: ‘Depart from us! We desire not the knowledge of thy ways!’” (Job 21:14).
Don’t Cramp My Style!
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that man was made to be happy—unfortunately, like a baby seeking to alleviate its thirst with a bottle of colorless ammonia, thinking it to be water―man seeks to slake his thirst for happiness with things that are harmful, but which he falsely reckons to be good.
Happiness can be identified with nothing further afield than the greener grass next door, and the soul, with serpent-like scheming or bullish brashness, tries to overcome or undermine any moral barriers to obtain it. Once the grass or any other created good is gained, the soul is not satisfied, and looks again for something else. Over and over again the mind changes its final end, and tries to adjust to it a new set of means. With each new experience it is less sure of itself, a little more indifferent and appreciably more inconsistent, since “a double-minded man is inconstant in all his ways” (James 1:8).
Double-Minded, Two-Faced
This duplicity of mind arises principally from pleasure-seeking. Sensual satisfactions delight, distract, and then destroy a person’s judgment in practical matters, long before they obliterate his knowledge or judgment of speculative or practical principles. In each sin, his mind retains the rules of conduct, but it does not apply them. In a kind of stupor the mind finds itself unwilling, or by habit incapable, of applying its memory of the past experiences to the judgment of the present experience, in view of the future. It casts aside its accepted principles, rather than apply them to the current situation, because it is not sufficiently concerned about the consequences of its action: “Eat, drink and be merry,” for science has a remedy for hangovers and Hell. Only the present moment, or the past in dreams and the future in desires to be currently enjoyed, concerns the person animalized by sensuality, and his only counsel is the impulse to grasp and gulp down every pleasure within reach. Yet, in each sensual act, a man’s mind is a little queasy, since what his practical judgment demands at the moment, his other mind—his judgment of principles—has rejected for all time. In other words, he is like a schizophrenic in the spiritual domain—two minded, two faced—convinced that he really can serve mammon and God.
Avarice
Another less common, but no less uncontrolled source of a double mind and a doubting heart, is avarice. With two heads and no heart, the avaricious are excessive in their prudence, rather than inept. They ignore the wise man’s admonition: “Labor not to be rich; but set bounds to thy prudence” (Proverbs 23:4), and they put a fine edge on their reasoning powers at the grinding wheel of many worldly motivated sacrifices. Sacrifices are made, moreover, not only to gain wealth, but to get one’s own way.
More subtle than the avarice of wealth is the avarice for dominance and control. Assuming authority, attracting and absorbing attention, minding other people’s business—these things often give a perverted soul a tidy sum in self-satisfaction. Many sacrifices of honor may have to be made, and the soul may have to engage in crafty maneuvering—one moment they are faking obedience and giving off the odor of false humility; the next moment they are highly offended, but the eventual possession and control of the emotional strings, which make puppets of other people, seems worth it. In either avarice there is a false caricature of prudence and a contradiction to the Gift of Counsel. The motives for avarice are as much a part of carnal prudence as sensual delight. Its methods—astuteness, fraud, and deceit—are far more ruthless. Astuteness formulates the tactics, while deceit and fraud carry them out.
To be led by the Spirit of God means to ask God’s guidance. “But,” says Cardinal Manning, “impetuous men are led by the flesh, and not by the Spirit; and having set out on the way of their own choosing, they come to crosses and sorrows. Then, they begin to ask counsel of God, but they ask it too late.” (Internal Mission, p. 344). God will not hear them; they are thrown back into the hands of their own counsel, their hearts filled with darkness and indecision. Each step takes them farther into the night of doubt; they have lost their paths, and all that is left to them is despair.
The Nature of the Gift of Counsel
The Gift of Counsel is a supernatural habit by which the soul in the state of grace, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, judges rightly in particular events what ought to be done in view of its supernatural ultimate end. The following should be noted in regard to this definition:
(a) The Gifts of the Holy Ghost are not passing or temporary motions or simple actual graces, but supernatural habits infused by God in the soul together with sanctifying grace.
(b) The Holy Ghost activates the Gift of Counsel to be a moving cause; but the soul in a state of sanctifying grace collaborates as instrumental cause, through the virtue of prudence, to produce a supernatural act. These acts are performed promptly and as if by instinct, without needing the slow and laborious interior discussion of the reason explaining why this or that line of action is safe and sound and reasonable.
(c) The supernatural virtue of prudence correctly judges what has to be done at a given moment, guided by the light of reason illumined by Faith. But the Gift of Counsel quickly discovers what has to be done by the instinct and motion of the Holy Ghost, that is to say, by entirely divine reasons, which are often unknown to the very soul that performs the act. For this reason, in the virtue of prudence the way of action is discursive, while in the Gift it is intuitive, divine or superhuman.
These ways of defining the Gift of Counsel do not differ substantially from Cardinal Manning’s description of it, when he says, “It is a certain quality or perfection, infused into the reason of man, by the Grace of the Holy Ghost, whereby the reason is made able to discern, not only right and wrong, not only the way of obedience, but also the way of perfection; that is to know that which between two things, both good and right, is better, higher and more pleasing to God. It gives also ... a ready will to do and carry out into practice, that which we see to be the higher and better part” (Internal Mission, pp. 333, ff.).
Its Importance and Necessity
The intervention of the Gift of Counsel is indispensable for perfecting the virtue of prudence, above all, in certain sudden cases that are difficult to solve―yet require an immediate judgment, since falling into sin or heroism can be a matter of an instant. Such cases―which are less rare than is commonly believed―cannot be resolved by the slow and laborious work of the virtue of prudence. The intervention of the Gift of Counsel is necessary; it will provide the instantaneous solution as to what should be done.
Father Lallemant writes: “We may notice in several places of Scripture admirable instances of the Gift of Counsel; as in the silence of Our Lord before Herod, and in the answers He made to save the woman taken in adultery, and to confound those who demanded of Him if it were lawful to pay tribute to Caesar; in the judgement of Solomon; in the enterprise of Judith, to deliver the people of God from the army of Holofernes; in the conduct of Daniel to justify Susanna, against the calumny of the two elders; in that of St. Paul, when he set the Pharisees against the Sadducees and when he appealed from the tribunal of Festus to that of Caesar” (Spiritual Teaching, p. 151).
Natural Prudence, Supernatural Prudence, Divine Prudence
Natural Prudence
Before performing any deliberate action, we go through a mental process with the purpose of examining carefully, not only the lawfulness of what we intend to do, but also its convenience, its timeliness. Ordinarily we are not aware of this process, just as we are not aware of what happens when our food goes through the digestive tract, to be assimilated by the entire organism. Precisely because we are accustomed to use our intelligence to regulate our actions, the procedure goes by unnoticed. But on certain occasions, in more difficult and complicated activities, when we do not see our way clearly and immediately, then, because of our greater concentration on the matter, we are aware of our deliberation.
It is no easy thing to determine what should be done in difficult matters, and to know what should be known about the lawfulness, the appropriateness, and the opportuneness of an act. We analyze, reflect, and recall the past to guide us in the present and to foresee the future — and how many times, after we have reflected and analyzed at great length, we still do not know what to do in a given circumstance, but have to go to a wiser, more experienced person for advice.
The Supernatural Virtue of Prudence
To help us determine what should be done in a particular case, we have Prudence in the natural order, and the infused virtue of Prudence, which bears the same name, in the supernatural order. The virtue of Prudence is not the speculative knowledge of ordinary spiritual things; it is the application of this knowledge and these general principles to concrete cases with their special circumstances of time, place, manner, etc. Prudence is a difficult virtue to practice — not only the prudence needed to direct others, but even that prudence which is indispensable in governing ourselves. It is difficult because, while we must look upward in order to work according to higher principles and rules, we must look downward and remain in touch with this prosaic earth in order to be aware of each one of the circumstances that surround the contemplated act.
But in this matter, as in all others in the spiritual life, the virtue is not enough. Timidity and uncertainty, as we have already seen, are the usual characteristics of prudence the virtue. How difficult to unite prudence and boldness! There are bold men who are unmindful of prudence, and there are men who seem prudent yet who do not dare to do the bold things they should. At the same time, our decisions are uncertain. In any matter whatsoever, and especially in spiritual things, how difficult it is to arrive at stability and security! We plan and arrange things without having the assurance that they will attain the desired result; our procedures are unsure and do not always bring about what we have intended.
Divine Prudence
Therefore human prudence would not be enough, supernatural prudence itself, prudence the virtue, would not be enough, to lead us to the heights of glory. Human life is so complicated, so difficult, the ways by which we reach perfection are so painful, we find so many troubles, so many contradictions in our life, that if we had no other direction, we would never attain our end.
But God, who never fails us in our needs, has given us a Gift by which the Holy Ghost becomes our guide. As the archangel Raphael led Tobias on his journey, so the Spirit who lives in our souls guides us along the winding and troublesome paths of this life, until we reach our perfection in the inexpressibly loving embrace of God.
That superior prudence, that divine prudence which is the fruit of a movement of the Holy Ghost, is the Gift of Counsel. It does not have the same name as the virtue, because the prudence we receive from the Gift of Counsel does not spring from the depths of our intelligence; it comes to us from above, from a superior Being: it is communicated to us by the Spirit.
Prudence, ruled by reason, gives a human mode to our actions: uncertainty and timidity; whereas the Holy Ghost puts a divine character on the acts that proceed from the Gift of Counsel. The virtue and the Gift have different norms. That of the virtue is right reason, enlightened by faith, which helps us to judge whether we should perform such and such an action at a certain time. The norm of the Gift is higher; it is divine, it is eternal reason, the norm of God.
The Gift of Counsel in Saints
At times the saints have been able to do things that fill us with amazement. For example, St. Catherine of Siena spent entire Lenten periods without any other food than Holy Communion. In the light of human prudence, there is no justification for this. Right reason demands that we give our bodies the necessary food; it prohibits such excesses, though at the same time it does not tolerate neglect of mortification, for the middle way must always prevail in the practice of virtue. But St. Catherine accomplished this amazing thing because of a superior instinct, a divine norm. She did not see the usual rule of reason; she saw the exalted rule of the will of God. This is the way of the Gift of Counsel.
When we work under its direction our decisions will be quick, sure and audacious. With what boldness do the saints proceed, with what security, and with what rapidity! They do not follow the counsels of men, nor the dictates of their own reason. They have a higher norm: eternal reason, the mind of God, that illuminates their spirit and lays before them the road they should follow.
In numerous instances we can discover the influence, the effect, of this Gift upon the saints. For example, how could St. Vincent Ferrer have performed miracles with such naturalness, if he had not been guided by the Gift of Counsel? The saint would speak a few words from the Gospel, then add: “In the name of Jesus Christ, you are now healed”; and he worked these miracles just in passing, as any ordinary act of his life. Now, if one of us should try to imitate St. Vincent and perform miracles, he would commit a gravely imprudent act. St. Vincent could perform them because the Holy Ghost moved him; because he was in a singular manner under the direction of the Spirit.
First Degree of the Gift of Counsel
In this Gift, as in all the others, there are degrees. In the first degree, the soul succeeds rapidly in doing the will of God as regards what is immediately necessary in the spiritual life. It is no simple thing to have this, security. While the known will of God is by no means always easy to fulfill, yet it is often more difficult to know God’s will than to fulfill it. Have we not all found ourselves in situations in which we could not exactly say what our obligation was? What did God want us to do in such cases? The Gift of Counsel helps us to answer that question in a quick and certain manner.
The Gifts work in us simultaneously, or rather, the Holy Ghost makes us work and advance under the influence of His Gifts, and on some occasions several of them cooperate in the work of our spiritual life, just as many organs cooperate in our body, and many faculties in our soul. But in this world of the Gifts, the actions that proceed from them have to be ruled by the Gift of Counsel.
Now this Gift also influences the actions of our everyday life, those actions that are ruled by the ordinary virtue of prudence. As in a battle the general who has the responsibility of a special division works with freedom in it, but receives orders from a higher chief, so the virtue of prudence rules our actions, but receives directives from another, more excellent supernatural arbiter, the Gift of Counsel.
Second Degree of the Gift of Counsel
In the second degree, the Gift of Counsel shows us the will of God, our designated way, not only in the necessary things of our spiritual life, but also in the things of counsel; in the things that, while not absolutely obligatory, are very beneficial and useful for helping us to reach God.
Third Degree of the Gift of Counsel
In the third degree, the soul seems to rise from the earth and to live in another, higher world. The hand of God guides it with security, without mishap, and without timidity. The soul goes along the path that our Lord indicates, until it arrives at that height of perfection to which it has been called by God.
Means to Foster This Gift
Apart from the general means for fostering the Gifts (recollection, life of prayer, fidelity to grace, and the like), upon which we can never insist too much, the following greatly help us to dispose ourselves for the actuation of the Gift of Counsel when it becomes necessary:
(a) Cultivating a profound humility, in order to recognize our own ignorance and to ask for guidance from on high. Humble and persevering prayer is irresistible in face of the mercy of God. We should invoke the Holy Ghost when we rise in the morning, to ask Him for His direction and counsel throughout the day; at the beginning of each action, with a simple and brief movement of the heart that will be at the same time an act of love; in difficult and dangerous moments, when more than ever we need the lights of Heaven; before making an important decision or giving orientation to others, or the like.
(b) Accustoming ourselves to act always with reflection and without haste. All human effort and diligence are often insufficient for acting with prudence, as we have already noted. However, God does not deny His grace to anyone who does his best. When it becomes necessary, the Gift of Counsel will unfailingly act to make up for our ignorance and inability; but we should not tempt God, expecting to receive by Divine means what we can provide by the means He has placed within our reach with the help of ordinary grace.
(c) Listening in silence to the voice of God. If we emptied our minds and shut out the noise and tumult of the world, we would frequently hear the voice of God, which usually speaks to the heart in solitude (cf. Osee 2:14). The soul must flee the exterior tumult and completely relax the spirit in order to hear the lessons of eternal life that the Divine Master will explain to it, as He did to Mary of Bethany, who sat calm and quiet at His feet (cf. Luke 10:39).
(d) Practicing perfect docility and obedience to those whom God has placed in the Church to govern us. Let us imitate the example of the saints. St. Teresa, as we have seen, obeyed her confessors even in preference to Our Lord Himself, and He praised her conduct. The docile, obedient and humble soul is in the best of conditions to receive enlightenment from on high. On the contrary, nothing removes us farther from the mysterious echo of the voice of God than the spirit of self-sufficiency and insubordination to His legitimate representatives on Earth.
Counsel, in general, is an advice, which is the result of our own or of another’s reflection, and which influences the line of action to be taken in some event or issue of our lives, or of some special undertaking. We may even say that counsel is an advice given by somebody.
Uncertainty in Life
How often in our lives are we not in serious doubt! Our minds are harassed from every side, no matter where we turn we are greeted by indecision. This is especially true today ― when, more than ever, we are torn between our Faith and the world. We may long for some ray of light to guide us in a serious undertaking, but it is not forthcoming. How can that cloud, that thick shadow of doubt, be laid aside? How are we to enter into the sunlight of certitude? What is our usual everyday solution? Usually, we ask for advice, we seek counsel. We seek out the most wise and reputable adviser possible—it may be the best priest, the best doctor, the best lawyer, the best broker, the best mechanic, etc., that we know or can afford. If we are young, we consult those placed over us, our parents or our guides, and we cast away all anxious doubt by relying on their decision; in religion we seek the advice of our superiors; and in the world we ask counsel from our dearest friend, who is always ready to help us, who perhaps has often or always advised us in our anxieties, and whose advice has always proven trustworthy.
Seeking Advice
At all events, whenever we are in doubt as to the course to follow, we seek counsel. Moreover, this is what Holy Scripture tells us to do, “Seek counsel always of a good wise man” (Tobias 4:19). Our fortune, honor or even life may depend upon the counsel that we receive! And if we truly had our own interests seriously at heart, and if our souls were not so disposed to pride and independence, how happy and contented we should be to seek counsel from others! How many useless regrets! How many bitter tears it would spare us!
If man needs advice so often on worldly affairs―on the business of every-day life―how much more does he not need it on things regarding the world of the supernatural? It is also clear that man’s willingness to follow a piece of advice becomes greater in proportion as the advice brings light, knowledge and certainty and excludes all doubt. If this is true of human advice, how much more true is it for the Gift of Counsel, which does all this and more, and in a way far superior to the ability of any human adviser.
Divine Advice
Souls who are free from mortal sin; whose are in the state of grace; receive, from the Divine Spirit, advice concerning their supernatural destiny, so that they may reach Heaven in all security, in all certainty. The doubts—which may cloud the path along the steep, narrow and dangerous mountain pass that leads from Earth to Heaven—are melted away before the powerful and penetrating rays of this heavenly sun. The sun we speak of is none other than the light conveyed by the Holy Ghost in one of His seven Gifts―that of Counsel. However, it must be pointed out and stressed that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost will only work in our souls in proportion to the degree in which have worked at acquiring virtues―God is not going to reward spiritual sloth and religious indifference and lukewarmness!
Advice and Freedom
St. Thomas Aquinas says that the Gift of Counsel leads us on, and guides us, in all the undertakings whose final end or goal is eternal life. It matters little whether these undertakings are absolutely necessary or not; as, for him who obeys God’s law, who does God’s will in all things, all paths lead to Heaven, nor, is any one of them, taken separately, strictly necessary. Again, as the advice of any man does not oppose or destroy our personal freedom, so also the Gift of Counsel is no enemy of human freedom, it only elevates and perfects it, in a supernatural way.
Where Am I Headed?
The object of my existence here below is to gain Heaven. What is the surest way, the most practical means of reaching Heaven? Am I to live in the world? If so, am I to remain single or should I marry? Or am I to enter into the sanctuary of God’s holy priesthood (men) or the Religious life (men and women)? If so, am I to be a secular priest, or a priest within a Religious Order? If the latter, am I to enter a contemplative Order, or one devoted to the active ministry? And, finally, of these which one is to be the object of my choice? St. John Bosco was of the opinion that one-out-of four persons is called to the priesthood or Religious life. How many have failed to fulfill God’s wishes due to a lack of light and direction? The Gift of Counsel would have given that light and direction—but let us not forget that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost will only work at full steam after we have spent a decent length of time in the apprenticeship of acquiring and practicing the virtues. Today’s world is not very conducive to a successful apprenticeship!
Various Paths—Various Destinations
I look around me, and without going beyond the family circle perhaps, I find different members following different paths to the one destined goal—Eternity and Heaven. My parents, brothers, sisters, relatives and friends may have chosen different courses—some taking paths that lead to God, others taking paths that lead away from God and are worldly. Will I follow the beaten path of the world outside, or the narrow passage of the chosen few? Here, I am face to face with the business of my own salvation; and I am in doubt. Who shall rid me of my difficulties? I cannot expect much light from men, for no one knows my mind better than myself. All alone, it is only prayer to the Father of Light that will assist me. I pray. I pray intensely. In an instant my mind is made up, all doubt has vanished, profound peace floods the soul; and the light given is nothing else than the Gift of Counsel.
Yet, we must keep repeating the fact that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost will usually only work best if we have persevered for a certain time in the acquisition and practice of the many virtues. All the Gifts of the Holy will only work in proportion to the efforts we have put into the acquisition of virtues―Holy Scripture gives us the principle for this, or “a rule-of-thumb”, when it says: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting! … He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who sows in blessings, shall also reap blessings!” (Galatians 6:8; 2 Corinthians 9:6). God is not going to reward laziness, lukewarmness and indifference!
Led, Yet Free
Those led by the Spirit of God, lose nothing of their liberty, but they lose all of their doubts. The Gift of Counsel enlightens our mind and urges us to leap up to do the will of God, instead of plunging down into pride by doing our own will. In a single simple supernatural intuition―under the enlightenment of the Holy Ghost―the soul sees, as far as is opportune, the end, goal, target, purpose of its action and the means which are best adapted to the circumstances in achieving that goal.
How human liberty is preserved by the Gift of Counsel is a mystery of the movement of the Holy Ghost. In the intimate instruction or inspiration, which the Holy Ghost gives to the soul in Counsel, there seems to be no alternative but to obey. The Holy Ghost does not negotiate or engage in arbitration, but asks complete acceptance, since such is the law of grace: “For it is God Who works in you―both to will and to accomplish―according to His good will” (Philippians 2:13).
In surrendering all personal deliberation to God, the soul that is obedient to the Gift of Counsel, does not lose its liberty. On the contrary, it gains a sureness and determination, which rebukes the false elation of pride. Knowing the will of God, with a certitude inspired by the Spirit of God, the soul has no need of a more humanly acceptable explanation to assure it that, following the promptings of Gift of Counsel, the soul is both pre-eminently free and prudent. Obedience to God is at once the greatest of human sacrifices and its most clear-cut perfection. Complete obedience is the work of the Gift of Counsel. In its scope are works more pleasing to God than acts of sacrifice performed in the virtue of Religion, and from it proceed acts which rise above, not only the perversity of men, but even their best efforts.
Not Fully Understanding, But Still Confident
The soul with the Gift of Counsel does not ask for a clear realization and understanding of every aspect of each situation. It asks only a sign of God’s will, a smile of approval or a frown of warning, interiorly manifested through the Holy Ghost. The ordinary signs of God’s will—His prohibitions, precepts, permissions, exteriorly revealed counsels, or the pattern of his own acts—may be lacking, but the Gift of Counsel grants an interior assurance in an act of discernment of good from evil, the greater good from the lesser, in each situation which would confound the soul functioning under ordinary prudential judgments.
When the will of God is manifested interiorly, even if no exterior obligation or law binds it, the soul finds itself with the choice of either serving God or sinning. Yet the soul is not told what to do and then left without further assistance from the Holy Ghost. It is also instructed concerning the immediate circumstances of its act and any possible impediments. St. Peter was told by God to evangelize and baptize the Gentiles―although prudence and Jewish Law would tell him that “it is not permissible for a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him” (Acts 10:28 ff.). Nevertheless, following the promptings of the Holy Ghost through His Gift of Counsel, Peter still came to the no-Jew Cornelius, so that “the grace of the Holy Ghost was poured out upon the Gentiles also” (Acts 10:45).
Hey God! No Trespassing!
Many lukewarm or worldly souls, imagine that the Holy Ghost and His Gift of Counsel are ‘trespassing’ upon modern man’s independence―and see this as a reason to deny the Holy Ghost entry into the soul. These lukewarm and worldly souls may happily be the slaves of every kind of bad habit and sin, or the dupes of any kind of deception, but to serve the will of God under inspiration seems repugnant. They will not serve Him Whose counsels they have not shared. Because they cannot understand precisely how the Holy Ghost works within the soul, to conceive within it right intentions and judgments, therefore, they militantly defend their puny exaggerated human liberty at whatever price ― “who mind earthly things” (Philippians 3:19). “They liked not to have God in their knowledge” (Romans 1:28). “Who have said to God: ‘Depart from us! We desire not the knowledge of thy ways!’” (Job 21:14).
Don’t Cramp My Style!
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that man was made to be happy—unfortunately, like a baby seeking to alleviate its thirst with a bottle of colorless ammonia, thinking it to be water―man seeks to slake his thirst for happiness with things that are harmful, but which he falsely reckons to be good.
Happiness can be identified with nothing further afield than the greener grass next door, and the soul, with serpent-like scheming or bullish brashness, tries to overcome or undermine any moral barriers to obtain it. Once the grass or any other created good is gained, the soul is not satisfied, and looks again for something else. Over and over again the mind changes its final end, and tries to adjust to it a new set of means. With each new experience it is less sure of itself, a little more indifferent and appreciably more inconsistent, since “a double-minded man is inconstant in all his ways” (James 1:8).
Double-Minded, Two-Faced
This duplicity of mind arises principally from pleasure-seeking. Sensual satisfactions delight, distract, and then destroy a person’s judgment in practical matters, long before they obliterate his knowledge or judgment of speculative or practical principles. In each sin, his mind retains the rules of conduct, but it does not apply them. In a kind of stupor the mind finds itself unwilling, or by habit incapable, of applying its memory of the past experiences to the judgment of the present experience, in view of the future. It casts aside its accepted principles, rather than apply them to the current situation, because it is not sufficiently concerned about the consequences of its action: “Eat, drink and be merry,” for science has a remedy for hangovers and Hell. Only the present moment, or the past in dreams and the future in desires to be currently enjoyed, concerns the person animalized by sensuality, and his only counsel is the impulse to grasp and gulp down every pleasure within reach. Yet, in each sensual act, a man’s mind is a little queasy, since what his practical judgment demands at the moment, his other mind—his judgment of principles—has rejected for all time. In other words, he is like a schizophrenic in the spiritual domain—two minded, two faced—convinced that he really can serve mammon and God.
Avarice
Another less common, but no less uncontrolled source of a double mind and a doubting heart, is avarice. With two heads and no heart, the avaricious are excessive in their prudence, rather than inept. They ignore the wise man’s admonition: “Labor not to be rich; but set bounds to thy prudence” (Proverbs 23:4), and they put a fine edge on their reasoning powers at the grinding wheel of many worldly motivated sacrifices. Sacrifices are made, moreover, not only to gain wealth, but to get one’s own way.
More subtle than the avarice of wealth is the avarice for dominance and control. Assuming authority, attracting and absorbing attention, minding other people’s business—these things often give a perverted soul a tidy sum in self-satisfaction. Many sacrifices of honor may have to be made, and the soul may have to engage in crafty maneuvering—one moment they are faking obedience and giving off the odor of false humility; the next moment they are highly offended, but the eventual possession and control of the emotional strings, which make puppets of other people, seems worth it. In either avarice there is a false caricature of prudence and a contradiction to the Gift of Counsel. The motives for avarice are as much a part of carnal prudence as sensual delight. Its methods—astuteness, fraud, and deceit—are far more ruthless. Astuteness formulates the tactics, while deceit and fraud carry them out.
To be led by the Spirit of God means to ask God’s guidance. “But,” says Cardinal Manning, “impetuous men are led by the flesh, and not by the Spirit; and having set out on the way of their own choosing, they come to crosses and sorrows. Then, they begin to ask counsel of God, but they ask it too late.” (Internal Mission, p. 344). God will not hear them; they are thrown back into the hands of their own counsel, their hearts filled with darkness and indecision. Each step takes them farther into the night of doubt; they have lost their paths, and all that is left to them is despair.
The Nature of the Gift of Counsel
The Gift of Counsel is a supernatural habit by which the soul in the state of grace, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, judges rightly in particular events what ought to be done in view of its supernatural ultimate end. The following should be noted in regard to this definition:
(a) The Gifts of the Holy Ghost are not passing or temporary motions or simple actual graces, but supernatural habits infused by God in the soul together with sanctifying grace.
(b) The Holy Ghost activates the Gift of Counsel to be a moving cause; but the soul in a state of sanctifying grace collaborates as instrumental cause, through the virtue of prudence, to produce a supernatural act. These acts are performed promptly and as if by instinct, without needing the slow and laborious interior discussion of the reason explaining why this or that line of action is safe and sound and reasonable.
(c) The supernatural virtue of prudence correctly judges what has to be done at a given moment, guided by the light of reason illumined by Faith. But the Gift of Counsel quickly discovers what has to be done by the instinct and motion of the Holy Ghost, that is to say, by entirely divine reasons, which are often unknown to the very soul that performs the act. For this reason, in the virtue of prudence the way of action is discursive, while in the Gift it is intuitive, divine or superhuman.
These ways of defining the Gift of Counsel do not differ substantially from Cardinal Manning’s description of it, when he says, “It is a certain quality or perfection, infused into the reason of man, by the Grace of the Holy Ghost, whereby the reason is made able to discern, not only right and wrong, not only the way of obedience, but also the way of perfection; that is to know that which between two things, both good and right, is better, higher and more pleasing to God. It gives also ... a ready will to do and carry out into practice, that which we see to be the higher and better part” (Internal Mission, pp. 333, ff.).
Its Importance and Necessity
The intervention of the Gift of Counsel is indispensable for perfecting the virtue of prudence, above all, in certain sudden cases that are difficult to solve―yet require an immediate judgment, since falling into sin or heroism can be a matter of an instant. Such cases―which are less rare than is commonly believed―cannot be resolved by the slow and laborious work of the virtue of prudence. The intervention of the Gift of Counsel is necessary; it will provide the instantaneous solution as to what should be done.
Father Lallemant writes: “We may notice in several places of Scripture admirable instances of the Gift of Counsel; as in the silence of Our Lord before Herod, and in the answers He made to save the woman taken in adultery, and to confound those who demanded of Him if it were lawful to pay tribute to Caesar; in the judgement of Solomon; in the enterprise of Judith, to deliver the people of God from the army of Holofernes; in the conduct of Daniel to justify Susanna, against the calumny of the two elders; in that of St. Paul, when he set the Pharisees against the Sadducees and when he appealed from the tribunal of Festus to that of Caesar” (Spiritual Teaching, p. 151).
Natural Prudence, Supernatural Prudence, Divine Prudence
Natural Prudence
Before performing any deliberate action, we go through a mental process with the purpose of examining carefully, not only the lawfulness of what we intend to do, but also its convenience, its timeliness. Ordinarily we are not aware of this process, just as we are not aware of what happens when our food goes through the digestive tract, to be assimilated by the entire organism. Precisely because we are accustomed to use our intelligence to regulate our actions, the procedure goes by unnoticed. But on certain occasions, in more difficult and complicated activities, when we do not see our way clearly and immediately, then, because of our greater concentration on the matter, we are aware of our deliberation.
It is no easy thing to determine what should be done in difficult matters, and to know what should be known about the lawfulness, the appropriateness, and the opportuneness of an act. We analyze, reflect, and recall the past to guide us in the present and to foresee the future — and how many times, after we have reflected and analyzed at great length, we still do not know what to do in a given circumstance, but have to go to a wiser, more experienced person for advice.
The Supernatural Virtue of Prudence
To help us determine what should be done in a particular case, we have Prudence in the natural order, and the infused virtue of Prudence, which bears the same name, in the supernatural order. The virtue of Prudence is not the speculative knowledge of ordinary spiritual things; it is the application of this knowledge and these general principles to concrete cases with their special circumstances of time, place, manner, etc. Prudence is a difficult virtue to practice — not only the prudence needed to direct others, but even that prudence which is indispensable in governing ourselves. It is difficult because, while we must look upward in order to work according to higher principles and rules, we must look downward and remain in touch with this prosaic earth in order to be aware of each one of the circumstances that surround the contemplated act.
But in this matter, as in all others in the spiritual life, the virtue is not enough. Timidity and uncertainty, as we have already seen, are the usual characteristics of prudence the virtue. How difficult to unite prudence and boldness! There are bold men who are unmindful of prudence, and there are men who seem prudent yet who do not dare to do the bold things they should. At the same time, our decisions are uncertain. In any matter whatsoever, and especially in spiritual things, how difficult it is to arrive at stability and security! We plan and arrange things without having the assurance that they will attain the desired result; our procedures are unsure and do not always bring about what we have intended.
Divine Prudence
Therefore human prudence would not be enough, supernatural prudence itself, prudence the virtue, would not be enough, to lead us to the heights of glory. Human life is so complicated, so difficult, the ways by which we reach perfection are so painful, we find so many troubles, so many contradictions in our life, that if we had no other direction, we would never attain our end.
But God, who never fails us in our needs, has given us a Gift by which the Holy Ghost becomes our guide. As the archangel Raphael led Tobias on his journey, so the Spirit who lives in our souls guides us along the winding and troublesome paths of this life, until we reach our perfection in the inexpressibly loving embrace of God.
That superior prudence, that divine prudence which is the fruit of a movement of the Holy Ghost, is the Gift of Counsel. It does not have the same name as the virtue, because the prudence we receive from the Gift of Counsel does not spring from the depths of our intelligence; it comes to us from above, from a superior Being: it is communicated to us by the Spirit.
Prudence, ruled by reason, gives a human mode to our actions: uncertainty and timidity; whereas the Holy Ghost puts a divine character on the acts that proceed from the Gift of Counsel. The virtue and the Gift have different norms. That of the virtue is right reason, enlightened by faith, which helps us to judge whether we should perform such and such an action at a certain time. The norm of the Gift is higher; it is divine, it is eternal reason, the norm of God.
The Gift of Counsel in Saints
At times the saints have been able to do things that fill us with amazement. For example, St. Catherine of Siena spent entire Lenten periods without any other food than Holy Communion. In the light of human prudence, there is no justification for this. Right reason demands that we give our bodies the necessary food; it prohibits such excesses, though at the same time it does not tolerate neglect of mortification, for the middle way must always prevail in the practice of virtue. But St. Catherine accomplished this amazing thing because of a superior instinct, a divine norm. She did not see the usual rule of reason; she saw the exalted rule of the will of God. This is the way of the Gift of Counsel.
When we work under its direction our decisions will be quick, sure and audacious. With what boldness do the saints proceed, with what security, and with what rapidity! They do not follow the counsels of men, nor the dictates of their own reason. They have a higher norm: eternal reason, the mind of God, that illuminates their spirit and lays before them the road they should follow.
In numerous instances we can discover the influence, the effect, of this Gift upon the saints. For example, how could St. Vincent Ferrer have performed miracles with such naturalness, if he had not been guided by the Gift of Counsel? The saint would speak a few words from the Gospel, then add: “In the name of Jesus Christ, you are now healed”; and he worked these miracles just in passing, as any ordinary act of his life. Now, if one of us should try to imitate St. Vincent and perform miracles, he would commit a gravely imprudent act. St. Vincent could perform them because the Holy Ghost moved him; because he was in a singular manner under the direction of the Spirit.
First Degree of the Gift of Counsel
In this Gift, as in all the others, there are degrees. In the first degree, the soul succeeds rapidly in doing the will of God as regards what is immediately necessary in the spiritual life. It is no simple thing to have this, security. While the known will of God is by no means always easy to fulfill, yet it is often more difficult to know God’s will than to fulfill it. Have we not all found ourselves in situations in which we could not exactly say what our obligation was? What did God want us to do in such cases? The Gift of Counsel helps us to answer that question in a quick and certain manner.
The Gifts work in us simultaneously, or rather, the Holy Ghost makes us work and advance under the influence of His Gifts, and on some occasions several of them cooperate in the work of our spiritual life, just as many organs cooperate in our body, and many faculties in our soul. But in this world of the Gifts, the actions that proceed from them have to be ruled by the Gift of Counsel.
Now this Gift also influences the actions of our everyday life, those actions that are ruled by the ordinary virtue of prudence. As in a battle the general who has the responsibility of a special division works with freedom in it, but receives orders from a higher chief, so the virtue of prudence rules our actions, but receives directives from another, more excellent supernatural arbiter, the Gift of Counsel.
Second Degree of the Gift of Counsel
In the second degree, the Gift of Counsel shows us the will of God, our designated way, not only in the necessary things of our spiritual life, but also in the things of counsel; in the things that, while not absolutely obligatory, are very beneficial and useful for helping us to reach God.
Third Degree of the Gift of Counsel
In the third degree, the soul seems to rise from the earth and to live in another, higher world. The hand of God guides it with security, without mishap, and without timidity. The soul goes along the path that our Lord indicates, until it arrives at that height of perfection to which it has been called by God.
Means to Foster This Gift
Apart from the general means for fostering the Gifts (recollection, life of prayer, fidelity to grace, and the like), upon which we can never insist too much, the following greatly help us to dispose ourselves for the actuation of the Gift of Counsel when it becomes necessary:
(a) Cultivating a profound humility, in order to recognize our own ignorance and to ask for guidance from on high. Humble and persevering prayer is irresistible in face of the mercy of God. We should invoke the Holy Ghost when we rise in the morning, to ask Him for His direction and counsel throughout the day; at the beginning of each action, with a simple and brief movement of the heart that will be at the same time an act of love; in difficult and dangerous moments, when more than ever we need the lights of Heaven; before making an important decision or giving orientation to others, or the like.
(b) Accustoming ourselves to act always with reflection and without haste. All human effort and diligence are often insufficient for acting with prudence, as we have already noted. However, God does not deny His grace to anyone who does his best. When it becomes necessary, the Gift of Counsel will unfailingly act to make up for our ignorance and inability; but we should not tempt God, expecting to receive by Divine means what we can provide by the means He has placed within our reach with the help of ordinary grace.
(c) Listening in silence to the voice of God. If we emptied our minds and shut out the noise and tumult of the world, we would frequently hear the voice of God, which usually speaks to the heart in solitude (cf. Osee 2:14). The soul must flee the exterior tumult and completely relax the spirit in order to hear the lessons of eternal life that the Divine Master will explain to it, as He did to Mary of Bethany, who sat calm and quiet at His feet (cf. Luke 10:39).
(d) Practicing perfect docility and obedience to those whom God has placed in the Church to govern us. Let us imitate the example of the saints. St. Teresa, as we have seen, obeyed her confessors even in preference to Our Lord Himself, and He praised her conduct. The docile, obedient and humble soul is in the best of conditions to receive enlightenment from on high. On the contrary, nothing removes us farther from the mysterious echo of the voice of God than the spirit of self-sufficiency and insubordination to His legitimate representatives on Earth.
Article 27
Wednesday May 24th, 2023
Preparing for Pentecost : Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost
#4 The Gift of Fortitude ― For the Faint-Hearted!
Wednesday May 24th, 2023
Preparing for Pentecost : Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost
#4 The Gift of Fortitude ― For the Faint-Hearted!
A Lack of Fortitude Today
Perhaps one of the most keenly felt absences, experienced in the world today, is that of a lack of fortitude. Yet, paradoxically, there is some fortitude to be found, but in the wrong areas. You will find lots of “NO FEAR” T-SHIRTS, but perhaps they should add a few words to make it: “NO FEAR OF OFFENDING GOD”. There is a widespread ‘fortitude’ in ignoring Almighty God and His Commandments, but there is a lack of fortitude in standing up for God and His teachings. There is a ‘fortitude’ among those who are responsible for the increasing violence and other crimes that plague us today; but a lack of fortitude in practicing virtue in the face of an ever-increasing atheistic, barbaric, cynical, mocking and threatening world. There is a ‘fortitude’ among many teenagers in arguing with their parents; but a lack of fortitude in arguing with non-believers in defense of the Faith. We have come to a time when most flee from God’s idea of fortitude and embrace the world’s idea of fortitude.
Fear and Fortitude—Are They Not Contradictory?
We seemingly have two Gifts of the Holy Ghost that could cancel out each other—The Gift of Fear and the Gift of Fortitude. This, however, is not the case—for their focal points are different. The Gift of Fear focuses on God—hence, as is seen it its full title “Fear of the Lord.” Whereas the Gift of Fortitude focuses on our battles with our enemies—the devil, the world and the flesh. This can be somewhat seen in Our Lord’s words: “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell” (Matthew 10:28). In face of the world we must be fearless, yet in the face of God we must be fearful.
There Will Be Trouble! But Fear Not!
Our Lord was often telling His followers not to be afraid. Chapter Ten of St. Matthew recalls the words of Our Lord, spoken to His disciples, as He sent them out to preach:
“And having called His Twelve disciples together, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of diseases, and all manner of infirmities. These Twelve Jesus sent out, commanding them, saying: ‘Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves! Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves. But beware of men! For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues! And you shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved! And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another! … Therefore fear them not! …
“And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul―but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell! Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father knowing. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered! Fear not therefore―better are you than many sparrows! Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven!
“Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household! He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that taketh not up his cross, and follows Me, is not worthy of Me! He that finds his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for Me, shall find it!” (Matthew 10:1-39).
Frightened Followers
Despite Our Lord’s assurances, His followers were not exempt from fear.
► As Jesus was first choosing and gathering His future Apostles, He brought about a miraculous catch of fish for Simon Peter―which struck fear in all. Jesus allayed their fears, saying: “Fear not! From henceforth thou shalt catch men!” (Luke 5:10).
► On another occasion they were all fearfully caught up in a storm on the lake: “And behold a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves, but Jesus was asleep. And they came to Him, and awakened Him, saying: ‘Lord, save us! We perish!’ And Jesus said to them: ‘Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?’ Then rising up He commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm. But the men wondered, saying: ‘What manner of man is this? For the winds and the sea obey Him!’” (Matthew 8:24-27).
St. Mark’s account is as follows: “Jesus was in the ship and there were other ships with Him. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that the ship was filled with water. And He was in the rear part of the ship, sleeping upon a pillow; and they awakened Him, and said to Him: ‘Master, does it not concern Thee that we perish?’ And rising up, He rebuked the wind and said to the sea: ‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased and there was made a great calm. And He said to them: ‘Why are you fearful? Have you not faith yet?’ And they feared exceedingly and they said one to another: ‘Who is this that both wind and sea obey Him?’” (Mark 4:36-40).
► When Jesus cured the man from palsy, “All were astonished … and they were filled with fear” (Luke 5:26). He raises from the dead, the son of the widow of Naim, “and there came a fear on them all” (Luke 7:16). He casts out a legion of devils from a possessed man and “all the multitude besought Him to depart from them; for they were taken with great fear” (Luke 8:37).
► Even before the Passion, His Apostles saw Him walking on water and were afraid: “And they seeing him walk upon the sea, were troubled, saying: ‘It is an apparition!’ And they cried out for fear” (Matthew 14:26). Jesus had to calm them down, and said: “Be of good heart! It is I, fear ye not!” (Matthew 14:27).
► In this same incident, Peter begins to walk on water also, but “But seeing the wind strong, he was afraid: and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying: ‘Lord, save me!’” (Matthew 14:30). Our Lord rebukes Peter, saying: “O thou of little faith!”
► At the Transfiguration, there came “a voice out of the cloud, saying: ‘This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased! Hear ye Him!’ And the disciples hearing, fell upon their face, and were very much afraid. And Jesus came and touched them: and said to them, ‘Arise, and fear not!’” (Matthew 17:5-7).
► Speaking of the end times, Jesus says: “When you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, fear ye not! For such things must needs be, but the end is not yet” (Mark 13:7).
► As the Passion approached, Our Lord’s words concerning His imminent sufferings made the disciples afraid: “And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem: and Jesus went before them, and they, following, were afraid. And taking the Twelve, He began to tell them the things that should befall Him, saying: ‘Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed to the chief priests, and to the scribes and ancients, and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles! And they shall mock Him, and spit on Him, and scourge Him, and kill Him!’” (Mark 10:32-34).
► Our Lord Himself was afraid: “And they came to a farm called Gethsemane. And He said to His disciples: ‘Sit you here, while I pray’! And He taketh Peter and James and John with Him; and He began to fear and to be heavy” (Mark 14:32-33). The Apostles also fell into fear: “And when He rose up from prayer, and was come to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow [from fear]” (Luke 22:45).
► After the crucifixion, the disciples locked themselves away for fear of the Jews: “the doors were shut, where the disciples were gathered together, for fear of the Jews” (John 20:19).
► After His resurrection, He again causes fear. The women had come to His tomb and found only an empty tomb and angel: “And the angel answering, said to the women: ‘Fear not you! For I know that you seek Jesus, Who was crucified’” (Matthew 28:5). “But they going out, fled from the sepulcher. For a trembling and fear had seized them: and they said nothing to any man; for they were afraid” (Mark 16:8). Then Jesus appears to them next, saying: “Fear not! Go, tell My brethren that they go into Galilee, there they shall see Me!’” (Matthew 28:10).
► After Our Lord’s Ascension into Heaven, the Apostles and disciples once more returned to the safety of the Upper Room and locked themselves in. When the Holy Ghost came, He fortified them and, as Our Lady revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “They all left the house of the Cenacle and, placing themselves before the multitudes, began to preach the mysteries of the Faith and of eternal life. Though until then they had been so shy and seclusive, they now stepped forth with unhesitating boldness and poured forth burning words, that like a flashing fire penetrated to the souls of their hearers” (The Mystical City of God, Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Fear Not!
“Fear not, Mary!” The angelic words were more than a comfort, they were a confirmation of God’s presence and help. Mary must have heard them with some reassurance. For these were indeed familiar words―“Fear not!” They had rung out loud from Holy Scripture for many centuries. Isaias says, seeing the Messias through the veil of prophecy: “Fear ye not the reproach of men, and be not afraid of their blasphemies” … “Fear not, for I am with you.” They would be echoed again and again in the Psalms of David, particularly in those that looked to the Savior: “I will not fear thousands” … “For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me” … “The Lord is my light and salvation, whom shall I fear ... of whom shall I be afraid ... My heart shall not fear” … “Therefore we shall not fear when the Earth shall be troubled …. The God of Jacob is our protector” … “I will not fear what flesh can do against me!”
The Gospel story gives us a hint of the frequency with which that “Fear not” fell from the divine lips of the Savior. The gloom of the Upper Room, where the Apostles faced the fact of separation from the Master, after the crucifixion, tells us something of what that steady reassurance ― “Fear not” — had meant to the hearts of men. The apostolic courage, that conquered the world for Christ, tells us beyond all doubt of the effectiveness of the “Fear not” assurance of God. There are indeed things to fear, attacks to face, burdens to be borne before which millions of men and women will cringe and flee. Nevertheless―fear not, be of good heart, have courage! Why? Because you are weaklings, timid, cowardly, unable to stand on your own feet? Not at all. No! The reason that fear arises and needs to be calmed is because you have things to do that are much too much for the strength of men―heights to scale, choices to make, time and sorrow to batter down for eternity and joy; because, in a word, you are to walk―on a divine and not merely human level―to a destiny that properly belongs to God and one that He is willing to share with you―but that destiny must be battled for and conquered: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) … “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12) ― all of that takes a fortitude that is beyond mere human fortitude, it requires the Gift of Fortitude.
Courage, My Friend!
That courage within a man’s own soul is essential if he is to follow Christ. For Our Lord’s “Fear not” was not at all a divine molly-coddling of the weakness of men. The words “Fear not” must be heard in union with His prophecy, even His promise, of a terrifying violence. He told the Apostles what they could expect from the world they were to conquer—persecution, exile, suffering, and death: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22; 24:9-10). They would meet violence as inevitably and as consistently as a man meets the strong headwind walking or driving down a road.
What is more, they would travel with violence being their close companion, they would not only meet violence, but to also bring it to bear on the world. They were not only to stand up under suffering, they were to be the violent ones, before whom the powers of evil would flinch and flee: “Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword!” (Matthew 10:34) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). For it was His own clear statement that told them He had come to bring the sword into this world, that the kingdom of Heaven suffered violence, that it would be the violent who would bear it away. To take up a cross and follow Him would take courage: not only the courage to bear up under the cross, but the courage to bring that cross to men and women across the world, across the ages.
Kinds of Fortitude
There are several kinds of fortitude—(1) Acquired Fortitude, (2) Infused Fortitude, (3) the Gift of Fortitude. There is a great difference between the potentials of the acquired virtue, the infused virtue, and the Gift of Fortitude, even though the three share the same name. Thus:
(a) Natural or Acquired Fortitude strengthens the soul for undertaking the greatest labors and for exposing oneself to the greatest dangers—as is seen in the lives of many pagan heroes—but not without a certain fear or anxiety that proceeds from the clear perception of the weakness of one’s own human powers, which are the only powers that are utilized by the acquired virtue of fortitude.
(b) Infused Fortitude, which is a supernatural virtue, relies on the Divine help, but it operates in a human mode, that is to say, according to the light of human reason illuminated by Faith, which does not rid the soul completely of all fear. The virtue of Fortitude perseveres in doing good, while advancing along the steep, slippery, precarious path to Heaven, and guarding against the sinful pleasures of life on the one hand, while remaining undaunted by its difficulties on the other. But even here, man has a certain limit beyond which he cannot go. How well St. Paul knew it, when he cried for help to our Lord against the attacks of Satan! “There was given me a sting of my flesh―an angel of Satan―to buffet me. For which thing three times I begged the Lord that it might depart from me. And He said to me: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee―for power is made perfect in infirmity!’” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9).
Yes, God alone is all-powerful―man, even at his best, has a limited sphere of action. A strong man may lift a weight of five hundred pounds, but he will not lift a ton (2,000 lbs). In exorcisms, the devil often manifests a superhuman strength in the possessed person―as one exorcist priest says: “I’ve seen an 80-pound woman lift up a 200-pound man!” When asked if it was true that people in the grips of possession have superhuman strength, he replied: “They have that plus the strength of five individuals who would be their weight size!” But anything Satan can do, God can do better. When God steps in―then the sky is the limit: “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Luke 18:27). This “making the impossible possible” God did in the case of Samson, when Samson pulled up the gate-posts and tore down the gates of the city of Gaza, and then carried them around 35 miles to the top of a hill: “Samson took both the doors of the city gate, with the posts thereof, and the bolt, and laying them on his shoulders, carried them up to the top of the hill, which looks towards Hebron” (Judges 16:3). Archeologists and scientists ― based upon what was found in archeological excavations and what they know from other excavations ― have estimated that that the minimum weight of the gates and gateposts would have been around 5,000 lbs (2½ tons) and possibly as much as 10,000 lbs (5 tons) if the gates were built to give maximum security with bronze plating. To give you an idea by comparing it to the weight of modern day cars―small cars usually way around 2,500 lbs; large cars about 4,200 lbs; SUVs or trucks can range from 3,500 pounds to over 6,000 lbs.
(c) The Gift of Fortitude, on the other hand, enables the soul to undertake the greatest work and expose itself to the greatest dangers, with a great confidence and security, because the Holy Ghost Himself moves the soul—not through the dictates of simple prudence, but through the lofty direction of the Gift of Counsel, that is, through reasons that are entirely Divine.
We need special assistance from on high. If we are in the state of grace, we receive it. It is the Gift of Fortitude. However, it must be stressed again, the Gifts of the Holy Ghost only really start to ‘kick-in’ after we have passed a decent amount of time in the apprenticeship of working on our virtues—most people don’t do this. By means of the Gift of Fortitude, the soul, aided by the Holy Ghost, overcomes all the obstacles in the pathway of salvation, it avoids all the allurements of the world to evil, it overcomes the well-nigh invincible passions that threaten its eternal happiness even at the very latest breath. It is a Gift beyond human strength, often even it would seem to perform actions contrary to those which human nature is wont to perform, such, for instance, as martyrdom. It is not content with doing what is easy, it seeks what is more difficult.
Nature of the Gift of Fortitude
The Gift of Fortitude is a supernatural habit that strengthens the soul for the practice, under the movement of the Holy Ghost, of every type of heroic virtue, with invincible confidence of overcoming any dangers or difficulties that may arise. Let us explain this definition a little, word by word.
“It is a supernatural habit” ― like the other gifts and infused virtues.
“That strengthens the soul” ― Its precise function is to elevate the powers of the soul to a divine plane.
For the practice, “under the movement of the Holy Ghost”: The operation of this gift, as of the other gifts, is always under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, in such way that the soul does not reason or discourse, but acts by a kind of instinctive interior impulse, that proceeds directly from the Holy Ghost.
“Of every type of heroic virtue” ― Although the virtue of Fortitude has the same name as the Gift of Fortitude by which it is perfected, the Gift of Fortitude extends to all the heroic actions of the other virtues, because this heroism demands an extraordinary fortitude that is beyond the power of the unaided virtue alone.
Father Lallemant writes of this Gift that it is: “An habitual disposition which the Holy Spirit communicates to the soul and to the body both to do and to suffer extraordinary things; to undertake the most arduous actions; to expose ourselves to the most formidable dangers; to undergo the most toilsome labors; to endure the most grievous pains, and that with constancy and heroism” (Spiritual Teaching, p. 156).
“With invincible confidence” ― This is one of the clearest marks of distinction between the virtue of Fortitude and the Gift of Fortitude. The virtue of Fortitude, says St. Thomas (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 139, art. 1, ad 1), also gives strength to the soul for overcoming obstacles, but it is the Gift of Fortitude alone that imparts the invincible confidence of success.
Addressing this point, Father Arrighini writes: “Despite the similarity of the definition, the Gift of Fortitude should not be confused with the cardinal virtue of the same name. Although both suppose a certain firmness and energy of spirit, the virtue of Fortitude has its limits in human power, which it cannot surpass; the gift, on the contrary, relies on the Divine power, according to the words of the Prophet: ‘Through my God I shall go over a wall’ (Psalm 17:30), that is, I will overcome all obstacles in order to reach the final end.
“Secondly, if the Cardinal Virtue of Fortitude gives enough courage to face such obstacles in general, it does not infuse the confidence to face and overcome all of them, as the analogous Gift of the Holy Ghost does.
“Moreover, the virtue of Fortitude, precisely because it is limited by human power, does not extend equally to all kinds of difficulties. For this reason, there are people who easily overcome the temptations of pride but not those of the flesh, or who avoid a certain kind of danger but not another, and so on. The Gift of Fortitude, on the other hand, relying completely on the Divine omnipotence, extends to everything, suffices for everything, and makes one exclaim with Job: ‘Deliver me, O Lord, and set me beside thee, and let any man’s hand fight against me’ (Job 17:3).
Finally, the virtue of Fortitude does not always attain its object, as it is not proper to man to overcome all dangers and win all battles. But God can easily do this, and since the Gift of Fortitude infuses in us the Divine power, with it man can readily overcome all dangers and enemies, fight and win every battle, and repeat with the Apostle: “I can do all things in him who strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).
The Virtue Strengthened by the Gift
The Virtue of Fortitude enables us to pursue the difficult good on the spiritual journey. The Gift of Fortitude, however, pushes us much further. It gives energy to overcome major obstacles in the way of spiritual growth; it is an enormous reinforcement of the natural and infused Virtue of Fortitude.
There is, for example, the Virtue of Christian courage, or Fortitude, which equips a man to endure the extreme of danger and difficulty, even the danger of death. The Gift of the Holy Ghost, bring about the perfection of this Virtue of Fortitude, enables a man to stride into those dangers with the confidence of God; indeed, by the Gift of Fortitude, he truly escapes those dangers, not only in the triumphant climax of divine action, which gives him eternal life and the end of all dangers; but here and now the divine power eliminates the danger and all fear of it.
Early Martyrs Did Not Run From Lions
We have no record of the early Christian martyrs running in terror from the lions; yet often enough it was witnessed that the lions did retreat from so tough a specimen as an early Christian―to whom death was no longer a danger, but an invitation to eternal life. When the truth of history trickles out from under the Iron Curtain, and modern-day Communism, that hide the horrors of modern martyrdom from our eyes, we shall have even more abundant evidence of the work of the Gift of Fortitude than ever was furnished by the bloody persecutions of Rome.
As in the early ages of the Church, so today the calm strength of divine courage is not less in the living than in the dying; a truth seen clearly enough in Communist countries and pagan countries, where the living must “shield the flame of the faith” with their bodies. Yet is it no less clearly to be seen by the observant in the faithful of Western Europe and America where the defense of truth and morals has the apparent hopelessness of a fight against an enshrouding fog or an entwining serpent. Many will be surprised to know that the last two centuries have seen more martyrs for Christ than all the other centuries combined together! This is an age for the Gift of Fortitude―as is any age―where the world howls again in favor of Barabbas, rather than Christ, and blasphemously calls down on itself the Blood of God: “The whole people answering, said: ‘His blood be upon us and our children!’” (Matthew 27:25).
More Strength in Suffering Than Attacking
If action requires strength, if the affair of our salvation demands the supernatural aid of Fortitude, this need is magnified when we consider what we have to suffer: “With fear and trembling work out your salvation” (Philippians 2:12). In the eyes of the world, it is the strong who attack, and the more feeble ones who have to endure the attack. However, St. Thomas puts forth many reasons showing how much more strength is required for suffering or endurance than for action. To attack is to throw oneself into peril, but to support the shock is more noble, more difficult, more perfect. Hence, it is commonly said, that the best army is not the one that is most zealous in combat, but the one that is most enduring in the fatigue from combat.
A Battle Like No Other
In this war, which, unlike earthly warfare, is not measured by hours and days; in this battle where each day dawns only to bring to light new and more terrible temptations; in this contest where at every move we are hindered by the flesh, the world and the devil, we find human strength is but a weakness; and that human prowess, is but fear; and human valor, more like cowardice; and human endeavor, nothing but impotence.
There surely is a strength beyond human strength. Without this superior strength, suffering is unbearable, but with this superior strength, life is sweet. “I can do all things in Him Who strengths me!” says St. Paul―it was that Gift of Fortitude which enabled him to fight the good fight of his apostolate and to win the glorious crown of justice. The Apostle’s words are, moreover, a true expression of the nature of the Gift of Fortitude―which overcomes all obstacles with a positive assurance of final success.
The Gift of Fortitude, then, is a divine power, a perfection of the will, a perfection of human fortitude, a perfection also of the Virtue of Fortitude, enabling the faithful soul to follow the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, with full confidence in Him in the hour of temptation, with great steadfastness in difficulties and with patient endurance in sufferings, and all this to the end of life’s journey, to the end of the road which leads to Heaven. Action and suffering; attacking and suffering attacks; are the effects of this Gift of Fortitude; action and suffering in the cause of extraordinary undertakings are its characteristic notes.
Fortitude Against the Triple Enemy—Flesh, World, Devil
“The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “The prince of this world … your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (John 14:30; 1 Peter 5:8). “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places!” (Ephesians 6:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “For all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life―which is not of the Father, but is of the world!” (1 John 2:16). “For they that are according to the flesh, mind the things that are of the flesh … The wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God―for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be. And they who are in the flesh, cannot please God!” (Romans 8:5-8). “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27).
We have to act, and vigorously, against our own flesh: “the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life”—that part of our being which is always hankering after pleasure, always seeking its ease, always hungry, always thirsty, always craving to be pampered, desiring honor, praise and fame; hungry for wealth and possessions. Each and every one of these is a serious disorder; each draws us away from the path to Heaven.
If there is one thing more than another that the saints themselves found nearest the realms of impossibility, it was, surely, that of keeping the body in subjection, not by stifling its natural wants, but by curbing its unruly whims. It cost them years of labor, many a sacrifice and many a drop of blood. And they were saints. What, then, might not be said of the work ordinary Catholics are called upon to perform in virtue of their religion? What of inordinate love, vanity, anger, insubordination, avarice?
Next to the flesh come the false pretenses and glaring fascinations of the world. It is a second, but not a secondary enemy. It coaxes us to incline to its follies, to cast ourselves into its outstretched arms, to go with it to parties, dances, movies and all the other worldly pastimes that distract us from God and take us away from our spiritual and religious duties and obligations to God. We refuse but it keeps insisting, trying to convince us that it’s okay. Again we refuse, and we are called old-fashioned, “not with the times”, or even fanatical, radical and unfit for human society. The idol of pleasure, entertainment, amusement and fun is ever tantalizing us. We have to live in the midst of a furnace of luxury and materialism without being burned, of fascination without being bewitched; we must conquer without even giving an inch.
We must face the demon, too! He, who conquered a third of the heavenly host, is not certainly not ashamed nor afraid to cross swords with men. We must throw down the gauntlet. It is not sufficient to be on the defensive, we must attack him. Being a mastermind of intelligence, he would like to outscore us―on his side is the experience of having tempted souls in all the ages since Adam’s fall; and we have merely a few years of experience under our belt, resting upon a very flimsy knowledge of the Faith. This is a gigantic task, absolutely above our strength―even when fortified by virtues. And if we are ever to be victorious in the struggle, the Gift of Fortitude will be the one to be thanked.
True Strength
As already stated above―in the affair of our salvation, much more strength is required for suffering or endurance than for action. To support the shock is more noble, more difficult, more perfect. That is why the best army is not the one that is most zealous in combat, but the one that is most enduring in the fatigue from combat.
In the combat for salvation, what must we suffer? Rather, what must we not suffer? Our life from cradle to grave is but a chain of acute sufferings of soul and body. Man is weakness itself—a “leaf carried by every wind” (Job 13:25). Nevertheless, we must resist. Measure your weakness, measure the enterprise, and you will find the measure of force needed.
Thanks to this Gift of Fortitude, the world, for twenty centuries has seen incredible marvels of endurance. That is even without recalling the astounding examples of Catholic sufferings borne patiently and for God. We all know them, and at the very mention thousands of examples come to our mind, where this superhuman strength aids weak and frail human beings in their struggle for Heaven.
Perhaps one of the most keenly felt absences, experienced in the world today, is that of a lack of fortitude. Yet, paradoxically, there is some fortitude to be found, but in the wrong areas. You will find lots of “NO FEAR” T-SHIRTS, but perhaps they should add a few words to make it: “NO FEAR OF OFFENDING GOD”. There is a widespread ‘fortitude’ in ignoring Almighty God and His Commandments, but there is a lack of fortitude in standing up for God and His teachings. There is a ‘fortitude’ among those who are responsible for the increasing violence and other crimes that plague us today; but a lack of fortitude in practicing virtue in the face of an ever-increasing atheistic, barbaric, cynical, mocking and threatening world. There is a ‘fortitude’ among many teenagers in arguing with their parents; but a lack of fortitude in arguing with non-believers in defense of the Faith. We have come to a time when most flee from God’s idea of fortitude and embrace the world’s idea of fortitude.
Fear and Fortitude—Are They Not Contradictory?
We seemingly have two Gifts of the Holy Ghost that could cancel out each other—The Gift of Fear and the Gift of Fortitude. This, however, is not the case—for their focal points are different. The Gift of Fear focuses on God—hence, as is seen it its full title “Fear of the Lord.” Whereas the Gift of Fortitude focuses on our battles with our enemies—the devil, the world and the flesh. This can be somewhat seen in Our Lord’s words: “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell” (Matthew 10:28). In face of the world we must be fearless, yet in the face of God we must be fearful.
There Will Be Trouble! But Fear Not!
Our Lord was often telling His followers not to be afraid. Chapter Ten of St. Matthew recalls the words of Our Lord, spoken to His disciples, as He sent them out to preach:
“And having called His Twelve disciples together, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of diseases, and all manner of infirmities. These Twelve Jesus sent out, commanding them, saying: ‘Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves! Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves. But beware of men! For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues! And you shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved! And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another! … Therefore fear them not! …
“And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul―but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell! Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father knowing. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered! Fear not therefore―better are you than many sparrows! Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven!
“Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household! He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that taketh not up his cross, and follows Me, is not worthy of Me! He that finds his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for Me, shall find it!” (Matthew 10:1-39).
Frightened Followers
Despite Our Lord’s assurances, His followers were not exempt from fear.
► As Jesus was first choosing and gathering His future Apostles, He brought about a miraculous catch of fish for Simon Peter―which struck fear in all. Jesus allayed their fears, saying: “Fear not! From henceforth thou shalt catch men!” (Luke 5:10).
► On another occasion they were all fearfully caught up in a storm on the lake: “And behold a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves, but Jesus was asleep. And they came to Him, and awakened Him, saying: ‘Lord, save us! We perish!’ And Jesus said to them: ‘Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?’ Then rising up He commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm. But the men wondered, saying: ‘What manner of man is this? For the winds and the sea obey Him!’” (Matthew 8:24-27).
St. Mark’s account is as follows: “Jesus was in the ship and there were other ships with Him. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that the ship was filled with water. And He was in the rear part of the ship, sleeping upon a pillow; and they awakened Him, and said to Him: ‘Master, does it not concern Thee that we perish?’ And rising up, He rebuked the wind and said to the sea: ‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased and there was made a great calm. And He said to them: ‘Why are you fearful? Have you not faith yet?’ And they feared exceedingly and they said one to another: ‘Who is this that both wind and sea obey Him?’” (Mark 4:36-40).
► When Jesus cured the man from palsy, “All were astonished … and they were filled with fear” (Luke 5:26). He raises from the dead, the son of the widow of Naim, “and there came a fear on them all” (Luke 7:16). He casts out a legion of devils from a possessed man and “all the multitude besought Him to depart from them; for they were taken with great fear” (Luke 8:37).
► Even before the Passion, His Apostles saw Him walking on water and were afraid: “And they seeing him walk upon the sea, were troubled, saying: ‘It is an apparition!’ And they cried out for fear” (Matthew 14:26). Jesus had to calm them down, and said: “Be of good heart! It is I, fear ye not!” (Matthew 14:27).
► In this same incident, Peter begins to walk on water also, but “But seeing the wind strong, he was afraid: and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying: ‘Lord, save me!’” (Matthew 14:30). Our Lord rebukes Peter, saying: “O thou of little faith!”
► At the Transfiguration, there came “a voice out of the cloud, saying: ‘This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased! Hear ye Him!’ And the disciples hearing, fell upon their face, and were very much afraid. And Jesus came and touched them: and said to them, ‘Arise, and fear not!’” (Matthew 17:5-7).
► Speaking of the end times, Jesus says: “When you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, fear ye not! For such things must needs be, but the end is not yet” (Mark 13:7).
► As the Passion approached, Our Lord’s words concerning His imminent sufferings made the disciples afraid: “And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem: and Jesus went before them, and they, following, were afraid. And taking the Twelve, He began to tell them the things that should befall Him, saying: ‘Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed to the chief priests, and to the scribes and ancients, and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles! And they shall mock Him, and spit on Him, and scourge Him, and kill Him!’” (Mark 10:32-34).
► Our Lord Himself was afraid: “And they came to a farm called Gethsemane. And He said to His disciples: ‘Sit you here, while I pray’! And He taketh Peter and James and John with Him; and He began to fear and to be heavy” (Mark 14:32-33). The Apostles also fell into fear: “And when He rose up from prayer, and was come to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow [from fear]” (Luke 22:45).
► After the crucifixion, the disciples locked themselves away for fear of the Jews: “the doors were shut, where the disciples were gathered together, for fear of the Jews” (John 20:19).
► After His resurrection, He again causes fear. The women had come to His tomb and found only an empty tomb and angel: “And the angel answering, said to the women: ‘Fear not you! For I know that you seek Jesus, Who was crucified’” (Matthew 28:5). “But they going out, fled from the sepulcher. For a trembling and fear had seized them: and they said nothing to any man; for they were afraid” (Mark 16:8). Then Jesus appears to them next, saying: “Fear not! Go, tell My brethren that they go into Galilee, there they shall see Me!’” (Matthew 28:10).
► After Our Lord’s Ascension into Heaven, the Apostles and disciples once more returned to the safety of the Upper Room and locked themselves in. When the Holy Ghost came, He fortified them and, as Our Lady revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “They all left the house of the Cenacle and, placing themselves before the multitudes, began to preach the mysteries of the Faith and of eternal life. Though until then they had been so shy and seclusive, they now stepped forth with unhesitating boldness and poured forth burning words, that like a flashing fire penetrated to the souls of their hearers” (The Mystical City of God, Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Fear Not!
“Fear not, Mary!” The angelic words were more than a comfort, they were a confirmation of God’s presence and help. Mary must have heard them with some reassurance. For these were indeed familiar words―“Fear not!” They had rung out loud from Holy Scripture for many centuries. Isaias says, seeing the Messias through the veil of prophecy: “Fear ye not the reproach of men, and be not afraid of their blasphemies” … “Fear not, for I am with you.” They would be echoed again and again in the Psalms of David, particularly in those that looked to the Savior: “I will not fear thousands” … “For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me” … “The Lord is my light and salvation, whom shall I fear ... of whom shall I be afraid ... My heart shall not fear” … “Therefore we shall not fear when the Earth shall be troubled …. The God of Jacob is our protector” … “I will not fear what flesh can do against me!”
The Gospel story gives us a hint of the frequency with which that “Fear not” fell from the divine lips of the Savior. The gloom of the Upper Room, where the Apostles faced the fact of separation from the Master, after the crucifixion, tells us something of what that steady reassurance ― “Fear not” — had meant to the hearts of men. The apostolic courage, that conquered the world for Christ, tells us beyond all doubt of the effectiveness of the “Fear not” assurance of God. There are indeed things to fear, attacks to face, burdens to be borne before which millions of men and women will cringe and flee. Nevertheless―fear not, be of good heart, have courage! Why? Because you are weaklings, timid, cowardly, unable to stand on your own feet? Not at all. No! The reason that fear arises and needs to be calmed is because you have things to do that are much too much for the strength of men―heights to scale, choices to make, time and sorrow to batter down for eternity and joy; because, in a word, you are to walk―on a divine and not merely human level―to a destiny that properly belongs to God and one that He is willing to share with you―but that destiny must be battled for and conquered: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) … “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12) ― all of that takes a fortitude that is beyond mere human fortitude, it requires the Gift of Fortitude.
Courage, My Friend!
That courage within a man’s own soul is essential if he is to follow Christ. For Our Lord’s “Fear not” was not at all a divine molly-coddling of the weakness of men. The words “Fear not” must be heard in union with His prophecy, even His promise, of a terrifying violence. He told the Apostles what they could expect from the world they were to conquer—persecution, exile, suffering, and death: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22; 24:9-10). They would meet violence as inevitably and as consistently as a man meets the strong headwind walking or driving down a road.
What is more, they would travel with violence being their close companion, they would not only meet violence, but to also bring it to bear on the world. They were not only to stand up under suffering, they were to be the violent ones, before whom the powers of evil would flinch and flee: “Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword!” (Matthew 10:34) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). For it was His own clear statement that told them He had come to bring the sword into this world, that the kingdom of Heaven suffered violence, that it would be the violent who would bear it away. To take up a cross and follow Him would take courage: not only the courage to bear up under the cross, but the courage to bring that cross to men and women across the world, across the ages.
Kinds of Fortitude
There are several kinds of fortitude—(1) Acquired Fortitude, (2) Infused Fortitude, (3) the Gift of Fortitude. There is a great difference between the potentials of the acquired virtue, the infused virtue, and the Gift of Fortitude, even though the three share the same name. Thus:
(a) Natural or Acquired Fortitude strengthens the soul for undertaking the greatest labors and for exposing oneself to the greatest dangers—as is seen in the lives of many pagan heroes—but not without a certain fear or anxiety that proceeds from the clear perception of the weakness of one’s own human powers, which are the only powers that are utilized by the acquired virtue of fortitude.
(b) Infused Fortitude, which is a supernatural virtue, relies on the Divine help, but it operates in a human mode, that is to say, according to the light of human reason illuminated by Faith, which does not rid the soul completely of all fear. The virtue of Fortitude perseveres in doing good, while advancing along the steep, slippery, precarious path to Heaven, and guarding against the sinful pleasures of life on the one hand, while remaining undaunted by its difficulties on the other. But even here, man has a certain limit beyond which he cannot go. How well St. Paul knew it, when he cried for help to our Lord against the attacks of Satan! “There was given me a sting of my flesh―an angel of Satan―to buffet me. For which thing three times I begged the Lord that it might depart from me. And He said to me: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee―for power is made perfect in infirmity!’” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9).
Yes, God alone is all-powerful―man, even at his best, has a limited sphere of action. A strong man may lift a weight of five hundred pounds, but he will not lift a ton (2,000 lbs). In exorcisms, the devil often manifests a superhuman strength in the possessed person―as one exorcist priest says: “I’ve seen an 80-pound woman lift up a 200-pound man!” When asked if it was true that people in the grips of possession have superhuman strength, he replied: “They have that plus the strength of five individuals who would be their weight size!” But anything Satan can do, God can do better. When God steps in―then the sky is the limit: “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Luke 18:27). This “making the impossible possible” God did in the case of Samson, when Samson pulled up the gate-posts and tore down the gates of the city of Gaza, and then carried them around 35 miles to the top of a hill: “Samson took both the doors of the city gate, with the posts thereof, and the bolt, and laying them on his shoulders, carried them up to the top of the hill, which looks towards Hebron” (Judges 16:3). Archeologists and scientists ― based upon what was found in archeological excavations and what they know from other excavations ― have estimated that that the minimum weight of the gates and gateposts would have been around 5,000 lbs (2½ tons) and possibly as much as 10,000 lbs (5 tons) if the gates were built to give maximum security with bronze plating. To give you an idea by comparing it to the weight of modern day cars―small cars usually way around 2,500 lbs; large cars about 4,200 lbs; SUVs or trucks can range from 3,500 pounds to over 6,000 lbs.
(c) The Gift of Fortitude, on the other hand, enables the soul to undertake the greatest work and expose itself to the greatest dangers, with a great confidence and security, because the Holy Ghost Himself moves the soul—not through the dictates of simple prudence, but through the lofty direction of the Gift of Counsel, that is, through reasons that are entirely Divine.
We need special assistance from on high. If we are in the state of grace, we receive it. It is the Gift of Fortitude. However, it must be stressed again, the Gifts of the Holy Ghost only really start to ‘kick-in’ after we have passed a decent amount of time in the apprenticeship of working on our virtues—most people don’t do this. By means of the Gift of Fortitude, the soul, aided by the Holy Ghost, overcomes all the obstacles in the pathway of salvation, it avoids all the allurements of the world to evil, it overcomes the well-nigh invincible passions that threaten its eternal happiness even at the very latest breath. It is a Gift beyond human strength, often even it would seem to perform actions contrary to those which human nature is wont to perform, such, for instance, as martyrdom. It is not content with doing what is easy, it seeks what is more difficult.
Nature of the Gift of Fortitude
The Gift of Fortitude is a supernatural habit that strengthens the soul for the practice, under the movement of the Holy Ghost, of every type of heroic virtue, with invincible confidence of overcoming any dangers or difficulties that may arise. Let us explain this definition a little, word by word.
“It is a supernatural habit” ― like the other gifts and infused virtues.
“That strengthens the soul” ― Its precise function is to elevate the powers of the soul to a divine plane.
For the practice, “under the movement of the Holy Ghost”: The operation of this gift, as of the other gifts, is always under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, in such way that the soul does not reason or discourse, but acts by a kind of instinctive interior impulse, that proceeds directly from the Holy Ghost.
“Of every type of heroic virtue” ― Although the virtue of Fortitude has the same name as the Gift of Fortitude by which it is perfected, the Gift of Fortitude extends to all the heroic actions of the other virtues, because this heroism demands an extraordinary fortitude that is beyond the power of the unaided virtue alone.
Father Lallemant writes of this Gift that it is: “An habitual disposition which the Holy Spirit communicates to the soul and to the body both to do and to suffer extraordinary things; to undertake the most arduous actions; to expose ourselves to the most formidable dangers; to undergo the most toilsome labors; to endure the most grievous pains, and that with constancy and heroism” (Spiritual Teaching, p. 156).
“With invincible confidence” ― This is one of the clearest marks of distinction between the virtue of Fortitude and the Gift of Fortitude. The virtue of Fortitude, says St. Thomas (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 139, art. 1, ad 1), also gives strength to the soul for overcoming obstacles, but it is the Gift of Fortitude alone that imparts the invincible confidence of success.
Addressing this point, Father Arrighini writes: “Despite the similarity of the definition, the Gift of Fortitude should not be confused with the cardinal virtue of the same name. Although both suppose a certain firmness and energy of spirit, the virtue of Fortitude has its limits in human power, which it cannot surpass; the gift, on the contrary, relies on the Divine power, according to the words of the Prophet: ‘Through my God I shall go over a wall’ (Psalm 17:30), that is, I will overcome all obstacles in order to reach the final end.
“Secondly, if the Cardinal Virtue of Fortitude gives enough courage to face such obstacles in general, it does not infuse the confidence to face and overcome all of them, as the analogous Gift of the Holy Ghost does.
“Moreover, the virtue of Fortitude, precisely because it is limited by human power, does not extend equally to all kinds of difficulties. For this reason, there are people who easily overcome the temptations of pride but not those of the flesh, or who avoid a certain kind of danger but not another, and so on. The Gift of Fortitude, on the other hand, relying completely on the Divine omnipotence, extends to everything, suffices for everything, and makes one exclaim with Job: ‘Deliver me, O Lord, and set me beside thee, and let any man’s hand fight against me’ (Job 17:3).
Finally, the virtue of Fortitude does not always attain its object, as it is not proper to man to overcome all dangers and win all battles. But God can easily do this, and since the Gift of Fortitude infuses in us the Divine power, with it man can readily overcome all dangers and enemies, fight and win every battle, and repeat with the Apostle: “I can do all things in him who strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).
The Virtue Strengthened by the Gift
The Virtue of Fortitude enables us to pursue the difficult good on the spiritual journey. The Gift of Fortitude, however, pushes us much further. It gives energy to overcome major obstacles in the way of spiritual growth; it is an enormous reinforcement of the natural and infused Virtue of Fortitude.
There is, for example, the Virtue of Christian courage, or Fortitude, which equips a man to endure the extreme of danger and difficulty, even the danger of death. The Gift of the Holy Ghost, bring about the perfection of this Virtue of Fortitude, enables a man to stride into those dangers with the confidence of God; indeed, by the Gift of Fortitude, he truly escapes those dangers, not only in the triumphant climax of divine action, which gives him eternal life and the end of all dangers; but here and now the divine power eliminates the danger and all fear of it.
Early Martyrs Did Not Run From Lions
We have no record of the early Christian martyrs running in terror from the lions; yet often enough it was witnessed that the lions did retreat from so tough a specimen as an early Christian―to whom death was no longer a danger, but an invitation to eternal life. When the truth of history trickles out from under the Iron Curtain, and modern-day Communism, that hide the horrors of modern martyrdom from our eyes, we shall have even more abundant evidence of the work of the Gift of Fortitude than ever was furnished by the bloody persecutions of Rome.
As in the early ages of the Church, so today the calm strength of divine courage is not less in the living than in the dying; a truth seen clearly enough in Communist countries and pagan countries, where the living must “shield the flame of the faith” with their bodies. Yet is it no less clearly to be seen by the observant in the faithful of Western Europe and America where the defense of truth and morals has the apparent hopelessness of a fight against an enshrouding fog or an entwining serpent. Many will be surprised to know that the last two centuries have seen more martyrs for Christ than all the other centuries combined together! This is an age for the Gift of Fortitude―as is any age―where the world howls again in favor of Barabbas, rather than Christ, and blasphemously calls down on itself the Blood of God: “The whole people answering, said: ‘His blood be upon us and our children!’” (Matthew 27:25).
More Strength in Suffering Than Attacking
If action requires strength, if the affair of our salvation demands the supernatural aid of Fortitude, this need is magnified when we consider what we have to suffer: “With fear and trembling work out your salvation” (Philippians 2:12). In the eyes of the world, it is the strong who attack, and the more feeble ones who have to endure the attack. However, St. Thomas puts forth many reasons showing how much more strength is required for suffering or endurance than for action. To attack is to throw oneself into peril, but to support the shock is more noble, more difficult, more perfect. Hence, it is commonly said, that the best army is not the one that is most zealous in combat, but the one that is most enduring in the fatigue from combat.
A Battle Like No Other
In this war, which, unlike earthly warfare, is not measured by hours and days; in this battle where each day dawns only to bring to light new and more terrible temptations; in this contest where at every move we are hindered by the flesh, the world and the devil, we find human strength is but a weakness; and that human prowess, is but fear; and human valor, more like cowardice; and human endeavor, nothing but impotence.
There surely is a strength beyond human strength. Without this superior strength, suffering is unbearable, but with this superior strength, life is sweet. “I can do all things in Him Who strengths me!” says St. Paul―it was that Gift of Fortitude which enabled him to fight the good fight of his apostolate and to win the glorious crown of justice. The Apostle’s words are, moreover, a true expression of the nature of the Gift of Fortitude―which overcomes all obstacles with a positive assurance of final success.
The Gift of Fortitude, then, is a divine power, a perfection of the will, a perfection of human fortitude, a perfection also of the Virtue of Fortitude, enabling the faithful soul to follow the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, with full confidence in Him in the hour of temptation, with great steadfastness in difficulties and with patient endurance in sufferings, and all this to the end of life’s journey, to the end of the road which leads to Heaven. Action and suffering; attacking and suffering attacks; are the effects of this Gift of Fortitude; action and suffering in the cause of extraordinary undertakings are its characteristic notes.
Fortitude Against the Triple Enemy—Flesh, World, Devil
“The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “The prince of this world … your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (John 14:30; 1 Peter 5:8). “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places!” (Ephesians 6:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “For all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life―which is not of the Father, but is of the world!” (1 John 2:16). “For they that are according to the flesh, mind the things that are of the flesh … The wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God―for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be. And they who are in the flesh, cannot please God!” (Romans 8:5-8). “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27).
We have to act, and vigorously, against our own flesh: “the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life”—that part of our being which is always hankering after pleasure, always seeking its ease, always hungry, always thirsty, always craving to be pampered, desiring honor, praise and fame; hungry for wealth and possessions. Each and every one of these is a serious disorder; each draws us away from the path to Heaven.
If there is one thing more than another that the saints themselves found nearest the realms of impossibility, it was, surely, that of keeping the body in subjection, not by stifling its natural wants, but by curbing its unruly whims. It cost them years of labor, many a sacrifice and many a drop of blood. And they were saints. What, then, might not be said of the work ordinary Catholics are called upon to perform in virtue of their religion? What of inordinate love, vanity, anger, insubordination, avarice?
Next to the flesh come the false pretenses and glaring fascinations of the world. It is a second, but not a secondary enemy. It coaxes us to incline to its follies, to cast ourselves into its outstretched arms, to go with it to parties, dances, movies and all the other worldly pastimes that distract us from God and take us away from our spiritual and religious duties and obligations to God. We refuse but it keeps insisting, trying to convince us that it’s okay. Again we refuse, and we are called old-fashioned, “not with the times”, or even fanatical, radical and unfit for human society. The idol of pleasure, entertainment, amusement and fun is ever tantalizing us. We have to live in the midst of a furnace of luxury and materialism without being burned, of fascination without being bewitched; we must conquer without even giving an inch.
We must face the demon, too! He, who conquered a third of the heavenly host, is not certainly not ashamed nor afraid to cross swords with men. We must throw down the gauntlet. It is not sufficient to be on the defensive, we must attack him. Being a mastermind of intelligence, he would like to outscore us―on his side is the experience of having tempted souls in all the ages since Adam’s fall; and we have merely a few years of experience under our belt, resting upon a very flimsy knowledge of the Faith. This is a gigantic task, absolutely above our strength―even when fortified by virtues. And if we are ever to be victorious in the struggle, the Gift of Fortitude will be the one to be thanked.
True Strength
As already stated above―in the affair of our salvation, much more strength is required for suffering or endurance than for action. To support the shock is more noble, more difficult, more perfect. That is why the best army is not the one that is most zealous in combat, but the one that is most enduring in the fatigue from combat.
In the combat for salvation, what must we suffer? Rather, what must we not suffer? Our life from cradle to grave is but a chain of acute sufferings of soul and body. Man is weakness itself—a “leaf carried by every wind” (Job 13:25). Nevertheless, we must resist. Measure your weakness, measure the enterprise, and you will find the measure of force needed.
Thanks to this Gift of Fortitude, the world, for twenty centuries has seen incredible marvels of endurance. That is even without recalling the astounding examples of Catholic sufferings borne patiently and for God. We all know them, and at the very mention thousands of examples come to our mind, where this superhuman strength aids weak and frail human beings in their struggle for Heaven.
Article 26
Tuesday May 23rd, 2023
Preparing for Pentecost : Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost
#3 The Gift of Knowledge ― But Not the Kind You Think!
Tuesday May 23rd, 2023
Preparing for Pentecost : Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost
#3 The Gift of Knowledge ― But Not the Kind You Think!
Mistaken Identity!
When we think or speak of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost―Fear, Piety, Knowledge, Fortitude, Counsel, Understanding and Wisdom―we usually and unsuspectingly make the mistake of identifying or relating them with HUMAN fear, piety, knowledge, fortitude, counsel, understanding and wisdom. The Gifts of the Holy Ghost have nothing to do with these human capacities―they come directly from God and are far above their human counterparts. The Gift of Knowledge is a prime candidate for mistaken identity! In this modern technological world―with its gigantic mountains of information available at the tip of our fingers on the internet―you can most definitely say that we are living in the Age of Knowledge. Today, knowledge has become an addictive drug―everyone wants to know everything they can about everything! We spend our whole life in the process of getting to know things—yet the Holy Ghost’s Gift of Knowledge is not mere human knowledge. The Gift of Knowledge is knowledge that comes from God―not from man or any other natural source. As said before—Grace perfects nature—and the Gift of Knowledge perfects our human knowledge. Through the Gift of Knowledge, the Holy Ghost opens our minds to greater, broader, deeper and more important knowledge―in a way that human reason alone could never attain.
Knowing the Wrong Things
Sometimes—maybe often—we seek to know things that are vain, empty, pointless and of little use for attaining our salvation. Holy Scripture speaks of such earthly human knowledge as foolishness and vanity: “Every man is become a fool for knowledge! … Every man is become foolish by his knowledge!” (Jeremias 10:14; 51:17). “Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities, and all is vanity ... The eye is not filled with seeing, neither is the ear filled with hearing … I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity, and vexation of spirit. The perverse are hard to be corrected, and the number of fools is infinite …. I have spoken in my heart, saying: ‘Behold I am become great, and have gone beyond all in wisdom of those that were before me in Jerusalem―and my mind hath contemplated many things wisely, and I have learned!’ And I have given my heart to know prudence and learning, and errors, and folly … I said in my heart: ‘I will go and abound with delights, and enjoy good things.’ And I saw that this also was vanity.
“Laughter I counted error; and to mirth I said: ‘Why are you vainly deceived?’ I thought in my heart, to withdraw my flesh from wine, so that I might turn my mind to wisdom and might avoid folly! … I made great works for myself, I built myself houses, and planted vineyards, I made gardens and orchards! … I got myself menservants and maidservants, and had a great family, and herds of oxen, and great flocks of sheep! … I heaped together for myself silver and gold, and the wealth of kings … and I surpassed in riches all that were before me in Jerusalem! My wisdom also remained with me! And whatsoever my eyes desired, I refused them not! And I withheld not my heart from enjoying every pleasure, and delighting itself in the things which I had prepared! … And when I turned myself to all the works which my hands had wrought, and to the labors wherein I had labored in vain―I saw in all things vanity and vexation of mind, and that nothing was lasting under the sun! … For what profit shall a man have of all his labor, and vexation of spirit, with which he hath been tormented under the sun? All his days are full of sorrows and miseries, even in the night he does not rest in his mind―and is not this vanity?” (Ecclesiastes, chapters 1 & 2).
Elsewhere, Holy Scripture also warns against vain, empty, pointless, self-inflating knowledge and speech: “Let no man deceive you with vain words” (Ephesians 5:6), who merely “multiply words without knowledge” (Job 35:16) … “The knowledge of the unwise is like words without sense!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:21) … “that makes their knowledge foolish!” (Isaias 44:25) … “Avoid the profane novelties of words and of knowledge falsely so called!” (1 Timothy 6:20). “We know that we all have knowledge, but knowledge puffs up! If any man think that he knows anything, then he has not yet known as he ought to know!” (1 Corinthians 8:1-2). “Beware lest any man cheat you by philosophy according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ!” (Colossians 2:8). “Some have not the knowledge of God, I speak it to your shame!” (1 Corinthians 15:34), “who mind earthly things” (Philippians 3:19). “They liked not to have God in their knowledge” (Romans 1:28). “Who have said to God: ‘Depart from us! We desire not the knowledge of thy ways!’” (Job 21:14). “The Lord shall enter into judgment with them―for there is no knowledge of God in the land! … Because thou hast rejected knowledge [of God], I will reject thee!” (Osee 4:1, 6). “Woe to you! For you have taken away the key of knowledge!” (Luke 11:52). “They have hated instruction, nor consented to My counsel―therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way and shall be filled with their own devices, which shall destroy them!” (Proverbs 1:29-32). “All men are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of God” (Wisdom 13:1). “Walk worthy of God, in all things increasing in the knowledge of God!” (Colossians 1:10). “If I should know all mysteries and all have knowledge, but have not charity [a love of God]―then I am nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:2). “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33). “I count all things to be but loss and count them but as dung, compared to the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord!” (Philippians 3:8). Just as Our Lord said: “For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26) ― you could also say: “What does it profit a man if he knows everything about the whole world, but does not know how to get to Heaven?”
Knowing the Right Things
Since the advent of the internet, avenues of knowledge have opened up that would astound the minds of old! Yet of what good is this knowledge if it leads not to God, Heaven and salvation? The Imitation of Christ says:
“Let our chief effort, therefore, be to study the life of Jesus Christ. The teaching of Christ is more excellent than all the advice of the saints, and he who has His spirit will find in it a hidden manna. Now, there are many who hear the Gospel often, but care little for it, because they have not the spirit of Christ. Yet whoever wishes to understand fully the words of Christ must try to pattern his whole life on that of Christ. What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility, you displease the Trinity? Indeed, it is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God. I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it! For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart, and the principles of all the philosophers―if we live without grace and the love of God? Vanity of vanities and all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone.
“This is the greatest wisdom — to seek the Kingdom of Heaven through contempt of the world. It is vanity, therefore, to seek and trust in riches that perish! It is vanity also to court honor and to be puffed up with pride! It is vanity to follow the lusts of the body and to desire things for which severe punishment later must come! It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life! It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come! It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides! Often recall the proverb: ‘The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing.’ Try, moreover, to turn your heart from the love of things visible and bring yourself to things invisible. For they who follow their own evil passions stain their consciences and lose the grace of God” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, chapter 1).
What is the Gift of Knowledge?
In the clear and precise language of Theology, the Gift of Knowledge is “a supernatural habit, infused by God with sanctifying grace, through which the human intellect, under the illuminating action of the Holy Ghost, judges rightly concerning created things as ordained to the supernatural end. Let us now put that into the layman’s language.”
The Gift of Knowledge gives us a true idea of the created world in relation to God. The created world is a stepping-stone to God and manifests the invisible God. Without that direction and orientation, the created world is sheer vanity or illusion, which leads to Hell and not to God. Since we are created beings, then we are basically prone to illusion, and our way of looking at life is not the only way and certainly not the most accurate—however devout or pious we may be. Most folk tend to mold God into what they would like Him to be and fail to see Him as He really is.
God is extremely down to Earth and has a certain humor and playfulness—qualities that Jesus manifests in the Gospels, especially in the parables. Yet God can also be deadly serious, strict and just—as also manifested by Jesus in the Gospels. Our imperfect human knowledge is in need of a crutch or assistance in order to know correctly. This assistance comes from the Gift of Knowledge.
The Gift of Knowledge is not a question of human or philosophical knowledge, nor is it a theological knowledge that makes use of natural reasoning. The Gift of Knowledge is a certain supernatural knowledge that proceeds from a special illumination of the Holy Ghost, Who reveals to us and enables us to appreciate rightly the connection between created things and the supernatural ultimate end or goal for our lives―which is God. More briefly, it is the correct estimation of the present temporal life in relation to eternal life.
Thus we can see the importance of the Gift of Knowledge in helping us avoid the pitfalls of worldliness that surround us on all sides. Human reason and rationalization will try to make peace with worldliness and marry it to religion. Yet the mind enlightened by the Holy Ghost’s Gift of Knowledge, truly and fully appreciates that “the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4).
Strengthening and Perfection of Faith
The Gift of Knowledge is absolutely necessary if the virtue of Faith is to reach its full expansion and development. The Gift of Knowledge performs invaluable services for the virtue of Faith, especially in the practical order. Through this Gift, under the movement and illumination of the Holy Ghost, we are able to judge rightly, according to the guiding principles of Faith, concerning the right use of creatures, their value to us, and their usefulness or danger as regards eternal life and salvation. Without this supernatural assistance of the Gift of Knowledge, Faith itself would be in danger, because attracted and seduced by the allurement of created things; being ignorant of the method or manner of relating or evaluating them with the supernatural order and salvation, we could easily fall into error, and, at least in the practical order, we could lose the light of Faith.
Daily experience confirms this all too well to make it necessary to insist upon it. For as was said before, the Gifts of the Holy Ghost will only begin to really work effectively once we have passed through the apprenticeship of accumulating and practicing virtues for a decent length of time. The Gifts will perfect and strengthen the virtues. Yet, if there are no virtues present, then there is nothing to strengthen. God will not spoil us or give us anything that we either do not deserve or for which we have no real interest.
Effects of the Gift of Knowledge
The effects produced in the soul by the action of the Gift of Knowledge are admirable and varied, and all of them have a great sanctifying value. The following are the principal effects:
(1) It teaches us how to judge rightly concerning created things in relation to God. This is proper to the Gift of Knowledge: “Under this impulsion, a twofold movement takes place in the soul: it understands the nothingness, the emptiness of the creature, and at the same time, in beholding creation, it sees the footprints of God. Thus, the Gift of Knowledge drew tears from St. Dominic at the thought of the lot of poor sinners and inspired St. Francis of Assisi to compose his famous Canticle to the Sun at the sight of the pageant of nature” (Fr. M. M. Philipon, O.P., The Spiritual Doctrine of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, pp. 174-175, chap. 8, n. 6).
The first aspect caused St. Ignatius of Loyola to exclaim, when contemplating the spectacle of a starry night: “Oh, how vile the Earth appears to me when I contemplate Heaven!”; the second aspect caused St. John of the Cross to fall to his knees before the beauty of a little fountain, of a mountain, of a landscape, of the setting sun, or on hearing “the whistling of the memorial airs.” The Gift of Knowledge gives us an understanding of creatures after the divine manner, so that we may be able to lift ourselves from them to God. Creatures, considered thus, in their intimate relationship with God, have two distinct characteristics: their own nothingness, and the stamp of divinity upon them.
The nothingness of created things, when contemplated through the Gift of Knowledge, made St. Paul esteem all things as dung, so that he might gain Christ: “I count all things to be but loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but as dung, so that I may gain Christ!” (Philippians 3:8). The beauty of God reflected in the beauty and fragrance of the flowers obliged St. Paul of the Cross to speak to them in an outburst of love: “Be silent, little flowers, be silent!” And this same sentiment is what gave St. Francis of Assisi that sublime sense of the universal brotherhood of all things that come forth from the hand of God: “brother sun, brother wolf, sister flower...” It was likewise the Gift of Knowledge that gave St. Teresa of Avila that extraordinary facility for explaining the things of God by making use of comparisons and examples taken from created things.
(2) It guides us with certitude concerning what we must believe or not believe. The souls in whom the Gift of Knowledge operates intensely, instinctively possess the sense of Faith (sensus fidei). Without having studied theology, or without having had any education, they perceive immediately whether or not a devotion, a doctrine, a counsel, or any kind of maxim is in accord with Faith or is opposed to Faith. Do not ask them for the reasons, because they know it without reasoning. They experience it with an irresistible power and with an unflinching assurance. It is admirable how St. Teresa of Avila, in spite of her humility and her complete submission to her confessors, could never accept the erroneous doctrine which held that in certain elevated states of prayer it was advisable to detach oneself from the consideration of the humanity of Christ.
St. Teresa of Avila writes: “Although I have been contradicted about it and told that I do not understand it, because these are paths along which Our Lord leads us, and that, when we have got over the first stages, we shall do better to occupy ourselves with matters concerning the Godhead and to flee from corporeal things, they will certainly not make me admit that this is a good way!” (Interior Castle, Sixth Mansions, chap. 7).
(3) It enables us to see promptly and with certitude the state of our soul. Everything is clear to the penetrating introspection of the Gift of Knowledge: “our interior acts, the secret movements of our heart, their qualities, their goodness, their malice, their principles, their motives, their ends and their intentions, their effects and their consequences, their merit and demerit” (Louis Lallemant, S.J., Spiritual Teaching, p. 140). Rightly did St. Teresa say that “in a room bathed in sunlight, not a cobweb can remain hidden” (The Life, p. 112).
(4) It inspires us concerning the safest method of conduct with our neighbor as regards eternal life. In this sense the Gift of Knowledge in its practical aspect influences the virtue of prudence, whose perfection is directly under the Gift of Counsel. Once again, we call on Father Lallemant: “By this Gift a preacher knows what he ought to say to his hearers, and what he ought to urge upon them. A director knows the state of the souls he has under his guidance, their spiritual needs, the remedies for their faults, the obstacles they put in the way of their perfection, the shortest and the surest road by which to conduct them safely; how he must console or mortify them, what God is working in them, and what they ought to do on their part in order to cooperate with God and fulfill His designs. A superior knows in what way he ought to govern his inferiors.
“They who have the largest share of this Gift are the most enlightened in all knowledge of this kind. Wonderful things are disclosed to them with respect to the practice of virtues. They discover therein degrees of perfection unknown to others. They perceive at a glance whether actions are inspired by God and conformable to His designs; let them deviate ever so little from the ways of God, they discern it at once. They notice imperfections where others cannot see them; they are not liable to be deceived in their opinions, neither are they apt to allow themselves, nor to be surprised by illusions with which the whole world is filled. If a scrupulous soul applies to them, they know what to say to remove its scruples. If they have to make an exhortation, whether to monks or to nuns, thoughts will occur to them suited both to the spiritual needs of the religious themselves, and to the spirit of their order. If difficulties of conscience are proposed to them, they will give an admirable solution. Ask them for the reason of their reply, they cannot tell you, because they know it without reasoning, by a light superior to all reason.
“By this Gift it was that St. Vincent Ferrer preached with that wonderful success that we read of in his life. He abandoned himself to the Holy Spirit as well in preparing his sermons as in delivering them, and everybody went away deeply affected. It was easy to see that the Holy Spirit animated him, and spoke by his mouth. One day that he had to preach before a prince, he thought he must use more study and more human diligence in the preparation of his sermon. He applied himself thereto with extraordinary pains; but neither the prince nor the audience generally were as satisfied with this studied discourse as they were with that of the next day, which he composed in his ordinary way, according to the movement of the Spirit of God. His attention was called to the difference between the two sermons. “Yesterday,” said he, “it was Brother Vincent that preached; today it was the Holy Spirit” (Fr. Lallemant, Spiritual Teaching, pp. 141-142).
(5) It detaches us from the things of Earth. This is, in reality, nothing more than a logical consequence of the right judgment of things that constitutes the proper characteristic of the Gift of Knowledge. “All things in Heaven and Earth are nothing in comparison with God” (St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. I, ch. 4). For that reason it is necessary to rise above created things in order to rest in God alone. But only the Gift of Knowledge gives to the saints that profound vision concerning the necessity of the absolute detachment that we admire, for example, in St. John of the Cross. For a soul illuminated by the Gift of Knowledge, creation is an open book where it discovers without effort the nothingness of creatures and the all of the Creator. “The soul must fly [from creatures], must no longer know them; it must consider all things as dross in order to gain Christ. . . . Are all created things put together worth even a look from him who—though it be but once—has felt God?” (Fr. M. M. Philipon, O.P., op. cit., p. 175).
The effect produced in St. Teresa of Avila by the jewels shown to her by her friend, Dona Luisa de la Cerda, in Toledo, is of interest. Here is how St. Teresa describes the incident: “It happened on one occasion while I was staying with that lady whom I have mentioned, and I was troubled with my heart (as I have said, I have suffered with this a great deal, though less so of late), that, being an extremely kind person, she had some very valuable golden trinkets and stones brought out for me, and in particular a set of diamonds, supposed to be of great price, thinking that they would cheer me. But I only laughed to myself, thinking what a pity it is that people esteem such things, remembering what the Lord has laid up for us and reflecting how impossible it would be for me to set any importance upon these things, even if I tried to make myself do so, unless the Lord were to allow me to forget those other things of Heaven. The soul that feels like this has great power over itself—so great that I do not know if it can be understood by anyone who does not possess it, for it is a real, natural detachment, achieved without labor of our own. It is all effected by God, for, when His Majesty reveals these truths, they are so deeply impressed upon our souls as to show us clearly that we could not in so short a time acquire them ourselves” (St. Teresa of Avila, The Life, chap. 38, n. 4, pp. 268-269).
What is created is vain: “Vanity of vanities.... all things are vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2) says Solomon. God had endowed him with deep wisdom, and covered him with glory that had no equal in those times. He himself tells us that his heart was denied nothing it desired. And when he had contemplated everything, experienced everything, tasted of all Earth’s fountains of delight, he came to this heartbreaking conclusion: All things are vanity. In reality this is true, for no creature can satisfy the immense capacity of our heart, its infinite thirst―God made our heart for Himself alone. No matter how much we strive to fill our heart with creatures, this will never be fully satisfying. They are vain (the Latin “vanus” means “empty”)―they are not for us―we were born for greater, higher satisfactions.
But how difficult it is for us to see the vanity of things! Things dazzle and blind us with their brilliance. They attract and ensnare us with their charms. How frequently they take us away from God! Therefore does the psalm ask: “How long will you be dull of heart? Why do you love what is vain and seek after falsehood?” (Psalm 4:3). How many times have creatures seduced us and entice us away from our path, the straight and sure path that leads to Heaven! We look for vanity and we love the lie, the pleasure that debases us, the honor that inebriates us, the material goods that enchain us. It is vanity that makes us prisoners; it is the creature that gets possession of our heart, that attracts our soul, and separates us from God, Who alone can give us peace and happiness.
Vainly are we warned against the vanity of creatures; vainly do we read learned treatises on the same subject. Many times, not even a sad, painful and unfortunate experience is enough to tear the blindfold from our eyes. We let ourselves be carried away by the bewitchment of vanity, as we fasten our heart on some creature―person or thing. Sooner or later we find emptiness and bitterness, and the experience should be sufficient to send us back to God. But no; very shortly the brilliance and the charm of creatures seduces us again, and we fall once more into the old entanglement. How many of these lapses and how much of God’s grace do we need to understand at last the vanity of created things?
A keen sense of that truth has been characteristic of all outstanding conversions. It was St. Francis Borgia who exclaimed when contemplating his dead king: “Never again will I serve a master who can die!” St. Sylvester was also turned from all created things by the sight of a corpse. How often a word or a deed has revealed the truth to men! Then is accomplished in them that complete transformation known in Christian language as “conversion.” That sudden and profound conviction of the vanity of things is the fruit of the Gift of Knowledge.
(6) It teaches us how to use created things in a holy way. This sentiment, which is complementary to the former, is another natural consequence of the right judgment of created things proper to the Gift of Knowledge. It is certain that the being of the creatures is nothing compared to the being of God, and yet all created things are crumbs that fall from the table of God, and they speak to us of Him and lead us to Him if we know how to use them rightly. This is what is effected by the Gift of Knowledge. There are countless examples of this in the lives of the saints. The contemplation of created things raised their souls to God because they could see the vestige or trace of God in creation. Sometimes the most insignificant detail, which would pass unnoticed by an ordinary person, made a strong impression on these holy souls and led them to God.
(7) It fills us with repentance and sorrow for our past errors. This is an inevitable consequence of the right judgment concerning created things. In the resplendent light of the Gift of Knowledge, the souls discover the nothingness of creatures, their fragility, their vanity, their short duration, their inability to make us truly happy, the harm that attachment to them can cause to the soul. And then―on recalling other periods of life in which perhaps they were subject to such vanity and misery―holy souls feel deep within their hearts a most profound repentance that is manifested externally by intense acts of contrition and self-disdain. The sorrowful accents of the penitential psalm Miserere (Psalm 50) spontaneously spring to their lips as a psychological necessity to alleviate the weight of sorrow that overwhelms them. For that reason, the beatitude that corresponds to the Gift of Knowledge is the beatitude of those who weep, as we shall see later.
Such are the principal effects of the Gift of Knowledge. Thanks to it―far from seeing creatures as obstacles to union with God―the virtue of Faith, guided by the Gift of Knowledge, uses creatures―even difficult ones―as instruments to be united to God more easily. Perfected by the Gifts of Understanding and Knowledge, the Virtue of Faith reaches a most lively intensity, that gives the soul a premonition of the divine brilliance of the eternal vision of God in Heaven.
When we think or speak of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost―Fear, Piety, Knowledge, Fortitude, Counsel, Understanding and Wisdom―we usually and unsuspectingly make the mistake of identifying or relating them with HUMAN fear, piety, knowledge, fortitude, counsel, understanding and wisdom. The Gifts of the Holy Ghost have nothing to do with these human capacities―they come directly from God and are far above their human counterparts. The Gift of Knowledge is a prime candidate for mistaken identity! In this modern technological world―with its gigantic mountains of information available at the tip of our fingers on the internet―you can most definitely say that we are living in the Age of Knowledge. Today, knowledge has become an addictive drug―everyone wants to know everything they can about everything! We spend our whole life in the process of getting to know things—yet the Holy Ghost’s Gift of Knowledge is not mere human knowledge. The Gift of Knowledge is knowledge that comes from God―not from man or any other natural source. As said before—Grace perfects nature—and the Gift of Knowledge perfects our human knowledge. Through the Gift of Knowledge, the Holy Ghost opens our minds to greater, broader, deeper and more important knowledge―in a way that human reason alone could never attain.
Knowing the Wrong Things
Sometimes—maybe often—we seek to know things that are vain, empty, pointless and of little use for attaining our salvation. Holy Scripture speaks of such earthly human knowledge as foolishness and vanity: “Every man is become a fool for knowledge! … Every man is become foolish by his knowledge!” (Jeremias 10:14; 51:17). “Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities, and all is vanity ... The eye is not filled with seeing, neither is the ear filled with hearing … I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity, and vexation of spirit. The perverse are hard to be corrected, and the number of fools is infinite …. I have spoken in my heart, saying: ‘Behold I am become great, and have gone beyond all in wisdom of those that were before me in Jerusalem―and my mind hath contemplated many things wisely, and I have learned!’ And I have given my heart to know prudence and learning, and errors, and folly … I said in my heart: ‘I will go and abound with delights, and enjoy good things.’ And I saw that this also was vanity.
“Laughter I counted error; and to mirth I said: ‘Why are you vainly deceived?’ I thought in my heart, to withdraw my flesh from wine, so that I might turn my mind to wisdom and might avoid folly! … I made great works for myself, I built myself houses, and planted vineyards, I made gardens and orchards! … I got myself menservants and maidservants, and had a great family, and herds of oxen, and great flocks of sheep! … I heaped together for myself silver and gold, and the wealth of kings … and I surpassed in riches all that were before me in Jerusalem! My wisdom also remained with me! And whatsoever my eyes desired, I refused them not! And I withheld not my heart from enjoying every pleasure, and delighting itself in the things which I had prepared! … And when I turned myself to all the works which my hands had wrought, and to the labors wherein I had labored in vain―I saw in all things vanity and vexation of mind, and that nothing was lasting under the sun! … For what profit shall a man have of all his labor, and vexation of spirit, with which he hath been tormented under the sun? All his days are full of sorrows and miseries, even in the night he does not rest in his mind―and is not this vanity?” (Ecclesiastes, chapters 1 & 2).
Elsewhere, Holy Scripture also warns against vain, empty, pointless, self-inflating knowledge and speech: “Let no man deceive you with vain words” (Ephesians 5:6), who merely “multiply words without knowledge” (Job 35:16) … “The knowledge of the unwise is like words without sense!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:21) … “that makes their knowledge foolish!” (Isaias 44:25) … “Avoid the profane novelties of words and of knowledge falsely so called!” (1 Timothy 6:20). “We know that we all have knowledge, but knowledge puffs up! If any man think that he knows anything, then he has not yet known as he ought to know!” (1 Corinthians 8:1-2). “Beware lest any man cheat you by philosophy according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ!” (Colossians 2:8). “Some have not the knowledge of God, I speak it to your shame!” (1 Corinthians 15:34), “who mind earthly things” (Philippians 3:19). “They liked not to have God in their knowledge” (Romans 1:28). “Who have said to God: ‘Depart from us! We desire not the knowledge of thy ways!’” (Job 21:14). “The Lord shall enter into judgment with them―for there is no knowledge of God in the land! … Because thou hast rejected knowledge [of God], I will reject thee!” (Osee 4:1, 6). “Woe to you! For you have taken away the key of knowledge!” (Luke 11:52). “They have hated instruction, nor consented to My counsel―therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way and shall be filled with their own devices, which shall destroy them!” (Proverbs 1:29-32). “All men are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of God” (Wisdom 13:1). “Walk worthy of God, in all things increasing in the knowledge of God!” (Colossians 1:10). “If I should know all mysteries and all have knowledge, but have not charity [a love of God]―then I am nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:2). “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33). “I count all things to be but loss and count them but as dung, compared to the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord!” (Philippians 3:8). Just as Our Lord said: “For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26) ― you could also say: “What does it profit a man if he knows everything about the whole world, but does not know how to get to Heaven?”
Knowing the Right Things
Since the advent of the internet, avenues of knowledge have opened up that would astound the minds of old! Yet of what good is this knowledge if it leads not to God, Heaven and salvation? The Imitation of Christ says:
“Let our chief effort, therefore, be to study the life of Jesus Christ. The teaching of Christ is more excellent than all the advice of the saints, and he who has His spirit will find in it a hidden manna. Now, there are many who hear the Gospel often, but care little for it, because they have not the spirit of Christ. Yet whoever wishes to understand fully the words of Christ must try to pattern his whole life on that of Christ. What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility, you displease the Trinity? Indeed, it is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God. I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it! For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart, and the principles of all the philosophers―if we live without grace and the love of God? Vanity of vanities and all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone.
“This is the greatest wisdom — to seek the Kingdom of Heaven through contempt of the world. It is vanity, therefore, to seek and trust in riches that perish! It is vanity also to court honor and to be puffed up with pride! It is vanity to follow the lusts of the body and to desire things for which severe punishment later must come! It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life! It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come! It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides! Often recall the proverb: ‘The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing.’ Try, moreover, to turn your heart from the love of things visible and bring yourself to things invisible. For they who follow their own evil passions stain their consciences and lose the grace of God” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, chapter 1).
What is the Gift of Knowledge?
In the clear and precise language of Theology, the Gift of Knowledge is “a supernatural habit, infused by God with sanctifying grace, through which the human intellect, under the illuminating action of the Holy Ghost, judges rightly concerning created things as ordained to the supernatural end. Let us now put that into the layman’s language.”
The Gift of Knowledge gives us a true idea of the created world in relation to God. The created world is a stepping-stone to God and manifests the invisible God. Without that direction and orientation, the created world is sheer vanity or illusion, which leads to Hell and not to God. Since we are created beings, then we are basically prone to illusion, and our way of looking at life is not the only way and certainly not the most accurate—however devout or pious we may be. Most folk tend to mold God into what they would like Him to be and fail to see Him as He really is.
God is extremely down to Earth and has a certain humor and playfulness—qualities that Jesus manifests in the Gospels, especially in the parables. Yet God can also be deadly serious, strict and just—as also manifested by Jesus in the Gospels. Our imperfect human knowledge is in need of a crutch or assistance in order to know correctly. This assistance comes from the Gift of Knowledge.
The Gift of Knowledge is not a question of human or philosophical knowledge, nor is it a theological knowledge that makes use of natural reasoning. The Gift of Knowledge is a certain supernatural knowledge that proceeds from a special illumination of the Holy Ghost, Who reveals to us and enables us to appreciate rightly the connection between created things and the supernatural ultimate end or goal for our lives―which is God. More briefly, it is the correct estimation of the present temporal life in relation to eternal life.
Thus we can see the importance of the Gift of Knowledge in helping us avoid the pitfalls of worldliness that surround us on all sides. Human reason and rationalization will try to make peace with worldliness and marry it to religion. Yet the mind enlightened by the Holy Ghost’s Gift of Knowledge, truly and fully appreciates that “the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4).
Strengthening and Perfection of Faith
The Gift of Knowledge is absolutely necessary if the virtue of Faith is to reach its full expansion and development. The Gift of Knowledge performs invaluable services for the virtue of Faith, especially in the practical order. Through this Gift, under the movement and illumination of the Holy Ghost, we are able to judge rightly, according to the guiding principles of Faith, concerning the right use of creatures, their value to us, and their usefulness or danger as regards eternal life and salvation. Without this supernatural assistance of the Gift of Knowledge, Faith itself would be in danger, because attracted and seduced by the allurement of created things; being ignorant of the method or manner of relating or evaluating them with the supernatural order and salvation, we could easily fall into error, and, at least in the practical order, we could lose the light of Faith.
Daily experience confirms this all too well to make it necessary to insist upon it. For as was said before, the Gifts of the Holy Ghost will only begin to really work effectively once we have passed through the apprenticeship of accumulating and practicing virtues for a decent length of time. The Gifts will perfect and strengthen the virtues. Yet, if there are no virtues present, then there is nothing to strengthen. God will not spoil us or give us anything that we either do not deserve or for which we have no real interest.
Effects of the Gift of Knowledge
The effects produced in the soul by the action of the Gift of Knowledge are admirable and varied, and all of them have a great sanctifying value. The following are the principal effects:
(1) It teaches us how to judge rightly concerning created things in relation to God. This is proper to the Gift of Knowledge: “Under this impulsion, a twofold movement takes place in the soul: it understands the nothingness, the emptiness of the creature, and at the same time, in beholding creation, it sees the footprints of God. Thus, the Gift of Knowledge drew tears from St. Dominic at the thought of the lot of poor sinners and inspired St. Francis of Assisi to compose his famous Canticle to the Sun at the sight of the pageant of nature” (Fr. M. M. Philipon, O.P., The Spiritual Doctrine of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, pp. 174-175, chap. 8, n. 6).
The first aspect caused St. Ignatius of Loyola to exclaim, when contemplating the spectacle of a starry night: “Oh, how vile the Earth appears to me when I contemplate Heaven!”; the second aspect caused St. John of the Cross to fall to his knees before the beauty of a little fountain, of a mountain, of a landscape, of the setting sun, or on hearing “the whistling of the memorial airs.” The Gift of Knowledge gives us an understanding of creatures after the divine manner, so that we may be able to lift ourselves from them to God. Creatures, considered thus, in their intimate relationship with God, have two distinct characteristics: their own nothingness, and the stamp of divinity upon them.
The nothingness of created things, when contemplated through the Gift of Knowledge, made St. Paul esteem all things as dung, so that he might gain Christ: “I count all things to be but loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but as dung, so that I may gain Christ!” (Philippians 3:8). The beauty of God reflected in the beauty and fragrance of the flowers obliged St. Paul of the Cross to speak to them in an outburst of love: “Be silent, little flowers, be silent!” And this same sentiment is what gave St. Francis of Assisi that sublime sense of the universal brotherhood of all things that come forth from the hand of God: “brother sun, brother wolf, sister flower...” It was likewise the Gift of Knowledge that gave St. Teresa of Avila that extraordinary facility for explaining the things of God by making use of comparisons and examples taken from created things.
(2) It guides us with certitude concerning what we must believe or not believe. The souls in whom the Gift of Knowledge operates intensely, instinctively possess the sense of Faith (sensus fidei). Without having studied theology, or without having had any education, they perceive immediately whether or not a devotion, a doctrine, a counsel, or any kind of maxim is in accord with Faith or is opposed to Faith. Do not ask them for the reasons, because they know it without reasoning. They experience it with an irresistible power and with an unflinching assurance. It is admirable how St. Teresa of Avila, in spite of her humility and her complete submission to her confessors, could never accept the erroneous doctrine which held that in certain elevated states of prayer it was advisable to detach oneself from the consideration of the humanity of Christ.
St. Teresa of Avila writes: “Although I have been contradicted about it and told that I do not understand it, because these are paths along which Our Lord leads us, and that, when we have got over the first stages, we shall do better to occupy ourselves with matters concerning the Godhead and to flee from corporeal things, they will certainly not make me admit that this is a good way!” (Interior Castle, Sixth Mansions, chap. 7).
(3) It enables us to see promptly and with certitude the state of our soul. Everything is clear to the penetrating introspection of the Gift of Knowledge: “our interior acts, the secret movements of our heart, their qualities, their goodness, their malice, their principles, their motives, their ends and their intentions, their effects and their consequences, their merit and demerit” (Louis Lallemant, S.J., Spiritual Teaching, p. 140). Rightly did St. Teresa say that “in a room bathed in sunlight, not a cobweb can remain hidden” (The Life, p. 112).
(4) It inspires us concerning the safest method of conduct with our neighbor as regards eternal life. In this sense the Gift of Knowledge in its practical aspect influences the virtue of prudence, whose perfection is directly under the Gift of Counsel. Once again, we call on Father Lallemant: “By this Gift a preacher knows what he ought to say to his hearers, and what he ought to urge upon them. A director knows the state of the souls he has under his guidance, their spiritual needs, the remedies for their faults, the obstacles they put in the way of their perfection, the shortest and the surest road by which to conduct them safely; how he must console or mortify them, what God is working in them, and what they ought to do on their part in order to cooperate with God and fulfill His designs. A superior knows in what way he ought to govern his inferiors.
“They who have the largest share of this Gift are the most enlightened in all knowledge of this kind. Wonderful things are disclosed to them with respect to the practice of virtues. They discover therein degrees of perfection unknown to others. They perceive at a glance whether actions are inspired by God and conformable to His designs; let them deviate ever so little from the ways of God, they discern it at once. They notice imperfections where others cannot see them; they are not liable to be deceived in their opinions, neither are they apt to allow themselves, nor to be surprised by illusions with which the whole world is filled. If a scrupulous soul applies to them, they know what to say to remove its scruples. If they have to make an exhortation, whether to monks or to nuns, thoughts will occur to them suited both to the spiritual needs of the religious themselves, and to the spirit of their order. If difficulties of conscience are proposed to them, they will give an admirable solution. Ask them for the reason of their reply, they cannot tell you, because they know it without reasoning, by a light superior to all reason.
“By this Gift it was that St. Vincent Ferrer preached with that wonderful success that we read of in his life. He abandoned himself to the Holy Spirit as well in preparing his sermons as in delivering them, and everybody went away deeply affected. It was easy to see that the Holy Spirit animated him, and spoke by his mouth. One day that he had to preach before a prince, he thought he must use more study and more human diligence in the preparation of his sermon. He applied himself thereto with extraordinary pains; but neither the prince nor the audience generally were as satisfied with this studied discourse as they were with that of the next day, which he composed in his ordinary way, according to the movement of the Spirit of God. His attention was called to the difference between the two sermons. “Yesterday,” said he, “it was Brother Vincent that preached; today it was the Holy Spirit” (Fr. Lallemant, Spiritual Teaching, pp. 141-142).
(5) It detaches us from the things of Earth. This is, in reality, nothing more than a logical consequence of the right judgment of things that constitutes the proper characteristic of the Gift of Knowledge. “All things in Heaven and Earth are nothing in comparison with God” (St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. I, ch. 4). For that reason it is necessary to rise above created things in order to rest in God alone. But only the Gift of Knowledge gives to the saints that profound vision concerning the necessity of the absolute detachment that we admire, for example, in St. John of the Cross. For a soul illuminated by the Gift of Knowledge, creation is an open book where it discovers without effort the nothingness of creatures and the all of the Creator. “The soul must fly [from creatures], must no longer know them; it must consider all things as dross in order to gain Christ. . . . Are all created things put together worth even a look from him who—though it be but once—has felt God?” (Fr. M. M. Philipon, O.P., op. cit., p. 175).
The effect produced in St. Teresa of Avila by the jewels shown to her by her friend, Dona Luisa de la Cerda, in Toledo, is of interest. Here is how St. Teresa describes the incident: “It happened on one occasion while I was staying with that lady whom I have mentioned, and I was troubled with my heart (as I have said, I have suffered with this a great deal, though less so of late), that, being an extremely kind person, she had some very valuable golden trinkets and stones brought out for me, and in particular a set of diamonds, supposed to be of great price, thinking that they would cheer me. But I only laughed to myself, thinking what a pity it is that people esteem such things, remembering what the Lord has laid up for us and reflecting how impossible it would be for me to set any importance upon these things, even if I tried to make myself do so, unless the Lord were to allow me to forget those other things of Heaven. The soul that feels like this has great power over itself—so great that I do not know if it can be understood by anyone who does not possess it, for it is a real, natural detachment, achieved without labor of our own. It is all effected by God, for, when His Majesty reveals these truths, they are so deeply impressed upon our souls as to show us clearly that we could not in so short a time acquire them ourselves” (St. Teresa of Avila, The Life, chap. 38, n. 4, pp. 268-269).
What is created is vain: “Vanity of vanities.... all things are vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2) says Solomon. God had endowed him with deep wisdom, and covered him with glory that had no equal in those times. He himself tells us that his heart was denied nothing it desired. And when he had contemplated everything, experienced everything, tasted of all Earth’s fountains of delight, he came to this heartbreaking conclusion: All things are vanity. In reality this is true, for no creature can satisfy the immense capacity of our heart, its infinite thirst―God made our heart for Himself alone. No matter how much we strive to fill our heart with creatures, this will never be fully satisfying. They are vain (the Latin “vanus” means “empty”)―they are not for us―we were born for greater, higher satisfactions.
But how difficult it is for us to see the vanity of things! Things dazzle and blind us with their brilliance. They attract and ensnare us with their charms. How frequently they take us away from God! Therefore does the psalm ask: “How long will you be dull of heart? Why do you love what is vain and seek after falsehood?” (Psalm 4:3). How many times have creatures seduced us and entice us away from our path, the straight and sure path that leads to Heaven! We look for vanity and we love the lie, the pleasure that debases us, the honor that inebriates us, the material goods that enchain us. It is vanity that makes us prisoners; it is the creature that gets possession of our heart, that attracts our soul, and separates us from God, Who alone can give us peace and happiness.
Vainly are we warned against the vanity of creatures; vainly do we read learned treatises on the same subject. Many times, not even a sad, painful and unfortunate experience is enough to tear the blindfold from our eyes. We let ourselves be carried away by the bewitchment of vanity, as we fasten our heart on some creature―person or thing. Sooner or later we find emptiness and bitterness, and the experience should be sufficient to send us back to God. But no; very shortly the brilliance and the charm of creatures seduces us again, and we fall once more into the old entanglement. How many of these lapses and how much of God’s grace do we need to understand at last the vanity of created things?
A keen sense of that truth has been characteristic of all outstanding conversions. It was St. Francis Borgia who exclaimed when contemplating his dead king: “Never again will I serve a master who can die!” St. Sylvester was also turned from all created things by the sight of a corpse. How often a word or a deed has revealed the truth to men! Then is accomplished in them that complete transformation known in Christian language as “conversion.” That sudden and profound conviction of the vanity of things is the fruit of the Gift of Knowledge.
(6) It teaches us how to use created things in a holy way. This sentiment, which is complementary to the former, is another natural consequence of the right judgment of created things proper to the Gift of Knowledge. It is certain that the being of the creatures is nothing compared to the being of God, and yet all created things are crumbs that fall from the table of God, and they speak to us of Him and lead us to Him if we know how to use them rightly. This is what is effected by the Gift of Knowledge. There are countless examples of this in the lives of the saints. The contemplation of created things raised their souls to God because they could see the vestige or trace of God in creation. Sometimes the most insignificant detail, which would pass unnoticed by an ordinary person, made a strong impression on these holy souls and led them to God.
(7) It fills us with repentance and sorrow for our past errors. This is an inevitable consequence of the right judgment concerning created things. In the resplendent light of the Gift of Knowledge, the souls discover the nothingness of creatures, their fragility, their vanity, their short duration, their inability to make us truly happy, the harm that attachment to them can cause to the soul. And then―on recalling other periods of life in which perhaps they were subject to such vanity and misery―holy souls feel deep within their hearts a most profound repentance that is manifested externally by intense acts of contrition and self-disdain. The sorrowful accents of the penitential psalm Miserere (Psalm 50) spontaneously spring to their lips as a psychological necessity to alleviate the weight of sorrow that overwhelms them. For that reason, the beatitude that corresponds to the Gift of Knowledge is the beatitude of those who weep, as we shall see later.
Such are the principal effects of the Gift of Knowledge. Thanks to it―far from seeing creatures as obstacles to union with God―the virtue of Faith, guided by the Gift of Knowledge, uses creatures―even difficult ones―as instruments to be united to God more easily. Perfected by the Gifts of Understanding and Knowledge, the Virtue of Faith reaches a most lively intensity, that gives the soul a premonition of the divine brilliance of the eternal vision of God in Heaven.
Article 25
Monday May 22nd, 2023
Preparing for Pentecost : Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost
#2 The Gift of Piety. Afraid to be Pious?
Monday May 22nd, 2023
Preparing for Pentecost : Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost
#2 The Gift of Piety. Afraid to be Pious?
Pious Joke
Piety! What a joke! Or at least it is a joking matter for the worldly! What is piety? Most people would find it hard to explain properly. Most have only a vague notion of what piety is—they imagine a pious person to be someone who folds their hands in prayer-like fashion; who genuflects slowly; makes the Sign of the Cross carefully; doesn’t curse or swear; etc. For the worldly minded, “Holy Roller” is substituted for the word “pious” with much mockery and merriment. What is piety?
Mistaken Identity
We must first point out—in order to avoid mistaken identity—that there is a VIRTUE called Piety, and there is also a GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST called Piety. The two, though similar, are not the same. Speaking of the VIRTUE OF PIETY, St. Thomas Aquinas writes:
“Man becomes a debtor to other men in various ways, according to their various excellence and the various benefits received from them. On both counts God holds first place. In second place … are our parents and our country, that have given us birth and nourishment. Consequently, man is debtor, after God, chiefly to his parents and his country. Wherefore just as it belongs to Religion to give worship to God, so does it belong to Piety, in the second place, to give worship to one’s parents and one’s country. The worship due to our parents includes the worship given to all our kindred, since our kinsfolk are those who descend from the same parents. The worship given to our country includes homage to all our fellow-citizens and to all the friends of our country. Therefore Piety extends chiefly to these. It is by Piety that we do our duty towards our kindred and well-wishers of our country and render them faithful service … [It is] a part of justice ... Since the nature of justice consists in rendering another person his due … [However], when we find our parents [or country] to be a hindrance in our way to God, we must ignore them by hating and fleeing from them. For if our parents incite us to sin, and withdraw us from the service of God, we must, as regards this point, abandon and hate them” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 101, art. 1, 3 & 4). So much for the VIRTUE of Piety.
The Gift of Piety
What of the GIFT OF PIETY? What is that? How does it differ from the Virtue of Piety? If, as has been already stated, the Gifts are different to the Virtues, how can Piety be both a Virtue and a Gift? These are the questions to which this current article shall be devoted.
St. Thomas points out that the Virtue of Piety is mainly concerned with family, friends and country—“It is by piety that we do our duty towards our kindred and well-wishers of our country and render them faithful service”—St. Thomas goes on to say: “[Piety] is reckoned among the Gifts in Isaias 11:2. The Piety that pays duty and worship to a [human] father in the flesh―is a Virtue: but the piety [godliness] that is a Gift, pays this duty and worship to God as Father ... To pay worship to God as Creator, as the Virtue of Religion does, is more excellent than to pay worship to one’s father in the flesh, as the Piety that is a virtue does. But to pay worship to God as Father [not as Creator] is yet even more excellent than to pay worship to God as Creator and Lord. That is why the Virtue of Religion is greater than the Virtue of Piety; while the Gift of Piety is greater than the Virtue of Religion” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 121, art. 1). Whew! Still with us? Good!
The Gift of Piety or Godliness Puts God First
“Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice” (Matthew 6:33). Piety, as St. Thomas states, belongs to Justice—that is to say “giving others their due”—whether the “other” be man or God. As St. Thomas points out, we owe God more than we owe man; therefore we must pay God first, love God first, serve God first, look after God’s interests first. That is what the Gift of Piety or Godliness is all about. The word “Godliness” seems to expound this better. We are part of God’s family—He created our soul and adopted us as His children.
Piety Not Popular
Today, Piety is far from popular. Instead of giving to God, family, friends and country, it is all about getting from God family, friends and country. Our interests take precedence over all other interests. Piety is seen as a weakness, not a strength. Piety is seen to be more of a “Party-Pooper” than “Partier.” Pious Pete or Pious Pat is not the first name on the list for invites!! Given the immense pressure of human respect in the world today, many deliberately shy away from coming across as being pious. As St. Louis de Montfort puts it, in his book, The Love of Eternal Wisdom [the bold print highlights what refers to Piety]:
“Those who proceed according to the wisdom of the world are those who know how to manage well their affairs and to arrange things to their temporal advantage without appearing to do so; who know the art of deceiving and how to cleverly cheat without being noticed; who say or do one thing and have another thing in mind; who are thoroughly acquainted with the way and the flattery of the world; who know how to please everybody in order to reach their goal, not troubling much about the honor and interests of God [which is what the Gift of Piety is all about]; who make a secret but deadly fusion of truth with untruth, of the Gospel with the world, of virtue with vice, of Jesus Christ with Satan; who wish to pass as honest people, but not as religious men; who despise and corrupt or readily condemn every religious practice which does not conform to their own. In short, the worldly wise are those who, being guided only by their human senses and reason, seek only to appear as Christian and honest folk, without troubling much to please God or to do penance for the sins which they have committed against His divine Majesty” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Love of Eternal Wisdom, chapter 7).
Family Home Life
We were made to live in a home and we have been wisely equipped for such life by God―just as fish are for life in water, or birds for flight through the air. We like the looks of those persons at home because, as a matter of fact, they look like us―“birds of a feather flock together”; we can understand their gifts and deficiencies, for by blood we share with them the common source of both. We can relax and be ourselves within the family; here there is no need for armor, nothing to be gained by bluff, no mercy is given for showing-off, and no scorn is shown for weakness. We move through that family life with none of the timidity and caution that we feel among strangers, none of the haunting fear that eats into our confidence as we enter strange lands and places, or into levels of society that are new to us. We are at home, and our movements, mannerisms and words show it. It is in family that we are seen at our very best and at our very worst―for here we are at home. We belong. This sense of ease and sense of belonging that we feel is strictly limited to human family life, for it is only within those strict limits that we are natural sons.
Adopted Into The Divine Family
However, the divine family is altogether out of our orbit! There is nothing in our nature that gives us the right and privilege of calling God our Father. It is only when the supernatural has entered into our lives—through Baptism and the Sanctifying Grace which it gives—that we can be called sons of God. Yet even that does not change our human nature―but, leaving it intact, it elevates our human nature. Nevertheless, we still cannot be called the sons of God—except by adoption and not by nature.
Adoption, as we ordinarily understand it, is a warm mercy that throws open the doors of home to a homeless child, giving the child access, not merely to the home, but also access to the very hearts of the household—the adopted child is immediately and forever one of the family.
If we could so elevate the nature of the dog, so that the dog would become like ourselves―knowing and loving as we do, speaking our language, cultivating our manners, aiming at our goals―then we would begin to have some little idea of what God expects of us in His adoption of us as sons! In fact, there would be much less of distance between a dog’s leap to human nature, than in the massive leap of man or woman to the divine heights of God’s own family. There is infinity between our nature and God’s nature, between our life and His; and we have absolutely no equipment for divine living.
The adoption, by which we become sons of God, is obviously a work possible only to Almighty God; nothing else could possibly overcome the difficulties involved in such adoption: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). If we are to live the divine family life as sons, we must share in the divine life; we must be given a life that is over and above our human life, which will enable us to live on a divine level. Just like the dog can no longer live as a dog if he was to be miraculously granted a human nature; neither can we just live a worldly life once we have been adopted by the Divine Nature.
Grace Perfects Our Weak Nature
God overcomes this difficulty by the gift of Sanctifying Grace—for grace perfects nature; it elevates nature; it sanctifies nature; it beautifies nature; it strengthens nature. Charity is like a spouse to Sanctifying Grace―they go everywhere together. By this gift of Sanctifying Grace we are made to be divinely alive―by the absence of Sanctifying Grace we are supernaturally dead. If you kick-out Sanctifying Grace from your souls by committing mortal sin―then Charity goes out the door with Sanctifying Grace. St. Paul (Romans 5:5) says: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, Who is given to us.” For “God is Charity” (1 John 4:8) and when we have Sanctifying Grace and Charity in our soul, then we become temples of the Holy Ghost, who dwells within our soul: “Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). “Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells within you? But if any man violates the temple of God, him shall God destroy! For the temple of God is holy, which you are!” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). The Holy Spirit has been given to us, and dwells within us: “His Spirit dwells in you … Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:11, 14), so that we really become temples of the Holy Ghost.
If God were to stop short at the gift of the life of grace and withhold it from us, then we would be supernatural paralytics, incapable of the least supernatural activity—which would be a poor kind of adoption indeed, and a pitiful share of the family life into which we are adopted.
Like A Thug in A Convent
With Charity as the bond of union, and with the virtues moving under the direction of Charity to our ―which is God―we are able move and function on the family plane of the divine. But we do it badly! We are embarrassed in the divinely civilized social life proper to God due to our sins; and we are an embarrassment to the divine family which has adopted us. We are infinitely out of our element, as red-necked, heavy-handed, and ill-at-ease―just like a thug in a convent. We need something MORE than just a participation in the divine life, which is GRACE. We need something MORE than those divinely elevated powers of action which are the VIRTUES. We need something that will enable us to move ‘socially’ in the divine family as God moves―something that will be a help in making our souls easily responsive to God’s own movement in our soul.
Divine Social Graces
That ‘social’ gift―by which we act as God acts in all His relations with others―is the gift of the Holy Ghost which is called the Gift of Piety. This Gift of Piety―not to be mistaken with the Virtue of Piety―communicates the spirit of the family of God to us. The Gift of Piety is absolutely necessary in order to perfect―to a heroic degree―all that falls under the Virtue of Justice (which is giving others their due) and to perfect all the other virtues related to Justice, especially the Virtue of Religion and the Virtue of Piety.
St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “Now the Holy Ghost moves us to this effect among others, of having a filial affection towards God, according to Romans 8:15: ‘You have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: “Abba!” (Father). And since it belongs properly to Piety to pay duty and worship to one’s father, it follows that the piety, which is instigated by the Holy Ghost, by which we pay worship and duty to God as our Father, is a gift of the Holy Ghost” (Summa, IIa IIae, q. 121, art. 1).
This is the Gift which completes and perfects our adoption into the family of God. Because of this Gift, it can be said of us: “Like father, like son!” With it, it is not only true that we have a divine life and act towards divine goals, but we also act divinely―for by this Gift we share the justice of God. Justice concerns itself with what is due to others. The Gift of Piety deals only with our relations to others, and with all our relations with others. In other words, it deals with the proper field of Justice, whereby the Gift of Piety perfects the Virtue of Justice giving it its fullest divine bloom. Just as Justice is the absolute requisite for social living among men, so the Gift of Piety is the absolute requisite for the social living of the sons of God.
Effects of the Gift of Piety
The effects that the intense action of the Gift of Piety produces in the soul are truly marvelous. The following are the principal effects:
(1) It places in the soul a truly filial tenderness toward our Heavenly Father. This is the primary and fundamental effect of the Gift of Piety. Dom Columba Marmion, the saintly abbot of Maredsous, also possessed to a high degree this awareness of our adoptive divine sonship. For him God was above all our Father. The monastery was the “house of the Father” and all its members formed God’s family. The same thing must be said of the whole world and of all men. Dom Marmion insists repeatedly on the necessity of cultivating this spirit of adoption, that should be the Christian’s basic attitude toward God. A splendid text of his invaluable work, Christ in His Mysteries, admirably summarizes his thought:
“Never let us forget that all Christian life, all holiness, is being by grace what Jesus is by nature―the Son of God. It is this that makes our religion sublime. The source of all the greatness of Jesus, the source of the value of all His states, the source of the fruitfulness of all His mysteries―is all found in His divine generation and His quality of Son of God. In the same way, the saint who is the highest in Heaven is the one who here below was most perfectly a child of God, who made the grace of supernatural adoption in Jesus Christ the most fruitful” (Christ in His Mysteries, p. 55).
(2) It enables us to adore the mystery of the Divine Paternity within the Trinity. In its most sublime manifestations, the Gift of Piety makes us penetrate the mystery of the intimate life of God by giving us a greater awareness, filled with respect and adoration, of the divine paternity of the Father in relation to the Word. The soul rejoices and loves to repeat, in the depth of its soul, sublime words such as those of the Gloria in Excelsis Deo: “We give Thee thanks for Thy great glory!” It is the worship and adoration of God for His own sake, and without any selfish consideration of the benefits the soul has received from Him.
(3) It arouses in the soul a childlike abandonment in the arms of the Heavenly Father. The soul abandons itself calmly and confidently to the heavenly Father. It is not preoccupied with any care, and nothing is capable of disturbing its unalterable peace―even for an instant. The soul asks nothing and rejects nothing―in regard to health or sickness; a long life or a short life; consolations or dryness; strength or weakness; persecution or praise; activity or idleness. It abandons itself completely in the arms of God, and asks only to glorify Him with all its powers.
(4) It makes us see in our neighbor a son of God and a brother in Jesus Christ. This is a natural consequence of our adoption as children of God through grace. If God is our Father, we are all sons of God and brothers in Jesus Christ―either actually or potentially. But souls that are dominated by the Gift of Piety perceive and live this sublime truth with forcefulness! They love all men with a great tenderness, because they see them as beloved brothers in Christ, and they would like to shower upon them every kind of grace and blessing.
(5) It moves us to love and devotion for the persons and things related to the Fatherhood of God or Christian brotherhood. The Gift of Piety perfects and intensifies the soul’s filial love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom it considers as a tender Mother and in whom it has all the confidence that a child has in the best of mothers. The soul tenderly loves the angels and the saints, whom it considers as its older brothers who already enjoy the continual presence of the Father in the eternal mansion of the children of God; it has a tender affection for the souls in Purgatory, its suffering brothers, whom it assists by frequent prayers and sacrifices; it shows a tender care for the members of the Church on Earth, especially the Pope and the clergy. It looks upon all lawful superiors as fathers, and serves and obeys them in everything that is non-sinful with true filial joy.
It wishes to see its country imbued with the spirit of Jesus Christ in its laws and customs, and for it would willingly shed its blood, or suffer the flames like another St. Joan of Arc. It has a deep veneration for Sacred Scripture, and reads it as if it were a letter sent from Heaven by the Father, to tell it what it must do or what is desired of it. It has a great respect for all holy things, especially those used for the cult and service of God (sacred vessels, monstrances, and so on), viewing them as articles for the service and glorification of the Father. St. Thérèse was delighted with her office of sacristan, which permitted her to touch the sacred vessels and to see her face reflected inside the chalices.
These are the chief effects of the Gift of Piety if it is cultivated and allowed to develop unhindered in our souls. Yet, we must state again, that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost can only really work in our souls after a long apprenticeship in the practice of Virtues—and this cannot be bypassed.
Opposed Vices
The vices opposed to the Gift of Piety can be grouped under the generic name of impiety. St. Gregory the Great names hardness of heart as opposed to the Gift of Piety since it is born of a disorderly love of self. Father Lallemant has written admirably on this hardness of heart:
“The vice that is opposed to the Gift of Piety is hardness of heart, which springs out of an ill-regulated love of ourselves; for this love makes us naturally sensible only to our own interests, so that nothing affects us except in reference to ourselves. We behold the offences done against God without tears, and the miseries of our neighbor without compassion; we are unwilling to inconvenience ourselves to oblige others; we cannot put up with their faults; we inveigh against them on the slightest ground, and harbor in our hearts feelings of bitterness and resentment, hatred and antipathy, against them.”
On the other hand, the more charity or love of God a soul possesses, the more sensitive it is to the interests of God and those of its neighbor.
This hardness is worst in the great ones of the world, in rich misers and pleasure-seekers, and in those who never soften their hearts by exercises of piety and familiarity with spiritual things. It is also often to be found amongst men of learning, who do not join devotion to knowledge and who, to disguise this fault from themselves, call it strength of mind; but the truly learned have been the most pious of men, as St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, St. Bernard; and of the Society, Laynez, Suarez, Bellarmine, and Lessius.
A soul which cannot weep for its sins―at least with tears of the heart―is full either of impiety or of impurity, one or the other, as is generally the case with those whose heart is hardened. It is a great misfortune when natural and acquired talents are more esteemed in religion than piety. You will sometimes see religious, and perhaps superiors, who will loudly declare that they attach much more value to a practical active mind than to all those “petty devotions”, which, they say, are all very well for women, but are unbecoming in a strong mind―meaning, by “strength of mind”, that hardness of heart, which is so opposed to the spirit of Piety. They ought to bear in mind that devotion is an act of Religion, or a fruit of Religion and of Charity, and consequently that it is to be preferred to all the moral virtues, Religion following immediately in order of dignity the theological virtues.
The Means to Cultivate This Gift
In addition to the general means for disposing oneself for the activity of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, such as practice of the moral virtues, prayer, fidelity to grace, and so on, the following practices are more immediately related to the Gift of Piety:
(a) Cultivating the spirit of adopted children of God. There are few truths that have been repeated as often in the Gospel as the truth that God is our Father. Our Lord repeats this truth fourteen times in the Sermon on the Mount alone. This doctrine of our adopted sonship is so predominant in the New Testament, that some writers have seen it as the most basic and essential theme of Christianity. God is our Creator and will be our Judge at the moment of death; but, before all else and above all else, He is always our Father. The Gift of Fear of the Lord arouses in us a respectful reverence for God, but this is in no way incompatible with the tenderness and filial confidence inspired in us by the Gift of Piety.
(b) Cultivating the spirit of universal brotherhood toward all men. This is, as we have seen, the principal secondary effect of the Gift of Piety. Even before it is practiced in all its plenitude, by the activation of the Gift, we can prepare ourselves for it with help of ordinary grace. We should strive ever to increase the capacity of our love so that we may embrace the whole world with the arms of love. We are all sons of God and brothers of Christ.
(c) Considering all things, even purely material things, as pertaining to the house of the Father. What a profoundly religious sense is discovered in all things by those souls that are ruled by the Gift of Piety! St. Francis of Assisi ardently embraced a tree, because it was “his brother” in God. St. Paul of the Cross would become ecstatic over the little flowers in his garden, because to him they spoke of the heavenly Father. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux broke into tears of tenderness when she contemplated a hen gathering its chicks under its wings and remembered the Gospel image by which Christ wanted to show us the sentiments of His divine heart, even toward ungrateful and rebellious children (cf. Matthew 23:37).
How differently we could evaluate created things, even purely material things, if we would strive to discover, under the light of Faith, the religious meaning hidden within them. All creation is truly the house of the Father, and all things in it belong to Him. With what delicacy would we act toward even purely material things! We would discover in them something divine, which would make us respect them as if they were sacred vessels. Such a Christian attitude, so holy and meritorious in the eyes of God, would distance us from sin, which is always some kind of sacrilege against God or the things of God! Our whole life would be elevated to a loftier plane, reaching sublime heights under the most loving gaze of our heavenly Father.
(d) Cultivating the spirit of complete abandonment to God. We will not attain this spirit perfectly until the Gift of Piety is intensely actuated in us, but we should try to do what we can to cultivate total abandonment to God. To this end, we should be fully convinced that, since God is our Father, it is impossible that any evil could befall us unless He permits it.
For that reason, we should strive to remain indifferent in regard to health or sickness, the shortness or the length of our life, peace or war, consolation or aridity in our spiritual life, and so on, constantly repeating our acts of surrender and abandonment to His most holy will. The fiat, the “yes,” the “whatever Thou dost desire, Lord” should be the basic attitude of the Christian toward his God, in a complete filial abandonment to His divine and paternal will, which can only desire for us the greatest good, even though at times it might appear to be an evil in the sight of our purely human and natural gaze.
Piety! What a joke! Or at least it is a joking matter for the worldly! What is piety? Most people would find it hard to explain properly. Most have only a vague notion of what piety is—they imagine a pious person to be someone who folds their hands in prayer-like fashion; who genuflects slowly; makes the Sign of the Cross carefully; doesn’t curse or swear; etc. For the worldly minded, “Holy Roller” is substituted for the word “pious” with much mockery and merriment. What is piety?
Mistaken Identity
We must first point out—in order to avoid mistaken identity—that there is a VIRTUE called Piety, and there is also a GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST called Piety. The two, though similar, are not the same. Speaking of the VIRTUE OF PIETY, St. Thomas Aquinas writes:
“Man becomes a debtor to other men in various ways, according to their various excellence and the various benefits received from them. On both counts God holds first place. In second place … are our parents and our country, that have given us birth and nourishment. Consequently, man is debtor, after God, chiefly to his parents and his country. Wherefore just as it belongs to Religion to give worship to God, so does it belong to Piety, in the second place, to give worship to one’s parents and one’s country. The worship due to our parents includes the worship given to all our kindred, since our kinsfolk are those who descend from the same parents. The worship given to our country includes homage to all our fellow-citizens and to all the friends of our country. Therefore Piety extends chiefly to these. It is by Piety that we do our duty towards our kindred and well-wishers of our country and render them faithful service … [It is] a part of justice ... Since the nature of justice consists in rendering another person his due … [However], when we find our parents [or country] to be a hindrance in our way to God, we must ignore them by hating and fleeing from them. For if our parents incite us to sin, and withdraw us from the service of God, we must, as regards this point, abandon and hate them” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 101, art. 1, 3 & 4). So much for the VIRTUE of Piety.
The Gift of Piety
What of the GIFT OF PIETY? What is that? How does it differ from the Virtue of Piety? If, as has been already stated, the Gifts are different to the Virtues, how can Piety be both a Virtue and a Gift? These are the questions to which this current article shall be devoted.
St. Thomas points out that the Virtue of Piety is mainly concerned with family, friends and country—“It is by piety that we do our duty towards our kindred and well-wishers of our country and render them faithful service”—St. Thomas goes on to say: “[Piety] is reckoned among the Gifts in Isaias 11:2. The Piety that pays duty and worship to a [human] father in the flesh―is a Virtue: but the piety [godliness] that is a Gift, pays this duty and worship to God as Father ... To pay worship to God as Creator, as the Virtue of Religion does, is more excellent than to pay worship to one’s father in the flesh, as the Piety that is a virtue does. But to pay worship to God as Father [not as Creator] is yet even more excellent than to pay worship to God as Creator and Lord. That is why the Virtue of Religion is greater than the Virtue of Piety; while the Gift of Piety is greater than the Virtue of Religion” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 121, art. 1). Whew! Still with us? Good!
The Gift of Piety or Godliness Puts God First
“Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice” (Matthew 6:33). Piety, as St. Thomas states, belongs to Justice—that is to say “giving others their due”—whether the “other” be man or God. As St. Thomas points out, we owe God more than we owe man; therefore we must pay God first, love God first, serve God first, look after God’s interests first. That is what the Gift of Piety or Godliness is all about. The word “Godliness” seems to expound this better. We are part of God’s family—He created our soul and adopted us as His children.
Piety Not Popular
Today, Piety is far from popular. Instead of giving to God, family, friends and country, it is all about getting from God family, friends and country. Our interests take precedence over all other interests. Piety is seen as a weakness, not a strength. Piety is seen to be more of a “Party-Pooper” than “Partier.” Pious Pete or Pious Pat is not the first name on the list for invites!! Given the immense pressure of human respect in the world today, many deliberately shy away from coming across as being pious. As St. Louis de Montfort puts it, in his book, The Love of Eternal Wisdom [the bold print highlights what refers to Piety]:
“Those who proceed according to the wisdom of the world are those who know how to manage well their affairs and to arrange things to their temporal advantage without appearing to do so; who know the art of deceiving and how to cleverly cheat without being noticed; who say or do one thing and have another thing in mind; who are thoroughly acquainted with the way and the flattery of the world; who know how to please everybody in order to reach their goal, not troubling much about the honor and interests of God [which is what the Gift of Piety is all about]; who make a secret but deadly fusion of truth with untruth, of the Gospel with the world, of virtue with vice, of Jesus Christ with Satan; who wish to pass as honest people, but not as religious men; who despise and corrupt or readily condemn every religious practice which does not conform to their own. In short, the worldly wise are those who, being guided only by their human senses and reason, seek only to appear as Christian and honest folk, without troubling much to please God or to do penance for the sins which they have committed against His divine Majesty” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Love of Eternal Wisdom, chapter 7).
Family Home Life
We were made to live in a home and we have been wisely equipped for such life by God―just as fish are for life in water, or birds for flight through the air. We like the looks of those persons at home because, as a matter of fact, they look like us―“birds of a feather flock together”; we can understand their gifts and deficiencies, for by blood we share with them the common source of both. We can relax and be ourselves within the family; here there is no need for armor, nothing to be gained by bluff, no mercy is given for showing-off, and no scorn is shown for weakness. We move through that family life with none of the timidity and caution that we feel among strangers, none of the haunting fear that eats into our confidence as we enter strange lands and places, or into levels of society that are new to us. We are at home, and our movements, mannerisms and words show it. It is in family that we are seen at our very best and at our very worst―for here we are at home. We belong. This sense of ease and sense of belonging that we feel is strictly limited to human family life, for it is only within those strict limits that we are natural sons.
Adopted Into The Divine Family
However, the divine family is altogether out of our orbit! There is nothing in our nature that gives us the right and privilege of calling God our Father. It is only when the supernatural has entered into our lives—through Baptism and the Sanctifying Grace which it gives—that we can be called sons of God. Yet even that does not change our human nature―but, leaving it intact, it elevates our human nature. Nevertheless, we still cannot be called the sons of God—except by adoption and not by nature.
Adoption, as we ordinarily understand it, is a warm mercy that throws open the doors of home to a homeless child, giving the child access, not merely to the home, but also access to the very hearts of the household—the adopted child is immediately and forever one of the family.
If we could so elevate the nature of the dog, so that the dog would become like ourselves―knowing and loving as we do, speaking our language, cultivating our manners, aiming at our goals―then we would begin to have some little idea of what God expects of us in His adoption of us as sons! In fact, there would be much less of distance between a dog’s leap to human nature, than in the massive leap of man or woman to the divine heights of God’s own family. There is infinity between our nature and God’s nature, between our life and His; and we have absolutely no equipment for divine living.
The adoption, by which we become sons of God, is obviously a work possible only to Almighty God; nothing else could possibly overcome the difficulties involved in such adoption: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). If we are to live the divine family life as sons, we must share in the divine life; we must be given a life that is over and above our human life, which will enable us to live on a divine level. Just like the dog can no longer live as a dog if he was to be miraculously granted a human nature; neither can we just live a worldly life once we have been adopted by the Divine Nature.
Grace Perfects Our Weak Nature
God overcomes this difficulty by the gift of Sanctifying Grace—for grace perfects nature; it elevates nature; it sanctifies nature; it beautifies nature; it strengthens nature. Charity is like a spouse to Sanctifying Grace―they go everywhere together. By this gift of Sanctifying Grace we are made to be divinely alive―by the absence of Sanctifying Grace we are supernaturally dead. If you kick-out Sanctifying Grace from your souls by committing mortal sin―then Charity goes out the door with Sanctifying Grace. St. Paul (Romans 5:5) says: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, Who is given to us.” For “God is Charity” (1 John 4:8) and when we have Sanctifying Grace and Charity in our soul, then we become temples of the Holy Ghost, who dwells within our soul: “Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). “Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells within you? But if any man violates the temple of God, him shall God destroy! For the temple of God is holy, which you are!” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). The Holy Spirit has been given to us, and dwells within us: “His Spirit dwells in you … Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:11, 14), so that we really become temples of the Holy Ghost.
If God were to stop short at the gift of the life of grace and withhold it from us, then we would be supernatural paralytics, incapable of the least supernatural activity—which would be a poor kind of adoption indeed, and a pitiful share of the family life into which we are adopted.
Like A Thug in A Convent
With Charity as the bond of union, and with the virtues moving under the direction of Charity to our ―which is God―we are able move and function on the family plane of the divine. But we do it badly! We are embarrassed in the divinely civilized social life proper to God due to our sins; and we are an embarrassment to the divine family which has adopted us. We are infinitely out of our element, as red-necked, heavy-handed, and ill-at-ease―just like a thug in a convent. We need something MORE than just a participation in the divine life, which is GRACE. We need something MORE than those divinely elevated powers of action which are the VIRTUES. We need something that will enable us to move ‘socially’ in the divine family as God moves―something that will be a help in making our souls easily responsive to God’s own movement in our soul.
Divine Social Graces
That ‘social’ gift―by which we act as God acts in all His relations with others―is the gift of the Holy Ghost which is called the Gift of Piety. This Gift of Piety―not to be mistaken with the Virtue of Piety―communicates the spirit of the family of God to us. The Gift of Piety is absolutely necessary in order to perfect―to a heroic degree―all that falls under the Virtue of Justice (which is giving others their due) and to perfect all the other virtues related to Justice, especially the Virtue of Religion and the Virtue of Piety.
St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “Now the Holy Ghost moves us to this effect among others, of having a filial affection towards God, according to Romans 8:15: ‘You have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: “Abba!” (Father). And since it belongs properly to Piety to pay duty and worship to one’s father, it follows that the piety, which is instigated by the Holy Ghost, by which we pay worship and duty to God as our Father, is a gift of the Holy Ghost” (Summa, IIa IIae, q. 121, art. 1).
This is the Gift which completes and perfects our adoption into the family of God. Because of this Gift, it can be said of us: “Like father, like son!” With it, it is not only true that we have a divine life and act towards divine goals, but we also act divinely―for by this Gift we share the justice of God. Justice concerns itself with what is due to others. The Gift of Piety deals only with our relations to others, and with all our relations with others. In other words, it deals with the proper field of Justice, whereby the Gift of Piety perfects the Virtue of Justice giving it its fullest divine bloom. Just as Justice is the absolute requisite for social living among men, so the Gift of Piety is the absolute requisite for the social living of the sons of God.
Effects of the Gift of Piety
The effects that the intense action of the Gift of Piety produces in the soul are truly marvelous. The following are the principal effects:
(1) It places in the soul a truly filial tenderness toward our Heavenly Father. This is the primary and fundamental effect of the Gift of Piety. Dom Columba Marmion, the saintly abbot of Maredsous, also possessed to a high degree this awareness of our adoptive divine sonship. For him God was above all our Father. The monastery was the “house of the Father” and all its members formed God’s family. The same thing must be said of the whole world and of all men. Dom Marmion insists repeatedly on the necessity of cultivating this spirit of adoption, that should be the Christian’s basic attitude toward God. A splendid text of his invaluable work, Christ in His Mysteries, admirably summarizes his thought:
“Never let us forget that all Christian life, all holiness, is being by grace what Jesus is by nature―the Son of God. It is this that makes our religion sublime. The source of all the greatness of Jesus, the source of the value of all His states, the source of the fruitfulness of all His mysteries―is all found in His divine generation and His quality of Son of God. In the same way, the saint who is the highest in Heaven is the one who here below was most perfectly a child of God, who made the grace of supernatural adoption in Jesus Christ the most fruitful” (Christ in His Mysteries, p. 55).
(2) It enables us to adore the mystery of the Divine Paternity within the Trinity. In its most sublime manifestations, the Gift of Piety makes us penetrate the mystery of the intimate life of God by giving us a greater awareness, filled with respect and adoration, of the divine paternity of the Father in relation to the Word. The soul rejoices and loves to repeat, in the depth of its soul, sublime words such as those of the Gloria in Excelsis Deo: “We give Thee thanks for Thy great glory!” It is the worship and adoration of God for His own sake, and without any selfish consideration of the benefits the soul has received from Him.
(3) It arouses in the soul a childlike abandonment in the arms of the Heavenly Father. The soul abandons itself calmly and confidently to the heavenly Father. It is not preoccupied with any care, and nothing is capable of disturbing its unalterable peace―even for an instant. The soul asks nothing and rejects nothing―in regard to health or sickness; a long life or a short life; consolations or dryness; strength or weakness; persecution or praise; activity or idleness. It abandons itself completely in the arms of God, and asks only to glorify Him with all its powers.
(4) It makes us see in our neighbor a son of God and a brother in Jesus Christ. This is a natural consequence of our adoption as children of God through grace. If God is our Father, we are all sons of God and brothers in Jesus Christ―either actually or potentially. But souls that are dominated by the Gift of Piety perceive and live this sublime truth with forcefulness! They love all men with a great tenderness, because they see them as beloved brothers in Christ, and they would like to shower upon them every kind of grace and blessing.
(5) It moves us to love and devotion for the persons and things related to the Fatherhood of God or Christian brotherhood. The Gift of Piety perfects and intensifies the soul’s filial love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom it considers as a tender Mother and in whom it has all the confidence that a child has in the best of mothers. The soul tenderly loves the angels and the saints, whom it considers as its older brothers who already enjoy the continual presence of the Father in the eternal mansion of the children of God; it has a tender affection for the souls in Purgatory, its suffering brothers, whom it assists by frequent prayers and sacrifices; it shows a tender care for the members of the Church on Earth, especially the Pope and the clergy. It looks upon all lawful superiors as fathers, and serves and obeys them in everything that is non-sinful with true filial joy.
It wishes to see its country imbued with the spirit of Jesus Christ in its laws and customs, and for it would willingly shed its blood, or suffer the flames like another St. Joan of Arc. It has a deep veneration for Sacred Scripture, and reads it as if it were a letter sent from Heaven by the Father, to tell it what it must do or what is desired of it. It has a great respect for all holy things, especially those used for the cult and service of God (sacred vessels, monstrances, and so on), viewing them as articles for the service and glorification of the Father. St. Thérèse was delighted with her office of sacristan, which permitted her to touch the sacred vessels and to see her face reflected inside the chalices.
These are the chief effects of the Gift of Piety if it is cultivated and allowed to develop unhindered in our souls. Yet, we must state again, that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost can only really work in our souls after a long apprenticeship in the practice of Virtues—and this cannot be bypassed.
Opposed Vices
The vices opposed to the Gift of Piety can be grouped under the generic name of impiety. St. Gregory the Great names hardness of heart as opposed to the Gift of Piety since it is born of a disorderly love of self. Father Lallemant has written admirably on this hardness of heart:
“The vice that is opposed to the Gift of Piety is hardness of heart, which springs out of an ill-regulated love of ourselves; for this love makes us naturally sensible only to our own interests, so that nothing affects us except in reference to ourselves. We behold the offences done against God without tears, and the miseries of our neighbor without compassion; we are unwilling to inconvenience ourselves to oblige others; we cannot put up with their faults; we inveigh against them on the slightest ground, and harbor in our hearts feelings of bitterness and resentment, hatred and antipathy, against them.”
On the other hand, the more charity or love of God a soul possesses, the more sensitive it is to the interests of God and those of its neighbor.
This hardness is worst in the great ones of the world, in rich misers and pleasure-seekers, and in those who never soften their hearts by exercises of piety and familiarity with spiritual things. It is also often to be found amongst men of learning, who do not join devotion to knowledge and who, to disguise this fault from themselves, call it strength of mind; but the truly learned have been the most pious of men, as St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, St. Bernard; and of the Society, Laynez, Suarez, Bellarmine, and Lessius.
A soul which cannot weep for its sins―at least with tears of the heart―is full either of impiety or of impurity, one or the other, as is generally the case with those whose heart is hardened. It is a great misfortune when natural and acquired talents are more esteemed in religion than piety. You will sometimes see religious, and perhaps superiors, who will loudly declare that they attach much more value to a practical active mind than to all those “petty devotions”, which, they say, are all very well for women, but are unbecoming in a strong mind―meaning, by “strength of mind”, that hardness of heart, which is so opposed to the spirit of Piety. They ought to bear in mind that devotion is an act of Religion, or a fruit of Religion and of Charity, and consequently that it is to be preferred to all the moral virtues, Religion following immediately in order of dignity the theological virtues.
The Means to Cultivate This Gift
In addition to the general means for disposing oneself for the activity of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, such as practice of the moral virtues, prayer, fidelity to grace, and so on, the following practices are more immediately related to the Gift of Piety:
(a) Cultivating the spirit of adopted children of God. There are few truths that have been repeated as often in the Gospel as the truth that God is our Father. Our Lord repeats this truth fourteen times in the Sermon on the Mount alone. This doctrine of our adopted sonship is so predominant in the New Testament, that some writers have seen it as the most basic and essential theme of Christianity. God is our Creator and will be our Judge at the moment of death; but, before all else and above all else, He is always our Father. The Gift of Fear of the Lord arouses in us a respectful reverence for God, but this is in no way incompatible with the tenderness and filial confidence inspired in us by the Gift of Piety.
(b) Cultivating the spirit of universal brotherhood toward all men. This is, as we have seen, the principal secondary effect of the Gift of Piety. Even before it is practiced in all its plenitude, by the activation of the Gift, we can prepare ourselves for it with help of ordinary grace. We should strive ever to increase the capacity of our love so that we may embrace the whole world with the arms of love. We are all sons of God and brothers of Christ.
(c) Considering all things, even purely material things, as pertaining to the house of the Father. What a profoundly religious sense is discovered in all things by those souls that are ruled by the Gift of Piety! St. Francis of Assisi ardently embraced a tree, because it was “his brother” in God. St. Paul of the Cross would become ecstatic over the little flowers in his garden, because to him they spoke of the heavenly Father. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux broke into tears of tenderness when she contemplated a hen gathering its chicks under its wings and remembered the Gospel image by which Christ wanted to show us the sentiments of His divine heart, even toward ungrateful and rebellious children (cf. Matthew 23:37).
How differently we could evaluate created things, even purely material things, if we would strive to discover, under the light of Faith, the religious meaning hidden within them. All creation is truly the house of the Father, and all things in it belong to Him. With what delicacy would we act toward even purely material things! We would discover in them something divine, which would make us respect them as if they were sacred vessels. Such a Christian attitude, so holy and meritorious in the eyes of God, would distance us from sin, which is always some kind of sacrilege against God or the things of God! Our whole life would be elevated to a loftier plane, reaching sublime heights under the most loving gaze of our heavenly Father.
(d) Cultivating the spirit of complete abandonment to God. We will not attain this spirit perfectly until the Gift of Piety is intensely actuated in us, but we should try to do what we can to cultivate total abandonment to God. To this end, we should be fully convinced that, since God is our Father, it is impossible that any evil could befall us unless He permits it.
For that reason, we should strive to remain indifferent in regard to health or sickness, the shortness or the length of our life, peace or war, consolation or aridity in our spiritual life, and so on, constantly repeating our acts of surrender and abandonment to His most holy will. The fiat, the “yes,” the “whatever Thou dost desire, Lord” should be the basic attitude of the Christian toward his God, in a complete filial abandonment to His divine and paternal will, which can only desire for us the greatest good, even though at times it might appear to be an evil in the sight of our purely human and natural gaze.
Article 24
Sunday May 21st, 2023
Preparing for Pentecost : Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost
#1 The Fear of the Lord
Sunday May 21st, 2023
Preparing for Pentecost : Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost
#1 The Fear of the Lord
Unwrapped Gifts
As we approach the great and magnificent feast of Pentecost, let us spend these last seven days examining the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost. These Gifts are little known and misunderstood by most people. What could be a massive advantage to us in the quest of our salvation, are not even unwrapped and lay dormant. We shall very briefly look at the Gifts as a whole, and then embark upon examining each of the seven Gifts over the remaining seven days before Pentecost.
God’s Gifts of Action
St. Thomas tells us that God may act in us in two ways:
(a) by accommodating Himself to the human mode of action. This is what He does in the case of the Virtues, which are infused into our soul at Baptism (Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance, etc). He helps us to reflect and to seek the best means to reach our end. In order to supernaturalize these operations He gives us Actual Graces (temporary, passing, assisting graces), but leaves us free to take the initiative according to the dictates of prudence, or of reason enlightened by Faith. It is therefore WE who act under the impulse or motivation of Actual Graces and with the assistance of these Actual Graces—for as Jesus said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
(b) But, by means of the Gifts, God acts in a supra-human way. God Himself takes the initiative. Before we have had the time to reflect and consult the dictates of prudence, He sends us Actual Graces―divine intuitions, lights and inspirations which act in us without deliberation on our part―but never without our consent. These Actual Graces―which sweetly invite and effectively obtain our consent―are of three kinds and are called “operating grace”. Under their influence, it is God Who primarily acts in us, we are rather passive than active; our activity consists chiefly in freely consenting to the operation of God, in allowing ourselves to be led by the Holy Ghost, and in promptly and generously following His inspirations.
Who WIll Do Better?
Who will do better a job—you or God? Of course God will! Yet even though the Gifts were infused in a largely dormant way at our Baptism, and made more active at our Confirmation—it is only when we have reached certain spiritual heights that they flourish and bring much and magnificent fruit. They are like seven seeds that have been planted and need cultivating so that they grow to be great trees. If we neglect to play our part and cultivate them, then it is to our loss—perhaps even eternal loss!
The Gifts Are Superior To Virtues
By the light of this fundamental principle, we will better understand the differences existing between the Gifts and the Virtues:
(a) The Virtues incline us to act in accordance with the nature of our faculties: thus, with the help of the grace we receive, we inquire, reason and work as we do in actions of a purely natural order. The Virtues are therefore energies that are primarily and directly active. The Gifts on the contrary impart to us a docility and a receptiveness that enable us to receive and follow the motions of operating grace. This grace moves our faculties to act, without however taking away their liberty, so that the soul, as St. Thomas tells us, is more passive than active, “is not the mover, but the thing moved.”
(b) In the case of the Virtues, we act according to the principles and rules of supernatural prudence. We are obliged to reflect, deliberate, take counsel, make choices, etc. Under the influence of the Gifts, we let ourselves be led by a divine inspiration which suddenly and without any reflection on our part vigorously urges us to do such or such a thing.
(c) Since the share of grace is far greater in the case of the Gifts than in that of the Virtues, the acts performed under the influence of the former are, all other circumstances being the same, more perfect than those performed under the action of the Virtues. It is due to the Gifts that the third degree of the Virtues is practiced and heroic acts performed.
Analogies To Help Understand
Various comparisons are used to give a better understanding of this doctrine:
(a) To practice virtue is to row, to use the Gifts is to sail―in this latter way one advances more rapidly and with less effort,
(b) The child who, with his mother’s help, takes a few steps forward, stands for the Christian who practices the Virtues with the help of grace; whilst the child―whom the mother takes in her arms to make him advance more rapidly―stands for the Christian who makes use of the Gifts by corresponding to operating grace.
(c) The musician who strikes the strings of a harp to produce harmonious sounds, represents the Christian who practices the Virtues; but, when the Holy Ghost comes Himself to touch the strings of the heart, the soul is then under the influence of the Gifts. This is a comparison employed by the Fathers to picture the action of Jesus upon Mary’s soul: “A most melodious harp used by Jesus to delight the Eternal Father.”
How and When Do the Gifts Work?
We receive the Gifts of the Holy Ghost at the same time that we receive the state of grace. They are then merely dormant supernatural faculties. When we come to the age of reason and our heart turns towards God, we begin, under the influence of actual grace, to use our whole supernatural organism, the Gifts of the Holy Ghost included. It is indeed incredible that these Gifts should remain unavailing and unavailable during a long period of our life. However, in order that the Gifts may attain their normal and complete development, we must have previously practiced the Moral Virtues (Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude and all the others) during a notable period of time, varying according to the providential designs of God for our life and our cooperation with His grace.
The practice of the Moral Virtues (Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance and their subsidiary virtues) is first required in order to cultivate the gifts. The practice of virtue is like an entrance exam to the Gifts. Such is the teaching of St. Thomas: “The moral and the intellectual virtues precede the gifts, since man, through being well subordinate to his own reason, is disposed to be rightly subordinate to God.” It stand to reason that in order to acquire that divine docility which the Gifts confer, one must have previously conquered one’s passions and vices and formed habits of prudence, of humility, of obedience, of meekness, of chastity. How can one discern, accept and follow with docility the inspirations of grace, when the soul is troubled by the prudence of the flesh, by pride, willfulness, anger and lust! Before being led by divine impulses, one must needs have followed, first of all, the rules of Christian prudence; before obeying the motions of grace, one must needs have observed the commandments and triumphed over pride. It is, in fact, the Moral Virtues that, little by little, make the soul docile and dispose it to enjoy that perfect docility required for the full exercise of the Gifts. In the meantime, the Gifts grow as habits, together with habitual grace, and frequently, unknown to us, join their energies to those of the Virtues to make us perform our supernatural acts.
There are even times when, through His operating grace, the Holy Ghost enkindles temporarily a fervor of soul which is a kind of passing contemplation. What fervent soul has not at times felt these sudden inspirations of grace, when all it had to do was to receive the divine motion and follow it?—like a shove from behind, or a gust of wind in the sails. It may have been while reading the Gospels, or some devout book; on the occasion of some Communion, or of a visit to the Blessed Sacrament; at the time of some spiritual retreat, or when making a choice of a state in life, at the time of ordination or religious profession, that it seemed to us that the grace of God sweetly and strongly carried us along.
So…
From what has so far been said, we can conclude that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost are supernatural habits which impart such docility to our faculties that they promptly comply with the inspirations of grace. However, as we shall soon explain, this docility is at the outset but mere spark which needs to be cultivated to attain its full development. Besides, it is never exercised, except when God bestows that Actual Grace which we call “operating grace”. On such occasions, the soul, whilst passive under the action of God, is most active in accomplishing His Will, and so, one may say that the Gifts are at once sources of suppleness and of energy, of docility and of power, which render the soul more passive under the Hand of God, and at the same time more active and more powerful in His service and in the practice of good works.
The Seven Gifts
We find the names and the number of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost in a classic passage of the prophet Isaias: “There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him: the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of godliness [piety]. And He shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord” (Isaias 11:1-3).
What Isaias calls “spirit,” the technical language of theology calls “Gifts.” The Holy Ghost who dwells in us when we possess the grace of God, this sweet Guest of our soul who masterfully directs our spiritual life, has desired to establish in the different parts of our being those mysterious realities, the Gifts by which He communicates with us and influences each and every one of our human faculties.
These Seven Gifts sound very much like virtues that we may have—but they are not virtues. Their role is to perfect the virtues, strengthen them, raise them to superhuman levels. They are superior to and more perfect than our virtues, but they work in harmony with them—often pushing them beyond imagined limits.
The Gifts of the Holy Ghost are of two kinds: (1) the first are specially intended for the sanctification of the person who receives them; (2) the second, more properly called charismata, are extraordinary favors granted for the help of another, favors, too, which do not sanctify by themselves, and may even be separated from sanctifying grace. Those of the first class are accounted seven in number, as enumerated by Isaias (11:2-3), where the prophet sees and describes them in the Messias. They are the Gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety (godliness), and Fear of the Lord.
The Gift of Wisdom, helps us see things from a more overall and general viewpoint—seeing things as God sees them and thereby detaching us from the world, makes us relish and love only the things of Heaven.
The Gift of Understanding helps us to grasp the truths of religion as far as is necessary.
The Gift of Counsel springs from supernatural prudence, and enables us to see and choose correctly what will help most to the glory of God and our own salvation.
By the Gift of Fortitude we receive courage to overcome the obstacles and difficulties that arise in the practice of our religious duties.
The Gift of Knowledge points out to us the path to follow and the dangers to avoid in order to reach Heaven.
The Gift of Piety, by inspiring us with a tender and filial confidence in God, makes us joyfully embrace all that pertains to His service.
Lastly, the Gift of Fear fills us with a sovereign respect for God, and makes us dread, above all things, to offend Him.
Fear of the Lord
It is with the lowest Gift on the totem pole that we will begin—Fear of the Lord. Holy Scripture tells us that “The fear of God is the beginning of his love” (Ecclesiasticus 25:16) and “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 1:7). Our two faculties of the soul are the intellect (mind) and the will (heart). The highest level or pinnacle for each of them is love for the heart (will) and wisdom for the mind (intellect). Fear is the necessary foundation or platform for both love and wisdom.
God is love—“He that loveth not, knoweth not God: for God is charity” (1 John 4:8)—and we must fear losing that love or charity of God: “The Lord spoke to me, saying: ‘Call together the people unto Me, that they may hear My words, and may learn to fear Me all the time that they live on the earth, and may teach their children!’” (Deuteronomy 4:10). “That thou mayest fear the Lord thy God, and keep all His commandments and precepts … Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and shalt serve Him only” (Deuteronomy 6:2; 6:13). “I say to you, my friends: Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you shall fear: fear ye Him, who after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell. Yea, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5).
Various Kinds of Fear
How can there be a Gift of Fear? Is not charity at the root of all the Gifts? And do not the Scriptures say that perfect love excludes fear? How is it possible, then, that fear of God can come from the profound and divine root of charity?
In order to understand this we must do a little analyzing. There are various kinds of fear: there is fear of pain and fear of blame; there is also a fear of the world that makes us conform to the world and forget the holy commandments of God and commit sin — fear, that is, of some earthly, temporal evil. How many there are who separate themselves from God through such earthly fear!
Worldly Fear
Worldly or mundane fear is that which dreads the loss of temporal goods, such as riches and honors. Innocent in itself, it becomes injurious when we prefer to sin rather than lose these goods. History is replete with cruelties that worldly fear has caused.
It is the fear of a Pilate who condemned Jesus to death because he feared to lose the esteem of Caesar. It is the fear of a Herod who put the Holy Innocents to death, because he feared for his crown. It is the fear of a Pharao who dreads the multiplication of the Israelites in Egypt. It is the fear of thousands of young men and women today, who deny their religion and abandon their most sacred duties, the frequentation of the Sacraments and the sanctification of Sunday, on account of human respect.
Carnal Fear
Carnal fear is that, of bodily inconveniences, fear of sickness or of death carried to the extent of losing the goods of the soul. It is the fear of a Peter denying his Master, lest he meet the same fate. Ah, how many Peters has the course of ages not seen? It is indeed lamentable how the sight of torture, or the fear of death, turns the mind from the thought of Heaven, and to preserve the body, the soul is lost: “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; for he that shall lose his life for My sake, shall save it” (Luke 9:24).
This is a common fear. Do we not see it every day dictating recourse to sinful means in order to avoid the ordinary inconveniences of life? We witness it many times daily—perhaps from ourselves too! A lie here and there to avoid something, or to get an advantage; afraid to correct others for fear of reprisals or fear of losing one’s popularity; sleeping on the job and misusing our employer’s time; conforming to the world for fear of being an outcast, etc., etc.
Servile Fear
There is another fear that keeps us from sin and brings us close to God, but which is imperfect: theologians call it “servile fear,” the fear of punishment. Servile fear is the fear of God because of the punishment He dishes out to sinners; it is the avoiding of sin purely and simply because there is a Hell. There is no doubt that this fear keeps us many times from falling into sin; but the motive is of an inferior order, and without the nobility proper to love. Servile fear is not the Gift of Fear of God.
Filial Fear
There is another fear that is called filial. It consists in the repugnance that the soul feels at the thought of being separated from God. This fear comes from love. It is true that perfect love casts out a certain type of fear, but there is also a fear that is, we might say, the basis of love. Whosoever desires, whosoever loves, experiences a profound fear of being separated from the loved one, of displeasing him. Love cannot be conceived of without this fear. One who loves deeply has a fear that is above all other fears — fear of separation from the beloved. This is the Gift of Fear which is directed by the Holy Ghost.
In a more perfect sense filial fear is the beginning of wisdom, because, in order to possess divine wisdom, we need to unite ourselves so closely to God that nothing can separate us from Him. The Gift of Fear unites us with God in this way. It hinders us from ever separating ourselves from the Beloved, and in that sense it is the beginning of wisdom.
Fear of the Lord Delivers From Fears
The Fear of the Lord is necessary that we may work out our salvation; it is necessary for us lest we degrade ourselves to the level of brute creation. It is the only guardian of our liberty and of our honor, because it alone is capable of delivering us from all other fear, from servile, worldly and carnal fear.
The first service rendered by the Gift of Holy Fear is to deliver us from this shameful tyranny. Servile gives way to filial fear, that fear to offend God because He is so good; it is always accompanied by confidence and love. As for worldly and carnal fear they no longer possess an illegitimate dominion, as filial fear either absorbs or banishes them. It regrets, deplores one and only one thing—sin.
This Fear of the Lord is, moreover, the only safeguard of that for which the whole world strives, liberty. Man cannot live without fear. If he does not fear God, he fears creatures, and if he fears a creature he is a creature’s slave; for, his freedom and his dignity belong to him whom he fears. To fear aught else except God, is to be under the yoke of tyranny. This is not understood by those who pretend to freedom by shaking off the yoke of God. In vain are revolutions begun; they but plunge their slaves into deeper distress. He alone is free who fears God; for, where the Spirit of God is, there, too, is liberty. Hence, we should only “fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
The Spirit of God unites us to Himself in such a way that He infuses in us an instinctive, profound, efficacious horror of being separated from God. This fear overrides all other fears.
The Gift of Fear in the Saints
Many of the great deeds in the lives of the saints were inspired by the Gift of Fear. St. Louis Gonzaga wept and scourged himself when he had to confess some little faults that we find it hard to believe were really sins. Why such tears from the saint? Why such grief? Because he examined so closely, under the influence of the Gift of Fear, the magnitude of those faults which to us seem insignificant; because he saw evil in them, a sign of separation from God. They were certainly very slight, but is anything really insignificant in love? When one loves passionately, does not the slightest danger of being removed from the beloved tear the heart to pieces?
This same Gift of Fear influenced St. Juliana of Falconieri, who trembled on hearing the word “sin,” who would faint when she heard of a crime being committed. This is something higher, something deeper, something much more perfect, than we are able to attain by our natural faculties; it is a supernatural effect which the Holy Ghost produces in souls so that they can look with horror at sin, and thus cling with intensity to God.
Degrees of Fear of the Lord
Of course there are degrees in the Gifts, as there are degrees in the Virtues. In the natural order, any faculty can be developed by practice, the acts performed by it becoming all the while stronger, more perfect. The intelligence of a student on the threshold of knowledge is not of the same degree as that of one who has spent his whole life in serious and profound study. The natural faculties grow with exercise, and as they grow we distinguish new degrees of them. The same thing happens in the supernatural order. The Virtues have their degrees, and so do the Gifts.
The gift of the fear of God, in the first degree, produces horror for sin and strength to overcome temptations. By means of the virtue we keep away from sin and conquer temptations, but with many struggles, many failures. We know from sad experience that our spiritual efforts do not always result in victory. How many times we are overcome; and even when we finally come out victorious, how conscious we are of deficiencies, hesitations, effort! With the Gift of Fear, victory is rapid and perfect. How often have we known this experience in the depths of our souls — the quick, instinctive impulse in the presence of temptation to leave the danger at once! It was the Holy Ghost moving us with His Gift of Fear.
In the second degree of this gift, the soul not only stays away from sin, but clings to God with profound reverence, avoiding even insignificant acts that are signs of imperfection. The profound respect of the saints for everything sacred — the Church, the Gospel, the priest — is the effect of the Gift of Fear. Everything divine is reverenced. The soul under the power of this gift does not want to fail in the least detail in respect and veneration for God.
A marvelous effect is produced in the third degree of this gift: total detachment from the things of this earth. That is why theologians say that this gift produces the first of the beatitudes: that of poverty of spirit. When we cling to God and avoid all that could separate us from Him, in such a way that exterior things lose their fascination for us, then the soul knows it is free, and it experiences the divine detachment characteristic of this stage of the spiritual life; it reaches the glorious height of which Jesus Christ spoke when He said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:3). The disinterestedness of St. Francis of Assisi, who considered all the things of earth as nothing; the disinterestedness to which Christ counseled the young man of the Gospel — “If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor.... and come, follow Me” (Matthew 19:21. Mark 10:21; Luke 18:22): such disinterestedness as this is the fruit of the divine Gift of Fear.
As we approach the great and magnificent feast of Pentecost, let us spend these last seven days examining the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost. These Gifts are little known and misunderstood by most people. What could be a massive advantage to us in the quest of our salvation, are not even unwrapped and lay dormant. We shall very briefly look at the Gifts as a whole, and then embark upon examining each of the seven Gifts over the remaining seven days before Pentecost.
God’s Gifts of Action
St. Thomas tells us that God may act in us in two ways:
(a) by accommodating Himself to the human mode of action. This is what He does in the case of the Virtues, which are infused into our soul at Baptism (Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance, etc). He helps us to reflect and to seek the best means to reach our end. In order to supernaturalize these operations He gives us Actual Graces (temporary, passing, assisting graces), but leaves us free to take the initiative according to the dictates of prudence, or of reason enlightened by Faith. It is therefore WE who act under the impulse or motivation of Actual Graces and with the assistance of these Actual Graces—for as Jesus said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
(b) But, by means of the Gifts, God acts in a supra-human way. God Himself takes the initiative. Before we have had the time to reflect and consult the dictates of prudence, He sends us Actual Graces―divine intuitions, lights and inspirations which act in us without deliberation on our part―but never without our consent. These Actual Graces―which sweetly invite and effectively obtain our consent―are of three kinds and are called “operating grace”. Under their influence, it is God Who primarily acts in us, we are rather passive than active; our activity consists chiefly in freely consenting to the operation of God, in allowing ourselves to be led by the Holy Ghost, and in promptly and generously following His inspirations.
Who WIll Do Better?
Who will do better a job—you or God? Of course God will! Yet even though the Gifts were infused in a largely dormant way at our Baptism, and made more active at our Confirmation—it is only when we have reached certain spiritual heights that they flourish and bring much and magnificent fruit. They are like seven seeds that have been planted and need cultivating so that they grow to be great trees. If we neglect to play our part and cultivate them, then it is to our loss—perhaps even eternal loss!
The Gifts Are Superior To Virtues
By the light of this fundamental principle, we will better understand the differences existing between the Gifts and the Virtues:
(a) The Virtues incline us to act in accordance with the nature of our faculties: thus, with the help of the grace we receive, we inquire, reason and work as we do in actions of a purely natural order. The Virtues are therefore energies that are primarily and directly active. The Gifts on the contrary impart to us a docility and a receptiveness that enable us to receive and follow the motions of operating grace. This grace moves our faculties to act, without however taking away their liberty, so that the soul, as St. Thomas tells us, is more passive than active, “is not the mover, but the thing moved.”
(b) In the case of the Virtues, we act according to the principles and rules of supernatural prudence. We are obliged to reflect, deliberate, take counsel, make choices, etc. Under the influence of the Gifts, we let ourselves be led by a divine inspiration which suddenly and without any reflection on our part vigorously urges us to do such or such a thing.
(c) Since the share of grace is far greater in the case of the Gifts than in that of the Virtues, the acts performed under the influence of the former are, all other circumstances being the same, more perfect than those performed under the action of the Virtues. It is due to the Gifts that the third degree of the Virtues is practiced and heroic acts performed.
Analogies To Help Understand
Various comparisons are used to give a better understanding of this doctrine:
(a) To practice virtue is to row, to use the Gifts is to sail―in this latter way one advances more rapidly and with less effort,
(b) The child who, with his mother’s help, takes a few steps forward, stands for the Christian who practices the Virtues with the help of grace; whilst the child―whom the mother takes in her arms to make him advance more rapidly―stands for the Christian who makes use of the Gifts by corresponding to operating grace.
(c) The musician who strikes the strings of a harp to produce harmonious sounds, represents the Christian who practices the Virtues; but, when the Holy Ghost comes Himself to touch the strings of the heart, the soul is then under the influence of the Gifts. This is a comparison employed by the Fathers to picture the action of Jesus upon Mary’s soul: “A most melodious harp used by Jesus to delight the Eternal Father.”
How and When Do the Gifts Work?
We receive the Gifts of the Holy Ghost at the same time that we receive the state of grace. They are then merely dormant supernatural faculties. When we come to the age of reason and our heart turns towards God, we begin, under the influence of actual grace, to use our whole supernatural organism, the Gifts of the Holy Ghost included. It is indeed incredible that these Gifts should remain unavailing and unavailable during a long period of our life. However, in order that the Gifts may attain their normal and complete development, we must have previously practiced the Moral Virtues (Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude and all the others) during a notable period of time, varying according to the providential designs of God for our life and our cooperation with His grace.
The practice of the Moral Virtues (Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance and their subsidiary virtues) is first required in order to cultivate the gifts. The practice of virtue is like an entrance exam to the Gifts. Such is the teaching of St. Thomas: “The moral and the intellectual virtues precede the gifts, since man, through being well subordinate to his own reason, is disposed to be rightly subordinate to God.” It stand to reason that in order to acquire that divine docility which the Gifts confer, one must have previously conquered one’s passions and vices and formed habits of prudence, of humility, of obedience, of meekness, of chastity. How can one discern, accept and follow with docility the inspirations of grace, when the soul is troubled by the prudence of the flesh, by pride, willfulness, anger and lust! Before being led by divine impulses, one must needs have followed, first of all, the rules of Christian prudence; before obeying the motions of grace, one must needs have observed the commandments and triumphed over pride. It is, in fact, the Moral Virtues that, little by little, make the soul docile and dispose it to enjoy that perfect docility required for the full exercise of the Gifts. In the meantime, the Gifts grow as habits, together with habitual grace, and frequently, unknown to us, join their energies to those of the Virtues to make us perform our supernatural acts.
There are even times when, through His operating grace, the Holy Ghost enkindles temporarily a fervor of soul which is a kind of passing contemplation. What fervent soul has not at times felt these sudden inspirations of grace, when all it had to do was to receive the divine motion and follow it?—like a shove from behind, or a gust of wind in the sails. It may have been while reading the Gospels, or some devout book; on the occasion of some Communion, or of a visit to the Blessed Sacrament; at the time of some spiritual retreat, or when making a choice of a state in life, at the time of ordination or religious profession, that it seemed to us that the grace of God sweetly and strongly carried us along.
So…
From what has so far been said, we can conclude that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost are supernatural habits which impart such docility to our faculties that they promptly comply with the inspirations of grace. However, as we shall soon explain, this docility is at the outset but mere spark which needs to be cultivated to attain its full development. Besides, it is never exercised, except when God bestows that Actual Grace which we call “operating grace”. On such occasions, the soul, whilst passive under the action of God, is most active in accomplishing His Will, and so, one may say that the Gifts are at once sources of suppleness and of energy, of docility and of power, which render the soul more passive under the Hand of God, and at the same time more active and more powerful in His service and in the practice of good works.
The Seven Gifts
We find the names and the number of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost in a classic passage of the prophet Isaias: “There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him: the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of godliness [piety]. And He shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord” (Isaias 11:1-3).
What Isaias calls “spirit,” the technical language of theology calls “Gifts.” The Holy Ghost who dwells in us when we possess the grace of God, this sweet Guest of our soul who masterfully directs our spiritual life, has desired to establish in the different parts of our being those mysterious realities, the Gifts by which He communicates with us and influences each and every one of our human faculties.
These Seven Gifts sound very much like virtues that we may have—but they are not virtues. Their role is to perfect the virtues, strengthen them, raise them to superhuman levels. They are superior to and more perfect than our virtues, but they work in harmony with them—often pushing them beyond imagined limits.
The Gifts of the Holy Ghost are of two kinds: (1) the first are specially intended for the sanctification of the person who receives them; (2) the second, more properly called charismata, are extraordinary favors granted for the help of another, favors, too, which do not sanctify by themselves, and may even be separated from sanctifying grace. Those of the first class are accounted seven in number, as enumerated by Isaias (11:2-3), where the prophet sees and describes them in the Messias. They are the Gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety (godliness), and Fear of the Lord.
The Gift of Wisdom, helps us see things from a more overall and general viewpoint—seeing things as God sees them and thereby detaching us from the world, makes us relish and love only the things of Heaven.
The Gift of Understanding helps us to grasp the truths of religion as far as is necessary.
The Gift of Counsel springs from supernatural prudence, and enables us to see and choose correctly what will help most to the glory of God and our own salvation.
By the Gift of Fortitude we receive courage to overcome the obstacles and difficulties that arise in the practice of our religious duties.
The Gift of Knowledge points out to us the path to follow and the dangers to avoid in order to reach Heaven.
The Gift of Piety, by inspiring us with a tender and filial confidence in God, makes us joyfully embrace all that pertains to His service.
Lastly, the Gift of Fear fills us with a sovereign respect for God, and makes us dread, above all things, to offend Him.
Fear of the Lord
It is with the lowest Gift on the totem pole that we will begin—Fear of the Lord. Holy Scripture tells us that “The fear of God is the beginning of his love” (Ecclesiasticus 25:16) and “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 1:7). Our two faculties of the soul are the intellect (mind) and the will (heart). The highest level or pinnacle for each of them is love for the heart (will) and wisdom for the mind (intellect). Fear is the necessary foundation or platform for both love and wisdom.
God is love—“He that loveth not, knoweth not God: for God is charity” (1 John 4:8)—and we must fear losing that love or charity of God: “The Lord spoke to me, saying: ‘Call together the people unto Me, that they may hear My words, and may learn to fear Me all the time that they live on the earth, and may teach their children!’” (Deuteronomy 4:10). “That thou mayest fear the Lord thy God, and keep all His commandments and precepts … Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and shalt serve Him only” (Deuteronomy 6:2; 6:13). “I say to you, my friends: Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you shall fear: fear ye Him, who after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell. Yea, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5).
Various Kinds of Fear
How can there be a Gift of Fear? Is not charity at the root of all the Gifts? And do not the Scriptures say that perfect love excludes fear? How is it possible, then, that fear of God can come from the profound and divine root of charity?
In order to understand this we must do a little analyzing. There are various kinds of fear: there is fear of pain and fear of blame; there is also a fear of the world that makes us conform to the world and forget the holy commandments of God and commit sin — fear, that is, of some earthly, temporal evil. How many there are who separate themselves from God through such earthly fear!
Worldly Fear
Worldly or mundane fear is that which dreads the loss of temporal goods, such as riches and honors. Innocent in itself, it becomes injurious when we prefer to sin rather than lose these goods. History is replete with cruelties that worldly fear has caused.
It is the fear of a Pilate who condemned Jesus to death because he feared to lose the esteem of Caesar. It is the fear of a Herod who put the Holy Innocents to death, because he feared for his crown. It is the fear of a Pharao who dreads the multiplication of the Israelites in Egypt. It is the fear of thousands of young men and women today, who deny their religion and abandon their most sacred duties, the frequentation of the Sacraments and the sanctification of Sunday, on account of human respect.
Carnal Fear
Carnal fear is that, of bodily inconveniences, fear of sickness or of death carried to the extent of losing the goods of the soul. It is the fear of a Peter denying his Master, lest he meet the same fate. Ah, how many Peters has the course of ages not seen? It is indeed lamentable how the sight of torture, or the fear of death, turns the mind from the thought of Heaven, and to preserve the body, the soul is lost: “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; for he that shall lose his life for My sake, shall save it” (Luke 9:24).
This is a common fear. Do we not see it every day dictating recourse to sinful means in order to avoid the ordinary inconveniences of life? We witness it many times daily—perhaps from ourselves too! A lie here and there to avoid something, or to get an advantage; afraid to correct others for fear of reprisals or fear of losing one’s popularity; sleeping on the job and misusing our employer’s time; conforming to the world for fear of being an outcast, etc., etc.
Servile Fear
There is another fear that keeps us from sin and brings us close to God, but which is imperfect: theologians call it “servile fear,” the fear of punishment. Servile fear is the fear of God because of the punishment He dishes out to sinners; it is the avoiding of sin purely and simply because there is a Hell. There is no doubt that this fear keeps us many times from falling into sin; but the motive is of an inferior order, and without the nobility proper to love. Servile fear is not the Gift of Fear of God.
Filial Fear
There is another fear that is called filial. It consists in the repugnance that the soul feels at the thought of being separated from God. This fear comes from love. It is true that perfect love casts out a certain type of fear, but there is also a fear that is, we might say, the basis of love. Whosoever desires, whosoever loves, experiences a profound fear of being separated from the loved one, of displeasing him. Love cannot be conceived of without this fear. One who loves deeply has a fear that is above all other fears — fear of separation from the beloved. This is the Gift of Fear which is directed by the Holy Ghost.
In a more perfect sense filial fear is the beginning of wisdom, because, in order to possess divine wisdom, we need to unite ourselves so closely to God that nothing can separate us from Him. The Gift of Fear unites us with God in this way. It hinders us from ever separating ourselves from the Beloved, and in that sense it is the beginning of wisdom.
Fear of the Lord Delivers From Fears
The Fear of the Lord is necessary that we may work out our salvation; it is necessary for us lest we degrade ourselves to the level of brute creation. It is the only guardian of our liberty and of our honor, because it alone is capable of delivering us from all other fear, from servile, worldly and carnal fear.
The first service rendered by the Gift of Holy Fear is to deliver us from this shameful tyranny. Servile gives way to filial fear, that fear to offend God because He is so good; it is always accompanied by confidence and love. As for worldly and carnal fear they no longer possess an illegitimate dominion, as filial fear either absorbs or banishes them. It regrets, deplores one and only one thing—sin.
This Fear of the Lord is, moreover, the only safeguard of that for which the whole world strives, liberty. Man cannot live without fear. If he does not fear God, he fears creatures, and if he fears a creature he is a creature’s slave; for, his freedom and his dignity belong to him whom he fears. To fear aught else except God, is to be under the yoke of tyranny. This is not understood by those who pretend to freedom by shaking off the yoke of God. In vain are revolutions begun; they but plunge their slaves into deeper distress. He alone is free who fears God; for, where the Spirit of God is, there, too, is liberty. Hence, we should only “fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
The Spirit of God unites us to Himself in such a way that He infuses in us an instinctive, profound, efficacious horror of being separated from God. This fear overrides all other fears.
The Gift of Fear in the Saints
Many of the great deeds in the lives of the saints were inspired by the Gift of Fear. St. Louis Gonzaga wept and scourged himself when he had to confess some little faults that we find it hard to believe were really sins. Why such tears from the saint? Why such grief? Because he examined so closely, under the influence of the Gift of Fear, the magnitude of those faults which to us seem insignificant; because he saw evil in them, a sign of separation from God. They were certainly very slight, but is anything really insignificant in love? When one loves passionately, does not the slightest danger of being removed from the beloved tear the heart to pieces?
This same Gift of Fear influenced St. Juliana of Falconieri, who trembled on hearing the word “sin,” who would faint when she heard of a crime being committed. This is something higher, something deeper, something much more perfect, than we are able to attain by our natural faculties; it is a supernatural effect which the Holy Ghost produces in souls so that they can look with horror at sin, and thus cling with intensity to God.
Degrees of Fear of the Lord
Of course there are degrees in the Gifts, as there are degrees in the Virtues. In the natural order, any faculty can be developed by practice, the acts performed by it becoming all the while stronger, more perfect. The intelligence of a student on the threshold of knowledge is not of the same degree as that of one who has spent his whole life in serious and profound study. The natural faculties grow with exercise, and as they grow we distinguish new degrees of them. The same thing happens in the supernatural order. The Virtues have their degrees, and so do the Gifts.
The gift of the fear of God, in the first degree, produces horror for sin and strength to overcome temptations. By means of the virtue we keep away from sin and conquer temptations, but with many struggles, many failures. We know from sad experience that our spiritual efforts do not always result in victory. How many times we are overcome; and even when we finally come out victorious, how conscious we are of deficiencies, hesitations, effort! With the Gift of Fear, victory is rapid and perfect. How often have we known this experience in the depths of our souls — the quick, instinctive impulse in the presence of temptation to leave the danger at once! It was the Holy Ghost moving us with His Gift of Fear.
In the second degree of this gift, the soul not only stays away from sin, but clings to God with profound reverence, avoiding even insignificant acts that are signs of imperfection. The profound respect of the saints for everything sacred — the Church, the Gospel, the priest — is the effect of the Gift of Fear. Everything divine is reverenced. The soul under the power of this gift does not want to fail in the least detail in respect and veneration for God.
A marvelous effect is produced in the third degree of this gift: total detachment from the things of this earth. That is why theologians say that this gift produces the first of the beatitudes: that of poverty of spirit. When we cling to God and avoid all that could separate us from Him, in such a way that exterior things lose their fascination for us, then the soul knows it is free, and it experiences the divine detachment characteristic of this stage of the spiritual life; it reaches the glorious height of which Jesus Christ spoke when He said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:3). The disinterestedness of St. Francis of Assisi, who considered all the things of earth as nothing; the disinterestedness to which Christ counseled the young man of the Gospel — “If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor.... and come, follow Me” (Matthew 19:21. Mark 10:21; Luke 18:22): such disinterestedness as this is the fruit of the divine Gift of Fear.
Article 23
Friday May 19th & Saturday May 20th, 2023
Do You Really Desire Heaven?
Friday May 19th & Saturday May 20th, 2023
Do You Really Desire Heaven?
A Season of Faith, Hope and Charity
You could say that the time of Easter focuses on Faith; the time of the Ascension focuses on Hope; and the time of Pentecost focuses on Charity. That is because Eastertide demands that we have Faith and belief in the resurrection of Christ; whereas during Ascensiontide we see Christ depart for Heaven, leaving us behind, and thus we must have Hope and confidence that we may one day follow Him to Heaven; and during Whitsuntide (the time of Pentecost) we witness the descent of the God the Holy Ghost―”God is Charity” (1 John 4:8)―upon us in the form of tongues of fire―reminding us of Charity and Love, which we beg of the Holy Ghost in the prayer to Him: “Come O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fires of Thy love!”
Our communication with the absent and unseen Christ and Heaven is by those three methods or means―Faith, Hope and Charity―which are known as the Three Theological Virtues. The word “theology” comes from the combination of two Greek words: “theos”, meaning “God”, and “logos”, meaning “word” or “rational thought”. Therefore, theology and theological mean “words or thoughts about God”. St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “Divine Law contains precepts about the acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity: for it is written (Ecclesiasticus 2:8-10): ‘Ye that fear the Lord believe Him,’ and ‘hope in Him,’ and again, ‘love Him.’ Therefore Faith, Hope, and Charity are virtues directing us to God. Therefore they are called ‘theological’ virtues” (Summa Theologica, Ia-IIae, q. 62, art. 1).
We cannot desire what we do not know. We cannot hope for what we do not know. We cannot love what we do not know. When our Catechism tells us that we must “know, love and serve God in this life in order to be happy with Him in Heaven”―it is giving us a logical order. We must know God before we can love God; we must love God before we can persevere in serving God through thick and thin; and we must serve God faithfully if we wish to reach Heaven and be happy with God for ever. St. Thomas states: “We cannot tend to anything, either by hoping or loving, unless that thing is first known and apprehended by the intellect. It is by Faith that the intellect first focuses on the object of hope and love. Hence, in the order of generation, Faith precedes Hope and Charity. Similarly, a man loves a thing because he sees it as his good. When a man hopes to be able to obtain some good through someone, he looks on the man, in whom he hopes, as a good of his own. When a man hopes in someone, he proceeds to love him. So we see that, in the order of generation, Faith precedes Hope and Charity; and hope precedes Charity.” (Summa Theologica, Ia-IIae, q. 62, art. 4).
“Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that are not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). St. Peter speaks of this knowledge and love of the unseen God that occurs through listening to words spoken about God, words that explain the invisible God to the listener: “In Whom, though you see Him not, you believe … Whom having not seen, you love!” (1 Peter 1:8). St. Paul also jumps on the bandwagon when he writes: “Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved! How then shall they call on Him, in Whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe Him, of Whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent? … Therefore, Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ!” (Romans 10:13-17).
God has communicated with us by revealing His thoughts and words to the Prophets and others in the Old Testament times, which have been written down and form part of the Bible. God has also communicated with us through the words of through Our Lord and the Apostles and disciples in New Testament times, which are also recorded in the Bible. Furthermore, God the Holy Ghost still communicates with us through the Magisterium of the Church: Private Revelation is also a means by which God communicates with us, but it is secondary and must not introduce anything new or contrary to Divine Public Revelation, which is found in Scripture and Tradition. Thus Our Lord commanded His Apostles and disciples to teach the world about God: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations … Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you! … He that hears you, hears Me; and he that despises you, despises Me; and he that despises Me, despises Him that sent Me!” (Matthew 28:19-20; Luke 10:16).
The Importance of Knowledge
We communicate with the absent and unseen God, Christ, Our Lady and all the angels and saints in Heaven with our thoughts (mental prayer, meditations, etc.) and our words (vocal prayer)―just as in a broad and similar sense, here on Earth, we communicate with absent and unseen family and friends by generally three means―letters, e-mails and phone calls. Usually, we communicate more with those persons who we know better. That knowledge about them makes us want to communicate with them. We have a desire for communication because we know them well and we like what we see. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that “In things that have knowledge, desire follows upon knowledge” (Summa Theologica Ia, q. 75, art. 6). You cannot desire what you do not know―and you will desire only a little what you only know a little about.
This is also true of God, Christ, Our Lady, the angels and saints in Heaven. If we only know a little about God, then there will be little desire for communication. Everyone starts out knowing little about God―just think what a newly born baby knows about God―nothing! Yet the baby has a potential for knowledge―just like a seed has a potential for growth―but whether or not that knowledge (or seed) will grow, depends upon the surrounding environment. If the seed in planted in poor soil and is not watered sufficiently, then that seed risks being doomed to die due to malnutrition. If the baby is planted in a worldly soil and is not watered with the Word of God and fed the grace of God, then as the baby grows into childhood, adolescence and adulthood, then you will see a spiritually deformed person who risks exchanging their potential salvation for potential damnation. The child cannot desire or love what it has never been exposed to or taught.
If, as St. Thomas Aquinas said ― “In things that have knowledge, desire follows upon knowledge” ― it stands to reason that good and healthy knowledge will create good and healthy desires; whereas bad, evil or unhealthy knowledge will create bad, evil and unhealthy desires ― “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:8). The secular world pretty much says the same thing. Historical and present-day thinkers, philosophers, writers and motivators seem to agree on a universal truth: “You are what you think.” English philosopher James Allen wrote: “As a man thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.” Stoic and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote: “A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.” Poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “A man is what he thinks about all day long.” Author Earl Nightingale said: “We become what we think about,” and Mark Twain wrote: “Life consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever flowing through one's head.”
What the Hell Are We Thinking About?
Why is it that very few people truly desire Heaven and why is it that most souls are damned? It all started with their knowledge and thoughts. They had a choice about what they would learn about and think about the most. You are what you think―and most chose to think about the world rather than think about God: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8). Our predominant thoughts can either be worldly, humanistic, naturalistic, materialistic and hedonistic (seeking pleasures), or they the spiritual, supernatural, religious and God-centered.
The words of Holy Scripture affirm this truth: “The Lord has looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! The fool has said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’ There is no fear of God before their eyes! They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways―there is none that does good, no, not one! Their throat is an open sepulcher―with their tongues they acted deceitfully; the poison of asps is under their lips! Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness! Their feet are swift to shed blood! Destruction and unhappiness in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known! They have not called upon God! There have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear. God hath scattered the bones of them that please men! They have been confounded, because God hath despised them!” (Psalm 13:1-3; Psalm 52:1-6). “For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them” (Matthew 13:15).
If we choose to dangerously mix with the world―then we are mixing and rubbing shoulders with the enemies of God who have little or no liking for God, and little or no desire for Heaven: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also!” (Matthew 6:19-21).
Our Lord lamented a future time when there would a lack of Faith: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8)―No, all He will find is smartphones and noses of Catholics glued to them! “Faith comes by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17)―but nobody wants to hear the words of Christ anymore, there are too many more interesting things to listen to―and the internet and television will gladly supply! “Who have said to God: ‘Depart from us! We desire not the knowledge of Thy ways!’” (Job 21:14).
This is What Our Lady is Thinking About
Our Lady, in her revelations to the Venerable Mary of Agreda (1602-1665), bewailed worldliness and its effects upon the soul: “Who is so dull-minded and insipid as not to know the dangers of the worldly life? Worldlings abhor all that is painful! Many of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others expect to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain―because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! All of them are pursuing the same deceit of seeking to appear what they are not in fact, and fail to come up to what they appear to be in reality. They play-down their faults, extol their virtues and abilities, they attribute to themselves the goods and the blessings, as if they had not received them from God. Their inclinations and their blind love of visible things, detains them and makes them hard and heavy of heart about spiritual things―these inclinations and this blindness rob them of remembrance and affection toward these higher spiritual things, which could raise them above their worldliness! They never taste or recognize the highest and truest Good, they take no thought or appreciation of it!
“The wisdom of this world is carnal and diabolical, and leads to death. The wisdom of the flesh has made men ignorant, foolish and hostile to God―because it is of the devil, deceitful, earthly and rebellious to the divine laws! The sons of this world are ignorant―because they are lovers of earthly riches! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! How many men―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves into most abominable sins and into Hell! And they are followed by the bad Christians! Infinite is the number of those who are entangled in this dangerous error! God knows the endless damage caused in mortals by this insane love, greed and covetousness of visible things which has perverted the greater part of the human race, who are lost by the vice of avarice and greed for money, possessions and fame!
“Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting―in spite of their sins―to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? They not only abhor resemblance to Christ’s suffering, but they make their recovery impossible―since all of them are weak and afflicted by many sins―for which the only remedy is suffering! Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment! I do not count anyone as a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation. And yet even all this is insufficient! Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16)―fear this sentence and renew in thy heart the care and zeal for thy salvation!
“Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous tepidity. They live in the darkness of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk―even if to the most dangerous precipices. They are surrounded by innumerable enemies, who pursue them with diabolical treachery, unceasing vigilance, unquenchable wrath and restless diligence. What wonder then, that from such extremes, or rather from such unequal combat, that irreparable defeats should arise among the mortals? And, since the number of fools is infinite, what surprise is it that the number of the damned should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men!” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
This is What Our Lord Thinks
The above words of Our Lady―spoken in Divine Private Revelation―are just about the same as to what Our Lord and the authors of the New Testament said in Divine Public Revelation in the Gospels and Epistles, thus affirming and validating Our Lady’s words. Our Lord and Holy Scripture say: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth… but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:19-21). “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). “Not everyone that says to Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father, Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 7:21). “And why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “If any man wants to follow Me, then let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me!’” (Mark 8:34). “And he that does not take up his cross and follows Me, is not worthy of Me … He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:35-37-38). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers! What fellowship does light have with darkness? And what agreement has Christ with Belial? Or what part do the faithful have with the unbeliever? And what agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For you are the temple of the living God! As God says: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Do you not know that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). “For many are called, but few chosen!” (Matthew 20:16).
What Seeds Are You Sowing? Where Are You Going?
There is no miraculous “bail-out” for those who desire the world more than Heaven; who live more for the world than they do for God; who desire worldly knowledge over spiritual knowledge. “Be not deceived! God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8). Are we among those “Who have said to God: ‘Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways!’” (Job 21:14). Be careful if you desire the world, for Scripture says: “Follow not the desires of thy heart! … If you give to your soul its desires, it will make you a joy to thy enemies!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:2; 18:31). “Refrain yourselves from carnal desires which war against the soul!” (1 Peter 2:11) … “They that want to become rich, fall into temptation, and into the snare of the devil, and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires, which drown men into destruction and perdition! The desire of money is the root of all evils; which some coveting have erred from the Faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows!” (1 Timothy 6:9-10). “They coveted their desire and they tempted God!” (Psalm 105:14) … “Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart―unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves!” (Romans 1:24) … “Thou hast given him his heart’s desire!” (Psalm 20:3) … “He gave them their desire!” (Psalm 77:29) … “So I let them go according to the desires of their heart―they shall walk in their own inventions!” (Psalm 80:13) ... “Slaves to divers desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another!” (Titus 3:3) … “These are murmurers, full of complaints, walking according to their own desires, and their mouth speaketh proud things! … Walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses!” (Jude 1:16-18) … “The desire of the wicked shall perish!” (Psalm 111:10) ― as many saints have said: “Be careful what you ask for―you just might get it!” To which we may add: “Be careful of what you desire―you might just get it!”
Stop Focusing on this World―Focus on Heaven!
Holy Scripture is filled with advice on how we should stop focusing upon this world and start focusing on God and Heaven. The first thing we must do is separate ourselves from worldly people: “For many walk, of whom I have told you often―and now tell you weeping―that they are enemies of the cross of Christ! Whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:18-19). “They are of the world, therefore of the world they speak and the world hears them! We are of God …” (1 John 4:5-6) … “our conversation is in Heaven” (Philippians 3:20) … “We brought nothing into this world, and we certainly can carry nothing out!” (1 Timothy 6:7) … “Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth!” (Colossians 3:2) … “For we look for new Heavens and a new Earth―according to His promises” (2 Peter 3:13) … “For we know, if our earthly house of this world be dissolved, that we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in Heaven” (2 Corinthians 5:1) … “For we do not have here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come!” (Hebrews 13:14). This world and life in this world is a fleeting passing thing―with most persons failing to live even a measly, paltry, miniscule period of only 100 years―whereas eternity makes 100 years look like a grain of sand in comparison to the size of the entire universe. Where do we want our joys? On Earth for 60, 70 or 80 years―or in Heaven for eternity? Only a lunatic would prefer joys on Earth instead of the joys of Heaven! Yet most of us, in that case, live like lunatics!
For those who are prepared to suffer and carry the cross; who keep the commandments of God; and who love God with their whole mind, heart, soul and strength, “God has prepared for them a city … the holy city coming down out of Heaven from God, having the glory of God … and there shall not enter into it anything defiled … And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more―for the former things are passed away!” (Hebrews 11:16; Apocalypse 21:10, 27, 4) … “I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth―for the first Heaven and the first Earth was gone, and the sea is now no more. And I saw the holy city, coming down out of Heaven from God!” (Apocalypse 21:1-2) … “I saw a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne, and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands … These are they who are come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and have made them white in the Blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night … They shall no more hunger nor thirst, neither shall the sun fall on them, nor any heat ... and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes!” (Apocalypse 7:9-17).
Heaven a Place of Love―Hell a Place of Hatred
Faced with love and hatred―which would you prefer? The answer, hopefully, should be obvious! There is only ONE eternal destination that awaits you after death―it is either Heaven or Hell (Purgatory is not eternal). Heaven is a place of love, only love and nothing but love. Hell is a place of hatred, only hatred and nothing but hatred. In Heaven, even those who were enemies on Earth, will now love each other with a sincere love. In Hell, even those who were best friends on Earth, will now hate each other with a venomous, deep hatred. Where would you like to spend you eternal life? Heaven or Hell?
Each place has its price. To get to Hell you have to almost nothing, apart from do what you want! Admission to Hell is free―everyone is welcome. You don’t pay a penny for Hell now―you will pay later. The road to Hell is easy to negotiate―there is labor, no steep climbs―it is all downhill. Besides that, on the road to Hell there are lots of sideshows, amusements, televisions, internet, restaurants, pubs and bars, bedrooms―where you can enjoy yourself, laugh, browse, watch, gorge on food, get drunk, fornicate, commit adultery or even have sex with your own gender! Do what you want! Nothing is seen to be sinful! There are no commandments―apart from the commandment that says: “Thou shalt enjoy thyself in any way you want!”
St. Louis de Montfort, in his Letter to the Friends of the Cross, paints a picture of these two destinations and their followers: “There are two groups that appear before you each day―the followers of Christ and the followers of the world. Our loving Savior’s group is to the right, scaling a narrow path made all the narrower by the world’s corruption. To the left is the world’s group―the devil’s in fact―which is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendid in array. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded, although they are broad and ever broadening with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver. These worldlings rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure,’ they shout, ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play! God is good, He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples; we shall not die!’ And so they continue.”
Reasons to Help You Desire Heaven―Really Desire Heaven
The following, though not is quotation marks, is mainly taken from the book, The Happiness Of Heaven, by Fr. J. Boudreaux, S.J.
Perfect happiness cannot be found in this world. It certainly cannot be found in creatures, for they were not clothed with the power to give it. It cannot be found even in the practice of virtue. God has solemnly pledged Himself to give eternal life to all who love and serve Him here on Earth. He has promised an unspeakably great happiness! This happiness which is now so incomprehensible to us — is none other than the possession and enjoyment of God Himself.
Perfect happiness cannot be found in this world. It certainly cannot be found in creatures, for they were not clothed with the power to give it. It cannot be found even in the practice of virtue. God has solemnly pledged Himself to give eternal life to all who love and serve Him here on Earth. He has promised an unspeakably great happiness! This happiness which is now so incomprehensible to us — is none other than the possession and enjoyment of God Himself. A very imperfect analogy would be this―when you find someone who is good beyond your wildest dreams, who also displays a love towards you, then you are naturally inclined to love that person in return, and love them to such a degree that everything else in your life seems secondary. Captivated by that love, you seem to forget and ignore everything else around you. You want to be with that person all the time and seek to know that person more and more―and the more you get to know that person, the more you love that person. Even if you multiplied or magnified that imperfect analogy a million, or a billion, or a trillion times―you would still be nowhere near what it is like to see and love and God.
All these, and other similar views of Heaven, are true―inasmuch as they represent Heaven as a place entirely free from evil and suffering, and, at the same time, as place of positive happiness. Nevertheless, they are all imperfect views, because not one of them takes in the whole of heavenly bliss, such as God has revealed it to us. They all ignore the Beatific Vision, which is the essential happiness of Heaven. God is like the roots and the trunk of a tree―and those aforementioned happinesses are merely branches and twigs and leaves of the tree. Without the roots and the trunk, there will be no branches, twigs and leaves―with the happiness of God, there could not be other secondary happinesses that grow out God’s happiness. Or similarly, if the person whom you love is happy, then you are happy too!
But even among those who look upon Heaven as a place where we still see God, very few indeed understand what is implied in the vision of God. Many imagine that we shall simply gaze upon an object whose surpassing perfection will make us happy in a way that we do not understand. These do not fully comprehend what is meant by the Beatific Vision, although they view Heaven as a place where we shall see God. “Beatific Vision” is composed of three Latin words: “beatus”, meaning “happy”; “facio” meaning “I make”; and “visio” meaning “a sight” — all of which, taken together, make up and mean “a happy-making sight” or “sight that makes you happy”. The Beatific Vision consists of three acts, which are essential to its integrity and perfection: (1) the sight or vision of God; (2) the love of God; and (3) the enjoyment of God. In other words, we see, we love and we enjoy God. These three acts, although really distinct from each other, are inseparable, for, if even one of them is excluded, the Beatific Vision no longer exists in its integrity.
Theologians divide the happiness of Heaven into essential happiness and accidental happiness. By essential is meant the happiness which the soul receives immediately from God in the Beatific Vision. By accidental is meant the additional pleasures or joys which come to the blessed from creatures.
The Sight of God
The sight, or vision, of God means that the intellect is suddenly elevated and enabled to see God as He is―a vision in which the soul sees God, face-to-face—not indeed with the eyes of the body, but with the intellect. For God is a spirit and cannot be seen with material eyes. It is the soul that sees God, but when it does, the soul sees Him more clearly and perfectly than we can now see anything with our material eyes. This vision of God is an intellectual act which fills the soul to overflowing with an intuitive knowledge of God―a knowledge so perfect and complete that all the knowledge of Him attainable in this world by prayer and study, is like the feeble glimmer of the lamp compared with the dazzling splendor of the noonday sun.
This perfect vision, or knowledge, of God, is the very root of the other acts which are necessary for its completeness. Thus we say of the sun that it is the source of the light, heat, life, and beauty of this material world, for, if the sun were blotted out from the heavens, this world would, in one instant, become the dark and silent grave of every living creature. We say, therefore, that the vision of the Divine Essence is the root or source of the Beatific Vision. Yet, the human mind cannot rest satisfied with knowledge alone, however perfect it may be. It must also love and enjoy the object of its knowledge. Therefore, the vision of God produces the two other acts which we shall now briefly consider.
The Love of God
The second element of the Beatific Vision is an act of perfect and inexpressible love. It is the sight or knowledge of God―as He really is―that produces this love, because it is impossible for the soul to see God in His divine beauty, goodness, and unspeakable love for the soul, without loving Him in return with all the power of the soul. It would be easier to go near an immense fire and not feel the heat, than to see God in His very essence and yet not be set on fire with divine love.
The Enjoyment of God
The third element of the Beatific Vision is an act of excessive joy, which proceeds spontaneously from both the vision and the love of God. It is an act by which the soul rejoices in the possession of God. He is the soul’s own God, the soul’s own possession, and in the enjoyment of Him, the soul’s cravings for happiness are completely gratified. Evidently, then, the Beatific Vision necessarily includes the possession of God, because without it, this last act of enjoying God could have no existence. A moment’s reflection will make this as evident as the light of day.
Some Analogies to Help You
A beggar, for instance, gazes upon a magnificent palace, filled with untold wealth, and all that can gratify the senses. Does the mere sight of it make him happy? It certainly does not, because it is not and never can be his. He may admire its grand architecture and exquisite workmanship and thus receive some trifling pleasure; but, as he can never call that palace, nor its wealth, his own possession―the mere gazing upon it, and even loving its beauty, can never make him fully happy. For full happiness, the possession of the palace is essential.
Again, the starving beggar gazes upon the rich man’s table loaded with every imaginable luxury. Does that mere sight relieve the pangs of hunger? It certainly does not. It rather adds to his wretchedness by intensifying his hunger without satisfying its cravings. So it would be in Heaven, if we could imagine a soul admitted there and allowed to gaze upon the beauty of God, while not able to possess or enjoy Him. Such a sight would be no Beatific Vision for that soul.
The possession of God is, therefore, absolutely necessary in order that the soul may enjoy Him and rest in Him as its last end. Hence, the act of seeing God is also the act by which the blessed possess God and enter into the joy of their Lord.
The blessed participate in the divine nature
But this is not yet all. The Beatific Vision also means that God not only enables the soul to see Him in all His surpassing beauty, but God also takes the soul to His bosom as a beloved child and bestows upon it the happiness which mortal eyes cannot see. God unites the soul to Himself in a wonderful and intimate a manner, that the soul is transformed into God. This is the highest glory to which a rational nature can be elevated. In explaining this participation in the divine nature in Heaven, theologians make use of a very apt comparison. They say, if you thrust a piece of iron into the fire, it soon loses its dark color and becomes red and hot, like the fire. It is thus made a partaker of the nature of fire, without, however, losing its own essential iron nature. This illustrates what takes place in the Beatific Vision in relation to the soul. It is united to God and penetrated by Him. It becomes bright with His brightness, beautiful with His beauty, pure with His purity, happy with His unutterable happiness, and perfect with His divine perfections. In a word, it becomes a partaker of the “divine nature,” while it retains its created nature and personal identity.
Abstract words and reasoning, however, fail to convey a definite idea of this glorious happiness reserved for the children of God. Let us, therefore, have recourse to an illustration in the shape of a little parable. It will be as a mirror, wherein we shall see faint but true reflections of the Beatific Vision.
A kind-hearted king, while hunting in a forest, finds a blind orphan boy, totally destitute of all that can make life comfortable. The king, moved with compassion, takes him to his palace, adopts him as his own, and orders him to be cared for and educated in all that a blind person can learn. It is almost needless to say that the boy is unspeakably grateful and does all he can to please the king. When he has reached his twentieth year, a surgeon performs an operation upon his eyes, by which his sight is restored. Then the king, surrounded by his nobles and amid all the pomp and magnificence of the court, proclaims him one of his sons and commands all to honor and love him as such. And thus, the once-friendless orphan becomes a prince and, therefore, a partaker of the royal dignity, of the happiness and glory which are to be found in the palaces of kings.
I will not attempt to describe the joys that overwhelm the soul of this fortunate young man when he first sees that king, of whose manly beauty, goodness, power, and magnificence he had heard so much. Nor will I attempt to describe those other joys which fill his soul when he beholds himself, his own personal beauty, and the magnificence of his princely garments, of which he had also heard so much. Much less will I attempt to picture his exquisite and unspeakable happiness when he sees himself adopted into the royal family, honored and loved by all, together with all the pleasures of life within his reach. Each one may endeavor to imagine his feelings, joy, and happiness. We can only say that all this taken together is a beatific vision for him — in the natural order.
Here we find the three acts already explained. The first is the sight of the good king in all his glory and magnificence; the second is the intense love which this sight produces; and the third is the enjoyment of the king’s society and all the happiness with which his adoption has surrounded him.
You could say that the time of Easter focuses on Faith; the time of the Ascension focuses on Hope; and the time of Pentecost focuses on Charity. That is because Eastertide demands that we have Faith and belief in the resurrection of Christ; whereas during Ascensiontide we see Christ depart for Heaven, leaving us behind, and thus we must have Hope and confidence that we may one day follow Him to Heaven; and during Whitsuntide (the time of Pentecost) we witness the descent of the God the Holy Ghost―”God is Charity” (1 John 4:8)―upon us in the form of tongues of fire―reminding us of Charity and Love, which we beg of the Holy Ghost in the prayer to Him: “Come O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fires of Thy love!”
Our communication with the absent and unseen Christ and Heaven is by those three methods or means―Faith, Hope and Charity―which are known as the Three Theological Virtues. The word “theology” comes from the combination of two Greek words: “theos”, meaning “God”, and “logos”, meaning “word” or “rational thought”. Therefore, theology and theological mean “words or thoughts about God”. St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “Divine Law contains precepts about the acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity: for it is written (Ecclesiasticus 2:8-10): ‘Ye that fear the Lord believe Him,’ and ‘hope in Him,’ and again, ‘love Him.’ Therefore Faith, Hope, and Charity are virtues directing us to God. Therefore they are called ‘theological’ virtues” (Summa Theologica, Ia-IIae, q. 62, art. 1).
We cannot desire what we do not know. We cannot hope for what we do not know. We cannot love what we do not know. When our Catechism tells us that we must “know, love and serve God in this life in order to be happy with Him in Heaven”―it is giving us a logical order. We must know God before we can love God; we must love God before we can persevere in serving God through thick and thin; and we must serve God faithfully if we wish to reach Heaven and be happy with God for ever. St. Thomas states: “We cannot tend to anything, either by hoping or loving, unless that thing is first known and apprehended by the intellect. It is by Faith that the intellect first focuses on the object of hope and love. Hence, in the order of generation, Faith precedes Hope and Charity. Similarly, a man loves a thing because he sees it as his good. When a man hopes to be able to obtain some good through someone, he looks on the man, in whom he hopes, as a good of his own. When a man hopes in someone, he proceeds to love him. So we see that, in the order of generation, Faith precedes Hope and Charity; and hope precedes Charity.” (Summa Theologica, Ia-IIae, q. 62, art. 4).
“Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that are not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). St. Peter speaks of this knowledge and love of the unseen God that occurs through listening to words spoken about God, words that explain the invisible God to the listener: “In Whom, though you see Him not, you believe … Whom having not seen, you love!” (1 Peter 1:8). St. Paul also jumps on the bandwagon when he writes: “Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved! How then shall they call on Him, in Whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe Him, of Whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent? … Therefore, Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ!” (Romans 10:13-17).
God has communicated with us by revealing His thoughts and words to the Prophets and others in the Old Testament times, which have been written down and form part of the Bible. God has also communicated with us through the words of through Our Lord and the Apostles and disciples in New Testament times, which are also recorded in the Bible. Furthermore, God the Holy Ghost still communicates with us through the Magisterium of the Church: Private Revelation is also a means by which God communicates with us, but it is secondary and must not introduce anything new or contrary to Divine Public Revelation, which is found in Scripture and Tradition. Thus Our Lord commanded His Apostles and disciples to teach the world about God: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations … Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you! … He that hears you, hears Me; and he that despises you, despises Me; and he that despises Me, despises Him that sent Me!” (Matthew 28:19-20; Luke 10:16).
The Importance of Knowledge
We communicate with the absent and unseen God, Christ, Our Lady and all the angels and saints in Heaven with our thoughts (mental prayer, meditations, etc.) and our words (vocal prayer)―just as in a broad and similar sense, here on Earth, we communicate with absent and unseen family and friends by generally three means―letters, e-mails and phone calls. Usually, we communicate more with those persons who we know better. That knowledge about them makes us want to communicate with them. We have a desire for communication because we know them well and we like what we see. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that “In things that have knowledge, desire follows upon knowledge” (Summa Theologica Ia, q. 75, art. 6). You cannot desire what you do not know―and you will desire only a little what you only know a little about.
This is also true of God, Christ, Our Lady, the angels and saints in Heaven. If we only know a little about God, then there will be little desire for communication. Everyone starts out knowing little about God―just think what a newly born baby knows about God―nothing! Yet the baby has a potential for knowledge―just like a seed has a potential for growth―but whether or not that knowledge (or seed) will grow, depends upon the surrounding environment. If the seed in planted in poor soil and is not watered sufficiently, then that seed risks being doomed to die due to malnutrition. If the baby is planted in a worldly soil and is not watered with the Word of God and fed the grace of God, then as the baby grows into childhood, adolescence and adulthood, then you will see a spiritually deformed person who risks exchanging their potential salvation for potential damnation. The child cannot desire or love what it has never been exposed to or taught.
If, as St. Thomas Aquinas said ― “In things that have knowledge, desire follows upon knowledge” ― it stands to reason that good and healthy knowledge will create good and healthy desires; whereas bad, evil or unhealthy knowledge will create bad, evil and unhealthy desires ― “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:8). The secular world pretty much says the same thing. Historical and present-day thinkers, philosophers, writers and motivators seem to agree on a universal truth: “You are what you think.” English philosopher James Allen wrote: “As a man thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.” Stoic and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote: “A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.” Poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “A man is what he thinks about all day long.” Author Earl Nightingale said: “We become what we think about,” and Mark Twain wrote: “Life consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever flowing through one's head.”
What the Hell Are We Thinking About?
Why is it that very few people truly desire Heaven and why is it that most souls are damned? It all started with their knowledge and thoughts. They had a choice about what they would learn about and think about the most. You are what you think―and most chose to think about the world rather than think about God: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8). Our predominant thoughts can either be worldly, humanistic, naturalistic, materialistic and hedonistic (seeking pleasures), or they the spiritual, supernatural, religious and God-centered.
The words of Holy Scripture affirm this truth: “The Lord has looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! The fool has said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’ There is no fear of God before their eyes! They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways―there is none that does good, no, not one! Their throat is an open sepulcher―with their tongues they acted deceitfully; the poison of asps is under their lips! Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness! Their feet are swift to shed blood! Destruction and unhappiness in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known! They have not called upon God! There have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear. God hath scattered the bones of them that please men! They have been confounded, because God hath despised them!” (Psalm 13:1-3; Psalm 52:1-6). “For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them” (Matthew 13:15).
If we choose to dangerously mix with the world―then we are mixing and rubbing shoulders with the enemies of God who have little or no liking for God, and little or no desire for Heaven: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also!” (Matthew 6:19-21).
Our Lord lamented a future time when there would a lack of Faith: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8)―No, all He will find is smartphones and noses of Catholics glued to them! “Faith comes by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17)―but nobody wants to hear the words of Christ anymore, there are too many more interesting things to listen to―and the internet and television will gladly supply! “Who have said to God: ‘Depart from us! We desire not the knowledge of Thy ways!’” (Job 21:14).
This is What Our Lady is Thinking About
Our Lady, in her revelations to the Venerable Mary of Agreda (1602-1665), bewailed worldliness and its effects upon the soul: “Who is so dull-minded and insipid as not to know the dangers of the worldly life? Worldlings abhor all that is painful! Many of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others expect to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain―because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! All of them are pursuing the same deceit of seeking to appear what they are not in fact, and fail to come up to what they appear to be in reality. They play-down their faults, extol their virtues and abilities, they attribute to themselves the goods and the blessings, as if they had not received them from God. Their inclinations and their blind love of visible things, detains them and makes them hard and heavy of heart about spiritual things―these inclinations and this blindness rob them of remembrance and affection toward these higher spiritual things, which could raise them above their worldliness! They never taste or recognize the highest and truest Good, they take no thought or appreciation of it!
“The wisdom of this world is carnal and diabolical, and leads to death. The wisdom of the flesh has made men ignorant, foolish and hostile to God―because it is of the devil, deceitful, earthly and rebellious to the divine laws! The sons of this world are ignorant―because they are lovers of earthly riches! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! How many men―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves into most abominable sins and into Hell! And they are followed by the bad Christians! Infinite is the number of those who are entangled in this dangerous error! God knows the endless damage caused in mortals by this insane love, greed and covetousness of visible things which has perverted the greater part of the human race, who are lost by the vice of avarice and greed for money, possessions and fame!
“Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting―in spite of their sins―to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? They not only abhor resemblance to Christ’s suffering, but they make their recovery impossible―since all of them are weak and afflicted by many sins―for which the only remedy is suffering! Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment! I do not count anyone as a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation. And yet even all this is insufficient! Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16)―fear this sentence and renew in thy heart the care and zeal for thy salvation!
“Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous tepidity. They live in the darkness of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk―even if to the most dangerous precipices. They are surrounded by innumerable enemies, who pursue them with diabolical treachery, unceasing vigilance, unquenchable wrath and restless diligence. What wonder then, that from such extremes, or rather from such unequal combat, that irreparable defeats should arise among the mortals? And, since the number of fools is infinite, what surprise is it that the number of the damned should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men!” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
This is What Our Lord Thinks
The above words of Our Lady―spoken in Divine Private Revelation―are just about the same as to what Our Lord and the authors of the New Testament said in Divine Public Revelation in the Gospels and Epistles, thus affirming and validating Our Lady’s words. Our Lord and Holy Scripture say: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth… but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:19-21). “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). “Not everyone that says to Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father, Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 7:21). “And why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “If any man wants to follow Me, then let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me!’” (Mark 8:34). “And he that does not take up his cross and follows Me, is not worthy of Me … He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:35-37-38). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers! What fellowship does light have with darkness? And what agreement has Christ with Belial? Or what part do the faithful have with the unbeliever? And what agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For you are the temple of the living God! As God says: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Do you not know that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). “For many are called, but few chosen!” (Matthew 20:16).
What Seeds Are You Sowing? Where Are You Going?
There is no miraculous “bail-out” for those who desire the world more than Heaven; who live more for the world than they do for God; who desire worldly knowledge over spiritual knowledge. “Be not deceived! God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8). Are we among those “Who have said to God: ‘Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways!’” (Job 21:14). Be careful if you desire the world, for Scripture says: “Follow not the desires of thy heart! … If you give to your soul its desires, it will make you a joy to thy enemies!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:2; 18:31). “Refrain yourselves from carnal desires which war against the soul!” (1 Peter 2:11) … “They that want to become rich, fall into temptation, and into the snare of the devil, and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires, which drown men into destruction and perdition! The desire of money is the root of all evils; which some coveting have erred from the Faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows!” (1 Timothy 6:9-10). “They coveted their desire and they tempted God!” (Psalm 105:14) … “Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart―unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves!” (Romans 1:24) … “Thou hast given him his heart’s desire!” (Psalm 20:3) … “He gave them their desire!” (Psalm 77:29) … “So I let them go according to the desires of their heart―they shall walk in their own inventions!” (Psalm 80:13) ... “Slaves to divers desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another!” (Titus 3:3) … “These are murmurers, full of complaints, walking according to their own desires, and their mouth speaketh proud things! … Walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses!” (Jude 1:16-18) … “The desire of the wicked shall perish!” (Psalm 111:10) ― as many saints have said: “Be careful what you ask for―you just might get it!” To which we may add: “Be careful of what you desire―you might just get it!”
Stop Focusing on this World―Focus on Heaven!
Holy Scripture is filled with advice on how we should stop focusing upon this world and start focusing on God and Heaven. The first thing we must do is separate ourselves from worldly people: “For many walk, of whom I have told you often―and now tell you weeping―that they are enemies of the cross of Christ! Whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:18-19). “They are of the world, therefore of the world they speak and the world hears them! We are of God …” (1 John 4:5-6) … “our conversation is in Heaven” (Philippians 3:20) … “We brought nothing into this world, and we certainly can carry nothing out!” (1 Timothy 6:7) … “Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth!” (Colossians 3:2) … “For we look for new Heavens and a new Earth―according to His promises” (2 Peter 3:13) … “For we know, if our earthly house of this world be dissolved, that we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in Heaven” (2 Corinthians 5:1) … “For we do not have here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come!” (Hebrews 13:14). This world and life in this world is a fleeting passing thing―with most persons failing to live even a measly, paltry, miniscule period of only 100 years―whereas eternity makes 100 years look like a grain of sand in comparison to the size of the entire universe. Where do we want our joys? On Earth for 60, 70 or 80 years―or in Heaven for eternity? Only a lunatic would prefer joys on Earth instead of the joys of Heaven! Yet most of us, in that case, live like lunatics!
For those who are prepared to suffer and carry the cross; who keep the commandments of God; and who love God with their whole mind, heart, soul and strength, “God has prepared for them a city … the holy city coming down out of Heaven from God, having the glory of God … and there shall not enter into it anything defiled … And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more―for the former things are passed away!” (Hebrews 11:16; Apocalypse 21:10, 27, 4) … “I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth―for the first Heaven and the first Earth was gone, and the sea is now no more. And I saw the holy city, coming down out of Heaven from God!” (Apocalypse 21:1-2) … “I saw a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne, and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands … These are they who are come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and have made them white in the Blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night … They shall no more hunger nor thirst, neither shall the sun fall on them, nor any heat ... and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes!” (Apocalypse 7:9-17).
Heaven a Place of Love―Hell a Place of Hatred
Faced with love and hatred―which would you prefer? The answer, hopefully, should be obvious! There is only ONE eternal destination that awaits you after death―it is either Heaven or Hell (Purgatory is not eternal). Heaven is a place of love, only love and nothing but love. Hell is a place of hatred, only hatred and nothing but hatred. In Heaven, even those who were enemies on Earth, will now love each other with a sincere love. In Hell, even those who were best friends on Earth, will now hate each other with a venomous, deep hatred. Where would you like to spend you eternal life? Heaven or Hell?
Each place has its price. To get to Hell you have to almost nothing, apart from do what you want! Admission to Hell is free―everyone is welcome. You don’t pay a penny for Hell now―you will pay later. The road to Hell is easy to negotiate―there is labor, no steep climbs―it is all downhill. Besides that, on the road to Hell there are lots of sideshows, amusements, televisions, internet, restaurants, pubs and bars, bedrooms―where you can enjoy yourself, laugh, browse, watch, gorge on food, get drunk, fornicate, commit adultery or even have sex with your own gender! Do what you want! Nothing is seen to be sinful! There are no commandments―apart from the commandment that says: “Thou shalt enjoy thyself in any way you want!”
St. Louis de Montfort, in his Letter to the Friends of the Cross, paints a picture of these two destinations and their followers: “There are two groups that appear before you each day―the followers of Christ and the followers of the world. Our loving Savior’s group is to the right, scaling a narrow path made all the narrower by the world’s corruption. To the left is the world’s group―the devil’s in fact―which is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendid in array. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded, although they are broad and ever broadening with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver. These worldlings rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure,’ they shout, ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play! God is good, He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples; we shall not die!’ And so they continue.”
Reasons to Help You Desire Heaven―Really Desire Heaven
The following, though not is quotation marks, is mainly taken from the book, The Happiness Of Heaven, by Fr. J. Boudreaux, S.J.
Perfect happiness cannot be found in this world. It certainly cannot be found in creatures, for they were not clothed with the power to give it. It cannot be found even in the practice of virtue. God has solemnly pledged Himself to give eternal life to all who love and serve Him here on Earth. He has promised an unspeakably great happiness! This happiness which is now so incomprehensible to us — is none other than the possession and enjoyment of God Himself.
Perfect happiness cannot be found in this world. It certainly cannot be found in creatures, for they were not clothed with the power to give it. It cannot be found even in the practice of virtue. God has solemnly pledged Himself to give eternal life to all who love and serve Him here on Earth. He has promised an unspeakably great happiness! This happiness which is now so incomprehensible to us — is none other than the possession and enjoyment of God Himself. A very imperfect analogy would be this―when you find someone who is good beyond your wildest dreams, who also displays a love towards you, then you are naturally inclined to love that person in return, and love them to such a degree that everything else in your life seems secondary. Captivated by that love, you seem to forget and ignore everything else around you. You want to be with that person all the time and seek to know that person more and more―and the more you get to know that person, the more you love that person. Even if you multiplied or magnified that imperfect analogy a million, or a billion, or a trillion times―you would still be nowhere near what it is like to see and love and God.
All these, and other similar views of Heaven, are true―inasmuch as they represent Heaven as a place entirely free from evil and suffering, and, at the same time, as place of positive happiness. Nevertheless, they are all imperfect views, because not one of them takes in the whole of heavenly bliss, such as God has revealed it to us. They all ignore the Beatific Vision, which is the essential happiness of Heaven. God is like the roots and the trunk of a tree―and those aforementioned happinesses are merely branches and twigs and leaves of the tree. Without the roots and the trunk, there will be no branches, twigs and leaves―with the happiness of God, there could not be other secondary happinesses that grow out God’s happiness. Or similarly, if the person whom you love is happy, then you are happy too!
But even among those who look upon Heaven as a place where we still see God, very few indeed understand what is implied in the vision of God. Many imagine that we shall simply gaze upon an object whose surpassing perfection will make us happy in a way that we do not understand. These do not fully comprehend what is meant by the Beatific Vision, although they view Heaven as a place where we shall see God. “Beatific Vision” is composed of three Latin words: “beatus”, meaning “happy”; “facio” meaning “I make”; and “visio” meaning “a sight” — all of which, taken together, make up and mean “a happy-making sight” or “sight that makes you happy”. The Beatific Vision consists of three acts, which are essential to its integrity and perfection: (1) the sight or vision of God; (2) the love of God; and (3) the enjoyment of God. In other words, we see, we love and we enjoy God. These three acts, although really distinct from each other, are inseparable, for, if even one of them is excluded, the Beatific Vision no longer exists in its integrity.
Theologians divide the happiness of Heaven into essential happiness and accidental happiness. By essential is meant the happiness which the soul receives immediately from God in the Beatific Vision. By accidental is meant the additional pleasures or joys which come to the blessed from creatures.
The Sight of God
The sight, or vision, of God means that the intellect is suddenly elevated and enabled to see God as He is―a vision in which the soul sees God, face-to-face—not indeed with the eyes of the body, but with the intellect. For God is a spirit and cannot be seen with material eyes. It is the soul that sees God, but when it does, the soul sees Him more clearly and perfectly than we can now see anything with our material eyes. This vision of God is an intellectual act which fills the soul to overflowing with an intuitive knowledge of God―a knowledge so perfect and complete that all the knowledge of Him attainable in this world by prayer and study, is like the feeble glimmer of the lamp compared with the dazzling splendor of the noonday sun.
This perfect vision, or knowledge, of God, is the very root of the other acts which are necessary for its completeness. Thus we say of the sun that it is the source of the light, heat, life, and beauty of this material world, for, if the sun were blotted out from the heavens, this world would, in one instant, become the dark and silent grave of every living creature. We say, therefore, that the vision of the Divine Essence is the root or source of the Beatific Vision. Yet, the human mind cannot rest satisfied with knowledge alone, however perfect it may be. It must also love and enjoy the object of its knowledge. Therefore, the vision of God produces the two other acts which we shall now briefly consider.
The Love of God
The second element of the Beatific Vision is an act of perfect and inexpressible love. It is the sight or knowledge of God―as He really is―that produces this love, because it is impossible for the soul to see God in His divine beauty, goodness, and unspeakable love for the soul, without loving Him in return with all the power of the soul. It would be easier to go near an immense fire and not feel the heat, than to see God in His very essence and yet not be set on fire with divine love.
The Enjoyment of God
The third element of the Beatific Vision is an act of excessive joy, which proceeds spontaneously from both the vision and the love of God. It is an act by which the soul rejoices in the possession of God. He is the soul’s own God, the soul’s own possession, and in the enjoyment of Him, the soul’s cravings for happiness are completely gratified. Evidently, then, the Beatific Vision necessarily includes the possession of God, because without it, this last act of enjoying God could have no existence. A moment’s reflection will make this as evident as the light of day.
Some Analogies to Help You
A beggar, for instance, gazes upon a magnificent palace, filled with untold wealth, and all that can gratify the senses. Does the mere sight of it make him happy? It certainly does not, because it is not and never can be his. He may admire its grand architecture and exquisite workmanship and thus receive some trifling pleasure; but, as he can never call that palace, nor its wealth, his own possession―the mere gazing upon it, and even loving its beauty, can never make him fully happy. For full happiness, the possession of the palace is essential.
Again, the starving beggar gazes upon the rich man’s table loaded with every imaginable luxury. Does that mere sight relieve the pangs of hunger? It certainly does not. It rather adds to his wretchedness by intensifying his hunger without satisfying its cravings. So it would be in Heaven, if we could imagine a soul admitted there and allowed to gaze upon the beauty of God, while not able to possess or enjoy Him. Such a sight would be no Beatific Vision for that soul.
The possession of God is, therefore, absolutely necessary in order that the soul may enjoy Him and rest in Him as its last end. Hence, the act of seeing God is also the act by which the blessed possess God and enter into the joy of their Lord.
The blessed participate in the divine nature
But this is not yet all. The Beatific Vision also means that God not only enables the soul to see Him in all His surpassing beauty, but God also takes the soul to His bosom as a beloved child and bestows upon it the happiness which mortal eyes cannot see. God unites the soul to Himself in a wonderful and intimate a manner, that the soul is transformed into God. This is the highest glory to which a rational nature can be elevated. In explaining this participation in the divine nature in Heaven, theologians make use of a very apt comparison. They say, if you thrust a piece of iron into the fire, it soon loses its dark color and becomes red and hot, like the fire. It is thus made a partaker of the nature of fire, without, however, losing its own essential iron nature. This illustrates what takes place in the Beatific Vision in relation to the soul. It is united to God and penetrated by Him. It becomes bright with His brightness, beautiful with His beauty, pure with His purity, happy with His unutterable happiness, and perfect with His divine perfections. In a word, it becomes a partaker of the “divine nature,” while it retains its created nature and personal identity.
Abstract words and reasoning, however, fail to convey a definite idea of this glorious happiness reserved for the children of God. Let us, therefore, have recourse to an illustration in the shape of a little parable. It will be as a mirror, wherein we shall see faint but true reflections of the Beatific Vision.
A kind-hearted king, while hunting in a forest, finds a blind orphan boy, totally destitute of all that can make life comfortable. The king, moved with compassion, takes him to his palace, adopts him as his own, and orders him to be cared for and educated in all that a blind person can learn. It is almost needless to say that the boy is unspeakably grateful and does all he can to please the king. When he has reached his twentieth year, a surgeon performs an operation upon his eyes, by which his sight is restored. Then the king, surrounded by his nobles and amid all the pomp and magnificence of the court, proclaims him one of his sons and commands all to honor and love him as such. And thus, the once-friendless orphan becomes a prince and, therefore, a partaker of the royal dignity, of the happiness and glory which are to be found in the palaces of kings.
I will not attempt to describe the joys that overwhelm the soul of this fortunate young man when he first sees that king, of whose manly beauty, goodness, power, and magnificence he had heard so much. Nor will I attempt to describe those other joys which fill his soul when he beholds himself, his own personal beauty, and the magnificence of his princely garments, of which he had also heard so much. Much less will I attempt to picture his exquisite and unspeakable happiness when he sees himself adopted into the royal family, honored and loved by all, together with all the pleasures of life within his reach. Each one may endeavor to imagine his feelings, joy, and happiness. We can only say that all this taken together is a beatific vision for him — in the natural order.
Here we find the three acts already explained. The first is the sight of the good king in all his glory and magnificence; the second is the intense love which this sight produces; and the third is the enjoyment of the king’s society and all the happiness with which his adoption has surrounded him.
Article 22
Ascension Thursday May 18th, 2023
Going Up or Going Down?
Ascension Thursday May 18th, 2023
Going Up or Going Down?
Heading Home!
After His resurrection from the dead, Our Lord could have stayed around for a few thousand years! Think of the wonderful effects that could have had on the Church! He could have been performing miracles and converting souls, preventing errors from arising, shepherding souls to Heaven…! Yet He chooses to stay for only forty days before ascending into Heaven! Only forty days!
After Our Lord’s resurrection from the dead up to just before the Ascension, the Apostles had the wrong idea of what Our Lord was going to do. Their plan was to overthrow their enemies and liberate the Kingdom of Israel from the occupying Roman forces and restore the glory of the Kingdom throughout the world! “They, therefore, who were come together, asked Him, saying: ‘Lord, wilt Thou, at this time, restore again the kingdom to Israel?’” (Acts 1:6). But no! He was not going to restore the Kingdom of Israel—He was going home to His Father in Heaven!
Home is where the heart is and Our Lord’s Heart was in Heaven. He wants our hearts to be there with Him, for Heaven is our true home—the home that God wants for everyone, but very few really want to go home and so few get home. Most people have found a home away from home—and they are very happy with it. They ignore the advice and warnings of Our Lord, who said: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth--where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven--where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also!” (Matthew 6:19-21). “In My Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you--because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I shall go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to Myself; so that where I am, you also may be” (John 14:2-3).
Where Is Your Home? Where Are You Heading?
Yet we have become like the rich young man of the Gospels, who had so many possessions that he could not bear to part from in order to take up Our Lord’s invitation of following Him (Matthew 19:16-24). Whereas we should look forward to death, we fear death (which is only natural)--but we also fear it because we will have to leave behind all that we have accumulated. We have, for the most part, fallen into the traps of material preoccupations rather than being primarily—even solely—occupied with our soul: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
This brings to mind the parable Our Lord told about the rich farmer: “The land of a certain rich man brought forth plenty of fruits. And he thought within himself, saying: What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said: ‘This will I do! I will pull down my barns, and will build greater barns; and into them will I gather all things that are grown to me, and my goods! And I will say to my soul: “Soul! Thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thy rest―eat, drink, make good cheer!”’ But God said to him: ‘Thou fool! This night do they require thy soul of thee―and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?’ So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God!” (Luke 12:16-21).
Wrong Focus
Continuing, “He said to His disciples: ‘Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat; nor for your body, what you shall put on! The life is more than the meat, and the body is more than the clothing. Consider the ravens―for they sow not, neither do they reap, neither have they storehouse nor barn―and God feeds them! How much are you more valuable than they? And which of you, by worrying, can add to his stature one cubit? If, then, ye be not able to do so much as the least thing, why are you solicitous for the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow―they labor not, neither do they spin! But I say to you, not even Solomon, in all his glory, was clothed like one of these! Now, if God clothe in this manner the grass―that is today in the field, and tomorrow is cast into the oven―how much more you, O ye of little faith?
“And seek not you what you shall eat, or what you shall drink: and be not lifted up on high. For all these things do the nations of the world seek. But your Father knows that you have need of these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom. Sell what you possess and give alms. Make to yourselves bags which grow not old, a treasure in Heaven which fails not: where no thief approaches, nor moth corrupts. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:22-34).
Too Busy For Heaven?
Our Lord drives this point home more during the incident with Martha and Mary: “Now it came to pass as they went, that Jesus entered into a certain town: and a certain woman named Martha, received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who, sitting also at the Lord’s feet, heard His word. But Martha was busy about much serving. Who stood and said: ‘Lord! Hast Thou no care that my sister has left me alone to serve? Speak to her therefore, that she help me!’ And the Lord answering, said to her: ‘Martha! Martha! Thou art careful, and art troubled about many things―but only one thing is necessary! Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her!’” (Luke 10:38-42).
Head Scratching Problem?
The above words of Our Lord are commented upon by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, in his book The Three Ages of the Spiritual Life, wherein he writes:
“We shall briefly recall what constitutes the one thing necessary for every Christian, and we shall also recall how urgently this question is being raised at the present time. As everyone can easily understand, the interior life is an elevated form of intimate conversation which everyone has with himself as soon as he is alone―even in the tumult of a great city. From the moment he ceases to talk with his fellow men, man talks interiorly with himself about whatever preoccupies him most. This conversation varies greatly according to the different ages of life―the interior conversation of an old man is not that of a youth. It also varies greatly in topics or subject―depending on whether a man is good or bad.
“As soon as a man seriously seeks truth and goodness, this intimate conversation within himself tends to become conversation with God. Little by little―instead of seeking himself in everything, instead of tending more or less consciously to make himself a center―man tends to seek God in everything, and to substitute his own egoism with a love of God and of souls in Him. This constitutes the interior life. No sincere man will have any difficulty in recognizing it. The one thing necessary which Jesus spoke of, to Martha and Mary, consists in hearing the word of God and living by it” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
The Best of Lives Are Often Empty Lives
“The interior life, thus conceived, is something far more profound and more necessary in us than an intellectual life, or the cultivation of the sciences, more necessary than artistic or literary life, than social or political life. Unfortunately, some great scholars, mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers have no interior life, so to speak, but devote themselves to the study of their science as if God did not exist. In their moments of solitude they have no intimate conversation with Him.
“Their life appears to be, in certain respects, the search for the true and the good, in a more or less definite and restricted domain, but it is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride, that we may legitimately question whether it will bear fruit for eternity. Many artists, literary men, and statesmen never rise above this level of purely human activity, which is, in short, quite exterior. Do the depths of their souls live by God? It would seem not.
“This shows that the interior life, or the life of the soul with God, well deserves to be called the one thing necessary, since, by it, we tend to our last end and assure our salvation. This last must not be too widely separated from progressive sanctification (growth in holiness), for it is the very way of salvation” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Admission to Heaven—Same Price for Everybody
“There are those who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven―whether they enter there immediately after death, or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul.
“Every sin―though it should be venial―must be effaced, and the punishment that is due to sin must be endured and paid, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
The One Thing Necessary
“The interior life of a just man―who tends toward God and who already lives by Him―is indeed the one thing necessary. To be a saint, neither intellectual culture nor great exterior activity is a requisite; it suffices that we live profoundly by God. This truth is evident in the saints of the early Church; several of those saints were poor people, even slaves. It is evident also in St. Francis, St. Benedict Joseph Labre, in St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, and many others. They all had a deep understanding of these words of our Savior: ‘For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul?’
“If people sacrifice so many things to save the life of the body―which must ultimately die―what should we not sacrifice to save the life of our soul, which is to last forever? Ought not man to love his soul more than his body? ‘Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?’ Our Lord adds. ‘One thing is necessary,’ He tells us. To save our soul, one thing alone is necessary―to hear the word of God and to live by it. Therein lies the best part, which will not be taken away from a faithful soul even though it should lose everything else.” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
It Has Become the One Thing Unnecessary!
The interior life is looked upon like prison life! It “cramps our style”! It’s depressing and no fun! It’s for old folk, or sick folk, or dying folk, or fanatics! We want something more expansive, more interesting, more in tune with the times, more entertaining, more gratifying, more exhilarating!
According to a Pew Research Center survey, 55% of Christians (all denominations taken together) say they pray every day, while 21% say they pray weekly or monthly and 23% say they seldom or never pray.
What has happened to the First Friday Devotions to the Sacred Heart, with the Holy Hour that was part of it? What has happened to the First Saturday Devotions to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with the fifteen-minute Rosary mediations and Communions of reparation for offenses against the Immaculate Heart of Mary? What has happened to the confessions that were “part and parcel” of these two devotions? All of these things have been downgraded or even rejected and thrown out by many parishes since the Modernist revolution exploded in the Church 50 years ago!
Another key element of the interior life—regular confession—has also fallen by the wayside. “The statistics are alarming. According to the Center for Applied Research on the Apostolate (CARA), a survey showed that 42% of Catholic adults, when asked how often they went to confession, answered Never. Alarming, but hardly surprising. Is there any American Catholic who does not know how empty the confessionals are in this country? The days of ritual visits to confession on Saturday afternoons are over for most Catholic families. In that same survey, 32% of Catholics said they confess their sins to a priest less than once a year.” (America Magazine). So much for “one thing necessary”!
Lift Up Your Hearts, But Keep Your Feet Firmly Planted on the Earth!
On this Ascension Thursday, “lift up your hearts” to Heaven as we say in the Preface of the Mass. “Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to the Lord in the heavens” (Lamentations 3:41). Heaven is your true and only home. Rise above the things of this world that prevent you from rising above it: “Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above; where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God! Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth!” (Colossians 3:1). “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:8). We cannot have both—mammon and God, earthly pleasures and heavenly pleasures—there is no loophole in God’s contract! What will it be? Will you sign on for Heaven? Or do have a contract signed with mammon? Trying to serve two masters is more a recipe for sadness than happiness―as Our Lord said: “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Luke 16:13).
Happy and Sad
Today we ‘celebrate’ the Ascension into Heaven of Our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. We may be celebrating it today, but back then, at the time of actual Ascension of Our Lord, there was very little ‘celebrating’ going on! There were a lot of sad faces around on that mountain, after Our Lord had left them behind and was now ‘gone-for-good’! It might have been a ‘good’ thing for Our Lord—going to Heaven, who wouldn’t want that!?! Yet, for the Apostles, this was no ‘Heaven’—it was a similar feeling to the one they had when Jesus had been arrested, was tried, tortured and put to death! Their initial reaction was the same—they went back the Upper Room and locked themselves in, out of fear of the Jews.
Our Lady, too, took the least joyful path on that day. According to revelations made to the mystics, she was offered the choice of going to Heaven with Our Lord, or staying upon the Earth to help the fledgling Church get off the ground. Though Heaven would have been the ‘happier’ choice, she chose the ‘sadder’ option and remained behind.
The Hollywood Ascension or the Real Ascension?
In a Hollywood version of the Ascension, things would be portrayed much differently to the real version of the Ascension. Hollywood would focus upon the glittering and beautiful and extraordinary aspect of the Ascension. Heavenly music, heavenly cherubs, bright lights, triumphalism, etc. But rather than being a “launch-pad” for Jesus’ flight to Heaven, the Ascension was the “launch-pad” for the Church’s fight on Earth, and its battles in a war on Earth against the devil, the world and the flesh!
Here is the account of the Ascension from the book The Life of Mary As Seen By The Mystics: “When all had gathered on the top of the hill, Jesus stood on a large, flat stone and spoke to them with calm affection. Then the Savior spread out His hands and directed His gaze toward Heaven. His whole body became increasingly luminous. The wounds of His hands glistened, and those of His feet shone brightly. A dazzling multicolored circle of light descended from the sky and completely enveloped Him. Then He slowly began to ascend into the air. While the stupefied disciples gazed after Him with intense amazement and awe, His figure became so small and distant that it could scarcely be distinguished, until finally a cloud took Him out of their sight.
“The dazed and shaken disciples were still staring at the sky in complete silence. All who were present bowed their heads and remained thus for some moments. For now, with a profound shock, they fully realized what had just happened to them: their beloved Savior had returned to His Father in Heaven, leaving them to themselves on Earth! Some of them were so grieved and heartbroken that they fell to the ground and wept disconsolately, like children. Others began to talk excitedly to one another. Often they looked up into the sky again, as if hoping to catch another glimpse of Jesus. Only Mary, Peter and John were calm and serene, though deeply moved. Then gradually their first sorrow over the sudden separation changed into profound happiness as they understood that their Redeemer was watching over them from the throne of His Father in Heaven, and as they also recalled His promise to be with them always.
“During the Ascension of Christ, the Blessed Virgin underwent a marvelous mystical experience: by the will and power of Almighty God her soul was raised with her divine Son, and she was told to choose between remaining henceforth in the glory of Heaven or returning to the world to guide and assist the new Church. But when she looked down and saw the pitiful condition of the bewildered followers of Christ just after His Ascension, she was stirred by compassion for them and for all mankind, and by her own free choice and with the blessing of God, Mary returned to help in founding the Church Militant on Earth.” (The Life of Mary As Seen By The Mystics, Raphael Brown).
The Ascension Foretold
Jesus’ farewell talks—at the Last Supper and now again after the Resurrection—were a preparation for the battles to come. ”Knowing that the Father had given Him all things into His hands, and that He came from God, and goeth to God … Jesus said: ‘Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You shall seek Me; and as I said to the Jews: Where I go, thou canst not follow Me now; but thou shalt follow hereafter ... I shall go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to Myself; that where I am, you also may be ... I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever. The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive … If you loved Me, you would indeed be glad, because I go to the Father: for the Father is greater than I.”
The Ascension Sends the Apostles to War
Our Lord continues: “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you! If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you! … They will put you out of the synagogues―yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever kills you, will think that he does a service to God ... If you had been of the world, the world would love its own―but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. The prince of this world is coming, and in Me he has not any thing. But these things I have told you, that when the hour shall come, you may remember that I told you of them. Because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow hath filled your heart! But I tell you the truth―it is expedient to you that I go―for, if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you ... In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world ... Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (extracts from the Last Supper discourse, Gospel of St. John, chapters 14 & 15).
Yes―unfortunately, from a humanistic point of view―this world is meant to be a “valley of tears”, as we say in the prayer, Hail Holy Queen. As the Apostles watched Our Lord ascend into Heaven while leaving them behind on Earth, some of them might have remembered the above words that were spoken by Our Lord at the Last Supper: “I say to you, in the world you shall have distress … You shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful―but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20, 33). If they want to follow Our Lord to Heaven, then they must follow in His footsteps on Earth along the paths of stresses, struggles and sorrows: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever does not come after Me and does not carry his cross, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that takes not up his cross and follows Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Our Lord fought for our salvation here on Earth and He expects us follow Him by fighting for our salvation now that He has ascended to Heaven: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12). “Be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God!” (2 Kings 10:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with worldly matters!” (2 Timothy 2:3-4). To entangle ourselves with worldly matters means that our hearts are no longer in Heaven, we have decided to give our attention, devotion and service to “mammon” and not God. Our Lord warned against that: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
After His resurrection from the dead, Our Lord could have stayed around for a few thousand years! Think of the wonderful effects that could have had on the Church! He could have been performing miracles and converting souls, preventing errors from arising, shepherding souls to Heaven…! Yet He chooses to stay for only forty days before ascending into Heaven! Only forty days!
After Our Lord’s resurrection from the dead up to just before the Ascension, the Apostles had the wrong idea of what Our Lord was going to do. Their plan was to overthrow their enemies and liberate the Kingdom of Israel from the occupying Roman forces and restore the glory of the Kingdom throughout the world! “They, therefore, who were come together, asked Him, saying: ‘Lord, wilt Thou, at this time, restore again the kingdom to Israel?’” (Acts 1:6). But no! He was not going to restore the Kingdom of Israel—He was going home to His Father in Heaven!
Home is where the heart is and Our Lord’s Heart was in Heaven. He wants our hearts to be there with Him, for Heaven is our true home—the home that God wants for everyone, but very few really want to go home and so few get home. Most people have found a home away from home—and they are very happy with it. They ignore the advice and warnings of Our Lord, who said: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth--where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven--where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also!” (Matthew 6:19-21). “In My Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you--because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I shall go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to Myself; so that where I am, you also may be” (John 14:2-3).
Where Is Your Home? Where Are You Heading?
Yet we have become like the rich young man of the Gospels, who had so many possessions that he could not bear to part from in order to take up Our Lord’s invitation of following Him (Matthew 19:16-24). Whereas we should look forward to death, we fear death (which is only natural)--but we also fear it because we will have to leave behind all that we have accumulated. We have, for the most part, fallen into the traps of material preoccupations rather than being primarily—even solely—occupied with our soul: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
This brings to mind the parable Our Lord told about the rich farmer: “The land of a certain rich man brought forth plenty of fruits. And he thought within himself, saying: What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said: ‘This will I do! I will pull down my barns, and will build greater barns; and into them will I gather all things that are grown to me, and my goods! And I will say to my soul: “Soul! Thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thy rest―eat, drink, make good cheer!”’ But God said to him: ‘Thou fool! This night do they require thy soul of thee―and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?’ So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God!” (Luke 12:16-21).
Wrong Focus
Continuing, “He said to His disciples: ‘Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat; nor for your body, what you shall put on! The life is more than the meat, and the body is more than the clothing. Consider the ravens―for they sow not, neither do they reap, neither have they storehouse nor barn―and God feeds them! How much are you more valuable than they? And which of you, by worrying, can add to his stature one cubit? If, then, ye be not able to do so much as the least thing, why are you solicitous for the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow―they labor not, neither do they spin! But I say to you, not even Solomon, in all his glory, was clothed like one of these! Now, if God clothe in this manner the grass―that is today in the field, and tomorrow is cast into the oven―how much more you, O ye of little faith?
“And seek not you what you shall eat, or what you shall drink: and be not lifted up on high. For all these things do the nations of the world seek. But your Father knows that you have need of these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom. Sell what you possess and give alms. Make to yourselves bags which grow not old, a treasure in Heaven which fails not: where no thief approaches, nor moth corrupts. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:22-34).
Too Busy For Heaven?
Our Lord drives this point home more during the incident with Martha and Mary: “Now it came to pass as they went, that Jesus entered into a certain town: and a certain woman named Martha, received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who, sitting also at the Lord’s feet, heard His word. But Martha was busy about much serving. Who stood and said: ‘Lord! Hast Thou no care that my sister has left me alone to serve? Speak to her therefore, that she help me!’ And the Lord answering, said to her: ‘Martha! Martha! Thou art careful, and art troubled about many things―but only one thing is necessary! Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her!’” (Luke 10:38-42).
Head Scratching Problem?
The above words of Our Lord are commented upon by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, in his book The Three Ages of the Spiritual Life, wherein he writes:
“We shall briefly recall what constitutes the one thing necessary for every Christian, and we shall also recall how urgently this question is being raised at the present time. As everyone can easily understand, the interior life is an elevated form of intimate conversation which everyone has with himself as soon as he is alone―even in the tumult of a great city. From the moment he ceases to talk with his fellow men, man talks interiorly with himself about whatever preoccupies him most. This conversation varies greatly according to the different ages of life―the interior conversation of an old man is not that of a youth. It also varies greatly in topics or subject―depending on whether a man is good or bad.
“As soon as a man seriously seeks truth and goodness, this intimate conversation within himself tends to become conversation with God. Little by little―instead of seeking himself in everything, instead of tending more or less consciously to make himself a center―man tends to seek God in everything, and to substitute his own egoism with a love of God and of souls in Him. This constitutes the interior life. No sincere man will have any difficulty in recognizing it. The one thing necessary which Jesus spoke of, to Martha and Mary, consists in hearing the word of God and living by it” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
The Best of Lives Are Often Empty Lives
“The interior life, thus conceived, is something far more profound and more necessary in us than an intellectual life, or the cultivation of the sciences, more necessary than artistic or literary life, than social or political life. Unfortunately, some great scholars, mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers have no interior life, so to speak, but devote themselves to the study of their science as if God did not exist. In their moments of solitude they have no intimate conversation with Him.
“Their life appears to be, in certain respects, the search for the true and the good, in a more or less definite and restricted domain, but it is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride, that we may legitimately question whether it will bear fruit for eternity. Many artists, literary men, and statesmen never rise above this level of purely human activity, which is, in short, quite exterior. Do the depths of their souls live by God? It would seem not.
“This shows that the interior life, or the life of the soul with God, well deserves to be called the one thing necessary, since, by it, we tend to our last end and assure our salvation. This last must not be too widely separated from progressive sanctification (growth in holiness), for it is the very way of salvation” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Admission to Heaven—Same Price for Everybody
“There are those who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven―whether they enter there immediately after death, or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul.
“Every sin―though it should be venial―must be effaced, and the punishment that is due to sin must be endured and paid, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
The One Thing Necessary
“The interior life of a just man―who tends toward God and who already lives by Him―is indeed the one thing necessary. To be a saint, neither intellectual culture nor great exterior activity is a requisite; it suffices that we live profoundly by God. This truth is evident in the saints of the early Church; several of those saints were poor people, even slaves. It is evident also in St. Francis, St. Benedict Joseph Labre, in St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, and many others. They all had a deep understanding of these words of our Savior: ‘For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul?’
“If people sacrifice so many things to save the life of the body―which must ultimately die―what should we not sacrifice to save the life of our soul, which is to last forever? Ought not man to love his soul more than his body? ‘Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?’ Our Lord adds. ‘One thing is necessary,’ He tells us. To save our soul, one thing alone is necessary―to hear the word of God and to live by it. Therein lies the best part, which will not be taken away from a faithful soul even though it should lose everything else.” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
It Has Become the One Thing Unnecessary!
The interior life is looked upon like prison life! It “cramps our style”! It’s depressing and no fun! It’s for old folk, or sick folk, or dying folk, or fanatics! We want something more expansive, more interesting, more in tune with the times, more entertaining, more gratifying, more exhilarating!
According to a Pew Research Center survey, 55% of Christians (all denominations taken together) say they pray every day, while 21% say they pray weekly or monthly and 23% say they seldom or never pray.
What has happened to the First Friday Devotions to the Sacred Heart, with the Holy Hour that was part of it? What has happened to the First Saturday Devotions to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with the fifteen-minute Rosary mediations and Communions of reparation for offenses against the Immaculate Heart of Mary? What has happened to the confessions that were “part and parcel” of these two devotions? All of these things have been downgraded or even rejected and thrown out by many parishes since the Modernist revolution exploded in the Church 50 years ago!
Another key element of the interior life—regular confession—has also fallen by the wayside. “The statistics are alarming. According to the Center for Applied Research on the Apostolate (CARA), a survey showed that 42% of Catholic adults, when asked how often they went to confession, answered Never. Alarming, but hardly surprising. Is there any American Catholic who does not know how empty the confessionals are in this country? The days of ritual visits to confession on Saturday afternoons are over for most Catholic families. In that same survey, 32% of Catholics said they confess their sins to a priest less than once a year.” (America Magazine). So much for “one thing necessary”!
Lift Up Your Hearts, But Keep Your Feet Firmly Planted on the Earth!
On this Ascension Thursday, “lift up your hearts” to Heaven as we say in the Preface of the Mass. “Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to the Lord in the heavens” (Lamentations 3:41). Heaven is your true and only home. Rise above the things of this world that prevent you from rising above it: “Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above; where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God! Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth!” (Colossians 3:1). “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:8). We cannot have both—mammon and God, earthly pleasures and heavenly pleasures—there is no loophole in God’s contract! What will it be? Will you sign on for Heaven? Or do have a contract signed with mammon? Trying to serve two masters is more a recipe for sadness than happiness―as Our Lord said: “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Luke 16:13).
Happy and Sad
Today we ‘celebrate’ the Ascension into Heaven of Our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. We may be celebrating it today, but back then, at the time of actual Ascension of Our Lord, there was very little ‘celebrating’ going on! There were a lot of sad faces around on that mountain, after Our Lord had left them behind and was now ‘gone-for-good’! It might have been a ‘good’ thing for Our Lord—going to Heaven, who wouldn’t want that!?! Yet, for the Apostles, this was no ‘Heaven’—it was a similar feeling to the one they had when Jesus had been arrested, was tried, tortured and put to death! Their initial reaction was the same—they went back the Upper Room and locked themselves in, out of fear of the Jews.
Our Lady, too, took the least joyful path on that day. According to revelations made to the mystics, she was offered the choice of going to Heaven with Our Lord, or staying upon the Earth to help the fledgling Church get off the ground. Though Heaven would have been the ‘happier’ choice, she chose the ‘sadder’ option and remained behind.
The Hollywood Ascension or the Real Ascension?
In a Hollywood version of the Ascension, things would be portrayed much differently to the real version of the Ascension. Hollywood would focus upon the glittering and beautiful and extraordinary aspect of the Ascension. Heavenly music, heavenly cherubs, bright lights, triumphalism, etc. But rather than being a “launch-pad” for Jesus’ flight to Heaven, the Ascension was the “launch-pad” for the Church’s fight on Earth, and its battles in a war on Earth against the devil, the world and the flesh!
Here is the account of the Ascension from the book The Life of Mary As Seen By The Mystics: “When all had gathered on the top of the hill, Jesus stood on a large, flat stone and spoke to them with calm affection. Then the Savior spread out His hands and directed His gaze toward Heaven. His whole body became increasingly luminous. The wounds of His hands glistened, and those of His feet shone brightly. A dazzling multicolored circle of light descended from the sky and completely enveloped Him. Then He slowly began to ascend into the air. While the stupefied disciples gazed after Him with intense amazement and awe, His figure became so small and distant that it could scarcely be distinguished, until finally a cloud took Him out of their sight.
“The dazed and shaken disciples were still staring at the sky in complete silence. All who were present bowed their heads and remained thus for some moments. For now, with a profound shock, they fully realized what had just happened to them: their beloved Savior had returned to His Father in Heaven, leaving them to themselves on Earth! Some of them were so grieved and heartbroken that they fell to the ground and wept disconsolately, like children. Others began to talk excitedly to one another. Often they looked up into the sky again, as if hoping to catch another glimpse of Jesus. Only Mary, Peter and John were calm and serene, though deeply moved. Then gradually their first sorrow over the sudden separation changed into profound happiness as they understood that their Redeemer was watching over them from the throne of His Father in Heaven, and as they also recalled His promise to be with them always.
“During the Ascension of Christ, the Blessed Virgin underwent a marvelous mystical experience: by the will and power of Almighty God her soul was raised with her divine Son, and she was told to choose between remaining henceforth in the glory of Heaven or returning to the world to guide and assist the new Church. But when she looked down and saw the pitiful condition of the bewildered followers of Christ just after His Ascension, she was stirred by compassion for them and for all mankind, and by her own free choice and with the blessing of God, Mary returned to help in founding the Church Militant on Earth.” (The Life of Mary As Seen By The Mystics, Raphael Brown).
The Ascension Foretold
Jesus’ farewell talks—at the Last Supper and now again after the Resurrection—were a preparation for the battles to come. ”Knowing that the Father had given Him all things into His hands, and that He came from God, and goeth to God … Jesus said: ‘Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You shall seek Me; and as I said to the Jews: Where I go, thou canst not follow Me now; but thou shalt follow hereafter ... I shall go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to Myself; that where I am, you also may be ... I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever. The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive … If you loved Me, you would indeed be glad, because I go to the Father: for the Father is greater than I.”
The Ascension Sends the Apostles to War
Our Lord continues: “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you! If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you! … They will put you out of the synagogues―yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever kills you, will think that he does a service to God ... If you had been of the world, the world would love its own―but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. The prince of this world is coming, and in Me he has not any thing. But these things I have told you, that when the hour shall come, you may remember that I told you of them. Because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow hath filled your heart! But I tell you the truth―it is expedient to you that I go―for, if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you ... In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world ... Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (extracts from the Last Supper discourse, Gospel of St. John, chapters 14 & 15).
Yes―unfortunately, from a humanistic point of view―this world is meant to be a “valley of tears”, as we say in the prayer, Hail Holy Queen. As the Apostles watched Our Lord ascend into Heaven while leaving them behind on Earth, some of them might have remembered the above words that were spoken by Our Lord at the Last Supper: “I say to you, in the world you shall have distress … You shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful―but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20, 33). If they want to follow Our Lord to Heaven, then they must follow in His footsteps on Earth along the paths of stresses, struggles and sorrows: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever does not come after Me and does not carry his cross, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that takes not up his cross and follows Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Our Lord fought for our salvation here on Earth and He expects us follow Him by fighting for our salvation now that He has ascended to Heaven: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12). “Be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God!” (2 Kings 10:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with worldly matters!” (2 Timothy 2:3-4). To entangle ourselves with worldly matters means that our hearts are no longer in Heaven, we have decided to give our attention, devotion and service to “mammon” and not God. Our Lord warned against that: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
Article 21
Tuesday May 16th & Wednesday May 17th, 2023
May Dismay! Are You Dismaying Mary?
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
Tuesday May 16th & Wednesday May 17th, 2023
May Dismay! Are You Dismaying Mary?
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
Mary’s May Dismay!
Everyone wants to be happy, don’t they? You would imagine Our Lady wanting to be happy, wouldn’t you? Is Our Lady happy? Well, yes―she is happy because she is in Heaven! Yet, in her apparitions and locutions, she seems to manifest unhappiness―she cried at La Salette in 1846, and at Fatima in 1917 she never smiled once at the three children. If Heaven is a place of joy―why is Our Lady so sad? Sister Lucia of Fatima even said: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad! … The Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions! She never smiled at us! We saw her in anguish!”
Speaking of Our Lady’s apparition to her in 1950, Blessed Elena Aiello stated that Our Lady “came with a sad expression” saying: “Great is my sorrow!” In 1954, Blessed Elena stated: “The Madonna appeared to me with an expression of profound sorrow and with tears on her cheeks. She was dressed in black, with seven swords piercing her Immaculate Heart. Coming closer, she spoke to me, saying: ‘My Heart is sad!’” In 1955, Our Lady said her Heart was filled with “such great sadness” and added: “Look upon my Heart pierced by the thorns of so many sins; my face, disfigured by sorrow; my eyes, filled with tears!”
In 1973, at Akita in Japan, Our Lady said: “The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness!” Additionally, we have devotions to Our Lady of Sorrows. In a series of apparitions in the early 1900s, Our Lord Himself revealed one of His mystics―the Franciscan Tertiary, Berthe Petit―that: “My Mother has acquired for her Heart the title of Sorrowful by sharing generously in all the sufferings of My Heart and My Body from the crib to the cross … The title of ‘Sorrowful’ belongs therefore to the Heart of My Mother, and more than any other … It is My wish that the nations should turn to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother! … The world must be dedicated to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother!”
How can there be sadness in Heaven? It seems like an oxymoron―a contradiction of terms, like hotly cold, unfaithfully faithful, expensively cheap! Is Heaven, then, a place where everyone is sadly happy, or happily sad? If Heaven is a place of eternal happiness and perfect joy―how can Our Lady be sad, sorrowful and weeping?
No Time in Heaven
Once we die and leave this world, we leave time behind: “Time shall be no longer” (Apocalypse). Time does not exist in Heaven. There is no yesterday, no tomorrow. We will be living in an “eternal now”. In popular speech, saying that something is “eternal” means that it lasts for an unlimited amount of time. However, when applied to God, the term “eternal” means something else, it doesn’t mean “a long, long time.” It means God is outside of time altogether. This means that God’s life has no end (it’s interminable), and that he possesses all of that life all at once (in a simultaneously-whole manner). He does not experience it moment-by-moment, the way we do. Therefore, God’s life thus is not spread out over time the way ours is, meaning that God is outside of time. God therefore exists in what theologians refer to as an “eternal now” ― outside of time, a “now” where time does not pass from moment to moment. It is thus different to the “temporal now” that we experience in this world, where new moments arrive and then slip into the past. A consequence of this is that there is no change in God. There is no progression from moment to moment in the eternal now, and so no change occurs in God.
Even though we cannot understand how―God sees everything in a present moment, the “here and now”. He has always seen the “past” as “here and now”―He has always seen the “future” as the “here and now”―and, of course, the “present” is seen as the “here and now”. It seems as though God shares that phenomenal manner of knowing (to a certain degree―since our minds cannot contain what His mind contains) with those in Heaven. That is why Our Lady, in her apparitions, gives such detailed pictures of the future―because, in Heaven, she is seeing the future being lived out right before her eyes. The same applies to the many apparitions and prophecies of the angels and saints. That is because the past, present and future is somehow seen as “one big here-and-now”. That is weird and incomprehensible to our minds―but, in this world and compared to the mind and capabilities of God―our minds are like the mind of a baby compared to a scientist: there is simply “no contest”―and it would be pride to expect to know how that can happen, or to refuse to believe that it does happen simply because our puny minds cannot understand how it works.
A Face for Heaven―A Face for Earth
Angels appear in different forms―as warriors, young men, even as animals―as in the case of St. John Bosco “guardian angel dog”. In other words, they take on an appearance that is suited to the person they will appear to or to the task that they have been appointed. It is not their real state, or usual state, but a temporary state. Likewise, with any emotional state ― such as being sad, weeping, etc. ― such a state is an appearance that is taken on for our benefit, in order to affect or motivate us.
Therefore, Our Lady takes on a sad or weeping appearance, or says that she is sad and sorrowful when speaking of our sins and future chastisements―for that motivates us to take things more seriously, to start praying more, to amend our lives, to make more sacrifices―rather than if she was laughing and smiling while talking about our sins and future chastisements. The sadness and sorrow is not her heavenly state, but it is something that she expresses only for us here on Earth. It is much like a parent correcting a child―the parent puts on a stern face to let the child know that this is a serious matter. If the parent tried correcting the child while laughing and joking, the child would not take the correction seriously. The parent might be feeling stern, but nevertheless, for the good of the child, the parent shows a stern face.
Everyone wants to be happy, don’t they? You would imagine Our Lady wanting to be happy, wouldn’t you? Is Our Lady happy? Well, yes―she is happy because she is in Heaven! Yet, in her apparitions and locutions, she seems to manifest unhappiness―she cried at La Salette in 1846, and at Fatima in 1917 she never smiled once at the three children. If Heaven is a place of joy―why is Our Lady so sad? Sister Lucia of Fatima even said: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad! … The Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions! She never smiled at us! We saw her in anguish!”
Speaking of Our Lady’s apparition to her in 1950, Blessed Elena Aiello stated that Our Lady “came with a sad expression” saying: “Great is my sorrow!” In 1954, Blessed Elena stated: “The Madonna appeared to me with an expression of profound sorrow and with tears on her cheeks. She was dressed in black, with seven swords piercing her Immaculate Heart. Coming closer, she spoke to me, saying: ‘My Heart is sad!’” In 1955, Our Lady said her Heart was filled with “such great sadness” and added: “Look upon my Heart pierced by the thorns of so many sins; my face, disfigured by sorrow; my eyes, filled with tears!”
In 1973, at Akita in Japan, Our Lady said: “The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness!” Additionally, we have devotions to Our Lady of Sorrows. In a series of apparitions in the early 1900s, Our Lord Himself revealed one of His mystics―the Franciscan Tertiary, Berthe Petit―that: “My Mother has acquired for her Heart the title of Sorrowful by sharing generously in all the sufferings of My Heart and My Body from the crib to the cross … The title of ‘Sorrowful’ belongs therefore to the Heart of My Mother, and more than any other … It is My wish that the nations should turn to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother! … The world must be dedicated to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother!”
How can there be sadness in Heaven? It seems like an oxymoron―a contradiction of terms, like hotly cold, unfaithfully faithful, expensively cheap! Is Heaven, then, a place where everyone is sadly happy, or happily sad? If Heaven is a place of eternal happiness and perfect joy―how can Our Lady be sad, sorrowful and weeping?
No Time in Heaven
Once we die and leave this world, we leave time behind: “Time shall be no longer” (Apocalypse). Time does not exist in Heaven. There is no yesterday, no tomorrow. We will be living in an “eternal now”. In popular speech, saying that something is “eternal” means that it lasts for an unlimited amount of time. However, when applied to God, the term “eternal” means something else, it doesn’t mean “a long, long time.” It means God is outside of time altogether. This means that God’s life has no end (it’s interminable), and that he possesses all of that life all at once (in a simultaneously-whole manner). He does not experience it moment-by-moment, the way we do. Therefore, God’s life thus is not spread out over time the way ours is, meaning that God is outside of time. God therefore exists in what theologians refer to as an “eternal now” ― outside of time, a “now” where time does not pass from moment to moment. It is thus different to the “temporal now” that we experience in this world, where new moments arrive and then slip into the past. A consequence of this is that there is no change in God. There is no progression from moment to moment in the eternal now, and so no change occurs in God.
Even though we cannot understand how―God sees everything in a present moment, the “here and now”. He has always seen the “past” as “here and now”―He has always seen the “future” as the “here and now”―and, of course, the “present” is seen as the “here and now”. It seems as though God shares that phenomenal manner of knowing (to a certain degree―since our minds cannot contain what His mind contains) with those in Heaven. That is why Our Lady, in her apparitions, gives such detailed pictures of the future―because, in Heaven, she is seeing the future being lived out right before her eyes. The same applies to the many apparitions and prophecies of the angels and saints. That is because the past, present and future is somehow seen as “one big here-and-now”. That is weird and incomprehensible to our minds―but, in this world and compared to the mind and capabilities of God―our minds are like the mind of a baby compared to a scientist: there is simply “no contest”―and it would be pride to expect to know how that can happen, or to refuse to believe that it does happen simply because our puny minds cannot understand how it works.
A Face for Heaven―A Face for Earth
Angels appear in different forms―as warriors, young men, even as animals―as in the case of St. John Bosco “guardian angel dog”. In other words, they take on an appearance that is suited to the person they will appear to or to the task that they have been appointed. It is not their real state, or usual state, but a temporary state. Likewise, with any emotional state ― such as being sad, weeping, etc. ― such a state is an appearance that is taken on for our benefit, in order to affect or motivate us.
Therefore, Our Lady takes on a sad or weeping appearance, or says that she is sad and sorrowful when speaking of our sins and future chastisements―for that motivates us to take things more seriously, to start praying more, to amend our lives, to make more sacrifices―rather than if she was laughing and smiling while talking about our sins and future chastisements. The sadness and sorrow is not her heavenly state, but it is something that she expresses only for us here on Earth. It is much like a parent correcting a child―the parent puts on a stern face to let the child know that this is a serious matter. If the parent tried correcting the child while laughing and joking, the child would not take the correction seriously. The parent might be feeling stern, but nevertheless, for the good of the child, the parent shows a stern face.
Article 20
Sunday May 14th & Monday May 15th, 2023
Mother's Day in the USA and over 70 other countries
Behold Your Mother!
Sunday May 14th & Monday May 15th, 2023
Mother's Day in the USA and over 70 other countries
Behold Your Mother!
Giver of Life
The mother gives life to a child―without a mother there can be no life. Yet, the only true mother is a Christian mother―for only a Christian mother can introduce a child to eternal life. Christ said: “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly!” (John 10:10) … “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me!” (John 14:6).
If you were born into a Christian (Catholic) family―then thank God―for 7 out of 8 babies are not born into a Catholic family, and therefore are spiritually “crippled” and “deformed” from their very first moment of existence and their chances of salvation are drastically reduced.
Life and Death―Eternal Life and Eternal Death
A mother who aborts her baby does not give physical life to the child, and even less does she give the chance of eternal life to her child―she is murderess, both a physical murderess and a spiritual murderess―and, as such, greatly risks her own eternal salvation: “And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in himself [herself]!” (1 John 3:15). Nevertheless, “As I live, saith the Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways―and why will you die?” (Ezechiel 33:11) … “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool!” (Isaias 1:18). Our Lord was prepared to forgive His murderers as He died on the cross, saying: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). God might allow the earthly killing of murderers as punishment for their sin―but God does not want to inflict an eternal punishment of the murderer in Hell if He can possible avoid it. God wants the salvation of every mother if possible―saint or sinner, Catholic or non-Catholic―but it has to be on HIS TERMS and not on their own preferred easy-going terms.
The fact that you are reading this means that you were not aborted but were given the gift life by your mother (in cooperation with God, Who made you soul). What a glorious gift! What a precious gift! What a gift to be treasured! Nobody receives a gift and then throws it into the trash-can! What an insult to the giver of the gift that would be! Likewise, the gift of life that you have been given is meant to be used, not abused! It is much like Our Lord’s parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30)―in which every servant was given talents by their master―one received five, another two and the third servant received one talent. The first two used their talents well―and produced profit on them; whereas the servant that had been given one talent, buried is talent in the ground. When the day of reckoning came, the master praised the two servants who had profited from what had been given them, but of the servant who buried his talent, the master said: “And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 25:30).
Your God and Mother Given Talents
By God’s design your mother conceived you and gave you life. Your mother gave birth to you into this life on Earth. Your mother saw to it that you were baptized and thus were given a spiritual life, the life of sanctifying grace in your soul. You have, in a certain sense (for the purpose of this article only), been given five talents―these talents are (1) life itself, (2) the seed of eternal life that you received in Baptism, (3) the virtue of Faith that was infused into you at Baptism, (4) your earthly mother and (5) your heavenly Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
These talents are meant to used and not abused by being buried. To abuse and bury them would be like aborting them―and you would abort your chances of eternal life in the process and lead you to Hell. To use them well and profit from them would potentially lead you to the treasures of eternal life in Heaven. You can lead horses to water, but you cannot force them to drink! You give information to persons, but you cannot force them to think! Some people just don’t want to hear spiritual talk! What they hear is dead and buried almost as soon as they hear it! Thoughts about the afterlife are not even afterthoughts! The talents that they were given to potentially save their soul―since they are abused, misused, or not used―will potentially ruin and damn their soul at the end of their worldly life on Earth!
Similarly, the children of a father and mother are like the talents in Our Lord’s parable―the children, whose life-giving soul God made, have been loaned to parents and, on the Day of Judgment, they will have to give an account of how well they used that loan. St. Philip Neri says: “Fathers and mothers of families should bring up their children virtuously, looking at them rather as God’s children rather than their own; and to count life and health, and all they possess, as loans which they hold from God!”
Adam & Eve ― Jesus & Mary ― Father & Mother
As Holy Scripture says, there is nothing new under the sun: “What is it that has been? The same thing that shall be again! What is it that hath been done? The same shall be done again! Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: ‘Behold this is new!’ for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us!” (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10). Sin is nothing new―it was born in human race through Adam and Eve and has been passed down in the form of Original Sin ever since their original sin. Virtue is nothing new―even though virtue always existed, it has never existed in the perfection that we see in Jesus and Mary and they seek to pass that down to us: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect! … I am the Lord your God―be holy because I am holy! … I am the way, and the truth, and the life! … Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart!” (Matthew 5:48; Leviticus 11:44; John 14:6; Matthew 11:29). The role of the father and mother of a family is to avoid the example of Adam and Eve, and to embrace the example of Jesus and Mary.
After giving life to her child, the greatest a mother can give is LOVE. Showing and giving love to her child is like showing and giving God to her child―for “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and of all virtues “the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Our Lord Himself confirms that loving is the greatest virtue and greatest commandment, when He says: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). The mother, therefore, should show her child, by her own example, that “God should be loved with the whole heart!” (Mark 12:33) and that GOD COMES FIRST―not the world, not friends, not hobbies and pastimes. She must drive home this truth―that without charity, we are worthless: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The Heart of the Family
It has been said more than once: “As woman goes, so goes the nation.” Cardinal Mindszenty wrote: “Those who hold the scepter of the world in their hands are those who give life to children .... True, mother works in the home, but her quiet labor radiates upon the entire nation .... She builds up the future, and not merely the future of this earth; nay, her task reaches out into eternity, to the very heart of God ... She points out to man the way, she plants the seed in the virgin soil of the soul. She does not tend to acquire knowledge by a long process of thought, but rather embraces it in one intuitive act, which does not consist in her intellectual capacity, but in her strong genuine feelings, which draw her to the beautiful, the pure, the eternal, the divine. To be a mother means to be a martyr. She is weaker in body than man, but she is spiritually more receptive, and far better prepared to make sacrifices out of love. Children can be merciless. At times they are not satisfied with having mother near them now and then, but they demand her service all day long, often all night long....She must bear it, she must be brave. When the little rascal will not sleep, it is mother who will softly hum a lullaby for the thousandth time, and without a whisper or complaint. She is the ‘valiant woman’ of the Scriptures, who does not sleep and rest by night. She silently prays during the night.”
“The woman of Faith knows that ... it is a wonderful thing to give birth to a child [but that it is] far more wonderful and more difficult to rear and educate it correctly and well.” … “The mother should gradually train the child to keep order, and to subordinate its bodily necessities to the spiritual ... She should train the child to become a mature Christian who endeavors to harmonize body and soul, for both are gifts of God .... From early childhood it should be taught self-discipline and sacrifice. Too much pampering of a child is the result of vanity, not of a real love for the child ... The mother must therefore pray for herself and for her child, for the spirit of fortitude, that she may not be dominated by the weakness of her child, but that like a good pilot she may steer clear of the breakers.”
The mother―more so than the father―is seen to be “the heart of the family” whereas the father is seen as “the head of the family”. The heart is associated with love and the head is associated with logic. It is only logical that the spirit of love should pervade and invade all the thoughts, words and actions of the family. For the spirit of love is the spirit of God―that is why say, when we pray to the Holy Spirit: “Come O Holy Ghost and enkindle in us the fire of Thy love!”
Nevertheless, the children should understand that true love is not permissive―true love is not allowing children to fulfill all their whims and desires. “Let love be genuine and not fake―hating that which is evil, holding to that which is good!” (Romans 12:9). True love―before it even descends to the human level―is first and foremost keeping the commandments of God: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that does not love Me, does not keep My words … If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love … This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24; 15:10; 15:12).
This leads us the consequence and natural follow-up of true love―sacrifice. That is what Our Lord means when He says: “This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you!” He loved us to death―unto death on the cross. It is by His immense spirit of sacrifice that Our Lord manifested His immense love for us! The mother must inculcate and drive home the notion that there can be no true love without sacrifice. Love is not getting everything that you want―love is sacrificing some of those things that you want for the good of others. That is why Our Lord pointed out that the supreme sacrifice is an act of supreme love: “Greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends!” (John 15:13)―and He would lay down His life for us to prove His immense love for us! He did not want to do it―for He said in the Garden of Gethsemane, during His agony in the Garden: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me! Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt!” (Matthew 26:39). If the mother does not show such a spirit of sacrifice, then she cannot expect to get such a spirit of sacrifice from her children.
Cardinal Mindszenty wrote: “The woman of Faith knows that ... it is a wonderful thing to give birth to a child [but that it is] far more wonderful and more difficult to rear and educate it correctly and well.” … “The mother should gradually train the child to keep order, and to subordinate its bodily necessities to the spiritual ... She should train the child to become a mature Christian who endeavors to harmonize body and soul, for both are gifts of God .... From early childhood it should be taught self-discipline and sacrifice. Too much pampering of a child is the result of vanity, not of a real love for the child ... The mother must therefore pray for herself and for her child, for the spirit of fortitude, that she may not be dominated by the weakness of her child, but that like a good pilot she may steer clear of the breakers.”
Abort the Arguments―Give Birth to Love
Today, there are way too many arguments, disagreements, dissensions and divisions within almost every family. The mother, by her example, must burn them to ashes by her love. Love overcomes all obstacles: “We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings patience; and patience brings trial; and trial brings hope; and hope confounds not―because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us!” (Romans 5:3-5). In order that the mother could be a mirror for God, He has established the life of woman to be more quiet and retiring than that of man―so that she might reflect His peace into the family.
As the Imitation of Christ says: “Love is an excellent thing, a very great blessing, indeed! It makes every difficulty easy and bears all wrongs with calmness and evenness of temper. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles. Love is never self-seeking, for in whatever a person seeks himself, there he falls from love. Love often knows no limits, but overflows all bounds. Love is swift, sincere, kind, pleasant, and delightful. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, and long-suffering. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, or higher, or wider; nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in Heaven or on Earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is above all created things. Anyone who loves, will know the sound of this voice!” (Book 3, Chapter 5).
Ultimately, most of the problems in families these days can be traced back to a lack Faith and Charity―meaning, there is a lack of knowledge of God’s and Christ’s teaching with a lack of confidence in God. Additionally, there is a lack of love for God, because God does not do what we would like Him to do and we do not really want to do what God wants us to do. St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “Man is perfected and bettered chiefly by the love of God―but is wounded and worsened by the love of sin.” God’s ways are not our ways―and we don’t like that and we don’t want that. This lack of love for what God wants is simply due to lack of love for God Himself. Our Catechism tells us: “We were made to know, love and serve God in this life!” ― but you cannot love what you do not know; and you will love God little if you only know little about Him; and you will not serve Him if you expect Him to serve you! Many do not want to know Him more or better―because His ways are often opposed to our ways: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9). “They always err in heart! They have not known My ways!” (Hebrews 3:10). “Their heart is divided” (Osee 10:2) … “A heart that goeth two ways shall not have success!” (Ecclesiasticus 3:28) … “With a double heart have they spoken!” (Psalm 11:3) … “They blessed with their mouth, but cursed with their heart” (Psalm 61:5) … “This people honoureth Me with their lips―but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8).
A Divided Heart Means Divided Love
Sr. Lucia of Fatima revealed that Satan would be waging a final battle against Our Blessed Mother―she also added that Satan would especially target the Family. Satan seeks to divide so that he can conquer―Our Lady revealed as much on that subject:
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God! … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten, each individual will want to be independent and be superior to others! … God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family … (O. L. of La Salette) …
“Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects” (O.L. of Good Success) … “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises! … The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord!” (O. L. of Akita) … “The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts!” (Our Lady of La Salette) … “Many will turn upon Religion, who nourished them at her breast! Many people will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church, impelled by the malice of the devil!” (O.L. of Good Success) …
“They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption … (O.L. of Good Success) … “bringing souls to ruin particularly through the corruption of youth. Stirred-up and unrestrained in the enjoyment of the pleasures of the world, they have degraded their soul in corruption and sin. The bad example of parents trains the family in scandal and infidelity, instead of virtue and prayer, which is almost dead on the lips of many. Stained and withered is the fountain of Faith and sanctity the home!” (O.L. to Bl. Elena Aiello) … “Woe to the children of these times! … Unbridled luxury will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times … making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children! ... Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty! There will be almost no virgin souls in the world! Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women!” (O.L. of Good Success).
Differences are fertile ground for division. The easiest place to divide us is when we have differences―and differences generally mean one side is right and the other side is wrong. Due to our pride and selfishness, it invariably is a case of: “I’m right! They are wrong!”―with very little or no concern as to what God wants or counsels in the matter! Once we have divided from God and His Law―then, as they say, “anything goes”! We become gods unto ourselves, deciding for ourselves what is good and what is evil. This was the temptation that Eve fell into when Satan said to her: “‘No, you shall not die the death! For God doth know that in whatsoever day you shall eat the fruit, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods―knowing good and evil!’ And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold―and she took of the fruit off the tree and did eat, and gave to her husband who did also eat” (Genesis 3:4-6). At that point, they had divided themselves from God by failing to keep His commandment, they loved what they wanted over what God had commanded. The “glue” of love that united them to God and God’s sanctifying grace, was now gone! Satan had conquered them by dividing them from God.
Today―as foretold in the above quotes by Our Lady―Satan has caused division everywhere in the Church and in the State. Modernism and Liberalism has invaded and divided the Church―which has increased exponentially since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). St. John Bosco had prophesied in the 1800s that: “There will be an Ecumenical Council in the next century (1900s), after which there will be chaos in the Church!” Anyone of sound mind who is not blind can see this prophecy has been fulfilled. Nations have been increasingly divided against each other and divided within themselves. The influx of non-nationals and illegal immigrants has greatly watered-down and weakened the national spirit all around the world. In the USA, over 50 million of its 320 million population are immigrants―and recently, almost 3 million immigrants try to enter the USA. Most countries have been severely watered-down as regard their long-term national population, which then affects and dissolves many national principles and religious beliefs. Furthermore, the political divisions and disagreements are also growing exponentially, to the point where the majority of Americans are expecting a civil war some time soon. Families are also increasingly divided with the actual percentage of marriages that end in divorce in the US varying between 40% and 50% of married couples. The fact that some statisticians claim divorce rates are falling is simply down to the fact that less and less people are marrying each year―they prefer to live together in sin!
Whether it be conflict within the Church, or conflict among nations, or conflict between families and within families―the root cause or bottom line is simply a lack of love, and, above all else, a lack of love of God and God’s Laws. Once you kick-out God and His Laws, then you can basically do whatever you personally wish to do―and everyone disagrees on what should and should be allowed. Hence you have disagreements that lead to division.
The Only Solution is Back to Basics and Back to Love
The popes―both Traditional and Liberal and Modernist―have all agreed and stated that since the Second World War it is blatantly obvious that the world has lost the sense of sin. The loss of the sense of sin is directly linked to a loss of the love of God. It should also be blatantly obvious that when you kick-out God, then you also kick-out all sense of sin and the sense of guilt for sin. Once God’s Laws are no longer lover and no longer guide nations and governments, then you have man-made laws that label anything they want as a sin! Then all reality and morality comes unglued and each person decides for themselves what it true and what is morally good. Which is why today, anyone who speaks out against sins such as those of LGBTQ communities is labeled as a sinner, a potential terrorist, an agitator, etc. Sins are now called good, and what was called good in the past is now called a sin. “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20). You are not allowed by law to discriminate against sinful behavior, or sinful beliefs. That attitude most certainly infiltrates into families and corrupts them―as seen in the above prophecies of Our Lady.
In face of all this evil in the world, we might be tempted to pray and beg God to send down fire and brimstone and destroy all these evildoers by whom we are surrounded! That, in fact, was the idea and wish of two of Our Lord’s Apostles―two of His three favorites, no less: the brothers James and John. We read in the Gospel: “They entered into a city of the Samaritans, to prepare for Jesus. And they received Him not … And when His disciples, James and John, had seen this, they said: ‘Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?’ And turning, Jesus rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:52-56).
Elsewhere Jesus said: “You have heard that it hath been said: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy!’ But I say to you: Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! And pray for them that persecute and calumniate you! ― so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who makes His sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and His rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even sinners [publicans) do this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you that is more? Do not the heathens and pagans do this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:43-48). Scripture adds: “If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink. For, by doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head!” (Romans 12:20). Similarly, “If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him water to drink―for thou shalt heap hot coals upon his head, and the Lord will reward thee!” (Proverbs 25:22).
Our Lord showed that He was not just “all talk and no action” by praying for His enemies as He died on the cross: “Father, forgive them! For they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). He forgives His Apostles their betrayals that took place during the Passion. He would later forgive St. Paul his murderous persecution of Christians. As they say: “Charity begins at home!” and the mother, who is ever present in the home raising her children, should be both the example and encourager and propagator of this merciful charity. A family that does not regularly and sincerely pray for the conversion of the enemies of the Church―as well as pray for their own personal enemies―is missing a large chunk of the spirit that Christ wants us to have!
The mother gives life to a child―without a mother there can be no life. Yet, the only true mother is a Christian mother―for only a Christian mother can introduce a child to eternal life. Christ said: “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly!” (John 10:10) … “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me!” (John 14:6).
If you were born into a Christian (Catholic) family―then thank God―for 7 out of 8 babies are not born into a Catholic family, and therefore are spiritually “crippled” and “deformed” from their very first moment of existence and their chances of salvation are drastically reduced.
Life and Death―Eternal Life and Eternal Death
A mother who aborts her baby does not give physical life to the child, and even less does she give the chance of eternal life to her child―she is murderess, both a physical murderess and a spiritual murderess―and, as such, greatly risks her own eternal salvation: “And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in himself [herself]!” (1 John 3:15). Nevertheless, “As I live, saith the Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways―and why will you die?” (Ezechiel 33:11) … “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool!” (Isaias 1:18). Our Lord was prepared to forgive His murderers as He died on the cross, saying: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). God might allow the earthly killing of murderers as punishment for their sin―but God does not want to inflict an eternal punishment of the murderer in Hell if He can possible avoid it. God wants the salvation of every mother if possible―saint or sinner, Catholic or non-Catholic―but it has to be on HIS TERMS and not on their own preferred easy-going terms.
The fact that you are reading this means that you were not aborted but were given the gift life by your mother (in cooperation with God, Who made you soul). What a glorious gift! What a precious gift! What a gift to be treasured! Nobody receives a gift and then throws it into the trash-can! What an insult to the giver of the gift that would be! Likewise, the gift of life that you have been given is meant to be used, not abused! It is much like Our Lord’s parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30)―in which every servant was given talents by their master―one received five, another two and the third servant received one talent. The first two used their talents well―and produced profit on them; whereas the servant that had been given one talent, buried is talent in the ground. When the day of reckoning came, the master praised the two servants who had profited from what had been given them, but of the servant who buried his talent, the master said: “And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 25:30).
Your God and Mother Given Talents
By God’s design your mother conceived you and gave you life. Your mother gave birth to you into this life on Earth. Your mother saw to it that you were baptized and thus were given a spiritual life, the life of sanctifying grace in your soul. You have, in a certain sense (for the purpose of this article only), been given five talents―these talents are (1) life itself, (2) the seed of eternal life that you received in Baptism, (3) the virtue of Faith that was infused into you at Baptism, (4) your earthly mother and (5) your heavenly Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
These talents are meant to used and not abused by being buried. To abuse and bury them would be like aborting them―and you would abort your chances of eternal life in the process and lead you to Hell. To use them well and profit from them would potentially lead you to the treasures of eternal life in Heaven. You can lead horses to water, but you cannot force them to drink! You give information to persons, but you cannot force them to think! Some people just don’t want to hear spiritual talk! What they hear is dead and buried almost as soon as they hear it! Thoughts about the afterlife are not even afterthoughts! The talents that they were given to potentially save their soul―since they are abused, misused, or not used―will potentially ruin and damn their soul at the end of their worldly life on Earth!
Similarly, the children of a father and mother are like the talents in Our Lord’s parable―the children, whose life-giving soul God made, have been loaned to parents and, on the Day of Judgment, they will have to give an account of how well they used that loan. St. Philip Neri says: “Fathers and mothers of families should bring up their children virtuously, looking at them rather as God’s children rather than their own; and to count life and health, and all they possess, as loans which they hold from God!”
Adam & Eve ― Jesus & Mary ― Father & Mother
As Holy Scripture says, there is nothing new under the sun: “What is it that has been? The same thing that shall be again! What is it that hath been done? The same shall be done again! Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: ‘Behold this is new!’ for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us!” (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10). Sin is nothing new―it was born in human race through Adam and Eve and has been passed down in the form of Original Sin ever since their original sin. Virtue is nothing new―even though virtue always existed, it has never existed in the perfection that we see in Jesus and Mary and they seek to pass that down to us: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect! … I am the Lord your God―be holy because I am holy! … I am the way, and the truth, and the life! … Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart!” (Matthew 5:48; Leviticus 11:44; John 14:6; Matthew 11:29). The role of the father and mother of a family is to avoid the example of Adam and Eve, and to embrace the example of Jesus and Mary.
After giving life to her child, the greatest a mother can give is LOVE. Showing and giving love to her child is like showing and giving God to her child―for “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and of all virtues “the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Our Lord Himself confirms that loving is the greatest virtue and greatest commandment, when He says: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). The mother, therefore, should show her child, by her own example, that “God should be loved with the whole heart!” (Mark 12:33) and that GOD COMES FIRST―not the world, not friends, not hobbies and pastimes. She must drive home this truth―that without charity, we are worthless: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The Heart of the Family
It has been said more than once: “As woman goes, so goes the nation.” Cardinal Mindszenty wrote: “Those who hold the scepter of the world in their hands are those who give life to children .... True, mother works in the home, but her quiet labor radiates upon the entire nation .... She builds up the future, and not merely the future of this earth; nay, her task reaches out into eternity, to the very heart of God ... She points out to man the way, she plants the seed in the virgin soil of the soul. She does not tend to acquire knowledge by a long process of thought, but rather embraces it in one intuitive act, which does not consist in her intellectual capacity, but in her strong genuine feelings, which draw her to the beautiful, the pure, the eternal, the divine. To be a mother means to be a martyr. She is weaker in body than man, but she is spiritually more receptive, and far better prepared to make sacrifices out of love. Children can be merciless. At times they are not satisfied with having mother near them now and then, but they demand her service all day long, often all night long....She must bear it, she must be brave. When the little rascal will not sleep, it is mother who will softly hum a lullaby for the thousandth time, and without a whisper or complaint. She is the ‘valiant woman’ of the Scriptures, who does not sleep and rest by night. She silently prays during the night.”
“The woman of Faith knows that ... it is a wonderful thing to give birth to a child [but that it is] far more wonderful and more difficult to rear and educate it correctly and well.” … “The mother should gradually train the child to keep order, and to subordinate its bodily necessities to the spiritual ... She should train the child to become a mature Christian who endeavors to harmonize body and soul, for both are gifts of God .... From early childhood it should be taught self-discipline and sacrifice. Too much pampering of a child is the result of vanity, not of a real love for the child ... The mother must therefore pray for herself and for her child, for the spirit of fortitude, that she may not be dominated by the weakness of her child, but that like a good pilot she may steer clear of the breakers.”
The mother―more so than the father―is seen to be “the heart of the family” whereas the father is seen as “the head of the family”. The heart is associated with love and the head is associated with logic. It is only logical that the spirit of love should pervade and invade all the thoughts, words and actions of the family. For the spirit of love is the spirit of God―that is why say, when we pray to the Holy Spirit: “Come O Holy Ghost and enkindle in us the fire of Thy love!”
Nevertheless, the children should understand that true love is not permissive―true love is not allowing children to fulfill all their whims and desires. “Let love be genuine and not fake―hating that which is evil, holding to that which is good!” (Romans 12:9). True love―before it even descends to the human level―is first and foremost keeping the commandments of God: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that does not love Me, does not keep My words … If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love … This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24; 15:10; 15:12).
This leads us the consequence and natural follow-up of true love―sacrifice. That is what Our Lord means when He says: “This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you!” He loved us to death―unto death on the cross. It is by His immense spirit of sacrifice that Our Lord manifested His immense love for us! The mother must inculcate and drive home the notion that there can be no true love without sacrifice. Love is not getting everything that you want―love is sacrificing some of those things that you want for the good of others. That is why Our Lord pointed out that the supreme sacrifice is an act of supreme love: “Greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends!” (John 15:13)―and He would lay down His life for us to prove His immense love for us! He did not want to do it―for He said in the Garden of Gethsemane, during His agony in the Garden: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me! Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt!” (Matthew 26:39). If the mother does not show such a spirit of sacrifice, then she cannot expect to get such a spirit of sacrifice from her children.
Cardinal Mindszenty wrote: “The woman of Faith knows that ... it is a wonderful thing to give birth to a child [but that it is] far more wonderful and more difficult to rear and educate it correctly and well.” … “The mother should gradually train the child to keep order, and to subordinate its bodily necessities to the spiritual ... She should train the child to become a mature Christian who endeavors to harmonize body and soul, for both are gifts of God .... From early childhood it should be taught self-discipline and sacrifice. Too much pampering of a child is the result of vanity, not of a real love for the child ... The mother must therefore pray for herself and for her child, for the spirit of fortitude, that she may not be dominated by the weakness of her child, but that like a good pilot she may steer clear of the breakers.”
Abort the Arguments―Give Birth to Love
Today, there are way too many arguments, disagreements, dissensions and divisions within almost every family. The mother, by her example, must burn them to ashes by her love. Love overcomes all obstacles: “We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings patience; and patience brings trial; and trial brings hope; and hope confounds not―because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us!” (Romans 5:3-5). In order that the mother could be a mirror for God, He has established the life of woman to be more quiet and retiring than that of man―so that she might reflect His peace into the family.
As the Imitation of Christ says: “Love is an excellent thing, a very great blessing, indeed! It makes every difficulty easy and bears all wrongs with calmness and evenness of temper. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles. Love is never self-seeking, for in whatever a person seeks himself, there he falls from love. Love often knows no limits, but overflows all bounds. Love is swift, sincere, kind, pleasant, and delightful. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, and long-suffering. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, or higher, or wider; nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in Heaven or on Earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is above all created things. Anyone who loves, will know the sound of this voice!” (Book 3, Chapter 5).
Ultimately, most of the problems in families these days can be traced back to a lack Faith and Charity―meaning, there is a lack of knowledge of God’s and Christ’s teaching with a lack of confidence in God. Additionally, there is a lack of love for God, because God does not do what we would like Him to do and we do not really want to do what God wants us to do. St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “Man is perfected and bettered chiefly by the love of God―but is wounded and worsened by the love of sin.” God’s ways are not our ways―and we don’t like that and we don’t want that. This lack of love for what God wants is simply due to lack of love for God Himself. Our Catechism tells us: “We were made to know, love and serve God in this life!” ― but you cannot love what you do not know; and you will love God little if you only know little about Him; and you will not serve Him if you expect Him to serve you! Many do not want to know Him more or better―because His ways are often opposed to our ways: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9). “They always err in heart! They have not known My ways!” (Hebrews 3:10). “Their heart is divided” (Osee 10:2) … “A heart that goeth two ways shall not have success!” (Ecclesiasticus 3:28) … “With a double heart have they spoken!” (Psalm 11:3) … “They blessed with their mouth, but cursed with their heart” (Psalm 61:5) … “This people honoureth Me with their lips―but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8).
A Divided Heart Means Divided Love
Sr. Lucia of Fatima revealed that Satan would be waging a final battle against Our Blessed Mother―she also added that Satan would especially target the Family. Satan seeks to divide so that he can conquer―Our Lady revealed as much on that subject:
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God! … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten, each individual will want to be independent and be superior to others! … God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family … (O. L. of La Salette) …
“Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects” (O.L. of Good Success) … “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises! … The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord!” (O. L. of Akita) … “The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts!” (Our Lady of La Salette) … “Many will turn upon Religion, who nourished them at her breast! Many people will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church, impelled by the malice of the devil!” (O.L. of Good Success) …
“They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption … (O.L. of Good Success) … “bringing souls to ruin particularly through the corruption of youth. Stirred-up and unrestrained in the enjoyment of the pleasures of the world, they have degraded their soul in corruption and sin. The bad example of parents trains the family in scandal and infidelity, instead of virtue and prayer, which is almost dead on the lips of many. Stained and withered is the fountain of Faith and sanctity the home!” (O.L. to Bl. Elena Aiello) … “Woe to the children of these times! … Unbridled luxury will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times … making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children! ... Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty! There will be almost no virgin souls in the world! Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women!” (O.L. of Good Success).
Differences are fertile ground for division. The easiest place to divide us is when we have differences―and differences generally mean one side is right and the other side is wrong. Due to our pride and selfishness, it invariably is a case of: “I’m right! They are wrong!”―with very little or no concern as to what God wants or counsels in the matter! Once we have divided from God and His Law―then, as they say, “anything goes”! We become gods unto ourselves, deciding for ourselves what is good and what is evil. This was the temptation that Eve fell into when Satan said to her: “‘No, you shall not die the death! For God doth know that in whatsoever day you shall eat the fruit, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods―knowing good and evil!’ And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold―and she took of the fruit off the tree and did eat, and gave to her husband who did also eat” (Genesis 3:4-6). At that point, they had divided themselves from God by failing to keep His commandment, they loved what they wanted over what God had commanded. The “glue” of love that united them to God and God’s sanctifying grace, was now gone! Satan had conquered them by dividing them from God.
Today―as foretold in the above quotes by Our Lady―Satan has caused division everywhere in the Church and in the State. Modernism and Liberalism has invaded and divided the Church―which has increased exponentially since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). St. John Bosco had prophesied in the 1800s that: “There will be an Ecumenical Council in the next century (1900s), after which there will be chaos in the Church!” Anyone of sound mind who is not blind can see this prophecy has been fulfilled. Nations have been increasingly divided against each other and divided within themselves. The influx of non-nationals and illegal immigrants has greatly watered-down and weakened the national spirit all around the world. In the USA, over 50 million of its 320 million population are immigrants―and recently, almost 3 million immigrants try to enter the USA. Most countries have been severely watered-down as regard their long-term national population, which then affects and dissolves many national principles and religious beliefs. Furthermore, the political divisions and disagreements are also growing exponentially, to the point where the majority of Americans are expecting a civil war some time soon. Families are also increasingly divided with the actual percentage of marriages that end in divorce in the US varying between 40% and 50% of married couples. The fact that some statisticians claim divorce rates are falling is simply down to the fact that less and less people are marrying each year―they prefer to live together in sin!
Whether it be conflict within the Church, or conflict among nations, or conflict between families and within families―the root cause or bottom line is simply a lack of love, and, above all else, a lack of love of God and God’s Laws. Once you kick-out God and His Laws, then you can basically do whatever you personally wish to do―and everyone disagrees on what should and should be allowed. Hence you have disagreements that lead to division.
The Only Solution is Back to Basics and Back to Love
The popes―both Traditional and Liberal and Modernist―have all agreed and stated that since the Second World War it is blatantly obvious that the world has lost the sense of sin. The loss of the sense of sin is directly linked to a loss of the love of God. It should also be blatantly obvious that when you kick-out God, then you also kick-out all sense of sin and the sense of guilt for sin. Once God’s Laws are no longer lover and no longer guide nations and governments, then you have man-made laws that label anything they want as a sin! Then all reality and morality comes unglued and each person decides for themselves what it true and what is morally good. Which is why today, anyone who speaks out against sins such as those of LGBTQ communities is labeled as a sinner, a potential terrorist, an agitator, etc. Sins are now called good, and what was called good in the past is now called a sin. “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20). You are not allowed by law to discriminate against sinful behavior, or sinful beliefs. That attitude most certainly infiltrates into families and corrupts them―as seen in the above prophecies of Our Lady.
In face of all this evil in the world, we might be tempted to pray and beg God to send down fire and brimstone and destroy all these evildoers by whom we are surrounded! That, in fact, was the idea and wish of two of Our Lord’s Apostles―two of His three favorites, no less: the brothers James and John. We read in the Gospel: “They entered into a city of the Samaritans, to prepare for Jesus. And they received Him not … And when His disciples, James and John, had seen this, they said: ‘Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?’ And turning, Jesus rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:52-56).
Elsewhere Jesus said: “You have heard that it hath been said: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy!’ But I say to you: Love your enemies! Do good to them that hate you! And pray for them that persecute and calumniate you! ― so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who makes His sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and His rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even sinners [publicans) do this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you that is more? Do not the heathens and pagans do this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:43-48). Scripture adds: “If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink. For, by doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head!” (Romans 12:20). Similarly, “If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him water to drink―for thou shalt heap hot coals upon his head, and the Lord will reward thee!” (Proverbs 25:22).
Our Lord showed that He was not just “all talk and no action” by praying for His enemies as He died on the cross: “Father, forgive them! For they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). He forgives His Apostles their betrayals that took place during the Passion. He would later forgive St. Paul his murderous persecution of Christians. As they say: “Charity begins at home!” and the mother, who is ever present in the home raising her children, should be both the example and encourager and propagator of this merciful charity. A family that does not regularly and sincerely pray for the conversion of the enemies of the Church―as well as pray for their own personal enemies―is missing a large chunk of the spirit that Christ wants us to have!
Article 19
Saturday May 13th
Miracles On Tap
Saturday May 13th
Miracles On Tap
Wishful Thinking!
Wouldn’t it be nice to have miracles on tap?!! When in need of a miracle, just turn on the miracle faucet and just watch the miracles gush out! How many miracles happen each day? Probably more than we imagine―most of them being the inconspicuous, quiet, behind-the-scenes, “nobody would believe it even if I told them about it” kind of miracles. Furthermore, there are probably many miracles that we are totally oblivious to and fail to notice! Or that we rationalize as not coming from God, and attribute to some human cause or intervention―failing to realize that God often works His miracles through persons or even things. How many more miracles are possible? How many more could we get? Lots, loads, bucketfuls more! Why don’t we get them? We don’t get them because we don’t have the faith and confidence; because we don’t have the humility and charity required for them; because we don’t ask for them fervently and perseveringly; and, lastly, because we are too sinful.
God is not going to reward sin with miracles―except in cases where God knows the miracle will bring about a conversion from sin and a return to Him and a state of grace. St. Paul on the road to Damascus was such an example (Acts 9:1-21). Another example is that of a certain ruler, whose dying son Our Lord miraculously healed, leading to the conversion of the ruler and his whole household (John 4:46-53).
Right now, the world is incontestably evil and becoming more so with each passing month. Back in 1956, Our Lady revealed to Blessed Elena Aiello: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
As many have said, it is no longer humanly possible to pull-out of the nose-dive into evil that world is currently experiencing (and some are perversely enjoying). Only a miracle―or a series of miracles―can save us. That is why Our Lady said at Fatima and Akita that only she can help us now: “Pray the Rosary in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary … because only she can help you!” (Fatima). “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!” (Akita).
Our Lady continues: “There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost! This then will be the happy beginning of the complete restoration … This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss … At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Then Jesus Christ will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed ... ... Russia will be converted … Pagan Rome will disappear … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!” That triumph will be a miraculous triumph! Our Lady of Good Success spoke of her miraculous and extraordinary intervention that she would make for the restoration of the Catholic Church when the crisis would be so great that almost all would seem lost. Some prophecies speak of the survivors of the chastisement undergoing a miraculous universal healing or curing from any and all illnesses they have―physical and mental.
The so-called “End Times” or “Last Days”―which Our Lady of Fatima revealed that we have already entered―will be a time of many miracles―some true, some false. The false ones will come from Satan and his devils, as foretold by Our Lady of La Salette: “May the Pope guard against the performers of miracles. For the time has come when the most astonishing wonders will take place on the Earth and in the air … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell … They will have great power over Nature: there will be churches built to serve these spirits. People will be transported from one place to another by these evil spirits … On occasions, the dead and the righteous will be brought back to life. Everywhere there will be extraordinary wonders!” As Our Lord warned: “For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive―if possible―even the elect” (Matthew 24:24).
Not All Miracles Are Made Equal
Nevertheless, as for real miracles, not all miracles are made equal―in a certain sense, you get what you pay for; or you get what you deserve, just as they say: “We get the leaders we deserve!”―so too we get the kind of miracles we deserve: either miracles of punishment, or miracles of benefit. As Our Lady indicated at Fatima―the miracle of the sun would have been a far more stupendous miracle if the local mayor, Artur Santos, an apostate Catholic and high Mason, had not kidnapped, imprisoned, and threatened the three young children with being boiled to death in boiling oil. God’s Justice intervenes everywhere, “Who will render to every man according to his works” (Romans 2:6) ... “Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8) … “He that observes the wind, shall not sow; and he that considers the clouds, shall never reap!” (Ecclesiastes 11:4) “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly!” (2 Corinthians 9:6). “Those who work iniquity and sow sorrows, will reap them!” (Job 4:8). “He that sows iniquity shall reap evils” (Proverbs 22:8).
Miracles, of course, come from God―man has no power to work miracles apart from doing then on behalf of God and with God. You could say that miracles are a pre-packaged-meal that man has to simply unwrap, heat up and serve. Or you could say that miracles are like a meal where God supplies the pre-made ingredients and man has to mix them together in the right proportions according to the recipe of God and serve them. The bottom line is seen in Our Lord’s words: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) and “With men it is impossible, but not with God―for all things are possible with God!” (Mark 10:27).
Yet even though “all things are possible with God”, God does not do all things possible through man. Once again, the quality of man―that is to say, the holiness of a person―is the measure of how much God will do for that person. The holier a person is―then the more pleasing to God that person is―and thus God is more willing to work His miracles through that person.
St. Thomas Aquinas says: “True miracles cannot be wrought except by the power of God, because God works them for man’s benefit, and this in two ways: (1) in one way for the confirmation of truth declared, and (2) in another way as proof of a person’s holiness, which God desires to propose as an example of virtue. On the first way miracles can be wrought by anyone who preaches the true Faith and calls upon Christ’s Name, as even the wicked do sometimes. By this way even the wicked can work miracles. There is nothing to prevent a sinner from working miracles by invoking a saint; but the miracle is ascribed not to him, but to the one in proof of whose holiness such things are done. In the second way miracles are not wrought except by the saints, since it is in proof of their holiness that miracles are wrought during their lifetime or after death, either by themselves or by others” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q.178, art 2).
The Plentiful Miracles of St. John Vianney
St. John Vianney (1786-1859), the Curé of Ars, had a total Faith in God; his love of God was enormous; his practice of virtue was consistent; his hatred of sin was vehement; his prayer was fervent; his humility was deep―hence his holiness was great. Therefore it is unsurprising that God regularly began to work miracles in Ars during St. John Vianney’ life at Ars. “God is always almighty,” the Curé of Ars once told his sister. “He can at all times work miracles and He would work them now as in the days of old―were it not that Faith is lacking!” Miracles occur in response to Faith and are meant to confirm and bring about an even deeper Faith. They are meant ultimately to lead people, through Faith, to salvation―for “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). When God began to answer in abundance St. John Vianney’s prayers for physical cures, he tried to downplay their significance, not wanting Ars to become known as a free clinic for the body, rather than a priceless hospital for souls.
St. John Vianney, insisted that the greatest miracles of all that occurred in Ars, were the miracles of conversion. The conversion of someone from a state of mortal sin to sanctifying grace, he said, is “a greater miracle than what the Lord did to raise Lazarus from the dead! … The body is so very little in comparison to the Sacrament that heals the wounds of our soul!” The Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine, taught that the “the conversion of one sinner is a greater act of omnipotence than the creation of the universe.” These were the types of miracles that St. John Vianney begged of God the most.
In the investigations for St. John Vianney’s cause for canonization―which began just six years after his death―30 documented physical cures were presented, but these were just a tiny sample of the vast number of cures that occurred in Ars. The Mayor of Ars, after much commotion was made over the healing of a blind girl, straightforwardly replied to the astonished visitors: “Oh! Our holy Curé performs many such miracles!” St. John Vianney miraculous cures were of all types: young and old, the deaf, blind, mute, partially or totally paralyzed, those afflicted with tuberculosis or visible tumors, and maladies affecting almost every part of the body. He also worked miracles like the multiplication of the loaves and fish. Once, when those at the orphanage and school told him in desperation that there was no longer had any food at all to eat, he bowed his head, prayed and send one of the staffers up to the previously empty attic with a cup to bring down some corn. The confused young woman went out of obedience, only to return seconds later saying that she couldn’t open the door. When others went to help her, they discovered that the reason they door couldn’t open was because the entire attic was now filled with corn to the very roof.
Since miracles always require Faith, and morals flow from Faith, Fr. Vianney demanded this living Faith from those who came with such requests. To a young epileptic from Marseilles who was not living chastely, he said: “That is not the way to behave for one who desires to be cured!” To a young girl with a paralyzed, shortened leg, he told her that her leg would be cured only to the degree that she became truly respectful of her mother. Over the course of the next three months, she worked on improving her respect towards her mother and her leg inexplicably began to grow and acquire complete neuromuscular control.
Often the saint tried to help people to see that a physical cure might not be spiritually good for them. St. John Vianney viewed the cross as a caress not a curse and believed that “the greatest cross is to have no cross!” He therefore said to a sick man: “O my friend, I do not know whether to pray for your cure or not! One should not take the cross from shoulders that are so well able to bear it!”
Plentiful Miracles from St. Charbal Makhlouf
Charbel Makhlouf (sometimes spelled Sharbel) was born on May 8th, 1828, in a village among the high mountains of Northern Lebanon. He was given the baptismal name of Joseph by his very poor but religious parents. From early childhood he showed a strong attraction to prayer and solitude, and at age 23 he left home to become a monk in the Monastery of St. Maroun at Annaya. After being received into the novitiate, he was given the name Charbel, the name of an early martyr. After ordination to the priesthood in 1859, he was assigned to the Monastery of St. Maroun, where he spent sixteen years living a communal life of prayer and devotion to God. Before dealing with his miracles, let briefly look at his holy, humble, faith-filled, Eucharist loving life.
After the death of nearby hermit in a private hermitage named Saints Peter and Paul, Charbel felt a desire to take the hermit’s place. In 1875 he received the permission of his superiors to live alone at the hermitage, which was not far from the monastery, and which was used by the priests during days of quiet personal retreat. It was a rugged and simple cabin, with poor heat and the bare necessities of life. It was in this secluded sanctuary that he spent the remaining twenty-three years of his life in the practice of severe sacrifices, fasting and mortification. It is recorded by his companions that he often wore a hair shirt, slept on the hard ground, and ate only one meal a day. During his life in the hermitage, he was most noted for his remarkable devotion to the Holy Eucharist and his preference for saying daily Mass at 11:00 a.m., so that he could spend almost all the morning in preparation for the Mass, and the rest of the day in thanksgiving afterwards. After 23 years of daily sacrifice in such a meager existence, in 1898 he suffered a seizure while saying Mass, and a priest assisting at the Holy Sacrifice was forced to pry the Holy Eucharist from his grasp. The holy monk died eight days later on Christmas Eve at the age of seventy. He was buried very simply in the monastery cemetery where so many saintly monks before him had been buried. According to monastic custom, the body, which was not embalmed, was dressed in the full habit of the Order and was placed into the ground without a coffin.
Due to his secluded existence, Charbel would have certainly been forgotten had not a most extraordinary phenomenon occurred at his grave in the form of an extraordinary bright light, which surrounded his tomb for forty-five nights following his burial. Countless local townspeople saw the miraculous light and because of it and the enthusiasm of the many witnesses of this prodigy, the officials of the monastery requested permission from the ecclesiastical authorities to exhume the body four months after the saint’s death. On the day of the exhumation, his grave was opened in the presence of the superiors of the Order, the monks of the monastery, and many villagers, the body was miraculously found in perfect condition to the amazement of everyone, even though, as the result of frequent rains which had inundated the cemetery several times since the burial, the body was found floating on mud in a flooded grave. Given that St. Charbel was buried in the ground without a casket and in very wet conditions, such circumstances certainly should have expedited decompostition. After being cleansed and reclothed in fresh garments, the body was reverently laid in a wooden coffin and placed in a corner of the private chapel of the monastery for the admiration and contemplation of the monks and the faithful.
Additionally, a remarkable phenomenon accompanied this exhumation; from the pores of the body there exuded a liquid described as perspiration and blood, which had the distinct odor of blood. As a result of this transpiration, the blood-stained clothing upon his person was changed twice a week. Small pieces of this cloth soaked in this mysterious fluid are distributed as relics and these have been said to effect cures. Among the men of medicine who examined the body was Dr. Elias Elonaissi who declared on November 16th, 1921: “I observed that the pores emitted a matter like sweat; a strange and inexplicable thing according to the laws of nature, for this body that has been dead for so many years. I have renewed the same examination many times, at different periods; the phenomenon has always been the same.” Another physician, Dr. George Choukrallah, examined the body a total of 24 times during 17 years and declared:
“I have always been astonished at its state of preservation and especially this reddish liquid exuded by it ... My personal opinion based on study and experience, is that this body is preserved by a supernatural power.” The phenomenon is more astounding when one considers that in 1918, following a simple autopsy, the body was exposed on the terrace during the heat of summer for three months without the body decomposing and without drying up the source of the fluid.
On July 24th, 1927, after the body of Father Charbel was closely examined by two doctors from the French Medical Institute at Beirut, it was clothed in priestly vestments and was placed in a coffin of wood covered with zinc. Various documents drawn up by the physicians, the Judge of the Ecclesiastical Commission, the Defender of the Faith, a notary and superiors of the Order, were placed in a zinc tube, which was firmly closed and placed beside the body. Then, after it was sealed with the episcopal crest of the Commission, the coffin was placed in a new tomb especially prepared in the wall of an oratory. The coffin was placed on two stones to prevent contact with the dampness of the soil, and after being carefully sealed with masonry, the tomb was left undisturbed for twenty-three years.
On February 25th of the Holy Year 1950, pilgrims to the shrine noticed a liquid seeping from a corner of the tomb and flowing onto the floor of the oratory. The father superior of the monastery, on examining the liquid and fearing damage to the contents of the tomb, had it opened in the presence of the assembled community. The tomb was found dry and the coffin in the same condition as when it was placed in position, except that a reddish colored liquid was seen dripping through a crack in the foot of the casket. Permission to examine the contents of the sealed casket was obtained, and in the presence of many ecclesiastical authorities, officials of the Order and attending physicians, the seal was broken on April 22, 1950. The body was once again found completely free of any trace of corruption and was perfectly flexible and lifelike. The sweat of liquid and blood continued to exude from the body, and the garments were found stained with blood, the white content of the fluid having collected on the body in an almost solidified condition. Part of the chasuble had rotted and the zinc tube containing the official documents was covered with corrosion.
And so it was for 67 years in modern times that the body of Saint Charbel remained perfectly preserved, the case itself be thoroughly documented and examined by medical professionals and described by all accounts as being supernaturally sustained during this 67 year period. For reasons known only to Himself, God chose not to continue the miracle, and at the time of the beatification in 1965, the body was found to have finally complied with the laws of nature. Today, only his bones remain, and these are of a red color, and the discharge of the fluid has ceased.
God communicated to St. Charbel at various times influence over animals (locusts, snakes); he also healed the sick, interceded for a barren woman to conceive, exorcised demons, and was instrumental in the spiritual conversions of many others. Since his death in 1898, St. Maroun’s Monastery in Annaya, Mount Lebanon receives hundreds of thousands of letters every year from people who want to share the great news of miracles, cures and wonders performed by St. Charbel. There are several hundreds of thousand miracles attributed to the intercession of St. Charbel Makhlouf since his death in 1898. Since 1950, the year the monastery began to formally record the miraculous healings, they have archived more than 30,000 miracles. Prior to 1950, there were well over 200,000 miracles that were verified only through the witness of a priest. Now, with more advanced medical technology available, alleged miracles require medical documents demonstrating the person’s initial illness and later, their unexplainable good health. “We’re seeing more miracles in these past two years than we have in the past decade,” Father Louis Matar, the Maronite priest who keeps a tally of the saint’s miracles said in an interview.
Here are five miracles attributed to St. Charbel. These miracles are just a small selection of thousands.
(1) The healing of Sister Mary Abel Kamari of the Sacred Hearts
Sister Maria Abel Kamari was a thirty-year old nun who became ill with gastric ulcers in 1936. Despite multiple surgeries, Sister Maria wasn’t able to eat. Swallowing became difficult and her voice was weak. In addition to her ulcers, she suffered from osteoporosis, lost her teeth, and her right hand became paralyzed. In 1942, she became bedridden. Eight years later, Sister Maria requested to be taken to Charbel’s tomb. When she touched the tomb of the hermit, she described what felt like a electric shock go through her body. She stood up unassisted and completely cured. Detailed medical tests confirmed her miraculous healing. Sister Maria’s healing was one of the miracles confirmed by the Catholic Church that led to Charbel’s beatification.
(2) The healing of Iskandar Obeid
In 1925, Iskander Obeid, a blacksmith, was working in his smithy when a piece of metal damaged his eye. After further damage in 1937, Iskander was no longer able to see out of his right eye. Doctors recommended that they remove Iskander’s eye. He refused removal, despite the incredible pain. In 1950, he began to intercede to Charbel for a cure. One night after prayer, Iskander saw Charbel in a dream. The saint asked Iskander to make a pilgrimage to his monastery in Annaya. When Iskander arrived, he went to confession and Mass. That night, he spent time praying in front of Charbel’s tomb. The next morning, he awoke and had no pain in his right eye. A medical board later confirmed that Iskander’s eye had undergone complete and miraculous healing and regeneration. Iskander’s miracle was one of the miracles that the Catholic Church confirmed during the process of St. Charbel’s beatification.
(3) The healing of Mariam Awad from Hammana
Mariam Awad was born in Syria and lived in Lebanon. Between 1963 and 1965, Mariam underwent three surgeries for cancer that spread to her stomach, intestines, and neck. When her tonsils became infected with cancer, Mariam turned to Charbel. The cancerous growths made swallowing and talking incredibly painful. Mariam asked Charbel for either a miraculous cure or the grace to bear the suffering. One night she prayed: “Provide me with the cure to this disease. You are a great saint who has cured the blind and the lame. When I recover from this illness, I’ll go thank you in your shrine!” The next morning, Mariam woke up and was completely cured. Mariam’s miraculous cure was the miracle that led to Charbel’s canonization in 1977.
(4) The healing of Nohad El Shami
One of St. Charbel’s most well-known miracles is the healing of Nohad El Shami. She was fifty-five years old and healed from her partial paralysis in 1993. In 1993, she suffered hemiplegia (paralysis of one side of the body), due to the obstruction and blockage of portions of both her left and right brain arteries. Her doctors concluded that recovery was unlikely, as no treatment for her condition existed. Her eldest son, Saad, visited the Sts. Peter and Paul hermitage in Annaya (where St. Charbel spent most of his days in prayer, silence and solitude), seeking the saint’s powerful intersession. He brought back consecrated oil and soil from St. Charbel’s tomb to give to his mother. When Nohad returned home and gave his mother the blessed oil and soil, her health did not improve. She spent several days in constant, agonizing pain. However, one night, she dreamed that St. Charbel gave her Holy Communion while attending Mass in the hermitage in Annaya. On January 22nd, 1993, Nohad had another dream. She dreamed of two monks standing beside her bed―one with his hands on her neck as he operated, while the other monk relieved her pain. When Nohad woke up, she noticed two surgical wounds on her neck, and that she could move her whole body again. She was completely and miraculously cured from hemiplegia! The following night, St. Charbel again visited her in a dream, saying: “I did the surgery to let people see and return to their Faith. I ask you to visit my hermitage in Annaya on the 22nd of every month and attend Mass regularly for the rest of your life.”
(5) The miraculous healing of Dafne Gutierrez’s vision
Dafne Guitierrez suffered from Arnold Chiari malformation for seventeen years. The malformation had resulted in total blindness, awful headaches, seizures, and vomiting. The mother of three was unable to take care of her children and doctors approved for her to go to a nursing home and rehabilitation facility. Dafne visited St. Joseph Maronite Catholic Church in Phoenix to venerate Carbel’s relics. The saint’s remains were on a tour of thirty-six Maronite parishes in the United States. Just a few days after venerating the relics, Dafne’s vision was restored.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have miracles on tap?!! When in need of a miracle, just turn on the miracle faucet and just watch the miracles gush out! How many miracles happen each day? Probably more than we imagine―most of them being the inconspicuous, quiet, behind-the-scenes, “nobody would believe it even if I told them about it” kind of miracles. Furthermore, there are probably many miracles that we are totally oblivious to and fail to notice! Or that we rationalize as not coming from God, and attribute to some human cause or intervention―failing to realize that God often works His miracles through persons or even things. How many more miracles are possible? How many more could we get? Lots, loads, bucketfuls more! Why don’t we get them? We don’t get them because we don’t have the faith and confidence; because we don’t have the humility and charity required for them; because we don’t ask for them fervently and perseveringly; and, lastly, because we are too sinful.
God is not going to reward sin with miracles―except in cases where God knows the miracle will bring about a conversion from sin and a return to Him and a state of grace. St. Paul on the road to Damascus was such an example (Acts 9:1-21). Another example is that of a certain ruler, whose dying son Our Lord miraculously healed, leading to the conversion of the ruler and his whole household (John 4:46-53).
Right now, the world is incontestably evil and becoming more so with each passing month. Back in 1956, Our Lady revealed to Blessed Elena Aiello: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
As many have said, it is no longer humanly possible to pull-out of the nose-dive into evil that world is currently experiencing (and some are perversely enjoying). Only a miracle―or a series of miracles―can save us. That is why Our Lady said at Fatima and Akita that only she can help us now: “Pray the Rosary in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary … because only she can help you!” (Fatima). “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!” (Akita).
Our Lady continues: “There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost! This then will be the happy beginning of the complete restoration … This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss … At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Then Jesus Christ will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed ... ... Russia will be converted … Pagan Rome will disappear … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!” That triumph will be a miraculous triumph! Our Lady of Good Success spoke of her miraculous and extraordinary intervention that she would make for the restoration of the Catholic Church when the crisis would be so great that almost all would seem lost. Some prophecies speak of the survivors of the chastisement undergoing a miraculous universal healing or curing from any and all illnesses they have―physical and mental.
The so-called “End Times” or “Last Days”―which Our Lady of Fatima revealed that we have already entered―will be a time of many miracles―some true, some false. The false ones will come from Satan and his devils, as foretold by Our Lady of La Salette: “May the Pope guard against the performers of miracles. For the time has come when the most astonishing wonders will take place on the Earth and in the air … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell … They will have great power over Nature: there will be churches built to serve these spirits. People will be transported from one place to another by these evil spirits … On occasions, the dead and the righteous will be brought back to life. Everywhere there will be extraordinary wonders!” As Our Lord warned: “For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive―if possible―even the elect” (Matthew 24:24).
Not All Miracles Are Made Equal
Nevertheless, as for real miracles, not all miracles are made equal―in a certain sense, you get what you pay for; or you get what you deserve, just as they say: “We get the leaders we deserve!”―so too we get the kind of miracles we deserve: either miracles of punishment, or miracles of benefit. As Our Lady indicated at Fatima―the miracle of the sun would have been a far more stupendous miracle if the local mayor, Artur Santos, an apostate Catholic and high Mason, had not kidnapped, imprisoned, and threatened the three young children with being boiled to death in boiling oil. God’s Justice intervenes everywhere, “Who will render to every man according to his works” (Romans 2:6) ... “Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8) … “He that observes the wind, shall not sow; and he that considers the clouds, shall never reap!” (Ecclesiastes 11:4) “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly!” (2 Corinthians 9:6). “Those who work iniquity and sow sorrows, will reap them!” (Job 4:8). “He that sows iniquity shall reap evils” (Proverbs 22:8).
Miracles, of course, come from God―man has no power to work miracles apart from doing then on behalf of God and with God. You could say that miracles are a pre-packaged-meal that man has to simply unwrap, heat up and serve. Or you could say that miracles are like a meal where God supplies the pre-made ingredients and man has to mix them together in the right proportions according to the recipe of God and serve them. The bottom line is seen in Our Lord’s words: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) and “With men it is impossible, but not with God―for all things are possible with God!” (Mark 10:27).
Yet even though “all things are possible with God”, God does not do all things possible through man. Once again, the quality of man―that is to say, the holiness of a person―is the measure of how much God will do for that person. The holier a person is―then the more pleasing to God that person is―and thus God is more willing to work His miracles through that person.
St. Thomas Aquinas says: “True miracles cannot be wrought except by the power of God, because God works them for man’s benefit, and this in two ways: (1) in one way for the confirmation of truth declared, and (2) in another way as proof of a person’s holiness, which God desires to propose as an example of virtue. On the first way miracles can be wrought by anyone who preaches the true Faith and calls upon Christ’s Name, as even the wicked do sometimes. By this way even the wicked can work miracles. There is nothing to prevent a sinner from working miracles by invoking a saint; but the miracle is ascribed not to him, but to the one in proof of whose holiness such things are done. In the second way miracles are not wrought except by the saints, since it is in proof of their holiness that miracles are wrought during their lifetime or after death, either by themselves or by others” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q.178, art 2).
The Plentiful Miracles of St. John Vianney
St. John Vianney (1786-1859), the Curé of Ars, had a total Faith in God; his love of God was enormous; his practice of virtue was consistent; his hatred of sin was vehement; his prayer was fervent; his humility was deep―hence his holiness was great. Therefore it is unsurprising that God regularly began to work miracles in Ars during St. John Vianney’ life at Ars. “God is always almighty,” the Curé of Ars once told his sister. “He can at all times work miracles and He would work them now as in the days of old―were it not that Faith is lacking!” Miracles occur in response to Faith and are meant to confirm and bring about an even deeper Faith. They are meant ultimately to lead people, through Faith, to salvation―for “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). When God began to answer in abundance St. John Vianney’s prayers for physical cures, he tried to downplay their significance, not wanting Ars to become known as a free clinic for the body, rather than a priceless hospital for souls.
St. John Vianney, insisted that the greatest miracles of all that occurred in Ars, were the miracles of conversion. The conversion of someone from a state of mortal sin to sanctifying grace, he said, is “a greater miracle than what the Lord did to raise Lazarus from the dead! … The body is so very little in comparison to the Sacrament that heals the wounds of our soul!” The Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine, taught that the “the conversion of one sinner is a greater act of omnipotence than the creation of the universe.” These were the types of miracles that St. John Vianney begged of God the most.
In the investigations for St. John Vianney’s cause for canonization―which began just six years after his death―30 documented physical cures were presented, but these were just a tiny sample of the vast number of cures that occurred in Ars. The Mayor of Ars, after much commotion was made over the healing of a blind girl, straightforwardly replied to the astonished visitors: “Oh! Our holy Curé performs many such miracles!” St. John Vianney miraculous cures were of all types: young and old, the deaf, blind, mute, partially or totally paralyzed, those afflicted with tuberculosis or visible tumors, and maladies affecting almost every part of the body. He also worked miracles like the multiplication of the loaves and fish. Once, when those at the orphanage and school told him in desperation that there was no longer had any food at all to eat, he bowed his head, prayed and send one of the staffers up to the previously empty attic with a cup to bring down some corn. The confused young woman went out of obedience, only to return seconds later saying that she couldn’t open the door. When others went to help her, they discovered that the reason they door couldn’t open was because the entire attic was now filled with corn to the very roof.
Since miracles always require Faith, and morals flow from Faith, Fr. Vianney demanded this living Faith from those who came with such requests. To a young epileptic from Marseilles who was not living chastely, he said: “That is not the way to behave for one who desires to be cured!” To a young girl with a paralyzed, shortened leg, he told her that her leg would be cured only to the degree that she became truly respectful of her mother. Over the course of the next three months, she worked on improving her respect towards her mother and her leg inexplicably began to grow and acquire complete neuromuscular control.
Often the saint tried to help people to see that a physical cure might not be spiritually good for them. St. John Vianney viewed the cross as a caress not a curse and believed that “the greatest cross is to have no cross!” He therefore said to a sick man: “O my friend, I do not know whether to pray for your cure or not! One should not take the cross from shoulders that are so well able to bear it!”
Plentiful Miracles from St. Charbal Makhlouf
Charbel Makhlouf (sometimes spelled Sharbel) was born on May 8th, 1828, in a village among the high mountains of Northern Lebanon. He was given the baptismal name of Joseph by his very poor but religious parents. From early childhood he showed a strong attraction to prayer and solitude, and at age 23 he left home to become a monk in the Monastery of St. Maroun at Annaya. After being received into the novitiate, he was given the name Charbel, the name of an early martyr. After ordination to the priesthood in 1859, he was assigned to the Monastery of St. Maroun, where he spent sixteen years living a communal life of prayer and devotion to God. Before dealing with his miracles, let briefly look at his holy, humble, faith-filled, Eucharist loving life.
After the death of nearby hermit in a private hermitage named Saints Peter and Paul, Charbel felt a desire to take the hermit’s place. In 1875 he received the permission of his superiors to live alone at the hermitage, which was not far from the monastery, and which was used by the priests during days of quiet personal retreat. It was a rugged and simple cabin, with poor heat and the bare necessities of life. It was in this secluded sanctuary that he spent the remaining twenty-three years of his life in the practice of severe sacrifices, fasting and mortification. It is recorded by his companions that he often wore a hair shirt, slept on the hard ground, and ate only one meal a day. During his life in the hermitage, he was most noted for his remarkable devotion to the Holy Eucharist and his preference for saying daily Mass at 11:00 a.m., so that he could spend almost all the morning in preparation for the Mass, and the rest of the day in thanksgiving afterwards. After 23 years of daily sacrifice in such a meager existence, in 1898 he suffered a seizure while saying Mass, and a priest assisting at the Holy Sacrifice was forced to pry the Holy Eucharist from his grasp. The holy monk died eight days later on Christmas Eve at the age of seventy. He was buried very simply in the monastery cemetery where so many saintly monks before him had been buried. According to monastic custom, the body, which was not embalmed, was dressed in the full habit of the Order and was placed into the ground without a coffin.
Due to his secluded existence, Charbel would have certainly been forgotten had not a most extraordinary phenomenon occurred at his grave in the form of an extraordinary bright light, which surrounded his tomb for forty-five nights following his burial. Countless local townspeople saw the miraculous light and because of it and the enthusiasm of the many witnesses of this prodigy, the officials of the monastery requested permission from the ecclesiastical authorities to exhume the body four months after the saint’s death. On the day of the exhumation, his grave was opened in the presence of the superiors of the Order, the monks of the monastery, and many villagers, the body was miraculously found in perfect condition to the amazement of everyone, even though, as the result of frequent rains which had inundated the cemetery several times since the burial, the body was found floating on mud in a flooded grave. Given that St. Charbel was buried in the ground without a casket and in very wet conditions, such circumstances certainly should have expedited decompostition. After being cleansed and reclothed in fresh garments, the body was reverently laid in a wooden coffin and placed in a corner of the private chapel of the monastery for the admiration and contemplation of the monks and the faithful.
Additionally, a remarkable phenomenon accompanied this exhumation; from the pores of the body there exuded a liquid described as perspiration and blood, which had the distinct odor of blood. As a result of this transpiration, the blood-stained clothing upon his person was changed twice a week. Small pieces of this cloth soaked in this mysterious fluid are distributed as relics and these have been said to effect cures. Among the men of medicine who examined the body was Dr. Elias Elonaissi who declared on November 16th, 1921: “I observed that the pores emitted a matter like sweat; a strange and inexplicable thing according to the laws of nature, for this body that has been dead for so many years. I have renewed the same examination many times, at different periods; the phenomenon has always been the same.” Another physician, Dr. George Choukrallah, examined the body a total of 24 times during 17 years and declared:
“I have always been astonished at its state of preservation and especially this reddish liquid exuded by it ... My personal opinion based on study and experience, is that this body is preserved by a supernatural power.” The phenomenon is more astounding when one considers that in 1918, following a simple autopsy, the body was exposed on the terrace during the heat of summer for three months without the body decomposing and without drying up the source of the fluid.
On July 24th, 1927, after the body of Father Charbel was closely examined by two doctors from the French Medical Institute at Beirut, it was clothed in priestly vestments and was placed in a coffin of wood covered with zinc. Various documents drawn up by the physicians, the Judge of the Ecclesiastical Commission, the Defender of the Faith, a notary and superiors of the Order, were placed in a zinc tube, which was firmly closed and placed beside the body. Then, after it was sealed with the episcopal crest of the Commission, the coffin was placed in a new tomb especially prepared in the wall of an oratory. The coffin was placed on two stones to prevent contact with the dampness of the soil, and after being carefully sealed with masonry, the tomb was left undisturbed for twenty-three years.
On February 25th of the Holy Year 1950, pilgrims to the shrine noticed a liquid seeping from a corner of the tomb and flowing onto the floor of the oratory. The father superior of the monastery, on examining the liquid and fearing damage to the contents of the tomb, had it opened in the presence of the assembled community. The tomb was found dry and the coffin in the same condition as when it was placed in position, except that a reddish colored liquid was seen dripping through a crack in the foot of the casket. Permission to examine the contents of the sealed casket was obtained, and in the presence of many ecclesiastical authorities, officials of the Order and attending physicians, the seal was broken on April 22, 1950. The body was once again found completely free of any trace of corruption and was perfectly flexible and lifelike. The sweat of liquid and blood continued to exude from the body, and the garments were found stained with blood, the white content of the fluid having collected on the body in an almost solidified condition. Part of the chasuble had rotted and the zinc tube containing the official documents was covered with corrosion.
And so it was for 67 years in modern times that the body of Saint Charbel remained perfectly preserved, the case itself be thoroughly documented and examined by medical professionals and described by all accounts as being supernaturally sustained during this 67 year period. For reasons known only to Himself, God chose not to continue the miracle, and at the time of the beatification in 1965, the body was found to have finally complied with the laws of nature. Today, only his bones remain, and these are of a red color, and the discharge of the fluid has ceased.
God communicated to St. Charbel at various times influence over animals (locusts, snakes); he also healed the sick, interceded for a barren woman to conceive, exorcised demons, and was instrumental in the spiritual conversions of many others. Since his death in 1898, St. Maroun’s Monastery in Annaya, Mount Lebanon receives hundreds of thousands of letters every year from people who want to share the great news of miracles, cures and wonders performed by St. Charbel. There are several hundreds of thousand miracles attributed to the intercession of St. Charbel Makhlouf since his death in 1898. Since 1950, the year the monastery began to formally record the miraculous healings, they have archived more than 30,000 miracles. Prior to 1950, there were well over 200,000 miracles that were verified only through the witness of a priest. Now, with more advanced medical technology available, alleged miracles require medical documents demonstrating the person’s initial illness and later, their unexplainable good health. “We’re seeing more miracles in these past two years than we have in the past decade,” Father Louis Matar, the Maronite priest who keeps a tally of the saint’s miracles said in an interview.
Here are five miracles attributed to St. Charbel. These miracles are just a small selection of thousands.
(1) The healing of Sister Mary Abel Kamari of the Sacred Hearts
Sister Maria Abel Kamari was a thirty-year old nun who became ill with gastric ulcers in 1936. Despite multiple surgeries, Sister Maria wasn’t able to eat. Swallowing became difficult and her voice was weak. In addition to her ulcers, she suffered from osteoporosis, lost her teeth, and her right hand became paralyzed. In 1942, she became bedridden. Eight years later, Sister Maria requested to be taken to Charbel’s tomb. When she touched the tomb of the hermit, she described what felt like a electric shock go through her body. She stood up unassisted and completely cured. Detailed medical tests confirmed her miraculous healing. Sister Maria’s healing was one of the miracles confirmed by the Catholic Church that led to Charbel’s beatification.
(2) The healing of Iskandar Obeid
In 1925, Iskander Obeid, a blacksmith, was working in his smithy when a piece of metal damaged his eye. After further damage in 1937, Iskander was no longer able to see out of his right eye. Doctors recommended that they remove Iskander’s eye. He refused removal, despite the incredible pain. In 1950, he began to intercede to Charbel for a cure. One night after prayer, Iskander saw Charbel in a dream. The saint asked Iskander to make a pilgrimage to his monastery in Annaya. When Iskander arrived, he went to confession and Mass. That night, he spent time praying in front of Charbel’s tomb. The next morning, he awoke and had no pain in his right eye. A medical board later confirmed that Iskander’s eye had undergone complete and miraculous healing and regeneration. Iskander’s miracle was one of the miracles that the Catholic Church confirmed during the process of St. Charbel’s beatification.
(3) The healing of Mariam Awad from Hammana
Mariam Awad was born in Syria and lived in Lebanon. Between 1963 and 1965, Mariam underwent three surgeries for cancer that spread to her stomach, intestines, and neck. When her tonsils became infected with cancer, Mariam turned to Charbel. The cancerous growths made swallowing and talking incredibly painful. Mariam asked Charbel for either a miraculous cure or the grace to bear the suffering. One night she prayed: “Provide me with the cure to this disease. You are a great saint who has cured the blind and the lame. When I recover from this illness, I’ll go thank you in your shrine!” The next morning, Mariam woke up and was completely cured. Mariam’s miraculous cure was the miracle that led to Charbel’s canonization in 1977.
(4) The healing of Nohad El Shami
One of St. Charbel’s most well-known miracles is the healing of Nohad El Shami. She was fifty-five years old and healed from her partial paralysis in 1993. In 1993, she suffered hemiplegia (paralysis of one side of the body), due to the obstruction and blockage of portions of both her left and right brain arteries. Her doctors concluded that recovery was unlikely, as no treatment for her condition existed. Her eldest son, Saad, visited the Sts. Peter and Paul hermitage in Annaya (where St. Charbel spent most of his days in prayer, silence and solitude), seeking the saint’s powerful intersession. He brought back consecrated oil and soil from St. Charbel’s tomb to give to his mother. When Nohad returned home and gave his mother the blessed oil and soil, her health did not improve. She spent several days in constant, agonizing pain. However, one night, she dreamed that St. Charbel gave her Holy Communion while attending Mass in the hermitage in Annaya. On January 22nd, 1993, Nohad had another dream. She dreamed of two monks standing beside her bed―one with his hands on her neck as he operated, while the other monk relieved her pain. When Nohad woke up, she noticed two surgical wounds on her neck, and that she could move her whole body again. She was completely and miraculously cured from hemiplegia! The following night, St. Charbel again visited her in a dream, saying: “I did the surgery to let people see and return to their Faith. I ask you to visit my hermitage in Annaya on the 22nd of every month and attend Mass regularly for the rest of your life.”
(5) The miraculous healing of Dafne Gutierrez’s vision
Dafne Guitierrez suffered from Arnold Chiari malformation for seventeen years. The malformation had resulted in total blindness, awful headaches, seizures, and vomiting. The mother of three was unable to take care of her children and doctors approved for her to go to a nursing home and rehabilitation facility. Dafne visited St. Joseph Maronite Catholic Church in Phoenix to venerate Carbel’s relics. The saint’s remains were on a tour of thirty-six Maronite parishes in the United States. Just a few days after venerating the relics, Dafne’s vision was restored.
Article 18
Friday May 12th, 2023
How to Get Miracles
Friday May 12th, 2023
How to Get Miracles
Do You Need A Miracle?
Everybody, of course, wouldn't mind a miracle or two, or more! Yet very few, if any, feel confident or worthy of a miracle! Does that describe you, more or less? Of course it does! There are many problems that we experience—whether personally, among family, relatives, friends or neighbors, in the parish, at work or at school, or just in the world in general—that we would love to solve with a miracle or two. We are no different to people throughout history. Just going back to Lourdes or Fatima, we see many people hoping for a miracle. Some got their miracle, most did not. Why? Before we go further, let us look at one of the miracles that contributed to the beatification and canonization of two of the Fatima children―Francisco and Jacinta.
The healing in question was of a woman named Maria Emilia Santos, who lives in Leiria, in the Fatima region. Maria Emilia Santos lives in the institute of Saint Francis, where people suffering from chronic illnesses are cared for. She spent many years in the institution, and, after she was cured, she decided to stay there to help others. Here is her story in her own words:
“My cure took place on February 20th, 1989, the anniversary of Jacinta’s death. I had been bed-ridden for 22 years. My spinal column was calcified, and I could no longer make any movements at all. My feet were completely bent out of shape, and incapable of feeling. Every means possible had been used to treat my condition, and I had even spent eight years in hospital. But in the end I had been discharged, and declared incurable. This is why I was brought to this institute, where the chronically ill are cared for.
“One day Fr. Artunes, who works at the Shrine of Fatima, came to visit me. He told me that he was holding a class for spiritual exercises, and asked if I would like to come. ‘I’d love to,’ I replied, ‘but how can I? I’m incapable of any movement whatsoever!’ ‘Don’t worry,’ he replied. ‘We’ll take you on a stretcher, and there will be someone to help you, just like here!’ And so I went to do these spiritual exercises in Fatima. The priest who was with us continued to speak about Francisco and Jacinta and the apparitions of Our Lady. Little by little I began to be convinced that the two children could help me, that they could obtain for me the grace of a cure. However, a healing seemed something far too extraordinary for me. I didn’t think I deserved so much, and so I prayed to Francisco and Jacinta for the ability to at least sit up in bed, so that there would be less work and problems for the people who took care of me.
“I was taken home on a stretcher, and I continued to pray. And after a while my prayers were answered. One morning I realized that I could move in my bed. I had really been granted what I had asked! It was marvelous, amazing! After years and years of having to stay flat on my back, motionless in my bed, I could bend my back enough to stay in a sitting position. It was so extraordinary it seemed like a dream. I couldn’t make any other movements, and my feet were still twisted and numb. But it was still an enormous improvement which I had never dared hope for! I was so happy!
After my initial surprise and joy, however, I realized that I hadn’t really obtained what I most wanted―that is, not to be a burden to those who took care of me. Even though I could sit up, the problems I caused my helpers were no less. They still had to wash me, change me, turn me around, pick me up and move me, because I was unable to move around on my own.
“Things stayed that way for another 23 months. Then I began to pray again. I said to Francisco and Jacinta: ‘You granted the favor I asked for―but things didn’t turn out as I had hoped. I wanted not to be a burden on those who look after me and yet, although I can sit up, I still depend on others for everything. I am now asking you to cure me completely, so that I can take care of myself without anyone else’s help!’ In my heart, I could feel that Francisco and Jacinta would be able to obtain for me this favor. I had understood that, if I prayed fervently with faith in my heart, it would really be possible. I began a Novena. When I had finished the first, I made a second.
“On the evening of February 20th, 1989 I was in bed, and I was praying continuously. I remembered that that day was the anniversary of Jacinta’s death. Sixty-nine years previously she had been taken up to Heaven while she was still only a child of ten years old. As I reflected on this, I felt deeply moved, and intensified my prayers. At a certain point I heard a voice from within: ‘Get up! Get up! You can do it!’ I thought I had imagined it. There was no one in my room. But then I heard the voice again, clear and insistent: ‘Get up and walk, you can do it!’ Then I felt a strange force pushing me out of the bed.
“My heart was overwhelmed with immense joy. It was beating like thunder, as though trying to pound its way through my chest. I realized that I was thinking about being cured, but it was almost as if I were afraid of another miracle! I remained still in my bed for a moment, listening. Then I tried to move my leg―and realized that I could! I tried to move my feet―and felt that they were no longer unnaturally twisted, but that I could move them freely! I was so excited my heart was racing! I stayed motionless under the covers a moment longer―incredulous! Then I again tried to make some movements. I really could move! I took heart and decided to get up. I pushed my legs out from under the covers and placed my feet on the ground. They were no longer without feeling! I could feel how cold the floor was―something that had not happened for years and years! I pushed on the bed with my arms and straightened. I was standing up! I took one step, then another. I could feel my face covered with tears―because I realized that I could walk, and was overcome with emotion. Even my back had straightened! It felt supple, not stiff any more―and so I tried to bend. I could do so perfectly! I began to walk, leaving my room.
“I passed by the bed of another bedridden woman who saw me and immediately understood what had happened. She began to shout, and the assistants came running and saw that I was cured. It was ten o’clock in the evening. I went alone to the director’s room. She was already in bed. I knocked on her door and told her that I could walk. ‘Don’t tell lies! she said from behind the door. ‘It’s true!’ I replied. ‘Francisco and Jacinta have granted me a miracle!’ She got up and opened the door, and was amazed when she saw me! The next day, the doctors who had been treating me for years arrived. Impossible, they repeated continually as they examined me. Nothing in human science could have brought about this cure. Nothing in human science, I replied, but for God, nothing is impossible. Ten years have passed since that day, and I am still very well and can walk normally without help. I have had no further problems with my back, my feet or my legs. It’s as though I had never been bedridden at all!”
The Greatest Miracle―Salvation
Here is another item for you to digest―it is the miracle of salvation. The Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine, taught that the “the conversion of one sinner is a greater act of omnipotence than the creation of the universe.” As St. Louis de Montfort says: “Chosen soul, living image of God! … It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation! … What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God! A marvelous work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving His grace abundantly and in an extraordinary manner. The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary). Yes―truly, salvation is a miracle, something that is beyond and surpasses the powers of nature. Yet, sadly, we don’t look upon salvation as a miracle―some even look upon it as a right! Here is a little poem about salvation:
I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven’s door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp--
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash.
There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money! Twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.
Jerry, who I always thought
Was rotting away in Hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.
I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?
I would love to hear Your take.
How’d all these sinners get up here?
God must’ve made a mistake!
‘And why’s everyone so quiet,
So somber? ― Please give me a clue.’
‘Hush, child,’ He said, ‘it’s because they’re all in shock!
No one thought they’d be seeing you!’
The Basic Conditions For A Miracle
St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, when explaining God, first of deals with what GOD IS NOT, before embarking upon explaining what GOD IS. So, first of all, let us look at what will NOT get a miracle, before looking at what WILL get a miracle. Who gets most of your attention? Who are you likely to help the most? Your friends or your enemies? The answer is pretty obvious! Now God is so good that He will even sometimes perform miracles to the advantage of His enemies: “Your Father in Heaven, makes His sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust!” (Matthew 5:45). But, on the whole, it is pretty obvious that God is not going be putting His enemies above His friends on His “To Do List”! If you doubt this, then read the entire 26th chapter of the Book of Leviticus—even if you don’t doubt this, reading that chapter will do you no harm, but will only serve to make sure that you put God first and stray not from His Commandments! Too scared to read it? Okay—here are just a few extracts:
Sin Will Not Obtain Miracles
“If you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments, if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me, and to make void My covenant: then I will quickly visit you with poverty and burning heat, … and consume your lives ... I will set My face against you, and you shall fall down before your enemies, and be subject to them that hate you … I will break the pride of your stubbornness … I will bring in upon you the sword … I will send the pestilence in the midst of you … I will destroy break your idols ... I will destroy your land … I will scatter you among the Gentiles … Your land shall be a desert and your cities destroyed … You shall perish among the Gentiles … because they rejected My judgments, and despised My laws” (Leviticus 26:14-45). However, the whole chapter makes for the most salutary reading. Do take the time to read it—it may well end up plugging a few leaks!
When Lucia of Fatima passed on to Our Lady requests for miraculous healings―Our Lady would reply by saying such things as: “I have come to warn the faithful to amend their lives and ask for pardon for their sins! … People must say the Rosary. Let them continue saying it every day! … Yes, I shall cure some of them within the year … Some I will cure and others not! As to the crippled boy, I will not cure him, or take him out of his poverty, but he must say the rosary every day with his family! … Some will be cured, but not all, because Our Lord has no confidence in them!” Lucia asked for the conversion of some people―which would be a spiritual miracle―the answer of Our Lady was the same as with the crippled boy: the recitation of the Rosary. Concerning one sick woman, Our Lady said: “If she has converted she will be cured within the end of the year!” Lucia told Our Lady of her sorrow over all the people who did not believe she was appearing. Lucia asked for a miracle or a sign so that everyone would believe. Our Lady answered: “Yes―in the last month, in October, I shall perform a miracle so that all may believe in my apparitions. But if they had not taken you to the village [when the mayor abducted the children and imprisoned them], the miracle would have been greater!”
We see from all this that sin is a major obstacle in getting miracles from Heaven―and, furthermore, the potency or magnitude of miracles, if and when given, is greatly reduced by sin. Obviously, the more we sin, the weaker will be the miracle if we even manage to obtain one.
Miracles of Punishment
The only kinds of miracles that sin obtains are miracles of punishment. This has been seen numerous times in Holy Scripture. The Great Flood in the time of Noe. The fire and brimstone that fell upon Sodom and Gomorrha. The Ten Plagues of punishment sent by God upon Pharao and Egypt in the time of Moses, just before the Exodus. The miracle of the parting of the waters of the Red Sea, which then drowned Pharao’s pursuing army. The earthquakes, fires and plagues that punished the dissenters and idolaters among the Israelites during the Exodus and forty-years in the desert. The mega-hailstorm that destroys the Amorite army in a battle with Josue. God giving Samson the strength to dislodge the pillars of the Philistine palace, by which he killed more Philistines than he had ever killed in battle. The 42 months of drought in response Elias, which punished the idolatry of the Chosen People. The fire Elias called down from Heaven to devour King Ochozias’ captain and fifty soldiers (on two different occasions). Sennacherib’s Assyrian army of 5,180 killed overnight by an angel near Jerusalem. All of these were examples of miracles―but not the kind of miracles we would want for ourselves!
The Punishing Miracles Still Exist
Nothing has changed, as Our Lady points out in her dire warnings of miraculous punishments for our extremely sinful age: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord” (Akita) … “Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended” (Fatima) … “If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them … So that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind ... If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity―greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before!” (Akita) … “God will strike in an unprecedented way. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! Water and fire will give the Earth’s globe convulsions and terrible earthquakes which will swallow up mountains, cities!” (La Salette) … “Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad!” (Akita) … “Nations will be annihilated” (Fatima).
So you see, even sin can attract miracles, but not the kind of miracles that we really want! Sin does not pay! Or if it does, it doesn’t give the kind of wages that we want: “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Sin puts us at enmity with God! The only kind of miracles we'll get in that state, are punitive or punishing miracles.
Lukewarmness Will Not Obtain Miracles
If you think that half-heartedness, tepidity, laziness and negligence will obtain miracles, then you have been reading the wrong books. Let the Book of books put that right: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth. Because thou sayest: ‘I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing!’ and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of Me gold fire tried, that thou mayest be made rich; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore, and do penance!” (Apocalypse 3:15-19). Feel rebuked? Good! God must love you! If you want a miracle, then remember those words: “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!" Ouch! That warms us up just by reading it!
Our Lord, speaking to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (to whom Our Lady of Good Success also appeared) said: "If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small inveterate imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me ... But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing! — according to My example, for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross. Moreover, I have continued to live in the Tabernacle under the same roof with these hidden souls, exposing Myself to so many hateful profanations and sacrileges! For I know well all that takes place in My sacramental life! ... Woe to souls like this! Woe!”
Why would Jesus say things like this? Because He loves us and He understands the evil and damage of sin in a way that we cannot see in our blindness and lukewarmness. He says this as a loving rebuke, which is meant to bring about a change of direction and lead to a more serious and fervent spiritual life, which would then deflect and avoid His just punishments—both here below in this life, and in the life to come.
Clear the Ground for Miracles—Clear-Out Sin
Therefore, by looking at the negative aspects first, we clearly see that we have to clear-out sin if we are to have hope of any miracles. This highlights and underlines those salutary quotes from Holy Scripture: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance” (Luke 5:32) and “I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance” (Luke 15:7).
Our Lady is in solidarity with Our Lord and Holy Scripture on this, saying: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance” (La Salette, 1846) and therefore we, too, neglect penance. At Lourdes (1854), eight years later, we have Our Lady’s insistence upon “Penance! Penance! Penance!” At Fatima (1917), we essentially have the same message: “pray and sacrifice for sinners” (which we also are).
Prayer and Penance—the Foundation for Miracles
The groundwork for miracles is quite simple—it is no “rocket science”—even a child can understand it. It is quite simply the good old remedy of “prayer and penance”! But not just any old prayer or penance! It has to have to “oomph” to it and some faith and confidence mixed in with the “oomph”.
Casting out a devil might seem to be something extraordinary, something miraculous—yet even Our Lord’s chosen Apostles failed to do so at times, even though they had been given the power to do so. We read of one account in Holy Scripture: “And when Jesus was come to the multitude, there came to Him a man falling down on his knees before Him, saying: ‘Lord! Have pity on my son, for he is a lunatic, and suffereth much! For he falleth often into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to Thy disciples, and they could not cure him!’ Then Jesus answered and said: ‘O unbelieving and perverse generation! How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him here to Me!’ And Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out of him, and the child was cured from that hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus secretly, and said: ‘Why could not we cast him out?’ Jesus said to them: ‘Because of your unbelief! For, amen I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from hence hither!” and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you! But this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!’” (Matthew 17:14-20).
Praying and Trying and Getting Nowhere Fast?
We may be really trying, or at least we imagine we are really trying. Do you ever get the feeling that your prayers are getting you nowhere fast? You pray, day-in-day-out, but nothing seems to happen; nobody appears to be listening; there is no answer at the other end! Has everyone in Heaven gone on vacation? Is there nobody left to answer the ‘prayer-phones’? I keep trying to call, but I get no answer! What on Earth (or what in Heaven) is going on? Didn’t Our Lady, in her Fifteen Promises to those who recite the Rosary, say things like: “Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces ... I promise the greatest graces to all who recite the Rosary … The Rosary shall destroy vice and decrease sin … cause virtue and good works to flourish; obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things ... You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.”
Didn’t Sr. Lucia of Fatima say, even more recently, “The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary—to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.”
Well, those things don’t seem to be happening in my life! Did she really mean those things? Were they applicable only to some and not all people? Why doesn’t the Rosary do those things for me? Why don’t I ever get any miracles? St. Louis de Montfort speaks of this in his book, The Secret of the Rosary:
“Most Catholics say the Rosary … Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue [never mind the miracles], if not because they are not saying them as they should … To say the Holy Rosary with advantage, one must be in a state of grace, or at least be fully determined to give up sin, for good works and prayers are dead works if they are done in a state of mortal sin. The stronger our Faith the more merit our Rosary will have. This Faith must be lively and informed by charity; in other words, to recite the Rosary properly it is necessary to be in God’s grace, or at least seeking it … God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin … How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? People who do that forfeit God’s blessing [and obviously any chance of a miracle], which is changed into a curse for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: ‘Cursed be the one who does God’s work negligently’ (Jeremias 48:10) …
“Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin. The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!”
Along the same lines, St. Augustine puts it in a nutshell when speaking of the problem of seemingly ‘unanswered’ or ‘sterile’ prayers―and which can be readily applied to obtaining miracles or not obtaining miracles. He says that our prayers are unanswered because (1) we ask for things that will be bad for us, (2) we ask badly, or (3) we ourselves are bad. It could be one, two, or all three of these things that are behind our unanswered prayers.
(1) We Ask For Things That Are Bad For Us
St. Thomas Aquinas says that prayer will never change the mind or will of God; but prayer is meant to bend our mind and our will to the mind and will of God: “Our motive in praying is, not that we may change the Divine disposition, but that, by our prayers, we may obtain what God has appointed” (Summa Theologica, II-IIae, question 83, article 2). Again, in a nutshell, God’s words to the prophet Isaias sum it up perfectly: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts. So shall My word be, which shall go forth from My mouth: it shall not return to Me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it” (Isaias 55:8-11).
Our own wishes and desires are—more often than not—quite different than God’s wishes and desires for us. In this life, we are incapable of fully seeing or understanding God’s will, and that is why—in good faith—we often pray for something that is opposed to God’s will for us. We even see this in case of Our Lord Himself. In His agony, in the Garden of Gethsemane, two opposing wills emerge—that of Our Lord and that of His Father. Our Lord says to His Father: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt ... Again the second time, He went and prayed, saying: ‘My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, Thy will be done!’ … And He prayed the third time, saying the self-same word” (Matthew 26:39-44).
So when we pray for a specific intention, God will arrange things according to His holy will—whether it be in union with our desires and intentions, or not. In this way He always answers our prayers—but not always in the way we had hoped for. This is because God always knows and does what is best for our souls, most particularly for the salvation of our souls, and He will not grant any prayer that will harm our souls, or the souls of those whom we pray for. Heaven listens to all the prayers that come in, even we only get to mention them on Heaven’s ‘voice-mail’ or Heaven’s ‘answering-machine.’ God hears all of our prayers and He arranges things in our lives (more often quietly and without our being aware of it) according to His holy will and what is best for our souls. And looking over our lives, if we are attentive we will see His actions in the small, little everyday things. He opens a door here, and He closes another door there—all for the good of our souls.
Rarely in our lives will Jesus work extraordinary miracles or give us extraordinary graces, because we cannot handle the extraordinary sufferings or sacrifices that often accompany them as a necessary payment for them—which is what St. Padre Pio stated, when pointing out that extraordinary graces—such as miraculous cures or conversions—have to be “paid” for through much suffering.
(2) We Ask Badly
Even if our will was aligned to the will of God, and the thing that we are praying for is something that God is willing to grant, we still have the duty to ask in a correct, fitting, reverential and persevering manner. In practice, people too often ask in a manner that makes it look as though they are telling God what to do, rather than humbly asking Him to do something.
They pray too quickly, too distractedly, too half-heartedly, too superficially, too proudly—as Our Lord says: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8). Or, if they ask correctly and reverentially, they do not ask perseveringly, and give up after a relatively short time—discouraged and convinced that God will not answer their prayers; an attitude that must be criticized. Jesus gives us an example of that perseverance in the parable of the widow who ceaselessly begged a judge to intervene against one of her adversaries. Jesus “spoke a parable to them, that we ought always to pray, and not to faint, saying: ‘There was a judge in a certain city, who feared not God, nor regarded man. And there was a certain widow in that city, and she came to him, saying: ‘Avenge me of my adversary!’ And he would not for a long time. But afterwards he said within himself: ‘Although I fear not God, nor regard man; yet, because this widow is troublesome to me, I will avenge her, lest continually coming she weary me!’” (Luke 18:1-5).
“And Jesus said to them: ‘Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and shall say to him: “Friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine is come off his journey to me, and I have not what to set before him!” And he, from within, should answer, and say: “Trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee!” Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise, and give him as many as he needeth. And I say to you, “Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you!” For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened!’” (Luke 11:5-10).
St. Monica prayed for many years before she obtained from God the conversion of her son, the future St. Augustine (though he was far from being a saint at that time). He was living with a mistress with whom he had fathered a child. Yet, despite all contrary indications and temptations to discouragement, St. Monica continued to pray with perseverance and confidence. Her prayer was granted in a manner that must have ‘blown her mind’ and which went beyond her wildest expectations—Augustine would not only convert, but he would be become a priest, a bishop, a saint and a Doctor of the Church! Truly a great miracle―paid for by great suffering!
(3) We Ourselves Are Bad (Or At Least Not Good Enough)
“We know that God doth not hear sinners: but if a man be a server of God, and doth His will, him He heareth.” (John 9:31). God will not answer the prayers of His enemies, nor succumb to their wishes and grant their requests: “He that turns away his ears from hearing the law, his prayer shall be an abomination” (Proverbs 28:9). However, St. Augustine says: “If God were not to hear sinners, the publican would have vainly said: ‘Lord, be merciful to me a sinner’!” And St. John Chrysostom says: “Everyone that asketh shall receive, that is to say whether he be righteous or sinful.”
St. Thomas Aquinas steps in here and says: “In the sinner, two things are to be considered: (1) his nature, which God loves, and (2) the sin, which God hates. Therefore, when a sinner prays for something as sinner, that is to say, in accordance with a sinful desire, God hears him, not through mercy, but sometimes through vengeance―as in the case where He allows the sinner to fall yet deeper into sin. On the other hand, God hears the sinner’s prayer if it proceed from a good natural desire, not out of justice—because in justice the sinner does not merit to be heard—but out of pure mercy, provided, however, that the sinner fulfill the four conditions given above, namely, that (1) he beseech for himself, (2) things necessary for salvation, (3) devoutly and (4) perseveringly” (Summa Theologica, II-IIae, question 83, article 16). Therefore, the sinner’s prayers will be heard for himself only and for his own salvation—in other words, for his conversion, for only through conversion can he be saved.
The Chief Exercises for a Miracle
Let us ask with great humility; with great charity; with great faith; with great confidence; with great respect and with great perseverance. Let us improve our lives and cast aside, not only mortal sin, but also deliberate venial sin. Then our prayers will take on a new look, a new power and a new efficacy, as they pierce the vaults of Heaven! Then miracles of grace and perhaps even physical miracles will start to happen around us.
The next article will help you to increase your humility, charity, faith, confidence, respect and perseverance―and help shape you into that spiritual athlete or spiritual soldier that Holy Scripture insists that you must become:
“Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain that prize! And every one that strives for the mastery, refrains himself from all things: and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible one. I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty; I so fight, not as one beating the air―but I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway!” (1 Corinthians 9:23-27). “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). “Put on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular business!” (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “Be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God!” (2 Kings 10:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” ― and all the other true enemies of God (Hebrews 12:4).
Everybody, of course, wouldn't mind a miracle or two, or more! Yet very few, if any, feel confident or worthy of a miracle! Does that describe you, more or less? Of course it does! There are many problems that we experience—whether personally, among family, relatives, friends or neighbors, in the parish, at work or at school, or just in the world in general—that we would love to solve with a miracle or two. We are no different to people throughout history. Just going back to Lourdes or Fatima, we see many people hoping for a miracle. Some got their miracle, most did not. Why? Before we go further, let us look at one of the miracles that contributed to the beatification and canonization of two of the Fatima children―Francisco and Jacinta.
The healing in question was of a woman named Maria Emilia Santos, who lives in Leiria, in the Fatima region. Maria Emilia Santos lives in the institute of Saint Francis, where people suffering from chronic illnesses are cared for. She spent many years in the institution, and, after she was cured, she decided to stay there to help others. Here is her story in her own words:
“My cure took place on February 20th, 1989, the anniversary of Jacinta’s death. I had been bed-ridden for 22 years. My spinal column was calcified, and I could no longer make any movements at all. My feet were completely bent out of shape, and incapable of feeling. Every means possible had been used to treat my condition, and I had even spent eight years in hospital. But in the end I had been discharged, and declared incurable. This is why I was brought to this institute, where the chronically ill are cared for.
“One day Fr. Artunes, who works at the Shrine of Fatima, came to visit me. He told me that he was holding a class for spiritual exercises, and asked if I would like to come. ‘I’d love to,’ I replied, ‘but how can I? I’m incapable of any movement whatsoever!’ ‘Don’t worry,’ he replied. ‘We’ll take you on a stretcher, and there will be someone to help you, just like here!’ And so I went to do these spiritual exercises in Fatima. The priest who was with us continued to speak about Francisco and Jacinta and the apparitions of Our Lady. Little by little I began to be convinced that the two children could help me, that they could obtain for me the grace of a cure. However, a healing seemed something far too extraordinary for me. I didn’t think I deserved so much, and so I prayed to Francisco and Jacinta for the ability to at least sit up in bed, so that there would be less work and problems for the people who took care of me.
“I was taken home on a stretcher, and I continued to pray. And after a while my prayers were answered. One morning I realized that I could move in my bed. I had really been granted what I had asked! It was marvelous, amazing! After years and years of having to stay flat on my back, motionless in my bed, I could bend my back enough to stay in a sitting position. It was so extraordinary it seemed like a dream. I couldn’t make any other movements, and my feet were still twisted and numb. But it was still an enormous improvement which I had never dared hope for! I was so happy!
After my initial surprise and joy, however, I realized that I hadn’t really obtained what I most wanted―that is, not to be a burden to those who took care of me. Even though I could sit up, the problems I caused my helpers were no less. They still had to wash me, change me, turn me around, pick me up and move me, because I was unable to move around on my own.
“Things stayed that way for another 23 months. Then I began to pray again. I said to Francisco and Jacinta: ‘You granted the favor I asked for―but things didn’t turn out as I had hoped. I wanted not to be a burden on those who look after me and yet, although I can sit up, I still depend on others for everything. I am now asking you to cure me completely, so that I can take care of myself without anyone else’s help!’ In my heart, I could feel that Francisco and Jacinta would be able to obtain for me this favor. I had understood that, if I prayed fervently with faith in my heart, it would really be possible. I began a Novena. When I had finished the first, I made a second.
“On the evening of February 20th, 1989 I was in bed, and I was praying continuously. I remembered that that day was the anniversary of Jacinta’s death. Sixty-nine years previously she had been taken up to Heaven while she was still only a child of ten years old. As I reflected on this, I felt deeply moved, and intensified my prayers. At a certain point I heard a voice from within: ‘Get up! Get up! You can do it!’ I thought I had imagined it. There was no one in my room. But then I heard the voice again, clear and insistent: ‘Get up and walk, you can do it!’ Then I felt a strange force pushing me out of the bed.
“My heart was overwhelmed with immense joy. It was beating like thunder, as though trying to pound its way through my chest. I realized that I was thinking about being cured, but it was almost as if I were afraid of another miracle! I remained still in my bed for a moment, listening. Then I tried to move my leg―and realized that I could! I tried to move my feet―and felt that they were no longer unnaturally twisted, but that I could move them freely! I was so excited my heart was racing! I stayed motionless under the covers a moment longer―incredulous! Then I again tried to make some movements. I really could move! I took heart and decided to get up. I pushed my legs out from under the covers and placed my feet on the ground. They were no longer without feeling! I could feel how cold the floor was―something that had not happened for years and years! I pushed on the bed with my arms and straightened. I was standing up! I took one step, then another. I could feel my face covered with tears―because I realized that I could walk, and was overcome with emotion. Even my back had straightened! It felt supple, not stiff any more―and so I tried to bend. I could do so perfectly! I began to walk, leaving my room.
“I passed by the bed of another bedridden woman who saw me and immediately understood what had happened. She began to shout, and the assistants came running and saw that I was cured. It was ten o’clock in the evening. I went alone to the director’s room. She was already in bed. I knocked on her door and told her that I could walk. ‘Don’t tell lies! she said from behind the door. ‘It’s true!’ I replied. ‘Francisco and Jacinta have granted me a miracle!’ She got up and opened the door, and was amazed when she saw me! The next day, the doctors who had been treating me for years arrived. Impossible, they repeated continually as they examined me. Nothing in human science could have brought about this cure. Nothing in human science, I replied, but for God, nothing is impossible. Ten years have passed since that day, and I am still very well and can walk normally without help. I have had no further problems with my back, my feet or my legs. It’s as though I had never been bedridden at all!”
The Greatest Miracle―Salvation
Here is another item for you to digest―it is the miracle of salvation. The Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine, taught that the “the conversion of one sinner is a greater act of omnipotence than the creation of the universe.” As St. Louis de Montfort says: “Chosen soul, living image of God! … It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation! … What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God! A marvelous work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving His grace abundantly and in an extraordinary manner. The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary). Yes―truly, salvation is a miracle, something that is beyond and surpasses the powers of nature. Yet, sadly, we don’t look upon salvation as a miracle―some even look upon it as a right! Here is a little poem about salvation:
I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven’s door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp--
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash.
There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money! Twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.
Jerry, who I always thought
Was rotting away in Hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.
I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?
I would love to hear Your take.
How’d all these sinners get up here?
God must’ve made a mistake!
‘And why’s everyone so quiet,
So somber? ― Please give me a clue.’
‘Hush, child,’ He said, ‘it’s because they’re all in shock!
No one thought they’d be seeing you!’
The Basic Conditions For A Miracle
St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, when explaining God, first of deals with what GOD IS NOT, before embarking upon explaining what GOD IS. So, first of all, let us look at what will NOT get a miracle, before looking at what WILL get a miracle. Who gets most of your attention? Who are you likely to help the most? Your friends or your enemies? The answer is pretty obvious! Now God is so good that He will even sometimes perform miracles to the advantage of His enemies: “Your Father in Heaven, makes His sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust!” (Matthew 5:45). But, on the whole, it is pretty obvious that God is not going be putting His enemies above His friends on His “To Do List”! If you doubt this, then read the entire 26th chapter of the Book of Leviticus—even if you don’t doubt this, reading that chapter will do you no harm, but will only serve to make sure that you put God first and stray not from His Commandments! Too scared to read it? Okay—here are just a few extracts:
Sin Will Not Obtain Miracles
“If you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments, if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me, and to make void My covenant: then I will quickly visit you with poverty and burning heat, … and consume your lives ... I will set My face against you, and you shall fall down before your enemies, and be subject to them that hate you … I will break the pride of your stubbornness … I will bring in upon you the sword … I will send the pestilence in the midst of you … I will destroy break your idols ... I will destroy your land … I will scatter you among the Gentiles … Your land shall be a desert and your cities destroyed … You shall perish among the Gentiles … because they rejected My judgments, and despised My laws” (Leviticus 26:14-45). However, the whole chapter makes for the most salutary reading. Do take the time to read it—it may well end up plugging a few leaks!
When Lucia of Fatima passed on to Our Lady requests for miraculous healings―Our Lady would reply by saying such things as: “I have come to warn the faithful to amend their lives and ask for pardon for their sins! … People must say the Rosary. Let them continue saying it every day! … Yes, I shall cure some of them within the year … Some I will cure and others not! As to the crippled boy, I will not cure him, or take him out of his poverty, but he must say the rosary every day with his family! … Some will be cured, but not all, because Our Lord has no confidence in them!” Lucia asked for the conversion of some people―which would be a spiritual miracle―the answer of Our Lady was the same as with the crippled boy: the recitation of the Rosary. Concerning one sick woman, Our Lady said: “If she has converted she will be cured within the end of the year!” Lucia told Our Lady of her sorrow over all the people who did not believe she was appearing. Lucia asked for a miracle or a sign so that everyone would believe. Our Lady answered: “Yes―in the last month, in October, I shall perform a miracle so that all may believe in my apparitions. But if they had not taken you to the village [when the mayor abducted the children and imprisoned them], the miracle would have been greater!”
We see from all this that sin is a major obstacle in getting miracles from Heaven―and, furthermore, the potency or magnitude of miracles, if and when given, is greatly reduced by sin. Obviously, the more we sin, the weaker will be the miracle if we even manage to obtain one.
Miracles of Punishment
The only kinds of miracles that sin obtains are miracles of punishment. This has been seen numerous times in Holy Scripture. The Great Flood in the time of Noe. The fire and brimstone that fell upon Sodom and Gomorrha. The Ten Plagues of punishment sent by God upon Pharao and Egypt in the time of Moses, just before the Exodus. The miracle of the parting of the waters of the Red Sea, which then drowned Pharao’s pursuing army. The earthquakes, fires and plagues that punished the dissenters and idolaters among the Israelites during the Exodus and forty-years in the desert. The mega-hailstorm that destroys the Amorite army in a battle with Josue. God giving Samson the strength to dislodge the pillars of the Philistine palace, by which he killed more Philistines than he had ever killed in battle. The 42 months of drought in response Elias, which punished the idolatry of the Chosen People. The fire Elias called down from Heaven to devour King Ochozias’ captain and fifty soldiers (on two different occasions). Sennacherib’s Assyrian army of 5,180 killed overnight by an angel near Jerusalem. All of these were examples of miracles―but not the kind of miracles we would want for ourselves!
The Punishing Miracles Still Exist
Nothing has changed, as Our Lady points out in her dire warnings of miraculous punishments for our extremely sinful age: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord” (Akita) … “Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended” (Fatima) … “If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them … So that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind ... If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity―greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before!” (Akita) … “God will strike in an unprecedented way. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! Water and fire will give the Earth’s globe convulsions and terrible earthquakes which will swallow up mountains, cities!” (La Salette) … “Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad!” (Akita) … “Nations will be annihilated” (Fatima).
So you see, even sin can attract miracles, but not the kind of miracles that we really want! Sin does not pay! Or if it does, it doesn’t give the kind of wages that we want: “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Sin puts us at enmity with God! The only kind of miracles we'll get in that state, are punitive or punishing miracles.
Lukewarmness Will Not Obtain Miracles
If you think that half-heartedness, tepidity, laziness and negligence will obtain miracles, then you have been reading the wrong books. Let the Book of books put that right: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth. Because thou sayest: ‘I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing!’ and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of Me gold fire tried, that thou mayest be made rich; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore, and do penance!” (Apocalypse 3:15-19). Feel rebuked? Good! God must love you! If you want a miracle, then remember those words: “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!" Ouch! That warms us up just by reading it!
Our Lord, speaking to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (to whom Our Lady of Good Success also appeared) said: "If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small inveterate imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me ... But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing! — according to My example, for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross. Moreover, I have continued to live in the Tabernacle under the same roof with these hidden souls, exposing Myself to so many hateful profanations and sacrileges! For I know well all that takes place in My sacramental life! ... Woe to souls like this! Woe!”
Why would Jesus say things like this? Because He loves us and He understands the evil and damage of sin in a way that we cannot see in our blindness and lukewarmness. He says this as a loving rebuke, which is meant to bring about a change of direction and lead to a more serious and fervent spiritual life, which would then deflect and avoid His just punishments—both here below in this life, and in the life to come.
Clear the Ground for Miracles—Clear-Out Sin
Therefore, by looking at the negative aspects first, we clearly see that we have to clear-out sin if we are to have hope of any miracles. This highlights and underlines those salutary quotes from Holy Scripture: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance” (Luke 5:32) and “I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance” (Luke 15:7).
Our Lady is in solidarity with Our Lord and Holy Scripture on this, saying: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance” (La Salette, 1846) and therefore we, too, neglect penance. At Lourdes (1854), eight years later, we have Our Lady’s insistence upon “Penance! Penance! Penance!” At Fatima (1917), we essentially have the same message: “pray and sacrifice for sinners” (which we also are).
Prayer and Penance—the Foundation for Miracles
The groundwork for miracles is quite simple—it is no “rocket science”—even a child can understand it. It is quite simply the good old remedy of “prayer and penance”! But not just any old prayer or penance! It has to have to “oomph” to it and some faith and confidence mixed in with the “oomph”.
Casting out a devil might seem to be something extraordinary, something miraculous—yet even Our Lord’s chosen Apostles failed to do so at times, even though they had been given the power to do so. We read of one account in Holy Scripture: “And when Jesus was come to the multitude, there came to Him a man falling down on his knees before Him, saying: ‘Lord! Have pity on my son, for he is a lunatic, and suffereth much! For he falleth often into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to Thy disciples, and they could not cure him!’ Then Jesus answered and said: ‘O unbelieving and perverse generation! How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him here to Me!’ And Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out of him, and the child was cured from that hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus secretly, and said: ‘Why could not we cast him out?’ Jesus said to them: ‘Because of your unbelief! For, amen I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from hence hither!” and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you! But this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!’” (Matthew 17:14-20).
Praying and Trying and Getting Nowhere Fast?
We may be really trying, or at least we imagine we are really trying. Do you ever get the feeling that your prayers are getting you nowhere fast? You pray, day-in-day-out, but nothing seems to happen; nobody appears to be listening; there is no answer at the other end! Has everyone in Heaven gone on vacation? Is there nobody left to answer the ‘prayer-phones’? I keep trying to call, but I get no answer! What on Earth (or what in Heaven) is going on? Didn’t Our Lady, in her Fifteen Promises to those who recite the Rosary, say things like: “Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces ... I promise the greatest graces to all who recite the Rosary … The Rosary shall destroy vice and decrease sin … cause virtue and good works to flourish; obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things ... You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.”
Didn’t Sr. Lucia of Fatima say, even more recently, “The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary—to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.”
Well, those things don’t seem to be happening in my life! Did she really mean those things? Were they applicable only to some and not all people? Why doesn’t the Rosary do those things for me? Why don’t I ever get any miracles? St. Louis de Montfort speaks of this in his book, The Secret of the Rosary:
“Most Catholics say the Rosary … Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue [never mind the miracles], if not because they are not saying them as they should … To say the Holy Rosary with advantage, one must be in a state of grace, or at least be fully determined to give up sin, for good works and prayers are dead works if they are done in a state of mortal sin. The stronger our Faith the more merit our Rosary will have. This Faith must be lively and informed by charity; in other words, to recite the Rosary properly it is necessary to be in God’s grace, or at least seeking it … God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin … How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? People who do that forfeit God’s blessing [and obviously any chance of a miracle], which is changed into a curse for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: ‘Cursed be the one who does God’s work negligently’ (Jeremias 48:10) …
“Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin. The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!”
Along the same lines, St. Augustine puts it in a nutshell when speaking of the problem of seemingly ‘unanswered’ or ‘sterile’ prayers―and which can be readily applied to obtaining miracles or not obtaining miracles. He says that our prayers are unanswered because (1) we ask for things that will be bad for us, (2) we ask badly, or (3) we ourselves are bad. It could be one, two, or all three of these things that are behind our unanswered prayers.
(1) We Ask For Things That Are Bad For Us
St. Thomas Aquinas says that prayer will never change the mind or will of God; but prayer is meant to bend our mind and our will to the mind and will of God: “Our motive in praying is, not that we may change the Divine disposition, but that, by our prayers, we may obtain what God has appointed” (Summa Theologica, II-IIae, question 83, article 2). Again, in a nutshell, God’s words to the prophet Isaias sum it up perfectly: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts. So shall My word be, which shall go forth from My mouth: it shall not return to Me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it” (Isaias 55:8-11).
Our own wishes and desires are—more often than not—quite different than God’s wishes and desires for us. In this life, we are incapable of fully seeing or understanding God’s will, and that is why—in good faith—we often pray for something that is opposed to God’s will for us. We even see this in case of Our Lord Himself. In His agony, in the Garden of Gethsemane, two opposing wills emerge—that of Our Lord and that of His Father. Our Lord says to His Father: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt ... Again the second time, He went and prayed, saying: ‘My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, Thy will be done!’ … And He prayed the third time, saying the self-same word” (Matthew 26:39-44).
So when we pray for a specific intention, God will arrange things according to His holy will—whether it be in union with our desires and intentions, or not. In this way He always answers our prayers—but not always in the way we had hoped for. This is because God always knows and does what is best for our souls, most particularly for the salvation of our souls, and He will not grant any prayer that will harm our souls, or the souls of those whom we pray for. Heaven listens to all the prayers that come in, even we only get to mention them on Heaven’s ‘voice-mail’ or Heaven’s ‘answering-machine.’ God hears all of our prayers and He arranges things in our lives (more often quietly and without our being aware of it) according to His holy will and what is best for our souls. And looking over our lives, if we are attentive we will see His actions in the small, little everyday things. He opens a door here, and He closes another door there—all for the good of our souls.
Rarely in our lives will Jesus work extraordinary miracles or give us extraordinary graces, because we cannot handle the extraordinary sufferings or sacrifices that often accompany them as a necessary payment for them—which is what St. Padre Pio stated, when pointing out that extraordinary graces—such as miraculous cures or conversions—have to be “paid” for through much suffering.
(2) We Ask Badly
Even if our will was aligned to the will of God, and the thing that we are praying for is something that God is willing to grant, we still have the duty to ask in a correct, fitting, reverential and persevering manner. In practice, people too often ask in a manner that makes it look as though they are telling God what to do, rather than humbly asking Him to do something.
They pray too quickly, too distractedly, too half-heartedly, too superficially, too proudly—as Our Lord says: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8). Or, if they ask correctly and reverentially, they do not ask perseveringly, and give up after a relatively short time—discouraged and convinced that God will not answer their prayers; an attitude that must be criticized. Jesus gives us an example of that perseverance in the parable of the widow who ceaselessly begged a judge to intervene against one of her adversaries. Jesus “spoke a parable to them, that we ought always to pray, and not to faint, saying: ‘There was a judge in a certain city, who feared not God, nor regarded man. And there was a certain widow in that city, and she came to him, saying: ‘Avenge me of my adversary!’ And he would not for a long time. But afterwards he said within himself: ‘Although I fear not God, nor regard man; yet, because this widow is troublesome to me, I will avenge her, lest continually coming she weary me!’” (Luke 18:1-5).
“And Jesus said to them: ‘Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and shall say to him: “Friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine is come off his journey to me, and I have not what to set before him!” And he, from within, should answer, and say: “Trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee!” Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise, and give him as many as he needeth. And I say to you, “Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you!” For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened!’” (Luke 11:5-10).
St. Monica prayed for many years before she obtained from God the conversion of her son, the future St. Augustine (though he was far from being a saint at that time). He was living with a mistress with whom he had fathered a child. Yet, despite all contrary indications and temptations to discouragement, St. Monica continued to pray with perseverance and confidence. Her prayer was granted in a manner that must have ‘blown her mind’ and which went beyond her wildest expectations—Augustine would not only convert, but he would be become a priest, a bishop, a saint and a Doctor of the Church! Truly a great miracle―paid for by great suffering!
(3) We Ourselves Are Bad (Or At Least Not Good Enough)
“We know that God doth not hear sinners: but if a man be a server of God, and doth His will, him He heareth.” (John 9:31). God will not answer the prayers of His enemies, nor succumb to their wishes and grant their requests: “He that turns away his ears from hearing the law, his prayer shall be an abomination” (Proverbs 28:9). However, St. Augustine says: “If God were not to hear sinners, the publican would have vainly said: ‘Lord, be merciful to me a sinner’!” And St. John Chrysostom says: “Everyone that asketh shall receive, that is to say whether he be righteous or sinful.”
St. Thomas Aquinas steps in here and says: “In the sinner, two things are to be considered: (1) his nature, which God loves, and (2) the sin, which God hates. Therefore, when a sinner prays for something as sinner, that is to say, in accordance with a sinful desire, God hears him, not through mercy, but sometimes through vengeance―as in the case where He allows the sinner to fall yet deeper into sin. On the other hand, God hears the sinner’s prayer if it proceed from a good natural desire, not out of justice—because in justice the sinner does not merit to be heard—but out of pure mercy, provided, however, that the sinner fulfill the four conditions given above, namely, that (1) he beseech for himself, (2) things necessary for salvation, (3) devoutly and (4) perseveringly” (Summa Theologica, II-IIae, question 83, article 16). Therefore, the sinner’s prayers will be heard for himself only and for his own salvation—in other words, for his conversion, for only through conversion can he be saved.
The Chief Exercises for a Miracle
Let us ask with great humility; with great charity; with great faith; with great confidence; with great respect and with great perseverance. Let us improve our lives and cast aside, not only mortal sin, but also deliberate venial sin. Then our prayers will take on a new look, a new power and a new efficacy, as they pierce the vaults of Heaven! Then miracles of grace and perhaps even physical miracles will start to happen around us.
The next article will help you to increase your humility, charity, faith, confidence, respect and perseverance―and help shape you into that spiritual athlete or spiritual soldier that Holy Scripture insists that you must become:
“Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain that prize! And every one that strives for the mastery, refrains himself from all things: and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible one. I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty; I so fight, not as one beating the air―but I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway!” (1 Corinthians 9:23-27). “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). “Put on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular business!” (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “Be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God!” (2 Kings 10:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” ― and all the other true enemies of God (Hebrews 12:4).
Article 17
Wednesday May 10th & Thursday May 11th, 2023
Heaven's Power Tools
Wednesday May 10th & Thursday May 11th, 2023
Heaven's Power Tools
Mechanical and Spiritual Power Tools
When we think of power tools, we tend to limit them to the physical and material domain. It rarely―or never―crosses our mind to envision the existence of spiritual power tools! Yet those spiritual power tools do exist―as will be shown below. Since our minds work by knowing invisible things only by comparison with visible things―“the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the [visible] things that are made” (Romans 1:20)―let us first of all lay the foundation for understanding spiritual power tools by briefly examining their counterparts, which are the mechanical and electrical power tools that surround us. If power tools make the accomplishment of our physical work much easier, then it is to be supposed that spiritual power tools might also make the accomplishment of the work of our salvation much easier. Since Our Lord, Our Lady and the saints tell us that most souls end up being damned, wouldn’t it be nice to be able profit from some spiritual power tools to help us avoid the same tragic fate?
The Advantages of Power Tools
Power tools are the tools that are powered by electricity. They are not only widely used in construction, electrical, plumbing and other industrial jobs, but they are also used around the home for everyday needs. From home improvement projects to plumbing and damage repair, power tools have multiple applications in homes and commercial establishments. Power tools even include things like electric blenders and juicers, electric meat grinders, washing machines, sewing machines, knitting machines, vacuum cleaners, floor polishers, lawn mowers, chain-saws, hedge trimmers, leaf blowers, electric drills, electric hammers, electric screwdrivers, roofing nail guns, electric sanders, grinders and polishers, etc.
Power tools enjoy many advantages over hand tools―being extremely versatile with enhanced performance compared to manual tools. Unlike hand tools, power tools are faster― allowing you to do time-consuming tasks efficiently in less time. Many power tools come with adjustable settings to and multiple attachments to accommodate multiple tasks and projects. Additional accessories and parts can be attached to your power tool, helping it perform specific tasks required from a particular tool. They allow you to perform tasks and complete projects that use various materials, including metals, wood, and concrete. They can be used to complete several constructions and repair tasks―or household chores and tasks―in minimum time and with less effort. They often provide better performance; can perform tasks that are impossible for hand tools to complete; provide greater speed and efficiency, precision and accuracy―and are just plain and simply very convenient.
The first and foremost benefit of using power tools is the high speed. Many of the time-consuming tasks can be easily completed with the help of power tools. Power tools can be used to perform several tasks that can’t be performed with simple hand tools. For example, using a drill driver will allow you to drive larger screws into tougher materials; driving screws into concrete with hand tools is not only difficult but time-consuming as well. This task can easily be done with a reliable power tool. Power tools can increase the efficiency of workers by simplifying their work and completing different tasks in less time. Power tools can save precious time of the workers and increase their efficiency considerably. That way, the workers are able to focus on quality rather than wasting their time on small, unproductive tasks.
Those are just some of the advantages of power tools. However, power tools can also have disadvantages. Just as a rifle is only as good as marksman shooting it, so too is a tool is only as good as the person who is using it. It is important to keep in mind that many tools can be quite dangerous when used incorrectly or without the right amount of knowledge or skill. Even with proper training, even the most expert tradesmen can still have an accident.
Heaven Sent Power Tools
Following a chronological order, here is list of just some of the “power tools” that Heaven has offered to us. There are no big surprises concerning what they are―you already know them all, or most of them. The big surprise is that we are not using them―or not using them correctly. Yet that is also true of power tools―they can be of little or no use if you do not use them correctly. The rifle is only as good as the marksman shooting it; the tool is only as good as the workman using it―and a bad workman always blames his tools!
► 1214 THE HOLY ROSARY ― St. Dominic received the Rosary devotion during an apparition of Our Lady in 1214, with the promise that the Rosary would convert sinners and save souls. A 13th century prophecy states that one day, through the means of the Rosary and the Scapular [see below], Our Lady will save the world.
► 1251 BROWN SCAPULAR ― According to tradition, on July 16th, 1251, the Superior General of the Carmelite Religious Order, St. Simon Stock, had a vision of Our Lady, who gave him the Brown Scapular and promised final perseverance in grace and salvation to those who would faithfully wear it until death. What greater thing do you desire than salvation? At the end of the day, it is all that really matters! As already stated above, a 13th century prophecy states that one day, through the means of the Scapular and the Rosary, Our Lady would save the world.
► 1800+ THE HOLY MASS ― Our Lady revealed to Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich the power of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Anne Catherine Emmerich said: “Mass badly celebrated is an enormous evil. Ah! It is not a matter of indifference how it is said! ... I have had a great vision on the mystery of Holy Mass and I have seen that whatever good has existed since creation, is owing to it … She [the Holy Mother] said if only one priest could offer the bloodless Sacrifice as worthily and with the same disposition as the Apostles, he could avert all the disasters [that are to come]” (Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich).
► 1830 THE MIRACULOUS MEDAL ― Our Lady revealed to St. Catherine Labouré the power of the Miraculous Medal. In the vision showing the design that Our Lady wanted for the Medal, Catherine saw that Our Lady’s her hands were covered with rings with precious stones of different sizes, three on each finger. Rays of light shone down from some of jeweled rings, but not from others. The Blessed Virgin said: “These rays symbolize the graces I shed upon those who ask for them. The gems, from which rays do not fall, are the graces for which souls neglect to ask! … Have a Medal struck after this model. All who wear it will receive great graces! They should wear it around the neck. Graces will abound for persons who wear it with confidence!”
► 1846 PRAYER & PENANCE ― Our Lady spoke of the neglect of prayer and penance and its requirement for triumph over evil: “There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless Sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! People think of nothing but amusement! … They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish! … I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God, the true followers of Christ, the true faithful, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession!”
► 1854 PRAYER & PENANCE ― Our Lady of Lourdes again demanded prayer and penance for conversion of sinners: “Pray for sinners! … Penance! Penance! Penance! … Kiss the ground as a penance for sinners!”
► 1917 PRAYER, SACRIFICE, THE HOLY ROSARY & DEVOTION TO MARY ― Prior to Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima, the Angel of Portugal appears and focuses the attention of the three children on the Holy Eucharist, as well as prayer and sacrifice. Our Lady of Fatima further focuses upon the prayer aspect, by insisting on the power and necessity of the Holy Rosary. She also points out the power of devotion to her Immaculate Heart, revealing that many souls can be saved by means of this devotion.
► 1973 THE HOLY MASS & HOLY ROSARY, PRAYER, PENANCE & SACRIFICE ― At Akita, in Japan, Our Lady seems to sum-up what she has said in earlier apparitions―speaking of prayer, penance, sacrifices, the Holy Mass and the Holy Rosary. She revealed the last two weapons that are left to us are the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Rosary: “The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!” ― which obviously is the Sign of the Cross, the sign of Our Lord’s sacrifice on Calvary, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. She adds: “I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this! … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach!”
Why Are Heaven’s Power Tools Powerless?
If we have been given all these spiritual power tools by Heaven, why then is it that we find ourselves in this current terrible mess concerning Faith and Morals? Why are things getting worse instead of better? Are those weapons really as powerful as they are made out to be?
As already stated―a rifle is only as good as the marksman shooting it; the tool is only as good as the workman using it―and a bad workman always blames his tools! In a war, the opposing armies are essentially using the same kinds of weapons―yet one side wins and the other side loses. It all comes down to how well soldiers have been trained; how well they use the weapons at their disposal; and how much fire they have in their belly!
Victories Against All the Odds
Throughout history, in various wars and conflicts, there have been a number of historic victories won by a smaller force, against a larger foe. Sometimes military victories against the odds are achieved because the smaller force has surprised the larger force, thereby gaining an advantage. In some cases, complacency and cockiness in the larger force makes them unprepared for a serious battle. In some cases, either by luck or good management, the smaller force killed the leader, and the larger force was demoralized following the breakdown of the chain of command. In some cases, the smaller force was simply better trained or had better morale. In some circumstances victory for the smaller side came down to the smaller force having better leadership, over a poorly managed larger force. In some cases, subterfuge was used―as in the Second World War, when a group of five Germans fought garrison troops and captured the entire city of Belgrade and its thousands of troops by pretending to be an entire army. Such victories against the odds are numerous all throughout history, here are only a handful representing the tip of the iceberg:
► BC 53 ― The Battle of Carrhae saw a massive Roman defeat at the hands of Parthians. In terms of figures, the Romans had around 52,000 men, while the Parthians had around 12,000 men. Roman casualties amounted to about 20,000 killed and 10,000 captured, which made the battle one of the costliest defeats in Roman history. Parthian casualties were minimal.
► AD 60–61 ―The Boudican Revolt was an armed uprising by native Celtic Britons against the Roman Empire during the Roman conquest of Britain. The Boudican Revolt was an assault by 230,000 Celtic tribesmen against a Roman army of 10,000. In total, around 80,000 Celts were ultimately killed, while the Roman army suffered only around 400 losses, with similar numbers injured, and the rebellion was firmly crushed.
►1415 ― The Battle of Agincourt saw a depleted English army, led by King Henry V, composed of 5,000 to 8,000 longbowmen, achieve victory over a superior French army of 15,000 to 30,000 cavalry and heavy infantry―the English being outnumbered by as much as 5 to 1.
►1565 ― The Great Siege of Malta saw the defending Maltese forces, with around 8,500 men in their ranks, and just 2,500 among them being professional soldiers―the rest being armed civilians and slaves. The Ottomans, who were seeking to conquer Malta, had around 45,000 well-drilled troops at their disposal, with at least 6,000 of them being Janissaries – the elite infantry of the Turks. The end result was that the Turks suffered as many as 30,000 deaths (from both combat actions and disease); while the defenders of Malta around 2,500 of their men.
►1879 ― In Rorke's Drift, South Africa, saw just over 150 British and colonial troops successfully defend a farmhouse against an intense assault by 3,000 to 4,000 Zulu warriors. The massive Zulu attacks on came very close to defeating the much smaller garrison. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the British death toll was only 17 dead compared to 351 Zulu deaths.
►1951 ― The Battle of Kapyong occurred during the Korean War. The Chinese forces outnumbered the UN battalions by around ten to one. The combined American, British, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian units only had just over 1,000 troops. The Chinese troops had about 10,000 to 20,000 men. After fierce fire-fights and intense artillery barrages, the Chinese withdrew on 25 April with enormous casualties of about 1,000 to 5,000 dead and many more wounded. The Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and US casualties amounted to 49 dead and 111 wounded.
Biblical Victories Against the Odds
As Catholics, we should take courage from our own heritage of the underdog beating the favorite―as in Israel overcoming the Egyptians during the Exodus when the Egyptian army was drowned in the Red Sea; or conquering Jericho when its walls fell down; or Moses destroying the 60-walled fortresses of Basan; or Elias single-handedly overcoming the 850 false prophets on Mount Carmel; or David killing Goliath; or Gedeon overcoming the 135,000 strong Madianite army with only 300 men. The list could go on―but let us stop there.
The bottom line here is that God does think like we think; He does not fight like we fight; He does not need the weapons we think we need. He is almighty God and “if God be for us, who can stand against us?” (Romans 8:31). “The foolish things of the world God has chosen, that He may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world God has chosen, that He may confound the strong; and the base things of the world, and the things that are contemptible, and things that are not, God has chosen, that He might bring to nothing things that are!” (1 Corinthians 1:27-28).
“The Lord thy God has chosen thee to be His particular people of all peoples that are upon the Earth. The Lord joined unto you, and has chosen you―not because you surpass all nations in number, for you are the fewest of any people―but because the Lord has loved you, and has brought you out from the house of bondage, of the hand of Pharao the king of Egypt, with a strong hand and redeemed you. And thou shalt know that the Lord thy God is a strong and faithful God, keeping His covenant and mercy towards them that love Him and to them that keep His commandments!” (Deuteronomy 7:6-9).
You Cannot Lose if God Fights For You!
Just as most power tools operate through electricity―which is invisible to the human eye―so, too, do God’s power tools operate by something that is invisible to the human eye―they operate through Divine Grace. Grace is required for everything, for, as Our Lord said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) and “the things that are impossible with men, are possible with God! With God all things are possible!” (Luke 18:27; Matthew 19:26).
Holy Scripture is full of affirmations that God will fight for us; God will lead us in the fight; He will show us how to fight; He will protect us in the fight; and He will bring the fight to a successful end: “The Lord is as a man of war” (Exodus 15:3) … “The Lord God, Who is your Leader, Himself will fight for you!” (Deuteronomy 1:30) … “Blessed be the Lord my God, Who teaches my hands to fight and my fingers to war!” (Psalm 143:1) … “The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, as a man of war, and He shall prevail against His enemies” (Isaias 42:13) … “Our God will fight for us!” (2 Esdras 4:20) … “The Lord will fight for you!” (Exodus 14:14) … “Fear them not―for the Lord your God will fight for you!” (Deuteronomy 3:22) … “The Lord thy God will fight for his people!” (Isaias 51:22) … “The Lord our God is our helper and fights for us!” (2 Paralipomenon 32:8) … “The Lord your God is in the midst of you, and will fight for you against your enemies, to deliver you from danger!” (Deuteronomy 20:4) … “Be of good courage, and let us fight for our people and for the city of our God―and the Lord will do what is good in His sight!” (2 Kings 10:12) … “One of you shall chase a thousand men of the enemies―because the Lord your God Himself will fight for you, as he hath promised!” (Josue 23:10) … “The Lord of armies is with us! God is our protector!” (Psalm 45:8-10) … “And after a hard fight, they got the victory by the help of God” (2 Machabees 12:11).
But Is God Fighting For Us Today?
Looking at the state of things in both the Church and the world―one has to ask whether God is fighting for us today, or is God fighting against us today? For Holy Scripture not only speaks about God fighting FOR His people―but Scripture also speaks of God fighting AGAINST His people! How is that? Which of those two scenarios is true for today? Are the Heaven sent spiritual power tools still working for us today? Or are they broken and out of use?
God, of course, will always be positive―for “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). Nevertheless, as Scripture says, “whoever the Lord loves, He chastises; and He scourges every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:6) ― not for the fun of it, but because we deserve it by our disobedience or lack of love towards God, for obedience is the proof of love: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
When we sin, then we impede (by venial sin) or even cut-off (by mortal sin) the grace (heavenly electricity) that is needed to run our Heaven sent spiritual power tools ― the Rosary, the Scapular, and the many other Sacramentals of Church. Their power is greatly reduced and they are of no benefit for anyone else, only for our own conversion and our return to the state of sanctifying grace. Prayers and sacrifices made for others in a state of mortal sin do not benefit or help anyone we might be praying or sacrificing for in our state of mortal sin―those prayers and sacrifices will only bounce back upon ourselves so that we get out of mortal sin and return to God. “We know that God doth not hear sinners: but if a man be a server of God, and doth his will, him he heareth” (John 9:31). “The Lord is far from the wicked, but He will hear the prayers of the just” (Proverbs 15:29). “They shall cry to the Lord, and He will not hear them: and He will hide His face from them at that time, as they have behaved wickedly” (Micheas 3:4). God does not hear the prayers of those in mortal sin, except when those prayers are made in repentance or when it will it lead to repentance. So, prayer in mortal sin is not entirely impotent, but it is impotent in helping others, and not impotent in bringing about your conversion and a return to the state of grace.
Trent and Aquinas
The Catechism of the Council of Trent briefly explains the nuances between the prayer of the impenitent and the prayer of sinners:
“The Prayer of the Impenitent is that of those who not only do not repent of their sins and enormities, but, adding crime to crime, dare frequently to ask pardon of God for those sins, in which they are resolved to continue. With such dispositions they would not presume to ask pardon from their fellow-man. The prayer of such sinners is not heard by God. It is recorded of Antiochus: Then this wicked man prayed to the Lord, of whom he was not to obtain mercy. Whoever lives in this deplorable condition should be vehemently exhorted to wean himself from all affection to sin, and to return to God in good earnest and from the heart.
“The Prayer of Sinners is that of those who are weighed down by the guilt of mortal sin, but who strive, with what is called dead faith, to raise themselves from their condition and to ascend to God. But, in consequence of their languid state and the extreme weakness of their faith, they cannot raise themselves from the earth. Recognizing their crimes and stung with remorse of conscience, they bow themselves down with humility, and, far as they are removed from God, implore of Him with penitential sorrow, the pardon of their sins and the peace of reconciliation. The prayers of such persons are not rejected by God, but are heard by Him. Nay, in His mercy, He generously invites such as these to have recourse to Him, saying: Come to me, all you that labor and are heavily laden―and I will refresh you!’ Of this class was the publican, who, though he did not dare to raise his eyes towards Heaven, left the Temple, as (our Lord) declares, more justified than the Pharisee.” (The Catechism of the Council of Trent).
In his Summa, St. Thomas Aquinas explains the distinction that although the prayers of sinners are not meritorious ― that is to say, not deserving of being heard as they are made by sinners ― if they are begging prayers, that persistently, devoutly beg the things necessary for salvation, then God will answer those prayers because He seeks the conversion of each and every sinner: “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (Ezechiel 18:23). Thus St. Thomas writes: “Accordingly when a sinner prays for something as sinner, i.e. in accordance with a sinful desire, God hears him not through mercy. On the other hand God hears the sinner’s prayer if it proceed from a good natural desire, not out of justice, because the sinner does not merit to be heard, but out of pure mercy, provided however he fulfill the four conditions given above, namely, that he beseech for himself things necessary for salvation, piously and perseveringly” (Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 83, art. 16).
Restoring Power
To best profit from and to get the most out of the spiritual power tools and spiritual power weapons that God has given us, we must, first of all, be in a state of sanctifying grace―which is like a power supply for those tools and weapons. Mortal sin―which is an infernal act of pride on the part of man―expels sanctifying grace from the soul. Mortal sin, so to speak, trips the circuit breaker in the soul and flow of sanctifying grace is cut. God―Who lives in the soul by the means of sanctifying grace―is cast out. Yet without God nothing good is going to happen and the soul is going nowhere―apart from Hell. “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Fortunately, God can put up with rejection. He can even put up with rejection infinitely (but He does not do so). Nevertheless, He will stand outside the doors of soul and send messages (actual graces) to the soul, trying to convince the soul to repent and let Him back into the soul.
Once you have God back in your soul―then you have the power of God with you. It is then that the impossible becomes possible: “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God … With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Luke 18:27; Matthew 19:26). “For, amen I say to you, if you have Faith [in God] as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here there!’ and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you” (Matthew 17:19). “Amen I say to you, that whosoever shall say to this mountain: ‘Be thou removed and be cast into the sea!’ and shall not stagger in his heart, but believe that whatsoever he saith shall be done―it shall be done unto him!” (Mark 11:23). “Amen, amen I say to you, he that believeth in Me, the works that I do, he also shall do; and greater than these shall he do!” (John 14:12).
Many saints did just that! St. Benedict commanded an ever-increasingly overhanging cliff above his monastery to move back―and it did! Mountains were moved by St. Mark the Hermit of Athens and Egypt; as well as St. Simon the Tanner. The raising of the dead is a miracle which, astonishing as it is, has been performed hundreds of times since the days of Christ. Many Saints have done so―such as St. Francis Xavier, St. Patrick, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Hyacinth, and St. Louis Bertrand, St. John Bosco, St. Philip Neri, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Francis of Paola, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Malachy, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Joan of Arc, St. Rose of Lima, Blessed Margaret of Castello, St. Francis of Paola, Venerable John Baptist Tholomei, St. Bernardine of Siena, St. John Capistrano, St. Joseph of Cupertino, St. Peter of Alcantara, St. Dominic, St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Paul of the Cross, Blessed James Salomoni, St. Agnes of Montepulciano, Blessed Constantius of Fabrino, Blessed Sadoc, Blessed Mark of Modena, Blessed Ceslas, Blessed Augustine of Bugela, Colomb a of Rieti, St. Rose of Lima, St. Martin de Porres, St. Francis Solanus, Marianne de Jesus of Quito, Blessed Sebastian of Apparizio, St. Bernard of Abbeville, St. Stanislaus of Cracow, St. James of Tarentaise, St. Cyril of Constantinople, St. Peregrine, St. Philip Benizi, Bl. Peter Armengol, Blessed Eustachio, St. Gerard Majella, St. Charbel Makhlouf, St. Padre Pio, St. Margaret of Cortona, St. Felix of Cantalice, St. Rose of Viterbo, St. Pacific of San Severino, St. Hyacinth, St. John Francis Regis, St. Andrew Bobola; St. Francis Jerome, Brother Antony Pereyra, and St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland.
These resurrections miracles include the raising of persons who had drowned, of persons with mutilated bodies, of persons who had been hanged, and of those whose bodies had already suffered decay, been reduced to skeletons, or been buried for several years. They include young children, unbaptized infants, persons executed for crimes, person raised to testify in criminal cases or to testify to some religious truth, and of persons who would have been condemned to Hell had they not been called back to earth for another chance.
The known miracles of cures and healings performed run into hundreds of thousands and far, far more if we could add to those numbers the multitude of unknown and unregistered miracles performed by saints. Allegedly, St. Charbel (Sharbel) Maklouf (1828-1898) alone has over 33,000 miracles associated with him―although most of those are by his intercession from Heaven. St. Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419) according to the Acta Sanctorum, a 17th-century encyclopedic text researched by a team of Jesuits, is recorded as having performed 873 miracles during his lifetime on Earth. These same Jesuit scholars say he delivered 70 people from demonic possession. In another place St. Antoninus (the Dominican archbishop of Florence) claims St. Vincent Ferrer also raised 28 people from the dead.
Lack of Faith―Lack of Power―Lack of Miracles
Holy Scripture says that Jesus would not perform many miracles wherever there was a lack of Faith: “And He wrought not many miracles there, because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58). In the Gospels, we often read of Jesus demanding Faith in His power to perform miracles before He would grant a miracle: “Do you believe that I can do this unto you?” (Matthew 9:28) … “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth!” (Mark 9:22) … “Fear not! Believe only, and she shall be safe!” Luke 8:50) … Seeing the centurion’s Faith in His power to cure by His word alone, Jesus said: “Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel!” (Matthew 8:10) … “Jesus, seeing their Faith, said to the man sick of the palsy: ‘Be of good heart, son, thy sins are forgiven thee!’” (Matthew 9:2) “Jesus turning and seeing her, said: ‘Be of good heart, daughter, thy Faith hath made thee whole!’ And the woman was made whole from that hour” (Matthew 9:22) … “Then Jesus touched their eyes, saying: ‘According to your Faith, be it done unto you!’” (Matthew 9:29).
A mystic, during the Middle-Ages, asked Our Lord why it was that they were not seeing the same number and same magnitude of miracles in the Middle-Ages as was seen in the early years after the foundation of the Church. Our Lord replied that it was due to the lack of Faith in Him at that time―and we hold those days of the Middle-Ages as being the summit of Christendom! How much worse are things today? No wonder Our Lord said―speaking of the End Times (which Our Lady of Fatima said we have already entered): “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). Sadly our Faith in God has plummeted drastically, while our faith in science has risen exponentially. Science has become the ‘god’ of miracles!
Which is the greater miracle? The spiritual miracle or the physical miracle? When we think of a miracle, we tend to think of something in the physical or material sphere―resurrected someone from the dead, the curing of cripples, the blind, etc. Usually the physical miracles are the more striking, stupendous, eye-catching events―whereas the spiritual miracles are, more often than not, unseen miracles that take place in secrecy of the soul. Yet it is spiritual miracle that is the greatest―just as the soul is more important than the body. Our Lord points this out when He performs a double miracle―one for the soul and another for the body:
“And behold, men brought a man in a bed who had the palsy and they sought means to bring him in and to lay him before Jesus. And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in―because of the multitude―they went up upon the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. Whose faith when He saw, He said: ‘Man, thy sins are forgiven thee!’ And the Scribes and Pharisees began to think, saying: ‘Who is this who speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?’ And when Jesus knew their thoughts, answering, He said to them: ‘What is it you think in your hearts? Which is it easier to say: “Thy sins are forgiven thee!” or to say: “Arise and walk!” But that you may know that the Son of man hath power on Earth to forgive sins (He saith to the sick of the palsy), I say to thee, Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house!’ And immediately rising up before them, he took up the bed on which he lay and he went away to his own house, glorifying God. And all were astonished; and they glorified God. And they were filled with fear, saying: ‘We have seen wonderful things today!’” (Luke 5:18-26).
In that Scriptural passage we see Jesus perform the greater miracle first―the spiritual miracle, the forgiveness of sins. Yet this was an invisible miracle, a miracle that the Scribes and Pharisees doubted He had the power to do. Jesus, in order to prove His power in performing the invisible miracle of forgiving sins, then goes ahead and performs a lesser miracle―but one that visible and spectacular―He tells the man sick with palsy to get up and walk! Our Lord criticizes this reversal of values, saying: “Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not!” (John 4:48).
We need to have Faith and confidence in the spiritual weapons and spiritual power tools that we have been given by Heaven. We need to use them far more often and abuse them far less. We are in the mess that we are in because we are not using what we have been given―or using them in the wrong way, with the wrong attitude, for the wrong reasons, on the wrong objects. We are not seeing the big picture, but only the little picture of our own life, our own needs, our own preferences, our own goals, our own advantages.
That is not what is expected of a Christian―a Soldier of Christ. Soldiers do not fight for themselves, but they fight for the greater good, the common good, the good of everybody. “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends!” (John 15:13). “He that has the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17). The “substance” that we have is the Faith and sanctifying grace―most of the world does not have the Faith and sanctifying grace. They are in grave need of Faith and grace! We should be aware of that need and we should do all that we can in this life to try and bring to the Faith and sanctifying grace―and not waste most of our times on fun and games, socializing and partying, playing or watching sports, idly browsing the internet or social media.
When we think of power tools, we tend to limit them to the physical and material domain. It rarely―or never―crosses our mind to envision the existence of spiritual power tools! Yet those spiritual power tools do exist―as will be shown below. Since our minds work by knowing invisible things only by comparison with visible things―“the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the [visible] things that are made” (Romans 1:20)―let us first of all lay the foundation for understanding spiritual power tools by briefly examining their counterparts, which are the mechanical and electrical power tools that surround us. If power tools make the accomplishment of our physical work much easier, then it is to be supposed that spiritual power tools might also make the accomplishment of the work of our salvation much easier. Since Our Lord, Our Lady and the saints tell us that most souls end up being damned, wouldn’t it be nice to be able profit from some spiritual power tools to help us avoid the same tragic fate?
The Advantages of Power Tools
Power tools are the tools that are powered by electricity. They are not only widely used in construction, electrical, plumbing and other industrial jobs, but they are also used around the home for everyday needs. From home improvement projects to plumbing and damage repair, power tools have multiple applications in homes and commercial establishments. Power tools even include things like electric blenders and juicers, electric meat grinders, washing machines, sewing machines, knitting machines, vacuum cleaners, floor polishers, lawn mowers, chain-saws, hedge trimmers, leaf blowers, electric drills, electric hammers, electric screwdrivers, roofing nail guns, electric sanders, grinders and polishers, etc.
Power tools enjoy many advantages over hand tools―being extremely versatile with enhanced performance compared to manual tools. Unlike hand tools, power tools are faster― allowing you to do time-consuming tasks efficiently in less time. Many power tools come with adjustable settings to and multiple attachments to accommodate multiple tasks and projects. Additional accessories and parts can be attached to your power tool, helping it perform specific tasks required from a particular tool. They allow you to perform tasks and complete projects that use various materials, including metals, wood, and concrete. They can be used to complete several constructions and repair tasks―or household chores and tasks―in minimum time and with less effort. They often provide better performance; can perform tasks that are impossible for hand tools to complete; provide greater speed and efficiency, precision and accuracy―and are just plain and simply very convenient.
The first and foremost benefit of using power tools is the high speed. Many of the time-consuming tasks can be easily completed with the help of power tools. Power tools can be used to perform several tasks that can’t be performed with simple hand tools. For example, using a drill driver will allow you to drive larger screws into tougher materials; driving screws into concrete with hand tools is not only difficult but time-consuming as well. This task can easily be done with a reliable power tool. Power tools can increase the efficiency of workers by simplifying their work and completing different tasks in less time. Power tools can save precious time of the workers and increase their efficiency considerably. That way, the workers are able to focus on quality rather than wasting their time on small, unproductive tasks.
Those are just some of the advantages of power tools. However, power tools can also have disadvantages. Just as a rifle is only as good as marksman shooting it, so too is a tool is only as good as the person who is using it. It is important to keep in mind that many tools can be quite dangerous when used incorrectly or without the right amount of knowledge or skill. Even with proper training, even the most expert tradesmen can still have an accident.
Heaven Sent Power Tools
Following a chronological order, here is list of just some of the “power tools” that Heaven has offered to us. There are no big surprises concerning what they are―you already know them all, or most of them. The big surprise is that we are not using them―or not using them correctly. Yet that is also true of power tools―they can be of little or no use if you do not use them correctly. The rifle is only as good as the marksman shooting it; the tool is only as good as the workman using it―and a bad workman always blames his tools!
► 1214 THE HOLY ROSARY ― St. Dominic received the Rosary devotion during an apparition of Our Lady in 1214, with the promise that the Rosary would convert sinners and save souls. A 13th century prophecy states that one day, through the means of the Rosary and the Scapular [see below], Our Lady will save the world.
► 1251 BROWN SCAPULAR ― According to tradition, on July 16th, 1251, the Superior General of the Carmelite Religious Order, St. Simon Stock, had a vision of Our Lady, who gave him the Brown Scapular and promised final perseverance in grace and salvation to those who would faithfully wear it until death. What greater thing do you desire than salvation? At the end of the day, it is all that really matters! As already stated above, a 13th century prophecy states that one day, through the means of the Scapular and the Rosary, Our Lady would save the world.
► 1800+ THE HOLY MASS ― Our Lady revealed to Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich the power of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Anne Catherine Emmerich said: “Mass badly celebrated is an enormous evil. Ah! It is not a matter of indifference how it is said! ... I have had a great vision on the mystery of Holy Mass and I have seen that whatever good has existed since creation, is owing to it … She [the Holy Mother] said if only one priest could offer the bloodless Sacrifice as worthily and with the same disposition as the Apostles, he could avert all the disasters [that are to come]” (Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich).
► 1830 THE MIRACULOUS MEDAL ― Our Lady revealed to St. Catherine Labouré the power of the Miraculous Medal. In the vision showing the design that Our Lady wanted for the Medal, Catherine saw that Our Lady’s her hands were covered with rings with precious stones of different sizes, three on each finger. Rays of light shone down from some of jeweled rings, but not from others. The Blessed Virgin said: “These rays symbolize the graces I shed upon those who ask for them. The gems, from which rays do not fall, are the graces for which souls neglect to ask! … Have a Medal struck after this model. All who wear it will receive great graces! They should wear it around the neck. Graces will abound for persons who wear it with confidence!”
► 1846 PRAYER & PENANCE ― Our Lady spoke of the neglect of prayer and penance and its requirement for triumph over evil: “There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless Sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! People think of nothing but amusement! … They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish! … I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God, the true followers of Christ, the true faithful, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession!”
► 1854 PRAYER & PENANCE ― Our Lady of Lourdes again demanded prayer and penance for conversion of sinners: “Pray for sinners! … Penance! Penance! Penance! … Kiss the ground as a penance for sinners!”
► 1917 PRAYER, SACRIFICE, THE HOLY ROSARY & DEVOTION TO MARY ― Prior to Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima, the Angel of Portugal appears and focuses the attention of the three children on the Holy Eucharist, as well as prayer and sacrifice. Our Lady of Fatima further focuses upon the prayer aspect, by insisting on the power and necessity of the Holy Rosary. She also points out the power of devotion to her Immaculate Heart, revealing that many souls can be saved by means of this devotion.
► 1973 THE HOLY MASS & HOLY ROSARY, PRAYER, PENANCE & SACRIFICE ― At Akita, in Japan, Our Lady seems to sum-up what she has said in earlier apparitions―speaking of prayer, penance, sacrifices, the Holy Mass and the Holy Rosary. She revealed the last two weapons that are left to us are the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Rosary: “The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!” ― which obviously is the Sign of the Cross, the sign of Our Lord’s sacrifice on Calvary, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. She adds: “I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this! … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach!”
Why Are Heaven’s Power Tools Powerless?
If we have been given all these spiritual power tools by Heaven, why then is it that we find ourselves in this current terrible mess concerning Faith and Morals? Why are things getting worse instead of better? Are those weapons really as powerful as they are made out to be?
As already stated―a rifle is only as good as the marksman shooting it; the tool is only as good as the workman using it―and a bad workman always blames his tools! In a war, the opposing armies are essentially using the same kinds of weapons―yet one side wins and the other side loses. It all comes down to how well soldiers have been trained; how well they use the weapons at their disposal; and how much fire they have in their belly!
Victories Against All the Odds
Throughout history, in various wars and conflicts, there have been a number of historic victories won by a smaller force, against a larger foe. Sometimes military victories against the odds are achieved because the smaller force has surprised the larger force, thereby gaining an advantage. In some cases, complacency and cockiness in the larger force makes them unprepared for a serious battle. In some cases, either by luck or good management, the smaller force killed the leader, and the larger force was demoralized following the breakdown of the chain of command. In some cases, the smaller force was simply better trained or had better morale. In some circumstances victory for the smaller side came down to the smaller force having better leadership, over a poorly managed larger force. In some cases, subterfuge was used―as in the Second World War, when a group of five Germans fought garrison troops and captured the entire city of Belgrade and its thousands of troops by pretending to be an entire army. Such victories against the odds are numerous all throughout history, here are only a handful representing the tip of the iceberg:
► BC 53 ― The Battle of Carrhae saw a massive Roman defeat at the hands of Parthians. In terms of figures, the Romans had around 52,000 men, while the Parthians had around 12,000 men. Roman casualties amounted to about 20,000 killed and 10,000 captured, which made the battle one of the costliest defeats in Roman history. Parthian casualties were minimal.
► AD 60–61 ―The Boudican Revolt was an armed uprising by native Celtic Britons against the Roman Empire during the Roman conquest of Britain. The Boudican Revolt was an assault by 230,000 Celtic tribesmen against a Roman army of 10,000. In total, around 80,000 Celts were ultimately killed, while the Roman army suffered only around 400 losses, with similar numbers injured, and the rebellion was firmly crushed.
►1415 ― The Battle of Agincourt saw a depleted English army, led by King Henry V, composed of 5,000 to 8,000 longbowmen, achieve victory over a superior French army of 15,000 to 30,000 cavalry and heavy infantry―the English being outnumbered by as much as 5 to 1.
►1565 ― The Great Siege of Malta saw the defending Maltese forces, with around 8,500 men in their ranks, and just 2,500 among them being professional soldiers―the rest being armed civilians and slaves. The Ottomans, who were seeking to conquer Malta, had around 45,000 well-drilled troops at their disposal, with at least 6,000 of them being Janissaries – the elite infantry of the Turks. The end result was that the Turks suffered as many as 30,000 deaths (from both combat actions and disease); while the defenders of Malta around 2,500 of their men.
►1879 ― In Rorke's Drift, South Africa, saw just over 150 British and colonial troops successfully defend a farmhouse against an intense assault by 3,000 to 4,000 Zulu warriors. The massive Zulu attacks on came very close to defeating the much smaller garrison. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the British death toll was only 17 dead compared to 351 Zulu deaths.
►1951 ― The Battle of Kapyong occurred during the Korean War. The Chinese forces outnumbered the UN battalions by around ten to one. The combined American, British, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian units only had just over 1,000 troops. The Chinese troops had about 10,000 to 20,000 men. After fierce fire-fights and intense artillery barrages, the Chinese withdrew on 25 April with enormous casualties of about 1,000 to 5,000 dead and many more wounded. The Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and US casualties amounted to 49 dead and 111 wounded.
Biblical Victories Against the Odds
As Catholics, we should take courage from our own heritage of the underdog beating the favorite―as in Israel overcoming the Egyptians during the Exodus when the Egyptian army was drowned in the Red Sea; or conquering Jericho when its walls fell down; or Moses destroying the 60-walled fortresses of Basan; or Elias single-handedly overcoming the 850 false prophets on Mount Carmel; or David killing Goliath; or Gedeon overcoming the 135,000 strong Madianite army with only 300 men. The list could go on―but let us stop there.
The bottom line here is that God does think like we think; He does not fight like we fight; He does not need the weapons we think we need. He is almighty God and “if God be for us, who can stand against us?” (Romans 8:31). “The foolish things of the world God has chosen, that He may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world God has chosen, that He may confound the strong; and the base things of the world, and the things that are contemptible, and things that are not, God has chosen, that He might bring to nothing things that are!” (1 Corinthians 1:27-28).
“The Lord thy God has chosen thee to be His particular people of all peoples that are upon the Earth. The Lord joined unto you, and has chosen you―not because you surpass all nations in number, for you are the fewest of any people―but because the Lord has loved you, and has brought you out from the house of bondage, of the hand of Pharao the king of Egypt, with a strong hand and redeemed you. And thou shalt know that the Lord thy God is a strong and faithful God, keeping His covenant and mercy towards them that love Him and to them that keep His commandments!” (Deuteronomy 7:6-9).
You Cannot Lose if God Fights For You!
Just as most power tools operate through electricity―which is invisible to the human eye―so, too, do God’s power tools operate by something that is invisible to the human eye―they operate through Divine Grace. Grace is required for everything, for, as Our Lord said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) and “the things that are impossible with men, are possible with God! With God all things are possible!” (Luke 18:27; Matthew 19:26).
Holy Scripture is full of affirmations that God will fight for us; God will lead us in the fight; He will show us how to fight; He will protect us in the fight; and He will bring the fight to a successful end: “The Lord is as a man of war” (Exodus 15:3) … “The Lord God, Who is your Leader, Himself will fight for you!” (Deuteronomy 1:30) … “Blessed be the Lord my God, Who teaches my hands to fight and my fingers to war!” (Psalm 143:1) … “The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, as a man of war, and He shall prevail against His enemies” (Isaias 42:13) … “Our God will fight for us!” (2 Esdras 4:20) … “The Lord will fight for you!” (Exodus 14:14) … “Fear them not―for the Lord your God will fight for you!” (Deuteronomy 3:22) … “The Lord thy God will fight for his people!” (Isaias 51:22) … “The Lord our God is our helper and fights for us!” (2 Paralipomenon 32:8) … “The Lord your God is in the midst of you, and will fight for you against your enemies, to deliver you from danger!” (Deuteronomy 20:4) … “Be of good courage, and let us fight for our people and for the city of our God―and the Lord will do what is good in His sight!” (2 Kings 10:12) … “One of you shall chase a thousand men of the enemies―because the Lord your God Himself will fight for you, as he hath promised!” (Josue 23:10) … “The Lord of armies is with us! God is our protector!” (Psalm 45:8-10) … “And after a hard fight, they got the victory by the help of God” (2 Machabees 12:11).
But Is God Fighting For Us Today?
Looking at the state of things in both the Church and the world―one has to ask whether God is fighting for us today, or is God fighting against us today? For Holy Scripture not only speaks about God fighting FOR His people―but Scripture also speaks of God fighting AGAINST His people! How is that? Which of those two scenarios is true for today? Are the Heaven sent spiritual power tools still working for us today? Or are they broken and out of use?
God, of course, will always be positive―for “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). Nevertheless, as Scripture says, “whoever the Lord loves, He chastises; and He scourges every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:6) ― not for the fun of it, but because we deserve it by our disobedience or lack of love towards God, for obedience is the proof of love: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
When we sin, then we impede (by venial sin) or even cut-off (by mortal sin) the grace (heavenly electricity) that is needed to run our Heaven sent spiritual power tools ― the Rosary, the Scapular, and the many other Sacramentals of Church. Their power is greatly reduced and they are of no benefit for anyone else, only for our own conversion and our return to the state of sanctifying grace. Prayers and sacrifices made for others in a state of mortal sin do not benefit or help anyone we might be praying or sacrificing for in our state of mortal sin―those prayers and sacrifices will only bounce back upon ourselves so that we get out of mortal sin and return to God. “We know that God doth not hear sinners: but if a man be a server of God, and doth his will, him he heareth” (John 9:31). “The Lord is far from the wicked, but He will hear the prayers of the just” (Proverbs 15:29). “They shall cry to the Lord, and He will not hear them: and He will hide His face from them at that time, as they have behaved wickedly” (Micheas 3:4). God does not hear the prayers of those in mortal sin, except when those prayers are made in repentance or when it will it lead to repentance. So, prayer in mortal sin is not entirely impotent, but it is impotent in helping others, and not impotent in bringing about your conversion and a return to the state of grace.
Trent and Aquinas
The Catechism of the Council of Trent briefly explains the nuances between the prayer of the impenitent and the prayer of sinners:
“The Prayer of the Impenitent is that of those who not only do not repent of their sins and enormities, but, adding crime to crime, dare frequently to ask pardon of God for those sins, in which they are resolved to continue. With such dispositions they would not presume to ask pardon from their fellow-man. The prayer of such sinners is not heard by God. It is recorded of Antiochus: Then this wicked man prayed to the Lord, of whom he was not to obtain mercy. Whoever lives in this deplorable condition should be vehemently exhorted to wean himself from all affection to sin, and to return to God in good earnest and from the heart.
“The Prayer of Sinners is that of those who are weighed down by the guilt of mortal sin, but who strive, with what is called dead faith, to raise themselves from their condition and to ascend to God. But, in consequence of their languid state and the extreme weakness of their faith, they cannot raise themselves from the earth. Recognizing their crimes and stung with remorse of conscience, they bow themselves down with humility, and, far as they are removed from God, implore of Him with penitential sorrow, the pardon of their sins and the peace of reconciliation. The prayers of such persons are not rejected by God, but are heard by Him. Nay, in His mercy, He generously invites such as these to have recourse to Him, saying: Come to me, all you that labor and are heavily laden―and I will refresh you!’ Of this class was the publican, who, though he did not dare to raise his eyes towards Heaven, left the Temple, as (our Lord) declares, more justified than the Pharisee.” (The Catechism of the Council of Trent).
In his Summa, St. Thomas Aquinas explains the distinction that although the prayers of sinners are not meritorious ― that is to say, not deserving of being heard as they are made by sinners ― if they are begging prayers, that persistently, devoutly beg the things necessary for salvation, then God will answer those prayers because He seeks the conversion of each and every sinner: “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (Ezechiel 18:23). Thus St. Thomas writes: “Accordingly when a sinner prays for something as sinner, i.e. in accordance with a sinful desire, God hears him not through mercy. On the other hand God hears the sinner’s prayer if it proceed from a good natural desire, not out of justice, because the sinner does not merit to be heard, but out of pure mercy, provided however he fulfill the four conditions given above, namely, that he beseech for himself things necessary for salvation, piously and perseveringly” (Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 83, art. 16).
Restoring Power
To best profit from and to get the most out of the spiritual power tools and spiritual power weapons that God has given us, we must, first of all, be in a state of sanctifying grace―which is like a power supply for those tools and weapons. Mortal sin―which is an infernal act of pride on the part of man―expels sanctifying grace from the soul. Mortal sin, so to speak, trips the circuit breaker in the soul and flow of sanctifying grace is cut. God―Who lives in the soul by the means of sanctifying grace―is cast out. Yet without God nothing good is going to happen and the soul is going nowhere―apart from Hell. “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Fortunately, God can put up with rejection. He can even put up with rejection infinitely (but He does not do so). Nevertheless, He will stand outside the doors of soul and send messages (actual graces) to the soul, trying to convince the soul to repent and let Him back into the soul.
Once you have God back in your soul―then you have the power of God with you. It is then that the impossible becomes possible: “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God … With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Luke 18:27; Matthew 19:26). “For, amen I say to you, if you have Faith [in God] as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here there!’ and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you” (Matthew 17:19). “Amen I say to you, that whosoever shall say to this mountain: ‘Be thou removed and be cast into the sea!’ and shall not stagger in his heart, but believe that whatsoever he saith shall be done―it shall be done unto him!” (Mark 11:23). “Amen, amen I say to you, he that believeth in Me, the works that I do, he also shall do; and greater than these shall he do!” (John 14:12).
Many saints did just that! St. Benedict commanded an ever-increasingly overhanging cliff above his monastery to move back―and it did! Mountains were moved by St. Mark the Hermit of Athens and Egypt; as well as St. Simon the Tanner. The raising of the dead is a miracle which, astonishing as it is, has been performed hundreds of times since the days of Christ. Many Saints have done so―such as St. Francis Xavier, St. Patrick, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Hyacinth, and St. Louis Bertrand, St. John Bosco, St. Philip Neri, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Francis of Paola, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Malachy, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Joan of Arc, St. Rose of Lima, Blessed Margaret of Castello, St. Francis of Paola, Venerable John Baptist Tholomei, St. Bernardine of Siena, St. John Capistrano, St. Joseph of Cupertino, St. Peter of Alcantara, St. Dominic, St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Paul of the Cross, Blessed James Salomoni, St. Agnes of Montepulciano, Blessed Constantius of Fabrino, Blessed Sadoc, Blessed Mark of Modena, Blessed Ceslas, Blessed Augustine of Bugela, Colomb a of Rieti, St. Rose of Lima, St. Martin de Porres, St. Francis Solanus, Marianne de Jesus of Quito, Blessed Sebastian of Apparizio, St. Bernard of Abbeville, St. Stanislaus of Cracow, St. James of Tarentaise, St. Cyril of Constantinople, St. Peregrine, St. Philip Benizi, Bl. Peter Armengol, Blessed Eustachio, St. Gerard Majella, St. Charbel Makhlouf, St. Padre Pio, St. Margaret of Cortona, St. Felix of Cantalice, St. Rose of Viterbo, St. Pacific of San Severino, St. Hyacinth, St. John Francis Regis, St. Andrew Bobola; St. Francis Jerome, Brother Antony Pereyra, and St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland.
These resurrections miracles include the raising of persons who had drowned, of persons with mutilated bodies, of persons who had been hanged, and of those whose bodies had already suffered decay, been reduced to skeletons, or been buried for several years. They include young children, unbaptized infants, persons executed for crimes, person raised to testify in criminal cases or to testify to some religious truth, and of persons who would have been condemned to Hell had they not been called back to earth for another chance.
The known miracles of cures and healings performed run into hundreds of thousands and far, far more if we could add to those numbers the multitude of unknown and unregistered miracles performed by saints. Allegedly, St. Charbel (Sharbel) Maklouf (1828-1898) alone has over 33,000 miracles associated with him―although most of those are by his intercession from Heaven. St. Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419) according to the Acta Sanctorum, a 17th-century encyclopedic text researched by a team of Jesuits, is recorded as having performed 873 miracles during his lifetime on Earth. These same Jesuit scholars say he delivered 70 people from demonic possession. In another place St. Antoninus (the Dominican archbishop of Florence) claims St. Vincent Ferrer also raised 28 people from the dead.
Lack of Faith―Lack of Power―Lack of Miracles
Holy Scripture says that Jesus would not perform many miracles wherever there was a lack of Faith: “And He wrought not many miracles there, because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58). In the Gospels, we often read of Jesus demanding Faith in His power to perform miracles before He would grant a miracle: “Do you believe that I can do this unto you?” (Matthew 9:28) … “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth!” (Mark 9:22) … “Fear not! Believe only, and she shall be safe!” Luke 8:50) … Seeing the centurion’s Faith in His power to cure by His word alone, Jesus said: “Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel!” (Matthew 8:10) … “Jesus, seeing their Faith, said to the man sick of the palsy: ‘Be of good heart, son, thy sins are forgiven thee!’” (Matthew 9:2) “Jesus turning and seeing her, said: ‘Be of good heart, daughter, thy Faith hath made thee whole!’ And the woman was made whole from that hour” (Matthew 9:22) … “Then Jesus touched their eyes, saying: ‘According to your Faith, be it done unto you!’” (Matthew 9:29).
A mystic, during the Middle-Ages, asked Our Lord why it was that they were not seeing the same number and same magnitude of miracles in the Middle-Ages as was seen in the early years after the foundation of the Church. Our Lord replied that it was due to the lack of Faith in Him at that time―and we hold those days of the Middle-Ages as being the summit of Christendom! How much worse are things today? No wonder Our Lord said―speaking of the End Times (which Our Lady of Fatima said we have already entered): “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). Sadly our Faith in God has plummeted drastically, while our faith in science has risen exponentially. Science has become the ‘god’ of miracles!
Which is the greater miracle? The spiritual miracle or the physical miracle? When we think of a miracle, we tend to think of something in the physical or material sphere―resurrected someone from the dead, the curing of cripples, the blind, etc. Usually the physical miracles are the more striking, stupendous, eye-catching events―whereas the spiritual miracles are, more often than not, unseen miracles that take place in secrecy of the soul. Yet it is spiritual miracle that is the greatest―just as the soul is more important than the body. Our Lord points this out when He performs a double miracle―one for the soul and another for the body:
“And behold, men brought a man in a bed who had the palsy and they sought means to bring him in and to lay him before Jesus. And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in―because of the multitude―they went up upon the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. Whose faith when He saw, He said: ‘Man, thy sins are forgiven thee!’ And the Scribes and Pharisees began to think, saying: ‘Who is this who speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?’ And when Jesus knew their thoughts, answering, He said to them: ‘What is it you think in your hearts? Which is it easier to say: “Thy sins are forgiven thee!” or to say: “Arise and walk!” But that you may know that the Son of man hath power on Earth to forgive sins (He saith to the sick of the palsy), I say to thee, Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house!’ And immediately rising up before them, he took up the bed on which he lay and he went away to his own house, glorifying God. And all were astonished; and they glorified God. And they were filled with fear, saying: ‘We have seen wonderful things today!’” (Luke 5:18-26).
In that Scriptural passage we see Jesus perform the greater miracle first―the spiritual miracle, the forgiveness of sins. Yet this was an invisible miracle, a miracle that the Scribes and Pharisees doubted He had the power to do. Jesus, in order to prove His power in performing the invisible miracle of forgiving sins, then goes ahead and performs a lesser miracle―but one that visible and spectacular―He tells the man sick with palsy to get up and walk! Our Lord criticizes this reversal of values, saying: “Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not!” (John 4:48).
We need to have Faith and confidence in the spiritual weapons and spiritual power tools that we have been given by Heaven. We need to use them far more often and abuse them far less. We are in the mess that we are in because we are not using what we have been given―or using them in the wrong way, with the wrong attitude, for the wrong reasons, on the wrong objects. We are not seeing the big picture, but only the little picture of our own life, our own needs, our own preferences, our own goals, our own advantages.
That is not what is expected of a Christian―a Soldier of Christ. Soldiers do not fight for themselves, but they fight for the greater good, the common good, the good of everybody. “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends!” (John 15:13). “He that has the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17). The “substance” that we have is the Faith and sanctifying grace―most of the world does not have the Faith and sanctifying grace. They are in grave need of Faith and grace! We should be aware of that need and we should do all that we can in this life to try and bring to the Faith and sanctifying grace―and not waste most of our times on fun and games, socializing and partying, playing or watching sports, idly browsing the internet or social media.
Article 16
Monday May 8th & Tuesday May 9th, 2023
S.O.S. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!
Monday May 8th & Tuesday May 9th, 2023
S.O.S. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!
SOS History and Importance
Safety has always been one of man’s primary preoccupations―whether it be primitive means of safety and protection such as bows and arrows, or modern safety weapons such as guns and tasers; from guard dogs and geese to motion detector alarms or closed circuit television (CCTV); from horse saddles and stirrups to car seat belts, bucket seats, headrests, warning lights, and even full color 360 degree car camera system for all around viewing; from a drawbar (a defensive implement used to secure a door or gate in a medieval building) to triple-lock impenetrable security steel doors; from human security guards patrolling the property to electronic surveillance systems and drones; from canary bird gas detectors to digital multi-gas wireless detectors; etc., etc. Add to all this the modern general security and safety measures such a local police forces, fire departments, emergency responders, hospital emergency rooms, modern hospital equipment, health insurance, car insurance, house insurance, travel insurance, etc. We have lifeboats on ships, parachutes in aircraft, bomb shelters in wars, etc. Safety and security is most certainly a prime concern for human beings.
If we find our safety and security in danger, then there are emergency numbers that we can call for help on our phones―the most common emergency numbers worldwide being 911, or 999, or 111, or 112, or some other 3-digit number. Before the telephone was invented, there was also a 3-letter telegraphed emergency distress call that was used by ships experiencing emergencies on the sea. Back in the late 1890s, a big aid to safety and security came with the development of radio (initially known as “wireless telegraphy”), which was quickly recognized as an important aid to maritime communication and safety. Previously, ships at sea out of visual range were very much isolated from shore and other ships. Seagoing vessels had adopted a variety of standardized visual and audio distress signals, using such things as semaphore flags, signal flares, bells, and foghorns. The invention of wireless telegraphy allowed Morse Code (invented in the 1830s) to be used at sea to send messages. Morse Code is a way of “tapping” out letters using a series of dots (short signals) and dashes (long signals).
Today we know that emergency signal by the letters SOS―but, originally, no deliberate letter assignation was made―the distress signal was simply three dots, three dashes, then three dots ( ● ● ● ― ― ― ● ● ● ), which is transmitted as three short bleeps, then three long bleeps, then three short bleeps. It just happened by chance that this signal corresponded to the letters “S” and “O” in Morse Code, and so the emergency signal was popularized by being called an SOS. Then people began to seek a significance in the letters SOS and initially, since the distress call was originally intended for use on ships only, they thought SOS could stand for “Save our Ship”, or “Sure Of Sinking”, or “Stop Our Sinking”, etc. As time went on, and the SOS distress call came to be used, not only at sea, but also on land and in the air, the SOS acronym evolved into “Save Our Souls”.
Save Our Souls
At the end of the day―or, more correctly, at the end of our life―there is nothing more important than salvation: to save our soul. As Our Lord says: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). He adds elsewhere: “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God. For it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God! And they that heard it, said: ‘Who then can be saved?’ Jesus said to them: ‘The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!’” (Luke 18:24-27) … “I am the vine and you are the branches! … Without Me you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). That is why Holy Scripture also adds: “Everyone that shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved” (Joel 2:32) … “Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved” (Acts 2:21) … “For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). Our SOS distress call should be directed to the Lord: “O Lord, save our souls!”
First Things First? Or First Things Last and Last Things First?
You may have heard of the expression: “First things first!” which means that one should do the things that are most important before doing other things. The Catechism teaches us that the soul comes before the body―yet that is not the way most people approach life! They reverse the true values and place what is least important above what is most important. It is as though these people are taking the following words of Our Lord in a way that He did not intend them to be used, when He said: “The first shall be last and the last shall be first!” These persons put material things (which should be last) above spiritual things (which should be first). They pay far more attention to their body than to their soul; they are more interested in the things of the world than the things of Heaven, “whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:19). “They that are according to the flesh, mind the things that are of the flesh; but they that are according to the spirit, mind the things that are of the spirit” (Romans 8:5). “Therefore, seek the things that are above! Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth!” (Colossians 3:1-2). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world!” (1 John 2:15). That is how to put “first things first” and not “first things last and last things first.”
God did not place us into this world to have plentiful parties, pursue personal projects, preferred pastimes, or partake of perpetual pleasures! As Christians, our purpose in life should be the same as Christ’s, Who stated: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). He came to save souls―and it would treasonous for us to have a different policy or to pursue a different path! We cannot use Cain’s damnable excuse of: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9). “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife; and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband” (1 Corinthians 7:14).
Likewise, you should be the sanctification and salvation of those around you and also others in the world: “You are the salt of the Earth! But if the salt lose its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is good for nothing anymore but to be cast out and to be trodden on by men! You are the light of the world! A city seated on a mountain cannot be hidden! Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:131-6).
“Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in himself. In this we have known the charity of God, because He has laid down His life for us―and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that has the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed, and in truth” (1 John 3:15-18).
“With meekness receive the engrafted word of God, which is able to save your souls. Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only―deceiving your own selves. For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer of the word, he shall be compared to a man seeing his own face in a mirror, who saw himself and went on his way, and soon forgot what manner of man he was. But he that has looked into the perfect law of liberty, and has continued therein―not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work―this man shall be blessed in his works. And if any man thinks himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue and deceiving his own heart, this man's religion is vain!” (James 1:21-26).
“What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he has the Faith, but has not works? Shall Faith be able to save him? And if a brother or sister be naked, and need daily food, and one of you say to them: ‘Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled!’ ― yet give them not those things that are necessary for the body, what shall it profit? [The same is all the more true supplying for the needs of their souls]. So Faith also, if it have not works, is dead in itself! But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith. Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well: the devils also believe and tremble. But will thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead?” (James 2:13-20) … “Wherefore, my dearly beloved, with fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12).
Salvation Comes First
God comes first―all other persons and things must take their place in a hierarchical order behind God. There is no salvation without God―“Salvation is of the Lord!” (Psalm 3:9) … “You are saved ― but not by yourselves, for it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8) … “For it is the power of God to give salvation to everyone that believeth” (Romans 1:16) … “I will look for Thy salvation, O Lord!” (Genesis 49:18) … “I will rejoice in Thy salvation!” (Psalm 9:16). So we had better be in “God’s good books” if we want to saved ― and that means paying the utmost attention to God and His Divine Will. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all things shall be added unto you” (Luke 12:31). “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself! There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
God comes before people: “We ought to obey God, rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Our Lord further adds: “He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:37). People come before things―and in people, their soul comes before their body. The spiritual health and salvation of the soul comes before the physical health and life of the body. Faced with a choice of losing your soul or losing your life―you must choose to sacrifice the life of the body on Earth for the sake of eternal life for the soul in Heaven. That is why Our Lord says: “Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you Whom you shall fear! Fear ye Him, Who, after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell. Yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5)―and once again: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
Heaven’s SOS for the Salvation of Souls
As Holy Mother Church teaches in Canon Law―“Salvation of souls is the supreme law!” This means being concerned―not just about saving our own souls―but the souls of others too! As St. Paul writes: “The will of my heart, indeed, and my prayer to God, is for their salvation” (Romans 10:1). “I desire, therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, and intercessions, be made for all men! For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, Who will have [wants] all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth!” (1 Timothy 2:1-4). God does not just love us―He loves all of His creation and creatures, even the sinners. He does not want the damnation of sinners, but that they be saved. “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him!” (John 3:16-17).
In the Old Testament God says: “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? … Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities: and iniquity shall not be your ruin! Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dies, saith the Lord God, return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:23, 18:30-32). In the New Testament Christ further adds: “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32) ― “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3).
The Hierarchy or Order in Love
Fr. McHugh O.P. and Fr. Callan, O.P., in Moral Theology—A Complete Course, speak about the hierarchical order in charity:
“Charity not only requires that we love God, ourselves, and our neighbors, but it also obliges us to love these objects according to a certain order, some being preferred to others. God must be loved above all, more than self, more than father and mother. Other things being equal, one should love oneself more than one’s neighbor, for the love of self is the model for the love of neighbor in accordance with the saying: “Charity begins at home.” Among neighbors, those should be loved more who have more of a claim on account of their greater nearness to God, or nearness to ourselves.
“In the love of neighbor, one should prefer the spiritual welfare of one’s neighbor more than one’s own bodily welfare ― for our neighbor is called to be a partaker with us in the beatific vision. There are three kinds of spiritual necessity in which a neighbor may be placed, and in which one might be called on to sacrifice one’s bodily welfare for the other’s spiritual good. Thus, there is:
(a) extreme spiritual need, or that in which a neighbor will certainly perish eternally [lose his soul] unless help is given him, as when an infant is about to die without Baptism;
(b) grave spiritual need, or that in which a neighbor runs grave danger of losing his soul unless help is given, as when a dying person, who is in mortal sin, asks for a confessor, because he is scarcely able to make an act of perfect contrition;
(c) ordinary spiritual need, or that in which a neighbor is in remote danger of damnation, or in proximate danger of sin, but can easily help himself, as is the case with those who from choice live in occasions of sin.
“For a neighbor who is in extreme spiritual need, one should risk death (1 John 3:16) or lesser evils, if the following conditions are present:
(a) if there is a good prospect of success in helping the needy one (e.g., a mother is not obliged to undergo an operation dangerous to her life, in order to secure the baptism of her child, if it is uncertain that the baptism can be administered);
(b) if there is no one else who can and will give the needed help;
(c) if there is no reason of public good that stands in the way; thus, if by helping one in extreme need a person would lose his life, and so deprive of his aid a large number who are also in extreme need, he should prefer to help the many rather than the one.
“For a neighbor who is in grave spiritual need, the same risk is not required of all persons.
(a) The risk of death itself is required of pastors of souls (John 10:11), since they have bound themselves to this. Hence, a pastor who would refuse to go to a parishioner dying of pestilence and needing absolution and Extreme Unction, would offend against justice, while another priest who would go to such a dying person would practice the perfection of charity; for the dying person can help himself by an act of contrition, and the strange priest is not bound by office to care for him.
(b) The risk of some great corporal evil (such as a sickness or impairment of health) should be taken even by those who are not pastors of the person in need, if there is no one else to help. Thus, if a pastor were sick, another priest ought to visit a dying person, even at the risk of catching a severe cold.
“For a neighbor who is in ordinary spiritual need, charity requires that something be done (Ecclesiasticus 17:12).
(a) But it does not require the risk of life or of serious bodily loss, for the person in danger can easily and better help himself. Thus, it is not necessary that one should penetrate into the haunts of criminals and endanger one’s life, in order to drag away one who chooses to go to such places.
(b) It does require that one be willing to undergo a slight bodily inconvenience or deprivation. Thus, an ordinary headache, or the loss of a meal, ought not to stop one from counseling another, in order to keep him away from bad company.
“There are two exceptions to the rules just given:
(a) A person should not risk his life for another’s life, if he thereby endangers his own salvation (e.g., if he is in a state of mortal sin and cannot reconcile himself to God). But this case is theoretical, for it is admitted that one who makes the supreme sacrifice of giving his life with a virtuous intention, has not only charity, but the perfection of charity (John 15:13), which will certainly purify him even from a multitude of sins.
(b) One should not risk one’s life for the life of another, if a third party has a higher claim on him. Thus, a married man, who has a dependent wife and children, may not throw away his life for the sake of a friend.” (Fr. McHugh O.P. and Fr. Callan, O.P., Moral Theology—A Complete Course, §1158 to §1170).
In this modern era, there is a grave spiritual need that exists for most souls in the world. Our Lady of Fatima clearly pointed that out to us when she sent out an SOS for the salvation of souls: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917). That last sentence clearly announces a grave spiritual need! Will you respond to that need? If the three little children at Fatima responded and corresponded―then you, as an adult, can also do it.
Are You Loving?
Are you really loving God and your neighbor? Or are you pretending to love God and neighbor? Could Our Lord address to you these words: “I know you, that you have not the love of God in you” (John 5:42) … “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words … If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love … This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24; 15:10; 15:12).
If we are not loving our neighbor, then we are not loving God―for to love God we must keep His commandments, and He commands us to love our neighbor! How can we truly say that we love our neighbor when we barely or rarely pray for our neighbor―not just those neighbors who are our friends, but also those who are our enemies and those whom we do not even know? We are told that most souls are damned―“And a certain man said to Jesus: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Not everyone that saith to Me, “Lord! Lord!” shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! … Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! ... Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!’” (Luke 13:23-24; Matthew 7:13-14; 7:21; 22:14).
Today, on average, 18 people die every 10 seconds. According to Our Lord’s words, most souls are damned―and this viewpoint is echoed by numerous saints from every century, some of them being Fathers and Doctors of the Church. If 18 people die on average every 10 seconds, that means 108 people die each minute and 6,480 die every hour, or 155,520 each day―and most of those are damned. This must especially true today, due to innumerable avenues of sin that are available to us through advances in modern technology―television, internet, etc. Yet, in 1956, on December 8th, before this technological explosion―before the internet [1990s] and before television was in every home and offering programs, shows and movies 24 hours a day―Our Lady revealed to Blessed Elena Aiello: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
One year later―on December 26th, 1957―Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message ― neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad ― the sinners ― because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent! … We should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway!” Are we going to use Cain’s lame excuse: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9). The Father and Doctor of the Church, St. John Chrysostom (347-407), writes: “There is nothing colder than a Christian who is not concerned about the salvation of others ... Do not say, I cannot help others―for, if you are truly a Christian it is impossible not to help others! Do not say that that is impossible! What is impossible is the contrary! If we behave in the correct way, everything else will follow as a natural consequence. The light of Christians cannot be hidden, a lamp shining so brightly cannot be hidden.”
Do We Give a Damn About the Damned?
As stated above―throughout the world, on average, 18 people die on average every 10 seconds; 108 people per minute; 6,480 per hour, or 155,520 per day―and most of those are damned. Just listen to clock tick―each second almost 2 people die and are judged by God. Do we care? Do we give a damn about the damned? Or have we become hardened, cold-hearted, indifferent to what many saints have described in visions that God gave them as souls falling into Hell like snowflakes in a blizzard! You could say that there is perpetual SOS being sent out all day long, all night long, all year long! But who is listening, who is sailing to the rescue? Who cares?
Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” is the phrase used around the world to make a distress call via radio communications. Mayday signals a life-threatening emergency, usually on a ship or a plane, although it may be used in a variety of other situations. but in some countries local organizations such as firefighters, police forces, and transportation organizations also use the term. Convention requires the word be repeated three times in a row during the initial emergency declaration (“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!”) to prevent it being mistaken for some similar-sounding phrase under noisy conditions. SOS is the telegraphic distress signal only―the oral equivalent is “Mayday”.
The “Mayday” distress procedure word was conceived as a distress call in the early 1920s. It was the idea of Frederick Stanley Mockford, the senior officer-in-charge of radio at Croydon Airport on the outskirts of London, England. He had been asked to think of a word that would indicate distress and would easily be understood by all pilots and ground staff in an emergency. Since much of the air traffic at the time was between Croydon Airport near London and Le Bourget Airport in Paris, and also, since French was the international language at the time, Mockford based his distress call on French and proposed the term “Mayday”, which is the phonetic equivalent of (sounds like) the French phrase: “M’aidez!” (meaning “Help me!”) or “m’aider” (a short form of “venez m’aider” meaning “come [and] help me”).
Sometimes a “Mayday” distress call is sent by one vessel on behalf of another vessel in danger. This is known as a “Mayday Relay”. A Mayday Relay is sometimes necessary if the vessel in danger loses radio communications. If a Mayday Call is repeated and not acknowledged, another vessel hearing the call may attempt to relay it again and again until help is reached.
Our Lady’s “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!”
Whether it be an SOS or Mayday, Our Lady is certainly making an emergency distress call concerning (eternal) life-threatening dangers or soul-threatening dangers that have come upon most souls in the world today. As stated above, “sometimes a Mayday distress call is sent by one vessel on behalf of another vessel in danger. This is known as a Mayday Relay. A Mayday Relay is sometimes necessary if the vessel in danger loses radio communications.” In this case, Our Lady is sending a “Mayday Relay” message to us on behalf of the innumerable souls sinking and drowning in the worldly waters of Satan’s sea. They have lost all communication with God through sin and indifference―therefore Our Lady is pleading on their behalf.
We see an example of Our Lady’s “Mayday Call” at Fatima, during the first of six apparitions, the first of which took place on a MAYDAY―May 13th, 1917. At that May-Day Apparition, Our Lady begged for help with the conversion and salvation of sinners, asking the three little children―aged only 10, 9 and 7―if they would come to aid of sinners by means of prayers and sacrifices: ““Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort!” Our Lady would later give those children a vision of Hell and lamented that so many souls are falling into the fires of Hell because there is nobody to pray and offer sacrifices for them. Here are some more elements from her other “Mayday Calls”:
“Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … The people of God have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence ... Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures is spread all over the Earth. People think of nothing but amusement ... They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, unloosed from Hell, puts an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … The Christian spirit rapidly decays … Many fall into lukewarmness … Many priests lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … They will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … Several abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders break away from the true religion; among these people there are even bishops … . Several religious institutions lose all Faith and lose many souls ...
“There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left offering sacrifice for the sake of the world! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! ... Souls who wish to pray are on the way to being gathered together … Will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time? … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send to you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears, in the privacy of your heart. Implore our Celestial Father ... that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved.” (combination of quotes from Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita).
Think This Through with Fear and Trembling
Satan hates clear thinking Catholics. He prefers to muddle our thoughts, confuse our thinking, and distract us from the truth. Holy Scripture tells us: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12). Why? Because “in the last days, shall come dangerous times! Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God― indeed having an appearance of godliness, but denying the power thereof! … There shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables!” (2 Timothy 3:1-5; 2 Timothy 4:4). Our Lady’s “Mayday Calls” dovetail with the dangers of these last days.
To anyone of sound mind and common sense, it is abundantly clear that we are currently living in those “last days” and “dangerous times” where men have become “lovers of pleasures more than God” while pretending to have “an appearance of godliness.” Most people are “lovers of themselves” more than God and they can no longer “endure sound doctrine” and have “turned to fables”. Those fables include beliefs such as:
► You can be a good Catholic without going to Mass on Sundays.
► 7 out 10 Catholics do not believe in the doctrine of Transubstantiation (the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist).
► 4 out of 10 Christians do not believe in the dogma of the existence of Hell
► 7 out 10 Catholics believe that non-believers can go to Heaven.
► 8 out 10 Catholics believe that there are many religions by which you can get to Heaven.
► 3 out 10 Catholics think that abortion should be legal in all or in most cases.
► 6 out 10 Catholics say sex between unmarried adults in a committed relationship is sometimes or always acceptable.
► 6 out 10 say sex between consenting adults who are not in a committed romantic relationship is sometimes or always acceptable.
► Less that 1 in 10 Catholics think that contraception is sinful.
► 3 out 10 Catholics think that abortion should be legal in all or in most cases.
► 8 out 10 Catholics think homosexuality is acceptable.
► 6 out 10 Catholics support same-sex marriages.
► 7 out 10 Catholics say it’s acceptable for an unmarried couple to live together even if they don’t plan to get married.
All of the above are mortal sins! Yet you would find it hard to convince the adherents of those views that they are mortal sins. It is hardly surprising that many prophecies concerning our times speak of an apostasy from the Faith―which is what the Third Secret of Fatima also seems to indicate. It is with good reason that Our Lord said: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8).
Does this concern us? As already stated above―do we really give a damn about the damned or the potentially damned? Are we risking damning our own souls by not giving a damn about the damnation of other souls? Are we not―by our indifference or neglect―going against the chief law of the Church: “Lex suprema salus animarum est” ― “The supreme law is the salvation of souls”? We most certainly are for we have the Faith, we have sanctifying grace, we have the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Rosary, we have the continuous pleading of the Mother of God to something about the conversion of sinners and the salvation of souls―but we do very little or nothing about it. That boils down to being grave negligence―but Satan will anesthetize our conscience on that matter! He will inject into our conscience the lame excuses of the murderous Cain: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
By our indifference and neglect, we align ourselves with the negligent and uncharitable behavior of the Priest and the Levite in Our Lord’s parable about the Good Samaritan: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead. And it chanced, that a certain priest went down the same way―and, seeing him, passed by. In like manner also, a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But a certain Samaritan, being on his journey, came near him; and seeing him, was moved with compassion. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two pence, and gave to the host, and said: ‘Take care of him; and whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above this, I, at my return, will repay thee!’ Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbor to him that fell among the robbers? But he said: ‘He that showed mercy to him!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Go, and do thou in like manner!’” (Luke 10:30-37). But we don’t do in like manner―we couldn’t care less! We say to ourselves: “It’s not my fault! It’s not my sin! It’s the sinners fault! It’s his sin! Why should I have to look after sinners who deliberately want to sin? It’s not my responsibility! Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Where is your charity? “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and you, being a follower of God, should also be a living example of charity! “God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting!” (John 3:16) … “He that does not love, does not know God―for God is charity. By this has the charity of God appeared towards us, because God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him. In this is charity―not as though we had loved God―but because He first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins! If God had so loved us, then we also ought to love one another! … He that says that he is in the light, but hates his brother―he is in darkness even until now! He that loves his brother, abides in the light, and there is no scandal in him. But he that hates his brother, is in darkness and walks in darkness, and knows not where he goes; because the darkness has blinded his eyes … Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in himself! In this we have known the charity of God, because He has laid down His life for us―and so we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that has the substance of this world and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him?” (1 John 4:8-11, 20; 2:9-11; 3:15-17).
Have we “shut up our bowels” with regard to sinners? Do we fail to pray REGULARLY, CONSISTENTLY and FERVENTLY for their conversion and salvation? Do we fail to make REGULAR sacrifices for their conversion and salvation? Are those intentions REALLY in our hearts? Or is it mere lip-service? Our Lord wants sincerity not lip-service: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8).
Safety has always been one of man’s primary preoccupations―whether it be primitive means of safety and protection such as bows and arrows, or modern safety weapons such as guns and tasers; from guard dogs and geese to motion detector alarms or closed circuit television (CCTV); from horse saddles and stirrups to car seat belts, bucket seats, headrests, warning lights, and even full color 360 degree car camera system for all around viewing; from a drawbar (a defensive implement used to secure a door or gate in a medieval building) to triple-lock impenetrable security steel doors; from human security guards patrolling the property to electronic surveillance systems and drones; from canary bird gas detectors to digital multi-gas wireless detectors; etc., etc. Add to all this the modern general security and safety measures such a local police forces, fire departments, emergency responders, hospital emergency rooms, modern hospital equipment, health insurance, car insurance, house insurance, travel insurance, etc. We have lifeboats on ships, parachutes in aircraft, bomb shelters in wars, etc. Safety and security is most certainly a prime concern for human beings.
If we find our safety and security in danger, then there are emergency numbers that we can call for help on our phones―the most common emergency numbers worldwide being 911, or 999, or 111, or 112, or some other 3-digit number. Before the telephone was invented, there was also a 3-letter telegraphed emergency distress call that was used by ships experiencing emergencies on the sea. Back in the late 1890s, a big aid to safety and security came with the development of radio (initially known as “wireless telegraphy”), which was quickly recognized as an important aid to maritime communication and safety. Previously, ships at sea out of visual range were very much isolated from shore and other ships. Seagoing vessels had adopted a variety of standardized visual and audio distress signals, using such things as semaphore flags, signal flares, bells, and foghorns. The invention of wireless telegraphy allowed Morse Code (invented in the 1830s) to be used at sea to send messages. Morse Code is a way of “tapping” out letters using a series of dots (short signals) and dashes (long signals).
Today we know that emergency signal by the letters SOS―but, originally, no deliberate letter assignation was made―the distress signal was simply three dots, three dashes, then three dots ( ● ● ● ― ― ― ● ● ● ), which is transmitted as three short bleeps, then three long bleeps, then three short bleeps. It just happened by chance that this signal corresponded to the letters “S” and “O” in Morse Code, and so the emergency signal was popularized by being called an SOS. Then people began to seek a significance in the letters SOS and initially, since the distress call was originally intended for use on ships only, they thought SOS could stand for “Save our Ship”, or “Sure Of Sinking”, or “Stop Our Sinking”, etc. As time went on, and the SOS distress call came to be used, not only at sea, but also on land and in the air, the SOS acronym evolved into “Save Our Souls”.
Save Our Souls
At the end of the day―or, more correctly, at the end of our life―there is nothing more important than salvation: to save our soul. As Our Lord says: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). He adds elsewhere: “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God. For it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God! And they that heard it, said: ‘Who then can be saved?’ Jesus said to them: ‘The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!’” (Luke 18:24-27) … “I am the vine and you are the branches! … Without Me you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). That is why Holy Scripture also adds: “Everyone that shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved” (Joel 2:32) … “Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved” (Acts 2:21) … “For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). Our SOS distress call should be directed to the Lord: “O Lord, save our souls!”
First Things First? Or First Things Last and Last Things First?
You may have heard of the expression: “First things first!” which means that one should do the things that are most important before doing other things. The Catechism teaches us that the soul comes before the body―yet that is not the way most people approach life! They reverse the true values and place what is least important above what is most important. It is as though these people are taking the following words of Our Lord in a way that He did not intend them to be used, when He said: “The first shall be last and the last shall be first!” These persons put material things (which should be last) above spiritual things (which should be first). They pay far more attention to their body than to their soul; they are more interested in the things of the world than the things of Heaven, “whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:19). “They that are according to the flesh, mind the things that are of the flesh; but they that are according to the spirit, mind the things that are of the spirit” (Romans 8:5). “Therefore, seek the things that are above! Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth!” (Colossians 3:1-2). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world!” (1 John 2:15). That is how to put “first things first” and not “first things last and last things first.”
God did not place us into this world to have plentiful parties, pursue personal projects, preferred pastimes, or partake of perpetual pleasures! As Christians, our purpose in life should be the same as Christ’s, Who stated: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). He came to save souls―and it would treasonous for us to have a different policy or to pursue a different path! We cannot use Cain’s damnable excuse of: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9). “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife; and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband” (1 Corinthians 7:14).
Likewise, you should be the sanctification and salvation of those around you and also others in the world: “You are the salt of the Earth! But if the salt lose its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is good for nothing anymore but to be cast out and to be trodden on by men! You are the light of the world! A city seated on a mountain cannot be hidden! Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:131-6).
“Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in himself. In this we have known the charity of God, because He has laid down His life for us―and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that has the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed, and in truth” (1 John 3:15-18).
“With meekness receive the engrafted word of God, which is able to save your souls. Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only―deceiving your own selves. For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer of the word, he shall be compared to a man seeing his own face in a mirror, who saw himself and went on his way, and soon forgot what manner of man he was. But he that has looked into the perfect law of liberty, and has continued therein―not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work―this man shall be blessed in his works. And if any man thinks himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue and deceiving his own heart, this man's religion is vain!” (James 1:21-26).
“What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he has the Faith, but has not works? Shall Faith be able to save him? And if a brother or sister be naked, and need daily food, and one of you say to them: ‘Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled!’ ― yet give them not those things that are necessary for the body, what shall it profit? [The same is all the more true supplying for the needs of their souls]. So Faith also, if it have not works, is dead in itself! But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith. Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well: the devils also believe and tremble. But will thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead?” (James 2:13-20) … “Wherefore, my dearly beloved, with fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12).
Salvation Comes First
God comes first―all other persons and things must take their place in a hierarchical order behind God. There is no salvation without God―“Salvation is of the Lord!” (Psalm 3:9) … “You are saved ― but not by yourselves, for it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8) … “For it is the power of God to give salvation to everyone that believeth” (Romans 1:16) … “I will look for Thy salvation, O Lord!” (Genesis 49:18) … “I will rejoice in Thy salvation!” (Psalm 9:16). So we had better be in “God’s good books” if we want to saved ― and that means paying the utmost attention to God and His Divine Will. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all things shall be added unto you” (Luke 12:31). “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself! There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
God comes before people: “We ought to obey God, rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Our Lord further adds: “He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:37). People come before things―and in people, their soul comes before their body. The spiritual health and salvation of the soul comes before the physical health and life of the body. Faced with a choice of losing your soul or losing your life―you must choose to sacrifice the life of the body on Earth for the sake of eternal life for the soul in Heaven. That is why Our Lord says: “Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you Whom you shall fear! Fear ye Him, Who, after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell. Yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5)―and once again: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
Heaven’s SOS for the Salvation of Souls
As Holy Mother Church teaches in Canon Law―“Salvation of souls is the supreme law!” This means being concerned―not just about saving our own souls―but the souls of others too! As St. Paul writes: “The will of my heart, indeed, and my prayer to God, is for their salvation” (Romans 10:1). “I desire, therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, and intercessions, be made for all men! For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, Who will have [wants] all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth!” (1 Timothy 2:1-4). God does not just love us―He loves all of His creation and creatures, even the sinners. He does not want the damnation of sinners, but that they be saved. “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him!” (John 3:16-17).
In the Old Testament God says: “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? … Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities: and iniquity shall not be your ruin! Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dies, saith the Lord God, return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:23, 18:30-32). In the New Testament Christ further adds: “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32) ― “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3).
The Hierarchy or Order in Love
Fr. McHugh O.P. and Fr. Callan, O.P., in Moral Theology—A Complete Course, speak about the hierarchical order in charity:
“Charity not only requires that we love God, ourselves, and our neighbors, but it also obliges us to love these objects according to a certain order, some being preferred to others. God must be loved above all, more than self, more than father and mother. Other things being equal, one should love oneself more than one’s neighbor, for the love of self is the model for the love of neighbor in accordance with the saying: “Charity begins at home.” Among neighbors, those should be loved more who have more of a claim on account of their greater nearness to God, or nearness to ourselves.
“In the love of neighbor, one should prefer the spiritual welfare of one’s neighbor more than one’s own bodily welfare ― for our neighbor is called to be a partaker with us in the beatific vision. There are three kinds of spiritual necessity in which a neighbor may be placed, and in which one might be called on to sacrifice one’s bodily welfare for the other’s spiritual good. Thus, there is:
(a) extreme spiritual need, or that in which a neighbor will certainly perish eternally [lose his soul] unless help is given him, as when an infant is about to die without Baptism;
(b) grave spiritual need, or that in which a neighbor runs grave danger of losing his soul unless help is given, as when a dying person, who is in mortal sin, asks for a confessor, because he is scarcely able to make an act of perfect contrition;
(c) ordinary spiritual need, or that in which a neighbor is in remote danger of damnation, or in proximate danger of sin, but can easily help himself, as is the case with those who from choice live in occasions of sin.
“For a neighbor who is in extreme spiritual need, one should risk death (1 John 3:16) or lesser evils, if the following conditions are present:
(a) if there is a good prospect of success in helping the needy one (e.g., a mother is not obliged to undergo an operation dangerous to her life, in order to secure the baptism of her child, if it is uncertain that the baptism can be administered);
(b) if there is no one else who can and will give the needed help;
(c) if there is no reason of public good that stands in the way; thus, if by helping one in extreme need a person would lose his life, and so deprive of his aid a large number who are also in extreme need, he should prefer to help the many rather than the one.
“For a neighbor who is in grave spiritual need, the same risk is not required of all persons.
(a) The risk of death itself is required of pastors of souls (John 10:11), since they have bound themselves to this. Hence, a pastor who would refuse to go to a parishioner dying of pestilence and needing absolution and Extreme Unction, would offend against justice, while another priest who would go to such a dying person would practice the perfection of charity; for the dying person can help himself by an act of contrition, and the strange priest is not bound by office to care for him.
(b) The risk of some great corporal evil (such as a sickness or impairment of health) should be taken even by those who are not pastors of the person in need, if there is no one else to help. Thus, if a pastor were sick, another priest ought to visit a dying person, even at the risk of catching a severe cold.
“For a neighbor who is in ordinary spiritual need, charity requires that something be done (Ecclesiasticus 17:12).
(a) But it does not require the risk of life or of serious bodily loss, for the person in danger can easily and better help himself. Thus, it is not necessary that one should penetrate into the haunts of criminals and endanger one’s life, in order to drag away one who chooses to go to such places.
(b) It does require that one be willing to undergo a slight bodily inconvenience or deprivation. Thus, an ordinary headache, or the loss of a meal, ought not to stop one from counseling another, in order to keep him away from bad company.
“There are two exceptions to the rules just given:
(a) A person should not risk his life for another’s life, if he thereby endangers his own salvation (e.g., if he is in a state of mortal sin and cannot reconcile himself to God). But this case is theoretical, for it is admitted that one who makes the supreme sacrifice of giving his life with a virtuous intention, has not only charity, but the perfection of charity (John 15:13), which will certainly purify him even from a multitude of sins.
(b) One should not risk one’s life for the life of another, if a third party has a higher claim on him. Thus, a married man, who has a dependent wife and children, may not throw away his life for the sake of a friend.” (Fr. McHugh O.P. and Fr. Callan, O.P., Moral Theology—A Complete Course, §1158 to §1170).
In this modern era, there is a grave spiritual need that exists for most souls in the world. Our Lady of Fatima clearly pointed that out to us when she sent out an SOS for the salvation of souls: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917). That last sentence clearly announces a grave spiritual need! Will you respond to that need? If the three little children at Fatima responded and corresponded―then you, as an adult, can also do it.
Are You Loving?
Are you really loving God and your neighbor? Or are you pretending to love God and neighbor? Could Our Lord address to you these words: “I know you, that you have not the love of God in you” (John 5:42) … “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words … If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love … This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24; 15:10; 15:12).
If we are not loving our neighbor, then we are not loving God―for to love God we must keep His commandments, and He commands us to love our neighbor! How can we truly say that we love our neighbor when we barely or rarely pray for our neighbor―not just those neighbors who are our friends, but also those who are our enemies and those whom we do not even know? We are told that most souls are damned―“And a certain man said to Jesus: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Not everyone that saith to Me, “Lord! Lord!” shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! … Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! ... Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!’” (Luke 13:23-24; Matthew 7:13-14; 7:21; 22:14).
Today, on average, 18 people die every 10 seconds. According to Our Lord’s words, most souls are damned―and this viewpoint is echoed by numerous saints from every century, some of them being Fathers and Doctors of the Church. If 18 people die on average every 10 seconds, that means 108 people die each minute and 6,480 die every hour, or 155,520 each day―and most of those are damned. This must especially true today, due to innumerable avenues of sin that are available to us through advances in modern technology―television, internet, etc. Yet, in 1956, on December 8th, before this technological explosion―before the internet [1990s] and before television was in every home and offering programs, shows and movies 24 hours a day―Our Lady revealed to Blessed Elena Aiello: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
One year later―on December 26th, 1957―Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message ― neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad ― the sinners ― because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent! … We should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway!” Are we going to use Cain’s lame excuse: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9). The Father and Doctor of the Church, St. John Chrysostom (347-407), writes: “There is nothing colder than a Christian who is not concerned about the salvation of others ... Do not say, I cannot help others―for, if you are truly a Christian it is impossible not to help others! Do not say that that is impossible! What is impossible is the contrary! If we behave in the correct way, everything else will follow as a natural consequence. The light of Christians cannot be hidden, a lamp shining so brightly cannot be hidden.”
Do We Give a Damn About the Damned?
As stated above―throughout the world, on average, 18 people die on average every 10 seconds; 108 people per minute; 6,480 per hour, or 155,520 per day―and most of those are damned. Just listen to clock tick―each second almost 2 people die and are judged by God. Do we care? Do we give a damn about the damned? Or have we become hardened, cold-hearted, indifferent to what many saints have described in visions that God gave them as souls falling into Hell like snowflakes in a blizzard! You could say that there is perpetual SOS being sent out all day long, all night long, all year long! But who is listening, who is sailing to the rescue? Who cares?
Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” is the phrase used around the world to make a distress call via radio communications. Mayday signals a life-threatening emergency, usually on a ship or a plane, although it may be used in a variety of other situations. but in some countries local organizations such as firefighters, police forces, and transportation organizations also use the term. Convention requires the word be repeated three times in a row during the initial emergency declaration (“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!”) to prevent it being mistaken for some similar-sounding phrase under noisy conditions. SOS is the telegraphic distress signal only―the oral equivalent is “Mayday”.
The “Mayday” distress procedure word was conceived as a distress call in the early 1920s. It was the idea of Frederick Stanley Mockford, the senior officer-in-charge of radio at Croydon Airport on the outskirts of London, England. He had been asked to think of a word that would indicate distress and would easily be understood by all pilots and ground staff in an emergency. Since much of the air traffic at the time was between Croydon Airport near London and Le Bourget Airport in Paris, and also, since French was the international language at the time, Mockford based his distress call on French and proposed the term “Mayday”, which is the phonetic equivalent of (sounds like) the French phrase: “M’aidez!” (meaning “Help me!”) or “m’aider” (a short form of “venez m’aider” meaning “come [and] help me”).
Sometimes a “Mayday” distress call is sent by one vessel on behalf of another vessel in danger. This is known as a “Mayday Relay”. A Mayday Relay is sometimes necessary if the vessel in danger loses radio communications. If a Mayday Call is repeated and not acknowledged, another vessel hearing the call may attempt to relay it again and again until help is reached.
Our Lady’s “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!”
Whether it be an SOS or Mayday, Our Lady is certainly making an emergency distress call concerning (eternal) life-threatening dangers or soul-threatening dangers that have come upon most souls in the world today. As stated above, “sometimes a Mayday distress call is sent by one vessel on behalf of another vessel in danger. This is known as a Mayday Relay. A Mayday Relay is sometimes necessary if the vessel in danger loses radio communications.” In this case, Our Lady is sending a “Mayday Relay” message to us on behalf of the innumerable souls sinking and drowning in the worldly waters of Satan’s sea. They have lost all communication with God through sin and indifference―therefore Our Lady is pleading on their behalf.
We see an example of Our Lady’s “Mayday Call” at Fatima, during the first of six apparitions, the first of which took place on a MAYDAY―May 13th, 1917. At that May-Day Apparition, Our Lady begged for help with the conversion and salvation of sinners, asking the three little children―aged only 10, 9 and 7―if they would come to aid of sinners by means of prayers and sacrifices: ““Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort!” Our Lady would later give those children a vision of Hell and lamented that so many souls are falling into the fires of Hell because there is nobody to pray and offer sacrifices for them. Here are some more elements from her other “Mayday Calls”:
“Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … The people of God have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence ... Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures is spread all over the Earth. People think of nothing but amusement ... They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, unloosed from Hell, puts an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … The Christian spirit rapidly decays … Many fall into lukewarmness … Many priests lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … They will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … Several abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders break away from the true religion; among these people there are even bishops … . Several religious institutions lose all Faith and lose many souls ...
“There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left offering sacrifice for the sake of the world! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! ... Souls who wish to pray are on the way to being gathered together … Will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time? … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send to you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears, in the privacy of your heart. Implore our Celestial Father ... that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved.” (combination of quotes from Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita).
Think This Through with Fear and Trembling
Satan hates clear thinking Catholics. He prefers to muddle our thoughts, confuse our thinking, and distract us from the truth. Holy Scripture tells us: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12). Why? Because “in the last days, shall come dangerous times! Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God― indeed having an appearance of godliness, but denying the power thereof! … There shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables!” (2 Timothy 3:1-5; 2 Timothy 4:4). Our Lady’s “Mayday Calls” dovetail with the dangers of these last days.
To anyone of sound mind and common sense, it is abundantly clear that we are currently living in those “last days” and “dangerous times” where men have become “lovers of pleasures more than God” while pretending to have “an appearance of godliness.” Most people are “lovers of themselves” more than God and they can no longer “endure sound doctrine” and have “turned to fables”. Those fables include beliefs such as:
► You can be a good Catholic without going to Mass on Sundays.
► 7 out 10 Catholics do not believe in the doctrine of Transubstantiation (the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist).
► 4 out of 10 Christians do not believe in the dogma of the existence of Hell
► 7 out 10 Catholics believe that non-believers can go to Heaven.
► 8 out 10 Catholics believe that there are many religions by which you can get to Heaven.
► 3 out 10 Catholics think that abortion should be legal in all or in most cases.
► 6 out 10 Catholics say sex between unmarried adults in a committed relationship is sometimes or always acceptable.
► 6 out 10 say sex between consenting adults who are not in a committed romantic relationship is sometimes or always acceptable.
► Less that 1 in 10 Catholics think that contraception is sinful.
► 3 out 10 Catholics think that abortion should be legal in all or in most cases.
► 8 out 10 Catholics think homosexuality is acceptable.
► 6 out 10 Catholics support same-sex marriages.
► 7 out 10 Catholics say it’s acceptable for an unmarried couple to live together even if they don’t plan to get married.
All of the above are mortal sins! Yet you would find it hard to convince the adherents of those views that they are mortal sins. It is hardly surprising that many prophecies concerning our times speak of an apostasy from the Faith―which is what the Third Secret of Fatima also seems to indicate. It is with good reason that Our Lord said: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8).
Does this concern us? As already stated above―do we really give a damn about the damned or the potentially damned? Are we risking damning our own souls by not giving a damn about the damnation of other souls? Are we not―by our indifference or neglect―going against the chief law of the Church: “Lex suprema salus animarum est” ― “The supreme law is the salvation of souls”? We most certainly are for we have the Faith, we have sanctifying grace, we have the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Rosary, we have the continuous pleading of the Mother of God to something about the conversion of sinners and the salvation of souls―but we do very little or nothing about it. That boils down to being grave negligence―but Satan will anesthetize our conscience on that matter! He will inject into our conscience the lame excuses of the murderous Cain: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
By our indifference and neglect, we align ourselves with the negligent and uncharitable behavior of the Priest and the Levite in Our Lord’s parable about the Good Samaritan: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead. And it chanced, that a certain priest went down the same way―and, seeing him, passed by. In like manner also, a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But a certain Samaritan, being on his journey, came near him; and seeing him, was moved with compassion. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two pence, and gave to the host, and said: ‘Take care of him; and whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above this, I, at my return, will repay thee!’ Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbor to him that fell among the robbers? But he said: ‘He that showed mercy to him!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Go, and do thou in like manner!’” (Luke 10:30-37). But we don’t do in like manner―we couldn’t care less! We say to ourselves: “It’s not my fault! It’s not my sin! It’s the sinners fault! It’s his sin! Why should I have to look after sinners who deliberately want to sin? It’s not my responsibility! Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Where is your charity? “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and you, being a follower of God, should also be a living example of charity! “God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting!” (John 3:16) … “He that does not love, does not know God―for God is charity. By this has the charity of God appeared towards us, because God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him. In this is charity―not as though we had loved God―but because He first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins! If God had so loved us, then we also ought to love one another! … He that says that he is in the light, but hates his brother―he is in darkness even until now! He that loves his brother, abides in the light, and there is no scandal in him. But he that hates his brother, is in darkness and walks in darkness, and knows not where he goes; because the darkness has blinded his eyes … Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in himself! In this we have known the charity of God, because He has laid down His life for us―and so we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that has the substance of this world and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him?” (1 John 4:8-11, 20; 2:9-11; 3:15-17).
Have we “shut up our bowels” with regard to sinners? Do we fail to pray REGULARLY, CONSISTENTLY and FERVENTLY for their conversion and salvation? Do we fail to make REGULAR sacrifices for their conversion and salvation? Are those intentions REALLY in our hearts? Or is it mere lip-service? Our Lord wants sincerity not lip-service: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8).
Article 15
Sunday May 7th, 2023
How to Make Mary Merry this May
Sunday May 7th, 2023
How to Make Mary Merry this May
Everyone Wants Happiness and Merriment
Everyone wants to be happy, don’t they? St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that every human being naturally seeks happiness. What happiness are you seeking? Happiness can be a very subjective thing―with everyone having their own personal idea of the nature of happiness. Some find happiness in being lazy and doing nothing; others find happiness in sex, drunkenness, drugs and parties; then there are those who find happiness in riches and many possessions; for some happiness is found in health and beauty; others find happiness in having power and control; or it could be knowledge, praise, flattery, fame, sports, work, hobbies, friendships, family, music, television, internet, social media, traveling, cooking, gardening, etc., etc.
Seeking and Finding True Happiness
There is no doubt that some of these things make some people happy, but none of these things make everyone happy, nor do any of these things give perpetual, never-ending happiness. All of these “happinesses” are merely one form or another of imperfect happiness. To summarize St. Thomas Aquinas on the subject of happiness, we see that Thomas teaches that man’s full happiness is not to be found in wealth, whether this be natural wealth (such as food, clothing, housing), or artificial wealth which can provide the items of natural wealth, that is, money. Wealth of any kind is a means for acquiring something else―wealth is a thing that serves; it does not fulfill. Hence it cannot be the true last end of man and the object that will render him enduringly and completely happy.
St. Thomas further says that man’s full happiness cannot consist in honors bestowed because of some excellence in him. Any excellence in a man is in him by reason of some good he already possesses; it means that he already has some degree of happiness. Honors come to him because of this happiness, and therefore honors cannot themselves be the constituting elements of perfect happiness. Nor can man’s full happiness be found in fame and glory, and this they publicize and praise. Fame and glory are consequent upon an imperfect happiness, and are, in some sense, the product of it. They cannot, therefore, be the essential elements of perfect happiness. Nor can man’s perfect happiness consist in the possession of power, for power is not a complete or final end, but a means to a further end. Power is only valuable according to the use to which it may be put. In a word, power looks on to something further; it cannot itself be the ultimate goal.
Man’s ultimate happiness does not consist in goods of the body ― life, health, strength, beauty, agility, etc. ― for these goods preserve the body and its perfections. Merely to preserve life cannot be the end of life. Goods of the body are to be used by reason (intellect and will) somewhat as a ship is used by its master; the master does not use the ship merely to preserve the ship, but to carry profitable cargoes to desired ports. Thus it appears that the goods of the body are means, not complete ends. Besides, man is a rational being as well as a bodily being; he can never be completely fulfilled and satisfied by bodily goods. Pleasures, whether bodily or intellectual, cannot bring a man ultimate happiness. The goods of the soul ― its essence, faculties, acts, habits, perfections ― cannot constitute man’s ultimate end. Happiness is for the soul, and to be attained by the soul.
Where to Find True Happiness
The objective ultimate happiness is something outside the soul, which the soul seeks to bring into itself and possess subjectively. Hence this ultimate end is not the soul itself, nor the goods belonging to the soul. No created good can give man perfect happiness. Only the essential, universal, and boundless good can bring man complete and everlasting fulfillment. No created good is universal, essential, and boundless. Only the uncreated good can be the ultimate end and happiness of man. And this uncreated good is God. Ultimate happiness is the state of fulfillment and satisfaction in a person who has obtained the end for which he is made. Ultimate objective happiness is the reality which, when possessed, will render the possessor subjectively happy by completely fulfilling and satisfying his entire nature. God is man’s objective happiness. Possession of God in the beatific vision is man’s ultimate happiness. In Heaven a man will have some happiness from contemplating the angels, but his pure and perfect happiness must come from contemplating God in the beatific vision. Only in the beatific vision will the human intellect find its perfect object. Possessing this object, the intellect will have nothing further to desire or to seek.
Happy in Heaven or Miserable in Hell
In a nutshell―at the end of the day, or, more correctly, at the end of our life on Earth, we will either be eternally happy in Heaven or eternally miserable in Hell. Purgatory is merely a temporary suffering before being granted eternal happiness in Heaven. Happiness on Earth is imperfect, unfulfilled, diluted with suffering, temporary and short-lived. The only true happiness worth pursuing is the happiness of Heaven, while, at the same time, avoiding the misery of Hell. That is why Our Lord says:
“Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break-in and steal! But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where rust nor moth do not consume, and where thieves do not break-in and steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [riches, worldly pleasures and preoccupations]. Therefore I say to you, be not anxious about your life and what you shall eat; nor anxious about your body and what you shall wear. Is not life more than just meat? And is not the body more than just clothing? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns―yet your heavenly Father feeds them! Are not you of much more value than they? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow―they do not labor, neither do they spin and weave to cloth themselves! But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed as beautifully as one of these! And if the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God does so clothe, then how much more you, O ye of little Faith? Be not anxious therefore, saying: ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘With what shall we be clothed?’ For the heathens seek after all these things! Your Father knows that you have need of all these things! Seek ye first the kingdom of God!” (Matthew 6:19-33). To this Our Lord adds: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
Hence, the Collect or Prayer for the 4th Sunday After Easter (Traditional Latin Rite, a.k.a. Extraordinary Rite) states: “O God, who makest the faithful to be of one mind and will: grant to Thy people the grace to love what Thou dost command and to desire what Thou dost promise, that amid the many changes of the world, our hearts may there be fixed where true joys are to be found.” In other words, let our focus be on the everlasting heavenly joys to come, and not temporary worldly joys that seductively surround us in this life.
Learning the Catechism as children, we were asked: “Why did God make you?” We replied: “God made me to know Him, love Him, serve Him in this life so that I may be happy with Him in Heaven.” In a subtle way, the answer implies that happiness―or at least perfect or full happiness―will not be found in this life. Our Lady of Lourdes indicated the same thing to St. Bernadette Soubirous, when she told her: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life, but in the next!” You could even trace the same idea back to Our Lord at the Last Supper, when He said to His Apostles: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20). When will their sorrow turn to joy? When they die and go to Heaven―and then their joy will be eternal, and not the mere decades of joy enjoyed by worldly here on Earth.
Salvation Brings Happiness
St. Alphonsus Liguori writes: “The business of eternal salvation is certainly an affair that matters more to us than all others―however, it is the most neglected by Christians.” As St. Thomas Aquinas says: “Man is not perfectly happy, so long as something remains for him to desire and seek … Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of God … It is written (Jeremias 9:24): ‘Let him that glories, glory in this, that he understands and knows Me!’ Therefore man’s final glory or happiness consists only in the knowledge of God. And thus it will have its perfection through union with God … The very sight of God causes delight … It is written (Matthew 5:8): ‘Blessed are the clean of heart―for they shall see God’; and (Hebrews 12:14): ‘Follow peace with all men, and holiness―without which no man shall see God!’ … None can obtain Happiness without rectitude of the will. The will of the person who sees God, of necessity loves whatever God loves, in subordination to God … And this is precisely what makes the will right [giving rectitude of will]. Wherefore it is evident that Happiness cannot be without a right will [rectitude of will].” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa, IIa-IIae, questions 3 & 4).
Now what is it that God wills? Apart from mankind loving God giving glory to God, it is our salvation that God wills or wants―and it is by loving and glorifying God that we will sanctify and save our souls. The following quotes elaborate on that statement: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “I have created man, I have formed him and made him for My glory!” (Isaias 43:7). “Give glory to the Lord God!” (Josue 7:19). “They that love Thy Name, shall glory in Thee!” (Psalm 5:12). “Give to the Lord glory and adore the Lord in holy becomingness” (1 Paralipomenon 16:29). “As He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity” (Ephesians 1:4). “According to Him that hath called you, Who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy! Because it is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy!’” (1 Peter 1:15-16).
Christ came to save lost sinners and make them holy, so that they might attain the joys of Heaven. “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son―so that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “God sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17). “The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14). “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32).
Saving sinners gives Christ joy and happiness―as He indicated by this example: “What man of you that has a hundred sheep and, if he shall lose one of them, does he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go after that which was lost, until he find it? And when he has found it, lays it upon his shoulders, rejoicing! And coming home, calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them: ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost!’ I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that does penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance!” (Luke 15:4-6).
Damnation Brings Sorrow
Our Lady―whose will is perfectly united to the Will of God and her Divine Son―obviously finds joy and happiness in the same thing, that is to say: the salvation of souls. She herself has said, to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, that damnation of souls causes her great grief: “Contempt of bodily mortification is the cause of the damnation of many souls and brings many more into the danger of eternal loss. Great was the sorrow, most bitter the grief, of my most holy Son, that not all should make use of the fruits of His Redemption. This same thought also pierced my heart and immensely added to the sorrow of seeing Him spat upon, buffeted, and blasphemed more cruelly than can ever be understood by living man. But I understood all these sufferings clearly and as they should be understood; therefore my sorrow was great in proportion to this knowledge. But next to this sorrow, my greatest one was to know that, after all these death dealing sufferings of the Lord, so many men should still damn themselves. I wish that you imitate and follow me in this sorrow and that you lament this fearful misfortune―for, among all the losses sustained by men, there is none which deserves to be so deplored, nor which can ever be compared to it.
“My Son and I look with especial love upon those who imitate this sorrow and afflict themselves on account of the perdition of so many souls! … Weep bitterly and do not lose the merit of such a sorrow―and let it be so deep, that you find no relief, except in affliction for the sake of the Lord whom you love. Think of what I did, in order to stave off the damnation of Herod and to prevent the damnation of those who wish to avail themselves of my intercession! … So great is my love for sinners, that if they would only call upon me in time and with sincerity, none of them would perish! But the sinners and the reprobate do no such thing―because the wounds of sin do not distress them, and the more often they are committed, the less regret or sorrow do they cause! ... As the Mother of clemency, it is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for failing to call upon me, so many souls should be lost! ... This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict yourself, lament and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls!” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
At Fatima, Our Lady echoes the above sentiments, when she laments the damnation of so many souls and seeks our cooperation in the work of saving sinners from Hell. She said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
Our Lady―just like Our Lord―wants to save souls! It gives her great joy and happiness to be able to save souls who would otherwise be damned. The Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his book The Glories of Mary, writes: “How great, then, should be our confidence in this Queen, knowing her great power with God, and that she is so rich and full of mercy, that there is no one living on the Earth who does not partake of her compassion and favor. This was revealed by our Blessed Lady herself to St. Bridget, saying: ‘I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the door through which sinners are brought to God. There is no sinner on Earth so accursed as to be deprived of my mercy; for all, if they receive nothing else through my intercession, receive the grace of being less tempted by the devils than they would otherwise have been. No one, unless the irrevocable sentence has been pronounced” (that is, the one pronounced on the damned), is so cast off by God that he will not return to him, and enjoy his mercy, if he invokes my aid! I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of my Son towards men has made me thus merciful towards them! Therefore miserable will he be, and miserable will he be to all eternity, who, in this life, having it in his power to invoke me―who am so compassionate to all, and so desirous to assist sinners―is miserable enough not to invoke me, and so is damned!” (Rev. l. 6, c. 10). (St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary, Part 1, Chapter 1, Section 1).
Give Mary Joy by Giving Her Souls!
When St. Dominic Savio first met his future teacher, confessor and spiritual director―St. John Bosco―he noticed a sign on the wall in St. John Bosco’s office, which said, in Latin: “Da mihi animas, cetera tolle!” He asked Don Bosco what those words meant. Don Bosco replied: “Give me souls, take away the rest!” Those were the words that Don Bosco had chosen as the motto for his newly founded Salesian Congregation. It is a motto that would perfectly sum up Our Lady’s approach to mankind―after the love and glorification of God―it is salvation that matters most. This is also stated in the Canon Law of the Church: “The salvation of souls must always be the supreme law in the Church” (Canon 1752)―which is based upon an axiom from the Laws of Ancient Rome ― “salus populi suprema lex” ― which means: “the supreme law is the welfare of the people” and this forms the basis for the principle established in the Church in the twelfth century: “salus animarum suprema lex” ― “the supreme law is the salvation of souls”, which is now the final canon of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.
Our Lady greatly desires the salvation of souls of sinners―as well as the appeasement and placation of the God, Who has been greatly offended by their sins. This is the consistent message that comes out of most of her modern-day apparitions.
► At AKITA, in Japan, in 1973, Our Lady stated: “In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind. With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father ... Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
► At FATIMA, Our Lady invited us to do the same thing―appease God and pray and sacrifice for conversion of sinners: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
► At LA SALETTE, it is more or less the same message: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually! And all of you think little of this! … The sins of men are the cause of all the troubles on this Earth. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement! … The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin! … I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son! … Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … Prayers, penances and tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession!”
► At QUITO in Ecuador, Our Lady of Good Success stated: “Woe to the children of these times! It will be difficult to receive the Sacrament of Baptism, and also that of Confirmation. Making use of persons in positions of authority, the devil will assiduously try to destroy the Sacrament of Confession ... The life-giving Sacrament of Penance is forgotten and even scorned by ungrateful men, who in their foolish madness, do not realize that it is the only sure means of salvation after one has lost his baptismal innocence. What is most grievous is that even the ministers of My Most Holy Son do not give to it the value that they should, viewing with cold indifference this valuable and precious treasure! There are those who consider hearing confession as a loss of time and a futile thing! …
“The same will happen with Holy Communion. Alas! How deeply I grieve upon manifesting to you the many and horrible sacrileges — both public and also secret — that will occur from profanations of the Holy Eucharist! Often during this epoch, the enemies of Jesus Christ, instigated by the demon, will steal consecrated hosts from the churches, so that they might profane the Eucharistic Species. My Most Holy Son will see Himself cast upon the ground and trampled upon by irreverent feet …
“The Sacrament of Matrimony will be attacked and profaned … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of doing away with this Sacrament, making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church ...
“The Sacrament of Extreme Unction will be little esteemed. Many people will die without receiving it …
“The Sacred Sacrament of Holy Orders will be ridiculed, oppressed and despised. ... The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation …
“Moreover, in these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to ensnare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women. The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world! Those who should speak out will be silent!
“Oh, if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! But some let themselves be dazzled by the false glamour of honors and human greatness, while others are blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness, that immense evil which destroys fervor, humility, and self-renunciation … Oh, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall! …
“Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents.
“In order to free men from bondage to these heresies, those souls―whom the merciful love of my Most Holy Son has designated to effect the restoration―will need great strength of will, constancy, valor and confidence in God. To test this Faith and confidence of the just, there will be occasions when all will seem to be lost and paralyzed.” (Words of Our Lady of Good Success, in Quito, Ecuador).
Flowers or Souls?
What then is it that Our Lady would like during this month of May? What would make her happier? Flowers placed on the head of one of her statues? Or would she be happier with the conversion of sinners? St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his book, The Glories of Mary, writes: “The greatest and most abandoned sinners … have to be her crown in Heaven; according to the words addressed to her by her Divine Spouse: “Come from Libanus, my spouse! Come from Libanus, come! Thou shalt be crowned ... from the dens of the lions from the mountains of the leopards!” (Canticles 55:8). And what are these dens of beasts, but miserable sinners, whose souls have become the home of sin, the most frightful monster that can be found. “With such souls,” says the Abbot Rupert, addressing our Blessed Lady, “saved by thy means, O great Queen Mary, wilt thou be crowned in Heaven; for their salvation will form a diadem worthy of, and well-becoming, a Queen of Mercy” (In Canticles 1, iii). In other words, Our Lady would prefer a crown of converted sinners rather than a crown of mere flowers! Not that crowning Our Lady with flowers is wrong in any way―but there are better flowers than mere flowers with which we can crown her―that is to say the sinner who finally begins to blossom and flower after we have sufficiently paid for his or her conversion by our many prayers and sacrifices!
Everyone wants to be happy, don’t they? St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that every human being naturally seeks happiness. What happiness are you seeking? Happiness can be a very subjective thing―with everyone having their own personal idea of the nature of happiness. Some find happiness in being lazy and doing nothing; others find happiness in sex, drunkenness, drugs and parties; then there are those who find happiness in riches and many possessions; for some happiness is found in health and beauty; others find happiness in having power and control; or it could be knowledge, praise, flattery, fame, sports, work, hobbies, friendships, family, music, television, internet, social media, traveling, cooking, gardening, etc., etc.
Seeking and Finding True Happiness
There is no doubt that some of these things make some people happy, but none of these things make everyone happy, nor do any of these things give perpetual, never-ending happiness. All of these “happinesses” are merely one form or another of imperfect happiness. To summarize St. Thomas Aquinas on the subject of happiness, we see that Thomas teaches that man’s full happiness is not to be found in wealth, whether this be natural wealth (such as food, clothing, housing), or artificial wealth which can provide the items of natural wealth, that is, money. Wealth of any kind is a means for acquiring something else―wealth is a thing that serves; it does not fulfill. Hence it cannot be the true last end of man and the object that will render him enduringly and completely happy.
St. Thomas further says that man’s full happiness cannot consist in honors bestowed because of some excellence in him. Any excellence in a man is in him by reason of some good he already possesses; it means that he already has some degree of happiness. Honors come to him because of this happiness, and therefore honors cannot themselves be the constituting elements of perfect happiness. Nor can man’s full happiness be found in fame and glory, and this they publicize and praise. Fame and glory are consequent upon an imperfect happiness, and are, in some sense, the product of it. They cannot, therefore, be the essential elements of perfect happiness. Nor can man’s perfect happiness consist in the possession of power, for power is not a complete or final end, but a means to a further end. Power is only valuable according to the use to which it may be put. In a word, power looks on to something further; it cannot itself be the ultimate goal.
Man’s ultimate happiness does not consist in goods of the body ― life, health, strength, beauty, agility, etc. ― for these goods preserve the body and its perfections. Merely to preserve life cannot be the end of life. Goods of the body are to be used by reason (intellect and will) somewhat as a ship is used by its master; the master does not use the ship merely to preserve the ship, but to carry profitable cargoes to desired ports. Thus it appears that the goods of the body are means, not complete ends. Besides, man is a rational being as well as a bodily being; he can never be completely fulfilled and satisfied by bodily goods. Pleasures, whether bodily or intellectual, cannot bring a man ultimate happiness. The goods of the soul ― its essence, faculties, acts, habits, perfections ― cannot constitute man’s ultimate end. Happiness is for the soul, and to be attained by the soul.
Where to Find True Happiness
The objective ultimate happiness is something outside the soul, which the soul seeks to bring into itself and possess subjectively. Hence this ultimate end is not the soul itself, nor the goods belonging to the soul. No created good can give man perfect happiness. Only the essential, universal, and boundless good can bring man complete and everlasting fulfillment. No created good is universal, essential, and boundless. Only the uncreated good can be the ultimate end and happiness of man. And this uncreated good is God. Ultimate happiness is the state of fulfillment and satisfaction in a person who has obtained the end for which he is made. Ultimate objective happiness is the reality which, when possessed, will render the possessor subjectively happy by completely fulfilling and satisfying his entire nature. God is man’s objective happiness. Possession of God in the beatific vision is man’s ultimate happiness. In Heaven a man will have some happiness from contemplating the angels, but his pure and perfect happiness must come from contemplating God in the beatific vision. Only in the beatific vision will the human intellect find its perfect object. Possessing this object, the intellect will have nothing further to desire or to seek.
Happy in Heaven or Miserable in Hell
In a nutshell―at the end of the day, or, more correctly, at the end of our life on Earth, we will either be eternally happy in Heaven or eternally miserable in Hell. Purgatory is merely a temporary suffering before being granted eternal happiness in Heaven. Happiness on Earth is imperfect, unfulfilled, diluted with suffering, temporary and short-lived. The only true happiness worth pursuing is the happiness of Heaven, while, at the same time, avoiding the misery of Hell. That is why Our Lord says:
“Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break-in and steal! But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where rust nor moth do not consume, and where thieves do not break-in and steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [riches, worldly pleasures and preoccupations]. Therefore I say to you, be not anxious about your life and what you shall eat; nor anxious about your body and what you shall wear. Is not life more than just meat? And is not the body more than just clothing? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns―yet your heavenly Father feeds them! Are not you of much more value than they? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow―they do not labor, neither do they spin and weave to cloth themselves! But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed as beautifully as one of these! And if the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God does so clothe, then how much more you, O ye of little Faith? Be not anxious therefore, saying: ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘With what shall we be clothed?’ For the heathens seek after all these things! Your Father knows that you have need of all these things! Seek ye first the kingdom of God!” (Matthew 6:19-33). To this Our Lord adds: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
Hence, the Collect or Prayer for the 4th Sunday After Easter (Traditional Latin Rite, a.k.a. Extraordinary Rite) states: “O God, who makest the faithful to be of one mind and will: grant to Thy people the grace to love what Thou dost command and to desire what Thou dost promise, that amid the many changes of the world, our hearts may there be fixed where true joys are to be found.” In other words, let our focus be on the everlasting heavenly joys to come, and not temporary worldly joys that seductively surround us in this life.
Learning the Catechism as children, we were asked: “Why did God make you?” We replied: “God made me to know Him, love Him, serve Him in this life so that I may be happy with Him in Heaven.” In a subtle way, the answer implies that happiness―or at least perfect or full happiness―will not be found in this life. Our Lady of Lourdes indicated the same thing to St. Bernadette Soubirous, when she told her: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life, but in the next!” You could even trace the same idea back to Our Lord at the Last Supper, when He said to His Apostles: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20). When will their sorrow turn to joy? When they die and go to Heaven―and then their joy will be eternal, and not the mere decades of joy enjoyed by worldly here on Earth.
Salvation Brings Happiness
St. Alphonsus Liguori writes: “The business of eternal salvation is certainly an affair that matters more to us than all others―however, it is the most neglected by Christians.” As St. Thomas Aquinas says: “Man is not perfectly happy, so long as something remains for him to desire and seek … Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of God … It is written (Jeremias 9:24): ‘Let him that glories, glory in this, that he understands and knows Me!’ Therefore man’s final glory or happiness consists only in the knowledge of God. And thus it will have its perfection through union with God … The very sight of God causes delight … It is written (Matthew 5:8): ‘Blessed are the clean of heart―for they shall see God’; and (Hebrews 12:14): ‘Follow peace with all men, and holiness―without which no man shall see God!’ … None can obtain Happiness without rectitude of the will. The will of the person who sees God, of necessity loves whatever God loves, in subordination to God … And this is precisely what makes the will right [giving rectitude of will]. Wherefore it is evident that Happiness cannot be without a right will [rectitude of will].” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa, IIa-IIae, questions 3 & 4).
Now what is it that God wills? Apart from mankind loving God giving glory to God, it is our salvation that God wills or wants―and it is by loving and glorifying God that we will sanctify and save our souls. The following quotes elaborate on that statement: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “I have created man, I have formed him and made him for My glory!” (Isaias 43:7). “Give glory to the Lord God!” (Josue 7:19). “They that love Thy Name, shall glory in Thee!” (Psalm 5:12). “Give to the Lord glory and adore the Lord in holy becomingness” (1 Paralipomenon 16:29). “As He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity” (Ephesians 1:4). “According to Him that hath called you, Who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy! Because it is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy!’” (1 Peter 1:15-16).
Christ came to save lost sinners and make them holy, so that they might attain the joys of Heaven. “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son―so that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “God sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17). “The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14). “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32).
Saving sinners gives Christ joy and happiness―as He indicated by this example: “What man of you that has a hundred sheep and, if he shall lose one of them, does he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go after that which was lost, until he find it? And when he has found it, lays it upon his shoulders, rejoicing! And coming home, calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them: ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost!’ I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that does penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance!” (Luke 15:4-6).
Damnation Brings Sorrow
Our Lady―whose will is perfectly united to the Will of God and her Divine Son―obviously finds joy and happiness in the same thing, that is to say: the salvation of souls. She herself has said, to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, that damnation of souls causes her great grief: “Contempt of bodily mortification is the cause of the damnation of many souls and brings many more into the danger of eternal loss. Great was the sorrow, most bitter the grief, of my most holy Son, that not all should make use of the fruits of His Redemption. This same thought also pierced my heart and immensely added to the sorrow of seeing Him spat upon, buffeted, and blasphemed more cruelly than can ever be understood by living man. But I understood all these sufferings clearly and as they should be understood; therefore my sorrow was great in proportion to this knowledge. But next to this sorrow, my greatest one was to know that, after all these death dealing sufferings of the Lord, so many men should still damn themselves. I wish that you imitate and follow me in this sorrow and that you lament this fearful misfortune―for, among all the losses sustained by men, there is none which deserves to be so deplored, nor which can ever be compared to it.
“My Son and I look with especial love upon those who imitate this sorrow and afflict themselves on account of the perdition of so many souls! … Weep bitterly and do not lose the merit of such a sorrow―and let it be so deep, that you find no relief, except in affliction for the sake of the Lord whom you love. Think of what I did, in order to stave off the damnation of Herod and to prevent the damnation of those who wish to avail themselves of my intercession! … So great is my love for sinners, that if they would only call upon me in time and with sincerity, none of them would perish! But the sinners and the reprobate do no such thing―because the wounds of sin do not distress them, and the more often they are committed, the less regret or sorrow do they cause! ... As the Mother of clemency, it is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for failing to call upon me, so many souls should be lost! ... This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict yourself, lament and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls!” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
At Fatima, Our Lady echoes the above sentiments, when she laments the damnation of so many souls and seeks our cooperation in the work of saving sinners from Hell. She said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
Our Lady―just like Our Lord―wants to save souls! It gives her great joy and happiness to be able to save souls who would otherwise be damned. The Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his book The Glories of Mary, writes: “How great, then, should be our confidence in this Queen, knowing her great power with God, and that she is so rich and full of mercy, that there is no one living on the Earth who does not partake of her compassion and favor. This was revealed by our Blessed Lady herself to St. Bridget, saying: ‘I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the door through which sinners are brought to God. There is no sinner on Earth so accursed as to be deprived of my mercy; for all, if they receive nothing else through my intercession, receive the grace of being less tempted by the devils than they would otherwise have been. No one, unless the irrevocable sentence has been pronounced” (that is, the one pronounced on the damned), is so cast off by God that he will not return to him, and enjoy his mercy, if he invokes my aid! I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of my Son towards men has made me thus merciful towards them! Therefore miserable will he be, and miserable will he be to all eternity, who, in this life, having it in his power to invoke me―who am so compassionate to all, and so desirous to assist sinners―is miserable enough not to invoke me, and so is damned!” (Rev. l. 6, c. 10). (St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary, Part 1, Chapter 1, Section 1).
Give Mary Joy by Giving Her Souls!
When St. Dominic Savio first met his future teacher, confessor and spiritual director―St. John Bosco―he noticed a sign on the wall in St. John Bosco’s office, which said, in Latin: “Da mihi animas, cetera tolle!” He asked Don Bosco what those words meant. Don Bosco replied: “Give me souls, take away the rest!” Those were the words that Don Bosco had chosen as the motto for his newly founded Salesian Congregation. It is a motto that would perfectly sum up Our Lady’s approach to mankind―after the love and glorification of God―it is salvation that matters most. This is also stated in the Canon Law of the Church: “The salvation of souls must always be the supreme law in the Church” (Canon 1752)―which is based upon an axiom from the Laws of Ancient Rome ― “salus populi suprema lex” ― which means: “the supreme law is the welfare of the people” and this forms the basis for the principle established in the Church in the twelfth century: “salus animarum suprema lex” ― “the supreme law is the salvation of souls”, which is now the final canon of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.
Our Lady greatly desires the salvation of souls of sinners―as well as the appeasement and placation of the God, Who has been greatly offended by their sins. This is the consistent message that comes out of most of her modern-day apparitions.
► At AKITA, in Japan, in 1973, Our Lady stated: “In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind. With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father ... Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
► At FATIMA, Our Lady invited us to do the same thing―appease God and pray and sacrifice for conversion of sinners: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
► At LA SALETTE, it is more or less the same message: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually! And all of you think little of this! … The sins of men are the cause of all the troubles on this Earth. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement! … The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin! … I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son! … Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … Prayers, penances and tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession!”
► At QUITO in Ecuador, Our Lady of Good Success stated: “Woe to the children of these times! It will be difficult to receive the Sacrament of Baptism, and also that of Confirmation. Making use of persons in positions of authority, the devil will assiduously try to destroy the Sacrament of Confession ... The life-giving Sacrament of Penance is forgotten and even scorned by ungrateful men, who in their foolish madness, do not realize that it is the only sure means of salvation after one has lost his baptismal innocence. What is most grievous is that even the ministers of My Most Holy Son do not give to it the value that they should, viewing with cold indifference this valuable and precious treasure! There are those who consider hearing confession as a loss of time and a futile thing! …
“The same will happen with Holy Communion. Alas! How deeply I grieve upon manifesting to you the many and horrible sacrileges — both public and also secret — that will occur from profanations of the Holy Eucharist! Often during this epoch, the enemies of Jesus Christ, instigated by the demon, will steal consecrated hosts from the churches, so that they might profane the Eucharistic Species. My Most Holy Son will see Himself cast upon the ground and trampled upon by irreverent feet …
“The Sacrament of Matrimony will be attacked and profaned … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of doing away with this Sacrament, making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church ...
“The Sacrament of Extreme Unction will be little esteemed. Many people will die without receiving it …
“The Sacred Sacrament of Holy Orders will be ridiculed, oppressed and despised. ... The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation …
“Moreover, in these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to ensnare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women. The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world! Those who should speak out will be silent!
“Oh, if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! But some let themselves be dazzled by the false glamour of honors and human greatness, while others are blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness, that immense evil which destroys fervor, humility, and self-renunciation … Oh, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall! …
“Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents.
“In order to free men from bondage to these heresies, those souls―whom the merciful love of my Most Holy Son has designated to effect the restoration―will need great strength of will, constancy, valor and confidence in God. To test this Faith and confidence of the just, there will be occasions when all will seem to be lost and paralyzed.” (Words of Our Lady of Good Success, in Quito, Ecuador).
Flowers or Souls?
What then is it that Our Lady would like during this month of May? What would make her happier? Flowers placed on the head of one of her statues? Or would she be happier with the conversion of sinners? St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his book, The Glories of Mary, writes: “The greatest and most abandoned sinners … have to be her crown in Heaven; according to the words addressed to her by her Divine Spouse: “Come from Libanus, my spouse! Come from Libanus, come! Thou shalt be crowned ... from the dens of the lions from the mountains of the leopards!” (Canticles 55:8). And what are these dens of beasts, but miserable sinners, whose souls have become the home of sin, the most frightful monster that can be found. “With such souls,” says the Abbot Rupert, addressing our Blessed Lady, “saved by thy means, O great Queen Mary, wilt thou be crowned in Heaven; for their salvation will form a diadem worthy of, and well-becoming, a Queen of Mercy” (In Canticles 1, iii). In other words, Our Lady would prefer a crown of converted sinners rather than a crown of mere flowers! Not that crowning Our Lady with flowers is wrong in any way―but there are better flowers than mere flowers with which we can crown her―that is to say the sinner who finally begins to blossom and flower after we have sufficiently paid for his or her conversion by our many prayers and sacrifices!
Article 14
Friday May 5th, 2023
The History of the Merry (Mary) Month of May
Friday May 5th, 2023
The History of the Merry (Mary) Month of May
Pagan Roots Produce Pagan Fruits
As Our Lord said: “Every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit! A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit! Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire! Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:17-20). The roots of May Day were pagan―and therefore it is hardly surprising that its fruits would be pagan and sinful. May Day was one of the four great pagan festivals of the year ― and one that was later taken over by the Church in its attempts to Christianize the pagan world. Ancient religion was based on the cycle of nature, and in the cold northern realms, the coming of spring and its explosion of new life had enormous religious significance for our ancestors.
Even the name May gives away the meaning of the festival. Maia was an ancient Greek goddess of spring, so the month of May was special to the goddess who had brought new life. In ancient Greece and Rome the month of May was dedicated to pagan goddesses connected to fertility and springtime (Artemis and Flora, respectively). They celebrated ludi florals, or floral games, at the end of April and asked the intercession of Flora for all that blooms. The name “Maia” has some connection with the word “Ma” or “mam” or “mamma” ― meaning mother, so it is likely that the ancient Britons had a goddess with a similar name. This is certainly true in Wales―for the modern Welsh Mayday is called “Calan Mai.” The Scots and Irish call it “Beltane” ― which is the Gaelic word for the month of May, and which emphasizes the solar aspect.
In medieval times, similar customs abounded, all centering around the practice of expelling winter, as May 1st was considered the start of new growth. This, combined with other European rituals commemorating the new season of spring, led many Western cultures to view May as a month of life and motherhood. This was long before “Mother’s Day” was ever conceived, though the modern celebration is closely related to this innate desire to honor maternity during the spring months.
Sinful Pagan Revelry
Ancient British May revelries were exciting for many pagans, because the people “let their hair down” for a day and a night. Young people used to spend the Mayday eve in the woodland, collecting boughs and greenery to take home with them. This was to identify with the spirit of May and the renewal of life that it brings. The Puritan writer, Stubbes, writing in his “Anatomie of Abuses”, declared that young people enter the woods on Mayday Eve and scarcely any come back virgins. Stubbes wanted the custom banned, but the people did not―and so it carried on. Next day the young people would go around garlanded, singing at doors and passing round a collection bucket for the festivities. It was considered impolite to refuse them. The peak of the festival was dancing round the Maypole. Symbolically the Maypole is meant to be a sacred tree to the goddess, and the strands by which the revelers bind themselves to it are symbolic of their dedication to her. Most village Maypoles were small, but some were made to rival church spires in size, such as the one in the Strand in London, which was 134 feet high.
The most popular pagan character is the May Queen―a young girl who is symbolic of the goddess. She is still seen in pageants at this time or at other May festivities. There used to be a May King, but he fell from fashion quite early. Jack-in-the-Green is still found occasionally. He is a figure clad almost entirely in a cloak of greenery, symbolizing the woodland sprite, sometimes known as Robin Goodfellow. In Anglo-Saxon times he was a half-wild nature spirit, known as Puca, now known as Puck, whom we find in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Kiplings’s Puck of Pook’s Hill. He symbolizes the wild male sexual energy that complements the May Queen’s femininity.
Christianization of Paganism and Pagan May
The Catholic Church has often taken a pagan festival and “trumped-it” with one of its own Catholic feasts―in order to break the hold that paganism had on people. Thus the pagan goddesses were “trumped” by the Mother of God by giving her a feast day within the month of May. No other month would seem to be better fitted for dedication to Our Lady than May, the month that finally conquers winter and that sees all the spring flowers in blossom. The medieval Catholic Church accommodated to ancient festivals as a means of converting pagans to Christianity. The pagan month in honor of pagan goddess Maia was now dedicated to Mary, the Mother of Jesus and the Mother of God―and her statue was often garlanded with flowers as a sign of her divine fertility. Many might still remember the now rare Catholic churches May processions, which culminated in the crowning of the statue of the Virgin Mary with a crown adorned with blossoms. Even into to the 1960s, the Catholic Church would hold processions in honor of Mary. A May Queen would be chosen from within the parish―usually a girl of around seven to ten years of age, symbolizing the purity of Mary―who would then crown the statue of Mary with flowers. In some places there was the May Carol, which celebrated the ancient traditions of collecting branches, but which thanked God the Father for the land’s fertility:
“I’ve been rambling all the night,
And the best part of the day
Now I am returning back again
And I have brought Thee, Lord, a branch of May.”
“The Branch of May” and Mary
The reference to “a branch of May” refers to the Common Hawthorn, also known as May Blossom (Crataegus monogyna), May tree, Quickthorn―which are the native species Hawthorn in the British Isles, Ireland and Northern Europe. Flowering in the middle of May, its folk name of “May Blossom” derives from the older calendar when 1st May, or May Day, coincided with its flowering. Its white flower perfectly symbolizes the purity of Mary.
Incidentally, in the realm of private revelation, Our Lady is said to have told the mystic and stigmatist Marie Jahenny: “There will be serious diseases that human art (skill) cannot alleviate. This malady will attack the heart first, then the mind, and at the same time, the tongue. It will be horrible. The heat that will accompany it will be a consuming fire, so strong that the affected parts of the body will be of an unbearable redness, (red blotches / patches). After seven days, this malady, like the seed sown in a field, will rise rapidly and make immense progress (i.e. take over the body quickly, or, spread through the population quickly). My children, this is the only remedy that can save you―You know the leaves of thorns that grow in almost any hedges (white hawthorn). The leaves of this thorn will stop the progress of the disease. You must pick the leaves, not the wood. Even dry, they will retain their effectiveness. Put them in boiling water and leave them there for 14 minutes, covering the container so that the steam remains. When the malady first attacks, you must use this remedy three times a day. My children, this disease will be very serious in Brittany (NW France). The thought of God there will be less great ...(i.e., they will not think of God as much as before and therefore will be struck hardest with this malady). The malady will produce a continual uprising of the heart (blood pressure? Increased heart rate?) and vomiting. If the remedy is taken too late, the affected parts will become black, and in this black, there will be yellowish pale streaks. The flowers may also be used, and, the tea may be reheated and used again as long as it is kept covered, and reheated while covered.”
If you research the medical properties of the White Hawthorn according to modern science, you will find that herbalist and alternative medicines site declare it is a powerful form of natural digitalis, a heart medication. The hawthorn leaves, berries, and flowers are used as medicine. Hawthorn contains flavonoids which have antioxidant effects, as well as tannins, essential oils, fruit acids and sugars. The plant also contains vitamins B and C. They have anti-inflammatory properties. Hawthorn is used to help protect against heart disease and help control high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Both animal and human studies suggest hawthorn increases coronary artery blood flow, improves circulation, and lowers blood pressure. For hundreds of years, people have used hawthorn berry as an herbal remedy for digestive problems, heart issues, and high blood pressure. In fact, the berry has been a key part of traditional Chinese medicine since at least 659 A.D. Interestingly, herbalists say that when making an herbal tea as a beverage or health purposes, the herbs must be steep for approximately 14 minutes (just as Our Lady said) in a closed container―such as a pot with a lid―to ensure all the essential oils are infused, and, not lost in the steam.
Please be aware that when using the leaves if you are already taking prescriptions for lowering blood pressure or have heart issues, then the Hawthorn Tea could lower your pressure too much if you are already on medications. Be careful!
The Merry Mary Month of May
Who doesn’t like being merry!!? In a sense, God made us to be merry―if you take “merry” and “happy” to be synonyms, or words with similar meanings. The answer to the Catechism question: “Why did God make you?” is “God made me to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this life and to be happy with Him in the next life!” ― you could just as well say: “…to be merry with Him in the next life!” Though the word “happy” seems to suggest more of a quiet contentment and the word “merry” suggest something of a revelry―making merry would seem to include festive activities such as dancing, eating rich foods, and playing games with friends. Or again, “happy” could be said to be more of a personal feeling, whereas merry might be said to be a communal expression of happiness.
That aside, the question naturally arises to any inquisitive mind: “Why do call May the ‘merry’ month of May?” What is special about May? Why not the merry month of January, February, March, April, June, July, August, September, October, November or December? Hey! Shouldn’t December be the “merry month”―since we all go around wishing each other a ‘Merry Christmas’?”
Well, before getting to the “Merry” month of May, let us first look at the “Mary” month of May―for “Mary” is the reason for the “Merry”.
May for Mary
Though it has nothing at all to do with the question nor the answer to why May is the Month of Mary―you can immediately see that the word “Mary” contains all the letters from the word “May”! Just a digression!
May is the month for celebrating religion with merriment or, you could say, “Mary-ment” ― as the Latin noun, “mens, mentis” means “mind” and “of the mind” ― and Mary most certainly should be on our mind! It is a month of Marian devotion in the Catholic Church in honor of the Virgin Mary as “The Queen of May.”
For centuries, the Catholic Church has set aside the entire month of Mary to honor Mary, Mother of God. Not just a day in May, mind you, but the entire month. A number of traditions link the month of May to Mary. There are many different factors that contributed to this association. First of all, in ancient Greece and Rome the month of May was dedicated to pagan goddesses connected to fertility and springtime (Artemis and Flora, respectively). They celebrated ludi florals, or floral games, at the end of April and asked the intercession of Flora for all that blooms.
In medieval times, similar customs abounded, all centering around the practice of expelling winter, as May 1st was considered the start of new growth. This, combined with other European rituals commemorating the new season of spring, led many Western cultures to view May as a month of life and motherhood. This was long before “Mother’s Day” was ever conceived, though the modern celebration is closely related to this innate desire to honor maternity during the spring months.
The Catholic Church has often taken a pagan festival and “trumped-it” with one of its own Catholic feasts―in order to break the hold that paganism had on people. Thus the pagan goddesses were “trumped” by the Mother of God by giving her a feast day within the month of May.
No other month would seem to be better fitted for dedication to Our Lady than May, the month that finally conquers winter and that sees all the spring flowers in blossom. In “Merrie Olde England” ― or should we say, “Merrie Olde Catholic England” (prior to the Protestant Reformation) ― May was closely associated with Mary. How close the common association of Mary with the hedgerow flowers has always been, one can see by the very names that we still give to these flowers. Lady’s Smock, Marigold, Lady’s Thistle, Lady’s Bedstraw, May Blossom (Hawthorn Flower)―are all named after Mary. Early, on the first day of her month — “the merry month” — it was once universal in Catholic England (prior to the Protestant Reformation) to go maying, when “every man, except those with an impediment, would walk in the sweet meadows and green woods, there to rejoice their spirits with the beauty and savor of sweet flowers and with the harmony of birds praising God in their kind,” while they collected branches of hawthorn or may, so that there was no house door nor window, no church nor street, that was not decorated with green branches. Men wore sprigs of May in their hats; women who had risen long before dawn to pick Cowslips, Primroses and Wild Violets made them into garlands and hung them up in the churches. Why should the first of May not be the day when all Catholics wear flowers in honor of Mary? The May Blossom (Hawthorn Flower) is probably one of the easiest blossoms to get hold of, since it a hedgerow blossom (one that grows on the roadside), but if it is impossible, then any spring flower could be worn. After all, people wear flowers and vegetation to the honor of St. George, St. Patrick, St. David and St. Andrew, so why should they not do so in Our Lady’s honor?
May and Mary from Earliest Times
In the early Church there is evidence of a major feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary celebrated on the 15th of May each year, but it wasn’t until the 18th century that May received a particular association with the Virgin Mary. Alfonso, in the 13th century wrote, in his Cantigas de Santa Maria, about the special honoring of Mary during specific dates in May. Eventually, the entire month was filled with special observances and devotions to Mary. This possibly was inspired by a very old tradition known as Tricesimum (or: Thirty-Day Devotion to Mary; also called Lady Month) which was originally held from August 15th to September 14th. Although it wasn’t held during May, Mary Month included thirty daily spiritual exercises honoring Mary. The centerpiece of the devotion was the recitation of the Rosary, but the Tricesimum was celebrated at different times of the year in different places. The exact dates or origin of this devotion are unknown, though it came into existence during the Middle-Ages, but the custom is still practiced here and there.
The origin of the conventional May devotion is still relatively unknown. The renowned Church liturgist, Fr. Herbert Thurston, identifies the seventeenth century as the earliest instance of the adoption of the custom of consecrating the whole month of May to the Blessed Virgin by special observances. It is certain that this form of Marian devotion began in Italy. Around 1739, witnesses speak of a particular form of Marian devotion in May in Grezzano near Verona. In 1747 the Archbishop of Genoa recommended the May devotion as a devotion for the home. Specific prayers for them were promulgated in Rome in 1838.
Between 1883 and 1899, Pope Leo XIII published a dozen encyclicals and several Apostolic Letters on the Rosary, in which he encouraged Catholics to set aside May as Mary’s month. Thus it became firmly established in the Catholic imagination and remains in practice until today.
According to Frederick Holweck, the May devotion in its present form originated at Rome at the end of the 18th century, where Father Latomia, of the Roman College of the Society of Jesus, made a vow, to devote the month of May to Mary to counteract infidelity and immorality among the students. From Rome, the practice spread to the other Jesuit colleges and from there to nearly every Catholic church of the Latin Rite. In Rome, by 1813, May devotions were held in as many as twenty churches. From Italy, May devotions soon spread to France. In Belgium, the May devotions, at least as a private devotion, were already known by 1803. The tradition of honoring Mary in a month-long May devotion spread eventually throughout the Roman Catholic world in the 19th century following in the already earlier established traditions of a month-long devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in June and month-long devotion to the Holy Rosary in October.
As Our Lord said: “Every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit! A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit! Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire! Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:17-20). The roots of May Day were pagan―and therefore it is hardly surprising that its fruits would be pagan and sinful. May Day was one of the four great pagan festivals of the year ― and one that was later taken over by the Church in its attempts to Christianize the pagan world. Ancient religion was based on the cycle of nature, and in the cold northern realms, the coming of spring and its explosion of new life had enormous religious significance for our ancestors.
Even the name May gives away the meaning of the festival. Maia was an ancient Greek goddess of spring, so the month of May was special to the goddess who had brought new life. In ancient Greece and Rome the month of May was dedicated to pagan goddesses connected to fertility and springtime (Artemis and Flora, respectively). They celebrated ludi florals, or floral games, at the end of April and asked the intercession of Flora for all that blooms. The name “Maia” has some connection with the word “Ma” or “mam” or “mamma” ― meaning mother, so it is likely that the ancient Britons had a goddess with a similar name. This is certainly true in Wales―for the modern Welsh Mayday is called “Calan Mai.” The Scots and Irish call it “Beltane” ― which is the Gaelic word for the month of May, and which emphasizes the solar aspect.
In medieval times, similar customs abounded, all centering around the practice of expelling winter, as May 1st was considered the start of new growth. This, combined with other European rituals commemorating the new season of spring, led many Western cultures to view May as a month of life and motherhood. This was long before “Mother’s Day” was ever conceived, though the modern celebration is closely related to this innate desire to honor maternity during the spring months.
Sinful Pagan Revelry
Ancient British May revelries were exciting for many pagans, because the people “let their hair down” for a day and a night. Young people used to spend the Mayday eve in the woodland, collecting boughs and greenery to take home with them. This was to identify with the spirit of May and the renewal of life that it brings. The Puritan writer, Stubbes, writing in his “Anatomie of Abuses”, declared that young people enter the woods on Mayday Eve and scarcely any come back virgins. Stubbes wanted the custom banned, but the people did not―and so it carried on. Next day the young people would go around garlanded, singing at doors and passing round a collection bucket for the festivities. It was considered impolite to refuse them. The peak of the festival was dancing round the Maypole. Symbolically the Maypole is meant to be a sacred tree to the goddess, and the strands by which the revelers bind themselves to it are symbolic of their dedication to her. Most village Maypoles were small, but some were made to rival church spires in size, such as the one in the Strand in London, which was 134 feet high.
The most popular pagan character is the May Queen―a young girl who is symbolic of the goddess. She is still seen in pageants at this time or at other May festivities. There used to be a May King, but he fell from fashion quite early. Jack-in-the-Green is still found occasionally. He is a figure clad almost entirely in a cloak of greenery, symbolizing the woodland sprite, sometimes known as Robin Goodfellow. In Anglo-Saxon times he was a half-wild nature spirit, known as Puca, now known as Puck, whom we find in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Kiplings’s Puck of Pook’s Hill. He symbolizes the wild male sexual energy that complements the May Queen’s femininity.
Christianization of Paganism and Pagan May
The Catholic Church has often taken a pagan festival and “trumped-it” with one of its own Catholic feasts―in order to break the hold that paganism had on people. Thus the pagan goddesses were “trumped” by the Mother of God by giving her a feast day within the month of May. No other month would seem to be better fitted for dedication to Our Lady than May, the month that finally conquers winter and that sees all the spring flowers in blossom. The medieval Catholic Church accommodated to ancient festivals as a means of converting pagans to Christianity. The pagan month in honor of pagan goddess Maia was now dedicated to Mary, the Mother of Jesus and the Mother of God―and her statue was often garlanded with flowers as a sign of her divine fertility. Many might still remember the now rare Catholic churches May processions, which culminated in the crowning of the statue of the Virgin Mary with a crown adorned with blossoms. Even into to the 1960s, the Catholic Church would hold processions in honor of Mary. A May Queen would be chosen from within the parish―usually a girl of around seven to ten years of age, symbolizing the purity of Mary―who would then crown the statue of Mary with flowers. In some places there was the May Carol, which celebrated the ancient traditions of collecting branches, but which thanked God the Father for the land’s fertility:
“I’ve been rambling all the night,
And the best part of the day
Now I am returning back again
And I have brought Thee, Lord, a branch of May.”
“The Branch of May” and Mary
The reference to “a branch of May” refers to the Common Hawthorn, also known as May Blossom (Crataegus monogyna), May tree, Quickthorn―which are the native species Hawthorn in the British Isles, Ireland and Northern Europe. Flowering in the middle of May, its folk name of “May Blossom” derives from the older calendar when 1st May, or May Day, coincided with its flowering. Its white flower perfectly symbolizes the purity of Mary.
Incidentally, in the realm of private revelation, Our Lady is said to have told the mystic and stigmatist Marie Jahenny: “There will be serious diseases that human art (skill) cannot alleviate. This malady will attack the heart first, then the mind, and at the same time, the tongue. It will be horrible. The heat that will accompany it will be a consuming fire, so strong that the affected parts of the body will be of an unbearable redness, (red blotches / patches). After seven days, this malady, like the seed sown in a field, will rise rapidly and make immense progress (i.e. take over the body quickly, or, spread through the population quickly). My children, this is the only remedy that can save you―You know the leaves of thorns that grow in almost any hedges (white hawthorn). The leaves of this thorn will stop the progress of the disease. You must pick the leaves, not the wood. Even dry, they will retain their effectiveness. Put them in boiling water and leave them there for 14 minutes, covering the container so that the steam remains. When the malady first attacks, you must use this remedy three times a day. My children, this disease will be very serious in Brittany (NW France). The thought of God there will be less great ...(i.e., they will not think of God as much as before and therefore will be struck hardest with this malady). The malady will produce a continual uprising of the heart (blood pressure? Increased heart rate?) and vomiting. If the remedy is taken too late, the affected parts will become black, and in this black, there will be yellowish pale streaks. The flowers may also be used, and, the tea may be reheated and used again as long as it is kept covered, and reheated while covered.”
If you research the medical properties of the White Hawthorn according to modern science, you will find that herbalist and alternative medicines site declare it is a powerful form of natural digitalis, a heart medication. The hawthorn leaves, berries, and flowers are used as medicine. Hawthorn contains flavonoids which have antioxidant effects, as well as tannins, essential oils, fruit acids and sugars. The plant also contains vitamins B and C. They have anti-inflammatory properties. Hawthorn is used to help protect against heart disease and help control high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Both animal and human studies suggest hawthorn increases coronary artery blood flow, improves circulation, and lowers blood pressure. For hundreds of years, people have used hawthorn berry as an herbal remedy for digestive problems, heart issues, and high blood pressure. In fact, the berry has been a key part of traditional Chinese medicine since at least 659 A.D. Interestingly, herbalists say that when making an herbal tea as a beverage or health purposes, the herbs must be steep for approximately 14 minutes (just as Our Lady said) in a closed container―such as a pot with a lid―to ensure all the essential oils are infused, and, not lost in the steam.
Please be aware that when using the leaves if you are already taking prescriptions for lowering blood pressure or have heart issues, then the Hawthorn Tea could lower your pressure too much if you are already on medications. Be careful!
The Merry Mary Month of May
Who doesn’t like being merry!!? In a sense, God made us to be merry―if you take “merry” and “happy” to be synonyms, or words with similar meanings. The answer to the Catechism question: “Why did God make you?” is “God made me to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this life and to be happy with Him in the next life!” ― you could just as well say: “…to be merry with Him in the next life!” Though the word “happy” seems to suggest more of a quiet contentment and the word “merry” suggest something of a revelry―making merry would seem to include festive activities such as dancing, eating rich foods, and playing games with friends. Or again, “happy” could be said to be more of a personal feeling, whereas merry might be said to be a communal expression of happiness.
That aside, the question naturally arises to any inquisitive mind: “Why do call May the ‘merry’ month of May?” What is special about May? Why not the merry month of January, February, March, April, June, July, August, September, October, November or December? Hey! Shouldn’t December be the “merry month”―since we all go around wishing each other a ‘Merry Christmas’?”
Well, before getting to the “Merry” month of May, let us first look at the “Mary” month of May―for “Mary” is the reason for the “Merry”.
May for Mary
Though it has nothing at all to do with the question nor the answer to why May is the Month of Mary―you can immediately see that the word “Mary” contains all the letters from the word “May”! Just a digression!
May is the month for celebrating religion with merriment or, you could say, “Mary-ment” ― as the Latin noun, “mens, mentis” means “mind” and “of the mind” ― and Mary most certainly should be on our mind! It is a month of Marian devotion in the Catholic Church in honor of the Virgin Mary as “The Queen of May.”
For centuries, the Catholic Church has set aside the entire month of Mary to honor Mary, Mother of God. Not just a day in May, mind you, but the entire month. A number of traditions link the month of May to Mary. There are many different factors that contributed to this association. First of all, in ancient Greece and Rome the month of May was dedicated to pagan goddesses connected to fertility and springtime (Artemis and Flora, respectively). They celebrated ludi florals, or floral games, at the end of April and asked the intercession of Flora for all that blooms.
In medieval times, similar customs abounded, all centering around the practice of expelling winter, as May 1st was considered the start of new growth. This, combined with other European rituals commemorating the new season of spring, led many Western cultures to view May as a month of life and motherhood. This was long before “Mother’s Day” was ever conceived, though the modern celebration is closely related to this innate desire to honor maternity during the spring months.
The Catholic Church has often taken a pagan festival and “trumped-it” with one of its own Catholic feasts―in order to break the hold that paganism had on people. Thus the pagan goddesses were “trumped” by the Mother of God by giving her a feast day within the month of May.
No other month would seem to be better fitted for dedication to Our Lady than May, the month that finally conquers winter and that sees all the spring flowers in blossom. In “Merrie Olde England” ― or should we say, “Merrie Olde Catholic England” (prior to the Protestant Reformation) ― May was closely associated with Mary. How close the common association of Mary with the hedgerow flowers has always been, one can see by the very names that we still give to these flowers. Lady’s Smock, Marigold, Lady’s Thistle, Lady’s Bedstraw, May Blossom (Hawthorn Flower)―are all named after Mary. Early, on the first day of her month — “the merry month” — it was once universal in Catholic England (prior to the Protestant Reformation) to go maying, when “every man, except those with an impediment, would walk in the sweet meadows and green woods, there to rejoice their spirits with the beauty and savor of sweet flowers and with the harmony of birds praising God in their kind,” while they collected branches of hawthorn or may, so that there was no house door nor window, no church nor street, that was not decorated with green branches. Men wore sprigs of May in their hats; women who had risen long before dawn to pick Cowslips, Primroses and Wild Violets made them into garlands and hung them up in the churches. Why should the first of May not be the day when all Catholics wear flowers in honor of Mary? The May Blossom (Hawthorn Flower) is probably one of the easiest blossoms to get hold of, since it a hedgerow blossom (one that grows on the roadside), but if it is impossible, then any spring flower could be worn. After all, people wear flowers and vegetation to the honor of St. George, St. Patrick, St. David and St. Andrew, so why should they not do so in Our Lady’s honor?
May and Mary from Earliest Times
In the early Church there is evidence of a major feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary celebrated on the 15th of May each year, but it wasn’t until the 18th century that May received a particular association with the Virgin Mary. Alfonso, in the 13th century wrote, in his Cantigas de Santa Maria, about the special honoring of Mary during specific dates in May. Eventually, the entire month was filled with special observances and devotions to Mary. This possibly was inspired by a very old tradition known as Tricesimum (or: Thirty-Day Devotion to Mary; also called Lady Month) which was originally held from August 15th to September 14th. Although it wasn’t held during May, Mary Month included thirty daily spiritual exercises honoring Mary. The centerpiece of the devotion was the recitation of the Rosary, but the Tricesimum was celebrated at different times of the year in different places. The exact dates or origin of this devotion are unknown, though it came into existence during the Middle-Ages, but the custom is still practiced here and there.
The origin of the conventional May devotion is still relatively unknown. The renowned Church liturgist, Fr. Herbert Thurston, identifies the seventeenth century as the earliest instance of the adoption of the custom of consecrating the whole month of May to the Blessed Virgin by special observances. It is certain that this form of Marian devotion began in Italy. Around 1739, witnesses speak of a particular form of Marian devotion in May in Grezzano near Verona. In 1747 the Archbishop of Genoa recommended the May devotion as a devotion for the home. Specific prayers for them were promulgated in Rome in 1838.
Between 1883 and 1899, Pope Leo XIII published a dozen encyclicals and several Apostolic Letters on the Rosary, in which he encouraged Catholics to set aside May as Mary’s month. Thus it became firmly established in the Catholic imagination and remains in practice until today.
According to Frederick Holweck, the May devotion in its present form originated at Rome at the end of the 18th century, where Father Latomia, of the Roman College of the Society of Jesus, made a vow, to devote the month of May to Mary to counteract infidelity and immorality among the students. From Rome, the practice spread to the other Jesuit colleges and from there to nearly every Catholic church of the Latin Rite. In Rome, by 1813, May devotions were held in as many as twenty churches. From Italy, May devotions soon spread to France. In Belgium, the May devotions, at least as a private devotion, were already known by 1803. The tradition of honoring Mary in a month-long May devotion spread eventually throughout the Roman Catholic world in the 19th century following in the already earlier established traditions of a month-long devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in June and month-long devotion to the Holy Rosary in October.
Article 13
Wednesday May 3rd & Thursday May 4th, 2023
Pay Heed & Save Your Soul!
Wednesday May 3rd & Thursday May 4th, 2023
Pay Heed & Save Your Soul!
Lack of Attention Leads to a Lack of Salvation
Nobody should be damned! Everyone should be saved! Why, then, are most souls damned? Because they do not pay attention to Our Lord’s words! He clearly tells what we need to do to be saved―yet most people clearly do not listen to what He says! They prefer to listen to what the world has to say and ignore what Christ has to say.
► OUR LORD Himself said: “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear! … Why do you not know My speech? Because you cannot hear My word! … If I say the truth, you believe Me not! He that is of God, hears the words of God! Therefore you hear them not, because you are not of God! … You are from beneath, I am from above! … You are of this world, I am not of this world! You are of your father the devil―the prince of this world―and the desires of your father you will do! From the beginning he stood not in the truth―because truth is not in him―for he is a liar, and the father of lies! … Therefore you shall die in your sins! … Some hear the word of God ... then the devil comes, and takes the word out of their heart, lest believing they should be saved! Some hear and receive the word with joy―but these have no roots―for they believe for a while, but in time of temptation, they fall away! … Some who have heard, going their way, are choked with the cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and yield no fruit! … “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but suffers the loss of his soul? … For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? … Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! … Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other! You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Luke 8:8-14; John 8:23-24; 8:44-47; 12:31; Mark 8:36; Matthew 16:19-26; 19:23-24).
Those are the infallible words of Our Lord―but who listens anymore? Most are listening to the words of the world and so they become worldly. Yet the world―and the worldly―are enemies of God: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). Yet those words roll off us like water rolls off the back of a duck―we have become “waterproofed” and “impermeable” to the word of God these days: “They have eyes and see not! They have ears and hear not” (Psalm 113:14) ― which Scripture repeats elsewhere: “They have eyes, but they see not! They have ears, but they hear not!” (Psalm 134:17) … “Hear, O foolish people―who are without understanding; who have eyes, and see not; and ears, and hear not! Will not you then fear Me, saith the Lord: and will you not repent?” (Jeremias 5:21-22). “For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut―lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them” (Matthew 13:15).
► OUR LADY revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “All thirst after riches, none of them being willing to recognize their emptiness. They strive after riches, they long after pleasure. … Understand the ignorance and error of mortals … few guide themselves by the light! … Vain ostentation and pomp fascinate the bleary-eyed worldlings … These inclinations and this blindness rob them of remembrance and affection toward these higher things, which could raise them above their worldliness! … The worldlings in their torpidity are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Father and Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him … Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others expect to be pardoned without penance! … Lament with great sorrow the fact that Judas has many more followers than Christ! Many are the infidels, many the bad Catholics, many the hypocrites, who under the name of a Christian, sell and deliver Christ and wish to crucify Him again! … He became for us a Teacher, who practices what He teaches! … This was set before the eyes of the Catholics and can be plainly read by them, like a book of life, during their whole earthly pilgrimage―but there are only a few souls who study this book, while countless is the number of the wayward and foolish, who ignore this science in their unwillingness to be taught! ... This teaching is hidden from those who love vanity! … Many persons―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16) ... The number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate is also be uncountable!” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Our Lord speaks and warns―but few listen! Our Lady speaks and warns―and few listen! How much are you listening? Yet listening is not enough―as Holy Scripture warns: “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only―thereby deceiving your own selves! … Not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work!” (James 1:20, 25)―to which Our Lord adds: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
No Room for the Two-Faced and Double-Minded
Do not expect to live a worldly life and then die a Christian death! As the proverb says: “As a man lives, so shall he die!” To which Scripture adds: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). Yet that is what most Catholics are trying to do―serve God and mammon (mammon meaning the world with its pleasures, treasures, honors and possessions). Why do we not listen to these words of God? Why have we plugged our ears and covered our eyes with regard to God’s teachings and commands? “The heart of this people is grown gross [worldly], and with their ears have they heard heavily, and their eyes they have shut; lest perhaps they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them!” (Acts of Apostles 28:27).
“A double minded man is inconstant in all his ways” (James 1:8) … “Come not to the Lord with a double heart!” (Ecclesiasticus 1:36) … “The Lord hates … a mouth with a double tongue!” (Proverbs 8:13) … “Woe to them that are of a double heart and to wicked lips!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:14) … “The double tongued is accursed!” (Ecclesiasticus 28:15) … “An evil mark of disgrace is upon the double tongued” (Ecclesiasticus 5:17) … “They have spoken vain things to their neighbors―with deceitful lips and with a double heart have they spoken!” (Psalm 11:3) … “Every sinner is proved by a double tongue” (Ecclesiasticus 5:11) … “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you! Cleanse and purify your hearts, ye double minded!” (James 4:8).
The Fruits of Not Listening to Heaven
“If you will fear the Lord, and serve Him, and listen to His voice, and not provoke the Lord, then you shall be followers of the Lord your God. But if you will not listen to the voice of the Lord, but will rebel against His words, the hand of the Lord shall be upon you!” (1 Kings 12:14-15). “Thus saith the Lord: ‘Seek for the old paths which is the good way, and walk in it―and you shall find refreshment for your souls!’ And they said: ‘We will not walk!’ And I appointed watchmen over you, saying: ‘Listen ye to the sound of the trumpet!’ And they said: ‘We will not listen!’ Therefore hear and know what great things I will do to them! Hear, O Earth! Behold I will bring evils upon this people, the fruits of their own thoughts―because they have not heard My words, and they have cast away My law!’” (Jeremias 6:15-19).
► SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA tells us that Our Lady is sad because we have little or no attention to her message and warnings: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on the road of goodness with their life of virtue and apostolate without paying attention to this Message―they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners, the bad―because of their sins―do not see God’s chastisement about to fall upon them presently, and keep following the road of evil through sin, ignoring the Message, because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But, Father, you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way!” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Not Listening is Punishable Disobedience
Refusal to listen to God is clearly disobedience, regardless of how you want to cosmeticize or disguise it. In Holy Scripture, God repeatedly insists upon being listened to and obeyed―and He clearly points out the consequences for our refusal to listen to Him: “Listen to Me, O My people, and give ear to Me! … Listen diligently to Me!” (Isaias 51:4; 55:2) … “Hear Me and listen with your ears, ye great men, and all ye people, ye rulers of the Church!” (Ecclesiasticus 33:19). “Listen to My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people: and walk ye in all the way that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you! … Cursed is the man that shall not listen!” (Jeremias 7:23; 11:3).
“They would not listen, and they turned away the shoulder to depart, and they plugged their ears, so as not to hear!” (Zacharias 7:11) ... “And they listened not, but hardened their necks just like the neck of their fathers, who would not obey the Lord their God!” (4 Kings 17:14). “And Thou didst admonish them to return to Thy law. But they acted proudly, and listened not to Thy commandments, but sinned against Thy judgments, and they withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear!” (2 Esdras 9:29).
“They would not listen, and they turned away the shoulder to depart, and they plugged their ears, so as not to hear!” (Zacharias 7:11) ... “And they listened not, but hardened their necks just like the neck of their fathers, who would not obey the Lord their God!” (4 Kings 17:14). “Hear ye the words of the covenant, and do them! I implored your fathers and said: ‘Listen to My voice!’ They have not turned their faces to Me, but they have turned their backs to Me and they would not hearken to receive instruction! … And they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear―but everyone walked in the perverseness of his own wicked heart! The things which I commanded them to do, they did them not! They returned to the former iniquities of their fathers, who refused to hear My words! Therefore I will bring in evils upon them, which they shall not be able to escape―and they shall cry to Me, and I will not listen to them! … And you also have done worse than your fathers―for behold everyone of you walks after the perverseness of his evil heart, so as not to listen to Me! … If you will not listen to these words―I swear by Myself, saith the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation! … If you will not listen to Me to walk in My law, which I have given to you then I will make this house and I will make this city a curse to all the nations of the Earth! … Listen, I beseech thee, to the word of the Lord and it shall be well with thee, and thy soul shall live!” (Jeremias 11:11; 16:12; 22:5; 26:4; 32:33; 38:20).
Disobey at Your Own Peril!
The Book of Leviticus devotes one entire chapter to the consequences of obedience and disobedience: “I am the Lord your God. Keep My Sabbaths! Walk in My precepts! Keep My commandments and do them! … I will look on you, and make you increase! … My soul shall not cast you off. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people! But if you walk contrary to Me, and will not listen to Me; if you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments; if you despise My laws and My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me, then I also will do these things to you: I will set My face against you … I will chastise you seven times more for your sins! I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins! I will break the pride of your stubbornness! … I will quickly visit you with poverty and burning heat, which shall consume your lives! … You shall fall down before your enemies! … You shall sow your seed in vain! … Your labor shall be spent in vain, the ground shall not bring forth her increase, nor the trees yield their fruit. And I will send in upon you the beasts of the field, to destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number, and that your highways may be desolate. And if, despite this, you will not amend, but will walk contrary to Me―then I also will walk contrary to you, and will strike you seven times for your sins. And I will bring in upon you the sword that shall avenge Me! When you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies … But if, despite all this, you will not listen to Me, but will walk against Me―then I will also go against you with opposite fury! … I will bring your cities to be a wilderness! … I will destroy your land! … I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed … You shall perish among the Gentiles! And if some remain, then they shall pine away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies―until they confess their iniquities and the iniquities of their ancestors, whereby they have transgressed Me, and walked contrary unto Me … They shall pray for their sins, because they rejected My judgments, and despised My laws!” (Leviticus 26:1-43).
Don’t Play at Being God with God!
Today, science has despised those laws of God. What Satan said to Eve in the Garden of Eden, is what we are living today: “Your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods!” (Genesis 3:5). Modern science and technology has made man almost godlike. Ever since the birth of Rationalism (a belief or theory that opinions and actions should be based on human reason and human knowledge rather than on religious belief) and Protestantism (a rebellion against the beliefs, teachings and practices of the Catholic Church), Science has waged war against the authority and teachings of the Catholic Church. Science has gradually and increasingly become the new god and scientists are the high priests of this new religion of science. Scientists are playing with God and God’s creation as though they were gods themselves! It used to be a case of: “Listen to God!” … “God says so!” and “Do what God says!” Nowadays, it is “Listen to Science!”… “Science says so!” and “Follow the Science and do what Science says!”
Science doesn’t have the processes to prove or disprove the existence of God―and so, since we cannot know if God exists or doesn’t exist, the solution of Science is to simply sideline God, which implicitly relegates God to the realm of irrelevance, meaning―“God simply doesn’t matter anymore! Let’s get on with real life instead!” Scientists claim to know so much about how the universe works, that God is simply unnecessary―we can explain all the workings of the universe without the need for a Creator! The explosion of scientific knowledge blasts God out of the world of learning. Many scientists and professors don’t like to speak of God as an “omni-competent” Person, with the result that their students wonder whether the mountains of data accumulated through scientific and technological advances imply the irrelevance, if not the unreality of God. The priests of science have projected their “religion of science” as the absolute end of all knowledge and awareness, excluding anything else―even God Himself. The religion of science and its high priests now profess to have (or almost have) the answer to everything. Some of them even declare it is a “heresy” to believe in God―claiming that God is merely an invention of the ignorant minds of men who are too dumb to figure out reality. The reality is that much of scientific fact is actually only scientific theory―for many so called “scientific facts” of bygone years have today been proved to have been erroneous scientific theories and not facts.
After painting God out of the picture, scientists seek to alter and are altering the laws that God has established. Their bottom line is: “If something is possible, then you have the right to do it!” Hence, they create “test-tube-babies”; they sterilize women; they create abortion pills and contraceptive pills; they seek to control the mind by all kinds of modern technological inventions; they place electronic chips in the bodies and even brains of persons; they try to change the gender of persons; they try to control the weather and weaponize it; etc., etc. You write page after page of immoral scientific projects and creations which go against God’s moral and physical laws. They seek to dethrone God and crown themselves as gods in His place. They imagine themselves to be gods and act as though they are God―and the world listens to them, believes them, follows them and even adores them for the many things that they get from them.
In September of 2019, Greta Thunberg―Swedish teenage activist and the New World Order’s teenage poster girl and propaganda puppet―told the U.S. Congress to “listen to the scientists” and take real action on climate change: “The problem now is we need to wake up. It is time to wake up and face the facts, the reality, the science … I don’t want you to listen to me―I want you to listen to the scientists and I want you to unite behind the science! … Listen to the best available united science. It is something that everyone should do! This is not political views, or my opinions, this is science!”
During the recent Plannedemic, the White House made “listen to the science” its official policy. On the campaign trail, the 'Catholic' Joe Biden often said: “I believe in science!” Joe Biden spent his first day as president signing his name on a towering stack of science-forward executive orders. He called for the federal government to “be guided by the best science.” In one executive order he wrote: “It is, therefore, the policy of my Administration to listen to the science.”
You even had American Catholic bishops saying that they themselves would follow the science and listen to science! Those who didn’t, were criticized from governmental quarters. Former House Speaker, the ‘Catholic’ Nancy Pelosi, in 2020, publicly spoke out against the Catholic archbishop of San Francisco’s criticism of COVID-related restrictions, saying he should “follow science” rather than advocate for fuller in-person gatherings for Mass and worship: “With all due respect to my archbishop, I think we should follow science on this!” Pelosi said.
Interestingly, the ‘Catholics’ Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are much more fervent followers of Science than they are followers of God! They listen to the dictates of Science more than the dictates of God. Biden and Pelosi are firm advocates of abortion and consistently seek to promote abortion rights―whereas, as we all know, God is most certainly “Pro-Choice”! This is typical of the modern-day Catholic, for whom “mammon” comes before God; for whom Science is worshiped more than God; who loves technology more than the Faith.
Nobody should be damned! Everyone should be saved! Why, then, are most souls damned? Because they do not pay attention to Our Lord’s words! He clearly tells what we need to do to be saved―yet most people clearly do not listen to what He says! They prefer to listen to what the world has to say and ignore what Christ has to say.
► OUR LORD Himself said: “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear! … Why do you not know My speech? Because you cannot hear My word! … If I say the truth, you believe Me not! He that is of God, hears the words of God! Therefore you hear them not, because you are not of God! … You are from beneath, I am from above! … You are of this world, I am not of this world! You are of your father the devil―the prince of this world―and the desires of your father you will do! From the beginning he stood not in the truth―because truth is not in him―for he is a liar, and the father of lies! … Therefore you shall die in your sins! … Some hear the word of God ... then the devil comes, and takes the word out of their heart, lest believing they should be saved! Some hear and receive the word with joy―but these have no roots―for they believe for a while, but in time of temptation, they fall away! … Some who have heard, going their way, are choked with the cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and yield no fruit! … “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but suffers the loss of his soul? … For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? … Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! … Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other! You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Luke 8:8-14; John 8:23-24; 8:44-47; 12:31; Mark 8:36; Matthew 16:19-26; 19:23-24).
Those are the infallible words of Our Lord―but who listens anymore? Most are listening to the words of the world and so they become worldly. Yet the world―and the worldly―are enemies of God: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). Yet those words roll off us like water rolls off the back of a duck―we have become “waterproofed” and “impermeable” to the word of God these days: “They have eyes and see not! They have ears and hear not” (Psalm 113:14) ― which Scripture repeats elsewhere: “They have eyes, but they see not! They have ears, but they hear not!” (Psalm 134:17) … “Hear, O foolish people―who are without understanding; who have eyes, and see not; and ears, and hear not! Will not you then fear Me, saith the Lord: and will you not repent?” (Jeremias 5:21-22). “For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut―lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them” (Matthew 13:15).
► OUR LADY revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “All thirst after riches, none of them being willing to recognize their emptiness. They strive after riches, they long after pleasure. … Understand the ignorance and error of mortals … few guide themselves by the light! … Vain ostentation and pomp fascinate the bleary-eyed worldlings … These inclinations and this blindness rob them of remembrance and affection toward these higher things, which could raise them above their worldliness! … The worldlings in their torpidity are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Father and Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him … Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others expect to be pardoned without penance! … Lament with great sorrow the fact that Judas has many more followers than Christ! Many are the infidels, many the bad Catholics, many the hypocrites, who under the name of a Christian, sell and deliver Christ and wish to crucify Him again! … He became for us a Teacher, who practices what He teaches! … This was set before the eyes of the Catholics and can be plainly read by them, like a book of life, during their whole earthly pilgrimage―but there are only a few souls who study this book, while countless is the number of the wayward and foolish, who ignore this science in their unwillingness to be taught! ... This teaching is hidden from those who love vanity! … Many persons―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16) ... The number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate is also be uncountable!” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Our Lord speaks and warns―but few listen! Our Lady speaks and warns―and few listen! How much are you listening? Yet listening is not enough―as Holy Scripture warns: “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only―thereby deceiving your own selves! … Not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work!” (James 1:20, 25)―to which Our Lord adds: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
No Room for the Two-Faced and Double-Minded
Do not expect to live a worldly life and then die a Christian death! As the proverb says: “As a man lives, so shall he die!” To which Scripture adds: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). Yet that is what most Catholics are trying to do―serve God and mammon (mammon meaning the world with its pleasures, treasures, honors and possessions). Why do we not listen to these words of God? Why have we plugged our ears and covered our eyes with regard to God’s teachings and commands? “The heart of this people is grown gross [worldly], and with their ears have they heard heavily, and their eyes they have shut; lest perhaps they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them!” (Acts of Apostles 28:27).
“A double minded man is inconstant in all his ways” (James 1:8) … “Come not to the Lord with a double heart!” (Ecclesiasticus 1:36) … “The Lord hates … a mouth with a double tongue!” (Proverbs 8:13) … “Woe to them that are of a double heart and to wicked lips!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:14) … “The double tongued is accursed!” (Ecclesiasticus 28:15) … “An evil mark of disgrace is upon the double tongued” (Ecclesiasticus 5:17) … “They have spoken vain things to their neighbors―with deceitful lips and with a double heart have they spoken!” (Psalm 11:3) … “Every sinner is proved by a double tongue” (Ecclesiasticus 5:11) … “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you! Cleanse and purify your hearts, ye double minded!” (James 4:8).
The Fruits of Not Listening to Heaven
“If you will fear the Lord, and serve Him, and listen to His voice, and not provoke the Lord, then you shall be followers of the Lord your God. But if you will not listen to the voice of the Lord, but will rebel against His words, the hand of the Lord shall be upon you!” (1 Kings 12:14-15). “Thus saith the Lord: ‘Seek for the old paths which is the good way, and walk in it―and you shall find refreshment for your souls!’ And they said: ‘We will not walk!’ And I appointed watchmen over you, saying: ‘Listen ye to the sound of the trumpet!’ And they said: ‘We will not listen!’ Therefore hear and know what great things I will do to them! Hear, O Earth! Behold I will bring evils upon this people, the fruits of their own thoughts―because they have not heard My words, and they have cast away My law!’” (Jeremias 6:15-19).
► SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA tells us that Our Lady is sad because we have little or no attention to her message and warnings: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on the road of goodness with their life of virtue and apostolate without paying attention to this Message―they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners, the bad―because of their sins―do not see God’s chastisement about to fall upon them presently, and keep following the road of evil through sin, ignoring the Message, because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But, Father, you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way!” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Not Listening is Punishable Disobedience
Refusal to listen to God is clearly disobedience, regardless of how you want to cosmeticize or disguise it. In Holy Scripture, God repeatedly insists upon being listened to and obeyed―and He clearly points out the consequences for our refusal to listen to Him: “Listen to Me, O My people, and give ear to Me! … Listen diligently to Me!” (Isaias 51:4; 55:2) … “Hear Me and listen with your ears, ye great men, and all ye people, ye rulers of the Church!” (Ecclesiasticus 33:19). “Listen to My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people: and walk ye in all the way that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you! … Cursed is the man that shall not listen!” (Jeremias 7:23; 11:3).
“They would not listen, and they turned away the shoulder to depart, and they plugged their ears, so as not to hear!” (Zacharias 7:11) ... “And they listened not, but hardened their necks just like the neck of their fathers, who would not obey the Lord their God!” (4 Kings 17:14). “And Thou didst admonish them to return to Thy law. But they acted proudly, and listened not to Thy commandments, but sinned against Thy judgments, and they withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear!” (2 Esdras 9:29).
“They would not listen, and they turned away the shoulder to depart, and they plugged their ears, so as not to hear!” (Zacharias 7:11) ... “And they listened not, but hardened their necks just like the neck of their fathers, who would not obey the Lord their God!” (4 Kings 17:14). “Hear ye the words of the covenant, and do them! I implored your fathers and said: ‘Listen to My voice!’ They have not turned their faces to Me, but they have turned their backs to Me and they would not hearken to receive instruction! … And they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear―but everyone walked in the perverseness of his own wicked heart! The things which I commanded them to do, they did them not! They returned to the former iniquities of their fathers, who refused to hear My words! Therefore I will bring in evils upon them, which they shall not be able to escape―and they shall cry to Me, and I will not listen to them! … And you also have done worse than your fathers―for behold everyone of you walks after the perverseness of his evil heart, so as not to listen to Me! … If you will not listen to these words―I swear by Myself, saith the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation! … If you will not listen to Me to walk in My law, which I have given to you then I will make this house and I will make this city a curse to all the nations of the Earth! … Listen, I beseech thee, to the word of the Lord and it shall be well with thee, and thy soul shall live!” (Jeremias 11:11; 16:12; 22:5; 26:4; 32:33; 38:20).
Disobey at Your Own Peril!
The Book of Leviticus devotes one entire chapter to the consequences of obedience and disobedience: “I am the Lord your God. Keep My Sabbaths! Walk in My precepts! Keep My commandments and do them! … I will look on you, and make you increase! … My soul shall not cast you off. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people! But if you walk contrary to Me, and will not listen to Me; if you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments; if you despise My laws and My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me, then I also will do these things to you: I will set My face against you … I will chastise you seven times more for your sins! I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins! I will break the pride of your stubbornness! … I will quickly visit you with poverty and burning heat, which shall consume your lives! … You shall fall down before your enemies! … You shall sow your seed in vain! … Your labor shall be spent in vain, the ground shall not bring forth her increase, nor the trees yield their fruit. And I will send in upon you the beasts of the field, to destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number, and that your highways may be desolate. And if, despite this, you will not amend, but will walk contrary to Me―then I also will walk contrary to you, and will strike you seven times for your sins. And I will bring in upon you the sword that shall avenge Me! When you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies … But if, despite all this, you will not listen to Me, but will walk against Me―then I will also go against you with opposite fury! … I will bring your cities to be a wilderness! … I will destroy your land! … I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed … You shall perish among the Gentiles! And if some remain, then they shall pine away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies―until they confess their iniquities and the iniquities of their ancestors, whereby they have transgressed Me, and walked contrary unto Me … They shall pray for their sins, because they rejected My judgments, and despised My laws!” (Leviticus 26:1-43).
Don’t Play at Being God with God!
Today, science has despised those laws of God. What Satan said to Eve in the Garden of Eden, is what we are living today: “Your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods!” (Genesis 3:5). Modern science and technology has made man almost godlike. Ever since the birth of Rationalism (a belief or theory that opinions and actions should be based on human reason and human knowledge rather than on religious belief) and Protestantism (a rebellion against the beliefs, teachings and practices of the Catholic Church), Science has waged war against the authority and teachings of the Catholic Church. Science has gradually and increasingly become the new god and scientists are the high priests of this new religion of science. Scientists are playing with God and God’s creation as though they were gods themselves! It used to be a case of: “Listen to God!” … “God says so!” and “Do what God says!” Nowadays, it is “Listen to Science!”… “Science says so!” and “Follow the Science and do what Science says!”
Science doesn’t have the processes to prove or disprove the existence of God―and so, since we cannot know if God exists or doesn’t exist, the solution of Science is to simply sideline God, which implicitly relegates God to the realm of irrelevance, meaning―“God simply doesn’t matter anymore! Let’s get on with real life instead!” Scientists claim to know so much about how the universe works, that God is simply unnecessary―we can explain all the workings of the universe without the need for a Creator! The explosion of scientific knowledge blasts God out of the world of learning. Many scientists and professors don’t like to speak of God as an “omni-competent” Person, with the result that their students wonder whether the mountains of data accumulated through scientific and technological advances imply the irrelevance, if not the unreality of God. The priests of science have projected their “religion of science” as the absolute end of all knowledge and awareness, excluding anything else―even God Himself. The religion of science and its high priests now profess to have (or almost have) the answer to everything. Some of them even declare it is a “heresy” to believe in God―claiming that God is merely an invention of the ignorant minds of men who are too dumb to figure out reality. The reality is that much of scientific fact is actually only scientific theory―for many so called “scientific facts” of bygone years have today been proved to have been erroneous scientific theories and not facts.
After painting God out of the picture, scientists seek to alter and are altering the laws that God has established. Their bottom line is: “If something is possible, then you have the right to do it!” Hence, they create “test-tube-babies”; they sterilize women; they create abortion pills and contraceptive pills; they seek to control the mind by all kinds of modern technological inventions; they place electronic chips in the bodies and even brains of persons; they try to change the gender of persons; they try to control the weather and weaponize it; etc., etc. You write page after page of immoral scientific projects and creations which go against God’s moral and physical laws. They seek to dethrone God and crown themselves as gods in His place. They imagine themselves to be gods and act as though they are God―and the world listens to them, believes them, follows them and even adores them for the many things that they get from them.
In September of 2019, Greta Thunberg―Swedish teenage activist and the New World Order’s teenage poster girl and propaganda puppet―told the U.S. Congress to “listen to the scientists” and take real action on climate change: “The problem now is we need to wake up. It is time to wake up and face the facts, the reality, the science … I don’t want you to listen to me―I want you to listen to the scientists and I want you to unite behind the science! … Listen to the best available united science. It is something that everyone should do! This is not political views, or my opinions, this is science!”
During the recent Plannedemic, the White House made “listen to the science” its official policy. On the campaign trail, the 'Catholic' Joe Biden often said: “I believe in science!” Joe Biden spent his first day as president signing his name on a towering stack of science-forward executive orders. He called for the federal government to “be guided by the best science.” In one executive order he wrote: “It is, therefore, the policy of my Administration to listen to the science.”
You even had American Catholic bishops saying that they themselves would follow the science and listen to science! Those who didn’t, were criticized from governmental quarters. Former House Speaker, the ‘Catholic’ Nancy Pelosi, in 2020, publicly spoke out against the Catholic archbishop of San Francisco’s criticism of COVID-related restrictions, saying he should “follow science” rather than advocate for fuller in-person gatherings for Mass and worship: “With all due respect to my archbishop, I think we should follow science on this!” Pelosi said.
Interestingly, the ‘Catholics’ Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are much more fervent followers of Science than they are followers of God! They listen to the dictates of Science more than the dictates of God. Biden and Pelosi are firm advocates of abortion and consistently seek to promote abortion rights―whereas, as we all know, God is most certainly “Pro-Choice”! This is typical of the modern-day Catholic, for whom “mammon” comes before God; for whom Science is worshiped more than God; who loves technology more than the Faith.
Article 12
Monday May 1st, 2023
The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker
Work It Out With St. Joseph!
Monday May 1st, 2023
The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker
Work It Out With St. Joseph!
One Day―Two Views
May 1st is the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. May 1st, or “May Day,” was celebrated throughout the Communist world as a way of supposedly honoring the role and importance of laborers in Marxist countries. Why do communists celebrate May Day? In the former Soviet Union, May Day was an occasion to honor contributions of workers with giant parades in Red Square, a tradition that has dwindled in the decades since—a fading remnant of the Bolshevik Revolution that's lost its meaning in modern Russia. With the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fall of communist governments in eastern Europe in the late 20th century, large-scale May Day celebrations in that region declined in importance. In dozens of countries around the world, however, May Day has been recognized as a public holiday, and it continues to be celebrated with picnics and parties while serving as the occasion for demonstrations and rallies in support of workers.
Purpose of the Feast
The Feast of St. Joseph the worker was instituted in 1955―at a time when the old Communist regime was at the height of its powers. The Communist conception of work as almost being an end in itself was, of course, very different from the Christian understanding, and in 1955, to highlight this difference, Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of St. Joseph the Worker. It also had another main purpose—to increase devotion to the saint who was the model of workers, providing for his wife Mary and foster son Jesus. It also reminded about the dignity of work.
Who Would Have Dreamt…?
God’s Divine Providence can do anything it wants―as Jesus said: “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Luke 18:27). God’s Providence could have arranged for His only-begotten Son, Jesus, to be born in a rich palace, with Joseph being a powerful king and Mary being a famous queen. Doesn’t every parent want the very best for their children? Yet that is not what God chose to do! Joseph was merely a poor carpenter and Mary was an unknown humble teenager. Jesus did not come to lay around on couches in rich palaces, eating grapes and twiddling His thumbs! He came to work out our salvation and being rich was not part of the plan! He would later say: “Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 19:23-24).
Joseph certainly wasn’t materially rich―neither was Mary―but they were spiritually rich! Again, as Our Lord would later say: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other! You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). We all know where the hearts of Mary and Joseph were―their hearts were in Heaven and the things of God!
From Riches to Rags!
Almighty God―the creator and owner of all things. Omnipotent―capable of doing anything and everything. This almighty and omnipotent God chose to send His Son into this world in a state of relative poverty! As Our Lady revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Neither you nor all creatures together can ever understand the spirit of poverty of my most holy Son―His being born in poverty and what He has taught me concerning it. Few know the poverty of Christ, and fewer embrace it. All abhor poverty and thirst after riches, none of them being willing to recognize their emptiness. They strive after riches, and contemn poverty; they long after pleasure and dread mortification. My most holy Son has set me as the teacher and living example of the love of humility and true contempt of worldly vanity and pride. He also sought destitution and poverty―not because He had any need of them, but in order to teach mortals the shortest and surest way for reaching the heights of divine love and union with God.
“I and my holy spouse Joseph were poor, and at times we suffered great wants; but none of them were powerful enough to engender within our hearts the contagion of avarice. We concerned ourselves entirely with the glory of the Most High, relying wholly on His most faithful and tender care. This was what pleased Him so much, as thou hast understood and written; since He supplied our wants in various manners, even commanding the angels to help us and prepare for us our nourishment.
“Understand the ignorance and error of mortals, nearly all of them strive to avoid labor and suffering … Laborious exertions are very painful and averse to human nature according to the flesh; and the fruits of the spirit are more hidden and few guide themselves by the light … If passing labors and sufferings are accepted with joy and with serenity of heart, then they spiritualize the creature, they elevate it and furnish it with a divine insight―by which the soul begins to appreciate and esteem affliction at its proper value, and soon finds consolation in the blessings of mortification and finds freedom from disorderly passions … rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment!” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
No Salvation Without Work!
In the aforesaid quote, Our Lady, speaking of salvation, says that it “is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment!” Our Lord and Holy Scripture essentially say the same thing. Our Lord warns: “I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20). What was Our Lord’s gripe with the Scribes and Pharisees? Jesus tells us: “Do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice!” (Matthew 23:3). In other words, they talk more than they do! Our Lady and St. Joseph were not so much talkers and they were doers. The Pharisees were not in principle bad people. They had the principles to be good, but used their principles incorrectly. The Pharisees tended to make the practice of religion center upon self, rather than focus primarily upon God. They were pious, observant of the Law of God, and sought to please Him. But they were so observant of the Law that they became legalists and left aside more important things, like the charity and mercy. They made an absolute of outer or external rites of worship, carried out meticulously to the tiniest detail. The meticulous observance of the Law could become an end in itself and breed contempt towards those who could not achieve such a high perfection. There were some Pharisees who fell into this danger―as some members of God’s People always had done and as many Catholics still do today. They tended to make the Kingdom of God depend on men’s efforts, rather than upon God’s grace and kindness. They strove to be perfect, but with the idea that this perfection could be presented to God as a self-earned right to salvation―as though saying: “Look what I achieved!”
We cannot talk our way into Heaven, we have to work our way into Heaven. We work our way into Heaven by toiling in the fight against the devil, the world and our own vicious habits and tendencies: “Your adversary the devil goes about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9). “Put on the armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness!” (Ephesians 6:11-12). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus!” (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” ― and all the other true enemies of God (Hebrews 12:4). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12).
Yes―WORK out your salvation―and not TALK out your salvation. True Catholicism consists in being a real-life soldier, not an armchair soldier, or a keyboard soldier―who merely “preach, but do not practice what they preach!” (Matthew 23:3). “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith! Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … Do you see that by works a man is justified―and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26). “He who says that he knows God, but keeps not His commandments―he is a liar and the truth is not in him! But he that keeps His word, in him in very deed the charity of God is perfected; and by this we know that we are in Him” (1 John 2:4-5). As Our Lord rebukes: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only―thereby deceiving your own selves! … Not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work!” (James 1:20, 25).
The Imitation of Christ speaks of this working-out of our salvation: “How strict and detached were the lives the holy hermits led in the desert! What long and grave temptations they suffered! How often were they beset by the enemy! What frequent and ardent prayers they offered to God! What rigorous fasts they observed! How great their zeal and their love for spiritual perfection! How brave the fight they waged to master their evil habits! What pure and straightforward purpose they showed toward God! By day they labored and by night they spent themselves in long prayers. Even at work they did not cease from mental prayer. They used all their time profitably; every hour seemed too short for serving God, and in the great sweetness of contemplation, they forgot even their bodily needs. They renounced all riches, dignities, honors, friends, and associates. They desired nothing of the world. They were poor in earthly things but rich in grace and virtue. Outwardly destitute, inwardly they were full of grace and divine consolation. Strangers to the world, they were close and intimate friends of God. Indeed were holy and perfect men who fought bravely and conquered the world. They were given as an example for all ― to stimulate us to perfection, which ought to be greater than that of the lukewarm to tempt us to laxity. Today, he who is not a transgressor and who can bear patiently the duties which he has taken upon himself is considered as someone great. How lukewarm and negligent we are! We lose our original fervor very quickly and we even become weary of life from laziness!” (Imitation of Christ, Book 1, Chapter 18).
Today’s Trend―Tireless Talkers and Typists, but Weary Worthless Workers
Modern man has morphed into a Workless Talker! Modern technology has made it easy for him to talk more and work less. After the Industrial Revolution, people were working 80 to 100-hour weeks. In the 1800s, many Americans worked seventy hours or more per week. Since then the workweek’s length has decreased considerably. Throughout the colonial period and into the 19th century, most American workers adopted the practice of working from “first light to dark” — filling all their free hours with work. In manufacturing, a 60-hour to 70-hour working week was the norm. In the 20th century, weekly work hours fell considerably during the first third of the century and much more slowly thereafter. In the years surrounding the First World War I the eight-hour day (with six workdays per week) had been achieved. After the Second World War II, the length of the workweek stabilized around forty hours and was passed as law in the US. During an 8-hour workday, the average worker only spends 4 hours and 12 minutes actively working. Recently, in March of 2023, the “Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act” was introduced in the House, as progressives try for a second time to shorten the standard workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours.
The advent of the internet has spread the virus of “talking” (typing) online. Across all devices, the average Internet user aged 16 to 64 spends seven hours online per day. According to recent data, the average person spends 3 hours and 15 minutes on their phone each day. And 1 in 5 smartphone users spends upwards of 4.5 hours on average on their phones every day. An average teenager spends around 7 hours and 22 minutes per day on the phone. On average, children ages 8-12 in the United States spend 4-6 hours a day watching or using screens.
A Dirty Four-Letter Word!
“Work!” The word has almost become a bad four-letter word! Instead of working hard, we are hardly working! Our welfare and support systems have made some of us dependent and lazy. Nowadays we want to have everything handed to us on a plate―we prefer to be given something than have to work for something. What a tragedy! One survey of almost 2,000 full-time office workers in the UK, found that people were only productive for 2 hours and 53 minutes out of an eight-hour day. The rest of the time was spent checking social media, reading the news, having non-work-related chats with colleagues, eating―and even searching for new jobs. We have lost one of our greatest assets―the “desire to work.” Being a hard worker is one of the finest qualities we will find in a person. Now we want to work less and make more money―have shorter hours, more benefits, longer vacations, more holidays. We want less sweat, but more money. “Labor not to be rich!” (Proverbs 23:4). There is a law in life: Anything that doesn’t work is either fixed or thrown away. This law holds true for people as well. If we don’t work ― or won’t work ― we are discarded and rejected. Holy Scripture says: “Labor and toil―working night and day” (1 Thessalonians 2:9). “If any man will not work, neither let him eat!” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). This is also true in the spiritual sphere. Jesus, along the same lines, adds: “You are the salt of the Earth. But if the salt loses its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men!” (Matthew 5:13).
If we become lazy in the physical, material, worldly environment―then you can be sure that this laziness will cross the border into our spiritual, supernatural, heavenly environment! Our sense of entitlement and right to welfare handouts leads to an erroneous sense of spiritual entitlement and a right to Heaven as a more or less “freebie” or “handout.” Nobody has a right to Heaven without working for Heaven. In this world, you only get paid a wage if you work for it. No work, no pay! The same is true for Heaven. You only get to Heaven if you work for it!
May 1st is the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. May 1st, or “May Day,” was celebrated throughout the Communist world as a way of supposedly honoring the role and importance of laborers in Marxist countries. Why do communists celebrate May Day? In the former Soviet Union, May Day was an occasion to honor contributions of workers with giant parades in Red Square, a tradition that has dwindled in the decades since—a fading remnant of the Bolshevik Revolution that's lost its meaning in modern Russia. With the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fall of communist governments in eastern Europe in the late 20th century, large-scale May Day celebrations in that region declined in importance. In dozens of countries around the world, however, May Day has been recognized as a public holiday, and it continues to be celebrated with picnics and parties while serving as the occasion for demonstrations and rallies in support of workers.
Purpose of the Feast
The Feast of St. Joseph the worker was instituted in 1955―at a time when the old Communist regime was at the height of its powers. The Communist conception of work as almost being an end in itself was, of course, very different from the Christian understanding, and in 1955, to highlight this difference, Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of St. Joseph the Worker. It also had another main purpose—to increase devotion to the saint who was the model of workers, providing for his wife Mary and foster son Jesus. It also reminded about the dignity of work.
Who Would Have Dreamt…?
God’s Divine Providence can do anything it wants―as Jesus said: “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Luke 18:27). God’s Providence could have arranged for His only-begotten Son, Jesus, to be born in a rich palace, with Joseph being a powerful king and Mary being a famous queen. Doesn’t every parent want the very best for their children? Yet that is not what God chose to do! Joseph was merely a poor carpenter and Mary was an unknown humble teenager. Jesus did not come to lay around on couches in rich palaces, eating grapes and twiddling His thumbs! He came to work out our salvation and being rich was not part of the plan! He would later say: “Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 19:23-24).
Joseph certainly wasn’t materially rich―neither was Mary―but they were spiritually rich! Again, as Our Lord would later say: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other! You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). We all know where the hearts of Mary and Joseph were―their hearts were in Heaven and the things of God!
From Riches to Rags!
Almighty God―the creator and owner of all things. Omnipotent―capable of doing anything and everything. This almighty and omnipotent God chose to send His Son into this world in a state of relative poverty! As Our Lady revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Neither you nor all creatures together can ever understand the spirit of poverty of my most holy Son―His being born in poverty and what He has taught me concerning it. Few know the poverty of Christ, and fewer embrace it. All abhor poverty and thirst after riches, none of them being willing to recognize their emptiness. They strive after riches, and contemn poverty; they long after pleasure and dread mortification. My most holy Son has set me as the teacher and living example of the love of humility and true contempt of worldly vanity and pride. He also sought destitution and poverty―not because He had any need of them, but in order to teach mortals the shortest and surest way for reaching the heights of divine love and union with God.
“I and my holy spouse Joseph were poor, and at times we suffered great wants; but none of them were powerful enough to engender within our hearts the contagion of avarice. We concerned ourselves entirely with the glory of the Most High, relying wholly on His most faithful and tender care. This was what pleased Him so much, as thou hast understood and written; since He supplied our wants in various manners, even commanding the angels to help us and prepare for us our nourishment.
“Understand the ignorance and error of mortals, nearly all of them strive to avoid labor and suffering … Laborious exertions are very painful and averse to human nature according to the flesh; and the fruits of the spirit are more hidden and few guide themselves by the light … If passing labors and sufferings are accepted with joy and with serenity of heart, then they spiritualize the creature, they elevate it and furnish it with a divine insight―by which the soul begins to appreciate and esteem affliction at its proper value, and soon finds consolation in the blessings of mortification and finds freedom from disorderly passions … rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment!” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
No Salvation Without Work!
In the aforesaid quote, Our Lady, speaking of salvation, says that it “is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment!” Our Lord and Holy Scripture essentially say the same thing. Our Lord warns: “I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20). What was Our Lord’s gripe with the Scribes and Pharisees? Jesus tells us: “Do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice!” (Matthew 23:3). In other words, they talk more than they do! Our Lady and St. Joseph were not so much talkers and they were doers. The Pharisees were not in principle bad people. They had the principles to be good, but used their principles incorrectly. The Pharisees tended to make the practice of religion center upon self, rather than focus primarily upon God. They were pious, observant of the Law of God, and sought to please Him. But they were so observant of the Law that they became legalists and left aside more important things, like the charity and mercy. They made an absolute of outer or external rites of worship, carried out meticulously to the tiniest detail. The meticulous observance of the Law could become an end in itself and breed contempt towards those who could not achieve such a high perfection. There were some Pharisees who fell into this danger―as some members of God’s People always had done and as many Catholics still do today. They tended to make the Kingdom of God depend on men’s efforts, rather than upon God’s grace and kindness. They strove to be perfect, but with the idea that this perfection could be presented to God as a self-earned right to salvation―as though saying: “Look what I achieved!”
We cannot talk our way into Heaven, we have to work our way into Heaven. We work our way into Heaven by toiling in the fight against the devil, the world and our own vicious habits and tendencies: “Your adversary the devil goes about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9). “Put on the armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness!” (Ephesians 6:11-12). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus!” (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” ― and all the other true enemies of God (Hebrews 12:4). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12).
Yes―WORK out your salvation―and not TALK out your salvation. True Catholicism consists in being a real-life soldier, not an armchair soldier, or a keyboard soldier―who merely “preach, but do not practice what they preach!” (Matthew 23:3). “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith! Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … Do you see that by works a man is justified―and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26). “He who says that he knows God, but keeps not His commandments―he is a liar and the truth is not in him! But he that keeps His word, in him in very deed the charity of God is perfected; and by this we know that we are in Him” (1 John 2:4-5). As Our Lord rebukes: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only―thereby deceiving your own selves! … Not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work!” (James 1:20, 25).
The Imitation of Christ speaks of this working-out of our salvation: “How strict and detached were the lives the holy hermits led in the desert! What long and grave temptations they suffered! How often were they beset by the enemy! What frequent and ardent prayers they offered to God! What rigorous fasts they observed! How great their zeal and their love for spiritual perfection! How brave the fight they waged to master their evil habits! What pure and straightforward purpose they showed toward God! By day they labored and by night they spent themselves in long prayers. Even at work they did not cease from mental prayer. They used all their time profitably; every hour seemed too short for serving God, and in the great sweetness of contemplation, they forgot even their bodily needs. They renounced all riches, dignities, honors, friends, and associates. They desired nothing of the world. They were poor in earthly things but rich in grace and virtue. Outwardly destitute, inwardly they were full of grace and divine consolation. Strangers to the world, they were close and intimate friends of God. Indeed were holy and perfect men who fought bravely and conquered the world. They were given as an example for all ― to stimulate us to perfection, which ought to be greater than that of the lukewarm to tempt us to laxity. Today, he who is not a transgressor and who can bear patiently the duties which he has taken upon himself is considered as someone great. How lukewarm and negligent we are! We lose our original fervor very quickly and we even become weary of life from laziness!” (Imitation of Christ, Book 1, Chapter 18).
Today’s Trend―Tireless Talkers and Typists, but Weary Worthless Workers
Modern man has morphed into a Workless Talker! Modern technology has made it easy for him to talk more and work less. After the Industrial Revolution, people were working 80 to 100-hour weeks. In the 1800s, many Americans worked seventy hours or more per week. Since then the workweek’s length has decreased considerably. Throughout the colonial period and into the 19th century, most American workers adopted the practice of working from “first light to dark” — filling all their free hours with work. In manufacturing, a 60-hour to 70-hour working week was the norm. In the 20th century, weekly work hours fell considerably during the first third of the century and much more slowly thereafter. In the years surrounding the First World War I the eight-hour day (with six workdays per week) had been achieved. After the Second World War II, the length of the workweek stabilized around forty hours and was passed as law in the US. During an 8-hour workday, the average worker only spends 4 hours and 12 minutes actively working. Recently, in March of 2023, the “Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act” was introduced in the House, as progressives try for a second time to shorten the standard workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours.
The advent of the internet has spread the virus of “talking” (typing) online. Across all devices, the average Internet user aged 16 to 64 spends seven hours online per day. According to recent data, the average person spends 3 hours and 15 minutes on their phone each day. And 1 in 5 smartphone users spends upwards of 4.5 hours on average on their phones every day. An average teenager spends around 7 hours and 22 minutes per day on the phone. On average, children ages 8-12 in the United States spend 4-6 hours a day watching or using screens.
A Dirty Four-Letter Word!
“Work!” The word has almost become a bad four-letter word! Instead of working hard, we are hardly working! Our welfare and support systems have made some of us dependent and lazy. Nowadays we want to have everything handed to us on a plate―we prefer to be given something than have to work for something. What a tragedy! One survey of almost 2,000 full-time office workers in the UK, found that people were only productive for 2 hours and 53 minutes out of an eight-hour day. The rest of the time was spent checking social media, reading the news, having non-work-related chats with colleagues, eating―and even searching for new jobs. We have lost one of our greatest assets―the “desire to work.” Being a hard worker is one of the finest qualities we will find in a person. Now we want to work less and make more money―have shorter hours, more benefits, longer vacations, more holidays. We want less sweat, but more money. “Labor not to be rich!” (Proverbs 23:4). There is a law in life: Anything that doesn’t work is either fixed or thrown away. This law holds true for people as well. If we don’t work ― or won’t work ― we are discarded and rejected. Holy Scripture says: “Labor and toil―working night and day” (1 Thessalonians 2:9). “If any man will not work, neither let him eat!” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). This is also true in the spiritual sphere. Jesus, along the same lines, adds: “You are the salt of the Earth. But if the salt loses its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men!” (Matthew 5:13).
If we become lazy in the physical, material, worldly environment―then you can be sure that this laziness will cross the border into our spiritual, supernatural, heavenly environment! Our sense of entitlement and right to welfare handouts leads to an erroneous sense of spiritual entitlement and a right to Heaven as a more or less “freebie” or “handout.” Nobody has a right to Heaven without working for Heaven. In this world, you only get paid a wage if you work for it. No work, no pay! The same is true for Heaven. You only get to Heaven if you work for it!
Article 11
Sunday April 30th, 2023
No Sanctity, No Heaven!
Sunday April 30th, 2023
No Sanctity, No Heaven!
Do You Want to Go to Heaven?
Is there anybody who doesn’t want to go to Heaven? If you don’t want to go to Heaven, then, by default, you implicitly want to go to Hell! But is there anybody who really wants to go to Hell? There may be some Satanists who stupidly want to go to Hell―but most people do not. Why is it, then, that most people end up in Hell? It is because for some stupid reason they falsely believe that they can live as they choose to live and somehow they will still manage to be saved! They are fools! “The perverse are hard to be corrected, and the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). They commit mortal sins; they confess those sins; they sin again; they confess again; they sin again and again; they confess again and again―and some don’t even confess after committing mortal sins! “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8) … “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5).
To Go to Heaven You Must Be Holy!
God did not make you to sin―God made you to be holy! This is constantly stated in both the Old and New Testaments. The problem is that we rarely read the Scriptures―which is one of the primary ways to know God―and so we do not really know God and what God really wants. We create our own version of God and our own version of what God wants!
In the Old Testament God commands―He does not suggest, but commands―that we be holy: “Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy!” (Leviticus 19:2) … “Sanctify yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God!” (Leviticus 20:7) … “You shall be holy men to Me!” (Exodus 22:31) “You shall be to Me a holy nation!” (Exodus 19:6) … “For I am the Lord your God―be holy because I am holy. Defile not your souls! … You shall be holy, because I am holy!” (Leviticus 11:44-46) … “You shall be holy unto Me, because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have separated you from other people, that you should be Mine!” (Leviticus 20:26). “Let them therefore be holy, because I, the Lord, Who sanctifies them, am holy!” (Leviticus 21:8).
“Be holy … and profane His Name!” (Leviticus 21:6). “Be a holy people of the Lord thy God!” (Deuteronomy 26:19) … “The Lord will raise thee up to be a holy people to Himself, if thou keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways!” (Deuteronomy 28:9) … “Thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God! The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be His people of all peoples that are upon the Earth!” (Deuteronomy 7:6) … “Health of the soul in holiness is better than all gold and silver!” (Ecclesiasticus 30:15) …
In the New Testament Our Lord says: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48) … “For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20). New Testament Scripture adds: “There shall not enter into it anything defiled, or that worketh abomination, or maketh a lie!” (Apocalypse 21:27) … “Follow holiness―without which no man shall see God” (Hebrews 12:14) … “Put on the new man, who according to God is created in holiness” (Ephesians 4:24) … “Strengthen your hearts in holiness” (1 Thessalonians 3:13) … “But according to Him that hath called you, Who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy―for it is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy!’” (1 Peter 1:15-16) … “He chose us that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight!” (Ephesians 1:4) … “Be holy both in body and in spirit!” (1 Corinthians 7:34). “And he that is holy, let him be sanctified still more!” (Apocalypse 22:11).
Holiness in Your Vocation!
ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT―whose feast we just celebrated on April 28th―clearly points out that holiness is our primary vocation in life. He writes: “Chosen soul, living image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, God wants you to become holy like Him in this life, and glorious like Him in the next (Matthew 5:48). It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being. What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God! A marvelous work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving His grace abundantly and in an extraordinary manner. The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this. Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you?
“The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God. The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these, but we are sure that grace will be given to all, though not in the same measure. I say “not in the same measure,” because God does not give His graces in equal measure to everyone (Romans 12:6), although in His infinite goodness He always gives sufficient grace to each. A person who corresponds to great graces performs great works, and one who corresponds to lesser graces performs lesser works. The value and high standard of our actions corresponds to the value and perfection of the grace given by God and responded to by the faithful soul. No one can contest these principles. It all comes down to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary, §3 to §6).
FR. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE speaks along similar lines: “There are some who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles, and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation―which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death, or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified. To be a saint, neither intellectual culture, nor great exterior activity is a requisite; it suffices that we live profoundly by God. This truth is evident in the saints of the early Church; several of those saints were poor people, even slaves. It is evident also in St. Francis, St. Benedict Joseph Labre, in the Curé of Ars, and many others. They all had a deep understanding of these words of our Savior: ‘For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?’ (Matthew 16:26). If people sacrifice so many things to save the life of the body, which must ultimately die, what should we not sacrifice to save the life of our soul, which is to last forever? Ought not man to love his soul more than his body? ‘Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?’ (Mark 8:37) Our Lord adds. ‘One thing is necessary,’ He tells us. To save our soul, one thing alone is necessary ― to hear the word of God and to live by it. Therein lies the best part, which will not be taken away from a faithful soul, even though it should lose everything else.”
ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI says: “Every one desires to die the death of the saints―but it is scarcely possible for the Christian to achieve a holy end, who has led a disorderly life until the time of his death; it is scarcely possible to die united with God, after having always lived at a distance from Him. The saints, in order to secure a happy death, renounced all the riches, the delights, and all the hopes which this world held out to them, and embraced poor and mortified lives. They buried themselves alive in this world, to avoid, when dead, being buried forever in Hell” (The Way of Salvation and of Perfection, Part 1, Meditation 22).
ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT in a similar vein, writes: “Do you really know the voice of God and grace from the voice of the world and human nature? Or are you unconsciously traveling the world’s broad road, the road to perdition? Do you realize that there is a highroad which to all appearances is straight and safe for man to travel, but which in reality leads to death? Dear Brethren, there are two groups that appear before you each day―the followers of Christ and the followers of the world. The world’s group―which is the devil’s in fact―is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendid in array. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded, although they are broad and ever broadening with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver. To the right, the little flock that follows Jesus can speak only of tears, penance, prayer and contempt for worldly things. The worldlings rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure,’ they shout, ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play! God is good, He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples; we shall not die!’ And so they continue!
“Jesus has His eyes upon you at this moment, addressing you individually: ‘See how almost everybody leaves Me practically alone! … But one thing I cannot say without My eyes filling with tears and My heart being pierced with grief―it is that the very children I nourished in My bosom and trained in My school, the very members I quickened with My spirit―they have turned against Me, forsaken Me and joined the ranks of the enemies! Will you also leave Me? Will you also forsake Me like the worldlings? Will you also subscribe to the standards of the day and go in quest of riches, run after pleasure and pursue worldly honors?’ All of you are sinners and there is not a single one who is not deserving of Hell; I myself deserve it the most. These sins of ours must be punished either here or hereafter. If they are punished in this world, they will not be punished in the world to come! If the punishment due to our sins is held over for the next world, then God’s avenging justice will see to the punishing. What horrible punishment! Do we think of this, my dear Brothers and Sisters, when we have some trial to undergo here below? … What debts we still have to pay! How many sins we have committed which, despite a sincere confession and heartfelt contrition, will still have to be atoned for in Purgatory for many a century―simply because in this world we were satisfied with a few insignificant penances! Let us settle our debts here below in cheerfully bearing our crosses, for in the world to come everything must be expiated, even the idle word (Matthew 12:36) and even to the last farthing. If we could lay hands on the devil’s death-register in which he has noted down all our sins and the penalty to be paid, what a heavy debt we would find and how joyfully we would suffer many years here on Earth rather than a single day in the world to come.” (St. Louis de Montfort, Letter to Friends of the Cross, §5 to §11, §21 to §23).
Is there anybody who doesn’t want to go to Heaven? If you don’t want to go to Heaven, then, by default, you implicitly want to go to Hell! But is there anybody who really wants to go to Hell? There may be some Satanists who stupidly want to go to Hell―but most people do not. Why is it, then, that most people end up in Hell? It is because for some stupid reason they falsely believe that they can live as they choose to live and somehow they will still manage to be saved! They are fools! “The perverse are hard to be corrected, and the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). They commit mortal sins; they confess those sins; they sin again; they confess again; they sin again and again; they confess again and again―and some don’t even confess after committing mortal sins! “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8) … “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5).
To Go to Heaven You Must Be Holy!
God did not make you to sin―God made you to be holy! This is constantly stated in both the Old and New Testaments. The problem is that we rarely read the Scriptures―which is one of the primary ways to know God―and so we do not really know God and what God really wants. We create our own version of God and our own version of what God wants!
In the Old Testament God commands―He does not suggest, but commands―that we be holy: “Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy!” (Leviticus 19:2) … “Sanctify yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God!” (Leviticus 20:7) … “You shall be holy men to Me!” (Exodus 22:31) “You shall be to Me a holy nation!” (Exodus 19:6) … “For I am the Lord your God―be holy because I am holy. Defile not your souls! … You shall be holy, because I am holy!” (Leviticus 11:44-46) … “You shall be holy unto Me, because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have separated you from other people, that you should be Mine!” (Leviticus 20:26). “Let them therefore be holy, because I, the Lord, Who sanctifies them, am holy!” (Leviticus 21:8).
“Be holy … and profane His Name!” (Leviticus 21:6). “Be a holy people of the Lord thy God!” (Deuteronomy 26:19) … “The Lord will raise thee up to be a holy people to Himself, if thou keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways!” (Deuteronomy 28:9) … “Thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God! The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be His people of all peoples that are upon the Earth!” (Deuteronomy 7:6) … “Health of the soul in holiness is better than all gold and silver!” (Ecclesiasticus 30:15) …
In the New Testament Our Lord says: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48) … “For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20). New Testament Scripture adds: “There shall not enter into it anything defiled, or that worketh abomination, or maketh a lie!” (Apocalypse 21:27) … “Follow holiness―without which no man shall see God” (Hebrews 12:14) … “Put on the new man, who according to God is created in holiness” (Ephesians 4:24) … “Strengthen your hearts in holiness” (1 Thessalonians 3:13) … “But according to Him that hath called you, Who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy―for it is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy!’” (1 Peter 1:15-16) … “He chose us that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight!” (Ephesians 1:4) … “Be holy both in body and in spirit!” (1 Corinthians 7:34). “And he that is holy, let him be sanctified still more!” (Apocalypse 22:11).
Holiness in Your Vocation!
ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT―whose feast we just celebrated on April 28th―clearly points out that holiness is our primary vocation in life. He writes: “Chosen soul, living image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, God wants you to become holy like Him in this life, and glorious like Him in the next (Matthew 5:48). It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being. What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God! A marvelous work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving His grace abundantly and in an extraordinary manner. The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this. Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you?
“The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God. The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these, but we are sure that grace will be given to all, though not in the same measure. I say “not in the same measure,” because God does not give His graces in equal measure to everyone (Romans 12:6), although in His infinite goodness He always gives sufficient grace to each. A person who corresponds to great graces performs great works, and one who corresponds to lesser graces performs lesser works. The value and high standard of our actions corresponds to the value and perfection of the grace given by God and responded to by the faithful soul. No one can contest these principles. It all comes down to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary, §3 to §6).
FR. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE speaks along similar lines: “There are some who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles, and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation―which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death, or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified. To be a saint, neither intellectual culture, nor great exterior activity is a requisite; it suffices that we live profoundly by God. This truth is evident in the saints of the early Church; several of those saints were poor people, even slaves. It is evident also in St. Francis, St. Benedict Joseph Labre, in the Curé of Ars, and many others. They all had a deep understanding of these words of our Savior: ‘For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?’ (Matthew 16:26). If people sacrifice so many things to save the life of the body, which must ultimately die, what should we not sacrifice to save the life of our soul, which is to last forever? Ought not man to love his soul more than his body? ‘Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?’ (Mark 8:37) Our Lord adds. ‘One thing is necessary,’ He tells us. To save our soul, one thing alone is necessary ― to hear the word of God and to live by it. Therein lies the best part, which will not be taken away from a faithful soul, even though it should lose everything else.”
ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI says: “Every one desires to die the death of the saints―but it is scarcely possible for the Christian to achieve a holy end, who has led a disorderly life until the time of his death; it is scarcely possible to die united with God, after having always lived at a distance from Him. The saints, in order to secure a happy death, renounced all the riches, the delights, and all the hopes which this world held out to them, and embraced poor and mortified lives. They buried themselves alive in this world, to avoid, when dead, being buried forever in Hell” (The Way of Salvation and of Perfection, Part 1, Meditation 22).
ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT in a similar vein, writes: “Do you really know the voice of God and grace from the voice of the world and human nature? Or are you unconsciously traveling the world’s broad road, the road to perdition? Do you realize that there is a highroad which to all appearances is straight and safe for man to travel, but which in reality leads to death? Dear Brethren, there are two groups that appear before you each day―the followers of Christ and the followers of the world. The world’s group―which is the devil’s in fact―is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendid in array. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded, although they are broad and ever broadening with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver. To the right, the little flock that follows Jesus can speak only of tears, penance, prayer and contempt for worldly things. The worldlings rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure,’ they shout, ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play! God is good, He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples; we shall not die!’ And so they continue!
“Jesus has His eyes upon you at this moment, addressing you individually: ‘See how almost everybody leaves Me practically alone! … But one thing I cannot say without My eyes filling with tears and My heart being pierced with grief―it is that the very children I nourished in My bosom and trained in My school, the very members I quickened with My spirit―they have turned against Me, forsaken Me and joined the ranks of the enemies! Will you also leave Me? Will you also forsake Me like the worldlings? Will you also subscribe to the standards of the day and go in quest of riches, run after pleasure and pursue worldly honors?’ All of you are sinners and there is not a single one who is not deserving of Hell; I myself deserve it the most. These sins of ours must be punished either here or hereafter. If they are punished in this world, they will not be punished in the world to come! If the punishment due to our sins is held over for the next world, then God’s avenging justice will see to the punishing. What horrible punishment! Do we think of this, my dear Brothers and Sisters, when we have some trial to undergo here below? … What debts we still have to pay! How many sins we have committed which, despite a sincere confession and heartfelt contrition, will still have to be atoned for in Purgatory for many a century―simply because in this world we were satisfied with a few insignificant penances! Let us settle our debts here below in cheerfully bearing our crosses, for in the world to come everything must be expiated, even the idle word (Matthew 12:36) and even to the last farthing. If we could lay hands on the devil’s death-register in which he has noted down all our sins and the penalty to be paid, what a heavy debt we would find and how joyfully we would suffer many years here on Earth rather than a single day in the world to come.” (St. Louis de Montfort, Letter to Friends of the Cross, §5 to §11, §21 to §23).
FEAST OF ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT
Article 10
Friday April 28th & Saturday April 29th, 2023
Life's Lessons from St. Louis!
Article 10
Friday April 28th & Saturday April 29th, 2023
Life's Lessons from St. Louis!
Learning Lasting Lessons from Louis
The Faith is of utmost important for Catholics who stay in the Church. The Catechism and Bible are usually the core elements of religious education. However, studying the lives of saints is equally important in developing faithful and faith-filled Catholics. The saints are our friends, examples, guides, coaches and encouragers as we “fight the good fight of Faith―seeking to lay hold on eternal life” (1 Timothy 6:12). We are all called to be saints. Therefore, we need to learn about saints so that we can follow their paths to success and Heaven. If we want to be saints, we need to know what makes people―just like us―into saints. You can think of the saints as a network of friends in Heaven, who help us through their guidance, protection and intercession. In a sense―following the theme of this “Good Shepherd Week”―you could call the saints our “Saintly Shepherds”. Today, April 28th, we celebrate the feast of one of those “Saintly Shepherds”―St. Louis de Montfort. Let us then pay some attention to his life and see what we can learn for our own passage from sinner to saint.
Saints Are Not Born―Saints Are Made
It is easy to think that our saintly brothers and sisters never did anything wrong―as if they never had the difficulties we have, lived a divinely sheltered life, did a miraculous deed or two, and then got whisked up to Heaven. However, saints were human and they made mistakes. It is important to understand and remember this: “Saints are not born saints, but they are made into saints!” The saints were not perfect―which helps us relate to them so well. They experienced many of the same inner struggles, challenges, and joys that we do. They were extremely human but despite their weaknesses, they were used by God as his instruments. They differ greatly in their backgrounds but they are similar to one another in their deep love for God and their desire to serve him. Some saints, like St. Augustine, made many mistakes for many years. Learning more about the saints humanizes them. It allows us to envision ourselves as holy men and women. The saints also provide shining examples of how to right wrongs, overcome adversity, and keep going when the world is against you.
The Raw Material of Saints
A baby is born into sin―Original Sin. Original Sin is not something we do―Original Sin (in us, not Adam and Eve) is the absence of sanctifying grace―which we need to gain entrance into Heaven. This does not mean that a baby has a committed a personal sin upon being born―for to be able to sin you must have reached the age of reason (commonly held to be around 7 years of age―give or take a year). Once we reach the age of reason, we then understand whether something is bad (sinful); we know the consequences; and we can deliberately choose to do it or avoid it. To the legal system, the answer is that children have reached the requisite moral sense―the ability to tell right from wrong―by age 7 to 15, depending on which state they live in, and so can be held responsible for their actions.
Anyway, back to point. A baby is born without sanctifying grace―and sanctifying grace is the raw material that is absolutely essential for our souls to be pleasing and acceptable to God. No sanctifying grace means no salvation and ho Heaven―it means Hell. So what is sanctifying grace? If it is so important, then we should take time and make efforts to find out more about it! Sanctifying grace is described or defined by several catechisms―traditional and modern―as follows:
► BALTIMORE CATECHISM #3, Question 105: “Sanctifying grace is that grace which makes the soul holy and pleasing to God.”
► THE CATECHISM: MY CATHOLIC FAITH, states that: “The chief gift bestowed on Adam and Eve by God was sanctifying grace, which made them children of God and gave them the right to Heaven. God created Adam and Eve in the state of innocence and holiness. This made them pleasing to God, and full of love for Him. It made them children of God, and therefore heirs of Heaven. This state of innocence we term ‘sanctifying grace’ … On account of their sin Adam and Eve lost sanctifying grace, the right to Heaven, and they became subject to death, to suffering, and to a strong inclination to evil … On account of the sin of Adam, we, his descendants, come into the world deprived of sanctifying grace and inherit his punishment, just as we would have inherited his gifts had he been obedient to God. ‘Therefore as through one man sin entered into the world and through sin death, and thus death has passed into all men’ (Romans 5:12). This sin in us is called Original Sin. It is the state in which every descendant of Adam comes into the world, totally deprived of sanctifying grace, through inheriting the punishment, not of Adam’s personal sin, but of his sin as head of the human race. Original sin does not come to us from Eve, but from Adam alone, since God made him representative and head of the whole human race. Eve was punished for her disobedience, as Adam was, but did not pass on her guilt to all mankind. Our Original Sin comes from our first father. Because of Original Sin, Heaven was closed to all men until the death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord instituted the sacrament of Baptism in order to restore to us the right to Heaven that Adam had lost” (Catechism: My Catholic Faith, Chapters 18 & 20).
► THE CATECHISM SIMPLY EXPLAINED says: “Grace is so called because it is a gift of God, freely given by Him to us through the merits of Christ. It is not due to us. There are two kinds of grace: sanctifying (or habitual) and actual grace. Sanctifying grace is a quality with which the Holy Ghost endows our souls to wash away our sins and make us holy and pleasing in His sight. We must not take this to mean that grace merely makes our souls beautiful for God to look upon. It does much more than that. St Peter tells us that it makes us partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). This does not mean that grace makes us God. It means that graces enriches and ennobles us immeasurably beyond our natural capabilities so that we have a wonderful intimacy with God; instead of being only His servants we become His friends and adopted children. Grace imparts to us a new life, the life our Lord spoke of when He said: ‘I am come that they may have life… more abundantly!’ (John 10:10). We receive this grace at Baptism. Once received, it remains in our souls. That is why it is called habitual grace, and those who have it are said to be in the state of grace. The only way we can lose it is by mortal sin; but a good confession or an act of perfect contrition restores it to us if we have lost it. Sanctifying grace can be continuously increased by prayer and the reception of the sacraments. Since it is so great a treasure, we should guard it carefully and do all we can to increase it in our souls.” (Catechism Simply Explained, question 139).
► MODERN CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (1992): “Sanctifying grace is the gratuitous gift of His life that God makes to us; it is infused by the Holy Spirit into the soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. Sanctifying grace makes us pleasing to God” (§2023-§2024).
The Basic, Fundamental, Essential Ingredient of Sanctity
So there you have it! There is no sanctity without sanctifying grace! There can be no salvation without sanctifying grace! There is no entry into Heaven without sanctifying grace! St. Louis de Montfort and whichever other saint you wish to consider―all had one thing in common―they all died in a state of sanctifying grace. They may have become saints by following different paths, excelling in different virtues, holy in different degrees―but it was sanctifying grace that was at root of all this. For if you perform any good action without sanctifying grace (that is to say, in the state of mortal sin), then there is no heavenly reward for it. Charity is, so to speak, “married” to sanctifying grace. “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and, through the means of sanctifying grace, God dwells in our soul. When we “kick-out” God through mortal sin, we are, in effect, kicking-out charity too, for God is charity. Hence this passage of Scripture could be said to apply, not only to charity, but also to sanctifying grace:
“If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity [sanctifying grace]―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity [sanctifying grace]―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity [sanctifying grace]―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Fundamental Destroyer of Sanctifying Grace
“Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin … Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us!” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD; also The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata).
Satan―the perpetual “con-man”―will perpetually work with perpetual patience to maneuver you through ever-increasing degrees of sin (starting from the tiniest venial sin and slowly working you up to tiniest mortal sin) at a pace that makes you feel comfortable and does not disturb you too much. Once it comes to the tiniest mortal sin, he will suggest to you that it is nothing more than a pretty big venial sin and that you should have no qualms about committing and that there is no need to confess it. For the bigger mortal sins, he will perpetually work at desensitizing you to its gravity―and, if you intend to confess it, then he will try to make you confess it badly (understate it, making it sound like a venial sin to the priest, or not confessing it as you should, e.g., “Father, I’ve had impure thoughts!” rather than: “Father, I’ve SIX (exact number) impure thoughts that were ADULTEROUS (what kind of impure thoughts) about another married person―and I am married also!” St. Alphonsus Liguori―way back in the 1700s―was of the opinion that most souls confess badly, and therefore make their confessions invalid. That should give us much food for thought! How many times have you made bad confessions by “fudging”, masking, understating, misrepresenting, diluting, or even hiding mortal sins? It is almost impossible to be damned if you are making good Confessions! Why, then, are the vast majority of Catholic souls damned? The answer is pretty simple, isn’t it? Satan seems to have a phenomenal success rate here!
Treasuring Sanctifying Grace
You would think that Catholics would place a far greater importance on the value of sanctifying grace, its absolute necessity for salvation, the ways of protecting, preserving and increasing it―but they don’t. Almost all Catholics are clueless as to the manner in which sanctifying operates and what it can do for our soul―for them, there are simply much more interesting things to think about! The bottom line is this―only saints get into Heaven and sanctifying grace is given to you in order to make you a saint. If you don’t use, then you will lose it! As one saint says―St. Thomas Aquinas―the purpose of grace is to perfect us: “Gratia non tollit naturam, sed perficit” (Summa, Ia, q. 1, art. 8, ad 2), which is translated as “Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it!” In other words, God’s grace helps us do more than we can on our own―and in the matter of our salvation, we cannot achieve sanctity and salvation without God’s grace.
There have been many saints―but no two saints are exactly alike. Each saint has had different handicaps, obstacles, setbacks and failures on the road to sanctity and Heaven. Each saint has excelled in different virtues, or in different levels of the same virtues. Yet, what they all do have in common, is sanctifying grace and their cooperation in the preservation, growth and perfection of sanctifying grace. By analogy, you could say that they are like different cars―different sizes, different colors, different configurations, different engine capacities, different performance ranges, different capabilities, different prices―but without fuel, they are going nowhere―sanctifying grace is that fuel. The fuel of grace is needed to start the engine and the fuel of grace is needed at every single moment to keep the engine running. Without the fuel of grace, we come to standstill and can make no further progress.
Furthermore, as stated above, sanctifying grace and charity are, so to speak, “married”―they are a team―that is why everything is supernaturally worthless unless it is (1) done in a state of sanctifying grace, and (2) done with charity―that is to say, out of a love of God. You could say, in a manner of speaking, that charity is like the “spark” that makes the “fuel” of sanctifying grace effective. If you cannot ignite your fuel, then your car is going nowhere! Hence, it worth repeating the above quote: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
What worked for them, should also work for us―unless we have damaged our engine in some way. Let us then look at the life of today’s saint―St. Louis de Montfort―to see what we can learn for our own voyage to Heaven and how to avoid the wrong turn that leads to Hell (which is where most Catholics seem to be driving).
What Can St. Louis de Montfort Teach Us?
We have to look at the saints as though they are different teachers who teach different subjects in a school―but all of them having the same purpose, which is to help you pass the necessary exams and successfully graduate at the end of your education. If the school is a truly Catholic school, then, regardless of what subject is being taught, there should a spiritual thread or religious spirit that penetrates and irrigates all the different subjects―as stated by Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Divini Illius Magistri, On Christian Education:
“The mere fact that a school gives some religious instruction―which is often extremely stinted―does not bring it into accord with the rights of the Church and of the Christian family, or make it a fit place for Catholic students. To be this, it is necessary that all the teaching and the whole organization of the school, and all its teachers, syllabus and text-books in every branch, be regulated by the Christian spirit, under the direction and maternal supervision of the Church; so that Religion may be in very truth the foundation and crown of the youth’s entire training; and this in every grade of school, not only the elementary, but the intermediate and the higher institutions of learning as well. To use the words of Leo XIII: ‘It is necessary, not only that religious instruction be given to the young at certain fixed times, but also that every other subject taught, be permeated with Christian piety. If this is lacking, if this sacred atmosphere does not pervade and warm the hearts of masters and scholars alike, little good can be expected from any kind of learning, and considerable harm will often be the consequence.’” (Pope Pius XI, December 31st, 1929, Encyclical Divini Illius Magistri, On Christian Education, §80).
Just as we learn different things from different teachers, we also learn different spiritual lessons from different saints. Yet, just as the principles of learning and growth in knowledge remain the same, no matter what subject we are studying―likewise, the principles of holiness and growth in knowledge of the things of God also remain the same, no matter which saint we are studying under and learning from. You can read the full version of St. Louis de Montfort’s life on another page [click here]. In this article, we will extract only some points of major importance that can inspire and serve us in our own path to sanctity and pilgrimage to Heaven.
Humble Beginnings
St. Louis de Montfort was born in 1673 in a small town, into what we, today, might call a “middle-class-family”. He was the second of eighteen children―but only ten of those eighteen children survived to adulthood, eight died between infancy and adulthood. His father, a notary, was known for his fiery temper; his mother was known for her deep piety. The family owned some property―but they were not considered well-off, nor part of the upper-class. Nevertheless, Louis-Marie was born into a family of deep Catholic Faith, in an area of France renowned for its dynamic Christian life. This shows us the importance of good shepherds (the devout parents) and good pastures (a dynamically Christian area). Without good teachers or good shepherds, and without good pastures, the task of producing saints is very difficult.
As Pope Pius XI stated: “With regard to offspring―children should cared for and educated in a religious atmosphere … Parents are under a grave obligation to see to the religious and moral education of their children, as well as to their physical and civic training! … Christian parents must understand that they are destined―not only to propagate and preserve the human race on Earth, not only to educate any kind of worshipers of the true God―but raise children who are to become members of the Church of Christ, and to raise up fellow-citizens of the Saints!” (Pope Pius XI, Encyclicals Casti Connubii and Divini Illius Magistri).
A Religious Atmosphere
As the saying goes: “You cannot leave clothes in a smoky room for long before they take on the smell of smoke!” Or, “Children learn more from what you are than what you teach!” Religion has to come from the heart and not the lips! As Jesus said: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8). Likewise, “He that walketh with the wise, shall be wise: a friend of fools shall become like to them” (Proverbs 13:20). As for taking on the traits of parents, Scripture says: “As the mother was, so also is her daughter” (Ezechiel 16:44) ― which is probably where we get our modern-day proverb: “Like father, like son!” Any teacher worth his or her salt, will tell you that you can guess the traits of a student’s parents by merely observing the traits of the student. The mother of Louis was especially religious and devout―and so, naturally, like a good virus, Louis caught the “saintly disease” of religiosity. Louis-Marie proved to be a good elder brother to his brothers and sisters. He helped his father by coaching his brothers and sisters in their studies. As he was devoted to Blessed Virgin Mary, he often took his beloved sister, Guyonne, aside to recite the Rosary.
At the age of eleven, Louis-Marie would change his religious shepherds (his parents) for even more religious shepherds and more religious pastures―as he left the pastures of his family home to enroll in the Jesuit College of Thomas à Becket. Remember―he is only 11 years old at this time! During the first year at the Jesuit College at Rennes, he stayed with his maternal uncle, Fr. Alain Robert, at the Church of St. Savior. Louis-Marie’s uncle―a priest of the Church of the Holy Savior in Rennes―became the youth’s close confidant. That church had an ancient statue of Our Lady of Miracles and Louis often prayed before it.
Religious Upbringing Provides Good Soil for Seeds of a Vocation
Holy Scripture warns against having bad friends: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). “Evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Corinthians 15:33). While Louis was away from home pursuing his education, he was careful to make friends who were religious minded. He joined a society of young men who during holidays ministered to the poor and to the incurables in the hospitals, and read for them edifying books during their meals. He formed lasting friendships, particularly with two fellow-students: Claude Poullart des Places, the first founder of the Holy Ghost Fathers, and especially with John Baptist Blain, who also became the intimate friend of Saint John Baptist de la Salle, the founder of the Christian Brothers. It was under the guidance of the Jesuits that Louis’ priestly vocation matured. The decision to enter the priesthood was made, so he tells us, at the shrine of Our Lady in the Carmelite Church in Rennes. Thanks especially to his Jesuit directors and those in charge of the Sodality of Our Lady at the College, Montfort’s solid devotion to the Mother of the Lord was already an integral part of his spiritual life.
God Calls―Who Listens? Louis!
Almost 200 years after St. Louis de Montfort, St. John Bosco would say that in his opinion, one-out-of-four persons is called to the religious life by God―as either a priest, monk, brother, nun or sister. If that is the case, then it is frightening as to how few Catholics react to that call, or who even hear it―since most have drowned out the voice of God by their worldly lives and pursuits! Not so with Louis! Sometime between the ages of 16 and 18, he had a deep experience of God and he felt being called to priesthood. This calling can only have been greatly favored by the fact of the religious atmosphere in his family life, his friendship with other religiously likeminded friends at school, and the influence of the clergy upon him all throughout his life. In response to this call from God, after completing philosophy and at the beginning of the academic year in 1692, Louis started to learn theology.
A certain Mademoiselle (Miss) Montigny, from Sainte-Sulpice parish in Paris, came to stay with the Grignions in order to get legal help from Mr. John Baptist Grignion, Louis’ father. She, on her return to Paris, got help from a rich lady and offered to get Louis admitted into Sainte-Sulpice Seminary. It is at this point that we see Louis’ spirit of penance―a spirit that must have been cultivated in the religious atmosphere of family life.
Louis, aged 19, chose to walk the whole distance of 230 miles from Rennes to Paris. His father gave him some money and his mother a new set of clothes. On the day of departure Louis bade farewell to his parents and dear ones. His uncle Fr. Alain Robert, his brother Joseph, and perhaps his friend Blain, accompanied him as far as Cesson Bridge, some 2 miles from Rennes. On crossing the bridge, Louis knelt down and made the vow never to possess anything in his life. He gave away the money he had been given to a beggar he met, and then he exchanged his new clothes with the old ones of another beggar. Having given up all, he trusted God. The words of Our Lord come to mind here: “And Jesus called the Twelve and began to send them two and two; and He commanded them: ‘Do not possess gold, nor silver, nor money in your purses, nor bag for your journey, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor a staff―for the workman is worthy of his meat!’” (Matthew 10:9-10; Mark 6:7-8).
Just put yourself in his shoes―he is not familiar with the route; he does not know what dangers lie ahead on the road; there is no police force patrolling the roads; people are easy victims for anyone desiring to commit crimes; he has no list of hotels, motels, inns―since they don’t even exist; and he has no money with which to buy food! All he has is trust in God and His Providence! Again the words of Our Lord come to mind: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon! Therefore I say to you, be not anxious for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the food: and the body more than the clothing? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns―and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you of much more value than they? … Therefore, be not anxious, saying: ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘With what shall we be clothed?’ For the heathens seek after all these things! Your Father knows that you have need of all these things. Therefore seek first the Kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. Therefore, be not worried about tomorrow; for tomorrow will be solicitous for itself!” (Matthew 6:19-34).
God’s Tough Love!
Louis reached Paris absolutely worn-out and met his benefactress, Mademoiselle Montigny. During the winter of 1693-94, Louis’ benefactress was not able to pay the high fees in the Great Seminary of Sainte-Sulpice and so she got Louis admitted into Fr. Barmondiere’s Community, a hostel meant for poor seminarians. His director allowed Louis to ask for alms and get some money by keeping watch over dead bodies. As for his studies, he followed the theology course at the famous Sorbonne University.
Fr. Barmondiere died in September 1694 and his community was closed down. The students were divided into two groups: the richer ones joined the Little Seminary of Sainte-Sulpice and the poorer ones, including Louis, joined Fr. Boucher’s Community. The conditions there were very poor. As the winter of 1694 began, Louis became very ill. He was admitted into the General Hospital. He was on the point of death. Miraculously, he regained health and a certain Mrs. Alegre came forward to take care of the major part of the fees in order to get him admitted into the Little Seminary of Sainte-Sulpice. The rest of the fees Louis got from a chaplaincy in Nantes and thus Louis was admitted into the Little Seminary of Sainte-Sulpice
The Pastures of the Seminary
The differences between the Great Seminary and the Little Seminary were only in fees and meals. Louis gave up his studies at the Sorbonne. He was not interested in further qualifications. Louis was not a seminarian like the rest and he was considered singular. He gave much time to prayer, penance, solitude, etc. His spiritual guides were not sure whether he was genuine or not, and, hence, they wanted to test him. Louis chose Fr. Leschassier, the Superior of the Great Seminary as his spiritual director. He restricted Louis in his practice of prayer and penance, but Louis always obeyed him. Later, Fr. Leschassier the Superior of the Great Seminary, asked another priest, Fr. Brenier, to be the spiritual director for Louis. Fr. Brenier tested Louis by humiliating him publicly before his companions and by curtailing all his initiatives. After six months he sent him back to Fr. Leschassier. Louis’ calm acceptance of this treatment and his obedience to what might seem to be illogical commands (such as praying less, doing less penance, and other well-intentioned projects being snuffed-out) must have proved that Louis was doing these things out of a sincere love of God and not to gain praise and applause from those around him.
To distract Louis from his ‘over recollectedness’, his superiors appointed him Librarian of the Seminary of the Seminary. However, rather than hinder his spirituality, Louis took advantage of this appointment to read a large number of spiritual books―especially those on Mary, the Bible and Spirituality. Neither did his work suffer as a consequence, for he did very well as the Librarian.
In addition, he was appointed Master of Ceremonies and there too he did wonderfully well. His other duty was to teach catechism to children. By using simple stories, he successfully performed his duty and became an expert catechist. He wanted to be a preacher especially for the poor. While in the seminary he started preparing sermon notes. He also composed a large number of hymns.
What we can learn from all this is that nothing should hinder, stop, slow down, derail, distract, dilute or diminish our love for God―which is our principal work, occupation, obligation, hobby and pastime, as Holy Scripture clearly points out: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). That is what Louis clearly understood. He also knew the truth of Our Lord’s words: “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for the sake of justice―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven! Blessed are you when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake! Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven! For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you!” (Matthew 5:10-12). As Scripture says: “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). Yet Scripture adds: “We know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to His purpose, are called to be saints! … Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? Or distress? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or persecution? Or the sword? As it is written: ‘For Thy sake we are put to death all the day long! We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter!’ But in all these things we overcome, because of Him that hath loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God!” (Romans 8:28, 35-39).
That is what happened with Louis―under persecution, humiliations, restraint and tribulation―his love for God and things of God continued to grow. A large part of that is due to his formation by his parents in the religious atmosphere at home―where he would also be prepared for later persecutions and humiliations by the fiery temper of his father. It was here, in Paris, that he was introduced to the writings of Father Boudon on “Slavery to the Blessed Virgin.” This beautiful devotion consumed him throughout the future years and inspired him to later write his most famous treatise–“True Devotion to Mary.”
While a seminarian in Paris, Louis was known for the veneration he had toward the angels: he “urged his confreres to show marks of respect and tenderness to their guardian angels.” He often ended his letters with a salutation to the guardian angel of the person to whom he was writing: “I salute your guardian angel!” He also saluted all the angels in the city of Nantes, a custom that, it appears, he repeated when he entered a new village or city. One of the reasons why Louis had such devotion to the angels is that veneration of the pure spirits was an integral part of his training and also of his culture. His college teachers, the Jesuits, were known for their zeal in propagating devotion to the angels. Louis’ seminary training under the Sulpicians brought him into contact with the thoughts of Cardinal de Bérulle and Olier, both of whom had deep veneration for the angels. Furthermore, in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, manuals of piety and treatises on the pure spirits were numerous.
How much less trouble would we encounter if we only followed the example of St. Louis de Montfort with regard to a devotion to the angels in general and our own guardian angels in particular! The angels are around 24/7/365 ― every minute of the day, all year round and throughout our entire life! Yet all they get from most of us is an occasional prayer … “Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits me here! Throughout this night (day) be at my side―to light, to guard, to rule, to guide. Amen.” After tens of years of listening to that―and only that―don’t you think our angels might like some variety and more than just the same old 29 words a few times a week? Compose your own prayer to your guardian angels and the angels in general; look up the litanies that are available for the guardian angels, St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael and the angels in general; there are also acts of consecration to the angels; you could even read for a few minutes each day from the many books on the angels, etc. As you sow, so shall you reap!
Ordination to Persecution
“Whom the Lord loves, He chastises; and He scourges every son whom He receives!” (Hebrews 12:6). God must have loved Louis-Marie, for after his ordination his tribulations and sufferings increased! Sometimes the same can happen to us―whenever we seek to do more for God, we find more and more crosses, setbacks, contradictions, failures, and even hatred and persecution! Just like God says in Holy Scripture: “Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise!” (Apocalypse 3:19). “For whom the Lord loveth, He chastises; and He scourges every son whom He receives!” (Hebrews 12:6). Thus, just as Job, when overwhelmed with tragic losses, said: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away: as it has pleased the Lord so is it done! Blessed be the name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21)―so too would Louis-Marie say in his failures, setbacks and disappointments: “Blessed be God!” Is that our attitude? Or are we always murmuring when things do not go out way? “To them that love God and are called to be saints, all things work together unto good” (Romans 8:28).
After his ordination to the priesthood in 1700, full of zeal, Louis-Marie at first wanted to be a missionary, preferably to the new French colony of Canada, or some far off country, but he was advised by his spiritual director to remain in France. Louis-Marie accepted that to be the will the God. During the spring of 1703, Louis-Marie had to face many problems in the Poorhouse and he left for Paris. There he joined the General Hospital of Salpetriere, as a volunteer priest, to help some 5,000 poor people. His methods were not liked by other priests and he was force to leave. His friends in Sainte-Sulpice parish did not welcome him and, finally, he found shelter under the staircase of a dilapidated building. He spent the greater part of his days and nights in prayer.
In 1705, aged 32, and still desiring to be a missionary, Louis-Marie de Montfort made a pilgrimage to Rome to ask the advice of Pope Clement XI. Louis undertook the journey to Rome from Poitier on foot―which is around 700 miles one way, or 1,400 miles round trip. He had an audience with Pope Clement XI on June 6th, 1706. The Pope recognized his real vocation and, telling him there was plenty of scope for its exercise in France. The Pope told him to preach in France itself and conferred on him the title of “Apostolic Missionary”. On his return from his long pilgrimage to Rome, Louis-Marie returned to Poitiers, but the Bishop asked him to leave the diocese within 24 hours.
Louis-Marie would now embark upon over seventeen years of preaching the Gospel in countless towns and villages. For several years he preached in missions from Brittany to Nantes. Later, the Bishop forbade him from preaching in the diocese of Nantes. He left Nantes and the next several years were extraordinarily busy for him. He was constantly occupied in preaching missions, always traveling on foot between one and another. Yet he found time also to write ― his True Devotion to Mary, the Secret of Mary and the Secret of the Rosary, as well as Rules for the Company of Mary and the Daughters of Wisdom, and many Hymns. The heated style of his preaching was regarded by some people as somewhat strange. As an orator he was highly gifted, his language being simple, but filled with fire and divine love.
But he also met with opposition, especially from the Jansenists―a heretical movement within the Church that believed in absolute Predestination, in which only a chosen few are saved, and the rest damned. Much of France was influenced by Jansenism at that time, including many bishops, who banished St. Louis-Marie from preaching in their dioceses. He was poisoned by Jansenists in La Rochelle―but survived. Nevertheless, although it did not prove fatal, it caused his health to deteriorate. This brings to mind the words of Our Lord concerning His future disciples: “If they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them!” (Mark 16:18). Yet he continued, undeterred. He went on preaching and established free schools for the poor boys and girls. While recuperating from the effects of the poisoning, he wrote the masterpiece of Marian piety, “True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin,” which he correctly prophesied would be hidden by the devil for a time.
Death And Burial
Worn out by hard work and sickness, he finally came, in April 1716, to Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre, to begin the mission which was to be his last. During it, he fell ill and died on April 28th of that year. He was 43 years old, and had been a priest for only 16 years. His last sermon was on the tenderness of Jesus and the Incarnate Wisdom of the Father. Thousands gathered for his burial in the parish church, and very quickly there were stories of miracles performed at his tomb.
A Young Priest Who Influenced The Popes
In June 1700, when a young Louis de Montfort was ordained a priest, he was but another young and idealistic man who wanted to be the champion of the poor, having been inspired as a teenager to preach to the poor. But he also had a very strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and was prepared to risk his life for it. Centuries later, he influenced four popes (Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius X, Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II), and is now being considered as a Doctor of the Church.
Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius X both relied on de Montfort in their writings and promulgated his Marian vision. It has been said, that the Marian encyclical of Pius X, Ad Diem Illum, was not only influenced but penetrated by the Mariology of Montfort, and that both Leo XIII and Pius X applied the Marian analysis of Montfort to their analysis of the Church as a whole.
The Faith is of utmost important for Catholics who stay in the Church. The Catechism and Bible are usually the core elements of religious education. However, studying the lives of saints is equally important in developing faithful and faith-filled Catholics. The saints are our friends, examples, guides, coaches and encouragers as we “fight the good fight of Faith―seeking to lay hold on eternal life” (1 Timothy 6:12). We are all called to be saints. Therefore, we need to learn about saints so that we can follow their paths to success and Heaven. If we want to be saints, we need to know what makes people―just like us―into saints. You can think of the saints as a network of friends in Heaven, who help us through their guidance, protection and intercession. In a sense―following the theme of this “Good Shepherd Week”―you could call the saints our “Saintly Shepherds”. Today, April 28th, we celebrate the feast of one of those “Saintly Shepherds”―St. Louis de Montfort. Let us then pay some attention to his life and see what we can learn for our own passage from sinner to saint.
Saints Are Not Born―Saints Are Made
It is easy to think that our saintly brothers and sisters never did anything wrong―as if they never had the difficulties we have, lived a divinely sheltered life, did a miraculous deed or two, and then got whisked up to Heaven. However, saints were human and they made mistakes. It is important to understand and remember this: “Saints are not born saints, but they are made into saints!” The saints were not perfect―which helps us relate to them so well. They experienced many of the same inner struggles, challenges, and joys that we do. They were extremely human but despite their weaknesses, they were used by God as his instruments. They differ greatly in their backgrounds but they are similar to one another in their deep love for God and their desire to serve him. Some saints, like St. Augustine, made many mistakes for many years. Learning more about the saints humanizes them. It allows us to envision ourselves as holy men and women. The saints also provide shining examples of how to right wrongs, overcome adversity, and keep going when the world is against you.
The Raw Material of Saints
A baby is born into sin―Original Sin. Original Sin is not something we do―Original Sin (in us, not Adam and Eve) is the absence of sanctifying grace―which we need to gain entrance into Heaven. This does not mean that a baby has a committed a personal sin upon being born―for to be able to sin you must have reached the age of reason (commonly held to be around 7 years of age―give or take a year). Once we reach the age of reason, we then understand whether something is bad (sinful); we know the consequences; and we can deliberately choose to do it or avoid it. To the legal system, the answer is that children have reached the requisite moral sense―the ability to tell right from wrong―by age 7 to 15, depending on which state they live in, and so can be held responsible for their actions.
Anyway, back to point. A baby is born without sanctifying grace―and sanctifying grace is the raw material that is absolutely essential for our souls to be pleasing and acceptable to God. No sanctifying grace means no salvation and ho Heaven―it means Hell. So what is sanctifying grace? If it is so important, then we should take time and make efforts to find out more about it! Sanctifying grace is described or defined by several catechisms―traditional and modern―as follows:
► BALTIMORE CATECHISM #3, Question 105: “Sanctifying grace is that grace which makes the soul holy and pleasing to God.”
► THE CATECHISM: MY CATHOLIC FAITH, states that: “The chief gift bestowed on Adam and Eve by God was sanctifying grace, which made them children of God and gave them the right to Heaven. God created Adam and Eve in the state of innocence and holiness. This made them pleasing to God, and full of love for Him. It made them children of God, and therefore heirs of Heaven. This state of innocence we term ‘sanctifying grace’ … On account of their sin Adam and Eve lost sanctifying grace, the right to Heaven, and they became subject to death, to suffering, and to a strong inclination to evil … On account of the sin of Adam, we, his descendants, come into the world deprived of sanctifying grace and inherit his punishment, just as we would have inherited his gifts had he been obedient to God. ‘Therefore as through one man sin entered into the world and through sin death, and thus death has passed into all men’ (Romans 5:12). This sin in us is called Original Sin. It is the state in which every descendant of Adam comes into the world, totally deprived of sanctifying grace, through inheriting the punishment, not of Adam’s personal sin, but of his sin as head of the human race. Original sin does not come to us from Eve, but from Adam alone, since God made him representative and head of the whole human race. Eve was punished for her disobedience, as Adam was, but did not pass on her guilt to all mankind. Our Original Sin comes from our first father. Because of Original Sin, Heaven was closed to all men until the death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord instituted the sacrament of Baptism in order to restore to us the right to Heaven that Adam had lost” (Catechism: My Catholic Faith, Chapters 18 & 20).
► THE CATECHISM SIMPLY EXPLAINED says: “Grace is so called because it is a gift of God, freely given by Him to us through the merits of Christ. It is not due to us. There are two kinds of grace: sanctifying (or habitual) and actual grace. Sanctifying grace is a quality with which the Holy Ghost endows our souls to wash away our sins and make us holy and pleasing in His sight. We must not take this to mean that grace merely makes our souls beautiful for God to look upon. It does much more than that. St Peter tells us that it makes us partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). This does not mean that grace makes us God. It means that graces enriches and ennobles us immeasurably beyond our natural capabilities so that we have a wonderful intimacy with God; instead of being only His servants we become His friends and adopted children. Grace imparts to us a new life, the life our Lord spoke of when He said: ‘I am come that they may have life… more abundantly!’ (John 10:10). We receive this grace at Baptism. Once received, it remains in our souls. That is why it is called habitual grace, and those who have it are said to be in the state of grace. The only way we can lose it is by mortal sin; but a good confession or an act of perfect contrition restores it to us if we have lost it. Sanctifying grace can be continuously increased by prayer and the reception of the sacraments. Since it is so great a treasure, we should guard it carefully and do all we can to increase it in our souls.” (Catechism Simply Explained, question 139).
► MODERN CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (1992): “Sanctifying grace is the gratuitous gift of His life that God makes to us; it is infused by the Holy Spirit into the soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. Sanctifying grace makes us pleasing to God” (§2023-§2024).
The Basic, Fundamental, Essential Ingredient of Sanctity
So there you have it! There is no sanctity without sanctifying grace! There can be no salvation without sanctifying grace! There is no entry into Heaven without sanctifying grace! St. Louis de Montfort and whichever other saint you wish to consider―all had one thing in common―they all died in a state of sanctifying grace. They may have become saints by following different paths, excelling in different virtues, holy in different degrees―but it was sanctifying grace that was at root of all this. For if you perform any good action without sanctifying grace (that is to say, in the state of mortal sin), then there is no heavenly reward for it. Charity is, so to speak, “married” to sanctifying grace. “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and, through the means of sanctifying grace, God dwells in our soul. When we “kick-out” God through mortal sin, we are, in effect, kicking-out charity too, for God is charity. Hence this passage of Scripture could be said to apply, not only to charity, but also to sanctifying grace:
“If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity [sanctifying grace]―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity [sanctifying grace]―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity [sanctifying grace]―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Fundamental Destroyer of Sanctifying Grace
“Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin … Sometimes people say: ‘It is only a little sin, it does not matter much!’ But every venial sin is an offence against God, and therefore is, after mortal sin, the greatest of evils, far greater than any of the physical evils which can be inflicted on us!” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD; also The Catechism Simply Explained, by Fr. Cafferata).
Satan―the perpetual “con-man”―will perpetually work with perpetual patience to maneuver you through ever-increasing degrees of sin (starting from the tiniest venial sin and slowly working you up to tiniest mortal sin) at a pace that makes you feel comfortable and does not disturb you too much. Once it comes to the tiniest mortal sin, he will suggest to you that it is nothing more than a pretty big venial sin and that you should have no qualms about committing and that there is no need to confess it. For the bigger mortal sins, he will perpetually work at desensitizing you to its gravity―and, if you intend to confess it, then he will try to make you confess it badly (understate it, making it sound like a venial sin to the priest, or not confessing it as you should, e.g., “Father, I’ve had impure thoughts!” rather than: “Father, I’ve SIX (exact number) impure thoughts that were ADULTEROUS (what kind of impure thoughts) about another married person―and I am married also!” St. Alphonsus Liguori―way back in the 1700s―was of the opinion that most souls confess badly, and therefore make their confessions invalid. That should give us much food for thought! How many times have you made bad confessions by “fudging”, masking, understating, misrepresenting, diluting, or even hiding mortal sins? It is almost impossible to be damned if you are making good Confessions! Why, then, are the vast majority of Catholic souls damned? The answer is pretty simple, isn’t it? Satan seems to have a phenomenal success rate here!
Treasuring Sanctifying Grace
You would think that Catholics would place a far greater importance on the value of sanctifying grace, its absolute necessity for salvation, the ways of protecting, preserving and increasing it―but they don’t. Almost all Catholics are clueless as to the manner in which sanctifying operates and what it can do for our soul―for them, there are simply much more interesting things to think about! The bottom line is this―only saints get into Heaven and sanctifying grace is given to you in order to make you a saint. If you don’t use, then you will lose it! As one saint says―St. Thomas Aquinas―the purpose of grace is to perfect us: “Gratia non tollit naturam, sed perficit” (Summa, Ia, q. 1, art. 8, ad 2), which is translated as “Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it!” In other words, God’s grace helps us do more than we can on our own―and in the matter of our salvation, we cannot achieve sanctity and salvation without God’s grace.
There have been many saints―but no two saints are exactly alike. Each saint has had different handicaps, obstacles, setbacks and failures on the road to sanctity and Heaven. Each saint has excelled in different virtues, or in different levels of the same virtues. Yet, what they all do have in common, is sanctifying grace and their cooperation in the preservation, growth and perfection of sanctifying grace. By analogy, you could say that they are like different cars―different sizes, different colors, different configurations, different engine capacities, different performance ranges, different capabilities, different prices―but without fuel, they are going nowhere―sanctifying grace is that fuel. The fuel of grace is needed to start the engine and the fuel of grace is needed at every single moment to keep the engine running. Without the fuel of grace, we come to standstill and can make no further progress.
Furthermore, as stated above, sanctifying grace and charity are, so to speak, “married”―they are a team―that is why everything is supernaturally worthless unless it is (1) done in a state of sanctifying grace, and (2) done with charity―that is to say, out of a love of God. You could say, in a manner of speaking, that charity is like the “spark” that makes the “fuel” of sanctifying grace effective. If you cannot ignite your fuel, then your car is going nowhere! Hence, it worth repeating the above quote: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
What worked for them, should also work for us―unless we have damaged our engine in some way. Let us then look at the life of today’s saint―St. Louis de Montfort―to see what we can learn for our own voyage to Heaven and how to avoid the wrong turn that leads to Hell (which is where most Catholics seem to be driving).
What Can St. Louis de Montfort Teach Us?
We have to look at the saints as though they are different teachers who teach different subjects in a school―but all of them having the same purpose, which is to help you pass the necessary exams and successfully graduate at the end of your education. If the school is a truly Catholic school, then, regardless of what subject is being taught, there should a spiritual thread or religious spirit that penetrates and irrigates all the different subjects―as stated by Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Divini Illius Magistri, On Christian Education:
“The mere fact that a school gives some religious instruction―which is often extremely stinted―does not bring it into accord with the rights of the Church and of the Christian family, or make it a fit place for Catholic students. To be this, it is necessary that all the teaching and the whole organization of the school, and all its teachers, syllabus and text-books in every branch, be regulated by the Christian spirit, under the direction and maternal supervision of the Church; so that Religion may be in very truth the foundation and crown of the youth’s entire training; and this in every grade of school, not only the elementary, but the intermediate and the higher institutions of learning as well. To use the words of Leo XIII: ‘It is necessary, not only that religious instruction be given to the young at certain fixed times, but also that every other subject taught, be permeated with Christian piety. If this is lacking, if this sacred atmosphere does not pervade and warm the hearts of masters and scholars alike, little good can be expected from any kind of learning, and considerable harm will often be the consequence.’” (Pope Pius XI, December 31st, 1929, Encyclical Divini Illius Magistri, On Christian Education, §80).
Just as we learn different things from different teachers, we also learn different spiritual lessons from different saints. Yet, just as the principles of learning and growth in knowledge remain the same, no matter what subject we are studying―likewise, the principles of holiness and growth in knowledge of the things of God also remain the same, no matter which saint we are studying under and learning from. You can read the full version of St. Louis de Montfort’s life on another page [click here]. In this article, we will extract only some points of major importance that can inspire and serve us in our own path to sanctity and pilgrimage to Heaven.
Humble Beginnings
St. Louis de Montfort was born in 1673 in a small town, into what we, today, might call a “middle-class-family”. He was the second of eighteen children―but only ten of those eighteen children survived to adulthood, eight died between infancy and adulthood. His father, a notary, was known for his fiery temper; his mother was known for her deep piety. The family owned some property―but they were not considered well-off, nor part of the upper-class. Nevertheless, Louis-Marie was born into a family of deep Catholic Faith, in an area of France renowned for its dynamic Christian life. This shows us the importance of good shepherds (the devout parents) and good pastures (a dynamically Christian area). Without good teachers or good shepherds, and without good pastures, the task of producing saints is very difficult.
As Pope Pius XI stated: “With regard to offspring―children should cared for and educated in a religious atmosphere … Parents are under a grave obligation to see to the religious and moral education of their children, as well as to their physical and civic training! … Christian parents must understand that they are destined―not only to propagate and preserve the human race on Earth, not only to educate any kind of worshipers of the true God―but raise children who are to become members of the Church of Christ, and to raise up fellow-citizens of the Saints!” (Pope Pius XI, Encyclicals Casti Connubii and Divini Illius Magistri).
A Religious Atmosphere
As the saying goes: “You cannot leave clothes in a smoky room for long before they take on the smell of smoke!” Or, “Children learn more from what you are than what you teach!” Religion has to come from the heart and not the lips! As Jesus said: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8). Likewise, “He that walketh with the wise, shall be wise: a friend of fools shall become like to them” (Proverbs 13:20). As for taking on the traits of parents, Scripture says: “As the mother was, so also is her daughter” (Ezechiel 16:44) ― which is probably where we get our modern-day proverb: “Like father, like son!” Any teacher worth his or her salt, will tell you that you can guess the traits of a student’s parents by merely observing the traits of the student. The mother of Louis was especially religious and devout―and so, naturally, like a good virus, Louis caught the “saintly disease” of religiosity. Louis-Marie proved to be a good elder brother to his brothers and sisters. He helped his father by coaching his brothers and sisters in their studies. As he was devoted to Blessed Virgin Mary, he often took his beloved sister, Guyonne, aside to recite the Rosary.
At the age of eleven, Louis-Marie would change his religious shepherds (his parents) for even more religious shepherds and more religious pastures―as he left the pastures of his family home to enroll in the Jesuit College of Thomas à Becket. Remember―he is only 11 years old at this time! During the first year at the Jesuit College at Rennes, he stayed with his maternal uncle, Fr. Alain Robert, at the Church of St. Savior. Louis-Marie’s uncle―a priest of the Church of the Holy Savior in Rennes―became the youth’s close confidant. That church had an ancient statue of Our Lady of Miracles and Louis often prayed before it.
Religious Upbringing Provides Good Soil for Seeds of a Vocation
Holy Scripture warns against having bad friends: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). “Evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Corinthians 15:33). While Louis was away from home pursuing his education, he was careful to make friends who were religious minded. He joined a society of young men who during holidays ministered to the poor and to the incurables in the hospitals, and read for them edifying books during their meals. He formed lasting friendships, particularly with two fellow-students: Claude Poullart des Places, the first founder of the Holy Ghost Fathers, and especially with John Baptist Blain, who also became the intimate friend of Saint John Baptist de la Salle, the founder of the Christian Brothers. It was under the guidance of the Jesuits that Louis’ priestly vocation matured. The decision to enter the priesthood was made, so he tells us, at the shrine of Our Lady in the Carmelite Church in Rennes. Thanks especially to his Jesuit directors and those in charge of the Sodality of Our Lady at the College, Montfort’s solid devotion to the Mother of the Lord was already an integral part of his spiritual life.
God Calls―Who Listens? Louis!
Almost 200 years after St. Louis de Montfort, St. John Bosco would say that in his opinion, one-out-of-four persons is called to the religious life by God―as either a priest, monk, brother, nun or sister. If that is the case, then it is frightening as to how few Catholics react to that call, or who even hear it―since most have drowned out the voice of God by their worldly lives and pursuits! Not so with Louis! Sometime between the ages of 16 and 18, he had a deep experience of God and he felt being called to priesthood. This calling can only have been greatly favored by the fact of the religious atmosphere in his family life, his friendship with other religiously likeminded friends at school, and the influence of the clergy upon him all throughout his life. In response to this call from God, after completing philosophy and at the beginning of the academic year in 1692, Louis started to learn theology.
A certain Mademoiselle (Miss) Montigny, from Sainte-Sulpice parish in Paris, came to stay with the Grignions in order to get legal help from Mr. John Baptist Grignion, Louis’ father. She, on her return to Paris, got help from a rich lady and offered to get Louis admitted into Sainte-Sulpice Seminary. It is at this point that we see Louis’ spirit of penance―a spirit that must have been cultivated in the religious atmosphere of family life.
Louis, aged 19, chose to walk the whole distance of 230 miles from Rennes to Paris. His father gave him some money and his mother a new set of clothes. On the day of departure Louis bade farewell to his parents and dear ones. His uncle Fr. Alain Robert, his brother Joseph, and perhaps his friend Blain, accompanied him as far as Cesson Bridge, some 2 miles from Rennes. On crossing the bridge, Louis knelt down and made the vow never to possess anything in his life. He gave away the money he had been given to a beggar he met, and then he exchanged his new clothes with the old ones of another beggar. Having given up all, he trusted God. The words of Our Lord come to mind here: “And Jesus called the Twelve and began to send them two and two; and He commanded them: ‘Do not possess gold, nor silver, nor money in your purses, nor bag for your journey, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor a staff―for the workman is worthy of his meat!’” (Matthew 10:9-10; Mark 6:7-8).
Just put yourself in his shoes―he is not familiar with the route; he does not know what dangers lie ahead on the road; there is no police force patrolling the roads; people are easy victims for anyone desiring to commit crimes; he has no list of hotels, motels, inns―since they don’t even exist; and he has no money with which to buy food! All he has is trust in God and His Providence! Again the words of Our Lord come to mind: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon! Therefore I say to you, be not anxious for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the food: and the body more than the clothing? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns―and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you of much more value than they? … Therefore, be not anxious, saying: ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘With what shall we be clothed?’ For the heathens seek after all these things! Your Father knows that you have need of all these things. Therefore seek first the Kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. Therefore, be not worried about tomorrow; for tomorrow will be solicitous for itself!” (Matthew 6:19-34).
God’s Tough Love!
Louis reached Paris absolutely worn-out and met his benefactress, Mademoiselle Montigny. During the winter of 1693-94, Louis’ benefactress was not able to pay the high fees in the Great Seminary of Sainte-Sulpice and so she got Louis admitted into Fr. Barmondiere’s Community, a hostel meant for poor seminarians. His director allowed Louis to ask for alms and get some money by keeping watch over dead bodies. As for his studies, he followed the theology course at the famous Sorbonne University.
Fr. Barmondiere died in September 1694 and his community was closed down. The students were divided into two groups: the richer ones joined the Little Seminary of Sainte-Sulpice and the poorer ones, including Louis, joined Fr. Boucher’s Community. The conditions there were very poor. As the winter of 1694 began, Louis became very ill. He was admitted into the General Hospital. He was on the point of death. Miraculously, he regained health and a certain Mrs. Alegre came forward to take care of the major part of the fees in order to get him admitted into the Little Seminary of Sainte-Sulpice. The rest of the fees Louis got from a chaplaincy in Nantes and thus Louis was admitted into the Little Seminary of Sainte-Sulpice
The Pastures of the Seminary
The differences between the Great Seminary and the Little Seminary were only in fees and meals. Louis gave up his studies at the Sorbonne. He was not interested in further qualifications. Louis was not a seminarian like the rest and he was considered singular. He gave much time to prayer, penance, solitude, etc. His spiritual guides were not sure whether he was genuine or not, and, hence, they wanted to test him. Louis chose Fr. Leschassier, the Superior of the Great Seminary as his spiritual director. He restricted Louis in his practice of prayer and penance, but Louis always obeyed him. Later, Fr. Leschassier the Superior of the Great Seminary, asked another priest, Fr. Brenier, to be the spiritual director for Louis. Fr. Brenier tested Louis by humiliating him publicly before his companions and by curtailing all his initiatives. After six months he sent him back to Fr. Leschassier. Louis’ calm acceptance of this treatment and his obedience to what might seem to be illogical commands (such as praying less, doing less penance, and other well-intentioned projects being snuffed-out) must have proved that Louis was doing these things out of a sincere love of God and not to gain praise and applause from those around him.
To distract Louis from his ‘over recollectedness’, his superiors appointed him Librarian of the Seminary of the Seminary. However, rather than hinder his spirituality, Louis took advantage of this appointment to read a large number of spiritual books―especially those on Mary, the Bible and Spirituality. Neither did his work suffer as a consequence, for he did very well as the Librarian.
In addition, he was appointed Master of Ceremonies and there too he did wonderfully well. His other duty was to teach catechism to children. By using simple stories, he successfully performed his duty and became an expert catechist. He wanted to be a preacher especially for the poor. While in the seminary he started preparing sermon notes. He also composed a large number of hymns.
What we can learn from all this is that nothing should hinder, stop, slow down, derail, distract, dilute or diminish our love for God―which is our principal work, occupation, obligation, hobby and pastime, as Holy Scripture clearly points out: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). That is what Louis clearly understood. He also knew the truth of Our Lord’s words: “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for the sake of justice―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven! Blessed are you when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake! Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven! For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you!” (Matthew 5:10-12). As Scripture says: “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). Yet Scripture adds: “We know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to His purpose, are called to be saints! … Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? Or distress? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or persecution? Or the sword? As it is written: ‘For Thy sake we are put to death all the day long! We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter!’ But in all these things we overcome, because of Him that hath loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God!” (Romans 8:28, 35-39).
That is what happened with Louis―under persecution, humiliations, restraint and tribulation―his love for God and things of God continued to grow. A large part of that is due to his formation by his parents in the religious atmosphere at home―where he would also be prepared for later persecutions and humiliations by the fiery temper of his father. It was here, in Paris, that he was introduced to the writings of Father Boudon on “Slavery to the Blessed Virgin.” This beautiful devotion consumed him throughout the future years and inspired him to later write his most famous treatise–“True Devotion to Mary.”
While a seminarian in Paris, Louis was known for the veneration he had toward the angels: he “urged his confreres to show marks of respect and tenderness to their guardian angels.” He often ended his letters with a salutation to the guardian angel of the person to whom he was writing: “I salute your guardian angel!” He also saluted all the angels in the city of Nantes, a custom that, it appears, he repeated when he entered a new village or city. One of the reasons why Louis had such devotion to the angels is that veneration of the pure spirits was an integral part of his training and also of his culture. His college teachers, the Jesuits, were known for their zeal in propagating devotion to the angels. Louis’ seminary training under the Sulpicians brought him into contact with the thoughts of Cardinal de Bérulle and Olier, both of whom had deep veneration for the angels. Furthermore, in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, manuals of piety and treatises on the pure spirits were numerous.
How much less trouble would we encounter if we only followed the example of St. Louis de Montfort with regard to a devotion to the angels in general and our own guardian angels in particular! The angels are around 24/7/365 ― every minute of the day, all year round and throughout our entire life! Yet all they get from most of us is an occasional prayer … “Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits me here! Throughout this night (day) be at my side―to light, to guard, to rule, to guide. Amen.” After tens of years of listening to that―and only that―don’t you think our angels might like some variety and more than just the same old 29 words a few times a week? Compose your own prayer to your guardian angels and the angels in general; look up the litanies that are available for the guardian angels, St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael and the angels in general; there are also acts of consecration to the angels; you could even read for a few minutes each day from the many books on the angels, etc. As you sow, so shall you reap!
Ordination to Persecution
“Whom the Lord loves, He chastises; and He scourges every son whom He receives!” (Hebrews 12:6). God must have loved Louis-Marie, for after his ordination his tribulations and sufferings increased! Sometimes the same can happen to us―whenever we seek to do more for God, we find more and more crosses, setbacks, contradictions, failures, and even hatred and persecution! Just like God says in Holy Scripture: “Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise!” (Apocalypse 3:19). “For whom the Lord loveth, He chastises; and He scourges every son whom He receives!” (Hebrews 12:6). Thus, just as Job, when overwhelmed with tragic losses, said: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away: as it has pleased the Lord so is it done! Blessed be the name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21)―so too would Louis-Marie say in his failures, setbacks and disappointments: “Blessed be God!” Is that our attitude? Or are we always murmuring when things do not go out way? “To them that love God and are called to be saints, all things work together unto good” (Romans 8:28).
After his ordination to the priesthood in 1700, full of zeal, Louis-Marie at first wanted to be a missionary, preferably to the new French colony of Canada, or some far off country, but he was advised by his spiritual director to remain in France. Louis-Marie accepted that to be the will the God. During the spring of 1703, Louis-Marie had to face many problems in the Poorhouse and he left for Paris. There he joined the General Hospital of Salpetriere, as a volunteer priest, to help some 5,000 poor people. His methods were not liked by other priests and he was force to leave. His friends in Sainte-Sulpice parish did not welcome him and, finally, he found shelter under the staircase of a dilapidated building. He spent the greater part of his days and nights in prayer.
In 1705, aged 32, and still desiring to be a missionary, Louis-Marie de Montfort made a pilgrimage to Rome to ask the advice of Pope Clement XI. Louis undertook the journey to Rome from Poitier on foot―which is around 700 miles one way, or 1,400 miles round trip. He had an audience with Pope Clement XI on June 6th, 1706. The Pope recognized his real vocation and, telling him there was plenty of scope for its exercise in France. The Pope told him to preach in France itself and conferred on him the title of “Apostolic Missionary”. On his return from his long pilgrimage to Rome, Louis-Marie returned to Poitiers, but the Bishop asked him to leave the diocese within 24 hours.
Louis-Marie would now embark upon over seventeen years of preaching the Gospel in countless towns and villages. For several years he preached in missions from Brittany to Nantes. Later, the Bishop forbade him from preaching in the diocese of Nantes. He left Nantes and the next several years were extraordinarily busy for him. He was constantly occupied in preaching missions, always traveling on foot between one and another. Yet he found time also to write ― his True Devotion to Mary, the Secret of Mary and the Secret of the Rosary, as well as Rules for the Company of Mary and the Daughters of Wisdom, and many Hymns. The heated style of his preaching was regarded by some people as somewhat strange. As an orator he was highly gifted, his language being simple, but filled with fire and divine love.
But he also met with opposition, especially from the Jansenists―a heretical movement within the Church that believed in absolute Predestination, in which only a chosen few are saved, and the rest damned. Much of France was influenced by Jansenism at that time, including many bishops, who banished St. Louis-Marie from preaching in their dioceses. He was poisoned by Jansenists in La Rochelle―but survived. Nevertheless, although it did not prove fatal, it caused his health to deteriorate. This brings to mind the words of Our Lord concerning His future disciples: “If they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them!” (Mark 16:18). Yet he continued, undeterred. He went on preaching and established free schools for the poor boys and girls. While recuperating from the effects of the poisoning, he wrote the masterpiece of Marian piety, “True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin,” which he correctly prophesied would be hidden by the devil for a time.
Death And Burial
Worn out by hard work and sickness, he finally came, in April 1716, to Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre, to begin the mission which was to be his last. During it, he fell ill and died on April 28th of that year. He was 43 years old, and had been a priest for only 16 years. His last sermon was on the tenderness of Jesus and the Incarnate Wisdom of the Father. Thousands gathered for his burial in the parish church, and very quickly there were stories of miracles performed at his tomb.
A Young Priest Who Influenced The Popes
In June 1700, when a young Louis de Montfort was ordained a priest, he was but another young and idealistic man who wanted to be the champion of the poor, having been inspired as a teenager to preach to the poor. But he also had a very strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and was prepared to risk his life for it. Centuries later, he influenced four popes (Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius X, Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II), and is now being considered as a Doctor of the Church.
Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius X both relied on de Montfort in their writings and promulgated his Marian vision. It has been said, that the Marian encyclical of Pius X, Ad Diem Illum, was not only influenced but penetrated by the Mariology of Montfort, and that both Leo XIII and Pius X applied the Marian analysis of Montfort to their analysis of the Church as a whole.
GOOD SHEPHERD WEEK
Article 9
Wednesday & Thursday April 26th & 27th, 2023
When Shepherds Fail the Sheep are Lost!
Article 9
Wednesday & Thursday April 26th & 27th, 2023
When Shepherds Fail the Sheep are Lost!
Can sheep survive without the care of the shepherd?
No! Sheep cannot live without the shepherd. Unlike wild sheep that are adapted to living on their own, domesticated sheep are completely dependent on the shepherd. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to claim that sheep are not the brightest animals―but what we really should ponder at length is the importance of a shepherd in the sheep’s life. Whether it be for finding pasture and water, for grooming, or for protection―they are entirely dependent on the shepherd for everything. They require constant care and watching over. They need continuous supervision and attention. So leaving them unattended can put them at risk and greatly endanger their lives. It should go without saying that shepherds are essential for the survival of their sheep! Leaving them unsupervised puts them at threat and significantly jeopardizes their survival.
What Happens to Sheep Without a Shepherd?
As said above, sheep are not the brightest animals that you will find on the farm. It should come as no surprise that if left to themselves, sheep are very unlikely to last for long. Without a shepherd, sheep are prone to wandering off from the flock and there is a reason for this. Naturally, sheep are hotwired to follow each other. If you observe their movements for long enough, then you will see that this is true. The paths they follow are usually winding. They do this so they can see ahead and behind them. They can’t help it―it is just an inbuilt instinct in their sheep-brains that cannot be changed. Those who have personally seen and observed sheep, know that without a shepherd, sheep move about aimlessly, wandering here and there, getting lost, and generally paying little heed to the dangers around them.
There are, of course, wild sheep who do perfectly well in small flocks without human care―as long as they are in a place where there is enough nutritious food all year long. They shed their wool, usually only have one lamb each and stay lean and light. If their grazing areas are large enough―so that they can circulate without coming back to the same spot for several weeks―they will also have fewer parasites.
However, domestic sheep breeds that have been created through human selection to produce milk, meat or wool, are no longer able to live healthy, good lives without human care. If there is food and water around and limited exposure to predators, then they might survive, but their un-sheared wool is heavy, dirty and full of parasites bothering them. They are heavily infested with internal worms, stumping their growth and survival. Often their uncared for feet are so infected and the hoofs so long that they can’t walk, and their knees are inflamed. The weak ewes don’t have enough milk for their lambs who die from malnutrition and exposure, if they even make it that far due to all the problems coming from the inbreeding.
Dire Consequences Without Shepherds
One of the likely scenarios is that the sheep can follow each other off a cliff. Think about it. They just follow each other around with no thought of danger in mind. So if the sheep at the front of the flock tumbles down a cliff, it’s quite likely that the rest will do so too.
Without a shepherd, it may also become hard for sheep to find pasture and water which they require for survival. In such a case the ewes may become weak and unable to provide milk for their offspring―who then die.
Another instance is that they may get attacked by predators. Sheep are fairly defenseless animals. Sheep are incapable of defending themselves beyond running for the hills, they are easy prey for wild dogs and other dangerous animals. Sheep will dart away into the wilderness to attempt to outrun a predator―which can result in many missing sheep who are so scared that they may even bolt from the shepherd, if he can even manage to find them. If left on their own they can get easily picked-off by predators. Even in their huge numbers, they stand no chance against a hungry predator. Predation can come from the ground for coyotes, wolves, fox, bobcat, etc., as well as from the sky in the case of larger birds like eagles or black headed vultures. Other animals that you may not consider to be predators, like domestic dogs, are also a risk to the flock―especially in areas where dogs run off leash next to sheep pastures.
Harsh weather also kills sheep, especially the young ones, like newborn lambs. This is also the case in the heat. Heat is actually a bigger problem for most sheep than cold. A shepherd can drastically improve the survivability of the lambs in the flock by making sure the flock is out of the harsh cold or hot weather in critical times and by controlling the breeding schedule. Planning the breeding season ensures that lambs are born when the weather is likely to be hospitable for them. Some sheep will breed throughout the year, which would produce lambs in all manner of weather. Without a shepherd to control the breeding season or bring inside newborn lambs in challenging weather, there will be high losses in newborn lambs due to harsh weather. Sheep left on their own might be able to get into a good spot to survive a harsh storm, but they might not be. It depends on the terrain and available resources. For domestic sheep, the shepherd is the one to worry about harsh weather and does what he can to help the flock through.
Also, if sheep have no shepherd, their wool overgrows. It becomes matted, heavy, dirty, and is infected with parasites. This infects them with diseases and internal worms which may reduce their survival rate. Without a shepherd, their hoofs are uncared for which may make it hard for them to move.
Unattended sheep are usually a sorry sight to see. There are a lot of unfortunate things that could happen to them if a shepherd is not present.
Diseases Kill Sheep
Another benefit to having a shepherd who is used to these particular sheep is that someone who knows the sheep so closely will be much more likely to notice when something is not quite right. Because sheep are prey animals, they are masters of hiding illness and injuries―because showing those things would make them a prime target for a predator. But a good shepherd notices things like little limps and minor abnormalities in behaviors before they advance to being life-threatening. Nothing can rival the effectiveness of a trained eye in spotting health concerns before they become irreversible.
Bugs―Believe it or not, some bugs can kill sheep. The easiest sheep killing bug to think of is the fly, specifically the blowfly. These are the flies that cause flystrike (maggots) on a sheep. Flystrike can kill sheep and must be stopped by the shepherd. Ideally, the sheep will not get flystrike to begin with, but once the strike happens, now it is up to the shepherd to stop the problem and help the sheep recover.
Worms―Sheep are susceptible to internal parasites commonly called worms. While there are a variety of types of worms that can infest sheep, the basic idea of how they damage the sheep is the same: the parasites suck blood out of the sheep causing anemia and eventually death. These parasites are picked up from the environment as the sheep eat grass that is infested with the worms that hatch from eggs that are laid by the parasites in other sheep. The shepherd can use a variety of management tools to reduce or even prevent parasites from getting a foothold in the flock, including moving the flock through the pastures and deworming. Once a sheep gets worms, the worms will continue to drag down the sheep and the eggs in the manure will hatch into larvae that will infect other sheep. The shepherd can stop or reduce these parasites.
Do Sheep Get Lost Easily?
It’s quite easy for sheep to get lost. Due to their ‘flocking’ mentality, they are likely to go astray on most occasions. Sheep follow one another blindly. They have an instinct to flock together so as to keep safe. This means that if the leader gets lost, the rest of the flock is lost too.
The truth of the matter is that if one sheep decides to go a certain way, the rest of the sheep will always go that way even if it’s not a good idea. It’s not something they ‘think ‘about; it’s just conditioned in their brains from birth. Even when being watched by a shepherd, it’s easy for sheep to get lost. All it takes is for one member of the flock to wander off and the rest will follow.
Another thing worth noting is that sheep get spooked easily. They are afraid, even of the smallest things you can think of. But this doesn’t mean you should mess around with them! They can be dangerous if provoked.
If they are scared, or get attacked by a predator, sheep flee without a moment’s hesitation. They won’t try to fight in any way. This is their natural instinct. They have excellent senses with regard to potential danger. So if they are ‘spooked’, they take off immediately. When this happens, it’s easy for them to get lost.
When a sheep becomes separated from the flock, it usually becomes agitated. It can wander off even further in such an instance. And believe it or not, finding them can become a hassle. You’ll find dozens of stories of shepherds who lost their sheep and went through hell searching for them. Sometimes they succeed, other times they fail miserably. So, with all this in mind, you can see how is easy it is for sheep to get lost.
Follow the Leader
Lambs adapt to follow the elder members of the herd from infancy. Elders persuade lambs to follow. Typically, the flock’s prominent individuals take the leadership trailed by the subordinate members. If the flock has a ram, he naturally leads the way. Nevertheless, things do not always go according to plan. Whenever one sheep makes a motion, the others will join, even if it seems to be a terrible idea. Sometimes sheep seem to have an amazing ability to make some fairly poor decisions that can result in their own injury or death. This could be wandering off from the flock, getting stuck in a fence or even something as simple as laying down wrong. Sheep are much better at getting into problems than getting out of them.
These swarming and following instincts of sheep are so deeply ingrained that on one occasion it killed over 400 lambs in Turkey, back in 2006. The BBC reported: “Turkish shepherds watched in horror as hundreds of their sheep followed each other over a cliff, say Turkish reports. First, one sheep went over the cliff edge, only to be followed by the whole flock, according to the reports. More than 400 sheep died in the 15-meter fall ― their bodies cushioned the fall of the next 1,100 others who followed.” A tragic ending to “follow my leader”.
Sheep or People or Sheeple?
Having read all the above, you have to admit that in certain things the character traits or resemblances between sheep and some people are strikingly similar― not the brightest animals; requiring constant attention, care and supervision; left to themselves they are very unlikely to last for long; move about aimlessly, wandering here and there; paying little heed to the dangers around them; they follow each other around with no thought of danger in mind; they are easy prey; incapable of defending themselves apart from running away; unable to endure harsh climates; need to hang around with others; cannot function alone; ability to make some poor decisions; easily get lost, etc. With such similarities between sheep and people, it is no surprise that some folk are called “sheeple” ― a blending together of the words “sheep” and “people”. There are an awful lot of “sheeple” in Hell as a consequence of their being “sheepish” about embracing the Catholic Faith or truly living the Catholic Faith―most of them, like dumb sheep, ended up following the worldly sheep for most of their lives! They end up becoming the faithless faithful.
This is not only applicable to the Catholic laity, but also the Catholic clergy―who have also taken to following worldly shepherds in many things, rather than following the True Shepherd―as Our Lady of Good Success warned:
“O if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! But some let themselves be dazzled by the false glamour of honors and human greatness, while others are blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness, that immense evil which in religious houses destroys their fervor, humility, self-renunciation and the ceaseless practice of religious virtues and fraternal charity! O, if men only understood how to appreciate the time given to them and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!
“Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents.
“One reason for the lack of priestly and religious vocations will be the increasing effects of secular education … The secular Clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties … Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them … They will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain!”
Our Lady of La Salette adds: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little―even in those dedicated to God. The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God … In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts. The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders … The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, are crucifying my Son again ... Yes, the priests are asking for vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish. Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls … The true Faith to the Lord will be forgotten … People will think of nothing but amusement!”
To which Our Lady of Good Success further adds: “In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs ... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom!”
Parents are the Primary Shepherds
The Church―both Traditional and surprisingly also the Liberal Church of today―consistently teaches that the parents are the first and primary educators of their children. Pope Pius XI writes:
“God, through the cooperation of those bound in wedlock, wishes men to be born―not only that they should live and fill the Earth―but much more that they may be worshipers of God … Christian parents must understand that they are destined―not only to propagate and preserve the human race on earth, not only to educate any kind of worshipers of the true God―but to raise children who are to become members of the Church of Christ, and to raise up fellow-citizens of the Saints, and members of God’s household, so that the worshipers of God and Our Savior may daily increase … The blessing of offspring, however, is not completed by the mere begetting of them, but something else must be added, namely the proper education of the offspring. For the most wise God would have failed to make sufficient provision for children that had been born, and so for the whole human race, if He had not given to those to whom He had entrusted the power and right to beget them, the power also and the right to educate them. For no one can fail to see that children are incapable of providing wholly for themselves, even in matters pertaining to their natural life, and much less in those pertaining to the supernatural, but require for many years to be helped, instructed, and educated by others. Now it is certain that both by the law of nature and of God, this right and duty of educating their offspring belongs in the first place to those who began the work of nature by giving them birth―that is the parents―and they are indeed forbidden to leave unfinished this work and so expose it to certain ruin. This is also expressed succinctly in the Code of Canon Law (canon 1013, #7) — ‘The primary end of marriage is the procreation and the education of children.’” (Pope Pius XI, 31st December, 1930, Encyclical Casti Connubii, On Christian Marriage, §12-§13, §16-§17).
In his encyclical on Christian Education―Divini Illius Magistri―Pope Pius XI states: “We wish to call your attention in a special manner to the present-day lamentable decline in family education … Being immersed as they are in temporal cares, many parents have little or no preparation for the fundamental duty and obligation of educating their children. The declining influence of domestic environment is further weakened by another tendency―prevalent almost everywhere today―which, under one pretext or another―for economic reasons, or for reasons of industry, trade or politics―causes children to be more and more frequently sent away from home even in their tenderest years ...
“Since the younger generations must be trained in the arts and sciences for the advantage and prosperity of civil society, and since the family of itself is unequal to this task, it was necessary to create that social institution, the school. But let it be borne in mind that this institution owes its existence to the initiative of the family and of the Church, long before it was undertaken by the State. Hence considered in its historical origin, the school is by its very nature an institution subsidiary and complementary to the family and to the Church. It follows logically and necessarily that it must not be in opposition to the family and Church, but in positive agreement with them, forming with them a perfect moral union, constituting one sanctuary of education, as it were, with the family and the Church. Otherwise it is doomed to fail of its purpose, and to become instead an agent of destruction.
“We warn Christian parents of their grave obligations and the various responsibilities of parents touching the religious, moral and civil training of their children! … St. John Chrysostom says: “What greater work is there than training the mind and forming the habits of the young?” … The first natural and necessary element in this environment, as regards education, is the family, and this precisely because so ordained by the Creator Himself ... The family holds, directly from the Creator, the mission and the right to educate the offspring―a right inalienable and a right that comes before any right whatever of civil society and of the State―and therefore inviolable on the part of any power on Earth. That this parental right is inviolable, St. Thomas proves as follows: ‘The child is naturally something of the father ... so, by natural right, the child, before reaching the use of reason, is under the father’s care.
“Hence it would be contrary to natural justice if the child, before the use of reason, were removed from the care of its parents, or if any disposition were made concerning him against the will of the parents. And as this duty on the part of the parents continues up to the time when the child is in a position to provide for itself, this same inviolable parental right of education also endures. ‘Nature intends not merely the generation of the offspring, but also its development and advance to the perfection of man considered as man, that is, to the state of virtue’ says the same St. Thomas. The wisdom of the Church in this matter is expressed with precision and clearness in the Code of Canon Law (canon 1113): ‘Parents are under a grave obligation to see to the religious and moral education of their children, as well as to their physical and civic training, as far as they can, and moreover to provide for their temporal well-being.’ On this point the common sense of mankind is in such complete accord, that they would be in open contradiction with it who dared maintain that the children belong to the State before they belong to the family, and that the State has an absolute right over their education.
“Since however the younger generations must be trained in the arts and sciences for the advantage and prosperity of civil society, and since the family of itself is unequal to this task, it was necessary to create that social institution, the school. But let it be borne in mind that this institution owes its existence to the initiative of the family and of the Church, long before it was undertaken by the State. Hence considered in its historical origin, the school is by its very nature an institution subsidiary and complementary to the family and to the Church. It follows logically and necessarily that it must not be in opposition to the family and Church, but in positive agreement with them, thus forming with them a perfect moral union, constituting one sanctuary of education, as it were, with the family and the Church. Otherwise it is doomed to fail of its purpose, and to become instead an agent of destruction.
‘The mere fact that a school gives some religious instruction (often extremely stinted), does not bring it into accord with the rights of the Church and of the Christian family, or make it a fit place for Catholic students. To be this, it is necessary that all the teaching and the whole organization of the school, and its teachers, syllabus and text-books in every branch, be regulated by the Christian spirit, under the direction and maternal supervision of the Church; so that Religion may be in very truth the foundation and crown of the youth’s entire training; and this in every grade of school, not only the elementary, but the intermediate and the higher institutions of learning as well. To use the words of Leo XIII: ‘It is necessary not only that religious instruction be given to the young at certain fixed times, but also that every other subject taught, be permeated with Christian piety. If this is lacking, if this sacred atmosphere does not pervade and warm the hearts of masters and scholars alike, little good can be expected from any kind of learning, and considerable harm will often be the consequence.’
“It is no less necessary to direct and watch the education of the adolescent―soft as wax to be molded into vice―in whatever other environment he may happen to be, removing occasions of evil and providing occasions for good in his recreations and social relations; for evil communications corrupt good manners. More than ever nowadays an extended and careful vigilance is necessary, inasmuch as the dangers of moral and religious shipwreck are greater for inexperienced youth. Especially is this true of impious and immoral books, often diabolically circulated at low prices; of the cinema, which multiplies every kind of exhibition; and now also of the radio, which facilitates every kind of communications [In 1929 the telephone, smartphone, television, computer, laptop, tablet, i-Pad, internet were not yet in existence in the family setting]. These most powerful means of publicity―which can be of great utility for instruction and education when directed by sound principles―are only too often used as an incentive to evil passions and greed for gain. How often today [in 1929] must parents and educators bewail the corruption of youth brought about by the modern theater and the vile book! [Today, you can the telephone, smartphone, television, computer, laptop, tablet, i-Pad, internet, to his list]. Worthy of all praise are those who point out to parents and educators the dangers to morals and religion that are often cunningly disguised in books and theatrical representations [and all the latest modern technologies listed above]. This necessary vigilance does not demand that young people be removed from the society in which they must live and save their souls―but that today more than ever they should be forewarned and forearmed as Christians against the seductions and the errors of the world” (Pope Pius XI, December 31st, 1929, Encyclical Divini Illius Magistri ― On Christian Education, §73-§74, §71, §32-§35, §78, §80).
Pope Pius XI insists: “With regard to offspring―children should cared for and educated in a religious atmosphere” (Pope Pius XI, 31st December, 1930, Encyclical Casti Connubii, On Christian Marriage, §10).
Pope Leo XIII adds: “Parents are bound to give all care and watchful thought to the education of their offspring and their virtuous bringing up: ‘Fathers ... bring them up’ (that is, your children) ‘in the discipline and correction of the Lord.’ (Ephesians 6:4). From this we see clearly that the duties of husbands and wives are neither few nor light” (Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Arcanum, On Christian Marriage, §12).
So as not to endanger the religious education and formation of their children, Pope Leo XIII warns: “Care also must be taken that they do not easily enter into marriage with those who are not Catholics; for, when minds do not agree as to the observances of religion, it is scarcely possible to hope for agreement in other things. Other reasons also proving that persons should turn with dread from such marriages are chiefly these: that they give occasion to forbidden association and communion in religious matters; endanger the faith of the Catholic partner; are a hindrance to the proper education of the children; and often lead to a mixing up of truth and falsehood, and to the belief that all religions are equally good.” (Pope Leo XIII, February 10th, 1880, Encyclical Arcanum, On Christian Marriage, §43).
St. Alphonsus Advises Parental Shepherds
There is an excellent sermon by the Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), which is filled with solid Catholic advice for parents. Here are some paragraphs extracted from that sermon. The remainder of the article will be the direct quotes of St. Alphonsus Liguori:
The Gospel tells us that a good plant cannot produce bad fruit, and that a bad one cannot produce good fruit. Learn from this that good parents bring up good children. But, if parents are wicked, how can the children be virtuous? Fathers and mothers― be attentive to this sermon, which is of great importance to the eternal salvation of yourselves and of your children. Be attentive, young men and young women, who have not yet chosen a state of life. If you wish to marry, learn this day the obligations that you can contract with regard to the education of your children; and learn also that, if you do not fulfill them, you shall bring yourselves and all your children to damnation. First, I will show how important is to bring up children in habits of virtue; and secondly, I will show with what care and diligence a parent ought to labor to bring them up well.
Children have not been given to parents as a present, which they may dispose of as they please, but as a trust, for which, if lost through their negligence they must render an account to God. Parents owe two obligations to their children. (1) They are bound to provide for their corporal wants, and (2) to educate them in the habits of virtue. It is not necessary at present to say more on the first obligation, for most do not forget to nourish their offspring. But let us come to the education, which is the subject of my discourse.
It is certain that a child’s future good or ill conduct depends on whether he was well formed or ill formed. Nature itself teaches every parent to attend to the education of his offspring. He who gave them their being ought to endeavor to make life useful to them. God gives children to parents so that they may be formed in the fear of God, and be directed in the way of eternal salvation. “We have,” says St. Chrysostom, “a great investment in our children; let us attend to them with great care.” On the day of the judgment parents will have to render an account for all the sins of their children. A very uneasy and unhappy death shall be the lot of those who have labored only to increase the possessions, or to multiply the honors of their family. Or who have sought only to lead a life of ease and pleasure, but have not watched over the morals of their children. St. Paul says that such parents are worse than infidels: “But if any man hath not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the Faith, and is worse than an infidel.” (1 Timothy 5:8).
“Even if fathers or mothers were to lead a life of piety and continual prayer, and to communicate every day―they would nevertheless be damned if they neglected the care of their children,” says St. John Chrysostom. “Certain parents paid less attention to their children than they do to their horses! How careful are they to see that their horses are fed and well trained! And they take no pains to make their children attend Catechism, hear Mass, or go to Confession. We take more care of our asses and horses, than of our children.”
If all fathers fulfilled their duty of watching over the education of their children, we should have but few crimes and few executions. Hence, in Ancient Greece, a parent, as being the cause of all the irregularities of his children, was justly punished for their crimes with greater severity than the children themselves. Great indeed is the misfortune of the child that has vicious parents, who are incapable of forming their children in the fear of God, and who, when they see their children engaged in dangerous friendships and in quarrels, instead of correcting and chastising them, rather take compassion on them, and say: “What can be done? They are young; they must take their course.” O what wicked maxims! What a cruel education! Do you hope that when your children grow up they shall become saints? Listen to what Solomon says: “A young man, according to his way, even when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6). A young man who has contracted a habit of sin will not abandon it even in his old age. It is very easy, when they are small, to train up children to habits of virtue―but, when they have come to manhood, it is equally difficult to correct them, if they have learned habits of vice.
But, let us come to the second point that is, to the means of forming children in the practice of virtue. I entreat you, fathers and mothers, to remember what I now say to you―for on it the eternal salvation of your own souls and the salvation of the souls of your children depend!
St. Paul teaches in a few words of what the proper education of children consists, that is, it is made of discipline and correction: “And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger; but form them in the discipline and correction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4). Discipline, which is the same as the religious regulation of the morals of children, implies an obligation of educating them in habits of virtue by word and example.
A good parent should often assemble his children, and instill into them the holy fear of God. It was in this manner that Tobias brought up his little son. The father taught him from his childhood to fear the Lord and to abstain from sin: “And from his infancy he taught him to fear God and to abstain from sin” (Tobias 1:10). Just as a well instructed son is the delight of his father’s soul, so an ignorant child is a source of sorrow to a father’s heart―for the ignorance of his obligations as a Christian is always accompanied with a bad life. It is related that, in the year 1248, an ignorant priest was commanded, in a certain synod, to give a discourse. While he was greatly agitated by the command, the Devil appeared to him and instructed him to say: “The rectors of infernal darkness salute the rectors of parishes, and thank them for their negligence in instructing the people―because from ignorance proceed the misconduct and the damnation of many!” The same is true of negligent parents.
In the first place, a parent ought to instruct his children in the truths of Faith, and particularly in the four principal mysteries. Should a father or a mother say: “I myself do not know these mysteries, so how can I teach them?” Can such an excuse be admitted? That is, can one sin excuse another? If you are ignorant of these mysteries, you are obliged to learn them, and afterwards teach them to your children. At least, send your children to the Catechism classes. Oh! What a misery to see so many fathers and mothers who are unable to instruct their children in the most necessary truths of Faith, and who, instead of sending their sons and daughters to learn Catholic doctrine on the feast days, employ them in other occupations of little moment; and when grown up they know not what is meant by mortal sin, Hell or Heaven! They do not even know the Creed, the Our Father or the Hail Mary, which every Catholic is bound to learn under pain of mortal sin.
Religious parents not only instruct their children in these things―which are the most important in one’s life―but they also teach them the acts which ought to be made every morning after rising. They teach them, first, to thank God for having preserved their life during the night; second, to offer to God all the good actions they will perform and all the pains they shall suffer during the day; third, to implore of Jesus Christ and Most Holy Mary to preserve them from all sin during the day. They teach them to make every evening an examination of conscience and an act of contrition. They also teach them to make every day the acts of Faith, Hope and Charity, to recite the Rosary and to visit the Blessed Sacrament. Some good fathers of families are careful to get a book of meditations to read, and to have mental prayer in common for half an hour every day. This is what the Holy Ghost exhorts you to practice: “Hast thou children? Instruct them and bow down their neck from their childhood.” (Ecclesiasticus 7:25). Endeavour to train them from their infancy to these religious habits, and when they grow up they shall persevere in them.
It is also very useful to infuse good maxims into the infant minds of children. Oh! What ruin is brought upon his children by the father who teaches them worldly maxims! “You must seek the esteem and applause of the world,” some people say to their children. “God is merciful! He takes compassion on certain sins!” Miserable the young man who sins in obedience to such maxims. Good parents teach very different maxims to their children. Queen Blanche, the mother of St. Louis, King of France, used to say to him: “My son, I would rather see you dead in my arms than in the state of sin!” Let it be your practice also to infuse into your children certain maxims of salvation, such as: “What will it profit us to gain the whole world, if we lose our own souls?” or “Everything on this Earth has an end, but eternity never ends!” or “Let all be lost, provided God is not lost!” One of these maxims well impressed on the mind of a young person will preserve him always in the grace of God.
Parents are obliged to instruct their children in the practice of virtue, not only by words, but still more by example. If you give your children bad example, how can you expect that they will lead a good life? How is it possible for a son to be moral and religious when he has had the example of a father who was accustomed to utter blasphemies and obscenities; who spent the entire day in the tavern, in gaming and drunkenness; who was in the habit of frequenting houses of bad fame, and of defrauding his neighbor? Do you expect that your son will go frequently to confession when you yourself approach the tribunal of penance scarcely once a year? Children are like apes―they do what they see their parents do. Though they might correct them, by words, of what use is their correction when the parents give their children a bad example by their acts? According to St. Thomas, scandalous parents compel, in a certain manner, their children to lead a bad life. St. Bernard says, they are not fathers but murderers; they kill, not the bodies, but the souls of their children. It is useless for them to say: “My children have been born with bad dispositions.” This is not true. Vices are not born with your children, but have been communicated to them by the bad example of the parents. If you had given good example to your sons, they should not be as vicious as they are.
O parents! Frequent the Sacraments, assist at sermons, recite the Rosary every day, abstain from all obscene language, from detraction and from quarrels; and you shall see that your sons will go often to confession, assist at sermons, say the Rosary, speak modestly and fly from detraction and disputes.
It is particularly necessary to train up children to virtue in their infancy: “Bow down their neck from their childhood”—for, when they have grown up and contracted bad habits, it will be very difficult for you to produce, by words, any amendment in their lives. To bring up children in the discipline of the Lord, it is also necessary to take away from them the occasion of doing evil. Hence a father must, in the first place, forbid his children to go out at night, or to go to a house in which their virtue might be exposed to danger, or to keep bad company. “Cast out,” said Sarah to Abraham, “this bondwoman and her son.” (Genesis 21:10). She wished to have Ishmael, the son of Agar the bondwoman, banished from her house, that her son Isaac might not learn his vicious habits. Bad companions are the ruin of young persons.
A father should not only remove the evil that he witnesses, but:
First, he is bound to inquire after the conduct of his children, and to seek information from domestics and guardians regarding the places that his sons frequent when they leave home, regarding their occupations and companions.
Second, he should take from them every musical instrument that is to them an occasion of going out at night, and all forbidden weapons that may lead them into quarrels or disputes.
Third, he should dismiss all immoral servants; and, if his sons be grown up, he should not keep in his house any young female servant. Some parents pay little attention to this; and when the evil happens they complain of their children, as if they expected that things thrown into the fire should not burn.
Fourth, a father ought to forbid his children ever to bring into his house stolen goods such as fowls, fruits and the like. When Tobias heard the bleating of a goat in his house, he said: “Take heed, lest perhaps it be stolen; restore ye it to its owners.” (Tobias 51:21). How often does it happen that, when a child steals something, the mother says to him: “Bring it to me, my son!” Parents should prohibit to their children all games which bring destruction on their families and on their own souls, and also masks, scandalous comedies, and certain dangerous conversations and parties of pleasure.
Fifth, a father should remove from his house romance novels that pervert young persons, and all bad books which contain pernicious maxims, tales of obscenity or of profane love.
Sixth, a father ought not to allow his children to sleep in his own bed, nor the male and female children to sleep together.
Seventh, he should not permit his daughters to be alone with men, whether young or old. But some will say: “Such a man teaches my daughters to read and write, etc. ― he is a saint.” The saints are in Heaven; but the saints who are on Earth are flesh, and by proximate occasions they may become devils.
Eighth, if he has daughters, he should not permit young men to frequent his house. To get their daughters married, some mothers invite young men to their houses. They are anxious to see their daughters married; but they are not anxious about seeing them in sin. These are the mothers who, as David says, immolate their daughters to the Devil: “They sacrifice their sons and their daughters to devils.” (Psalm 105:37). And to excuse themselves they will say: “Father, there is no harm in what I do.” There is no harm! O how many mothers shall we see condemned on the Day of Judgment on account of their daughters! The conduct of such mothers is at least a subject of conversation among their neighbors and equals; and, for all that they do, the parents must render an account to God.
[Obviously, to the above recommendations, there are many more that can made in reference to the countless temptations and sins that today can be seen on television and the internet. St. Alphonsus lived at a time when none of these things were available.]
O fathers and mothers! Confess all the sins you have committed in this respect before the day on which you shall be judged arrives.
No! Sheep cannot live without the shepherd. Unlike wild sheep that are adapted to living on their own, domesticated sheep are completely dependent on the shepherd. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to claim that sheep are not the brightest animals―but what we really should ponder at length is the importance of a shepherd in the sheep’s life. Whether it be for finding pasture and water, for grooming, or for protection―they are entirely dependent on the shepherd for everything. They require constant care and watching over. They need continuous supervision and attention. So leaving them unattended can put them at risk and greatly endanger their lives. It should go without saying that shepherds are essential for the survival of their sheep! Leaving them unsupervised puts them at threat and significantly jeopardizes their survival.
What Happens to Sheep Without a Shepherd?
As said above, sheep are not the brightest animals that you will find on the farm. It should come as no surprise that if left to themselves, sheep are very unlikely to last for long. Without a shepherd, sheep are prone to wandering off from the flock and there is a reason for this. Naturally, sheep are hotwired to follow each other. If you observe their movements for long enough, then you will see that this is true. The paths they follow are usually winding. They do this so they can see ahead and behind them. They can’t help it―it is just an inbuilt instinct in their sheep-brains that cannot be changed. Those who have personally seen and observed sheep, know that without a shepherd, sheep move about aimlessly, wandering here and there, getting lost, and generally paying little heed to the dangers around them.
There are, of course, wild sheep who do perfectly well in small flocks without human care―as long as they are in a place where there is enough nutritious food all year long. They shed their wool, usually only have one lamb each and stay lean and light. If their grazing areas are large enough―so that they can circulate without coming back to the same spot for several weeks―they will also have fewer parasites.
However, domestic sheep breeds that have been created through human selection to produce milk, meat or wool, are no longer able to live healthy, good lives without human care. If there is food and water around and limited exposure to predators, then they might survive, but their un-sheared wool is heavy, dirty and full of parasites bothering them. They are heavily infested with internal worms, stumping their growth and survival. Often their uncared for feet are so infected and the hoofs so long that they can’t walk, and their knees are inflamed. The weak ewes don’t have enough milk for their lambs who die from malnutrition and exposure, if they even make it that far due to all the problems coming from the inbreeding.
Dire Consequences Without Shepherds
One of the likely scenarios is that the sheep can follow each other off a cliff. Think about it. They just follow each other around with no thought of danger in mind. So if the sheep at the front of the flock tumbles down a cliff, it’s quite likely that the rest will do so too.
Without a shepherd, it may also become hard for sheep to find pasture and water which they require for survival. In such a case the ewes may become weak and unable to provide milk for their offspring―who then die.
Another instance is that they may get attacked by predators. Sheep are fairly defenseless animals. Sheep are incapable of defending themselves beyond running for the hills, they are easy prey for wild dogs and other dangerous animals. Sheep will dart away into the wilderness to attempt to outrun a predator―which can result in many missing sheep who are so scared that they may even bolt from the shepherd, if he can even manage to find them. If left on their own they can get easily picked-off by predators. Even in their huge numbers, they stand no chance against a hungry predator. Predation can come from the ground for coyotes, wolves, fox, bobcat, etc., as well as from the sky in the case of larger birds like eagles or black headed vultures. Other animals that you may not consider to be predators, like domestic dogs, are also a risk to the flock―especially in areas where dogs run off leash next to sheep pastures.
Harsh weather also kills sheep, especially the young ones, like newborn lambs. This is also the case in the heat. Heat is actually a bigger problem for most sheep than cold. A shepherd can drastically improve the survivability of the lambs in the flock by making sure the flock is out of the harsh cold or hot weather in critical times and by controlling the breeding schedule. Planning the breeding season ensures that lambs are born when the weather is likely to be hospitable for them. Some sheep will breed throughout the year, which would produce lambs in all manner of weather. Without a shepherd to control the breeding season or bring inside newborn lambs in challenging weather, there will be high losses in newborn lambs due to harsh weather. Sheep left on their own might be able to get into a good spot to survive a harsh storm, but they might not be. It depends on the terrain and available resources. For domestic sheep, the shepherd is the one to worry about harsh weather and does what he can to help the flock through.
Also, if sheep have no shepherd, their wool overgrows. It becomes matted, heavy, dirty, and is infected with parasites. This infects them with diseases and internal worms which may reduce their survival rate. Without a shepherd, their hoofs are uncared for which may make it hard for them to move.
Unattended sheep are usually a sorry sight to see. There are a lot of unfortunate things that could happen to them if a shepherd is not present.
Diseases Kill Sheep
Another benefit to having a shepherd who is used to these particular sheep is that someone who knows the sheep so closely will be much more likely to notice when something is not quite right. Because sheep are prey animals, they are masters of hiding illness and injuries―because showing those things would make them a prime target for a predator. But a good shepherd notices things like little limps and minor abnormalities in behaviors before they advance to being life-threatening. Nothing can rival the effectiveness of a trained eye in spotting health concerns before they become irreversible.
Bugs―Believe it or not, some bugs can kill sheep. The easiest sheep killing bug to think of is the fly, specifically the blowfly. These are the flies that cause flystrike (maggots) on a sheep. Flystrike can kill sheep and must be stopped by the shepherd. Ideally, the sheep will not get flystrike to begin with, but once the strike happens, now it is up to the shepherd to stop the problem and help the sheep recover.
Worms―Sheep are susceptible to internal parasites commonly called worms. While there are a variety of types of worms that can infest sheep, the basic idea of how they damage the sheep is the same: the parasites suck blood out of the sheep causing anemia and eventually death. These parasites are picked up from the environment as the sheep eat grass that is infested with the worms that hatch from eggs that are laid by the parasites in other sheep. The shepherd can use a variety of management tools to reduce or even prevent parasites from getting a foothold in the flock, including moving the flock through the pastures and deworming. Once a sheep gets worms, the worms will continue to drag down the sheep and the eggs in the manure will hatch into larvae that will infect other sheep. The shepherd can stop or reduce these parasites.
Do Sheep Get Lost Easily?
It’s quite easy for sheep to get lost. Due to their ‘flocking’ mentality, they are likely to go astray on most occasions. Sheep follow one another blindly. They have an instinct to flock together so as to keep safe. This means that if the leader gets lost, the rest of the flock is lost too.
The truth of the matter is that if one sheep decides to go a certain way, the rest of the sheep will always go that way even if it’s not a good idea. It’s not something they ‘think ‘about; it’s just conditioned in their brains from birth. Even when being watched by a shepherd, it’s easy for sheep to get lost. All it takes is for one member of the flock to wander off and the rest will follow.
Another thing worth noting is that sheep get spooked easily. They are afraid, even of the smallest things you can think of. But this doesn’t mean you should mess around with them! They can be dangerous if provoked.
If they are scared, or get attacked by a predator, sheep flee without a moment’s hesitation. They won’t try to fight in any way. This is their natural instinct. They have excellent senses with regard to potential danger. So if they are ‘spooked’, they take off immediately. When this happens, it’s easy for them to get lost.
When a sheep becomes separated from the flock, it usually becomes agitated. It can wander off even further in such an instance. And believe it or not, finding them can become a hassle. You’ll find dozens of stories of shepherds who lost their sheep and went through hell searching for them. Sometimes they succeed, other times they fail miserably. So, with all this in mind, you can see how is easy it is for sheep to get lost.
Follow the Leader
Lambs adapt to follow the elder members of the herd from infancy. Elders persuade lambs to follow. Typically, the flock’s prominent individuals take the leadership trailed by the subordinate members. If the flock has a ram, he naturally leads the way. Nevertheless, things do not always go according to plan. Whenever one sheep makes a motion, the others will join, even if it seems to be a terrible idea. Sometimes sheep seem to have an amazing ability to make some fairly poor decisions that can result in their own injury or death. This could be wandering off from the flock, getting stuck in a fence or even something as simple as laying down wrong. Sheep are much better at getting into problems than getting out of them.
These swarming and following instincts of sheep are so deeply ingrained that on one occasion it killed over 400 lambs in Turkey, back in 2006. The BBC reported: “Turkish shepherds watched in horror as hundreds of their sheep followed each other over a cliff, say Turkish reports. First, one sheep went over the cliff edge, only to be followed by the whole flock, according to the reports. More than 400 sheep died in the 15-meter fall ― their bodies cushioned the fall of the next 1,100 others who followed.” A tragic ending to “follow my leader”.
Sheep or People or Sheeple?
Having read all the above, you have to admit that in certain things the character traits or resemblances between sheep and some people are strikingly similar― not the brightest animals; requiring constant attention, care and supervision; left to themselves they are very unlikely to last for long; move about aimlessly, wandering here and there; paying little heed to the dangers around them; they follow each other around with no thought of danger in mind; they are easy prey; incapable of defending themselves apart from running away; unable to endure harsh climates; need to hang around with others; cannot function alone; ability to make some poor decisions; easily get lost, etc. With such similarities between sheep and people, it is no surprise that some folk are called “sheeple” ― a blending together of the words “sheep” and “people”. There are an awful lot of “sheeple” in Hell as a consequence of their being “sheepish” about embracing the Catholic Faith or truly living the Catholic Faith―most of them, like dumb sheep, ended up following the worldly sheep for most of their lives! They end up becoming the faithless faithful.
This is not only applicable to the Catholic laity, but also the Catholic clergy―who have also taken to following worldly shepherds in many things, rather than following the True Shepherd―as Our Lady of Good Success warned:
“O if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! But some let themselves be dazzled by the false glamour of honors and human greatness, while others are blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness, that immense evil which in religious houses destroys their fervor, humility, self-renunciation and the ceaseless practice of religious virtues and fraternal charity! O, if men only understood how to appreciate the time given to them and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!
“Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents.
“One reason for the lack of priestly and religious vocations will be the increasing effects of secular education … The secular Clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties … Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them … They will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain!”
Our Lady of La Salette adds: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little―even in those dedicated to God. The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God … In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts. The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders … The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, are crucifying my Son again ... Yes, the priests are asking for vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish. Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls … The true Faith to the Lord will be forgotten … People will think of nothing but amusement!”
To which Our Lady of Good Success further adds: “In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs ... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom!”
Parents are the Primary Shepherds
The Church―both Traditional and surprisingly also the Liberal Church of today―consistently teaches that the parents are the first and primary educators of their children. Pope Pius XI writes:
“God, through the cooperation of those bound in wedlock, wishes men to be born―not only that they should live and fill the Earth―but much more that they may be worshipers of God … Christian parents must understand that they are destined―not only to propagate and preserve the human race on earth, not only to educate any kind of worshipers of the true God―but to raise children who are to become members of the Church of Christ, and to raise up fellow-citizens of the Saints, and members of God’s household, so that the worshipers of God and Our Savior may daily increase … The blessing of offspring, however, is not completed by the mere begetting of them, but something else must be added, namely the proper education of the offspring. For the most wise God would have failed to make sufficient provision for children that had been born, and so for the whole human race, if He had not given to those to whom He had entrusted the power and right to beget them, the power also and the right to educate them. For no one can fail to see that children are incapable of providing wholly for themselves, even in matters pertaining to their natural life, and much less in those pertaining to the supernatural, but require for many years to be helped, instructed, and educated by others. Now it is certain that both by the law of nature and of God, this right and duty of educating their offspring belongs in the first place to those who began the work of nature by giving them birth―that is the parents―and they are indeed forbidden to leave unfinished this work and so expose it to certain ruin. This is also expressed succinctly in the Code of Canon Law (canon 1013, #7) — ‘The primary end of marriage is the procreation and the education of children.’” (Pope Pius XI, 31st December, 1930, Encyclical Casti Connubii, On Christian Marriage, §12-§13, §16-§17).
In his encyclical on Christian Education―Divini Illius Magistri―Pope Pius XI states: “We wish to call your attention in a special manner to the present-day lamentable decline in family education … Being immersed as they are in temporal cares, many parents have little or no preparation for the fundamental duty and obligation of educating their children. The declining influence of domestic environment is further weakened by another tendency―prevalent almost everywhere today―which, under one pretext or another―for economic reasons, or for reasons of industry, trade or politics―causes children to be more and more frequently sent away from home even in their tenderest years ...
“Since the younger generations must be trained in the arts and sciences for the advantage and prosperity of civil society, and since the family of itself is unequal to this task, it was necessary to create that social institution, the school. But let it be borne in mind that this institution owes its existence to the initiative of the family and of the Church, long before it was undertaken by the State. Hence considered in its historical origin, the school is by its very nature an institution subsidiary and complementary to the family and to the Church. It follows logically and necessarily that it must not be in opposition to the family and Church, but in positive agreement with them, forming with them a perfect moral union, constituting one sanctuary of education, as it were, with the family and the Church. Otherwise it is doomed to fail of its purpose, and to become instead an agent of destruction.
“We warn Christian parents of their grave obligations and the various responsibilities of parents touching the religious, moral and civil training of their children! … St. John Chrysostom says: “What greater work is there than training the mind and forming the habits of the young?” … The first natural and necessary element in this environment, as regards education, is the family, and this precisely because so ordained by the Creator Himself ... The family holds, directly from the Creator, the mission and the right to educate the offspring―a right inalienable and a right that comes before any right whatever of civil society and of the State―and therefore inviolable on the part of any power on Earth. That this parental right is inviolable, St. Thomas proves as follows: ‘The child is naturally something of the father ... so, by natural right, the child, before reaching the use of reason, is under the father’s care.
“Hence it would be contrary to natural justice if the child, before the use of reason, were removed from the care of its parents, or if any disposition were made concerning him against the will of the parents. And as this duty on the part of the parents continues up to the time when the child is in a position to provide for itself, this same inviolable parental right of education also endures. ‘Nature intends not merely the generation of the offspring, but also its development and advance to the perfection of man considered as man, that is, to the state of virtue’ says the same St. Thomas. The wisdom of the Church in this matter is expressed with precision and clearness in the Code of Canon Law (canon 1113): ‘Parents are under a grave obligation to see to the religious and moral education of their children, as well as to their physical and civic training, as far as they can, and moreover to provide for their temporal well-being.’ On this point the common sense of mankind is in such complete accord, that they would be in open contradiction with it who dared maintain that the children belong to the State before they belong to the family, and that the State has an absolute right over their education.
“Since however the younger generations must be trained in the arts and sciences for the advantage and prosperity of civil society, and since the family of itself is unequal to this task, it was necessary to create that social institution, the school. But let it be borne in mind that this institution owes its existence to the initiative of the family and of the Church, long before it was undertaken by the State. Hence considered in its historical origin, the school is by its very nature an institution subsidiary and complementary to the family and to the Church. It follows logically and necessarily that it must not be in opposition to the family and Church, but in positive agreement with them, thus forming with them a perfect moral union, constituting one sanctuary of education, as it were, with the family and the Church. Otherwise it is doomed to fail of its purpose, and to become instead an agent of destruction.
‘The mere fact that a school gives some religious instruction (often extremely stinted), does not bring it into accord with the rights of the Church and of the Christian family, or make it a fit place for Catholic students. To be this, it is necessary that all the teaching and the whole organization of the school, and its teachers, syllabus and text-books in every branch, be regulated by the Christian spirit, under the direction and maternal supervision of the Church; so that Religion may be in very truth the foundation and crown of the youth’s entire training; and this in every grade of school, not only the elementary, but the intermediate and the higher institutions of learning as well. To use the words of Leo XIII: ‘It is necessary not only that religious instruction be given to the young at certain fixed times, but also that every other subject taught, be permeated with Christian piety. If this is lacking, if this sacred atmosphere does not pervade and warm the hearts of masters and scholars alike, little good can be expected from any kind of learning, and considerable harm will often be the consequence.’
“It is no less necessary to direct and watch the education of the adolescent―soft as wax to be molded into vice―in whatever other environment he may happen to be, removing occasions of evil and providing occasions for good in his recreations and social relations; for evil communications corrupt good manners. More than ever nowadays an extended and careful vigilance is necessary, inasmuch as the dangers of moral and religious shipwreck are greater for inexperienced youth. Especially is this true of impious and immoral books, often diabolically circulated at low prices; of the cinema, which multiplies every kind of exhibition; and now also of the radio, which facilitates every kind of communications [In 1929 the telephone, smartphone, television, computer, laptop, tablet, i-Pad, internet were not yet in existence in the family setting]. These most powerful means of publicity―which can be of great utility for instruction and education when directed by sound principles―are only too often used as an incentive to evil passions and greed for gain. How often today [in 1929] must parents and educators bewail the corruption of youth brought about by the modern theater and the vile book! [Today, you can the telephone, smartphone, television, computer, laptop, tablet, i-Pad, internet, to his list]. Worthy of all praise are those who point out to parents and educators the dangers to morals and religion that are often cunningly disguised in books and theatrical representations [and all the latest modern technologies listed above]. This necessary vigilance does not demand that young people be removed from the society in which they must live and save their souls―but that today more than ever they should be forewarned and forearmed as Christians against the seductions and the errors of the world” (Pope Pius XI, December 31st, 1929, Encyclical Divini Illius Magistri ― On Christian Education, §73-§74, §71, §32-§35, §78, §80).
Pope Pius XI insists: “With regard to offspring―children should cared for and educated in a religious atmosphere” (Pope Pius XI, 31st December, 1930, Encyclical Casti Connubii, On Christian Marriage, §10).
Pope Leo XIII adds: “Parents are bound to give all care and watchful thought to the education of their offspring and their virtuous bringing up: ‘Fathers ... bring them up’ (that is, your children) ‘in the discipline and correction of the Lord.’ (Ephesians 6:4). From this we see clearly that the duties of husbands and wives are neither few nor light” (Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Arcanum, On Christian Marriage, §12).
So as not to endanger the religious education and formation of their children, Pope Leo XIII warns: “Care also must be taken that they do not easily enter into marriage with those who are not Catholics; for, when minds do not agree as to the observances of religion, it is scarcely possible to hope for agreement in other things. Other reasons also proving that persons should turn with dread from such marriages are chiefly these: that they give occasion to forbidden association and communion in religious matters; endanger the faith of the Catholic partner; are a hindrance to the proper education of the children; and often lead to a mixing up of truth and falsehood, and to the belief that all religions are equally good.” (Pope Leo XIII, February 10th, 1880, Encyclical Arcanum, On Christian Marriage, §43).
St. Alphonsus Advises Parental Shepherds
There is an excellent sermon by the Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), which is filled with solid Catholic advice for parents. Here are some paragraphs extracted from that sermon. The remainder of the article will be the direct quotes of St. Alphonsus Liguori:
The Gospel tells us that a good plant cannot produce bad fruit, and that a bad one cannot produce good fruit. Learn from this that good parents bring up good children. But, if parents are wicked, how can the children be virtuous? Fathers and mothers― be attentive to this sermon, which is of great importance to the eternal salvation of yourselves and of your children. Be attentive, young men and young women, who have not yet chosen a state of life. If you wish to marry, learn this day the obligations that you can contract with regard to the education of your children; and learn also that, if you do not fulfill them, you shall bring yourselves and all your children to damnation. First, I will show how important is to bring up children in habits of virtue; and secondly, I will show with what care and diligence a parent ought to labor to bring them up well.
Children have not been given to parents as a present, which they may dispose of as they please, but as a trust, for which, if lost through their negligence they must render an account to God. Parents owe two obligations to their children. (1) They are bound to provide for their corporal wants, and (2) to educate them in the habits of virtue. It is not necessary at present to say more on the first obligation, for most do not forget to nourish their offspring. But let us come to the education, which is the subject of my discourse.
It is certain that a child’s future good or ill conduct depends on whether he was well formed or ill formed. Nature itself teaches every parent to attend to the education of his offspring. He who gave them their being ought to endeavor to make life useful to them. God gives children to parents so that they may be formed in the fear of God, and be directed in the way of eternal salvation. “We have,” says St. Chrysostom, “a great investment in our children; let us attend to them with great care.” On the day of the judgment parents will have to render an account for all the sins of their children. A very uneasy and unhappy death shall be the lot of those who have labored only to increase the possessions, or to multiply the honors of their family. Or who have sought only to lead a life of ease and pleasure, but have not watched over the morals of their children. St. Paul says that such parents are worse than infidels: “But if any man hath not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the Faith, and is worse than an infidel.” (1 Timothy 5:8).
“Even if fathers or mothers were to lead a life of piety and continual prayer, and to communicate every day―they would nevertheless be damned if they neglected the care of their children,” says St. John Chrysostom. “Certain parents paid less attention to their children than they do to their horses! How careful are they to see that their horses are fed and well trained! And they take no pains to make their children attend Catechism, hear Mass, or go to Confession. We take more care of our asses and horses, than of our children.”
If all fathers fulfilled their duty of watching over the education of their children, we should have but few crimes and few executions. Hence, in Ancient Greece, a parent, as being the cause of all the irregularities of his children, was justly punished for their crimes with greater severity than the children themselves. Great indeed is the misfortune of the child that has vicious parents, who are incapable of forming their children in the fear of God, and who, when they see their children engaged in dangerous friendships and in quarrels, instead of correcting and chastising them, rather take compassion on them, and say: “What can be done? They are young; they must take their course.” O what wicked maxims! What a cruel education! Do you hope that when your children grow up they shall become saints? Listen to what Solomon says: “A young man, according to his way, even when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6). A young man who has contracted a habit of sin will not abandon it even in his old age. It is very easy, when they are small, to train up children to habits of virtue―but, when they have come to manhood, it is equally difficult to correct them, if they have learned habits of vice.
But, let us come to the second point that is, to the means of forming children in the practice of virtue. I entreat you, fathers and mothers, to remember what I now say to you―for on it the eternal salvation of your own souls and the salvation of the souls of your children depend!
St. Paul teaches in a few words of what the proper education of children consists, that is, it is made of discipline and correction: “And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger; but form them in the discipline and correction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4). Discipline, which is the same as the religious regulation of the morals of children, implies an obligation of educating them in habits of virtue by word and example.
A good parent should often assemble his children, and instill into them the holy fear of God. It was in this manner that Tobias brought up his little son. The father taught him from his childhood to fear the Lord and to abstain from sin: “And from his infancy he taught him to fear God and to abstain from sin” (Tobias 1:10). Just as a well instructed son is the delight of his father’s soul, so an ignorant child is a source of sorrow to a father’s heart―for the ignorance of his obligations as a Christian is always accompanied with a bad life. It is related that, in the year 1248, an ignorant priest was commanded, in a certain synod, to give a discourse. While he was greatly agitated by the command, the Devil appeared to him and instructed him to say: “The rectors of infernal darkness salute the rectors of parishes, and thank them for their negligence in instructing the people―because from ignorance proceed the misconduct and the damnation of many!” The same is true of negligent parents.
In the first place, a parent ought to instruct his children in the truths of Faith, and particularly in the four principal mysteries. Should a father or a mother say: “I myself do not know these mysteries, so how can I teach them?” Can such an excuse be admitted? That is, can one sin excuse another? If you are ignorant of these mysteries, you are obliged to learn them, and afterwards teach them to your children. At least, send your children to the Catechism classes. Oh! What a misery to see so many fathers and mothers who are unable to instruct their children in the most necessary truths of Faith, and who, instead of sending their sons and daughters to learn Catholic doctrine on the feast days, employ them in other occupations of little moment; and when grown up they know not what is meant by mortal sin, Hell or Heaven! They do not even know the Creed, the Our Father or the Hail Mary, which every Catholic is bound to learn under pain of mortal sin.
Religious parents not only instruct their children in these things―which are the most important in one’s life―but they also teach them the acts which ought to be made every morning after rising. They teach them, first, to thank God for having preserved their life during the night; second, to offer to God all the good actions they will perform and all the pains they shall suffer during the day; third, to implore of Jesus Christ and Most Holy Mary to preserve them from all sin during the day. They teach them to make every evening an examination of conscience and an act of contrition. They also teach them to make every day the acts of Faith, Hope and Charity, to recite the Rosary and to visit the Blessed Sacrament. Some good fathers of families are careful to get a book of meditations to read, and to have mental prayer in common for half an hour every day. This is what the Holy Ghost exhorts you to practice: “Hast thou children? Instruct them and bow down their neck from their childhood.” (Ecclesiasticus 7:25). Endeavour to train them from their infancy to these religious habits, and when they grow up they shall persevere in them.
It is also very useful to infuse good maxims into the infant minds of children. Oh! What ruin is brought upon his children by the father who teaches them worldly maxims! “You must seek the esteem and applause of the world,” some people say to their children. “God is merciful! He takes compassion on certain sins!” Miserable the young man who sins in obedience to such maxims. Good parents teach very different maxims to their children. Queen Blanche, the mother of St. Louis, King of France, used to say to him: “My son, I would rather see you dead in my arms than in the state of sin!” Let it be your practice also to infuse into your children certain maxims of salvation, such as: “What will it profit us to gain the whole world, if we lose our own souls?” or “Everything on this Earth has an end, but eternity never ends!” or “Let all be lost, provided God is not lost!” One of these maxims well impressed on the mind of a young person will preserve him always in the grace of God.
Parents are obliged to instruct their children in the practice of virtue, not only by words, but still more by example. If you give your children bad example, how can you expect that they will lead a good life? How is it possible for a son to be moral and religious when he has had the example of a father who was accustomed to utter blasphemies and obscenities; who spent the entire day in the tavern, in gaming and drunkenness; who was in the habit of frequenting houses of bad fame, and of defrauding his neighbor? Do you expect that your son will go frequently to confession when you yourself approach the tribunal of penance scarcely once a year? Children are like apes―they do what they see their parents do. Though they might correct them, by words, of what use is their correction when the parents give their children a bad example by their acts? According to St. Thomas, scandalous parents compel, in a certain manner, their children to lead a bad life. St. Bernard says, they are not fathers but murderers; they kill, not the bodies, but the souls of their children. It is useless for them to say: “My children have been born with bad dispositions.” This is not true. Vices are not born with your children, but have been communicated to them by the bad example of the parents. If you had given good example to your sons, they should not be as vicious as they are.
O parents! Frequent the Sacraments, assist at sermons, recite the Rosary every day, abstain from all obscene language, from detraction and from quarrels; and you shall see that your sons will go often to confession, assist at sermons, say the Rosary, speak modestly and fly from detraction and disputes.
It is particularly necessary to train up children to virtue in their infancy: “Bow down their neck from their childhood”—for, when they have grown up and contracted bad habits, it will be very difficult for you to produce, by words, any amendment in their lives. To bring up children in the discipline of the Lord, it is also necessary to take away from them the occasion of doing evil. Hence a father must, in the first place, forbid his children to go out at night, or to go to a house in which their virtue might be exposed to danger, or to keep bad company. “Cast out,” said Sarah to Abraham, “this bondwoman and her son.” (Genesis 21:10). She wished to have Ishmael, the son of Agar the bondwoman, banished from her house, that her son Isaac might not learn his vicious habits. Bad companions are the ruin of young persons.
A father should not only remove the evil that he witnesses, but:
First, he is bound to inquire after the conduct of his children, and to seek information from domestics and guardians regarding the places that his sons frequent when they leave home, regarding their occupations and companions.
Second, he should take from them every musical instrument that is to them an occasion of going out at night, and all forbidden weapons that may lead them into quarrels or disputes.
Third, he should dismiss all immoral servants; and, if his sons be grown up, he should not keep in his house any young female servant. Some parents pay little attention to this; and when the evil happens they complain of their children, as if they expected that things thrown into the fire should not burn.
Fourth, a father ought to forbid his children ever to bring into his house stolen goods such as fowls, fruits and the like. When Tobias heard the bleating of a goat in his house, he said: “Take heed, lest perhaps it be stolen; restore ye it to its owners.” (Tobias 51:21). How often does it happen that, when a child steals something, the mother says to him: “Bring it to me, my son!” Parents should prohibit to their children all games which bring destruction on their families and on their own souls, and also masks, scandalous comedies, and certain dangerous conversations and parties of pleasure.
Fifth, a father should remove from his house romance novels that pervert young persons, and all bad books which contain pernicious maxims, tales of obscenity or of profane love.
Sixth, a father ought not to allow his children to sleep in his own bed, nor the male and female children to sleep together.
Seventh, he should not permit his daughters to be alone with men, whether young or old. But some will say: “Such a man teaches my daughters to read and write, etc. ― he is a saint.” The saints are in Heaven; but the saints who are on Earth are flesh, and by proximate occasions they may become devils.
Eighth, if he has daughters, he should not permit young men to frequent his house. To get their daughters married, some mothers invite young men to their houses. They are anxious to see their daughters married; but they are not anxious about seeing them in sin. These are the mothers who, as David says, immolate their daughters to the Devil: “They sacrifice their sons and their daughters to devils.” (Psalm 105:37). And to excuse themselves they will say: “Father, there is no harm in what I do.” There is no harm! O how many mothers shall we see condemned on the Day of Judgment on account of their daughters! The conduct of such mothers is at least a subject of conversation among their neighbors and equals; and, for all that they do, the parents must render an account to God.
[Obviously, to the above recommendations, there are many more that can made in reference to the countless temptations and sins that today can be seen on television and the internet. St. Alphonsus lived at a time when none of these things were available.]
O fathers and mothers! Confess all the sins you have committed in this respect before the day on which you shall be judged arrives.
GOOD SHEPHERD WEEK
Article 8
Monday & Tuesday April 24th & 25th, 2023
Parents & Teachers Are Shepherds Too!
Article 8
Monday & Tuesday April 24th & 25th, 2023
Parents & Teachers Are Shepherds Too!
Don’t Hide Behind the Tree!
If you think that the term “shepherd” only applies to the clergy, then you are grossly mistaken! In a very broad and general sense, everyone is a “shepherd” at some point in their life―some for longer, some for not so long―just as everyone is also a “sheep” to be “shepherded” by others. The Pope could be said to be a shepherd who shepherds both sheep (the clergy) and lambs (the laity). Going down a step, we have cardinals who shepherd the bishops, even though they themselves are “sheep” shepherded by the Pope. Likewise, the bishops―while being “sheep” shepherded by cardinals―they are also themselves shepherds who shepherd their flock of priests. So too the priests―though shepherded by their local bishop―they in turn are the shepherds of the laity. The term “Pastor”―which originates from the Latin word “pastor” which means “shepherd”―is now used solely to denote the clergy of most Christian denominations.
The same holds true for the laity. They, at one point, while they were still children, were like sheep shepherded by their parents and teachers. Later, having grown-up and married, they became shepherds of their own flock of children. So too in the school setting―everyone, while still a child and a student, was shepherded by their teachers. Then, having finished their schooling, some became teachers and had their own flocks to shepherd.
Even members of government or the police force, business owners, employers, departmental heads, office managers, foremen, sports coaches, etc. ― are all shepherds in the broad sense of the term, having “sheep” under their control and jurisdiction. All these shepherds―from the Pope all the down to the family baby-sitter―will have to answer to God as to how well or badly they fulfilled their role as shepherd. Just as God rejected Cain’s excuse concerning Abel: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” [shepherd] ― so too will God reject our lame protestations of “Am I the shepherd of my fellow man?” During our life on Earth, we spend some time in the role of sheep, and we also spend some time in the role of a shepherd. Just as in the parable of the Talents―where the Lord gave his servants varying amounts of talents and then came back to reckon with them to see how they had used what he had given them―so too will God demand an account as to what kind of sheep and shepherds we have been in our lives upon Earth.
Sheep and Shepherds Graze Throughout the Pages of the Bible
As regards the Faith and religion, for most of us, shepherds are penned-in the biblical narrative of Our Lord’s birth at Bethlehem―and perhaps a handful of other biblical shepherd stories. Since our biblical knowledge bleats and betrays our ignorance, we find it hard to break out the sheep-pen of our ignorance in order to graze among the shepherd-filled pastures of Holy Scripture! Shepherds, sheep and shepherding takes on a far greater importance when we seek to graze on the pastures or pages of Holy Scripture that we have never nibbled at before. From the beginning of time we see the importance and prominence that sheep and shepherds play in the plans and providence of God.
Sheep graze throughout the pages of the Bible, beginning in Genesis, where the bloody murder of ABEL the shepherd, by his brother Cain the farmer, was occasioned by Abel’s sacrificing a lamb to God as an act of worship―a sacrifice God accepted whilst rejecting the sacrifice of Cain.
NOE, in effect, was told by God to ‘shepherd’ all animals into the Ark that Noe had built at God’s command: “And of every living creature of all flesh, thou shalt bring two of a sort into the Ark―of the male sex, and the female―so that they may live with thee! Of fowls according to their kind, and of beasts in their kind, and of everything that creepeth on the earth according to its kind; two of every sort shall go in with thee, that they may live!” (Genesis 6:19-20).
The Patriarchs―Abraham, Isaac and Jacob―and the Twelve Tribes of Israel (Jacob’s sons) were all shepherds. ABRAHAM was a shepherd who “had sheep and oxen, and he asses, and men servants and maid servants, and asses, and camels” (Genesis 12:16). Abraham’s nephew, LOT, was also a shepherd with lots of sheep: “Lot, who was with Abram, had flocks of sheep, and herds of beasts” (Genesis 13:9). Sheep would again be linked with God and sacrifice when Abraham is commanded by God to sacrifice Isaac to Him―a sacrifice which God stops through the intervention of angel and replacing Isaac with a ram (= male sheep): “God tempted Abraham, and said to ‘him: Take thy son Isaac and offer him for an holocaust!’ … So Abraham took Isaac … and they came to the place which God had shown him, where he built an altar, and laid the wood in order upon it: and when he had tied down Isaac, he laid him on the altar upon the pile of wood. And he put forth his hand and took the sword, to sacrifice his son. And an angel of the Lord called to him, saying: ‘Abraham! Abraham! Lay not thy hand upon the boy, neither do thou anything to him! For now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for His sake!’ Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw, behind his back, a ram amongst the briers, sticking fast by the horns, which he took and offered for a holocaust instead of his son” (Genesis 22:1-13).
RACHEL was one of the great women of the Old Testament. She was the daughter of LABAN (also a shepherd) and worked as a shepherdess, caring for her father’s flock. She met her future husband, Jacob (the son of Isaac) at a well while watering her sheep and became the great love of his life (Genesis 29:1-35).
Sheep continue their prominence when the Israelites are enslaved in Egypt, many generations after the death of the last of the Patriarchs―Joseph. Before the Exodus from Egypt begins, MOSES goes on the run, because he killed an Egyptian in anger. Settling in the land of Madian, he sees another injustice: the daughters of the local priest struggling to water their flocks because of pushy shepherds. Moses helps them and is taken in by the family—marrying one of the daughters and becoming the very thing the Egyptians, who had raised him, despised―a shepherd. Yet while pasturing a flock, God appears to Moses in flames of fire in the midst of a bush and calls him to set the Israelites free. When Moses protests that the people won’t believe him, God instructs Moses to use the shepherd’s staff in his hand to convince them, a sign that Moses would become a shepherd over God’s people. Through a series of ten incredible miracles, Pharao eventually but reluctantly grants what Moses was demanding―the freedom of the Israelites. God’s people are set free―but are not permitted to take their flocks or herds. Though the Egyptians detested the shepherds, they obviously knew the value of their sheep. Moses refuses to leave without the sheep, and when the Israelites enter the Promised Land, their flocks are with them.
Just before their way out of slavery with their Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites were commanded to eat―for the first time―what would become a powerful institution for God’s Chosen People―the Passover, which included taking a one-year-old male lamb without defect, draining its blood, and placing the blood on the doorposts of the home; then roasting the meat and eating it with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast. The inhabitants of those houses marked by the blood of the lamb are spared from death and loss on that fateful night when God passes by and killed the first-born humans and animals all throughout Egypt. The Passover meal of the lamb foreshadowed Christ, the Lamb of God, Who would one day die for the sins of the world.
AMOS, the prophet―the father of Isaias the prophet―was also a shepherd “who was among herdsmen” (Amos 1:1). He earned his living from the flock and the sycamore-fig grove. Whether he owned the flocks and groves, or only worked as a hired hand, is not known. Although a simple shepherd and fruit picker, Amos foretold with confidence that the nations needed to hear God’s message.
DAVID was a shepherd boy who grew up to be a king and shepherd of God’s people. “And David said to Saul: ‘I kept my father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a ram out of the midst of the flock! And I pursued after them, and struck them, and delivered it out of their mouth: and they rose up against me, and I caught them by the throat, and I strangled and killed them!’” (1 Kings 17:34-35).
OUR LORD Himself was born in a shepherd’s cave; His first visitors were shepherds; and He is called both “the Lamb of God” (John 1:36) … “led as a Sheep to the slaughter and like a Lamb without voice before His shearer” (Acts 8:32) and called “the Good Shepherd” (John 10:11) and “the door of the sheep” (John 10:7). Speaking of Himself in the third-person, Our Lord says: “All nations shall be gathered together before Him, and He shall separate them one from another―as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matthew 25:32). Our Lord speaks of His Church as being a flock of sheep and Himself being the Chief Shepherd, saying: “I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost” (Matthew 15:24) ... “I lay down My life for My sheep!” (John 10:15) … “The Son of man is come to save that which was lost! What think you? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them should go astray―does he not leave the ninety-nine in the mountains, and go to seek that which is gone astray? And if it so be that he find it: Amen I say to you, he rejoices more for that which he found, than for the ninety-nine that went not astray!” (Matthew 18:11-13). St. Peter speaks of Him being the shepherd and bishop of our souls: “You were as sheep going astray―but you are now converted to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls!” (1 Peter 2:25).
ST. PETER, though a fisherman, is nevertheless made a shepherd. Our Lord―even though He is the Chief Shepherd of the flock of the Church―also gives power to St. Peter to shepherd the flock of the Church: “Jesus said to Simon Peter: ‘Feed My lambs! … Feed My sheep!’” (John 21:15-17) … “I say to thee that thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon Earth, it shall be bound also in Heaven―and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon Earth, it shall be loosed also in Heaven!” (Matthew 16:1).
THE APOSTLES AND DISCIPLES are also made shepherds by Our Lord―when He repeats to them what was said above to St. Peter: “Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon Earth, shall be bound also in Heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon Earth, shall be loosed also in Heaven!” (Matthew 18:18) … “All power is given to Me in Heaven and on Earth! Going, therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:18-20) because “other sheep I have, that are not of this fold―them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd!” (John 10:16).
are also made shepherds by Our Lord―when He repeats to them what was said above to St. Peter: “Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon Earth, shall be bound also in Heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon Earth, shall be loosed also in Heaven!” (Matthew 18:18) … “All power is given to Me in Heaven and on Earth! Going, therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:18-20) because “other sheep I have, that are not of this fold―them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd!” (John 10:16).
SHEPHERDS WHO BECAME SAINTS ― Here are just some of many saints who were shepherds at some point in their lives: St. Regina (256), St. Julian the Hospitaller (300s), St. Patrick (400s), St. Cuthbert (600s), St. Cuthman (700s), St. Solange (880), St. Dominic of Silos (1000s), St. Drogo (1105), St. Germaine (1579), St. John Vianney (1786), St. John Bosco (1815), etc.
Shepherds and Our Lady
We know, of course, that the first visitors to the shepherd’s cave/stable in Bethlehem were the local shepherds―but in our modern age Our Lady has reversed the role and has herself become the visitor to shepherds. We see this in the case of Our Lady of La Salette, who appeared, in 1846, to the two shepherd children―Melanie and Maximin while they were shepherding their sheep. Similarly, in 1858, Our Lady of Lourdes appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous, who had spent a large part of her youth shepherding sheep. Likewise at Fatima, in 1917, where Our Lady appeared to the three little shepherds―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta.
Parental Shepherds―Family Flocks
So all in all, you can see from the above, God has a predilection for shepherds and sheep―they are an underlying theme throughout the history of God’s plan for mankind, even to the point where the Son of God calls Himself “the Good Shepherd” and the Old Testament calls God a shepherd: “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd gives His life for His sheep! … I am the Good Shepherd and I know Mine, and Mine know Me!” (John 10:11-14). “The Lord is my shepherd and I shall lack nothing! He has set me in a place of pasture. He hath raised me on the water of refreshment!” (Psalm 22:1-2). We are, therefore, the children of a shepherd―and, just as the children of shepherds of sheep help their parents with the shepherding and learn from them how to shepherd, so too should we help God and His Church with the shepherding of whatever portion of the flock we find ourselves in: “Jesus said to them: ‘Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to Me―for the Kingdom of Heaven is for such!’” (Matthew 19:14). God told David that he would shepherd God’s people―Israel (2 Kings 5:2) and God chose David and took him from tending the sheep to be the shepherd of His people: “He chose His servant David and took him from the flocks of sheep, and He brought him from following the sheep to feed Jacob His servant, and Israel His inheritance” (Psalm 77:70-71). Even though the clergy are technically the pastors of the parish flock, parents are in fact the FIRST SHEPHERDS of their own family flock―the children that are born to them.
“Feed the flock of God” (1 Peter 5:2) ― especially feed them spiritual food, because “not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God!” (Matthew 4:4) … “From thy infancy thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which can instruct thee to salvation!” (2 Timothy 3:15). “All thy children shall be taught of the Lord!” (Isaias 54:13). You are raising Catholic souls who will one day return to their Creator to be judged. Catholic parenting or “shepherding” means leading children to the pastures of God―which means teaching them to love and obey the Word of God, since we cannot see God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). For the vast majority of the time, children are raised in the “sheep-pen” of the family home―there is no pope, cardinal, bishop, priest, monk, nun, brother or sister in sight! For the first five or so years of their existence, children are almost exclusively “shepherded” by their parents. The most important influence shaping the religious and spiritual lives of children, youth, and teenagers is their parents. A myriad of studies show that the parents play the leading role in shaping the character of the religious and spiritual lives of their children―even well after they leave home and often for the rest of their lives.
Holy Scripture clearly describes the role of parents as those of a shepherd―or more exactly, as an intermediary shepherd on the part of God (who is the true and ultimate shepherd of all our souls). First of all it states that children are a blessing from God: “The inheritance of the Lord are children―the reward, the fruit of the womb” (Psalm 126:3). In the Book of Deuteronomy, God makes it clear that parents are intermediary shepherds for Him, teaching their children what God wants to be taught: “Hear, observe and do the things which the Lord hath commanded thee, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest be greatly multiplied. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength! These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart and thou shalt tell them to thy children, and thou shalt meditate upon them sitting in thy house, and walking on thy journey, sleeping and rising. And thou shalt bind them as a sign on thy hand, and they shall be and shall move between thy eyes. And thou shalt write them in the entry, and upon the doors of thy house!” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).
Disciplinary Shepherds
“He that spares the rod hates his son―but he that loves him corrects him in good times” (Proverbs 13:24) ― meaning that training which is corrective and rooted in love, is proactive (helpful) not reactive (irritated). “A young man according to his way, even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6)―meaning that if you train a child in the way he should go, then when he is old he will not turn away from it. “Withhold not correction from a child―for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from Hell” (Proverbs 23:13-14). “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, and the rod of correction shall drive it away!” (Proverbs 22:15). “He that spares the rod, hates his son―but he that loves him, corrects him in good time” (Proverbs 13:24). “The rod and reproof give wisdom―but the child that is left to his own will bringeth his mother to shame!” (Proverbs 29:15). “And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4) ― “discipline” coming the Greek word: paideia, meaning educating, instructing, learning, nurturing) and “correction” coming from the Greek word: nouthesia meaning admonishing, cautioning, warning, rebuking―therefore training children both by words and by actions; by instructions and corrections; by teaching and punishing. “My son, neglect not the discipline of the Lord; neither be thou wearied whilst thou art rebuked by Him! For whomsoever the Lord loveth, He chastiseth; and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth!” (Hebrews 12:5-6).
If you think that the term “shepherd” only applies to the clergy, then you are grossly mistaken! In a very broad and general sense, everyone is a “shepherd” at some point in their life―some for longer, some for not so long―just as everyone is also a “sheep” to be “shepherded” by others. The Pope could be said to be a shepherd who shepherds both sheep (the clergy) and lambs (the laity). Going down a step, we have cardinals who shepherd the bishops, even though they themselves are “sheep” shepherded by the Pope. Likewise, the bishops―while being “sheep” shepherded by cardinals―they are also themselves shepherds who shepherd their flock of priests. So too the priests―though shepherded by their local bishop―they in turn are the shepherds of the laity. The term “Pastor”―which originates from the Latin word “pastor” which means “shepherd”―is now used solely to denote the clergy of most Christian denominations.
The same holds true for the laity. They, at one point, while they were still children, were like sheep shepherded by their parents and teachers. Later, having grown-up and married, they became shepherds of their own flock of children. So too in the school setting―everyone, while still a child and a student, was shepherded by their teachers. Then, having finished their schooling, some became teachers and had their own flocks to shepherd.
Even members of government or the police force, business owners, employers, departmental heads, office managers, foremen, sports coaches, etc. ― are all shepherds in the broad sense of the term, having “sheep” under their control and jurisdiction. All these shepherds―from the Pope all the down to the family baby-sitter―will have to answer to God as to how well or badly they fulfilled their role as shepherd. Just as God rejected Cain’s excuse concerning Abel: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” [shepherd] ― so too will God reject our lame protestations of “Am I the shepherd of my fellow man?” During our life on Earth, we spend some time in the role of sheep, and we also spend some time in the role of a shepherd. Just as in the parable of the Talents―where the Lord gave his servants varying amounts of talents and then came back to reckon with them to see how they had used what he had given them―so too will God demand an account as to what kind of sheep and shepherds we have been in our lives upon Earth.
Sheep and Shepherds Graze Throughout the Pages of the Bible
As regards the Faith and religion, for most of us, shepherds are penned-in the biblical narrative of Our Lord’s birth at Bethlehem―and perhaps a handful of other biblical shepherd stories. Since our biblical knowledge bleats and betrays our ignorance, we find it hard to break out the sheep-pen of our ignorance in order to graze among the shepherd-filled pastures of Holy Scripture! Shepherds, sheep and shepherding takes on a far greater importance when we seek to graze on the pastures or pages of Holy Scripture that we have never nibbled at before. From the beginning of time we see the importance and prominence that sheep and shepherds play in the plans and providence of God.
Sheep graze throughout the pages of the Bible, beginning in Genesis, where the bloody murder of ABEL the shepherd, by his brother Cain the farmer, was occasioned by Abel’s sacrificing a lamb to God as an act of worship―a sacrifice God accepted whilst rejecting the sacrifice of Cain.
NOE, in effect, was told by God to ‘shepherd’ all animals into the Ark that Noe had built at God’s command: “And of every living creature of all flesh, thou shalt bring two of a sort into the Ark―of the male sex, and the female―so that they may live with thee! Of fowls according to their kind, and of beasts in their kind, and of everything that creepeth on the earth according to its kind; two of every sort shall go in with thee, that they may live!” (Genesis 6:19-20).
The Patriarchs―Abraham, Isaac and Jacob―and the Twelve Tribes of Israel (Jacob’s sons) were all shepherds. ABRAHAM was a shepherd who “had sheep and oxen, and he asses, and men servants and maid servants, and asses, and camels” (Genesis 12:16). Abraham’s nephew, LOT, was also a shepherd with lots of sheep: “Lot, who was with Abram, had flocks of sheep, and herds of beasts” (Genesis 13:9). Sheep would again be linked with God and sacrifice when Abraham is commanded by God to sacrifice Isaac to Him―a sacrifice which God stops through the intervention of angel and replacing Isaac with a ram (= male sheep): “God tempted Abraham, and said to ‘him: Take thy son Isaac and offer him for an holocaust!’ … So Abraham took Isaac … and they came to the place which God had shown him, where he built an altar, and laid the wood in order upon it: and when he had tied down Isaac, he laid him on the altar upon the pile of wood. And he put forth his hand and took the sword, to sacrifice his son. And an angel of the Lord called to him, saying: ‘Abraham! Abraham! Lay not thy hand upon the boy, neither do thou anything to him! For now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for His sake!’ Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw, behind his back, a ram amongst the briers, sticking fast by the horns, which he took and offered for a holocaust instead of his son” (Genesis 22:1-13).
RACHEL was one of the great women of the Old Testament. She was the daughter of LABAN (also a shepherd) and worked as a shepherdess, caring for her father’s flock. She met her future husband, Jacob (the son of Isaac) at a well while watering her sheep and became the great love of his life (Genesis 29:1-35).
Sheep continue their prominence when the Israelites are enslaved in Egypt, many generations after the death of the last of the Patriarchs―Joseph. Before the Exodus from Egypt begins, MOSES goes on the run, because he killed an Egyptian in anger. Settling in the land of Madian, he sees another injustice: the daughters of the local priest struggling to water their flocks because of pushy shepherds. Moses helps them and is taken in by the family—marrying one of the daughters and becoming the very thing the Egyptians, who had raised him, despised―a shepherd. Yet while pasturing a flock, God appears to Moses in flames of fire in the midst of a bush and calls him to set the Israelites free. When Moses protests that the people won’t believe him, God instructs Moses to use the shepherd’s staff in his hand to convince them, a sign that Moses would become a shepherd over God’s people. Through a series of ten incredible miracles, Pharao eventually but reluctantly grants what Moses was demanding―the freedom of the Israelites. God’s people are set free―but are not permitted to take their flocks or herds. Though the Egyptians detested the shepherds, they obviously knew the value of their sheep. Moses refuses to leave without the sheep, and when the Israelites enter the Promised Land, their flocks are with them.
Just before their way out of slavery with their Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites were commanded to eat―for the first time―what would become a powerful institution for God’s Chosen People―the Passover, which included taking a one-year-old male lamb without defect, draining its blood, and placing the blood on the doorposts of the home; then roasting the meat and eating it with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast. The inhabitants of those houses marked by the blood of the lamb are spared from death and loss on that fateful night when God passes by and killed the first-born humans and animals all throughout Egypt. The Passover meal of the lamb foreshadowed Christ, the Lamb of God, Who would one day die for the sins of the world.
AMOS, the prophet―the father of Isaias the prophet―was also a shepherd “who was among herdsmen” (Amos 1:1). He earned his living from the flock and the sycamore-fig grove. Whether he owned the flocks and groves, or only worked as a hired hand, is not known. Although a simple shepherd and fruit picker, Amos foretold with confidence that the nations needed to hear God’s message.
DAVID was a shepherd boy who grew up to be a king and shepherd of God’s people. “And David said to Saul: ‘I kept my father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a ram out of the midst of the flock! And I pursued after them, and struck them, and delivered it out of their mouth: and they rose up against me, and I caught them by the throat, and I strangled and killed them!’” (1 Kings 17:34-35).
OUR LORD Himself was born in a shepherd’s cave; His first visitors were shepherds; and He is called both “the Lamb of God” (John 1:36) … “led as a Sheep to the slaughter and like a Lamb without voice before His shearer” (Acts 8:32) and called “the Good Shepherd” (John 10:11) and “the door of the sheep” (John 10:7). Speaking of Himself in the third-person, Our Lord says: “All nations shall be gathered together before Him, and He shall separate them one from another―as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matthew 25:32). Our Lord speaks of His Church as being a flock of sheep and Himself being the Chief Shepherd, saying: “I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost” (Matthew 15:24) ... “I lay down My life for My sheep!” (John 10:15) … “The Son of man is come to save that which was lost! What think you? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them should go astray―does he not leave the ninety-nine in the mountains, and go to seek that which is gone astray? And if it so be that he find it: Amen I say to you, he rejoices more for that which he found, than for the ninety-nine that went not astray!” (Matthew 18:11-13). St. Peter speaks of Him being the shepherd and bishop of our souls: “You were as sheep going astray―but you are now converted to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls!” (1 Peter 2:25).
ST. PETER, though a fisherman, is nevertheless made a shepherd. Our Lord―even though He is the Chief Shepherd of the flock of the Church―also gives power to St. Peter to shepherd the flock of the Church: “Jesus said to Simon Peter: ‘Feed My lambs! … Feed My sheep!’” (John 21:15-17) … “I say to thee that thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon Earth, it shall be bound also in Heaven―and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon Earth, it shall be loosed also in Heaven!” (Matthew 16:1).
THE APOSTLES AND DISCIPLES are also made shepherds by Our Lord―when He repeats to them what was said above to St. Peter: “Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon Earth, shall be bound also in Heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon Earth, shall be loosed also in Heaven!” (Matthew 18:18) … “All power is given to Me in Heaven and on Earth! Going, therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:18-20) because “other sheep I have, that are not of this fold―them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd!” (John 10:16).
are also made shepherds by Our Lord―when He repeats to them what was said above to St. Peter: “Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon Earth, shall be bound also in Heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon Earth, shall be loosed also in Heaven!” (Matthew 18:18) … “All power is given to Me in Heaven and on Earth! Going, therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:18-20) because “other sheep I have, that are not of this fold―them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd!” (John 10:16).
SHEPHERDS WHO BECAME SAINTS ― Here are just some of many saints who were shepherds at some point in their lives: St. Regina (256), St. Julian the Hospitaller (300s), St. Patrick (400s), St. Cuthbert (600s), St. Cuthman (700s), St. Solange (880), St. Dominic of Silos (1000s), St. Drogo (1105), St. Germaine (1579), St. John Vianney (1786), St. John Bosco (1815), etc.
Shepherds and Our Lady
We know, of course, that the first visitors to the shepherd’s cave/stable in Bethlehem were the local shepherds―but in our modern age Our Lady has reversed the role and has herself become the visitor to shepherds. We see this in the case of Our Lady of La Salette, who appeared, in 1846, to the two shepherd children―Melanie and Maximin while they were shepherding their sheep. Similarly, in 1858, Our Lady of Lourdes appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous, who had spent a large part of her youth shepherding sheep. Likewise at Fatima, in 1917, where Our Lady appeared to the three little shepherds―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta.
Parental Shepherds―Family Flocks
So all in all, you can see from the above, God has a predilection for shepherds and sheep―they are an underlying theme throughout the history of God’s plan for mankind, even to the point where the Son of God calls Himself “the Good Shepherd” and the Old Testament calls God a shepherd: “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd gives His life for His sheep! … I am the Good Shepherd and I know Mine, and Mine know Me!” (John 10:11-14). “The Lord is my shepherd and I shall lack nothing! He has set me in a place of pasture. He hath raised me on the water of refreshment!” (Psalm 22:1-2). We are, therefore, the children of a shepherd―and, just as the children of shepherds of sheep help their parents with the shepherding and learn from them how to shepherd, so too should we help God and His Church with the shepherding of whatever portion of the flock we find ourselves in: “Jesus said to them: ‘Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to Me―for the Kingdom of Heaven is for such!’” (Matthew 19:14). God told David that he would shepherd God’s people―Israel (2 Kings 5:2) and God chose David and took him from tending the sheep to be the shepherd of His people: “He chose His servant David and took him from the flocks of sheep, and He brought him from following the sheep to feed Jacob His servant, and Israel His inheritance” (Psalm 77:70-71). Even though the clergy are technically the pastors of the parish flock, parents are in fact the FIRST SHEPHERDS of their own family flock―the children that are born to them.
“Feed the flock of God” (1 Peter 5:2) ― especially feed them spiritual food, because “not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God!” (Matthew 4:4) … “From thy infancy thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which can instruct thee to salvation!” (2 Timothy 3:15). “All thy children shall be taught of the Lord!” (Isaias 54:13). You are raising Catholic souls who will one day return to their Creator to be judged. Catholic parenting or “shepherding” means leading children to the pastures of God―which means teaching them to love and obey the Word of God, since we cannot see God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). For the vast majority of the time, children are raised in the “sheep-pen” of the family home―there is no pope, cardinal, bishop, priest, monk, nun, brother or sister in sight! For the first five or so years of their existence, children are almost exclusively “shepherded” by their parents. The most important influence shaping the religious and spiritual lives of children, youth, and teenagers is their parents. A myriad of studies show that the parents play the leading role in shaping the character of the religious and spiritual lives of their children―even well after they leave home and often for the rest of their lives.
Holy Scripture clearly describes the role of parents as those of a shepherd―or more exactly, as an intermediary shepherd on the part of God (who is the true and ultimate shepherd of all our souls). First of all it states that children are a blessing from God: “The inheritance of the Lord are children―the reward, the fruit of the womb” (Psalm 126:3). In the Book of Deuteronomy, God makes it clear that parents are intermediary shepherds for Him, teaching their children what God wants to be taught: “Hear, observe and do the things which the Lord hath commanded thee, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest be greatly multiplied. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength! These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart and thou shalt tell them to thy children, and thou shalt meditate upon them sitting in thy house, and walking on thy journey, sleeping and rising. And thou shalt bind them as a sign on thy hand, and they shall be and shall move between thy eyes. And thou shalt write them in the entry, and upon the doors of thy house!” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).
Disciplinary Shepherds
“He that spares the rod hates his son―but he that loves him corrects him in good times” (Proverbs 13:24) ― meaning that training which is corrective and rooted in love, is proactive (helpful) not reactive (irritated). “A young man according to his way, even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6)―meaning that if you train a child in the way he should go, then when he is old he will not turn away from it. “Withhold not correction from a child―for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from Hell” (Proverbs 23:13-14). “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, and the rod of correction shall drive it away!” (Proverbs 22:15). “He that spares the rod, hates his son―but he that loves him, corrects him in good time” (Proverbs 13:24). “The rod and reproof give wisdom―but the child that is left to his own will bringeth his mother to shame!” (Proverbs 29:15). “And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4) ― “discipline” coming the Greek word: paideia, meaning educating, instructing, learning, nurturing) and “correction” coming from the Greek word: nouthesia meaning admonishing, cautioning, warning, rebuking―therefore training children both by words and by actions; by instructions and corrections; by teaching and punishing. “My son, neglect not the discipline of the Lord; neither be thou wearied whilst thou art rebuked by Him! For whomsoever the Lord loveth, He chastiseth; and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth!” (Hebrews 12:5-6).
Article 7
Good Shepherd Sunday April 23rd, 2023
Good Shepherds! Bad Shepherds! No Shepherds!
Good Shepherd Sunday April 23rd, 2023
Good Shepherds! Bad Shepherds! No Shepherds!
The Beautiful Image of Shepherd and Sheep
During Paschal tide the Church puts before us the symbolism of the Shepherd and the sheep. During the Easter season we are presented with what is commonly and popularly called “Good Shepherd Sunday” which contains the famous quote of Our Lord’s: “I am the Good Shepherd! And I know Mine, and Mine know Me.”
This phrase opens the door to some of the most beautiful contemplations possible! It can lead us to think of our relationship with Christ; of the role we have in that relationship. It can lead us into broader pastures of our personal vocation—for we are all either ‘shepherds’ or ‘sheep’ and often both at the same time.
We Are Both Shepherds and Sheep
Parents shepherd the sheep that are their children, while at the same time being themselves the ‘sheep’ of the parish or the Church at large. Employers are the shepherds of the employees, while being ‘sheep’ of a larger economic community themselves; teachers shepherd their students while they are themselves just the ‘sheep’ of the school as a whole; the principal shepherds the teachers while being under the shepherding of the parish priest; priests shepherd their parish, while being the ‘sheep’ of the diocese and their bishop, and so forth.
We are called, in the broad sense, to be both shepherds and sheep. Therefore, it would be well not to pass by the topic too hastily or superficially—since we will all be judged on how we have ‘shepherded’ others and also on how ‘sheepish’ we ourselves were! First of all, let us look at what we should always look at first—the word of God! Holy Scripture and the Divine Liturgy have some beautiful passages concerning the shepherd and the sheep—not least the passage where Our Lord calls Himself the “Good Shepherd.” So let us begin with that:
Christ the Good Shepherd
In chapter 10 of St. John’s Gospel, we read the following words of Jesus, Our Good Shepherd:
“‘Amen, amen I say to you: He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter [gatekeeper] openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he hath let out his own sheep, he goeth before them: and the sheep follow him, because they know his voice. But a stranger they follow not, but fly from him, because they know not the voice of strangers.”
“This proverb Jesus spoke to them. But they understood not what he spoke to them. Jesus therefore said to them again: ‘Amen, amen I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All others, as many as have come, are thieves and robbers: and the sheep heard them not. I am the door. By Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved: and he shall go in, and go out, and shall find pastures. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep.
“‘But the hireling, and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and flieth: and the wolf catcheth, and scattereth the sheep! And the hireling flieth, because he is a hireling and he hath no care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know Mine, and Mine know Me. As the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father: and I lay down My life for My sheep. And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd!’” (John 10:1-16).
Laying Down His Life for His Sheep
Can we think of a more beautiful image than that of a good, caring shepherd, looking after and protecting his sheep? Our Lord says: “I am the Good Shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me!” It was in the role of the “Good Shepherd,” that Christ accompanied us during the weeks preceding and following Easter. On Holy Saturday the Church in her liturgy prayed: “Our Shepherd has departed, the fount of living water, at whose death the sun was darkened...”
Then two days later the Church joyfully prayed: “Risen is the Good Shepherd, Who laid down His life for His sheep. And deigned to die for His flock, alleluia! Christ, our Pasch, is sacrificed.”
There are a couple of notable Old Testament texts that form the background of this Good Shepherd discourse in John.
The Lord is My Shepherd...
We think first of all of Psalm 22 (Psalm 23): “The Lord is my shepherd: and I shall want nothing. He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment: He hath converted my soul. He hath led me on the paths of justice, for His own Name’s sake. For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they have comforted me. Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that afflict me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil; and my chalice, which inebriateth me, how goodly is it! And Thy mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And that I may dwell in the house of the Lord unto length of days.”
This psalm was extremely popular among the Fathers of the Church as a source for sacramental catechesis. This reminds us that the sacraments are key moments when the Good Shepherd touches us and cares for us.
Old Testament Shepherds
Another less prominent, but no less important, Old Testament background text is found in chapter 34 of the Book of Ezechiel, concerning Ezechiel’s prophecy of the future Good Shepherd. In this passage God criticizes the failings of the ‘shepherds’ of Israel, who have not truly fed the flock of God, but themselves. The same was to be true of the Sadducees (the priests in Jesus’ time), the Scribes and the Pharisees. The same could be said to be true of those shepherds of the Church today, who are Liberals and Modernists (again, the verse numbers will be in parentheses):
“And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ‘Son of man, prophesy concerning the shepherds of Israel [that is, princes, magistrates, chief priests, and scribes]: prophesy and say to the shepherds: “Thus saith the Lord God: ‘Woe to the shepherds of Israel, that fed themselves: should not the flocks be fed by the shepherds? You ate the milk, and you clothed yourselves with the wool, and you killed that which was fat: but My flock you did not feed. The weak you have not strengthened, and that which was sick you have not healed, that which was broken you have not bound up, and that which was driven away you have not brought again, neither have you sought that which was lost: but you ruled over them with rigor, and with a high hand. And My sheep were scattered, because there was no shepherd: and they became the prey of all the beasts of the field, and were scattered. My sheep have wandered in every mountain, and in every high hill: and My flocks were scattered upon the face of the Earth, and there was none that sought them, there was none, I say, that sought them.
“Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: ‘As I live,’ saith the Lord God, ‘forasmuch as My flocks have been made a spoil, and My sheep are become a prey to all the beasts of the field, because there was no shepherd: for My shepherds did not seek after my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not My flocks! Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord!’ Thus saith the Lord God: ‘Behold I Myself come upon the shepherds, I will require My flock at their hand, and I will cause them to cease from feeding the flock any more, neither shall the shepherds feed themselves anymore: and I will deliver My flock from their mouth, and it shall no more be meat for them!
“For thus saith the Lord God: ‘Behold I Myself will seek My sheep, and will visit them. As the shepherd visiteth his flock in the day when he shall be in the midst of his sheep that were scattered, so will I visit My sheep, and will deliver them out of all the places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from the peoples, and will gather them out of the countries, and will bring them to their own land: and I will feed them in the mountains of Israel, by the rivers, and in all the habitations of the land. I will feed them in the most fruitful pastures, and their pastures shall be in the high mountains of Israel: there shall they rest on the green grass, and be fed in fat pastures upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed My sheep: and I will cause them to lie down,’ saith the Lord God. ‘I will seek that which was lost: and that which was driven away, I will bring again: and I will bind up that which was broken, and I will strengthen that which was weak, and that which was fat and strong I will preserve: and I will feed them in judgment.’
“‘And as for you, O my flocks,’ thus saith the Lord God: ‘Behold I judge between cattle and cattle, of rams and of male goats. Was it not enough for you to feed upon good pastures? But you must also tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures: and when you drank the clearest water, you troubled the rest with your feet. And My sheep were fed with that which you had trodden with your feet: and they drank what your feet had troubled. Therefore thus saith the Lord God to you: Behold, I Myself will judge between the fat cattle and the lean. Because you thrusted with sides and shoulders, and struck all the weak cattle with your horns, till they were scattered abroad. I will save my flock, and it shall be no more a spoil, and I will judge between cattle and cattle. And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even My servant David: he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God: and My servant David the prince in the midst of them: I the Lord have spoken it.” (Ezechiel 34:1-24)
Shepherd Warnings for Our Day!
Here we have a real ‘dressing-down’ of the shepherds of the day! We have to ask ourselves the same questions, though! Are we feeding our ‘sheep’ what God wants them to be fed with, or are we feeding them ‘junk food’? We have to turn to the prophecies and warnings of Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Good Success (Quito, Ecuador), to see that there will be a time (and it seems we are in it) where the Faith will no longer be fed as it ought to be.
“The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the holy mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity. Yes, the priests are asking vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying my Son again! The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world. God will strike in an unprecedented way.” (Our Lady of La Salette).
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … Rome will lose Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.” (Our Lady of La Salette). “At the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, various heresies will be propagated … As these heresies spread and dominate, the precious light of Faith will be extinguished in souls by the almost total corruption of customs. During this period, there will be great physical and moral calamities, both public and private.” (Our Lady of Good Success, Quito, Ecuador, 17th century).
Why Does the Good Shepherd Allow This?
The comforting promises of this Gospel, concerning Christ the Good Shepherd who will not let his sheep perish, seem in apparent conflict with the catastrophes and persecution that Our Lady speaks of in her prophecies. If Christ is the Good Shepherd, why do we have to go through all those woes? Why do we have to go through the time of great distress, of which Our Lady says: “Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth!”?
This paradoxical situation of God’s shepherding care with the very real presence of evil and persecution is already foreshadowed in the words of Psalm 22 (Psalm 23):
“The Lord is my shepherd: and I shall want nothing. He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment: He hath converted my soul. He hath led me on the paths of justice, for His own Name’s sake. For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they have comforted me. Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that afflict me.”
One could ask, if the Lord God is the psalmist’s Shepherd, what is he doing walking through the valley of the shadow of death in the first place? If the Lord is shepherding, why are the enemies present as the table is being prepared?
This is a great mystery. Nonetheless, it seems clear that just as the Lamb-Shepherd suffered persecution Himself, so his sheep will also “walk through the valley … of death” and eat their meals “in the presence of enemies.” The Lamb-Shepherd does not guide us around these experiences but through them. Thus, the Eucharist, the supreme Table prepared before us, is always a meal we eat, while our enemies are looking on. In this life, the faithful will always face opposition.
The Devil’s Score-Card for the USA
Prior to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the numbers of vocations to the priesthood and religious were increasing annually. Since the Second Vatican Council those numbers have been tumbling drastically.
► PRIESTS:
In 1965 there were 58,632 diocesan and religious-order priests in the United States.
In 2004 there were only 41,212 = a 30% fall from the 1965 numbers.
In 2022 there were only 34,344 = a 42% fall from the 1965 numbers.
The average age of priests in the USA in 2022 was just over 67 years of age. Since most are 65 years or older, the % drop in priests (compared to 1965) could reach 85% in 7 to 10 years leaving less than 12,000 priests. By 2025 it is estimated that religious sisters, brothers and religious order priests over 70 years of age will outnumber those under age 70 by nearly 4 to 1.
► SEMINARIANS:
In 1965 there were 48,992 seminarians.
In 2004 only 4,719 = a 90% fall from the 1965 numbers.
In 2022 the numbers are still very low at just under 4,000 = a 92% fall from the 1965 numbers.
► RELIGIOUS BROTHERS:
In 1965 there were 12,271 brothers.
In 2004 only 5,505 remained = a 55% fall from the 1965 numbers.
In 2022 there were only 3,516 = a 72% fall from the 1965 numbers.
► RELIGIOUS SISTERS:
In 1965 there were 179,954 sisters.
In 2004 only 71,468 = a 61% fall from the 1965 numbers.
In 2022 there only remained 36,321 = a 80% fall from the 1965 numbers.
Today, less that 1% of Religious Sisters are under the age of 40―while the average age of Religious Sisters is now over 80 years old.
► TEACHING SISTERS:
In 1965 104,314.
In 2004 only 8,233 = a 92% decrease on the 1965 numbers.
In 2022 there were only 4,000 = a 96% decrease on the 1965 numbers.
Lay teachers now make up the bulk of Catholic school employees, a stark contrast to decades ago, when religious men and women — the vast majority nuns — composed 90 percent of school staff. Today, there are just 4,000 religious teachers, who represent 3 percent of all Catholic school staff from religious orders, according to the National Catholic Educational Association.
► TEACHING PRIESTS:
In 1965 12,346.
In 2004 only 1,897 = a 85% decrease on the 1965 numbers.
In 2022 there were less than 500 = a 99% decrease on the 1965 numbers.
► WEEKLY MASS ATTENDANCE:
In 1965 approximately 67% of American Catholics would REGULARLY attend Sunday Mass each week.
In 2004 only 25% of Catholics would REGULARLY attend Sunday Mass each week = a 62% fall from the 1965 numbers.
In 2022 there were only 17% American Catholics attending Mass every week = a 74% fall from the 1965 numbers.
► WHAT CATHOLICS BELIEVE (OR DON’T BELIEVE)!
77% believe it is not necessary to attend Sunday Mass
65% believe Divorce and Remarriage is acceptable
53% believe abortion is acceptable
74% believe artificial birth control is acceptable
66% believe the Eucharist is only symbolic and not the Body and Blood of Christ.
These are all mortal sins that can lead to eternal suffering for those who practice these beliefs.
► OUR CATHOLIC SHEPHERDS IN SCHOOLS
Among Catholic Elementary School Teachers:
90% disagree with the Church’s condemnation of birth control
74% disagree with the Church’s condemnation of abortion
73% disagree with the Church’s teaching on Papal Infallibility
37% disagree with the Church teaching on the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist
There are many dogmas and teachings of the Catholic Church that these teachers disagree with, the above mentioned are only a sample of the whole. A prime example is you don’t have to believe in the official Catechism. It’s subjective. Let your conscience be your guide. (What about the dogmatic sections of the Catechism?)
These are some of the “Shepherds” who are teaching and guiding your children. Now you know why most Catholic elementary school students quit going to Mass after they leave our schools.
The figures are far worse at Catholic High Schools and most Universities are a disgrace in what they do and do not teach about our Faith.
► DECLINE OF CATHOLIC RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES between 1965 and 2000
Jesuit Priests declined 40%; Jesuit Seminarians declined 89%.
Franciscan Priests declined 41%; Franciscan Seminarians declined 97%
Benedictine Priests declined 40%; Benedictine Seminarians declined 93%
Dominican Priests declined 40%; Dominican Seminarians declined 89%
And so on for all communities. Most of the remaining priests will be gone in the near future, because of their advanced ages. And there increasingly fewer and fewer replacements, because there are so few seminarians; made worse by the fact that only a small percentage of these seminarians graduate.
In 1965, there were 17,763 parishes in the United States, and 530 of them had no resident priest. In the year 2022, there were 16,429 parishes in the United States in 2022 and 3,215 of them have no resident priest to serve them. The number of parishes without priests could easily triple to 9,000 in a few short years because of the rapidly decreasing number of priests (due to death because the average age of priests is almost 70; as well as retirement) and so few replacements being ordained.
We have a Shepherding Mess! We have a Shepherding Crisis!
Folks! We have a “Crisis of Shepherds”! No surprise, for Our Lady already foretold it, but the world would not listen, nor take the remedies Our Lady offered. We may be tempted to bury our heads in the sand, with a spirit of hopelessness, muttering with Cain: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9) ... “I am only the sheep, I am not the shepherd!” ... “What can I do? I am only one among over a billion who inhabit this Earth!”
This is both a lack of Faith and desertion of obligation. The Apostles were only twelve; the disciples barely a hundred. Yet they were commanded to convert all nations and baptize all creatures. Our sense of desperation is only a natural human emotion and not supernatural response. Our Lord performed miracles and promised that we would do even greater ones, IF WE HAD THE FAITH! The devil said to St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, that if there were only four like him in France, then the devil would “be out of business”! St. Louis Marie de Montfort speaks of the greatest saints being formed and raised up by Our Lady at the end times.
If we look upon and rely upon our own powers, then we are lost; for we but sinful dust and ashes, to whom Our Lord says: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Yet, if we tap into the vines, that Our Lord and Our Lady are, then nothing is impossible: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26) ... “For, amen I say to you, if you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, ‘Remove from hence hither!’ and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you” (Matthew 17:19).
During Paschal tide the Church puts before us the symbolism of the Shepherd and the sheep. During the Easter season we are presented with what is commonly and popularly called “Good Shepherd Sunday” which contains the famous quote of Our Lord’s: “I am the Good Shepherd! And I know Mine, and Mine know Me.”
This phrase opens the door to some of the most beautiful contemplations possible! It can lead us to think of our relationship with Christ; of the role we have in that relationship. It can lead us into broader pastures of our personal vocation—for we are all either ‘shepherds’ or ‘sheep’ and often both at the same time.
We Are Both Shepherds and Sheep
Parents shepherd the sheep that are their children, while at the same time being themselves the ‘sheep’ of the parish or the Church at large. Employers are the shepherds of the employees, while being ‘sheep’ of a larger economic community themselves; teachers shepherd their students while they are themselves just the ‘sheep’ of the school as a whole; the principal shepherds the teachers while being under the shepherding of the parish priest; priests shepherd their parish, while being the ‘sheep’ of the diocese and their bishop, and so forth.
We are called, in the broad sense, to be both shepherds and sheep. Therefore, it would be well not to pass by the topic too hastily or superficially—since we will all be judged on how we have ‘shepherded’ others and also on how ‘sheepish’ we ourselves were! First of all, let us look at what we should always look at first—the word of God! Holy Scripture and the Divine Liturgy have some beautiful passages concerning the shepherd and the sheep—not least the passage where Our Lord calls Himself the “Good Shepherd.” So let us begin with that:
Christ the Good Shepherd
In chapter 10 of St. John’s Gospel, we read the following words of Jesus, Our Good Shepherd:
“‘Amen, amen I say to you: He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter [gatekeeper] openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he hath let out his own sheep, he goeth before them: and the sheep follow him, because they know his voice. But a stranger they follow not, but fly from him, because they know not the voice of strangers.”
“This proverb Jesus spoke to them. But they understood not what he spoke to them. Jesus therefore said to them again: ‘Amen, amen I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All others, as many as have come, are thieves and robbers: and the sheep heard them not. I am the door. By Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved: and he shall go in, and go out, and shall find pastures. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep.
“‘But the hireling, and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and flieth: and the wolf catcheth, and scattereth the sheep! And the hireling flieth, because he is a hireling and he hath no care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know Mine, and Mine know Me. As the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father: and I lay down My life for My sheep. And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd!’” (John 10:1-16).
Laying Down His Life for His Sheep
Can we think of a more beautiful image than that of a good, caring shepherd, looking after and protecting his sheep? Our Lord says: “I am the Good Shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me!” It was in the role of the “Good Shepherd,” that Christ accompanied us during the weeks preceding and following Easter. On Holy Saturday the Church in her liturgy prayed: “Our Shepherd has departed, the fount of living water, at whose death the sun was darkened...”
Then two days later the Church joyfully prayed: “Risen is the Good Shepherd, Who laid down His life for His sheep. And deigned to die for His flock, alleluia! Christ, our Pasch, is sacrificed.”
There are a couple of notable Old Testament texts that form the background of this Good Shepherd discourse in John.
The Lord is My Shepherd...
We think first of all of Psalm 22 (Psalm 23): “The Lord is my shepherd: and I shall want nothing. He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment: He hath converted my soul. He hath led me on the paths of justice, for His own Name’s sake. For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they have comforted me. Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that afflict me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil; and my chalice, which inebriateth me, how goodly is it! And Thy mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And that I may dwell in the house of the Lord unto length of days.”
This psalm was extremely popular among the Fathers of the Church as a source for sacramental catechesis. This reminds us that the sacraments are key moments when the Good Shepherd touches us and cares for us.
Old Testament Shepherds
Another less prominent, but no less important, Old Testament background text is found in chapter 34 of the Book of Ezechiel, concerning Ezechiel’s prophecy of the future Good Shepherd. In this passage God criticizes the failings of the ‘shepherds’ of Israel, who have not truly fed the flock of God, but themselves. The same was to be true of the Sadducees (the priests in Jesus’ time), the Scribes and the Pharisees. The same could be said to be true of those shepherds of the Church today, who are Liberals and Modernists (again, the verse numbers will be in parentheses):
“And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ‘Son of man, prophesy concerning the shepherds of Israel [that is, princes, magistrates, chief priests, and scribes]: prophesy and say to the shepherds: “Thus saith the Lord God: ‘Woe to the shepherds of Israel, that fed themselves: should not the flocks be fed by the shepherds? You ate the milk, and you clothed yourselves with the wool, and you killed that which was fat: but My flock you did not feed. The weak you have not strengthened, and that which was sick you have not healed, that which was broken you have not bound up, and that which was driven away you have not brought again, neither have you sought that which was lost: but you ruled over them with rigor, and with a high hand. And My sheep were scattered, because there was no shepherd: and they became the prey of all the beasts of the field, and were scattered. My sheep have wandered in every mountain, and in every high hill: and My flocks were scattered upon the face of the Earth, and there was none that sought them, there was none, I say, that sought them.
“Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: ‘As I live,’ saith the Lord God, ‘forasmuch as My flocks have been made a spoil, and My sheep are become a prey to all the beasts of the field, because there was no shepherd: for My shepherds did not seek after my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not My flocks! Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord!’ Thus saith the Lord God: ‘Behold I Myself come upon the shepherds, I will require My flock at their hand, and I will cause them to cease from feeding the flock any more, neither shall the shepherds feed themselves anymore: and I will deliver My flock from their mouth, and it shall no more be meat for them!
“For thus saith the Lord God: ‘Behold I Myself will seek My sheep, and will visit them. As the shepherd visiteth his flock in the day when he shall be in the midst of his sheep that were scattered, so will I visit My sheep, and will deliver them out of all the places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from the peoples, and will gather them out of the countries, and will bring them to their own land: and I will feed them in the mountains of Israel, by the rivers, and in all the habitations of the land. I will feed them in the most fruitful pastures, and their pastures shall be in the high mountains of Israel: there shall they rest on the green grass, and be fed in fat pastures upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed My sheep: and I will cause them to lie down,’ saith the Lord God. ‘I will seek that which was lost: and that which was driven away, I will bring again: and I will bind up that which was broken, and I will strengthen that which was weak, and that which was fat and strong I will preserve: and I will feed them in judgment.’
“‘And as for you, O my flocks,’ thus saith the Lord God: ‘Behold I judge between cattle and cattle, of rams and of male goats. Was it not enough for you to feed upon good pastures? But you must also tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures: and when you drank the clearest water, you troubled the rest with your feet. And My sheep were fed with that which you had trodden with your feet: and they drank what your feet had troubled. Therefore thus saith the Lord God to you: Behold, I Myself will judge between the fat cattle and the lean. Because you thrusted with sides and shoulders, and struck all the weak cattle with your horns, till they were scattered abroad. I will save my flock, and it shall be no more a spoil, and I will judge between cattle and cattle. And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even My servant David: he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God: and My servant David the prince in the midst of them: I the Lord have spoken it.” (Ezechiel 34:1-24)
Shepherd Warnings for Our Day!
Here we have a real ‘dressing-down’ of the shepherds of the day! We have to ask ourselves the same questions, though! Are we feeding our ‘sheep’ what God wants them to be fed with, or are we feeding them ‘junk food’? We have to turn to the prophecies and warnings of Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Good Success (Quito, Ecuador), to see that there will be a time (and it seems we are in it) where the Faith will no longer be fed as it ought to be.
“The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the holy mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity. Yes, the priests are asking vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying my Son again! The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world. God will strike in an unprecedented way.” (Our Lady of La Salette).
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … Rome will lose Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.” (Our Lady of La Salette). “At the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, various heresies will be propagated … As these heresies spread and dominate, the precious light of Faith will be extinguished in souls by the almost total corruption of customs. During this period, there will be great physical and moral calamities, both public and private.” (Our Lady of Good Success, Quito, Ecuador, 17th century).
Why Does the Good Shepherd Allow This?
The comforting promises of this Gospel, concerning Christ the Good Shepherd who will not let his sheep perish, seem in apparent conflict with the catastrophes and persecution that Our Lady speaks of in her prophecies. If Christ is the Good Shepherd, why do we have to go through all those woes? Why do we have to go through the time of great distress, of which Our Lady says: “Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth!”?
This paradoxical situation of God’s shepherding care with the very real presence of evil and persecution is already foreshadowed in the words of Psalm 22 (Psalm 23):
“The Lord is my shepherd: and I shall want nothing. He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment: He hath converted my soul. He hath led me on the paths of justice, for His own Name’s sake. For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they have comforted me. Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that afflict me.”
One could ask, if the Lord God is the psalmist’s Shepherd, what is he doing walking through the valley of the shadow of death in the first place? If the Lord is shepherding, why are the enemies present as the table is being prepared?
This is a great mystery. Nonetheless, it seems clear that just as the Lamb-Shepherd suffered persecution Himself, so his sheep will also “walk through the valley … of death” and eat their meals “in the presence of enemies.” The Lamb-Shepherd does not guide us around these experiences but through them. Thus, the Eucharist, the supreme Table prepared before us, is always a meal we eat, while our enemies are looking on. In this life, the faithful will always face opposition.
The Devil’s Score-Card for the USA
Prior to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the numbers of vocations to the priesthood and religious were increasing annually. Since the Second Vatican Council those numbers have been tumbling drastically.
► PRIESTS:
In 1965 there were 58,632 diocesan and religious-order priests in the United States.
In 2004 there were only 41,212 = a 30% fall from the 1965 numbers.
In 2022 there were only 34,344 = a 42% fall from the 1965 numbers.
The average age of priests in the USA in 2022 was just over 67 years of age. Since most are 65 years or older, the % drop in priests (compared to 1965) could reach 85% in 7 to 10 years leaving less than 12,000 priests. By 2025 it is estimated that religious sisters, brothers and religious order priests over 70 years of age will outnumber those under age 70 by nearly 4 to 1.
► SEMINARIANS:
In 1965 there were 48,992 seminarians.
In 2004 only 4,719 = a 90% fall from the 1965 numbers.
In 2022 the numbers are still very low at just under 4,000 = a 92% fall from the 1965 numbers.
► RELIGIOUS BROTHERS:
In 1965 there were 12,271 brothers.
In 2004 only 5,505 remained = a 55% fall from the 1965 numbers.
In 2022 there were only 3,516 = a 72% fall from the 1965 numbers.
► RELIGIOUS SISTERS:
In 1965 there were 179,954 sisters.
In 2004 only 71,468 = a 61% fall from the 1965 numbers.
In 2022 there only remained 36,321 = a 80% fall from the 1965 numbers.
Today, less that 1% of Religious Sisters are under the age of 40―while the average age of Religious Sisters is now over 80 years old.
► TEACHING SISTERS:
In 1965 104,314.
In 2004 only 8,233 = a 92% decrease on the 1965 numbers.
In 2022 there were only 4,000 = a 96% decrease on the 1965 numbers.
Lay teachers now make up the bulk of Catholic school employees, a stark contrast to decades ago, when religious men and women — the vast majority nuns — composed 90 percent of school staff. Today, there are just 4,000 religious teachers, who represent 3 percent of all Catholic school staff from religious orders, according to the National Catholic Educational Association.
► TEACHING PRIESTS:
In 1965 12,346.
In 2004 only 1,897 = a 85% decrease on the 1965 numbers.
In 2022 there were less than 500 = a 99% decrease on the 1965 numbers.
► WEEKLY MASS ATTENDANCE:
In 1965 approximately 67% of American Catholics would REGULARLY attend Sunday Mass each week.
In 2004 only 25% of Catholics would REGULARLY attend Sunday Mass each week = a 62% fall from the 1965 numbers.
In 2022 there were only 17% American Catholics attending Mass every week = a 74% fall from the 1965 numbers.
► WHAT CATHOLICS BELIEVE (OR DON’T BELIEVE)!
77% believe it is not necessary to attend Sunday Mass
65% believe Divorce and Remarriage is acceptable
53% believe abortion is acceptable
74% believe artificial birth control is acceptable
66% believe the Eucharist is only symbolic and not the Body and Blood of Christ.
These are all mortal sins that can lead to eternal suffering for those who practice these beliefs.
► OUR CATHOLIC SHEPHERDS IN SCHOOLS
Among Catholic Elementary School Teachers:
90% disagree with the Church’s condemnation of birth control
74% disagree with the Church’s condemnation of abortion
73% disagree with the Church’s teaching on Papal Infallibility
37% disagree with the Church teaching on the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist
There are many dogmas and teachings of the Catholic Church that these teachers disagree with, the above mentioned are only a sample of the whole. A prime example is you don’t have to believe in the official Catechism. It’s subjective. Let your conscience be your guide. (What about the dogmatic sections of the Catechism?)
These are some of the “Shepherds” who are teaching and guiding your children. Now you know why most Catholic elementary school students quit going to Mass after they leave our schools.
The figures are far worse at Catholic High Schools and most Universities are a disgrace in what they do and do not teach about our Faith.
► DECLINE OF CATHOLIC RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES between 1965 and 2000
Jesuit Priests declined 40%; Jesuit Seminarians declined 89%.
Franciscan Priests declined 41%; Franciscan Seminarians declined 97%
Benedictine Priests declined 40%; Benedictine Seminarians declined 93%
Dominican Priests declined 40%; Dominican Seminarians declined 89%
And so on for all communities. Most of the remaining priests will be gone in the near future, because of their advanced ages. And there increasingly fewer and fewer replacements, because there are so few seminarians; made worse by the fact that only a small percentage of these seminarians graduate.
In 1965, there were 17,763 parishes in the United States, and 530 of them had no resident priest. In the year 2022, there were 16,429 parishes in the United States in 2022 and 3,215 of them have no resident priest to serve them. The number of parishes without priests could easily triple to 9,000 in a few short years because of the rapidly decreasing number of priests (due to death because the average age of priests is almost 70; as well as retirement) and so few replacements being ordained.
We have a Shepherding Mess! We have a Shepherding Crisis!
Folks! We have a “Crisis of Shepherds”! No surprise, for Our Lady already foretold it, but the world would not listen, nor take the remedies Our Lady offered. We may be tempted to bury our heads in the sand, with a spirit of hopelessness, muttering with Cain: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9) ... “I am only the sheep, I am not the shepherd!” ... “What can I do? I am only one among over a billion who inhabit this Earth!”
This is both a lack of Faith and desertion of obligation. The Apostles were only twelve; the disciples barely a hundred. Yet they were commanded to convert all nations and baptize all creatures. Our sense of desperation is only a natural human emotion and not supernatural response. Our Lord performed miracles and promised that we would do even greater ones, IF WE HAD THE FAITH! The devil said to St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, that if there were only four like him in France, then the devil would “be out of business”! St. Louis Marie de Montfort speaks of the greatest saints being formed and raised up by Our Lady at the end times.
If we look upon and rely upon our own powers, then we are lost; for we but sinful dust and ashes, to whom Our Lord says: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Yet, if we tap into the vines, that Our Lord and Our Lady are, then nothing is impossible: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26) ... “For, amen I say to you, if you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, ‘Remove from hence hither!’ and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you” (Matthew 17:19).
Article 6
Friday & Saturday, April 21st & 22nd, 2023
Easter ― A Season of Faith, Lack of Faith or Loss of Faith
Friday & Saturday, April 21st & 22nd, 2023
Easter ― A Season of Faith, Lack of Faith or Loss of Faith
Faith in a Fight!
You could be tempted to think of the Faith as a passive, peace-loving Faith; a “turn-the-other-cheek”, “sit-down-shut-up-and-don’t-rock-the-boat” Faith; an “endure-everything-and-say-nothing” kind of Faith. To a certain degree this is true―for Our Lord and Holy Scripture speak of those things: “Follow peace with all men” (Hebrews 12:14) … “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9) … “I say to you not to resist evil―but if someone strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39) … “Blessed are they that suffer persecution … Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake! Be glad and rejoice!” (Matthew 5:10-12). “You shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake. But he that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved” (Mark 13:13). Our Lord Himself did not resist arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane―whereas Peter, ready to fight to defend Our Lord, “drawing a sword, struck a servant of the chief priest, and cut off his ear (Mark 14:47). Jesus then rebuked Peter: “Put thy sword back into its place! For all that take the sword shall perish with the sword! Thinkest thou that I cannot ask My Father, and He will give Me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:52-53) and then Our Lord passively accepted arrest, torture and brutal murder.
Nevertheless, at the same time, Our Lord and Holy Scripture also speak of a not-so-passive and more of a war-like kind of Faith: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “What! Shall your brethren go to fight, and will you just sit here?’” (Numbers 32:6). “This is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself!” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” ― and all the other true enemies of God (Hebrews 12:4). “Be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God!” (2 Kings 10:12). “The Lord will fight for you!” (Exodus 14:14).
Our Lord is no pacifist―He Himself proclaimed that: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled! … Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And you shall be brought before governors, and before kings for My sake! … And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake! And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another!” (Matthew 10:17-22; 10:32-37; Luke 12:49-53).
Like it or not, if you have the Faith, then you will have to fight! “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). As long as you are in this world, “the prince of this world” (John 12:31), “your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). The world belongs to the devil and he will use it to try and lead you into sin and damnation. The only time Satan will “back-off” is when he sees that you are habitually living in mortal sin―for then, he knows, that you are his, for “he that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). That is why we are told: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). Our Lord adds: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
Faith but No Fight!
Just as Our Lord says: “Many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14), likewise, you could say: “Many have the Faith, but few fight for the Faith!” They do not accept the fact that “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). For them the life of man on Earth is meant to be fun! Most Catholics do not see the world as being their enemy―they are at peace with world, they actually love the world and what the world offers! Such an attitude is a slap in the face of Our Lord, Who said: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also. No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
Most Catholics today are “mammonizers” ― loving the world more than they love God. Rather than fighting to convert the world to Christ ― “teaching all nations; baptizing them; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20) ― instead, they are being converted to the world! “In the last times some shall depart from the Faith, giving heed to spirits of error and doctrines of devils … For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine … and will turn away their hearing from the truth, and will be turned unto fables!” (1 Timothy 4:12; Timothy 4:3-4). When we look around today, we can clearly see the truth of those words―in fact, it more than just “some shall depart from the Faith”, but MANY! “Take heed lest perhaps there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, to depart from the living God!” (Hebrews 3:12). “Try your own selves if you be in the Faith―prove yourselves―unless perhaps you be reprobates!” (2 Corinthians 15:5).
Profitless Dead Faith
Sadly, most Catholics end up being reprobates, for they do nothing with their Faith: “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works―and I will show thee, by works, my Faith. Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble! Wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead! …For just as the body without the spirit is dead; so also faith without works is dead!” (James 2:17-26). Too many people look upon Faith as money merely sitting in the bank and not being used for anything―it is just there, that’s it! Whereas Faith is like money that has to be used and has to bring further profit. Our Lord’s parable about the Talents is a good example of this truth. 1 talent was 750 ounces of silver. At today’s silver prices of around $25 per ounce, that would make 1 talent worth almost $19,000, thus 5 talents would be almost $94,000; 2 talents would be $37,500, and 1 talent would be almost $19,000.
“For even as a man going into a far country, called his servants, and delivered to them his goods. And to one he gave five talents, and to another two talents, and to another one talent―to everyone according to his proper ability―and immediately he took his journey. He that had received the five talents, went his way and traded with the same―and gained other five. And, in like manner, he that had received the two talents, gained another two. But he that had received the one talent, going his way, dug into the earth and hid his lord’s money.
“But, after a long time, the lord of those servants came and reckoned with them. And he that had received the five talents, coming, brought another five talents, saying: ‘Lord, thou didst deliver to me five talents! Behold―I have gained another five over and above!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’
“And he also, that had received the two talents, came and said: ‘Lord, thou didst deliver two talents to me! Behold―I have gained another two!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’
“But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that thou art a hard man! Thou reapest where thou hast not sown, and gatherest where thou hast not strewed! And, being afraid, I went and hid thy talent in the earth! Behold―here thou hast that which is thine!’ And his lord answering, said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! Thou knewest that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not strewed! Thou oughtest therefore to have committed my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received my own with usury! Take ye away therefore the talent from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents! For to everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall abound―but from him that hath not, that also, which he seems to have, shall be taken away! And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
What is the “profit margin” on your Faith? What has your Faith profited you so far? What have you got to show for the immense gift that has been given to you? “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required! And to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48). Have you merely buried your Faith, or have you used and worked your Faith to produce many fruits? Has your Faith been fruitless? In this regard, two things come to mind ― (1) Our Lord’s parable about the fruitless fig tree and His subsequent cursing of a fruitless fig tree and (2) Our Lord’s parable about the Sower of the Seed.
The Fruitless Fig Tree
“Jesus spoke also this parable: ‘A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. And he said to the dresser of the vineyard: “Behold, for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none! Therefore, cut it down! Why encumbereth it the ground?” But the dresser, answering, said to him: “Lord, let it alone this year also, until I dig about it, and dung it! And perhaps happily it bear fruit! But if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down!”’” (Luke 13:6-9). Later―in real life―Our Lord actually cursed a barren fig tree: “Jesus was hungry. And seeing a certain fig tree by the way side, He came to it, and found nothing on it but leaves only, and He said to it: ‘May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever!’ And immediately the fig tree withered away” (Matthew 21:18-19). Similarly with our Faith―Jesus is hungry for the fruits of our Faith! What are our fruits? How many fruits? Or is all we have to show for our Faith is leaves but no fruit?
The Sower of the Seed
In the parable of the Sower of the Seed, Our Lord explains that the “seed” is the Word of God―and that is exactly what our Faith focuses on, God’s Word, that is to say, God’s teachings. Yet in the parable most of the sown seed goes to waste and only some of it eventually grows to maturity and bears fruit―again, a symbol of our Faith producing fruit:
“The sower went out to sow his seed. And whilst he sowed, some fell by the way side, and it was trodden down by men, and the birds of the air came and ate it up. And some seed fell upon stony ground, where it had not much depth of earth, and the seed sprouted and shot up immediately, because there was no deepness of earth. But when the sun was risen, the sprouted seed was scorched, because it had no root and no moisture. And other seed fell among thorns: and the thorns grew up with it and choked it and it yielded no fruit. And others fell upon good ground: and this seed brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold.
“And His disciples asked Him what this parable might be. To whom Jesus said: ‘The parable is this! Hear therefore the [explanation of the] parable of the sower. The seed is the word of God. And they by the way side are they that hear. When any one hears the word of the kingdom, and understands it not, the devil, Satan, comes [the birds of the air] and takes the word [of God], which was sown in his heart, out of his heart―lest believing he should be saved―this is he that received the seed by the way side. And he that received the seed upon the rock or stony ground, is he that hears the word of God, immediately receives it with joy and believes for a while. Yet he has no root in himself, but keeps the word of God only for a time. For, in time of temptation, when tribulation and persecution arises because of the word of God, he is suddenly scandalized [weakened] and he falls away. And he that received the seed among thorns, is he that hears the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the pleasures of this life, choke up the word of God, and the word becomes fruitless and yields no fruit. But he that received the seed upon good ground, is he that hears and understands the word of God in a good and perfect heart, and bring forth fruit in patience; and the yield for one is a hundredfold, for another sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold!’” (Matthew 13:3-8, 13:18-23; Mark 4:3-8; Luke 8:5-15).
In more modern terms, you could say that the Faith is like a row-boat which is meant to help you cross the river of life from the shores of this world to the shores of Heaven. Just sitting in the boat is going to get you nowhere―you have put in the effort of rowing in order to get there. Or again, you could liken Faith to school―whereby you have put in the effort to learn more and more with each year if you are have any hope of graduating. Merely playing and not learning is going to get you nowhere―except getting yourself expelled. Whatever analogy you use or come up with―the bottom line is that your Faith is meant to grow, to increase in strength, to produce fruits. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case these days―most people just “sit-on-the-Faith” and do nothing with it! They can’t even remember their First Holy Communion Catechism―except for snippets here and there! They are adults that cannot even produce the fruits of a child! Going back to the analogy of the row-boat―their boat (Faith) is riddled with holes (lack of knowledge) and instead of rowing across the river, they end up sinking deeper and deeper into the river!
The Importance of the Faith is Unimportant Today
“Without Faith it is impossible to please God! For he that cometh to God, must believe that He exists, and is a rewarder to them that seek Him!” (Hebrews 11:6). “He that believes and is baptized, shall be saved―but he that believes not, shall be condemned!” (Mark 16:16). “For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “He that believeth in Him is not judged. But he that doth not believe, is already judged―because he believeth not in the Name of the only begotten Son of God!” (John 3:18). “Woe to them who believe not God―they shall not be protected by Him” (Ecclesiasticus 2:15). “When He―the Paraclete―is come, He will convict the world of sin … because they believed not in Me!” (John 16:9).
Apostasy from the Faith
The Catechism of the Council of Trent (published 1566) tells us: “That Faith . . . is necessary to salvation, no man can reasonably doubt!” The First Vatican Council (1869-18720 states: “Since without Faith it is impossible to please God, no one is justified without it, nor will anyone attain eternal life unless he perseveres to the end in it . . . All those things are to be believed by Divine and Catholic Faith which are contained in the written word of God or in Tradition, and which are proposed by the Church―either in solemn judgment, or in its ordinary and universal teaching office as Divinely-revealed truths which must be believed.” Faith is necessary for salvation―yet speaking of the “End Times” or “Last Days” (which, Our Lady of Fatima says, have already started), Our Lord laments in saying: “The Son of man, when He comes, shall He find―do you think―Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). The answer, of course, is “No!” ― because the “End Times” or “Last Days” will be times of apostasy―and that apostasy has noticeably started and is accelerating exponentially.
Our Lady, in her modern day apparitions, has warned us of this apostasy: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … Many will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … . Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom!” (Our Lady of Good Success & Our Lady of La Salette).
In addition, Our Lady of Fatima also warned about a future loss of the Faith, nay, more than that—a future mass apostasy throughout the world, when she revealed the so-called Third Secret of Fatima as a warning for our day.
In her fourth memoir, which was written from October-December 1941, Sister Lucy copied the first two parts of the Secret from the text of her third memoir, but added a sentence that is not found there. Sister Lucy gave us the first sentence of the Third Secret when she inserted into her fourth memoir the phrase “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.” This sentence had not appeared in her previous memoir. Sister Lucy purposely inserted it into her fourth memoir to indicate to us what the final part of the Secret is about.
In 1943, after having been asked by Bishop da Silva to write down the text of the Third Secret, Sister Lucy was finding the task difficult. She declared to the bishop that it was not absolutely necessary to write out the text, “since in a certain manner she had said it.” Sister Lucy was very likely referring to the additional phrase she had inserted into her fourth memoir, “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.”
The phrase, “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.” is a promise that the true Faith will be preserved in that country, although in its vagueness it does not state by whom. Yet, if in Portugal the true Faith will be preserved, what does that imply about the rest of the world? The Portuguese Father Messias de Coelho concluded that, “this allusion, so positive about what will happen among us, suggests to us that it will be different around us.”
Father Alonso, the official Fatima archivist had this to say on the Third Secret: “‘In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved’: The phrase most clearly implies a critical state of Faith, which other nations will suffer, that is to say, a crisis of Faith; whereas Portugal will preserve its Faith.”
In the period preceding the great triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, terrible things are to happen. These form the content of the third part of the Secret. What are they? If “in Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved,” ... it can be clearly deduced from this that in other parts of the Church these dogmas are going to become obscure or even lost altogether.
The Opinions on Apostasy Within the Church
Cardinal Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, said while still a cardinal: “I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul…. I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments and make her feel remorse for her historical past.
“A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, “Where have they taken Him?” Cardinal Pacelli said this in 1931. He became Pope Pius XII in 1939.
Pope Paul VI said: “The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the Faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church” (Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions, October 13, 1977. Pope Paul was dead 10 months later).
Pope Benedict XVI, while still Cardinal Ratzinger, said: “Yes, I have read [the Third Secret]. [It refers to] a radical call to conversion; the absolute seriousness of history; the dangers which threaten the Faith and the life of the Christian and therefore (the life) of the world” (Jesus magazine, November 11th, 1984).
Fr. J. Schweigl, Pope Pius XII’s interviewer of Sr. Lucy, said: “I cannot reveal anything of what I learned at Fatima concerning the Third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts: one concerns the Pope; the other logically (although I must say nothing) would have to be the continuation of the words: “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved” (The Whole Truth about Fatima, Vol. III, p. 74). Pope Pius XII personally sent Fr. Schweigl to question Sr. Lucia about the Third Secret in 1952.
Fr. J. Alonso, the Church’s official archivist of Fatima 1965-1981, said: “In the period preceding the great triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, terrible things are to happen. These form the content of the third part of the Secret. What are they? If “in Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved,”…it can be clearly deduced from this that in other parts of the Church these dogmas are going to become obscure or even lost altogether…. Perhaps it even refers to the failures of the upper hierarchy of the Church.
Cardinal Ottaviani said: “The message was not to be opened before 1960. I asked Sister Lucia, ‘Why this date?’ She answered, ‘Because then it will be clearer.’” Cardinal Ottaviani was the head of the Holy Office. He interviewed Sister Lucia in 1955.
Cardinal Oddi said: “What happened in 1960 that might have been seen in connection with the Secret of Fatima? The most important event is without a doubt the launching of the preparatory phase of the Second Vatican Council. Therefore I would not be surprised if the Secret had something to do with the convocation of Vatican II… I would not be surprised if the Third Secret alluded to dark times for the Church; grave confusions and troubling apostasies within Catholicism itself.”
Cardinal Ciappi, the Papal Theologian of Pope John Paul II, in a personal communication to a Professor Baumgartner in Salzburg, Austria, said: “In the Third Secret, it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.”
You could be tempted to think of the Faith as a passive, peace-loving Faith; a “turn-the-other-cheek”, “sit-down-shut-up-and-don’t-rock-the-boat” Faith; an “endure-everything-and-say-nothing” kind of Faith. To a certain degree this is true―for Our Lord and Holy Scripture speak of those things: “Follow peace with all men” (Hebrews 12:14) … “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9) … “I say to you not to resist evil―but if someone strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39) … “Blessed are they that suffer persecution … Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake! Be glad and rejoice!” (Matthew 5:10-12). “You shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake. But he that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved” (Mark 13:13). Our Lord Himself did not resist arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane―whereas Peter, ready to fight to defend Our Lord, “drawing a sword, struck a servant of the chief priest, and cut off his ear (Mark 14:47). Jesus then rebuked Peter: “Put thy sword back into its place! For all that take the sword shall perish with the sword! Thinkest thou that I cannot ask My Father, and He will give Me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:52-53) and then Our Lord passively accepted arrest, torture and brutal murder.
Nevertheless, at the same time, Our Lord and Holy Scripture also speak of a not-so-passive and more of a war-like kind of Faith: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “What! Shall your brethren go to fight, and will you just sit here?’” (Numbers 32:6). “This is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself!” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” ― and all the other true enemies of God (Hebrews 12:4). “Be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God!” (2 Kings 10:12). “The Lord will fight for you!” (Exodus 14:14).
Our Lord is no pacifist―He Himself proclaimed that: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled! … Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And you shall be brought before governors, and before kings for My sake! … And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake! And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another!” (Matthew 10:17-22; 10:32-37; Luke 12:49-53).
Like it or not, if you have the Faith, then you will have to fight! “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). As long as you are in this world, “the prince of this world” (John 12:31), “your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). The world belongs to the devil and he will use it to try and lead you into sin and damnation. The only time Satan will “back-off” is when he sees that you are habitually living in mortal sin―for then, he knows, that you are his, for “he that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). That is why we are told: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). Our Lord adds: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
Faith but No Fight!
Just as Our Lord says: “Many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14), likewise, you could say: “Many have the Faith, but few fight for the Faith!” They do not accept the fact that “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). For them the life of man on Earth is meant to be fun! Most Catholics do not see the world as being their enemy―they are at peace with world, they actually love the world and what the world offers! Such an attitude is a slap in the face of Our Lord, Who said: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also. No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
Most Catholics today are “mammonizers” ― loving the world more than they love God. Rather than fighting to convert the world to Christ ― “teaching all nations; baptizing them; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20) ― instead, they are being converted to the world! “In the last times some shall depart from the Faith, giving heed to spirits of error and doctrines of devils … For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine … and will turn away their hearing from the truth, and will be turned unto fables!” (1 Timothy 4:12; Timothy 4:3-4). When we look around today, we can clearly see the truth of those words―in fact, it more than just “some shall depart from the Faith”, but MANY! “Take heed lest perhaps there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, to depart from the living God!” (Hebrews 3:12). “Try your own selves if you be in the Faith―prove yourselves―unless perhaps you be reprobates!” (2 Corinthians 15:5).
Profitless Dead Faith
Sadly, most Catholics end up being reprobates, for they do nothing with their Faith: “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works―and I will show thee, by works, my Faith. Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble! Wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead! …For just as the body without the spirit is dead; so also faith without works is dead!” (James 2:17-26). Too many people look upon Faith as money merely sitting in the bank and not being used for anything―it is just there, that’s it! Whereas Faith is like money that has to be used and has to bring further profit. Our Lord’s parable about the Talents is a good example of this truth. 1 talent was 750 ounces of silver. At today’s silver prices of around $25 per ounce, that would make 1 talent worth almost $19,000, thus 5 talents would be almost $94,000; 2 talents would be $37,500, and 1 talent would be almost $19,000.
“For even as a man going into a far country, called his servants, and delivered to them his goods. And to one he gave five talents, and to another two talents, and to another one talent―to everyone according to his proper ability―and immediately he took his journey. He that had received the five talents, went his way and traded with the same―and gained other five. And, in like manner, he that had received the two talents, gained another two. But he that had received the one talent, going his way, dug into the earth and hid his lord’s money.
“But, after a long time, the lord of those servants came and reckoned with them. And he that had received the five talents, coming, brought another five talents, saying: ‘Lord, thou didst deliver to me five talents! Behold―I have gained another five over and above!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’
“And he also, that had received the two talents, came and said: ‘Lord, thou didst deliver two talents to me! Behold―I have gained another two!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’
“But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that thou art a hard man! Thou reapest where thou hast not sown, and gatherest where thou hast not strewed! And, being afraid, I went and hid thy talent in the earth! Behold―here thou hast that which is thine!’ And his lord answering, said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! Thou knewest that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not strewed! Thou oughtest therefore to have committed my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received my own with usury! Take ye away therefore the talent from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents! For to everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall abound―but from him that hath not, that also, which he seems to have, shall be taken away! And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
What is the “profit margin” on your Faith? What has your Faith profited you so far? What have you got to show for the immense gift that has been given to you? “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required! And to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48). Have you merely buried your Faith, or have you used and worked your Faith to produce many fruits? Has your Faith been fruitless? In this regard, two things come to mind ― (1) Our Lord’s parable about the fruitless fig tree and His subsequent cursing of a fruitless fig tree and (2) Our Lord’s parable about the Sower of the Seed.
The Fruitless Fig Tree
“Jesus spoke also this parable: ‘A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. And he said to the dresser of the vineyard: “Behold, for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none! Therefore, cut it down! Why encumbereth it the ground?” But the dresser, answering, said to him: “Lord, let it alone this year also, until I dig about it, and dung it! And perhaps happily it bear fruit! But if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down!”’” (Luke 13:6-9). Later―in real life―Our Lord actually cursed a barren fig tree: “Jesus was hungry. And seeing a certain fig tree by the way side, He came to it, and found nothing on it but leaves only, and He said to it: ‘May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever!’ And immediately the fig tree withered away” (Matthew 21:18-19). Similarly with our Faith―Jesus is hungry for the fruits of our Faith! What are our fruits? How many fruits? Or is all we have to show for our Faith is leaves but no fruit?
The Sower of the Seed
In the parable of the Sower of the Seed, Our Lord explains that the “seed” is the Word of God―and that is exactly what our Faith focuses on, God’s Word, that is to say, God’s teachings. Yet in the parable most of the sown seed goes to waste and only some of it eventually grows to maturity and bears fruit―again, a symbol of our Faith producing fruit:
“The sower went out to sow his seed. And whilst he sowed, some fell by the way side, and it was trodden down by men, and the birds of the air came and ate it up. And some seed fell upon stony ground, where it had not much depth of earth, and the seed sprouted and shot up immediately, because there was no deepness of earth. But when the sun was risen, the sprouted seed was scorched, because it had no root and no moisture. And other seed fell among thorns: and the thorns grew up with it and choked it and it yielded no fruit. And others fell upon good ground: and this seed brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold.
“And His disciples asked Him what this parable might be. To whom Jesus said: ‘The parable is this! Hear therefore the [explanation of the] parable of the sower. The seed is the word of God. And they by the way side are they that hear. When any one hears the word of the kingdom, and understands it not, the devil, Satan, comes [the birds of the air] and takes the word [of God], which was sown in his heart, out of his heart―lest believing he should be saved―this is he that received the seed by the way side. And he that received the seed upon the rock or stony ground, is he that hears the word of God, immediately receives it with joy and believes for a while. Yet he has no root in himself, but keeps the word of God only for a time. For, in time of temptation, when tribulation and persecution arises because of the word of God, he is suddenly scandalized [weakened] and he falls away. And he that received the seed among thorns, is he that hears the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the pleasures of this life, choke up the word of God, and the word becomes fruitless and yields no fruit. But he that received the seed upon good ground, is he that hears and understands the word of God in a good and perfect heart, and bring forth fruit in patience; and the yield for one is a hundredfold, for another sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold!’” (Matthew 13:3-8, 13:18-23; Mark 4:3-8; Luke 8:5-15).
In more modern terms, you could say that the Faith is like a row-boat which is meant to help you cross the river of life from the shores of this world to the shores of Heaven. Just sitting in the boat is going to get you nowhere―you have put in the effort of rowing in order to get there. Or again, you could liken Faith to school―whereby you have put in the effort to learn more and more with each year if you are have any hope of graduating. Merely playing and not learning is going to get you nowhere―except getting yourself expelled. Whatever analogy you use or come up with―the bottom line is that your Faith is meant to grow, to increase in strength, to produce fruits. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case these days―most people just “sit-on-the-Faith” and do nothing with it! They can’t even remember their First Holy Communion Catechism―except for snippets here and there! They are adults that cannot even produce the fruits of a child! Going back to the analogy of the row-boat―their boat (Faith) is riddled with holes (lack of knowledge) and instead of rowing across the river, they end up sinking deeper and deeper into the river!
The Importance of the Faith is Unimportant Today
“Without Faith it is impossible to please God! For he that cometh to God, must believe that He exists, and is a rewarder to them that seek Him!” (Hebrews 11:6). “He that believes and is baptized, shall be saved―but he that believes not, shall be condemned!” (Mark 16:16). “For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “He that believeth in Him is not judged. But he that doth not believe, is already judged―because he believeth not in the Name of the only begotten Son of God!” (John 3:18). “Woe to them who believe not God―they shall not be protected by Him” (Ecclesiasticus 2:15). “When He―the Paraclete―is come, He will convict the world of sin … because they believed not in Me!” (John 16:9).
Apostasy from the Faith
The Catechism of the Council of Trent (published 1566) tells us: “That Faith . . . is necessary to salvation, no man can reasonably doubt!” The First Vatican Council (1869-18720 states: “Since without Faith it is impossible to please God, no one is justified without it, nor will anyone attain eternal life unless he perseveres to the end in it . . . All those things are to be believed by Divine and Catholic Faith which are contained in the written word of God or in Tradition, and which are proposed by the Church―either in solemn judgment, or in its ordinary and universal teaching office as Divinely-revealed truths which must be believed.” Faith is necessary for salvation―yet speaking of the “End Times” or “Last Days” (which, Our Lady of Fatima says, have already started), Our Lord laments in saying: “The Son of man, when He comes, shall He find―do you think―Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). The answer, of course, is “No!” ― because the “End Times” or “Last Days” will be times of apostasy―and that apostasy has noticeably started and is accelerating exponentially.
Our Lady, in her modern day apparitions, has warned us of this apostasy: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … Many will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … . Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom!” (Our Lady of Good Success & Our Lady of La Salette).
In addition, Our Lady of Fatima also warned about a future loss of the Faith, nay, more than that—a future mass apostasy throughout the world, when she revealed the so-called Third Secret of Fatima as a warning for our day.
In her fourth memoir, which was written from October-December 1941, Sister Lucy copied the first two parts of the Secret from the text of her third memoir, but added a sentence that is not found there. Sister Lucy gave us the first sentence of the Third Secret when she inserted into her fourth memoir the phrase “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.” This sentence had not appeared in her previous memoir. Sister Lucy purposely inserted it into her fourth memoir to indicate to us what the final part of the Secret is about.
In 1943, after having been asked by Bishop da Silva to write down the text of the Third Secret, Sister Lucy was finding the task difficult. She declared to the bishop that it was not absolutely necessary to write out the text, “since in a certain manner she had said it.” Sister Lucy was very likely referring to the additional phrase she had inserted into her fourth memoir, “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.”
The phrase, “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.” is a promise that the true Faith will be preserved in that country, although in its vagueness it does not state by whom. Yet, if in Portugal the true Faith will be preserved, what does that imply about the rest of the world? The Portuguese Father Messias de Coelho concluded that, “this allusion, so positive about what will happen among us, suggests to us that it will be different around us.”
Father Alonso, the official Fatima archivist had this to say on the Third Secret: “‘In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved’: The phrase most clearly implies a critical state of Faith, which other nations will suffer, that is to say, a crisis of Faith; whereas Portugal will preserve its Faith.”
In the period preceding the great triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, terrible things are to happen. These form the content of the third part of the Secret. What are they? If “in Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved,” ... it can be clearly deduced from this that in other parts of the Church these dogmas are going to become obscure or even lost altogether.
The Opinions on Apostasy Within the Church
Cardinal Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, said while still a cardinal: “I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul…. I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments and make her feel remorse for her historical past.
“A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, “Where have they taken Him?” Cardinal Pacelli said this in 1931. He became Pope Pius XII in 1939.
Pope Paul VI said: “The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the Faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church” (Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions, October 13, 1977. Pope Paul was dead 10 months later).
Pope Benedict XVI, while still Cardinal Ratzinger, said: “Yes, I have read [the Third Secret]. [It refers to] a radical call to conversion; the absolute seriousness of history; the dangers which threaten the Faith and the life of the Christian and therefore (the life) of the world” (Jesus magazine, November 11th, 1984).
Fr. J. Schweigl, Pope Pius XII’s interviewer of Sr. Lucy, said: “I cannot reveal anything of what I learned at Fatima concerning the Third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts: one concerns the Pope; the other logically (although I must say nothing) would have to be the continuation of the words: “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved” (The Whole Truth about Fatima, Vol. III, p. 74). Pope Pius XII personally sent Fr. Schweigl to question Sr. Lucia about the Third Secret in 1952.
Fr. J. Alonso, the Church’s official archivist of Fatima 1965-1981, said: “In the period preceding the great triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, terrible things are to happen. These form the content of the third part of the Secret. What are they? If “in Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved,”…it can be clearly deduced from this that in other parts of the Church these dogmas are going to become obscure or even lost altogether…. Perhaps it even refers to the failures of the upper hierarchy of the Church.
Cardinal Ottaviani said: “The message was not to be opened before 1960. I asked Sister Lucia, ‘Why this date?’ She answered, ‘Because then it will be clearer.’” Cardinal Ottaviani was the head of the Holy Office. He interviewed Sister Lucia in 1955.
Cardinal Oddi said: “What happened in 1960 that might have been seen in connection with the Secret of Fatima? The most important event is without a doubt the launching of the preparatory phase of the Second Vatican Council. Therefore I would not be surprised if the Secret had something to do with the convocation of Vatican II… I would not be surprised if the Third Secret alluded to dark times for the Church; grave confusions and troubling apostasies within Catholicism itself.”
Cardinal Ciappi, the Papal Theologian of Pope John Paul II, in a personal communication to a Professor Baumgartner in Salzburg, Austria, said: “In the Third Secret, it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.”
Article 5
Thursday April 20th, 2023
Modern Media is a Minefield and Mortuary for Mercy!
Thursday April 20th, 2023
Modern Media is a Minefield and Mortuary for Mercy!
Sweet But Deadly!
Our modern world, especially the Western world, has developed a weakness that we hide behind the euphemism of “sweet tooth”. We love sweet, sugary things―so much so that food chains have for many years added sugar to almost all foods―even meat. Too much sugar is deadly! Sugar can kill! Yet, at the same time, certain sweet foods have been used medicinally. Honey has been used as a folk medicine since around 2100 BC. You can even argue that God has made certain foods to be of a high sugar content―so why worry! God knows what He is doing, surely? You can even find Scriptural quotes to back-up your “sweet tooth” ― “Eat honey, my son, because it is good!” (Proverbs 24:13). “John [the Baptist] ate wild honey” (Mark 1:6). On top of that, didn’t God promise to lead His Chosen People to the Promised Land of “Milk and Honey”? “I will bring them into the land―which I promised to their fathers―that flows with milk and honey” (Deuteronomy 31:20). Yet, at the same time, Scripture issues a warning too! “Thou hast found honey, eat only what is sufficient for thee, lest being glutted therewith thou vomit it up!” (Proverbs 12:16). “It is not good for a man to eat much honey!” (Proverbs 25:27).
It’s a little-known fact, but natural honey contains a poisonous toxin called pyrrolizidine alkaloids. It must go through a pasteurization process after being farmed, in order to eliminate these toxins, and totally unpasteurized honey can be extremely dangerous (most honey that is labeled “unpasteurized” has been pasteurized at least a little). Eating just a teaspoon of totally unpasteurized honey can lead to headaches, dizziness, weakness and vomiting that can last up to 24 hours. It is possible that much larger amounts than one teaspoon can kill.
Mad Honey
There is a little known proverb that says: “Too much honey makes a man mad!” There is also a species of honey that is called “Mad honey”, or “deli bal” in Turkish, which happens to be one of the most expensive honeys in the world―approximately $100 per pound—and the deadliest. Mad honey is different from normal natural or commercially available honey. Mad honey is produced in small quantities by beekeepers in the Kaçkar mountains above the Black Sea, the only place in the world―apart from Nepal, in the foothills of the Himalayas―where indigenous species of rhododendron flowers produce the potent neurotoxin called grayanotoxin. If bees feed on enough rhododendron nectar (which contains grayanotoxins), the mud-red honey they produce has a sharp scent and bitter taste―which can cause intoxication, a potential high, and even poisoning upon consumption. A couple of spoonfuls of mad honey―either on their own or with hot water or boiled milk―are enough to induce a mildly psychotropic sensation, and induce a mildly hallucinogenic or euphoric state.
Mad honey has been commonly used as an aphrodisiac, and has been used for a long time in alternative therapy for gastrointestinal disorders (peptic ulcer disease, dyspepsia, and gastritis), and for hypertension. Eighteenth-century Europeans called it “miel fou” (French for “mad honey” or “crazy honey”), importing it from the Ottomans to add to ale for an extra buzz. Too much, however, can reduce blood pressure to potentially dangerous levels and induce nausea, fainting, seizures, arrhythmia and, in rare cases, death. Dozens of people a year are admitted to hospital in Turkey for mad honey poisoning. In Ancient Greece and Rome, in 97 BC, when the Greeks under King Mithridates were retreating from Roman general Pompey the Great, Mithridates ordered his men to lay pots of honey as they made their tactical retreat. The Roman soldiers couldn’t help themselves and pigged-out on the honey until they couldn't move, leaving them easy for the slaughter.
Mercy & Honey
You could liken mercy to honey. Mercy is sweet, isn’t it? “O Lord, Thy mercy is sweet!” (Psalm 108:21). “The Lord is sweet, His mercy endureth for ever!” (Psalm 99:5). “For thou, O Lord, art sweet and plenteous in mercy” (Psalm 85:5). “The Lord is merciful and plenteous in mercy! The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works!” (Psalm 144:8-9). We have all “tasted” the sweetness of mercy is the Sacrament of Confession, when the priest pronounces the words of absolution from sin (forgiveness)―and we could well say to the priest: “How sweet are thy words to my palate! Sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 118:103). The same words and sentiments could be addressed to Our Lady―the Mother of Mercy―whom we address in the “Hail Holy Queen” thus: “Hail, holy Queen―Mother of Mercy! Hail our life, our sweetness and our hope!”
The Book of Wisdom now warns about having too much of a good thing. God created bread, but He also created honey. To the credit of His goodness, He didn’t have to create honey, but He did―and we ought to receive it with gratitude. Yet, in His wisdom, He provides more bread than honey, more grain than bees. So, it is appropriate to have a little honey with the bread―and not the other way around! When there is more icing than cake; and more cake than potatoes on the dinner plate; we begin to lose a godly sense of balance. God intends for all things to be received and used in moderation with thanksgiving. When men fail to take and use these good things in moderation, then several things happen. They give way to idolatry by fixating on those things that please and gratify the flesh, and they then suffer the consequences of their immoderate behavior―they vomit; their teeth rot; health problems multiply.
Just as too much honey can make a man mad―too much mercy can make a man bad! Mercy―like all other virtues that deal with man―must have the so-called “Golden Mean”― the “golden mean” or “golden middle way” is the desirable middle between two extremes―one extreme being that of excess and the other extreme being that of deficiency. Thus, we can show a person too much mercy, or too little mercy. We have to keep a balance that avoids excess and deficiency. An excess of mercy can be harmful and detrimental to the soul―and insufficient mercy can also be harmful and detrimental to the soul. Mercy cannot be unconditional―that is to say, demanding nothing in return. On the other hand, mercy must not be overly demanding―requiring too many conditions, or demanding what is almost impossible or exaggerated.
Lean Towards Mercy More Than Justice
Nevertheless, the spirit of the Church has always been one of leaning more towards the side of mercy rather than leaning too heavily towards the side of justice. Already in the early days of the Church, St. John Chrysostom―a Father and Doctor of the Church―stated: “It is better to err by excess of mercy than by excess of severity! … Do you want to become a saint? Be severe on yourself, but be kind to others!” Holy Scripture and Our Lord reinforce this attitude: “The bruised reed He shall not break: and smoking flax He shall not extinguish!” (Matthew 12:20) … “Go, then, and learn what this means: ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice!’ For I am not come to call the just, but sinners!” (Matthew 9:13). “If you knew what this means: ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice!’ then you would never have condemned the innocent!” (Matthew 12:7). “Why do you see the splinter that is in your brother’s eye; but cannot see the plank that is in your own eye? Or how is it that you say to your brother: ‘Let me cast the splinter out of your eye!’ ― and behold there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite! First cast out the plank from your own eye, and then you shall be able to see better, in order to cast out the splinter out from your brother’s eye!” (Matthew 7:3-5). “Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). “For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences” (Matthew 6:14-15). “If your brother sins against you, then reprove him! And if he does penance, forgive him! And if he sins against you seven times in a day―and seven times in a day he be converted, saying to you, ‘I repent!’― then forgive him!” (Luke 17:3-4).
The Minefield of the Merciless
“As you would that men should do to you, do you also to them in like manner!” (Luke 6:31) … “All things, therefore, whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them!” (Matthew 7:12). As Our Lord says, what you do to others will be also done to you― “Judge not, so that you may not be judged! For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged―and with what measure you give to others, it shall be measured back to you again!” (Matthew 7:1-2). If we are judgmental to the point of being merciless―then we shall find God being merciless to us: “Judgment without mercy to him that has not shown mercy!” (James 2:13). “If you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences!” (Matthew 6:15).
It has to be said that, on the whole, we live in merciless society. It is not that mercy is rare―mercy exists, but it usually exists mainly for ourselves and those nearest and dearest to us. As for the rest, we tend to love pointing the finger at the sins, scandals, failings and faults of others. The modern-day media technological explosion―that has given us the television, telephone, and the internet with its social media and search engines―can satisfy our bloodthirsty desires by taking us into the personal lives of millions of people whom we would never even know existed and whose personal life we would never even know if it wasn’t for the internet. Nothing makes a person feel so good as finding people who are worse than oneself! The television and internet certainly help in the search for people worse than ourselves―which then puts us into the Pharisaical mode of “O God, I give thee thanks that I am not like the rest of men ― extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican” ― or the latest sinner that we have discovered on the internet or in the news (Luke 18:11). “Judge not, so that you may not be judged!” says Our Lord―but we do judge anyway, and so we will be judge as we judge.
Our Lady of Fatima pointed out that, as Catholics, we are supposed to be the ‘spiritual paramedics and first responders’, so to speak, whose first response should be to work and pray for the conversion of sinners. Do paramedics and first responders start pointing the finger and chewing-out the victims when they arrive on the scene of a catastrophe? Our Lady points out to us the catastrophe of sinners falling into Hell in great numbers: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” How many sinners have we helped to damn by our negligence in sacrifice and praying for sinners in favor of our preference of pointing our finger at sinners? What would the Department of Justice do to paramedics and first responders who, instead of trying to save the lives of victims, just stood there pointing the finger? Instead of being truly Catholic and trying to help save sinners―we have been sucked into the godless world’s preference of condemning sinners (unless the sinner happens to be oneself―then, of course, mercy is called for!).
As Our Lord warned of our times: “Because iniquity will abound, the charity of many shall grow cold!” (Matthew 24:12). How cold has our charity become? By drifting away from charity, we also drift away from God: “For God is charity!” (1 John 4:8). “If any man says, ‘I love God!’ and hates his brother; then he is a liar! For he that does not love his brother, whom he sees, how can he love God, Whom he sees not?” (1 John 4:20). “In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest! Whosoever is not just, is not of God, nor is he just if he loves not his brother! … Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in himself!” (1 John 3:10, 15).
The Minefield of the Merciful
One would imagine that being merciful is always a safe path to take―but that is not the truth. Sure―mercy is sweet like honey and Holy Scripture recommends that we practice mercy if we wish to receive mercy from God. Nevertheless, just like eating honey can be beneficial to our health in many ways, it can also damage our health if we eat too much of it.
Those who are excessively merciful tend to base their attitude upon the words of Our Lord was asked by St. Peter: “Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?” (Matthew 18:21). Our Lord replied: “I say not to thee, till seven times―but seventy times seven times!” (Matthew 18:22). Elsewhere, Our Lord adds: “If thy brother sins against thee, then reprove him! And if he does penance, forgive him! And if he sins against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day he is converted unto thee, saying, ‘I repent!’―then forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4). What Our Lord is indicating here by the words “reprove” … “converted unto thee” and “repent” is that (1) the offender or sinner should be correction, rebuke, reproved, (2) that the offender have a change or heart, a sincere sorrow (not hypocritical ‘lip-sorrow’) and (3) that they repent of the offence or sin by leaving it behind and not going back to it and (4) do penance for the offence of sin by putting right any harm that has been done―then the person needs to be forgiven. If―after having manifested these qualities―they fall again, then they should be forgiven again IF THE ABOVE REQUIRMENTS ARE AGAIN MET. If the sin reoccurs, but the qualities sincerely and honestly remain, then Our Lord says we keep on forgiving “seventy times seven times”.
The “seventy times seven times”―though true in theory―is rarely going to play out in practice. For if a person truly and sincerely wants to change, and takes advice on how to change from the person correcting or rebuking―then, with the help of God’s grace (which will always be given), there is little or no reason why the change of life will not occur. That is why Our Lord also gives a rule that is to be applied to those who do not want to change: “If thy brother shall offend against thee, go and rebuke him between thee and him alone! If he shall hear thee, then thou shalt gain thy brother. And if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more―so that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. And if he will not hear them, then tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, then let him be to thee as the heathen and publican!” (Matthew 18:15-17) ― in other words, have nothing more to do with him. In this case the “seventy-times-seven times” does not apply, because the person does not want to change.
The Church follows that principle in the Sacrament of Confession. It is up to the priest to discern the degree of sorrow in the penitent and try and provoke sufficient or minimal sorrow (attrition, which is a fear of God’s punishments) if he finds no sorrow present. He should also try to assess if the penitent has a firm purpose of amendment which will be indicated whether or not a plan of action has been followed to try overcome a particular mortal sin. A purpose of amendment that is all talk and no action is NOT a FIRM purpose of amendment, but a wishy-washy, vague and weak purpose of amendment. If the person keeps repeatedly falling into a particular mortal sin, while not taking sufficient measures and means to avoid falling into it, then the priest himself is bound (under the pain of mortal sin) to refuse the penitent absolution after having given the penitent sufficient warnings beforehand, telling him that it is eventually going to lead to this drastic measure.
Such a repeated sinner is called a “recidivist”. A recidivist is someone who repeatedly confesses and falls into the same sin while not making any serious attempts at amending their sinful life―in other words, they might well be sorry for their sin (which is a requirement for a valid Confession), but they do not have a FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT (which is also a requirement for a valid Confession). The word “recidivism” stems from the Latin verb “cadere” which means “to fall”. The prefix “re-” denotes repetition. Therefore “re-cadere” would denote falling repeatedly. Such persons do not advance in the spiritual life. They tend to go to Confession to try and get rid of the “dirty conscience” or pains of conscience―because sin gives us no peace of conscience and eats away at our conscience. The devil aids and abets recidivist by making them imagine their Confession is a good and valid one, whereas in reality it is bad and invalid. Confession becomes like a weekly, mechanical, drive-thru car-wash―you just drive-thru the confessional and you come out all clean and sparkly and pay a pittance of a penance―3 Hail Marys or similar! It is nothing but a “Con-Confession” where the recidivist complacently cons himself or herself.
The Act of Contrition that they mechanically and thoughtlessly recite in Confession―especially the words “I firmly resolve … to amend my life”―is mere lip-service. They say they will amend their life―but do take any concrete means to amend their life. Confession is a mere mechanical ritual that ultimately does not work, it does not “kick-in”, it does not “take-off”, it never really takes place―because the Confession is made invalid by a lack of a “FIRM purpose of amendment”. Thus the confession ends up being like a car without an engine under the hood, or without gas in the tank. It might look like a car―but it is going nowhere. If the person had true charity, if they truly loved God with their heart―rather than just saying it with their lips―then they would really try hard to find a way to stop committing sins. They would hate sin, and not delight in sin. But they do not have charity for God in their heart―only for themselves. That is why when it comes to choosing between God and sin―they more often than not choose to sin, rather than do violence to themselves out of a love of God. They get far more joy out of committing sin than any kind of joy they might get out of God. So, as a result of this, there is no improvement in avoiding sin.
Moral Theology on Mercy & Recidivism
The Dominican Fathers, McHugh and Callan, in their 1958 manual, Moral Theology―A Complete Course, state:
“§2760. Penitents to Whom Absolution Should Be Denied.―There are three classes of penitents especially to whom absolution should be frequently denied on account of their lack of repentance:
(a) those who refuse to abandon a proximate and voluntary occasion of grave sin, for these are impenitent and unworthy of absolution. But absolution may be given those who promise to abandon a proximate and voluntary occasion, or to use the proper means of safety if they are in a proximate and necessary occasion of sin (see 263 sqq.);
(b) those who have contracted the habit of some grave sin, if they are unwilling to use the proper means to overcome it; but if they seriously promise to use means prescribed by the confessor, they should be considered as well disposed. A sin is habitual when it is committed often―that is, for an external sin about five times a month, and for an internal sin about five times a week―and when the sinner acts for the proper motive of the vice, e.g., in injustice for disorder, in intemperance for pleasure of the sense, in sins against charity out of hatred, etc. But consideration should be taken also of the character of the person (i.e., a weak-willed person is enslaved by habit more readily than a strong-willed person) and of the vice (i.e., an alluring sin like impurity becomes a habit more quickly than other sins);
(c) those backsliders or recidivists who have confessed the same grave sin in three or four previous confessions and have relapsed into it again without any improvement. These persons should be absolved if they are sincere now and give some special indication as proof of sincerity (e.g., some effort made to conquer their habit); otherwise (except in great necessity, when they may be given the benefit of the doubt and be granted conditional absolution) they should not be absolved but should be put off kindly for a short space of time, since there is no reason to believe that the present sorrow is any better than that of the past.” (Fr. McHugh OP and Callan OP, Moral Theology―A Complete Course, §2760, published 1958).
Home-Made Problem
Over-indulgence in mercy is, more often than not, a home-made problem. Some parents are excessively forgiving. The child is always forgiven with little or no consequence, no reprisals, with little or no punishment, with endless tolerance. This merely fosters and nourishes the virus of sin. Children of such parents grow up with an sense of impunity and entitlement when it comes to sin―they can sin as much as they want, knowing that little or nothing will be said or done about it. We see an example of this in the Old Testament, in the case of the High-Priest, Heli and his two wayward sons, Ophni and Phinees. who were also priests. In the biblical narrative, “the two sons of Heli, Ophni and Phinees, were priests of the Lord” (1 Kings 1:3) and are criticized for engaging in illicit behavior, such as appropriating the best portion of sacrifices for themselves, and having sexual relations with the sanctuary’s serving women: “They lay [had sex] with the women that waited at the door of the tabernacle” (1 Kings 2:22). They are described as “sons of Belial” (1 Kings 2:12). Their father, the High-Priest, Heli, was all talk and no disciplinary action―he merely said: “Why do ye these kinds of things, which I hear, very wicked things, from all the people? Do not so, my sons! For it is no good report that I hear!” (1 Kings 2:23-24). Words alone, without disciplinary action, brought about no change in the sinful behavior of his two sons. Their sins provoked the wrath of God and led to a divine curse being put on the house of Heli. “And the Lord said: ‘I will raise up against Heli all the things I have spoken concerning his house! For I have foretold unto him, that I will judge his house for ever, for iniquity, because he knew that his sons did wickedly, and did not chastise them!’” (1 Kings 3:11-13).
Similarly, many parents make lame excuses for the sinful behavior of their children, saying things like: “Well, I told them a million times not to do that! But they do it anyway! They just won’t listen! I don’t know what else to do!” Talking alone will not solve the situation. Disciplinary punishments are required. God not only gives warnings―but He follows them up with painful punishments if His words are ignored. Children can put up with words of criticism far more than they can put up with the pain of punishments. Once they realize that all they will get is a “telling-off” or mere criticism―then they realize that wrongdoing, for the most part, goes unpunished and, as a result, the door to unlimited sin has been opened!
God Put Limits on His Mercy
Even though is infinite in everything―hence His mercy is infinite―He does not show anyone infinite mercy. God loves mercy, but He will not allow His mercy to abused by constant sinning with a presumption that God will always forgive. That is why Our Lord said to the woman caught in adultery: “Go and sin no more!” (John 8:11) and to the sick man whom He had cured from a 38-year long disease, Jesus said: “Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). Hence Holy Scripture adds: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin! And say not: ‘The mercy of the Lord is great! He will have mercy on the multitude of my sins!’ For mercy and wrath quickly come from Him, and His wrath looks upon sinners! Delay not to be converted to the Lord, and defer it not from day to day! For His wrath shall come on all of a sudden, and in the time of vengeance He will destroy thee!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5).
If God showed everyone infinite mercy, then why are most souls in Hell? “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction―and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leads to life―and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14).
Abuse of Divine Mercy
St. Alphonsus Liguori deals with this in a sermon on “The Abuse of Mercy” from which the following extracts have been taken:
“We read in the parable of the cockle, that the servants of the good man of the house, seeing that it had grown up in the field along with the wheat, wished to pluck it up. ‘Wilt thou, said they, that we go and gather it up?’ (Matthew 13:24). ‘“No!” replied the master, “Suffer it to grow up, and then it shall be gathered and cast into the fire! In the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: ‘Gather up first the cockle, and bind it in bundles to burn!’”‘ (Matthew 13:30). In this parable we see, on the one hand, the patience with which the Lord treats sinners; and on the other, the rigor with which he chastises the obstinate. He who abuses God’s mercy to offend Him, is undeserving of His mercy. God shows mercy to those who fear Him, but not to those who avail themselves of His mercy to banish the fear of God from their hearts. Sinners wish to sin, without losing the hope of salvation. They sin and say: ‘God is merciful! I will commit this sin, and will afterward confess it!’ St. Basil writes that sinners wish to consider God only as good and merciful. St. Augustine observes: ‘They say: “God is good! I will do what I please!” Woe to him who hopes in order to sin! O how many has this vain hope deluded and brought to perdition!’ Behold, the language of sinners! But, O God, such too was the language of so many who are now in Hell. God is merciful, but He is also just. ‘I am just and merciful,’ said Our Lord to St. Bridget; ‘but sinners regard Me only as merciful.’
“In Holy Scripture we read that King Manasses sinned―he afterward repented, and obtained pardon. His son Ammon―seeing that his father’s sins were so easily forgiven―abandoned himself to a wicked life with the hope of pardon―but for Ammon there was no mercy. Hence, St. John Chrysostom asserts that Judas was lost because he sinned through confidence in the kindness of Jesus Christ. God bears with sinners, but He does not bear forever. If God were to bear forever with sinners, then no one would be damned―but the most common opinion is that the greater part of adults, even among Christians, are lost! ‘Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are that go in thereat!’ (Matthew 7:13).
“According to St. Augustine, he who offends God with the hope of pardon ‘is a scoffer, not a penitent.’ But St. Paul tells us that God does not allow Himself to be mocked: ‘Be not deceived! God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall he reap corruption!’ (Galatians 6:7-8). To continue to offend God as often and as long as the sinner pleases, and then afterward to gain Heaven, would be to mock God. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. He that sows sin, has no reason to hope for anything else than chastisement and Hell.
“The net with which the devil drags to Hell almost all Christians who are damned, is the delusion by which he leads them into sin with the hope of pardon. ‘Sin freely,’ he says to them; ‘for, after all your iniquities, you will be saved!’ But God curses the man that sins with the hope of mercy. The hope of sinners after sin is pleasing to God, when it is accompanied with repentance―but the hope of the obstinate sinner is an abomination to the Lord (Job 11:20).
“Some will say: ‘God has until now shown me so many mercies! I hope He will treat me with the same mercy for the future!’ But I answer: ‘And will you insult God again, because He has been so merciful to you?’ Then, says St. Paul, do you thus despise the mercy and patience of God? Do you not know that the Lord has borne with you up to this moment―not that you may continue to offend Him―but that you may weep over the evil you have done? If through confidence in the divine mercy you continue to sin, the Lord will cease to show mercy. God will not chastise the sinner in this life; but, not to be punished in this world will be the greatest chastisement of the wicked. Your punishment, says St. Augustine, has been delayed, but not taken away―if you abuse any longer the Divine mercy, then you shall be cut down in the end and God’s vengeance will fall upon you! What are you waiting for? Will you wait till God sends you to Hell?” (Extracts from the sermon of St. Alphonsus Liguori on the Abuse of Divine Mercy).
Merciless Media
Today’s modern-day media is a merciless minefield for the Catholic. The media is strewn with merciless mines that seek to blow-up and destroy the true Christian notions of mercy. Since Our Lord calls Satan “the prince of this world” (John 12:31), we can safely say that Satan is also “the prince of the world’s media.” The media is a minefield of calumnies (lies) and detraction (revealing true faults and sins). Satan cleverly uses the media to divide and conquer. The media thrives on these things―accusing, lying, revealing―just like Satan or the Devil, whose names mean: “accuser, twister, adversary.” The following words of Our Lord can easily be applied to the modern-day media: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do! He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth―because truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44).
Strangely enough, those words of Our Lord are echoed in the following quote attributed to the former CIA Director William Casey (1981-1987), who allegedly said to President Reagan during a Presidential Briefing in 1981: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” Barbara Honegger ― Assistant to the Chief Domestic Policy Adviser to President Reagan ― said: “I am the source for this quote, which was indeed said by CIA Director, William Casey, at an early February 1981 meeting of the newly elected President Reagan with his new cabinet secretaries, to report to him on what they had learned about their agencies in the first couple of weeks of the administration. The meeting was in the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House, not far from the Cabinet Room. I was present at the meeting as Assistant to the chief domestic policy adviser to the President. Casey first told Reagan that he had been astonished to discover that over 80% of the ‘intelligence’― that the analysis side of the CIA produced ― was based on open public sources like newspapers and magazines. As he did to all the other secretaries of their departments and agencies, Reagan asked [Casey] what he saw as his goal as director for the CIA, to which he [Casey] replied with this quote―[“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false!”], which I recorded in my notes of the meeting as he said it. Shortly thereafter I told Senior White House correspondent Sarah McClendon, who was a close friend and colleague, who in turn made it public.”
For most people, today’s media is like the Gospel. They look upon media pronouncement as though they were dogmas. Thus Satan can spoon-feed them lies, misrepresentations, misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, etc. Today’s modern man is psychologically governed by the media.
Our modern world, especially the Western world, has developed a weakness that we hide behind the euphemism of “sweet tooth”. We love sweet, sugary things―so much so that food chains have for many years added sugar to almost all foods―even meat. Too much sugar is deadly! Sugar can kill! Yet, at the same time, certain sweet foods have been used medicinally. Honey has been used as a folk medicine since around 2100 BC. You can even argue that God has made certain foods to be of a high sugar content―so why worry! God knows what He is doing, surely? You can even find Scriptural quotes to back-up your “sweet tooth” ― “Eat honey, my son, because it is good!” (Proverbs 24:13). “John [the Baptist] ate wild honey” (Mark 1:6). On top of that, didn’t God promise to lead His Chosen People to the Promised Land of “Milk and Honey”? “I will bring them into the land―which I promised to their fathers―that flows with milk and honey” (Deuteronomy 31:20). Yet, at the same time, Scripture issues a warning too! “Thou hast found honey, eat only what is sufficient for thee, lest being glutted therewith thou vomit it up!” (Proverbs 12:16). “It is not good for a man to eat much honey!” (Proverbs 25:27).
It’s a little-known fact, but natural honey contains a poisonous toxin called pyrrolizidine alkaloids. It must go through a pasteurization process after being farmed, in order to eliminate these toxins, and totally unpasteurized honey can be extremely dangerous (most honey that is labeled “unpasteurized” has been pasteurized at least a little). Eating just a teaspoon of totally unpasteurized honey can lead to headaches, dizziness, weakness and vomiting that can last up to 24 hours. It is possible that much larger amounts than one teaspoon can kill.
Mad Honey
There is a little known proverb that says: “Too much honey makes a man mad!” There is also a species of honey that is called “Mad honey”, or “deli bal” in Turkish, which happens to be one of the most expensive honeys in the world―approximately $100 per pound—and the deadliest. Mad honey is different from normal natural or commercially available honey. Mad honey is produced in small quantities by beekeepers in the Kaçkar mountains above the Black Sea, the only place in the world―apart from Nepal, in the foothills of the Himalayas―where indigenous species of rhododendron flowers produce the potent neurotoxin called grayanotoxin. If bees feed on enough rhododendron nectar (which contains grayanotoxins), the mud-red honey they produce has a sharp scent and bitter taste―which can cause intoxication, a potential high, and even poisoning upon consumption. A couple of spoonfuls of mad honey―either on their own or with hot water or boiled milk―are enough to induce a mildly psychotropic sensation, and induce a mildly hallucinogenic or euphoric state.
Mad honey has been commonly used as an aphrodisiac, and has been used for a long time in alternative therapy for gastrointestinal disorders (peptic ulcer disease, dyspepsia, and gastritis), and for hypertension. Eighteenth-century Europeans called it “miel fou” (French for “mad honey” or “crazy honey”), importing it from the Ottomans to add to ale for an extra buzz. Too much, however, can reduce blood pressure to potentially dangerous levels and induce nausea, fainting, seizures, arrhythmia and, in rare cases, death. Dozens of people a year are admitted to hospital in Turkey for mad honey poisoning. In Ancient Greece and Rome, in 97 BC, when the Greeks under King Mithridates were retreating from Roman general Pompey the Great, Mithridates ordered his men to lay pots of honey as they made their tactical retreat. The Roman soldiers couldn’t help themselves and pigged-out on the honey until they couldn't move, leaving them easy for the slaughter.
Mercy & Honey
You could liken mercy to honey. Mercy is sweet, isn’t it? “O Lord, Thy mercy is sweet!” (Psalm 108:21). “The Lord is sweet, His mercy endureth for ever!” (Psalm 99:5). “For thou, O Lord, art sweet and plenteous in mercy” (Psalm 85:5). “The Lord is merciful and plenteous in mercy! The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works!” (Psalm 144:8-9). We have all “tasted” the sweetness of mercy is the Sacrament of Confession, when the priest pronounces the words of absolution from sin (forgiveness)―and we could well say to the priest: “How sweet are thy words to my palate! Sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 118:103). The same words and sentiments could be addressed to Our Lady―the Mother of Mercy―whom we address in the “Hail Holy Queen” thus: “Hail, holy Queen―Mother of Mercy! Hail our life, our sweetness and our hope!”
The Book of Wisdom now warns about having too much of a good thing. God created bread, but He also created honey. To the credit of His goodness, He didn’t have to create honey, but He did―and we ought to receive it with gratitude. Yet, in His wisdom, He provides more bread than honey, more grain than bees. So, it is appropriate to have a little honey with the bread―and not the other way around! When there is more icing than cake; and more cake than potatoes on the dinner plate; we begin to lose a godly sense of balance. God intends for all things to be received and used in moderation with thanksgiving. When men fail to take and use these good things in moderation, then several things happen. They give way to idolatry by fixating on those things that please and gratify the flesh, and they then suffer the consequences of their immoderate behavior―they vomit; their teeth rot; health problems multiply.
Just as too much honey can make a man mad―too much mercy can make a man bad! Mercy―like all other virtues that deal with man―must have the so-called “Golden Mean”― the “golden mean” or “golden middle way” is the desirable middle between two extremes―one extreme being that of excess and the other extreme being that of deficiency. Thus, we can show a person too much mercy, or too little mercy. We have to keep a balance that avoids excess and deficiency. An excess of mercy can be harmful and detrimental to the soul―and insufficient mercy can also be harmful and detrimental to the soul. Mercy cannot be unconditional―that is to say, demanding nothing in return. On the other hand, mercy must not be overly demanding―requiring too many conditions, or demanding what is almost impossible or exaggerated.
Lean Towards Mercy More Than Justice
Nevertheless, the spirit of the Church has always been one of leaning more towards the side of mercy rather than leaning too heavily towards the side of justice. Already in the early days of the Church, St. John Chrysostom―a Father and Doctor of the Church―stated: “It is better to err by excess of mercy than by excess of severity! … Do you want to become a saint? Be severe on yourself, but be kind to others!” Holy Scripture and Our Lord reinforce this attitude: “The bruised reed He shall not break: and smoking flax He shall not extinguish!” (Matthew 12:20) … “Go, then, and learn what this means: ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice!’ For I am not come to call the just, but sinners!” (Matthew 9:13). “If you knew what this means: ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice!’ then you would never have condemned the innocent!” (Matthew 12:7). “Why do you see the splinter that is in your brother’s eye; but cannot see the plank that is in your own eye? Or how is it that you say to your brother: ‘Let me cast the splinter out of your eye!’ ― and behold there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite! First cast out the plank from your own eye, and then you shall be able to see better, in order to cast out the splinter out from your brother’s eye!” (Matthew 7:3-5). “Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). “For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences” (Matthew 6:14-15). “If your brother sins against you, then reprove him! And if he does penance, forgive him! And if he sins against you seven times in a day―and seven times in a day he be converted, saying to you, ‘I repent!’― then forgive him!” (Luke 17:3-4).
The Minefield of the Merciless
“As you would that men should do to you, do you also to them in like manner!” (Luke 6:31) … “All things, therefore, whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them!” (Matthew 7:12). As Our Lord says, what you do to others will be also done to you― “Judge not, so that you may not be judged! For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged―and with what measure you give to others, it shall be measured back to you again!” (Matthew 7:1-2). If we are judgmental to the point of being merciless―then we shall find God being merciless to us: “Judgment without mercy to him that has not shown mercy!” (James 2:13). “If you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences!” (Matthew 6:15).
It has to be said that, on the whole, we live in merciless society. It is not that mercy is rare―mercy exists, but it usually exists mainly for ourselves and those nearest and dearest to us. As for the rest, we tend to love pointing the finger at the sins, scandals, failings and faults of others. The modern-day media technological explosion―that has given us the television, telephone, and the internet with its social media and search engines―can satisfy our bloodthirsty desires by taking us into the personal lives of millions of people whom we would never even know existed and whose personal life we would never even know if it wasn’t for the internet. Nothing makes a person feel so good as finding people who are worse than oneself! The television and internet certainly help in the search for people worse than ourselves―which then puts us into the Pharisaical mode of “O God, I give thee thanks that I am not like the rest of men ― extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican” ― or the latest sinner that we have discovered on the internet or in the news (Luke 18:11). “Judge not, so that you may not be judged!” says Our Lord―but we do judge anyway, and so we will be judge as we judge.
Our Lady of Fatima pointed out that, as Catholics, we are supposed to be the ‘spiritual paramedics and first responders’, so to speak, whose first response should be to work and pray for the conversion of sinners. Do paramedics and first responders start pointing the finger and chewing-out the victims when they arrive on the scene of a catastrophe? Our Lady points out to us the catastrophe of sinners falling into Hell in great numbers: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” How many sinners have we helped to damn by our negligence in sacrifice and praying for sinners in favor of our preference of pointing our finger at sinners? What would the Department of Justice do to paramedics and first responders who, instead of trying to save the lives of victims, just stood there pointing the finger? Instead of being truly Catholic and trying to help save sinners―we have been sucked into the godless world’s preference of condemning sinners (unless the sinner happens to be oneself―then, of course, mercy is called for!).
As Our Lord warned of our times: “Because iniquity will abound, the charity of many shall grow cold!” (Matthew 24:12). How cold has our charity become? By drifting away from charity, we also drift away from God: “For God is charity!” (1 John 4:8). “If any man says, ‘I love God!’ and hates his brother; then he is a liar! For he that does not love his brother, whom he sees, how can he love God, Whom he sees not?” (1 John 4:20). “In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest! Whosoever is not just, is not of God, nor is he just if he loves not his brother! … Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in himself!” (1 John 3:10, 15).
The Minefield of the Merciful
One would imagine that being merciful is always a safe path to take―but that is not the truth. Sure―mercy is sweet like honey and Holy Scripture recommends that we practice mercy if we wish to receive mercy from God. Nevertheless, just like eating honey can be beneficial to our health in many ways, it can also damage our health if we eat too much of it.
Those who are excessively merciful tend to base their attitude upon the words of Our Lord was asked by St. Peter: “Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?” (Matthew 18:21). Our Lord replied: “I say not to thee, till seven times―but seventy times seven times!” (Matthew 18:22). Elsewhere, Our Lord adds: “If thy brother sins against thee, then reprove him! And if he does penance, forgive him! And if he sins against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day he is converted unto thee, saying, ‘I repent!’―then forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4). What Our Lord is indicating here by the words “reprove” … “converted unto thee” and “repent” is that (1) the offender or sinner should be correction, rebuke, reproved, (2) that the offender have a change or heart, a sincere sorrow (not hypocritical ‘lip-sorrow’) and (3) that they repent of the offence or sin by leaving it behind and not going back to it and (4) do penance for the offence of sin by putting right any harm that has been done―then the person needs to be forgiven. If―after having manifested these qualities―they fall again, then they should be forgiven again IF THE ABOVE REQUIRMENTS ARE AGAIN MET. If the sin reoccurs, but the qualities sincerely and honestly remain, then Our Lord says we keep on forgiving “seventy times seven times”.
The “seventy times seven times”―though true in theory―is rarely going to play out in practice. For if a person truly and sincerely wants to change, and takes advice on how to change from the person correcting or rebuking―then, with the help of God’s grace (which will always be given), there is little or no reason why the change of life will not occur. That is why Our Lord also gives a rule that is to be applied to those who do not want to change: “If thy brother shall offend against thee, go and rebuke him between thee and him alone! If he shall hear thee, then thou shalt gain thy brother. And if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more―so that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. And if he will not hear them, then tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, then let him be to thee as the heathen and publican!” (Matthew 18:15-17) ― in other words, have nothing more to do with him. In this case the “seventy-times-seven times” does not apply, because the person does not want to change.
The Church follows that principle in the Sacrament of Confession. It is up to the priest to discern the degree of sorrow in the penitent and try and provoke sufficient or minimal sorrow (attrition, which is a fear of God’s punishments) if he finds no sorrow present. He should also try to assess if the penitent has a firm purpose of amendment which will be indicated whether or not a plan of action has been followed to try overcome a particular mortal sin. A purpose of amendment that is all talk and no action is NOT a FIRM purpose of amendment, but a wishy-washy, vague and weak purpose of amendment. If the person keeps repeatedly falling into a particular mortal sin, while not taking sufficient measures and means to avoid falling into it, then the priest himself is bound (under the pain of mortal sin) to refuse the penitent absolution after having given the penitent sufficient warnings beforehand, telling him that it is eventually going to lead to this drastic measure.
Such a repeated sinner is called a “recidivist”. A recidivist is someone who repeatedly confesses and falls into the same sin while not making any serious attempts at amending their sinful life―in other words, they might well be sorry for their sin (which is a requirement for a valid Confession), but they do not have a FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT (which is also a requirement for a valid Confession). The word “recidivism” stems from the Latin verb “cadere” which means “to fall”. The prefix “re-” denotes repetition. Therefore “re-cadere” would denote falling repeatedly. Such persons do not advance in the spiritual life. They tend to go to Confession to try and get rid of the “dirty conscience” or pains of conscience―because sin gives us no peace of conscience and eats away at our conscience. The devil aids and abets recidivist by making them imagine their Confession is a good and valid one, whereas in reality it is bad and invalid. Confession becomes like a weekly, mechanical, drive-thru car-wash―you just drive-thru the confessional and you come out all clean and sparkly and pay a pittance of a penance―3 Hail Marys or similar! It is nothing but a “Con-Confession” where the recidivist complacently cons himself or herself.
The Act of Contrition that they mechanically and thoughtlessly recite in Confession―especially the words “I firmly resolve … to amend my life”―is mere lip-service. They say they will amend their life―but do take any concrete means to amend their life. Confession is a mere mechanical ritual that ultimately does not work, it does not “kick-in”, it does not “take-off”, it never really takes place―because the Confession is made invalid by a lack of a “FIRM purpose of amendment”. Thus the confession ends up being like a car without an engine under the hood, or without gas in the tank. It might look like a car―but it is going nowhere. If the person had true charity, if they truly loved God with their heart―rather than just saying it with their lips―then they would really try hard to find a way to stop committing sins. They would hate sin, and not delight in sin. But they do not have charity for God in their heart―only for themselves. That is why when it comes to choosing between God and sin―they more often than not choose to sin, rather than do violence to themselves out of a love of God. They get far more joy out of committing sin than any kind of joy they might get out of God. So, as a result of this, there is no improvement in avoiding sin.
Moral Theology on Mercy & Recidivism
The Dominican Fathers, McHugh and Callan, in their 1958 manual, Moral Theology―A Complete Course, state:
“§2760. Penitents to Whom Absolution Should Be Denied.―There are three classes of penitents especially to whom absolution should be frequently denied on account of their lack of repentance:
(a) those who refuse to abandon a proximate and voluntary occasion of grave sin, for these are impenitent and unworthy of absolution. But absolution may be given those who promise to abandon a proximate and voluntary occasion, or to use the proper means of safety if they are in a proximate and necessary occasion of sin (see 263 sqq.);
(b) those who have contracted the habit of some grave sin, if they are unwilling to use the proper means to overcome it; but if they seriously promise to use means prescribed by the confessor, they should be considered as well disposed. A sin is habitual when it is committed often―that is, for an external sin about five times a month, and for an internal sin about five times a week―and when the sinner acts for the proper motive of the vice, e.g., in injustice for disorder, in intemperance for pleasure of the sense, in sins against charity out of hatred, etc. But consideration should be taken also of the character of the person (i.e., a weak-willed person is enslaved by habit more readily than a strong-willed person) and of the vice (i.e., an alluring sin like impurity becomes a habit more quickly than other sins);
(c) those backsliders or recidivists who have confessed the same grave sin in three or four previous confessions and have relapsed into it again without any improvement. These persons should be absolved if they are sincere now and give some special indication as proof of sincerity (e.g., some effort made to conquer their habit); otherwise (except in great necessity, when they may be given the benefit of the doubt and be granted conditional absolution) they should not be absolved but should be put off kindly for a short space of time, since there is no reason to believe that the present sorrow is any better than that of the past.” (Fr. McHugh OP and Callan OP, Moral Theology―A Complete Course, §2760, published 1958).
Home-Made Problem
Over-indulgence in mercy is, more often than not, a home-made problem. Some parents are excessively forgiving. The child is always forgiven with little or no consequence, no reprisals, with little or no punishment, with endless tolerance. This merely fosters and nourishes the virus of sin. Children of such parents grow up with an sense of impunity and entitlement when it comes to sin―they can sin as much as they want, knowing that little or nothing will be said or done about it. We see an example of this in the Old Testament, in the case of the High-Priest, Heli and his two wayward sons, Ophni and Phinees. who were also priests. In the biblical narrative, “the two sons of Heli, Ophni and Phinees, were priests of the Lord” (1 Kings 1:3) and are criticized for engaging in illicit behavior, such as appropriating the best portion of sacrifices for themselves, and having sexual relations with the sanctuary’s serving women: “They lay [had sex] with the women that waited at the door of the tabernacle” (1 Kings 2:22). They are described as “sons of Belial” (1 Kings 2:12). Their father, the High-Priest, Heli, was all talk and no disciplinary action―he merely said: “Why do ye these kinds of things, which I hear, very wicked things, from all the people? Do not so, my sons! For it is no good report that I hear!” (1 Kings 2:23-24). Words alone, without disciplinary action, brought about no change in the sinful behavior of his two sons. Their sins provoked the wrath of God and led to a divine curse being put on the house of Heli. “And the Lord said: ‘I will raise up against Heli all the things I have spoken concerning his house! For I have foretold unto him, that I will judge his house for ever, for iniquity, because he knew that his sons did wickedly, and did not chastise them!’” (1 Kings 3:11-13).
Similarly, many parents make lame excuses for the sinful behavior of their children, saying things like: “Well, I told them a million times not to do that! But they do it anyway! They just won’t listen! I don’t know what else to do!” Talking alone will not solve the situation. Disciplinary punishments are required. God not only gives warnings―but He follows them up with painful punishments if His words are ignored. Children can put up with words of criticism far more than they can put up with the pain of punishments. Once they realize that all they will get is a “telling-off” or mere criticism―then they realize that wrongdoing, for the most part, goes unpunished and, as a result, the door to unlimited sin has been opened!
God Put Limits on His Mercy
Even though is infinite in everything―hence His mercy is infinite―He does not show anyone infinite mercy. God loves mercy, but He will not allow His mercy to abused by constant sinning with a presumption that God will always forgive. That is why Our Lord said to the woman caught in adultery: “Go and sin no more!” (John 8:11) and to the sick man whom He had cured from a 38-year long disease, Jesus said: “Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). Hence Holy Scripture adds: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin! And say not: ‘The mercy of the Lord is great! He will have mercy on the multitude of my sins!’ For mercy and wrath quickly come from Him, and His wrath looks upon sinners! Delay not to be converted to the Lord, and defer it not from day to day! For His wrath shall come on all of a sudden, and in the time of vengeance He will destroy thee!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5).
If God showed everyone infinite mercy, then why are most souls in Hell? “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction―and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leads to life―and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14).
Abuse of Divine Mercy
St. Alphonsus Liguori deals with this in a sermon on “The Abuse of Mercy” from which the following extracts have been taken:
“We read in the parable of the cockle, that the servants of the good man of the house, seeing that it had grown up in the field along with the wheat, wished to pluck it up. ‘Wilt thou, said they, that we go and gather it up?’ (Matthew 13:24). ‘“No!” replied the master, “Suffer it to grow up, and then it shall be gathered and cast into the fire! In the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: ‘Gather up first the cockle, and bind it in bundles to burn!’”‘ (Matthew 13:30). In this parable we see, on the one hand, the patience with which the Lord treats sinners; and on the other, the rigor with which he chastises the obstinate. He who abuses God’s mercy to offend Him, is undeserving of His mercy. God shows mercy to those who fear Him, but not to those who avail themselves of His mercy to banish the fear of God from their hearts. Sinners wish to sin, without losing the hope of salvation. They sin and say: ‘God is merciful! I will commit this sin, and will afterward confess it!’ St. Basil writes that sinners wish to consider God only as good and merciful. St. Augustine observes: ‘They say: “God is good! I will do what I please!” Woe to him who hopes in order to sin! O how many has this vain hope deluded and brought to perdition!’ Behold, the language of sinners! But, O God, such too was the language of so many who are now in Hell. God is merciful, but He is also just. ‘I am just and merciful,’ said Our Lord to St. Bridget; ‘but sinners regard Me only as merciful.’
“In Holy Scripture we read that King Manasses sinned―he afterward repented, and obtained pardon. His son Ammon―seeing that his father’s sins were so easily forgiven―abandoned himself to a wicked life with the hope of pardon―but for Ammon there was no mercy. Hence, St. John Chrysostom asserts that Judas was lost because he sinned through confidence in the kindness of Jesus Christ. God bears with sinners, but He does not bear forever. If God were to bear forever with sinners, then no one would be damned―but the most common opinion is that the greater part of adults, even among Christians, are lost! ‘Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are that go in thereat!’ (Matthew 7:13).
“According to St. Augustine, he who offends God with the hope of pardon ‘is a scoffer, not a penitent.’ But St. Paul tells us that God does not allow Himself to be mocked: ‘Be not deceived! God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall he reap corruption!’ (Galatians 6:7-8). To continue to offend God as often and as long as the sinner pleases, and then afterward to gain Heaven, would be to mock God. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. He that sows sin, has no reason to hope for anything else than chastisement and Hell.
“The net with which the devil drags to Hell almost all Christians who are damned, is the delusion by which he leads them into sin with the hope of pardon. ‘Sin freely,’ he says to them; ‘for, after all your iniquities, you will be saved!’ But God curses the man that sins with the hope of mercy. The hope of sinners after sin is pleasing to God, when it is accompanied with repentance―but the hope of the obstinate sinner is an abomination to the Lord (Job 11:20).
“Some will say: ‘God has until now shown me so many mercies! I hope He will treat me with the same mercy for the future!’ But I answer: ‘And will you insult God again, because He has been so merciful to you?’ Then, says St. Paul, do you thus despise the mercy and patience of God? Do you not know that the Lord has borne with you up to this moment―not that you may continue to offend Him―but that you may weep over the evil you have done? If through confidence in the divine mercy you continue to sin, the Lord will cease to show mercy. God will not chastise the sinner in this life; but, not to be punished in this world will be the greatest chastisement of the wicked. Your punishment, says St. Augustine, has been delayed, but not taken away―if you abuse any longer the Divine mercy, then you shall be cut down in the end and God’s vengeance will fall upon you! What are you waiting for? Will you wait till God sends you to Hell?” (Extracts from the sermon of St. Alphonsus Liguori on the Abuse of Divine Mercy).
Merciless Media
Today’s modern-day media is a merciless minefield for the Catholic. The media is strewn with merciless mines that seek to blow-up and destroy the true Christian notions of mercy. Since Our Lord calls Satan “the prince of this world” (John 12:31), we can safely say that Satan is also “the prince of the world’s media.” The media is a minefield of calumnies (lies) and detraction (revealing true faults and sins). Satan cleverly uses the media to divide and conquer. The media thrives on these things―accusing, lying, revealing―just like Satan or the Devil, whose names mean: “accuser, twister, adversary.” The following words of Our Lord can easily be applied to the modern-day media: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do! He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth―because truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44).
Strangely enough, those words of Our Lord are echoed in the following quote attributed to the former CIA Director William Casey (1981-1987), who allegedly said to President Reagan during a Presidential Briefing in 1981: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” Barbara Honegger ― Assistant to the Chief Domestic Policy Adviser to President Reagan ― said: “I am the source for this quote, which was indeed said by CIA Director, William Casey, at an early February 1981 meeting of the newly elected President Reagan with his new cabinet secretaries, to report to him on what they had learned about their agencies in the first couple of weeks of the administration. The meeting was in the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House, not far from the Cabinet Room. I was present at the meeting as Assistant to the chief domestic policy adviser to the President. Casey first told Reagan that he had been astonished to discover that over 80% of the ‘intelligence’― that the analysis side of the CIA produced ― was based on open public sources like newspapers and magazines. As he did to all the other secretaries of their departments and agencies, Reagan asked [Casey] what he saw as his goal as director for the CIA, to which he [Casey] replied with this quote―[“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false!”], which I recorded in my notes of the meeting as he said it. Shortly thereafter I told Senior White House correspondent Sarah McClendon, who was a close friend and colleague, who in turn made it public.”
For most people, today’s media is like the Gospel. They look upon media pronouncement as though they were dogmas. Thus Satan can spoon-feed them lies, misrepresentations, misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, etc. Today’s modern man is psychologically governed by the media.
Article 4
Easter Saturday & First Sunday After Easter April 15th & 16th, 2023
Divine Mercy Sunday―Truth or Fiction?
Easter Saturday & First Sunday After Easter April 15th & 16th, 2023
Divine Mercy Sunday―Truth or Fiction?
Mercy on Trial!
When someone finds themselves in court on trial for some alleged crime, the chief thing they seek is mercy. When you will find yourself on your deathbed, on the brink of dying and being judged for eternity, the only thing that you will seek is mercy! You had better believe in mercy if you want mercy―for not to believe in mercy is to despair, and final despair leads to Hell!
Not only must you believe in mercy to receive mercy―you must also show mercy in order to receive mercy: “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful! Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned! Forgive, and you shall be forgiven!” (Luke 6:36-37). “If you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences! But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences!” (Matthew 6:14-15). “Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). “Judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy!” (James 2:13).
This Feast of Divine Mercy Sunday is Post-Vatican II creation―which had already been granted to the nation of Poland and been celebrated within Vatican City―but then was extended and granted to the Universal Church by Pope John Paul II on the occasion of the canonization of Sr. Faustina on April 30th, 2000. In a decree dated May 23rd, 2000, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments stated that “throughout the world the Second Sunday of Easter will receive the name ‘Divine Mercy Sunday’ ― a perennial invitation to the Christian world to face, with confidence in divine benevolence, the difficulties and trials that mankind will experience in the years to come.”
Mercy sounds good, eh? God is merciful―as the Bible tells hundreds of times―so why the hullabaloo, outcry, arguments and disputes over this newly created “Divine Mercy Sunday”? We have a series of 12 articles (with more to be added) that cover all of this in great depth [click here], though with this article we will try to give a briefer summary of the key points. Ultimately, God is all-powerful and dispenses His mercy to whom He will and when He will: “I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whom it shall please Me!” (Exodus 33:19). “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy!” (Romans 9:15). Ultimately, God wishes to save each and every soul―He made nobody to be damned―therefore He wishes everyone to be a beneficiary of His mercy. Yet most souls are damned and mercy is not shown to them! Why? All of this―and more―is wrapped up in this dispute over “Divine Mercy Sunday”. Let then try to unravel this knotted ball of contention and see how the mercy of God can be truly obtained and what it costs?
It’s All About Mercy!
Whichever way you look at it, the whole interaction, relationship, script, agenda, the whole modus operandi of Heaven’s dealings with mankind is based upon one ultimate thing―MERCY! In fact, Holy Scripture tells us that mercy is the greatest of all God’s works: “The Lord is gracious and merciful, patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 144:8-9). “God loves mercy!” (Psalm 83:12). “The Earth is full of the mercy of the Lord!” (Psalm 32:5). “O how hast Thou multiplied Thy mercy, O God!” (Psalm 35:8). “Thy mercy is magnified even to the heavens!” (Psalm 56:11). “The mercy of the Lord is from eternity and unto eternity upon them that fear Him!” (Psalm 102:17). “He is merciful and will forgive their sins―and will not destroy them! … A God of compassion, merciful, patient and of much mercy! … The Lord is compassionate and merciful, longsuffering and plenteous in mercy! … The Lord is merciful and just, and our God shows mercy!” (Psalm 77:38; 85:15; 102:8; 114:5). “The Lord thy God is a merciful God! … He will be merciful to us, if we keep and do all His precepts as He has commanded us!” (Deuteronomy 4:31; 6:25). “The Lord your God is merciful, and will not turn away His face from you, if you return to Him!” (2 Paralipomenon 30:9). “Thou art a merciful and gracious God!” (2 Esdras 9:31). God Himself says: “I am the Lord thy God, showing mercy unto thousands to them that love Me and keep My commandments!” (Exodus 20:5-6).
God sent His only-begotten Son to Earth to save us from the consequences of our sins: “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son―so that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16) ― that is an act of MERCY! “God sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10) ― that is an act of MERCY! “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17) ― that is an act of MERCY! “The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14) ― that is an act of MERCY! “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56) ― that is an act of MERCY! “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) ― that is an act of MERCY!
Living amongst us, Our Lord manifested mercy in abundance―in both the spiritual and physical spheres. He Himself said: “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world!” (John 12:47) ― that is an act of MERCY! “The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again! … He healed them all!” (Matthew 11:5; 12:15) ― that is an act of MERCY! Then we have the case of “Mary Magdalen, out of whom He had cast seven devils” (Mark 16:9) ― that is an act of MERCY! He healed those who were afflicted with illnesses due to their sins ― that is an act of MERCY!
If you think that all this is “going overboard”, then wait till you get to Psalm 135! Every single verse of the Psalm hammers home the mercy of God!
“Praise the Lord, for He is good―for His mercy endures for ever.
Praise ye the God of gods―for His mercy endures for ever.
Praise ye the Lord of lords―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who alone does great wonders―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who made the heavens in understanding―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who established the earth above the waters―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who made the great lights―for His mercy endures for ever.
The sun to rule over the day―for His mercy endures for ever.
The moon and the stars to rule the night―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who smote Egypt with their firstborn―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who brought Israel from among them―for His mercy endures for ever.
With a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who divided the Red Sea into parts―for His mercy endures for ever.
And brought out Israel through the midst thereof―for His mercy endures for ever.
And overthrew Pharao and his army in the Red Sea―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who led His people through the desert―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who smote great kings―for His mercy endures for ever.
And slew strong kings―for His mercy endures for ever.
Sehon king of the Amorrhites―for His mercy endures for ever.
And Og king of Basan―for His mercy endures for ever.
And He gave their land for an inheritance―for His mercy endures for ever.
For an inheritance to His servant Israel―for His mercy endures for ever
For He was mindful of us in our affliction―for His mercy endures for ever.
And He redeemed us from our enemies―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who gives food to all flesh―for His mercy endures for ever.
Give glory to the God of Heaven―for His mercy endures for ever.
Give glory to the Lord of lords―for His mercy endures for ever.” (Psalm 135:1-27).
Had enough of mercy yet? Sick and tired of mercy yet? You had better not be! Our list or catalogue of sins is far longer than that Psalm! Even the sins of one day—be they mortal or venial—are far more numerous than the 27 mentions of mercy in that Psalm!
What’s the Point of All This?
The point and purpose of all the above quotations on mercy is to show that mercy is as old as mankind itself. Mercy did not start with a Decree issued on May 5th, 2000, by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments inventing the new feast of “Divine Mercy Sunday” ― but mercy existed eternally within God, dormant until activated as needed: “The mercy of the Lord is from eternity and unto eternity” (Psalm 102:17). Likewise, our merciful Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, eternally existed until the time arrived for Him to be “activated” by taking on human flesh and dying for human sins. God has been showing and dispensing mercy to man ever since Creation. The creation of a “Divine Mercy Sunday” ― though at best well-intentioned ― distracts or masks the fact of the existence of “Divine Mercy Every Day”. In reality, we have a Divine Mercy Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Divine Mercy is always available―not just on one day per year!
Declaration of Intent and Position
Before proceeding further, it is important to be honest by making a declaration of intent on our personal standpoint in the debate and argument over Divine Mercy Sunday. Satan always seeks to divide and conquer―whether it be on the minor scale of dividing members within a family, or dividing member of the Church at large, or members of the human race. The consequences of this tactic to divide and conquer are manifested by Our Lord: “Every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate: and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand” (Matthew 12:25). We are―without any doubt whatsoever―living in period of massive Catholic division. Satan has always sown the seeds of division within the Catholic Church―but never have they sown with such success as can be seen in our present day. The Catholic Church has seen an ever-increasing divide between the Conservative and Traditional clergy and laity on the one side, while on the other side of the chasm we have the Liberal and Modernist clergy and laity.
Holy Scripture warns of our times―“In the last days, shall come dangerous times! Men shall be lovers of themselves, lovers of pleasures more than of God! Having an appearance indeed of godliness―but denying the power thereof! Now these avoid!” (2 Timothy 3:1-5) … “In the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers!” (2 Peter 3:3) ― and we are surrounded by them today, who scoff at the traditional teachings of the Church! Our Lady has often warned us of these dangerous times ― “For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and will turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables!” (2 Timothy 4:3-4) ― and those “fables” are increasingly seen and heard in the writings and teachings of today’s Liberals and Modernists. Our Lady merely backs-up Holy Scripture in her prophetic warnings at her apparitions.
OUR LADY OF AKITA stated in 1973: “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.”
OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE said much the same thing in 1846: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell―they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God. God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family. The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders … The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God. Woe to the Princes of the Church who think only of piling riches upon riches, to protect their authority and dominate with pride. The Church will yield to a time of darkness and will witness a frightful crisis. The true Faith to the Lord will be forgotten … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls.
OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS also spoke along similar lines: “At the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century, various heresies will be propagated … From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century, the passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of morals, for Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … During this epoch the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … Many people will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church, impelled by the malice of the devil … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith … Vocations to the priesthood will be lost, resulting in a true calamity. Many authentic vocations will perish! … Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! … The secular Clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties … The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to deviate them from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them.”
A Time of Religious Error, Division, Seduction and Corruption
As a consequence, never have Our Lord’s words been more relevant and applicable, than when He says: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep!” (Matthew 7:15) … “Take heed lest any man deceive you! For many shall come in My Name, and they shall deceive many!” (Mark 13:6) … “Many false prophets shall rise and shall seduce many!” (Matthew 24:11) … “There will rise up false Christs and false prophets, to seduce―if it were possible―even the elect! Therefore take heed, for behold I have foretold you all these things!” (Mark 13:22-23).
The Second Vatican Council was not the beginning of this division―for, like a baby in the womb, this division was silently and somewhat invisibly already growing year after year, decade after decade. The Second Vatican Council was merely the “birth” of division after many decades, even centuries, of gestation within the womb of Holy Mother Church.
St. John Bosco (1815-1888) prophesied of a divisive and disastrous Church Council that would occur in the 20th century. How many Church Councils occurred in the 20th century? Only one―the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Here is what St. John Bosco prophesied: “There will be an Ecumenical Council in the next century, after which there will be chaos in the Church. Tranquility will not return until the Pope succeeds in anchoring the boat of Peter between the twin pillars of Eucharistic Devotion and Devotion to Our Lady.”
Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) recounts, from the many visions that God gave her, the creation of a new church, a counterfeit church in Rome: “I a long processions of bishops [The four different sessions of the Second Vatican Council, held from 1962 to 1965, had between 2,000 and 2,500 bishops in daily attendance] ... I saw what I believe to be nearly all the bishops of the world [the Second Vatican Council assembled all the bishops in the world], but only a small number were perfectly sound ... I saw that many pastors allowed themselves to be taken up with ideas that were dangerous to the Church ... I saw some good bishops; but they were weak and wavering, their cowardice often got the upper hand … The nearer the time of the end, the more the darkness of Satan will spread on Earth … I saw a great circle of darkness ever widening … I saw the secret sect relentlessly undermining the great Church! … Then I saw darkness spreading around and people no longer seeking the true Church … A great devastation is now near at hand! … The Church is in great danger!
“I now see that in this place [Rome], the [Catholic] Church is being so cleverly undermined, that there hardly remain a hundred or so priests who have not been deceived. They all work for destruction ― even the clergy ... They were building a large, strange, and extravagant church there in Rome … There was something proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed very successful. I saw the fatal consequences of this counterfeit church … All sorts of abominations were perpetrated there … I saw how harmful would be the consequences of this false church. I saw it increase in size; I saw heretics of all kinds flocking to the city of Rome … Everyone was to be admitted in it in order to be united and have equal rights―Evangelicals, Catholics, sects of every description [all of which describes the current false spirit of Ecumenism that invaded the Church at the Council] ... The Protestant doctrine and that of the schismatic Greeks is to spread everywhere! … Then I saw that everything pertaining to Protestantism was gradually gaining the upper hand, and the Catholic religion fell into complete decadence ... I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions ...
“Everything was being done according to human reason ... All in this church belonged to the Earth, returned to the Earth. All was dead, the work of human skill, a church of the latest style, a church of man’s invention like the new heterodox church in Rome … They had preaching and singing, but nothing else [which possibly implies the absence of the true Sacrifice of the Mass in this new church], and only very few attended it. People were kneading bread in the crypt below ... but it would not rise, nor did they receive the Body of our Lord, but only bread ... It was shown to me that there were almost no Christians left in the old acceptation of the word! … The Church is completely isolated and as if completely deserted. It seems that everyone is running away. Everywhere I see great misery, hatred, treason, rancor, confusion and utter blindness.”(Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich).
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States from 2011 to 2016, was ordained a priest in 1968 and spent most of his career working in a diplomatic capacity for the Holy See. In January 2016, Archbishop Viganò submitted his resignation, as is required these days by the Church, when he turned 75 years old. He has become increasingly Conservative over the years and today criticizes the Liberal and Modernist set-up of the Church, as well as the Second Vatican Council. He says that “the project of a new church was taken up immediately after the closing of the Council in 1965 … It was taken up in a particular way by the Jesuit Order … On this subject of the new Church and project of founding a new Church, the Emeritus Pope Benedict said this would be a catastrophe. He was very severe on this point. The “new paradigm” of Pope Francis … is a “new Church”… This phrase “new paradigm” is a strategy to cover up the true goal, because they do not want to say what exactly is covered by this word. It is used to mislead, to deceive, suggesting a continuity with the teaching of his predecessors without revealing that they are actually seeking a discontinuity with the teaching of his predecessors … I do not think that it is necessary to demonstrate that the Council represents a problem: the simple fact that we are raising this question about Vatican II and not about Trent or Vatican I, seems to me to confirm a fact that is obvious and recognized by everyone. The Council held that dialogue with the world and winking at the world was going to be its priority above all else.
“If you ask me: ‘How were all the Council fathers deceived?’ I reply that no one could have imagined that, right in the heart of the ecclesial body, there were hostile forces so powerful and organized that they could succeed in rejecting the perfectly orthodox preparatory schemas that had been prepared by Cardinals and Prelates with a reliable fidelity to Church doctrine, replacing them with a bundle of cleverly disguised errors behind long-winded and deliberately equivocal (double-meaning, more than one interpretation) speeches. No one could have believed that, right under the vaults of the Vatican Basilica, that they would decree the abdication of the Catholic Church and the inauguration of the Revolution. There is a vast array of studies and documents that testify to this systematic malicious means of some of the Council Fathers on the one hand, and the naïve optimism or carelessness of other well-intentioned Council Fathers on the other. If Vatican II truly did not represent a point of rupture, what is the reason for speaking of a ‘pre-Conciliar Church’ and a ‘post-Conciliar church’, as if these were two different entities? And if the Council was truly in line with the uninterrupted infallible Magisterium of the Church, why is it the only Council that poses grave and serious problems of interpretation with respect to other Councils?
“The solution, in my opinion, lies above all in an act of humility that all of us, beginning with the Hierarchy and the Pope, must carry out―recognizing the infiltration of the enemy into the heart of the Church, the systematic occupation of key posts in the Roman Curia, seminaries, and ecclesiastical schools, the conspiracy of a group of rebels—which has succeeded in giving the appearance of legitimacy and legality to a subversive and revolutionary act. If out of pride or unfortunate obstinacy we do not know how to recognize the error and deception into which we have fallen, we will have to give an account to God, Who is as merciful with His people when they repent as He is implacable in justice when they follow Lucifer in his ‘Non serviam!’ [“I will not serve!”]. We are facing a global coup that involves both civil society and the Church. Both are infiltrated and controlled by characters who use their power and the authority that derives from it, not for the purposes of the institutions they govern, but in order to destroy them! The corrupt part of the Hierarchy – which for the sake of brevity I call the ‘deep church’ – since it is subservient to Satan, hates the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ and intends to kill Her … They serve the devil and carry out a murderous operation, however crazy and doomed to failure. On the other hand, the healthy portion of the hierarchy is mostly composed of bishops and clerics who, since they accept the Council and the new liturgy that conveys its errors to the masses, accept the ideological premises of the present apostasy. They do not want the Church to succumb―but they are deluding themselves, against all the evidence and after sixty years of failure, by thinking that the Council has merely been misinterpreted; that the new Mass is merely celebrated badly but that we can return to a certain dignity in the liturgy; that ecumenism is good as long as it is only with the [Eastern] Orthodox but not with idolaters. But if they are not convinced that the crisis began with Vatican II, if they do not understand that it was the Council that caused this disaster, and that to remedy it, it is necessary to return to the faith, morals and liturgy that existed before the Council, they are unwittingly part of the problem.” (Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò).
For those who have not buried their heads in the sand, it is obvious that all of the above is a pretty good description of the tragic years since the Second Vatican―as Our Lord says: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves! By their fruits you shall know them! Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? Therefore, every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire! Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:15-20).
The Evil Tree and Evil Fruits of Today
What are the fruits since the Second Vatican Council? Right up to the time of Council, religious vocations were flourishing―then they suddenly started plummeting at an alarming rate. Furthermore, in the 10 years after the council 100,000 men left the priesthood worldwide―that is out of an approximate total of just over 400,000 priests worldwide.
In 1965, the U.S. Catholic population was 44.3 million. By 2022 the U.S. Catholic population had risen to 66.5 million. Yet the religious aspect of Catholic life was in serious decline, with numbers plummeting in the domains of vocations, baptisms, marriages and regular Sunday Mass attendance and prayer.
► PRIESTS IN THE USA. After skyrocketing from about 27,000 in 1930 to 60,000 in 1965, the number of priests in the United States dropped to 45,000 in 2000. In 2022, there are only 34,000 priests―with an average age of 67 years. and only 15,000 will be under the age of 70. Right now there are more priests aged 80 to 84 than there are aged 30 to 34. With more than one-third of priests in the United States already retired, priest retirements are expected to outpace ordinations in most U.S. dioceses for several years to come. In nine American dioceses, more than 50% of diocesan priests are retired.
► ORDINATIONS IN THE USA. At the end of the Second Vatican Council, in 1965, there were 1,575 annual ordinations to the priesthood in the United States, in 2002 there were only 450, a decline of over 72% or only 28% of the 1965 number. U.S. diocesan priestly ordinations decreased by nearly 50% in just 20 years, from 1970 to 1990, and now average 428 per year since that time, despite some variation from year to year. By 2022 the number was still low, being only 419 ― which is still a decline of 73% from the 1965 numbers. In 2022, in the United States, more than one-third of diocesan priests are currently in retirement. Taking into account ordinations, deaths and departures, in 1965 there was a net gain of 725 priests. In 1998, there was a net loss of 810.
► RELIGIOUS SISTERS/NUNS IN THE USA. The number of U.S. Religious Sisters has decreased by 72.5% in the years since the Second Vatican Council. The number has dropped from a high of 181,421 in 1965, to a mere 36,000 (19%) remaining today, and only 9% of those Sisters are younger than 60. The average age of a Roman Catholic nun in the United States is close to 80. Convents around the country are closing. Yes―“by their fruits you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:20). Yes―there is a major crisis in the Church―the fruits tell you that!
► RELIGIOUS BROTHERS/MONKS IN THE USA. The number of professed brothers decreased from about 12,000 in 1965 to 5,700 in 2002, with a further drop to 3,500 by 2022.
► RELIGIOUS ORDERS IN THE USA. The Religious Orders will soon be virtually non-existent in the United States. For example, in 1965 there were 5,277 Jesuit priests and 3,559 seminarians; whereas by 2000 it has dropped to 3,172 priests and 38 seminarians. There were 2,534 OFM Franciscan priests and 2,251 seminarians in 1965; in 2000 there were 1,492 priests and 60 seminarians. There were 2,434 Christian Brothers in 1965 and 912 seminarians; in 2000 there were 959 Brothers and 7 seminarians. There were 1,148 Redemptorist priests in 1965 and 1,128 seminarians; in 2000 there were 349 priests and 24 seminarians. Every major religious order in the United States mirrors these statistics. Today―in 2023―it has been (so far) impossible to find the latest data on the individual Religious Orders, but one can safely guess that it is even worse than the data for 2000.
All of this data brings to mind the shuddering and terrifying words of Our Lady of Good Success: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. Oh, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!” (Our Lady of Good Success).
The Landmines of Liberalism and Modernism
We live in a time of spiritual landmines hidden in spiritual minefields all around us! One author even penned a booklet called “Liturgical Time Bombs in Vatican II”. There are an estimated 110 million unexploded bombs and mines scattered throughout the world today. These mines and unexploded bombs have been planted over many decades! Already back in 1907, Pope Pius X condemned the heresy of Modernism, which, he said, had infiltrated the Church. However, he could not uncover all the “Modernist Mines” and simply caused them to bury themselves even deeper in the ‘soil’ of the Church.
If you have ever heard of and read the books of Dr. Bella Dodd―a fallen-away Catholic professor who became one of the chief members of the Communist Party of the United States of America, then you might recall her statements as to how she had been responsible for sending over 1,000 infiltrators into the Catholic seminaries of the USA―many of whom eventually became priests, and some of them bishops. Her alleged words were: “In the late 1920s and 1930s, directives were sent from Moscow to all Communist Party organizations. In order to destroy the Roman Catholic Church from within, party members were to be planted in seminaries and within diocesan organizations ... In the 1930s, I, myself, put some 1,100 men in Roman Catholic seminaries, in order to destroy the Church from within. The idea was for these men to be ordained, and then climb the ladder of influence and authority as Monsignors and Bishops.” Around ten years before the Second Vatican Council she stated that: “Right now they are in the highest places in the Church” — where they were working to bring about change in order to weaken the Church’s effectiveness against Communism. She also said that these changes would be so drastic that “you will not recognize the Catholic Church.” She also mentioned that there were four cardinals, at that time, who were infiltrators in Rome. These could be called “Communist Time-Bombs”.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who was instrumental in bringing Bella Dodd back to the Faith―and was thoroughly acquainted with her life story (including the matter of Church infiltration), already wrote in the late 1940s: “We are living in the days of the Apocalypse — the last days of our era — The two great forces of the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of Antichrist are beginning to draw up the battle lines for the catastrophic contest. The False Prophet will have a religion without a cross. A religion without a world to come. A religion to destroy religions. There will be a counterfeit church. Christ’s Church will be one―and the False Prophet will create the other. The false church will be worldly ecumenical, and global. It will be a loose federation of churches and religions forming some type of global association, world parliament of churches. It will be emptied of all divine content and will be the mystical body of the Antichrist. The Mystical Body on Earth today will have its Judas Iscariot and he will be the false prophet. Satan will recruit him from among our bishops.”
Mr. Manning Johnson, a former official of the Communist Party in America, gave the following testimony in 1953 to the House Unamerican Activities Committee: “Once the tactic of infiltration of religious organizations was set by the Kremlin … the Communists discovered that the destruction of religion could proceed much faster through infiltration of the Church by Communists operating within the Church itself. The Communist leadership in the United States realized that the infiltration tactic in this country would have to adapt itself to American conditions and religious make-up peculiar to this country. In the earliest stages it was determined that with only small forces available to them, it would be necessary to concentrate Communist agents in the seminaries. The practical conclusion drawn by the Red leaders was that these institutions would make it possible for a small Communist minority to influence the ideology of future clergymen in the paths conducive to Communist purposes.” Further on in his testimony, Mr. Johnson pointed out the grim fact that: “THIS POLICY OF INFILTRATING SEMINARIES WAS SUCCESSFUL BEYOND EVEN OUR GREATEST EXPECTATIONS. It is the axiom of Communist organization’s strategy that if a body has 1% Communist Party and 9% Party sympathizers, this 10% can effectively control the remaining 90% who act and think on an individual basis.”
Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) around the same time, in the 1950s, admitted that he knew that the Catholic Church had been infiltrated by Communists and that those infiltrators were among the ranks of the clergy―but he was not sure as to how many were present and who they all were. Already before being elected as pope―when still Cardinal Paccelli―in 1933, he said: “Suppose, dear friend, that Communism is the most visible among the organs of subversion against the Church and the Tradition of Divine Revelation. Thus, we will witness the invasion of everything that is spiritual: philosophy, science, law, teaching, the arts, the media, literature, theater, and religion. I am concerned about the confidences of the Virgin to the little Lucia of Fatima. This persistence of the Good Lady in face of the danger that threatens the Church is a divine warning against the suicide that the alteration of the Faith, in its liturgy, its theology, and its soul, would represent. I hear around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments, and make her remorseful for her historical past. Well, my dear friend, I am convinced that the Church of Peter must affirm her past, or else she will dig her own grave. I will fight this battle with the greatest energy on the inside of the Church, just as outside of it, even if the forces of evil may one day take advantage of my person, my actions, or my writings―as they try today―to deform the history of the Church. All human heresies which alter the word of God are so that a greater light might appear.”
Pope Paul VI (1963-1978), beginning with 1972, publically spoke of Satan having infiltrated the Catholic Church:
► 1972: “We believed that after the [Second Vatican] Council would come a day of sunshine in the history of the Church. But instead there has come a day of clouds and storms, and of darkness ... And how did this come about? We will confide to you … that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the Devil. … It is as if from some mysterious crack―no, it is not mysterious―from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God!” (Pope Paul VI, Address On the Occasion of the Ninth Anniversary of His Election, June 29th, 1972).
► 1972: Some months later, on November 15th of 1972, at a General Audience, Pope Paul VI added: “What are the Church’s greatest needs at the present time? Don’t be surprised at Our answer and don’t write it off as simplistic or even superstitious: one of the Church’s greatest needs is to be defended against the evil we call the Devil … Who can forget the highly significant description of the triple temptation of Christ? Or the many episodes in the Gospel where the Devil crosses the Lord’s path and figures in His teaching? (Matthew 12:43) And how could we forget that Christ, referring three times to the Devil as His adversary, describes him as ‘the prince of this world’?” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11).
► 1977: A few years later he repeated the same concern: “The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the Faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church” (Pope Paul VI, Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions, October 13th, 1977).
Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, later said: “We have now absorbed into Church teaching, and the Church has opened herself up to, principles which are not hers, but which come from modern society.” Elsewhere he said that with Vatican II, the principles of 1789 [the French Revolution] had entered the Church. Unfortunately, the opening of the windows of the Church to the world, has let worldliness into the Church, while many of the Catholics jumped out of the windows and joined the world! This opening up to the world (the devil, in reality, for he is “the prince of the world” John 12:31, says Our Lord) has wounded the very Heart of the Church and the Precious Blood has been spilled and wasted.
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the former chief exorcist for Rome, said: “It’s true, unfortunately, because even in the Church there are adherents to Satanic cults. Pope Paul VI reported this detail about the smoke of Satan on June 29th, 1972. Of course, this broke the ice, lifting a veil of silence and censorship that had lasted too long―but it had no practical consequences!
Pope Benedict XVI (as Pope Emeritus, after resigning from the papacy) wrote: “On February 21st to 24th, 2019, Pope Francis gathered at the Vatican, the presidents of the world’s Bishops’ Conferences, to discuss the current crisis of the Faith and of the Church―a crisis experienced throughout the world … and has caused more than a few to call into question the very Faith of the Church … The long-prepared and ongoing process of dissolution of the Christian concept of morality was, as I have tried to show, marked by an unprecedented radicalism in the 1960s … In various seminaries homosexual cliques were established, which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate in the seminaries … in many parts of the Church, Conciliar attitudes were understood to mean having a critical or negative attitude towards the hitherto existing tradition, which was now to be replaced by a new, radically open relationship with the world. One bishop, who had previously been seminary rector, had arranged for the seminarians to be shown pornographic films, allegedly with the intention of thus making them resistant to behavior contrary to the Faith … The power of evil arises from our refusal to love God … That is the case with pedophilia. It was theorized only a short time ago as quite legitimate, but it has spread further and further. And now we realize with shock that things are happening to our children and young people that threaten to destroy them. The fact that this could also spread in the Church and among priests ought to disturb us in particular.
“Why did pedophilia reach such proportions? Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God. We Christians and priests also prefer not to talk about God, because this speech does not seem to be practical … God has become the private affair of a minority … The Church is dying in souls … The declining participation in the Sunday Eucharistic celebration shows how little we Christians of today still know about appreciating the greatness of the gift that consists in His Real Presence. The Eucharist is devalued into a mere ceremonial gesture. The way people often simply receive the Holy Sacrament in Communion as a matter of course shows that many see communion as a purely ceremonial gesture. What must be done? Perhaps we should create another Church for things to work out? Well, that experiment has already been undertaken and has already failed. The idea of a better Church, created by ourselves, is in fact a proposal of the devil, with which he wants to lead us away from the living God, through a deceitful logic by which we are too easily duped. It is very important to oppose the lies and half-truths of the devil with the whole truth … Therefore, when thinking about what action is required first and foremost, it is rather obvious that we do not need another Church of our own design. The Church today is widely regarded as just some kind of political apparatus. One speaks of it almost exclusively in political categories, and this applies even to bishops, who formulate their conception of the church of tomorrow almost exclusively in political terms. The crisis, caused by the many cases of clerical abuse, urges us to regard the Church as something almost unacceptable, which we must now take into our own hands and redesign. But a self-made Church cannot constitute hope!” (Benedict, Pope Emeritus, Essay on the Crisis in the Church, April 10th, 2019).
When someone finds themselves in court on trial for some alleged crime, the chief thing they seek is mercy. When you will find yourself on your deathbed, on the brink of dying and being judged for eternity, the only thing that you will seek is mercy! You had better believe in mercy if you want mercy―for not to believe in mercy is to despair, and final despair leads to Hell!
Not only must you believe in mercy to receive mercy―you must also show mercy in order to receive mercy: “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful! Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned! Forgive, and you shall be forgiven!” (Luke 6:36-37). “If you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences! But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences!” (Matthew 6:14-15). “Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). “Judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy!” (James 2:13).
This Feast of Divine Mercy Sunday is Post-Vatican II creation―which had already been granted to the nation of Poland and been celebrated within Vatican City―but then was extended and granted to the Universal Church by Pope John Paul II on the occasion of the canonization of Sr. Faustina on April 30th, 2000. In a decree dated May 23rd, 2000, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments stated that “throughout the world the Second Sunday of Easter will receive the name ‘Divine Mercy Sunday’ ― a perennial invitation to the Christian world to face, with confidence in divine benevolence, the difficulties and trials that mankind will experience in the years to come.”
Mercy sounds good, eh? God is merciful―as the Bible tells hundreds of times―so why the hullabaloo, outcry, arguments and disputes over this newly created “Divine Mercy Sunday”? We have a series of 12 articles (with more to be added) that cover all of this in great depth [click here], though with this article we will try to give a briefer summary of the key points. Ultimately, God is all-powerful and dispenses His mercy to whom He will and when He will: “I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whom it shall please Me!” (Exodus 33:19). “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy!” (Romans 9:15). Ultimately, God wishes to save each and every soul―He made nobody to be damned―therefore He wishes everyone to be a beneficiary of His mercy. Yet most souls are damned and mercy is not shown to them! Why? All of this―and more―is wrapped up in this dispute over “Divine Mercy Sunday”. Let then try to unravel this knotted ball of contention and see how the mercy of God can be truly obtained and what it costs?
It’s All About Mercy!
Whichever way you look at it, the whole interaction, relationship, script, agenda, the whole modus operandi of Heaven’s dealings with mankind is based upon one ultimate thing―MERCY! In fact, Holy Scripture tells us that mercy is the greatest of all God’s works: “The Lord is gracious and merciful, patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 144:8-9). “God loves mercy!” (Psalm 83:12). “The Earth is full of the mercy of the Lord!” (Psalm 32:5). “O how hast Thou multiplied Thy mercy, O God!” (Psalm 35:8). “Thy mercy is magnified even to the heavens!” (Psalm 56:11). “The mercy of the Lord is from eternity and unto eternity upon them that fear Him!” (Psalm 102:17). “He is merciful and will forgive their sins―and will not destroy them! … A God of compassion, merciful, patient and of much mercy! … The Lord is compassionate and merciful, longsuffering and plenteous in mercy! … The Lord is merciful and just, and our God shows mercy!” (Psalm 77:38; 85:15; 102:8; 114:5). “The Lord thy God is a merciful God! … He will be merciful to us, if we keep and do all His precepts as He has commanded us!” (Deuteronomy 4:31; 6:25). “The Lord your God is merciful, and will not turn away His face from you, if you return to Him!” (2 Paralipomenon 30:9). “Thou art a merciful and gracious God!” (2 Esdras 9:31). God Himself says: “I am the Lord thy God, showing mercy unto thousands to them that love Me and keep My commandments!” (Exodus 20:5-6).
God sent His only-begotten Son to Earth to save us from the consequences of our sins: “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son―so that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16) ― that is an act of MERCY! “God sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10) ― that is an act of MERCY! “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17) ― that is an act of MERCY! “The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14) ― that is an act of MERCY! “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56) ― that is an act of MERCY! “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) ― that is an act of MERCY!
Living amongst us, Our Lord manifested mercy in abundance―in both the spiritual and physical spheres. He Himself said: “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world!” (John 12:47) ― that is an act of MERCY! “The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again! … He healed them all!” (Matthew 11:5; 12:15) ― that is an act of MERCY! Then we have the case of “Mary Magdalen, out of whom He had cast seven devils” (Mark 16:9) ― that is an act of MERCY! He healed those who were afflicted with illnesses due to their sins ― that is an act of MERCY!
If you think that all this is “going overboard”, then wait till you get to Psalm 135! Every single verse of the Psalm hammers home the mercy of God!
“Praise the Lord, for He is good―for His mercy endures for ever.
Praise ye the God of gods―for His mercy endures for ever.
Praise ye the Lord of lords―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who alone does great wonders―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who made the heavens in understanding―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who established the earth above the waters―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who made the great lights―for His mercy endures for ever.
The sun to rule over the day―for His mercy endures for ever.
The moon and the stars to rule the night―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who smote Egypt with their firstborn―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who brought Israel from among them―for His mercy endures for ever.
With a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who divided the Red Sea into parts―for His mercy endures for ever.
And brought out Israel through the midst thereof―for His mercy endures for ever.
And overthrew Pharao and his army in the Red Sea―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who led His people through the desert―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who smote great kings―for His mercy endures for ever.
And slew strong kings―for His mercy endures for ever.
Sehon king of the Amorrhites―for His mercy endures for ever.
And Og king of Basan―for His mercy endures for ever.
And He gave their land for an inheritance―for His mercy endures for ever.
For an inheritance to His servant Israel―for His mercy endures for ever
For He was mindful of us in our affliction―for His mercy endures for ever.
And He redeemed us from our enemies―for His mercy endures for ever.
Who gives food to all flesh―for His mercy endures for ever.
Give glory to the God of Heaven―for His mercy endures for ever.
Give glory to the Lord of lords―for His mercy endures for ever.” (Psalm 135:1-27).
Had enough of mercy yet? Sick and tired of mercy yet? You had better not be! Our list or catalogue of sins is far longer than that Psalm! Even the sins of one day—be they mortal or venial—are far more numerous than the 27 mentions of mercy in that Psalm!
What’s the Point of All This?
The point and purpose of all the above quotations on mercy is to show that mercy is as old as mankind itself. Mercy did not start with a Decree issued on May 5th, 2000, by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments inventing the new feast of “Divine Mercy Sunday” ― but mercy existed eternally within God, dormant until activated as needed: “The mercy of the Lord is from eternity and unto eternity” (Psalm 102:17). Likewise, our merciful Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, eternally existed until the time arrived for Him to be “activated” by taking on human flesh and dying for human sins. God has been showing and dispensing mercy to man ever since Creation. The creation of a “Divine Mercy Sunday” ― though at best well-intentioned ― distracts or masks the fact of the existence of “Divine Mercy Every Day”. In reality, we have a Divine Mercy Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Divine Mercy is always available―not just on one day per year!
Declaration of Intent and Position
Before proceeding further, it is important to be honest by making a declaration of intent on our personal standpoint in the debate and argument over Divine Mercy Sunday. Satan always seeks to divide and conquer―whether it be on the minor scale of dividing members within a family, or dividing member of the Church at large, or members of the human race. The consequences of this tactic to divide and conquer are manifested by Our Lord: “Every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate: and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand” (Matthew 12:25). We are―without any doubt whatsoever―living in period of massive Catholic division. Satan has always sown the seeds of division within the Catholic Church―but never have they sown with such success as can be seen in our present day. The Catholic Church has seen an ever-increasing divide between the Conservative and Traditional clergy and laity on the one side, while on the other side of the chasm we have the Liberal and Modernist clergy and laity.
Holy Scripture warns of our times―“In the last days, shall come dangerous times! Men shall be lovers of themselves, lovers of pleasures more than of God! Having an appearance indeed of godliness―but denying the power thereof! Now these avoid!” (2 Timothy 3:1-5) … “In the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers!” (2 Peter 3:3) ― and we are surrounded by them today, who scoff at the traditional teachings of the Church! Our Lady has often warned us of these dangerous times ― “For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and will turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables!” (2 Timothy 4:3-4) ― and those “fables” are increasingly seen and heard in the writings and teachings of today’s Liberals and Modernists. Our Lady merely backs-up Holy Scripture in her prophetic warnings at her apparitions.
OUR LADY OF AKITA stated in 1973: “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.”
OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE said much the same thing in 1846: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell―they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God. God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family. The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders … The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God. Woe to the Princes of the Church who think only of piling riches upon riches, to protect their authority and dominate with pride. The Church will yield to a time of darkness and will witness a frightful crisis. The true Faith to the Lord will be forgotten … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls.
OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS also spoke along similar lines: “At the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century, various heresies will be propagated … From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century, the passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of morals, for Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … During this epoch the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … Many people will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church, impelled by the malice of the devil … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith … Vocations to the priesthood will be lost, resulting in a true calamity. Many authentic vocations will perish! … Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! … The secular Clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties … The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to deviate them from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them.”
A Time of Religious Error, Division, Seduction and Corruption
As a consequence, never have Our Lord’s words been more relevant and applicable, than when He says: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep!” (Matthew 7:15) … “Take heed lest any man deceive you! For many shall come in My Name, and they shall deceive many!” (Mark 13:6) … “Many false prophets shall rise and shall seduce many!” (Matthew 24:11) … “There will rise up false Christs and false prophets, to seduce―if it were possible―even the elect! Therefore take heed, for behold I have foretold you all these things!” (Mark 13:22-23).
The Second Vatican Council was not the beginning of this division―for, like a baby in the womb, this division was silently and somewhat invisibly already growing year after year, decade after decade. The Second Vatican Council was merely the “birth” of division after many decades, even centuries, of gestation within the womb of Holy Mother Church.
St. John Bosco (1815-1888) prophesied of a divisive and disastrous Church Council that would occur in the 20th century. How many Church Councils occurred in the 20th century? Only one―the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Here is what St. John Bosco prophesied: “There will be an Ecumenical Council in the next century, after which there will be chaos in the Church. Tranquility will not return until the Pope succeeds in anchoring the boat of Peter between the twin pillars of Eucharistic Devotion and Devotion to Our Lady.”
Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) recounts, from the many visions that God gave her, the creation of a new church, a counterfeit church in Rome: “I a long processions of bishops [The four different sessions of the Second Vatican Council, held from 1962 to 1965, had between 2,000 and 2,500 bishops in daily attendance] ... I saw what I believe to be nearly all the bishops of the world [the Second Vatican Council assembled all the bishops in the world], but only a small number were perfectly sound ... I saw that many pastors allowed themselves to be taken up with ideas that were dangerous to the Church ... I saw some good bishops; but they were weak and wavering, their cowardice often got the upper hand … The nearer the time of the end, the more the darkness of Satan will spread on Earth … I saw a great circle of darkness ever widening … I saw the secret sect relentlessly undermining the great Church! … Then I saw darkness spreading around and people no longer seeking the true Church … A great devastation is now near at hand! … The Church is in great danger!
“I now see that in this place [Rome], the [Catholic] Church is being so cleverly undermined, that there hardly remain a hundred or so priests who have not been deceived. They all work for destruction ― even the clergy ... They were building a large, strange, and extravagant church there in Rome … There was something proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed very successful. I saw the fatal consequences of this counterfeit church … All sorts of abominations were perpetrated there … I saw how harmful would be the consequences of this false church. I saw it increase in size; I saw heretics of all kinds flocking to the city of Rome … Everyone was to be admitted in it in order to be united and have equal rights―Evangelicals, Catholics, sects of every description [all of which describes the current false spirit of Ecumenism that invaded the Church at the Council] ... The Protestant doctrine and that of the schismatic Greeks is to spread everywhere! … Then I saw that everything pertaining to Protestantism was gradually gaining the upper hand, and the Catholic religion fell into complete decadence ... I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions ...
“Everything was being done according to human reason ... All in this church belonged to the Earth, returned to the Earth. All was dead, the work of human skill, a church of the latest style, a church of man’s invention like the new heterodox church in Rome … They had preaching and singing, but nothing else [which possibly implies the absence of the true Sacrifice of the Mass in this new church], and only very few attended it. People were kneading bread in the crypt below ... but it would not rise, nor did they receive the Body of our Lord, but only bread ... It was shown to me that there were almost no Christians left in the old acceptation of the word! … The Church is completely isolated and as if completely deserted. It seems that everyone is running away. Everywhere I see great misery, hatred, treason, rancor, confusion and utter blindness.”(Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich).
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States from 2011 to 2016, was ordained a priest in 1968 and spent most of his career working in a diplomatic capacity for the Holy See. In January 2016, Archbishop Viganò submitted his resignation, as is required these days by the Church, when he turned 75 years old. He has become increasingly Conservative over the years and today criticizes the Liberal and Modernist set-up of the Church, as well as the Second Vatican Council. He says that “the project of a new church was taken up immediately after the closing of the Council in 1965 … It was taken up in a particular way by the Jesuit Order … On this subject of the new Church and project of founding a new Church, the Emeritus Pope Benedict said this would be a catastrophe. He was very severe on this point. The “new paradigm” of Pope Francis … is a “new Church”… This phrase “new paradigm” is a strategy to cover up the true goal, because they do not want to say what exactly is covered by this word. It is used to mislead, to deceive, suggesting a continuity with the teaching of his predecessors without revealing that they are actually seeking a discontinuity with the teaching of his predecessors … I do not think that it is necessary to demonstrate that the Council represents a problem: the simple fact that we are raising this question about Vatican II and not about Trent or Vatican I, seems to me to confirm a fact that is obvious and recognized by everyone. The Council held that dialogue with the world and winking at the world was going to be its priority above all else.
“If you ask me: ‘How were all the Council fathers deceived?’ I reply that no one could have imagined that, right in the heart of the ecclesial body, there were hostile forces so powerful and organized that they could succeed in rejecting the perfectly orthodox preparatory schemas that had been prepared by Cardinals and Prelates with a reliable fidelity to Church doctrine, replacing them with a bundle of cleverly disguised errors behind long-winded and deliberately equivocal (double-meaning, more than one interpretation) speeches. No one could have believed that, right under the vaults of the Vatican Basilica, that they would decree the abdication of the Catholic Church and the inauguration of the Revolution. There is a vast array of studies and documents that testify to this systematic malicious means of some of the Council Fathers on the one hand, and the naïve optimism or carelessness of other well-intentioned Council Fathers on the other. If Vatican II truly did not represent a point of rupture, what is the reason for speaking of a ‘pre-Conciliar Church’ and a ‘post-Conciliar church’, as if these were two different entities? And if the Council was truly in line with the uninterrupted infallible Magisterium of the Church, why is it the only Council that poses grave and serious problems of interpretation with respect to other Councils?
“The solution, in my opinion, lies above all in an act of humility that all of us, beginning with the Hierarchy and the Pope, must carry out―recognizing the infiltration of the enemy into the heart of the Church, the systematic occupation of key posts in the Roman Curia, seminaries, and ecclesiastical schools, the conspiracy of a group of rebels—which has succeeded in giving the appearance of legitimacy and legality to a subversive and revolutionary act. If out of pride or unfortunate obstinacy we do not know how to recognize the error and deception into which we have fallen, we will have to give an account to God, Who is as merciful with His people when they repent as He is implacable in justice when they follow Lucifer in his ‘Non serviam!’ [“I will not serve!”]. We are facing a global coup that involves both civil society and the Church. Both are infiltrated and controlled by characters who use their power and the authority that derives from it, not for the purposes of the institutions they govern, but in order to destroy them! The corrupt part of the Hierarchy – which for the sake of brevity I call the ‘deep church’ – since it is subservient to Satan, hates the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ and intends to kill Her … They serve the devil and carry out a murderous operation, however crazy and doomed to failure. On the other hand, the healthy portion of the hierarchy is mostly composed of bishops and clerics who, since they accept the Council and the new liturgy that conveys its errors to the masses, accept the ideological premises of the present apostasy. They do not want the Church to succumb―but they are deluding themselves, against all the evidence and after sixty years of failure, by thinking that the Council has merely been misinterpreted; that the new Mass is merely celebrated badly but that we can return to a certain dignity in the liturgy; that ecumenism is good as long as it is only with the [Eastern] Orthodox but not with idolaters. But if they are not convinced that the crisis began with Vatican II, if they do not understand that it was the Council that caused this disaster, and that to remedy it, it is necessary to return to the faith, morals and liturgy that existed before the Council, they are unwittingly part of the problem.” (Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò).
For those who have not buried their heads in the sand, it is obvious that all of the above is a pretty good description of the tragic years since the Second Vatican―as Our Lord says: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves! By their fruits you shall know them! Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? Therefore, every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire! Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:15-20).
The Evil Tree and Evil Fruits of Today
What are the fruits since the Second Vatican Council? Right up to the time of Council, religious vocations were flourishing―then they suddenly started plummeting at an alarming rate. Furthermore, in the 10 years after the council 100,000 men left the priesthood worldwide―that is out of an approximate total of just over 400,000 priests worldwide.
In 1965, the U.S. Catholic population was 44.3 million. By 2022 the U.S. Catholic population had risen to 66.5 million. Yet the religious aspect of Catholic life was in serious decline, with numbers plummeting in the domains of vocations, baptisms, marriages and regular Sunday Mass attendance and prayer.
► PRIESTS IN THE USA. After skyrocketing from about 27,000 in 1930 to 60,000 in 1965, the number of priests in the United States dropped to 45,000 in 2000. In 2022, there are only 34,000 priests―with an average age of 67 years. and only 15,000 will be under the age of 70. Right now there are more priests aged 80 to 84 than there are aged 30 to 34. With more than one-third of priests in the United States already retired, priest retirements are expected to outpace ordinations in most U.S. dioceses for several years to come. In nine American dioceses, more than 50% of diocesan priests are retired.
► ORDINATIONS IN THE USA. At the end of the Second Vatican Council, in 1965, there were 1,575 annual ordinations to the priesthood in the United States, in 2002 there were only 450, a decline of over 72% or only 28% of the 1965 number. U.S. diocesan priestly ordinations decreased by nearly 50% in just 20 years, from 1970 to 1990, and now average 428 per year since that time, despite some variation from year to year. By 2022 the number was still low, being only 419 ― which is still a decline of 73% from the 1965 numbers. In 2022, in the United States, more than one-third of diocesan priests are currently in retirement. Taking into account ordinations, deaths and departures, in 1965 there was a net gain of 725 priests. In 1998, there was a net loss of 810.
► RELIGIOUS SISTERS/NUNS IN THE USA. The number of U.S. Religious Sisters has decreased by 72.5% in the years since the Second Vatican Council. The number has dropped from a high of 181,421 in 1965, to a mere 36,000 (19%) remaining today, and only 9% of those Sisters are younger than 60. The average age of a Roman Catholic nun in the United States is close to 80. Convents around the country are closing. Yes―“by their fruits you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:20). Yes―there is a major crisis in the Church―the fruits tell you that!
► RELIGIOUS BROTHERS/MONKS IN THE USA. The number of professed brothers decreased from about 12,000 in 1965 to 5,700 in 2002, with a further drop to 3,500 by 2022.
► RELIGIOUS ORDERS IN THE USA. The Religious Orders will soon be virtually non-existent in the United States. For example, in 1965 there were 5,277 Jesuit priests and 3,559 seminarians; whereas by 2000 it has dropped to 3,172 priests and 38 seminarians. There were 2,534 OFM Franciscan priests and 2,251 seminarians in 1965; in 2000 there were 1,492 priests and 60 seminarians. There were 2,434 Christian Brothers in 1965 and 912 seminarians; in 2000 there were 959 Brothers and 7 seminarians. There were 1,148 Redemptorist priests in 1965 and 1,128 seminarians; in 2000 there were 349 priests and 24 seminarians. Every major religious order in the United States mirrors these statistics. Today―in 2023―it has been (so far) impossible to find the latest data on the individual Religious Orders, but one can safely guess that it is even worse than the data for 2000.
All of this data brings to mind the shuddering and terrifying words of Our Lady of Good Success: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. Oh, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!” (Our Lady of Good Success).
The Landmines of Liberalism and Modernism
We live in a time of spiritual landmines hidden in spiritual minefields all around us! One author even penned a booklet called “Liturgical Time Bombs in Vatican II”. There are an estimated 110 million unexploded bombs and mines scattered throughout the world today. These mines and unexploded bombs have been planted over many decades! Already back in 1907, Pope Pius X condemned the heresy of Modernism, which, he said, had infiltrated the Church. However, he could not uncover all the “Modernist Mines” and simply caused them to bury themselves even deeper in the ‘soil’ of the Church.
If you have ever heard of and read the books of Dr. Bella Dodd―a fallen-away Catholic professor who became one of the chief members of the Communist Party of the United States of America, then you might recall her statements as to how she had been responsible for sending over 1,000 infiltrators into the Catholic seminaries of the USA―many of whom eventually became priests, and some of them bishops. Her alleged words were: “In the late 1920s and 1930s, directives were sent from Moscow to all Communist Party organizations. In order to destroy the Roman Catholic Church from within, party members were to be planted in seminaries and within diocesan organizations ... In the 1930s, I, myself, put some 1,100 men in Roman Catholic seminaries, in order to destroy the Church from within. The idea was for these men to be ordained, and then climb the ladder of influence and authority as Monsignors and Bishops.” Around ten years before the Second Vatican Council she stated that: “Right now they are in the highest places in the Church” — where they were working to bring about change in order to weaken the Church’s effectiveness against Communism. She also said that these changes would be so drastic that “you will not recognize the Catholic Church.” She also mentioned that there were four cardinals, at that time, who were infiltrators in Rome. These could be called “Communist Time-Bombs”.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who was instrumental in bringing Bella Dodd back to the Faith―and was thoroughly acquainted with her life story (including the matter of Church infiltration), already wrote in the late 1940s: “We are living in the days of the Apocalypse — the last days of our era — The two great forces of the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of Antichrist are beginning to draw up the battle lines for the catastrophic contest. The False Prophet will have a religion without a cross. A religion without a world to come. A religion to destroy religions. There will be a counterfeit church. Christ’s Church will be one―and the False Prophet will create the other. The false church will be worldly ecumenical, and global. It will be a loose federation of churches and religions forming some type of global association, world parliament of churches. It will be emptied of all divine content and will be the mystical body of the Antichrist. The Mystical Body on Earth today will have its Judas Iscariot and he will be the false prophet. Satan will recruit him from among our bishops.”
Mr. Manning Johnson, a former official of the Communist Party in America, gave the following testimony in 1953 to the House Unamerican Activities Committee: “Once the tactic of infiltration of religious organizations was set by the Kremlin … the Communists discovered that the destruction of religion could proceed much faster through infiltration of the Church by Communists operating within the Church itself. The Communist leadership in the United States realized that the infiltration tactic in this country would have to adapt itself to American conditions and religious make-up peculiar to this country. In the earliest stages it was determined that with only small forces available to them, it would be necessary to concentrate Communist agents in the seminaries. The practical conclusion drawn by the Red leaders was that these institutions would make it possible for a small Communist minority to influence the ideology of future clergymen in the paths conducive to Communist purposes.” Further on in his testimony, Mr. Johnson pointed out the grim fact that: “THIS POLICY OF INFILTRATING SEMINARIES WAS SUCCESSFUL BEYOND EVEN OUR GREATEST EXPECTATIONS. It is the axiom of Communist organization’s strategy that if a body has 1% Communist Party and 9% Party sympathizers, this 10% can effectively control the remaining 90% who act and think on an individual basis.”
Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) around the same time, in the 1950s, admitted that he knew that the Catholic Church had been infiltrated by Communists and that those infiltrators were among the ranks of the clergy―but he was not sure as to how many were present and who they all were. Already before being elected as pope―when still Cardinal Paccelli―in 1933, he said: “Suppose, dear friend, that Communism is the most visible among the organs of subversion against the Church and the Tradition of Divine Revelation. Thus, we will witness the invasion of everything that is spiritual: philosophy, science, law, teaching, the arts, the media, literature, theater, and religion. I am concerned about the confidences of the Virgin to the little Lucia of Fatima. This persistence of the Good Lady in face of the danger that threatens the Church is a divine warning against the suicide that the alteration of the Faith, in its liturgy, its theology, and its soul, would represent. I hear around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments, and make her remorseful for her historical past. Well, my dear friend, I am convinced that the Church of Peter must affirm her past, or else she will dig her own grave. I will fight this battle with the greatest energy on the inside of the Church, just as outside of it, even if the forces of evil may one day take advantage of my person, my actions, or my writings―as they try today―to deform the history of the Church. All human heresies which alter the word of God are so that a greater light might appear.”
Pope Paul VI (1963-1978), beginning with 1972, publically spoke of Satan having infiltrated the Catholic Church:
► 1972: “We believed that after the [Second Vatican] Council would come a day of sunshine in the history of the Church. But instead there has come a day of clouds and storms, and of darkness ... And how did this come about? We will confide to you … that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the Devil. … It is as if from some mysterious crack―no, it is not mysterious―from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God!” (Pope Paul VI, Address On the Occasion of the Ninth Anniversary of His Election, June 29th, 1972).
► 1972: Some months later, on November 15th of 1972, at a General Audience, Pope Paul VI added: “What are the Church’s greatest needs at the present time? Don’t be surprised at Our answer and don’t write it off as simplistic or even superstitious: one of the Church’s greatest needs is to be defended against the evil we call the Devil … Who can forget the highly significant description of the triple temptation of Christ? Or the many episodes in the Gospel where the Devil crosses the Lord’s path and figures in His teaching? (Matthew 12:43) And how could we forget that Christ, referring three times to the Devil as His adversary, describes him as ‘the prince of this world’?” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11).
► 1977: A few years later he repeated the same concern: “The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the Faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church” (Pope Paul VI, Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions, October 13th, 1977).
Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, later said: “We have now absorbed into Church teaching, and the Church has opened herself up to, principles which are not hers, but which come from modern society.” Elsewhere he said that with Vatican II, the principles of 1789 [the French Revolution] had entered the Church. Unfortunately, the opening of the windows of the Church to the world, has let worldliness into the Church, while many of the Catholics jumped out of the windows and joined the world! This opening up to the world (the devil, in reality, for he is “the prince of the world” John 12:31, says Our Lord) has wounded the very Heart of the Church and the Precious Blood has been spilled and wasted.
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the former chief exorcist for Rome, said: “It’s true, unfortunately, because even in the Church there are adherents to Satanic cults. Pope Paul VI reported this detail about the smoke of Satan on June 29th, 1972. Of course, this broke the ice, lifting a veil of silence and censorship that had lasted too long―but it had no practical consequences!
Pope Benedict XVI (as Pope Emeritus, after resigning from the papacy) wrote: “On February 21st to 24th, 2019, Pope Francis gathered at the Vatican, the presidents of the world’s Bishops’ Conferences, to discuss the current crisis of the Faith and of the Church―a crisis experienced throughout the world … and has caused more than a few to call into question the very Faith of the Church … The long-prepared and ongoing process of dissolution of the Christian concept of morality was, as I have tried to show, marked by an unprecedented radicalism in the 1960s … In various seminaries homosexual cliques were established, which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate in the seminaries … in many parts of the Church, Conciliar attitudes were understood to mean having a critical or negative attitude towards the hitherto existing tradition, which was now to be replaced by a new, radically open relationship with the world. One bishop, who had previously been seminary rector, had arranged for the seminarians to be shown pornographic films, allegedly with the intention of thus making them resistant to behavior contrary to the Faith … The power of evil arises from our refusal to love God … That is the case with pedophilia. It was theorized only a short time ago as quite legitimate, but it has spread further and further. And now we realize with shock that things are happening to our children and young people that threaten to destroy them. The fact that this could also spread in the Church and among priests ought to disturb us in particular.
“Why did pedophilia reach such proportions? Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God. We Christians and priests also prefer not to talk about God, because this speech does not seem to be practical … God has become the private affair of a minority … The Church is dying in souls … The declining participation in the Sunday Eucharistic celebration shows how little we Christians of today still know about appreciating the greatness of the gift that consists in His Real Presence. The Eucharist is devalued into a mere ceremonial gesture. The way people often simply receive the Holy Sacrament in Communion as a matter of course shows that many see communion as a purely ceremonial gesture. What must be done? Perhaps we should create another Church for things to work out? Well, that experiment has already been undertaken and has already failed. The idea of a better Church, created by ourselves, is in fact a proposal of the devil, with which he wants to lead us away from the living God, through a deceitful logic by which we are too easily duped. It is very important to oppose the lies and half-truths of the devil with the whole truth … Therefore, when thinking about what action is required first and foremost, it is rather obvious that we do not need another Church of our own design. The Church today is widely regarded as just some kind of political apparatus. One speaks of it almost exclusively in political categories, and this applies even to bishops, who formulate their conception of the church of tomorrow almost exclusively in political terms. The crisis, caused by the many cases of clerical abuse, urges us to regard the Church as something almost unacceptable, which we must now take into our own hands and redesign. But a self-made Church cannot constitute hope!” (Benedict, Pope Emeritus, Essay on the Crisis in the Church, April 10th, 2019).
Article 3
Easter Friday April 14th, 2023
Observe All Things―Not Just a Few!
Easter Friday April 14th, 2023
Observe All Things―Not Just a Few!
No Picking and Choosing!
In the Gospel for the Easter Friday (within the Octave of Easter) in the Traditional Latin Rite or Extraordinary Rite, we read: “In that time: the Eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And seeing Him they adored―but some doubted. And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: ‘All power is given to Me in Heaven and on Earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you! And, behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world!’” (Matthew 28:16-20).
Within that passage we have the words: “Teach all nations … teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” With these words, Our Lord is basically saying: “Do as I tell you! There is no picking and choosing!” He demands that we OBSERVE ALL THINGS that He has taught. Come to think of it―that is how we like things to be when we are in charge or in command of something, isn’t it? Being the person in charge, the “boss”, the leader, the parent, the teacher, etc. ― we expect those who are under our charge to do what we want and command them to do! We don’t allow those who are under our charge to pick and choose what they will follow and obey. If we are like that, then all the more is God like that―for He is the “Supreme Boss”, the Creator of all things, the Ruler of the Heaven and Earth and the whole Universe. Obedience is therefore owed to Him. These words are unpleasant words for the modern mind―which is the Liberal mind―a mind which decides and judges for itself what it wants to believe and accept.
Man Replaces God
Man, today, has become a god unto himself. Modern man ignores what God teaches and replaces God’s teachings with man’s own preferences. Man no longer needs God to tell him what is right and wrong, good and evil―he can choose and decide for himself. The fact that this is so blatantly true is seen in today’s widespread acceptance of abortion, contraception, cohabitation, divorce, same-sex relationships and ‘marriages’, promiscuity, immodesty, adultery, fornication, drunkenness, drug abuse, etc. All these evils are now seen as ‘good’ ― or at least tolerable, permissible and acceptable. Even most modern-day Catholics either tolerate or accept such things―the remainder are silent and do not speak out against such things.
Holy Scripture warned of this: “Know that in the last days shall come dangerous times! Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God―indeed, having an appearance of godliness, but denying the power of God! Now these avoid!” (2 Timothy 3:1-5). “For there shall be a time, when they will no longer endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears―and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables!” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
While on the other hand, truly good things, such as living in a state of sanctifying grace; regular Sunday Mass attendance; reception of the Holy Eucharist in a state of grace; visits to the Blessed Sacrament; use of the Sacrament of Confession; a prayer life; practice of mortification; Bible reading; spiritual reading; meditation; the acquisition of virtues; the fight against sin; Christian laws; etc. ― all these have fallen into disrepute and disuse―there is simply little or no interest in these things anymore.
Today’s modern person would have a heart-attack if you tried to convince them that “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
Based on the above principle, much of modern legislation falls into the category of being “a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God.” What else can you say of laws that promote abortion, contraception, same-sex marriages, divorce, homosexuality, transgenderism, etc.?
We have truly entered a period of time where true good is increasingly seen as being ‘evil’―and evil is increasingly being seen as something that is ‘good’. Holy Scripture condemns such an attitude: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20). We need to return to true values, “hating that which is evil, cleaving to that which is good” (Romans 12:9).
Warnings of Woe of Old
Already way back in the Old Testament, God lays down the law and paints two different pictures of what will happen (1) if we obey His laws, and (2) if we disobey His laws. “If you walk in My precepts, and keep My commandments, and do them, then I will give you rain in due seasons. And the ground shall bring forth its increase, and the trees shall be filled with fruit. The threshing of your harvest shall last unto the vintage, and the vintage shall last unto the sowing time: and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land without fear. I will give peace in your coasts: you shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid. I will take away evil beasts: and the sword shall not pass through your quarters. You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you. Five of yours shall pursue a hundred others, and a hundred of you ten thousand: your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. I will look on you, and make you increase: you shall be multiplied, and I will establish My covenant with you. You shall eat the oldest of the old store, and, new coming on, you shall cast away the old. I will set My tabernacle in the midst of you, and My soul shall not cast you off. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people. But if you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments, if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me, and to make void My covenant, then …” (Leviticus 26:3-14) … then, for not “paying the price” and not obeying all is commanded, God says:
“I will quickly visit you with poverty, and burning heat, which shall waste your eyes, and consume your lives. You shall sow your seed in vain, which shall be devoured by your enemies. I will set My face against you, and you shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you. I will break the pride of your stubbornness, and I will make to you the Heaven above as iron, and the Earth as brass! Your labor shall be spent in vain, the ground shall not bring forth her increase, nor the trees yield their fruit. I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins! And I will send in upon you beasts, to destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number, and that your highways may be desolate. And I will bring in upon you the sword. And when you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies! I will destroy and break your idols. You shall fall among the ruins of your idols, and My soul shall abhor you. I will bring your cities to be a wilderness. And I will destroy your land. And I will scatter you, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed. You shall perish among the Gentiles, and an enemy’s land shall consume you. And if some of them still remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies, and they shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers, and their own―until they confess their iniquities and the iniquities of their ancestors, by which they have sinned against Me, and walked contrary unto Me. Then shall they pray for their sins!” (Leviticus 26:16-41).
All Talk and No Action?
Is all of that just heavenly “hot-air”―all talk and no action; full of threats that are never carried out? Not in the slightest!
Just look at some of God’s actions in both the Old and New Testament times! Sodom and Gomorrha are destroyed by fire and brimstone, because “the men of Sodom were very wicked, and sinners before the face of the Lord, beyond measure” (Genesis 13:13).
In the time of Noe, God wiped out the inhabitants of the WHOLE EARTH because of sin: “And the Earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity. And when God had seen that the Earth was corrupted―for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the Earth―God said to Noe: ‘The end of all flesh is come before Me, the Earth is filled with iniquity through them, and I will destroy them with the Earth! … I will bring the waters of a great flood upon the Earth, to destroy all flesh! All things that are on the Earth shall be consumed!’” (Genesis 6:5-17).
God punished the Israelites after the Exodus with a death sentence for disobeying God’s command to invade and conquer the “Promised Land”, whereby all Israelites who were of adult age upon leaving Egypt were condemned to die during their 40 years of wandering in the desert wilderness―the numbers who were condemned to die by God were in the millions (since the entire population of Israelites under Moses was estimated to be anywhere from 4 to 6 million): “The whole multitude―all the children of Israel―wept and murmured that night, saying: ‘Would to God that the Lord may not bring us into this land, lest we fall by the sword, and our wives and children be led away captives. Is it not better to return into Egypt?’ And they said one to another: ‘Let us appoint a leader, and let us return into Egypt!’ And the Lord said: ‘How long will this people detract me? How long will they not believe me for all the signs that I have wrought before them? I will strike them therefore with pestilence, and will consume them! … All the men that have seen my majesty, and the signs that I have done in Egypt, and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now ten times, and have not obeyed my voice, those men shall not see the Promised Land for which I promised to their fathers, neither shall any one of them that hath detracted me see the Promised Land! … In the wilderness shall your carcasses lie. All you that were numbered from twenty years old and upward, and have murmured against Me, shall not enter into the Promised Land! … But your children will I bring in―that they may see the Promised Land which you have despised! Your carcasses shall lie in the wilderness! Your children shall wander in the desert forty years, and shall bear your fornication, until the carcasses of their fathers be consumed in the desert! And for forty years you shall receive your iniquities and shall know My revenge! For as I have spoken, so will I do to all this wicked multitude, that hath risen up together against me, and in this wilderness shall they faint away and die!’” (Numbers 14:1). Those were God’s own Chosen People―yet that did not stop God from punishing them. “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required―and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48).
Then, after having entered the Promised Land in the 13th century B.C., in less than 200 years the Israelites reject God as their king, and want a mere human for a king―who turns out to be Saul (1029 BC). From here on, things start to spiral downwards―the house or 12 tribes of Israel was divided into two kingdoms. They became the Kingdom of Juda, or the Southern Kingdom of Israel, with its capital at Jerusalem. The other 10 tribes became the Northern Kingdom of Israel, with capital at Shechem in Samaria. On the whole, Juda remained more faithful to God. Almost as soon as the Northern Kingdom of Israel was established, it fell onto idolatry and apostasy. Although great prophets such as Elias and Amos ministered in the Northern Kingdom, the people worshiped false gods and adopted many practices of Baalism. The Southern Kingdom (Juda) would follow the same path a little later. Consequently, God decided to destroy both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel (His Chosen People!!). In the 720s BC, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was invaded and crushed by the Assyrians and all the 10 Tribes of the Northern Kingdom were taken away in exile and assimilated into various pagan populations, which eventually led to their extinction. Then in 588 BC, Babylonia’s King Nabuchodonosor laid siege to Jerusalem. The siege lasted for over a year―food supplies ran out and many Jews resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. Jerusalem finally fell, the Babylonians invaded and crushed it, knocked down the mighty walls of Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple to God and the city―virtually putting an end to the Kingdom of Juda, as most of its people of nobility, wealth, intellectualism and leadership were taken away as captives into Babylon. According to historians and archeologists, as a result of the deportations and executions caused by the Babylonians, plus the famines and epidemics that occurred during the war, the population of Juda was reduced to barely a 10% of what it had been in the time before deportations.
Crossing over from the Old to the New Testament times, we see another destruction of Jerusalem―this time at the hands of the Romans. Our Lord had prophesied this destruction as a consequence of the general rejection of Christ by Jews and Jerusalem. As you sow, so shall you reap―they killed Christ by using the Romans to crucify Him, therefore Divine Providence arranged that they, in their turn, be also killed at the hands of the Romans. In April 70 AD, three days before Passover (therefore around the same time that Christ was besieged, arrested tortured and killed), the Roman army started besieging Jerusalem. Within three weeks, the Roman army broke the first two walls of the city, but a stubborn Jewish standoff prevented them from penetrating the thickest and third wall. The contemporary Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, writes that the city was ravaged by murder, famine and cannibalism. Resistance continued for another month, but eventually the upper and lower parts of the city were taken as well. Eventually, after a brutal five-month siege, the Romans destroyed the city and the Second Jewish Temple and the city was burned to the ground. It is improbable that many Jews survived in Jerusalem or the surrounding area after the city’s destruction. During the siege of Jerusalem by Titus in AD 70, 500 Jews were crucified each day for several months. A significant portion of the people of the area is thought to have been driven from the land or at the very least displaced, and many were sold as slaves. Josephus wrote that 1.1 million people were killed during the siege, of which a majority were Jewish. Josephus attributes this to the celebration of Passover, which always flooded Jerusalem with pilgrims, as the reason for the vast number of people present among the death toll.
No Change With God
One might be tempted to say: “O that is the God of old―He is no longer like that!” However, God gives the answer to that statement: “I am the Lord and I change not!” (Malachias 3:6). “Thou art the selfsame!” (Hebrews 1:12). “There is no change, nor shadow of alteration, with the Father of lights” (James 1:17). That is why Our Lady’s modern-day messages and warnings are essentially the same as the above passage from Leviticus―she threatens the same dire consequences for sin and disobedience. To Blessed Sister Elena Aiello (1895-1961)―mystic, stigmatic, victim soul, prophetess and foundress of the Minim Tertiaries of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ―Our Lady, in an apparition on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, 1956, said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! Materialism marches on ever fomenting bloody strifes and fratricidal struggles. Clear signs warn that peace is in danger. That scourge, like the shadow of a dark cloud, is now moving across mankind―only my power, as Mother of God, is preventing the outbreak of the storm. All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
Around the same time as Our Lady revealed the above to Blessed Elena Aiello in Italy in 1956, over in Portugal another beneficiary of Our Lady’s apparitions, Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed in 1957: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!”
Sixteen years later, in 1976, Our Lady of Akita (in Japan) reiterates all this and adds fuel to the fire, so to speak, saying: “In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind. With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father ... Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this! … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
There are host of prophecies, over the centuries, coming from Saints, Blesseds, Venerables, mystics and seers that dove-tail with, corroborate and add to the moral certainty of all the above:
► ST. JOHN BOSCO (1815-1888) was given this message by Our Lord: “War, pestilence and famine are the rods to scourge men’s pride and wickedness … The Creator will make Himself recognized with the rod of His wrath! Woe to you, if you do not recognize the hand that strikes you! I want to punish immorality, and the despising of and the contempt for My Law!”
► ST. METHODIUS, a 4th century bishop and martyr, prophesied: “In the last period, Christians will not appreciate the great grace of God … They will be very ungrateful, lead a sinful life, in pride, vanity, unchastity, frivolity, hatred, avarice, gluttony, and many other vices, so that the sins of men will stink more than a pestilence before God. Many will doubt whether the Catholic Faith is the true and only saving one … The just God will, as a consequence, give Lucifer and all his devils power to come on Earth and tempt his godless creatures.”
► ST. ODILE, a 7th century French saint, prophesied: “There will come a time when war will break out, more terrible than all other wars combined, which have ever visited mankind ... All nations of the Earth will fight each other in this war … Battles of the past will only be skirmishes compared to the battles that will take place, since blood will flow in all directions. The Earth will shake from the violent fighting. Famine and pestilence will join the war.”
► ST. HILDEGARD OF BINGEN (1098-1179), prophesied: “Toward the end of the world, mankind will be purified through sufferings ... Before the Comet comes, many nations―except for the good nations―will be scoured with poverty and famine ... The Comet, by its tremendous pressure, will force much out of the ocean and flood many countries, causing much poverty and many plagues. All coastal cities will be fearful and many of them will be destroyed by tidal waves, and most living creatures will be killed and even those who escape will die from a horrible disease. For in none of these cities does a person live according to the laws of God.”
► JOHANNES FRIEDE, a 13th century Austrian monk, prophesied: “When the great time will come, in which mankind will face its last, hard trial, it will be foreshadowed by striking changes in nature; the alteration between cold and heat will become more intensive, storms will have more catastrophic effects, earthquakes will destroy greater regions and the seas will overflow many lowlands. Not all of it will be the result of natural causes, but man will penetrate into the bowels of the Earth and will reach into the clouds, gambling with its own existence.”
► THE LIBER MIRABILIS, a collection of Medieval Latin prophecies that were first published in the 1500s, speaks of chastisement where “all elements will become altered; the Earth, in many places, will be in a dreadful state of collapse and all living things will be swallowed up. Numerous strong towns and cities will be shattered and collapse in earthquakes … The sea will scream out and raise itself against the whole world. The air will be dirty and be polluted because of the grossness and discord of men … The air will completely change and because of pestilence, illness through it will break out, and will completely spoiled. Men will become like animals from the various new diseases. They will be overcome and die suddenly. An indescribable plague will break out from a sudden and terrible famine and will torment men. It will be such great suffering in the whole world, and there is nowhere that this will not find its place. Since the beginning of the world there has been nothing as horrible as this.”
► SR. MARY OF JESUS CRUCIFIED, a 19th century nun, prophesied: “All states will be shaken by war and civil conflict. During a darkness lasting three days the people given to evil ways will perish―so that only one-fourth of mankind will survive.”
► HEPIDANUS, an 11th century Swiss monk, prophesied: “From North to South, the world will be split into two mighty hosts. The North will march against the South, the son against the father, and bring misfortune with him across the mountains as the night follows the day... A gloomy cloud will appear, and a terrible tempest will come forth from this cloud. It will consume a third of mankind, still living then. And it will destroy a third of all the crops, villages, and cities, and there will be a great misery and lamentation.”
► MATHIAS LANG (1753 to 1820), a layman from Bavaria, made the following prediction around 100 years before the First World War: “After the Great War there will be no peace. The people will rise and all will fight against each other... The World War will not make people better but much worse ... Religious Faith will decline; priests will not be respected; people will be intent only on eating and drinking; there will be many immensely rich people and large amounts of paupers … Two or three decades after the First World War, it will come one a Second World War still larger. Almost all the nations of the world will be involved. Millions of men will die, without being soldiers. The fire will fall from the sky and many great cities will be destroyed. And after the end of the Second Great War, a Third World War will come. The weapons will be totally new. In one day, more men will die than in all the previous wars. The battles will be accomplished with artificial weapons. Gigantic catastrophes will happen. With the open eyes, the nations of the planet will go through these catastrophes. They won’t know what is happening, and those that know and tell, will be silenced. Everything will be different from before, and in many places the Earth will be a great cemetery. The Third World War will be the end of many nations ... When women walk around in pants, and men have become effeminate, so that one will no longer be able to tell men from women, then the time is near.”
► FR. NECTOU, S.J., an 18th century priest, prophesied: “At that time there will be such a terrible crisis that people will believe that the end of the world has come. Blood will flow in many large cities. The very elements will be convulsed. It will be like a little General Judgment. A great multitude of people will lose their lives in those calamitous times, but the wicked will not prevail. During the worst crisis, the best that can be done would be to remain where God has placed us, and persevere in fervent prayers”
► SR. MARIE DEHENNY, an early 19th century nun in France, prophesied: “The sea will reverse in foamy waves upon the Earth. Indeed, our planet will become one huge cemetery. The bodies of the impious as well as with those of the just will cover the soil. The famine which will follow will be enormous; all the vegetation of the Earth will be destroyed as also will be three-fourths of mankind. The crisis will come suddenly and the disaster will be universal. The punishment will be the same all over the world!”
► POPE PIUS XII (1876-1958), stated: “We believe that the present hour is a dreadful phase of the events foretold by Christ! It seems that darkness is about to fall on the world! Humanity is in the grip of a supreme crisis!”
► POPE JOHN PAUL II, when questioned about the Third Secret of Fatima while visiting Fulda in Germany in 1980, said: Pope John Paul II replied: “Given the seriousness of the contents, my predecessors in the Petrine office diplomatically preferred to postpone publication, so as not to encourage the world power of Communism to make certain moves. On the other hand, it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this: if there is a message in which it is written that the oceans will flood whole areas of the Earth, and that from one moment to the next millions of people will perish, truly the publication of such a message is no longer something to be so much desired … We must prepare ourselves to suffer great trials before long, such as will demand of us a disposition to give up even life, and a total dedication to Christ and for Christ! … With your and my prayer it is possible to mitigate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because only thus can the Church be effectively renewed! How many times has the renewal of the Church sprung from blood! This time too―it will not be otherwise! We must be strong and prepared, and trust in Christ and His Mother, and be very, very assiduous in praying the Rosary!”
In short, these times will be like Hell on Earth! All because we do not wish to obey God’s Laws and Commandments! This is something that we should all be speaking about, praying about, doing much penance for, and making many sacrifices for the mitigation (softening) of what will inescapably come.
Hell During Eastertime! What the Hell?
Hell is not something that is seasonal―it is an all-year-round reality. Even during Easter time souls fall into Hell. You may have heard of the phrase: “The Four Last Things” ― this a phrase that Holy Mother Church uses to refer to four of the most important things that should occupy our thoughts―these are Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. Sister Lucia of Fatima said to a Cardinal who was visiting her: “Hell is a reality! ... Continue to preach about Hell―for Our Lord Himself spoke of Hell and it is in the Holy Scriptures. God condemns no one to Hell. People condemn themselves to Hell. God has given mankind the freedom of choice, and He respects this human freedom!”
In her Memoirs, Sister Lucia also writes: “The most Blessed Virgin said: ‘Many souls go to Hell!’ Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the Earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. We then looked up at Our Lady, who said to us so kindly and so sadly: ‘You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go!’ Some people, even the most devout, refuse to speak to children about Hell, in case it would frighten them. Yet God did not hesitate to show Hell to three children, one of whom was only six years old, knowing well that they would be horrified to the point of, I would almost dare to say, withering away with fear!”
On the subject of Liberal minds―mentioned earlier in this article―we have the instance of a Liberal priest from Rome interviewing Sister Lucia of Fatima. The following is an extract from a rare interview with Sister Lucia by Father Lombardi. It was recorded in the Vatican weekly “Osservatore della Domenica” on February 7th, 1954.
Fr. Lombardi: “Tell me, is the ‘Better World Movement’ a response of the Church to the words spoken to Our Lady?”
Sr. Lucia: “Father, there is certainly a great need for this renewal. If it is not done, and taking into account the present development of humanity, only a limited number of the human race will be saved!”
Fr. Lombardi: “Do you really believe that many will go to Hell? I hope that God will save the greater part of humanity.” [He had just written a rather optimistic book entitled: Salvation for Those Without Faith]
Sr. Lucia: “Father, many will be lost!”
Fr. Lombardi: “It is true that the world is full of evil―but there is always a hope of salvation!”
Sr. Lucia: “No Father, many will be lost!”
Father Lombardi remembered that Lucia had seen Hell and added: “Her words disturbed me! I returned to Italy with that grave warning impressed on my heart!” If only those words―and all of the above words―would disturb US and impress a grave warning on OUR hearts! But that is not the case, is it? All the warnings we ever hear―and however many times we may hear them―are just like water flowing off a duck’s back! We have become “waterproofed” to Heaven’s warnings, we are “impermeable”, “anesthetized” and “numb” to the waters of divine grace. Instead of causing us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling―“with fear and trembling work out your salvation” (Philippians 2:12)―we continue to insanely imagine that we will work out our salvation through feasting, frolicking, fun and festivities! As Our Lady of La Salette warned: “People will think of nothing but amusement!”
Those last words of Our Lady ― “People will think of nothing but amusement!” ― are nothing new. Heaven had already foretold that through many Saints, Blesseds, Venerables, mystics and seers over the centuries. The crisis and chastisement will come at a time when “Men will surrender to the spirit of the age” (St. Anthony the Great 251-356) … “After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century, the people’s minds will grow cloudy from carnal passions, and dishonor and lawlessness will grow stronger. People will abandon modesty, and dissipation will reign. Falsehood and greed will attain great proportions, and woe to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, homosexuality, secret deeds and murder will rule in society” (St. Nilus, around 400 AD) … “People will be intent only on eating and drinking” (Mathias Lang, 1753-1820) … “People will speak only of money” (Abbé Voclin) … “God will punish the world when men have devised marvelous inventions that will lead them to forgetting God. They will laugh at the idea of God, thinking that they are very clever. They will indulge in voluptuousness, and lewd fashions will be seen.” (Blessed Rembordt, 18th century) … “Many will forget God and they will worship only their own human intelligence … Men will build a box and within it will be some kind of device with images (television/computer/smartphone) … With the help of this device, man will be able to see everything that is happening all over the world” (Mitar Tarabich, 1829-1899) … “A small box with round knobs will bring mankind joy and desire into the smallest rooms. Music, frolic and laughter come from this remarkable thing, and people shall listen to the good and bad words” (The Seeress of Prague, 18th century).
Only a fool can be blind to the fact that all of this refers to our days―which is why Sister Lucia of Fatima said that Our Lady revealed to us that we have entered the “Last Times” (but not yet the end of the world―for we first have to undergo a terrible chastisement, then see the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart, and then fall into the abyss of sin once again before the Antichrist appears). But what are we doing? We―who are supposed to be light of the world and the salt of the Earth: “You are the salt of the Earth! But if the salt lose its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more, but to be cast out and to be trodden on by men. You are the light of the world! A city seated on a mountain cannot be hidden! Neither do men light a candle and then put it under a bucket, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:13-16).
Being of the Catholic Faith, we have been given far more than those who do not have the Faith―yet along with being given more, also comes more responsibility: “That servant who knew the will of his lord, and prepared not himself and did not according to his will, he shall be beaten with many stripes! But he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:47-48). That is why the deepest pit of Hell is reserved for Catholics! Just above that is the pit reserved for the Jews. Everyone else in Hell has less deep pits in which they will suffer eternally.
So let us get back on track! Let us turn our back on the world that has seduced us! Let us turn to those things that Heaven has been recommending to us―the Holy Mass, Holy Communion, the Holy Rosary, penance, sacrifices and all the other recommended prayers and Sacramentals that have been shown to us, such as the Brown Scapular, the Miraculous Medal, etc. Above all let us remain in a state of sanctifying grace―and use the Sacrament of Confession if we have lost the state of grace. Let us also avoid picking and choosing in matters of the Faith and observe all things that Christ has taught us through His Church.
In the Gospel for the Easter Friday (within the Octave of Easter) in the Traditional Latin Rite or Extraordinary Rite, we read: “In that time: the Eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And seeing Him they adored―but some doubted. And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: ‘All power is given to Me in Heaven and on Earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you! And, behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world!’” (Matthew 28:16-20).
Within that passage we have the words: “Teach all nations … teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” With these words, Our Lord is basically saying: “Do as I tell you! There is no picking and choosing!” He demands that we OBSERVE ALL THINGS that He has taught. Come to think of it―that is how we like things to be when we are in charge or in command of something, isn’t it? Being the person in charge, the “boss”, the leader, the parent, the teacher, etc. ― we expect those who are under our charge to do what we want and command them to do! We don’t allow those who are under our charge to pick and choose what they will follow and obey. If we are like that, then all the more is God like that―for He is the “Supreme Boss”, the Creator of all things, the Ruler of the Heaven and Earth and the whole Universe. Obedience is therefore owed to Him. These words are unpleasant words for the modern mind―which is the Liberal mind―a mind which decides and judges for itself what it wants to believe and accept.
Man Replaces God
Man, today, has become a god unto himself. Modern man ignores what God teaches and replaces God’s teachings with man’s own preferences. Man no longer needs God to tell him what is right and wrong, good and evil―he can choose and decide for himself. The fact that this is so blatantly true is seen in today’s widespread acceptance of abortion, contraception, cohabitation, divorce, same-sex relationships and ‘marriages’, promiscuity, immodesty, adultery, fornication, drunkenness, drug abuse, etc. All these evils are now seen as ‘good’ ― or at least tolerable, permissible and acceptable. Even most modern-day Catholics either tolerate or accept such things―the remainder are silent and do not speak out against such things.
Holy Scripture warned of this: “Know that in the last days shall come dangerous times! Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God―indeed, having an appearance of godliness, but denying the power of God! Now these avoid!” (2 Timothy 3:1-5). “For there shall be a time, when they will no longer endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears―and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables!” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
While on the other hand, truly good things, such as living in a state of sanctifying grace; regular Sunday Mass attendance; reception of the Holy Eucharist in a state of grace; visits to the Blessed Sacrament; use of the Sacrament of Confession; a prayer life; practice of mortification; Bible reading; spiritual reading; meditation; the acquisition of virtues; the fight against sin; Christian laws; etc. ― all these have fallen into disrepute and disuse―there is simply little or no interest in these things anymore.
Today’s modern person would have a heart-attack if you tried to convince them that “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
Based on the above principle, much of modern legislation falls into the category of being “a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God.” What else can you say of laws that promote abortion, contraception, same-sex marriages, divorce, homosexuality, transgenderism, etc.?
We have truly entered a period of time where true good is increasingly seen as being ‘evil’―and evil is increasingly being seen as something that is ‘good’. Holy Scripture condemns such an attitude: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20). We need to return to true values, “hating that which is evil, cleaving to that which is good” (Romans 12:9).
Warnings of Woe of Old
Already way back in the Old Testament, God lays down the law and paints two different pictures of what will happen (1) if we obey His laws, and (2) if we disobey His laws. “If you walk in My precepts, and keep My commandments, and do them, then I will give you rain in due seasons. And the ground shall bring forth its increase, and the trees shall be filled with fruit. The threshing of your harvest shall last unto the vintage, and the vintage shall last unto the sowing time: and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land without fear. I will give peace in your coasts: you shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid. I will take away evil beasts: and the sword shall not pass through your quarters. You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you. Five of yours shall pursue a hundred others, and a hundred of you ten thousand: your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. I will look on you, and make you increase: you shall be multiplied, and I will establish My covenant with you. You shall eat the oldest of the old store, and, new coming on, you shall cast away the old. I will set My tabernacle in the midst of you, and My soul shall not cast you off. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people. But if you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments, if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me, and to make void My covenant, then …” (Leviticus 26:3-14) … then, for not “paying the price” and not obeying all is commanded, God says:
“I will quickly visit you with poverty, and burning heat, which shall waste your eyes, and consume your lives. You shall sow your seed in vain, which shall be devoured by your enemies. I will set My face against you, and you shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you. I will break the pride of your stubbornness, and I will make to you the Heaven above as iron, and the Earth as brass! Your labor shall be spent in vain, the ground shall not bring forth her increase, nor the trees yield their fruit. I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins! And I will send in upon you beasts, to destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number, and that your highways may be desolate. And I will bring in upon you the sword. And when you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies! I will destroy and break your idols. You shall fall among the ruins of your idols, and My soul shall abhor you. I will bring your cities to be a wilderness. And I will destroy your land. And I will scatter you, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed. You shall perish among the Gentiles, and an enemy’s land shall consume you. And if some of them still remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies, and they shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers, and their own―until they confess their iniquities and the iniquities of their ancestors, by which they have sinned against Me, and walked contrary unto Me. Then shall they pray for their sins!” (Leviticus 26:16-41).
All Talk and No Action?
Is all of that just heavenly “hot-air”―all talk and no action; full of threats that are never carried out? Not in the slightest!
Just look at some of God’s actions in both the Old and New Testament times! Sodom and Gomorrha are destroyed by fire and brimstone, because “the men of Sodom were very wicked, and sinners before the face of the Lord, beyond measure” (Genesis 13:13).
In the time of Noe, God wiped out the inhabitants of the WHOLE EARTH because of sin: “And the Earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity. And when God had seen that the Earth was corrupted―for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the Earth―God said to Noe: ‘The end of all flesh is come before Me, the Earth is filled with iniquity through them, and I will destroy them with the Earth! … I will bring the waters of a great flood upon the Earth, to destroy all flesh! All things that are on the Earth shall be consumed!’” (Genesis 6:5-17).
God punished the Israelites after the Exodus with a death sentence for disobeying God’s command to invade and conquer the “Promised Land”, whereby all Israelites who were of adult age upon leaving Egypt were condemned to die during their 40 years of wandering in the desert wilderness―the numbers who were condemned to die by God were in the millions (since the entire population of Israelites under Moses was estimated to be anywhere from 4 to 6 million): “The whole multitude―all the children of Israel―wept and murmured that night, saying: ‘Would to God that the Lord may not bring us into this land, lest we fall by the sword, and our wives and children be led away captives. Is it not better to return into Egypt?’ And they said one to another: ‘Let us appoint a leader, and let us return into Egypt!’ And the Lord said: ‘How long will this people detract me? How long will they not believe me for all the signs that I have wrought before them? I will strike them therefore with pestilence, and will consume them! … All the men that have seen my majesty, and the signs that I have done in Egypt, and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now ten times, and have not obeyed my voice, those men shall not see the Promised Land for which I promised to their fathers, neither shall any one of them that hath detracted me see the Promised Land! … In the wilderness shall your carcasses lie. All you that were numbered from twenty years old and upward, and have murmured against Me, shall not enter into the Promised Land! … But your children will I bring in―that they may see the Promised Land which you have despised! Your carcasses shall lie in the wilderness! Your children shall wander in the desert forty years, and shall bear your fornication, until the carcasses of their fathers be consumed in the desert! And for forty years you shall receive your iniquities and shall know My revenge! For as I have spoken, so will I do to all this wicked multitude, that hath risen up together against me, and in this wilderness shall they faint away and die!’” (Numbers 14:1). Those were God’s own Chosen People―yet that did not stop God from punishing them. “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required―and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48).
Then, after having entered the Promised Land in the 13th century B.C., in less than 200 years the Israelites reject God as their king, and want a mere human for a king―who turns out to be Saul (1029 BC). From here on, things start to spiral downwards―the house or 12 tribes of Israel was divided into two kingdoms. They became the Kingdom of Juda, or the Southern Kingdom of Israel, with its capital at Jerusalem. The other 10 tribes became the Northern Kingdom of Israel, with capital at Shechem in Samaria. On the whole, Juda remained more faithful to God. Almost as soon as the Northern Kingdom of Israel was established, it fell onto idolatry and apostasy. Although great prophets such as Elias and Amos ministered in the Northern Kingdom, the people worshiped false gods and adopted many practices of Baalism. The Southern Kingdom (Juda) would follow the same path a little later. Consequently, God decided to destroy both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel (His Chosen People!!). In the 720s BC, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was invaded and crushed by the Assyrians and all the 10 Tribes of the Northern Kingdom were taken away in exile and assimilated into various pagan populations, which eventually led to their extinction. Then in 588 BC, Babylonia’s King Nabuchodonosor laid siege to Jerusalem. The siege lasted for over a year―food supplies ran out and many Jews resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. Jerusalem finally fell, the Babylonians invaded and crushed it, knocked down the mighty walls of Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple to God and the city―virtually putting an end to the Kingdom of Juda, as most of its people of nobility, wealth, intellectualism and leadership were taken away as captives into Babylon. According to historians and archeologists, as a result of the deportations and executions caused by the Babylonians, plus the famines and epidemics that occurred during the war, the population of Juda was reduced to barely a 10% of what it had been in the time before deportations.
Crossing over from the Old to the New Testament times, we see another destruction of Jerusalem―this time at the hands of the Romans. Our Lord had prophesied this destruction as a consequence of the general rejection of Christ by Jews and Jerusalem. As you sow, so shall you reap―they killed Christ by using the Romans to crucify Him, therefore Divine Providence arranged that they, in their turn, be also killed at the hands of the Romans. In April 70 AD, three days before Passover (therefore around the same time that Christ was besieged, arrested tortured and killed), the Roman army started besieging Jerusalem. Within three weeks, the Roman army broke the first two walls of the city, but a stubborn Jewish standoff prevented them from penetrating the thickest and third wall. The contemporary Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, writes that the city was ravaged by murder, famine and cannibalism. Resistance continued for another month, but eventually the upper and lower parts of the city were taken as well. Eventually, after a brutal five-month siege, the Romans destroyed the city and the Second Jewish Temple and the city was burned to the ground. It is improbable that many Jews survived in Jerusalem or the surrounding area after the city’s destruction. During the siege of Jerusalem by Titus in AD 70, 500 Jews were crucified each day for several months. A significant portion of the people of the area is thought to have been driven from the land or at the very least displaced, and many were sold as slaves. Josephus wrote that 1.1 million people were killed during the siege, of which a majority were Jewish. Josephus attributes this to the celebration of Passover, which always flooded Jerusalem with pilgrims, as the reason for the vast number of people present among the death toll.
No Change With God
One might be tempted to say: “O that is the God of old―He is no longer like that!” However, God gives the answer to that statement: “I am the Lord and I change not!” (Malachias 3:6). “Thou art the selfsame!” (Hebrews 1:12). “There is no change, nor shadow of alteration, with the Father of lights” (James 1:17). That is why Our Lady’s modern-day messages and warnings are essentially the same as the above passage from Leviticus―she threatens the same dire consequences for sin and disobedience. To Blessed Sister Elena Aiello (1895-1961)―mystic, stigmatic, victim soul, prophetess and foundress of the Minim Tertiaries of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ―Our Lady, in an apparition on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, 1956, said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! Materialism marches on ever fomenting bloody strifes and fratricidal struggles. Clear signs warn that peace is in danger. That scourge, like the shadow of a dark cloud, is now moving across mankind―only my power, as Mother of God, is preventing the outbreak of the storm. All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
Around the same time as Our Lady revealed the above to Blessed Elena Aiello in Italy in 1956, over in Portugal another beneficiary of Our Lady’s apparitions, Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed in 1957: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!”
Sixteen years later, in 1976, Our Lady of Akita (in Japan) reiterates all this and adds fuel to the fire, so to speak, saying: “In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind. With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father ... Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this! … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
There are host of prophecies, over the centuries, coming from Saints, Blesseds, Venerables, mystics and seers that dove-tail with, corroborate and add to the moral certainty of all the above:
► ST. JOHN BOSCO (1815-1888) was given this message by Our Lord: “War, pestilence and famine are the rods to scourge men’s pride and wickedness … The Creator will make Himself recognized with the rod of His wrath! Woe to you, if you do not recognize the hand that strikes you! I want to punish immorality, and the despising of and the contempt for My Law!”
► ST. METHODIUS, a 4th century bishop and martyr, prophesied: “In the last period, Christians will not appreciate the great grace of God … They will be very ungrateful, lead a sinful life, in pride, vanity, unchastity, frivolity, hatred, avarice, gluttony, and many other vices, so that the sins of men will stink more than a pestilence before God. Many will doubt whether the Catholic Faith is the true and only saving one … The just God will, as a consequence, give Lucifer and all his devils power to come on Earth and tempt his godless creatures.”
► ST. ODILE, a 7th century French saint, prophesied: “There will come a time when war will break out, more terrible than all other wars combined, which have ever visited mankind ... All nations of the Earth will fight each other in this war … Battles of the past will only be skirmishes compared to the battles that will take place, since blood will flow in all directions. The Earth will shake from the violent fighting. Famine and pestilence will join the war.”
► ST. HILDEGARD OF BINGEN (1098-1179), prophesied: “Toward the end of the world, mankind will be purified through sufferings ... Before the Comet comes, many nations―except for the good nations―will be scoured with poverty and famine ... The Comet, by its tremendous pressure, will force much out of the ocean and flood many countries, causing much poverty and many plagues. All coastal cities will be fearful and many of them will be destroyed by tidal waves, and most living creatures will be killed and even those who escape will die from a horrible disease. For in none of these cities does a person live according to the laws of God.”
► JOHANNES FRIEDE, a 13th century Austrian monk, prophesied: “When the great time will come, in which mankind will face its last, hard trial, it will be foreshadowed by striking changes in nature; the alteration between cold and heat will become more intensive, storms will have more catastrophic effects, earthquakes will destroy greater regions and the seas will overflow many lowlands. Not all of it will be the result of natural causes, but man will penetrate into the bowels of the Earth and will reach into the clouds, gambling with its own existence.”
► THE LIBER MIRABILIS, a collection of Medieval Latin prophecies that were first published in the 1500s, speaks of chastisement where “all elements will become altered; the Earth, in many places, will be in a dreadful state of collapse and all living things will be swallowed up. Numerous strong towns and cities will be shattered and collapse in earthquakes … The sea will scream out and raise itself against the whole world. The air will be dirty and be polluted because of the grossness and discord of men … The air will completely change and because of pestilence, illness through it will break out, and will completely spoiled. Men will become like animals from the various new diseases. They will be overcome and die suddenly. An indescribable plague will break out from a sudden and terrible famine and will torment men. It will be such great suffering in the whole world, and there is nowhere that this will not find its place. Since the beginning of the world there has been nothing as horrible as this.”
► SR. MARY OF JESUS CRUCIFIED, a 19th century nun, prophesied: “All states will be shaken by war and civil conflict. During a darkness lasting three days the people given to evil ways will perish―so that only one-fourth of mankind will survive.”
► HEPIDANUS, an 11th century Swiss monk, prophesied: “From North to South, the world will be split into two mighty hosts. The North will march against the South, the son against the father, and bring misfortune with him across the mountains as the night follows the day... A gloomy cloud will appear, and a terrible tempest will come forth from this cloud. It will consume a third of mankind, still living then. And it will destroy a third of all the crops, villages, and cities, and there will be a great misery and lamentation.”
► MATHIAS LANG (1753 to 1820), a layman from Bavaria, made the following prediction around 100 years before the First World War: “After the Great War there will be no peace. The people will rise and all will fight against each other... The World War will not make people better but much worse ... Religious Faith will decline; priests will not be respected; people will be intent only on eating and drinking; there will be many immensely rich people and large amounts of paupers … Two or three decades after the First World War, it will come one a Second World War still larger. Almost all the nations of the world will be involved. Millions of men will die, without being soldiers. The fire will fall from the sky and many great cities will be destroyed. And after the end of the Second Great War, a Third World War will come. The weapons will be totally new. In one day, more men will die than in all the previous wars. The battles will be accomplished with artificial weapons. Gigantic catastrophes will happen. With the open eyes, the nations of the planet will go through these catastrophes. They won’t know what is happening, and those that know and tell, will be silenced. Everything will be different from before, and in many places the Earth will be a great cemetery. The Third World War will be the end of many nations ... When women walk around in pants, and men have become effeminate, so that one will no longer be able to tell men from women, then the time is near.”
► FR. NECTOU, S.J., an 18th century priest, prophesied: “At that time there will be such a terrible crisis that people will believe that the end of the world has come. Blood will flow in many large cities. The very elements will be convulsed. It will be like a little General Judgment. A great multitude of people will lose their lives in those calamitous times, but the wicked will not prevail. During the worst crisis, the best that can be done would be to remain where God has placed us, and persevere in fervent prayers”
► SR. MARIE DEHENNY, an early 19th century nun in France, prophesied: “The sea will reverse in foamy waves upon the Earth. Indeed, our planet will become one huge cemetery. The bodies of the impious as well as with those of the just will cover the soil. The famine which will follow will be enormous; all the vegetation of the Earth will be destroyed as also will be three-fourths of mankind. The crisis will come suddenly and the disaster will be universal. The punishment will be the same all over the world!”
► POPE PIUS XII (1876-1958), stated: “We believe that the present hour is a dreadful phase of the events foretold by Christ! It seems that darkness is about to fall on the world! Humanity is in the grip of a supreme crisis!”
► POPE JOHN PAUL II, when questioned about the Third Secret of Fatima while visiting Fulda in Germany in 1980, said: Pope John Paul II replied: “Given the seriousness of the contents, my predecessors in the Petrine office diplomatically preferred to postpone publication, so as not to encourage the world power of Communism to make certain moves. On the other hand, it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this: if there is a message in which it is written that the oceans will flood whole areas of the Earth, and that from one moment to the next millions of people will perish, truly the publication of such a message is no longer something to be so much desired … We must prepare ourselves to suffer great trials before long, such as will demand of us a disposition to give up even life, and a total dedication to Christ and for Christ! … With your and my prayer it is possible to mitigate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because only thus can the Church be effectively renewed! How many times has the renewal of the Church sprung from blood! This time too―it will not be otherwise! We must be strong and prepared, and trust in Christ and His Mother, and be very, very assiduous in praying the Rosary!”
In short, these times will be like Hell on Earth! All because we do not wish to obey God’s Laws and Commandments! This is something that we should all be speaking about, praying about, doing much penance for, and making many sacrifices for the mitigation (softening) of what will inescapably come.
Hell During Eastertime! What the Hell?
Hell is not something that is seasonal―it is an all-year-round reality. Even during Easter time souls fall into Hell. You may have heard of the phrase: “The Four Last Things” ― this a phrase that Holy Mother Church uses to refer to four of the most important things that should occupy our thoughts―these are Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. Sister Lucia of Fatima said to a Cardinal who was visiting her: “Hell is a reality! ... Continue to preach about Hell―for Our Lord Himself spoke of Hell and it is in the Holy Scriptures. God condemns no one to Hell. People condemn themselves to Hell. God has given mankind the freedom of choice, and He respects this human freedom!”
In her Memoirs, Sister Lucia also writes: “The most Blessed Virgin said: ‘Many souls go to Hell!’ Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the Earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. We then looked up at Our Lady, who said to us so kindly and so sadly: ‘You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go!’ Some people, even the most devout, refuse to speak to children about Hell, in case it would frighten them. Yet God did not hesitate to show Hell to three children, one of whom was only six years old, knowing well that they would be horrified to the point of, I would almost dare to say, withering away with fear!”
On the subject of Liberal minds―mentioned earlier in this article―we have the instance of a Liberal priest from Rome interviewing Sister Lucia of Fatima. The following is an extract from a rare interview with Sister Lucia by Father Lombardi. It was recorded in the Vatican weekly “Osservatore della Domenica” on February 7th, 1954.
Fr. Lombardi: “Tell me, is the ‘Better World Movement’ a response of the Church to the words spoken to Our Lady?”
Sr. Lucia: “Father, there is certainly a great need for this renewal. If it is not done, and taking into account the present development of humanity, only a limited number of the human race will be saved!”
Fr. Lombardi: “Do you really believe that many will go to Hell? I hope that God will save the greater part of humanity.” [He had just written a rather optimistic book entitled: Salvation for Those Without Faith]
Sr. Lucia: “Father, many will be lost!”
Fr. Lombardi: “It is true that the world is full of evil―but there is always a hope of salvation!”
Sr. Lucia: “No Father, many will be lost!”
Father Lombardi remembered that Lucia had seen Hell and added: “Her words disturbed me! I returned to Italy with that grave warning impressed on my heart!” If only those words―and all of the above words―would disturb US and impress a grave warning on OUR hearts! But that is not the case, is it? All the warnings we ever hear―and however many times we may hear them―are just like water flowing off a duck’s back! We have become “waterproofed” to Heaven’s warnings, we are “impermeable”, “anesthetized” and “numb” to the waters of divine grace. Instead of causing us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling―“with fear and trembling work out your salvation” (Philippians 2:12)―we continue to insanely imagine that we will work out our salvation through feasting, frolicking, fun and festivities! As Our Lady of La Salette warned: “People will think of nothing but amusement!”
Those last words of Our Lady ― “People will think of nothing but amusement!” ― are nothing new. Heaven had already foretold that through many Saints, Blesseds, Venerables, mystics and seers over the centuries. The crisis and chastisement will come at a time when “Men will surrender to the spirit of the age” (St. Anthony the Great 251-356) … “After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century, the people’s minds will grow cloudy from carnal passions, and dishonor and lawlessness will grow stronger. People will abandon modesty, and dissipation will reign. Falsehood and greed will attain great proportions, and woe to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, homosexuality, secret deeds and murder will rule in society” (St. Nilus, around 400 AD) … “People will be intent only on eating and drinking” (Mathias Lang, 1753-1820) … “People will speak only of money” (Abbé Voclin) … “God will punish the world when men have devised marvelous inventions that will lead them to forgetting God. They will laugh at the idea of God, thinking that they are very clever. They will indulge in voluptuousness, and lewd fashions will be seen.” (Blessed Rembordt, 18th century) … “Many will forget God and they will worship only their own human intelligence … Men will build a box and within it will be some kind of device with images (television/computer/smartphone) … With the help of this device, man will be able to see everything that is happening all over the world” (Mitar Tarabich, 1829-1899) … “A small box with round knobs will bring mankind joy and desire into the smallest rooms. Music, frolic and laughter come from this remarkable thing, and people shall listen to the good and bad words” (The Seeress of Prague, 18th century).
Only a fool can be blind to the fact that all of this refers to our days―which is why Sister Lucia of Fatima said that Our Lady revealed to us that we have entered the “Last Times” (but not yet the end of the world―for we first have to undergo a terrible chastisement, then see the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart, and then fall into the abyss of sin once again before the Antichrist appears). But what are we doing? We―who are supposed to be light of the world and the salt of the Earth: “You are the salt of the Earth! But if the salt lose its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more, but to be cast out and to be trodden on by men. You are the light of the world! A city seated on a mountain cannot be hidden! Neither do men light a candle and then put it under a bucket, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:13-16).
Being of the Catholic Faith, we have been given far more than those who do not have the Faith―yet along with being given more, also comes more responsibility: “That servant who knew the will of his lord, and prepared not himself and did not according to his will, he shall be beaten with many stripes! But he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:47-48). That is why the deepest pit of Hell is reserved for Catholics! Just above that is the pit reserved for the Jews. Everyone else in Hell has less deep pits in which they will suffer eternally.
So let us get back on track! Let us turn our back on the world that has seduced us! Let us turn to those things that Heaven has been recommending to us―the Holy Mass, Holy Communion, the Holy Rosary, penance, sacrifices and all the other recommended prayers and Sacramentals that have been shown to us, such as the Brown Scapular, the Miraculous Medal, etc. Above all let us remain in a state of sanctifying grace―and use the Sacrament of Confession if we have lost the state of grace. Let us also avoid picking and choosing in matters of the Faith and observe all things that Christ has taught us through His Church.
Article 2
Easter Tuesday to Thursday April 11th to 13th, 2023
Do You Have the Easter Spirit?
Easter Tuesday to Thursday April 11th to 13th, 2023
Do You Have the Easter Spirit?
Many Kinds of Spirits―Only One True Spirit
Just as there are many false gods but only one true God―likewise, there are many kinds of spirits but only one true Spirit. We have evil spirits and good spirits―demons and angels. We can also have a human, self-centered, naturalistic, materialistic, hedonistic (pleasure seeking), worldly spirit―or we can have a supernatural, spiritual, mortified, penitential, God-centered spirit. Our Lord even had to rebuke two of His three favorite Apostles―James and John (the other being Peter)―for having the wrong kind of spirit. When James and John wanted to call down fire from Heaven to destroy a Samaritan town that had rejected Jesus: “Turning to James and John, Jesus rebuked them saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are!’” (Luke 9:55). Likewise with the third favorite―St. Peter―who had rebuked Our Lord and told Him that He should not go into His Passion and Death: “Jesus turning, said to Peter: ‘Go behind Me, Satan! Thou art a scandal unto Me! Because thou savorest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!’” (Matthew 16:23).
Do you know of what spirit you are? Would Christ be approving or disapproving of your spirit? In short―everyone is ruled by a spirit. That ruling spirit is either a godly spirit or a non-godly spirit. If it is a non-godly spirit, then it must be a merely human (humanistic) spirit, or a spirit of self-seeking or selfishness, or a worldly spirit―and all the offshoots or branches of a worldly spirit―namely, a materialistic spirit (seeking wealth and possessions), a hedonistic (pleasure seeking) spirit, narcissistic (self-glorification, seeking attention, admiration, praise), etc. “Woe to the foolish that follow their own spirit!” (Ezechiel 13:3). “All is vanity and vexation of spirit” (Ecclesiastes 1:14). “All things under the sun are evil [i.e., lacking some kind of goodness or other], and nothing but vanity and vexation of spirit” (Ecclesiastes 2:17). In this season of the Resurrection, God says: “Make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit!” (Ezechiel 18:31). “I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you―and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh!” says the Lord (Ezechiel 36:26) ... “So that as Christ is risen from the dead, so we also may walk in newness of life!” (Romans 6:4). “Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God―so that we may know the things that are given us from God!” (1 Corinthians 2:12).
God Offers Us His Spirit
“Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). To anyone who seeks to sincerely follow God, it is promised that “the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the Spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness” (Isaias 11:2). These are the backbone of the Seven Gifts of Holy Spirit―which are given to us to help us better negotiate the perilous route to Heaven. God is ready and willing to pour forth His Spirit into our souls: “For My Spirit is sweet above honey!” (Ecclesiasticus 24:27). “I will pour out My Spirit” (Isaias 44:3). “I will put My Spirit in the midst of you!” (Ezechiel 36:27). “And My Spirit shall be in the midst of you!” (Aggeus 2:6). “I will hide My face no more from them, for I have poured out My Spirit upon all, saith the Lord God” (Ezechiel 39:29). “I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh” (Joel 2:28). “I have given My Spirit” (Isaias 42:1). “God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts” (Galatians 4:6). “How good and sweet is Thy Spirit, O Lord, in all things!” (Wisdom 12:1). “We abide in Him, and He in us―because He has given us of His Spirit!” (1 John 4:13). “And in this we know that He abided in us, by the Spirit which He had given us!” (1 John 3:24). “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit!” (Galatians 5:25).
There is just no way that we can operate without God and His grace―for Our Lord said: “Without Me―you can do NOTHING!” (John 15:5). What is there about the word “NOTHING” that we cannot understand? Yet there are many “that trust in their own strength, and glory in the multitude of their riches” (Psalm 48:7). “They have adored the work of their own hands, which their own fingers have made!” (Isaias 2:8). “Who have said: ‘We will magnify our tongue! Our lips are our own! Who is Lord over us?’” (Psalm 11:5). “For they that are such, serve not Christ our Lord, but their own belly―and by pleasing speeches and good words, seduce the hearts of the innocent!” (Romans 16:18). “Whose spirit was not faithful to God” (Psalm 77:8). “Woe to you, apostate children, saith the Lord, because you take counsel, but not of Me―and would begin to weave a web―but not by My spirit―so that you might add sin upon sin!” (Isaias 30:1).
The Imitation of Christ tells us: “The teaching of Christ is more excellent than all the advice of the saints, and he who has His spirit will find in it a hidden manna. Now, there are many who hear the Gospel often, but care little for it, because they have not the spirit of Christ. Yet whoever wishes to understand fully the words of Christ must try to pattern his whole life on that of Christ.” (Book 1, Chapter 1). This is underlined by Holy Scripture, which states that if we do not have the Spirit of Christ, then we have nothing to do with Him and do not belong to Him:
“There is no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus, and who do not walk according to the flesh. For the law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, hath delivered us from the law of sin and of death. For God, sending His own Son, in the flesh, has condemned sin in the flesh. We walk, not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. For they that are according to the flesh, mind the things that are of the flesh―but they that are according to the spirit, mind the things that are of the spirit. They who are in the flesh, cannot please God. But if the Spirit of God dwells in you, then you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. But if any man does not have the Spirit of Christ, then he does not belong to Christ. And if Christ be in you―then the body indeed is dead, because of sin; but the spirit lives, because of justification. And if the Spirit of Him, that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you; then He that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead, shall quicken also your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit that dwells in you … For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God!” (Romans 8:1-11, 14).
Are We Grieving the Holy Spirit?
If and when we are placed in charge of some enterprise, project, sports team, etc. ― we seek to impart our spirit upon those under our charge and hope that they will accept that spirit. If anyone happens to present a contrary spirit to the one we seek to furnish and foster, then we are grieved by their lack of cooperation. The same is true of God. “Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God!” (Romans 8:14) ... “We have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God” (1 Corinthians 2:12) … “Do not grieve the holy Spirit of God!” (Ephesians 4:30) … “Believe not every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they be of God” (1 John 4:1) … “Every spirit that dissolves Jesus, is not of God” (1 John 4:3). “Do not grieve the holy Spirit of God!” (Ephesians 4:30) … “In times past―when you were dead in your offences and sins―you walked according to the spirit of this world, according to the prince of the world (Satan)―which is the spirit that is now working on the children of unbelief” (Ephesians 2:1-2).
“Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above―where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth!” (Colossians 3:1-2). “Be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind!” (Romans 12:2). “For we are buried together with Him by Baptism into death; so that as Christ is risen from the dead, by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life!” (Romans 6:4). “If anyone be a new creature in Christ, then the old things are passed away, and all things are made new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17) … “Put off the old man―who is corrupted according to the desire of error ― and be renewed in the spirit of your mind! Put on the new man―who is created in justice and holiness of truth” (Ephesians 4:22-24). “God shall wipe away all tears and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away. And He that sat on the throne, said: ‘Behold, I make all things new!’” (Apocalypse 21:4-5).
What’s New?
What has changed this year in our passage from Lent into Easter? Each year of our lives in general―and each Lent in particular―is meant to be a progressive growth in holiness, just like a child passing through all the grades in school is meant to grow in knowledge. God―like a good teacher―loads each year with graces and presents them to us. Have we profited from those graces by increasingly growing in our knowledge, love and service of God? As the children’s Catechism asks and replies: “Why did God make you? God made me to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this life―so that I can one day be happy with Him in the next life!” Is that our main preoccupation and chief employment―or is it merely an annoying pastime? Can we truly say with St. Paul: “I do not cast away the grace of God! … I live, now, not I―but Christ lives in me … I live in the Faith of the Son of God, Who loved me and delivered Himself for me!” (Galatians 2:20-21).
Has this Lenten season seen a notable progression in your spiritual life? Has a “New You” emerged from Lent? Or is a case of the “same old, same old, same old…”? If we see major improvements in a child in school, as it passes from one grade to another, year after year―then why are we not seeing similar or even greater signs of progress in our spiritual lives? Surely the spiritual and supernatural is far more important than the natural and physical? A child that would, year after year, consistently fail to reach the expected level in order to pass from, for example, 3rd Grade into 4th Grade, would eventually be expelled. Perhaps God should have expelled us years ago―since we have, perhaps, languished in the same grade for―who knows―20, 30, 40 or 50 years!
This reminds us both of an incident in Our Lord’s life here on Earth and a parable He related―“And seeing a certain fig tree by the way side, Jesus came to it and found nothing on it, but leaves only, and He said to it: ‘May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever!’ And immediately the fig tree withered away” (Matthew 21:19). “He spoke also this parable: ‘A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. And he said to the dresser of the vineyard: “Behold, for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none! Cut it down therefore! Why does it encumber the ground?” But the dresser, answering, said to him: “Lord, leave it alone this year also, until I dig about it and put dung on it! And perhaps happily it will bear fruit―but if not, then after, that thou shalt cut it down!”’” (Luke 13:6-9). In what state is our spiritual “fig” tree? Can you figure it out?
Mocking God
It has to be said that most people implicitly mock God―some even do so explicitly. How so? The mockery of God takes place in our making a mockery of the “price” of Heaven. Most people expect to get to Heaven “on the cheap”―in their minds they reduce God’s price to what is but a joke. Just stop and think what the heck it is that you are expecting, asking and getting with Heaven! No more death! No more sickness! Perfect health for eternity. All your earthly ailments cured for eternity! A new perfect body with powers beyond your wildest dreams! No more aging and growing old! No more sorrow and sadness! No more enemies! No more arguing, bickering, division, dissatisfaction, complaining, jealousy, suspicion, fear, etc.! No more paying for anything at all! All you needs fully looked after! Loved by everyone! Hated by no one! All that is not even the tip of the iceberg of wonderful things that God has prepared for those who get to Heaven: “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love Him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Try and obtain those things here on Earth―and you will asked to pay an astronomical price―even if someone on Earth was able to do some of those things! Yet when it comes to Heaven―we don’t really want to pay anything―we expect Heaven to offered to us as a “freebie” or an automatic “hand-out” that we imagine we are entitled to get! That is a mockery of God―it is like offering to buy a massive palace for a mere cent or a penny! It is a ridiculous offer that is an insult to the person selling the palace! On top of that―adding injury to insult―God is bombarded with sin after sin! They “grieve the Holy Spirit of God!” (Ephesians 4:30). Hardly the kind of behavior for someone who is seeking Heaven and is convinced that they will get to Heaven! “Be not deceived! God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7). These people want Heaven for a pittance―but they risk falling into the pit of Hell! The biggest shock of all is that we know and we are told that most souls end up being damned! Yet we are so stupid that we do not examine the lives of the damnable people and seek to learn from their mistakes―instead, we end up making the same stupid mistakes in our presumptuous complacency! It is a sign of insanity to keep repeating the same mistakes that damned most souls―while somehow imagining and expected that the result will be different in our case!
What Spirit Should We Have?
No doubt you associate Easter with joy―and rightly so! But joy does not exist by itself―there is always a joy about some object, some person, some event, some news, etc. We need something to be joyful about! Perhaps you will find it strange to be told that Cross should be at the heart of Easter! “Lent―yes, Easter―no!” you will protest. Why do you wish to exclude the Cross from Easter? Our Lord did not do that―for He rose from the dead WITH HIS WOUNDS FROM THE CROSS! He tells the doubting and disbelieving Thomas to put his finger in the nail wounds and his hand into the wound in His side caused by the Roman soldier’s spear. St. Thomas had said: “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side―I will not believe!” (John 20:25). Jesus later appeared to St. Thomas and rebuked him, saying: “Put in thy finger here and see my hands; and bring here thy hand and put it into my side―and be not faithless, but believing!” (John 20:27).
To our human way of thinking, wounds and scars are something ugly. Most people seek treatments to heal wounds and remove the remaining scars of wounds. That is not Jesus’ way of thinking! On one level we can understand that He was trying to prove to and convince His Apostles and disciples that the same Christ who was crucified, now again stood before them after resurrecting from the dead―and that He was not a ghost, or an apparition, or simply someone who looked like Jesus. When Christ rose, He took up His same, true body―but it now manifested a perfected glory. When we rise on the last day, the same will be true of our bodies. Why, then, were Christ’s wounds visible in His glorified body? Are not wounds and scars inconsistent with a glorified body?
St. Thomas Aquinas, leaning heavily upon St. Bede, provides five reasons why Christ’s wounds are appropriate in His risen and glorified body. He writes: “It was fitting for Christ’s soul at His Resurrection to resume the body with its scars. In the first place, for Christ’s own glory. For St. Bede says (on Luke 24:40) that He kept His scars not from inability to heal them, but to wear them as an everlasting trophy of His victory. Hence St. Augustine says: ‘Perhaps in that kingdom we shall see on the bodies of the Martyrs the traces of the wounds which they bore for Christ’s Name: because it will not be a deformity, but a dignity in them; and a certain kind of beauty will shine in them, in the body, though not of the body.’ Secondly, to confirm the hearts of the disciples as to ‘the Faith in His Resurrection’ (St. Bede, on Luke 24:40). Thirdly, ‘so that when He pleads for us with the Father, He may always show the manner of death He endured for us’ (St. Bede, on Luke 24:40). Fourthly, ‘so that He may convince those redeemed in His Blood, how mercifully they have been helped, as He exposes before them the traces of the same death’ (St. Bede, on Luke 24:40). Lastly, ‘so that in the Judgment Day He may upbraid them with their just condemnation’ (Bede, on Luke 24:40). Hence, as Augustine says: ‘So will [Christ] show His wounds to His enemies, so that He who is the Truth may convict them, saying: “Behold the Man Whom you crucified! See the wounds you inflicted! Recognize the side you pierced, since it was opened by you and for you, yet you would not enter.”’” (Summa Theologica III, q. 54, art. 4)
Christ saved us through His Cross―not His Resurrection! The Cross is a token, a tool, an instrument, an indication of our salvation and the terrible sufferings that Christ underwent in order to try to secure our salvation. Christ’s wounds are a dignity not a deformity, they are a sign of love not of loss, they are an indication of obedience not of burdensomeness. Through His wounds the Lord can say: “Here is what the world did to Me, yet I live! Here is the cost of your redemption and the degree of My love!” We are to imagine Jesus showing His wounds to His Father and saying: “See how I have loved them, Father! Have mercy on them!”
Suffering did not end with the Resurrection of Jesus―in a certain sense it was only the start of immense suffering. What Jesus―the Head of the Mystical of Christ―suffered, He would now ask the rest of the Mystical Body of Christ to suffer: “The servant is not greater than his lord; neither is the apostle greater than He that sent him!” (John 13:16). “You shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Matthew 10:22). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Joy in the Cross
The central event in the history of mankind is the crucifixion and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ―through which every man has a chance of receiving forgiveness of sin and berth in Heaven. There is nothing more important than that in our lives―mercy and Heaven. As Our Lord said: “For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Christ died on the Cross so that we might save our souls! The liturgical hymns of Passiontide―which focus on the Cross and suffering―beautifully express the joy that we should find in the Cross of Christ. Here are a handful of verses from the hymns Pange Lingua and Vexilla Regis.
Sing, my tongue, the Savior's glory,
of His flesh the mystery sing;
of the Blood, all price exceeding,
shed by our immortal King,
destined, for the world's redemption,
from a noble womb to spring!
The royal banners forward go!
The Cross shines forth in mystic glow!
Where he in flesh, our flesh who made,
Our sentence bore, our ransom paid.
O Tree [Cross] of beauty! Tree of Light!
O Tree with royal purple bright!
Elect on whose triumphal breast,
Those holy Limbs should find their rest.
On whose dear arms, so widely flung,
The weight of this world’s ransom hung;
The price of humankind to pay,
And spoil the Spoiler of his prey.
O Cross, our one reliance, hail!
This holy Passiontide avail,
To give fresh merit to the saint,
And pardon to the penitent.
The Cross is a penance! Suffering is a penance! Yet Our Lord―in speaking of joy and rejoicing―says: “I say to you, that there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that does penance, more than upon ninety-nine just men who need not penance! … Again I say to you, there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance!” (Luke 15:10). Furthermore, Our Lord adds: “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for the sake of justice―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven! Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake―be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven! For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you!” (Matthew 5:10-12).
If you really had a profound Faith, then you would realize that Cross in this life is saving you an enormous savings in either avoiding Hell, or in shortening your time in the flames of Purgatory (which St. Thomas Aquinas says are of the same ferocity as the fires of Hell). Who would not rejoice about that??!!! Would you not rejoice if someone let you off a debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars? Of course you would―it would be insane not to rejoice! Well that is what Christ’s Cross (and our own little petty little crosses by comparison to Christ’s) achieves for us―salvation! Or, look at the flip side of the coin―it rescues us from damnation! Who can fail to rejoice in that?
False Joys of Easter
The prevalence of false joy in this Easter season is truly worrisome! Most people rejoice that the Lenten fast has ended―but how many really fasted anyway? Back in 1962, Pope Paul VI gave everyone a 95% discount on fasting―when he reduced the obligatory 40 days of Lenten fasting to a mere 2 days: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday! Was that done because there was a 95% reduction in sin throughout the world? It would be infantile stupidity to believe that! In reality, sin is always on the increase―but penance in on the decrease! Somehow the math does not add up! Just as a side note―we see similar discrepancies in the massive gulf between the obvious growth in sin throughout the world and enormous reduction in numbers of those receiving the Sacrament of Confession. Around 50% of Catholics NEVER go to Confession and only around 3% go to Confession at least once a month.
The following words of Holy Scripture apply to most Catholics during this Easter season―who dislike Lent and could not wait for the feasting and self-indulgence of Easter to begin: “For many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ! Whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:19). Rather than maintain a higher spiritual that they should have acquired during Lent, they quickly fall back into their previous bad and sinful habits―giving too much time to worldly preoccupations and little or no time to spiritual preoccupations. These are those of whom Our Lord says: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6).
There Will Be No Total Joy in This World
Our Lord and Our Lady promised sufferings in this world. To His Apostles, Our Lord said: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20). Similarly, Our Lady said to St. Bernadette of Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next world!” Here on Earth, life will be a mixed-bag of joys and sorrows.
In the hymn for Vespers, on the feast of St. Joseph, we read that Joseph combined joy with tears, that he “mixes” them: “miscens gaudia fletibus” meaning that he mixes joys with tears. In the mysteries of Holy Rosary, we divide into Joyful Mysteries, Sorrowful Mysteries and Glorious Mysteries―yet when we really and deeply meditate these mysteries, we find that they too are mixture of joy and sorrow. In the Annunciation, we see Our Lady called to be Mother of the “Man of Sorrows”―Jesus Christ. In the Visitation we see sorrow and suffering present in the family of St. John the Baptist, whereby St. Zachary had been struck dumb by the Angel Gabriel for doubting his message that his wife, St. Elizabeth―way past the years of child-bearing―would conceive a child. In the Nativity we see much sorrow―the rejection of the Holy Family in Bethlehem; having to give birth in a cave or stable; pursued by the murderous King Herod; and having to flee their homeland for Egypt to escape Herod. In the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple, “Simeon said to Mary: ‘Behold this Child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel and thy own soul a sword shall pierce!” (Luke 2:34-35). In the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple, we have three days of extreme sorrow experienced by Mary and Joseph at having “lost” the Child Jesus―after which they find Him.
Whereas, all the Sorrowful Mysteries have a less apparent joy hidden beneath the wounds of Jesus Christ, because “He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins; the chastisement that brings our peace was put upon Him, and by His bruises we are healed!” (Isaias 53:5). Despite suffering horrendously, Our Lord must have had an underlying joy at the thought that He was saving souls from even greater and more horrendous suffering in the fires of Hell. We can find ourselves in a similar situation when undergo a very painful medical procedure, knowing that through its pains we will be restored to health.
Similarly, in the Glorious Mysteries, we see a lot of weeping going on at the time of the Resurrection (John 20:11); when the women told the Apostles that Jesus had risen from the dead, “they did not believe them” (Luke 24:11); furthermore, we have the two sad and depressed disciples (Luke 24:1-33) to whom Our Lord appears; we also see the fear (Matthew 28:5; Matthew 28:8; Matthew 28:10; Mark 16:8; Luke 24:36; John 20:19) that spans the first three Glorious Mysteries, whereby the Apostles and disciple are afraid of the Jews. In the Ascension of Our Lord into Heaven, there is the obvious sadness of being “abandoned” by Our Lord, as well as being commanded to preach the Gospel to all nations, baptizing everyone and teaching them the “painful” practice of penance (Luke 24:46-52). Prior to the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon Our Lady and Apostles, we find them huddled together in the “Upper Room” for fear of the Jews. With regard to Our Lady’s Assumption into Heaven and her Coronation in Heaven, Our Lady reveals to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “If anything could lessen the enjoyment of the highest joy and glory which I possess, and if, in it, I could be capable of any sorrow, without a doubt I would be grieved to see the holy Church and the rest of the world in its present state of labor ... Mortals are tardy in turning toward the knowledge of God; the children of the Church are involving themselves in the snares of Satan; sinners multiply and crimes increase ... It is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for lack of calling upon me, so many souls should be lost!”
Along these lines, we have to say: “How can any true Catholic in this world be totally joyful in the midst of so much and ever-increasing sin?” As Our Lady said to the mystic and stigmatic, Blessed Elena Aiello, back in the less sinful times of 1956: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time]. All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
In Our Lord’s life, Redemption will only be accomplished in annihilation, in suffering, in sorrow―and this journey, begun at the Annunciation, reaches its culmination in the Passion. Yet in these unheard-of, indescribable sufferings, we know that at the very height of His soul, Our Lord still had the beatific vision that is the summit of happiness―which is Heaven. It is hard for us to grasp how these joys and these tears could be united. Often here below we speak about a valley of tears, and that is how we describe life. We have joys nevertheless, but what seems to dominate is the valley of tears.
To seek total joy in world―or even in just Easter―is not what God has intended for us. Salvation (which is the goal, end or target of our lives) is only achieved through suffering and sadness (which is the means by which we reach the goal, end or target). After Our Lord’s Resurrection, the Apostles and disciples were not excused from suffering, but had to undergo incredible sufferings. The Resurrection is not an end in itself, it is not the finish-line―it is merely a manifestation by Christ that He has the power of life and death in His hands―and that is why He says: “Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do! But I will show you Whom you shall fear! Fear ye Him, Who, after He has killed, has power to cast into Hell. Yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5).
If Easter sees us relapsing back into our customary faults and failings―then there is no cause for joy. The whole point of Lent has been missed. If Easter sees us at a higher spiritual plane―then we have reason for joy. The true spirit of Easter is one of continuing progress, continual betterment, increasing holiness―if we have not “bought into” this spirit, then we do not have a true heavenly spirit of Easter―but merely a human spirit, a worldly spirit.
Just as there are many false gods but only one true God―likewise, there are many kinds of spirits but only one true Spirit. We have evil spirits and good spirits―demons and angels. We can also have a human, self-centered, naturalistic, materialistic, hedonistic (pleasure seeking), worldly spirit―or we can have a supernatural, spiritual, mortified, penitential, God-centered spirit. Our Lord even had to rebuke two of His three favorite Apostles―James and John (the other being Peter)―for having the wrong kind of spirit. When James and John wanted to call down fire from Heaven to destroy a Samaritan town that had rejected Jesus: “Turning to James and John, Jesus rebuked them saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are!’” (Luke 9:55). Likewise with the third favorite―St. Peter―who had rebuked Our Lord and told Him that He should not go into His Passion and Death: “Jesus turning, said to Peter: ‘Go behind Me, Satan! Thou art a scandal unto Me! Because thou savorest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!’” (Matthew 16:23).
Do you know of what spirit you are? Would Christ be approving or disapproving of your spirit? In short―everyone is ruled by a spirit. That ruling spirit is either a godly spirit or a non-godly spirit. If it is a non-godly spirit, then it must be a merely human (humanistic) spirit, or a spirit of self-seeking or selfishness, or a worldly spirit―and all the offshoots or branches of a worldly spirit―namely, a materialistic spirit (seeking wealth and possessions), a hedonistic (pleasure seeking) spirit, narcissistic (self-glorification, seeking attention, admiration, praise), etc. “Woe to the foolish that follow their own spirit!” (Ezechiel 13:3). “All is vanity and vexation of spirit” (Ecclesiastes 1:14). “All things under the sun are evil [i.e., lacking some kind of goodness or other], and nothing but vanity and vexation of spirit” (Ecclesiastes 2:17). In this season of the Resurrection, God says: “Make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit!” (Ezechiel 18:31). “I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you―and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh!” says the Lord (Ezechiel 36:26) ... “So that as Christ is risen from the dead, so we also may walk in newness of life!” (Romans 6:4). “Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God―so that we may know the things that are given us from God!” (1 Corinthians 2:12).
God Offers Us His Spirit
“Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). To anyone who seeks to sincerely follow God, it is promised that “the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the Spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness” (Isaias 11:2). These are the backbone of the Seven Gifts of Holy Spirit―which are given to us to help us better negotiate the perilous route to Heaven. God is ready and willing to pour forth His Spirit into our souls: “For My Spirit is sweet above honey!” (Ecclesiasticus 24:27). “I will pour out My Spirit” (Isaias 44:3). “I will put My Spirit in the midst of you!” (Ezechiel 36:27). “And My Spirit shall be in the midst of you!” (Aggeus 2:6). “I will hide My face no more from them, for I have poured out My Spirit upon all, saith the Lord God” (Ezechiel 39:29). “I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh” (Joel 2:28). “I have given My Spirit” (Isaias 42:1). “God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts” (Galatians 4:6). “How good and sweet is Thy Spirit, O Lord, in all things!” (Wisdom 12:1). “We abide in Him, and He in us―because He has given us of His Spirit!” (1 John 4:13). “And in this we know that He abided in us, by the Spirit which He had given us!” (1 John 3:24). “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit!” (Galatians 5:25).
There is just no way that we can operate without God and His grace―for Our Lord said: “Without Me―you can do NOTHING!” (John 15:5). What is there about the word “NOTHING” that we cannot understand? Yet there are many “that trust in their own strength, and glory in the multitude of their riches” (Psalm 48:7). “They have adored the work of their own hands, which their own fingers have made!” (Isaias 2:8). “Who have said: ‘We will magnify our tongue! Our lips are our own! Who is Lord over us?’” (Psalm 11:5). “For they that are such, serve not Christ our Lord, but their own belly―and by pleasing speeches and good words, seduce the hearts of the innocent!” (Romans 16:18). “Whose spirit was not faithful to God” (Psalm 77:8). “Woe to you, apostate children, saith the Lord, because you take counsel, but not of Me―and would begin to weave a web―but not by My spirit―so that you might add sin upon sin!” (Isaias 30:1).
The Imitation of Christ tells us: “The teaching of Christ is more excellent than all the advice of the saints, and he who has His spirit will find in it a hidden manna. Now, there are many who hear the Gospel often, but care little for it, because they have not the spirit of Christ. Yet whoever wishes to understand fully the words of Christ must try to pattern his whole life on that of Christ.” (Book 1, Chapter 1). This is underlined by Holy Scripture, which states that if we do not have the Spirit of Christ, then we have nothing to do with Him and do not belong to Him:
“There is no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus, and who do not walk according to the flesh. For the law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, hath delivered us from the law of sin and of death. For God, sending His own Son, in the flesh, has condemned sin in the flesh. We walk, not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. For they that are according to the flesh, mind the things that are of the flesh―but they that are according to the spirit, mind the things that are of the spirit. They who are in the flesh, cannot please God. But if the Spirit of God dwells in you, then you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. But if any man does not have the Spirit of Christ, then he does not belong to Christ. And if Christ be in you―then the body indeed is dead, because of sin; but the spirit lives, because of justification. And if the Spirit of Him, that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you; then He that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead, shall quicken also your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit that dwells in you … For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God!” (Romans 8:1-11, 14).
Are We Grieving the Holy Spirit?
If and when we are placed in charge of some enterprise, project, sports team, etc. ― we seek to impart our spirit upon those under our charge and hope that they will accept that spirit. If anyone happens to present a contrary spirit to the one we seek to furnish and foster, then we are grieved by their lack of cooperation. The same is true of God. “Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God!” (Romans 8:14) ... “We have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God” (1 Corinthians 2:12) … “Do not grieve the holy Spirit of God!” (Ephesians 4:30) … “Believe not every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they be of God” (1 John 4:1) … “Every spirit that dissolves Jesus, is not of God” (1 John 4:3). “Do not grieve the holy Spirit of God!” (Ephesians 4:30) … “In times past―when you were dead in your offences and sins―you walked according to the spirit of this world, according to the prince of the world (Satan)―which is the spirit that is now working on the children of unbelief” (Ephesians 2:1-2).
“Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above―where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth!” (Colossians 3:1-2). “Be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind!” (Romans 12:2). “For we are buried together with Him by Baptism into death; so that as Christ is risen from the dead, by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life!” (Romans 6:4). “If anyone be a new creature in Christ, then the old things are passed away, and all things are made new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17) … “Put off the old man―who is corrupted according to the desire of error ― and be renewed in the spirit of your mind! Put on the new man―who is created in justice and holiness of truth” (Ephesians 4:22-24). “God shall wipe away all tears and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away. And He that sat on the throne, said: ‘Behold, I make all things new!’” (Apocalypse 21:4-5).
What’s New?
What has changed this year in our passage from Lent into Easter? Each year of our lives in general―and each Lent in particular―is meant to be a progressive growth in holiness, just like a child passing through all the grades in school is meant to grow in knowledge. God―like a good teacher―loads each year with graces and presents them to us. Have we profited from those graces by increasingly growing in our knowledge, love and service of God? As the children’s Catechism asks and replies: “Why did God make you? God made me to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this life―so that I can one day be happy with Him in the next life!” Is that our main preoccupation and chief employment―or is it merely an annoying pastime? Can we truly say with St. Paul: “I do not cast away the grace of God! … I live, now, not I―but Christ lives in me … I live in the Faith of the Son of God, Who loved me and delivered Himself for me!” (Galatians 2:20-21).
Has this Lenten season seen a notable progression in your spiritual life? Has a “New You” emerged from Lent? Or is a case of the “same old, same old, same old…”? If we see major improvements in a child in school, as it passes from one grade to another, year after year―then why are we not seeing similar or even greater signs of progress in our spiritual lives? Surely the spiritual and supernatural is far more important than the natural and physical? A child that would, year after year, consistently fail to reach the expected level in order to pass from, for example, 3rd Grade into 4th Grade, would eventually be expelled. Perhaps God should have expelled us years ago―since we have, perhaps, languished in the same grade for―who knows―20, 30, 40 or 50 years!
This reminds us both of an incident in Our Lord’s life here on Earth and a parable He related―“And seeing a certain fig tree by the way side, Jesus came to it and found nothing on it, but leaves only, and He said to it: ‘May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever!’ And immediately the fig tree withered away” (Matthew 21:19). “He spoke also this parable: ‘A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. And he said to the dresser of the vineyard: “Behold, for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none! Cut it down therefore! Why does it encumber the ground?” But the dresser, answering, said to him: “Lord, leave it alone this year also, until I dig about it and put dung on it! And perhaps happily it will bear fruit―but if not, then after, that thou shalt cut it down!”’” (Luke 13:6-9). In what state is our spiritual “fig” tree? Can you figure it out?
Mocking God
It has to be said that most people implicitly mock God―some even do so explicitly. How so? The mockery of God takes place in our making a mockery of the “price” of Heaven. Most people expect to get to Heaven “on the cheap”―in their minds they reduce God’s price to what is but a joke. Just stop and think what the heck it is that you are expecting, asking and getting with Heaven! No more death! No more sickness! Perfect health for eternity. All your earthly ailments cured for eternity! A new perfect body with powers beyond your wildest dreams! No more aging and growing old! No more sorrow and sadness! No more enemies! No more arguing, bickering, division, dissatisfaction, complaining, jealousy, suspicion, fear, etc.! No more paying for anything at all! All you needs fully looked after! Loved by everyone! Hated by no one! All that is not even the tip of the iceberg of wonderful things that God has prepared for those who get to Heaven: “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love Him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Try and obtain those things here on Earth―and you will asked to pay an astronomical price―even if someone on Earth was able to do some of those things! Yet when it comes to Heaven―we don’t really want to pay anything―we expect Heaven to offered to us as a “freebie” or an automatic “hand-out” that we imagine we are entitled to get! That is a mockery of God―it is like offering to buy a massive palace for a mere cent or a penny! It is a ridiculous offer that is an insult to the person selling the palace! On top of that―adding injury to insult―God is bombarded with sin after sin! They “grieve the Holy Spirit of God!” (Ephesians 4:30). Hardly the kind of behavior for someone who is seeking Heaven and is convinced that they will get to Heaven! “Be not deceived! God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7). These people want Heaven for a pittance―but they risk falling into the pit of Hell! The biggest shock of all is that we know and we are told that most souls end up being damned! Yet we are so stupid that we do not examine the lives of the damnable people and seek to learn from their mistakes―instead, we end up making the same stupid mistakes in our presumptuous complacency! It is a sign of insanity to keep repeating the same mistakes that damned most souls―while somehow imagining and expected that the result will be different in our case!
What Spirit Should We Have?
No doubt you associate Easter with joy―and rightly so! But joy does not exist by itself―there is always a joy about some object, some person, some event, some news, etc. We need something to be joyful about! Perhaps you will find it strange to be told that Cross should be at the heart of Easter! “Lent―yes, Easter―no!” you will protest. Why do you wish to exclude the Cross from Easter? Our Lord did not do that―for He rose from the dead WITH HIS WOUNDS FROM THE CROSS! He tells the doubting and disbelieving Thomas to put his finger in the nail wounds and his hand into the wound in His side caused by the Roman soldier’s spear. St. Thomas had said: “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side―I will not believe!” (John 20:25). Jesus later appeared to St. Thomas and rebuked him, saying: “Put in thy finger here and see my hands; and bring here thy hand and put it into my side―and be not faithless, but believing!” (John 20:27).
To our human way of thinking, wounds and scars are something ugly. Most people seek treatments to heal wounds and remove the remaining scars of wounds. That is not Jesus’ way of thinking! On one level we can understand that He was trying to prove to and convince His Apostles and disciples that the same Christ who was crucified, now again stood before them after resurrecting from the dead―and that He was not a ghost, or an apparition, or simply someone who looked like Jesus. When Christ rose, He took up His same, true body―but it now manifested a perfected glory. When we rise on the last day, the same will be true of our bodies. Why, then, were Christ’s wounds visible in His glorified body? Are not wounds and scars inconsistent with a glorified body?
St. Thomas Aquinas, leaning heavily upon St. Bede, provides five reasons why Christ’s wounds are appropriate in His risen and glorified body. He writes: “It was fitting for Christ’s soul at His Resurrection to resume the body with its scars. In the first place, for Christ’s own glory. For St. Bede says (on Luke 24:40) that He kept His scars not from inability to heal them, but to wear them as an everlasting trophy of His victory. Hence St. Augustine says: ‘Perhaps in that kingdom we shall see on the bodies of the Martyrs the traces of the wounds which they bore for Christ’s Name: because it will not be a deformity, but a dignity in them; and a certain kind of beauty will shine in them, in the body, though not of the body.’ Secondly, to confirm the hearts of the disciples as to ‘the Faith in His Resurrection’ (St. Bede, on Luke 24:40). Thirdly, ‘so that when He pleads for us with the Father, He may always show the manner of death He endured for us’ (St. Bede, on Luke 24:40). Fourthly, ‘so that He may convince those redeemed in His Blood, how mercifully they have been helped, as He exposes before them the traces of the same death’ (St. Bede, on Luke 24:40). Lastly, ‘so that in the Judgment Day He may upbraid them with their just condemnation’ (Bede, on Luke 24:40). Hence, as Augustine says: ‘So will [Christ] show His wounds to His enemies, so that He who is the Truth may convict them, saying: “Behold the Man Whom you crucified! See the wounds you inflicted! Recognize the side you pierced, since it was opened by you and for you, yet you would not enter.”’” (Summa Theologica III, q. 54, art. 4)
Christ saved us through His Cross―not His Resurrection! The Cross is a token, a tool, an instrument, an indication of our salvation and the terrible sufferings that Christ underwent in order to try to secure our salvation. Christ’s wounds are a dignity not a deformity, they are a sign of love not of loss, they are an indication of obedience not of burdensomeness. Through His wounds the Lord can say: “Here is what the world did to Me, yet I live! Here is the cost of your redemption and the degree of My love!” We are to imagine Jesus showing His wounds to His Father and saying: “See how I have loved them, Father! Have mercy on them!”
Suffering did not end with the Resurrection of Jesus―in a certain sense it was only the start of immense suffering. What Jesus―the Head of the Mystical of Christ―suffered, He would now ask the rest of the Mystical Body of Christ to suffer: “The servant is not greater than his lord; neither is the apostle greater than He that sent him!” (John 13:16). “You shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Matthew 10:22). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Joy in the Cross
The central event in the history of mankind is the crucifixion and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ―through which every man has a chance of receiving forgiveness of sin and berth in Heaven. There is nothing more important than that in our lives―mercy and Heaven. As Our Lord said: “For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Christ died on the Cross so that we might save our souls! The liturgical hymns of Passiontide―which focus on the Cross and suffering―beautifully express the joy that we should find in the Cross of Christ. Here are a handful of verses from the hymns Pange Lingua and Vexilla Regis.
Sing, my tongue, the Savior's glory,
of His flesh the mystery sing;
of the Blood, all price exceeding,
shed by our immortal King,
destined, for the world's redemption,
from a noble womb to spring!
The royal banners forward go!
The Cross shines forth in mystic glow!
Where he in flesh, our flesh who made,
Our sentence bore, our ransom paid.
O Tree [Cross] of beauty! Tree of Light!
O Tree with royal purple bright!
Elect on whose triumphal breast,
Those holy Limbs should find their rest.
On whose dear arms, so widely flung,
The weight of this world’s ransom hung;
The price of humankind to pay,
And spoil the Spoiler of his prey.
O Cross, our one reliance, hail!
This holy Passiontide avail,
To give fresh merit to the saint,
And pardon to the penitent.
The Cross is a penance! Suffering is a penance! Yet Our Lord―in speaking of joy and rejoicing―says: “I say to you, that there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that does penance, more than upon ninety-nine just men who need not penance! … Again I say to you, there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance!” (Luke 15:10). Furthermore, Our Lord adds: “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for the sake of justice―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven! Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake―be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven! For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you!” (Matthew 5:10-12).
If you really had a profound Faith, then you would realize that Cross in this life is saving you an enormous savings in either avoiding Hell, or in shortening your time in the flames of Purgatory (which St. Thomas Aquinas says are of the same ferocity as the fires of Hell). Who would not rejoice about that??!!! Would you not rejoice if someone let you off a debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars? Of course you would―it would be insane not to rejoice! Well that is what Christ’s Cross (and our own little petty little crosses by comparison to Christ’s) achieves for us―salvation! Or, look at the flip side of the coin―it rescues us from damnation! Who can fail to rejoice in that?
False Joys of Easter
The prevalence of false joy in this Easter season is truly worrisome! Most people rejoice that the Lenten fast has ended―but how many really fasted anyway? Back in 1962, Pope Paul VI gave everyone a 95% discount on fasting―when he reduced the obligatory 40 days of Lenten fasting to a mere 2 days: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday! Was that done because there was a 95% reduction in sin throughout the world? It would be infantile stupidity to believe that! In reality, sin is always on the increase―but penance in on the decrease! Somehow the math does not add up! Just as a side note―we see similar discrepancies in the massive gulf between the obvious growth in sin throughout the world and enormous reduction in numbers of those receiving the Sacrament of Confession. Around 50% of Catholics NEVER go to Confession and only around 3% go to Confession at least once a month.
The following words of Holy Scripture apply to most Catholics during this Easter season―who dislike Lent and could not wait for the feasting and self-indulgence of Easter to begin: “For many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ! Whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:19). Rather than maintain a higher spiritual that they should have acquired during Lent, they quickly fall back into their previous bad and sinful habits―giving too much time to worldly preoccupations and little or no time to spiritual preoccupations. These are those of whom Our Lord says: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6).
There Will Be No Total Joy in This World
Our Lord and Our Lady promised sufferings in this world. To His Apostles, Our Lord said: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20). Similarly, Our Lady said to St. Bernadette of Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next world!” Here on Earth, life will be a mixed-bag of joys and sorrows.
In the hymn for Vespers, on the feast of St. Joseph, we read that Joseph combined joy with tears, that he “mixes” them: “miscens gaudia fletibus” meaning that he mixes joys with tears. In the mysteries of Holy Rosary, we divide into Joyful Mysteries, Sorrowful Mysteries and Glorious Mysteries―yet when we really and deeply meditate these mysteries, we find that they too are mixture of joy and sorrow. In the Annunciation, we see Our Lady called to be Mother of the “Man of Sorrows”―Jesus Christ. In the Visitation we see sorrow and suffering present in the family of St. John the Baptist, whereby St. Zachary had been struck dumb by the Angel Gabriel for doubting his message that his wife, St. Elizabeth―way past the years of child-bearing―would conceive a child. In the Nativity we see much sorrow―the rejection of the Holy Family in Bethlehem; having to give birth in a cave or stable; pursued by the murderous King Herod; and having to flee their homeland for Egypt to escape Herod. In the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple, “Simeon said to Mary: ‘Behold this Child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel and thy own soul a sword shall pierce!” (Luke 2:34-35). In the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple, we have three days of extreme sorrow experienced by Mary and Joseph at having “lost” the Child Jesus―after which they find Him.
Whereas, all the Sorrowful Mysteries have a less apparent joy hidden beneath the wounds of Jesus Christ, because “He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins; the chastisement that brings our peace was put upon Him, and by His bruises we are healed!” (Isaias 53:5). Despite suffering horrendously, Our Lord must have had an underlying joy at the thought that He was saving souls from even greater and more horrendous suffering in the fires of Hell. We can find ourselves in a similar situation when undergo a very painful medical procedure, knowing that through its pains we will be restored to health.
Similarly, in the Glorious Mysteries, we see a lot of weeping going on at the time of the Resurrection (John 20:11); when the women told the Apostles that Jesus had risen from the dead, “they did not believe them” (Luke 24:11); furthermore, we have the two sad and depressed disciples (Luke 24:1-33) to whom Our Lord appears; we also see the fear (Matthew 28:5; Matthew 28:8; Matthew 28:10; Mark 16:8; Luke 24:36; John 20:19) that spans the first three Glorious Mysteries, whereby the Apostles and disciple are afraid of the Jews. In the Ascension of Our Lord into Heaven, there is the obvious sadness of being “abandoned” by Our Lord, as well as being commanded to preach the Gospel to all nations, baptizing everyone and teaching them the “painful” practice of penance (Luke 24:46-52). Prior to the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon Our Lady and Apostles, we find them huddled together in the “Upper Room” for fear of the Jews. With regard to Our Lady’s Assumption into Heaven and her Coronation in Heaven, Our Lady reveals to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “If anything could lessen the enjoyment of the highest joy and glory which I possess, and if, in it, I could be capable of any sorrow, without a doubt I would be grieved to see the holy Church and the rest of the world in its present state of labor ... Mortals are tardy in turning toward the knowledge of God; the children of the Church are involving themselves in the snares of Satan; sinners multiply and crimes increase ... It is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for lack of calling upon me, so many souls should be lost!”
Along these lines, we have to say: “How can any true Catholic in this world be totally joyful in the midst of so much and ever-increasing sin?” As Our Lady said to the mystic and stigmatic, Blessed Elena Aiello, back in the less sinful times of 1956: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time]. All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
In Our Lord’s life, Redemption will only be accomplished in annihilation, in suffering, in sorrow―and this journey, begun at the Annunciation, reaches its culmination in the Passion. Yet in these unheard-of, indescribable sufferings, we know that at the very height of His soul, Our Lord still had the beatific vision that is the summit of happiness―which is Heaven. It is hard for us to grasp how these joys and these tears could be united. Often here below we speak about a valley of tears, and that is how we describe life. We have joys nevertheless, but what seems to dominate is the valley of tears.
To seek total joy in world―or even in just Easter―is not what God has intended for us. Salvation (which is the goal, end or target of our lives) is only achieved through suffering and sadness (which is the means by which we reach the goal, end or target). After Our Lord’s Resurrection, the Apostles and disciples were not excused from suffering, but had to undergo incredible sufferings. The Resurrection is not an end in itself, it is not the finish-line―it is merely a manifestation by Christ that He has the power of life and death in His hands―and that is why He says: “Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do! But I will show you Whom you shall fear! Fear ye Him, Who, after He has killed, has power to cast into Hell. Yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5).
If Easter sees us relapsing back into our customary faults and failings―then there is no cause for joy. The whole point of Lent has been missed. If Easter sees us at a higher spiritual plane―then we have reason for joy. The true spirit of Easter is one of continuing progress, continual betterment, increasing holiness―if we have not “bought into” this spirit, then we do not have a true heavenly spirit of Easter―but merely a human spirit, a worldly spirit.
Article 1
Easter Sunday April 9th & Easter Monday April 10th, 2023
There is Only One Winner!
Easter Sunday April 9th & Easter Monday April 10th, 2023
There is Only One Winner!
Was the Race Won?
The 17-day period beginning on Septuagesima Sunday was intended to be observed as a preparation for the season of Lent, which is itself a period of spiritual preparation for Easter. At the start of the Septuagesima Season, Holy Mother presented us with the following words of Holy Scripture: “Brethren! Do you not know that those who run in a race, all indeed run, but one receives the prize? So run as to obtain it. And everyone in a contest abstains from all things ― and they indeed do this to receive a perishable crown, but we do it for an imperishable crown. I, therefore, so run as not without a purpose; I so fight as not beating the air―but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps after preaching to others I myself should be rejected. For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, all were baptized in Moses, in the cloud and in the sea. And all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink for they drank from the spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ. Yet with most of them God was not well pleased!” (Epistle for Septuagesima Sunday, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; 10:1-5).
Lent―just like life―is meant to be a race for an imperishable crown: Sanctity and Heaven! We were told: “So run as to obtain it! … So run as not without a purpose!” To win the crown of Sanctity and Heaven, it is necessary to “chastise the body and bring it into subjection.” Every sensible athlete knows that in order to be a champion, the body will have to suffer much and pleasures and over-indulgence will have to take a back-seat. The athlete will “do violence” to his or her body in order to strengthen it, optimize it and perfect it. The same applies to the race or battle for Heaven. We are spiritual athletes―soldiers of Christ―who have been given a lifelong marathon race, or lifelong fight or wrestling match against the devil, the world and our own sinful flesh: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay a hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). Our Lord Himself says: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin!” (Hebrews 12:4).
Emerging from the Boot Camp of Lent into the Battle of Easter
For some people―the naïve ones, superficial ones, lukewarm ones or cowardly ones―the end of Lent is not seen as a beginning, but as much anticipated and awaited end to a miserable 40 days of Hell! “The sooner it is over, the better!” is their overriding thought. They imagine Lent to have the battle itself―whereas in reality it is only a training ground, a “boot-camp”, for the real battle that goes on every day, seven-days-a-week, 365 day per year and each and every year of our lives. From birth to death we are thrown into a boxing-ring, or wrestling-ring, or into Roman amphitheater filled with lions: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). It is not just Lent upon Earth that is a warfare! No! “The [whole] life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) ― meaning in Lent and outside of Lent. Lent is merely a boot-camp that reminds us, prepares us, strengthens us, conditions us and trains us for our lifelong fight against the triple enemy―the devil, the world and the flesh. If we emerge from the boot-camp of Lent and go back to our old-style of living, then it is much like a soldier or an athlete who, after completing weeks of training for battle, fight or race, suddenly stops the training regime and begins to gorge themselves on food, drink and pleasures! In no time at all they become big fat slobs with no belly for the fight!
The military has long since enforced regular annual “mandatory training” for its troops. States require police officers to have a certain amount of continuing education training every year or every other year to maintain their certification. Similar mandatory training requirements can be found in many other fields of work―including doctors and nurses, airline pilots, mechanics, etc. The same has to be true in the spiritual field. That is one of the many purposes of Lent―to prepare us and update us for the battles that lie ahead. Our Lord did not just His “40 Days” of fasting and praying in the desert―all throughout His life He was very demanding upon Himself, often spending entire nights in prayer and foregoing sleep.
Our God is a Demanding God!
Easter―though a time of celebration and joy―is not a time to build-up fat and not muscle! It is not a time to “let it all hang out” ― belly included. The following condemnation in Holy Scripture applies to many “Easter Catholics” who are only too glad to escape from Lent: “For many walk, of whom I have told you often―and now tell you weeping―that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:19). God is a demanding God―demanding of Himself and demanding of others. Hey! It can’t be any other way, can it? God is perfection itself―and perfection is demanding. Something that is perfect is something that is also automatically “extreme”. Being perfect is more than merely being good―it is being EXTREMELY good―and going to extremes is demanding!
Yes―our God is a very demanding God―and we, being the adopted children of God through our Baptism, should likewise be demanding children of God. Not in the sense that we want to be waited upon hand and foot―no, not selfishly demanding children, but demanding of ourselves, demanding a high degree of perfection from ourselves―as befits the children of God. Thus it is that Our Lord says: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:4). That perfection is not meant to last a mere imperfect 40 of Lent―but our whole lives. In fact, while we live upon this Earth, there is no limit to the level of perfection we can attain―with the help of God and His grace, of course! Our Lord says: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
Easter―with its celebration of Our Lord’s resurrection from the dead―should remind us of the fact that Our Lord’s resurrected body was of a much higher perfection than it was before. Is our Easter resurrection the same? Are we more perfect after these 40 days of Lent―or are we much the same as before. Has it been a case of taking three steps forward during Lent―and now we are in the process of taking three steps backwards during Easter? For all the fasting and abstaining that we did during Lent―are we now “making up for it” by days of self-indulgence, gluttony and gorging at the start of the Easter season? Has our whole life been a vicious-circle of “three-steps-forward” followed by “three-steps-backwards”? Will Easter undo the good that was achieved during Lent?
The Resurrection is Not for Christ Alone!
There can be a tendency to view the Resurrection as a uniquely and solely Christ event―but this not the case. Apart from the fact that every single human being who has ever lived will resurrect at the end of the world―there is also an even greater resurrection miracle that takes place daily, though it is not always manifested to everyone. What is that resurrection? It is a spiritual resurrection from spiritual “death” caused by mortal sin! Since―as the Church teaches―the soul is more important than the body, then it logically stands to reason that spiritual miracles are more important or greater than physical or material miracles―although the latter are more striking because of their often spectacular character. Our Lord Himself taught this―as can be seen in this following example:
“After some days Jesus again entered into Capharnaum. And when it was heard that He was in the house, many came together, so that there was no room―no, not even at the door―and He spoke to them the word. And they came, bringing to Jesus, a man sick of the palsy, who was carried by four men. And when they could not present him to Jesus, because of the great crowds, they uncovered the roof where Jesus was―and opening it, they let down the bed wherein the man sick of the palsy lay. And when Jesus had seen their faith, He said to the sick of the palsy: ‘Son, thy sins are forgiven thee!’ And there were some of the scribes sitting there and thinking in their hearts: ‘Why does this Man speak thus? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins, but God only?’ Jesus―knowing in His spirit that they so thought within themselves―said to them: ‘Why do you think these evil things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the man sick of the palsy: “Thy sins are forgiven thee!” or to say: “Arise, take up thy bed, and walk!” But so that you may know that the Son of man hath power on Earth to forgive sins’―He said to the sick of the palsy― ‘I say to thee: Arise! Take up thy bed and go into thy house!’ And immediately he arose and, taking up his bed, went his way in the sight of all―so that all wondered and glorified God, saying: ‘We never saw the like!’” (Mark 2:9-12; Luke 5:17-26; Matthew 9:2-8).
In essence, Jesus here performs two “resurrections” for the sick man―one being physical and the other being spiritual. There was no public outcry and protest from the Scribes about the physical miracles that Jesus was performing, for they knew that God had worked many miracles through men many times in the history of the Chosen People―Abraham, Moses, Josue, Daniel, Elias, Eliseus, Isaias, David, Jonas, Samson, etc. etc. Thus we see that God performing miracles through His chosen ones was nothing new and nothing to protest about. However, the forgiveness of sins was something that was held to be possible for God alone. Hence, when Jesus started forgiving sins―it was this that caused uproar, protest and opposition―for by doing so it was seen that Jesus was implicitly claiming to be God Himself! At the same time this shows us the vastly superior “spiritual miracle” of the forgiveness of sins―compared to the inferior “physical miracles” that the Jews knew from their history or even experienced in Jesus’ ministry.
While Christ was still alive, the Gospels record that He performed three resurrections from the dead for other people―the daughter of Jairus (who had only just died); the son of the widow of Naim (who was already being carried to the tomb for burial) and Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary Magdalen (who had already been buried in the tomb for four days). Hence, we see Christ raise from the dead persons who had been dead for different periods of times. This was of our course a great physical miracle. Yet even greater than that was the fact that Christ―when He was dead after being tortured and crucified―resurrected Himself to life. Christ had even foretold these events a long time before they happened! All of these were physical resurrections from the dead and were clearly visible. However, Christ has performed millions or perhaps billions of spiritual miracles that are not visible seen with our eyes―those miracles are the miracles where Christ resurrects spiritually dead persons from the death of mortal sin, whereby they have killed the life of sanctifying grace in their souls by committing mortal sin. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that the value of one single soul in a state of sanctifying grace is worth far more than all the material and physical treasures of the entire universe!
Satan and Sin Bring You Death―God and Grace Restore You to Life
Holy Scripture speaks of this type of spiritual resurrection: “Sin brought in me all manner of concupiscence! … Sin seduced me and killed me! … For the wages of sin is death! … For the passions of sins work in our members [bodies] to bring forth fruit unto death! … By sin death entered into this world, and death has passed upon all men! … The body indeed is dead because of sin!” (Romans 7:8-11; 6:31; 7:5; 5:12; 8:10) … “Yet we that are dead to sin, how shall we live any longer in sin?” (Romans 6:2) … “Reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God!” (Romans 6:11) … “Where sin abounded, grace did more abound! So that as sin has reigned to death; so also grace might reign by justice unto life everlasting, through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 5:20).
“Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. For we that are dead to sin, how shall we live any longer in sin? Know you not that all who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in His death? For we are buried together with Him by Baptism into death; so that as Christ is risen from the dead, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man [our old sinful self] is crucified with Him, so that the body of sin may be destroyed, in order that we may serve sin no longer! For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ―knowing that Christ rising again from the dead, dies now no more, death shall no more have dominion over Him. For in that Christ died to sin, He died once; but in that He lives, He lives unto God! So also you must reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans 6:1-11).
“Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are whom you obey, whether it be of sin unto death, or of obedience unto justice. But thanks be to God, that you were once the servants of sin, but now you have been delivered. 18 Being then freed from sin, we have been made servants of justice. For as you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity, unto iniquity; so now yield your members to serve justice, unto sanctification. For when you were the servants of sin, what fruit had you then in those things, of which you are now ashamed? For the end of them is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end life everlasting. For the wages of sin is death. But the grace of God, life everlasting, in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans 6:16-23).
How Many Miracles Have You Received So Far?
We have a tendency to invert or reverse the true value of things―just like Satan. We focus more on the world than we focus on Heaven. We love the material more than the spiritual. Hence we value money more than grace. We preoccupy ourselves with amassing more and more possessions more than we are preoccupied with amassing more and more virtues. We prefer to spend hours in front of a TV screen, or computer screen or tablet screen rather than spend just one single hour in front of a tabernacle. We love to chat for hours with family and friends, but have little love for chatting with God through prayer. We spend hours on exercising, working-out, toning-up, beautifying, grooming, “dolling-up” the body―but have little or no time to do the same for our soul. We will more readily fast in order to lose ugly weight and beautify the body, but will not fast to lose the debt for sin and the beautification of the soul. This list could on for page-after-page with examples of how we have lost the true value of things and have often reversed the true value of things.
As a result of all this, we would value a free-gift of a new car far more than we love the free-gift of mercy in confessional. Yet that free-gift of mercy and the restoration of sanctifying grace to a soul dead in mortal sin is an infinitely greater miracle than a free-gift of a new car (or whatever else) that unexpectedly comes out of nowhere. The bottom line is this―God has freely performed numerous miracles of grace by forgiving us our mortal sins (and even venial sins), yet we don’t really give a hoot about it! God has given us something that money cannot buy―and we just take it for granted and see nothing miraculous about it! God raises our spiritually dead souls to life―and we are totally oblivious or indifferent to it! We are barely grateful―we just take our penance and off we go―but do we go to the tabernacle to give profuse, deep, sincere and heartfelt gratitude? No! We just go back to the pew and distractedly, halfheartedly, lukewarmly rattle off our paltry penance!
This brings to mind Our Lord’s encounter with Ten Lepers―and leprosy is a symbol of sinfulness: “And as Jesus entered into a certain town, there met Him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off and lifted up their voice, saying: ‘Jesus, master! Have mercy on us!’ To whom, when He saw, He said: ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests!’ And it came to pass, as they went, they were made clean. And one of them, when he saw that he was made clean, went back, with a loud voice glorifying God. And he fell on his face before the feet of Jesus, giving thanks―and this was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering, said: ‘Were not ten made clean? And where are the nine? There is no one found to return and give glory to God, but this stranger!’” (Luke 17:11-18). We forget that “by grace we are saved, for it is the gift of God!” (Ephesians 2:8).
Miracles of Mercy
How many times has Christ resurrected your spiritually dead soul? How many times has He cured your soul from the leprosy of sin? How many times have you returned to Him, falling down at His feet, while rendering to Him the greatest gratitude for the miracle (or many miracles) He has done for you by resurrecting your soul back to state of spiritual life from its spiritual death? We give far more thanks and rejoice far more over mere material gifts in comparison to the meager gratitude and joy at being shown mercy for our numerous sins!
We ought to consider in our hearts the words of Our Lord that referred to the great sinner St. Mary Magdalen, “out of whom He had cast seven devils” (Mark 16:9)―thus resurrecting her from spiritual death to spiritual life. Jesus said of her: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less!” (Luke 7:47). Sometimes the really “big-sinners”―out of gratitude for God’s mercy―end up loving far more than those who have sinned less! How much mercy has God shown you? How much should you be loving Him? Even if you had not committed one single sin, you would still be commanded and obliged to “love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength!” (Mark 12:30). How much more then are you obliged to love Him having sinned as much you have? There are too many who treat sin too lightly! Sin―whether mortal sin or venial sin―is the greatest evil in the world! Our Catechisms teach us this truth:
“Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
It’s a Life and Death Matter!
Sin is a matter of life and death: “Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:15) … “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23) … “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56) … “Sin hath reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21) … “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16) … “The soul that sins, the same shall die! … If the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity ― shall he live? All his justices which he hath done, shall not be remembered, and in his sins, which he has committed, in them he shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4 & 20 & 24). “Sin shall be destroyed with the sinner” (Ecclesiasticus 27:3).
Sin is for losers. Sin and you will lose your life―not just physical life, but eternal life. There cannot be a bigger loser than someone who loses eternal life! As Our Lord says: “For what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). “Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you―It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:23-24). “The desire of money is the root of all evils―through which some have erred from the Faith by covering it, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows! But thou, O man of God, flee from these things! Fight the good fight of Faith: lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:10-12). “And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake―but he that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Mark 13:13). “He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 24:13). “When this mortal has put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory!’ O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:54). “The Lord gives victory to them that are worthy, not according to the power of their arms! … Hope for victory from the Almighty … Who hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (2 Machabees 15:21, 8; 1 Corinthians 15:57).
On the other hand, as regards Heaven and eternal life: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love Him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Such is the magnificence of Heaven that Our Lord adds: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field―which a man having found it, hid it, and in joy of having found it, goes and sells all that he has and buys that field! Again the Kingdom of Heaven is like to a merchant seeking good pearls―who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went his way and sold all that he had and bought it!” (Matthew 13:44-46).
That is why it is a life or death matter that we put all our efforts into attaining―for very few do: “Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but only one receives the prize? Therefore, so run that you may obtain it!” (1 Corinthians 9:24). Along the same lines, Our Lord says: “Not everyone that says to Me ― ‘Lord! Lord!’ ― shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21). “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 20:16 and again in 22:14). “Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able!” (Luke 13:24). “Enter in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leads to life―and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14).
The 17-day period beginning on Septuagesima Sunday was intended to be observed as a preparation for the season of Lent, which is itself a period of spiritual preparation for Easter. At the start of the Septuagesima Season, Holy Mother presented us with the following words of Holy Scripture: “Brethren! Do you not know that those who run in a race, all indeed run, but one receives the prize? So run as to obtain it. And everyone in a contest abstains from all things ― and they indeed do this to receive a perishable crown, but we do it for an imperishable crown. I, therefore, so run as not without a purpose; I so fight as not beating the air―but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps after preaching to others I myself should be rejected. For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, all were baptized in Moses, in the cloud and in the sea. And all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink for they drank from the spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ. Yet with most of them God was not well pleased!” (Epistle for Septuagesima Sunday, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; 10:1-5).
Lent―just like life―is meant to be a race for an imperishable crown: Sanctity and Heaven! We were told: “So run as to obtain it! … So run as not without a purpose!” To win the crown of Sanctity and Heaven, it is necessary to “chastise the body and bring it into subjection.” Every sensible athlete knows that in order to be a champion, the body will have to suffer much and pleasures and over-indulgence will have to take a back-seat. The athlete will “do violence” to his or her body in order to strengthen it, optimize it and perfect it. The same applies to the race or battle for Heaven. We are spiritual athletes―soldiers of Christ―who have been given a lifelong marathon race, or lifelong fight or wrestling match against the devil, the world and our own sinful flesh: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay a hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). Our Lord Himself says: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin!” (Hebrews 12:4).
Emerging from the Boot Camp of Lent into the Battle of Easter
For some people―the naïve ones, superficial ones, lukewarm ones or cowardly ones―the end of Lent is not seen as a beginning, but as much anticipated and awaited end to a miserable 40 days of Hell! “The sooner it is over, the better!” is their overriding thought. They imagine Lent to have the battle itself―whereas in reality it is only a training ground, a “boot-camp”, for the real battle that goes on every day, seven-days-a-week, 365 day per year and each and every year of our lives. From birth to death we are thrown into a boxing-ring, or wrestling-ring, or into Roman amphitheater filled with lions: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). It is not just Lent upon Earth that is a warfare! No! “The [whole] life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) ― meaning in Lent and outside of Lent. Lent is merely a boot-camp that reminds us, prepares us, strengthens us, conditions us and trains us for our lifelong fight against the triple enemy―the devil, the world and the flesh. If we emerge from the boot-camp of Lent and go back to our old-style of living, then it is much like a soldier or an athlete who, after completing weeks of training for battle, fight or race, suddenly stops the training regime and begins to gorge themselves on food, drink and pleasures! In no time at all they become big fat slobs with no belly for the fight!
The military has long since enforced regular annual “mandatory training” for its troops. States require police officers to have a certain amount of continuing education training every year or every other year to maintain their certification. Similar mandatory training requirements can be found in many other fields of work―including doctors and nurses, airline pilots, mechanics, etc. The same has to be true in the spiritual field. That is one of the many purposes of Lent―to prepare us and update us for the battles that lie ahead. Our Lord did not just His “40 Days” of fasting and praying in the desert―all throughout His life He was very demanding upon Himself, often spending entire nights in prayer and foregoing sleep.
Our God is a Demanding God!
Easter―though a time of celebration and joy―is not a time to build-up fat and not muscle! It is not a time to “let it all hang out” ― belly included. The following condemnation in Holy Scripture applies to many “Easter Catholics” who are only too glad to escape from Lent: “For many walk, of whom I have told you often―and now tell you weeping―that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things!” (Philippians 3:19). God is a demanding God―demanding of Himself and demanding of others. Hey! It can’t be any other way, can it? God is perfection itself―and perfection is demanding. Something that is perfect is something that is also automatically “extreme”. Being perfect is more than merely being good―it is being EXTREMELY good―and going to extremes is demanding!
Yes―our God is a very demanding God―and we, being the adopted children of God through our Baptism, should likewise be demanding children of God. Not in the sense that we want to be waited upon hand and foot―no, not selfishly demanding children, but demanding of ourselves, demanding a high degree of perfection from ourselves―as befits the children of God. Thus it is that Our Lord says: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:4). That perfection is not meant to last a mere imperfect 40 of Lent―but our whole lives. In fact, while we live upon this Earth, there is no limit to the level of perfection we can attain―with the help of God and His grace, of course! Our Lord says: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
Easter―with its celebration of Our Lord’s resurrection from the dead―should remind us of the fact that Our Lord’s resurrected body was of a much higher perfection than it was before. Is our Easter resurrection the same? Are we more perfect after these 40 days of Lent―or are we much the same as before. Has it been a case of taking three steps forward during Lent―and now we are in the process of taking three steps backwards during Easter? For all the fasting and abstaining that we did during Lent―are we now “making up for it” by days of self-indulgence, gluttony and gorging at the start of the Easter season? Has our whole life been a vicious-circle of “three-steps-forward” followed by “three-steps-backwards”? Will Easter undo the good that was achieved during Lent?
The Resurrection is Not for Christ Alone!
There can be a tendency to view the Resurrection as a uniquely and solely Christ event―but this not the case. Apart from the fact that every single human being who has ever lived will resurrect at the end of the world―there is also an even greater resurrection miracle that takes place daily, though it is not always manifested to everyone. What is that resurrection? It is a spiritual resurrection from spiritual “death” caused by mortal sin! Since―as the Church teaches―the soul is more important than the body, then it logically stands to reason that spiritual miracles are more important or greater than physical or material miracles―although the latter are more striking because of their often spectacular character. Our Lord Himself taught this―as can be seen in this following example:
“After some days Jesus again entered into Capharnaum. And when it was heard that He was in the house, many came together, so that there was no room―no, not even at the door―and He spoke to them the word. And they came, bringing to Jesus, a man sick of the palsy, who was carried by four men. And when they could not present him to Jesus, because of the great crowds, they uncovered the roof where Jesus was―and opening it, they let down the bed wherein the man sick of the palsy lay. And when Jesus had seen their faith, He said to the sick of the palsy: ‘Son, thy sins are forgiven thee!’ And there were some of the scribes sitting there and thinking in their hearts: ‘Why does this Man speak thus? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins, but God only?’ Jesus―knowing in His spirit that they so thought within themselves―said to them: ‘Why do you think these evil things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the man sick of the palsy: “Thy sins are forgiven thee!” or to say: “Arise, take up thy bed, and walk!” But so that you may know that the Son of man hath power on Earth to forgive sins’―He said to the sick of the palsy― ‘I say to thee: Arise! Take up thy bed and go into thy house!’ And immediately he arose and, taking up his bed, went his way in the sight of all―so that all wondered and glorified God, saying: ‘We never saw the like!’” (Mark 2:9-12; Luke 5:17-26; Matthew 9:2-8).
In essence, Jesus here performs two “resurrections” for the sick man―one being physical and the other being spiritual. There was no public outcry and protest from the Scribes about the physical miracles that Jesus was performing, for they knew that God had worked many miracles through men many times in the history of the Chosen People―Abraham, Moses, Josue, Daniel, Elias, Eliseus, Isaias, David, Jonas, Samson, etc. etc. Thus we see that God performing miracles through His chosen ones was nothing new and nothing to protest about. However, the forgiveness of sins was something that was held to be possible for God alone. Hence, when Jesus started forgiving sins―it was this that caused uproar, protest and opposition―for by doing so it was seen that Jesus was implicitly claiming to be God Himself! At the same time this shows us the vastly superior “spiritual miracle” of the forgiveness of sins―compared to the inferior “physical miracles” that the Jews knew from their history or even experienced in Jesus’ ministry.
While Christ was still alive, the Gospels record that He performed three resurrections from the dead for other people―the daughter of Jairus (who had only just died); the son of the widow of Naim (who was already being carried to the tomb for burial) and Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary Magdalen (who had already been buried in the tomb for four days). Hence, we see Christ raise from the dead persons who had been dead for different periods of times. This was of our course a great physical miracle. Yet even greater than that was the fact that Christ―when He was dead after being tortured and crucified―resurrected Himself to life. Christ had even foretold these events a long time before they happened! All of these were physical resurrections from the dead and were clearly visible. However, Christ has performed millions or perhaps billions of spiritual miracles that are not visible seen with our eyes―those miracles are the miracles where Christ resurrects spiritually dead persons from the death of mortal sin, whereby they have killed the life of sanctifying grace in their souls by committing mortal sin. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that the value of one single soul in a state of sanctifying grace is worth far more than all the material and physical treasures of the entire universe!
Satan and Sin Bring You Death―God and Grace Restore You to Life
Holy Scripture speaks of this type of spiritual resurrection: “Sin brought in me all manner of concupiscence! … Sin seduced me and killed me! … For the wages of sin is death! … For the passions of sins work in our members [bodies] to bring forth fruit unto death! … By sin death entered into this world, and death has passed upon all men! … The body indeed is dead because of sin!” (Romans 7:8-11; 6:31; 7:5; 5:12; 8:10) … “Yet we that are dead to sin, how shall we live any longer in sin?” (Romans 6:2) … “Reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God!” (Romans 6:11) … “Where sin abounded, grace did more abound! So that as sin has reigned to death; so also grace might reign by justice unto life everlasting, through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 5:20).
“Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. For we that are dead to sin, how shall we live any longer in sin? Know you not that all who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in His death? For we are buried together with Him by Baptism into death; so that as Christ is risen from the dead, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man [our old sinful self] is crucified with Him, so that the body of sin may be destroyed, in order that we may serve sin no longer! For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ―knowing that Christ rising again from the dead, dies now no more, death shall no more have dominion over Him. For in that Christ died to sin, He died once; but in that He lives, He lives unto God! So also you must reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans 6:1-11).
“Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are whom you obey, whether it be of sin unto death, or of obedience unto justice. But thanks be to God, that you were once the servants of sin, but now you have been delivered. 18 Being then freed from sin, we have been made servants of justice. For as you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity, unto iniquity; so now yield your members to serve justice, unto sanctification. For when you were the servants of sin, what fruit had you then in those things, of which you are now ashamed? For the end of them is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end life everlasting. For the wages of sin is death. But the grace of God, life everlasting, in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans 6:16-23).
How Many Miracles Have You Received So Far?
We have a tendency to invert or reverse the true value of things―just like Satan. We focus more on the world than we focus on Heaven. We love the material more than the spiritual. Hence we value money more than grace. We preoccupy ourselves with amassing more and more possessions more than we are preoccupied with amassing more and more virtues. We prefer to spend hours in front of a TV screen, or computer screen or tablet screen rather than spend just one single hour in front of a tabernacle. We love to chat for hours with family and friends, but have little love for chatting with God through prayer. We spend hours on exercising, working-out, toning-up, beautifying, grooming, “dolling-up” the body―but have little or no time to do the same for our soul. We will more readily fast in order to lose ugly weight and beautify the body, but will not fast to lose the debt for sin and the beautification of the soul. This list could on for page-after-page with examples of how we have lost the true value of things and have often reversed the true value of things.
As a result of all this, we would value a free-gift of a new car far more than we love the free-gift of mercy in confessional. Yet that free-gift of mercy and the restoration of sanctifying grace to a soul dead in mortal sin is an infinitely greater miracle than a free-gift of a new car (or whatever else) that unexpectedly comes out of nowhere. The bottom line is this―God has freely performed numerous miracles of grace by forgiving us our mortal sins (and even venial sins), yet we don’t really give a hoot about it! God has given us something that money cannot buy―and we just take it for granted and see nothing miraculous about it! God raises our spiritually dead souls to life―and we are totally oblivious or indifferent to it! We are barely grateful―we just take our penance and off we go―but do we go to the tabernacle to give profuse, deep, sincere and heartfelt gratitude? No! We just go back to the pew and distractedly, halfheartedly, lukewarmly rattle off our paltry penance!
This brings to mind Our Lord’s encounter with Ten Lepers―and leprosy is a symbol of sinfulness: “And as Jesus entered into a certain town, there met Him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off and lifted up their voice, saying: ‘Jesus, master! Have mercy on us!’ To whom, when He saw, He said: ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests!’ And it came to pass, as they went, they were made clean. And one of them, when he saw that he was made clean, went back, with a loud voice glorifying God. And he fell on his face before the feet of Jesus, giving thanks―and this was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering, said: ‘Were not ten made clean? And where are the nine? There is no one found to return and give glory to God, but this stranger!’” (Luke 17:11-18). We forget that “by grace we are saved, for it is the gift of God!” (Ephesians 2:8).
Miracles of Mercy
How many times has Christ resurrected your spiritually dead soul? How many times has He cured your soul from the leprosy of sin? How many times have you returned to Him, falling down at His feet, while rendering to Him the greatest gratitude for the miracle (or many miracles) He has done for you by resurrecting your soul back to state of spiritual life from its spiritual death? We give far more thanks and rejoice far more over mere material gifts in comparison to the meager gratitude and joy at being shown mercy for our numerous sins!
We ought to consider in our hearts the words of Our Lord that referred to the great sinner St. Mary Magdalen, “out of whom He had cast seven devils” (Mark 16:9)―thus resurrecting her from spiritual death to spiritual life. Jesus said of her: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less!” (Luke 7:47). Sometimes the really “big-sinners”―out of gratitude for God’s mercy―end up loving far more than those who have sinned less! How much mercy has God shown you? How much should you be loving Him? Even if you had not committed one single sin, you would still be commanded and obliged to “love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength!” (Mark 12:30). How much more then are you obliged to love Him having sinned as much you have? There are too many who treat sin too lightly! Sin―whether mortal sin or venial sin―is the greatest evil in the world! Our Catechisms teach us this truth:
“Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
It’s a Life and Death Matter!
Sin is a matter of life and death: “Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:15) … “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23) … “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56) … “Sin hath reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21) … “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16) … “The soul that sins, the same shall die! … If the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity ― shall he live? All his justices which he hath done, shall not be remembered, and in his sins, which he has committed, in them he shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4 & 20 & 24). “Sin shall be destroyed with the sinner” (Ecclesiasticus 27:3).
Sin is for losers. Sin and you will lose your life―not just physical life, but eternal life. There cannot be a bigger loser than someone who loses eternal life! As Our Lord says: “For what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). “Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you―It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:23-24). “The desire of money is the root of all evils―through which some have erred from the Faith by covering it, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows! But thou, O man of God, flee from these things! Fight the good fight of Faith: lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:10-12). “And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake―but he that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Mark 13:13). “He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 24:13). “When this mortal has put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory!’ O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:54). “The Lord gives victory to them that are worthy, not according to the power of their arms! … Hope for victory from the Almighty … Who hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (2 Machabees 15:21, 8; 1 Corinthians 15:57).
On the other hand, as regards Heaven and eternal life: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love Him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Such is the magnificence of Heaven that Our Lord adds: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field―which a man having found it, hid it, and in joy of having found it, goes and sells all that he has and buys that field! Again the Kingdom of Heaven is like to a merchant seeking good pearls―who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went his way and sold all that he had and bought it!” (Matthew 13:44-46).
That is why it is a life or death matter that we put all our efforts into attaining―for very few do: “Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but only one receives the prize? Therefore, so run that you may obtain it!” (1 Corinthians 9:24). Along the same lines, Our Lord says: “Not everyone that says to Me ― ‘Lord! Lord!’ ― shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21). “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 20:16 and again in 22:14). “Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able!” (Luke 13:24). “Enter in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leads to life―and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14).
DAILY THOUGHTS FOR THE LENTEN SEASON
Article 33
Saturday in Holy Week, April 8th, 2023
Burying and Leaving Jesus Behind!
Saturday in Holy Week, April 8th, 2023
Burying and Leaving Jesus Behind!
Dead and Buried!
We all love a “happy ending”―but this Fourteenth Station of the Cross does not quite give a “happy ending” to the story! Or does it? You have heard of the expression: “Some people see a half-filled glass of water as being half-empty, while other see it as being half-full.” The one and the same reality can create two opposing viewpoints or attitudes. For the followers of Christ, the ending to the story was far from being a happy ending! Whereas for the enemies of Christ, the story could not have had a happier ending! Christ was dead and buried. Christ was finally out of the picture! All His plans had come to an end! Christ had run His course and would run no longer―or so they thought!
Yet Christ’s followers should not have been sad―for had they been paying attention and had they taken His words to heart and mind, then, as He was dying on the cross, they would have remembered in their minds that Christ had foretold all of this: “From that time, Jesus began to show to His disciples, that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the ancients and scribes and chief priests, and be put to death, and the third day rise again” (Matthew 16:21) … “And when they abode together in Galilee, Jesus said to them: ‘The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men! And they shall kill Him, and the third day He shall rise again!’ And they were troubled exceedingly” (Matthew 17:21-22) … “And He began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the ancients and by the high priests, and the scribes, and be killed: and after three days rise again. And He spoke the word openly” (Mark 8:31-32).
A Bunch of Disbelievers!
The varying degrees of sadness, sorrow, discouragement, disillusionment and depression that hit the Apostles and disciples at the news and sight of Christ’s crucifixion and death was not wanted, intended or sent by God. Such negative reactions were purely the work of Satan and/or a too naturalistic and human spirit. Our Lord would point that out to two of His disciples whom He appeared to on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus after His resurrection from the dead.
“And behold, two of them [the disciples of Jesus] went, the same day, to a town which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, named Emmaus. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass, that while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus Himself also drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held, that they should not know Him. And He said to them: ‘What are these discourses that you hold one with another as you walk, and are sad?’ And the one of them, whose name was Cleophas, answering, said to Him: ‘Art Thou only a stranger to Jerusalem, and hast not known the things that have been done there in these days?’ To whom Jesus said: ‘What things?’ And they said: ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, Who was a prophet, mighty in work and word before God and all the people; and how our chief priests and princes delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we hoped that it was He that should have redeemed Israel! And now, besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done! And certain women, also of our company, frightened us―who, before it was light, were at the sepulcher, and, not finding His Body, came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, who say that He is alive! And some of our people went to the sepulcher and found it so as the women had said―but Him they found not!’ Then Jesus said to them: ‘O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?’ And, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them all the things in the Scriptures that were concerning Him” (Luke 24:13-27).
We all know how St. Thomas was in disbelief about the Resurrection―but so too were all the Apostles and disciples! To them, Jesus was dead and buried―and all His plans with Him! The Gospels account of Our Lord apparitions after His resurrection designate Mary Magdalen as being the first person to whom Jesus appeared (though tradition tells us that Our Lady was the first person He appeared to). For Mary Magdalen, too, Jesus was “dead and buried” and this had made her disconsolate. “Mary Magdalen stood outside the sepulcher, weeping. Now, as she was weeping, she stooped down and looked into the sepulcher. And she saw two angels in white, sitting―one at the head and one at the feet―where the body of Jesus had been laid. They said to her: ‘Woman, why weepest thou?’ She said to them: ‘Because they have taken away my Lord―and I know not where they have laid Him!’ When she had said this, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing―and she knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith to her: ‘Woman, why weepest thou?’ Whom seekest thou?’ She, thinking it was the gardener, said to Him: ‘Sir! If thou hast taken Him from here, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away!’ Jesus saith to her: ‘Mary!’ She turning, said to Him: ‘Rabboni!’ (which is to say, ‘Master!’). Jesus said to her: ‘Do not touch Me―for I am not yet ascended to My Father! But go to My brethren and tell them that I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and your God!’” (John 20:11-17).
Yet when Mary ran back and told the Apostles and other disciples that Jesus has appeared to her, they did not believe her! That led to Our Lord appearing to them in person! “Jesus stood in the midst of them and said to them: ‘Peace be to you! It is I, fear not!’ But they, being troubled and frightened, supposed that they saw a spirit. And Jesus said to them: ‘Why are you troubled? And why do these thoughts arise in your hearts? See My hands and feet―and know that it is I Myself! Touch and see―for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me to have!’ And, when He had said this, He showed them His hands and feet―yet they believed not” (Luke 24:36-41).
As regards the “Doubting Thomas”, Holy Scripture tells us that “Thomas, one of the Twelve, who is called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him: ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them: ‘Unless I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side―I will not believe!’ And after eight days, again His disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Jesus cometh, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said: ‘Peace be to you!’ Then He said to Thomas: ‘Put in thy finger here and see My hands! And bring here thy hand and put it into My side! And be not faithless―but believing!’ Thomas answered and said to Him: ‘My Lord, and my God!’ Jesus said to him: ‘Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed! Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed!’” (John 20:29).
We all love a “happy ending”―but this Fourteenth Station of the Cross does not quite give a “happy ending” to the story! Or does it? You have heard of the expression: “Some people see a half-filled glass of water as being half-empty, while other see it as being half-full.” The one and the same reality can create two opposing viewpoints or attitudes. For the followers of Christ, the ending to the story was far from being a happy ending! Whereas for the enemies of Christ, the story could not have had a happier ending! Christ was dead and buried. Christ was finally out of the picture! All His plans had come to an end! Christ had run His course and would run no longer―or so they thought!
Yet Christ’s followers should not have been sad―for had they been paying attention and had they taken His words to heart and mind, then, as He was dying on the cross, they would have remembered in their minds that Christ had foretold all of this: “From that time, Jesus began to show to His disciples, that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the ancients and scribes and chief priests, and be put to death, and the third day rise again” (Matthew 16:21) … “And when they abode together in Galilee, Jesus said to them: ‘The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men! And they shall kill Him, and the third day He shall rise again!’ And they were troubled exceedingly” (Matthew 17:21-22) … “And He began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the ancients and by the high priests, and the scribes, and be killed: and after three days rise again. And He spoke the word openly” (Mark 8:31-32).
A Bunch of Disbelievers!
The varying degrees of sadness, sorrow, discouragement, disillusionment and depression that hit the Apostles and disciples at the news and sight of Christ’s crucifixion and death was not wanted, intended or sent by God. Such negative reactions were purely the work of Satan and/or a too naturalistic and human spirit. Our Lord would point that out to two of His disciples whom He appeared to on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus after His resurrection from the dead.
“And behold, two of them [the disciples of Jesus] went, the same day, to a town which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, named Emmaus. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass, that while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus Himself also drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held, that they should not know Him. And He said to them: ‘What are these discourses that you hold one with another as you walk, and are sad?’ And the one of them, whose name was Cleophas, answering, said to Him: ‘Art Thou only a stranger to Jerusalem, and hast not known the things that have been done there in these days?’ To whom Jesus said: ‘What things?’ And they said: ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, Who was a prophet, mighty in work and word before God and all the people; and how our chief priests and princes delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we hoped that it was He that should have redeemed Israel! And now, besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done! And certain women, also of our company, frightened us―who, before it was light, were at the sepulcher, and, not finding His Body, came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, who say that He is alive! And some of our people went to the sepulcher and found it so as the women had said―but Him they found not!’ Then Jesus said to them: ‘O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?’ And, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them all the things in the Scriptures that were concerning Him” (Luke 24:13-27).
We all know how St. Thomas was in disbelief about the Resurrection―but so too were all the Apostles and disciples! To them, Jesus was dead and buried―and all His plans with Him! The Gospels account of Our Lord apparitions after His resurrection designate Mary Magdalen as being the first person to whom Jesus appeared (though tradition tells us that Our Lady was the first person He appeared to). For Mary Magdalen, too, Jesus was “dead and buried” and this had made her disconsolate. “Mary Magdalen stood outside the sepulcher, weeping. Now, as she was weeping, she stooped down and looked into the sepulcher. And she saw two angels in white, sitting―one at the head and one at the feet―where the body of Jesus had been laid. They said to her: ‘Woman, why weepest thou?’ She said to them: ‘Because they have taken away my Lord―and I know not where they have laid Him!’ When she had said this, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing―and she knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith to her: ‘Woman, why weepest thou?’ Whom seekest thou?’ She, thinking it was the gardener, said to Him: ‘Sir! If thou hast taken Him from here, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away!’ Jesus saith to her: ‘Mary!’ She turning, said to Him: ‘Rabboni!’ (which is to say, ‘Master!’). Jesus said to her: ‘Do not touch Me―for I am not yet ascended to My Father! But go to My brethren and tell them that I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and your God!’” (John 20:11-17).
Yet when Mary ran back and told the Apostles and other disciples that Jesus has appeared to her, they did not believe her! That led to Our Lord appearing to them in person! “Jesus stood in the midst of them and said to them: ‘Peace be to you! It is I, fear not!’ But they, being troubled and frightened, supposed that they saw a spirit. And Jesus said to them: ‘Why are you troubled? And why do these thoughts arise in your hearts? See My hands and feet―and know that it is I Myself! Touch and see―for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me to have!’ And, when He had said this, He showed them His hands and feet―yet they believed not” (Luke 24:36-41).
As regards the “Doubting Thomas”, Holy Scripture tells us that “Thomas, one of the Twelve, who is called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him: ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them: ‘Unless I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side―I will not believe!’ And after eight days, again His disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Jesus cometh, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said: ‘Peace be to you!’ Then He said to Thomas: ‘Put in thy finger here and see My hands! And bring here thy hand and put it into My side! And be not faithless―but believing!’ Thomas answered and said to Him: ‘My Lord, and my God!’ Jesus said to him: ‘Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed! Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed!’” (John 20:29).
Article 32
Good Friday in Holy Week, April 7th, 2023
Victory in Failure!
Good Friday in Holy Week, April 7th, 2023
Victory in Failure!
Apparent Failure
We see death as an end―as a failure―something that suddenly stops a person in his or her tracks. Death puts an end to our plans and projects. To mere human eyes, Jesus looked like a failure and a loser as he died on the Cross. Today the world looks upon those who are religious as being losers. They mock us, just like they mocked Christ. Religiosity gets in the way of worldliness and must be marginalized, controlled, or, even better, eliminated. Our Lord said that if they have hated Me then they will also hate you (John 15:18). Let us not become cowards and people pleasers, just because we are laughed at, mocked and hated. He who laughs last, laughs longest—and eternity is an awful long time! Do we want to laugh and rejoice for eternity, or mourn, moan and groan for eternity? What we do now will lead us to one or the other fate. Those, who laugh now at religion, will gnash and grind their teeth as they howl and wail for eternity.
As Our Lord told His Apostles at the Last Supper, just before dying: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20). To St. Bernadette, Our Lady said: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next.” The problem is that most people want to be happy in both this world and in the next—but, as they say, “You can’t have your cake and eat it!” Or as Our Lord says: “No man can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other! You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). Apparent failure in this world will often lead to great glory in the next. Success and opulence in this world, will often lead to misery in the next. We choose―and we win or lose by what we choose! As Our Lord adds: “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
Is Death A Failure?
Our Lord to us: “Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do!” (Luke 12:4). He Himself was afraid of death during His agony in Gethsemane, but He chose to walk into the jaws of death as a seeming failure, so as to come out alive as a victor. Did He not say: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel shall save it” (Mark 8:35)? Don’t waste your life things that don’t matter, you may lose your eternal life over those things—most things do not matter. Jesus said to Martha (who was very concerned about material things), “Martha! Martha! Thou art careful and art troubled about many things! But one thing is necessary! Mary hath chosen the best part!" (Luke 10:41-42). Martha was busy with cooking and other household chores―while Mary “lazily” sat at Our Lord’s “eating” His words and “chewing” them over. Martha complained to Our Lord about “lazy” Mary and asked Him to make Mary help her. Our Lord rebuked Martha and told her that Mary had chosen the better part.
Mary Magdalen always seemed to be at the feet of Jesus! Caught in adultery, she probably was weeping at His feet; she weeps at His feet at the banquet; she weeps at His feet on Calvary; she weeps at His feet (thinking He is the gardener) at His tomb after the Resurrection! “But one thing is necessary”—to humbly and lovingly be found at the feet of our Savior! To humbly and lovingly die at the feet of our Savior! That is success—regardless of how much or how little you have done or succeeded in this world from a human point of view.
Chasing Success in this Life Often Leads to Spiritual Death
Commenting upon this passage concerning Our Lord, Mary Magdalen and Martha, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “The intimate conversation of the egoist with himself is not an interior life and proceeds in this manner to death. The egoist knows little about the spiritual part of his soul … His self-love leads him to wish to make himself the center of everything, to draw everything to himself―both persons and things. Since this is impossible, he frequently ends in disillusionment and disgust; he becomes unbearable to himself and to others, and ends by hating himself, because he wished to love himself excessively. At times he ends by hating life, because he desired too greatly what is inferior in it. If a man, who is not in the state of grace, begins to seek goodness, his intimate conversation with himself is already quite different. He converses with himself, for example, about what is necessary to live becomingly and to support his family. This at times preoccupies him greatly. Often, however, the intimate conversation of a man, even in the state of grace, continues to be tainted with egoism, self-love, sensuality, and pride. These sins are no longer mortal in him, they are venial; but if they are repeated, they incline him to fall into a serious sin, that is, to fall back into spiritual death. Should this happen, this man tries again to flee from himself, because what he finds in himself is no longer life, but death. He may even hurl himself back farther into death, by casting himself into pleasure, into the satisfactions of sensuality or of pride.
“To wish to get along without God, leads to an abyss; not only to nothingness, but also to a physical and moral wretchedness that is worse than nothingness. If the serious element in life is out of focus, if it no longer is concerned with our duties toward God, but with the scientific and social activities of man; if man continually seeks himself instead of God, his last End, then events are not slow in showing him that he has taken an impossible way, which leads not only to nothingness, but to unbearable disorder and misery. The present world-wide economic crisis demonstrates what men can do (or cannot do) when they seek to get along without God. Without God, the seriousness of life gets out of focus. If religion is no longer a grave matter, but something to smile at, then the serious element in life must be sought elsewhere. Some place it, or pretend to place it, in science or in social activity; they devote themselves religiously to the search for scientific truth, or to the establishment of justice between classes or peoples. After a while they are forced to perceive that they have ended in fearful disorder.
“The interior life of a just man — who tends toward God and who already lives by Him — is indeed the one thing necessary. The interior life is something far more profound and more necessary in us than intellectual life, or the cultivation of the sciences, more profound than artistic or literary life, more profound than social or political life. Unfortunately, some great scholars, mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers have no interior life, so to speak, but devote themselves to the study of their science, as if God did not exist. In their moments of solitude they have no intimate conversation with Him. Their life appears to be, in certain respects, the search for the true and the good, in a more or less definite and restricted domain, but it is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride, that we may legitimately question whether it will bear fruit for eternity. Many artists, literary men, and statesmen never rise above this level of purely human activity, which is, in short, quite exterior. Do the depths of their souls live by God? It would seem not.
“When man will no longer fulfill his great religious duties toward God, Who created him and Who is his last End, then he makes a religion for himself out of something else, since he absolutely cannot get along without religion. To replace the superior ideal [God] which he has abandoned, man may, for example, place his religion in science, or in the cult of social justice, or in some human ideal. It has often been remarked that, today, science pretends to be a religion. Likewise Socialism and Communism claim to be a code of ethics and present themselves under the guise of a feverish cult of justice, thereby trying to captivate hearts and minds.
“This shows that the interior life, or the life of the soul with God, well deserves to be called the one thing necessary, since by it we tend to our last end and assure our salvation. Yet, there are some who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles, and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven, whether they enter Heaven immediately after death, or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Every sin—though it should be only venial—must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified.
“To be a saint, neither intellectual culture, nor great exterior activity is a requisite; it suffices that we live profoundly by God. If people sacrifice so many things to save the life of the body, which must ultimately die, what should we not sacrifice to save the life of our soul, which is to last forever? Ought not man to love his soul more than his body? ‘Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?’ (Mark 8:37) adds Our Lord. ‘One thing is necessary,’ He tells us. To save our soul, one thing alone is necessary ― to hear the word of God and to live by it. Therein lies ‘the best part’, which will not be taken away from a faithful soul, even though it should lose everything else.
“We conclude, that religion can only give an efficacious and truly realistic answer to the great modern problems if it is a religion that is profoundly lived, not simply a superficial and cheap religion, made up of some vocal prayers and some ceremonies, in which religious art is given more place than true sincere piety. As a matter of fact, no religion, that is profoundly lived, is without an interior life, without that intimate and frequent conversation which we have, not only with ourselves, but with God.”
A Good Life Is Better Than A Long Life
Do not seek a long life, but rather a good one—says the Imitation of Christ: “It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life. It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come. It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides.” (Book 1, Chapter 1). A good life is a life where you “shall love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbor as thyself” (Luke 10:27). It is the love of God (charity) that gives life and power to all that we do. For “God is charity” (1 John 4:8).
St Paul tells us that “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Our Lord came to show us how to love God—which is essentially (1) keeping His commandments; (2) doing His will, and (3) suffering and even dying for Him, just as Our Lord suffered and died. Our love is measured by the Cross: “Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me!’” Matthew 16:24). “And he that does not take up his cross and does not follow Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Loving God means more than just “talking the talk”―it also requires that we “walk the walk”―especially walking the way of the cross. Lip service is not enough―Our Lord calls it hypocrisy: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8). Just as “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26), likewise you could say: “Charity without works is dead!”―for “actions speak louder than words.”
Dying of Love
If God is love ― “God is charity” ― (1 John 4:8), then to die loving God is to die in God, or to die with God in us. “Jesus answered, and said to him: ‘If anyone love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him” (John 14:23). “For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:21). “For none of us liveth to himself; and no man dies to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Therefore, whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For, to this end, Christ died and rose again!” (Romans 14:7-9).
Dying of a love of God means dying to sin; dying to the world and dying to our own self and our concupiscences and tendencies through mortification. The word mortification literally means “putting to death” or “making dead”―it comes from the Late Latin verb “mortificāre”, meaning “to put to death,” and is a compound of the two Latin words: (1) “mors, mortis” meaning “death, of death” and (2) the verb “facere” and its past participle “factus” meaning “to make, to do”. It might sound strange or morbid, and even paradoxical―but the Christian life is all about death, even though Our Lord said: “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly!” (John 10:10). Yet elsewhere Our Lord explains that the “life” that He speaks of, is eternal life and the life of grace―which requires that we die to sin and die to anything else that can rob us of that eternal life. That is why He says: “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone! But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal!” (John 12:24-25). “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it! And whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel, shall save it!” (Mark 8:35).
Martyrdom the Pinnacle of Love
Do not be afraid of martyrdom if it may come your way. “Greater love no man hath than he who lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Our Lord wants us to be His friends. Again, at the Last Supper, just before His death, He said: “I will not now call you servants … but I have called you friends!” (John 15:15). How does one become a friend of Jesus? He Himself tells us: “You are my friends, if you do the things that I command you!” (John 15:14). What has Jesus in store for His friends? Once again, He tells us: “And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake―but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:22). “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death―and you shall be hated by all nations for My Name’s sake!” (Matthew 24:9) … “And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends; and some of you they will put to death!” (Luke 21:16).
► Victory over the unbelievers. As Jesus was dying on the cross―a seeming failure in the eyes of the onlookers―the Chief Priests and the Scribes mocked Him by saying: “Let Christ the King of Israel come down now from the cross, so that we may see and believe!” This apparent “failure” would do more than come down from the Cross whilst alive—He would come out of the tomb when He was dead! Let us beg Him to conquer our unbelief―our unbelief in the Eucharist, our unbelief in eternal life, our unbelief in the power of prayer, our unbelief in the devil, our unbelief in the existence of Hell, or whatever unbelief we may be guilty of.
► Victory over death. Holy Scripture taunts defeated death: “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). Through the old Adam death came into the world, because he ate a forbidden fruit from a tree. Now the new Adam, bore a new fruit on the tree of the Cross and through partaking of that fruit we have life eternal. Look at the lacerated, bruised, beaten, wounded body that now hangs on the cross―in a short while that same body will be unrecognizable in His resurrection. Do not fear or flee your sufferings, for they will be your source of grace and glory. He had raised three persons from the dead while He was alive, and soon He will raise Himself from the dead as He had predicted and when He had predicted. So too will He raise you and your loved ones from the dead on the last day.
Do not fear so much as the death of mortal sin. Yet there too He raises us from the dead in the tomb of confessional in which we bury ourselves. We enter the tomb of the confessional dead in sin and dead to God―yet, through admitting our sinful failings we come out alive and victorious over the death of mortal sin: “God forbid. For we that are dead to sin, how shall we live any longer therein? Know you not that all we, who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in His death? For we are buried together with Him by baptism into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life! For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this―that our old man is crucified with Him, so that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer! For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ! Knowing that Christ, rising again from the dead, dies now no more, death shall no more have dominion over Him. For in that He died to sin, He died once―but in that He lives, He liveth unto God! So do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans 6:2-11).
► Victory over the devil. The devil was not sure who He was! His holiness enraged the devil so much that he plotted and waged war against Christ—as he will wage war against you the holier you try to become, plotting, planning and stirring-up all manner of things against you. Yet by His humble acceptance and meekness in face of this onslaught, Christ will win the victory through His resurrection. He uses the weight of the attack of His enemies against his enemy. The greater the rage, the greater the defeat. Let us learn from Our Lord not to fear the devil, and above all not to love the devil and his allurements―for this evil “prince of this world” (John 12:31) uses the allurements of the world like bullets that are meant to strike and kill the life of sanctifying grace in your soul: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour―whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9) … “In all things taking the shield of Faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one!” (Ephesians 6:16). Hence the importance of “dying to the world”―which then makes us “bullet-proof”. The devil can do nothing without the permission and agreement of God.
► Victory over the world. On the cross Our Lord dies to the world. In a short while He will rise again―not to live here forever, but He will rise above this world and will rise to Heaven: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews―but My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
He died for this world, but He also died to this world. He died trying to save this world―but the world, on the whole, did not want to be saved: “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not … He came unto His own, and His own received Him not … The light shone in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it! … Men loved darkness rather than the light―for their works were evil!” (John 1:5-11; 3:19). He took nothing of this world with Him, nor shall we when we die. Let us not live as though it was only this world that matters. Especially the young ones, who have not yet tasted the poison that Satan offers under the glitter and charm of the world around us. Do not compromise your soul and your salvation for a cheap sin. What a way to repay your God Who died for you in order to help you stay clean.
We see death as an end―as a failure―something that suddenly stops a person in his or her tracks. Death puts an end to our plans and projects. To mere human eyes, Jesus looked like a failure and a loser as he died on the Cross. Today the world looks upon those who are religious as being losers. They mock us, just like they mocked Christ. Religiosity gets in the way of worldliness and must be marginalized, controlled, or, even better, eliminated. Our Lord said that if they have hated Me then they will also hate you (John 15:18). Let us not become cowards and people pleasers, just because we are laughed at, mocked and hated. He who laughs last, laughs longest—and eternity is an awful long time! Do we want to laugh and rejoice for eternity, or mourn, moan and groan for eternity? What we do now will lead us to one or the other fate. Those, who laugh now at religion, will gnash and grind their teeth as they howl and wail for eternity.
As Our Lord told His Apostles at the Last Supper, just before dying: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20). To St. Bernadette, Our Lady said: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next.” The problem is that most people want to be happy in both this world and in the next—but, as they say, “You can’t have your cake and eat it!” Or as Our Lord says: “No man can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other! You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). Apparent failure in this world will often lead to great glory in the next. Success and opulence in this world, will often lead to misery in the next. We choose―and we win or lose by what we choose! As Our Lord adds: “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
Is Death A Failure?
Our Lord to us: “Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do!” (Luke 12:4). He Himself was afraid of death during His agony in Gethsemane, but He chose to walk into the jaws of death as a seeming failure, so as to come out alive as a victor. Did He not say: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel shall save it” (Mark 8:35)? Don’t waste your life things that don’t matter, you may lose your eternal life over those things—most things do not matter. Jesus said to Martha (who was very concerned about material things), “Martha! Martha! Thou art careful and art troubled about many things! But one thing is necessary! Mary hath chosen the best part!" (Luke 10:41-42). Martha was busy with cooking and other household chores―while Mary “lazily” sat at Our Lord’s “eating” His words and “chewing” them over. Martha complained to Our Lord about “lazy” Mary and asked Him to make Mary help her. Our Lord rebuked Martha and told her that Mary had chosen the better part.
Mary Magdalen always seemed to be at the feet of Jesus! Caught in adultery, she probably was weeping at His feet; she weeps at His feet at the banquet; she weeps at His feet on Calvary; she weeps at His feet (thinking He is the gardener) at His tomb after the Resurrection! “But one thing is necessary”—to humbly and lovingly be found at the feet of our Savior! To humbly and lovingly die at the feet of our Savior! That is success—regardless of how much or how little you have done or succeeded in this world from a human point of view.
Chasing Success in this Life Often Leads to Spiritual Death
Commenting upon this passage concerning Our Lord, Mary Magdalen and Martha, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “The intimate conversation of the egoist with himself is not an interior life and proceeds in this manner to death. The egoist knows little about the spiritual part of his soul … His self-love leads him to wish to make himself the center of everything, to draw everything to himself―both persons and things. Since this is impossible, he frequently ends in disillusionment and disgust; he becomes unbearable to himself and to others, and ends by hating himself, because he wished to love himself excessively. At times he ends by hating life, because he desired too greatly what is inferior in it. If a man, who is not in the state of grace, begins to seek goodness, his intimate conversation with himself is already quite different. He converses with himself, for example, about what is necessary to live becomingly and to support his family. This at times preoccupies him greatly. Often, however, the intimate conversation of a man, even in the state of grace, continues to be tainted with egoism, self-love, sensuality, and pride. These sins are no longer mortal in him, they are venial; but if they are repeated, they incline him to fall into a serious sin, that is, to fall back into spiritual death. Should this happen, this man tries again to flee from himself, because what he finds in himself is no longer life, but death. He may even hurl himself back farther into death, by casting himself into pleasure, into the satisfactions of sensuality or of pride.
“To wish to get along without God, leads to an abyss; not only to nothingness, but also to a physical and moral wretchedness that is worse than nothingness. If the serious element in life is out of focus, if it no longer is concerned with our duties toward God, but with the scientific and social activities of man; if man continually seeks himself instead of God, his last End, then events are not slow in showing him that he has taken an impossible way, which leads not only to nothingness, but to unbearable disorder and misery. The present world-wide economic crisis demonstrates what men can do (or cannot do) when they seek to get along without God. Without God, the seriousness of life gets out of focus. If religion is no longer a grave matter, but something to smile at, then the serious element in life must be sought elsewhere. Some place it, or pretend to place it, in science or in social activity; they devote themselves religiously to the search for scientific truth, or to the establishment of justice between classes or peoples. After a while they are forced to perceive that they have ended in fearful disorder.
“The interior life of a just man — who tends toward God and who already lives by Him — is indeed the one thing necessary. The interior life is something far more profound and more necessary in us than intellectual life, or the cultivation of the sciences, more profound than artistic or literary life, more profound than social or political life. Unfortunately, some great scholars, mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers have no interior life, so to speak, but devote themselves to the study of their science, as if God did not exist. In their moments of solitude they have no intimate conversation with Him. Their life appears to be, in certain respects, the search for the true and the good, in a more or less definite and restricted domain, but it is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride, that we may legitimately question whether it will bear fruit for eternity. Many artists, literary men, and statesmen never rise above this level of purely human activity, which is, in short, quite exterior. Do the depths of their souls live by God? It would seem not.
“When man will no longer fulfill his great religious duties toward God, Who created him and Who is his last End, then he makes a religion for himself out of something else, since he absolutely cannot get along without religion. To replace the superior ideal [God] which he has abandoned, man may, for example, place his religion in science, or in the cult of social justice, or in some human ideal. It has often been remarked that, today, science pretends to be a religion. Likewise Socialism and Communism claim to be a code of ethics and present themselves under the guise of a feverish cult of justice, thereby trying to captivate hearts and minds.
“This shows that the interior life, or the life of the soul with God, well deserves to be called the one thing necessary, since by it we tend to our last end and assure our salvation. Yet, there are some who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles, and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven, whether they enter Heaven immediately after death, or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Every sin—though it should be only venial—must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified.
“To be a saint, neither intellectual culture, nor great exterior activity is a requisite; it suffices that we live profoundly by God. If people sacrifice so many things to save the life of the body, which must ultimately die, what should we not sacrifice to save the life of our soul, which is to last forever? Ought not man to love his soul more than his body? ‘Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?’ (Mark 8:37) adds Our Lord. ‘One thing is necessary,’ He tells us. To save our soul, one thing alone is necessary ― to hear the word of God and to live by it. Therein lies ‘the best part’, which will not be taken away from a faithful soul, even though it should lose everything else.
“We conclude, that religion can only give an efficacious and truly realistic answer to the great modern problems if it is a religion that is profoundly lived, not simply a superficial and cheap religion, made up of some vocal prayers and some ceremonies, in which religious art is given more place than true sincere piety. As a matter of fact, no religion, that is profoundly lived, is without an interior life, without that intimate and frequent conversation which we have, not only with ourselves, but with God.”
A Good Life Is Better Than A Long Life
Do not seek a long life, but rather a good one—says the Imitation of Christ: “It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life. It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come. It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides.” (Book 1, Chapter 1). A good life is a life where you “shall love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbor as thyself” (Luke 10:27). It is the love of God (charity) that gives life and power to all that we do. For “God is charity” (1 John 4:8).
St Paul tells us that “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Our Lord came to show us how to love God—which is essentially (1) keeping His commandments; (2) doing His will, and (3) suffering and even dying for Him, just as Our Lord suffered and died. Our love is measured by the Cross: “Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me!’” Matthew 16:24). “And he that does not take up his cross and does not follow Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Loving God means more than just “talking the talk”―it also requires that we “walk the walk”―especially walking the way of the cross. Lip service is not enough―Our Lord calls it hypocrisy: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8). Just as “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26), likewise you could say: “Charity without works is dead!”―for “actions speak louder than words.”
Dying of Love
If God is love ― “God is charity” ― (1 John 4:8), then to die loving God is to die in God, or to die with God in us. “Jesus answered, and said to him: ‘If anyone love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him” (John 14:23). “For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:21). “For none of us liveth to himself; and no man dies to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Therefore, whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For, to this end, Christ died and rose again!” (Romans 14:7-9).
Dying of a love of God means dying to sin; dying to the world and dying to our own self and our concupiscences and tendencies through mortification. The word mortification literally means “putting to death” or “making dead”―it comes from the Late Latin verb “mortificāre”, meaning “to put to death,” and is a compound of the two Latin words: (1) “mors, mortis” meaning “death, of death” and (2) the verb “facere” and its past participle “factus” meaning “to make, to do”. It might sound strange or morbid, and even paradoxical―but the Christian life is all about death, even though Our Lord said: “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly!” (John 10:10). Yet elsewhere Our Lord explains that the “life” that He speaks of, is eternal life and the life of grace―which requires that we die to sin and die to anything else that can rob us of that eternal life. That is why He says: “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone! But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal!” (John 12:24-25). “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it! And whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel, shall save it!” (Mark 8:35).
Martyrdom the Pinnacle of Love
Do not be afraid of martyrdom if it may come your way. “Greater love no man hath than he who lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Our Lord wants us to be His friends. Again, at the Last Supper, just before His death, He said: “I will not now call you servants … but I have called you friends!” (John 15:15). How does one become a friend of Jesus? He Himself tells us: “You are my friends, if you do the things that I command you!” (John 15:14). What has Jesus in store for His friends? Once again, He tells us: “And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake―but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:22). “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death―and you shall be hated by all nations for My Name’s sake!” (Matthew 24:9) … “And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends; and some of you they will put to death!” (Luke 21:16).
► Victory over the unbelievers. As Jesus was dying on the cross―a seeming failure in the eyes of the onlookers―the Chief Priests and the Scribes mocked Him by saying: “Let Christ the King of Israel come down now from the cross, so that we may see and believe!” This apparent “failure” would do more than come down from the Cross whilst alive—He would come out of the tomb when He was dead! Let us beg Him to conquer our unbelief―our unbelief in the Eucharist, our unbelief in eternal life, our unbelief in the power of prayer, our unbelief in the devil, our unbelief in the existence of Hell, or whatever unbelief we may be guilty of.
► Victory over death. Holy Scripture taunts defeated death: “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). Through the old Adam death came into the world, because he ate a forbidden fruit from a tree. Now the new Adam, bore a new fruit on the tree of the Cross and through partaking of that fruit we have life eternal. Look at the lacerated, bruised, beaten, wounded body that now hangs on the cross―in a short while that same body will be unrecognizable in His resurrection. Do not fear or flee your sufferings, for they will be your source of grace and glory. He had raised three persons from the dead while He was alive, and soon He will raise Himself from the dead as He had predicted and when He had predicted. So too will He raise you and your loved ones from the dead on the last day.
Do not fear so much as the death of mortal sin. Yet there too He raises us from the dead in the tomb of confessional in which we bury ourselves. We enter the tomb of the confessional dead in sin and dead to God―yet, through admitting our sinful failings we come out alive and victorious over the death of mortal sin: “God forbid. For we that are dead to sin, how shall we live any longer therein? Know you not that all we, who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in His death? For we are buried together with Him by baptism into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life! For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this―that our old man is crucified with Him, so that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer! For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ! Knowing that Christ, rising again from the dead, dies now no more, death shall no more have dominion over Him. For in that He died to sin, He died once―but in that He lives, He liveth unto God! So do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans 6:2-11).
► Victory over the devil. The devil was not sure who He was! His holiness enraged the devil so much that he plotted and waged war against Christ—as he will wage war against you the holier you try to become, plotting, planning and stirring-up all manner of things against you. Yet by His humble acceptance and meekness in face of this onslaught, Christ will win the victory through His resurrection. He uses the weight of the attack of His enemies against his enemy. The greater the rage, the greater the defeat. Let us learn from Our Lord not to fear the devil, and above all not to love the devil and his allurements―for this evil “prince of this world” (John 12:31) uses the allurements of the world like bullets that are meant to strike and kill the life of sanctifying grace in your soul: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour―whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9) … “In all things taking the shield of Faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one!” (Ephesians 6:16). Hence the importance of “dying to the world”―which then makes us “bullet-proof”. The devil can do nothing without the permission and agreement of God.
► Victory over the world. On the cross Our Lord dies to the world. In a short while He will rise again―not to live here forever, but He will rise above this world and will rise to Heaven: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews―but My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
He died for this world, but He also died to this world. He died trying to save this world―but the world, on the whole, did not want to be saved: “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not … He came unto His own, and His own received Him not … The light shone in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it! … Men loved darkness rather than the light―for their works were evil!” (John 1:5-11; 3:19). He took nothing of this world with Him, nor shall we when we die. Let us not live as though it was only this world that matters. Especially the young ones, who have not yet tasted the poison that Satan offers under the glitter and charm of the world around us. Do not compromise your soul and your salvation for a cheap sin. What a way to repay your God Who died for you in order to help you stay clean.
Article 31
Thursday in Holy Week, April 6th, 2023
Death is the Only Way to Heaven!
Thursday in Holy Week, April 6th, 2023
Death is the Only Way to Heaven!
Costly Sin
In our examination of the Fourteen Stations of the Cross throughout these fourteen days of Passiontide, we now come to the twelfth station―the Death of Our Lord. The price of sin is death! “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). “The soul that sins, the same shall die” (Ezechiel 18:4). Yet who has sinned? Not Our Lord! You have sinned―and sinned many times, even many times each and every day throughout your entire life! If you want to pay for your sins―if you want to get to Heaven―then you must pay the price. You must not only die for your sins―you must also die to your sins. “The wage of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15). “The soul that sins, the same shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4). “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, then remains alone by itself. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal!” (John 12:24).
Yet the ones who should have died, did not die that Good Friday—and the innocent One, who should not have died, did die! The words that God spoke to Isaias ring so very true, don’t they? “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways!’ says the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). Who would have thought that God would allow such a thing? Yet, as St. John tells us: “For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “Who, being in the form of God, emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant and He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:6-8). Which is why Our Lord, Who “humbled Himself”, asks that we also lay the same foundation of humility before doing anything else: “Take up My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, because I am meek, and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:29) ― “For God resists the proud, but to the humble He gives grace!” (1 Peter 5:5). “The greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God!” (Ecclesiasticus 3:20).
Humility and Charity the Antidote
Humility is necessary for the queen of virtues—charity, for pride is a love of self, which injures and even destroys a love of God. St. Paul tells us that we need that charity above else: “The greatest of these is charity” but “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-13).
Love Pays the Price of Sin
It is the charity of God that pays for our sins--“In this is charity―not as though we had loved God, but because He has first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. The Son of God―Who loved me, and delivered Himself for me! … Christ has loved us, and has delivered himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice to God … and Who has loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own Blood! … God commends His charity towards us―because, when as yet we were sinners, Christ died for us. Therefore, being now justified by His Blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son” (1 John 4:10; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 5:2; Apocalypse 1:5; Romans 5:8-10).
A Return of Love is Needed
The “Apostle of Love” St. John the Evangelist, the beloved of Our Lord, who was at foot of Cross witnessing the loving sacrifice of Christ, commands us to return that love of Christ our God: “Let us therefore love God, because God first has loved us!” (1 John 4:19). Christ Himself commands: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the first commandment!” (Mark 12:30) and not only God―but neighbor also: “This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you! … But I say to you that hear: Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you! If you love them that love you, what thanks are to you? For sinners also love those that love them!” (John 15:12; Luke 6:27; 6:32). This was the spirit of Christ as He died in front of His enemies, beseeching: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). The love of Christ knew no bounds—He had said: “Greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)―but He gave His life also for His enemies, asking forgiveness for them! However the love for His enemies needed to be accepted and returned—most people refuse His love, and even more persons do not return it!
Man’s Love for God Grows Cold
Our Lord knew that His love would be rejected by many, if not most—He had foretold this: “Because iniquity has abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). Each successive age grows more iniquitous and less charitable. Never before have we seen such a quantity of sin as today—partly because there have never been so many people walking the face of the Earth—but, as the allurement and variety of sins grows while the love of God cools, the sheer quantity of sin per person has never been as high as it is today. As Our Lady said the mystic and stigmatist, Blessed Elena Aiello, in 1956: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge!” [the Deluge = the Great Flood in the time of Noe). Holy Scripture, speaking of these times, says: “In the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God: having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).
Pierced Heart Forgotten
In our age of religious indifference, where fervor and charity have grown cold, Jesus shows to the world His Sacred Heart, opened by the wounding lance at His death on the Cross, as the symbol of God's infinite love — the symbol of His own generous self-sacrificing love for men. Jesus shows His Divine Heart as a furnace whose burning rays of love are able to reanimate Faith and rekindle love in hearts grown cold and ungrateful. The very opening line of the Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus states the problem so very clearly: “Most sweet Jesus, whose overflowing charity for men is repaid by so much forgetfulness, negligence and contempt…” It is not so much that the majority of Catholics hate Jesus―it is just that they have no time for Jesus! Each day and every day with filled with much ‘more important’ things to do, or ‘better’ things to do!
He Dies That We May Die
The purpose of His death is to make us detest sin and help us die to sin! Using modern terminology, it is supposed to be a “pro-active” death, whereby we share and participate in His death by a death of our own. His death is not like a movie, or a spectator sport. His death is a “step out of the audience and take part in what I am doing” kind of activity. It is meant to be lived―not merely intellectualized. The reading of the Passion and Death, the watching of the Passion and Death, is a beginning, it is a seed, it is a springboard to living the Passion and Death of Christ in our own lives.
St. Paul puts it thus: “Know you not that all we, who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in His death? For we are buried together with Him by baptism into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, so that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer. For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ: knowing that Christ rising again from the dead, dies now no more, death shall no more have dominion over Him. For in that He died to sin, He died once; but in that He lives, He lives unto God” (Romans 6:3-10).
“So do you also reckon, that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let no sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so as to obey the lusts thereof. Neither yield your members as instruments of iniquity unto sin; but present yourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of justice unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you; for you are under grace. Thanks be to God, that you were the servants of sin, but have obeyed from the heart, unto that form of doctrine, into which you have been delivered” (Romans 6:11-17).
Rekindling the Love of Our Age
In former times God had made known to St. Gertrude that devotion to the Sacred Heart was reserved for these last ages as a means to arouse the faithful from their tepidity and cowardice. St. Claude de la Colombière learned, by his own experience, how powerfully devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus helps to inflame the heart with great love for Jesus Christ and to arrive in a short time at great perfection.
St. Margaret Mary tells us of the apparition of the Sacred Heart and His motive for doing so: “Being one day before the Blessed Sacrament during the Octave of the Feast, I received from my God excessive graces of His love. When I was moved by the desire to make some return to Him and to render love for love, He said to me: 'You can give Me no greater return than by doing what I have so many times commanded you to do,' and revealing His Heart to me He said: 'Behold this Heart which has so loved men as to spare Itself nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, to testify to them Its love, and in return I receive nothing but ingratitude from the greater part of men by the contempt, irreverence, sacrileges, and coldness which they have for Me in this Sacrament of My love; but what is still more painful is that it is hearts consecrated to Me that treat Me thus!”
Jesus wants to rekindle the fire of our love, just as much today as when He walked the face of Earth—the words are eternal: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). The fire of His love, if kindled in our hearts, will save us from the fires of Purgatory and the fires of Hell. Which fire do we prefer to burn in? The fires of love while still here on Earth, or one of the other two fires after death?
In our examination of the Fourteen Stations of the Cross throughout these fourteen days of Passiontide, we now come to the twelfth station―the Death of Our Lord. The price of sin is death! “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). “The soul that sins, the same shall die” (Ezechiel 18:4). Yet who has sinned? Not Our Lord! You have sinned―and sinned many times, even many times each and every day throughout your entire life! If you want to pay for your sins―if you want to get to Heaven―then you must pay the price. You must not only die for your sins―you must also die to your sins. “The wage of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15). “The soul that sins, the same shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4). “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, then remains alone by itself. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal!” (John 12:24).
Yet the ones who should have died, did not die that Good Friday—and the innocent One, who should not have died, did die! The words that God spoke to Isaias ring so very true, don’t they? “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways!’ says the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). Who would have thought that God would allow such a thing? Yet, as St. John tells us: “For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “Who, being in the form of God, emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant and He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:6-8). Which is why Our Lord, Who “humbled Himself”, asks that we also lay the same foundation of humility before doing anything else: “Take up My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, because I am meek, and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:29) ― “For God resists the proud, but to the humble He gives grace!” (1 Peter 5:5). “The greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God!” (Ecclesiasticus 3:20).
Humility and Charity the Antidote
Humility is necessary for the queen of virtues—charity, for pride is a love of self, which injures and even destroys a love of God. St. Paul tells us that we need that charity above else: “The greatest of these is charity” but “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-13).
Love Pays the Price of Sin
It is the charity of God that pays for our sins--“In this is charity―not as though we had loved God, but because He has first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. The Son of God―Who loved me, and delivered Himself for me! … Christ has loved us, and has delivered himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice to God … and Who has loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own Blood! … God commends His charity towards us―because, when as yet we were sinners, Christ died for us. Therefore, being now justified by His Blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son” (1 John 4:10; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 5:2; Apocalypse 1:5; Romans 5:8-10).
A Return of Love is Needed
The “Apostle of Love” St. John the Evangelist, the beloved of Our Lord, who was at foot of Cross witnessing the loving sacrifice of Christ, commands us to return that love of Christ our God: “Let us therefore love God, because God first has loved us!” (1 John 4:19). Christ Himself commands: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the first commandment!” (Mark 12:30) and not only God―but neighbor also: “This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you! … But I say to you that hear: Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you! If you love them that love you, what thanks are to you? For sinners also love those that love them!” (John 15:12; Luke 6:27; 6:32). This was the spirit of Christ as He died in front of His enemies, beseeching: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). The love of Christ knew no bounds—He had said: “Greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)―but He gave His life also for His enemies, asking forgiveness for them! However the love for His enemies needed to be accepted and returned—most people refuse His love, and even more persons do not return it!
Man’s Love for God Grows Cold
Our Lord knew that His love would be rejected by many, if not most—He had foretold this: “Because iniquity has abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). Each successive age grows more iniquitous and less charitable. Never before have we seen such a quantity of sin as today—partly because there have never been so many people walking the face of the Earth—but, as the allurement and variety of sins grows while the love of God cools, the sheer quantity of sin per person has never been as high as it is today. As Our Lady said the mystic and stigmatist, Blessed Elena Aiello, in 1956: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge!” [the Deluge = the Great Flood in the time of Noe). Holy Scripture, speaking of these times, says: “In the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God: having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).
Pierced Heart Forgotten
In our age of religious indifference, where fervor and charity have grown cold, Jesus shows to the world His Sacred Heart, opened by the wounding lance at His death on the Cross, as the symbol of God's infinite love — the symbol of His own generous self-sacrificing love for men. Jesus shows His Divine Heart as a furnace whose burning rays of love are able to reanimate Faith and rekindle love in hearts grown cold and ungrateful. The very opening line of the Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus states the problem so very clearly: “Most sweet Jesus, whose overflowing charity for men is repaid by so much forgetfulness, negligence and contempt…” It is not so much that the majority of Catholics hate Jesus―it is just that they have no time for Jesus! Each day and every day with filled with much ‘more important’ things to do, or ‘better’ things to do!
He Dies That We May Die
The purpose of His death is to make us detest sin and help us die to sin! Using modern terminology, it is supposed to be a “pro-active” death, whereby we share and participate in His death by a death of our own. His death is not like a movie, or a spectator sport. His death is a “step out of the audience and take part in what I am doing” kind of activity. It is meant to be lived―not merely intellectualized. The reading of the Passion and Death, the watching of the Passion and Death, is a beginning, it is a seed, it is a springboard to living the Passion and Death of Christ in our own lives.
St. Paul puts it thus: “Know you not that all we, who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in His death? For we are buried together with Him by baptism into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, so that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer. For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ: knowing that Christ rising again from the dead, dies now no more, death shall no more have dominion over Him. For in that He died to sin, He died once; but in that He lives, He lives unto God” (Romans 6:3-10).
“So do you also reckon, that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let no sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so as to obey the lusts thereof. Neither yield your members as instruments of iniquity unto sin; but present yourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of justice unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you; for you are under grace. Thanks be to God, that you were the servants of sin, but have obeyed from the heart, unto that form of doctrine, into which you have been delivered” (Romans 6:11-17).
Rekindling the Love of Our Age
In former times God had made known to St. Gertrude that devotion to the Sacred Heart was reserved for these last ages as a means to arouse the faithful from their tepidity and cowardice. St. Claude de la Colombière learned, by his own experience, how powerfully devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus helps to inflame the heart with great love for Jesus Christ and to arrive in a short time at great perfection.
St. Margaret Mary tells us of the apparition of the Sacred Heart and His motive for doing so: “Being one day before the Blessed Sacrament during the Octave of the Feast, I received from my God excessive graces of His love. When I was moved by the desire to make some return to Him and to render love for love, He said to me: 'You can give Me no greater return than by doing what I have so many times commanded you to do,' and revealing His Heart to me He said: 'Behold this Heart which has so loved men as to spare Itself nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, to testify to them Its love, and in return I receive nothing but ingratitude from the greater part of men by the contempt, irreverence, sacrileges, and coldness which they have for Me in this Sacrament of My love; but what is still more painful is that it is hearts consecrated to Me that treat Me thus!”
Jesus wants to rekindle the fire of our love, just as much today as when He walked the face of Earth—the words are eternal: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). The fire of His love, if kindled in our hearts, will save us from the fires of Purgatory and the fires of Hell. Which fire do we prefer to burn in? The fires of love while still here on Earth, or one of the other two fires after death?
Article 30
Wednesday in Holy Week, April 5th, 2023
Nail Your Sins Before God Nails Them!
Wednesday in Holy Week, April 5th, 2023
Nail Your Sins Before God Nails Them!
Nailed for a Good Reason
On Good Friday, Jesus was nailed to the Cross. He was nailed to the Cross for good! Good Friday has been the focal point of the Church ever since that first Good Friday. Our Lord was nailed to the Cross for our good and He wishes that this act be planted in the center of our hearts for good! For on this brutal day, God brings good out of evil and through His goodness He pays for our evil. Yet there is something missing—it is our own personal and willing crucifixion alongside that of Jesus. We need to follow the attitude of St. Paul, who says: “But we preach Christ crucified … For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2). “And they that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24). “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6).
Nailing Our Sins For the Good of Our Soul
Sin is the greatest evil in this world—no natural disaster, no disease, nothing is a great an evil as sin. War is even a punishment for sin. The impending chastisement, where Our Lady says that most of mankind will be wiped out (around three quarters it seems), is a consequence of sin. If we cannot grasp the price of sin in such a scenario, then we never will! Sin is the only real evil in world—if it was lessened, then all the other evils would also lessened in proportion. It is the most costly thing around—look at Our Savior on the Cross and you get an inkling of an idea as to its expense. Therefore, it is important that we nail our sins as much as possible—that we put the final nail in the coffin of our sins as much as we can: for nobody outside of Our Lord and Our Lady are impeccable—“For a just man shall fall seven times and shall rise again” (Proverbs 24:16)—but we can all drastically reduce the amount of sins that we commit daily. If only we could say that we only committed a mere seven sins a day—that would be phenomenal! Some people are capable of committing seven sins per minute!
Nailing Our Sins Before God Nails Them!
In Holy Scripture we encounter many passages that warn us of the attitude of God to wanton, unrepented and unpaid sin: “If you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments, if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me, then I will do these things to you: I will quickly visit you with poverty, and burning heat, which shall waste your eyes, and consume your lives. You shall sow your seed in vain, which shall be devoured by your enemies. I will set my face against you, and you shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you, you shall flee when no man pursueth you. But if you will not yet for all this obey Me: I will chastise you seven times more for your sins, and I will break the pride of your stubbornness, and I will make to you the heaven above as iron, and the earth as brass; your labor shall be spent in vain, the ground shall not bring forth her increase, nor the trees yield their fruit.
“If you walk contrary to Me, and will not hearken to Me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins. And I will send in upon you the beasts of the field, to destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number, and that your highways may be desolate. And if even so you will not amend, but will walk contrary to Me, then I also will walk contrary to you, and will strike you seven times for your sins. And I will bring in upon you the sword that shall avenge my covenant. And when you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies.
“But if you will not for all this hearken to Me, but will walk against Me, then I will also go against you with opposite fury, and I will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins, so that you shall eat the flesh of your sons and of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, and break your idols. You shall fall among the ruins of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. Insomuch that I will bring your cities to be a wilderness, and I will make your sanctuaries desolate. And I will destroy your land, and your enemies shall be astonished at it, when they shall be the inhabitants thereof. And I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed” (Leviticus 26:14-33).
Chastisement of Jerusalem & Today’s Chastisement
Jerusalem—with its Priests, Scribes, Pharisees and people—asked that Jesus be nailed to the Cross. They cried out: “Let His blood be upon us and our children!” (Matthew 27:25). Be careful what you say, is all I can say! God took them at their word and around one generation later, in 70 AD, the Romans utterly destroyed Jerusalem, so much so that in the succeeding years, if any passes by the place, they could not tell that a great city had once been located on that site. Over 1 million Jews were slaughtered in the Siege of Jerusalem—thousands of them being nailed to crosses and crucified by the Romans. Why? Because Jerusalem did not repent but remained entrenched in its rejection of Christ’s teaching.
What goes around, comes around. “Whatever has been―the same thing that shall be again! What is it that has been done? The same that shall be done again! Nothing under the sun is new! Neither is any man able to say: ‘Behold this is new!’ ― for it has already gone before in the ages that were before us” (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10). What happened to Jerusalem back then, is a ‘microcosm’ of the ‘macrocosm’ that awaits the world today—as foretold repeatedly by Our Lady in these modern times. Fire from the heavens; natural disasters throughout the world; wars and plagues upon Earth; brutality and butchery everywhere—why? Because we have, as a whole, refused the message of the Queen of prophets―which is nothing other than the message of God. What goes around, comes around—the prophets of old were stoned to death by people who did not want to listen to what they were warning them about, while, today, we are as deaf as a stone to the words of Our Lady.
The Price of Rejection
Our Lady could just as well have spoken the same words to the world that Our Lord addressed to Jerusalem just before being nailed to the Cross: “ ‘Wherefore you are witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of them that killed the prophets! Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers! You serpents, generation of vipers! How will you flee from the judgment of Hell? Therefore behold I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes―and some of them you will put to death and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee! How often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldst not? Behold, your house shall be left to you, desolate!’ And Jesus being come out of the Temple, said to them: ‘Do you see all these buildings? Amen I say to you there shall not be left here a stone upon a stone that shall not be destroyed!’” (Matthew 23:31-38; 24:1-2).
The Price of Rejecting the Cross
We could speak of the “crossroads” to Heaven―in the sense that every road that leads to Heaven is a way of the cross. There is no way to Heaven without a cross. Our Lord Himself said: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Unfortunately and tragically, most persons reject the crosses that Christ sends them: “Many are enemies of the cross of Christ!” (Philippians 3:18). Crosses are the ticket to Heaven. Therefore, it seems that most persons do not want to go to Heaven! “For the word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness―but to them that are saved, that is to us, it is the power of God!” (1 Corinthians 1:18).
The Imitation of Christ speaks of the fewness of souls that imitate Christ in the carrying of the cross: “Jesus always has many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trials. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him! … To many the saying―‘Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me!’ seems hard―but it will be much harder to hear that final word: ‘Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire!’ Those who hear the word of the cross and follow it willingly now, need not fear that they will hear of eternal damnation on the Day of Judgment!” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapters 11 & 12).
St. Paul―on the other hand―speaks of being nailed to his cross: “With Christ I am nailed to the cross!” (Galatians 2:19). “God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ―by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14). “We preach Christ crucified … For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2). “And they that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24). “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6).
The Arm, the Hammer and Nails for Sin
Above, we spoke of those who “have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24), so that ”our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6). What is the hammer that we must use? What are the nails? What of the arm that delivers the hammer blows? All these are readily available to anyone who wants to use them. They are prayer, penance, and sanctifying grace (charity, which is lost when grace is lost).
The hammer could be said to prayer, for, through prayer, we must continually hammer and bang on the door of Heaven. We see similarities between hammering and praying: “The noise of the hammer is always in his ears” (Ecclesiasticus 38:30) … “Pray without ceasing … We ought always to pray, and not to faint … To him that knocketh, it shall be opened” (1 Thessalonians 5:17; Luke 18:1; Luke 11:10). “Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and shall say to him: ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine is come off his journey to me, and I have not what to set before him!’ And he from within should answer, and say: ‘Trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee!’ Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise, and give him as many as he needeth … Knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Luke 11:5-9).
The Nails are acts of sacrifices, mortifications and penances. Nail your sins before God nails them! “Let him do penance for his sin” (Leviticus 5:5) … Prayer is good with fasting and alms” (Tobias 12:8) … “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:20) … “I covered my soul in fasting” (Psalm 68:11) ... “I set my face to the Lord my God, to pray and make supplication with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes” (Daniel 9:3) … “and they praying in this place, shall do penance to Thy Name, and shall be converted from their sins” (3 Kings 8:35).
But we need to be in a state of sanctifying grace (and charity) for all the above mentioned power tools to work—grace and charity are like electricity that makes the electrical tools work. They are like body and soul, mind and heart, husband and wife, pilot and co-pilot—they give the spirit and direction to the work. If we have lost God’s sanctifying grace, we also lose charity, and our prayers and acts are useless as regards meriting or obtaining anything other than an actual grace to lead us to conversion and the regaining of sanctifying grace. St. Paul puts it powerfully and clearly when he writes: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The Inhuman Nailing of Christ Our Lord
We read in The Mystical City of God, an account of the inhuman way in which Jesus was nailed to the Cross: “In order to find the places for the augerholes on the Cross, the executioners haughtily commanded the Creator of the universe. The Teacher of humility obeyed without hesitation. But they, following their inhuman instinct of cruelty, marked the places for the holes, not according to the size of his body, but larger—having in mind a new torture for their Victim.
“This inhuman intent was known to the Mother of light, and the knowledge of it was one of the greatest afflictions of her heart during the whole Passion. She saw through the intentions of these ministers of sin and she anticipated the torments to be endured by her beloved Son when his limbs should be wrenched from their sockets in being nailed to the Cross. But she could not do anything to prevent it, as it was the will of the Lord to suffer these pains for men” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“When He rose from the Cross, and they set about boring the holes, the great Lady approached and took hold of one of his hands, adoring Him and kissing it with greatest reverence. The executioners allowed this because they thought that the sight of his Mother would cause so much the greater affliction to the Lord; for they wished to spare Him no sorrow they could cause Him. But they were ignorant of the hidden mysteries; for the Lord during his Passion had no greater source of consolation and interior joy than to see in the soul of his most Blessed Mother, the beautiful likeness of Himself and the full fruits of his Passion and Death. This joy, to a certain extent, comforted Christ our Lord also in that hour” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Having bored the three holes into the Cross, the executioners again commanded Christ the Lord to stretch Himself out upon it in order to be nailed to it. The supreme and almighty King, as the Author of patience, obeyed, and at the will of the hangmen, placed Himself with outstretched arms upon the blessed wood. The Lord was so weakened, disfigured and exhausted, that if the ferocious cruelty of those men had left the least room for natural reason and kindness, they could not have brought themselves to inflict further torments upon the innocent and meek Lamb, humbly suffering such nameless sorrows and pains. But not so with them; for the judges and their executioners were transformed in their malice and deathly hatred into demons, void of the feelings of sensible and earthly men and urged on only by diabolical wrath and fury” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Presently one of the executioners seized the hand of Jesus our Savior and placed it upon the auger hole, while another hammered a large and rough nail through the palm. The veins and sinews were torn, and the bones of the sacred hand, which made the heavens and all that exists, were forced apart. When they stretched out the other hand, they found that it did not reach up to the auger hole; for the sinews of the other arm had been shortened and the executioners had maliciously set the holes too far apart. In order to overcome the difficulty, they took the chain, with which the Savior had been bound in the garden, and looping one end through a ring around his wrist, they, with unheard of cruelty, pulled the hand over the hole and fastened it with another nail” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God)..
“Thereupon they seized His feet, and placing them one above the other, they tied the same chain around both and stretched them with barbarous ferocity down to the third hole. Then they drove through both feet a large nail into the Cross. Thus the sacred body, in which dwelled the Divinity, was nailed motionless to the holy Cross, and the handiwork of His deified members, formed by the Holy Ghost, was so stretched and torn asunder, that the bones of His body, dislocated and forced from their natural position, could all be counted. The bones of His breast, of His shoulders and arms, and of His whole body yielded to the cruel violence and were torn from their sinews” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“It is impossible for human tongue or words of mouth to describe the torments of our Savior Jesus and what He suffered on this occasion. On the last day alone more will be known, in order that his cause may be justified before sinners and the praise and exaltation of the saints may be so much the greater” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Our Lady Hits the Nail on the Head
“Thy state of life must be for thee a most rigid cross on which thou must remain crucified, and thou must not widen thy path by seeking for dispensation and weakening interpretation of thy rules to make it easy and comfortable, but at the same time, insecure and full of imperfections. This is the deception into which the children of Babylon and of Adam fall, that each one, according to his state, seeks to find ease in the work commanded by the law of God. They set aside the salvation of their soul in their efforts to buy Heaven very cheaply, or risk losing it by dreading the restrictions and entire subjection necessary to observe rigorously the divine law and its precepts.
“Hence arises the desire to find explanations and opinions, which smooth the paths and highways of eternal life, without heeding the doctrine of my divine Son, that the path of life is very narrow. They forget that the Lord Himself has walked these narrow paths, in order that no one might imagine he can reach eternal life over paths more spacious and comfortable to the flesh and to the inclinations vitiated by sins.
“This danger is greater for ecclesiastics and religious, who by their very state must follow the Master and must accommodate themselves to His life of poverty and must choose for this purpose the way of the Cross. Some of them however are apt to seek the dignities attached to the religious state for their temporal advantage, for the increase of their own honor and praise. In order to secure it they lighten the Cross they have promised to bear, so that they live a carnal life, little restricted and much eased by deceptive dispensations and vain excuses. In their time they shall recognize the truth and that saying of the Holy Ghost: Each one thinks his path secure, but the Lord weighs in His hands the hearts of men” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“So far from this deceit, do I wish thee to be, my daughter, that thou must live strictly in such a way that thou canst not stretch thyself in any way, being nailed immovably to the Cross with Christ. Thou must set aside all temporal advantages, for the least point pertaining to the utmost perfection of thy state.
“Thy right hand, my daughter, must be nailed to the Cross by obedience, and reserve not for thyself the least movement, the least activity, or word, or thought not controlled by this virtue. Thou must not maintain any position that is of thy own choice, but only such as is willed by others; thou must not appear wise in thy own conceit in anything, but ignorant and blind, in order to follow entirely the guidance of thy superiors (Proverbs 3:7). He that promises, says the wise man (Proverbs 6:1), binds his hands, and by his words shall he be bound and chained.
“Thy left hand thou hast nailed to the Cross by the vow of poverty, depriving thee of all right to follow any inclination toward the objects usually coveted by the eyes; for both in the use and in the desire for such creatures thou must rigorously imitate Christ impoverished and despoiled upon the Cross.
“By chastity, thy feet are nailed to the Cross, in order that all thy steps and movements may be pure, chaste and beautiful. For this thou must not permit in thy presence the least word offensive to purity, nor, by looking upon or touching any human creature, allow any sensual image or impression within thee; thy eyes and all thy senses are to remain consecrated to chastity, without making more use of them than to fix them upon Jesus crucified.
“Contemplate and consider in thy heart the image of my Son and Lord full of blood, torments, sorrows, and at last nailed to the Cross, no part of His sacred body being exempt from wounds and excruciating pains. The Lord and I were most solicitous and compassionate toward all the children of men; for them We suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that they might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good and in return for so obliging a love. Therefore, let mortals show themselves thankful, willingly entering upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, to bear it after Christ. Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
As St. Paul says, “They that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24). “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6). “That I may live to God: with Christ I am nailed to the cross” (Galatians 2:19).
On Good Friday, Jesus was nailed to the Cross. He was nailed to the Cross for good! Good Friday has been the focal point of the Church ever since that first Good Friday. Our Lord was nailed to the Cross for our good and He wishes that this act be planted in the center of our hearts for good! For on this brutal day, God brings good out of evil and through His goodness He pays for our evil. Yet there is something missing—it is our own personal and willing crucifixion alongside that of Jesus. We need to follow the attitude of St. Paul, who says: “But we preach Christ crucified … For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2). “And they that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24). “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6).
Nailing Our Sins For the Good of Our Soul
Sin is the greatest evil in this world—no natural disaster, no disease, nothing is a great an evil as sin. War is even a punishment for sin. The impending chastisement, where Our Lady says that most of mankind will be wiped out (around three quarters it seems), is a consequence of sin. If we cannot grasp the price of sin in such a scenario, then we never will! Sin is the only real evil in world—if it was lessened, then all the other evils would also lessened in proportion. It is the most costly thing around—look at Our Savior on the Cross and you get an inkling of an idea as to its expense. Therefore, it is important that we nail our sins as much as possible—that we put the final nail in the coffin of our sins as much as we can: for nobody outside of Our Lord and Our Lady are impeccable—“For a just man shall fall seven times and shall rise again” (Proverbs 24:16)—but we can all drastically reduce the amount of sins that we commit daily. If only we could say that we only committed a mere seven sins a day—that would be phenomenal! Some people are capable of committing seven sins per minute!
Nailing Our Sins Before God Nails Them!
In Holy Scripture we encounter many passages that warn us of the attitude of God to wanton, unrepented and unpaid sin: “If you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments, if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me, then I will do these things to you: I will quickly visit you with poverty, and burning heat, which shall waste your eyes, and consume your lives. You shall sow your seed in vain, which shall be devoured by your enemies. I will set my face against you, and you shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you, you shall flee when no man pursueth you. But if you will not yet for all this obey Me: I will chastise you seven times more for your sins, and I will break the pride of your stubbornness, and I will make to you the heaven above as iron, and the earth as brass; your labor shall be spent in vain, the ground shall not bring forth her increase, nor the trees yield their fruit.
“If you walk contrary to Me, and will not hearken to Me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins. And I will send in upon you the beasts of the field, to destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number, and that your highways may be desolate. And if even so you will not amend, but will walk contrary to Me, then I also will walk contrary to you, and will strike you seven times for your sins. And I will bring in upon you the sword that shall avenge my covenant. And when you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies.
“But if you will not for all this hearken to Me, but will walk against Me, then I will also go against you with opposite fury, and I will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins, so that you shall eat the flesh of your sons and of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, and break your idols. You shall fall among the ruins of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. Insomuch that I will bring your cities to be a wilderness, and I will make your sanctuaries desolate. And I will destroy your land, and your enemies shall be astonished at it, when they shall be the inhabitants thereof. And I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed” (Leviticus 26:14-33).
Chastisement of Jerusalem & Today’s Chastisement
Jerusalem—with its Priests, Scribes, Pharisees and people—asked that Jesus be nailed to the Cross. They cried out: “Let His blood be upon us and our children!” (Matthew 27:25). Be careful what you say, is all I can say! God took them at their word and around one generation later, in 70 AD, the Romans utterly destroyed Jerusalem, so much so that in the succeeding years, if any passes by the place, they could not tell that a great city had once been located on that site. Over 1 million Jews were slaughtered in the Siege of Jerusalem—thousands of them being nailed to crosses and crucified by the Romans. Why? Because Jerusalem did not repent but remained entrenched in its rejection of Christ’s teaching.
What goes around, comes around. “Whatever has been―the same thing that shall be again! What is it that has been done? The same that shall be done again! Nothing under the sun is new! Neither is any man able to say: ‘Behold this is new!’ ― for it has already gone before in the ages that were before us” (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10). What happened to Jerusalem back then, is a ‘microcosm’ of the ‘macrocosm’ that awaits the world today—as foretold repeatedly by Our Lady in these modern times. Fire from the heavens; natural disasters throughout the world; wars and plagues upon Earth; brutality and butchery everywhere—why? Because we have, as a whole, refused the message of the Queen of prophets―which is nothing other than the message of God. What goes around, comes around—the prophets of old were stoned to death by people who did not want to listen to what they were warning them about, while, today, we are as deaf as a stone to the words of Our Lady.
The Price of Rejection
Our Lady could just as well have spoken the same words to the world that Our Lord addressed to Jerusalem just before being nailed to the Cross: “ ‘Wherefore you are witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of them that killed the prophets! Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers! You serpents, generation of vipers! How will you flee from the judgment of Hell? Therefore behold I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes―and some of them you will put to death and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee! How often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldst not? Behold, your house shall be left to you, desolate!’ And Jesus being come out of the Temple, said to them: ‘Do you see all these buildings? Amen I say to you there shall not be left here a stone upon a stone that shall not be destroyed!’” (Matthew 23:31-38; 24:1-2).
The Price of Rejecting the Cross
We could speak of the “crossroads” to Heaven―in the sense that every road that leads to Heaven is a way of the cross. There is no way to Heaven without a cross. Our Lord Himself said: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Unfortunately and tragically, most persons reject the crosses that Christ sends them: “Many are enemies of the cross of Christ!” (Philippians 3:18). Crosses are the ticket to Heaven. Therefore, it seems that most persons do not want to go to Heaven! “For the word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness―but to them that are saved, that is to us, it is the power of God!” (1 Corinthians 1:18).
The Imitation of Christ speaks of the fewness of souls that imitate Christ in the carrying of the cross: “Jesus always has many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trials. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him! … To many the saying―‘Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me!’ seems hard―but it will be much harder to hear that final word: ‘Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire!’ Those who hear the word of the cross and follow it willingly now, need not fear that they will hear of eternal damnation on the Day of Judgment!” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapters 11 & 12).
St. Paul―on the other hand―speaks of being nailed to his cross: “With Christ I am nailed to the cross!” (Galatians 2:19). “God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ―by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14). “We preach Christ crucified … For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2). “And they that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24). “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6).
The Arm, the Hammer and Nails for Sin
Above, we spoke of those who “have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24), so that ”our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6). What is the hammer that we must use? What are the nails? What of the arm that delivers the hammer blows? All these are readily available to anyone who wants to use them. They are prayer, penance, and sanctifying grace (charity, which is lost when grace is lost).
The hammer could be said to prayer, for, through prayer, we must continually hammer and bang on the door of Heaven. We see similarities between hammering and praying: “The noise of the hammer is always in his ears” (Ecclesiasticus 38:30) … “Pray without ceasing … We ought always to pray, and not to faint … To him that knocketh, it shall be opened” (1 Thessalonians 5:17; Luke 18:1; Luke 11:10). “Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and shall say to him: ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine is come off his journey to me, and I have not what to set before him!’ And he from within should answer, and say: ‘Trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee!’ Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise, and give him as many as he needeth … Knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Luke 11:5-9).
The Nails are acts of sacrifices, mortifications and penances. Nail your sins before God nails them! “Let him do penance for his sin” (Leviticus 5:5) … Prayer is good with fasting and alms” (Tobias 12:8) … “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:20) … “I covered my soul in fasting” (Psalm 68:11) ... “I set my face to the Lord my God, to pray and make supplication with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes” (Daniel 9:3) … “and they praying in this place, shall do penance to Thy Name, and shall be converted from their sins” (3 Kings 8:35).
But we need to be in a state of sanctifying grace (and charity) for all the above mentioned power tools to work—grace and charity are like electricity that makes the electrical tools work. They are like body and soul, mind and heart, husband and wife, pilot and co-pilot—they give the spirit and direction to the work. If we have lost God’s sanctifying grace, we also lose charity, and our prayers and acts are useless as regards meriting or obtaining anything other than an actual grace to lead us to conversion and the regaining of sanctifying grace. St. Paul puts it powerfully and clearly when he writes: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity―then it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The Inhuman Nailing of Christ Our Lord
We read in The Mystical City of God, an account of the inhuman way in which Jesus was nailed to the Cross: “In order to find the places for the augerholes on the Cross, the executioners haughtily commanded the Creator of the universe. The Teacher of humility obeyed without hesitation. But they, following their inhuman instinct of cruelty, marked the places for the holes, not according to the size of his body, but larger—having in mind a new torture for their Victim.
“This inhuman intent was known to the Mother of light, and the knowledge of it was one of the greatest afflictions of her heart during the whole Passion. She saw through the intentions of these ministers of sin and she anticipated the torments to be endured by her beloved Son when his limbs should be wrenched from their sockets in being nailed to the Cross. But she could not do anything to prevent it, as it was the will of the Lord to suffer these pains for men” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“When He rose from the Cross, and they set about boring the holes, the great Lady approached and took hold of one of his hands, adoring Him and kissing it with greatest reverence. The executioners allowed this because they thought that the sight of his Mother would cause so much the greater affliction to the Lord; for they wished to spare Him no sorrow they could cause Him. But they were ignorant of the hidden mysteries; for the Lord during his Passion had no greater source of consolation and interior joy than to see in the soul of his most Blessed Mother, the beautiful likeness of Himself and the full fruits of his Passion and Death. This joy, to a certain extent, comforted Christ our Lord also in that hour” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Having bored the three holes into the Cross, the executioners again commanded Christ the Lord to stretch Himself out upon it in order to be nailed to it. The supreme and almighty King, as the Author of patience, obeyed, and at the will of the hangmen, placed Himself with outstretched arms upon the blessed wood. The Lord was so weakened, disfigured and exhausted, that if the ferocious cruelty of those men had left the least room for natural reason and kindness, they could not have brought themselves to inflict further torments upon the innocent and meek Lamb, humbly suffering such nameless sorrows and pains. But not so with them; for the judges and their executioners were transformed in their malice and deathly hatred into demons, void of the feelings of sensible and earthly men and urged on only by diabolical wrath and fury” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Presently one of the executioners seized the hand of Jesus our Savior and placed it upon the auger hole, while another hammered a large and rough nail through the palm. The veins and sinews were torn, and the bones of the sacred hand, which made the heavens and all that exists, were forced apart. When they stretched out the other hand, they found that it did not reach up to the auger hole; for the sinews of the other arm had been shortened and the executioners had maliciously set the holes too far apart. In order to overcome the difficulty, they took the chain, with which the Savior had been bound in the garden, and looping one end through a ring around his wrist, they, with unheard of cruelty, pulled the hand over the hole and fastened it with another nail” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God)..
“Thereupon they seized His feet, and placing them one above the other, they tied the same chain around both and stretched them with barbarous ferocity down to the third hole. Then they drove through both feet a large nail into the Cross. Thus the sacred body, in which dwelled the Divinity, was nailed motionless to the holy Cross, and the handiwork of His deified members, formed by the Holy Ghost, was so stretched and torn asunder, that the bones of His body, dislocated and forced from their natural position, could all be counted. The bones of His breast, of His shoulders and arms, and of His whole body yielded to the cruel violence and were torn from their sinews” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“It is impossible for human tongue or words of mouth to describe the torments of our Savior Jesus and what He suffered on this occasion. On the last day alone more will be known, in order that his cause may be justified before sinners and the praise and exaltation of the saints may be so much the greater” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Our Lady Hits the Nail on the Head
“Thy state of life must be for thee a most rigid cross on which thou must remain crucified, and thou must not widen thy path by seeking for dispensation and weakening interpretation of thy rules to make it easy and comfortable, but at the same time, insecure and full of imperfections. This is the deception into which the children of Babylon and of Adam fall, that each one, according to his state, seeks to find ease in the work commanded by the law of God. They set aside the salvation of their soul in their efforts to buy Heaven very cheaply, or risk losing it by dreading the restrictions and entire subjection necessary to observe rigorously the divine law and its precepts.
“Hence arises the desire to find explanations and opinions, which smooth the paths and highways of eternal life, without heeding the doctrine of my divine Son, that the path of life is very narrow. They forget that the Lord Himself has walked these narrow paths, in order that no one might imagine he can reach eternal life over paths more spacious and comfortable to the flesh and to the inclinations vitiated by sins.
“This danger is greater for ecclesiastics and religious, who by their very state must follow the Master and must accommodate themselves to His life of poverty and must choose for this purpose the way of the Cross. Some of them however are apt to seek the dignities attached to the religious state for their temporal advantage, for the increase of their own honor and praise. In order to secure it they lighten the Cross they have promised to bear, so that they live a carnal life, little restricted and much eased by deceptive dispensations and vain excuses. In their time they shall recognize the truth and that saying of the Holy Ghost: Each one thinks his path secure, but the Lord weighs in His hands the hearts of men” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“So far from this deceit, do I wish thee to be, my daughter, that thou must live strictly in such a way that thou canst not stretch thyself in any way, being nailed immovably to the Cross with Christ. Thou must set aside all temporal advantages, for the least point pertaining to the utmost perfection of thy state.
“Thy right hand, my daughter, must be nailed to the Cross by obedience, and reserve not for thyself the least movement, the least activity, or word, or thought not controlled by this virtue. Thou must not maintain any position that is of thy own choice, but only such as is willed by others; thou must not appear wise in thy own conceit in anything, but ignorant and blind, in order to follow entirely the guidance of thy superiors (Proverbs 3:7). He that promises, says the wise man (Proverbs 6:1), binds his hands, and by his words shall he be bound and chained.
“Thy left hand thou hast nailed to the Cross by the vow of poverty, depriving thee of all right to follow any inclination toward the objects usually coveted by the eyes; for both in the use and in the desire for such creatures thou must rigorously imitate Christ impoverished and despoiled upon the Cross.
“By chastity, thy feet are nailed to the Cross, in order that all thy steps and movements may be pure, chaste and beautiful. For this thou must not permit in thy presence the least word offensive to purity, nor, by looking upon or touching any human creature, allow any sensual image or impression within thee; thy eyes and all thy senses are to remain consecrated to chastity, without making more use of them than to fix them upon Jesus crucified.
“Contemplate and consider in thy heart the image of my Son and Lord full of blood, torments, sorrows, and at last nailed to the Cross, no part of His sacred body being exempt from wounds and excruciating pains. The Lord and I were most solicitous and compassionate toward all the children of men; for them We suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that they might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good and in return for so obliging a love. Therefore, let mortals show themselves thankful, willingly entering upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, to bear it after Christ. Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
As St. Paul says, “They that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24). “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6). “That I may live to God: with Christ I am nailed to the cross” (Galatians 2:19).
Article 29
Tuesday in Holy Week, April 4th, 2023
Stripped of All You Have!
Tuesday in Holy Week, April 4th, 2023
Stripped of All You Have!
He Came With Nothing, He Died With Nothing
He was born with nothing, He lived with little or nothing and He died with nothing—yet He had made everything, He could do everything, and He Himself is everything a soul could ever want. In our contemplation of the fourteen Stations of the Cross throughout these fourteen days of Passiontide, we now arrive at the Station where Our Savior arrived on Calvary, where He was cruelly stripped of His garments. Incredibly humiliating and painful for both soul and body.
Firstly, it was painful to the soul, for the most pure and holy Jesus to be seen naked, or almost naked, by all those people. He, who had clothed Adam and Even in their shame, by making for them clothes to cover their nakedness, was now Himself left without anything to cover his nakedness. The humiliation of this added to His pains of body.
Secondly, how painful it must have been to have his clothes torn from his body. The garments, like a bandage on a wound, would be stuck tight to His wounded and torn body. So when the garments were ripped-off, parts of His bloody skin were ripped-off with them! Thus, the wounds of Jesus are re-opened and the pain of them renewed.
Thirdly, we must remember that Jesus, due to all the blood loss, most certainly was suffering chills. It is common knowledge, especially in the monthly case of women or of anemic people, that they can be shivering with cold even in midsummer, to the point that they pile on even more clothes or blankets. Jesus had lost an incredible amount of blood by this time and would have felt the same need for more garments to stop the shivering, not less.
Fourthly, Jesus was stripped of His garments that He might die possessed of nothing. He, Who made everything, came into this world with nothing; lived with the bare minimum and died with nothing! If He wished nothing, why do I want so much? Would I be content to be born with nothing and to die with nothing? Why cannot I see and understand this wisdom. Why do I store up so many things for myself—money and possessions?
Our Lord had said: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on Earth, where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal.” (Matthew 6:19).
Jesus Lived in Poverty
Our Lady, in speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, clearly spells out the fact the Jesus lived a life of poverty—as did the Blessed Virgin Mary. Most people in the western world today have far, far, more that Jesus and Mary ever had. Our Lady says: “My most holy Son … sought destitution and poverty―not because He had any need of them for bringing the practice of virtues to the highest perfection, but in order to teach mortals the shortest and surest way for reaching the heights of divine love and union with God. His coming down from Heaven onto the Earth, his being born in humility and poverty, his living and dying in it, giving such rare example of the contempt of the world and its deceits ...
"My most holy Son chose poverty, and taught it by word and by example of his admirable abnegation ... Few know the poverty of Christ, and fewer embrace it … They ardently seek honors and fly from injuries: they strive after riches, and contemn poverty; they long after pleasure and dread mortification. All these are enemies of the Cross of Christ” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Who would be so hardened as not to be moved to tenderness at the sight of their God become man, humiliated in poverty, despised, unknown, entering the world in a cave, lying in a manger surrounded by brute animals, protected only by a poverty-stricken Mother, and cast off by the foolish arrogance of the world? Who will dare to love the vanity and pride, which was openly abhorred and condemned by the Creator of Heaven and Earth in his conduct? No one can despise the humility, poverty and indigence, which the Lord loved and chose for Himself as the very means of teaching the way of eternal life. Few there are, who stop to consider this truth and example” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Human Acquired Temperance & God Infused Temperance
Temperance is the virtue that regulates our desire for things. Temperance can be both acquired naturally, or it can be infused supernaturally by God. Of course, acquired temperance is inferior to infused temperance. God’s ways and thoughts are not our ways and thoughts.
As St. Thomas Aquinas says that acquired temperance differs strikingly from infused temperance. Acquired temperance keeps a just medium in the matter of food and other things, in order that we may live reasonably, that we may not injure our health. Infused temperance, on the contrary, keeps a superior happy mean in the use of food and other things, in order that we may live in a Christian manner, as children of God, en route to the wholly supernatural life of eternity.
Infused temperance, therefore, implies a more severe mortification than is implied by acquired temperance; it requires, as St. Paul says, that man chastise his body and bring it into subjection, that he may become not only a virtuous citizen of society on Earth, but one of the “fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God.”
Stripping Ourselves of All Things
The teaching of St. John of the Cross in The Ascent of Mount Carmel, echoes this:
“Some consider any kind of retirement from the world and any correction of excesses to be sufficient; others are content with a certain degree of virtue, persevere in prayer and practice nl0rtification, but they do not rise to this detachment, and poverty, or self-denial, or spiritual purity ... They render themselves spiritually enemies of the Cross of Christ, for true spirituality seeks for bitterness rather than sweetness in God, inclines to suffering more than to consolation, and to be in want of everything for God rather than to possess; to dryness and afflictions rather than to sweet communications, knowing well that this is to follow Christ and deny self, while the other course is perhaps nothing but to seek oneself in God, which is the very opposite of love ...
"Would that I could persuade spiritual persons that the way of God consisteth not in the multiplicity of meditations ways of devotion or sweetness—though these may be necessary for beginners—but in one necessary thing only, that is in knowing how to deny themselves in earnest, inwardly and outwardly, giving themselves up to suffer for Christ's sake, and annihilating themselves utterly. He who shall exercise himself herein, will then find all this and much more. And if he be deficient at all in this exercise, which is the sum and root of all virtue, all he may do will be but beating the air; utterly profitless, notwithstanding great meditations and communications. . . . And when he [the spiritual man] shall have been brought to nothing, when his humility is perfect, then will take place the union of the soul and God, which is the highest and noblest estate attainable in this life.”
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit
Whereas the world declares that happiness is in the abundance of exterior goods, of riches, and in honors, Christ states, with the calm assurance of absolute truth:“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Each beatitude has many degrees. Happy they who are poor without murmuring, without impatience, without jealousy, even if bread should be lacking, and who work while placing their trust in God. Blessed are they who, though more fortunate, have not the spirit of riches, pomp, and pride, but are detached from the goods of Earth. More fortunate still are they who will leave all to follow Christ, who will make themselves voluntarily poor, and who will truly live according to the spirit of this vocation. They will receive the hundredfold on Earth and eternal life.
Wide Gates and Narrow Gates
These poor are they who, under the inspiration of the gift of fear, follow the road which, though narrow at first, becomes the royal road to Heaven, on which the soul expands more and more, whereas the broad road of the world leads to Hell and perdition. You can’t take very many things with you down a narrow road through a narrow gate! “Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat”(Matthew 7:13).
Elsewhere Christ declares: “Woe to you that are filled: for you shall hunger.” Our Lady says, in her Magnificat: “He hath filled the hungry with good things, but the rich He hath sent empty away” (Luke 2:23), which echoes the Old Testament teaching: “For He hath satisfied the empty soul, and hath filled the hungry soul with good things” (Psalm 106:9).
When we have stuffed and filled ourselves with the things of the world—TV, internet, magazines, music, phone conversations, texting, blogging, e-mailing, socializing, playing sports, traveling, cooking, eating, partying, window-shopping, or whatever else our fancy may be—then there is no room in the soul for God, or very little room. It is case of Bethlehem all over again—No room at the inn. It reminds of the rich young man, who had so many worldly possessions that he could bear the thought of parting from them to follow Jesus.
Rich, but Poor
“And behold one came and said to Him: ‘Good Master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?’ Jesus said: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ He said to Jesus: ‘All these I have kept from my youth, what is yet wanting to me?’ Jesus saith to him: If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions.
"Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ And when they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus beholding, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!’
"Then Peter answering, said to Him: ‘Behold we have left all things, and have followed Thee: what therefore shall we have?’ And Jesus said to them: Amen, I say to you, every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My Name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting” (Matthew 19:16-29).
Wrong Kind of Riches
The young was rich in the wrong way. Our Lord wants us to bank our riches in Heaven, not on Earth: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:19-21).
AS Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “On the other hand, blessed is that poverty which, as the life of St. Francis of Assisi shows, opens the kingdom of God that is infinitely superior to all wealth, to the miserable riches in which the world seeks happiness. Blessed are the poor, or humble of heart, who do not cling to the goods of the body, or to those of the spirit, or to reputation, or to honor, and who seek only the kingdom of God. The desire of riches divides men, engenders quarrels, lawsuits, violence, and war among nations” (The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
No Spiritual Cosmetics
The world furnishes us with no shortage of material that helps create an illusion as to the kind of person we really are. There is make-up, plastic surgery, lip-suction, corsets, wigs, false eyelashes, padded clothing, drugs of various kinds to make the body look very different to what it is in reality.
Computers open us up to pretending that we possess an intelligence that in reality we have not—we can do a quick search online and piece together things that we have taken from the intelligence of others and then pretend it is our own work. Computer software allows us to create magnificent works of art when in reality we are artless and couldn't draw to save our lives!
The same is true spiritually, we can all talk the talk, but how many walk the walk—“If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me … If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!” (Matthew 16:24; 19:21). Suddenly all the talk stops and one by one people walk away
Our Lord once said to one of His mystics and future saints—that if they could see themselves as He saw them , then they would die in terror! Ouch! Truly God’s views are not our views, nor His assessment the same as our assessment!
The Remedy or ‘Soul-ution’
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange continues: “Consequently to combat cupidity, the concupiscence of the eyes, the desire of riches, avarice, and the forgetfulness of the poor, our Lord counseled voluntary poverty, or detachment in regard to earthly goods which divide men. Christ leads us thus to desire keenly spiritual goods, which unite men.
“The spirit of detachment is even necessary for the Christian that he may clearly understand the true meaning of the right of individual ownership instead of infringing on this right, which is often forgotten; interior souls should have a profound knowledge of it. As St. Thomas shows, the right of ownership is the right to acquire and to administer material goods; but in regard to their use, they must be given readily to those who are in need" (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Using Things Wisely
“St. Paul says: “Charge the rich of this world not to be high-minded nor to trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God, who giveth us abundantly all things to enjoy: to do good, to be rich in good works, to give easily, to communicate to others, to lay up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on the true life. (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
“Such is the spirit of detachment; it should remind all of us of what St. Thomas says elsewhere: namely, that if a poor man in a case of extreme necessity asks for a piece of bread and is refused, he may take it, and not be guilty of theft. He has a right to it in order not to die of hunger. A man's life is clearly worth more than a piece of bread which we have not the right to retain jealously if one of our brothers is in absolute need of it" (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
“It is a precept that a man should give alms from his superfluity, that he may aid him who is in grave necessity. What has been said of a piece of bread, should be said of clothing and necessary shelter. There must be a return to the spirit of evangelical poverty, in order to combat, today, the abuses of capitalism, which exasperate the laborer who is out of work and unable to feed his children. Scripture tells us: “Whilst the wicked man is proud, the poor is set on fire.” The rich man, far from being a monopolist, should administer the goods given by God in such a way that the poor profit in regard to what is necessary. Then man no longer lives under the reign of covetousness and jealousy, but under the dominion of God” (The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
“It is a precept that a man should give alms from his superfluity, that he may aid him who is in grave necessity. What has been said of a piece of bread, should be said of clothing and necessary shelter. There must be a return to the spirit of evangelical poverty, in order to combat, today, the abuses of capitalism, which exasperate the laborer who is out of work and unable to feed his children. Scripture tells us: ‘Whilst the wicked man is proud, the poor is set on fire.’ The rich man, far from being a monopolist, should administer the goods given by God in such a way that the poor profit in regard to what is necessary. Then man no longer lives under the reign of covetousness and jealousy, but under the dominion of God … ‘If riches abound, set not your heart upon them’ warns Psalm 61. St. Paul says: ‘The time is short ... and they that rejoice, as if they rejoiced not; ... and they that use this world, as if they used it not.’ Even those who do not effectively practice the counsel of evangelical poverty ought to have its spirit if they wish to tend to perfection” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Seek God First & He Will Care For You
“The value of detachment appears in a more positive way when we remember the true goods we should ardently desire. Christ tells all of us what they are, and interior souls should have a deeper understanding of His teaching: ‘Be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat, and the body more than the raiment? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, . . . and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they? Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof’” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Look More to Divine Help Than Human Help
“The spirit of detachment thus leads us to a stronger desire for the goods of heaven and to reliance on the help of God to reach the end of the journey. Voluntary poverty and confidence in God go hand in hand; the more detached man is from earthly goods, the more he desires those of Heaven; and the less he relies on human helps, the more he places his confidence in God's help. Thus confidence in God is the soul of holy poverty. All Christians should have the spirit of this counsel” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Examples of the Saints
St. Francis de Sales, in his book, Introduction to a Devout Life (Part III, chapters 14-16), develops this teaching, saying that voluntary poverty is a great good, but one which is little known; that it is a principle of happiness; that it must be observed in the midst of wealth and also in real poverty, if we should happen to lose everything.
“Now if you love the poor, be often in their company, be glad to see them in your house, and to visit them in theirs. Converse willingly with them, be pleased to have them near you in the church, in the streets, and elsewhere.... Make yourself then a servant of the poor: go and serve them in their beds when they are sick ... at your own expense ... This service is more glorious than a kingdom ...
"St. Louis frequently served at table the poor whom he supported, and caused three poor men to dine with him almost every day, and many times ate the remainder of their food with an incomparable love. When he visited the hospitals, ... he commonly served ... such as had the most loathsome diseases, kneeling on the ground, respecting in their persons the Savior of the world ... St. Elizabeth, daughter of the King of Hungary, often visited the poor ... But should you meet with losses which impoverish you ... as in the case of tempests, fires, inundations, ... lawsuits, then is the proper season to practice poverty ... with meekness ... and patience” (Introduction to a Devout Life, Part III, chaps. 15).
The Fruitfulness of Voluntary Poverty
St. Thomas tells us that Christ willed to be poor for four reasons:
(1) because voluntary poverty is fitting for the preacher, who should be freed from the care of earthly goods;
(2) because He wished to show that He desires only the salvation of souls;
(3) that He might lead us to desire especially eternal goods;
(4) that divine power which saves souls might stand forth more clearly in the absence of human helps. This is also the reason why Christ chose poor fishermen of Galilee as His apostles.
Thus is demonstrated the fruitfulness of voluntary poverty; it is the hundredfold promised by Christ.
In the first place, the spirit of poverty frees us from excessive preoccupation about exterior goods, which are then no longer an obstacle in our progress toward God, but a means of doing good. Thus delivered, the Christian may run the way of perfection; he no longer thinks of settling down on Earth as if he were to remain there always, for he understands that he is there only temporarily. He is no longer embarrassed, as it were, by useless baggage in his journey toward eternity; aware of being a traveler, a pilgrim, he seeks to reach his last end without delay. His pace is even quickened, becomes ever more rapid, because he is always more drawn by the last end (God and Heaven) in proportion as he approaches it.
In the second place, voluntary poverty is a sign of disinterestedness and detachment, which is particularly necessary for those who want to convert and lead other souls to God; for it should be evident he has no interest but simply that of winning souls for our Lord, as St. Dominic told the prelates, who arrived in Languedoc with a whole suite to preach the Gospel to people, seduced by the errors of the Albigenses. These prelates understood then that they should preach first by example, by true detachment; and they sent away their retinue.
In the third place, voluntary poverty is materially fruitful in a degree that sometimes borders on the miraculous. To see this fact, one need only visit certain convents dedicated to the care of the poor, such as the homes of the Little Sisters of the Poor, or the piccola casa (little house) of St. Joseph Cottolengo in Turin, “a little house” which shelters ten thousand indigent sick, and which subsists only on the alms received from day to day. It is like a perpetual miracle, worked by divine Providence, in response to the trust of the holy founder and his sons, who understood the profound meaning of Christ's words: “Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.”These servants of the poor live by the supernatural contemplation of this truth and by its practice.
Fourthly, more admirable still is the spiritual fruitfulness of the spirit of poverty. It teaches us patience, humility, detachment in regard to higher goods, to all that is not God and the love of God, that is, in respect to the goods of the intellect, of the heart, and of certain goods of the soul.
The spirit of poverty also teaches us to practice detachment from certain goods of the soul, that is, spiritual consolations. They must certainly not be sought for themselves; were this done, they would cease to be a means of progress toward God and would become an obstacle. We must consent to be weaned from them when the Lord judges it to be for our good.
All Handed Over to Our Lady
Following the advice of St. Louis de Montfort, many interior souls strip themselves of all that is communicable to others in their prayers and good works and entrust it to the Blessed Virgin that she may use it to the best advantage of souls on Earth or in Purgatory in greatest need of it. By this denudation the Christian prepares himself for a higher spiritual poverty, which is a great gift of God and recalls the destitution of Christ on the cross, abandoned by His people, by many of His own, and to all appearances abandoned by His Father. Interior souls find this higher spiritual poverty in the last purification which St. John of the Cross calls the dark night of the soul. Victim souls experience more profoundly than others this absolute stripping of themselves and this immolation which configures them to Christ that they may obtain the salvation of sinners.
Thus, in different degrees, the spirit of poverty and still more voluntary poverty effectively practiced for love of God, enrich the Christian while stripping him and obtain the hundredfold for him. Such is the lofty meaning of the evangelical beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
He was born with nothing, He lived with little or nothing and He died with nothing—yet He had made everything, He could do everything, and He Himself is everything a soul could ever want. In our contemplation of the fourteen Stations of the Cross throughout these fourteen days of Passiontide, we now arrive at the Station where Our Savior arrived on Calvary, where He was cruelly stripped of His garments. Incredibly humiliating and painful for both soul and body.
Firstly, it was painful to the soul, for the most pure and holy Jesus to be seen naked, or almost naked, by all those people. He, who had clothed Adam and Even in their shame, by making for them clothes to cover their nakedness, was now Himself left without anything to cover his nakedness. The humiliation of this added to His pains of body.
Secondly, how painful it must have been to have his clothes torn from his body. The garments, like a bandage on a wound, would be stuck tight to His wounded and torn body. So when the garments were ripped-off, parts of His bloody skin were ripped-off with them! Thus, the wounds of Jesus are re-opened and the pain of them renewed.
Thirdly, we must remember that Jesus, due to all the blood loss, most certainly was suffering chills. It is common knowledge, especially in the monthly case of women or of anemic people, that they can be shivering with cold even in midsummer, to the point that they pile on even more clothes or blankets. Jesus had lost an incredible amount of blood by this time and would have felt the same need for more garments to stop the shivering, not less.
Fourthly, Jesus was stripped of His garments that He might die possessed of nothing. He, Who made everything, came into this world with nothing; lived with the bare minimum and died with nothing! If He wished nothing, why do I want so much? Would I be content to be born with nothing and to die with nothing? Why cannot I see and understand this wisdom. Why do I store up so many things for myself—money and possessions?
Our Lord had said: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on Earth, where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal.” (Matthew 6:19).
Jesus Lived in Poverty
Our Lady, in speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, clearly spells out the fact the Jesus lived a life of poverty—as did the Blessed Virgin Mary. Most people in the western world today have far, far, more that Jesus and Mary ever had. Our Lady says: “My most holy Son … sought destitution and poverty―not because He had any need of them for bringing the practice of virtues to the highest perfection, but in order to teach mortals the shortest and surest way for reaching the heights of divine love and union with God. His coming down from Heaven onto the Earth, his being born in humility and poverty, his living and dying in it, giving such rare example of the contempt of the world and its deceits ...
"My most holy Son chose poverty, and taught it by word and by example of his admirable abnegation ... Few know the poverty of Christ, and fewer embrace it … They ardently seek honors and fly from injuries: they strive after riches, and contemn poverty; they long after pleasure and dread mortification. All these are enemies of the Cross of Christ” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Who would be so hardened as not to be moved to tenderness at the sight of their God become man, humiliated in poverty, despised, unknown, entering the world in a cave, lying in a manger surrounded by brute animals, protected only by a poverty-stricken Mother, and cast off by the foolish arrogance of the world? Who will dare to love the vanity and pride, which was openly abhorred and condemned by the Creator of Heaven and Earth in his conduct? No one can despise the humility, poverty and indigence, which the Lord loved and chose for Himself as the very means of teaching the way of eternal life. Few there are, who stop to consider this truth and example” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Human Acquired Temperance & God Infused Temperance
Temperance is the virtue that regulates our desire for things. Temperance can be both acquired naturally, or it can be infused supernaturally by God. Of course, acquired temperance is inferior to infused temperance. God’s ways and thoughts are not our ways and thoughts.
As St. Thomas Aquinas says that acquired temperance differs strikingly from infused temperance. Acquired temperance keeps a just medium in the matter of food and other things, in order that we may live reasonably, that we may not injure our health. Infused temperance, on the contrary, keeps a superior happy mean in the use of food and other things, in order that we may live in a Christian manner, as children of God, en route to the wholly supernatural life of eternity.
Infused temperance, therefore, implies a more severe mortification than is implied by acquired temperance; it requires, as St. Paul says, that man chastise his body and bring it into subjection, that he may become not only a virtuous citizen of society on Earth, but one of the “fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God.”
Stripping Ourselves of All Things
The teaching of St. John of the Cross in The Ascent of Mount Carmel, echoes this:
“Some consider any kind of retirement from the world and any correction of excesses to be sufficient; others are content with a certain degree of virtue, persevere in prayer and practice nl0rtification, but they do not rise to this detachment, and poverty, or self-denial, or spiritual purity ... They render themselves spiritually enemies of the Cross of Christ, for true spirituality seeks for bitterness rather than sweetness in God, inclines to suffering more than to consolation, and to be in want of everything for God rather than to possess; to dryness and afflictions rather than to sweet communications, knowing well that this is to follow Christ and deny self, while the other course is perhaps nothing but to seek oneself in God, which is the very opposite of love ...
"Would that I could persuade spiritual persons that the way of God consisteth not in the multiplicity of meditations ways of devotion or sweetness—though these may be necessary for beginners—but in one necessary thing only, that is in knowing how to deny themselves in earnest, inwardly and outwardly, giving themselves up to suffer for Christ's sake, and annihilating themselves utterly. He who shall exercise himself herein, will then find all this and much more. And if he be deficient at all in this exercise, which is the sum and root of all virtue, all he may do will be but beating the air; utterly profitless, notwithstanding great meditations and communications. . . . And when he [the spiritual man] shall have been brought to nothing, when his humility is perfect, then will take place the union of the soul and God, which is the highest and noblest estate attainable in this life.”
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit
Whereas the world declares that happiness is in the abundance of exterior goods, of riches, and in honors, Christ states, with the calm assurance of absolute truth:“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Each beatitude has many degrees. Happy they who are poor without murmuring, without impatience, without jealousy, even if bread should be lacking, and who work while placing their trust in God. Blessed are they who, though more fortunate, have not the spirit of riches, pomp, and pride, but are detached from the goods of Earth. More fortunate still are they who will leave all to follow Christ, who will make themselves voluntarily poor, and who will truly live according to the spirit of this vocation. They will receive the hundredfold on Earth and eternal life.
Wide Gates and Narrow Gates
These poor are they who, under the inspiration of the gift of fear, follow the road which, though narrow at first, becomes the royal road to Heaven, on which the soul expands more and more, whereas the broad road of the world leads to Hell and perdition. You can’t take very many things with you down a narrow road through a narrow gate! “Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat”(Matthew 7:13).
Elsewhere Christ declares: “Woe to you that are filled: for you shall hunger.” Our Lady says, in her Magnificat: “He hath filled the hungry with good things, but the rich He hath sent empty away” (Luke 2:23), which echoes the Old Testament teaching: “For He hath satisfied the empty soul, and hath filled the hungry soul with good things” (Psalm 106:9).
When we have stuffed and filled ourselves with the things of the world—TV, internet, magazines, music, phone conversations, texting, blogging, e-mailing, socializing, playing sports, traveling, cooking, eating, partying, window-shopping, or whatever else our fancy may be—then there is no room in the soul for God, or very little room. It is case of Bethlehem all over again—No room at the inn. It reminds of the rich young man, who had so many worldly possessions that he could bear the thought of parting from them to follow Jesus.
Rich, but Poor
“And behold one came and said to Him: ‘Good Master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?’ Jesus said: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ He said to Jesus: ‘All these I have kept from my youth, what is yet wanting to me?’ Jesus saith to him: If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions.
"Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ And when they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus beholding, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!’
"Then Peter answering, said to Him: ‘Behold we have left all things, and have followed Thee: what therefore shall we have?’ And Jesus said to them: Amen, I say to you, every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My Name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting” (Matthew 19:16-29).
Wrong Kind of Riches
The young was rich in the wrong way. Our Lord wants us to bank our riches in Heaven, not on Earth: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:19-21).
AS Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “On the other hand, blessed is that poverty which, as the life of St. Francis of Assisi shows, opens the kingdom of God that is infinitely superior to all wealth, to the miserable riches in which the world seeks happiness. Blessed are the poor, or humble of heart, who do not cling to the goods of the body, or to those of the spirit, or to reputation, or to honor, and who seek only the kingdom of God. The desire of riches divides men, engenders quarrels, lawsuits, violence, and war among nations” (The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
No Spiritual Cosmetics
The world furnishes us with no shortage of material that helps create an illusion as to the kind of person we really are. There is make-up, plastic surgery, lip-suction, corsets, wigs, false eyelashes, padded clothing, drugs of various kinds to make the body look very different to what it is in reality.
Computers open us up to pretending that we possess an intelligence that in reality we have not—we can do a quick search online and piece together things that we have taken from the intelligence of others and then pretend it is our own work. Computer software allows us to create magnificent works of art when in reality we are artless and couldn't draw to save our lives!
The same is true spiritually, we can all talk the talk, but how many walk the walk—“If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me … If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!” (Matthew 16:24; 19:21). Suddenly all the talk stops and one by one people walk away
Our Lord once said to one of His mystics and future saints—that if they could see themselves as He saw them , then they would die in terror! Ouch! Truly God’s views are not our views, nor His assessment the same as our assessment!
The Remedy or ‘Soul-ution’
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange continues: “Consequently to combat cupidity, the concupiscence of the eyes, the desire of riches, avarice, and the forgetfulness of the poor, our Lord counseled voluntary poverty, or detachment in regard to earthly goods which divide men. Christ leads us thus to desire keenly spiritual goods, which unite men.
“The spirit of detachment is even necessary for the Christian that he may clearly understand the true meaning of the right of individual ownership instead of infringing on this right, which is often forgotten; interior souls should have a profound knowledge of it. As St. Thomas shows, the right of ownership is the right to acquire and to administer material goods; but in regard to their use, they must be given readily to those who are in need" (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Using Things Wisely
“St. Paul says: “Charge the rich of this world not to be high-minded nor to trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God, who giveth us abundantly all things to enjoy: to do good, to be rich in good works, to give easily, to communicate to others, to lay up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on the true life. (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
“Such is the spirit of detachment; it should remind all of us of what St. Thomas says elsewhere: namely, that if a poor man in a case of extreme necessity asks for a piece of bread and is refused, he may take it, and not be guilty of theft. He has a right to it in order not to die of hunger. A man's life is clearly worth more than a piece of bread which we have not the right to retain jealously if one of our brothers is in absolute need of it" (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
“It is a precept that a man should give alms from his superfluity, that he may aid him who is in grave necessity. What has been said of a piece of bread, should be said of clothing and necessary shelter. There must be a return to the spirit of evangelical poverty, in order to combat, today, the abuses of capitalism, which exasperate the laborer who is out of work and unable to feed his children. Scripture tells us: “Whilst the wicked man is proud, the poor is set on fire.” The rich man, far from being a monopolist, should administer the goods given by God in such a way that the poor profit in regard to what is necessary. Then man no longer lives under the reign of covetousness and jealousy, but under the dominion of God” (The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
“It is a precept that a man should give alms from his superfluity, that he may aid him who is in grave necessity. What has been said of a piece of bread, should be said of clothing and necessary shelter. There must be a return to the spirit of evangelical poverty, in order to combat, today, the abuses of capitalism, which exasperate the laborer who is out of work and unable to feed his children. Scripture tells us: ‘Whilst the wicked man is proud, the poor is set on fire.’ The rich man, far from being a monopolist, should administer the goods given by God in such a way that the poor profit in regard to what is necessary. Then man no longer lives under the reign of covetousness and jealousy, but under the dominion of God … ‘If riches abound, set not your heart upon them’ warns Psalm 61. St. Paul says: ‘The time is short ... and they that rejoice, as if they rejoiced not; ... and they that use this world, as if they used it not.’ Even those who do not effectively practice the counsel of evangelical poverty ought to have its spirit if they wish to tend to perfection” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Seek God First & He Will Care For You
“The value of detachment appears in a more positive way when we remember the true goods we should ardently desire. Christ tells all of us what they are, and interior souls should have a deeper understanding of His teaching: ‘Be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat, and the body more than the raiment? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, . . . and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they? Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof’” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Look More to Divine Help Than Human Help
“The spirit of detachment thus leads us to a stronger desire for the goods of heaven and to reliance on the help of God to reach the end of the journey. Voluntary poverty and confidence in God go hand in hand; the more detached man is from earthly goods, the more he desires those of Heaven; and the less he relies on human helps, the more he places his confidence in God's help. Thus confidence in God is the soul of holy poverty. All Christians should have the spirit of this counsel” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Examples of the Saints
St. Francis de Sales, in his book, Introduction to a Devout Life (Part III, chapters 14-16), develops this teaching, saying that voluntary poverty is a great good, but one which is little known; that it is a principle of happiness; that it must be observed in the midst of wealth and also in real poverty, if we should happen to lose everything.
“Now if you love the poor, be often in their company, be glad to see them in your house, and to visit them in theirs. Converse willingly with them, be pleased to have them near you in the church, in the streets, and elsewhere.... Make yourself then a servant of the poor: go and serve them in their beds when they are sick ... at your own expense ... This service is more glorious than a kingdom ...
"St. Louis frequently served at table the poor whom he supported, and caused three poor men to dine with him almost every day, and many times ate the remainder of their food with an incomparable love. When he visited the hospitals, ... he commonly served ... such as had the most loathsome diseases, kneeling on the ground, respecting in their persons the Savior of the world ... St. Elizabeth, daughter of the King of Hungary, often visited the poor ... But should you meet with losses which impoverish you ... as in the case of tempests, fires, inundations, ... lawsuits, then is the proper season to practice poverty ... with meekness ... and patience” (Introduction to a Devout Life, Part III, chaps. 15).
The Fruitfulness of Voluntary Poverty
St. Thomas tells us that Christ willed to be poor for four reasons:
(1) because voluntary poverty is fitting for the preacher, who should be freed from the care of earthly goods;
(2) because He wished to show that He desires only the salvation of souls;
(3) that He might lead us to desire especially eternal goods;
(4) that divine power which saves souls might stand forth more clearly in the absence of human helps. This is also the reason why Christ chose poor fishermen of Galilee as His apostles.
Thus is demonstrated the fruitfulness of voluntary poverty; it is the hundredfold promised by Christ.
In the first place, the spirit of poverty frees us from excessive preoccupation about exterior goods, which are then no longer an obstacle in our progress toward God, but a means of doing good. Thus delivered, the Christian may run the way of perfection; he no longer thinks of settling down on Earth as if he were to remain there always, for he understands that he is there only temporarily. He is no longer embarrassed, as it were, by useless baggage in his journey toward eternity; aware of being a traveler, a pilgrim, he seeks to reach his last end without delay. His pace is even quickened, becomes ever more rapid, because he is always more drawn by the last end (God and Heaven) in proportion as he approaches it.
In the second place, voluntary poverty is a sign of disinterestedness and detachment, which is particularly necessary for those who want to convert and lead other souls to God; for it should be evident he has no interest but simply that of winning souls for our Lord, as St. Dominic told the prelates, who arrived in Languedoc with a whole suite to preach the Gospel to people, seduced by the errors of the Albigenses. These prelates understood then that they should preach first by example, by true detachment; and they sent away their retinue.
In the third place, voluntary poverty is materially fruitful in a degree that sometimes borders on the miraculous. To see this fact, one need only visit certain convents dedicated to the care of the poor, such as the homes of the Little Sisters of the Poor, or the piccola casa (little house) of St. Joseph Cottolengo in Turin, “a little house” which shelters ten thousand indigent sick, and which subsists only on the alms received from day to day. It is like a perpetual miracle, worked by divine Providence, in response to the trust of the holy founder and his sons, who understood the profound meaning of Christ's words: “Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.”These servants of the poor live by the supernatural contemplation of this truth and by its practice.
Fourthly, more admirable still is the spiritual fruitfulness of the spirit of poverty. It teaches us patience, humility, detachment in regard to higher goods, to all that is not God and the love of God, that is, in respect to the goods of the intellect, of the heart, and of certain goods of the soul.
The spirit of poverty also teaches us to practice detachment from certain goods of the soul, that is, spiritual consolations. They must certainly not be sought for themselves; were this done, they would cease to be a means of progress toward God and would become an obstacle. We must consent to be weaned from them when the Lord judges it to be for our good.
All Handed Over to Our Lady
Following the advice of St. Louis de Montfort, many interior souls strip themselves of all that is communicable to others in their prayers and good works and entrust it to the Blessed Virgin that she may use it to the best advantage of souls on Earth or in Purgatory in greatest need of it. By this denudation the Christian prepares himself for a higher spiritual poverty, which is a great gift of God and recalls the destitution of Christ on the cross, abandoned by His people, by many of His own, and to all appearances abandoned by His Father. Interior souls find this higher spiritual poverty in the last purification which St. John of the Cross calls the dark night of the soul. Victim souls experience more profoundly than others this absolute stripping of themselves and this immolation which configures them to Christ that they may obtain the salvation of sinners.
Thus, in different degrees, the spirit of poverty and still more voluntary poverty effectively practiced for love of God, enrich the Christian while stripping him and obtain the hundredfold for him. Such is the lofty meaning of the evangelical beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Article 28
Monday in Holy Week, April 3rd, 2023
Falling or Failing Again (and Again and Again)!
Monday in Holy Week, April 3rd, 2023
Falling or Failing Again (and Again and Again)!
Falling Again!
We do not know how often Our Lord fell to ground—the Church, in Her Stations of the Cross, proposes three falls for our contemplation, but, after undergoing the barbarous scourging at the pillar, after having lost much blood in His agony in Gethsemane, not to mention the piercing cap of thorns that was rammed onto and into His head, we can well imagine Our Lord falling many times during His Passion. With each fall, rising up must have been harder. With each fall, the discouragement must have been greater.
Each Fall Weakens
The same is true for our falls into sin. Each time we fall into the same sin, our soul becomes weaker and rising becomes harder. We can draw many parallels from our everyday physical and material life. The more we sprain a joint, the weaker it becomes. A frequently used door will develop loose hinges more quickly than a door that is rarely used. When you bend a branch repeatedly (or a piece of plastic) it will cause an irreparable break.
Don’t Play Around With God
Let us, therefore, be all the more afraid of committing the same kind of sin over and over again—fooling ourselves, in a spirit of presumption, that it doesn’t really matter, because God is all-kind, all-loving, all-forgiving, all-merciful. God IS all of those things, but God is also all-just. If we truly desire to love God then we must avoid sin. As Holy Scripture says: “Seek ye good, and not evil” (Amos 5:14). “Turn away from evil and do good” (Psalm 33:15). “Decline from evil and do good” (Psalm 36:27). “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit” (Matthew 7:18). “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil!” (Isaias 5:20).
Don’t Take Mercy For Granted
In the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, we are told that the devil seeks to make us presumptuous of the mercy of God.
“In the persons who go from mortal sin to mortal sin, the enemy is commonly used to propose to them apparent pleasures, making them imagine sensual delights and pleasures in order to hold them more and make them grow in their vices and sins. In these persons the good spirit uses the opposite method, pricking them and biting their consciences through the process of reason.
"In the persons who are going on intensely cleansing their sins and rising from good to better in the service of God our Lord, it is the method contrary to that in the first Rule, for then it is the way of the evil spirit to bite, sadden and put obstacles, disquieting with false reasons, that one may not go on; and it is proper to the good to give courage and strength, consolations, tears, inspirations and quiet, easing, and putting away all obstacles,that one may go on in well doing” (The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola).
Devilish False Reasoning
St. Alphonsus says that “the Devil brings sinners to Hell by closing their eyes to the dangers of perdition” … [the devil says to souls] “Why should you be afraid of being lost? Indulge your passions for the time being: you can confess your sins later and thus everything shall be remedied!” There are many who “buy into” this lie of the devil and, consequently, think little or nothing of repeatedly falling into sin. They treat sin and confession like a shower--“Who cares if I sin, I’ll shower myself clean again!” they say presumptuously.
St. Alphonsus continues: “The devil says: ‘Indulge your passions: you will hereafter make a good confession.’ But, in reply, I say, that in the meantime you lose your soul. Tell me: if you had a jewel worth a thousand pounds, would you throw it into a river with the hope of afterwards finding it again? What if all your efforts to find it were fruitless? My God! You hold in your hand the invaluable jewel of your soul, which Jesus Christ has purchased with His own blood, and you cast it into Hell! Yes; you cast it into Hell; because according to the present order of providence, for every mortal sin you commit, your name is written among the number of the damned. But you say: ‘I hope to recover God’s grace by making a good confession.’ And if you should not recover it, what shall be the consequences? To make a good confession, a true sorrow for sin is necessary, and this sorrow is the gift of God: if he does not give it, will you not be lost forever?
“You answer: ‘I am young; God compassionates my youth; I will hereafter give myself to God.’ Behold another delusion! You are young; but do you not know that God counts, not the years, but the sins of each individual? You are young; but how many sins have you committed? Perhaps there are many persons of a very advanced age, who have not been guilty of the fourth part of the sins which you have committed. And do you not know that God has fixed for each of us the number of sins which He will pardon?
“‘The Lord patiently expecteth, that, when the day of judgment shall come, he may punish them in the fullness of their sins’ (2 Machabees 6:14). God has patience, and waits for a while; but, when the measure of the sins, which He has determined to pardon, is filled up, He pardons no more, but chastises the sinner, by suddenly depriving him of life in the miserable state of sin, or by abandoning him in his sin, and executing that threat which He made by the prophet Isaias ‘I shall take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted (Isaias 5:5)” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
God is Not Mocked
Yet Holy Scripture says to them: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin: and say not: ‘The mercy of the Lord is great, He will have mercy on the multitude of my sins!’ For mercy and wrath quickly come from Him, and His wrath looketh upon sinners. Delay not to be converted to the Lord, and defer it not from day to day. For His wrath shall come on a sudden, and in the time of vengeance He will destroy thee” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5-9).
The Theory and Practice of God’s Mercy
In theory, God’s mercy is infinite. Yet, in practice, nobody can sin infinitely with impunity. St. Alphonsus speaks of the number of sins beyond which God will refuse to pardon a soul. We will now quote the saint at length:
I Can't Resist!
“You say: ‘I cannot at present resist this passion!’ Behold the third delusion of the devil, by which he makes you believe that, at present, you have not strength to overcome certain temptations. But St. Paul tells us that God is faithful, and that He never permits us to be tempted above our strength. ‘And God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tempted above that which you are able’ (1 Corinthians 10:13). I ask, if you are not now able to resist the temptation, how can you expect to resist it hereafter? If you yield to it, the devil will become stronger, and you shall become weaker; and if you be not now able to extinguish this flame of passion, how can you hope to be able to extinguish it when it shall have grown more violent?”
But God Will Help!
“You say: ‘God will give me his aid!’ But this aid God is ready to give at present if you ask it. Why then do you not implore his assistance? Perhaps you expect that, without now taking the trouble of invoking his aid, you will receive from him increased helps and graces, after you shall have multiplied the number of your sins? Perhaps you doubt the veracity of God, who has promised to give whatever we ask of him? ‘Ask,’ he says, ‘and it shall be given you.’ (Matthew 7:7). God cannot violate his promises. ‘God is not as man, that he should lie, nor as the son of man, that he should be changed. Hath He said, then, and will He not do?’ (Numbers 23:19).”
You Don't Ask Enough
“Have recourse to Him, and He will give you the strength necessary to resist the temptation. God commands you to resist it, and you say: ‘I have not strength!’ Does God, then, command impossibilities? No; the Council of Trent has declared that ‘God does not command impossibilities; but, by His commands, He admonishes you to do what you can, and to ask for what you cannot do; and He assists, that you may be able to do it.’ (Session 6; canon xiii). When you see that you have not sufficient strength to resist temptation with the ordinary assistance of God, ask of Him the additional help which you require, and He will give it to you; and thus you shall be able to conquer all temptations, however violent they may be.”
Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
“But you will not pray; and you say that at present you will commit this sin, and will afterwards confess it. But, I ask, how do you know that God will give you time to confess it? You say: ‘I will go to confession before the week is over!’ And who has promised you this week? Well, then you say: ‘I will go to confession tomorrow!’ And who promises you tomorrow? St. Augustine says: ‘God has not promised you tomorrow. Perhaps he will give it, and perhaps he will refuse it to you, as he has to so many others.’ How many have gone to bed in good health, and have been found dead in the morning! How many, in the very act of sin, has the Lord struck dead and sent to Hell! Should this happen to you, how will you repair your eternal ruin?”
Do it and Then Confess It
“The devil tells you: ‘Commit this sin, and confess it afterwards!’ Behold the deceitful artifice by which the devil has brought so many thousands of Christians to Hell. We scarcely ever find a Christian so sunk in despair as to intend to damn himself. All the wicked sin with the hope of afterwards going to confession. But, by this illusion, how many have brought themselves to perdition! For them there is now no time for confession, no remedy for their damnation! They fell, but failed to rise. They fell once too often!”
God is Good!
“ ‘But God is merciful!’ Behold another common delusion by which the devil encourages sinners to persevere in a life of sin! A certain author has said, that more souls have been sent to Hell by the mercy of God than by His justice. This is indeed the case; for men are induced by the deceits of the devil to persevere in sin, through confidence in God’s mercy; and thus they are lost. ‘God is merciful.’ Who denies it? But, great as His mercy, how many does He every day send to Hell? God is merciful, but He is also just, and is, therefore, obliged to punish those who offend Him. ‘And His mercy,’ says the divine Mother, ‘is to them that fear Him’ (Luke 1:50). But with regard to those who abuse His mercy and despise Him, He exercises justice. The Lord pardons sins, but He cannot pardon the determination to commit sin. St. Augustine says, that he who sins, with the intention of repenting after his sins, is not a penitent but a scoffer. But the Apostle tells us that God will not be mocked. ‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked’ (Galatians 6:7). It would be a mockery of God to insult Him as often and as much as you pleased, and afterwards to expect eternal glory.”
God Has Been Merciful Till Now!
“ ‘But’, you say, ‘since God has shown me so many mercies until now, I am hopeful that He will continue to do so for the future!’ Behold another delusion! Then, because God has not as yet chastised your sins, He will never punish them! On the contrary, the greater have been His mercies, the more you should tremble, lest, if you offend Him again, He should pardon you no more, and should take vengeance on your sins. Behold the advice of the Holy Ghost: ‘Say not: “I have sinned, and what harm hath befallen me?” For the Most High is a patient rewarder.’ (Ecclesiasticus 5:4). Do not say: ‘I have sinned, and no chastisement has fallen upon me!’ God bears for a time, but not forever. He waits for a certain time; but when that arrives, He then chastises the sinner for all His past iniquities: and the longer He has waited for repentance, the more severe the chastisement.”
A Time to Repeating Your Sins
“Then, my brother, since you know that you have frequently offended God, and that He has not sent you to Hell, you should exclaim: ‘The mercies of the Lord, that we are not consumed’ (Lamentations 3:22). ‘Lord, I thank You for not having sent me to Hell, which I have so often deserved!’ And therefore you ought to give yourself entirely to God, at least through gratitude, and should consider that, for less sins than you have committed, many are now in that pit of fire, without the smallest hope of being ever released from it. The patience of God in bearing with you, should teach you not to despise Him still more, but to love and serve Him with greater fervor, and to atone, by penitential austerities and by other holy works, for the insults you have offered to Him. You know that He has shown mercies to you, which He has not shown to others. ‘He hath not done in like manner to every nation’ (Psalm 142:20). Hence you should tremble, lest, if you commit another additional mortal sin, God should abandon you, and cast you into Hell” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
Use or Abuse of Mercy
The question here is the sincerity of contrition. Mercy is to be used, not abused. When Peter asks how many times he must forgive his neighbor—saying “Seven times?” Our Lord tells Peter: “I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times!” (Matthew 18:22).
In revelations made to His mystics, Our Lord once said to Sr. Josefa Menendez: “I love those who, after a first fall come to Me for pardon.... I love them still more when they beg pardon for their second sin, and should this happen again, I do not say a million times, but a million million times, I still love them and pardon them, and I will wash in My Blood their last as fully as their first sin. Never shall I weary of repentant sinners, nor cease from hoping for their return, and the greater their distress, the greater My welcome. Does not a father love a sick child with special affection? Are not his care and solicitude greater? So is the tenderness and compassion of My Heart more abundant for sinners than for the just” (Fr. Gottemuller, Words of Love).
To St. Peter Our Lord says “not seven times, but seventy times seven times” and to Josefa Menendez he says “not a million times, but a million million times”—but all this presupposes that the penitent is truly and sincerely sorry and has a firm purpose of amendment, by which the penitent has taken concrete measures to avoid falling again. Otherwise we have a mere mockery of contrition. “He hath set himself on every way that is not good: but evil he hath not hated” (Psalm 35:5).
Notice that Our Lord speaks of "repentant sinners"—a repentant sinner is one who does not use the Sacrament of Confession like a slot machine, where he merely puts in the words and out comes the mercy. This is akin to the kind of person spoken of in Holy Scripture, where in the Old Testament, God said: “Forasmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify Me, but their heart is far from Me” (Isaias 29:13), to which Our Lord, in the New Testament, adds: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6).
So, yes, we are weak; and yes, we do fall—more than once—but are we sincere penitents filled with sorrow, who truly seek to change their ways? Or are we superficial penitents, who pile sin upon sin wantonly and presume upon and abuse the mercy of God. For the former there can be mercy―but for latter, wrath.
“In the Gospel, it is related that, ‘when Jesus Christ entered into Capharnaum, there came to Him a centurion beseeching Him to cure his servant, who lay sick of the palsy. Jesus answered: “I will come and heal him!” “No,” replied the centurion, “I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed!”’ Seeing the centurion’s faith, the Redeemer instantly consoled him by restoring health to his servant; and, turning to His disciples, He said: ‘Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven. But the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ By these words Our Lord wished to signify, that many persons born in infidelity shall be saved, and enjoy the society of the saints, and that many who are born in the bosom of the Church shall be cast into Hell, where the worm of conscience, by its gnawing, shall make them weep bitterly for all eternity. Let us examine the remorse of conscience which, a damned Christian shall suffer in Hell” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
“If, beloved sinners, you have hitherto offended God―hope and tremble! If you desire to give up sin and if you detest it―then be filled with hope! Because God promises pardon to all who repent of the evil they have done. But if you intend to continue in your sinful course―then tremble lest God should wait no longer for you, but cast you into Hell. Why does God wait for sinners? Is it that they may continue to insult Him? No; He waits for them that they may renounce sin, and that thus He may have pity on them, and forgive them. ‘Therefore the Lord waiteth, that He may have mercy on you’ (Isaias 30:1, 8). But when He sees that the time—which He gave them to weep over their past iniquities—is spent in multiplying their sins, He begins to inflict chastisement, and He cuts them off in the state of sin, that, by dying, they may cease to offend Him. Then He calls against them the very time He had given them for repentance” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
“Do you not know that the Lord waits for you, and treats you with so much benignity, not that you may continue to sin, but that you may weep over the offences you have offered to Him? Do not imagine, dearly beloved sinners, that God requires of you to labor for a long time before He grants you pardon: as soon as you wish for forgiveness, He is ready to give it. Behold what the Scripture says: ‘Weeping, thou shalt not weep, He will surely have pity on thee’ (Isaias 30:19). You shall not have to weep for a long time: as soon as you shall have shed the first tear through sorrow for your sins, God will have mercy on you. ‘At the voice of thy cry, as soon as He shall hear, He will answer thee’ (Isaias 30:19). The moment He shall hear you say: ‘Forgive me, my God, forgive me!’ He will instantly answer and grant your pardon” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
“Behold the impiety to which the blindness of such sinners carry them! From this blindness it arises, that though they go to the sacraments, their confessions are null for want of true contrition; for how is it possible for them to have true sorrow, when they neither know nor abhor their sins?” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
“To make a good confession of your sins, you must have true sorrow of the heart and a firm purpose to sin no more. Where are this sorrow and this firm purpose of amendment when you always return to the vomit of sin? If you had had these dispositions, and had received sanctifying grace at your confessions, then you should not have relapsed into sin, or at least you should have abstained for a considerable time before relapsing. If you have always fallen back into sin in eight or ten days, and perhaps in a shorter time, after confession―then what sign is this? It is a sign that you were always in enmity with God. If a sick man instantly vomits the medicine which he takes, it is a sign that his disease is incurable” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
Falling, Failing and Fearing
Sin is not just about falling―it is also about failing. We fall because we fail. We fall because we fail to take the measures that would prevent us from falling. Holy Scripture says: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). It could just as well be rephrased to read as follows: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he might make to fail and fall!” (1 Peter 5:8-9)―for failure and falling can quickly lead to a state of mind that makes it easier and easier for the devil to sink in his claws, namely a state of dejection, despondency, depression, defeatism, demoralization and eventually despair.
Satan is a master psychologist―he knows, better than any doctor, how the mind works and how he can use our minds to further his nefarious goals―our damnation. Fear is one of the tools that he will use. In itself and of itself, fear is not wrong―for God has placed the passion of fear within us and God makes plenty of reference to fear in Holy Scripture. Fear can be a good fear―as in being afraid to sin and afraid to offend God: “Fear God and depart from evil!” (Proverbs 3:7). Fear can also be a bad fear―as in being afraid to stand up for Christ and afraid to speak out against sin―of which Our Lady of Good Success said: “Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’” “Do not fear, but speak and hold not thy peace!” (Acts 18:9) … “Them that sin reprove before all―so that the rest also may have fear!” (1 Timothy 5:20).
Holy Scripture makes references to both good and bad fear―and sometimes tells us to fear and at other times not to fear. The Church attaches to Our Lady the following two quotes: “I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of holy hope!” (Ecclesiasticus 24:24) … “Come, children, listen to me―I will teach you the fear of the Lord!” (Psalms 33:12). Fear of God is commanded all throughout Scripture: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom!” (Psalm 110:10) … “Fear the Lord God!” (Exodus 9:30) … “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God!” (Leviticus 19:14) … “Learn to fear the Lord thy God at all times!” (Deuteronomy 14:23) … “The Lord thy God requires of thee that thou fear the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways, and love Him, and serve the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul!” (Deuteronomy 10:12) … “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) ... “The fear of the Lord hates evil!” (Proverbs 8:13) … “By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil” (Proverbs 16:6) … “The fear of the Lord drives out sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 1:27) … “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12) … “Salvation is near to them that fear Him!” (Psalm 84:10) … “They shall come with fear at the thought of their sins!” (Wisdom 4:20) …
“Fear is not in charity: but perfect charity casts out fear, because fear has pain. And he that fears is not perfected in charity” (1 John 4:18). “Fear the Lord your God―and He shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies!” (4 Kings 17:39) … “Fear them not―for the Lord your God will fight for you!” (Deuteronomy 3:22) … “Fear ye not, and be not dismayed at this multitude―for the battle is not yours, but God’s!” (2 Paralipomenon 20:15) … “I will not fear the thousands of the people surrounding me! Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God!” (Psalm 3:7) … “I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me!” (Psalm 22:4) … “If armies in camp should stand together against me, my heart shall not fear! If a battle should rise up against me, in this will I be confident!” (Psalm 26:3) … “In God have I hoped, I will not fear what man can do to me!” (Psalm 55:11) … Our Lord Himself tells us: “I will show you whom you shall fear! Fear Him, Who after He has killed, has power to cast into Hell! Yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:5) … “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul―but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell!” (Matthew 10:28).
Worldly fear, on the other hand, does not fear God but fears to be failure―not in the eyes of God, but in the eyes of men: “There is no fear of God before their eyes … They have not called upon the Lord! There have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear!” (Psalm 13:3-5). Their only fear is a fear of failure―a fear of being seen by others as a failure; a fear of not being accepted by the world; a fear of not being approved by the world! Ultimately, this worldly fear is founded upon pride and a lack of humility. God cannot tolerate pride: “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord!” (Proverbs 16:5) and “The beginning of the pride of man, is to fall off from God” (Ecclesiasticus 10:14)―which is to fall into sin―and “Pride goeth before destruction and the spirit is lifted up before a fall!” (Proverbs 16:18). As Christ says: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) and Holy Scripture adds: “For who distinguishes you? Or what have you that you have not received? And if you have received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).
Falling Into Pride and Sin
“All that is in the world, is the pride of life―which is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16). The world oozes pride―“Ooh! Look at me! Look what I did (or can do)!”―just look how it extols and glorifies “achievers” to the highest heavens. The motto is: “Everyone loves a winner!” Nobody wants to know a loser! Yet, as Our Lord said: “Behold, they are last that shall be first; and they are first that shall be last!” (Luke 13:30) ― and no doubt it turns out that many of the “winners” and “wannabe winners” of this world will be the losers in the next world―for, as Our Lord further points out: “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36). Our Lord did not come to promote PRIDE―He came to promote HUMILITY: “Learn of Me―because I am meek and humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29). “The proud have not been acceptable to Thee from the beginning! But the prayer of the humble and the meek has always pleased Thee!” (Judith 9:16). What on earth has meekness got to do with this? Well―the opposite of meekness is anger, just like the opposite of humility is pride. Anger is often manifested when we cannot get our own way―which is quite simply a manifestation of pride. Hence meekness and humility go together like husband and wife―as do anger and pride.
Pride will get you nowhere but Hell! “Pride is brought down to Hell!” (Isaias 14:11). “Being puffed up with pride, he shall fall into the judgment of the devil!” (1 Timothy 3:6). Lucifer was the archetype of pride with his prideful cry of: “I will not serve!” (Jeremias 2:20)―which is the ultimate cry behind every sin we commit, as we put our desires before the desires of God. “Pride is the beginning of all sin! He that holds it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). “Pride goeth before destruction and the spirit is lifted up before a fall!” (Proverbs 16:18). “Never suffer pride to reign in thy mind, or in thy words―for from it all perdition took its beginning!” (Tobias 4:14).
We do not know how often Our Lord fell to ground—the Church, in Her Stations of the Cross, proposes three falls for our contemplation, but, after undergoing the barbarous scourging at the pillar, after having lost much blood in His agony in Gethsemane, not to mention the piercing cap of thorns that was rammed onto and into His head, we can well imagine Our Lord falling many times during His Passion. With each fall, rising up must have been harder. With each fall, the discouragement must have been greater.
Each Fall Weakens
The same is true for our falls into sin. Each time we fall into the same sin, our soul becomes weaker and rising becomes harder. We can draw many parallels from our everyday physical and material life. The more we sprain a joint, the weaker it becomes. A frequently used door will develop loose hinges more quickly than a door that is rarely used. When you bend a branch repeatedly (or a piece of plastic) it will cause an irreparable break.
Don’t Play Around With God
Let us, therefore, be all the more afraid of committing the same kind of sin over and over again—fooling ourselves, in a spirit of presumption, that it doesn’t really matter, because God is all-kind, all-loving, all-forgiving, all-merciful. God IS all of those things, but God is also all-just. If we truly desire to love God then we must avoid sin. As Holy Scripture says: “Seek ye good, and not evil” (Amos 5:14). “Turn away from evil and do good” (Psalm 33:15). “Decline from evil and do good” (Psalm 36:27). “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit” (Matthew 7:18). “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil!” (Isaias 5:20).
Don’t Take Mercy For Granted
In the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, we are told that the devil seeks to make us presumptuous of the mercy of God.
“In the persons who go from mortal sin to mortal sin, the enemy is commonly used to propose to them apparent pleasures, making them imagine sensual delights and pleasures in order to hold them more and make them grow in their vices and sins. In these persons the good spirit uses the opposite method, pricking them and biting their consciences through the process of reason.
"In the persons who are going on intensely cleansing their sins and rising from good to better in the service of God our Lord, it is the method contrary to that in the first Rule, for then it is the way of the evil spirit to bite, sadden and put obstacles, disquieting with false reasons, that one may not go on; and it is proper to the good to give courage and strength, consolations, tears, inspirations and quiet, easing, and putting away all obstacles,that one may go on in well doing” (The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola).
Devilish False Reasoning
St. Alphonsus says that “the Devil brings sinners to Hell by closing their eyes to the dangers of perdition” … [the devil says to souls] “Why should you be afraid of being lost? Indulge your passions for the time being: you can confess your sins later and thus everything shall be remedied!” There are many who “buy into” this lie of the devil and, consequently, think little or nothing of repeatedly falling into sin. They treat sin and confession like a shower--“Who cares if I sin, I’ll shower myself clean again!” they say presumptuously.
St. Alphonsus continues: “The devil says: ‘Indulge your passions: you will hereafter make a good confession.’ But, in reply, I say, that in the meantime you lose your soul. Tell me: if you had a jewel worth a thousand pounds, would you throw it into a river with the hope of afterwards finding it again? What if all your efforts to find it were fruitless? My God! You hold in your hand the invaluable jewel of your soul, which Jesus Christ has purchased with His own blood, and you cast it into Hell! Yes; you cast it into Hell; because according to the present order of providence, for every mortal sin you commit, your name is written among the number of the damned. But you say: ‘I hope to recover God’s grace by making a good confession.’ And if you should not recover it, what shall be the consequences? To make a good confession, a true sorrow for sin is necessary, and this sorrow is the gift of God: if he does not give it, will you not be lost forever?
“You answer: ‘I am young; God compassionates my youth; I will hereafter give myself to God.’ Behold another delusion! You are young; but do you not know that God counts, not the years, but the sins of each individual? You are young; but how many sins have you committed? Perhaps there are many persons of a very advanced age, who have not been guilty of the fourth part of the sins which you have committed. And do you not know that God has fixed for each of us the number of sins which He will pardon?
“‘The Lord patiently expecteth, that, when the day of judgment shall come, he may punish them in the fullness of their sins’ (2 Machabees 6:14). God has patience, and waits for a while; but, when the measure of the sins, which He has determined to pardon, is filled up, He pardons no more, but chastises the sinner, by suddenly depriving him of life in the miserable state of sin, or by abandoning him in his sin, and executing that threat which He made by the prophet Isaias ‘I shall take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted (Isaias 5:5)” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
God is Not Mocked
Yet Holy Scripture says to them: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin: and say not: ‘The mercy of the Lord is great, He will have mercy on the multitude of my sins!’ For mercy and wrath quickly come from Him, and His wrath looketh upon sinners. Delay not to be converted to the Lord, and defer it not from day to day. For His wrath shall come on a sudden, and in the time of vengeance He will destroy thee” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5-9).
The Theory and Practice of God’s Mercy
In theory, God’s mercy is infinite. Yet, in practice, nobody can sin infinitely with impunity. St. Alphonsus speaks of the number of sins beyond which God will refuse to pardon a soul. We will now quote the saint at length:
I Can't Resist!
“You say: ‘I cannot at present resist this passion!’ Behold the third delusion of the devil, by which he makes you believe that, at present, you have not strength to overcome certain temptations. But St. Paul tells us that God is faithful, and that He never permits us to be tempted above our strength. ‘And God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tempted above that which you are able’ (1 Corinthians 10:13). I ask, if you are not now able to resist the temptation, how can you expect to resist it hereafter? If you yield to it, the devil will become stronger, and you shall become weaker; and if you be not now able to extinguish this flame of passion, how can you hope to be able to extinguish it when it shall have grown more violent?”
But God Will Help!
“You say: ‘God will give me his aid!’ But this aid God is ready to give at present if you ask it. Why then do you not implore his assistance? Perhaps you expect that, without now taking the trouble of invoking his aid, you will receive from him increased helps and graces, after you shall have multiplied the number of your sins? Perhaps you doubt the veracity of God, who has promised to give whatever we ask of him? ‘Ask,’ he says, ‘and it shall be given you.’ (Matthew 7:7). God cannot violate his promises. ‘God is not as man, that he should lie, nor as the son of man, that he should be changed. Hath He said, then, and will He not do?’ (Numbers 23:19).”
You Don't Ask Enough
“Have recourse to Him, and He will give you the strength necessary to resist the temptation. God commands you to resist it, and you say: ‘I have not strength!’ Does God, then, command impossibilities? No; the Council of Trent has declared that ‘God does not command impossibilities; but, by His commands, He admonishes you to do what you can, and to ask for what you cannot do; and He assists, that you may be able to do it.’ (Session 6; canon xiii). When you see that you have not sufficient strength to resist temptation with the ordinary assistance of God, ask of Him the additional help which you require, and He will give it to you; and thus you shall be able to conquer all temptations, however violent they may be.”
Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
“But you will not pray; and you say that at present you will commit this sin, and will afterwards confess it. But, I ask, how do you know that God will give you time to confess it? You say: ‘I will go to confession before the week is over!’ And who has promised you this week? Well, then you say: ‘I will go to confession tomorrow!’ And who promises you tomorrow? St. Augustine says: ‘God has not promised you tomorrow. Perhaps he will give it, and perhaps he will refuse it to you, as he has to so many others.’ How many have gone to bed in good health, and have been found dead in the morning! How many, in the very act of sin, has the Lord struck dead and sent to Hell! Should this happen to you, how will you repair your eternal ruin?”
Do it and Then Confess It
“The devil tells you: ‘Commit this sin, and confess it afterwards!’ Behold the deceitful artifice by which the devil has brought so many thousands of Christians to Hell. We scarcely ever find a Christian so sunk in despair as to intend to damn himself. All the wicked sin with the hope of afterwards going to confession. But, by this illusion, how many have brought themselves to perdition! For them there is now no time for confession, no remedy for their damnation! They fell, but failed to rise. They fell once too often!”
God is Good!
“ ‘But God is merciful!’ Behold another common delusion by which the devil encourages sinners to persevere in a life of sin! A certain author has said, that more souls have been sent to Hell by the mercy of God than by His justice. This is indeed the case; for men are induced by the deceits of the devil to persevere in sin, through confidence in God’s mercy; and thus they are lost. ‘God is merciful.’ Who denies it? But, great as His mercy, how many does He every day send to Hell? God is merciful, but He is also just, and is, therefore, obliged to punish those who offend Him. ‘And His mercy,’ says the divine Mother, ‘is to them that fear Him’ (Luke 1:50). But with regard to those who abuse His mercy and despise Him, He exercises justice. The Lord pardons sins, but He cannot pardon the determination to commit sin. St. Augustine says, that he who sins, with the intention of repenting after his sins, is not a penitent but a scoffer. But the Apostle tells us that God will not be mocked. ‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked’ (Galatians 6:7). It would be a mockery of God to insult Him as often and as much as you pleased, and afterwards to expect eternal glory.”
God Has Been Merciful Till Now!
“ ‘But’, you say, ‘since God has shown me so many mercies until now, I am hopeful that He will continue to do so for the future!’ Behold another delusion! Then, because God has not as yet chastised your sins, He will never punish them! On the contrary, the greater have been His mercies, the more you should tremble, lest, if you offend Him again, He should pardon you no more, and should take vengeance on your sins. Behold the advice of the Holy Ghost: ‘Say not: “I have sinned, and what harm hath befallen me?” For the Most High is a patient rewarder.’ (Ecclesiasticus 5:4). Do not say: ‘I have sinned, and no chastisement has fallen upon me!’ God bears for a time, but not forever. He waits for a certain time; but when that arrives, He then chastises the sinner for all His past iniquities: and the longer He has waited for repentance, the more severe the chastisement.”
A Time to Repeating Your Sins
“Then, my brother, since you know that you have frequently offended God, and that He has not sent you to Hell, you should exclaim: ‘The mercies of the Lord, that we are not consumed’ (Lamentations 3:22). ‘Lord, I thank You for not having sent me to Hell, which I have so often deserved!’ And therefore you ought to give yourself entirely to God, at least through gratitude, and should consider that, for less sins than you have committed, many are now in that pit of fire, without the smallest hope of being ever released from it. The patience of God in bearing with you, should teach you not to despise Him still more, but to love and serve Him with greater fervor, and to atone, by penitential austerities and by other holy works, for the insults you have offered to Him. You know that He has shown mercies to you, which He has not shown to others. ‘He hath not done in like manner to every nation’ (Psalm 142:20). Hence you should tremble, lest, if you commit another additional mortal sin, God should abandon you, and cast you into Hell” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
Use or Abuse of Mercy
The question here is the sincerity of contrition. Mercy is to be used, not abused. When Peter asks how many times he must forgive his neighbor—saying “Seven times?” Our Lord tells Peter: “I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times!” (Matthew 18:22).
In revelations made to His mystics, Our Lord once said to Sr. Josefa Menendez: “I love those who, after a first fall come to Me for pardon.... I love them still more when they beg pardon for their second sin, and should this happen again, I do not say a million times, but a million million times, I still love them and pardon them, and I will wash in My Blood their last as fully as their first sin. Never shall I weary of repentant sinners, nor cease from hoping for their return, and the greater their distress, the greater My welcome. Does not a father love a sick child with special affection? Are not his care and solicitude greater? So is the tenderness and compassion of My Heart more abundant for sinners than for the just” (Fr. Gottemuller, Words of Love).
To St. Peter Our Lord says “not seven times, but seventy times seven times” and to Josefa Menendez he says “not a million times, but a million million times”—but all this presupposes that the penitent is truly and sincerely sorry and has a firm purpose of amendment, by which the penitent has taken concrete measures to avoid falling again. Otherwise we have a mere mockery of contrition. “He hath set himself on every way that is not good: but evil he hath not hated” (Psalm 35:5).
Notice that Our Lord speaks of "repentant sinners"—a repentant sinner is one who does not use the Sacrament of Confession like a slot machine, where he merely puts in the words and out comes the mercy. This is akin to the kind of person spoken of in Holy Scripture, where in the Old Testament, God said: “Forasmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify Me, but their heart is far from Me” (Isaias 29:13), to which Our Lord, in the New Testament, adds: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6).
So, yes, we are weak; and yes, we do fall—more than once—but are we sincere penitents filled with sorrow, who truly seek to change their ways? Or are we superficial penitents, who pile sin upon sin wantonly and presume upon and abuse the mercy of God. For the former there can be mercy―but for latter, wrath.
“In the Gospel, it is related that, ‘when Jesus Christ entered into Capharnaum, there came to Him a centurion beseeching Him to cure his servant, who lay sick of the palsy. Jesus answered: “I will come and heal him!” “No,” replied the centurion, “I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed!”’ Seeing the centurion’s faith, the Redeemer instantly consoled him by restoring health to his servant; and, turning to His disciples, He said: ‘Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven. But the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ By these words Our Lord wished to signify, that many persons born in infidelity shall be saved, and enjoy the society of the saints, and that many who are born in the bosom of the Church shall be cast into Hell, where the worm of conscience, by its gnawing, shall make them weep bitterly for all eternity. Let us examine the remorse of conscience which, a damned Christian shall suffer in Hell” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
“If, beloved sinners, you have hitherto offended God―hope and tremble! If you desire to give up sin and if you detest it―then be filled with hope! Because God promises pardon to all who repent of the evil they have done. But if you intend to continue in your sinful course―then tremble lest God should wait no longer for you, but cast you into Hell. Why does God wait for sinners? Is it that they may continue to insult Him? No; He waits for them that they may renounce sin, and that thus He may have pity on them, and forgive them. ‘Therefore the Lord waiteth, that He may have mercy on you’ (Isaias 30:1, 8). But when He sees that the time—which He gave them to weep over their past iniquities—is spent in multiplying their sins, He begins to inflict chastisement, and He cuts them off in the state of sin, that, by dying, they may cease to offend Him. Then He calls against them the very time He had given them for repentance” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
“Do you not know that the Lord waits for you, and treats you with so much benignity, not that you may continue to sin, but that you may weep over the offences you have offered to Him? Do not imagine, dearly beloved sinners, that God requires of you to labor for a long time before He grants you pardon: as soon as you wish for forgiveness, He is ready to give it. Behold what the Scripture says: ‘Weeping, thou shalt not weep, He will surely have pity on thee’ (Isaias 30:19). You shall not have to weep for a long time: as soon as you shall have shed the first tear through sorrow for your sins, God will have mercy on you. ‘At the voice of thy cry, as soon as He shall hear, He will answer thee’ (Isaias 30:19). The moment He shall hear you say: ‘Forgive me, my God, forgive me!’ He will instantly answer and grant your pardon” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
“Behold the impiety to which the blindness of such sinners carry them! From this blindness it arises, that though they go to the sacraments, their confessions are null for want of true contrition; for how is it possible for them to have true sorrow, when they neither know nor abhor their sins?” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
“To make a good confession of your sins, you must have true sorrow of the heart and a firm purpose to sin no more. Where are this sorrow and this firm purpose of amendment when you always return to the vomit of sin? If you had had these dispositions, and had received sanctifying grace at your confessions, then you should not have relapsed into sin, or at least you should have abstained for a considerable time before relapsing. If you have always fallen back into sin in eight or ten days, and perhaps in a shorter time, after confession―then what sign is this? It is a sign that you were always in enmity with God. If a sick man instantly vomits the medicine which he takes, it is a sign that his disease is incurable” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
Falling, Failing and Fearing
Sin is not just about falling―it is also about failing. We fall because we fail. We fall because we fail to take the measures that would prevent us from falling. Holy Scripture says: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). It could just as well be rephrased to read as follows: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he might make to fail and fall!” (1 Peter 5:8-9)―for failure and falling can quickly lead to a state of mind that makes it easier and easier for the devil to sink in his claws, namely a state of dejection, despondency, depression, defeatism, demoralization and eventually despair.
Satan is a master psychologist―he knows, better than any doctor, how the mind works and how he can use our minds to further his nefarious goals―our damnation. Fear is one of the tools that he will use. In itself and of itself, fear is not wrong―for God has placed the passion of fear within us and God makes plenty of reference to fear in Holy Scripture. Fear can be a good fear―as in being afraid to sin and afraid to offend God: “Fear God and depart from evil!” (Proverbs 3:7). Fear can also be a bad fear―as in being afraid to stand up for Christ and afraid to speak out against sin―of which Our Lady of Good Success said: “Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’” “Do not fear, but speak and hold not thy peace!” (Acts 18:9) … “Them that sin reprove before all―so that the rest also may have fear!” (1 Timothy 5:20).
Holy Scripture makes references to both good and bad fear―and sometimes tells us to fear and at other times not to fear. The Church attaches to Our Lady the following two quotes: “I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of holy hope!” (Ecclesiasticus 24:24) … “Come, children, listen to me―I will teach you the fear of the Lord!” (Psalms 33:12). Fear of God is commanded all throughout Scripture: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom!” (Psalm 110:10) … “Fear the Lord God!” (Exodus 9:30) … “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God!” (Leviticus 19:14) … “Learn to fear the Lord thy God at all times!” (Deuteronomy 14:23) … “The Lord thy God requires of thee that thou fear the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways, and love Him, and serve the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul!” (Deuteronomy 10:12) … “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) ... “The fear of the Lord hates evil!” (Proverbs 8:13) … “By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil” (Proverbs 16:6) … “The fear of the Lord drives out sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 1:27) … “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12) … “Salvation is near to them that fear Him!” (Psalm 84:10) … “They shall come with fear at the thought of their sins!” (Wisdom 4:20) …
“Fear is not in charity: but perfect charity casts out fear, because fear has pain. And he that fears is not perfected in charity” (1 John 4:18). “Fear the Lord your God―and He shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies!” (4 Kings 17:39) … “Fear them not―for the Lord your God will fight for you!” (Deuteronomy 3:22) … “Fear ye not, and be not dismayed at this multitude―for the battle is not yours, but God’s!” (2 Paralipomenon 20:15) … “I will not fear the thousands of the people surrounding me! Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God!” (Psalm 3:7) … “I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me!” (Psalm 22:4) … “If armies in camp should stand together against me, my heart shall not fear! If a battle should rise up against me, in this will I be confident!” (Psalm 26:3) … “In God have I hoped, I will not fear what man can do to me!” (Psalm 55:11) … Our Lord Himself tells us: “I will show you whom you shall fear! Fear Him, Who after He has killed, has power to cast into Hell! Yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:5) … “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul―but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell!” (Matthew 10:28).
Worldly fear, on the other hand, does not fear God but fears to be failure―not in the eyes of God, but in the eyes of men: “There is no fear of God before their eyes … They have not called upon the Lord! There have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear!” (Psalm 13:3-5). Their only fear is a fear of failure―a fear of being seen by others as a failure; a fear of not being accepted by the world; a fear of not being approved by the world! Ultimately, this worldly fear is founded upon pride and a lack of humility. God cannot tolerate pride: “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord!” (Proverbs 16:5) and “The beginning of the pride of man, is to fall off from God” (Ecclesiasticus 10:14)―which is to fall into sin―and “Pride goeth before destruction and the spirit is lifted up before a fall!” (Proverbs 16:18). As Christ says: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) and Holy Scripture adds: “For who distinguishes you? Or what have you that you have not received? And if you have received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).
Falling Into Pride and Sin
“All that is in the world, is the pride of life―which is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16). The world oozes pride―“Ooh! Look at me! Look what I did (or can do)!”―just look how it extols and glorifies “achievers” to the highest heavens. The motto is: “Everyone loves a winner!” Nobody wants to know a loser! Yet, as Our Lord said: “Behold, they are last that shall be first; and they are first that shall be last!” (Luke 13:30) ― and no doubt it turns out that many of the “winners” and “wannabe winners” of this world will be the losers in the next world―for, as Our Lord further points out: “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36). Our Lord did not come to promote PRIDE―He came to promote HUMILITY: “Learn of Me―because I am meek and humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29). “The proud have not been acceptable to Thee from the beginning! But the prayer of the humble and the meek has always pleased Thee!” (Judith 9:16). What on earth has meekness got to do with this? Well―the opposite of meekness is anger, just like the opposite of humility is pride. Anger is often manifested when we cannot get our own way―which is quite simply a manifestation of pride. Hence meekness and humility go together like husband and wife―as do anger and pride.
Pride will get you nowhere but Hell! “Pride is brought down to Hell!” (Isaias 14:11). “Being puffed up with pride, he shall fall into the judgment of the devil!” (1 Timothy 3:6). Lucifer was the archetype of pride with his prideful cry of: “I will not serve!” (Jeremias 2:20)―which is the ultimate cry behind every sin we commit, as we put our desires before the desires of God. “Pride is the beginning of all sin! He that holds it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). “Pride goeth before destruction and the spirit is lifted up before a fall!” (Proverbs 16:18). “Never suffer pride to reign in thy mind, or in thy words―for from it all perdition took its beginning!” (Tobias 4:14).
Article 27
Palm Sunday, April 2nd, 2023
A Time to Weep!
Palm Sunday, April 2nd, 2023
A Time to Weep!
A Time to Weep!
In our examination of the Fourteen Stations of the Cross, we now come to 8th Station―where the women of Jerusalem compassionately weep over Jesus in seeing Him condemned and cross laden, struggling along the way to Calvary in the midst of hatred, scorn and derision. “All things have their season … A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-4). Now is the time to mourn and weep—to mourn and weep over our sins, negligence and lukewarmness! ”Blessed are ye that weep now: for you shall laugh!” (Luke 6:21). “Woe to you that now laugh: for you shall mourn and weep!” (Luke 6:25). “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into sorrow!” (James 4:9). “And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication, and lived in delicacies with her, shall weep, and bewail” (Apocalypse 18:9) … “And the merchants of the earth shall weep, and mourn!” (Apocalypse 18:11) … “Go now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries, which shall come upon you” (James 5:1).
The Currency of Tears
The message is clear—we can either weep now and rejoice later, or we can rejoice now and weep later. Our tears are the gold with which we can pay for our sins—if they are shed in all sincerity and out of a love of God. Crocodile tears don’t count! We see both St. Peter and St. Mary Magdalen shedding these sincere tears of sorrow and love.
After having thrice denied his Master, Jesus, “Peter going out, wept bitterly” (Luke 22:62). Tradition tells us that he wept for his betrayal throughout the remainder of his life, so much so that the tears furrowed his cheeks. He could well apply the words of Job to himself: “My face is swollen with weeping, and my eyelids are dim” (Job 16:17).
The other extrovert, St. Mary Magdalen—held by the Roman Church to be the woman caught in adultery, the women possessed by seven devils, and the woman anointing Him both times at two different banquets. What is common to Mary Magdalen is that she always seems to be weeping―she weeps at Jesus’ feet when caught in adultery; she weeps for her past sins at the Lord’s feet at the banquet; she weeps at the Savior’s feet when He is nailed to the Cross and she weeps for joy at His feet at the Resurrection.
Thomistic Tears
St. Thomas Aquinas would weep much also. William de Tocco, his biographer, writes of him: “Whenever he was to study, to undertake a solemn disputation, to teach, write, or dictate, he began by retiring to pray in secret, weeping as he prayed, to obtain understanding of the divine mysteries. And he returned with the light he had prayed for.”
The same biographer gives two striking examples. While writing his commentary on Isaias, the saint came to a passage which he did not understand. For several days he prayed and fasted for light. Then he was supernaturally enlightened. To his confrere, Reginald, he revealed the extraordinary manner in which this light came to him, namely, by the Apostles Peter and Paul. This account was confirmed by one of the witnesses in the saint’s canonization process.
A second example is reported. In the friary at Naples, when the saint was writing of the passion and the resurrection of Christ, he was seen, while praying before a crucifix in the church, to be lifted up from the floor. Then it was that he heard the words: “Thomas, thou hast written well of Me!”
Daily, after celebrating Mass, Thomas assisted at a second, where often he was the humble server. To solve difficulties, he would pray before the tabernacle. He never, we might say, went out of the cloister, he slept little, passed much of the night in prayer. When, at Compline during Lent, he listened to the antiphon: “Midst in life we are in death,” Thomas could not restrain his tears.
Franciscan Tears
We have this image of St. Francis of Assisi being a happy-go-lucky kind of character, yet St. Alphonsus Liguori tells that that “St. Francis of Assisi appeared to be unable to think of anything but the Passion of Jesus Christ; and, in thinking of it, he frequently shed tears, so much so that by his weeping he became nearly blind. Being found one day weeping and groaning at the foot of the crucifix, he was asked the cause of his tears and lamentations. He replied: ‘I weep over the sorrows and ignominies of my Lord! And what makes me weep still more is, that the men for whom He has suffered so much live in forgetfulness of Him!’” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
Weep for Sin
Our Lord, staggering on His way to Calvary and death, encountered a group of weeping women on the road—we commemorate this in the Eighth Station of the Cross. They show their compassion for Jesus by weeping, whereas most are shouting at Him and insulting Him. Yet, Jesus tells them not to weep for Him, but to weep for themselves and their children.
Why? Two reasons. Firstly, He wants them to weep for the sin of Jerusalem as a whole, which, a little earlier, had cried out for Jesus to be crucified to death, accepting full responsibility for His death: “And the whole people answering, said: ‘His blood be upon us and our children!’” (Matthew 27:25).
His Blood would be upon them and their children. For in the year 70 AD, Vespasian, the son of the Roman emperor (soon to be emperor himself), put down the Jewish revolt and razed Jerusalem to the ground, killing most of the inhabitants and pilgrims—over one million people: men, women and children. Most died by the sword, but thousands were also crucified.
The sin of deicide (killing God) was terribly dealt with by God in that event, fulfilling the prophesy of Our Lord, Who had said: “For the days shall come upon thee, and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side, and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee: and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone―because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation!” (Luke 19:43-44).
What Goes Around Comes Around
The terrible punishment of Jerusalem looks like being repeated in our days, as Our Lady has repeatedly prophesied a terrible chastisement from God’s anger. She has told us that most of the world (around three-quarters) will be wiped out and that the good will die with the bad—with neither priests nor faithful being spared.
Fire will fall from Heaven; earthquakes will swallow entire cities; wars will rage throughout the world; all will seem to be lost! What happened to the faithless Jerusalem, will also happen to the faithless world, because of its apostasy from God: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8).
That is why God will allow the mass destruction and persecution and punishment to take place, because instead of loving God with their whole heart, mind, soul and strength, “the Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs … Moreover, in these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women …
“The secular Clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties. Lacking the divine compass, they will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain. How the Church will suffer during this dark night! …
“There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed ... Therefore, clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears in the privacy of your heart, imploring our Celestial Father that, for love of the Eucharistic Heart of my Most Holy Son and His Precious Blood shed with such generosity and the profound bitterness and sufferings of His cruel Passion and Death, He might take pity on His ministers and bring to an end those ominous times!” (Our Lady of Good Success).
Now is the Time to Weep!
“‘Now, therefore!’ saith the Lord: ‘Be converted to Me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning!’” (Joel 2:12). “And the Lord, the God of hosts, in that day shall call to weeping, and to mourning, to baldness [shaving hair from heads as penance], and to girding with sackcloth!” (Isaias 22:12). “In their streets they are girded with sackcloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their streets all shall howl and come down weeping!” (Isaias 15:3).
Which is why Our Lord, speaking of the horrendous times to come, said to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, in Quito, Ecuador: “Communities can only be preserved ― while they exist ― at the cost of much penance, humiliations and daily and solid practice of the religious who are good. Woe to these corrupt members during those times of calamity! Weep for them, beloved spouse, and implore that the time of so much suffering will be shortened!” (Our Lord to Mother Mariana, Quito, Ecuador).
Our Lady adds: “My daughter, commiserate with and weep for your imprudent brethren sinners, beseeching your God and Redeemer to send to their souls many special and efficacious graces, powerful enough to draw them out of the dark abyss in which they lie!”
Most Do Not Weep
“You will see some persons spending four or five hours in play. If you ask them why they lose so much time, they answer: ‘To amuse ourselves!’ Others remain half the day standing in the street, or looking out from a window. If you ask them what they are doing, they shall say in reply, that they are passing the time. And why, says the same saint, do you lose this time? Why should you lose even a single hour, which the mercy of God gives you to weep for your sins, and to acquire the divine grace?” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
“St. Francis de Sales said that, if the angels were capable of weeping, they would do nothing else than shed tears at the sight of the destruction which a Christian, who commits mortal sin, brings upon himself … Sinners shall weep at the sign of the cross; for, as St. Chrysostom says, the nails will complain of them the wounds and the cross of Jesus Christ will speak against them!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
“Most holy Mary lost her Son for three days: during that time she wept continually for having lost sight of Jesus, and did not cease to seek after him till she found Him! How then does it happen that so many sinners, not only lose sight of Jesus, but even lose His divine grace; and instead of weeping for so great a loss, sleep in peace, and make no effort to recover so great a blessing? … Instead of weeping and repenting for having offended the Lord, they rejoice and glory in their iniquities!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
Our Lady Rebukes Our Attitude
“I desire, therefore, that thou, my friend, be now my companion in the sorrow which I suffered and which is so little noticed by the living. In order to imitate me therein and in the effects of this most just grief, thou must deny thyself, forget thyself entirely, and crown thy heart with the thorns of sorrow at the behavior of mortals! Weep thou in seeing them laugh at their eternal damnation―for such weeping is the most legitimate occupation of the true spouses of my most holy Son! Let them seek their delight only in the tears―which they pour out on account of their sins and those of the ignorant world!” (Our Lady to Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Besides, in order to spur thee on still more, consider and deplore with heartfelt sorrow the unhappiness of so many souls who are images of God and capable of His glory, and who through their own fault are deprived of the true Hope of enjoying it. If the children of the Holy Church would pause in their vain occupations, and would take time to consider and weigh the blessings of unerring Faith and Hope, then they would without doubt be ashamed of their lukewarm forgetfulness and repudiate their vile ingratitude! But let them be undeceived―for most terrible punishments await them; they are most detestable in the sight of God and the saints, because they despise the Blood shed by Christ for the very purpose of gaining them these blessings! As if all were only a fiction, they treat with contempt the blessings of truth, hastening about during their whole life, without spending even one day, and many of them not even an hour, in the consideration of their duties and of their danger! Weep, O soul, over this lamentable evil, and according to thy power work and pray for its extirpation through my most holy Son!” (Our Lady to Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous tepidity. They live in the obscurity of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance! In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices! They are surrounded by innumerable enemies, who pursue them with diabolical treachery, unceasing vigilance, unquenchable wrath and restless diligence! What wonder then, that irreparable defeats should arise among the mortals? And that, since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men! May the eternal God preserve thee from such a misfortune―and do thou weep and deplore that of thy brethren, continually asking for their salvation as far as is possible!” (Our Lady to Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Since thou hast so often offended the Lord, call upon His mercy, weep and wash thyself from thy sins with copious tears; remember … and acknowledge thy littleness and humble thyself to the dust, weeping over thy negIigences and sins ... Weep over thy faults and those of thy fellowmen, because they are against the law of God―this is true charity toward the Lord and toward thy neighbor. Sorrow over the afflictions of others as over thy own, for thus wilt thou imitate me ... Weep thou over their sins and at the same time try to make up for them!” (Our Lady to Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Parting Thoughts from St. Alphonsus
“If, beloved sinners, you have hitherto offended God, hope and tremble: if you desire to give up sin, and if you detest it, hope; because God promises pardon to all who repent of the evil they have done. But if you intend to continue in your sinful course, tremble―lest God should wait no longer for you, but cast you into Hell. Why does God wait for sinners? Is it that they may continue to insult Him? No―He waits for them that they may renounce sin, and that thus He may have pity on them, and forgive them. ‘Therefore the Lord waiteth, that He may have mercy on you’ (Isaias 30:1, 8). But when He sees that the time—which He gave them to weep over their past iniquities—is spent in multiplying their sins, He begins to inflict chastisement, and He cuts them off in the state of sin, that, by dying, they may cease to offend Him. Then He calls against them the very time He had given them for repentance!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
“Do you not know that the Lord waits for you, and treats you with so much benignity, not that you may continue to sin, but that you may weep over the offences you have offered to Him? Do not imagine, dearly beloved sinners, that God requires of you to labor for a long time before He grants you pardon―for as soon as you wish for forgiveness, He is ready to give it. Behold what the Scripture says: ‘Weeping, thou shalt not weep, He will surely have pity on thee!’ (Isaias 30:19). You shall not have to weep for a long time: as soon as you shall have shed the first tear through sorrow for your sins, God will have mercy on you. ‘At the voice of thy cry, as soon as He shall hear, He will answer thee!’ (Isaias 30:19). The moment He shall hear you say: ‘Forgive me, my God, forgive me!’ He will instantly answer and grant your pardon!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
St. Catherine of Siena, in her Dialogue, points out five sorts of tears (a) the tears of worldlings over the loss of the things of this world; (b) the tears of slaves who are wholly dominated by servile fear and weep over the chastisement they have incurred; (c) the tears of mercenary servants who do indeed weep over sin, but also over the loss of consolations; (d) the tears of the perfect who weep over the offense given to God and the loss of souls; (e) the tears of the absolutely perfect who weep besides over their exile, which deprives them of the vision of God and an indissoluble union with Him. If we are to weep, then let us weep in a supernatural way that will bring us much profit!
In our examination of the Fourteen Stations of the Cross, we now come to 8th Station―where the women of Jerusalem compassionately weep over Jesus in seeing Him condemned and cross laden, struggling along the way to Calvary in the midst of hatred, scorn and derision. “All things have their season … A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-4). Now is the time to mourn and weep—to mourn and weep over our sins, negligence and lukewarmness! ”Blessed are ye that weep now: for you shall laugh!” (Luke 6:21). “Woe to you that now laugh: for you shall mourn and weep!” (Luke 6:25). “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into sorrow!” (James 4:9). “And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication, and lived in delicacies with her, shall weep, and bewail” (Apocalypse 18:9) … “And the merchants of the earth shall weep, and mourn!” (Apocalypse 18:11) … “Go now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries, which shall come upon you” (James 5:1).
The Currency of Tears
The message is clear—we can either weep now and rejoice later, or we can rejoice now and weep later. Our tears are the gold with which we can pay for our sins—if they are shed in all sincerity and out of a love of God. Crocodile tears don’t count! We see both St. Peter and St. Mary Magdalen shedding these sincere tears of sorrow and love.
After having thrice denied his Master, Jesus, “Peter going out, wept bitterly” (Luke 22:62). Tradition tells us that he wept for his betrayal throughout the remainder of his life, so much so that the tears furrowed his cheeks. He could well apply the words of Job to himself: “My face is swollen with weeping, and my eyelids are dim” (Job 16:17).
The other extrovert, St. Mary Magdalen—held by the Roman Church to be the woman caught in adultery, the women possessed by seven devils, and the woman anointing Him both times at two different banquets. What is common to Mary Magdalen is that she always seems to be weeping―she weeps at Jesus’ feet when caught in adultery; she weeps for her past sins at the Lord’s feet at the banquet; she weeps at the Savior’s feet when He is nailed to the Cross and she weeps for joy at His feet at the Resurrection.
Thomistic Tears
St. Thomas Aquinas would weep much also. William de Tocco, his biographer, writes of him: “Whenever he was to study, to undertake a solemn disputation, to teach, write, or dictate, he began by retiring to pray in secret, weeping as he prayed, to obtain understanding of the divine mysteries. And he returned with the light he had prayed for.”
The same biographer gives two striking examples. While writing his commentary on Isaias, the saint came to a passage which he did not understand. For several days he prayed and fasted for light. Then he was supernaturally enlightened. To his confrere, Reginald, he revealed the extraordinary manner in which this light came to him, namely, by the Apostles Peter and Paul. This account was confirmed by one of the witnesses in the saint’s canonization process.
A second example is reported. In the friary at Naples, when the saint was writing of the passion and the resurrection of Christ, he was seen, while praying before a crucifix in the church, to be lifted up from the floor. Then it was that he heard the words: “Thomas, thou hast written well of Me!”
Daily, after celebrating Mass, Thomas assisted at a second, where often he was the humble server. To solve difficulties, he would pray before the tabernacle. He never, we might say, went out of the cloister, he slept little, passed much of the night in prayer. When, at Compline during Lent, he listened to the antiphon: “Midst in life we are in death,” Thomas could not restrain his tears.
Franciscan Tears
We have this image of St. Francis of Assisi being a happy-go-lucky kind of character, yet St. Alphonsus Liguori tells that that “St. Francis of Assisi appeared to be unable to think of anything but the Passion of Jesus Christ; and, in thinking of it, he frequently shed tears, so much so that by his weeping he became nearly blind. Being found one day weeping and groaning at the foot of the crucifix, he was asked the cause of his tears and lamentations. He replied: ‘I weep over the sorrows and ignominies of my Lord! And what makes me weep still more is, that the men for whom He has suffered so much live in forgetfulness of Him!’” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
Weep for Sin
Our Lord, staggering on His way to Calvary and death, encountered a group of weeping women on the road—we commemorate this in the Eighth Station of the Cross. They show their compassion for Jesus by weeping, whereas most are shouting at Him and insulting Him. Yet, Jesus tells them not to weep for Him, but to weep for themselves and their children.
Why? Two reasons. Firstly, He wants them to weep for the sin of Jerusalem as a whole, which, a little earlier, had cried out for Jesus to be crucified to death, accepting full responsibility for His death: “And the whole people answering, said: ‘His blood be upon us and our children!’” (Matthew 27:25).
His Blood would be upon them and their children. For in the year 70 AD, Vespasian, the son of the Roman emperor (soon to be emperor himself), put down the Jewish revolt and razed Jerusalem to the ground, killing most of the inhabitants and pilgrims—over one million people: men, women and children. Most died by the sword, but thousands were also crucified.
The sin of deicide (killing God) was terribly dealt with by God in that event, fulfilling the prophesy of Our Lord, Who had said: “For the days shall come upon thee, and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side, and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee: and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone―because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation!” (Luke 19:43-44).
What Goes Around Comes Around
The terrible punishment of Jerusalem looks like being repeated in our days, as Our Lady has repeatedly prophesied a terrible chastisement from God’s anger. She has told us that most of the world (around three-quarters) will be wiped out and that the good will die with the bad—with neither priests nor faithful being spared.
Fire will fall from Heaven; earthquakes will swallow entire cities; wars will rage throughout the world; all will seem to be lost! What happened to the faithless Jerusalem, will also happen to the faithless world, because of its apostasy from God: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8).
That is why God will allow the mass destruction and persecution and punishment to take place, because instead of loving God with their whole heart, mind, soul and strength, “the Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs … Moreover, in these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women …
“The secular Clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties. Lacking the divine compass, they will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain. How the Church will suffer during this dark night! …
“There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed ... Therefore, clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears in the privacy of your heart, imploring our Celestial Father that, for love of the Eucharistic Heart of my Most Holy Son and His Precious Blood shed with such generosity and the profound bitterness and sufferings of His cruel Passion and Death, He might take pity on His ministers and bring to an end those ominous times!” (Our Lady of Good Success).
Now is the Time to Weep!
“‘Now, therefore!’ saith the Lord: ‘Be converted to Me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning!’” (Joel 2:12). “And the Lord, the God of hosts, in that day shall call to weeping, and to mourning, to baldness [shaving hair from heads as penance], and to girding with sackcloth!” (Isaias 22:12). “In their streets they are girded with sackcloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their streets all shall howl and come down weeping!” (Isaias 15:3).
Which is why Our Lord, speaking of the horrendous times to come, said to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, in Quito, Ecuador: “Communities can only be preserved ― while they exist ― at the cost of much penance, humiliations and daily and solid practice of the religious who are good. Woe to these corrupt members during those times of calamity! Weep for them, beloved spouse, and implore that the time of so much suffering will be shortened!” (Our Lord to Mother Mariana, Quito, Ecuador).
Our Lady adds: “My daughter, commiserate with and weep for your imprudent brethren sinners, beseeching your God and Redeemer to send to their souls many special and efficacious graces, powerful enough to draw them out of the dark abyss in which they lie!”
Most Do Not Weep
“You will see some persons spending four or five hours in play. If you ask them why they lose so much time, they answer: ‘To amuse ourselves!’ Others remain half the day standing in the street, or looking out from a window. If you ask them what they are doing, they shall say in reply, that they are passing the time. And why, says the same saint, do you lose this time? Why should you lose even a single hour, which the mercy of God gives you to weep for your sins, and to acquire the divine grace?” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
“St. Francis de Sales said that, if the angels were capable of weeping, they would do nothing else than shed tears at the sight of the destruction which a Christian, who commits mortal sin, brings upon himself … Sinners shall weep at the sign of the cross; for, as St. Chrysostom says, the nails will complain of them the wounds and the cross of Jesus Christ will speak against them!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
“Most holy Mary lost her Son for three days: during that time she wept continually for having lost sight of Jesus, and did not cease to seek after him till she found Him! How then does it happen that so many sinners, not only lose sight of Jesus, but even lose His divine grace; and instead of weeping for so great a loss, sleep in peace, and make no effort to recover so great a blessing? … Instead of weeping and repenting for having offended the Lord, they rejoice and glory in their iniquities!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
Our Lady Rebukes Our Attitude
“I desire, therefore, that thou, my friend, be now my companion in the sorrow which I suffered and which is so little noticed by the living. In order to imitate me therein and in the effects of this most just grief, thou must deny thyself, forget thyself entirely, and crown thy heart with the thorns of sorrow at the behavior of mortals! Weep thou in seeing them laugh at their eternal damnation―for such weeping is the most legitimate occupation of the true spouses of my most holy Son! Let them seek their delight only in the tears―which they pour out on account of their sins and those of the ignorant world!” (Our Lady to Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Besides, in order to spur thee on still more, consider and deplore with heartfelt sorrow the unhappiness of so many souls who are images of God and capable of His glory, and who through their own fault are deprived of the true Hope of enjoying it. If the children of the Holy Church would pause in their vain occupations, and would take time to consider and weigh the blessings of unerring Faith and Hope, then they would without doubt be ashamed of their lukewarm forgetfulness and repudiate their vile ingratitude! But let them be undeceived―for most terrible punishments await them; they are most detestable in the sight of God and the saints, because they despise the Blood shed by Christ for the very purpose of gaining them these blessings! As if all were only a fiction, they treat with contempt the blessings of truth, hastening about during their whole life, without spending even one day, and many of them not even an hour, in the consideration of their duties and of their danger! Weep, O soul, over this lamentable evil, and according to thy power work and pray for its extirpation through my most holy Son!” (Our Lady to Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous tepidity. They live in the obscurity of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance! In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices! They are surrounded by innumerable enemies, who pursue them with diabolical treachery, unceasing vigilance, unquenchable wrath and restless diligence! What wonder then, that irreparable defeats should arise among the mortals? And that, since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men! May the eternal God preserve thee from such a misfortune―and do thou weep and deplore that of thy brethren, continually asking for their salvation as far as is possible!” (Our Lady to Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Since thou hast so often offended the Lord, call upon His mercy, weep and wash thyself from thy sins with copious tears; remember … and acknowledge thy littleness and humble thyself to the dust, weeping over thy negIigences and sins ... Weep over thy faults and those of thy fellowmen, because they are against the law of God―this is true charity toward the Lord and toward thy neighbor. Sorrow over the afflictions of others as over thy own, for thus wilt thou imitate me ... Weep thou over their sins and at the same time try to make up for them!” (Our Lady to Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Parting Thoughts from St. Alphonsus
“If, beloved sinners, you have hitherto offended God, hope and tremble: if you desire to give up sin, and if you detest it, hope; because God promises pardon to all who repent of the evil they have done. But if you intend to continue in your sinful course, tremble―lest God should wait no longer for you, but cast you into Hell. Why does God wait for sinners? Is it that they may continue to insult Him? No―He waits for them that they may renounce sin, and that thus He may have pity on them, and forgive them. ‘Therefore the Lord waiteth, that He may have mercy on you’ (Isaias 30:1, 8). But when He sees that the time—which He gave them to weep over their past iniquities—is spent in multiplying their sins, He begins to inflict chastisement, and He cuts them off in the state of sin, that, by dying, they may cease to offend Him. Then He calls against them the very time He had given them for repentance!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
“Do you not know that the Lord waits for you, and treats you with so much benignity, not that you may continue to sin, but that you may weep over the offences you have offered to Him? Do not imagine, dearly beloved sinners, that God requires of you to labor for a long time before He grants you pardon―for as soon as you wish for forgiveness, He is ready to give it. Behold what the Scripture says: ‘Weeping, thou shalt not weep, He will surely have pity on thee!’ (Isaias 30:19). You shall not have to weep for a long time: as soon as you shall have shed the first tear through sorrow for your sins, God will have mercy on you. ‘At the voice of thy cry, as soon as He shall hear, He will answer thee!’ (Isaias 30:19). The moment He shall hear you say: ‘Forgive me, my God, forgive me!’ He will instantly answer and grant your pardon!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons).
St. Catherine of Siena, in her Dialogue, points out five sorts of tears (a) the tears of worldlings over the loss of the things of this world; (b) the tears of slaves who are wholly dominated by servile fear and weep over the chastisement they have incurred; (c) the tears of mercenary servants who do indeed weep over sin, but also over the loss of consolations; (d) the tears of the perfect who weep over the offense given to God and the loss of souls; (e) the tears of the absolutely perfect who weep besides over their exile, which deprives them of the vision of God and an indissoluble union with Him. If we are to weep, then let us weep in a supernatural way that will bring us much profit!
Article 26
Saturday after Passion Sunday, April 1st, 2023
Are You Falling? Falling Into What?
Saturday after Passion Sunday, April 1st, 2023
Are You Falling? Falling Into What?
Now is the Time!
Today, if we look at things objectively, it seems as though the world is falling apart! Why is it falling apart? Because it is falling into sin! You could call it “The Rise and Fall of the Godless World.” Holy Scripture says: “Pride goeth before destruction: and the spirit is lifted up before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18) and “The beginning of the pride of man, is to fall off from God!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:14). Yet falling can also be a good thing―but not falling into sin! Frequent falls can make us fall into humility―which is an antidote to pride and also a solid foundation for the Christian life. Seeing that all is falling apart around us, it would seem that now is the time to “fall”―to let worldly things fall by the wayside! Now is the time to “fall”! To “fall” into deep meditation! We are on the verge of falling into the “Great Week” ... “The Painful Week” ... “Holy Week!” The only week that really matters! This is it! If, at the start of Lent, Holy Mother Church, in her liturgy, quoted St. Paul’s words: “Behold, now is the acceptable time! Behold, now is the day of salvation!” (2 Corinthians 6:2), then all the more is Holy Week this “acceptable time” and this “day of salvation.”
“I am not come to call the just, but sinners! … I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Matthew 9:13; Luke 5:32). He has come to call you and me! ”The works of all flesh are before Him, and there is nothing hidden from His eyes” (Ecclesiasticus 39:24). “For all have sinned, and lack the glory of God!” (Romans 3:23). “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:10).
A Time to Eat!
“And Jesus said to them: ‘With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you, before I suffer!’” (Luke 22:15). Yet, “man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word of God” (Luke 4:4). This Holy Week is a time to ‘eat’ the word of God and ‘chew’ it over and over. It is a time to read about the events of Holy Week, to reflect upon what we read, to meditate and contemplate those events. A time to “medit—eat” and a time to “comptempl—eat.”
This is what St. Louis de Montfort writes in his book, The Secret of the Rosary: “St. Augustine assures us that there is no spiritual exercise more fruitful or more useful than the frequent reflection on the sufferings of Our Lord. St. Albert the Great, who had St. Thomas Aquinas as his student, learned in a revelation that by simply thinking of, or meditating on, the Passion of Jesus Christ, a Christian gains more merit than if he had fasted on bread and water every Friday for a year, or had beaten himself with the discipline [scourge] once a week till blood flowed, or had recited the whole Book of Psalms every day” (The Secret of the Rosary, St. Louis de Montfort, “Twenty-Eighth Rose”).
St. Alphonsus Liguori says: “Our time is no time for fear, as we are witnesses of a God who gave up His own life out of love for us. The Passion of Jesus was an excess of the love of God, so anyone who meditates on it, will follow Him to the end. If you wish to advance in your spiritual life, think of the Lord’s sufferings every day, because by thinking of It, it is impossible not to be overwhelmed with love and gain strength to overcome with joy the inevitable burdens and trials of life. Who could be hopeless or irritated by the injustice of his own sufferings when seeing Jesus wounded and broken? Who could refuse to yield to the demands of the common good, when remembering that Christ became obedient even unto death? Who could be fearful if he embraces the Cross of our Redeemer?
“St. Teresa lamented that some books had advised her to stop meditating on the passion, because the humanity of Christ could prevent the contemplation of His divinity; aware of the error, she exclaimed: ‘O my good Lord, Jesus crucified, I seemed to have betrayed Thee so greatly! Since, from where did all blessings come to me except from Thy Cross?’
“St. Paul said that his sole ambition was to know the science of the Cross, referring to the love that it contains: ‘For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified!’ (1 Corinthians 2:2).
“When St. Bonaventure was asked where he got the copious and abundant doctrine that was found in his works, he said, showing a crucifix: ‘This is the book that tells me everything I write! Here I have learned what little I know!’” (St. Alphonsus Liguori).
The Second Fall of Jesus
In our reflections on the fourteen Stations of the Cross during the fourteen days of Passiontide, we arrive at the seventh station: Jesus Falls for the Second Time.
Jesus falls once more—He probably fell many times, but the Church presents us with three falls for our contemplation. The number three is a powerful and meaningful mystical number—it is rooted in the three Persons of the Holy Trinity; the three members of the Holy Family; the three stages of the spiritual life we must pass through; three of the Ten Commandments are focused directly on God; we have the three Theological Virtues; the three Sacraments that imprint an indelible mark on the soul; the three chief parts of the Mass; and many more threes―including the three falls of Jesus.
OUR LADY SPEAKS ABOUT FALLS
One Fall Prepared the Way for Other Falls
Revealing her thoughts to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady said: “The soul is made to understand the human frailty and the freedom of the will for good or evil. Of this knowledge the Almighty did not deprive me, nor does He deprive anyone of it―but He gives it to all, in order that, by its guidance, they may be filled with holy fear of falling into any fault, even the smallest. In me this light was greater and I clearly saw that a small fault prepares the way for another, and that the second fault is only a punishment of the first. It is true that on account of the blessings and graces of the Lord sin was impossible in me. But his Providence so disposed of this knowledge, that my absolute security from sin was hidden to me; I saw that, as far as depended on me alone, I could fall, and that it was the Divine Will that preserved me. Thus He reserved to Himself His knowledge of my security, and left me in solicitude and holy fear of sinning during my pilgrimage. From the instant of my conception until my death, I never lost this fear, but on the contrary grew in it as life flowed on” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Notice that Our Lady speaks of having a “holy fear of sinning” adding “From the instant of my conception until my death, I never lost this fear, but on the contrary grew in it as life flowed on.” She even warns against venial sin, saying that “a small fault prepares the way for another, and that the second fault is only a punishment of the first.” To this, we can add that every sin we commit ends up weakening us more and more in the fight against temptation. It is like spraining your ankle repeatedly―time and time again―which eventually gives you a severely weakened ankle is ever more likely to sprained again and again and again! Truly and without any exaggeration, we have to drill into our thick skulls the fact that falling into sin―whether venial sin or mortal sin―is the greatest evil that can befall us in this world! Sadly, we do see things that way―but the Church teaches: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). When will the “penny drop”? When will we “see the light”? When will we wake up from our dangerous complacency? The reason why the vast majority of souls fell into Hell, was because they did not mind and did not fear falling into sin!
Seeking God’s Assistance Against Falls
“ The Most High also gave me humility and discretion, not to ask or to examine too closely this mystery, but solely to direct my attention toward increasing my confidence in His goodness, with a view to obtain His assistance against sin. From this came those two necessary dispositions of a Christian life: the one being a quiet preservation of tranquility in the soul; the other being the constant presence of a holy fear and watchfulness, lest the treasure be lost. As this latter was a filial fear, it did not diminish love, but inflamed and increased it more and more. These two dispositions, of love and fear, produced, in my soul, a perfect harmony with the Divine Will, governing all my actions, so as to draw me away from evil and unite me with the highest Good” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Falls of the Religious
What Our Lady says here of religious, can readily and easily be applied to lay persons who wish to live a holy life. Our Lady says: “The religious state is consecrated and ordained by the Most High for maintaining the doctrine of Christian perfection and the close imitation of the life of my Son, and that therefore the souls, who in religious life are sunk in sleepy forgetfulness of their high blessing and lead a life more listless and lax than many worldly men, are objects of great wrath of the Lord, and a severer judgment and chastisement await them than others. The demon also, ancient and astute serpent as he is, uses more diligence in his attempts to overcome religious men and women, than to conquer all the rest of worldly men; and if one of these religious fall, all Hell exerts the greatest solicitude and care to prevent his using the many means which religion affords for rising from a fall, such as obedience and holy exercises and the frequent use of the Sacraments. To make all these remedies miscarry and be of no use to the fallen religious, the enemy applies so many cunning snares that it would fill with terror anyone who saw them. However, much of this is recognized in the actions and artifices by which a lax religious soul tries to defend its remissness, excusing it by specious arguments, if it does not break out in disobedience and yet greater disorders and faults.
“I will tell thee a secret: there are demons, whom Lucifer has expressly ordered to watch for the religious, who come forth from their retirement, in order to beset them and engage them in battle and cause their fall. The demons do not easily go into the cells, because there they do not find the occasions afforded by conversations and the use of the senses, wherein they ordinarily capture and devour their prey like ravenous wolves. They are tormented by the retirement and recollection of religious, knowing that they are foiled in their attempts, as long as they cannot entice them into human communication” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Falls of the Rich
Having lived a life of poverty herself, Our Lady speaks from experience, when she says: “Poverty is a generous renunciation and detachment from the heavy burden of temporal things. It is an alleviation of the spirit, it is a relief afforded to human infirmity, the liberty of a noble heart to strive after eternal and spiritual blessings. It is a satiety and abundance, in which the thirst after earthly treasures is allayed, and a sovereignty and ownership, in which a most noble enjoyment of all riches is established. All this, my daughter, and many other blessings are contained in voluntary poverty, and all this the sons of the world are ignorant and deprived of, precisely because they are lovers of earthly riches and enemies of this holy and opulent poverty. They do not consider, although they feel and suffer, the heavy weight of riches, which pins them to the earth and drives them into its very bowels to seek gold and silver in great anxiety, sleeplessness, labors and sweat, as if they were not men, but wild beasts that know not what they are suffering and doing. And if they are thus weighed down before acquiring riches, how much more when they have come into their possession? Let the countless hosts that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Falling From the Faith
Our Lady, speaking of the Faith, explains: “The inestimable treasure of the virtue of divine Faith is hidden to those mortals who have only carnal and earthly eyes; for they do not know how to appreciate and esteem a gift and blessing of such incomparable value. Consider, my dearest, what the world was without Faith and what it would be today, if my Son and Lord would not preserve Faith. How many men—whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise—have precipitated themselves, on account of the lack of the light of Faith, from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell! How many kingdoms and provinces, being blind themselves, follow these still more blind leaders until they together fall into the abyss of eternal pains, and they are followed by the bad Christians, who having received the grace and blessing of Faith, live as if they had it not in their hearts” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Falls of the Lukewarm
Our Lady often complains about the lukewarm. Our Lady of Good Success said that many are “blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness, that immense evil which destroys their fervor, humility, self-renunciation and the ceaseless practice of virtues and fraternal charity and that child-like simplicity which makes souls so dear to my Divine Son and to me.”
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady says: “Ordinarily, the demons have no power over souls, unless they gain entrance by some venial or mortal fault. Mortal sin gives them a sort of direct right over those who commit it; while venial sin weakens the strength of the soul and invites their attacks. Imperfections diminish the merit and the progress of virtue, and encourage the enemy. Whenever the astute serpent notices that the soul bears with its own levity and forgets about its danger, it blinds it and seeks to instill its deadly poison. The enemy then entices the soul like a little heedless bird, until it falls into one of the many snares from which there seems to be no escape.
“Admire then, my daughter, what thou hast learned by divine enlightenment and weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous tepidity. They live in the obscurity of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices. They are surrounded by innumerable enemies, who pursue them with diabolical treachery, unceasing vigilance, unquenchable wrath and restless diligence. What wonder then, that from such extremes, or rather from such unequal combat, irreparable defeats should arise among the mortals? And that, since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men?
“Consider seriously, whether anything deserves greater pity, than to see so many men misled into danger and made forgetful of it; how some of them cast themselves into it on account of their lightheartedness, some of them for trivial reasons, others for a short and instantaneous pleasure, others through negligence, and yet others on account of their inordinate appetites, tearing themselves away from the places of refuge, in which the Almighty has placed them, to fall into the hands of such cruel and furious enemies; and not only to feel their fury for an hour, a day, a month, a year, but to suffer indescribable and unmeasured torments for all eternity. Thou shouldst be filled with fear and wonder, my daughter, to see such horrible and dreadful foolishness among the impenitent mortals and to see even the faithful, who have come to know and confess all this by Faith, so far lose their understanding and allow themselves to be so insanely blinded by the devil that they neither regard nor avoid this danger. (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Rising and Benefitting From Falls
In the book, Words of Love, by Fr. Gottemuller—which is based on private revelations to Sr. Josefa Menendez, Sr. Mary of the Trinity and Sr. Consolata Betrone—we have many words of encouragement on how to perceive, receive and profit from our unfortunate and lamentable falls. The following words are mainly those of Our Lord Himself.
There is no sin that cannot be forgiven, but repentance has to be sincere, and not just formula that drips from the lips. In the following words, Our Lord is primarily referring to those who are sincerely trying to please Him, but happen to fall into various faults. Woe to those who abuse His mercy and sin wantonly, expecting automatic forgiveness afterwards.
“In spite of its miseries, a soul can love Me to folly ... But Josefa, you must realize that I am speaking only of faults of frailty and inadvertence, not of willed sin or voluntary infidelity” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez). “Listen, Consolata, if the Good Thief, in addition to all his own, had also committed all your faults, do you suppose I would have changed My verdict?” [Consolata:] “Oh no, Jesus, Thou wouldst have said just the same: ‘Today thou shalt be with Me in paradise!”‘ [Jesus:] “Well then, some evening I will say the same words to you!” (Our Lord to Consolata Betrone).
“A soul will profit even after the greatest sins, if she humbles herself” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez). “I will raise up the humble, and make little of their frailties, and even of their falls, provided they have humility and love” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez). “What I want them [chosen souls] to realize is that I love them more tenderly still, if after their weakness and falls they throw themselves humbly into My Heart; then I pardon them ... and I love them still.” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez).
“Even your falls comfort Me. Do not be discouraged, for this act of humility which your fault drew from you has consoled Me more than if you had not fallen” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez). “Do you not know, Josefa, that the more wretched souls are, the more I love them! ... If amongst all others you have won My Heart, it is on account of your littleness and misery” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez). “I left you to yourself, Josefa, that you might see how little you can do without Me ... now do not think of it any more. Take My Cross, and let us go together to labor for souls” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez).
“If you fall, do not be afflicted above measure. We are both here to raise you up, and I will never forsake you” (Our Lady to Josefa Menedez). “You must not grieve overmuch at your falls. Why, I could make a saint of you without more ado...” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez). “If you should happen to commit some fault, do not grieve over it, but come and place it quickly within My heart; then strengthen your determination to strive for the opposite, but with great calmness. In that manner your every fault will become a step in advance” (Our Lord to Consolata Betrone).
“When you commit a fault, repair it at once. I wish your soul to be as pure as crystal. Do not let your falls, however many, trouble you. It is trouble and worry that keep a soul from God” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez).
“Those whose generosity is not equal to these daily endeavors and sacrifices will see their lives go by full only of promise which never comes to fruition. But in this, distinguish: to souls who habitually promise and yet do no violence to themselves nor prove their abnegation and love in any way, I say: ‘Beware lest all this straw and stubble which you have gathered into your barns take fire or be scattered in an instant by the wind!’ But there are others, and it is of them I now speak, who begin their day with a very good will and desire to prove their love. They pledge themselves to self—denial or generosity in this or that circumstance ... But when the time comes they are prevented by self—love, temperament, health, or I know not what from carrying out what a few hours before they quite sincerely purposed to do. Nevertheless they speedily acknowledge their weakness and, filled with shame, beg for pardon, humble themselves, and renew their promise... Ah! Let them know that these souls please Me as much as if they had nothing with which to reproach themselves” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez).
“I do not say that by the fact of My choice, a [chosen] soul is freed from her faults and wretchedness. That soul may and will fall often again, but if she humbles herself, if she recognizes her nothingness, if she tries to repair her faults by little acts of generosity and love, if she confides and surrenders herself once more to My Heart ... she gives Me more glory and can do more good to other souls than if she had never fallen. Miseries and weaknesses are of no consequence; what I do ask of them is love” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez).
Let us not take our fall lightly, but neither let us become excessively aggrieved at having fallen—which can often be a sign of a hidden pride. Our falls can and should lead to a greater humility, a greater need for God, a greater hope, trust and confidence in God, a greater contrition and a greater spirit of compunction—which is defined as “an abiding sorrow for sin.”
To this should be added a greater love of God, for as Jesus Himself said: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less” (Luke 7:47). If we have been forgiven much, then there should be much love and gratitude returned to God for His great mercy in our regard.
Today, if we look at things objectively, it seems as though the world is falling apart! Why is it falling apart? Because it is falling into sin! You could call it “The Rise and Fall of the Godless World.” Holy Scripture says: “Pride goeth before destruction: and the spirit is lifted up before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18) and “The beginning of the pride of man, is to fall off from God!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:14). Yet falling can also be a good thing―but not falling into sin! Frequent falls can make us fall into humility―which is an antidote to pride and also a solid foundation for the Christian life. Seeing that all is falling apart around us, it would seem that now is the time to “fall”―to let worldly things fall by the wayside! Now is the time to “fall”! To “fall” into deep meditation! We are on the verge of falling into the “Great Week” ... “The Painful Week” ... “Holy Week!” The only week that really matters! This is it! If, at the start of Lent, Holy Mother Church, in her liturgy, quoted St. Paul’s words: “Behold, now is the acceptable time! Behold, now is the day of salvation!” (2 Corinthians 6:2), then all the more is Holy Week this “acceptable time” and this “day of salvation.”
“I am not come to call the just, but sinners! … I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Matthew 9:13; Luke 5:32). He has come to call you and me! ”The works of all flesh are before Him, and there is nothing hidden from His eyes” (Ecclesiasticus 39:24). “For all have sinned, and lack the glory of God!” (Romans 3:23). “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:10).
A Time to Eat!
“And Jesus said to them: ‘With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you, before I suffer!’” (Luke 22:15). Yet, “man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word of God” (Luke 4:4). This Holy Week is a time to ‘eat’ the word of God and ‘chew’ it over and over. It is a time to read about the events of Holy Week, to reflect upon what we read, to meditate and contemplate those events. A time to “medit—eat” and a time to “comptempl—eat.”
This is what St. Louis de Montfort writes in his book, The Secret of the Rosary: “St. Augustine assures us that there is no spiritual exercise more fruitful or more useful than the frequent reflection on the sufferings of Our Lord. St. Albert the Great, who had St. Thomas Aquinas as his student, learned in a revelation that by simply thinking of, or meditating on, the Passion of Jesus Christ, a Christian gains more merit than if he had fasted on bread and water every Friday for a year, or had beaten himself with the discipline [scourge] once a week till blood flowed, or had recited the whole Book of Psalms every day” (The Secret of the Rosary, St. Louis de Montfort, “Twenty-Eighth Rose”).
St. Alphonsus Liguori says: “Our time is no time for fear, as we are witnesses of a God who gave up His own life out of love for us. The Passion of Jesus was an excess of the love of God, so anyone who meditates on it, will follow Him to the end. If you wish to advance in your spiritual life, think of the Lord’s sufferings every day, because by thinking of It, it is impossible not to be overwhelmed with love and gain strength to overcome with joy the inevitable burdens and trials of life. Who could be hopeless or irritated by the injustice of his own sufferings when seeing Jesus wounded and broken? Who could refuse to yield to the demands of the common good, when remembering that Christ became obedient even unto death? Who could be fearful if he embraces the Cross of our Redeemer?
“St. Teresa lamented that some books had advised her to stop meditating on the passion, because the humanity of Christ could prevent the contemplation of His divinity; aware of the error, she exclaimed: ‘O my good Lord, Jesus crucified, I seemed to have betrayed Thee so greatly! Since, from where did all blessings come to me except from Thy Cross?’
“St. Paul said that his sole ambition was to know the science of the Cross, referring to the love that it contains: ‘For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified!’ (1 Corinthians 2:2).
“When St. Bonaventure was asked where he got the copious and abundant doctrine that was found in his works, he said, showing a crucifix: ‘This is the book that tells me everything I write! Here I have learned what little I know!’” (St. Alphonsus Liguori).
The Second Fall of Jesus
In our reflections on the fourteen Stations of the Cross during the fourteen days of Passiontide, we arrive at the seventh station: Jesus Falls for the Second Time.
Jesus falls once more—He probably fell many times, but the Church presents us with three falls for our contemplation. The number three is a powerful and meaningful mystical number—it is rooted in the three Persons of the Holy Trinity; the three members of the Holy Family; the three stages of the spiritual life we must pass through; three of the Ten Commandments are focused directly on God; we have the three Theological Virtues; the three Sacraments that imprint an indelible mark on the soul; the three chief parts of the Mass; and many more threes―including the three falls of Jesus.
OUR LADY SPEAKS ABOUT FALLS
One Fall Prepared the Way for Other Falls
Revealing her thoughts to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady said: “The soul is made to understand the human frailty and the freedom of the will for good or evil. Of this knowledge the Almighty did not deprive me, nor does He deprive anyone of it―but He gives it to all, in order that, by its guidance, they may be filled with holy fear of falling into any fault, even the smallest. In me this light was greater and I clearly saw that a small fault prepares the way for another, and that the second fault is only a punishment of the first. It is true that on account of the blessings and graces of the Lord sin was impossible in me. But his Providence so disposed of this knowledge, that my absolute security from sin was hidden to me; I saw that, as far as depended on me alone, I could fall, and that it was the Divine Will that preserved me. Thus He reserved to Himself His knowledge of my security, and left me in solicitude and holy fear of sinning during my pilgrimage. From the instant of my conception until my death, I never lost this fear, but on the contrary grew in it as life flowed on” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Notice that Our Lady speaks of having a “holy fear of sinning” adding “From the instant of my conception until my death, I never lost this fear, but on the contrary grew in it as life flowed on.” She even warns against venial sin, saying that “a small fault prepares the way for another, and that the second fault is only a punishment of the first.” To this, we can add that every sin we commit ends up weakening us more and more in the fight against temptation. It is like spraining your ankle repeatedly―time and time again―which eventually gives you a severely weakened ankle is ever more likely to sprained again and again and again! Truly and without any exaggeration, we have to drill into our thick skulls the fact that falling into sin―whether venial sin or mortal sin―is the greatest evil that can befall us in this world! Sadly, we do see things that way―but the Church teaches: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). When will the “penny drop”? When will we “see the light”? When will we wake up from our dangerous complacency? The reason why the vast majority of souls fell into Hell, was because they did not mind and did not fear falling into sin!
Seeking God’s Assistance Against Falls
“ The Most High also gave me humility and discretion, not to ask or to examine too closely this mystery, but solely to direct my attention toward increasing my confidence in His goodness, with a view to obtain His assistance against sin. From this came those two necessary dispositions of a Christian life: the one being a quiet preservation of tranquility in the soul; the other being the constant presence of a holy fear and watchfulness, lest the treasure be lost. As this latter was a filial fear, it did not diminish love, but inflamed and increased it more and more. These two dispositions, of love and fear, produced, in my soul, a perfect harmony with the Divine Will, governing all my actions, so as to draw me away from evil and unite me with the highest Good” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Falls of the Religious
What Our Lady says here of religious, can readily and easily be applied to lay persons who wish to live a holy life. Our Lady says: “The religious state is consecrated and ordained by the Most High for maintaining the doctrine of Christian perfection and the close imitation of the life of my Son, and that therefore the souls, who in religious life are sunk in sleepy forgetfulness of their high blessing and lead a life more listless and lax than many worldly men, are objects of great wrath of the Lord, and a severer judgment and chastisement await them than others. The demon also, ancient and astute serpent as he is, uses more diligence in his attempts to overcome religious men and women, than to conquer all the rest of worldly men; and if one of these religious fall, all Hell exerts the greatest solicitude and care to prevent his using the many means which religion affords for rising from a fall, such as obedience and holy exercises and the frequent use of the Sacraments. To make all these remedies miscarry and be of no use to the fallen religious, the enemy applies so many cunning snares that it would fill with terror anyone who saw them. However, much of this is recognized in the actions and artifices by which a lax religious soul tries to defend its remissness, excusing it by specious arguments, if it does not break out in disobedience and yet greater disorders and faults.
“I will tell thee a secret: there are demons, whom Lucifer has expressly ordered to watch for the religious, who come forth from their retirement, in order to beset them and engage them in battle and cause their fall. The demons do not easily go into the cells, because there they do not find the occasions afforded by conversations and the use of the senses, wherein they ordinarily capture and devour their prey like ravenous wolves. They are tormented by the retirement and recollection of religious, knowing that they are foiled in their attempts, as long as they cannot entice them into human communication” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Falls of the Rich
Having lived a life of poverty herself, Our Lady speaks from experience, when she says: “Poverty is a generous renunciation and detachment from the heavy burden of temporal things. It is an alleviation of the spirit, it is a relief afforded to human infirmity, the liberty of a noble heart to strive after eternal and spiritual blessings. It is a satiety and abundance, in which the thirst after earthly treasures is allayed, and a sovereignty and ownership, in which a most noble enjoyment of all riches is established. All this, my daughter, and many other blessings are contained in voluntary poverty, and all this the sons of the world are ignorant and deprived of, precisely because they are lovers of earthly riches and enemies of this holy and opulent poverty. They do not consider, although they feel and suffer, the heavy weight of riches, which pins them to the earth and drives them into its very bowels to seek gold and silver in great anxiety, sleeplessness, labors and sweat, as if they were not men, but wild beasts that know not what they are suffering and doing. And if they are thus weighed down before acquiring riches, how much more when they have come into their possession? Let the countless hosts that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Falling From the Faith
Our Lady, speaking of the Faith, explains: “The inestimable treasure of the virtue of divine Faith is hidden to those mortals who have only carnal and earthly eyes; for they do not know how to appreciate and esteem a gift and blessing of such incomparable value. Consider, my dearest, what the world was without Faith and what it would be today, if my Son and Lord would not preserve Faith. How many men—whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise—have precipitated themselves, on account of the lack of the light of Faith, from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell! How many kingdoms and provinces, being blind themselves, follow these still more blind leaders until they together fall into the abyss of eternal pains, and they are followed by the bad Christians, who having received the grace and blessing of Faith, live as if they had it not in their hearts” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Falls of the Lukewarm
Our Lady often complains about the lukewarm. Our Lady of Good Success said that many are “blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness, that immense evil which destroys their fervor, humility, self-renunciation and the ceaseless practice of virtues and fraternal charity and that child-like simplicity which makes souls so dear to my Divine Son and to me.”
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady says: “Ordinarily, the demons have no power over souls, unless they gain entrance by some venial or mortal fault. Mortal sin gives them a sort of direct right over those who commit it; while venial sin weakens the strength of the soul and invites their attacks. Imperfections diminish the merit and the progress of virtue, and encourage the enemy. Whenever the astute serpent notices that the soul bears with its own levity and forgets about its danger, it blinds it and seeks to instill its deadly poison. The enemy then entices the soul like a little heedless bird, until it falls into one of the many snares from which there seems to be no escape.
“Admire then, my daughter, what thou hast learned by divine enlightenment and weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous tepidity. They live in the obscurity of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices. They are surrounded by innumerable enemies, who pursue them with diabolical treachery, unceasing vigilance, unquenchable wrath and restless diligence. What wonder then, that from such extremes, or rather from such unequal combat, irreparable defeats should arise among the mortals? And that, since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men?
“Consider seriously, whether anything deserves greater pity, than to see so many men misled into danger and made forgetful of it; how some of them cast themselves into it on account of their lightheartedness, some of them for trivial reasons, others for a short and instantaneous pleasure, others through negligence, and yet others on account of their inordinate appetites, tearing themselves away from the places of refuge, in which the Almighty has placed them, to fall into the hands of such cruel and furious enemies; and not only to feel their fury for an hour, a day, a month, a year, but to suffer indescribable and unmeasured torments for all eternity. Thou shouldst be filled with fear and wonder, my daughter, to see such horrible and dreadful foolishness among the impenitent mortals and to see even the faithful, who have come to know and confess all this by Faith, so far lose their understanding and allow themselves to be so insanely blinded by the devil that they neither regard nor avoid this danger. (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Rising and Benefitting From Falls
In the book, Words of Love, by Fr. Gottemuller—which is based on private revelations to Sr. Josefa Menendez, Sr. Mary of the Trinity and Sr. Consolata Betrone—we have many words of encouragement on how to perceive, receive and profit from our unfortunate and lamentable falls. The following words are mainly those of Our Lord Himself.
There is no sin that cannot be forgiven, but repentance has to be sincere, and not just formula that drips from the lips. In the following words, Our Lord is primarily referring to those who are sincerely trying to please Him, but happen to fall into various faults. Woe to those who abuse His mercy and sin wantonly, expecting automatic forgiveness afterwards.
“In spite of its miseries, a soul can love Me to folly ... But Josefa, you must realize that I am speaking only of faults of frailty and inadvertence, not of willed sin or voluntary infidelity” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez). “Listen, Consolata, if the Good Thief, in addition to all his own, had also committed all your faults, do you suppose I would have changed My verdict?” [Consolata:] “Oh no, Jesus, Thou wouldst have said just the same: ‘Today thou shalt be with Me in paradise!”‘ [Jesus:] “Well then, some evening I will say the same words to you!” (Our Lord to Consolata Betrone).
“A soul will profit even after the greatest sins, if she humbles herself” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez). “I will raise up the humble, and make little of their frailties, and even of their falls, provided they have humility and love” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez). “What I want them [chosen souls] to realize is that I love them more tenderly still, if after their weakness and falls they throw themselves humbly into My Heart; then I pardon them ... and I love them still.” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez).
“Even your falls comfort Me. Do not be discouraged, for this act of humility which your fault drew from you has consoled Me more than if you had not fallen” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez). “Do you not know, Josefa, that the more wretched souls are, the more I love them! ... If amongst all others you have won My Heart, it is on account of your littleness and misery” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez). “I left you to yourself, Josefa, that you might see how little you can do without Me ... now do not think of it any more. Take My Cross, and let us go together to labor for souls” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez).
“If you fall, do not be afflicted above measure. We are both here to raise you up, and I will never forsake you” (Our Lady to Josefa Menedez). “You must not grieve overmuch at your falls. Why, I could make a saint of you without more ado...” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez). “If you should happen to commit some fault, do not grieve over it, but come and place it quickly within My heart; then strengthen your determination to strive for the opposite, but with great calmness. In that manner your every fault will become a step in advance” (Our Lord to Consolata Betrone).
“When you commit a fault, repair it at once. I wish your soul to be as pure as crystal. Do not let your falls, however many, trouble you. It is trouble and worry that keep a soul from God” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez).
“Those whose generosity is not equal to these daily endeavors and sacrifices will see their lives go by full only of promise which never comes to fruition. But in this, distinguish: to souls who habitually promise and yet do no violence to themselves nor prove their abnegation and love in any way, I say: ‘Beware lest all this straw and stubble which you have gathered into your barns take fire or be scattered in an instant by the wind!’ But there are others, and it is of them I now speak, who begin their day with a very good will and desire to prove their love. They pledge themselves to self—denial or generosity in this or that circumstance ... But when the time comes they are prevented by self—love, temperament, health, or I know not what from carrying out what a few hours before they quite sincerely purposed to do. Nevertheless they speedily acknowledge their weakness and, filled with shame, beg for pardon, humble themselves, and renew their promise... Ah! Let them know that these souls please Me as much as if they had nothing with which to reproach themselves” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez).
“I do not say that by the fact of My choice, a [chosen] soul is freed from her faults and wretchedness. That soul may and will fall often again, but if she humbles herself, if she recognizes her nothingness, if she tries to repair her faults by little acts of generosity and love, if she confides and surrenders herself once more to My Heart ... she gives Me more glory and can do more good to other souls than if she had never fallen. Miseries and weaknesses are of no consequence; what I do ask of them is love” (Our Lord to Josefa Menedez).
Let us not take our fall lightly, but neither let us become excessively aggrieved at having fallen—which can often be a sign of a hidden pride. Our falls can and should lead to a greater humility, a greater need for God, a greater hope, trust and confidence in God, a greater contrition and a greater spirit of compunction—which is defined as “an abiding sorrow for sin.”
To this should be added a greater love of God, for as Jesus Himself said: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less” (Luke 7:47). If we have been forgiven much, then there should be much love and gratitude returned to God for His great mercy in our regard.
Article 25
Friday after Passion Sunday, March 31st, 2023
Are You Seeking the Face of Christ?
Friday after Passion Sunday, March 31st, 2023
Are You Seeking the Face of Christ?
The Veil of St. Veronica
The Veil of Veronica The Veil of Veronica, or Sudarium (Latin for sweat-cloth), often called simply “The Veronica” and known in Italian as the Volto Santo or “Holy Face”, is a cloth upon which the face of Jesus was miraculously imprinted. The Veronica Veil is often confused with the Sudarium Christi. However, the Veronica Veil is an imaged cloth that allegedly touched Jesus during His walk to Golgotha while He was still alive. The Sudarium, on the other hand, is the Face Cloth wrapped around His head from His death on the Cross to His entombment when it was folded and put to one side. The Sudarium does NOT have an image—only bloodstains and serum as well as pollen. Various existing images have been claimed to be either the original relic, or early copies of it. A number of artists have painted their version of the miracle.
Tradition holds that St. Veronica was from Jerusalem and encountered Jesus along the Via Dolorosa on the way to Calvary. When she paused to wipe the blood and sweat (Latin sudor) off His face with her veil, His image was miraculously imprinted on the cloth. The event is commemorated by the Sixth Station of the Stations of the Cross.
Who Was Veronica?
Very little is known about the woman known as Veronica. The account of Veronica's Veil is not found in the New Testament. It appears in early Christian history. It was held that a holy woman, a follower of Christ, named Seraphina (or Seraphia), was the one who compassionately and courageously wiped Jesus’ face with her cloth. The image that appeared on it was known from the very beginning as Vera Icon or “True Image”. Over time, the two names were blended and Seraphina's name turned into Veronica. This was not the real name of the woman, but rather a name ascribed to her. The name given was Veronica from the Latin Vera (true) and Icona (image) or Greek Eikon. In Greek literature, her name was Bernice. Later legend, which we will examine shortly, says that Veronica brought the Veil to Rome where the Veil cured the Emperor Tiberius from an unknown malady. In addition, she is said to have given the veil to Pope Clement—the 4th Pope.
Spread of the Devotion to Veronica’s Veil
What we do know for certain is that during the early Middle Ages, devotion to the Holy Face spread throughout Europe. The earliest remaining records of the veil are found from 1199, when two Pilgrims, named Giraldus Cambrensis and Gervase of Tilbury made two accounts of the existence of the Veronica at different times. In 1297 Pope Innocent III publically displayed the Veil of St. Veronica and granted indulgences to those who prayed before it. During the sack of Rome in 1527 some writers recorded that the Veronica veil was destroyed. Some reports say the veil was passed around Rome. Other reports say it was never found by any looters. Many artists of that time created reproductions of the veil. In 1616 Pope Urban III, not only prohibited reproductions of St Veronica's Veil, but he also ordered all existing copies of the veil to be destroyed. His edict declared those who did not turn their copies over to the Vatican would be excommunicated. On Passion Sunday, the 5th Sunday of Lent, after Traditional Vespers at 5 p.m., three canons display a heavy frame on the balcony above the statue of Saint Veronica. Vision of the Veronica veil from that distance is limited.
There are other similar veils said to have miraculous images, one of which is in St. John Lateran in Rome, and another in Alicante, Spain. The veil that is kept in St. Peter's Basilica is sometimes put on public exposition.
We are not so much interested as to which is the true image—the one in St. Peter’s, or St. John Lateran, or the one in Spain or elsewhere—what interests us is the notion of the Face of Jesus or the Face of God.
Seeking the Face of God
Seeking the Lord means seeking his presence. “Presence” is a common translation of the Hebrew word “face.” Literally, we are to seek his “face.” But this is the Hebraic way of having access to God. To be before his face is to be in his presence.
But aren’t we, His children, always in His presence? Yes and no. Yes in three senses: First, in the sense that God is omnipresent and therefore always near everything and everyone. He holds everything in being. His power is ever-present in sustaining and governing all things.
The second yes in that God is present in His Church in more especial way than the above mentioned presence. He dwells in the tabernacles as Christ. He guides the Church as the Holy Spirit. As Jesus said: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
And the third yes, He is always present within His children if they are in a state of grace—for if we are in the state of sanctifying grace (with no unforgiven mortal in our soul and on our conscience) then we have the Holy Trinity dwelling within us. “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). “Jesus said to him: ‘If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make our abode with him” (John 14:23).
The Absence of God’s Face
But there is a sense in which God’s presence is not with us always. For this reason, Holy Scripture repeatedly calls us to “Seek ye the Lord: seek His face evermore” (Psalms 104:4). God’s manifest, conscious, trusted presence is not our constant experience. There are seasons and reasons when and why we become neglectful of God and give Him no thought and do not put trust in Him and we find Him not. His face is hidden behind the curtain of our carnal desires. This condition of worldliness is always ready to overtake us—the world is always “in our face”!
That is why we are told to seek God’s presence continually. For we cannot seek the world and God—for they are mutual enemies. “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4). “All that forsake Thee shall be confounded: they that depart from Thee, shall be written in the earth: because they have forsaken the Lord” (Jeremias 17:13).
Do We Seek His Face or Hands?
When we look at a person’s face, we are looking at a lot more than just a face. Just by looking at a person’s face you can tell if the person is angry, happy, sad, tired, worried, hurt, excited, in love, sick, and the list continues. The face of a person reveals a lot about that person. The face of a person is like an open window that allows us to see inside of that person; their thoughts, their pain, their joy, their heart.
Often we go to God to seek His hands; hands that give, hands that help, hands that bless, hands that protect, hands that heal, etc. There is nothing wrong with that, actually God tells us in His Word to go to Him with our requests and that we do not receive things from Him because we do not ask: “Hitherto you have not asked anything in My Name. Ask, and you shall receive; that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). There is nothing wrong with seeking God’s blessing hands. The problem is that we spend a lot of time seeking God’s hands so that we ‘get blessed’ and we forget to spend time just looking at His face; a face that will reveal God to us, His love, His compassion, His grace, His affection, His pain, His wrath, His heart.
“Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice” [i.e., give what is due to Him] (Matthew 6:33). The key to living the abundant life God has planned for us is learning to make Him our first priority. So, why do many people seek the “things” first? Many people's top priorities seem to be jobs, houses, cars or other material things. To seek means “to crave, pursue, to make sacrifices to get, to go after with all of your strength and all of your heart.” It is a mistake to crave and pursue possessions, believing they will give us the lasting peace, joy and contentment that only come from God's presence in our lives. “You ask, and receive not; because you ask amiss: that you may consume it on your concupiscences” (James 4:3). “Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice [i.e., give what is due to Him], and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).
What Am I Really Seeking?
Take a moment and ask yourself, “What am I seeking? What do I spend most of my time thinking or talking about? How, or in what, do I invest the majority of my energy?” These are important questions you need to answer from your heart. Our Lord preaches the Cross—the world preaches comfort. Our Lord preaches poverty—the world preaches wealth, possessions and fun! The prices Our Lord charges are high—the prices the world charges are very low and affordable! Our Lord requires mortification and abstinence—the world requires enjoyment and over-indulgence! From a very natural and human point of view, the world wins “hands-down”! Yet we were not made to be merely natural and human, but we were made for the supernatural and the divine—but which of the two do we seek the most?
Old Testament Seekers and Fleers
There a various examples in Holy Scripture of those seek the face of God and of those fleeing from the face of God. The very first example is that of Adam and Eve, after they had sinned: “Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God” (Genesis 3:8). They are soon followed by their son, Cain after his sin of murdering Abel: “Cain went out from the face of the Lord, and dwelt as a fugitive on the earth” (Genesis 4:16). Those who sin before the face of God are punished: “The men of Sodom were very wicked, and sinners before the face of the Lord” (Genesis 13:13). “And I will set My face against them and fire shall consume them: and you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have set My face against them” (Ezechiel 15:7). Jonas didn’t like the job description that God gave him and tried to flee from having to do the job: “And Jonas rose up to flee into Tharsis from the face of the Lord” (Jonas 1:3).
As regards the ‘seekers’ we have a great example in Moses. He would spend time with God speaking to Him as one would with another person. He would come out of these times with God resplendent with the glory of God, so much so, that His face shone. Looking on the face of God—being in His presence—opens us up to understanding more of who He is and helps us to better understand His ways and intentions.
As Our Lord spoke face to face with His Apostles at the Last Supper, He said: “I will not now call you servants … But I have called you friends” (John 15:15). Similarly, in the Old Testament, God spoke with Moses as one would speak to a friend—but a great respect was demanded in the presence of God. God appeared to Moses from a burning bush, “and He said: ‘I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Moses hid his face: for he dared not look at God” (Exodus 3:6). Later God again appears to Moses during the Exodus and wanderings in the desert: “And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend … And again he said: ‘Thou canst not see My face: for man shall not see Me and live” (Exodus 33:11, 20). “The rocks shall melt as wax before Thy face” (Judith 16:18). “The mountains melted before the face of the Lord” (Judges 5:5).
Face-to Face Clarification
How many times have we been misunderstood through an email or a text message. It may have been a joke that your reader didn’t pick up on. It may have been worded completely right, but was interpreted differently, due to how the reader was feeling at the time. There is something about being face-to-face, or in His presence, that removes misinterpretations.
The experience of Moses is not the high end of the Faith, but instead it is the baseline of what we are expected to do. Seeking God is not just for a select few or an elite—it is the basic obligation of each and every Christian. We can boldly enter the throne room of God: “Let us go therefore with confidence to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). We can fix our eyes on Jesus: “Looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of Faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2). Seeing the face of God is an experience available to every soul. “‘All flesh shall come to adore before My face,’ saith the Lord” (Isaias 66:23). “Return, O rebellious Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not turn away My face from you: for I am holy, saith the Lord, and I will not be angry for ever” (Jeremias 3:12).
What is the Importance of Seeking the Face of God?
When a king’s face brightens, it means life—he will not have you executed! “In the cheerfulness of the king's countenance is life: and his clemency is like the latter rain” (Proverbs 16:15). “Turn not away Thy face from me; decline not in Thy wrath from Thy servant” (Psalm 26:9). “Cast me not away from Thy face” (Psalm 50:13). “Thou turnedst away Thy face from me, and I became troubled” (Psalm 29:8). “Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant; save me in Thy mercy” (Psalm 30:17). But that clemency requires some work on our part: “Make thy prayer before the face of the Lord, and offend less” (Ecclesiasticus 17:22). “Seek ye the Lord, seek ye His face evermore” (1 Paralipomenon 16:11). “And now we follow Thee with all our heart, and we fear Thee, and seek Thy face” (Daniel 3:41).
Looking on the Face of God Transforms Us into His Image
We become like the things we focus on. You are or become what you read. You are or become what you watch. You are or become what or who you listen to. You are or become who you mix with. When we spend our time in fear or worry, our lives are filled with hardships. When we focus on money, we become greedy. When we focus on our needs, we become desperate in filling them. When we focus on the things done wrong against us, we become bitter and angry. It is only in God that, when we focus on Him, good things are added to us (Matthew 6:33). If our worries, desires, hopes, fears, or whatever else it may be—comes before God, then God will not bless our state of mind. Yet once we put God first, we find He puts us first—it is one of the essential laws of charity: don’t focus on self, but away from self. Take care of others and let others take care of you. Take care of God’s needs and He will take care of your needs. Just as we imitate the mannerisms and attitudes of our friends, we will find ourselves increasingly imitating God by being in His presence and before His face.
Seeking the Face of Christ
We are also to seek the face of Christ: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4:6). “And they shall see His face: and His Name shall be on their foreheads” (Apocalypse 22:4). Yet Our Lord also warns: “You shall seek Me, and shall not find Me: and where I am, thither you cannot come” (John 7:34). How so, why so? Because some choose not to follow the Christ of the Disfigured Face—they only want to follow the Christ of the Beautiful Face. Yet Our Lord tells us that “he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:38).
The ‘Unrecognizable’ Face of Christ
Isaias, in his prophecy of the future Messias, writes: “There is no beauty in Him, nor comeliness: and we have seen Him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of Him. Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity: and His look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows: and we have thought Him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His bruises we are healed.” (Isaias 53:2-5).
The New Testament brings that prophecy of Isaias to life: “And some began to spit on Him, and to cover His face, and to buffet Him, and to say unto Him: ‘Prophesy!’ And the servants struck Him with the palms of their hands” (Mark 14:65). “And they blindfolded Him, and smote His face. And they asked Him, saying: ‘Prophesy, who is it that struck thee?’” (Luke 22:64). “Then did they spit in His face, and buffeted Him: and others struck Hs face with the palms of their hands” (Matthew 26:67). “I have given My body to the strikers, and My cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away My face from them that rebuked Me, and spat upon Me” (Isaias 50:6).
To seek the face of Christ, is to seek the face of the Passion. To seek the face of God is to seek the face of charity. And “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
The Veil of Veronica The Veil of Veronica, or Sudarium (Latin for sweat-cloth), often called simply “The Veronica” and known in Italian as the Volto Santo or “Holy Face”, is a cloth upon which the face of Jesus was miraculously imprinted. The Veronica Veil is often confused with the Sudarium Christi. However, the Veronica Veil is an imaged cloth that allegedly touched Jesus during His walk to Golgotha while He was still alive. The Sudarium, on the other hand, is the Face Cloth wrapped around His head from His death on the Cross to His entombment when it was folded and put to one side. The Sudarium does NOT have an image—only bloodstains and serum as well as pollen. Various existing images have been claimed to be either the original relic, or early copies of it. A number of artists have painted their version of the miracle.
Tradition holds that St. Veronica was from Jerusalem and encountered Jesus along the Via Dolorosa on the way to Calvary. When she paused to wipe the blood and sweat (Latin sudor) off His face with her veil, His image was miraculously imprinted on the cloth. The event is commemorated by the Sixth Station of the Stations of the Cross.
Who Was Veronica?
Very little is known about the woman known as Veronica. The account of Veronica's Veil is not found in the New Testament. It appears in early Christian history. It was held that a holy woman, a follower of Christ, named Seraphina (or Seraphia), was the one who compassionately and courageously wiped Jesus’ face with her cloth. The image that appeared on it was known from the very beginning as Vera Icon or “True Image”. Over time, the two names were blended and Seraphina's name turned into Veronica. This was not the real name of the woman, but rather a name ascribed to her. The name given was Veronica from the Latin Vera (true) and Icona (image) or Greek Eikon. In Greek literature, her name was Bernice. Later legend, which we will examine shortly, says that Veronica brought the Veil to Rome where the Veil cured the Emperor Tiberius from an unknown malady. In addition, she is said to have given the veil to Pope Clement—the 4th Pope.
Spread of the Devotion to Veronica’s Veil
What we do know for certain is that during the early Middle Ages, devotion to the Holy Face spread throughout Europe. The earliest remaining records of the veil are found from 1199, when two Pilgrims, named Giraldus Cambrensis and Gervase of Tilbury made two accounts of the existence of the Veronica at different times. In 1297 Pope Innocent III publically displayed the Veil of St. Veronica and granted indulgences to those who prayed before it. During the sack of Rome in 1527 some writers recorded that the Veronica veil was destroyed. Some reports say the veil was passed around Rome. Other reports say it was never found by any looters. Many artists of that time created reproductions of the veil. In 1616 Pope Urban III, not only prohibited reproductions of St Veronica's Veil, but he also ordered all existing copies of the veil to be destroyed. His edict declared those who did not turn their copies over to the Vatican would be excommunicated. On Passion Sunday, the 5th Sunday of Lent, after Traditional Vespers at 5 p.m., three canons display a heavy frame on the balcony above the statue of Saint Veronica. Vision of the Veronica veil from that distance is limited.
There are other similar veils said to have miraculous images, one of which is in St. John Lateran in Rome, and another in Alicante, Spain. The veil that is kept in St. Peter's Basilica is sometimes put on public exposition.
We are not so much interested as to which is the true image—the one in St. Peter’s, or St. John Lateran, or the one in Spain or elsewhere—what interests us is the notion of the Face of Jesus or the Face of God.
Seeking the Face of God
Seeking the Lord means seeking his presence. “Presence” is a common translation of the Hebrew word “face.” Literally, we are to seek his “face.” But this is the Hebraic way of having access to God. To be before his face is to be in his presence.
But aren’t we, His children, always in His presence? Yes and no. Yes in three senses: First, in the sense that God is omnipresent and therefore always near everything and everyone. He holds everything in being. His power is ever-present in sustaining and governing all things.
The second yes in that God is present in His Church in more especial way than the above mentioned presence. He dwells in the tabernacles as Christ. He guides the Church as the Holy Spirit. As Jesus said: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
And the third yes, He is always present within His children if they are in a state of grace—for if we are in the state of sanctifying grace (with no unforgiven mortal in our soul and on our conscience) then we have the Holy Trinity dwelling within us. “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). “Jesus said to him: ‘If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make our abode with him” (John 14:23).
The Absence of God’s Face
But there is a sense in which God’s presence is not with us always. For this reason, Holy Scripture repeatedly calls us to “Seek ye the Lord: seek His face evermore” (Psalms 104:4). God’s manifest, conscious, trusted presence is not our constant experience. There are seasons and reasons when and why we become neglectful of God and give Him no thought and do not put trust in Him and we find Him not. His face is hidden behind the curtain of our carnal desires. This condition of worldliness is always ready to overtake us—the world is always “in our face”!
That is why we are told to seek God’s presence continually. For we cannot seek the world and God—for they are mutual enemies. “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4). “All that forsake Thee shall be confounded: they that depart from Thee, shall be written in the earth: because they have forsaken the Lord” (Jeremias 17:13).
Do We Seek His Face or Hands?
When we look at a person’s face, we are looking at a lot more than just a face. Just by looking at a person’s face you can tell if the person is angry, happy, sad, tired, worried, hurt, excited, in love, sick, and the list continues. The face of a person reveals a lot about that person. The face of a person is like an open window that allows us to see inside of that person; their thoughts, their pain, their joy, their heart.
Often we go to God to seek His hands; hands that give, hands that help, hands that bless, hands that protect, hands that heal, etc. There is nothing wrong with that, actually God tells us in His Word to go to Him with our requests and that we do not receive things from Him because we do not ask: “Hitherto you have not asked anything in My Name. Ask, and you shall receive; that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). There is nothing wrong with seeking God’s blessing hands. The problem is that we spend a lot of time seeking God’s hands so that we ‘get blessed’ and we forget to spend time just looking at His face; a face that will reveal God to us, His love, His compassion, His grace, His affection, His pain, His wrath, His heart.
“Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice” [i.e., give what is due to Him] (Matthew 6:33). The key to living the abundant life God has planned for us is learning to make Him our first priority. So, why do many people seek the “things” first? Many people's top priorities seem to be jobs, houses, cars or other material things. To seek means “to crave, pursue, to make sacrifices to get, to go after with all of your strength and all of your heart.” It is a mistake to crave and pursue possessions, believing they will give us the lasting peace, joy and contentment that only come from God's presence in our lives. “You ask, and receive not; because you ask amiss: that you may consume it on your concupiscences” (James 4:3). “Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice [i.e., give what is due to Him], and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).
What Am I Really Seeking?
Take a moment and ask yourself, “What am I seeking? What do I spend most of my time thinking or talking about? How, or in what, do I invest the majority of my energy?” These are important questions you need to answer from your heart. Our Lord preaches the Cross—the world preaches comfort. Our Lord preaches poverty—the world preaches wealth, possessions and fun! The prices Our Lord charges are high—the prices the world charges are very low and affordable! Our Lord requires mortification and abstinence—the world requires enjoyment and over-indulgence! From a very natural and human point of view, the world wins “hands-down”! Yet we were not made to be merely natural and human, but we were made for the supernatural and the divine—but which of the two do we seek the most?
Old Testament Seekers and Fleers
There a various examples in Holy Scripture of those seek the face of God and of those fleeing from the face of God. The very first example is that of Adam and Eve, after they had sinned: “Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God” (Genesis 3:8). They are soon followed by their son, Cain after his sin of murdering Abel: “Cain went out from the face of the Lord, and dwelt as a fugitive on the earth” (Genesis 4:16). Those who sin before the face of God are punished: “The men of Sodom were very wicked, and sinners before the face of the Lord” (Genesis 13:13). “And I will set My face against them and fire shall consume them: and you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have set My face against them” (Ezechiel 15:7). Jonas didn’t like the job description that God gave him and tried to flee from having to do the job: “And Jonas rose up to flee into Tharsis from the face of the Lord” (Jonas 1:3).
As regards the ‘seekers’ we have a great example in Moses. He would spend time with God speaking to Him as one would with another person. He would come out of these times with God resplendent with the glory of God, so much so, that His face shone. Looking on the face of God—being in His presence—opens us up to understanding more of who He is and helps us to better understand His ways and intentions.
As Our Lord spoke face to face with His Apostles at the Last Supper, He said: “I will not now call you servants … But I have called you friends” (John 15:15). Similarly, in the Old Testament, God spoke with Moses as one would speak to a friend—but a great respect was demanded in the presence of God. God appeared to Moses from a burning bush, “and He said: ‘I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Moses hid his face: for he dared not look at God” (Exodus 3:6). Later God again appears to Moses during the Exodus and wanderings in the desert: “And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend … And again he said: ‘Thou canst not see My face: for man shall not see Me and live” (Exodus 33:11, 20). “The rocks shall melt as wax before Thy face” (Judith 16:18). “The mountains melted before the face of the Lord” (Judges 5:5).
Face-to Face Clarification
How many times have we been misunderstood through an email or a text message. It may have been a joke that your reader didn’t pick up on. It may have been worded completely right, but was interpreted differently, due to how the reader was feeling at the time. There is something about being face-to-face, or in His presence, that removes misinterpretations.
The experience of Moses is not the high end of the Faith, but instead it is the baseline of what we are expected to do. Seeking God is not just for a select few or an elite—it is the basic obligation of each and every Christian. We can boldly enter the throne room of God: “Let us go therefore with confidence to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). We can fix our eyes on Jesus: “Looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of Faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2). Seeing the face of God is an experience available to every soul. “‘All flesh shall come to adore before My face,’ saith the Lord” (Isaias 66:23). “Return, O rebellious Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not turn away My face from you: for I am holy, saith the Lord, and I will not be angry for ever” (Jeremias 3:12).
What is the Importance of Seeking the Face of God?
When a king’s face brightens, it means life—he will not have you executed! “In the cheerfulness of the king's countenance is life: and his clemency is like the latter rain” (Proverbs 16:15). “Turn not away Thy face from me; decline not in Thy wrath from Thy servant” (Psalm 26:9). “Cast me not away from Thy face” (Psalm 50:13). “Thou turnedst away Thy face from me, and I became troubled” (Psalm 29:8). “Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant; save me in Thy mercy” (Psalm 30:17). But that clemency requires some work on our part: “Make thy prayer before the face of the Lord, and offend less” (Ecclesiasticus 17:22). “Seek ye the Lord, seek ye His face evermore” (1 Paralipomenon 16:11). “And now we follow Thee with all our heart, and we fear Thee, and seek Thy face” (Daniel 3:41).
Looking on the Face of God Transforms Us into His Image
We become like the things we focus on. You are or become what you read. You are or become what you watch. You are or become what or who you listen to. You are or become who you mix with. When we spend our time in fear or worry, our lives are filled with hardships. When we focus on money, we become greedy. When we focus on our needs, we become desperate in filling them. When we focus on the things done wrong against us, we become bitter and angry. It is only in God that, when we focus on Him, good things are added to us (Matthew 6:33). If our worries, desires, hopes, fears, or whatever else it may be—comes before God, then God will not bless our state of mind. Yet once we put God first, we find He puts us first—it is one of the essential laws of charity: don’t focus on self, but away from self. Take care of others and let others take care of you. Take care of God’s needs and He will take care of your needs. Just as we imitate the mannerisms and attitudes of our friends, we will find ourselves increasingly imitating God by being in His presence and before His face.
Seeking the Face of Christ
We are also to seek the face of Christ: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4:6). “And they shall see His face: and His Name shall be on their foreheads” (Apocalypse 22:4). Yet Our Lord also warns: “You shall seek Me, and shall not find Me: and where I am, thither you cannot come” (John 7:34). How so, why so? Because some choose not to follow the Christ of the Disfigured Face—they only want to follow the Christ of the Beautiful Face. Yet Our Lord tells us that “he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:38).
The ‘Unrecognizable’ Face of Christ
Isaias, in his prophecy of the future Messias, writes: “There is no beauty in Him, nor comeliness: and we have seen Him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of Him. Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity: and His look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows: and we have thought Him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His bruises we are healed.” (Isaias 53:2-5).
The New Testament brings that prophecy of Isaias to life: “And some began to spit on Him, and to cover His face, and to buffet Him, and to say unto Him: ‘Prophesy!’ And the servants struck Him with the palms of their hands” (Mark 14:65). “And they blindfolded Him, and smote His face. And they asked Him, saying: ‘Prophesy, who is it that struck thee?’” (Luke 22:64). “Then did they spit in His face, and buffeted Him: and others struck Hs face with the palms of their hands” (Matthew 26:67). “I have given My body to the strikers, and My cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away My face from them that rebuked Me, and spat upon Me” (Isaias 50:6).
To seek the face of Christ, is to seek the face of the Passion. To seek the face of God is to seek the face of charity. And “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
Article 24
Thursday after Passion Sunday, March 30th, 2023
Are We Helping Others Carry Their Cross?
Thursday after Passion Sunday, March 30th, 2023
Are We Helping Others Carry Their Cross?
Even Jesus Needed Help
As we carry our Cross through these fourteen days of Passiontide—which recalls the fourteen Stations of the Cross—we arrive at the fifth station, where Jesus needs help in carrying His Cross. Isaias speaks of the future Messias treading the winepress alone: “I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the Gentiles there is not a man with Me: I have trampled on them in My indignation, and have trodden them down in My wrath, and their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, and I have stained all my clothing. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, the year of my redemption is come. I looked about, and there was none to help: I sought, and there was none to give aid: and My own arm hath saved for Me, and my indignation itself hath helped Me” (Isaias 63:3-5).
By Force, Not Desire
Jesus was without a helper throughout His Passion—only at the latter end do we see some help arrive. Yet that help was not voluntary, but it was forced help—as Simon of Cyrene was forced by the Roman soldiers to carry the Cross of Jesus: “And going out, they found a man of Cyrene, named Simon: him they forced to take up His cross” (Matthew 27:32). He did it simply because he was coerced, not because he wanted to do it. The same is true of us—many, if not most, carry their crosses because there is no escape from them. If they could escape the cross, they would.
Helping Others is Helping Jesus
We are also surrounded by countless souls carrying their crosses, and yet we neglect to help them—or, at best, help only a little—because we fail to see Jesus in that person and in that cross. Our Lord Himself told us: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me ... as long as you did it NOT to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me” (Matthew 25:40, 45).
I Did It By Myself!
Many think themselves to be “self-made men” or “self-made women”—saying all that I have acquired and achieved is the fruit of my own work and efforts!” Yet this insane pride denies and contradicts the words of Our Lord, who said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). God’s Providence is behind everything—even down the hair that falls from our heads, as Our Lord pointed out in His ‘Sermon on the Mount.’ If we have much, then it is down to God’s Providence arranging things and favoring things. If we have little, then it is also down to God’s Providence. Yet there is danger in having much, for, as Holy Scripture warns: “And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more” (Luke 12:48).
Who Did What?
All that we have—by way of the Faith, talents, health, wealth, possessions, resources, power, influence, contacts—we have by the designs and will of Divine Providence. St. James reminds us: “Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). To which St. Paul adds: “What hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? … Do not forget to do good, and to share; for by such sacrifices God’s favor is obtained … Freely have you received, freely give” (1 Corinthians 4:7; Hebrews 13:16, Matthew 10:8).
“All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them” (Matthew 7:7-11). “Give to him that asketh of thee and from him that would borrow of thee turn not away” (Matthew 5:42). “Give, and it shall be given to you: good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over shall they give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you shall give to others, it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:38).
New Commandment
If God has freely given all He has to us and even given us a chance to share in the happiness of Heaven, we should have the same attitude as God. In fact Jesus explicitly says so: “A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34). It is not a mere suggestion, but a commandment that He gives. St. Paul elaborates on this: “He that hath the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him: how doth the charity of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17). “But when thou dost alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth. That thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee” (Matthew 6:3-4). “For whosoever shall give you to drink a cup of water in My Name, because you belong to Christ: amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward” (Mark 9:40). “Lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:20-21).
Selfish or Selfless
Are we selfish or selfless—each word starts the same way, but the endings are different. Likewise, all persons start the same way, but their endings or fates are different. We have been given much, not that we might wallow in what we have—like the rich man, in the similitude of Our Lord: “The land of a certain rich man brought forth plenty of fruits. And he thought within himself, saying: ‘What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?’ And he said: ‘This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and will build greater; and into them will I gather all things that are grown to me, and my goods. And I will say to my soul: “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thy rest; eat, drink, make good cheer!”’ But God said to him: ‘Thou fool! This night do they require thy soul of thee: and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?’ So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God” (Luke 12:16-21). Whatever God has given us by way of talents, health, wealth, possessions, resources, power, influence, contacts, etc.—is meant to be used for the honor and glory of God: “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Selflessness Can Cause Pain, But Can Lead to Joy
Simon of Cyrene was certainly not very happy about having to help Jesus carry the Cross—he most certainly had ‘better’ things planned for that day. He was probably cursing his luck about being in the wrong place at the wrong time! What had perhaps started out as a pleasant day, suddenly deteriorated rapidly when he came across Jesus. Pleasure turned to pain. Yet God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and God’s ways are not our ways (Isaias 55:8-9). Simon’s way was the road to Jerusalem, God’s way was the Way of the Cross. “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Psalm 125:5).
From Sorrow to Joy
It is painful to leave all things for the sake of God. It is painful to live in poverty. It is initially painful to withdraw oneself from the world and our worldly family, relatives and friends—and then endure their comments, taunts and insults. It is painful to do what is right when all the world does what it wants. It is painful to be a Christian when everyone around is becoming more and more pagan and anti-Christian. Yet, as Our Lady told St. Bernadette—“I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next!”
As Our Lord told His Apostles at the Last Supper, “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20), to which St. Peter later adds: “Wherein you shall greatly rejoice, if now you must be for a little time made sorrowful” (1 Peter 1:6). “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy” … “Going they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming, they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves” (Psalm 125:6-7).
“For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting. And in doing good, let us not fail. For in due time we shall reap, not failing” (Galatians 6:8-9). “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who soweth in blessings, shall also reap blessings” (2 Corinthians 9:6).
The Providence of God Provides Help
God’s Providence never fails! What does fail, is our confidence in that Providence! So many times did Our Lord praise the faith and confidence that persons had in Him, with phrases like: “Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel … Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole … when Jesus had seen their faith, He saith to the sick of the palsy: Son, thy sins are forgiven thee … O woman, great is thy faith: be it done to thee as thou wilt … According to your faith, be it done unto you … Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole ... Thy faith hath made thee safe, go in peace.”
Have Faith and Confidence
Jesus encourages to have faith and confidence in God, that He will help us in our needs—either directly or indirectly through a ‘Simon of Cyrene’: “Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the raiment? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they? And which of you by being anxious, can add to his stature by one cubit? And as for clothing, why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labor not, neither do they spin. But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed as one of these. And if the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God doth so clothe: how much more you, O ye of little faith? Be not solicitous therefore, saying, 'What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed?' For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof” (Matthew 6:25-34).
Example of Old Testament Providence
“Now a certain woman of the wives of the prophets cried to Eliseus, saying: ‘Thy servant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant was one that feared God, and behold the creditor is come to take away my two sons to serve him!’ And Eliseus said to her: ‘What wilt thou have me to do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in thy house?’ And she answered: ‘I thy handmaid have nothing in my house but a little oil, to anoint me!’ And he said to her: ‘Go, borrow of all thy neighbors empty vessels—and not a few! And go in, and shut thy door, when thou art within, and thy sons: then pour out thereof into all those vessels: and when they are full take them away!’ So the woman went, and shut the door upon her, and upon her sons: they brought her the vessels, and she poured in. And when the vessels were full, she said to her son: ‘Bring me yet another vessel!’ And he answered: ‘I have no more!’ And the oil flow stopped. And she came, and told the man of God. And he said: ‘Go, sell the oil, and pay thy creditor: and thou and thy sons live of the rest!” (4 Kings 4:1-7).
If We Can Be Kind, God is Even Kinder
“Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh, receiveth: and he that seeketh, findeth: and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Or what man is there among you, of whom if his son shall ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he shall ask him a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more will your Father, Who is in Heaven, give good things to them that ask Him?” (Matthew 7:7-11).
Becoming Simons of Cyrene
The well-known phrase “Give and take” is defined as meaning “the process by which people reach an agreement with each other by giving up something that was wanted and agreeing to some of the things wanted by the other person.” Yet it even more profound in the spiritual domain. Notice that the word “give” comes before “take”—it is the same with God: “In this is charity: not as though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Jesus tells us to imitate this love of God in loving others: “This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:12). St. Paul adds: “Owe no man anything, but to love one another. For he that loveth his neighbor, hath fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8). We must be Simons of Cyrene to those around us, as Christ has been a ‘Simon of Cyrene’ to us.
God Gives First
God gave first—He always has. He does not do things or give us things because He owes us anything. He does not love us because we loved Him first and now He feels obliged to return some love! God created the universe and mankind so that it could share in God’s goodness and happiness. He was not obliged to do so—He did it freely in an act of love. Our Lord was the personification of the love of God, He was living, walking, talking love. He also gave first—He gave His life for us on the Cross; not because He owed us anything, but He did so in an act of love: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Christ was our Simon of Cyrene—we were condemned to eternal death and were on the Way to Hell, when He came out of the blue and took our Cross of Eternal Death upon Himself. Simon of Cyrene only carried the Cross, but did not die on it—Jesus both carried it and died upon our Cross of Eternal Death!
Simon and Jesus Struggle Together to Calvary
Since we have sinned, we have to suffer. The Way of the Cross is a way of suffering and it is the Way to Heaven. It is a road that we must walk. Our Lady says: “Many times I shall repeat to thee the lesson containing the greatest wisdom for souls, which consists in the knowledge of the Cross, in the love of sufferings, and in putting this knowledge into practice by bearing afflictions with patience. If the condition of mortals were not so low, they would covet sufferings merely for the sake of their God and Lord, who has proclaimed them to be according to His will and pleasure; for the faithful and loving servant should always prefer the likings of his lord to his own convenience. But the worldlings in their torpidity are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Father and Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings and that His sinful children must reap the fruit of the Redemption by imitation of their sinless Chief.” (The Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Our Lady continues: “He is not a true son of his father, who does not imitate Him, nor he a good disciple, who does not follow his Master, nor he a good servant, who does not accompany his Lord; nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. But our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us, who see them forgetful of this truth and so adverse to suffering, to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation. And yet even all this is insufficient, since their inclinations and their blind love of visible things detains them and makes them hard and heavy of heart; they rob them of remembrance and affection toward these higher things, which might raise them above themselves and above created things.” (The Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda).
“Accept then, my dearest, this doctrine and engrave it deeply into thy heart. Understand that as a daughter of the Most High, as a spouse of my Son, and as my disciple, even if from no other motive, thou must acquire the precious gem of suffering and thus become pleasing to thy Lord and Spouse. I exhort thee, my daughter, to select the sufferings of His Cross in preference to His favors and gifts and rather embrace afflictions than desire to be visited with caresses; for in choosing favors and delights thou mayest be moved by self-love, but in accepting tribulations and sorrows, thou canst be moved only by the love of Christ. And if preference is to be given to sufferings rather than to delights, wherever it can be done without sin, what foolishness is it, when men pursue so blindly the deceitful and vile delights of the senses, and when they abhor so much all that pertains to suffering for Christ and for the good of their soul?” (The Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda).
As we carry our Cross through these fourteen days of Passiontide—which recalls the fourteen Stations of the Cross—we arrive at the fifth station, where Jesus needs help in carrying His Cross. Isaias speaks of the future Messias treading the winepress alone: “I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the Gentiles there is not a man with Me: I have trampled on them in My indignation, and have trodden them down in My wrath, and their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, and I have stained all my clothing. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, the year of my redemption is come. I looked about, and there was none to help: I sought, and there was none to give aid: and My own arm hath saved for Me, and my indignation itself hath helped Me” (Isaias 63:3-5).
By Force, Not Desire
Jesus was without a helper throughout His Passion—only at the latter end do we see some help arrive. Yet that help was not voluntary, but it was forced help—as Simon of Cyrene was forced by the Roman soldiers to carry the Cross of Jesus: “And going out, they found a man of Cyrene, named Simon: him they forced to take up His cross” (Matthew 27:32). He did it simply because he was coerced, not because he wanted to do it. The same is true of us—many, if not most, carry their crosses because there is no escape from them. If they could escape the cross, they would.
Helping Others is Helping Jesus
We are also surrounded by countless souls carrying their crosses, and yet we neglect to help them—or, at best, help only a little—because we fail to see Jesus in that person and in that cross. Our Lord Himself told us: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me ... as long as you did it NOT to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me” (Matthew 25:40, 45).
I Did It By Myself!
Many think themselves to be “self-made men” or “self-made women”—saying all that I have acquired and achieved is the fruit of my own work and efforts!” Yet this insane pride denies and contradicts the words of Our Lord, who said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). God’s Providence is behind everything—even down the hair that falls from our heads, as Our Lord pointed out in His ‘Sermon on the Mount.’ If we have much, then it is down to God’s Providence arranging things and favoring things. If we have little, then it is also down to God’s Providence. Yet there is danger in having much, for, as Holy Scripture warns: “And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more” (Luke 12:48).
Who Did What?
All that we have—by way of the Faith, talents, health, wealth, possessions, resources, power, influence, contacts—we have by the designs and will of Divine Providence. St. James reminds us: “Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). To which St. Paul adds: “What hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? … Do not forget to do good, and to share; for by such sacrifices God’s favor is obtained … Freely have you received, freely give” (1 Corinthians 4:7; Hebrews 13:16, Matthew 10:8).
“All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them” (Matthew 7:7-11). “Give to him that asketh of thee and from him that would borrow of thee turn not away” (Matthew 5:42). “Give, and it shall be given to you: good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over shall they give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you shall give to others, it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:38).
New Commandment
If God has freely given all He has to us and even given us a chance to share in the happiness of Heaven, we should have the same attitude as God. In fact Jesus explicitly says so: “A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34). It is not a mere suggestion, but a commandment that He gives. St. Paul elaborates on this: “He that hath the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him: how doth the charity of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17). “But when thou dost alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth. That thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee” (Matthew 6:3-4). “For whosoever shall give you to drink a cup of water in My Name, because you belong to Christ: amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward” (Mark 9:40). “Lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:20-21).
Selfish or Selfless
Are we selfish or selfless—each word starts the same way, but the endings are different. Likewise, all persons start the same way, but their endings or fates are different. We have been given much, not that we might wallow in what we have—like the rich man, in the similitude of Our Lord: “The land of a certain rich man brought forth plenty of fruits. And he thought within himself, saying: ‘What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?’ And he said: ‘This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and will build greater; and into them will I gather all things that are grown to me, and my goods. And I will say to my soul: “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thy rest; eat, drink, make good cheer!”’ But God said to him: ‘Thou fool! This night do they require thy soul of thee: and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?’ So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God” (Luke 12:16-21). Whatever God has given us by way of talents, health, wealth, possessions, resources, power, influence, contacts, etc.—is meant to be used for the honor and glory of God: “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Selflessness Can Cause Pain, But Can Lead to Joy
Simon of Cyrene was certainly not very happy about having to help Jesus carry the Cross—he most certainly had ‘better’ things planned for that day. He was probably cursing his luck about being in the wrong place at the wrong time! What had perhaps started out as a pleasant day, suddenly deteriorated rapidly when he came across Jesus. Pleasure turned to pain. Yet God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and God’s ways are not our ways (Isaias 55:8-9). Simon’s way was the road to Jerusalem, God’s way was the Way of the Cross. “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Psalm 125:5).
From Sorrow to Joy
It is painful to leave all things for the sake of God. It is painful to live in poverty. It is initially painful to withdraw oneself from the world and our worldly family, relatives and friends—and then endure their comments, taunts and insults. It is painful to do what is right when all the world does what it wants. It is painful to be a Christian when everyone around is becoming more and more pagan and anti-Christian. Yet, as Our Lady told St. Bernadette—“I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next!”
As Our Lord told His Apostles at the Last Supper, “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20), to which St. Peter later adds: “Wherein you shall greatly rejoice, if now you must be for a little time made sorrowful” (1 Peter 1:6). “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy” … “Going they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming, they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves” (Psalm 125:6-7).
“For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting. And in doing good, let us not fail. For in due time we shall reap, not failing” (Galatians 6:8-9). “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who soweth in blessings, shall also reap blessings” (2 Corinthians 9:6).
The Providence of God Provides Help
God’s Providence never fails! What does fail, is our confidence in that Providence! So many times did Our Lord praise the faith and confidence that persons had in Him, with phrases like: “Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel … Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole … when Jesus had seen their faith, He saith to the sick of the palsy: Son, thy sins are forgiven thee … O woman, great is thy faith: be it done to thee as thou wilt … According to your faith, be it done unto you … Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole ... Thy faith hath made thee safe, go in peace.”
Have Faith and Confidence
Jesus encourages to have faith and confidence in God, that He will help us in our needs—either directly or indirectly through a ‘Simon of Cyrene’: “Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the raiment? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they? And which of you by being anxious, can add to his stature by one cubit? And as for clothing, why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labor not, neither do they spin. But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed as one of these. And if the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God doth so clothe: how much more you, O ye of little faith? Be not solicitous therefore, saying, 'What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed?' For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof” (Matthew 6:25-34).
Example of Old Testament Providence
“Now a certain woman of the wives of the prophets cried to Eliseus, saying: ‘Thy servant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant was one that feared God, and behold the creditor is come to take away my two sons to serve him!’ And Eliseus said to her: ‘What wilt thou have me to do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in thy house?’ And she answered: ‘I thy handmaid have nothing in my house but a little oil, to anoint me!’ And he said to her: ‘Go, borrow of all thy neighbors empty vessels—and not a few! And go in, and shut thy door, when thou art within, and thy sons: then pour out thereof into all those vessels: and when they are full take them away!’ So the woman went, and shut the door upon her, and upon her sons: they brought her the vessels, and she poured in. And when the vessels were full, she said to her son: ‘Bring me yet another vessel!’ And he answered: ‘I have no more!’ And the oil flow stopped. And she came, and told the man of God. And he said: ‘Go, sell the oil, and pay thy creditor: and thou and thy sons live of the rest!” (4 Kings 4:1-7).
If We Can Be Kind, God is Even Kinder
“Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh, receiveth: and he that seeketh, findeth: and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Or what man is there among you, of whom if his son shall ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he shall ask him a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more will your Father, Who is in Heaven, give good things to them that ask Him?” (Matthew 7:7-11).
Becoming Simons of Cyrene
The well-known phrase “Give and take” is defined as meaning “the process by which people reach an agreement with each other by giving up something that was wanted and agreeing to some of the things wanted by the other person.” Yet it even more profound in the spiritual domain. Notice that the word “give” comes before “take”—it is the same with God: “In this is charity: not as though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Jesus tells us to imitate this love of God in loving others: “This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:12). St. Paul adds: “Owe no man anything, but to love one another. For he that loveth his neighbor, hath fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8). We must be Simons of Cyrene to those around us, as Christ has been a ‘Simon of Cyrene’ to us.
God Gives First
God gave first—He always has. He does not do things or give us things because He owes us anything. He does not love us because we loved Him first and now He feels obliged to return some love! God created the universe and mankind so that it could share in God’s goodness and happiness. He was not obliged to do so—He did it freely in an act of love. Our Lord was the personification of the love of God, He was living, walking, talking love. He also gave first—He gave His life for us on the Cross; not because He owed us anything, but He did so in an act of love: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Christ was our Simon of Cyrene—we were condemned to eternal death and were on the Way to Hell, when He came out of the blue and took our Cross of Eternal Death upon Himself. Simon of Cyrene only carried the Cross, but did not die on it—Jesus both carried it and died upon our Cross of Eternal Death!
Simon and Jesus Struggle Together to Calvary
Since we have sinned, we have to suffer. The Way of the Cross is a way of suffering and it is the Way to Heaven. It is a road that we must walk. Our Lady says: “Many times I shall repeat to thee the lesson containing the greatest wisdom for souls, which consists in the knowledge of the Cross, in the love of sufferings, and in putting this knowledge into practice by bearing afflictions with patience. If the condition of mortals were not so low, they would covet sufferings merely for the sake of their God and Lord, who has proclaimed them to be according to His will and pleasure; for the faithful and loving servant should always prefer the likings of his lord to his own convenience. But the worldlings in their torpidity are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Father and Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings and that His sinful children must reap the fruit of the Redemption by imitation of their sinless Chief.” (The Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Our Lady continues: “He is not a true son of his father, who does not imitate Him, nor he a good disciple, who does not follow his Master, nor he a good servant, who does not accompany his Lord; nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. But our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us, who see them forgetful of this truth and so adverse to suffering, to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation. And yet even all this is insufficient, since their inclinations and their blind love of visible things detains them and makes them hard and heavy of heart; they rob them of remembrance and affection toward these higher things, which might raise them above themselves and above created things.” (The Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda).
“Accept then, my dearest, this doctrine and engrave it deeply into thy heart. Understand that as a daughter of the Most High, as a spouse of my Son, and as my disciple, even if from no other motive, thou must acquire the precious gem of suffering and thus become pleasing to thy Lord and Spouse. I exhort thee, my daughter, to select the sufferings of His Cross in preference to His favors and gifts and rather embrace afflictions than desire to be visited with caresses; for in choosing favors and delights thou mayest be moved by self-love, but in accepting tribulations and sorrows, thou canst be moved only by the love of Christ. And if preference is to be given to sufferings rather than to delights, wherever it can be done without sin, what foolishness is it, when men pursue so blindly the deceitful and vile delights of the senses, and when they abhor so much all that pertains to suffering for Christ and for the good of their soul?” (The Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Article 23
Wednesday after Passion Sunday, March 29th, 2023
Mary Will Help You With Your Cross As She Helped Jesus
Wednesday after Passion Sunday, March 29th, 2023
Mary Will Help You With Your Cross As She Helped Jesus
First Things First
It is Passiontide—a period of fourteen days before Easter Sunday. Fourteen days recalls the fourteen Stations of the Cross and so we are considering these Stations—one-by-one—over these fourteen days. There is nothing so important as the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing as important—yet revolting to human nature—as the Cross. Yet, as the liturgy of the Church so truly says: “Hail Cross! Our only hope!” and “In the Cross is salvation” –“Ave crux, spes unica!” “In cruce salus.” Where there is the Cross, there too is Jesus. Wherever there is Jesus, there too is the Cross. And wherever there is Jesus and the Cross, there too is His holy Mother. Today we look at the fourth Station, where Jesus encounters His holy Mother on the way to Calvary.
A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed
If a mother is the kind of mother she should be, then we can say: Who is a better friend than a mother? Who cares as deeply as a mother? Who suffers along with a child like a mother? A mother suffers with her child in giving birth! A mother’s face is the most frequently seen face that the new-born baby sees! It is the mother that first feeds and continues to feed the child after birth. The mother is a life-giver, a doctor, a nurse, a maid, a cook, a teacher, a coach, a supporter, a judge, an attorney, a policewoman, a jailer, a provider and a protector for her child. There have been some outstanding, heroic and poignant examples of motherhood in the history of the world—yet there is no mother who is as much a mother to us as is the Mother of God. We can readily put into her mouth the words of Holy Scripture: “Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? And if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee!” (Isaias 49:15).
Mother Par Excellence
Our Lady is "The Mother Par Excellence." She is our spiritual Mother. She is our spiritual life-giver, doctor, nurse, teacher, coach, supporter, attorney, policewoman, provider and protector. She is the Mediatrix of All Graces, through whom God wishes to dispense all his gifts, graces, favors, mercies and blessings.
As St. Louis de Montfort says: “As in the natural life a child must have a father and a mother, so in the supernatural life of grace a true child of the Church must have God for his Father and Mary for his mother ... She is His mysterious canal; she is His aqueduct, through which He makes His mercies flow gently and abundantly. To Mary, His faithful spouse, God the Holy Ghost has communicated His unspeakable gifts; and He has chosen her to be the dispenser of all He possesses, in such wise that she distributes to whom she wills, as much as she wills, as she wills and when she wills, all His gifts and graces ... St. Augustine went so far as to say that, even in this world, all the elect are enclosed in the womb of Mary, and that their real birthday is when this good mother brings them forth to eternal life. Consequently, just as an infant draws all its nourishment from its mother, who gives according to its needs, so the elect draw all their spiritual nourishment and all their strength from Mary” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary and The Secret of Mary).
Was It Fair For Jesus and Mary to Suffer?
Of course it wasn’t fair—they were both innocent of sin and thus should have been exempt from suffering. Yet it was the path that Divine Providence had led them onto and they accepted to suffer for us poor sinners. As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “He it was who gave His own life and subjected Himself to sufferings for the good of His creatures without waiting for any merits on their part .. . Take note, at the same time, that my Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much and that He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of his love for souls.” This, too, was the attitude of our heavenly Mother also, as she says: “It was necessary for me to suffer and to be afflicted … I not only offered to deliver my Son over to Passion and Death, but I asked Him to make me His companion and partaker of all Hs sorrows, sufferings and torments, which request the eternal Father granted ... I, as His Mother, was not to be deprived of this blessed distinction of being entirely like unto Him, which alone makes this life most estimable.”
Our Lady on the Road to Calvary
We can rely on Our Lady being present in our sufferings and exerting some control over them, as she did for her Son on the road to Calvary—as shown in this extract from The Mystical City of God, by the Venerable Mary of Agreda:
“Another hidden and astonishing miracle was wrought by the right hand of God, through the instrumentality of the Blessed Mary, against Lucifer and his infernal spirits. It took place in the following manner:
"The dragon and his associates, though they could not understand the humiliation of the Lord, were most attentive to all that happened in the Passion of the Lord. Now, when He took upon Himself the Cross, all these enemies felt a new and mysterious tremor and weakness, which caused in them great consternation and confused distress. Conscious of these unwonted and invincible feelings the prince of darkness feared, that, in the Passion and Death of Christ Our Lord, some dire and irreparable destruction of his reign was imminent. In order not to be overtaken by it, in the presence of Christ our God, the dragon resolved to retire and fly with all his followers to the caverns of Hell.
"But when he sought to execute this resolve, he was prevented by the great Queen and Mistress of all creation; for the Most High, enlightening her and intimating to her what she was to do, at the same time invested her with His power. The heavenly Mother, turning toward Lucifer and his squadrons, by her imperial command hindered them from flying; ordering them to await and witness the Passion to the end on Mount Calvary.
"The demons could not resist the command of the mighty Queen; for they recognized and felt the divine power operating in her. Subject to her sway, they followed Christ, like so many prisoners dragged along in chains to Calvary, where the eternal Wisdom had decreed to triumph over them from the throne of the Cross. There is nothing which can exemplify the discouragement and dismay, which from that moment began to oppress Lucifer and his demons. According to our way of speaking, they walked along to Calvary like criminals condemned to a terrible death, and seized by the dismay and consternation of an inevitable punishment. This punishment of the demon was in conformity with his malicious nature and proportioned to the evil committed by him, in introducing death and sin into the world, to remedy which, God himself was now undergoing Death.” (The Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Our Lady is with us in all our sufferings—we can meet her on our road of suffering at any time—and she, being the Mediatrix of All Grace, can obtain whatever graces are needed for us. Likewise she can control both devils and men—who may well be the sources or instruments of our suffering. As St. Louis de Montfort writes: “God has given Mary such great power against the devils that—as they have often been obliged to confess, in spite of themselves, by the mouths of the possessed—they fear one of her sighs for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats against them more than all other torments” (True Devotion to Mary).
The Ingratitude of Mary’s Spiritual Children
It was at the foot of the Cross that we became Our Lady’s spiritual children. The words that Our Lord spoke to St. John and Our Lady—“Mother, behold thy son!” and “Son, behold thy Mother!”--were more far reaching than at first seemed. The Fathers of the Church and the saints tell us that at this moment, and with these words, Mary became our spiritual Mother and we became her spiritual children.
Mary has never ceased to be the perfect Mother to us—but what kind of children have we been towards Mary? It is not for nothing that Our Lady of Good Success speaks of “my ungrateful daughters,” while Our Lady of La Salette says: “I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually. And all you think little of this. In vain you will pray, in vain you will act, you will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken over for all of you.” Sister Lucia of Fatima puts in further bad-light, when she says: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad.”
It was at the foot of the Cross that we became Our Lady’s spiritual children. The words that Our Lord spoke to St. John and Our Lady--“Mother, behold thy son!” and “Son, behold thy Mother!”—were more far reaching than at first seemed. The Fathers of the Church and the saints tell us that at this moment, and with these words, Mary became our spiritual Mother and we became her spiritual children.
Mary has never ceased to be the perfect Mother to us—but what kind of children have we been towards Mary? It is not for nothing that Our Lady of Good Success speaks of “my ungrateful daughters,” while Our Lady of La Salette says: “I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually. And you all think little of this. In vain you will pray, in vain you will act, you will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken over for all of you.” Sister Lucia of Fatima puts it in further bad-light, when she says: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad.” In other words, most of her spiritual children have turned a deaf-ear to her advice, pleas and commands!
Yet Mary is Our Hope—Our Only Hope
At La Salette, Our Lady states that in the chastisements that are to come, it is to her that people will turn. She calls especially upon her true spiritual children, who are animated by her spirit: “At the first blow of His thundering sword, the mountains and all Nature will tremble in terror, for the disorders and crimes of men have pierced the vault of the Heavens. Cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes. People will believe that all is lost. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of arms and blasphemy. The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession.”
At Fatima Our Lady clearly stated that she was—because God wills it so—our only remaining hope: “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary … because only she can help you!” (July 13th, 1917).
Going back to La Salette, we hear her speak of the role that her spiritual children shall have: “The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay. God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. I make an urgent appeal to the earth. I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven; I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men; I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit. Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world. It is time they came out and filled the world with light. Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children. I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see. For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends.”
As We Sow, So Shall We Reap
So we see that we shall reap what we sow! If we are close to Our Lady—by our many Rosaries and other prayers, by our spiritual reading and meditations about her, by faithfully wearing her scapulars and medals, by fulfilling her commands such as the Five First Saturday devotions and devotions to her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart—then she will be with us when all Hell breaks loose, just as she was with Christ her Son on the way to Calvary. She will not take away our sufferings, tribulations, pains, fears and anxieties—just as she did not take away those of her Son—but she will give us encouragement, guidance, grace and strength to do what we have to do!
One of those things that we have to do is SUFFER. There is no salvation without suffering. If we wish to follow Christ to Heaven, then we must follow Him on the Way of the Cross. The Cross is our key to Heaven. “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his Cross DAILY, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23). “And he that taketh not up his Cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:38). “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you weeping, that they are enemies of the Cross of Christ. Whose end is destruction; whose god is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things.” (Philippians 3:18-19).
The Man of Sorrows
In the Book of Isaias, we read his prophecy of the future Messias—Jesus Christ—Who would be a “man of sorrows” and great suffering: “There is no beauty in Him, nor comeliness: and we have seen Him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of Him. Despised, and the most abject of men, a MAN OF SORROWS, and acquainted with infirmity: and His look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows: and we have thought Him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our iniquities; He was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was offered because it was His own will, and He opened not His mouth: He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before His shearer, and He shall not open His mouth” (Isaias 53:2-7).
The Birth of the Man of Sorrows
Our Lady knew her prophecies—she had been trained for around ten years in the service of the Temple in Jerusalem. She knew the Messias would be “Man of Sorrows.” So when she accepted to be the Mother of Jesus, she accepted to be the Mother of the “Man of Sorrows” and thus became the “Mother of Sorrows.” Sorrow was the daily diet of the Holy Family household. As Our Lady would later reveal to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, not one day passed with sorrow of one kind or another. She, of course, had many visions and blessings—but they did not dispense her from her sorrows. As she herself says: “I and my holy spouse, Joseph, were poor, and at times we suffered great wants; but none of them were powerful enough to engender within our hearts the contagion of avarice. We concerned ourselves entirely with the glory of the Most High, relying wholly on His most faithful and tender care. This was what pleased Him so much, as thou hast understood and written; since He supplied our wants in various manners, even commanding the angels to help us and prepare for us our nourishment.
“In addition [what is important] is the resignation with which souls embrace and bear with equanimity and patience the labors and difficulties of mortal life. My most holy Son and I were eminent Masters in the practice of this doctrine. My Son began to teach it from the moment in which He was conceived in my womb. For already then He began to suffer, and as soon as He was born into the world He and I were banished by Herod into a desert, and His sufferings continued until He died on the Cross. I also labored to the end of my life, as thou wilt be informed more and more in the writing of this history. Since, therefore, We suffered so much for creatures and for their salvation, I desire thee to imitate Us in this conformity to the Divine Will. Suffer with a magnanimous heart, and labor to increase the possessions of thy Lord and Master, namely, souls, which are so precious in His sight and which He has purchased with His life-blood.” (The Mystical City of God).
The School and Science of Suffering
Our Lady, speaking to us through the Venerable Mary of Agreda, says: “Turn thy back on all sensible things, seeking only to love and to suffer. This is the science and divine philosophy taught thee by the visits of the Most High. Take notice, my dearest, that my most holy Son and myself are trying to find, among those who have arrived at the Way of the Cross, some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the sons of Adam, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If thou wishest to be our disciple, then enter into this school, in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights. With this wisdom the earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible; nor the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the blear-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors, and so full of ignorant admiration for costly grandeur. Thou, my daughter, choose for thyself the better part of being among the lowly and the forgotten ones of this world. I was Mother of the God-man Himself, and, on that account, Mistress of all creation conjointly with my Son: yet I was little known and my Son very much despised by men.”
Suffering is a Great Grace
Our Lady seeks to give us a true estimation of suffering: “I wish thee to remember, my beloved, that to suffer and to be afflicted, with or without one’s fault, is a benefit of which one cannot be worthy without special and great mercy of the Almighty. Moreover, to be allowed to suffer for one’s sins, is not only a mercy, but is demanded by justice. Behold, however, the great insanity of the children of Adam nowadays in desiring and seeking after advantages, benefits, and favors agreeable to their senses, and in sleeplessly striving to turn away from themselves, that which is painful, or includes any hardship or trouble. It would be to their greatest benefit to seek tribulations diligently, even when unmerited, yet they strive by all means to avoid them, even when merited, and even though they cannot be happy and blessed without having undergone such sufferings” (The Mystical City of God).
The Worldly Will Not Understand Nor Accept Suffering
Our Lady speaks of those who will be damned because of their refusal of suffering: “Unless gold is untouched by the furnace-heat, the iron by the file, the grain by the grinding stone or flail, the grapes by the wine-press, they are all useless and will not attain the end for which they are created. Why then will mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? If they were incapable and unworthy of attaining to the crown and reward of the infinite and eternal Good when innocent, how can they attain it, when they are in darkness and in disgrace before the Almighty? In addition to this, the sons of perdition are exerting all their powers to remain unworthy and hostile to God and in evading crosses and afflictions, which are the paths left open for returning to God; in rejecting the light of the intellect, which is the means of recognizing the deceptiveness of visible things; in refusing the nourishment of the just, which is the only means of grace, the price of glory; and, above all, in repudiating the legitimate inheritance, selected by my Son and Lord for Himself and for all His elect, since He was born and lived continually in afflictions and died upon the Cross” (The Mystical City of God).
Rejoice and Congratulate Yourself in Your Suffering
Our Lady tells us be joyful in our sufferings: “By such standards, must thou measure the value of suffering, which the worldly will not understand. Since they are unworthy of heavenly knowledge, they despise it in proportion to their ignorance. Rejoice and congratulate thyself in thy sufferings, and, whenever the Almighty deigns to send thee any, hasten to meet it and welcome it as one of His blessings and pledges of His glorious love. Furnish thy heart with magnanimity and constancy, so that, when occasion of suffering is given thee, thou mayest bear it with the same equanimity as the prosperous and agreeable things. Be not filled with sadness in executing that which thou hast promised in gladness, for the Lord loves those that are equally ready to give as to receive. Sacrifice thy heart and all thy faculties, as a holocaust of patience, and chant in new hymns of praise and joy the justification of the Most High, whenever, in the place of thy pilgrimage, He signals and distinguishes thee as His own, with the signs of His friendship, which are no other than the tribulations and trials of suffering” (The Mystical City of God).
Let us take to heart these words of our Sorrowful Mother and see and seek the spiritual gold that is hidden beneath the tarnished surface of suffering. For suffering conforms and configures us to resemble Our Lady and her Son. Suffering, rightly accepted and correctly used, will be what pays for our sins and opens the gates of Heaven to us one day. The Holy Souls suffering in Purgatory are doing nothing else than making up for a lack of suffering in this life. Let us learn, both from their mistakes and Our Lady's words. She meets us on our own road to Calvary and she does not take away our sufferings, but encourages us and strengthens us in them.
It is Passiontide—a period of fourteen days before Easter Sunday. Fourteen days recalls the fourteen Stations of the Cross and so we are considering these Stations—one-by-one—over these fourteen days. There is nothing so important as the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing as important—yet revolting to human nature—as the Cross. Yet, as the liturgy of the Church so truly says: “Hail Cross! Our only hope!” and “In the Cross is salvation” –“Ave crux, spes unica!” “In cruce salus.” Where there is the Cross, there too is Jesus. Wherever there is Jesus, there too is the Cross. And wherever there is Jesus and the Cross, there too is His holy Mother. Today we look at the fourth Station, where Jesus encounters His holy Mother on the way to Calvary.
A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed
If a mother is the kind of mother she should be, then we can say: Who is a better friend than a mother? Who cares as deeply as a mother? Who suffers along with a child like a mother? A mother suffers with her child in giving birth! A mother’s face is the most frequently seen face that the new-born baby sees! It is the mother that first feeds and continues to feed the child after birth. The mother is a life-giver, a doctor, a nurse, a maid, a cook, a teacher, a coach, a supporter, a judge, an attorney, a policewoman, a jailer, a provider and a protector for her child. There have been some outstanding, heroic and poignant examples of motherhood in the history of the world—yet there is no mother who is as much a mother to us as is the Mother of God. We can readily put into her mouth the words of Holy Scripture: “Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? And if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee!” (Isaias 49:15).
Mother Par Excellence
Our Lady is "The Mother Par Excellence." She is our spiritual Mother. She is our spiritual life-giver, doctor, nurse, teacher, coach, supporter, attorney, policewoman, provider and protector. She is the Mediatrix of All Graces, through whom God wishes to dispense all his gifts, graces, favors, mercies and blessings.
As St. Louis de Montfort says: “As in the natural life a child must have a father and a mother, so in the supernatural life of grace a true child of the Church must have God for his Father and Mary for his mother ... She is His mysterious canal; she is His aqueduct, through which He makes His mercies flow gently and abundantly. To Mary, His faithful spouse, God the Holy Ghost has communicated His unspeakable gifts; and He has chosen her to be the dispenser of all He possesses, in such wise that she distributes to whom she wills, as much as she wills, as she wills and when she wills, all His gifts and graces ... St. Augustine went so far as to say that, even in this world, all the elect are enclosed in the womb of Mary, and that their real birthday is when this good mother brings them forth to eternal life. Consequently, just as an infant draws all its nourishment from its mother, who gives according to its needs, so the elect draw all their spiritual nourishment and all their strength from Mary” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary and The Secret of Mary).
Was It Fair For Jesus and Mary to Suffer?
Of course it wasn’t fair—they were both innocent of sin and thus should have been exempt from suffering. Yet it was the path that Divine Providence had led them onto and they accepted to suffer for us poor sinners. As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “He it was who gave His own life and subjected Himself to sufferings for the good of His creatures without waiting for any merits on their part .. . Take note, at the same time, that my Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much and that He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of his love for souls.” This, too, was the attitude of our heavenly Mother also, as she says: “It was necessary for me to suffer and to be afflicted … I not only offered to deliver my Son over to Passion and Death, but I asked Him to make me His companion and partaker of all Hs sorrows, sufferings and torments, which request the eternal Father granted ... I, as His Mother, was not to be deprived of this blessed distinction of being entirely like unto Him, which alone makes this life most estimable.”
Our Lady on the Road to Calvary
We can rely on Our Lady being present in our sufferings and exerting some control over them, as she did for her Son on the road to Calvary—as shown in this extract from The Mystical City of God, by the Venerable Mary of Agreda:
“Another hidden and astonishing miracle was wrought by the right hand of God, through the instrumentality of the Blessed Mary, against Lucifer and his infernal spirits. It took place in the following manner:
"The dragon and his associates, though they could not understand the humiliation of the Lord, were most attentive to all that happened in the Passion of the Lord. Now, when He took upon Himself the Cross, all these enemies felt a new and mysterious tremor and weakness, which caused in them great consternation and confused distress. Conscious of these unwonted and invincible feelings the prince of darkness feared, that, in the Passion and Death of Christ Our Lord, some dire and irreparable destruction of his reign was imminent. In order not to be overtaken by it, in the presence of Christ our God, the dragon resolved to retire and fly with all his followers to the caverns of Hell.
"But when he sought to execute this resolve, he was prevented by the great Queen and Mistress of all creation; for the Most High, enlightening her and intimating to her what she was to do, at the same time invested her with His power. The heavenly Mother, turning toward Lucifer and his squadrons, by her imperial command hindered them from flying; ordering them to await and witness the Passion to the end on Mount Calvary.
"The demons could not resist the command of the mighty Queen; for they recognized and felt the divine power operating in her. Subject to her sway, they followed Christ, like so many prisoners dragged along in chains to Calvary, where the eternal Wisdom had decreed to triumph over them from the throne of the Cross. There is nothing which can exemplify the discouragement and dismay, which from that moment began to oppress Lucifer and his demons. According to our way of speaking, they walked along to Calvary like criminals condemned to a terrible death, and seized by the dismay and consternation of an inevitable punishment. This punishment of the demon was in conformity with his malicious nature and proportioned to the evil committed by him, in introducing death and sin into the world, to remedy which, God himself was now undergoing Death.” (The Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Our Lady is with us in all our sufferings—we can meet her on our road of suffering at any time—and she, being the Mediatrix of All Grace, can obtain whatever graces are needed for us. Likewise she can control both devils and men—who may well be the sources or instruments of our suffering. As St. Louis de Montfort writes: “God has given Mary such great power against the devils that—as they have often been obliged to confess, in spite of themselves, by the mouths of the possessed—they fear one of her sighs for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats against them more than all other torments” (True Devotion to Mary).
The Ingratitude of Mary’s Spiritual Children
It was at the foot of the Cross that we became Our Lady’s spiritual children. The words that Our Lord spoke to St. John and Our Lady—“Mother, behold thy son!” and “Son, behold thy Mother!”--were more far reaching than at first seemed. The Fathers of the Church and the saints tell us that at this moment, and with these words, Mary became our spiritual Mother and we became her spiritual children.
Mary has never ceased to be the perfect Mother to us—but what kind of children have we been towards Mary? It is not for nothing that Our Lady of Good Success speaks of “my ungrateful daughters,” while Our Lady of La Salette says: “I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually. And all you think little of this. In vain you will pray, in vain you will act, you will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken over for all of you.” Sister Lucia of Fatima puts in further bad-light, when she says: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad.”
It was at the foot of the Cross that we became Our Lady’s spiritual children. The words that Our Lord spoke to St. John and Our Lady--“Mother, behold thy son!” and “Son, behold thy Mother!”—were more far reaching than at first seemed. The Fathers of the Church and the saints tell us that at this moment, and with these words, Mary became our spiritual Mother and we became her spiritual children.
Mary has never ceased to be the perfect Mother to us—but what kind of children have we been towards Mary? It is not for nothing that Our Lady of Good Success speaks of “my ungrateful daughters,” while Our Lady of La Salette says: “I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually. And you all think little of this. In vain you will pray, in vain you will act, you will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken over for all of you.” Sister Lucia of Fatima puts it in further bad-light, when she says: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad.” In other words, most of her spiritual children have turned a deaf-ear to her advice, pleas and commands!
Yet Mary is Our Hope—Our Only Hope
At La Salette, Our Lady states that in the chastisements that are to come, it is to her that people will turn. She calls especially upon her true spiritual children, who are animated by her spirit: “At the first blow of His thundering sword, the mountains and all Nature will tremble in terror, for the disorders and crimes of men have pierced the vault of the Heavens. Cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes. People will believe that all is lost. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of arms and blasphemy. The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession.”
At Fatima Our Lady clearly stated that she was—because God wills it so—our only remaining hope: “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary … because only she can help you!” (July 13th, 1917).
Going back to La Salette, we hear her speak of the role that her spiritual children shall have: “The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay. God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. I make an urgent appeal to the earth. I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven; I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men; I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit. Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world. It is time they came out and filled the world with light. Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children. I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see. For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends.”
As We Sow, So Shall We Reap
So we see that we shall reap what we sow! If we are close to Our Lady—by our many Rosaries and other prayers, by our spiritual reading and meditations about her, by faithfully wearing her scapulars and medals, by fulfilling her commands such as the Five First Saturday devotions and devotions to her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart—then she will be with us when all Hell breaks loose, just as she was with Christ her Son on the way to Calvary. She will not take away our sufferings, tribulations, pains, fears and anxieties—just as she did not take away those of her Son—but she will give us encouragement, guidance, grace and strength to do what we have to do!
One of those things that we have to do is SUFFER. There is no salvation without suffering. If we wish to follow Christ to Heaven, then we must follow Him on the Way of the Cross. The Cross is our key to Heaven. “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his Cross DAILY, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23). “And he that taketh not up his Cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:38). “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you weeping, that they are enemies of the Cross of Christ. Whose end is destruction; whose god is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things.” (Philippians 3:18-19).
The Man of Sorrows
In the Book of Isaias, we read his prophecy of the future Messias—Jesus Christ—Who would be a “man of sorrows” and great suffering: “There is no beauty in Him, nor comeliness: and we have seen Him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of Him. Despised, and the most abject of men, a MAN OF SORROWS, and acquainted with infirmity: and His look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows: and we have thought Him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our iniquities; He was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was offered because it was His own will, and He opened not His mouth: He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before His shearer, and He shall not open His mouth” (Isaias 53:2-7).
The Birth of the Man of Sorrows
Our Lady knew her prophecies—she had been trained for around ten years in the service of the Temple in Jerusalem. She knew the Messias would be “Man of Sorrows.” So when she accepted to be the Mother of Jesus, she accepted to be the Mother of the “Man of Sorrows” and thus became the “Mother of Sorrows.” Sorrow was the daily diet of the Holy Family household. As Our Lady would later reveal to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, not one day passed with sorrow of one kind or another. She, of course, had many visions and blessings—but they did not dispense her from her sorrows. As she herself says: “I and my holy spouse, Joseph, were poor, and at times we suffered great wants; but none of them were powerful enough to engender within our hearts the contagion of avarice. We concerned ourselves entirely with the glory of the Most High, relying wholly on His most faithful and tender care. This was what pleased Him so much, as thou hast understood and written; since He supplied our wants in various manners, even commanding the angels to help us and prepare for us our nourishment.
“In addition [what is important] is the resignation with which souls embrace and bear with equanimity and patience the labors and difficulties of mortal life. My most holy Son and I were eminent Masters in the practice of this doctrine. My Son began to teach it from the moment in which He was conceived in my womb. For already then He began to suffer, and as soon as He was born into the world He and I were banished by Herod into a desert, and His sufferings continued until He died on the Cross. I also labored to the end of my life, as thou wilt be informed more and more in the writing of this history. Since, therefore, We suffered so much for creatures and for their salvation, I desire thee to imitate Us in this conformity to the Divine Will. Suffer with a magnanimous heart, and labor to increase the possessions of thy Lord and Master, namely, souls, which are so precious in His sight and which He has purchased with His life-blood.” (The Mystical City of God).
The School and Science of Suffering
Our Lady, speaking to us through the Venerable Mary of Agreda, says: “Turn thy back on all sensible things, seeking only to love and to suffer. This is the science and divine philosophy taught thee by the visits of the Most High. Take notice, my dearest, that my most holy Son and myself are trying to find, among those who have arrived at the Way of the Cross, some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the sons of Adam, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If thou wishest to be our disciple, then enter into this school, in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights. With this wisdom the earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible; nor the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the blear-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors, and so full of ignorant admiration for costly grandeur. Thou, my daughter, choose for thyself the better part of being among the lowly and the forgotten ones of this world. I was Mother of the God-man Himself, and, on that account, Mistress of all creation conjointly with my Son: yet I was little known and my Son very much despised by men.”
Suffering is a Great Grace
Our Lady seeks to give us a true estimation of suffering: “I wish thee to remember, my beloved, that to suffer and to be afflicted, with or without one’s fault, is a benefit of which one cannot be worthy without special and great mercy of the Almighty. Moreover, to be allowed to suffer for one’s sins, is not only a mercy, but is demanded by justice. Behold, however, the great insanity of the children of Adam nowadays in desiring and seeking after advantages, benefits, and favors agreeable to their senses, and in sleeplessly striving to turn away from themselves, that which is painful, or includes any hardship or trouble. It would be to their greatest benefit to seek tribulations diligently, even when unmerited, yet they strive by all means to avoid them, even when merited, and even though they cannot be happy and blessed without having undergone such sufferings” (The Mystical City of God).
The Worldly Will Not Understand Nor Accept Suffering
Our Lady speaks of those who will be damned because of their refusal of suffering: “Unless gold is untouched by the furnace-heat, the iron by the file, the grain by the grinding stone or flail, the grapes by the wine-press, they are all useless and will not attain the end for which they are created. Why then will mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? If they were incapable and unworthy of attaining to the crown and reward of the infinite and eternal Good when innocent, how can they attain it, when they are in darkness and in disgrace before the Almighty? In addition to this, the sons of perdition are exerting all their powers to remain unworthy and hostile to God and in evading crosses and afflictions, which are the paths left open for returning to God; in rejecting the light of the intellect, which is the means of recognizing the deceptiveness of visible things; in refusing the nourishment of the just, which is the only means of grace, the price of glory; and, above all, in repudiating the legitimate inheritance, selected by my Son and Lord for Himself and for all His elect, since He was born and lived continually in afflictions and died upon the Cross” (The Mystical City of God).
Rejoice and Congratulate Yourself in Your Suffering
Our Lady tells us be joyful in our sufferings: “By such standards, must thou measure the value of suffering, which the worldly will not understand. Since they are unworthy of heavenly knowledge, they despise it in proportion to their ignorance. Rejoice and congratulate thyself in thy sufferings, and, whenever the Almighty deigns to send thee any, hasten to meet it and welcome it as one of His blessings and pledges of His glorious love. Furnish thy heart with magnanimity and constancy, so that, when occasion of suffering is given thee, thou mayest bear it with the same equanimity as the prosperous and agreeable things. Be not filled with sadness in executing that which thou hast promised in gladness, for the Lord loves those that are equally ready to give as to receive. Sacrifice thy heart and all thy faculties, as a holocaust of patience, and chant in new hymns of praise and joy the justification of the Most High, whenever, in the place of thy pilgrimage, He signals and distinguishes thee as His own, with the signs of His friendship, which are no other than the tribulations and trials of suffering” (The Mystical City of God).
Let us take to heart these words of our Sorrowful Mother and see and seek the spiritual gold that is hidden beneath the tarnished surface of suffering. For suffering conforms and configures us to resemble Our Lady and her Son. Suffering, rightly accepted and correctly used, will be what pays for our sins and opens the gates of Heaven to us one day. The Holy Souls suffering in Purgatory are doing nothing else than making up for a lack of suffering in this life. Let us learn, both from their mistakes and Our Lady's words. She meets us on our own road to Calvary and she does not take away our sufferings, but encourages us and strengthens us in them.
Article 22
Tuesday after Passion Sunday, March 28th, 2023
Falling, Sinking & Rising
Tuesday after Passion Sunday, March 28th, 2023
Falling, Sinking & Rising
Our Lady Fell Not
Our Lady, speaking of her sinlessness, says:“His Providence so disposed things, that my absolute security from sin was hidden to me; I saw that, as far as depended on me alone, I could fall, and that it was the Divine Will that preserved me. Thus He reserved to Himself his knowledge of my security from sin, and left me in solicitude and holy fear of sinning during my pilgrimage on earth. From the instant of my Conception until my death I never lost this fear, but on the contrary grew in this fear as life flowed on” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Adam and Eve Fell Fatally
Holy Scripture tell us: “Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). Our Lady comments: “Divine Justice closed Heaven against mortals on account of the first sin, until my most holy Son should open it by satisfying most abundantly for men through his earthly life and death. If Adam had not sinned, it would not have been necessary to follow this course” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
The First Fall can be the Worst Fall
The first fall is, in a sense, the worst fall. In Adam, his first fall brought the sentence of death, not only to himself, but to the whole human race. Adam’s first fall contaminated the whole human race with the virus of Original Sin and its symptoms of ignorance of mind, weakness of will and rebellious passions. Any sins he committed after that did not have the same catastrophic consequences as that first fall.
The First Sin Comes Hard, the Rest Come Easier
The same is, to a certain degree, true for ourselves. It is the first sin that is hardest to do—if we have never committed a particular kind of sin before, then there is seems to be an invisible barrier that helps to keep away from it. However, once that first sin is committed, then the dam is breached—a crack appears in the concrete, a brick falls out of the wall, a nail is embedded in the tire, our skin has been cut or grazed, the ankle has been twisted. All this makes us prone to commit another sin of the same kind—which, until now, we had strongly resisted.
A Titanic Fall
The Titanic sank from little gashes from an iceberg that were initially only about the size of a house door. It was on its maiden voyage that the Titanic sank—its first “fall” was a fatal fall. Nor did it take much to sink the human race—just two gashes: the first from Eve, the second and more fatal one was from Adam.
The impact with the iceberg was long thought to have produced a huge opening in Titanic's hull, "not less than 300 feet in length, 10 feet above the level of the keel", as one writer later put it. However, at the British enquiry, following the accident, Edward Wilding (the chief naval architect for Harland and Wolff), calculating on the basis of the observed flooding of forward compartments forty minutes after the collision, testified that the area of the hull opened to the sea was "somewhere about 12 square feet". He also stated that "I believe it must have been in places, not a continuous rip", but that the different openings must have extended along an area of around 300 feet, to account for the flooding in several compartments. However, the official findings of the enquiry simply state that the damage extended about 300 feet, and hence many subsequent writers followed this statement. Modern ultrasound surveys of the wreck have found that the damage consisted of six narrow openings in an area of the hull, covering only about 12 to 13 square feet in total.
Sin Pierces the Hull of the Soul
This first fall into another kind of sin, also gives the devil another weak point to attack—for that is invariably where he does attack: aiming our weakest points. He will pound away at those weak points like a battering ram—seeking with each blow of temptation to weaken us a little bit more, and more, and more. St. Ignatius points that out so clearly in his Spiritual Exercises: “he [the devil] behaves as a chief bent on conquering and robbing what he desires: for, as a captain and chief of the army, pitching his camp, and looking at the forces or defenses of a stronghold, attacks it on the weakest side, in like manner the enemy of human nature, roaming about, looks in turn at all our virtues, theological, cardinal and moral; and where he finds us weakest and most in need for our eternal salvation, there he attacks us and aims at taking us” (Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Fourteenth Rule).
Immediate Repair Is Needed
Once a general hears that a certain part of the city walls has been breached, he IMMEDIATELY sends reinforcements to bolster that area. If he is slow or lax about doing this, the enemy will pour in through the breach. Repair is possible, but the devil will do all he can to prevent repairs from being made.
Our Lady points out that: “The demon also, astute serpent as he is, uses more diligence in his attempts to overcome religious men and women, than to conquer all the rest of worldly men; and if one of these religious fall, all Hell exerts the greatest solicitude and care to prevent his using the many means which religion affords for rising from a fall, such as obedience and holy exercises and the frequent use of the Sacraments. To make all these remedies miscarry and be of no use to the fallen religious, the enemy applies so many cunning snares that it would fill with terror anyone who saw them. However, much of this is recognized in the actions and artifices by which a lax religious soul tries to defend its remissness, excusing it by specious arguments, if it does not break out in disobedience and yet greater disorders and faults” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
The Plimsoll Line
Samuel Plimsoll (1824–1898) was a member of the British Parliament who was concerned with the loss of ships and crews due to vessel overloading—we could liken this to overloading ourselves with the cargo of this world. His efforts were directed especially against what were known as "coffin ships"—unseaworthy and overloaded vessels, often heavily insured, in which unscrupulous owners risked the lives of their crews.
Looking at things spiritually, we may well ask: "How many souls are sailing through this world in “spiritual coffin ships” that are overloaded with worldliness?" In 1876, Plimsoll persuaded the British Parliament to pass the Unseaworthy Ships Bill, which mandated marking a ship's sides with a line that would disappear below the waterline if the ship was overloaded. The line, also known as the Plimsoll mark, is found midship on both the port and starboard hulls of cargo vessels and is still used worldwide by the shipping industry.
The markings are as follows:
TF = Tropical Fresh Waters Load Line
T = Tropical Waters Load Line
F = Fresh Waters Load Line
S = Summer Load Line
W = Winter Load Line
WNA = Winter North Atlantic Load Line
AB = Letters indicating the registration authority (American Bureau of Shipping in the image shown; the circle with the line through it indicates whether or not the cargo is loaded evenly)
Our Lady, speaking of her sinlessness, says:“His Providence so disposed things, that my absolute security from sin was hidden to me; I saw that, as far as depended on me alone, I could fall, and that it was the Divine Will that preserved me. Thus He reserved to Himself his knowledge of my security from sin, and left me in solicitude and holy fear of sinning during my pilgrimage on earth. From the instant of my Conception until my death I never lost this fear, but on the contrary grew in this fear as life flowed on” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Adam and Eve Fell Fatally
Holy Scripture tell us: “Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). Our Lady comments: “Divine Justice closed Heaven against mortals on account of the first sin, until my most holy Son should open it by satisfying most abundantly for men through his earthly life and death. If Adam had not sinned, it would not have been necessary to follow this course” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
The First Fall can be the Worst Fall
The first fall is, in a sense, the worst fall. In Adam, his first fall brought the sentence of death, not only to himself, but to the whole human race. Adam’s first fall contaminated the whole human race with the virus of Original Sin and its symptoms of ignorance of mind, weakness of will and rebellious passions. Any sins he committed after that did not have the same catastrophic consequences as that first fall.
The First Sin Comes Hard, the Rest Come Easier
The same is, to a certain degree, true for ourselves. It is the first sin that is hardest to do—if we have never committed a particular kind of sin before, then there is seems to be an invisible barrier that helps to keep away from it. However, once that first sin is committed, then the dam is breached—a crack appears in the concrete, a brick falls out of the wall, a nail is embedded in the tire, our skin has been cut or grazed, the ankle has been twisted. All this makes us prone to commit another sin of the same kind—which, until now, we had strongly resisted.
A Titanic Fall
The Titanic sank from little gashes from an iceberg that were initially only about the size of a house door. It was on its maiden voyage that the Titanic sank—its first “fall” was a fatal fall. Nor did it take much to sink the human race—just two gashes: the first from Eve, the second and more fatal one was from Adam.
The impact with the iceberg was long thought to have produced a huge opening in Titanic's hull, "not less than 300 feet in length, 10 feet above the level of the keel", as one writer later put it. However, at the British enquiry, following the accident, Edward Wilding (the chief naval architect for Harland and Wolff), calculating on the basis of the observed flooding of forward compartments forty minutes after the collision, testified that the area of the hull opened to the sea was "somewhere about 12 square feet". He also stated that "I believe it must have been in places, not a continuous rip", but that the different openings must have extended along an area of around 300 feet, to account for the flooding in several compartments. However, the official findings of the enquiry simply state that the damage extended about 300 feet, and hence many subsequent writers followed this statement. Modern ultrasound surveys of the wreck have found that the damage consisted of six narrow openings in an area of the hull, covering only about 12 to 13 square feet in total.
Sin Pierces the Hull of the Soul
This first fall into another kind of sin, also gives the devil another weak point to attack—for that is invariably where he does attack: aiming our weakest points. He will pound away at those weak points like a battering ram—seeking with each blow of temptation to weaken us a little bit more, and more, and more. St. Ignatius points that out so clearly in his Spiritual Exercises: “he [the devil] behaves as a chief bent on conquering and robbing what he desires: for, as a captain and chief of the army, pitching his camp, and looking at the forces or defenses of a stronghold, attacks it on the weakest side, in like manner the enemy of human nature, roaming about, looks in turn at all our virtues, theological, cardinal and moral; and where he finds us weakest and most in need for our eternal salvation, there he attacks us and aims at taking us” (Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Fourteenth Rule).
Immediate Repair Is Needed
Once a general hears that a certain part of the city walls has been breached, he IMMEDIATELY sends reinforcements to bolster that area. If he is slow or lax about doing this, the enemy will pour in through the breach. Repair is possible, but the devil will do all he can to prevent repairs from being made.
Our Lady points out that: “The demon also, astute serpent as he is, uses more diligence in his attempts to overcome religious men and women, than to conquer all the rest of worldly men; and if one of these religious fall, all Hell exerts the greatest solicitude and care to prevent his using the many means which religion affords for rising from a fall, such as obedience and holy exercises and the frequent use of the Sacraments. To make all these remedies miscarry and be of no use to the fallen religious, the enemy applies so many cunning snares that it would fill with terror anyone who saw them. However, much of this is recognized in the actions and artifices by which a lax religious soul tries to defend its remissness, excusing it by specious arguments, if it does not break out in disobedience and yet greater disorders and faults” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
The Plimsoll Line
Samuel Plimsoll (1824–1898) was a member of the British Parliament who was concerned with the loss of ships and crews due to vessel overloading—we could liken this to overloading ourselves with the cargo of this world. His efforts were directed especially against what were known as "coffin ships"—unseaworthy and overloaded vessels, often heavily insured, in which unscrupulous owners risked the lives of their crews.
Looking at things spiritually, we may well ask: "How many souls are sailing through this world in “spiritual coffin ships” that are overloaded with worldliness?" In 1876, Plimsoll persuaded the British Parliament to pass the Unseaworthy Ships Bill, which mandated marking a ship's sides with a line that would disappear below the waterline if the ship was overloaded. The line, also known as the Plimsoll mark, is found midship on both the port and starboard hulls of cargo vessels and is still used worldwide by the shipping industry.
The markings are as follows:
TF = Tropical Fresh Waters Load Line
T = Tropical Waters Load Line
F = Fresh Waters Load Line
S = Summer Load Line
W = Winter Load Line
WNA = Winter North Atlantic Load Line
AB = Letters indicating the registration authority (American Bureau of Shipping in the image shown; the circle with the line through it indicates whether or not the cargo is loaded evenly)
Spiritual Plim-Soul Line
We could also say that there is a ‘Spiritual Plimsoll Line’ or a ‘Spiritual Plim-Soul Line’ that regulates our spiritual activities. So many persons are sailing on “coffin ships” with which they are bound to shipwreck. Our Lord said: “Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). We could just as well say: “Broad is the harbor entrance to Hell that hides the rocks beneath its waters and many are they that sail into it; narrow is the harbor entrance to Heaven and few there are that find it.”
Let us take the letter "P" from the word "Plimsoll" to remind us of our own "Plim-Soul" Line of action in our spiritual life.
“P” for Prayer
Prayer keeps us in communication with the Heaven’s weather station that broadcasts warnings night and day. Prayer helps us navigate clear of treacherous waters. “Prayer reveals to souls the vanity of earthly goods and pleasures” (St. Rose of Viterbo, d. 1252). Prayer catches the breath of the Holy Ghost into the sails of the soul, Whose wind blows in the direction of Heaven. That is why St. Ephraem says: “Prayer draws into the soul the Holy Ghost, and raises man to Heaven. Prayer preserves temperance. Prayer suppresses anger. Prayer prevents emotions of pride and envy.” St. Augustine tells us that “As our body cannot live without nourishment, so our soul cannot spiritually be kept alive without prayer.”
Yet we must pray well—which initially means that we must give God more than just mere speedy, hasty lip-service: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8). Our prayer must also be humble. Part of that humility is to admit that we are sinners—unlike the Pharisee, in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:10-14), who says: “O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican. I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess.”
Holy Scripture tells us: “Nor from the beginning have the proud been acceptable to Thee: but the prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased Thee” (Judith 9:16). “He hath had regard to the prayer of the humble: and He hath not despised their petition” (Psalm 101:18). “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5). “God will not hear our prayers unless we acknowledge ourselves to be sinners. We do this when we ponder on our own sins alone, and not on those of our neighbor” (St. Moses the Ethiopian, 4th century).
“P” for Penance
Penance constitutes the repairs that must be made to ship while sailing, in order to keep it seaworthy: “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). Penance repairs the holes in the ship’s hull, which our sins have made. Penance is not just “reparation” but also a form of “repair-ation” for the wounds sin has inflicted. If we do not patch up the “hole-in-the-soul” created by sin, then the waters of the world will gush in unhindered and the weight of the water will sink the ship and it will fall to the bottom of the sea—in this case, a symbol of Hell.
“P” for Poverty
On the question of poverty, Our Lady says: “Poverty is a generous renunciation and detachment from the heavy burden of temporal things. It is an alleviation of the spirit, in which the thirst after earthly treasures is allayed. This, and many other blessings, are contained in voluntary poverty, and all this the sons of the world are ignorant and deprived of, precisely because they are lovers of earthly riches and enemies of this holy and opulent poverty. They do not consider, although they feel and suffer, the heavy weight of riches, which pins them to the earth and drives them into anxiety, sleeplessness, labors and sweat. And if they are thus weighed down before acquiring riches, how much more when they have come into their possession?
"Let the countless hosts that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it; let their incalculable anxieties of preserving their riches, and much more, let the intolerable laws, which riches and those that possess them have foisted upon the world, testify what is required to retain them. If, on the one hand, possessions throttle the spirit and tyrannically oppress: it is certain, on the other hand, that voluntary poverty restores to man the nobility of his condition and, liberating him from vile servitude and reinstating him his noble freedom and mastery of all things. The soul is never more a mistress than when she despises them, and only then has she the more firm possession and makes the more excellent use of riches, when she gives them away, or leaves them of her own free will; only then her appetite for them is best satiated, when she does not care to possess them. Then, above all, is the heart set free and made capable of the treasures of the Divinity, for which it is furnished by the Creator with almost infinite capacity” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Poverty buoys up the ship and keeps it from sinking under the weight of possessions and wealth. It is not uncommon in a storm to jettison much of the cargo in order to stay afloat. The weight will make it sink, like a heavy load makes a man fall and sink to the ground: “Jesus saith to him: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:21-23).
The heavy cargo of the world is a threat to our soul making it safely to the harbor of Heaven. All around the harbor entrance are shallow water that hide sharp, jagged rocks—ready to sink the ship of our soul. In chapter 27 of the Acts of the Apostles, we read that the ship on which Paul was sailing (as a prisoner) had to jettison its cargo and ship’s tackle in order to try and save the ship from running aground and sinking.
A heavy cargo makes the ship sit deeper in the water, which is dangerous in shallow water. So the men threw the cargo overboard, so the ship would sit higher in the water, in case they were blown near land where their boat would get destroyed on the shallow reefs, rocks, and harbors. If the bottom of the ship ran aground miles from any shore, they faced the prospect of being tossed into the sea. Thus, when you are faced with life or death, everything (even food stores) becomes expendable.
Lightening the ship also stabilizes it in rough seas. If the ship got tossed to one side and became unbalanced, a heavy ship would be more likely to follow the energy and due to inertia (the law where objects in motion want to stay in motion), it would tip over. Further, throwing cargo overboard makes the ship go faster in case the men wanted to try to outrun the storm. The world has weighed us down with its cargo of materialism, search for wealth, possessions, fun and entertainment and its shallow waters are hiding Satan’s rocks which are waiting for us to sail upon them.
“P” for Purity
Purity sails a straight course towards God, not veering to either side where icebergs are found aplenty. “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin?’” (Proverbs 20:9). “Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). “Spiritual joy arises from purity of the heart and perseverance in prayer” (St. Francis of Assisi).
Impurity is the most common cause, according to Our Lady, for the shipwreck or fall of so many souls. The icebergs of impurity are floating everywhere these days—on the streets, in the work place, at home, on TV and internet, in books and magazines, in conversations, etc. Our navigation must be careful and prayerful. Our communication with Heaven’s weather station and radar must be constant: “Pray without ceasing” says Holy Scripture.
The modern icebergs and more like mines—causing a passionate explosion more damaging than a mere grazing of an iceberg. Modern man has the Titanic syndrome—“We are unsinkable!” Yet, the unthinkable happened. Our attitude can also be one of a false sense of security. We have a false confidence is numbers—everyone is doing it! God won’t damn everyone! Hmmm! According to Our Lord and most saints and theologians, God seems to damn most people—or, more correctly, most people seem to damn themselves.
But purity is not just sexual purity—it also includes purity of intention. Why am I doing this? What am I doing it for? Is it truly for God, or do I have some hidden personal motive behind what I am doing? Purity of intention is something that very few people have and something that we should all strive for, purifying our actions more and more of self-interest and personal gain.
“P” for Patience
Patience—weathers all the storms and adversities that may arise on the voyage. God Himself is infinitely patient: “God is a just judge, strong and patient” (Psalm 7:12). “The Lord is patient and full of mercy” (Numbers 14:18). “And thou, O Lord, art a God of compassion, and merciful, patient, and of much mercy” (Psalm 85:15). “Be you therefore also patient!” (James 5:8).
Lack of patience leads to anger and emotion—and that is not the best state in which to make decisions and take action. “He that is patient, is governed with much wisdom: but he that is impatient, exalteth his folly” (Proverbs 14:29). For “the patient man is better than the valiant: and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh cities” (Proverbs 16:32). St. Paul tells to be “Patient in tribulation” (Romans 12:12), which reminds us of the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila: “Let nothing disturb thee, let nothing affright thee, all things are passing. God never changes. Patient endurance attains all things—God alone suffices.” Patience will lead us to the harbor of salvation--“In your patience you shall possess your souls” (Luke 21:19).
“P” for Perseverance
Perseverance—keeps us from jumping overboard or turning back for whatever reason. We must accept that, on our voyage to Heaven, there will be failures as well as successes; there will be defeats as well as victories; there will sadness as well as joy; there will be betrayals as well as assistance; there will be moments of weakness as well moments of strength—all these things are a part of life. As Holy Scripture warns us: “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). “But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved” (Matthew 24:13), which is echoed by St. Mark: “He that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved” (Mark 13:13).
The Cargo on the Ship of Our Soul
The above P’s are the essential cargo that we should have on board our soul in its voyage through the storms of this life on its way to Heaven. Just as Christ fell for the first time on His slow painful death-march to Calvary, so too will we fall into sin--“For a just man shall fall seven times and shall rise again” (Proverbs 24:16). To recover successfully from our falls and reach our safe harbor we will need to dip into the supplies that we should be carrying as cargo: prayer, penance, poverty of spirit, purity of intention, patience and perseverance. With these, we shall rise from our falls and battle on through the storms and all adversity—just as Christ did on His way to Calvary.
We could also say that there is a ‘Spiritual Plimsoll Line’ or a ‘Spiritual Plim-Soul Line’ that regulates our spiritual activities. So many persons are sailing on “coffin ships” with which they are bound to shipwreck. Our Lord said: “Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). We could just as well say: “Broad is the harbor entrance to Hell that hides the rocks beneath its waters and many are they that sail into it; narrow is the harbor entrance to Heaven and few there are that find it.”
Let us take the letter "P" from the word "Plimsoll" to remind us of our own "Plim-Soul" Line of action in our spiritual life.
“P” for Prayer
Prayer keeps us in communication with the Heaven’s weather station that broadcasts warnings night and day. Prayer helps us navigate clear of treacherous waters. “Prayer reveals to souls the vanity of earthly goods and pleasures” (St. Rose of Viterbo, d. 1252). Prayer catches the breath of the Holy Ghost into the sails of the soul, Whose wind blows in the direction of Heaven. That is why St. Ephraem says: “Prayer draws into the soul the Holy Ghost, and raises man to Heaven. Prayer preserves temperance. Prayer suppresses anger. Prayer prevents emotions of pride and envy.” St. Augustine tells us that “As our body cannot live without nourishment, so our soul cannot spiritually be kept alive without prayer.”
Yet we must pray well—which initially means that we must give God more than just mere speedy, hasty lip-service: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8). Our prayer must also be humble. Part of that humility is to admit that we are sinners—unlike the Pharisee, in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:10-14), who says: “O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican. I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess.”
Holy Scripture tells us: “Nor from the beginning have the proud been acceptable to Thee: but the prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased Thee” (Judith 9:16). “He hath had regard to the prayer of the humble: and He hath not despised their petition” (Psalm 101:18). “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5). “God will not hear our prayers unless we acknowledge ourselves to be sinners. We do this when we ponder on our own sins alone, and not on those of our neighbor” (St. Moses the Ethiopian, 4th century).
“P” for Penance
Penance constitutes the repairs that must be made to ship while sailing, in order to keep it seaworthy: “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). Penance repairs the holes in the ship’s hull, which our sins have made. Penance is not just “reparation” but also a form of “repair-ation” for the wounds sin has inflicted. If we do not patch up the “hole-in-the-soul” created by sin, then the waters of the world will gush in unhindered and the weight of the water will sink the ship and it will fall to the bottom of the sea—in this case, a symbol of Hell.
“P” for Poverty
On the question of poverty, Our Lady says: “Poverty is a generous renunciation and detachment from the heavy burden of temporal things. It is an alleviation of the spirit, in which the thirst after earthly treasures is allayed. This, and many other blessings, are contained in voluntary poverty, and all this the sons of the world are ignorant and deprived of, precisely because they are lovers of earthly riches and enemies of this holy and opulent poverty. They do not consider, although they feel and suffer, the heavy weight of riches, which pins them to the earth and drives them into anxiety, sleeplessness, labors and sweat. And if they are thus weighed down before acquiring riches, how much more when they have come into their possession?
"Let the countless hosts that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it; let their incalculable anxieties of preserving their riches, and much more, let the intolerable laws, which riches and those that possess them have foisted upon the world, testify what is required to retain them. If, on the one hand, possessions throttle the spirit and tyrannically oppress: it is certain, on the other hand, that voluntary poverty restores to man the nobility of his condition and, liberating him from vile servitude and reinstating him his noble freedom and mastery of all things. The soul is never more a mistress than when she despises them, and only then has she the more firm possession and makes the more excellent use of riches, when she gives them away, or leaves them of her own free will; only then her appetite for them is best satiated, when she does not care to possess them. Then, above all, is the heart set free and made capable of the treasures of the Divinity, for which it is furnished by the Creator with almost infinite capacity” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Poverty buoys up the ship and keeps it from sinking under the weight of possessions and wealth. It is not uncommon in a storm to jettison much of the cargo in order to stay afloat. The weight will make it sink, like a heavy load makes a man fall and sink to the ground: “Jesus saith to him: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:21-23).
The heavy cargo of the world is a threat to our soul making it safely to the harbor of Heaven. All around the harbor entrance are shallow water that hide sharp, jagged rocks—ready to sink the ship of our soul. In chapter 27 of the Acts of the Apostles, we read that the ship on which Paul was sailing (as a prisoner) had to jettison its cargo and ship’s tackle in order to try and save the ship from running aground and sinking.
A heavy cargo makes the ship sit deeper in the water, which is dangerous in shallow water. So the men threw the cargo overboard, so the ship would sit higher in the water, in case they were blown near land where their boat would get destroyed on the shallow reefs, rocks, and harbors. If the bottom of the ship ran aground miles from any shore, they faced the prospect of being tossed into the sea. Thus, when you are faced with life or death, everything (even food stores) becomes expendable.
Lightening the ship also stabilizes it in rough seas. If the ship got tossed to one side and became unbalanced, a heavy ship would be more likely to follow the energy and due to inertia (the law where objects in motion want to stay in motion), it would tip over. Further, throwing cargo overboard makes the ship go faster in case the men wanted to try to outrun the storm. The world has weighed us down with its cargo of materialism, search for wealth, possessions, fun and entertainment and its shallow waters are hiding Satan’s rocks which are waiting for us to sail upon them.
“P” for Purity
Purity sails a straight course towards God, not veering to either side where icebergs are found aplenty. “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin?’” (Proverbs 20:9). “Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). “Spiritual joy arises from purity of the heart and perseverance in prayer” (St. Francis of Assisi).
Impurity is the most common cause, according to Our Lady, for the shipwreck or fall of so many souls. The icebergs of impurity are floating everywhere these days—on the streets, in the work place, at home, on TV and internet, in books and magazines, in conversations, etc. Our navigation must be careful and prayerful. Our communication with Heaven’s weather station and radar must be constant: “Pray without ceasing” says Holy Scripture.
The modern icebergs and more like mines—causing a passionate explosion more damaging than a mere grazing of an iceberg. Modern man has the Titanic syndrome—“We are unsinkable!” Yet, the unthinkable happened. Our attitude can also be one of a false sense of security. We have a false confidence is numbers—everyone is doing it! God won’t damn everyone! Hmmm! According to Our Lord and most saints and theologians, God seems to damn most people—or, more correctly, most people seem to damn themselves.
But purity is not just sexual purity—it also includes purity of intention. Why am I doing this? What am I doing it for? Is it truly for God, or do I have some hidden personal motive behind what I am doing? Purity of intention is something that very few people have and something that we should all strive for, purifying our actions more and more of self-interest and personal gain.
“P” for Patience
Patience—weathers all the storms and adversities that may arise on the voyage. God Himself is infinitely patient: “God is a just judge, strong and patient” (Psalm 7:12). “The Lord is patient and full of mercy” (Numbers 14:18). “And thou, O Lord, art a God of compassion, and merciful, patient, and of much mercy” (Psalm 85:15). “Be you therefore also patient!” (James 5:8).
Lack of patience leads to anger and emotion—and that is not the best state in which to make decisions and take action. “He that is patient, is governed with much wisdom: but he that is impatient, exalteth his folly” (Proverbs 14:29). For “the patient man is better than the valiant: and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh cities” (Proverbs 16:32). St. Paul tells to be “Patient in tribulation” (Romans 12:12), which reminds us of the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila: “Let nothing disturb thee, let nothing affright thee, all things are passing. God never changes. Patient endurance attains all things—God alone suffices.” Patience will lead us to the harbor of salvation--“In your patience you shall possess your souls” (Luke 21:19).
“P” for Perseverance
Perseverance—keeps us from jumping overboard or turning back for whatever reason. We must accept that, on our voyage to Heaven, there will be failures as well as successes; there will be defeats as well as victories; there will sadness as well as joy; there will be betrayals as well as assistance; there will be moments of weakness as well moments of strength—all these things are a part of life. As Holy Scripture warns us: “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). “But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved” (Matthew 24:13), which is echoed by St. Mark: “He that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved” (Mark 13:13).
The Cargo on the Ship of Our Soul
The above P’s are the essential cargo that we should have on board our soul in its voyage through the storms of this life on its way to Heaven. Just as Christ fell for the first time on His slow painful death-march to Calvary, so too will we fall into sin--“For a just man shall fall seven times and shall rise again” (Proverbs 24:16). To recover successfully from our falls and reach our safe harbor we will need to dip into the supplies that we should be carrying as cargo: prayer, penance, poverty of spirit, purity of intention, patience and perseverance. With these, we shall rise from our falls and battle on through the storms and all adversity—just as Christ did on His way to Calvary.
Article 21
Monday after Passion Sunday, March 27th, 2023
Accepting the Cross with Jesus
Monday after Passion Sunday, March 27th, 2023
Accepting the Cross with Jesus
Swept Along by the Tide of the Passion
Passiontide is the time during which the Church strives to make us focus on the importance and necessity of the Way of the Cross. Traditionally, all the images and statues in the church are covered with purple--except the Stations of the Cross. The very name “Passiontide” clearly evokes images of Our Lord’s Passion and Death. “St. Augustine assures us that there is no spiritual exercise more fruitful or more useful than the frequent reflection on the sufferings of Our Lord. St. Albert the Great, who had St. Thomas Aquinas as his student, learned in a revelation that by simply thinking of or meditating on the Passion of Jesus Christ, a Christian gains more merit than if he had fasted on bread and water every Friday for a year, or had beaten himself with the discipline once a week till blood flowed, or had recited the whole Book of Psalms every day” (The Secret of the Rosary, St. Louis Marie de Montfort, “Twenty-Eighth Rose”).
Looking At the Second Station
The fourteen days of Passiontide coincide, providentially, with the fourteen Stations of the Cross. It is these Stations that we are currently examining in the Daily Thoughts leading up to Easter Sunday. Today, we look at the second Station—where Our Lord is given and accepts His Cross.
Same Cross—Different Results
Because the Cross is naturally repulsive, even to Our Lord—as shown by His bloody sweat and agony in Gethsemane where He asks His Father to remove the forthcoming cross and chalice from Him—we will often need to come back to words of St. Augustine, who said that the very same and identical crosses lead some souls to Heaven, but other souls to Hell. He is, no doubt, drawing a lesson from the two thieves crucified with Christ on Calvary. The Bad Thief rejects and abhors his Cross, saying: “If thou be Christ, save thyself and us!” (Luke 23:29); whereas the Good Thief receives and accepts his Cross, saying: “We receive the due reward of our deeds!” (Luke 23:41). The same Cross leads one to Heaven and the other to Hell.
The Worldly Know, But Fear, the Truth
Dom Hubert Van Zeller, in his book, Holiness, A Guide For Beginners, tells us: “Remember that Our Lord promised that those who carried their burdens willingly, with Him and as though they were His, would find the weight light; the hard yoke of service would turn into something sweet. ‘Come to Me, all you who are heavy laden!’ He invited. He would ease matters for these hard-pressed souls, and they would find rest for their souls and peace (Matthew 11:28-30). The strange thing is that worldly people, quite sinful people, read these words of Our Lord and do not deny them. They know in their hearts that what He said was perfectly true. They admit the uselessness of luxury when it comes to the question of happiness, and they know that hardship cannot on its own make people miserable. But they cannot bring themselves to put the Gospel teaching into practice. They are afraid to let go of their pleasures, and they are afraid of the Cross. Sanctity would be their one solution, but they do not want to think about what might be expected of them if they went all out for it!” (Holiness, A Guide For Beginners).
“Holiness asks for a lot of renunciation. But with the renunciations go many graces. Those who leave possessions, lands, houses, and families— ‘for My Name’s sake,’ —receive their hundredfold (Matthew 19:29), which must make the renunciation feel far less terrible. If we take up the Cross with Christ, bearing it with Him, then we come to know how truly His promises are fulfilled: the burden becomes light and the yoke sweet. But probably it is only the saints who can tell us this from their experience. If the burden weighs us down, so that we long to be rid of it, and if the yoke embitters instead of sweetens, we have to admit that ours is not yet the state of mind to lay claim to holiness” (Dom Hubert Van Zeller, Holiness, A Guide For Beginners).
“St. Paul says (quoting the prophet Habacuc, incidentally, although he does not mention it) that ‘the just man lives by Faith’ (Habacuc 2:4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11). Now, if this is true of the just man, it is certainly true of the saint. Faith is precisely what the exceedingly just man lives by. In the light of Faith, and only in the light that Faith brings, the saint sees the truth about mankind. He sees why God created human beings who He knew would let Him down. He sees how God’s love, for these weak human beings, is in no way contradicted by His allowing them to suffer. He sees that there is a reason behind temptation and war and insecurity—behind all the things people find so hard to square with their idea of God” (Dom Hubert Van Zeller, Holiness, A Guide For Beginners).
Receiving and Accepting the Little Crosses First
Pope St. Pius X said that the Little Flower—St. Thérèse of Lisieux—was the model of sanctity for our day: meaning that her “Little Way” to sanctity is tailor-made for our age. We can become holy and reach Heaven by little steps just as much as we can by giant leaps and bounds. As Holy Scripture says: “He hath blessed all that fear the Lord, both little and great” (Psalm 113:21) ... “He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in that which is greater” (Luke 16:10).
St. Thérèse was faithful in little things and willingly received and accepted the countless little crosses and irritations that came her way each day. She did not seek the great, striking, outstanding, “Hey everyone! Look at what I have to carry!” kind of crosses, but the little ones that nobody noticed. She wanted to be the little violet flower among the much larger and greater flowers that represent the saints. With our Crosses, it is not so much how much we carry, but the love and resignation that we carry them with.
Excuses, Excuses…
When faced with our little (or even great) Crosses, there are excuses-a-plenty! Our daily murmuring—like that of the Israelites in forty-years of desert wandering—shows that we feel aggrieved with regard to our Crosses. “It’s not fair!” we cry. “Why me?” we complain. “What have I done to deserve this?” we mutter. “After all that I do for God, this happens!” we shriek. All this stems from an attitude that is more natural than supernatural—it shows that we have a tendency to be “Fairweather Catholics.” We are happy enough on the Ark of Salvation in calm waters, but once the storms come, we wail with the Apostles: “Lord! Save us! We perish!” (Matthew 8:25).
Lest We Forget…
In those storms and trials, we become too natural and less supernatural—we think based upon human reason, and do not consider things according to divine Faith. We forget the counsels, admonitions, explanations and truths of the Faith and thrash and splash around in the whirlpool of human considerations. We hold endless panicky conversations with ourselves, rather than calmly discuss things with God. If we were to confidently turn to God, He would remind us of the words He has immortalized in Holy Scripture:
► “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23).
► “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:38).
► “‘Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?’ Then rising up He commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm” (Matthew 8:26).
► “Ought not Christ [or any Christian] to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:26).
► “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1).
► “For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth” (Proverbs 3:12) … “For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth; and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (Hebrews 12:6) … “He that loveth his son, frequently chastiseth him, that he may rejoice in his latter end” (Ecclesiasticus 30:1).
► “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).
Our Holy Mother Reminds Us Too!
And, as the liturgy of Holy Mother Church says, in the readings, hymns and canticles of this Passiontide season:
“Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle
Sing the last, the dread affray;
O'er the cross, the victor's trophy,
Sound the high triumphal lay
Tell how Christ, the world's Redeemer,
As a victim won the day.
On the cross the Lamb is lifted,
Where His life-blood shall be spilled.
He endured the nails, the spitting,
Vinegar, and spear, and reed;
From that holy body broken
Blood and water forth proceed:
Earth, and stars, and sky, and ocean,
By that flood from stain are free.
Faithful cross! Above all other,
One and only noble tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peers may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron!
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.”
Listen to the Holy Mother of God
In the book, The Mystical City of God, by the Venerable Mary of Agreda, we read of Our Lady’s counsels as regards the acceptation of the Cross and suffering: “The divine influence will urge and draw thee on, inflaming thy heart to chaste love and reverence of God to acknowledgment of thy littleness, to abhorrence of the earthly vanities, to desire of being despised by creatures, to joyful suffering, to love of the cross and an earnest and generous acceptation of it; it will move thee to seek the last place, to love those that persecute thee, to fear and abhor sin, even the slightest, to aspire to the purest, the most perfect and refined in virtue, to deny thyself thy own inclinations, and to unite thyself to the highest and truest good” (what else is this, but the “Little Way” of St. Thérèse of Liseux?).
Our Lady continues: “Unless gold is untouched by the furnace-heat, the iron by the file, the grain by the grinding stone or flail, the grapes by the winepress, they are all useless and will not attain the end for which they are created. Why then will mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? If they were incapable and unworthy of attaining to the crown and reward of the infinite and eternal Good when innocent, how can they attain it, when they are in darkness and in disgrace before the Almighty? In addition to this, the sons of perdition are exerting all their powers to remain unworthy and hostile to God and in evading crosses and afflictions, which are the paths left open for returning to God!” (The Mystical City of God, by the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Why Would We Refuse the Cross?
If the liturgy of Holy Mother Church says: “Hail Cross! Our only hope!” (Ave crux, spes unica) and “In the Cross is salvation!” (In cruce salus), then why on earth are we inclined to reject and avoid the cross? All that can do is lead to hopelessness and damnation. As indicated by Our Lady above, the Cross is an act of love; it is an instrument of God’s mercy; it is a medicine of God’s; it is a crutch with which we stagger to Heaven; it is a weapon that defends us on the way! What foolishness it is to reject the love, the mercy, the medicine, and the weapon of God!
Furthermore, what a height of insane pride it is to reject that which neither Our Lord, nor Our Lady, rejected! They were innocent of all sin—yet we are guilty of many sins! Our Lord said: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone” (John 8:7) —He could just as well have said: “He that is without sin among you, let him cast away his cross!” To which St. John would add: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).
Yet to carry the Cross is not enough—we must carry it with love. It is the love that we have for the Cross that gives the Cross its value. The greater the love, the greater the value. The less love, the less value. No love, no value. St. Paul puts it this way: “If I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3).
Much Glory From Little Crosses
“In being ‘obedient unto death’ (Philippians 2:8) to the Father’s will, Our Lord was giving us a lesson in glory. It was the day-to-day obedience—in things not noticed by anyone except His mother and the closest of His friends—that gave glory to the Father, just as much as the miracles, prayers, and teaching gave glory.
"A quite ordinary duty, such as writing a letter of thanks, or getting up at the right time in the morning, can give great glory to God. It is answering to His will. The ordinariness of the actual job is raised, so that it shares in the obedience of Christ. From the tip of the pen (if we are writing that letter), glory is flowing out to God; from the effort to throw off the sheets (if it is that duty of getting up), there is an immediate output of glory to God. At every instant of the day, doing what we have to do because God wills us to do it, we are handling glory” (Dom Hubert Van Zeller, Holiness, A Guide For Beginners).
Swimming and Flying Around in “Glory Space”
“Breathing the air of God’s glory, we only have to breathe it in His direction and we are there. As the fish swimming in the sea and the birds flying in the sky, we are moving about in what might be called ‘glory-space.’ It is not as though we had to get onto another planet to find sanctity and give glory to God, or even alter the position we are in on this one (provided that we are where God wants us to be), because God’s presence is everywhere and all we have to do is to live in it and praise Him in it. God is glorified in all His creation. Nature praises Him, because it gets its existence from Him and works according to His laws.
"It is fairly easy to see how God is glorified by sunsets and roses and snow-capped mountains puppies and small chickens and friendly polar bears at the zoo … but He is also glorified by dull things, like stones and cabbage and rain, He is also glorified by snakes and toads and rats. Each separate piece of God’s creation, by existing in the kind of existence God means it to have, gives glory to God” (Dom Hubert Van Zeller, Holiness, A Guide For Beginners).
All Part of The Family
This idea of everything having on it the glow of God’s look, seems clear enough when we take the trouble to think about it. To the saints, such a view of creation is a settled state of mind. Outward objects are seen and loved as being reflections of Him who made them—even the Cross. That is why St. Paul said that the visible things were there to draw our minds to a knowledge of the invisible Creator (Romans 1:20).
That is why St. Francis of Assisi called natural things, like the sky and the sun, by the title of “brother” and “sister”—but ‘family’ did not include just the nice warm sunny days, but the cold rain, the wintry nights, the storms too! They were all in the family. They all bore on them the Father’s likeness. They were all ‘begotten’ of the Father.
Under The Canopy of God’s Will
What a difference it would make, to your life, if you saw, all around you, signposts pointing to the presence of God—in the rain and the sun; in the breeze and the storm; in the cat and the rat; in the bird and the snake; in health and disease; in wealth and in poverty; in praise and in slander; in success and in failure; in joy and in agony.
Not only would nature and human beings proclaim the glory of God, but even in the ordinary happenings, from hour to hour and from day to day, you would welcome God’s will. You would be drawn at once to show gratitude for the pleasant things that happened, knowing that God had provided them, and the unpleasant ones you would accept as part of your share in the Passion. So it would mean that you could live out your life under what St. Augustine described as the canopy or firmament of God’s will.
“So that is what sanctity does. First it glorifies God, from whom all sanctity comes. And second it discovers more and more material with which to express this glory. Where the ordinary “Sunday-Mass-and-nothing-more” kind of Catholic sees the service of God as a tiresome duty to be gotten through somehow, the saint sees the service of God as a marvelous opportunity. To the one, there seem to be few signs of God’s love in a world of muddle and unfairness; to the other, there are signs of His love on every side, even in confusion and disappointment. To the one there are just people, nice ones and nasty ones; to the other there are souls, all of them somehow lovable and all of them reflecting the love of God. To the one there are earthly needs and trials to worry about; to the other there is nothing to worry about — because earthly needs and trials are handed over to God” (Dom Hubert Van Zeller, Holiness, A Guide For Beginners).
Passiontide is the time during which the Church strives to make us focus on the importance and necessity of the Way of the Cross. Traditionally, all the images and statues in the church are covered with purple--except the Stations of the Cross. The very name “Passiontide” clearly evokes images of Our Lord’s Passion and Death. “St. Augustine assures us that there is no spiritual exercise more fruitful or more useful than the frequent reflection on the sufferings of Our Lord. St. Albert the Great, who had St. Thomas Aquinas as his student, learned in a revelation that by simply thinking of or meditating on the Passion of Jesus Christ, a Christian gains more merit than if he had fasted on bread and water every Friday for a year, or had beaten himself with the discipline once a week till blood flowed, or had recited the whole Book of Psalms every day” (The Secret of the Rosary, St. Louis Marie de Montfort, “Twenty-Eighth Rose”).
Looking At the Second Station
The fourteen days of Passiontide coincide, providentially, with the fourteen Stations of the Cross. It is these Stations that we are currently examining in the Daily Thoughts leading up to Easter Sunday. Today, we look at the second Station—where Our Lord is given and accepts His Cross.
Same Cross—Different Results
Because the Cross is naturally repulsive, even to Our Lord—as shown by His bloody sweat and agony in Gethsemane where He asks His Father to remove the forthcoming cross and chalice from Him—we will often need to come back to words of St. Augustine, who said that the very same and identical crosses lead some souls to Heaven, but other souls to Hell. He is, no doubt, drawing a lesson from the two thieves crucified with Christ on Calvary. The Bad Thief rejects and abhors his Cross, saying: “If thou be Christ, save thyself and us!” (Luke 23:29); whereas the Good Thief receives and accepts his Cross, saying: “We receive the due reward of our deeds!” (Luke 23:41). The same Cross leads one to Heaven and the other to Hell.
The Worldly Know, But Fear, the Truth
Dom Hubert Van Zeller, in his book, Holiness, A Guide For Beginners, tells us: “Remember that Our Lord promised that those who carried their burdens willingly, with Him and as though they were His, would find the weight light; the hard yoke of service would turn into something sweet. ‘Come to Me, all you who are heavy laden!’ He invited. He would ease matters for these hard-pressed souls, and they would find rest for their souls and peace (Matthew 11:28-30). The strange thing is that worldly people, quite sinful people, read these words of Our Lord and do not deny them. They know in their hearts that what He said was perfectly true. They admit the uselessness of luxury when it comes to the question of happiness, and they know that hardship cannot on its own make people miserable. But they cannot bring themselves to put the Gospel teaching into practice. They are afraid to let go of their pleasures, and they are afraid of the Cross. Sanctity would be their one solution, but they do not want to think about what might be expected of them if they went all out for it!” (Holiness, A Guide For Beginners).
“Holiness asks for a lot of renunciation. But with the renunciations go many graces. Those who leave possessions, lands, houses, and families— ‘for My Name’s sake,’ —receive their hundredfold (Matthew 19:29), which must make the renunciation feel far less terrible. If we take up the Cross with Christ, bearing it with Him, then we come to know how truly His promises are fulfilled: the burden becomes light and the yoke sweet. But probably it is only the saints who can tell us this from their experience. If the burden weighs us down, so that we long to be rid of it, and if the yoke embitters instead of sweetens, we have to admit that ours is not yet the state of mind to lay claim to holiness” (Dom Hubert Van Zeller, Holiness, A Guide For Beginners).
“St. Paul says (quoting the prophet Habacuc, incidentally, although he does not mention it) that ‘the just man lives by Faith’ (Habacuc 2:4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11). Now, if this is true of the just man, it is certainly true of the saint. Faith is precisely what the exceedingly just man lives by. In the light of Faith, and only in the light that Faith brings, the saint sees the truth about mankind. He sees why God created human beings who He knew would let Him down. He sees how God’s love, for these weak human beings, is in no way contradicted by His allowing them to suffer. He sees that there is a reason behind temptation and war and insecurity—behind all the things people find so hard to square with their idea of God” (Dom Hubert Van Zeller, Holiness, A Guide For Beginners).
Receiving and Accepting the Little Crosses First
Pope St. Pius X said that the Little Flower—St. Thérèse of Lisieux—was the model of sanctity for our day: meaning that her “Little Way” to sanctity is tailor-made for our age. We can become holy and reach Heaven by little steps just as much as we can by giant leaps and bounds. As Holy Scripture says: “He hath blessed all that fear the Lord, both little and great” (Psalm 113:21) ... “He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in that which is greater” (Luke 16:10).
St. Thérèse was faithful in little things and willingly received and accepted the countless little crosses and irritations that came her way each day. She did not seek the great, striking, outstanding, “Hey everyone! Look at what I have to carry!” kind of crosses, but the little ones that nobody noticed. She wanted to be the little violet flower among the much larger and greater flowers that represent the saints. With our Crosses, it is not so much how much we carry, but the love and resignation that we carry them with.
Excuses, Excuses…
When faced with our little (or even great) Crosses, there are excuses-a-plenty! Our daily murmuring—like that of the Israelites in forty-years of desert wandering—shows that we feel aggrieved with regard to our Crosses. “It’s not fair!” we cry. “Why me?” we complain. “What have I done to deserve this?” we mutter. “After all that I do for God, this happens!” we shriek. All this stems from an attitude that is more natural than supernatural—it shows that we have a tendency to be “Fairweather Catholics.” We are happy enough on the Ark of Salvation in calm waters, but once the storms come, we wail with the Apostles: “Lord! Save us! We perish!” (Matthew 8:25).
Lest We Forget…
In those storms and trials, we become too natural and less supernatural—we think based upon human reason, and do not consider things according to divine Faith. We forget the counsels, admonitions, explanations and truths of the Faith and thrash and splash around in the whirlpool of human considerations. We hold endless panicky conversations with ourselves, rather than calmly discuss things with God. If we were to confidently turn to God, He would remind us of the words He has immortalized in Holy Scripture:
► “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23).
► “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:38).
► “‘Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?’ Then rising up He commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm” (Matthew 8:26).
► “Ought not Christ [or any Christian] to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:26).
► “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1).
► “For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth” (Proverbs 3:12) … “For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth; and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (Hebrews 12:6) … “He that loveth his son, frequently chastiseth him, that he may rejoice in his latter end” (Ecclesiasticus 30:1).
► “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).
Our Holy Mother Reminds Us Too!
And, as the liturgy of Holy Mother Church says, in the readings, hymns and canticles of this Passiontide season:
“Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle
Sing the last, the dread affray;
O'er the cross, the victor's trophy,
Sound the high triumphal lay
Tell how Christ, the world's Redeemer,
As a victim won the day.
On the cross the Lamb is lifted,
Where His life-blood shall be spilled.
He endured the nails, the spitting,
Vinegar, and spear, and reed;
From that holy body broken
Blood and water forth proceed:
Earth, and stars, and sky, and ocean,
By that flood from stain are free.
Faithful cross! Above all other,
One and only noble tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peers may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron!
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.”
Listen to the Holy Mother of God
In the book, The Mystical City of God, by the Venerable Mary of Agreda, we read of Our Lady’s counsels as regards the acceptation of the Cross and suffering: “The divine influence will urge and draw thee on, inflaming thy heart to chaste love and reverence of God to acknowledgment of thy littleness, to abhorrence of the earthly vanities, to desire of being despised by creatures, to joyful suffering, to love of the cross and an earnest and generous acceptation of it; it will move thee to seek the last place, to love those that persecute thee, to fear and abhor sin, even the slightest, to aspire to the purest, the most perfect and refined in virtue, to deny thyself thy own inclinations, and to unite thyself to the highest and truest good” (what else is this, but the “Little Way” of St. Thérèse of Liseux?).
Our Lady continues: “Unless gold is untouched by the furnace-heat, the iron by the file, the grain by the grinding stone or flail, the grapes by the winepress, they are all useless and will not attain the end for which they are created. Why then will mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? If they were incapable and unworthy of attaining to the crown and reward of the infinite and eternal Good when innocent, how can they attain it, when they are in darkness and in disgrace before the Almighty? In addition to this, the sons of perdition are exerting all their powers to remain unworthy and hostile to God and in evading crosses and afflictions, which are the paths left open for returning to God!” (The Mystical City of God, by the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Why Would We Refuse the Cross?
If the liturgy of Holy Mother Church says: “Hail Cross! Our only hope!” (Ave crux, spes unica) and “In the Cross is salvation!” (In cruce salus), then why on earth are we inclined to reject and avoid the cross? All that can do is lead to hopelessness and damnation. As indicated by Our Lady above, the Cross is an act of love; it is an instrument of God’s mercy; it is a medicine of God’s; it is a crutch with which we stagger to Heaven; it is a weapon that defends us on the way! What foolishness it is to reject the love, the mercy, the medicine, and the weapon of God!
Furthermore, what a height of insane pride it is to reject that which neither Our Lord, nor Our Lady, rejected! They were innocent of all sin—yet we are guilty of many sins! Our Lord said: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone” (John 8:7) —He could just as well have said: “He that is without sin among you, let him cast away his cross!” To which St. John would add: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).
Yet to carry the Cross is not enough—we must carry it with love. It is the love that we have for the Cross that gives the Cross its value. The greater the love, the greater the value. The less love, the less value. No love, no value. St. Paul puts it this way: “If I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3).
Much Glory From Little Crosses
“In being ‘obedient unto death’ (Philippians 2:8) to the Father’s will, Our Lord was giving us a lesson in glory. It was the day-to-day obedience—in things not noticed by anyone except His mother and the closest of His friends—that gave glory to the Father, just as much as the miracles, prayers, and teaching gave glory.
"A quite ordinary duty, such as writing a letter of thanks, or getting up at the right time in the morning, can give great glory to God. It is answering to His will. The ordinariness of the actual job is raised, so that it shares in the obedience of Christ. From the tip of the pen (if we are writing that letter), glory is flowing out to God; from the effort to throw off the sheets (if it is that duty of getting up), there is an immediate output of glory to God. At every instant of the day, doing what we have to do because God wills us to do it, we are handling glory” (Dom Hubert Van Zeller, Holiness, A Guide For Beginners).
Swimming and Flying Around in “Glory Space”
“Breathing the air of God’s glory, we only have to breathe it in His direction and we are there. As the fish swimming in the sea and the birds flying in the sky, we are moving about in what might be called ‘glory-space.’ It is not as though we had to get onto another planet to find sanctity and give glory to God, or even alter the position we are in on this one (provided that we are where God wants us to be), because God’s presence is everywhere and all we have to do is to live in it and praise Him in it. God is glorified in all His creation. Nature praises Him, because it gets its existence from Him and works according to His laws.
"It is fairly easy to see how God is glorified by sunsets and roses and snow-capped mountains puppies and small chickens and friendly polar bears at the zoo … but He is also glorified by dull things, like stones and cabbage and rain, He is also glorified by snakes and toads and rats. Each separate piece of God’s creation, by existing in the kind of existence God means it to have, gives glory to God” (Dom Hubert Van Zeller, Holiness, A Guide For Beginners).
All Part of The Family
This idea of everything having on it the glow of God’s look, seems clear enough when we take the trouble to think about it. To the saints, such a view of creation is a settled state of mind. Outward objects are seen and loved as being reflections of Him who made them—even the Cross. That is why St. Paul said that the visible things were there to draw our minds to a knowledge of the invisible Creator (Romans 1:20).
That is why St. Francis of Assisi called natural things, like the sky and the sun, by the title of “brother” and “sister”—but ‘family’ did not include just the nice warm sunny days, but the cold rain, the wintry nights, the storms too! They were all in the family. They all bore on them the Father’s likeness. They were all ‘begotten’ of the Father.
Under The Canopy of God’s Will
What a difference it would make, to your life, if you saw, all around you, signposts pointing to the presence of God—in the rain and the sun; in the breeze and the storm; in the cat and the rat; in the bird and the snake; in health and disease; in wealth and in poverty; in praise and in slander; in success and in failure; in joy and in agony.
Not only would nature and human beings proclaim the glory of God, but even in the ordinary happenings, from hour to hour and from day to day, you would welcome God’s will. You would be drawn at once to show gratitude for the pleasant things that happened, knowing that God had provided them, and the unpleasant ones you would accept as part of your share in the Passion. So it would mean that you could live out your life under what St. Augustine described as the canopy or firmament of God’s will.
“So that is what sanctity does. First it glorifies God, from whom all sanctity comes. And second it discovers more and more material with which to express this glory. Where the ordinary “Sunday-Mass-and-nothing-more” kind of Catholic sees the service of God as a tiresome duty to be gotten through somehow, the saint sees the service of God as a marvelous opportunity. To the one, there seem to be few signs of God’s love in a world of muddle and unfairness; to the other, there are signs of His love on every side, even in confusion and disappointment. To the one there are just people, nice ones and nasty ones; to the other there are souls, all of them somehow lovable and all of them reflecting the love of God. To the one there are earthly needs and trials to worry about; to the other there is nothing to worry about — because earthly needs and trials are handed over to God” (Dom Hubert Van Zeller, Holiness, A Guide For Beginners).
Article 20
PASSION SUNDAY, the Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 26th, 2023
Jesus Condemned
PASSION SUNDAY, the Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 26th, 2023
Jesus Condemned
The High-Point of the Liturgical Year
As we enter the glorious season of Passiontide, it is well worth looking beyond the surface of what is the most important time of the entire liturgical year of Holy Mother Church. We have fourteen days of Passiontide―which coincides with the fourteen Stations of the Cross. Usually, when we make the Stations of the Cross, it can all be over in just over half-an-hour―whereas Our Lord’s painful Stations of the Cross took much longer than that. If we never dig deeper into our Faith, there is a grave risk that will become superficial Catholics, cafeteria Catholics, comfort-zone Catholics, clueless Catholics―who might talk much but know little. Therefore, it would not be a bad idea to superimpose Our Lord’s fourteen Stations of Cross upon these fourteen days of Passiontide―in the hope that we can deepen the superficiality and remove the ignorance.
One of greatest liturgists of modern times, Dom Guéranger, states: “After having proposed the forty-days’ fast of Jesus in the desert, for the meditation of the faithful during the first four weeks of Lent, the Holy Church gives the two weeks, which still remain before Easter, to the commemoration of the Passion. She would not have her children come to that great day of the immolation of the Lamb, without having prepared for it by compassionating with Him in the sufferings He endured in their stead. The most ancient sacramentaries and antiphonaries of the several Churches attest, by the prayers, the lessons, and the whole liturgy of these two weeks, that the Passion of our Lord is now the one sole thought of the Christian world. During Passion-week, a saint’s feast, if it occur, will be kept; but the holy images [traditionally covered by purple cloth] are not allowed to be uncovered. The severity of the Lenten fast is increased during these its last days; the whole energy of the spirit of penance is now brought out.”
What’s It All About?
The actual name “Passiontide” tells us what it is all about—it is about the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the focus of these last two weeks or the last two laps of the race which St. Paul spoke of at the start of Lent: “Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain!” (1 Corinthians 9:24). For “not everyone that saith to Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 7:21). And what is the will of the Father? “For this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3) … “You shall be holy, because I am holy” (Leviticus 11:46) … “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
And what is it that makes us perfect? It is self-denial and the Cross that makes us perfect—as Jesus said to the rich young man and others too: “Jesus saith to him: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’” (Matthew 19:21) … “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23). Yet not many want to do this: “Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24) … “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14).
The Focus on the Cross
The liturgy for Passiontide is clearly and unapologetically focused on the Cross. Here are just a few extracts from one of the liturgical hymns for Passiontide:
Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle
Sing the last, the dread affray;
O'er the cross, the victor's trophy,
Sound the high triumphal lay:
Tell how Christ, the world's Redeemer,
As a victim won the day.
Thirty years among us dwelling,
His appointed time fulfilled,
Born for this, He meets His passion,
For that this He freely willed:
On the Cross the Lamb is lifted,
Where His life-blood shall be spilled.
He endured the nails, the spitting,
Vinegar, and spear, and reed;
From that holy body broken
Blood and water forth proceed:
Earth, and stars, and sky, and ocean,
By that flood from stain are freed.
Faithful cross! Above all other,
One and only noble tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peers may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron!
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.
Bend thy boughs, O tree of glory!
Thy relaxing sinews bend;
For awhile the ancient rigor,
That thy birth bestowed, suspend;
And the King of heavenly beauty
On thy bosom gently tend!
Thou alone wast counted worthy
This world's Ransom to uphold;
For a shipwrecked race preparing
Harbor, like the ark of old;
With the sacred blood anointed
From the smitten Lamb that rolled.
Fourteen Days & Fourteen Stations
Beginning with this Passion Sunday, we have fourteen days to go before Easter Sunday. Since Passiontide is all about the Passion and Death of Jesus, in which the Cross receives the place of primacy, it is well for us to reflect upon the events that immediately lead up to Calvary and flow form Calvary. The fourteen Stations of the Cross can providentially fill those fourteen days of Passiontide for us. It is not for nothing that the Stations of the Cross are traditionally left uncovered during these fourteen days of Passiontide, whereas all other statues and images in the church are traditionally covered with a purple cloth. It is so that we can focus on the essential, and the essential is the Passion. We shall, therefore, take a Station of the Cross per day, and reflect upon its modern day application to our lives today and the circumstances that we find ourselves in this rapidly deteriorating world. We will look at it, not only from a religious viewpoint, but also a political, economic and societal viewpoint too. Therefore, today, we start with the First Station: Jesus is Condemned to Death!
Sin Condemns to Death
Our Lord takes upon Himself the condemnation earned by mankind for its sins. “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die” (Ezechiel 18:20). “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23) … “Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned” (Romans 5:12) … “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10). But God also says: “Is it my will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (Ezechiel 18:23). We have all sinned, and as sinners, we are condemned to death—but there is physical death (which is the reward for sin) and there is ‘eternal’ death, or Hell (which is the reward for unrepented sin).
God Wants Us to Live, Not Die
God wants our repentance and penance as proof of our repentance: “But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all my commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done: in his justice which he hath wrought, he shall live” (Ezechiel 18:21-22). This leads us to the beautiful line from Psalm 84: “Mercy and truth have met each other; justice and peace have kissed” (Psalm 84:11). In truth we have sinned, yet we seek mercy. That mercy comes in the form of justice; and by accepting a just punishment that we deserve, we find peace for our souls. “Mercy and truth have met each other; justice and peace have kissed.”
The Devil and World Are Condemned by Our Lord
Can we not see that sin is the greatest evil in the world? If the wage of sin is death, then the devil and world are condemned—for they are amongst the chief sources of sin. Our Lord says: “The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he hath not any thing” (John 14:30) … “because the prince of this world is already judged” (John 16:11)—nor should we have anything to do with the devil or his princedom, the world. Our Lord adds: “Now is the judgment of the world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19), which is why St. John writes: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
The World Condemns Christians to Death
Since the world hates us just as it hated Christ, as Christ foretold, the world will therefore plot the death of Christians as it plotted the death of Christ. “The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ” (Psalm 2:2). These words are also reiterated in the New Testament: “The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes assembled together against the Lord and his Christ” (Acts 4:26). This antipathy and hatred will continue until the last days, as prophesied by Our Lord Himself: “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for My Name's sake” (Matthew 24:9). “They shall deliver you up to councils, and in the synagogues you shall be beaten, and you shall stand before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony unto them ... Brother shall betray his brother unto death, and the father his son; and children shall rise up against the parents, and shall work their death” (Mark 13:9; 13:12). Throughout all this, it will be Cross that brings victory: “But he that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved” (Mark 13:13).
Christian Martyrdom Figures Today
“And I say to you, My friends: ‘Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you shall fear: fear ye Him, Who after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell. Yea, I say to you, fear Him!’” (Luke 12:4-5). For “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal” (John 12:24-25).
Though most people are unaware of this, but the 20th century was the century with the largest number of martyrs; and this current century is estimated to have even higher numbers. This only takes into account the total number of martyrs and is not based on how many martyrs there have been per one thousand of the population. Nevertheless, we are approaching a time where Our Lady has prophesied that large numbers will lose not only their lives, but also their Faith.
“The impious will rage a cruel war … Under the appearance of virtue and bad-spirited zeal, they will turn upon Religion … and in this supreme moment of need of the Church, those who should speak will fall silent … Moreover, in these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost … The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom. Many will succumb to death from the violence of their sufferings and those who sacrifice themselves for the Church and their country will be counted as martyrs” (Our Lady of Good Success).
Fear Not the Condemnation of Men, but of God
As Jesus said: “Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do … Fear ye Him, Who after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell!” (Luke 12:4-5). We are too nearsighted and not farsighted enough! We tremble at the thought of temporary suffering here on earth more than we fear eternal suffering hereafter. Suffering here on earth is a Heaven-sent penance, far more potent than our personally selected watered-down penances. A day of God’s Heaven-sent penance is worth a thousand days of man-made penance. It is this powerful penance that God is preparing for the world and which He will administer soon. Let us not refuse to drink it when it presented to us—like the Bad Thief on the cross: “And one of those robbers who were hanged, blasphemed Him, saying: ‘If thou be Christ, save thyself and us!’” But let us say with the Good Thief, who “rebuked him, saying: ‘Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man hath done no evil!’ And he said to Jesus: ‘Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom!’” If we accept our crosses as just punishment for our innumerable sins, then we will hear the words that “Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in paradise!’” (Luke 23:39-43).
As we enter the glorious season of Passiontide, it is well worth looking beyond the surface of what is the most important time of the entire liturgical year of Holy Mother Church. We have fourteen days of Passiontide―which coincides with the fourteen Stations of the Cross. Usually, when we make the Stations of the Cross, it can all be over in just over half-an-hour―whereas Our Lord’s painful Stations of the Cross took much longer than that. If we never dig deeper into our Faith, there is a grave risk that will become superficial Catholics, cafeteria Catholics, comfort-zone Catholics, clueless Catholics―who might talk much but know little. Therefore, it would not be a bad idea to superimpose Our Lord’s fourteen Stations of Cross upon these fourteen days of Passiontide―in the hope that we can deepen the superficiality and remove the ignorance.
One of greatest liturgists of modern times, Dom Guéranger, states: “After having proposed the forty-days’ fast of Jesus in the desert, for the meditation of the faithful during the first four weeks of Lent, the Holy Church gives the two weeks, which still remain before Easter, to the commemoration of the Passion. She would not have her children come to that great day of the immolation of the Lamb, without having prepared for it by compassionating with Him in the sufferings He endured in their stead. The most ancient sacramentaries and antiphonaries of the several Churches attest, by the prayers, the lessons, and the whole liturgy of these two weeks, that the Passion of our Lord is now the one sole thought of the Christian world. During Passion-week, a saint’s feast, if it occur, will be kept; but the holy images [traditionally covered by purple cloth] are not allowed to be uncovered. The severity of the Lenten fast is increased during these its last days; the whole energy of the spirit of penance is now brought out.”
What’s It All About?
The actual name “Passiontide” tells us what it is all about—it is about the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the focus of these last two weeks or the last two laps of the race which St. Paul spoke of at the start of Lent: “Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain!” (1 Corinthians 9:24). For “not everyone that saith to Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 7:21). And what is the will of the Father? “For this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3) … “You shall be holy, because I am holy” (Leviticus 11:46) … “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
And what is it that makes us perfect? It is self-denial and the Cross that makes us perfect—as Jesus said to the rich young man and others too: “Jesus saith to him: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’” (Matthew 19:21) … “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23). Yet not many want to do this: “Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24) … “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14).
The Focus on the Cross
The liturgy for Passiontide is clearly and unapologetically focused on the Cross. Here are just a few extracts from one of the liturgical hymns for Passiontide:
Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle
Sing the last, the dread affray;
O'er the cross, the victor's trophy,
Sound the high triumphal lay:
Tell how Christ, the world's Redeemer,
As a victim won the day.
Thirty years among us dwelling,
His appointed time fulfilled,
Born for this, He meets His passion,
For that this He freely willed:
On the Cross the Lamb is lifted,
Where His life-blood shall be spilled.
He endured the nails, the spitting,
Vinegar, and spear, and reed;
From that holy body broken
Blood and water forth proceed:
Earth, and stars, and sky, and ocean,
By that flood from stain are freed.
Faithful cross! Above all other,
One and only noble tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peers may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron!
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.
Bend thy boughs, O tree of glory!
Thy relaxing sinews bend;
For awhile the ancient rigor,
That thy birth bestowed, suspend;
And the King of heavenly beauty
On thy bosom gently tend!
Thou alone wast counted worthy
This world's Ransom to uphold;
For a shipwrecked race preparing
Harbor, like the ark of old;
With the sacred blood anointed
From the smitten Lamb that rolled.
Fourteen Days & Fourteen Stations
Beginning with this Passion Sunday, we have fourteen days to go before Easter Sunday. Since Passiontide is all about the Passion and Death of Jesus, in which the Cross receives the place of primacy, it is well for us to reflect upon the events that immediately lead up to Calvary and flow form Calvary. The fourteen Stations of the Cross can providentially fill those fourteen days of Passiontide for us. It is not for nothing that the Stations of the Cross are traditionally left uncovered during these fourteen days of Passiontide, whereas all other statues and images in the church are traditionally covered with a purple cloth. It is so that we can focus on the essential, and the essential is the Passion. We shall, therefore, take a Station of the Cross per day, and reflect upon its modern day application to our lives today and the circumstances that we find ourselves in this rapidly deteriorating world. We will look at it, not only from a religious viewpoint, but also a political, economic and societal viewpoint too. Therefore, today, we start with the First Station: Jesus is Condemned to Death!
Sin Condemns to Death
Our Lord takes upon Himself the condemnation earned by mankind for its sins. “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die” (Ezechiel 18:20). “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23) … “Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned” (Romans 5:12) … “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10). But God also says: “Is it my will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (Ezechiel 18:23). We have all sinned, and as sinners, we are condemned to death—but there is physical death (which is the reward for sin) and there is ‘eternal’ death, or Hell (which is the reward for unrepented sin).
God Wants Us to Live, Not Die
God wants our repentance and penance as proof of our repentance: “But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all my commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done: in his justice which he hath wrought, he shall live” (Ezechiel 18:21-22). This leads us to the beautiful line from Psalm 84: “Mercy and truth have met each other; justice and peace have kissed” (Psalm 84:11). In truth we have sinned, yet we seek mercy. That mercy comes in the form of justice; and by accepting a just punishment that we deserve, we find peace for our souls. “Mercy and truth have met each other; justice and peace have kissed.”
The Devil and World Are Condemned by Our Lord
Can we not see that sin is the greatest evil in the world? If the wage of sin is death, then the devil and world are condemned—for they are amongst the chief sources of sin. Our Lord says: “The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he hath not any thing” (John 14:30) … “because the prince of this world is already judged” (John 16:11)—nor should we have anything to do with the devil or his princedom, the world. Our Lord adds: “Now is the judgment of the world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19), which is why St. John writes: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
The World Condemns Christians to Death
Since the world hates us just as it hated Christ, as Christ foretold, the world will therefore plot the death of Christians as it plotted the death of Christ. “The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ” (Psalm 2:2). These words are also reiterated in the New Testament: “The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes assembled together against the Lord and his Christ” (Acts 4:26). This antipathy and hatred will continue until the last days, as prophesied by Our Lord Himself: “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for My Name's sake” (Matthew 24:9). “They shall deliver you up to councils, and in the synagogues you shall be beaten, and you shall stand before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony unto them ... Brother shall betray his brother unto death, and the father his son; and children shall rise up against the parents, and shall work their death” (Mark 13:9; 13:12). Throughout all this, it will be Cross that brings victory: “But he that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved” (Mark 13:13).
Christian Martyrdom Figures Today
“And I say to you, My friends: ‘Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you shall fear: fear ye Him, Who after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell. Yea, I say to you, fear Him!’” (Luke 12:4-5). For “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal” (John 12:24-25).
Though most people are unaware of this, but the 20th century was the century with the largest number of martyrs; and this current century is estimated to have even higher numbers. This only takes into account the total number of martyrs and is not based on how many martyrs there have been per one thousand of the population. Nevertheless, we are approaching a time where Our Lady has prophesied that large numbers will lose not only their lives, but also their Faith.
“The impious will rage a cruel war … Under the appearance of virtue and bad-spirited zeal, they will turn upon Religion … and in this supreme moment of need of the Church, those who should speak will fall silent … Moreover, in these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost … The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom. Many will succumb to death from the violence of their sufferings and those who sacrifice themselves for the Church and their country will be counted as martyrs” (Our Lady of Good Success).
Fear Not the Condemnation of Men, but of God
As Jesus said: “Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do … Fear ye Him, Who after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell!” (Luke 12:4-5). We are too nearsighted and not farsighted enough! We tremble at the thought of temporary suffering here on earth more than we fear eternal suffering hereafter. Suffering here on earth is a Heaven-sent penance, far more potent than our personally selected watered-down penances. A day of God’s Heaven-sent penance is worth a thousand days of man-made penance. It is this powerful penance that God is preparing for the world and which He will administer soon. Let us not refuse to drink it when it presented to us—like the Bad Thief on the cross: “And one of those robbers who were hanged, blasphemed Him, saying: ‘If thou be Christ, save thyself and us!’” But let us say with the Good Thief, who “rebuked him, saying: ‘Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man hath done no evil!’ And he said to Jesus: ‘Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom!’” If we accept our crosses as just punishment for our innumerable sins, then we will hear the words that “Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in paradise!’” (Luke 23:39-43).
Article 19
Saturday after the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 25th, 2023
The Feast of the Annunciation
Annunciation & Denunciation
Saturday after the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 25th, 2023
The Feast of the Annunciation
Annunciation & Denunciation
What’s in a Word? The Word of God!
Today―March 25th―we celebrate the feast of the Annunciation, which could just as easily be called the feast of the Incarnation, or also, the feast of the Word Made Flesh! We glibly use words without fully adverting to what they mean and without knowing much about their origins. To us, words are like “Birds Eye” ready-made-meals in a package, just take off the shelf, open, add water, mix together and use. You don’t need to know how to make a meal―it’s already made for you―just use it and eat it! We could compare these “Birds-Eye Meals” to “Words-I-Use”―words that have already been invented, packaged and are on the shelf, we don’t fully understand them, we just mix them together and, instead of putting them into our mouths, these words come out of our mouths! Yet sometimes, after having “made a meal” of what we say, we are made to “eat our own words” with some “humble-pie”!
As surveys show, most young Catholics today―especially of the modern Church―are clueless as to what the Annunciation is all about. Some even confuse the Immaculate Conception with the Annunciation, thinking that the Immaculate Conception is all about Mary conceiving Jesus in her womb while still remaining a virgin! On that point, some young Catholics cannot even tell you who the members of the Holy Trinity are! Nor do they know who the Evangelists were, nor the names of the Apostles, nor the Ten Commandments, nor what the essential conditions are for a mortal sin, etc. That is a situation that calls for an annunciation of a denunciation!
Anyway, before we proceed further, let us look at the meaning of the words “annunciation” and “denunciation” and then take those “Birds-Eye” words off the shelf, unpack them, add the water of some thoughts and mix them all together to see what comes out of the oven.
Annunciation & Denunciation
The English word “annunciation” originates from Middle English, which in turn takes the word from Old French “annunciation”, which, going further back in time, comes from late Latin “annuntiatio(n-)”, which has its origins in the ancient Latin verb “annuntiare” or the prefix “an-” plus “nuntiare” ― meaning “an act or instance of announcing something; a proclamation; the brining of news.” Thus, the word “annunciation” essentially means “to bring news, the making of an announcement, making a proclamation.” Related word, or synonyms, of “annunciation” are “edict, notice, publication, communication, declaration, pronouncement, advertisement, proclamation, bulletin, notification.”
The English word “denunciation” comes from the 15th century, and traces its roots, like “annunciation” through Old French, Late Latin to ancient Latin. It has the same root as “annunciation”―that is to say, the Latin verb “nuntiare” which is prefixed with “de-” which means taking from something, as in detract; or going away from something, as in depart; or going down, as in demote; whereas the “an-” prefix, which is a derivative of “ad-” means “adding to something, going towards something.” The Latin meaning of “denuntiare” is “to announce [negatively], proclaim [negatively]; bring bad news, denounce, menace; a charge, a solemn or formal declaration accompanied by a menace.” Hence we get today’s definition of “denunciation” as being “a strong, public criticism; the act of accusing someone in public of something bad; an act or instance of denouncing; public censure or condemnation; an accusation of crime before a public prosecutor or tribunal.” Related words, or synonyms, of “denunciation” are “denouncement, censure, accusation, condemnation, rebuke, reprimand, reproach, reproof, indictment, castigation, reprehension, reprobation, blame, charge, incrimination, vilification, stigmatization.” So now we know something more than we did before!
The Annunciation Brings Consternation and Potential Denunciation and Separation
In Christianity, the capitalized word “Annunciation” means the announcement of GOOD NEWS by the Archangel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she would conceive a Son by the power of the Holy Ghost, Who would be the Son of God and was to be called Jesus (Luke 1:26–38).
“And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel, being come in, said unto her: ‘Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with thee! Blessed art thou among women!’ Who, having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said to her: ‘Fear not, Mary! For thou hast found grace with God! Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a Son; and thou shalt call His name Jesus! He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High! And the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David His father! And He shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever! And of His Kingdom there shall be no end!’ And Mary said to the angel: ‘How shall this be done, because I know not man?’ And the angel answering, said to her: ‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee! And therefore also the Holy, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God. And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren―because no word shall be impossible with God!’ And Mary said: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord! Be it done to me according to thy word!’ And the angel departed from her” (Luke 1:26-38).
The Denunciation
This miraculous conception within Mary, by the power of God, brought about a great consternation within St. Joseph, to whom Mary was espoused. Very soon he noticed her pregnancy and was bewildered as to how this could have happened. Jewish Law demanded that any adulterous actions be denounced and that the guilty parties be stoned to death. Joseph could not bring himself to believe that Mary would commit adultery, nor could he bear the thought of denouncing her. So he decided to quietly withdraw from the scene, leave Mary, and go live somewhere else.
“When, as His mother, Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with Child, of the Holy Ghost. Whereupon Joseph, her husband, being a just man, and not willing publicly to expose her, was minded to put her away privately. But, while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in his sleep, saying: ‘Joseph, son of David! Fear not to take unto thee Mary, thy wife! For that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call His Name Jesus. For He shall save His people from their sins!’ Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying: ‘Behold a virgin shall be with Child, and bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel!’―which being interpreted is, ‘God with us.’ And Joseph, rising up from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and took unto him his wife. And he knew her not till she brought forth her firstborn Son: and he called His Name Jesus.” (Matthew 1:17-25).
Combining the Annunciations to Mary and Joseph
Mixing together the ingredients of the two packages of ‘Annunciations’ made by Angels―instead of “Birds-Eye” packages you could call then “Angel-Mouth” messages―you get the following GOOD NEWS: “‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee, and thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a Son … And therefore the Holy, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God. And thou shalt call His name Jesus [which means “Savior”]. For He shall save His people from their sins! And the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David His father! And He shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever! And of His Kingdom there shall be no end!’ Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying: ‘Behold a virgin shall be with Child, and bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel!’―which being interpreted is, ‘God with us.’”
The Annunciation of Jesus
When Jesus reached manhood and began His public ministry, He would make His own annunciation and announce the very same thing the angels had announced to Mary and Joseph:
“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world” (John 12:47)―thus confirming that “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent His Son into the world, NOT to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:16-17). “Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present wicked world, according to the will of God and our Father” (Galatians 1:4). Yet though He came into this world, He was not of this world: “My kingdom is not of this world!” (John 18:36). “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18).
But if the world will not receive Him―“He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:10-11)―then He WILL judge the world and they will die in their sins rather than being saved from their sins: “For neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22). “I cannot of Myself do anything. As I hear, so I judge and My judgment is just; because I seek not My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me” (John 5:30). “You judge according to the flesh … Judge not according to the appearance, but judge just judgment! … I judge not any man! And if I do judge, My judgment is true―because I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent Me are one! … I go, and you shall seek Me, and you shall die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come! … You are from beneath, I am from above! You are of this world, I am not of this world! Therefore I said to you, that you shall die in your sins!. For if you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sin! … Many things I have to speak and to judge of you. But He that sent Me, is true―and the things I have heard of Him, these same I speak in the world!” (John7:24; 8:15-16; 8:21-26). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
Our Lord goes on to announce that “the spirit of truth, the world cannot receive” (John 14:17). “I have manifested Thy Name, Father, to the men whom Thou hast given Me out of the world ... Thine they were, and to Me Thou gavest them … I am not of the world, and these are in the world … I pray for them … I pray not for the world, but for them whom Thou hast given Me … I have given them Thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world; as I also am not of the world” (John 17:6-14). “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated Me before you … If you had been of the world, the world would love its own―but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19).
The Denunciation of Christ and the Laws of Christ
The world denounces Christ/God both directly and indirectly, totally or partially. It all depends on the ruling regime and the culture and religion of each country. Nevertheless, it should be clear even to even the most myopic mind and most optimistic observer, that the world is stacked against Christ, His Church and His Laws. In some countries, the persecution is open, brutal and widespread; in other countries it is more indirect, hidden, subversive and subtle. Some countries physically persecute and kill Catholics, other countries persecute and kill them through laws and finance. It is not for nothing that Holy Scripture says in both the Old and New Testaments: “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes assembled together against the Lord and His Christ!” Psalm 2:2; Acts 4:26).
Governmental backing for contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs is one example of the modern-day “rack” or torture on which the Catholic Church has been placed. It is the modern compromise that imitates the early Christian dilemma of having to sacrifice to false gods or being put to death. Likewise the recently invented “hate crimes” of not accepting and speaking out against obvious sin ― such as homosexual relationships, divorce, abortion, contraception and abortion provoking contraceptives, fornication and cohabitation outside of marriage, etc. Then the more subtle pressure of having to accept “freedom of religion” which, as has been witnessed, leads to freedom to worship Satan in the public domain―in the military, in schools, and in society at large. All of this is a disguised hatred of Christ, Christ’s teachings and Christ’s one true Church. Make no mistake about it―for the most part, the world hates Christ and Christ’s laws, either totally or partially, explicitly or implicitly. The teachings of Christ are denounced, ridiculed, ignored, rejected and forbidden. The world, as a whole, hates Christ―whether it admits it or not―and we somehow still love the world!
Denouncing a Right to Life by the World
At the Annunciation, Christ becomes a yet-to-be-born in Our Lady’s womb. In a sense, the Annunciation can be said to encompass children―both the unborn and the born. Let us put some objectivity into our vigilante moralizing today! There is no question that child abuse―whether physical abuse or sexual abuse―is a grave sin, one which merits Hell, unless sincerely confessed and paid for by penance. Yet let us not use that grave sin to whitewash or hide an even greater sin of another form of child abuse―which is the even greater sin of abortion, which also merits Hell, unless sincerely confessed and paid for by penance. All things being equal―the person asking for an abortion or performing an abortion, will find themselves in far greater torments in Hell than the person who has abused a child physically or sexually. Murder is a far greater crime than abuse!
With regard to abortion (the ultimate “child abuse” crime―since it is child murder), abortion laws vary widely by country. Only three countries in Latin America (the tiny countries Dominican Republic―population 10 million, El Salvador―population 6 million, and Nicaragua with a population 6 million) and two in Europe: the tiny island of Malta with a population of half-a-million and the Holy See or Vatican City with a population of 1,000―have banned abortions entirely, but life-saving abortions are nevertheless allowed in Malta in practice. Therefore, a total of less than 23 million people from those five tiny countries, out of the world’s population of 7,000 million, live in an area where abortion is forbidden―which means that approximately 1/300th or 0.003% of the world forbids abortion. According to World Health Organization, whose numbers will always be on the low side, every year in the world there are an estimated 40-50 million abortions. This corresponds to approximately 125,000 abortions per day. Today―that number is much harder to calculate, because of the advent of the abortion pill, which it is estimated accounts for at least half of the world’s abortions―done in secrecy of your own home and toilet! That is murder―that is child abuse of the highest degree―yet the world condones it, accepts it, legalizes it, funds it and demands it! God says: “Thou shalt not kill!” and they don’t give a damn! That is a hatred of God and His Law.
As regards contraception―which is working against God’s providence and denying a child its right to life―in developing countries, more than half of all women of reproductive age want to avoid pregnancy. 214 million women are not using an effective method of contraception, leading to 88 million unintended pregnancies (but God intended pregnancies) in developing countries each year. In developed countries, contraception practice percentages, according to the United Nations statistics department, are as follows: Norway 88%; Czechia 86%; Canada 85%; Finland 85%; China 84%; UK 84%; Argentina 81%; Brazil 80%; Ecuador 80%; Uruguay 79%; France 78%; Greece 76%; Denmark 76%; Chile 76%; Colombia 75%; Netherlands 73%; USA 72%; Switzerland 69%; Germany 68%; Israel 68%; Sweden 64%; Spain 69%; Russia 68%; Portugal 67%; Mexico 67%; Belgium 66%; Australia 66%; Italy 65%; Austria 65%; Ireland 64%; Ukraine 64%; Hungary 61%; Poland 41%; Japan 39%; Pakistan 35%; United Arab Emirates 27%; Saudi Arabia 25%; Afghanistan 22%; Nigeria 13%; Sudan 12%; Gambia 9%; South Sudan 4%. These are just some of the chief countries of the total of 197 countries listed. If you are interested the worldwide average comes to rounded-off figure of 52% women of reproductive age practicing contraception. All of this strikes a blow against God the creator, by robbing God of souls that potentially would give glory to Him―because Christ commanded that ALL persons should be baptized: “Teach ye all nations, baptizing them” (Matthew 28:19)―and all this is done from a selfish motive, where people think only of their own well-being and ignore the glory and will of God.
The World Denounces God’s Rules on Marriage and Morality
Marriage is a creation of God’s and not a creation of man! Just as man cannot tinker with God’s physical laws in nature, neither can tinker with God’s moral laws concerning marriage and relationships. Sister Lucia of Fatima said that the focal point of the devil’s “Final Battle” would be the family. This is patently and blatantly obvious to all who want to see! Marriage has been attacked on all fronts―firstly on the level of being a non-dissoluble institution, which has now been broken by universal acceptance of legalized divorced; and now on the level of marriage being a union between one man and one woman, with the almost universal acceptance of same sex marriages, which, obviously, therefore condone same sex sexual relationships. All of this flies in the face of God’s clear and unambiguous moral code, which can readily be found in Holy Scripture―which lays do wn the law that marriage is to be between one man and one woman; that marriage is monogamous (having only one spouse and not several spouses); that marriage is indissoluble (that it is a “until death do us part” marriage); and that marriage forbids adultery, contraception and abortion.
What Don’t You Understand About This?
What is there about the following words of Holy Scripture―the word and law of God―that cannot be understood? “And the Lord God said: ‘It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself!’ … for Adam there was not found a helper like himself. Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: ‘This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man!’ Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh. And God created man to His own image―to the image of God He created him: male and female He created them. And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the Earth” (Genesis 1:27-28; 2:18-24).
God’s Denunciation of Homosexuality and Sodomy
The only way you can “increase and multiply” is in a male-female marriage, not a male-male or female-female union: “And Adam knew Eve his wife―who conceived and brought forth Cain, saying: ‘I have gotten a man through God.’ And again she brought forth his brother Abel … In the day that God created man, he made him to the likeness of God. He created them male and female; and blessed them … And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son to his own image and likeness, and called his name Seth. And the days of Adam, after he begot Seth, were eight hundred years: and he begot sons and daughters. And all the time that Adam lived came to nine hundred and thirty years, and he died. Seth begot begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died, etc., etc.” (Genesis 3:1-2 ff). If God would have intended some other option to male-female procreation, He would most certainly have built that possibility into human nature―but He didn’t. Why? God explains His thoughts elsewhere in Holy Scripture:
“Thou shalt not lie with man as with woman―because it is an abomination! Thou shalt not copulate with any beast, neither shalt thou be defiled with it. A woman shall not lie down to a beast, nor copulate with it―because it is a heinous crime! Defile not yourselves with any of these things with which all the nations have been defiled, and with which the land is defiled―the abominations of which I will visit―that it may vomit out its inhabitants” (Leviticus 18:22-25).
When St. Paul discusses the activity of sodomites, he does not say it is “just another sin”. Rather, he presents it as an example of extreme abomination, coming at the end of a long path of progressive debauchery. Many sins are not against nature, but are simply good things done in the wrong way or at the wrong time. But homosexual sex is such a perversion that it is a sin against nature itself. There is no context in which it can ever be holy. It is debased and unfruitful by definition. When it comes to heinous sins, sodomy is near the end of the road, just before final judgment.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and injustice! … They became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened! For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools! … Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves! Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature, rather than the Creator! … For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men, working that which is filthy!” (Romans 1:18-27).
Homosexuality is Severely Punished by God
Holy Scripture shows, on numerous occasions, God’s disgust with homosexuality. First of all He warns against it, threatening severe punishments: “Thou shalt not lie with man as with woman, because it is an abomination. Thou shalt not copulate with any beast, neither shalt thou be defiled with it. A woman shall not lie down to a beast, nor copulate with it―because it is a heinous crime. Defile not yourselves with any of these things with which all the nations have been defiled, and with which the land is defiled―the abominations of which I will visit―that it may vomit out its inhabitants” (Leviticus 18:22-25). “If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an abomination! Let them be put to death―their blood be upon them!” (Leviticus 20:13).
Then, whenever homosexuality breaks out, we see God’s heavy hand of punishment chastising it, as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrha (Genesis 19:1-29), Canaan (Leviticus 18:22-25) and Gabaa (Judges 19:22-25). Fire and brimstone rain down from Heaven and destroy Sodom, Gomorrha and all surrounding land and cities:
“And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of the city … And they [the angels] said to Lot: ‘Hast thou here any of thine? Son-in-law, or sons, or daughters, all that are thine bring them out of this city! For we will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord, who hath sent us to destroy them!’ … And when it was morning, the angels pressed Lot, saying: ‘Arise! Take thy wife and the two daughters, which thou hast! Lest thou also perish in the wickedness of the city!’ … And they brought him forth, and set him outside the city … And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha, brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven. And He destroyed these cities, and all the country round about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all things that spring from the earth … And Abraham got up early in the morning and, in the place where he had stood before with the Lord, he looked towards Sodom and Gomorrha, and the whole land of that country, and he saw the ashes rise up from the earth as the smoke of a furnace!” (Genesis 19:1-29).
So what has changed? Has God changed His mind about homosexuality? Is what once was evil now acceptable? Times change―don’t they? Holy Scripture trashes such a thought, saying that God is “the Father of lights, with Whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration!” (James 1:17) and “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20). Today’s modern world and legal system had better get ready to take God to court and sentence Him for being guilty of a “hate crime”! They may well be “proud” of the sin today, but after Judgment Day, there will no longer be any “Pride Days” in Hell. They can threaten and blaspheme God as much as they want―God is not going to change, God does not cave in to pressure and intimidation.
When St. Paul discusses the activity of sodomites, he does not say it is “just another sin”. Rather, he presents it as an example of extreme abomination, coming at the end of a long path of progressive debauchery. Many sins are not against nature, but are simply good things done in the wrong way or at the wrong time. But homosexual sex is such a perversion that it is a sin against nature itself. There is no context in which it can ever be holy. It is debased and unfruitful by definition. When it comes to heinous sins, sodomy is near the end of the road, just before final judgment.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and injustice … They became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools … Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature, rather than the Creator … For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men, working that which is filthy!” (Romans 1:18-27).
“Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err! Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor men who sleep with men (Latin: masculorum concubitoribus, in other words, homosexuals), nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor speakers of evil (Latin: maledici), nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) and “the law is not made for the just man, but for the unjust and disobedient, for the ungodly, and for sinners, for the wicked and defiled, for murderers of fathers, and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for homosexuals (masculorum concubitoribus), … and whatever other thing is contrary to sound doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:9-10).
The bishops and priests of today, who are practicing homosexuals―which apparently seems to be many―are, as Our Lady of La Salette says, about to bring down from Heaven a terrible chastisement: “The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity. Yes, the priests are asking for vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts. May those in charge of religious communities be on their guard against the people they must receive, for the devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth. The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless Sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world. God will strike in an unprecedented way. The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish. The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God. People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family. Physical and moral agonies will be suffered. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other. The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God! Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together!” (Our Lady of La Salette).
Let us not imagine that this scourge of homosexuality simply exists among the clergy―they don’t become homosexual after priestly ordination―it is rampant everywhere even before they hit the seminaries, monasteries and convents. It is not only the homosexual clergy that will attract the wrath of God, but also the countless homosexuals that now infest society at large. In his 1948 book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Alfred Kinsey shocked the world by announcing that 10% of the male population was homosexual. A 1993 Janus Report estimated that 9% of men and 5% of women had more than “occasional” homosexual relationships―these percentages only count practicing homosexuals. In August 2002, a Gallup poll asked Americans, in an open-ended format, to estimate the percentage of American men and the percentage of American women who are homosexual. The average estimates were that 21% of men are homosexual and 22% of women are lesbians. In fact, roughly a quarter of the public thinks more than 25% of men and 25% of women are homosexual―given that many or most homosexuals, lesbians or transgenders are still shy of “coming out” and admitting their sexual deviation. They are fools, foolishly playing―not just with each other―but with their very salvation and eternal damnation. This sin, which God calls an abomination, cries out to Heaven for Divine retribution: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, because it is an abomination” (Leviticus 18:22). “If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an abomination! Let them be put to death―their blood be upon them!” (Leviticus 20:13).
What is to be said of the enablers of homosexuality? What is to be said of those who praise and fight for freedom to be granted to homosexuality; who promote homosexuality in schools and organizations; those who pass laws allowing and legalizing homosexuality, lesbianism and transgenderism? In moral theology, the provoker is often more guilty than the perpetrator, the instigator more than the malefactor, the seducer more than the seduced. The words that Our Lord spoke to the Pharisees―for much lesser transgressions―are thus even more applicable to these people: “Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you shut the Kingdom of Heaven against men―for you yourselves do not enter in―and those that are going in, you suffer not to enter! … Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you go round about the sea and the land to make one convert; and when he is made, you make him the child of Hell twofold more than yourselves!” (Matthew 23:13-15). “He that shall scandalize one of these little ones, that believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea!” (Matthew 18:6).
God’s Denunciation of Fornication and Adultery
So if you are tempted by homosexual or lesbian desires, you have to fight them―that is the particular cross that God has chosen to give you! Okay! Don’t have a chip on your shoulder about it and say it’s not fair! God does not only condemn homosexuality! He also condemns fornication (sexual relations or desires among single people) and adultery (sexual relations or desires where one or both persons is married).
“The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body!” (1 Corinthians 6:13). “For fear of fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband!” (1 Corinthians 7:2-3). “Flee fornication! Every sin that a man does, is without the body; but he that commits fornication, sins against his own body. Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own? For you are bought with a great price! Glorify and bear God in your body!” (1 Corinthians 6:18-20). “Mortify, therefore, your members, which are upon the earth from fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence … For which things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of unbelief, among whom you also walked at some time, when you lived in them. But now put away all filthy speech … stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new man, him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of Him that created him!” (Colossians 3:5-10). “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that you should abstain from fornication! That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor! Not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles that know not God!” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5). “Walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit: and the spirit against the flesh … Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, … and such like. Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God!” (Galatians 5:16-21).
Remember, too, that fornication is not just committed by physical actions, but also by mental thoughts! If the following verse is true of adultery, then it is also true of fornication: “Whosoever shall look on a woman, to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart!” (Matthew 5:28). Today, the world has made it easy for mental fornication and mental adultery to be committed―the media is a literal tsunami of constant sexual and immodest bombardment. Turn wherever you will―TV, internet, advertizing, magazine covers, book covers, fashions, everyday clothing, people on the street―immodesty at best and impurity at worst is flowing onto you from all sides.
It is not for nothing that Our Lady of Good Success spoke of this: “Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of doing away with this Sacrament, making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church … The passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of morals, for Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects. They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption. Woe to the children of these times! … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals ... In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world!”
Woe to those people who are enablers and promoters of this “filthy ocean” of “the spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times” allowing it to “run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty.” As was said before, the provoker is often more guilty than the perpetrator, in instigator more than the malefactor, the seducer more than the seduced. Why do the governments not legislate against such immodesty, impurity, perversion and pornography? They have it in their power to do so! Yet they refuse to do so! Yet they will sentence a man to jail who gives drugs to his children, or even drugs to fellow adults―yet they allow immodesty, impurity, perversion and pornography to freely circulate on the various media outlets, thus creating the tinder-wood or kindling-wood for the fire of fornication and adultery in both mind and body! “He that shall scandalize one of these little ones, that believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea!” (Matthew 18:6). What does it mean to “scandalize”? The word comes from the Latin noun, “scandalum”, which means a stumbling-block or something that you trip over. That is exactly what the governments, media outlets, movies and television shows, fashion outlets and everyday folk on the street are doing―they are placing stumbling-blocks of immodesty, impurity, perversion and pornography in the path of others to trip them up so that they fall into sin!
The very same applies to adultery, which is basically fornication by married people―or where at least one person is married―with someone who is not their spouse. Just as with fornication, adultery can be mental or physical. Our Lord is pretty clear on the matter, not giving leeway for loopholes:
“You have heard that it was said to them of old: ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery!’ But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman, to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart! And if thy right eye scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee! For it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into Hell! And if thy right hand scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into Hell! And it hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a bill of divorce. But I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, excepting for the cause of fornication, maketh her to commit adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery!” (Matthew 5:27-32).
God’s Denunciation of Divorce
Marriage is intended to be permanent, since it was established by God. “And there came to Jesus the Pharisees tempting Him, and saying: ‘Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?’ Jesus, answering, said to them: ‘Have ye not read, that He [God] Who made man from the beginning, made them male and female?’ And Jesus said [quoting Genesis 2:24]: ‘For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder!’ They said to Him: ‘Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to put away?’ Jesus said to them: ‘Because Moses, by reason of the hardness of your heart, permitted you to put away your wives! But from the beginning it was not so! And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery! And he that shall marry her, that is put away, committeth adultery!” (Matthew 19:3-9).
St. Mark paints an almost identical scene: “The Pharisees, coming to Jesus, tempting Him, asked Him: ‘Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife?’ But Jesus, answering, said to them: ‘What did Moses command you?’ They said: ‘Moses permitted to write a bill of divorce, and to put her away!’ To whom Jesus, answering, said: ‘Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you that precept! But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife. And they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder!’ And in the house, again His disciples asked Him concerning the same thing. And He said to them: ‘Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another, committeth adultery against her! And if the wife shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery!’” (Mark 10:2-12).
Those who have created, pushed for, and passed legislation permitting divorce will have one hell of a judgment when they die and find themselves divorced from God and eternally married to the devil! God help them! The same for those who promote divorce on the media, via television shows and movies, which desensitize us to the sin of divorce and even glamorize and glorify divorce. Marriage and divorce has become like a fast-food express lane check-out! Quickie-Marriage followed by a Quickie-Divorce, followed by a not-so-Quickie payment in Hell or Purgatory. But what the hell! As one pope after another has said―the greatest sin of our modern age is that man has lost the sense of sin! And losing the sense of sin is just one step away from losing your soul!
So―as we celebrate the feast of the Annunciation―let us be thankful that Christ became man to save us from our sins! However, let us also remember that Christ will only save those who want to be saved! Let us also remember the philosophical axiom that states: “He who desires a goal, must also necessarily desire the means that lead to that goal!” That means if we desire to be saved from our sins and to get to Heaven―then we have to do what it takes to get there! As Our Lord says: “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21-23). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
Today―March 25th―we celebrate the feast of the Annunciation, which could just as easily be called the feast of the Incarnation, or also, the feast of the Word Made Flesh! We glibly use words without fully adverting to what they mean and without knowing much about their origins. To us, words are like “Birds Eye” ready-made-meals in a package, just take off the shelf, open, add water, mix together and use. You don’t need to know how to make a meal―it’s already made for you―just use it and eat it! We could compare these “Birds-Eye Meals” to “Words-I-Use”―words that have already been invented, packaged and are on the shelf, we don’t fully understand them, we just mix them together and, instead of putting them into our mouths, these words come out of our mouths! Yet sometimes, after having “made a meal” of what we say, we are made to “eat our own words” with some “humble-pie”!
As surveys show, most young Catholics today―especially of the modern Church―are clueless as to what the Annunciation is all about. Some even confuse the Immaculate Conception with the Annunciation, thinking that the Immaculate Conception is all about Mary conceiving Jesus in her womb while still remaining a virgin! On that point, some young Catholics cannot even tell you who the members of the Holy Trinity are! Nor do they know who the Evangelists were, nor the names of the Apostles, nor the Ten Commandments, nor what the essential conditions are for a mortal sin, etc. That is a situation that calls for an annunciation of a denunciation!
Anyway, before we proceed further, let us look at the meaning of the words “annunciation” and “denunciation” and then take those “Birds-Eye” words off the shelf, unpack them, add the water of some thoughts and mix them all together to see what comes out of the oven.
Annunciation & Denunciation
The English word “annunciation” originates from Middle English, which in turn takes the word from Old French “annunciation”, which, going further back in time, comes from late Latin “annuntiatio(n-)”, which has its origins in the ancient Latin verb “annuntiare” or the prefix “an-” plus “nuntiare” ― meaning “an act or instance of announcing something; a proclamation; the brining of news.” Thus, the word “annunciation” essentially means “to bring news, the making of an announcement, making a proclamation.” Related word, or synonyms, of “annunciation” are “edict, notice, publication, communication, declaration, pronouncement, advertisement, proclamation, bulletin, notification.”
The English word “denunciation” comes from the 15th century, and traces its roots, like “annunciation” through Old French, Late Latin to ancient Latin. It has the same root as “annunciation”―that is to say, the Latin verb “nuntiare” which is prefixed with “de-” which means taking from something, as in detract; or going away from something, as in depart; or going down, as in demote; whereas the “an-” prefix, which is a derivative of “ad-” means “adding to something, going towards something.” The Latin meaning of “denuntiare” is “to announce [negatively], proclaim [negatively]; bring bad news, denounce, menace; a charge, a solemn or formal declaration accompanied by a menace.” Hence we get today’s definition of “denunciation” as being “a strong, public criticism; the act of accusing someone in public of something bad; an act or instance of denouncing; public censure or condemnation; an accusation of crime before a public prosecutor or tribunal.” Related words, or synonyms, of “denunciation” are “denouncement, censure, accusation, condemnation, rebuke, reprimand, reproach, reproof, indictment, castigation, reprehension, reprobation, blame, charge, incrimination, vilification, stigmatization.” So now we know something more than we did before!
The Annunciation Brings Consternation and Potential Denunciation and Separation
In Christianity, the capitalized word “Annunciation” means the announcement of GOOD NEWS by the Archangel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she would conceive a Son by the power of the Holy Ghost, Who would be the Son of God and was to be called Jesus (Luke 1:26–38).
“And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel, being come in, said unto her: ‘Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with thee! Blessed art thou among women!’ Who, having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said to her: ‘Fear not, Mary! For thou hast found grace with God! Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a Son; and thou shalt call His name Jesus! He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High! And the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David His father! And He shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever! And of His Kingdom there shall be no end!’ And Mary said to the angel: ‘How shall this be done, because I know not man?’ And the angel answering, said to her: ‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee! And therefore also the Holy, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God. And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren―because no word shall be impossible with God!’ And Mary said: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord! Be it done to me according to thy word!’ And the angel departed from her” (Luke 1:26-38).
The Denunciation
This miraculous conception within Mary, by the power of God, brought about a great consternation within St. Joseph, to whom Mary was espoused. Very soon he noticed her pregnancy and was bewildered as to how this could have happened. Jewish Law demanded that any adulterous actions be denounced and that the guilty parties be stoned to death. Joseph could not bring himself to believe that Mary would commit adultery, nor could he bear the thought of denouncing her. So he decided to quietly withdraw from the scene, leave Mary, and go live somewhere else.
“When, as His mother, Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with Child, of the Holy Ghost. Whereupon Joseph, her husband, being a just man, and not willing publicly to expose her, was minded to put her away privately. But, while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in his sleep, saying: ‘Joseph, son of David! Fear not to take unto thee Mary, thy wife! For that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call His Name Jesus. For He shall save His people from their sins!’ Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying: ‘Behold a virgin shall be with Child, and bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel!’―which being interpreted is, ‘God with us.’ And Joseph, rising up from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and took unto him his wife. And he knew her not till she brought forth her firstborn Son: and he called His Name Jesus.” (Matthew 1:17-25).
Combining the Annunciations to Mary and Joseph
Mixing together the ingredients of the two packages of ‘Annunciations’ made by Angels―instead of “Birds-Eye” packages you could call then “Angel-Mouth” messages―you get the following GOOD NEWS: “‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee, and thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a Son … And therefore the Holy, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God. And thou shalt call His name Jesus [which means “Savior”]. For He shall save His people from their sins! And the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David His father! And He shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever! And of His Kingdom there shall be no end!’ Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying: ‘Behold a virgin shall be with Child, and bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel!’―which being interpreted is, ‘God with us.’”
The Annunciation of Jesus
When Jesus reached manhood and began His public ministry, He would make His own annunciation and announce the very same thing the angels had announced to Mary and Joseph:
“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world” (John 12:47)―thus confirming that “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent His Son into the world, NOT to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:16-17). “Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present wicked world, according to the will of God and our Father” (Galatians 1:4). Yet though He came into this world, He was not of this world: “My kingdom is not of this world!” (John 18:36). “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18).
But if the world will not receive Him―“He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:10-11)―then He WILL judge the world and they will die in their sins rather than being saved from their sins: “For neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22). “I cannot of Myself do anything. As I hear, so I judge and My judgment is just; because I seek not My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me” (John 5:30). “You judge according to the flesh … Judge not according to the appearance, but judge just judgment! … I judge not any man! And if I do judge, My judgment is true―because I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent Me are one! … I go, and you shall seek Me, and you shall die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come! … You are from beneath, I am from above! You are of this world, I am not of this world! Therefore I said to you, that you shall die in your sins!. For if you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sin! … Many things I have to speak and to judge of you. But He that sent Me, is true―and the things I have heard of Him, these same I speak in the world!” (John7:24; 8:15-16; 8:21-26). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
Our Lord goes on to announce that “the spirit of truth, the world cannot receive” (John 14:17). “I have manifested Thy Name, Father, to the men whom Thou hast given Me out of the world ... Thine they were, and to Me Thou gavest them … I am not of the world, and these are in the world … I pray for them … I pray not for the world, but for them whom Thou hast given Me … I have given them Thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world; as I also am not of the world” (John 17:6-14). “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated Me before you … If you had been of the world, the world would love its own―but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19).
The Denunciation of Christ and the Laws of Christ
The world denounces Christ/God both directly and indirectly, totally or partially. It all depends on the ruling regime and the culture and religion of each country. Nevertheless, it should be clear even to even the most myopic mind and most optimistic observer, that the world is stacked against Christ, His Church and His Laws. In some countries, the persecution is open, brutal and widespread; in other countries it is more indirect, hidden, subversive and subtle. Some countries physically persecute and kill Catholics, other countries persecute and kill them through laws and finance. It is not for nothing that Holy Scripture says in both the Old and New Testaments: “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes assembled together against the Lord and His Christ!” Psalm 2:2; Acts 4:26).
Governmental backing for contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs is one example of the modern-day “rack” or torture on which the Catholic Church has been placed. It is the modern compromise that imitates the early Christian dilemma of having to sacrifice to false gods or being put to death. Likewise the recently invented “hate crimes” of not accepting and speaking out against obvious sin ― such as homosexual relationships, divorce, abortion, contraception and abortion provoking contraceptives, fornication and cohabitation outside of marriage, etc. Then the more subtle pressure of having to accept “freedom of religion” which, as has been witnessed, leads to freedom to worship Satan in the public domain―in the military, in schools, and in society at large. All of this is a disguised hatred of Christ, Christ’s teachings and Christ’s one true Church. Make no mistake about it―for the most part, the world hates Christ and Christ’s laws, either totally or partially, explicitly or implicitly. The teachings of Christ are denounced, ridiculed, ignored, rejected and forbidden. The world, as a whole, hates Christ―whether it admits it or not―and we somehow still love the world!
Denouncing a Right to Life by the World
At the Annunciation, Christ becomes a yet-to-be-born in Our Lady’s womb. In a sense, the Annunciation can be said to encompass children―both the unborn and the born. Let us put some objectivity into our vigilante moralizing today! There is no question that child abuse―whether physical abuse or sexual abuse―is a grave sin, one which merits Hell, unless sincerely confessed and paid for by penance. Yet let us not use that grave sin to whitewash or hide an even greater sin of another form of child abuse―which is the even greater sin of abortion, which also merits Hell, unless sincerely confessed and paid for by penance. All things being equal―the person asking for an abortion or performing an abortion, will find themselves in far greater torments in Hell than the person who has abused a child physically or sexually. Murder is a far greater crime than abuse!
With regard to abortion (the ultimate “child abuse” crime―since it is child murder), abortion laws vary widely by country. Only three countries in Latin America (the tiny countries Dominican Republic―population 10 million, El Salvador―population 6 million, and Nicaragua with a population 6 million) and two in Europe: the tiny island of Malta with a population of half-a-million and the Holy See or Vatican City with a population of 1,000―have banned abortions entirely, but life-saving abortions are nevertheless allowed in Malta in practice. Therefore, a total of less than 23 million people from those five tiny countries, out of the world’s population of 7,000 million, live in an area where abortion is forbidden―which means that approximately 1/300th or 0.003% of the world forbids abortion. According to World Health Organization, whose numbers will always be on the low side, every year in the world there are an estimated 40-50 million abortions. This corresponds to approximately 125,000 abortions per day. Today―that number is much harder to calculate, because of the advent of the abortion pill, which it is estimated accounts for at least half of the world’s abortions―done in secrecy of your own home and toilet! That is murder―that is child abuse of the highest degree―yet the world condones it, accepts it, legalizes it, funds it and demands it! God says: “Thou shalt not kill!” and they don’t give a damn! That is a hatred of God and His Law.
As regards contraception―which is working against God’s providence and denying a child its right to life―in developing countries, more than half of all women of reproductive age want to avoid pregnancy. 214 million women are not using an effective method of contraception, leading to 88 million unintended pregnancies (but God intended pregnancies) in developing countries each year. In developed countries, contraception practice percentages, according to the United Nations statistics department, are as follows: Norway 88%; Czechia 86%; Canada 85%; Finland 85%; China 84%; UK 84%; Argentina 81%; Brazil 80%; Ecuador 80%; Uruguay 79%; France 78%; Greece 76%; Denmark 76%; Chile 76%; Colombia 75%; Netherlands 73%; USA 72%; Switzerland 69%; Germany 68%; Israel 68%; Sweden 64%; Spain 69%; Russia 68%; Portugal 67%; Mexico 67%; Belgium 66%; Australia 66%; Italy 65%; Austria 65%; Ireland 64%; Ukraine 64%; Hungary 61%; Poland 41%; Japan 39%; Pakistan 35%; United Arab Emirates 27%; Saudi Arabia 25%; Afghanistan 22%; Nigeria 13%; Sudan 12%; Gambia 9%; South Sudan 4%. These are just some of the chief countries of the total of 197 countries listed. If you are interested the worldwide average comes to rounded-off figure of 52% women of reproductive age practicing contraception. All of this strikes a blow against God the creator, by robbing God of souls that potentially would give glory to Him―because Christ commanded that ALL persons should be baptized: “Teach ye all nations, baptizing them” (Matthew 28:19)―and all this is done from a selfish motive, where people think only of their own well-being and ignore the glory and will of God.
The World Denounces God’s Rules on Marriage and Morality
Marriage is a creation of God’s and not a creation of man! Just as man cannot tinker with God’s physical laws in nature, neither can tinker with God’s moral laws concerning marriage and relationships. Sister Lucia of Fatima said that the focal point of the devil’s “Final Battle” would be the family. This is patently and blatantly obvious to all who want to see! Marriage has been attacked on all fronts―firstly on the level of being a non-dissoluble institution, which has now been broken by universal acceptance of legalized divorced; and now on the level of marriage being a union between one man and one woman, with the almost universal acceptance of same sex marriages, which, obviously, therefore condone same sex sexual relationships. All of this flies in the face of God’s clear and unambiguous moral code, which can readily be found in Holy Scripture―which lays do wn the law that marriage is to be between one man and one woman; that marriage is monogamous (having only one spouse and not several spouses); that marriage is indissoluble (that it is a “until death do us part” marriage); and that marriage forbids adultery, contraception and abortion.
What Don’t You Understand About This?
What is there about the following words of Holy Scripture―the word and law of God―that cannot be understood? “And the Lord God said: ‘It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself!’ … for Adam there was not found a helper like himself. Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: ‘This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man!’ Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh. And God created man to His own image―to the image of God He created him: male and female He created them. And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the Earth” (Genesis 1:27-28; 2:18-24).
God’s Denunciation of Homosexuality and Sodomy
The only way you can “increase and multiply” is in a male-female marriage, not a male-male or female-female union: “And Adam knew Eve his wife―who conceived and brought forth Cain, saying: ‘I have gotten a man through God.’ And again she brought forth his brother Abel … In the day that God created man, he made him to the likeness of God. He created them male and female; and blessed them … And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son to his own image and likeness, and called his name Seth. And the days of Adam, after he begot Seth, were eight hundred years: and he begot sons and daughters. And all the time that Adam lived came to nine hundred and thirty years, and he died. Seth begot begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died, etc., etc.” (Genesis 3:1-2 ff). If God would have intended some other option to male-female procreation, He would most certainly have built that possibility into human nature―but He didn’t. Why? God explains His thoughts elsewhere in Holy Scripture:
“Thou shalt not lie with man as with woman―because it is an abomination! Thou shalt not copulate with any beast, neither shalt thou be defiled with it. A woman shall not lie down to a beast, nor copulate with it―because it is a heinous crime! Defile not yourselves with any of these things with which all the nations have been defiled, and with which the land is defiled―the abominations of which I will visit―that it may vomit out its inhabitants” (Leviticus 18:22-25).
When St. Paul discusses the activity of sodomites, he does not say it is “just another sin”. Rather, he presents it as an example of extreme abomination, coming at the end of a long path of progressive debauchery. Many sins are not against nature, but are simply good things done in the wrong way or at the wrong time. But homosexual sex is such a perversion that it is a sin against nature itself. There is no context in which it can ever be holy. It is debased and unfruitful by definition. When it comes to heinous sins, sodomy is near the end of the road, just before final judgment.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and injustice! … They became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened! For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools! … Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves! Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature, rather than the Creator! … For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men, working that which is filthy!” (Romans 1:18-27).
Homosexuality is Severely Punished by God
Holy Scripture shows, on numerous occasions, God’s disgust with homosexuality. First of all He warns against it, threatening severe punishments: “Thou shalt not lie with man as with woman, because it is an abomination. Thou shalt not copulate with any beast, neither shalt thou be defiled with it. A woman shall not lie down to a beast, nor copulate with it―because it is a heinous crime. Defile not yourselves with any of these things with which all the nations have been defiled, and with which the land is defiled―the abominations of which I will visit―that it may vomit out its inhabitants” (Leviticus 18:22-25). “If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an abomination! Let them be put to death―their blood be upon them!” (Leviticus 20:13).
Then, whenever homosexuality breaks out, we see God’s heavy hand of punishment chastising it, as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrha (Genesis 19:1-29), Canaan (Leviticus 18:22-25) and Gabaa (Judges 19:22-25). Fire and brimstone rain down from Heaven and destroy Sodom, Gomorrha and all surrounding land and cities:
“And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of the city … And they [the angels] said to Lot: ‘Hast thou here any of thine? Son-in-law, or sons, or daughters, all that are thine bring them out of this city! For we will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord, who hath sent us to destroy them!’ … And when it was morning, the angels pressed Lot, saying: ‘Arise! Take thy wife and the two daughters, which thou hast! Lest thou also perish in the wickedness of the city!’ … And they brought him forth, and set him outside the city … And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha, brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven. And He destroyed these cities, and all the country round about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all things that spring from the earth … And Abraham got up early in the morning and, in the place where he had stood before with the Lord, he looked towards Sodom and Gomorrha, and the whole land of that country, and he saw the ashes rise up from the earth as the smoke of a furnace!” (Genesis 19:1-29).
So what has changed? Has God changed His mind about homosexuality? Is what once was evil now acceptable? Times change―don’t they? Holy Scripture trashes such a thought, saying that God is “the Father of lights, with Whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration!” (James 1:17) and “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20). Today’s modern world and legal system had better get ready to take God to court and sentence Him for being guilty of a “hate crime”! They may well be “proud” of the sin today, but after Judgment Day, there will no longer be any “Pride Days” in Hell. They can threaten and blaspheme God as much as they want―God is not going to change, God does not cave in to pressure and intimidation.
When St. Paul discusses the activity of sodomites, he does not say it is “just another sin”. Rather, he presents it as an example of extreme abomination, coming at the end of a long path of progressive debauchery. Many sins are not against nature, but are simply good things done in the wrong way or at the wrong time. But homosexual sex is such a perversion that it is a sin against nature itself. There is no context in which it can ever be holy. It is debased and unfruitful by definition. When it comes to heinous sins, sodomy is near the end of the road, just before final judgment.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and injustice … They became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools … Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature, rather than the Creator … For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men, working that which is filthy!” (Romans 1:18-27).
“Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err! Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor men who sleep with men (Latin: masculorum concubitoribus, in other words, homosexuals), nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor speakers of evil (Latin: maledici), nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) and “the law is not made for the just man, but for the unjust and disobedient, for the ungodly, and for sinners, for the wicked and defiled, for murderers of fathers, and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for homosexuals (masculorum concubitoribus), … and whatever other thing is contrary to sound doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:9-10).
The bishops and priests of today, who are practicing homosexuals―which apparently seems to be many―are, as Our Lady of La Salette says, about to bring down from Heaven a terrible chastisement: “The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity. Yes, the priests are asking for vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts. May those in charge of religious communities be on their guard against the people they must receive, for the devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth. The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless Sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world. God will strike in an unprecedented way. The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish. The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God. People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family. Physical and moral agonies will be suffered. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other. The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God! Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together!” (Our Lady of La Salette).
Let us not imagine that this scourge of homosexuality simply exists among the clergy―they don’t become homosexual after priestly ordination―it is rampant everywhere even before they hit the seminaries, monasteries and convents. It is not only the homosexual clergy that will attract the wrath of God, but also the countless homosexuals that now infest society at large. In his 1948 book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Alfred Kinsey shocked the world by announcing that 10% of the male population was homosexual. A 1993 Janus Report estimated that 9% of men and 5% of women had more than “occasional” homosexual relationships―these percentages only count practicing homosexuals. In August 2002, a Gallup poll asked Americans, in an open-ended format, to estimate the percentage of American men and the percentage of American women who are homosexual. The average estimates were that 21% of men are homosexual and 22% of women are lesbians. In fact, roughly a quarter of the public thinks more than 25% of men and 25% of women are homosexual―given that many or most homosexuals, lesbians or transgenders are still shy of “coming out” and admitting their sexual deviation. They are fools, foolishly playing―not just with each other―but with their very salvation and eternal damnation. This sin, which God calls an abomination, cries out to Heaven for Divine retribution: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, because it is an abomination” (Leviticus 18:22). “If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an abomination! Let them be put to death―their blood be upon them!” (Leviticus 20:13).
What is to be said of the enablers of homosexuality? What is to be said of those who praise and fight for freedom to be granted to homosexuality; who promote homosexuality in schools and organizations; those who pass laws allowing and legalizing homosexuality, lesbianism and transgenderism? In moral theology, the provoker is often more guilty than the perpetrator, the instigator more than the malefactor, the seducer more than the seduced. The words that Our Lord spoke to the Pharisees―for much lesser transgressions―are thus even more applicable to these people: “Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you shut the Kingdom of Heaven against men―for you yourselves do not enter in―and those that are going in, you suffer not to enter! … Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you go round about the sea and the land to make one convert; and when he is made, you make him the child of Hell twofold more than yourselves!” (Matthew 23:13-15). “He that shall scandalize one of these little ones, that believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea!” (Matthew 18:6).
God’s Denunciation of Fornication and Adultery
So if you are tempted by homosexual or lesbian desires, you have to fight them―that is the particular cross that God has chosen to give you! Okay! Don’t have a chip on your shoulder about it and say it’s not fair! God does not only condemn homosexuality! He also condemns fornication (sexual relations or desires among single people) and adultery (sexual relations or desires where one or both persons is married).
“The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body!” (1 Corinthians 6:13). “For fear of fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband!” (1 Corinthians 7:2-3). “Flee fornication! Every sin that a man does, is without the body; but he that commits fornication, sins against his own body. Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own? For you are bought with a great price! Glorify and bear God in your body!” (1 Corinthians 6:18-20). “Mortify, therefore, your members, which are upon the earth from fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence … For which things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of unbelief, among whom you also walked at some time, when you lived in them. But now put away all filthy speech … stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new man, him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of Him that created him!” (Colossians 3:5-10). “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that you should abstain from fornication! That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor! Not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles that know not God!” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5). “Walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit: and the spirit against the flesh … Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, … and such like. Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God!” (Galatians 5:16-21).
Remember, too, that fornication is not just committed by physical actions, but also by mental thoughts! If the following verse is true of adultery, then it is also true of fornication: “Whosoever shall look on a woman, to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart!” (Matthew 5:28). Today, the world has made it easy for mental fornication and mental adultery to be committed―the media is a literal tsunami of constant sexual and immodest bombardment. Turn wherever you will―TV, internet, advertizing, magazine covers, book covers, fashions, everyday clothing, people on the street―immodesty at best and impurity at worst is flowing onto you from all sides.
It is not for nothing that Our Lady of Good Success spoke of this: “Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of doing away with this Sacrament, making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church … The passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of morals, for Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects. They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption. Woe to the children of these times! … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals ... In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world!”
Woe to those people who are enablers and promoters of this “filthy ocean” of “the spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times” allowing it to “run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty.” As was said before, the provoker is often more guilty than the perpetrator, in instigator more than the malefactor, the seducer more than the seduced. Why do the governments not legislate against such immodesty, impurity, perversion and pornography? They have it in their power to do so! Yet they refuse to do so! Yet they will sentence a man to jail who gives drugs to his children, or even drugs to fellow adults―yet they allow immodesty, impurity, perversion and pornography to freely circulate on the various media outlets, thus creating the tinder-wood or kindling-wood for the fire of fornication and adultery in both mind and body! “He that shall scandalize one of these little ones, that believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea!” (Matthew 18:6). What does it mean to “scandalize”? The word comes from the Latin noun, “scandalum”, which means a stumbling-block or something that you trip over. That is exactly what the governments, media outlets, movies and television shows, fashion outlets and everyday folk on the street are doing―they are placing stumbling-blocks of immodesty, impurity, perversion and pornography in the path of others to trip them up so that they fall into sin!
The very same applies to adultery, which is basically fornication by married people―or where at least one person is married―with someone who is not their spouse. Just as with fornication, adultery can be mental or physical. Our Lord is pretty clear on the matter, not giving leeway for loopholes:
“You have heard that it was said to them of old: ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery!’ But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman, to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart! And if thy right eye scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee! For it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into Hell! And if thy right hand scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into Hell! And it hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a bill of divorce. But I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, excepting for the cause of fornication, maketh her to commit adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery!” (Matthew 5:27-32).
God’s Denunciation of Divorce
Marriage is intended to be permanent, since it was established by God. “And there came to Jesus the Pharisees tempting Him, and saying: ‘Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?’ Jesus, answering, said to them: ‘Have ye not read, that He [God] Who made man from the beginning, made them male and female?’ And Jesus said [quoting Genesis 2:24]: ‘For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder!’ They said to Him: ‘Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to put away?’ Jesus said to them: ‘Because Moses, by reason of the hardness of your heart, permitted you to put away your wives! But from the beginning it was not so! And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery! And he that shall marry her, that is put away, committeth adultery!” (Matthew 19:3-9).
St. Mark paints an almost identical scene: “The Pharisees, coming to Jesus, tempting Him, asked Him: ‘Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife?’ But Jesus, answering, said to them: ‘What did Moses command you?’ They said: ‘Moses permitted to write a bill of divorce, and to put her away!’ To whom Jesus, answering, said: ‘Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you that precept! But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife. And they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder!’ And in the house, again His disciples asked Him concerning the same thing. And He said to them: ‘Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another, committeth adultery against her! And if the wife shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery!’” (Mark 10:2-12).
Those who have created, pushed for, and passed legislation permitting divorce will have one hell of a judgment when they die and find themselves divorced from God and eternally married to the devil! God help them! The same for those who promote divorce on the media, via television shows and movies, which desensitize us to the sin of divorce and even glamorize and glorify divorce. Marriage and divorce has become like a fast-food express lane check-out! Quickie-Marriage followed by a Quickie-Divorce, followed by a not-so-Quickie payment in Hell or Purgatory. But what the hell! As one pope after another has said―the greatest sin of our modern age is that man has lost the sense of sin! And losing the sense of sin is just one step away from losing your soul!
So―as we celebrate the feast of the Annunciation―let us be thankful that Christ became man to save us from our sins! However, let us also remember that Christ will only save those who want to be saved! Let us also remember the philosophical axiom that states: “He who desires a goal, must also necessarily desire the means that lead to that goal!” That means if we desire to be saved from our sins and to get to Heaven―then we have to do what it takes to get there! As Our Lord says: “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21-23). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
Article 18
Monday after the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 20th, 2023
Faulty Confessions and How to Repair Them
Monday after the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 20th, 2023
Faulty Confessions and How to Repair Them
Nuts and Bolts
Some people can go “nuts” just thinking about having to confess their sins. Others either “bolt” away from the confessional as fast as they can, or they put a “bolt” on their mouth and do not confess what they should be confessing. There are a variety of things that can make your confession “bad” ― that is to say, invalid. The devil is always trying to make confessions invalid―because he knows that valid confessions save souls from Hell. Valid confessions restore sanctifying grace to the soul―and it is impossible to end up in Hell with sanctifying grace in your soul―you may end up in Purgatory for a long time, but not Hell.
How then is it that most Catholic souls end up in Hell―as we are told by Our Lord, Our Lady and many saints? It is simpy because they refuse to confess their sins, or they confess them badly, or because they have the wrong dispositions or do not have the right dispositions that are required for a good and valid confession that will forgive all their mortal sins and restore sanctifying grace to their souls.
So what makes a confession bad or invalid? There are a number of things―some can be faults on the part of the priest, others can faults on the part of the penitent. Let us briefly list them at first―and then “get down to the nuts and bolts” by explaining them in some more detail.
(1) Faults on the Part of the Priest
● If the minister of the Sacrament is either not validly ordained as a priest, or does not possess faculties to hear confessions that makes it invalid (in most cases).
● Some particular grave sins that have incurred excommunication require the priest to have special faculties to absolve them.
● A priest cannot generally absolve a sin which he is party to.
● If the minister does not use the correct form (words) of absolution that makes the confession invalid.
● If the priest does not have the intention to absolve sin then that makes it invalid.
(2) Faults on the Part of the Penitent
● The penitent must have at least some degree of supernatural sorrow―such as attrition (a fear of God’s just punishments in this life or in the next life) or contrition (sorrow out a love of God)―a lack of attrition or contrition would invalidate the Sacrament. Being sorry because you are embarrassed about having committed a mortal sin; or being sorry because you feel that you have let yourself down, or because you have made yourself look bad, or being sorry about the mortal sin because your were caught or “found-out”, or because someone got mad at you, or that you lost your reputation, or job, or some advantage, etc. ― all of this is not supernatural sorrow. It merely resides on a humanistic level and does to rise above it to God ― for sin is first and foremost an offense and an attack upon God, and only secondarily is it an offense against yourself or others: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40).
● The penitent must have a firm purpose of amending his or her life, and not intend to persist in the sin. A lack of this would lead to the Sacrament being invalid. Knowing that it is possible that the sin is likely to happen again is acceptable as long as a genuine resolve is made to cease doing it and there is a firm resolve (not a halfhearted, wishy-washy, limp resolve) to remove oneself from near occasions of sin. This firm purpose of amendment is not a vague wishful thinking―but it consists of making a thorough examination of how and why you fall into this or that particular mortal sin and then making concrete plans on how to avoid those persons, places or circumstances for the future and then putting those plans into action. Ideas must have practical consequences. Most people are wishy-washy on this point and imagine that they can somehow continue exposing themselves to the same persons, places and circumstances and miraculously nothing bad will happen! Foolishness! “The perverse are hard to be corrected, and the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). If a person repeatedly keeps confessing the same mortal sin or several mortal sins in one confession after another, time and time again―then this is a clear sign that the penitent has not had a FIRM PURPOSE of amendment, as is starting to use the Sacrament of Confession like a revolving door, going round and round, into mortal sin, into Confession, into the same mortal sin again, into Confession to confess the same mortal sin again, etc. It becomes like an inevitable weekly car-wash! This lack of firm purpose of amendment and the resulting lack of improvement, or lack of reduction in the frequency of the mortal sin, results in an invalid confession.
We are fallen creatures, weakened by the scars of Original Sin, subject to temptation, and inclined to sin. Sin can become habitual, and habits can be hard to break. Certain sins can be addictive, making them even more difficult to overcome. We need God’s grace to free us from sin―as Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). If we wait to repent until we have totally conquered sin on our own, we will be waiting for our entire lives―and then it will be too late! If you have no intention at all of giving up your sin, then no — your confession will not be valid. You can’t confess on Sunday a sin you committed on Saturday if you have plans to commit that same sin again on Monday. But that is different than recognizing that you still struggle with that sin and may possibly fall into that sin again, even though right now you do not want to repeat that sin again. You can confess on Sunday a sin that you committed on Saturday, knowing it is possible or probable that you might commit it again some time in the future―if you sincerely want God’s help in freeing you from the desire for that sin. If the sin is habitual―something you have become addicted to―then the signs of a firm purpose of amendment would be seen in a progressive decrease in the number of times that you are committing that sin, until, eventually, it fades away.
● For a confession to be valid, we do, however, have to confess all the serious sins (mortal sins) that we might have committed since the previous confession, plus any serious sins from the past that we might have forgotten to mention in previous confessions. A deliberate omission in confessing a sin that the penitent knows is a grave sin (a sin that is mortal) is also a cause for invalidity. All mortal sins that are known to the penitent must be confessed in “kind and number”―which means telling the priest the specific kind of mortal sin and the number of times it has been committed. It is NOT sufficient to vaguely say: “I have been impure”― but one has to state what kind of impurity it was, because there are many different kinds of impurity. Was it in thought, word, or action? Was it alone with oneself? Was it with another of the opposite sex or same sex? Was the other person single, or married, or a religious, or family member? Was it with a child? Was it a case of rape? Was it unnatural impurity (sodomy)? Was it with an animal? The same applies to other mortal sins―for example stealing. What did you steal? How much did you steal? From whom did you steal―was it from a family member, poor or rich person, a store, or workplace, or church, etc. The same for violence―who was the victim? A man, woman, child? Family member, stranger, religious person? What was the level of violence, how seriously was the victim injured, etc. Failure to mention specific “kind” of sin with any aggravating circumstances can invalidate the Sacrament.
● Then you have to give the closest possible number of times the mortal sin was committed―vaguely saying “a few times” is not good enough. It is always best to choose a higher number than a lower one if you are not certain. Forgetting sins does not invalidate the absolution as long as the penitent has spent sufficient time (as is reasonable in the circumstances) performing an examination of conscience. Venial sins do not strictly need to be confessed―though it is good to do so, for each sin that is confessed receives a special grace from God that will help overcome that sin for the future. However grave sins (mortal sins) that have honestly been forgotten, must be confessed at the next confession. Failure to give the exact number (as best as one can remember) or deliberately misleading the priest by understating the true number―for whatever reason, shame, fear, etc.―will invalidate the Sacrament.
Bad Confessions Are Frequent and Commonplace
St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1797)―a Doctor of the Church and the Patron Saint of moral theologians―writes in the Preface of his book, Sermons For All The Sundays Of The Year―that bad confessions are something far more commonplace than is imagined: “The preacher should often speak against bad confessions, in which sins are concealed through shame. This is an evil not of rare occurrence, but frequent, especially in small country districts, which consigns innumerable souls to Hell. Hence it is very useful to mention, from time to time, some example of souls that were damned by willfully concealing sins in confession.”
St. Alphonsus said that in the 18th century! How much worse are things likely to be today! One pope after another―starting with Second World War pope, Pius XII―even including the Liberal and Modernist popes that came after him―have consistently said that world has lost the sense of sin! Pope Pius XII said in 1946: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin!” Pope John Paul II, in 2005, said: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin!” Pope Benedict XVI said in 2011: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because if we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, we cannot speak of sin!” In 2014, Pope Francis the previous popes, saying: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble!”
When you lose the sense of sin, you lose the sense of the importance of confessing sins in the Sacrament of Confession. That is one reason why only 7% of regularly practicing Catholics go to the Sacrament of Confession at least once a month and 33% of them never go to Confession. Whereas only 1% of not regularly practicing Catholics go to Confession at least once a month and 86% of them never go to Confession. Yet surveys have found that―for example in Italy―that in 75% of parishes the divorced and remarried communicate regularly. Are these people deliberately committing sacrileges? What they are manifesting are the disastrous consequences of what happens when you lose the sense of what is sinful! What is true, in this case, for Italy―also has to be true throughout most of the world. Catholics are going to Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin―but they have convinced themselves that it is not a mortal sin! That is why varying numbers―but in all cases it is over 50%― of Catholics nowadays are accepting such mortal sins as abortion; contraception; marrying outside the Church; remarried divorcees; same-sex marriages and homosexual relations; fornication; adultery; masturbation; impurity; lust; immodesty; watching television or videos containing immodest/impure/pornographic/blasphemous bits; missing Sunday Mass; revealing the secret mortal sins of others (detraction), making false accusations of mortal sin about others (calumny), drunkenness, drug abuse; etc., etc. Once they start to accept these things, then it is obvious that they do not look upon those things as being mortal sins, and so they will find no need to confess them in the Sacrament of Confession.
Sacraments vs. Sacramentals
There are only 7 Sacraments, but there are many, many Sacramentals. One difference between Sacraments and Sacramentals is that Sacramentals do not produce sanctifying grace, a power that belongs to Sacraments alone. Sacraments give us “Sanctifying Grace” (a permanent grace, or habitual grace, that stays in the soul unless expelled by mortal sin), while Sacramentals only give us “Actual Grace” (temporary, short-term, passing graces that help us to fight evil and do what is good). Sacraments are given to us by Christ Himself―whereas Sacramentals are blessed things that are usually instituted by the Church (though in some cases they are requested by Heaven).
Some examples of Sacramentals that are specially blessed by the Church are: Holy Water, Crucifixes, Scapulars, Medals of Saints, Statues and Pictures of Saints, Rosary Beads, Chaplets, Candles, Blessed Salt, etc. Some examples of Heaven requested Sacramentals are: Rosary Beads (to St. Dominic in 1214), the Brown Scapular (to St. Simon Stock in 1251), the Miraculous Medal (to St. Catherine Labouré in 1830), and more besides―all of these were given to the Church through apparitions of Our Lady.
The Sacraments CANNOT be given to a person in the state of mortal sin―with the exception of the Sacraments of Baptism and Confession (but in these cases the person must repent of all mortal sin). Whereas Sacramentals CAN be given to persons in mortal sin―for the Sacramental will often attract grace from Heaven to convert the mortal sinner.
Sacramentals are channels of “Actual Grace” (temporary, passing, assisting grace) and can obtain for us these benefits: (1) Actual graces; (2) Forgiveness of venial sins; (3) Remission of temporal punishment; (4) Health of body and material blessings; (5) Protection from evil spirits.
Devils in the Confessional
You might be surprised to hear this―but the Sacrament of Confession is more powerful than an exorcism! Confession is a Sacrament, but exorcism is only a Sacramental. One of the chief things that the devil hates is the Sacrament of Confession―for it annihilates years of evil work by demons and sets the soul free from Satan’s control. Exorcists tell us that Confession is one of the most effective things to ward off or break demonic influence. The recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriel Amorth, and many other exorcists, have stressed that the number one protection from evil is the Sacrament of Confession and the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Many times Fr. Amorth has said that he is convinced that a good Confession is much more effective than an exorcism. One of the first things that exorcists like to insist upon is that the person―from whom they intend to exorcise the devil―first goes to Confession. The primary form of exorcism for Fr. Amorth is to have the possessed persons go to Confession―because to be exorcised is to turn away from Satan. The Sacrament of Confession is one of the chief weapons of protection against the devils. Confession is one of the most effective things to ward off or break demonic influence. Fr. Amorth says: “The demon keeps his distance from someone who nurtures his Faith, who frequents the Sacraments, and who wishes to live devoutly.” Another exorcist, Msgr. John Esseff, states: “Sin is far worse than Satan!” As Holy Scripture says: “He that commits sin is of the devil―for the devil sinned from the beginning!” (1 John 3:8). The exorcists tell us that it is not uncommon to find persons possessed by devils as a result of those persons committing the most serious mortal sins, such as abortion or other forms of murder, or repeatedly committing other serious mortal sins to the point of living long periods of their life in a state of mortal sin.
Devil Plays Keep-Away
Whenever we commit a mortal sin, the devil’s first ploy and tactic is try to keep us away from the Sacrament of Confession for as long as possible―hoping, in the meantime, to make fall into more and more mortal sins. Sin is a wound. St. Thomas Aquinas says: “There is no reason why the effect of one sin should not be the cause of another―because the soul, through sinning once, is more easily inclined to sin again. Through sin, the reason is obscured, the will is hardened to evil, good actions become more difficult, and concupiscence more impetuous.”
Sin is a wound. The greater and graver the sin, the greater and graver the wound―they do not call in MORTAL sin for nothing! The devil knows that the longer you leave a wound (mortal sin) untreated, without having it properly cleaned and covered, can allow (other sins) bacteria, viruses or fungi to enter through the opening in the skin (soul), leading to infection. Then sepsis occurs when the body overreacts to infection, releasing chemicals into the bloodstream that ultimately cause organ failure (collapse of virtues) and death (damnation). One sin leads to another―and another, and another, and another―until your soul is eventually flooded with a tsunami of sin. That is why Satan wants to keep you away from Confession―it gives him time to flood your soul with more and more sins.
To help him keep you away from Confession, Satan will use a variety of strategies―and if those fail to keep you away, then the next goal is to make you confess badly, to make your Confession invalid. In that way, you are still steeped in mortal sin, even though you have been to Confession.
The Stay-Away from Confession Tactics
Satan will use one or many approaches in his endeavor to keep you from going to Confession and to keep you in a state of mortal. Here are just some of those tactics―though the list is by no means exhaustive, for Satan always “tailor-makes” his tactics to be a perfect fit for you―and no two people are exactly alike. So each tactic that will be mentioned can have hundreds or even thousands of nuances, fine-tuning, tweaks and alterations. Also―these tactics are not necessarily in any kind of logical or chronological order―they are simply being stated as they come to mind.
(1) THE “YOU ARE NOT IN MORTAL SIN” TACTIC. This tactic is most preferable of all for Satan. It is like being conned out of all your money without even realizing you have been conned―which means that you will “sleep in peace” and will be totally unaware of the reality of the situation. Our Lord calls Satan a liar: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth―because truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44). In this case, Satan lies to us in repeatedly telling us that the temptation he dangles in front of us is NOT A MORTAL SIN, but only a venial sin―maybe a serious venial sin, maybe an embarrassing venial sin, but nevertheless ONLY a venial. He will say something like: “Hey! The Bible says every man is a sinner! The Bible says: ‘For all have sinned!’ (Romans 3:23) … ‘A just man shall fall seven times and shall rise again!’ (Proverbs 24:16) … ‘The Lord is gracious and merciful, patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works!’ (Psalm 144:8-9) ― So go ahead and commit this sin! Don’t worry! It’s only a venial sin! God will understand! God loves you! He knows you can’t go through life without ever committing a sin! Just do it! You don’t have to confess it―because it’s only a venial sin! The Church teaches you don’t have to confess venial sins if you do not want to!” Or something along those lines.
Notice how Satan will quote Scripture to pass along his lies in order to con you! That is exactly how Satan tempted Christ in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11). Today, the majority of Catholics have been conned and have “bought into” that lie―they no longer believe that it is a mortal sin to miss Mass on Sunday, to have lustful thoughts, to masturbate, to have unnatural sexual relations, to use contraception, to indulge in homosexual thoughts or actions, to look at immodest or even pornographic images, to indulge in “French-kissing” or caress and arouse someone you are not married to, or to get intoxicated, revealing the secret mortal sins of others (detraction) or telling serious lies about others (calumny), etc. All of these mortal sins are now looked upon as being merely serious venial sins by increasing numbers of Catholics―and those numbers are not small numbers―for over 50% of modern day Catholics now hold those opinions! That is a perfect con by Satan and a big victory for him. Satan even has priests ‘working’ for him, who either do not educate their parishioners on what are the most common mortal sins, or, believe it or not, priests who actually condone certain mortal sins and reduce them to level of venial sins or even no sin at all! Holy Scripture condemns such priests and such faithful: “Woe to you blind guides! … Ye foolish and blind!” (Matthew 23:16-17). “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil! That put darkness for light, and light for darkness! That put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20). “‘Woe to you, apostate children!’ saith the Lord, ‘that you would take counsel but not from Me! And would begin to spin a web, but not in My spirit, so that you might add sin upon sin!’” (Isaias 30:1).
(2) THE “DON’T WORRY! GOD IS MERCIFUL!” TACTIC. This tactic is a slight variation on the one above. Satan realizes that you understand that a particular thought, word or action really is a mortal sin―and so, after at least trying to convince you otherwise, Satan is resigned to the fact that you will not believe his lies about something being a venial sin when it really is a mortal sin. How, then, can he get you to commit that mortal sin? His strategy is to “lead you down the garden path” to a presumption on the mercy of God. This, again, can many hundreds or thousands of variations because Satan likes to “tailor-make” any and every temptation to suit your particular temperament, personality, character, circumstances and history. He knows your strengths and weaknesses better than you do yourself. However, in this “God is Merciful” tactic, the chief aim is to reduce the “shock factor” of committing a mortal sin―and this can be done in countless ways. We will look at those a little further below―for now, we are focusing solely on Satan’s desire to make you presumptuous upon God’s mercy by exaggerating what God is prepared to tolerate from you.
For example, one of the thousands of ways Satan might approach you is where he again uses Holy Scripture for his nefarious purposes. He will start out as above and say: “Hey! The Bible says every man is a sinner! The Bible says: ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us! If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10). … ‘The Lord is merciful, patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works!’ (Psalm 144:8-9) … God says: ‘I desire not the death of the wicked!’ (Ezechiel 33:11) … ‘If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow―and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool!’ (Isaias 1:18) ― Yes, continues Satan, this might be a mortal sin, but just look at how many millions of mortal sins are being committed each day! Look at how bad all the other people in world are like! You are nowhere near as bad as they are! God isn’t going to damn everybody! God has forgiven and saved sinners who were far worse than you are! He knows that you are under stress and that normally you are such a good person! So go ahead and commit this sin! Get it out of the system! Just do it and then all temptations will stop hounding you and will go away! Don’t worry! You’re only going to lose a battle, but you won’t lose the war! God will understand! God loves you! Just do it! You’ll see how much better you will feel afterwards!”
Notice, again, how Satan will quote Scripture to pass along his lies in order to con you into committing mortal sin! That is exactly how Satan tempted Christ in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11) and Christ replied to Satan’s Scripture quotes with other Scripture quotes―and that is what we must do also. Yes―those Scripture quotes are true, but they only paint part of a bigger picture―as the following Scripture quotes will prove. Scripture also says: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “If we sin willfully after having the knowledge of the truth, then there is no sacrifice left for sins―but only a certain dreadful expectation of judgment and the rage of a fire which shall consume!” (Hebrews 10:26-27). Jesus says: “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-27). Elsewhere Jesus adds: “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:10-11). “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14).
On this point of exaggerating the mercy of God, St. Alphonsus Liguori―a Doctor of the Church and the patron saint of moral theologians―writes: “‘But God is merciful!’ you will say. Behold another common delusion by which the devil encourages sinners to persevere in a life of sin! More souls have been sent to Hell by the mercy of God than by His justice. This is indeed the case―for men are induced by the deceits of the devil to persevere in sin, through confidence in God’s mercy―and thus they are lost. God is merciful. Who denies it? But, great as His mercy, how many does He every day send to Hell? God is merciful, but He is also just, and is, therefore, obliged to punish those who offend Him. ‘And His mercy,’ says the divine Mother, ‘is to them that fear Him!’ (Luke 1:50). But with regard to those who abuse His mercy and despise Him―He exercises justice. The Lord pardons sins, but He cannot pardon the determination to commit sin. St. Augustine says, that he who sins, with the intention of repenting after his sins, is not a penitent but a scoffer. The Apostle, St. Paul, tells us that God will not be mocked: ‘Be not deceived! God is not mocked!’ (Galatians 6:7). It would be a mockery of God to insult Him as often and as much as you pleased, and afterwards to expect eternal glory.
“‘But’, you say, ‘since God has shown me so many mercies until now, I am hopeful that He will continue to do so for the future!’ Behold another delusion! Then, because God has not as yet chastised your sins, He will never punish them! On the contrary, the greater have been His mercies, the more you should tremble, lest, if you offend Him again, He should pardon you no more, and should take vengeance on your sins. Behold the advice of the Holy Ghost: ‘Say not: “I have sinned, and what harm hath befallen me?” For the Most High is a patient rewarder!’ (Ecclesiasticus 5:4). Do not say: ‘I have sinned and no chastisement has fallen upon me!’ God bears patiently for a time―but not forever. He waits for a certain time―but when the end of that time arrives, He then chastises the sinner for all His past iniquities! And the longer God has waited for repentance, the more severe the chastisement.” (Sunday Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori).
(3) THE “SIN NOW AND YOU CAN ALWAYS CONFESS YOUR SINS (LATER)” TACTIC. This tactic is again a further slight variation on the ones above. Satan realizes that you understand that a particular sin is mortal and he hopefully tries to get you commit that mortal sin. However, the last thing he wants you to do is to immediately go to Confession. As stated above, mortal sin is like a mortal wound and “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). By mortal sin, we reject God and side with devil “for the devil sinned from the beginning” (1 John 3:8). The longer Satan has you in his clutches through mortal sin, the more he can inject further poison into you―as St. Thomas Aquinas said: “The effect of one sin is the cause of another―because the soul, through sinning once, is more easily inclined to sin again. Through sin, the reason is obscured, the will is hardened to evil, good actions become more difficult, and concupiscence more impetuous.” So―by hook or by crook―Satan seeks to keep in the state of mortal sin for as long possible, knowing full-well that the longer you remain in mortal sin, then the weaker you will become and all the more likely to sin in the future.
A slight variation on this tactic is where Satan tells you: “Hey! Listen! Now that you have committed this mortal sin, is it really a good idea to go to Confession? You know full well that you are likely to commit it again! Why not wait until you have committed many more mortal sins and got them out of your system―that would a better time to go to Confession, for then you would have proof that you are sorry because you have stopped committing them! Plus, the priest might not even give you absolution if you keep coming back week after week with the same old mortal sins! Furthermore, think of how embarrassing it will be to confess those mortal sins each and every week! What will the priest think of you? Better wait until you have stopped committing them and then think about going to Confession!” Satan knows full well that the longer you are away from God through a lack of sanctifying grace and the longer you are under Satan’s dominion through mortal sin, then the weaker you will become due to habitual mortal sin and a lack of grace from the Sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion―thus increasing the chances of Satan eventually securing your eventual damnation. The longer you leave a disease untreated with false assumption that it will just go away by itself, then the greater becomes the risk of complications and eventual death.
To help keep you away from Confession, Satan will use a whole host of additional tactics―keeping bad company, attachment to bad friends, working in a sinful environment, attached to hobbies and pastimes that are sources of temptation, keeping you in touch with strong temptations in places of temptation, addicted to certain places or things, stop you going to church and Mass, killing your prayer life, immersed in worldliness, etc.
To help keep you away from Confession, Satan will use a whole host of additional tactics―keeping bad company, attachment to bad friends, working in a sinful environment, attached to hobbies and pastimes that are sources of temptation, keeping you in touch with strong temptations in places of temptation, addicted to certain places or things, stop you going to church and Mass, killing your prayer life, immersed in worldliness, etc. All the while suggesting to you that you would be a hypocrite of a Catholic if you were to go Holy Mass and the Sacrament of Confession while doing all these things―hence reinforcing the likelihood that you will stay away from Confession.
Our Lord came to draw sinners to repentance, penitence and penance! If we would only listen and cooperate! “For I came not to judge the world [for its sins], but to save the world [from its sins]!” (John 12:47). “I came not to call the just―but sinners to [the Sacrament of] penance!” (Luke 5:32). “Come to me, all you that labor [under sin] and are burdened [with sin]―and I will refresh you!” (Matthew 11:28). Therefore, do not stay away from Confession in a state of mortal sin―but come to the Divine Physician so that He can break the chains of Satan that have you imprisoned in the stinking dungeon of mortal sin!
Satan's Confess Badly (Invalidly) Tactics
If Satan sees that, after committing your mortal sin(s), you are intent on going to Confession, then he has to kick-in with “PLAN B” ― which is to make that Confession invalid by any means possible. Just as in the aforementioned cases where Satan seeks to prevent you from going to Confession in the first place, there are multiple ways in which Satan can bring about an invalid Confession―depending upon your temperament, personality, character, reasoning, preferences, weaknesses, experiences and habits. Remember―Satan is like a tailor who carefully measures and makes things to fit you exactly, so that you feel more comfortable putting-on what he has made for you. It will be a perfect and comfortable fit. Just like the conmen in the fairy tale, “The Emperor’s Invisible Clothes”, Satan will spin a yarn or two that will trick you into thinking that your (invalid) Confession has actually clothed you with sanctifying grace―whereas you will be just as naked and wounded as you were before your invalid Confession.
Those Catholics who do not take their Faith seriously and are merely superficial Catholics, are the most frequent gullible victims to Satan’s machinations in provoking invalid Confessions. Catholics are supposed to be Soldiers of Christ―but if a soldier does not know the tactics of the enemy, and does not how to use his own weapons―then what chance does he have in survival on the battlefield? Wishy-washy, careless soldiers invariably fall in battle. Once again it must be stressed that failure to go to Confession when in mortal sin, or badly confessing mortal sins, are ultimately the TWO things that damn every single Catholic who is Hell right now―which is the majority of Catholics. It is not what God wants―but God is not going to drag you to Confession, nor will God speak in your place in Confession. God has given you two legs and a tongue to do those things!
Let us now look at some―not all―of the tactics and ruses that Satan uses to make a confession invalid.
(1) THE “INSUFFICIENT EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE” TACTIC. One of the five essential requirements for a valid confession is a THOROUGH examination of conscience. For the superficial Catholics, the examination of conscience is frequently or usually or always made just before going to Confession―after joining the other persons in the line outside the confessional. Before going into a battle, the soldiers are briefed and receive instructions before entering the battlefield. The confession line is already part of the battlefield―it is here that battle already commences. Therefore, a prudent Soldier of Christ should have already prepared for battle by making a thorough examination of conscience at home, before the battle commences―and, if necessary, should have noted any mortal sins that will have come to mind. A Catholic should look upon the confessional as being similar to the Emergency Room in a hospital―where things can be a matter of life and death. You are supposed to reveal to doctors any serious symptoms that you have and not hide them or neglect to reveal them; and to reveal what you did that might have brought them on and caused them! Similarly in the ‘Emergency Room’ of the confessional―where it can be a case of salvation or damnation―you need to reveal your serious symptoms (mortal sins) the ‘doctor’ of souls―the priest. To pretend that you just don’t have any time at home to make a thorough examination of conscience is telling God that you don’t have time for things that impact your salvation or damnation. God will not be pleased with that―especially since His Son, Jesus Christ, took time to come to Earth, in order to suffer and die for your sins! However, Satan will be pleased!
You could say, for example, that 95% of making a good Confession is what you do before entering into the confessional. The examination of conscience is one of those things that falls into that category. The bottom line in making a thorough examination of conscience is this: The better the preparation, then all the more graces are given. This is quite simply based upon Holy Scripture: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:7-8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). The more sins you place before God in confession, then the more sins will be taken away and the more Sacramental graces you will receive to help you combat those sins in the future. The more symptoms you reveal to your doctor, the better and more correct is the diagnosis that he can make, the more likelihood there will be of a cure, and the faster the cure. Hiding serious symptoms from the doctor will only favor the disease. Hiding mortal sins from the priest in Confession will only favor Satan―and the disease of mortal sin will not only remain in your soul after Confession, but you will also have contracted another disease, which is the mortal sin of making a sacrilegious Confession.
It is incumbent upon us to form our conscience―that is to say, educate our conscience. If our conscience isn't well-formed, then we are not well-equipped to determine right from wrong, good from evil―and we might confuse evil with good. “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil!” (Isaias 5:20). Persistent sin can dull or even silence our conscience: “To them that are defiled and to unbelievers, both their mind and their conscience are defiled” (Titus 1:15) ... “In the last times, some shall depart from the Faith … having their conscience seared!” (1 Timothy 4:1-2). Therefore, we have to do what it takes to be able to differentiate between mortal sin and venial sin―we have to recognize mortal sin because it is the sin that damns us. Heck! In our natural life we learn and teach our children the difference between good berries and poisonous berries; between water and ammonia; we tell them not to put their hands in a fire; not to play with snakes; etc. Then all the more important is it to learn for ourselves and each our children what are the different kinds of mortal sin―because just as we would not like to see our children killed due our neglect in knowing and informing them of dangers; likewise it is to be hoped that we do not want to see ourselves and our children damned because of our neglect. Once again, it is incumbent upon us to form our conscience.
You may have heard the axiom: “Ignorance of the law does not excuse from the law!” This means that people cannot defend their actions by claiming they did not know the law. If ignorance were accepted as an excuse, any person charged with a criminal offense could claim ignorance to avoid the consequences―and this in turn would bring lawlessness and chaos to society. Laws apply to every person within the jurisdiction, whether or not they are known and understood.
The Church teaches that for a person to be guilty of mortal sin, three conditions must be present: (1) The thought, word, action or omission has to be of a serious/grave nature; (2) the person, at the time of committing the sin, must actually know that the thought, word, action or omission is of a serious/grave nature; and (3) they must give full consent to that serious/grave thought, word, action or omission. Many people claim innocence on the grounds of not knowing that something was a mortal sin. However, ignorance will not always excuse.
In Catholic Church teaching, there are two kinds of ignorance―INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE (which excuses from sin) and VINCIBLE IGNORANCE (which does not excuse from sin). Literally speaking INVINCIBLE means unconquerable―therefore invincible ignorance is an ignorance that cannot be conquered or overcome or removed. Ignorance that cannot be overcome by using one’s reason is called invincible ignorance. Invincible ignorance is doing something wrong when one could NOT have known better.
On the other hand, VINCIBLE means conquerable―therefore vincible ignorance is an ignorance that CAN be conquered, can be overcome and can be removed. Vincible ignorance is something that can be overcome by using one’s reason and researching. Vincible ignorance is doing wrong when one SHOULD to have known better. Ignorance is vincible if a person could remove it by applying reasonable diligence. Reasonable diligence, in turn, is that diligence that a conscientious person would display in seeking the correct answer to a question given (a) the gravity of the question and (b) his particular resources. What is more serious and grave than sin and damnation? Many people will offer the excuse: “I didn’t know it was a sin! … I didn’t know it was a mortal sin!” In many cases, if not most cases, the reality of the matter is: “I did not care to find out whether it was a sin! … I did not care to find out if it was a mortal sin!” ― and in such cases they are guilty of the mortal sin they committed.
We should not be ignorant about the different types and degrees of sin―namely mortal sin and venial sin―for sin is, as the Catechism says: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). If you don’t give a damn about finding out what is mortal sin and what is a venial sin―then, quite frankly, you don’t really give a damn about your salvation and that will lead to you know what, and you know where!
There is no better way to form or educate your conscience than reading through a comprehensive and lengthy examination of conscience. You can find one on this website [click here] but there are many available out there. Sure―it’s long and perhaps uncomfortable. However, Hell is much longer than that and far, far more uncomfortable than that! Better safe than sorry, eh? Or, better still―be sorry and safe―meaning, be sorry for all you sins and be safe by confessing all your mortal sins! Better still―be safe, sorry and savvy (knowledgeable) by also knowing and recognizing mortal sins―for how can you avoid what you do not know? You cannot make a thorough examination of conscience if you in ignorance about sin! Similarly, the more you know about which sins are mortal and which are venial, then the less likely it will be that you a mortal sin (if you are a person of sincere Faith) and the harder it will be for Satan to con you into thinking that a particular mortal sin is only a venial sin.
Additionally, the more often you exam your conscience―when you fully grasp the different levels of sin by consulting a list that thoroughly covers sins―then you will be sharpening and honing your conscience more and more. Your weapon will sharp and ready to use in each and every circumstance in life. Remember―ignorance can be a sin and in very important matters ignorance can itself be a mortal sin! What is more important than your Faith? What is more important than your salvation? What is more serious than sin?
(2) THE “INSUFFICIENT SORROW FOR SIN” TACTIC. Okay! So you overcame the temptation not to confess and to stay away from the confessional. Good! You also managed to make a pretty thorough examination of conscience. Again, good! This has Satan fuming! You are close to being forgiven. Satan still has certain tactics that he will use at this late stage to derail your confession and make it invalid! One of the requirements for a good and valid confession is having a supernatural sorrow for your sins―as was already touched upon earlier in this article, but it worth repeating again.
There are two kinds of SUPERNATURAL SORROW: (1) Attrition, and (2) Contrition. They are sometimes given another name―Attrition is called IMPERFECT SORROW, and Contrition is called PERFECT SORROW.
ATTRITION: Attrition is an imperfect sorrow because it is only a fear of God’s just punishments in this life or in the next life, without there being a real love of God present―we fear God, but we do not really love God―and that is why it is called IMPERFECT SORROW, because God prefers to be loved than feared. Another name for Attrition is also SERVILE FEAR―which is the fear that a servant has of his master or lord, which fears to disobey because a punishment will result. The first and greatest commandment says: ““Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Mark 12:30; Matthew 22:37-38). Notice that it does not say: “Thou shalt FEAR the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength.” As Holy Scripture says: “Fear is not in charity―but perfect charity casts out fear, because fear has pain. And he that fears, is not perfected in charity!” (1 John 4:18).
Hence, sorrow that is only based on fear is imperfect sorrow. Attrition is the bare minimum sorrow that is required for a valid confession. Being sorry because you are embarrassed about having committed a mortal sin; or being sorry because you feel that you have let yourself down, or that you have made yourself look bad, or being sorry about the mortal sin because your were caught or “found-out”, or because you have not yet been “found-out” and fear it might happen, or being sorry simply because someone got mad at you, or that you lost your reputation or job, or some advantage, etc. ― all of this is NOT supernatural sorrow. It merely resides on a humanistic level and does to rise above it to the consideration of God and His just punishments ― for sin is first and foremost an offense and an attack upon God, and only secondarily is it an offense against yourself or others: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40).
CONTRITION: A more perfect supernatural sorrow is a sorrow that is primarily based upon a love of God rather than a fear of God. It is sometimes also called FILIAL LOVE (meaning the love of a son or a daughter for their father) rather than a servile love, which is fearful love of a slave or servant. Our Lord says: “I will not now call you servants … But I have called you friends!” (John 15:15). This sorrow that is based upon love is what gives it the other name of PERFECT SORROW, since it is more perfect to love than to fear. Love―not fear―should be our motive for keeping the commandments of God. Our Lord Himself says that: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keeps not My words … If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love … This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you” (John 14:15, 14:21-24; 15:10; 15:12).
This motive love is recommended by Holy Scripture: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). “God hath first loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. If God hath so loved us, then we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10-11) … “Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us!” (1 John 4:19) … “For charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12). “Before all things, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves―for charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much!” (Luke 7:47). Nowhere in Holy Scripture do we read that fear forgives sins―only charity. If our contrition is PERFECT CONTRITION―based upon a sincere and real love of God―then it has the power of removing, not only our guilt for sin, but also all the temporal punishment due to our sins either in this world or in the next. Who wouldn’t want to have that kind of sorrow for sin!!? Satan most certainly does not want to see that kind of sorrow in souls! Therefore he works night and day to prevent us from reaching such a degree of sorrow.
You could compare―though very imperfectly―perfect contrition (alias, perfect sorrow) to a cake being baked in the oven. If the cake is only left in the oven for a few minutes, then it imperfectly baked, partially baked, but not fully baked. However, if you leave the cake in the oven for as long as it needs to be there―then you have a perfectly baked cake. Similarly with sorrow for sin―if you “bake” your sorrow in charity for as long as it needs to be perfectly “baked” then it will become PERFECT SORROW or PERFECT CONTRITION. If you stop the baking process too soon, then you will be left with partially “baked” sorrow, or IMPERFECT SORROW, IMPERFECT CONTRITION, ATTRITION. The common mistake that most Catholics make in going to Confession is to focus for too long upon their examination of conscience, and to focus too little upon generating a high degree of sorrow based upon love. Satan knows that in this way he can “cut his losses”. Yet Satan will try all that he can in order to remove any kind of supernatural sorrow from your soul―thus leaving you with an impotent, powerless, insufficient humanistic sorrow where you are naturally embarrassed at having committed a mortal sin; and are sorry merely because you feel that you have let yourself down, or that you have made yourself look bad, or because your were caught or “found-out”, or because you have not yet been “found-out” and fear it might happen, or being sorry simply because someone got mad at you, or that you lost your reputation or job, or some advantage, etc. ― all of this is NOT supernatural sorrow and it will invalidate your Confession to Satan’s delight.
(3) THE “NO FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT” TACTIC. If you have managed to avoid Satan’s snares up to this point―you made it to confession line, you examined your conscience thoroughly, you achieved a supernatural sorrow―then there are still some snares that lie ahead of you. One of those is having a lack of a firm purpose of amendment. There can be several differing degrees within this snare of Satan. Some people just come to the Sacrament of Confession and treat it like a revolving door―commit the sin―confess the sin―commit the sin again―confess the sin again―commit the sin again and again―confess the sin again and again. They have no real intention to stop sinning and they merely go to Confession so that they can receive Holy Communion at Mass right afterwards―then they go back to their “Week of Sin” until Confession the next weekend. Both children and adults can be guilty of this abuse of Confession for the reason that they want to pass under the radar of their parents or spouses, so that nobody can detect that they are in a state of mortal sin! Yet these fools fail to realize that their confessions are invalid because they lack a firm purpose of amendment―you could actually say that they have a firm purpose of sinning!
Then there are those people who do have some kind of purpose of amendment or desire to change their life by trying to quit sin, but they still do not have a FIRM purpose of amendment, but only a VAGUE purpose of amendment, or a WISHY-WASHY purpose of amendment, or a THEORETICAL purpose of amendment but not a practical purpose of amendment―meaning that they wish to stop sinning in theory, but, in practice, they make no concrete plans and take no concrete steps. They remain in the realm of WISHFUL THINKERS―and this is proved by the fact that they are back in future confessions confessing the same old mortal sins with no real sign of improvement―because they had no real and no firm plans on how to avoid falling back into the same old mortal sins. Thus their confessions are invalid―and though wishfully imagine that they have restored to a state of grace after confessing―they are still in a state of mortal sin. They have failed in fulfilling the Church’s command of having a FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT, which merely echoes Our Lord’s words to the woman caught in adultery: “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:10-11) and the words to the sinner He cured by the Pool of Bethsaida: “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14) to which can be added: “My son, hast thou sinned? Do so no more, but for thy former sins pray that they may be forgiven thee!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1) and “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “Do not bind sin to sin―for even in one sin thou shalt not be unpunished!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:8).
So what is an example of a firm purpose of amendment? Well, let’s take the category of sin that Our Lady of Fatima said, already way back in 1917, that is damning most souls today―IMPURITY. In that category of impurity you have many different species of impure sins. Lustful looks and glances; lustful thoughts and desires; impure touches, caresses and kisses; immodest dressing in tight, body-hugging, short, revealing, see-through, “leaving little to imagination” clothing; impure and immodest conversations; visiting websites that contain anything from immodest material all the way through to pornographic material; watching television shows that contain impure scenes, impure dressing, impure talking or other things suggestive of impurity; going to places where people dress immodestly or act impurely; acts of masturbation; fornication; sodomy; homosexuality; adultery; rape; molestation; etc., etc.
A firm purpose of amendment naturally and logically includes a thorough examination of how and why you are falling into a particular mortal sin. The purpose of that is to avoid occasions of sin―which makes the fight against sin easier, rather than wandering into the battlefield and having to fight the enemy “face-to-face”. As they say: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!” In other words―don’t light the fire and you won’t have to put it out! Or, as the saying goes: “A stitch in time, saves nine!”
So let’s say you are tempted to take secret impure glances at somebody at church on Sundays―yes, it does happen. Then you need to examine when it happens, how it happens and why it happens. If it happens before or after Mass, then you ask yourself: “Am I deliberately seeking out that person, or seeking to be in the proximity of that person so that I can get good look, or even speak with them?” If that is the case, then you simply go immediately into church upon arrival and stay in church longer once Mass has ended; if you really need to chat in the parking lot or parish hall after Mass, then make sure your back is always turned towards that person and do not look around. Stop chatting with that person after Mass and do not seek them out. If the glances happen during Mass―then make sure you always sit in front of that person, so that they occupy some pew or another behind you. Go to Holy Communion immediately and then, with Our Lord in your soul, keep your attention focused on Him and not the other person―for Heaven’s sake! If that does not work, then attend another Mass―at an earlier or later hour. Self-discipline is required and mortification of the eyes. You can train and practice mortification of the eyes at other times, on other days. For example, do not look around whilst driving; do not look around whilst shopping; when you hear someone come through the door, do not turn to look and see who it is; when talking to someone while you are working, or typing, or doing the dishes, do not always look at them, but focus on what you are doing while talking to them. There are many, many more exercises you could do. Yet as Our Lord said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) ― which means you need the help of God’s grace. Since you have been falling into mortal sin often―you need a hefty dose of grace to cast the devil and his temptations far from you. Our Lord tells us how this done: “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). So, in addition to your “natural” plans, tactics and exercises, you need to add supernatural grace―and that comes by prayer and fasting. All of this shows Our Lord that YOU HAVE A FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT, because you have analyzed you past falls into mortal sin, you have developed a plan to avoid repeating them, and most importantly of all, you are putting that plan into action with the help of divine grace.
If you are one of those persons who provokes sin in others by the way you dress―then you need to dress differently, not just on Sundays at Mass, but at all times and everywhere. Remember this―sometimes the person who provokes another person to sin is more guilty than person who has been provoked and sins. It is useless to say: “It’s not my fault! They should know better than to look at me impurely!” With regards to dressing immodestly for Mass on Sundays―it is totally incomprehensible as to why someone “dolls themselves up” for Mass on Sundays! What on earth are you going to Mass for? Are you trying to seduce Our Lord? Who are you dressing-up immodestly for? Why those short skirts, those shorts, tight fitting tops and bottoms, those partially unbuttoned shirts or blouses, those bare arms, fancy hair styles, make-up, powder, eyeliner, lipstick, etc. Sure―the woman’s hair is her glory―but Church rules used to be that the woman cover her glory in church, so that the focus can be on Christ and not her hair, and that Christ be given glory and not her hair! Just as Our Lord cast out with a whip the money-changers and merchants from the Temple, so too would He cast out many from church today! Back then He said: “My house is the house of prayer. But you have made it a den of thieves!” (Luke 19:46). Today He would say: “My church is the house of prayer. But you have made it a den of lust!” (Luke 19:46). Our Lord wants to be the center of attention in church―but many dress in a way that makes them the center of attention at church! They make themselves into idols and wish to be adored! If you possess immodest, provocative clothing―then get rid of it! Burn it! Better that than burning yourself in Hell or Purgatory! When you are there, then you will see that it really was not worth it! By getting rid of such clothing, you will show that you have a FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT.
All the other above mentioned sins of impurity can be tackled in more or less similar ways. If you lack imagination in devising a plan, then consult with your confessor or any priest. They will be only too glad to help you and perhaps help you save your soul as well.
St. Alphonsus Liguori comments: “Tell me why so many sinners relapse, after Confession, into the same sins? I will tell you―because they do not remove the dangerous occasions of sin. Many repent, but are not converted. They feel a certain sorrow for the irregularities of their lives, but do not sincerely return to God. They go to Confession, strike their breasts, and promise to amend; but they do not make a firm resolution to change their lives. Those who relapse into sin soon after Confession, show that they repent, but are not converted―and such persons shall, in the end die an unhappy death. Mercy shall be shown to him who confesses his sins and abandons them―but not to those who merely confess their transgressions. ‘He that shall confess his sins, and forsake them, shall obtain mercy’ (Proverbs 28:13). He, then, who does not give up, but returns to sin after Confession, shall not obtain mercy from God, but shall die a victim of Divine justice.” (Sunday Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori).
(4) THE “INSUFFICIENT DESCRIPTION OF SIN IN THE CONFESSIONAL” TACTIC. You can call it “insufficient description of sin”, or call it “deceiving the priest”, or “lying to the priest”, or “fudging the numbers”, or “watering-down or diluting the sin” or a hundred other titles and euphemisms. The bottom line is that you do not tell it as it is―you dissimulate, obfuscate, smoke-screen, hide or understate the truth. If Satan has managed to derail your confession until now, then he is not afraid to go into the confessional with you in a last ditch attempt to make it all invalid. Here again he can vary his tactics. (1) He can encourage you to totally omit confessing a particular mortal sin. (2) If he sees that you definitely intend to confess that mortal sin, he will encourage you to be vague about it―that is to say, neglecting to confess mortal sins “in number and in kind”―meaning giving the exact number of times you committed and specifying what species of mortal sin it was.
For example, instead of truthfully confessing that you have had twelve adulterous impure thoughts about another married person who is not your spouse, you say, instead, that you have had a “few bad thoughts” without specifying that those thoughts were impure thoughts as well as adulterous thoughts and were actually twelve in number. Or you might be slightly more honest and say “a few impure thoughts”―without specifying that it was a total of twelve (which is more than just a few) and without specifying that those impure thoughts were about a married person. Similarly, confessing that you were “impure a few times”―without specifying whether the impurity was with yourself or another, and if it was with another, then was that person single, married, same sex or opposite sex, lay person or religious, adult or child, and whether the impure action was unnatural (e.g. sodomy, oral, etc.). Some of these differences can make a mortal sin even more serious―for example, the act of impurity could be, in a manner of speaking, four times worse if (1) you are married, (2) the other person is married, (3) it is a person of the same sex, and (4) if the action was unnatural sex as in sodomy. Each of those circumstances aggravates the mortal sin. If one of the persons happens to be religious (bishop, priest, monk, brother, nun, sister) then the mortal sin also becomes a sacrilegious mortal sin.
Hopefully the priest stops you in your tracks and then asks the necessary questions to prevent you from making an invalid confession, by saying something like: “What do you mean by ‘a few’? Is that three or four times?” Thus provoking you to be more honest and say: “No Father! It was more like twelve times!” He should then also ask: “Were all of the parties concerned married persons or single persons? Of the same sex or opposite sexes? Were they adults or children? How many times with each different person? etc.” If the priest does not ask such questions, then that does not mean that you are innocent and that the confession is good and valid! No, you are guilty of making a bad confession―and the priest is also guilty in enabling you to make that bad confession.
It is extremely likely that Satan enjoys many victories in this area and always has done―as is evidenced by these words of St. Alphonsus Liguori, a Doctor of the Church and the patron saint of moral theologians: “What hope of salvation can he have who goes to Confession and conceals his sins, and makes use of the Tribunal of Penance to offend God, and to make himself doubly the slave of Satan? What hope would you entertain of the recovery of the man who, instead of taking the medicine prescribed by his physician, drank a cup of poison? Good God! What can the Sacrament of Penance be to those who conceal their sins, but a deadly poison, which adds to their guilt the malice of sacrilege? In giving absolution, the confessor dispenses to his patient the Blood of Jesus Christ. What, then, does the sinner do, when he conceals his sins in Confession? He tramples underfoot the Blood of Jesus Christ. And should he afterwards receive the Holy Communion in a state of sin, he is, according to St. John Chrysostom, as guilty as if he threw the consecrated Host into a sink. Accursed shame! How many poor souls do you bring to Hell? Unhappy souls! They think only of the shame of confessing their sins, and do not reflect that, if they conceal them, they shall be certainly damned!” (Sunday Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori).
How to Put Right a Bad (Invalid) Confession
How do you rectify or put right an invalid or bad Confession? The simple answer to that is MAKE ANOTHER CONFESSION―BUT DO IT CORRECTLY!
You can confess to the same priest to whom you made the invalid confession―or you can go to another priest, do as you wish―but re-confess you must. You must first of all tell the priest that your previous confession (or whichever confession) was invalid and then you will have to re-confess all the mortal sins again that you confessed in the invalid confession―as well as any mortal sins that you committed (in the days, weeks, months, years) since then.
In addition to that, you should confess the reasons why that confession was invalid (which will help the priest to ensure you do not fall into the same trap again).
So, for example, you will confess that you had NO SUPERNATURAL SORROW (attrition or contrition) and were only sorry on a naturalistic or humanistic level.
Or perhaps it was invalid due to your LACK OF A FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT, whereby you did not take the reforming of your life seriously and quickly fell back into the mortal sins you had confessed due to a lack of concrete plans and actions that could have prevented those repeated falls back into mortal sin or at least greatly reduced the number of falls.
Or perhaps the confession was invalid due to a LACK OF HONESTY, TRANSPARENCY AND CLARITY on your part, whereby you mislead the priest by MISREPRESENTING THE GRAVITY OR THE NUMBER OF YOUR MORTAL SINS by being too vague or understating the number of times you committed them.
Whatever the cause or multiple causes contributed to the invalidity of your confession, all of them have be confessed in the next confession in order to put things right.
Learn from your mistakes―and put them right the next time. Take the Sacrament of Confession more seriously. Spend more time in examining your conscience―and start doing that BEFORE YOU EVEN GO TO CHURCH. Do it at home. Perhaps even do it several days before Confession. That can help you to achieve a greater and deeper sorrow for your sins―rather than a risky superficial, microwaved sorrow minutes before entering the confessional. St. Peter wept for many years over his betrayal and denial of Christ during the Passion. Learn a lesson from that! If sin is the greatest evil in the world―then what should your sorrow be like after committing the greatest evil in the world (and many times too!)? Be more humble and that will help you to be more honest when actually confessing your sins to the priest! Pride is the vice that makes us want to conceal or misrepresent our sins! Puncture your pride with humility!
Above all―remember that there is no sin that cannot be forgiven―provided that you play your part and do not cheat!
Some people can go “nuts” just thinking about having to confess their sins. Others either “bolt” away from the confessional as fast as they can, or they put a “bolt” on their mouth and do not confess what they should be confessing. There are a variety of things that can make your confession “bad” ― that is to say, invalid. The devil is always trying to make confessions invalid―because he knows that valid confessions save souls from Hell. Valid confessions restore sanctifying grace to the soul―and it is impossible to end up in Hell with sanctifying grace in your soul―you may end up in Purgatory for a long time, but not Hell.
How then is it that most Catholic souls end up in Hell―as we are told by Our Lord, Our Lady and many saints? It is simpy because they refuse to confess their sins, or they confess them badly, or because they have the wrong dispositions or do not have the right dispositions that are required for a good and valid confession that will forgive all their mortal sins and restore sanctifying grace to their souls.
So what makes a confession bad or invalid? There are a number of things―some can be faults on the part of the priest, others can faults on the part of the penitent. Let us briefly list them at first―and then “get down to the nuts and bolts” by explaining them in some more detail.
(1) Faults on the Part of the Priest
● If the minister of the Sacrament is either not validly ordained as a priest, or does not possess faculties to hear confessions that makes it invalid (in most cases).
● Some particular grave sins that have incurred excommunication require the priest to have special faculties to absolve them.
● A priest cannot generally absolve a sin which he is party to.
● If the minister does not use the correct form (words) of absolution that makes the confession invalid.
● If the priest does not have the intention to absolve sin then that makes it invalid.
(2) Faults on the Part of the Penitent
● The penitent must have at least some degree of supernatural sorrow―such as attrition (a fear of God’s just punishments in this life or in the next life) or contrition (sorrow out a love of God)―a lack of attrition or contrition would invalidate the Sacrament. Being sorry because you are embarrassed about having committed a mortal sin; or being sorry because you feel that you have let yourself down, or because you have made yourself look bad, or being sorry about the mortal sin because your were caught or “found-out”, or because someone got mad at you, or that you lost your reputation, or job, or some advantage, etc. ― all of this is not supernatural sorrow. It merely resides on a humanistic level and does to rise above it to God ― for sin is first and foremost an offense and an attack upon God, and only secondarily is it an offense against yourself or others: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40).
● The penitent must have a firm purpose of amending his or her life, and not intend to persist in the sin. A lack of this would lead to the Sacrament being invalid. Knowing that it is possible that the sin is likely to happen again is acceptable as long as a genuine resolve is made to cease doing it and there is a firm resolve (not a halfhearted, wishy-washy, limp resolve) to remove oneself from near occasions of sin. This firm purpose of amendment is not a vague wishful thinking―but it consists of making a thorough examination of how and why you fall into this or that particular mortal sin and then making concrete plans on how to avoid those persons, places or circumstances for the future and then putting those plans into action. Ideas must have practical consequences. Most people are wishy-washy on this point and imagine that they can somehow continue exposing themselves to the same persons, places and circumstances and miraculously nothing bad will happen! Foolishness! “The perverse are hard to be corrected, and the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). If a person repeatedly keeps confessing the same mortal sin or several mortal sins in one confession after another, time and time again―then this is a clear sign that the penitent has not had a FIRM PURPOSE of amendment, as is starting to use the Sacrament of Confession like a revolving door, going round and round, into mortal sin, into Confession, into the same mortal sin again, into Confession to confess the same mortal sin again, etc. It becomes like an inevitable weekly car-wash! This lack of firm purpose of amendment and the resulting lack of improvement, or lack of reduction in the frequency of the mortal sin, results in an invalid confession.
We are fallen creatures, weakened by the scars of Original Sin, subject to temptation, and inclined to sin. Sin can become habitual, and habits can be hard to break. Certain sins can be addictive, making them even more difficult to overcome. We need God’s grace to free us from sin―as Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). If we wait to repent until we have totally conquered sin on our own, we will be waiting for our entire lives―and then it will be too late! If you have no intention at all of giving up your sin, then no — your confession will not be valid. You can’t confess on Sunday a sin you committed on Saturday if you have plans to commit that same sin again on Monday. But that is different than recognizing that you still struggle with that sin and may possibly fall into that sin again, even though right now you do not want to repeat that sin again. You can confess on Sunday a sin that you committed on Saturday, knowing it is possible or probable that you might commit it again some time in the future―if you sincerely want God’s help in freeing you from the desire for that sin. If the sin is habitual―something you have become addicted to―then the signs of a firm purpose of amendment would be seen in a progressive decrease in the number of times that you are committing that sin, until, eventually, it fades away.
● For a confession to be valid, we do, however, have to confess all the serious sins (mortal sins) that we might have committed since the previous confession, plus any serious sins from the past that we might have forgotten to mention in previous confessions. A deliberate omission in confessing a sin that the penitent knows is a grave sin (a sin that is mortal) is also a cause for invalidity. All mortal sins that are known to the penitent must be confessed in “kind and number”―which means telling the priest the specific kind of mortal sin and the number of times it has been committed. It is NOT sufficient to vaguely say: “I have been impure”― but one has to state what kind of impurity it was, because there are many different kinds of impurity. Was it in thought, word, or action? Was it alone with oneself? Was it with another of the opposite sex or same sex? Was the other person single, or married, or a religious, or family member? Was it with a child? Was it a case of rape? Was it unnatural impurity (sodomy)? Was it with an animal? The same applies to other mortal sins―for example stealing. What did you steal? How much did you steal? From whom did you steal―was it from a family member, poor or rich person, a store, or workplace, or church, etc. The same for violence―who was the victim? A man, woman, child? Family member, stranger, religious person? What was the level of violence, how seriously was the victim injured, etc. Failure to mention specific “kind” of sin with any aggravating circumstances can invalidate the Sacrament.
● Then you have to give the closest possible number of times the mortal sin was committed―vaguely saying “a few times” is not good enough. It is always best to choose a higher number than a lower one if you are not certain. Forgetting sins does not invalidate the absolution as long as the penitent has spent sufficient time (as is reasonable in the circumstances) performing an examination of conscience. Venial sins do not strictly need to be confessed―though it is good to do so, for each sin that is confessed receives a special grace from God that will help overcome that sin for the future. However grave sins (mortal sins) that have honestly been forgotten, must be confessed at the next confession. Failure to give the exact number (as best as one can remember) or deliberately misleading the priest by understating the true number―for whatever reason, shame, fear, etc.―will invalidate the Sacrament.
Bad Confessions Are Frequent and Commonplace
St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1797)―a Doctor of the Church and the Patron Saint of moral theologians―writes in the Preface of his book, Sermons For All The Sundays Of The Year―that bad confessions are something far more commonplace than is imagined: “The preacher should often speak against bad confessions, in which sins are concealed through shame. This is an evil not of rare occurrence, but frequent, especially in small country districts, which consigns innumerable souls to Hell. Hence it is very useful to mention, from time to time, some example of souls that were damned by willfully concealing sins in confession.”
St. Alphonsus said that in the 18th century! How much worse are things likely to be today! One pope after another―starting with Second World War pope, Pius XII―even including the Liberal and Modernist popes that came after him―have consistently said that world has lost the sense of sin! Pope Pius XII said in 1946: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin!” Pope John Paul II, in 2005, said: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin!” Pope Benedict XVI said in 2011: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because if we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, we cannot speak of sin!” In 2014, Pope Francis the previous popes, saying: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble!”
When you lose the sense of sin, you lose the sense of the importance of confessing sins in the Sacrament of Confession. That is one reason why only 7% of regularly practicing Catholics go to the Sacrament of Confession at least once a month and 33% of them never go to Confession. Whereas only 1% of not regularly practicing Catholics go to Confession at least once a month and 86% of them never go to Confession. Yet surveys have found that―for example in Italy―that in 75% of parishes the divorced and remarried communicate regularly. Are these people deliberately committing sacrileges? What they are manifesting are the disastrous consequences of what happens when you lose the sense of what is sinful! What is true, in this case, for Italy―also has to be true throughout most of the world. Catholics are going to Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin―but they have convinced themselves that it is not a mortal sin! That is why varying numbers―but in all cases it is over 50%― of Catholics nowadays are accepting such mortal sins as abortion; contraception; marrying outside the Church; remarried divorcees; same-sex marriages and homosexual relations; fornication; adultery; masturbation; impurity; lust; immodesty; watching television or videos containing immodest/impure/pornographic/blasphemous bits; missing Sunday Mass; revealing the secret mortal sins of others (detraction), making false accusations of mortal sin about others (calumny), drunkenness, drug abuse; etc., etc. Once they start to accept these things, then it is obvious that they do not look upon those things as being mortal sins, and so they will find no need to confess them in the Sacrament of Confession.
Sacraments vs. Sacramentals
There are only 7 Sacraments, but there are many, many Sacramentals. One difference between Sacraments and Sacramentals is that Sacramentals do not produce sanctifying grace, a power that belongs to Sacraments alone. Sacraments give us “Sanctifying Grace” (a permanent grace, or habitual grace, that stays in the soul unless expelled by mortal sin), while Sacramentals only give us “Actual Grace” (temporary, short-term, passing graces that help us to fight evil and do what is good). Sacraments are given to us by Christ Himself―whereas Sacramentals are blessed things that are usually instituted by the Church (though in some cases they are requested by Heaven).
Some examples of Sacramentals that are specially blessed by the Church are: Holy Water, Crucifixes, Scapulars, Medals of Saints, Statues and Pictures of Saints, Rosary Beads, Chaplets, Candles, Blessed Salt, etc. Some examples of Heaven requested Sacramentals are: Rosary Beads (to St. Dominic in 1214), the Brown Scapular (to St. Simon Stock in 1251), the Miraculous Medal (to St. Catherine Labouré in 1830), and more besides―all of these were given to the Church through apparitions of Our Lady.
The Sacraments CANNOT be given to a person in the state of mortal sin―with the exception of the Sacraments of Baptism and Confession (but in these cases the person must repent of all mortal sin). Whereas Sacramentals CAN be given to persons in mortal sin―for the Sacramental will often attract grace from Heaven to convert the mortal sinner.
Sacramentals are channels of “Actual Grace” (temporary, passing, assisting grace) and can obtain for us these benefits: (1) Actual graces; (2) Forgiveness of venial sins; (3) Remission of temporal punishment; (4) Health of body and material blessings; (5) Protection from evil spirits.
Devils in the Confessional
You might be surprised to hear this―but the Sacrament of Confession is more powerful than an exorcism! Confession is a Sacrament, but exorcism is only a Sacramental. One of the chief things that the devil hates is the Sacrament of Confession―for it annihilates years of evil work by demons and sets the soul free from Satan’s control. Exorcists tell us that Confession is one of the most effective things to ward off or break demonic influence. The recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriel Amorth, and many other exorcists, have stressed that the number one protection from evil is the Sacrament of Confession and the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Many times Fr. Amorth has said that he is convinced that a good Confession is much more effective than an exorcism. One of the first things that exorcists like to insist upon is that the person―from whom they intend to exorcise the devil―first goes to Confession. The primary form of exorcism for Fr. Amorth is to have the possessed persons go to Confession―because to be exorcised is to turn away from Satan. The Sacrament of Confession is one of the chief weapons of protection against the devils. Confession is one of the most effective things to ward off or break demonic influence. Fr. Amorth says: “The demon keeps his distance from someone who nurtures his Faith, who frequents the Sacraments, and who wishes to live devoutly.” Another exorcist, Msgr. John Esseff, states: “Sin is far worse than Satan!” As Holy Scripture says: “He that commits sin is of the devil―for the devil sinned from the beginning!” (1 John 3:8). The exorcists tell us that it is not uncommon to find persons possessed by devils as a result of those persons committing the most serious mortal sins, such as abortion or other forms of murder, or repeatedly committing other serious mortal sins to the point of living long periods of their life in a state of mortal sin.
Devil Plays Keep-Away
Whenever we commit a mortal sin, the devil’s first ploy and tactic is try to keep us away from the Sacrament of Confession for as long as possible―hoping, in the meantime, to make fall into more and more mortal sins. Sin is a wound. St. Thomas Aquinas says: “There is no reason why the effect of one sin should not be the cause of another―because the soul, through sinning once, is more easily inclined to sin again. Through sin, the reason is obscured, the will is hardened to evil, good actions become more difficult, and concupiscence more impetuous.”
Sin is a wound. The greater and graver the sin, the greater and graver the wound―they do not call in MORTAL sin for nothing! The devil knows that the longer you leave a wound (mortal sin) untreated, without having it properly cleaned and covered, can allow (other sins) bacteria, viruses or fungi to enter through the opening in the skin (soul), leading to infection. Then sepsis occurs when the body overreacts to infection, releasing chemicals into the bloodstream that ultimately cause organ failure (collapse of virtues) and death (damnation). One sin leads to another―and another, and another, and another―until your soul is eventually flooded with a tsunami of sin. That is why Satan wants to keep you away from Confession―it gives him time to flood your soul with more and more sins.
To help him keep you away from Confession, Satan will use a variety of strategies―and if those fail to keep you away, then the next goal is to make you confess badly, to make your Confession invalid. In that way, you are still steeped in mortal sin, even though you have been to Confession.
The Stay-Away from Confession Tactics
Satan will use one or many approaches in his endeavor to keep you from going to Confession and to keep you in a state of mortal. Here are just some of those tactics―though the list is by no means exhaustive, for Satan always “tailor-makes” his tactics to be a perfect fit for you―and no two people are exactly alike. So each tactic that will be mentioned can have hundreds or even thousands of nuances, fine-tuning, tweaks and alterations. Also―these tactics are not necessarily in any kind of logical or chronological order―they are simply being stated as they come to mind.
(1) THE “YOU ARE NOT IN MORTAL SIN” TACTIC. This tactic is most preferable of all for Satan. It is like being conned out of all your money without even realizing you have been conned―which means that you will “sleep in peace” and will be totally unaware of the reality of the situation. Our Lord calls Satan a liar: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth―because truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44). In this case, Satan lies to us in repeatedly telling us that the temptation he dangles in front of us is NOT A MORTAL SIN, but only a venial sin―maybe a serious venial sin, maybe an embarrassing venial sin, but nevertheless ONLY a venial. He will say something like: “Hey! The Bible says every man is a sinner! The Bible says: ‘For all have sinned!’ (Romans 3:23) … ‘A just man shall fall seven times and shall rise again!’ (Proverbs 24:16) … ‘The Lord is gracious and merciful, patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works!’ (Psalm 144:8-9) ― So go ahead and commit this sin! Don’t worry! It’s only a venial sin! God will understand! God loves you! He knows you can’t go through life without ever committing a sin! Just do it! You don’t have to confess it―because it’s only a venial sin! The Church teaches you don’t have to confess venial sins if you do not want to!” Or something along those lines.
Notice how Satan will quote Scripture to pass along his lies in order to con you! That is exactly how Satan tempted Christ in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11). Today, the majority of Catholics have been conned and have “bought into” that lie―they no longer believe that it is a mortal sin to miss Mass on Sunday, to have lustful thoughts, to masturbate, to have unnatural sexual relations, to use contraception, to indulge in homosexual thoughts or actions, to look at immodest or even pornographic images, to indulge in “French-kissing” or caress and arouse someone you are not married to, or to get intoxicated, revealing the secret mortal sins of others (detraction) or telling serious lies about others (calumny), etc. All of these mortal sins are now looked upon as being merely serious venial sins by increasing numbers of Catholics―and those numbers are not small numbers―for over 50% of modern day Catholics now hold those opinions! That is a perfect con by Satan and a big victory for him. Satan even has priests ‘working’ for him, who either do not educate their parishioners on what are the most common mortal sins, or, believe it or not, priests who actually condone certain mortal sins and reduce them to level of venial sins or even no sin at all! Holy Scripture condemns such priests and such faithful: “Woe to you blind guides! … Ye foolish and blind!” (Matthew 23:16-17). “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil! That put darkness for light, and light for darkness! That put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20). “‘Woe to you, apostate children!’ saith the Lord, ‘that you would take counsel but not from Me! And would begin to spin a web, but not in My spirit, so that you might add sin upon sin!’” (Isaias 30:1).
(2) THE “DON’T WORRY! GOD IS MERCIFUL!” TACTIC. This tactic is a slight variation on the one above. Satan realizes that you understand that a particular thought, word or action really is a mortal sin―and so, after at least trying to convince you otherwise, Satan is resigned to the fact that you will not believe his lies about something being a venial sin when it really is a mortal sin. How, then, can he get you to commit that mortal sin? His strategy is to “lead you down the garden path” to a presumption on the mercy of God. This, again, can many hundreds or thousands of variations because Satan likes to “tailor-make” any and every temptation to suit your particular temperament, personality, character, circumstances and history. He knows your strengths and weaknesses better than you do yourself. However, in this “God is Merciful” tactic, the chief aim is to reduce the “shock factor” of committing a mortal sin―and this can be done in countless ways. We will look at those a little further below―for now, we are focusing solely on Satan’s desire to make you presumptuous upon God’s mercy by exaggerating what God is prepared to tolerate from you.
For example, one of the thousands of ways Satan might approach you is where he again uses Holy Scripture for his nefarious purposes. He will start out as above and say: “Hey! The Bible says every man is a sinner! The Bible says: ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us! If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10). … ‘The Lord is merciful, patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works!’ (Psalm 144:8-9) … God says: ‘I desire not the death of the wicked!’ (Ezechiel 33:11) … ‘If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow―and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool!’ (Isaias 1:18) ― Yes, continues Satan, this might be a mortal sin, but just look at how many millions of mortal sins are being committed each day! Look at how bad all the other people in world are like! You are nowhere near as bad as they are! God isn’t going to damn everybody! God has forgiven and saved sinners who were far worse than you are! He knows that you are under stress and that normally you are such a good person! So go ahead and commit this sin! Get it out of the system! Just do it and then all temptations will stop hounding you and will go away! Don’t worry! You’re only going to lose a battle, but you won’t lose the war! God will understand! God loves you! Just do it! You’ll see how much better you will feel afterwards!”
Notice, again, how Satan will quote Scripture to pass along his lies in order to con you into committing mortal sin! That is exactly how Satan tempted Christ in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11) and Christ replied to Satan’s Scripture quotes with other Scripture quotes―and that is what we must do also. Yes―those Scripture quotes are true, but they only paint part of a bigger picture―as the following Scripture quotes will prove. Scripture also says: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “If we sin willfully after having the knowledge of the truth, then there is no sacrifice left for sins―but only a certain dreadful expectation of judgment and the rage of a fire which shall consume!” (Hebrews 10:26-27). Jesus says: “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-27). Elsewhere Jesus adds: “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:10-11). “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14).
On this point of exaggerating the mercy of God, St. Alphonsus Liguori―a Doctor of the Church and the patron saint of moral theologians―writes: “‘But God is merciful!’ you will say. Behold another common delusion by which the devil encourages sinners to persevere in a life of sin! More souls have been sent to Hell by the mercy of God than by His justice. This is indeed the case―for men are induced by the deceits of the devil to persevere in sin, through confidence in God’s mercy―and thus they are lost. God is merciful. Who denies it? But, great as His mercy, how many does He every day send to Hell? God is merciful, but He is also just, and is, therefore, obliged to punish those who offend Him. ‘And His mercy,’ says the divine Mother, ‘is to them that fear Him!’ (Luke 1:50). But with regard to those who abuse His mercy and despise Him―He exercises justice. The Lord pardons sins, but He cannot pardon the determination to commit sin. St. Augustine says, that he who sins, with the intention of repenting after his sins, is not a penitent but a scoffer. The Apostle, St. Paul, tells us that God will not be mocked: ‘Be not deceived! God is not mocked!’ (Galatians 6:7). It would be a mockery of God to insult Him as often and as much as you pleased, and afterwards to expect eternal glory.
“‘But’, you say, ‘since God has shown me so many mercies until now, I am hopeful that He will continue to do so for the future!’ Behold another delusion! Then, because God has not as yet chastised your sins, He will never punish them! On the contrary, the greater have been His mercies, the more you should tremble, lest, if you offend Him again, He should pardon you no more, and should take vengeance on your sins. Behold the advice of the Holy Ghost: ‘Say not: “I have sinned, and what harm hath befallen me?” For the Most High is a patient rewarder!’ (Ecclesiasticus 5:4). Do not say: ‘I have sinned and no chastisement has fallen upon me!’ God bears patiently for a time―but not forever. He waits for a certain time―but when the end of that time arrives, He then chastises the sinner for all His past iniquities! And the longer God has waited for repentance, the more severe the chastisement.” (Sunday Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori).
(3) THE “SIN NOW AND YOU CAN ALWAYS CONFESS YOUR SINS (LATER)” TACTIC. This tactic is again a further slight variation on the ones above. Satan realizes that you understand that a particular sin is mortal and he hopefully tries to get you commit that mortal sin. However, the last thing he wants you to do is to immediately go to Confession. As stated above, mortal sin is like a mortal wound and “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). By mortal sin, we reject God and side with devil “for the devil sinned from the beginning” (1 John 3:8). The longer Satan has you in his clutches through mortal sin, the more he can inject further poison into you―as St. Thomas Aquinas said: “The effect of one sin is the cause of another―because the soul, through sinning once, is more easily inclined to sin again. Through sin, the reason is obscured, the will is hardened to evil, good actions become more difficult, and concupiscence more impetuous.” So―by hook or by crook―Satan seeks to keep in the state of mortal sin for as long possible, knowing full-well that the longer you remain in mortal sin, then the weaker you will become and all the more likely to sin in the future.
A slight variation on this tactic is where Satan tells you: “Hey! Listen! Now that you have committed this mortal sin, is it really a good idea to go to Confession? You know full well that you are likely to commit it again! Why not wait until you have committed many more mortal sins and got them out of your system―that would a better time to go to Confession, for then you would have proof that you are sorry because you have stopped committing them! Plus, the priest might not even give you absolution if you keep coming back week after week with the same old mortal sins! Furthermore, think of how embarrassing it will be to confess those mortal sins each and every week! What will the priest think of you? Better wait until you have stopped committing them and then think about going to Confession!” Satan knows full well that the longer you are away from God through a lack of sanctifying grace and the longer you are under Satan’s dominion through mortal sin, then the weaker you will become due to habitual mortal sin and a lack of grace from the Sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion―thus increasing the chances of Satan eventually securing your eventual damnation. The longer you leave a disease untreated with false assumption that it will just go away by itself, then the greater becomes the risk of complications and eventual death.
To help keep you away from Confession, Satan will use a whole host of additional tactics―keeping bad company, attachment to bad friends, working in a sinful environment, attached to hobbies and pastimes that are sources of temptation, keeping you in touch with strong temptations in places of temptation, addicted to certain places or things, stop you going to church and Mass, killing your prayer life, immersed in worldliness, etc.
To help keep you away from Confession, Satan will use a whole host of additional tactics―keeping bad company, attachment to bad friends, working in a sinful environment, attached to hobbies and pastimes that are sources of temptation, keeping you in touch with strong temptations in places of temptation, addicted to certain places or things, stop you going to church and Mass, killing your prayer life, immersed in worldliness, etc. All the while suggesting to you that you would be a hypocrite of a Catholic if you were to go Holy Mass and the Sacrament of Confession while doing all these things―hence reinforcing the likelihood that you will stay away from Confession.
Our Lord came to draw sinners to repentance, penitence and penance! If we would only listen and cooperate! “For I came not to judge the world [for its sins], but to save the world [from its sins]!” (John 12:47). “I came not to call the just―but sinners to [the Sacrament of] penance!” (Luke 5:32). “Come to me, all you that labor [under sin] and are burdened [with sin]―and I will refresh you!” (Matthew 11:28). Therefore, do not stay away from Confession in a state of mortal sin―but come to the Divine Physician so that He can break the chains of Satan that have you imprisoned in the stinking dungeon of mortal sin!
Satan's Confess Badly (Invalidly) Tactics
If Satan sees that, after committing your mortal sin(s), you are intent on going to Confession, then he has to kick-in with “PLAN B” ― which is to make that Confession invalid by any means possible. Just as in the aforementioned cases where Satan seeks to prevent you from going to Confession in the first place, there are multiple ways in which Satan can bring about an invalid Confession―depending upon your temperament, personality, character, reasoning, preferences, weaknesses, experiences and habits. Remember―Satan is like a tailor who carefully measures and makes things to fit you exactly, so that you feel more comfortable putting-on what he has made for you. It will be a perfect and comfortable fit. Just like the conmen in the fairy tale, “The Emperor’s Invisible Clothes”, Satan will spin a yarn or two that will trick you into thinking that your (invalid) Confession has actually clothed you with sanctifying grace―whereas you will be just as naked and wounded as you were before your invalid Confession.
Those Catholics who do not take their Faith seriously and are merely superficial Catholics, are the most frequent gullible victims to Satan’s machinations in provoking invalid Confessions. Catholics are supposed to be Soldiers of Christ―but if a soldier does not know the tactics of the enemy, and does not how to use his own weapons―then what chance does he have in survival on the battlefield? Wishy-washy, careless soldiers invariably fall in battle. Once again it must be stressed that failure to go to Confession when in mortal sin, or badly confessing mortal sins, are ultimately the TWO things that damn every single Catholic who is Hell right now―which is the majority of Catholics. It is not what God wants―but God is not going to drag you to Confession, nor will God speak in your place in Confession. God has given you two legs and a tongue to do those things!
Let us now look at some―not all―of the tactics and ruses that Satan uses to make a confession invalid.
(1) THE “INSUFFICIENT EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE” TACTIC. One of the five essential requirements for a valid confession is a THOROUGH examination of conscience. For the superficial Catholics, the examination of conscience is frequently or usually or always made just before going to Confession―after joining the other persons in the line outside the confessional. Before going into a battle, the soldiers are briefed and receive instructions before entering the battlefield. The confession line is already part of the battlefield―it is here that battle already commences. Therefore, a prudent Soldier of Christ should have already prepared for battle by making a thorough examination of conscience at home, before the battle commences―and, if necessary, should have noted any mortal sins that will have come to mind. A Catholic should look upon the confessional as being similar to the Emergency Room in a hospital―where things can be a matter of life and death. You are supposed to reveal to doctors any serious symptoms that you have and not hide them or neglect to reveal them; and to reveal what you did that might have brought them on and caused them! Similarly in the ‘Emergency Room’ of the confessional―where it can be a case of salvation or damnation―you need to reveal your serious symptoms (mortal sins) the ‘doctor’ of souls―the priest. To pretend that you just don’t have any time at home to make a thorough examination of conscience is telling God that you don’t have time for things that impact your salvation or damnation. God will not be pleased with that―especially since His Son, Jesus Christ, took time to come to Earth, in order to suffer and die for your sins! However, Satan will be pleased!
You could say, for example, that 95% of making a good Confession is what you do before entering into the confessional. The examination of conscience is one of those things that falls into that category. The bottom line in making a thorough examination of conscience is this: The better the preparation, then all the more graces are given. This is quite simply based upon Holy Scripture: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap” (Galatians 6:7-8). “He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). The more sins you place before God in confession, then the more sins will be taken away and the more Sacramental graces you will receive to help you combat those sins in the future. The more symptoms you reveal to your doctor, the better and more correct is the diagnosis that he can make, the more likelihood there will be of a cure, and the faster the cure. Hiding serious symptoms from the doctor will only favor the disease. Hiding mortal sins from the priest in Confession will only favor Satan―and the disease of mortal sin will not only remain in your soul after Confession, but you will also have contracted another disease, which is the mortal sin of making a sacrilegious Confession.
It is incumbent upon us to form our conscience―that is to say, educate our conscience. If our conscience isn't well-formed, then we are not well-equipped to determine right from wrong, good from evil―and we might confuse evil with good. “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil!” (Isaias 5:20). Persistent sin can dull or even silence our conscience: “To them that are defiled and to unbelievers, both their mind and their conscience are defiled” (Titus 1:15) ... “In the last times, some shall depart from the Faith … having their conscience seared!” (1 Timothy 4:1-2). Therefore, we have to do what it takes to be able to differentiate between mortal sin and venial sin―we have to recognize mortal sin because it is the sin that damns us. Heck! In our natural life we learn and teach our children the difference between good berries and poisonous berries; between water and ammonia; we tell them not to put their hands in a fire; not to play with snakes; etc. Then all the more important is it to learn for ourselves and each our children what are the different kinds of mortal sin―because just as we would not like to see our children killed due our neglect in knowing and informing them of dangers; likewise it is to be hoped that we do not want to see ourselves and our children damned because of our neglect. Once again, it is incumbent upon us to form our conscience.
You may have heard the axiom: “Ignorance of the law does not excuse from the law!” This means that people cannot defend their actions by claiming they did not know the law. If ignorance were accepted as an excuse, any person charged with a criminal offense could claim ignorance to avoid the consequences―and this in turn would bring lawlessness and chaos to society. Laws apply to every person within the jurisdiction, whether or not they are known and understood.
The Church teaches that for a person to be guilty of mortal sin, three conditions must be present: (1) The thought, word, action or omission has to be of a serious/grave nature; (2) the person, at the time of committing the sin, must actually know that the thought, word, action or omission is of a serious/grave nature; and (3) they must give full consent to that serious/grave thought, word, action or omission. Many people claim innocence on the grounds of not knowing that something was a mortal sin. However, ignorance will not always excuse.
In Catholic Church teaching, there are two kinds of ignorance―INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE (which excuses from sin) and VINCIBLE IGNORANCE (which does not excuse from sin). Literally speaking INVINCIBLE means unconquerable―therefore invincible ignorance is an ignorance that cannot be conquered or overcome or removed. Ignorance that cannot be overcome by using one’s reason is called invincible ignorance. Invincible ignorance is doing something wrong when one could NOT have known better.
On the other hand, VINCIBLE means conquerable―therefore vincible ignorance is an ignorance that CAN be conquered, can be overcome and can be removed. Vincible ignorance is something that can be overcome by using one’s reason and researching. Vincible ignorance is doing wrong when one SHOULD to have known better. Ignorance is vincible if a person could remove it by applying reasonable diligence. Reasonable diligence, in turn, is that diligence that a conscientious person would display in seeking the correct answer to a question given (a) the gravity of the question and (b) his particular resources. What is more serious and grave than sin and damnation? Many people will offer the excuse: “I didn’t know it was a sin! … I didn’t know it was a mortal sin!” In many cases, if not most cases, the reality of the matter is: “I did not care to find out whether it was a sin! … I did not care to find out if it was a mortal sin!” ― and in such cases they are guilty of the mortal sin they committed.
We should not be ignorant about the different types and degrees of sin―namely mortal sin and venial sin―for sin is, as the Catechism says: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). If you don’t give a damn about finding out what is mortal sin and what is a venial sin―then, quite frankly, you don’t really give a damn about your salvation and that will lead to you know what, and you know where!
There is no better way to form or educate your conscience than reading through a comprehensive and lengthy examination of conscience. You can find one on this website [click here] but there are many available out there. Sure―it’s long and perhaps uncomfortable. However, Hell is much longer than that and far, far more uncomfortable than that! Better safe than sorry, eh? Or, better still―be sorry and safe―meaning, be sorry for all you sins and be safe by confessing all your mortal sins! Better still―be safe, sorry and savvy (knowledgeable) by also knowing and recognizing mortal sins―for how can you avoid what you do not know? You cannot make a thorough examination of conscience if you in ignorance about sin! Similarly, the more you know about which sins are mortal and which are venial, then the less likely it will be that you a mortal sin (if you are a person of sincere Faith) and the harder it will be for Satan to con you into thinking that a particular mortal sin is only a venial sin.
Additionally, the more often you exam your conscience―when you fully grasp the different levels of sin by consulting a list that thoroughly covers sins―then you will be sharpening and honing your conscience more and more. Your weapon will sharp and ready to use in each and every circumstance in life. Remember―ignorance can be a sin and in very important matters ignorance can itself be a mortal sin! What is more important than your Faith? What is more important than your salvation? What is more serious than sin?
(2) THE “INSUFFICIENT SORROW FOR SIN” TACTIC. Okay! So you overcame the temptation not to confess and to stay away from the confessional. Good! You also managed to make a pretty thorough examination of conscience. Again, good! This has Satan fuming! You are close to being forgiven. Satan still has certain tactics that he will use at this late stage to derail your confession and make it invalid! One of the requirements for a good and valid confession is having a supernatural sorrow for your sins―as was already touched upon earlier in this article, but it worth repeating again.
There are two kinds of SUPERNATURAL SORROW: (1) Attrition, and (2) Contrition. They are sometimes given another name―Attrition is called IMPERFECT SORROW, and Contrition is called PERFECT SORROW.
ATTRITION: Attrition is an imperfect sorrow because it is only a fear of God’s just punishments in this life or in the next life, without there being a real love of God present―we fear God, but we do not really love God―and that is why it is called IMPERFECT SORROW, because God prefers to be loved than feared. Another name for Attrition is also SERVILE FEAR―which is the fear that a servant has of his master or lord, which fears to disobey because a punishment will result. The first and greatest commandment says: ““Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Mark 12:30; Matthew 22:37-38). Notice that it does not say: “Thou shalt FEAR the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength.” As Holy Scripture says: “Fear is not in charity―but perfect charity casts out fear, because fear has pain. And he that fears, is not perfected in charity!” (1 John 4:18).
Hence, sorrow that is only based on fear is imperfect sorrow. Attrition is the bare minimum sorrow that is required for a valid confession. Being sorry because you are embarrassed about having committed a mortal sin; or being sorry because you feel that you have let yourself down, or that you have made yourself look bad, or being sorry about the mortal sin because your were caught or “found-out”, or because you have not yet been “found-out” and fear it might happen, or being sorry simply because someone got mad at you, or that you lost your reputation or job, or some advantage, etc. ― all of this is NOT supernatural sorrow. It merely resides on a humanistic level and does to rise above it to the consideration of God and His just punishments ― for sin is first and foremost an offense and an attack upon God, and only secondarily is it an offense against yourself or others: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40).
CONTRITION: A more perfect supernatural sorrow is a sorrow that is primarily based upon a love of God rather than a fear of God. It is sometimes also called FILIAL LOVE (meaning the love of a son or a daughter for their father) rather than a servile love, which is fearful love of a slave or servant. Our Lord says: “I will not now call you servants … But I have called you friends!” (John 15:15). This sorrow that is based upon love is what gives it the other name of PERFECT SORROW, since it is more perfect to love than to fear. Love―not fear―should be our motive for keeping the commandments of God. Our Lord Himself says that: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keeps not My words … If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love … This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you” (John 14:15, 14:21-24; 15:10; 15:12).
This motive love is recommended by Holy Scripture: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). “God hath first loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. If God hath so loved us, then we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10-11) … “Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us!” (1 John 4:19) … “For charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12). “Before all things, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves―for charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much!” (Luke 7:47). Nowhere in Holy Scripture do we read that fear forgives sins―only charity. If our contrition is PERFECT CONTRITION―based upon a sincere and real love of God―then it has the power of removing, not only our guilt for sin, but also all the temporal punishment due to our sins either in this world or in the next. Who wouldn’t want to have that kind of sorrow for sin!!? Satan most certainly does not want to see that kind of sorrow in souls! Therefore he works night and day to prevent us from reaching such a degree of sorrow.
You could compare―though very imperfectly―perfect contrition (alias, perfect sorrow) to a cake being baked in the oven. If the cake is only left in the oven for a few minutes, then it imperfectly baked, partially baked, but not fully baked. However, if you leave the cake in the oven for as long as it needs to be there―then you have a perfectly baked cake. Similarly with sorrow for sin―if you “bake” your sorrow in charity for as long as it needs to be perfectly “baked” then it will become PERFECT SORROW or PERFECT CONTRITION. If you stop the baking process too soon, then you will be left with partially “baked” sorrow, or IMPERFECT SORROW, IMPERFECT CONTRITION, ATTRITION. The common mistake that most Catholics make in going to Confession is to focus for too long upon their examination of conscience, and to focus too little upon generating a high degree of sorrow based upon love. Satan knows that in this way he can “cut his losses”. Yet Satan will try all that he can in order to remove any kind of supernatural sorrow from your soul―thus leaving you with an impotent, powerless, insufficient humanistic sorrow where you are naturally embarrassed at having committed a mortal sin; and are sorry merely because you feel that you have let yourself down, or that you have made yourself look bad, or because your were caught or “found-out”, or because you have not yet been “found-out” and fear it might happen, or being sorry simply because someone got mad at you, or that you lost your reputation or job, or some advantage, etc. ― all of this is NOT supernatural sorrow and it will invalidate your Confession to Satan’s delight.
(3) THE “NO FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT” TACTIC. If you have managed to avoid Satan’s snares up to this point―you made it to confession line, you examined your conscience thoroughly, you achieved a supernatural sorrow―then there are still some snares that lie ahead of you. One of those is having a lack of a firm purpose of amendment. There can be several differing degrees within this snare of Satan. Some people just come to the Sacrament of Confession and treat it like a revolving door―commit the sin―confess the sin―commit the sin again―confess the sin again―commit the sin again and again―confess the sin again and again. They have no real intention to stop sinning and they merely go to Confession so that they can receive Holy Communion at Mass right afterwards―then they go back to their “Week of Sin” until Confession the next weekend. Both children and adults can be guilty of this abuse of Confession for the reason that they want to pass under the radar of their parents or spouses, so that nobody can detect that they are in a state of mortal sin! Yet these fools fail to realize that their confessions are invalid because they lack a firm purpose of amendment―you could actually say that they have a firm purpose of sinning!
Then there are those people who do have some kind of purpose of amendment or desire to change their life by trying to quit sin, but they still do not have a FIRM purpose of amendment, but only a VAGUE purpose of amendment, or a WISHY-WASHY purpose of amendment, or a THEORETICAL purpose of amendment but not a practical purpose of amendment―meaning that they wish to stop sinning in theory, but, in practice, they make no concrete plans and take no concrete steps. They remain in the realm of WISHFUL THINKERS―and this is proved by the fact that they are back in future confessions confessing the same old mortal sins with no real sign of improvement―because they had no real and no firm plans on how to avoid falling back into the same old mortal sins. Thus their confessions are invalid―and though wishfully imagine that they have restored to a state of grace after confessing―they are still in a state of mortal sin. They have failed in fulfilling the Church’s command of having a FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT, which merely echoes Our Lord’s words to the woman caught in adultery: “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:10-11) and the words to the sinner He cured by the Pool of Bethsaida: “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14) to which can be added: “My son, hast thou sinned? Do so no more, but for thy former sins pray that they may be forgiven thee!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1) and “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “Do not bind sin to sin―for even in one sin thou shalt not be unpunished!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:8).
So what is an example of a firm purpose of amendment? Well, let’s take the category of sin that Our Lady of Fatima said, already way back in 1917, that is damning most souls today―IMPURITY. In that category of impurity you have many different species of impure sins. Lustful looks and glances; lustful thoughts and desires; impure touches, caresses and kisses; immodest dressing in tight, body-hugging, short, revealing, see-through, “leaving little to imagination” clothing; impure and immodest conversations; visiting websites that contain anything from immodest material all the way through to pornographic material; watching television shows that contain impure scenes, impure dressing, impure talking or other things suggestive of impurity; going to places where people dress immodestly or act impurely; acts of masturbation; fornication; sodomy; homosexuality; adultery; rape; molestation; etc., etc.
A firm purpose of amendment naturally and logically includes a thorough examination of how and why you are falling into a particular mortal sin. The purpose of that is to avoid occasions of sin―which makes the fight against sin easier, rather than wandering into the battlefield and having to fight the enemy “face-to-face”. As they say: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!” In other words―don’t light the fire and you won’t have to put it out! Or, as the saying goes: “A stitch in time, saves nine!”
So let’s say you are tempted to take secret impure glances at somebody at church on Sundays―yes, it does happen. Then you need to examine when it happens, how it happens and why it happens. If it happens before or after Mass, then you ask yourself: “Am I deliberately seeking out that person, or seeking to be in the proximity of that person so that I can get good look, or even speak with them?” If that is the case, then you simply go immediately into church upon arrival and stay in church longer once Mass has ended; if you really need to chat in the parking lot or parish hall after Mass, then make sure your back is always turned towards that person and do not look around. Stop chatting with that person after Mass and do not seek them out. If the glances happen during Mass―then make sure you always sit in front of that person, so that they occupy some pew or another behind you. Go to Holy Communion immediately and then, with Our Lord in your soul, keep your attention focused on Him and not the other person―for Heaven’s sake! If that does not work, then attend another Mass―at an earlier or later hour. Self-discipline is required and mortification of the eyes. You can train and practice mortification of the eyes at other times, on other days. For example, do not look around whilst driving; do not look around whilst shopping; when you hear someone come through the door, do not turn to look and see who it is; when talking to someone while you are working, or typing, or doing the dishes, do not always look at them, but focus on what you are doing while talking to them. There are many, many more exercises you could do. Yet as Our Lord said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) ― which means you need the help of God’s grace. Since you have been falling into mortal sin often―you need a hefty dose of grace to cast the devil and his temptations far from you. Our Lord tells us how this done: “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). So, in addition to your “natural” plans, tactics and exercises, you need to add supernatural grace―and that comes by prayer and fasting. All of this shows Our Lord that YOU HAVE A FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT, because you have analyzed you past falls into mortal sin, you have developed a plan to avoid repeating them, and most importantly of all, you are putting that plan into action with the help of divine grace.
If you are one of those persons who provokes sin in others by the way you dress―then you need to dress differently, not just on Sundays at Mass, but at all times and everywhere. Remember this―sometimes the person who provokes another person to sin is more guilty than person who has been provoked and sins. It is useless to say: “It’s not my fault! They should know better than to look at me impurely!” With regards to dressing immodestly for Mass on Sundays―it is totally incomprehensible as to why someone “dolls themselves up” for Mass on Sundays! What on earth are you going to Mass for? Are you trying to seduce Our Lord? Who are you dressing-up immodestly for? Why those short skirts, those shorts, tight fitting tops and bottoms, those partially unbuttoned shirts or blouses, those bare arms, fancy hair styles, make-up, powder, eyeliner, lipstick, etc. Sure―the woman’s hair is her glory―but Church rules used to be that the woman cover her glory in church, so that the focus can be on Christ and not her hair, and that Christ be given glory and not her hair! Just as Our Lord cast out with a whip the money-changers and merchants from the Temple, so too would He cast out many from church today! Back then He said: “My house is the house of prayer. But you have made it a den of thieves!” (Luke 19:46). Today He would say: “My church is the house of prayer. But you have made it a den of lust!” (Luke 19:46). Our Lord wants to be the center of attention in church―but many dress in a way that makes them the center of attention at church! They make themselves into idols and wish to be adored! If you possess immodest, provocative clothing―then get rid of it! Burn it! Better that than burning yourself in Hell or Purgatory! When you are there, then you will see that it really was not worth it! By getting rid of such clothing, you will show that you have a FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT.
All the other above mentioned sins of impurity can be tackled in more or less similar ways. If you lack imagination in devising a plan, then consult with your confessor or any priest. They will be only too glad to help you and perhaps help you save your soul as well.
St. Alphonsus Liguori comments: “Tell me why so many sinners relapse, after Confession, into the same sins? I will tell you―because they do not remove the dangerous occasions of sin. Many repent, but are not converted. They feel a certain sorrow for the irregularities of their lives, but do not sincerely return to God. They go to Confession, strike their breasts, and promise to amend; but they do not make a firm resolution to change their lives. Those who relapse into sin soon after Confession, show that they repent, but are not converted―and such persons shall, in the end die an unhappy death. Mercy shall be shown to him who confesses his sins and abandons them―but not to those who merely confess their transgressions. ‘He that shall confess his sins, and forsake them, shall obtain mercy’ (Proverbs 28:13). He, then, who does not give up, but returns to sin after Confession, shall not obtain mercy from God, but shall die a victim of Divine justice.” (Sunday Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori).
(4) THE “INSUFFICIENT DESCRIPTION OF SIN IN THE CONFESSIONAL” TACTIC. You can call it “insufficient description of sin”, or call it “deceiving the priest”, or “lying to the priest”, or “fudging the numbers”, or “watering-down or diluting the sin” or a hundred other titles and euphemisms. The bottom line is that you do not tell it as it is―you dissimulate, obfuscate, smoke-screen, hide or understate the truth. If Satan has managed to derail your confession until now, then he is not afraid to go into the confessional with you in a last ditch attempt to make it all invalid. Here again he can vary his tactics. (1) He can encourage you to totally omit confessing a particular mortal sin. (2) If he sees that you definitely intend to confess that mortal sin, he will encourage you to be vague about it―that is to say, neglecting to confess mortal sins “in number and in kind”―meaning giving the exact number of times you committed and specifying what species of mortal sin it was.
For example, instead of truthfully confessing that you have had twelve adulterous impure thoughts about another married person who is not your spouse, you say, instead, that you have had a “few bad thoughts” without specifying that those thoughts were impure thoughts as well as adulterous thoughts and were actually twelve in number. Or you might be slightly more honest and say “a few impure thoughts”―without specifying that it was a total of twelve (which is more than just a few) and without specifying that those impure thoughts were about a married person. Similarly, confessing that you were “impure a few times”―without specifying whether the impurity was with yourself or another, and if it was with another, then was that person single, married, same sex or opposite sex, lay person or religious, adult or child, and whether the impure action was unnatural (e.g. sodomy, oral, etc.). Some of these differences can make a mortal sin even more serious―for example, the act of impurity could be, in a manner of speaking, four times worse if (1) you are married, (2) the other person is married, (3) it is a person of the same sex, and (4) if the action was unnatural sex as in sodomy. Each of those circumstances aggravates the mortal sin. If one of the persons happens to be religious (bishop, priest, monk, brother, nun, sister) then the mortal sin also becomes a sacrilegious mortal sin.
Hopefully the priest stops you in your tracks and then asks the necessary questions to prevent you from making an invalid confession, by saying something like: “What do you mean by ‘a few’? Is that three or four times?” Thus provoking you to be more honest and say: “No Father! It was more like twelve times!” He should then also ask: “Were all of the parties concerned married persons or single persons? Of the same sex or opposite sexes? Were they adults or children? How many times with each different person? etc.” If the priest does not ask such questions, then that does not mean that you are innocent and that the confession is good and valid! No, you are guilty of making a bad confession―and the priest is also guilty in enabling you to make that bad confession.
It is extremely likely that Satan enjoys many victories in this area and always has done―as is evidenced by these words of St. Alphonsus Liguori, a Doctor of the Church and the patron saint of moral theologians: “What hope of salvation can he have who goes to Confession and conceals his sins, and makes use of the Tribunal of Penance to offend God, and to make himself doubly the slave of Satan? What hope would you entertain of the recovery of the man who, instead of taking the medicine prescribed by his physician, drank a cup of poison? Good God! What can the Sacrament of Penance be to those who conceal their sins, but a deadly poison, which adds to their guilt the malice of sacrilege? In giving absolution, the confessor dispenses to his patient the Blood of Jesus Christ. What, then, does the sinner do, when he conceals his sins in Confession? He tramples underfoot the Blood of Jesus Christ. And should he afterwards receive the Holy Communion in a state of sin, he is, according to St. John Chrysostom, as guilty as if he threw the consecrated Host into a sink. Accursed shame! How many poor souls do you bring to Hell? Unhappy souls! They think only of the shame of confessing their sins, and do not reflect that, if they conceal them, they shall be certainly damned!” (Sunday Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori).
How to Put Right a Bad (Invalid) Confession
How do you rectify or put right an invalid or bad Confession? The simple answer to that is MAKE ANOTHER CONFESSION―BUT DO IT CORRECTLY!
You can confess to the same priest to whom you made the invalid confession―or you can go to another priest, do as you wish―but re-confess you must. You must first of all tell the priest that your previous confession (or whichever confession) was invalid and then you will have to re-confess all the mortal sins again that you confessed in the invalid confession―as well as any mortal sins that you committed (in the days, weeks, months, years) since then.
In addition to that, you should confess the reasons why that confession was invalid (which will help the priest to ensure you do not fall into the same trap again).
So, for example, you will confess that you had NO SUPERNATURAL SORROW (attrition or contrition) and were only sorry on a naturalistic or humanistic level.
Or perhaps it was invalid due to your LACK OF A FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT, whereby you did not take the reforming of your life seriously and quickly fell back into the mortal sins you had confessed due to a lack of concrete plans and actions that could have prevented those repeated falls back into mortal sin or at least greatly reduced the number of falls.
Or perhaps the confession was invalid due to a LACK OF HONESTY, TRANSPARENCY AND CLARITY on your part, whereby you mislead the priest by MISREPRESENTING THE GRAVITY OR THE NUMBER OF YOUR MORTAL SINS by being too vague or understating the number of times you committed them.
Whatever the cause or multiple causes contributed to the invalidity of your confession, all of them have be confessed in the next confession in order to put things right.
Learn from your mistakes―and put them right the next time. Take the Sacrament of Confession more seriously. Spend more time in examining your conscience―and start doing that BEFORE YOU EVEN GO TO CHURCH. Do it at home. Perhaps even do it several days before Confession. That can help you to achieve a greater and deeper sorrow for your sins―rather than a risky superficial, microwaved sorrow minutes before entering the confessional. St. Peter wept for many years over his betrayal and denial of Christ during the Passion. Learn a lesson from that! If sin is the greatest evil in the world―then what should your sorrow be like after committing the greatest evil in the world (and many times too!)? Be more humble and that will help you to be more honest when actually confessing your sins to the priest! Pride is the vice that makes us want to conceal or misrepresent our sins! Puncture your pride with humility!
Above all―remember that there is no sin that cannot be forgiven―provided that you play your part and do not cheat!
Article 17
Laetare Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 19th, 2023
Finding Joy on Laetare Sunday
Laetare Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 19th, 2023
Finding Joy on Laetare Sunday
“Laetare” Sunday
Today, the Fourth Sunday of Lent, is traditionally called “Laetare Sunday”—meaning “A Sunday to Rejoice”. This particular title owes its origins to the opening words of the Introit or Entrance Hymn for today’s Mass, which say: “Rejoice, O Jerusalem, and come together, all you who love her: rejoice with joy, you who have been in sorrow: that you may exult…”
Dom Guéranger, in his masterful multi-volume work, The Liturgical Year, states: “This Sunday, called, from the first word of the Introit, Laetare Sunday, is one of the most solemn of the year. The Church interrupts her Lenten mournfulness; the chants of the Mass speak of nothing but joy and consolation; the organ, which has been silent during the preceding three Sundays, now gives forth its melodious voice; the deacon resumes his dalmatic, and the subdeacon his tunic; and instead of purple, rose-colored vestments are allowed to be used.
"These same rites were practiced in Advent, on the third Sunday, called “Gaudete”. The Church’s motive for introducing this expression of joy into today’s liturgy is to encourage her children to persevere fervently to the end of this holy season. The real mid-Lent was last Thursday, but the Church, fearing lest the joy might lead to some infringement on the spirit of penance, has deferred her own notice of it to this Sunday, when she not only permits, but even bids, her children to rejoice!”
A Liturgical Oxymoron?
Eh? An “oxymoron” is a combination of contradictory or incongruous words as “cruel kindness”, or “laborious idleness”. It would, at first glance, seem oxymoronic to combine “penance” with “joy”, for it would be akin to combining “pain” with “laughter”, or “suffering” with “happiness”.
Yet, looked at from another perspective—and above all, a supernatural perspective—we can see how true and fitting is that combination. Our Lord Himself uses the combination of these two words—penance and joy—when He says: “I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance!” (Luke 15:7).
Joy Over A Sinner’s Return
We see a similar situation in the parable of the Prodigal Son—for the wayward, sinful son, after having wasted his father’s inheritance in debauchery, decides to return to his father, repentant and contrite, saying within himself: “I will arise, and will go to my father, and say to him: ‘Father! I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee! I am not worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants!’” (Luke 15:18-19).
This repentance and return brings joy to his father, who, rightfully, could be extremely indignant and would be within his rights in punishing him severely for the scandal and harm he had perpetrated.
Our Lord, in telling this parable, says: “And rising up he came to his father. And when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and running to him fell upon his neck, and kissed him. And the son said to him: ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee, I am not now worthy to be called thy son!’ And the father said to his servants: ‘Bring forth quickly the first robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet! And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and make merry! Because this, my son, was dead, and is come to life again! Was lost, and is found!’ And they began to be merry” (Luke 15:20-24).
Wrong Kind of Joy
The world is the epitome of the wrong kind of joy. Whereas God loves the sinner and hates the sin, the world is merciless to the sinner and lenient to the sin. The world rejoices in what God condemns. Holy Scripture denounces this attitude: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter” (Isaias 5:20).
Our penances may be bitter, but they will lead to sweet things—hence, we can call them bittersweet.
Our Lord tells His Apostles, at the Last Supper: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but when she hath brought forth the child, she remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. So also you now indeed have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice; and your joy no man shall take from you!” (John 16:20-22).
Rejoice with the World—Perish with the World
Let us not be sucked-into the damning whirlpool of the world—its fate is inevitable! Our Lord and the Apostles in particular, and Holy Scripture in general, repeatedly warn us against the false and fateful joys of the world: “You that rejoice in a thing of nought…” (Amos 6:14) … Rejoice not, O Israel, rejoice not as the nations do!” (Osee 9:1) ... “Rejoice not in ungodly children, neither be delighted in them, if the fear of God be not with them!” (Ecclesiasticus 16:1) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
What Are We Rejoicing Over?
“Let the heart of them rejoice, that seek the Lord!” (1 Paralipomenon 16:10). “Serve the Lord with fear: and rejoice unto Him with trembling” (Psalm 2:11). Rejoice over the greatest gift of God! What is that greatest gift? Mercy! “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. His tender mercies are over all His works!” (Psalm 144:8-9). “Let your soul rejoice in His mercy!” (Ecclesiasticus 51:37). “I have trusted in Thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in Thy salvation” (Psalm 12:6).
Rejoice Over Mercy!
What is it, above all things, that you will desire in your death throes and agony on your deathbed? It is mercy! Nothing else will matter. Nothing else will be worth anything if you fail to secure that mercy. All your future joy or misery will depend on one thing alone—whether or not you manage to secure the mercy of God. Our joy, on this day of rejoicing—Laetare Sunday—comes from the fact of God’s incredible mercy and pardon, which is to be used, but not abused.
Mercy—A Room in the Mansion of Charity
Lacking hope in that mercy and pardon, leads to despair. Being over-confident in that mercy and pardon, leads to presumption. Both despair and presumption are serious sins. We need to keep that balance between the two—for virtue stands in the middle between excess and neglect—and joyfully do penance for our sins, hoping and trusting in the mercy and pardon of God, Whose “tender mercies are over all His works!” (Psalm 144:9). This is because “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and mercy is one of the rooms in the divine mansion of charity.
God Does Not Hate His Creation
God cannot hate what He has created—for all that He creates is good. Yet God does hate some things that man has created—and the chief focal point of hatred is sin. As St. Thomas Aquinas says: “…the hatred of something does not befit God. For as love is to the good, so hatred is to evil―for to those we love we want good, and to those we hate, evil” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Contra Gentiles, Book 1, chapter 96: “God Hates Nothing, and the Hatred of No Thing Befits Him”). Holy Scripture confirms that God is same―loving good and hating evil: “For the Lord thy God abhors and He hates all injustice!” (Deuteronomy 25:16) … “God hates iniquity” (Judith 5:21). Therefore, we too must “hate evil and love good” (Amos 5:15).
This is stated in slightly different terms by Holy Scripture: “All things were made by Him” (John 1:3) … “The Lord has made all things for Himself” (Proverbs 16:4) … “And everyone I have created for My glory” (Isaias 43:7) … “And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:10) … “Thou hast created all things and for Thy will they were and have been created!” (Apocalypse 4:11). “All things were made by Him and without Him was made nothing that was made” (John 1:3). Thus mankind was made for God and not for itself. Yet, God’s human creation—mankind—turned away from God through sin. “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not! He came unto His own, and His own received Him not! … The light shone in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it!” (John 1:10-11, 5) … “The light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light―for their works were evil!” (John 3:19). What was true back in the times of Christ, is just as true today. Most people prefer to live in a spiritual darkness so that they bask in the light of worldliness.
Nevertheless, God in His infinite mercy, continually seeks a remedy to that rebelliousness, as explained by Our Lord Himself: “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him. He that believes in Him is not judged. But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believes not in the Name of the Only-begotten Son of God” (John 3:16-18) … “Therefore I said to you, that you shall die in your sins. For if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sin” (John 8:24). “For everyone that does evil, hates the light, and comes not to the light” (John 3:20).
Came to Save All—But All Will Not Be Saved
St. Thomas writes: “The power of the divine Incarnation is equal to the salvation of all men, but the fact that some are not saved, thereby comes from their indisposition―because they are unwilling to take unto themselves the fruit of the Incarnation; they do not cleave to the incarnate God by Faith and Love. For men were not intended to lose that freedom of choice―by which they are able to cleave or not to cleave to the incarnate God―lest the good of man be produced by coercion” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Contra Gentiles, Book 4, chapter 55: “Arguments Against the Suitability of the Incarnation”). Thus we are free to choose—and, ultimately, we choose our own salvation or damnation. There will be no coercion from God in that matter.
Thus we are free to choose—and, ultimately, we choose our own salvation or damnation. There will be no coercion from God in that matter.
Abuse of Mercy
Most souls fail to effectively choose salvation (and the means of salvation that necessarily come with it) and are irrevocably lost—says Our Lord and most theologians of the Church. Yet every soul is capable of securing it. “Christ died for all” (2 Corinthians 5:15). Yet everyone―even though they WANT to be saved―WILL NOT DO what it takes to be saved. Our Lord says: “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 7:21) … “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “And a certain man said to Jesus: ‘Lord, are they few that are saved?’ But Jesus said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able!’” (Luke 13:23-24).
As St. Paul points out: “For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink; and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased!” (1 Corinthians 10:1-5). “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). So rejoice—mercy is yours if you choose to abide by it, use it and not abuse it! But woe to you if you abuse it! “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption [disease and death]. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8).
Joy Though Pain
The joys of Heaven are not “freebies” but must be painfully earned on Earth or in Purgatory. Mercy, of course, brings joy—but mercy requires payment. God says: “If the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done―for in his justice which he hath wrought, he shall live! Is it my will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? But if the just man turn himself away from his justice and do iniquity―shall he live? All his justices shall not be remembered and in his sins, which he has committed, in them he shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:21-24). This is something that mankind—especially modern man—fails to grasp. Modern man thinks the joys of Heaven are automatically there for sinners, or the lukewarm, or the mediocre man―regardless of how much he abuses the mercy and patience of God!
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange dispels this folly when he writes: “There are those who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death, or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Every sin, though it should be venial, must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Going Cheap…! Cheap Joys!
Most people put a cheap price on sin and cheap admission price to Heaven. How foolish and stupid we are! This stupidity is perhaps one of the chief reasons why so many souls are lost! It does not help matters to see almost everyone around us, living-out this insane sense of values.
These idiots—let us at least hope they are idiots, for idiocy might excuse them somewhat from sin—want joy on Earth and joy in Heaven! They want to neither suffer in this life, nor in the next! They, as the proverb goes, “want their cake and they want to eat it”! Our Lord says: “You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24)―“You can’t have your cake and eat it!”
Glass Half-Full or Half-Empty?
This brings us to the way in which we can view a glass that contains 50% liquid and 50% air. Some see this glass as being half-full; others see it as being half-empty. The “half-full” people are being positive about it; the “half-empty” people are being negative about it.
The same applies to our Faith and religion. Some see the Faith and religion as being a foretaste of the fullness of joy we shall experience in Heaven. Others sees our Faith and religion as “cramping their style” and robbing of them of many joys they would like to experience here on Earth.
One group sees the Faith and the practice of it, as being “half-full” and look forward to being fulfilled in Heaven. The other group sees the Faith and practice of it, as being “half-emptied” of potential Earthly joys, and dread having to give up even more of them. Yet our soul—in which joy resides—was made by God and only God can truly fill it with true joy—“Who satisfies thy desires with good things” (Psalms 102:5).
Cotton Candy Joys
To seek the joys of this world above the joys of Heaven; to seek material joys above spiritual joys—is like eating cotton-candy (candy-floss) in comparison to a highly nutritious and delicious seven course meal. The cotton-candy melts away in your mouth before you know it! On top of that, the high sugar content is the favorite nesting place and environment for disease!
Our Lord puts it this way: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:19-21).
Different Ideas of Joy
You are, no doubt, familiar with the Scriptural quote: “My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts” (Isaias 55:8-9). We could well paraphrase that into “My ideas of joy are not your ideas of joys; nor your joys My joys, saith the Lord. For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My joys exalted above your joys, and My ideas of joy above your ideas of joy!”
God is Joy Because God is Love
God is love and love is the cause of joy. For, we rejoice either because the object of our love is really present, or because we really find our own good existing in the person, or in the object we love. Perhaps you need that statement to be better explained. It means that we rejoice (1) because we find ourselves in the presence of one whom we cherish, or (2) because we have good news from a friend or parent, separated from us by endless stretches of land, or by vast expanses of water; or we find an unbounded joy when we know that son or brother called to serve his country's cause in the battlefields of the world; or we rejoice in receiving news that he is safe and well, far removed from harm, or has been honored for his bravery.
Furthermore, our joy is enhanced by the degree or intensity of the love for the person from whom we receive the news, and is in proportion to it. We feel, for instance, little or no delight in our hearts when we read that a commander of a hostile force has escaped unscathed from battle―for we have no love for the man. Our love is the cause of our joy and our joy is in proportion to our love.
To Find Joy, We Must Find and Love God
But, charity―in its highest object and point―is the love of God, Who dwells in the person who loves Him. “God is charity: and he that abideth in charity, abideth in God and God in Him” (1 John 4:16). Joy is the possession of something that we desire and love. Hence joy is caused by love; hence, too, joys follows charity.
What is this spiritual joy? It is not a virtue separated from charity―spiritual joy is an action of the virtue of charity, it is an effect, a result of charity. Joy, by itself, could not exist―it owes its very existence to the virtue of charity, which is a fountainhead, a parent, a cause for joy. Love is the first impulse of our will or heart, and from it proceed desire and joy. We desire things that we love―and have joy when we can possess the things that love and desire. Thus joy is not a virtue distinct from charity, it is only an effect of charity, it is an action of charity.
Joy is that gratitude, that happy consciousness we have of the infinite goodness of God, the great object of our love, in Whom we live, move and from Whom we have our being. Joy is the grand and consoling reward for the victories we have won in the battles with our passions that are obstacles to reaching and possessing God.
A Religion of Joy
Since joy is a Fruit of the Holy Ghost, it follows that where the Holy Ghost is not, there is also no joy. Now, the Divine Spirit is the vivifying principle of the Catholic Church and of her faithful. The Catholic Religion, is, then, essentially a religion of joy. Christ being the center of Christianity, there is no joy superior to that which He procures.
Down through history, whatever holy joy was in the world was caused by Him. He was the unsurpassing joy of the patriarchs and prophets, of David, Isaias and Zachary, of Magdalene and John, of Peter and of Paul.
Faith itself is a joyous exposition of the truths that lead to Heaven and the precepts and commands of that Faith are not merely a burden, but also a pleasure and a joy―just like a soldier that is willing to suffer in order to win a battle. Self-control in the service of the commandments makes us strong, and that is a source of joy. In sin we are weakened, defeated and downcast. We are able to remove that burden and load of sin from our hearts when grace, through the Sacrament of Penance, joy streams into our souls anew.
Once forgiven, we are children of God once again, perfect men and perfect Christians. Penance brings an entire Heaven of joy into our otherwise heavy hearts. “In thy salvation he shall rejoice exceedingly” (Psalm 20:2). “Thou hast turned for me my mourning into joy: Thou hast cut my sackcloth, and hast compassed me with gladness” (Psalm 29:12).
Purgatorial Joys
Penance brings joy to the souls in Purgatory, too! Even though they find themselves in the most unspeakably excruciating pains—which no tongue can describe nor imagination imagine—they are, nevertheless, also immersed in the most unspeakably great joys. They know that they are saved and that these horrendous pains are bringing Heaven and God closer with every excruciating moment. They are the perfect example of how the Catholic on Earth should find joy in suffering.
Those poor souls failed to learn how to suffer and do penance with joy on Earth, so now they have to learn that lesson in Purgatory. Yet their lesson is also a lesson for us—who, like the ill-fated Chosen People, are ever mumbling, murmuring and moaning, grumbling and groaning, whining and whinging, about the least suffering that we have to experience and suffer, by God’s Providence, here on Earth.
Worldly Joys Bring Sadness
At the Last Supper, Our Lord spoke of the two contrary lots that would befall His Apostles on the one hand, at the world on the other. He said: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20). If we take this to the next stage—if the sorrow of His followers shall be turned to joy, then the joy of the world shall be turned to sorrow. This is proven to be the case by other passages in Holy Scripture that depict the rich and the poor.
We have the case of Our Lord’s parable about the beggar, Lazarus, and Rich Man: “There was a beggar, named Lazarus, who lay at his gate, full of sores, desiring to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table, and no one did give him. Moreover, the dogs came, and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. And the rich man also died: and he was buried in Hell” (Luke 16:20-22).
In a real-life incident, we have the case of the rich young man—who you would have thought would be happy and joyful with all his riches, but he becomes sad and sorrowful because of them: “And behold a certain man running up and kneeling before Him: ‘Good Master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Thou knowest the commandments—keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Jesus: ‘All these I have kept from my youth, what is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee: go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven; and come, follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
“Then Jesus, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you: How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus again answering, said to them: ‘Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches, to enter into the Kingdom of God!’ And when they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus looking on them, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!’” (Matthew 19:16-26; Mark 10:17-27).
God Does Bestow Riches, But…
God has enriched many a man as well the Israelites as a nation—but it was always contingent upon their placing God before all riches and wealth. Once those riches and wealth became a hindrance to their love of God and led them down paths of infidelity, lukewarmness, infidelity and sin—God not only brutally removed or destroyed those riches and that wealth, but He also was not averse to slaying some or most of the wayward ones.
The Old Testament history of the Chosen People is a perpetual saga of God’s benefits leading them to forget God, which led God to acting in a way towards them that they would never forget! But forget they did—and foolishly repeated the same behavior.
God has to come first—Our Lord commands in the New Testament what had already been commanded in the Old Testament: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment” (Mark 12:30), which merely repeats the Old Testament command: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5).
This is what Job did in the Old Testament, and he was abundantly blessed by God. Yet, when God allowed all types of calamities to befall Job—losing his health, his children, his wealth and his properties and flocks—God never ceased to love and bless God, as much in calamity as in prosperity.
His famous quote—which we would well to take to heart—was: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there! The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away! As it has pleased the Lord, so is it done! Blessed be the Name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21). This eventual acceptance of the bitter with the sweet, led to God restoring all things to Job in an abundantly greater measure than he had possessed in the beginning: “And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10).
The Joys of Heaven
This doubling of Job’s possessions and wealth, after his tribulations at the hands of the devil, is symbolic of our tests and trials in this life, after which we shall be rewarded with Heaven—if we have been faithful.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “This vision will constitute eternal life. No one can express the joy and love that will be born in us of this vision. It will be so strong, so absolute a love of God, that, thenceforth, nothing will be able to destroy it, or even to diminish it. It will be a love by which we shall, above all, rejoice that God is God, infinitely holy, just, and merciful. We shall adore all the decrees of His providence in view of the manifestation of His goodness … We shall have entered into His beatitude, according to Christ's own words: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!’” (The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Today, the Fourth Sunday of Lent, is traditionally called “Laetare Sunday”—meaning “A Sunday to Rejoice”. This particular title owes its origins to the opening words of the Introit or Entrance Hymn for today’s Mass, which say: “Rejoice, O Jerusalem, and come together, all you who love her: rejoice with joy, you who have been in sorrow: that you may exult…”
Dom Guéranger, in his masterful multi-volume work, The Liturgical Year, states: “This Sunday, called, from the first word of the Introit, Laetare Sunday, is one of the most solemn of the year. The Church interrupts her Lenten mournfulness; the chants of the Mass speak of nothing but joy and consolation; the organ, which has been silent during the preceding three Sundays, now gives forth its melodious voice; the deacon resumes his dalmatic, and the subdeacon his tunic; and instead of purple, rose-colored vestments are allowed to be used.
"These same rites were practiced in Advent, on the third Sunday, called “Gaudete”. The Church’s motive for introducing this expression of joy into today’s liturgy is to encourage her children to persevere fervently to the end of this holy season. The real mid-Lent was last Thursday, but the Church, fearing lest the joy might lead to some infringement on the spirit of penance, has deferred her own notice of it to this Sunday, when she not only permits, but even bids, her children to rejoice!”
A Liturgical Oxymoron?
Eh? An “oxymoron” is a combination of contradictory or incongruous words as “cruel kindness”, or “laborious idleness”. It would, at first glance, seem oxymoronic to combine “penance” with “joy”, for it would be akin to combining “pain” with “laughter”, or “suffering” with “happiness”.
Yet, looked at from another perspective—and above all, a supernatural perspective—we can see how true and fitting is that combination. Our Lord Himself uses the combination of these two words—penance and joy—when He says: “I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance!” (Luke 15:7).
Joy Over A Sinner’s Return
We see a similar situation in the parable of the Prodigal Son—for the wayward, sinful son, after having wasted his father’s inheritance in debauchery, decides to return to his father, repentant and contrite, saying within himself: “I will arise, and will go to my father, and say to him: ‘Father! I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee! I am not worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants!’” (Luke 15:18-19).
This repentance and return brings joy to his father, who, rightfully, could be extremely indignant and would be within his rights in punishing him severely for the scandal and harm he had perpetrated.
Our Lord, in telling this parable, says: “And rising up he came to his father. And when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and running to him fell upon his neck, and kissed him. And the son said to him: ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee, I am not now worthy to be called thy son!’ And the father said to his servants: ‘Bring forth quickly the first robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet! And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and make merry! Because this, my son, was dead, and is come to life again! Was lost, and is found!’ And they began to be merry” (Luke 15:20-24).
Wrong Kind of Joy
The world is the epitome of the wrong kind of joy. Whereas God loves the sinner and hates the sin, the world is merciless to the sinner and lenient to the sin. The world rejoices in what God condemns. Holy Scripture denounces this attitude: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter” (Isaias 5:20).
Our penances may be bitter, but they will lead to sweet things—hence, we can call them bittersweet.
Our Lord tells His Apostles, at the Last Supper: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but when she hath brought forth the child, she remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. So also you now indeed have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice; and your joy no man shall take from you!” (John 16:20-22).
Rejoice with the World—Perish with the World
Let us not be sucked-into the damning whirlpool of the world—its fate is inevitable! Our Lord and the Apostles in particular, and Holy Scripture in general, repeatedly warn us against the false and fateful joys of the world: “You that rejoice in a thing of nought…” (Amos 6:14) … Rejoice not, O Israel, rejoice not as the nations do!” (Osee 9:1) ... “Rejoice not in ungodly children, neither be delighted in them, if the fear of God be not with them!” (Ecclesiasticus 16:1) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
What Are We Rejoicing Over?
“Let the heart of them rejoice, that seek the Lord!” (1 Paralipomenon 16:10). “Serve the Lord with fear: and rejoice unto Him with trembling” (Psalm 2:11). Rejoice over the greatest gift of God! What is that greatest gift? Mercy! “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. His tender mercies are over all His works!” (Psalm 144:8-9). “Let your soul rejoice in His mercy!” (Ecclesiasticus 51:37). “I have trusted in Thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in Thy salvation” (Psalm 12:6).
Rejoice Over Mercy!
What is it, above all things, that you will desire in your death throes and agony on your deathbed? It is mercy! Nothing else will matter. Nothing else will be worth anything if you fail to secure that mercy. All your future joy or misery will depend on one thing alone—whether or not you manage to secure the mercy of God. Our joy, on this day of rejoicing—Laetare Sunday—comes from the fact of God’s incredible mercy and pardon, which is to be used, but not abused.
Mercy—A Room in the Mansion of Charity
Lacking hope in that mercy and pardon, leads to despair. Being over-confident in that mercy and pardon, leads to presumption. Both despair and presumption are serious sins. We need to keep that balance between the two—for virtue stands in the middle between excess and neglect—and joyfully do penance for our sins, hoping and trusting in the mercy and pardon of God, Whose “tender mercies are over all His works!” (Psalm 144:9). This is because “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and mercy is one of the rooms in the divine mansion of charity.
God Does Not Hate His Creation
God cannot hate what He has created—for all that He creates is good. Yet God does hate some things that man has created—and the chief focal point of hatred is sin. As St. Thomas Aquinas says: “…the hatred of something does not befit God. For as love is to the good, so hatred is to evil―for to those we love we want good, and to those we hate, evil” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Contra Gentiles, Book 1, chapter 96: “God Hates Nothing, and the Hatred of No Thing Befits Him”). Holy Scripture confirms that God is same―loving good and hating evil: “For the Lord thy God abhors and He hates all injustice!” (Deuteronomy 25:16) … “God hates iniquity” (Judith 5:21). Therefore, we too must “hate evil and love good” (Amos 5:15).
This is stated in slightly different terms by Holy Scripture: “All things were made by Him” (John 1:3) … “The Lord has made all things for Himself” (Proverbs 16:4) … “And everyone I have created for My glory” (Isaias 43:7) … “And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:10) … “Thou hast created all things and for Thy will they were and have been created!” (Apocalypse 4:11). “All things were made by Him and without Him was made nothing that was made” (John 1:3). Thus mankind was made for God and not for itself. Yet, God’s human creation—mankind—turned away from God through sin. “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not! He came unto His own, and His own received Him not! … The light shone in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it!” (John 1:10-11, 5) … “The light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light―for their works were evil!” (John 3:19). What was true back in the times of Christ, is just as true today. Most people prefer to live in a spiritual darkness so that they bask in the light of worldliness.
Nevertheless, God in His infinite mercy, continually seeks a remedy to that rebelliousness, as explained by Our Lord Himself: “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him. He that believes in Him is not judged. But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believes not in the Name of the Only-begotten Son of God” (John 3:16-18) … “Therefore I said to you, that you shall die in your sins. For if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sin” (John 8:24). “For everyone that does evil, hates the light, and comes not to the light” (John 3:20).
Came to Save All—But All Will Not Be Saved
St. Thomas writes: “The power of the divine Incarnation is equal to the salvation of all men, but the fact that some are not saved, thereby comes from their indisposition―because they are unwilling to take unto themselves the fruit of the Incarnation; they do not cleave to the incarnate God by Faith and Love. For men were not intended to lose that freedom of choice―by which they are able to cleave or not to cleave to the incarnate God―lest the good of man be produced by coercion” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Contra Gentiles, Book 4, chapter 55: “Arguments Against the Suitability of the Incarnation”). Thus we are free to choose—and, ultimately, we choose our own salvation or damnation. There will be no coercion from God in that matter.
Thus we are free to choose—and, ultimately, we choose our own salvation or damnation. There will be no coercion from God in that matter.
Abuse of Mercy
Most souls fail to effectively choose salvation (and the means of salvation that necessarily come with it) and are irrevocably lost—says Our Lord and most theologians of the Church. Yet every soul is capable of securing it. “Christ died for all” (2 Corinthians 5:15). Yet everyone―even though they WANT to be saved―WILL NOT DO what it takes to be saved. Our Lord says: “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 7:21) … “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “And a certain man said to Jesus: ‘Lord, are they few that are saved?’ But Jesus said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able!’” (Luke 13:23-24).
As St. Paul points out: “For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink; and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased!” (1 Corinthians 10:1-5). “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). So rejoice—mercy is yours if you choose to abide by it, use it and not abuse it! But woe to you if you abuse it! “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption [disease and death]. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8).
Joy Though Pain
The joys of Heaven are not “freebies” but must be painfully earned on Earth or in Purgatory. Mercy, of course, brings joy—but mercy requires payment. God says: “If the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done―for in his justice which he hath wrought, he shall live! Is it my will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? But if the just man turn himself away from his justice and do iniquity―shall he live? All his justices shall not be remembered and in his sins, which he has committed, in them he shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:21-24). This is something that mankind—especially modern man—fails to grasp. Modern man thinks the joys of Heaven are automatically there for sinners, or the lukewarm, or the mediocre man―regardless of how much he abuses the mercy and patience of God!
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange dispels this folly when he writes: “There are those who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death, or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Every sin, though it should be venial, must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Going Cheap…! Cheap Joys!
Most people put a cheap price on sin and cheap admission price to Heaven. How foolish and stupid we are! This stupidity is perhaps one of the chief reasons why so many souls are lost! It does not help matters to see almost everyone around us, living-out this insane sense of values.
These idiots—let us at least hope they are idiots, for idiocy might excuse them somewhat from sin—want joy on Earth and joy in Heaven! They want to neither suffer in this life, nor in the next! They, as the proverb goes, “want their cake and they want to eat it”! Our Lord says: “You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24)―“You can’t have your cake and eat it!”
Glass Half-Full or Half-Empty?
This brings us to the way in which we can view a glass that contains 50% liquid and 50% air. Some see this glass as being half-full; others see it as being half-empty. The “half-full” people are being positive about it; the “half-empty” people are being negative about it.
The same applies to our Faith and religion. Some see the Faith and religion as being a foretaste of the fullness of joy we shall experience in Heaven. Others sees our Faith and religion as “cramping their style” and robbing of them of many joys they would like to experience here on Earth.
One group sees the Faith and the practice of it, as being “half-full” and look forward to being fulfilled in Heaven. The other group sees the Faith and practice of it, as being “half-emptied” of potential Earthly joys, and dread having to give up even more of them. Yet our soul—in which joy resides—was made by God and only God can truly fill it with true joy—“Who satisfies thy desires with good things” (Psalms 102:5).
Cotton Candy Joys
To seek the joys of this world above the joys of Heaven; to seek material joys above spiritual joys—is like eating cotton-candy (candy-floss) in comparison to a highly nutritious and delicious seven course meal. The cotton-candy melts away in your mouth before you know it! On top of that, the high sugar content is the favorite nesting place and environment for disease!
Our Lord puts it this way: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:19-21).
Different Ideas of Joy
You are, no doubt, familiar with the Scriptural quote: “My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts” (Isaias 55:8-9). We could well paraphrase that into “My ideas of joy are not your ideas of joys; nor your joys My joys, saith the Lord. For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My joys exalted above your joys, and My ideas of joy above your ideas of joy!”
God is Joy Because God is Love
God is love and love is the cause of joy. For, we rejoice either because the object of our love is really present, or because we really find our own good existing in the person, or in the object we love. Perhaps you need that statement to be better explained. It means that we rejoice (1) because we find ourselves in the presence of one whom we cherish, or (2) because we have good news from a friend or parent, separated from us by endless stretches of land, or by vast expanses of water; or we find an unbounded joy when we know that son or brother called to serve his country's cause in the battlefields of the world; or we rejoice in receiving news that he is safe and well, far removed from harm, or has been honored for his bravery.
Furthermore, our joy is enhanced by the degree or intensity of the love for the person from whom we receive the news, and is in proportion to it. We feel, for instance, little or no delight in our hearts when we read that a commander of a hostile force has escaped unscathed from battle―for we have no love for the man. Our love is the cause of our joy and our joy is in proportion to our love.
To Find Joy, We Must Find and Love God
But, charity―in its highest object and point―is the love of God, Who dwells in the person who loves Him. “God is charity: and he that abideth in charity, abideth in God and God in Him” (1 John 4:16). Joy is the possession of something that we desire and love. Hence joy is caused by love; hence, too, joys follows charity.
What is this spiritual joy? It is not a virtue separated from charity―spiritual joy is an action of the virtue of charity, it is an effect, a result of charity. Joy, by itself, could not exist―it owes its very existence to the virtue of charity, which is a fountainhead, a parent, a cause for joy. Love is the first impulse of our will or heart, and from it proceed desire and joy. We desire things that we love―and have joy when we can possess the things that love and desire. Thus joy is not a virtue distinct from charity, it is only an effect of charity, it is an action of charity.
Joy is that gratitude, that happy consciousness we have of the infinite goodness of God, the great object of our love, in Whom we live, move and from Whom we have our being. Joy is the grand and consoling reward for the victories we have won in the battles with our passions that are obstacles to reaching and possessing God.
A Religion of Joy
Since joy is a Fruit of the Holy Ghost, it follows that where the Holy Ghost is not, there is also no joy. Now, the Divine Spirit is the vivifying principle of the Catholic Church and of her faithful. The Catholic Religion, is, then, essentially a religion of joy. Christ being the center of Christianity, there is no joy superior to that which He procures.
Down through history, whatever holy joy was in the world was caused by Him. He was the unsurpassing joy of the patriarchs and prophets, of David, Isaias and Zachary, of Magdalene and John, of Peter and of Paul.
Faith itself is a joyous exposition of the truths that lead to Heaven and the precepts and commands of that Faith are not merely a burden, but also a pleasure and a joy―just like a soldier that is willing to suffer in order to win a battle. Self-control in the service of the commandments makes us strong, and that is a source of joy. In sin we are weakened, defeated and downcast. We are able to remove that burden and load of sin from our hearts when grace, through the Sacrament of Penance, joy streams into our souls anew.
Once forgiven, we are children of God once again, perfect men and perfect Christians. Penance brings an entire Heaven of joy into our otherwise heavy hearts. “In thy salvation he shall rejoice exceedingly” (Psalm 20:2). “Thou hast turned for me my mourning into joy: Thou hast cut my sackcloth, and hast compassed me with gladness” (Psalm 29:12).
Purgatorial Joys
Penance brings joy to the souls in Purgatory, too! Even though they find themselves in the most unspeakably excruciating pains—which no tongue can describe nor imagination imagine—they are, nevertheless, also immersed in the most unspeakably great joys. They know that they are saved and that these horrendous pains are bringing Heaven and God closer with every excruciating moment. They are the perfect example of how the Catholic on Earth should find joy in suffering.
Those poor souls failed to learn how to suffer and do penance with joy on Earth, so now they have to learn that lesson in Purgatory. Yet their lesson is also a lesson for us—who, like the ill-fated Chosen People, are ever mumbling, murmuring and moaning, grumbling and groaning, whining and whinging, about the least suffering that we have to experience and suffer, by God’s Providence, here on Earth.
Worldly Joys Bring Sadness
At the Last Supper, Our Lord spoke of the two contrary lots that would befall His Apostles on the one hand, at the world on the other. He said: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20). If we take this to the next stage—if the sorrow of His followers shall be turned to joy, then the joy of the world shall be turned to sorrow. This is proven to be the case by other passages in Holy Scripture that depict the rich and the poor.
We have the case of Our Lord’s parable about the beggar, Lazarus, and Rich Man: “There was a beggar, named Lazarus, who lay at his gate, full of sores, desiring to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table, and no one did give him. Moreover, the dogs came, and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. And the rich man also died: and he was buried in Hell” (Luke 16:20-22).
In a real-life incident, we have the case of the rich young man—who you would have thought would be happy and joyful with all his riches, but he becomes sad and sorrowful because of them: “And behold a certain man running up and kneeling before Him: ‘Good Master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Thou knowest the commandments—keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Jesus: ‘All these I have kept from my youth, what is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee: go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven; and come, follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
“Then Jesus, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you: How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus again answering, said to them: ‘Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches, to enter into the Kingdom of God!’ And when they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus looking on them, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!’” (Matthew 19:16-26; Mark 10:17-27).
God Does Bestow Riches, But…
God has enriched many a man as well the Israelites as a nation—but it was always contingent upon their placing God before all riches and wealth. Once those riches and wealth became a hindrance to their love of God and led them down paths of infidelity, lukewarmness, infidelity and sin—God not only brutally removed or destroyed those riches and that wealth, but He also was not averse to slaying some or most of the wayward ones.
The Old Testament history of the Chosen People is a perpetual saga of God’s benefits leading them to forget God, which led God to acting in a way towards them that they would never forget! But forget they did—and foolishly repeated the same behavior.
God has to come first—Our Lord commands in the New Testament what had already been commanded in the Old Testament: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment” (Mark 12:30), which merely repeats the Old Testament command: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5).
This is what Job did in the Old Testament, and he was abundantly blessed by God. Yet, when God allowed all types of calamities to befall Job—losing his health, his children, his wealth and his properties and flocks—God never ceased to love and bless God, as much in calamity as in prosperity.
His famous quote—which we would well to take to heart—was: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there! The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away! As it has pleased the Lord, so is it done! Blessed be the Name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21). This eventual acceptance of the bitter with the sweet, led to God restoring all things to Job in an abundantly greater measure than he had possessed in the beginning: “And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10).
The Joys of Heaven
This doubling of Job’s possessions and wealth, after his tribulations at the hands of the devil, is symbolic of our tests and trials in this life, after which we shall be rewarded with Heaven—if we have been faithful.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “This vision will constitute eternal life. No one can express the joy and love that will be born in us of this vision. It will be so strong, so absolute a love of God, that, thenceforth, nothing will be able to destroy it, or even to diminish it. It will be a love by which we shall, above all, rejoice that God is God, infinitely holy, just, and merciful. We shall adore all the decrees of His providence in view of the manifestation of His goodness … We shall have entered into His beatitude, according to Christ's own words: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!’” (The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Article 16
Thursday & Friday & Saturday after the Third Sunday of Lent, March 16th to 18th, 2023
How to Grow in Love
Thursday & Friday & Saturday after the Third Sunday of Lent, March 16th to 18th, 2023
How to Grow in Love
The Crucial Importance of Love
Without trying to sound corny, when you really stop and think about it, the cliché “Love makes the world go around” is absolutely true! Since “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and nothing happens without God either wanting it or allowing it, then Love (God) makes the world go around! Call it “love” or call it “charity” ― the fact is that we all need it and we won’t get into Heaven without it! If you want to be loveless―then Hell is the place to go! There is absolutely no love in Hell―not even a love of self, for everyone in Hell hates themselves for having been damned when they could have been saved. If you want to be saved―if you want to get to Heaven―then you must love: “Everyone that loves, is born of God, and knows God. He that does not love, does not know God―for God is charity!” (1 John 4:7-8).
The Angelic Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas points out that “Charity is the Queen of all of the virtues and no true virtue is possible without charity for charity is the form of the virtues, which directs the acts of all other virtues to their last end” ― which is, of course, God.
St. Paul states: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The Mystical Doctor of the Church, St. John of the Cross adds: “At the end of our life we will be judged on our love!”
The Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine, says: “Love God and do all you want!”
Another well-known Doctor of the Church, the author of one of the greatest masterpieces on love, The Treatise on Love, St. Francis de Sales very neatly says: “The measure with which we should love God is to love Him without measure.” Elsewhere he writes: “Charity―as queen of all virtues, queen of all commandments, all counsels, and, in short, of all laws and all Christian actions―gives to all of them their rank, order, time, and value.” (St. Francis de Sales, Love of God, 8, 6).
Above and beyond all of these great writers and saints are the words as well as example of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who affirms that the greatest of all commandments is to love God our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength and then to love our neighbor as ourselves: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31; Luke 10:25-28). Love is the greatest because “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Love is the highest virtue because it leads us to the highest being of all―God, Who embodies love and is love itself.
The Crucial Importance on Loving Correctly
Everyone loves someone or something―yet not all love is good. Some people love what is evil and sinful, some people love over-indulgence, some people love only themselves, some love the spouses of other people, some people love fornication and masturbation, some love intoxication through drink and drugs, some love to steal, some love to insult others, etc. At the end of the day, some kinds of love lead to Heaven, while other kinds of love lead to Hell. Before we even think about growing in love, we must make sure we are growing the right kind of love!
What is the right kind of love? We are told that God is love―“God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and that “the charity of God appeared towards us, because God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him. In this is charity―not as though we had loved God, but because He has first loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins. Therefore, let us love God, because God first hath loved us! If God has so loved us; then we also ought to love one another!” (1 John 4:9-11, 19).
Love of God and love of neighbor are connected. We cannot love God correctly and truly if we do not love our neighbors―and we cannot truly and correctly love our neighbors if we do not love God. That is why Christ commands: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Love is the greatest virtue because “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Love is the highest virtue because it leads us to the highest being of all―God, Who embodies love and is love itself.
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that “Charity is love. Yet charity is not love simply, but has the nature of friendship … Charity is a kind of friendship of man for God … Not every love has the character of friendship, but only that love where we love someone so as to wish good to him. If, however, we do not wish good to what we love, but only wish good for ourselves―for example when we are said to love wine, or a horse, or the like―it is not love of friendship, but of a kind of concupiscence (selfish desire). For it would be absurd to speak of having friendship for wine or for a horse. However, neither does well-wishing suffice for friendship―for a certain mutual love is required―since friendship is between a friend and a friend―and this well-wishing has to be founded on some kind of communication. The love, which is based on this communication, is charity―wherefore it is evident that charity is the friendship of man for God … Charity is friendship … Charity is a virtue which unites us to God, for by it we love Him … Charity is the movement of the soul towards the enjoyment of God for His own sake … and this movement is from the Holy Ghost without any intermediary … on account of the excellence of charity” (Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 23, art. 2 & 3 & 5). As Holy Scripture says: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost” (Romans 5:5).
Unfortunately, these two greatest commandments are regularly ignored and broken by the greatest number of people! Today, especially, there is very little true love of God and true love of neighbor that can be found―even if most people like to protest that they do love God and neighbor. It is most certainly true that true love is truly rare! Whereas it is equally true that false love or counterfeit love is truly everywhere―even in those whom we regard as being “good” people.
The Tests and Proofs of Love
Our Lord said: “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 7:2). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). You could rephrase those quotes with regard to love and have Our Lord say: “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord, I love Thee! Lord, I love Thee!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 7:2). “Why do you say to Me, ‘Lord, I love Thee! Lord, I love Thee! and do not do the things which I say?” That this is true is proved by Our Lord’s words at the Last Supper: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word … He that loves Me not, keeps not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
Even though the love of God comes before the love of neighbor―in a certain sense, we only learn to love God by loving our neighbor. As Holy Scripture says: “Let us love one another, for charity is of God―and every one that loves, is born of God! … If we love one another, God abides in us, we abide in Him, and He in us, and His charity is perfected in us” (1 John 4:7-13). “He that does not love his brother, whom he can see―how can he love God, Whom he cannot see?” (1 John 4:20). Our Lord further strengthens this argument when He says: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me! … And as long as you did it not to one of these least brethren, neither did you do it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40 & 45).
The Love of Enemies
Who are these “least of My brethren” that Our Lord speaks of? They are the ones we ‘love’ to hate! The sinners, the evildoers, our enemies, those who have wronged us in some way, etc. Jesus shows us how to love those who are unlovable―by being with the leper, the sinner, the outcast and the one on the edge. Our Lord says: “You have heard that it has been said: ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy!’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you’―so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who makes His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust! For if you only love them that love you―what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans do this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you do that is more? Do not the heathens also do this? Be you therefore perfect as also your heavenly Father is perfect!’” (Matthew 5:43-48).
Why do we have to love our enemies or even the enemies of the Church? Because they are God’s creatures, created in the image of God, and given the potential of going to Heaven. God desires the damnation of nobody―therefore we should not desire the damnation of anybody. Evil people are still creatures of God.
St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “Our Lord said: ‘Love your enemies’ (Matthew 4:44). Love of one’s enemies may be understood in three ways. First, as though we were to love our enemies as such―this is perverse and contrary to charity, since it implies love of that which is evil in another. Secondly love of one’s enemies may mean that we love them as to their nature in general: and in this sense charity requires that we should love our enemies, namely, that in loving God and our neighbor, we should not exclude our enemies from the love given to our neighbor in general. Thirdly, love of one’s enemies may be considered as specially directed to them, namely, that we should have a special movement of love towards our enemies. Charity does not require this absolutely, because to have a special movement of love for every individual man would be impossible. Nevertheless charity does require that we should be ready to love our enemies individually, if the necessity were to occur. To love his enemy for God’s sake, without it being necessary for him to do so, belongs to the perfection of charity. For the more he loves God, the more does he put enmities aside and show love towards his neighbor. To do good to one’s enemies is the height of perfection.
“So much do we love our friends, that, for their sake, we love all who belong to them―even if they hurt or hate us―so that, in this way, the friendship of charity extends even to our enemies, whom we love out of charity in relation to God … Thus if we loved a certain man very much, then we would love his children also, even though they were unfriendly towards us … In this way charity extends to sinners, whom, out of charity, we love for God’s sake … The charity, whereby we love our neighbor, is a participation of Divine charity … God is the principal object of charity, while our neighbor is loved out of charity for God’s sake … whereas God is loved by charity for His own sake … We ought to look upon every man as our neighbor. Now sinners do not cease to be men, for sin does not destroy nature. Therefore we ought to love sinners out of charity … It is our duty to hate, in the sinner, his being a sinner, and to love in him as being a man who is capable of [heavenly] bliss; and this is to love him truly, out of charity, for God’s sake …
“When our friends fall into sin, we ought not to deny them friendship, so long as there is hope of their mending their ways, and we ought to help them more readily to regain virtue than to recover money, had they lost it, for as much as virtue is more akin than money to friendship. When, however, they fall into very great wickedness, and become incurable, then we ought no longer to show them friendliness. It is for this reason that both Divine and human laws command such like sinners to be put to death, because there is greater likelihood of their harming others than of their mending their ways. Nevertheless the judge puts this into effect, not out of hatred for the sinners, but out of the love of charity, by reason of which he prefers the public good to the life of the individual.” (Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 23, art. 1 & 2 & 5; q. 25, art. 6 & 7).
We are supposed to love the sinner while hating his sin―just like the surgeon loves the patient and hates the diseased organ that he is going to remove or amputate. Mere hatred of the disease will not make the disease go away―something has to be done about it, either applying medicine or cutting-out or amputating the diseased part of the body. We can do “surgery” on evil sinful persons by applying the medicine of prayer and sacrifice, as well as embracing a true devotion to Mary―as Our Lady requested at Fatima: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
If a person suffers a car crash and is trapped in the burning car and unable to free themselves from the wreckage, then the some bystander has to try and pull that unfortunate person out of the wrecked burning car―even if the car crash was the fault of the driver. Or they must at least place a phone call to the Emergency Services to come to the help of that person. The same applies to sinners, who, by their own reckless “driving” through life, have crashed the “car” of their soul and are in danger of death (eternal damnation). We should do what we can (sacrifices)―and also place a phone call (pray) to the Emergency Services in Heaven. That is the proof of true and solid charity―a charity that is like the true and solid charity of Christ, Who said: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10).
Loving Patience with Sinners
“Patience is necessary for you!” (Hebrews 10:36). “Faith works by charity” (Galatians 5:6). “Faith produces patience” (James 1:3). “Charity is patient and is kind” (1 Corinthians 13:4). “May the Lord direct your hearts―in the charity of God and the patience of Christ” (2 Thessalonians 3:5). “Be patient towards all men!” (1 Thessalonians 5:14). “Be mild towards all men, patient!” (2 Timothy 2:24). “Therefore, brethren, be patient until the coming of the Lord!” (James 5:7).
Patience with sinners does not mean ignoring their sins and allowing them to sin―just a patience with a disease does not mean that you allow the disease to grow propagate itself. Cures take time and sinners rarely become saints at the flick of a switch. Holy Scripture speaks of this loving patience of God: “Rebuke in all patience!” (2 Timothy 4:2). “The Lord God is merciful and gracious, patient and of much compassion” (Exodus 34:6). “The Lord is gracious and merciful, patient and plenteous in mercy” (Psalm 144:8). “The Lord is patient and full of mercy, taking away iniquity and wickedness” (Numbers 14:18). “Thou, O Lord, art a God of compassion, and merciful, patient, and of much mercy” (Psalm 85:15). “I know that Thou art a gracious and merciful God―patient and of much compassion, and easy to forgive evil!” (Jonas 4:2). “As much as the Lord is patient, let us be penitent for this same thing, and with many tears let us beg His pardon!” (Judith 8:1). “Turn to the Lord your God―for He is merciful, patient and rich in mercy!” (Joel 2:13). “The Lord deals patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9).
Our Lord adds to this, saying: “For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost! What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them should go astray―does he not leave the ninety-nine in the mountains and go to seek that which has gone astray? And if it so be that he finds it, amen I say to you, he rejoices more for that sheep, than for the ninety-nine sheep that did not go astray! Even so, it is not the will of your Father, Who is in Heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. So if your brother shall offend against thee, go and rebuke him―between you and him alone. If he shall hear you, then you will have gained your brother. And if he will not hear you, take with you one or two more persons, so that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. And if he will not hear them, then tell the Church. And if he will not hear the Church, then let him be to thee as the heathen and publican!” (Matthew 18:11-17).
We Place Faith Before Charity
As the modern-day Catholic Church is become increasingly Protestant in its attitudes and beliefs and practices, it is no surprise to find that we have taken on board the Protestant’s erroneous notion of the supremacy of Faith―whereby Faith alone suffices and works matter little. Neither repentance nor penance, neither love of God nor good works, nor any other virtue is required. Faith is all you need for justification. Luther held that we are intrinsically corrupt and cannot avoid sin―all we can do is have faith and confidence that Christ will nevertheless save us. Thus we find in one of Luther’s letters, written to Melancthon in 1521, the following sentence: “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ more strongly, Who triumphed over sin, death, and the world! As long as we live here, we must [in the sense of “cannot avoid”] sin!” No matter what you might do―repent, penance, prayer, good works―it will not bring you salvation. You have to simply have to believe that Christ will save you―no matter what you do! Just believe―and the rest will follow!
However, the Catholic Church teaches that only such Faith, as is active in Charity and good works, possesses any power to justify man (cf. Galatians 5:6; 1 Corinthians 13:2), whereas Faith that lacks Charity and good works, is a dead faith and in the eyes of God insufficient for justification: “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith! Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … Do you see that by works a man is justified―and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26). Faith is about knowing, Charity is about doing. “Faith works by charity” (Galatians 5:6).
It is easy to merely believe the Faith―it is much harder to live the Faith in charity―especially with regard to our own enemies and the enemies of the Faith and Church. It is hard to imitate Jesus who prayed for those who were crucifying and mocking Him: “Father, forgive them! For they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). Jesus did not merely talk the talk of the Faith, but He walked the walk of the Faith. Just as God “makes His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45), so too did Jesus let His prayers fall upon the good and the bad, the just and the unjust.
Lips and Fingertips Rule!
In a certain sense, that is what we do today! We tend to place more weight and importance upon what we “know” or “believe” ― and less importance upon what we “do”. This is exacerbated by the modern-day axiom of “knowledge is power”, which, in turn, is fueled by seemingly bottomless pit of knowledge that anyone can immediately access on the internet. Hence we have an abundance of “keyboard warriors” or “keyboard Catholics” who remain superficial Catholics because they spend more time on the internet surfing and very little time on their knees praying, or on their feet going to extra Masses or performing works of charity and mercy to others. To those Catholics, Our Lord could well say: “These people honor Me with their lips [or fingertips]―but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8).
Instead of using their lips and fingertips in praying the Rosary often, today’s Catholic prefers to speak only through their lips and fingertips―while also “pointing the finger” at anyone and everyone, from Pope down to the worst sinner. When they sit in front of the “universe” of their computers, they almost feel like God on His Judgment Throne. Just as God cannot be seen, you often cannot see them―because they anonymously hide behind their online user-name, pseudonym or alias. In a sense, they fall for the same temptation that Satan presented to Eve: “Your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil!” (Genesis 3:5)―and it is through the internet that find out about good evil, after which they pronounce and hurl their judgments through their fingertips for all the world to see! How sad and tragic! The spirit of Christ is not present there! As Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “Their life is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride, that we may legitimately question whether it will bear any fruit for eternity!” (The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
We even see this bad spirit and in the judgmental Apostles, James and John, when they desired to call down fire from Heaven to destroy a Samaritan town that had just rejected Jesus: “When His disciples, James and John, had seen this, they said: ‘Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?’ And turning, Jesus rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:54-56). “Judge not, that you may not be judged!” (Matthew 7:1). “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven!” (Luke 6:37). “Go then and learn what this means―‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I am not come to call the just, but sinners!” (Matthew 9:13). “If you knew what this means: ‘I will have mercy, and not sacrifice!’ then you would never have condemned the innocent!” (Matthew 12:7).
Unfortunately, we are living in a time of judges―where we judge and condemn everyone except ourselves! “If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged!” (1 Corinthians 11:31)―or if we would judge charitably, then God will judge us charitably! “For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged! And with what measure you measure out, it shall be measured to you again!” (Matthew 7:2). Thus Our Lord warned: “Why do you see the splinter that is in your brother’s eye; but cannot see the plank that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother: ‘Let me cast the splinter out of your eye!’ ― and behold there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite! First cast out the plank from your own eye, and then you shall be able to see in order to cast out the splinter out of your brother’s eye!” (Matthew 7:3-5). Where has our charity gone? As Jesus prophesied: “Because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold!” (Matthew 24:12). The bottom line is this―we want charity and mercy to be shown to ourselves, but we are reluctant to show equal charity and mercy to others! “Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). “Judgment without mercy to him that has not shown mercy!” (James 2:13).
As Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange states: “Many have separated themselves from God and tried to organize intellectual and social life without Him … Pride is the source of all deviations because it turns us away from God to put our trust in ourselves. Cold, hard pride leads man to refuse to adhere to the word of God or to obey Him! … When man will no longer fulfill his great religious duties toward God, he makes a religion for himself, because he absolutely cannot get along without religion. To replace the God Whom he has abandoned, man may, for example, place his religion in science, or in the cult of social justice, or in some human ideal, which finally he considers and follows in a religious manner and even in a mystical manner! … Life … always inclined to pride … is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride … and lack of consideration! … The heart lacks energy, it is cold because it lacks love! … We may legitimately question whether it will bear any fruit for eternity! … Do the depths of their souls live by God? It would seem not! … This will only be solved if he returns to the fundamental problem of the intimate relations of the soul with God!” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Charity Cure and Comeback!
Only an idiot would disagree that we are seeing Our Lord’s prophecy come true in our present day: “Because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold!” (Matthew 24:12). We are suffering from a hypothermia of charity. Hypothermia is a medical emergency that occurs when your body loses heat faster than it can produce heat, causing a dangerously low body temperature. Body temperature that is too low affects the brain, making the victim unable to think clearly or move well. The same can be said about hypothermia charity―a low level or a cold level of charity affects our “brain” or how we think and act―we think harshly, judgmentally, nastily and fail to act like a true Christian. Hypothermia of charity is a spiritual emergency that occurs when the soul loses charity faster than it produce charity, causing dangerously low levels and low temperatures of charity, leading to lukewarmness, cold-heartedness and even hatred. “I know thy works! But, because thou art lukewarm, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). Our charity is weak and sick! We need a cure and a comeback! How can this be done? There are several ways that it can be done―and these are explained by many spiritual authors. Let us then take a look at their “charitable cures” in the hope of igniting true fires of love in our hearts and souls: “Come O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fires of Thy love!”
Charity Comes from God
As the above prayer indicates ― “Come O Holy Ghost, enkindle in them the fires of Thy love” ― charity comes from God. Holy Scripture confirms this: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost” (Romans 5:5). The Holy Ghost is like a fire, a fire of love ― which is why He appeared at Pentecost in the form of tongues of fire. The closer you stand to a fire, the warmer you will be. Likewise, the closer you stand to God ― “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) ― the more charitable you will be. The more you draw away from God, the less charitable you will be. As Jesus said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) and Jesus is charity: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). Therefore, without charity we can do nothing―which is what Holy Scripture says (as quoted earlier): “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). It is of vital importance to repair, bolster and increase the “embers” of charity that may still exist in our souls―and since God is charity and God is infinite, then there is no ceiling to the level of charity that we can attain.
Charity is Meant to Grow
That our charity is capable of increase is certain, with the certainty of Faith, says the Council of Trent (Session 6, Canon 24). Holy Scripture says it grow more and more: “This I pray, that your Charity may more and more abound!” (Philippians 1:9). St. Augustine adds that “love is always either rising or falling.” St. Bernard warns that the soul necessarily fails when she ceases to advance. St. Thomas Aquinas states: “Charity must increase. For if it increase not, our advance to God would cease. Charity therefore in this life may always more and more increase; and as it increases, the capacity for receiving it expands within us. So that no limit to its increase in the soul may be placed here below.” St. Teresa of Avila also says: “In a spiritual life, he who does not advance, recedes. I consider it impossible for love to stand still.” As charity therefore increases, the soul advances. So that our proficiency does not consist in much thinking, or much external doing, but in much loving, as St. Teresa tells us.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange explains that charity must always be on the increase: “Charity ought not only to grow in us until death, but to increase more and more like a falling body, the speed of which increases until it reaches its end. How, then, does Charity grow in us? Charity does not grow by addition, like a heap of wheat. This addition would multiply Charity without making it more intense. The increase would be in the order of quantity rather than of quality, which is quite a different thing. Charity can grow in intensity, take deeper root in our will and strongly determine its inclination to turn to God and to flee sin. Charity moves the will more profoundly toward supernatural good, by withdrawing it from evil. Charity increases, therefore, like a quality, like heat, by becoming more intense, and that in several ways: by the sacraments, prayer, and merit.” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
There is a very simple, yet very profound and beautiful quote by St. Thérèse of Lisieux: “Everything is grace.” In theology, grace is the spontaneous, free and undeserved help that God gives for the salvation of sinners, and the divine influence of God operating in individuals for their regeneration, sanctification and salvation. Grace is a gift of God’s love that invites us into relationship and friendship with God. Because charity is infused into the soul at Baptism, along with sanctifying grace, it is often identified with the state of grace. There is a link between the two. A person who is free from mortal sin and is in a state of sanctifying grace, is pleasing to God and is in the state of being a friend of God’s. A person who loses the state of grace, also loses the supernatural virtue of charity―and vice-versa. Charity comes from the same Greek word as what we translate as “grace” ― “charis”. St. Thérèse of Lisieux ― who said “Everything is grace” ― looked at every little opportunity every day as a means of grace by which to draw closer to her Lord, out of love of Him. As a result, He showered her with an abundance of grace.
The Increase of Charity Through the Sacraments
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange says: “Charity and the other infused virtues, as well as the seven gifts, grow in us through the Sacraments. The just man grows in the love of God through absolution and especially by Holy Communion. Although the Sacraments of themselves independently produce grace in those who do not place an obstacle to it, they produce it more or less abundantly according to the fervor of him who receives it. The Council of Trent says that each one receives justice ‘according to his own measure, which the Holy Ghost distributes to everyone as He wills and according to each one’s disposition.’ In the natural order, as St. Thomas observes, although an open fire of itself gives heat, a person benefits more from its influence in proportion as he draws closer to it. Likewise, in the supernatural order, a person benefits so much the more from the Sacraments as he approaches them with a more lively Faith and a greater fervor of will. From this point of view, St. Thomas and many of the early theologians hold that, according as the sinner receives absolution with greater or less repentance, he recovers or does not recover the degree of grace which he had lost.
“It may be that a Christian, who had five talents and who loses them by mortal sin, afterwards has a contrition equal to only two talents; he then recovers grace in a degree notably inferior (only two) to that which he had previously (which was five). On the contrary, he may by reason of profound repentance recover grace in a more elevated degree―as was the case with St. Peter when he wept bitterly immediately after denying Christ. From these principles it also follows that one fervent Communion is worth more than many tepid Communions taken together. It may happen, on the contrary, that the fruit of Communion is least when a soul approaches the holy table with dispositions sufficient only not to hinder the effect of the Sacrament. This should make us reflect seriously, if we show no true spiritual advancement after years of frequent or daily Communion. Possibly by reason of a growing attachment to a certain venial sin, the effect of our daily Communions may be ever weaker, as the movement of a stone thrown vertically into the air is uniformly retarded until the stone stops going upwards and starts to fall down. Each of our Communions ought not only to preserve but to increase Charity in us, each Communion should be substantially more fervent and more fruitful than, the preceding one; for each one, by increasing the love of God in us, ought to dispose us to receive our Lord on the following day with―not only an equal―but a superior fervor of will. Often, however, negligence and tepidity hinder the application of this law.” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Of all the seven Sacraments, the Holy Eucharist is the furnace of love! Why? Because the Holy Eucharist is actually God Himself―in the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ―really and truly present with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. We know that “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and therefore the “Holy Eucharist is charity.” Furthermore, the Holy Eucharist is not only a Sacrament, but it is also a Sacrifice―for it is “born”, so to speak, during the Consecration of the bread and wine in Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―and the Sacrifice of the Mass is one and the same Sacrifice as that of Christ on Calvary, where He laid down His life for our sins. Our Lord Himself said: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends!” (John 15:13) ― and in His Sacrifice on Calvary, and during the Sacrifice of the Mass, Christ lays down His life (bloodily on Calvary, unbloodily during the Mass), not only for His friends, but also for the conversion of His enemies! Hence, you could say: “Greater love no man can see than Christ’s Sacrifice for us on Calvary and during each and every Sacrifice of the Mass!” When Our Lord says: “Come to Me, all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you!” (Matthew 11:28), He can just as well mean: “Come to the Sacrifice of the Mass and Holy Communion all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you!” It is during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Holy Communion that Christ could say: “Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! … I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you! And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh!” (Ezechiel 18:31, 36:26).
The Increase of Charity Through Prayer
Being able to often attend the Holy Sacrifice of Mass and receive Holy Communion is not necessarily within the reach and capabilities of every Catholic. Some have to content themselves with only Sunday Mass, others can perhaps get to one or two Masses during the week―rare (and fortunate) is the number of Catholics who can attend Holy Mass and receive Holy Communion daily. Nevertheless, it is in everybody’s power and capacity to be able SPIRITUALLY ATTEND Holy Mass daily and to make at least one SPIRITUAL COMMUNION every day (click here for help on how to do this). Even though you may be limited in being allowed to make only one Sacramental Communion per day―there is no limit to the number of Spiritual Communions you can make each day! Even if you have the grace and fortune of being able to receive Holy Communion daily at Mass, there is no reason why you should not make a Spiritual Communion at some point each day, or even more than one. The same applies to the Sacrifice of the Mass―there is nothing stopping you from reading all (or most) of the prayers of Holy Mass on a daily basis. The Epistles and Gospels also furnish excellent meditative material that you could reflect upon during the day. All of this belongs to domain of PRAYER and will undoubtedly increase you charity and the love of God in your soul. In fact, it will be a proof of your love God―for you will be sacrificing yourself in order to do this, by giving up time spent on other occupations that you might like to do.
Prayer is a conversation with God―either directly or through Our Lady, the Angels and Saints. St. John Damascene says that “Prayer the raising of the mind and heart to God.” St. Augustine tells us: “Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for Him.” St. Teresa of Avila adds: “Prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.” St. Thérèse of Lisieux says: “Prayer is a surge of the heart, it is a simple look turned toward Heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.” St. John Vianney states: “Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul plunges itself.” Just as prayer leads us to God, so too will prayer lead us to charity―for “God is charity” (1 John 4:8).
The Angel of Portugal, at Fatima, even told little children to pray much—they were busy playing and he rebuked them, telling them to cease playing and pray without ceasing: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal. The Hearts of Jesus and Mary have merciful designs on you. Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High” (Angel of Portugal, Fatima, summer of 1916). Our Lady reiterated this during her apparitions at Fatima, in 1917: “Pray! Pray very much!” At Akita in 1973, Our Lady echoes this: “Continue to pray very much...very much! … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary.”
Thus, prayer is not just limited to vocal prayer―such as the Our Fathers and Hail Marys of the Rosary, or saying out loud the prayers in your favorite prayer books, etc. Prayer can be silent; it can be meditative; it can be merely looking a religious picture or statue which raises your mind and heart to God. Prayer can also be a conversation about God; listening to sermon or talk about God; reading about God; listening to religious hymns and music; or even looking a nature and seeing the Almighty Creator behind it all.
The priest, monk and theologian, John Cassian (360-435) wrote: “I believe that it is impossible to grasp all the different forms of prayer without great purity of heart and soul. There are as many forms of prayer as there are states of soul. A person prays in a certain manner when cheerful, and in another manner when weighed down by sadness or a sense of hopelessness. When one is flourishing spiritually, prayer is different from when one is oppressed by the extent of one’s struggles.” (John Cassian). The possibilities and opportunities for prayer are so endless that it really is possible to “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) so that we “ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1).
Good Prayer Increases Charity & Sinful Prayer Weakens Charity
Nevertheless, prayer has to be quality prayer―for prayer can also be sinful if it is done negligently, hurriedly, lukewarmly―as Our Lord said: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8). St. Augustine, speaking on the reason why our prayers are not answered by God, says that there are three chief reasons for this: (1) we are bad, (2) we pray badly, and (3) we ask for what is bad. St. Louis de Montfort writes: “A single Hail Mary, said properly, is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly” (Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-First Rose”).
Too many people limit prayer to an isolated part of the day—first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Yet God should be part of our whole day, not just a mere ten minutes. This is what is meant by loving God with our whole mind, our whole heart, our whole soul and our whole strength. God is so badly ‘short-changed’ and given ‘short-shrift’ by so, so, so many people—who nevertheless feel smug about their ‘prayer-life’!
Dom Columba Marmion writes: “It happens to some souls that, when they have recited many formulas, they realize that they have said nothing to God from the bottom of their hearts. Our mind may be far distant from the words that fall from our lips ... In our prayer, we must give up to God our whole heart and our whole mind .... Just as the sanctuary light burns itself up without reserving anything, so our soul, in its conversation with God, must be entirely dedicated to the Almighty. We must free ourselves from preoccupations and from vain thoughts, which tie the soul down to Earth and prevent it from being entirely given over to the Lord” (Dom Marmion, Christ—The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
St. Louis de Montfort adds: “Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should! … How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? How can we expect him to be pleased if, while in the presence of His tremendous Majesty, we give in to distractions? … Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all. The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it!” (St. Louis de Montfort, Secret of the Rosary).
One single action or prayer of any kind, performed at a higher degree of charity, “blows away” or “trumps” or outweighs anything and everything that we have done at lower degree of charity for years and years and years. Thus, simply saying: “Jesus I love You!” at a higher level or higher degree of charity is of more value, merit and weight than all the thousands of Rosaries you might have prayed at a lower level of charity, all the Masses that you have attended a lower level of charity, all the enormous sacrifices you might have made, etc. Is it not worth trying to increase our level of charity? St. Louis de Montfort relates that this is why the devils confessed that “One single sigh, that Our Lady offers to the Blessed Trinity, is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints!” (St. Louis de Montfort, Secret of the Rosary). Why? Because of her elevated degree of charity.
Without trying to sound corny, when you really stop and think about it, the cliché “Love makes the world go around” is absolutely true! Since “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and nothing happens without God either wanting it or allowing it, then Love (God) makes the world go around! Call it “love” or call it “charity” ― the fact is that we all need it and we won’t get into Heaven without it! If you want to be loveless―then Hell is the place to go! There is absolutely no love in Hell―not even a love of self, for everyone in Hell hates themselves for having been damned when they could have been saved. If you want to be saved―if you want to get to Heaven―then you must love: “Everyone that loves, is born of God, and knows God. He that does not love, does not know God―for God is charity!” (1 John 4:7-8).
The Angelic Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas points out that “Charity is the Queen of all of the virtues and no true virtue is possible without charity for charity is the form of the virtues, which directs the acts of all other virtues to their last end” ― which is, of course, God.
St. Paul states: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The Mystical Doctor of the Church, St. John of the Cross adds: “At the end of our life we will be judged on our love!”
The Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine, says: “Love God and do all you want!”
Another well-known Doctor of the Church, the author of one of the greatest masterpieces on love, The Treatise on Love, St. Francis de Sales very neatly says: “The measure with which we should love God is to love Him without measure.” Elsewhere he writes: “Charity―as queen of all virtues, queen of all commandments, all counsels, and, in short, of all laws and all Christian actions―gives to all of them their rank, order, time, and value.” (St. Francis de Sales, Love of God, 8, 6).
Above and beyond all of these great writers and saints are the words as well as example of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who affirms that the greatest of all commandments is to love God our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength and then to love our neighbor as ourselves: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31; Luke 10:25-28). Love is the greatest because “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Love is the highest virtue because it leads us to the highest being of all―God, Who embodies love and is love itself.
The Crucial Importance on Loving Correctly
Everyone loves someone or something―yet not all love is good. Some people love what is evil and sinful, some people love over-indulgence, some people love only themselves, some love the spouses of other people, some people love fornication and masturbation, some love intoxication through drink and drugs, some love to steal, some love to insult others, etc. At the end of the day, some kinds of love lead to Heaven, while other kinds of love lead to Hell. Before we even think about growing in love, we must make sure we are growing the right kind of love!
What is the right kind of love? We are told that God is love―“God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and that “the charity of God appeared towards us, because God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him. In this is charity―not as though we had loved God, but because He has first loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins. Therefore, let us love God, because God first hath loved us! If God has so loved us; then we also ought to love one another!” (1 John 4:9-11, 19).
Love of God and love of neighbor are connected. We cannot love God correctly and truly if we do not love our neighbors―and we cannot truly and correctly love our neighbors if we do not love God. That is why Christ commands: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Love is the greatest virtue because “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Love is the highest virtue because it leads us to the highest being of all―God, Who embodies love and is love itself.
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that “Charity is love. Yet charity is not love simply, but has the nature of friendship … Charity is a kind of friendship of man for God … Not every love has the character of friendship, but only that love where we love someone so as to wish good to him. If, however, we do not wish good to what we love, but only wish good for ourselves―for example when we are said to love wine, or a horse, or the like―it is not love of friendship, but of a kind of concupiscence (selfish desire). For it would be absurd to speak of having friendship for wine or for a horse. However, neither does well-wishing suffice for friendship―for a certain mutual love is required―since friendship is between a friend and a friend―and this well-wishing has to be founded on some kind of communication. The love, which is based on this communication, is charity―wherefore it is evident that charity is the friendship of man for God … Charity is friendship … Charity is a virtue which unites us to God, for by it we love Him … Charity is the movement of the soul towards the enjoyment of God for His own sake … and this movement is from the Holy Ghost without any intermediary … on account of the excellence of charity” (Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 23, art. 2 & 3 & 5). As Holy Scripture says: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost” (Romans 5:5).
Unfortunately, these two greatest commandments are regularly ignored and broken by the greatest number of people! Today, especially, there is very little true love of God and true love of neighbor that can be found―even if most people like to protest that they do love God and neighbor. It is most certainly true that true love is truly rare! Whereas it is equally true that false love or counterfeit love is truly everywhere―even in those whom we regard as being “good” people.
The Tests and Proofs of Love
Our Lord said: “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 7:2). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). You could rephrase those quotes with regard to love and have Our Lord say: “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord, I love Thee! Lord, I love Thee!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 7:2). “Why do you say to Me, ‘Lord, I love Thee! Lord, I love Thee! and do not do the things which I say?” That this is true is proved by Our Lord’s words at the Last Supper: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word … He that loves Me not, keeps not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
Even though the love of God comes before the love of neighbor―in a certain sense, we only learn to love God by loving our neighbor. As Holy Scripture says: “Let us love one another, for charity is of God―and every one that loves, is born of God! … If we love one another, God abides in us, we abide in Him, and He in us, and His charity is perfected in us” (1 John 4:7-13). “He that does not love his brother, whom he can see―how can he love God, Whom he cannot see?” (1 John 4:20). Our Lord further strengthens this argument when He says: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me! … And as long as you did it not to one of these least brethren, neither did you do it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40 & 45).
The Love of Enemies
Who are these “least of My brethren” that Our Lord speaks of? They are the ones we ‘love’ to hate! The sinners, the evildoers, our enemies, those who have wronged us in some way, etc. Jesus shows us how to love those who are unlovable―by being with the leper, the sinner, the outcast and the one on the edge. Our Lord says: “You have heard that it has been said: ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy!’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you’―so that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who makes His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust! For if you only love them that love you―what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans do this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you do that is more? Do not the heathens also do this? Be you therefore perfect as also your heavenly Father is perfect!’” (Matthew 5:43-48).
Why do we have to love our enemies or even the enemies of the Church? Because they are God’s creatures, created in the image of God, and given the potential of going to Heaven. God desires the damnation of nobody―therefore we should not desire the damnation of anybody. Evil people are still creatures of God.
St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “Our Lord said: ‘Love your enemies’ (Matthew 4:44). Love of one’s enemies may be understood in three ways. First, as though we were to love our enemies as such―this is perverse and contrary to charity, since it implies love of that which is evil in another. Secondly love of one’s enemies may mean that we love them as to their nature in general: and in this sense charity requires that we should love our enemies, namely, that in loving God and our neighbor, we should not exclude our enemies from the love given to our neighbor in general. Thirdly, love of one’s enemies may be considered as specially directed to them, namely, that we should have a special movement of love towards our enemies. Charity does not require this absolutely, because to have a special movement of love for every individual man would be impossible. Nevertheless charity does require that we should be ready to love our enemies individually, if the necessity were to occur. To love his enemy for God’s sake, without it being necessary for him to do so, belongs to the perfection of charity. For the more he loves God, the more does he put enmities aside and show love towards his neighbor. To do good to one’s enemies is the height of perfection.
“So much do we love our friends, that, for their sake, we love all who belong to them―even if they hurt or hate us―so that, in this way, the friendship of charity extends even to our enemies, whom we love out of charity in relation to God … Thus if we loved a certain man very much, then we would love his children also, even though they were unfriendly towards us … In this way charity extends to sinners, whom, out of charity, we love for God’s sake … The charity, whereby we love our neighbor, is a participation of Divine charity … God is the principal object of charity, while our neighbor is loved out of charity for God’s sake … whereas God is loved by charity for His own sake … We ought to look upon every man as our neighbor. Now sinners do not cease to be men, for sin does not destroy nature. Therefore we ought to love sinners out of charity … It is our duty to hate, in the sinner, his being a sinner, and to love in him as being a man who is capable of [heavenly] bliss; and this is to love him truly, out of charity, for God’s sake …
“When our friends fall into sin, we ought not to deny them friendship, so long as there is hope of their mending their ways, and we ought to help them more readily to regain virtue than to recover money, had they lost it, for as much as virtue is more akin than money to friendship. When, however, they fall into very great wickedness, and become incurable, then we ought no longer to show them friendliness. It is for this reason that both Divine and human laws command such like sinners to be put to death, because there is greater likelihood of their harming others than of their mending their ways. Nevertheless the judge puts this into effect, not out of hatred for the sinners, but out of the love of charity, by reason of which he prefers the public good to the life of the individual.” (Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 23, art. 1 & 2 & 5; q. 25, art. 6 & 7).
We are supposed to love the sinner while hating his sin―just like the surgeon loves the patient and hates the diseased organ that he is going to remove or amputate. Mere hatred of the disease will not make the disease go away―something has to be done about it, either applying medicine or cutting-out or amputating the diseased part of the body. We can do “surgery” on evil sinful persons by applying the medicine of prayer and sacrifice, as well as embracing a true devotion to Mary―as Our Lady requested at Fatima: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
If a person suffers a car crash and is trapped in the burning car and unable to free themselves from the wreckage, then the some bystander has to try and pull that unfortunate person out of the wrecked burning car―even if the car crash was the fault of the driver. Or they must at least place a phone call to the Emergency Services to come to the help of that person. The same applies to sinners, who, by their own reckless “driving” through life, have crashed the “car” of their soul and are in danger of death (eternal damnation). We should do what we can (sacrifices)―and also place a phone call (pray) to the Emergency Services in Heaven. That is the proof of true and solid charity―a charity that is like the true and solid charity of Christ, Who said: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10).
Loving Patience with Sinners
“Patience is necessary for you!” (Hebrews 10:36). “Faith works by charity” (Galatians 5:6). “Faith produces patience” (James 1:3). “Charity is patient and is kind” (1 Corinthians 13:4). “May the Lord direct your hearts―in the charity of God and the patience of Christ” (2 Thessalonians 3:5). “Be patient towards all men!” (1 Thessalonians 5:14). “Be mild towards all men, patient!” (2 Timothy 2:24). “Therefore, brethren, be patient until the coming of the Lord!” (James 5:7).
Patience with sinners does not mean ignoring their sins and allowing them to sin―just a patience with a disease does not mean that you allow the disease to grow propagate itself. Cures take time and sinners rarely become saints at the flick of a switch. Holy Scripture speaks of this loving patience of God: “Rebuke in all patience!” (2 Timothy 4:2). “The Lord God is merciful and gracious, patient and of much compassion” (Exodus 34:6). “The Lord is gracious and merciful, patient and plenteous in mercy” (Psalm 144:8). “The Lord is patient and full of mercy, taking away iniquity and wickedness” (Numbers 14:18). “Thou, O Lord, art a God of compassion, and merciful, patient, and of much mercy” (Psalm 85:15). “I know that Thou art a gracious and merciful God―patient and of much compassion, and easy to forgive evil!” (Jonas 4:2). “As much as the Lord is patient, let us be penitent for this same thing, and with many tears let us beg His pardon!” (Judith 8:1). “Turn to the Lord your God―for He is merciful, patient and rich in mercy!” (Joel 2:13). “The Lord deals patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9).
Our Lord adds to this, saying: “For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost! What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them should go astray―does he not leave the ninety-nine in the mountains and go to seek that which has gone astray? And if it so be that he finds it, amen I say to you, he rejoices more for that sheep, than for the ninety-nine sheep that did not go astray! Even so, it is not the will of your Father, Who is in Heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. So if your brother shall offend against thee, go and rebuke him―between you and him alone. If he shall hear you, then you will have gained your brother. And if he will not hear you, take with you one or two more persons, so that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. And if he will not hear them, then tell the Church. And if he will not hear the Church, then let him be to thee as the heathen and publican!” (Matthew 18:11-17).
We Place Faith Before Charity
As the modern-day Catholic Church is become increasingly Protestant in its attitudes and beliefs and practices, it is no surprise to find that we have taken on board the Protestant’s erroneous notion of the supremacy of Faith―whereby Faith alone suffices and works matter little. Neither repentance nor penance, neither love of God nor good works, nor any other virtue is required. Faith is all you need for justification. Luther held that we are intrinsically corrupt and cannot avoid sin―all we can do is have faith and confidence that Christ will nevertheless save us. Thus we find in one of Luther’s letters, written to Melancthon in 1521, the following sentence: “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ more strongly, Who triumphed over sin, death, and the world! As long as we live here, we must [in the sense of “cannot avoid”] sin!” No matter what you might do―repent, penance, prayer, good works―it will not bring you salvation. You have to simply have to believe that Christ will save you―no matter what you do! Just believe―and the rest will follow!
However, the Catholic Church teaches that only such Faith, as is active in Charity and good works, possesses any power to justify man (cf. Galatians 5:6; 1 Corinthians 13:2), whereas Faith that lacks Charity and good works, is a dead faith and in the eyes of God insufficient for justification: “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith! Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … Do you see that by works a man is justified―and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26). Faith is about knowing, Charity is about doing. “Faith works by charity” (Galatians 5:6).
It is easy to merely believe the Faith―it is much harder to live the Faith in charity―especially with regard to our own enemies and the enemies of the Faith and Church. It is hard to imitate Jesus who prayed for those who were crucifying and mocking Him: “Father, forgive them! For they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). Jesus did not merely talk the talk of the Faith, but He walked the walk of the Faith. Just as God “makes His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45), so too did Jesus let His prayers fall upon the good and the bad, the just and the unjust.
Lips and Fingertips Rule!
In a certain sense, that is what we do today! We tend to place more weight and importance upon what we “know” or “believe” ― and less importance upon what we “do”. This is exacerbated by the modern-day axiom of “knowledge is power”, which, in turn, is fueled by seemingly bottomless pit of knowledge that anyone can immediately access on the internet. Hence we have an abundance of “keyboard warriors” or “keyboard Catholics” who remain superficial Catholics because they spend more time on the internet surfing and very little time on their knees praying, or on their feet going to extra Masses or performing works of charity and mercy to others. To those Catholics, Our Lord could well say: “These people honor Me with their lips [or fingertips]―but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8).
Instead of using their lips and fingertips in praying the Rosary often, today’s Catholic prefers to speak only through their lips and fingertips―while also “pointing the finger” at anyone and everyone, from Pope down to the worst sinner. When they sit in front of the “universe” of their computers, they almost feel like God on His Judgment Throne. Just as God cannot be seen, you often cannot see them―because they anonymously hide behind their online user-name, pseudonym or alias. In a sense, they fall for the same temptation that Satan presented to Eve: “Your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil!” (Genesis 3:5)―and it is through the internet that find out about good evil, after which they pronounce and hurl their judgments through their fingertips for all the world to see! How sad and tragic! The spirit of Christ is not present there! As Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “Their life is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride, that we may legitimately question whether it will bear any fruit for eternity!” (The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
We even see this bad spirit and in the judgmental Apostles, James and John, when they desired to call down fire from Heaven to destroy a Samaritan town that had just rejected Jesus: “When His disciples, James and John, had seen this, they said: ‘Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?’ And turning, Jesus rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:54-56). “Judge not, that you may not be judged!” (Matthew 7:1). “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven!” (Luke 6:37). “Go then and learn what this means―‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I am not come to call the just, but sinners!” (Matthew 9:13). “If you knew what this means: ‘I will have mercy, and not sacrifice!’ then you would never have condemned the innocent!” (Matthew 12:7).
Unfortunately, we are living in a time of judges―where we judge and condemn everyone except ourselves! “If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged!” (1 Corinthians 11:31)―or if we would judge charitably, then God will judge us charitably! “For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged! And with what measure you measure out, it shall be measured to you again!” (Matthew 7:2). Thus Our Lord warned: “Why do you see the splinter that is in your brother’s eye; but cannot see the plank that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother: ‘Let me cast the splinter out of your eye!’ ― and behold there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite! First cast out the plank from your own eye, and then you shall be able to see in order to cast out the splinter out of your brother’s eye!” (Matthew 7:3-5). Where has our charity gone? As Jesus prophesied: “Because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold!” (Matthew 24:12). The bottom line is this―we want charity and mercy to be shown to ourselves, but we are reluctant to show equal charity and mercy to others! “Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). “Judgment without mercy to him that has not shown mercy!” (James 2:13).
As Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange states: “Many have separated themselves from God and tried to organize intellectual and social life without Him … Pride is the source of all deviations because it turns us away from God to put our trust in ourselves. Cold, hard pride leads man to refuse to adhere to the word of God or to obey Him! … When man will no longer fulfill his great religious duties toward God, he makes a religion for himself, because he absolutely cannot get along without religion. To replace the God Whom he has abandoned, man may, for example, place his religion in science, or in the cult of social justice, or in some human ideal, which finally he considers and follows in a religious manner and even in a mystical manner! … Life … always inclined to pride … is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride … and lack of consideration! … The heart lacks energy, it is cold because it lacks love! … We may legitimately question whether it will bear any fruit for eternity! … Do the depths of their souls live by God? It would seem not! … This will only be solved if he returns to the fundamental problem of the intimate relations of the soul with God!” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Charity Cure and Comeback!
Only an idiot would disagree that we are seeing Our Lord’s prophecy come true in our present day: “Because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold!” (Matthew 24:12). We are suffering from a hypothermia of charity. Hypothermia is a medical emergency that occurs when your body loses heat faster than it can produce heat, causing a dangerously low body temperature. Body temperature that is too low affects the brain, making the victim unable to think clearly or move well. The same can be said about hypothermia charity―a low level or a cold level of charity affects our “brain” or how we think and act―we think harshly, judgmentally, nastily and fail to act like a true Christian. Hypothermia of charity is a spiritual emergency that occurs when the soul loses charity faster than it produce charity, causing dangerously low levels and low temperatures of charity, leading to lukewarmness, cold-heartedness and even hatred. “I know thy works! But, because thou art lukewarm, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). Our charity is weak and sick! We need a cure and a comeback! How can this be done? There are several ways that it can be done―and these are explained by many spiritual authors. Let us then take a look at their “charitable cures” in the hope of igniting true fires of love in our hearts and souls: “Come O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fires of Thy love!”
Charity Comes from God
As the above prayer indicates ― “Come O Holy Ghost, enkindle in them the fires of Thy love” ― charity comes from God. Holy Scripture confirms this: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost” (Romans 5:5). The Holy Ghost is like a fire, a fire of love ― which is why He appeared at Pentecost in the form of tongues of fire. The closer you stand to a fire, the warmer you will be. Likewise, the closer you stand to God ― “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) ― the more charitable you will be. The more you draw away from God, the less charitable you will be. As Jesus said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) and Jesus is charity: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). Therefore, without charity we can do nothing―which is what Holy Scripture says (as quoted earlier): “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). It is of vital importance to repair, bolster and increase the “embers” of charity that may still exist in our souls―and since God is charity and God is infinite, then there is no ceiling to the level of charity that we can attain.
Charity is Meant to Grow
That our charity is capable of increase is certain, with the certainty of Faith, says the Council of Trent (Session 6, Canon 24). Holy Scripture says it grow more and more: “This I pray, that your Charity may more and more abound!” (Philippians 1:9). St. Augustine adds that “love is always either rising or falling.” St. Bernard warns that the soul necessarily fails when she ceases to advance. St. Thomas Aquinas states: “Charity must increase. For if it increase not, our advance to God would cease. Charity therefore in this life may always more and more increase; and as it increases, the capacity for receiving it expands within us. So that no limit to its increase in the soul may be placed here below.” St. Teresa of Avila also says: “In a spiritual life, he who does not advance, recedes. I consider it impossible for love to stand still.” As charity therefore increases, the soul advances. So that our proficiency does not consist in much thinking, or much external doing, but in much loving, as St. Teresa tells us.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange explains that charity must always be on the increase: “Charity ought not only to grow in us until death, but to increase more and more like a falling body, the speed of which increases until it reaches its end. How, then, does Charity grow in us? Charity does not grow by addition, like a heap of wheat. This addition would multiply Charity without making it more intense. The increase would be in the order of quantity rather than of quality, which is quite a different thing. Charity can grow in intensity, take deeper root in our will and strongly determine its inclination to turn to God and to flee sin. Charity moves the will more profoundly toward supernatural good, by withdrawing it from evil. Charity increases, therefore, like a quality, like heat, by becoming more intense, and that in several ways: by the sacraments, prayer, and merit.” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
There is a very simple, yet very profound and beautiful quote by St. Thérèse of Lisieux: “Everything is grace.” In theology, grace is the spontaneous, free and undeserved help that God gives for the salvation of sinners, and the divine influence of God operating in individuals for their regeneration, sanctification and salvation. Grace is a gift of God’s love that invites us into relationship and friendship with God. Because charity is infused into the soul at Baptism, along with sanctifying grace, it is often identified with the state of grace. There is a link between the two. A person who is free from mortal sin and is in a state of sanctifying grace, is pleasing to God and is in the state of being a friend of God’s. A person who loses the state of grace, also loses the supernatural virtue of charity―and vice-versa. Charity comes from the same Greek word as what we translate as “grace” ― “charis”. St. Thérèse of Lisieux ― who said “Everything is grace” ― looked at every little opportunity every day as a means of grace by which to draw closer to her Lord, out of love of Him. As a result, He showered her with an abundance of grace.
The Increase of Charity Through the Sacraments
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange says: “Charity and the other infused virtues, as well as the seven gifts, grow in us through the Sacraments. The just man grows in the love of God through absolution and especially by Holy Communion. Although the Sacraments of themselves independently produce grace in those who do not place an obstacle to it, they produce it more or less abundantly according to the fervor of him who receives it. The Council of Trent says that each one receives justice ‘according to his own measure, which the Holy Ghost distributes to everyone as He wills and according to each one’s disposition.’ In the natural order, as St. Thomas observes, although an open fire of itself gives heat, a person benefits more from its influence in proportion as he draws closer to it. Likewise, in the supernatural order, a person benefits so much the more from the Sacraments as he approaches them with a more lively Faith and a greater fervor of will. From this point of view, St. Thomas and many of the early theologians hold that, according as the sinner receives absolution with greater or less repentance, he recovers or does not recover the degree of grace which he had lost.
“It may be that a Christian, who had five talents and who loses them by mortal sin, afterwards has a contrition equal to only two talents; he then recovers grace in a degree notably inferior (only two) to that which he had previously (which was five). On the contrary, he may by reason of profound repentance recover grace in a more elevated degree―as was the case with St. Peter when he wept bitterly immediately after denying Christ. From these principles it also follows that one fervent Communion is worth more than many tepid Communions taken together. It may happen, on the contrary, that the fruit of Communion is least when a soul approaches the holy table with dispositions sufficient only not to hinder the effect of the Sacrament. This should make us reflect seriously, if we show no true spiritual advancement after years of frequent or daily Communion. Possibly by reason of a growing attachment to a certain venial sin, the effect of our daily Communions may be ever weaker, as the movement of a stone thrown vertically into the air is uniformly retarded until the stone stops going upwards and starts to fall down. Each of our Communions ought not only to preserve but to increase Charity in us, each Communion should be substantially more fervent and more fruitful than, the preceding one; for each one, by increasing the love of God in us, ought to dispose us to receive our Lord on the following day with―not only an equal―but a superior fervor of will. Often, however, negligence and tepidity hinder the application of this law.” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).
Of all the seven Sacraments, the Holy Eucharist is the furnace of love! Why? Because the Holy Eucharist is actually God Himself―in the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ―really and truly present with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. We know that “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and therefore the “Holy Eucharist is charity.” Furthermore, the Holy Eucharist is not only a Sacrament, but it is also a Sacrifice―for it is “born”, so to speak, during the Consecration of the bread and wine in Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―and the Sacrifice of the Mass is one and the same Sacrifice as that of Christ on Calvary, where He laid down His life for our sins. Our Lord Himself said: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends!” (John 15:13) ― and in His Sacrifice on Calvary, and during the Sacrifice of the Mass, Christ lays down His life (bloodily on Calvary, unbloodily during the Mass), not only for His friends, but also for the conversion of His enemies! Hence, you could say: “Greater love no man can see than Christ’s Sacrifice for us on Calvary and during each and every Sacrifice of the Mass!” When Our Lord says: “Come to Me, all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you!” (Matthew 11:28), He can just as well mean: “Come to the Sacrifice of the Mass and Holy Communion all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you!” It is during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Holy Communion that Christ could say: “Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! … I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you! And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh!” (Ezechiel 18:31, 36:26).
The Increase of Charity Through Prayer
Being able to often attend the Holy Sacrifice of Mass and receive Holy Communion is not necessarily within the reach and capabilities of every Catholic. Some have to content themselves with only Sunday Mass, others can perhaps get to one or two Masses during the week―rare (and fortunate) is the number of Catholics who can attend Holy Mass and receive Holy Communion daily. Nevertheless, it is in everybody’s power and capacity to be able SPIRITUALLY ATTEND Holy Mass daily and to make at least one SPIRITUAL COMMUNION every day (click here for help on how to do this). Even though you may be limited in being allowed to make only one Sacramental Communion per day―there is no limit to the number of Spiritual Communions you can make each day! Even if you have the grace and fortune of being able to receive Holy Communion daily at Mass, there is no reason why you should not make a Spiritual Communion at some point each day, or even more than one. The same applies to the Sacrifice of the Mass―there is nothing stopping you from reading all (or most) of the prayers of Holy Mass on a daily basis. The Epistles and Gospels also furnish excellent meditative material that you could reflect upon during the day. All of this belongs to domain of PRAYER and will undoubtedly increase you charity and the love of God in your soul. In fact, it will be a proof of your love God―for you will be sacrificing yourself in order to do this, by giving up time spent on other occupations that you might like to do.
Prayer is a conversation with God―either directly or through Our Lady, the Angels and Saints. St. John Damascene says that “Prayer the raising of the mind and heart to God.” St. Augustine tells us: “Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for Him.” St. Teresa of Avila adds: “Prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.” St. Thérèse of Lisieux says: “Prayer is a surge of the heart, it is a simple look turned toward Heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.” St. John Vianney states: “Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul plunges itself.” Just as prayer leads us to God, so too will prayer lead us to charity―for “God is charity” (1 John 4:8).
The Angel of Portugal, at Fatima, even told little children to pray much—they were busy playing and he rebuked them, telling them to cease playing and pray without ceasing: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal. The Hearts of Jesus and Mary have merciful designs on you. Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High” (Angel of Portugal, Fatima, summer of 1916). Our Lady reiterated this during her apparitions at Fatima, in 1917: “Pray! Pray very much!” At Akita in 1973, Our Lady echoes this: “Continue to pray very much...very much! … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary.”
Thus, prayer is not just limited to vocal prayer―such as the Our Fathers and Hail Marys of the Rosary, or saying out loud the prayers in your favorite prayer books, etc. Prayer can be silent; it can be meditative; it can be merely looking a religious picture or statue which raises your mind and heart to God. Prayer can also be a conversation about God; listening to sermon or talk about God; reading about God; listening to religious hymns and music; or even looking a nature and seeing the Almighty Creator behind it all.
The priest, monk and theologian, John Cassian (360-435) wrote: “I believe that it is impossible to grasp all the different forms of prayer without great purity of heart and soul. There are as many forms of prayer as there are states of soul. A person prays in a certain manner when cheerful, and in another manner when weighed down by sadness or a sense of hopelessness. When one is flourishing spiritually, prayer is different from when one is oppressed by the extent of one’s struggles.” (John Cassian). The possibilities and opportunities for prayer are so endless that it really is possible to “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) so that we “ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1).
Good Prayer Increases Charity & Sinful Prayer Weakens Charity
Nevertheless, prayer has to be quality prayer―for prayer can also be sinful if it is done negligently, hurriedly, lukewarmly―as Our Lord said: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8). St. Augustine, speaking on the reason why our prayers are not answered by God, says that there are three chief reasons for this: (1) we are bad, (2) we pray badly, and (3) we ask for what is bad. St. Louis de Montfort writes: “A single Hail Mary, said properly, is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly” (Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-First Rose”).
Too many people limit prayer to an isolated part of the day—first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Yet God should be part of our whole day, not just a mere ten minutes. This is what is meant by loving God with our whole mind, our whole heart, our whole soul and our whole strength. God is so badly ‘short-changed’ and given ‘short-shrift’ by so, so, so many people—who nevertheless feel smug about their ‘prayer-life’!
Dom Columba Marmion writes: “It happens to some souls that, when they have recited many formulas, they realize that they have said nothing to God from the bottom of their hearts. Our mind may be far distant from the words that fall from our lips ... In our prayer, we must give up to God our whole heart and our whole mind .... Just as the sanctuary light burns itself up without reserving anything, so our soul, in its conversation with God, must be entirely dedicated to the Almighty. We must free ourselves from preoccupations and from vain thoughts, which tie the soul down to Earth and prevent it from being entirely given over to the Lord” (Dom Marmion, Christ—The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
St. Louis de Montfort adds: “Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should! … How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? How can we expect him to be pleased if, while in the presence of His tremendous Majesty, we give in to distractions? … Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all. The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it!” (St. Louis de Montfort, Secret of the Rosary).
One single action or prayer of any kind, performed at a higher degree of charity, “blows away” or “trumps” or outweighs anything and everything that we have done at lower degree of charity for years and years and years. Thus, simply saying: “Jesus I love You!” at a higher level or higher degree of charity is of more value, merit and weight than all the thousands of Rosaries you might have prayed at a lower level of charity, all the Masses that you have attended a lower level of charity, all the enormous sacrifices you might have made, etc. Is it not worth trying to increase our level of charity? St. Louis de Montfort relates that this is why the devils confessed that “One single sigh, that Our Lady offers to the Blessed Trinity, is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints!” (St. Louis de Montfort, Secret of the Rosary). Why? Because of her elevated degree of charity.
Article 15
Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday after the Third Sunday of Lent, March 13th to 15th, 2023
Can You Do Lent in One Day?
Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday after the Third Sunday of Lent, March 13th to 15th, 2023
Can You Do Lent in One Day?
Microwaving Lent?
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could “microwave” Lent ― in other words, get it all done in a fraction of the time that it should normally take? Of course it would! What you say if you were told that it CAN be done? “No way!” you’d say, “That is impossible!” Well, as Our Lord said: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible! … The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Matthew 19:26; Luke 18:27).
Before going into depth into the microwaved “Lent in a Day” concept, let us first of consider two different situations that we will use as analogies for what we will be later saying about Lent. Those two situations are (1) BIBLES and (2) WARFARE.
How Do You Get a Bible?
These days, obtaining a Bible is “a piece-of-cake” compared to ancient times. We can either go to the store and purchase a Bible; or order a copy of the Bible online and have it delivered to our doorstep; or we can even download a copy of the Bible in just a few seconds or in a just a few short minutes.
Bibles in the Early Days of the Church
If you wanted a copy of the Bible in the early days of the Church, the only way you could obtain one was by writing and copying the text from an already existing version. Although it varies by translation, most Bibles have about 800,000 words. Most books are only about 50,000 to 100,000 words. So to copy the Bible by hand, you would have to write for an awful long time! It typically took a scribe fifteen months to copy a Bible by hand. Most scribes made the own paper and ink, which probably took as much time as actually writing and copying―and there is more to that than you might first think!
► VELLUM PARCHMENT: To make one sheet of vellum, a parchmenter would start with the skin of a calf and soak it in running water overnight. It would then be put in lime water for about a week, then brought out and scraped for a day or two. Soaked in lime water a second time and scraped again. Finally, it would be put back in the clean running water for 2 days and then mounted on a frame a scraped again for days. As it dried while being scraped clean, the parchmenter would sand it and pumice it. This whole effort might take two to three weeks. For one single sheet of vellum.
► WRITING UTENSIL: Quills were usually made from the outer feathers of a large bird, a goose or swan. The chosen feathers (only a few, 5 to 10, per bird, were usable) would be plucked. The barbs then scraped clean. The remaining shaft would be hardened by heating and cooling in a sand pit. The remaining hide would be scraped off, the tip would be cut at an angle and then carefully split. This whole process would take maybe a day for 10 or 20 quills. A scribe would continuously sharpen the quills end throughout the days writing and one might last a single day.
► INK: Ink, by itself, on a sheet of vellum simply would not work. It would not adhere to the material. So a medium would be needed. Two commonly used mediums were Gum Arabic, which you may have heard of, and something called Egg Glair. Gums were made from the gum, or sap, of several kinds of trees. Egg Glair from egg whites. These were used to help fix the inks and pigments to the parchment.
► PIGMENTED INKS: For illuminated texts, gold leaf and pigments were needed. The colored pigments were made from things like shellfish and precious stones ground into powder. There were also (poisonous) chemicals used in the creation of other colors, such as mercury and sulfur.
Taking all this into account, copying the Bible by hand would take a very long time―at least 18 months to as much as 3 or 4 years―depending upon whether it was only text that was copied or whether the text was embellished by especially ornate lettering and painted pictures (all of which comes under the title of “illumination”). The Gospel books and large parts of the Old Testament and psalms were almost always illuminated. Usually scribes were monks―the the monastery was normally the only literate establishment in those days. Even most of the kings and wealthy persons could not read or write. Scribing was not all a monk had to do all day. There were several prayer sessions, gardens had to be tended, food prepared, and the vellum and quills made. A single scribe, it is estimated, could write as two or three books a year. Speed was not encouraged―because mistakes would ruin the work. As time went on, the scribes improved their processes, until by the end of the manuscript era in the 15th century (when the printing press began to take over), a book could be written and illuminated in as little as a few days ― however, the Douay Rheims version of the Bible has no less than 73 books in it! Back in 2013, a man in New York wrote out the King James Bible translation by hand. It took him more than four years of 14-hour-per-day work to complete this endeavor. Another man writes: “It took me about two years to read the entire Bible. But writing it out by hand is even slower. While reading, I could get through about three or four chapters per day. But it takes me an average of about three or four days to finish writing out one chapter by hand.”
Printing the Bible
How many copies were in the original print run of the Bible? Three! The original print run was surprisingly small. By studying the size of Gutenberg's paper supply, historians have estimated that he only produced around 180 copies of his Bible during the early 1450s. Of these, 145 were done on paper. The remaining thirty-five were printed on vellum (treated calfskin). That may seem a tiny amount, but at the time there were probably only around 30,000 books in all of Europe. The average price for one Bible is believed to have been 30 guilder, equaling three year’s wages for a clerk. While the printing press did make book production faster, it would still take three years to complete one copy of a Bible. Many of these Bibles were printed on high quality paper with some even being printed on a higher quality vellum.
The Digital Online Bible
With the advent of modern technology, today you can download a digital copy of your favorite version of the Bible in just a few minutes with just a few clicks―and some places offer it to you at NO COST, for FREE. The entire Bible (Old and New Testaments) with no commentary or cross-references is only around 4 to 6 megabytes―which will download in
Nuclear Weapons and Warfare
Let us now look at our second analogy by examining Nuclear Weapons and Warfare. Although major nuclear weapons have only been used twice in warfare—in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945—about 13,400 weapons reportedly remain in our world today and there have been over 2,000 nuclear tests conducted to date. Modern weapons are 20 to 30 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A single nuclear weapon can easily wipe out an entire city. The USA, for instance, has about 5,500 nuclear weapons, while Russia has about 6,000, according to the Federation of American Scientists. USA nuclear weapons generally have explosive yields equivalent to about 300 kilotons of TNT (0.3 megatons), while Russian nukes tended to range from 50 to 100 kilotons to 500 to 800 kilotons (0.5 to 0.8 megatons), though each country has more powerful nuclear weapons. People at the center of the explosion (within half a mile for a 300-kiloton bomb) would be killed right away, while others in the further outlying vicinity could suffer third-degree burns. A 1,000-kiloton (1 megaton) nuclear blast might produce third-degree burns up to 5 miles away, second-degree burns up to 6 miles away, and first-degree burns up to 7 miles away. If a 300-kiloton nuclear weapon were to strike a city the size of Washington, DC, most residents would be killed. A single nuclear weapon could kill about 300,000 people in the Washington area and injure another 300,000.
Nuclear weapons can deliver in just a few seconds what conventional weapons would take a much longer time to achieve―perhaps taking weeks and months. One of the fundamental differences between a nuclear and a conventional explosion is that nuclear explosions can be many thousands (or millions) of times more powerful than the largest conventional detonations. Both types of weapons rely on the destructive force of the blast or shock wave. However, the temperatures reached in a nuclear explosion are very much higher than in a conventional explosion. 1 nuclear bomb with a yield of 1 megaton would destroy 80 square miles in just a few seconds. A nuclear detonation basically brings a star―for a fraction of a second―onto the surface of the Earth. The heat and pressure generated by this event would be monumental. Roughly 120,000 people in this scenario — 98% of those in a 1.2 mile (2 kilometer) radius around the blast would instantly perish. All buildings inside this area would be wiped clean off the face of the Earth, or crumble and be hurled outwards at great speeds.
Spiritual Nuclear Weapons
Talk of nuclear weapons often leads to questions like: “How many nuclear weapons would it take to destroy the world?” The answer is: “As of 2019, there are over 15,000 nuclear weapons on planet Earth. It would take just three nuclear warheads to destroy one of the 4,500 cities on Earth, meaning 13,500 bombs in total, which would leave at least 1,500 left-over.” Some people then take it a step further and ask: “Is there a nuclear bomb that can destroy a whole world by itself?” The answer is: “Yes―not only can it destroy the world by itself, but also the entire universe―it is called ‘God’!” In fact, even your Guardian Angel, or any single devil, could destroy the entire world if God allowed it to be done! Such is the power and force of the spiritual.
The Nuclear Warfare of Sin
We seldom think of sin in this manner―but one single mortal sin at the end of your life can destroy all the good that you have done throughout your whole life, and also destroy any and all merits that you may have earned by doing all that good! Mortal sin is truly a spiritual nuclear bomb! In fact, it is way more powerful than any existing or potential nuclear weapon! How so? Well―theologians tell us that one single soul in a state of grace of sanctifying grace is worth more than all the material and physical treasures of the entire universe. Destroying sanctifying grace is worse than destroying anything or everything in the world! Sin―whether mortal or venial―is the greatest evil in the world. “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
All sin is serious, because sin either gives God the “cold-shoulder” (venial sin), or drives God and His sanctifying grace out of our soul (mortal sin). God is not the one to push us away, but he gives us the freedom to push him away―and everyone on Earth uses this freedom in a less-than-ideal way. The Scriptures make the matter clear: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Sin may be a universal condition, but it is not inevitable. Sin can also be deadly―eternally deadly―but God, in His mercy and compassion, has given us medicines that can resurrect us from the “death of sin”. “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “Sin has reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15).
Holy Scripture tells us that “All iniquity is sin. And there is a sin unto death [and] a sin which is not unto death” (1 John 5:16-17). This obviously refers to mortal sin (a sin unto death) and venial sin (a sin not unto death). Mortal sin―like a nuclear bomb―kills the life of sanctifying grace within us instantly at the very moment that we commit mortal sin, or drop the bomb of mortal sin. Venial sin could be compared to conventional weapons of warfare―they are not as powerful as the nuclear bomb (mortal sin), but they nevertheless cause a lot of damage and can inflict many wounds.
Now, since God is greater than evil, then there must a weapon of God’s that is greater than the greatest weapon of evil (mortal sin)―otherwise God is a loser! If Satan and evil have a weapon (mortal sin) that can instantly destroy sanctifying grace in the soul―then God must have a weapon that can instantly restore sanctifying grace to the soul. God does have one single “spiritual nuclear bomb” ― which we call a “perfect act of contrition” ― that can instantly destroy the entire world of sin that a person might have built up around themselves ― no matter how many, no matter how grave. Not only can perfect contrition instantly remove the guilt for sin that hangs over our heads, but it can also instantly remove all the temporal punishment that our sins deserve.
We must remember that sin contracts or earns two different things―(1) guilt for sin, and (2) punishment for sin. When we confess our sins in the Sacrament of Penance (Confession), the guilt for sin is totally removed, but the punishment for sin is not always totally removed―actually, it is rarely totally removed. The punishment is removed only in proportion to our sorrow for having committed those sins. Perfect Sorrow (perfect contrition) perfectly or totally removes the punishment that is due to out sins―whereas Imperfect Sorrow (attrition) imperfectly or partially removes the punishment that is due to our sins. Perfect Sorrow (perfect contrition) is based upon a LOVE OF GOD, while Imperfect Sorrow (attrition) is based upon a FEAR OF GOD AND HIS JUST PUNISHMENTS. Since God is love itself, “God is charity” (1 John 4:8), sorrow out of love for God is the most perfect. Fear of God’s punishments contains some degree of selfishness―because you are thinking more of yourself than you are of God, which betrays an imperfect love. That is why Our Lord said of Mary Magdalen that much has been forgiven her because she has loved much: “Wherefore I say to thee―Many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loves less” (Luke 7:47). You can just as easily interchange the last part and say: “But to him who loves less, less is forgiven!” And as Holy Scripture says: “Charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). “Charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12).
St. Thomas Aquinas on Contrition
St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica (Supplement, q. 1-5), writes: “Contrition can be considered in two ways, either as part of a Sacrament, or as an act of virtue, and in either case it is the cause of the forgiveness of sin, but not in the same way.” He then presents us with three acceptable definitions for contrition, which, when combined together, reads as follows: “Contrition is a humility of the soul and a voluntary sorrow for sin, which takes away sin, crushing sin between hope and fear, arising from remembrance of sin and fear of the Judgment, whereby man punishes in himself that which he grieves to have done.” Let us dissect that a little to better understand it.
► “Contrition” comes from the Latin verb “conterere” and its past-participle “contritus” ― meaning “to grind, crush, pound into pieces, crumble, bruise”, with its secondary meaning of “to thoroughly frighten, to fill with terror, to suppress or intimidate by terrorizing.” St. Thomas says: “Sin is committed through the heart’s inordinate love of something other than God. Therefore sin is destroyed by sorrow caused by the heart’s ordinate love―and consequently contrition blots out sin. Attrition denotes approach to perfect contrition, wherefore as in physical matters, things are said to be ‘attrite’, when they are worn away to a certain extent, but not altogether crushed to pieces; while they are said to be ‘contrite’, when all the parts are crushed minutely … Attrition cannot become contrition until grace be infused” (Supplement, q. 1, art. 2 & 3; q. 5, art. 1). It is God’s grace that is the underlying cause or provocation for contrition, whereby attrition (sorrow out of a fear of God) can rise higher and become contrition (sorrow out of a love of God).
► “Humility of soul” ― “Pride is the beginning of all sin” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15) because by pride man clings to his own judgment, and strays from the Divine commandments. Therefore, to destroy sin, man needs to give up his own judgment. Someone who persists in his own judgment is metaphorically called “rigid” and “hard” and so that rigidity and hardness needs to be “broken, ground down, pounded into pieces, crumbled and bruised” (which is the meaning of contrition) ― since, for the remission of sin, it is necessary that man should put aside entirely his attachment to sin and the attitude of mind that once thought sin was acceptable and good.
► “Voluntary sorrow for sin” ― Something that is said to be “voluntary” is said to be something of one’s own “volition” or “will” ― that is to say something that YOU want and desire and choose of your own free will, rather than being forced against your will. Sorrow for sin must freely come from our own heart, our own will. Sorrow is often seen as a pre-requisite for forgiveness―we have to say we are sorry, we have to admit our guilt, before we are forgiven. Nobody else can supply that sorrow―it must come from you. St. Thomas says: “Contrition includes a twofold sorrow for sin. One is in the sensitive part, and is a passion (hence we weep and are emotional); the other sorrow is in the will, and is nothing other than displeasure for some evil. To detest and destroy past sins shows that we have a rectitude of will.”
► “Which takes away sin” ― In each and every sin there are two chief elements that need to be considered―the guilt incurred by the sin, and the punishment incurred by the sin. When we confess our sins in the Sacrament of Confession (Sacrament of Penance), there are certain conditions that we have to fulfill in order to have our mortal sins taken away. One of those is that we have to be “sorry” for our sins―and that sorrow can be either “Contrition” (which is based on sorrow for sin out of a love of God), or it can be “Attrition” (which is based, not on a love of God, but on a fear of God). In the Sacrament of Confession, the sorrow of attrition suffices for the forgiveness of our mortal sins, but―since attrition is imperfect contrition―it will not take away all the punishment due to our mortal sins. Since both “Contrition” and “Attrition” can vary in degree and intensity―the amount of punishment that is taken away will also vary from to person, and from confession to confession―since sometimes we are more sorry than at other times.
► “Crushing sin between hope and fear” ― You could compare hope and fear to olive oil and wine vinegar. We make salad dressings with oil and vinegar―and there has to be a proper balance, correct proportions, a right blend between the oil and vinegar. Few food pairs are as timeless and versatile as oil and vinegar. Oil and vinegar have been used as dressings as far back as the Babylonians. Acidic vinegar balances and contrasts with fatty oil in a base for salad dressings, marinades, and more. In tests, taking one to two tablespoons of vinaigrette daily, showed a 50% reduction in heart disease. Vinegar is actually wine. The Church uses both wine and olive oil for her Sacraments. The wine comes from CRUSHED grapes, and the olive oil comes from CRUSHED olives―do you see the link to the above paragraph on “Contrition”, which literally means meaning “to grind, crush, pound into pieces, crumble, bruise”? Vinegar literally means “spoiled wine.” It is wine that has turned and become very acidic; it can no longer be drunk directly, but makes a wonderful dressing when mixed with oil.
We were made by God to be wine―for “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and wine is a symbol of love. However, by our sins, we have become spoiled wine, we have turned from sweet to acidic! By sin, our oil has become rancid―which can be a symbol of hope turning into despair. Similarly, our fear of God (which should be a filial fear, as in a love of child for its parent), has turned sour and acidic and becomes a servile fear (the fear of servant for its master) which is no longer the sweet loving fear of a child. Hope is like olive oil―it softens or reduces the acidity of vinegar or fear and creates a correct balance. Fear is necessary, but it must not be excessive or too “acidic” or it will eat away our hope and make us despair! Hope is also necessary―but it must not be excessive, complacent, presumptuous. Sin is best crushed by a healthy balance of hope and fear―oil and vinegar. Olive oil is used as a traditional treatment for wounds, sores, infections and scars―which relates to the wounds, sores, infections and scars of sin. Vinegar is corrosive but it is often used as a cleaning agent for sinks, toilets, bathtubs, stainless steel, and even concrete―can you not see how those things can relate to and be symbolic of sin? Fear can be corrosive, but it can be used in measured amounts wash away the stains of our sins down the sink or toilet, and make our ‘stainless steel’ souls stainless once again.
► “Remembrance of sin” ― There is a healthy remembrance of sin as well an unhealthy remembrance of sin. Remembrance of sin can be like seeing the glass of water as being half-full (healthy), or it can see the glass as being half-empty (unhealthy). Remembrance of sin can either make us more humble (healthy), or it can make us despair (unhealthy). There is a virtue―rarely mentioned, little known and little practiced―that pertains to the remembrance of sin. What is it? It is the virtue of compunction―which is defined as “an abiding (always present) sorrow for sin” or “a deep and lasting sorrow for your sins.” While we believe in a God whose acts of mercy are not exhausted, we must also believe in human nature whose acts of sin are not exhausted. When we think of sin, or see someone commit sin, we should say to ourselves: “There go I, but for the grace of God!” Compunction is a grace of God’s that helps us to remember our sins and weaknesses, while at the same time moving us to beg God for the grace to avoid a relapse―for then, as Our Lord says of the devil who has been expelled by contrition and confession: “The devil saith: ‘I will return into my house from whence I came out!’ And coming he finds it empty, swept, and garnished. Then he goes, and takes with him seven other spirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there―and the last state of that man is made worse than the first!” (Matthew 12:44-45).
Compunction is not a case of continuing to chastise ourselves for past sins. It is not a case of falling into scrupulosity for our future sins―this would be an overcorrection. It is not an emotion making us perpetually downtrodden. On the contrary, compunction is an intellectual recognition of reality. We realize how good God is and how bad we are! True compunction originates from love of God―not from a fear of punishment―bringing us closer to perfect contrition for our sins. It is the persistent awareness that our sins keep us from fully returning this love of God. This in turn reminds us of the gulf between our sinful selves and the immeasurable greatness of God―which then evokes a still deeper love for the God Who forgives and desired to dwell within our souls. This persistent awareness of our past sins is a grace which can lessen our over-attachments to earthly goods, which is the root of sin, and reinvigorate our resolve “to sin no more,” as we pray in the Act of Contrition. Compunction calls to mind our own shortcomings, which then can also deter us from passing judgment on others for their sins. The saints even speak of compunction manifesting itself as weeping—weeping in grief for the distance our sins create between ourselves and God; and weeping in thanksgiving for His patient and generous forgiveness, and in anticipation of our heavenly home. These tears of compunction are a gift for both the weeping soul they soothe and for anyone else who may see them and be inspired to remember God and their own sinfulness.
► “Fear of the Judgment” ― Shamefully, it has to be admitted that today we fear more the judgment of those who surround us, rather than fearing the Judgment of God! “We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ!” (Romans 14:10). As Our Lady of Good Success said: “Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’” Our Lord warned: “For judgment I am come into this world!” (John 9:39). “If I do judge, My judgment is true!” (John 8:16). “I judge and My judgment is just!” (John 5:30). “And I say to you, My friends: Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you Whom you shall fear! Fear ye Him, Who, after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell. Yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5). “I say unto you, that for every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the Day of Judgment!” (Matthew 12:36). “With what judgment you judge, you shall be judged―and with what measure you measure out to others, it shall be measured to you also!” (Matthew 7:2). “Wherefore you are inexcusable, O man, whosoever you are that judges! For wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself! For you do the same things which you do judge! For we know that the judgment of God is, according to truth, against them that do such things! And do you, O man―that judges them who do such things, but do the same things yourself―do you think that you shalt escape the judgment of God? You―a according to your hardness and impenitent heart―treasure up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and just judgment of God, Who will render to every man according to his works!” (Romans 2:1-5). Yes ― “We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ!” (Romans 14:10).
► “Man punishes in himself that which he grieves to have done” ― Protestants have one-sided, faulty, erroneous idea on this point. Their basic argument is that Christ died for our sins and took the punishment due to our sin upon Himself―therefore we have nothing else to do but to believe this and be thankful! Here is a short sampling of quotes that show this erroneous viewpoint: “Let’s start off by saying that punishing yourself can be a form of self-harm, or it may be a way of inflicting some physical or non physical pain on yourself as a punishment for some wrong-doing. Some world philosophies teach self-inflicted harm as a way of punishing yourself for some wrongdoing or to redeem yourself. It is not hard to see why this teaching is so wildly popular. Every time we do something wrong, we feel guilty about it. Punishing ourselves for it or amending the wrongdoing or doing some good to cover up this sin makes us feel better and seemingly redeems us from the sin. But that is a false assumption and by doing so people just deceive themselves. Jesus paid it all! On the cross, Jesus was enduring the wrath of God that you and I deserved. Jesus did this in our place! He was flogged instead of you! He was nailed instead of you! He was suffocating instead of you! We do not have to make penance for our sins―Jesus already has! We don't have to suffer for our sins, Jesus has done it for us! For those who have Faith in Christ, your sin has been paid for! Jesus has paid it all! There is no punishment for your sins, because Jesus was punished instead of you!”
St. Thomas had already foreseen the above Protestant view, as can be read in his Summa Theologica. He puts forward an erroneous objection―which he will afterwards answer: “It is objected that Christ’s Passion made satisfaction sufficient for all sins. Therefore after the guilt has been pardoned, no debt of punishment remains!” He then answers that objection: “Christ’s Passion is of itself sufficient to remove all debt of punishment―not only eternal, but also temporal. A man is released from the debt of punishment according to the measure of his share in the power of Christ’s Passion. The entire debt of punishment is not remitted at once after the first act of Penance―by which act only the guilt is remitted―but only when all the acts of Penance have been completed. Consequently when guilt is pardoned through grace, the soul ceases to be turned away from God, through being united to God by grace―so that, at the same time, the debt of punishment is taken away, although a debt of some temporal punishment may yet remain” (depending upon the degree and intensity of the sinner’s contrition, or lack thereof. (Summa Theologica, IIIa, q. 86, art. 4).
St. Thomas Aquinas adds: “Punishment follows sin … Sin makes man deserving of punishment … The debt of punishment is considered to be directly the effect of sin … Punishment is proportionate to sin in point of severity … God does not delight in punishments for their own sake; but He does delight in the order of His justice, which requires them … A man is punished by God or man for a sin committed by him … It is written (2 Kings 12:13-14): ‘David said to Nathan: “I have sinned against the Lord!” And Nathan said to David: “The Lord has taken away your sin―you shalt not die! Nevertheless, because you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme ... the child that is born to thee shall die!”’ Therefore a man is punished by God even after his sin is forgiven―and so the debt of punishment remains, when the sin has been removed … Satisfaction belongs to penance … Satisfaction is an act of justice … Justice aims not only at punishing the past fault, but also at safeguarding for the future, because punishments are medicinal. Wherefore satisfaction―which is the act of justice inflicting punishment―is a medicine healing past sins and preserving from future sins … Amendment for future times is of greater weight than compensation for the past.” (Summa Theologica, Ia-IIae, q. 87, art. 6 & 7; Supplement, q. 12, art. 1 to 3).
Phew! That was tough, huh? Well it’s done! Take it as a penance! Now that we have laid the foundation, let us proceed to the really interesting part of this article― “Can you do your Lent in one day?”
What is the Purpose of Lent?
The modern-day Church fudges and shifts the focal point of Lent into being a mere “preparation for Easter and the Lord’s resurrection”―whereas in reality it more than just that, it is also a time of penance and payment for sin―making satisfaction to God for the sins we have committed. The “preparation for Easter and the Lord’s resurrection” is merely symbolic of our death, our resurrection, our judgment and hopefully our being allowed into Heaven. Yet there can be no salvation, no Heaven, without having duly paid for our sins by penance―which is why Our Lord said: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 5:3; 13:3-5).
Dom Guéranger (1805-1875), the renowned liturgist of the Church, writes: “The Feast of Easter must be prepared for by a forty-days of recollectedness and penance … the most powerful means employed by the Church for exciting in the hearts of her children the spirit of their Christian vocation and the renovation of the whole spiritual life … We are still sinners―and where there is sin, there must be expiation … The Forty Days’ Fast was instituted at the very commencement of Christianity. Our Blessed Lord Himself sanctioned it by His fasting forty days and forty nights in the desert. The Apostles ruled that Easter should be preceded by a universal Fast; and they made this period of penance to consist of Forty Days―seeing that our Divine Master had consecrated the number 40 by his own Fast. Lent, then, is a time especially consecrated to penance; and this penance is mainly practiced by fasting as an expiation for sin.”
What is this expiation to which Dom Guéranger refers? Expiation is defined as: “the act of making amends, to make satisfaction for, or make reparation for guilt or wrongdoing; an atonement.” In biblical terms, it has to do with taking away guilt through the payment of a penalty or the offering of an atonement. Satisfaction means, in short, to please God. It means to give God something that has enough value or worth, in order for Him to consider a debt for sin to be paid. Man is not able, by his own power, to pay God back for the offense that his sin causes God―but when man joins himself to Christ, then it by the power and merits of Christ, in which man shares by being baptized into the Catholic Church, man is able to “co-pay” with Christ for the sins committed.
The Church teaches that Christ’s sacrifice was so beautiful to the Father that the eternal debt that was due to the Father by every human sinner was more than paid for by the perfect and spotless sacrificial offering of Christ on the cross. Those who are baptized into Christ, and united with Him, have, at that time, all the temporal and eternal consequences of sin eradicated. Each subsequent sin―committed and forgiven through the Sacrament of Confession―still has temporal consequences that need to be paid, either in this life or the next. If the debt of sin is not paid in this life, then it is paid in the next. This temporal punishment is known as Purgatory. A Christian can in this life, through acts of penance, make satisfaction to God for the sins that he has committed and thus purify his soul and release himself from the punishment that would come after death.
St. Thomas Aquinas taught that we are both commanded and able to make satisfaction for our sins to God: “Satisfaction is commanded (Luke 3:8): ‘Bring forth fruits worthy of penance!’ Therefore it is possible to make satisfaction to God. Further, God is more merciful than any man. But it is possible to make satisfaction to a man. Therefore it is possible to make satisfaction to God.”
When a Lot is a Little and a Little is a Lot
Just as Jesus said: “The first shall be last and the last shall be first!” (Matthew 19:30; 20:16; Mark 10:31; Luke 13:30) ― with regard to satisfaction, reparation and penance, you could say: “A lot can be a little, and a little can be a lot!” So for the Catholic, not only is it possible for the Christian to satisfy God through penance, but it is commanded. How can this be possible? How can a finite human satisfy a perfect God’s justice? We can understand its possibility through analogy. If it is possible for one human to make satisfaction for a transgression against a fellow human in a congruent or a proportional way, then God, who is more merciful than any man, can accept finite man’s penance, based upon His infinite mercy, in a proportional way. Concerning proportional satisfaction, St. Thomas Aquinas said the following:
“Man becomes God’s debtor in two ways; first, by reason of favors received, secondly, by reason of sin committed: and just as thanksgiving, or worship, or the like, deal with the debt for favors received; so satisfaction deals with the debt for sin committed. In giving honor to one’s parents, it is impossible to repay them measure for measure, but it suffices that man repay as much as he can―for friendship does not demand measure for measure, but what is possible … according to proportion … It is the same as regards satisfaction. Consequently, man cannot make satisfaction to God in quantitative equality; but he can, if it in proportionate equality, and this suffices for justice, and it suffices for satisfaction.”
The Church teaches, as was clarified by Aquinas, that while God’s Justice is in itself perfect, and a finite man cannot ever give an infinite God satisfaction in a way that is quantitatively equal to what is demanded by the strict Justice of God. Nevertheless, man can give God what he is able to give and therefore satisfy God’s justice, not in the strict sense, but in a proportional way. In fact, God explicitly teaches us in Holy Scripture that he views gifts given to Him―not in a quantitative way, but in a proportional way. We read in the Gospels (see paragraph below) that while Christ was teaching in the Temple, He pointed out the pious actions of a poor widow in order to show that God does not desire quantitative offerings, but rather, qualitatively proportional.
“And Jesus sitting over against the treasury, saw how the people cast money into the treasury, and many that were rich cast in much money. And there came a certain poor widow, and she cast in two brass mites, which make a farthing (today that would be a few cents). And calling His disciples together, He said to them: ‘Amen I say to you! This poor widow has cast in more than all the rich who have cast into the treasury. For all they did cast in from their abundance into the offerings for God ―but she of her want cast in all she had, even her whole living!’” (Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4).
Christ did not say that her gift was worthless to the Father, Who, like some heavenly miser, accepts only large or infinite offerings, but rather, that her little offering had great value because it was given in Faith and from what the widow could give. In other words, what Jesus was saying was that the two mites (few cents) was a larger percentage of her net worth, than the larger amounts of the rich men which was actually a far lower percentage of their net worth. The Catholics can please God and satisfy Him in a proportional way, by giving of what he has, with great Faith and great Love.
St. John Chrysostom, Father and Doctor of the Church (347-407) wrote: “As a fire which has taken possession of a forest, cleans it out thoroughly, so the fire of love, wheresoever it falls, takes away and blots out everything that could injure the divine seed, and purges the earth for the reception of that seed. Where love is, there all evils are taken away.”
The Venerable St. Bede, Doctor of the Church (672-735 AD) writes (P.L., XCII, 425): “What is love but fire; what is sin but rust? Hence it is said, ‘Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much!’ ― as though to say, ‘She has burned away entirely the rust of sin, because she is inflamed with the fire of love!’”
If detestation of sin arises from the love of God, who has been grievously offended, then contrition is termed “perfect”; if it arise from any other motive, such as loss of Heaven, fear of Hell, or the heinousness of guilt, then it is termed “Imperfect Contrition”, or attrition. It is possible for Perfect and Imperfect Contrition to be experienced at one and the same time ― whereby you are greatly afraid of God’s punishments, but you also sincerely and deeply love Him and are full of sorrow for having offended the One you love.
Perfect Contrition ― What the Church Teaches
This doctrine is derived from Holy Scripture. Scripture certainly ascribes to charity and the love of God the power to take away sin: “Before all things, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves―for charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). “Charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12). “Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much” (Luke 7:36-50).
► COUNCIL OF TRENT (1545-1563) declares: “The Council further teaches that, though contrition may sometimes be made perfect by charity and may reconcile men to God before the actual reception of this Sacrament, still the reconciliation is not to be ascribed to the contrition apart from the desire for the Sacrament―which it includes.” In other words, you cannot have Perfect Contrition if you do not intend to confess your mortal sins as soon as possible. Perfect Contrition is not an alternative, nor a replacement for the Sacrament of Confession, it is only an emergency measure that is taken to “keep you spiritually alive”, so to speak, by restoring sanctifying grace to your soul until you can get to the “Emergency Room” of the Confessional in the “Hospital” of a church in order to confess your mortal sins.
► THE BALTIMORE CATECHISM #3 (1891 version) states: “Perfect contrition is that which fills us with sorrow and hatred for sin, because it offends God, who is infinitely good in Himself and worthy of all love. Perfect contrition will obtain pardon for mortal sin without the Sacrament of Penance when we cannot go to confession, but with the perfect contrition we must have the intention of going to confession as soon as possible, if we again have the opportunity” (Baltimore Catechism #3, Questions 765 & 766).
► THE CATECHISM “MY CATHOLIC FAITH” (1963 version) states: “If anyone has the misfortune to fall into mortal sin, he should go to Confession without any delay. Should this not be possible, he must make an act of perfect contrition, and have the desire to receive the Sacrament … When is our contrition perfect? Our contrition is perfect when we are sorry for our sins because sin offends God, Whom we love above all things for His own sake. This contrition arises from a pure and perfect love of God. If we have a perfect love of God, our contrition for sins will be perfect. It ought not be difficult for us to have a perfect love of God. We generally love our parents, not for the food and clothes they give us, but for themselves―because we see their self-sacrifice, their unselfishness, and other good qualities. Thus we shall be sorry, not only because we fear punishment or dread the loss of His gifts, but because we offend the good God, to Whom nothing is more evil than sin. If we can love our parents spontaneously, not for any reward we expect or punishment we wish to avoid, why can we not love God, Who is infinitely more lovable than our parents? If we love God spontaneously, because He is lovable in Himself, our love is perfect. It is easy to make an act of perfect contrition if we sincerely love God. We can excite ourselves to it by thinking of the Passion and Death of Our Lord; or of how good God is, how many favors He has granted us, and how ungrateful we have been to Him in return for His goodness. If we happen to be assisting at a death-bed, and no priest is available, we should help the dying person make an act of perfect contrition. We should form the habit of making an act of perfect contrition as often as possible. It is only necessary to raise our hearts to God in pure love, and say some such words as: ‘O my God, I am sorry I ever offended You, because You are so good, and I love You!’” (My Catholic Faith Catechism, Chapters 124 & 150).
► THE CATECHISM OF THE MODERN CHURCH (1993 version) even states: “When it arises from a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is called “perfect” (contrition of charity). Such contrition remits venial sins; it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to Sacramental confession as soon as possible.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1993 version, §1452).
An example of this theological precept is demonstrated in both the 1913 Code of Canon Law in canon 808, and also in the 1984 Code of Canon Law in canon 916, which states:
► 1913 CODE OF CANON LAW: “Priests conscious of grave sin, no matter how contrite they believe themselves to be, shall not dare to celebrate Mass without prior Sacramental Confession; but if―because there is lacking a sufficient supply of confessors and there is urgent necessity―then he shall make an act of Perfect Contrition, celebrate, and as soon as possible confess.” (1913 Code of Canon Law, canon 808).
► 1984 CODE OF CANON LAW: “A person who is conscious of grave sin is not to celebrate Mass, or receive the Body of the Lord, without previous Sacramental Confession, unless there is a grave reason and there is no opportunity to confess; in this case the person is to remember the obligation to make an act of Perfect Contrition, which includes the resolution of confessing as soon as possible.” (1984 Code of Canon Law, canon 916).
► ST. MAXIMILIAN KOLBE wrote a letter to his followers, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War (which took place from 1939 to 1945). The purpose of this letter was to exhort his disciples to prepare themselves for the approaching feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th. But it also showed them how to receive forgiveness for sin in the coming war, where priests were scarce and it was hard to receive Sacramental Confession. He wrote: “Whoever can, should receive the Sacrament of Penance. Whoever cannot, because of prohibiting circumstances, should cleanse his soul by acts of Perfect Contrition: i.e., the sorrow of a loving child, who does not consider so much the pain or reward, as he does the pardon from his father and mother to whom he has brought displeasure.”
► ST. THOMAS AQUINAS adds: “Contrition can be considered in two ways, either as part of a Sacrament, or as an act of virtue, and in either case it is the cause of the forgiveness of sin, but not in the same way ... The affections of the heart are more acceptable to God than external acts. Now if man can be absolved from both punishment and guilt by means of external actions; then he can also be freed from both punishment and built by means of the heart’s affections, such as contrition is ... In this way it may happen that the act of charity is so intense that the contrition resulting therefrom merits not only the removal of guilt, but also the remission of all punishment. Secondly, on the part of the sensible sorrow―which the will excites in contrition and since this sorrow is also a kind of punishment―it may be so intense as to suffice for the remission of both guilt and punishment ... Although the sorrow of contrition is finite in its intensity, even as the punishment due for mortal sin is finite; yet it derives infinite power from charity, whereby it is quickened, and so it avails for the remission of both guilt and punishment … Sanctifying grace blots out every mortal sin, because it is incompatible with mortal sin. Now, every contrition is quickened by sanctifying grace. Therefore, however slight it be, it blots out all sins … However, a man cannot be sure that his contrition suffices for the remission of both punishment and guilt―wherefore he is bound to confess and to make satisfaction, especially since his contrition would not be true contrition, unless he had the purpose of confessing.”
So Christ gives a very special grace to us if we have has the misfortune of falling into sin, to try before confession to escape, but making an act of Perfect Contrition, but this act must also include the intention of confessing these sins as soon as reasonably possible.
Just as much as it would be an error to think that God would forgive our sins without our desire to confess them as soon as possible, so too, it would be an error to think that Perfect Contrition is something that we can work ourselves up to, or that Perfect Contrition is a matter of emotions. Perfect Contrition is not a feeling, but an intellectual knowledge of our sins and their offence to God, along with a firm will to hate these sins because of this offence. Emotion and feelings are a great help towards this, but they are only helps―they are not essential, for you can have Perfect Contrition without the presence of heartbreaking emotions and tearful eyes.
Because it flows from Charity, which is God’s own Love, infused by God into our souls, only God can give us the grace of making an act of Perfect Contrition. Therefore it is important that we pray often for this grace, and frequently, even before we may fall, to beg God to make us perfectly contrite for our sins. Were we so contrite all the time, we would never fall.
Making a Perfect Act of Contrition
While only God can infuse Charity into us, we can dispose ourselves on some level to prepare for this grace, and if we hope to have it, we must so dispose ourselves. Aside from praying often to have Perfect Contrition, it is important to bring to mind the seriousness of sin, and to meditate on the suffering sin has caused Jesus Christ.
Kneeling or prostrating oneself before a crucifix and questioning oneself about Who is on this Cross and why and what He has suffered can help dispose the soul to receive this grace, even if only God can give this.
Beyond disposing our emotions, and soul as we can, and praying for God to infuse this Charity and Contrition, it is critical that one recall the actual sins for which he is sorry. If sorrow is not grounded in reality—objective actions which have offended God— and rater is just an emotional grief, it is not real sorrow. It may even be worthwhile to “confess” our sins to God—though this is not necessary—and humble ourselves—which is necessary.
Then slowly, perhaps several times pray a suitable act. This might be in your own words, or using one of many standard formulæ such as: “O my God, because you are so good, I am very sorry that I have sinned against you and by the help of your grace I will confess my sins and will not sin again. Amen.”
Or that of St Alphonsus: “I love you, Jesus, my love above all things, and I repent with my whole heart of having offended you. Never permit me to separate myself from you again, grant that I may love you always, and then do with me what you will. Amen.”
Or another, common in America : “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen.”
Also used in America: “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my life. Amen.”
The key elements here are to both mean and express our hatred of sin for having offended God who is all good, professing our perfect love of God, and promising, with God’s grace, to confess these sins, avoid the occasions of sin, and sin no more.
Finally, one must resolve to confess, and seek out confession as soon as possible, because without this resolution, there is no real contrition. This does not mean we need to rush off and wake the priest in the middle of the night, nor that we should wait for the next scheduled time for confession. We must confess reasonably soon, and really at the first opportunity. That might be at the next confession time, or perhaps we ought to call for an appointment with the priest. Since we can never be sure of our Perfect Contrition, since it is due only to the grace of God, we should be anxious to confess reasonably soon, lest we presume on God’s Mercy, which itself can be a serious sin. Perfect Contrition may save us from Hell, should we die without being able to confess our sins to a priest, but it does not remove the need to confess our sins if we end up not dying.
Practice Makes Perfect (Contrition)
Making an act of Perfect Contrition is both easy and hard! Huh? Well―it is easy to say the words that are required for an act of Perfect Contrition―even a parrot could be taught to say them―but do they really come from the heart? With what degree or ‘temperature’ are they being said? With what intensity? Measuring our love of God is hard―for we are more likely to fool ourselves by exaggerating what little love we have―and end up making a mountain of love out of a molehill of love! Our Lord said: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8) ― could He say that of our love?
The greater our love for God, the more perfect will our act of Perfect Contrition be! We desperately need to grow in our love for God! All depends upon that. You can use all the nicest and sweetest words you want―but if there is no real sincere and deep love for God in your heart, then all is worthless―as Holy Scripture clearly states: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Perhaps this season of Lent is the time to start building up the “fires of love” that we often ask the Holy Ghost to enkindle: “Come O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love!” Perhaps make that your own personal prayer and say: “Come O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in ME the fire of Thy love!”
Or again, “O my Jesus, ‘God is charity’ (1 John 4:8) and Thou art Love itself! Enkindle in my lukewarm and sinful heart that Divine Fire which consumed Our Lady and the Saints and transformed them into Thee! Jesus I love Thee―but nowhere near enough! Inflame my cold heart more and more, so that I can love thee above all else!”
REMEMBER AND REMEMBER WELL! One single act of Perfect Contrition―just one single act―even a short one of just a few words―if said with a sincere love of God, and with loving sorrow for having offended such a good God, such a kind God, such a patient God, such a merciful God―that one short act of Perfect Contrition, depending on its intensity, wipe away, remove, destroy―not only your guilt for the many grevious mortal sins you may have committed―but also wipe away, remove, destroy all the punishment that is justly due to you by means of many punishments in this world, or the terrible fires of Hell or Purgatory―perhaps lasting centuries or eternally in the next world! One act of Perfect Contrition send can you straight to Heaven! Compare that one short intense moment of love and sorrow that an act of Perfect Contrition costs―compare it to the long intense painful years or centuries or eternity that might have to be endured after you die―and die you will! Make all the efforts you possibly can to grow in that love of God which is necessary for an act of Perfect Contrition―you will eternally be glad that you did!
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could “microwave” Lent ― in other words, get it all done in a fraction of the time that it should normally take? Of course it would! What you say if you were told that it CAN be done? “No way!” you’d say, “That is impossible!” Well, as Our Lord said: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible! … The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Matthew 19:26; Luke 18:27).
Before going into depth into the microwaved “Lent in a Day” concept, let us first of consider two different situations that we will use as analogies for what we will be later saying about Lent. Those two situations are (1) BIBLES and (2) WARFARE.
How Do You Get a Bible?
These days, obtaining a Bible is “a piece-of-cake” compared to ancient times. We can either go to the store and purchase a Bible; or order a copy of the Bible online and have it delivered to our doorstep; or we can even download a copy of the Bible in just a few seconds or in a just a few short minutes.
Bibles in the Early Days of the Church
If you wanted a copy of the Bible in the early days of the Church, the only way you could obtain one was by writing and copying the text from an already existing version. Although it varies by translation, most Bibles have about 800,000 words. Most books are only about 50,000 to 100,000 words. So to copy the Bible by hand, you would have to write for an awful long time! It typically took a scribe fifteen months to copy a Bible by hand. Most scribes made the own paper and ink, which probably took as much time as actually writing and copying―and there is more to that than you might first think!
► VELLUM PARCHMENT: To make one sheet of vellum, a parchmenter would start with the skin of a calf and soak it in running water overnight. It would then be put in lime water for about a week, then brought out and scraped for a day or two. Soaked in lime water a second time and scraped again. Finally, it would be put back in the clean running water for 2 days and then mounted on a frame a scraped again for days. As it dried while being scraped clean, the parchmenter would sand it and pumice it. This whole effort might take two to three weeks. For one single sheet of vellum.
► WRITING UTENSIL: Quills were usually made from the outer feathers of a large bird, a goose or swan. The chosen feathers (only a few, 5 to 10, per bird, were usable) would be plucked. The barbs then scraped clean. The remaining shaft would be hardened by heating and cooling in a sand pit. The remaining hide would be scraped off, the tip would be cut at an angle and then carefully split. This whole process would take maybe a day for 10 or 20 quills. A scribe would continuously sharpen the quills end throughout the days writing and one might last a single day.
► INK: Ink, by itself, on a sheet of vellum simply would not work. It would not adhere to the material. So a medium would be needed. Two commonly used mediums were Gum Arabic, which you may have heard of, and something called Egg Glair. Gums were made from the gum, or sap, of several kinds of trees. Egg Glair from egg whites. These were used to help fix the inks and pigments to the parchment.
► PIGMENTED INKS: For illuminated texts, gold leaf and pigments were needed. The colored pigments were made from things like shellfish and precious stones ground into powder. There were also (poisonous) chemicals used in the creation of other colors, such as mercury and sulfur.
Taking all this into account, copying the Bible by hand would take a very long time―at least 18 months to as much as 3 or 4 years―depending upon whether it was only text that was copied or whether the text was embellished by especially ornate lettering and painted pictures (all of which comes under the title of “illumination”). The Gospel books and large parts of the Old Testament and psalms were almost always illuminated. Usually scribes were monks―the the monastery was normally the only literate establishment in those days. Even most of the kings and wealthy persons could not read or write. Scribing was not all a monk had to do all day. There were several prayer sessions, gardens had to be tended, food prepared, and the vellum and quills made. A single scribe, it is estimated, could write as two or three books a year. Speed was not encouraged―because mistakes would ruin the work. As time went on, the scribes improved their processes, until by the end of the manuscript era in the 15th century (when the printing press began to take over), a book could be written and illuminated in as little as a few days ― however, the Douay Rheims version of the Bible has no less than 73 books in it! Back in 2013, a man in New York wrote out the King James Bible translation by hand. It took him more than four years of 14-hour-per-day work to complete this endeavor. Another man writes: “It took me about two years to read the entire Bible. But writing it out by hand is even slower. While reading, I could get through about three or four chapters per day. But it takes me an average of about three or four days to finish writing out one chapter by hand.”
Printing the Bible
How many copies were in the original print run of the Bible? Three! The original print run was surprisingly small. By studying the size of Gutenberg's paper supply, historians have estimated that he only produced around 180 copies of his Bible during the early 1450s. Of these, 145 were done on paper. The remaining thirty-five were printed on vellum (treated calfskin). That may seem a tiny amount, but at the time there were probably only around 30,000 books in all of Europe. The average price for one Bible is believed to have been 30 guilder, equaling three year’s wages for a clerk. While the printing press did make book production faster, it would still take three years to complete one copy of a Bible. Many of these Bibles were printed on high quality paper with some even being printed on a higher quality vellum.
The Digital Online Bible
With the advent of modern technology, today you can download a digital copy of your favorite version of the Bible in just a few minutes with just a few clicks―and some places offer it to you at NO COST, for FREE. The entire Bible (Old and New Testaments) with no commentary or cross-references is only around 4 to 6 megabytes―which will download in
Nuclear Weapons and Warfare
Let us now look at our second analogy by examining Nuclear Weapons and Warfare. Although major nuclear weapons have only been used twice in warfare—in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945—about 13,400 weapons reportedly remain in our world today and there have been over 2,000 nuclear tests conducted to date. Modern weapons are 20 to 30 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A single nuclear weapon can easily wipe out an entire city. The USA, for instance, has about 5,500 nuclear weapons, while Russia has about 6,000, according to the Federation of American Scientists. USA nuclear weapons generally have explosive yields equivalent to about 300 kilotons of TNT (0.3 megatons), while Russian nukes tended to range from 50 to 100 kilotons to 500 to 800 kilotons (0.5 to 0.8 megatons), though each country has more powerful nuclear weapons. People at the center of the explosion (within half a mile for a 300-kiloton bomb) would be killed right away, while others in the further outlying vicinity could suffer third-degree burns. A 1,000-kiloton (1 megaton) nuclear blast might produce third-degree burns up to 5 miles away, second-degree burns up to 6 miles away, and first-degree burns up to 7 miles away. If a 300-kiloton nuclear weapon were to strike a city the size of Washington, DC, most residents would be killed. A single nuclear weapon could kill about 300,000 people in the Washington area and injure another 300,000.
Nuclear weapons can deliver in just a few seconds what conventional weapons would take a much longer time to achieve―perhaps taking weeks and months. One of the fundamental differences between a nuclear and a conventional explosion is that nuclear explosions can be many thousands (or millions) of times more powerful than the largest conventional detonations. Both types of weapons rely on the destructive force of the blast or shock wave. However, the temperatures reached in a nuclear explosion are very much higher than in a conventional explosion. 1 nuclear bomb with a yield of 1 megaton would destroy 80 square miles in just a few seconds. A nuclear detonation basically brings a star―for a fraction of a second―onto the surface of the Earth. The heat and pressure generated by this event would be monumental. Roughly 120,000 people in this scenario — 98% of those in a 1.2 mile (2 kilometer) radius around the blast would instantly perish. All buildings inside this area would be wiped clean off the face of the Earth, or crumble and be hurled outwards at great speeds.
Spiritual Nuclear Weapons
Talk of nuclear weapons often leads to questions like: “How many nuclear weapons would it take to destroy the world?” The answer is: “As of 2019, there are over 15,000 nuclear weapons on planet Earth. It would take just three nuclear warheads to destroy one of the 4,500 cities on Earth, meaning 13,500 bombs in total, which would leave at least 1,500 left-over.” Some people then take it a step further and ask: “Is there a nuclear bomb that can destroy a whole world by itself?” The answer is: “Yes―not only can it destroy the world by itself, but also the entire universe―it is called ‘God’!” In fact, even your Guardian Angel, or any single devil, could destroy the entire world if God allowed it to be done! Such is the power and force of the spiritual.
The Nuclear Warfare of Sin
We seldom think of sin in this manner―but one single mortal sin at the end of your life can destroy all the good that you have done throughout your whole life, and also destroy any and all merits that you may have earned by doing all that good! Mortal sin is truly a spiritual nuclear bomb! In fact, it is way more powerful than any existing or potential nuclear weapon! How so? Well―theologians tell us that one single soul in a state of grace of sanctifying grace is worth more than all the material and physical treasures of the entire universe. Destroying sanctifying grace is worse than destroying anything or everything in the world! Sin―whether mortal or venial―is the greatest evil in the world. “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
All sin is serious, because sin either gives God the “cold-shoulder” (venial sin), or drives God and His sanctifying grace out of our soul (mortal sin). God is not the one to push us away, but he gives us the freedom to push him away―and everyone on Earth uses this freedom in a less-than-ideal way. The Scriptures make the matter clear: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Sin may be a universal condition, but it is not inevitable. Sin can also be deadly―eternally deadly―but God, in His mercy and compassion, has given us medicines that can resurrect us from the “death of sin”. “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “Sin has reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15).
Holy Scripture tells us that “All iniquity is sin. And there is a sin unto death [and] a sin which is not unto death” (1 John 5:16-17). This obviously refers to mortal sin (a sin unto death) and venial sin (a sin not unto death). Mortal sin―like a nuclear bomb―kills the life of sanctifying grace within us instantly at the very moment that we commit mortal sin, or drop the bomb of mortal sin. Venial sin could be compared to conventional weapons of warfare―they are not as powerful as the nuclear bomb (mortal sin), but they nevertheless cause a lot of damage and can inflict many wounds.
Now, since God is greater than evil, then there must a weapon of God’s that is greater than the greatest weapon of evil (mortal sin)―otherwise God is a loser! If Satan and evil have a weapon (mortal sin) that can instantly destroy sanctifying grace in the soul―then God must have a weapon that can instantly restore sanctifying grace to the soul. God does have one single “spiritual nuclear bomb” ― which we call a “perfect act of contrition” ― that can instantly destroy the entire world of sin that a person might have built up around themselves ― no matter how many, no matter how grave. Not only can perfect contrition instantly remove the guilt for sin that hangs over our heads, but it can also instantly remove all the temporal punishment that our sins deserve.
We must remember that sin contracts or earns two different things―(1) guilt for sin, and (2) punishment for sin. When we confess our sins in the Sacrament of Penance (Confession), the guilt for sin is totally removed, but the punishment for sin is not always totally removed―actually, it is rarely totally removed. The punishment is removed only in proportion to our sorrow for having committed those sins. Perfect Sorrow (perfect contrition) perfectly or totally removes the punishment that is due to out sins―whereas Imperfect Sorrow (attrition) imperfectly or partially removes the punishment that is due to our sins. Perfect Sorrow (perfect contrition) is based upon a LOVE OF GOD, while Imperfect Sorrow (attrition) is based upon a FEAR OF GOD AND HIS JUST PUNISHMENTS. Since God is love itself, “God is charity” (1 John 4:8), sorrow out of love for God is the most perfect. Fear of God’s punishments contains some degree of selfishness―because you are thinking more of yourself than you are of God, which betrays an imperfect love. That is why Our Lord said of Mary Magdalen that much has been forgiven her because she has loved much: “Wherefore I say to thee―Many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loves less” (Luke 7:47). You can just as easily interchange the last part and say: “But to him who loves less, less is forgiven!” And as Holy Scripture says: “Charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). “Charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12).
St. Thomas Aquinas on Contrition
St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica (Supplement, q. 1-5), writes: “Contrition can be considered in two ways, either as part of a Sacrament, or as an act of virtue, and in either case it is the cause of the forgiveness of sin, but not in the same way.” He then presents us with three acceptable definitions for contrition, which, when combined together, reads as follows: “Contrition is a humility of the soul and a voluntary sorrow for sin, which takes away sin, crushing sin between hope and fear, arising from remembrance of sin and fear of the Judgment, whereby man punishes in himself that which he grieves to have done.” Let us dissect that a little to better understand it.
► “Contrition” comes from the Latin verb “conterere” and its past-participle “contritus” ― meaning “to grind, crush, pound into pieces, crumble, bruise”, with its secondary meaning of “to thoroughly frighten, to fill with terror, to suppress or intimidate by terrorizing.” St. Thomas says: “Sin is committed through the heart’s inordinate love of something other than God. Therefore sin is destroyed by sorrow caused by the heart’s ordinate love―and consequently contrition blots out sin. Attrition denotes approach to perfect contrition, wherefore as in physical matters, things are said to be ‘attrite’, when they are worn away to a certain extent, but not altogether crushed to pieces; while they are said to be ‘contrite’, when all the parts are crushed minutely … Attrition cannot become contrition until grace be infused” (Supplement, q. 1, art. 2 & 3; q. 5, art. 1). It is God’s grace that is the underlying cause or provocation for contrition, whereby attrition (sorrow out of a fear of God) can rise higher and become contrition (sorrow out of a love of God).
► “Humility of soul” ― “Pride is the beginning of all sin” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15) because by pride man clings to his own judgment, and strays from the Divine commandments. Therefore, to destroy sin, man needs to give up his own judgment. Someone who persists in his own judgment is metaphorically called “rigid” and “hard” and so that rigidity and hardness needs to be “broken, ground down, pounded into pieces, crumbled and bruised” (which is the meaning of contrition) ― since, for the remission of sin, it is necessary that man should put aside entirely his attachment to sin and the attitude of mind that once thought sin was acceptable and good.
► “Voluntary sorrow for sin” ― Something that is said to be “voluntary” is said to be something of one’s own “volition” or “will” ― that is to say something that YOU want and desire and choose of your own free will, rather than being forced against your will. Sorrow for sin must freely come from our own heart, our own will. Sorrow is often seen as a pre-requisite for forgiveness―we have to say we are sorry, we have to admit our guilt, before we are forgiven. Nobody else can supply that sorrow―it must come from you. St. Thomas says: “Contrition includes a twofold sorrow for sin. One is in the sensitive part, and is a passion (hence we weep and are emotional); the other sorrow is in the will, and is nothing other than displeasure for some evil. To detest and destroy past sins shows that we have a rectitude of will.”
► “Which takes away sin” ― In each and every sin there are two chief elements that need to be considered―the guilt incurred by the sin, and the punishment incurred by the sin. When we confess our sins in the Sacrament of Confession (Sacrament of Penance), there are certain conditions that we have to fulfill in order to have our mortal sins taken away. One of those is that we have to be “sorry” for our sins―and that sorrow can be either “Contrition” (which is based on sorrow for sin out of a love of God), or it can be “Attrition” (which is based, not on a love of God, but on a fear of God). In the Sacrament of Confession, the sorrow of attrition suffices for the forgiveness of our mortal sins, but―since attrition is imperfect contrition―it will not take away all the punishment due to our mortal sins. Since both “Contrition” and “Attrition” can vary in degree and intensity―the amount of punishment that is taken away will also vary from to person, and from confession to confession―since sometimes we are more sorry than at other times.
► “Crushing sin between hope and fear” ― You could compare hope and fear to olive oil and wine vinegar. We make salad dressings with oil and vinegar―and there has to be a proper balance, correct proportions, a right blend between the oil and vinegar. Few food pairs are as timeless and versatile as oil and vinegar. Oil and vinegar have been used as dressings as far back as the Babylonians. Acidic vinegar balances and contrasts with fatty oil in a base for salad dressings, marinades, and more. In tests, taking one to two tablespoons of vinaigrette daily, showed a 50% reduction in heart disease. Vinegar is actually wine. The Church uses both wine and olive oil for her Sacraments. The wine comes from CRUSHED grapes, and the olive oil comes from CRUSHED olives―do you see the link to the above paragraph on “Contrition”, which literally means meaning “to grind, crush, pound into pieces, crumble, bruise”? Vinegar literally means “spoiled wine.” It is wine that has turned and become very acidic; it can no longer be drunk directly, but makes a wonderful dressing when mixed with oil.
We were made by God to be wine―for “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and wine is a symbol of love. However, by our sins, we have become spoiled wine, we have turned from sweet to acidic! By sin, our oil has become rancid―which can be a symbol of hope turning into despair. Similarly, our fear of God (which should be a filial fear, as in a love of child for its parent), has turned sour and acidic and becomes a servile fear (the fear of servant for its master) which is no longer the sweet loving fear of a child. Hope is like olive oil―it softens or reduces the acidity of vinegar or fear and creates a correct balance. Fear is necessary, but it must not be excessive or too “acidic” or it will eat away our hope and make us despair! Hope is also necessary―but it must not be excessive, complacent, presumptuous. Sin is best crushed by a healthy balance of hope and fear―oil and vinegar. Olive oil is used as a traditional treatment for wounds, sores, infections and scars―which relates to the wounds, sores, infections and scars of sin. Vinegar is corrosive but it is often used as a cleaning agent for sinks, toilets, bathtubs, stainless steel, and even concrete―can you not see how those things can relate to and be symbolic of sin? Fear can be corrosive, but it can be used in measured amounts wash away the stains of our sins down the sink or toilet, and make our ‘stainless steel’ souls stainless once again.
► “Remembrance of sin” ― There is a healthy remembrance of sin as well an unhealthy remembrance of sin. Remembrance of sin can be like seeing the glass of water as being half-full (healthy), or it can see the glass as being half-empty (unhealthy). Remembrance of sin can either make us more humble (healthy), or it can make us despair (unhealthy). There is a virtue―rarely mentioned, little known and little practiced―that pertains to the remembrance of sin. What is it? It is the virtue of compunction―which is defined as “an abiding (always present) sorrow for sin” or “a deep and lasting sorrow for your sins.” While we believe in a God whose acts of mercy are not exhausted, we must also believe in human nature whose acts of sin are not exhausted. When we think of sin, or see someone commit sin, we should say to ourselves: “There go I, but for the grace of God!” Compunction is a grace of God’s that helps us to remember our sins and weaknesses, while at the same time moving us to beg God for the grace to avoid a relapse―for then, as Our Lord says of the devil who has been expelled by contrition and confession: “The devil saith: ‘I will return into my house from whence I came out!’ And coming he finds it empty, swept, and garnished. Then he goes, and takes with him seven other spirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there―and the last state of that man is made worse than the first!” (Matthew 12:44-45).
Compunction is not a case of continuing to chastise ourselves for past sins. It is not a case of falling into scrupulosity for our future sins―this would be an overcorrection. It is not an emotion making us perpetually downtrodden. On the contrary, compunction is an intellectual recognition of reality. We realize how good God is and how bad we are! True compunction originates from love of God―not from a fear of punishment―bringing us closer to perfect contrition for our sins. It is the persistent awareness that our sins keep us from fully returning this love of God. This in turn reminds us of the gulf between our sinful selves and the immeasurable greatness of God―which then evokes a still deeper love for the God Who forgives and desired to dwell within our souls. This persistent awareness of our past sins is a grace which can lessen our over-attachments to earthly goods, which is the root of sin, and reinvigorate our resolve “to sin no more,” as we pray in the Act of Contrition. Compunction calls to mind our own shortcomings, which then can also deter us from passing judgment on others for their sins. The saints even speak of compunction manifesting itself as weeping—weeping in grief for the distance our sins create between ourselves and God; and weeping in thanksgiving for His patient and generous forgiveness, and in anticipation of our heavenly home. These tears of compunction are a gift for both the weeping soul they soothe and for anyone else who may see them and be inspired to remember God and their own sinfulness.
► “Fear of the Judgment” ― Shamefully, it has to be admitted that today we fear more the judgment of those who surround us, rather than fearing the Judgment of God! “We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ!” (Romans 14:10). As Our Lady of Good Success said: “Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’” Our Lord warned: “For judgment I am come into this world!” (John 9:39). “If I do judge, My judgment is true!” (John 8:16). “I judge and My judgment is just!” (John 5:30). “And I say to you, My friends: Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you Whom you shall fear! Fear ye Him, Who, after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell. Yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5). “I say unto you, that for every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the Day of Judgment!” (Matthew 12:36). “With what judgment you judge, you shall be judged―and with what measure you measure out to others, it shall be measured to you also!” (Matthew 7:2). “Wherefore you are inexcusable, O man, whosoever you are that judges! For wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself! For you do the same things which you do judge! For we know that the judgment of God is, according to truth, against them that do such things! And do you, O man―that judges them who do such things, but do the same things yourself―do you think that you shalt escape the judgment of God? You―a according to your hardness and impenitent heart―treasure up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and just judgment of God, Who will render to every man according to his works!” (Romans 2:1-5). Yes ― “We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ!” (Romans 14:10).
► “Man punishes in himself that which he grieves to have done” ― Protestants have one-sided, faulty, erroneous idea on this point. Their basic argument is that Christ died for our sins and took the punishment due to our sin upon Himself―therefore we have nothing else to do but to believe this and be thankful! Here is a short sampling of quotes that show this erroneous viewpoint: “Let’s start off by saying that punishing yourself can be a form of self-harm, or it may be a way of inflicting some physical or non physical pain on yourself as a punishment for some wrong-doing. Some world philosophies teach self-inflicted harm as a way of punishing yourself for some wrongdoing or to redeem yourself. It is not hard to see why this teaching is so wildly popular. Every time we do something wrong, we feel guilty about it. Punishing ourselves for it or amending the wrongdoing or doing some good to cover up this sin makes us feel better and seemingly redeems us from the sin. But that is a false assumption and by doing so people just deceive themselves. Jesus paid it all! On the cross, Jesus was enduring the wrath of God that you and I deserved. Jesus did this in our place! He was flogged instead of you! He was nailed instead of you! He was suffocating instead of you! We do not have to make penance for our sins―Jesus already has! We don't have to suffer for our sins, Jesus has done it for us! For those who have Faith in Christ, your sin has been paid for! Jesus has paid it all! There is no punishment for your sins, because Jesus was punished instead of you!”
St. Thomas had already foreseen the above Protestant view, as can be read in his Summa Theologica. He puts forward an erroneous objection―which he will afterwards answer: “It is objected that Christ’s Passion made satisfaction sufficient for all sins. Therefore after the guilt has been pardoned, no debt of punishment remains!” He then answers that objection: “Christ’s Passion is of itself sufficient to remove all debt of punishment―not only eternal, but also temporal. A man is released from the debt of punishment according to the measure of his share in the power of Christ’s Passion. The entire debt of punishment is not remitted at once after the first act of Penance―by which act only the guilt is remitted―but only when all the acts of Penance have been completed. Consequently when guilt is pardoned through grace, the soul ceases to be turned away from God, through being united to God by grace―so that, at the same time, the debt of punishment is taken away, although a debt of some temporal punishment may yet remain” (depending upon the degree and intensity of the sinner’s contrition, or lack thereof. (Summa Theologica, IIIa, q. 86, art. 4).
St. Thomas Aquinas adds: “Punishment follows sin … Sin makes man deserving of punishment … The debt of punishment is considered to be directly the effect of sin … Punishment is proportionate to sin in point of severity … God does not delight in punishments for their own sake; but He does delight in the order of His justice, which requires them … A man is punished by God or man for a sin committed by him … It is written (2 Kings 12:13-14): ‘David said to Nathan: “I have sinned against the Lord!” And Nathan said to David: “The Lord has taken away your sin―you shalt not die! Nevertheless, because you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme ... the child that is born to thee shall die!”’ Therefore a man is punished by God even after his sin is forgiven―and so the debt of punishment remains, when the sin has been removed … Satisfaction belongs to penance … Satisfaction is an act of justice … Justice aims not only at punishing the past fault, but also at safeguarding for the future, because punishments are medicinal. Wherefore satisfaction―which is the act of justice inflicting punishment―is a medicine healing past sins and preserving from future sins … Amendment for future times is of greater weight than compensation for the past.” (Summa Theologica, Ia-IIae, q. 87, art. 6 & 7; Supplement, q. 12, art. 1 to 3).
Phew! That was tough, huh? Well it’s done! Take it as a penance! Now that we have laid the foundation, let us proceed to the really interesting part of this article― “Can you do your Lent in one day?”
What is the Purpose of Lent?
The modern-day Church fudges and shifts the focal point of Lent into being a mere “preparation for Easter and the Lord’s resurrection”―whereas in reality it more than just that, it is also a time of penance and payment for sin―making satisfaction to God for the sins we have committed. The “preparation for Easter and the Lord’s resurrection” is merely symbolic of our death, our resurrection, our judgment and hopefully our being allowed into Heaven. Yet there can be no salvation, no Heaven, without having duly paid for our sins by penance―which is why Our Lord said: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 5:3; 13:3-5).
Dom Guéranger (1805-1875), the renowned liturgist of the Church, writes: “The Feast of Easter must be prepared for by a forty-days of recollectedness and penance … the most powerful means employed by the Church for exciting in the hearts of her children the spirit of their Christian vocation and the renovation of the whole spiritual life … We are still sinners―and where there is sin, there must be expiation … The Forty Days’ Fast was instituted at the very commencement of Christianity. Our Blessed Lord Himself sanctioned it by His fasting forty days and forty nights in the desert. The Apostles ruled that Easter should be preceded by a universal Fast; and they made this period of penance to consist of Forty Days―seeing that our Divine Master had consecrated the number 40 by his own Fast. Lent, then, is a time especially consecrated to penance; and this penance is mainly practiced by fasting as an expiation for sin.”
What is this expiation to which Dom Guéranger refers? Expiation is defined as: “the act of making amends, to make satisfaction for, or make reparation for guilt or wrongdoing; an atonement.” In biblical terms, it has to do with taking away guilt through the payment of a penalty or the offering of an atonement. Satisfaction means, in short, to please God. It means to give God something that has enough value or worth, in order for Him to consider a debt for sin to be paid. Man is not able, by his own power, to pay God back for the offense that his sin causes God―but when man joins himself to Christ, then it by the power and merits of Christ, in which man shares by being baptized into the Catholic Church, man is able to “co-pay” with Christ for the sins committed.
The Church teaches that Christ’s sacrifice was so beautiful to the Father that the eternal debt that was due to the Father by every human sinner was more than paid for by the perfect and spotless sacrificial offering of Christ on the cross. Those who are baptized into Christ, and united with Him, have, at that time, all the temporal and eternal consequences of sin eradicated. Each subsequent sin―committed and forgiven through the Sacrament of Confession―still has temporal consequences that need to be paid, either in this life or the next. If the debt of sin is not paid in this life, then it is paid in the next. This temporal punishment is known as Purgatory. A Christian can in this life, through acts of penance, make satisfaction to God for the sins that he has committed and thus purify his soul and release himself from the punishment that would come after death.
St. Thomas Aquinas taught that we are both commanded and able to make satisfaction for our sins to God: “Satisfaction is commanded (Luke 3:8): ‘Bring forth fruits worthy of penance!’ Therefore it is possible to make satisfaction to God. Further, God is more merciful than any man. But it is possible to make satisfaction to a man. Therefore it is possible to make satisfaction to God.”
When a Lot is a Little and a Little is a Lot
Just as Jesus said: “The first shall be last and the last shall be first!” (Matthew 19:30; 20:16; Mark 10:31; Luke 13:30) ― with regard to satisfaction, reparation and penance, you could say: “A lot can be a little, and a little can be a lot!” So for the Catholic, not only is it possible for the Christian to satisfy God through penance, but it is commanded. How can this be possible? How can a finite human satisfy a perfect God’s justice? We can understand its possibility through analogy. If it is possible for one human to make satisfaction for a transgression against a fellow human in a congruent or a proportional way, then God, who is more merciful than any man, can accept finite man’s penance, based upon His infinite mercy, in a proportional way. Concerning proportional satisfaction, St. Thomas Aquinas said the following:
“Man becomes God’s debtor in two ways; first, by reason of favors received, secondly, by reason of sin committed: and just as thanksgiving, or worship, or the like, deal with the debt for favors received; so satisfaction deals with the debt for sin committed. In giving honor to one’s parents, it is impossible to repay them measure for measure, but it suffices that man repay as much as he can―for friendship does not demand measure for measure, but what is possible … according to proportion … It is the same as regards satisfaction. Consequently, man cannot make satisfaction to God in quantitative equality; but he can, if it in proportionate equality, and this suffices for justice, and it suffices for satisfaction.”
The Church teaches, as was clarified by Aquinas, that while God’s Justice is in itself perfect, and a finite man cannot ever give an infinite God satisfaction in a way that is quantitatively equal to what is demanded by the strict Justice of God. Nevertheless, man can give God what he is able to give and therefore satisfy God’s justice, not in the strict sense, but in a proportional way. In fact, God explicitly teaches us in Holy Scripture that he views gifts given to Him―not in a quantitative way, but in a proportional way. We read in the Gospels (see paragraph below) that while Christ was teaching in the Temple, He pointed out the pious actions of a poor widow in order to show that God does not desire quantitative offerings, but rather, qualitatively proportional.
“And Jesus sitting over against the treasury, saw how the people cast money into the treasury, and many that were rich cast in much money. And there came a certain poor widow, and she cast in two brass mites, which make a farthing (today that would be a few cents). And calling His disciples together, He said to them: ‘Amen I say to you! This poor widow has cast in more than all the rich who have cast into the treasury. For all they did cast in from their abundance into the offerings for God ―but she of her want cast in all she had, even her whole living!’” (Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4).
Christ did not say that her gift was worthless to the Father, Who, like some heavenly miser, accepts only large or infinite offerings, but rather, that her little offering had great value because it was given in Faith and from what the widow could give. In other words, what Jesus was saying was that the two mites (few cents) was a larger percentage of her net worth, than the larger amounts of the rich men which was actually a far lower percentage of their net worth. The Catholics can please God and satisfy Him in a proportional way, by giving of what he has, with great Faith and great Love.
St. John Chrysostom, Father and Doctor of the Church (347-407) wrote: “As a fire which has taken possession of a forest, cleans it out thoroughly, so the fire of love, wheresoever it falls, takes away and blots out everything that could injure the divine seed, and purges the earth for the reception of that seed. Where love is, there all evils are taken away.”
The Venerable St. Bede, Doctor of the Church (672-735 AD) writes (P.L., XCII, 425): “What is love but fire; what is sin but rust? Hence it is said, ‘Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much!’ ― as though to say, ‘She has burned away entirely the rust of sin, because she is inflamed with the fire of love!’”
If detestation of sin arises from the love of God, who has been grievously offended, then contrition is termed “perfect”; if it arise from any other motive, such as loss of Heaven, fear of Hell, or the heinousness of guilt, then it is termed “Imperfect Contrition”, or attrition. It is possible for Perfect and Imperfect Contrition to be experienced at one and the same time ― whereby you are greatly afraid of God’s punishments, but you also sincerely and deeply love Him and are full of sorrow for having offended the One you love.
Perfect Contrition ― What the Church Teaches
This doctrine is derived from Holy Scripture. Scripture certainly ascribes to charity and the love of God the power to take away sin: “Before all things, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves―for charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). “Charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12). “Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much” (Luke 7:36-50).
► COUNCIL OF TRENT (1545-1563) declares: “The Council further teaches that, though contrition may sometimes be made perfect by charity and may reconcile men to God before the actual reception of this Sacrament, still the reconciliation is not to be ascribed to the contrition apart from the desire for the Sacrament―which it includes.” In other words, you cannot have Perfect Contrition if you do not intend to confess your mortal sins as soon as possible. Perfect Contrition is not an alternative, nor a replacement for the Sacrament of Confession, it is only an emergency measure that is taken to “keep you spiritually alive”, so to speak, by restoring sanctifying grace to your soul until you can get to the “Emergency Room” of the Confessional in the “Hospital” of a church in order to confess your mortal sins.
► THE BALTIMORE CATECHISM #3 (1891 version) states: “Perfect contrition is that which fills us with sorrow and hatred for sin, because it offends God, who is infinitely good in Himself and worthy of all love. Perfect contrition will obtain pardon for mortal sin without the Sacrament of Penance when we cannot go to confession, but with the perfect contrition we must have the intention of going to confession as soon as possible, if we again have the opportunity” (Baltimore Catechism #3, Questions 765 & 766).
► THE CATECHISM “MY CATHOLIC FAITH” (1963 version) states: “If anyone has the misfortune to fall into mortal sin, he should go to Confession without any delay. Should this not be possible, he must make an act of perfect contrition, and have the desire to receive the Sacrament … When is our contrition perfect? Our contrition is perfect when we are sorry for our sins because sin offends God, Whom we love above all things for His own sake. This contrition arises from a pure and perfect love of God. If we have a perfect love of God, our contrition for sins will be perfect. It ought not be difficult for us to have a perfect love of God. We generally love our parents, not for the food and clothes they give us, but for themselves―because we see their self-sacrifice, their unselfishness, and other good qualities. Thus we shall be sorry, not only because we fear punishment or dread the loss of His gifts, but because we offend the good God, to Whom nothing is more evil than sin. If we can love our parents spontaneously, not for any reward we expect or punishment we wish to avoid, why can we not love God, Who is infinitely more lovable than our parents? If we love God spontaneously, because He is lovable in Himself, our love is perfect. It is easy to make an act of perfect contrition if we sincerely love God. We can excite ourselves to it by thinking of the Passion and Death of Our Lord; or of how good God is, how many favors He has granted us, and how ungrateful we have been to Him in return for His goodness. If we happen to be assisting at a death-bed, and no priest is available, we should help the dying person make an act of perfect contrition. We should form the habit of making an act of perfect contrition as often as possible. It is only necessary to raise our hearts to God in pure love, and say some such words as: ‘O my God, I am sorry I ever offended You, because You are so good, and I love You!’” (My Catholic Faith Catechism, Chapters 124 & 150).
► THE CATECHISM OF THE MODERN CHURCH (1993 version) even states: “When it arises from a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is called “perfect” (contrition of charity). Such contrition remits venial sins; it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to Sacramental confession as soon as possible.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1993 version, §1452).
An example of this theological precept is demonstrated in both the 1913 Code of Canon Law in canon 808, and also in the 1984 Code of Canon Law in canon 916, which states:
► 1913 CODE OF CANON LAW: “Priests conscious of grave sin, no matter how contrite they believe themselves to be, shall not dare to celebrate Mass without prior Sacramental Confession; but if―because there is lacking a sufficient supply of confessors and there is urgent necessity―then he shall make an act of Perfect Contrition, celebrate, and as soon as possible confess.” (1913 Code of Canon Law, canon 808).
► 1984 CODE OF CANON LAW: “A person who is conscious of grave sin is not to celebrate Mass, or receive the Body of the Lord, without previous Sacramental Confession, unless there is a grave reason and there is no opportunity to confess; in this case the person is to remember the obligation to make an act of Perfect Contrition, which includes the resolution of confessing as soon as possible.” (1984 Code of Canon Law, canon 916).
► ST. MAXIMILIAN KOLBE wrote a letter to his followers, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War (which took place from 1939 to 1945). The purpose of this letter was to exhort his disciples to prepare themselves for the approaching feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th. But it also showed them how to receive forgiveness for sin in the coming war, where priests were scarce and it was hard to receive Sacramental Confession. He wrote: “Whoever can, should receive the Sacrament of Penance. Whoever cannot, because of prohibiting circumstances, should cleanse his soul by acts of Perfect Contrition: i.e., the sorrow of a loving child, who does not consider so much the pain or reward, as he does the pardon from his father and mother to whom he has brought displeasure.”
► ST. THOMAS AQUINAS adds: “Contrition can be considered in two ways, either as part of a Sacrament, or as an act of virtue, and in either case it is the cause of the forgiveness of sin, but not in the same way ... The affections of the heart are more acceptable to God than external acts. Now if man can be absolved from both punishment and guilt by means of external actions; then he can also be freed from both punishment and built by means of the heart’s affections, such as contrition is ... In this way it may happen that the act of charity is so intense that the contrition resulting therefrom merits not only the removal of guilt, but also the remission of all punishment. Secondly, on the part of the sensible sorrow―which the will excites in contrition and since this sorrow is also a kind of punishment―it may be so intense as to suffice for the remission of both guilt and punishment ... Although the sorrow of contrition is finite in its intensity, even as the punishment due for mortal sin is finite; yet it derives infinite power from charity, whereby it is quickened, and so it avails for the remission of both guilt and punishment … Sanctifying grace blots out every mortal sin, because it is incompatible with mortal sin. Now, every contrition is quickened by sanctifying grace. Therefore, however slight it be, it blots out all sins … However, a man cannot be sure that his contrition suffices for the remission of both punishment and guilt―wherefore he is bound to confess and to make satisfaction, especially since his contrition would not be true contrition, unless he had the purpose of confessing.”
So Christ gives a very special grace to us if we have has the misfortune of falling into sin, to try before confession to escape, but making an act of Perfect Contrition, but this act must also include the intention of confessing these sins as soon as reasonably possible.
Just as much as it would be an error to think that God would forgive our sins without our desire to confess them as soon as possible, so too, it would be an error to think that Perfect Contrition is something that we can work ourselves up to, or that Perfect Contrition is a matter of emotions. Perfect Contrition is not a feeling, but an intellectual knowledge of our sins and their offence to God, along with a firm will to hate these sins because of this offence. Emotion and feelings are a great help towards this, but they are only helps―they are not essential, for you can have Perfect Contrition without the presence of heartbreaking emotions and tearful eyes.
Because it flows from Charity, which is God’s own Love, infused by God into our souls, only God can give us the grace of making an act of Perfect Contrition. Therefore it is important that we pray often for this grace, and frequently, even before we may fall, to beg God to make us perfectly contrite for our sins. Were we so contrite all the time, we would never fall.
Making a Perfect Act of Contrition
While only God can infuse Charity into us, we can dispose ourselves on some level to prepare for this grace, and if we hope to have it, we must so dispose ourselves. Aside from praying often to have Perfect Contrition, it is important to bring to mind the seriousness of sin, and to meditate on the suffering sin has caused Jesus Christ.
Kneeling or prostrating oneself before a crucifix and questioning oneself about Who is on this Cross and why and what He has suffered can help dispose the soul to receive this grace, even if only God can give this.
Beyond disposing our emotions, and soul as we can, and praying for God to infuse this Charity and Contrition, it is critical that one recall the actual sins for which he is sorry. If sorrow is not grounded in reality—objective actions which have offended God— and rater is just an emotional grief, it is not real sorrow. It may even be worthwhile to “confess” our sins to God—though this is not necessary—and humble ourselves—which is necessary.
Then slowly, perhaps several times pray a suitable act. This might be in your own words, or using one of many standard formulæ such as: “O my God, because you are so good, I am very sorry that I have sinned against you and by the help of your grace I will confess my sins and will not sin again. Amen.”
Or that of St Alphonsus: “I love you, Jesus, my love above all things, and I repent with my whole heart of having offended you. Never permit me to separate myself from you again, grant that I may love you always, and then do with me what you will. Amen.”
Or another, common in America : “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen.”
Also used in America: “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my life. Amen.”
The key elements here are to both mean and express our hatred of sin for having offended God who is all good, professing our perfect love of God, and promising, with God’s grace, to confess these sins, avoid the occasions of sin, and sin no more.
Finally, one must resolve to confess, and seek out confession as soon as possible, because without this resolution, there is no real contrition. This does not mean we need to rush off and wake the priest in the middle of the night, nor that we should wait for the next scheduled time for confession. We must confess reasonably soon, and really at the first opportunity. That might be at the next confession time, or perhaps we ought to call for an appointment with the priest. Since we can never be sure of our Perfect Contrition, since it is due only to the grace of God, we should be anxious to confess reasonably soon, lest we presume on God’s Mercy, which itself can be a serious sin. Perfect Contrition may save us from Hell, should we die without being able to confess our sins to a priest, but it does not remove the need to confess our sins if we end up not dying.
Practice Makes Perfect (Contrition)
Making an act of Perfect Contrition is both easy and hard! Huh? Well―it is easy to say the words that are required for an act of Perfect Contrition―even a parrot could be taught to say them―but do they really come from the heart? With what degree or ‘temperature’ are they being said? With what intensity? Measuring our love of God is hard―for we are more likely to fool ourselves by exaggerating what little love we have―and end up making a mountain of love out of a molehill of love! Our Lord said: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8) ― could He say that of our love?
The greater our love for God, the more perfect will our act of Perfect Contrition be! We desperately need to grow in our love for God! All depends upon that. You can use all the nicest and sweetest words you want―but if there is no real sincere and deep love for God in your heart, then all is worthless―as Holy Scripture clearly states: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Perhaps this season of Lent is the time to start building up the “fires of love” that we often ask the Holy Ghost to enkindle: “Come O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love!” Perhaps make that your own personal prayer and say: “Come O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in ME the fire of Thy love!”
Or again, “O my Jesus, ‘God is charity’ (1 John 4:8) and Thou art Love itself! Enkindle in my lukewarm and sinful heart that Divine Fire which consumed Our Lady and the Saints and transformed them into Thee! Jesus I love Thee―but nowhere near enough! Inflame my cold heart more and more, so that I can love thee above all else!”
REMEMBER AND REMEMBER WELL! One single act of Perfect Contrition―just one single act―even a short one of just a few words―if said with a sincere love of God, and with loving sorrow for having offended such a good God, such a kind God, such a patient God, such a merciful God―that one short act of Perfect Contrition, depending on its intensity, wipe away, remove, destroy―not only your guilt for the many grevious mortal sins you may have committed―but also wipe away, remove, destroy all the punishment that is justly due to you by means of many punishments in this world, or the terrible fires of Hell or Purgatory―perhaps lasting centuries or eternally in the next world! One act of Perfect Contrition send can you straight to Heaven! Compare that one short intense moment of love and sorrow that an act of Perfect Contrition costs―compare it to the long intense painful years or centuries or eternity that might have to be endured after you die―and die you will! Make all the efforts you possibly can to grow in that love of God which is necessary for an act of Perfect Contrition―you will eternally be glad that you did!
Article 14
Saturday after the Second Sunday of Lent, March 11th, 2023
& the Third Sunday of Lent, March 12th, 2023
It Ain't Over Till It's Over!
Saturday after the Second Sunday of Lent, March 11th, 2023
& the Third Sunday of Lent, March 12th, 2023
It Ain't Over Till It's Over!
“Spring” Cleaning―Springs Back
Tomorrow’s Gospel (3rd Sunday of Lent) has a passage that can make us feel very uneasy and insecure. In the Gospel passage from St. Luke we read about Our Lord casting out devils. The Jews accuse Him of being in league with the devil Beelzebub, the prince of devils. Our Lord refutes the foolish accusation, while issuing a warning to those who are complacent in their fight with the devil―saying that if we manage to amend our lives and drive the devil away from us, he will come back with even more devils and seek to make us worse than we once were! Here is that Gospel reading:
“At that time, Jesus was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb. And when He had cast out the devil, the dumb man spoke and the crowds marveled. But some of them said: ‘It is by Beelzebub, the prince of devils, that He casts out devils!’ And others, to test Him, demanded from Him a sign from Heaven. But He, seeing their thoughts, said to them: ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and house will fall upon house. If, then, Satan also is divided against himself―then how shall his kingdom stand? Because you say that I cast out devils by Beelzebub. Now, if I cast out devils by Beelzebub, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges! But if I cast out devils by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you!
“When the strong man, fully armed, guards his courtyard, his property is undisturbed. But if a stronger than he attacks and overcomes him, he will take away all his weapons that he relied upon, and will divide his spoils. He who is not with Me is against Me―and he who does not gather with Me scatters! When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he roams through waterless places in search of rest―and finding none, he says: “I will return to my house which I left!” And when he has come to it, he finds the place swept. Then he goes and takes seven other spirits―more evil than himself―and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse that the first! Now it came to pass that as He was saying these things, a certain woman from the crowd lifted up her voice and said to Him: ‘Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the breasts that nursed Thee!’ But He said: ‘Rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it!’” (Luke 11:14-28).
Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch!
For the vast majority of Catholics, life is a perpetual battle or tug-of-war with the devil, of whom Holy Scripture says: “Be sober and watch―because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). That perpetual battle or tug-of-war with the devil sees Catholics being dragged into mortal sin repeatedly throughout their lives―some sinning more, others less; some living for longer in mortal sin, others less. Who dare say: “I am clean, and without sin! I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me!” (Job 33:9). “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God!” (Romans 3:23). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10).
When we sin mortally, we fall under the increasing control of the devil―not necessarily to the point of being possessed by the devil, but, that said, exorcists have noticed that there is a danger that continually repeated mortal sins can eventually lead to full-blown possession: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, said: “The most common way a demon can enter into someone’s life is through a habitual state of mortal sin. Those who live in a state of grace, those who pray most fervently, have a much better chance of obtaining divine intervention against the evil one than those who do not practice their faith or, worse, who live in a habitual state of mortal sin.” Another exorcist, Fr. Aga Tarog, warns: “Mortal sin is the primary entry point for demonic possession!” Another exorcist adds: “Sin is a far greater danger than the devil. The devil is outside of us. Even in a possession, he cannot possess our soul.” Nevertheless―as even the Liberal and Modernist Pope Paul VI said― “Satan is enemy number one, he is the tempter par excellence … the enemy of mankind!”
Know Your Enemy
Sun Tzu was a Chinese military general, strategist, philosopher, and writer who was born in 544 BC. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War―an influential work of military strategy that has affected both Western and East Asian philosophy and military thinking. In The Art of War, he writes: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
It is imperative that we know our enemies and know their tactics. Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, tells us that our enemy, Satan, prefers to be unknown and unseen―so that he might better wreak his havoc and do his damage: “The Devil does not like to be seen … Satan’s biggest triumph is mankind’s conviction that he doesn’t exist ... He makes people believe that Hell does not exist, that sin does not exist, and that he is nothing but one more experience to try out ... When we jeer at the Devil and tell ourselves that he does not exist, that is when he is happiest!”
THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE CONSISTS SOLEY OF THE WORDS OF THE EXORCIST FR. GABRIELE AMORTH―TAKEN AND ARRANGED AND COMPILED FROM HIS MANY INTERVIEWS, ARTICLES AND PERSONAL BOOKS. THESE EXTRACTS HAVE BEEN PLACED INTO AN ORGANIC AND SYSTEMATIC WHOLE. YOU SHOULD FIND THEM HIGHLY INSTRUCTIVE IN GETTING TO “KNOW YOUR ENEMY”!
How the Devil Gets Into Your Life
“How can we fall prey to extraordinary satanic activity? By this I mean other than the ordinary activity—temptation—which applies to everyone. We can do so through our own fault or by being completely unaware. We can group the reasons into four categories: (1) with God’s permission, (2) as innocent victims of an evil spell, (3) due to a grave and hardened sinful condition, (4) through association with evil people or places.
1. With God’s Permission
“I want to make absolutely clear that nothing happens without God’s permission. It is also absolutely clear that God does not wish evil for anyone, but he allows it when it is our will (since he created us with completely free will), and he can use everything, even evil, for our own good. The characteristic of the first category of extraordinary demonic activity is complete absence of human guilt; it is entirely due to a diabolical intervention. God always allows normal satanic activity—temptation— and gives us all the graces necessary to resist, with the resulting good of strengthening our spiritual life.
“In the same manner, God at times also allows extraordinary satanic activity —possession, evil influences—to increase our humility, patience, and mortification. We have already given a couple of examples of this category: an external action of the devil that causes physical pain (such as the beatings and floggings suffered by the Cure of Ars and Padre Pio) or when a so-called oppression is allowed, as we have mentioned concerning Job and Saint Paul.
“The lives of many saints include examples of this affliction. Among modern saints, I can cite two: Father Giovanni Calabria and Sister Mary of Jesus Crucified (who was the first Arab to be beatified). In both cases, and without any human fault, they were subjected to periods of true satanic possession. During those periods, the two saints did and said things totally incompatible with their holiness without the least fault, because it was the devil who acted through their bodies.
2. When We Are Subjected to an Evil Curse or Spell
“This is another case in which the victim is completely blameless. Here, however, there is some human activity, but it is performed by those who cast the spell or those who hire a witch to cast it. I will devote an entire chapter to this topic. Here I will simply say that an evil spell is causing the suf ering of others through the intervention of the devil. This intervention can take many different forms: binding, the evil eye, a curse. I will say right away that the most common method is sorcery. Sorcery is also the most frequent cause that we encounter in those who are struck by possession or other evil influences. I do not understand the reasons behind the refusal of some churchmen who claim not to believe in sorcery, just as I cannot understand how they can protect from sorcery those among their flock who are victims of this evil.
“Some may be surprised that God allows this sort of evil to happen. God created us free, and he never rejects his creatures, not even the most perverted. At the end, he rewards everyone according to his just deserts, because everyone will be judged according to his actions. In the meantime, if we use well the freedom that he gave us, we will gain merit; or we can use it for evil purposes, and we will earn blame. We can either help others or hurt them through many forms of abuse. To give an example: I can pay a killer to murder someone; God is not obligated to stop him. Just as easily, I can pay a warlock or a witch doctor to cast an evil spell on someone. God, just as in the first case, is not obligated to intervene, although in many cases he does. For instance, those who live in a state of grace, those who pray most fervently, have a much better chance of obtaining divine intervention against the evil one than those who do not practice their faith or, worse, who live in a habitual state of mortal sin.
“Here I must give a warning that I will expand in a later chapter: the field of sorcery and other evil actions is the domain of swindlers. Instances of true sorcery are a minute percentage among the wholesale deceit that prevails in this arena. Besides offering a variety of opportunities to swindlers, sorcery is also particularly suited to suggestions and whims of feeble minds. Therefore, it is important that the exorcist be on guard against deception, but it is also important that everyone with common sense be vigilant too.
3. A Grave and Hardened State of Sin
“Here we are addressing the cause that today, unfortunately, is on the increase, with a resulting increase in the numbers of people who are victims of the devil. At the root, the true cause is always a lack of faith. As lack of faith increases, so does superstition; it is almost a mathematical reality. I believe that the Gospel gives us a clear example of this in the character of Judas. He was a thief. Who knows how many times Jesus tried to correct him and call him to repentance, and the only result was rejection and a hardening in sin. Judas reaches the climax when he asks the chief priests: “What are you prepared to give me, if I hand him over to you?” (Matthew 26:15). In the narrative of the Last Supper, the Gospel tells us that terrible sentence about Judas: “Then after the morsel, Satan entered into him” (ohJn 13:27). I have no doubt that here it means true diabolic possession.
“In the current environment, where we are witnessing the collapse of the family, I have encountered many cases of possessed people who, in addition to other sins, were living in irregular marriages. I have dealt many times with women whose sins included the crime of abortion. I have been confronted with numerous people who, in addition to sexual aberrations, committed other violent actions. Many times I have been faced with homosexuals who were drug addicts and who had committed drug-related sins. It is almost redundant to say that, in all these stages, the way to healing can begin only with a sincere conversion.
4. Association with Evil People and Places
“This category includes the practice or assisting in the practice of séances, witchcraft, satanic cults, or sects—which culminate in black masses—the occult… associating with warlocks, witch doctors, or certain types of card readers. These are all activities that make us vulnerable to evil spells. If we go so far as to desire a relationship with Satan, there is such a thing as consecration to Satan, the blood pact with Satan, attendance at satanic schools, and the election to the priesthood of Satan. Unfortunately, in the past fifteen years, we have witnessed an increase, almost an explosion, of these types of associations.
“A very common example of associating with warlocks or witch doctors is this: Someone who is the victim of a stubborn illness cannot find any remedy. Someone else experiences all sorts of misfortune and believes that it is due to an evil influence. They appeal to a card reader or a warlock, who tells them, “You are subject to an evil spell.” Up to now, there is very little damage done. However, unfortunately what follows is something like this: “For one thousand dollars—or more—I will cure you.” These fees can be as high as $35,000. If the individual agrees, the card reader or warlock asks for some personal item: a photograph, a piece of underwear, a lock of hair, a few hairs, or a nail clipping. At this point, the evil act is accomplished. What does the warlock do with these items? He obviously uses them to practice black magic.
“Unfortunately, many fall victim to these individuals because these sorcerers are often women who are always seen in church, or because the room of the warlock is blanketed with crucifixes, portraits of saints, the Blessed Virgin, and portraits of Padre Pio. The victims are also often told, “I practice only white magic; if you asked me for black magic I would refuse.” In current terminology, white magic means to take away a spell; black magic means to cast a spell. In reality, as Father Candido never ceased to repeat, there are no such things as “white” and “black” magic; there is only black magic. Every form of magic is practiced with recourse to Satan. Therefore, the poor victim who went to the warlock with a minor evil influence (or probably without any such influence) goes home with a true, full-blown one. When this occurs, often we exorcists have to work much harder after the ill-fated action of the warlocks than we would have if the person had come to us with the original complaint.
The Presence and Activity of Satan
“Satan’s power is felt more keenly in periods of history when the sinfulness of the community is more evident … The problem is getting worse. The Devil is gaining ground. We are living in an age when Faith is diminishing ... Today we live in a period of little Faith ... Young people receive everything from their parents―except the Faith ... It is purely mathematical―when Faith declines, superstition grows ... When Faith in God declines, idolatry and irrationality increase … Whoever lives in indifference, in absent-mindedness, far from God, that person is open to an easy satanic conquest ... The deeper reason that prevents communion with God is, again and again, the fear of God; fear that keeps us from feeling loved as a child. This is the angel of darkness’s deadly lie―‘God does not love you.’ This is the worst of evils” and the source of all the others ― for by not having known the Father and without the Father’s Love, the law is just a heavy burden … If you abandon God, the Devil will take his place … When we abandon God, we give ourselves to practices that open the door to Satan ...
“The Devil does not like to be seen … Satan’s biggest triumph is mankind’s conviction that he doesn’t exist ... He makes people believe that Hell does not exist, that sin does not exist, and that he is nothing but one more experience to try out ... When we jeer at the Devil and tell ourselves that he does not exist, that is when he is happiest … Our contemporary religious culture―while not entirely negating the existence of Satan and the other devils―is inclined to diminish their involvement and influence over people. Discrediting this satanic influence has become almost compulsory and is considered a sign of ‘wisdom’.
“Yet, the smoke of Satan has entered everywhere! Everywhere! Perhaps we were excluded from the audience (in 2004) with the Pope because they were afraid that such a large number of exorcists might succeed in chasing out the legions of demons that have installed themselves in the Vatican! … I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Evil exists in politics―quite often in fact! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office.
“Satan hates God and that is why he seeks to convince people to commit sins and thus drag them down to Hell ... His ordinary activity is to tempt man toward evil, to lead him to temptation, to sin, to push him to break divine law ... The devil looks in each person precisely for his weak point and ‘works’ on it, creating his next sinful occasion … Satan uses the idolatry of sex, which reduces the human body to an instrument of sin.
“The devil has a double way of acting―the normal way and the extraordinary way. The normal way is to lead man towards evil to make him fall into sin … Satan hides and disguises himself in a thousand ways … The devil prefers this way and we are all subject to it from our birth until our death! … We are all tempted by the devil, and will be for as long as we live! …
“The loss of a sense of sin―that characterizes our era―helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God, weakens the consciences of men and women and leads them toward egoism, closing their hearts, lack of forgiveness, and doing everything for money, power, and sex. Satan seduces with suggestions like ― ‘Everything is lawful!’ ‘What is wrong there?’ ‘Everyone does it!’ … Everything is permitted and where your ego, or “I” or “me”, does not recognize any limits regarding pleasure or enjoyment! … You may do all you wish, no one has the right to command you, and you are the god of yourself! … Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies … Today, families are among the most targeted by the ordinary action of Satan … We must have a clear vision of the reality of our lives. Our experience on Earth is a test, a battle to reach eternal life.
The Tactics of Satan
“Music is a diabolical instrument that the devil often uses and which is very efficient. Just think of heavy-metal music and satanic rock. Unfortunately, a great quantity of young people enter into Satanism through these satanic singers.
“The most frequent way that a person is tormented by the devil is because of a curse. It is possible for a person to go to a magician, a witch or someone related to the devil and pay him to call a curse down upon a certain person … Suppose, for example, that someone you work with is envious of you and casts a spell on you. You would get sick. 90% of the cases that I deal with are precisely spells. The rest are due to membership in satanic sects or participation in séances or magic … One enters into the possession of the devil, or under his influence … Nobody safe from the devil. Everyone is vulnerable. If the person is in the state of grace and prays, it is difficult for the curse to take effect. But if the person is less protected from the spiritual point of view, it is easier for the curse to affect him … If you live in harmony with God, it is much more difficult for the devil to possess you …
“The devil wanders around each one of you, searching where to devour.’ That word―‘where’―is important: the devil looks in each person precisely for his weak point and ‘works’ on it, creating his next sinful occasion. It will be the targeted person himself, who, in his liberty, will commit the sin, after having been well “cooked” by Satan’s temptation … He makes us doubt the existence of sin and Hell and Paradise and of their eternity; or, for example, as in our times, where euthanasia and abortion are passed off as signs of humanity’s progress. The second subterfuge is to make evil appear good, a gain rather than a loss. The devil also makes evil appear interesting, positive, and beautiful.”
“The most frequent weak points in man are, from time to time, always the same: pride, money, and lust. And, let us note well, there are no age limits for sinning. When I hear confessions, I often say to my penitents, somewhat jokingly, that their temptations will end only five minutes after they have exhaled their last breath. Therefore, we must not presume, or hope, that, at an advanced age, we shall be exempt from sin. A vice, that is cultivated in youth, will not lessen in old age without some work and intervention. Let us consider lust: when I hear confessions, it’s not uncommon for the elderly to confess to looking at pornography more often than the youth. The will to struggle against sin must be cultivated even to the end of our days.”
Possession, Vexation, Obsession and Infestation―What’s the Difference?
“Then there is the devil’s extraordinary action which is disturbing people in particular or exceptional ways. At times the fault can be our own; at times it is caused by others. This type of action can be classified under 4 different names (even though a list of common terms has yet to be defined by exorcists). Currently, the Ritual directly mentions only demonic possession, which is the most severe and rarest of all demonic activity. In practice, exorcists take care of every type of satanic intervention: demonic oppression (much more numerous than full possession), obsession, infestation of houses, and other activity that appears to benefit from our prayers. The old saying that “natura non facit saltus” (nature does not jump, but goes forward slowly, through evolution) is also valid for satanic activity. For instance, there is no clear distinction between the oppressed and the possessed, just as the line between oppressed and other evils is not clear.
► POSSESSION
“The devil enters the human body and manifests himself through gestures and words. It must be clear that in this case Satan cannot take possession of the soul. Out of every hundred people who seek my help, only one or two at the most may be possessed. Who becomes possessed? No one can consider themselves excluded: they can be young or old, believers or atheists, Christians or those of other religions. Through the years there have been Muslims who have had serious cases of possession. Not even consecrated religious are ruled out. I recall the case of Sister Angela, who was obsessed with a cursing that resounded in her mind. There are many grades of possession. The Devil does not like to be seen, so there are people who are possessed who manage to conceal it.
“In most cases, those who are distant from the Faith are more susceptible to this risk of possession, but this is only an indication of the maxim that says the devil is more tranquil if he does not have to live with prayer, fasting, the Eucharist, and the other Sacramental practices. I have noticed that each possession is unique; this is also true for the other forms of the devil’s extraordinary influence.
“There are liberations that occur in a few sessions and others that require many years of exorcisms. Some have obvious and coarse manifestations, and others — such as the case of a mute spirit — do not ever pronounce a word. These last are among the most difficult cases to treat. Little by little, as the exorcism proceeds, the spirits with the least authority, the weaker spirits, abandon the field. The victory, the complete liberation, is accomplished after the defeat of the supreme head of the legion, the most powerful and overbearing, the last to leave the ship, the one of whom the other demons have a true and proper terror.
Exorcisms are always very slow. In general, many years are needed to free a person. I have people who continue to come after fifteen or twenty years; but it is true that even though a total liberation is not always achieved, a certain alleviation is achieved. The action of the devil also diminishes, to the point of only being felt in moments of crisis. These people, in general, can lead a life of normal activity, even though they have great sufferings that no one sees, commonly in the head and the stomach.
► VEXATION
“Diabolical vexations are the second type of the demon’s extraordinary spiritual aggression and are far and away the most numerous. They are caused by a person’s cultivation of imprudent habits; by frequenting wizards or séances, through repeated and persistent serious sins, or by submitting to spells.
“Here the devil acts without any dominant and prevailing influence over the body and the mind of the victim, as happens in the case of possession. Vexations are true and actual aggression, physical or psychological attacks that the demon works against a person. At times they result in scratches, burns, bruises, or, in the most serious cases, broken bones. At times the victim is the target of stones or other objects. We can give some examples from the lives of the saints: St. Pio, for example, was whipped by a demon. The Curé of Ars, St. John Vianney, was often thrown out of his bed by Satan. I would say that these cases concerned diabolical vexations, not possessions.
“Typical cases of vexation are illnesses without any apparent cause that affect the internal organs, or the limbs, or pathologies, that provoke pain in a part of the body without visible signs. Vexations can involve health, affections, or work. Often the vexation is associated with an extraordinary evil spell, in the sense that the person possessed or obsessed can also exhibit physical and psychic disturbances. It happened to me that in liberating a demoniac, the woman was, at the same time, cured of a terrible tumor. Evidently, in this case, the spell submitted to by the demon had a duplicate effect, spiritual and physical. On the other hand, the Gospel also attests to cases of physical healing that are tied to a spiritual healing from an evil spell. For example, Jesus heals a mute demoniac (see Matthew 9:32-34) and a blind and mute demoniac (Matthew 12:22-24). Vexations can also involve the dimension of dreams―while sleeping, a person may have terrible nightmares, in which he dreams of cursing, of damning God, or of becoming perverse and wicked. In this case, we are at the borders of diabolical obsession.
“As I have said, vexations are not always manifested on a physical level. Sometimes they can strike affections: it can happen, for example, that a couple who are married or are engaged to be married can separate, or, to the contrary, two persons can become engaged, even though they are incompatible. Other vexations are manifested in work: the person in search of it does not find it; or the person who finds work loses it; or a person may have gross difficulties with colleagues and bosses at work. Other times, vexations can break up friendships and isolate a person. It is impossible to enumerate all the cases.
► OBSESSION
“Sacred Scripture assures us that the forms of Satan’s power over the world include physical and mental obsession. This type of disturbance strikes a person in his inner serenity, his psycho-emotive balance. It consists of uncontrollable evil thoughts that torment an individual, especially at night, or in some cases always. Satan causes perturbation, anxiety, inner torment. Symptoms include sudden attacks, at times ongoing, of obsessive thoughts, sometimes even rationally absurd, but of such nature that the victim is unable to free himself. Therefore the obsessed person lives in a perpetual state of prostration, desperation, and attempts at suicide. Almost always obsession influences dreams. Some people will say that this is evidence of mental illness, requiring the services of a psychiatrist or a psychologist. The same could be said of all other forms of demonic phenomena. Some symptoms, however, are so inconsistent with known illnesses that they point with certainty to their evil origins. Only an expert and well-trained eye can identify the crucial differences.
Five Chief Areas of Demonic Obsession Attacks
“The demons, tend to attack man in five areas. These attacks are more or less severe, according to their origin. The five areas are the following: health, business, affections, enjoyment of life, and desire for death.
(1) Health
“The evil one has the power to cause physical and mental illness. I have already mentioned that the two most commonly affected areas are the head and the stomach. Usually, the sickness is persistent. At times, though, it is transitory, lasting only the length of the exorcism. The latter include plague-like growths, stab wounds, and bruises. The Ritual suggests blessing the affected areas with the Sign of the Cross and sprinkling them with holy water. Many times I have witnessed the efficacy of simply covering the area with the stole and pressing on it with one hand. Many times women have come to me before undergoing surgery for ovarian cysts, which were diagnosed following a sonogram and the description of the pain. After the benediction, the pain stopped; a new sonogram showed the absence of any cyst, and surgery was canceled. Father Candido can document numerous cases of grave illnesses that disappeared simply with his “blessing”, including medically verified brain tumors. I must caution that these incidents can happen only to people who are subject to “negativities”, and by this I mean cases whose origin is of suspected evil origin.
(2) Affections
“The evil one can cause unrestrained animosities, especially toward those who love us the most. He destroys marriages, breaks up engagements; he fosters screaming fights in families where everyone truly loves one another, and always for futile reasons. Satan also ruins friendships; through his intervention, the victim feels unwelcome everywhere, avoided by everyone, ending in a desire for isolation. Then there follows a conviction of total lack of love and understanding, a complete affective void that makes marriage an impossibility. And so every time that a friendly relationship grows and blossoms into love, it suddenly ends, without reason.
(3) Business
“Impossibility to find work—even when it seems that a job offer is certain—for improbable, even absurd motives. The victim may finally have found a job but leaves it for no apparent reason and then searches for another job, but either does not go to the interview or leaves the new job as well, citing the same futile motive. The relatives of these unfortunate individuals suspect abnormal or irresponsible personality. I have witnessed extremely wealthy families fall into abject poverty for humanly unexplainable reasons. Successful industrialists are suddenly inexplicably faced with everything going to rack and ruin, or astute businessmen begin to make one bad decision after another and, as a result, fall seriously in debt. Yet again, owners of very popular stores experience a disastrous decrease in customers. When the evil one influences money matters, finding a job becomes impossible, the wealthy are suddenly forced into poverty, and the employed become jobless, and always without any apparent reason.
(4) Enjoyment of life
“Logically, physical illnesses, affective isolation, and economic bankruptcy bring about such pessimism that life is seen only in a negative way. Those so affected become incapable of optimism, of hope; life appears completely bleak, without any way out, unbearable.
(5) Desire for Death
“This is the final goal of the evil enemy: to bring us to despair and suicide. Here I immediately add that when we place ourselves under the protection of the Church, even if it is only with one exorcism, the fifth stage is eliminated. We seem to relive what job was allowed to suffer: “Behold, he is in your power; only spare his life” (Job 2:6). I could tell many instances where, with almost miraculous intervention, the Lord saved some people from suicide.
► INFESTATION
“Infestations affect houses, things, or animals. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that both persons and objects can be exorcised. It can happen to have to exorcise houses or places. More than 90% of diabolic infestation originates in a curse―a curse placed on things and animals. For example, I have found myself exorcising apartments that had been used for a long time to hold séances or where warlocks had practiced black magic. The worst examples involved satanic rituals. At times the gravity of the disturbances and the difficulty of total liberation were so great that I was forced to recommend simply leaving the place.
“In other, less serious circumstances, prayer is sufficient to re-establish peace. One family was bothered by noises at night―after ten Masses were celebrated, the noises ceased completely. Another family was subjected―not only to doors and windows that, although well secured, would open and close at will―but also to flying chairs, dancing armoires, and other incredible events. The exorcist was finally successful by concurrently using all three Sacramentals that are the standard tool of exorcists. He advised the family to mix in a cup or glass exorcised water, oil, and salt; then, every evening, to pour a teaspoon of the mixture on the ledge of every window and at the threshold of every door, praying the Our Father while doing it. This cure proved to be decisive. After a while the family stopped this practice, and in a matter of one week the disturbances started again, only to stop immediately when the exorcist’s routine was reinstated.
“Exorcising salt too is beneficial for expelling demons and for healing soul and body. The specific function of this salt is to protect places from an evil presence or influence. When there is suspicion of evil infestation, I usually advise people to place exorcised salt across the threshold and in the four corners of the room or rooms that are affected.
“I have also been asked about the possibility of infestation of house pets. Is it possible? What is the remedy? The Gospel tells us about that legion of demons who asked Jesus’ permission to enter the herd of swine. Jesus allowed it, and the entire herd rushed into the Gerasene sea (Matthew 8:28-33). I know of an inexperienced exorcist who ordered a demon to enter a farmer’s family pig―the animal became savage and attacked the farmer’s wife. Needless to say, the pig was immediately killed. These are rare instances, and every time they lead to the immediate death of the animal. I want to make it clear that it is not the fault of the animal. The infestation of animals is possible, and therefore so is the blessing of deliverance that can be prayed over them. In this, as in all other cases, the exorcist must discover the reasons behind the evil manifestation. The knowledge is necessary to avoid mistakes. I will mention that since the first centuries of Christianity, we find instances of exorcisms performed on houses, animals, and things. Among others, Origen testifies to this practice.
The above types of satanic disturbance (where, it must be said, the devil has no power over the soul) can be received for 4 different reasons:
(1) The Devil’s Liberal Initiative
“By virtue of the freedom granted to creatures, God tolerates Satan’s activity. It is not a case of God allowing evil doings, but is rather delayed intervention. The reasons for this divine will are not completely understood, however, we know that God has the power to transform evil into good. Many saints suffered possession, vexation, or obsession, and were sanctified through these trials (such as Padre Pio, St. John Vianney, St. Gemma and others). And let us not forget the value of the cross. Satanic disturbance, when offered to God in sacrifice, takes on enormous redeeming power.
(b) Through Attending Dangerous Places
“This category includes the practice or assisting in the practice of séances, witchcraft, satanic cults, or sects—which culminate in black masses—the occult … associating with warlocks, witch doctors, or certain types of card readers. These are all activities that make us vulnerable to evil spells. There is even such a thing as consecration to Satan, the blood pact with Satan, attendance at satanic schools, and the election to the priesthood of Satan. Unfortunately, many fall victim to these individuals because these sorcerers are often women who are always seen in church, or because the room of the warlock is blanketed with crucifixes, portraits of saints, the Blessed Virgin, and portraits of Padre Pio.
(c) Persistence in Grave Sins
“With time, the person is “hardened” in sin and evil takes root. The Gospel gives us a clear example of this in the character of Judas. He was a thief. Who knows how many times Jesus tried to correct him and call him to repentance, and the only result was rejection and a hardening in sin. Judas reaches the climax when he asks the chief priests: “What are you prepared to give me, if I hand him over to you?” (Matthew 26:15). In the narrative of the Last Supper, the Gospel tells us that terrible sentence about Judas: “Then after the morsel, Satan entered into him” (ohJn 13:27). I have no doubt that here it means true diabolic possession.
“In the current environment, where we are witnessing the collapse of the family, I have encountered many cases of possessed people who, in addition to other sins, were living in irregular marriages. I have dealt many times with women whose sins included the crime of abortion. I have been confronted with numerous people who, in addition to sexual aberrations, committed other violent actions. Many times I have been faced with homosexuals who were drug addicts and who had committed drug-related sins. It is almost redundant to say that, in all these stages, the way to healing can begin only with a sincere conversion.
(d) Curses and Spells
“The most common cause for Satanic attacks is the curse or spell. Around 90% of the cases that I deal with are precisely spells. The effects of the curse do not depend on the morality or immorality of the person who is the target of the curse―the one who unknowingly receives the curse. Suppose, for example, that someone you work with is envious of you and has a spell cast on you. You would get sick. A curse is an appeal to the devil for harm to come to someone or something. It is done by “mediums” who are in contact with the devil. It is possible for a person to go to a magician, a witch or someone related to the devil and pay him to call a curse down upon a certain person. Both the person who orders or asks for a curse to placed on someone or something, and the “medium” who does it, are guilty of this sin. If the person is in the state of grace and prays, it is difficult for the curse to take effect. But if the person is less protected from the spiritual point of view, it is easier for the curse to affect him.
The Fight Ain’t Over Till It’s Over!
Complacent Catholics―Comfortable Catholics―Cowardly Catholics―Cafeteria Catholics―it is time to wake up, shake up, and take up your weapons! “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “Shall your brethren go to fight, and will you just sit here?’” (Numbers 32:6). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself!” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8-19). “Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect” (Ephesians 6:11-13). “That we be not overreached by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11). “He that shall persevere to the end―he shall be saved!” (Matthew 24:13).
Tomorrow’s Gospel (3rd Sunday of Lent) has a passage that can make us feel very uneasy and insecure. In the Gospel passage from St. Luke we read about Our Lord casting out devils. The Jews accuse Him of being in league with the devil Beelzebub, the prince of devils. Our Lord refutes the foolish accusation, while issuing a warning to those who are complacent in their fight with the devil―saying that if we manage to amend our lives and drive the devil away from us, he will come back with even more devils and seek to make us worse than we once were! Here is that Gospel reading:
“At that time, Jesus was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb. And when He had cast out the devil, the dumb man spoke and the crowds marveled. But some of them said: ‘It is by Beelzebub, the prince of devils, that He casts out devils!’ And others, to test Him, demanded from Him a sign from Heaven. But He, seeing their thoughts, said to them: ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and house will fall upon house. If, then, Satan also is divided against himself―then how shall his kingdom stand? Because you say that I cast out devils by Beelzebub. Now, if I cast out devils by Beelzebub, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges! But if I cast out devils by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you!
“When the strong man, fully armed, guards his courtyard, his property is undisturbed. But if a stronger than he attacks and overcomes him, he will take away all his weapons that he relied upon, and will divide his spoils. He who is not with Me is against Me―and he who does not gather with Me scatters! When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he roams through waterless places in search of rest―and finding none, he says: “I will return to my house which I left!” And when he has come to it, he finds the place swept. Then he goes and takes seven other spirits―more evil than himself―and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse that the first! Now it came to pass that as He was saying these things, a certain woman from the crowd lifted up her voice and said to Him: ‘Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the breasts that nursed Thee!’ But He said: ‘Rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it!’” (Luke 11:14-28).
Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch!
For the vast majority of Catholics, life is a perpetual battle or tug-of-war with the devil, of whom Holy Scripture says: “Be sober and watch―because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). That perpetual battle or tug-of-war with the devil sees Catholics being dragged into mortal sin repeatedly throughout their lives―some sinning more, others less; some living for longer in mortal sin, others less. Who dare say: “I am clean, and without sin! I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me!” (Job 33:9). “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God!” (Romans 3:23). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10).
When we sin mortally, we fall under the increasing control of the devil―not necessarily to the point of being possessed by the devil, but, that said, exorcists have noticed that there is a danger that continually repeated mortal sins can eventually lead to full-blown possession: “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, said: “The most common way a demon can enter into someone’s life is through a habitual state of mortal sin. Those who live in a state of grace, those who pray most fervently, have a much better chance of obtaining divine intervention against the evil one than those who do not practice their faith or, worse, who live in a habitual state of mortal sin.” Another exorcist, Fr. Aga Tarog, warns: “Mortal sin is the primary entry point for demonic possession!” Another exorcist adds: “Sin is a far greater danger than the devil. The devil is outside of us. Even in a possession, he cannot possess our soul.” Nevertheless―as even the Liberal and Modernist Pope Paul VI said― “Satan is enemy number one, he is the tempter par excellence … the enemy of mankind!”
Know Your Enemy
Sun Tzu was a Chinese military general, strategist, philosopher, and writer who was born in 544 BC. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War―an influential work of military strategy that has affected both Western and East Asian philosophy and military thinking. In The Art of War, he writes: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
It is imperative that we know our enemies and know their tactics. Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, tells us that our enemy, Satan, prefers to be unknown and unseen―so that he might better wreak his havoc and do his damage: “The Devil does not like to be seen … Satan’s biggest triumph is mankind’s conviction that he doesn’t exist ... He makes people believe that Hell does not exist, that sin does not exist, and that he is nothing but one more experience to try out ... When we jeer at the Devil and tell ourselves that he does not exist, that is when he is happiest!”
THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE CONSISTS SOLEY OF THE WORDS OF THE EXORCIST FR. GABRIELE AMORTH―TAKEN AND ARRANGED AND COMPILED FROM HIS MANY INTERVIEWS, ARTICLES AND PERSONAL BOOKS. THESE EXTRACTS HAVE BEEN PLACED INTO AN ORGANIC AND SYSTEMATIC WHOLE. YOU SHOULD FIND THEM HIGHLY INSTRUCTIVE IN GETTING TO “KNOW YOUR ENEMY”!
How the Devil Gets Into Your Life
“How can we fall prey to extraordinary satanic activity? By this I mean other than the ordinary activity—temptation—which applies to everyone. We can do so through our own fault or by being completely unaware. We can group the reasons into four categories: (1) with God’s permission, (2) as innocent victims of an evil spell, (3) due to a grave and hardened sinful condition, (4) through association with evil people or places.
1. With God’s Permission
“I want to make absolutely clear that nothing happens without God’s permission. It is also absolutely clear that God does not wish evil for anyone, but he allows it when it is our will (since he created us with completely free will), and he can use everything, even evil, for our own good. The characteristic of the first category of extraordinary demonic activity is complete absence of human guilt; it is entirely due to a diabolical intervention. God always allows normal satanic activity—temptation— and gives us all the graces necessary to resist, with the resulting good of strengthening our spiritual life.
“In the same manner, God at times also allows extraordinary satanic activity —possession, evil influences—to increase our humility, patience, and mortification. We have already given a couple of examples of this category: an external action of the devil that causes physical pain (such as the beatings and floggings suffered by the Cure of Ars and Padre Pio) or when a so-called oppression is allowed, as we have mentioned concerning Job and Saint Paul.
“The lives of many saints include examples of this affliction. Among modern saints, I can cite two: Father Giovanni Calabria and Sister Mary of Jesus Crucified (who was the first Arab to be beatified). In both cases, and without any human fault, they were subjected to periods of true satanic possession. During those periods, the two saints did and said things totally incompatible with their holiness without the least fault, because it was the devil who acted through their bodies.
2. When We Are Subjected to an Evil Curse or Spell
“This is another case in which the victim is completely blameless. Here, however, there is some human activity, but it is performed by those who cast the spell or those who hire a witch to cast it. I will devote an entire chapter to this topic. Here I will simply say that an evil spell is causing the suf ering of others through the intervention of the devil. This intervention can take many different forms: binding, the evil eye, a curse. I will say right away that the most common method is sorcery. Sorcery is also the most frequent cause that we encounter in those who are struck by possession or other evil influences. I do not understand the reasons behind the refusal of some churchmen who claim not to believe in sorcery, just as I cannot understand how they can protect from sorcery those among their flock who are victims of this evil.
“Some may be surprised that God allows this sort of evil to happen. God created us free, and he never rejects his creatures, not even the most perverted. At the end, he rewards everyone according to his just deserts, because everyone will be judged according to his actions. In the meantime, if we use well the freedom that he gave us, we will gain merit; or we can use it for evil purposes, and we will earn blame. We can either help others or hurt them through many forms of abuse. To give an example: I can pay a killer to murder someone; God is not obligated to stop him. Just as easily, I can pay a warlock or a witch doctor to cast an evil spell on someone. God, just as in the first case, is not obligated to intervene, although in many cases he does. For instance, those who live in a state of grace, those who pray most fervently, have a much better chance of obtaining divine intervention against the evil one than those who do not practice their faith or, worse, who live in a habitual state of mortal sin.
“Here I must give a warning that I will expand in a later chapter: the field of sorcery and other evil actions is the domain of swindlers. Instances of true sorcery are a minute percentage among the wholesale deceit that prevails in this arena. Besides offering a variety of opportunities to swindlers, sorcery is also particularly suited to suggestions and whims of feeble minds. Therefore, it is important that the exorcist be on guard against deception, but it is also important that everyone with common sense be vigilant too.
3. A Grave and Hardened State of Sin
“Here we are addressing the cause that today, unfortunately, is on the increase, with a resulting increase in the numbers of people who are victims of the devil. At the root, the true cause is always a lack of faith. As lack of faith increases, so does superstition; it is almost a mathematical reality. I believe that the Gospel gives us a clear example of this in the character of Judas. He was a thief. Who knows how many times Jesus tried to correct him and call him to repentance, and the only result was rejection and a hardening in sin. Judas reaches the climax when he asks the chief priests: “What are you prepared to give me, if I hand him over to you?” (Matthew 26:15). In the narrative of the Last Supper, the Gospel tells us that terrible sentence about Judas: “Then after the morsel, Satan entered into him” (ohJn 13:27). I have no doubt that here it means true diabolic possession.
“In the current environment, where we are witnessing the collapse of the family, I have encountered many cases of possessed people who, in addition to other sins, were living in irregular marriages. I have dealt many times with women whose sins included the crime of abortion. I have been confronted with numerous people who, in addition to sexual aberrations, committed other violent actions. Many times I have been faced with homosexuals who were drug addicts and who had committed drug-related sins. It is almost redundant to say that, in all these stages, the way to healing can begin only with a sincere conversion.
4. Association with Evil People and Places
“This category includes the practice or assisting in the practice of séances, witchcraft, satanic cults, or sects—which culminate in black masses—the occult… associating with warlocks, witch doctors, or certain types of card readers. These are all activities that make us vulnerable to evil spells. If we go so far as to desire a relationship with Satan, there is such a thing as consecration to Satan, the blood pact with Satan, attendance at satanic schools, and the election to the priesthood of Satan. Unfortunately, in the past fifteen years, we have witnessed an increase, almost an explosion, of these types of associations.
“A very common example of associating with warlocks or witch doctors is this: Someone who is the victim of a stubborn illness cannot find any remedy. Someone else experiences all sorts of misfortune and believes that it is due to an evil influence. They appeal to a card reader or a warlock, who tells them, “You are subject to an evil spell.” Up to now, there is very little damage done. However, unfortunately what follows is something like this: “For one thousand dollars—or more—I will cure you.” These fees can be as high as $35,000. If the individual agrees, the card reader or warlock asks for some personal item: a photograph, a piece of underwear, a lock of hair, a few hairs, or a nail clipping. At this point, the evil act is accomplished. What does the warlock do with these items? He obviously uses them to practice black magic.
“Unfortunately, many fall victim to these individuals because these sorcerers are often women who are always seen in church, or because the room of the warlock is blanketed with crucifixes, portraits of saints, the Blessed Virgin, and portraits of Padre Pio. The victims are also often told, “I practice only white magic; if you asked me for black magic I would refuse.” In current terminology, white magic means to take away a spell; black magic means to cast a spell. In reality, as Father Candido never ceased to repeat, there are no such things as “white” and “black” magic; there is only black magic. Every form of magic is practiced with recourse to Satan. Therefore, the poor victim who went to the warlock with a minor evil influence (or probably without any such influence) goes home with a true, full-blown one. When this occurs, often we exorcists have to work much harder after the ill-fated action of the warlocks than we would have if the person had come to us with the original complaint.
The Presence and Activity of Satan
“Satan’s power is felt more keenly in periods of history when the sinfulness of the community is more evident … The problem is getting worse. The Devil is gaining ground. We are living in an age when Faith is diminishing ... Today we live in a period of little Faith ... Young people receive everything from their parents―except the Faith ... It is purely mathematical―when Faith declines, superstition grows ... When Faith in God declines, idolatry and irrationality increase … Whoever lives in indifference, in absent-mindedness, far from God, that person is open to an easy satanic conquest ... The deeper reason that prevents communion with God is, again and again, the fear of God; fear that keeps us from feeling loved as a child. This is the angel of darkness’s deadly lie―‘God does not love you.’ This is the worst of evils” and the source of all the others ― for by not having known the Father and without the Father’s Love, the law is just a heavy burden … If you abandon God, the Devil will take his place … When we abandon God, we give ourselves to practices that open the door to Satan ...
“The Devil does not like to be seen … Satan’s biggest triumph is mankind’s conviction that he doesn’t exist ... He makes people believe that Hell does not exist, that sin does not exist, and that he is nothing but one more experience to try out ... When we jeer at the Devil and tell ourselves that he does not exist, that is when he is happiest … Our contemporary religious culture―while not entirely negating the existence of Satan and the other devils―is inclined to diminish their involvement and influence over people. Discrediting this satanic influence has become almost compulsory and is considered a sign of ‘wisdom’.
“Yet, the smoke of Satan has entered everywhere! Everywhere! Perhaps we were excluded from the audience (in 2004) with the Pope because they were afraid that such a large number of exorcists might succeed in chasing out the legions of demons that have installed themselves in the Vatican! … I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Evil exists in politics―quite often in fact! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office.
“Satan hates God and that is why he seeks to convince people to commit sins and thus drag them down to Hell ... His ordinary activity is to tempt man toward evil, to lead him to temptation, to sin, to push him to break divine law ... The devil looks in each person precisely for his weak point and ‘works’ on it, creating his next sinful occasion … Satan uses the idolatry of sex, which reduces the human body to an instrument of sin.
“The devil has a double way of acting―the normal way and the extraordinary way. The normal way is to lead man towards evil to make him fall into sin … Satan hides and disguises himself in a thousand ways … The devil prefers this way and we are all subject to it from our birth until our death! … We are all tempted by the devil, and will be for as long as we live! …
“The loss of a sense of sin―that characterizes our era―helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God, weakens the consciences of men and women and leads them toward egoism, closing their hearts, lack of forgiveness, and doing everything for money, power, and sex. Satan seduces with suggestions like ― ‘Everything is lawful!’ ‘What is wrong there?’ ‘Everyone does it!’ … Everything is permitted and where your ego, or “I” or “me”, does not recognize any limits regarding pleasure or enjoyment! … You may do all you wish, no one has the right to command you, and you are the god of yourself! … Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies … Today, families are among the most targeted by the ordinary action of Satan … We must have a clear vision of the reality of our lives. Our experience on Earth is a test, a battle to reach eternal life.
The Tactics of Satan
“Music is a diabolical instrument that the devil often uses and which is very efficient. Just think of heavy-metal music and satanic rock. Unfortunately, a great quantity of young people enter into Satanism through these satanic singers.
“The most frequent way that a person is tormented by the devil is because of a curse. It is possible for a person to go to a magician, a witch or someone related to the devil and pay him to call a curse down upon a certain person … Suppose, for example, that someone you work with is envious of you and casts a spell on you. You would get sick. 90% of the cases that I deal with are precisely spells. The rest are due to membership in satanic sects or participation in séances or magic … One enters into the possession of the devil, or under his influence … Nobody safe from the devil. Everyone is vulnerable. If the person is in the state of grace and prays, it is difficult for the curse to take effect. But if the person is less protected from the spiritual point of view, it is easier for the curse to affect him … If you live in harmony with God, it is much more difficult for the devil to possess you …
“The devil wanders around each one of you, searching where to devour.’ That word―‘where’―is important: the devil looks in each person precisely for his weak point and ‘works’ on it, creating his next sinful occasion. It will be the targeted person himself, who, in his liberty, will commit the sin, after having been well “cooked” by Satan’s temptation … He makes us doubt the existence of sin and Hell and Paradise and of their eternity; or, for example, as in our times, where euthanasia and abortion are passed off as signs of humanity’s progress. The second subterfuge is to make evil appear good, a gain rather than a loss. The devil also makes evil appear interesting, positive, and beautiful.”
“The most frequent weak points in man are, from time to time, always the same: pride, money, and lust. And, let us note well, there are no age limits for sinning. When I hear confessions, I often say to my penitents, somewhat jokingly, that their temptations will end only five minutes after they have exhaled their last breath. Therefore, we must not presume, or hope, that, at an advanced age, we shall be exempt from sin. A vice, that is cultivated in youth, will not lessen in old age without some work and intervention. Let us consider lust: when I hear confessions, it’s not uncommon for the elderly to confess to looking at pornography more often than the youth. The will to struggle against sin must be cultivated even to the end of our days.”
Possession, Vexation, Obsession and Infestation―What’s the Difference?
“Then there is the devil’s extraordinary action which is disturbing people in particular or exceptional ways. At times the fault can be our own; at times it is caused by others. This type of action can be classified under 4 different names (even though a list of common terms has yet to be defined by exorcists). Currently, the Ritual directly mentions only demonic possession, which is the most severe and rarest of all demonic activity. In practice, exorcists take care of every type of satanic intervention: demonic oppression (much more numerous than full possession), obsession, infestation of houses, and other activity that appears to benefit from our prayers. The old saying that “natura non facit saltus” (nature does not jump, but goes forward slowly, through evolution) is also valid for satanic activity. For instance, there is no clear distinction between the oppressed and the possessed, just as the line between oppressed and other evils is not clear.
► POSSESSION
“The devil enters the human body and manifests himself through gestures and words. It must be clear that in this case Satan cannot take possession of the soul. Out of every hundred people who seek my help, only one or two at the most may be possessed. Who becomes possessed? No one can consider themselves excluded: they can be young or old, believers or atheists, Christians or those of other religions. Through the years there have been Muslims who have had serious cases of possession. Not even consecrated religious are ruled out. I recall the case of Sister Angela, who was obsessed with a cursing that resounded in her mind. There are many grades of possession. The Devil does not like to be seen, so there are people who are possessed who manage to conceal it.
“In most cases, those who are distant from the Faith are more susceptible to this risk of possession, but this is only an indication of the maxim that says the devil is more tranquil if he does not have to live with prayer, fasting, the Eucharist, and the other Sacramental practices. I have noticed that each possession is unique; this is also true for the other forms of the devil’s extraordinary influence.
“There are liberations that occur in a few sessions and others that require many years of exorcisms. Some have obvious and coarse manifestations, and others — such as the case of a mute spirit — do not ever pronounce a word. These last are among the most difficult cases to treat. Little by little, as the exorcism proceeds, the spirits with the least authority, the weaker spirits, abandon the field. The victory, the complete liberation, is accomplished after the defeat of the supreme head of the legion, the most powerful and overbearing, the last to leave the ship, the one of whom the other demons have a true and proper terror.
Exorcisms are always very slow. In general, many years are needed to free a person. I have people who continue to come after fifteen or twenty years; but it is true that even though a total liberation is not always achieved, a certain alleviation is achieved. The action of the devil also diminishes, to the point of only being felt in moments of crisis. These people, in general, can lead a life of normal activity, even though they have great sufferings that no one sees, commonly in the head and the stomach.
► VEXATION
“Diabolical vexations are the second type of the demon’s extraordinary spiritual aggression and are far and away the most numerous. They are caused by a person’s cultivation of imprudent habits; by frequenting wizards or séances, through repeated and persistent serious sins, or by submitting to spells.
“Here the devil acts without any dominant and prevailing influence over the body and the mind of the victim, as happens in the case of possession. Vexations are true and actual aggression, physical or psychological attacks that the demon works against a person. At times they result in scratches, burns, bruises, or, in the most serious cases, broken bones. At times the victim is the target of stones or other objects. We can give some examples from the lives of the saints: St. Pio, for example, was whipped by a demon. The Curé of Ars, St. John Vianney, was often thrown out of his bed by Satan. I would say that these cases concerned diabolical vexations, not possessions.
“Typical cases of vexation are illnesses without any apparent cause that affect the internal organs, or the limbs, or pathologies, that provoke pain in a part of the body without visible signs. Vexations can involve health, affections, or work. Often the vexation is associated with an extraordinary evil spell, in the sense that the person possessed or obsessed can also exhibit physical and psychic disturbances. It happened to me that in liberating a demoniac, the woman was, at the same time, cured of a terrible tumor. Evidently, in this case, the spell submitted to by the demon had a duplicate effect, spiritual and physical. On the other hand, the Gospel also attests to cases of physical healing that are tied to a spiritual healing from an evil spell. For example, Jesus heals a mute demoniac (see Matthew 9:32-34) and a blind and mute demoniac (Matthew 12:22-24). Vexations can also involve the dimension of dreams―while sleeping, a person may have terrible nightmares, in which he dreams of cursing, of damning God, or of becoming perverse and wicked. In this case, we are at the borders of diabolical obsession.
“As I have said, vexations are not always manifested on a physical level. Sometimes they can strike affections: it can happen, for example, that a couple who are married or are engaged to be married can separate, or, to the contrary, two persons can become engaged, even though they are incompatible. Other vexations are manifested in work: the person in search of it does not find it; or the person who finds work loses it; or a person may have gross difficulties with colleagues and bosses at work. Other times, vexations can break up friendships and isolate a person. It is impossible to enumerate all the cases.
► OBSESSION
“Sacred Scripture assures us that the forms of Satan’s power over the world include physical and mental obsession. This type of disturbance strikes a person in his inner serenity, his psycho-emotive balance. It consists of uncontrollable evil thoughts that torment an individual, especially at night, or in some cases always. Satan causes perturbation, anxiety, inner torment. Symptoms include sudden attacks, at times ongoing, of obsessive thoughts, sometimes even rationally absurd, but of such nature that the victim is unable to free himself. Therefore the obsessed person lives in a perpetual state of prostration, desperation, and attempts at suicide. Almost always obsession influences dreams. Some people will say that this is evidence of mental illness, requiring the services of a psychiatrist or a psychologist. The same could be said of all other forms of demonic phenomena. Some symptoms, however, are so inconsistent with known illnesses that they point with certainty to their evil origins. Only an expert and well-trained eye can identify the crucial differences.
Five Chief Areas of Demonic Obsession Attacks
“The demons, tend to attack man in five areas. These attacks are more or less severe, according to their origin. The five areas are the following: health, business, affections, enjoyment of life, and desire for death.
(1) Health
“The evil one has the power to cause physical and mental illness. I have already mentioned that the two most commonly affected areas are the head and the stomach. Usually, the sickness is persistent. At times, though, it is transitory, lasting only the length of the exorcism. The latter include plague-like growths, stab wounds, and bruises. The Ritual suggests blessing the affected areas with the Sign of the Cross and sprinkling them with holy water. Many times I have witnessed the efficacy of simply covering the area with the stole and pressing on it with one hand. Many times women have come to me before undergoing surgery for ovarian cysts, which were diagnosed following a sonogram and the description of the pain. After the benediction, the pain stopped; a new sonogram showed the absence of any cyst, and surgery was canceled. Father Candido can document numerous cases of grave illnesses that disappeared simply with his “blessing”, including medically verified brain tumors. I must caution that these incidents can happen only to people who are subject to “negativities”, and by this I mean cases whose origin is of suspected evil origin.
(2) Affections
“The evil one can cause unrestrained animosities, especially toward those who love us the most. He destroys marriages, breaks up engagements; he fosters screaming fights in families where everyone truly loves one another, and always for futile reasons. Satan also ruins friendships; through his intervention, the victim feels unwelcome everywhere, avoided by everyone, ending in a desire for isolation. Then there follows a conviction of total lack of love and understanding, a complete affective void that makes marriage an impossibility. And so every time that a friendly relationship grows and blossoms into love, it suddenly ends, without reason.
(3) Business
“Impossibility to find work—even when it seems that a job offer is certain—for improbable, even absurd motives. The victim may finally have found a job but leaves it for no apparent reason and then searches for another job, but either does not go to the interview or leaves the new job as well, citing the same futile motive. The relatives of these unfortunate individuals suspect abnormal or irresponsible personality. I have witnessed extremely wealthy families fall into abject poverty for humanly unexplainable reasons. Successful industrialists are suddenly inexplicably faced with everything going to rack and ruin, or astute businessmen begin to make one bad decision after another and, as a result, fall seriously in debt. Yet again, owners of very popular stores experience a disastrous decrease in customers. When the evil one influences money matters, finding a job becomes impossible, the wealthy are suddenly forced into poverty, and the employed become jobless, and always without any apparent reason.
(4) Enjoyment of life
“Logically, physical illnesses, affective isolation, and economic bankruptcy bring about such pessimism that life is seen only in a negative way. Those so affected become incapable of optimism, of hope; life appears completely bleak, without any way out, unbearable.
(5) Desire for Death
“This is the final goal of the evil enemy: to bring us to despair and suicide. Here I immediately add that when we place ourselves under the protection of the Church, even if it is only with one exorcism, the fifth stage is eliminated. We seem to relive what job was allowed to suffer: “Behold, he is in your power; only spare his life” (Job 2:6). I could tell many instances where, with almost miraculous intervention, the Lord saved some people from suicide.
► INFESTATION
“Infestations affect houses, things, or animals. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that both persons and objects can be exorcised. It can happen to have to exorcise houses or places. More than 90% of diabolic infestation originates in a curse―a curse placed on things and animals. For example, I have found myself exorcising apartments that had been used for a long time to hold séances or where warlocks had practiced black magic. The worst examples involved satanic rituals. At times the gravity of the disturbances and the difficulty of total liberation were so great that I was forced to recommend simply leaving the place.
“In other, less serious circumstances, prayer is sufficient to re-establish peace. One family was bothered by noises at night―after ten Masses were celebrated, the noises ceased completely. Another family was subjected―not only to doors and windows that, although well secured, would open and close at will―but also to flying chairs, dancing armoires, and other incredible events. The exorcist was finally successful by concurrently using all three Sacramentals that are the standard tool of exorcists. He advised the family to mix in a cup or glass exorcised water, oil, and salt; then, every evening, to pour a teaspoon of the mixture on the ledge of every window and at the threshold of every door, praying the Our Father while doing it. This cure proved to be decisive. After a while the family stopped this practice, and in a matter of one week the disturbances started again, only to stop immediately when the exorcist’s routine was reinstated.
“Exorcising salt too is beneficial for expelling demons and for healing soul and body. The specific function of this salt is to protect places from an evil presence or influence. When there is suspicion of evil infestation, I usually advise people to place exorcised salt across the threshold and in the four corners of the room or rooms that are affected.
“I have also been asked about the possibility of infestation of house pets. Is it possible? What is the remedy? The Gospel tells us about that legion of demons who asked Jesus’ permission to enter the herd of swine. Jesus allowed it, and the entire herd rushed into the Gerasene sea (Matthew 8:28-33). I know of an inexperienced exorcist who ordered a demon to enter a farmer’s family pig―the animal became savage and attacked the farmer’s wife. Needless to say, the pig was immediately killed. These are rare instances, and every time they lead to the immediate death of the animal. I want to make it clear that it is not the fault of the animal. The infestation of animals is possible, and therefore so is the blessing of deliverance that can be prayed over them. In this, as in all other cases, the exorcist must discover the reasons behind the evil manifestation. The knowledge is necessary to avoid mistakes. I will mention that since the first centuries of Christianity, we find instances of exorcisms performed on houses, animals, and things. Among others, Origen testifies to this practice.
The above types of satanic disturbance (where, it must be said, the devil has no power over the soul) can be received for 4 different reasons:
(1) The Devil’s Liberal Initiative
“By virtue of the freedom granted to creatures, God tolerates Satan’s activity. It is not a case of God allowing evil doings, but is rather delayed intervention. The reasons for this divine will are not completely understood, however, we know that God has the power to transform evil into good. Many saints suffered possession, vexation, or obsession, and were sanctified through these trials (such as Padre Pio, St. John Vianney, St. Gemma and others). And let us not forget the value of the cross. Satanic disturbance, when offered to God in sacrifice, takes on enormous redeeming power.
(b) Through Attending Dangerous Places
“This category includes the practice or assisting in the practice of séances, witchcraft, satanic cults, or sects—which culminate in black masses—the occult … associating with warlocks, witch doctors, or certain types of card readers. These are all activities that make us vulnerable to evil spells. There is even such a thing as consecration to Satan, the blood pact with Satan, attendance at satanic schools, and the election to the priesthood of Satan. Unfortunately, many fall victim to these individuals because these sorcerers are often women who are always seen in church, or because the room of the warlock is blanketed with crucifixes, portraits of saints, the Blessed Virgin, and portraits of Padre Pio.
(c) Persistence in Grave Sins
“With time, the person is “hardened” in sin and evil takes root. The Gospel gives us a clear example of this in the character of Judas. He was a thief. Who knows how many times Jesus tried to correct him and call him to repentance, and the only result was rejection and a hardening in sin. Judas reaches the climax when he asks the chief priests: “What are you prepared to give me, if I hand him over to you?” (Matthew 26:15). In the narrative of the Last Supper, the Gospel tells us that terrible sentence about Judas: “Then after the morsel, Satan entered into him” (ohJn 13:27). I have no doubt that here it means true diabolic possession.
“In the current environment, where we are witnessing the collapse of the family, I have encountered many cases of possessed people who, in addition to other sins, were living in irregular marriages. I have dealt many times with women whose sins included the crime of abortion. I have been confronted with numerous people who, in addition to sexual aberrations, committed other violent actions. Many times I have been faced with homosexuals who were drug addicts and who had committed drug-related sins. It is almost redundant to say that, in all these stages, the way to healing can begin only with a sincere conversion.
(d) Curses and Spells
“The most common cause for Satanic attacks is the curse or spell. Around 90% of the cases that I deal with are precisely spells. The effects of the curse do not depend on the morality or immorality of the person who is the target of the curse―the one who unknowingly receives the curse. Suppose, for example, that someone you work with is envious of you and has a spell cast on you. You would get sick. A curse is an appeal to the devil for harm to come to someone or something. It is done by “mediums” who are in contact with the devil. It is possible for a person to go to a magician, a witch or someone related to the devil and pay him to call a curse down upon a certain person. Both the person who orders or asks for a curse to placed on someone or something, and the “medium” who does it, are guilty of this sin. If the person is in the state of grace and prays, it is difficult for the curse to take effect. But if the person is less protected from the spiritual point of view, it is easier for the curse to affect him.
The Fight Ain’t Over Till It’s Over!
Complacent Catholics―Comfortable Catholics―Cowardly Catholics―Cafeteria Catholics―it is time to wake up, shake up, and take up your weapons! “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “Shall your brethren go to fight, and will you just sit here?’” (Numbers 32:6). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself!” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8-19). “Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect” (Ephesians 6:11-13). “That we be not overreached by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11). “He that shall persevere to the end―he shall be saved!” (Matthew 24:13).
Article 13
Friday after the Second Sunday of Lent, March 10th, 2023
Learning From Lukewarm Teresa
Friday after the Second Sunday of Lent, March 10th, 2023
Learning From Lukewarm Teresa
A Lukewarm Saint
St Teresa of Avila fell into a pattern. While ill, she would pray fervently. When she was better, she wouldn’t pray as much, or would stop praying at all. This is the lukewarmness that she talks about; a period of 15 years. When she turned 40, it all changed. By God’s grace, she was able to see, admit and combat her lukewarmness.
Here is what St. Teresa had to say about that vision:
“Ever since that time, as I was saying, everything seems endurable in comparison with one instant of suffering such as those I had then to bear in Hell. I am filled with fear when I see that, after frequently reading books which describe in some manner the pains of Hell, I was not afraid of them, nor made any account of them. Where was I? How could I possibly take any pleasure in those things which led me directly to so dreadful a place? Blessed forever be Thou, O my God! And oh, how manifest is it that Thou didst love me much more than I did love Thee! How often, O Lord, didst Thou save me from that fearful prison! And how I used to get back to it contrary to Thy will.”
In one of the many versions of her Autobiography, the Preface states:
“There are souls whom God, in a way, constrains to enter on the way of perfection, and who, if they relaxed in their fervor, could not keep a middle course, but would immediately fall into the other extreme of sins, and for souls of this kind it is of the utmost necessity that they should watch and pray without ceasing; and, in short, there is nobody whom lukewarmness does not injure. Let every man examine his own conscience, and he will find this to be the truth … I firmly believe that if God for a time bears with the lukewarm, it is owing to the prayers of the fervent” (Preface of David Lewis to the Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila’s life).
How Dare You Say That?!?!
If you mention the word “lukewarmness” to some people, they begin to bristle and feel uncomfortable; some are even downright insulted at what they perceive to be an accusation or an association with the word! It is like bringing-up a taboo subject at a family gathering; the response is one of “We don’t talk about those kinds of things here!”
Yet we see that great saint, St. Teresa of Avila, a Doctor of the Church, no less, openly admit to being lukewarm in the earlier years of her life. Why can she admit to that? Because she is both honest and humble. It is our pride and self-deceit that leads us to make a false image of ourselves.
Most Souls ARE Lukewarm
Yet Our Lord sees us as we are, not as we imagine ourselves to be; and the truth of the matter is that most souls are lukewarm for a greater or lesser part of their lives. The lukewarmness of souls was already the complaint of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary in 1673! How much worse is not the world today? The Venerable Fr. Faber adamantly states this at the end of his chapter on lukewarmness in his book Growth in Holiness, saying:
“I fear this evil of lukewarmness is very common, and that at this moment it is gnawing the life out of many souls who suspect not its presence there. It is a great grace, a prophecy of a miraculous cure, to find out that we are lukewarm; but we are lost if we do not act with vigor, the moment we make this frightening discovery. It is like going to sleep in the snow, almost a pleasant tingling feeling at the first, and then‑-lost forever” (Growth in Holiness, chapter 25, “Lukewarmness”).
Another great spiritual authority and master, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., is of the opinion that most souls are not even beginners in the spiritual life. Speaking of the lukewarm or tepid souls, he writes:
“After conversion there ought to be a serious beginning of the purgative life, in which beginners love God by avoiding mortal sin and deliberate venial sin, through exterior and interior mortification and through prayer. But in actual fact this purgative life is found under two very different forms: in some, admittedly very few, this life is intense, generous; it is the narrow way of perfect self-denial described by the saints. In many others the purgative life appears in an attenuated form, varying from good souls, who are a little weak, down to those tepid and retarded souls, who from time to time fall into mortal sin” (The Three Conversions of the Spiritual Life, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange).
Let’s Be Honest!
Let us not be afraid of admitting our lukewarmness, whether it be acute or chronic,, temporary or long-term; for if you hide your symptoms from the doctor, there is nothing he can do for you. As the Preface of St. Teresa’s autobiography states:”there is nobody whom lukewarmness does not injure.”
Let us then read St. Teresa’s interesting account and admission on how she became so lukewarm in the first place, so that we may find a lesson therein for our own lives. In the next article, we will read of St. Teresa’s recommendations on how cure the spiritual disease. The subtitles will be our own, so as to enable the mind to have a clear overview of what St. Teresa presents.
CHAPTER TWO OF ST. TERESA’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
False Reasoning and Complacency
1. “What I shall now speak of was, I believe, the beginning of great harm to me. I often think how wrong it is of parents not to be very careful that their children should always, and in every way, see only that which is good; for though my mother was, as I have just said, so good herself, nevertheless I, when I came to the use of reason, did not derive so much good from her as I ought to have done—almost none at all; and the evil I learned did me much harm.”
“She was very fond of books of chivalry; but this pastime did not hurt her so much as it hurt me, because she never wasted her time on them; only we, her children, were left at liberty to read them; and perhaps she did this to distract her thoughts from her great sufferings, and occupy her children, that they might not go astray in other ways.”
“It annoyed my father so much, that we had to be careful he never saw us. I contracted a habit of reading these books; and this little fault which I observed in my mother was the beginning of lukewarmness in my good desires, and the occasion of my falling away in other respects. I thought there was no harm in it when I wasted many hours night and day in so vain an occupation, even when I kept it a secret from my father. So completely was I mastered by this passion, that I thought I could never be happy without a new book.”
Superficiality
2. “I began to make much of dress, to wish to please others by my appearance. I took pains with my hands and my hair, used perfumes, and all vanities within my reach—and they were many, for I was very much given to them. I had no evil intention, because I never wished any one to offend God for me. This fastidiousness of excessive neatness lasted some years; and so also did other practices, which, at the time, I thought were not at all sinful; now, I see how wrong all this must have been.”
Bad (or Lukewarm) Friends and Relatives
3. “I had some cousins; for into my father’s house no others were allowed an entrance. In this he was very cautious; and would to God he had been cautious about them!—for I see now the danger of conversing, at an age when virtue should begin to grow, with persons who, knowing nothing themselves of the vanity of the world, provoke others to throw themselves into the midst of it. These cousins were nearly of mine own age—a little older, perhaps. We were always together; and they had a great affection for me. In everything that gave them pleasure, I kept the conversation alive—listened to the stories of their affections and childish follies, good for nothing; and, what was still worse, my soul began to give itself up to that which was the cause of all its disorders. If I were to give advice, I would say to parents that they ought to be very careful whom they allow to mix with their children when young; for much mischief thence ensues, and our natural inclinations are unto evil rather than unto good.”
Frivolity and Worldliness
4. “So it was with me; for I had a sister much older than myself, from whose modesty and goodness, which were great, I learned nothing; and learned every evil from a relative who was often in the house. She was so light and frivolous, that my mother took great pains to keep her out of the house, as if she foresaw the evil I should learn from her; but she could not succeed, there being so many reasons for her coming. I was very fond of this person’s company, gossiped and talked with her; for she helped me in all the amusements I liked, and, what is more, found some for me, and communicated to me her own conversations and her vanities. Until I knew her, I mean, until she became friendly with me, and communicated to me her own affairs—I was then about fourteen years old, a little more, I think—I do not believe that I turned away from God in mortal sin, or lost the fear of Him, though I had a greater fear of disgrace.”
“This latter fear had such sway over me, that I never wholly forfeited my good name—and, as to that, there was nothing in the world for which I would have bartered it, and nobody in the world I liked well enough who could have persuaded me to do it. Thus I might have had the strength never to do anything against the honor of God, as I had it by nature not to fail in that wherein I thought the honor of the world consisted; and I never observed that I was failing in many other ways. In vainly seeking after it I was extremely careful; but in the use of the means necessary for preserving it I was utterly careless. I was anxious only not to be lost altogether.”
Bad Companions
5. “This friendship distressed my father and sister exceedingly. They often blamed me for it; but, as they could not hinder that person from coming into the house, all their efforts were in vain; for I was very adroit in doing anything that was wrong. Now and then, I am amazed at the evil one bad companion can do—nor could I believe it if I did not know it by experience—especially when we are young: then is it that the evil must be greatest. Oh, that parents would take this warning by me, and look carefully to this! So it was; the conversation of this person so changed me, that no trace was left of my soul’s natural disposition to virtue, and I became a reflection of her and of another who was given to the same kind of amusements.”
Losing the Fear of God
6. “I know from this the great advantage of good companions; and I am certain that if at that tender age I had been thrown among good people, I should have persevered in virtue; for if at that time I had found any one to teach me the fear of God, my soul would have grown strong enough not to fall away. Afterwards, when the fear of God had utterly departed from me, the fear of dishonor alone remained, and was a torment to me in all I did. When I thought that nobody would ever know, I ventured upon many things that were neither honorable nor pleasing unto God.”
Small Seeds Grow into Big Trees
7. “In the beginning, these conversations did me harm—I believe so. The fault was perhaps not hers, but mine; for afterwards my own wickedness was enough to lead me astray, together with the servants about me, whom I found ready enough for all evil. If any one of these had given me good advice, I might perhaps have profited by it; but they were blinded by interest, as I was by passion. Still, I was never inclined to much evil—for I hated naturally anything dishonorable—but only to the amusement of a pleasant conversation. The occasion of sin, however, being present, danger was at hand, and I exposed to it my father and brothers. God delivered me out of it all, so that I should not be lost, in a manner visibly against my will, yet not so secretly as to allow me to escape without the loss of my good name and the suspicions of my father.”
You Can Lead a Horse to Water, but...
8. “I had not spent, I think, three months in these vanities, when they took me to a monastery in the city where I lived, in which children like myself were brought up, though their way of life was not so wicked as mine. This was done with the utmost concealment of the true reason, which was known only to myself and one of my relatives. They waited for an opportunity which would make the change seem nothing out of the way; for, as my sister was married, it was not fitting I should remain alone, without a mother, in the house.”
Excessive Blind Love
9. “So excessive was my father’s love for me, and so deep my dissembling, that he never would believe me to be so wicked as I was; and hence I was never in disgrace with him. Though some remarks were made, yet, as the time had been short, nothing could be positively asserted; and, as I was so much afraid about my good name, I had taken every care to be secret; and yet I never considered that I could conceal nothing from Him Who seeth all things. O my God, what evil is done in the world by disregarding this, and thinking that anything can be kept secret that is done against Thee! I am quite certain that great evils would be avoided if we clearly understood that what we have to do is, not to be on our guard against men, but on our guard against displeasing Thee.”
Pride and Vanity
10. “For the first eight days, I suffered much; but more from the suspicion that my vanity was known, than from being in the monastery; for I was already weary of myself—and, though I offended God, I never ceased to have a great fear of Him, and contrived to go to confession as quickly as I could. I was very uncomfortable; but within eight days, I think sooner, I was much more contented than I had been in my father’s house. All the nuns were pleased with me; for our Lord had given me the grace to please everyone, wherever I might be. I was therefore made much of in the monastery. Though, at this time, I hated to be a nun, yet I was delighted at the sight of nuns so good; for they were very good in that house—very prudent, observant of the rule, and recollected.”
Religious and Worldly
11. “Yet, for all this, the devil did not cease to tempt me; and people in the world sought means to trouble my rest with messages and presents. As this could not be allowed, it was soon over, and my soul began to return to the good habits of my earlier years; and I recognized the great mercy of God to those whom He places among good people. It seems as if His Majesty had sought and sought again how to convert me to Himself. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, for having borne with me so long! Amen.”
CHAPTER SEVEN OF ST. TERESA’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
World is Fun, God is Not
1. “So, then, going on from pastime to pastime, from vanity to vanity, from one occasion of sin to another, I began to expose myself exceedingly to the very greatest dangers: my soul was so distracted by many vanities, that I was ashamed to draw near unto God in an act of such special friendship as that of prayer. As my sins multiplied, I began to lose the pleasure and comfort I had in virtuous things: and that loss contributed to the abandonment of prayer. I see now most clearly, O my Lord, that this comfort departed from me because I had departed from Thee.”
Doing Only the Minimum
2. “It was the most fearful delusion into which Satan could plunge me—to give up prayer under the pretense of humility. I began to be afraid of giving myself to prayer, because I saw myself so lost. Seeing that in my wickedness I was one of the most wicked, I thought it would be better for me to live like the multitude—to say only the prayers which I was bound to say, and say those prayers vocally: not to practice mental prayer, nor communicate with God so much; for I deserved to be with the devils, and was deceiving those who were lived around me, because I made an outward show of goodness; and therefore the community, in which I dwelt, is not to be blamed; for with my cunning I so managed matters, that all had a good opinion of me; and yet I did not seek this deliberately by pretending or simulating devotion.”
[Too often we fall into the same temptation—”to be like the rest.” We know what is right and proper, but “we go along to get along” and shy away from “rocking the boat.” Yet we forget that the multitude is not saved, and that the majority lose their souls: “Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). The devil, human respect and the desire to be liked, blinds us to this truth, so “we go along to get along” for fear of what others may think, say or do if they see us getting to be too religious!]
“For in all that relates to hypocrisy and ostentation (doing things so that everyone notices)—glory be to God!—I do not remember that I ever offended Him, so far as I know. The very first movements towards hypocrisy and ostentation gave me such pain, that the devil would depart from me with loss, and the gain remained with me; and thus, accordingly, he never tempted me much in this way. Perhaps, however, if God had permitted Satan to tempt me as sharply herein as he tempted me in other things, I should have fallen also into this; but His Majesty has preserved me until now. May He be blessed for evermore! It was rather a heavy affliction to me that I should be thought so well of; for I knew my own secret.”
Vanity Knows How to Manipulate
3. “The reason why they thought I was not so wicked was this: they saw that I, who was so young, and exposed to so many occasions of sin, withdrew myself so often into solitude for prayer, read much, spoke of God, that I liked to have His image painted in many places, to have an oratory of my own, and furnish it with objects of devotion, that I spoke ill of no one, and other things of the same kind in me which have the appearance of virtue. Yet all the while—I was so vain—I knew how to procure respect for myself by doing those things which in the world are usually regarded with respect.”
Too Much Freedom
4. “In consequence of this, they gave me as much freedom as they did to the oldest nuns, and even more, and had great confidence in me; for as to taking any liberty for myself, or doing anything without leave—such as conversing through the door, or in secret, or by night—I do not think I could have brought myself to speak with anybody in the monastery in that way, and I never did it; for Our Lord held me back. It seemed to me—for I considered many things carefully and of set purpose—that it would be a very evil deed on my part, wicked as I was, to risk the credit of so many nuns, who were all good—as if everything else I did was well done! In truth, the evil I did was not the result of deliberation, as this would have been, if I had done it, although it was too much so.”
[Though, in the next few paragraphs, St. Teresa speaks of life in the monastery or convent, we can very readily and easily apply this to Catholic family life or the Catholic school. For the Catholic family should be like a cloister that protects its members from the world and its worldly influences, just like the monastery or convent should protect the religious, who live within its walls, from the spirit of the outside world. We can also apply these paragraphs to our Catholic schools, which should also be cloisters for Catholic children, likewise protecting them from the world and its worldliness. Looked at from this perspective, the next few paragraphs teach us a great deal].
A Monastery (School or Home) Without Walls
5. “Therefore, I think that it did me much harm to be in a monastery that was not enclosed [meaning that the nuns had frequent contact with the world]. The freedom or liberty, which those who were good might have with advantage—they not being obliged to do more than they do, because they had not bound themselves to enclosure—would certainly have led me, who am wicked, straight to Hell, if Our Lord, by so many remedies and means of His most singular mercy, had not delivered me out of that danger—and it is, I believe, the very greatest danger—namely, a monastery of women unenclosed—yea, more, I think it is, for those who tend to or want to be wicked, a road to Hell, rather than a help to their weakness. This is not to be understood of my monastery; for there are so many there who in the utmost sincerity, and in great perfection, serve Our Lord [likewise, not all Catholic families or schools are lax and worldly], so that His Majesty, according to His goodness, cannot but be gracious unto them; neither is it one of those which are most open, because all religious observances are kept in it; and I am speaking only of others which I have seen and known.”
[How many parents, principals and teachers do the work of the devil for him, by not building ‘walls’ that will enclose and protect the children from the world. It is not enough to protect them from only the worst things, but also the little things, because forest fires are started by a small spark, and adult criminals were once merely naughty undisciplined children].
Praying Less and Less
“I had become so dissipated, and had ceased to pray, and yet saw that he [Teresa’s father] still thought I was what I used to be, I could not endure it, and so undeceived him. I had been a year and more without praying, thinking it an act of greater humility to abstain … When that blessed man [her father], having that good opinion of me, came to visit me, it pained me to see him so deceived as to think that I used to pray to God as before. So I told him that I did not pray; but I did not tell him why. I put my infirmities forward as an excuse … My father believed me when I gave him that for a reason, as he never told a lie himself; neither should I have done so.”
[Alas, how true it is that we make excuses, exaggerate, twist, hide or deny the truth, just so that we can continue in our ‘hidden’ state of lukewarmness. St. Teresa publicly admits to it in her autobiography, we, on the other hand deny it and hide it].
Double Standards
“At this time, that illness befell my father of which he died; it lasted some days. I went to nurse him, being more sick in spirit than he was in body, owing to my many vanities—though not, so far as I know, to the extent of being in mortal sin—through the whole of that wretched time of which I am speaking; for, if I knew myself to be in mortal sin, I would not have continued in it on any account.”
[That is a typical, common and universal trait of lukewarmness: “mortal sin never, venial sin forever!” For the lukewarm, venial sin is sometimes not even ‘on the radar’! The only thing that worries them is mortal sin. There is no real love of God in this attitude: for both mortal sin and venial sin are the TWO GREATEST EVILS in the world, as our catechism teaches us. To put it into concrete terms, it is like saying: “I will not knife or shoot Our Lord (mortal sin), but I have no problems in punching Him, kicking Him, spitting at Him and mocking Him (venial sin)!” Lukewarmness is this walking contradiction. If any lukewarm soul manages to escape Hell, it is not through their pretended ‘love’ of God, but simply because of God’s pity and mercy upon their pitiable state.]
God Sends a Rescuer
St. Teresa continues: “How much the more I am to be blamed for my wickedness; for after seeing such a death [of her father], and knowing what his life had been, I, in order to be in any wise like unto such a father, ought to have grown better. His confessor, a most learned Dominican, used to say that he had no doubt he went straight to Heaven. He had heard his confession for some years, and spoke with praise of the purity of his conscience.”
“This Dominican father, who was a very good God-fearing man, did me a very great service; for I confessed to him. He took upon himself the task of helping my soul in earnest, and of making me see the perilous state I was in. He sent me to Communion once a fortnight [at that time people went to Communion very, very rarely, it was only after Pope St. Pius X allowed frequent Communion, in the early 1900’s, that we entered the current period of frequent Communion]; and I, by degrees beginning to speak to him, told him about my prayer life. He commanded me never to omit it: that, anyhow, it could not do me anything but good. So I began to return to my prayer life—though I did not cut off the occasions of sin—and never afterwards gave it up.”
[Once again, Teresa admits to being a walking contradiction: she wants to love God, yet continues to hold fast to the friendship of the world and its occasions of sin: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4). Our Lord said that we cannot love and serve both God and mammon].
Under the Microscope of Prayer
St. Teresa says: “My life became most wretched, because I learned in prayer more and more of my faults. On one side, God was calling me; on the other, I was following the world. All the things of God gave me great pleasure; and I was a prisoner to the things of the world. It seemed as if I wished to reconcile two contradictions, so much at variance one with another, as are the life of the spirit and the joys and pleasures and amusements of sense. I suffered much in prayer; for the spirit was slave, and not master; and so I was not able to shut myself up within myself—that was my whole method of prayer—without shutting up with me a thousand vanities at the same time. I spent many years in this way; and I am now astonished that anyone could have borne it without abandoning either the one or the other.”
[Some people live in this state for more than the “many years” that St. Teresa speaks of; their entire lives are spent in lukewarmness, without even realizing or suspecting that they are lukewarm. This is because, as the already quoted opinions of the spiritual masters state, most of the world is lukewarm; and, as the Ven. Fr. Faber states, lukewarmness is a spiritual blindness, and the blind lead the blind into the pit. Generations of lukewarm families are like one long chain, ‘dancing-the-conga’ into the pit. Like father, like son; like mother, like daughter. Generations of successive lukewarm ‘Pied-Pipers’! A lukewarm tree will produce lukewarm fruit. You cannot give what you haven’t got].
The Need for Spiritual Friends
St. Teresa point out: “It is a great evil for a soul to be alone in the midst of such great dangers; it seems to me that if I had had anyone with whom I could have spoken of all this, it might have helped me not to fall. I might, at least, have been ashamed before him—and yet I was not ashamed before God! For this reason, I would advise those who give themselves to over to prayer, particularly at first, to form friendships; and converse familiarly, with others who are doing the same thing [Birds of a feather flock together. Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you what you are]. It is a matter of the greatest importance, even if it leads only to helping one another by prayer: how much more, seeing that it has led to much greater gain!”
“Now [in secular matters], if in their conversations with one with another, and in the indulgence of human affections, even not of the best kind, men seek with whom they may refresh themselves, and for the purpose of having greater satisfaction in speaking of their empty joys; then I know no reason why it should also not be lawful for him, who is beginning to love and serve God in earnest, to confide to another person his joys and sorrows; for they, who are given to prayer, are thoroughly accustomed to both joy and sorrow.”
[How little spiritual conversation is heard in the home, at the dinner table, in recreation, in the work place, etc. All this is both an indication of our lukewarmness, and it is also conducive to (leads to) lukewarmness—for there are no logs being thrown on the fires of our love for God, and so, naturally, those fires start to cool and go out. On the contrary, how wonderful and joyful it is to be able to speak for long hours on the things of God with like-minded souls, and how strengthening is such a sublime pursuit!].
St Teresa of Avila fell into a pattern. While ill, she would pray fervently. When she was better, she wouldn’t pray as much, or would stop praying at all. This is the lukewarmness that she talks about; a period of 15 years. When she turned 40, it all changed. By God’s grace, she was able to see, admit and combat her lukewarmness.
Here is what St. Teresa had to say about that vision:
“Ever since that time, as I was saying, everything seems endurable in comparison with one instant of suffering such as those I had then to bear in Hell. I am filled with fear when I see that, after frequently reading books which describe in some manner the pains of Hell, I was not afraid of them, nor made any account of them. Where was I? How could I possibly take any pleasure in those things which led me directly to so dreadful a place? Blessed forever be Thou, O my God! And oh, how manifest is it that Thou didst love me much more than I did love Thee! How often, O Lord, didst Thou save me from that fearful prison! And how I used to get back to it contrary to Thy will.”
In one of the many versions of her Autobiography, the Preface states:
“There are souls whom God, in a way, constrains to enter on the way of perfection, and who, if they relaxed in their fervor, could not keep a middle course, but would immediately fall into the other extreme of sins, and for souls of this kind it is of the utmost necessity that they should watch and pray without ceasing; and, in short, there is nobody whom lukewarmness does not injure. Let every man examine his own conscience, and he will find this to be the truth … I firmly believe that if God for a time bears with the lukewarm, it is owing to the prayers of the fervent” (Preface of David Lewis to the Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila’s life).
How Dare You Say That?!?!
If you mention the word “lukewarmness” to some people, they begin to bristle and feel uncomfortable; some are even downright insulted at what they perceive to be an accusation or an association with the word! It is like bringing-up a taboo subject at a family gathering; the response is one of “We don’t talk about those kinds of things here!”
Yet we see that great saint, St. Teresa of Avila, a Doctor of the Church, no less, openly admit to being lukewarm in the earlier years of her life. Why can she admit to that? Because she is both honest and humble. It is our pride and self-deceit that leads us to make a false image of ourselves.
Most Souls ARE Lukewarm
Yet Our Lord sees us as we are, not as we imagine ourselves to be; and the truth of the matter is that most souls are lukewarm for a greater or lesser part of their lives. The lukewarmness of souls was already the complaint of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary in 1673! How much worse is not the world today? The Venerable Fr. Faber adamantly states this at the end of his chapter on lukewarmness in his book Growth in Holiness, saying:
“I fear this evil of lukewarmness is very common, and that at this moment it is gnawing the life out of many souls who suspect not its presence there. It is a great grace, a prophecy of a miraculous cure, to find out that we are lukewarm; but we are lost if we do not act with vigor, the moment we make this frightening discovery. It is like going to sleep in the snow, almost a pleasant tingling feeling at the first, and then‑-lost forever” (Growth in Holiness, chapter 25, “Lukewarmness”).
Another great spiritual authority and master, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., is of the opinion that most souls are not even beginners in the spiritual life. Speaking of the lukewarm or tepid souls, he writes:
“After conversion there ought to be a serious beginning of the purgative life, in which beginners love God by avoiding mortal sin and deliberate venial sin, through exterior and interior mortification and through prayer. But in actual fact this purgative life is found under two very different forms: in some, admittedly very few, this life is intense, generous; it is the narrow way of perfect self-denial described by the saints. In many others the purgative life appears in an attenuated form, varying from good souls, who are a little weak, down to those tepid and retarded souls, who from time to time fall into mortal sin” (The Three Conversions of the Spiritual Life, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange).
Let’s Be Honest!
Let us not be afraid of admitting our lukewarmness, whether it be acute or chronic,, temporary or long-term; for if you hide your symptoms from the doctor, there is nothing he can do for you. As the Preface of St. Teresa’s autobiography states:”there is nobody whom lukewarmness does not injure.”
Let us then read St. Teresa’s interesting account and admission on how she became so lukewarm in the first place, so that we may find a lesson therein for our own lives. In the next article, we will read of St. Teresa’s recommendations on how cure the spiritual disease. The subtitles will be our own, so as to enable the mind to have a clear overview of what St. Teresa presents.
CHAPTER TWO OF ST. TERESA’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
False Reasoning and Complacency
1. “What I shall now speak of was, I believe, the beginning of great harm to me. I often think how wrong it is of parents not to be very careful that their children should always, and in every way, see only that which is good; for though my mother was, as I have just said, so good herself, nevertheless I, when I came to the use of reason, did not derive so much good from her as I ought to have done—almost none at all; and the evil I learned did me much harm.”
“She was very fond of books of chivalry; but this pastime did not hurt her so much as it hurt me, because she never wasted her time on them; only we, her children, were left at liberty to read them; and perhaps she did this to distract her thoughts from her great sufferings, and occupy her children, that they might not go astray in other ways.”
“It annoyed my father so much, that we had to be careful he never saw us. I contracted a habit of reading these books; and this little fault which I observed in my mother was the beginning of lukewarmness in my good desires, and the occasion of my falling away in other respects. I thought there was no harm in it when I wasted many hours night and day in so vain an occupation, even when I kept it a secret from my father. So completely was I mastered by this passion, that I thought I could never be happy without a new book.”
Superficiality
2. “I began to make much of dress, to wish to please others by my appearance. I took pains with my hands and my hair, used perfumes, and all vanities within my reach—and they were many, for I was very much given to them. I had no evil intention, because I never wished any one to offend God for me. This fastidiousness of excessive neatness lasted some years; and so also did other practices, which, at the time, I thought were not at all sinful; now, I see how wrong all this must have been.”
Bad (or Lukewarm) Friends and Relatives
3. “I had some cousins; for into my father’s house no others were allowed an entrance. In this he was very cautious; and would to God he had been cautious about them!—for I see now the danger of conversing, at an age when virtue should begin to grow, with persons who, knowing nothing themselves of the vanity of the world, provoke others to throw themselves into the midst of it. These cousins were nearly of mine own age—a little older, perhaps. We were always together; and they had a great affection for me. In everything that gave them pleasure, I kept the conversation alive—listened to the stories of their affections and childish follies, good for nothing; and, what was still worse, my soul began to give itself up to that which was the cause of all its disorders. If I were to give advice, I would say to parents that they ought to be very careful whom they allow to mix with their children when young; for much mischief thence ensues, and our natural inclinations are unto evil rather than unto good.”
Frivolity and Worldliness
4. “So it was with me; for I had a sister much older than myself, from whose modesty and goodness, which were great, I learned nothing; and learned every evil from a relative who was often in the house. She was so light and frivolous, that my mother took great pains to keep her out of the house, as if she foresaw the evil I should learn from her; but she could not succeed, there being so many reasons for her coming. I was very fond of this person’s company, gossiped and talked with her; for she helped me in all the amusements I liked, and, what is more, found some for me, and communicated to me her own conversations and her vanities. Until I knew her, I mean, until she became friendly with me, and communicated to me her own affairs—I was then about fourteen years old, a little more, I think—I do not believe that I turned away from God in mortal sin, or lost the fear of Him, though I had a greater fear of disgrace.”
“This latter fear had such sway over me, that I never wholly forfeited my good name—and, as to that, there was nothing in the world for which I would have bartered it, and nobody in the world I liked well enough who could have persuaded me to do it. Thus I might have had the strength never to do anything against the honor of God, as I had it by nature not to fail in that wherein I thought the honor of the world consisted; and I never observed that I was failing in many other ways. In vainly seeking after it I was extremely careful; but in the use of the means necessary for preserving it I was utterly careless. I was anxious only not to be lost altogether.”
Bad Companions
5. “This friendship distressed my father and sister exceedingly. They often blamed me for it; but, as they could not hinder that person from coming into the house, all their efforts were in vain; for I was very adroit in doing anything that was wrong. Now and then, I am amazed at the evil one bad companion can do—nor could I believe it if I did not know it by experience—especially when we are young: then is it that the evil must be greatest. Oh, that parents would take this warning by me, and look carefully to this! So it was; the conversation of this person so changed me, that no trace was left of my soul’s natural disposition to virtue, and I became a reflection of her and of another who was given to the same kind of amusements.”
Losing the Fear of God
6. “I know from this the great advantage of good companions; and I am certain that if at that tender age I had been thrown among good people, I should have persevered in virtue; for if at that time I had found any one to teach me the fear of God, my soul would have grown strong enough not to fall away. Afterwards, when the fear of God had utterly departed from me, the fear of dishonor alone remained, and was a torment to me in all I did. When I thought that nobody would ever know, I ventured upon many things that were neither honorable nor pleasing unto God.”
Small Seeds Grow into Big Trees
7. “In the beginning, these conversations did me harm—I believe so. The fault was perhaps not hers, but mine; for afterwards my own wickedness was enough to lead me astray, together with the servants about me, whom I found ready enough for all evil. If any one of these had given me good advice, I might perhaps have profited by it; but they were blinded by interest, as I was by passion. Still, I was never inclined to much evil—for I hated naturally anything dishonorable—but only to the amusement of a pleasant conversation. The occasion of sin, however, being present, danger was at hand, and I exposed to it my father and brothers. God delivered me out of it all, so that I should not be lost, in a manner visibly against my will, yet not so secretly as to allow me to escape without the loss of my good name and the suspicions of my father.”
You Can Lead a Horse to Water, but...
8. “I had not spent, I think, three months in these vanities, when they took me to a monastery in the city where I lived, in which children like myself were brought up, though their way of life was not so wicked as mine. This was done with the utmost concealment of the true reason, which was known only to myself and one of my relatives. They waited for an opportunity which would make the change seem nothing out of the way; for, as my sister was married, it was not fitting I should remain alone, without a mother, in the house.”
Excessive Blind Love
9. “So excessive was my father’s love for me, and so deep my dissembling, that he never would believe me to be so wicked as I was; and hence I was never in disgrace with him. Though some remarks were made, yet, as the time had been short, nothing could be positively asserted; and, as I was so much afraid about my good name, I had taken every care to be secret; and yet I never considered that I could conceal nothing from Him Who seeth all things. O my God, what evil is done in the world by disregarding this, and thinking that anything can be kept secret that is done against Thee! I am quite certain that great evils would be avoided if we clearly understood that what we have to do is, not to be on our guard against men, but on our guard against displeasing Thee.”
Pride and Vanity
10. “For the first eight days, I suffered much; but more from the suspicion that my vanity was known, than from being in the monastery; for I was already weary of myself—and, though I offended God, I never ceased to have a great fear of Him, and contrived to go to confession as quickly as I could. I was very uncomfortable; but within eight days, I think sooner, I was much more contented than I had been in my father’s house. All the nuns were pleased with me; for our Lord had given me the grace to please everyone, wherever I might be. I was therefore made much of in the monastery. Though, at this time, I hated to be a nun, yet I was delighted at the sight of nuns so good; for they were very good in that house—very prudent, observant of the rule, and recollected.”
Religious and Worldly
11. “Yet, for all this, the devil did not cease to tempt me; and people in the world sought means to trouble my rest with messages and presents. As this could not be allowed, it was soon over, and my soul began to return to the good habits of my earlier years; and I recognized the great mercy of God to those whom He places among good people. It seems as if His Majesty had sought and sought again how to convert me to Himself. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, for having borne with me so long! Amen.”
CHAPTER SEVEN OF ST. TERESA’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
World is Fun, God is Not
1. “So, then, going on from pastime to pastime, from vanity to vanity, from one occasion of sin to another, I began to expose myself exceedingly to the very greatest dangers: my soul was so distracted by many vanities, that I was ashamed to draw near unto God in an act of such special friendship as that of prayer. As my sins multiplied, I began to lose the pleasure and comfort I had in virtuous things: and that loss contributed to the abandonment of prayer. I see now most clearly, O my Lord, that this comfort departed from me because I had departed from Thee.”
Doing Only the Minimum
2. “It was the most fearful delusion into which Satan could plunge me—to give up prayer under the pretense of humility. I began to be afraid of giving myself to prayer, because I saw myself so lost. Seeing that in my wickedness I was one of the most wicked, I thought it would be better for me to live like the multitude—to say only the prayers which I was bound to say, and say those prayers vocally: not to practice mental prayer, nor communicate with God so much; for I deserved to be with the devils, and was deceiving those who were lived around me, because I made an outward show of goodness; and therefore the community, in which I dwelt, is not to be blamed; for with my cunning I so managed matters, that all had a good opinion of me; and yet I did not seek this deliberately by pretending or simulating devotion.”
[Too often we fall into the same temptation—”to be like the rest.” We know what is right and proper, but “we go along to get along” and shy away from “rocking the boat.” Yet we forget that the multitude is not saved, and that the majority lose their souls: “Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). The devil, human respect and the desire to be liked, blinds us to this truth, so “we go along to get along” for fear of what others may think, say or do if they see us getting to be too religious!]
“For in all that relates to hypocrisy and ostentation (doing things so that everyone notices)—glory be to God!—I do not remember that I ever offended Him, so far as I know. The very first movements towards hypocrisy and ostentation gave me such pain, that the devil would depart from me with loss, and the gain remained with me; and thus, accordingly, he never tempted me much in this way. Perhaps, however, if God had permitted Satan to tempt me as sharply herein as he tempted me in other things, I should have fallen also into this; but His Majesty has preserved me until now. May He be blessed for evermore! It was rather a heavy affliction to me that I should be thought so well of; for I knew my own secret.”
Vanity Knows How to Manipulate
3. “The reason why they thought I was not so wicked was this: they saw that I, who was so young, and exposed to so many occasions of sin, withdrew myself so often into solitude for prayer, read much, spoke of God, that I liked to have His image painted in many places, to have an oratory of my own, and furnish it with objects of devotion, that I spoke ill of no one, and other things of the same kind in me which have the appearance of virtue. Yet all the while—I was so vain—I knew how to procure respect for myself by doing those things which in the world are usually regarded with respect.”
Too Much Freedom
4. “In consequence of this, they gave me as much freedom as they did to the oldest nuns, and even more, and had great confidence in me; for as to taking any liberty for myself, or doing anything without leave—such as conversing through the door, or in secret, or by night—I do not think I could have brought myself to speak with anybody in the monastery in that way, and I never did it; for Our Lord held me back. It seemed to me—for I considered many things carefully and of set purpose—that it would be a very evil deed on my part, wicked as I was, to risk the credit of so many nuns, who were all good—as if everything else I did was well done! In truth, the evil I did was not the result of deliberation, as this would have been, if I had done it, although it was too much so.”
[Though, in the next few paragraphs, St. Teresa speaks of life in the monastery or convent, we can very readily and easily apply this to Catholic family life or the Catholic school. For the Catholic family should be like a cloister that protects its members from the world and its worldly influences, just like the monastery or convent should protect the religious, who live within its walls, from the spirit of the outside world. We can also apply these paragraphs to our Catholic schools, which should also be cloisters for Catholic children, likewise protecting them from the world and its worldliness. Looked at from this perspective, the next few paragraphs teach us a great deal].
A Monastery (School or Home) Without Walls
5. “Therefore, I think that it did me much harm to be in a monastery that was not enclosed [meaning that the nuns had frequent contact with the world]. The freedom or liberty, which those who were good might have with advantage—they not being obliged to do more than they do, because they had not bound themselves to enclosure—would certainly have led me, who am wicked, straight to Hell, if Our Lord, by so many remedies and means of His most singular mercy, had not delivered me out of that danger—and it is, I believe, the very greatest danger—namely, a monastery of women unenclosed—yea, more, I think it is, for those who tend to or want to be wicked, a road to Hell, rather than a help to their weakness. This is not to be understood of my monastery; for there are so many there who in the utmost sincerity, and in great perfection, serve Our Lord [likewise, not all Catholic families or schools are lax and worldly], so that His Majesty, according to His goodness, cannot but be gracious unto them; neither is it one of those which are most open, because all religious observances are kept in it; and I am speaking only of others which I have seen and known.”
[How many parents, principals and teachers do the work of the devil for him, by not building ‘walls’ that will enclose and protect the children from the world. It is not enough to protect them from only the worst things, but also the little things, because forest fires are started by a small spark, and adult criminals were once merely naughty undisciplined children].
Praying Less and Less
“I had become so dissipated, and had ceased to pray, and yet saw that he [Teresa’s father] still thought I was what I used to be, I could not endure it, and so undeceived him. I had been a year and more without praying, thinking it an act of greater humility to abstain … When that blessed man [her father], having that good opinion of me, came to visit me, it pained me to see him so deceived as to think that I used to pray to God as before. So I told him that I did not pray; but I did not tell him why. I put my infirmities forward as an excuse … My father believed me when I gave him that for a reason, as he never told a lie himself; neither should I have done so.”
[Alas, how true it is that we make excuses, exaggerate, twist, hide or deny the truth, just so that we can continue in our ‘hidden’ state of lukewarmness. St. Teresa publicly admits to it in her autobiography, we, on the other hand deny it and hide it].
Double Standards
“At this time, that illness befell my father of which he died; it lasted some days. I went to nurse him, being more sick in spirit than he was in body, owing to my many vanities—though not, so far as I know, to the extent of being in mortal sin—through the whole of that wretched time of which I am speaking; for, if I knew myself to be in mortal sin, I would not have continued in it on any account.”
[That is a typical, common and universal trait of lukewarmness: “mortal sin never, venial sin forever!” For the lukewarm, venial sin is sometimes not even ‘on the radar’! The only thing that worries them is mortal sin. There is no real love of God in this attitude: for both mortal sin and venial sin are the TWO GREATEST EVILS in the world, as our catechism teaches us. To put it into concrete terms, it is like saying: “I will not knife or shoot Our Lord (mortal sin), but I have no problems in punching Him, kicking Him, spitting at Him and mocking Him (venial sin)!” Lukewarmness is this walking contradiction. If any lukewarm soul manages to escape Hell, it is not through their pretended ‘love’ of God, but simply because of God’s pity and mercy upon their pitiable state.]
God Sends a Rescuer
St. Teresa continues: “How much the more I am to be blamed for my wickedness; for after seeing such a death [of her father], and knowing what his life had been, I, in order to be in any wise like unto such a father, ought to have grown better. His confessor, a most learned Dominican, used to say that he had no doubt he went straight to Heaven. He had heard his confession for some years, and spoke with praise of the purity of his conscience.”
“This Dominican father, who was a very good God-fearing man, did me a very great service; for I confessed to him. He took upon himself the task of helping my soul in earnest, and of making me see the perilous state I was in. He sent me to Communion once a fortnight [at that time people went to Communion very, very rarely, it was only after Pope St. Pius X allowed frequent Communion, in the early 1900’s, that we entered the current period of frequent Communion]; and I, by degrees beginning to speak to him, told him about my prayer life. He commanded me never to omit it: that, anyhow, it could not do me anything but good. So I began to return to my prayer life—though I did not cut off the occasions of sin—and never afterwards gave it up.”
[Once again, Teresa admits to being a walking contradiction: she wants to love God, yet continues to hold fast to the friendship of the world and its occasions of sin: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4). Our Lord said that we cannot love and serve both God and mammon].
Under the Microscope of Prayer
St. Teresa says: “My life became most wretched, because I learned in prayer more and more of my faults. On one side, God was calling me; on the other, I was following the world. All the things of God gave me great pleasure; and I was a prisoner to the things of the world. It seemed as if I wished to reconcile two contradictions, so much at variance one with another, as are the life of the spirit and the joys and pleasures and amusements of sense. I suffered much in prayer; for the spirit was slave, and not master; and so I was not able to shut myself up within myself—that was my whole method of prayer—without shutting up with me a thousand vanities at the same time. I spent many years in this way; and I am now astonished that anyone could have borne it without abandoning either the one or the other.”
[Some people live in this state for more than the “many years” that St. Teresa speaks of; their entire lives are spent in lukewarmness, without even realizing or suspecting that they are lukewarm. This is because, as the already quoted opinions of the spiritual masters state, most of the world is lukewarm; and, as the Ven. Fr. Faber states, lukewarmness is a spiritual blindness, and the blind lead the blind into the pit. Generations of lukewarm families are like one long chain, ‘dancing-the-conga’ into the pit. Like father, like son; like mother, like daughter. Generations of successive lukewarm ‘Pied-Pipers’! A lukewarm tree will produce lukewarm fruit. You cannot give what you haven’t got].
The Need for Spiritual Friends
St. Teresa point out: “It is a great evil for a soul to be alone in the midst of such great dangers; it seems to me that if I had had anyone with whom I could have spoken of all this, it might have helped me not to fall. I might, at least, have been ashamed before him—and yet I was not ashamed before God! For this reason, I would advise those who give themselves to over to prayer, particularly at first, to form friendships; and converse familiarly, with others who are doing the same thing [Birds of a feather flock together. Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you what you are]. It is a matter of the greatest importance, even if it leads only to helping one another by prayer: how much more, seeing that it has led to much greater gain!”
“Now [in secular matters], if in their conversations with one with another, and in the indulgence of human affections, even not of the best kind, men seek with whom they may refresh themselves, and for the purpose of having greater satisfaction in speaking of their empty joys; then I know no reason why it should also not be lawful for him, who is beginning to love and serve God in earnest, to confide to another person his joys and sorrows; for they, who are given to prayer, are thoroughly accustomed to both joy and sorrow.”
[How little spiritual conversation is heard in the home, at the dinner table, in recreation, in the work place, etc. All this is both an indication of our lukewarmness, and it is also conducive to (leads to) lukewarmness—for there are no logs being thrown on the fires of our love for God, and so, naturally, those fires start to cool and go out. On the contrary, how wonderful and joyful it is to be able to speak for long hours on the things of God with like-minded souls, and how strengthening is such a sublime pursuit!].
Article 12
Thursday after the Second Sunday of Lent, March 9th, 2023
Lent and Lukewarmness
Thursday after the Second Sunday of Lent, March 9th, 2023
Lent and Lukewarmness
Lovely Lazy Lukewarmness
What is it with lukewarmness in that it does not shock our system, but, on the contrary, feels nice and pleasant? This is what makes it so dangerous! For things that cause pain, are things that we instinctively avoid; but things that are pleasurable, we tend to welcome, or, at least, we do not resist them.
The salesman knows this, and, in the sales industry, they call it the “Pleasure Principle.” Modern man, following the modern trends and tendencies sown by the modern crop of insane naturalistic psychologists, like Sigmund Freud, are ruled by the “Pleasure Principle.” This principle is the instinctual seeking of pleasure and avoiding of pain in order to satisfy biological and psychological needs. The pleasure principle is the driving force guiding the world today.
Spiritual Sugar Kills
Yet, as with sugar in the area of nutrition and diet, so too with pleasure in the spiritual life. They can both be a massive danger and the source of so many ills, diseases and deaths. Lukewarmness is sugary sweet too! And it too, kills or sucks the spiritual lifeblood out of so many souls. It is one of the devil’s favorite poisons. We should spit-out any poison out if we have the misfortune to taste it; or if it is swallowed, then we should try vomit it out. And it is lukewarmness or, more correctly, the lukewarm that God threatens to spit out and vomit out of His mouth: “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth” (Apocalypse 3:16).
Faber’s Lukewarmness Diagnosis
The remainder of this article is taken from Fr. Faber’s book, Growth in Holiness, chapter 25 “Lukewarmness.” In it, he traces the causes and effects of lukewarmness, before proceeding to recommend some cures. We will cover this chapter of his in two articles, this being the first of the two.
“Lukewarmness is in no sense a beginning. We may begin by being cold, but not by being lukewarm. For lukewarmness implies that a great deal has gone before, that a height has been climbed, and that we have come down from it. He who was never fervent can never be lukewarm. Cold he may be, and low, and mean, and ungenerous, and a poltroon, but not lukewarm.
“I prefer therefore to consider lukewarmness in this place, because the knowledge we have now gained of the various appliances of the spiritual life will enable us the better to understand its true nature; and also because all the component parts of the spiritual life being also, when spoiled, the component parts of lukewarmness, this is the natural place it occupies. In fact, all that has gone before of struggle, issues simply in one of two states, lukewarmness or fervor. Either we are lukewarm, or we are fervent.
“There is nothing in the spiritual life which arrests our attention so forcibly as lukewarmness because of the unusual language in which it has pleased God to express His ineffable disgust with it, and the startling doctrine which accompanies the declaration of His loathing, that coldness is less offensive to Him than tepidity. Who is it then with whom God is so exceedingly displeased, that He is sick of His own redeemed creature? We tremble at the answer.
“The diseases and evils of the body are in a great degree typical of the miseries and misfortunes of the soul. If we seek the correlative of lukewarmness, we shall find it in blindness. It is a blindness which does not know even its own self, and does not suspect that it is blind, or that other men see better than itself. It is a judicial blindness, because it once saw better itself, and now does not remember either what it saw, or that it ever saw at all.
THIS BLINDNESS IS OWING PRINCIPALLY TO THREE CAUSES:
1. The frequency of venial sins,
2. Habitual dissipation of mind and
3. The ruling passion.
“The frequency of venial sins is like traveling in the wilderness, where the bright air is imperceptibly filled with fine sand. Habitual dissipation of mind is like reading in the sunshine, and living in a light too strong for our eyes. The ruling passion is an external violence which menaces us and makes us shut our eyes, and have them always shut, that we may not see what it would fain hide, and so when we open them after long being used to darkness, it is the very light itself which blinds us.
THE IMMEDIATE RESULTS OF THIS BLINDNESS ARE THREE:
“(1) The body does not move firmly and in a straight line in the dark. So the conscience also must see in order to keep its balance. But if we falsify the oracle, and still believe it, what is the consequence but error and corruption everywhere? If the light that is in us be darkness, says Our Lord, how great is that darkness! So first there comes a false conscience.
“(2) But in proportion as conscience becomes dark, and so cold, and finally numb, in the same proportion the bad instincts of the human spirit, like owls at night, get more far sighted, animated and vivacious. These instincts lead us with uncommon tact to avoid anything which will restore animation to the conscience. For their purpose it had best remain under chloroform for life. Thus they make us shrink from anything like vigorous spiritual direction. We suspect we shall be awakened, and driven, and made too good. Discretion, that is, the discretion of the blind conscience, tells us this shrinking is wisdom and sagacity. We must, it says, be moderate in everything, but, of all things, amazingly moderate in the love of God?!
“So in hearing sermons, reading books, cultivating acquaintances, patronizing works of mercy, it draws back from everything that is likely to come too near or hit too hard. It is the old story of the earthen jug and the brazen jar, as they went down the stream together. Here is the second result of this blindness, which renders the cure still less likely. Indeed it is a characteristic of tepidity that everything we do while we are in that state has a tendency to confirm us as incurable.
“(3) To go to Holy Communion when we are physically drowsy, yawning and half asleep, or to make our general confession half stupefied with laudanum would be fair types of the way in which we morally use the Sacraments. Thus frequent or even daily Communion seems to have only a negative effect upon us. We do not know how bad it might be without it; and that is all.
“Weekly confession gives us no additional power over our commonest imperfections. Matters look as if they had come to a standstill, if there were any such phase of the spiritual life. But no! We are blind men, whose faces have been turned unwittingly. We are retracing our steps; and the only wonder is that the easier task of going downhill does not by its contrast make us suspicious of some mistake. Alas, we are asleep as well as blind! The finest things we do now are no better than feats of somnambulism.”
SEVEN SYMPTOMS OF LUKEWARMNESS
“It is plain from this description that what is of the greatest practical utility in this matter of lukewarmness is a thorough acquaintance with the symptoms by which the insidious disease allows itself to be detected. These are seven in number; and according as we perceive that we unite them in ourselves, either in number or degree, so we have reason painfully to doubt whether our spiritual eyesight is not failing.
(1) Omitting Spiritual Exercises Becomes Easy.
“The first mark is a great facility in omitting our exercises of piety, which is the exact contradictory of fervor. Everyone has his routine of pious exercises; and there are few days in which they do not entail upon us some little inconveniences. Perhaps it is one of their special uses to do this, especially if habitual distractions are going to make the exercise itself of small value. Now these little inconveniences suggest dispensations, or at least delays, which we see confusedly, will turn out dispensations at the last. Clearly there are cases in which conflicting duties or the needs of charity will interfere, and it will be more perfect to give way to them than to read or meditate. But most often the inconveniences concern only ourselves. We have the power to dispense ourselves; and we grant these dispensations either rarely and with reluctance, or often and with facility. If the latter be the case, behold the first mark of tepidity! I do not say that by itself it proves everything; but it proves much. At all events, wherever there is lukewarmness, there also is this symptom.
(2) Spiritual Exercises Performed Badly.
“But we are not only easy in omitting exercises of piety; we are negligent in those which we do perform. We care more about the fact of going through them, than the manner or the spirit of it. Thus our prayers rise to Heaven with an equipage of venial sins in attendance upon them, and the angels are reluctant witnesses of our Confessions and Communions. This is a second symptom. Here is a third.
(3) We Just Don’t Feel Right.
“The soul feels not altogether right with God. It does not exactly know what is wrong; but it is sure all is not right. It casts about to see. It quarrels with everything it does, and questions each of them, and yet the mischief eludes it. It is angry with its Confessions; yet it is not easy to settle how to amend them. Something always seems unexpressed, something left behind which ought to have come out and does not. What is it?
“Then the Communions are overhauled in a similar way, the examinations of conscience are tortured, meditations reprimanded, spiritual books cashiered, together with a determination to reform everything. General orders are issued from self’s headquarters, in which strong things are said ambiguously. Everyone feels he is aimed at. Blame lies everywhere. Yet all to no purpose. At last when we have given the matter up, we suddenly come upon the offending thing, just as we look for a lost article till we are hot and tired, and then all at once see it lying in open day in a spot we have searched four or five times before.
“Now when we have this feeling of not being altogether right with God, and will not face the inquiry and make the disturbance I have described, and buckle to the triple task of discovery, punishment, and reformation, it is a symptom of our being lukewarm.
(4) Aimless Actions.
“A fourth symptom of lukewarmness is an habitual acting without any intention at all, good, bad or indifferent. [No intentions made for the Rosary, no intentions for assisting at Mass or receiving Holy Communion. We just do it because everyone else does it or because we have to do it. We neither hate it nor love it. Routine ‘spirituality’ on auto-pilot].
(5) Careless About Virtues.
“A fifth is a carelessness about forming habits of virtue. This is the opposite of the inordinate appetite for self improvement already considered; the truth lying here, as it mostly does in spiritual matters, in a mean.
(6) Little Things Don’t Matter.
“A sixth symptom is a contempt of little things and of daily opportunities. This is a necessary part of our blindness. We can only despise little things because we do not discern the capabilities of glorifying God, and advancing our own spiritual interest, which they contain. [This spills over into the moral life, where the attitude to venial sin, which, after mortal sin, is the greatest evil in the world, is a dismissive comment like, “Oh, it’s only a venial sin! I won’t be sent to Hell for that!”]
(7) Just look at the Positive, Ignore the Negative.
“The seventh and last symptom is a thinking rather of the good we have done than of the good we have left undone, resting on the past rather than striving for the future, loving to look at people below us rather than people above us. Our own ease and self complacency find their account in this attitude of the soul.
“The lukewarm are ever calculating the sacrifices they have made, and fondly realizing to themselves the glory of their self devotion. When these signs are observed, we can recognize in them the alarming symptoms of tepidity.
God Absolutely Despises Lukewarmness
“From these fatal marks let us pass to consider the extraordinary hatred which God has of this state. ‘These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, who is the beginning of the creation of God. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth.’ (Apocalypse 3:14-16).
“This passage is without any parallel in Scripture. God not only prefers coldness, but He rejects tepidity. It turns Him sick who is eternal love. The charity of the Heart of Jesus, our only home, cannot retain us. His disgust is too strong for Him to resist it; and He rejects us with an unconquerable nausea which even redeeming love cannot temper or allay. It is a most awful figure, and one which, but for His own word, we should not dare to have mentioned in the same breath with His adorable majesty. How much He must have meant to teach us by the singularity of that terrific language!
“Now God is infinitely just, therefore His hatred of this state cannot be too great. It is not in His majesty to exaggerate. But He is also infinitely forbearing, so that His punishment must be, if anything, short of its horrible deserts. What then must its real horror be?
Why Does God Hate Lukewarmness So Much?
“But why does He hate it so? Let us venture to search for reasons. Because it is a quiet intentional appreciation of other things over God. It cheapens God, and parts with Him second-hand.
“Meanwhile, as it is not open wickedness, but is even an open profession and exterior practice of His service, it pretends friendship, and takes rank in the world as one of God’s friends; and hence it involves the twofold guilt of treachery and hypocrisy.
“It thus has a peculiar ability to wound God’s glory by the scandal it gives. It has God’s honor in its power, and treats it shamefully and cruelly. It profanes grace by the indifference with which it misuses it. It takes it as a right, and misapplies it, as a dishonest man spends money on purposes for which it was not trusted to him. It is taking a liberty with the majesty of God’s exceeding goodness, which is a terrible thing to do.
“It would be better to play with His thunderbolts, than to make sport with His compassions. And all this is done with knowledge, the double knowledge of God and of evil. What wonder that it turns God’s whole being, and sours even the sweetness of the Sacred Heart!
Can Lukewarmness be Cured?
“A few words on its remedies and the hateful subject may be dismissed. Its cure is immensely difficult; St. Bernard would make us almost despair of its being curable at all. Only, we made up our minds at the beginning to hold this all through, that nothing is incurable, though many things in the spiritual life are nearly so; and neither doctor, nor father, nor saint, but only the Pope, shall drive us from this doctrine. St. Bernard therefore will be satisfied if we say that its cure is immensely difficult, because all the Saints have said so, because the evil is unsuspected, because even the good is mixed with evil, because men do not realize the possible forfeiture of grace to keep precepts when they have been playing fast and loose with counsels, and because, as St. Teresa teaches, for some souls perfection is accidentally necessary even for their salvation!
Take the Remedies Seriously!
“How absurd it seems to mention the feeble remedies!
“(1) The first is to quicken Faith by meditation on eternal truths, so as to possess our minds habitually with their overwhelming importance and their exacting purity.
“(2) The second is, not having so many things to do. It is no use. The times are busy. But we cannot save our souls if we have so many things to do. But the remedy? Good soul! There are some knots in life which cannot be untied; the thing is to cut them, and leave the consequences to help themselves. If you have more duties to do than you can do well, you must boldly neglect some of them. Only have Faith, and God will spirit the consequences away, so that you will see nothing more of them.
“(3) The third remedy is the practice of silence, not in any offensive or singular way, but proportionally to our state of life. [God is found in silence. Not just silence of speech; but also silence from the noise around us: the TV, radio, music, worldly activity and bustle; silence of imagination; silence of activity, etc.]
“(4) The fourth is to persevere in our spiritual exercises in spite of dryness and distractions. [Many times dryness is a punishment for lukewarmness; it is God justly ignoring us for our having ignored Him, God showing little warmth for a while in return for our lack of warmth in our lukewarmness towards Him.
“(5) The fifth, which is nearer a specific than any of the others, is a habit of mortification, not interior, but exterior. The interior will look out for itself when its time comes. Just now I want the flesh to suffer. If you turn away from this I give you up. It is the quinine for your ague [a bitter tonic for our fever].
“Alas! Alas! What does all this come to but the admission that the only sure remedy for lukewarmness is never to be lukewarm, an oracle worthy of the pompous physician of the old comedy? Yet does it not in reality say a great deal?
“I fear this evil of lukewarmness is very common, and that at this moment it is gnawing the life out of many souls who suspect not its presence there.
“It is a great grace, a prophecy of a miraculous cure, to find out that we are lukewarm; but we are lost if we do not act with vigor, the moment we make this frightening discovery. It is like going to sleep in the snow, almost a pleasant tingling feeling at the first, and then—lost for ever.”
Thus ends Fr. Faber’s chapter on Lukewarmness.
Lukewarmness is the first and foremost weapon the devil will use during Lent (and all throughout the year, but especially during Lent). He knows the great graces that are on offer; he knows that a serious Lent could do serious damage to his plans for your damnation. Use your time well, and you will avoid Hell.
What is it with lukewarmness in that it does not shock our system, but, on the contrary, feels nice and pleasant? This is what makes it so dangerous! For things that cause pain, are things that we instinctively avoid; but things that are pleasurable, we tend to welcome, or, at least, we do not resist them.
The salesman knows this, and, in the sales industry, they call it the “Pleasure Principle.” Modern man, following the modern trends and tendencies sown by the modern crop of insane naturalistic psychologists, like Sigmund Freud, are ruled by the “Pleasure Principle.” This principle is the instinctual seeking of pleasure and avoiding of pain in order to satisfy biological and psychological needs. The pleasure principle is the driving force guiding the world today.
Spiritual Sugar Kills
Yet, as with sugar in the area of nutrition and diet, so too with pleasure in the spiritual life. They can both be a massive danger and the source of so many ills, diseases and deaths. Lukewarmness is sugary sweet too! And it too, kills or sucks the spiritual lifeblood out of so many souls. It is one of the devil’s favorite poisons. We should spit-out any poison out if we have the misfortune to taste it; or if it is swallowed, then we should try vomit it out. And it is lukewarmness or, more correctly, the lukewarm that God threatens to spit out and vomit out of His mouth: “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth” (Apocalypse 3:16).
Faber’s Lukewarmness Diagnosis
The remainder of this article is taken from Fr. Faber’s book, Growth in Holiness, chapter 25 “Lukewarmness.” In it, he traces the causes and effects of lukewarmness, before proceeding to recommend some cures. We will cover this chapter of his in two articles, this being the first of the two.
“Lukewarmness is in no sense a beginning. We may begin by being cold, but not by being lukewarm. For lukewarmness implies that a great deal has gone before, that a height has been climbed, and that we have come down from it. He who was never fervent can never be lukewarm. Cold he may be, and low, and mean, and ungenerous, and a poltroon, but not lukewarm.
“I prefer therefore to consider lukewarmness in this place, because the knowledge we have now gained of the various appliances of the spiritual life will enable us the better to understand its true nature; and also because all the component parts of the spiritual life being also, when spoiled, the component parts of lukewarmness, this is the natural place it occupies. In fact, all that has gone before of struggle, issues simply in one of two states, lukewarmness or fervor. Either we are lukewarm, or we are fervent.
“There is nothing in the spiritual life which arrests our attention so forcibly as lukewarmness because of the unusual language in which it has pleased God to express His ineffable disgust with it, and the startling doctrine which accompanies the declaration of His loathing, that coldness is less offensive to Him than tepidity. Who is it then with whom God is so exceedingly displeased, that He is sick of His own redeemed creature? We tremble at the answer.
“The diseases and evils of the body are in a great degree typical of the miseries and misfortunes of the soul. If we seek the correlative of lukewarmness, we shall find it in blindness. It is a blindness which does not know even its own self, and does not suspect that it is blind, or that other men see better than itself. It is a judicial blindness, because it once saw better itself, and now does not remember either what it saw, or that it ever saw at all.
THIS BLINDNESS IS OWING PRINCIPALLY TO THREE CAUSES:
1. The frequency of venial sins,
2. Habitual dissipation of mind and
3. The ruling passion.
“The frequency of venial sins is like traveling in the wilderness, where the bright air is imperceptibly filled with fine sand. Habitual dissipation of mind is like reading in the sunshine, and living in a light too strong for our eyes. The ruling passion is an external violence which menaces us and makes us shut our eyes, and have them always shut, that we may not see what it would fain hide, and so when we open them after long being used to darkness, it is the very light itself which blinds us.
THE IMMEDIATE RESULTS OF THIS BLINDNESS ARE THREE:
“(1) The body does not move firmly and in a straight line in the dark. So the conscience also must see in order to keep its balance. But if we falsify the oracle, and still believe it, what is the consequence but error and corruption everywhere? If the light that is in us be darkness, says Our Lord, how great is that darkness! So first there comes a false conscience.
“(2) But in proportion as conscience becomes dark, and so cold, and finally numb, in the same proportion the bad instincts of the human spirit, like owls at night, get more far sighted, animated and vivacious. These instincts lead us with uncommon tact to avoid anything which will restore animation to the conscience. For their purpose it had best remain under chloroform for life. Thus they make us shrink from anything like vigorous spiritual direction. We suspect we shall be awakened, and driven, and made too good. Discretion, that is, the discretion of the blind conscience, tells us this shrinking is wisdom and sagacity. We must, it says, be moderate in everything, but, of all things, amazingly moderate in the love of God?!
“So in hearing sermons, reading books, cultivating acquaintances, patronizing works of mercy, it draws back from everything that is likely to come too near or hit too hard. It is the old story of the earthen jug and the brazen jar, as they went down the stream together. Here is the second result of this blindness, which renders the cure still less likely. Indeed it is a characteristic of tepidity that everything we do while we are in that state has a tendency to confirm us as incurable.
“(3) To go to Holy Communion when we are physically drowsy, yawning and half asleep, or to make our general confession half stupefied with laudanum would be fair types of the way in which we morally use the Sacraments. Thus frequent or even daily Communion seems to have only a negative effect upon us. We do not know how bad it might be without it; and that is all.
“Weekly confession gives us no additional power over our commonest imperfections. Matters look as if they had come to a standstill, if there were any such phase of the spiritual life. But no! We are blind men, whose faces have been turned unwittingly. We are retracing our steps; and the only wonder is that the easier task of going downhill does not by its contrast make us suspicious of some mistake. Alas, we are asleep as well as blind! The finest things we do now are no better than feats of somnambulism.”
SEVEN SYMPTOMS OF LUKEWARMNESS
“It is plain from this description that what is of the greatest practical utility in this matter of lukewarmness is a thorough acquaintance with the symptoms by which the insidious disease allows itself to be detected. These are seven in number; and according as we perceive that we unite them in ourselves, either in number or degree, so we have reason painfully to doubt whether our spiritual eyesight is not failing.
(1) Omitting Spiritual Exercises Becomes Easy.
“The first mark is a great facility in omitting our exercises of piety, which is the exact contradictory of fervor. Everyone has his routine of pious exercises; and there are few days in which they do not entail upon us some little inconveniences. Perhaps it is one of their special uses to do this, especially if habitual distractions are going to make the exercise itself of small value. Now these little inconveniences suggest dispensations, or at least delays, which we see confusedly, will turn out dispensations at the last. Clearly there are cases in which conflicting duties or the needs of charity will interfere, and it will be more perfect to give way to them than to read or meditate. But most often the inconveniences concern only ourselves. We have the power to dispense ourselves; and we grant these dispensations either rarely and with reluctance, or often and with facility. If the latter be the case, behold the first mark of tepidity! I do not say that by itself it proves everything; but it proves much. At all events, wherever there is lukewarmness, there also is this symptom.
(2) Spiritual Exercises Performed Badly.
“But we are not only easy in omitting exercises of piety; we are negligent in those which we do perform. We care more about the fact of going through them, than the manner or the spirit of it. Thus our prayers rise to Heaven with an equipage of venial sins in attendance upon them, and the angels are reluctant witnesses of our Confessions and Communions. This is a second symptom. Here is a third.
(3) We Just Don’t Feel Right.
“The soul feels not altogether right with God. It does not exactly know what is wrong; but it is sure all is not right. It casts about to see. It quarrels with everything it does, and questions each of them, and yet the mischief eludes it. It is angry with its Confessions; yet it is not easy to settle how to amend them. Something always seems unexpressed, something left behind which ought to have come out and does not. What is it?
“Then the Communions are overhauled in a similar way, the examinations of conscience are tortured, meditations reprimanded, spiritual books cashiered, together with a determination to reform everything. General orders are issued from self’s headquarters, in which strong things are said ambiguously. Everyone feels he is aimed at. Blame lies everywhere. Yet all to no purpose. At last when we have given the matter up, we suddenly come upon the offending thing, just as we look for a lost article till we are hot and tired, and then all at once see it lying in open day in a spot we have searched four or five times before.
“Now when we have this feeling of not being altogether right with God, and will not face the inquiry and make the disturbance I have described, and buckle to the triple task of discovery, punishment, and reformation, it is a symptom of our being lukewarm.
(4) Aimless Actions.
“A fourth symptom of lukewarmness is an habitual acting without any intention at all, good, bad or indifferent. [No intentions made for the Rosary, no intentions for assisting at Mass or receiving Holy Communion. We just do it because everyone else does it or because we have to do it. We neither hate it nor love it. Routine ‘spirituality’ on auto-pilot].
(5) Careless About Virtues.
“A fifth is a carelessness about forming habits of virtue. This is the opposite of the inordinate appetite for self improvement already considered; the truth lying here, as it mostly does in spiritual matters, in a mean.
(6) Little Things Don’t Matter.
“A sixth symptom is a contempt of little things and of daily opportunities. This is a necessary part of our blindness. We can only despise little things because we do not discern the capabilities of glorifying God, and advancing our own spiritual interest, which they contain. [This spills over into the moral life, where the attitude to venial sin, which, after mortal sin, is the greatest evil in the world, is a dismissive comment like, “Oh, it’s only a venial sin! I won’t be sent to Hell for that!”]
(7) Just look at the Positive, Ignore the Negative.
“The seventh and last symptom is a thinking rather of the good we have done than of the good we have left undone, resting on the past rather than striving for the future, loving to look at people below us rather than people above us. Our own ease and self complacency find their account in this attitude of the soul.
“The lukewarm are ever calculating the sacrifices they have made, and fondly realizing to themselves the glory of their self devotion. When these signs are observed, we can recognize in them the alarming symptoms of tepidity.
God Absolutely Despises Lukewarmness
“From these fatal marks let us pass to consider the extraordinary hatred which God has of this state. ‘These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, who is the beginning of the creation of God. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth.’ (Apocalypse 3:14-16).
“This passage is without any parallel in Scripture. God not only prefers coldness, but He rejects tepidity. It turns Him sick who is eternal love. The charity of the Heart of Jesus, our only home, cannot retain us. His disgust is too strong for Him to resist it; and He rejects us with an unconquerable nausea which even redeeming love cannot temper or allay. It is a most awful figure, and one which, but for His own word, we should not dare to have mentioned in the same breath with His adorable majesty. How much He must have meant to teach us by the singularity of that terrific language!
“Now God is infinitely just, therefore His hatred of this state cannot be too great. It is not in His majesty to exaggerate. But He is also infinitely forbearing, so that His punishment must be, if anything, short of its horrible deserts. What then must its real horror be?
Why Does God Hate Lukewarmness So Much?
“But why does He hate it so? Let us venture to search for reasons. Because it is a quiet intentional appreciation of other things over God. It cheapens God, and parts with Him second-hand.
“Meanwhile, as it is not open wickedness, but is even an open profession and exterior practice of His service, it pretends friendship, and takes rank in the world as one of God’s friends; and hence it involves the twofold guilt of treachery and hypocrisy.
“It thus has a peculiar ability to wound God’s glory by the scandal it gives. It has God’s honor in its power, and treats it shamefully and cruelly. It profanes grace by the indifference with which it misuses it. It takes it as a right, and misapplies it, as a dishonest man spends money on purposes for which it was not trusted to him. It is taking a liberty with the majesty of God’s exceeding goodness, which is a terrible thing to do.
“It would be better to play with His thunderbolts, than to make sport with His compassions. And all this is done with knowledge, the double knowledge of God and of evil. What wonder that it turns God’s whole being, and sours even the sweetness of the Sacred Heart!
Can Lukewarmness be Cured?
“A few words on its remedies and the hateful subject may be dismissed. Its cure is immensely difficult; St. Bernard would make us almost despair of its being curable at all. Only, we made up our minds at the beginning to hold this all through, that nothing is incurable, though many things in the spiritual life are nearly so; and neither doctor, nor father, nor saint, but only the Pope, shall drive us from this doctrine. St. Bernard therefore will be satisfied if we say that its cure is immensely difficult, because all the Saints have said so, because the evil is unsuspected, because even the good is mixed with evil, because men do not realize the possible forfeiture of grace to keep precepts when they have been playing fast and loose with counsels, and because, as St. Teresa teaches, for some souls perfection is accidentally necessary even for their salvation!
Take the Remedies Seriously!
“How absurd it seems to mention the feeble remedies!
“(1) The first is to quicken Faith by meditation on eternal truths, so as to possess our minds habitually with their overwhelming importance and their exacting purity.
“(2) The second is, not having so many things to do. It is no use. The times are busy. But we cannot save our souls if we have so many things to do. But the remedy? Good soul! There are some knots in life which cannot be untied; the thing is to cut them, and leave the consequences to help themselves. If you have more duties to do than you can do well, you must boldly neglect some of them. Only have Faith, and God will spirit the consequences away, so that you will see nothing more of them.
“(3) The third remedy is the practice of silence, not in any offensive or singular way, but proportionally to our state of life. [God is found in silence. Not just silence of speech; but also silence from the noise around us: the TV, radio, music, worldly activity and bustle; silence of imagination; silence of activity, etc.]
“(4) The fourth is to persevere in our spiritual exercises in spite of dryness and distractions. [Many times dryness is a punishment for lukewarmness; it is God justly ignoring us for our having ignored Him, God showing little warmth for a while in return for our lack of warmth in our lukewarmness towards Him.
“(5) The fifth, which is nearer a specific than any of the others, is a habit of mortification, not interior, but exterior. The interior will look out for itself when its time comes. Just now I want the flesh to suffer. If you turn away from this I give you up. It is the quinine for your ague [a bitter tonic for our fever].
“Alas! Alas! What does all this come to but the admission that the only sure remedy for lukewarmness is never to be lukewarm, an oracle worthy of the pompous physician of the old comedy? Yet does it not in reality say a great deal?
“I fear this evil of lukewarmness is very common, and that at this moment it is gnawing the life out of many souls who suspect not its presence there.
“It is a great grace, a prophecy of a miraculous cure, to find out that we are lukewarm; but we are lost if we do not act with vigor, the moment we make this frightening discovery. It is like going to sleep in the snow, almost a pleasant tingling feeling at the first, and then—lost for ever.”
Thus ends Fr. Faber’s chapter on Lukewarmness.
Lukewarmness is the first and foremost weapon the devil will use during Lent (and all throughout the year, but especially during Lent). He knows the great graces that are on offer; he knows that a serious Lent could do serious damage to his plans for your damnation. Use your time well, and you will avoid Hell.
Article 11
Tuesday & Wednesday after the Second Sunday of Lent, March 7th & 8th, 2023
The Sixth and Final Set of D's of the Devil
Tuesday & Wednesday after the Second Sunday of Lent, March 7th & 8th, 2023
The Sixth and Final Set of D's of the Devil
THE FORTY D’s OF THE DEVIL (Part 6 ― Numbers 35 to 40)
The previous articles (see below) covered the initial 35 “D” tactics of the Devil:
(01) DISTRACTION; (02) DISCUSSION, DEBATE & DIALECTICS; (03) DECEPTION; (04) DEGLAMORIZATION; (05) DISLIKE; (06) DISTANCING; (07) DISABLE & DISARM; (08) DISTURBANCE; (09) DIFFERENCES and DISAGREEMENTS; (10) DICHOTOMY and DIVISION; (11) DISCREDITING; (12) DETRACTION, DEFAMATION, DISTORTION and DISGRACE; (13) DISAPPOINTMENT, DISENCHANTMENT & DISILLUSIONMENT; (14) DISGUST and DISDAIN; (15) DOUBT & DISTRUST; (16) DISBELIEF; (17) DANGLE & DAZZLE; (18) DELIGHT and DELUSION; (19) DAYDREAMS; (20) DESIRING DREAMS; (21) DEVIATE and DERAIL; (22) DARE; (23) DILEMMA; (24) DOWNPLAY, DEVALUE & DILUTE; (25) DABBLE and DIP; (26) DOUBLE DARE; (27) DEFILES; (28) DOWNPLAY and DEVALUE; (29) DESENSITIZE & DEADEN; (30) DEPENDENCY; (31) DELAYING; (32) DEGENERATING; (33) DEHUMANIZING and DENATURIZING; (34) DEMORALIZING; (35) DESPICABILITY.
This is the sixth and final article on the demonic “D” trend, which seek to push the soul even deeper into Satan’s swamp.
(36) DEPRESSION, DEJECTION, DISCOURAGEMENT & DESPONDENCY
All four―depression, dejection, discouragement and despondency―could be likened to four brothers of the same family. You could argue as which of the four was born first, who came second, etc. ― but you cannot really argue that they are not related. They might not look exactly alike―but you can most certainly see the same family traits and characteristics in all four of them. You could say that it one short step from one to another―as they are all huddled together, the only difference being in slight nuances. Or you liken them to the four sides of the same building―all are linked together, but face in a different direction―north, south, east and west.
Let us then take one at a time and pass over any arguments as to which of the four is the first-born and eldest among them; which is the youngest and which are the middle two―and instead examine them one after another, noting the links and overlaps as we go.
(a) DEPRESSION
Most people suffer come depression from time to time. Feeling down from time to time is a normal part of life. Most of us feel sad, lonely, or depressed at times. It's a normal reaction to loss, life’s struggles, or injured self-esteem. But when intense sadness ― including feeling helpless, hopeless, and worthless ― lasts for many days to weeks and keeps you from living your life, then just trying to get through the day can be overwhelming. It may be something more than mere sadness. It can be depression.
What is depression? Let us first of all get the medical viewpoint on depression. Depression (also called major depressive disorder or clinical depression) is a common but serious mood disorder. It causes severe symptoms that that negatively affect how you feel, think, and handle daily activities, such as sleeping, eating, or working. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease your ability to function at work and at home. To be diagnosed with depression, the symptoms must be present for at least two weeks.
There are different types of depression, some of which develop due to specific circumstances.
● Major depression, which includes symptoms of depression most of the time for at least 2 weeks that typically interfere with one’s ability to work, sleep, study, and eat.
● Persistent depressive disorder, which often includes less severe symptoms of depression that last much longer, typically for at least 2 years.
► DEPRESSION SYMPTOMS: Although depression may occur only once during your life, people typically have multiple episodes. While some people describe depression as “living in a black hole” or having a feeling of impending doom, others feel lifeless, empty, and apathetic. Men in particular can feel angry and restless. However you experience the problem, left untreated it can become a serious health condition. But it's important to remember that feelings of helplessness and hopelessness are symptoms of depression—not the reality of your situation.
Depression varies from person to person, but there are some common signs and symptoms. It's important to remember that these symptoms can be part of life's normal lows. But the more symptoms you have, the stronger they are, and the longer they've lasted—the more likely it is that you're dealing with depression. During these episodes, symptoms occur most of the day, nearly every day and may include some or many of the following symptoms:
● Feelings of sadness, tearfulness, emptiness or hopelessness. Persistent sad, anxious, or “empty” feelings. A bleak outlook—nothing will ever get better and there is nothing that can be done to improve your situation.
● Loss of interest or pleasure in most or all normal activities that were once enjoyed. The person no longer cares anymore about former hobbies, pastimes, social activities. They have lost their ability to feel joy and pleasure.
● Tiredness and lack of energy, feeling physically drained, so that even small tasks seem like mountains and take extra effort, are exhausting and take much longer to complete.
● Trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things.
● Sleep disturbances, such as trouble sleeping or sleeping too much.
● Changes in appetite — reduced appetite and weight loss; or increased cravings for food and weight gain.
● Unexplained physical problems, such as headaches, back pain, aching muscles, and stomach pain.
● Anxiety, agitation or restlessness.
● Increase in pointless physical activity (e.g., inability to sit still, pacing, handwringing), or slowed thinking, speaking or body movements (these must be severe enough to be observable by others)
● Self-hatred. Strong feelings of worthlessness or guilt. Fixating on past failures or self-blame. Harshly critical of oneself for perceived faults and mistakes.
● Angry outbursts, irritability or frustration, even over small matters. Feeling agitated, cranky, restless, or even violent. Tolerance levels are low, the temper is short, and everything and everyone gets on the person’s nerves.
● Reckless behavior. Engagement in escapist behavior such as substance abuse, compulsive gambling, reckless driving, dangerous sports, or promiscuous behavior.
● Frequent or recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts or suicide.
Depression may have other specific features, such as:
● Anxious distress. Worrying a lot about things that might happen or about losing control.
● Mixed features. Having both depression and mania ― periods of high energy, talking too much, and an exaggeratedly high self-esteem.
● Atypical features. Feeling good after happy events, but also feel hungrier, needing to sleep a lot, and high sensitivity to rejection.
● Psychotic features. Believing things that are not true, or seeing and hearing things that are not there.
● Catatonia. Inability to move the body normally. Either being still and unresponsive; or having uncontrollable movements.
● Seasonal pattern. Symptoms worsening with changes in the seasons, especially in colder, darker months.
Depression Is Different From Sadness or Grief
The death of a loved one, loss of a job or the ending of a relationship are difficult experiences for a person to endure. It is normal for feelings of sadness or grief to develop in response to such situations. Those experiencing loss often might describe themselves as being “depressed.” But being sad is not the same as having depression. The grieving process is natural and unique to each individual and shares some of the same features of depression. Both grief and depression may involve intense sadness and withdrawal from usual activities. They are also different in important ways:
● In grief, painful feelings come in waves, often intermixed with positive memories of the deceased. In major depression, mood and/or interest (pleasure) are decreased for most of two weeks.
● In grief, self-esteem is usually maintained. In major depression, feelings of worthlessness and self-hatred are common.
● In grief, thoughts of death may surface when thinking of or fantasizing about “joining” the deceased loved one. In major depression, thoughts are focused on ending one’s life due to feeling worthless or being undeserving of living or being unable to cope with the pain of depression.
● Grief and depression can co-exist. For some people, the death of a loved one, losing a job or being a victim of a physical assault or a major disaster can lead to depression. When grief and depression co-occur, the grief is more severe and lasts longer than grief without depression.
Spiritual Causes of Depression
Most of us go through real times of spiritual melancholy in the Christian life. They can be brief or entire seasons in which a person fails to feel his or her heart’s delight in God and divine things. If you have been a Catholic for any period of time, you most likely have experienced this reality. In the midst of these times we often struggle to know why this feeling has crept into our hearts. It is good for us to search our own hearts in times like this―before we start pointing the finger and blaming other persons or things for our depression. We must ask the Lord to give us wisdom in identifying the cause―even as we continue to seek Him.
Satan likes to paint an ugly picture of God. The evil one begin to suggest to us that God does not hear us, that our prayers are useless, and thus leads us to into depression over the issue and to the brink of discouragement―for we are tempted to see God only as a hard and angry master, whom we can no longer hope to be able to please. What deceives us (for God has not abandoned us, but permits us to be tried) is that, as we serve God with disgust, with laxity, and with dryness of heart, we presume that our service is neither pleasing to God, nor meritorious to ourselves. This thought at first depresses and soon discourages us altogether, unless the Lord grants us the grace to return of that spiritual fervor and sweetness which we once enjoyed, and, hopefully, still continue to ask for. We must be reminded of the truths of religion, which will reanimate our confidence and prove to us that our fears were groundless and the result of devilish temptations.
Here are some of the chief spiritual causes for depression:
● Physical Tiredness: Man was created body and soul. There are times that our physical bodies are just exhausted. Our bodies affect our souls, just as our souls affect the body. This physical tiredness can be caused by multiple things. Could you be laboring in your own strength as opposed to the Lord’s: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5)? Maybe you are leading an imbalanced life with respect to work and sleep. Have you neglected the weekly routine of rest on the Lord’s Day? It could also just be a busy time of life that has taken a toll upon you. If this is the case, rest your body and bless your soul. Just as one of the remedies for Elias’s depression was found in the basic provision of food and drink: “Elias was afraid, and rising up he went forward, one day’s journey into the desert. And when he was there, and sat under a juniper tree, he requested for his soul that he might die, and said: ‘It is enough for me, Lord! Take away my soul! For I am no better than my fathers!’ And he cast himself down and slept in the shadow of the juniper tree. And behold an angel of the Lord touched him, and said to him: ‘Arise and eat!’ He looked, and saw that there was, by his head, a hearth cake and a vessel of water―and he ate and drank, and he fell asleep again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said to him: ‘Arise, eat! For thou hast yet a great way to go!’ And he arose and ate and drank, and walked in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights, unto the mount of God, Horeb” (3 Kings 19:3-8). So it may be that we also need to eat and sleep correctly―not too much and not too little. Virtue stands in the middle between excess and neglect! Satan, on the other hand, is always coaxing us into stepping away from moderation into either excess or neglect, or both.
● Neglect of the Means of Grace: Even as we feed our bodies, we must feed our souls. We must attend to parish, community, private, and family worship. We need to feed upon the Word of God preached each week. We need to read the Word of God each day in our homes. Our affections need to be stirred-up in prayer and we need to feed our souls through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Holy Communion and Confession. Have we allowed ourselves to avoid the communion of the saints? If any of these are the case, then we are forsaking the oasis in the midst of the desert. Satan is always distracting us and leading us away from the oasis of grace to the oasis of worldliness.
● Trials and Suffering: Trials and suffering can lead to real spiritual depression. Maybe we have lost a job, a friend, our home, a spouse, or even a child. Persecution or betrayal has descended upon us and we are suffering the effects. At times we suffer spiritual melancholy because we do not have a healthy expectation of trials and suffering coming into our lives: “Stand firm in one spirit, with one mind laboring together for the Faith. And in nothing be terrified by the adversaries―which to them is a cause of their perdition, but to you the cause of your salvation―for this from God! For unto you it is given for Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him―having the same conflict as that which you have seen in me, and now have heard of me!” (Philipians 1:27-30). If that is the case, we need to remind ourselves to expect them: “He that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38) and to persevere through them. This trial will end and we are not alone. Though we may feel abandoned, nothing could be farther from the truth. He is with us: “I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world!” (Matthew 28:20). Satan is totally opposed to suffering for Christ and the Cross of Christ―for that is what defeated him on Calvary. Satan, the prince of this world, prefers you to suffer in order to obtain worldly things rather than heavenly things!
● Cares of the World: The homes we live in, the jobs we occupy, the recreations we pursue, the investments we hope in, and a myriad of other things in this world can begin to edge out our joy in the Lord: “The cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts after other things entering in choke the word of God and it is made fruitless!” (Mark 4:19). We can be too invested in the things of this world. We would do well to remember Demas. A man who enjoyed the inner circle of the Apostle Paul's ministry (Colossians 4:14; Philemon 1:24) and yet fell in love with the world (2 Timothy 4:9). The Scriptures frequently warn us against becoming engrossed with the world: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). We should learn a lesson from the rich young man, who wanted to save his soul and be perfect. “And Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful―for he was very rich and had great possessions” (Matthew 19:16-29; Mark 10:17-31; Luke 18:18-25). Just as Satan tempted Christ with wealth, possessions and glory in this world, so too does he tempt us in the same way! We end up caring more about the world than Heaven!
● Too Much Introspection: We are all to look inwardly and examine our spiritual lives. We must be a student of both God and ourselves. However, there is a self-examination that goes too far or too long. A self-examination that constantly looks within and seldom looks up to God, is a bow of pride and an arrow of moroseness aimed at the Christian's heart. It can easily spread a poison that leads to spiritual melancholy. We all agree that we should examine ourselves, but we also agree that introspection and morbidity are bad. We cross the line from self-examination into introspection when, in a sense, we do nothing but examine ourselves, and when such self-examination becomes the main and chief end of our life―to the forgetfulness of God and His love, kindness and mercy. We are meant to examine ourselves periodically―but if we are always doing it, always, as it were, putting our soul on a plate and dissecting it―that is introspection. Satan loves anything that takes our focus away from God, and introspection most certainly does that, while, at the same, fooling us into thinking it is a "holy" thing that we are doing!
● Sin: Giving in to a particular sin or sins may be the cause of our spiritual depression. Sin―even though at first it gives us some kind of pleasure―it will sooner or later turn into sadness, remorse, anguish and depression: “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “Sin hath reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21). “Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:15). Sin clouds our view of God’s glory and our pursuit of Christ. It is not that His face is hid from us, but it can be obscured by habitual or gripping sin in our life. If this is the case, then confession, penance, prayer and mortification is the call of the day.
● Lukewarmness: This is similar to the reason above, but because it is often the cause of spiritual melancholy and is rather particular, I mention it separately. There is a sin that consists of “going through the motions” and not being fervent for Christ and the things of Christ. It is seen in the warning given to the church in Laodicea: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot! I would thou wert cold, or hot! But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). A lukewarm heart is playing with fire and spiritual depression can sometimes be a sign to awaken us.
● God's Withdrawing A Sense of His Delight: God does not do this maliciously, but as a Father with tender care for His children. He is not abandoning us or forsaking us: “Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? And if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee!” (Isaias 49:15). God merely withdraws for a time, for our own good. He does so for our sanctification. He may withdraw a sense of His delight so that we might grow in our reliance upon Him, know the fruit of suffering, have our hidden sins uncovered, learn to seek Him more fully, be encouraged to look forward to the next life, see ourselves as pilgrims in this world more clearly, etc. (Job; Psalm 63:8; Romans 5:3-5; 8:37). There are a multitude of reasons, but we can rest assured that it is always for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28; 11:36).
Spiritual depression can come upon us suddenly or gradually overtime. It is not a season that any Christian desires to endure. Yet, even though it is very painful, it can be one of the greatest means for our sanctification and enjoying the regained grace of God. For how filled our lives would be with eternal depression if not for His grace. Take this season of Lent to discern your own heart, to search for anyway the Lord might be prodding you, to look to the throne of grace, and to have your affections stirred for Heaven where depression will have no place.
Satanic Causes of Depression
Satan is depressed. Satan is sad. Those sentiments can be like a virus and when see them, we can sure that Satan is hovering around. In his book The Discernment of Spirits, the renowned master of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, Fr. Ludovic-Marie Barrielle, writes: “Many people do not realize the influences that a spirit can have on us. A person might say: ‘Father, I’m down in the dumps!’ No, you are not down in the dumps! That does not exist! You have the devil hovering about you. ‘Father, you see the devil everywhere! I’m down in the dumps because the sun is not out today, and when the weather is bad I’m sad, that’s all! It has nothing to do with the devil!’ Exactly! Do you not know that the devil uses everything when coming to tempt you? He will use advantageously the bad weather, as a disposition. You just are not aware of the fact that if you are feeling sad, the devil is hovering about you. Beware! Behold a sad young man! I do not say that he has sinned! I say: ‘The devil is hovering about him!’ Attention! How does one know that? From the rules brought by the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Ignatius.
“‘A saint sad is a sad saint’, St. Francis de Sales used to say. The devil is eternally sad―he cannot get rid of his sadness. As soon as he comes near you he communicates his sadness without even so much as wanting to do so. This is so much the case, that in the rules for discerning the spirits of the second week, when the devil attempts to tempt a fervent soul, under the appearance of good, one of the signs for recognizing that it is the devil is this sadness that we feel overcoming us. Such is one who, leaving the confessional content, is suddenly struck by sadness. Recognize him who comes near with his sadness! Behold a sad young man: I do not say that he has sinned, but I know that the devil is hovering about him. Beware of these melancholic dreams! One may not realize, but the devil is not far off!” (Fr. Ludovic-Marie Barrielle, The Discernment of Spirits).
Spiritual Remedies for Depression
The first remedy for depression is that it does not come directly from God Himself―God is joy, not sadness and depression. Yes―Our Lord grew sad and sorrowful in His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane―but that was largely due to Satan tempting Him. Our Lord overcame that sadness, sorrow, depression, dejection and discouragement through prayer―and we can do this also:
“Jesus came with them into a country place which is called Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples: ‘Sit here, while I go yonder and pray!’ And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to grow sorrowful and to be sad. Then He said to them: ‘My soul is sorrowful even unto death! Stay here and watch with Me! And going a little further, He fell upon His face, praying, and saying: ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me! Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt!’ And He came back to His disciples, and found them asleep, and He said to Peter: ‘What? Could you not watch one hour with Me? Watch ye, and pray that ye enter not into temptation! The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak!’ Again the second time, He went and prayed, saying: ‘My Father! If this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it―then Thy will be done!’ And He came back again and found them sleeping―for their eyes were heavy. And leaving them, He went again and He prayed the third time, saying the self-same words” (Matthew 26:36-44).
Remember the words of Our Lord―that could easily be applied to those who are depressed: “Come to Me, all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you!” (Matthew 11:28). Remember how Jesus―after His resurrection―came to aid of the two depressed disciples on the road to Emmaus: “And behold, two of them went, the same day, to a town which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, named Emmaus. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass, that while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus himself also drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held, that they should not know Him. And He said to them: ‘What are these discourses that you hold one with another as you walk, and are sad?’ And the one of them, whose name was Cleophas, answering, said to Him: ‘Art Thou only a stranger to Jerusalem, and hast not known the things that have been done there in these days?’ To whom Jesus said: ‘What things?’
“And they said: ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth―who was a prophet, mighty in work and word before God and all the people! And how our chief priests and princes delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we hoped, that it was He that should have redeemed Israel! And now, besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done! Yea, and certain women also of our company frightened us, who before it was light, were at the sepulcher, and not finding His body, came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, who said that He is alive! And some of our people went to the sepulcher, and found it so as the women had said, but Him they found not!’
“Then Jesus said to them: ‘O foolish, and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?’ And, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures, the things that were written concerning Him. And they drew near to the town, where they were going―and Jesus made as though He would go farther. But they constrained Him, saying: ‘Stay with us, because it is towards evening, and the day is now far spent!’ And He went in with them. And it came to pass, while He was at table with them, he took bread, and blessed, and broke, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew Him―and then He vanished out of their sight. And they said one to the other: ‘Was not our heart burning within us [no longer sad and depressed], while He spoke in this way, and opened to us the Scriptures?’” (Luke 24:13-32).
When facing depression we should remember and recite this prayer by St. Ignatius of Loyola: “O Christ Jesus! When all is darkness and we feel our weakness and helplessness―give us the sense of Thy presence, Thy love and Thy strength. Help us to have perfect trust in Thy protecting love and strengthening power! So that nothing may frighten or worry us―for, by living close to Thee, we shall see Thy hand, Thy purpose, and Thy will, through all things.”
(b) DEJECTION
(c) DISCOURAGEMENT
(d) DESPONDENCY
Despondency is a strong feeling of unhappiness caused by difficulties which you feel you cannot overcome. It is defined as: “the state of being extremely low in spirits” … “feeling a situation is unlikely to improve … “losing courage, falling into dejection.” Other definitions include the words discouraged, depressed, dejected , hopeless, etc.—thus showing how closely linked and nuanced all these similar states of mind actually are. Holy Scripture, using the word “sorrowful” gives us a vivid image of the effect of this state of mind: “A sorrowful spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 17:22).
The word “despondent” and “despondency” come from the Latin “despondentem” (nominative “despondens”), present participle of “despondere” meaning “to give up, lose, lose heart, resign.” Also “to promise in marriage” (especially in the Latin phrase “animam despondere” ― literally meaning “give up one’s soul.” The 1897 Century Dictionary, stated that “Despondency is a loss of hope sufficient to produce a loss of courage and a disposition to relax or relinquish effort, the despondent person tending to sink into spiritless inaction. Despair means a total loss of hope; despondency does not.”
There is a book by Fr. Michel, Spiritual Despondency and Temptations, which very thoroughly covers many aspects of the devil’s attacks upon the soul through discouragement and despondency. Here are a few extracts from that book:
“Despondency, or discouragement, is the most dangerous temptation that the enemy of our salvation can employ. In other temptations he attacks some virtue in particular, and shows himself openly. By despondency, he attacks them all, but covertly. The snare is readily seen in other temptations―one finds in religion or even in reason, principles which condemn the temptations.
“The knowledge of the evil, to which we cannot blind ourselves, our conscience and the truths of religion serve as helps to sustain us. But in despondency there is nothing to lean upon! We feel that reason does not suffice to enable us to practice all the good that God requires of us. On the other hand, we dare not hope to receive from God all the help we need to overcome our passions. Thus we become discouraged and nearly reduced to despair, the very point to which the devil tries to lead the despondent soul.
“In other temptations we clearly perceive that it is wrong to allow the mind to dwell upon them; but in despondency, which disguises itself under a multiplicity of forms, we see strong motives for yielding to the feeling which we do not look upon as a temptation. This feeling, however, makes us imagine that perseverance in the practice of virtue is impossible, and it leaves the soul liable to be overcome by all its passions. It is therefore of the utmost importance to avoid this snare. The most fatal effect of despondency is that the soul that yields to it does not view it as a temptation. Hope and confidence in God are as much a commandment as faith and the other virtues.”
“The great danger of despondency is that, being deceived by an excessive fear, which makes us blind to the truth, and being discouraged at the sight of difficulties, against which we find no resource in ourselves, we nevertheless do not look upon this state as the effect of temptation. If we could only see it in that light, we should beware of the suggestions that entertain it, and should get rid of our trouble more quickly and more easily. Let it, however, be well understood that despondency is a temptation, and bears all the marks of being such.
“When we lose all hope of overcoming the difficulties which we may find in the practice of any virtue, we do not try, or but feebly, to make the effort to do so. These insufficient efforts only increase our weakness, and being more than half overcome by despondency, we are easily led away by the passion that sways us. The sense of our weakness first throws us into doubt and into trouble. In this state of discouragement we have but a feeble hope that God will help us; we hardly expect it, we scarcely dare to ask for it; perhaps, even, we fear to attain it, lest it should oblige us to relinquish certain favorite inclinations. In this condition, despairing of being able to persevere in such a life of self-violence, we struggle but feebly, if at all. Our first relapse serves to confirm this impression—that it is useless for us to resist, and that we must only wait for the time when our passions shall be weaker.
“The Christian who thinks that all his prayers are vain to conquer his ruling passion, or to overcome a habitual temptation, who feels in the service of God only weariness and disgust, becomes perplexed and anxious. The evil one soon begins to suggest to him that God does not hear him, that his prayers are useless, and thus leads him to the very brink of discouragement, seeing in God only a hard and angry master, whom he no longer hopes to be able to please. What deceives such a person (whom God has not abandoned, but permits to be tried) is, that as he serves God with disgust, with languor, and with dryness of heart, he presumes that his service is neither pleasing to God, nor meritorious to himself. This thought at first depresses and soon discourages him altogether.
“One of the illusions by which the devil casts some souls into despondency, or confirms them therein, is this, that certain of their inclinations and habits are so strongly rooted that they cannot overcome them. If you propose remedies for their correction, they will be so reluctant to adopt them as to declare that it is out of their power, that it is utterly useless to make the attempt. Whilst in this disposition the lights and inspirations sent to them from Heaven are rendered of no avail by their negligence or their resistance.
“This is the excuse, but the real truth is, that they are unwilling to employ that violence against themselves which is necessary for their amendment. They do not ask of God the grace which they require with a sincere desire of receiving it. They never go to the source of their difficulties in order to apply the remedy which reason and religion prescribe. They seek to quiet their conscience by the assurance that they can do nothing to help themselves, and they indulge their inclination in a security that is highly prejudicial. At times, alarmed by their dangerous condition, they take a spasmodic resolution of returning to God, but because they do not go to the root of the evil, and are averse to all painful exertion, they quickly tire of struggling against temptations, which continually beset them, and, at the first failure, resign themselves again to the conclusion that it is beyond their strength. Despondency once more gains possession, and they abandon even the wish to strive for victory.
“This temptation is very dangerous, since it leads to a neglect of God and of final salvation. A soul so averse to all exertion gives herself up to dissipation of mind and heart, so as to escape the sting of conscience and to shut out the light which God, in His mercy, still grants to her, and which disturbs the false security in which she loves to dwell.
“The greatest danger of this state is that we scarcely dare pray for our conversion, forgetful that God is still full of goodness and mercy, and desires our salvation far more than we ourselves do. We forget His almighty power, who can, even then, defend and sustain us, and who will ever be faithful to His promise to succor those who appeal to Him with confidence. Unmindful of these truths we forsake prayer, or engaging in it with the conviction that we shall not succeed, we voluntarily neglect that recollection and stifle that hope which would render it efficacious.” (Fr. P.J. Michel, Spiritual Despondency and Temptations).
(37) DEPRESSION
(37) DISCOURAGEMENT, DEJECTION, DESPONDENCY & DEPRESSION
(38) DESPAIR
(39) DESTRUCTION
(40) DAMNATION
The previous articles (see below) covered the initial 35 “D” tactics of the Devil:
(01) DISTRACTION; (02) DISCUSSION, DEBATE & DIALECTICS; (03) DECEPTION; (04) DEGLAMORIZATION; (05) DISLIKE; (06) DISTANCING; (07) DISABLE & DISARM; (08) DISTURBANCE; (09) DIFFERENCES and DISAGREEMENTS; (10) DICHOTOMY and DIVISION; (11) DISCREDITING; (12) DETRACTION, DEFAMATION, DISTORTION and DISGRACE; (13) DISAPPOINTMENT, DISENCHANTMENT & DISILLUSIONMENT; (14) DISGUST and DISDAIN; (15) DOUBT & DISTRUST; (16) DISBELIEF; (17) DANGLE & DAZZLE; (18) DELIGHT and DELUSION; (19) DAYDREAMS; (20) DESIRING DREAMS; (21) DEVIATE and DERAIL; (22) DARE; (23) DILEMMA; (24) DOWNPLAY, DEVALUE & DILUTE; (25) DABBLE and DIP; (26) DOUBLE DARE; (27) DEFILES; (28) DOWNPLAY and DEVALUE; (29) DESENSITIZE & DEADEN; (30) DEPENDENCY; (31) DELAYING; (32) DEGENERATING; (33) DEHUMANIZING and DENATURIZING; (34) DEMORALIZING; (35) DESPICABILITY.
This is the sixth and final article on the demonic “D” trend, which seek to push the soul even deeper into Satan’s swamp.
(36) DEPRESSION, DEJECTION, DISCOURAGEMENT & DESPONDENCY
All four―depression, dejection, discouragement and despondency―could be likened to four brothers of the same family. You could argue as which of the four was born first, who came second, etc. ― but you cannot really argue that they are not related. They might not look exactly alike―but you can most certainly see the same family traits and characteristics in all four of them. You could say that it one short step from one to another―as they are all huddled together, the only difference being in slight nuances. Or you liken them to the four sides of the same building―all are linked together, but face in a different direction―north, south, east and west.
Let us then take one at a time and pass over any arguments as to which of the four is the first-born and eldest among them; which is the youngest and which are the middle two―and instead examine them one after another, noting the links and overlaps as we go.
(a) DEPRESSION
Most people suffer come depression from time to time. Feeling down from time to time is a normal part of life. Most of us feel sad, lonely, or depressed at times. It's a normal reaction to loss, life’s struggles, or injured self-esteem. But when intense sadness ― including feeling helpless, hopeless, and worthless ― lasts for many days to weeks and keeps you from living your life, then just trying to get through the day can be overwhelming. It may be something more than mere sadness. It can be depression.
What is depression? Let us first of all get the medical viewpoint on depression. Depression (also called major depressive disorder or clinical depression) is a common but serious mood disorder. It causes severe symptoms that that negatively affect how you feel, think, and handle daily activities, such as sleeping, eating, or working. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease your ability to function at work and at home. To be diagnosed with depression, the symptoms must be present for at least two weeks.
There are different types of depression, some of which develop due to specific circumstances.
● Major depression, which includes symptoms of depression most of the time for at least 2 weeks that typically interfere with one’s ability to work, sleep, study, and eat.
● Persistent depressive disorder, which often includes less severe symptoms of depression that last much longer, typically for at least 2 years.
► DEPRESSION SYMPTOMS: Although depression may occur only once during your life, people typically have multiple episodes. While some people describe depression as “living in a black hole” or having a feeling of impending doom, others feel lifeless, empty, and apathetic. Men in particular can feel angry and restless. However you experience the problem, left untreated it can become a serious health condition. But it's important to remember that feelings of helplessness and hopelessness are symptoms of depression—not the reality of your situation.
Depression varies from person to person, but there are some common signs and symptoms. It's important to remember that these symptoms can be part of life's normal lows. But the more symptoms you have, the stronger they are, and the longer they've lasted—the more likely it is that you're dealing with depression. During these episodes, symptoms occur most of the day, nearly every day and may include some or many of the following symptoms:
● Feelings of sadness, tearfulness, emptiness or hopelessness. Persistent sad, anxious, or “empty” feelings. A bleak outlook—nothing will ever get better and there is nothing that can be done to improve your situation.
● Loss of interest or pleasure in most or all normal activities that were once enjoyed. The person no longer cares anymore about former hobbies, pastimes, social activities. They have lost their ability to feel joy and pleasure.
● Tiredness and lack of energy, feeling physically drained, so that even small tasks seem like mountains and take extra effort, are exhausting and take much longer to complete.
● Trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things.
● Sleep disturbances, such as trouble sleeping or sleeping too much.
● Changes in appetite — reduced appetite and weight loss; or increased cravings for food and weight gain.
● Unexplained physical problems, such as headaches, back pain, aching muscles, and stomach pain.
● Anxiety, agitation or restlessness.
● Increase in pointless physical activity (e.g., inability to sit still, pacing, handwringing), or slowed thinking, speaking or body movements (these must be severe enough to be observable by others)
● Self-hatred. Strong feelings of worthlessness or guilt. Fixating on past failures or self-blame. Harshly critical of oneself for perceived faults and mistakes.
● Angry outbursts, irritability or frustration, even over small matters. Feeling agitated, cranky, restless, or even violent. Tolerance levels are low, the temper is short, and everything and everyone gets on the person’s nerves.
● Reckless behavior. Engagement in escapist behavior such as substance abuse, compulsive gambling, reckless driving, dangerous sports, or promiscuous behavior.
● Frequent or recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts or suicide.
Depression may have other specific features, such as:
● Anxious distress. Worrying a lot about things that might happen or about losing control.
● Mixed features. Having both depression and mania ― periods of high energy, talking too much, and an exaggeratedly high self-esteem.
● Atypical features. Feeling good after happy events, but also feel hungrier, needing to sleep a lot, and high sensitivity to rejection.
● Psychotic features. Believing things that are not true, or seeing and hearing things that are not there.
● Catatonia. Inability to move the body normally. Either being still and unresponsive; or having uncontrollable movements.
● Seasonal pattern. Symptoms worsening with changes in the seasons, especially in colder, darker months.
Depression Is Different From Sadness or Grief
The death of a loved one, loss of a job or the ending of a relationship are difficult experiences for a person to endure. It is normal for feelings of sadness or grief to develop in response to such situations. Those experiencing loss often might describe themselves as being “depressed.” But being sad is not the same as having depression. The grieving process is natural and unique to each individual and shares some of the same features of depression. Both grief and depression may involve intense sadness and withdrawal from usual activities. They are also different in important ways:
● In grief, painful feelings come in waves, often intermixed with positive memories of the deceased. In major depression, mood and/or interest (pleasure) are decreased for most of two weeks.
● In grief, self-esteem is usually maintained. In major depression, feelings of worthlessness and self-hatred are common.
● In grief, thoughts of death may surface when thinking of or fantasizing about “joining” the deceased loved one. In major depression, thoughts are focused on ending one’s life due to feeling worthless or being undeserving of living or being unable to cope with the pain of depression.
● Grief and depression can co-exist. For some people, the death of a loved one, losing a job or being a victim of a physical assault or a major disaster can lead to depression. When grief and depression co-occur, the grief is more severe and lasts longer than grief without depression.
Spiritual Causes of Depression
Most of us go through real times of spiritual melancholy in the Christian life. They can be brief or entire seasons in which a person fails to feel his or her heart’s delight in God and divine things. If you have been a Catholic for any period of time, you most likely have experienced this reality. In the midst of these times we often struggle to know why this feeling has crept into our hearts. It is good for us to search our own hearts in times like this―before we start pointing the finger and blaming other persons or things for our depression. We must ask the Lord to give us wisdom in identifying the cause―even as we continue to seek Him.
Satan likes to paint an ugly picture of God. The evil one begin to suggest to us that God does not hear us, that our prayers are useless, and thus leads us to into depression over the issue and to the brink of discouragement―for we are tempted to see God only as a hard and angry master, whom we can no longer hope to be able to please. What deceives us (for God has not abandoned us, but permits us to be tried) is that, as we serve God with disgust, with laxity, and with dryness of heart, we presume that our service is neither pleasing to God, nor meritorious to ourselves. This thought at first depresses and soon discourages us altogether, unless the Lord grants us the grace to return of that spiritual fervor and sweetness which we once enjoyed, and, hopefully, still continue to ask for. We must be reminded of the truths of religion, which will reanimate our confidence and prove to us that our fears were groundless and the result of devilish temptations.
Here are some of the chief spiritual causes for depression:
● Physical Tiredness: Man was created body and soul. There are times that our physical bodies are just exhausted. Our bodies affect our souls, just as our souls affect the body. This physical tiredness can be caused by multiple things. Could you be laboring in your own strength as opposed to the Lord’s: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5)? Maybe you are leading an imbalanced life with respect to work and sleep. Have you neglected the weekly routine of rest on the Lord’s Day? It could also just be a busy time of life that has taken a toll upon you. If this is the case, rest your body and bless your soul. Just as one of the remedies for Elias’s depression was found in the basic provision of food and drink: “Elias was afraid, and rising up he went forward, one day’s journey into the desert. And when he was there, and sat under a juniper tree, he requested for his soul that he might die, and said: ‘It is enough for me, Lord! Take away my soul! For I am no better than my fathers!’ And he cast himself down and slept in the shadow of the juniper tree. And behold an angel of the Lord touched him, and said to him: ‘Arise and eat!’ He looked, and saw that there was, by his head, a hearth cake and a vessel of water―and he ate and drank, and he fell asleep again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said to him: ‘Arise, eat! For thou hast yet a great way to go!’ And he arose and ate and drank, and walked in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights, unto the mount of God, Horeb” (3 Kings 19:3-8). So it may be that we also need to eat and sleep correctly―not too much and not too little. Virtue stands in the middle between excess and neglect! Satan, on the other hand, is always coaxing us into stepping away from moderation into either excess or neglect, or both.
● Neglect of the Means of Grace: Even as we feed our bodies, we must feed our souls. We must attend to parish, community, private, and family worship. We need to feed upon the Word of God preached each week. We need to read the Word of God each day in our homes. Our affections need to be stirred-up in prayer and we need to feed our souls through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Holy Communion and Confession. Have we allowed ourselves to avoid the communion of the saints? If any of these are the case, then we are forsaking the oasis in the midst of the desert. Satan is always distracting us and leading us away from the oasis of grace to the oasis of worldliness.
● Trials and Suffering: Trials and suffering can lead to real spiritual depression. Maybe we have lost a job, a friend, our home, a spouse, or even a child. Persecution or betrayal has descended upon us and we are suffering the effects. At times we suffer spiritual melancholy because we do not have a healthy expectation of trials and suffering coming into our lives: “Stand firm in one spirit, with one mind laboring together for the Faith. And in nothing be terrified by the adversaries―which to them is a cause of their perdition, but to you the cause of your salvation―for this from God! For unto you it is given for Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him―having the same conflict as that which you have seen in me, and now have heard of me!” (Philipians 1:27-30). If that is the case, we need to remind ourselves to expect them: “He that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38) and to persevere through them. This trial will end and we are not alone. Though we may feel abandoned, nothing could be farther from the truth. He is with us: “I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world!” (Matthew 28:20). Satan is totally opposed to suffering for Christ and the Cross of Christ―for that is what defeated him on Calvary. Satan, the prince of this world, prefers you to suffer in order to obtain worldly things rather than heavenly things!
● Cares of the World: The homes we live in, the jobs we occupy, the recreations we pursue, the investments we hope in, and a myriad of other things in this world can begin to edge out our joy in the Lord: “The cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts after other things entering in choke the word of God and it is made fruitless!” (Mark 4:19). We can be too invested in the things of this world. We would do well to remember Demas. A man who enjoyed the inner circle of the Apostle Paul's ministry (Colossians 4:14; Philemon 1:24) and yet fell in love with the world (2 Timothy 4:9). The Scriptures frequently warn us against becoming engrossed with the world: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). We should learn a lesson from the rich young man, who wanted to save his soul and be perfect. “And Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful―for he was very rich and had great possessions” (Matthew 19:16-29; Mark 10:17-31; Luke 18:18-25). Just as Satan tempted Christ with wealth, possessions and glory in this world, so too does he tempt us in the same way! We end up caring more about the world than Heaven!
● Too Much Introspection: We are all to look inwardly and examine our spiritual lives. We must be a student of both God and ourselves. However, there is a self-examination that goes too far or too long. A self-examination that constantly looks within and seldom looks up to God, is a bow of pride and an arrow of moroseness aimed at the Christian's heart. It can easily spread a poison that leads to spiritual melancholy. We all agree that we should examine ourselves, but we also agree that introspection and morbidity are bad. We cross the line from self-examination into introspection when, in a sense, we do nothing but examine ourselves, and when such self-examination becomes the main and chief end of our life―to the forgetfulness of God and His love, kindness and mercy. We are meant to examine ourselves periodically―but if we are always doing it, always, as it were, putting our soul on a plate and dissecting it―that is introspection. Satan loves anything that takes our focus away from God, and introspection most certainly does that, while, at the same, fooling us into thinking it is a "holy" thing that we are doing!
● Sin: Giving in to a particular sin or sins may be the cause of our spiritual depression. Sin―even though at first it gives us some kind of pleasure―it will sooner or later turn into sadness, remorse, anguish and depression: “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “Sin hath reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21). “Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:15). Sin clouds our view of God’s glory and our pursuit of Christ. It is not that His face is hid from us, but it can be obscured by habitual or gripping sin in our life. If this is the case, then confession, penance, prayer and mortification is the call of the day.
● Lukewarmness: This is similar to the reason above, but because it is often the cause of spiritual melancholy and is rather particular, I mention it separately. There is a sin that consists of “going through the motions” and not being fervent for Christ and the things of Christ. It is seen in the warning given to the church in Laodicea: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot! I would thou wert cold, or hot! But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). A lukewarm heart is playing with fire and spiritual depression can sometimes be a sign to awaken us.
● God's Withdrawing A Sense of His Delight: God does not do this maliciously, but as a Father with tender care for His children. He is not abandoning us or forsaking us: “Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? And if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee!” (Isaias 49:15). God merely withdraws for a time, for our own good. He does so for our sanctification. He may withdraw a sense of His delight so that we might grow in our reliance upon Him, know the fruit of suffering, have our hidden sins uncovered, learn to seek Him more fully, be encouraged to look forward to the next life, see ourselves as pilgrims in this world more clearly, etc. (Job; Psalm 63:8; Romans 5:3-5; 8:37). There are a multitude of reasons, but we can rest assured that it is always for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28; 11:36).
Spiritual depression can come upon us suddenly or gradually overtime. It is not a season that any Christian desires to endure. Yet, even though it is very painful, it can be one of the greatest means for our sanctification and enjoying the regained grace of God. For how filled our lives would be with eternal depression if not for His grace. Take this season of Lent to discern your own heart, to search for anyway the Lord might be prodding you, to look to the throne of grace, and to have your affections stirred for Heaven where depression will have no place.
Satanic Causes of Depression
Satan is depressed. Satan is sad. Those sentiments can be like a virus and when see them, we can sure that Satan is hovering around. In his book The Discernment of Spirits, the renowned master of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, Fr. Ludovic-Marie Barrielle, writes: “Many people do not realize the influences that a spirit can have on us. A person might say: ‘Father, I’m down in the dumps!’ No, you are not down in the dumps! That does not exist! You have the devil hovering about you. ‘Father, you see the devil everywhere! I’m down in the dumps because the sun is not out today, and when the weather is bad I’m sad, that’s all! It has nothing to do with the devil!’ Exactly! Do you not know that the devil uses everything when coming to tempt you? He will use advantageously the bad weather, as a disposition. You just are not aware of the fact that if you are feeling sad, the devil is hovering about you. Beware! Behold a sad young man! I do not say that he has sinned! I say: ‘The devil is hovering about him!’ Attention! How does one know that? From the rules brought by the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Ignatius.
“‘A saint sad is a sad saint’, St. Francis de Sales used to say. The devil is eternally sad―he cannot get rid of his sadness. As soon as he comes near you he communicates his sadness without even so much as wanting to do so. This is so much the case, that in the rules for discerning the spirits of the second week, when the devil attempts to tempt a fervent soul, under the appearance of good, one of the signs for recognizing that it is the devil is this sadness that we feel overcoming us. Such is one who, leaving the confessional content, is suddenly struck by sadness. Recognize him who comes near with his sadness! Behold a sad young man: I do not say that he has sinned, but I know that the devil is hovering about him. Beware of these melancholic dreams! One may not realize, but the devil is not far off!” (Fr. Ludovic-Marie Barrielle, The Discernment of Spirits).
Spiritual Remedies for Depression
The first remedy for depression is that it does not come directly from God Himself―God is joy, not sadness and depression. Yes―Our Lord grew sad and sorrowful in His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane―but that was largely due to Satan tempting Him. Our Lord overcame that sadness, sorrow, depression, dejection and discouragement through prayer―and we can do this also:
“Jesus came with them into a country place which is called Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples: ‘Sit here, while I go yonder and pray!’ And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to grow sorrowful and to be sad. Then He said to them: ‘My soul is sorrowful even unto death! Stay here and watch with Me! And going a little further, He fell upon His face, praying, and saying: ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me! Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt!’ And He came back to His disciples, and found them asleep, and He said to Peter: ‘What? Could you not watch one hour with Me? Watch ye, and pray that ye enter not into temptation! The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak!’ Again the second time, He went and prayed, saying: ‘My Father! If this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it―then Thy will be done!’ And He came back again and found them sleeping―for their eyes were heavy. And leaving them, He went again and He prayed the third time, saying the self-same words” (Matthew 26:36-44).
Remember the words of Our Lord―that could easily be applied to those who are depressed: “Come to Me, all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you!” (Matthew 11:28). Remember how Jesus―after His resurrection―came to aid of the two depressed disciples on the road to Emmaus: “And behold, two of them went, the same day, to a town which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, named Emmaus. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass, that while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus himself also drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held, that they should not know Him. And He said to them: ‘What are these discourses that you hold one with another as you walk, and are sad?’ And the one of them, whose name was Cleophas, answering, said to Him: ‘Art Thou only a stranger to Jerusalem, and hast not known the things that have been done there in these days?’ To whom Jesus said: ‘What things?’
“And they said: ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth―who was a prophet, mighty in work and word before God and all the people! And how our chief priests and princes delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we hoped, that it was He that should have redeemed Israel! And now, besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done! Yea, and certain women also of our company frightened us, who before it was light, were at the sepulcher, and not finding His body, came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, who said that He is alive! And some of our people went to the sepulcher, and found it so as the women had said, but Him they found not!’
“Then Jesus said to them: ‘O foolish, and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?’ And, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures, the things that were written concerning Him. And they drew near to the town, where they were going―and Jesus made as though He would go farther. But they constrained Him, saying: ‘Stay with us, because it is towards evening, and the day is now far spent!’ And He went in with them. And it came to pass, while He was at table with them, he took bread, and blessed, and broke, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew Him―and then He vanished out of their sight. And they said one to the other: ‘Was not our heart burning within us [no longer sad and depressed], while He spoke in this way, and opened to us the Scriptures?’” (Luke 24:13-32).
When facing depression we should remember and recite this prayer by St. Ignatius of Loyola: “O Christ Jesus! When all is darkness and we feel our weakness and helplessness―give us the sense of Thy presence, Thy love and Thy strength. Help us to have perfect trust in Thy protecting love and strengthening power! So that nothing may frighten or worry us―for, by living close to Thee, we shall see Thy hand, Thy purpose, and Thy will, through all things.”
(b) DEJECTION
(c) DISCOURAGEMENT
(d) DESPONDENCY
Despondency is a strong feeling of unhappiness caused by difficulties which you feel you cannot overcome. It is defined as: “the state of being extremely low in spirits” … “feeling a situation is unlikely to improve … “losing courage, falling into dejection.” Other definitions include the words discouraged, depressed, dejected , hopeless, etc.—thus showing how closely linked and nuanced all these similar states of mind actually are. Holy Scripture, using the word “sorrowful” gives us a vivid image of the effect of this state of mind: “A sorrowful spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 17:22).
The word “despondent” and “despondency” come from the Latin “despondentem” (nominative “despondens”), present participle of “despondere” meaning “to give up, lose, lose heart, resign.” Also “to promise in marriage” (especially in the Latin phrase “animam despondere” ― literally meaning “give up one’s soul.” The 1897 Century Dictionary, stated that “Despondency is a loss of hope sufficient to produce a loss of courage and a disposition to relax or relinquish effort, the despondent person tending to sink into spiritless inaction. Despair means a total loss of hope; despondency does not.”
There is a book by Fr. Michel, Spiritual Despondency and Temptations, which very thoroughly covers many aspects of the devil’s attacks upon the soul through discouragement and despondency. Here are a few extracts from that book:
“Despondency, or discouragement, is the most dangerous temptation that the enemy of our salvation can employ. In other temptations he attacks some virtue in particular, and shows himself openly. By despondency, he attacks them all, but covertly. The snare is readily seen in other temptations―one finds in religion or even in reason, principles which condemn the temptations.
“The knowledge of the evil, to which we cannot blind ourselves, our conscience and the truths of religion serve as helps to sustain us. But in despondency there is nothing to lean upon! We feel that reason does not suffice to enable us to practice all the good that God requires of us. On the other hand, we dare not hope to receive from God all the help we need to overcome our passions. Thus we become discouraged and nearly reduced to despair, the very point to which the devil tries to lead the despondent soul.
“In other temptations we clearly perceive that it is wrong to allow the mind to dwell upon them; but in despondency, which disguises itself under a multiplicity of forms, we see strong motives for yielding to the feeling which we do not look upon as a temptation. This feeling, however, makes us imagine that perseverance in the practice of virtue is impossible, and it leaves the soul liable to be overcome by all its passions. It is therefore of the utmost importance to avoid this snare. The most fatal effect of despondency is that the soul that yields to it does not view it as a temptation. Hope and confidence in God are as much a commandment as faith and the other virtues.”
“The great danger of despondency is that, being deceived by an excessive fear, which makes us blind to the truth, and being discouraged at the sight of difficulties, against which we find no resource in ourselves, we nevertheless do not look upon this state as the effect of temptation. If we could only see it in that light, we should beware of the suggestions that entertain it, and should get rid of our trouble more quickly and more easily. Let it, however, be well understood that despondency is a temptation, and bears all the marks of being such.
“When we lose all hope of overcoming the difficulties which we may find in the practice of any virtue, we do not try, or but feebly, to make the effort to do so. These insufficient efforts only increase our weakness, and being more than half overcome by despondency, we are easily led away by the passion that sways us. The sense of our weakness first throws us into doubt and into trouble. In this state of discouragement we have but a feeble hope that God will help us; we hardly expect it, we scarcely dare to ask for it; perhaps, even, we fear to attain it, lest it should oblige us to relinquish certain favorite inclinations. In this condition, despairing of being able to persevere in such a life of self-violence, we struggle but feebly, if at all. Our first relapse serves to confirm this impression—that it is useless for us to resist, and that we must only wait for the time when our passions shall be weaker.
“The Christian who thinks that all his prayers are vain to conquer his ruling passion, or to overcome a habitual temptation, who feels in the service of God only weariness and disgust, becomes perplexed and anxious. The evil one soon begins to suggest to him that God does not hear him, that his prayers are useless, and thus leads him to the very brink of discouragement, seeing in God only a hard and angry master, whom he no longer hopes to be able to please. What deceives such a person (whom God has not abandoned, but permits to be tried) is, that as he serves God with disgust, with languor, and with dryness of heart, he presumes that his service is neither pleasing to God, nor meritorious to himself. This thought at first depresses and soon discourages him altogether.
“One of the illusions by which the devil casts some souls into despondency, or confirms them therein, is this, that certain of their inclinations and habits are so strongly rooted that they cannot overcome them. If you propose remedies for their correction, they will be so reluctant to adopt them as to declare that it is out of their power, that it is utterly useless to make the attempt. Whilst in this disposition the lights and inspirations sent to them from Heaven are rendered of no avail by their negligence or their resistance.
“This is the excuse, but the real truth is, that they are unwilling to employ that violence against themselves which is necessary for their amendment. They do not ask of God the grace which they require with a sincere desire of receiving it. They never go to the source of their difficulties in order to apply the remedy which reason and religion prescribe. They seek to quiet their conscience by the assurance that they can do nothing to help themselves, and they indulge their inclination in a security that is highly prejudicial. At times, alarmed by their dangerous condition, they take a spasmodic resolution of returning to God, but because they do not go to the root of the evil, and are averse to all painful exertion, they quickly tire of struggling against temptations, which continually beset them, and, at the first failure, resign themselves again to the conclusion that it is beyond their strength. Despondency once more gains possession, and they abandon even the wish to strive for victory.
“This temptation is very dangerous, since it leads to a neglect of God and of final salvation. A soul so averse to all exertion gives herself up to dissipation of mind and heart, so as to escape the sting of conscience and to shut out the light which God, in His mercy, still grants to her, and which disturbs the false security in which she loves to dwell.
“The greatest danger of this state is that we scarcely dare pray for our conversion, forgetful that God is still full of goodness and mercy, and desires our salvation far more than we ourselves do. We forget His almighty power, who can, even then, defend and sustain us, and who will ever be faithful to His promise to succor those who appeal to Him with confidence. Unmindful of these truths we forsake prayer, or engaging in it with the conviction that we shall not succeed, we voluntarily neglect that recollection and stifle that hope which would render it efficacious.” (Fr. P.J. Michel, Spiritual Despondency and Temptations).
(37) DEPRESSION
(37) DISCOURAGEMENT, DEJECTION, DESPONDENCY & DEPRESSION
(38) DESPAIR
(39) DESTRUCTION
(40) DAMNATION
Article 10
Monday after the Second Sunday of Lent, March 6th, 2023
The Fifth Set of D's of the Devil
Monday after the Second Sunday of Lent, March 6th, 2023
The Fifth Set of D's of the Devil
THE FORTY D’s OF THE DEVIL (Part 5 ― Numbers 31 to 35)
The previous three articles (see below) covered the initial 25 “D” tactics of the Devil:
(01) DISTRACTION; (02) DISCUSSION, DEBATE & DIALECTICS; (03) DECEPTION; (04) DEGLAMORIZATION; (05) DISLIKE; (06) DISTANCING; (07) DISABLE & DISARM; (08) DISTURBANCE; (09) DIFFERENCES and DISAGREEMENTS; (10) DICHOTOMY and DIVISION; (11) DISCREDITING; (12) DETRACTION, DEFAMATION, DISTORTION and DISGRACE; (13) DISAPPOINTMENT, DISENCHANTMENT & DISILLUSIONMENT; (14) DISGUST and DISDAIN; (15) DOUBT & DISTRUST; (16) DISBELIEF; (17) DANGLE & DAZZLE; (18) DELIGHT and DELUSION; (19) DAYDREAMS; (20) DESIRING DREAMS; (21) DEVIATE and DERAIL; (22) DARE; (23) DILEMMA; (24) DOWNPLAY, DEVALUE & DILUTE; (25) DABBLE and DIP; (26) DOUBLE DARE; (27) DEFILES; (28) DOWNPLAY and DEVALUE; (29) DESENSITIZE & DEADEN; (30) DEPENDENCY.
This―the fourth of our articles―continues the demonic “D” trend, which seek to push the soul even deeper into Satan’s swamp.
(31) DEMORALIZED
Let us first of all be clear as to what the word “demoralized” really means! In the middle of the word we see the clue word—“moral.” A dictionary will define “demoralize” as “to corrupt or undermine in morals, or a moral principle”―also,
“to pervert or to deprave”―also, “to destroy the morals or morale of.” Secondary meanings are: “to deprive of self-reliance; to weaken in courage, fortitude, or spirit; to cast into disorder or confusion; to bewilder or perplex.”
Sanctifying grace is the wall that protects your soul from the devil and damnation. Die in a state of sanctifying grace and you will be saved—even though you may have to spend many years, or decades, or even centuries in Purgatory—but saved you will be. Die without sanctifying grace and you are damned—it’s as simple and brutal as that! Thus, if the devil wants your damnation, he needs to get sanctifying grace out of the way and out of the way for good! What gets rid of sanctifying grace? Mortal sin—even the ‘tiniest’ or ‘lowest ranking’ mortal sin—the mortal sin that feels as though it is only a serious venial sin, but isn’t. Commit just one ‘low-grade’ mortal sin and you place yourself in a state of damnation. Die in that state—and you are damned for eternity.
Yet, the devil knows that even though you may have committed a mortal sin, there is still a good chance that you will still be saved through a sincere repentance, a good confession and a firm purpose of amendment. Therefore, he has to push you deeper and deeper into sin—and not just one sin, but as many mortal sins as he can get you to ‘swallow’. For mortal sin could be compared to a mortal wound—a person might possibly die from one single gunshot or knife wound, but that person is more likely to die if they have multiple gunshot or knife wounds.
From a psychological perspective, a person who suffers one setback is more likely to continue and persevere on their chosen path than a person who has suffered hundreds of setbacks and failures. The more we fail, the more likely we are to give up. That is what the devil wants—he wants us to give up trying to get to Heaven. To stand a better a chance of doing that, he needs to demoralize us—not in the secondary sense of the word, as in discourage us (that comes later), but to ruin our moral life, to make us sin, sin and sin some more and keep on sinning. It doesn’t matter to the devil if, in the beginning, the sins are mortal or venial—he just wants us to get used to sinning, to create a habit of sinning, an addiction to sinning—and from there, all will quickly develop and go downhill through the next stages he has lined up for us. But the weakening and, if possible, total destruction, of our morals by frequent sin, addiction to sin, a “can’t live without sin” status, has to be achieved for the devil to be able to pass onto the next degrees of “D’s”. This state of demoralization—or destruction of morals—depends greatly, not only on getting the person to sin more, but also making them go to confession less, or not at all. Gunshot or knife wounds are more likely to be fatal if the person stays away from and avoids any and all medical assistance and treatment―likewise, keep the sinner away from confession and you greatly increase the chances of a fatal outcome.
(32) The Devils Changes His Tune and calls you DESPICABLE
There two ways the devil can get you damned. One is with you laughing and joking all the way to Hell under the false illusion that all is well between you and God and that you are bound to be saved. The other way is to have you despair of your salvation. The devil is happy to keep you in a state of false optimism while being in a state of mortal sin. However, if he sees that you are beginning to suspect that all is not well with you and that you no longer “buy into” his false optimism and are likely to, or about to, wake up to seeing your true situation—then he will drastically change his tune from telling you not to worry about your sins due to their insignificance, to now telling you how terrible they are, and how terrible and despicable you are, and that you have gone so far that there is no chance that God is going to forgive you, or that you are so addicted to sin that there no more chance of ever quitting those sins, that you are a “scum-bag” who is beyond all help, that you will never succeed in reforming yourself, etc., etc. His attacks can be so vicious that you are left aghast and reeling from the onslaught. To add a sick twist to all of this, the devil will try to make it seem as though all these thoughts are coming from God Himself!
Now, in a sense, we are “scum-bags” and worthy of being despised by God. It brings to mind what Our Lord said to one of His mystics, telling her that if she could herself as He saw her, then she would die in terror! So, objectively speaking, the devil is correct when he tells us how evil we are—for we are evil! (Let us remember that the philosophical definition of evil is “the lack of a good that should be there”—therefore disease is an evil because it is lack of health that should be there—and rest assured that there is lacking in all of us many a thing that should be there! Thus we are all evil to some degree or another. In His “Sermon on the Mount”, Our Lord even addresses all of His listeners as being evil: “If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children…” (Matthew 7:11). The same thing is implicitly said in the Old Testament: “God looked down from heaven on the children of men: to see if there were any that did understand, or did seek God. All have gone aside, they are become unprofitable together, there is none that doth good, no not one!” (Psalm 52:3-4). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us … If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10). “Man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love, or hatred” (Ecclesiastes 9:1). The point is, though, that we are far more evil than we realize or care to admit.
If God lets us see us increasingly see our evil state (which He gradually tries to do with everyone), then it is to lead us into deeper humility and a greater hope for God’s mercy. However, when the devil shows us how evil we are, it is to lead us, not into humility and hope, but discouragement and despair. The truth of the matter is that we are all worthy of contempt as being sinners who have sinned—because sin, whether venial or mortal, is the greatest evil in the world. Yet God wants that truth to lead to greater humility, whereas the devil wants that truth to lead us to despair.
Hence, he will (as usual) exaggerate the evil that we have done—making it seem unforgivable. Whereas God leads us to hope, saying: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool” (Isaias 1:18) … “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die … But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed … living he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done … Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (Ezechiel 18:20-23). “I am He that blot out thy iniquities for My own sake, and I will not remember thy sins” (Isaias 43:25)—but you can bet your last dollar that the devil will remember all your sins and will not let your forget them as he rubs your nose in them, again and again and again!
(33) DESOLATION will then kick-in
By continually hammering you with the mantra that you are despicable, the devil will drive you to desolation. What is desolation? Desolation is defined as: “a state of complete emptiness or destruction” … “the condition of a place that is empty, with no living things or nothing pleasant in it” … “Deserted by God; deprived of comfort” … “solitary; without a companion; afflicted” … “stripped of inhabitants; a desolate wilderness” as in “I will make the cities of Juda desolate, without an inhabitant” (Jeremias 9:11). “The enemy hath persecuted my soul: he hath brought down my life to the earth. He hath made me to dwell in darkness and my spirit is in anguish within me, and my heart within me is troubled!” (Psalm 142:3-4). This also invokes remembrance of how the devil tormented Christ in His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, as well as His torments on the cross, as He was dying: “My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34).
One retreat manual on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, states: “Consider the reasons for your desolation. Not all trials and desolation are created equal. Ignatius notes three reasons we may be in desolation. The first reason we are in desolation may be because of our own negligence of spiritual discipline. We are tepid and slothful. Desolation, which results from such negligence, is our own fault. The second reason may be because God is testing how we will respond when the result is desolation and not an expected reward. God may try us to test our worth, and the progress that we have made in His service and praise when we are without such generous rewards. The third reason for being in desolation may be that God wishes to impart special wisdom and spiritual understanding. So that we may truly perceive that it is not within our power to acquire or retain great devotion, ardent love, tears, or any other spiritual consolation” on our own.”
Now, it is important to remember that both God and the devil can lead us into the desert of desolation. This is why St. Ignatius of Loyola, in his Spiritual Exercises, gives us rule for discernment and action in times of desolation, which are simply yet amply explained by Fr. Barrielle in his book, The Discernment of Spirits.
Fr. Barrielle first of all quotes one of the rules of St. Ignatius: “ ‘Spiritual desolation―this is the name that I give to whatever is opposite to the foregoing―darkness of soul, disquiet of mind, an attraction to what is coarse and earthly, all restlessness proceeding from different temptations and disturbances, such as the temptation tending to destroy Faith, Hope and Charity; the condition in which the soul finds itself listless, apathetic, melancholy, like one cut off from his Creator and Lord. Inasmuch as comfort and distress are opposed, the thoughts that spring from the former are contrary to those springing from the latter.’
Fr. Barrielle then comments on that rule, first of all addressing desolation that has God as its source: “Pardon the childish expression: ‘In times of consolation God gives us sugar. In times of desolation, He gives us a steak as tough as leather!’ Do not believe that in the first case (in consolations) you are holier and that in the second case (in desolation) that you are more evil! How many people become discouraged because they are bombarded with the most vile and shameful temptations. Far from being a sign of falling back, it is, rather, if the correct means are taken, a grace to help us progress in holiness. St. Jeanne de Chantal remained, for many years, prey to terrible temptations. She did not feel like praying. When she did pray, she felt a terrible disgust; she wanted to leave her convent and return to the world, in order to live a lax, worldly and dissolute life. She wondered whether she still had the Faith. Perhaps you will think that she was going backwards along the way of sanctification? On the contrary, it is during these years that she made the most progress in virtue and obtained a generosity and constancy that she would never have reached if the good God had never allowed these trials.
“Fr. Vallet (who trained Fr. Barrielle in giving Ignatian retreats) said to us: ‘There are many ways of learning how to box. Some train by punching their pillow. In doing that, only meager results will be made. Others train with a punching ball. That makes for greater progress (if not, one risks getting the ball in one’s face). If one wants to become a proficient boxer, one must train with a champion. In the beginning you will be bruised, but soon you, too, will become a master. Thus, God permits the devil to tempt us, in order to help us advance rapidly in holiness.” Thus, do not be deceived by desolation (and all that it implies: dryness, discouragement, trouble, trials, temptations of all kinds). One must suffer in order to reach holiness.
Fr. Barrielle continues: “At the beginning of his work―The Ascent of Mt. Carmel―St. John of the Cross, in order to indicate the ascension of the soul towards the mystical ways, made a drawing illustrating this ascension. At the bottom right, there is a long trail that ascends, descends, turns and comes to an impasse. In this way, St. John of the Cross wrote: ‘human consolations.’ I wanted to become a saint indeed, but I also would like my efforts to be recognized, my superiors to encourage me, etc ... not to be left alone ... and then when it happens, and I leave all! You are on a dead‑end street; you will never attain sanctity.
“Another path turns left and right, climbs up and down and eventually ends up at the starting point. Underneath, the saint wrote: ‘divine consolations.’ No, you say, I am not looking for human consolations, but when I meditate or go to Communion I would like to feel something sweet, some love for the good God, the joy of His presence, some sorrow for my sins, but I remain dry; I even have temptations and I feel like I am wasting my time: I’m going to drop my meditations! St. Francis de Sales said to us: ‘Do not seek the consolations of God; rather, seek the God of consolations.’ You will never attain sanctity if you continue to confuse progress and spiritual consolation.
“In the center (which takes up most of the page), he has what looks like a mine shaft. Narrow ... black ... upon which the saint had written five times in Spanish: ‘Nada, nada, nada, nada, nada (“nada” means “nothing”)!’ And it is the only road that leads to the top!
‘But, Father!’, you say, ‘I have probably been deceived! I must at all costs do something else. I have terrible temptations. I am not making any progress! If you knew all the sentiments that are in my soul! I am losing the Faith! I feel like committing the most horrible sins, etc.’ Courage, my friend! You are on the right road! ‘But it is impossible!’ you say, ‘My imagination is filled with thoughts of impurity and hatred. It seems to me that I do not believe in anything anymore!’ You are on the right track; do not leave it! Continue!
“Then the top of the mine shaft opens out into a crater where there is light: St. John of the Cross wrote there: ‘And there on top, still nothing!’ Another type of temptation, very different. One feels so far from the good God! One considers himself such a vile sinner! One would like to do better, but does not manage! Finally at the very top, the green prairies of Mount Carmel watered by the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, and producing the twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost! ... Courage! Let nothing hinder you!
“Now what do we do?” St. Ignatius will show us. He says in his Fifth Rule: ‘In a period of distress we are not to alter anything, but should remain firm and unyielding in our resolutions and the purpose of mind in which we found ourselves on the day preceding such distress, or in the purpose in which we found ourselves in the preceding consolation. For, in times of comfort, it is the good angel that guides us by his counsel, whereas, in distress, it is the evil spirit; but the latter’s counsel will never bring us to a right decision.’
“How many catastrophes have taken place because this fifth rule has been ignored and forgotten! It is prohibited to change resolutions during the time of desolation! Why? Because it is then that the devil is active, and thus, if you follow the impulse of the devil, you are certain to do that which he desires. “Ordinarily,” because we will see later on that there are false consolations which come from the devil. During true consolations it is always God who is acting. However, in this regard it is easy to make a mistake. While in desolation, the desire to do evil is always a sign of the devil at work.” (Fr. Barrielle, The Discernment of Spirits).
However, in this article, we are looking at desolation from the point of view of it coming from the devil and not from God—as a consequence of having for a long time being “led down the garden path” by the devil into increasing numbers and occasions of sin (either mortal, venial or both). These feelings of desolation are based upon the temptation that God has abandoned you because you chose to abandon God, and that, consequently, God will no longer accept you or help you. The devil will—in his typical deceitful manner of using half-truths—quote many Scriptural passages that will seem to hammer in one nail after another into your coffin.
(34-37) Tumbling down the steps of DISCOURAGEMENT, DEJECTION, DESPONDENCY & DEPRESSION
Whether you are a committed sinner, or a budding saint, you are going to tumble down the spiritual staircase steps of discouragement, dejection, despondency and depression at some point in your spiritual journey. Our Lord did, so why do you think you will be exempted?
St. Ignatius, his Spiritual Exercises, writes: “With those who are making earnest progress in self-purification, rising from good to better in the service of God, Our Lord. In these cases it is typical of the evil spirit to cause regret and sadness, using fallacious arguments to disturb them and to impede their progress.”
All sadness ultimately comes from the devil. “A saint sad is a sad saint,” said St. Francis de Sales. Fr. Barrielle, in his book, The Discernment of Spirits, states: “The devil is eternally sad ... he cannot get rid of his sadness. As soon as he comes near you he communicates his sadness without even so much as wanting to do so. This is so much the case, that in the rules for discerning the spirits of the second week, when the devil attempts to tempt a fervent soul, under the appearance of good, one of the signs for recognizing that it is the devil is this sadness that we feel overcoming us.”
(34) Leading to DISCOURAGEMENT
Sadness is the raw material for discouragement. Sadness, if it is allowed to take root and to grow, will inevitably grow into discouragement. Discouragement is, by definition, a deficit or lack of courage.
Maybe you’ve heard of the legend that said that the Devil once decided to go out of business― and so the Devil offered to sell all the tools of his trade. They were attractively displayed: distraction ― trickery — deceit — lies — half-truths ― pride ― lust ― sloth ― anger ― hatred ― envy ― jealousy ― greed ― gluttony ― malice ― sensuality ― and many other evil tools ― each marked with a price. But in the center was a wedge-shaped, much worn tool, priced higher than all the others. When asked: “What is that?” Satan replied saying: “That is the tool of Discouragement!” And when asked: “But why is it so costly?” he replied: “Because it can do my evil work better than all the other tools. With it I can make the lives of many folk of no value. I can make them just lie down and ‘give up’ and become useless―and they don’t even know I am the one who uses it.”
C.S. Lewis once said: “If Satan’s arsenal of weapons were restricted to a single one ― it would be discouragement.” Once courage is taken away, everything begins to crumble more or less quickly. Some of the immediate effects of discouragement are as follows:
(1) It blinds us, temporarily and potentially permanently, to many truths of God. We lose sight of his goodness, kindness, generosity, power and love. We begin to doubt the very things that the day before we would have confidently spoken about.
(2) It leads to selfishness. When we are discouraged it is like putting on blinders and becoming narrow-minded and having tunnel-vision, where all we see is our own pitiful circumstances and nothing else. We become useless to those around us. We are locked in our own little world of hopelessness and melancholy and end up with the “poor-me” attitude.
(3) It leads to a weakened vigilance against temptation. There is much in our lives that wants to steer us in the wrong direction: the world with its temptations, the devil with his sneaky schemes, and the human heart with its fickle love and desires. We need to be on our guard, but if we fall prey to the influence of discouragement, we will end up very distracted, weak, and numb and thus unable to fight temptations as we should.
(4) It leads to carelessness with our tongue. Those who are discouraged are much more likely to be careless with their tongue. It will be much easier to lash out at someone, complain, or even use inappropriate words, because of a heart that is consumed with our circumstances. Discouragement weakens our self-control.
(5) It leads to anger. Most of us have seen children try to build something with blocks, while their blocks keep falling over, leading them to become discouraged and even angry. This doesn’t just happen to children. Adults also have a tendency to get angry after a period of discouragement. When our plans repeatedly fail or adverse circumstances repeatedly occur, we end up discouraged and frustrated with ourselves and others. This discouragement might lead to anger towards God.
(6) It leads to a desire of giving up. Discouragement sucks the energy out of a person. Instead of working hard it makes you want to lay around in self-pity. Discouragement says to you: “Why bother?” and, depending upon our level of discouragement, we listen to it and give up, at least for a little while if not for good. How many have stopped praying because answers were slow in coming, or given up on spiritual exercises because the benefits were not coming quickly enough or were barely visible; or stopped disciplining the children, or slowed in attempts to strengthen the marriage due to discouragement?
(7) It leads you into becoming a discourager. Someone who is discouraged will, in turn, become a discourager by making negative and pessimistic remarks to others. Instead of speaking words of joy, comfort, and encouragement they leave those around them disheartened.
(35) Then onto DEJECTION
It may seem like “splitting-hairs” but dejection is a further step down Satan’s Staircase. The word “dejection” finds its origins in Late Middle English: coming from the Latin noun dejectio, and the verb deicere, meaning “to throw down.” Dejection is defined as “being downcast; being in low spirits; disheartened; melancholy; a feeling of sadness after being disappointed by something or someone.”
This idea—coming from the Latin meaning of the word “dejection” as “throwing something down”—is well borne out in this description of dejection from a medical website:
“Dejection is the negative emotion that brings grief or misfortune, as a result of failure, even after performing at our level best in achieving the task by applying honest and persistent efforts. Dejection may be a form of frozen frustration, or depression , and it often leads to forsaking [throwing-down or throwing-away] our goal midway through, before achieving it, or in the midst of planning to achieve it. Because leaving the task midway is the common outcome of dejection, we tend to use abandonment as our basis for illustrating dejection. Deserting the task in the midst affects our credibility badly in the others’ eyes and we may lose our respect in the society. We also never learn the value of perseverance needed to work through obstacles and overcome frustrations.
“Normally, the giving-up of the task, in the midst of the work, is an outcome of dejection. This is usually because, while planning, although we take all necessary precautions at our level best, something that was unforeseen turns out to be more difficult than what we thought when we initially planning. If that prevailing adverse or contrary situation persists longer than our endurance capacity, some of us decide that it is not worth continuing the efforts. This is especially when the obstructions that we come across focus on our weaknesses. The fear of humiliation wrecks our willingness to carry on the efforts. We cannot admit this to ourselves, so we just find excusable and plausible reasons why it’s best to reduce and limit losses, rather than trying further. Excessive fear, that causes this self-defeating behavior, forces us to leave the task uncompleted.
“Sometimes dejection may be an outcome of impatient, insufficient or hasty planning, so stop or pause for a while and spend some more time thinking about ways of resolving the problems. Think of all possible options. When you have found a way out, evaluate it. Then consider other alternatives. There may be several workable solutions. Examine the problem-solving process and evaluate it with the solutions. Of course, there are times when all the effort and best intentions in the world would not salvage the situation. However, stopping for a while to assess things and giving-up are two different aspects. Stopping implies re-evaluating and adjusting our course of action and not leaving the project. We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails. A person cannot directly choose to change the situation, but they can choose the change in strategy, and so indirectly, yet surely, can shape their circumstances. Giving-up implies an “abandon ship” mentality, freeing oneself from the burden of responsibility. We may then question how we can ever tell the difference between “giving-up” and “cutting losses”. One way is to look past and get a sense of what our pattern is―have you been too ready to quit too soon, or to hold on?
“We can change directions at any time in our lives; the only thing that prevents us is our own belief and the doubting tendencies in our limitations. We may have to “go without” something for a while, live on a reduced income, or handle the disapproval of our families, but we can still continue what we are doing and follow our desires. Therefore, we may just want to stop temporarily just for reviewing our strategy, before we decide whether to give-up.
“No one can prevent us from creating our own way in life and our own decisions. Most of the time, it is the fear, which we create in our minds that stops us. If we think calmly and peacefully for a while, we may see a whole new world of awareness. We will realize that there is no need for us to feel bad about our actions or ourselves. Obstacles can be transformed into challenges and failures can become lessons and experiences. We do not need to be fearful of others. After all, what they may perceive or say is their mere individual opinions.
“Always hope for the best! We cannot move into the future if we tend to linger in the past. Every successful person, at some time was in their struggling stages toward their goals had experienced disappointment and temporary setbacks. The important word in this statement is “temporary”. For some, a setback means failure and leads to giving-up. However, a disappointment, or setback, means a person has failed this time or in a certain way. Accept the fact that achievement requires time and effort. At the same time, learn to pace ourselves, to take on challenges we can handle, and to rest and recover after each one. Remember the fact that, honest effort cannot be lost, and some day the benefits will show.
“So review your strategy with new courage. Use the information gathered to determine whether you have explored all available options, gathered all the necessary information, and solicited all the possible help. Be practical and work on all possible options. Always examine the goals you set for yourself are within your reach, based on your circumstances and limitations. Underachievers generally either set their goals inappropriately high or extremely low goals; irrespective of their limitations. When we set improper or unrealistic goals, then we are merely setting ourselves up for a poor result. This leads to frustration. Concentrate on how you will do your task, rather than who is watching, criticizing, or thinking of you. We are quick to blame other persons or blame the machinery or infrastructure or support elements around us. We must realize that things do not happen to us. We do things—either well, negligently or badly. Take responsibility. Barring very few exceptions, dejection is an outcome of improper management, due to misinterpretation and unrealistic assessment of our limitations, strong as well as weak points, and surrounding circumstances.”
Good practical advice on a temporal or natural or materialistic platform. Much of what was said is also applicable to the spiritual life. The devil wants us to plan badly and miss the potential pitfalls of temptations and the likelihood of sins, so that when they occur, we get discouraged, dejected and are tempted to quit midway through our spiritual project(s). Thus, discouraged and dejected by our sins and the inability to overcome them, we allow them to “snow us under” or to “flood our souls.” Improvement, amendment, spiritual growth never occurs—we might start down that road, but we never finish. Likewise, we need to take responsibility and avoid the “Adam and Eve Syndrome” (or Adam and Eve Sin-Drome), whereby we pass the blame for our poor or unrealistic planning or feeble efforts onto someone else: “She made me do it!”… “The devil made me do it!” etc.
The previous three articles (see below) covered the initial 25 “D” tactics of the Devil:
(01) DISTRACTION; (02) DISCUSSION, DEBATE & DIALECTICS; (03) DECEPTION; (04) DEGLAMORIZATION; (05) DISLIKE; (06) DISTANCING; (07) DISABLE & DISARM; (08) DISTURBANCE; (09) DIFFERENCES and DISAGREEMENTS; (10) DICHOTOMY and DIVISION; (11) DISCREDITING; (12) DETRACTION, DEFAMATION, DISTORTION and DISGRACE; (13) DISAPPOINTMENT, DISENCHANTMENT & DISILLUSIONMENT; (14) DISGUST and DISDAIN; (15) DOUBT & DISTRUST; (16) DISBELIEF; (17) DANGLE & DAZZLE; (18) DELIGHT and DELUSION; (19) DAYDREAMS; (20) DESIRING DREAMS; (21) DEVIATE and DERAIL; (22) DARE; (23) DILEMMA; (24) DOWNPLAY, DEVALUE & DILUTE; (25) DABBLE and DIP; (26) DOUBLE DARE; (27) DEFILES; (28) DOWNPLAY and DEVALUE; (29) DESENSITIZE & DEADEN; (30) DEPENDENCY.
This―the fourth of our articles―continues the demonic “D” trend, which seek to push the soul even deeper into Satan’s swamp.
(31) DEMORALIZED
Let us first of all be clear as to what the word “demoralized” really means! In the middle of the word we see the clue word—“moral.” A dictionary will define “demoralize” as “to corrupt or undermine in morals, or a moral principle”―also,
“to pervert or to deprave”―also, “to destroy the morals or morale of.” Secondary meanings are: “to deprive of self-reliance; to weaken in courage, fortitude, or spirit; to cast into disorder or confusion; to bewilder or perplex.”
Sanctifying grace is the wall that protects your soul from the devil and damnation. Die in a state of sanctifying grace and you will be saved—even though you may have to spend many years, or decades, or even centuries in Purgatory—but saved you will be. Die without sanctifying grace and you are damned—it’s as simple and brutal as that! Thus, if the devil wants your damnation, he needs to get sanctifying grace out of the way and out of the way for good! What gets rid of sanctifying grace? Mortal sin—even the ‘tiniest’ or ‘lowest ranking’ mortal sin—the mortal sin that feels as though it is only a serious venial sin, but isn’t. Commit just one ‘low-grade’ mortal sin and you place yourself in a state of damnation. Die in that state—and you are damned for eternity.
Yet, the devil knows that even though you may have committed a mortal sin, there is still a good chance that you will still be saved through a sincere repentance, a good confession and a firm purpose of amendment. Therefore, he has to push you deeper and deeper into sin—and not just one sin, but as many mortal sins as he can get you to ‘swallow’. For mortal sin could be compared to a mortal wound—a person might possibly die from one single gunshot or knife wound, but that person is more likely to die if they have multiple gunshot or knife wounds.
From a psychological perspective, a person who suffers one setback is more likely to continue and persevere on their chosen path than a person who has suffered hundreds of setbacks and failures. The more we fail, the more likely we are to give up. That is what the devil wants—he wants us to give up trying to get to Heaven. To stand a better a chance of doing that, he needs to demoralize us—not in the secondary sense of the word, as in discourage us (that comes later), but to ruin our moral life, to make us sin, sin and sin some more and keep on sinning. It doesn’t matter to the devil if, in the beginning, the sins are mortal or venial—he just wants us to get used to sinning, to create a habit of sinning, an addiction to sinning—and from there, all will quickly develop and go downhill through the next stages he has lined up for us. But the weakening and, if possible, total destruction, of our morals by frequent sin, addiction to sin, a “can’t live without sin” status, has to be achieved for the devil to be able to pass onto the next degrees of “D’s”. This state of demoralization—or destruction of morals—depends greatly, not only on getting the person to sin more, but also making them go to confession less, or not at all. Gunshot or knife wounds are more likely to be fatal if the person stays away from and avoids any and all medical assistance and treatment―likewise, keep the sinner away from confession and you greatly increase the chances of a fatal outcome.
(32) The Devils Changes His Tune and calls you DESPICABLE
There two ways the devil can get you damned. One is with you laughing and joking all the way to Hell under the false illusion that all is well between you and God and that you are bound to be saved. The other way is to have you despair of your salvation. The devil is happy to keep you in a state of false optimism while being in a state of mortal sin. However, if he sees that you are beginning to suspect that all is not well with you and that you no longer “buy into” his false optimism and are likely to, or about to, wake up to seeing your true situation—then he will drastically change his tune from telling you not to worry about your sins due to their insignificance, to now telling you how terrible they are, and how terrible and despicable you are, and that you have gone so far that there is no chance that God is going to forgive you, or that you are so addicted to sin that there no more chance of ever quitting those sins, that you are a “scum-bag” who is beyond all help, that you will never succeed in reforming yourself, etc., etc. His attacks can be so vicious that you are left aghast and reeling from the onslaught. To add a sick twist to all of this, the devil will try to make it seem as though all these thoughts are coming from God Himself!
Now, in a sense, we are “scum-bags” and worthy of being despised by God. It brings to mind what Our Lord said to one of His mystics, telling her that if she could herself as He saw her, then she would die in terror! So, objectively speaking, the devil is correct when he tells us how evil we are—for we are evil! (Let us remember that the philosophical definition of evil is “the lack of a good that should be there”—therefore disease is an evil because it is lack of health that should be there—and rest assured that there is lacking in all of us many a thing that should be there! Thus we are all evil to some degree or another. In His “Sermon on the Mount”, Our Lord even addresses all of His listeners as being evil: “If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children…” (Matthew 7:11). The same thing is implicitly said in the Old Testament: “God looked down from heaven on the children of men: to see if there were any that did understand, or did seek God. All have gone aside, they are become unprofitable together, there is none that doth good, no not one!” (Psalm 52:3-4). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us … If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10). “Man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love, or hatred” (Ecclesiastes 9:1). The point is, though, that we are far more evil than we realize or care to admit.
If God lets us see us increasingly see our evil state (which He gradually tries to do with everyone), then it is to lead us into deeper humility and a greater hope for God’s mercy. However, when the devil shows us how evil we are, it is to lead us, not into humility and hope, but discouragement and despair. The truth of the matter is that we are all worthy of contempt as being sinners who have sinned—because sin, whether venial or mortal, is the greatest evil in the world. Yet God wants that truth to lead to greater humility, whereas the devil wants that truth to lead us to despair.
Hence, he will (as usual) exaggerate the evil that we have done—making it seem unforgivable. Whereas God leads us to hope, saying: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool” (Isaias 1:18) … “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die … But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed … living he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done … Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (Ezechiel 18:20-23). “I am He that blot out thy iniquities for My own sake, and I will not remember thy sins” (Isaias 43:25)—but you can bet your last dollar that the devil will remember all your sins and will not let your forget them as he rubs your nose in them, again and again and again!
(33) DESOLATION will then kick-in
By continually hammering you with the mantra that you are despicable, the devil will drive you to desolation. What is desolation? Desolation is defined as: “a state of complete emptiness or destruction” … “the condition of a place that is empty, with no living things or nothing pleasant in it” … “Deserted by God; deprived of comfort” … “solitary; without a companion; afflicted” … “stripped of inhabitants; a desolate wilderness” as in “I will make the cities of Juda desolate, without an inhabitant” (Jeremias 9:11). “The enemy hath persecuted my soul: he hath brought down my life to the earth. He hath made me to dwell in darkness and my spirit is in anguish within me, and my heart within me is troubled!” (Psalm 142:3-4). This also invokes remembrance of how the devil tormented Christ in His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, as well as His torments on the cross, as He was dying: “My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34).
One retreat manual on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, states: “Consider the reasons for your desolation. Not all trials and desolation are created equal. Ignatius notes three reasons we may be in desolation. The first reason we are in desolation may be because of our own negligence of spiritual discipline. We are tepid and slothful. Desolation, which results from such negligence, is our own fault. The second reason may be because God is testing how we will respond when the result is desolation and not an expected reward. God may try us to test our worth, and the progress that we have made in His service and praise when we are without such generous rewards. The third reason for being in desolation may be that God wishes to impart special wisdom and spiritual understanding. So that we may truly perceive that it is not within our power to acquire or retain great devotion, ardent love, tears, or any other spiritual consolation” on our own.”
Now, it is important to remember that both God and the devil can lead us into the desert of desolation. This is why St. Ignatius of Loyola, in his Spiritual Exercises, gives us rule for discernment and action in times of desolation, which are simply yet amply explained by Fr. Barrielle in his book, The Discernment of Spirits.
Fr. Barrielle first of all quotes one of the rules of St. Ignatius: “ ‘Spiritual desolation―this is the name that I give to whatever is opposite to the foregoing―darkness of soul, disquiet of mind, an attraction to what is coarse and earthly, all restlessness proceeding from different temptations and disturbances, such as the temptation tending to destroy Faith, Hope and Charity; the condition in which the soul finds itself listless, apathetic, melancholy, like one cut off from his Creator and Lord. Inasmuch as comfort and distress are opposed, the thoughts that spring from the former are contrary to those springing from the latter.’
Fr. Barrielle then comments on that rule, first of all addressing desolation that has God as its source: “Pardon the childish expression: ‘In times of consolation God gives us sugar. In times of desolation, He gives us a steak as tough as leather!’ Do not believe that in the first case (in consolations) you are holier and that in the second case (in desolation) that you are more evil! How many people become discouraged because they are bombarded with the most vile and shameful temptations. Far from being a sign of falling back, it is, rather, if the correct means are taken, a grace to help us progress in holiness. St. Jeanne de Chantal remained, for many years, prey to terrible temptations. She did not feel like praying. When she did pray, she felt a terrible disgust; she wanted to leave her convent and return to the world, in order to live a lax, worldly and dissolute life. She wondered whether she still had the Faith. Perhaps you will think that she was going backwards along the way of sanctification? On the contrary, it is during these years that she made the most progress in virtue and obtained a generosity and constancy that she would never have reached if the good God had never allowed these trials.
“Fr. Vallet (who trained Fr. Barrielle in giving Ignatian retreats) said to us: ‘There are many ways of learning how to box. Some train by punching their pillow. In doing that, only meager results will be made. Others train with a punching ball. That makes for greater progress (if not, one risks getting the ball in one’s face). If one wants to become a proficient boxer, one must train with a champion. In the beginning you will be bruised, but soon you, too, will become a master. Thus, God permits the devil to tempt us, in order to help us advance rapidly in holiness.” Thus, do not be deceived by desolation (and all that it implies: dryness, discouragement, trouble, trials, temptations of all kinds). One must suffer in order to reach holiness.
Fr. Barrielle continues: “At the beginning of his work―The Ascent of Mt. Carmel―St. John of the Cross, in order to indicate the ascension of the soul towards the mystical ways, made a drawing illustrating this ascension. At the bottom right, there is a long trail that ascends, descends, turns and comes to an impasse. In this way, St. John of the Cross wrote: ‘human consolations.’ I wanted to become a saint indeed, but I also would like my efforts to be recognized, my superiors to encourage me, etc ... not to be left alone ... and then when it happens, and I leave all! You are on a dead‑end street; you will never attain sanctity.
“Another path turns left and right, climbs up and down and eventually ends up at the starting point. Underneath, the saint wrote: ‘divine consolations.’ No, you say, I am not looking for human consolations, but when I meditate or go to Communion I would like to feel something sweet, some love for the good God, the joy of His presence, some sorrow for my sins, but I remain dry; I even have temptations and I feel like I am wasting my time: I’m going to drop my meditations! St. Francis de Sales said to us: ‘Do not seek the consolations of God; rather, seek the God of consolations.’ You will never attain sanctity if you continue to confuse progress and spiritual consolation.
“In the center (which takes up most of the page), he has what looks like a mine shaft. Narrow ... black ... upon which the saint had written five times in Spanish: ‘Nada, nada, nada, nada, nada (“nada” means “nothing”)!’ And it is the only road that leads to the top!
‘But, Father!’, you say, ‘I have probably been deceived! I must at all costs do something else. I have terrible temptations. I am not making any progress! If you knew all the sentiments that are in my soul! I am losing the Faith! I feel like committing the most horrible sins, etc.’ Courage, my friend! You are on the right road! ‘But it is impossible!’ you say, ‘My imagination is filled with thoughts of impurity and hatred. It seems to me that I do not believe in anything anymore!’ You are on the right track; do not leave it! Continue!
“Then the top of the mine shaft opens out into a crater where there is light: St. John of the Cross wrote there: ‘And there on top, still nothing!’ Another type of temptation, very different. One feels so far from the good God! One considers himself such a vile sinner! One would like to do better, but does not manage! Finally at the very top, the green prairies of Mount Carmel watered by the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, and producing the twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost! ... Courage! Let nothing hinder you!
“Now what do we do?” St. Ignatius will show us. He says in his Fifth Rule: ‘In a period of distress we are not to alter anything, but should remain firm and unyielding in our resolutions and the purpose of mind in which we found ourselves on the day preceding such distress, or in the purpose in which we found ourselves in the preceding consolation. For, in times of comfort, it is the good angel that guides us by his counsel, whereas, in distress, it is the evil spirit; but the latter’s counsel will never bring us to a right decision.’
“How many catastrophes have taken place because this fifth rule has been ignored and forgotten! It is prohibited to change resolutions during the time of desolation! Why? Because it is then that the devil is active, and thus, if you follow the impulse of the devil, you are certain to do that which he desires. “Ordinarily,” because we will see later on that there are false consolations which come from the devil. During true consolations it is always God who is acting. However, in this regard it is easy to make a mistake. While in desolation, the desire to do evil is always a sign of the devil at work.” (Fr. Barrielle, The Discernment of Spirits).
However, in this article, we are looking at desolation from the point of view of it coming from the devil and not from God—as a consequence of having for a long time being “led down the garden path” by the devil into increasing numbers and occasions of sin (either mortal, venial or both). These feelings of desolation are based upon the temptation that God has abandoned you because you chose to abandon God, and that, consequently, God will no longer accept you or help you. The devil will—in his typical deceitful manner of using half-truths—quote many Scriptural passages that will seem to hammer in one nail after another into your coffin.
(34-37) Tumbling down the steps of DISCOURAGEMENT, DEJECTION, DESPONDENCY & DEPRESSION
Whether you are a committed sinner, or a budding saint, you are going to tumble down the spiritual staircase steps of discouragement, dejection, despondency and depression at some point in your spiritual journey. Our Lord did, so why do you think you will be exempted?
St. Ignatius, his Spiritual Exercises, writes: “With those who are making earnest progress in self-purification, rising from good to better in the service of God, Our Lord. In these cases it is typical of the evil spirit to cause regret and sadness, using fallacious arguments to disturb them and to impede their progress.”
All sadness ultimately comes from the devil. “A saint sad is a sad saint,” said St. Francis de Sales. Fr. Barrielle, in his book, The Discernment of Spirits, states: “The devil is eternally sad ... he cannot get rid of his sadness. As soon as he comes near you he communicates his sadness without even so much as wanting to do so. This is so much the case, that in the rules for discerning the spirits of the second week, when the devil attempts to tempt a fervent soul, under the appearance of good, one of the signs for recognizing that it is the devil is this sadness that we feel overcoming us.”
(34) Leading to DISCOURAGEMENT
Sadness is the raw material for discouragement. Sadness, if it is allowed to take root and to grow, will inevitably grow into discouragement. Discouragement is, by definition, a deficit or lack of courage.
Maybe you’ve heard of the legend that said that the Devil once decided to go out of business― and so the Devil offered to sell all the tools of his trade. They were attractively displayed: distraction ― trickery — deceit — lies — half-truths ― pride ― lust ― sloth ― anger ― hatred ― envy ― jealousy ― greed ― gluttony ― malice ― sensuality ― and many other evil tools ― each marked with a price. But in the center was a wedge-shaped, much worn tool, priced higher than all the others. When asked: “What is that?” Satan replied saying: “That is the tool of Discouragement!” And when asked: “But why is it so costly?” he replied: “Because it can do my evil work better than all the other tools. With it I can make the lives of many folk of no value. I can make them just lie down and ‘give up’ and become useless―and they don’t even know I am the one who uses it.”
C.S. Lewis once said: “If Satan’s arsenal of weapons were restricted to a single one ― it would be discouragement.” Once courage is taken away, everything begins to crumble more or less quickly. Some of the immediate effects of discouragement are as follows:
(1) It blinds us, temporarily and potentially permanently, to many truths of God. We lose sight of his goodness, kindness, generosity, power and love. We begin to doubt the very things that the day before we would have confidently spoken about.
(2) It leads to selfishness. When we are discouraged it is like putting on blinders and becoming narrow-minded and having tunnel-vision, where all we see is our own pitiful circumstances and nothing else. We become useless to those around us. We are locked in our own little world of hopelessness and melancholy and end up with the “poor-me” attitude.
(3) It leads to a weakened vigilance against temptation. There is much in our lives that wants to steer us in the wrong direction: the world with its temptations, the devil with his sneaky schemes, and the human heart with its fickle love and desires. We need to be on our guard, but if we fall prey to the influence of discouragement, we will end up very distracted, weak, and numb and thus unable to fight temptations as we should.
(4) It leads to carelessness with our tongue. Those who are discouraged are much more likely to be careless with their tongue. It will be much easier to lash out at someone, complain, or even use inappropriate words, because of a heart that is consumed with our circumstances. Discouragement weakens our self-control.
(5) It leads to anger. Most of us have seen children try to build something with blocks, while their blocks keep falling over, leading them to become discouraged and even angry. This doesn’t just happen to children. Adults also have a tendency to get angry after a period of discouragement. When our plans repeatedly fail or adverse circumstances repeatedly occur, we end up discouraged and frustrated with ourselves and others. This discouragement might lead to anger towards God.
(6) It leads to a desire of giving up. Discouragement sucks the energy out of a person. Instead of working hard it makes you want to lay around in self-pity. Discouragement says to you: “Why bother?” and, depending upon our level of discouragement, we listen to it and give up, at least for a little while if not for good. How many have stopped praying because answers were slow in coming, or given up on spiritual exercises because the benefits were not coming quickly enough or were barely visible; or stopped disciplining the children, or slowed in attempts to strengthen the marriage due to discouragement?
(7) It leads you into becoming a discourager. Someone who is discouraged will, in turn, become a discourager by making negative and pessimistic remarks to others. Instead of speaking words of joy, comfort, and encouragement they leave those around them disheartened.
(35) Then onto DEJECTION
It may seem like “splitting-hairs” but dejection is a further step down Satan’s Staircase. The word “dejection” finds its origins in Late Middle English: coming from the Latin noun dejectio, and the verb deicere, meaning “to throw down.” Dejection is defined as “being downcast; being in low spirits; disheartened; melancholy; a feeling of sadness after being disappointed by something or someone.”
This idea—coming from the Latin meaning of the word “dejection” as “throwing something down”—is well borne out in this description of dejection from a medical website:
“Dejection is the negative emotion that brings grief or misfortune, as a result of failure, even after performing at our level best in achieving the task by applying honest and persistent efforts. Dejection may be a form of frozen frustration, or depression , and it often leads to forsaking [throwing-down or throwing-away] our goal midway through, before achieving it, or in the midst of planning to achieve it. Because leaving the task midway is the common outcome of dejection, we tend to use abandonment as our basis for illustrating dejection. Deserting the task in the midst affects our credibility badly in the others’ eyes and we may lose our respect in the society. We also never learn the value of perseverance needed to work through obstacles and overcome frustrations.
“Normally, the giving-up of the task, in the midst of the work, is an outcome of dejection. This is usually because, while planning, although we take all necessary precautions at our level best, something that was unforeseen turns out to be more difficult than what we thought when we initially planning. If that prevailing adverse or contrary situation persists longer than our endurance capacity, some of us decide that it is not worth continuing the efforts. This is especially when the obstructions that we come across focus on our weaknesses. The fear of humiliation wrecks our willingness to carry on the efforts. We cannot admit this to ourselves, so we just find excusable and plausible reasons why it’s best to reduce and limit losses, rather than trying further. Excessive fear, that causes this self-defeating behavior, forces us to leave the task uncompleted.
“Sometimes dejection may be an outcome of impatient, insufficient or hasty planning, so stop or pause for a while and spend some more time thinking about ways of resolving the problems. Think of all possible options. When you have found a way out, evaluate it. Then consider other alternatives. There may be several workable solutions. Examine the problem-solving process and evaluate it with the solutions. Of course, there are times when all the effort and best intentions in the world would not salvage the situation. However, stopping for a while to assess things and giving-up are two different aspects. Stopping implies re-evaluating and adjusting our course of action and not leaving the project. We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails. A person cannot directly choose to change the situation, but they can choose the change in strategy, and so indirectly, yet surely, can shape their circumstances. Giving-up implies an “abandon ship” mentality, freeing oneself from the burden of responsibility. We may then question how we can ever tell the difference between “giving-up” and “cutting losses”. One way is to look past and get a sense of what our pattern is―have you been too ready to quit too soon, or to hold on?
“We can change directions at any time in our lives; the only thing that prevents us is our own belief and the doubting tendencies in our limitations. We may have to “go without” something for a while, live on a reduced income, or handle the disapproval of our families, but we can still continue what we are doing and follow our desires. Therefore, we may just want to stop temporarily just for reviewing our strategy, before we decide whether to give-up.
“No one can prevent us from creating our own way in life and our own decisions. Most of the time, it is the fear, which we create in our minds that stops us. If we think calmly and peacefully for a while, we may see a whole new world of awareness. We will realize that there is no need for us to feel bad about our actions or ourselves. Obstacles can be transformed into challenges and failures can become lessons and experiences. We do not need to be fearful of others. After all, what they may perceive or say is their mere individual opinions.
“Always hope for the best! We cannot move into the future if we tend to linger in the past. Every successful person, at some time was in their struggling stages toward their goals had experienced disappointment and temporary setbacks. The important word in this statement is “temporary”. For some, a setback means failure and leads to giving-up. However, a disappointment, or setback, means a person has failed this time or in a certain way. Accept the fact that achievement requires time and effort. At the same time, learn to pace ourselves, to take on challenges we can handle, and to rest and recover after each one. Remember the fact that, honest effort cannot be lost, and some day the benefits will show.
“So review your strategy with new courage. Use the information gathered to determine whether you have explored all available options, gathered all the necessary information, and solicited all the possible help. Be practical and work on all possible options. Always examine the goals you set for yourself are within your reach, based on your circumstances and limitations. Underachievers generally either set their goals inappropriately high or extremely low goals; irrespective of their limitations. When we set improper or unrealistic goals, then we are merely setting ourselves up for a poor result. This leads to frustration. Concentrate on how you will do your task, rather than who is watching, criticizing, or thinking of you. We are quick to blame other persons or blame the machinery or infrastructure or support elements around us. We must realize that things do not happen to us. We do things—either well, negligently or badly. Take responsibility. Barring very few exceptions, dejection is an outcome of improper management, due to misinterpretation and unrealistic assessment of our limitations, strong as well as weak points, and surrounding circumstances.”
Good practical advice on a temporal or natural or materialistic platform. Much of what was said is also applicable to the spiritual life. The devil wants us to plan badly and miss the potential pitfalls of temptations and the likelihood of sins, so that when they occur, we get discouraged, dejected and are tempted to quit midway through our spiritual project(s). Thus, discouraged and dejected by our sins and the inability to overcome them, we allow them to “snow us under” or to “flood our souls.” Improvement, amendment, spiritual growth never occurs—we might start down that road, but we never finish. Likewise, we need to take responsibility and avoid the “Adam and Eve Syndrome” (or Adam and Eve Sin-Drome), whereby we pass the blame for our poor or unrealistic planning or feeble efforts onto someone else: “She made me do it!”… “The devil made me do it!” etc.
Article 9
The Second Sunday of Lent, March 5th, 2023
The Fourth Set of 10 D's of the Devil
The Second Sunday of Lent, March 5th, 2023
The Fourth Set of 10 D's of the Devil
THE FORTY D’s OF THE DEVIL (Part 4 ― Numbers 26 to 30)
The previous three articles (see below) covered the initial 25 “D” tactics of the Devil:
(01) DISTRACTION; (02) DISCUSSION, DEBATE & DIALECTICS; (03) DECEPTION; (04) DEGLAMORIZATION; (05) DISLIKE; (06) DISTANCING; (07) DISABLE & DISARM; (08) DISTURBANCE; (09) DIFFERENCES and DISAGREEMENTS; (10) DICHOTOMY and DIVISION; (11) DISCREDITING; (12) DETRACTION, DEFAMATION, DISTORTION and DISGRACE; (13) DISAPPOINTMENT, DISENCHANTMENT & DISILLUSIONMENT; (14) DISGUST and DISDAIN; (15) DOUBT & DISTRUST; (16) DISBELIEF; (17) DANGLE & DAZZLE; (18) DELIGHT and DELUSION; (19) DAYDREAMS; (20) DESIRING DREAMS; (21) DEVIATE and DERAIL; (22) DARE; (23) DILEMMA; (24) DOWNPLAY, DEVALUE & DILUTE; (25) DABBLE and DIP.
This―the fourth of our articles―continues the demonic “D” trend, which seek to push the soul even deeper into Satan’s swamp.
(26) DESENSITIZING and DEADENING your conscience in relation to sin
For the poison of sin to really work and have the devil’s desired effect, it is important that it does not create a shock to the spiritual system. Hence, anything that we personally might find “too shocking” will be avoided by the devil in his choice of temptations. He does not want to see us run-off to confession the very first minute after having committed the sin. He wants it to “stick” and not be “washed-off” immediately. The only way it will “stick” is if it does not seem to be “above our budget” and does not set-off our “fire-alarm”. The more acceptable we find a particular sin to be, then the more likely it is that we will commit it again, and then again, and again—which will have the effect of desensitizing and deadening our conscience to that particular sin. It doesn’t matter if sin that is ‘acceptable’ is a mortal sin or a venial sin, the whole purpose is to psychologically condition us and accustom us to breaking God’s laws in any way whatsoever, so that we become “ready, willing and able” of going against God and some of His commandments. Once this is established in one area of sin, then the devil will try to add another area, and another, and another, etc.
One tactic he may use is the “raise-the-price then drop-the-price” approach, whereby he may tempt you to something very serious and then “drops-the-price” to something that seems trivial by comparison. You will find stores doing this—they raise the price of an article from $100 to $125 and then reduce it to the “Sale Price” of $110—leaving a gullible inattentive customer thinking he is getting a bargain. Or take the instance of someone privately selling their car, which is worth around $2,000, but they quote an asking price that is ludicrously in excess of that amount, for example $4,000—knowing that the potential buyer will be shocked by the price. They then ask the potential buyer what he thinks it is worth. The potential buyer is now placed in an awkward situation where he does not want to offer a price that seems ludicrously low in comparison to the highly inflated asking price—so, out of human respect, he offers an amount that is higher than the $2,000 that the car is really worth.
The law enforcement agencies use a similar tactic in eliciting a confession from a suspect—they tell the suspect that they have evidence to send them to jail for a minimum of 10 years (whereas in reality they have no evidence at all), and they feel sorry for the suspect and know that this all happened in a way that suspect never intended it end-up. So if the suspect will just “come clean” and tell them how the crime was done, they are sure that they can get the sentence reduced to 5 years at the very most, maybe even down to only 1 or 2 years.
The “Plea Bargain” (also known as a “plea agreement”, “plea deal”, “copping a plea”, or “plea in mitigation”) is any agreement in a criminal case between the prosecutor and defendant whereby the defendant agrees to plead guilty to a particular charge, in return for some concession from the prosecutor. This may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to a less serious charge, or plead guilty to just one of many charges, in return for the dismissal of other charges; or it may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to the original criminal charge, in return for a more lenient sentence. Plea bargaining is criticized, particularly outside the United States, on the grounds that its close relationship with rewards, threats and coercion, potentially endanger the correct legal outcome. One legal author Martin discusses the use of coercion in plea bargaining:
“Even when the charges are more serious, prosecutors often can still bluff defense attorneys and their clients into pleading guilty to a lesser offense. As a result, people who might have been acquitted because of lack of evidence, but also who are in fact truly innocent, will often plead guilty to the charge. Why? In a word, fear. And the more numerous and serious the charges, studies have shown, the greater the fear. That explains why prosecutors sometimes seem to file every charge imaginable against defendants.”
This tactic is prohibited in some other countries—for example in the United Kingdom the prosecutor’s code states: “Prosecutors should never go ahead with more charges than are necessary, just to encourage a defendant to plead guilty to a few. In the same way, they should never go ahead with a more serious charge, just to encourage a defendant to plead guilty to a less serious one.”
Another legal advice website writes:
“Given the stress you are under during a criminal prosecution, it is easy to leap at any possibility to make the suffering end. But you need to remember that when a prosecutor offers you a plea bargain, although it may seem like a “nice” gesture, prosecutors are not your friends and are not interested in representing your best interests. They may try to convince you it is in your best interest to accept a deal on their terms, or risk being charged with a more serious offense and face harsher penalties. But plea bargains are sometimes offered because evidence against you is flimsy and the prosecutor believes they might lose at trial. They may offer it just to reduce their workload by getting you through the system faster. Whatever the reason, remember: prosecutors are not your friends and are they are not your legal advocates. They are not required by law to make decisions to help you, or offer legal advice that is in your best interest. Prosecutors are government employees who represent the state and operate from the assumption that you are guilty. It is literally in their job description to get as many convictions as quickly as possible. They are required to do what they think is in the best interest of the state—not in your best interest.”
As a clumsy analogy, you could compare venial sins to traffic fines or traffic “tickets”—they usually do not entail serving time in prison—you just pay your fine and your ‘fine’! This is similar to the attitude of “I won’t go to Hell for a venial sin!” Traffic tickets are a multi-billion industry. No one knows how many traffic tickets are actually issued. Many local units of government have been found to deliberately hide this information so they don’t have to split their traffic ticket revenue with the state. Not including parking tickets, we can estimate that somewhere between 25 and 50 million traffic tickets are issued each year. Assuming an average ticket cost of $150.00, the total up front profit from tickets ranges from 3.75 to 7.5 billion dollars. If just half of these tickets result in insurance surcharges (typically at least $300 over a period of three years), you can add another 3.75 to 7.5 billion dollars in profit for insurance companies. This is why insurance companies “care” so much for traffic “safety” programs and are willing to donate millions of dollars worth of radar and laser guns to the police. For them, it’s simple: more tickets equal more money! Do you really think that they do not want that revenue? How would they survive without it? You could say, loosely speaking, “sin is profitable” to all the government agencies―“Sin means money!” It’s only a measly little insignificant traffic ticket, a petty fine, but it all adds up and don’t imagine that the law enforcement agencies are losing any sleep trying to devise ways to stop traffic offences—they pay too well to be stopped. The policy is to keep the ticket prices below the “pain threshold”, which, is was crossed, would see more and more motorists aggressively contest traffic citations in court. They know that if fines got too high, motorists would fight against their tickets, and then the cost of trials would eat up all the profit. No other class of “crime” is as profitable for state and local governments as is that of traffic tickets. You could say “crime pays well”!
Similarly, the devil will try bluff and pressure you into committing ‘only’ a venial sin after having tempted you to a gross mortal sin—convincing you that the venial sin will not involve a “conviction to imprisonment in Hell”! This leaves you feeling somewhat ‘virtuous’ for having resisted the temptation to mortal sin in favor of what is ‘only’ a venial sin—yet all the while blinding you to the fact that he is desensitizing and deadening your conscience to the “shock factor” of venial sin, which is, as the Church teaches, the second greatest evil in the world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … [venial sin] is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke; My Catholic Faith, Bishop Morrow, STD).
The Prince of the World Uses the World to Desensitize and Deaden the Conscience
If the devil is the prince of this world, then he would be greatly inefficient if he did not use this world to advance his goals. By the same token, we would be greatly naïve, or even totally stupid, not to realize that much of what is in this world is a grave danger to the salvation of our souls. Yet, unsurprisingly, there are many naïve and totally stupid Catholics―“The number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15).
Though certain things are, in themselves and in theory, neutral as regards their morality—such as the TV, radio, internet, computers, smartphones and a whole host of other technological devices that make up what we call “the media”—they are not neutral in practice, for every one of those things is used for a good or for a bad purpose. In depends upon in whose hands and under whose control they are placed. Both a hunter and a murderer can use the same rifle—in the hands of the hunter it is a good thing, in the hands of a murderer it is an evil thing. The world, increasingly and for the most part, is now firmly in the grasp of the devil—its prince. Therefore, we cannot expect much good to come from the media in whatever format it operates—TV, internet, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc. All of these are powerful weapons, if in the wrong hands, of desensitization and corruption—and most people love it! The very subtle, ever-changing for the worse, gospel of the devil, gradually invades and erodes the shores of Christianity, like the ceaseless ebb and flow of the sea and its tides, that lap and erode the shores of the mainland. This noxious gospel gently, almost imperceptibly, washes away one Christian teaching and discipline after another. We are so drugged by technology and so dependent upon it, that we don’t really care! We have been gradually desensitized and brainwashed over the years, that we passively and uncomplainingly “go with the flow” of those eroding currents of world and its prince―“that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world!” (Apocalypse 12:9).
Just as the surgeon will administer an anesthetic to numb, desensitize and deaden the limb upon which the surgeon will perform a surgical operation, likewise does the devil administer an anesthetic through the media which numbs, dumbs, desensitizes and deadens our conscience. The incessant propaganda on sinful behavior, through all the different media channels, has a large part to play in the fact that in the USA today, 54% of Catholics support same-sex marriage; 59% support admitting women to the priesthood; 60% think Catholics who had divorced and remarried outside the church should be eligible to receive communion; 61% think priests should be allowed to marry; 76% think abortion should be permitted at least in some circumstances and 79% support contraception; the average worldwide Sunday Mass attendance is 20%, with Catholic countries like Italy and France being nearer 10%; only 2% of Catholics go regularly to confession, and 75% of them never go, or go less than once a year, but almost everybody goes to Holy Communion—and we wonder why, and roll our eyes in disbelief, and protest in shock and refuse to accept the statement that most souls end up being damned. Once again we could apply the words of Our Lord: “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14).
That risks being the fate of the blind Catholics who follow the blind propaganda of the world (and its prince)—especially since most people are watching many hours of TV daily. Children aged 2-11 watch over 24 hours of TV per week, while adults aged 35-49 watch more than 33 hours, according to data from Nielsen that suggests TV time increases the older we get. The average American watches more than 5 hours of live television every day. Some homes have multiple TV sets located in different rooms! Screens are now available in some cars! We are not even talking about and are not including time on the internet here! Don’t try telling me that all of this has no effect upon the Faith! Even if we do not watch TV ourselves, we are still influenced by those people who do watch it—much like being affected by “second-smoke”, that is to say, not smoking oneself, but breathing-in the smoke of those who are smoking around us.
St. Paul warns: “Beware lest any man cheat you by philosophy, and vain deceit―according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ!” (Colossians 2:8). “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God” (1 Corinthians 3:19). “Be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind” (Romans 12:2). “We have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God; that we may know the things that are given us from God … that we be not condemned with this world” (1 Corinthians 2:12; 11:32). “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19). “All that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16). “The cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts after other things, entering in, choke the word of God, and it is made fruitless” (Mark 4:19). “Whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world!” (1 John 5:4).
Sadly, we don’t overcome the world, but are gradually overcome by the world. We hear so much foul language that we become desensitized to it; we see so much immodesty that we become desensitized to it; we encounter so many broken families and divorce that we become desensitized to it; we see so much violence that we become desensitized to it; in the same way we are desensitized to contraception, homosexuality, transgenderism, sexual misbehavior, drunkenness, drug abuse, theft, cheating, lying, and a whole host of sins. All of this comes from the gospel of the world and its high-priest and prince—the devil, and it does not shock us, or ‘phase’ us, or worry us, or disconcert us—life just goes on!
“They are of the world: therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them” (1 John 4:5). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world! If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” 1 John 2:15). Of true followers of Himself, Christ says: “I pray not for the world, but for them whom thou hast given Me! … They are not of the world; as I also am not of the world!” (John 17:9, 14). To the false Christians, Our Lord would address the same words He spoke to the Jews and the Pharisees: “You are from beneath, I am from above! You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). “The prince of this world cometh, and in me he hath not any thing!” (John 14:30). “The prince of this world is already judged!” (John 16:11) … “that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world!” (Apocalypse 12:9).
Many American institutions utilize “desensitization” tactics as tools of manipulation and seduction of the opinion of the general population. They do this in order to gain the general public―including professing Christians―to accept some proposed position, even an immoral one. Unfortunately, desensitization has even been a successful strategy employed against many professing Christians, who normally would oppose immoral positions. To desensitize someone to things such as pain, anxiety, or other people’s suffering, means to cause them to react less strongly to them. The definition of “desensitize” is: (1) “to lessen the sensitiveness of something or somebody”; (2) “to make less sensitive, or less easily upset”; (3) “to cause someone to experience something, usually an emotion or a pain, less strongly than before”; (4) “to make someone indifferent, unconcerned, or such like, in feeling or attitude” (5) “to make (someone) less likely to feel shock or distress at scenes of immorality, cruelty, violence, or suffering by overexposure to such images.”
Desensitization is usually most effective when conducted over a long period of time, the ultimate goal being to change the public’s opinion by one-sidedly bombarding them with the propagated point of view. Virtually every form of medium is utilized to inundate the senses of the culture, thus creating a facade or pretense of normality and propriety or acceptability in the minds of people. Incidentally, it does not matter if the concept that is being pushed is immoral and sinful―the goal is to present it as being moral, and strongly urged to be accepted.
Most “unbelievers” today―or even Christians who are nonchalant or morally weak―are vulnerable and very susceptible to the tactic of desensitization. Either they will embrace the proposed change, or will act apathetically toward it―“As long as it doesn’t affect me!”―is typically their attitude. This attitude basically leads to a verbal or implicit/tacit acceptance of the new position.
Sadly, the American culture is being injected with massive doses of desensitization tactics in numerous areas, attempting to gain acceptance; for example, the homosexual/same-sex marriage agenda. Once it was a shocking unthinkable disgrace, now it is embraced, exalted, and even applauded, thanks to the influential media, which the government has wielded like a bludgeon and repetitively hammered away at cultural thinking. But, not all methods of desensitization are forceful and overt, more often they are very subtle. They media have done an exceptional job, cajoling and coercing the American public, into accepting homosexuality as a normal, optional and acceptable behavior. Tragically, even some alleged Christians have “bowed the knee” and accepted homosexuality. Yet that is not the only area where desensitization has changed moral opinion—there are many other mortal sins that are now socially acceptable due to desensitization. By doing so, they have compromised God’s truth and will indeed stand before Him on that final day in judgment. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
(27) DEPENDENCY
For the devil, having you commit one sin is not enough. The goal is to have you swallow sin after sin, like a pill, taking as many pills as you can each day, in order to numb and deaden your conscience more and more. Like alcoholics who start out light—with beer or wine—and then, after a while, once they are used to the beer and wine, gradually move onto the “harder” stuff, like liquor. Or like drug addicts, who may start on some minor drug and then eventually work their way up to the really heavy drugs.
Here is what one drug addiction website writes—you will immediately see the parallels with the devil and sin in general. In the text that follows, you could quite easily substitute the words “drugs”, “alcohol” and “substance” with the word “sin”—for the progression in sin is just the same as progression in addiction.
The Progressive Stages of Addiction
“Addiction is a problem that happens over time, not overnight … While each person is unique, the path to addiction is largely the same. Usually, people start out experimenting with drugs. Their motivations for experimenting may differ. Some people want to feel more relaxed around friends. Others want to escape from their emotions. Whatever the underlying motivations may be, the intent for experimenting is usually innocent. The more a person uses drugs and alcohol, the more likely they are to become addicted. Let’s take a look at the stages of addiction and how people progress through them.
(a) Experimentation
“Though experimentation is usually thought to be a teenage problem, it can occur at any age. Teens are more likely to experiment because they are testing the waters and naturally curious about the world. But anyone of any age can become curious about drugs and begin experimenting with them. Sometimes, people are introduced by a friend. That friend may tell them that the drugs or alcohol can help them feel more comfortable in social situations, or help them deal with their problems. If the person does decide to experiment, this stage usually involves occasional use. The person probably would never think that addiction could be possible. However, every time a person uses drugs, they are doing damage to their body. They are also putting themselves at risk for addiction.
(b) Regular Use
“In this stage, a person begins using drugs or alcohol on a regular basis. They don’t need the drug to function at this point, but this doesn’t mean that a problem isn’t developing. In fact, by regularly using drugs or alcohol, the person is training their brain to develop a dependency. If you were to try and approach a person in this stage, they would probably deny that they have a problem. This is because they are still in control, and there are probably no consequences yet. They can maintain a job, a family and a nice home. Instead, they use drugs or alcohol to unwind, or relieve negative feelings.
(c) Substance Abuse
“This is the stage when a drug or alcohol problem forms. It can manifest in different ways. For example, a person abusing alcohol may binge drink or drink heavily over a period of time. A person with a cocaine addiction may build up a tolerance and need more and more of the drug to get the same effect. Someone who is addicted to painkillers may turn to street heroin to get a cheaper and easier fix. Substance abuse is a clear indication that a person has a problem with drugs or alcohol. If you can get a person help at this stage, please do.
(d) Addiction
“A full-blown addiction is the last stage. This is the point where a person is completely overtaken by their addiction and can no longer function without drugs or alcohol. They are no longer in control, and they are willing to do whatever it takes to get what they need. People in this stage are very hard to reason with because they are completely infatuated with their drug. Anyone who tries to stand in the way of it can be viewed as a threat. Unless a person in this stage gets help, they likely cannot quit on their own.
“To summarize: Everyone is different. Some people progress quickly through these stages while others take longer. What’s important to realize is that a person does not have to be fully addicted to get help. It’s easier to treat someone who doesn’t have a full-blown addiction because they are more in control, have suffered fewer consequences and haven’t done as much damage to their body. Also, with all the drug and alcohol treatment options available (IOPs, day programs, residential programs, 12-step groups) there is support for everyone.” (The River Source, Addiction Treatment).
A Similar Breakdown of Steps to Addiction
Here is another breakdown of the progressive stages to addiction from another alcohol and drug rehabilitation website:
“In a broad sense, most addictions progress, in the same way, following the same steps:
(1) Experimentation ― or the first time you try drugs or alcohol. Reasons for experimentation include curiosity, trying to fit in, or to deal with negative emotions like insecurity or sadness.
(2) Recreational use ― the stage where your drug or alcohol use becomes more frequent — usually on weekends and up to a few times a month. You’ll associate this type of use with fun, thrill-seeking, or to conform to peer pressure. You likely won’t notice any negative consequences of doing so.
(3) Regular use or misuse ― the point where you’re not truly addicted, but where drugs or alcohol begin to become detrimental to your life. You may become uninterested in things that usually bring joy and focus on having fun purely through obtaining substances. This stage could include experiences like getting a DUI/DWI, or being caught using or carrying drugs.
(4) Risky use or abuse ― when you continue to use drugs or alcohol despite severe consequences, like using funds, set aside for bills, on substances (or even borrowing or stealing money), or putting your social or romantic relationships at risk by continuing to use drugs or alcohol.
(5) Dependence ― the point where drugs or alcohol have taken significant control of your life. While you may still have a job or social relationships, your performance at work has most likely declined, your friendships are probably restricted to other alcohol and drug users, and there is usually significant tension at home. At this point, you are physically dependent, meaning your body has become used to a steady supply of drugs or alcohol.
(6) Addiction ― the stage when you will do whatever you have to in order to get drugs or alcohol, regardless of the consequences. You are no longer seeking a high, but trying to avoid withdrawal.”
Addictions do not only include physical things we consume, such as drugs or alcohol, but may include virtually anything, from such abstract things as gambling to seemingly harmless products, such as chocolate ― in other words, addiction may refer to a substance dependence (e.g. drug and alcohol addiction, ‘comfort foods’, cigarettes, etc.), or behavioral addiction (e.g. shopping, gambling addiction, pornography, TV viewing, internet usage, social media, bad language, etc.). Some of these things are sinful, others are not—but all of the addictions weaken the will and diminish self-control—the very things that necessary to combat temptation to sin! It is estimated that 1 in 3 people in the world have an addiction of some kind—some addictions are sinful others are not. Yet any addiction erodes one’s will power and self-control.
The Devil’s Toolbox for Dependency
Dependency is an effect—it is an end product. There has to be a cause that creates that dependency. Since we are all different, with different lifestyles, different cultural and economic circumstances and influences, different temperaments, with a different upbringing and education, having different likes and dislikes—the devil has to have a very wide range of tools in his toolbox.
The list of tools, with their subtle nuances, could be said to be almost endless. However, some chief “umbrella” categories can be listed as being a combination of any or all of the following five areas and their varying circumstances that cause a general dissatisfaction and create an urge for some kind of pleasure as compensation: (1) spiritual problems, mental stresses, emotional factors, physical factors and material factors. Some of these would include things like: (1) personal problems and pleasure seeking, (2) valuing the material more than the spiritual, (3) family problems, (4) work problems, (5) financial problems, (5) social problems, (6) expectations not being reached or met, (7) envy of others, (8) dissatisfaction with one’s lot or status in life, etc. All of these have been dealt with earlier in this series of articles—in the sections that dealt with “Disturbance, Differences, Disagreements, Division, Disappointment, Disenchantment, Disillusionment & Disgust.”
These provide the spark that makes us reach out for some kind of compensation through a pleasure of some sort—each one is different as to what pleasure they desire―to redress the imbalance caused by the dissatisfactions that we are faced with. It is important for the devil to keep pouring fuel on the fires of dissatisfaction, so that we keep reaching out and taking whatever pleasure we have chosen as the antidote to the dissatisfaction. The prolonging of the dissatisfaction creates a perfect climate and soil for the dependency to sprout its roots in our soul, which will gradually grow from plant of dependency into the tree of addiction—a little like the “mustard seed” that Our Lord talks about, which starts out as the smallest of seeds and grows into one of the biggest of plants.
Sin & Vice
Moral theology makes a distinction between “sin” and “vice”—sin is less vicious that vice. The definition of “vice”, to put simply, is “habitual sin”, or a sin that we are addicted to. This is what the devil wants—addiction and dependency. That will be the “chain” that will tie you to him. It doesn’t matter whether it is habitual venial sin or habitual mortal sin—for the devil knows, just as with alcoholics or drug-addicts or any kind of addict, once you’re hooked, you will go deeper and further. The main thing is to attack, weaken and break the will and its resistance to sin—any sin, it doesn’t matter which, mortal or venial or no sin at all, the goal is weaken your will and then to get you sinning and get you used to sinning.
(28) DELAYING all action that could cure
The longer and the more dependent you become on your favorite ‘pet’ sins, then the more your will is weakened and primed for future, far more serious temptations. Therefore, it is of the greatest importance to the devil, to keep you in that state of dependence at all costs. Fr. Barrielle, in his book The Discernment of Spirits, writes: “Those who go from mortal sin to mortal sin are usually influenced in the following way. The enemy proposes certain illusory delights, causing them to imagine sensual pleasures and enjoyments, the more effectively to keep them under the sway of their vicious and sinful course.” However, this tactic is not just employed on those “who go from mortal sin to mortal sin”, but also on those who go from venial sin to venial sin. The devil highlights all the illusory advantages and benefits that will come to you by continuing to sin (whether mortally or venially).
Fr. Barrielle continues: “So it is, with those who live in mortal sin: the evil spirit reassures the sinner and pushes him further and further into sin. He presents to the sinner more vivid pleasures, and sensible delectation. He represents to him the objects of sin as the greatest happiness, so that he will plunge deeper and deeper into it with all the more security and joy, just as if it were something normal and indispensable: ‘The whole world is doing it!’ The devil says: ‘Do not worry yourself, God is good! Everybody does it! Just take a look around, it is not worth talking to your confessor about it. It doesn’t concern him. You will confess it on your death bed. You will always have enough time! You are still young!’ etc. Those who reassure the sinner in his sins, also play the game of the devil. It is the devil that reassures the sinner in his sins. BEWARE!” (Fr. Barrielle, The Discernment of Spirits).
“This can also be applied to those who, without being in the state of mortal sin, are well entrenched in tepidity. For example, those Christians and religious who have decided not to correct their venial sins. The devil reassures one in tepidity, and it is very dangerous for their salvation. The good angel sends him grave warnings. Woe to those who pay no attention! It is in this way that laxity is introduced into many convents and even into Christian families. Woe to the Christian that is not on his guard! The devil will do with his soul as he pleases if he is not alert.” (Fr. Barrielle, The Discernment of Spirits).
Part of plan or tactics in delaying the seeking of a cure for your dependency on certain ‘pet’ sins is to make you avoid taking the medicine of prayer. Fr. Barrielle shares a painful experience that he once had in this regard: “While on this subject, allow me to share a very different experience with you. Once, I had one of the most painful experiences a priest can have on Earth. I had been intimately involved with the apostasy of a fairly large number of confreres: seminarians, religious and, alas, some priests! Well, there is something that I can tell you: they had all (save few exceptions) ceased praying. Some of them, out of a zeal for souls, had left off praying ... ‘Souls are waiting for me!” etc. Others, out of laziness, neglect, discouragement, or shame ... They had all stopped praying. At that moment, the devil put a spanner in the works, and a catastrophe happened. St. Bernard said: “Nobody becomes evil all of a sudden.” One of the first things the devil always does is to make people stop praying. No more meditations, spiritual reading, Rosaries, examinations of conscience, breviary, thanksgivings, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, confessions ... No more Masses (or more sacrilegious ones, which is even worse!). No more devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, etc. At that time, they were ripe for a catastrophe!” (Fr. Barrielle, The Discernment of Spirits).
Putting-off the seeking of a cure for your dependency and addiction to certain ‘pet’ sins, or delaying the taking of the medicines that could cure it (confession, prayer, penance and mortification), is like allowing a fire to start in your home and neglecting to try and put it out or not calling the fire department. The longer you leave it and merely watch it burn and spread, the harder it will be to extinguish it and the more extensive will be the damage.
Our Lady, in speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, condemned delays in ridding oneself of the stain and guilt of sin: “Especially must thou be filled with highest esteem for the Sacrament of Penance … and whenever thou art conscious of any fault, do not postpone the remedy afforded by this Sacrament. Wash and cleanse thy soul; for it is the most abominable carelessness to know oneself stained with sin, and to remain in such disgrace for a long time, yea even for one instant!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Remember that Lucifer and his satellites of darkness, assail the poor and unbewaring soul with all their malice and astuteness in order to vanquish them if possible by various temptations. Whenever they see an opening for attacking the souls, they gather like bloodthirsty wolves and search out the natural and acquired failings in his nature, taking into account his inclinations, habits and customs, and where his passions cause him greater weakness, in order to direct toward this part the strongest battery and engines of war” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Those that have a disorderly love of earthly life, they persuade that there is not such great danger and they prevent others from undeceiving them. Those that have been negligent in the reception of the Sacraments, they try to make still more careless and they place obstacles and difficulties in the way, in order that they may die without them, or in order that they may receive them without fruit and with a bad disposition. Others they fill with false suggestions and shame in order that they may not confess their sins and open their conscience. Others they confuse and try to prevent from making proper restitution and thus unburdening their consciences. Others, who love vanity, they entangle, even at that last hour, in many vain and proud desires with regard to what is to be done for them after death. Those that have been avaricious or sensual, they seek to excite violently toward what they loved so blindly during life” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“In short, of all the bad habits and customs this cruel enemy avails himself in order to fill their minds with images of creatures and draw them away from their salvation or make them incapable of it. Every appetite, which has been inordinately indulged, is an avenue or bypath by which he enters into the citadel of the soul. Once in, he breathes forth his pestilential fumes, and raises the clouds of darkness, his proper work, so that the soul may not give heed to the divine inspirations, have no true sorrow for its sins, and do no penance for its wicked life” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“With all this men are blinder, the hearts more hardened, pride more inflated, avarice more bold, and all the vices are practiced without fear of God and without consideration. The reprobate will have none but themselves to blame, if afterwards, when there is no more time, they shall be uselessly dismayed with what in opportune time they could and should have known. If in the short and passing life which is given to them, in order to merit the eternal, they close their eyes and ears to the truth and to the light, and if they listen to the demon, giving themselves up to all the promptings of his malice; if they thus abuse the goodness and clemency of the Lord, what can they then allege as their excuse? If they do not know how to pardon an injury and for the slightest offense meditate the direst vengeance; if, for the sake of increasing their property, they pervert the entire order of reason and of natural brotherhood; if for a passing delight they forget the eternal pains, and if, in addition to all this, they despise the warnings, helps and admonitions sent to them by God to inspire them with the fear of perdition and induce them to avoid it, how shall they afterwards find fault with the divine clemency? Let then mortals, who have sinned against God, undeceive themselves: without penance there shall be no grace, without reform no pardon, without pardon no glory. But just as these are not conceded to those that are unworthy, so they are also never denied to those that are worthy; nor is ever the mercy of God withheld from anyone who seeks to obtain it” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“If, afterwards, the soul, having with sorrow experienced these evils, wishes to return to seek Him, the demon, who deceived it, then presents other delights so vile and unlike those to which the soul has been accustomed interiorly, new causes of sadness, disturbances, dejection, lukewarmness and dissatisfaction arise and its whole interior is filled with dangerous confusion … The souls of men incur the most incredible and dangerous attacks from the demons, as well as from their own frailty and from the creatures around them.” (Our Lady speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
(29) The devil wants to DEGENERATE you and sink you DEEPER and DEEPER into sin
The following words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, are most instructive as regards the tactics of the devil:
“I wish to warn thee, as a solicitous and loving Mother, of the cunning of Satan for the destruction of the works of the Lord ... By no power of human words wilt thou in this mortal life ever succeed in describing the envy of Lucifer and his demons against men, or the malice, astuteness, deceits and ruses, with which in his wrath he seeks to bring them into sin and later on to the eternal torments. Thou must not ignore that the demon keeps a constant minute watch over the least carelessness, forgetfulness or inadvertence of souls, and that he is constantly prowling around and lying in ambush to avail himself of every negligence for tempting the incautious to sin and misleading them by means of their passions, before they have a chance to know the full extent of the wound he tries to inflict. He tries to hinder all good works, and with regard to those that are performed, he tries to minimize, or to destroy and ruin them as to their merits. All the malice of which his own mind is capable, he attempts to inject into the souls”(Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“From the very moment in which mortals begin to have the use of their reason, each one of them is followed by many watchful and relentless demons. For as soon as the souls are in a position to raise their thoughts to the knowledge of their God and commence the practice of the virtues infused by Baptism, these demons, with incredible fury and astuteness, seek to root out the divine seed; and if they cannot succeed in this, they try to hinder its growth, and prevent it from bringing forth fruit, by engaging men in vicious, useless, or trifling things. Thus they divert their thoughts from Faith and Hope, and from the pursuit of other virtues, leading them to forget that they are Christians and diverting their attention from the knowledge of God and from the mysteries of the Redemption and of life eternal. Moreover, the same enemy instills, into the parents, a base neglectfulness and carnal love for their offspring; and he incites the teachers to carelessness, so that the children find no support against evil in their education, but become depraved and spoiled by many bad habits, losing sight of virtue and of their good inclinations and going the way of perdition” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Although the demon cannot take away man’s liberty, nor ever completely sway his free will, yet, by leading them into so many and grievous sins, he obtains such an influence over it, that he is enabled to use it as an instrument of the evil he proposes ... Hence the demons gain courage and increase their tyrannical influence over souls in the early years of man’s life, hoping that they will be able to induce men to commit so much the greater and the more frequent sins in later years, the more they have succeeded in drawing them into small and insignificant faults in their childhood. By these they draw them on to a state of blind presumption; for, with each sin, the soul loses more and more the power of resistance, subjects itself to the demon, and falls under the sway of its tyrannical enemies. The miserable yoke of wickedness is more and more firmly fastened upon it; the same is trodden underfoot by its own iniquity and urged onward, under the sway of the devil, from one precipice to another, from abyss to abyss”(Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“The demon also―by his fascinations and his deceitful and iniquitous suggestions―obscures the interior light and hides the deathly poison beneath the pleasant exterior … If man neglects to rise above his low desires and yields to the enemy of God and man, then, the more he alienates himself from the goodness of God, the more unworthy does he become. For the demon and the passions will have obtained a greater dominion and power over his intellect and have made him more unfit and more incapable of the grace of the Almighty. Upon that rests the whole salvation or condemnation of souls, that is, in their decision to admit or resist the advances of the Lord. See that thou be strong in resisting His enemies!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“The demon also, ancient and astute serpent as he is, uses more diligence in his attempts to overcome religious men and women, than to conquer all the rest of worldly men; and if one of these religious fall, all Hell exerts the greatest solicitude and care to prevent his using the many means, which religion supplies, for rising from a fall, such as obedience and spiritual exercises and the frequent use of the Sacraments. To make all these remedies miscarry and be of no use to the fallen religious, the enemy applies so many cunning snares that it would fill with terror anyone who saw them. However, much of this is recognized in the actions and artifices by which a lax religious soul tries to defend its remissness, excusing itself by plausible but erroneous arguments, if it does not break out in disobedience and yet greater disorders and faults” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Human nature is imperfect and remiss in practicing virtue, and easily weakens in its exercise; for it continually seeks rest and avoids labor with all its might. When the soul listens to and tries to get along with the animal and carnal part of its nature, this animal part will engross and overcome the forces of reason and of the soul, and will reduce them to a dangerous and shameful slavery. This disorder is abominable and much to be feared by all; but God abhors it without comparison more in His ministers and in religious: they, as a matter of course, are supposed to be perfect, and therefore are injured so much the more seriously, if they do not come out victorious in the conflict of the passions. By remissness in battle, and by their frequent defeats, they live themselves into a paralyzing and self-satisfied conviction of false security, content with the performance of certain easy outward practices of virtue, at the same time imagining (without the least real advancement) that they are moving mountains. The demon then introduces other distractions and temptations, and, on account of their small appreciation of the rules and practices of religion, they begin to weaken in all of them, esteem them as light and unimportant matter, and, living on in their false security, come to lose the very sight of what is true virtue” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“I desire that thou guard against this error. Remember, that a voluntary remissness in regard to one imperfection prepares and opens the way for others―these facilitate the committing of venial sins, and these again facilitate the committing of mortal sins. Thus the descent is from one abyss to another, until the bottom is found in the disregard of all evil. In order to prevent such a misfortune it is necessary to cultivate the practice of intercepting, from afar, the current of sin, for this practice, which seems but small, is a work which keeps the enemy at a distance from the fortress walls of conscience. If the demon can break through this exterior wall and gain the outer defenses, he is in better position to gain the inner ones. If, then, an opening is made in the walls by the committing of sin, although it may not be a very grievous sin, the enemy already has a better opportunity to make an assault on the interior reign of a soul. As the soul finds herself weakened by vicious acts and bad habits and finds herself without strength of grace, she does not resist the attack with fortitude, and the devil, acquiring more and more power over her, begins to subject and oppress her without opposition” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“It is also certain that, ordinarily, the demons have no power over souls, unless they gain entrance by some venial or mortal fault. Mortal sin gives them a sort of direct right over those who commit it; while venial sin weakens the strength of the soul and invites their attacks. Imperfections diminish the merit and the progress of virtue, and encourage the enemy. Whenever the astute serpent notices that the soul bears with its own levity and forgets about its danger, it blinds it and seeks to instill its deadly poison. The enemy then entices the soul like a little heedless bird, until it falls into one of the many snares from which there seems to be no escape” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous tepidity. They live in the obscurity of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices. They are surrounded by innumerable enemies, who pursue them with diabolical treachery, unceasing vigilance, unquenchable wrath and restless diligence. What wonder then, that from such extremes, or rather from such unequal combat, irreparable defeats should arise among the mortals? And that, since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate should also be uncountable, is there any wonder that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men?”(Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“I have shown thee the secret machinations and treacherous counsels of Hell for the ruin of mankind, and the furious and restless wrath with which Lucifer seeks to encompass it. In this assault, Hell misses no opening, no occasion, and lets no stone unturned, nor forgets any path, any state or person, in laying snares for their fall and in trying to find ways so much the more dangerous and deceitful, the more they find their victims desirous of eternal life and of the friendship of God. It is important for all the children of the Church to escape the ignorance in which they live concerning the dangers besetting their eternal salvation. Many of the faithful are as oblivious and careless, as if there were no demons to persecute and deceive them; and, if they sometimes think of them, it is superficially and lightly, falling immediately back into their forgetfulness, which, for many of them, means nothing less than eternal punishment. If at all times and in all places, in all their works and on all occasions, the demons set their snares, it is but just and proper that Christians, on their part, take not one step without asking divine light to see and avoid the danger. But, as the children of Adam are so apathetic in regard to this matter, they perform scarcely one work without being assailed by the infernal serpent and infected by his poison. Thus they accumulate sins upon sins, evil upon evil, irritating the divine justice and shutting out mercy.” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
(30) The devil seeks to DEHUMANIZE and DENATURIZE souls
Let us continue with the instructions of Our Blessed Mother:
“I wish that thou be very cautious and watchful in regard to the ignorance and darkness, by which the demon commonly ensnares mortals and makes them forget their eternal salvation and the continual danger of its loss through his persecutions. Men are lost in forgetful rest and sleep, as if there were no vigilant and powerful enemies. This dreadful carelessness arises from two causes: on the one hand men are so taken up with their earthly and sensible being, that they do not feel any other evils, except those concerning the animal nature in them; all that is interior is harmless in their estimation. On the other hand, since the princes of darkness are invisible and unperceived by any of the senses, and since carnal men can neither touch, nor feel, nor see them, they thus forget the fear of them. Yet, for this very reason, they ought to be more attentive and careful, since invisible enemies are more cunning and skillful in injuring us by their treachery. So much the more certain is the danger, the more concealed it is, and so much the more deadly are the wounds, the less they are felt and recognized” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Night and day this dragon restlessly prowls about seeking some chance of capturing thee as a prize. He observes thy natural inclinations and also the gifts of the Lord, in order to combat thee with thy own weapons. He charges other demons with thy ruin and promises reward to those that are more diligent in securing it. They weigh thy actions carefully, watch thy footsteps, and work zealously to lay snares for thee in all thy undertakings. The demon is accustomed to begin by causing sorrow or dejection of heart, or he makes use of other trickery or snares, by which he diverts or withdraws the soul from the love of the Lord; then he comes with his poison, concealed in the golden cup, in order to diminish the horror of the soul. As soon as the demon notices such a state of mind, he will raise a whirlwind of dust in the faculties. His fierceness is so immeasurable and implacable that it will then increase in fury. He will add flame to flame, thinking that the soul has no one to defend and rescue it from his hands. With the force of his temptations increases also the danger of failing in the necessary resistance, since the soul has started to yield in the very beginning” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“The more the children of Adam study and exert themselves to reach the evil objects of their carnal and animal passions, and to attain the means of indulging them, so much the more will they fall into ignorance of divine things, by which alone they can come to their true ultimate end. Since the sensible impressions immediately move the animal passions and inclinations, it is evident that men do not act according to right reason, but according to the impulse of passion, excited by the senses and their objects. If even the merely sensible things can hinder the spiritual life, how much is this true of that which pertains altogether to earthly, animal and carnal life? On this account the earthly and animal men conceive such distorted and low ideas of the wonderful works of the Most High. This ignorance and worldly prudence is still more abominable and still more hateful in the eyes of God, when it occurs in the children of the Church. Look how some follow like brutes after the horrors of sensuality, how gluttony degrades others, how some follow after pleasures of play and vanity, how others are dominated by pride and presumption, how many are entangled in avarice and the desire of gain, how they all follow the impulse of passions, seeking in this life only pleasure, while in the life to come they pile up for themselves eternal torments and incur the loss of the beatific vision of their God and Lord. They have given a free hand to their enemy Lucifer. He, with tireless malice, labors to overthrow the barriers of restraint, so that, forgetful of the last things and of eternal torment, men may give themselves over, like brute beasts, to sensual pleasures” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Be attentive to my counsels, follow my instructions and receive my warnings! I wish to make known to thee that no intellect, nor any tongue of man or angels, can describe the wrath and fury which Lucifer and his demons entertain against mortals, just because they are images of God and because they are capable of enjoying Him for all eternity. If these foes were not restrained by His almighty arm, then they would, in one moment, destroy the world; they would, like famishing lions, like wild beasts and fierce dragons, eliminate all mankind and tear them to pieces. Now however the most kind Father of all mercies wards off and curbs their wrath, and He carries His little children in His arms, in order that they may not fall a prey to these hellish wolves” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Consider then, as seriously as thou canst, whether anything deserves greater pity, than to see so many men misled into danger and made forgetful of it! Consider how some of them cast themselves into it, on account of their lightheartedness, some of them for trivial reasons, others for a short and instantaneous pleasure, others through negligence, and yet others on account of their inordinate appetites, tearing themselves away from the places of refuge, in which the Almighty has placed them, to fall into the hands of such cruel and furious enemies; and not only to feel their fury for an hour, a day, a month, a year, but to suffer indescribable and unmeasured torments for all eternity. Thou shouldst be filled with fear and wonder, to see such a horrible and dreadful foolishness among the impenitent mortals and to see even the faithful, who have come to know and confess all this by Faith, so far lose their understanding and allow themselves to be so insanely blinded by the devil, that they neither see nor avoid this danger ... Many of the reprobate and of those who are forgetful of their Creator and Redeemer, and who deliver themselves over to the devil, by repeated sins, are moved and drawn into all kinds of wickedness” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Strive then with all thy heart to avoid offending Him either in great or in small things; do not force Him to relinquish thee and to deliver thee over to the beastly disorders of sin; for thou knowest that this would be a greater misfortune and punishment than if He consign thee to the fury of the elements, or to the wrath of all the wild animals, or even to the rage of the demons. If all these were to execute their anger upon thee, and if the world were to heap upon thee all its punishments and insults, all would do thee less damage than one venial sin against the God whom thou art obliged to serve and love in all things and through all things. Any punishment of this life is less dreadful than sin; for it ends with mortal life, but the guilt of sin, and with it punishment, may be eternal” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
The previous three articles (see below) covered the initial 25 “D” tactics of the Devil:
(01) DISTRACTION; (02) DISCUSSION, DEBATE & DIALECTICS; (03) DECEPTION; (04) DEGLAMORIZATION; (05) DISLIKE; (06) DISTANCING; (07) DISABLE & DISARM; (08) DISTURBANCE; (09) DIFFERENCES and DISAGREEMENTS; (10) DICHOTOMY and DIVISION; (11) DISCREDITING; (12) DETRACTION, DEFAMATION, DISTORTION and DISGRACE; (13) DISAPPOINTMENT, DISENCHANTMENT & DISILLUSIONMENT; (14) DISGUST and DISDAIN; (15) DOUBT & DISTRUST; (16) DISBELIEF; (17) DANGLE & DAZZLE; (18) DELIGHT and DELUSION; (19) DAYDREAMS; (20) DESIRING DREAMS; (21) DEVIATE and DERAIL; (22) DARE; (23) DILEMMA; (24) DOWNPLAY, DEVALUE & DILUTE; (25) DABBLE and DIP.
This―the fourth of our articles―continues the demonic “D” trend, which seek to push the soul even deeper into Satan’s swamp.
(26) DESENSITIZING and DEADENING your conscience in relation to sin
For the poison of sin to really work and have the devil’s desired effect, it is important that it does not create a shock to the spiritual system. Hence, anything that we personally might find “too shocking” will be avoided by the devil in his choice of temptations. He does not want to see us run-off to confession the very first minute after having committed the sin. He wants it to “stick” and not be “washed-off” immediately. The only way it will “stick” is if it does not seem to be “above our budget” and does not set-off our “fire-alarm”. The more acceptable we find a particular sin to be, then the more likely it is that we will commit it again, and then again, and again—which will have the effect of desensitizing and deadening our conscience to that particular sin. It doesn’t matter if sin that is ‘acceptable’ is a mortal sin or a venial sin, the whole purpose is to psychologically condition us and accustom us to breaking God’s laws in any way whatsoever, so that we become “ready, willing and able” of going against God and some of His commandments. Once this is established in one area of sin, then the devil will try to add another area, and another, and another, etc.
One tactic he may use is the “raise-the-price then drop-the-price” approach, whereby he may tempt you to something very serious and then “drops-the-price” to something that seems trivial by comparison. You will find stores doing this—they raise the price of an article from $100 to $125 and then reduce it to the “Sale Price” of $110—leaving a gullible inattentive customer thinking he is getting a bargain. Or take the instance of someone privately selling their car, which is worth around $2,000, but they quote an asking price that is ludicrously in excess of that amount, for example $4,000—knowing that the potential buyer will be shocked by the price. They then ask the potential buyer what he thinks it is worth. The potential buyer is now placed in an awkward situation where he does not want to offer a price that seems ludicrously low in comparison to the highly inflated asking price—so, out of human respect, he offers an amount that is higher than the $2,000 that the car is really worth.
The law enforcement agencies use a similar tactic in eliciting a confession from a suspect—they tell the suspect that they have evidence to send them to jail for a minimum of 10 years (whereas in reality they have no evidence at all), and they feel sorry for the suspect and know that this all happened in a way that suspect never intended it end-up. So if the suspect will just “come clean” and tell them how the crime was done, they are sure that they can get the sentence reduced to 5 years at the very most, maybe even down to only 1 or 2 years.
The “Plea Bargain” (also known as a “plea agreement”, “plea deal”, “copping a plea”, or “plea in mitigation”) is any agreement in a criminal case between the prosecutor and defendant whereby the defendant agrees to plead guilty to a particular charge, in return for some concession from the prosecutor. This may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to a less serious charge, or plead guilty to just one of many charges, in return for the dismissal of other charges; or it may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to the original criminal charge, in return for a more lenient sentence. Plea bargaining is criticized, particularly outside the United States, on the grounds that its close relationship with rewards, threats and coercion, potentially endanger the correct legal outcome. One legal author Martin discusses the use of coercion in plea bargaining:
“Even when the charges are more serious, prosecutors often can still bluff defense attorneys and their clients into pleading guilty to a lesser offense. As a result, people who might have been acquitted because of lack of evidence, but also who are in fact truly innocent, will often plead guilty to the charge. Why? In a word, fear. And the more numerous and serious the charges, studies have shown, the greater the fear. That explains why prosecutors sometimes seem to file every charge imaginable against defendants.”
This tactic is prohibited in some other countries—for example in the United Kingdom the prosecutor’s code states: “Prosecutors should never go ahead with more charges than are necessary, just to encourage a defendant to plead guilty to a few. In the same way, they should never go ahead with a more serious charge, just to encourage a defendant to plead guilty to a less serious one.”
Another legal advice website writes:
“Given the stress you are under during a criminal prosecution, it is easy to leap at any possibility to make the suffering end. But you need to remember that when a prosecutor offers you a plea bargain, although it may seem like a “nice” gesture, prosecutors are not your friends and are not interested in representing your best interests. They may try to convince you it is in your best interest to accept a deal on their terms, or risk being charged with a more serious offense and face harsher penalties. But plea bargains are sometimes offered because evidence against you is flimsy and the prosecutor believes they might lose at trial. They may offer it just to reduce their workload by getting you through the system faster. Whatever the reason, remember: prosecutors are not your friends and are they are not your legal advocates. They are not required by law to make decisions to help you, or offer legal advice that is in your best interest. Prosecutors are government employees who represent the state and operate from the assumption that you are guilty. It is literally in their job description to get as many convictions as quickly as possible. They are required to do what they think is in the best interest of the state—not in your best interest.”
As a clumsy analogy, you could compare venial sins to traffic fines or traffic “tickets”—they usually do not entail serving time in prison—you just pay your fine and your ‘fine’! This is similar to the attitude of “I won’t go to Hell for a venial sin!” Traffic tickets are a multi-billion industry. No one knows how many traffic tickets are actually issued. Many local units of government have been found to deliberately hide this information so they don’t have to split their traffic ticket revenue with the state. Not including parking tickets, we can estimate that somewhere between 25 and 50 million traffic tickets are issued each year. Assuming an average ticket cost of $150.00, the total up front profit from tickets ranges from 3.75 to 7.5 billion dollars. If just half of these tickets result in insurance surcharges (typically at least $300 over a period of three years), you can add another 3.75 to 7.5 billion dollars in profit for insurance companies. This is why insurance companies “care” so much for traffic “safety” programs and are willing to donate millions of dollars worth of radar and laser guns to the police. For them, it’s simple: more tickets equal more money! Do you really think that they do not want that revenue? How would they survive without it? You could say, loosely speaking, “sin is profitable” to all the government agencies―“Sin means money!” It’s only a measly little insignificant traffic ticket, a petty fine, but it all adds up and don’t imagine that the law enforcement agencies are losing any sleep trying to devise ways to stop traffic offences—they pay too well to be stopped. The policy is to keep the ticket prices below the “pain threshold”, which, is was crossed, would see more and more motorists aggressively contest traffic citations in court. They know that if fines got too high, motorists would fight against their tickets, and then the cost of trials would eat up all the profit. No other class of “crime” is as profitable for state and local governments as is that of traffic tickets. You could say “crime pays well”!
Similarly, the devil will try bluff and pressure you into committing ‘only’ a venial sin after having tempted you to a gross mortal sin—convincing you that the venial sin will not involve a “conviction to imprisonment in Hell”! This leaves you feeling somewhat ‘virtuous’ for having resisted the temptation to mortal sin in favor of what is ‘only’ a venial sin—yet all the while blinding you to the fact that he is desensitizing and deadening your conscience to the “shock factor” of venial sin, which is, as the Church teaches, the second greatest evil in the world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … [venial sin] is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke; My Catholic Faith, Bishop Morrow, STD).
The Prince of the World Uses the World to Desensitize and Deaden the Conscience
If the devil is the prince of this world, then he would be greatly inefficient if he did not use this world to advance his goals. By the same token, we would be greatly naïve, or even totally stupid, not to realize that much of what is in this world is a grave danger to the salvation of our souls. Yet, unsurprisingly, there are many naïve and totally stupid Catholics―“The number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15).
Though certain things are, in themselves and in theory, neutral as regards their morality—such as the TV, radio, internet, computers, smartphones and a whole host of other technological devices that make up what we call “the media”—they are not neutral in practice, for every one of those things is used for a good or for a bad purpose. In depends upon in whose hands and under whose control they are placed. Both a hunter and a murderer can use the same rifle—in the hands of the hunter it is a good thing, in the hands of a murderer it is an evil thing. The world, increasingly and for the most part, is now firmly in the grasp of the devil—its prince. Therefore, we cannot expect much good to come from the media in whatever format it operates—TV, internet, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc. All of these are powerful weapons, if in the wrong hands, of desensitization and corruption—and most people love it! The very subtle, ever-changing for the worse, gospel of the devil, gradually invades and erodes the shores of Christianity, like the ceaseless ebb and flow of the sea and its tides, that lap and erode the shores of the mainland. This noxious gospel gently, almost imperceptibly, washes away one Christian teaching and discipline after another. We are so drugged by technology and so dependent upon it, that we don’t really care! We have been gradually desensitized and brainwashed over the years, that we passively and uncomplainingly “go with the flow” of those eroding currents of world and its prince―“that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world!” (Apocalypse 12:9).
Just as the surgeon will administer an anesthetic to numb, desensitize and deaden the limb upon which the surgeon will perform a surgical operation, likewise does the devil administer an anesthetic through the media which numbs, dumbs, desensitizes and deadens our conscience. The incessant propaganda on sinful behavior, through all the different media channels, has a large part to play in the fact that in the USA today, 54% of Catholics support same-sex marriage; 59% support admitting women to the priesthood; 60% think Catholics who had divorced and remarried outside the church should be eligible to receive communion; 61% think priests should be allowed to marry; 76% think abortion should be permitted at least in some circumstances and 79% support contraception; the average worldwide Sunday Mass attendance is 20%, with Catholic countries like Italy and France being nearer 10%; only 2% of Catholics go regularly to confession, and 75% of them never go, or go less than once a year, but almost everybody goes to Holy Communion—and we wonder why, and roll our eyes in disbelief, and protest in shock and refuse to accept the statement that most souls end up being damned. Once again we could apply the words of Our Lord: “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14).
That risks being the fate of the blind Catholics who follow the blind propaganda of the world (and its prince)—especially since most people are watching many hours of TV daily. Children aged 2-11 watch over 24 hours of TV per week, while adults aged 35-49 watch more than 33 hours, according to data from Nielsen that suggests TV time increases the older we get. The average American watches more than 5 hours of live television every day. Some homes have multiple TV sets located in different rooms! Screens are now available in some cars! We are not even talking about and are not including time on the internet here! Don’t try telling me that all of this has no effect upon the Faith! Even if we do not watch TV ourselves, we are still influenced by those people who do watch it—much like being affected by “second-smoke”, that is to say, not smoking oneself, but breathing-in the smoke of those who are smoking around us.
St. Paul warns: “Beware lest any man cheat you by philosophy, and vain deceit―according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ!” (Colossians 2:8). “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God” (1 Corinthians 3:19). “Be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind” (Romans 12:2). “We have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God; that we may know the things that are given us from God … that we be not condemned with this world” (1 Corinthians 2:12; 11:32). “The whole world is seated in wickedness!” (1 John 5:19). “All that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16). “The cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts after other things, entering in, choke the word of God, and it is made fruitless” (Mark 4:19). “Whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world!” (1 John 5:4).
Sadly, we don’t overcome the world, but are gradually overcome by the world. We hear so much foul language that we become desensitized to it; we see so much immodesty that we become desensitized to it; we encounter so many broken families and divorce that we become desensitized to it; we see so much violence that we become desensitized to it; in the same way we are desensitized to contraception, homosexuality, transgenderism, sexual misbehavior, drunkenness, drug abuse, theft, cheating, lying, and a whole host of sins. All of this comes from the gospel of the world and its high-priest and prince—the devil, and it does not shock us, or ‘phase’ us, or worry us, or disconcert us—life just goes on!
“They are of the world: therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them” (1 John 4:5). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world! If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” 1 John 2:15). Of true followers of Himself, Christ says: “I pray not for the world, but for them whom thou hast given Me! … They are not of the world; as I also am not of the world!” (John 17:9, 14). To the false Christians, Our Lord would address the same words He spoke to the Jews and the Pharisees: “You are from beneath, I am from above! You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). “The prince of this world cometh, and in me he hath not any thing!” (John 14:30). “The prince of this world is already judged!” (John 16:11) … “that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world!” (Apocalypse 12:9).
Many American institutions utilize “desensitization” tactics as tools of manipulation and seduction of the opinion of the general population. They do this in order to gain the general public―including professing Christians―to accept some proposed position, even an immoral one. Unfortunately, desensitization has even been a successful strategy employed against many professing Christians, who normally would oppose immoral positions. To desensitize someone to things such as pain, anxiety, or other people’s suffering, means to cause them to react less strongly to them. The definition of “desensitize” is: (1) “to lessen the sensitiveness of something or somebody”; (2) “to make less sensitive, or less easily upset”; (3) “to cause someone to experience something, usually an emotion or a pain, less strongly than before”; (4) “to make someone indifferent, unconcerned, or such like, in feeling or attitude” (5) “to make (someone) less likely to feel shock or distress at scenes of immorality, cruelty, violence, or suffering by overexposure to such images.”
Desensitization is usually most effective when conducted over a long period of time, the ultimate goal being to change the public’s opinion by one-sidedly bombarding them with the propagated point of view. Virtually every form of medium is utilized to inundate the senses of the culture, thus creating a facade or pretense of normality and propriety or acceptability in the minds of people. Incidentally, it does not matter if the concept that is being pushed is immoral and sinful―the goal is to present it as being moral, and strongly urged to be accepted.
Most “unbelievers” today―or even Christians who are nonchalant or morally weak―are vulnerable and very susceptible to the tactic of desensitization. Either they will embrace the proposed change, or will act apathetically toward it―“As long as it doesn’t affect me!”―is typically their attitude. This attitude basically leads to a verbal or implicit/tacit acceptance of the new position.
Sadly, the American culture is being injected with massive doses of desensitization tactics in numerous areas, attempting to gain acceptance; for example, the homosexual/same-sex marriage agenda. Once it was a shocking unthinkable disgrace, now it is embraced, exalted, and even applauded, thanks to the influential media, which the government has wielded like a bludgeon and repetitively hammered away at cultural thinking. But, not all methods of desensitization are forceful and overt, more often they are very subtle. They media have done an exceptional job, cajoling and coercing the American public, into accepting homosexuality as a normal, optional and acceptable behavior. Tragically, even some alleged Christians have “bowed the knee” and accepted homosexuality. Yet that is not the only area where desensitization has changed moral opinion—there are many other mortal sins that are now socially acceptable due to desensitization. By doing so, they have compromised God’s truth and will indeed stand before Him on that final day in judgment. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
(27) DEPENDENCY
For the devil, having you commit one sin is not enough. The goal is to have you swallow sin after sin, like a pill, taking as many pills as you can each day, in order to numb and deaden your conscience more and more. Like alcoholics who start out light—with beer or wine—and then, after a while, once they are used to the beer and wine, gradually move onto the “harder” stuff, like liquor. Or like drug addicts, who may start on some minor drug and then eventually work their way up to the really heavy drugs.
Here is what one drug addiction website writes—you will immediately see the parallels with the devil and sin in general. In the text that follows, you could quite easily substitute the words “drugs”, “alcohol” and “substance” with the word “sin”—for the progression in sin is just the same as progression in addiction.
The Progressive Stages of Addiction
“Addiction is a problem that happens over time, not overnight … While each person is unique, the path to addiction is largely the same. Usually, people start out experimenting with drugs. Their motivations for experimenting may differ. Some people want to feel more relaxed around friends. Others want to escape from their emotions. Whatever the underlying motivations may be, the intent for experimenting is usually innocent. The more a person uses drugs and alcohol, the more likely they are to become addicted. Let’s take a look at the stages of addiction and how people progress through them.
(a) Experimentation
“Though experimentation is usually thought to be a teenage problem, it can occur at any age. Teens are more likely to experiment because they are testing the waters and naturally curious about the world. But anyone of any age can become curious about drugs and begin experimenting with them. Sometimes, people are introduced by a friend. That friend may tell them that the drugs or alcohol can help them feel more comfortable in social situations, or help them deal with their problems. If the person does decide to experiment, this stage usually involves occasional use. The person probably would never think that addiction could be possible. However, every time a person uses drugs, they are doing damage to their body. They are also putting themselves at risk for addiction.
(b) Regular Use
“In this stage, a person begins using drugs or alcohol on a regular basis. They don’t need the drug to function at this point, but this doesn’t mean that a problem isn’t developing. In fact, by regularly using drugs or alcohol, the person is training their brain to develop a dependency. If you were to try and approach a person in this stage, they would probably deny that they have a problem. This is because they are still in control, and there are probably no consequences yet. They can maintain a job, a family and a nice home. Instead, they use drugs or alcohol to unwind, or relieve negative feelings.
(c) Substance Abuse
“This is the stage when a drug or alcohol problem forms. It can manifest in different ways. For example, a person abusing alcohol may binge drink or drink heavily over a period of time. A person with a cocaine addiction may build up a tolerance and need more and more of the drug to get the same effect. Someone who is addicted to painkillers may turn to street heroin to get a cheaper and easier fix. Substance abuse is a clear indication that a person has a problem with drugs or alcohol. If you can get a person help at this stage, please do.
(d) Addiction
“A full-blown addiction is the last stage. This is the point where a person is completely overtaken by their addiction and can no longer function without drugs or alcohol. They are no longer in control, and they are willing to do whatever it takes to get what they need. People in this stage are very hard to reason with because they are completely infatuated with their drug. Anyone who tries to stand in the way of it can be viewed as a threat. Unless a person in this stage gets help, they likely cannot quit on their own.
“To summarize: Everyone is different. Some people progress quickly through these stages while others take longer. What’s important to realize is that a person does not have to be fully addicted to get help. It’s easier to treat someone who doesn’t have a full-blown addiction because they are more in control, have suffered fewer consequences and haven’t done as much damage to their body. Also, with all the drug and alcohol treatment options available (IOPs, day programs, residential programs, 12-step groups) there is support for everyone.” (The River Source, Addiction Treatment).
A Similar Breakdown of Steps to Addiction
Here is another breakdown of the progressive stages to addiction from another alcohol and drug rehabilitation website:
“In a broad sense, most addictions progress, in the same way, following the same steps:
(1) Experimentation ― or the first time you try drugs or alcohol. Reasons for experimentation include curiosity, trying to fit in, or to deal with negative emotions like insecurity or sadness.
(2) Recreational use ― the stage where your drug or alcohol use becomes more frequent — usually on weekends and up to a few times a month. You’ll associate this type of use with fun, thrill-seeking, or to conform to peer pressure. You likely won’t notice any negative consequences of doing so.
(3) Regular use or misuse ― the point where you’re not truly addicted, but where drugs or alcohol begin to become detrimental to your life. You may become uninterested in things that usually bring joy and focus on having fun purely through obtaining substances. This stage could include experiences like getting a DUI/DWI, or being caught using or carrying drugs.
(4) Risky use or abuse ― when you continue to use drugs or alcohol despite severe consequences, like using funds, set aside for bills, on substances (or even borrowing or stealing money), or putting your social or romantic relationships at risk by continuing to use drugs or alcohol.
(5) Dependence ― the point where drugs or alcohol have taken significant control of your life. While you may still have a job or social relationships, your performance at work has most likely declined, your friendships are probably restricted to other alcohol and drug users, and there is usually significant tension at home. At this point, you are physically dependent, meaning your body has become used to a steady supply of drugs or alcohol.
(6) Addiction ― the stage when you will do whatever you have to in order to get drugs or alcohol, regardless of the consequences. You are no longer seeking a high, but trying to avoid withdrawal.”
Addictions do not only include physical things we consume, such as drugs or alcohol, but may include virtually anything, from such abstract things as gambling to seemingly harmless products, such as chocolate ― in other words, addiction may refer to a substance dependence (e.g. drug and alcohol addiction, ‘comfort foods’, cigarettes, etc.), or behavioral addiction (e.g. shopping, gambling addiction, pornography, TV viewing, internet usage, social media, bad language, etc.). Some of these things are sinful, others are not—but all of the addictions weaken the will and diminish self-control—the very things that necessary to combat temptation to sin! It is estimated that 1 in 3 people in the world have an addiction of some kind—some addictions are sinful others are not. Yet any addiction erodes one’s will power and self-control.
The Devil’s Toolbox for Dependency
Dependency is an effect—it is an end product. There has to be a cause that creates that dependency. Since we are all different, with different lifestyles, different cultural and economic circumstances and influences, different temperaments, with a different upbringing and education, having different likes and dislikes—the devil has to have a very wide range of tools in his toolbox.
The list of tools, with their subtle nuances, could be said to be almost endless. However, some chief “umbrella” categories can be listed as being a combination of any or all of the following five areas and their varying circumstances that cause a general dissatisfaction and create an urge for some kind of pleasure as compensation: (1) spiritual problems, mental stresses, emotional factors, physical factors and material factors. Some of these would include things like: (1) personal problems and pleasure seeking, (2) valuing the material more than the spiritual, (3) family problems, (4) work problems, (5) financial problems, (5) social problems, (6) expectations not being reached or met, (7) envy of others, (8) dissatisfaction with one’s lot or status in life, etc. All of these have been dealt with earlier in this series of articles—in the sections that dealt with “Disturbance, Differences, Disagreements, Division, Disappointment, Disenchantment, Disillusionment & Disgust.”
These provide the spark that makes us reach out for some kind of compensation through a pleasure of some sort—each one is different as to what pleasure they desire―to redress the imbalance caused by the dissatisfactions that we are faced with. It is important for the devil to keep pouring fuel on the fires of dissatisfaction, so that we keep reaching out and taking whatever pleasure we have chosen as the antidote to the dissatisfaction. The prolonging of the dissatisfaction creates a perfect climate and soil for the dependency to sprout its roots in our soul, which will gradually grow from plant of dependency into the tree of addiction—a little like the “mustard seed” that Our Lord talks about, which starts out as the smallest of seeds and grows into one of the biggest of plants.
Sin & Vice
Moral theology makes a distinction between “sin” and “vice”—sin is less vicious that vice. The definition of “vice”, to put simply, is “habitual sin”, or a sin that we are addicted to. This is what the devil wants—addiction and dependency. That will be the “chain” that will tie you to him. It doesn’t matter whether it is habitual venial sin or habitual mortal sin—for the devil knows, just as with alcoholics or drug-addicts or any kind of addict, once you’re hooked, you will go deeper and further. The main thing is to attack, weaken and break the will and its resistance to sin—any sin, it doesn’t matter which, mortal or venial or no sin at all, the goal is weaken your will and then to get you sinning and get you used to sinning.
(28) DELAYING all action that could cure
The longer and the more dependent you become on your favorite ‘pet’ sins, then the more your will is weakened and primed for future, far more serious temptations. Therefore, it is of the greatest importance to the devil, to keep you in that state of dependence at all costs. Fr. Barrielle, in his book The Discernment of Spirits, writes: “Those who go from mortal sin to mortal sin are usually influenced in the following way. The enemy proposes certain illusory delights, causing them to imagine sensual pleasures and enjoyments, the more effectively to keep them under the sway of their vicious and sinful course.” However, this tactic is not just employed on those “who go from mortal sin to mortal sin”, but also on those who go from venial sin to venial sin. The devil highlights all the illusory advantages and benefits that will come to you by continuing to sin (whether mortally or venially).
Fr. Barrielle continues: “So it is, with those who live in mortal sin: the evil spirit reassures the sinner and pushes him further and further into sin. He presents to the sinner more vivid pleasures, and sensible delectation. He represents to him the objects of sin as the greatest happiness, so that he will plunge deeper and deeper into it with all the more security and joy, just as if it were something normal and indispensable: ‘The whole world is doing it!’ The devil says: ‘Do not worry yourself, God is good! Everybody does it! Just take a look around, it is not worth talking to your confessor about it. It doesn’t concern him. You will confess it on your death bed. You will always have enough time! You are still young!’ etc. Those who reassure the sinner in his sins, also play the game of the devil. It is the devil that reassures the sinner in his sins. BEWARE!” (Fr. Barrielle, The Discernment of Spirits).
“This can also be applied to those who, without being in the state of mortal sin, are well entrenched in tepidity. For example, those Christians and religious who have decided not to correct their venial sins. The devil reassures one in tepidity, and it is very dangerous for their salvation. The good angel sends him grave warnings. Woe to those who pay no attention! It is in this way that laxity is introduced into many convents and even into Christian families. Woe to the Christian that is not on his guard! The devil will do with his soul as he pleases if he is not alert.” (Fr. Barrielle, The Discernment of Spirits).
Part of plan or tactics in delaying the seeking of a cure for your dependency on certain ‘pet’ sins is to make you avoid taking the medicine of prayer. Fr. Barrielle shares a painful experience that he once had in this regard: “While on this subject, allow me to share a very different experience with you. Once, I had one of the most painful experiences a priest can have on Earth. I had been intimately involved with the apostasy of a fairly large number of confreres: seminarians, religious and, alas, some priests! Well, there is something that I can tell you: they had all (save few exceptions) ceased praying. Some of them, out of a zeal for souls, had left off praying ... ‘Souls are waiting for me!” etc. Others, out of laziness, neglect, discouragement, or shame ... They had all stopped praying. At that moment, the devil put a spanner in the works, and a catastrophe happened. St. Bernard said: “Nobody becomes evil all of a sudden.” One of the first things the devil always does is to make people stop praying. No more meditations, spiritual reading, Rosaries, examinations of conscience, breviary, thanksgivings, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, confessions ... No more Masses (or more sacrilegious ones, which is even worse!). No more devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, etc. At that time, they were ripe for a catastrophe!” (Fr. Barrielle, The Discernment of Spirits).
Putting-off the seeking of a cure for your dependency and addiction to certain ‘pet’ sins, or delaying the taking of the medicines that could cure it (confession, prayer, penance and mortification), is like allowing a fire to start in your home and neglecting to try and put it out or not calling the fire department. The longer you leave it and merely watch it burn and spread, the harder it will be to extinguish it and the more extensive will be the damage.
Our Lady, in speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, condemned delays in ridding oneself of the stain and guilt of sin: “Especially must thou be filled with highest esteem for the Sacrament of Penance … and whenever thou art conscious of any fault, do not postpone the remedy afforded by this Sacrament. Wash and cleanse thy soul; for it is the most abominable carelessness to know oneself stained with sin, and to remain in such disgrace for a long time, yea even for one instant!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Remember that Lucifer and his satellites of darkness, assail the poor and unbewaring soul with all their malice and astuteness in order to vanquish them if possible by various temptations. Whenever they see an opening for attacking the souls, they gather like bloodthirsty wolves and search out the natural and acquired failings in his nature, taking into account his inclinations, habits and customs, and where his passions cause him greater weakness, in order to direct toward this part the strongest battery and engines of war” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Those that have a disorderly love of earthly life, they persuade that there is not such great danger and they prevent others from undeceiving them. Those that have been negligent in the reception of the Sacraments, they try to make still more careless and they place obstacles and difficulties in the way, in order that they may die without them, or in order that they may receive them without fruit and with a bad disposition. Others they fill with false suggestions and shame in order that they may not confess their sins and open their conscience. Others they confuse and try to prevent from making proper restitution and thus unburdening their consciences. Others, who love vanity, they entangle, even at that last hour, in many vain and proud desires with regard to what is to be done for them after death. Those that have been avaricious or sensual, they seek to excite violently toward what they loved so blindly during life” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“In short, of all the bad habits and customs this cruel enemy avails himself in order to fill their minds with images of creatures and draw them away from their salvation or make them incapable of it. Every appetite, which has been inordinately indulged, is an avenue or bypath by which he enters into the citadel of the soul. Once in, he breathes forth his pestilential fumes, and raises the clouds of darkness, his proper work, so that the soul may not give heed to the divine inspirations, have no true sorrow for its sins, and do no penance for its wicked life” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“With all this men are blinder, the hearts more hardened, pride more inflated, avarice more bold, and all the vices are practiced without fear of God and without consideration. The reprobate will have none but themselves to blame, if afterwards, when there is no more time, they shall be uselessly dismayed with what in opportune time they could and should have known. If in the short and passing life which is given to them, in order to merit the eternal, they close their eyes and ears to the truth and to the light, and if they listen to the demon, giving themselves up to all the promptings of his malice; if they thus abuse the goodness and clemency of the Lord, what can they then allege as their excuse? If they do not know how to pardon an injury and for the slightest offense meditate the direst vengeance; if, for the sake of increasing their property, they pervert the entire order of reason and of natural brotherhood; if for a passing delight they forget the eternal pains, and if, in addition to all this, they despise the warnings, helps and admonitions sent to them by God to inspire them with the fear of perdition and induce them to avoid it, how shall they afterwards find fault with the divine clemency? Let then mortals, who have sinned against God, undeceive themselves: without penance there shall be no grace, without reform no pardon, without pardon no glory. But just as these are not conceded to those that are unworthy, so they are also never denied to those that are worthy; nor is ever the mercy of God withheld from anyone who seeks to obtain it” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“If, afterwards, the soul, having with sorrow experienced these evils, wishes to return to seek Him, the demon, who deceived it, then presents other delights so vile and unlike those to which the soul has been accustomed interiorly, new causes of sadness, disturbances, dejection, lukewarmness and dissatisfaction arise and its whole interior is filled with dangerous confusion … The souls of men incur the most incredible and dangerous attacks from the demons, as well as from their own frailty and from the creatures around them.” (Our Lady speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
(29) The devil wants to DEGENERATE you and sink you DEEPER and DEEPER into sin
The following words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, are most instructive as regards the tactics of the devil:
“I wish to warn thee, as a solicitous and loving Mother, of the cunning of Satan for the destruction of the works of the Lord ... By no power of human words wilt thou in this mortal life ever succeed in describing the envy of Lucifer and his demons against men, or the malice, astuteness, deceits and ruses, with which in his wrath he seeks to bring them into sin and later on to the eternal torments. Thou must not ignore that the demon keeps a constant minute watch over the least carelessness, forgetfulness or inadvertence of souls, and that he is constantly prowling around and lying in ambush to avail himself of every negligence for tempting the incautious to sin and misleading them by means of their passions, before they have a chance to know the full extent of the wound he tries to inflict. He tries to hinder all good works, and with regard to those that are performed, he tries to minimize, or to destroy and ruin them as to their merits. All the malice of which his own mind is capable, he attempts to inject into the souls”(Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“From the very moment in which mortals begin to have the use of their reason, each one of them is followed by many watchful and relentless demons. For as soon as the souls are in a position to raise their thoughts to the knowledge of their God and commence the practice of the virtues infused by Baptism, these demons, with incredible fury and astuteness, seek to root out the divine seed; and if they cannot succeed in this, they try to hinder its growth, and prevent it from bringing forth fruit, by engaging men in vicious, useless, or trifling things. Thus they divert their thoughts from Faith and Hope, and from the pursuit of other virtues, leading them to forget that they are Christians and diverting their attention from the knowledge of God and from the mysteries of the Redemption and of life eternal. Moreover, the same enemy instills, into the parents, a base neglectfulness and carnal love for their offspring; and he incites the teachers to carelessness, so that the children find no support against evil in their education, but become depraved and spoiled by many bad habits, losing sight of virtue and of their good inclinations and going the way of perdition” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Although the demon cannot take away man’s liberty, nor ever completely sway his free will, yet, by leading them into so many and grievous sins, he obtains such an influence over it, that he is enabled to use it as an instrument of the evil he proposes ... Hence the demons gain courage and increase their tyrannical influence over souls in the early years of man’s life, hoping that they will be able to induce men to commit so much the greater and the more frequent sins in later years, the more they have succeeded in drawing them into small and insignificant faults in their childhood. By these they draw them on to a state of blind presumption; for, with each sin, the soul loses more and more the power of resistance, subjects itself to the demon, and falls under the sway of its tyrannical enemies. The miserable yoke of wickedness is more and more firmly fastened upon it; the same is trodden underfoot by its own iniquity and urged onward, under the sway of the devil, from one precipice to another, from abyss to abyss”(Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“The demon also―by his fascinations and his deceitful and iniquitous suggestions―obscures the interior light and hides the deathly poison beneath the pleasant exterior … If man neglects to rise above his low desires and yields to the enemy of God and man, then, the more he alienates himself from the goodness of God, the more unworthy does he become. For the demon and the passions will have obtained a greater dominion and power over his intellect and have made him more unfit and more incapable of the grace of the Almighty. Upon that rests the whole salvation or condemnation of souls, that is, in their decision to admit or resist the advances of the Lord. See that thou be strong in resisting His enemies!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“The demon also, ancient and astute serpent as he is, uses more diligence in his attempts to overcome religious men and women, than to conquer all the rest of worldly men; and if one of these religious fall, all Hell exerts the greatest solicitude and care to prevent his using the many means, which religion supplies, for rising from a fall, such as obedience and spiritual exercises and the frequent use of the Sacraments. To make all these remedies miscarry and be of no use to the fallen religious, the enemy applies so many cunning snares that it would fill with terror anyone who saw them. However, much of this is recognized in the actions and artifices by which a lax religious soul tries to defend its remissness, excusing itself by plausible but erroneous arguments, if it does not break out in disobedience and yet greater disorders and faults” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Human nature is imperfect and remiss in practicing virtue, and easily weakens in its exercise; for it continually seeks rest and avoids labor with all its might. When the soul listens to and tries to get along with the animal and carnal part of its nature, this animal part will engross and overcome the forces of reason and of the soul, and will reduce them to a dangerous and shameful slavery. This disorder is abominable and much to be feared by all; but God abhors it without comparison more in His ministers and in religious: they, as a matter of course, are supposed to be perfect, and therefore are injured so much the more seriously, if they do not come out victorious in the conflict of the passions. By remissness in battle, and by their frequent defeats, they live themselves into a paralyzing and self-satisfied conviction of false security, content with the performance of certain easy outward practices of virtue, at the same time imagining (without the least real advancement) that they are moving mountains. The demon then introduces other distractions and temptations, and, on account of their small appreciation of the rules and practices of religion, they begin to weaken in all of them, esteem them as light and unimportant matter, and, living on in their false security, come to lose the very sight of what is true virtue” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“I desire that thou guard against this error. Remember, that a voluntary remissness in regard to one imperfection prepares and opens the way for others―these facilitate the committing of venial sins, and these again facilitate the committing of mortal sins. Thus the descent is from one abyss to another, until the bottom is found in the disregard of all evil. In order to prevent such a misfortune it is necessary to cultivate the practice of intercepting, from afar, the current of sin, for this practice, which seems but small, is a work which keeps the enemy at a distance from the fortress walls of conscience. If the demon can break through this exterior wall and gain the outer defenses, he is in better position to gain the inner ones. If, then, an opening is made in the walls by the committing of sin, although it may not be a very grievous sin, the enemy already has a better opportunity to make an assault on the interior reign of a soul. As the soul finds herself weakened by vicious acts and bad habits and finds herself without strength of grace, she does not resist the attack with fortitude, and the devil, acquiring more and more power over her, begins to subject and oppress her without opposition” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“It is also certain that, ordinarily, the demons have no power over souls, unless they gain entrance by some venial or mortal fault. Mortal sin gives them a sort of direct right over those who commit it; while venial sin weakens the strength of the soul and invites their attacks. Imperfections diminish the merit and the progress of virtue, and encourage the enemy. Whenever the astute serpent notices that the soul bears with its own levity and forgets about its danger, it blinds it and seeks to instill its deadly poison. The enemy then entices the soul like a little heedless bird, until it falls into one of the many snares from which there seems to be no escape” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous tepidity. They live in the obscurity of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices. They are surrounded by innumerable enemies, who pursue them with diabolical treachery, unceasing vigilance, unquenchable wrath and restless diligence. What wonder then, that from such extremes, or rather from such unequal combat, irreparable defeats should arise among the mortals? And that, since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate should also be uncountable, is there any wonder that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men?”(Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“I have shown thee the secret machinations and treacherous counsels of Hell for the ruin of mankind, and the furious and restless wrath with which Lucifer seeks to encompass it. In this assault, Hell misses no opening, no occasion, and lets no stone unturned, nor forgets any path, any state or person, in laying snares for their fall and in trying to find ways so much the more dangerous and deceitful, the more they find their victims desirous of eternal life and of the friendship of God. It is important for all the children of the Church to escape the ignorance in which they live concerning the dangers besetting their eternal salvation. Many of the faithful are as oblivious and careless, as if there were no demons to persecute and deceive them; and, if they sometimes think of them, it is superficially and lightly, falling immediately back into their forgetfulness, which, for many of them, means nothing less than eternal punishment. If at all times and in all places, in all their works and on all occasions, the demons set their snares, it is but just and proper that Christians, on their part, take not one step without asking divine light to see and avoid the danger. But, as the children of Adam are so apathetic in regard to this matter, they perform scarcely one work without being assailed by the infernal serpent and infected by his poison. Thus they accumulate sins upon sins, evil upon evil, irritating the divine justice and shutting out mercy.” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
(30) The devil seeks to DEHUMANIZE and DENATURIZE souls
Let us continue with the instructions of Our Blessed Mother:
“I wish that thou be very cautious and watchful in regard to the ignorance and darkness, by which the demon commonly ensnares mortals and makes them forget their eternal salvation and the continual danger of its loss through his persecutions. Men are lost in forgetful rest and sleep, as if there were no vigilant and powerful enemies. This dreadful carelessness arises from two causes: on the one hand men are so taken up with their earthly and sensible being, that they do not feel any other evils, except those concerning the animal nature in them; all that is interior is harmless in their estimation. On the other hand, since the princes of darkness are invisible and unperceived by any of the senses, and since carnal men can neither touch, nor feel, nor see them, they thus forget the fear of them. Yet, for this very reason, they ought to be more attentive and careful, since invisible enemies are more cunning and skillful in injuring us by their treachery. So much the more certain is the danger, the more concealed it is, and so much the more deadly are the wounds, the less they are felt and recognized” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Night and day this dragon restlessly prowls about seeking some chance of capturing thee as a prize. He observes thy natural inclinations and also the gifts of the Lord, in order to combat thee with thy own weapons. He charges other demons with thy ruin and promises reward to those that are more diligent in securing it. They weigh thy actions carefully, watch thy footsteps, and work zealously to lay snares for thee in all thy undertakings. The demon is accustomed to begin by causing sorrow or dejection of heart, or he makes use of other trickery or snares, by which he diverts or withdraws the soul from the love of the Lord; then he comes with his poison, concealed in the golden cup, in order to diminish the horror of the soul. As soon as the demon notices such a state of mind, he will raise a whirlwind of dust in the faculties. His fierceness is so immeasurable and implacable that it will then increase in fury. He will add flame to flame, thinking that the soul has no one to defend and rescue it from his hands. With the force of his temptations increases also the danger of failing in the necessary resistance, since the soul has started to yield in the very beginning” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“The more the children of Adam study and exert themselves to reach the evil objects of their carnal and animal passions, and to attain the means of indulging them, so much the more will they fall into ignorance of divine things, by which alone they can come to their true ultimate end. Since the sensible impressions immediately move the animal passions and inclinations, it is evident that men do not act according to right reason, but according to the impulse of passion, excited by the senses and their objects. If even the merely sensible things can hinder the spiritual life, how much is this true of that which pertains altogether to earthly, animal and carnal life? On this account the earthly and animal men conceive such distorted and low ideas of the wonderful works of the Most High. This ignorance and worldly prudence is still more abominable and still more hateful in the eyes of God, when it occurs in the children of the Church. Look how some follow like brutes after the horrors of sensuality, how gluttony degrades others, how some follow after pleasures of play and vanity, how others are dominated by pride and presumption, how many are entangled in avarice and the desire of gain, how they all follow the impulse of passions, seeking in this life only pleasure, while in the life to come they pile up for themselves eternal torments and incur the loss of the beatific vision of their God and Lord. They have given a free hand to their enemy Lucifer. He, with tireless malice, labors to overthrow the barriers of restraint, so that, forgetful of the last things and of eternal torment, men may give themselves over, like brute beasts, to sensual pleasures” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Be attentive to my counsels, follow my instructions and receive my warnings! I wish to make known to thee that no intellect, nor any tongue of man or angels, can describe the wrath and fury which Lucifer and his demons entertain against mortals, just because they are images of God and because they are capable of enjoying Him for all eternity. If these foes were not restrained by His almighty arm, then they would, in one moment, destroy the world; they would, like famishing lions, like wild beasts and fierce dragons, eliminate all mankind and tear them to pieces. Now however the most kind Father of all mercies wards off and curbs their wrath, and He carries His little children in His arms, in order that they may not fall a prey to these hellish wolves” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Consider then, as seriously as thou canst, whether anything deserves greater pity, than to see so many men misled into danger and made forgetful of it! Consider how some of them cast themselves into it, on account of their lightheartedness, some of them for trivial reasons, others for a short and instantaneous pleasure, others through negligence, and yet others on account of their inordinate appetites, tearing themselves away from the places of refuge, in which the Almighty has placed them, to fall into the hands of such cruel and furious enemies; and not only to feel their fury for an hour, a day, a month, a year, but to suffer indescribable and unmeasured torments for all eternity. Thou shouldst be filled with fear and wonder, to see such a horrible and dreadful foolishness among the impenitent mortals and to see even the faithful, who have come to know and confess all this by Faith, so far lose their understanding and allow themselves to be so insanely blinded by the devil, that they neither see nor avoid this danger ... Many of the reprobate and of those who are forgetful of their Creator and Redeemer, and who deliver themselves over to the devil, by repeated sins, are moved and drawn into all kinds of wickedness” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Strive then with all thy heart to avoid offending Him either in great or in small things; do not force Him to relinquish thee and to deliver thee over to the beastly disorders of sin; for thou knowest that this would be a greater misfortune and punishment than if He consign thee to the fury of the elements, or to the wrath of all the wild animals, or even to the rage of the demons. If all these were to execute their anger upon thee, and if the world were to heap upon thee all its punishments and insults, all would do thee less damage than one venial sin against the God whom thou art obliged to serve and love in all things and through all things. Any punishment of this life is less dreadful than sin; for it ends with mortal life, but the guilt of sin, and with it punishment, may be eternal” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Article 8
Ember Saturday after the First Sunday of Lent, March 4th, 2023
The Third Set of 10 D's of the Devil
Ember Saturday after the First Sunday of Lent, March 4th, 2023
The Third Set of 10 D's of the Devil
THE FORTY D’s OF THE DEVIL (Part 3 ― Numbers 21 to 25)
The previous two articles (see below) covered the initial 20 “D” tactics of the Devil:
(01) DISTRACTION; (02) DISCUSSION, DEBATE & DIALECTICS; (03) DECEPTION; (04) DEGLAMORIZATION; (05) DISLIKE; (06) DISTANCING; (07) DISABLE & DISARM; (08) DISTURBANCE; (09) DIFFERENCES and DISAGREEMENTS; (10) DICHOTOMY and DIVISION; (11) DISCREDITING; (12) DETRACTION, DEFAMATION, DISTORTION and DISGRACE; (13) DISAPPOINTMENT, DISENCHANTMENT & DISILLUSIONMENT; (14) DISGUST and DISDAIN; (15) DOUBT & DISTRUST; (16) DISBELIEF; (17) DANGLE & DAZZLE; (18) DELIGHT and DELUSION; (19) DAYDREAMS; (20) DESIRING DREAMS.
This―the third of our articles―continues the demonic “D” trend, which seek to push the soul even deeper into Satan’s swamp.
(21) DABBLE and DIP
We have probably been there, seen it and done it—we walk into a supermarket, they have a display food counter, they offer us a little sample to taste, and after taking a nibble, we end up buying an item that we never had the intention of buying when we first walked through the doors. In a similar way, the devil—after displaying to us the path or step that he would like us to take—suggests a “dabble or dip” solution for our dilemma. Hey! Tasting the proverbial “sausage on a stick” in the supermarket does not oblige you to buy a whole pack of sausages! Come on! It’s just a tasting session with no obligation to buy!—and the devil uses a similar ‘sales pitch’ for his wares. He would call it ‘harmless’ flirting with his suggestion! Be wary! Beware!
Most people are lukewarm—in which of the symptoms is being a peace with a certain variety and number of venial sins. Each person has their ‘pet’ venial sins, in which they indulge with little or no remorse of conscience. The general attitude is one of―“This won’t send me to Hell! So I’ll do it! Isn’t that what confession is for? Besides, even the Bible says something like: ‘The just man sins seven times a day’—so I’m just getting my daily quota in!” Many in world will not want to overcome these temptations, they actually don’t mind these temptations and are willing to play with them! It is of such souls as these Our Lord speaks when He says: “He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.” (John 12:40).
The devil willingly urges us along this path—adding his own “two-cents-worth” to the rationalizing: “Hey! This is no big deal at all! You can always confess it afterwards! Besides, just look at all the good that you do! And you’re nowhere near as bad Mr. X, or Mrs. Y or A, B, C, D, etc. What’s the harm in (and then he adds the thing he wants you to do)? Anyway, just a little never harmed anyone!” etc., etc.
The most effective way to destroy permanently is to weaken and knock down a little at a time—for in that way most people will protest very little at what is being done. Look at the moral destruction—“little by little”—in one lifetime on just the TV or the movies. From the ‘out-cry’ over the first screen kiss, to rampant pornography and unnatural vice that is watched by many today. Very little protest was made—because it was done little by little. You are more likely to cooperate with temptation in little things than in grave things. The devil wants to create a habit of cooperation in you—how will he do that? By getting you to “dip your toe” into waters that are lukewarm and which do not cause a shock as scalding hot ice-cold waters would do. Most organizations will tell you that most of financial support they get comes from lots of little donations—the devil gets his contributions the same way—by lots of little sins, many or even hundreds of times a day. He entices us to “just dip the big toe in the water” of venial sin, just “dabble a little” and everything will be okay!
Our Lady, speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, said: “I remind you, that the demons seek to induce souls to swallow these poisonous gnats of venial sins, in order that, little by little, after being accustomed to those that seem insignificant, they may arrive at swallowing the camels of the more serious sins!”
The “Dip and Dabble” of Intemperance
One area that seems harmless to everyone is the domain of food and drink. Everyone likes to eat and drink! Yet we must not forget that gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins! Intemperance with food and drink, a lack of mortification about what we eat and drink. This immoderation quickly spills over into other areas, because by not being able to say “NO!” to food and drink, ends up weakening our will, which loses its ‘muscle’ so to speak.
► Intemperance weakens the will; it renders us incapable of resisting temptation and avoiding sin, just as a ship too heavily laden cannot outride a storm. It also destroys a man’s reputation; Noe, when drunk with wine, became an object of derision to his own son. Thus a man, when inebriated by alcohol, makes a fool of himself, talks nonsense and is mocked even by children. The Lacedemonians used to show drunken Helots to young people that they might learn to despise this degrading vice.
► Intemperance leads to all kinds of sins, to immorality and godlessness. As in a morass all manner of weeds grow rapidly and flourish, so evil lusts grow and flourish in an over-fed body. Those who eat and drink immoderately waste their money, feel disinclined to prayer at night on account of the inertia produced by excess, and, in the morning because of headache and sensations of discomfort; they miss Mass on Sundays, fail to pray in the morning, live in a moody discord with their families, and fall into sins of impurity of thought, desire, word and action.
Dipping and Dabbling in the kitchen is easily done—with “comfort foods” readily available. The growing rate of obesity in the USA and the world shows the truth of this. You don’t become obese without frequently dabbling in kitchen and dipping into this food and that dish.
(22) DEVIATE
Fr. Amorth writes: “In order to make them deviate, the devil used two expedients with Adam and Eve, and he uses them also with us. Above all, he leads them to deny what God has imposed. For this the serpent says to Eve: “You will not die” (Genesis 3:4). He acts in the same way with us, when he makes us doubt the existence of sin and Hell and paradise and of their eternity; or, for example, as in our times, where euthanasia and abortion are passed off as signs of humanity’s progress. The second subterfuge is to make evil appear good, a gain rather than a loss. The serpent proceeds: “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). The devil also makes evil appear interesting, positive, and beautiful.”
Fr. Barrielle also points out the opposite kind of deviation from the true path, whereby the devil, seeing that we are making progress in the ways, or even, in rare cases, have been given mystical graces by God, tries to make us doubt and deviate from that path—even using good and holy men and women as unwitting instruments for his plans― “When the devil acts, it is either by himself or through one of his henchmen―bad counsel, or bad example” writes Fr. Barrielle. He adds: “The learned and holy priest, Gerson, we saw, despised the visions of St. Catherine of Siena and wanted the Council of Constance to condemn all her revelations and visions and to order that no one speak any more about them. At the time of St. Teresa of Avila, all the learned people gathered together to discuss her visions and unanimously concluded that these favors were not from God. They even sent a delegation to notify her that she had been deceived by the devil, and that she take every means to leave this path, which they asserted was just an illusion.
“One of the greatest difficulties encountered by the efforts to spread the Sacred Heart devotion was the fact that Our Lord made use of a humble Visitation sister to ask for the institution of this feast, the first Fridays of the month, the consecration, etc.
“Yet in both the Old and the New Testaments, ineffable relations of God with certain men are often recounted. It is true that one must be careful about being too credulous. St. Peter, in his second epistle, after having recalled the vision of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, gives a grand rule which should be the guideline for all apparitions or extraordinary events: Sed habemus firmiorem propheticum sermonem. In other words, we have, above all private revelation, the hierarchical and official Church, with the Deposit of the Faith. This should be the yardstick used in examining whether a vision is from God or not. Beware, as soon as the passions become mixed‑up, many want to make you believe that the authentic hierarchy has spoken, while it is perhaps only a member of the hierarchy who may have, in fact, exceeded his powers. The Pope, speaking ex cathedra, is infallible. A bishop, even while having the role of the hierarchy in his diocese, is not necessarily infallible. The Holy Office, which twice condemned Padre Pio, has now allowed the introduction of his process of beatification.
“In other words, true obedience and the rule of Faith are the two rules used to judge whether a vision is true or not. With respect to personal miraculous graces, it will often be impossible to obtain a certitude, and the Church, while favoring public acts of devotion, pilgrimages, etc., avoids definitive pronouncements in such events. We may give general rules in regard to mysticism: God is master! He acts as He pleases. The rules of discernment of St. Ignatius help us to act prudently in all cases (ascetical, ordinary mystical, and extraordinary mystical). One must not desire these miraculous states, as they are often accompanied by terrible trials. If the soul is not detached from all, these graces could be harmful.” (Fr. Barrielle, The Discerning of Spirits).
Whatever the area of deviation may be—that is to say, either in making you deviate from the right path by suggesting you START DOING something, or by suggesting you STOP DOING something—whether it be done by the devil acting alone through planting suggestions in your imagination, or through other people (even good and well-intentioned people) doing his work for him or with him (in ignorance, thinking they are doing something good and right)—whatever the case may be, as Fr. Barrielle rightly points out above, “true obedience and the rule of Faith are the two rules used to judge” in discerning what to do and in judging which is the right path. That is why it is important to have a good and solid spiritual director—which is easier said than done, since St. Teresa and St. Francis de Sales (among many others) say that such a person is only one-in-a-thousand! St. Teresa of Avila complains in her book about the many poor spiritual directors who gave her bad advice on many occasions.
This stage—the stage of deviation—is the last bus-stop at which we can get off the ‘bus of temptation’ before it enters the point of no return—that is to say, the actual committing of sin. For once we decide to deviate from the right path—even though we have not yet committed the sin by actual word or deed, we have already committed it in our minds or in our thought or judgment to go ahead with it. If we refuse to get off the bus, then we have implicitly said “YES!” to the temptation and are only waiting for the next bus-stop when we can off the bust and do the deed.
(23) DOWNPLAY and DEVALUE and DISREGARD the seriousness of sin.
To succeed in making stay on-board the ‘bus of temptation’, the devil needs to downplay and devalue the seriousness of sin and encourage you to disregard it as being “no big thing”. Fr. Barrielle writes: “The devil says: ‘Do not worry yourself, God is good! Everybody does it! Just take a look around, it is not worth talking to your confessor about it. It doesn’t concern him. You will confess it on your death bed! You will always have enough time! You are still young!’ etc. … He presents to the sinner more vivid pleasures, and sensible delectation. He represents to him the objects of sin as the greatest happiness, so that he will plunge deeper and deeper into it with all the more security and joy, just as if it were something normal and indispensable: ‘The whole world is doing it!’ … If the devil feels that they want to do ‘like everyone else,’ then the demons will be let loose. As hard as they may try not to sin, the devil will get his way and lead them into a sinful life ...Those Christians and religious who have decided not to correct their venial sins. The devil reassures one in tepidity, and it is very dangerous for their salvation … The good angel, on the contrary, sends a sting. He stirs one’s conscience, this prevents the sinner from being complacent: he uses rational reproaches. He shows him the consequences of sin … The devil makes him reject these thoughts! The enemy proposes certain illusory delights, causing them to imagine sensual pleasures and enjoyments, the more effectively to keep them under the sway of their vicious and sinful course” (Fr. Barrielle, The Discerning of Spirits).
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist in Rome, said in an interview: “Officially, the Church has always affirmed the existence of Satan and his negative influence, but in practice, the clergy have been influenced by theories which question the existence of Satan. Some time ago, a researcher carried out an enquiry among Catholic priests, and the results showed that two thirds accepted, in theory, traditional doctrine about the Devil, but that they rejected the practical consequences” (Fr. Amorth, interviewed by Messenger of St. Anthony magazine, May 10th, 2003).
(24) DEFILE you with sin
Fr. Barrielle writes that the devil will continue assailing us and will say to us: “It is useless! I will get you once again ... give in and I will leave you alone!” The devil wants us to accept the ‘contract’ and will continually wave it in front of our noses. He will make some changes to the ‘contract’ to favor us, if he sees that we refuse to ‘sign’ to sin. Fr. Barrielle goes on to say: “If you consent and take pleasure in these evil delectations, you sin, because the consent comes from yourself … Often the devil makes us believe that we have sinned when, in fact, we have not only not consented, but gained merit by resisting him.” Let us then look at this crucial point of giving our consent or withholding our consent.
It is now up to you to make a definite decision by either approving or rejecting the evil suggested to you. This is a necessity from which you cannot escape; you must decide one way or the other. You are not free to avoid making a decision.
Deciding For The Evil
Let us suppose that you weaken in your resistance and decide in favor of the forbidden thing, by giving your approval to it, or being delighted with the delectation you feel, or by willfully fostering the evil thought, fancy, or desire that came to you, or finally, by carrying out in action what is suggested to you by the temptation. What is the result in this case? The instant your will gives its approval or consent — and not before — you contract the guilt of sin.
This brings us to a point that many people are in the habit of overlooking completely: All sin, no matter what its name, is committed interiorly by the mind and the will, or “in the heart,” as the common expression is, independently of any outward action or deed. An outward action is not necessary for the contracting of the guilt of sin, any more than such an action is necessary for the gaining of merit. All the conscious interior operations of the soul — that is, all the thoughts, fancies, and desires that a man entertains knowingly and willingly — are so many acts before God; and these are either sinful or virtuous accordingly as they are either contrary to, or in keeping with, the law of God. The essence of a sin, therefore, consists, not in an outward had action, but in the deliberate adherence of the will to what is recognized as forbidden by the divine law.
This very important truth is taught with great emphasis by our divine Savior. “You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you, that everyone that shall look on a woman to lust after her, path already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28). “The things which come out from a man, they defile a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man” (Mark 7:20-23).
Thus, if you were to muse knowingly and willfully on some unchaste representation, or paint in your imagination pictures of some impure deed or scene, or entertain the desire to carry out some forbidden action, or devise plans for being revenged on one who has injured you, and the like, you would thereby contract the guilt of sin before God, even though you did not so much as take a single step or move a finger to carry out in deed what you had pictured in your mind. You may not have spoken a word to reveal your thoughts, nor made a gesture to betray your desires; yet at the very instant your will gave its approval or consent to the evil thought or desire, you rendered yourself guilty of an act of sin “in your heart.”
From this it is clear that it is possible for a man to commit countless sins and very grievous ones at that — all day long in the secret recesses of his heart (as also it is possible to make most perfect acts of virtue), unknown indeed to his fellowmen and unsuspected by them, but clearly known to God, who searches the inmost folds of the heart and before whom no concealment of evil is possible. In His sight, every thought, every fancy of the imagination, every desire that a man conceives consciously, is an act either good or bad, according to the relation in which it stands to the divine law and the intention that accompanies it. For each and every such act, an account will be demanded of the soul in its judgment after death.
We will end with Fr. Tanquerey’s very clear explanation of the phases of temptation and the varying degrees of culpability that result from how we deal with or fail to deal with the temptation.
Three Strikes and You’re Out!
The say “it comes in threes!” This is true for the general division of temptation, you could them “the three waves of temptations” and it is also true for the three conditions that are required for a sin to be mortal. According to the traditional doctrine, as expounded by St. Augustine, there are three different phases in temptation: suggestion, pleasure and consent.
(a) SUGGESTION consists in the proposal of some evil. Our imagination or our mind represent to us in a more or less vivid manner the attraction of the forbidden fruit; at times this representation is most alluring, holds its ground tenaciously and becomes a sort of obsession. No matter how dangerous such a suggestion may be, it does not constitute a sin, provided that we have not provoked it ourselves, and do not consent to it. There is sin only when the will yields consent.
(b) PLEASURE follows the suggestion. Instinctively our lower tendencies are drawn towards the suggested evil and a certain pleasure is experienced. “Many a time it happens,” says St. Francis de Sales “that the inferior part of the soul takes pleasure in the temptation, without there having been consent, nay against the soul’s superior part. This is the warfare which the Apostle St. Paul describes when he says his flesh wars against his spirit.”
This pleasure does not, as long as the will refuses to consent to it, constitute a sin; yet it is a danger, since the will finds itself thus solicited to yield consent. The question then is: will it yield or not?
(c) If THE WILL WITHHOLDS ACQUIESCENCE, combats the temptation, and repels it, it has scored a success and performed a highly meritorious act. If, on the contrary, THE WILL DELIGHTS IN THE PLEASURE, willingly enjoys it and consents to it, the sin is committed.
The Three Conditions That Make a Sin Mortal
(1) First of all the thought, word, action or omission must be of a grave (serious) nature
(2) Secondly, AT THE TIME YOU COMMIT THE SIN, you must be aware that what you are about to think, say, do or not do is actually serious or grave.
(3) Thirdly, there must be FULL CONSENT OR AGREEMENT OR DESIRE to think, say, do or not do the thing that is serious or grave.
The Signs of Consent
The better to explain this important point, let us see what are the signs of lack of consent, imperfect consent, and perfect consent.
(a) NO SIN AT ALL: We may judge that THERE HAS BEEN NO CONSENT, if in spite of the suggestion and the instinctive pleasure accompanying it, we experience disgust, chagrin at seeing ourselves thus tempted; if we struggle so as not to be overcome; if we hold the proposed evil in horror; especially if we turn to God in prayer.
(b) VENIAL SIN OR PERHAPS MORTAL SIN: We may be CULPABLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE TEMPTATION IN ITS CAUSE, when we perform an action which we could avoid, foreseeing that it will be to us a source of temptation:
“If I know,” says St. Francis de Sales, “some certain conversation leads me to temptation and to a fall, and I do voluntarily indulge therein, I am, doubtless, culpable of all the temptations that shall arise.”
Yet, one is guilty only to the extent of one’s prevision, and if this is but vague and indistinct, the guilt is lessened in proportion. If the temptation is to mortal sin, then our guilt is greater. If the temptation is to venial sin, then our guilt is venial.
(c) VENIAL SIN: One may consider CONSENT TO BE IMPERFECT:
(i) When one does not repulse the temptation as soon as its dangerous character is perceived. There is then a fault against prudence, which without being grave puts us in the danger of consenting to the temptation.
(ii) When one momentarily hesitates. One would fain relish somewhat the forbidden pleasure, but one is loath to offend God, that is, after a moment’s hesitation, one repels the temptation. Here again there is a venial fault of imprudence.
(iii) If temptation is resisted in a half‑hearted way. One does resist, but in a feeble, indolent manner, a half‑resistance which implies a half‑consent, hence a venial fault.
(d) MORTAL or VENIAL SIN: It is said that CONSENT IS FULL AND ENTIRE, when the will, weakened by first concessions, lets itself be drawn to taste willingly the sinful pleasure, despite the protests of conscience, which recognizes the evil. In such case, if the matter be grievous, the sin is mortal; it is a sin of thought or “morose delectation,” as theologians call it. If to the thought is added desire, the fault is graver still. Lastly, if from desire one passes on to the act, or at least to the quest and pursuit of means adapted to the execution of one’s designs, then there is a sin of action.
In the different cases we have explained, doubts arise at times regarding the consent or half‑consent given. Then we must make a distinction between the delicate and the lax conscience; when it is question of the former, one may rule out consent, for the person is not in the habit of yielding consent, and if he had consented in this particular case he would know it. When it is question of the latter, the presumption is that the person has given full consent, for if he had not, his soul would not be troubled.
(25) DOWNPLAY, DEVALUE & DISREGARD
After sin has been committed, the devil will at first continue playing the same tune he played before you sinned—that is to say the tune of downplaying, devaluing and disregarding the seriousness of the sin, regardless of whether you sinned mortally or venially—for sin is the weakening and destructive poison he wants to get into your soul—the more the better. If you are shocked by sin, then he is less likely to succeed in that endeavor.
Once you have committed the sin—whether mortal or venial—the next step will depend upon what kind of person you are: fervent, lukewarm or sinful—for each of those categories will have a different emotional reaction to having sinned. The guiding principle, or goal, for the devil is to keep you in sin for long enough to allow you to become less agitated and less concerned about that sin in particular and/or sin in general. As the saying goes: “You cannot keep clothes for long in a smoky room without them taking-on the smell of smoke.” Similarly, the devil knows that the longer he can keep you in sin, then the more sinful you become overall—as you allow the sin to linger, stick and penetrate. However, everyone is different in how they view sin—and so the devil has to adapt to our perceptions of sin, to our feelings about sin, and to the emotions we experience upon having sinned.
“Couldn’t-Care-Less” Mortal Sin Catholic
In the careless or “couldn’t care less” sinner, the devil has most of work already accomplished—even in cases of mortal sin—and he only has to apply the finishing touches. Fr. Barrielle, in his book, The Discerning of Spirits, writes: “The devil says: ‘Do not worry yourself, God is good! Everybody does it! Just take a look around, it is not worth talking to your confessor about it. It doesn’t concern him. You will confess it on your death bed! You will always have enough time! You are still young!’ etc. … He presents to the sinner more vivid pleasures, and sensible delectation. He represents to him the objects of sin as the greatest happiness, so that he will plunge deeper and deeper into it with all the more security and joy, just as if it were something normal and indispensable: ‘The whole world is doing it!’ … Think of the horror at the thought of not appearing like the rest of the world, which has persuaded so many great Christians to dishonor themselves by impure fashions! If the devil feels that they want to do ‘like everyone else’, then the demons will be let loose. As hard as they may try not to sin, the devil will get his way and lead them into a sinful life.”
The “couldn’t care less” Catholic basically has no problem with sin—even some mortal sins—for he views it all like a “car-wash”, whereby he sins as much as he wants throughout the week and then makes his “car-wash-confession” before going to Holy Communion on Sunday. “Hey! That’s what confession is there for!” such a Catholic says, “God is good and merciful, so why worry?” Yet such a Catholic forgets the infallible words of Holy Scripture and the words of Our Lord too: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) … “Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). However, such a Catholic rarely reads Scripture or any spiritual book—so their knowledge of these things is almost non-existent. To them we could apply the words of Our Lord: “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14).
The Tepid, Torpid, Lukewarm Venial Sin Catholic
Next we have the tepid, torpid, apathetic, lukewarm Catholic—all the adjectives more or less mean the same thing—a Catholic who, though he or she might shy away from mortal sin, are nevertheless plagued by venial sin and don’t really mind at all! They continually tell themselves: “It’s only a venial sin! I won’t go to Hell for that!” Yet they forget—or don’t really care about—the fact that all sin, venial or mortal, is the greatest evil in the world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … [venial sin] is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke; My Catholic Faith, Bishop Morrow, STD).
In his Summa Theologica (Ia-IIae, q.88, art.3), addressing the question whether or not venial sin disposes a person to mortal sin, St. Thomas Aquinas says the following: “The Book of Ecclesiasticus (19:1) says, ‘He who spurns little things will fall little by little.’ Now, he who commits venial sins seems to spurn little things. Therefore, he is little by little disposed toward falling totally through mortal sin.” St. Thomas then goes on to say that venial sin may dispose the sinner to commit mortal sin, not by its nature (for it is generically different from mortal sin), but by its consequences in the soul. For venial sin may accustom the soul to disorder. Or, by its own disorder, venial sin may weaken and remove from the soul some special barrier which kept out mortal sin. That is a simplified explanation of St. Thomas’ more technical wording which follows below:
“A venial sin is able to dispose someone, as a sort of consequence, toward a sin that is mortal on the part of that person. For when a disposition or habit is strengthened through repeated acts of venial sin, the avid desire to sin grows to such an extent that the one who sins will fix his own end in the venial sin. For anyone who has a habit is such that, insofar as he has the habit, his goal is to operate in accordance with the habit. And so by committing many venial sins, he will be disposed toward a mortal sin. In the second way, a human action disposes the person toward something by removing an obstacle. And in this sense, a sin that is venial by its genus, can dispose someone towards a sin that is mortal by its genus.” (St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, Ia-IIae, q.88, art.3).
The lukewarm person’s soul is flooded with venial sins—for that is one of the chief characteristics of a lukewarm soul. Fr. Faber, in his book Growth in Holiness, has a chapter dedicated to lukewarmness, in which he writes (this is greatly edited for brevity): “The diseases and evils of the body are in a great degree typical of the miseries and misfortunes of the soul. If we seek the correlative of lukewarmness, we shall find it in blindness. It is a blindness which does not know even its own self, and does not suspect that it is blind … This blindness is owing principally to three causes: (1) the frequency of venial sins; (2) habitual dissipation of mind and (3) surrendering to the ruling passion of the person.
“The immediate results of this blindness are three: (1) Our conscience becomes untrue; (2) Our bad instincts grow stronger and lead us to avoid anything which will restore truth to the conscience. Thus they make us shrink from anything like vigorous spiritual direction. Our blind conscience tells us we must be moderate in everything, but of all things amazingly moderate in the love of God. So in hearing sermons, reading books, cultivating acquaintances, patronizing works of mercy, it draws back from everything that is likely to come too near or hit too hard. This is the second result of this blindness, which makes the cure still less likely; (3) Out of these two preceding results flows a third, which is a profane use of the Sacraments. To go to Holy Communion when we are physically drowsy, yawning and half asleep, or to make our general confession half stupefied as though drugged, would be fair types of the way in which we morally use the Sacraments. Thus frequent or even daily Communion seems to have only a negative effect upon us. We do not know how bad it might be without it; and that is all. Weekly confession gives us no additional power over our commonest imperfections. Matters look as if they had come to a standstill, as if there were any such phase of the spiritual life. But no! We are blind men, whose faces have been turned unwittingly!
“It is of the greatest practical usefulness, in this matter of lukewarmness, to have a thorough acquaintance with the symptoms by which the insidious disease allows itself to be detected. These are seven in number: (1) The first symptom is a great ease in omitting our exercises of piety, which is the exact contradictory of fervor; (2) We are not only easy in omitting exercises of piety, we are negligent in those which we do perform. We care more about the fact of going through them, than the manner or the spirit of it; (3) The soul feels not altogether right with God. It does not exactly know what is wrong; but it is sure all is not right; (4) an habitual acting without any intention at all, good, bad or indifferent; (5) a carelessness or neglect about forming habits of virtue; (6) a contempt of little things and of daily opportunities; (7) thinking rather of the good we have done than of the good we have left undone, resting on the past rather than striving for the future, loving to look at people below us rather than people above us. The lukewarm are ever calculating the sacrifices they have made, and fondly realizing to themselves the glory of their self-devotion. When these signs are observed, we can recognize in them the alarming symptoms of tepidity”
“I fear this evil of lukewarmness is very common, and that at this moment it is gnawing the life out of many souls who suspect not its presence there. It is a great grace, a prophecy of a miraculous cure, to find out that we are lukewarm; but we are lost if we do not act with vigor the moment we make this frightening discovery. It is like going to sleep in the snow, almost a pleasant tingling feeling at the first, and then—lost forever” (Fr. Faber, in his book Growth in Holiness).
Fr. Tanquerey, in his book The Spiritual Life, adds: “Lukewarmness is a spiritual malady that may attack beginners or even perfect souls, but which manifests itself especially in the course of the Illuminative Way (those making spiritual progress). It presupposes, in fact, that a soul has already reached a certain degree of fervor, and that it gradually allows itself to become lax. Lukewarmness consists in a sort of spiritual languor which saps the energies of the will, inspires one with a horror for effort and thus leads to the decline of the Christian life. It is a kind of sluggishness, a species of torpor which, though not death as yet, insensibly leads to it, through a gradual weakening of our moral forces. One may compare it to those slow-working diseases, such as consumption, which little by little prey upon some vital organ.
“There are two chief causes: (1) a defective spiritual nourishment, and (2) the entry into the soul of some noxious germ. To live and grow, our soul needs wholesome spiritual food. Now, the soul is nourished by the various spiritual exercises, that is, meditation, devout reading, prayer, examinations of conscience, the fulfillment of the duties of state, exercise in the practice of the virtues—all of which keep it in communion with God, the Source of spiritual life. Therefore, if these exercises are performed with negligence, with voluntary distractions, without efforts to react against routine or sluggishness, the soul is deprived of many graces, is poorly nourished, and becomes weak and incapable of practicing the virtues of the Christian life in face of even little difficulties.”
The lukewarm soul is the devil’s Paradise God’s Hell. The lukewarm soul is the kind of ‘student’ the devil loves to enroll in his school of reprobates. Whereas God is sickened by the lukewarm soul and is only too ready to give it an “F” grade and expel it from His school of saints. “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot! But, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). As Fr. Faber said—and which is corroborated by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange—most souls ARE LUKEWARM and blind to that fact! They are ‘dream students’ for the devil—as Our Lord says: “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14)—and lukewarmness is a spiritual blindness: blind towards the inspirations of God and blind towards the work of the devil. Thus, the devil finds it very easy to maintain them in a multitude of venial sins, to have them addicted to those sins, and to continually make them grow in venial sins—which will thus drain the strength of the soul for the inevitable future mortal sins towards which the devil is leading them, little by little—all the while reassuring them that these venial sins don’t matter, because they won’t go to Hell because of them!
The Fervent Catholic
This kind of Catholic presents the devil with many difficulties—yet it is a soul that the devil greatly prizes and would dearly love to capture and chain to sin. His work with such a soul is much more labor intensive. Unlike the “Couldn’t-Care-Less Catholic” who doesn’t need much encouragement to sin mortally, or the “Lukewarm Catholic” who binges on venial sins and occasionally mortal sins, the “Fervent Catholic” sincerely tries to avoid all sin. How then does the devil proceed with such a soul?
For the devil, a fervent soul is lagging way too far behind on the “March to Hell”! However, care must be taken not to alert the fervent soul to the devil’s presence and operation. If the devil finds himself skipping along with the “Couldn’t-Care-Less Catholic” and advancing little by little with the “Lukewarm Catholic”, then he has to slow down even more for the “Fervent Catholic” and proceed “barely and hardly”, until a time when he start to introduce a bundle of ‘petty’ venial sins that barely arouse suspicion and hardly any remorse. The initial ‘sins’ that they devil may have them ‘fall’ into, will be mere imperfections and not even sins. Once the soul is a peace with its imperfections and neglects to battle against them and correct them, then the time has come to start introducing more and more venial sins of a very low grade. The goal is to reduce the fervent Catholic to the level of the lukewarm Catholic. In this, the devil may enlist the unwitting help of certain lukewarm acquaintances that the fervent Catholic has, who, by example or advice or sympathy, will help in breaching and crumbling the wall of fervor that to some extent protects the soul. In his book, The Discerning of Spirits, Fr. Barrielle writes: “Those who reassure the sinner in his sins, also play the game of the devil.”
No “One-Size-Fits-All” Tactics
So, as you can readily see from the above, the devil never uses a “one-size-fits-all” approach to temptation and type of sin. His temptations and choices of sin are all “tailor-made” to fit each and every soul. He has you measured out better than you have measured yourself! If it wasn’t for God’s merciful and providential intervention, then we would all be “toast” by now! Yet even with God’s intervention, most souls—sadly—are lost! Why? There is no simple and “one-size-fits-all” answer to that, but among the chief reasons are: (1) a general lack of seriousness about the spiritual life, which leads to (2) neglect of spiritual exercises (not just prayer and penance, but spiritual reading, meditation, daily examination of conscience, systematic cultivation of virtues, extra Masses, frequent confession, spiritual direction, etc.), which, in turn, inevitably breeds (3) lukewarmness with its blind conscience and weak will, and that paves the way for (4) mortal sin—at first the teeny-weeny mortal sins that barely register as mortal sins, but are sufficient to damn a soul.
The previous two articles (see below) covered the initial 20 “D” tactics of the Devil:
(01) DISTRACTION; (02) DISCUSSION, DEBATE & DIALECTICS; (03) DECEPTION; (04) DEGLAMORIZATION; (05) DISLIKE; (06) DISTANCING; (07) DISABLE & DISARM; (08) DISTURBANCE; (09) DIFFERENCES and DISAGREEMENTS; (10) DICHOTOMY and DIVISION; (11) DISCREDITING; (12) DETRACTION, DEFAMATION, DISTORTION and DISGRACE; (13) DISAPPOINTMENT, DISENCHANTMENT & DISILLUSIONMENT; (14) DISGUST and DISDAIN; (15) DOUBT & DISTRUST; (16) DISBELIEF; (17) DANGLE & DAZZLE; (18) DELIGHT and DELUSION; (19) DAYDREAMS; (20) DESIRING DREAMS.
This―the third of our articles―continues the demonic “D” trend, which seek to push the soul even deeper into Satan’s swamp.
(21) DABBLE and DIP
We have probably been there, seen it and done it—we walk into a supermarket, they have a display food counter, they offer us a little sample to taste, and after taking a nibble, we end up buying an item that we never had the intention of buying when we first walked through the doors. In a similar way, the devil—after displaying to us the path or step that he would like us to take—suggests a “dabble or dip” solution for our dilemma. Hey! Tasting the proverbial “sausage on a stick” in the supermarket does not oblige you to buy a whole pack of sausages! Come on! It’s just a tasting session with no obligation to buy!—and the devil uses a similar ‘sales pitch’ for his wares. He would call it ‘harmless’ flirting with his suggestion! Be wary! Beware!
Most people are lukewarm—in which of the symptoms is being a peace with a certain variety and number of venial sins. Each person has their ‘pet’ venial sins, in which they indulge with little or no remorse of conscience. The general attitude is one of―“This won’t send me to Hell! So I’ll do it! Isn’t that what confession is for? Besides, even the Bible says something like: ‘The just man sins seven times a day’—so I’m just getting my daily quota in!” Many in world will not want to overcome these temptations, they actually don’t mind these temptations and are willing to play with them! It is of such souls as these Our Lord speaks when He says: “He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.” (John 12:40).
The devil willingly urges us along this path—adding his own “two-cents-worth” to the rationalizing: “Hey! This is no big deal at all! You can always confess it afterwards! Besides, just look at all the good that you do! And you’re nowhere near as bad Mr. X, or Mrs. Y or A, B, C, D, etc. What’s the harm in (and then he adds the thing he wants you to do)? Anyway, just a little never harmed anyone!” etc., etc.
The most effective way to destroy permanently is to weaken and knock down a little at a time—for in that way most people will protest very little at what is being done. Look at the moral destruction—“little by little”—in one lifetime on just the TV or the movies. From the ‘out-cry’ over the first screen kiss, to rampant pornography and unnatural vice that is watched by many today. Very little protest was made—because it was done little by little. You are more likely to cooperate with temptation in little things than in grave things. The devil wants to create a habit of cooperation in you—how will he do that? By getting you to “dip your toe” into waters that are lukewarm and which do not cause a shock as scalding hot ice-cold waters would do. Most organizations will tell you that most of financial support they get comes from lots of little donations—the devil gets his contributions the same way—by lots of little sins, many or even hundreds of times a day. He entices us to “just dip the big toe in the water” of venial sin, just “dabble a little” and everything will be okay!
Our Lady, speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, said: “I remind you, that the demons seek to induce souls to swallow these poisonous gnats of venial sins, in order that, little by little, after being accustomed to those that seem insignificant, they may arrive at swallowing the camels of the more serious sins!”
The “Dip and Dabble” of Intemperance
One area that seems harmless to everyone is the domain of food and drink. Everyone likes to eat and drink! Yet we must not forget that gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins! Intemperance with food and drink, a lack of mortification about what we eat and drink. This immoderation quickly spills over into other areas, because by not being able to say “NO!” to food and drink, ends up weakening our will, which loses its ‘muscle’ so to speak.
► Intemperance weakens the will; it renders us incapable of resisting temptation and avoiding sin, just as a ship too heavily laden cannot outride a storm. It also destroys a man’s reputation; Noe, when drunk with wine, became an object of derision to his own son. Thus a man, when inebriated by alcohol, makes a fool of himself, talks nonsense and is mocked even by children. The Lacedemonians used to show drunken Helots to young people that they might learn to despise this degrading vice.
► Intemperance leads to all kinds of sins, to immorality and godlessness. As in a morass all manner of weeds grow rapidly and flourish, so evil lusts grow and flourish in an over-fed body. Those who eat and drink immoderately waste their money, feel disinclined to prayer at night on account of the inertia produced by excess, and, in the morning because of headache and sensations of discomfort; they miss Mass on Sundays, fail to pray in the morning, live in a moody discord with their families, and fall into sins of impurity of thought, desire, word and action.
Dipping and Dabbling in the kitchen is easily done—with “comfort foods” readily available. The growing rate of obesity in the USA and the world shows the truth of this. You don’t become obese without frequently dabbling in kitchen and dipping into this food and that dish.
(22) DEVIATE
Fr. Amorth writes: “In order to make them deviate, the devil used two expedients with Adam and Eve, and he uses them also with us. Above all, he leads them to deny what God has imposed. For this the serpent says to Eve: “You will not die” (Genesis 3:4). He acts in the same way with us, when he makes us doubt the existence of sin and Hell and paradise and of their eternity; or, for example, as in our times, where euthanasia and abortion are passed off as signs of humanity’s progress. The second subterfuge is to make evil appear good, a gain rather than a loss. The serpent proceeds: “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). The devil also makes evil appear interesting, positive, and beautiful.”
Fr. Barrielle also points out the opposite kind of deviation from the true path, whereby the devil, seeing that we are making progress in the ways, or even, in rare cases, have been given mystical graces by God, tries to make us doubt and deviate from that path—even using good and holy men and women as unwitting instruments for his plans― “When the devil acts, it is either by himself or through one of his henchmen―bad counsel, or bad example” writes Fr. Barrielle. He adds: “The learned and holy priest, Gerson, we saw, despised the visions of St. Catherine of Siena and wanted the Council of Constance to condemn all her revelations and visions and to order that no one speak any more about them. At the time of St. Teresa of Avila, all the learned people gathered together to discuss her visions and unanimously concluded that these favors were not from God. They even sent a delegation to notify her that she had been deceived by the devil, and that she take every means to leave this path, which they asserted was just an illusion.
“One of the greatest difficulties encountered by the efforts to spread the Sacred Heart devotion was the fact that Our Lord made use of a humble Visitation sister to ask for the institution of this feast, the first Fridays of the month, the consecration, etc.
“Yet in both the Old and the New Testaments, ineffable relations of God with certain men are often recounted. It is true that one must be careful about being too credulous. St. Peter, in his second epistle, after having recalled the vision of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, gives a grand rule which should be the guideline for all apparitions or extraordinary events: Sed habemus firmiorem propheticum sermonem. In other words, we have, above all private revelation, the hierarchical and official Church, with the Deposit of the Faith. This should be the yardstick used in examining whether a vision is from God or not. Beware, as soon as the passions become mixed‑up, many want to make you believe that the authentic hierarchy has spoken, while it is perhaps only a member of the hierarchy who may have, in fact, exceeded his powers. The Pope, speaking ex cathedra, is infallible. A bishop, even while having the role of the hierarchy in his diocese, is not necessarily infallible. The Holy Office, which twice condemned Padre Pio, has now allowed the introduction of his process of beatification.
“In other words, true obedience and the rule of Faith are the two rules used to judge whether a vision is true or not. With respect to personal miraculous graces, it will often be impossible to obtain a certitude, and the Church, while favoring public acts of devotion, pilgrimages, etc., avoids definitive pronouncements in such events. We may give general rules in regard to mysticism: God is master! He acts as He pleases. The rules of discernment of St. Ignatius help us to act prudently in all cases (ascetical, ordinary mystical, and extraordinary mystical). One must not desire these miraculous states, as they are often accompanied by terrible trials. If the soul is not detached from all, these graces could be harmful.” (Fr. Barrielle, The Discerning of Spirits).
Whatever the area of deviation may be—that is to say, either in making you deviate from the right path by suggesting you START DOING something, or by suggesting you STOP DOING something—whether it be done by the devil acting alone through planting suggestions in your imagination, or through other people (even good and well-intentioned people) doing his work for him or with him (in ignorance, thinking they are doing something good and right)—whatever the case may be, as Fr. Barrielle rightly points out above, “true obedience and the rule of Faith are the two rules used to judge” in discerning what to do and in judging which is the right path. That is why it is important to have a good and solid spiritual director—which is easier said than done, since St. Teresa and St. Francis de Sales (among many others) say that such a person is only one-in-a-thousand! St. Teresa of Avila complains in her book about the many poor spiritual directors who gave her bad advice on many occasions.
This stage—the stage of deviation—is the last bus-stop at which we can get off the ‘bus of temptation’ before it enters the point of no return—that is to say, the actual committing of sin. For once we decide to deviate from the right path—even though we have not yet committed the sin by actual word or deed, we have already committed it in our minds or in our thought or judgment to go ahead with it. If we refuse to get off the bus, then we have implicitly said “YES!” to the temptation and are only waiting for the next bus-stop when we can off the bust and do the deed.
(23) DOWNPLAY and DEVALUE and DISREGARD the seriousness of sin.
To succeed in making stay on-board the ‘bus of temptation’, the devil needs to downplay and devalue the seriousness of sin and encourage you to disregard it as being “no big thing”. Fr. Barrielle writes: “The devil says: ‘Do not worry yourself, God is good! Everybody does it! Just take a look around, it is not worth talking to your confessor about it. It doesn’t concern him. You will confess it on your death bed! You will always have enough time! You are still young!’ etc. … He presents to the sinner more vivid pleasures, and sensible delectation. He represents to him the objects of sin as the greatest happiness, so that he will plunge deeper and deeper into it with all the more security and joy, just as if it were something normal and indispensable: ‘The whole world is doing it!’ … If the devil feels that they want to do ‘like everyone else,’ then the demons will be let loose. As hard as they may try not to sin, the devil will get his way and lead them into a sinful life ...Those Christians and religious who have decided not to correct their venial sins. The devil reassures one in tepidity, and it is very dangerous for their salvation … The good angel, on the contrary, sends a sting. He stirs one’s conscience, this prevents the sinner from being complacent: he uses rational reproaches. He shows him the consequences of sin … The devil makes him reject these thoughts! The enemy proposes certain illusory delights, causing them to imagine sensual pleasures and enjoyments, the more effectively to keep them under the sway of their vicious and sinful course” (Fr. Barrielle, The Discerning of Spirits).
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist in Rome, said in an interview: “Officially, the Church has always affirmed the existence of Satan and his negative influence, but in practice, the clergy have been influenced by theories which question the existence of Satan. Some time ago, a researcher carried out an enquiry among Catholic priests, and the results showed that two thirds accepted, in theory, traditional doctrine about the Devil, but that they rejected the practical consequences” (Fr. Amorth, interviewed by Messenger of St. Anthony magazine, May 10th, 2003).
(24) DEFILE you with sin
Fr. Barrielle writes that the devil will continue assailing us and will say to us: “It is useless! I will get you once again ... give in and I will leave you alone!” The devil wants us to accept the ‘contract’ and will continually wave it in front of our noses. He will make some changes to the ‘contract’ to favor us, if he sees that we refuse to ‘sign’ to sin. Fr. Barrielle goes on to say: “If you consent and take pleasure in these evil delectations, you sin, because the consent comes from yourself … Often the devil makes us believe that we have sinned when, in fact, we have not only not consented, but gained merit by resisting him.” Let us then look at this crucial point of giving our consent or withholding our consent.
It is now up to you to make a definite decision by either approving or rejecting the evil suggested to you. This is a necessity from which you cannot escape; you must decide one way or the other. You are not free to avoid making a decision.
Deciding For The Evil
Let us suppose that you weaken in your resistance and decide in favor of the forbidden thing, by giving your approval to it, or being delighted with the delectation you feel, or by willfully fostering the evil thought, fancy, or desire that came to you, or finally, by carrying out in action what is suggested to you by the temptation. What is the result in this case? The instant your will gives its approval or consent — and not before — you contract the guilt of sin.
This brings us to a point that many people are in the habit of overlooking completely: All sin, no matter what its name, is committed interiorly by the mind and the will, or “in the heart,” as the common expression is, independently of any outward action or deed. An outward action is not necessary for the contracting of the guilt of sin, any more than such an action is necessary for the gaining of merit. All the conscious interior operations of the soul — that is, all the thoughts, fancies, and desires that a man entertains knowingly and willingly — are so many acts before God; and these are either sinful or virtuous accordingly as they are either contrary to, or in keeping with, the law of God. The essence of a sin, therefore, consists, not in an outward had action, but in the deliberate adherence of the will to what is recognized as forbidden by the divine law.
This very important truth is taught with great emphasis by our divine Savior. “You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you, that everyone that shall look on a woman to lust after her, path already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28). “The things which come out from a man, they defile a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man” (Mark 7:20-23).
Thus, if you were to muse knowingly and willfully on some unchaste representation, or paint in your imagination pictures of some impure deed or scene, or entertain the desire to carry out some forbidden action, or devise plans for being revenged on one who has injured you, and the like, you would thereby contract the guilt of sin before God, even though you did not so much as take a single step or move a finger to carry out in deed what you had pictured in your mind. You may not have spoken a word to reveal your thoughts, nor made a gesture to betray your desires; yet at the very instant your will gave its approval or consent to the evil thought or desire, you rendered yourself guilty of an act of sin “in your heart.”
From this it is clear that it is possible for a man to commit countless sins and very grievous ones at that — all day long in the secret recesses of his heart (as also it is possible to make most perfect acts of virtue), unknown indeed to his fellowmen and unsuspected by them, but clearly known to God, who searches the inmost folds of the heart and before whom no concealment of evil is possible. In His sight, every thought, every fancy of the imagination, every desire that a man conceives consciously, is an act either good or bad, according to the relation in which it stands to the divine law and the intention that accompanies it. For each and every such act, an account will be demanded of the soul in its judgment after death.
We will end with Fr. Tanquerey’s very clear explanation of the phases of temptation and the varying degrees of culpability that result from how we deal with or fail to deal with the temptation.
Three Strikes and You’re Out!
The say “it comes in threes!” This is true for the general division of temptation, you could them “the three waves of temptations” and it is also true for the three conditions that are required for a sin to be mortal. According to the traditional doctrine, as expounded by St. Augustine, there are three different phases in temptation: suggestion, pleasure and consent.
(a) SUGGESTION consists in the proposal of some evil. Our imagination or our mind represent to us in a more or less vivid manner the attraction of the forbidden fruit; at times this representation is most alluring, holds its ground tenaciously and becomes a sort of obsession. No matter how dangerous such a suggestion may be, it does not constitute a sin, provided that we have not provoked it ourselves, and do not consent to it. There is sin only when the will yields consent.
(b) PLEASURE follows the suggestion. Instinctively our lower tendencies are drawn towards the suggested evil and a certain pleasure is experienced. “Many a time it happens,” says St. Francis de Sales “that the inferior part of the soul takes pleasure in the temptation, without there having been consent, nay against the soul’s superior part. This is the warfare which the Apostle St. Paul describes when he says his flesh wars against his spirit.”
This pleasure does not, as long as the will refuses to consent to it, constitute a sin; yet it is a danger, since the will finds itself thus solicited to yield consent. The question then is: will it yield or not?
(c) If THE WILL WITHHOLDS ACQUIESCENCE, combats the temptation, and repels it, it has scored a success and performed a highly meritorious act. If, on the contrary, THE WILL DELIGHTS IN THE PLEASURE, willingly enjoys it and consents to it, the sin is committed.
The Three Conditions That Make a Sin Mortal
(1) First of all the thought, word, action or omission must be of a grave (serious) nature
(2) Secondly, AT THE TIME YOU COMMIT THE SIN, you must be aware that what you are about to think, say, do or not do is actually serious or grave.
(3) Thirdly, there must be FULL CONSENT OR AGREEMENT OR DESIRE to think, say, do or not do the thing that is serious or grave.
The Signs of Consent
The better to explain this important point, let us see what are the signs of lack of consent, imperfect consent, and perfect consent.
(a) NO SIN AT ALL: We may judge that THERE HAS BEEN NO CONSENT, if in spite of the suggestion and the instinctive pleasure accompanying it, we experience disgust, chagrin at seeing ourselves thus tempted; if we struggle so as not to be overcome; if we hold the proposed evil in horror; especially if we turn to God in prayer.
(b) VENIAL SIN OR PERHAPS MORTAL SIN: We may be CULPABLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE TEMPTATION IN ITS CAUSE, when we perform an action which we could avoid, foreseeing that it will be to us a source of temptation:
“If I know,” says St. Francis de Sales, “some certain conversation leads me to temptation and to a fall, and I do voluntarily indulge therein, I am, doubtless, culpable of all the temptations that shall arise.”
Yet, one is guilty only to the extent of one’s prevision, and if this is but vague and indistinct, the guilt is lessened in proportion. If the temptation is to mortal sin, then our guilt is greater. If the temptation is to venial sin, then our guilt is venial.
(c) VENIAL SIN: One may consider CONSENT TO BE IMPERFECT:
(i) When one does not repulse the temptation as soon as its dangerous character is perceived. There is then a fault against prudence, which without being grave puts us in the danger of consenting to the temptation.
(ii) When one momentarily hesitates. One would fain relish somewhat the forbidden pleasure, but one is loath to offend God, that is, after a moment’s hesitation, one repels the temptation. Here again there is a venial fault of imprudence.
(iii) If temptation is resisted in a half‑hearted way. One does resist, but in a feeble, indolent manner, a half‑resistance which implies a half‑consent, hence a venial fault.
(d) MORTAL or VENIAL SIN: It is said that CONSENT IS FULL AND ENTIRE, when the will, weakened by first concessions, lets itself be drawn to taste willingly the sinful pleasure, despite the protests of conscience, which recognizes the evil. In such case, if the matter be grievous, the sin is mortal; it is a sin of thought or “morose delectation,” as theologians call it. If to the thought is added desire, the fault is graver still. Lastly, if from desire one passes on to the act, or at least to the quest and pursuit of means adapted to the execution of one’s designs, then there is a sin of action.
In the different cases we have explained, doubts arise at times regarding the consent or half‑consent given. Then we must make a distinction between the delicate and the lax conscience; when it is question of the former, one may rule out consent, for the person is not in the habit of yielding consent, and if he had consented in this particular case he would know it. When it is question of the latter, the presumption is that the person has given full consent, for if he had not, his soul would not be troubled.
(25) DOWNPLAY, DEVALUE & DISREGARD
After sin has been committed, the devil will at first continue playing the same tune he played before you sinned—that is to say the tune of downplaying, devaluing and disregarding the seriousness of the sin, regardless of whether you sinned mortally or venially—for sin is the weakening and destructive poison he wants to get into your soul—the more the better. If you are shocked by sin, then he is less likely to succeed in that endeavor.
Once you have committed the sin—whether mortal or venial—the next step will depend upon what kind of person you are: fervent, lukewarm or sinful—for each of those categories will have a different emotional reaction to having sinned. The guiding principle, or goal, for the devil is to keep you in sin for long enough to allow you to become less agitated and less concerned about that sin in particular and/or sin in general. As the saying goes: “You cannot keep clothes for long in a smoky room without them taking-on the smell of smoke.” Similarly, the devil knows that the longer he can keep you in sin, then the more sinful you become overall—as you allow the sin to linger, stick and penetrate. However, everyone is different in how they view sin—and so the devil has to adapt to our perceptions of sin, to our feelings about sin, and to the emotions we experience upon having sinned.
“Couldn’t-Care-Less” Mortal Sin Catholic
In the careless or “couldn’t care less” sinner, the devil has most of work already accomplished—even in cases of mortal sin—and he only has to apply the finishing touches. Fr. Barrielle, in his book, The Discerning of Spirits, writes: “The devil says: ‘Do not worry yourself, God is good! Everybody does it! Just take a look around, it is not worth talking to your confessor about it. It doesn’t concern him. You will confess it on your death bed! You will always have enough time! You are still young!’ etc. … He presents to the sinner more vivid pleasures, and sensible delectation. He represents to him the objects of sin as the greatest happiness, so that he will plunge deeper and deeper into it with all the more security and joy, just as if it were something normal and indispensable: ‘The whole world is doing it!’ … Think of the horror at the thought of not appearing like the rest of the world, which has persuaded so many great Christians to dishonor themselves by impure fashions! If the devil feels that they want to do ‘like everyone else’, then the demons will be let loose. As hard as they may try not to sin, the devil will get his way and lead them into a sinful life.”
The “couldn’t care less” Catholic basically has no problem with sin—even some mortal sins—for he views it all like a “car-wash”, whereby he sins as much as he wants throughout the week and then makes his “car-wash-confession” before going to Holy Communion on Sunday. “Hey! That’s what confession is there for!” such a Catholic says, “God is good and merciful, so why worry?” Yet such a Catholic forgets the infallible words of Holy Scripture and the words of Our Lord too: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) … “Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). However, such a Catholic rarely reads Scripture or any spiritual book—so their knowledge of these things is almost non-existent. To them we could apply the words of Our Lord: “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14).
The Tepid, Torpid, Lukewarm Venial Sin Catholic
Next we have the tepid, torpid, apathetic, lukewarm Catholic—all the adjectives more or less mean the same thing—a Catholic who, though he or she might shy away from mortal sin, are nevertheless plagued by venial sin and don’t really mind at all! They continually tell themselves: “It’s only a venial sin! I won’t go to Hell for that!” Yet they forget—or don’t really care about—the fact that all sin, venial or mortal, is the greatest evil in the world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … [venial sin] is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke; My Catholic Faith, Bishop Morrow, STD).
In his Summa Theologica (Ia-IIae, q.88, art.3), addressing the question whether or not venial sin disposes a person to mortal sin, St. Thomas Aquinas says the following: “The Book of Ecclesiasticus (19:1) says, ‘He who spurns little things will fall little by little.’ Now, he who commits venial sins seems to spurn little things. Therefore, he is little by little disposed toward falling totally through mortal sin.” St. Thomas then goes on to say that venial sin may dispose the sinner to commit mortal sin, not by its nature (for it is generically different from mortal sin), but by its consequences in the soul. For venial sin may accustom the soul to disorder. Or, by its own disorder, venial sin may weaken and remove from the soul some special barrier which kept out mortal sin. That is a simplified explanation of St. Thomas’ more technical wording which follows below:
“A venial sin is able to dispose someone, as a sort of consequence, toward a sin that is mortal on the part of that person. For when a disposition or habit is strengthened through repeated acts of venial sin, the avid desire to sin grows to such an extent that the one who sins will fix his own end in the venial sin. For anyone who has a habit is such that, insofar as he has the habit, his goal is to operate in accordance with the habit. And so by committing many venial sins, he will be disposed toward a mortal sin. In the second way, a human action disposes the person toward something by removing an obstacle. And in this sense, a sin that is venial by its genus, can dispose someone towards a sin that is mortal by its genus.” (St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, Ia-IIae, q.88, art.3).
The lukewarm person’s soul is flooded with venial sins—for that is one of the chief characteristics of a lukewarm soul. Fr. Faber, in his book Growth in Holiness, has a chapter dedicated to lukewarmness, in which he writes (this is greatly edited for brevity): “The diseases and evils of the body are in a great degree typical of the miseries and misfortunes of the soul. If we seek the correlative of lukewarmness, we shall find it in blindness. It is a blindness which does not know even its own self, and does not suspect that it is blind … This blindness is owing principally to three causes: (1) the frequency of venial sins; (2) habitual dissipation of mind and (3) surrendering to the ruling passion of the person.
“The immediate results of this blindness are three: (1) Our conscience becomes untrue; (2) Our bad instincts grow stronger and lead us to avoid anything which will restore truth to the conscience. Thus they make us shrink from anything like vigorous spiritual direction. Our blind conscience tells us we must be moderate in everything, but of all things amazingly moderate in the love of God. So in hearing sermons, reading books, cultivating acquaintances, patronizing works of mercy, it draws back from everything that is likely to come too near or hit too hard. This is the second result of this blindness, which makes the cure still less likely; (3) Out of these two preceding results flows a third, which is a profane use of the Sacraments. To go to Holy Communion when we are physically drowsy, yawning and half asleep, or to make our general confession half stupefied as though drugged, would be fair types of the way in which we morally use the Sacraments. Thus frequent or even daily Communion seems to have only a negative effect upon us. We do not know how bad it might be without it; and that is all. Weekly confession gives us no additional power over our commonest imperfections. Matters look as if they had come to a standstill, as if there were any such phase of the spiritual life. But no! We are blind men, whose faces have been turned unwittingly!
“It is of the greatest practical usefulness, in this matter of lukewarmness, to have a thorough acquaintance with the symptoms by which the insidious disease allows itself to be detected. These are seven in number: (1) The first symptom is a great ease in omitting our exercises of piety, which is the exact contradictory of fervor; (2) We are not only easy in omitting exercises of piety, we are negligent in those which we do perform. We care more about the fact of going through them, than the manner or the spirit of it; (3) The soul feels not altogether right with God. It does not exactly know what is wrong; but it is sure all is not right; (4) an habitual acting without any intention at all, good, bad or indifferent; (5) a carelessness or neglect about forming habits of virtue; (6) a contempt of little things and of daily opportunities; (7) thinking rather of the good we have done than of the good we have left undone, resting on the past rather than striving for the future, loving to look at people below us rather than people above us. The lukewarm are ever calculating the sacrifices they have made, and fondly realizing to themselves the glory of their self-devotion. When these signs are observed, we can recognize in them the alarming symptoms of tepidity”
“I fear this evil of lukewarmness is very common, and that at this moment it is gnawing the life out of many souls who suspect not its presence there. It is a great grace, a prophecy of a miraculous cure, to find out that we are lukewarm; but we are lost if we do not act with vigor the moment we make this frightening discovery. It is like going to sleep in the snow, almost a pleasant tingling feeling at the first, and then—lost forever” (Fr. Faber, in his book Growth in Holiness).
Fr. Tanquerey, in his book The Spiritual Life, adds: “Lukewarmness is a spiritual malady that may attack beginners or even perfect souls, but which manifests itself especially in the course of the Illuminative Way (those making spiritual progress). It presupposes, in fact, that a soul has already reached a certain degree of fervor, and that it gradually allows itself to become lax. Lukewarmness consists in a sort of spiritual languor which saps the energies of the will, inspires one with a horror for effort and thus leads to the decline of the Christian life. It is a kind of sluggishness, a species of torpor which, though not death as yet, insensibly leads to it, through a gradual weakening of our moral forces. One may compare it to those slow-working diseases, such as consumption, which little by little prey upon some vital organ.
“There are two chief causes: (1) a defective spiritual nourishment, and (2) the entry into the soul of some noxious germ. To live and grow, our soul needs wholesome spiritual food. Now, the soul is nourished by the various spiritual exercises, that is, meditation, devout reading, prayer, examinations of conscience, the fulfillment of the duties of state, exercise in the practice of the virtues—all of which keep it in communion with God, the Source of spiritual life. Therefore, if these exercises are performed with negligence, with voluntary distractions, without efforts to react against routine or sluggishness, the soul is deprived of many graces, is poorly nourished, and becomes weak and incapable of practicing the virtues of the Christian life in face of even little difficulties.”
The lukewarm soul is the devil’s Paradise God’s Hell. The lukewarm soul is the kind of ‘student’ the devil loves to enroll in his school of reprobates. Whereas God is sickened by the lukewarm soul and is only too ready to give it an “F” grade and expel it from His school of saints. “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot! But, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). As Fr. Faber said—and which is corroborated by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange—most souls ARE LUKEWARM and blind to that fact! They are ‘dream students’ for the devil—as Our Lord says: “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14)—and lukewarmness is a spiritual blindness: blind towards the inspirations of God and blind towards the work of the devil. Thus, the devil finds it very easy to maintain them in a multitude of venial sins, to have them addicted to those sins, and to continually make them grow in venial sins—which will thus drain the strength of the soul for the inevitable future mortal sins towards which the devil is leading them, little by little—all the while reassuring them that these venial sins don’t matter, because they won’t go to Hell because of them!
The Fervent Catholic
This kind of Catholic presents the devil with many difficulties—yet it is a soul that the devil greatly prizes and would dearly love to capture and chain to sin. His work with such a soul is much more labor intensive. Unlike the “Couldn’t-Care-Less Catholic” who doesn’t need much encouragement to sin mortally, or the “Lukewarm Catholic” who binges on venial sins and occasionally mortal sins, the “Fervent Catholic” sincerely tries to avoid all sin. How then does the devil proceed with such a soul?
For the devil, a fervent soul is lagging way too far behind on the “March to Hell”! However, care must be taken not to alert the fervent soul to the devil’s presence and operation. If the devil finds himself skipping along with the “Couldn’t-Care-Less Catholic” and advancing little by little with the “Lukewarm Catholic”, then he has to slow down even more for the “Fervent Catholic” and proceed “barely and hardly”, until a time when he start to introduce a bundle of ‘petty’ venial sins that barely arouse suspicion and hardly any remorse. The initial ‘sins’ that they devil may have them ‘fall’ into, will be mere imperfections and not even sins. Once the soul is a peace with its imperfections and neglects to battle against them and correct them, then the time has come to start introducing more and more venial sins of a very low grade. The goal is to reduce the fervent Catholic to the level of the lukewarm Catholic. In this, the devil may enlist the unwitting help of certain lukewarm acquaintances that the fervent Catholic has, who, by example or advice or sympathy, will help in breaching and crumbling the wall of fervor that to some extent protects the soul. In his book, The Discerning of Spirits, Fr. Barrielle writes: “Those who reassure the sinner in his sins, also play the game of the devil.”
No “One-Size-Fits-All” Tactics
So, as you can readily see from the above, the devil never uses a “one-size-fits-all” approach to temptation and type of sin. His temptations and choices of sin are all “tailor-made” to fit each and every soul. He has you measured out better than you have measured yourself! If it wasn’t for God’s merciful and providential intervention, then we would all be “toast” by now! Yet even with God’s intervention, most souls—sadly—are lost! Why? There is no simple and “one-size-fits-all” answer to that, but among the chief reasons are: (1) a general lack of seriousness about the spiritual life, which leads to (2) neglect of spiritual exercises (not just prayer and penance, but spiritual reading, meditation, daily examination of conscience, systematic cultivation of virtues, extra Masses, frequent confession, spiritual direction, etc.), which, in turn, inevitably breeds (3) lukewarmness with its blind conscience and weak will, and that paves the way for (4) mortal sin—at first the teeny-weeny mortal sins that barely register as mortal sins, but are sufficient to damn a soul.
Article 7
Ember Friday after the First Sunday of Lent, March 3rd, 2023
The Second Set of 10 D's of the Devil
Ember Friday after the First Sunday of Lent, March 3rd, 2023
The Second Set of 10 D's of the Devil
THE FORTY D’s OF THE DEVIL (Part 2 ― Numbers 11 to 20)
The previous article covered the initial 10 “D” tactics of the Devil:
(01) DISTRACTION: from God and spiritual things. Not all distractions are sinful, for they would often be rejected.
(02) DISCUSSION, DEBATE & DIALECTICS: as with Eve, he wants to draw you into discussion—that is the beginning.
(03) DECEPTION: the devil is the father of lies. Yet his lies are often filled with half-truths. He twists & exaggerates things
(04) DEGLAMORIZE: he wants to tarnish, stain, show in a bad light all that can help your soul remotely or directly
(05) DISLIKE: deglamorization causes dislike of certain aspects of the Faith & certain persons connected to the Faith
(06) DISTANCING: due to dislike you begin distancing from Faith & certain persons
(07) DISABLE & DISARM you of spiritual weapons & exercises (Mass, Communion, confession, prayer, reading, penance)
(08) DISTURBANCE in the soul (emotions, fears, suspicions, etc.) & around you (persecution, setbacks, losses, illness, etc)
(09) DIFFERENCES and DISAGREEMENTS with those you live and work with, which gradually produces …
(10) DICHOTOMY and DIVISION in one or more areas of your life. He wants to divide so that he can conquer.
This article continues the demonic “D” trend, which builds upon the Devils opening moves.
(11) DISAPPOINTMENT, DISENCHANTMENT & DISILLUSIONMENT
As they say: “You cannot leave clothes in a smoky room without them taking on the smell of smoke!” Well, Satan’s negative ‘smoke’ together with his continual use of deceitful “smoke and mirrors” tactics, not to mention the division and disturbance, topped-off with detraction and defamation, cannot but leave a negative effect upon even the strongest of souls. All of that is geared to make you disappointed, which the devil hopes will grow so that you become disenchanted and finally enter the cloud of the disillusioned. We were made for happiness and joy--”Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4). ”Always rejoice!” (1 Thessalonians 5:16).
This is calculated to whittle-away and erode any Christian joy that you may have (may have had). As St. Francis de Sales used to say: “A saint who is sad is indeed a sad saint!” The devil is a killjoy—by his rebellion he has killed his own joy and he does not want anyone to experience joy either. Fr. Barrielle, in Rules for Discerning the Spirits, writes: “As soon as the devil arrives on the scene, he endeavors to rob the soul of its peace and joy. Though he does not always succeed with souls wholly given over to God. He tries to trouble the soul and make it sad ... simply because he himself is eternally sad. This feeling one has of being invaded by sadness is, thus, a way of discerning the devil’s presence … The devil is eternally sad ... he cannot get rid of his sadness. As soon as he comes near you he communicates his sadness without even so much as wanting to do so. This is so much the case, that in the rules for discerning the spirits of the second week, when the devil attempts to tempt a fervent soul, under the appearance of good, one of the signs for recognizing that it is the devil is this sadness that we feel overcoming us. Such is one who, leaving the confessional content, is suddenly struck by sadness. Recognize him who comes near with his sadness! Behold a sad young man: I do not say that he has sinned, but I know that the devil is hovering about him. Beware of these melancholic dreams! One may not realize, but the devil is not far off!” Sadness drains us of much if not all spiritual energy—the devil knows that—and so it is an additional way in which he can disarm and disable us.
It takes a mature and strong spiritual life to avoid being sucked into the devil’s whirlpool of disappointment, disenchantment and disillusionment. Yet if we read very little about the Faith, then we have many false notions about the Faith and we change create or mold the Faith and Christ into a kind of Faith or Christ we think that the Faith and Christ should be, according our tastes, preferences and prejudices. This ignorance on matters of religion is not just a present day issue—it always has been the case as the devil has always distracted mankind from religion by earthly and worldly things—yet it all the more true and dangerous today because there is so much available today with which to distract, and, consequently, the levels of knowledge of the truly important issues of Faith, is still abysmal and salvation threatening (read more here).
If the devil has managed to drag us up this point, into feeling s of disappointment, disenchantment and disillusionment about others and about the Faith, then it shows that we have the wrong expectations of life and a poor knowledge of our Faith. Our Lord is not shocked by the failures and sins of souls—even though they deeply offend Him. For as He Himself says in Scripture: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). He does not say: “The Son of man is come to rub the noses of sinners in their sins and sinfulness!” It is the devil who loves to rub our noses in our sins and sinfulness—thereby further attacking and destroying any joy and hope that may be left in us—but that is not Our Lord’s way. We must not be Pharisaically scandalized at sin—for we are all sinners ourselves—but should try to help each other out of the quagmire of sin onto the path to Heaven.
(12) DISGUST and DISDAIN
The next little step that devil has us make—one that will widen the division and perhaps make it permanent—is to create in our mind a feeling of disgust for what we have seen or heard, and which will make us hold all those persons, places or things in disdain (contempt). Analogically, you could compare it to the devil bending and twisting a plastic ruler. In the stages of disagreement, division, distortion, derision, disappointment, disenchantment and disillusionment, the plastic ruler is twisted and bent into a deformed shape, but it is still in one piece. With disgust and disdain, we can say that the plastic ruler is, at best, still hanging together “by a thread” so to speak, or that it has broken apart into two pieces and will not be salvageable.
If you look up the definition and synonyms for “disgust” you will come up with something like: “a feeling of revulsion or profound disapproval aroused by something unpleasant or offensive”, synonyms: “revulsion, repugnance, aversion, distaste, nausea, abhorrence, loathing, detestation, odium, horror.” These are the sentiments that the devil wants to create in our soul about one or many aspects of the Faith and things and persons connected with the Faith. It doesn’t matter what or who it is—he doesn’t care so much about that as he cares about getting that poison injected into your mind, soul and heart, so that from there it can gradually, “little by little”, in his ‘good’ time, be applied to more and more aspects of the Faith and persons connected with it.
Disdain is another little step that goes further than disgust, being defined as “the feeling that someone or something is unworthy of one’s consideration or respect; worthy of contempt, hatred”, synonyms: “contempt, scorn, scornfulness, contemptuousness, derision, disrespect.”
With all this the devil is getting closer to making you take a major step—all along he is ‘justifying’ your emotions, your ‘partially true’ arguments and line of thinking (to which he has contributed greatly), your disappointment, disenchantment, disillusionment, disgust and disdain—but all of this, even though you have probably sinned in some way through one or all of those sentiments, is still not enough for the devil. He wants a major step, a major break, a major sin—and he is only a couple of steps away from arriving at the door of a major decision on your part. The next step is…
(13) DOUBT and DISTRUST
Doubt is a subtle but powerful force in pushing away from something. Doubt is defined as ”calling into question the truth or dependability of something or someone; to be uncertain or to lack confidence in something or someone.” Once that happens, you are not far away from walking away from something or someone—and that is what the devil wants, that is what he has been building towards, to undermine, to weaken, to chip-away at, to erode and ultimately destroy your confidence in any or all of these things: God, Our Lord, Our Lady, the angels and saints, the teachings of the Faith, the Church, the clergy and religious, other Catholics, etc. It doesn’t matter which brick in the wall he manages to pull-out first—he knows that just one removed brick implicitly weakens the whole structure and that more bricks of doubt will follow sooner or later.
Even large trees can succumb to unseen fungus. It’s the same with faith. If we let doubt grow, it can rot spiritual roots until we topple. When this fungus attacks, the effects are not seen for some years. However, the fungus gradually rots the roots of those beautiful trees, and they begin to die. The leaves turn yellow and fall. Then the trunk and branches dry up, and the trees must be cut down. Like the fungus that enters these trees, doubts can invade our thoughts. If we let them grow, over time they can affect our roots and rot our foundation of faith until we too may be cut down. So-called ‘friends’ can introduce doubt by the things they say or insinuate. Internet sites can generate doubt by presenting information out of context. But doubts especially intensify when we ourselves, feeling abandoned or overwhelmed, question the burdens we bear—especially in light of the steps outlined above, through which the devil has taken us.
St. Peter—one of Our Lord’s three favorites (James and John being the other two)—fell into doubt and consequently fell into deep waters! ”And they seeing Jesus walk upon the sea, were troubled, saying: ‘It is an apparition!’ And they cried out for fear. And immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying: ‘Be of good heart! It is I, fear ye not!’ And Peter, making answer, said: ‘Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come to Thee upon the waters!’ And Jesus said: ‘Come!’ And Peter going down out of the boat, walked upon the water to come to Jesus. But seeing the wind strong, he was afraid: and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying: ‘Lord, save me!’ And immediately Jesus stretching forth His hand took hold of him, and said to him: ‘O thou of little faith! Why didst thou doubt?’” (Matthew 14:26-31). Just as wind was strong, so too are the arguments of the devil. We start to doubt, then we start to fear, and when we area afraid, we are only a short distance from sinking beneath the waves of disbelief.
Another doubter was St. Thomas—from whom we get the label “Doubting Thomas”! Thomas doubted his fellow Apostles when they told him that they had seen Jesus. Thomas doubted and his doubts immediately produced disbelief. ”Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him: ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them: ‘Unless I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe!’ And after eight days again His disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Jesus cometh, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said to Thomas: ‘Put in thy finger here, and see My hands; and bring here thy hand, and put it into My side; and be not faithless, but believing!’ Thomas answered, and said to Him: ‘My Lord, and my God!’ Jesus said to him: ‘Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed! Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed!’” (John 20:24-29).
After His resurrection, Jesus also rebuked the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, who were also doubters: “Jesus said to them: ‘O foolish, and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken!’” (Luke 24:25).
All of them, St. Peter, St. Thomas and the two disciples of Jesus, are rebuked by Jesus for doubting—we lesser mortals are no different and we should fight against the seeds of doubt that the devil will doubtlessly seek to plant in our minds until the day we die—and especially on our deathbed!
(14) DISBELIEF
Disbelief is the disease of the day—the disease of our day! Disbelief is defined as ”inability or refusal to accept that something is true or real.” So many Catholics are losing or have already lost their Faith. Disbelief does not strike like lightning—it has been prepared by many little steps, and is the result of years of erosion, like the fungus eating away at the tree that was mentioned above. As Fr. Barrielle points out in book Rules for Discerning the Spirits, ”St. Bernard wrote: Nemo repente fit pessimus. “Nobody becomes suddenly bad.” We sometimes hear of priests falling, of great, exemplary Christians falling, etc. Know that it has not happened all of a sudden. For a long time, they have played with the devil!”
Holy Scripture tells us that we cannot please God without Faith, that is to say by not believing God or in God: “Without Faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God, must believe that He exists, and is a rewarder to them that seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). To the Jews, Jesus said: “You also have seen Me, and you believe not! … You shall die in your sins! For if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sin! … If I say the truth, you believe Me not!” (John 6:36; 8:24, 45). Speaking of our times, Our Lord adds: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). The answer of course is “No!”—because of the so-called “Minor Apostasy” and “Great Apostasy” that will take place according to numerous prophecies. As Our Lady of La Salette warned: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell. Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls. Evil books will be abundant on Earth and the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God.”
Such will be the level of disbelief brought about by the “little by little” steps of the devil. All those little steps are meant to deceive, disrupt, disturb and destabilize our souls, so that we take on board the plan the devil has lined-up for us!
(15) DAZZLE and DANGLE
The devil is, according to Our Lord, “the prince of this world”—and we see “the prince of this world” trying to dazzle Our Lord during the temptation in the desert, by dangling many kingdoms in front of His eyes, offering them to Him if He would only bow down and adore him! ”The devil took Him up into a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: ‘All these will I give Thee, if falling down Thou wilt adore me!’” (Matthew 4:8-9). As Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased († 2016) chief exorcist of Rome, said: “The occult and Satanism always have roused people’s curiosity. The new experience, new emotions, new power that people acquire in the sects fascinates them; and Satan really does hand out his gifts of wealth, pleasure and success. In the same way that Christ was tempted―’I will give you the whole world if you prostrate yourself before me!’―we also are tempted; and Heaven knows how many fall at Satan’s feet today!” (Interviewed by 30-Daysmagazine).
So many ”fall at Satan’s feet today” because there is more to dazzle and dangle in this luxurious, opulent, materialistic consumer society. Never in the history of mankind has there been so much “stuff” available to the ‘common man’! If the kings of past centuries were to walk into one of today’s supermarkets or malls—they would be speechless and would probably have a heart attack! The average “Joe” of today has plenty of things that would make those kings go green with envy! The world today is the devil’s ‘paradise’, with dazzling things dangling everywhere! Sadly, Catholics (ourselves included) have been dazzled by what the world dangles and that is why they are so lukewarm—being more world orientated than God orientated. They (and we too perhaps to a certain degree) are trying to contradict Our Lord and disprove His statement: “You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24), by shouting back: “Wanna bet? Just watch me and see!”
Even the clergy have fallen for the dazzle, as Our Lady of Good Success and Our Lady of La Salette said would happen: “The secular clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties. They will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain” (Our Lady of Good Success). “The priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, are asking for vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying my Son again! Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops!” and of the laity, she says: “The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … as true Faith has faded and a false light brightens the people … the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin” (Our Lady of La Salette), adding: “O, if men only understood how to appreciate the time given to them and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!” (Our Lady of Good Success).
By being dazzled by what is dangled, their souls are dangling over Hell in danger of being frazzled! With ”the true Faith of the Lord having been forgotten”, they have “become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain” and their ”love of carnal pleasures” makes them ”think of nothing but amusement”, and “this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall” as “vengeance is hanging over their heads.”
(16) DELIGHT and DELUSION
What is delight? The word ”delight” is defined as ”a high degree of gratification or pleasure; extreme satisfaction; something that gives great pleasure.” Isn’t that what we were made for? Well, yes and no! St. Thomas Aquinas makes a distinction between pleasure and joy—pleasure being a bodily delight or sense delight for the body and its senses; whereas joy is a spiritual delight for the soul. Hence Holy Scripture uses the word ”delight” for both physical pleasure and spiritual joy: “I said in my heart: ‘I will go, and abound with delights, and enjoy the good things of life!’ And I saw that this was vanity” (Ecclesiastes 2:1) … ”but I will take delight in the Lord” (Psalm 103:34). The devil wants to increasingly pull us away from all spiritual joys and to replace them with inferior earthly joys, worldly joys that only have a short duration—though, to get there, he will gladly suggest that we seek ‘lesser’ spiritual joys that give us less spiritual strength or grace, so as increasingly reduce our “grace intake” and weaken our soul’s resistance or ‘immune system’. So, for example, he will gladly suggest that you do some spiritual reading, rather than pray the Rosary; or that you spend time in a weekly Bible Study group, rather than attend an extra Mass each week.
An interesting quote, attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas, is: “You change people by delight―by pleasure!” You could add to that truth the following truth: “You can change people for better or worse through delight or pleasure!” Giving delight or pleasure to others is a means to an end—you could give pleasure or delight to another for an evil purpose or goal, or you could be doing for a holy purpose or a morally good goal. The devil seeks to change people by delight and pleasure. The devil offers us and suggests pleasures and delight for an evil purpose—it is meant to a step in the direction of our damnation. The delight or the pleasure he offers, is merely the colorful bait on the end of Hell’s hook and line. For the sinner he will include “sinful bait”, while for the sincere Christian it will only “good and holy bait”—at least in the beginning—and then it will gradually become less good and less holy!
This brings us to the word ”delusion”, which means on the one hand, ”the act of tricking or deceiving someone”, and also the result or consequence of being tricked, which is holding on to ”a fixed false belief that is resistant to right reason, or an attitude that is in confrontation with actual fact.” So, in our case, it is the devil who is doing the ”deluding” by “tricking and deceiving us” into accepting a ”a false belief that is against right-reason and Holy Scripture”—and that false belief is that we CAN serve God and mammon, that we CAN take and enjoy the ‘goodies’ he is dazzlingly dangling before us and still get to Heaven, that we CAN live like everyone else and still expect to save our soul—which is in confrontation with what Our Lord has said:
“Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon! Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life and what you shall eat, nor for your body and what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the clothing? … For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 6:19-25; 16:26).
Contrary to delusions sown by the devil—most souls are lost, and doing things the devil’s way is sure fire way of going the way of the majority! ”And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But Jesus said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate! For many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! But when the Master shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying: ‘Lord, open to us!’ And he answering, shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are!’ Then you shall begin to say: ‘We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!’ And he shall say to you: I know you not, whence you are from! Depart from Me! Then there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall yourselves thrust out!’” (Luke 13:23-28). ”Enter ye in at the narrow gate! For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 7:13-14; 22:14).
The “devil of delusion”, according to Fr. Barrielle, has another gospel that he will preach to you. Fr. Barrielle writes: “Many people do not realize the influences that a spirit can have on us … Do you not know that the devil uses everything when coming to tempt you? … One does not play with the devil! … Woe to him who consents to dialogue with the devil! Eve succumbed because she ‘played’ with the devil. Instead of cutting him short, she started to discuss with him … and the devil finished by making her fall … The enemy proposes certain illusory delights, causing them to imagine sensual pleasures and enjoyments [whereas Scripture says: “Love not the world”] … He presents more vivid pleasures, and sensible delectation ... as the greatest happiness … as if it were something normal and indispensable, saying ‘The whole world is doing it!’ … The devil says: ‘Do not worry yourself, God is good! Everybody does it! Just take a look around, it is not worth talking to your confessor about it. It doesn’t concern him. You will confess it on your death bed. You will always have enough time! You are still young!’ etc.” The devil will point out to you many quotes about the mercy of God and will sweep under the rug the quotes about his justice and the loss of many souls. It is one-sided truth, partial truth, not the whole truth—it is delusion: “a fixed false belief that is resistant to right reason, or an attitude that is in confrontation with actual fact.”
(17) DAYDREAMS
Once the pleasure or delight has been suggested, the next step is have to mull it over and over—in other words, to get you start daydreaming about it. This is the gradual—”little by little”—way to get you to move forwards without making you feel too uncomfortable or too concerned about what he has offered or suggested. Hey! What the heck! You’re only thinking about it! You’re NOT DOING anything! So what’s the big deal? That is how the devil wants us to rationalize away his plots and plans. This could be called the “incubation” period—the seed has been planted and all you have to do is water it with attention as you daydream.
Remember that Native American Indian saying: “Where you plant your feet determines what you see!” The same is true for the mind! St. Ignatius of Loyola, in his autobiography, admits to having a problem with daydreaming—especially before his ‘conversion’ during convalescence, after being wounded in battle. At the time he was daydreaming like any soldier—his daydreams were of a worldly nature. Yet God’s Providence saw to it that Ignatius’ mind would plucked-out of the “worldly plant bed” and replanted in “religious soil”—for the only books available at the place he was convalescing, were books on the lives of the saints! Ignatius writes that as grew older, he became more mature and got to grips with the habit of daydreaming and rechanneled it into holy thoughts.
Just a thought here! If Our Lord says: “I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the Day of Judgment!” (Matthew 12:36)—then what about idle thoughts or idle daydreams? Do thoughts not count? They do count! For Our Lord says elsewhere: “But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart!” (Matthew 5:28)—here, Our Lord condemns a thought in the heart, which has not even reached the lips! ”And Jesus seeing their thoughts, said: ‘Why do you think evil in your hearts?’” (Matthew 9:4). There is a quote from the authoress, Charlotte Bronte (of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre fame), that says: “Daydreams are the delusions of the devil!” Now Charlotte was not a Catholic, nor is she a saint, but she sure hits the nail on the head! It’s just that we so naïve and so gullible in these things that we “write-off” most of the evil in our lives as being harmless!
(18) DESIRE
Once he has planted the thought in your mind, the devil wants you to bring that little seed, by repetitious daydreams, to eventually ‘sprout’ a desire. A “desire” could be said to be the opening of a contract—it is, so to speak, an unwritten contract—for it is in your mind. However, just as Our Lord said concerning the thoughts of lust—that if you desire someone, then you have already committed the deed in your heart. Heaven will judge it that way. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that we take stock of what is going on in our minds and hearts! The devil of delusion will continue his line of deceit and say: “Hey! It’s only a thought! You haven’t DONE anything yet! Why worry?” There is a very fine line between THINKING about something and DESIRING something. Be careful!
St. Francis de Sales, in his Introduction to the Devout Life, speaks of desires—both good desires and bad desires—all throughout the book. There is even one chapter entitled “Desires” and obviously it is dedicated to covering desires of all kinds. Let us quote a few comments that he makes.
“Even though you are free to play games, dance, adorn yourself, attend decent plays, enjoy dinners―nevertheless, to have a strong liking for such things is an obstacle to devotion and full of harm and danger. It is not wrong to do such things, but it is wrong to have an attachment to them. It is a pity to sow in our hearts such useless and foolish attachments. They take the place of good desires and prevent the energy of our spirit from being directed to good inclinations … We can never have an attachment to them without doing harm to devotion. So, when our heart is burdened with these useless, irrelevant and dangerous attachments, we surely cannot run towards God promptly, joyfully and easily, which is the true sign of devotion.
“Everyone knows that we ought to watch against the desires for sinful things. In fact, the desire for evil makes us evil. I will say even more: Do not desire things which are dangerous to us, such as going to dances (balls), games and other pastimes. Do not desire either honors, or positions, visions or ecstasies since there is much danger, vanity and deceit in such things. Do not desire things in the distant future, that is, which cannot take place for a long time. By such desires many become negligent and disturb their hearts uselessly and put themselves in great danger of anxiety. If I, as a bishop, desire the solitude of the Carthusians, I waste my time. This desire takes the place of the one that I must have to accomplish well my present charge. Likewise, I would not even wish that we desire better talents and better judgment, because these desires are silly. They take the place of that desire which we should have―which is to improve our own talent such as it is. We are not to desire the means of serving God which we do not have. Instead we are to use faithfully those which we have. This is applicable to the longings which distract the heart. As to simple wishes, they do no harm provided they are not frequent.
“Do not desire crosses, except in so far as you have borne those which were offered to you. It is an error to desire martyrdom without having enough courage to bear an insult. The enemy often arouses in us ardent desires for things that are absent and may never come on our way. It is to turn away our minds from present objects from which, however small they may be, we could draw great profit. Do not desire temptations for it will be rashness. Rather, engage your heart in awaiting them courageously and in defending yourself from them when they come. Choose then, from among so many potential desires, with the advice of your spiritual father, what can be practiced and accomplished now. Turn these into good account. Once you do this, God will send you other desires which you will realize in their own time. Thus you will not waste your time in useless desires. I do not say that we should reject or lose any kind of good desire, but I insist that we must render them fruitful in due order. Those which cannot be practiced now, store them in some corner of your heart till their time comes. In the meantime, put into effect those which are ripe and in season. I suggest this not only to the spiritual, but also to the worldly. Without it we will live only in anxiety and eagerness.” (St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life).
There is one point here that you may have missed—and that is where he says: “with the advice of your spiritual father.” In our present age of general spiritual ignorance and over-exaggerated spirit of independence, the devil finds his work as being quite easy. Hey! Most Catholics no longer go to confession on a regular basis—only a minority go the minimum “once a year”—and those that don’t go are not avid readers of books on the spiritual life! So where are they getting the advice and counsel from? Yep! You guessed right! From the whispered suggestions of the devil! Spiritual direction is almost a non-entity these days—even among serious practicing Catholics—and that is like switching the alarm off and leaving the door open! Then souls are left to “their ignorant selves” to filter and sort out the suggestions, daydreams and desires!
(19) DARE
The expression “daredevil” says it all! The devil will incessantly propose, encourage, urge and dare us to go ahead and text the next step that follows upon his deceitful designs and delusional dreams. ”Go ahead and do it!” he says, adding on all kinds of reasons why it will all work out just fine. He will continue his non-stop distortions and deceitful arguments to remove any remaining fears or hesitation. Depending on what exactly it is that he is trying to get you to do—a sinful thing or a non-sinful thing—he will continue his line of partial truths, flattery, exaggerations, misrepresentations, provocations, pot-stirring, grievance-growing, emotion tugging, anger causing, button-pushing tactics. He is more knowledgeable on psychology that the most knowledgeable psychologist. He knows exactly how to approach each person, and, if it wasn’t for God’s grace and the good angels, he would ‘make mince-meat’ out of us and we would be ‘toast’!
Yet the influence of God’s grace and the good angels is only proportionate to the strength and seriousness of our spiritual life—if we are lukewarm, hardly pray or pray badly, are unmortified and attached to many imperfections and venial sins, then our defense is already riddled with many holes. For, though is most certainly merciful, He is also just—and justice gives out what is earned and deserved. We cannot presume upon God’s “all-inclusive protection plan insurance policy” if we do not pay the insurance premium for the policy. Don’t expect “premium coverage” if you’re not paying the “premium rate” by your extra prayers, extra sacrifices, extra spiritual reading, extra Masses, etc. As they say: “You get what you pay for!”
Anyway, that’s beside the point—back to the “daredevil”! The devil has watched and studied you all your life—though he cannot read your thoughts like God does—he can make very accurate guesses as to what you are likely to be thinking by reading all the bodily signs that are a ‘cinch’ for him to access: your body language, your pulse, heart rate, energy fluctuations, etc., he remembers how you acted in such a such scenario in the past, he knows what influences you the most, he knows what irritates you the most, he knows what makes you “drop your guard”, he knows your “soft-spots”, and a whole lot more. You could probably say that he knows and understands how you function and work even better than you know those things. Furthermore, the devil knows how much or how little you pray, he knows how much or how little you know, he knows how strong or how weak you willpower is, and so he adjusts his plans accordingly and prescribes the appropriate ‘medicine’ for each ‘patient’.
The devil wants to make a “daredevil” out of you by daring you to “do his will” (even though you do not know it is his will that you are following, for the devil wants to remain hidden and in his conversation with you, he always makes it seem as though you are talking with yourself)—and, by accepting the suggested dare, you will have taken another step in, ultimately, further going against the will of God like the devil fatally did (though the first dare, or even first few dares, might not even be sinful). For a well-intentioned Christian soul, he will usually suggest many “soft dares” before he eventually comes along with a “hard dare”—he wants to get you accustomed to listening to and following through with the suggestions he puts forward to you (while all the time you imagine those ideas to be coming from your interior conversation with yourself). The devil’s psychological approach is of the highest order and works most of the time—which is why most souls are lost. You could write an entire book on “The Psychology of Temptation”.
Speaking of psychology, here is a psychologist’s analysis of “The Dare”. It makes interesting reading from a spiritual perspective:
The Leading Principle is this: “If you dare me to do something, I daren’t not do it” and this is how it works. Daring triggers basic drives to prove oneself, especially to one’s peers and even more so to attractive members of the opposite sex. A common factor through many species is the competition between males ― often with the prize of first choice from the females. Actual fighting is generally a bad idea, as, even if you win, you can get seriously hurt. A way of winning without fighting is a display of courage. The effective message to other males is “if we have to fight, I will not give in easily”. Women compete and fight too and can be remarkably courageous, especially in the defense of family and close friends, but the evolutionary drives of men towards open risk-taking are much greater.
The dynamics of dares are that dares are often used in groups of young men to challenge one another to perform dangerous feats. Although these can involve physical danger, they are more often than not social in nature and sometimes enable valuable learning, for example where a boy is dared to ask out a girl.
The psychology of the dare is that the dared person is caught in a double bind. They have the choice of either accepting the dare or appearing as a coward and suffering a social lowering in status. Faced with such a choice, many people accept the dare, attracted as much by the potential kudos as the fear of ridicule. Some people find great pleasure in the thrill that dares create, and saying “I dare you...” to them is like waving a red rag at a bull. Dares can take many forms and can be very subtle. The only qualification is that the target feels impelled to act. You can have group dares (“Now who can do this?”), reverse dares (“I wouldn’t if I were you”) and many more varieties of dare.
The Best Way to Dare is to first, assess their preferences and act accordingly. For example:
● To Dare a Contrarian. Some people are just “ornery”, as others might say. You tell them to do one thing and they go and do the opposite. You say something is beautiful, they like to contradict and will say that it is ugly. It is often that they need to assert their identity or maintain control by deciding things for themselves. They may even see any attempt at persuasion as a form of coercion. To dare a contrarians, you simply have to imply that they cannot do something.
● To Dare a Risk-Seekers. For those who are proud and naturally daring, loving to take risks, use a straight dare with them: “I bet you wouldn’t dare ….”
● To Dare an Extrovert. For the “show-off” extrovert, ensure that extroverts have an audience before making the dare.
As mentioned above, “the dare” could come directly from the devil, who feeds his suggestions to you while making you think that you are just talking with yourself and not the devil; or the devil can use a whole host of other ways to dare you to do what he wants you to do. These can involve using any single or multiple elements in the world of which the devil is prince. It could persons or things that he uses—the possibilities are countless. Very often we are led astray, down a path we prefer not to walk, because of the influences, example, suggestion or even commands of those who are nearest and dearest to us—it could be family, relatives, friends, work colleagues, neighbors, fellow parishioners, etc. Even good people unwittingly do the work of the devil for him—we have all done this, unwittingly, so many times in the past and we will continue to do so in the future—simply because we are not alert to, or even in denial of, the devil and the way he works in the world and in our lives.
Our family, relatives, friends, work colleagues, neighbors and fellow parishioners mean us no harm when they unwittingly do the devil’s work upon us—much like they do not want to make you sick in coming down with the flu—but the inadvertently and unsuspectingly pass on the flu bug from somewhere else onto you. In a similar way, the devil arranges for others to carry and pass the “dare bug” on his behalf. They have, most likely, already played part in the earlier stages of this long and drawn-out process of the devil, dragging you, little by little, through all the different degrees previously mentioned, such as distraction, discussion, deception, distortions, differences, disagreements, disturbance, division, detractions, defamations, disappointment, disenchantment, disillusionment, disgust, distrust, doubts, disbelief, etc.
All those people that surround are also continually “under the gun” or “microscope” of the devil—and the less spiritual they are, the more influenced they will be. It is not for nothing that Our Lord said of families and households: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no; but separation! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law!” (Luke 12:51-53). The devil, too, brings separation to families and households, as Our Lady of La Salette warned: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family.”
We even see this with among the Apostles! First of all with St. Peter, who unwittingly does the devil’s work and is rebuked by Our Lord: “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples, that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the ancients and scribes and chief priests, and be put to death, and the third day rise again. And Peter taking Him, began to rebuke him, saying: ‘Lord, be it far from thee, this shall not be unto thee! Who turning, said to Peter: ‘Go behind Me, Satan! Thou art a scandal unto Me, because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!’” (Matthew 16:21-23).
Then we see the ‘bad spirit’ working on St. James and St. John, ‘pushing their buttons’ and stirring and working them up into a ‘righteous’ vengeful anger, for which they also are rebuked by Our Lord: “Jesus steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. And He sent messengers before His face; and going, they entered into a city of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. And they received Him not, because His face was of one going to Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John had seen this, they said: ‘Lord! Wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven, and consume them?’ And turning, He rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:51-56).
In the cases above, involving the Apostles, we are show the two basic kinds of “dares” or temptations that can occur. In the case of St. Peter, he ‘tempts’ Our Lord NOT TO DO SOMETHING--”Lord, be it far from thee, this shall not be unto thee!” Whereas in the case of St. James and St. John, they tempt Our Lord TO DO SOMETHING—which is to agree to sending fire down from Heaven to destroy the Samaritan town.
These are the only two basic temptations or “dares” that we will encounter—the “DO-DO-DARE” and the “DON’T-DO-DARE”—everything else is simply an “add-on-feature” or modification of these two. DO think this, DO say that, DO look at this, DO go there, DO have another drink, DO take this, DO exaggerate about that, DO reveal this, DO strike back, etc., etc. Or DON’T read spiritual books, DON’T pray your Rosary, DON’T go an extra Mass, DON’T go to Confession, DON’T go on a spiritual retreat, DON’T do penance, DON’T make a daily examination of conscience, DON’T make a daily meditation, DON’T admit you are wrong, DON’T give so much to the Church, DON’T share with others, DON’T help so-and-so, DON’T pray for so-and-so, etc., etc. These are the only two basic ways that the devil and his worldly minions ‘dare’ or tempt you. All the other aspects are just ‘extras’ or the ‘bells and whistles’ of temptation, or leaves on a tree, or feathers on a bird.
Usually, before the devil tries to get you to DO something sinful, he will first of all try to get you NOT TO DO something good. He will tempt you NOT TO pray, if he can’t achieve that, then he will tempt you NOT TO pray so much. The same goes for all the other spiritual exercises---he wants you to NOT DO them at all, or as little as possible. All of this will reduce the grace coming into your soul and weaken you over time, so that at some point the devil will judge you to be weak enough for the introduction or increase of venial sins, which will gradually lead to 50-50, gray area, “not so sure if it is” mortal sins—the mortal sins that seem trivial or “overpriced”, which in your lukewarm opinion should be “priced” as venial sins! Again, little by little is the method and the speed. He makes haste slowly. He will always present whatever he presents, as being reasonable, not very grave, “not a big deal”, laced with the sweet spices or injecting the anesthesia of ‘being justified’ in thinking, saying or doing it or not thinking, saying or doing it.
(20) DILEMMA
“To do or not to do? Should I or shouldn’t I?” Our whole day is filled with countless such dilemmas or decisions that we have to make—some are relatively trivial and unimportant, others are somewhat important, some are important and some are crucial. ”Decisions! Decisions!” The pressure of “the dare” brings the soul to a dilemma—especially if it is a well-intentioned Christian soul―what do I do? I want to please my family and friends, I want to please my bosses and work colleagues or fellow students, I want to be liked and not hated, yet I also want to please God! Can I take a line of action that will keep all sides happy? That is the dilemma! A dilemma is defined as being:
● A situation in which a choice has to be made between possibilities that will all have results you do not want.
● A situation that requires a choice between options that are or seem equally unfavorable or unsatisfactory.
● A problem that seems not to have a satisfactory solution.
Since the devil does not really want you to see the direction in which he desires to lead you—even if the beginning steps are all good and holy—then it is in his best interests to keep you in a ‘cloud’ or a ‘fog’, whereby you cannot clearly see in the distance. He does not want you to see the distant goal—which will be more or less evil (mortal or venial sin), but he only wants you to focus “short-term”—merely on the next step—and he will usually make sure that the first steps are ‘all good’, even ‘holy’, so as to make you feel comfortable and free from anxiety (as much as possible) with each little step you take. There will, of course, be some anxiety—for most people should not fail to notice that the direction in which everything is gradually leading is one of greater ease, or greater worldliness, or greater materialism, or lesser spirituality, less spiritual exercises, less spiritual virtue and more natural virtue, etc.
This is what creates and presents the dilemma. So to compensate, the devil—either through suggestive thoughts or through his chosen persons in this world (family, relatives, friends, colleagues—witting or unwitting)—will try to anesthetize and numb any painful feelings you may have about the direction in which you are headed. Dr. Devil wants his patients to have a little discomfort as possible along the slippery slope of his ‘painless’ path to Hell. The closer he leads us to sin, the greater is the need for increasing the injections of the morphine of distractions—so that the patient feels dizzy, groggy, sleepy and disorientated. Distractions are a staple drug that the devil feeds us all along the way.
The previous article covered the initial 10 “D” tactics of the Devil:
(01) DISTRACTION: from God and spiritual things. Not all distractions are sinful, for they would often be rejected.
(02) DISCUSSION, DEBATE & DIALECTICS: as with Eve, he wants to draw you into discussion—that is the beginning.
(03) DECEPTION: the devil is the father of lies. Yet his lies are often filled with half-truths. He twists & exaggerates things
(04) DEGLAMORIZE: he wants to tarnish, stain, show in a bad light all that can help your soul remotely or directly
(05) DISLIKE: deglamorization causes dislike of certain aspects of the Faith & certain persons connected to the Faith
(06) DISTANCING: due to dislike you begin distancing from Faith & certain persons
(07) DISABLE & DISARM you of spiritual weapons & exercises (Mass, Communion, confession, prayer, reading, penance)
(08) DISTURBANCE in the soul (emotions, fears, suspicions, etc.) & around you (persecution, setbacks, losses, illness, etc)
(09) DIFFERENCES and DISAGREEMENTS with those you live and work with, which gradually produces …
(10) DICHOTOMY and DIVISION in one or more areas of your life. He wants to divide so that he can conquer.
This article continues the demonic “D” trend, which builds upon the Devils opening moves.
(11) DISAPPOINTMENT, DISENCHANTMENT & DISILLUSIONMENT
As they say: “You cannot leave clothes in a smoky room without them taking on the smell of smoke!” Well, Satan’s negative ‘smoke’ together with his continual use of deceitful “smoke and mirrors” tactics, not to mention the division and disturbance, topped-off with detraction and defamation, cannot but leave a negative effect upon even the strongest of souls. All of that is geared to make you disappointed, which the devil hopes will grow so that you become disenchanted and finally enter the cloud of the disillusioned. We were made for happiness and joy--”Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4). ”Always rejoice!” (1 Thessalonians 5:16).
This is calculated to whittle-away and erode any Christian joy that you may have (may have had). As St. Francis de Sales used to say: “A saint who is sad is indeed a sad saint!” The devil is a killjoy—by his rebellion he has killed his own joy and he does not want anyone to experience joy either. Fr. Barrielle, in Rules for Discerning the Spirits, writes: “As soon as the devil arrives on the scene, he endeavors to rob the soul of its peace and joy. Though he does not always succeed with souls wholly given over to God. He tries to trouble the soul and make it sad ... simply because he himself is eternally sad. This feeling one has of being invaded by sadness is, thus, a way of discerning the devil’s presence … The devil is eternally sad ... he cannot get rid of his sadness. As soon as he comes near you he communicates his sadness without even so much as wanting to do so. This is so much the case, that in the rules for discerning the spirits of the second week, when the devil attempts to tempt a fervent soul, under the appearance of good, one of the signs for recognizing that it is the devil is this sadness that we feel overcoming us. Such is one who, leaving the confessional content, is suddenly struck by sadness. Recognize him who comes near with his sadness! Behold a sad young man: I do not say that he has sinned, but I know that the devil is hovering about him. Beware of these melancholic dreams! One may not realize, but the devil is not far off!” Sadness drains us of much if not all spiritual energy—the devil knows that—and so it is an additional way in which he can disarm and disable us.
It takes a mature and strong spiritual life to avoid being sucked into the devil’s whirlpool of disappointment, disenchantment and disillusionment. Yet if we read very little about the Faith, then we have many false notions about the Faith and we change create or mold the Faith and Christ into a kind of Faith or Christ we think that the Faith and Christ should be, according our tastes, preferences and prejudices. This ignorance on matters of religion is not just a present day issue—it always has been the case as the devil has always distracted mankind from religion by earthly and worldly things—yet it all the more true and dangerous today because there is so much available today with which to distract, and, consequently, the levels of knowledge of the truly important issues of Faith, is still abysmal and salvation threatening (read more here).
If the devil has managed to drag us up this point, into feeling s of disappointment, disenchantment and disillusionment about others and about the Faith, then it shows that we have the wrong expectations of life and a poor knowledge of our Faith. Our Lord is not shocked by the failures and sins of souls—even though they deeply offend Him. For as He Himself says in Scripture: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). He does not say: “The Son of man is come to rub the noses of sinners in their sins and sinfulness!” It is the devil who loves to rub our noses in our sins and sinfulness—thereby further attacking and destroying any joy and hope that may be left in us—but that is not Our Lord’s way. We must not be Pharisaically scandalized at sin—for we are all sinners ourselves—but should try to help each other out of the quagmire of sin onto the path to Heaven.
(12) DISGUST and DISDAIN
The next little step that devil has us make—one that will widen the division and perhaps make it permanent—is to create in our mind a feeling of disgust for what we have seen or heard, and which will make us hold all those persons, places or things in disdain (contempt). Analogically, you could compare it to the devil bending and twisting a plastic ruler. In the stages of disagreement, division, distortion, derision, disappointment, disenchantment and disillusionment, the plastic ruler is twisted and bent into a deformed shape, but it is still in one piece. With disgust and disdain, we can say that the plastic ruler is, at best, still hanging together “by a thread” so to speak, or that it has broken apart into two pieces and will not be salvageable.
If you look up the definition and synonyms for “disgust” you will come up with something like: “a feeling of revulsion or profound disapproval aroused by something unpleasant or offensive”, synonyms: “revulsion, repugnance, aversion, distaste, nausea, abhorrence, loathing, detestation, odium, horror.” These are the sentiments that the devil wants to create in our soul about one or many aspects of the Faith and things and persons connected with the Faith. It doesn’t matter what or who it is—he doesn’t care so much about that as he cares about getting that poison injected into your mind, soul and heart, so that from there it can gradually, “little by little”, in his ‘good’ time, be applied to more and more aspects of the Faith and persons connected with it.
Disdain is another little step that goes further than disgust, being defined as “the feeling that someone or something is unworthy of one’s consideration or respect; worthy of contempt, hatred”, synonyms: “contempt, scorn, scornfulness, contemptuousness, derision, disrespect.”
With all this the devil is getting closer to making you take a major step—all along he is ‘justifying’ your emotions, your ‘partially true’ arguments and line of thinking (to which he has contributed greatly), your disappointment, disenchantment, disillusionment, disgust and disdain—but all of this, even though you have probably sinned in some way through one or all of those sentiments, is still not enough for the devil. He wants a major step, a major break, a major sin—and he is only a couple of steps away from arriving at the door of a major decision on your part. The next step is…
(13) DOUBT and DISTRUST
Doubt is a subtle but powerful force in pushing away from something. Doubt is defined as ”calling into question the truth or dependability of something or someone; to be uncertain or to lack confidence in something or someone.” Once that happens, you are not far away from walking away from something or someone—and that is what the devil wants, that is what he has been building towards, to undermine, to weaken, to chip-away at, to erode and ultimately destroy your confidence in any or all of these things: God, Our Lord, Our Lady, the angels and saints, the teachings of the Faith, the Church, the clergy and religious, other Catholics, etc. It doesn’t matter which brick in the wall he manages to pull-out first—he knows that just one removed brick implicitly weakens the whole structure and that more bricks of doubt will follow sooner or later.
Even large trees can succumb to unseen fungus. It’s the same with faith. If we let doubt grow, it can rot spiritual roots until we topple. When this fungus attacks, the effects are not seen for some years. However, the fungus gradually rots the roots of those beautiful trees, and they begin to die. The leaves turn yellow and fall. Then the trunk and branches dry up, and the trees must be cut down. Like the fungus that enters these trees, doubts can invade our thoughts. If we let them grow, over time they can affect our roots and rot our foundation of faith until we too may be cut down. So-called ‘friends’ can introduce doubt by the things they say or insinuate. Internet sites can generate doubt by presenting information out of context. But doubts especially intensify when we ourselves, feeling abandoned or overwhelmed, question the burdens we bear—especially in light of the steps outlined above, through which the devil has taken us.
St. Peter—one of Our Lord’s three favorites (James and John being the other two)—fell into doubt and consequently fell into deep waters! ”And they seeing Jesus walk upon the sea, were troubled, saying: ‘It is an apparition!’ And they cried out for fear. And immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying: ‘Be of good heart! It is I, fear ye not!’ And Peter, making answer, said: ‘Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come to Thee upon the waters!’ And Jesus said: ‘Come!’ And Peter going down out of the boat, walked upon the water to come to Jesus. But seeing the wind strong, he was afraid: and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying: ‘Lord, save me!’ And immediately Jesus stretching forth His hand took hold of him, and said to him: ‘O thou of little faith! Why didst thou doubt?’” (Matthew 14:26-31). Just as wind was strong, so too are the arguments of the devil. We start to doubt, then we start to fear, and when we area afraid, we are only a short distance from sinking beneath the waves of disbelief.
Another doubter was St. Thomas—from whom we get the label “Doubting Thomas”! Thomas doubted his fellow Apostles when they told him that they had seen Jesus. Thomas doubted and his doubts immediately produced disbelief. ”Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him: ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them: ‘Unless I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe!’ And after eight days again His disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Jesus cometh, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said to Thomas: ‘Put in thy finger here, and see My hands; and bring here thy hand, and put it into My side; and be not faithless, but believing!’ Thomas answered, and said to Him: ‘My Lord, and my God!’ Jesus said to him: ‘Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed! Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed!’” (John 20:24-29).
After His resurrection, Jesus also rebuked the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, who were also doubters: “Jesus said to them: ‘O foolish, and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken!’” (Luke 24:25).
All of them, St. Peter, St. Thomas and the two disciples of Jesus, are rebuked by Jesus for doubting—we lesser mortals are no different and we should fight against the seeds of doubt that the devil will doubtlessly seek to plant in our minds until the day we die—and especially on our deathbed!
(14) DISBELIEF
Disbelief is the disease of the day—the disease of our day! Disbelief is defined as ”inability or refusal to accept that something is true or real.” So many Catholics are losing or have already lost their Faith. Disbelief does not strike like lightning—it has been prepared by many little steps, and is the result of years of erosion, like the fungus eating away at the tree that was mentioned above. As Fr. Barrielle points out in book Rules for Discerning the Spirits, ”St. Bernard wrote: Nemo repente fit pessimus. “Nobody becomes suddenly bad.” We sometimes hear of priests falling, of great, exemplary Christians falling, etc. Know that it has not happened all of a sudden. For a long time, they have played with the devil!”
Holy Scripture tells us that we cannot please God without Faith, that is to say by not believing God or in God: “Without Faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God, must believe that He exists, and is a rewarder to them that seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). To the Jews, Jesus said: “You also have seen Me, and you believe not! … You shall die in your sins! For if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sin! … If I say the truth, you believe Me not!” (John 6:36; 8:24, 45). Speaking of our times, Our Lord adds: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). The answer of course is “No!”—because of the so-called “Minor Apostasy” and “Great Apostasy” that will take place according to numerous prophecies. As Our Lady of La Salette warned: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell. Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls. Evil books will be abundant on Earth and the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God.”
Such will be the level of disbelief brought about by the “little by little” steps of the devil. All those little steps are meant to deceive, disrupt, disturb and destabilize our souls, so that we take on board the plan the devil has lined-up for us!
(15) DAZZLE and DANGLE
The devil is, according to Our Lord, “the prince of this world”—and we see “the prince of this world” trying to dazzle Our Lord during the temptation in the desert, by dangling many kingdoms in front of His eyes, offering them to Him if He would only bow down and adore him! ”The devil took Him up into a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: ‘All these will I give Thee, if falling down Thou wilt adore me!’” (Matthew 4:8-9). As Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased († 2016) chief exorcist of Rome, said: “The occult and Satanism always have roused people’s curiosity. The new experience, new emotions, new power that people acquire in the sects fascinates them; and Satan really does hand out his gifts of wealth, pleasure and success. In the same way that Christ was tempted―’I will give you the whole world if you prostrate yourself before me!’―we also are tempted; and Heaven knows how many fall at Satan’s feet today!” (Interviewed by 30-Daysmagazine).
So many ”fall at Satan’s feet today” because there is more to dazzle and dangle in this luxurious, opulent, materialistic consumer society. Never in the history of mankind has there been so much “stuff” available to the ‘common man’! If the kings of past centuries were to walk into one of today’s supermarkets or malls—they would be speechless and would probably have a heart attack! The average “Joe” of today has plenty of things that would make those kings go green with envy! The world today is the devil’s ‘paradise’, with dazzling things dangling everywhere! Sadly, Catholics (ourselves included) have been dazzled by what the world dangles and that is why they are so lukewarm—being more world orientated than God orientated. They (and we too perhaps to a certain degree) are trying to contradict Our Lord and disprove His statement: “You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24), by shouting back: “Wanna bet? Just watch me and see!”
Even the clergy have fallen for the dazzle, as Our Lady of Good Success and Our Lady of La Salette said would happen: “The secular clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties. They will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain” (Our Lady of Good Success). “The priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, are asking for vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying my Son again! Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops!” and of the laity, she says: “The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … as true Faith has faded and a false light brightens the people … the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin” (Our Lady of La Salette), adding: “O, if men only understood how to appreciate the time given to them and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!” (Our Lady of Good Success).
By being dazzled by what is dangled, their souls are dangling over Hell in danger of being frazzled! With ”the true Faith of the Lord having been forgotten”, they have “become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain” and their ”love of carnal pleasures” makes them ”think of nothing but amusement”, and “this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall” as “vengeance is hanging over their heads.”
(16) DELIGHT and DELUSION
What is delight? The word ”delight” is defined as ”a high degree of gratification or pleasure; extreme satisfaction; something that gives great pleasure.” Isn’t that what we were made for? Well, yes and no! St. Thomas Aquinas makes a distinction between pleasure and joy—pleasure being a bodily delight or sense delight for the body and its senses; whereas joy is a spiritual delight for the soul. Hence Holy Scripture uses the word ”delight” for both physical pleasure and spiritual joy: “I said in my heart: ‘I will go, and abound with delights, and enjoy the good things of life!’ And I saw that this was vanity” (Ecclesiastes 2:1) … ”but I will take delight in the Lord” (Psalm 103:34). The devil wants to increasingly pull us away from all spiritual joys and to replace them with inferior earthly joys, worldly joys that only have a short duration—though, to get there, he will gladly suggest that we seek ‘lesser’ spiritual joys that give us less spiritual strength or grace, so as increasingly reduce our “grace intake” and weaken our soul’s resistance or ‘immune system’. So, for example, he will gladly suggest that you do some spiritual reading, rather than pray the Rosary; or that you spend time in a weekly Bible Study group, rather than attend an extra Mass each week.
An interesting quote, attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas, is: “You change people by delight―by pleasure!” You could add to that truth the following truth: “You can change people for better or worse through delight or pleasure!” Giving delight or pleasure to others is a means to an end—you could give pleasure or delight to another for an evil purpose or goal, or you could be doing for a holy purpose or a morally good goal. The devil seeks to change people by delight and pleasure. The devil offers us and suggests pleasures and delight for an evil purpose—it is meant to a step in the direction of our damnation. The delight or the pleasure he offers, is merely the colorful bait on the end of Hell’s hook and line. For the sinner he will include “sinful bait”, while for the sincere Christian it will only “good and holy bait”—at least in the beginning—and then it will gradually become less good and less holy!
This brings us to the word ”delusion”, which means on the one hand, ”the act of tricking or deceiving someone”, and also the result or consequence of being tricked, which is holding on to ”a fixed false belief that is resistant to right reason, or an attitude that is in confrontation with actual fact.” So, in our case, it is the devil who is doing the ”deluding” by “tricking and deceiving us” into accepting a ”a false belief that is against right-reason and Holy Scripture”—and that false belief is that we CAN serve God and mammon, that we CAN take and enjoy the ‘goodies’ he is dazzlingly dangling before us and still get to Heaven, that we CAN live like everyone else and still expect to save our soul—which is in confrontation with what Our Lord has said:
“Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon! Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life and what you shall eat, nor for your body and what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the clothing? … For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 6:19-25; 16:26).
Contrary to delusions sown by the devil—most souls are lost, and doing things the devil’s way is sure fire way of going the way of the majority! ”And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But Jesus said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate! For many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! But when the Master shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying: ‘Lord, open to us!’ And he answering, shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are!’ Then you shall begin to say: ‘We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!’ And he shall say to you: I know you not, whence you are from! Depart from Me! Then there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall yourselves thrust out!’” (Luke 13:23-28). ”Enter ye in at the narrow gate! For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 7:13-14; 22:14).
The “devil of delusion”, according to Fr. Barrielle, has another gospel that he will preach to you. Fr. Barrielle writes: “Many people do not realize the influences that a spirit can have on us … Do you not know that the devil uses everything when coming to tempt you? … One does not play with the devil! … Woe to him who consents to dialogue with the devil! Eve succumbed because she ‘played’ with the devil. Instead of cutting him short, she started to discuss with him … and the devil finished by making her fall … The enemy proposes certain illusory delights, causing them to imagine sensual pleasures and enjoyments [whereas Scripture says: “Love not the world”] … He presents more vivid pleasures, and sensible delectation ... as the greatest happiness … as if it were something normal and indispensable, saying ‘The whole world is doing it!’ … The devil says: ‘Do not worry yourself, God is good! Everybody does it! Just take a look around, it is not worth talking to your confessor about it. It doesn’t concern him. You will confess it on your death bed. You will always have enough time! You are still young!’ etc.” The devil will point out to you many quotes about the mercy of God and will sweep under the rug the quotes about his justice and the loss of many souls. It is one-sided truth, partial truth, not the whole truth—it is delusion: “a fixed false belief that is resistant to right reason, or an attitude that is in confrontation with actual fact.”
(17) DAYDREAMS
Once the pleasure or delight has been suggested, the next step is have to mull it over and over—in other words, to get you start daydreaming about it. This is the gradual—”little by little”—way to get you to move forwards without making you feel too uncomfortable or too concerned about what he has offered or suggested. Hey! What the heck! You’re only thinking about it! You’re NOT DOING anything! So what’s the big deal? That is how the devil wants us to rationalize away his plots and plans. This could be called the “incubation” period—the seed has been planted and all you have to do is water it with attention as you daydream.
Remember that Native American Indian saying: “Where you plant your feet determines what you see!” The same is true for the mind! St. Ignatius of Loyola, in his autobiography, admits to having a problem with daydreaming—especially before his ‘conversion’ during convalescence, after being wounded in battle. At the time he was daydreaming like any soldier—his daydreams were of a worldly nature. Yet God’s Providence saw to it that Ignatius’ mind would plucked-out of the “worldly plant bed” and replanted in “religious soil”—for the only books available at the place he was convalescing, were books on the lives of the saints! Ignatius writes that as grew older, he became more mature and got to grips with the habit of daydreaming and rechanneled it into holy thoughts.
Just a thought here! If Our Lord says: “I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the Day of Judgment!” (Matthew 12:36)—then what about idle thoughts or idle daydreams? Do thoughts not count? They do count! For Our Lord says elsewhere: “But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart!” (Matthew 5:28)—here, Our Lord condemns a thought in the heart, which has not even reached the lips! ”And Jesus seeing their thoughts, said: ‘Why do you think evil in your hearts?’” (Matthew 9:4). There is a quote from the authoress, Charlotte Bronte (of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre fame), that says: “Daydreams are the delusions of the devil!” Now Charlotte was not a Catholic, nor is she a saint, but she sure hits the nail on the head! It’s just that we so naïve and so gullible in these things that we “write-off” most of the evil in our lives as being harmless!
(18) DESIRE
Once he has planted the thought in your mind, the devil wants you to bring that little seed, by repetitious daydreams, to eventually ‘sprout’ a desire. A “desire” could be said to be the opening of a contract—it is, so to speak, an unwritten contract—for it is in your mind. However, just as Our Lord said concerning the thoughts of lust—that if you desire someone, then you have already committed the deed in your heart. Heaven will judge it that way. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that we take stock of what is going on in our minds and hearts! The devil of delusion will continue his line of deceit and say: “Hey! It’s only a thought! You haven’t DONE anything yet! Why worry?” There is a very fine line between THINKING about something and DESIRING something. Be careful!
St. Francis de Sales, in his Introduction to the Devout Life, speaks of desires—both good desires and bad desires—all throughout the book. There is even one chapter entitled “Desires” and obviously it is dedicated to covering desires of all kinds. Let us quote a few comments that he makes.
“Even though you are free to play games, dance, adorn yourself, attend decent plays, enjoy dinners―nevertheless, to have a strong liking for such things is an obstacle to devotion and full of harm and danger. It is not wrong to do such things, but it is wrong to have an attachment to them. It is a pity to sow in our hearts such useless and foolish attachments. They take the place of good desires and prevent the energy of our spirit from being directed to good inclinations … We can never have an attachment to them without doing harm to devotion. So, when our heart is burdened with these useless, irrelevant and dangerous attachments, we surely cannot run towards God promptly, joyfully and easily, which is the true sign of devotion.
“Everyone knows that we ought to watch against the desires for sinful things. In fact, the desire for evil makes us evil. I will say even more: Do not desire things which are dangerous to us, such as going to dances (balls), games and other pastimes. Do not desire either honors, or positions, visions or ecstasies since there is much danger, vanity and deceit in such things. Do not desire things in the distant future, that is, which cannot take place for a long time. By such desires many become negligent and disturb their hearts uselessly and put themselves in great danger of anxiety. If I, as a bishop, desire the solitude of the Carthusians, I waste my time. This desire takes the place of the one that I must have to accomplish well my present charge. Likewise, I would not even wish that we desire better talents and better judgment, because these desires are silly. They take the place of that desire which we should have―which is to improve our own talent such as it is. We are not to desire the means of serving God which we do not have. Instead we are to use faithfully those which we have. This is applicable to the longings which distract the heart. As to simple wishes, they do no harm provided they are not frequent.
“Do not desire crosses, except in so far as you have borne those which were offered to you. It is an error to desire martyrdom without having enough courage to bear an insult. The enemy often arouses in us ardent desires for things that are absent and may never come on our way. It is to turn away our minds from present objects from which, however small they may be, we could draw great profit. Do not desire temptations for it will be rashness. Rather, engage your heart in awaiting them courageously and in defending yourself from them when they come. Choose then, from among so many potential desires, with the advice of your spiritual father, what can be practiced and accomplished now. Turn these into good account. Once you do this, God will send you other desires which you will realize in their own time. Thus you will not waste your time in useless desires. I do not say that we should reject or lose any kind of good desire, but I insist that we must render them fruitful in due order. Those which cannot be practiced now, store them in some corner of your heart till their time comes. In the meantime, put into effect those which are ripe and in season. I suggest this not only to the spiritual, but also to the worldly. Without it we will live only in anxiety and eagerness.” (St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life).
There is one point here that you may have missed—and that is where he says: “with the advice of your spiritual father.” In our present age of general spiritual ignorance and over-exaggerated spirit of independence, the devil finds his work as being quite easy. Hey! Most Catholics no longer go to confession on a regular basis—only a minority go the minimum “once a year”—and those that don’t go are not avid readers of books on the spiritual life! So where are they getting the advice and counsel from? Yep! You guessed right! From the whispered suggestions of the devil! Spiritual direction is almost a non-entity these days—even among serious practicing Catholics—and that is like switching the alarm off and leaving the door open! Then souls are left to “their ignorant selves” to filter and sort out the suggestions, daydreams and desires!
(19) DARE
The expression “daredevil” says it all! The devil will incessantly propose, encourage, urge and dare us to go ahead and text the next step that follows upon his deceitful designs and delusional dreams. ”Go ahead and do it!” he says, adding on all kinds of reasons why it will all work out just fine. He will continue his non-stop distortions and deceitful arguments to remove any remaining fears or hesitation. Depending on what exactly it is that he is trying to get you to do—a sinful thing or a non-sinful thing—he will continue his line of partial truths, flattery, exaggerations, misrepresentations, provocations, pot-stirring, grievance-growing, emotion tugging, anger causing, button-pushing tactics. He is more knowledgeable on psychology that the most knowledgeable psychologist. He knows exactly how to approach each person, and, if it wasn’t for God’s grace and the good angels, he would ‘make mince-meat’ out of us and we would be ‘toast’!
Yet the influence of God’s grace and the good angels is only proportionate to the strength and seriousness of our spiritual life—if we are lukewarm, hardly pray or pray badly, are unmortified and attached to many imperfections and venial sins, then our defense is already riddled with many holes. For, though is most certainly merciful, He is also just—and justice gives out what is earned and deserved. We cannot presume upon God’s “all-inclusive protection plan insurance policy” if we do not pay the insurance premium for the policy. Don’t expect “premium coverage” if you’re not paying the “premium rate” by your extra prayers, extra sacrifices, extra spiritual reading, extra Masses, etc. As they say: “You get what you pay for!”
Anyway, that’s beside the point—back to the “daredevil”! The devil has watched and studied you all your life—though he cannot read your thoughts like God does—he can make very accurate guesses as to what you are likely to be thinking by reading all the bodily signs that are a ‘cinch’ for him to access: your body language, your pulse, heart rate, energy fluctuations, etc., he remembers how you acted in such a such scenario in the past, he knows what influences you the most, he knows what irritates you the most, he knows what makes you “drop your guard”, he knows your “soft-spots”, and a whole lot more. You could probably say that he knows and understands how you function and work even better than you know those things. Furthermore, the devil knows how much or how little you pray, he knows how much or how little you know, he knows how strong or how weak you willpower is, and so he adjusts his plans accordingly and prescribes the appropriate ‘medicine’ for each ‘patient’.
The devil wants to make a “daredevil” out of you by daring you to “do his will” (even though you do not know it is his will that you are following, for the devil wants to remain hidden and in his conversation with you, he always makes it seem as though you are talking with yourself)—and, by accepting the suggested dare, you will have taken another step in, ultimately, further going against the will of God like the devil fatally did (though the first dare, or even first few dares, might not even be sinful). For a well-intentioned Christian soul, he will usually suggest many “soft dares” before he eventually comes along with a “hard dare”—he wants to get you accustomed to listening to and following through with the suggestions he puts forward to you (while all the time you imagine those ideas to be coming from your interior conversation with yourself). The devil’s psychological approach is of the highest order and works most of the time—which is why most souls are lost. You could write an entire book on “The Psychology of Temptation”.
Speaking of psychology, here is a psychologist’s analysis of “The Dare”. It makes interesting reading from a spiritual perspective:
The Leading Principle is this: “If you dare me to do something, I daren’t not do it” and this is how it works. Daring triggers basic drives to prove oneself, especially to one’s peers and even more so to attractive members of the opposite sex. A common factor through many species is the competition between males ― often with the prize of first choice from the females. Actual fighting is generally a bad idea, as, even if you win, you can get seriously hurt. A way of winning without fighting is a display of courage. The effective message to other males is “if we have to fight, I will not give in easily”. Women compete and fight too and can be remarkably courageous, especially in the defense of family and close friends, but the evolutionary drives of men towards open risk-taking are much greater.
The dynamics of dares are that dares are often used in groups of young men to challenge one another to perform dangerous feats. Although these can involve physical danger, they are more often than not social in nature and sometimes enable valuable learning, for example where a boy is dared to ask out a girl.
The psychology of the dare is that the dared person is caught in a double bind. They have the choice of either accepting the dare or appearing as a coward and suffering a social lowering in status. Faced with such a choice, many people accept the dare, attracted as much by the potential kudos as the fear of ridicule. Some people find great pleasure in the thrill that dares create, and saying “I dare you...” to them is like waving a red rag at a bull. Dares can take many forms and can be very subtle. The only qualification is that the target feels impelled to act. You can have group dares (“Now who can do this?”), reverse dares (“I wouldn’t if I were you”) and many more varieties of dare.
The Best Way to Dare is to first, assess their preferences and act accordingly. For example:
● To Dare a Contrarian. Some people are just “ornery”, as others might say. You tell them to do one thing and they go and do the opposite. You say something is beautiful, they like to contradict and will say that it is ugly. It is often that they need to assert their identity or maintain control by deciding things for themselves. They may even see any attempt at persuasion as a form of coercion. To dare a contrarians, you simply have to imply that they cannot do something.
● To Dare a Risk-Seekers. For those who are proud and naturally daring, loving to take risks, use a straight dare with them: “I bet you wouldn’t dare ….”
● To Dare an Extrovert. For the “show-off” extrovert, ensure that extroverts have an audience before making the dare.
As mentioned above, “the dare” could come directly from the devil, who feeds his suggestions to you while making you think that you are just talking with yourself and not the devil; or the devil can use a whole host of other ways to dare you to do what he wants you to do. These can involve using any single or multiple elements in the world of which the devil is prince. It could persons or things that he uses—the possibilities are countless. Very often we are led astray, down a path we prefer not to walk, because of the influences, example, suggestion or even commands of those who are nearest and dearest to us—it could be family, relatives, friends, work colleagues, neighbors, fellow parishioners, etc. Even good people unwittingly do the work of the devil for him—we have all done this, unwittingly, so many times in the past and we will continue to do so in the future—simply because we are not alert to, or even in denial of, the devil and the way he works in the world and in our lives.
Our family, relatives, friends, work colleagues, neighbors and fellow parishioners mean us no harm when they unwittingly do the devil’s work upon us—much like they do not want to make you sick in coming down with the flu—but the inadvertently and unsuspectingly pass on the flu bug from somewhere else onto you. In a similar way, the devil arranges for others to carry and pass the “dare bug” on his behalf. They have, most likely, already played part in the earlier stages of this long and drawn-out process of the devil, dragging you, little by little, through all the different degrees previously mentioned, such as distraction, discussion, deception, distortions, differences, disagreements, disturbance, division, detractions, defamations, disappointment, disenchantment, disillusionment, disgust, distrust, doubts, disbelief, etc.
All those people that surround are also continually “under the gun” or “microscope” of the devil—and the less spiritual they are, the more influenced they will be. It is not for nothing that Our Lord said of families and households: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no; but separation! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law!” (Luke 12:51-53). The devil, too, brings separation to families and households, as Our Lady of La Salette warned: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family.”
We even see this with among the Apostles! First of all with St. Peter, who unwittingly does the devil’s work and is rebuked by Our Lord: “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples, that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the ancients and scribes and chief priests, and be put to death, and the third day rise again. And Peter taking Him, began to rebuke him, saying: ‘Lord, be it far from thee, this shall not be unto thee! Who turning, said to Peter: ‘Go behind Me, Satan! Thou art a scandal unto Me, because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!’” (Matthew 16:21-23).
Then we see the ‘bad spirit’ working on St. James and St. John, ‘pushing their buttons’ and stirring and working them up into a ‘righteous’ vengeful anger, for which they also are rebuked by Our Lord: “Jesus steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. And He sent messengers before His face; and going, they entered into a city of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. And they received Him not, because His face was of one going to Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John had seen this, they said: ‘Lord! Wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven, and consume them?’ And turning, He rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:51-56).
In the cases above, involving the Apostles, we are show the two basic kinds of “dares” or temptations that can occur. In the case of St. Peter, he ‘tempts’ Our Lord NOT TO DO SOMETHING--”Lord, be it far from thee, this shall not be unto thee!” Whereas in the case of St. James and St. John, they tempt Our Lord TO DO SOMETHING—which is to agree to sending fire down from Heaven to destroy the Samaritan town.
These are the only two basic temptations or “dares” that we will encounter—the “DO-DO-DARE” and the “DON’T-DO-DARE”—everything else is simply an “add-on-feature” or modification of these two. DO think this, DO say that, DO look at this, DO go there, DO have another drink, DO take this, DO exaggerate about that, DO reveal this, DO strike back, etc., etc. Or DON’T read spiritual books, DON’T pray your Rosary, DON’T go an extra Mass, DON’T go to Confession, DON’T go on a spiritual retreat, DON’T do penance, DON’T make a daily examination of conscience, DON’T make a daily meditation, DON’T admit you are wrong, DON’T give so much to the Church, DON’T share with others, DON’T help so-and-so, DON’T pray for so-and-so, etc., etc. These are the only two basic ways that the devil and his worldly minions ‘dare’ or tempt you. All the other aspects are just ‘extras’ or the ‘bells and whistles’ of temptation, or leaves on a tree, or feathers on a bird.
Usually, before the devil tries to get you to DO something sinful, he will first of all try to get you NOT TO DO something good. He will tempt you NOT TO pray, if he can’t achieve that, then he will tempt you NOT TO pray so much. The same goes for all the other spiritual exercises---he wants you to NOT DO them at all, or as little as possible. All of this will reduce the grace coming into your soul and weaken you over time, so that at some point the devil will judge you to be weak enough for the introduction or increase of venial sins, which will gradually lead to 50-50, gray area, “not so sure if it is” mortal sins—the mortal sins that seem trivial or “overpriced”, which in your lukewarm opinion should be “priced” as venial sins! Again, little by little is the method and the speed. He makes haste slowly. He will always present whatever he presents, as being reasonable, not very grave, “not a big deal”, laced with the sweet spices or injecting the anesthesia of ‘being justified’ in thinking, saying or doing it or not thinking, saying or doing it.
(20) DILEMMA
“To do or not to do? Should I or shouldn’t I?” Our whole day is filled with countless such dilemmas or decisions that we have to make—some are relatively trivial and unimportant, others are somewhat important, some are important and some are crucial. ”Decisions! Decisions!” The pressure of “the dare” brings the soul to a dilemma—especially if it is a well-intentioned Christian soul―what do I do? I want to please my family and friends, I want to please my bosses and work colleagues or fellow students, I want to be liked and not hated, yet I also want to please God! Can I take a line of action that will keep all sides happy? That is the dilemma! A dilemma is defined as being:
● A situation in which a choice has to be made between possibilities that will all have results you do not want.
● A situation that requires a choice between options that are or seem equally unfavorable or unsatisfactory.
● A problem that seems not to have a satisfactory solution.
Since the devil does not really want you to see the direction in which he desires to lead you—even if the beginning steps are all good and holy—then it is in his best interests to keep you in a ‘cloud’ or a ‘fog’, whereby you cannot clearly see in the distance. He does not want you to see the distant goal—which will be more or less evil (mortal or venial sin), but he only wants you to focus “short-term”—merely on the next step—and he will usually make sure that the first steps are ‘all good’, even ‘holy’, so as to make you feel comfortable and free from anxiety (as much as possible) with each little step you take. There will, of course, be some anxiety—for most people should not fail to notice that the direction in which everything is gradually leading is one of greater ease, or greater worldliness, or greater materialism, or lesser spirituality, less spiritual exercises, less spiritual virtue and more natural virtue, etc.
This is what creates and presents the dilemma. So to compensate, the devil—either through suggestive thoughts or through his chosen persons in this world (family, relatives, friends, colleagues—witting or unwitting)—will try to anesthetize and numb any painful feelings you may have about the direction in which you are headed. Dr. Devil wants his patients to have a little discomfort as possible along the slippery slope of his ‘painless’ path to Hell. The closer he leads us to sin, the greater is the need for increasing the injections of the morphine of distractions—so that the patient feels dizzy, groggy, sleepy and disorientated. Distractions are a staple drug that the devil feeds us all along the way.
Article 6
Thursday after the First Sunday of Lent, March 2nd, 2023
The First 10 D's of the Devil
Thursday after the First Sunday of Lent, March 2nd, 2023
The First 10 D's of the Devil
Taking the lead from Holy Mother Church, who presented us with the Gospel of Christ being tempted by the devil in the desert, after his fast of forty days, we are therefore dedicating a large part of this first week of Lent to studying the tactics, snares and manner of tempting used by Satan. The previous article established the fact that devil is at work everywhere today—in families, parishes, schools, work places, in culture, in politics, in business and finance, and even in the Vatican itself. This article will begin to look at the tactics and methods that Satan uses to achieve his deadly goals.
Know Your Enemy!
In our modern centuries, the world has seen war in one place or another for well over 200 hundred years—some wars have been massive, some small—but the world has been at war nevertheless. In that time we have had two “World Wars” are currently awaiting for the Third World War to start anytime soon!
In this “Age of War” there are many moderns who look upon a Chinese warrior almost as a demi-god, and they avidly read his famous book―The Art of War. This short book, The Art of War, is traditionally attributed to a military general from the late 6th century BC, known as “Master Sun” (Sunzi or Sun Tzu). The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise of 13 short chapters. Each chapter is devoted to a distinct aspect of warfare and how that applies to military strategy and tactics.
For almost 1,500 years The Art of War remains the most influential strategy text in East Asia. In many East Asian countries, The Art of War was part of the syllabus for potential candidates of military service examinations. During the Vietnam War, some Vietcong officers studied The Art of War and reportedly could recite entire passages from memory. The Department of the Army in the United States, through its Command and General Staff College, lists The Art of War as one example of a book that may be kept at a military unit’s library. The Art of War is listed on the Marine Corps Professional Reading Program (formerly known as the Commandant’s Reading List). It is recommended reading for all United States Military Intelligence personnel. According to some authors, the strategy of deception from The Art of War was studied and widely used by the Russian KGB (the world’s largest spy and state-security machine). It has a profound influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond.
In The Art of War, the military strategist, Sun Tzu, writes: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Spiritual Warfare
Like or not, we are all exposed to spiritual warfare: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) and we either fight for our salvation or we will lose our salvation and soul: “This is the victory which overcometh the world, our Faith” (1 John 5:4). ”Fight the good fight of Faith: lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). ”Be sober and watch! Because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour! Whom resist ye, strong in Faith: knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world” (1 Peter 5:8-9).
St. Peter tells us the unpalatable news that we do not want to hear—that we are susceptible to the wiles of the devil, like every person in the world is susceptible to them. There is no escape from this truth and fact and the consequences. It is a case of fight for your soul or lose your soul.
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the lately deceased (2016) chief exorcist in Rome, said: “The state of belief in the devil in the Church is too low. The devil is very pleased with that, since this gives him free reign to do his work … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially, just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry ... Evil exists in politics, quite often in fact! … Satan really does hand out his gifts of wealth, pleasure and success. Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies … Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan … The loss of a sense of sin, that characterizes our era, helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God: ‘Everything is lawful.’ ‘What is wrong there?’ ‘Everyone does it!’ … The devil also makes evil appear interesting, positive, and beautiful … Satan will delude people into thinking that life is a beautiful holiday, where everything is permitted and where your ‘I’ does not recognize any limits regarding pleasure or enjoyment …”
“His main activity, which we can call ‘ordinary’, is to tempt man to commit evil, to make him turn away from God ... Today families are among the most targeted by the ordinary action of Satan … They are torn apart by various attractions; they reunite and separate again … This breakdown [in the family] leads to delinquency, wickedness, and evil … Today there is much talk of love, but there truly is none! … Each year 50 million children are murdered by abortion! Then there is the broken family, cohabitation! … Divorce has been a disaster! … It is all destruction! … It is a shattered world, so it is essential that a Christian who wants to live as a Christian, must be different from the others. Christians must stand up for their beliefs and not be shy.
“Many of the devil’s ‘ordinary’ temptations are passed off as ‘modern ideas’, but really serve to unhinge the principles of the Faith. Believing in God doesn’t guarantee salvation, as 90% of the Italians would like to think. I have never, in my exorcisms, come across a devil who does not believe in God. Believing doesn’t mean anything! Instead, it is necessary to do what Jesus has told us to do” (cf. James 2:14-20; Matthew 7:21). When Faith in God declines, idolatry and irrationality increase … Ultimately, the most formidable diabolical trap is the half-heartedness, indifference, and spiritual numbness that gradually plunges us into darkness and spiritual evils.”
THE FORTY D’s OF THE DEVIL (Part 1 ― Numbers 1 to 10)
(01) DISTRACTION
Distraction makes us lose the traction in our focus! We know from experience that so many things go wrong when we are distracted—whether it is while driving, working, cooking, cleaning, etc. The same can be true in the spiritual life—lose your focus, and you might lose your soul; if you don’t pay attention, you may for eternity! The devil is a master of distraction. It is usually one of the first steps he will take in the long devious road to your intended damnation. The more distracted we are, the easier is Satan’s work.
These distractions are all around us and we think little or nothing of the potential danger that they hold. Remember! It takes only a few seconds of distraction for a car to crash! The same can be true in the spiritual life—lose your focus, and you might lose your soul. The military and military intelligence are well-trained in causing distractions to great effect. The devil knows you better than you know yourself—he has focused on you and your habits, tendencies, likes and dislikes, temperament, preferences, irritations, pet peeves, desires, etc., since the day you were born. The file he has on you would give you a heart attack! He knows what buttons to press and what levers to pull to turn you aside from what you should be doing! Besides, he is the prince of the world, and since you have somewhat of an attachment to certain things of the world, then he will gladly use them to distract you time and time again. It may consist of worldly distractions or even spiritual distractions—but they will have one goal in mind: to distract you from doing the “greater” or “better”, and leading you to the “lesser” or the “weaker”. He wants to distract you away from the better spiritual exercises to the lesser ones, and then from the lesser ones to worldly, or natural, or material things. Little by little, away from God and into the waters of the world.
The initial distraction will not be an “evil” thing, but a good thing. That is now con-men or con-artists work—they start legitimately, they may even “make a loss” on you at first, just to win your confidence. The devil will often distract you from holy things by ‘lesser’ holy things. He knows the power of everything and what it can do for you—so, instead of having you pray the Rosary, he will suggest some other ‘lesser’ prayer that might not seem as boring as the Rosary! Instead of going to an extra Mass, he might suggest that you go visit some sick person instead, or do something for the children, or even say a ‘boring’ Rosary. He will always try to distract with lesser things to keep you away from what can help you the most. The less grace you get, the weaker you become. He cannot win if you are strong.
Also, distraction allows him to work unnoticed. If you have ever been to Rome, you may have noticed the famous “Roma Pickpockets” at work. They used to be mainly Gypsy families, but now they also include many other immigrants too. The travel agencies, on their websites, warn you against them. Here is an extract of one such warning:
“Others will work in groups, swarming you, babbling excitedly, and sometimes holding up bits of cardboard with messages scrawled on them to distract you. Then, faster than you can say “Hey!...”, they’ll rifle your pockets while the cardboard shields their hands from view. Near walls and in subway tunnels, they might even be so bold as to pin you against the wall with the cardboard so as to fleece you more easily. Some may spill a drink they are carrying on you and effusively apologize as they wipe you down, while in the pandemonium their cohorts are pickpocketing you, or unzipping some of your back pack compartments, etc. They aren’t really physically dangerous, but they are very skillful at rifling and taking your stuff. If they get near enough to touch you, push them away—don’t hold back just because they’re kids. They are trying to steal from you!”
Even the military and terrorists will use distraction as part of their attack maneuvers. The devil is no different. Beware of being distracted, especially by ‘good’ things, for the devil has no problem with you doing ‘good’ things if that means keeping you away from better things. The devil’s use of distraction does not just occur at the start of his long and winding road into temptation and sin, but it is something he will use all along the road—using hundreds of different ways of distracting, hundreds of times. Distraction is like the breathing air—it is takes place all the time. Get used to it—it won’t go away, just as the devil won’t go away—but be aware of it and don’t fall for it!
(02) DECEPTION
Our Lord is Truth itself, the devil is a liar. The Church gives (or should give) the truth, the world is full of lies. The devil deceives, the world deceives, the children of the world deceive. “Lies, lies and more damned lies!” Our Lord calls the devil a liar and the father of lies. In speaking to some of the Jews and Pharisees, Our Lord says: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do! He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him! When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own―for he is a liar, and the father thereof!” (John 8:44). We see the devil “ply his trade”, or should it be “lie his trade” with Eve. He lies about God and he lies about what the forbidden fruit would do for them. He has been lying ever since then! Yet, he will always clothe his lies with some semblance of truth—otherwise who would “buy into it”?
We ourselves—being somewhat two-faced—sometimes side with the truth and other times we hate the truth and replace it with lies, or we twist the truth, exaggerate the truth, downplay the truth and shape the truth to suit our own preferences, our own ambitions, our own prejudices, our own likes, and so we fall into the same mold as some of Jews and Pharisees, of whom Our Lord said: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do!” (John 8:44). The devil—the father of lies—is always lying in wait to ‘charitably’ come and help us with our misrepresentation of the truth, or exaggeration of the truth, or twisting of the truth, or falsification of the truth, or denial of the truth, or ridiculing the truth, etc. The devil will help us rationalize our way out of the truth when it is uncomfortable for us, and he will help us hammer home the truth (twistingly) when it comes to others. He is a manipulator of the truth and he will gladly help us learn his trade! If we neglect to know our Faith—which is what overcomes the devil and world—then we will be doubly-dumb: dumb for not knowing what we should know, and dumb for falling for the devil’s deceits!
Fr. Barrielle, in his book, Rules for Discerning the Spirits, writes: “Fallacious reasoning is an unmistakable sign of the devil. One must be very skeptical of certain false theories, of certain slogans which engender many sins, and often grave sins against the faith, against justice or charity. For example: ‘They can choose their own religion when they grow up!’” (Fr. Barrielle, Rules for Discerning the Spirits).
Furthermore, the devil will cement his deception through the people that surround in family, at work, in school, in the parish, among friends and relatives—for he will use “dummies” who know little about the Faith, or who practice little virtue, to pour more fuel onto the fire of deceit that he has set alight. They will “add their own two-cents worth” of half-baked wisdom, which is usually based more on the principles and attitudes of the world (of whom, Jesus says, the devil is prince), rather than the principles of the Faith (which they know very little about).
We are familiar with the expression: “Don’t believe everything you hear!” How true and wise that statement is! How many times have we been wrong? Countless and still counting! The more stupid, or ignorant, or uninformed a person is, the easier it is to sell that person a lie. Truth is our measuring stick—but if you know so little about the Faith, then what will you measure with? Catholics today have been sold all kinds of lies because they did not know the truth! Isn’t that the truth, eh? We see that deception used by the devil on Our Lord during the temptation in the desert—the devil is deceptive in the way he employs quotes from Holy Scripture. Our Lord “shoots him down” by other quotes from Holy Scripture that “trump” the ones the devil tried to deceptively use.
As Our Lord said: “Know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!” (John 8:32). When you know little of the truths of the Faith, then you are more easily deceived—that is why so many Catholics today accept living in sin, contraception, abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriages, worldliness, addictions, promiscuity, etc. Someone has managed to persuade them (deceive them) into thinking these things are now acceptable for one reason or another. ”If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit”(Matthew 15:14) while they rationalize to each other that they are not blind at all! ‘Dumb’ people do ‘dumb’ things! That is why Pope St. Pius X lamented the ignorance of Catholics (read about it here).
(03) DISCUSSION, DEBATE & DIALECTICS
There can be little hope of leading you into sin—and eventually Hell—without discussion and debate. Fr. Barrielle, in his book, The Discerning of Spirits, warns: “We have there a general rule, which is capital. As soon as one knows that it comes from the devil, it must be rejected without any discussion. My master of novices, Fr. Terradas said, ‘One does not play with the devil!’ He calls ‘playing with the devil’ the fact of tarrying with a thought that one knows to be not good, and thus, from the devil, while reassuring oneself, with a firm will, not to consent to it. Woe to him who consents to dialogue with the devil (who is much stronger that we)! Eve succumbed because she ‘played’ with the devil. After having told her that God had forbidden it, the devil followed up with new reasons. Instead of cutting him short, she started to discuss with him … She discussed, and the devil finished by making her fall. St. Bernard wrote: ‘Nobody becomes suddenly bad.” We sometimes hear of priests falling, of great, exemplary Christians falling, etc. Know that it has not happened all of a sudden. For a long time, they have played with the devil’” (Fr. Ludovic-Marie Barrielle, Rules for Discerning the Spirits).
The problem is that the devil is the most skillful impersonator and he knows how to ‘impersonate’ us—so that when he speaks to us, we imagine we are speaking with ourselves! Oh those fruitless, useless, dangerous interior conversations that we all get involved in! Yes, sometimes we do speak with ourselves, yet at other times we are gullibly speaking with the devil.
The word “dialectics” means seeking the resolution of a disagreement between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject, by the use of logical argument. Debate is similar, but it allows emotions to enter into the disagreement and does not remain on the level of logic alone. Modern dialectic is essentially a compromise. In more technical terms, there is a THESIS that it proposed, which is then opposed by and ANTITHESIS (the opposing view) and then, after a back and forth discussion, you are meant to arrive at the SYNTHESIS (the compromise between the two opposing sides or views). Then this SYNTHESIS becomes the new THESIS, waiting for the next wave of opposition to it (the next ANTITHESIS) which will produce the next SYNTHESIS (compromise or “watering-down” or “dilution” of truth).
For our purposes, the THESIS is God’s truth—the Faith. The ANTITHESIS is the devil’s untruth, or lies. The danger lies in the SYNTHESIS of compromise between the two, or should we say the danger lies in the “sin-thesis” of compromise—for, as Holy Scripture says: “What concord [compromise or synthesis] hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God; as God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people!’ Wherefore: ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:15-17)—NO DIALECTIC, NO DISCUSSION, NO DEBATE, NO COMPROMISE!
The whole point of the devil’s opening moves of distraction and deceit is to draw you into a discussion and a debate with him—just as he did with Eve. Once the devil has you distracted and deceived (or at least partially deceived), he will then build on that deception or deceptive truth getting you to enter into further discussion about something—not necessarily about the sinful thing he wants you to think, say, do or go to—but about something more trivial that will “start the conversation”. Yet, at the same time, he does not want you to realize that you are talking with him, so he makes it seem as though you merely talking with yourself in the secrecy of your mind. In this way, the conversation with him will feel ‘normal’ and innocuous—nothing to worry about!―because you imagine you are talking to yourself. The problem is that we have spent all our life under the deception of thinking that all of our interior conversations were with ourselves—it is hard to accept and believe that not all of them were with ourselves, but many were with the devil. The devil hopes you will refuse to accept that truth—so that he can carry on his work undisturbed!
Once again, the advice of Fr. Barrielle should be stated: “As soon as one knows that something comes from the devil, it must be rejected without any discussion. One does not play with the devil! Woe to him who consents to dialogue with the devil!” (Fr. Barrielle, Rules for Discerning the Spirits).
(04) DEGLAMORIZE
Once the devil starts talking to you, he will start to “deglamorize” the Faith and things connected with it. He knows Holy Scripture as well as anyone—and perhaps even better than anyone. He knows that Scripture says: “Put you on the armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace! In all things taking the shield of Faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one! And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit―which is the word of God!” (Ephesians 6:11-17).
The devil will seek to deglamorize God, deglamorize Jesus, deglamorize Our Lady, deglamorize the teachings of the Faith, deglamorize the clergy, deglamorize the religious, deglamorize the faithful and deglamorize all that is remotely connected with the above, such the Mass, the Rosary, the Sacraments and Sacramentals, the spiritual life, etc. Otherwise he cannot draw you away from God and the Faith and religious practices if you love and appreciate them! There would be no deglamorization if there was no discussion and no debate and dialectic.
Look at how his deceptive dialectic has gradually demonized the Catholic Faith and the Catholic Church! The devil, over the course of many centuries but accelerating today, has brought us to the point where even Catholic priests hold heretical and disgusting views! Some of those ‘priests’ say Christ had “an identity crisis” and didn’t really know who He was! Others say he never rose from the dead! Others question and disbelieve His miracles. Others say he married Mary Magdalen, while others contend He had homosexual tendencies in relation to St. John. Some say Our Lady was not a virgin and that she herself was a sinner. Many of the saints have been deglamorized and it is now common to write or speak of them without mentioning the prefix of “Saint”—so they now say “Peter” instead of “St. Peter.” The spirituality of the Mass has been deglamorized and humanized by worldly additions and customs. The Rosary has been deglamorized and made out to be boring—like most ‘boring’ aspects of the spiritual life in general.
The centuries long infiltration of the Church—by Masons―more recently by Communists since before the Second World War (cf. Bella Dodd)―has seen them advance to the highest ranks, and they facilitate the destruction (or deglamorization) of the Church from within. This is aided by many cases of homosexuality, lesbianism and pedophilia amongst the clergy and religious—which merely adds more fuel to the devil’s fire of deglamorization. Today, the Church is certainly not basking in a glamorous light! The devil, little by little, over the course of centuries, has well and truly succeeding in deglamorizing the Church—and our sinfulness, lack of knowledge of the Faith, and no lack of stupidity has helped him enormously!
(05) DISABLE & DISARM
Disable what? Disarm you of what? Ultimately, he wants to disarm you and rob you of the grace of God—without which there can be no salvation. Sanctifying grace is your ticket to a direct flight to Heaven (however most folk don’t want to pay the price for a direct flight, so they, at best, will have a layover, as they change planes, in Purgatory). That sanctifying grace has its protection or armor against the fiery darts of the devil and it that armor and those weapons that the devil must first of remove or disable, if he is to destroy sanctifying grace:
“Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil! For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places! Therefore take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace! In all things taking the shield of Faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit―which is the word of God. By all prayer and supplication praying at all times in the spirit; and in the same watching with all instance!” (Ephesians 6:11-17).
See the weapons and armor—truth, justice, Faith and the word of God (the helmet is the word of God in defense, in that it protects the head—or the mind—against blows and “fiery darts”, meaning we must keep our minds filled with the word of God and protected from the thoughts, words and attitudes of the world, of whom the devil is prince; and the sword is the word of God on attack, by which we argue and disprove the lies of the devil and the world). We must learn the truths of God, but not just to believe them--”Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves!” (James 2:19-20; 1:22).
In other words, don’t just talk the talk, but walk the walk—don’t just believe, do something! That doing means loving God above all things, which, again, is not just sentimental imaginary love coming from the lips--”This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8)—but it is come from the whole heart: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment” (Mark 12:30)—and the very basic, lowest level of love is to obey God and keep His commandments: “If you love Me, keep My commandments!” John 14:15)—and we are commanded to love God through the Mass, in the Mass and by the Mass, for the Mass is the greatest honor that can be given to God and it is the greatest act of love that ever took place—on Calvary. The Mass is the weapon, the spiritual ‘nuclear bomb’ or ‘nuclear missile’ which the devil fears greatly, since he received a resounding defeat upon Calvary at the very moment he thought he had disabled and disarmed Christ. Add to the Holy Mass the Holy Rosary—a weapon the devil fears greatly (read The Secret of the Rosary--plenty of proof in the book). Spiritual reading helps put the gunpowder in the bullets (beads) of the Rosary, so that we are not empty-headed when we pray, which would be like firing blanks or dud-shells.
If the devil can remove this armor, then we are left defenseless and are bound to fall in battle, sooner or later, unless we recover our armor and weapons. He hopes that the distractions and deglamorization will disable and disarm you—with the distractions of the world being exciting and the deglamorization of the Faith, the faithful, the clergy and the spiritual life, will make spiritual exercises and learning to seem boring and unwanted. If this alone will not suffice, then he comes in with the next degree and cranks it up a bit more by creating disturbances.
(06) DISTURBANCE
Disturbance can be of various kinds—basically it can be disturbance within ourselves or disturbance from the outside—from persons, places or things. Since the devil can influence our thoughts by have access to our imagination, he can therefore disturb our soul by influencing our emotions and passions—of which the chief ones are, according to St. Thomas: love and hatred; desire and aversion; joy or delight, and sorrow or grief or pain; hope and despair; fear (timidity) and courage (daring), and anger. We can find ourselves disturbed—that is to say losing our balance and equanimity of soul—by both positive and negative things. We can love things too much and thus cause a disturbance, or we can hate things and thus be disturbed. When we desire things overmuch, we get disturbed. When find an aversion to things, we are also disturbed. Sorrow, grief and pain obviously disturb too. When we lose hope, we fall into disturbing despair. When threatened—regardless of if we fight or flee—we are nevertheless disturbed. Even the courageous man has fear, says St. Thomas, but courage forces one onwards despite that disturbing fear. Anger, likewise, disturbs.
So much for the passions and emotions. The things that can trigger them are countless and each person, according to temperament, circumstances, spiritual condition, influence of others, etc., will react differently to one and the same provocative or disturbing occurrence. The devil, who has no shortage of stooges in the world due to the indifference most people have towards the spiritual life and spiritual exercises, can easily find someone to do his work for him—for it can safely be assumed that most souls are not living in a state of sanctifying grace, and thus, they do not belong to God, but to the devil. As Fr. Amorth and other exorcists say, it is worse to be in a state of mortal sin and not possessed by the devil, than it is to be possessed but in a state of grace at the same time. When we commit mortal sin, we throw God out of our life—and, since “nature abhors a vacuum”, once we push God away, the devil comes near. We have destroyed our walls that surrounded the city of the soul and the devil gains the upper hand—die in that state, and you go to Hell.
So, the devil knowing our weakest points and the things we dislike or fear the most, it is then certain that his disturbance will be “tailor-made” for us. Whether it be illness, failure, insults, mockeries, calumnies, detractions, persecutions, rejection, injustices, financial losses, loss of job, damage to or loss of property, loss of family or friends, loss of reputation, social ostracization and rejection, or lesser things like inconveniences, let-downs, malfunctioning objects or appliances or vehicles, maintenance problems within the home, family stresses, etc., etc., etc. The devil will something to “fit the bill” for you each day, many times a day, until the day you die. Like distractions, disturbances are a “piece of cake” for the devil—whether it is disturbing your thoughts and emotions, or creating unpleasant disturbances around you. The devil hopes that these disturbances will further weaken you and then lead you into…
(07) DIFFERENCES and DISAGREEMENTS
The devil hopes that these disturbances will further weaken you and then lead you into differences of opinion, which he will do his best to make those differences of opinion become more and more vociferous and more bitter, until they ‘blossom’ into disagreements and arguments. This is where the “cracks start to appear” for the devil is first of all removing the “peace of God” that the “world cannot give” from you and those around you—whether at home, or at work, at school, in the parish or your social circle. Now, though Our Lord promises peace—”Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you―not as the world giveth, do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid” (John 14:27)—He promises a very different peace to the “go along to get along” peace of the “sit down and don’t rock the boat” world!
The peace of the Lord is the peace that comes from doing the will of God, despite the opposition and protestations and differences of opinion and arguments coming from our nearest and dearest, or from the world. For Our Lord goes on to shoot-down any false ideas about a fake “go along to get along” peace, when He says: “Everyone therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven. Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no; but separation! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household! He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:32-38; Luke 12:51-52). It seems as though by saying this, Our Lord is playing into the devil’s hands! For, as the next point shows, the devil wants to create dichotomies and sow division! Hmm! What goes on here?
(08) DICHOTOMY and DIVISION
So as not lose the train of thought, let us define the word “dichotomy”, which means a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities. For example the dichotomy between theory and practice, where the practice contradicts the theory, leading to statements like: “I thought we were supposed to …”, to which comes the reply: “Yeah! Maybe in theory, but in practice it’s different!” The word “dichotomy” can also mean the process or practice of making such a division.
This is dichotomy and division that Our Lord refers to above—saying that in families there will be those who will want to put the theory of the Faith into practice, and then there will be those who will perhaps agree with the theory of the Faith, but will say it is impracticable and cannot be put into practice, because it is “unrealistic”, “meant for a different age to ours”, “madness”, “suicidal”, etc. In other words, there are those who want to be real Catholics, and those who are happy to be Catholics in theory, but not in practice. Now, understand this, that nobody makes this dichotomy and division in ALL things that the Faith teaches, but only in their preferred areas. Nevertheless, this weakness and cowardice of Faith causes great problems with a family, work place, school, parish or any other body—for we are only as strong as our weakest link. Usually, due to human respect—of which Our Lady of Good Success said: “Cursed human respect! Which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’”―we take the weakest line of action and thus prove the point that we are only as strong as our weakest link, and the “part time Catholic”, or “two-faced Catholic” (a face for Christ and a face for the world), ends up dragging everyone down to “the lowest common denominator” and the Faith suffers a blow and the devil gets to smile.
“Divide and conquer” is his aim, and Our Lord said: “Every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate: and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand!” (Matthew 12:25) … ”And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand!” (Mark 3:24-25). As Our Lord said to Sr. Mary of the Trinity: “When the devil wishes to spoil a religious community [we can also include your family, or work place, school or parish], he employs two great means: illusions and misunderstandings. Illusions introduce falsehood. Misunderstandings are the little accomplices that contrive between themselves finally to expel Me. Simplicity and sincerity are enough to destroy the worst misunderstandings” (Jesus to Sr. Mary of the Trinity, Words of Love, by Fr. Gottemoller).
(09) DISCREDITING others and DERIDING
Division is like a fire, it grows, and the way the devil will make it grow will be through the inflamed emotions that are, by now, burning brightly. When arguments and divisions escalate, then discrediting and derision (mockery, insults, ridicule, scorn) are not very far behind—you could say they are the children of arguments and division. Notice in family arguments—once they escalate, then the scorn, ridicule, mockery and insults start to get hurled around! Not always, but often. Let the division go on for long enough and it is bound to appear. Once the emotions and passions have been stirred by the devil, then “the brakes are off and no longer function”—anything can be ‘justified’ by a person ruled by passion and emotion! This is a typical trait of the devil, in whom there is no charity and no love—even the devils hate each other—there are no friendships in Hell. So, if you like, this is a kind of aperitif of Hell—a light introduction that gets more grim as you go along!
This is devil “warming-up”, this is the devil in his “element” for when we trace back the origins of the word “devil” we go from the Old English deofol, which is related to Dutch duivel and Italian diavolo, French diable, Spanish diablo; and all of them owe their origins to the Latin diabolus, which came from the earlier Greek diabolos meaning “accuser, slanderer” from diaballein—a compound of dia meaning “across” + ballein meaning “to throw”—in other words, “to accuse” or “to slander”, thus throwing across accusations, twisted-truths, ridicule and insults that deride and discredit.
It is very easy to “join the gang” and “gang-up” on someone or something by hurling derisive remarks at the thing or person in question, so that the person or thing loses all credibility and respect—which then cuts a deeper wound than before! We have all done it—perhaps we still do it. This derision and discrediting keeps the previously introduced elements of disturbance, disagreement and division ”on the boil”. Whatever, whenever, wherever and however the devil can reduce and cool charity, you can bet your last dollar that he will not shy away from doing it. Just as Our Lord told us: “Love one another as I have loved you!” (John 13:34)—the devil, for his part, seems to say: “Hate one another as I hate you!” He just loves to hate and see hatred flourish. Which is why Our Lord says: “By their fruits you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:16). ”Mockery and reproach are of the proud” (Ecclesiasticus 27:31) and ”a man shall mock his brother, and they will not speak the truth―for they have taught their tongue to speak lies: they have labored to commit iniquity!” (Jeremias 9:5).
We would do well to remember some other words of Our Lord that are linked to this situation: “I say to you, that whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother: ‘Raca!’ (a word expressing great indignation or contempt) shall be in danger of the council (the judicial court). And whosoever shall say: ‘Thou Fool!’, shall be in danger of Hell fire!” (Matthew 5:22). Like a growing cancer, this leads us further down the slippery slope of Satan to the next level of devilish ‘D’s, which are merely a natural growth of the previous levels …
(10) DETRACTION, DEFAMATION, DISTORTION in order to DISGRACE
To pour more fuel onto the fire started by disturbance, disagreement, division, derision and discrediting, the devil will make sure you come across various detractions and defamations that are calculated to disturb you further. He will add to this all kinds of distortions or exaggerations, which come all too naturally from the devil, for the word “devil” comes from the Greek diabolos, meaning ”twister, accuser, calumniator”. All of this is calculated to make you pass the sentence: “It’s all disgraceful!” Yet the devil will also say: “Be not just a hearer of the word, but a doer! Knowledge without works is dead! You must not just listen to detraction and calumny, but in your righteous indignation you must pass it on and spread the rumor, repeat the lie, reveal the person’s sins to even more people! That way you will be doing the will of your father in Hell!” As Holy Scripture laments: “This is the work of them who detract me before the Lord; and who speak evils against my soul!” (Psalm 108:20). There is nothing like a ‘good’ piece of detraction to make you feel better, look good, and earn an audience and reputation for “being in the know”! Who? Me? “Every man is a liar!” (Psalms 115:11). ”If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us … If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10).
Detraction means the revealing of the sins of others―the truth is said, but it detracts from the person’s reputation who is being accused. Moral theology tells us that even a sinner is entitled to a good reputation—which is partially why the priest, after hearing your confession, does not reveal your sins, nor can he treat you badly or worse than you were treated before confession. The calumniator says what he knows to be false, whilst the detractor narrates what he at least honestly thinks is true. ”Detraction, in a general sense, is a mortal sin, as being a violation of the virtue, not only of charity, but also of justice. It is obvious, however, that the subject-matter of the accusation may be so inconspicuous or, so little capable of doing serious hurt, that the guilt is not assumed to be more than venial. it is conceivable that a relatively small defect alleged against a person of eminent station, such as a bishop, might seriously tarnish his good name and be a mortal sin” (Catholic Encyclopedia, “Detraction”).
We most certainly do not want to be detracted ourselves and yet we are sinners too, are we not—”If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8)―but why then do we listen to and get ‘drunk’ on detraction about others? Or worse still, be the instigator of the actual detraction? It is not only the detractor who sins, but also the listener, because by listening, he gives the detractor a platform upon which to speak. If Our Lord says: “I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the Day of Judgment!” (Matthew 12:36), then what would He say about words of detraction, defamation or distortion?
Defamation is the action of damaging the good reputation of someone by slander (a spoken lie or a false spoken statement damaging to a person’s reputation) or libel(defamation expressed by print, writing, pictures, signs, effigies, etc. that is injurious to a person’s reputation, exposes a person to public hatred, contempt or ridicule, or injures a person in their business or profession).
St. James speaks out against such an attitude: “Detract not one another, my brethren! He that detracteth his brother, or he that judgeth his brother, detracteth the law, and judgeth the law!” (James 4:11). ”For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man. He is able also with a bridle to lead about the whole body and keep it in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by Hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be!” (James 3:2-10).
If you decide to accept the devil’s invitation to join “The Calumny Club”, then he will supply you with limitless doses of detraction—all you can drink—as you mix with other detractors, distorters and defamers in the devil’s famous “Libel Lounge”! The devil will make sure that you get joyfully drunk on detraction, the devil will help you rationalize away the sin of your detraction by telling you that you have a holy and righteous attitude of holy indignation and that such sinners, as so-and-so, deserve to have their name dragged through the mud for what they have done!
Yet just like in the “westerns” or “cowboy movies”, Our Lord rides into town and enters the saloon! All goes quiet as He looks around to see what is going on. Then he says those words once said to His mystics (cf. Words of Love, by Fr. Gottemoller): “See how they misrepresent Me. They make Me out as one to be feared, whereas I am kindness itself? Remember, and never forget: Jesus is kind! Do not misrepresent Me! The enemy will make every effort to shake your Faith in Me, but you must never forget that I am, and love to be, exclusively kind and merciful. You would have your sins, but they exist no more, for I have forgotten them for all eternity. No, it is not the multiplicity of sins which condemns a soul, for I forgive everything if she repents, but it is the obstinacy of not wishing to be pardoned, of wishing to be damned! Dismas on the cross had only one single act of Faith in Me, but many, many sins; he was pardoned in an instant, however, and on the very day of his repentance he entered into My kingdom and is a saint! Behold the triumph of My Mercy! No, My Father, Who has given Me the souls, is greater and more powerful than all the demons. Have confidence in Me! Trust Me always! For I am kind, immensely kind and merciful, and I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live. Let them not descend to personal reflections which belittle them, but rejoice at seeing themselves clothed with the power of My blood and of My merits. Let them be burnt up with zeal and charity for sinners ... praying for them with compassionate hearts and treating them with all gentleness. It is when a soul forgives and is silent that she most resembles My Mother!”Alas, that is not the agenda of the devil and of those whom he wittingly or unwittingly recruits to do his work!
Our Lord goes on: “I want them [My consecrated souls] to know that I love them as they are. I know that through frailty they will fall more than once. I know that they will often break the promises they have made Me. But their will to do better glorifies Me, their humble avowals after their falls, their trust in the forgiveness I will grant, glorify My Heart so much, that I will shed abundant graces on them. If their infidelities wound Me deeply, their love consoles and delights My Heart to such a degree that I, so to speak, forget the sins of many others on their account. Never does My Heart refuse to forgive a soul that humbles itself, especially when it asks with confidence” (Words of Love, by Fr. Robert Gottemoller). How the devil hates such words! So he tries with all his might to make us fall more on the side of righteous indignation and has us scream for justice, rather than follow Our Lord’s lead along the path of kindliness and mercy. St. James and St. John were a little overboard on the “screaming for justice” side too: “And Jesus sent messengers before His face; and going, they entered into a city of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. And they received Him not, because His face was of one going to Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John had seen this, they said: ‘Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven, and destroy them?’ And turning, Jesus rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:52-56).
Know Your Enemy!
In our modern centuries, the world has seen war in one place or another for well over 200 hundred years—some wars have been massive, some small—but the world has been at war nevertheless. In that time we have had two “World Wars” are currently awaiting for the Third World War to start anytime soon!
In this “Age of War” there are many moderns who look upon a Chinese warrior almost as a demi-god, and they avidly read his famous book―The Art of War. This short book, The Art of War, is traditionally attributed to a military general from the late 6th century BC, known as “Master Sun” (Sunzi or Sun Tzu). The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise of 13 short chapters. Each chapter is devoted to a distinct aspect of warfare and how that applies to military strategy and tactics.
For almost 1,500 years The Art of War remains the most influential strategy text in East Asia. In many East Asian countries, The Art of War was part of the syllabus for potential candidates of military service examinations. During the Vietnam War, some Vietcong officers studied The Art of War and reportedly could recite entire passages from memory. The Department of the Army in the United States, through its Command and General Staff College, lists The Art of War as one example of a book that may be kept at a military unit’s library. The Art of War is listed on the Marine Corps Professional Reading Program (formerly known as the Commandant’s Reading List). It is recommended reading for all United States Military Intelligence personnel. According to some authors, the strategy of deception from The Art of War was studied and widely used by the Russian KGB (the world’s largest spy and state-security machine). It has a profound influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond.
In The Art of War, the military strategist, Sun Tzu, writes: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Spiritual Warfare
Like or not, we are all exposed to spiritual warfare: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) and we either fight for our salvation or we will lose our salvation and soul: “This is the victory which overcometh the world, our Faith” (1 John 5:4). ”Fight the good fight of Faith: lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). ”Be sober and watch! Because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour! Whom resist ye, strong in Faith: knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world” (1 Peter 5:8-9).
St. Peter tells us the unpalatable news that we do not want to hear—that we are susceptible to the wiles of the devil, like every person in the world is susceptible to them. There is no escape from this truth and fact and the consequences. It is a case of fight for your soul or lose your soul.
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the lately deceased (2016) chief exorcist in Rome, said: “The state of belief in the devil in the Church is too low. The devil is very pleased with that, since this gives him free reign to do his work … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially, just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry ... Evil exists in politics, quite often in fact! … Satan really does hand out his gifts of wealth, pleasure and success. Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies … Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan … The loss of a sense of sin, that characterizes our era, helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God: ‘Everything is lawful.’ ‘What is wrong there?’ ‘Everyone does it!’ … The devil also makes evil appear interesting, positive, and beautiful … Satan will delude people into thinking that life is a beautiful holiday, where everything is permitted and where your ‘I’ does not recognize any limits regarding pleasure or enjoyment …”
“His main activity, which we can call ‘ordinary’, is to tempt man to commit evil, to make him turn away from God ... Today families are among the most targeted by the ordinary action of Satan … They are torn apart by various attractions; they reunite and separate again … This breakdown [in the family] leads to delinquency, wickedness, and evil … Today there is much talk of love, but there truly is none! … Each year 50 million children are murdered by abortion! Then there is the broken family, cohabitation! … Divorce has been a disaster! … It is all destruction! … It is a shattered world, so it is essential that a Christian who wants to live as a Christian, must be different from the others. Christians must stand up for their beliefs and not be shy.
“Many of the devil’s ‘ordinary’ temptations are passed off as ‘modern ideas’, but really serve to unhinge the principles of the Faith. Believing in God doesn’t guarantee salvation, as 90% of the Italians would like to think. I have never, in my exorcisms, come across a devil who does not believe in God. Believing doesn’t mean anything! Instead, it is necessary to do what Jesus has told us to do” (cf. James 2:14-20; Matthew 7:21). When Faith in God declines, idolatry and irrationality increase … Ultimately, the most formidable diabolical trap is the half-heartedness, indifference, and spiritual numbness that gradually plunges us into darkness and spiritual evils.”
THE FORTY D’s OF THE DEVIL (Part 1 ― Numbers 1 to 10)
(01) DISTRACTION
Distraction makes us lose the traction in our focus! We know from experience that so many things go wrong when we are distracted—whether it is while driving, working, cooking, cleaning, etc. The same can be true in the spiritual life—lose your focus, and you might lose your soul; if you don’t pay attention, you may for eternity! The devil is a master of distraction. It is usually one of the first steps he will take in the long devious road to your intended damnation. The more distracted we are, the easier is Satan’s work.
These distractions are all around us and we think little or nothing of the potential danger that they hold. Remember! It takes only a few seconds of distraction for a car to crash! The same can be true in the spiritual life—lose your focus, and you might lose your soul. The military and military intelligence are well-trained in causing distractions to great effect. The devil knows you better than you know yourself—he has focused on you and your habits, tendencies, likes and dislikes, temperament, preferences, irritations, pet peeves, desires, etc., since the day you were born. The file he has on you would give you a heart attack! He knows what buttons to press and what levers to pull to turn you aside from what you should be doing! Besides, he is the prince of the world, and since you have somewhat of an attachment to certain things of the world, then he will gladly use them to distract you time and time again. It may consist of worldly distractions or even spiritual distractions—but they will have one goal in mind: to distract you from doing the “greater” or “better”, and leading you to the “lesser” or the “weaker”. He wants to distract you away from the better spiritual exercises to the lesser ones, and then from the lesser ones to worldly, or natural, or material things. Little by little, away from God and into the waters of the world.
The initial distraction will not be an “evil” thing, but a good thing. That is now con-men or con-artists work—they start legitimately, they may even “make a loss” on you at first, just to win your confidence. The devil will often distract you from holy things by ‘lesser’ holy things. He knows the power of everything and what it can do for you—so, instead of having you pray the Rosary, he will suggest some other ‘lesser’ prayer that might not seem as boring as the Rosary! Instead of going to an extra Mass, he might suggest that you go visit some sick person instead, or do something for the children, or even say a ‘boring’ Rosary. He will always try to distract with lesser things to keep you away from what can help you the most. The less grace you get, the weaker you become. He cannot win if you are strong.
Also, distraction allows him to work unnoticed. If you have ever been to Rome, you may have noticed the famous “Roma Pickpockets” at work. They used to be mainly Gypsy families, but now they also include many other immigrants too. The travel agencies, on their websites, warn you against them. Here is an extract of one such warning:
“Others will work in groups, swarming you, babbling excitedly, and sometimes holding up bits of cardboard with messages scrawled on them to distract you. Then, faster than you can say “Hey!...”, they’ll rifle your pockets while the cardboard shields their hands from view. Near walls and in subway tunnels, they might even be so bold as to pin you against the wall with the cardboard so as to fleece you more easily. Some may spill a drink they are carrying on you and effusively apologize as they wipe you down, while in the pandemonium their cohorts are pickpocketing you, or unzipping some of your back pack compartments, etc. They aren’t really physically dangerous, but they are very skillful at rifling and taking your stuff. If they get near enough to touch you, push them away—don’t hold back just because they’re kids. They are trying to steal from you!”
Even the military and terrorists will use distraction as part of their attack maneuvers. The devil is no different. Beware of being distracted, especially by ‘good’ things, for the devil has no problem with you doing ‘good’ things if that means keeping you away from better things. The devil’s use of distraction does not just occur at the start of his long and winding road into temptation and sin, but it is something he will use all along the road—using hundreds of different ways of distracting, hundreds of times. Distraction is like the breathing air—it is takes place all the time. Get used to it—it won’t go away, just as the devil won’t go away—but be aware of it and don’t fall for it!
(02) DECEPTION
Our Lord is Truth itself, the devil is a liar. The Church gives (or should give) the truth, the world is full of lies. The devil deceives, the world deceives, the children of the world deceive. “Lies, lies and more damned lies!” Our Lord calls the devil a liar and the father of lies. In speaking to some of the Jews and Pharisees, Our Lord says: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do! He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him! When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own―for he is a liar, and the father thereof!” (John 8:44). We see the devil “ply his trade”, or should it be “lie his trade” with Eve. He lies about God and he lies about what the forbidden fruit would do for them. He has been lying ever since then! Yet, he will always clothe his lies with some semblance of truth—otherwise who would “buy into it”?
We ourselves—being somewhat two-faced—sometimes side with the truth and other times we hate the truth and replace it with lies, or we twist the truth, exaggerate the truth, downplay the truth and shape the truth to suit our own preferences, our own ambitions, our own prejudices, our own likes, and so we fall into the same mold as some of Jews and Pharisees, of whom Our Lord said: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do!” (John 8:44). The devil—the father of lies—is always lying in wait to ‘charitably’ come and help us with our misrepresentation of the truth, or exaggeration of the truth, or twisting of the truth, or falsification of the truth, or denial of the truth, or ridiculing the truth, etc. The devil will help us rationalize our way out of the truth when it is uncomfortable for us, and he will help us hammer home the truth (twistingly) when it comes to others. He is a manipulator of the truth and he will gladly help us learn his trade! If we neglect to know our Faith—which is what overcomes the devil and world—then we will be doubly-dumb: dumb for not knowing what we should know, and dumb for falling for the devil’s deceits!
Fr. Barrielle, in his book, Rules for Discerning the Spirits, writes: “Fallacious reasoning is an unmistakable sign of the devil. One must be very skeptical of certain false theories, of certain slogans which engender many sins, and often grave sins against the faith, against justice or charity. For example: ‘They can choose their own religion when they grow up!’” (Fr. Barrielle, Rules for Discerning the Spirits).
Furthermore, the devil will cement his deception through the people that surround in family, at work, in school, in the parish, among friends and relatives—for he will use “dummies” who know little about the Faith, or who practice little virtue, to pour more fuel onto the fire of deceit that he has set alight. They will “add their own two-cents worth” of half-baked wisdom, which is usually based more on the principles and attitudes of the world (of whom, Jesus says, the devil is prince), rather than the principles of the Faith (which they know very little about).
We are familiar with the expression: “Don’t believe everything you hear!” How true and wise that statement is! How many times have we been wrong? Countless and still counting! The more stupid, or ignorant, or uninformed a person is, the easier it is to sell that person a lie. Truth is our measuring stick—but if you know so little about the Faith, then what will you measure with? Catholics today have been sold all kinds of lies because they did not know the truth! Isn’t that the truth, eh? We see that deception used by the devil on Our Lord during the temptation in the desert—the devil is deceptive in the way he employs quotes from Holy Scripture. Our Lord “shoots him down” by other quotes from Holy Scripture that “trump” the ones the devil tried to deceptively use.
As Our Lord said: “Know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!” (John 8:32). When you know little of the truths of the Faith, then you are more easily deceived—that is why so many Catholics today accept living in sin, contraception, abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriages, worldliness, addictions, promiscuity, etc. Someone has managed to persuade them (deceive them) into thinking these things are now acceptable for one reason or another. ”If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit”(Matthew 15:14) while they rationalize to each other that they are not blind at all! ‘Dumb’ people do ‘dumb’ things! That is why Pope St. Pius X lamented the ignorance of Catholics (read about it here).
(03) DISCUSSION, DEBATE & DIALECTICS
There can be little hope of leading you into sin—and eventually Hell—without discussion and debate. Fr. Barrielle, in his book, The Discerning of Spirits, warns: “We have there a general rule, which is capital. As soon as one knows that it comes from the devil, it must be rejected without any discussion. My master of novices, Fr. Terradas said, ‘One does not play with the devil!’ He calls ‘playing with the devil’ the fact of tarrying with a thought that one knows to be not good, and thus, from the devil, while reassuring oneself, with a firm will, not to consent to it. Woe to him who consents to dialogue with the devil (who is much stronger that we)! Eve succumbed because she ‘played’ with the devil. After having told her that God had forbidden it, the devil followed up with new reasons. Instead of cutting him short, she started to discuss with him … She discussed, and the devil finished by making her fall. St. Bernard wrote: ‘Nobody becomes suddenly bad.” We sometimes hear of priests falling, of great, exemplary Christians falling, etc. Know that it has not happened all of a sudden. For a long time, they have played with the devil’” (Fr. Ludovic-Marie Barrielle, Rules for Discerning the Spirits).
The problem is that the devil is the most skillful impersonator and he knows how to ‘impersonate’ us—so that when he speaks to us, we imagine we are speaking with ourselves! Oh those fruitless, useless, dangerous interior conversations that we all get involved in! Yes, sometimes we do speak with ourselves, yet at other times we are gullibly speaking with the devil.
The word “dialectics” means seeking the resolution of a disagreement between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject, by the use of logical argument. Debate is similar, but it allows emotions to enter into the disagreement and does not remain on the level of logic alone. Modern dialectic is essentially a compromise. In more technical terms, there is a THESIS that it proposed, which is then opposed by and ANTITHESIS (the opposing view) and then, after a back and forth discussion, you are meant to arrive at the SYNTHESIS (the compromise between the two opposing sides or views). Then this SYNTHESIS becomes the new THESIS, waiting for the next wave of opposition to it (the next ANTITHESIS) which will produce the next SYNTHESIS (compromise or “watering-down” or “dilution” of truth).
For our purposes, the THESIS is God’s truth—the Faith. The ANTITHESIS is the devil’s untruth, or lies. The danger lies in the SYNTHESIS of compromise between the two, or should we say the danger lies in the “sin-thesis” of compromise—for, as Holy Scripture says: “What concord [compromise or synthesis] hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God; as God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people!’ Wherefore: ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:15-17)—NO DIALECTIC, NO DISCUSSION, NO DEBATE, NO COMPROMISE!
The whole point of the devil’s opening moves of distraction and deceit is to draw you into a discussion and a debate with him—just as he did with Eve. Once the devil has you distracted and deceived (or at least partially deceived), he will then build on that deception or deceptive truth getting you to enter into further discussion about something—not necessarily about the sinful thing he wants you to think, say, do or go to—but about something more trivial that will “start the conversation”. Yet, at the same time, he does not want you to realize that you are talking with him, so he makes it seem as though you merely talking with yourself in the secrecy of your mind. In this way, the conversation with him will feel ‘normal’ and innocuous—nothing to worry about!―because you imagine you are talking to yourself. The problem is that we have spent all our life under the deception of thinking that all of our interior conversations were with ourselves—it is hard to accept and believe that not all of them were with ourselves, but many were with the devil. The devil hopes you will refuse to accept that truth—so that he can carry on his work undisturbed!
Once again, the advice of Fr. Barrielle should be stated: “As soon as one knows that something comes from the devil, it must be rejected without any discussion. One does not play with the devil! Woe to him who consents to dialogue with the devil!” (Fr. Barrielle, Rules for Discerning the Spirits).
(04) DEGLAMORIZE
Once the devil starts talking to you, he will start to “deglamorize” the Faith and things connected with it. He knows Holy Scripture as well as anyone—and perhaps even better than anyone. He knows that Scripture says: “Put you on the armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace! In all things taking the shield of Faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one! And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit―which is the word of God!” (Ephesians 6:11-17).
The devil will seek to deglamorize God, deglamorize Jesus, deglamorize Our Lady, deglamorize the teachings of the Faith, deglamorize the clergy, deglamorize the religious, deglamorize the faithful and deglamorize all that is remotely connected with the above, such the Mass, the Rosary, the Sacraments and Sacramentals, the spiritual life, etc. Otherwise he cannot draw you away from God and the Faith and religious practices if you love and appreciate them! There would be no deglamorization if there was no discussion and no debate and dialectic.
Look at how his deceptive dialectic has gradually demonized the Catholic Faith and the Catholic Church! The devil, over the course of many centuries but accelerating today, has brought us to the point where even Catholic priests hold heretical and disgusting views! Some of those ‘priests’ say Christ had “an identity crisis” and didn’t really know who He was! Others say he never rose from the dead! Others question and disbelieve His miracles. Others say he married Mary Magdalen, while others contend He had homosexual tendencies in relation to St. John. Some say Our Lady was not a virgin and that she herself was a sinner. Many of the saints have been deglamorized and it is now common to write or speak of them without mentioning the prefix of “Saint”—so they now say “Peter” instead of “St. Peter.” The spirituality of the Mass has been deglamorized and humanized by worldly additions and customs. The Rosary has been deglamorized and made out to be boring—like most ‘boring’ aspects of the spiritual life in general.
The centuries long infiltration of the Church—by Masons―more recently by Communists since before the Second World War (cf. Bella Dodd)―has seen them advance to the highest ranks, and they facilitate the destruction (or deglamorization) of the Church from within. This is aided by many cases of homosexuality, lesbianism and pedophilia amongst the clergy and religious—which merely adds more fuel to the devil’s fire of deglamorization. Today, the Church is certainly not basking in a glamorous light! The devil, little by little, over the course of centuries, has well and truly succeeding in deglamorizing the Church—and our sinfulness, lack of knowledge of the Faith, and no lack of stupidity has helped him enormously!
(05) DISABLE & DISARM
Disable what? Disarm you of what? Ultimately, he wants to disarm you and rob you of the grace of God—without which there can be no salvation. Sanctifying grace is your ticket to a direct flight to Heaven (however most folk don’t want to pay the price for a direct flight, so they, at best, will have a layover, as they change planes, in Purgatory). That sanctifying grace has its protection or armor against the fiery darts of the devil and it that armor and those weapons that the devil must first of remove or disable, if he is to destroy sanctifying grace:
“Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil! For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places! Therefore take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace! In all things taking the shield of Faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit―which is the word of God. By all prayer and supplication praying at all times in the spirit; and in the same watching with all instance!” (Ephesians 6:11-17).
See the weapons and armor—truth, justice, Faith and the word of God (the helmet is the word of God in defense, in that it protects the head—or the mind—against blows and “fiery darts”, meaning we must keep our minds filled with the word of God and protected from the thoughts, words and attitudes of the world, of whom the devil is prince; and the sword is the word of God on attack, by which we argue and disprove the lies of the devil and the world). We must learn the truths of God, but not just to believe them--”Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves!” (James 2:19-20; 1:22).
In other words, don’t just talk the talk, but walk the walk—don’t just believe, do something! That doing means loving God above all things, which, again, is not just sentimental imaginary love coming from the lips--”This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8)—but it is come from the whole heart: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment” (Mark 12:30)—and the very basic, lowest level of love is to obey God and keep His commandments: “If you love Me, keep My commandments!” John 14:15)—and we are commanded to love God through the Mass, in the Mass and by the Mass, for the Mass is the greatest honor that can be given to God and it is the greatest act of love that ever took place—on Calvary. The Mass is the weapon, the spiritual ‘nuclear bomb’ or ‘nuclear missile’ which the devil fears greatly, since he received a resounding defeat upon Calvary at the very moment he thought he had disabled and disarmed Christ. Add to the Holy Mass the Holy Rosary—a weapon the devil fears greatly (read The Secret of the Rosary--plenty of proof in the book). Spiritual reading helps put the gunpowder in the bullets (beads) of the Rosary, so that we are not empty-headed when we pray, which would be like firing blanks or dud-shells.
If the devil can remove this armor, then we are left defenseless and are bound to fall in battle, sooner or later, unless we recover our armor and weapons. He hopes that the distractions and deglamorization will disable and disarm you—with the distractions of the world being exciting and the deglamorization of the Faith, the faithful, the clergy and the spiritual life, will make spiritual exercises and learning to seem boring and unwanted. If this alone will not suffice, then he comes in with the next degree and cranks it up a bit more by creating disturbances.
(06) DISTURBANCE
Disturbance can be of various kinds—basically it can be disturbance within ourselves or disturbance from the outside—from persons, places or things. Since the devil can influence our thoughts by have access to our imagination, he can therefore disturb our soul by influencing our emotions and passions—of which the chief ones are, according to St. Thomas: love and hatred; desire and aversion; joy or delight, and sorrow or grief or pain; hope and despair; fear (timidity) and courage (daring), and anger. We can find ourselves disturbed—that is to say losing our balance and equanimity of soul—by both positive and negative things. We can love things too much and thus cause a disturbance, or we can hate things and thus be disturbed. When we desire things overmuch, we get disturbed. When find an aversion to things, we are also disturbed. Sorrow, grief and pain obviously disturb too. When we lose hope, we fall into disturbing despair. When threatened—regardless of if we fight or flee—we are nevertheless disturbed. Even the courageous man has fear, says St. Thomas, but courage forces one onwards despite that disturbing fear. Anger, likewise, disturbs.
So much for the passions and emotions. The things that can trigger them are countless and each person, according to temperament, circumstances, spiritual condition, influence of others, etc., will react differently to one and the same provocative or disturbing occurrence. The devil, who has no shortage of stooges in the world due to the indifference most people have towards the spiritual life and spiritual exercises, can easily find someone to do his work for him—for it can safely be assumed that most souls are not living in a state of sanctifying grace, and thus, they do not belong to God, but to the devil. As Fr. Amorth and other exorcists say, it is worse to be in a state of mortal sin and not possessed by the devil, than it is to be possessed but in a state of grace at the same time. When we commit mortal sin, we throw God out of our life—and, since “nature abhors a vacuum”, once we push God away, the devil comes near. We have destroyed our walls that surrounded the city of the soul and the devil gains the upper hand—die in that state, and you go to Hell.
So, the devil knowing our weakest points and the things we dislike or fear the most, it is then certain that his disturbance will be “tailor-made” for us. Whether it be illness, failure, insults, mockeries, calumnies, detractions, persecutions, rejection, injustices, financial losses, loss of job, damage to or loss of property, loss of family or friends, loss of reputation, social ostracization and rejection, or lesser things like inconveniences, let-downs, malfunctioning objects or appliances or vehicles, maintenance problems within the home, family stresses, etc., etc., etc. The devil will something to “fit the bill” for you each day, many times a day, until the day you die. Like distractions, disturbances are a “piece of cake” for the devil—whether it is disturbing your thoughts and emotions, or creating unpleasant disturbances around you. The devil hopes that these disturbances will further weaken you and then lead you into…
(07) DIFFERENCES and DISAGREEMENTS
The devil hopes that these disturbances will further weaken you and then lead you into differences of opinion, which he will do his best to make those differences of opinion become more and more vociferous and more bitter, until they ‘blossom’ into disagreements and arguments. This is where the “cracks start to appear” for the devil is first of all removing the “peace of God” that the “world cannot give” from you and those around you—whether at home, or at work, at school, in the parish or your social circle. Now, though Our Lord promises peace—”Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you―not as the world giveth, do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid” (John 14:27)—He promises a very different peace to the “go along to get along” peace of the “sit down and don’t rock the boat” world!
The peace of the Lord is the peace that comes from doing the will of God, despite the opposition and protestations and differences of opinion and arguments coming from our nearest and dearest, or from the world. For Our Lord goes on to shoot-down any false ideas about a fake “go along to get along” peace, when He says: “Everyone therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven. Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no; but separation! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household! He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:32-38; Luke 12:51-52). It seems as though by saying this, Our Lord is playing into the devil’s hands! For, as the next point shows, the devil wants to create dichotomies and sow division! Hmm! What goes on here?
(08) DICHOTOMY and DIVISION
So as not lose the train of thought, let us define the word “dichotomy”, which means a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities. For example the dichotomy between theory and practice, where the practice contradicts the theory, leading to statements like: “I thought we were supposed to …”, to which comes the reply: “Yeah! Maybe in theory, but in practice it’s different!” The word “dichotomy” can also mean the process or practice of making such a division.
This is dichotomy and division that Our Lord refers to above—saying that in families there will be those who will want to put the theory of the Faith into practice, and then there will be those who will perhaps agree with the theory of the Faith, but will say it is impracticable and cannot be put into practice, because it is “unrealistic”, “meant for a different age to ours”, “madness”, “suicidal”, etc. In other words, there are those who want to be real Catholics, and those who are happy to be Catholics in theory, but not in practice. Now, understand this, that nobody makes this dichotomy and division in ALL things that the Faith teaches, but only in their preferred areas. Nevertheless, this weakness and cowardice of Faith causes great problems with a family, work place, school, parish or any other body—for we are only as strong as our weakest link. Usually, due to human respect—of which Our Lady of Good Success said: “Cursed human respect! Which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’”―we take the weakest line of action and thus prove the point that we are only as strong as our weakest link, and the “part time Catholic”, or “two-faced Catholic” (a face for Christ and a face for the world), ends up dragging everyone down to “the lowest common denominator” and the Faith suffers a blow and the devil gets to smile.
“Divide and conquer” is his aim, and Our Lord said: “Every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate: and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand!” (Matthew 12:25) … ”And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand!” (Mark 3:24-25). As Our Lord said to Sr. Mary of the Trinity: “When the devil wishes to spoil a religious community [we can also include your family, or work place, school or parish], he employs two great means: illusions and misunderstandings. Illusions introduce falsehood. Misunderstandings are the little accomplices that contrive between themselves finally to expel Me. Simplicity and sincerity are enough to destroy the worst misunderstandings” (Jesus to Sr. Mary of the Trinity, Words of Love, by Fr. Gottemoller).
(09) DISCREDITING others and DERIDING
Division is like a fire, it grows, and the way the devil will make it grow will be through the inflamed emotions that are, by now, burning brightly. When arguments and divisions escalate, then discrediting and derision (mockery, insults, ridicule, scorn) are not very far behind—you could say they are the children of arguments and division. Notice in family arguments—once they escalate, then the scorn, ridicule, mockery and insults start to get hurled around! Not always, but often. Let the division go on for long enough and it is bound to appear. Once the emotions and passions have been stirred by the devil, then “the brakes are off and no longer function”—anything can be ‘justified’ by a person ruled by passion and emotion! This is a typical trait of the devil, in whom there is no charity and no love—even the devils hate each other—there are no friendships in Hell. So, if you like, this is a kind of aperitif of Hell—a light introduction that gets more grim as you go along!
This is devil “warming-up”, this is the devil in his “element” for when we trace back the origins of the word “devil” we go from the Old English deofol, which is related to Dutch duivel and Italian diavolo, French diable, Spanish diablo; and all of them owe their origins to the Latin diabolus, which came from the earlier Greek diabolos meaning “accuser, slanderer” from diaballein—a compound of dia meaning “across” + ballein meaning “to throw”—in other words, “to accuse” or “to slander”, thus throwing across accusations, twisted-truths, ridicule and insults that deride and discredit.
It is very easy to “join the gang” and “gang-up” on someone or something by hurling derisive remarks at the thing or person in question, so that the person or thing loses all credibility and respect—which then cuts a deeper wound than before! We have all done it—perhaps we still do it. This derision and discrediting keeps the previously introduced elements of disturbance, disagreement and division ”on the boil”. Whatever, whenever, wherever and however the devil can reduce and cool charity, you can bet your last dollar that he will not shy away from doing it. Just as Our Lord told us: “Love one another as I have loved you!” (John 13:34)—the devil, for his part, seems to say: “Hate one another as I hate you!” He just loves to hate and see hatred flourish. Which is why Our Lord says: “By their fruits you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:16). ”Mockery and reproach are of the proud” (Ecclesiasticus 27:31) and ”a man shall mock his brother, and they will not speak the truth―for they have taught their tongue to speak lies: they have labored to commit iniquity!” (Jeremias 9:5).
We would do well to remember some other words of Our Lord that are linked to this situation: “I say to you, that whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother: ‘Raca!’ (a word expressing great indignation or contempt) shall be in danger of the council (the judicial court). And whosoever shall say: ‘Thou Fool!’, shall be in danger of Hell fire!” (Matthew 5:22). Like a growing cancer, this leads us further down the slippery slope of Satan to the next level of devilish ‘D’s, which are merely a natural growth of the previous levels …
(10) DETRACTION, DEFAMATION, DISTORTION in order to DISGRACE
To pour more fuel onto the fire started by disturbance, disagreement, division, derision and discrediting, the devil will make sure you come across various detractions and defamations that are calculated to disturb you further. He will add to this all kinds of distortions or exaggerations, which come all too naturally from the devil, for the word “devil” comes from the Greek diabolos, meaning ”twister, accuser, calumniator”. All of this is calculated to make you pass the sentence: “It’s all disgraceful!” Yet the devil will also say: “Be not just a hearer of the word, but a doer! Knowledge without works is dead! You must not just listen to detraction and calumny, but in your righteous indignation you must pass it on and spread the rumor, repeat the lie, reveal the person’s sins to even more people! That way you will be doing the will of your father in Hell!” As Holy Scripture laments: “This is the work of them who detract me before the Lord; and who speak evils against my soul!” (Psalm 108:20). There is nothing like a ‘good’ piece of detraction to make you feel better, look good, and earn an audience and reputation for “being in the know”! Who? Me? “Every man is a liar!” (Psalms 115:11). ”If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us … If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10).
Detraction means the revealing of the sins of others―the truth is said, but it detracts from the person’s reputation who is being accused. Moral theology tells us that even a sinner is entitled to a good reputation—which is partially why the priest, after hearing your confession, does not reveal your sins, nor can he treat you badly or worse than you were treated before confession. The calumniator says what he knows to be false, whilst the detractor narrates what he at least honestly thinks is true. ”Detraction, in a general sense, is a mortal sin, as being a violation of the virtue, not only of charity, but also of justice. It is obvious, however, that the subject-matter of the accusation may be so inconspicuous or, so little capable of doing serious hurt, that the guilt is not assumed to be more than venial. it is conceivable that a relatively small defect alleged against a person of eminent station, such as a bishop, might seriously tarnish his good name and be a mortal sin” (Catholic Encyclopedia, “Detraction”).
We most certainly do not want to be detracted ourselves and yet we are sinners too, are we not—”If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8)―but why then do we listen to and get ‘drunk’ on detraction about others? Or worse still, be the instigator of the actual detraction? It is not only the detractor who sins, but also the listener, because by listening, he gives the detractor a platform upon which to speak. If Our Lord says: “I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the Day of Judgment!” (Matthew 12:36), then what would He say about words of detraction, defamation or distortion?
Defamation is the action of damaging the good reputation of someone by slander (a spoken lie or a false spoken statement damaging to a person’s reputation) or libel(defamation expressed by print, writing, pictures, signs, effigies, etc. that is injurious to a person’s reputation, exposes a person to public hatred, contempt or ridicule, or injures a person in their business or profession).
St. James speaks out against such an attitude: “Detract not one another, my brethren! He that detracteth his brother, or he that judgeth his brother, detracteth the law, and judgeth the law!” (James 4:11). ”For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man. He is able also with a bridle to lead about the whole body and keep it in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by Hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be!” (James 3:2-10).
If you decide to accept the devil’s invitation to join “The Calumny Club”, then he will supply you with limitless doses of detraction—all you can drink—as you mix with other detractors, distorters and defamers in the devil’s famous “Libel Lounge”! The devil will make sure that you get joyfully drunk on detraction, the devil will help you rationalize away the sin of your detraction by telling you that you have a holy and righteous attitude of holy indignation and that such sinners, as so-and-so, deserve to have their name dragged through the mud for what they have done!
Yet just like in the “westerns” or “cowboy movies”, Our Lord rides into town and enters the saloon! All goes quiet as He looks around to see what is going on. Then he says those words once said to His mystics (cf. Words of Love, by Fr. Gottemoller): “See how they misrepresent Me. They make Me out as one to be feared, whereas I am kindness itself? Remember, and never forget: Jesus is kind! Do not misrepresent Me! The enemy will make every effort to shake your Faith in Me, but you must never forget that I am, and love to be, exclusively kind and merciful. You would have your sins, but they exist no more, for I have forgotten them for all eternity. No, it is not the multiplicity of sins which condemns a soul, for I forgive everything if she repents, but it is the obstinacy of not wishing to be pardoned, of wishing to be damned! Dismas on the cross had only one single act of Faith in Me, but many, many sins; he was pardoned in an instant, however, and on the very day of his repentance he entered into My kingdom and is a saint! Behold the triumph of My Mercy! No, My Father, Who has given Me the souls, is greater and more powerful than all the demons. Have confidence in Me! Trust Me always! For I am kind, immensely kind and merciful, and I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live. Let them not descend to personal reflections which belittle them, but rejoice at seeing themselves clothed with the power of My blood and of My merits. Let them be burnt up with zeal and charity for sinners ... praying for them with compassionate hearts and treating them with all gentleness. It is when a soul forgives and is silent that she most resembles My Mother!”Alas, that is not the agenda of the devil and of those whom he wittingly or unwittingly recruits to do his work!
Our Lord goes on: “I want them [My consecrated souls] to know that I love them as they are. I know that through frailty they will fall more than once. I know that they will often break the promises they have made Me. But their will to do better glorifies Me, their humble avowals after their falls, their trust in the forgiveness I will grant, glorify My Heart so much, that I will shed abundant graces on them. If their infidelities wound Me deeply, their love consoles and delights My Heart to such a degree that I, so to speak, forget the sins of many others on their account. Never does My Heart refuse to forgive a soul that humbles itself, especially when it asks with confidence” (Words of Love, by Fr. Robert Gottemoller). How the devil hates such words! So he tries with all his might to make us fall more on the side of righteous indignation and has us scream for justice, rather than follow Our Lord’s lead along the path of kindliness and mercy. St. James and St. John were a little overboard on the “screaming for justice” side too: “And Jesus sent messengers before His face; and going, they entered into a city of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. And they received Him not, because His face was of one going to Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John had seen this, they said: ‘Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven, and destroy them?’ And turning, Jesus rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:52-56).
Article 5
Ember Wednesday after the First Sunday of Lent, March 1st, 2023
40 D's for the 40 Days of Lent
Ember Wednesday after the First Sunday of Lent, March 1st, 2023
40 D's for the 40 Days of Lent
The Devil’s 40 Devious and Deadly Degrees to Damnation
“D” stands for the Devil and there are more D’s to the Devil than meet the eye! We will take a look at the D’s of the Devil in some more detail during this “Week of Temptation” that Holy Mother Church presented to us on the First Sunday of Lent with Our Lord’s temptations in the desert―but here, as an overview and introduction, are what could be said to be “The 40 D’s of the Devil” or “The 40 Steps to Damnation” or “The Devil’s 40 Devious and Deadly Degrees to Damnation”!
(01) DISTRACTION: from God and spiritual things. Not all distractions are sinful, for they would often be rejected.
(02) DISCUSSION, DEBATE & DIALECTICS: as with Eve, he wants to draw you into discussion—that is the beginning.
(03) DECEPTION: the devil is the father of lies. Yet his lies are often filled with half-truths. He twists & exaggerates things
(04) DEGLAMORIZE: he wants to tarnish, stain, show in a bad light all that can help your soul remotely or directly
(05) DISLIKE: deglamorization causes dislike of certain aspects of the Faith & certain persons connected to the Faith
(06) DISTANCING: due to dislike you begin distancing from Faith & certain persons
(07) DISABLE & DISARM you of spiritual weapons & exercises (Mass, Communion, confession, prayer, reading, penance)
(08) DISTURBANCE in the soul (emotions, fears, suspicions, etc.) & around you (persecution, setbacks, losses, illness, etc)
(09) DIFFERENCES and DISAGREEMENTS with those you live and work with, which gradually produces …
(10) DICHOTOMY and DIVISION in one or more areas of your life. He wants to divide so that he can conquer.
(11) DISCREDITING others and DERIDING them helps increase the dichotomy and division, with the inclusion of …
(12) DETRACTION, DEFAMATION, DISTORTION and which will DISGRACE them in your eyes
(13) DISAPPOINTMENT, DISENCHANTMENT & DISILLUSIONMENT with aspects of Faith & persons discredited, leads to...
(14) DISGUST and DISDAIN for the above mentioned, and the resulting lack of confidence leads to …
(15) DOUBT & DISTRUST, and that doubt gradually grows into distrust and distrust leads to
(16) DISBELIEF of persons, or of certain teachings, or of God’s promises, or of advice given
(17) DANGLE & DAZZLE: he dangles things, offers, persons, places things, etc. before you and dazzles you with them
(18) DELIGHT and DELUSION in the dangled/dazzled things he brings before your mind, heart and body
(19) DAYDREAMS about the dazzling danglers
(20) DESIRE YOUR DREAMS he leads you to desire your ‘new found’ dreams, as an escape from the disappointments
(21) DEVIATE from your true path onto a less good path, or even DERAIL onto a disastrous sinful and evil path
(22) DARE he will dare you (daredevil) to actually go and do what he has made you dream about
(23) DILEMMA whereby you are not sure whether to go and do these new things that may be either good or even sinful
(24) DOWNPLAY, DEVALUE & DILUTE the seriousness of the sin and tell you to DISREGARD it, in order to make you…
(25) DABBLE and DIP your big toe into what he suggests in order to test the waters
(26) DOUBLE DARE he will again dare you to go further after dabbling and dipping until he fully …
(27) DEFILES you with sin, which the devil will initially …
(28) DOWNPLAY and DEVALUE the seriousness of the sin and tell you to DISREGARD it, in order to make you …
(29) DESENSITIZE & DEADEN your conscience to that sin, hoping in the meantime to create a …
(30) DEPENDENCY upon that sin, while, at the same time …
(31) DELAYING any recovery from the sin by antidotes of confession or spiritual direction, so that you …
(32) DEGENERATE and sink DEEPER and DEEPER into that sin, and begin to …
(33) DEHUMANIZE and DENATURIZE yourself, which he hopes will lead to total …
(34) DEMORALIZATION or loss of morals, after which the devil will now “change his tune” telling you how …
(35) DESPICABLE he will now tell your how despicable you are, and then gradually …
(36) DESOLATION will kick-in, leading to a progressive tumbling rapidly down the successive steps of …
(37) DISCOURAGEMENT, DEJECTION, DESPONDENCY & DEPRESSION, which will then lead into the basement of …
(38) DESPAIR, which is the waiting-room outside the gates of Hell, awaiting ….
(39) DESTRUCTION of all hope of salvation, and leading to …
(40) DAMNATION
“D” stands for the Devil and there are more D’s to the Devil than meet the eye! We will take a look at the D’s of the Devil in some more detail during this “Week of Temptation” that Holy Mother Church presented to us on the First Sunday of Lent with Our Lord’s temptations in the desert―but here, as an overview and introduction, are what could be said to be “The 40 D’s of the Devil” or “The 40 Steps to Damnation” or “The Devil’s 40 Devious and Deadly Degrees to Damnation”!
(01) DISTRACTION: from God and spiritual things. Not all distractions are sinful, for they would often be rejected.
(02) DISCUSSION, DEBATE & DIALECTICS: as with Eve, he wants to draw you into discussion—that is the beginning.
(03) DECEPTION: the devil is the father of lies. Yet his lies are often filled with half-truths. He twists & exaggerates things
(04) DEGLAMORIZE: he wants to tarnish, stain, show in a bad light all that can help your soul remotely or directly
(05) DISLIKE: deglamorization causes dislike of certain aspects of the Faith & certain persons connected to the Faith
(06) DISTANCING: due to dislike you begin distancing from Faith & certain persons
(07) DISABLE & DISARM you of spiritual weapons & exercises (Mass, Communion, confession, prayer, reading, penance)
(08) DISTURBANCE in the soul (emotions, fears, suspicions, etc.) & around you (persecution, setbacks, losses, illness, etc)
(09) DIFFERENCES and DISAGREEMENTS with those you live and work with, which gradually produces …
(10) DICHOTOMY and DIVISION in one or more areas of your life. He wants to divide so that he can conquer.
(11) DISCREDITING others and DERIDING them helps increase the dichotomy and division, with the inclusion of …
(12) DETRACTION, DEFAMATION, DISTORTION and which will DISGRACE them in your eyes
(13) DISAPPOINTMENT, DISENCHANTMENT & DISILLUSIONMENT with aspects of Faith & persons discredited, leads to...
(14) DISGUST and DISDAIN for the above mentioned, and the resulting lack of confidence leads to …
(15) DOUBT & DISTRUST, and that doubt gradually grows into distrust and distrust leads to
(16) DISBELIEF of persons, or of certain teachings, or of God’s promises, or of advice given
(17) DANGLE & DAZZLE: he dangles things, offers, persons, places things, etc. before you and dazzles you with them
(18) DELIGHT and DELUSION in the dangled/dazzled things he brings before your mind, heart and body
(19) DAYDREAMS about the dazzling danglers
(20) DESIRE YOUR DREAMS he leads you to desire your ‘new found’ dreams, as an escape from the disappointments
(21) DEVIATE from your true path onto a less good path, or even DERAIL onto a disastrous sinful and evil path
(22) DARE he will dare you (daredevil) to actually go and do what he has made you dream about
(23) DILEMMA whereby you are not sure whether to go and do these new things that may be either good or even sinful
(24) DOWNPLAY, DEVALUE & DILUTE the seriousness of the sin and tell you to DISREGARD it, in order to make you…
(25) DABBLE and DIP your big toe into what he suggests in order to test the waters
(26) DOUBLE DARE he will again dare you to go further after dabbling and dipping until he fully …
(27) DEFILES you with sin, which the devil will initially …
(28) DOWNPLAY and DEVALUE the seriousness of the sin and tell you to DISREGARD it, in order to make you …
(29) DESENSITIZE & DEADEN your conscience to that sin, hoping in the meantime to create a …
(30) DEPENDENCY upon that sin, while, at the same time …
(31) DELAYING any recovery from the sin by antidotes of confession or spiritual direction, so that you …
(32) DEGENERATE and sink DEEPER and DEEPER into that sin, and begin to …
(33) DEHUMANIZE and DENATURIZE yourself, which he hopes will lead to total …
(34) DEMORALIZATION or loss of morals, after which the devil will now “change his tune” telling you how …
(35) DESPICABLE he will now tell your how despicable you are, and then gradually …
(36) DESOLATION will kick-in, leading to a progressive tumbling rapidly down the successive steps of …
(37) DISCOURAGEMENT, DEJECTION, DESPONDENCY & DEPRESSION, which will then lead into the basement of …
(38) DESPAIR, which is the waiting-room outside the gates of Hell, awaiting ….
(39) DESTRUCTION of all hope of salvation, and leading to …
(40) DAMNATION
Article 4
Monday & Tuesday after the First Sunday of Lent, February 27th & 28th, 2023
Devil's Dirty Deeds
Monday & Tuesday after the First Sunday of Lent, February 27th & 28th, 2023
Devil's Dirty Deeds
Speak of the Devil and He’s Bound to Appear
We have all heard of the expression: “Speak of the devil (Talk of the devil) and he’s bound to appear!” It is often used when someone, whom we have just been or still are speaking about, suddenly appears―it is usually used humorously, but can also be meant as an insult. The devil himself—being proud—loves attention, but unless you are devoted to him, like Satanists are, he prefers for the time being to go unnoticed, so that he can better achieve his work “on the quiet”—unsuspected, unseen, unknown, undisturbed and unopposed. He is willing to put-off all attention for now, for he knows that he will get much attention for all eternity from those whom he ensnares. The enemy always benefits when he is “out of sight and out of mind.”
Not to talk of the devil, is tantamount to spiritual suicide, as the following Church authorities will clearly testify. In a day and age, when many a pope and bishop (not to even mention Our Lady) has said that the devil has been unleashed into our world—to be negligent in talking about him and warning others of his presence, power and tactics, as well as pointing out the defenses and remedies against him, would be a grave sin of omission for which the negligent will one day have to answer and pay. So, in following the lead of Holy Mother Church, who, on the First Sunday of Lent presented to us Christ, led by the Holy Spirit into the desert to be tempted, before we “enter into temptation” in this first part of the week dedicated to uncovering the devil and his temptations, let us look at some of the statements and testimonies on the devil before looking at temptation itself.
Words of Sister Lucia spoken in 1957 to Fr. Augustine Fuentes
“The Most Holy Virgin has made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She has told me that the devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Virgin, and a decisive battle is a final battle, in which one side wins, the other side loses. Also, starting with the present time, we belong either to God or we belong to the demon; there is no middle ground.”
“The devil is about to wage a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin. The devil knows what it is that most offends God and which, in a short space of time, will gain for him the greatest number of souls. Thus the devil does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God, because in this way the devil will succeed in leaving the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them.” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima interview with Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Ancient & Modern
There are many modern Catholics who do not like to refer to and rely on quotes and opinions from the distant past, so, for their benefit, I will go against my personal preferences and furnish some quotes from modern authors—popes and priests—to show any and all modern readers that the enemy is still the enemy, whether the times be ancient or modern. And the enemy has to spoken of and his tactics have to be revealed. Imagine not telling soldiers about their enemy for fear of frightening them; or failing to tell your children not to walk-off with strangers; or not telling them about the dangers of scorpions and snakes, for fear of scaring them! Our Lady did not fear showing a 7-year old, an 8-year old and a 10-year old a vision of Hell! So, here are your modern day quotes!
Caveat or Warning!
The following quotes selected from various websites are merely a “reporting” of what was posted on those sites. There is no intent to recommend any or all of those websites. It is much like quoting from a secular newspaper’s website—it does not mean that we agree with all the content on that website. Nor do we endorse all that the modern popes, cardinals, bishops and priests say—for, as Pope St. Pius X said, the Modernist will on one page of his writings give you the most beautiful traditional doctrine you can read, and then, on the next page, give you pure modernism. It is much like what is said of the devil: “Satan will admit nine truths in order to slip the lie on point number ten!” Many of the present day “Conservative” cardinals and bishops take issue with some of the pronouncements of Pope Francis, as well the some pronouncements from their fellow “Liberal” and “Modernist” cardinals and bishops.
We are living out the period that Our Lady of Akita described thus: “The work of the devil will infiltrate even the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against other bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their conferees…churches and altars sacked, the Church will be full of those who accept compromise and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord” (Our Lady of Akita, 1973). Our Lady of La Salette also spoke in a similar vein: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell ... The devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish. God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family.”
The Devil in Politics
Since the Gospel of this First Sunday of Lent deals with Christ’s battle with the devil and his temptations after His 40-day fast in the desert, it will not be amiss to quote some words from the recently deceased chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth (1925-2016) on the subject of the devil working in politics and business. The following quotes are gleaned from a variety of his books and interviews that he gave.
Fr. Amorth states: “The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially, just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry ... Evil exists in politics, quite often in fact … Satan really does hand out his gifts of wealth, pleasure and success. Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies … Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan … The devil loves to take over those who hold political office … In the same way that Christ was tempted: “I will give you the whole world if you prostrate yourself before me,” we also are tempted; and Heaven knows how many fall at Satan’s feet today! … Satan will delude people into thinking that life is a beautiful holiday, where everything is permitted and where your ‘I’ does not recognize any limits regarding pleasure or enjoyment … The three rules of Satanism are: You may do all you wish, no one has the right to command you, and you are the god of yourself ... Today the world does not turn from God because it is idolatrous; rather it pursues pure atheism.”
What Fr. Amorth says from his experiences, is nothing other than what Our Lady of La Salette had already prophesied said over 170 years ago: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little … The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God. They will have great power over Nature: there will be churches built to serve these spirits. People will be transported from one place to another by these evil spirits … On occasions, the dead and the righteous will be brought back to life ... Everywhere there will be extraordinary wonders, as true Faith has faded and false light brightens the people … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten, they will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds.”
Our Lady of Fatima on the Devil in the Church and World (after 1917)
After the 1917 Fatima apparitions, Our Lady later revealed to Lucia of Fatima (who became Sr. Maria Lucia of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart) that the devil―as already stated above―was preparing for a final battle with Our Lady and her spiritual children: “The Most Holy Virgin has made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She has told me that the devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Virgin, and a decisive battle is a final battle, in which one side wins, the other side loses. Starting with the present time, we belong either to God or we belong to the demon; there is no middle ground!” (Words of Lucia, spoken in 1957 to Fr. Augustine Fuentes, a Mexican priest).
Pope Paul VI on the Devil (1972)
In 1972, on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul (June 29th), Pope Paul VI delivered a sermon that startled the world. Describing the chaos consuming the Church, he lamented: “From some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.”
Akita on the Devil (1973)
Our Lady once again, in essence, presented the message of Fatima at Akita—once again on that uncanny date of her last apparition at Fatima, October 13th―and reiterated what she had said at La Salette over 120 years beforehand: “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops” (October 13th, 1973).
Pope Paul VI on the Devil (1977)
Pope Paul VI said―yes, you guessed it, on October 13th again―that: “The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the Faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church” (Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions, October 13, 1977. Pope Paul was dead 10 months later).
Chief Exorcist Fr. Amorth on the Devil (2010)
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist in Rome, was the subject of an article in the English newspaper, The Telegraph, back in March of 2010, which ran the headline: “Chief Exorcist Says Devil Is In Vatican.” The article continued by saying: “The devil is lurking in the very heart of the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican’s chief exorcist claimed … ‘The devil resides in the Vatican and you can see the consequences,’ said Father Amorth, 85, who has been the Holy See’s chief exorcist for 25 years ... The evil influence of Satan was evident in the highest ranks of the Catholic hierarchy, with ‘cardinals who do not believe in Jesus and bishops who are linked to the demon,’ Father Amorth said.”(The Telegraph, London, United Kingdom, March 11th, 2010).
In an excerpt of his “Memoirs” we read:
Question: “Satanists in the Vatican?”
Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “Yes, even in the Vatican there are members of Satanic cults.”
Question: “Who is involved? Is it simple priests or laymen?”
Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “There are priests, monsignors and even cardinals.”
Question: “Forgive me, Father Gabriel, but how do you know?”
Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “I know from people who reported to me how they got to know this directly. It is something, “confessed” several times by the Devil, himself, under obedience during the exorcisms.”
Question: “Was the Pope informed?”
Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “Of course he was informed! But he does what he can. It’s horrifying. Keep in mind also that Benedict XVI is a German Pope, who is from a nation decidedly averse to these things. In Germany, in fact, there are virtually no exorcists, yet the Pope believes. I had occasion to speak with him three times, while he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. You bet he believes!...”
Question: “ Is it really true that Paul VI said: that ‘the smoke of Satan” entered the church?’”
Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “It’s true, unfortunately, because even in the Church there are adherents to Satanic cults. Pope Paul VI reported this detail about the smoke of Satan on June 29th, 1972. Of course, this broke the ice, lifting a veil of silence and censorship that has lasted too long, but it had no practical consequences. It took someone like me – who was a nobody – to spread the alarm in order to get results.”
So, as stated by Father Amorth, Pope Benedict XVI is aware of the fact that, in the Vatican, there are cardinals, bishops and priests who are members of Satanic cults, “but he does what he can!”
Fr. Malachi Martin on Satan and the Vatican
Catholic priest and scholar Malachi Martin, formerly Professor of Palaeontology at the Vatican’s Pontifical Biblical Institute, and from 1958 Martin also served as a theological adviser to Cardinal Augustin Bea in the Vatican, later a Jesuit professor at Georgetown University, USA, and a confidant of Vatican insiders. Also an author of 17 books, among which his most significant works were The Scribal Character of The Dead Sea Scrolls (1958) and Hostage To The Devil (1976) which dealt with Satanism, demonic possession, and exorcism. In the latter mentioned book, Martin references his experience as an exorcist. According to the book he assisted in several exorcisms. In 1996, he spoke of having performed thousands of minor exorcisms, and participated in a few hundred major exorcisms during his lifetime. Fr. Martin declared in a New York City interview: “Yes, it’s true. Lucifer is enthroned in the Catholic Church.”
Fr. Martin was also interviewed by The Fatima Crusader (Fr. Grunner’s organization), a well-known Catholic publication. He again repeated his allegations, and expressed his dismay and distress that the Catholic institution, of which he is a part, has grown so decadent and morally reprobate since the Vatican II Council of the 1960s. The contention that there are Satanists in Rome is “completely correct” said Martin, adding: “Anybody who is acquainted with the state of affairs in the Vatican in the last 35 years is well aware that the prince of darkness has and still has his surrogates in the court of St. Peter in Rome.”
Devilish Work! ... or “How The Devil Does His Work”
Taking the lead from Holy Mother Church, who presented us with the Gospel of Christ being tempted by the devil in the desert, after his fast of forty days, we are therefore dedicating a large part of this first week of Lent to studying the tactics, snares and manner of tempting used by Satan. The previous article established the fact that devil is at work everywhere today—in families, parishes, schools, work places, in culture, in politics, in business and finance, and even in the Vatican itself. This article will begin to look at the tactics and methods that Satan uses to achieve his deadly goals.
Know Your Enemy!
In our modern centuries, the world has seen war in one place or another for well over 200 hundred years—some wars have been massive, some small—but the world has been at war nevertheless. In that time we have had two “World Wars” are currently awaiting for the Third World War to start anytime soon!
In this “Age of War” there are many moderns who look upon a Chinese warrior almost as a demi-god, and they avidly read his famous book―The Art of War. This short book, The Art of War, is traditionally attributed to a military general from the late 6th century BC, known as “Master Sun” (Sunzi or Sun Tzu). The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise of 13 short chapters. Each chapter is devoted to a distinct aspect of warfare and how that applies to military strategy and tactics.
For almost 1,500 years The Art of War remains the most influential strategy text in East Asia. In many East Asian countries, The Art of War was part of the syllabus for potential candidates of military service examinations. During the Vietnam War, some Vietcong officers studied The Art of War and reportedly could recite entire passages from memory. The Department of the Army in the United States, through its Command and General Staff College, lists The Art of War as one example of a book that may be kept at a military unit’s library. The Art of War is listed on the Marine Corps Professional Reading Program (formerly known as the Commandant’s Reading List). It is recommended reading for all United States Military Intelligence personnel. According to some authors, the strategy of deception from The Art of War was studied and widely used by the Russian KGB (the world’s largest spy and state-security machine). It has a profound influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond.
The book was first translated and published into French in 1772 (re-published in 1782) by the Jesuit, Fr. Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, and a partial translation into English was later attempted, in 1905, by British Army officer, Everard Ferguson Calthrop, under the title The Book of War.
In The Art of War, the military strategist, Sun Tzu, writes: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Spiritual Warfare
Like or not, we are all exposed to spiritual warfare: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) and we either fight for our salvation or we will lose our salvation and soul: “This is the victory which overcometh the world, our Faith” (1 John 5:4). “Fight the good fight of Faith: lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Be sober and watch! Because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour! Whom resist ye, strong in Faith: knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world” (1 Peter 5:8-9).
St. Peter tells us the unpalatable news that we do not want to hear—that we are susceptible to the wiles of the devil, like every person in the world is susceptible to them. There is no escape from this truth and fact and the consequences. It is a case of fight for your soul or lose your soul.
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the lately deceased (2016) chief exorcist in Rome, said: “The state of belief in the devil in the Church is too low. The devil is very pleased with that, since this gives him free reign to do his work … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially, just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry ... Evil exists in politics, quite often in fact! … Satan really does hand out his gifts of wealth, pleasure and success. Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies … Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan … We also are tempted; and Heaven knows how many fall at Satan’s feet today! … The loss of a sense of sin, that characterizes our era, helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God: ‘Everything is lawful.’ ‘What is wrong there?’ ‘Everyone does it!’ … The devil also makes evil appear interesting, positive, and beautiful … Satan will delude people into thinking that life is a beautiful holiday, where everything is permitted and where your ‘I’ does not recognize any limits regarding pleasure or enjoyment …”
“His main activity, which we can call ‘ordinary’, is to tempt man to commit evil, to make him turn away from God ... Today families are among the most targeted by the ordinary action of Satan … They are torn apart by various attractions; they reunite and separate again … This breakdown [in the family] leads to delinquency, wickedness, and evil … Today there is much talk of love, but there truly is none! … Each year 50 million children are murdered by abortion! Then there is the broken family, cohabitation! … Divorce has been a disaster! … It is all destruction! … It is a shattered world, so it is essential that a Christian who wants to live as a Christian, must be different from the others. Christians must stand up for their beliefs and not be shy.
“Many of the devil’s ‘ordinary’ temptations are passed off as ‘modern ideas’, but really serve to unhinge the principles of the Faith. Believing in God doesn’t guarantee salvation, as 90% of the Italians would like to think. I have never, in my exorcisms, come across a devil who does not believe in God. Believing doesn’t mean anything! Instead, it is necessary to do what Jesus has told us to do” (cf. James 2:14-20; Matthew 7:21). When Faith in God declines, idolatry and irrationality increase … Ultimately, the most formidable diabolical trap is the half-heartedness, indifference, and spiritual numbness that gradually plunges us into darkness and spiritual evils.”
St. Ignatius the Worldly Soldier Who Became a Spiritual Soldier
St. Ignatius Loyola was born in 1491, one of 13 children of a family of minor nobility in northern Spain. As a young man Ignatius Loyola was inflamed by the ideals of courtly love and knighthood and dreamed of doing great deeds.
But in 1521 Ignatius was gravely wounded in a battle with the French. While recuperating, Ignatius Loyola experienced a conversion. Reading the lives of Jesus and the saints made Ignatius happy and aroused desires to do great things. Ignatius realized that these feelings were clues to God’s direction for him.
Over the years, Ignatius became expert in the art of spiritual direction or spiritual warfare, if you like—for the two things are inseparable. He collected his insights, prayers, and suggestions in his book the Spiritual Exercises, one of the most influential books on the warfare in the spiritual life that has ever been written. With a small group of friends, Ignatius Loyola founded the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits.
In his famous Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius Loyola—once a worldly soldier himself, until God converted him into soldierly priest—speaks along the same battle lines. In his “Rules for the Discernment of Spirits” and elsewhere, St. Ignatius tells that we must know ourselves and that we must know the Devil and how he works:
“God wishes to give us a true knowledge and understanding of ourselves … [and] to ask for a knowledge of the deceits of the rebel chief, Lucifer, and help to guard myself against them ... Once such an experience has been understood and carefully observed, we may guard ourselves for the future against the customary deceits of the enemy”(St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises §322, §139, §334).
Two Basic Battle Rules to Remember
St. Ignatius speaks of the soul being “…in need of instruction about the desolations and wiles of the enemy” and speaks of “exposing to him the wiles of the enemy of our human nature” (St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, Seventh and Eighth Annotations, §7 to §8).
Amongst his rules that expose the tactics and methods of the devils, St. Ignatius lays down two basic rules:
“THE FIRST RULE. In persons who are going from mortal sin to mortal sin, the enemy is ordinarily accustomed to propose apparent pleasures to them, leading them to imagine sensual delights and pleasures in order to hold them more and make them grow in their vices and sins. In these persons the good spirit uses a contrary method, stinging and biting their consciences through their rational power of moral judgment” (St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, §314).
“THE SECOND RULE. In persons who are going on intensely purifying their sins and rising from good to better in the service of God our Lord, the method is contrary to that in the first rule. For then it is proper to the evil spirit to bite, sadden, and place obstacles, disquieting with false reasons, so that the person may not go forward. And it is proper to the good spirit to give courage and strength, consolations, tears, inspirations and quiet, easing and taking away all obstacles, so that the person may go forward in doing good” (St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, §315).
“Commonly the enemy of our human nature tempts more under the appearance of good when one is exercising himself in the illuminative way [i.e. making spiritual progress and resisting deliberate venial sins]. He does not tempt him so much under the appearance of good when he is exercising himself in the purgative way [i.e. just starting out in the spiritual life and still attracted by some mortal sins, and at peace with lots of venial sins]” (St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, §10).
The devil does not wish for you to have consolations when you are on the right track or the right road—for those consolations will only serve to strengthen your soul and its resolve. So the devil counter-attacks by false reasoning and by sowing seeds of desolation (the opposite of consolation). St. Ignatius states the following:
“I call desolation things such as darkness of soul, disturbance in the soul, movement to low and earthly things, disquiet in the soul from various agitations and temptations, moving the soul to lack of confidence, leaving it without hope, without love, finding oneself totally slothful, tepid, sad and as if separated from one’s Creator and Lord” (St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises §317).
St. Ignatius adds that sometimes we deserve a lack of consolation and we bring desolation and darkness of spirit upon ourselves by our laxity and lukewarmness in our spiritual life—and thus God rightfully punishes us by refusing any consolations or “feel-goods”. At other times, the desolation is no fault of ours, but a test or trial by God to measure our progress—to see what we are really seeking: are we merely seeking the consolations of God, or the God of consolations. Another reason for our desolation is the fact that, even though we are not lukewarm and have made much spiritual progress, we have unfortunately done this in a spirit of pride and self-sufficiency, thinking that we are the cause of our own progress—thus God, in His kindness, pulls the rug of consolation from under our feet and we fall onto the cold, hard floor of desolation, and, hopefully, we fall back into humility. As St. John Climacus said: “I have seen pride lead to humility. And I remembered St. Paul who said: ‘Who hath known the mind of the Lord?’ The pit and offspring of conceit is a fall; but a fall is often an occasion of humility for those who are willing to use it to their advantage.”
“There are three principal causes for which we find ourselves desolate. The first is because we are tepid, slothful or negligent in our spiritual exercises, and so through our faults spiritual consolation withdraws from us. The second, to try and test us and to see how much we are worth, and how much we will advance in His service and praise when left without the generous reward of consolations and signal favors. The third, is that God wishes to give us a true knowledge and understanding of ourselves, so that we may have an intimate perception of the fact that it is not within our power to acquire and attain great devotion, intense love, tears, or any other spiritual consolation; but that all this is the gift and grace of God our Lord. God does not wish us to build on the property of another, to rise up in spirit in a certain pride and vainglory, attributing to ourselves the devotion and other effects of spiritual consolation” (St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises §322).
The Humble Weapon in Warfare with the Devil
Before moving on, it is necessary here to point out the incredible importance of humility in this endless warfare. Holy Scripture teaches: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4: 6). The greater is our humility, the greater is our attractiveness to God and the greater is our power to repulse the attacks of the devil. God loves humility and the devil despises humility. This brings to mind the conversation that the great Desert Father, St. Macarius, once had with the devil. Just as Macarius was returning to his cell one day, loaded down with palm leaves for his handicraft work, the devil stopped him, ready to assault him; but he could not. Some invincible force prevented him. “You have tormented me a great deal, Macarius!” the devil shouted at him fiercely. “I have battled you for so many years and yet I cannot overcome you and pull you down! But what more have you accomplished than I have? Is it your fasting? You rarely eat, but I eat nothing at all! Is it your vigils and watchings? But I never sleep! You have only one threat that frightens me.” Abba Macarius said to him: “What is that?” The devil unwillingly acknowledged, while disappearing: “Your humility, for because of it I cannot overcome you!”
Another incident, in the lives of the Desert Fathers, was that of the daughter of a certain rich man in Alexandria, who was possessed by an evil spirit and tormented severely. Her father fruitlessly spent much money in order to make her well. The condition of the young girl became worse all the time. Somehow the Father learned that a hermit, who lived alone up on a nearby mountain, had the gift from God to cast out demons. He was told, however, that the hermit was so humble that he would never agree to perform such a cure. So the nobleman had to find some other pretext by which to get him to his home. The next time the hermit came to the city to sell his baskets, the father of the girl sent a servant to buy some and to invite the hermit to his home to be paid. He unsuspectingly went. As soon as he set foot in the door, the demonized girl, who was hidden behind the door, rushed at him and gave him a hard slap across the face. The holy hermit, without losing his calm, turned his other cheek, thus carrying out the commandment of the Lord. Then this surprising incident took place: the demonized girl began to quiver wildly and to utter despairing cries: “O, hurry! I must leave! I cannot stay here any longer! The commandment of Christ is casting me out!” With those words the devil left and the tormented girl was set free. The whole family, along with the daughter, who had regained her rational powers, glorified God for the great miracle which they had seen with their own eyes and looked for the holy elder so they could thank him. He, however, fleeing from all human praise, had totally disappeared. When the Fathers in the desert were informed of these facts, they said among themselves that nothing so puts down the pride of the devil as humility and obedience to the divine commandments.
Of all the possible virtues we could learn from Our Lord, He points us in the direction of humility: “Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29). You might not, a first glance, see any connection between meekness and humility—but, if you dig a little deeper, you will notice that the vice that is opposed to meekness is anger. Anger usually arises when things do not go the way we want them to go or when things are not the way we think they should be—which, is but another form of pride that is angry at what God’s Providence has “dished-out” to us, whereas we should, instead of being angry, take all things with meekness (which is akin to humility). You could say, in broad terms, that meekness and humility are like brother and sister, or two brothers, or two sisters, or husband and wife. Thus, the Church and Her spiritual masters look upon humility as being the foundation of all other virtues and charity as being the life-giving soul of all virtues. The absence of one or the other reduces any virtue to a mere corpse or mirage.
We could, without fear, rephrase St. Paul’s following famous words on charity, to also include humility: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity[and humility], then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal! And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity [and humility], then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity [and humility], then it profits me nothing. Charity [and humility] are patient, are kind: charity [and humility] envy not, deal not perversely; are not puffed up; are not ambitious, seek not their own [advantage], are not provoked to anger, think no evil; rejoice not in iniquity, but rejoice with the truth; they bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things” (1 Corinthians 13:1-7).
We see the above words “come to life” during the Passion and Death of Our Lord! If there is one virtue that stands out like a beacon during His entire Passion and Death, it is the virtue of humility! It is the platform upon which Our Lord builds His victory over Satan and the world.
The Prideful Weapon of the Prideful Devils on Proud People
It was pride that led to the fall and banishment of Satan and the other rebellious angels—crying out: “Non serviam!—I will not serve!” That virus of pride was passed onto Adam and Eve, causing them to commit the Original Sin of humanity, with their: “I will not obey God’s command!” That flaw of pride has been passed onto us by Adam and Eve, through Original Sin, and the prideful devil ignites that pride countless times throughout our life.
Just as humility is the foundation for all virtues, so too is pride the foundation for all sin. Holy Scripture says: “Pride is the beginning of all sin! He that holds it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). Which is why the Desert Fathers would say things like: “I prefer a collapse with humility, than victory with pride,” says one Father, and another, Abba Sarmatias says: “I prefer a sinful person, who knows his faults and is humbled, over a proud, self-complacent person of virtue.” Another Desert Father was asked “At what point does a person attain humility?” He replied: “When he remembers his sins continuously.”
The Desert Father, St. Anthony the Great, admonished: “Having fallen from his heavenly rank through pride, the devil constantly strives to bring down also all those who wholeheartedly wish to approach the Lord; and he uses the same means which caused his own downfall―that is by pride and love of vainglory. In the beginning, the thing that caused downfall from Heaven, was a movement of pride. So, if a man lacks extreme humility, if he is not humble with all his heart―with all his mind, all his spirit, all his soul and body―then he will not inherit the Kingdom of God!” (St. Anthony the Great).
We have all heard of the expression: “Speak of the devil (Talk of the devil) and he’s bound to appear!” It is often used when someone, whom we have just been or still are speaking about, suddenly appears―it is usually used humorously, but can also be meant as an insult. The devil himself—being proud—loves attention, but unless you are devoted to him, like Satanists are, he prefers for the time being to go unnoticed, so that he can better achieve his work “on the quiet”—unsuspected, unseen, unknown, undisturbed and unopposed. He is willing to put-off all attention for now, for he knows that he will get much attention for all eternity from those whom he ensnares. The enemy always benefits when he is “out of sight and out of mind.”
Not to talk of the devil, is tantamount to spiritual suicide, as the following Church authorities will clearly testify. In a day and age, when many a pope and bishop (not to even mention Our Lady) has said that the devil has been unleashed into our world—to be negligent in talking about him and warning others of his presence, power and tactics, as well as pointing out the defenses and remedies against him, would be a grave sin of omission for which the negligent will one day have to answer and pay. So, in following the lead of Holy Mother Church, who, on the First Sunday of Lent presented to us Christ, led by the Holy Spirit into the desert to be tempted, before we “enter into temptation” in this first part of the week dedicated to uncovering the devil and his temptations, let us look at some of the statements and testimonies on the devil before looking at temptation itself.
Words of Sister Lucia spoken in 1957 to Fr. Augustine Fuentes
“The Most Holy Virgin has made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She has told me that the devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Virgin, and a decisive battle is a final battle, in which one side wins, the other side loses. Also, starting with the present time, we belong either to God or we belong to the demon; there is no middle ground.”
“The devil is about to wage a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin. The devil knows what it is that most offends God and which, in a short space of time, will gain for him the greatest number of souls. Thus the devil does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God, because in this way the devil will succeed in leaving the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them.” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima interview with Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Ancient & Modern
There are many modern Catholics who do not like to refer to and rely on quotes and opinions from the distant past, so, for their benefit, I will go against my personal preferences and furnish some quotes from modern authors—popes and priests—to show any and all modern readers that the enemy is still the enemy, whether the times be ancient or modern. And the enemy has to spoken of and his tactics have to be revealed. Imagine not telling soldiers about their enemy for fear of frightening them; or failing to tell your children not to walk-off with strangers; or not telling them about the dangers of scorpions and snakes, for fear of scaring them! Our Lady did not fear showing a 7-year old, an 8-year old and a 10-year old a vision of Hell! So, here are your modern day quotes!
Caveat or Warning!
The following quotes selected from various websites are merely a “reporting” of what was posted on those sites. There is no intent to recommend any or all of those websites. It is much like quoting from a secular newspaper’s website—it does not mean that we agree with all the content on that website. Nor do we endorse all that the modern popes, cardinals, bishops and priests say—for, as Pope St. Pius X said, the Modernist will on one page of his writings give you the most beautiful traditional doctrine you can read, and then, on the next page, give you pure modernism. It is much like what is said of the devil: “Satan will admit nine truths in order to slip the lie on point number ten!” Many of the present day “Conservative” cardinals and bishops take issue with some of the pronouncements of Pope Francis, as well the some pronouncements from their fellow “Liberal” and “Modernist” cardinals and bishops.
We are living out the period that Our Lady of Akita described thus: “The work of the devil will infiltrate even the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against other bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their conferees…churches and altars sacked, the Church will be full of those who accept compromise and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord” (Our Lady of Akita, 1973). Our Lady of La Salette also spoke in a similar vein: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell ... The devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish. God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family.”
The Devil in Politics
Since the Gospel of this First Sunday of Lent deals with Christ’s battle with the devil and his temptations after His 40-day fast in the desert, it will not be amiss to quote some words from the recently deceased chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth (1925-2016) on the subject of the devil working in politics and business. The following quotes are gleaned from a variety of his books and interviews that he gave.
Fr. Amorth states: “The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially, just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry ... Evil exists in politics, quite often in fact … Satan really does hand out his gifts of wealth, pleasure and success. Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies … Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan … The devil loves to take over those who hold political office … In the same way that Christ was tempted: “I will give you the whole world if you prostrate yourself before me,” we also are tempted; and Heaven knows how many fall at Satan’s feet today! … Satan will delude people into thinking that life is a beautiful holiday, where everything is permitted and where your ‘I’ does not recognize any limits regarding pleasure or enjoyment … The three rules of Satanism are: You may do all you wish, no one has the right to command you, and you are the god of yourself ... Today the world does not turn from God because it is idolatrous; rather it pursues pure atheism.”
What Fr. Amorth says from his experiences, is nothing other than what Our Lady of La Salette had already prophesied said over 170 years ago: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little … The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God. They will have great power over Nature: there will be churches built to serve these spirits. People will be transported from one place to another by these evil spirits … On occasions, the dead and the righteous will be brought back to life ... Everywhere there will be extraordinary wonders, as true Faith has faded and false light brightens the people … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten, they will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds.”
Our Lady of Fatima on the Devil in the Church and World (after 1917)
After the 1917 Fatima apparitions, Our Lady later revealed to Lucia of Fatima (who became Sr. Maria Lucia of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart) that the devil―as already stated above―was preparing for a final battle with Our Lady and her spiritual children: “The Most Holy Virgin has made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She has told me that the devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Virgin, and a decisive battle is a final battle, in which one side wins, the other side loses. Starting with the present time, we belong either to God or we belong to the demon; there is no middle ground!” (Words of Lucia, spoken in 1957 to Fr. Augustine Fuentes, a Mexican priest).
Pope Paul VI on the Devil (1972)
In 1972, on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul (June 29th), Pope Paul VI delivered a sermon that startled the world. Describing the chaos consuming the Church, he lamented: “From some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.”
Akita on the Devil (1973)
Our Lady once again, in essence, presented the message of Fatima at Akita—once again on that uncanny date of her last apparition at Fatima, October 13th―and reiterated what she had said at La Salette over 120 years beforehand: “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops” (October 13th, 1973).
Pope Paul VI on the Devil (1977)
Pope Paul VI said―yes, you guessed it, on October 13th again―that: “The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the Faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church” (Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions, October 13, 1977. Pope Paul was dead 10 months later).
Chief Exorcist Fr. Amorth on the Devil (2010)
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist in Rome, was the subject of an article in the English newspaper, The Telegraph, back in March of 2010, which ran the headline: “Chief Exorcist Says Devil Is In Vatican.” The article continued by saying: “The devil is lurking in the very heart of the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican’s chief exorcist claimed … ‘The devil resides in the Vatican and you can see the consequences,’ said Father Amorth, 85, who has been the Holy See’s chief exorcist for 25 years ... The evil influence of Satan was evident in the highest ranks of the Catholic hierarchy, with ‘cardinals who do not believe in Jesus and bishops who are linked to the demon,’ Father Amorth said.”(The Telegraph, London, United Kingdom, March 11th, 2010).
In an excerpt of his “Memoirs” we read:
Question: “Satanists in the Vatican?”
Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “Yes, even in the Vatican there are members of Satanic cults.”
Question: “Who is involved? Is it simple priests or laymen?”
Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “There are priests, monsignors and even cardinals.”
Question: “Forgive me, Father Gabriel, but how do you know?”
Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “I know from people who reported to me how they got to know this directly. It is something, “confessed” several times by the Devil, himself, under obedience during the exorcisms.”
Question: “Was the Pope informed?”
Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “Of course he was informed! But he does what he can. It’s horrifying. Keep in mind also that Benedict XVI is a German Pope, who is from a nation decidedly averse to these things. In Germany, in fact, there are virtually no exorcists, yet the Pope believes. I had occasion to speak with him three times, while he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. You bet he believes!...”
Question: “ Is it really true that Paul VI said: that ‘the smoke of Satan” entered the church?’”
Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “It’s true, unfortunately, because even in the Church there are adherents to Satanic cults. Pope Paul VI reported this detail about the smoke of Satan on June 29th, 1972. Of course, this broke the ice, lifting a veil of silence and censorship that has lasted too long, but it had no practical consequences. It took someone like me – who was a nobody – to spread the alarm in order to get results.”
So, as stated by Father Amorth, Pope Benedict XVI is aware of the fact that, in the Vatican, there are cardinals, bishops and priests who are members of Satanic cults, “but he does what he can!”
Fr. Malachi Martin on Satan and the Vatican
Catholic priest and scholar Malachi Martin, formerly Professor of Palaeontology at the Vatican’s Pontifical Biblical Institute, and from 1958 Martin also served as a theological adviser to Cardinal Augustin Bea in the Vatican, later a Jesuit professor at Georgetown University, USA, and a confidant of Vatican insiders. Also an author of 17 books, among which his most significant works were The Scribal Character of The Dead Sea Scrolls (1958) and Hostage To The Devil (1976) which dealt with Satanism, demonic possession, and exorcism. In the latter mentioned book, Martin references his experience as an exorcist. According to the book he assisted in several exorcisms. In 1996, he spoke of having performed thousands of minor exorcisms, and participated in a few hundred major exorcisms during his lifetime. Fr. Martin declared in a New York City interview: “Yes, it’s true. Lucifer is enthroned in the Catholic Church.”
Fr. Martin was also interviewed by The Fatima Crusader (Fr. Grunner’s organization), a well-known Catholic publication. He again repeated his allegations, and expressed his dismay and distress that the Catholic institution, of which he is a part, has grown so decadent and morally reprobate since the Vatican II Council of the 1960s. The contention that there are Satanists in Rome is “completely correct” said Martin, adding: “Anybody who is acquainted with the state of affairs in the Vatican in the last 35 years is well aware that the prince of darkness has and still has his surrogates in the court of St. Peter in Rome.”
Devilish Work! ... or “How The Devil Does His Work”
Taking the lead from Holy Mother Church, who presented us with the Gospel of Christ being tempted by the devil in the desert, after his fast of forty days, we are therefore dedicating a large part of this first week of Lent to studying the tactics, snares and manner of tempting used by Satan. The previous article established the fact that devil is at work everywhere today—in families, parishes, schools, work places, in culture, in politics, in business and finance, and even in the Vatican itself. This article will begin to look at the tactics and methods that Satan uses to achieve his deadly goals.
Know Your Enemy!
In our modern centuries, the world has seen war in one place or another for well over 200 hundred years—some wars have been massive, some small—but the world has been at war nevertheless. In that time we have had two “World Wars” are currently awaiting for the Third World War to start anytime soon!
In this “Age of War” there are many moderns who look upon a Chinese warrior almost as a demi-god, and they avidly read his famous book―The Art of War. This short book, The Art of War, is traditionally attributed to a military general from the late 6th century BC, known as “Master Sun” (Sunzi or Sun Tzu). The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise of 13 short chapters. Each chapter is devoted to a distinct aspect of warfare and how that applies to military strategy and tactics.
For almost 1,500 years The Art of War remains the most influential strategy text in East Asia. In many East Asian countries, The Art of War was part of the syllabus for potential candidates of military service examinations. During the Vietnam War, some Vietcong officers studied The Art of War and reportedly could recite entire passages from memory. The Department of the Army in the United States, through its Command and General Staff College, lists The Art of War as one example of a book that may be kept at a military unit’s library. The Art of War is listed on the Marine Corps Professional Reading Program (formerly known as the Commandant’s Reading List). It is recommended reading for all United States Military Intelligence personnel. According to some authors, the strategy of deception from The Art of War was studied and widely used by the Russian KGB (the world’s largest spy and state-security machine). It has a profound influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond.
The book was first translated and published into French in 1772 (re-published in 1782) by the Jesuit, Fr. Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, and a partial translation into English was later attempted, in 1905, by British Army officer, Everard Ferguson Calthrop, under the title The Book of War.
In The Art of War, the military strategist, Sun Tzu, writes: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Spiritual Warfare
Like or not, we are all exposed to spiritual warfare: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) and we either fight for our salvation or we will lose our salvation and soul: “This is the victory which overcometh the world, our Faith” (1 John 5:4). “Fight the good fight of Faith: lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Be sober and watch! Because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour! Whom resist ye, strong in Faith: knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world” (1 Peter 5:8-9).
St. Peter tells us the unpalatable news that we do not want to hear—that we are susceptible to the wiles of the devil, like every person in the world is susceptible to them. There is no escape from this truth and fact and the consequences. It is a case of fight for your soul or lose your soul.
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the lately deceased (2016) chief exorcist in Rome, said: “The state of belief in the devil in the Church is too low. The devil is very pleased with that, since this gives him free reign to do his work … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially, just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry ... Evil exists in politics, quite often in fact! … Satan really does hand out his gifts of wealth, pleasure and success. Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies … Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan … We also are tempted; and Heaven knows how many fall at Satan’s feet today! … The loss of a sense of sin, that characterizes our era, helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God: ‘Everything is lawful.’ ‘What is wrong there?’ ‘Everyone does it!’ … The devil also makes evil appear interesting, positive, and beautiful … Satan will delude people into thinking that life is a beautiful holiday, where everything is permitted and where your ‘I’ does not recognize any limits regarding pleasure or enjoyment …”
“His main activity, which we can call ‘ordinary’, is to tempt man to commit evil, to make him turn away from God ... Today families are among the most targeted by the ordinary action of Satan … They are torn apart by various attractions; they reunite and separate again … This breakdown [in the family] leads to delinquency, wickedness, and evil … Today there is much talk of love, but there truly is none! … Each year 50 million children are murdered by abortion! Then there is the broken family, cohabitation! … Divorce has been a disaster! … It is all destruction! … It is a shattered world, so it is essential that a Christian who wants to live as a Christian, must be different from the others. Christians must stand up for their beliefs and not be shy.
“Many of the devil’s ‘ordinary’ temptations are passed off as ‘modern ideas’, but really serve to unhinge the principles of the Faith. Believing in God doesn’t guarantee salvation, as 90% of the Italians would like to think. I have never, in my exorcisms, come across a devil who does not believe in God. Believing doesn’t mean anything! Instead, it is necessary to do what Jesus has told us to do” (cf. James 2:14-20; Matthew 7:21). When Faith in God declines, idolatry and irrationality increase … Ultimately, the most formidable diabolical trap is the half-heartedness, indifference, and spiritual numbness that gradually plunges us into darkness and spiritual evils.”
St. Ignatius the Worldly Soldier Who Became a Spiritual Soldier
St. Ignatius Loyola was born in 1491, one of 13 children of a family of minor nobility in northern Spain. As a young man Ignatius Loyola was inflamed by the ideals of courtly love and knighthood and dreamed of doing great deeds.
But in 1521 Ignatius was gravely wounded in a battle with the French. While recuperating, Ignatius Loyola experienced a conversion. Reading the lives of Jesus and the saints made Ignatius happy and aroused desires to do great things. Ignatius realized that these feelings were clues to God’s direction for him.
Over the years, Ignatius became expert in the art of spiritual direction or spiritual warfare, if you like—for the two things are inseparable. He collected his insights, prayers, and suggestions in his book the Spiritual Exercises, one of the most influential books on the warfare in the spiritual life that has ever been written. With a small group of friends, Ignatius Loyola founded the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits.
In his famous Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius Loyola—once a worldly soldier himself, until God converted him into soldierly priest—speaks along the same battle lines. In his “Rules for the Discernment of Spirits” and elsewhere, St. Ignatius tells that we must know ourselves and that we must know the Devil and how he works:
“God wishes to give us a true knowledge and understanding of ourselves … [and] to ask for a knowledge of the deceits of the rebel chief, Lucifer, and help to guard myself against them ... Once such an experience has been understood and carefully observed, we may guard ourselves for the future against the customary deceits of the enemy”(St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises §322, §139, §334).
Two Basic Battle Rules to Remember
St. Ignatius speaks of the soul being “…in need of instruction about the desolations and wiles of the enemy” and speaks of “exposing to him the wiles of the enemy of our human nature” (St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, Seventh and Eighth Annotations, §7 to §8).
Amongst his rules that expose the tactics and methods of the devils, St. Ignatius lays down two basic rules:
“THE FIRST RULE. In persons who are going from mortal sin to mortal sin, the enemy is ordinarily accustomed to propose apparent pleasures to them, leading them to imagine sensual delights and pleasures in order to hold them more and make them grow in their vices and sins. In these persons the good spirit uses a contrary method, stinging and biting their consciences through their rational power of moral judgment” (St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, §314).
“THE SECOND RULE. In persons who are going on intensely purifying their sins and rising from good to better in the service of God our Lord, the method is contrary to that in the first rule. For then it is proper to the evil spirit to bite, sadden, and place obstacles, disquieting with false reasons, so that the person may not go forward. And it is proper to the good spirit to give courage and strength, consolations, tears, inspirations and quiet, easing and taking away all obstacles, so that the person may go forward in doing good” (St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, §315).
“Commonly the enemy of our human nature tempts more under the appearance of good when one is exercising himself in the illuminative way [i.e. making spiritual progress and resisting deliberate venial sins]. He does not tempt him so much under the appearance of good when he is exercising himself in the purgative way [i.e. just starting out in the spiritual life and still attracted by some mortal sins, and at peace with lots of venial sins]” (St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, §10).
The devil does not wish for you to have consolations when you are on the right track or the right road—for those consolations will only serve to strengthen your soul and its resolve. So the devil counter-attacks by false reasoning and by sowing seeds of desolation (the opposite of consolation). St. Ignatius states the following:
“I call desolation things such as darkness of soul, disturbance in the soul, movement to low and earthly things, disquiet in the soul from various agitations and temptations, moving the soul to lack of confidence, leaving it without hope, without love, finding oneself totally slothful, tepid, sad and as if separated from one’s Creator and Lord” (St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises §317).
St. Ignatius adds that sometimes we deserve a lack of consolation and we bring desolation and darkness of spirit upon ourselves by our laxity and lukewarmness in our spiritual life—and thus God rightfully punishes us by refusing any consolations or “feel-goods”. At other times, the desolation is no fault of ours, but a test or trial by God to measure our progress—to see what we are really seeking: are we merely seeking the consolations of God, or the God of consolations. Another reason for our desolation is the fact that, even though we are not lukewarm and have made much spiritual progress, we have unfortunately done this in a spirit of pride and self-sufficiency, thinking that we are the cause of our own progress—thus God, in His kindness, pulls the rug of consolation from under our feet and we fall onto the cold, hard floor of desolation, and, hopefully, we fall back into humility. As St. John Climacus said: “I have seen pride lead to humility. And I remembered St. Paul who said: ‘Who hath known the mind of the Lord?’ The pit and offspring of conceit is a fall; but a fall is often an occasion of humility for those who are willing to use it to their advantage.”
“There are three principal causes for which we find ourselves desolate. The first is because we are tepid, slothful or negligent in our spiritual exercises, and so through our faults spiritual consolation withdraws from us. The second, to try and test us and to see how much we are worth, and how much we will advance in His service and praise when left without the generous reward of consolations and signal favors. The third, is that God wishes to give us a true knowledge and understanding of ourselves, so that we may have an intimate perception of the fact that it is not within our power to acquire and attain great devotion, intense love, tears, or any other spiritual consolation; but that all this is the gift and grace of God our Lord. God does not wish us to build on the property of another, to rise up in spirit in a certain pride and vainglory, attributing to ourselves the devotion and other effects of spiritual consolation” (St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises §322).
The Humble Weapon in Warfare with the Devil
Before moving on, it is necessary here to point out the incredible importance of humility in this endless warfare. Holy Scripture teaches: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4: 6). The greater is our humility, the greater is our attractiveness to God and the greater is our power to repulse the attacks of the devil. God loves humility and the devil despises humility. This brings to mind the conversation that the great Desert Father, St. Macarius, once had with the devil. Just as Macarius was returning to his cell one day, loaded down with palm leaves for his handicraft work, the devil stopped him, ready to assault him; but he could not. Some invincible force prevented him. “You have tormented me a great deal, Macarius!” the devil shouted at him fiercely. “I have battled you for so many years and yet I cannot overcome you and pull you down! But what more have you accomplished than I have? Is it your fasting? You rarely eat, but I eat nothing at all! Is it your vigils and watchings? But I never sleep! You have only one threat that frightens me.” Abba Macarius said to him: “What is that?” The devil unwillingly acknowledged, while disappearing: “Your humility, for because of it I cannot overcome you!”
Another incident, in the lives of the Desert Fathers, was that of the daughter of a certain rich man in Alexandria, who was possessed by an evil spirit and tormented severely. Her father fruitlessly spent much money in order to make her well. The condition of the young girl became worse all the time. Somehow the Father learned that a hermit, who lived alone up on a nearby mountain, had the gift from God to cast out demons. He was told, however, that the hermit was so humble that he would never agree to perform such a cure. So the nobleman had to find some other pretext by which to get him to his home. The next time the hermit came to the city to sell his baskets, the father of the girl sent a servant to buy some and to invite the hermit to his home to be paid. He unsuspectingly went. As soon as he set foot in the door, the demonized girl, who was hidden behind the door, rushed at him and gave him a hard slap across the face. The holy hermit, without losing his calm, turned his other cheek, thus carrying out the commandment of the Lord. Then this surprising incident took place: the demonized girl began to quiver wildly and to utter despairing cries: “O, hurry! I must leave! I cannot stay here any longer! The commandment of Christ is casting me out!” With those words the devil left and the tormented girl was set free. The whole family, along with the daughter, who had regained her rational powers, glorified God for the great miracle which they had seen with their own eyes and looked for the holy elder so they could thank him. He, however, fleeing from all human praise, had totally disappeared. When the Fathers in the desert were informed of these facts, they said among themselves that nothing so puts down the pride of the devil as humility and obedience to the divine commandments.
Of all the possible virtues we could learn from Our Lord, He points us in the direction of humility: “Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29). You might not, a first glance, see any connection between meekness and humility—but, if you dig a little deeper, you will notice that the vice that is opposed to meekness is anger. Anger usually arises when things do not go the way we want them to go or when things are not the way we think they should be—which, is but another form of pride that is angry at what God’s Providence has “dished-out” to us, whereas we should, instead of being angry, take all things with meekness (which is akin to humility). You could say, in broad terms, that meekness and humility are like brother and sister, or two brothers, or two sisters, or husband and wife. Thus, the Church and Her spiritual masters look upon humility as being the foundation of all other virtues and charity as being the life-giving soul of all virtues. The absence of one or the other reduces any virtue to a mere corpse or mirage.
We could, without fear, rephrase St. Paul’s following famous words on charity, to also include humility: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity[and humility], then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal! And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity [and humility], then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity [and humility], then it profits me nothing. Charity [and humility] are patient, are kind: charity [and humility] envy not, deal not perversely; are not puffed up; are not ambitious, seek not their own [advantage], are not provoked to anger, think no evil; rejoice not in iniquity, but rejoice with the truth; they bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things” (1 Corinthians 13:1-7).
We see the above words “come to life” during the Passion and Death of Our Lord! If there is one virtue that stands out like a beacon during His entire Passion and Death, it is the virtue of humility! It is the platform upon which Our Lord builds His victory over Satan and the world.
The Prideful Weapon of the Prideful Devils on Proud People
It was pride that led to the fall and banishment of Satan and the other rebellious angels—crying out: “Non serviam!—I will not serve!” That virus of pride was passed onto Adam and Eve, causing them to commit the Original Sin of humanity, with their: “I will not obey God’s command!” That flaw of pride has been passed onto us by Adam and Eve, through Original Sin, and the prideful devil ignites that pride countless times throughout our life.
Just as humility is the foundation for all virtues, so too is pride the foundation for all sin. Holy Scripture says: “Pride is the beginning of all sin! He that holds it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end!” (Ecclesiasticus 10:15). Which is why the Desert Fathers would say things like: “I prefer a collapse with humility, than victory with pride,” says one Father, and another, Abba Sarmatias says: “I prefer a sinful person, who knows his faults and is humbled, over a proud, self-complacent person of virtue.” Another Desert Father was asked “At what point does a person attain humility?” He replied: “When he remembers his sins continuously.”
The Desert Father, St. Anthony the Great, admonished: “Having fallen from his heavenly rank through pride, the devil constantly strives to bring down also all those who wholeheartedly wish to approach the Lord; and he uses the same means which caused his own downfall―that is by pride and love of vainglory. In the beginning, the thing that caused downfall from Heaven, was a movement of pride. So, if a man lacks extreme humility, if he is not humble with all his heart―with all his mind, all his spirit, all his soul and body―then he will not inherit the Kingdom of God!” (St. Anthony the Great).
Article 3
Saturday after Ash Wednesday February 25th & the First Sunday of Lent February 26th, 2023
Temptation Weekend!
Saturday after Ash Wednesday February 25th & the First Sunday of Lent February 26th, 2023
Temptation Weekend!
Time of Temptation
On the eve of the First Sunday of Lent—in what we could “Temptation Weekend” because of the Sunday Gospel of Our Lord’s temptation in the desert—it is good to spend this weekend in exploring and understanding the necessity, mechanics, effects and consequences of temptation.
Dom Guéranger, in his Liturgical Year, explains: “This Sunday is one of the most solemn throughout the year. We cannot we look upon Ash Wednesday as the solemn opening of the season; for the faithful are not bound to hear Mass on that day. Thus, Holy Church, seeing her children now assembled together, speaks to them: ‘Behold! Now is the acceptable time! Behold! Now is the day of salvation!’
“Today she brings before us the temptation of Our Lord in the desert. We acknowledge ourselves to be sinners―but how was it that we fell into sin. The devil tempted us; we did not reject the temptation; then we yielded to the suggestion, and the sin was committed. Here we have the Saint of saints allowing the wicked spirit to approach Him, in order that we might learn, from His example, how we are to gain victory under temptation.”
Triple Temptation and the Triple Enemy
St. Paul lists three chief enemies of the soul—the devil, the world and our own flesh: “When you were dead in your offences, and sins, you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of this air, of the spirit that now works on the children of unbelief, [and] in the desires of our flesh” (Ephesians 2:1-3).
Dom Guéranger explains that we have three enemies to fight against within our own body and soul― indicated by St. John: “All that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16).
Dom Guéranger says: “Concupiscence of the flesh is the love of sensual things, which covets whatever is agreeable to the flesh, and, when not curbed, draws the soul into unlawful pleasures. Concupiscence of the eyes is the love of the goods of this world, such as riches, and possessions; these dazzle the eye, and then seduce the heart. Pride of life is that confidence in ourselves, which leads us to be vain and presumptuous, and to forget that all we have, our life and every good gift, we have from God. Everyone of, our sins comes from one of these three sources; every one of our temptations aims at making us accept the concupiscence of the flesh, or the concupiscence of the eyes, or the pride of life” (The Liturgical Year).
Fr. Leonard Goffine, in his book, The Church’s Year, writes: “Christ went into the desert to prepare, by fasting and prayer, for His mission, and to endure the temptations of Satan, and to show us by His own example, how we should, armed with the word of God, as with a sword, overcome the tempter … He has certainly taught us to overcome the hardest ones: the lust of the eyes, of the flesh, and the pride of life, and if we overcome these, it will be easy to conquer the rest. If Christ permitted Himself to be tempted, it should not appear strange to us, that we are assailed by many temptations. St. Peter teaches us this: ‘Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring-lion, goeth about, seeking whom he may devour!’ (1 Peter 5:8). Not all temptations are to be ascribed to the devil—‘the devil made me do it’―as they often come from our own corrupt nature, our own incautiousness, or looseness of our senses, by which we expose ourselves to the danger of falling into sin.”
Tempted by the Devil
“Let no man, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted by God―for God is not a tempter of evils, and He tempts no man!” (James 1:13). Nevertheless, God ALLOWS us to be tempted in order to test and prove our faithfulness to God: “Because you were acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should test and prove you” (Tobias 12:13) … “Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation?” (1 Machabees 2:52) ... “and in temptation he was found faithful” (Ecclesiasticus 44:21) … “When you come to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare your soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1).
Likewise, let no man say that his temptation was too strong and that it was impossible to resist it: “Let no temptation take hold on you! God is faithful and will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able―but will also provide a way out of temptation so that you can endure it!” (1 Corinthians 10:13). “The Lord knows how to deliver the godly from temptation!” (2 Peter 2:9). “We know that whosoever is born of God, sins not” (1 John 5:18). “Whosoever is born of God commits not sin; for God’s seed abides in him. And he cannot sin because he is born of God” (1 John 3:9). The problem is that we are not just born of God―we are also born of the world―and the two are enemies: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).
The bottom line for most people is that God’s seed does not abide in them―instead it is the seed of the world that abides with them! As Our Lord says in His parable about the Sower of the Seed: “The sower went out to sow his seed ... and some seed fell among thorns: and the thorns grew up with it and choked it and it yielded no fruit … he that received the seed among thorns, is he that hears the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the pleasures of this life, choke up the word of God, and the word becomes fruitless and yields no fruit!” (Matthew 19:23-24; Mark 10:23-25; Luke 18:24-25). That is a fatal compromise and a tragic hypocrisy―they merely honor God with their lips, but their heart is more or less immersed in the world: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “No servant can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [the world]!” (Luke 16:13).
Staying with Our Lord’s parable about the Sower of the Seed, He says: “And some seed fell upon stony ground, where it had not much depth of earth, and the seed sprouted and shot up immediately, because there was no deepness of earth. But when the sun was risen, the sprouted seed was scorched, because it had no root and no moisture … He that received the seed upon the rock or stony ground, is he that hears the word of God, immediately receives it with joy and believes for a while. Yet he has no root in himself, but keeps the word of God only for a time. For, in time of temptation, when tribulation and persecution arises because of the word of God, he is suddenly scandalized [weakened] and he falls away!” (Matthew 19:23-24; Mark 10:23-25; Luke 18:24-25).
Temptation is the Seed of Hell
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange―in his book, The Three Ways of the Spiritual Life―tells us that “Grace is the seed of glory … Grace is nothing else but a certain beginning of glory within us … Grace is eternal life already begun within us … The root principle of this undying organism is sanctifying grace … Such is the supernatural life which we received in Baptism ... This beginning of eternal life has to grow and develop until we enter Heaven … The divine seed, sanctifying grace, must ever more and more animate all our faculties and inspire all our actions, until the depth of the soul is purged of all egoism and surrendered entirely to God … The state of grace is entrance into the Kingdom of God, where the docile soul begins to reign with God over its own passions, over the spirit of the world and the spirit of evil … This grace would last forever, were it not that sin―which is a radical disorder in the soul―sometimes destroys it … Grace―which sin ought never to destroy in us―ought continually to grow until it has reached its full development by avoiding mortal sin and deliberate venial sin, through exterior and interior mortification and through prayer.”
Likewise, temptation is the seed for sin. Holy Scripture speaks of evil seed: “The seed of the adulterer and of the harlot” (Isaias 57:3) … “Are not you wicked children, a false seed” (Isaias 57:4). “He that sows [the seeds of] iniquity shall reap evils” (Proverbs 22:8). In Our Lord’s parable about the Wheat and the Cockle, Jesus relates how an enemy secretly planted seeds of cockle among the seeds of wheat: “The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and over-sowed cockle among the wheat and went his way. And when the blade was sprung up, and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. And the servants of the good man of the house coming said to him: ‘Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? Whence then hath it cockle?’ And he said to them: ‘An enemy hath done this!’ … He that sows the good seed, is the Son of man. And the good seed are the children of the kingdom. And the cockle, are the children of the wicked one. And the enemy that sowed them, is the devil.” (Matthew 24-28, 37-39).
Exorcist Speaks of Devil’s Temptations
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, says of Satan: “The devil has a double way of acting―the normal way and the extraordinary way. The normal way is to lead man towards evil to make him fall into sin … His ordinary activity is to tempt man toward evil, to lead him into temptation, to sin, to push him to break divine law ... The devil looks in each person precisely for his weak point and ‘works’ on it, creating his next sinful occasion … The devil prefers this way and we are all subject to it from our birth until our death! … We are all tempted by the devil, and will be for as long as we live! … The loss of a sense of sin, that characterizes our era, helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God: ‘Everything is lawful!’ ‘What is wrong there?’ ‘Everyone does it!’ … Everything is permitted and where your ego, or ‘I’, does not recognize any limits regarding pleasure or enjoyment … You may do all you wish, no one has the right to command you, and you are the god of yourself … Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies … Today, families are among the most targeted by the ordinary action of Satan.”
“This brings to mind a passage from the first letter of St. Peter: ‘Brothers and sisters, be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your Faith’ (cf. 1 Peter 5:8-9). My interpretation of this passage―on which various scholars are agreed―sounds like this: ‘Brothers and sisters, be vigilant. The devil wanders around each one of you, searching where to devour.’ That word―‘where’―is important: the devil looks in each person precisely for his weak point and ‘works’ on it, creating his next sinful occasion. It will be the targeted person himself, who, in his liberty, will commit the sin, after having been well “cooked” by Satan’s temptation … He makes us doubt the existence of sin and Hell and Paradise and of their eternity; or, for example, as in our times, where euthanasia and abortion are passed off as signs of humanity’s progress. The second subterfuge is to make evil appear good, a gain rather than a loss. The devil also makes evil appear interesting, positive, and beautiful.”
“The most frequent weak points in man are, from time to time, always the same: pride, money, and lust. And, let us note well, there are no age limits for sinning. When I hear confessions, I often say to my penitents, somewhat jokingly, that their temptations will end only five minutes after they have exhaled their last breath. Therefore, we must not presume, or hope, that, at an advanced age, we shall be exempt from sin. A vice, that is cultivated in youth, will not lessen in old age without some work and intervention. Let us consider lust: when I hear confessions, it’s not uncommon for the elderly to confess to looking at pornography more often than the youth. The will to struggle against sin must be cultivated even to the end of our days.”
Satan’s Major Weapon—Temptation
St. Peter warns: “Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). The chief weapon of Satan is temptation—it is like a universal tool. It can be applied to any subject and to any person at any time. It was the weapon that was first successfully used against Adam and Eve, and it has stood the test of time. From Satan’s point of view, it is a very successful weapon, since, as most Saints and Father of the Church tell us, most souls end up being damned—yet that damnation is not inevitable and could have easily been avoided, if only they would have perseveringly taken the precautions that Christ has given us through His Church.
The devil brings temptations back—again and again! He does not tire in trying to make us fall into sin. He is prepared to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all life long. Acceptance of this dangerous and uncomfortable fact is all part and parcel of being a Soldier for Christ: “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1)—not just a single temptation, but repetitive temptations. “But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved” (Matthew 10:22).
Why are most souls damned? They are damned because they gave in to temptation―not just once, but repetitively, again and again and again and again. The more often you give in to temptation, the less and less is the likelihood that you will fight and overcome temptation. “He that commits sin is of the devil. For this purpose, the Son of God appeared, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). The souls of the damned gave in to temptation because they did not overcome temptation with the tools that God has given us. They neglected to use these God-given weapons when they were tempted and so they fell into sin ― again, and again, and again ― until they finally died in a state of mortal sin, having repeatedly given in to the many temptations to mortal sin. The starting point for the journey to Hell is temptation. Yet, strangely enough, the starting point for the journey to Heaven is also temptation. Temptation is a cross, a trial, a test―and, as St. Augustine says: “The same crosses lead some souls to Heaven and other souls to Hell” ― meaning that those who do not refuse the cross and carry it well, end up in Heaven; but those who refuse the cross and carry it badly, end up in Hell.
Giving Place to the Devil
“Give not place to the devil!” (Ephesians 4:27). How, in concrete terms, do we “give place to the devil”? The devil , as Our Lord says, is “the prince of this world” (John 12:31). The world is the devil’s army and weaponry; the world is his bait; the world is his intoxicating poisonous drink and numbing drug; the world is his “sticky fly trap”; the world is his “sugary sweet swamp”; the world is the mask behind which he hides. Yet like stupid flies, we fly right into the trap and get ourselves inextricably stuck to the world. We ignore the teachings, counsels and commands of Our Lord and the Apostles, who tell us so clearly and forcibly:
“My kingdom is not of this world … You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world” (John 18:36; 8:23) … “Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God; that we may know the things that are given us from God ... But the sensual man perceiveth not these things that are of the Spirit of God; for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand” (1 Corinthians 2:12-14). “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4) … “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
But who listens to this wise advice anymore? Hardly anyone! We walk in where angels fear to tread! Do we imagine ourselves to be stronger than the Apostles? Of course not—not in theory, at least—but our actions would make an onlooker think otherwise! Temptation there must be--“Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1).
Satanic Surge―Temptation Tsunami
The importance of the subject is further underlined by the revelation Sister Lucia of Fatima made to Fr. Fuentes in 19557, when she revealed: “The Most Holy Virgin has made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She has told me that the devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Virgin, and a decisive battle is a final battle, in which one side wins, the other side loses. Also, starting with the present time, we belong either to God or we belong to the demon; there is no middle ground.”
“The devil is about to wage a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin. The devil knows what it is that most offends God and which, in a short space of time, will gain for him the greatest number of souls. Thus the devil does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God, because in this way the devil will succeed in leaving the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them.” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima interview with Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Sr. Josefa Menendez Speaks of the Devil
In one the visions of Hell that Our Lord allowed Sr. Josefa Menendez to endure, she heard the devil, speaking of different ways of tempting, said: “Insinuate yourselves by inducing carelessness in them ... but keep in the background, so that you are not found out ... by degrees they will become callous, and you will be able to incline them to evil. Tempt these others to ambition, to self-interest, to acquiring wealth without working―whether it be lawful or not. Excite some to sensuality and love of pleasure. Let vice blind them ... As to the remainder ... get in through the heart ... you know the inclinations of their hearts ... make them love ... love passionately ... work thoroughly ... take no rest ... have no pity. Let them cram themselves with food! It will make it all the easier for us ... Let them get on with their banqueting. Love of pleasure is the door through which you will reach them.” (Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love, February 3rd, 1923).
The School and Test of Temptation
The Imitation of Christ gives us a lengthy lesson on dealing with temptation: “As long as we live in this world we cannot escape suffering and temptation. Whence it is written in Job: ‘The life of man upon Earth is a warfare.’ Everyone, therefore, must guard against temptation and must watch in prayer lest the devil, who never sleeps, but goes about seeking whom he may devour, find occasion to deceive him. No one is so perfect or so holy, but he is sometimes tempted; man cannot be altogether free from temptation.
“Yet temptations, though troublesome and severe, are often useful to a man, for in them he is humbled, purified, and instructed. The saints all passed through many temptations and trials to profit by them, while those who could not resist became reprobate and fell away. There is no state so holy, no place so secret, that temptations and trials will not come. Man is never safe from them as long as he lives, for they come from within us — in sin we were born. When one temptation or trial passes, another comes; we shall always have something to suffer because we have lost the state of original blessedness.
“Many people try to escape temptations, only to fall more deeply. We cannot conquer simply by fleeing, but by patience and true humility we become stronger than all our enemies. The man who only shuns temptations outwardly and does not uproot them will make little progress; indeed they will quickly return, more violent than before. Little by little, in patience and long-suffering you will overcome them, by the help of God rather than by severity and your own rash ways. Often take counsel when tempted; and do not be harsh with others who are tempted, but console them as you yourself would wish to be consoled.
“The beginning of all temptation lies in a wavering mind and little trust in God, for as a rudderless ship is driven hither and yon by waves, so a careless and irresolute man is tempted in many ways. Fire tempers iron and temptation steels the just. Often we do not know what we can stand, but temptation shows us what we are. Above all, we must be especially alert against the beginnings of temptation, for the enemy is more easily conquered if he is refused admittance to the mind and is met beyond the threshold when he knocks.
“Someone has said very aptly: “Resist the beginnings; remedies come too late, when by long delay the evil has gained strength.” First, a mere thought comes to mind, then strong imagination, followed by pleasure, evil delight, and consent. Thus, because he is not resisted in the beginning, Satan gains full entry. And the longer a man delays in resisting, so much the weaker does he become each day, while the strength of the enemy grows against him.
“Some suffer great temptations in the beginning of their conversion, others toward the end, while some are troubled almost constantly throughout their life. Others, again, are tempted but lightly according to the wisdom and justice of Divine Providence Who weighs the status and merit of each and prepares all for the salvation of His elect.
“We should not despair, therefore, when we are tempted, but pray to God the more fervently that He may see fit to help us, for according to the word of Paul, He will make issue with temptation that we may be able to bear it. Let us humble our souls under the hand of God in every trial and temptation for He will save and exalt the humble in spirit.
“In temptations and trials the progress of a man is measured; in them opportunity for merit and virtue is made more manifest. When a man is not troubled it is not hard for him to be fervent and devout, but if he bears up patiently in time of adversity, there is hope for great progress. Some, guarded against great temptations, are frequently overcome by small ones in order that, humbled by their weakness in small trials, they may not presume on their own strength in great ones” (Imitation of Christ, Book 1; chapter 13).
“An unmortified man is quickly tempted and overcome in small, trifling evils; his spirit is weak, in a measure carnal and inclined to sensual things; he can hardly abstain from earthly desires. Hence it makes him sad to forego them; he is quick to anger if reproved. Yet if he satisfies his desires, remorse of conscience overwhelms him because he followed his passions and they did not lead to the peace he sought. True peace of heart, then, is found in resisting passions, not in satisfying them. There is no peace in the carnal man, in the man given to vain attractions, but there is peace in the fervent and spiritual man” (Imitation of Christ, Book 1; chapter 6).
“If you do not overcome small, trifling things, how will you overcome the more difficult? Resist temptations in the beginning, and unlearn the evil habit lest perhaps, little by little, it lead to a more evil one” (Imitation of Christ, Book 1; chapter 11).
It's Not fair!
We may feel that it is unfair for God to expose us to temptation and allow it to attack us. We know that Our Lord was tempted in the desert after praying and fasting there for forty days and nights—but He, after all, was God. We are mere mortals! We are like babies or infants compared to an adult! But as children we had to learn to avoid many unpleasant and dangerous things: poisonous liquids, poisonous berries, fire, electricity, lakes and rivers if we couldn’t swim, reptiles, snakes, vicious animals, and so many other things that are too numerous to name. Dealing with and avoiding what is harmful, is all part and parcel of growing up. The same is true for growing up spiritually.
Same Temptation—Different Destination
St. Augustine tells us that the same crosses lead some souls to Heaven, but other souls to Hell. By this he means that some souls accept their crosses and sufferings—like the ‘Good Thief’ on the cross; whereas others refuse their crosses and sufferings and seek to escape them—like the ‘Bad Thief’ on the cross. The ‘Good Thief’ ended up in Paradise, the ‘Bad Thief’ did not! Likewise, the same temptations will lead some souls to Heaven, but other souls to Hell. It depends upon whether the temptation is powerfully rejected or gladly accepted.
Material of Glory
Fr. Frederick Faber tells us that “Temptations are the raw material of glory.” That is why St. James says: “My brethren, count it all joy, when you shall fall into divers temptations!” (James 1:2), to which St. Peter will add: “You shall greatly rejoice, if now you must be for a little time made sorrowful in diverse temptations: so that the trial of your Faith (much more precious than gold which is tried by the fire) may be found unto praise and glory and honor at the appearing of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7).
Beware If You Have No Temptations
“If you have no temptations,” St. Gregory tells us, “it is because the devils are your friends, your leaders, and your shepherds. And by allowing you to pass your poor life tranquilly, to the end of your days, they will drag you down into the depths.” St. Augustine tells us that the greatest temptation is not to have temptations, because this means that one is a person who has been rejected, abandoned by God, and left entirely in the grip of one's own passions. St. John Vianney explains: “If Our Lord was tempted, it was in order to show us that we must be also. It follows, therefore, that we must expect temptation. If you ask me what is the cause of our temptations, I shall tell you that it is the beauty and the great worth and importance of our souls which the Devil values and which he loves so much that he would consent to suffer two Hells, if necessary, if by so doing he could drag our souls into Hell” (St. John Vianney).
Temptations Are Necessary
That classic book, The Imitation of Christ, tells us that “It is good for us to have trials and troubles at times, for they often remind us that we are on probation and ought not to hope in any worldly thing. It is good for us sometimes to suffer contradiction, to be misjudged by men even though we do well and mean well. These things help us to be humble and shield us from vainglory. When to all outward appearances men give us no credit, when they do not think well of us, then we are more inclined to seek God, Who sees our hearts. Therefore, a man ought to root himself so firmly in God that he will not need the consolations of men. When a man of good will is afflicted, tempted, and tormented by evil thoughts, he realizes clearly that his greatest need is God, without Whom he can do no good. Saddened by his miseries and sufferings, he laments and prays. He wearies of living longer and wishes for death that he might be dissolved and be with Christ. Then he understands fully that perfect security and complete peace cannot be found on Earth” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, chapter 12).
Nobody is Exempt from Temptations
As The Imitation of Christ stated above: “As long as we live in this world we cannot escape suffering and temptation. Whence it is written in Job: ‘The life of man upon Earth is a warfare.’ Everyone, therefore, must guard against temptation and must watch in prayer lest the devil―who never sleeps but goes about seeking whom he may devour―find occasion to deceive him. Many people try to escape temptations, only to fall more deeply. No one is so perfect or so holy without being sometimes tempted; man cannot be altogether free from temptation. There is no state so holy, no place so secret that temptations and trials will not come. Yet temptations, though troublesome and severe, are often useful to a man, for in them he is humbled, purified, and instructed. The saints all passed through many temptations and trials to profit by them, while those who could not resist became reprobate and fell away” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, chapter 13).
The Pesticide for Temptation
Just as temptation could be said to be the universal tool of the devil, the remedy or defense against temptation is also a simple and universal of Heaven—in that it works against each and every kind of temptation. What is that universal tool? It is quite simply prayer and fasting―fasting in the broadest sense of the word―not just keeping away from food, but many other things too. This is proved by Our Lord both in theory and in practice. He personally prayed and fasted in the desert for forty days and nights, after which He was able to overcome Satan’s temptations; and He also told us of the power of prayer and fasting against the devil: “But this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). “Give not place to the devil!” (Ephesians 4:27).
Upon entering his new parish, the St. John Vianney was aware of the sick, lame and sinful spiritual status of his parish. Nevertheless, he did not give in to despair! On the contrary, he entrusted himself to the power of God for “with men it is impossible; but not with God: for all things are possible with God!” (Mark 10:27). Instead of approaching the fallen-away Catholics in his parish, St. John Vianney poured his suffering heart to God with these words: “My God! I beg you to convert my parish! I will accept any sufferings that You send me―but please convert my parish!” He spent long hours in prayer―sometimes he forego sleep and would spend the whole night in prayer. He added to this severe fasting. Sometimes he would go a day or more without eating. On other occasions he would boil a pot of potatoes at the start of the week and eat two or three a day—all done for the love of God and for the salvation of immortal souls. It worked! Little by little souls came back to church and confession. He was soon hearing confessions for many hours a day! Prayer and fasting had loosened the devil’s hold on the parish.
On the eve of the First Sunday of Lent—in what we could “Temptation Weekend” because of the Sunday Gospel of Our Lord’s temptation in the desert—it is good to spend this weekend in exploring and understanding the necessity, mechanics, effects and consequences of temptation.
Dom Guéranger, in his Liturgical Year, explains: “This Sunday is one of the most solemn throughout the year. We cannot we look upon Ash Wednesday as the solemn opening of the season; for the faithful are not bound to hear Mass on that day. Thus, Holy Church, seeing her children now assembled together, speaks to them: ‘Behold! Now is the acceptable time! Behold! Now is the day of salvation!’
“Today she brings before us the temptation of Our Lord in the desert. We acknowledge ourselves to be sinners―but how was it that we fell into sin. The devil tempted us; we did not reject the temptation; then we yielded to the suggestion, and the sin was committed. Here we have the Saint of saints allowing the wicked spirit to approach Him, in order that we might learn, from His example, how we are to gain victory under temptation.”
Triple Temptation and the Triple Enemy
St. Paul lists three chief enemies of the soul—the devil, the world and our own flesh: “When you were dead in your offences, and sins, you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of this air, of the spirit that now works on the children of unbelief, [and] in the desires of our flesh” (Ephesians 2:1-3).
Dom Guéranger explains that we have three enemies to fight against within our own body and soul― indicated by St. John: “All that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16).
Dom Guéranger says: “Concupiscence of the flesh is the love of sensual things, which covets whatever is agreeable to the flesh, and, when not curbed, draws the soul into unlawful pleasures. Concupiscence of the eyes is the love of the goods of this world, such as riches, and possessions; these dazzle the eye, and then seduce the heart. Pride of life is that confidence in ourselves, which leads us to be vain and presumptuous, and to forget that all we have, our life and every good gift, we have from God. Everyone of, our sins comes from one of these three sources; every one of our temptations aims at making us accept the concupiscence of the flesh, or the concupiscence of the eyes, or the pride of life” (The Liturgical Year).
Fr. Leonard Goffine, in his book, The Church’s Year, writes: “Christ went into the desert to prepare, by fasting and prayer, for His mission, and to endure the temptations of Satan, and to show us by His own example, how we should, armed with the word of God, as with a sword, overcome the tempter … He has certainly taught us to overcome the hardest ones: the lust of the eyes, of the flesh, and the pride of life, and if we overcome these, it will be easy to conquer the rest. If Christ permitted Himself to be tempted, it should not appear strange to us, that we are assailed by many temptations. St. Peter teaches us this: ‘Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring-lion, goeth about, seeking whom he may devour!’ (1 Peter 5:8). Not all temptations are to be ascribed to the devil—‘the devil made me do it’―as they often come from our own corrupt nature, our own incautiousness, or looseness of our senses, by which we expose ourselves to the danger of falling into sin.”
Tempted by the Devil
“Let no man, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted by God―for God is not a tempter of evils, and He tempts no man!” (James 1:13). Nevertheless, God ALLOWS us to be tempted in order to test and prove our faithfulness to God: “Because you were acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should test and prove you” (Tobias 12:13) … “Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation?” (1 Machabees 2:52) ... “and in temptation he was found faithful” (Ecclesiasticus 44:21) … “When you come to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare your soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1).
Likewise, let no man say that his temptation was too strong and that it was impossible to resist it: “Let no temptation take hold on you! God is faithful and will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able―but will also provide a way out of temptation so that you can endure it!” (1 Corinthians 10:13). “The Lord knows how to deliver the godly from temptation!” (2 Peter 2:9). “We know that whosoever is born of God, sins not” (1 John 5:18). “Whosoever is born of God commits not sin; for God’s seed abides in him. And he cannot sin because he is born of God” (1 John 3:9). The problem is that we are not just born of God―we are also born of the world―and the two are enemies: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).
The bottom line for most people is that God’s seed does not abide in them―instead it is the seed of the world that abides with them! As Our Lord says in His parable about the Sower of the Seed: “The sower went out to sow his seed ... and some seed fell among thorns: and the thorns grew up with it and choked it and it yielded no fruit … he that received the seed among thorns, is he that hears the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the pleasures of this life, choke up the word of God, and the word becomes fruitless and yields no fruit!” (Matthew 19:23-24; Mark 10:23-25; Luke 18:24-25). That is a fatal compromise and a tragic hypocrisy―they merely honor God with their lips, but their heart is more or less immersed in the world: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “No servant can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [the world]!” (Luke 16:13).
Staying with Our Lord’s parable about the Sower of the Seed, He says: “And some seed fell upon stony ground, where it had not much depth of earth, and the seed sprouted and shot up immediately, because there was no deepness of earth. But when the sun was risen, the sprouted seed was scorched, because it had no root and no moisture … He that received the seed upon the rock or stony ground, is he that hears the word of God, immediately receives it with joy and believes for a while. Yet he has no root in himself, but keeps the word of God only for a time. For, in time of temptation, when tribulation and persecution arises because of the word of God, he is suddenly scandalized [weakened] and he falls away!” (Matthew 19:23-24; Mark 10:23-25; Luke 18:24-25).
Temptation is the Seed of Hell
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange―in his book, The Three Ways of the Spiritual Life―tells us that “Grace is the seed of glory … Grace is nothing else but a certain beginning of glory within us … Grace is eternal life already begun within us … The root principle of this undying organism is sanctifying grace … Such is the supernatural life which we received in Baptism ... This beginning of eternal life has to grow and develop until we enter Heaven … The divine seed, sanctifying grace, must ever more and more animate all our faculties and inspire all our actions, until the depth of the soul is purged of all egoism and surrendered entirely to God … The state of grace is entrance into the Kingdom of God, where the docile soul begins to reign with God over its own passions, over the spirit of the world and the spirit of evil … This grace would last forever, were it not that sin―which is a radical disorder in the soul―sometimes destroys it … Grace―which sin ought never to destroy in us―ought continually to grow until it has reached its full development by avoiding mortal sin and deliberate venial sin, through exterior and interior mortification and through prayer.”
Likewise, temptation is the seed for sin. Holy Scripture speaks of evil seed: “The seed of the adulterer and of the harlot” (Isaias 57:3) … “Are not you wicked children, a false seed” (Isaias 57:4). “He that sows [the seeds of] iniquity shall reap evils” (Proverbs 22:8). In Our Lord’s parable about the Wheat and the Cockle, Jesus relates how an enemy secretly planted seeds of cockle among the seeds of wheat: “The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and over-sowed cockle among the wheat and went his way. And when the blade was sprung up, and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. And the servants of the good man of the house coming said to him: ‘Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? Whence then hath it cockle?’ And he said to them: ‘An enemy hath done this!’ … He that sows the good seed, is the Son of man. And the good seed are the children of the kingdom. And the cockle, are the children of the wicked one. And the enemy that sowed them, is the devil.” (Matthew 24-28, 37-39).
Exorcist Speaks of Devil’s Temptations
Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, says of Satan: “The devil has a double way of acting―the normal way and the extraordinary way. The normal way is to lead man towards evil to make him fall into sin … His ordinary activity is to tempt man toward evil, to lead him into temptation, to sin, to push him to break divine law ... The devil looks in each person precisely for his weak point and ‘works’ on it, creating his next sinful occasion … The devil prefers this way and we are all subject to it from our birth until our death! … We are all tempted by the devil, and will be for as long as we live! … The loss of a sense of sin, that characterizes our era, helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God: ‘Everything is lawful!’ ‘What is wrong there?’ ‘Everyone does it!’ … Everything is permitted and where your ego, or ‘I’, does not recognize any limits regarding pleasure or enjoyment … You may do all you wish, no one has the right to command you, and you are the god of yourself … Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies … Today, families are among the most targeted by the ordinary action of Satan.”
“This brings to mind a passage from the first letter of St. Peter: ‘Brothers and sisters, be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your Faith’ (cf. 1 Peter 5:8-9). My interpretation of this passage―on which various scholars are agreed―sounds like this: ‘Brothers and sisters, be vigilant. The devil wanders around each one of you, searching where to devour.’ That word―‘where’―is important: the devil looks in each person precisely for his weak point and ‘works’ on it, creating his next sinful occasion. It will be the targeted person himself, who, in his liberty, will commit the sin, after having been well “cooked” by Satan’s temptation … He makes us doubt the existence of sin and Hell and Paradise and of their eternity; or, for example, as in our times, where euthanasia and abortion are passed off as signs of humanity’s progress. The second subterfuge is to make evil appear good, a gain rather than a loss. The devil also makes evil appear interesting, positive, and beautiful.”
“The most frequent weak points in man are, from time to time, always the same: pride, money, and lust. And, let us note well, there are no age limits for sinning. When I hear confessions, I often say to my penitents, somewhat jokingly, that their temptations will end only five minutes after they have exhaled their last breath. Therefore, we must not presume, or hope, that, at an advanced age, we shall be exempt from sin. A vice, that is cultivated in youth, will not lessen in old age without some work and intervention. Let us consider lust: when I hear confessions, it’s not uncommon for the elderly to confess to looking at pornography more often than the youth. The will to struggle against sin must be cultivated even to the end of our days.”
Satan’s Major Weapon—Temptation
St. Peter warns: “Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). The chief weapon of Satan is temptation—it is like a universal tool. It can be applied to any subject and to any person at any time. It was the weapon that was first successfully used against Adam and Eve, and it has stood the test of time. From Satan’s point of view, it is a very successful weapon, since, as most Saints and Father of the Church tell us, most souls end up being damned—yet that damnation is not inevitable and could have easily been avoided, if only they would have perseveringly taken the precautions that Christ has given us through His Church.
The devil brings temptations back—again and again! He does not tire in trying to make us fall into sin. He is prepared to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all life long. Acceptance of this dangerous and uncomfortable fact is all part and parcel of being a Soldier for Christ: “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1)—not just a single temptation, but repetitive temptations. “But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved” (Matthew 10:22).
Why are most souls damned? They are damned because they gave in to temptation―not just once, but repetitively, again and again and again and again. The more often you give in to temptation, the less and less is the likelihood that you will fight and overcome temptation. “He that commits sin is of the devil. For this purpose, the Son of God appeared, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). The souls of the damned gave in to temptation because they did not overcome temptation with the tools that God has given us. They neglected to use these God-given weapons when they were tempted and so they fell into sin ― again, and again, and again ― until they finally died in a state of mortal sin, having repeatedly given in to the many temptations to mortal sin. The starting point for the journey to Hell is temptation. Yet, strangely enough, the starting point for the journey to Heaven is also temptation. Temptation is a cross, a trial, a test―and, as St. Augustine says: “The same crosses lead some souls to Heaven and other souls to Hell” ― meaning that those who do not refuse the cross and carry it well, end up in Heaven; but those who refuse the cross and carry it badly, end up in Hell.
Giving Place to the Devil
“Give not place to the devil!” (Ephesians 4:27). How, in concrete terms, do we “give place to the devil”? The devil , as Our Lord says, is “the prince of this world” (John 12:31). The world is the devil’s army and weaponry; the world is his bait; the world is his intoxicating poisonous drink and numbing drug; the world is his “sticky fly trap”; the world is his “sugary sweet swamp”; the world is the mask behind which he hides. Yet like stupid flies, we fly right into the trap and get ourselves inextricably stuck to the world. We ignore the teachings, counsels and commands of Our Lord and the Apostles, who tell us so clearly and forcibly:
“My kingdom is not of this world … You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world” (John 18:36; 8:23) … “Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God; that we may know the things that are given us from God ... But the sensual man perceiveth not these things that are of the Spirit of God; for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand” (1 Corinthians 2:12-14). “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4) … “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
But who listens to this wise advice anymore? Hardly anyone! We walk in where angels fear to tread! Do we imagine ourselves to be stronger than the Apostles? Of course not—not in theory, at least—but our actions would make an onlooker think otherwise! Temptation there must be--“Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1).
Satanic Surge―Temptation Tsunami
The importance of the subject is further underlined by the revelation Sister Lucia of Fatima made to Fr. Fuentes in 19557, when she revealed: “The Most Holy Virgin has made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She has told me that the devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Virgin, and a decisive battle is a final battle, in which one side wins, the other side loses. Also, starting with the present time, we belong either to God or we belong to the demon; there is no middle ground.”
“The devil is about to wage a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin. The devil knows what it is that most offends God and which, in a short space of time, will gain for him the greatest number of souls. Thus the devil does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God, because in this way the devil will succeed in leaving the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them.” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima interview with Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Sr. Josefa Menendez Speaks of the Devil
In one the visions of Hell that Our Lord allowed Sr. Josefa Menendez to endure, she heard the devil, speaking of different ways of tempting, said: “Insinuate yourselves by inducing carelessness in them ... but keep in the background, so that you are not found out ... by degrees they will become callous, and you will be able to incline them to evil. Tempt these others to ambition, to self-interest, to acquiring wealth without working―whether it be lawful or not. Excite some to sensuality and love of pleasure. Let vice blind them ... As to the remainder ... get in through the heart ... you know the inclinations of their hearts ... make them love ... love passionately ... work thoroughly ... take no rest ... have no pity. Let them cram themselves with food! It will make it all the easier for us ... Let them get on with their banqueting. Love of pleasure is the door through which you will reach them.” (Sr. Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love, February 3rd, 1923).
The School and Test of Temptation
The Imitation of Christ gives us a lengthy lesson on dealing with temptation: “As long as we live in this world we cannot escape suffering and temptation. Whence it is written in Job: ‘The life of man upon Earth is a warfare.’ Everyone, therefore, must guard against temptation and must watch in prayer lest the devil, who never sleeps, but goes about seeking whom he may devour, find occasion to deceive him. No one is so perfect or so holy, but he is sometimes tempted; man cannot be altogether free from temptation.
“Yet temptations, though troublesome and severe, are often useful to a man, for in them he is humbled, purified, and instructed. The saints all passed through many temptations and trials to profit by them, while those who could not resist became reprobate and fell away. There is no state so holy, no place so secret, that temptations and trials will not come. Man is never safe from them as long as he lives, for they come from within us — in sin we were born. When one temptation or trial passes, another comes; we shall always have something to suffer because we have lost the state of original blessedness.
“Many people try to escape temptations, only to fall more deeply. We cannot conquer simply by fleeing, but by patience and true humility we become stronger than all our enemies. The man who only shuns temptations outwardly and does not uproot them will make little progress; indeed they will quickly return, more violent than before. Little by little, in patience and long-suffering you will overcome them, by the help of God rather than by severity and your own rash ways. Often take counsel when tempted; and do not be harsh with others who are tempted, but console them as you yourself would wish to be consoled.
“The beginning of all temptation lies in a wavering mind and little trust in God, for as a rudderless ship is driven hither and yon by waves, so a careless and irresolute man is tempted in many ways. Fire tempers iron and temptation steels the just. Often we do not know what we can stand, but temptation shows us what we are. Above all, we must be especially alert against the beginnings of temptation, for the enemy is more easily conquered if he is refused admittance to the mind and is met beyond the threshold when he knocks.
“Someone has said very aptly: “Resist the beginnings; remedies come too late, when by long delay the evil has gained strength.” First, a mere thought comes to mind, then strong imagination, followed by pleasure, evil delight, and consent. Thus, because he is not resisted in the beginning, Satan gains full entry. And the longer a man delays in resisting, so much the weaker does he become each day, while the strength of the enemy grows against him.
“Some suffer great temptations in the beginning of their conversion, others toward the end, while some are troubled almost constantly throughout their life. Others, again, are tempted but lightly according to the wisdom and justice of Divine Providence Who weighs the status and merit of each and prepares all for the salvation of His elect.
“We should not despair, therefore, when we are tempted, but pray to God the more fervently that He may see fit to help us, for according to the word of Paul, He will make issue with temptation that we may be able to bear it. Let us humble our souls under the hand of God in every trial and temptation for He will save and exalt the humble in spirit.
“In temptations and trials the progress of a man is measured; in them opportunity for merit and virtue is made more manifest. When a man is not troubled it is not hard for him to be fervent and devout, but if he bears up patiently in time of adversity, there is hope for great progress. Some, guarded against great temptations, are frequently overcome by small ones in order that, humbled by their weakness in small trials, they may not presume on their own strength in great ones” (Imitation of Christ, Book 1; chapter 13).
“An unmortified man is quickly tempted and overcome in small, trifling evils; his spirit is weak, in a measure carnal and inclined to sensual things; he can hardly abstain from earthly desires. Hence it makes him sad to forego them; he is quick to anger if reproved. Yet if he satisfies his desires, remorse of conscience overwhelms him because he followed his passions and they did not lead to the peace he sought. True peace of heart, then, is found in resisting passions, not in satisfying them. There is no peace in the carnal man, in the man given to vain attractions, but there is peace in the fervent and spiritual man” (Imitation of Christ, Book 1; chapter 6).
“If you do not overcome small, trifling things, how will you overcome the more difficult? Resist temptations in the beginning, and unlearn the evil habit lest perhaps, little by little, it lead to a more evil one” (Imitation of Christ, Book 1; chapter 11).
It's Not fair!
We may feel that it is unfair for God to expose us to temptation and allow it to attack us. We know that Our Lord was tempted in the desert after praying and fasting there for forty days and nights—but He, after all, was God. We are mere mortals! We are like babies or infants compared to an adult! But as children we had to learn to avoid many unpleasant and dangerous things: poisonous liquids, poisonous berries, fire, electricity, lakes and rivers if we couldn’t swim, reptiles, snakes, vicious animals, and so many other things that are too numerous to name. Dealing with and avoiding what is harmful, is all part and parcel of growing up. The same is true for growing up spiritually.
Same Temptation—Different Destination
St. Augustine tells us that the same crosses lead some souls to Heaven, but other souls to Hell. By this he means that some souls accept their crosses and sufferings—like the ‘Good Thief’ on the cross; whereas others refuse their crosses and sufferings and seek to escape them—like the ‘Bad Thief’ on the cross. The ‘Good Thief’ ended up in Paradise, the ‘Bad Thief’ did not! Likewise, the same temptations will lead some souls to Heaven, but other souls to Hell. It depends upon whether the temptation is powerfully rejected or gladly accepted.
Material of Glory
Fr. Frederick Faber tells us that “Temptations are the raw material of glory.” That is why St. James says: “My brethren, count it all joy, when you shall fall into divers temptations!” (James 1:2), to which St. Peter will add: “You shall greatly rejoice, if now you must be for a little time made sorrowful in diverse temptations: so that the trial of your Faith (much more precious than gold which is tried by the fire) may be found unto praise and glory and honor at the appearing of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7).
Beware If You Have No Temptations
“If you have no temptations,” St. Gregory tells us, “it is because the devils are your friends, your leaders, and your shepherds. And by allowing you to pass your poor life tranquilly, to the end of your days, they will drag you down into the depths.” St. Augustine tells us that the greatest temptation is not to have temptations, because this means that one is a person who has been rejected, abandoned by God, and left entirely in the grip of one's own passions. St. John Vianney explains: “If Our Lord was tempted, it was in order to show us that we must be also. It follows, therefore, that we must expect temptation. If you ask me what is the cause of our temptations, I shall tell you that it is the beauty and the great worth and importance of our souls which the Devil values and which he loves so much that he would consent to suffer two Hells, if necessary, if by so doing he could drag our souls into Hell” (St. John Vianney).
Temptations Are Necessary
That classic book, The Imitation of Christ, tells us that “It is good for us to have trials and troubles at times, for they often remind us that we are on probation and ought not to hope in any worldly thing. It is good for us sometimes to suffer contradiction, to be misjudged by men even though we do well and mean well. These things help us to be humble and shield us from vainglory. When to all outward appearances men give us no credit, when they do not think well of us, then we are more inclined to seek God, Who sees our hearts. Therefore, a man ought to root himself so firmly in God that he will not need the consolations of men. When a man of good will is afflicted, tempted, and tormented by evil thoughts, he realizes clearly that his greatest need is God, without Whom he can do no good. Saddened by his miseries and sufferings, he laments and prays. He wearies of living longer and wishes for death that he might be dissolved and be with Christ. Then he understands fully that perfect security and complete peace cannot be found on Earth” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, chapter 12).
Nobody is Exempt from Temptations
As The Imitation of Christ stated above: “As long as we live in this world we cannot escape suffering and temptation. Whence it is written in Job: ‘The life of man upon Earth is a warfare.’ Everyone, therefore, must guard against temptation and must watch in prayer lest the devil―who never sleeps but goes about seeking whom he may devour―find occasion to deceive him. Many people try to escape temptations, only to fall more deeply. No one is so perfect or so holy without being sometimes tempted; man cannot be altogether free from temptation. There is no state so holy, no place so secret that temptations and trials will not come. Yet temptations, though troublesome and severe, are often useful to a man, for in them he is humbled, purified, and instructed. The saints all passed through many temptations and trials to profit by them, while those who could not resist became reprobate and fell away” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, chapter 13).
The Pesticide for Temptation
Just as temptation could be said to be the universal tool of the devil, the remedy or defense against temptation is also a simple and universal of Heaven—in that it works against each and every kind of temptation. What is that universal tool? It is quite simply prayer and fasting―fasting in the broadest sense of the word―not just keeping away from food, but many other things too. This is proved by Our Lord both in theory and in practice. He personally prayed and fasted in the desert for forty days and nights, after which He was able to overcome Satan’s temptations; and He also told us of the power of prayer and fasting against the devil: “But this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). “Give not place to the devil!” (Ephesians 4:27).
Upon entering his new parish, the St. John Vianney was aware of the sick, lame and sinful spiritual status of his parish. Nevertheless, he did not give in to despair! On the contrary, he entrusted himself to the power of God for “with men it is impossible; but not with God: for all things are possible with God!” (Mark 10:27). Instead of approaching the fallen-away Catholics in his parish, St. John Vianney poured his suffering heart to God with these words: “My God! I beg you to convert my parish! I will accept any sufferings that You send me―but please convert my parish!” He spent long hours in prayer―sometimes he forego sleep and would spend the whole night in prayer. He added to this severe fasting. Sometimes he would go a day or more without eating. On other occasions he would boil a pot of potatoes at the start of the week and eat two or three a day—all done for the love of God and for the salvation of immortal souls. It worked! Little by little souls came back to church and confession. He was soon hearing confessions for many hours a day! Prayer and fasting had loosened the devil’s hold on the parish.
Article 2
Thursday & Friday after Ash Wednesday February 23rd & 24th, 2023
Don't Give Up! It's Only Just Started!
Thursday & Friday after Ash Wednesday February 23rd & 24th, 2023
Don't Give Up! It's Only Just Started!
Lent―A Time of Four-Letter-Words
Each time Lent comes around, it brings with it a bunch of four-letter-words! Which four-letter-word applies to you depends upon your attitude towards Lent. One man’s four-letter-word will not be another man’s four-letter-word. What are some of these four-letter-word reactions that Lent provokes?
FAST ― Nobody likes hearing four-letter-words. The word FAST is a four-letter-word that most people dislike. For them the FAST of Lent goes far too slow! They prefer four-letter-words like FOOD, CAKE, BEER, SODA, etc. ― to which they cannot run fast enough! Fattening is preferred to fasting! To some people, the idea of fasting is like being sent to prison, or into a desert! They should reflect upon the fact that the desert of Lent is better than the prison of Hell! Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, stated: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … The whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Today Satan rules the world … Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan!” Our Lord tells us how to get the devil out of our lives: “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:14-20).
PRAY ― Another four-letter-word that unsettles and upsets people is the word PRAY. For some people, to PRAY is similar to being tortured! Whenever they are forced to pray the Rosary, each Hail Mary bead is like a drop of water dripping and falling on the forehead during the “Chinese Water Torture”. A whole Rosary drives them insane―especially if it prayed respectfully and slowly! They prefer a whole bucket of water to be entirely and instantly thrown on their head, rather than having to endure the drop-by-drop water torture of the Rosary. These people say the Rosary like Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta said the Rosary until they were corrected by Heaven―the children merely said the first and last words of the Hail Mary prayer: “Hail Mary. Amen!” ― skipping the rest of the prayer that followed the two words, “Hail Mary.” Saying such “microwaved” Rosary, in a fraction of the time it would normally take, left with them with more time to play! Alas, nothing has changed in the world since then!
ZEAL ― Not a very popular four-letter-word! Ideally, Lent should be a time of ZEAL, a time to rekindle our lukewarm, indifferent, halfhearted approach to God, our Faith and our salvation. A zeal for paying-off our debts for sin. Most people actually do manifest a zeal in their lives, but, sadly, it is zeal for the world and the pleasures, treasures and fun that it offers. Zeal for the things of God and salvation is boring thing―nowhere near as entertaining as the things of the world.
GOOD ― St. Thomas Aquinas says that everyone seeks GOOD in their life, but not everyone agrees on what GOOD actually is. Some people mistake another four-letter-word―EVIL―as being GOOD for them. Holy Scripture warns against this: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil!” (Isaias 5:20). Today we are witnessing a lot of that! Governments and legislators are try to pass laws that are evil by calling them good. Perhaps we also do that in our families or work-places? Our Lord clearly tells us: “Every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire! … Either make the tree good and its fruit good; or make the tree evil and its fruit evil! For by the fruit the tree is known!” (Matthew 7:17-19; 12:33).
WORK ― Another unsavory and disliked four-letter-word is WORK. Lent is a time for work! Most people hate the word and work as hard as they can to avoid its company. The would much rather keep company with WORK’s enemy―PLAY―which can quickly lead to a string of four-letter-words: PLAY YOUR LIFE AWAY as well as PLAY YOUR SOUL INTO HELL.
HOLY ― This four-letter-word is sneered at and derided. For many the concept of becoming and being HOLY is a joke―something to be ridiculed. It is surprising and saddening to see how few people work at becoming holy―yet holiness is required for entry into Heaven. Holiness is commanded by God: “I am the Lord your God―be holy because I am holy!” (Leviticus 11:44). “Sanctify yourselves, and be ye holy because I am the Lord your God!” (Leviticus 20:7). You shall find “health of the soul in holiness” (Ecclesiasticus 30:15). “Strengthen your hearts in holiness before God” (1 Thessalonians 3:13). Unfortunately, most people shy-away from holiness, fearing to be seen as and called a “Holy Roller” or a “Holy Joe” ― as though holiness was some kind of “soft touch”.
LAZY & IDLE ― Both of these four-letter-words come from the same family. Almost everyone loves their company and willingly idle time away. Four-letter-cousins of these are the brothers “DOWN TIME”, “BACK SEAT” and “SKIP WORK”. They are a very infectious bunch―it doesn’t take much before you find yourself enjoying those four-letter-words. Our Lord tells us: “For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the Day of Judgment!” (Matthew 12:36).
EVIL ― Another four-letter-word that is thrown at Lent is the word EVIL. What is evil? Evil is philosophically defined as an absence of some good that is due to something. Therefore, an absence of health is an evil. The absence of sight is an evil for the blind man. The inability to conceive and give birth to a child is an evil. Yet―as said above―some people see evil where there is no evil; and others make out what is actually good to be an evil. Lent is good―but to many it is an evil. Why? Because it takes away from them all the fun things that they think are due to them! Eat and drink less = evil. Dedicating less time to fun and games = evil. Going to Mass more often is an evil waste of time―because it takes you away from all the more exciting things you would like to do. “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil!” (Isaias 5:20). There is but one EVIL―and that is sin: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
HELL ― Now here is a four-letter-word that we hear a lot―HELL. The word is used lightly and jokingly. Some people think a long sermon is Hell. For others saying all 15 decades of the Rosary is Hell. Sitting through a long Mass is Hell. Sometimes people even say: “Go to Hell!” Yet Hell is not such a light matter―and we should never wish Hell upon anyone. God is the judge of all―and if people refuse to allow God to save them and bring them out of sin, then God will reluctantly damn them: “There is wickedness in the midst of them! Let death come upon them and let them go down alive into Hell!” (Psalm 54:16). “The hearts of the children of men are filled with evil, and they shall be brought down to Hell!” (Ecclesiastes 9:3). “They spend their days in wealth and, in a moment, they go down to Hell!” (Job 21:13). “The rich man died and he was buried in Hell!” (Luke 16:22). “Hell is my house!” (Job 17:13). “A fire is kindled in my wrath and shall burn even to the lowest Hell!” (Deuteronomy 32:22). “Let him and his sin pass to excessive heat, even to Hell!” (Job 24:19). “Let the wicked be brought down to Hell!” (Psalm 30:18). “The wicked shall be turned into Hell!” (Psalm 9:18).
LOSS ― Yet another four-letter-word is LOSS, or LOSE, or LOST―which usually pertains to things that are lost during Lent. People lament the loss of fun times; the loss of an abundance of food and drink; the loss of certain activities or things that they have to give up during Lent. All of these create a loss of joy in regard to Lent. Lent is seen as killjoy, a spoilsport, a sourpuss, a party-pooper, etc. Yet nobody ever thinks of the great loss of souls to Hell because of a lack of penance for sin. As Our Lord said: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 5:3; 13:3-5). Nobody mourns time lost for penance―but they will mourn time lost for fun things.
FEAR ― The four-letter-word of FEAR plays a large part during Lent. Many people fear Lent―they fear the fasting, they fear the effort, they fear the hunger. They fear the loss of pleasures and fun. Yet strangely enough they do not fear sin! Scripture tells them: “Fear God, and abstain from all sin!” (Tobias 1:10). “Fear God, depart from all sin, and do that which is good!” (Tobias 4:23). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). “Fear ye not them that kill the body and are not able to kill the soul―but rather fear Him Who can destroy both soul and body in Hell!” (Matthew 10:28). We often fear the wrong things―just as we like the wrong things.
FLEE ― We should FLEE from sin: “FLEE from sins as from the face of a serpent―for if thou comest near them, they will take hold of thee!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:2). Given a choice in the matter, most people would FLEE from Lent. Lent is like an unwelcome visitor whom we would prefer not to see. Or the Lenten season is seen like the tax season, whereby we have to declare our earnings and pay our taxes―except, in this case, we have to examine our sins and pay “taxes” on them. Many persons seek―consciously or unconsciously―to fiddle on their taxes and pay as little as they can. “A sinful man will FLEE reproof, and will find an excuse according to his will” (Ecclesiasticus 32:21). Sin is not cheap―since it the greatest evil in the world. We cannot flee from our obligations to pay for sin! “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die … But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die” (Ezechiel 18:20-21).
PAIN ― Pain is a painful four-letter-word. Who wants pain? We fear pain. We flee from pain. We spend our lives and money trying to avoid pain! Yet that was not the case with Our Lord―He came to suffer pain and die for us to redeem us from our sins and Hell. Suffering and pain is an integral part of the Christian life. The central pain of the Christian life is the cross―without which there can be no salvation: “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Our attitude ought to be: “O Lord, I suffer grevious pains in body―but in soul am well content to suffer these things because I fear Thee!” (2 Machabees 6:30). “We deserve to suffer these things, because we have sinned!” (Genesis 42:21). Suffering―when joined to charity or love―pays the debts for our sins. Our attitude in suffering ought to be that of the Good Thief on the cross on Calvary, who said: “We receive the due reward of our deeds!” (Luke 23:41).
WEEP ― Holy Scripture tells us that there is “a time to weep” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). This four-letter-word is usually linked to pain―although we sometimes also weep out of joy. Weeping is a consequence of pain―either physical pain or emotional pain. Some WEEP that Lent has arrived! They will also WEEP for joy when Lent is finished. Few WEEP over their sins! St. Peter, once he had denied Christ three times, realized the gravity of his sins and “he began to weep” (Mark 14:72). Similarly, while carrying His cross to Calvary, Our Lord said to the women of Jerusalem, who were weeping for Him: “weep not over Me―but weep for yourselves and for your children!” (Luke 23:28). Sadly, we do not WEEP enough over our sins―sometimes we even laugh at our sins! Scripture rebukes such an attitude: “A fool will laugh at sin!” (Proverbs 14:9). “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep! Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into sorrow!” (James 4:9). Sin is no joke! Sin is the greatest evil in the world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). Therefore, WEEP―not because Lent has arrived (unless you are weeping for joy)―but WEEP because you have sinned so much!
LOVE ― Love is very popular four-letter-word. Everyone loves―but many love the wrong things. Love has the power to forgive sins―“Charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12). “Charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much” (Luke 7:47). However, a misaligned or misguided love only serves to increase sin and guilt. “He that loves iniquity hates his own soul!” (Psalm 10:6). “He that loves danger shall perish in it!” (Ecclesiasticus 3:27). “Hate evil and love good!” (Amos 5:15). Unfortunately, most people love some kind of evil or another!
HATE ― This four-letter-word can be used or abused. Used correctly, we should HATE sin and what it has done to us, and the debts it has incurred―that would be the correct use of hatred. Unfortunately, most people HATE Lent because of the pleasures it “robs” them of if it is lived penitentially. “I hate Lent!” is a much more common feeling than “I hate sin!”
LIES ― This four-letter-word sums up Lent from both Satan’s perspective and our perspective. Our Lord calls Himself the Truth―but He says Satan is the father of lies: “I am the truth!” (John 14:6) … “The devil stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44). Our Lord, the Truth, tells us: “I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). Satan says to us what he said to Eve: “No, you shall not die the death!” (Genesis 3:4). We eve lie to ourselves―downplaying our sins, ignoring our sins, watering-down our sins, excusing our sins, saying: “O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men―extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican!” (Luke 18:11). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10). Sin requires punishment―self-punishment or punishment by God.
FAIL & FALL ― Probably the most common four-letter-word of Lent―FAIL. Few there are who make a success of Lent. If there is any hope in Hell, then it is the hope that we will FAIL and FALL during Lent. Satan wants our Lent to be profitless and will do in his power to make us FAIL and FALL. Furthermore, Satan loves to make people FALL into increasing sins during Lent―for God intends Lent to be a time of betterment, and Satan therefore rejoices in making people worse during this holy season by leading them to sin more. That is one reason why temptation seems to increase in intensity and frequency during Lent―for Satan knows the truth of Our Lord’s words: “This kind [of devil] is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). Satan is quite happy lurking in the background of your life and your family’s life―he has no desire to be cast out. That is why making you FAIL in your Lenten resolutions is of paramount importance to him.
Stupid Lenten Mistakes
Satan is not stupid when it comes to Lent―but, sadly, we are stupid. Satan cannot “physically” stop and wreck your Lent, but he can do it psychologically with his propaganda and lies. He is a million times more focused on damning our souls than we are focused on saving our souls. What happens in a sports game when one team is a “million” times more fired-up and focused on winning the game, while their opponents are complacent, laid-back and unfocused. Usually, the team with “fire-in-the-belly” ends up winning the game and perhaps ultimately winning the championship. Likewise, Satan has more “fire-in-the-belly” in making us “lose the game” of Lent and seeking to makes us―not only fail to win the championship (Heaven)―but to have us “relegated” into Hell.
Admittedly, there are fewer and fewer people who truly take Lent seriously. While, on the other hand, Satan and Hell DO take Lent seriously―for they seriously try to ruin our Lent and make us fail and fall. During one particular exorcism the devil shouted: “I hate the season of Lent! I hate it!” It is because Satan hates it that he tries to neutralize it.
Heavily Discounted Lent
A master stroke of success in neutralizing Lent was achieved by Satan in 1966, through Pope Paul VI and his Apostolic Constitution on the subject of penance ― Paenitemini ― with its 95% reduction of Lenten penance―from 40 days of fasting to a mere 2 days of fasting (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday). Abstinence from meat on all the Fridays of Lent is the only other obligatory factor. Instead of making fasting obligatory, Pope Paul VI rather naively and over-optimistically states:
“Among the grave and urgent problems which in fact summon our pastoral concern, it seems to us that not the least is to remind our sons — and all religious men of our times — of the significance and importance of the divine precept of penitence … We should like today to repeat to our sons the words spoken by Peter, in his first speech after Pentecost: ‘Repent ... then for the forgiveness of your sins!’ The Church has noted, with joy, that almost everywhere and at all times penitence has held a place of great importance … Always attentive to the signs of the times, the Church seeks―beyond fast and abstinence―new expressions more suitable for the realization of the precise goal of penitence. Therefore the Church invites everyone to the voluntary exercise [no longer obligatory] of external acts of penitence … The Church, however, invites all Christians, without distinction, to respond to the divine precept of penitence by some voluntary [not obligatory] act.
“To recall and urge all the faithful to the observance of the divine precept of penitence, the Apostolic See intends to reorganize penitential discipline with practices more suited to our times. It is up to the bishops — gathered in their episcopal conferences — to establish the norms. Although [a loophole word] Holy Mother Church has always observed abstinence from meat and fasting, nevertheless [another loophole word] in our time there are special reasons whereby it is necessary to inculcate some special form of penitence in preference to others. Therefore, while preserving — where it can be more readily observed [a loophole phrase] — the custom of abstinence from meat and fasting, the Church intends to ratify other forms of penitence as well [the words “as well” should mean: “in addition to” and not “in place of”], provided that it seems opportune to episcopal conferences to replace the observance of fast and abstinence with exercises of prayer and works of charity ... Therefore, the following is declared and established: By divine law all the faithful are required to do penance. The time of Lent preserves its penitential character. The days of penitence to be observed under obligation―throughout the Church―are all Fridays and Ash Wednesday. Abstinence is to be observed on every Friday which does not fall on a day of obligation, while abstinence and fast are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on Good Friday.” (Pope Paul VI, Apostolic Constitution Paenitemini, February 17th, 1966).
Our Lord clearly stated how the devil could be cast out: “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). Yet Pope Paul VI reduced the amount of obligatory Lenten fasting that would be done in the Catholic world by a 95% discount―reducing 40 days of obligatory Lenten fasting to a mere 2 days (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday)! Hardly a wise tactic in our battle with Satan!
Smoke of Satan
On another occasion, Pope Paul VI lamented that the Satan had entered the Church: “We believed that after the [Second Vatican] Council would come a day of sunshine in the history of the Church. But instead there has come a day of clouds and storms, and of darkness ... And how did this come about? We will confide to you … that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the Devil. … It is as if from some mysterious crack, no, it is not mysterious, from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God.” (Pope Paul VI, Address On the Occasion of the Ninth Anniversary of His Election, June 29th, 1972). A few years later he repeated the same concern: “The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the Faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church” (Pope Paul VI, Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions, October 13th, 1977).
Has the smoke of Satan entered into the temple of your family? Our Lady of Good Success prophesied that, in our present times, “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption. Woe to the children of these times!” Along the same lines, Our Lady revealed to Sister Lucia of Fatima that Satan has entered his final battle with Blessed Virgin Mary and that he would focus his attacks on the family. In general, you have to admit that Satan has been successful in those attacks. Current statistics show that only around 20% of Catholics still attend Sunday Mass on a regular basis. However, even worse than that, over 90% of young Catholics stop practicing the Faith once they graduate from high school, college or university.
Furthermore, today’s Catholic youth is increasingly accepting the non-Catholic and pagan beliefs and attitudes. They are increasingly accepting of homosexuality, same-sex marriages, pre-marital sexual relations, cohabitation, drunkenness, drug use, immodesty, etc. Worse still is the fact that less and less Catholics (especially the youth) no longer believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist.
Additionally, modern technology has the Catholic family mesmerized and addicted―with the result that God is neglected. The average time spent looking at one kind of electronic screen or another―television, computer, tablet, smartphone, videogame, etc―is around 7 hours per day. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, children aged 8-18 now spend, on average, a whopping 7.5 hours in front of a screen for entertainment each day, 4.5 of which are spent watching TV. Over a year, that adds up to 114 full days watching a screen for fun. That is just the time they spend in front of a screen for entertainment. It doesn’t include the time they spend on the computer at school for educational purposes, or at home for homework. Another study showed that “Generation Z” (11-26 years old) averages around 9 hours of screen time per day. You bet all the money that you have on the fact that prayer time, or spiritual reading, or meditation comes NOWHERE NEAR that total of 7 to 9 hours per day! About 30 percent of adults say that they're online “almost constantly.” Whatever happened to loving God with your whole mind, heart, soul and strength? Or praying without ceasing? “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31) ... “We ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1) ... “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times!” (Luke 21:36) … “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Instead of doing that, we now give almost all of our attention to electronic screens! All of this shows a resounding victory for the devil!
Lifeline of Lent
We need to turn things around―and Lent is the lifeline for doing so. If we take Lent seriously and communicate the seriousness of Lent to our families―then serious improvements could be made. Of course, as Jesus said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5), meaning that we need the grace of God to help us in everything. Lent is a magnificent source of grace―for it seeks to increase our use of the sources of grace, which are prayer and penance. Among penances, there is nothing as powerful as fasting―especially in fighting Satan. As Our Lord said: “This kind [of devil] is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). The devil knows that―which is why he seeks to distract, disheartenen, discourage and destroy any attempts we may make to fast. “But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 24:13). “Fight the good fight of Faith and lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). Don’t give up! Lent has only just started! The devil knows that the ‘danger’ of a good Lent is best destroyed by uprooting the plant of Lent in its earliest stages by trying to sow seeds of defeatism, discouragement and disappointment. If you have started badly―just pick yourself up, humble yourself, and carry on: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation―for when he hath been proved, he shall receive a crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love Him!” (James 1:12). “He that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Mark 13:13).
Each time Lent comes around, it brings with it a bunch of four-letter-words! Which four-letter-word applies to you depends upon your attitude towards Lent. One man’s four-letter-word will not be another man’s four-letter-word. What are some of these four-letter-word reactions that Lent provokes?
FAST ― Nobody likes hearing four-letter-words. The word FAST is a four-letter-word that most people dislike. For them the FAST of Lent goes far too slow! They prefer four-letter-words like FOOD, CAKE, BEER, SODA, etc. ― to which they cannot run fast enough! Fattening is preferred to fasting! To some people, the idea of fasting is like being sent to prison, or into a desert! They should reflect upon the fact that the desert of Lent is better than the prison of Hell! Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, stated: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … The whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Today Satan rules the world … Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan!” Our Lord tells us how to get the devil out of our lives: “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:14-20).
PRAY ― Another four-letter-word that unsettles and upsets people is the word PRAY. For some people, to PRAY is similar to being tortured! Whenever they are forced to pray the Rosary, each Hail Mary bead is like a drop of water dripping and falling on the forehead during the “Chinese Water Torture”. A whole Rosary drives them insane―especially if it prayed respectfully and slowly! They prefer a whole bucket of water to be entirely and instantly thrown on their head, rather than having to endure the drop-by-drop water torture of the Rosary. These people say the Rosary like Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta said the Rosary until they were corrected by Heaven―the children merely said the first and last words of the Hail Mary prayer: “Hail Mary. Amen!” ― skipping the rest of the prayer that followed the two words, “Hail Mary.” Saying such “microwaved” Rosary, in a fraction of the time it would normally take, left with them with more time to play! Alas, nothing has changed in the world since then!
ZEAL ― Not a very popular four-letter-word! Ideally, Lent should be a time of ZEAL, a time to rekindle our lukewarm, indifferent, halfhearted approach to God, our Faith and our salvation. A zeal for paying-off our debts for sin. Most people actually do manifest a zeal in their lives, but, sadly, it is zeal for the world and the pleasures, treasures and fun that it offers. Zeal for the things of God and salvation is boring thing―nowhere near as entertaining as the things of the world.
GOOD ― St. Thomas Aquinas says that everyone seeks GOOD in their life, but not everyone agrees on what GOOD actually is. Some people mistake another four-letter-word―EVIL―as being GOOD for them. Holy Scripture warns against this: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil!” (Isaias 5:20). Today we are witnessing a lot of that! Governments and legislators are try to pass laws that are evil by calling them good. Perhaps we also do that in our families or work-places? Our Lord clearly tells us: “Every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire! … Either make the tree good and its fruit good; or make the tree evil and its fruit evil! For by the fruit the tree is known!” (Matthew 7:17-19; 12:33).
WORK ― Another unsavory and disliked four-letter-word is WORK. Lent is a time for work! Most people hate the word and work as hard as they can to avoid its company. The would much rather keep company with WORK’s enemy―PLAY―which can quickly lead to a string of four-letter-words: PLAY YOUR LIFE AWAY as well as PLAY YOUR SOUL INTO HELL.
HOLY ― This four-letter-word is sneered at and derided. For many the concept of becoming and being HOLY is a joke―something to be ridiculed. It is surprising and saddening to see how few people work at becoming holy―yet holiness is required for entry into Heaven. Holiness is commanded by God: “I am the Lord your God―be holy because I am holy!” (Leviticus 11:44). “Sanctify yourselves, and be ye holy because I am the Lord your God!” (Leviticus 20:7). You shall find “health of the soul in holiness” (Ecclesiasticus 30:15). “Strengthen your hearts in holiness before God” (1 Thessalonians 3:13). Unfortunately, most people shy-away from holiness, fearing to be seen as and called a “Holy Roller” or a “Holy Joe” ― as though holiness was some kind of “soft touch”.
LAZY & IDLE ― Both of these four-letter-words come from the same family. Almost everyone loves their company and willingly idle time away. Four-letter-cousins of these are the brothers “DOWN TIME”, “BACK SEAT” and “SKIP WORK”. They are a very infectious bunch―it doesn’t take much before you find yourself enjoying those four-letter-words. Our Lord tells us: “For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the Day of Judgment!” (Matthew 12:36).
EVIL ― Another four-letter-word that is thrown at Lent is the word EVIL. What is evil? Evil is philosophically defined as an absence of some good that is due to something. Therefore, an absence of health is an evil. The absence of sight is an evil for the blind man. The inability to conceive and give birth to a child is an evil. Yet―as said above―some people see evil where there is no evil; and others make out what is actually good to be an evil. Lent is good―but to many it is an evil. Why? Because it takes away from them all the fun things that they think are due to them! Eat and drink less = evil. Dedicating less time to fun and games = evil. Going to Mass more often is an evil waste of time―because it takes you away from all the more exciting things you would like to do. “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil!” (Isaias 5:20). There is but one EVIL―and that is sin: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
HELL ― Now here is a four-letter-word that we hear a lot―HELL. The word is used lightly and jokingly. Some people think a long sermon is Hell. For others saying all 15 decades of the Rosary is Hell. Sitting through a long Mass is Hell. Sometimes people even say: “Go to Hell!” Yet Hell is not such a light matter―and we should never wish Hell upon anyone. God is the judge of all―and if people refuse to allow God to save them and bring them out of sin, then God will reluctantly damn them: “There is wickedness in the midst of them! Let death come upon them and let them go down alive into Hell!” (Psalm 54:16). “The hearts of the children of men are filled with evil, and they shall be brought down to Hell!” (Ecclesiastes 9:3). “They spend their days in wealth and, in a moment, they go down to Hell!” (Job 21:13). “The rich man died and he was buried in Hell!” (Luke 16:22). “Hell is my house!” (Job 17:13). “A fire is kindled in my wrath and shall burn even to the lowest Hell!” (Deuteronomy 32:22). “Let him and his sin pass to excessive heat, even to Hell!” (Job 24:19). “Let the wicked be brought down to Hell!” (Psalm 30:18). “The wicked shall be turned into Hell!” (Psalm 9:18).
LOSS ― Yet another four-letter-word is LOSS, or LOSE, or LOST―which usually pertains to things that are lost during Lent. People lament the loss of fun times; the loss of an abundance of food and drink; the loss of certain activities or things that they have to give up during Lent. All of these create a loss of joy in regard to Lent. Lent is seen as killjoy, a spoilsport, a sourpuss, a party-pooper, etc. Yet nobody ever thinks of the great loss of souls to Hell because of a lack of penance for sin. As Our Lord said: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 5:3; 13:3-5). Nobody mourns time lost for penance―but they will mourn time lost for fun things.
FEAR ― The four-letter-word of FEAR plays a large part during Lent. Many people fear Lent―they fear the fasting, they fear the effort, they fear the hunger. They fear the loss of pleasures and fun. Yet strangely enough they do not fear sin! Scripture tells them: “Fear God, and abstain from all sin!” (Tobias 1:10). “Fear God, depart from all sin, and do that which is good!” (Tobias 4:23). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). “Fear ye not them that kill the body and are not able to kill the soul―but rather fear Him Who can destroy both soul and body in Hell!” (Matthew 10:28). We often fear the wrong things―just as we like the wrong things.
FLEE ― We should FLEE from sin: “FLEE from sins as from the face of a serpent―for if thou comest near them, they will take hold of thee!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:2). Given a choice in the matter, most people would FLEE from Lent. Lent is like an unwelcome visitor whom we would prefer not to see. Or the Lenten season is seen like the tax season, whereby we have to declare our earnings and pay our taxes―except, in this case, we have to examine our sins and pay “taxes” on them. Many persons seek―consciously or unconsciously―to fiddle on their taxes and pay as little as they can. “A sinful man will FLEE reproof, and will find an excuse according to his will” (Ecclesiasticus 32:21). Sin is not cheap―since it the greatest evil in the world. We cannot flee from our obligations to pay for sin! “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die … But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die” (Ezechiel 18:20-21).
PAIN ― Pain is a painful four-letter-word. Who wants pain? We fear pain. We flee from pain. We spend our lives and money trying to avoid pain! Yet that was not the case with Our Lord―He came to suffer pain and die for us to redeem us from our sins and Hell. Suffering and pain is an integral part of the Christian life. The central pain of the Christian life is the cross―without which there can be no salvation: “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Our attitude ought to be: “O Lord, I suffer grevious pains in body―but in soul am well content to suffer these things because I fear Thee!” (2 Machabees 6:30). “We deserve to suffer these things, because we have sinned!” (Genesis 42:21). Suffering―when joined to charity or love―pays the debts for our sins. Our attitude in suffering ought to be that of the Good Thief on the cross on Calvary, who said: “We receive the due reward of our deeds!” (Luke 23:41).
WEEP ― Holy Scripture tells us that there is “a time to weep” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). This four-letter-word is usually linked to pain―although we sometimes also weep out of joy. Weeping is a consequence of pain―either physical pain or emotional pain. Some WEEP that Lent has arrived! They will also WEEP for joy when Lent is finished. Few WEEP over their sins! St. Peter, once he had denied Christ three times, realized the gravity of his sins and “he began to weep” (Mark 14:72). Similarly, while carrying His cross to Calvary, Our Lord said to the women of Jerusalem, who were weeping for Him: “weep not over Me―but weep for yourselves and for your children!” (Luke 23:28). Sadly, we do not WEEP enough over our sins―sometimes we even laugh at our sins! Scripture rebukes such an attitude: “A fool will laugh at sin!” (Proverbs 14:9). “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep! Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into sorrow!” (James 4:9). Sin is no joke! Sin is the greatest evil in the world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). Therefore, WEEP―not because Lent has arrived (unless you are weeping for joy)―but WEEP because you have sinned so much!
LOVE ― Love is very popular four-letter-word. Everyone loves―but many love the wrong things. Love has the power to forgive sins―“Charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12). “Charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much” (Luke 7:47). However, a misaligned or misguided love only serves to increase sin and guilt. “He that loves iniquity hates his own soul!” (Psalm 10:6). “He that loves danger shall perish in it!” (Ecclesiasticus 3:27). “Hate evil and love good!” (Amos 5:15). Unfortunately, most people love some kind of evil or another!
HATE ― This four-letter-word can be used or abused. Used correctly, we should HATE sin and what it has done to us, and the debts it has incurred―that would be the correct use of hatred. Unfortunately, most people HATE Lent because of the pleasures it “robs” them of if it is lived penitentially. “I hate Lent!” is a much more common feeling than “I hate sin!”
LIES ― This four-letter-word sums up Lent from both Satan’s perspective and our perspective. Our Lord calls Himself the Truth―but He says Satan is the father of lies: “I am the truth!” (John 14:6) … “The devil stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies!” (John 8:44). Our Lord, the Truth, tells us: “I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). Satan says to us what he said to Eve: “No, you shall not die the death!” (Genesis 3:4). We eve lie to ourselves―downplaying our sins, ignoring our sins, watering-down our sins, excusing our sins, saying: “O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men―extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican!” (Luke 18:11). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10). Sin requires punishment―self-punishment or punishment by God.
FAIL & FALL ― Probably the most common four-letter-word of Lent―FAIL. Few there are who make a success of Lent. If there is any hope in Hell, then it is the hope that we will FAIL and FALL during Lent. Satan wants our Lent to be profitless and will do in his power to make us FAIL and FALL. Furthermore, Satan loves to make people FALL into increasing sins during Lent―for God intends Lent to be a time of betterment, and Satan therefore rejoices in making people worse during this holy season by leading them to sin more. That is one reason why temptation seems to increase in intensity and frequency during Lent―for Satan knows the truth of Our Lord’s words: “This kind [of devil] is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). Satan is quite happy lurking in the background of your life and your family’s life―he has no desire to be cast out. That is why making you FAIL in your Lenten resolutions is of paramount importance to him.
Stupid Lenten Mistakes
Satan is not stupid when it comes to Lent―but, sadly, we are stupid. Satan cannot “physically” stop and wreck your Lent, but he can do it psychologically with his propaganda and lies. He is a million times more focused on damning our souls than we are focused on saving our souls. What happens in a sports game when one team is a “million” times more fired-up and focused on winning the game, while their opponents are complacent, laid-back and unfocused. Usually, the team with “fire-in-the-belly” ends up winning the game and perhaps ultimately winning the championship. Likewise, Satan has more “fire-in-the-belly” in making us “lose the game” of Lent and seeking to makes us―not only fail to win the championship (Heaven)―but to have us “relegated” into Hell.
Admittedly, there are fewer and fewer people who truly take Lent seriously. While, on the other hand, Satan and Hell DO take Lent seriously―for they seriously try to ruin our Lent and make us fail and fall. During one particular exorcism the devil shouted: “I hate the season of Lent! I hate it!” It is because Satan hates it that he tries to neutralize it.
Heavily Discounted Lent
A master stroke of success in neutralizing Lent was achieved by Satan in 1966, through Pope Paul VI and his Apostolic Constitution on the subject of penance ― Paenitemini ― with its 95% reduction of Lenten penance―from 40 days of fasting to a mere 2 days of fasting (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday). Abstinence from meat on all the Fridays of Lent is the only other obligatory factor. Instead of making fasting obligatory, Pope Paul VI rather naively and over-optimistically states:
“Among the grave and urgent problems which in fact summon our pastoral concern, it seems to us that not the least is to remind our sons — and all religious men of our times — of the significance and importance of the divine precept of penitence … We should like today to repeat to our sons the words spoken by Peter, in his first speech after Pentecost: ‘Repent ... then for the forgiveness of your sins!’ The Church has noted, with joy, that almost everywhere and at all times penitence has held a place of great importance … Always attentive to the signs of the times, the Church seeks―beyond fast and abstinence―new expressions more suitable for the realization of the precise goal of penitence. Therefore the Church invites everyone to the voluntary exercise [no longer obligatory] of external acts of penitence … The Church, however, invites all Christians, without distinction, to respond to the divine precept of penitence by some voluntary [not obligatory] act.
“To recall and urge all the faithful to the observance of the divine precept of penitence, the Apostolic See intends to reorganize penitential discipline with practices more suited to our times. It is up to the bishops — gathered in their episcopal conferences — to establish the norms. Although [a loophole word] Holy Mother Church has always observed abstinence from meat and fasting, nevertheless [another loophole word] in our time there are special reasons whereby it is necessary to inculcate some special form of penitence in preference to others. Therefore, while preserving — where it can be more readily observed [a loophole phrase] — the custom of abstinence from meat and fasting, the Church intends to ratify other forms of penitence as well [the words “as well” should mean: “in addition to” and not “in place of”], provided that it seems opportune to episcopal conferences to replace the observance of fast and abstinence with exercises of prayer and works of charity ... Therefore, the following is declared and established: By divine law all the faithful are required to do penance. The time of Lent preserves its penitential character. The days of penitence to be observed under obligation―throughout the Church―are all Fridays and Ash Wednesday. Abstinence is to be observed on every Friday which does not fall on a day of obligation, while abstinence and fast are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on Good Friday.” (Pope Paul VI, Apostolic Constitution Paenitemini, February 17th, 1966).
Our Lord clearly stated how the devil could be cast out: “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). Yet Pope Paul VI reduced the amount of obligatory Lenten fasting that would be done in the Catholic world by a 95% discount―reducing 40 days of obligatory Lenten fasting to a mere 2 days (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday)! Hardly a wise tactic in our battle with Satan!
Smoke of Satan
On another occasion, Pope Paul VI lamented that the Satan had entered the Church: “We believed that after the [Second Vatican] Council would come a day of sunshine in the history of the Church. But instead there has come a day of clouds and storms, and of darkness ... And how did this come about? We will confide to you … that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the Devil. … It is as if from some mysterious crack, no, it is not mysterious, from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God.” (Pope Paul VI, Address On the Occasion of the Ninth Anniversary of His Election, June 29th, 1972). A few years later he repeated the same concern: “The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the Faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church” (Pope Paul VI, Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions, October 13th, 1977).
Has the smoke of Satan entered into the temple of your family? Our Lady of Good Success prophesied that, in our present times, “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption. Woe to the children of these times!” Along the same lines, Our Lady revealed to Sister Lucia of Fatima that Satan has entered his final battle with Blessed Virgin Mary and that he would focus his attacks on the family. In general, you have to admit that Satan has been successful in those attacks. Current statistics show that only around 20% of Catholics still attend Sunday Mass on a regular basis. However, even worse than that, over 90% of young Catholics stop practicing the Faith once they graduate from high school, college or university.
Furthermore, today’s Catholic youth is increasingly accepting the non-Catholic and pagan beliefs and attitudes. They are increasingly accepting of homosexuality, same-sex marriages, pre-marital sexual relations, cohabitation, drunkenness, drug use, immodesty, etc. Worse still is the fact that less and less Catholics (especially the youth) no longer believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist.
Additionally, modern technology has the Catholic family mesmerized and addicted―with the result that God is neglected. The average time spent looking at one kind of electronic screen or another―television, computer, tablet, smartphone, videogame, etc―is around 7 hours per day. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, children aged 8-18 now spend, on average, a whopping 7.5 hours in front of a screen for entertainment each day, 4.5 of which are spent watching TV. Over a year, that adds up to 114 full days watching a screen for fun. That is just the time they spend in front of a screen for entertainment. It doesn’t include the time they spend on the computer at school for educational purposes, or at home for homework. Another study showed that “Generation Z” (11-26 years old) averages around 9 hours of screen time per day. You bet all the money that you have on the fact that prayer time, or spiritual reading, or meditation comes NOWHERE NEAR that total of 7 to 9 hours per day! About 30 percent of adults say that they're online “almost constantly.” Whatever happened to loving God with your whole mind, heart, soul and strength? Or praying without ceasing? “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31) ... “We ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1) ... “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times!” (Luke 21:36) … “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Instead of doing that, we now give almost all of our attention to electronic screens! All of this shows a resounding victory for the devil!
Lifeline of Lent
We need to turn things around―and Lent is the lifeline for doing so. If we take Lent seriously and communicate the seriousness of Lent to our families―then serious improvements could be made. Of course, as Jesus said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5), meaning that we need the grace of God to help us in everything. Lent is a magnificent source of grace―for it seeks to increase our use of the sources of grace, which are prayer and penance. Among penances, there is nothing as powerful as fasting―especially in fighting Satan. As Our Lord said: “This kind [of devil] is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). The devil knows that―which is why he seeks to distract, disheartenen, discourage and destroy any attempts we may make to fast. “But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 24:13). “Fight the good fight of Faith and lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). Don’t give up! Lent has only just started! The devil knows that the ‘danger’ of a good Lent is best destroyed by uprooting the plant of Lent in its earliest stages by trying to sow seeds of defeatism, discouragement and disappointment. If you have started badly―just pick yourself up, humble yourself, and carry on: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation―for when he hath been proved, he shall receive a crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love Him!” (James 1:12). “He that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Mark 13:13).
Article 1
Ash Wednesday February 22nd, 2023
Ashen-Faced Start to Lent!
Ash Wednesday February 22nd, 2023
Ashen-Faced Start to Lent!
Ashen-Faced
Murder is one of the greatest crimes we can commit―and it would normally have a “death-sentence” imposed upon anyone who murders another person. When that murderer is finally caught, tried and found guilty in court and is then sentenced by judge to the death penalty, the criminal will sometimes appear “ashen-faced.” Someone who is “ashen-faced” looks extremely pale, drained of color and pallid, especially, because they are shocked or terrified.
Today―Ash Wednesday―we should also be “ashen-faced” by the ash on our face, because we likewise have committed the greatest evil in the world―MORTAL SIN. The word “mortal” means death―coming from Latin words mors and mortis. Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man ― “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) ― by a grave violation of God's law; it turns man away from God, Who is meant to be man’s ultimate end and beatitude. Mortal sin sentences a person eternal damnation in Hell―like a death sentence of sorts, except that in Hell a person never dies, but is eternally tortured―most certainly wishing for death, but never being allowed to die throughout the tortures.
Sometimes, murderers think that what they did was “no-big-deal” ― much like a woman aborting one child after another. Many people have the same false idea about mortal sins ― “What’s the big deal? Everyone is doing it!” Yet in their blindness they fail to realize that almost everyone is going to Hell! Mortal sin is a “big-deal”―in fact, it is “the biggest deal” of all. Our Catechisms tell us that: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
Holy Scripture―in many places―repeatedly tells us of the evil of mortal sin and the evil consequences it brings: “Do not bind sin to sin―for even in one sin thou shalt not go unpunished!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:8). “Our God is so offended with sins, that He will deliver the people up [to chastisements] for their sins! … He will repay them for their sins!” (Judith 11:8, 15). “He will remember their iniquities and visit their sins!” (Jeremias 14:10). “In the day of revenge I will visit this sin also of theirs!” (Exodus 32:34). “I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with stripes!” (Psalm 88:33). “They have received, from the hand of the Lord, double for all their sins!” (Isaias 40:2). “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “Sin has reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15). “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16). “Every man shall die for his own sin!” (2 Paralipomenon 25:4). “If the just man shall turn away from his justice and shall commit iniquity … then he shall die, he shall die in his sin!” (Ezechiel 3:20). “The soul that sins, the same shall die! … If the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity ― shall he live? All his justices which he hath done, shall not be remembered, and in his sins, which he has committed, in them he shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4 & 20 & 24). “Sin shall be destroyed with the sinner” (Ecclesiasticus 27:3).
Neglect of Penance Leads to Loss of Souls
Speaking to Venerable Mary of Agreda, concerning the Baptism of Christ and the penance He had done beforehand, in the desert, for forty-days and nights, Our Lady said: “Corporal penances are so appropriate and fitted to mortal creatures. The ignorance of this truth and the neglect and contempt of bodily mortification, cause the loss of many souls and bring many more into the danger of eternal loss. The first reason—why men should afflict their body and mortify their flesh—is their having been conceived in sin. By this Original Sin human nature is depraved, filled with passions, rebellious to reason, inclined to evil and adverse to the spirit. If the soul allows itself to be carried away by them, it will be precipitated by the first vice into many others. But if this beastly flesh is curbed by mortification and penance, it loses its strength and acknowledges the authority of the spirit and the light of truth.
Everyone Has Sinned—Everyone Needs Penance
“The second reason is that none of the mortals have altogether avoided sinning against God; and the punishment and retribution must inevitably correspond to the guilt, either in this life or the next―therefore, as the soul commits sin in union with the body, it follows that both of them must be punished. The interior sorrow is not sufficient for atonement, if the flesh seeks to evade the punishment corresponding to the guilt. Moreover, the debt is so great and the satisfaction that can be given by the creature so limited and scanty, that there remains continual uncertainty whether the Judge is satisfied―even after the exertions of a whole lifetime of penance―hence, the soul should find no rest in doing penance to the end its life.
“Even though divine clemency is so generous with men, that, if they try to satisfy for their sins by penance, as far as their limited capacity goes, God remits their offenses and, in addition thereto, has promised the guilty ones new gifts and graces and eternal rewards. Yet His faithful and prudent servants, who really love their Lord, are constrained voluntarily to add other penances; for the debtor who merely wishes to do what he is obliged to and adds nothing of his own freewill, certainly pays his debts, but will remain poor and destitute, if after payment of his debts nothing remains. What then are those to expect, who neither pay nor make any efforts towards paying?
Our Lord and Our Lady—Though Innocent—Did Penance
“The third reason for bodily mortification, and the most urgent one, is the duty of Christians to imitate their divine Teacher and Master. Moreover, my divine Son and I―without being guilty of any faults, or bad inclinations―devoted ourselves to labors and made our lives a continual practice of penance and mortification of the flesh. It was thus that the Lord saw fit to attain the glory of His body and of His holy name, and He wished me to follow Him in all things.
"If We then pursued such a course of life, because it was reasonable, what must be thought of mortals that seek nothing but sweetness and delight, and abhor all penances, affronts, ignominies, fasting and mortification? Shall then only Christ, our Lord, and I suffer all these hardships, while the guilt-laden debtors and deservers of all these punishments, throw themselves head over heels into the filth of their carnal inclinations? Shall they employ their faculties, given to them for the service of Christ, my Lord, and for His following, merely in dancing attendance on their lusts and the devil, who has introduced evil into the world? This absurd position―maintained by the children of Adam―is the cause of great indignation in the just Judge.
Our Lord Atoned—But Did Not Dispense From Penance
“It is true that by the bodily afflictions and mortifications of my most blessed Son, the defects and deficiencies of human merits have been atoned for; and that He wished me― as a mere creature and as one taking the place of other creatures―to cooperate with Him most perfectly and exactly all in His penances and exercises. But this was not in order to exempt men from the practice of penance, but in order to encourage them to it―for in order merely to save them, it was not necessary to suffer so much.
“Our blessed Savior, as a true Father and Brother, wished also to enhance the labors and penances of those who were to follow in His footsteps―for the efforts of creatures are of little value, in the eyes of God, unless they are made precious by the merits of Christ. If this is true of works which are entirely virtuous and perfect, then how much more is it true of those which are infected with so many faults and deficiencies, even in the greatest acts of virtue, as ordinarily performed by the children of Adam? For in the works of even the most spiritual and virtuous persons, many deficiencies occur. These deficiencies are made good by the merits of Christ, our Lord, so that the works of men may become acceptable to the eternal Father.
Woe to Those Who Neglect Penance
“But those who neglect good works and remain altogether idle, can by no means expect to apply to themselves the good works of Christ―for they have in themselves nothing that can be perfected by the works of Christ, but only such things as deserve condemnation.
"I do not speak now of the damnable error of some of the faithful, who have introduced, into the works of penance, the sensuality and vanity of the world, so that they merit greater punishment for their penance than for their sins, since they foster, in their penances, vain and imperfect purposes and forget the supernatural ends of penance, which alone give value to penance and life to the soul.
"Deplore this blindness and labor with great zeal―for if thy labors were even as great as that of the Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, they would be no greater than they should be. Chastise thy body with ever greater severity, and remember that thou art deficient in many things, while thou hast but a short life―and art so weak and incapable of repaying thy debts” (Our Lady to Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
The Mark of the Beast and the Mark of the Lord
Receiving the Sign of the Cross on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday should make us think of the passages in Holy Scripture which speak of two kinds of marks on the forehead―the Mark or Sign of the Lord; and the Mark or Sign of the Beast.
► THE MARK OF THE LORD: The mark on the forehead is like the blood that the Israelites smeared on the doorposts at the coming of the “Passover” of the Lord while they were slaves in Egypt: “I am the Lord! Take of the blood of the lamb and put it upon both the side posts, and on the upper door posts of the houses … It is the Phase (that is the Passage) of the Lord. And I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and will kill every firstborn in the land of Egypt―both man and beast―and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments! I am the Lord! And the blood shall be unto you for a sign in the houses where you shall be: and I shall see the blood, and shall pass over you: and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I shall strike the land of Egypt!” (Exodus 12:7-13).
Similarly, in speaking of the “End-Times” or “Last-Days” of the world―which Our Lady of Fatima revealed have already started―Holy Scripture, in the Book of the Apocalypse, speaks: “I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the sign of the living God; and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the Earth and the sea, saying: ‘Hurt not the Earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, until we sign the servants of our God in their foreheads!’” (Apocalypse 7:2-3). The ashes we receive on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday, should remind of these things―as well as inspire us to draw closer to Christ and His Cross, and draw further away from the world and its pleasures―hence the fasting, abstinence and general penance of Lent.
► THE MARK OF THE BEAST: Being marked with the Sign of the Cross upon our foreheads also reminds us of the so-called “Mark of the Beast” that Holy Scripture speaks about: “I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten diadems, and upon his heads names of blasphemy. And the beast, which I saw, was like to a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his own strength, and great power. And I saw one of his heads, as it were, slain to death and his death’s wound was healed. And all the Earth was in admiration of the beast. And they adored the dragon, which gave power to the beast; and they adored the beast, saying: ‘Who is like to the beast? And who shall be able to fight with him?’ And there was given to him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies―and power was given to him to do two and forty months. And he opened his mouth unto blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His Name, and His Tabernacle, and them that dwell in Heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And power was given him over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation. And all that dwell upon the Earth, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, adored him who was slain from the beginning of the world.
“And I saw another beast coming up out of the Earth, and he had two horns, like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon. And he executed all the power of the former beast in his sight. And he caused the Earth, and them that dwell therein, to adore the first beast, whose wound to death was healed. And he did great signs, so that he made also fire to come down from the sky unto the Earth in the sight of men. Through the signs, which were given him to do in the sight of the beast, he seduced them that dwell on the Earth, saying to them that dwell on the Earth that they should make the image of the beast, which had the wound by the sword and lived. And it was given him to give life to the image of the beast, and that the image of the beast should speak; and should cause, that whosoever will not adore the image of the beast, should be slain. And he shall make all, both little and great, rich and poor, freemen and bondmen, to have a character in their right hand, or on their foreheads. And that no man might buy or sell, but only he that has the character, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. He that has understanding, let him count the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man―and the number of him is six hundred sixty-six.” (Apocalypse 13:1-18).
“And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice: ‘If any man shall adore the beast and his image, and receive his character in his forehead, or in his hand; then he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mingled with pure wine in the cup of His wrath, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the sight of the holy angels, and in the sight of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torments shall ascend up for ever and ever―neither have they rest day nor night, who have adored the beast and his image, and whoever received the character of his name!’” (Apocalypse 14:9-11).
Two Sides―One War―No Spectators
The above passages paint a clear picture of two diametrically opposed sides―Heaven versus Hell; Christ versus Satan. You could add to that Our Lady versus Satan, due to God’s prophecy to Satan after he had tempted Adam and Eve into committing the Original Sin: “And the Lord God said to the serpent: ‘Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the Earth! Upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life! I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed! She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel!’” (Genesis 3:14-15).
Hence, from the beginning of the world, war was declared and it has never ceased to this day, with “your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). That is why “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1) and you must “fight the good fight of Faith and lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). Therefore, “put on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect” (Ephesians 6:11-13).
There are no spectators in this war―which is what Our Lady of Fatima revealed to Sister Lucia: “The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground!”
This season of Lent is yet another battle in the war against Satan and the world―of which he is the prince (John 14:30). “Shall your brethren go to fight, and will you just sit here?” (Numbers 32:6). Make no mistake about it―you are called to the fight! It does not matter whether you are young or old―a child of 7 or an old-age pensioner of 77. Man or woman; healthy or sick; rich or poor; educated or uneducated; full of courage or cowardice; full of zeal or full of excuse; whether you want to or not―you are called to the fight!
Mary and Her Children versus Satan and His Followers
The words of St. Louis de Montfort, from his book True Devotion to Mary, are a most fitting meditation for all of us in this battle of Lent: “It is principally of these last and cruel persecutions of the devil, which shall go on increasing daily till the reign of Antichrist, that we ought to understand that first and celebrated prediction and curse of God, pronounced in the terrestrial paradise, against the serpent. It is to our purpose to explain this here―for the glory of the most holy Virgin, for the salvation of her children and for the confusion of the devil: ‘I will put enmities between thee and the woman and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel!’ (Genesis 3:15).
“God has never made and formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and grow even to the end. It is between Mary, His worthy Mother, and the devil—between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin, and the children and tools of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies, which God has set up against the devil, is His holy Mother Mary. He has inspired her, even since the days of the earthly paradise—though she existed then only in His idea—with so much hatred against that cursed enemy of God, with so much ingenuity in unveiling the malice of that ancient serpent, with so much power to conquer, to overthrow and to crush that proud, impious rebel, that he fears her, not only more than all angels and men, but in a sense more than God Himself. Not that the anger, the hatred and the power of God are not infinitely greater than those of the Blessed Virgin―for the perfections of Mary are limited―but first, because Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God, and her humility humbles him more than the divine power; and secondly, because God has given Mary such great power against the devils that—as they have often been obliged to confess, in spite of themselves, by the mouths of the possessed—they fear one of her sighs for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats against them more than all other torments.
“What Lucifer has lost by pride, Mary has gained by humility. What Eve has damned and lost by disobedience, Mary has saved by obedience. Eve, in obeying the serpent, has destroyed all her children together with herself, and has delivered them to him; Mary, in being perfectly faithful to God, has saved all her children and servants together with herself, and has consecrated them to His Majesty.
“ God has not only set an enmity, but enmities, not simply between Mary and the devil, but between the race of the holy Virgin and the race of the devil; that is to say, God has set enmities, antipathies and secret hatreds between the true children and servants of Mary and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love for each other. They have no sympathy for each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world (for it is the same thing) have always, up to this time, persecuted those who belong to our Blessed Lady, and will, in the future, persecute them more than ever; just as Cain, of old, persecuted his brother Abel, and Esau his brother Jacob―who are the figures of the reprobate and the predestinate. But the humble Mary will always have the victory over that proud spirit, and so great a victory that she will go so far as to crush his head, where his pride dwells. She will always discover the malice of the serpent. She will always lay bare his infernal plots and dissipate his diabolical councils, and even to the end of time will guard her faithful servants from his cruel claw.
“But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel: that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world’s esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But, in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity, superior to all other creatures by their lively zeal, and so well sustained with God’s assistance that, with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph.” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, §51 to §54).
Our Lady echoes the above passages at La Salette, when she speaks of her future battle against Satan (which has now begun): “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven! I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side!”
Are you up for the fight? Or are you ashen-faced out of fright? The ashes smeared on your forehead with the Sign of the Cross, should remind you of the Sign of the Cross that was smeared on shields of the Roman soldiers of Constantine in 312 AD. Constantine was a monotheist pagan who worshiped the pagan god Sol Invictus, the “Unconquered Sun.” In the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, he confronted and defeated Maxentius on the Tiber River while making his way on the Via Flaminia to enter the city of Rome in the year 312. The story goes that before this battle, Constantine and his army saw an enormous luminous cross above the sun, with words in Greek that were translated into Latin as “In hoc signo vinces” — “With this sign thou shalt conquer.” Constantine was astonished, he had dreams about this, and he decided to mark the shields of his soldiers with this Christian symbol. In the successive battle he won the victory. Take your cross of ashes into Lent and carry the cross of penance and sacrifice―of prayer and fasting―and you too will the win the victory: “This kind of demon is not cast out except by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). Are you up for the fight? Or are you ashen-faced out of fright?
Murder is one of the greatest crimes we can commit―and it would normally have a “death-sentence” imposed upon anyone who murders another person. When that murderer is finally caught, tried and found guilty in court and is then sentenced by judge to the death penalty, the criminal will sometimes appear “ashen-faced.” Someone who is “ashen-faced” looks extremely pale, drained of color and pallid, especially, because they are shocked or terrified.
Today―Ash Wednesday―we should also be “ashen-faced” by the ash on our face, because we likewise have committed the greatest evil in the world―MORTAL SIN. The word “mortal” means death―coming from Latin words mors and mortis. Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man ― “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) ― by a grave violation of God's law; it turns man away from God, Who is meant to be man’s ultimate end and beatitude. Mortal sin sentences a person eternal damnation in Hell―like a death sentence of sorts, except that in Hell a person never dies, but is eternally tortured―most certainly wishing for death, but never being allowed to die throughout the tortures.
Sometimes, murderers think that what they did was “no-big-deal” ― much like a woman aborting one child after another. Many people have the same false idea about mortal sins ― “What’s the big deal? Everyone is doing it!” Yet in their blindness they fail to realize that almost everyone is going to Hell! Mortal sin is a “big-deal”―in fact, it is “the biggest deal” of all. Our Catechisms tell us that: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
Holy Scripture―in many places―repeatedly tells us of the evil of mortal sin and the evil consequences it brings: “Do not bind sin to sin―for even in one sin thou shalt not go unpunished!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:8). “Our God is so offended with sins, that He will deliver the people up [to chastisements] for their sins! … He will repay them for their sins!” (Judith 11:8, 15). “He will remember their iniquities and visit their sins!” (Jeremias 14:10). “In the day of revenge I will visit this sin also of theirs!” (Exodus 32:34). “I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with stripes!” (Psalm 88:33). “They have received, from the hand of the Lord, double for all their sins!” (Isaias 40:2). “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “Sin has reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15). “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16). “Every man shall die for his own sin!” (2 Paralipomenon 25:4). “If the just man shall turn away from his justice and shall commit iniquity … then he shall die, he shall die in his sin!” (Ezechiel 3:20). “The soul that sins, the same shall die! … If the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity ― shall he live? All his justices which he hath done, shall not be remembered, and in his sins, which he has committed, in them he shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4 & 20 & 24). “Sin shall be destroyed with the sinner” (Ecclesiasticus 27:3).
Neglect of Penance Leads to Loss of Souls
Speaking to Venerable Mary of Agreda, concerning the Baptism of Christ and the penance He had done beforehand, in the desert, for forty-days and nights, Our Lady said: “Corporal penances are so appropriate and fitted to mortal creatures. The ignorance of this truth and the neglect and contempt of bodily mortification, cause the loss of many souls and bring many more into the danger of eternal loss. The first reason—why men should afflict their body and mortify their flesh—is their having been conceived in sin. By this Original Sin human nature is depraved, filled with passions, rebellious to reason, inclined to evil and adverse to the spirit. If the soul allows itself to be carried away by them, it will be precipitated by the first vice into many others. But if this beastly flesh is curbed by mortification and penance, it loses its strength and acknowledges the authority of the spirit and the light of truth.
Everyone Has Sinned—Everyone Needs Penance
“The second reason is that none of the mortals have altogether avoided sinning against God; and the punishment and retribution must inevitably correspond to the guilt, either in this life or the next―therefore, as the soul commits sin in union with the body, it follows that both of them must be punished. The interior sorrow is not sufficient for atonement, if the flesh seeks to evade the punishment corresponding to the guilt. Moreover, the debt is so great and the satisfaction that can be given by the creature so limited and scanty, that there remains continual uncertainty whether the Judge is satisfied―even after the exertions of a whole lifetime of penance―hence, the soul should find no rest in doing penance to the end its life.
“Even though divine clemency is so generous with men, that, if they try to satisfy for their sins by penance, as far as their limited capacity goes, God remits their offenses and, in addition thereto, has promised the guilty ones new gifts and graces and eternal rewards. Yet His faithful and prudent servants, who really love their Lord, are constrained voluntarily to add other penances; for the debtor who merely wishes to do what he is obliged to and adds nothing of his own freewill, certainly pays his debts, but will remain poor and destitute, if after payment of his debts nothing remains. What then are those to expect, who neither pay nor make any efforts towards paying?
Our Lord and Our Lady—Though Innocent—Did Penance
“The third reason for bodily mortification, and the most urgent one, is the duty of Christians to imitate their divine Teacher and Master. Moreover, my divine Son and I―without being guilty of any faults, or bad inclinations―devoted ourselves to labors and made our lives a continual practice of penance and mortification of the flesh. It was thus that the Lord saw fit to attain the glory of His body and of His holy name, and He wished me to follow Him in all things.
"If We then pursued such a course of life, because it was reasonable, what must be thought of mortals that seek nothing but sweetness and delight, and abhor all penances, affronts, ignominies, fasting and mortification? Shall then only Christ, our Lord, and I suffer all these hardships, while the guilt-laden debtors and deservers of all these punishments, throw themselves head over heels into the filth of their carnal inclinations? Shall they employ their faculties, given to them for the service of Christ, my Lord, and for His following, merely in dancing attendance on their lusts and the devil, who has introduced evil into the world? This absurd position―maintained by the children of Adam―is the cause of great indignation in the just Judge.
Our Lord Atoned—But Did Not Dispense From Penance
“It is true that by the bodily afflictions and mortifications of my most blessed Son, the defects and deficiencies of human merits have been atoned for; and that He wished me― as a mere creature and as one taking the place of other creatures―to cooperate with Him most perfectly and exactly all in His penances and exercises. But this was not in order to exempt men from the practice of penance, but in order to encourage them to it―for in order merely to save them, it was not necessary to suffer so much.
“Our blessed Savior, as a true Father and Brother, wished also to enhance the labors and penances of those who were to follow in His footsteps―for the efforts of creatures are of little value, in the eyes of God, unless they are made precious by the merits of Christ. If this is true of works which are entirely virtuous and perfect, then how much more is it true of those which are infected with so many faults and deficiencies, even in the greatest acts of virtue, as ordinarily performed by the children of Adam? For in the works of even the most spiritual and virtuous persons, many deficiencies occur. These deficiencies are made good by the merits of Christ, our Lord, so that the works of men may become acceptable to the eternal Father.
Woe to Those Who Neglect Penance
“But those who neglect good works and remain altogether idle, can by no means expect to apply to themselves the good works of Christ―for they have in themselves nothing that can be perfected by the works of Christ, but only such things as deserve condemnation.
"I do not speak now of the damnable error of some of the faithful, who have introduced, into the works of penance, the sensuality and vanity of the world, so that they merit greater punishment for their penance than for their sins, since they foster, in their penances, vain and imperfect purposes and forget the supernatural ends of penance, which alone give value to penance and life to the soul.
"Deplore this blindness and labor with great zeal―for if thy labors were even as great as that of the Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, they would be no greater than they should be. Chastise thy body with ever greater severity, and remember that thou art deficient in many things, while thou hast but a short life―and art so weak and incapable of repaying thy debts” (Our Lady to Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
The Mark of the Beast and the Mark of the Lord
Receiving the Sign of the Cross on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday should make us think of the passages in Holy Scripture which speak of two kinds of marks on the forehead―the Mark or Sign of the Lord; and the Mark or Sign of the Beast.
► THE MARK OF THE LORD: The mark on the forehead is like the blood that the Israelites smeared on the doorposts at the coming of the “Passover” of the Lord while they were slaves in Egypt: “I am the Lord! Take of the blood of the lamb and put it upon both the side posts, and on the upper door posts of the houses … It is the Phase (that is the Passage) of the Lord. And I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and will kill every firstborn in the land of Egypt―both man and beast―and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments! I am the Lord! And the blood shall be unto you for a sign in the houses where you shall be: and I shall see the blood, and shall pass over you: and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I shall strike the land of Egypt!” (Exodus 12:7-13).
Similarly, in speaking of the “End-Times” or “Last-Days” of the world―which Our Lady of Fatima revealed have already started―Holy Scripture, in the Book of the Apocalypse, speaks: “I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the sign of the living God; and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the Earth and the sea, saying: ‘Hurt not the Earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, until we sign the servants of our God in their foreheads!’” (Apocalypse 7:2-3). The ashes we receive on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday, should remind of these things―as well as inspire us to draw closer to Christ and His Cross, and draw further away from the world and its pleasures―hence the fasting, abstinence and general penance of Lent.
► THE MARK OF THE BEAST: Being marked with the Sign of the Cross upon our foreheads also reminds us of the so-called “Mark of the Beast” that Holy Scripture speaks about: “I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten diadems, and upon his heads names of blasphemy. And the beast, which I saw, was like to a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his own strength, and great power. And I saw one of his heads, as it were, slain to death and his death’s wound was healed. And all the Earth was in admiration of the beast. And they adored the dragon, which gave power to the beast; and they adored the beast, saying: ‘Who is like to the beast? And who shall be able to fight with him?’ And there was given to him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies―and power was given to him to do two and forty months. And he opened his mouth unto blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His Name, and His Tabernacle, and them that dwell in Heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And power was given him over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation. And all that dwell upon the Earth, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, adored him who was slain from the beginning of the world.
“And I saw another beast coming up out of the Earth, and he had two horns, like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon. And he executed all the power of the former beast in his sight. And he caused the Earth, and them that dwell therein, to adore the first beast, whose wound to death was healed. And he did great signs, so that he made also fire to come down from the sky unto the Earth in the sight of men. Through the signs, which were given him to do in the sight of the beast, he seduced them that dwell on the Earth, saying to them that dwell on the Earth that they should make the image of the beast, which had the wound by the sword and lived. And it was given him to give life to the image of the beast, and that the image of the beast should speak; and should cause, that whosoever will not adore the image of the beast, should be slain. And he shall make all, both little and great, rich and poor, freemen and bondmen, to have a character in their right hand, or on their foreheads. And that no man might buy or sell, but only he that has the character, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. He that has understanding, let him count the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man―and the number of him is six hundred sixty-six.” (Apocalypse 13:1-18).
“And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice: ‘If any man shall adore the beast and his image, and receive his character in his forehead, or in his hand; then he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mingled with pure wine in the cup of His wrath, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the sight of the holy angels, and in the sight of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torments shall ascend up for ever and ever―neither have they rest day nor night, who have adored the beast and his image, and whoever received the character of his name!’” (Apocalypse 14:9-11).
Two Sides―One War―No Spectators
The above passages paint a clear picture of two diametrically opposed sides―Heaven versus Hell; Christ versus Satan. You could add to that Our Lady versus Satan, due to God’s prophecy to Satan after he had tempted Adam and Eve into committing the Original Sin: “And the Lord God said to the serpent: ‘Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the Earth! Upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life! I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed! She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel!’” (Genesis 3:14-15).
Hence, from the beginning of the world, war was declared and it has never ceased to this day, with “your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). That is why “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1) and you must “fight the good fight of Faith and lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). Therefore, “put on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect” (Ephesians 6:11-13).
There are no spectators in this war―which is what Our Lady of Fatima revealed to Sister Lucia: “The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground!”
This season of Lent is yet another battle in the war against Satan and the world―of which he is the prince (John 14:30). “Shall your brethren go to fight, and will you just sit here?” (Numbers 32:6). Make no mistake about it―you are called to the fight! It does not matter whether you are young or old―a child of 7 or an old-age pensioner of 77. Man or woman; healthy or sick; rich or poor; educated or uneducated; full of courage or cowardice; full of zeal or full of excuse; whether you want to or not―you are called to the fight!
Mary and Her Children versus Satan and His Followers
The words of St. Louis de Montfort, from his book True Devotion to Mary, are a most fitting meditation for all of us in this battle of Lent: “It is principally of these last and cruel persecutions of the devil, which shall go on increasing daily till the reign of Antichrist, that we ought to understand that first and celebrated prediction and curse of God, pronounced in the terrestrial paradise, against the serpent. It is to our purpose to explain this here―for the glory of the most holy Virgin, for the salvation of her children and for the confusion of the devil: ‘I will put enmities between thee and the woman and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel!’ (Genesis 3:15).
“God has never made and formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and grow even to the end. It is between Mary, His worthy Mother, and the devil—between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin, and the children and tools of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies, which God has set up against the devil, is His holy Mother Mary. He has inspired her, even since the days of the earthly paradise—though she existed then only in His idea—with so much hatred against that cursed enemy of God, with so much ingenuity in unveiling the malice of that ancient serpent, with so much power to conquer, to overthrow and to crush that proud, impious rebel, that he fears her, not only more than all angels and men, but in a sense more than God Himself. Not that the anger, the hatred and the power of God are not infinitely greater than those of the Blessed Virgin―for the perfections of Mary are limited―but first, because Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God, and her humility humbles him more than the divine power; and secondly, because God has given Mary such great power against the devils that—as they have often been obliged to confess, in spite of themselves, by the mouths of the possessed—they fear one of her sighs for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats against them more than all other torments.
“What Lucifer has lost by pride, Mary has gained by humility. What Eve has damned and lost by disobedience, Mary has saved by obedience. Eve, in obeying the serpent, has destroyed all her children together with herself, and has delivered them to him; Mary, in being perfectly faithful to God, has saved all her children and servants together with herself, and has consecrated them to His Majesty.
“ God has not only set an enmity, but enmities, not simply between Mary and the devil, but between the race of the holy Virgin and the race of the devil; that is to say, God has set enmities, antipathies and secret hatreds between the true children and servants of Mary and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love for each other. They have no sympathy for each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world (for it is the same thing) have always, up to this time, persecuted those who belong to our Blessed Lady, and will, in the future, persecute them more than ever; just as Cain, of old, persecuted his brother Abel, and Esau his brother Jacob―who are the figures of the reprobate and the predestinate. But the humble Mary will always have the victory over that proud spirit, and so great a victory that she will go so far as to crush his head, where his pride dwells. She will always discover the malice of the serpent. She will always lay bare his infernal plots and dissipate his diabolical councils, and even to the end of time will guard her faithful servants from his cruel claw.
“But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel: that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world’s esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But, in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity, superior to all other creatures by their lively zeal, and so well sustained with God’s assistance that, with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph.” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, §51 to §54).
Our Lady echoes the above passages at La Salette, when she speaks of her future battle against Satan (which has now begun): “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven! I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side!”
Are you up for the fight? Or are you ashen-faced out of fright? The ashes smeared on your forehead with the Sign of the Cross, should remind you of the Sign of the Cross that was smeared on shields of the Roman soldiers of Constantine in 312 AD. Constantine was a monotheist pagan who worshiped the pagan god Sol Invictus, the “Unconquered Sun.” In the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, he confronted and defeated Maxentius on the Tiber River while making his way on the Via Flaminia to enter the city of Rome in the year 312. The story goes that before this battle, Constantine and his army saw an enormous luminous cross above the sun, with words in Greek that were translated into Latin as “In hoc signo vinces” — “With this sign thou shalt conquer.” Constantine was astonished, he had dreams about this, and he decided to mark the shields of his soldiers with this Christian symbol. In the successive battle he won the victory. Take your cross of ashes into Lent and carry the cross of penance and sacrifice―of prayer and fasting―and you too will the win the victory: “This kind of demon is not cast out except by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). Are you up for the fight? Or are you ashen-faced out of fright?
DAILY THOUGHTS FOR THE SEPTUAGESIMA SEASON
Article 7
Quiquagesima Sunday February 19th, 2023
Supreme Lesson! Supreme Test!
Quiquagesima Sunday February 19th, 2023
Supreme Lesson! Supreme Test!
Supreme What?
What is supreme? No doubt everyone would have their own personal opinion on what is supreme! Are there many supreme things, or just a few, or even just one? The word “supreme” comes from the Latin “supremus” which means “highest” or “most excellent”. Logically, therefore, even though there might persons, places or things that are “supreme” in their own particular category, there has to be one person, place or thing that is supreme over everything else. That one supreme person is God―which is why we also call Him the Supreme Being: “There is none like to the Lord our God” (Exodus 8:10). The one supreme place that trumps all other places, is of course Heaven: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them [in Heaven] that love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). The one supreme thing that is above all other things is charity or love: “The greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13) ― and why would that be? It is simply because “God is charity” (1 John 4:8).
Supremacy of Love
We were created out of love and we were created for love and we were created to love. We ourselves love to love and we love to be loved. Everything revolves around love. That is why we are commanded: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31) ― therefore, to love is a supreme commandment.
Doing Everything Out of a Love for God
Love is the pinnacle of the spiritual life. Love is the soul or engine that gives life to all other virtues―and, without it, all virtues are empty shells, hollow, dead like a body without its soul. Hence Scripture speaks of a “Faith that worketh by Charity” (Galatians 5:6). Without charity, they are merely natural virtues, but not supernatural virtues. They might be praised in this life―but they cannot buy us eternal life, because they are natural and not supernatural. What makes them supernatural? It is the love of God―it is thinking of things, evaluating things, judging things, saying things, doing things, correcting things all out of a love of God, being joined to God through His sanctifying grace. It is thinking, speaking, writing, doing things according to God’s wishes: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
If we do not act out of charity (a love of God), then we lose the supernatural engine, gas, power or ‘soul’ that drives everything supernaturally: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
It is along the same line of thought that St. John of the Cross writes: “In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone!” ― meaning that once we appear before God after our death for our final judgment, then God will primarily examine and judge us on the charity in all that we ever thought, said or did. Yes―charity is that important―it is the greatest of all commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
Evil Love
Now we all act out of love―but that love is not always a good love. Just like many other things, love can be misused and abused. We can use our power of speech to speak well or speak badly. We can use our physical strength for good or for evil. We can use our eyes to look at good things or sinful things. We can use our mouth to eat what is healthy or unhealthy. The same is true of love―we can love what is good or we can love what is evil. Holy Scripture speaks of this good and evil love: “No servant can serve two masters―for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon! … You that hate good and love evil ― hate evil and love good! … You that love the Lord―hate evil! … He that loves iniquity hates his own soul! … Let love be without pretence―hating that which is evil, and clinging to that which is good!” (Luke 16:13; Micheas 3:2; Amos 5:15; Psalm 96:10; Psalm 10:6; Romans 12:9).
In these evil times in which live, most people love to hate and hate to love―that is to say, they love to hate what is godly and hate to love the things that could save their souls. Instead, the love the world. They hate to be told: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world! If any man loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). Our Lord warns us: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7). Of most modern day Catholics, Scripture would certainly say: “This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!” (Mark 7:6). “They are of the world―therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them!” (1 John 4:5). “But our conversation is in Heaven―from whence also we look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ!” (Philippians 3:20).
In a certain sense, we cannot exist without love―just as we cannot exist without God, Who is love itself: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). In the 13th century, in order to discover which language humans would speak naturally if they were not taught a language, Frederick II, Emperor of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, placed 50 newborns in the care of nurses who would were told to only feed and bathe the babies but not speak or hold them or show any affection or love to them. The Emperor never got an answer―because all of the infants died. Babies who are not held, coddled, nuzzled, and hugged enough can stop growing, and, if the situation lasts long enough, even die.
God’s Love for Us
There can be no doubt―unless you want to blaspheme and spout heresy―that God loves us. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son; so that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:16-17). “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore I have drawn thee, taking pity on thee!” (Jeremias 31:3). Our Lord Himself said: “Greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13) and “The Son of God, Who loved me, delivered Himself for me!” (Galatians 2:20).
Through the Sacrament of Baptism―which nobody deserves nor has a right to it―God has adopted us sinners to be His children. “God has predestined us unto Himself adopting us as children through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). “Behold what manner of charity the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called and should be the sons of God!” (1 John 3:1). “The charity of God is poured forth into our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, Who is given to us” (Romans 5:5).
God thinks about us and loves us every second of the day. Everyday God thinks of you. Every hour God looks after you. Every minute God cares for you, because every second He loves you. Jesus tells you that “the very hairs of your head are all numbered!” (Matthew 10:30) ― who else cares about how many hairs you have on your head? Nobody, except God!
“Lord, thou hast tested me and known me! Thou hast known my sitting down and my rising up! Thou hast understood my thoughts afar off! My path and my direction Thou hast searched out! Thou hast foreseen all my ways! Behold, O Lord, Thou hast known all things―the latest and those of old! Thou hast formed me and hast laid Thy hand upon me. Thy knowledge is become wonderful to me―it is so high that I cannot reach to it!” (Psalm 138:1-6).
Love is Reciprocal
Thus we see that love requires interaction between both parties―that is why they say: “Love is reciprocal”, meaning that love is not a “one-way-street”, but a “two-way-street”, a case of “give and take” ― it is about receiving love and giving love: “I love them that love Me!” (Proverbs 8:17). The same is true of our love for God and God’s love for us. “In this is charity―not as though we had loved God, but because He has first loved us! … Let us love God, because God has first loved us!” (1 John 4:10, 19). Our Lord also says: “A new commandment I give unto you―that you love one another. As I have loved you, so you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are My disciples―if you have love one for another” (John 13:34-35). “As the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love―as I also have kept My Father’s commandments and do abide in His love!” (John 15:9-10). “If we love one another, then God abides in us and His charity is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). “What shall I give to the Lord, for all the things He has given unto me? I will take the chalice of salvation!” (Psalm 115:12-13).
Those last words are the key to salvation: “I will take the chalice of salvation!” What is the chalice of salvation? You could say that the chalice of salvation consists of two things―the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (which is nothing other than the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary perpetuated throughout all ages) and also the Sacrifice of the Cross (which is not just Christ’s Sacrifice on Calvary, but also our sacrifice by sharing in Christ’s Sacrifice). Our Lord says to St. James and St. John: “‘Can you drink of the chalice that I drink of? Can you be baptized with the baptism wherewith I am baptized?’ But they said to him: ‘We can!’ And Jesus said to them: ‘You shall indeed drink of the chalice that I drink of! And with the baptism wherewith I am baptized, you shall be baptized!’” (Mark 10:38-39). By this He meant that they would share in His Passion and Death. Since, by Baptism, we become part of the Mystical Body of Christ, then it is only fitting that the Body goes in the same direction as its Divine Head. That is why “He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that does not take up his cross, and follows Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Our carrying of the cross―that Christ in His love wishes to impose upon us―is a return of love to Christ for His having carried His Cross for us.
The Passion of Death of Jesus demands a reciprocity just like love demands reciprocity (give and take―two-way-street). Jesus suffers for us―we must suffer for Him. If we refuse to do so―then the “deal is off”, the “contract is cancelled”, the door of Heaven is closed to us. Without the carrying of the cross, all “love-talk” is just that―mere lip-service, “talking the talk” but not “walking the walk” ― “This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!” (Mark 7:6). “Let us not love by our words and tongue, but by deeds” (1 John 3:18). As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Love must not be satisfied with mere protestations of affection without looking for more valuable fruit―for the desire to love, which costs nothing, is not a sufficient proof of love in a soul.”
A Lesson on Love from Our Lady
Our Lady revealed the following to the Venerable Mary of Agreda:
“The Lord is infinite in His mercy and His love has no limit, and thus He attends, esteems and assists every soul who receives Him, and He rejoices in it, as if He had created it alone, and as if He had been made man for it alone! ... His great condescension is manifest―though it is little taken notice of and respected by mortals, nor does it find the return due to such love! … Reflect upon the small return given by mortals for the love of my Son and Lord, and how forgetful of thanks even His faithful continue to be! ... How many are there among the mortals, who during the whole course of their lives have not excited one sincere act of thanksgiving for the gift of life, for its preservation, for health, food, honors, possessions and all the other temporal and natural goods! Others there are, who, if at any time they give thanks for these benefits, do it not because they truly love God, the Giver, but because they love themselves and delight in these temporal and earthly blessings and in the possession of them ... If they were to correspond to His love, I assure them that they shall never suffer from the lack of what is necessary.
“My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … It was not necessary to suffer so much! … Yet He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! Bless and magnify my most holy Son for the love with which He delivered Himself up for the salvation of mankind ... Only the highest Good [God] is to be appreciated and recognized. Then only shall you give Him true appreciation and love, when you shall enjoy and esteem Him above all created things ... The Lord loves those that are equally ready to give as to receive … He wishes to be loved and served by all rational creatures … Purify thy soul by many acts of sorrow for having offended Him, magnify and praise Him with a most ardent love. Seek Him, and rest not until thou hast found Him, Whom thy soul desires, hold Him and do not let Him go. Love the Lord in order that thou mayest be transformed in Him ― who can instruct and inflame thee with His love. Then, with the force of love transforming thy being into that of thy Beloved, the impetus of thy passions will weaken and thou shalt arrive at that kind of sweet martyrdom, which I suffered ...
“Cultivate love―for love is a fire which does not have its effect until the material is prepared … Be well versed and perfect in this art of divine love! … Reverence must not be separated from love of God in the creature … Take notice of the reverence, love and solicitude, the holy and discreet fear, with which I conversed with my most holy Son ... Place no obstacle to the love of thy Lord! … Strive to be robust and strong in love! … Transformed by this divine love, thou wilt merit other gifts, both for thyself and for thy brethren … The soul that is in charity not only feels the effects of charity in itself, but through charity it is secure of being loved by God; through this divine love, it enjoys the reciprocal effect of God’s indwelling, so that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost will come and live in that soul as their temple, and this is a blessing which no words and no example can properly express in this mortal life.
“Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment―nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. Turn thy back on all sensible things, seeking only to love and to suffer.
“The divine influence will urge and draw thee on to desire of being despised by creatures, to joyful suffering, to a love of the Cross and an earnest and generous acceptation of it; it will move thee to seek the last place, to love those that persecute thee, to fear and abhor sin, even the slightest … seeking only to love and to suffer … Be willing to bear and suffer, forgive and love all who offend thee … When gold is untouched by the furnace-heat, the iron by the file, the grain by the grinding stone or flail, the grapes by the winepress, they are all useless and will not attain the end for which they are created … Thou canst not follow Christ, if thou refuse to embrace the Cross and rejoice in it! I exhort you to select the sufferings of His Cross in preference to His favors and gifts, and rather embrace afflictions than desire to be visited with caresses―for in choosing favors and delights you might be moved by self-love, but in accepting tribulations and sorrows, you can be moved only by the love of Christ.
“Souls also fail in the love due to God and they divert their love toward the creatures. Their blind love of visible things holds them back. They indulge greed and avarice; they serve their own interest; they love money, they place their hopes in treasures of silver and gold; they submit to the flatteries and to the slavery of the worldly and powerful. And if they are thus weighed down before acquiring riches, how much more weighed down are they when they have come into possession of those riches and possessions? If you look into the deceptive course of the lovers of this world, you will see that they consider themselves fortunate whenever they attain all that they desire, according to their earthly inclinations. This only hastens their greater misfortune―for they, having received their reward, cannot expect any reward in the eternal life. Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it!
“The right order of this virtue is to love God above all the creatures, then to love oneself, and him who is nearest to oneself, namely, our neighbor. God must be loved with the whole understanding, without deceit, with the whole will, without reserve or division, with the whole mind, without forgetfulness, without diminution, without negligence or remissness. The motive of charity in loving God is none else than God Himself; for He must be loved for his own sake, being the highest Good and most perfect goodness and holiness. Loving God for such motives causes the creature to love itself and the neighbor and itself; for both belong to one and the same God, from whom they derive their origin, their life and activity. He that loves God truly for Himself will also love all that is of God and all that in some way participates in his goodness. Therefore charity looks upon the neighbor as a work and a participation of God and makes no distinction between friend or enemy. Charity looks only upon that which is of God and which pertains to Him in others, no matter whether the neighbor is friendly or hostile, a benefactor or a persecutor. It attends only to the difference in the participation of the divine and infinite goodness and according to this standard it loves all in God and for God.
“All other kinds of love, such as loving creatures for less exalted motives, hoping for some kind of reward, advantage or return, or loving them under cover of disorderly concupiscence, or with a mere human and natural love, even if it should spring from naturally virtuous and well ordered motives, are not infused charity. Love no creatures except for God, and for what thou seest in them as coming from God and belonging to Him.
“Thou wilt also know whether thou lovest with pure charity, by thy behavior towards friends and enemies, the naturally agreeable and disagreeable, the polite and the impolite, those that possess or do not possess natural advantages. All this sort of distinction does not come from pure charity, but from the natural inclinations and passions of the appetites, which thou must govern, extinguish and eradicate by means of this sublime virtue.” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
What is supreme? No doubt everyone would have their own personal opinion on what is supreme! Are there many supreme things, or just a few, or even just one? The word “supreme” comes from the Latin “supremus” which means “highest” or “most excellent”. Logically, therefore, even though there might persons, places or things that are “supreme” in their own particular category, there has to be one person, place or thing that is supreme over everything else. That one supreme person is God―which is why we also call Him the Supreme Being: “There is none like to the Lord our God” (Exodus 8:10). The one supreme place that trumps all other places, is of course Heaven: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them [in Heaven] that love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). The one supreme thing that is above all other things is charity or love: “The greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13) ― and why would that be? It is simply because “God is charity” (1 John 4:8).
Supremacy of Love
We were created out of love and we were created for love and we were created to love. We ourselves love to love and we love to be loved. Everything revolves around love. That is why we are commanded: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31) ― therefore, to love is a supreme commandment.
Doing Everything Out of a Love for God
Love is the pinnacle of the spiritual life. Love is the soul or engine that gives life to all other virtues―and, without it, all virtues are empty shells, hollow, dead like a body without its soul. Hence Scripture speaks of a “Faith that worketh by Charity” (Galatians 5:6). Without charity, they are merely natural virtues, but not supernatural virtues. They might be praised in this life―but they cannot buy us eternal life, because they are natural and not supernatural. What makes them supernatural? It is the love of God―it is thinking of things, evaluating things, judging things, saying things, doing things, correcting things all out of a love of God, being joined to God through His sanctifying grace. It is thinking, speaking, writing, doing things according to God’s wishes: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
If we do not act out of charity (a love of God), then we lose the supernatural engine, gas, power or ‘soul’ that drives everything supernaturally: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
It is along the same line of thought that St. John of the Cross writes: “In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone!” ― meaning that once we appear before God after our death for our final judgment, then God will primarily examine and judge us on the charity in all that we ever thought, said or did. Yes―charity is that important―it is the greatest of all commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
Evil Love
Now we all act out of love―but that love is not always a good love. Just like many other things, love can be misused and abused. We can use our power of speech to speak well or speak badly. We can use our physical strength for good or for evil. We can use our eyes to look at good things or sinful things. We can use our mouth to eat what is healthy or unhealthy. The same is true of love―we can love what is good or we can love what is evil. Holy Scripture speaks of this good and evil love: “No servant can serve two masters―for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon! … You that hate good and love evil ― hate evil and love good! … You that love the Lord―hate evil! … He that loves iniquity hates his own soul! … Let love be without pretence―hating that which is evil, and clinging to that which is good!” (Luke 16:13; Micheas 3:2; Amos 5:15; Psalm 96:10; Psalm 10:6; Romans 12:9).
In these evil times in which live, most people love to hate and hate to love―that is to say, they love to hate what is godly and hate to love the things that could save their souls. Instead, the love the world. They hate to be told: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world! If any man loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). Our Lord warns us: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hates you!” (John 15:19). “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7). Of most modern day Catholics, Scripture would certainly say: “This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!” (Mark 7:6). “They are of the world―therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them!” (1 John 4:5). “But our conversation is in Heaven―from whence also we look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ!” (Philippians 3:20).
In a certain sense, we cannot exist without love―just as we cannot exist without God, Who is love itself: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). In the 13th century, in order to discover which language humans would speak naturally if they were not taught a language, Frederick II, Emperor of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, placed 50 newborns in the care of nurses who would were told to only feed and bathe the babies but not speak or hold them or show any affection or love to them. The Emperor never got an answer―because all of the infants died. Babies who are not held, coddled, nuzzled, and hugged enough can stop growing, and, if the situation lasts long enough, even die.
God’s Love for Us
There can be no doubt―unless you want to blaspheme and spout heresy―that God loves us. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son; so that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:16-17). “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore I have drawn thee, taking pity on thee!” (Jeremias 31:3). Our Lord Himself said: “Greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13) and “The Son of God, Who loved me, delivered Himself for me!” (Galatians 2:20).
Through the Sacrament of Baptism―which nobody deserves nor has a right to it―God has adopted us sinners to be His children. “God has predestined us unto Himself adopting us as children through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). “Behold what manner of charity the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called and should be the sons of God!” (1 John 3:1). “The charity of God is poured forth into our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, Who is given to us” (Romans 5:5).
God thinks about us and loves us every second of the day. Everyday God thinks of you. Every hour God looks after you. Every minute God cares for you, because every second He loves you. Jesus tells you that “the very hairs of your head are all numbered!” (Matthew 10:30) ― who else cares about how many hairs you have on your head? Nobody, except God!
“Lord, thou hast tested me and known me! Thou hast known my sitting down and my rising up! Thou hast understood my thoughts afar off! My path and my direction Thou hast searched out! Thou hast foreseen all my ways! Behold, O Lord, Thou hast known all things―the latest and those of old! Thou hast formed me and hast laid Thy hand upon me. Thy knowledge is become wonderful to me―it is so high that I cannot reach to it!” (Psalm 138:1-6).
Love is Reciprocal
Thus we see that love requires interaction between both parties―that is why they say: “Love is reciprocal”, meaning that love is not a “one-way-street”, but a “two-way-street”, a case of “give and take” ― it is about receiving love and giving love: “I love them that love Me!” (Proverbs 8:17). The same is true of our love for God and God’s love for us. “In this is charity―not as though we had loved God, but because He has first loved us! … Let us love God, because God has first loved us!” (1 John 4:10, 19). Our Lord also says: “A new commandment I give unto you―that you love one another. As I have loved you, so you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are My disciples―if you have love one for another” (John 13:34-35). “As the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love―as I also have kept My Father’s commandments and do abide in His love!” (John 15:9-10). “If we love one another, then God abides in us and His charity is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). “What shall I give to the Lord, for all the things He has given unto me? I will take the chalice of salvation!” (Psalm 115:12-13).
Those last words are the key to salvation: “I will take the chalice of salvation!” What is the chalice of salvation? You could say that the chalice of salvation consists of two things―the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (which is nothing other than the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary perpetuated throughout all ages) and also the Sacrifice of the Cross (which is not just Christ’s Sacrifice on Calvary, but also our sacrifice by sharing in Christ’s Sacrifice). Our Lord says to St. James and St. John: “‘Can you drink of the chalice that I drink of? Can you be baptized with the baptism wherewith I am baptized?’ But they said to him: ‘We can!’ And Jesus said to them: ‘You shall indeed drink of the chalice that I drink of! And with the baptism wherewith I am baptized, you shall be baptized!’” (Mark 10:38-39). By this He meant that they would share in His Passion and Death. Since, by Baptism, we become part of the Mystical Body of Christ, then it is only fitting that the Body goes in the same direction as its Divine Head. That is why “He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that does not take up his cross, and follows Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Our carrying of the cross―that Christ in His love wishes to impose upon us―is a return of love to Christ for His having carried His Cross for us.
The Passion of Death of Jesus demands a reciprocity just like love demands reciprocity (give and take―two-way-street). Jesus suffers for us―we must suffer for Him. If we refuse to do so―then the “deal is off”, the “contract is cancelled”, the door of Heaven is closed to us. Without the carrying of the cross, all “love-talk” is just that―mere lip-service, “talking the talk” but not “walking the walk” ― “This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!” (Mark 7:6). “Let us not love by our words and tongue, but by deeds” (1 John 3:18). As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Love must not be satisfied with mere protestations of affection without looking for more valuable fruit―for the desire to love, which costs nothing, is not a sufficient proof of love in a soul.”
A Lesson on Love from Our Lady
Our Lady revealed the following to the Venerable Mary of Agreda:
“The Lord is infinite in His mercy and His love has no limit, and thus He attends, esteems and assists every soul who receives Him, and He rejoices in it, as if He had created it alone, and as if He had been made man for it alone! ... His great condescension is manifest―though it is little taken notice of and respected by mortals, nor does it find the return due to such love! … Reflect upon the small return given by mortals for the love of my Son and Lord, and how forgetful of thanks even His faithful continue to be! ... How many are there among the mortals, who during the whole course of their lives have not excited one sincere act of thanksgiving for the gift of life, for its preservation, for health, food, honors, possessions and all the other temporal and natural goods! Others there are, who, if at any time they give thanks for these benefits, do it not because they truly love God, the Giver, but because they love themselves and delight in these temporal and earthly blessings and in the possession of them ... If they were to correspond to His love, I assure them that they shall never suffer from the lack of what is necessary.
“My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … It was not necessary to suffer so much! … Yet He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! Bless and magnify my most holy Son for the love with which He delivered Himself up for the salvation of mankind ... Only the highest Good [God] is to be appreciated and recognized. Then only shall you give Him true appreciation and love, when you shall enjoy and esteem Him above all created things ... The Lord loves those that are equally ready to give as to receive … He wishes to be loved and served by all rational creatures … Purify thy soul by many acts of sorrow for having offended Him, magnify and praise Him with a most ardent love. Seek Him, and rest not until thou hast found Him, Whom thy soul desires, hold Him and do not let Him go. Love the Lord in order that thou mayest be transformed in Him ― who can instruct and inflame thee with His love. Then, with the force of love transforming thy being into that of thy Beloved, the impetus of thy passions will weaken and thou shalt arrive at that kind of sweet martyrdom, which I suffered ...
“Cultivate love―for love is a fire which does not have its effect until the material is prepared … Be well versed and perfect in this art of divine love! … Reverence must not be separated from love of God in the creature … Take notice of the reverence, love and solicitude, the holy and discreet fear, with which I conversed with my most holy Son ... Place no obstacle to the love of thy Lord! … Strive to be robust and strong in love! … Transformed by this divine love, thou wilt merit other gifts, both for thyself and for thy brethren … The soul that is in charity not only feels the effects of charity in itself, but through charity it is secure of being loved by God; through this divine love, it enjoys the reciprocal effect of God’s indwelling, so that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost will come and live in that soul as their temple, and this is a blessing which no words and no example can properly express in this mortal life.
“Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment―nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. Turn thy back on all sensible things, seeking only to love and to suffer.
“The divine influence will urge and draw thee on to desire of being despised by creatures, to joyful suffering, to a love of the Cross and an earnest and generous acceptation of it; it will move thee to seek the last place, to love those that persecute thee, to fear and abhor sin, even the slightest … seeking only to love and to suffer … Be willing to bear and suffer, forgive and love all who offend thee … When gold is untouched by the furnace-heat, the iron by the file, the grain by the grinding stone or flail, the grapes by the winepress, they are all useless and will not attain the end for which they are created … Thou canst not follow Christ, if thou refuse to embrace the Cross and rejoice in it! I exhort you to select the sufferings of His Cross in preference to His favors and gifts, and rather embrace afflictions than desire to be visited with caresses―for in choosing favors and delights you might be moved by self-love, but in accepting tribulations and sorrows, you can be moved only by the love of Christ.
“Souls also fail in the love due to God and they divert their love toward the creatures. Their blind love of visible things holds them back. They indulge greed and avarice; they serve their own interest; they love money, they place their hopes in treasures of silver and gold; they submit to the flatteries and to the slavery of the worldly and powerful. And if they are thus weighed down before acquiring riches, how much more weighed down are they when they have come into possession of those riches and possessions? If you look into the deceptive course of the lovers of this world, you will see that they consider themselves fortunate whenever they attain all that they desire, according to their earthly inclinations. This only hastens their greater misfortune―for they, having received their reward, cannot expect any reward in the eternal life. Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it!
“The right order of this virtue is to love God above all the creatures, then to love oneself, and him who is nearest to oneself, namely, our neighbor. God must be loved with the whole understanding, without deceit, with the whole will, without reserve or division, with the whole mind, without forgetfulness, without diminution, without negligence or remissness. The motive of charity in loving God is none else than God Himself; for He must be loved for his own sake, being the highest Good and most perfect goodness and holiness. Loving God for such motives causes the creature to love itself and the neighbor and itself; for both belong to one and the same God, from whom they derive their origin, their life and activity. He that loves God truly for Himself will also love all that is of God and all that in some way participates in his goodness. Therefore charity looks upon the neighbor as a work and a participation of God and makes no distinction between friend or enemy. Charity looks only upon that which is of God and which pertains to Him in others, no matter whether the neighbor is friendly or hostile, a benefactor or a persecutor. It attends only to the difference in the participation of the divine and infinite goodness and according to this standard it loves all in God and for God.
“All other kinds of love, such as loving creatures for less exalted motives, hoping for some kind of reward, advantage or return, or loving them under cover of disorderly concupiscence, or with a mere human and natural love, even if it should spring from naturally virtuous and well ordered motives, are not infused charity. Love no creatures except for God, and for what thou seest in them as coming from God and belonging to Him.
“Thou wilt also know whether thou lovest with pure charity, by thy behavior towards friends and enemies, the naturally agreeable and disagreeable, the polite and the impolite, those that possess or do not possess natural advantages. All this sort of distinction does not come from pure charity, but from the natural inclinations and passions of the appetites, which thou must govern, extinguish and eradicate by means of this sublime virtue.” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Article 6
Thursday February 16th & Friday February 17th, 2023
Charity Can Wipe Away All Your Sins and Their Punishment!
Thursday February 16th & Friday February 17th, 2023
Charity Can Wipe Away All Your Sins and Their Punishment!
Instant Wipe-Out!
How would you like it if all your enormous financial debts were wiped-out by merely uttering a few words? Or, how happy would you be in court if the judge were to wipe-out a well deserved life sentence in prison or death penalty just because of something you said to him? The truth of the matter is that this will never happen―because nobody on Earth would do that for just a few words. Yet there is someone in Heaven who actually is that generous that He would forgive you, not only your guilt for the sins you have committed, but He would also take away all the punishment that your sins have earned! Yes―of course―that person is God.
Yet what is it―on your part―that can make God show such undeserved generosity? The answer is found in a four-letter-word! That word is LOVE! If there is one thing that God cannot resist; one thing that weakens Him, so to speak; one thing that makes Him do the unthinkable in wiping away your guilt and the accompanying just punishments for your sins―that “thing” is something that we call “PERFECT CONTRITION” or “A PERFECT ACT OF CONTRITION” or “A CONTRITION OF LOVE”. Is this a joke? Is it make-believe? Is it a fairy-tale? Wishful thinking? No―it is reality! A stupendous reality! A mind-boggling reality! A heart-warming reality! A reality that goes beyond the limits and boundaries of the mercy that we know here on Earth! Is it only a select few that can find access to such unimaginable mercy? No―it is open to each and every member of mankind. However, it is NOT UNCONDITIONAL MERCY regardless of what we feel and what we do―it is a mercy that has certain conditions attached to it. It is those conditions that we shall now examine and explain.
Magnificent Mercy
The mercy of God extends beyond the borders of our puny limited minds―for as God says: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unjust man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him― for He is bountiful to forgive. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:7-9).
Elsewhere God says: “The soul that sins, the same shall die … but if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die … Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? … When the wicked turns himself away from his wickedness and does judgment and justice―he shall save his soul alive! … Therefore will I judge every man according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities and iniquity shall not be your ruin! Cast away from you all your transgressions by which you have transgressed, and make unto yourselves a new heart and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God, return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32). God does not refer to only SOME SELECT SINNERS―but He refers to ALL SINNERS. This will proved below.
You could write an entire book on the Scriptural references to God’s mercy―let us be satisfied with the following handful of quotes to prove the point:
“The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14) ... “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17) ... “God wants all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4). Jesus Himself says: “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56) … “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world!” (John 12:47) … “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) … “Your Father, Who is in Heaven, makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad; and makes rain fall upon the just and the unjust!” (Matthew 5:45). Scripture adds: “‘If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow―and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool!’ saith the Lord” (Isaias 1:18) … “The Lord is gracious and merciful―patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works!” (Psalm 144:8-9).
There are several psalms that extol and glorify God’s mercy―one verse after another. Here is just one of them―brace yourself for a tsunami of mercy!
Psalm 135
[1] Praise the Lord, for He is good―for His mercy endures for ever.
[2] Praise ye the God of gods―for His mercy endures for ever.
[3] Praise ye the Lord of lords―for His mercy endures for ever.
[4] Who alone doth great wonders―for His mercy endures for ever.
[5] Who made the heavens in understanding―for His mercy endures for ever.
[6] Who established the earth above the waters―for His mercy endures for ever.
[7] Who made the great lights―for His mercy endures for ever.
[8] The sun to rule over the day―for His mercy endures for ever.
[9] The moon and the stars to rule the night―for His mercy endures for ever.
[10] Who smote Egypt with their firstborn―for His mercy endures for ever.
[11] Who brought out Israel from among them―for His mercy endures for ever.
[12] With a mighty hand and a stretched out arm―for His mercy endures for ever.
[13] Who divided the Red Sea into parts―for His mercy endures for ever.
[14] And brought out Israel through the midst thereof―for His mercy endures for ever.
[15] And overthrew Pharao and his host in the Red Sea―for His mercy endures for ever.
[16] Who led His people through the desert―for His mercy endures for ever.
[17] Who smote great kings―for His mercy endures for ever.
[18] And slew strong kings―for His mercy endures for ever.
[19] Sehon king of the Amorrhites―for His mercy endures for ever.
[20] And Og king of Basan―for His mercy endures for ever.
[21] And He gave their land for an inheritance―for His mercy endures for ever.
[22] For an inheritance to His servant Israel―for His mercy endures for ever.
[23] For He was mindful of us in our affliction―for His mercy endures for ever.
[24] And He redeemed us from our enemies―for His mercy endures for ever.
[25] Who giveth food to all flesh―for His mercy endures for ever.
[26] Give glory to the God of Heaven―for His mercy endures for ever.
[27] Give glory to the Lord of lords―for His mercy endures for ever.
Our Greatest Craving!
At the end of the day, what is it that we crave the most? Or, more precisely, at the end of our life what will we crave the most? When you are dying in a hospital, or at home, or in some accident―what is that you will crave the most? Realistically and logically you will crave mercy! The only thing that will really matter is whether or not you will receive the mercy of God―for we are all sinners. We should not be too complacent about being in state of sanctifying grace, nor too complacent about the mercy of God: “Man knows not whether he be worthy of love or hatred” (Ecclesiastes 9:1), therefore “with fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12). Even St. Paul―though unaware of any mortal sins on his soul―is nevertheless unsure about his justification before God: “It is a very small thing to be judged by you, or by any man―but neither do I judge my own self. For I am not conscious to myself of any thing [any unforgiven sin], yet am I not hereby justified―but he that judges me, is the Lord. Therefore judge not before the time; until the Lord come―Who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts!” (1 Corinthians 4:3-5).
It might surprise you―but EVERYONE receives the mercy of God at the moment of death, but NOT EVERYONE goes straight to Heaven. You could say that even if EVERYONE receives the mercy of God at their final judgment, NOT EVERYONE receives the same degree of mercy―some get more and others get less. How so? Those receiving the greatest mercy are those who go directly to Heaven―thereby avoiding the fires of Purgatory and the fires of Hell. Those who are consigned to Purgatory obviously receive less mercy, since they will have expiate the unpaid debts for their sins by burning in the fires of Purgatory. Surprisingly, even those who are condemned to Hell also receive the mercy of God―but only a minimal amount―in that God in His mercy does not allow them to be punished in Hell as much as they really deserve.
Contrition in General
God, in His justice, will allot to you the level of mercy that your contrition for sin deserves. Contrition is a pain of the soul and a hatred for sins committed. It must be accompanied by a good purpose, that is to say, a firm resolution to correct oneself and to sin no more.
► Contrition must be INTERIOR. What do we mean when we say that contrition must be interior? We mean that it is an interior act of the mind and will. In order for contrition to be real, it is necessary that it be interior, meaning that it comes from the depths of the heart; it must not then be a simple formula uttered without reflection. It is something independent of spoken words. The mind and heart must determine everything that is said in the Act of Contrition. Perfect Contrition is not necessarily shown by sighs or tears, etc. All those displays may be an exterior indicator, but they are not the interior essence of contrition. The essence of contrition resides in the soul and in the will ― it is determined to run away from sin and return to God.
► Contrition must be SOVEREIGN ― which is to say that our sorrow for sin must be far beyond the sorrow that we would have for anything in this world. Sin is the greatest evil. God’s grace and friendship are far greater in value than anything in this world; therefore, our sorrow at losing them by sin should be greater far than our sorrow at losing anything else.
► Contrition must be UNIVERSAL, that is to say, it must be understood to apply to all sins committed — at least of all mortal sins. The act of contrition must include all of the mortal sins. One may never keep even one pet sin. One either leaves all of his sins behind, or he keeps all of them for God’s just judgment at the moment of death. Sins when left alone will never pass away. For example, if you have committed ten mortal sins and you are sorry for nine mortal sins in Confession, but are not sorry for the tenth—then none of the ten mortal sins are forgiven—all ten remain in your soul.
► Contrition must be INTENSE. The word “detest” best expresses the intensity that we should have. We cannot be lukewarm or indifferent to sin. Sin is the greatest evil in the world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). We cannot simply say that we just “do not like sin”, but we must “detest” sin in the most intense way and our desire to not sin again must also be intense.
► Contrition must contain a FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT ― a firm resolution of sinning no more. Too many people only have a VAGUE purpose of amendment―they are imprecise, they do not make firm plans on how to avoid. Their purpose of amendment is in WORD ONLY. On the contrary, we must be prepared to avoid the occasions of sin and seriously make plans on how we will achieve that goal. Every person, place, or object that we have reason to know would be an occasion or cause to us of committing sin, must be carefully avoided. No matter how dear they may be to us; no matter how hard we may find it to avoid them, avoid them we must, or else our contrition is not contrition. It is only a mockery, a delusion, and a snare of the devil. A priest is not at liberty to give absolution to anyone who is not prepared to avoid the immediate occasions of sin.
The man that has a firm, real resolution of sinning no more does not easily relapse into sin. Where there is true contrition God gives His grace; and the grace of God does solid, substantial work, which is not likely to be blown down with every slight wind of temptation. Where there is true contrition the penitent yields, not without great efforts and struggle, and not until after he has fought a long and brave fight with the enemy. The relapsing sinner, on the contrary, shows that he has only a half purpose; not a firm full purpose. His will is half for God, and half for the devil. He is a double-minded man; and “a double-minded man is inconstant in all his ways” (James 1:8).
► Contrition must be SUPREME. When we say that the act of contrition must be supreme, we are saying that we must determine that we would rather die than commit a mortal sin. We must hate mortal sin (venial sin too, if possible) even more than death itself. Just think how careful we are about our lives. We will avoid the company of those who have a contagious sickness in order to save our life. We could take a leaf out of the book of St. Dominic Savio, who, as one of his resolutions before making his First Holy Communion, was: “Death rather than sin!”
► Contrition must also be SUPERNATURAL and not purely natural, for that has no use. This is why contrition, like every other good thing, must come from God and from His grace―that is what makes it supernatural. Only the grace of God can engender it in us. Contrition, whether perfect or imperfect, is a gift which we cannot have unless it be given us by God. However, God always grants us the necessary grace provided that we ask it of Him, provided that we possess good will and a sincere and supernatural repentance. Actual grace is the supernatural assistance that enlightens the mind to know the will of God and strengthens the will to do the will of God. Hence, before starting the act of contrition, it is good to ask for this special grace. Without it, the act of contrition is useless.
Secondly, the act must be supernatural as to “motive.” If our repentance is based on a motive of interest, or for a purely natural reason (for instance, temporal evils, shame, or illness), then we will only have natural contrition, without any merit. However, if it is based on some truth of the Faith (such as Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, God, etc.), then we will truly possess a supernatural contrition. This supernatural contrition can be, in turn, PERFECT or IMPERFECT — and here we are come to our topic of Perfect Contrition.
Types of Contrition
The two general divisions of contrition are (1) PERFECT CONTRITION, (2) IMPERFECT CONTRITION and (3) FALSE CONTRITION. Let us first of all explain them briefly before taking a closer look at them.
PERFECT CONTRITION: The superior contrition is Perfect Contrition ― which has to do with the fact that we have offended God Who is all good and desiring of our love. It is based upon a sorrow of having offended someone whom we love and who loves us. Fear takes a back seat―while love is in the driving seat: “Perfect charity casts out fear, because fear has pain. And he that fears, is not perfected in charity” (1 John 4:18). Perfect love will not only cast out fear, but it will also cast out sin and any love for sin.
IMPERFECT CONTRITION: The inferior motive (Imperfect Contrition) has to do with the dread of the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell. Together with the Sacraments of Baptism and Penance, the inferior motive (fearing the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell) is sufficient for forgiveness of all sins. However, outside of those Sacraments, only the superior motive (a sorrow―based on love, not fear―for having offended God who is all good) will suffice for the forgiveness of all sins.
FALSE CONTRITION: A false, faked or pretended contrition is the most common kind of contrition. False contrition is an attempt to either fool God, for the priest, or fool ourselves―or a mixture of these—because, tragically, most people don’t work hard at sinning no more. They don’t really hate all of their sins (only some sins) and do not strive to be perfect out of a fear of going to Hell or out of the love of God. They know that they will go back to their sins, just as they know they will go back to Confession. It becomes a revolving door between the rooms of sin and sanctifying grace. What these souls fail to realize is that their confessions are invalid because of this lack of true sorrow for sin and a lack of firm purpose of amendment.
Perfect Contrition
Let us look at Perfect Contrition in some more detail. Is there a way we can obtain the greatest mercy from God? Yes there is―it can be achieved by what we call “A PERFECT ACT OF CONTRITION.” Just as there degrees of mercy, there are also degrees of contrition. In a few words, Perfect Contrition is contrition based on the motive of love, and Imperfect Contrition is that which is based on the fear of God. Perfect Contrition is that which flows from the perfect love of God. Now, our love of God is perfect if we love Him because He is infinitely perfect, infinitely beautiful, and infinitely good (love of benevolence), or because He has shown us His love in a wonderful way (love of gratitude). Our love of God is imperfect, if we love Him because we expect something from Him.
Our contrition is perfect when we are sorry for our sins because sin offends God, Whom we love above all things for His own sake. Our Lord alluded to this when speaking of Mary Magdalen to Simon the Pharisee: “‘Wherefore I say to thee, her sins, many as they are, shall be forgiven her, because she has loved much. But he, to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ And He said to her, ‘Thy sins are forgiven.’ And they, who were at table with Him, began to say within themselves, ‘Who is this Man, who even forgives sins?’ But He said to the woman, ‘Thy Faith has saved thee! Go in peace!’” (Luke 7:47-50).
(1) This contrition arises from a pure and perfect love of God. If we have a perfect love of God, our contrition for sins will be perfect. It ought not to be difficult for us to have a perfect love of God. We generally love our parents not for the food and clothes they give us, but for themselves, because we see their self-sacrifice, their unselfishness, and other good qualities. Thus we shall be sorry, not only because we fear punishment or dread the loss of His gifts, but because we offend the good God, to Whom nothing is more evil than sin. If we can love our parents spontaneously, not for any reward we expect or punishment we wish to avoid, why can we not love God, Who is infinitely more lovable than our parents? If we love God spontaneously, because He is lovable in Himself, our love is perfect.
Where there is true contrition, there is a complete change of life: the “old man” is exchanged for the “new.” As Scripture says: “Put off the old man, who is corrupted, and put on the new man, who is created in justice and holiness of truth. Wherefore putting away sin, be angry, and sin not!” (Ephesians 4:22-26). The sinful pleasures, once loved, are now hated; the dangerous occasions of sin are avoided; the soul is filled with hope in the merciful forgiveness of God, and filled also with a desire to keep His commandments for the time to come.
(2) It is easy to make an act of Perfect Contrition if we sincerely love God. We can excite ourselves to it by thinking of the Passion, of how good God is, how many favors He has granted us, and how ungrateful we have been to Him in return for His goodness. By thinking of God’s gifts, we realize a little the goodness of God and His worthiness to be loved for His own sake. We then feel sorry for having offended our Benefactor by the sins we have committed. But do not delude yourself with the thought that you will put off your repentance till the moment of death, and that then you will make an act of Perfect Contrition. Perfect Contrition is a grace given only to those of good will, and if anyone were to abandon himself to a life of sin with the hope of a death-bed repentance, he would find himself face to face with a Judge Who will say, “You will seek Me, but you will die in your sins!” (John 8:21).
(3) If we happen to be assisting at a deathbed, and no priest is available, we should help the dying person make an act of Perfect Contrition―or it may even be ourselves on our own deathbed. First of all, we must bear in mind that Perfect Contrition is a grace―a great grace― from God. Everyone should constantly pray for it. Get the dying person to beg often: “My God! Give me perfect sorrow for my sins!” If (by interiorly praying for them) you can get them to sincerely mean those words, then Our Lord will answer the prayer and the grace will be given. Is it difficult to make an act of Perfect Contrition? No doubt it is more difficult to make an act of Perfect Contrition than an Imperfect one, which suffices when we go to Confession. But still, there is no one who, if he sincerely wishes it, cannot, with the grace of God, make an act of Perfect Contrition. Sorrow is in the will, not in the senses or feelings. All that is needed is that we repent because we love God above everything else; that is all. True it is that Perfect Contrition has its degrees, but it is none the less perfect because it does not reach the intensity and sublimity of the sorrow of St. Peter, of St. Mary Magdalene, or of St. Aloysius. Such a degree is very desirable, but is by no means necessary. A lesser degree, but, provided it proceeds from the love of God, and not through fear of His punishments, is quite sufficient.
(4) We should form the habit of making an act of Perfect Contrition as often as possible. How can we be sure our act of Perfect Contrition is actually perfect? We cannot know! Yet we must exercise our Faith, Hope and Charity in raising our hearts to God with a pure a love as possible, and say at least some words such as: “O my God, I am sorry that I ever offended Thee, because Thou art so good, and I love Thee!”
Imperfect Contrition
Our contrition is imperfect when we are sorry for our sins because they are hateful in themselves, or because we fear God’s punishment. If, in the act of Imperfect Contrition, fear of Hell is the prevailing motive; then the sinner is more in love with himself than he is with God.
(1) Imperfect Contrition is called attrition. The fear of Hell is a common motive of attrition. It is a good motive, but it is imperfect, because it arises from fear of God’s punishments, and not from pure love for Him. A mother sent her three young sons to take a big jar of honey to their grandmother. On the way the boys stopped to play. They stumbled over the jar, breaking it and spilling the honey. They all began to weep. The first said, “Mother will surely spank us?” The second cried, “She will be so displeased she will give us no cookies!” And the third wept, “Mother will surely be sad!” The first two boys had attrition: one had the fear of punishment, and the second had sorrow at the loss of reward. The third child had Perfect Contrition, for he thought only of the sadness and offense he caused to one he loved.
(2) To receive the Sacrament of Penance worthily, Imperfect Contrition is sufficient. However, an act of attrition cannot obtain forgiveness of mortal sin without the absolution of a priest. Even if we feel only attrition for our sins, we can easily develop it into Perfect Contrition by remembering what we should be without God. We should always try to have Perfect Contrition in the Sacrament of Penance. Nevertheless, as stated above, Perfect Contrition is a grace given only to those of good will, and if anyone were to abandon himself to a life of sin with the hope of a death-bed repentance, he would find himself face to face with a Judge Who will say, “You will seek Me, but you will die in your sins!” (John 8:21). Perfect Contrition requires the desire not to sin again. If you do not have that desire, you cannot have Perfect Contrition. Nevertheless, Imperfect Contrition cannot remove the entire punishment that is still due to our confessed―even after we have confessed and they have been forgiven. Only Perfect Contrition is capable of doing that.
(3) A purely servile fear of God is not sufficient for Imperfect Contrition. That is one which makes a person avoid sin only because of punishment: so that, if there were no punishment, he would not be sorry, but ready and resolved to sin, regardless of the laws of God. To receive the Sacrament of Penance worthily, purely servile fear would not be sufficient. We call this fear “servile” because it is the fear of slaves, afraid of a hard taskmaster; they would quickly disobey his commands were they not afraid of his whips. Shall we look upon God thus? Servile fear does not make the sinner turn away from his sin. The “fear of God” that produces attrition is called filial fear. It is a fear of God’s punishments that makes the sinner turn away from sin and return sincerely to God; it is the fear that a good son who has offended his father seriously feels when he begs forgiveness.
False Contrition
False contrition or false sorrow for sin is the most common kind of contrition or sorrow. False contrition is an attempt to either fool God, for the priest, or fool ourselves―or a mixture of these— because, tragically, most people don’t work hard at sinning no more. They don’t really hate all of their sins (only some sins) and do not strive to be perfect out of a fear of going to Hell or out of the love of God. Or they work hard for a short while, and then all efforts are thrown out the window ― like a failed diet ― it hasn’t become a way of life from a true hatred for their sins. That is why the path to Heaven is narrow and only “many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:23-24) ― because they lack the necessary saving sanctifying grace in their souls.
Where there is true contrition the penitent yields, not without great efforts and struggle, and not until after he has fought a long and brave fight with the enemy. The relapsing sinner, on the contrary, shows that he has only a half purpose; not a firm full purpose. His will is half for God, and half for the devil. He is a double-minded man; and “a double-minded man is inconstant in all his ways” (James 1:8). The best sign for knowing whether the contrition was good or bad, is the amendment of life, or the relapse of the sinner. “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matthew 7:20). Judging ourselves by this test, we should fear that when we received the Sacrament of Penance we often had only a false and a bad contrition for our sins! “Be not without fear for sins forgiven” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) ― that is to say, sins that are supposed to have been forgiven.
What if we thought our contrition sufficient, when in reality it was defective? Then would be a great mistake! The Sacrament of Penance received unworthily, would be to us a source of ruin and damnation! Penance is a plank after shipwreck; and, as in time of shipwreck few save themselves by a plank, so it is only a few that save themselves by the plank of penance. True penitents, it is to be feared, are very rare. The time of St. Ambrose was remarkable for its illustrious penitents, and yet the Saint goes so far as to say: “I have more easily found him who shall have preserved his innocence unspotted, than he who, after a fall, shall have done worthy penance.”
Fr. Leonard Goffine, in his liturgical book, The Church’s Year, writes: “If sinners intend to repent on their deathbed for fear of punishment, they usually find that God in His justice will no longer give them the grace of repentance, for he who, when he can repent will not repent, cannot when he will. ‘Who will not listen at the time of grace,’ says St. Gregory, ‘will not be listened to in the time of anxiety!’ And it is to be feared that he who postpones penance until old age, will not find justice where he looked for mercy.”
So we must always ask ourselves and answer this question: “Just why are you sorry for your sins? Is it because you fear God, or because you love God? Or are you just mechanically saying you are sorry out of routine, without really being afraid of God, nor loving God?”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, a Doctor of the Church and the patron saint of moral theologians, writes: “The preacher should often speak out against bad confessions, in which sins are concealed through shame. This is an evil not of rare occurrence, but frequent, especially in small country districts, which consigns innumerable souls to Hell. Hence it is very useful to mention, from time to time, some example of souls that were damned by willfully concealing sins in confession.” If the concealing or “fudging” of sins is so common according to St. Alphonsus―then how much more common is the lack of sufficient contrition for sins even if they are not concealed? All of this is tantamount to a spiritual suicide!
The Wonderful Effects of Perfect Contrition
You can really call Perfect Contrition the Key to Heaven. Who gets to go to Heaven? Before you can enter Heaven, you must free of the guilt of mortal sin, (2) you must be in state of sanctifying grace; and (3) you must have paid your debts for your mortal and venial sins.
Our Lord said of Mary Magdalen: “Wherefore I say to thee: Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much!” (Luke 7:47). The Venerable St. Bede, commenting on this, writes: “What is love but fire; what is sin but rust? Hence it is said: ‘Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much!’―as though to say―“She has burned away the rust of sin entirely, because she is inflamed with the fire of love.”
Once you have confessed your mortal sins properly, but with imperfect contrition, then the guilt for sin is taken away―but the debt for those sins remains. Too many people falsely imagine that the Sacrament of Confession automatically takes away both the guilt and the debt. However, if your sorrow for sin is intense enough, then it is possible for the Sacrament of Confession to remove not only your guilt but also your debt. If you confess your sins with perfect contrition, then ALL the guilt and debt are taken away―and if, at that moment, you died, then you could walk straight into Heaven. However, if your contrition is imperfect, then ALL the guilt is taken away in Confession, but a certain amount of debt remains that you will have to pay through penance, until the debt is eventually removed. If you die with the debt unpaid―even though you are in a state of sanctifying grace―you will not go to Heaven, but to fires of Purgatory to pay the remainder of the debt.
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us: “Mortal sin turns us away from God, it induces a debt of eternal punishment … Whosoever sins against the eternal Good should be punished eternally ... In venial sins, he incurs a debt, not of eternal punishment, but of temporal punishment. Consequently when guilt is pardoned through grace, the soul ceases to be turned away from God, through being united to God by grace―so, at the same time, the debt of punishment is taken away, although a debt of some temporal punishment may yet remain ... A debt of some punishment remains after the guilt has been forgiven ... The entire debt of punishment is not remitted at once after the first act of Penance (Confession)―by which the guilt is remitted―but only when all the acts of Penance have been completed ... Man, by bearing punishment patiently with the help of Divine grace, is thereby released from the debt of temporal punishment … Contrition is the cause of the forgiveness of sin … The intensity of contrition may be regarded in two ways. First, on the part of charity, which causes the displeasure―and in this way it may happen that the act of charity is so intense that the contrition resulting therefrom merits not only the removal of guilt, but also the remission of all punishment. Secondly, on the part of the sensible sorrow, which the will excites in contrition―and since this sorrow is also a kind of punishment, it may be so intense as to suffice for the remission of both guilt and punishment … Although the sorrow of contrition is finite in its intensity, even as the punishment due for mortal sin is finite; yet it derives infinite power from charity, whereby it is quickened, and so it avails for the remission of both guilt and punishment” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 3a, q. 86, art 4; Supplement, q. 5, art. 2).
Councils and Canon Law on Contrition
The Council of Trent (1545-1563) declares: “The Council further teaches that, though contrition may sometimes be made perfect by charity and may reconcile men to God before the actual reception of this Sacrament, still the reconciliation is not to be ascribed to the contrition apart from the desire for the Sacrament which it includes.” Perfect contrition, with the desire of receiving the Sacrament of Penance, restores the sinner to a state of sanctifying grace immediately―but the sinner must still confess the mortal sins in the Sacrament of Confession at the next available opportunity.
An example of this is demonstrated in both the 1917 Code of Canon Law in canon 808, and also in the 1984 Code of Canon Law in canon 916, which state:
1917 CODE: “Priests conscious of grave sin, no matter how contrite they believe themselves to be, shall not dare to celebrate Mass without prior Sacramental Confession; but if because there is lacking a sufficient supply of confessors and there is urgent necessity, then he shall make an act of perfect contrition, celebrate, and as soon as possible confess.” (1917 Code of Canon Law, canon 808).
1984 CODE: “A person who is conscious of grave sin is not to celebrate Mass, or receive the Body of the Lord, without previous Sacramental Confession unless there is a grave reason and there is no opportunity to confess; in this case the person is to remember the obligation to make an act of perfect contrition which includes the resolution of confessing as soon as possible.” (1984 Code of Canon Law, canon 916).
The Council of Trent defined contrition as “sorrow of soul, and a hatred of sin committed, with a firm purpose of not sinning in the future.” It is also known as animi cruciatus (affliction of spirit) and compunctio cordis (an abiding sorrow of heart). The word “contrition” ― coming from the Latin verb “conterere” and its past participle “contritus”, meaning “grind or crush to pieces; bruise or crumble; wear down or away; to fill with terror” ― implies a breaking of something that has become hardened. St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Commentary on the Master of the Sentences, explains its peculiar use thus: “Since it is required, for the remission of sin, that a man cast away entirely the liking for sin―which implies a sort of continuity and solidity in his mind―the act which obtains forgiveness is termed, by a figure of speech, ‘contrition’.”
This sorrow of soul is not merely speculative sorrow (“lip-service” sorrow) for wrong done, nor merely remorse of conscience, nor just a resolve to amend―it is a heartfelt sorrow, a real pain and bitterness of soul, together with a hatred and horror for sin committed; and this hatred for sin leads to the resolve to sin no more. The formal doctrine of the Church, announced through the Council of Trent, declares that contrition has always been necessary to obtain pardon of one’s sins. Contrition is the first and indispensable condition for pardon. While it is possible in some cases for a person to receive pardon where confession is impossible, there is no case where sin can be pardoned without contrition.
Saints on Perfect Contrition
St. Maximilian Kolbe wrote a letter to his followers shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War (which took place from 1939 to 1945). The purpose of this letter was to exhort his disciples to prepare themselves for the approaching feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th. But it also showed them how to receive forgiveness for sin in the coming war, where priests were scarce and it was hard to receive Sacramental Confession. He wrote: “Whoever can, should receive the Sacrament of Penance. Whoever cannot, because of prohibiting circumstances, should cleanse his soul by acts of perfect contrition: i.e., the sorrow of a loving child, who does not consider so much the pain or reward, as he does the pardon from his father and mother to whom he has brought displeasure.” This is a magnificent formula and lesson on how to make an act of perfect contrition.
St. Francis of Sales writes: “In order that, the commandment of love may be fulfilled, God leaves no living man without furnishing him abundantly with all the means required. He gives us―not just a bare sufficiency of means to love Him and in loving Him to save ourselves―but also a rich, ample and magnificent sufficiency―such as ought to be expected from so great a bounty as His.”
St. John Chrysostom writes: “As a fire which has taken possession of a forest, cleans it out thoroughly, so the fire of love, wheresoever it falls, takes away and blots out everything that could injure the divine seed, and purges the earth for the reception of that seed. Where love is, there all evils are taken away.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori writes: “They shall not find Him [go to Heaven] because they will not seek Him through love [perfect contrition] but only through the fear of Hell [imperfect contrition]. They will seek God [His forgiveness] without renouncing their affection for sin [love for sin], and hence they shall not find him [because they still love some sins].”
St. Catherine of Siena, in her Dialogue (which concerns her dialogue with God), has God tell her: “As soon as the soul is deprived of grace, she is bound to sin―with a bond of hatred against virtue and love of vice. With this bond they have placed themselves by their free will in the hands of the Devil, and are bound to him, for in no other way could they be bound. If they have not corrected themselves with holy Confession and contrition of heart, they arrive at eternal damnation―being cut off from Me and being bound to the Devil, with whom they have leagued together.”
“Both the guilt and the penalty [punishment due] can be expiated by the desire of the soul―that is, by true contrition … Satisfaction for sin is made, through the desire of the soul, in greater or less degree, according to the measure of love … By contrition of the heart, together with love, I may receive satisfaction for the offences, which are done against Me by My creatures … God, Who is infinite, wishes for infinite love and infinite grief. Infinite grief I wish from My creature in two ways: in one way, through her sorrow for her own sins, which she has committed against Me, her Creator. In the other way, through her sorrow for the sins which she sees her neighbors commit against Me.”
“I do not, in general, grant to these others, for whom they pray, satisfaction for the penalty due to them, but, only for their guilt, since they are not disposed, on their side, to receive, with perfect love, My love. They do not receive the grief I send to them with humility and perfect contrition for the sins they have committed, but with imperfect love and contrition―that is why they do not obtain the remission of the penalty [punishment] for sin, but only a remission of the guilt for sin―because such complete satisfaction for sin requires proper dispositions on both sides, both in Him that gives and him that receives. Wherefore, since they are imperfect, they receive imperfectly.”
“Suffering satisfies for guilt by perfect contrition, and not through the finite pain. Those who have this contrition in perfection, satisfy, not only for the guilt, but also for the penalty which follows the guilt. If, having abandoned mortal sin, they satisfy for the guilt for sin alone―they receive sanctifying grace, but have not sufficient contrition and love to also satisfy for the penalty―and so they go to the pains of Purgatory … Sufferings are not, of themselves, a sufficient expiation for the sin and the pain due to it, unless they are combined with the affection of love, and true contrition and displeasure of sin … Satisfaction is made, in greater or less degree, according to the measure of love … It is necessary, therefore, that you should wash yourselves with true contrition of heart, and hatred of sin, and love of virtue.”
“The soul of St. Paul, became a vessel, disposed and reformed by My Goodness, and, on being struck down from his horse and blinded, made no resistance, but said: ‘My Lord, what dost Thou wish me to do ? Show me that which it is Thy pleasure for me to do, and I will do it!’ … I illuminated him perfectly with the light of true contrition and founded him in My charity.”
St. John Fisher sums it up nicely by saying, “All who have embraced true contrition, and penance for the sins they have committed, and are firmly resolved to not commit sin again for the future, but persevere constantly in the pursuit of virtues, which they have now begun, all these became sharers in the holy and eternal sacrifice in Heaven.”
St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, in his sermon, “Merit Absolution” says: “When anyone has really given up his sins, he must not be content simply with bewailing them. He must also give up, leave far behind, and fly from anything which is capable of leading him in the direction of them again. In other words, my dear brethren, we must be ready to suffer anything rather than fall back into those sins which we have just confessed. People should be able to see a complete change in us; otherwise we have not merited Absolution, and it could even be possible that we have indeed committed sacrilege. Alas, there are few in whom this change is apparent after having received Absolution! Dear God, what sacrileges are committed! If in every thirty Absolutions there were but one genuine case, how soon would the world be converted! Those people, who do not give sufficient signs of contrition, do not merit Absolution. Alas, how many times―because they are sent away―do they not come back anymore! This, of course, is because they have no real urge to be converted―for if they truly had a desire for conversion, then very far from leaving their Confession until another Easter, they would be working with all their hearts to change their lives and return to make their peace with God.”
How would you like it if all your enormous financial debts were wiped-out by merely uttering a few words? Or, how happy would you be in court if the judge were to wipe-out a well deserved life sentence in prison or death penalty just because of something you said to him? The truth of the matter is that this will never happen―because nobody on Earth would do that for just a few words. Yet there is someone in Heaven who actually is that generous that He would forgive you, not only your guilt for the sins you have committed, but He would also take away all the punishment that your sins have earned! Yes―of course―that person is God.
Yet what is it―on your part―that can make God show such undeserved generosity? The answer is found in a four-letter-word! That word is LOVE! If there is one thing that God cannot resist; one thing that weakens Him, so to speak; one thing that makes Him do the unthinkable in wiping away your guilt and the accompanying just punishments for your sins―that “thing” is something that we call “PERFECT CONTRITION” or “A PERFECT ACT OF CONTRITION” or “A CONTRITION OF LOVE”. Is this a joke? Is it make-believe? Is it a fairy-tale? Wishful thinking? No―it is reality! A stupendous reality! A mind-boggling reality! A heart-warming reality! A reality that goes beyond the limits and boundaries of the mercy that we know here on Earth! Is it only a select few that can find access to such unimaginable mercy? No―it is open to each and every member of mankind. However, it is NOT UNCONDITIONAL MERCY regardless of what we feel and what we do―it is a mercy that has certain conditions attached to it. It is those conditions that we shall now examine and explain.
Magnificent Mercy
The mercy of God extends beyond the borders of our puny limited minds―for as God says: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unjust man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him― for He is bountiful to forgive. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:7-9).
Elsewhere God says: “The soul that sins, the same shall die … but if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die … Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? … When the wicked turns himself away from his wickedness and does judgment and justice―he shall save his soul alive! … Therefore will I judge every man according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities and iniquity shall not be your ruin! Cast away from you all your transgressions by which you have transgressed, and make unto yourselves a new heart and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God, return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32). God does not refer to only SOME SELECT SINNERS―but He refers to ALL SINNERS. This will proved below.
You could write an entire book on the Scriptural references to God’s mercy―let us be satisfied with the following handful of quotes to prove the point:
“The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14) ... “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17) ... “God wants all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4). Jesus Himself says: “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56) … “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world!” (John 12:47) … “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) … “Your Father, Who is in Heaven, makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad; and makes rain fall upon the just and the unjust!” (Matthew 5:45). Scripture adds: “‘If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow―and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool!’ saith the Lord” (Isaias 1:18) … “The Lord is gracious and merciful―patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works!” (Psalm 144:8-9).
There are several psalms that extol and glorify God’s mercy―one verse after another. Here is just one of them―brace yourself for a tsunami of mercy!
Psalm 135
[1] Praise the Lord, for He is good―for His mercy endures for ever.
[2] Praise ye the God of gods―for His mercy endures for ever.
[3] Praise ye the Lord of lords―for His mercy endures for ever.
[4] Who alone doth great wonders―for His mercy endures for ever.
[5] Who made the heavens in understanding―for His mercy endures for ever.
[6] Who established the earth above the waters―for His mercy endures for ever.
[7] Who made the great lights―for His mercy endures for ever.
[8] The sun to rule over the day―for His mercy endures for ever.
[9] The moon and the stars to rule the night―for His mercy endures for ever.
[10] Who smote Egypt with their firstborn―for His mercy endures for ever.
[11] Who brought out Israel from among them―for His mercy endures for ever.
[12] With a mighty hand and a stretched out arm―for His mercy endures for ever.
[13] Who divided the Red Sea into parts―for His mercy endures for ever.
[14] And brought out Israel through the midst thereof―for His mercy endures for ever.
[15] And overthrew Pharao and his host in the Red Sea―for His mercy endures for ever.
[16] Who led His people through the desert―for His mercy endures for ever.
[17] Who smote great kings―for His mercy endures for ever.
[18] And slew strong kings―for His mercy endures for ever.
[19] Sehon king of the Amorrhites―for His mercy endures for ever.
[20] And Og king of Basan―for His mercy endures for ever.
[21] And He gave their land for an inheritance―for His mercy endures for ever.
[22] For an inheritance to His servant Israel―for His mercy endures for ever.
[23] For He was mindful of us in our affliction―for His mercy endures for ever.
[24] And He redeemed us from our enemies―for His mercy endures for ever.
[25] Who giveth food to all flesh―for His mercy endures for ever.
[26] Give glory to the God of Heaven―for His mercy endures for ever.
[27] Give glory to the Lord of lords―for His mercy endures for ever.
Our Greatest Craving!
At the end of the day, what is it that we crave the most? Or, more precisely, at the end of our life what will we crave the most? When you are dying in a hospital, or at home, or in some accident―what is that you will crave the most? Realistically and logically you will crave mercy! The only thing that will really matter is whether or not you will receive the mercy of God―for we are all sinners. We should not be too complacent about being in state of sanctifying grace, nor too complacent about the mercy of God: “Man knows not whether he be worthy of love or hatred” (Ecclesiastes 9:1), therefore “with fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12). Even St. Paul―though unaware of any mortal sins on his soul―is nevertheless unsure about his justification before God: “It is a very small thing to be judged by you, or by any man―but neither do I judge my own self. For I am not conscious to myself of any thing [any unforgiven sin], yet am I not hereby justified―but he that judges me, is the Lord. Therefore judge not before the time; until the Lord come―Who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts!” (1 Corinthians 4:3-5).
It might surprise you―but EVERYONE receives the mercy of God at the moment of death, but NOT EVERYONE goes straight to Heaven. You could say that even if EVERYONE receives the mercy of God at their final judgment, NOT EVERYONE receives the same degree of mercy―some get more and others get less. How so? Those receiving the greatest mercy are those who go directly to Heaven―thereby avoiding the fires of Purgatory and the fires of Hell. Those who are consigned to Purgatory obviously receive less mercy, since they will have expiate the unpaid debts for their sins by burning in the fires of Purgatory. Surprisingly, even those who are condemned to Hell also receive the mercy of God―but only a minimal amount―in that God in His mercy does not allow them to be punished in Hell as much as they really deserve.
Contrition in General
God, in His justice, will allot to you the level of mercy that your contrition for sin deserves. Contrition is a pain of the soul and a hatred for sins committed. It must be accompanied by a good purpose, that is to say, a firm resolution to correct oneself and to sin no more.
► Contrition must be INTERIOR. What do we mean when we say that contrition must be interior? We mean that it is an interior act of the mind and will. In order for contrition to be real, it is necessary that it be interior, meaning that it comes from the depths of the heart; it must not then be a simple formula uttered without reflection. It is something independent of spoken words. The mind and heart must determine everything that is said in the Act of Contrition. Perfect Contrition is not necessarily shown by sighs or tears, etc. All those displays may be an exterior indicator, but they are not the interior essence of contrition. The essence of contrition resides in the soul and in the will ― it is determined to run away from sin and return to God.
► Contrition must be SOVEREIGN ― which is to say that our sorrow for sin must be far beyond the sorrow that we would have for anything in this world. Sin is the greatest evil. God’s grace and friendship are far greater in value than anything in this world; therefore, our sorrow at losing them by sin should be greater far than our sorrow at losing anything else.
► Contrition must be UNIVERSAL, that is to say, it must be understood to apply to all sins committed — at least of all mortal sins. The act of contrition must include all of the mortal sins. One may never keep even one pet sin. One either leaves all of his sins behind, or he keeps all of them for God’s just judgment at the moment of death. Sins when left alone will never pass away. For example, if you have committed ten mortal sins and you are sorry for nine mortal sins in Confession, but are not sorry for the tenth—then none of the ten mortal sins are forgiven—all ten remain in your soul.
► Contrition must be INTENSE. The word “detest” best expresses the intensity that we should have. We cannot be lukewarm or indifferent to sin. Sin is the greatest evil in the world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). We cannot simply say that we just “do not like sin”, but we must “detest” sin in the most intense way and our desire to not sin again must also be intense.
► Contrition must contain a FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT ― a firm resolution of sinning no more. Too many people only have a VAGUE purpose of amendment―they are imprecise, they do not make firm plans on how to avoid. Their purpose of amendment is in WORD ONLY. On the contrary, we must be prepared to avoid the occasions of sin and seriously make plans on how we will achieve that goal. Every person, place, or object that we have reason to know would be an occasion or cause to us of committing sin, must be carefully avoided. No matter how dear they may be to us; no matter how hard we may find it to avoid them, avoid them we must, or else our contrition is not contrition. It is only a mockery, a delusion, and a snare of the devil. A priest is not at liberty to give absolution to anyone who is not prepared to avoid the immediate occasions of sin.
The man that has a firm, real resolution of sinning no more does not easily relapse into sin. Where there is true contrition God gives His grace; and the grace of God does solid, substantial work, which is not likely to be blown down with every slight wind of temptation. Where there is true contrition the penitent yields, not without great efforts and struggle, and not until after he has fought a long and brave fight with the enemy. The relapsing sinner, on the contrary, shows that he has only a half purpose; not a firm full purpose. His will is half for God, and half for the devil. He is a double-minded man; and “a double-minded man is inconstant in all his ways” (James 1:8).
► Contrition must be SUPREME. When we say that the act of contrition must be supreme, we are saying that we must determine that we would rather die than commit a mortal sin. We must hate mortal sin (venial sin too, if possible) even more than death itself. Just think how careful we are about our lives. We will avoid the company of those who have a contagious sickness in order to save our life. We could take a leaf out of the book of St. Dominic Savio, who, as one of his resolutions before making his First Holy Communion, was: “Death rather than sin!”
► Contrition must also be SUPERNATURAL and not purely natural, for that has no use. This is why contrition, like every other good thing, must come from God and from His grace―that is what makes it supernatural. Only the grace of God can engender it in us. Contrition, whether perfect or imperfect, is a gift which we cannot have unless it be given us by God. However, God always grants us the necessary grace provided that we ask it of Him, provided that we possess good will and a sincere and supernatural repentance. Actual grace is the supernatural assistance that enlightens the mind to know the will of God and strengthens the will to do the will of God. Hence, before starting the act of contrition, it is good to ask for this special grace. Without it, the act of contrition is useless.
Secondly, the act must be supernatural as to “motive.” If our repentance is based on a motive of interest, or for a purely natural reason (for instance, temporal evils, shame, or illness), then we will only have natural contrition, without any merit. However, if it is based on some truth of the Faith (such as Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, God, etc.), then we will truly possess a supernatural contrition. This supernatural contrition can be, in turn, PERFECT or IMPERFECT — and here we are come to our topic of Perfect Contrition.
Types of Contrition
The two general divisions of contrition are (1) PERFECT CONTRITION, (2) IMPERFECT CONTRITION and (3) FALSE CONTRITION. Let us first of all explain them briefly before taking a closer look at them.
PERFECT CONTRITION: The superior contrition is Perfect Contrition ― which has to do with the fact that we have offended God Who is all good and desiring of our love. It is based upon a sorrow of having offended someone whom we love and who loves us. Fear takes a back seat―while love is in the driving seat: “Perfect charity casts out fear, because fear has pain. And he that fears, is not perfected in charity” (1 John 4:18). Perfect love will not only cast out fear, but it will also cast out sin and any love for sin.
IMPERFECT CONTRITION: The inferior motive (Imperfect Contrition) has to do with the dread of the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell. Together with the Sacraments of Baptism and Penance, the inferior motive (fearing the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell) is sufficient for forgiveness of all sins. However, outside of those Sacraments, only the superior motive (a sorrow―based on love, not fear―for having offended God who is all good) will suffice for the forgiveness of all sins.
FALSE CONTRITION: A false, faked or pretended contrition is the most common kind of contrition. False contrition is an attempt to either fool God, for the priest, or fool ourselves―or a mixture of these—because, tragically, most people don’t work hard at sinning no more. They don’t really hate all of their sins (only some sins) and do not strive to be perfect out of a fear of going to Hell or out of the love of God. They know that they will go back to their sins, just as they know they will go back to Confession. It becomes a revolving door between the rooms of sin and sanctifying grace. What these souls fail to realize is that their confessions are invalid because of this lack of true sorrow for sin and a lack of firm purpose of amendment.
Perfect Contrition
Let us look at Perfect Contrition in some more detail. Is there a way we can obtain the greatest mercy from God? Yes there is―it can be achieved by what we call “A PERFECT ACT OF CONTRITION.” Just as there degrees of mercy, there are also degrees of contrition. In a few words, Perfect Contrition is contrition based on the motive of love, and Imperfect Contrition is that which is based on the fear of God. Perfect Contrition is that which flows from the perfect love of God. Now, our love of God is perfect if we love Him because He is infinitely perfect, infinitely beautiful, and infinitely good (love of benevolence), or because He has shown us His love in a wonderful way (love of gratitude). Our love of God is imperfect, if we love Him because we expect something from Him.
Our contrition is perfect when we are sorry for our sins because sin offends God, Whom we love above all things for His own sake. Our Lord alluded to this when speaking of Mary Magdalen to Simon the Pharisee: “‘Wherefore I say to thee, her sins, many as they are, shall be forgiven her, because she has loved much. But he, to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ And He said to her, ‘Thy sins are forgiven.’ And they, who were at table with Him, began to say within themselves, ‘Who is this Man, who even forgives sins?’ But He said to the woman, ‘Thy Faith has saved thee! Go in peace!’” (Luke 7:47-50).
(1) This contrition arises from a pure and perfect love of God. If we have a perfect love of God, our contrition for sins will be perfect. It ought not to be difficult for us to have a perfect love of God. We generally love our parents not for the food and clothes they give us, but for themselves, because we see their self-sacrifice, their unselfishness, and other good qualities. Thus we shall be sorry, not only because we fear punishment or dread the loss of His gifts, but because we offend the good God, to Whom nothing is more evil than sin. If we can love our parents spontaneously, not for any reward we expect or punishment we wish to avoid, why can we not love God, Who is infinitely more lovable than our parents? If we love God spontaneously, because He is lovable in Himself, our love is perfect.
Where there is true contrition, there is a complete change of life: the “old man” is exchanged for the “new.” As Scripture says: “Put off the old man, who is corrupted, and put on the new man, who is created in justice and holiness of truth. Wherefore putting away sin, be angry, and sin not!” (Ephesians 4:22-26). The sinful pleasures, once loved, are now hated; the dangerous occasions of sin are avoided; the soul is filled with hope in the merciful forgiveness of God, and filled also with a desire to keep His commandments for the time to come.
(2) It is easy to make an act of Perfect Contrition if we sincerely love God. We can excite ourselves to it by thinking of the Passion, of how good God is, how many favors He has granted us, and how ungrateful we have been to Him in return for His goodness. By thinking of God’s gifts, we realize a little the goodness of God and His worthiness to be loved for His own sake. We then feel sorry for having offended our Benefactor by the sins we have committed. But do not delude yourself with the thought that you will put off your repentance till the moment of death, and that then you will make an act of Perfect Contrition. Perfect Contrition is a grace given only to those of good will, and if anyone were to abandon himself to a life of sin with the hope of a death-bed repentance, he would find himself face to face with a Judge Who will say, “You will seek Me, but you will die in your sins!” (John 8:21).
(3) If we happen to be assisting at a deathbed, and no priest is available, we should help the dying person make an act of Perfect Contrition―or it may even be ourselves on our own deathbed. First of all, we must bear in mind that Perfect Contrition is a grace―a great grace― from God. Everyone should constantly pray for it. Get the dying person to beg often: “My God! Give me perfect sorrow for my sins!” If (by interiorly praying for them) you can get them to sincerely mean those words, then Our Lord will answer the prayer and the grace will be given. Is it difficult to make an act of Perfect Contrition? No doubt it is more difficult to make an act of Perfect Contrition than an Imperfect one, which suffices when we go to Confession. But still, there is no one who, if he sincerely wishes it, cannot, with the grace of God, make an act of Perfect Contrition. Sorrow is in the will, not in the senses or feelings. All that is needed is that we repent because we love God above everything else; that is all. True it is that Perfect Contrition has its degrees, but it is none the less perfect because it does not reach the intensity and sublimity of the sorrow of St. Peter, of St. Mary Magdalene, or of St. Aloysius. Such a degree is very desirable, but is by no means necessary. A lesser degree, but, provided it proceeds from the love of God, and not through fear of His punishments, is quite sufficient.
(4) We should form the habit of making an act of Perfect Contrition as often as possible. How can we be sure our act of Perfect Contrition is actually perfect? We cannot know! Yet we must exercise our Faith, Hope and Charity in raising our hearts to God with a pure a love as possible, and say at least some words such as: “O my God, I am sorry that I ever offended Thee, because Thou art so good, and I love Thee!”
Imperfect Contrition
Our contrition is imperfect when we are sorry for our sins because they are hateful in themselves, or because we fear God’s punishment. If, in the act of Imperfect Contrition, fear of Hell is the prevailing motive; then the sinner is more in love with himself than he is with God.
(1) Imperfect Contrition is called attrition. The fear of Hell is a common motive of attrition. It is a good motive, but it is imperfect, because it arises from fear of God’s punishments, and not from pure love for Him. A mother sent her three young sons to take a big jar of honey to their grandmother. On the way the boys stopped to play. They stumbled over the jar, breaking it and spilling the honey. They all began to weep. The first said, “Mother will surely spank us?” The second cried, “She will be so displeased she will give us no cookies!” And the third wept, “Mother will surely be sad!” The first two boys had attrition: one had the fear of punishment, and the second had sorrow at the loss of reward. The third child had Perfect Contrition, for he thought only of the sadness and offense he caused to one he loved.
(2) To receive the Sacrament of Penance worthily, Imperfect Contrition is sufficient. However, an act of attrition cannot obtain forgiveness of mortal sin without the absolution of a priest. Even if we feel only attrition for our sins, we can easily develop it into Perfect Contrition by remembering what we should be without God. We should always try to have Perfect Contrition in the Sacrament of Penance. Nevertheless, as stated above, Perfect Contrition is a grace given only to those of good will, and if anyone were to abandon himself to a life of sin with the hope of a death-bed repentance, he would find himself face to face with a Judge Who will say, “You will seek Me, but you will die in your sins!” (John 8:21). Perfect Contrition requires the desire not to sin again. If you do not have that desire, you cannot have Perfect Contrition. Nevertheless, Imperfect Contrition cannot remove the entire punishment that is still due to our confessed―even after we have confessed and they have been forgiven. Only Perfect Contrition is capable of doing that.
(3) A purely servile fear of God is not sufficient for Imperfect Contrition. That is one which makes a person avoid sin only because of punishment: so that, if there were no punishment, he would not be sorry, but ready and resolved to sin, regardless of the laws of God. To receive the Sacrament of Penance worthily, purely servile fear would not be sufficient. We call this fear “servile” because it is the fear of slaves, afraid of a hard taskmaster; they would quickly disobey his commands were they not afraid of his whips. Shall we look upon God thus? Servile fear does not make the sinner turn away from his sin. The “fear of God” that produces attrition is called filial fear. It is a fear of God’s punishments that makes the sinner turn away from sin and return sincerely to God; it is the fear that a good son who has offended his father seriously feels when he begs forgiveness.
False Contrition
False contrition or false sorrow for sin is the most common kind of contrition or sorrow. False contrition is an attempt to either fool God, for the priest, or fool ourselves―or a mixture of these— because, tragically, most people don’t work hard at sinning no more. They don’t really hate all of their sins (only some sins) and do not strive to be perfect out of a fear of going to Hell or out of the love of God. Or they work hard for a short while, and then all efforts are thrown out the window ― like a failed diet ― it hasn’t become a way of life from a true hatred for their sins. That is why the path to Heaven is narrow and only “many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:23-24) ― because they lack the necessary saving sanctifying grace in their souls.
Where there is true contrition the penitent yields, not without great efforts and struggle, and not until after he has fought a long and brave fight with the enemy. The relapsing sinner, on the contrary, shows that he has only a half purpose; not a firm full purpose. His will is half for God, and half for the devil. He is a double-minded man; and “a double-minded man is inconstant in all his ways” (James 1:8). The best sign for knowing whether the contrition was good or bad, is the amendment of life, or the relapse of the sinner. “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matthew 7:20). Judging ourselves by this test, we should fear that when we received the Sacrament of Penance we often had only a false and a bad contrition for our sins! “Be not without fear for sins forgiven” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) ― that is to say, sins that are supposed to have been forgiven.
What if we thought our contrition sufficient, when in reality it was defective? Then would be a great mistake! The Sacrament of Penance received unworthily, would be to us a source of ruin and damnation! Penance is a plank after shipwreck; and, as in time of shipwreck few save themselves by a plank, so it is only a few that save themselves by the plank of penance. True penitents, it is to be feared, are very rare. The time of St. Ambrose was remarkable for its illustrious penitents, and yet the Saint goes so far as to say: “I have more easily found him who shall have preserved his innocence unspotted, than he who, after a fall, shall have done worthy penance.”
Fr. Leonard Goffine, in his liturgical book, The Church’s Year, writes: “If sinners intend to repent on their deathbed for fear of punishment, they usually find that God in His justice will no longer give them the grace of repentance, for he who, when he can repent will not repent, cannot when he will. ‘Who will not listen at the time of grace,’ says St. Gregory, ‘will not be listened to in the time of anxiety!’ And it is to be feared that he who postpones penance until old age, will not find justice where he looked for mercy.”
So we must always ask ourselves and answer this question: “Just why are you sorry for your sins? Is it because you fear God, or because you love God? Or are you just mechanically saying you are sorry out of routine, without really being afraid of God, nor loving God?”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, a Doctor of the Church and the patron saint of moral theologians, writes: “The preacher should often speak out against bad confessions, in which sins are concealed through shame. This is an evil not of rare occurrence, but frequent, especially in small country districts, which consigns innumerable souls to Hell. Hence it is very useful to mention, from time to time, some example of souls that were damned by willfully concealing sins in confession.” If the concealing or “fudging” of sins is so common according to St. Alphonsus―then how much more common is the lack of sufficient contrition for sins even if they are not concealed? All of this is tantamount to a spiritual suicide!
The Wonderful Effects of Perfect Contrition
You can really call Perfect Contrition the Key to Heaven. Who gets to go to Heaven? Before you can enter Heaven, you must free of the guilt of mortal sin, (2) you must be in state of sanctifying grace; and (3) you must have paid your debts for your mortal and venial sins.
Our Lord said of Mary Magdalen: “Wherefore I say to thee: Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much!” (Luke 7:47). The Venerable St. Bede, commenting on this, writes: “What is love but fire; what is sin but rust? Hence it is said: ‘Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much!’―as though to say―“She has burned away the rust of sin entirely, because she is inflamed with the fire of love.”
Once you have confessed your mortal sins properly, but with imperfect contrition, then the guilt for sin is taken away―but the debt for those sins remains. Too many people falsely imagine that the Sacrament of Confession automatically takes away both the guilt and the debt. However, if your sorrow for sin is intense enough, then it is possible for the Sacrament of Confession to remove not only your guilt but also your debt. If you confess your sins with perfect contrition, then ALL the guilt and debt are taken away―and if, at that moment, you died, then you could walk straight into Heaven. However, if your contrition is imperfect, then ALL the guilt is taken away in Confession, but a certain amount of debt remains that you will have to pay through penance, until the debt is eventually removed. If you die with the debt unpaid―even though you are in a state of sanctifying grace―you will not go to Heaven, but to fires of Purgatory to pay the remainder of the debt.
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us: “Mortal sin turns us away from God, it induces a debt of eternal punishment … Whosoever sins against the eternal Good should be punished eternally ... In venial sins, he incurs a debt, not of eternal punishment, but of temporal punishment. Consequently when guilt is pardoned through grace, the soul ceases to be turned away from God, through being united to God by grace―so, at the same time, the debt of punishment is taken away, although a debt of some temporal punishment may yet remain ... A debt of some punishment remains after the guilt has been forgiven ... The entire debt of punishment is not remitted at once after the first act of Penance (Confession)―by which the guilt is remitted―but only when all the acts of Penance have been completed ... Man, by bearing punishment patiently with the help of Divine grace, is thereby released from the debt of temporal punishment … Contrition is the cause of the forgiveness of sin … The intensity of contrition may be regarded in two ways. First, on the part of charity, which causes the displeasure―and in this way it may happen that the act of charity is so intense that the contrition resulting therefrom merits not only the removal of guilt, but also the remission of all punishment. Secondly, on the part of the sensible sorrow, which the will excites in contrition―and since this sorrow is also a kind of punishment, it may be so intense as to suffice for the remission of both guilt and punishment … Although the sorrow of contrition is finite in its intensity, even as the punishment due for mortal sin is finite; yet it derives infinite power from charity, whereby it is quickened, and so it avails for the remission of both guilt and punishment” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 3a, q. 86, art 4; Supplement, q. 5, art. 2).
Councils and Canon Law on Contrition
The Council of Trent (1545-1563) declares: “The Council further teaches that, though contrition may sometimes be made perfect by charity and may reconcile men to God before the actual reception of this Sacrament, still the reconciliation is not to be ascribed to the contrition apart from the desire for the Sacrament which it includes.” Perfect contrition, with the desire of receiving the Sacrament of Penance, restores the sinner to a state of sanctifying grace immediately―but the sinner must still confess the mortal sins in the Sacrament of Confession at the next available opportunity.
An example of this is demonstrated in both the 1917 Code of Canon Law in canon 808, and also in the 1984 Code of Canon Law in canon 916, which state:
1917 CODE: “Priests conscious of grave sin, no matter how contrite they believe themselves to be, shall not dare to celebrate Mass without prior Sacramental Confession; but if because there is lacking a sufficient supply of confessors and there is urgent necessity, then he shall make an act of perfect contrition, celebrate, and as soon as possible confess.” (1917 Code of Canon Law, canon 808).
1984 CODE: “A person who is conscious of grave sin is not to celebrate Mass, or receive the Body of the Lord, without previous Sacramental Confession unless there is a grave reason and there is no opportunity to confess; in this case the person is to remember the obligation to make an act of perfect contrition which includes the resolution of confessing as soon as possible.” (1984 Code of Canon Law, canon 916).
The Council of Trent defined contrition as “sorrow of soul, and a hatred of sin committed, with a firm purpose of not sinning in the future.” It is also known as animi cruciatus (affliction of spirit) and compunctio cordis (an abiding sorrow of heart). The word “contrition” ― coming from the Latin verb “conterere” and its past participle “contritus”, meaning “grind or crush to pieces; bruise or crumble; wear down or away; to fill with terror” ― implies a breaking of something that has become hardened. St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Commentary on the Master of the Sentences, explains its peculiar use thus: “Since it is required, for the remission of sin, that a man cast away entirely the liking for sin―which implies a sort of continuity and solidity in his mind―the act which obtains forgiveness is termed, by a figure of speech, ‘contrition’.”
This sorrow of soul is not merely speculative sorrow (“lip-service” sorrow) for wrong done, nor merely remorse of conscience, nor just a resolve to amend―it is a heartfelt sorrow, a real pain and bitterness of soul, together with a hatred and horror for sin committed; and this hatred for sin leads to the resolve to sin no more. The formal doctrine of the Church, announced through the Council of Trent, declares that contrition has always been necessary to obtain pardon of one’s sins. Contrition is the first and indispensable condition for pardon. While it is possible in some cases for a person to receive pardon where confession is impossible, there is no case where sin can be pardoned without contrition.
Saints on Perfect Contrition
St. Maximilian Kolbe wrote a letter to his followers shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War (which took place from 1939 to 1945). The purpose of this letter was to exhort his disciples to prepare themselves for the approaching feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th. But it also showed them how to receive forgiveness for sin in the coming war, where priests were scarce and it was hard to receive Sacramental Confession. He wrote: “Whoever can, should receive the Sacrament of Penance. Whoever cannot, because of prohibiting circumstances, should cleanse his soul by acts of perfect contrition: i.e., the sorrow of a loving child, who does not consider so much the pain or reward, as he does the pardon from his father and mother to whom he has brought displeasure.” This is a magnificent formula and lesson on how to make an act of perfect contrition.
St. Francis of Sales writes: “In order that, the commandment of love may be fulfilled, God leaves no living man without furnishing him abundantly with all the means required. He gives us―not just a bare sufficiency of means to love Him and in loving Him to save ourselves―but also a rich, ample and magnificent sufficiency―such as ought to be expected from so great a bounty as His.”
St. John Chrysostom writes: “As a fire which has taken possession of a forest, cleans it out thoroughly, so the fire of love, wheresoever it falls, takes away and blots out everything that could injure the divine seed, and purges the earth for the reception of that seed. Where love is, there all evils are taken away.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori writes: “They shall not find Him [go to Heaven] because they will not seek Him through love [perfect contrition] but only through the fear of Hell [imperfect contrition]. They will seek God [His forgiveness] without renouncing their affection for sin [love for sin], and hence they shall not find him [because they still love some sins].”
St. Catherine of Siena, in her Dialogue (which concerns her dialogue with God), has God tell her: “As soon as the soul is deprived of grace, she is bound to sin―with a bond of hatred against virtue and love of vice. With this bond they have placed themselves by their free will in the hands of the Devil, and are bound to him, for in no other way could they be bound. If they have not corrected themselves with holy Confession and contrition of heart, they arrive at eternal damnation―being cut off from Me and being bound to the Devil, with whom they have leagued together.”
“Both the guilt and the penalty [punishment due] can be expiated by the desire of the soul―that is, by true contrition … Satisfaction for sin is made, through the desire of the soul, in greater or less degree, according to the measure of love … By contrition of the heart, together with love, I may receive satisfaction for the offences, which are done against Me by My creatures … God, Who is infinite, wishes for infinite love and infinite grief. Infinite grief I wish from My creature in two ways: in one way, through her sorrow for her own sins, which she has committed against Me, her Creator. In the other way, through her sorrow for the sins which she sees her neighbors commit against Me.”
“I do not, in general, grant to these others, for whom they pray, satisfaction for the penalty due to them, but, only for their guilt, since they are not disposed, on their side, to receive, with perfect love, My love. They do not receive the grief I send to them with humility and perfect contrition for the sins they have committed, but with imperfect love and contrition―that is why they do not obtain the remission of the penalty [punishment] for sin, but only a remission of the guilt for sin―because such complete satisfaction for sin requires proper dispositions on both sides, both in Him that gives and him that receives. Wherefore, since they are imperfect, they receive imperfectly.”
“Suffering satisfies for guilt by perfect contrition, and not through the finite pain. Those who have this contrition in perfection, satisfy, not only for the guilt, but also for the penalty which follows the guilt. If, having abandoned mortal sin, they satisfy for the guilt for sin alone―they receive sanctifying grace, but have not sufficient contrition and love to also satisfy for the penalty―and so they go to the pains of Purgatory … Sufferings are not, of themselves, a sufficient expiation for the sin and the pain due to it, unless they are combined with the affection of love, and true contrition and displeasure of sin … Satisfaction is made, in greater or less degree, according to the measure of love … It is necessary, therefore, that you should wash yourselves with true contrition of heart, and hatred of sin, and love of virtue.”
“The soul of St. Paul, became a vessel, disposed and reformed by My Goodness, and, on being struck down from his horse and blinded, made no resistance, but said: ‘My Lord, what dost Thou wish me to do ? Show me that which it is Thy pleasure for me to do, and I will do it!’ … I illuminated him perfectly with the light of true contrition and founded him in My charity.”
St. John Fisher sums it up nicely by saying, “All who have embraced true contrition, and penance for the sins they have committed, and are firmly resolved to not commit sin again for the future, but persevere constantly in the pursuit of virtues, which they have now begun, all these became sharers in the holy and eternal sacrifice in Heaven.”
St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, in his sermon, “Merit Absolution” says: “When anyone has really given up his sins, he must not be content simply with bewailing them. He must also give up, leave far behind, and fly from anything which is capable of leading him in the direction of them again. In other words, my dear brethren, we must be ready to suffer anything rather than fall back into those sins which we have just confessed. People should be able to see a complete change in us; otherwise we have not merited Absolution, and it could even be possible that we have indeed committed sacrilege. Alas, there are few in whom this change is apparent after having received Absolution! Dear God, what sacrileges are committed! If in every thirty Absolutions there were but one genuine case, how soon would the world be converted! Those people, who do not give sufficient signs of contrition, do not merit Absolution. Alas, how many times―because they are sent away―do they not come back anymore! This, of course, is because they have no real urge to be converted―for if they truly had a desire for conversion, then very far from leaving their Confession until another Easter, they would be working with all their hearts to change their lives and return to make their peace with God.”
Article 5
Monday February 13th to Wednesday February 15th, 2023
Don't You Just Love It?
The Amazing Power of Charity!
Monday February 13th to Wednesday February 15th, 2023
Don't You Just Love It?
The Amazing Power of Charity!
We All Love Good Deals!
Who doesn’t love a good deal? Everyone loves a bargain! Many people will boast about how good a bargain they managed to get! Advertisers bombard us every day from all sides―television, radio, internet, billboards, mailbox, etc. They include offers such as “Zero-interest-financing” … “Buy-one-get-one-free” … “Store liquidation sales” … “Clearance sales” … “Overstock sales” … “Reduced price while stocks last” … “Introductory offers” … “Lock-in prices” … “Frequent customer loyalty discounts” … “Seasonal discounts” … “Off peak discounts” … “New customer discounts”, etc.
God’s Good Deals
Nobody offers better deals than God! God is the God of Good Deals! He is the Good Deal God! How can you beat His offer of eternal life, eternal bliss, eternal joys, eternal peace, eternal well-being, eternal fulfillment, no physical disease or mental suffering, no more aging and bodily degeneration and deterioration, a perfect body, perfect health, perfect security and safety, perfect satisfaction, free lodging, free food, free travel, universal friendship, loving everyone and being loved by everyone, no arguments, no animosities, no grudges, no fights, no wars, no hatred, no envy, no jealousy, no sadness, no insinuations, no accusations, no recriminations, no condemnations, no finger-pointing, no gossip, no lies, no two-facedness, no let-downs, no suspicions, no ill-feelings, no bad memories, no feelings of guilt, no shame, no depression, no despondency ― and that is just the tip of the iceberg!
As Our Lord and Holy Scripture say: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20). “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away!” (Apocalypse 21:4). “The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come!” (Romans 8:18). “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal! But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal!” (Matthew 6:19-21) … “The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a treasure” (Matthew 13:44) … “Thou shalt have treasure in Heaven” (Matthew 19:21) ... “a treasure in Heaven which faileth not” (Luke 12:33). “An incorruptible and undefiled inheritance, that cannot fade, is reserved in Heaven for you!” (1 Peter 1:4). “Be glad and rejoice―for your reward is very great in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:12). “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
St. Dominic Savio, a Salesian student, died in 1857 and was canonized in 1954. After his death, Dominic appeared to his former teacher and priest―St. John Bosco―who describes the apparition to us: “I was in my room, in Lanzo. Suddenly, I saw myself on top of a hill. My gaze was lost in the immensity of a plain which was divided by broad avenues into vast gardens. The flowers, the trees, everything was very beautiful, and everything else was just as magnificent. While I was contemplating this beauty, I perceived the most pleasant music. There were a hundred thousand instruments, and each one producing a different sound. Choirs of singers joined their voices to the sound. As I listened in ecstasy to the heavenly harmony, there appeared a huge number of young people coming toward me. At their head walked Dominic Savio. All of them stopped in front of me at a distance of eight to ten paces … Then lightning flashed, the music ceased, and a great silence fell. Dominic Savio stepped forward a few more paces and stopped near me. How beautiful he was! His garments were unusual; his white tunic, which fell all the way to his feet, was embroidered with diamonds and sewn together with gold thread. A wide red sash was wrapped around his waist, it was embroidered with precious stones so close together that they touched each other. From his neck there hung a garland of flowers of a kind never before seen; they looked like diamonds connected together. These flowers sparkled with light. On his head was a crown of roses. His hair hung down to his shoulder in waves, and gave him such a beautiful appearance, so affecting, so attractive that he looked ― he looked like an angel. I trembled and could not speak.
“Then Dominic Savio said to me: ‘Why do you remain silent and dismayed?’
I responded: ‘I don’t know what to say! So, are you Dominic Savio?’
“‘It is I! Don’t you recognize me anymore?’
“‘And how does it happen that you are here?’
“‘I am to talk to you. Ask me any question at all!’
“‘Are all these wonders, that I see, natural?’
“‘Yes, but they have been embellished by the power of God.
“’To me it seemed that this was Paradise!’
“‘No, no! No mortal eye can see the eternal beauties!’
“‘And you―what do you enjoy in Paradise?’
“‘It is impossible to tell you. There is no mortal man who can know what one enjoys in Paradise, as he has not yet left this life and been reunited with his Creator!’”
What Do God’s Good Deals Cost?
God’s good deals are at a price that everyone can afford! “God wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth!” (1 Timothy 2:4). “For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting!” (John 3:16).
So there you have it―God wants everyone to get to Heaven―but not everyone is willing to pay the price, even though the price is rock-bottom in comparison to what you are getting. You are asked to pay a price over the course of a few years―several decades―but what are several decades in comparison to eternity? What is 60 years in comparison to 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (six thousand million million million) years―and that is not even the tip of the iceberg of eternity!
You can either pay in “gold” here and now, or you can take out “long-term-mortgage” in the fires of Purgatory. God would prefer that you take advantage of His generous discount by paying in “gold” here and now in this life, rather than taking the extremely expensive and painful mortgage in Purgatory―which can sometimes see payments made for several centuries! What is 60 years of low-payments compared to centuries of extremely high payments?
The Gold and Silver of Charity and the Cross
So what is the price of Heaven? Is it dollars and cents? No―the currency of Heaven is not dollars and cents, but LOVE and SUFFERING. Or, if you like, CHARITY and the CROSS. Love is something that money cannot buy―and suffering is something that nobody wants to buy. Our Lord puts it in a nutshell, or shows us both sides of the coin, when He says: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Our Lord then insists upon the carrying of the cross: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
In fact, when you really dig deep into love, then you will also find suffering in love―that is why Our Lord says: “Greater love than this no man has―that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Holy Scripture adds: “In this we have known the charity [love] of God, because He has laid down His life for us―and we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren!” (1 John 3:16). The more that we love―the more we are willing to suffer for what we love. This is beautifully explained in The Imitation of Christ (Book 3, Chapter 5: “The Effects of Divine Love”)―here are some excerpts from that chapter that show the strength and power of love in crosses and difficulties:
“Love is an excellent thing, a very great blessing, indeed ... for love is born of God … The noble love of Jesus spurs to great deeds ... He who is not ready to suffer all things and to stand resigned to the will of the Beloved, is not worthy to be called a lover. A lover must embrace willingly all that is difficult and bitter, for the sake of the Beloved, and he should not turn away from Him because of adversities ... Love often knows no limits, but overflows all boundaries ... One who is in love flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free, not bound ... Love is swift, sincere, kind, pleasant, and delightful. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, long-suffering, and manly.
“Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger … It makes every difficulty easy, and bears all wrongs calmly. For it bears a burden without being weighted and renders sweet all that is bitter … for there is no living in love without sorrow ... Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, and does not plead impossibility, because it believes that it may and can do all things. For this reason, it is able to do all, performing and effecting much, where he, who does not love, fails and falls ... Wearied, it is not tired. Pressed, it is not straitened. Alarmed, it is not confused, but like a living flame, a burning torch, it forces its way upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle. If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice.” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 5: “The Effects of Divine Love”).
Once we love, then we are prepared to suffer―and the more we love, the more we are prepared to suffer. To reach Heaven, we must suffer―as Our Lord pointed out: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). If we love God, we will fight for God and fight to reach God. This is true in both in secular life and the spiritual life. The more we love, the more we can endure. The less we love, the less we endure. Heaven is all about endurance ― “He that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Mark 13:13). Few are saved because few can endure what it takes to reach Heaven. And why can’t they endure much? Because they don’t love God very much! Love and endurance (or love and suffering, or love and the cross) go hand-in-hand. You could also compare them to the left leg and the right leg on the human body―we need both legs in order to win the race to Heaven: “Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty―I so fight, not as one beating the air! But I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway!” (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).
If, as Scripture says, “Faith without works is dead!” (James 2:20), then we could also say, “Charity without suffering is dead!” ― for Our Lord Himself links suffering with charity: “Greater love than this no man has―that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). By this, Our Lord says that someone who undergoes the ultimate suffering―which is the giving up of one’s own life―then that person manifests the highest degree of charity, which is what Our Lord did for us, laying down His life for us on Calvary. Therefore, lower degrees of suffering must be linked to lower degrees of charity. Charity cannot just exist in words alone―just like Faith without works is dead, so too could we say charity without works is dead. The words of Our Lord come to mind here: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). It is easy to SAY that you love someone, but it is harder to PROVE what you say is true―and that comes through actions and not only words. That is why Our Lord demands and commands: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24) ― “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
Keeping the commandments of God will invariably bring you suffering―and lots of it―especially today when the vast majority of mankind refuses to keep God’s commandments.
Suffering Tests and Strengthens Love
Holy Scripture gives us vivid image of suffering and love when it speaks of “silver tried by the fire” (Psalm 11:7). Suffering is necessary to try our love, to test our love, to prove our love: “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). “Count it all joy, when you shall fall into diverse temptations!” (James 1:2). “Blessed is the man that endures temptation―for when he has been proved, he shall receive a crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love Him” (James 1:12). “The trial of your Faith is much more precious than gold which is tried by the fire!” (1 Peter 1:7). “Gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:5). "As gold in the furnace the Lord hath proved them” (Wisdom 3:6). “As silver is tried in the fining-pot and gold in the furnace―so is a man is tried” (Proverbs 27:21). “The furnace trieth the potter’s vessels, and the trial of affliction trieth just men” (Ecclesiasticus 27:6). “Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer! Behold, the devil will cast some of you into prison that you may be tried―and you shall have tribulation. Be thou faithful until death―and I will give thee the crown of life!” (Apocalypse 2:10). “For Thou, O God, hast proved us! Thou hast tried us by fire, as silver is tried” (Psalm 65:10). “Thou hast proved my heart, and Thou hast tried me by fire!” (Psalm 16:3). “He has tried me as gold that passes through the fire!” (Job 23:10).
That is why Our Lord says things like: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) and Holy Scripture adds: “You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin!” (Hebrews 12:4).
Who doesn’t love a good deal? Everyone loves a bargain! Many people will boast about how good a bargain they managed to get! Advertisers bombard us every day from all sides―television, radio, internet, billboards, mailbox, etc. They include offers such as “Zero-interest-financing” … “Buy-one-get-one-free” … “Store liquidation sales” … “Clearance sales” … “Overstock sales” … “Reduced price while stocks last” … “Introductory offers” … “Lock-in prices” … “Frequent customer loyalty discounts” … “Seasonal discounts” … “Off peak discounts” … “New customer discounts”, etc.
God’s Good Deals
Nobody offers better deals than God! God is the God of Good Deals! He is the Good Deal God! How can you beat His offer of eternal life, eternal bliss, eternal joys, eternal peace, eternal well-being, eternal fulfillment, no physical disease or mental suffering, no more aging and bodily degeneration and deterioration, a perfect body, perfect health, perfect security and safety, perfect satisfaction, free lodging, free food, free travel, universal friendship, loving everyone and being loved by everyone, no arguments, no animosities, no grudges, no fights, no wars, no hatred, no envy, no jealousy, no sadness, no insinuations, no accusations, no recriminations, no condemnations, no finger-pointing, no gossip, no lies, no two-facedness, no let-downs, no suspicions, no ill-feelings, no bad memories, no feelings of guilt, no shame, no depression, no despondency ― and that is just the tip of the iceberg!
As Our Lord and Holy Scripture say: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20). “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away!” (Apocalypse 21:4). “The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come!” (Romans 8:18). “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal! But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal!” (Matthew 6:19-21) … “The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a treasure” (Matthew 13:44) … “Thou shalt have treasure in Heaven” (Matthew 19:21) ... “a treasure in Heaven which faileth not” (Luke 12:33). “An incorruptible and undefiled inheritance, that cannot fade, is reserved in Heaven for you!” (1 Peter 1:4). “Be glad and rejoice―for your reward is very great in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:12). “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
St. Dominic Savio, a Salesian student, died in 1857 and was canonized in 1954. After his death, Dominic appeared to his former teacher and priest―St. John Bosco―who describes the apparition to us: “I was in my room, in Lanzo. Suddenly, I saw myself on top of a hill. My gaze was lost in the immensity of a plain which was divided by broad avenues into vast gardens. The flowers, the trees, everything was very beautiful, and everything else was just as magnificent. While I was contemplating this beauty, I perceived the most pleasant music. There were a hundred thousand instruments, and each one producing a different sound. Choirs of singers joined their voices to the sound. As I listened in ecstasy to the heavenly harmony, there appeared a huge number of young people coming toward me. At their head walked Dominic Savio. All of them stopped in front of me at a distance of eight to ten paces … Then lightning flashed, the music ceased, and a great silence fell. Dominic Savio stepped forward a few more paces and stopped near me. How beautiful he was! His garments were unusual; his white tunic, which fell all the way to his feet, was embroidered with diamonds and sewn together with gold thread. A wide red sash was wrapped around his waist, it was embroidered with precious stones so close together that they touched each other. From his neck there hung a garland of flowers of a kind never before seen; they looked like diamonds connected together. These flowers sparkled with light. On his head was a crown of roses. His hair hung down to his shoulder in waves, and gave him such a beautiful appearance, so affecting, so attractive that he looked ― he looked like an angel. I trembled and could not speak.
“Then Dominic Savio said to me: ‘Why do you remain silent and dismayed?’
I responded: ‘I don’t know what to say! So, are you Dominic Savio?’
“‘It is I! Don’t you recognize me anymore?’
“‘And how does it happen that you are here?’
“‘I am to talk to you. Ask me any question at all!’
“‘Are all these wonders, that I see, natural?’
“‘Yes, but they have been embellished by the power of God.
“’To me it seemed that this was Paradise!’
“‘No, no! No mortal eye can see the eternal beauties!’
“‘And you―what do you enjoy in Paradise?’
“‘It is impossible to tell you. There is no mortal man who can know what one enjoys in Paradise, as he has not yet left this life and been reunited with his Creator!’”
What Do God’s Good Deals Cost?
God’s good deals are at a price that everyone can afford! “God wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth!” (1 Timothy 2:4). “For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting!” (John 3:16).
So there you have it―God wants everyone to get to Heaven―but not everyone is willing to pay the price, even though the price is rock-bottom in comparison to what you are getting. You are asked to pay a price over the course of a few years―several decades―but what are several decades in comparison to eternity? What is 60 years in comparison to 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (six thousand million million million) years―and that is not even the tip of the iceberg of eternity!
You can either pay in “gold” here and now, or you can take out “long-term-mortgage” in the fires of Purgatory. God would prefer that you take advantage of His generous discount by paying in “gold” here and now in this life, rather than taking the extremely expensive and painful mortgage in Purgatory―which can sometimes see payments made for several centuries! What is 60 years of low-payments compared to centuries of extremely high payments?
The Gold and Silver of Charity and the Cross
So what is the price of Heaven? Is it dollars and cents? No―the currency of Heaven is not dollars and cents, but LOVE and SUFFERING. Or, if you like, CHARITY and the CROSS. Love is something that money cannot buy―and suffering is something that nobody wants to buy. Our Lord puts it in a nutshell, or shows us both sides of the coin, when He says: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Our Lord then insists upon the carrying of the cross: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
In fact, when you really dig deep into love, then you will also find suffering in love―that is why Our Lord says: “Greater love than this no man has―that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Holy Scripture adds: “In this we have known the charity [love] of God, because He has laid down His life for us―and we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren!” (1 John 3:16). The more that we love―the more we are willing to suffer for what we love. This is beautifully explained in The Imitation of Christ (Book 3, Chapter 5: “The Effects of Divine Love”)―here are some excerpts from that chapter that show the strength and power of love in crosses and difficulties:
“Love is an excellent thing, a very great blessing, indeed ... for love is born of God … The noble love of Jesus spurs to great deeds ... He who is not ready to suffer all things and to stand resigned to the will of the Beloved, is not worthy to be called a lover. A lover must embrace willingly all that is difficult and bitter, for the sake of the Beloved, and he should not turn away from Him because of adversities ... Love often knows no limits, but overflows all boundaries ... One who is in love flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free, not bound ... Love is swift, sincere, kind, pleasant, and delightful. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, long-suffering, and manly.
“Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger … It makes every difficulty easy, and bears all wrongs calmly. For it bears a burden without being weighted and renders sweet all that is bitter … for there is no living in love without sorrow ... Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, and does not plead impossibility, because it believes that it may and can do all things. For this reason, it is able to do all, performing and effecting much, where he, who does not love, fails and falls ... Wearied, it is not tired. Pressed, it is not straitened. Alarmed, it is not confused, but like a living flame, a burning torch, it forces its way upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle. If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice.” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 5: “The Effects of Divine Love”).
Once we love, then we are prepared to suffer―and the more we love, the more we are prepared to suffer. To reach Heaven, we must suffer―as Our Lord pointed out: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). If we love God, we will fight for God and fight to reach God. This is true in both in secular life and the spiritual life. The more we love, the more we can endure. The less we love, the less we endure. Heaven is all about endurance ― “He that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Mark 13:13). Few are saved because few can endure what it takes to reach Heaven. And why can’t they endure much? Because they don’t love God very much! Love and endurance (or love and suffering, or love and the cross) go hand-in-hand. You could also compare them to the left leg and the right leg on the human body―we need both legs in order to win the race to Heaven: “Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty―I so fight, not as one beating the air! But I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway!” (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).
If, as Scripture says, “Faith without works is dead!” (James 2:20), then we could also say, “Charity without suffering is dead!” ― for Our Lord Himself links suffering with charity: “Greater love than this no man has―that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). By this, Our Lord says that someone who undergoes the ultimate suffering―which is the giving up of one’s own life―then that person manifests the highest degree of charity, which is what Our Lord did for us, laying down His life for us on Calvary. Therefore, lower degrees of suffering must be linked to lower degrees of charity. Charity cannot just exist in words alone―just like Faith without works is dead, so too could we say charity without works is dead. The words of Our Lord come to mind here: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). It is easy to SAY that you love someone, but it is harder to PROVE what you say is true―and that comes through actions and not only words. That is why Our Lord demands and commands: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24) ― “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
Keeping the commandments of God will invariably bring you suffering―and lots of it―especially today when the vast majority of mankind refuses to keep God’s commandments.
Suffering Tests and Strengthens Love
Holy Scripture gives us vivid image of suffering and love when it speaks of “silver tried by the fire” (Psalm 11:7). Suffering is necessary to try our love, to test our love, to prove our love: “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). “Count it all joy, when you shall fall into diverse temptations!” (James 1:2). “Blessed is the man that endures temptation―for when he has been proved, he shall receive a crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love Him” (James 1:12). “The trial of your Faith is much more precious than gold which is tried by the fire!” (1 Peter 1:7). “Gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:5). "As gold in the furnace the Lord hath proved them” (Wisdom 3:6). “As silver is tried in the fining-pot and gold in the furnace―so is a man is tried” (Proverbs 27:21). “The furnace trieth the potter’s vessels, and the trial of affliction trieth just men” (Ecclesiasticus 27:6). “Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer! Behold, the devil will cast some of you into prison that you may be tried―and you shall have tribulation. Be thou faithful until death―and I will give thee the crown of life!” (Apocalypse 2:10). “For Thou, O God, hast proved us! Thou hast tried us by fire, as silver is tried” (Psalm 65:10). “Thou hast proved my heart, and Thou hast tried me by fire!” (Psalm 16:3). “He has tried me as gold that passes through the fire!” (Job 23:10).
That is why Our Lord says things like: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) and Holy Scripture adds: “You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin!” (Hebrews 12:4).
Article 4
Wednesday February 8th & Thursday February 9th, 2023
Pay Your Debts With Lenten Gold!
Wednesday February 8th & Thursday February 9th, 2023
Pay Your Debts With Lenten Gold!
The Biggest Debt That Everyone Has
Sin is a legal debt to God, but not only a legal debt. Sin is breaking the Law of God (1 John 3:4). When someone breaks any of God’s laws, he has sinned; and the result is a punishment for breaking the law. After all, there is no law that does not have a punishment. So, when anyone sins, there is a legal debt to God―because it is God’s law that the sinner has broken and through sin (mortal sin) the sinner enters into a new contract with the devil; whereas by venial sin the sinner has entered into negotiations with the devil. The soul is “sold under sin” (Romans 7:14).
Through Christ’s death on the cross, we have been redeemed (bought back, ransomed) from having sold ourselves to the clutches of Satan through sin: “Whosoever commits sin, is the servant of sin!” (John 8:34). “He that commits sin is of the devil!” (1 John 3:8). Through mortal sin we legally contract ourselves to the devil―we no longer legally belong to God through being in a state of sanctifying grace. Instead, we rip-up our contract with God and sign a new contract with the devil.
St. Paul refers debt for sin when he speaks of Christ “blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us” (Colossians 2:14). That “handwriting of the decree against us” is simply “a certificate of debt for sin”. The Douay Rheims Bible translates it as: “Blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us. And he hath taken the same out of the way, fastening it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14) ― which, in simple and short terms means: Christ has removed our debt for sin by attaching that debt to the cross upon which He died for our sins. Other translations for Colossians 2:14 are:
● “Having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”
● “By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross.”
● “Having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away, nailing it to the cross.”
● “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.”
There is “a sin which is not unto death, and there is a sin unto death” (1 John 5:16-17) ― in theological terms, we call the sin that does not lead to death (death of sanctifying grace in the soul) under the name of Venial Sin; and the sin that leads to death (death of sanctifying grace in the soul) under the name of Mortal Sin. Nevertheless, both Mortal Sin and Venial are the two greatest evils in the world―and must be punished, each in its own way: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
Sin Does Not Pay―It Costs!
The words for “debt” in Greek are, epheilamata (which means a legal debt) and the word “hamartia” (which means the consequences of having done something wrong). Those consequences are a “death sentence.” Whichever way you look at it―sin incurs a penalty, a punishment, a fine, a debt, which has to be paid. This was clearly apparent from the time of Adam and Eve―when God told Adam and Eve that if they ever disobeyed God’s command forbidding them to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, then they would incur the “death penalty” and would have to pay the price of sin by death: “Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat! But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat! For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death!” (Genesis 2:16-17).
God essentially repeats that “Death Sentence” warning several times in Holy Scripture―in both the Old and New Testament:
► The Old Testament speaks of the terrible consequences of sin: “From the woman came the beginning of sin, and by her we all die!” (Ecclesiasticus 25:33). “Every man shall die for his own sin!” (2 Paralipomenon 25:4). “If the just man shall turn away from his justice and shall commit iniquity … then he shall die, he shall die in his sin!” (Ezechiel 3:20). “The soul that sins, the same shall die! … If the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity ― shall he live? All his justices which he hath done, shall not be remembered, and in his sins, which he has committed, in them he shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4 & 20 & 24). “Sin shall be destroyed with the sinner” (Ecclesiasticus 27:3). “They sought out all iniquities, till vengeance came upon them, and put an end to all their sins! … The people repented not, neither did they depart from their sins, until they were cast out of their land and were scattered throughout all the Earth” (Ecclesiasticus 47:31; 48:16). “Our God is so offended with sins, that he has sent word by His prophets to the people, that He will deliver them up [to chastisements] for their sins! … He will repay them for their sins!” (Judith 11:8, 15). “He will remember their iniquities and visit their sins!” (Jeremias 14:10). “In the day of revenge I will visit this sin also of theirs!” (Exodus 32:34). “I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with stripes!” (Psalm 88:33). “They have received, from the hand of the Lord, double for all their sins!” (Isaias 40:2). “Do not bind sin to sin―for even in one sin thou shalt not go unpunished!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:8). “We suffer thus for our sins!” (2 Machabees 7:32). “A wicked heart shall be laden with sorrows, and the sinner will add sin to sin” (Ecclesiasticus 3:29). “Sin makes nations miserable” (Proverbs 14:34).
► The Old Testament passage from Leviticus is a prolonged grave warning as to the severe consequences and price of sin: “If you despise My laws and do not those things which are appointed by Me, then I will do these things to you: I will quickly visit you with poverty and burning heat, which shall consume your lives! I will set my face against you and you shall fall down before your enemies! If you will still not obey Me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins … If you still walk contrary to Me and will not listen to Me, then I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins, and I will send beasts to destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number and that your highways may be desolate. And if you still will not amend, but will walk contrary to Me, then I will strike you seven times for your sins and bring in upon you the sword! But if, despite all this, you still will not listen to Me, I will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins, I will bring your cities to be a wilderness, and I will destroy your land, and I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed. You shall perish among the Gentiles, and an enemy’s land shall consume you! And if some remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies, and they shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers and their own sins―until they shall pray for their sins and confess their iniquities and the iniquities of their ancestors, whereby they have transgressed Me and walked contrary unto Me!” (Leviticus 26:15-41).
► The New Testament does not change the message―since God Himself does not change: “For I am the Lord, and I change not!” (Malachias 3:6), and so we read that: “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “Death reigned from Adam!” (Romans 5:14) “By one man sin entered into this world, and, by sin, death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). “Sin hath reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15). “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “When we were in the flesh, the passions of sins did work in us to bring forth fruit unto death!” (Romans 7:5).
Can We Pay the Debt for Sin?
Protestants say that we cannot possibly pay the debt incurred by our sins―and on this point, they are correct. The reason is that the gravity of sin is measured from multiple angles―one of those is the seriousness of sinful thought, word, action or omission; another perspective that can increase the seriousness of a sin is the dignity and innocence of the person who is sinned against. If you give the same punch with the same power to a variety of persons―even though the force of the punch remains the same―the gravity of your action increases with the level of the dignity and innocence of the person being punched. To punch someone who is attacking you is not a sin, for you are merely defending yourself. To punch an innocent person is worse. Yet to punch a stranger is not as bad as punching your siblings; even worse is the act of punching your parents; worse still is punching a priest; worse still is the punching of a bishop; worse still is the punching of a pope. Yet if you were to punch Christ―Who is God Himself―then it would be far worse than all the previously mentioned persons.
Christ, being God, is an infinite Being and an innocent Being―and therefore the sin committed against Christ would be an infinite sin and would contract an infinite debt, because He is infinite. We―being mere finite human beings―cannot possibly pay an infinite debt. Even when we sin against other finite human beings, we indirectly sin again God, for Christ said: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40). So yes, technically, we cannot pay our entire debt for sin―but does that mean that we are exempt from paying something? In modern parlance, we must “co-pay” with Christ―even though He pays the debt for all sin―we must acknowledge our sinfulness and guilt by paying something. By doing penance, we acknowledge that we are sinners and we punish ourselves through those acts of penance.
Furthermore, there is double aspect to each sin that we commit―(1) the aspect of guilt for sin; and (2) the aspect of debt for sin. When our sins are forgiven in the Sacrament of Confession―it is primarily the guilt for sin that is removed; whereas a penalty or punishment for sin is only partially removed by the penance that the priest imposes upon us. That imposition of a penance―which is often something like three Hail Marys or something similar―should be looked upon as merely being a “first payment” of a “fine” imposed upon us. Just as we incrementally pay our mortgage debt every month for many years―the same is true of the “mortgage of Mortal Sin” or even Venial Sin. Most people only make one payment and forget about the rest.
Protestants (and Some Catholics) Wrongly Imagine Christ Paid All Debt for Sin
Most Protestants are victims of the misguided and erroneous belief that Christ has paid for all our sins by His death on the cross―and that we don’t have to pay for sin, since Christ already paid for the debt of everyone’s sins! They will quote Scriptural passages such as the following:
“Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many” (Hebrews 9:28). “Who His own self bore our sins in His Body upon the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). “Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust” (1 Peter 3:18). “He is the propitiation for our sins―and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world!” (1 John 2:2). “When you were dead in your offences and sins” (Ephesians 2:1) ... “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3) … “that He might be a propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17) … “Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us” (Galatians 1:4]). “In Whom we have redemption and the remission of sins through His Blood” (Ephesians 1:7). “Jesus Christ has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own Blood!” (Apocalypse 1:5). “The Blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
If Christ paid every last penny of our sinful debt with God―leaving us with nothing at all to pay for―then why would Holy Scripture and Christ say the following:
“John was in the desert baptizing, and preaching the baptism of penance … And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins … And John the Baptist came preaching and saying: ‘Do penance! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! … Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance! … Every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire!’” (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3, 9; Matthew 3:1-2, 8).
Christ Himself said: “I came to call sinners to penance! … From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say: ‘Do penance, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein were done the most of his miracles, for that they had not done penance: ‘Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida! For if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles and mighty works that have been wrought in you, they would have done penance in sackcloth and ashes long ago! … The men of Ninive shall rise in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they did penance at the preaching of Jonas; and behold more than Jonas here! … I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … Again I say to you; except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance! … I say to you, there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance!’ … And Jesus said to them that penance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name, unto all nations! … And they, going forth, preached that men should do penance!” (Matthew 4:17; 11:20-21; Luke 5:32; 10:13; 11:32; 13:3-5; 15:7, 10; 24:46-67; Mark 6:12).
The Apostles preached penance: “Peter said to them: ‘Do penance … for the remission of your sins!’” (Acts 2:38) … “Knowest thou not that God leadeth thee to penance?” (Romans 2:4) … “God now declareth unto men that all should everywhere do penance!” (Acts 17:30). “The Lord dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9). “Be zealous therefore, and do penance!” (Apocalypse 3:19). “Do penance for thy wickedness; and pray to God that this may be forgiven thee!” (Acts 8:22).
The Church Preached Penance Continually
From the earliest days of the Church, penance has been preached, understood, accepted and performed. At first, post-Baptism repentance mostly was practiced for grievous, scandalous, public sins like murder (including abortion), apostasy or adultery. These sins resulted in severe, lengthy and public penances. By the second century, especially in the East, people widely held that penance for mortal sin was available only once in a lifetime — that is, as there was (is) no second Baptism, there was no second penance. Those who sinned again were at the mercy of God. Between A.D. 387-90, St. Ambrose wrote: “Rightly are they reproved who think that they can do penance repeatedly; for they are making a farce of Christ. Indeed, if they truly did penance, they would take no thought of repeating it afterwards. For just as there is one Baptism, so, too, is there one penance, which, however, is done publicly; for it is necessary to repent of daily sin; this latter, however, is of lesser faults, the former of the more grave.”
No Christian living in those early centuries believed you could commit mortal sin, go to Confession and be quickly forgiven. Confession was to be heard by a bishop for serious, public sins. Mortal sins were sins against both God and all other Christians, and there could be no easy reconciliation. The penitent’s life was meant to be seriously disrupted. People believed that the remedy for grievous public sin was most effective if the penance likewise was done in public. Thus the assigned punishment (and, for a while even, the confessed sin) often was announced in front of the Christian community. There was no vindictiveness intended, as the purpose was for the entire community to pray for the sinner’s reconciliation. Penitential periods could last for months or years, and it was difficult to determine how much punishment was enough. Absolution was given only after the assigned penance was completed.
There is evidence that, in some areas, those who confessed mortal sin would be brought together on Ash Wednesday, and the bishop would assign each a public penance. In his 1881 book “The Beauties of the Catholic Church,” Father F.J. Shadler wrote: “The penitents would remain at the church door, dressed in penitential robes, with bare heads and bare feet, and in silence and humility await the arrival of the bishop and clergy, who were to introduce them into the church. When they entered the church, the whole congregation fell upon their knees and recited the seven penitential psalms for the sinners; then the bishop arose, sprinkled the new penitents with holy water, placed ashes upon their heads, admonished them in an earnest address to perform faithfully and contritely the penance he had given them, and again led them out of the church, saying: ‘On account of your sins you must now be expelled from the church, as Adam was driven by God from paradise on account of his disobedience.’”
Punishment varied but typically included denying the sinner from receiving Holy Communion and worshipping with his neighbors. The individual basically was excommunicated. Often they had to go on long pilgrimages, many couldn’t marry or, if married, had to refrain from spousal intimacy; some couldn’t hold public office. While not necessarily the norm, there were locations where sinners were grouped together in what was known as the order of penitents. In those days the gravity of sin was clearly taught and felt.
Penitential Canons & Penitential Books
The seventh century brought with it a relaxation, not indeed in canonical penance, but in the ecclesiastical control; on the other hand, there was an increase in the number of crimes which demanded a fixed penance if discipline was to be maintained; besides, many hereditary rights of a particular nature, which had led to a certain mitigation of the universal norm of penance, had to be taken into consideration; substitutes and so-called redemptiones, which consisted in pecuniary donations to the poor or to public utilities, gradually gained entrance and vogue; all this necessitated the drawing up of comprehensive lists of the various crimes and of the penances to be imposed for them, so that a certain uniformity among confessors might be reached as to the treatment of penitents and the administration of the Sacraments.
The administration of the Sacrament of Penance required a clear notion of the various sins and their species, of their relative grievousness and importance, and of the penance to be imposed for them. In order to ensure uniform procedure, it was necessary for ecclesiastical superiors to lay down more detailed directions; this they did either of their own accord or in answer to inquiries. Writings of this kind are the pastoral or canonical letters of St. Cyprian, St. Peter of Alexandria, St. Basil of Cappadocia, and St. Gregory of Nyssa; the decretals and synodal letters of a number of popes, as Siricius, Innocent, Celestine, Leo I, etc.; canons of several Ecumenical councils. These decrees were collected at an early date and used by the bishops and priests as a norm in distinguishing sins and in imposing ecclesiastical penance for them.
These lists of sins and their corresponding recommended penances, gave rise to what are called “Penitential Books” ― some of them, bearing the sanction of the Church, closely followed the ancient canonical decrees of the popes and the councils, and the approved statutes of St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and others; others were merely private works, which, recommended by the renown of their authors, found a wide circulation, others again went too far in their decisions and hence constrained ecclesiastical superiors either to reprehend or condemn them.
Penitential Books (containing Penitential Canons) were rules, laid down by councils or bishops, concerning the penances to be done for various sins. These canons, collected, adapted to later practice, and completed by suitable directions formed the nucleus of the Penitential Books. They all belong to the ancient penitential discipline and have now only an historic interest; if the writers of the classical period continue to cite them, it is only as examples, and to excite sinners to repentance by reminding them of earlier severity. In a certain sense they still survive, for the granting of indulgences is still based on the periods of penance, years, day, and quarantines. The penitential canons may be divided into three classes corresponding to the penitential discipline of the East, of Rome, or of the Anglo-Saxon Churches.
The ascendancy of the so-called “Penitential Books” dated from the seventh century, when a change took place in the practice of ecclesiastical penance. Till then it had been a time-honored law in the Church that the three capital crimes: apostasy, murder, and adultery, were to be atoned for by an accurately determined penance, which was public at least for public sins.
Severity of Penance
This atonement, which consisted chiefly in severe fasts and public, humiliating practices, was accompanied by various religious ceremonies under the strict supervision of the Church; it included four distinct stations or classes of penitents. The penance imposed on sinners was a longer or shorter period of exclusion from Holy Communion and the Mass, to which they were gradually admitted to the different penitential “stations” or classes. The different periods spent in penance amounted in all to three, five, ten, twelve, or fifteen years, according to the gravity of the sins. At times the penance could even last from fifteen to twenty years.
At an early period, however, the capital sins mentioned above were divided into sections, according as the circumstances were either aggravating or attenuating, and a correspondingly longer or shorter period of penance was set down for them. When in the course of centuries, entire nations, uncivilized and dominated by fierce passions, were received into the bosom of the Church, and when, as a result, heinous crimes began to multiply, many offences, akin to those mentioned above, were included among sins which were subject to canonical penances, while for others, especially for secret sins, the priest determined the penance, its duration and mode, by the canons.
The Penitential Groups
(1) The first group were the lower class, the “weepers” (Greek: proschlaiontes; Latin: flentes), mentioned occasionally, were not yet admitted to penance and therefore are not part of the group of three; they were great sinners who had to await their admission outside of the church. They remained outside the church door and begged the intercession of the faithful as these passed into the church.
(2) Once admitted, the penitents became “hearers” (Greek: achrooeenoi; Latin: audientes), and were stationed in the narthex of the church (the entrance lobby) behind the catechumens and were permitted to remain during the Mass of the Catechumens, i.e., until the end of the sermon. Thus they only partially assisted at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, listening to the Lessons, Gospel and the homily, after which they had to leave the church before the Offertory of the Mass began.
(3) The third group were the “prostrated” (Greek: hypopiptontes; Latin: prostrati, substrati), or the “kneeling” (Latin: genuflectentes), because the bishop, before excluding them, prayed over them while imposing his hands on them as they lay prostrate or were kneeling.
(4) Finally the penitents occupying the fourth or highest penitential station, the “attenders” or “bystanders” (Greek: systantes; Latin: consistentes), who were allowed to stand alongside the faithful Catholics for the entire Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―no longer having to lay prostrate on the ground, or kneel all the time, but they could still not receive Holy Communion.
As already stated, the different periods spent in penance amounted in all to three, five, ten, twelve, fifteen years, or even twenty years―according to the gravity of the sins. This discipline, which was rapidly mitigated, ceased to be observed by the close of the fourth century.
Penitential Canons of the Anglo-Saxon and Irish Churches
On the other hand, what is more striking in the penitential canons of Anglo-Saxon and Irish origin, is the particular fixation of the penitential acts imposed on the sinner to insure reparation, and their duration in days, quarantines (carina), and years; these consisted in more or less rigorous fasts, prostrations, deprivation of things otherwise allowable; also alms, prayers, pilgrimages, etc. These canons, unknown to us in their original sources, are contained in the numerous so-called Penitential Books (Libri Poenitentiales) or collections made in, and in vogue from the seventh century. These canons and the penitential discipline they represent are introduced to the European Continent by Anglo-Saxon missionaries, and were at first received unfavourably (Council of Chalons, 814; Paris, 829); finally, however, they were adopted and gradually mitigated.
To give some idea of the ancient discipline, the penalties attached to graver crimes are cited here from the English and Irish Penitentials.
● For stealing, Cummian prescribes that a layman shall do one year of penance; a cleric, two years; a subdeacon three years; a deacon, four years; a priest, five years; a bishop, six years.
● For murder or perjury, the penance lasted three, five, six, seven, ten or twelve years―according to the criminal’s rank.
● Theodore commands that if any one leave the Catholic Church, join the heretics, and induce others to do the same, he shall, in case he repent, do penance for twelve years.
● For the perjurer―who swears by the Church, the Gospel, or the relics of the saints―Egbert prescribes seven or eleven years of penance.
● Usury entailed three years; infanticide, fifteen years of penance;
● Idolatry or demon-worship, ten years of penance.
● Violations of the sixth commandment were punished with great severity; the penance varied, according to the nature of the sin, from three to fifteen years, the extreme penalty being prescribed for incest, i.e., fifteen to twenty-five years.
Whatever its duration, the penance included fasting on bread and water, either for the whole period or for a specified portion. Those who could not fast were obliged instead to recite daily a certain number of psalms, to give alms, take the discipline (self-scourging) or perform some other penitential exercise as determined by the confessor.
Painting a True Picture of Sin
All of the above should go long way to awakening or re-awakening in us a sense of sin that recent popes have complained that we have lost. We look upon sin too lightly―we commit sin too easily―we even find some sins to be fun or funny. “A fool will laugh at sin!” (Proverbs 14:9) and “the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin! And say not: ‘The mercy of the Lord is great, He will have mercy on the multitude of my sins!’” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5-6). “Be not deceived! God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “Do not bind sin to sin―for even in one sin thou shalt not be unpunished!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:8). “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). The ultimate worst thing is that they “deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to be cast into prison! Amen I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou repay the last penny!” (Matthew 5:25-26).
Of course, hardly anybody reads Holy Scripture―it was therefore necessary for God to attract our attention to the gravity and dangerous consequences of sin by sending His most Holy Mother to warn us what we should already know. Our Lady warned: “Oh, if only human beings knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God! How differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! … There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … People think of nothing but amusements … They become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … Unbridled luxury that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! …
“Many men in this world afflict the Lord … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … Nature is asking for vengeance because of man, and she trembles, with dread, at what must happen to the Earth stained with crime! ... If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge [the Great Flood in Noe’s time], such as one never seen before! Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead! … The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness! … If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! … Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will strike in an unprecedented way. God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together! … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other. The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God!”
Hmm! What happened to the Protestant idea that Jesus has paid for all our sins and that all we have to do is believe in Jesus and we are saved? Catholics believe in Jesus―yet as Our Lord Himself and many of His saints tell us, the truth is that most Catholic souls end up in Hell (and the same is all the more true for non-Catholics).
Neglecting the Remedies
The fire of Hell has already been ignited in this world, but nobody really cares―nobody is calling the Fire Department (Heaven, God, Christ, Our Lady, saints and angels), nobody is using the fire-extinguishers (prayer, penance, sacrifices) and nobody wants to escape through the Emergency Exit Door (Sacrament of Confession). Our Lady laments this state of affairs, saying:
“No one on the face of the Earth is aware from where comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents … Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils!”
It does not take a “rocket-scientist” or a genius to realize that the world IS LACKING monasteries and convents! Furthermore, it is totally true that “men do not comprehend the importance of them” and are therefore not seeking to increase and multiply them! During the twentieth century, religious life started to decline very steeply. Worldwide, the number of religious decreased by 33% between 1970 and 2020. In the West, the decline is more severe. In the United States, the numbers dropped by 71% between 1970 and 2018, and in Europe by 60% between 1973 and 2018. IN other words, in the world they only have 67% of the number of vocations they had in 1970; in Europe only 40%; and in the USA only 29% of what they had in 1970. The average age of those in a religious vocation is now well into the 70s. According to a recent study, less than 1% of nuns in America are under 40, and the average sister is 80 years old.
It is not as though there are far less Catholics in world, quite the contrary―during the same time frame (1970 to 2018) the Catholic world population increased from 650 million in 1970 to 1,300 million in 2018―that is double to what it was in 1970, a 100% increase. You would imagine that vocations would increase in proportion to the 100% Catholic population increase since 1970―but the opposite is true.
Our Lady said that it was the prayers and penances from the monasteries and convents that helped and protected the world―so obviously a 33%, or 60% or 71% fall in vocations, naturally means an proportionate drop in prayers, penances and sacrifices. Add to that the fact that many religious orders have a much lighter prayer load than in the pre-Vatican II days. Basically, the Breviary (also called The Divine Office, or The Liturgy of the Hours) has been greatly reduced―whereby the prayer time has been reduced by around 40%. Do your own math as regards to the quantity of prayer being produced in monasteries and convents today―only 29% of religious vocations left and they are praying 40% less. What does that equal? Our Lady gives you the answer: “The salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents … Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents!”
The Failure or Absence of Leadership
Our Lady of Good Success, La Salette, Fatima and Akita spoke of this neglect, absence and failure of leadership in the Church: “The secular Clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties. Lacking the divine compass, they will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain ... Woe to the Princes of the Church who think only of piling riches upon riches, to protect their authority and dominate with pride ... What is most grievous is that even the ministers of My Most Holy Son do not give to it the value that they should, viewing with cold indifference this valuable and precious treasure, which has been placed in their hands for the restoration of souls redeemed by the Blood of the Redeemer. There are those who consider hearing confession as a loss of time and a futile thing ... Making use of persons in positions of authority, the devil will assiduously try to destroy the Sacrament of Confession … The same will happen with Holy Communion …
“Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish … God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family ... Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell ... The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God … and men will become more and more perverted …
“Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist … A great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts ... The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity ... These corrupted priests will scandalize the Christian people, will incite the hatred of the bad Christians and the enemies of the Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church to fall upon all priests! … If men do not amend their ways, a terrifying scourge of fire will come down from Heaven upon all the nations of the world, and men will be punished according to the debts contracted with Divine justice!”
So What Can We Do?
Whenever leadership fails, then the weight of leadership falls upon some lower rank. The military regulations state that “If a commander of an Army unit dies, becomes disabled, or is temporarily absent … the senior regularly assigned Army Soldier will assume command” ― meaning that, in the case of an officer being seriously wounded, or killed, or captured, the most senior member of the remaining soldiers takes charge. Similarly, in politics, you have a President and a Vce-President ― whereby if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office, then the vice president automatically becomes president. Likewise, in commercial airplane flights, you have a pilot and a co-pilot ― and though the pilot is the ultimate authority on an aircraft, the co-pilot, otherwise known as the first officer, is trained and qualified to fly the plane in the event of an emergency or to provide the pilot a break. The co-pilot will also take command if the captain becomes ill or incapacitated. In a family, the husband father is much like a pilot or president, while the wife and mother is like a co-pilot or vice-president ― in the absence, death or incapacitation of the husband and father, it is the wife and mother who takes charge and carries out the duties of her husband. If you are in the passenger seat of a car traveling at 60 mph on the interstate, and the car driver sat next to you falls unconscious, then you have to assume control of the car, grab the steering wheel, put the car transmission on Neutral and let the car drop it speed as you slowly guide the car to the nearest emergency lane/stop or any clear area that is off the road.
The same applies in the case of the Church. The religious (monks, brothers, nuns and sisters) are the lowest ranking commissioned “officers” in the Church―below them are the laity, among whom there might be some “NCOs” (non-commissioned officers ― which are made up of varying degrees or levels of corporals and sergeants), such a Third Order Members (also called Tertiaries, the term “tertiary” comes from the Latin tertiarius, meaning “third”), who are lay members of Catholic Religious Orders, but who do not necessarily live in a religious community such as a monastery or a convent. Religious Orders that arose in the 12th-13th centuries often had a First Order (the male religious, who were generally the first established), the Second Order (the nuns, established second), and then the Third Order (the laity who were established third). Third Order members (Tertiaries) are those persons who live according to the Third Rule of religious orders, either outside of a monastery in the world, or in a religious community. They are persons who, on account of certain circumstances cannot enter a religious order, may want, as far as possible, to associate themselves with a particular Religious Order, and enjoy the advantages and privileges of that Religious Orders. In some cases the members of a Third Order, wishing to live in a more monastic and regulated way of life, became “Regulars” (religious living under a rule, in Latin, regula) as members of a religious institute. These religious institutes or “congregations” or “confraternities” are classified as belonging to the Third Order Regular. Therefore, in a nutshell, members of Third Orders are either (a) Regulars, living in common under a religious rule of life, or (b) Seculars, living in the world.
The Three Orders―male religious, female religious and tertiaries―constitute a hierarchy within each Religious Order. In a similar way, each family has Three Orders within itself―the father, the mother and children―and they too constitute a hierarchy. In the absence of the father, the mother takes charge. In the absence of both father and mother, the eldest child takes charge. The same can be said of the “absence” of bishops, priests and religious―if they are not fulfilling their duties in supplying the flock of the faithful with what is needed, then the flock of the faithful needs to “forage” for itself.
Our Lady Calls Us To The Fight
“Men, in spite of repeated warnings, are not returning to God! They refuse grace, and are not listening to my voice! … Today, more than ever, men are, resisting the calls from Heaven, and are blaspheming God, while wallowing in the mire of sin … The cause of such great sadness is the sight of so many souls going to Hell, and because the Church is wounded – inwardly and outwardly … But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God! God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Pray the Rosary every day … ”
“God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the Holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in Its poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and mankind will make great progress in its Faith, for there will be unity among the workers of Jesus Christ and man will live in fear of God.”
“O, if men only understood how to appreciate the time given to them and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!”
Sr. Lucia of Fatima partially touches on this subject when she says: “We should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No, Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed. So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway.”
“Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world. As for the Holy Rosary, Father, in these last times in which we are living, the Blessed Virgin has given a new efficacy to the praying of the Holy Rosary. This in such a way that there is no problem that cannot be resolved by praying the Rosary, no matter how difficult it is ― be it temporal or above all spiritual ― in the spiritual life of each of us, in the personal life of each one of us, or the lives of our families, be they our families, of the families of the world, or Religious Communities, or even in the lives of peoples and nations. I repeat, there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve at this time by praying the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
The Family is a Church, Monastery and Convent
With the ever-increasing collapse of Faith and Morals within the Church, the family is also in danger of collapse. Sr. Lucia of Fatima was told by Our Lady that Satan was going to focus his attacks on the family―which makes sense, since the family is basic building block or brick of the building of the Church.
Attacks on the family have dramatically intensified to the point where its nature (the marital unity of a man and a woman) and its purpose (an indissoluble union, and procreativity) have been fundamentally rejected in the West and a false sinful vision of reality has been substituted for God’s created order. We are slowly awakening to the truth that, as a society, we have truly lost the Christian vision of what a family is. This rejection of God’s truth about the family has been costly: family life is deeply fractured and family members are profoundly wounded.
The family is meant to be a reflection of the Church―just like children reflect their parents. Christian spouses, by virtue of the Sacrament of Marriage, are the sign or symbol of the mystery of unity and fruitful love between Christ and the Church (cf. Ephesians 5:21-33). What the Church is on a large scale, the family is on a small scale. Both St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom well understood this active power of the Holy Spirit transforming the Christian family and saw that the family possessed an ecclesial nature. St. John Chrysostom, like St. Augustine, called the family the little church (Greek: ekklesia micra) or the domestic church (Latin: ecclesia domestica).
Since the nature of the family is truly ecclesial, then the mission and the structures of the Church have to be found, in an appropriate form, in the family. The family has to be a reflection of the Church―just as children are reflections of their parents. This is what the Church Fathers stated. For example, St. Augustine saw the father as acting in a bishop-like role—protecting his family in Faith and Morals from heresy and immorality, while exhorting and focusing his family upon God and explaining the Scriptures to them. St. John Chrysostom urged that Christian families have two tables/altars (mensa) in their home, one for food and one for the Word of God. He emphasized the need to be thoroughly grounded in the Scriptures as a protection against evil. For both St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom, there was a sacred order (hierarchy) in the family.
Quarantining
If the Church is failing, there is no reason why the family should be failing along with it. If one part of the body is diseased, it does not mean that each and every part of the body must be diseased. If there is a fire in one room of the house, it does not automatically mean that every room will be engulfed by the fire. Just as there are ways to limit the spread of a fire, there are also ways in which to limit the fires of apostasy, heresy, lukewarmness, indifferentism and immorality. One such way is simply “quarantining” (removing/separating/isolating) your family from these harmful dangers―which is what Holy Scripture tells us: “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers! What fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God! As God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17). So first of all―get out of the way of what will burn you or burn your Faith!
Your Weapons for the Fight!
The basic weapons were outlined by Our Lord, when He spoke to His Apostles on how to cast-out the devil: “He said to them: ‘This kind can go out by nothing, but by prayer and fasting!’” (Mark 9:28) … “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). The need for prayer and fasting to cast out demons today is especially highlighted by the words of the famous chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth († 2016), who said: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … The whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican! … The demon tempts the authorities of the Church ― just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
In view of the fact that that Satan currently controls the vast majority of the world (and the Church), it is of paramount importance that we regularly have recourse to both prayer and fasting.
► PRAYER: You MUST encourage and lead your family to regularly embrace PRAYER―and Lent is a wonderful time to start! PRAYER is like breathing―it is not only a Lenten exercise, but a daily exercise, an hourly exercise, even a constant exercise―as Holy Scripture teaches: We ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times!” (Luke 21:36). “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). The problem is that the devil has grabbed everyone’s attention instead―for people are on their smartphones “always” … “at all times” and “without ceasing”, or on the internet, or watching the television, or engrossed in some other electronic appliance. Families are going to have to do a lot of hard and painful work to turn that around and to turn back to Christ!
► FASTING: You MUST also encourage and lead your family to regularly embrace PENANCE, we MUST make SACRIFICES―for, as Our Lord said: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! (Luke 5:3) … “No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish! (Luke 13:3-5). To which Holy Scripture adds: “God declares unto men that all should everywhere do penance!” (Acts 17:30) ... “The Lord wills that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9) … “Let him do penance for his sin!” (Leviticus 5:5) ... “Hear, I beseech you, and do penance!” (Job 21:2) ... “Do penance―for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! … Bring forth fruit worthy of penance!” (Matthew 3:2, 8) ... “Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin!” (Ezechiel 18:30) ... “Do penance and pray to God, that you may be forgiven!” (Acts 8:22) ... “If My people― being converted―shall pray to Me and seek out My face, and do penance for their most wicked ways―then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land!” (2 Paralipomenon 7:14). One of the most powerful penances that we can perform is that of fasting.
Fatima Children and Penance
In 1916, even before Our Lady appeared at Fatima in 1917, the Angel of Portugal―in his second apparition to the children then aged 9, 8 and 6―scolded them for playing too much and praying too little. He encouraged them to perform much penance and many sacrifices: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers unceasingly and sacrifice yourselves to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners! Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
At her very first apparition, in May of 1917, Our Lady of Fatima had no hesitation in asking mere children―then aged 10, 8 and 7― to do penance and to make sacrifices to save sinners. At the very apparition, Our Lady asked the children―aged 10, 8 and 7―“Are you willing to offer yourselves to God to bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?” Their reply was: “Yes, we are willing!” To which Our Lady replied: “Then, you are going to have much to suffer―but the grace of God will be your comfort!”
Those small children responded heroically to those calls for penance and sacrifice. Francisco was the one who thought about giving their lunch to the sheep. They soon realized that the poor children in the area would benefit more from the food than would their animals. Lucia recounts: “We agreed that whenever we met any poor children…, we would give them our lunch.” The three children then would try to fill their own stomachs with whatever food they could find in the field―acorns, olives, roots or berries. Jacinta would always choose that which was most bitter. When Lucia told her not to eat the bitter ones, Jacinta replied: “But it’s because it’s bitter that I am eating it, for the conversion of sinners.”
Even though the children were doing penance, they were continually looking for more. On some days they would drink nothing at all. On another occasion, Lucia relates: “As we were walking along the road with our sheep, I found a piece of rope that had fallen off a cart. I picked it up and just for fun, I tied it around my arm. Before long, I noticed that the rope was hurting me. ‘Look, this hurts!’ I said to my cousins. ‘We could tie it around our waists and offer this sacrifice to God!’” Lucia was excited about finding another penance like most children are when they find a new worldly pleasure. Yet these sufferings were intense for the children but they would not be hindered.
Lucia continues: “Now and then, Jacinta could not keep back her tears, so great was the discomfort this caused her. Whenever I urged her to remove it, she replied: ‘No! I want to offer this sacrifice to our Lord in reparation, and for the conversion of sinners!’” The children wore tight cords around their waists to cause pain, abstained from drinking water on hot days, and performed other works of penance. Our Lady later said: “God is pleased with your sacrifices―but He does not want you to wear the ropes to bed. Keep them on during the day!”
They endured these sufferings as well as the sufferings involved with people either not believing their story or wanting to talk incessantly with them. Nothing was too great or too small to offer to God. They would not drink water during the hot Portuguese summer. Obviously this caused great suffering, especially for a little girl of seven. Jacinta asked Lucia one time when she was suffering from their penances: “‘Tell the crickets and the frogs to keep quiet! I have such a terrible headache.’ Then Francisco asked her: ‘Don’t you want to suffer this for sinners?’ The poor child, clasping her head between her two little hands, replied: ‘Yes, I do. Let them sing!’”
While in Prison at Ourem, Jacinta especially suffered due to being separated from her parents. She was urged by Francisco to offer it for sinners. Every time she would think about dying in prison without seeing her mother, she would begin crying. Lucia relates: “‘Don’t you want, then, to offer this sacrifice for the conversion of sinners?’ ‘I do want to, I do!’ With her face bathed in tears, she joined her hands, raised her eyes to heaven and made her offering: ‘O my Jesus! This is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, for the Holy Father, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary!’” The children truly responded to Mary’s call to penance; they did it in such a childlike and simple way.
Sin is a legal debt to God, but not only a legal debt. Sin is breaking the Law of God (1 John 3:4). When someone breaks any of God’s laws, he has sinned; and the result is a punishment for breaking the law. After all, there is no law that does not have a punishment. So, when anyone sins, there is a legal debt to God―because it is God’s law that the sinner has broken and through sin (mortal sin) the sinner enters into a new contract with the devil; whereas by venial sin the sinner has entered into negotiations with the devil. The soul is “sold under sin” (Romans 7:14).
Through Christ’s death on the cross, we have been redeemed (bought back, ransomed) from having sold ourselves to the clutches of Satan through sin: “Whosoever commits sin, is the servant of sin!” (John 8:34). “He that commits sin is of the devil!” (1 John 3:8). Through mortal sin we legally contract ourselves to the devil―we no longer legally belong to God through being in a state of sanctifying grace. Instead, we rip-up our contract with God and sign a new contract with the devil.
St. Paul refers debt for sin when he speaks of Christ “blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us” (Colossians 2:14). That “handwriting of the decree against us” is simply “a certificate of debt for sin”. The Douay Rheims Bible translates it as: “Blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us. And he hath taken the same out of the way, fastening it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14) ― which, in simple and short terms means: Christ has removed our debt for sin by attaching that debt to the cross upon which He died for our sins. Other translations for Colossians 2:14 are:
● “Having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”
● “By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross.”
● “Having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away, nailing it to the cross.”
● “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.”
There is “a sin which is not unto death, and there is a sin unto death” (1 John 5:16-17) ― in theological terms, we call the sin that does not lead to death (death of sanctifying grace in the soul) under the name of Venial Sin; and the sin that leads to death (death of sanctifying grace in the soul) under the name of Mortal Sin. Nevertheless, both Mortal Sin and Venial are the two greatest evils in the world―and must be punished, each in its own way: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
Sin Does Not Pay―It Costs!
The words for “debt” in Greek are, epheilamata (which means a legal debt) and the word “hamartia” (which means the consequences of having done something wrong). Those consequences are a “death sentence.” Whichever way you look at it―sin incurs a penalty, a punishment, a fine, a debt, which has to be paid. This was clearly apparent from the time of Adam and Eve―when God told Adam and Eve that if they ever disobeyed God’s command forbidding them to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, then they would incur the “death penalty” and would have to pay the price of sin by death: “Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat! But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat! For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death!” (Genesis 2:16-17).
God essentially repeats that “Death Sentence” warning several times in Holy Scripture―in both the Old and New Testament:
► The Old Testament speaks of the terrible consequences of sin: “From the woman came the beginning of sin, and by her we all die!” (Ecclesiasticus 25:33). “Every man shall die for his own sin!” (2 Paralipomenon 25:4). “If the just man shall turn away from his justice and shall commit iniquity … then he shall die, he shall die in his sin!” (Ezechiel 3:20). “The soul that sins, the same shall die! … If the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity ― shall he live? All his justices which he hath done, shall not be remembered, and in his sins, which he has committed, in them he shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4 & 20 & 24). “Sin shall be destroyed with the sinner” (Ecclesiasticus 27:3). “They sought out all iniquities, till vengeance came upon them, and put an end to all their sins! … The people repented not, neither did they depart from their sins, until they were cast out of their land and were scattered throughout all the Earth” (Ecclesiasticus 47:31; 48:16). “Our God is so offended with sins, that he has sent word by His prophets to the people, that He will deliver them up [to chastisements] for their sins! … He will repay them for their sins!” (Judith 11:8, 15). “He will remember their iniquities and visit their sins!” (Jeremias 14:10). “In the day of revenge I will visit this sin also of theirs!” (Exodus 32:34). “I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with stripes!” (Psalm 88:33). “They have received, from the hand of the Lord, double for all their sins!” (Isaias 40:2). “Do not bind sin to sin―for even in one sin thou shalt not go unpunished!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:8). “We suffer thus for our sins!” (2 Machabees 7:32). “A wicked heart shall be laden with sorrows, and the sinner will add sin to sin” (Ecclesiasticus 3:29). “Sin makes nations miserable” (Proverbs 14:34).
► The Old Testament passage from Leviticus is a prolonged grave warning as to the severe consequences and price of sin: “If you despise My laws and do not those things which are appointed by Me, then I will do these things to you: I will quickly visit you with poverty and burning heat, which shall consume your lives! I will set my face against you and you shall fall down before your enemies! If you will still not obey Me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins … If you still walk contrary to Me and will not listen to Me, then I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins, and I will send beasts to destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number and that your highways may be desolate. And if you still will not amend, but will walk contrary to Me, then I will strike you seven times for your sins and bring in upon you the sword! But if, despite all this, you still will not listen to Me, I will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins, I will bring your cities to be a wilderness, and I will destroy your land, and I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed. You shall perish among the Gentiles, and an enemy’s land shall consume you! And if some remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies, and they shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers and their own sins―until they shall pray for their sins and confess their iniquities and the iniquities of their ancestors, whereby they have transgressed Me and walked contrary unto Me!” (Leviticus 26:15-41).
► The New Testament does not change the message―since God Himself does not change: “For I am the Lord, and I change not!” (Malachias 3:6), and so we read that: “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “Death reigned from Adam!” (Romans 5:14) “By one man sin entered into this world, and, by sin, death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). “Sin hath reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21). “Sin, when it is completed, begets death!” (James 1:15). “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “When we were in the flesh, the passions of sins did work in us to bring forth fruit unto death!” (Romans 7:5).
Can We Pay the Debt for Sin?
Protestants say that we cannot possibly pay the debt incurred by our sins―and on this point, they are correct. The reason is that the gravity of sin is measured from multiple angles―one of those is the seriousness of sinful thought, word, action or omission; another perspective that can increase the seriousness of a sin is the dignity and innocence of the person who is sinned against. If you give the same punch with the same power to a variety of persons―even though the force of the punch remains the same―the gravity of your action increases with the level of the dignity and innocence of the person being punched. To punch someone who is attacking you is not a sin, for you are merely defending yourself. To punch an innocent person is worse. Yet to punch a stranger is not as bad as punching your siblings; even worse is the act of punching your parents; worse still is punching a priest; worse still is the punching of a bishop; worse still is the punching of a pope. Yet if you were to punch Christ―Who is God Himself―then it would be far worse than all the previously mentioned persons.
Christ, being God, is an infinite Being and an innocent Being―and therefore the sin committed against Christ would be an infinite sin and would contract an infinite debt, because He is infinite. We―being mere finite human beings―cannot possibly pay an infinite debt. Even when we sin against other finite human beings, we indirectly sin again God, for Christ said: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40). So yes, technically, we cannot pay our entire debt for sin―but does that mean that we are exempt from paying something? In modern parlance, we must “co-pay” with Christ―even though He pays the debt for all sin―we must acknowledge our sinfulness and guilt by paying something. By doing penance, we acknowledge that we are sinners and we punish ourselves through those acts of penance.
Furthermore, there is double aspect to each sin that we commit―(1) the aspect of guilt for sin; and (2) the aspect of debt for sin. When our sins are forgiven in the Sacrament of Confession―it is primarily the guilt for sin that is removed; whereas a penalty or punishment for sin is only partially removed by the penance that the priest imposes upon us. That imposition of a penance―which is often something like three Hail Marys or something similar―should be looked upon as merely being a “first payment” of a “fine” imposed upon us. Just as we incrementally pay our mortgage debt every month for many years―the same is true of the “mortgage of Mortal Sin” or even Venial Sin. Most people only make one payment and forget about the rest.
Protestants (and Some Catholics) Wrongly Imagine Christ Paid All Debt for Sin
Most Protestants are victims of the misguided and erroneous belief that Christ has paid for all our sins by His death on the cross―and that we don’t have to pay for sin, since Christ already paid for the debt of everyone’s sins! They will quote Scriptural passages such as the following:
“Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many” (Hebrews 9:28). “Who His own self bore our sins in His Body upon the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). “Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust” (1 Peter 3:18). “He is the propitiation for our sins―and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world!” (1 John 2:2). “When you were dead in your offences and sins” (Ephesians 2:1) ... “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3) … “that He might be a propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17) … “Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us” (Galatians 1:4]). “In Whom we have redemption and the remission of sins through His Blood” (Ephesians 1:7). “Jesus Christ has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own Blood!” (Apocalypse 1:5). “The Blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
If Christ paid every last penny of our sinful debt with God―leaving us with nothing at all to pay for―then why would Holy Scripture and Christ say the following:
“John was in the desert baptizing, and preaching the baptism of penance … And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins … And John the Baptist came preaching and saying: ‘Do penance! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! … Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance! … Every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire!’” (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3, 9; Matthew 3:1-2, 8).
Christ Himself said: “I came to call sinners to penance! … From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say: ‘Do penance, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein were done the most of his miracles, for that they had not done penance: ‘Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida! For if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles and mighty works that have been wrought in you, they would have done penance in sackcloth and ashes long ago! … The men of Ninive shall rise in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they did penance at the preaching of Jonas; and behold more than Jonas here! … I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … Again I say to you; except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance! … I say to you, there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance!’ … And Jesus said to them that penance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name, unto all nations! … And they, going forth, preached that men should do penance!” (Matthew 4:17; 11:20-21; Luke 5:32; 10:13; 11:32; 13:3-5; 15:7, 10; 24:46-67; Mark 6:12).
The Apostles preached penance: “Peter said to them: ‘Do penance … for the remission of your sins!’” (Acts 2:38) … “Knowest thou not that God leadeth thee to penance?” (Romans 2:4) … “God now declareth unto men that all should everywhere do penance!” (Acts 17:30). “The Lord dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9). “Be zealous therefore, and do penance!” (Apocalypse 3:19). “Do penance for thy wickedness; and pray to God that this may be forgiven thee!” (Acts 8:22).
The Church Preached Penance Continually
From the earliest days of the Church, penance has been preached, understood, accepted and performed. At first, post-Baptism repentance mostly was practiced for grievous, scandalous, public sins like murder (including abortion), apostasy or adultery. These sins resulted in severe, lengthy and public penances. By the second century, especially in the East, people widely held that penance for mortal sin was available only once in a lifetime — that is, as there was (is) no second Baptism, there was no second penance. Those who sinned again were at the mercy of God. Between A.D. 387-90, St. Ambrose wrote: “Rightly are they reproved who think that they can do penance repeatedly; for they are making a farce of Christ. Indeed, if they truly did penance, they would take no thought of repeating it afterwards. For just as there is one Baptism, so, too, is there one penance, which, however, is done publicly; for it is necessary to repent of daily sin; this latter, however, is of lesser faults, the former of the more grave.”
No Christian living in those early centuries believed you could commit mortal sin, go to Confession and be quickly forgiven. Confession was to be heard by a bishop for serious, public sins. Mortal sins were sins against both God and all other Christians, and there could be no easy reconciliation. The penitent’s life was meant to be seriously disrupted. People believed that the remedy for grievous public sin was most effective if the penance likewise was done in public. Thus the assigned punishment (and, for a while even, the confessed sin) often was announced in front of the Christian community. There was no vindictiveness intended, as the purpose was for the entire community to pray for the sinner’s reconciliation. Penitential periods could last for months or years, and it was difficult to determine how much punishment was enough. Absolution was given only after the assigned penance was completed.
There is evidence that, in some areas, those who confessed mortal sin would be brought together on Ash Wednesday, and the bishop would assign each a public penance. In his 1881 book “The Beauties of the Catholic Church,” Father F.J. Shadler wrote: “The penitents would remain at the church door, dressed in penitential robes, with bare heads and bare feet, and in silence and humility await the arrival of the bishop and clergy, who were to introduce them into the church. When they entered the church, the whole congregation fell upon their knees and recited the seven penitential psalms for the sinners; then the bishop arose, sprinkled the new penitents with holy water, placed ashes upon their heads, admonished them in an earnest address to perform faithfully and contritely the penance he had given them, and again led them out of the church, saying: ‘On account of your sins you must now be expelled from the church, as Adam was driven by God from paradise on account of his disobedience.’”
Punishment varied but typically included denying the sinner from receiving Holy Communion and worshipping with his neighbors. The individual basically was excommunicated. Often they had to go on long pilgrimages, many couldn’t marry or, if married, had to refrain from spousal intimacy; some couldn’t hold public office. While not necessarily the norm, there were locations where sinners were grouped together in what was known as the order of penitents. In those days the gravity of sin was clearly taught and felt.
Penitential Canons & Penitential Books
The seventh century brought with it a relaxation, not indeed in canonical penance, but in the ecclesiastical control; on the other hand, there was an increase in the number of crimes which demanded a fixed penance if discipline was to be maintained; besides, many hereditary rights of a particular nature, which had led to a certain mitigation of the universal norm of penance, had to be taken into consideration; substitutes and so-called redemptiones, which consisted in pecuniary donations to the poor or to public utilities, gradually gained entrance and vogue; all this necessitated the drawing up of comprehensive lists of the various crimes and of the penances to be imposed for them, so that a certain uniformity among confessors might be reached as to the treatment of penitents and the administration of the Sacraments.
The administration of the Sacrament of Penance required a clear notion of the various sins and their species, of their relative grievousness and importance, and of the penance to be imposed for them. In order to ensure uniform procedure, it was necessary for ecclesiastical superiors to lay down more detailed directions; this they did either of their own accord or in answer to inquiries. Writings of this kind are the pastoral or canonical letters of St. Cyprian, St. Peter of Alexandria, St. Basil of Cappadocia, and St. Gregory of Nyssa; the decretals and synodal letters of a number of popes, as Siricius, Innocent, Celestine, Leo I, etc.; canons of several Ecumenical councils. These decrees were collected at an early date and used by the bishops and priests as a norm in distinguishing sins and in imposing ecclesiastical penance for them.
These lists of sins and their corresponding recommended penances, gave rise to what are called “Penitential Books” ― some of them, bearing the sanction of the Church, closely followed the ancient canonical decrees of the popes and the councils, and the approved statutes of St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and others; others were merely private works, which, recommended by the renown of their authors, found a wide circulation, others again went too far in their decisions and hence constrained ecclesiastical superiors either to reprehend or condemn them.
Penitential Books (containing Penitential Canons) were rules, laid down by councils or bishops, concerning the penances to be done for various sins. These canons, collected, adapted to later practice, and completed by suitable directions formed the nucleus of the Penitential Books. They all belong to the ancient penitential discipline and have now only an historic interest; if the writers of the classical period continue to cite them, it is only as examples, and to excite sinners to repentance by reminding them of earlier severity. In a certain sense they still survive, for the granting of indulgences is still based on the periods of penance, years, day, and quarantines. The penitential canons may be divided into three classes corresponding to the penitential discipline of the East, of Rome, or of the Anglo-Saxon Churches.
The ascendancy of the so-called “Penitential Books” dated from the seventh century, when a change took place in the practice of ecclesiastical penance. Till then it had been a time-honored law in the Church that the three capital crimes: apostasy, murder, and adultery, were to be atoned for by an accurately determined penance, which was public at least for public sins.
Severity of Penance
This atonement, which consisted chiefly in severe fasts and public, humiliating practices, was accompanied by various religious ceremonies under the strict supervision of the Church; it included four distinct stations or classes of penitents. The penance imposed on sinners was a longer or shorter period of exclusion from Holy Communion and the Mass, to which they were gradually admitted to the different penitential “stations” or classes. The different periods spent in penance amounted in all to three, five, ten, twelve, or fifteen years, according to the gravity of the sins. At times the penance could even last from fifteen to twenty years.
At an early period, however, the capital sins mentioned above were divided into sections, according as the circumstances were either aggravating or attenuating, and a correspondingly longer or shorter period of penance was set down for them. When in the course of centuries, entire nations, uncivilized and dominated by fierce passions, were received into the bosom of the Church, and when, as a result, heinous crimes began to multiply, many offences, akin to those mentioned above, were included among sins which were subject to canonical penances, while for others, especially for secret sins, the priest determined the penance, its duration and mode, by the canons.
The Penitential Groups
(1) The first group were the lower class, the “weepers” (Greek: proschlaiontes; Latin: flentes), mentioned occasionally, were not yet admitted to penance and therefore are not part of the group of three; they were great sinners who had to await their admission outside of the church. They remained outside the church door and begged the intercession of the faithful as these passed into the church.
(2) Once admitted, the penitents became “hearers” (Greek: achrooeenoi; Latin: audientes), and were stationed in the narthex of the church (the entrance lobby) behind the catechumens and were permitted to remain during the Mass of the Catechumens, i.e., until the end of the sermon. Thus they only partially assisted at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, listening to the Lessons, Gospel and the homily, after which they had to leave the church before the Offertory of the Mass began.
(3) The third group were the “prostrated” (Greek: hypopiptontes; Latin: prostrati, substrati), or the “kneeling” (Latin: genuflectentes), because the bishop, before excluding them, prayed over them while imposing his hands on them as they lay prostrate or were kneeling.
(4) Finally the penitents occupying the fourth or highest penitential station, the “attenders” or “bystanders” (Greek: systantes; Latin: consistentes), who were allowed to stand alongside the faithful Catholics for the entire Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―no longer having to lay prostrate on the ground, or kneel all the time, but they could still not receive Holy Communion.
As already stated, the different periods spent in penance amounted in all to three, five, ten, twelve, fifteen years, or even twenty years―according to the gravity of the sins. This discipline, which was rapidly mitigated, ceased to be observed by the close of the fourth century.
Penitential Canons of the Anglo-Saxon and Irish Churches
On the other hand, what is more striking in the penitential canons of Anglo-Saxon and Irish origin, is the particular fixation of the penitential acts imposed on the sinner to insure reparation, and their duration in days, quarantines (carina), and years; these consisted in more or less rigorous fasts, prostrations, deprivation of things otherwise allowable; also alms, prayers, pilgrimages, etc. These canons, unknown to us in their original sources, are contained in the numerous so-called Penitential Books (Libri Poenitentiales) or collections made in, and in vogue from the seventh century. These canons and the penitential discipline they represent are introduced to the European Continent by Anglo-Saxon missionaries, and were at first received unfavourably (Council of Chalons, 814; Paris, 829); finally, however, they were adopted and gradually mitigated.
To give some idea of the ancient discipline, the penalties attached to graver crimes are cited here from the English and Irish Penitentials.
● For stealing, Cummian prescribes that a layman shall do one year of penance; a cleric, two years; a subdeacon three years; a deacon, four years; a priest, five years; a bishop, six years.
● For murder or perjury, the penance lasted three, five, six, seven, ten or twelve years―according to the criminal’s rank.
● Theodore commands that if any one leave the Catholic Church, join the heretics, and induce others to do the same, he shall, in case he repent, do penance for twelve years.
● For the perjurer―who swears by the Church, the Gospel, or the relics of the saints―Egbert prescribes seven or eleven years of penance.
● Usury entailed three years; infanticide, fifteen years of penance;
● Idolatry or demon-worship, ten years of penance.
● Violations of the sixth commandment were punished with great severity; the penance varied, according to the nature of the sin, from three to fifteen years, the extreme penalty being prescribed for incest, i.e., fifteen to twenty-five years.
Whatever its duration, the penance included fasting on bread and water, either for the whole period or for a specified portion. Those who could not fast were obliged instead to recite daily a certain number of psalms, to give alms, take the discipline (self-scourging) or perform some other penitential exercise as determined by the confessor.
Painting a True Picture of Sin
All of the above should go long way to awakening or re-awakening in us a sense of sin that recent popes have complained that we have lost. We look upon sin too lightly―we commit sin too easily―we even find some sins to be fun or funny. “A fool will laugh at sin!” (Proverbs 14:9) and “the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin! And say not: ‘The mercy of the Lord is great, He will have mercy on the multitude of my sins!’” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5-6). “Be not deceived! God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “Do not bind sin to sin―for even in one sin thou shalt not be unpunished!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:8). “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). The ultimate worst thing is that they “deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to be cast into prison! Amen I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou repay the last penny!” (Matthew 5:25-26).
Of course, hardly anybody reads Holy Scripture―it was therefore necessary for God to attract our attention to the gravity and dangerous consequences of sin by sending His most Holy Mother to warn us what we should already know. Our Lady warned: “Oh, if only human beings knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God! How differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! … There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … People think of nothing but amusements … They become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … Unbridled luxury that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! …
“Many men in this world afflict the Lord … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … Nature is asking for vengeance because of man, and she trembles, with dread, at what must happen to the Earth stained with crime! ... If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge [the Great Flood in Noe’s time], such as one never seen before! Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead! … The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness! … If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! … Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will strike in an unprecedented way. God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together! … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other. The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God!”
Hmm! What happened to the Protestant idea that Jesus has paid for all our sins and that all we have to do is believe in Jesus and we are saved? Catholics believe in Jesus―yet as Our Lord Himself and many of His saints tell us, the truth is that most Catholic souls end up in Hell (and the same is all the more true for non-Catholics).
Neglecting the Remedies
The fire of Hell has already been ignited in this world, but nobody really cares―nobody is calling the Fire Department (Heaven, God, Christ, Our Lady, saints and angels), nobody is using the fire-extinguishers (prayer, penance, sacrifices) and nobody wants to escape through the Emergency Exit Door (Sacrament of Confession). Our Lady laments this state of affairs, saying:
“No one on the face of the Earth is aware from where comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents … Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils!”
It does not take a “rocket-scientist” or a genius to realize that the world IS LACKING monasteries and convents! Furthermore, it is totally true that “men do not comprehend the importance of them” and are therefore not seeking to increase and multiply them! During the twentieth century, religious life started to decline very steeply. Worldwide, the number of religious decreased by 33% between 1970 and 2020. In the West, the decline is more severe. In the United States, the numbers dropped by 71% between 1970 and 2018, and in Europe by 60% between 1973 and 2018. IN other words, in the world they only have 67% of the number of vocations they had in 1970; in Europe only 40%; and in the USA only 29% of what they had in 1970. The average age of those in a religious vocation is now well into the 70s. According to a recent study, less than 1% of nuns in America are under 40, and the average sister is 80 years old.
It is not as though there are far less Catholics in world, quite the contrary―during the same time frame (1970 to 2018) the Catholic world population increased from 650 million in 1970 to 1,300 million in 2018―that is double to what it was in 1970, a 100% increase. You would imagine that vocations would increase in proportion to the 100% Catholic population increase since 1970―but the opposite is true.
Our Lady said that it was the prayers and penances from the monasteries and convents that helped and protected the world―so obviously a 33%, or 60% or 71% fall in vocations, naturally means an proportionate drop in prayers, penances and sacrifices. Add to that the fact that many religious orders have a much lighter prayer load than in the pre-Vatican II days. Basically, the Breviary (also called The Divine Office, or The Liturgy of the Hours) has been greatly reduced―whereby the prayer time has been reduced by around 40%. Do your own math as regards to the quantity of prayer being produced in monasteries and convents today―only 29% of religious vocations left and they are praying 40% less. What does that equal? Our Lady gives you the answer: “The salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents … Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents!”
The Failure or Absence of Leadership
Our Lady of Good Success, La Salette, Fatima and Akita spoke of this neglect, absence and failure of leadership in the Church: “The secular Clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties. Lacking the divine compass, they will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain ... Woe to the Princes of the Church who think only of piling riches upon riches, to protect their authority and dominate with pride ... What is most grievous is that even the ministers of My Most Holy Son do not give to it the value that they should, viewing with cold indifference this valuable and precious treasure, which has been placed in their hands for the restoration of souls redeemed by the Blood of the Redeemer. There are those who consider hearing confession as a loss of time and a futile thing ... Making use of persons in positions of authority, the devil will assiduously try to destroy the Sacrament of Confession … The same will happen with Holy Communion …
“Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish … God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family ... Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell ... The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God … and men will become more and more perverted …
“Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist … A great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts ... The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity ... These corrupted priests will scandalize the Christian people, will incite the hatred of the bad Christians and the enemies of the Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church to fall upon all priests! … If men do not amend their ways, a terrifying scourge of fire will come down from Heaven upon all the nations of the world, and men will be punished according to the debts contracted with Divine justice!”
So What Can We Do?
Whenever leadership fails, then the weight of leadership falls upon some lower rank. The military regulations state that “If a commander of an Army unit dies, becomes disabled, or is temporarily absent … the senior regularly assigned Army Soldier will assume command” ― meaning that, in the case of an officer being seriously wounded, or killed, or captured, the most senior member of the remaining soldiers takes charge. Similarly, in politics, you have a President and a Vce-President ― whereby if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office, then the vice president automatically becomes president. Likewise, in commercial airplane flights, you have a pilot and a co-pilot ― and though the pilot is the ultimate authority on an aircraft, the co-pilot, otherwise known as the first officer, is trained and qualified to fly the plane in the event of an emergency or to provide the pilot a break. The co-pilot will also take command if the captain becomes ill or incapacitated. In a family, the husband father is much like a pilot or president, while the wife and mother is like a co-pilot or vice-president ― in the absence, death or incapacitation of the husband and father, it is the wife and mother who takes charge and carries out the duties of her husband. If you are in the passenger seat of a car traveling at 60 mph on the interstate, and the car driver sat next to you falls unconscious, then you have to assume control of the car, grab the steering wheel, put the car transmission on Neutral and let the car drop it speed as you slowly guide the car to the nearest emergency lane/stop or any clear area that is off the road.
The same applies in the case of the Church. The religious (monks, brothers, nuns and sisters) are the lowest ranking commissioned “officers” in the Church―below them are the laity, among whom there might be some “NCOs” (non-commissioned officers ― which are made up of varying degrees or levels of corporals and sergeants), such a Third Order Members (also called Tertiaries, the term “tertiary” comes from the Latin tertiarius, meaning “third”), who are lay members of Catholic Religious Orders, but who do not necessarily live in a religious community such as a monastery or a convent. Religious Orders that arose in the 12th-13th centuries often had a First Order (the male religious, who were generally the first established), the Second Order (the nuns, established second), and then the Third Order (the laity who were established third). Third Order members (Tertiaries) are those persons who live according to the Third Rule of religious orders, either outside of a monastery in the world, or in a religious community. They are persons who, on account of certain circumstances cannot enter a religious order, may want, as far as possible, to associate themselves with a particular Religious Order, and enjoy the advantages and privileges of that Religious Orders. In some cases the members of a Third Order, wishing to live in a more monastic and regulated way of life, became “Regulars” (religious living under a rule, in Latin, regula) as members of a religious institute. These religious institutes or “congregations” or “confraternities” are classified as belonging to the Third Order Regular. Therefore, in a nutshell, members of Third Orders are either (a) Regulars, living in common under a religious rule of life, or (b) Seculars, living in the world.
The Three Orders―male religious, female religious and tertiaries―constitute a hierarchy within each Religious Order. In a similar way, each family has Three Orders within itself―the father, the mother and children―and they too constitute a hierarchy. In the absence of the father, the mother takes charge. In the absence of both father and mother, the eldest child takes charge. The same can be said of the “absence” of bishops, priests and religious―if they are not fulfilling their duties in supplying the flock of the faithful with what is needed, then the flock of the faithful needs to “forage” for itself.
Our Lady Calls Us To The Fight
“Men, in spite of repeated warnings, are not returning to God! They refuse grace, and are not listening to my voice! … Today, more than ever, men are, resisting the calls from Heaven, and are blaspheming God, while wallowing in the mire of sin … The cause of such great sadness is the sight of so many souls going to Hell, and because the Church is wounded – inwardly and outwardly … But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God! God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Pray the Rosary every day … ”
“God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the Holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in Its poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and mankind will make great progress in its Faith, for there will be unity among the workers of Jesus Christ and man will live in fear of God.”
“O, if men only understood how to appreciate the time given to them and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!”
Sr. Lucia of Fatima partially touches on this subject when she says: “We should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No, Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed. So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway.”
“Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world. As for the Holy Rosary, Father, in these last times in which we are living, the Blessed Virgin has given a new efficacy to the praying of the Holy Rosary. This in such a way that there is no problem that cannot be resolved by praying the Rosary, no matter how difficult it is ― be it temporal or above all spiritual ― in the spiritual life of each of us, in the personal life of each one of us, or the lives of our families, be they our families, of the families of the world, or Religious Communities, or even in the lives of peoples and nations. I repeat, there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve at this time by praying the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
The Family is a Church, Monastery and Convent
With the ever-increasing collapse of Faith and Morals within the Church, the family is also in danger of collapse. Sr. Lucia of Fatima was told by Our Lady that Satan was going to focus his attacks on the family―which makes sense, since the family is basic building block or brick of the building of the Church.
Attacks on the family have dramatically intensified to the point where its nature (the marital unity of a man and a woman) and its purpose (an indissoluble union, and procreativity) have been fundamentally rejected in the West and a false sinful vision of reality has been substituted for God’s created order. We are slowly awakening to the truth that, as a society, we have truly lost the Christian vision of what a family is. This rejection of God’s truth about the family has been costly: family life is deeply fractured and family members are profoundly wounded.
The family is meant to be a reflection of the Church―just like children reflect their parents. Christian spouses, by virtue of the Sacrament of Marriage, are the sign or symbol of the mystery of unity and fruitful love between Christ and the Church (cf. Ephesians 5:21-33). What the Church is on a large scale, the family is on a small scale. Both St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom well understood this active power of the Holy Spirit transforming the Christian family and saw that the family possessed an ecclesial nature. St. John Chrysostom, like St. Augustine, called the family the little church (Greek: ekklesia micra) or the domestic church (Latin: ecclesia domestica).
Since the nature of the family is truly ecclesial, then the mission and the structures of the Church have to be found, in an appropriate form, in the family. The family has to be a reflection of the Church―just as children are reflections of their parents. This is what the Church Fathers stated. For example, St. Augustine saw the father as acting in a bishop-like role—protecting his family in Faith and Morals from heresy and immorality, while exhorting and focusing his family upon God and explaining the Scriptures to them. St. John Chrysostom urged that Christian families have two tables/altars (mensa) in their home, one for food and one for the Word of God. He emphasized the need to be thoroughly grounded in the Scriptures as a protection against evil. For both St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom, there was a sacred order (hierarchy) in the family.
Quarantining
If the Church is failing, there is no reason why the family should be failing along with it. If one part of the body is diseased, it does not mean that each and every part of the body must be diseased. If there is a fire in one room of the house, it does not automatically mean that every room will be engulfed by the fire. Just as there are ways to limit the spread of a fire, there are also ways in which to limit the fires of apostasy, heresy, lukewarmness, indifferentism and immorality. One such way is simply “quarantining” (removing/separating/isolating) your family from these harmful dangers―which is what Holy Scripture tells us: “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers! What fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God! As God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17). So first of all―get out of the way of what will burn you or burn your Faith!
Your Weapons for the Fight!
The basic weapons were outlined by Our Lord, when He spoke to His Apostles on how to cast-out the devil: “He said to them: ‘This kind can go out by nothing, but by prayer and fasting!’” (Mark 9:28) … “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20). The need for prayer and fasting to cast out demons today is especially highlighted by the words of the famous chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth († 2016), who said: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … The whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican! … The demon tempts the authorities of the Church ― just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
In view of the fact that that Satan currently controls the vast majority of the world (and the Church), it is of paramount importance that we regularly have recourse to both prayer and fasting.
► PRAYER: You MUST encourage and lead your family to regularly embrace PRAYER―and Lent is a wonderful time to start! PRAYER is like breathing―it is not only a Lenten exercise, but a daily exercise, an hourly exercise, even a constant exercise―as Holy Scripture teaches: We ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times!” (Luke 21:36). “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). The problem is that the devil has grabbed everyone’s attention instead―for people are on their smartphones “always” … “at all times” and “without ceasing”, or on the internet, or watching the television, or engrossed in some other electronic appliance. Families are going to have to do a lot of hard and painful work to turn that around and to turn back to Christ!
► FASTING: You MUST also encourage and lead your family to regularly embrace PENANCE, we MUST make SACRIFICES―for, as Our Lord said: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! (Luke 5:3) … “No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish! (Luke 13:3-5). To which Holy Scripture adds: “God declares unto men that all should everywhere do penance!” (Acts 17:30) ... “The Lord wills that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9) … “Let him do penance for his sin!” (Leviticus 5:5) ... “Hear, I beseech you, and do penance!” (Job 21:2) ... “Do penance―for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! … Bring forth fruit worthy of penance!” (Matthew 3:2, 8) ... “Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin!” (Ezechiel 18:30) ... “Do penance and pray to God, that you may be forgiven!” (Acts 8:22) ... “If My people― being converted―shall pray to Me and seek out My face, and do penance for their most wicked ways―then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land!” (2 Paralipomenon 7:14). One of the most powerful penances that we can perform is that of fasting.
Fatima Children and Penance
In 1916, even before Our Lady appeared at Fatima in 1917, the Angel of Portugal―in his second apparition to the children then aged 9, 8 and 6―scolded them for playing too much and praying too little. He encouraged them to perform much penance and many sacrifices: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers unceasingly and sacrifice yourselves to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners! Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
At her very first apparition, in May of 1917, Our Lady of Fatima had no hesitation in asking mere children―then aged 10, 8 and 7― to do penance and to make sacrifices to save sinners. At the very apparition, Our Lady asked the children―aged 10, 8 and 7―“Are you willing to offer yourselves to God to bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?” Their reply was: “Yes, we are willing!” To which Our Lady replied: “Then, you are going to have much to suffer―but the grace of God will be your comfort!”
Those small children responded heroically to those calls for penance and sacrifice. Francisco was the one who thought about giving their lunch to the sheep. They soon realized that the poor children in the area would benefit more from the food than would their animals. Lucia recounts: “We agreed that whenever we met any poor children…, we would give them our lunch.” The three children then would try to fill their own stomachs with whatever food they could find in the field―acorns, olives, roots or berries. Jacinta would always choose that which was most bitter. When Lucia told her not to eat the bitter ones, Jacinta replied: “But it’s because it’s bitter that I am eating it, for the conversion of sinners.”
Even though the children were doing penance, they were continually looking for more. On some days they would drink nothing at all. On another occasion, Lucia relates: “As we were walking along the road with our sheep, I found a piece of rope that had fallen off a cart. I picked it up and just for fun, I tied it around my arm. Before long, I noticed that the rope was hurting me. ‘Look, this hurts!’ I said to my cousins. ‘We could tie it around our waists and offer this sacrifice to God!’” Lucia was excited about finding another penance like most children are when they find a new worldly pleasure. Yet these sufferings were intense for the children but they would not be hindered.
Lucia continues: “Now and then, Jacinta could not keep back her tears, so great was the discomfort this caused her. Whenever I urged her to remove it, she replied: ‘No! I want to offer this sacrifice to our Lord in reparation, and for the conversion of sinners!’” The children wore tight cords around their waists to cause pain, abstained from drinking water on hot days, and performed other works of penance. Our Lady later said: “God is pleased with your sacrifices―but He does not want you to wear the ropes to bed. Keep them on during the day!”
They endured these sufferings as well as the sufferings involved with people either not believing their story or wanting to talk incessantly with them. Nothing was too great or too small to offer to God. They would not drink water during the hot Portuguese summer. Obviously this caused great suffering, especially for a little girl of seven. Jacinta asked Lucia one time when she was suffering from their penances: “‘Tell the crickets and the frogs to keep quiet! I have such a terrible headache.’ Then Francisco asked her: ‘Don’t you want to suffer this for sinners?’ The poor child, clasping her head between her two little hands, replied: ‘Yes, I do. Let them sing!’”
While in Prison at Ourem, Jacinta especially suffered due to being separated from her parents. She was urged by Francisco to offer it for sinners. Every time she would think about dying in prison without seeing her mother, she would begin crying. Lucia relates: “‘Don’t you want, then, to offer this sacrifice for the conversion of sinners?’ ‘I do want to, I do!’ With her face bathed in tears, she joined her hands, raised her eyes to heaven and made her offering: ‘O my Jesus! This is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, for the Holy Father, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary!’” The children truly responded to Mary’s call to penance; they did it in such a childlike and simple way.
Article 3
Monday February 6th & Tuesday February 7th, 2023
Will Your Lent be Effortless, or Full of Effort, or Lacking Effort?
Monday February 6th & Tuesday February 7th, 2023
Will Your Lent be Effortless, or Full of Effort, or Lacking Effort?
Oh No! Not Lent Again!
For many, Lent is like a disliked and unwelcome visitor―someone that they “put-up-with”, but whom they wish would get out and go home as soon as possible. Lent has few friends and many enemies. If you pardon the pun―Lent is penance to most people, something they would prefer to be without. Some might even be tempted to say: “I hate Lent!” However, rather than hating Lent, they should be hating sin! For it is sin that lies behind Lent―for sin contracts a debt or a fine as a penalty for sin. Since sin is the greatest evil that there is―how can one expect the penalty for sin to be low or even non-existent. It is easy to sin―it is hard to pay for sin!
As our Catechisms―which are buried out of sight―say: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
Who is there that thinks like that? Who sees sin in that light? It has to be said―almost nobody! Sin is no big deal! You just sin and go to confession―it’s as easy as that! No worries! Our Lord and Holy Scripture would disagree―as the following quotes will show. To the man whom Our Lord had miraculously cured from a 38-year long illness, Jesus said: “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). To the woman whom the Scribes and Pharisees had caught in adultery, Our Lord also said: “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:10-11). Holy Scripture adds: “Be not deceived! God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “My son, hast thou sinned? Do so no more, but for thy former sins pray that they may be forgiven thee!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1).
Our Lady of Penance and Suffering
Our Lady’s messages in her modern-day apparitions can be summed-up as being anti-sin and pro-penance messages.
● At LA SALETTE (1846) she says: “The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people ... The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance!”
● At LOURDES (1858) she adds the command of “Penance! Penance! Penance!”
● At FATIMA (1917) she stated: “Men must amend their lives, and ask pardon for their sins! ... They must no longer offend Our Lord, Who is already so much offended!”
● To BLESSED SISTER ELENA AIELLO (1956) Our Lady said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
● At AKITA (1973) she lamented: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father ... Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this!”
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady lamented: “Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to be pardoned without penance! … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment … All are weak and afflicted by many sins―for which the only remedy is suffering! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good! ... Our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation! ...
“Keep in mind always the misfortune of the imprudent and foolish virgins (Matthew 25:12), who, in their thoughtless negligence, rejected wise counsel and cast aside fear, instead of being solicitous; and when afterwards they sought to make up for it, they found the door of salvation closed against them! … The number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate is uncountable, and the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men! ... How many men―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves, on account of the lack of light of Faith, from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell! … Imagine, then, what ought to be the grief of really losing God by sin! But this wisdom seems far from the mind of carnal men! …
“Fear and abhor sin―even the slightest! … Separate thyself from all earthly things; withdraw thyself from what is visible, forsake all the creatures, deny thyself, close thy senses to the deceits and fables of the world! … Force thy body to make up the losses which it has caused to the soul through its passions and earthly affections! Keep your body in strict subjection, allowing it to partake only of those comforts which serve to keep it in proper condition for the activity of the soul, and do not pander to the body’s passions and appetites. Mortify and crush it―until it is dead to all that is delightful to the senses, so that even the common actions necessary for life shall appear to thee more painful than agreeable, taste more of bitterness than of dangerous enjoyment.
“Bodily penances are so appropriate and fitted to mortal creatures, that the ignorance of this truth and the neglect and contempt of bodily mortification is the cause of the damnation of many souls and brings many more into the danger of eternal loss.”
“The first reason why men should afflict their body and mortify their flesh is their having been conceived in sin. By this Original Sin, human nature is depraved, filled with passions, rebellious to reason, inclined to evil and adverse to the spirit. If the soul allows itself to be carried away by them, it will be precipitated by the first vice into many others. But if this beastly flesh is curbed by mortification and penance, it loses its strength and acknowledges the authority of the spirit and the light of truth.”
“The second reason is that none of the mortals have altogether avoided sinning against God; and the punishment and retribution must inevitably correspond to the guilt―either in this life or the next―therefore, as the soul commits sin in union with the body, it follows that both of them must be punished. The interior sorrow is not sufficient for atonement, if the body seeks to escape the punishment that corresponds to the guilt. Moreover, the debt is so great and the satisfaction that can be given by the creature so limited and scanty that there remains continual uncertainty whether the Judge is satisfied even after the exertions of a whole lifetime: hence, the soul should find no rest to the end of life.”
“The third reason for bodily mortification, and the most urgent one, is the duty of Christians to imitate their divine Teacher and Master. Moreover, my divine Son and I―without being guilty of any faults, or bad inclinations―devoted ourselves to labors and made our lives a continual practice of penance and mortification of the flesh. If We then pursued such a course of life because it was reasonable, what must be thought of mortals that seek nothing but sweetness and delight, and abhor all penances, affronts, ignominies, fasting and mortification? Shall only Christ, our Lord, and I suffer all these hardships―while the guilt laden debtors and deservers of all these punishments throw themselves head over heels into the filth of their carnal inclinations?” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Penitential Children
The three young seers at Fatima―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―aged ten, eight and seven at the time of Our Lady’s first apparition, took to heart Our Lady’s request for sacrifices (penances) on the behalf of sinners, in order to save some of them from Hell, into which so many were falling. They would sometimes go all day with no food, sometimes all day with no water, they would wear tightly bound ropes around their waist day and night, they would give-up their favorite games in order to pray more, etc.
The Fatima message is a call for men to give up sinful practices which grieve God and draw down His chastisements on the world, and to make reparation for them. Commenting on Our Lady’s request for penance, Sr. Lucia wrote: “The part of the last apparition which has remained most deeply imprinted on my heart is the prayer of our heavenly Mother begging us not to offend any more Almighty God, Who is already so much offended.”
Jacinta, too, shortly before her death remarked: “If men only knew what eternity is, how they would make all possible efforts to amend their lives ... mortification and sacrifice give great pleasure to Our Divine Lord.”
In August of 1917 Our Lady told the children, “pray much and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to hell because there is no one to make sacrifices for them.” As to the kinds of sacrifices Our Lady was asking, she revealed to Sr. Lucia on one occasion: “The good Lord is allowing Himself to be appeased . . . but He Himself complains most bitterly and sorrowfully about the small number of souls in His grace who are willing to renounce whatever the observance of His laws requires of them.”
“Many persons,” Sr. Lucia explained, “feeling that the word penance implies great austerities, and not feeling that they have the strength for great sacrifices, become discouraged and continue a life of lukewarmness and sin.” Then she said Our Lord explained to her: “The sacrifice required of every person is the fulfillment of his duties in life and the observance of My law. This is the penance that I now seek and require.”
Duties of State and Keeping God’s Law
Sounds easy, huh? “The sacrifice required of every person is the fulfillment of his duties in life and the observance of My law. This is the penance that I now seek and require.” Easier said than done! Most people are ignorant of the wide extend of their duties in life, or, otherwise called “Duties of state” ― which is actually an abbreviation of “the duties of a person’s state in life.” What most people are ignorant of is the fact that everyone of us has multiple “duties of state” or “duties in life.”
The first and foremost duties are those that pertain to God and the Faith―everything else is secondary to those duties. Yes―even your duties to your family take second place, as is shown by these quotes of Our Lord and Holy Scripture: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice!” (Luke 12:31). “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:37).
God comes first because He created all things and owns all things―we merely use and work with the things He has created: “For in Him were all things created in Heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible! … All things were created by Him and in Him!” (Colossians 1:16) … “For of Him, and by Him, and in Him, are all things―to Him be glory for ever!” (Romans 11:36). The angels said to the shepherds at Bethlehem: “Glory to God in the highest!” (Luke 2:14) … “Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor, and power―because Thou hast created all things; and for Thy will they were and have been created!” (Apocalypse 4:11). God says of each one of us: “I have created him for my glory!” (Isaias 43:7). Therefore, “give glory to the Lord for thy good things!” (Tobias 13:12). “Give glory to the Lord your God, before it becomes dark, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains―you shall look for light, and He will turn it into the shadow of death, and into darkness!” (Jeremias 13:16). The First Vatican Council (1869-1870) stated: “If any one shall say that the world was not created for the glory of God, let him be anathema!” (Sess. III, C. I, can. 5).
Thus we see that glorifying God is our prime duty. Yet you might well ask: “What exactly does giving glory to God mean and what does it entail?” Holy Scripture gives some clues: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31) ― this tells us that giving glory to God is not a case of doing one or two things, but giving glory to God encompasses EVERYTHING that we can possibly do―with, of course, the exception of sin (which does the very opposite of giving glory, it gives offense to God). Does that mean that we have to do EVERYTHING we possibly can do in order to give glory to God? No. We cannot possibly do everything perfectly and who wants to give God something shoddy, imperfect and second-rate? Besides, we can even end up doing things for the wrong motives―such a self-glorification rather than God glorification: “For they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God!” (John 12:43).
The Glory of Love
Our Lord gives us a clue or points in the right direction when He says: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” Love is answer! We have to give glory to God―yes―but Our Lord says that loving God is greatest commandment. Love should be soul for everything that we do―without love, whatever we might do (no matter how great) becomes trivial, hollow, meaningless and spiritually and eternally worthless. This is clearly stated to be the case by Holy Scripture: “Let us love one another, for charity is of God―and every one that loves, is born of God! He that loveth not, knoweth not God―for God is charity!” (1 John 4:7-8) … “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
What gives God glory is ultimately love―for God is Love itself, and when we reflect that love of God by loving Him and our neighbor whom God has created in His own image and likeness, then we are giving the highest possible glory to God. For how can say that we are glorifying God when we show little or no love towards Him? Was this not the complaint of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque? Jesus complained: “My Divine Heart is so passionately inflamed with love for men, that it can no longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its ardent charity, and needs spread them abroad! … Behold this Heart which has so loved men that It spared nothing, even going so far as to exhaust and consume Itself, to prove to them Its love! And in return I receive from the greater part of men nothing but ingratitude, by the contempt, irreverence, sacrileges and coldness with which they treat Me! … If they would only give Me some return of love, I should not reckon all that I have done for them, and I would do yet more if possible. But they have only coldness and contempt for all My endeavors to do them good. This is more grievous to Me than all that I endured in My Passion!”
In the book, Words of Love, by Fr. Bartholomew Gottemoller, O.C.S.O., which is a compilation of various quotes by Our Lord to three of His mystics―Sister Josefa Menendez (1890-1923; died aged 33); Sister Mary of the Trinity (1901-1942; died aged 41) and Sister Consolata Betrone (1903-1946; died aged 43)―we read of Our Lord’s great insistence upon love. The following quotes have been blended together for the sake of continuity, which would be lost by interspersing the quotes with references as to which of the three mystics Our Lord addressed those particular words. Here is a selection of what Our Lord said:
“Do you think that anything happens without My permission? I dispose all things for the good of each and every soul. One act of abandonment glorifies Me more than many sacrifices. I want you to be always abandoned and happy! I want what you do not want, but I can do what you cannot do. It is not for you to choose, but to surrender! … Think only of Me and of pleasing Me―I will transform you! You must think only of loving Me! I will think of everything else, even to the smallest details! I prefer an act of love and a Communion of love to any other gift ... Your actions will have more value in proportion as you increase in love! … I do not demand heroic acts from you, but merely trifles―only they must be offered with all your heart! … I thirst for love! … I ask only for love―what are you doing about it? … That soul is dearest to Me who loves Me the most! … To love Me is to have confidence in Me, not to doubt Me―it is to rely on Me! … Love Me, and you will be happy; and the more you love Me, the happier you will be! Even when you will find yourself in utter darkness, love will produce light, love will produce strength, and love will produce joy! … Oh, if people would only love Me, what happiness would reign in this unhappy world!”
Love Overcomes Everything
“God is Charity” (1 John 4:8) and “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26) ― therefore all things should be possible for charity. That is exactly how The Imitation of Christ describes the effects of charity in the soul:
“Love is an excellent thing, a very great blessing, indeed. It makes every difficulty easy, and bears all wrongs with equanimity. For it bears a burden without being weighted and renders sweet all that is bitter. The noble love of Jesus spurs to great deeds and excites longing for that which is more perfect. Love tends upward; it will not be held down by anything low. Love wishes to be free and estranged from all worldly affections, lest its inward sight be obstructed, lest it be entangled in any temporal interest and overcome by adversity. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, or higher, or wider; nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in Heaven or on Earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is above all created things. One who is in love flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free, not bound. He gives all for all and possesses all in all, because he rests in the one sovereign Good, Who is above all things, and from Whom every good flows and proceeds. He does not look to the gift, but turns himself above all gifts to the Giver. Love often knows no limits, but overflows all bounds. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, and does not plead impossibility, because it believes that it may and can do all things. For this reason, it is able to do all, performing and effecting much, where he, who does not love, fails and falls.
“Love is watchful. Sleeping, it does not slumber. Wearied, it is not tired. Pressed, it is not straitened. Alarmed, it is not confused, but like a living flame, a burning torch, it forces its way upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle. Love is swift, sincere, kind, pleasant, and delightful. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, long-suffering, and manly. Love is never self-seeking, for in whatever a person seeks himself, there he falls from love. Love is circumspect, humble, and upright. It is neither soft nor light, nor intent upon vain things. It is sober and chaste, firm and quiet, guarded in all the senses. Love is subject and obedient to superiors. It is mean and contemptible in its own eyes, devoted and thankful to God; always trusting and hoping in Him even when He is distasteful to it, for there is no living in love without sorrow. He who is not ready to suffer all things and to stand resigned to the will of the Beloved, is not worthy to be called a lover. A lover must embrace willingly all that is difficult and bitter, for the sake of the Beloved, and he should not turn away from Him because of adversities. If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice!” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 5: “The Divine Effect of Love”).
For many, Lent is like a disliked and unwelcome visitor―someone that they “put-up-with”, but whom they wish would get out and go home as soon as possible. Lent has few friends and many enemies. If you pardon the pun―Lent is penance to most people, something they would prefer to be without. Some might even be tempted to say: “I hate Lent!” However, rather than hating Lent, they should be hating sin! For it is sin that lies behind Lent―for sin contracts a debt or a fine as a penalty for sin. Since sin is the greatest evil that there is―how can one expect the penalty for sin to be low or even non-existent. It is easy to sin―it is hard to pay for sin!
As our Catechisms―which are buried out of sight―say: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] ― he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
Who is there that thinks like that? Who sees sin in that light? It has to be said―almost nobody! Sin is no big deal! You just sin and go to confession―it’s as easy as that! No worries! Our Lord and Holy Scripture would disagree―as the following quotes will show. To the man whom Our Lord had miraculously cured from a 38-year long illness, Jesus said: “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). To the woman whom the Scribes and Pharisees had caught in adultery, Our Lord also said: “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:10-11). Holy Scripture adds: “Be not deceived! God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “My son, hast thou sinned? Do so no more, but for thy former sins pray that they may be forgiven thee!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1).
Our Lady of Penance and Suffering
Our Lady’s messages in her modern-day apparitions can be summed-up as being anti-sin and pro-penance messages.
● At LA SALETTE (1846) she says: “The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people ... The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance!”
● At LOURDES (1858) she adds the command of “Penance! Penance! Penance!”
● At FATIMA (1917) she stated: “Men must amend their lives, and ask pardon for their sins! ... They must no longer offend Our Lord, Who is already so much offended!”
● To BLESSED SISTER ELENA AIELLO (1956) Our Lady said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
● At AKITA (1973) she lamented: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father ... Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this!”
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady lamented: “Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to be pardoned without penance! … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment … All are weak and afflicted by many sins―for which the only remedy is suffering! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good! ... Our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation! ...
“Keep in mind always the misfortune of the imprudent and foolish virgins (Matthew 25:12), who, in their thoughtless negligence, rejected wise counsel and cast aside fear, instead of being solicitous; and when afterwards they sought to make up for it, they found the door of salvation closed against them! … The number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate is uncountable, and the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men! ... How many men―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves, on account of the lack of light of Faith, from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell! … Imagine, then, what ought to be the grief of really losing God by sin! But this wisdom seems far from the mind of carnal men! …
“Fear and abhor sin―even the slightest! … Separate thyself from all earthly things; withdraw thyself from what is visible, forsake all the creatures, deny thyself, close thy senses to the deceits and fables of the world! … Force thy body to make up the losses which it has caused to the soul through its passions and earthly affections! Keep your body in strict subjection, allowing it to partake only of those comforts which serve to keep it in proper condition for the activity of the soul, and do not pander to the body’s passions and appetites. Mortify and crush it―until it is dead to all that is delightful to the senses, so that even the common actions necessary for life shall appear to thee more painful than agreeable, taste more of bitterness than of dangerous enjoyment.
“Bodily penances are so appropriate and fitted to mortal creatures, that the ignorance of this truth and the neglect and contempt of bodily mortification is the cause of the damnation of many souls and brings many more into the danger of eternal loss.”
“The first reason why men should afflict their body and mortify their flesh is their having been conceived in sin. By this Original Sin, human nature is depraved, filled with passions, rebellious to reason, inclined to evil and adverse to the spirit. If the soul allows itself to be carried away by them, it will be precipitated by the first vice into many others. But if this beastly flesh is curbed by mortification and penance, it loses its strength and acknowledges the authority of the spirit and the light of truth.”
“The second reason is that none of the mortals have altogether avoided sinning against God; and the punishment and retribution must inevitably correspond to the guilt―either in this life or the next―therefore, as the soul commits sin in union with the body, it follows that both of them must be punished. The interior sorrow is not sufficient for atonement, if the body seeks to escape the punishment that corresponds to the guilt. Moreover, the debt is so great and the satisfaction that can be given by the creature so limited and scanty that there remains continual uncertainty whether the Judge is satisfied even after the exertions of a whole lifetime: hence, the soul should find no rest to the end of life.”
“The third reason for bodily mortification, and the most urgent one, is the duty of Christians to imitate their divine Teacher and Master. Moreover, my divine Son and I―without being guilty of any faults, or bad inclinations―devoted ourselves to labors and made our lives a continual practice of penance and mortification of the flesh. If We then pursued such a course of life because it was reasonable, what must be thought of mortals that seek nothing but sweetness and delight, and abhor all penances, affronts, ignominies, fasting and mortification? Shall only Christ, our Lord, and I suffer all these hardships―while the guilt laden debtors and deservers of all these punishments throw themselves head over heels into the filth of their carnal inclinations?” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Penitential Children
The three young seers at Fatima―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―aged ten, eight and seven at the time of Our Lady’s first apparition, took to heart Our Lady’s request for sacrifices (penances) on the behalf of sinners, in order to save some of them from Hell, into which so many were falling. They would sometimes go all day with no food, sometimes all day with no water, they would wear tightly bound ropes around their waist day and night, they would give-up their favorite games in order to pray more, etc.
The Fatima message is a call for men to give up sinful practices which grieve God and draw down His chastisements on the world, and to make reparation for them. Commenting on Our Lady’s request for penance, Sr. Lucia wrote: “The part of the last apparition which has remained most deeply imprinted on my heart is the prayer of our heavenly Mother begging us not to offend any more Almighty God, Who is already so much offended.”
Jacinta, too, shortly before her death remarked: “If men only knew what eternity is, how they would make all possible efforts to amend their lives ... mortification and sacrifice give great pleasure to Our Divine Lord.”
In August of 1917 Our Lady told the children, “pray much and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to hell because there is no one to make sacrifices for them.” As to the kinds of sacrifices Our Lady was asking, she revealed to Sr. Lucia on one occasion: “The good Lord is allowing Himself to be appeased . . . but He Himself complains most bitterly and sorrowfully about the small number of souls in His grace who are willing to renounce whatever the observance of His laws requires of them.”
“Many persons,” Sr. Lucia explained, “feeling that the word penance implies great austerities, and not feeling that they have the strength for great sacrifices, become discouraged and continue a life of lukewarmness and sin.” Then she said Our Lord explained to her: “The sacrifice required of every person is the fulfillment of his duties in life and the observance of My law. This is the penance that I now seek and require.”
Duties of State and Keeping God’s Law
Sounds easy, huh? “The sacrifice required of every person is the fulfillment of his duties in life and the observance of My law. This is the penance that I now seek and require.” Easier said than done! Most people are ignorant of the wide extend of their duties in life, or, otherwise called “Duties of state” ― which is actually an abbreviation of “the duties of a person’s state in life.” What most people are ignorant of is the fact that everyone of us has multiple “duties of state” or “duties in life.”
The first and foremost duties are those that pertain to God and the Faith―everything else is secondary to those duties. Yes―even your duties to your family take second place, as is shown by these quotes of Our Lord and Holy Scripture: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice!” (Luke 12:31). “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). “He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:37).
God comes first because He created all things and owns all things―we merely use and work with the things He has created: “For in Him were all things created in Heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible! … All things were created by Him and in Him!” (Colossians 1:16) … “For of Him, and by Him, and in Him, are all things―to Him be glory for ever!” (Romans 11:36). The angels said to the shepherds at Bethlehem: “Glory to God in the highest!” (Luke 2:14) … “Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor, and power―because Thou hast created all things; and for Thy will they were and have been created!” (Apocalypse 4:11). God says of each one of us: “I have created him for my glory!” (Isaias 43:7). Therefore, “give glory to the Lord for thy good things!” (Tobias 13:12). “Give glory to the Lord your God, before it becomes dark, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains―you shall look for light, and He will turn it into the shadow of death, and into darkness!” (Jeremias 13:16). The First Vatican Council (1869-1870) stated: “If any one shall say that the world was not created for the glory of God, let him be anathema!” (Sess. III, C. I, can. 5).
Thus we see that glorifying God is our prime duty. Yet you might well ask: “What exactly does giving glory to God mean and what does it entail?” Holy Scripture gives some clues: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31) ― this tells us that giving glory to God is not a case of doing one or two things, but giving glory to God encompasses EVERYTHING that we can possibly do―with, of course, the exception of sin (which does the very opposite of giving glory, it gives offense to God). Does that mean that we have to do EVERYTHING we possibly can do in order to give glory to God? No. We cannot possibly do everything perfectly and who wants to give God something shoddy, imperfect and second-rate? Besides, we can even end up doing things for the wrong motives―such a self-glorification rather than God glorification: “For they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God!” (John 12:43).
The Glory of Love
Our Lord gives us a clue or points in the right direction when He says: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength! This is the greatest and the first commandment!” Love is answer! We have to give glory to God―yes―but Our Lord says that loving God is greatest commandment. Love should be soul for everything that we do―without love, whatever we might do (no matter how great) becomes trivial, hollow, meaningless and spiritually and eternally worthless. This is clearly stated to be the case by Holy Scripture: “Let us love one another, for charity is of God―and every one that loves, is born of God! He that loveth not, knoweth not God―for God is charity!” (1 John 4:7-8) … “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
What gives God glory is ultimately love―for God is Love itself, and when we reflect that love of God by loving Him and our neighbor whom God has created in His own image and likeness, then we are giving the highest possible glory to God. For how can say that we are glorifying God when we show little or no love towards Him? Was this not the complaint of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque? Jesus complained: “My Divine Heart is so passionately inflamed with love for men, that it can no longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its ardent charity, and needs spread them abroad! … Behold this Heart which has so loved men that It spared nothing, even going so far as to exhaust and consume Itself, to prove to them Its love! And in return I receive from the greater part of men nothing but ingratitude, by the contempt, irreverence, sacrileges and coldness with which they treat Me! … If they would only give Me some return of love, I should not reckon all that I have done for them, and I would do yet more if possible. But they have only coldness and contempt for all My endeavors to do them good. This is more grievous to Me than all that I endured in My Passion!”
In the book, Words of Love, by Fr. Bartholomew Gottemoller, O.C.S.O., which is a compilation of various quotes by Our Lord to three of His mystics―Sister Josefa Menendez (1890-1923; died aged 33); Sister Mary of the Trinity (1901-1942; died aged 41) and Sister Consolata Betrone (1903-1946; died aged 43)―we read of Our Lord’s great insistence upon love. The following quotes have been blended together for the sake of continuity, which would be lost by interspersing the quotes with references as to which of the three mystics Our Lord addressed those particular words. Here is a selection of what Our Lord said:
“Do you think that anything happens without My permission? I dispose all things for the good of each and every soul. One act of abandonment glorifies Me more than many sacrifices. I want you to be always abandoned and happy! I want what you do not want, but I can do what you cannot do. It is not for you to choose, but to surrender! … Think only of Me and of pleasing Me―I will transform you! You must think only of loving Me! I will think of everything else, even to the smallest details! I prefer an act of love and a Communion of love to any other gift ... Your actions will have more value in proportion as you increase in love! … I do not demand heroic acts from you, but merely trifles―only they must be offered with all your heart! … I thirst for love! … I ask only for love―what are you doing about it? … That soul is dearest to Me who loves Me the most! … To love Me is to have confidence in Me, not to doubt Me―it is to rely on Me! … Love Me, and you will be happy; and the more you love Me, the happier you will be! Even when you will find yourself in utter darkness, love will produce light, love will produce strength, and love will produce joy! … Oh, if people would only love Me, what happiness would reign in this unhappy world!”
Love Overcomes Everything
“God is Charity” (1 John 4:8) and “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26) ― therefore all things should be possible for charity. That is exactly how The Imitation of Christ describes the effects of charity in the soul:
“Love is an excellent thing, a very great blessing, indeed. It makes every difficulty easy, and bears all wrongs with equanimity. For it bears a burden without being weighted and renders sweet all that is bitter. The noble love of Jesus spurs to great deeds and excites longing for that which is more perfect. Love tends upward; it will not be held down by anything low. Love wishes to be free and estranged from all worldly affections, lest its inward sight be obstructed, lest it be entangled in any temporal interest and overcome by adversity. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, or higher, or wider; nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in Heaven or on Earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is above all created things. One who is in love flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free, not bound. He gives all for all and possesses all in all, because he rests in the one sovereign Good, Who is above all things, and from Whom every good flows and proceeds. He does not look to the gift, but turns himself above all gifts to the Giver. Love often knows no limits, but overflows all bounds. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, and does not plead impossibility, because it believes that it may and can do all things. For this reason, it is able to do all, performing and effecting much, where he, who does not love, fails and falls.
“Love is watchful. Sleeping, it does not slumber. Wearied, it is not tired. Pressed, it is not straitened. Alarmed, it is not confused, but like a living flame, a burning torch, it forces its way upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle. Love is swift, sincere, kind, pleasant, and delightful. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, long-suffering, and manly. Love is never self-seeking, for in whatever a person seeks himself, there he falls from love. Love is circumspect, humble, and upright. It is neither soft nor light, nor intent upon vain things. It is sober and chaste, firm and quiet, guarded in all the senses. Love is subject and obedient to superiors. It is mean and contemptible in its own eyes, devoted and thankful to God; always trusting and hoping in Him even when He is distasteful to it, for there is no living in love without sorrow. He who is not ready to suffer all things and to stand resigned to the will of the Beloved, is not worthy to be called a lover. A lover must embrace willingly all that is difficult and bitter, for the sake of the Beloved, and he should not turn away from Him because of adversities. If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice!” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 5: “The Divine Effect of Love”).
Article 2
Sunday February 5th, 2023
The Race Begins! Are You Ready? Are You Willing?
Sunday February 5th, 2023
The Race Begins! Are You Ready? Are You Willing?
Get the Spiritual Engine Serviced Before Lent
Before we know it, Lent will be upon us! This Sunday, Septuagesima Sunday, the Church will place before us the words of St. Paul, about running in a race in such a manner that we may win. “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain” (1 Corinthians 9: 24). In our lazy modern times, the car has replaced the two feet as the chief means of running around; but whether it is the athlete with his feet, or the driver with his car, the bottom line is that, to win a race, the athlete or the car has to be in peak condition. Most Catholic cars (souls) are far from being in peak condition—much like the Israelite ‘cars’ (souls) crossing the desert—most of whom were not pleasing to God, as the reading from the Mass of Septuagesima Sunday points out:
God’s Viewpoint of the Racers
“For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: and did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the desert” (1 Corinthians 10:1-5).
Hence St. Paul warns us that “Now these things were done in a figure of us, that we should not covet evil things as they also coveted. Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them, as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play!’ Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ: as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents. Neither do you murmur: as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them in figure: and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:6-12).
In a certain sense, they all ran in the race for the Promised Land, but only two of the original 4 or so million that started out from Egypt, actually entered the Promised Land and successfully crossed the ‘finish-line’—the remaining finishers were born in desert during those 40 years. With most of the ‘starters’ God was not well pleased! They ended up being starters and losers, not starter and finishers and winners.
Secondly, no athlete will win a competitive race without training beforehand. The car has to be tried out beforehand also, to see if all is running smoothly and well. This is what the Septuagesima season, with its three countdown Sundays (Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima) is for: a serious time of preparation for the even more serious time of Lent.
The means to win are fairly simple, but most engines misfire and overheat by using the means badly. The means, as Our Lady has tried to tell us many times, as PRAYER and PENANCE. You could say prayer is the gasoline and penance is the oil for the engine. Prayer is of the utmost importance to our ‘spiritual engine’; it is what drives our ‘spiritual body’ forwards and it is what gives it power.
The Power of Prayer
“Do we believe in the power of prayer? We know the common teaching of theologians: that true prayer—by which we ask something for ourselves with humility, confidence and perseverance, the graces necessary for salvation—is infallibly efficacious (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa IIae, Q.83, Art.15, ad 2). We know this doctrine, and yet it seems to us, at times, that we have truly prayed without being heard. We believe in, or rather we see, the power of a machine, of an army, of money and of knowledge; but we do not believe strongly enough in the efficacy of prayer.” (Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, chapter 23).
The Gasoline of Grace comes through Prayer
“The modern world cannot do without God. This is the root of its ills. The great truth is that we have an absolute need of God…He normally bestows His grace only in response to prayer. Since our need exists at all times....”We ought always to pray and not to faint” (Luke 18:1)....The true nature of Christian prayer is perfectly expressed in the following definition given by St. John Damascene and St. Thomas Aquinas: prayer is “a raising of the mind and heart towards God” to offer Him our homage and to ask Him for all those things of which we stand in need” (Dom Marmion, Abbot of Maredsous, Christ—The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
Spinning Wheels and Going Nowhere
People often pray without realizing what it is that they are doing, or Whom they are addressing! God so rightly complains in Scripture saying: “This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:7).
St. Louis de Montfort―in speaking of praying the Rosary in particular―writes: “A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly … To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin. How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? … It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
Dom Marmion adds: “It happens to some souls that, when they have recited many formulas, they realize that they have said nothing to God from the bottom of their hearts. Our mind may be far distant from the words that fall from our lips....In our prayer, we must give up to God our whole heart and our whole mind....Just as the sanctuary light burns itself up without reserving anything, so our soul, in its conversation with God, must be entirely dedicated to the Almighty. We must free ourselves from preoccupations and from vain thoughts, which tie the soul down to Earth and prevent it from being entirely given over to the Lord” (Dom Marmion, Abbot of Maredsous, Christ—The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
Winning Races Requires Intensity
Many find prayer difficult. That is only natural, since we are trying to communicate with the supernatural world.
“Prayer always requires a certain effort, even from those who find in it their delight, because a certain strain is involved in the concentration necessary to speak to God; it is always more or less difficult to maintain the soul in an atmosphere which is above its usual level. That is why prayer can serve as a sacramental penance. We must not be surprised at this difficulty in applying ourselves to prayer: for to raise ourselves towards God, even in the smallest degree, is to exceed our natural powers” (Dom Marmion, Abbot of Maredsous, Christ—The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
Focus on the Race, the Whole Race and Nothing but the Race
Too many people limit prayer to an isolated part of the day—first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Yet God should be part of our whole day, not just a mere ten minutes.
“Prayer in our life, must not be limited to a number of isolated, passing incidents. We must cultivate a spirit of prayer. What must we understand by this? A spirit of prayer is an habitual disposition of soul whereby, in our troubles and discouragements, as well as in our joys and successes, our hearts turn towards Our Lady and Our Lord, as to our best friends and most intimate confidants of our feelings. And it is not only in the morning and in the evening that the soul should be raised heavenwards, but always: ‘My eyes are ever towards the Lord’ (Psalm 24:15)” (Dom Marmion, Abbot of Maredsous, Christ--The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
All Enter the Race, Not All Finish the Race
Prayer is actually a bending of our will towards the will of God. He wishes the salvation of all, but all will not be saved—and one of the contributory causes of failing to make it to Heaven is a lack of prayer; a lack of prayer by those who will be damned (the driver) and a lack of prayer on the part of others for the conversion of those unfortunate souls (the mechanics and maintenance crew).
“For material harvests, God prepared the seed, the rain that must help it germinate, the sun that will ripen the fruits of the Earth. Likewise, for spiritual harvest, He has prepared spiritual seeds, the divine graces necessary for sanctification and salvation. Prayer is one of the causes meant to produce that sanctification and salvation” (Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, chapter 23). We can add to this the Biblical axiom of we reap what we sow: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:8). Prayer is sowing in the spirit. Playing is sowing in the flesh. The Angel said to the children at Fatima: “Don’t play, but pray!”
“St. Gregory the Great says: ‘Men ought, by prayer, to dispose themselves to receive what Almighty God, from eternity, has decided to give them’ (Dialogues, Book 1, chapter 8). Thus, Christ, wishing to convert the Samaritan woman, led her to pray by saying to her: “If thou didst know the gift of God!” In the same way, He granted Mary Magdalen a strong and gentle actual grace, which inclined her to repentance and to prayer. He acted in the same way to Zacheus and the Good Thief. It is, therefore, as necessary to pray in order to obtain the help of God, as it is necessary to sow seed in order to have wheat. To those who say that, what was to happen would happen, whether they prayed or not, is as foolish as to maintain that, whether or not we sowed seed, wheat would still appear once summer came! Therefore, prayer is necessary to obtain the help of God, as seed is necessary for the harvest” (Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, chapter 23).
The problems we face, arise from the fact that God is prepared to give far more than we are prepared to ask for—we are so lazy and negligent, lacking in confidence and perseverance, that we receive only a fraction of what God is prepared to give. The efficacy of prayer, correctly made, is infallibly assured by Christ:
“Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you....And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? Or a fish, will he give him a serpent?...If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from Heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask Him?” (Luke 11:9-13). The problem does not lie with the Giver, but with us.
Some Racing Tips
Many of us become discouraged with prayer because our prayers are rarely, if ever heard. It is like entering the race just to make up numbers—but we never win! Yet, there are ways in which we can, almost infallibly, get our prayers answered and win that race! The spiritual writers or racers list the following chief tactics as “infallible” or guaranteed means of having our prayers favorably heard and answered:
1. Pray for what is good and not sinful or harmful to our salvation — We should always remember that what we want is not always what we need. At times, adversity is a better route to Heaven than prosperity. St. Augustine says: “We ought to be persuaded that what God refuses to our prayer, He grants to our salvation.”
2. Our prayer must be humble — Remember the prayer of the Pharisee and the Publican. Remember, too, Our Lady’s prayer, the Magnificat, wherein she says that God has “regarded the humility of His handmaid…He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble.” The Old Testament says: “...nor from the beginning have the proud been acceptable to Thee: but the prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased Thee” (Judith 9:16). “May the Lord destroy all deceitful lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things” (Psalm 11:4). “Thou hast rebuked the proud” (Psalm 118:21). “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5).
3. Our prayer must be fervent —Too often our prayers are said listlessly, routinely, mechanically; our heart is not in them. Of such Our Lord said: “This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:7). Our prayers should be like grains of incense, placed on the hot coals of our hearts.
4. We should amend our life — If we persist in leading a life of sin, even venial sin, then we greatly handicap the chances of having our prayers heard. “He who turns his ears from hearing the law, his prayer is an abomination” (Proverbs 28:9).
5. We should forgive those who have injured us — This was the example of Christ dying on the cross: “Father, forgive them...” “If, therefore, thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee—Leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother: and then, coming, thou shalt offer thy gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). “Forgive thy neighbor if he hath hurt thee, and then shall thy sins be forgiven to thee, when thou prayest” (Ecclesiasticus. 28:2).
6. Our prayer should be united to good works or sacrifices — “Prayer is good with fasting and alms” (Tobias 12:8). That is why penance is so crucial in strengthening our prayer. Our Lady asks not only for prayer at Fatima, but prayer and sacrifices. The power of this is expressed in Scripture, where the Apostles failed to cast out a demon from one particular person, and asked Our Lord why they had failed. Our Lord replied: “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:20).
7. We should pray with confidence — Our Lord praised the Faith and confidence of persons on many occasions, saying: “Go, thy Faith has made thee whole…” (Matthew 9:22; Mark 5:34; 10:52; Luke 17:19; 18:42). He also told us that “all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive” (Matthew 21:22). Do we have that confidence in prayer?
8. We should pray with perseverance — “He defers the granting to increase our desire and appreciation” says St. Augustine. Our Lord Himself said: “Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say to you: Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Luke 11:8-9).
If we would only pray in the above manner, we would be amazed at the response our prayers would bring from Heaven! Keep in mind the words of St. Augustine: “The man who knows how to pray well, is the one who knows how to live well.” Which, for our purposes, translates into “Drive well, and you’ll win the race! Pray well, and you’ll get the grace!”
The Penance Part
You could say that the “prayer part” to Lent is like an athlete’s mental attitude. The “penance part” of Lent to be likened to the athlete’s bodily fitness. Winners are usually those athletes who are both mentally strong and physically fit and strong. The same can be said to be true of the spiritual life—which is why, when asked by His Apostles why they had failed to cast out the devil from a young boy, Our Lord replied: “But this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20).
Wholly Wholesome Holy & Whole
Therefore, we need to use our WHOLE being in our spiritual warfare and in the spiritual race for Heaven—not just soul, but body too—for a human being is a composite of body and soul. Which is why Holy Scripture powerfully and almost severely commands both elements in unmistakably strong terms: “We ought always to pray, and not to faint!” (Luke 18:1) … “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) … “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that are to come, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21:36) … “No, I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! [and Our Lord then repeats Himself two verses later] … No, I say to you; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3-5) … “The Lord delayeth not his promise [of punishment], as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance” (2 Peter 3:9) … “God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride” (Job 24:23).
In fact, things are so intertwined, that we could say that prayer and penance are just as necessary for one and the other. We must pray with the mind and mortify the mind. We must pray with the body and mortify the body.
Furthermore, just as in a good healthy, nourishing diet, there has to be a balance and a variety in our prayers and penances. As in a diet we must have proper proportions of proteins, carbohydrates and fats, so too in our spiritual diet we have to have a balance between various bodily ‘proteins’, ‘carbohydrates’ and ‘fats’ and mental ‘proteins’, ‘carbohydrates’ and ‘fats’—in order to avoid become one-dimensional and restricted in our spirituality.
Specific Penances for Specific Sins
Prayer and Fasting are among the best penances that can be undertaken—as Our Lord points out: “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:20). Yet we must also remember that—in both Hell and Purgatory—sins are punished in a specific way that somehow corresponds to the type of sin committed. Thus, the murderer will be punished differently to the drunkard. The adulterer differently to the slanderer or detractor. The thief differently to the blasphemer, and so on and on and on. Likewise, our penances can and should correspond to our sins, even while we live on Earth. Everyone is different and so everyone’s sins differ from his or her neighbor’s sins. Therefore the appropriate penance will also be different. The general rule of thumb being—as St. Ignatius says in his Spiritual Exercises—“agere contra”, which literally means “act against” or “act in opposition to”—which more precisely means “do the opposite.”
Therefore, if you are naturally a critical person, then be more praising and more accepting. If you are stingy, then be more generous. If you are lazy, be more industrious. If too inattentive, show more attention. If too untidy, show a greater tidiness. If too timid, be more courageous. If too angry, be more meek. If never wrong, start apologizing for your errors. If lukewarm, be more fervent. If a constant complainer, thank God more for your lot in life. If greedy, be temperate. If proud, accept humiliations gladly. If always excusing yourself, blame yourself more. If unhelpful, be more helpful. You see the principle being used—the list is as endless as sins are endless in their nuances. The bedrock or foundation to all this can and should be prayer and fasting, but built on top of the foundation should be an individual building of tailor-made penance that corresponds to one’s own personal sins.
Start Planning Now!
Let’s be honest and admit it—we are not going to plan and put into practice such a tailor-made approach to penance on Ash Wednesday. The only place “winging-it” will get you to is the “Hall of Fame of Failure!” As you sow, so shall you reap. “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who soweth in blessings, shall also reap blessings” (2 Corinthians 9:6).
Take a sheet of paper and write down your CHIEF faults—which are often those we do not want to face, or downplay, or even deny! If you’re not sure—then ask some honest, non-flattering, people around you who know you very well. Just don’t fall-out with them or injure them when the hit the nail on the head!
Once you have a STARTER list (you can add more as you start to diminish the frequency in committing the sins list in this first batch), then start to examine them in detail—when, where, how to they arise? With or against whom? What means are you avoiding to take, that could reduce these sins? Do you pray daily, even many times daily, asking for the grace to overcome them? Do you mortify yourself to avoid them? Do you punish yourself in some way after having committed them? List a variety of ways and methods open to you to overcome them—if unsure, consult with your confessor. Write down a series of heavier and heavier self-inflicted punishments or sanctions for every successive time you fail and fall. Make those sins the regular part of your confession, reporting if they have increased or decreased since your last confession.
Make Lent a Family Affair, Not Just Individual
Our Lord sent out His disciples in pairs—two-by-two—knowing full well that mutual support is necessary for courage, perseverance and success. The Legion of Mary also works this way—sending out its Legionaries in pairs as much as possible. In normal times, parishes had a least two priests stationed there—until the Post-Vatican fall in vocations shot-down that ideal in many places. God even made man and woman as a twosome in marriage. Pilots have their co-pilots. Presidents have Vice-Presidents. We often—though not always—work better as a team than we do alone.
Furthermore, on Judgement Day, it will not only be individuals that are judged, but also nations, states, communities, religious orders, parishes, schools, and even families. Therefore, as a family, it makes sense to approach Lent, not just from an individual perspective, but also from a family perspective. What was said of an individual assessment of one person’s chief sins, can also be applied to a ‘family’s sins’—though this is a little more difficult to pinpoint and address, for everyone’s participation in a ‘family sin’ is likely to be of a different degree—some being more guilty (instigators) and other less guilty (the followers or the coerced).
Nevertheless, there are certain family traits that can be either virtuous or sinful. It takes great humility and honesty to both see and admit to those faults. To attack one or two such family faults would be a marvelous communal penance for Lent. However, this will not happen on Ash Wednesday, at the flick of a switch—serious reflection and discussion is needed to see where a family has, as a group, let God down and offended Him, either directly or indirectly by sinning against our fellow human beings: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40).
So now is the time, in a general way, to start planning for Lent—both individually or as a family or as a school or class. Parents, especially, should help their children well in advance and talk about Lent often during this Septuagesima Season, to prepare the mind and attitude of their children in good time, so that they hit the road running and with zeal, not distaste and trepidation.
Before we know it, Lent will be upon us! This Sunday, Septuagesima Sunday, the Church will place before us the words of St. Paul, about running in a race in such a manner that we may win. “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain” (1 Corinthians 9: 24). In our lazy modern times, the car has replaced the two feet as the chief means of running around; but whether it is the athlete with his feet, or the driver with his car, the bottom line is that, to win a race, the athlete or the car has to be in peak condition. Most Catholic cars (souls) are far from being in peak condition—much like the Israelite ‘cars’ (souls) crossing the desert—most of whom were not pleasing to God, as the reading from the Mass of Septuagesima Sunday points out:
God’s Viewpoint of the Racers
“For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: and did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the desert” (1 Corinthians 10:1-5).
Hence St. Paul warns us that “Now these things were done in a figure of us, that we should not covet evil things as they also coveted. Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them, as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play!’ Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ: as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents. Neither do you murmur: as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them in figure: and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:6-12).
In a certain sense, they all ran in the race for the Promised Land, but only two of the original 4 or so million that started out from Egypt, actually entered the Promised Land and successfully crossed the ‘finish-line’—the remaining finishers were born in desert during those 40 years. With most of the ‘starters’ God was not well pleased! They ended up being starters and losers, not starter and finishers and winners.
Secondly, no athlete will win a competitive race without training beforehand. The car has to be tried out beforehand also, to see if all is running smoothly and well. This is what the Septuagesima season, with its three countdown Sundays (Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima) is for: a serious time of preparation for the even more serious time of Lent.
The means to win are fairly simple, but most engines misfire and overheat by using the means badly. The means, as Our Lady has tried to tell us many times, as PRAYER and PENANCE. You could say prayer is the gasoline and penance is the oil for the engine. Prayer is of the utmost importance to our ‘spiritual engine’; it is what drives our ‘spiritual body’ forwards and it is what gives it power.
The Power of Prayer
“Do we believe in the power of prayer? We know the common teaching of theologians: that true prayer—by which we ask something for ourselves with humility, confidence and perseverance, the graces necessary for salvation—is infallibly efficacious (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa IIae, Q.83, Art.15, ad 2). We know this doctrine, and yet it seems to us, at times, that we have truly prayed without being heard. We believe in, or rather we see, the power of a machine, of an army, of money and of knowledge; but we do not believe strongly enough in the efficacy of prayer.” (Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, chapter 23).
The Gasoline of Grace comes through Prayer
“The modern world cannot do without God. This is the root of its ills. The great truth is that we have an absolute need of God…He normally bestows His grace only in response to prayer. Since our need exists at all times....”We ought always to pray and not to faint” (Luke 18:1)....The true nature of Christian prayer is perfectly expressed in the following definition given by St. John Damascene and St. Thomas Aquinas: prayer is “a raising of the mind and heart towards God” to offer Him our homage and to ask Him for all those things of which we stand in need” (Dom Marmion, Abbot of Maredsous, Christ—The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
Spinning Wheels and Going Nowhere
People often pray without realizing what it is that they are doing, or Whom they are addressing! God so rightly complains in Scripture saying: “This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:7).
St. Louis de Montfort―in speaking of praying the Rosary in particular―writes: “A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly … To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin. How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? … It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
Dom Marmion adds: “It happens to some souls that, when they have recited many formulas, they realize that they have said nothing to God from the bottom of their hearts. Our mind may be far distant from the words that fall from our lips....In our prayer, we must give up to God our whole heart and our whole mind....Just as the sanctuary light burns itself up without reserving anything, so our soul, in its conversation with God, must be entirely dedicated to the Almighty. We must free ourselves from preoccupations and from vain thoughts, which tie the soul down to Earth and prevent it from being entirely given over to the Lord” (Dom Marmion, Abbot of Maredsous, Christ—The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
Winning Races Requires Intensity
Many find prayer difficult. That is only natural, since we are trying to communicate with the supernatural world.
“Prayer always requires a certain effort, even from those who find in it their delight, because a certain strain is involved in the concentration necessary to speak to God; it is always more or less difficult to maintain the soul in an atmosphere which is above its usual level. That is why prayer can serve as a sacramental penance. We must not be surprised at this difficulty in applying ourselves to prayer: for to raise ourselves towards God, even in the smallest degree, is to exceed our natural powers” (Dom Marmion, Abbot of Maredsous, Christ—The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
Focus on the Race, the Whole Race and Nothing but the Race
Too many people limit prayer to an isolated part of the day—first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Yet God should be part of our whole day, not just a mere ten minutes.
“Prayer in our life, must not be limited to a number of isolated, passing incidents. We must cultivate a spirit of prayer. What must we understand by this? A spirit of prayer is an habitual disposition of soul whereby, in our troubles and discouragements, as well as in our joys and successes, our hearts turn towards Our Lady and Our Lord, as to our best friends and most intimate confidants of our feelings. And it is not only in the morning and in the evening that the soul should be raised heavenwards, but always: ‘My eyes are ever towards the Lord’ (Psalm 24:15)” (Dom Marmion, Abbot of Maredsous, Christ--The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
All Enter the Race, Not All Finish the Race
Prayer is actually a bending of our will towards the will of God. He wishes the salvation of all, but all will not be saved—and one of the contributory causes of failing to make it to Heaven is a lack of prayer; a lack of prayer by those who will be damned (the driver) and a lack of prayer on the part of others for the conversion of those unfortunate souls (the mechanics and maintenance crew).
“For material harvests, God prepared the seed, the rain that must help it germinate, the sun that will ripen the fruits of the Earth. Likewise, for spiritual harvest, He has prepared spiritual seeds, the divine graces necessary for sanctification and salvation. Prayer is one of the causes meant to produce that sanctification and salvation” (Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, chapter 23). We can add to this the Biblical axiom of we reap what we sow: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:8). Prayer is sowing in the spirit. Playing is sowing in the flesh. The Angel said to the children at Fatima: “Don’t play, but pray!”
“St. Gregory the Great says: ‘Men ought, by prayer, to dispose themselves to receive what Almighty God, from eternity, has decided to give them’ (Dialogues, Book 1, chapter 8). Thus, Christ, wishing to convert the Samaritan woman, led her to pray by saying to her: “If thou didst know the gift of God!” In the same way, He granted Mary Magdalen a strong and gentle actual grace, which inclined her to repentance and to prayer. He acted in the same way to Zacheus and the Good Thief. It is, therefore, as necessary to pray in order to obtain the help of God, as it is necessary to sow seed in order to have wheat. To those who say that, what was to happen would happen, whether they prayed or not, is as foolish as to maintain that, whether or not we sowed seed, wheat would still appear once summer came! Therefore, prayer is necessary to obtain the help of God, as seed is necessary for the harvest” (Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, chapter 23).
The problems we face, arise from the fact that God is prepared to give far more than we are prepared to ask for—we are so lazy and negligent, lacking in confidence and perseverance, that we receive only a fraction of what God is prepared to give. The efficacy of prayer, correctly made, is infallibly assured by Christ:
“Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you....And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? Or a fish, will he give him a serpent?...If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from Heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask Him?” (Luke 11:9-13). The problem does not lie with the Giver, but with us.
Some Racing Tips
Many of us become discouraged with prayer because our prayers are rarely, if ever heard. It is like entering the race just to make up numbers—but we never win! Yet, there are ways in which we can, almost infallibly, get our prayers answered and win that race! The spiritual writers or racers list the following chief tactics as “infallible” or guaranteed means of having our prayers favorably heard and answered:
1. Pray for what is good and not sinful or harmful to our salvation — We should always remember that what we want is not always what we need. At times, adversity is a better route to Heaven than prosperity. St. Augustine says: “We ought to be persuaded that what God refuses to our prayer, He grants to our salvation.”
2. Our prayer must be humble — Remember the prayer of the Pharisee and the Publican. Remember, too, Our Lady’s prayer, the Magnificat, wherein she says that God has “regarded the humility of His handmaid…He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble.” The Old Testament says: “...nor from the beginning have the proud been acceptable to Thee: but the prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased Thee” (Judith 9:16). “May the Lord destroy all deceitful lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things” (Psalm 11:4). “Thou hast rebuked the proud” (Psalm 118:21). “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5).
3. Our prayer must be fervent —Too often our prayers are said listlessly, routinely, mechanically; our heart is not in them. Of such Our Lord said: “This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:7). Our prayers should be like grains of incense, placed on the hot coals of our hearts.
4. We should amend our life — If we persist in leading a life of sin, even venial sin, then we greatly handicap the chances of having our prayers heard. “He who turns his ears from hearing the law, his prayer is an abomination” (Proverbs 28:9).
5. We should forgive those who have injured us — This was the example of Christ dying on the cross: “Father, forgive them...” “If, therefore, thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee—Leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother: and then, coming, thou shalt offer thy gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). “Forgive thy neighbor if he hath hurt thee, and then shall thy sins be forgiven to thee, when thou prayest” (Ecclesiasticus. 28:2).
6. Our prayer should be united to good works or sacrifices — “Prayer is good with fasting and alms” (Tobias 12:8). That is why penance is so crucial in strengthening our prayer. Our Lady asks not only for prayer at Fatima, but prayer and sacrifices. The power of this is expressed in Scripture, where the Apostles failed to cast out a demon from one particular person, and asked Our Lord why they had failed. Our Lord replied: “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:20).
7. We should pray with confidence — Our Lord praised the Faith and confidence of persons on many occasions, saying: “Go, thy Faith has made thee whole…” (Matthew 9:22; Mark 5:34; 10:52; Luke 17:19; 18:42). He also told us that “all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive” (Matthew 21:22). Do we have that confidence in prayer?
8. We should pray with perseverance — “He defers the granting to increase our desire and appreciation” says St. Augustine. Our Lord Himself said: “Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say to you: Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Luke 11:8-9).
If we would only pray in the above manner, we would be amazed at the response our prayers would bring from Heaven! Keep in mind the words of St. Augustine: “The man who knows how to pray well, is the one who knows how to live well.” Which, for our purposes, translates into “Drive well, and you’ll win the race! Pray well, and you’ll get the grace!”
The Penance Part
You could say that the “prayer part” to Lent is like an athlete’s mental attitude. The “penance part” of Lent to be likened to the athlete’s bodily fitness. Winners are usually those athletes who are both mentally strong and physically fit and strong. The same can be said to be true of the spiritual life—which is why, when asked by His Apostles why they had failed to cast out the devil from a young boy, Our Lord replied: “But this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:20).
Wholly Wholesome Holy & Whole
Therefore, we need to use our WHOLE being in our spiritual warfare and in the spiritual race for Heaven—not just soul, but body too—for a human being is a composite of body and soul. Which is why Holy Scripture powerfully and almost severely commands both elements in unmistakably strong terms: “We ought always to pray, and not to faint!” (Luke 18:1) … “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) … “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that are to come, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21:36) … “No, I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! [and Our Lord then repeats Himself two verses later] … No, I say to you; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3-5) … “The Lord delayeth not his promise [of punishment], as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance” (2 Peter 3:9) … “God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride” (Job 24:23).
In fact, things are so intertwined, that we could say that prayer and penance are just as necessary for one and the other. We must pray with the mind and mortify the mind. We must pray with the body and mortify the body.
Furthermore, just as in a good healthy, nourishing diet, there has to be a balance and a variety in our prayers and penances. As in a diet we must have proper proportions of proteins, carbohydrates and fats, so too in our spiritual diet we have to have a balance between various bodily ‘proteins’, ‘carbohydrates’ and ‘fats’ and mental ‘proteins’, ‘carbohydrates’ and ‘fats’—in order to avoid become one-dimensional and restricted in our spirituality.
Specific Penances for Specific Sins
Prayer and Fasting are among the best penances that can be undertaken—as Our Lord points out: “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:20). Yet we must also remember that—in both Hell and Purgatory—sins are punished in a specific way that somehow corresponds to the type of sin committed. Thus, the murderer will be punished differently to the drunkard. The adulterer differently to the slanderer or detractor. The thief differently to the blasphemer, and so on and on and on. Likewise, our penances can and should correspond to our sins, even while we live on Earth. Everyone is different and so everyone’s sins differ from his or her neighbor’s sins. Therefore the appropriate penance will also be different. The general rule of thumb being—as St. Ignatius says in his Spiritual Exercises—“agere contra”, which literally means “act against” or “act in opposition to”—which more precisely means “do the opposite.”
Therefore, if you are naturally a critical person, then be more praising and more accepting. If you are stingy, then be more generous. If you are lazy, be more industrious. If too inattentive, show more attention. If too untidy, show a greater tidiness. If too timid, be more courageous. If too angry, be more meek. If never wrong, start apologizing for your errors. If lukewarm, be more fervent. If a constant complainer, thank God more for your lot in life. If greedy, be temperate. If proud, accept humiliations gladly. If always excusing yourself, blame yourself more. If unhelpful, be more helpful. You see the principle being used—the list is as endless as sins are endless in their nuances. The bedrock or foundation to all this can and should be prayer and fasting, but built on top of the foundation should be an individual building of tailor-made penance that corresponds to one’s own personal sins.
Start Planning Now!
Let’s be honest and admit it—we are not going to plan and put into practice such a tailor-made approach to penance on Ash Wednesday. The only place “winging-it” will get you to is the “Hall of Fame of Failure!” As you sow, so shall you reap. “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who soweth in blessings, shall also reap blessings” (2 Corinthians 9:6).
Take a sheet of paper and write down your CHIEF faults—which are often those we do not want to face, or downplay, or even deny! If you’re not sure—then ask some honest, non-flattering, people around you who know you very well. Just don’t fall-out with them or injure them when the hit the nail on the head!
Once you have a STARTER list (you can add more as you start to diminish the frequency in committing the sins list in this first batch), then start to examine them in detail—when, where, how to they arise? With or against whom? What means are you avoiding to take, that could reduce these sins? Do you pray daily, even many times daily, asking for the grace to overcome them? Do you mortify yourself to avoid them? Do you punish yourself in some way after having committed them? List a variety of ways and methods open to you to overcome them—if unsure, consult with your confessor. Write down a series of heavier and heavier self-inflicted punishments or sanctions for every successive time you fail and fall. Make those sins the regular part of your confession, reporting if they have increased or decreased since your last confession.
Make Lent a Family Affair, Not Just Individual
Our Lord sent out His disciples in pairs—two-by-two—knowing full well that mutual support is necessary for courage, perseverance and success. The Legion of Mary also works this way—sending out its Legionaries in pairs as much as possible. In normal times, parishes had a least two priests stationed there—until the Post-Vatican fall in vocations shot-down that ideal in many places. God even made man and woman as a twosome in marriage. Pilots have their co-pilots. Presidents have Vice-Presidents. We often—though not always—work better as a team than we do alone.
Furthermore, on Judgement Day, it will not only be individuals that are judged, but also nations, states, communities, religious orders, parishes, schools, and even families. Therefore, as a family, it makes sense to approach Lent, not just from an individual perspective, but also from a family perspective. What was said of an individual assessment of one person’s chief sins, can also be applied to a ‘family’s sins’—though this is a little more difficult to pinpoint and address, for everyone’s participation in a ‘family sin’ is likely to be of a different degree—some being more guilty (instigators) and other less guilty (the followers or the coerced).
Nevertheless, there are certain family traits that can be either virtuous or sinful. It takes great humility and honesty to both see and admit to those faults. To attack one or two such family faults would be a marvelous communal penance for Lent. However, this will not happen on Ash Wednesday, at the flick of a switch—serious reflection and discussion is needed to see where a family has, as a group, let God down and offended Him, either directly or indirectly by sinning against our fellow human beings: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40).
So now is the time, in a general way, to start planning for Lent—both individually or as a family or as a school or class. Parents, especially, should help their children well in advance and talk about Lent often during this Septuagesima Season, to prepare the mind and attitude of their children in good time, so that they hit the road running and with zeal, not distaste and trepidation.
Article 1
Friday February 3rd & Saturday February 4th
Switching Focus to Septuagesima! It Starts on Sunday!
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
Friday February 3rd & Saturday February 4th
Switching Focus to Septuagesima! It Starts on Sunday!
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
Christmas is Gone! What Now?
For some people, Christmas was all over and done by December 26th. For others, Christmas lasted until New Year’s Day, January 1st. For a few wise folk, Christmas might have continued until January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany. However, for Holy Mother Church, Christmas continues until the feast of the Purification of Our Lady and the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple―both of which are celebrated on February 2nd. Nevertheless, regardless of which version of Christmas you followed―it is now gone, it is “done and dusted”, it now remains in the “rear-view mirror”! So what now? After all the socializing (which probably stopped several weeks ago), flirtation with worldliness and all the eating, drinking and partying―where do we go? What do we do? What lies ahead?
Doctors and psychologists will tell that over 60% of persons experience post-Christmas blues or post-Christmas sadness or even depression. The artificial highlights are all gone―the singing stops, the carols cease, the tree is taken-down, the feasting finishes, the parties have petered-out, the laughter leaves, the friends have flown, the New Year’s resolutions have become New Year disillusions―all that is left is the reality of the daily grind. The winter weather chills our mood, the cloudy skies cloud our spirits, the snow and ice can cause us to slip into sadness or even depression. All of this can also be compounded by regret about what we said and did over Christmas, or the overspending, or the weight gain from overeating, or downers from overdrinking.
Christmas, for some folk, is like a drug. They overdose on the material side of Christmas, they binge on the glitz, they go overboard on the fun side of things. Consequently, like any drug-addict, they experience a “comedown” or “hangover” or “withdrawal symptoms” once the drug of Christmas is taken away and its effects wear-off. For some the comedown can feel relatively pleasant, while for others, the comedown can be a disappointing sensation, signaling a return to reality and perhaps triggering further drug use. Why do over 60% feel this way? It is because they have mistaken or warped idea of what Christmas is supposed to be.
Christmas is a Beginning, Not an End!
Christmas cannot be isolated. Christmas is not an end in itself. Christmas is part of a bigger picture. Christmas is a point of departure―it is not the destination. Christmas is not meant to be frozen in eternity―just like the winter season is a path to the season of spring, Christmas is meant to be a path to eternal life. Christmas is the start of a journey.
Since Christmas is concerned with the birth of a baby―Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ―we can compare Christmas to infancy, the beginning of person’s life. Infancy is not the goal of a newly born baby. Adulthood is the goal. To reach that maturity, the infant will have to change and grow―passing through the varying degrees of childhood, adolescence and the uncertainties of incipient adulthood―which might the “coming of age” but most certainly is not the “coming of maturity” or wisdom.
Or, from a gardening point of view―Christmas is merely planting the seed. The seed has to sprout, grow, mature and produce fruit. Our Lord would often use “gardening” analogies. “The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field … The sower went out to sow his seed … The seed is the word of God ... He that soweth the good seed, is the Son of man. And the field is the world” (Matthew 13; Mark 4; Luke 8). “Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it remaineth alone itself. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24-25). “I am the true vine; and My Father is the gardener. Every branch in Me, that bears not fruit, He will take away. And every branch that bears fruit, He will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit ... As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine and you are the branches … In this is My Father glorified―that you bring forth very much fruit!” (John 15:1-8). “If you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed …” (Matthew 17:19) ... “To what is the Kingdom of God like, and to what shall I liken it? It is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and cast into his garden, and it grew and became a great tree!” (Luke 13:18-19). “And from the fig tree learn a parable…” (Matthew 24:32).
Will Your Seed of Christmas Grow?
What profit will you bring out of Christmas? Christ came at Christmas to sow the seed of His Word in your soul! Will it sprout? Will it grow? Will it bear fruit? Or will it be another wasted Christmas? The parable about a man burying his master’s talent comes to mind:
“A man, going into a far away country, called his servants and delivered to them his goods. And to one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one, to everyone according to his proper ability: and immediately he took his journey. And he that had received the five talents, went his way, and traded with the same, and gained other five. And in like manner he that had received the two, gained other two. But he that had received the one, going his way dug into the earth, and hid his lord’s money.
“But after a long time the lord of those servants came, and reckoned with them. And he that had received the five talents coming, brought other five talents, saying: ‘Lord, thou didst deliver to me five talents, behold I have gained other five over and above!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’
“And he also that had received the two talents came and said: ‘Lord, thou deliveredst two talents to me: behold I have gained other two!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant: because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’
“But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that thou art a hard man; thou reapest where thou hast not sown, and gatherest where thou hast not strewed. And being afraid I went and hid thy talent in the earth: behold here thou hast that which is thine!’ And his lord answering, said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! Thou knewest that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not strewed! Thou oughtest therefore to have committed my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received my own with usury! Take ye away therefore the talent from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents! For to everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall abound: but from him that hath not, that also which he seemeth to have shall be taken away! And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
Have you buried Our Lord’s talents? Have you buried His graces? Have you buried the great grace of the Seed of Christmas? As we enter Septuagesima and Lent, that Seed of Christmas needs to grow―will it? Have you buried that Seed of Christmas in the soil of your soul? Or is it buried somewhere in the freezer? Are you caring for the Seed with further spiritual reading and meditation? Are you watering it with many prayers? Or is it being left to wither and die?
Septuagesima Vineyard
This coming Sunday―Septuagesima Sunday―will present you with Gospel reading of Our Lord’s parable about the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-15). The farmer goes out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. He again goes out at third hour and sees others standing idly in the market place―and also hires them to work in his vineyard. He repeats this action at the sixth, ninth and eleventh hours. Our Lord wants you to work in the vineyard of your soul and to nurture the seeds that He has planted there. Are you in the vineyard tending to those seeds, or have you abandoned those seeds in your vineyard and gone out to enjoy the world?
The Septuagesima Season Liturgy of Holy Mother Church presents us with the image of work. In the Divine Office (the Breviary), at the Office of Matins, we are made to read about God’s creation of the world. Later we will read about Noe’s building of the Ark―a work which took decades. Heaven is not a “freebie”―but Hell most certainly is! There is no admission fee to Hell―there is nobody at the gates of Hell checking tickets―you just walk straight in, no questions asked, they are only too happy that you decided to come down there!
Heaven is not free, but expensive! Heck! What do you expect? You expect to live for ever! You expect perfect joy and happiness! You expect no suffering and no worries! You expect free accommodation! Free travel! A perfect resurrected body with no more flaws! Not one single enemy―true sincere friendship with everyone! No recrimination for your sins! Free food! And a thousand other things! And you expect it all for free? What a selfish, self-centered, brash, insolent attitude! That kind of notion for obtaining Heaven is hellish nonsense―nowhere in Scripture, nor in Tradition, will you find such a picture painted! On the contrary, in Scripture Our Lord says: “Not everyone that saith to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21). “These people honor me with their lips―but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8). “If any man will come after Me [to Heaven], let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that takes not up his cross and follows Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). “Unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20). “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3).
Nobody Likes Lent! Nobody Likes Penance!
Sin comes easy―penance is hard! Yet, as Our Lord said, unless we do penance we shall perish! In her revelations to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady lamented our lack of desire for penance and suffering: ““My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … It was not necessary to suffer so much! … Yet He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! … But the worldlings, in their torpidity, are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance!”
For some people, Christmas was all over and done by December 26th. For others, Christmas lasted until New Year’s Day, January 1st. For a few wise folk, Christmas might have continued until January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany. However, for Holy Mother Church, Christmas continues until the feast of the Purification of Our Lady and the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple―both of which are celebrated on February 2nd. Nevertheless, regardless of which version of Christmas you followed―it is now gone, it is “done and dusted”, it now remains in the “rear-view mirror”! So what now? After all the socializing (which probably stopped several weeks ago), flirtation with worldliness and all the eating, drinking and partying―where do we go? What do we do? What lies ahead?
Doctors and psychologists will tell that over 60% of persons experience post-Christmas blues or post-Christmas sadness or even depression. The artificial highlights are all gone―the singing stops, the carols cease, the tree is taken-down, the feasting finishes, the parties have petered-out, the laughter leaves, the friends have flown, the New Year’s resolutions have become New Year disillusions―all that is left is the reality of the daily grind. The winter weather chills our mood, the cloudy skies cloud our spirits, the snow and ice can cause us to slip into sadness or even depression. All of this can also be compounded by regret about what we said and did over Christmas, or the overspending, or the weight gain from overeating, or downers from overdrinking.
Christmas, for some folk, is like a drug. They overdose on the material side of Christmas, they binge on the glitz, they go overboard on the fun side of things. Consequently, like any drug-addict, they experience a “comedown” or “hangover” or “withdrawal symptoms” once the drug of Christmas is taken away and its effects wear-off. For some the comedown can feel relatively pleasant, while for others, the comedown can be a disappointing sensation, signaling a return to reality and perhaps triggering further drug use. Why do over 60% feel this way? It is because they have mistaken or warped idea of what Christmas is supposed to be.
Christmas is a Beginning, Not an End!
Christmas cannot be isolated. Christmas is not an end in itself. Christmas is part of a bigger picture. Christmas is a point of departure―it is not the destination. Christmas is not meant to be frozen in eternity―just like the winter season is a path to the season of spring, Christmas is meant to be a path to eternal life. Christmas is the start of a journey.
Since Christmas is concerned with the birth of a baby―Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ―we can compare Christmas to infancy, the beginning of person’s life. Infancy is not the goal of a newly born baby. Adulthood is the goal. To reach that maturity, the infant will have to change and grow―passing through the varying degrees of childhood, adolescence and the uncertainties of incipient adulthood―which might the “coming of age” but most certainly is not the “coming of maturity” or wisdom.
Or, from a gardening point of view―Christmas is merely planting the seed. The seed has to sprout, grow, mature and produce fruit. Our Lord would often use “gardening” analogies. “The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field … The sower went out to sow his seed … The seed is the word of God ... He that soweth the good seed, is the Son of man. And the field is the world” (Matthew 13; Mark 4; Luke 8). “Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it remaineth alone itself. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24-25). “I am the true vine; and My Father is the gardener. Every branch in Me, that bears not fruit, He will take away. And every branch that bears fruit, He will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit ... As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine and you are the branches … In this is My Father glorified―that you bring forth very much fruit!” (John 15:1-8). “If you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed …” (Matthew 17:19) ... “To what is the Kingdom of God like, and to what shall I liken it? It is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and cast into his garden, and it grew and became a great tree!” (Luke 13:18-19). “And from the fig tree learn a parable…” (Matthew 24:32).
Will Your Seed of Christmas Grow?
What profit will you bring out of Christmas? Christ came at Christmas to sow the seed of His Word in your soul! Will it sprout? Will it grow? Will it bear fruit? Or will it be another wasted Christmas? The parable about a man burying his master’s talent comes to mind:
“A man, going into a far away country, called his servants and delivered to them his goods. And to one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one, to everyone according to his proper ability: and immediately he took his journey. And he that had received the five talents, went his way, and traded with the same, and gained other five. And in like manner he that had received the two, gained other two. But he that had received the one, going his way dug into the earth, and hid his lord’s money.
“But after a long time the lord of those servants came, and reckoned with them. And he that had received the five talents coming, brought other five talents, saying: ‘Lord, thou didst deliver to me five talents, behold I have gained other five over and above!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’
“And he also that had received the two talents came and said: ‘Lord, thou deliveredst two talents to me: behold I have gained other two!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant: because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’
“But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that thou art a hard man; thou reapest where thou hast not sown, and gatherest where thou hast not strewed. And being afraid I went and hid thy talent in the earth: behold here thou hast that which is thine!’ And his lord answering, said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! Thou knewest that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not strewed! Thou oughtest therefore to have committed my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received my own with usury! Take ye away therefore the talent from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents! For to everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall abound: but from him that hath not, that also which he seemeth to have shall be taken away! And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
Have you buried Our Lord’s talents? Have you buried His graces? Have you buried the great grace of the Seed of Christmas? As we enter Septuagesima and Lent, that Seed of Christmas needs to grow―will it? Have you buried that Seed of Christmas in the soil of your soul? Or is it buried somewhere in the freezer? Are you caring for the Seed with further spiritual reading and meditation? Are you watering it with many prayers? Or is it being left to wither and die?
Septuagesima Vineyard
This coming Sunday―Septuagesima Sunday―will present you with Gospel reading of Our Lord’s parable about the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-15). The farmer goes out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. He again goes out at third hour and sees others standing idly in the market place―and also hires them to work in his vineyard. He repeats this action at the sixth, ninth and eleventh hours. Our Lord wants you to work in the vineyard of your soul and to nurture the seeds that He has planted there. Are you in the vineyard tending to those seeds, or have you abandoned those seeds in your vineyard and gone out to enjoy the world?
The Septuagesima Season Liturgy of Holy Mother Church presents us with the image of work. In the Divine Office (the Breviary), at the Office of Matins, we are made to read about God’s creation of the world. Later we will read about Noe’s building of the Ark―a work which took decades. Heaven is not a “freebie”―but Hell most certainly is! There is no admission fee to Hell―there is nobody at the gates of Hell checking tickets―you just walk straight in, no questions asked, they are only too happy that you decided to come down there!
Heaven is not free, but expensive! Heck! What do you expect? You expect to live for ever! You expect perfect joy and happiness! You expect no suffering and no worries! You expect free accommodation! Free travel! A perfect resurrected body with no more flaws! Not one single enemy―true sincere friendship with everyone! No recrimination for your sins! Free food! And a thousand other things! And you expect it all for free? What a selfish, self-centered, brash, insolent attitude! That kind of notion for obtaining Heaven is hellish nonsense―nowhere in Scripture, nor in Tradition, will you find such a picture painted! On the contrary, in Scripture Our Lord says: “Not everyone that saith to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21). “These people honor me with their lips―but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8). “If any man will come after Me [to Heaven], let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that takes not up his cross and follows Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). “Unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20). “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3).
Nobody Likes Lent! Nobody Likes Penance!
Sin comes easy―penance is hard! Yet, as Our Lord said, unless we do penance we shall perish! In her revelations to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady lamented our lack of desire for penance and suffering: ““My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … It was not necessary to suffer so much! … Yet He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! … But the worldlings, in their torpidity, are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance!”
DAILY THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTMAS SEASON
Article 13
Wednesday February 1st, 2023
There's No Success Like Our Lady of Good Success!
Wednesday February 1st, 2023
There's No Success Like Our Lady of Good Success!
Winning and Losing! Successful and Unsuccessful!
Everyone loves a winner! We all like to win. Nobody wants to be a loser. We gravitate towards winners and shy away from losers. We want our lives to be a success. Children want to be successful in their school exams and their sporting endeavors. As they grow older and enter their teens, failure is a horrible fear due to peer pressure to be a successful and popular. As maturity comes along, young adults want to be successful in their jobs, business ventures and marriages. Success has become a modern-day yardstick by which we measure a person’s worth or value.
Businesses compete against each other in their search for success. Sports teams and athletes battle against each other seeking success. Politicians compete with each other vying for success. Everyone wants to achieve success―but most people wish they could be successful without having to put in much effort to achieve success. Others try doing one thing or another, but quit after a while―either because they don’t want to invest time and effort, or are afraid of the competition, or because they are afraid of failure. Usually, only a small percentage acts, perseveres and does not give up.
Listen to Your Elders
The ancient Greek poet Hesiod (7th century BC), in his Works and Days, wrote: “But before the road of excellence, the immortal gods have placed sweat! And the way to it is long and steep and rough at first! But when one arrives at the summit, then it is easy, even though remaining difficult!”
A similar quote about the need for hard work, toil, labor and pain in order to achieve success is found in the play Electra by the ancient Greek playwright Sophocles (5th Century BC), which has been variously translated as: “nothing truly succeeds without pain”, “nothing succeeds without toil”, “there is no success without hard work”, and “without labor nothing prospers (well).”
Similar quotes have been uttered throughout the centuries:
● Julius Caesar (1st century BC) said: “It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.”
● A 2nd century writer is recorded as saying: “According to the pain is the reward.”
● The British poet Nicholas Breton (1545–1626) wrote: “They must take pain that look for any gain.”
● William Shakespeare (1564–1616) wrote: “Pain pays the income of each precious thing.”
● The poet Robert Herrick (1591–1674), in his Hesperides, wrote: “If little labor, little are our gains. Man’s fate is according to his pains.”
● Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), also said: “There are no gains, without pains!”
● In 1853 R. C. Trench wrote, in On Lessons in Proverbs: “For the most part they courageously accept the law of labor: ‘No pains, no gains!—No sweat, no sweet!” as the appointed law and condition of man’s life.”
● The famous proverb “Every rose has its thorn” is believed to have originated either as a Dutch, French or Italian proverb.
Painful Success
“No pain, no gain” (or “No gain without pain”) has become a popular proverb since the 1980s as an exercise motto that promises greater success for the price of hard and even painful work. Under this idea of “no pain, no gain”, competitive professionals, such as athletes and artists, are required to endure pain (physical suffering) and stress (mental/emotional suffering) to achieve professional excellence.
Another similar modern-day slogan is: “Pain Is Temporary, Success Lasts Forever!” Along these same lines, a psychologist, in an article entitled, The 7 Inevitable Stages of Pain Before You Succeed, lists those stages as (1) You will feel pain; (2) You will want to give up prematurely; (3) You will lose relationships; (4) People will discourage you; (5) You will be hated for no reason; (6) You will doubt yourself; and (7) You will fail―finally adding: “It will all be worth it!”
Does All This Sound Strangely Familiar?
You might be asking yourself: “Where have I heard all this before?” Well―you don’t have to look any further than Our Lord and Our Lady and perhaps a few quotes from Holy Scripture. In fact, Our Lord and Our Lady have said a great deal along the lines quoted above―here is just a “tip-of-the-iceberg” of the many quotes that could be quoted:
● To His Apostles, Our Lord said: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20).
● Similarly, Our Lady said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life, but in the next!” ― which is another way of saying: “If you won’t suffer in this world, then you will not get to Heaven!”
● Along the same lines Our Lord said: “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36).
● To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady said: “Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain―because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion!”
● Our Lord tells us that if we wish to successfully follow Him to Heaven, then we must be prepared to suffer with Him on Earth: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
The Greatest Success Story Ever Told
The world’s media is full of success stories―day after day, year after year. Yet there is one success story the world’s media does not tell you about―it is the greatest success story ever known! It is the story of the Blessed Virgin Mary! Our Lady is nothing but success! She has always been a success and will always be a success. Her success surpasses that of all the angels and saints put together! She is God’s masterpiece―a blueprint for success. St. Louis de Montfort writes:
“Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High … where God dwells more magnificently and more divinely than in any other place in the universe! … She is the grand and divine world of God―where there are beauties and treasures unspeakable! She is the magnificence of the Most High, where He hid His only Son, and in Him all that is most excellent and most precious! Oh, what grand and hidden things that mighty God has wrought in this admirable creature―as she herself had to acknowledge―in spite of her profound humility: ‘He that is mighty hath done great things to me!’ (Luke 1:49). The world knows them not, because it is both incapable and unworthy of such knowledge!
“The depth of her humility, and of all her virtues and graces, is an abyss which never can be sounded! O height incomprehensible! O breadth unspeakable! O length immeasurable! O abyss impenetrable! … Every day, from one end of the Earth to the other―everything preaches, everything publishes, the admirable Mary! … The whole Earth is full of her glory! … After that, we must cry out with the saints: ‘De Maria numquam satis!’—‘Of Mary there is never enough!’ We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought! She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service! … After that, we must cry out with the Apostle Paul: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor man’s heart comprehended’ (1 Corinthians 2:9) the beauties, the grandeurs, the excellences of Mary—the miracle of the miracles of grace, of nature and of glory!
“It was only through Mary that God the Father gave His Only-Begotten to the world. It was only Mary who merited it and found grace before God (Luke 1:30) by the force of her prayers and the eminence of her virtues ... The Son of God became man for our salvation―but it was in Mary and by Mary. God the Holy Ghost formed Jesus Christ in Mary―but it was only after having asked her consent by the Angel Gabriel … Oh, admirable and incomprehensible dependence of God! … Oh, how highly we glorify God when, to please Him, we submit ourselves to Mary, after the example of Jesus Christ!
“God the Father made an assemblage of all the waters and He named it the sea (mare). He made an assemblage of all His graces and he called it Mary (Maria). This great God has a most rich treasury in which He has laid up all that He has of beauty and splendor, of rarity and preciousness―including even His own Son―and this immense treasury is none other than Mary, whom the saints have named the Treasure of the Lord, out of whose plenitude all men are made rich.
“It was the will of our Blessed Lord to begin His miracles by Mary. He sanctified St. John in the womb of his mother, St. Elizabeth―but it was by Mary’s word. No sooner had she spoken, than John was sanctified―and this was His first miracle of grace. At the marriage of Cana, He changed the water into wine―but it was at Mary’s humble prayer―and this was His first miracle of nature. He began and continued His miracles by Mary, and He will continue them to the end of ages by Mary. God the Son has communicated to His Mother all that He acquired―by His life and His death, His infinite merits and His admirable virtues―and He has made her the treasurer of all that His Father gave Him for His inheritance. It is by her that He applies His merits to His members, and that He communicates His virtues, and distributes His graces. She is His mysterious canal; she is His aqueduct, through which He makes His mercies flow gently and abundantly.
“God the Holy Ghost is become fruitful by Mary, whom He has espoused. It was with her, in her, and of her that He produced His Masterpiece―which is God made Man―and that He goes on producing daily, to the end of the world, the predestinate and the members of the Body of that adorable Head. The Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady―though He had no absolute need of her―to bring His fruitfulness into action, by producing, in her and by her, Jesus Christ and His members … God the Holy Ghost wishes to form the elect for Himself in her and by her … Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints, who shall come at the end of the world, are reserved for her. For it is only that singular and miraculous Virgin who can produce, in union with the Holy Ghost, singular and extraordinary things … When the Holy Ghost, her Spouse, has found Mary in a soul, He flies there. He enters there in His fullness; He communicates Himself to that soul abundantly, and to the full extent to which it makes room for His spouse. Nay, one of the greatest reasons why the Holy Ghost does not now do startling wonders in our souls, is because He does not find there a sufficiently great union with His faithful and inseparable spouse.” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).
Humbly Successful and Successfully Humble
Success―as we all know―can be dangerously intoxicating. Success can lead to dangers like arrogance and complacency and inefficiency. All too often when a person or an organization reaches lofty success, they stop doing the very things that made them successful. And therefore, success introduces them to the beginning of their end: “Pride goeth before destruction, and the spirit is lifted up before a fall!” (Proverbs 16:18). Whenever we put in the effort and dedication that it takes to succeed, we need to do so quietly and without pride: “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5).
St. Louis de Montfort paints us a picture of Our Lady’s humility in her “success” in the presence of God: “What Lucifer has lost by pride, Mary has gained by humility ... Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God … Mary was singularly hidden during her life. It is on this account that the Holy Ghost and the Church call her ‘Alma Mater’ — ‘Mother secret and hidden.’ Her humility was so profound that she had no inclination on Earth, more powerful or more constant, than that of hiding herself, from herself, as well as from every other creature, so as to be known to God only ... God the Father consented that she should work no miracle―at least no public one, during her life―although He had given her the power to do so. God the Son consented that she should hardly ever speak―though He had communicated His wisdom to her. God the Holy Ghost―though she was His faithful spouse―consented that His Apostles and Evangelists should speak very little of her, and no more than was necessary to make Jesus Christ known.
“Mary, being a mere creature that has come from the hands of the Most High, is in comparison with His Infinite Majesty less than an atom; or rather, she is nothing at all! … Consequently, the Lord never had, and has not now, any absolute need of the holy Virgin for the accomplishment of His will and for the manifestation of His glory. He has but to will in order to do everything. Nevertheless, things being as they are now—that is, God having willed to commence and to complete His greatest works by the most holy Virgin ever since He created her—we may well think He will not change His conduct in the eternal ages; for He is God, and He changes not, either in His sentiments, or in His conduct.
“Impoverished and humbled, she hid herself even unto the abyss of nothingness by her profound humility her whole life long … Mary, being altogether transformed into God by grace and by the glory which transforms all the saints into Him, asks nothing, wishes nothing, does nothing contrary to the eternal and immutable will of God. The will of the Most High―Who exalts the humble (Luke 1:52)―is that Heaven, Earth and Hell bend to the commandments of the humble Mary, whom He has made sovereign of Heaven and Earth―general of His armies, treasurer of His treasures, dispenser of His graces, worker of His greatest marvels, restorer of the human race, Mediatrix of men, the exterminator of the enemies of God, and the faithful companion of His grandeurs and triumphs.”
If you want success―then be humble: “From the beginning the proud have not been acceptable to Thee―but the prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased thee!” (Judith 9:16) ... “For God resists the proud, but to the humble he gives grace!” (1 Peter 5:5) … “God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble!” (James 4:6) … “Humiliation follows the proud and glory shall uphold the humble of spirit!” (Proverbs 29:2). As Our Lady of Good Success stated: “Our Heavenly Father communicates His secrets to the simple of heart, and not to those whose hearts are inflated with pride!”
Success From Seeming Failure
Success does not automatically rule-out or eliminate failure. Success is the “end-product”, and failure is sometimes the material from which success is made. The apparent failure of Christ dying on Calvary, actually turned out to be a massive success when He resurrected from the dead. Our Lady of Good Success stated that before she would bring victory to the oppressed Church in our times: “The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith! … In the years that will follow, which will be ill-fated ones for the Church. These years—during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government—will see a cruel persecution of all religious communities … The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom … Others, impelled by the malice of the devil, will themselves rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed! This then will be the happy beginning of the complete restoration! My hour will arrive, when I, in an amazing manner, will overthrow proud Satan, crushing him under my feet, chaining him in the infernal abyss, leaving the Church free of this cruel tyranny!” It is the promise echoed by Our Lady at Fatima in 1917: “In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
Secret to Success
Our Lady then reveals the secret of her success―suffering. She says to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … It was not necessary to suffer so much! … Yet He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! … But the worldlings, in their torpidity, are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … All of them are weak and afflicted by many sins, for which the only remedy is suffering ― thus they make their recovery impossible ... Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion!
“My most holy Son and myself are trying to find some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the sons of Adam, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If thou wish to be Our disciple, then enter into this school―in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment―nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son ... Many times I shall repeat to you the lesson containing the greatest wisdom for souls, which consists in the knowledge of the cross, in the love of sufferings, and in putting this knowledge into practice by bearing afflictions with patience … In this Science of Suffering are renewed all the blessed riches of the creatures―those that fly from them are insane, those that know nothing of this science, are foolish! … As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good. Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, and willingly enter upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, and to carry it after Christ. Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness!
“How many men whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise have thrown themselves, on account of the lack of light of Faith, from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell! How many kingdoms and provinces, being blind themselves, follow these still more blind leaders, until they together fall into the abyss of eternal pains, and they are followed by the bad Christians! Infinite is the number of those who are entangled in this dangerous error, who, desiring to appear wise, speak much and multiply words like the foolish. They only lose what they strive so much to attain, since they become known as foolish. All these vices arise from the pride rooted in human nature.
“Be mindful of this dangerous human folly. Abhor human ostentation, suffer in silence and let the world consider you to be ignorant; for it does not know where true wisdom dwells. Consider all delights and joys of the world as insanity, its laughing as sorrow, sensible enjoyment as self deceit, as the source of foolishness, which intoxicates the heart and hinders and destroys all true wisdom. With this wisdom the earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible; nor the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the bleary-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors, and so full of ignorant admiration for costly grandeur. Choose for yourself the better part of being among the lowly and the forgotten ones of this world. I was the Mother of the God-man Himself, and, on that account, Mistress of all creation conjointly with my Son―yet I was little known and my Son very much despised by men. If this teaching was not most valuable and secure, We would not have taught it by word and example. This is the light, which shines in the darkness, loved by the elect and abhorred by the reprobate.” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Everyone loves a winner! We all like to win. Nobody wants to be a loser. We gravitate towards winners and shy away from losers. We want our lives to be a success. Children want to be successful in their school exams and their sporting endeavors. As they grow older and enter their teens, failure is a horrible fear due to peer pressure to be a successful and popular. As maturity comes along, young adults want to be successful in their jobs, business ventures and marriages. Success has become a modern-day yardstick by which we measure a person’s worth or value.
Businesses compete against each other in their search for success. Sports teams and athletes battle against each other seeking success. Politicians compete with each other vying for success. Everyone wants to achieve success―but most people wish they could be successful without having to put in much effort to achieve success. Others try doing one thing or another, but quit after a while―either because they don’t want to invest time and effort, or are afraid of the competition, or because they are afraid of failure. Usually, only a small percentage acts, perseveres and does not give up.
Listen to Your Elders
The ancient Greek poet Hesiod (7th century BC), in his Works and Days, wrote: “But before the road of excellence, the immortal gods have placed sweat! And the way to it is long and steep and rough at first! But when one arrives at the summit, then it is easy, even though remaining difficult!”
A similar quote about the need for hard work, toil, labor and pain in order to achieve success is found in the play Electra by the ancient Greek playwright Sophocles (5th Century BC), which has been variously translated as: “nothing truly succeeds without pain”, “nothing succeeds without toil”, “there is no success without hard work”, and “without labor nothing prospers (well).”
Similar quotes have been uttered throughout the centuries:
● Julius Caesar (1st century BC) said: “It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.”
● A 2nd century writer is recorded as saying: “According to the pain is the reward.”
● The British poet Nicholas Breton (1545–1626) wrote: “They must take pain that look for any gain.”
● William Shakespeare (1564–1616) wrote: “Pain pays the income of each precious thing.”
● The poet Robert Herrick (1591–1674), in his Hesperides, wrote: “If little labor, little are our gains. Man’s fate is according to his pains.”
● Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), also said: “There are no gains, without pains!”
● In 1853 R. C. Trench wrote, in On Lessons in Proverbs: “For the most part they courageously accept the law of labor: ‘No pains, no gains!—No sweat, no sweet!” as the appointed law and condition of man’s life.”
● The famous proverb “Every rose has its thorn” is believed to have originated either as a Dutch, French or Italian proverb.
Painful Success
“No pain, no gain” (or “No gain without pain”) has become a popular proverb since the 1980s as an exercise motto that promises greater success for the price of hard and even painful work. Under this idea of “no pain, no gain”, competitive professionals, such as athletes and artists, are required to endure pain (physical suffering) and stress (mental/emotional suffering) to achieve professional excellence.
Another similar modern-day slogan is: “Pain Is Temporary, Success Lasts Forever!” Along these same lines, a psychologist, in an article entitled, The 7 Inevitable Stages of Pain Before You Succeed, lists those stages as (1) You will feel pain; (2) You will want to give up prematurely; (3) You will lose relationships; (4) People will discourage you; (5) You will be hated for no reason; (6) You will doubt yourself; and (7) You will fail―finally adding: “It will all be worth it!”
Does All This Sound Strangely Familiar?
You might be asking yourself: “Where have I heard all this before?” Well―you don’t have to look any further than Our Lord and Our Lady and perhaps a few quotes from Holy Scripture. In fact, Our Lord and Our Lady have said a great deal along the lines quoted above―here is just a “tip-of-the-iceberg” of the many quotes that could be quoted:
● To His Apostles, Our Lord said: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20).
● Similarly, Our Lady said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life, but in the next!” ― which is another way of saying: “If you won’t suffer in this world, then you will not get to Heaven!”
● Along the same lines Our Lord said: “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36).
● To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady said: “Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain―because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion!”
● Our Lord tells us that if we wish to successfully follow Him to Heaven, then we must be prepared to suffer with Him on Earth: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
The Greatest Success Story Ever Told
The world’s media is full of success stories―day after day, year after year. Yet there is one success story the world’s media does not tell you about―it is the greatest success story ever known! It is the story of the Blessed Virgin Mary! Our Lady is nothing but success! She has always been a success and will always be a success. Her success surpasses that of all the angels and saints put together! She is God’s masterpiece―a blueprint for success. St. Louis de Montfort writes:
“Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High … where God dwells more magnificently and more divinely than in any other place in the universe! … She is the grand and divine world of God―where there are beauties and treasures unspeakable! She is the magnificence of the Most High, where He hid His only Son, and in Him all that is most excellent and most precious! Oh, what grand and hidden things that mighty God has wrought in this admirable creature―as she herself had to acknowledge―in spite of her profound humility: ‘He that is mighty hath done great things to me!’ (Luke 1:49). The world knows them not, because it is both incapable and unworthy of such knowledge!
“The depth of her humility, and of all her virtues and graces, is an abyss which never can be sounded! O height incomprehensible! O breadth unspeakable! O length immeasurable! O abyss impenetrable! … Every day, from one end of the Earth to the other―everything preaches, everything publishes, the admirable Mary! … The whole Earth is full of her glory! … After that, we must cry out with the saints: ‘De Maria numquam satis!’—‘Of Mary there is never enough!’ We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought! She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service! … After that, we must cry out with the Apostle Paul: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor man’s heart comprehended’ (1 Corinthians 2:9) the beauties, the grandeurs, the excellences of Mary—the miracle of the miracles of grace, of nature and of glory!
“It was only through Mary that God the Father gave His Only-Begotten to the world. It was only Mary who merited it and found grace before God (Luke 1:30) by the force of her prayers and the eminence of her virtues ... The Son of God became man for our salvation―but it was in Mary and by Mary. God the Holy Ghost formed Jesus Christ in Mary―but it was only after having asked her consent by the Angel Gabriel … Oh, admirable and incomprehensible dependence of God! … Oh, how highly we glorify God when, to please Him, we submit ourselves to Mary, after the example of Jesus Christ!
“God the Father made an assemblage of all the waters and He named it the sea (mare). He made an assemblage of all His graces and he called it Mary (Maria). This great God has a most rich treasury in which He has laid up all that He has of beauty and splendor, of rarity and preciousness―including even His own Son―and this immense treasury is none other than Mary, whom the saints have named the Treasure of the Lord, out of whose plenitude all men are made rich.
“It was the will of our Blessed Lord to begin His miracles by Mary. He sanctified St. John in the womb of his mother, St. Elizabeth―but it was by Mary’s word. No sooner had she spoken, than John was sanctified―and this was His first miracle of grace. At the marriage of Cana, He changed the water into wine―but it was at Mary’s humble prayer―and this was His first miracle of nature. He began and continued His miracles by Mary, and He will continue them to the end of ages by Mary. God the Son has communicated to His Mother all that He acquired―by His life and His death, His infinite merits and His admirable virtues―and He has made her the treasurer of all that His Father gave Him for His inheritance. It is by her that He applies His merits to His members, and that He communicates His virtues, and distributes His graces. She is His mysterious canal; she is His aqueduct, through which He makes His mercies flow gently and abundantly.
“God the Holy Ghost is become fruitful by Mary, whom He has espoused. It was with her, in her, and of her that He produced His Masterpiece―which is God made Man―and that He goes on producing daily, to the end of the world, the predestinate and the members of the Body of that adorable Head. The Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady―though He had no absolute need of her―to bring His fruitfulness into action, by producing, in her and by her, Jesus Christ and His members … God the Holy Ghost wishes to form the elect for Himself in her and by her … Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints, who shall come at the end of the world, are reserved for her. For it is only that singular and miraculous Virgin who can produce, in union with the Holy Ghost, singular and extraordinary things … When the Holy Ghost, her Spouse, has found Mary in a soul, He flies there. He enters there in His fullness; He communicates Himself to that soul abundantly, and to the full extent to which it makes room for His spouse. Nay, one of the greatest reasons why the Holy Ghost does not now do startling wonders in our souls, is because He does not find there a sufficiently great union with His faithful and inseparable spouse.” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).
Humbly Successful and Successfully Humble
Success―as we all know―can be dangerously intoxicating. Success can lead to dangers like arrogance and complacency and inefficiency. All too often when a person or an organization reaches lofty success, they stop doing the very things that made them successful. And therefore, success introduces them to the beginning of their end: “Pride goeth before destruction, and the spirit is lifted up before a fall!” (Proverbs 16:18). Whenever we put in the effort and dedication that it takes to succeed, we need to do so quietly and without pride: “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5).
St. Louis de Montfort paints us a picture of Our Lady’s humility in her “success” in the presence of God: “What Lucifer has lost by pride, Mary has gained by humility ... Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God … Mary was singularly hidden during her life. It is on this account that the Holy Ghost and the Church call her ‘Alma Mater’ — ‘Mother secret and hidden.’ Her humility was so profound that she had no inclination on Earth, more powerful or more constant, than that of hiding herself, from herself, as well as from every other creature, so as to be known to God only ... God the Father consented that she should work no miracle―at least no public one, during her life―although He had given her the power to do so. God the Son consented that she should hardly ever speak―though He had communicated His wisdom to her. God the Holy Ghost―though she was His faithful spouse―consented that His Apostles and Evangelists should speak very little of her, and no more than was necessary to make Jesus Christ known.
“Mary, being a mere creature that has come from the hands of the Most High, is in comparison with His Infinite Majesty less than an atom; or rather, she is nothing at all! … Consequently, the Lord never had, and has not now, any absolute need of the holy Virgin for the accomplishment of His will and for the manifestation of His glory. He has but to will in order to do everything. Nevertheless, things being as they are now—that is, God having willed to commence and to complete His greatest works by the most holy Virgin ever since He created her—we may well think He will not change His conduct in the eternal ages; for He is God, and He changes not, either in His sentiments, or in His conduct.
“Impoverished and humbled, she hid herself even unto the abyss of nothingness by her profound humility her whole life long … Mary, being altogether transformed into God by grace and by the glory which transforms all the saints into Him, asks nothing, wishes nothing, does nothing contrary to the eternal and immutable will of God. The will of the Most High―Who exalts the humble (Luke 1:52)―is that Heaven, Earth and Hell bend to the commandments of the humble Mary, whom He has made sovereign of Heaven and Earth―general of His armies, treasurer of His treasures, dispenser of His graces, worker of His greatest marvels, restorer of the human race, Mediatrix of men, the exterminator of the enemies of God, and the faithful companion of His grandeurs and triumphs.”
If you want success―then be humble: “From the beginning the proud have not been acceptable to Thee―but the prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased thee!” (Judith 9:16) ... “For God resists the proud, but to the humble he gives grace!” (1 Peter 5:5) … “God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble!” (James 4:6) … “Humiliation follows the proud and glory shall uphold the humble of spirit!” (Proverbs 29:2). As Our Lady of Good Success stated: “Our Heavenly Father communicates His secrets to the simple of heart, and not to those whose hearts are inflated with pride!”
Success From Seeming Failure
Success does not automatically rule-out or eliminate failure. Success is the “end-product”, and failure is sometimes the material from which success is made. The apparent failure of Christ dying on Calvary, actually turned out to be a massive success when He resurrected from the dead. Our Lady of Good Success stated that before she would bring victory to the oppressed Church in our times: “The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith! … In the years that will follow, which will be ill-fated ones for the Church. These years—during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government—will see a cruel persecution of all religious communities … The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom … Others, impelled by the malice of the devil, will themselves rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed! This then will be the happy beginning of the complete restoration! My hour will arrive, when I, in an amazing manner, will overthrow proud Satan, crushing him under my feet, chaining him in the infernal abyss, leaving the Church free of this cruel tyranny!” It is the promise echoed by Our Lady at Fatima in 1917: “In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
Secret to Success
Our Lady then reveals the secret of her success―suffering. She says to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … It was not necessary to suffer so much! … Yet He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! … But the worldlings, in their torpidity, are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … All of them are weak and afflicted by many sins, for which the only remedy is suffering ― thus they make their recovery impossible ... Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion!
“My most holy Son and myself are trying to find some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the sons of Adam, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If thou wish to be Our disciple, then enter into this school―in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment―nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son ... Many times I shall repeat to you the lesson containing the greatest wisdom for souls, which consists in the knowledge of the cross, in the love of sufferings, and in putting this knowledge into practice by bearing afflictions with patience … In this Science of Suffering are renewed all the blessed riches of the creatures―those that fly from them are insane, those that know nothing of this science, are foolish! … As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good. Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, and willingly enter upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, and to carry it after Christ. Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness!
“How many men whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise have thrown themselves, on account of the lack of light of Faith, from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell! How many kingdoms and provinces, being blind themselves, follow these still more blind leaders, until they together fall into the abyss of eternal pains, and they are followed by the bad Christians! Infinite is the number of those who are entangled in this dangerous error, who, desiring to appear wise, speak much and multiply words like the foolish. They only lose what they strive so much to attain, since they become known as foolish. All these vices arise from the pride rooted in human nature.
“Be mindful of this dangerous human folly. Abhor human ostentation, suffer in silence and let the world consider you to be ignorant; for it does not know where true wisdom dwells. Consider all delights and joys of the world as insanity, its laughing as sorrow, sensible enjoyment as self deceit, as the source of foolishness, which intoxicates the heart and hinders and destroys all true wisdom. With this wisdom the earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible; nor the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the bleary-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors, and so full of ignorant admiration for costly grandeur. Choose for yourself the better part of being among the lowly and the forgotten ones of this world. I was the Mother of the God-man Himself, and, on that account, Mistress of all creation conjointly with my Son―yet I was little known and my Son very much despised by men. If this teaching was not most valuable and secure, We would not have taught it by word and example. This is the light, which shines in the darkness, loved by the elect and abhorred by the reprobate.” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Article 12
Sunday January 29th & Monday January 30th, 2023
Believe and Love! Our Oil and Fuel for the Soul!
Sunday January 29th & Monday January 30th, 2023
Believe and Love! Our Oil and Fuel for the Soul!
Without These―You Are Going Nowhere
In life, there are essentials and non-essentials. For survival, five essentials are usually listed: (1) water, (2) food, (3) shelter, (4) clothing and (5) fire. Other things can be added to those that are extremely USEFUL―but, if push-comes-to-shove―NOT ESSENTIAL, such as knives, ropes, sewing kits, a multi-tool, navigation tools, flashlights and batteries, whistle can assist in many situations, but are looked upon as being secondary to the above list of five essentials.
Similarly, for the life of the body―there are certain organs and body parts that are essential for life. The five vital organs in the human body are the brain, the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, and the liver. Other important organs include the gallbladder, the pancreas, and the stomach―but they are regarded as NON-ESSENTIAL. It may be surprising to learn a person can live without a stomach. But the body is able to bypass the stomach's main function of storing and breaking down food to gradually pass to the intestines. Absent a stomach, food consumed in small quantities can move directly from the esophagus to the small intestine.
Outside of ourselves, there are things that the body absolutely needs for survival―the two obvious ones being AIR and WATER. Without air―you will dead in minutes. Without water―you will be dead in days. Permanent brain damage begins after only 4 minutes without oxygen, and death can occur as soon as 4 to 6 minutes later. At 15 minutes, survival becomes nearly impossible. As regards water, the body requires a lot of water to maintain an internal temperature balance and keep cells alive. In general, a person can survive for about three days without water. In rare cases, a person might survive a week without water. The longest someone is known to have gone without water was in the case of Andreas Mihavecz, an 18-year-old Austrian bricklayer, who was left locked in a police cell for 18 days in 1979 after the officers on duty forgot about him. His case even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records.
Some survivalist have created what is called “The 3-3-3-3 Rule”―which states that you can survive three minutes without breathable air (which leads to unconsciousness), or in icy water. You can survive three hours in a harsh environment (extreme heat or cold). You can survive three days without drinkable water. You can survive three weeks without food.
The same is true of the spiritual life―there are certain things that are essential for spiritual survival or getting to Heaven. Boiling it all down to a minimum 3 things―you could say that the three essential things required for salvation are: (1) Faith, (2) Charity, and (3) Sanctifying Grace.
Holy Scripture tell us that “Without FAITH it is impossible to please God!” (Hebrews 11:6) but that FAITH is incomplete or dead without proving itself by actions or works: “Even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also FAITH without works is dead!” (James 2:26). “Abound in Faith, and word, and knowledge, and moreover also in your charity … so that in this grace also you may abound!” (2 Corinthians 8:7). “God is able to make all grace abound in you; that ye always may abound to every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).
Holy Scripture tells us that “He that loveth not, knoweth not God―for God is charity!” (1 John 4:8). If God is charity, then an absence of charity is like an absence of God―and that is what Hell is: an absence of God! “God is charity: and he that abideth in charity, abideth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16). Our Lord even told us that CHARITY was the greatest of all commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Furthermore, LOVING God means DOING things for God―as Our Lord said: “If you LOVE Me, KEEP My Commandments!” (John 14:15). Therefore FAITH WITH WORKS is not good enough without CHARITY. As Holy Scripture points out: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not CHARITY―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and IF I SHOULD HAVE ALL FAITH, so that I could remove mountains, and have not CHARITY―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not CHARITY―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Now, as we shall see in a moment, CHARITY and SANCTIFYING GRACE, even though they are different things, they are nevertheless inseparable things―if you lose one, then you lose the other; if you have one, then you also have the other. Holy Scripture mentions grace and charity in one breath, saying: “The GRACE of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the CHARITY of God, be with you all!” (2 Corinthians 13:13). God commands that we be holy: “I am the Lord your God―be holy because I am holy!” (Leviticus 11:44), to which Our Lord adds: “Therefore be perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). Sanctifying Grace does what the name suggest, it sanctifies us and makes us holy and pleasing to God; it makes us adopted children of God; with it comes the presence of the Holy Spirit to live inside of us; and finally it gives us the right to Heaven.
You could, of course, create “The 3-3-3-3 Rule” in the spiritual life―which would be purely arbitrary, academic and somewhat artificial to a point. For example, we have the 3 Persons of the Holy Trinity. Likewise the 3 members of the Holy Family―Jesus, Mary and Joseph. You also have the 3 aspects of Christ’s Church―Church Militant on Earth; Church Suffering in Purgatory; and the Church Triumphant in Heaven. Another threesome is found in the 3 Theological Virtues―being Faith, Hope and Charity. There are the three Sacraments that imprint a mark or character upon the soul―Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders. Though there are normally only 2 Sacraments of the Dead (meaning Sacraments that restore sanctifying grace to those who are “dead” in mortal sin), to these two a 3rd may be added in certain circumstances―the Sacrament of Extreme Unction for those who are habitually sorry for their sins, but are in a state of unconsciousness. Then you have the 3 groups of Mysteries of the Holy Rosary―Joyful Mysteries, Sorrowful Mysteries and Glorious Mysteries. We also have the 3 steps to sainthood―a candidate first becomes “Venerable,” then “Blessed” and then “Saint.” All of this is true and fine―but when you take away all the leaves of the tree the chief branches that remain are those of FAITH, CHARITY and SANCTIFYING GRACE ― without which we cannot be saved.
A World Starved of Faith, Charity and Grace
Speaking of the “End Times”―which Our Lady of Fatima revealed to Sr. Lucia as being our times―Our Lord said: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, FAITH on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). He further adds: “Because iniquity hath abounded, the CHARITY of many shall grow cold!” (Matthew 24:12). Therefore, in the “End Times”―our times―there will be a falling-away from FAITH and CHARITY. You have to be an ignorant idiot not to see that this is happening right before our very eyes today!
Not only is there are falling-away from the Faith and from Charity―but there is also a falling-away from SANCTIFYING GRACE through ever-increasing mortal sin throughout the world in general, and throughout the Catholic world in particular. Regular Sunday Mass attendance obliges Catholics under pain of mortal sin―yet throughout the word, on average, only around 20% of Catholics regularly attend Sunday Mass. That is just one of many mortal sins that Catholics commit in great numbers. There are other mortal sins that ensnare anywhere from 40% to 60% of Catholics―the practice of contraception; unmarried couples living together in sin (fornicating); divorce and remarriage without an annulment; acceptance of LGBT relationships; acceptance of same-sex marriages; the practice of masturbation; adultery; watching or reading impure or pornographic material; impure glances, thoughts, fantasies and conversations; drunkenness; drug abuse; etc. As Our Lady of Fatima foretold―many marriages would not of God and the sins that would damn most souls would be the various kinds of sins of impurity in thoughts, words or actions.
Loss of the Sense of Sin
Do we have the right idea about sin? Our catechisms tell us that sin in the GREATEST EVIL in the world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). Is that how we see and evaluate sin?
One pope after another―even the Liberal and Modernist popes―has echoed Pope Pius XII’s statement: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin.” Pope Pius XII said this in the wake of the horrors of World War II and John Paul II, Benedict and Francis have all repeated it.
Pope John Paul II, on March 14th, 2005, in a message to the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin. Christ’s invitation to conversion is all the more urgent!”
In homily on March 13th, 2011, the first Sunday of Lent, Pope Benedict XVI said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. In effect this is correct: If we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, we cannot speak of sin. Just as when the sun is hidden the shadows disappear and the shadows appear only if the sun is there, so, too, the eclipse of God necessarily brings the eclipse of sin. Thus the meaning of sin ― which is a different thing from ‘guilt feelings’ as these are understood in psychology ― is only grasped in discovering the meaning of God … God’s response to moral evil is to oppose sin and save the sinner. God does not tolerate evil because He is Love, Justice, Fidelity; and it is precisely because of this that He does not wish the death of the sinner, but desires that the sinner covert and live.”
In a homily on January 31st, 2014, Pope Francis also echoed Pope Pius XII’s statement and lament: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble … It would be good for us to pray today, that the Lord gives us the grace to not lose the sense of sin, so that the Kingdom of God doesn’t crumble!”
Is Your Kingdom Crumbling?
Have you―or has your family―lost the sense of sin? Most families have lost the sense of sin. At first comes the acceptance of more and more less serious venial sins―then comes the acceptance of worse venial sins―then will come the acceptance of “just-over-the-border” kinds of mortal sins―and finally the acceptance of really serious mortal sins. For many, these days, sin is fun, sin is nice, sin is ‘tasty’, sin is pleasurable. “We ourselves also were at some time unwise, incredulous, erring, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another!” (Titus 3:3). The problem with sin is that it very quickly corrodes the spiritual life―it erodes the Faith, it erodes Charity and it (venial sin) weakens Sanctifying Grace and it (mortal sin) will even drive out Sanctifying Grace from the soul. “Hast thou Faith? All that is not of Faith is sin!” (Romans 14:22-23). “He that commits sin is of the devil!” (1 John 3:8).
Sin is the most dangerous and most contagious virus that exists―as Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “How many men―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves, on account of the lack of light of Faith, from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell! … Countless numbers have fallen into Hell! … Lucifer has hurled into Hell so great a number of souls and continues so to hurl them every day! … Since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men! … How many men have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God? … What pretense or excuse will men advance for having forgotten their own eternal salvation, when my divine Son and I have desired and sought to obtain it for them with such sacrifices and untiring watchfulness? None of the mortals will have any excuse for their foolish negligence―and much less will the children of the Holy Church have an excuse, since they have received the Faith and yet show in their lives little difference from that of infidels and pagans. Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16)―fear this sentence and renew in thy heart the care and zeal for thy salvation! … Fear and abhor sin, even the slightest!”
How much do you love your family and friends? If you truly love them, then you will do anything and everything to drive out and keep out sin from your surrounding persons, places and things! Sin divides families―and Satan seeks to divide in order to conquer. Our Lord said: “Every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand!” (Matthew 12:25). Sin in the family divides―for it turns some family members away from God and against God, while other family members remain with God and are for God. Our Lord warned of this: “Everyone that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven. Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household! He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:32-37).
It is sin and only sin that can rob you of Heaven and damn you in Hell. It has to be said today that the chief purveyor or carrier of the virus of sin is electronic media―the television, the internet and all the common portals or access points to the internet, such as computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones, etc. Never before has mankind had such ease of access to sin and never before has sin had such easy access to mankind―it seems as though it is “a marriage made in Hell”. The manner and to the extent that the world has become addicted to electronic media, suggests that Satan has a very large part to play in all of this. It may even be that Satan was at the base of ‘discovering’ and introducing the progressive steps over the last 100 years or so, that have led to this current pandemic of electronic addiction that shows no signs of abating.
As Our Lord so rightly said: “By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:16-20). The fruits of electronic media are not good in the things that really matter―the electronic media distracts from God, increasingly draws us away from God, gives us less and less time for God, and is increasingly showing, teaching and preaching a ‘gospel’ that is opposed to God. The fruits―for the most part―are not good. It leads more towards worldliness, sin and ultimately Satan, instead of leading to virtue and God.
Fighting Back with Faith, Charity and Grace
Why are we losing so heavily in the “fight of Faith” (1 Timothy 6:12) and why are Catholics falling-away in such great numbers? Quite simply, it is due to an absence of God, a lack of God, a lack of knowledge of God and a lack of love for God. With God on your side, you are undefeatable! If God lives within you, then you are invincible ― “because the Lord your God is in the midst of you, and will fight for you against your enemies, to deliver you from danger” (Deuteronomy 20:4). “The Lord your God Himself will fight for you!” (Josue 23:10).
God is (or should be) the focal point of our whole life―nothing else matters by comparison. God did not make us for eternal life on Earth, but for eternal life in Heaven. Our Lord says: “What does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:2). He adds: “The Kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:21). How can the Kingdom of God be within us? God―Father, Son and Holy Ghost―wants to dwell within us: “Know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost―Who is in you, Whom you have from God―and that you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). The same applies to God the Father and God the Son―as Jesus revealed: “If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him” (John 14:23).
God lives within us primarily by His Divine Grace―Sanctifying Grace―which is meant to sanctify us and increasingly make us more and more holy, as commanded by God: “I am the Lord your God! Be holy because I am holy! … You shall be holy, because I am holy!” (Leviticus 11:44-46). To be holy like God requires Charity or Love―for “God is Charity” (1 John 4:8). To become godlike, or like God, means to resemble His Charity―for God is Charity. Furthermore, to imitate God we must KNOW what to imitate―and it is Faith that supplies that information, for Faith is linked to mind and knowing with that mind; whereas Charity is linked to the heart and loving with that heart. Once our mind and heart are focused upon God and aligned with God, then Sanctifying Grace can freely do its work unimpeded by the destructiveness of prideful self-inflation and selfish self-love.
Fire for the Mind and Heart
Our Lord said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth! And what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). There were no flashlights and batteries around when Our Lord spoke those words. Fire is both a source of light (Faith) and warmth (Charity). The fiery flames of Faith give light to our minds; and the fiery flames of Charity produce supernatural love in our hearts. Fire also purifies (Sanctifying Grace). With these three―Faith, Charity and Grace―we can not only “fight the good fight of Faith” (1 Timothy 6:12), “for Love is strong as death … Many waters cannot quench Charity, neither can the floods drown it!” (Canticles 8:6-7). “The Grace of our Lord has abounded exceedingly with Faith and Love!” (1 Timothy 1:14).
The First Vatican Council (1869-1870) also links Faith and Grace: “The Catholic Church holds that Faith, which is the beginning of human salvation, is a supernatural virtue by which, through the help and inspiration of God’s grace, we believe the things revealed by Him to be true―not on account of the intrinsic truth of these things, as perceived by the natural light of reason, but on account of the authority of God Himself revealing, Who can neither deceive nor be deceived!” (Denzinger #1789). From this we get the simple Act of Faith that a child learns: “O my God, I believe in Thee and all Thy Church teaches―because Thou hast said it and Thy word is true!”
When we believe a person to be good, we develop hope in that person and then proceed to love him or her. But in the order of perfection, charity precedes faith and hope, for it is through charity that they reach their fullness as virtues. Hence, charity is, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, the “mother and the root of all the virtues.” Although Faith can exist without Charity, it is not a perfect Faith, it is not a fulfilled Faith, it is a crippled or stunted Faith―for it believes but does not love. On the other hand, Charity is impossible without Faith because you cannot love what you do not know. As St. Thomas states: “Just as friendship with a person would be impossible if one disbelieved in or despaired of the possibility of their company or communication; so too, friendship with God―which is what Charity is―is impossible without Faith.”
Yet Faith is impossible without God―for we, of our own efforts and power, cannot acquire Faith.
Take, for example, a Mohammedan, or some other person, who does not possess the gift of Faith. He can make a thorough study of the Catechism, which contains all the truths of Faith; but he will get nothing out of his study except a lot of human knowledge―he will learn “what Catholics believe” about a great many things. But his knowledge will mean nothing to him supernaturally, because he does not have the God-given supernatural habit of Faith.
The Essential Hidden Foundation of Humility
That is why HUMILITY plays such an important to Faith, Charity and Grace―for all those three things come from God and cannot be acquired “under our own steam” or by our sole efforts (or even “soul” efforts!). That is why Our Lord is quoted as saying: “Learn of Me―for I am meek and humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29) ― for humility is the foundation of our entire spiritual temple. Just as “Without Faith it is impossible to please God!” (Hebrews 11:6), it must also be noted: “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5) … “God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6) … “He has shown might in His arm! He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart! He has put down the mighty from their seat, and has exalted the humble!” (Luke 1:51-52). “Humility goes before glory” (Proverbs 15:33).
The humble soul is more likely to be believing soul―a soul that believes what Faith teaches without doubting, contending, arguing, disputing and questioning. As the simple Act of Faith says: “O my God, I believe in Thee and all Thy Church teaches―because Thou hast said it and Thy word is true!”
Humility is a great help to Charity―as Scripture says: “With all humility support one another in charity” (Ephesians 4:2). Even though we will probably accept charity from whatever sources it comes from, at the end of the day we prefer the humble charitable person over the proud charitable person.
Faith―a Springboard to Greater Things
Notice that the Council’s definition (see further above) says: “Faith is the beginning of salvation” ― which echoes Holy Scripture’s statement: “Without Faith it is impossible to please God. For he that comes to God, must believe that He exists, and is a rewarder to them that seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). Scripture adds: “How then shall they call on Him, in Whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe Him, of Whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher? … Faith then cometh by hearing the word of Christ” (Romans 10:13, 17). To which we can add: “How can they love Him if they do not know Him?”
Furthermore, the more we know about someone or something, then the more we love or hate someone or something. We love what we perceive to be good; and we hate what we perceive to be evil. What is the final purpose of love? What is the goal of anyone who loves? The final goal of love is union, union between the one lover and the one loved. God is totally good, therefore He must be totally loved. That is why Jesus said: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Unfortunately, Jesus also said: “This people honors me with their lips―but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8) ― which can also applied to the Faith: “This people believes in Me, but their heart is far from Me!”
Why are our hearts far from Him? Our hearts are far from Him because we only love Him a little―and we love Him only a little because we know so little about Him. St. Thérèse of Lisieux used to lament that Jesus is so little loved because He is so little known. The same can be said of Our Lady. Fr. Faber, in the Preface of his own personal translation from the French, of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary, writes: “The remedy indicated by God Himself … is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady; but, remember, nothing short of an immense one. Mary is not half enough preached [therefore she is not even half-enough loved]. Devotion to her is low and thin and poor ... Its ignorance of theology makes it unsubstantial and unworthy. It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be. It has no faith in itself. Hence it is that Jesus is not loved … Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background [because Mary always leads souls to Jesus]. Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them. It is the miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines ... Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our faith, and how different would our Communions be! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our sole Lord and Savior, her dearest and most blessed Son!” (Fr. Faber, Preface to St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary).
If something can be made more perfect, then it is not yet perfect―that is pretty obvious, isn’t it? Faith is primarily focused upon knowledge―a knowledge of God and things connected with God. Since God is infinite, then the things that we can know about God are also infinite. Therefore, we―with our finite minds―can never fully know and understand an infinite God. Nevertheless, we must know as much as we possibly can about God and things connected to Him. Knowledge of the Faith should lead to a love of the Faith and a love of God―and the more we know, the more we should love.
Unfortunately, most Catholics are just not interested in knowing more and more about God―in their minds, there are far more interesting things and fun things to know. God, to them, is neither interesting nor fun! In fact, God is a killjoy to them―expecting us to detach ourselves from the wealth and pleasures of the world in order to go and carry a cross instead! No thanks!
Faith―a Diving Board into Hell
Rather than being a springboard to Heaven, Faith today has become a diving board into Hell. The appalling state of ignorance among Catholics, in matters of Faith, only serves to contribute to their damnation rather than the salvation for which Faith was intended. The ignorance, lack of knowledge and lack of interest in matters of Faith among Catholics brings to mind the rebuke Our Lord gave in the Gospels: “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14) ― and that is where most end up these days.
That is why Our Lady of Fatima showed a vision of Hell to children―asking them for many prayers and sacrifices to help save some of the multitude that are falling into Hell. The Faith that was meant to save everyone, fails to bring their salvation―not that it is the fault of Faith, but the fault of those who are offered the Faith or who have received the Faith. The gift of Faith is a most precious gift and therefore much is expected from its recipients: “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required; and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more” (Luke 12:48).
What have you done with your Faith throughout your life? What fruits has Faith produced in your family? The parable of Our Lord comes to mind, where some profited from the talents given to them, whereas one man buried his talent and did nothing with it:
“For even as a man going into a far country, called his servants, and delivered to them his goods. And to one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one, to everyone according to his proper ability: and immediately he took his journey. And he that had received the five talents, went his way, and traded with the same, and gained other five. And in like manner he that had received the two, gained other two. But he that had received the one, going his way dug into the earth, and hid his lord’s money.
“But after a long time the lord of those servants came, and reckoned with them. And he that had received the five talents coming, brought other five talents, saying: ‘Lord, thou didst deliver to me five talents, behold I have gained other five over and above!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’
“And he also that had received the two talents came and said: ‘Lord, thou deliveredst two talents to me: behold I have gained other two!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant: because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’
“But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that thou art a hard man; thou reapest where thou hast not sown, and gatherest where thou hast not strewed. And being afraid I went and hid thy talent in the earth: behold here thou hast that which is thine!’ And his lord answering, said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! Thou knewest that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not strewed! Thou oughtest therefore to have committed my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received my own with usury! Take ye away therefore the talent from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents! For to everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall abound: but from him that hath not, that also which he seemeth to have shall be taken away! And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
A lack of knowledge of the Faith leads to dangerous consequences. Our ignorance leads us to undervalue sin, Hell and Heaven. Our ignorance leads us into expecting Heaven at a “give-away-price” which requires little or no effort on our part―as if Heaven were almost a “right” rather than a “privilege”. Sin is seen as being cheap―little or nothing―as we are blinded to the fact that “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). When we devalue sin, we find that it invades our life with little or remorse―and even less contrition. We confess our sins as though it was a weekly car-wash―and then proceed to drive along the same filthy roads for the rest of the week―and then back to quick car-wash confession again. Our ignorance of the Faith blinds us to the fact that these “car-wash-confessions” are most like invalid and sacrilegious confessions because we have no firm purpose of amendment, or because we “fudge” or “water-down” our sins by misconfessing them as being less serious than they really are.
Charity Compromised and Destroyed
This ignorance of the Faith, this indifference to the Faith, this indolence in learning about the Faith―all of this clearly manifests a lack of love towards God and the things of God. If we love someone or something, then we give it our utmost attention―we love to be with that person or thing, we love to learn more about that person or thing, we love to think and talk about that person or thing. We have no problem doing that with regard to the things of this world―but we certainly do not do that with God and the things of God. That betrays and manifests a lack of love of God.
Normally, we have no problem welcoming people into our home if we know that they love us, if we know them to be our friends―but we are more reluctant to grant admission to those who do not love us and who are not our friends. The same is true for God―as Scripture points out: “I love them that love Me and they, that in the morning early watch for Me, shall find Me … so that I may enrich them that love Me, and may fill their treasures … All that hate Me love death!” (Proverbs 8:17, 21, 36). “I am the Lord thy God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation, of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands to them that love Me, and keep My commandments!” (Exodus 20:5-6). “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). “If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him” (John 14:23) … “But he that shall sin against Me, shall hurt his own soul!” (Proverbs 8:36).
God is Charity personified: “God is Charity” (1 John 4:8) and Satan is hatred personified: “The devil was a murderer from the beginning!” (John 8:44) … “The devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour! Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9). Charity burns away our sins: “Charity covereth all sins” (Proverbs 10:12) … “Charity covereth a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8) … “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much” (Luke 7:47). St. Thomas Aquinas places the virtue of Mercy as a room in the mansion of Charity. He states that Mercy is the greatest thing that God can give to man―for man has no right whatsoever to Mercy. That is why Holy Scripture states: “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works!” (Psalm 144:8-9).
On the other hand, hatred is a serious sin: “If any man say: ‘I love God!’ but hates his brother, then he is a liar. For he that does not love his brother, whom he sees, how can he love God, whom he sees not? … Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in himself!” (1 John 4:20; 3:15). “He that despises his neighbor, sins―but he that shows mercy shall be blessed! He that believes in the Lord, loves mercy!” (Proverbs 14:21).
It doesn’t take a university degree or doctorate to see that for many years we have edged closer and closer to the worldwide whirlpool of hatred―even among Catholics and other religious groups. As they say: “Love makes the world go around!” To that we could add: “Hatred drags the world down!” Hatred has increasingly spread and overflowed into the streets, in the media, in society. Baying for the blood of sinners has replaced praying for mercy for sinners. Because we know little about the Faith, we are ignorant to the words of Scripture that warn: “Judgment without mercy to him that has not shown mercy!” (James 2:13), but, on the other hand: “Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). That is why we are encouraged to “bear with one another, and forgive one another, if any have a complaint against another―even as the Lord has forgiven you, so do you also!” (Colossians 3:13). “And be ye kind one to another―merciful, forgiving one another, even as God has forgiven you in Christ!” (Ephesians 4:32). “For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences” (Matthew 6:15).
To which Our Lord adds: “Why seest thou the splinter that is in thy brother’s eye; and seest not the plank that is in thy own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy brother: ‘Let me cast the splinter out of thy eye!’ ― and behold there is a plank in thy own eye? Thou hypocrite! Cast out first the plank in thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the splinter out of thy brother’s eye!” (Matthew 7:3-5).
Our Lord reinforced this teaching in His dealings with the woman who had been caught in an act of adultery by the Scribes and Pharisees (and the mob that was with them): “And the Scribes and the Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery: and they set her in the midst, and said to Him: ‘Master, this woman was even now taken in adultery! Now Moses in the law commanded us to stone such a one. But what sayest Thou?’ And this they said tempting Him, so that they might accuse Him. But Jesus, bowing Himself down, wrote with His finger on the ground. When therefore they continued asking Him, He lifted up Himself, and said to them: ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her!’ And again stooping down, He wrote on the ground. But they hearing this, went out, one by one, beginning at the eldest. And Jesus alone remained, and the woman standing in the midst. Then Jesus lifting up Himself, said to her: ‘Woman, where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee?’ She said: ‘No man, Lord!’ And Jesus said: ‘Neither will I condemn thee! Go, and now sin no more!’” (John 8:3-11).
We are living in a “stone-casting” age―it is easier to cast stones than show mercy. Our Lord was trying to teach us that “people who live in glass houses should not throw stones”―or as Holy Scripture puts it: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us! … If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him [God] a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10). ). As for the sins of others―do not worry, God sees everything and God will take care of everything by exercising His special blend of justice mixed with mercy. “Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved―but givwe place to the wrath of God―for it is written: ‘Revenge is mine! I will repay!’ saith the Lord. But if thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink. For, doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head! Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good!” (Romans 12:19-21). “For the Lord saith: ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy!’” (Romans 9:15).
In life, there are essentials and non-essentials. For survival, five essentials are usually listed: (1) water, (2) food, (3) shelter, (4) clothing and (5) fire. Other things can be added to those that are extremely USEFUL―but, if push-comes-to-shove―NOT ESSENTIAL, such as knives, ropes, sewing kits, a multi-tool, navigation tools, flashlights and batteries, whistle can assist in many situations, but are looked upon as being secondary to the above list of five essentials.
Similarly, for the life of the body―there are certain organs and body parts that are essential for life. The five vital organs in the human body are the brain, the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, and the liver. Other important organs include the gallbladder, the pancreas, and the stomach―but they are regarded as NON-ESSENTIAL. It may be surprising to learn a person can live without a stomach. But the body is able to bypass the stomach's main function of storing and breaking down food to gradually pass to the intestines. Absent a stomach, food consumed in small quantities can move directly from the esophagus to the small intestine.
Outside of ourselves, there are things that the body absolutely needs for survival―the two obvious ones being AIR and WATER. Without air―you will dead in minutes. Without water―you will be dead in days. Permanent brain damage begins after only 4 minutes without oxygen, and death can occur as soon as 4 to 6 minutes later. At 15 minutes, survival becomes nearly impossible. As regards water, the body requires a lot of water to maintain an internal temperature balance and keep cells alive. In general, a person can survive for about three days without water. In rare cases, a person might survive a week without water. The longest someone is known to have gone without water was in the case of Andreas Mihavecz, an 18-year-old Austrian bricklayer, who was left locked in a police cell for 18 days in 1979 after the officers on duty forgot about him. His case even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records.
Some survivalist have created what is called “The 3-3-3-3 Rule”―which states that you can survive three minutes without breathable air (which leads to unconsciousness), or in icy water. You can survive three hours in a harsh environment (extreme heat or cold). You can survive three days without drinkable water. You can survive three weeks without food.
The same is true of the spiritual life―there are certain things that are essential for spiritual survival or getting to Heaven. Boiling it all down to a minimum 3 things―you could say that the three essential things required for salvation are: (1) Faith, (2) Charity, and (3) Sanctifying Grace.
Holy Scripture tell us that “Without FAITH it is impossible to please God!” (Hebrews 11:6) but that FAITH is incomplete or dead without proving itself by actions or works: “Even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also FAITH without works is dead!” (James 2:26). “Abound in Faith, and word, and knowledge, and moreover also in your charity … so that in this grace also you may abound!” (2 Corinthians 8:7). “God is able to make all grace abound in you; that ye always may abound to every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).
Holy Scripture tells us that “He that loveth not, knoweth not God―for God is charity!” (1 John 4:8). If God is charity, then an absence of charity is like an absence of God―and that is what Hell is: an absence of God! “God is charity: and he that abideth in charity, abideth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16). Our Lord even told us that CHARITY was the greatest of all commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Furthermore, LOVING God means DOING things for God―as Our Lord said: “If you LOVE Me, KEEP My Commandments!” (John 14:15). Therefore FAITH WITH WORKS is not good enough without CHARITY. As Holy Scripture points out: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not CHARITY―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and IF I SHOULD HAVE ALL FAITH, so that I could remove mountains, and have not CHARITY―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not CHARITY―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Now, as we shall see in a moment, CHARITY and SANCTIFYING GRACE, even though they are different things, they are nevertheless inseparable things―if you lose one, then you lose the other; if you have one, then you also have the other. Holy Scripture mentions grace and charity in one breath, saying: “The GRACE of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the CHARITY of God, be with you all!” (2 Corinthians 13:13). God commands that we be holy: “I am the Lord your God―be holy because I am holy!” (Leviticus 11:44), to which Our Lord adds: “Therefore be perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). Sanctifying Grace does what the name suggest, it sanctifies us and makes us holy and pleasing to God; it makes us adopted children of God; with it comes the presence of the Holy Spirit to live inside of us; and finally it gives us the right to Heaven.
You could, of course, create “The 3-3-3-3 Rule” in the spiritual life―which would be purely arbitrary, academic and somewhat artificial to a point. For example, we have the 3 Persons of the Holy Trinity. Likewise the 3 members of the Holy Family―Jesus, Mary and Joseph. You also have the 3 aspects of Christ’s Church―Church Militant on Earth; Church Suffering in Purgatory; and the Church Triumphant in Heaven. Another threesome is found in the 3 Theological Virtues―being Faith, Hope and Charity. There are the three Sacraments that imprint a mark or character upon the soul―Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders. Though there are normally only 2 Sacraments of the Dead (meaning Sacraments that restore sanctifying grace to those who are “dead” in mortal sin), to these two a 3rd may be added in certain circumstances―the Sacrament of Extreme Unction for those who are habitually sorry for their sins, but are in a state of unconsciousness. Then you have the 3 groups of Mysteries of the Holy Rosary―Joyful Mysteries, Sorrowful Mysteries and Glorious Mysteries. We also have the 3 steps to sainthood―a candidate first becomes “Venerable,” then “Blessed” and then “Saint.” All of this is true and fine―but when you take away all the leaves of the tree the chief branches that remain are those of FAITH, CHARITY and SANCTIFYING GRACE ― without which we cannot be saved.
A World Starved of Faith, Charity and Grace
Speaking of the “End Times”―which Our Lady of Fatima revealed to Sr. Lucia as being our times―Our Lord said: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, FAITH on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). He further adds: “Because iniquity hath abounded, the CHARITY of many shall grow cold!” (Matthew 24:12). Therefore, in the “End Times”―our times―there will be a falling-away from FAITH and CHARITY. You have to be an ignorant idiot not to see that this is happening right before our very eyes today!
Not only is there are falling-away from the Faith and from Charity―but there is also a falling-away from SANCTIFYING GRACE through ever-increasing mortal sin throughout the world in general, and throughout the Catholic world in particular. Regular Sunday Mass attendance obliges Catholics under pain of mortal sin―yet throughout the word, on average, only around 20% of Catholics regularly attend Sunday Mass. That is just one of many mortal sins that Catholics commit in great numbers. There are other mortal sins that ensnare anywhere from 40% to 60% of Catholics―the practice of contraception; unmarried couples living together in sin (fornicating); divorce and remarriage without an annulment; acceptance of LGBT relationships; acceptance of same-sex marriages; the practice of masturbation; adultery; watching or reading impure or pornographic material; impure glances, thoughts, fantasies and conversations; drunkenness; drug abuse; etc. As Our Lady of Fatima foretold―many marriages would not of God and the sins that would damn most souls would be the various kinds of sins of impurity in thoughts, words or actions.
Loss of the Sense of Sin
Do we have the right idea about sin? Our catechisms tell us that sin in the GREATEST EVIL in the world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). Is that how we see and evaluate sin?
One pope after another―even the Liberal and Modernist popes―has echoed Pope Pius XII’s statement: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin.” Pope Pius XII said this in the wake of the horrors of World War II and John Paul II, Benedict and Francis have all repeated it.
Pope John Paul II, on March 14th, 2005, in a message to the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin. Christ’s invitation to conversion is all the more urgent!”
In homily on March 13th, 2011, the first Sunday of Lent, Pope Benedict XVI said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. In effect this is correct: If we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, we cannot speak of sin. Just as when the sun is hidden the shadows disappear and the shadows appear only if the sun is there, so, too, the eclipse of God necessarily brings the eclipse of sin. Thus the meaning of sin ― which is a different thing from ‘guilt feelings’ as these are understood in psychology ― is only grasped in discovering the meaning of God … God’s response to moral evil is to oppose sin and save the sinner. God does not tolerate evil because He is Love, Justice, Fidelity; and it is precisely because of this that He does not wish the death of the sinner, but desires that the sinner covert and live.”
In a homily on January 31st, 2014, Pope Francis also echoed Pope Pius XII’s statement and lament: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble … It would be good for us to pray today, that the Lord gives us the grace to not lose the sense of sin, so that the Kingdom of God doesn’t crumble!”
Is Your Kingdom Crumbling?
Have you―or has your family―lost the sense of sin? Most families have lost the sense of sin. At first comes the acceptance of more and more less serious venial sins―then comes the acceptance of worse venial sins―then will come the acceptance of “just-over-the-border” kinds of mortal sins―and finally the acceptance of really serious mortal sins. For many, these days, sin is fun, sin is nice, sin is ‘tasty’, sin is pleasurable. “We ourselves also were at some time unwise, incredulous, erring, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another!” (Titus 3:3). The problem with sin is that it very quickly corrodes the spiritual life―it erodes the Faith, it erodes Charity and it (venial sin) weakens Sanctifying Grace and it (mortal sin) will even drive out Sanctifying Grace from the soul. “Hast thou Faith? All that is not of Faith is sin!” (Romans 14:22-23). “He that commits sin is of the devil!” (1 John 3:8).
Sin is the most dangerous and most contagious virus that exists―as Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “How many men―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves, on account of the lack of light of Faith, from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell! … Countless numbers have fallen into Hell! … Lucifer has hurled into Hell so great a number of souls and continues so to hurl them every day! … Since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men! … How many men have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God? … What pretense or excuse will men advance for having forgotten their own eternal salvation, when my divine Son and I have desired and sought to obtain it for them with such sacrifices and untiring watchfulness? None of the mortals will have any excuse for their foolish negligence―and much less will the children of the Holy Church have an excuse, since they have received the Faith and yet show in their lives little difference from that of infidels and pagans. Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16)―fear this sentence and renew in thy heart the care and zeal for thy salvation! … Fear and abhor sin, even the slightest!”
How much do you love your family and friends? If you truly love them, then you will do anything and everything to drive out and keep out sin from your surrounding persons, places and things! Sin divides families―and Satan seeks to divide in order to conquer. Our Lord said: “Every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand!” (Matthew 12:25). Sin in the family divides―for it turns some family members away from God and against God, while other family members remain with God and are for God. Our Lord warned of this: “Everyone that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven. Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household! He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:32-37).
It is sin and only sin that can rob you of Heaven and damn you in Hell. It has to be said today that the chief purveyor or carrier of the virus of sin is electronic media―the television, the internet and all the common portals or access points to the internet, such as computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones, etc. Never before has mankind had such ease of access to sin and never before has sin had such easy access to mankind―it seems as though it is “a marriage made in Hell”. The manner and to the extent that the world has become addicted to electronic media, suggests that Satan has a very large part to play in all of this. It may even be that Satan was at the base of ‘discovering’ and introducing the progressive steps over the last 100 years or so, that have led to this current pandemic of electronic addiction that shows no signs of abating.
As Our Lord so rightly said: “By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them!” (Matthew 7:16-20). The fruits of electronic media are not good in the things that really matter―the electronic media distracts from God, increasingly draws us away from God, gives us less and less time for God, and is increasingly showing, teaching and preaching a ‘gospel’ that is opposed to God. The fruits―for the most part―are not good. It leads more towards worldliness, sin and ultimately Satan, instead of leading to virtue and God.
Fighting Back with Faith, Charity and Grace
Why are we losing so heavily in the “fight of Faith” (1 Timothy 6:12) and why are Catholics falling-away in such great numbers? Quite simply, it is due to an absence of God, a lack of God, a lack of knowledge of God and a lack of love for God. With God on your side, you are undefeatable! If God lives within you, then you are invincible ― “because the Lord your God is in the midst of you, and will fight for you against your enemies, to deliver you from danger” (Deuteronomy 20:4). “The Lord your God Himself will fight for you!” (Josue 23:10).
God is (or should be) the focal point of our whole life―nothing else matters by comparison. God did not make us for eternal life on Earth, but for eternal life in Heaven. Our Lord says: “What does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:2). He adds: “The Kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:21). How can the Kingdom of God be within us? God―Father, Son and Holy Ghost―wants to dwell within us: “Know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost―Who is in you, Whom you have from God―and that you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). The same applies to God the Father and God the Son―as Jesus revealed: “If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him” (John 14:23).
God lives within us primarily by His Divine Grace―Sanctifying Grace―which is meant to sanctify us and increasingly make us more and more holy, as commanded by God: “I am the Lord your God! Be holy because I am holy! … You shall be holy, because I am holy!” (Leviticus 11:44-46). To be holy like God requires Charity or Love―for “God is Charity” (1 John 4:8). To become godlike, or like God, means to resemble His Charity―for God is Charity. Furthermore, to imitate God we must KNOW what to imitate―and it is Faith that supplies that information, for Faith is linked to mind and knowing with that mind; whereas Charity is linked to the heart and loving with that heart. Once our mind and heart are focused upon God and aligned with God, then Sanctifying Grace can freely do its work unimpeded by the destructiveness of prideful self-inflation and selfish self-love.
Fire for the Mind and Heart
Our Lord said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth! And what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). There were no flashlights and batteries around when Our Lord spoke those words. Fire is both a source of light (Faith) and warmth (Charity). The fiery flames of Faith give light to our minds; and the fiery flames of Charity produce supernatural love in our hearts. Fire also purifies (Sanctifying Grace). With these three―Faith, Charity and Grace―we can not only “fight the good fight of Faith” (1 Timothy 6:12), “for Love is strong as death … Many waters cannot quench Charity, neither can the floods drown it!” (Canticles 8:6-7). “The Grace of our Lord has abounded exceedingly with Faith and Love!” (1 Timothy 1:14).
The First Vatican Council (1869-1870) also links Faith and Grace: “The Catholic Church holds that Faith, which is the beginning of human salvation, is a supernatural virtue by which, through the help and inspiration of God’s grace, we believe the things revealed by Him to be true―not on account of the intrinsic truth of these things, as perceived by the natural light of reason, but on account of the authority of God Himself revealing, Who can neither deceive nor be deceived!” (Denzinger #1789). From this we get the simple Act of Faith that a child learns: “O my God, I believe in Thee and all Thy Church teaches―because Thou hast said it and Thy word is true!”
When we believe a person to be good, we develop hope in that person and then proceed to love him or her. But in the order of perfection, charity precedes faith and hope, for it is through charity that they reach their fullness as virtues. Hence, charity is, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, the “mother and the root of all the virtues.” Although Faith can exist without Charity, it is not a perfect Faith, it is not a fulfilled Faith, it is a crippled or stunted Faith―for it believes but does not love. On the other hand, Charity is impossible without Faith because you cannot love what you do not know. As St. Thomas states: “Just as friendship with a person would be impossible if one disbelieved in or despaired of the possibility of their company or communication; so too, friendship with God―which is what Charity is―is impossible without Faith.”
Yet Faith is impossible without God―for we, of our own efforts and power, cannot acquire Faith.
Take, for example, a Mohammedan, or some other person, who does not possess the gift of Faith. He can make a thorough study of the Catechism, which contains all the truths of Faith; but he will get nothing out of his study except a lot of human knowledge―he will learn “what Catholics believe” about a great many things. But his knowledge will mean nothing to him supernaturally, because he does not have the God-given supernatural habit of Faith.
The Essential Hidden Foundation of Humility
That is why HUMILITY plays such an important to Faith, Charity and Grace―for all those three things come from God and cannot be acquired “under our own steam” or by our sole efforts (or even “soul” efforts!). That is why Our Lord is quoted as saying: “Learn of Me―for I am meek and humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29) ― for humility is the foundation of our entire spiritual temple. Just as “Without Faith it is impossible to please God!” (Hebrews 11:6), it must also be noted: “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5) … “God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6) … “He has shown might in His arm! He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart! He has put down the mighty from their seat, and has exalted the humble!” (Luke 1:51-52). “Humility goes before glory” (Proverbs 15:33).
The humble soul is more likely to be believing soul―a soul that believes what Faith teaches without doubting, contending, arguing, disputing and questioning. As the simple Act of Faith says: “O my God, I believe in Thee and all Thy Church teaches―because Thou hast said it and Thy word is true!”
Humility is a great help to Charity―as Scripture says: “With all humility support one another in charity” (Ephesians 4:2). Even though we will probably accept charity from whatever sources it comes from, at the end of the day we prefer the humble charitable person over the proud charitable person.
Faith―a Springboard to Greater Things
Notice that the Council’s definition (see further above) says: “Faith is the beginning of salvation” ― which echoes Holy Scripture’s statement: “Without Faith it is impossible to please God. For he that comes to God, must believe that He exists, and is a rewarder to them that seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). Scripture adds: “How then shall they call on Him, in Whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe Him, of Whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher? … Faith then cometh by hearing the word of Christ” (Romans 10:13, 17). To which we can add: “How can they love Him if they do not know Him?”
Furthermore, the more we know about someone or something, then the more we love or hate someone or something. We love what we perceive to be good; and we hate what we perceive to be evil. What is the final purpose of love? What is the goal of anyone who loves? The final goal of love is union, union between the one lover and the one loved. God is totally good, therefore He must be totally loved. That is why Jesus said: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Unfortunately, Jesus also said: “This people honors me with their lips―but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8) ― which can also applied to the Faith: “This people believes in Me, but their heart is far from Me!”
Why are our hearts far from Him? Our hearts are far from Him because we only love Him a little―and we love Him only a little because we know so little about Him. St. Thérèse of Lisieux used to lament that Jesus is so little loved because He is so little known. The same can be said of Our Lady. Fr. Faber, in the Preface of his own personal translation from the French, of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary, writes: “The remedy indicated by God Himself … is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady; but, remember, nothing short of an immense one. Mary is not half enough preached [therefore she is not even half-enough loved]. Devotion to her is low and thin and poor ... Its ignorance of theology makes it unsubstantial and unworthy. It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be. It has no faith in itself. Hence it is that Jesus is not loved … Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background [because Mary always leads souls to Jesus]. Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them. It is the miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines ... Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our faith, and how different would our Communions be! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our sole Lord and Savior, her dearest and most blessed Son!” (Fr. Faber, Preface to St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary).
If something can be made more perfect, then it is not yet perfect―that is pretty obvious, isn’t it? Faith is primarily focused upon knowledge―a knowledge of God and things connected with God. Since God is infinite, then the things that we can know about God are also infinite. Therefore, we―with our finite minds―can never fully know and understand an infinite God. Nevertheless, we must know as much as we possibly can about God and things connected to Him. Knowledge of the Faith should lead to a love of the Faith and a love of God―and the more we know, the more we should love.
Unfortunately, most Catholics are just not interested in knowing more and more about God―in their minds, there are far more interesting things and fun things to know. God, to them, is neither interesting nor fun! In fact, God is a killjoy to them―expecting us to detach ourselves from the wealth and pleasures of the world in order to go and carry a cross instead! No thanks!
Faith―a Diving Board into Hell
Rather than being a springboard to Heaven, Faith today has become a diving board into Hell. The appalling state of ignorance among Catholics, in matters of Faith, only serves to contribute to their damnation rather than the salvation for which Faith was intended. The ignorance, lack of knowledge and lack of interest in matters of Faith among Catholics brings to mind the rebuke Our Lord gave in the Gospels: “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14) ― and that is where most end up these days.
That is why Our Lady of Fatima showed a vision of Hell to children―asking them for many prayers and sacrifices to help save some of the multitude that are falling into Hell. The Faith that was meant to save everyone, fails to bring their salvation―not that it is the fault of Faith, but the fault of those who are offered the Faith or who have received the Faith. The gift of Faith is a most precious gift and therefore much is expected from its recipients: “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required; and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more” (Luke 12:48).
What have you done with your Faith throughout your life? What fruits has Faith produced in your family? The parable of Our Lord comes to mind, where some profited from the talents given to them, whereas one man buried his talent and did nothing with it:
“For even as a man going into a far country, called his servants, and delivered to them his goods. And to one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one, to everyone according to his proper ability: and immediately he took his journey. And he that had received the five talents, went his way, and traded with the same, and gained other five. And in like manner he that had received the two, gained other two. But he that had received the one, going his way dug into the earth, and hid his lord’s money.
“But after a long time the lord of those servants came, and reckoned with them. And he that had received the five talents coming, brought other five talents, saying: ‘Lord, thou didst deliver to me five talents, behold I have gained other five over and above!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’
“And he also that had received the two talents came and said: ‘Lord, thou deliveredst two talents to me: behold I have gained other two!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant: because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’
“But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that thou art a hard man; thou reapest where thou hast not sown, and gatherest where thou hast not strewed. And being afraid I went and hid thy talent in the earth: behold here thou hast that which is thine!’ And his lord answering, said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! Thou knewest that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not strewed! Thou oughtest therefore to have committed my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received my own with usury! Take ye away therefore the talent from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents! For to everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall abound: but from him that hath not, that also which he seemeth to have shall be taken away! And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
A lack of knowledge of the Faith leads to dangerous consequences. Our ignorance leads us to undervalue sin, Hell and Heaven. Our ignorance leads us into expecting Heaven at a “give-away-price” which requires little or no effort on our part―as if Heaven were almost a “right” rather than a “privilege”. Sin is seen as being cheap―little or nothing―as we are blinded to the fact that “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD). When we devalue sin, we find that it invades our life with little or remorse―and even less contrition. We confess our sins as though it was a weekly car-wash―and then proceed to drive along the same filthy roads for the rest of the week―and then back to quick car-wash confession again. Our ignorance of the Faith blinds us to the fact that these “car-wash-confessions” are most like invalid and sacrilegious confessions because we have no firm purpose of amendment, or because we “fudge” or “water-down” our sins by misconfessing them as being less serious than they really are.
Charity Compromised and Destroyed
This ignorance of the Faith, this indifference to the Faith, this indolence in learning about the Faith―all of this clearly manifests a lack of love towards God and the things of God. If we love someone or something, then we give it our utmost attention―we love to be with that person or thing, we love to learn more about that person or thing, we love to think and talk about that person or thing. We have no problem doing that with regard to the things of this world―but we certainly do not do that with God and the things of God. That betrays and manifests a lack of love of God.
Normally, we have no problem welcoming people into our home if we know that they love us, if we know them to be our friends―but we are more reluctant to grant admission to those who do not love us and who are not our friends. The same is true for God―as Scripture points out: “I love them that love Me and they, that in the morning early watch for Me, shall find Me … so that I may enrich them that love Me, and may fill their treasures … All that hate Me love death!” (Proverbs 8:17, 21, 36). “I am the Lord thy God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation, of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands to them that love Me, and keep My commandments!” (Exodus 20:5-6). “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). “If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him” (John 14:23) … “But he that shall sin against Me, shall hurt his own soul!” (Proverbs 8:36).
God is Charity personified: “God is Charity” (1 John 4:8) and Satan is hatred personified: “The devil was a murderer from the beginning!” (John 8:44) … “The devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour! Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9). Charity burns away our sins: “Charity covereth all sins” (Proverbs 10:12) … “Charity covereth a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8) … “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much” (Luke 7:47). St. Thomas Aquinas places the virtue of Mercy as a room in the mansion of Charity. He states that Mercy is the greatest thing that God can give to man―for man has no right whatsoever to Mercy. That is why Holy Scripture states: “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all His works!” (Psalm 144:8-9).
On the other hand, hatred is a serious sin: “If any man say: ‘I love God!’ but hates his brother, then he is a liar. For he that does not love his brother, whom he sees, how can he love God, whom he sees not? … Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in himself!” (1 John 4:20; 3:15). “He that despises his neighbor, sins―but he that shows mercy shall be blessed! He that believes in the Lord, loves mercy!” (Proverbs 14:21).
It doesn’t take a university degree or doctorate to see that for many years we have edged closer and closer to the worldwide whirlpool of hatred―even among Catholics and other religious groups. As they say: “Love makes the world go around!” To that we could add: “Hatred drags the world down!” Hatred has increasingly spread and overflowed into the streets, in the media, in society. Baying for the blood of sinners has replaced praying for mercy for sinners. Because we know little about the Faith, we are ignorant to the words of Scripture that warn: “Judgment without mercy to him that has not shown mercy!” (James 2:13), but, on the other hand: “Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). That is why we are encouraged to “bear with one another, and forgive one another, if any have a complaint against another―even as the Lord has forgiven you, so do you also!” (Colossians 3:13). “And be ye kind one to another―merciful, forgiving one another, even as God has forgiven you in Christ!” (Ephesians 4:32). “For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences” (Matthew 6:15).
To which Our Lord adds: “Why seest thou the splinter that is in thy brother’s eye; and seest not the plank that is in thy own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy brother: ‘Let me cast the splinter out of thy eye!’ ― and behold there is a plank in thy own eye? Thou hypocrite! Cast out first the plank in thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the splinter out of thy brother’s eye!” (Matthew 7:3-5).
Our Lord reinforced this teaching in His dealings with the woman who had been caught in an act of adultery by the Scribes and Pharisees (and the mob that was with them): “And the Scribes and the Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery: and they set her in the midst, and said to Him: ‘Master, this woman was even now taken in adultery! Now Moses in the law commanded us to stone such a one. But what sayest Thou?’ And this they said tempting Him, so that they might accuse Him. But Jesus, bowing Himself down, wrote with His finger on the ground. When therefore they continued asking Him, He lifted up Himself, and said to them: ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her!’ And again stooping down, He wrote on the ground. But they hearing this, went out, one by one, beginning at the eldest. And Jesus alone remained, and the woman standing in the midst. Then Jesus lifting up Himself, said to her: ‘Woman, where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee?’ She said: ‘No man, Lord!’ And Jesus said: ‘Neither will I condemn thee! Go, and now sin no more!’” (John 8:3-11).
We are living in a “stone-casting” age―it is easier to cast stones than show mercy. Our Lord was trying to teach us that “people who live in glass houses should not throw stones”―or as Holy Scripture puts it: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us! … If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him [God] a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10). ). As for the sins of others―do not worry, God sees everything and God will take care of everything by exercising His special blend of justice mixed with mercy. “Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved―but givwe place to the wrath of God―for it is written: ‘Revenge is mine! I will repay!’ saith the Lord. But if thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink. For, doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head! Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good!” (Romans 12:19-21). “For the Lord saith: ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy!’” (Romans 9:15).
Article 11
Thursday January 26th & Friday January 27th, 2023
The Three Conversions in the Spiritual Life
Thursday January 26th & Friday January 27th, 2023
The Three Conversions in the Spiritual Life
Where Goest Thou, My Friend?
Do you know where you are going? Do you know the way? Or are you blind as to the goal of this life and how to attain it? Are you one of those of whom Our Lord says: “Leave them alone! They are blind and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14). Are you primarily putting your eggs in the basket of the world, or in the basket of Heaven? “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also!” (Matthew 6:19-21).
You would think that everyone on Earth would like to know the best way to get to Heaven―but they don’t! “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together: there is none that doth good, no not one!” (Psalm 13:2-3). “They have not known, nor understood! For their eyes are covered that they may not see, and that they may not understand with their heart!” (Isaias 44:18). “Seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand!” (Matthew 13:13). “Understand these things―you that forget God―lest He snatch you away and there be none to deliver you!” (Psalm 49:22).
God’s Way or the Highway
You may have heard of the saying: “All roads lead to Rome” ― which means that all the methods of doing something will achieve the same result in the end. Can we say: “All roads lead to Heaven” ― in the sense that whatever path in life we choose to take, we will end up in Heaven? If you are still a sane person, then your obvious answer to that will be “NO!” There is just no way that you can say that all religions lead to Heaven. Nor can you say that whether or not you choose to sin, you will automatically go to Heaven. Our Lord and Holy Scripture―never mind the statements of Tradition and the Magisterium―shoot down such foolishness.
“God sent His Son into the world so that the world may be saved by Him. He that believes in Him is not judged. But he that does not believe, is already judged!” (John 3:17-18) ... “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved! … Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved! … Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under Heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 16:31; 2:21; 4:12).
Yet believing in the Lord is not enough―for as Scripture tells us: “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘You have Faith, and I have works!’ Show me your Faith without works; and I will show you, by my works, my Faith! You believe that there is one God. You do well―but the devils also believe and tremble! But will you know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … Do you see that by works a man is justified―and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26). That is why Our Lord said: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:4). “So let your light [light of Faith] shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:16).
Our Lord adds: “Unless a man be born again of water [Baptism] and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God!” (John 3:5). Holy Scripture adds: “Do penance, and be baptized every one of you, in the Name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins―and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost!” (Acts 2:38). Baptism and penance are essential for salvation. St. John the Baptist said: “Do penance―for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2). Our Lord added: “I came to call sinners to penance! … No, I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you―except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 5:3; 13:3-5).
Jesus is the Way
Our Lord allows for no other way to Heaven than through Him: “I am the door! By Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved!” (John 10:9) … “If you believe not that I am He, then you shall die in your sin!” (John 8:24) … “I am the way, and the truth, and the life! No man comes to the Father, but by Me!” (John 14:6) … “If a man walk in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees by the light of this world” (John 11:9) … “I am the light of the world! He that follows Me, walks not in darkness, but shall have the light of life!” (John 8:12) ... “The light is come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than the light―for their works were evil” (John 3:19) ... “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21) ... “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:4). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word … He that loves Me not, keeps not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
What does Jesus say? Well, for one, he says everyone in the world must be baptized into the Faith―the Catholic Faith: “All power is given to Me in Heaven and in Earth. Going, therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:18-19). “Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believes and is baptized, shall be saved―but he that believes not shall be condemned!” (Mark 16:15-16) … “He that believes in the Son, will have life everlasting―but he that believes not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God!” (John 3:36). “Without Faith it is impossible to please God!” (Hebrews 11:6). Therefore―no Baptism, no Faith, no salvation!
The First Conversion of the Spiritual Life
Thus, in all the above, we have focused on what is called the “FIRST CONVERSION” of the spiritual life―a conversion or turning away from mortal sin and receiving the Sacrament of Baptism, which pours life into the soul (sanctifying grace). By this FIRST CONVERSION the potentially enters the WAY OF BEGINNERS―also called the PURGATIVE WAY. Notice that it was said “potentially enters” ― because if we live a lukewarm life in the Faith, then we have not fully entered, but we have one foot on the inside and the other foot on the outside. One of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, the Dominican Order’s Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (1877-1964), who taught dogmatic and spiritual theology at the Dominican College in Rome from 1909 to 1959, is of the opinion that most souls are not even beginners―because they wallow in lukewarmness all life long, while drifting back into mortal sin and then back into lukewarmness. Once mortal sin has been committed, the first conversion has to take place all over again―this time, no longer in the Sacrament of Baptism (which can only be received once), but in the Sacrament of Confession.
The first conversion is not the only conversion that is needed in our spiritual lives. The first conversion merely takes to the foot of mountain―Heaven is on its peak―and we must now climb that mountain. The SECOND and THIRD CONVERSIONS await us on that mountain―they are the difficult parts of the climb―we either fight our way through those difficulties, or we stay on the lowest parts of the mountain. Or you could compare it to school―whereby the first conversion puts us into LOWER SCHOOL (Kindergarten through to 4th Grade)―which in the spiritual life is the WAY OF BEGINNERS. We cannot stop there―we must pass through MIDDLE SCHOOL (5th to 8th Grade)―which in the spiritual life is the WAY OF THE PROFICIENTS; and then enter HIGH SCHOOL (9th to 12th Grade)―which in the spiritual life is the WAY OF THE PERFECT, before we can graduate. To get to Heaven, there is no other way than to pass through the THREE WAYS―Way of Beginners, Way of Proficients and Way of the Perfect. To enter into each of these ways, there has to be a CONVERSION beforehand―a graduation, if you like, whereby you have passed the exam for that level in order to enter the next higher level.
Heaven is No Easy Street!
There is no easy street or easy way to Heaven―just as there is no easy way through school, or an easy way to win a race. St. Paul speaks of that, saying: “Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it! And everyone that strives for the mastery, refrains himself from all things―and they, indeed, that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible one! I therefore so run―not as at an uncertainty. I so fight―not as one beating the air! But I chastise my body and bring it into subjection―lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway!” (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).
The words St. Paul uses here ― “refrain from all things … I so fight … I chastise my body” ― very fittingly paint a picture of what this FIRST CONVERSION and FIRST WAY OF BEGINNERS or PURGATIVE WAY is about. It is about purging ourselves from all our sins and its traces and sources. It most certainly is a fight, wherein we chastise our bodies through penance and mortification! It is a fight against the many temptations from the devil, the world and our sin-weakened human nature, that continually bombard the soul―even if the soul has decided to quit mortal sin and finds itself in a state of sanctifying grace.
You will say: “I know an easy way to Heaven! Just stay in a state of sanctifying grace!” Yes and No! Yes―you have to be in a state of sanctifying grace in order to be able to enter Heaven. No―it is not an easy way! If it was that easy―why then do most souls end up being damned? To simply reduce getting to Heaven to the statement: “Just stay in a state of sanctifying grace!” ― is to over simplify things. That is like a coach simply telling his players at the start of a season: “Guys! Winning the championship is easy! All you have to do is to win more games than anybody else!” Hey! What about all the other things, coach? How will you win those games? What tactics will you use? What about telling your players about the tactics the opponents prefer to use? What about warning them about the best players on the opposition team and how to handle them? There are a hundred-and-one things a coach has to do in order to prepare his team to win more games than anybody else! The same is true for the spiritual life. There are lots of dangers and pitfalls on the precarious road to Heaven. It pays to know the tactics of the devils and the world and our own fallen nature with its sinful tendencies. The best teams are invariably the best prepared teams. Coaching is far more than just saying: “Go and win the game!” and getting to Heaven is far more than just saying: “Stay in a state of grace!”
Catholics Won’t Climb the Mountain
“Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord?” (Psalm 23:3). Even though Heaven is no “Easy-Street” with one-way-traffic to Paradise, most Catholics still refuse to begin climbing the mountain. They stubbornly expect and wait for a cable-car or chair-lift up the mountain, whereby they can comfortably sit and admire the scenery below! Our Lord shot-down that idea when he said: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) … “If any man will come after Me and follow Me, then let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23) ― there is no cable-car for you and your cross! The path to Heaven is a long and painful trudge up a barely visible narrow path to the mountain of God to Heaven―as Our Lord said: “Enter ye in at the narrow gate! For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and straight is the way that leads to life, and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14).
Mountains or Molehills?
God calls us to climb the mountain that leads to Him. Few there are who want to climb it―for them, life in the comfortable valley is preferable. When we speak of mountain of God, they think we are making mountains out of molehills―whereas in reality, they are making molehills out of mountains! All throughout the Old and New Testament Scriptures, God is associated with the mountain:
“And in the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it” (Isaias 2:2; Micheas 4:1) ... “A mountain in which God is well pleased to dwell―for there the Lord shall dwell unto the end” (Psalm 67:17) ... “Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy place?” (Psalm 23:3) … “The mountain of the Lord of hosts, the sanctified mountain” (Zacharias 8:3) … “Know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in My holy mountain!” (Joel 3:17) … “‘Bring all your brethren out of all nations … to My holy mountain!’ saith the Lord” (Isaias 66:20) … “Get thee up upon a high mountain! … Behold your God!” (Isaias 40:9) ... “The Lord the God of hosts … magnificent upon the mountain” (Isaias 22:5) … “Great is the Lord, and exceedingly to be praised in His holy mountain” (Psalm 47:2) ... God is to be “adored on this mountain” (John 4:20) … “In My holy mountain, saith the Lord God, there shall all serve Me!” (Ezechiel 20:40) … “Go up to the mountain and build the house―and it shall be acceptable to Me, and I shall be glorified, saith the Lord” (Aggeus 1:8) … “Save thyself in the mountain, lest thou be also consumed!” (Genesis 19:17) ... “Call the people to the mountain―there shall they sacrifice the victims of justice” (Deuteronomy 33:19) ... “Thou shalt offer sacrifice to God upon this mountain” (Exodus 3:12) … “Come into the mountain of the Lord!” (Isaias 30:29) ... “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord―and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths!” (Micheas 4:2) … “The holy mountain of my God!” (Daniel 9:20).
Moses climbed Mount Horeb to be with God for 40 days and 40 nights: “Moses came to the mountain of God, Horeb” (Exodus 3:1) … “The Lord called unto him from the mountain and Moses went up to God” (Exodus 19:3) ... “The Lord said to Moses: ‘Go up into this mountain!’” (Numbers 27:12) ... “And Moses, entering into the midst of the cloud, went up into the mountain: and he was there forty days, and forty nights” (Exodus 24:18).
Our Lord went up the mountain to separate Himself from the world and to pray to God: “And having dismissed the multitude, Jesus went into a mountain alone―to pray. And when it was evening, He was there alone” (Matthew 14:23) ... “And when He had dismissed them, He went up to the mountain to pray” (Mark 6:46) ... “Jesus went out into a mountain to pray, and He passed the whole night in the prayer of God” (Luke 6:12).
Yet for most Catholics, the mountain and the climbing of the mountain is not very appealing. The mountain is nowhere near as lush and comfortable as the valley. They forget that this valley is a “valley of tears” and that Heaven is only place of enduring happiness and joy. Yet most Catholics, blinded by propaganda of the world, imagine this “valley of tears” to be “paradise on Earth”―and that is where they wish to stay! They have cheapened Heaven and fooled themselves by imagining that the mountain they have to climb is actually a molehill. By refusing to climb the mountain of God, they unconsciously fall into the pit of Satan―for, as the spiritual writers and the Father of the Church repeatedly tell us: “In the ways of God, he who makes no progress, loses ground.” The numbers of Catholics who are making very little or no progress in their Faith and spiritual life, is tragically uncountable!
Climbing Mountains Needs Planning and a Guide
Taking this idea of Heaven being God on the top of high mountain―in fact the highest of all mountains―then, by looking at what it takes to climb the highest mountains on Earth, we can get a rough idea of what climbing the mountain of God to Heaven must be like [ click on the links to read our related 4 part series here: INTRO ― PART 1 ― PART 2 ― PART 3 ]. No sane person would venture to climb Mount Everest without a knowledgeable guide―so why do people expect to get to Heaven without a knowledgeable guide? Insanity! St. Bernard of Clairvaux is famous for saying that “Anyone who takes himself for his own spiritual director ends up being the disciple of a fool.” You can’t diagnose your own eye-problem―you need an ophthalmologist. You can’t know that your brake light is out unless someone tells you. In similar fashion, how can we tell if our spiritual brake lights are all working as they should be? How can we see our blind spots without the help of others? Besides―we are always “easy” on ourselves, rather than “hard” on ourselves―that is why we need a spiritual guide and spiritual guidance that will not be afraid to oppose our opinions and preferences.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “Spiritual direction should be numbered among the exterior means of sanctification … Though it is not an absolutely necessary means for the sanctification of souls, spiritual direction is the normal means of spiritual progress. In founding the Church, Christ willed that the faithful should be sanctified by submission to the pope and the bishops, with respect to external jurisdiction, and submissive in matters of conscience to their confessors, who point out the means needed in order not to fall back into sin and to make progress in virtue.
“Pope Leo XIII―as well as Cassian and St. Francis de Sales―recalls the fact that St. Paul himself received a guide from the Lord. When Paul was first converted, Jesus did not at once reveal His designs to him, but sent Paul to Ananias at Damascus, in order to learn what he should do. St. Basil says: ‘Employ all diligence in finding a man who may serve you as a very sure guide in the work of leading a holy life which you wish to undertake. Choose one who knows how to show souls of good will the straight road toward God … To believe that one does not need counsel is great pride!’
“In his conferences, Cassian says that anyone who relies on his own judgment will never reach perfection and will not be able to avoid the snares of the devil. He concludes that the best means to triumph over the most dangerous temptations is to make them known to a wise counselor who has the grace of state to enlighten us. In reality, to manifest them to one who has a right to hear them often suffices to make them disappear.
“St. Bernard says: ‘He who constitutes himself his own director, becomes the disciple of a fool.’ And he adds: ‘As far as I am concerned, I declare that it is easier and safer for me to command many others than myself alone.’ Our self-love leads us less astray, in truth, in conducting others than in dealing with ourselves, and if we knew well how to apply to ourselves what we tell others, we would make far greater progress.
“We understand quite well that we need a guide if we intend to climb a mountain. He is not less necessary for climbing to the summit of spiritual perfection, the more so as in this ascent we must avoid the snares laid by Satan, who wishes to prevent us from ascending. The testimony of all these authorities shows clearly the general need of direction. We shall obtain a clearer idea of this necessity by considering the three stages of the interior life, or the spiritual needs of beginners, of proficients, and of the perfect.” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, Three Ages of the Interior Life, Part I, Chapter 17).
St. Teresa of Avila insists that spiritual direction is part of the ordinary life of the Christian – something to which nearly every person should avail themselves at some point during their journey. In particular, the Church herself encourages all those who strive for a special perfection in the spiritual life to entrust themselves to a director. We all need at least some level of spiritual direction – all the faithful are required to receive some direction in the spiritual life and we all should avail ourselves of spiritual guidance at least at some point of our spiritual journey.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange points out: “A person having a good director, whom he obeys completely and unreservedly, will reach his goal much more easily and rapidly then he could alone.” And Saint Vincent Ferrer, in addition to this, taught: “Even with the aid of a very keen intellect and learned books on spiritual matters. . . in general, all who have reached perfection, have followed this road of obedience, unless, by a privilege and singular grace, God Himself instructed some souls that had no one to direct them.”
The spirit of pride and the suggestions of the devil present themselves to the soul: “Don’t ask a priest; he is too busy.” Or, “There is no one with the competence who can direct me!” Remember that St. Bernard says: “He who constitutes himself his own director, becomes a disciple of a fool.” He continues, “As far as I am concerned, I declare that it is easier and safer for me to command many others than myself alone.” One needs a guide to climb the mountain of the spiritual life because the more one ascends, the more one must avoid the snares laid by Satan who wishes to prevent one from ascending. The devil hides behind the pride of souls trying to advance.
Pope Leo XIII, in a letter to Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, wrote, “A most provident God has decreed that men, for the most part, should be saved by men.” St. Paul was breathing out threats and overseeing acts of slaughter when Christ struck him to the ground. Saint Paul asked Him, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). He was sent to Ananias at Damascus to learn what to do. “Arise, and go into the city,” the Lord said, “and there it should be told thee what thou must do” (Acts 9:7). God used a man to help the man St. Paul.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange adds: “St. Francis de Sales says on the subject of a director: ‘He must be a man of charity, learning, and prudence; if anyone of these three qualities be wanting in him, there is danger.’ His charity ought to be disinterested and to incline him, not to draw hearts to himself but to lead them to God. The director's charitable kindness should not be weakness; it should be firm and fearless in speaking the truth in order to lead souls effectively to goodness. Neither should he lose his time in useless conversations or letters, but go straight to the point for the good of the soul. In addition, he should have a knowledge of the spiritual life, be penetrated with the teachings of the great masters of the interior life, and be a good psychologist. The director may be the instrument of the Holy Ghost, he ought prudently to discern in souls the dominant defect to be personally avoided by them and which supernatural attraction should be followed. For this purpose, he must pray for light, especially in difficult cases, and, if he is humble, he will receive the graces of state. When he directs generous souls, his prudence must avoid two dangers: the person he is guiding must advance neither too slowly nor too rapidly.”
But What If ...?
But what if you can’t find a good spiritual director? How many priests are good spiritual directors? St. Teresa of Avila says, “I say one out of ten thousand; for there are fewer men than we realize who are capable of this task.” In the current crisis of Faith in both the Church and the world, there are even fewer today that can perform the art of spiritual direction. What can you do in such circumstances? Indeed, it must be said that, if every Catholic were to seek formal spiritual direction, there would hardly be enough priests and other spiritual persons to serve as directors! Even if every priest were as devoted as St. John Vianney, there would not be enough time for him to offer personal formal spiritual direction to each and every member of his flock.
If we cannot find a director, and we are convinced that we need one, we must first turn to prayer and mortification. Through prayer, fasting, mortification, and works of charity, we will merit a good director! Perseverance is the key, we must not stop asking God to give us a good director; he will surely answer our prayers. But what ought we to do in the meantime? St. Alphonsus (one of the greatest Doctors of Church with regard to the spiritual life) recommends the following daily practices:
(1) Short prayers immediately upon rising
(2) ½ hour’s meditation each day (or at least 15 minutes)
(3) 15 minutes of spiritual reading each day
(4) A daily examination of conscience (particularly considering the quality of our prayer)
(5) To make a confession and take Holy Communion at least once per week
(6) Avoid the near occasions of sin and bad company
(7) Entrust yourself to the Blessed Virgin Mary
(8) Pray to Our Savior to obtain His Holy Love
(9) Daily ask for the grace of final perseverance (i.e. the gift of salvation)
While no other human power can fully take the place of a personal spiritual director, spiritual reading can assist us greatly. Moreover, if we truly desire holiness and persevere in prayer, God himself will direct us through our spiritual reading – he will guide us along until he provides a suitable spiritual director. For people who engage in the very best of spiritual reading and who are immersed in the saints, ‘self-direction’ is not really self direction. They are being guided by the masters themselves, even if they lack the blessing of a living voice. As St. Vincent Ferrer wrote: “In general, all who have reached perfection, have followed this road of obedience [to a spiritual director], unless, by a privilege and singular grace, God Himself instructed some souls that had no one to direct them.”
Conversion is the Name of the Game
Through the effects of Original Sin, we are born with a tendency to sin. When we sin, we place ourselves under the control of Satan―more or less, depending upon the gravity and number of sins: “He that commits sin is of the devil: for the devil sinned from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God appeared, so that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). Our Lord came to turn us away from sin and to turn us toward God; to turn away from the world and Hell (into which the world is leading us) and to turn our steps toward Heaven. That is the general meaning of conversion. Our Lord came to convert the world.
The word “convert” comes from the Latin verb “convertere.” The Latin prefix “con-” means “with, together” and the Latin verb “vertere” means “to turn.” Thus, the literal meaning of the Latin verb “convertere” means “to turn with” or “to turn together”. An in-depth Latin dictionary gives the following variety of meanings to the verb “convertere”:
Definition 1: “to turn backwards, to reverse, to wheel about”―thus we turn around, we wheel about, we take the reverse direction from the one that was leading us away from God, and we walk to God and walk together with God.
Definition 2: “to turn upside down, to turn over (soil) or to dig, or to invert”―we dig deep into the our “soiled” consciences and turn over in our minds all that we have done; we see our errors and wrongdoing and then turn ourselves upside down and invert our attitude and life―no longer seeking the world and its pleasures, but now seeking God and His graces.
Definition 3: “to change, to modify, to alter, to transform”―similarly, we change our attitude, change our direction, change our thoughts, words and actions, allowing God’s grace to transform us from sin to grace.
Definition 4: “to direct one’s course or attention towards”―thus we direct our course or direction back to God, Whom we had deserted for the world and its sinful pleasures.
Definition 5: “to shift, to transfer”―there occurs a shift in our priorities in life. No longer is world as important as it once was, as we now transfer our attentions from the world to God.
Conversion is a process. Everyone is called to ongoing conversion. St. Bernard once said that no matter how sinful one might have been in the past, he is still called to the heights of prayer; to the depths of the riches of the spiritual life; and to holiness and sanctity of life. For you to grow in holiness and be a saint, you don’t need to do extraordinary things. You need only to focus on continuous conversion, the nitty-gritty practice of daily avoiding sins, growing in virtue, being fervent in prayer, and growing in intimacy with the God who loves you.
Conversion is like a coin―it has two sides; one negative and one positive. Conversion isn’t just about avoiding sins. It is also about making improvements—growing in the virtues of humility, temperance, zeal, love, and so on. The Three Ways of the Spiritual Life, or the Three Stages of the Spiritual Life, take us along the progressive path to perfection―making us better, more committed, more perfect and more holy, little by little, bit by bit. We are obliged―by the Will of God―to pass through these stages, just as we obliged to pass from infancy to childhood, to adolescence, to maturity. In very brief terms, here are three paragraphs painting a thumbnail sketch of each of the three stages or ways. Further below you will find some charts that further explain them.
THE PURGATIVE WAY (THE WAY OF BEGINNERS): This is the state of beginners. In this stage it is often difficult to overcome daily temptations, and practicing the virtues can require an inner battle because of attachment to venial sin. Though the desire for perfection and progress is there, the beginner falls frequently. If a beginner concerns himself seriously with repenting of his sins and has an actionable desire to stop offending God, he may eventually move to the Illuminative Way.
THE ILLUMINATIVE WAY (THE WAY OF PROFICIENCY): This is the intermediary stage between purification and total union with God. In this stage, there is enlightenment in the ways of God and a clear understanding of his will in one’s life. There are now only occasional “slips” into sin.
THE UNITIVE WAY (THE WAY OF PERFECTION): This is the final stage of Christian perfection. A soul in the unitive state has a constant awareness of God’s presence and habitually conforms to God’s will. In this stage, the soul loves God and others without limit.
Grades or Stages of Perfection
Holy Scripture tells us that “God is Charity” (1 John 4:8) and Our Lord tells us: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). Christian perfection consists formally and primarily in the perfection of Charity; therefore, to speak of the grades of Christian perfection is to speak of the degrees of Charity. In discussing the various degrees of Charity, St. Thomas uses the classical division that is based on the Three Ways or Stages of the Spiritual Life, but he uses the terms Beginners, Proficient and Perfect, rather than the more common division into Purgative, Illuminative, and Unitive.
In the physical and psychological growth and development of human life, one can distinguish three basic stages: Infancy, Adolescence, and Maturity. Something similar occurs in the growth of Charity. The various degrees of charity are distinguished and dependent upon the different actions and endeavors that man does.
(1) At first man must occupy himself chiefly with avoiding sin and resisting his concupiscences (sinful desires), which move him in opposition to Charity and God. This concerns Beginners, in whom Charity has to be fed or fostered, to prevent it from being destroyed. (2) In the second place, man’s chief pursuit is to aim at progress in good, and this is the pursuit of the Proficient, whose chief aim is to strengthen their charity by adding to it. (3) Man’s third pursuit is to aim chiefly at union with and enjoyment of God, and this belongs to those who are approaching or have arrived at Perfection, who desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ.
The three stages or degrees of charity are nothing more than divisions that characterize in a general way the infinite variety of aspects in the Christian life. The path of the supernatural life is a winding path, and its stages offer a variety of transitions and levels that will differ with each individual. We must never think that the three basic stages are self-contained compartments, and that those who are at a given time in one stage will never participate in the activities of another stage.
A soul in the Purgative Stage may experience the graces of the Illuminative Stage. Sometimes God gives to souls in the ascetical state the graces that are proper to the mystical state. Likewise, advanced souls may sometimes find it necessary to return to the exercises and practices proper to a lower stage, through which they have already passed. The Spirit breathes where He will and therefore one should avoid rigid classification.
Do you know where you are going? Do you know the way? Or are you blind as to the goal of this life and how to attain it? Are you one of those of whom Our Lord says: “Leave them alone! They are blind and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14). Are you primarily putting your eggs in the basket of the world, or in the basket of Heaven? “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also!” (Matthew 6:19-21).
You would think that everyone on Earth would like to know the best way to get to Heaven―but they don’t! “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together: there is none that doth good, no not one!” (Psalm 13:2-3). “They have not known, nor understood! For their eyes are covered that they may not see, and that they may not understand with their heart!” (Isaias 44:18). “Seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand!” (Matthew 13:13). “Understand these things―you that forget God―lest He snatch you away and there be none to deliver you!” (Psalm 49:22).
God’s Way or the Highway
You may have heard of the saying: “All roads lead to Rome” ― which means that all the methods of doing something will achieve the same result in the end. Can we say: “All roads lead to Heaven” ― in the sense that whatever path in life we choose to take, we will end up in Heaven? If you are still a sane person, then your obvious answer to that will be “NO!” There is just no way that you can say that all religions lead to Heaven. Nor can you say that whether or not you choose to sin, you will automatically go to Heaven. Our Lord and Holy Scripture―never mind the statements of Tradition and the Magisterium―shoot down such foolishness.
“God sent His Son into the world so that the world may be saved by Him. He that believes in Him is not judged. But he that does not believe, is already judged!” (John 3:17-18) ... “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved! … Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved! … Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under Heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 16:31; 2:21; 4:12).
Yet believing in the Lord is not enough―for as Scripture tells us: “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘You have Faith, and I have works!’ Show me your Faith without works; and I will show you, by my works, my Faith! You believe that there is one God. You do well―but the devils also believe and tremble! But will you know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … Do you see that by works a man is justified―and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26). That is why Our Lord said: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:4). “So let your light [light of Faith] shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:16).
Our Lord adds: “Unless a man be born again of water [Baptism] and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God!” (John 3:5). Holy Scripture adds: “Do penance, and be baptized every one of you, in the Name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins―and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost!” (Acts 2:38). Baptism and penance are essential for salvation. St. John the Baptist said: “Do penance―for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2). Our Lord added: “I came to call sinners to penance! … No, I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you―except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 5:3; 13:3-5).
Jesus is the Way
Our Lord allows for no other way to Heaven than through Him: “I am the door! By Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved!” (John 10:9) … “If you believe not that I am He, then you shall die in your sin!” (John 8:24) … “I am the way, and the truth, and the life! No man comes to the Father, but by Me!” (John 14:6) … “If a man walk in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees by the light of this world” (John 11:9) … “I am the light of the world! He that follows Me, walks not in darkness, but shall have the light of life!” (John 8:12) ... “The light is come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than the light―for their works were evil” (John 3:19) ... “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21) ... “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:4). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word … He that loves Me not, keeps not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24).
What does Jesus say? Well, for one, he says everyone in the world must be baptized into the Faith―the Catholic Faith: “All power is given to Me in Heaven and in Earth. Going, therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:18-19). “Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believes and is baptized, shall be saved―but he that believes not shall be condemned!” (Mark 16:15-16) … “He that believes in the Son, will have life everlasting―but he that believes not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God!” (John 3:36). “Without Faith it is impossible to please God!” (Hebrews 11:6). Therefore―no Baptism, no Faith, no salvation!
The First Conversion of the Spiritual Life
Thus, in all the above, we have focused on what is called the “FIRST CONVERSION” of the spiritual life―a conversion or turning away from mortal sin and receiving the Sacrament of Baptism, which pours life into the soul (sanctifying grace). By this FIRST CONVERSION the potentially enters the WAY OF BEGINNERS―also called the PURGATIVE WAY. Notice that it was said “potentially enters” ― because if we live a lukewarm life in the Faith, then we have not fully entered, but we have one foot on the inside and the other foot on the outside. One of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, the Dominican Order’s Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (1877-1964), who taught dogmatic and spiritual theology at the Dominican College in Rome from 1909 to 1959, is of the opinion that most souls are not even beginners―because they wallow in lukewarmness all life long, while drifting back into mortal sin and then back into lukewarmness. Once mortal sin has been committed, the first conversion has to take place all over again―this time, no longer in the Sacrament of Baptism (which can only be received once), but in the Sacrament of Confession.
The first conversion is not the only conversion that is needed in our spiritual lives. The first conversion merely takes to the foot of mountain―Heaven is on its peak―and we must now climb that mountain. The SECOND and THIRD CONVERSIONS await us on that mountain―they are the difficult parts of the climb―we either fight our way through those difficulties, or we stay on the lowest parts of the mountain. Or you could compare it to school―whereby the first conversion puts us into LOWER SCHOOL (Kindergarten through to 4th Grade)―which in the spiritual life is the WAY OF BEGINNERS. We cannot stop there―we must pass through MIDDLE SCHOOL (5th to 8th Grade)―which in the spiritual life is the WAY OF THE PROFICIENTS; and then enter HIGH SCHOOL (9th to 12th Grade)―which in the spiritual life is the WAY OF THE PERFECT, before we can graduate. To get to Heaven, there is no other way than to pass through the THREE WAYS―Way of Beginners, Way of Proficients and Way of the Perfect. To enter into each of these ways, there has to be a CONVERSION beforehand―a graduation, if you like, whereby you have passed the exam for that level in order to enter the next higher level.
Heaven is No Easy Street!
There is no easy street or easy way to Heaven―just as there is no easy way through school, or an easy way to win a race. St. Paul speaks of that, saying: “Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it! And everyone that strives for the mastery, refrains himself from all things―and they, indeed, that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible one! I therefore so run―not as at an uncertainty. I so fight―not as one beating the air! But I chastise my body and bring it into subjection―lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway!” (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).
The words St. Paul uses here ― “refrain from all things … I so fight … I chastise my body” ― very fittingly paint a picture of what this FIRST CONVERSION and FIRST WAY OF BEGINNERS or PURGATIVE WAY is about. It is about purging ourselves from all our sins and its traces and sources. It most certainly is a fight, wherein we chastise our bodies through penance and mortification! It is a fight against the many temptations from the devil, the world and our sin-weakened human nature, that continually bombard the soul―even if the soul has decided to quit mortal sin and finds itself in a state of sanctifying grace.
You will say: “I know an easy way to Heaven! Just stay in a state of sanctifying grace!” Yes and No! Yes―you have to be in a state of sanctifying grace in order to be able to enter Heaven. No―it is not an easy way! If it was that easy―why then do most souls end up being damned? To simply reduce getting to Heaven to the statement: “Just stay in a state of sanctifying grace!” ― is to over simplify things. That is like a coach simply telling his players at the start of a season: “Guys! Winning the championship is easy! All you have to do is to win more games than anybody else!” Hey! What about all the other things, coach? How will you win those games? What tactics will you use? What about telling your players about the tactics the opponents prefer to use? What about warning them about the best players on the opposition team and how to handle them? There are a hundred-and-one things a coach has to do in order to prepare his team to win more games than anybody else! The same is true for the spiritual life. There are lots of dangers and pitfalls on the precarious road to Heaven. It pays to know the tactics of the devils and the world and our own fallen nature with its sinful tendencies. The best teams are invariably the best prepared teams. Coaching is far more than just saying: “Go and win the game!” and getting to Heaven is far more than just saying: “Stay in a state of grace!”
Catholics Won’t Climb the Mountain
“Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord?” (Psalm 23:3). Even though Heaven is no “Easy-Street” with one-way-traffic to Paradise, most Catholics still refuse to begin climbing the mountain. They stubbornly expect and wait for a cable-car or chair-lift up the mountain, whereby they can comfortably sit and admire the scenery below! Our Lord shot-down that idea when he said: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) … “If any man will come after Me and follow Me, then let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23) ― there is no cable-car for you and your cross! The path to Heaven is a long and painful trudge up a barely visible narrow path to the mountain of God to Heaven―as Our Lord said: “Enter ye in at the narrow gate! For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and straight is the way that leads to life, and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14).
Mountains or Molehills?
God calls us to climb the mountain that leads to Him. Few there are who want to climb it―for them, life in the comfortable valley is preferable. When we speak of mountain of God, they think we are making mountains out of molehills―whereas in reality, they are making molehills out of mountains! All throughout the Old and New Testament Scriptures, God is associated with the mountain:
“And in the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it” (Isaias 2:2; Micheas 4:1) ... “A mountain in which God is well pleased to dwell―for there the Lord shall dwell unto the end” (Psalm 67:17) ... “Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy place?” (Psalm 23:3) … “The mountain of the Lord of hosts, the sanctified mountain” (Zacharias 8:3) … “Know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in My holy mountain!” (Joel 3:17) … “‘Bring all your brethren out of all nations … to My holy mountain!’ saith the Lord” (Isaias 66:20) … “Get thee up upon a high mountain! … Behold your God!” (Isaias 40:9) ... “The Lord the God of hosts … magnificent upon the mountain” (Isaias 22:5) … “Great is the Lord, and exceedingly to be praised in His holy mountain” (Psalm 47:2) ... God is to be “adored on this mountain” (John 4:20) … “In My holy mountain, saith the Lord God, there shall all serve Me!” (Ezechiel 20:40) … “Go up to the mountain and build the house―and it shall be acceptable to Me, and I shall be glorified, saith the Lord” (Aggeus 1:8) … “Save thyself in the mountain, lest thou be also consumed!” (Genesis 19:17) ... “Call the people to the mountain―there shall they sacrifice the victims of justice” (Deuteronomy 33:19) ... “Thou shalt offer sacrifice to God upon this mountain” (Exodus 3:12) … “Come into the mountain of the Lord!” (Isaias 30:29) ... “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord―and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths!” (Micheas 4:2) … “The holy mountain of my God!” (Daniel 9:20).
Moses climbed Mount Horeb to be with God for 40 days and 40 nights: “Moses came to the mountain of God, Horeb” (Exodus 3:1) … “The Lord called unto him from the mountain and Moses went up to God” (Exodus 19:3) ... “The Lord said to Moses: ‘Go up into this mountain!’” (Numbers 27:12) ... “And Moses, entering into the midst of the cloud, went up into the mountain: and he was there forty days, and forty nights” (Exodus 24:18).
Our Lord went up the mountain to separate Himself from the world and to pray to God: “And having dismissed the multitude, Jesus went into a mountain alone―to pray. And when it was evening, He was there alone” (Matthew 14:23) ... “And when He had dismissed them, He went up to the mountain to pray” (Mark 6:46) ... “Jesus went out into a mountain to pray, and He passed the whole night in the prayer of God” (Luke 6:12).
Yet for most Catholics, the mountain and the climbing of the mountain is not very appealing. The mountain is nowhere near as lush and comfortable as the valley. They forget that this valley is a “valley of tears” and that Heaven is only place of enduring happiness and joy. Yet most Catholics, blinded by propaganda of the world, imagine this “valley of tears” to be “paradise on Earth”―and that is where they wish to stay! They have cheapened Heaven and fooled themselves by imagining that the mountain they have to climb is actually a molehill. By refusing to climb the mountain of God, they unconsciously fall into the pit of Satan―for, as the spiritual writers and the Father of the Church repeatedly tell us: “In the ways of God, he who makes no progress, loses ground.” The numbers of Catholics who are making very little or no progress in their Faith and spiritual life, is tragically uncountable!
Climbing Mountains Needs Planning and a Guide
Taking this idea of Heaven being God on the top of high mountain―in fact the highest of all mountains―then, by looking at what it takes to climb the highest mountains on Earth, we can get a rough idea of what climbing the mountain of God to Heaven must be like [ click on the links to read our related 4 part series here: INTRO ― PART 1 ― PART 2 ― PART 3 ]. No sane person would venture to climb Mount Everest without a knowledgeable guide―so why do people expect to get to Heaven without a knowledgeable guide? Insanity! St. Bernard of Clairvaux is famous for saying that “Anyone who takes himself for his own spiritual director ends up being the disciple of a fool.” You can’t diagnose your own eye-problem―you need an ophthalmologist. You can’t know that your brake light is out unless someone tells you. In similar fashion, how can we tell if our spiritual brake lights are all working as they should be? How can we see our blind spots without the help of others? Besides―we are always “easy” on ourselves, rather than “hard” on ourselves―that is why we need a spiritual guide and spiritual guidance that will not be afraid to oppose our opinions and preferences.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “Spiritual direction should be numbered among the exterior means of sanctification … Though it is not an absolutely necessary means for the sanctification of souls, spiritual direction is the normal means of spiritual progress. In founding the Church, Christ willed that the faithful should be sanctified by submission to the pope and the bishops, with respect to external jurisdiction, and submissive in matters of conscience to their confessors, who point out the means needed in order not to fall back into sin and to make progress in virtue.
“Pope Leo XIII―as well as Cassian and St. Francis de Sales―recalls the fact that St. Paul himself received a guide from the Lord. When Paul was first converted, Jesus did not at once reveal His designs to him, but sent Paul to Ananias at Damascus, in order to learn what he should do. St. Basil says: ‘Employ all diligence in finding a man who may serve you as a very sure guide in the work of leading a holy life which you wish to undertake. Choose one who knows how to show souls of good will the straight road toward God … To believe that one does not need counsel is great pride!’
“In his conferences, Cassian says that anyone who relies on his own judgment will never reach perfection and will not be able to avoid the snares of the devil. He concludes that the best means to triumph over the most dangerous temptations is to make them known to a wise counselor who has the grace of state to enlighten us. In reality, to manifest them to one who has a right to hear them often suffices to make them disappear.
“St. Bernard says: ‘He who constitutes himself his own director, becomes the disciple of a fool.’ And he adds: ‘As far as I am concerned, I declare that it is easier and safer for me to command many others than myself alone.’ Our self-love leads us less astray, in truth, in conducting others than in dealing with ourselves, and if we knew well how to apply to ourselves what we tell others, we would make far greater progress.
“We understand quite well that we need a guide if we intend to climb a mountain. He is not less necessary for climbing to the summit of spiritual perfection, the more so as in this ascent we must avoid the snares laid by Satan, who wishes to prevent us from ascending. The testimony of all these authorities shows clearly the general need of direction. We shall obtain a clearer idea of this necessity by considering the three stages of the interior life, or the spiritual needs of beginners, of proficients, and of the perfect.” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, Three Ages of the Interior Life, Part I, Chapter 17).
St. Teresa of Avila insists that spiritual direction is part of the ordinary life of the Christian – something to which nearly every person should avail themselves at some point during their journey. In particular, the Church herself encourages all those who strive for a special perfection in the spiritual life to entrust themselves to a director. We all need at least some level of spiritual direction – all the faithful are required to receive some direction in the spiritual life and we all should avail ourselves of spiritual guidance at least at some point of our spiritual journey.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange points out: “A person having a good director, whom he obeys completely and unreservedly, will reach his goal much more easily and rapidly then he could alone.” And Saint Vincent Ferrer, in addition to this, taught: “Even with the aid of a very keen intellect and learned books on spiritual matters. . . in general, all who have reached perfection, have followed this road of obedience, unless, by a privilege and singular grace, God Himself instructed some souls that had no one to direct them.”
The spirit of pride and the suggestions of the devil present themselves to the soul: “Don’t ask a priest; he is too busy.” Or, “There is no one with the competence who can direct me!” Remember that St. Bernard says: “He who constitutes himself his own director, becomes a disciple of a fool.” He continues, “As far as I am concerned, I declare that it is easier and safer for me to command many others than myself alone.” One needs a guide to climb the mountain of the spiritual life because the more one ascends, the more one must avoid the snares laid by Satan who wishes to prevent one from ascending. The devil hides behind the pride of souls trying to advance.
Pope Leo XIII, in a letter to Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, wrote, “A most provident God has decreed that men, for the most part, should be saved by men.” St. Paul was breathing out threats and overseeing acts of slaughter when Christ struck him to the ground. Saint Paul asked Him, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). He was sent to Ananias at Damascus to learn what to do. “Arise, and go into the city,” the Lord said, “and there it should be told thee what thou must do” (Acts 9:7). God used a man to help the man St. Paul.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange adds: “St. Francis de Sales says on the subject of a director: ‘He must be a man of charity, learning, and prudence; if anyone of these three qualities be wanting in him, there is danger.’ His charity ought to be disinterested and to incline him, not to draw hearts to himself but to lead them to God. The director's charitable kindness should not be weakness; it should be firm and fearless in speaking the truth in order to lead souls effectively to goodness. Neither should he lose his time in useless conversations or letters, but go straight to the point for the good of the soul. In addition, he should have a knowledge of the spiritual life, be penetrated with the teachings of the great masters of the interior life, and be a good psychologist. The director may be the instrument of the Holy Ghost, he ought prudently to discern in souls the dominant defect to be personally avoided by them and which supernatural attraction should be followed. For this purpose, he must pray for light, especially in difficult cases, and, if he is humble, he will receive the graces of state. When he directs generous souls, his prudence must avoid two dangers: the person he is guiding must advance neither too slowly nor too rapidly.”
But What If ...?
But what if you can’t find a good spiritual director? How many priests are good spiritual directors? St. Teresa of Avila says, “I say one out of ten thousand; for there are fewer men than we realize who are capable of this task.” In the current crisis of Faith in both the Church and the world, there are even fewer today that can perform the art of spiritual direction. What can you do in such circumstances? Indeed, it must be said that, if every Catholic were to seek formal spiritual direction, there would hardly be enough priests and other spiritual persons to serve as directors! Even if every priest were as devoted as St. John Vianney, there would not be enough time for him to offer personal formal spiritual direction to each and every member of his flock.
If we cannot find a director, and we are convinced that we need one, we must first turn to prayer and mortification. Through prayer, fasting, mortification, and works of charity, we will merit a good director! Perseverance is the key, we must not stop asking God to give us a good director; he will surely answer our prayers. But what ought we to do in the meantime? St. Alphonsus (one of the greatest Doctors of Church with regard to the spiritual life) recommends the following daily practices:
(1) Short prayers immediately upon rising
(2) ½ hour’s meditation each day (or at least 15 minutes)
(3) 15 minutes of spiritual reading each day
(4) A daily examination of conscience (particularly considering the quality of our prayer)
(5) To make a confession and take Holy Communion at least once per week
(6) Avoid the near occasions of sin and bad company
(7) Entrust yourself to the Blessed Virgin Mary
(8) Pray to Our Savior to obtain His Holy Love
(9) Daily ask for the grace of final perseverance (i.e. the gift of salvation)
While no other human power can fully take the place of a personal spiritual director, spiritual reading can assist us greatly. Moreover, if we truly desire holiness and persevere in prayer, God himself will direct us through our spiritual reading – he will guide us along until he provides a suitable spiritual director. For people who engage in the very best of spiritual reading and who are immersed in the saints, ‘self-direction’ is not really self direction. They are being guided by the masters themselves, even if they lack the blessing of a living voice. As St. Vincent Ferrer wrote: “In general, all who have reached perfection, have followed this road of obedience [to a spiritual director], unless, by a privilege and singular grace, God Himself instructed some souls that had no one to direct them.”
Conversion is the Name of the Game
Through the effects of Original Sin, we are born with a tendency to sin. When we sin, we place ourselves under the control of Satan―more or less, depending upon the gravity and number of sins: “He that commits sin is of the devil: for the devil sinned from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God appeared, so that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). Our Lord came to turn us away from sin and to turn us toward God; to turn away from the world and Hell (into which the world is leading us) and to turn our steps toward Heaven. That is the general meaning of conversion. Our Lord came to convert the world.
The word “convert” comes from the Latin verb “convertere.” The Latin prefix “con-” means “with, together” and the Latin verb “vertere” means “to turn.” Thus, the literal meaning of the Latin verb “convertere” means “to turn with” or “to turn together”. An in-depth Latin dictionary gives the following variety of meanings to the verb “convertere”:
Definition 1: “to turn backwards, to reverse, to wheel about”―thus we turn around, we wheel about, we take the reverse direction from the one that was leading us away from God, and we walk to God and walk together with God.
Definition 2: “to turn upside down, to turn over (soil) or to dig, or to invert”―we dig deep into the our “soiled” consciences and turn over in our minds all that we have done; we see our errors and wrongdoing and then turn ourselves upside down and invert our attitude and life―no longer seeking the world and its pleasures, but now seeking God and His graces.
Definition 3: “to change, to modify, to alter, to transform”―similarly, we change our attitude, change our direction, change our thoughts, words and actions, allowing God’s grace to transform us from sin to grace.
Definition 4: “to direct one’s course or attention towards”―thus we direct our course or direction back to God, Whom we had deserted for the world and its sinful pleasures.
Definition 5: “to shift, to transfer”―there occurs a shift in our priorities in life. No longer is world as important as it once was, as we now transfer our attentions from the world to God.
Conversion is a process. Everyone is called to ongoing conversion. St. Bernard once said that no matter how sinful one might have been in the past, he is still called to the heights of prayer; to the depths of the riches of the spiritual life; and to holiness and sanctity of life. For you to grow in holiness and be a saint, you don’t need to do extraordinary things. You need only to focus on continuous conversion, the nitty-gritty practice of daily avoiding sins, growing in virtue, being fervent in prayer, and growing in intimacy with the God who loves you.
Conversion is like a coin―it has two sides; one negative and one positive. Conversion isn’t just about avoiding sins. It is also about making improvements—growing in the virtues of humility, temperance, zeal, love, and so on. The Three Ways of the Spiritual Life, or the Three Stages of the Spiritual Life, take us along the progressive path to perfection―making us better, more committed, more perfect and more holy, little by little, bit by bit. We are obliged―by the Will of God―to pass through these stages, just as we obliged to pass from infancy to childhood, to adolescence, to maturity. In very brief terms, here are three paragraphs painting a thumbnail sketch of each of the three stages or ways. Further below you will find some charts that further explain them.
THE PURGATIVE WAY (THE WAY OF BEGINNERS): This is the state of beginners. In this stage it is often difficult to overcome daily temptations, and practicing the virtues can require an inner battle because of attachment to venial sin. Though the desire for perfection and progress is there, the beginner falls frequently. If a beginner concerns himself seriously with repenting of his sins and has an actionable desire to stop offending God, he may eventually move to the Illuminative Way.
THE ILLUMINATIVE WAY (THE WAY OF PROFICIENCY): This is the intermediary stage between purification and total union with God. In this stage, there is enlightenment in the ways of God and a clear understanding of his will in one’s life. There are now only occasional “slips” into sin.
THE UNITIVE WAY (THE WAY OF PERFECTION): This is the final stage of Christian perfection. A soul in the unitive state has a constant awareness of God’s presence and habitually conforms to God’s will. In this stage, the soul loves God and others without limit.
Grades or Stages of Perfection
Holy Scripture tells us that “God is Charity” (1 John 4:8) and Our Lord tells us: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). Christian perfection consists formally and primarily in the perfection of Charity; therefore, to speak of the grades of Christian perfection is to speak of the degrees of Charity. In discussing the various degrees of Charity, St. Thomas uses the classical division that is based on the Three Ways or Stages of the Spiritual Life, but he uses the terms Beginners, Proficient and Perfect, rather than the more common division into Purgative, Illuminative, and Unitive.
In the physical and psychological growth and development of human life, one can distinguish three basic stages: Infancy, Adolescence, and Maturity. Something similar occurs in the growth of Charity. The various degrees of charity are distinguished and dependent upon the different actions and endeavors that man does.
(1) At first man must occupy himself chiefly with avoiding sin and resisting his concupiscences (sinful desires), which move him in opposition to Charity and God. This concerns Beginners, in whom Charity has to be fed or fostered, to prevent it from being destroyed. (2) In the second place, man’s chief pursuit is to aim at progress in good, and this is the pursuit of the Proficient, whose chief aim is to strengthen their charity by adding to it. (3) Man’s third pursuit is to aim chiefly at union with and enjoyment of God, and this belongs to those who are approaching or have arrived at Perfection, who desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ.
The three stages or degrees of charity are nothing more than divisions that characterize in a general way the infinite variety of aspects in the Christian life. The path of the supernatural life is a winding path, and its stages offer a variety of transitions and levels that will differ with each individual. We must never think that the three basic stages are self-contained compartments, and that those who are at a given time in one stage will never participate in the activities of another stage.
A soul in the Purgative Stage may experience the graces of the Illuminative Stage. Sometimes God gives to souls in the ascetical state the graces that are proper to the mystical state. Likewise, advanced souls may sometimes find it necessary to return to the exercises and practices proper to a lower stage, through which they have already passed. The Spirit breathes where He will and therefore one should avoid rigid classification.
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The following charts below are also available alongside as PDF downloads
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Article 10
Wednesday January 25th, 2023
The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul
Will You Convert With St. Paul?
Wednesday January 25th, 2023
The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul
Will You Convert With St. Paul?
Everyone Needs a Conversion
Most of us tend to fall into the category of the smug Pharisee in Our Lord’s parable: “And to some who trusted in themselves as just, and despised others, Jesus spoke this parable: ‘Two men went up into the Temple to pray―the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: “O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men―extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican! I fast twice in a week! I give tithes of all that I possess!” And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards Heaven―but struck his breast, saying: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner!” I say to you, this man [the Publican] went down into his house justified rather than the other [the Pharisee]―because every one that exalts himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbles himself, shall be exalted!’” (Luke 18:9-14).
Today we celebrate the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus. St. Paul―while he still called Saul―was a Pharisee. He had studied under the famous Pharisee a teacher of the law and member of the Sanhedrin, “named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, respected by all the people” (Acts 5:34). In his letter to the Philippians, Paul asserts that before his conversion to the Faith and Christ, he saw himself as legalistically righteous: “If any other thinketh he may have confidence in the flesh, I even more―being circumcised of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; according to the law, a Pharisee; according to zeal, persecuting the Church of God; according to the justice that is in the law, conversing without blame!” (Philippians 3:4-6). Thus we clearly see the Pharisee Paul as being proudly “full of himself” ― just like the Pharisee in Our Lord’s parable. The consequences of such pride were announced by Our Lady in her Magnificat: “God has shown might in His arm! He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart! He has put down the mighty from their seat, and has exalted the humble!” (Luke 1:51-52)―which merely echoes the Old Testament verse: “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord!” (Proverbs 16:5).
The Conversion of Saul (Paul)
The proud St. Paul found those words to be true―literally and painfully! God put down the mighty Paul from his seat on his horse and made him humble by forcing him to eat humble-pie:
“And Saul, as yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any men and women of this way [followers of Christ], he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. And as he went on his journey, it came to pass that he drew near to Damascus; a light from heaven suddenly shone round about him. And, falling on the ground, he heard a voice saying to him: ‘Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute Me?’ Saul said: ‘Who art thou, Lord?’ And He replied: ‘I am Jesus whom you persecute! It is hard for thee to kick against the goad!’ And Saul, trembling and astonished, said: ‘Lord, what will Thou have me do?’ And the Lord said to him: ‘Arise, and go into the city, and there it shall be told thee what thou must do!’ Now the men who went in company with him, stood amazed―indeed hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the ground; and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. But they leading him by the hand, brought him to Damascus. And he was there three days―without sight, and neither did he eat nor drink.
“Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias. And the Lord said to him in a vision: ‘Ananias!’ And he said: ‘Behold I am here, Lord!’ And the Lord said to him: ‘Arise, and go into the street that is called Strait, and seek in the house of Judas, one named Saul of Tarsus. For behold he prays!’ (And he saw a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hands upon him, that he might receive his sight). But Ananias answered: ‘Lord! I have heard from many about this man, and how much evil he has done to thy saints in Jerusalem. And I hear that here he has authority, from the chief priests, to arrest and bind all that invoke Thy Name!’ And the Lord said to him: ‘Go thy way! For this man is to Me a vessel of election, to carry My Name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake!’ And Ananias went his way and entered into the house. And laying his hands upon him, he said: ‘Brother Saul! The Lord Jesus―He that appeared to you on the road as you came to Damascus― has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost!’ And immediately there fell from his eyes, as it were scales, and he received his sight; and rising up, he was baptized. And when he had taken meat, he was strengthened. And he was with the disciples, who were at Damascus, for some days. And immediately he preached Jesus in the synagogues, that Jesus is the Son of God. And all that heard him were astonished and said: ‘Is not this he who, in Jerusalem, persecuted those that called upon this Name of Jesus, and then came here with that same intent―that he might carry them bound to the chief priests?’” (Acts 9:1-21).
Hands Up if You Need Converting!
“What?” you say, “I don’t need converting! Go find someone else!” That would be a common reaction from most people. It is much like the Pharisee in Our Lord’s parable, who said: “O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men―extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican! I fast twice in a week! I give tithes of all that I possess!” Our version might be: “O God, I thank you that I’m not like most people―drunkards, druggies, perverts, immodest, pagans, Protestants, fallen-away Catholics, etc. I go Mass every Sunday! I say the Rosary! I wear the Scapular!” Yet those “good” people seem to forget that most souls end up being lost―and among them were and will be regular Mass goers, Rosary reciters, and Scapular wearers! Yes―even Scapular wearers (says St. Alphonsus Liguori), because they abuse the Scapular by continuing to sin and still presumptuously expecting to get to Heaven by wearing the Scapular! So why are and will they be lost? Simply because they needed a conversion from the things that ended up or will end up damning them! St. Alphonsus writes: “When we declare that it is impossible for a servant of Mary to be lost, we do not mean those who by their devotion to Mary think themselves warranted to sin freely. We state that these reckless people, because of their presumption, deserve to be treated with rigor and not with kindness. We speak here of the servants of Mary who, to the fidelity with which they honor and invoke her, join the desire to amend their lives. I hold it morally impossible that these be lost.” The constant, daily practice of wearing the Scapular is, therefore, an act of faithful homage to Our Lady but, as St. Alphonsus says, the desire to amend one’s life is also necessary before we can be morally certain that she will be the cause of our eternal salvation―and the amendment of one’s life means conversion.
In fact, we are all in need of a conversion of one kind or another―for we are all sinners and it is sinners who need to convert. “There is no just man upon Earth, that does good and sins not!” (Ecclesiastes 7:21) … “For all have sinned!” (Romans 3:23) … “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us … If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10) … “Be converted to Me and you shall be saved, all ye ends of the Earth―for I am God!” (Isaias 45:22) … “Be converted, therefore, ye sinners, and do justice before God, believing that He will show His mercy to you!” (Tobias 13:8) … “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (Ezechiel 18:23).
There is No Doubt We Need to Convert
The renowned Dominican, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (1877–1964), was one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, who taught dogmatic and spiritual theology at the Dominican College in Rome from 1909 to 1959, wrote books and articles on our need for further conversion even if we are Catholics. Here are some extracts from two of his books: The Three Ways of the Spiritual Life (1938) and The Three Ages of the Interior Life (1938).
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange speaks of three consecutive stages in our spiritual life: Stage 1―Beginners in the spiritual life; also known as the Purgative Way because we purge ourselves of our past sins. State 2―Proficiency in the spiritual life; also known as the “Illuminative Way” because start to become more and more spiritually enlightened. Stage 3―Perfection in the spiritual life; also known as “The Way of Perfection” or “The Unitive Way” because we enter into the varying degrees of perfection and true union with God.
However, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange states that we ONLY TRULY BEGIN OUR SPIRITUAL CLIMB TO HEAVEN WHEN WE LEAVE BEHIND REGULAR MORTAL SIN. Those Catholics who habitually live in mortal sin without making sincere and realistic efforts to quit mortal sin, are not even counted as being beginners in the spiritual life (stage 1). They are outside the spiritual building―it is mortal sin that locks them out. The same applies to lukewarm Catholics―of whom God says: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot! But, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange if of the opinion that most Catholics souls are not even beginners in the spiritual life. While Fr. Frederick Faber is of the opinion that most Catholic souls, who are in a state of sanctifying grace, are in the state of lukewarmness to one degree or another, in one matter or another. St. Alphonsus Liguori adds fuel to that fire by saying that many souls make bad confessions: “The preacher should often speak against bad confessions, in which sins are concealed through shame. This is an evil that is not of rare occurrence, but frequent ― especially in small country districts, which consigns innumerable souls to Hell.”
These things were being said by them in the mid-1700s, mid-1800s and mid-1900s―how much worse have become as a race since then? Incredibly worse! Our Lady affirmed that to both Blessed Elena Aiello in 1956 and at Akita in Japan in 1973. In 1956 Our Lady said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! All is hanging on a slender thread!” While in 1973 she added: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord ... If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them … In order that the world might know His anger, the heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind … It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before!” In the light of such words from Our Lady, why are we―who are supposed to be the light of the world, the salt of the Earth and soldiers of Christ―why are we so lethargic, indifferent, idle, non-committal, complacent and unproductive? Our Lady asked for prayers, penances and sacrifices at Fatima―where are our fruits?
Our Lord said: “I am the true vine; and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch that bears not fruit, he will take away―and every one that bears fruit, He will purge it, so that it may bring forth more fruit! As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine―so neither can you, unless you abide in Me! I am the vine and you the branches―he that abides in Me and I in him, the same bears much fruit. If anyone abides not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire―and he shall burn!” (John 15:1-6). Where are our fruits―and ever increasing fruits (as Our Lord demands above)? “Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of penance!” (Luke 3:8) … “Bring forth fruit worthy of penance!” (Matthew 3:8) … “I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3) … “If My people, being converted, shall pray to Me and do penance for their most wicked ways―then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sins!” (2 Paralipomenon 7:14).
All of this bespeaks of and indicates the need of a perpetual and progressive conversion of soul. Just as we demand more and more from a child with each successive school grade that they pass through―likewise does God expect and demand more and more fruit from us with each passing year. Holiness and sanctity is a non-stop job. As the renowned Benedictine author, Fr. Huber Van Zeller, writes in one of his books, Holiness―A Guide For Beginners, there is no finishing line or finishing post when it comes to holiness: “One great lesson you are meant to learn from this is that sanctity is not a matter of reaching a particular milestone on the road to God. It is not a case of being an ordinary person until you come to the milestone, and a saint when you have gotten beyond it. It is a case of using your powers as perfectly as you can. There is no fixed milestone. The only thing that is fixed is the destination — God.”
You Were Made to Be a Saint
Make no mistake about it―you are called to be a saint. If you do not want to be a saint, then you are implicitly telling God that you do not want to go Heaven―or that you expect God to “lower the bar” or “lower the entry fee” for admission into Heaven. If that is your attitude―or something like it―then you need to convert; you need to change your attitude; change your philosophy and perception; you need to correct your erroneous views. God in Holy Scripture, Our Lord in the Gospels, the saints and eminent theologians clearly tell us that we were made to be saints and that we must become saints, for only saints go to Heaven. There is only one class of person in Heaven. There is no Mr. and Mrs. Mediocre in Heaven―everyone is a saint.
► God Himself, in Holy Scripture, repeatedly states that we must be HOLY: “I am the Lord your God―be holy because I am holy!” (Leviticus 11:44). “You shall be holy men to Me!” (Exodus 22:31). “You shall be holy, because I am holy!” (Leviticus 11:46). “Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy!” (Leviticus 19:2). “Thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God!” (Deuteronomy 7:6). “You shall be holy unto Me, because I the Lord am holy!” (Leviticus 20:26). “Sanctify yourselves, and be ye holy because I am the Lord your God!” (Leviticus 20:7). “Let them therefore be holy, because I also am holy, the Lord, who sanctify them!” (Leviticus 21:8). “He that is holy, let him be sanctified still more!” (Apocalypse 22:11). “He shall be holy to the Lord!” (Numbers 6:8). “Let thy camp [home] be holy, and let no uncleanness appear therein, lest the Lord go away from thee!” (Deuteronomy 23:14).
► Our Lord adds: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). “If you want to be perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in Heaven―and come follow Me!” (Matthew 19:21).
► St. Paul, whose conversion we celebrate today, writes: “We should be holy and unspotted in His sight!” (Ephesians 1:4). “Be holy and without blemish!” (Ephesians 5:27). “Confirm your hearts without blame, in holiness!” (1 Thessalonians 3:13). “Follow holiness―without which no man shall see God!” (Hebrews 12:14).
► St. Peter states: “According to Him that hath called you, Who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy! Because it is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy!’” (1 Peter 1:16).
► St. James adds: “Be perfect! Failing in nothing!” (James 1:4).
► Pope St. Clement I wrote: “Follow the saints, because those who follow them will become saints!”
► St. Philip Neri advises: “Be often reading the lives of saints for inspiration and instruction!”
► St. Augustine points out: “There is no saint without a past, and no sinner without a future!”
► St. Francis de Sales writes: “All of us can attain to Christian holiness―no matter in what condition of life we live and no matter what our life work may be.”
► St. Catherine of Siena said: “If you are what you should be, you will set the world on fire!”
► St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina says: “Jesus wants to make us holy at all costs … Let us keep before our minds that which makes up real holiness. Holiness means getting above ourselves; it means perfect mastery of all our passions. It means having real and continual contempt for ourselves and for the things of the world to the point of preferring poverty rather than wealth, humiliation rather than glory, suffering rather than pleasure. Holiness means loving our neighbor as ourself for love of God. In this connection holiness means loving those who curse us, who hate and persecute us and even doing good to them. Holiness means living humbly, being disinterested, prudent, just, patient, kind, chaste, meek, diligent, carrying out one’s duties for no other reason than that of pleasing God and receiving from Him alone the reward one deserves.”
► St. Louis de Montfort, while agreeing with all the above, also points in the right direction to the best way of becoming a saint: “Chosen soul―living image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ―God wants you to become holy like Him in this life, and glorious like Him in the next. It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being. Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God. The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these, but God does not give His graces in equal measure to everyone (Romans 12:6), although He always gives sufficient grace to everyone. No one can contest these principles. It all comes to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary).
► Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, in his work, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, writes: “There are some who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles, and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death, or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Every sin—though it should be only venial—must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified.”
In view of all the above, the clear conclusion is this: If you do have the sincere and effective desire to become a saint, then you are most certainly in need of a conversion―for you have taken a path that God never intended you to take. You are cheapening and downgrading Heaven by imagining that almost any Tom, Dick or Harry can gain entrance regardless of how they have lived their life! Heaven has never been cheap and never will be cheap: “With God there is no change, nor shadow of alteration!” (James 1:17) … “yesterday, and today; and the same for ever!” (Hebrews 13:8). And Jesus laid down a price, saying: “For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20) … “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23) … “Why call you Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
High Grades Required for Heaven
As for Heaven, “There shall not enter into it anything defiled” (Apocalypse 21:27). “Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err! Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind [homosexuals], nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God!” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). “For know you this and understand, that no fornicator, or unclean, or covetous person―which is a serving of idols―hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God” (Ephesians 5:5). “The works of the flesh fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings [partying], and such like. Of which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God!” (Galatians 5:19-21). “Therefore mortify yourselves upon the Earth from fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is the service of idols. Put away anger, indignation, malice, blasphemy, filthy speech out of your mouth. Lie not one to another. But strip yourselves of the old man with his deeds, and put on the new man―him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of Him that created him!” (Colossians 3:5-10).
Most of us tend to fall into the category of the smug Pharisee in Our Lord’s parable: “And to some who trusted in themselves as just, and despised others, Jesus spoke this parable: ‘Two men went up into the Temple to pray―the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: “O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men―extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican! I fast twice in a week! I give tithes of all that I possess!” And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards Heaven―but struck his breast, saying: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner!” I say to you, this man [the Publican] went down into his house justified rather than the other [the Pharisee]―because every one that exalts himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbles himself, shall be exalted!’” (Luke 18:9-14).
Today we celebrate the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus. St. Paul―while he still called Saul―was a Pharisee. He had studied under the famous Pharisee a teacher of the law and member of the Sanhedrin, “named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, respected by all the people” (Acts 5:34). In his letter to the Philippians, Paul asserts that before his conversion to the Faith and Christ, he saw himself as legalistically righteous: “If any other thinketh he may have confidence in the flesh, I even more―being circumcised of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; according to the law, a Pharisee; according to zeal, persecuting the Church of God; according to the justice that is in the law, conversing without blame!” (Philippians 3:4-6). Thus we clearly see the Pharisee Paul as being proudly “full of himself” ― just like the Pharisee in Our Lord’s parable. The consequences of such pride were announced by Our Lady in her Magnificat: “God has shown might in His arm! He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart! He has put down the mighty from their seat, and has exalted the humble!” (Luke 1:51-52)―which merely echoes the Old Testament verse: “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord!” (Proverbs 16:5).
The Conversion of Saul (Paul)
The proud St. Paul found those words to be true―literally and painfully! God put down the mighty Paul from his seat on his horse and made him humble by forcing him to eat humble-pie:
“And Saul, as yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any men and women of this way [followers of Christ], he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. And as he went on his journey, it came to pass that he drew near to Damascus; a light from heaven suddenly shone round about him. And, falling on the ground, he heard a voice saying to him: ‘Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute Me?’ Saul said: ‘Who art thou, Lord?’ And He replied: ‘I am Jesus whom you persecute! It is hard for thee to kick against the goad!’ And Saul, trembling and astonished, said: ‘Lord, what will Thou have me do?’ And the Lord said to him: ‘Arise, and go into the city, and there it shall be told thee what thou must do!’ Now the men who went in company with him, stood amazed―indeed hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the ground; and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. But they leading him by the hand, brought him to Damascus. And he was there three days―without sight, and neither did he eat nor drink.
“Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias. And the Lord said to him in a vision: ‘Ananias!’ And he said: ‘Behold I am here, Lord!’ And the Lord said to him: ‘Arise, and go into the street that is called Strait, and seek in the house of Judas, one named Saul of Tarsus. For behold he prays!’ (And he saw a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hands upon him, that he might receive his sight). But Ananias answered: ‘Lord! I have heard from many about this man, and how much evil he has done to thy saints in Jerusalem. And I hear that here he has authority, from the chief priests, to arrest and bind all that invoke Thy Name!’ And the Lord said to him: ‘Go thy way! For this man is to Me a vessel of election, to carry My Name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake!’ And Ananias went his way and entered into the house. And laying his hands upon him, he said: ‘Brother Saul! The Lord Jesus―He that appeared to you on the road as you came to Damascus― has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost!’ And immediately there fell from his eyes, as it were scales, and he received his sight; and rising up, he was baptized. And when he had taken meat, he was strengthened. And he was with the disciples, who were at Damascus, for some days. And immediately he preached Jesus in the synagogues, that Jesus is the Son of God. And all that heard him were astonished and said: ‘Is not this he who, in Jerusalem, persecuted those that called upon this Name of Jesus, and then came here with that same intent―that he might carry them bound to the chief priests?’” (Acts 9:1-21).
Hands Up if You Need Converting!
“What?” you say, “I don’t need converting! Go find someone else!” That would be a common reaction from most people. It is much like the Pharisee in Our Lord’s parable, who said: “O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men―extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican! I fast twice in a week! I give tithes of all that I possess!” Our version might be: “O God, I thank you that I’m not like most people―drunkards, druggies, perverts, immodest, pagans, Protestants, fallen-away Catholics, etc. I go Mass every Sunday! I say the Rosary! I wear the Scapular!” Yet those “good” people seem to forget that most souls end up being lost―and among them were and will be regular Mass goers, Rosary reciters, and Scapular wearers! Yes―even Scapular wearers (says St. Alphonsus Liguori), because they abuse the Scapular by continuing to sin and still presumptuously expecting to get to Heaven by wearing the Scapular! So why are and will they be lost? Simply because they needed a conversion from the things that ended up or will end up damning them! St. Alphonsus writes: “When we declare that it is impossible for a servant of Mary to be lost, we do not mean those who by their devotion to Mary think themselves warranted to sin freely. We state that these reckless people, because of their presumption, deserve to be treated with rigor and not with kindness. We speak here of the servants of Mary who, to the fidelity with which they honor and invoke her, join the desire to amend their lives. I hold it morally impossible that these be lost.” The constant, daily practice of wearing the Scapular is, therefore, an act of faithful homage to Our Lady but, as St. Alphonsus says, the desire to amend one’s life is also necessary before we can be morally certain that she will be the cause of our eternal salvation―and the amendment of one’s life means conversion.
In fact, we are all in need of a conversion of one kind or another―for we are all sinners and it is sinners who need to convert. “There is no just man upon Earth, that does good and sins not!” (Ecclesiastes 7:21) … “For all have sinned!” (Romans 3:23) … “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us … If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10) … “Be converted to Me and you shall be saved, all ye ends of the Earth―for I am God!” (Isaias 45:22) … “Be converted, therefore, ye sinners, and do justice before God, believing that He will show His mercy to you!” (Tobias 13:8) … “Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (Ezechiel 18:23).
There is No Doubt We Need to Convert
The renowned Dominican, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (1877–1964), was one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, who taught dogmatic and spiritual theology at the Dominican College in Rome from 1909 to 1959, wrote books and articles on our need for further conversion even if we are Catholics. Here are some extracts from two of his books: The Three Ways of the Spiritual Life (1938) and The Three Ages of the Interior Life (1938).
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange speaks of three consecutive stages in our spiritual life: Stage 1―Beginners in the spiritual life; also known as the Purgative Way because we purge ourselves of our past sins. State 2―Proficiency in the spiritual life; also known as the “Illuminative Way” because start to become more and more spiritually enlightened. Stage 3―Perfection in the spiritual life; also known as “The Way of Perfection” or “The Unitive Way” because we enter into the varying degrees of perfection and true union with God.
However, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange states that we ONLY TRULY BEGIN OUR SPIRITUAL CLIMB TO HEAVEN WHEN WE LEAVE BEHIND REGULAR MORTAL SIN. Those Catholics who habitually live in mortal sin without making sincere and realistic efforts to quit mortal sin, are not even counted as being beginners in the spiritual life (stage 1). They are outside the spiritual building―it is mortal sin that locks them out. The same applies to lukewarm Catholics―of whom God says: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot! But, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange if of the opinion that most Catholics souls are not even beginners in the spiritual life. While Fr. Frederick Faber is of the opinion that most Catholic souls, who are in a state of sanctifying grace, are in the state of lukewarmness to one degree or another, in one matter or another. St. Alphonsus Liguori adds fuel to that fire by saying that many souls make bad confessions: “The preacher should often speak against bad confessions, in which sins are concealed through shame. This is an evil that is not of rare occurrence, but frequent ― especially in small country districts, which consigns innumerable souls to Hell.”
These things were being said by them in the mid-1700s, mid-1800s and mid-1900s―how much worse have become as a race since then? Incredibly worse! Our Lady affirmed that to both Blessed Elena Aiello in 1956 and at Akita in Japan in 1973. In 1956 Our Lady said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! All is hanging on a slender thread!” While in 1973 she added: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord ... If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them … In order that the world might know His anger, the heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind … It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before!” In the light of such words from Our Lady, why are we―who are supposed to be the light of the world, the salt of the Earth and soldiers of Christ―why are we so lethargic, indifferent, idle, non-committal, complacent and unproductive? Our Lady asked for prayers, penances and sacrifices at Fatima―where are our fruits?
Our Lord said: “I am the true vine; and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch that bears not fruit, he will take away―and every one that bears fruit, He will purge it, so that it may bring forth more fruit! As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine―so neither can you, unless you abide in Me! I am the vine and you the branches―he that abides in Me and I in him, the same bears much fruit. If anyone abides not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire―and he shall burn!” (John 15:1-6). Where are our fruits―and ever increasing fruits (as Our Lord demands above)? “Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of penance!” (Luke 3:8) … “Bring forth fruit worthy of penance!” (Matthew 3:8) … “I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3) … “If My people, being converted, shall pray to Me and do penance for their most wicked ways―then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sins!” (2 Paralipomenon 7:14).
All of this bespeaks of and indicates the need of a perpetual and progressive conversion of soul. Just as we demand more and more from a child with each successive school grade that they pass through―likewise does God expect and demand more and more fruit from us with each passing year. Holiness and sanctity is a non-stop job. As the renowned Benedictine author, Fr. Huber Van Zeller, writes in one of his books, Holiness―A Guide For Beginners, there is no finishing line or finishing post when it comes to holiness: “One great lesson you are meant to learn from this is that sanctity is not a matter of reaching a particular milestone on the road to God. It is not a case of being an ordinary person until you come to the milestone, and a saint when you have gotten beyond it. It is a case of using your powers as perfectly as you can. There is no fixed milestone. The only thing that is fixed is the destination — God.”
You Were Made to Be a Saint
Make no mistake about it―you are called to be a saint. If you do not want to be a saint, then you are implicitly telling God that you do not want to go Heaven―or that you expect God to “lower the bar” or “lower the entry fee” for admission into Heaven. If that is your attitude―or something like it―then you need to convert; you need to change your attitude; change your philosophy and perception; you need to correct your erroneous views. God in Holy Scripture, Our Lord in the Gospels, the saints and eminent theologians clearly tell us that we were made to be saints and that we must become saints, for only saints go to Heaven. There is only one class of person in Heaven. There is no Mr. and Mrs. Mediocre in Heaven―everyone is a saint.
► God Himself, in Holy Scripture, repeatedly states that we must be HOLY: “I am the Lord your God―be holy because I am holy!” (Leviticus 11:44). “You shall be holy men to Me!” (Exodus 22:31). “You shall be holy, because I am holy!” (Leviticus 11:46). “Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy!” (Leviticus 19:2). “Thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God!” (Deuteronomy 7:6). “You shall be holy unto Me, because I the Lord am holy!” (Leviticus 20:26). “Sanctify yourselves, and be ye holy because I am the Lord your God!” (Leviticus 20:7). “Let them therefore be holy, because I also am holy, the Lord, who sanctify them!” (Leviticus 21:8). “He that is holy, let him be sanctified still more!” (Apocalypse 22:11). “He shall be holy to the Lord!” (Numbers 6:8). “Let thy camp [home] be holy, and let no uncleanness appear therein, lest the Lord go away from thee!” (Deuteronomy 23:14).
► Our Lord adds: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). “If you want to be perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in Heaven―and come follow Me!” (Matthew 19:21).
► St. Paul, whose conversion we celebrate today, writes: “We should be holy and unspotted in His sight!” (Ephesians 1:4). “Be holy and without blemish!” (Ephesians 5:27). “Confirm your hearts without blame, in holiness!” (1 Thessalonians 3:13). “Follow holiness―without which no man shall see God!” (Hebrews 12:14).
► St. Peter states: “According to Him that hath called you, Who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy! Because it is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy!’” (1 Peter 1:16).
► St. James adds: “Be perfect! Failing in nothing!” (James 1:4).
► Pope St. Clement I wrote: “Follow the saints, because those who follow them will become saints!”
► St. Philip Neri advises: “Be often reading the lives of saints for inspiration and instruction!”
► St. Augustine points out: “There is no saint without a past, and no sinner without a future!”
► St. Francis de Sales writes: “All of us can attain to Christian holiness―no matter in what condition of life we live and no matter what our life work may be.”
► St. Catherine of Siena said: “If you are what you should be, you will set the world on fire!”
► St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina says: “Jesus wants to make us holy at all costs … Let us keep before our minds that which makes up real holiness. Holiness means getting above ourselves; it means perfect mastery of all our passions. It means having real and continual contempt for ourselves and for the things of the world to the point of preferring poverty rather than wealth, humiliation rather than glory, suffering rather than pleasure. Holiness means loving our neighbor as ourself for love of God. In this connection holiness means loving those who curse us, who hate and persecute us and even doing good to them. Holiness means living humbly, being disinterested, prudent, just, patient, kind, chaste, meek, diligent, carrying out one’s duties for no other reason than that of pleasing God and receiving from Him alone the reward one deserves.”
► St. Louis de Montfort, while agreeing with all the above, also points in the right direction to the best way of becoming a saint: “Chosen soul―living image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ―God wants you to become holy like Him in this life, and glorious like Him in the next. It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being. Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God. The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these, but God does not give His graces in equal measure to everyone (Romans 12:6), although He always gives sufficient grace to everyone. No one can contest these principles. It all comes to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary).
► Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, in his work, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, writes: “There are some who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles, and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death, or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Every sin—though it should be only venial—must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified.”
In view of all the above, the clear conclusion is this: If you do have the sincere and effective desire to become a saint, then you are most certainly in need of a conversion―for you have taken a path that God never intended you to take. You are cheapening and downgrading Heaven by imagining that almost any Tom, Dick or Harry can gain entrance regardless of how they have lived their life! Heaven has never been cheap and never will be cheap: “With God there is no change, nor shadow of alteration!” (James 1:17) … “yesterday, and today; and the same for ever!” (Hebrews 13:8). And Jesus laid down a price, saying: “For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20) … “Not everyone that says to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23) … “Why call you Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
High Grades Required for Heaven
As for Heaven, “There shall not enter into it anything defiled” (Apocalypse 21:27). “Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err! Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind [homosexuals], nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God!” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). “For know you this and understand, that no fornicator, or unclean, or covetous person―which is a serving of idols―hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God” (Ephesians 5:5). “The works of the flesh fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings [partying], and such like. Of which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God!” (Galatians 5:19-21). “Therefore mortify yourselves upon the Earth from fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is the service of idols. Put away anger, indignation, malice, blasphemy, filthy speech out of your mouth. Lie not one to another. But strip yourselves of the old man with his deeds, and put on the new man―him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of Him that created him!” (Colossians 3:5-10).
Article 9
Sunday January 22nd & Monday January 23rd, 2023
Fight the Good Fight with Sacramentals
Sunday January 22nd & Monday January 23rd, 2023
Fight the Good Fight with Sacramentals
Sow the Seed! Grow the Seed!
God was the Creator of seeds and the first ‘sower’ of seeds―as we read in the Book of Genesis: “And God said: ‘Let the earth bring forth the green herb, such as may seed; and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, which may have seed in itself upon the earth. And it was so done. And the earth brought forth the green herb, and such as yieldeth seed according to its kind; and the tree that beareth fruit, having seed each one according to its kind. And God saw that it was good … And God said to Adam: ‘Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat!’” (Genesis 1:11-12, 29).
Our Lord spoke of seeds several times in the Gospels. He related a parable about the sowing of seeds (Matthew 13:3-8, 18-23); another parable referred to the sowing of good seeds and bad seeds (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-40); then He refers to the mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32).
“Jesus spoke to them many things in parables, saying: ‘Behold the sower went forth to sow. And while he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds of the air came and ate them up. And other some fell upon stony ground, where they had not much soil, and they sprung up immediately because they had no deepness of soil. And when the sun was up they were scorched; and, because they had not root, they withered away. And others fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them. And others fell upon good ground, and they brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold ... Hear you therefore [explanation of the] the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and understands it not, there comes the wicked one, and catches and takes away that which was sown in his heart―this is he that received the seed by the way side. And he that received the seed upon stony ground, is he that hears the word, and immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has not root in himself, but is only for a time―and when there arises tribulation and persecution because of the word, he is presently scandalized. And he that received the seed among thorns, is he that hears the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches chokes up the word, and he becomes fruitless. But he that received the seed upon good ground, is he that hears the word, and understands, and bears fruit, and yields the one a hundredfold, and another sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold!’” (Matthew 13:3-8, 18-23)
“Another parable Jesus proposed to them, saying: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and oversowed cockle among the wheat and went his way. And when the blade was sprung up and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. And the servants of the good man of the house coming said to him: “Sir, did you not sow good seed in thy field? Why then has it cockle?” And he said to them: “An enemy hath done this!” And the servants said to him: “Do you want us to go and gather it up?” And he said: “No―lest perhaps by gathering up the cockle, you also uproot the wheat together with it! Suffer both to grow until the harvest, and, in the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers: ‘Gather up first the cockle and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather into my barn!’” … His disciples came to Jesus, saying: ‘Explain to us the parable of the cockle of the field!’ Jesus said to them: ‘He that sows the good seed, is the Son of man. And the field is the world. And the good seed are the children of the kingdom. And the cockle, are the children of the wicked one. And the enemy that sowed them is the devil. But the harvest is the end of the world and the reapers are the angels. Therefore, just as cockle is gathered up and burnt with fire, so shall it be at the end of the world. The Son of man shall send His angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all scandals, and them that work iniquity. And shall cast them into the furnace of fire, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-40).
“Another parable He proposed to them, saying: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field―which is the least indeed of all seeds; but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come, and dwell in the branches thereof!’” (Matthew 13:31-32).
Why Parables?
We might be mystified by these parables or even blind to them―as were the disciples of the Lord: “And His disciples came and said to Him: ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’ Jesus answered and said to them: ‘Because to you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven―but to them it is not given! For he that has, to him shall be given, and he shall abound―but he that has not, from him shall be taken away that also which he has! Therefore do I speak to them in parables―because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand! And the prophecy of Isaias is fulfilled in them, who said: “By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see and shall not perceive! For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them!” But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear! For, amen, I say to you, many prophets and just men have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them, and to hear the things that you hear and have not heard them!’” (Matthew 13:31-32).
Gross Hearts! Deaf Ears! Eyes Shut!
Have we shut our eyes and ears to the truths and gifts that God has given us? Has our heart grown gross, our minds grown dull? Do we hear the word of God without really hearing it, or understanding it? Do we see religious things, objects, ceremonies and actions without really grasping what they are all about? Are we only seeing the tip-of-the-iceberg of our Faith, without realizing the immensity beneath the waters? Are we so choked-up with the cares, pleasures and riches of the world that we fail to truly and fully understand our Faith, what it offers, and to profit from it? Is our understanding and estimation of the Faith so shallow that the Faith never really sprouts and establishes deep roots within our souls?
Such a blindness, grossness, remissness, forgetfulness and carelessness about the Faith results in serious damage and dreadful consequences. The tools of the Faith are unused and left to rust and decay. Souls that could and should be saved are damned. Souls that could become saints, languish in lukewarmness. Truths that could be planted, sprouted, enrooted and grown in our minds―suffer neglect or even rejection. Things that could help our safety and salvation, are ignored or refused―thus leading many souls to ruin and damnation. “For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them!”
Our Lady pretty much said the same thing to Sister Lucia of Fatima, who reveals to us: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on the road of goodness without paying attention to this Message―they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners, the bad―because of their sins―keep following the road of evil through sin, ignoring the Message, because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But, Father, you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Avoiding Chastisement with Sacramentals
The above words of Sister Lucia of Fatima about chastisements remind us of the chastisements that God inflicted upon Egypt in the time of Moses and the Exodus. Prior to the Exodus from Egypt by the Israelites, God chastised the land with ten successive plagues: (1) all the water turning to blood, (2) a plague of frogs, (3) lice or gnats, (4) flies, (5) a livestock pestilence, (6) a plague of boils, (7) hail, (8) locusts, (9) darkness and (10) the killing of firstborn children.
Of particular interest is God’s killing of the firstborn children within Egypt: “And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: ‘Speak ye to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, and say to them: “On the tenth day of this month let every man take a lamb by their families and houses ... It shall be a lamb without blemish, a male, of one year … And you shall sacrifice it in the evening of the fourteenth day of this month … And they shall take of the blood of the lamb, and put it upon both the side posts, and on the upper door posts of the houses … And I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and will kill every firstborn in the land of Egypt both man and beast … And the blood shall be unto you for a sign in the houses where you shall be: and I shall see the blood, and shall pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I shall strike the land of Egypt .. And the children of Israel going forth did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. And it came to pass at midnight, the Lord slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharao, who sat on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive woman that was in the prison, and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharao arose in the night, and all his servants, and all Egypt―for there was not a house wherein there lay not one dead” (Exodus 12:3-30).
The Sacramental of Blessed Chalk
You could say that smearing of the blood of lamb on the doorposts and lintel of the doors of the Israelite houses was a figure or type of today’s Sacramentals of the Catholic Church. For example, today we used the Sacramental of chalk blessed on the feast of the Epiphany to inscribe the numbers of the current calendar year (2023) and the letters C M B (which represent the names of the three magi or kings at Bethlehem―Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar) on the lintels of the doors of our houses. [download the rite, ceremony, blessings here: Epiphany Blessings for Chalk & Home & Water]
In blessing the chalk, the priest prays: “O Lord God, bless this chalk which Thou hast created, that it may be helpful to mankind; and grant that, through the invocation of Thy most holy Name, all those who use this chalk, or with it write over the doors of their houses the names of Thy Saints—Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar—may by their merits and intercession receive health of body and protection of soul. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.”
Then, immediately after chalking the doors, the priest prays: “O Lord, almighty God, bless this house that it may become a shelter of health, chastity, self-conquest, humility, goodness, mildness, obedience to the Commandments, and thanksgiving to God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Upon this house and those who dwell herein may Thy blessing remain forever. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Similarly, in the traditional blessing of a house, with the prayers from the Roman Ritual, the priest prays: “Hear us, holy Lord, almighty Father, eternal God! And deign to send Thy holy Angel from Heaven to guard, cherish, protect, visit, and defend all who dwell in this home. Though Christ our Lord. Amen.” During Easter time, the prayer reads as follows: “Hear us, holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God! And as in their departure from Egypt Thou didst guard the homes of the Israelites from the avenging Angel, if they were smeared with blood―prefiguring our Pasch in which Christ is slain―so likewise send Thy holy Angel from Heaven to guard, cherish, protect, visit, and defend all who dwell in this house. Though the same Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Ask you priest for some blessed Epiphany Chalk―if he has none left (or never blessed any in the first place), then he can bless chalk at any time of the year. Get some! Use it! It is there to help you! Don’t abuse that help! Use it especially during this Christmas season―which lasts until February 2nd―and chalk the doors, not only of your main entrance, but go further and chalk all the lintels (the horizontal beam above head height that bridges the two vertical doorposts) with the traditional chalking (see your downloaded Epiphany Blessings: Chalk & Home & Water) of the year and the letters of the three Kings or Magi―interspersing the numbers and letters with 4 signs of the cross: 20 + C + M + B + 23 Profit from these Sacramentals of the Church―God helps those who help themselves. God will do the extraordinary when the ordinary suffices. The Sacramentals are the ordinary helps or tools that the Church offers us. Use them!
The Sacramentals of Epiphany Water & Regular Holy Water
The rite of blessing Epiphany water, on the Vigil of the Epiphany, is much more solemn and elaborate than the simple rite of blessing Holy Water throughout the year. The entire rite can take anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes―whereas regular blessing of Holy Water only takes around 5 minutes or so. You can find the solemn rite of blessing Epiphany Water in the same download as that of blessed Epiphany Chalk [click here]. To read more about Holy Water [click here]
► THE EXORCISM AND BLESSING OF THE SALT: In exorcizing and blessing the salt, the priest prays: “God’s creature, salt, I cast out the demon from you by the living God, by the holy God, by God who ordered you to be thrown into the water-spring by Eliseus to heal it of its barrenness. May you be a purified salt―a means of health for those who believe; a medicine for body and soul for all who make use of you. May all evil fancies of the foul fiend, his malice and cunning, be driven afar from the place where you are sprinkled. And let every unclean spirit be repulsed by Him who is coming to judge both the living and the dead and the world by fire. Amen.”
“Almighty everlasting God, we humbly appeal to Thy mercy and goodness to graciously bless this creature salt, which Thou hast given for mankind's use. May all who use it find in it a remedy for body and mind. And may everything that it touches or sprinkles be freed from uncleanness and any influence of the evil spirit; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► THE EXORCISM AND BLESSING OF THE WATER: In exorcizing and blessing the water, the priest prays: “God’s creature, water, I cast out the demon from you in the Name of God the Father almighty, in the Name of Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. May you be a purified water, empowered to drive afar all power of the enemy, to root out and banish the enemy himself, along with his fallen angels. We ask this through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is coming to judge both the living and the dead and the world by fire. Amen.”
“O God, Who, for man’s welfare, established the most wonderful mysteries in the substance of water, listen to our prayer, and pour forth Thy blessing on this element now being prepared with various purifying rites. May this creature of Thine―when used in your mysteries and endowed with Thy grace―serve to cast out demons and to banish disease. May everything that this water sprinkles―in the homes and gatherings of the faithful―be delivered from all that is unclean and hurtful; let no breath of contagion hover there, no stain of corruption; let all the wiles of the lurking enemy come to nothing. By the sprinkling of this water, may everything opposed to the safety and peace of the occupants of these homes be banished, so that in calling on Thy holy Name they may gain the well-being they desire, and be protected from every peril; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► MIXING THE BLESSED SALT WITH THE BLESSED WATER: While mixing the salt with the water, the priest prays: “God, source of irresistible might and king of an invincible realm, the ever-glorious conqueror; Who restrains the force of the adversary, silencing the uproar of his rage, and valiantly subduing his wickedness; in awe and humility we beg Thee, Lord, to regard with favor this creature thing of salt and water, to let the light of Thy kindness shine upon it, and to hallow it with the dew of Thy mercy; so that wherever it is sprinkled and Thy holy Name is invoked, may every assault of the unclean spirit be baffled, and all dread of the serpent's venom be cast out. To us who entreat Thy mercy grant that the Holy Spirit may be with us wherever we may be; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: There are many things and circumstances for which you can use Epiphany Water or even regular Holy Water. You can drink Holy Water―we eat blessed food, don’t we?―but make sure you are getting your Holy Water through the faucet or spigot of the Holy Water cistern in church, which is usually sealed, and not from the open Holy Water font in church into which everyone dips their fingers! Also drink as fresh a Holy Water as you can get―not water that is years old. St. Teresa of Avila used to drink Holy Water. Similarly, you can also cook with Holy Water (again, fresh Holy Water and not old water) and also add blessed salt to your food or recipes. Furthermore, you can keep it in bottles throughout the rooms in your home―to sprinkle often or even daily. The devil hates Holy Water―that is why this Sacramental is one of several Sacramentals that are used during exorcisms. St. Teresa would often sprinkle herself or her surroundings with Holy Water―especially during temptations. Likewise, if you have blessed salt, you can also sprinkle that around―for the blessing of salt mentions precisely that: “…wherever it is sprinkled…”
Why not take Epiphany Water or Holy Water and either sprinkle or pour a thin stream all around the perimeter of your house, while reciting certain prayers or extracts from the prayers above. Don’t just do this once and no more! Do it as often as you like―once a month, or once a week. Do it especially in times of impending danger―whether natural or man-made―such as storms, floods, earthquakes, fires, or civic unrest. If there are squabbles and arguments, or even violence or sin occurring within the family, sprinkle holy water around the rooms of the house in combination with some prayers. If things and appliances start to “act-up” or malfunction, it does no harm to sprinkle them with Holy Water―for sometimes it is the devil that is behind these things. If threatened by someone, why not sprinkle them with Holy Water―you have nothing to lose and much to potentially gain. Some people, who are under the control or influence of Satan, have been known to feel a burning sensation when sprinkled with Holy Water!
On a side issue, if you find Holy Water hard to obtain, then you can regular water to your Holy Water―as long as the regular water is a lesser quantity than the amount of Holy Water you have left. The regular water added to the holy water must be less than the original volume―for example, 49% regular water to 51% Holy Water, or 9 cups of regular water to 10 cups of Holy Water, etc. If the regular water exceeds the amount of Holy Water, then the Holy Water loses its Sacramental qualities and becomes regular water. That is the procedure followed by the Church with the Holy Oils that a bishop consecrates on Holy Thursday―after the ceremony, the urns are taken away and then the Holy Oils are “multiplied” by adding regular olive oil to it, but always in a lesser quantity than the amount of Holy Oil.
There will come a time when all Hell breaks loose and we will no longer have access to churches, priests and the Holy Water they bless and you obviously find Holy Water hard to obtain, then simply add regular water to your Holy Water―as long as the regular water is a lesser quantity than the amount of Holy Water you have left―and keep doing that for the duration of the crisis or societal breakdown.
The Sacramental of the Blessing of a Home
Do not underestimate or dismiss the power of having your home blessed! You will be opening your home to a potential stream of graces, blessings and protection―which is precisely what the prayers of house blessings invoke:
► BLESSING: In blessing the home, the priest prays: “Hear us, holy Lord and Father, almighty everlasting God, and in Thy goodness visit, we beseech thee, O Lord, this dwelling, to protect all who live in this home and drive far from it the snares of the enemy; let Thy holy angels watch over and dwell therein, to be with them, give them comfort and encouragement, and to preserve them in peace, and let Thy blessing be always upon them, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► ALTERNATIVE BLESSING: “God the Father almighty, we fervently implore Thee, for the sake of this home and its occupants and possessions, that Thou may bless and sanctify them, enriching them by Thy kindness in every way possible. Pour out on them, Lord, heavenly dew in good measure, as well as an abundance of earthly needs. Mercifully listen to their prayers, and grant that their desires be fulfilled. At our lowly coming, be pleased to bless and sanctify this home, as Thou once were pleased to bless the home of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Within these walls, let Thy angels of light preside and stand watch over those who live here; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: It is sheer foolishness, imprudence and complacency to neglect having one’s house blessed by the priest! From the spiritual perspective it fortifies your home against all kinds of potential dangers―coming from both devils and men. In this present era, when it seems as though Our Lady of La Salette’s prophecy is being fulfilled ― “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell ... The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God. Everywhere, as true Faith fades, a false light will brighten the people … The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis ... All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family. Blood will flow in the streets! Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes!” In such an environment, only a fool would wish to live a house which, through neglect and indifference, has not been blessed!
The Sacramental of the Crucifix
The blessed Crucifix is always part and parcel of the things that an exorcist priest will take with him to the exorcism. It was on the Cross that the crucified Christ won His definitive victory over Satan and the powers of Hell. The Crucifix always reminds Satan of his defeat at the hands of Christ―that is why it is so important and so powerful a Sacramental. It is not for nothing that in Ancient Roman times, the future emperor Constantine, was facing battle while being heavily outnumbered. Constantine realized that he needed help from a power greater than himself―but who or what? He had his doubts about the traditional Roman gods. He prayed earnestly that the true God―whoever that may be―would “reveal to him who he is, and stretch forth his right hand to help him.” God gave him a vision of a cross together with the words: “In hoc signo vinces” which is a Latin phrase that means: “In this sign thou shalt conquer!” This sign brought Constantine the assurance he needed. He accepted this as the answer to his prayer and ordered his soldiers to inscribe crosses on their shields. Encouraged by his vision in the heavens, he hurled his troops against his rival Maxentius, at Rome’s Milvian Bridge. Surprisingly, Constantine was victorious. Maxentius was among those who drowned in the Tiber. Afterward Constantine does not forget to whom he owes his victory. Constantine issued orders that the Christian Church was to be tolerated―just as other religions were. Although he did not make Christianity the official religion of the Empire, Constantine bestowed favor upon it, built places of worship for Christians, and presided over the first general Church council. He became the first emperor to embrace Christianity and was be baptized on his death bed.
► BLESSING: In blessing the Crucifix the priest prays: “O Holy Lord, almighty Father, eternal God, bless this cross that it be a saving help to mankind. Let it be a bulwark of Faith, an encouragement to good works, the redemption of souls; and may it be consolation, protection and a shield against the cruel darts of the enemy. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
“Bless, O Lord Jesus Christ this cross by which Thou hast snatched the world from Satan’s grasp and upon which Thou hast overcome, by thy suffering, him who is the prompter of sin, who rejoiced in Adam’s deception at the accursed tree of Paradise. May this symbol of salvation be sanctified in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and may all who kneel and pray before this cross for our Lord’s honor receive health of body and soul. Through the selfsame Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: Seek to place a blessed Crucifix in all the rooms of your house. You can also place a Crucifix in your outdoor buildings―garage, barn, shed, etc. You could add to the Crucifix a small plaque, or a simply frame a small sheet of paper upon which you could type the following Scriptural quotes:
“If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And whoever does not take up his cross and follows Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Parents have every right to bless their own children. They can do so by making the Sign of the Cross on their child’s forehead while saying: “May God bless you and keep you, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” They could even make the same Sign of the Cross using a blessed Crucifix.
When you are tempted, make the Sign of the Cross over yourself―slowly and deliberately―many times if necessary. Additionally, you could take your blessed Crucifix and sign yourself with the Sign of the Cross using the blessed Crucifix.
The Sacramental of the St. Benedict Medal
The Medal of St. Benedict is powerful to ward off all dangers of body and soul coming from the evil spirit. [read more here] We are exposed to the wicked assaults of the devil day and night. St. Peter says: “Your adversary the devil, as roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). In the life of St. Benedict we see how the devil tried to do harm to his soul and body, and also to his spiritual children. Father Paul of Moll, saintly Flemish Benedictine wonder-worker (1824-1896), frustrated the evil doings of the spirits of darkness chiefly through the use of the Medal of St. Benedict, which has proved a most powerful protection against the snares and delusions of Satan. Missionaries in pagan lands used this Medal with such a great effect that it was been given the remarkable name, “The devil-chasing Medal.”
The Medal is a powerful means:
● To destroy witchcraft and all other diabolical influences.
● To keep away the spells of magicians, of wicked and evil-minded persons.
● To impart protection to persons tempted, deluded or tormented by evil spirits.
● To obtain the conversion of sinners, especially when they are in danger of death.
● To secure a timely and healthy birth for children.
● To help and strengthen a person at the time of death.
● To serve as an armor in temptations against holy purity.
● To destroy the effects of poison.
● To give protection against storms and lightning.
● To serve as an efficacious remedy for bodily afflictions and a means of protection against contagious diseases.
● For animals infected with plague or other maladies, and for fields when invaded by harmful insects.
The front of the medal depicts St. Benedict holding in his right hand a cross, and in his left, the book of his Rule. On his right is a poisoned cup, and on his left a raven with a poisoned loaf. A jealous enemy had given him this cup and loaf; when St. Benedict made the Sign of the Cross over them, the cup shattered and a raven flew in and carried away the loaf. Above these items are the Latin words “CRUX SANCTI PATRIS BENEDICTI” (The Cross of our holy father Benedict). Surrounding the figure of St. Benedict are the words “EIUS IN OBITU NOSTRO PRAESENTIA MUNIAMUR!” (May we be strengthened by his presence in the hour of our death), as he was always regarded by the Benedictines as the patron of a happy death.
The back of the medal depicts a Cross. On the Cross are the letters C S S M L ― N D S M D, initials of the Latin words “CRUX SACRA SIT MIHI LUX! NUNQUAM DRACO SIT MIHI DUX!” (May the Holy Cross be my light! May the dragon never be my guide!). Above the cross is the word PAX (peace.) Encircling the cross are the letters V R S N S M V - S M Q L I V B, the initials of “VADE RETRO SATANA! NUNQUAM SUADE MIHI VANA! SUNT MALA QUAE LIBAS. IPSE VENENA BIBAS!” (Begone Satan! Never tempt me with your vanities! What you offer me is evil. Drink the poison yourself!)
The purpose of the medal is to call down God’s blessing and protection upon us, wherever we are, and upon our homes and possessions, especially through the intercession of St. Benedict. By the conscious and devout use of the medal, it becomes a constant silent prayer and a reminder of our dignity as followers of Christ.
► BLESSING: In blessing the St. Benedict Medal, the priest prays: “I purge you medals of evil by God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth and of the sea and of all that they contain. O every power of the adversary, every cohort of the devil, every attack and appearance of Satan―get thee out of these medals and fly afar! And may they become for all who will use them a help for body and soul, in the Name of the Father Almighty, in the Name of Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord, in the Name of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, and in the love of the selfsame Lord Jesus Christ, Who shall come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire.”
“Almighty God, lavish Dispenser of every good, we Thy suppliants pray that, by the intercession of St. Benedict, Thou wouldst pour out Thy blessing on these sacred medals. Let all who will wear them, with minds intent on good works, deserve to obtain health of body and soul; the grace of making progress in holiness; as well as the indulgences which have been granted (to us). And may they seek to avoid, by Thy merciful help, every onslaught and fraud of the devil, and finally stand before thee sinless and holy. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: There is no special way prescribed for carrying or wearing the Medal of St. Benedict. It can be worn on a chain around the neck, attached to one’s Rosary, kept in one’s pocket or purse, or placed in one’s car or home. The medal is often put into the foundations of houses and building, on the walls of barns and sheds, or in one’s place of business. You can even purchase what is called a “St. Benedict Home Blessing Door Hang” for around $15, which hangs on door knobs or hooks. It includes St. Benedict crucifix and two St. Benedict medals, being around 11” long overall. However, you can create your own “door hangs” by combining the St. Benedict Medal with, not only a Crucifix or St. Benedict Crucifix, but also the Miraculous Medal, the Green Scapular, and any other Sacramental you wish. Place one such combination―not only on your exterior entrance doors, but on every door and above or below every window in the house. You could also plant the blessed St. Benedict Medals in the soil all around the perimeter of your house, spacing them out as you wish. Attach or plant a medal in your exterior buildings―barn, shed, garage, etc. Plant some further away from the house―especially at the main entrance and other entrances to your property. Don't just have one or two medals at home, buy lots of them and have them blessed. It is a very powerful Sacramental with centuries of a proven track record.
The Sacramental of the Holy Rosary
Make no mistake about it―the Holy Rosary is THE weapon for our present day. It was St. Padre Pio who called the THE weapon―and he himself would pray anywhere from 30 to 50 Rosaries each day! The Rosary praying Jesuit priests of Hiroshima, who survived, in good health, the dropping of the 1945 Atom Bomb by the Americans on Hiroshima, repeatedly said: “The Rosary is more powerful than the Atom Bomb!”
In 1957, Sister Lucia of Fatima told us what Our Lady revealed to her about the Holy Rosary: “The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary, to such an extent, that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or, above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
That is why Our Lady repeatedly insisted, at every single Fatima apparition, upon the Rosary being prayed a lot: “Pray the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war!” (May 1917) … “Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and the end of the war … (June 1917) … “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you! … If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted!” (July 1917) … “Continue to say the Rosary every day! … Pray, pray very much!” (August 1917) … “Continue to pray the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war!” (September 1917) … “I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (October 1917). At Akita, in 1973, Our Lady adds: “The only weapons that will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the pope, the bishops, and the priests! … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men! … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor!”
► BLESSING: In blessing the Rosary beads, the priest prays: “Almighty and merciful God, in Thy great charity and out of love for us, Thine only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ didst descend to earth, was announced by the Angel, received flesh in the holy womb of our Lady, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary; was crucified and became subject to death; and on the third day gloriously willed to rise from the dead, in order that we might be delivered from the power of the devil. We beg Thy great mercy, that this Rosary, used by the assembly of Thy faithful for the honor and praise of the same Mother of Thy Son, may be blessed and sanctified; so that through the overflowing power of Thy Holy Ghost, at whatever hour or in whatever place it is carried, or retained in their homes, through it, according to the institutes of Thy holy Society, they may be led to Thee by the contemplation of Thy divine mysteries in devout prayer, being nourished and preserved in abundant devotion. Partaking of all the graces, privileges, and indulgences which the Holy See has granted; may they always and everywhere be protected from every visible or invisible power of this world; and upon leaving it, may the same Blessed Virgin Mother of God present them to Thee, robed in an abundance of good works. This we ask of Thee through the same Jesus Christ . . . world without end. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: Copy, paste, save, read and re-read the miracles of Rosary that you will find in the preceding article. It will foster in you an abiding confidence in the power of the Rosary. St. Louis de Montfort’s book, The Secret of the Rosary, is a testimony to the power of the Rosary and the esteem with which Our Lady and Heaven show towards the Rosary. It is an excellent book to kindle our fires of love towards the Holy Rosary. Get a copy! Read it! Remember―it is not how MANY Rosaries we SAY, but HOW WELL WE PRAY them. As St. Louis writes in his book: “A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly!”
That is why devil―if he sees that he cannot make you abandon the Rosary―he will then tempt you to do the lesser good. That lesser good is to make you SAY the Rosary, rather than have you PRAY the Rosary. SAYING the Rosary means only saying the words of the prayers without meditating on the mysteries; whereas PRAYING the Rosary means not only saying the words, but also MEDITATING upon the mysteries. Furthermore, TRUE meditation always involves MAKING AND TAKING RESOLUTIONS based upon what you have meditated―otherwise it is like making a meal or baking a cake, and then not eating it. Probably 99.9% of Catholics merely SAY the Rosary, but NEVER PRAY the Rosary. Small wonder that souls never become better, or that so many souls are lost.
St. Louis further adds: “God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin. How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? People who do that forfeit God’s blessing, which is changed into a curse for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: ‘Cursed be the one who does God’s work negligently!’ (Jeremias 48:10). Our Lady said to Blessed Alan de la Roche in a vision ‘When people say 150 Hail Marys, that prayer is very helpful to them and a most pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me more if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of this prayer.’ For the Rosary said without the meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation would almost be a body without a soul, excellent matter, but without the form, which is the meditation.
“Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin. The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
Another point to be made is that of having lots of blessed Rosaries available in your home―they can be of various kinds, simple string Rosaries that are knotted to create the “beads”, or a good number of plastic Rosaries for distribution to others who may be in need, plus the kind of Rosaries that you personally prefer. As a suggestion, the so-called “ladder Rosaries” seem to be more hardy and durable than the thin-wire like Rosaries―obviously you pay more, but they are worth the money. If you can get someone to make you Rosary from scratch, then it is suggested that you include other Sacramentals as part of your “tailor-made” Rosary. For example, for the center piece medallion use the Miraculous Medal; for the Our Father beads uses the St. Benedict Medal; for the Crucifix use a St. Benedict Crucifix which has the St. Benedict Medal embedded at the point where the horizontal and vertical beams cross, right behind the head of Christ. Thus, when you have your Rosary blessed, ask the priest to give the Rosary beads a multiple blessing: (1) the special blessing for the Rosary; (2) the special blessing for the Crucifix; (3) the special blessing for the Miraculous Medal, and (4) the special blessing for the St. Benedict Medal. These four blessings, one after another, will take around 8 to 10 minutes. Not all priests will be willing to do that―too much time and trouble―but it is worth asking around until you find one that will. That will give you a very powerful multi-Sacramental Rosary!
Finally, make sure to ALWAYS carry your Rosary with you. St. Padre Pio would NEVER be without his Rosary beads. Even when he could no longer wash himself and tend to his stigmata, and had to have others do these things, he would always hold his Rosary beads in one hand while they washed the other hand. He would take his Rosary beads to bed with him. DO THE SAME! Soldiers sleep alongside their weapons! Sleep with you Rosary! Some people will even wear their Rosary beads around their neck. The devils despise blessed Rosary beads. St. Louis de Montfort, in The Secret of the Rosary, writes: “Blessed Alan relates that a man he knew had tried desperately all kinds of devotions to rid himself of the evil spirit which possessed him, but without success. Finally, he thought of wearing his Rosary round his neck, which eased him considerably. He discovered that whenever he took it off the devil tormented him cruelly, so he resolved to wear it night and day. This drove the evil spirit away forever because he could not bear such a terrible chain. Blessed Alan also testifies that he delivered a great number of those who were possessed by putting a Rosary round their necks.”
The Sacramental of the Brown Scapular
Just as the Holy Rosary is the weapon for our times, so too is the Brown Scapular a weapon for our days. You could loosely look upon the Rosary as a sword and the Scapular as a shield or a suit of armor. In fact, a full size monk’s scapular pretty much covers him like a suit of armor―being shoulder width and hanging down almost to the ground front and back. Sister Lucia of Fatima said that Our Lady was dressed as Our Lady of Mount Carmel at her sixth and last apparition at Fatima―holding out the Scapular towards all the people, which signified that Our Lady wanted everyone to accept and wear the Brown Scapular. The essence of the Scapular is defense―as stated in the blessing of the Scapular:
► BLESSING: In blessing the Brown Scapular, the priest prays: “O Lord Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, sanctify by Thy right hand these scapulars, which for love of Thee and for love of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Thy servants will wear devoutly, so that through the intercession of the same Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and protected against the evil spirit, they persevere until death in Thy grace. Thou who live and reign world without end. Amen.”
“Receive this blessed Scapular and beseech the Blessed Virgin that through her merits, you may wear it without stain. May it defend you against all adversity and accompany you to eternal life. Amen.”
“I, by the power vested in me, admit you to participate in all the spiritual benefits obtained through the mercy of Jesus Christ by the Religious Order of Mount Carmel. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
“May God Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, bless you, He who has deigned to join you to the Confraternity of the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel; we beseech her to crush the head of the ancient serpent at the hour of your death, so that you my enter into possession of your eternal heritage, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: It is important that you know the rules and regulations of wearing the Brown Scapular and being enrolled in the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. To help you with this task, check our webpage on FAQs about the Brown Scapular [click here]. As with the Rosaries and Medals, keep a large stock of Brown Scapulars at home. You could also, together with other mentioned Sacramentals, hang them above your doors and windows―keeping in mind the protective nature of the Brown Scapular.
Have confidence in your Brown Scapular―read about some of the many miracles that the Brown Scapular has produced over the years [to read click here]. Many of those miracles were not granted to saints, but to everyday people. In some cases, the miracles were in response to a positive request, Faith and confidence on the part of the recipient. In other cases the miracles happened without being requested and in some cases totally unknown to the recipient until afterwards. You can see an example of each in the previous article, under the Brown Scapular section―here is one miracle that was not asked for, nor was known to have happened until later:
A French priest on pilgrimage was walking to the local church to celebrate Mass. As he drew near to the church, the priest realized he forgot something. He had forgotten to put on his Brown Scapular after washing and dressing that morning. Disturbed by the thought of being without his Scapular and offering Mass without it, the priest ran back to get his Scapular, preferring to celebrate Mass clothed with his Scapular. Later, as he was offering the Holy Sacrifice, a young man approached the altar, pulled out a gun, and shot the priest in the back. To the amazement of all, the priest continued to say the prayers of the Mass as though nothing had occurred. It was at first presumed that the bullet had miraculously missed its target. However, upon examination, the bullet was found STUCK TO THE BROWN SCAPULAR which the priest had so obstinately refused to be without.
Similarly, in May of 1957, a Carmelite priest in Germany published the unusual story of how the Scapular saved a home from fire. An entire row of homes had caught fire in Westboden, Germany. The devout Catholic inhabitants of a home in the middle of this row, seeing the fire, immediately fastened a Scapular to the main door of the house. Sparks flew over it and around it, but the house remained unharmed. Within 5 hours, 22 homes had been reduced to ashes. The one structure which stood undamaged, amidst all the destruction, was that which had the Scapular attached to its door. The hundreds of people who came to see the place Our Lady had saved are eyewitnesses to the power of the Scapular and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
It is not for nothing that Our Lady held out the Brown Scapular to the world at her final October 13th, 1917, apparition at Fatima. Take it and wear it and use it! Let it be a magnet that attracts graces and protection from Heaven. You can read more about the history and meaning of the Brown Scapular [by clicking here].
The Sacramental of the Miraculous Medal
The very name “Miraculous Medal” smacks of miracles! In fact, the real name of the “Miraculous Medal” is actually “The Medal of the Immaculate Conception”―but it received its popular name of “Miraculous Medal” on account of the multitude of miracles that it brought about [read about the miracles here]. Here is just a sample:
A girl, some twenty years old, came to the hospital covered with the most repugnant scabs which the doctors had said were incurable. The nun, who cared for her wounds, one day told her that the Most Holy Virgin had the power to cure her and that, if she wanted to wear the medal and ask for a cure, she would obtain it. Knowing the doctors had given up, she answered roughly: “I do not believe in your Holy Virgin, nor do I want a medal.” The nun answered: “Very well then, in that case, keep your wounds!” Some days later, the girl asked for the medal and placed it around her neck, and soon after found herself preparing to be baptized. Shortly thereafter, she left the hospital in perfect health―to the great astonishment of the doctors, who had been unanimous in considering her sickness incurable.
In another miracle, the person was also converted but not cured. Nevertheless she died a happy and holy death. A religious sister relates the story: “A poor young Protestant girl, who was brought to our hospital to be treated for a grave malady, had so great a horror of our holy religion, that, at the very sight of a Catholic near her, she acted like someone possessed. The presence of a Sister was especially irritating, and one day she even went so far as to spit in the Sister’s face, but the latter, not dismayed and ever hoping that the God of all mercy would change this wolf into a lamb, continued her kind attentions―the more disrespectful her patient, the more gentle and considerate the Sister. The Sister was at last inspired with the thought of slipping a Miraculous Medal between the two mattresses―she acted upon the inspiration, and, the following night, the Immaculate Mary’s image became an instrument of salvation and happiness to that guilty soul. Pitching and tossing upon her bed―by reason of a high fever―the patient, in some unaccountable manner, found the Medal, and the Sister’s astonishment next morning―at seeing her clasping it in her hands, and covering it with kisses―was second only to that she experienced on perceiving the wonderful transformation grace had wrought in this poor creature’s soul. A supernatural light had revealed to her the sad state of her conscience; her criminal life filled her with horror, and, penetrated with regret for the past, she sighed only for holy Baptism. After the necessary instruction, she was baptized; and, during the remainder of her sickness―which was long and tedious―her patience and fervor never faltered. She persevered in these edifying sentiments, until a happy death placed the seal upon the graces she had received through the intercession of Mary Immaculate.”
Finally, we see another miraculous cure. An officer, in Austrian army, suffered from a serious wound in the right arm. At the general hospital, he was placed under the especial treatment of Dr. Rzehazeh, a very eminent surgeon. The doctor exhausted all his skills, but in vain―and after a few weeks he saw the necessity of amputation to save the officer’s life. The religious sisters in the hospital offered him a Miraculous Medal, which he accepted only out of courtesy. In the few days prior to the operation, he felt inspired with a great confidence in his Medal, and frequently repeated the invocation engraven upon it: “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!” The danger was now imminent, and the amputation, which must not be delayed, was to take place on the next day. One of the Sisters―seeing that the young officer’s confidence expressed itself in continual prayer―suggested on the eve of the amputation that he lay the medal upon his afflicted arm, and let it remain all night. He gladly and joyfully complied. Next morning she hastened to ascertain her patient’s condition, and get the Medal. He had spent a quiet night―his sufferings being less severe than usual. The Sister, while attributing his improvement to the medicine that had been prescribed, understood full well that the precious Medal had also been instrumental in procuring relief, and that Mary had looked compassionately upon him―but she did not yet realize the full extent of the blessing. The surgeon came a few hours after, and whilst awaiting his assistants, he carefully examined the wounded arm, he touched it, he probed it, and to his great astonishment, realized that amputation was no longer necessary. The other doctors, on arriving, confirmed his opinion of this surprising change. The officer was struck dumb with happiness, and, not until he found himself alone with the chief surgeon, did the patient reveal his secret about the Medal, which, in his opinion, caused this wonderful change. On leaving him, the surgeon could not refrain from saying to the Sister: “I believe the Sisters of Charity have engaged the good God in this case!” The officer’s arm was entirely healed. A few weeks later he left the hospital, taking with him the precious Medal as a memento of gratitude and love for Mary Immaculate.
The design of the Miraculous Medal came straight from the hands of Our Lady―for she showed the design that she wanted to St. Catherine Labouré in a 1830 vision at the Rue du Bac, in Paris, France. Concerning the rays of light that came forth from the rings on the fingers of her outstretched hands (see front of Medal), she was told: “These rays symbolize the graces I shed upon those who ask for them. The gems, from which rays do not fall, are the graces for which souls neglect to ask.” The voice added: “Have a Medal struck after this model. All who wear it will receive great graces; they should wear it around the neck. Graces will abound for persons who wear it with confidence.”
► BLESSING: In blessing the Miraculous Medal, the priest prays: “Almighty and merciful God, Who, by the many appearances on Earth of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, were pleased to work miracles again and again for the salvation of souls; kindly pour out Thy blessing on this Medal, so that all who devoutly wear it and reverence it may experience the patronage of Mary Immaculate and obtain mercy from Thee; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
“Take this holy medal; wear it with Faith, and handle it with due devotion, so that the holy and Immaculate Queen of Heaven may protect and defend you. And as she is ever ready to renew her wondrous acts of kindness, may she obtain for you in her mercy whatever you humbly ask of God, so that both in life and in death you may rest happily in her motherly embrace. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: First and foremost, always wear your blessed Miraculous Medal around your neck. If you also wear the Brown Scapular, you may―if you so wish―attach the Miraculous Medal to the cords of your Scapular; or you wear the Medal on a chain or cord of its own. However, do not limit the use of the Miraculous Medal to being worn around your neck. As with the other Sacramentals mentioned above, you could attach the blessed Medal above every door and window in the house; or plant a large number of blessed Medals in the soil around the perimeter of your house―thus creating, as it were, a spiritual moat or spiritual wall of grace around the house. Likewise, attach or plant a medal in your exterior buildings―barn, shed, garage, etc. Plant some further away from the house―especially at the main entrance and other entrances to your property. Plant the blessed Medal in the homes of those whom you seek to convert to the Faith or bring back to the Faith from sin. Always keep a blessed Medal in your car as extra insurance against accidents, theft and other dangers.
The Sacramental of Blessed Candles
Finally―though there are many more Sacramentals that could be examined in addition to the above handful―we come to blessed candles. Candles are an integral part of the Catholic Faith―Our Lord refers to them and the Church constantly uses them. Our Lord said: “You are the light of the world. Men do not light a candle and put it under a bucket, but upon a candlestick, so that it may shine to all that are in the house! So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16). Every single Sacrifice of the Mass is offered with candles burning―and the priest is forbidden to say Mass without candles. In a High Mass or Sung Mass, the altar servers (acolytes) enter the church carrying lit candles. When we have Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament―candles likewise must be lit. When the priest makes a sick call to a home, he traditionally had to be greeted by a family member carrying a lit candle. A newly baptized person receives a lit candle during the baptismal ceremony. Candles surround the coffin at a funeral. Deacons carry a lit candle during their ordination to the priesthood. A bishop, when performing solemn ceremonies, has an extra candle that is carried for him by one of the altar servers. We have the Paschal Candle at Easter and the Advent Candles during Advent. The Easter Vigil procession with the Paschal Candle into the dark church has the faithful carrying lit candles during the procession. These are just some of the many instances where candles are used in the Liturgy of the Church.
The candle represents or is symbolic of both Christ and ourselves. Our Lord says: “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12) and then He adds: “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). The wax is symbolic of our body, the wick is symbolic of our soul (hidden within the body), and the flame is symbolic of the divinity of God, charity of God and grace of God in the soul. A candle is useless unless it is lit―and our soul is useless if it does not possess the charity and grace of God: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
There is no better day than February 2nd to have your candles blessed―even though candles can be blessed on any day of the year. Why then February 2nd? Well, February 2nd―besides being the feast of the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple and the Purification of His Most Holy Mother, February 2nd is also commonly and popularly known as “Candlemas Day” [read more here] ― the title originates from the fact that candles receive a special solemn blessing at Mass on that day (Candles blessed at Mass on that day = Candlemas Day). As you will see below, the regular blessing for candles on any day of the year pales away into the shadows when compared to the solemn blessing of candles on Candlemas Day. Additionally, some saints and mystics insist that the beeswax candles to be used for the so-called “Three Days of Darkness” are meant to be blessed on Candlemas Day.
► REGULAR BLESSING OF CANDLES: In blessing the candles, the priest prays: “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, bless these candles at our supplication. By the power of the Holy Cross, pour out upon them a heavenly blessing, O Lord, Who gave them to human kind in order to repel the darkness. From this signing with the Holy Cross may they receive such blessing that, wherever they are set up or lighted, the princes of darkness may begin to tremble and depart, may flee in fear with all their ministers from such dwelling places, and may not dare again to disquiet or molest those who serve Thee, almighty God, who live and reign forever and ever. Amen.”
► BLESSING OF CANDLES WITH EXORCISM: An “upgrade” on the regular blessing of candles is the blessing of candles coupled with an exorcism of those candles. When exorcising and blessing the candles, the priest prays: “O candles, I exorcise you in the Name of God the Father Almighty, in the Name of Jesus Christ his Son, our Lord, and in the Name of the Holy Spirit. May God uproot and cast out from these objects, all power of the devil, all attacks of the unclean spirit, and all deceptions of Satan, so that they may bring health of mind and body to all who use them. We ask this through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is coming to judge both the living and the dead and the world by fire. Amen.”
“O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, light of everlasting life, Thou hast given us candles to dispel the darkness. We humbly implore Thee now, to bless these candles at our lowly request, and hallow them by the light of Thy grace. By the power of the Holy Cross, endow them with a heavenly blessing. May the blessing they receive be so powerful that, wherever they are placed or lighted, the princes of darkness shall flee in fear, along with all their legions, and never more dare to disturb those who serve Thee, the almighty God. Let the entire building in which these candles are kept, be free from the power of the adversary, and be defended from the snares of the enemy. Grant we pray, that those who will use these candles may be protected from every assault of the evil spirit, and be safeguarded from all danger. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► CANDLESMAS DAY BLESSING: However, the most solemn blessing of candles is that which is done at the start of Mass on Candlemas Day (February 2nd). Before the start of Mass, in blessing the candles at the altar, the priest prays: “O Holy Lord, Father almighty, everlasting God, who hast created all things out of nothing, and by Thy command hast caused this liquid to become perfect wax by the labor of bees: and who, on this day didst fulfill the petition of the righteous man Simeon: we humbly entreat Thee, that by the invocation of Thy most holy Name and through the intercession of Blessed Mary ever Virgin whose feast is today devoutly observed, and by the prayers of all Thy Saints, Thou wouldst vouchsafe to bless and sanctify these candles for the service of men and for the health of their bodies and souls, whether on land or on sea: and that Thou wouldst hear from Thy holy heaven, and from the throne of Thy Majesty the voices of this Thy people, who desire to carry them in their hands with honor, and to praise Thee with hymns; and wouldst be propitious to all that call upon Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.”
“O almighty and everlasting God, who on this day didst present Thine only-begotten Son in Thy holy Temple to be received in the arms of holy Simeon: we humbly entreat Thy clemency, that Thou wouldst vouchsafe to bless and sanctify and to kindle with the light of Thy heavenly benediction these candles, which we, Thy servants, desire to receive and to bear lighted in the honor of Thy Name: that, by offering them to Thee our Lord God, being worthily inflamed with the holy fire of Thy most sweet charity, we may deserve to be presented in the holy Temple of Thy glory. Through the same Jesus Christ, thy Son, Our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.”
“O Lord Jesus Christ, the true Light who enlightenest every man that cometh into this world: pour forth Thy blessing upon these candles, and sanctify them with the light of Thy grace, and mercifully grant, that as these lights enkindled with visible fire dispel the darkness of night, so our hearts illumined by invisible fire, that is, by the splendor of the Holy Spirit, may be free from the blindness of all vice, that the eye of our mind being cleansed, we may be able to discern what is pleasing to Thee and profitable to our salvation; so that after the perilous darkness of this life we may deserve to attain to never failing light: through Thee, O Christ Jesus, Savior of the world, who in the perfect Trinity, livest and reignest, God, world without end. Amen.”
“O almighty and everlasting God, who by Thy servant Moses didst command the purest oil to be prepared for lamps to burn continuously before Thee: vouchsafe to pour forth the grace of Thy blessing upon these candles: that they may so afford us light outwardly that by Thy gift, the gift of Thy Spirit may never be wanting inwardly to our minds.
Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.”
“O Lord Jesus Christ, who appearing on this day among men in the substance of our flesh, wast presented by Thy parents in the temple: whom the venerable and aged Simeon, illuminated by the light of Thy Spirit, recognized, received into his arms, and blessed: mercifully grant that, enlightened and taught by the grace of the same Holy Ghost, we may truly acknowledge Thee and faithfully love Thee; Who with God the Father in the unity of the same Holy Ghost livest and reignest, God, world without end. Amen.”
Ideally, it would be wonderful if Holy Mother Church combined all of the above three versions into one version!
► BLESSING OF CANDLES ON THE FEAST OF ST. BLAISE, FEBRUARY 3rd: Incidentally, on the feast of St. Blaise on February 3rd―the day following Candlemas Day―it has been traditional since the 8th century to bless two candles in honor of St. Blaise and then use those two candles to bless the throats of the faithful. In blessing the candles, the priest prays:
“O God, almighty and all-mild, by Thy Word alone did create the manifold things in the world, and willed that that same Word, by Whom all things were made, take flesh in order to redeem mankind; Thou art great and immeasurable, awesome and praiseworthy, a worker of marvels. Hence in professing his Faith in Thee, the glorious martyr and bishop, Blaise, did not fear any manner of torment, but gladly accepted the palm of martyrdom. In virtue of which Thou hast bestowed on him, among other gifts, the power to heal all ailments of the throat. And now we implore Thy majesty that, overlooking our guilt, and considering only his merits and intercession, it may please Thee to bless, and sanctify, and impart Thy grace to these candles. Let all men of Faith, whose necks are touched with them, be healed of every malady of the throat, and, being restored in health and good spirits, let them return thanks to Thee in Thy holy Church, and praise Thy glorious name which is blessed forever; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Then, in placing the two candles (crossed-over in the form of an “X” or a cross) like “scissors” on the neck of the person receiving the blessing, the priest prays: “By the intercession of St. Blaise, bishop and martyr, may God deliver you from every malady of the throat, and from every possible mishap; in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: The feast of Candlemas is just over 1 week away. Call your local priest to see if he will be blessing candles at the start of Mass on February 2nd―if not, then call around until you find one. Tip: priests who still say the Traditional Latin Mass (also known as: “Mass in the Extraordinary Rite”) will no doubt be blessing candles on that day. Then ask if he would also kindly bless a box or several boxes of candles for you. Then call around, or look online, for suppliers of 100% beeswax candles and buy as many as you can afford (and as many as you think the priest will accept to bless―he probably won’t be happy if you turn with 50 boxes of candles!). Additionally, as an insurance for the so-called “Three Days of Darkness”, it is advised to get some 100% beeswax candles in glass jars that will be burn for at least three days―you can expect to pay anything from $22 to $46 per jar (they vary in burning time from 100 hours or 4 days, to as much as 7 days). Yes―they are like sanctuary lights that burn alongside the tabernacle, but these will be 100% beeswax. Have those jar-candles also blessed on February 2nd if possible.
As for when to use blessed candles―there are a number of occasions for which the Church recommends that blessed candles be lit. One such occasion is during times of threatening storms or earthquakes. Blessed candles are also a powerful Sacramental to use against evil spirits roaming about. We all know that the devil lives in darkness, and so the light of the blessed candle invokes the power of God to keep the devil’s influence at bay. Another occasion is at times of danger of any kind―whether of human or natural source. You can also light a blessed candle at times of family disruption by arguments, division, bad temper or even violence. Blessed candles would also be lit and placed at the bedside of both sick persons and dying persons.
Conclusion
You probably thought there would be no conclusion to this interminable article which is more like a book than an article. Apologies for the length, but no apologies for the need. We are rapidly approaching grave times for which no human solution will work. How well protected are you? Are you ready for emergencies? What is the likelihood of your survival? As Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Why do we stupidly try to solve our problems by firstly having recourse to human means, human intelligence and human skills? Our Lord said: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God!” (Luke 12:31) ― why then do we often turn to God as a last resort?
The Sacramentals of the Church are God’s gifts to men―aimed at helping us in all our troubles and adversities. Use them and don’t abuse them by neglecting them! As you sow, so shall you reap: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:8).
God was the Creator of seeds and the first ‘sower’ of seeds―as we read in the Book of Genesis: “And God said: ‘Let the earth bring forth the green herb, such as may seed; and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, which may have seed in itself upon the earth. And it was so done. And the earth brought forth the green herb, and such as yieldeth seed according to its kind; and the tree that beareth fruit, having seed each one according to its kind. And God saw that it was good … And God said to Adam: ‘Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat!’” (Genesis 1:11-12, 29).
Our Lord spoke of seeds several times in the Gospels. He related a parable about the sowing of seeds (Matthew 13:3-8, 18-23); another parable referred to the sowing of good seeds and bad seeds (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-40); then He refers to the mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32).
“Jesus spoke to them many things in parables, saying: ‘Behold the sower went forth to sow. And while he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds of the air came and ate them up. And other some fell upon stony ground, where they had not much soil, and they sprung up immediately because they had no deepness of soil. And when the sun was up they were scorched; and, because they had not root, they withered away. And others fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them. And others fell upon good ground, and they brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold ... Hear you therefore [explanation of the] the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and understands it not, there comes the wicked one, and catches and takes away that which was sown in his heart―this is he that received the seed by the way side. And he that received the seed upon stony ground, is he that hears the word, and immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has not root in himself, but is only for a time―and when there arises tribulation and persecution because of the word, he is presently scandalized. And he that received the seed among thorns, is he that hears the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches chokes up the word, and he becomes fruitless. But he that received the seed upon good ground, is he that hears the word, and understands, and bears fruit, and yields the one a hundredfold, and another sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold!’” (Matthew 13:3-8, 18-23)
“Another parable Jesus proposed to them, saying: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and oversowed cockle among the wheat and went his way. And when the blade was sprung up and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. And the servants of the good man of the house coming said to him: “Sir, did you not sow good seed in thy field? Why then has it cockle?” And he said to them: “An enemy hath done this!” And the servants said to him: “Do you want us to go and gather it up?” And he said: “No―lest perhaps by gathering up the cockle, you also uproot the wheat together with it! Suffer both to grow until the harvest, and, in the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers: ‘Gather up first the cockle and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather into my barn!’” … His disciples came to Jesus, saying: ‘Explain to us the parable of the cockle of the field!’ Jesus said to them: ‘He that sows the good seed, is the Son of man. And the field is the world. And the good seed are the children of the kingdom. And the cockle, are the children of the wicked one. And the enemy that sowed them is the devil. But the harvest is the end of the world and the reapers are the angels. Therefore, just as cockle is gathered up and burnt with fire, so shall it be at the end of the world. The Son of man shall send His angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all scandals, and them that work iniquity. And shall cast them into the furnace of fire, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-40).
“Another parable He proposed to them, saying: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field―which is the least indeed of all seeds; but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come, and dwell in the branches thereof!’” (Matthew 13:31-32).
Why Parables?
We might be mystified by these parables or even blind to them―as were the disciples of the Lord: “And His disciples came and said to Him: ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’ Jesus answered and said to them: ‘Because to you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven―but to them it is not given! For he that has, to him shall be given, and he shall abound―but he that has not, from him shall be taken away that also which he has! Therefore do I speak to them in parables―because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand! And the prophecy of Isaias is fulfilled in them, who said: “By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see and shall not perceive! For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them!” But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear! For, amen, I say to you, many prophets and just men have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them, and to hear the things that you hear and have not heard them!’” (Matthew 13:31-32).
Gross Hearts! Deaf Ears! Eyes Shut!
Have we shut our eyes and ears to the truths and gifts that God has given us? Has our heart grown gross, our minds grown dull? Do we hear the word of God without really hearing it, or understanding it? Do we see religious things, objects, ceremonies and actions without really grasping what they are all about? Are we only seeing the tip-of-the-iceberg of our Faith, without realizing the immensity beneath the waters? Are we so choked-up with the cares, pleasures and riches of the world that we fail to truly and fully understand our Faith, what it offers, and to profit from it? Is our understanding and estimation of the Faith so shallow that the Faith never really sprouts and establishes deep roots within our souls?
Such a blindness, grossness, remissness, forgetfulness and carelessness about the Faith results in serious damage and dreadful consequences. The tools of the Faith are unused and left to rust and decay. Souls that could and should be saved are damned. Souls that could become saints, languish in lukewarmness. Truths that could be planted, sprouted, enrooted and grown in our minds―suffer neglect or even rejection. Things that could help our safety and salvation, are ignored or refused―thus leading many souls to ruin and damnation. “For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them!”
Our Lady pretty much said the same thing to Sister Lucia of Fatima, who reveals to us: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on the road of goodness without paying attention to this Message―they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners, the bad―because of their sins―keep following the road of evil through sin, ignoring the Message, because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But, Father, you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Avoiding Chastisement with Sacramentals
The above words of Sister Lucia of Fatima about chastisements remind us of the chastisements that God inflicted upon Egypt in the time of Moses and the Exodus. Prior to the Exodus from Egypt by the Israelites, God chastised the land with ten successive plagues: (1) all the water turning to blood, (2) a plague of frogs, (3) lice or gnats, (4) flies, (5) a livestock pestilence, (6) a plague of boils, (7) hail, (8) locusts, (9) darkness and (10) the killing of firstborn children.
Of particular interest is God’s killing of the firstborn children within Egypt: “And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: ‘Speak ye to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, and say to them: “On the tenth day of this month let every man take a lamb by their families and houses ... It shall be a lamb without blemish, a male, of one year … And you shall sacrifice it in the evening of the fourteenth day of this month … And they shall take of the blood of the lamb, and put it upon both the side posts, and on the upper door posts of the houses … And I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and will kill every firstborn in the land of Egypt both man and beast … And the blood shall be unto you for a sign in the houses where you shall be: and I shall see the blood, and shall pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I shall strike the land of Egypt .. And the children of Israel going forth did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. And it came to pass at midnight, the Lord slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharao, who sat on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive woman that was in the prison, and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharao arose in the night, and all his servants, and all Egypt―for there was not a house wherein there lay not one dead” (Exodus 12:3-30).
The Sacramental of Blessed Chalk
You could say that smearing of the blood of lamb on the doorposts and lintel of the doors of the Israelite houses was a figure or type of today’s Sacramentals of the Catholic Church. For example, today we used the Sacramental of chalk blessed on the feast of the Epiphany to inscribe the numbers of the current calendar year (2023) and the letters C M B (which represent the names of the three magi or kings at Bethlehem―Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar) on the lintels of the doors of our houses. [download the rite, ceremony, blessings here: Epiphany Blessings for Chalk & Home & Water]
In blessing the chalk, the priest prays: “O Lord God, bless this chalk which Thou hast created, that it may be helpful to mankind; and grant that, through the invocation of Thy most holy Name, all those who use this chalk, or with it write over the doors of their houses the names of Thy Saints—Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar—may by their merits and intercession receive health of body and protection of soul. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.”
Then, immediately after chalking the doors, the priest prays: “O Lord, almighty God, bless this house that it may become a shelter of health, chastity, self-conquest, humility, goodness, mildness, obedience to the Commandments, and thanksgiving to God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Upon this house and those who dwell herein may Thy blessing remain forever. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Similarly, in the traditional blessing of a house, with the prayers from the Roman Ritual, the priest prays: “Hear us, holy Lord, almighty Father, eternal God! And deign to send Thy holy Angel from Heaven to guard, cherish, protect, visit, and defend all who dwell in this home. Though Christ our Lord. Amen.” During Easter time, the prayer reads as follows: “Hear us, holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God! And as in their departure from Egypt Thou didst guard the homes of the Israelites from the avenging Angel, if they were smeared with blood―prefiguring our Pasch in which Christ is slain―so likewise send Thy holy Angel from Heaven to guard, cherish, protect, visit, and defend all who dwell in this house. Though the same Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Ask you priest for some blessed Epiphany Chalk―if he has none left (or never blessed any in the first place), then he can bless chalk at any time of the year. Get some! Use it! It is there to help you! Don’t abuse that help! Use it especially during this Christmas season―which lasts until February 2nd―and chalk the doors, not only of your main entrance, but go further and chalk all the lintels (the horizontal beam above head height that bridges the two vertical doorposts) with the traditional chalking (see your downloaded Epiphany Blessings: Chalk & Home & Water) of the year and the letters of the three Kings or Magi―interspersing the numbers and letters with 4 signs of the cross: 20 + C + M + B + 23 Profit from these Sacramentals of the Church―God helps those who help themselves. God will do the extraordinary when the ordinary suffices. The Sacramentals are the ordinary helps or tools that the Church offers us. Use them!
The Sacramentals of Epiphany Water & Regular Holy Water
The rite of blessing Epiphany water, on the Vigil of the Epiphany, is much more solemn and elaborate than the simple rite of blessing Holy Water throughout the year. The entire rite can take anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes―whereas regular blessing of Holy Water only takes around 5 minutes or so. You can find the solemn rite of blessing Epiphany Water in the same download as that of blessed Epiphany Chalk [click here]. To read more about Holy Water [click here]
► THE EXORCISM AND BLESSING OF THE SALT: In exorcizing and blessing the salt, the priest prays: “God’s creature, salt, I cast out the demon from you by the living God, by the holy God, by God who ordered you to be thrown into the water-spring by Eliseus to heal it of its barrenness. May you be a purified salt―a means of health for those who believe; a medicine for body and soul for all who make use of you. May all evil fancies of the foul fiend, his malice and cunning, be driven afar from the place where you are sprinkled. And let every unclean spirit be repulsed by Him who is coming to judge both the living and the dead and the world by fire. Amen.”
“Almighty everlasting God, we humbly appeal to Thy mercy and goodness to graciously bless this creature salt, which Thou hast given for mankind's use. May all who use it find in it a remedy for body and mind. And may everything that it touches or sprinkles be freed from uncleanness and any influence of the evil spirit; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► THE EXORCISM AND BLESSING OF THE WATER: In exorcizing and blessing the water, the priest prays: “God’s creature, water, I cast out the demon from you in the Name of God the Father almighty, in the Name of Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. May you be a purified water, empowered to drive afar all power of the enemy, to root out and banish the enemy himself, along with his fallen angels. We ask this through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is coming to judge both the living and the dead and the world by fire. Amen.”
“O God, Who, for man’s welfare, established the most wonderful mysteries in the substance of water, listen to our prayer, and pour forth Thy blessing on this element now being prepared with various purifying rites. May this creature of Thine―when used in your mysteries and endowed with Thy grace―serve to cast out demons and to banish disease. May everything that this water sprinkles―in the homes and gatherings of the faithful―be delivered from all that is unclean and hurtful; let no breath of contagion hover there, no stain of corruption; let all the wiles of the lurking enemy come to nothing. By the sprinkling of this water, may everything opposed to the safety and peace of the occupants of these homes be banished, so that in calling on Thy holy Name they may gain the well-being they desire, and be protected from every peril; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► MIXING THE BLESSED SALT WITH THE BLESSED WATER: While mixing the salt with the water, the priest prays: “God, source of irresistible might and king of an invincible realm, the ever-glorious conqueror; Who restrains the force of the adversary, silencing the uproar of his rage, and valiantly subduing his wickedness; in awe and humility we beg Thee, Lord, to regard with favor this creature thing of salt and water, to let the light of Thy kindness shine upon it, and to hallow it with the dew of Thy mercy; so that wherever it is sprinkled and Thy holy Name is invoked, may every assault of the unclean spirit be baffled, and all dread of the serpent's venom be cast out. To us who entreat Thy mercy grant that the Holy Spirit may be with us wherever we may be; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: There are many things and circumstances for which you can use Epiphany Water or even regular Holy Water. You can drink Holy Water―we eat blessed food, don’t we?―but make sure you are getting your Holy Water through the faucet or spigot of the Holy Water cistern in church, which is usually sealed, and not from the open Holy Water font in church into which everyone dips their fingers! Also drink as fresh a Holy Water as you can get―not water that is years old. St. Teresa of Avila used to drink Holy Water. Similarly, you can also cook with Holy Water (again, fresh Holy Water and not old water) and also add blessed salt to your food or recipes. Furthermore, you can keep it in bottles throughout the rooms in your home―to sprinkle often or even daily. The devil hates Holy Water―that is why this Sacramental is one of several Sacramentals that are used during exorcisms. St. Teresa would often sprinkle herself or her surroundings with Holy Water―especially during temptations. Likewise, if you have blessed salt, you can also sprinkle that around―for the blessing of salt mentions precisely that: “…wherever it is sprinkled…”
Why not take Epiphany Water or Holy Water and either sprinkle or pour a thin stream all around the perimeter of your house, while reciting certain prayers or extracts from the prayers above. Don’t just do this once and no more! Do it as often as you like―once a month, or once a week. Do it especially in times of impending danger―whether natural or man-made―such as storms, floods, earthquakes, fires, or civic unrest. If there are squabbles and arguments, or even violence or sin occurring within the family, sprinkle holy water around the rooms of the house in combination with some prayers. If things and appliances start to “act-up” or malfunction, it does no harm to sprinkle them with Holy Water―for sometimes it is the devil that is behind these things. If threatened by someone, why not sprinkle them with Holy Water―you have nothing to lose and much to potentially gain. Some people, who are under the control or influence of Satan, have been known to feel a burning sensation when sprinkled with Holy Water!
On a side issue, if you find Holy Water hard to obtain, then you can regular water to your Holy Water―as long as the regular water is a lesser quantity than the amount of Holy Water you have left. The regular water added to the holy water must be less than the original volume―for example, 49% regular water to 51% Holy Water, or 9 cups of regular water to 10 cups of Holy Water, etc. If the regular water exceeds the amount of Holy Water, then the Holy Water loses its Sacramental qualities and becomes regular water. That is the procedure followed by the Church with the Holy Oils that a bishop consecrates on Holy Thursday―after the ceremony, the urns are taken away and then the Holy Oils are “multiplied” by adding regular olive oil to it, but always in a lesser quantity than the amount of Holy Oil.
There will come a time when all Hell breaks loose and we will no longer have access to churches, priests and the Holy Water they bless and you obviously find Holy Water hard to obtain, then simply add regular water to your Holy Water―as long as the regular water is a lesser quantity than the amount of Holy Water you have left―and keep doing that for the duration of the crisis or societal breakdown.
The Sacramental of the Blessing of a Home
Do not underestimate or dismiss the power of having your home blessed! You will be opening your home to a potential stream of graces, blessings and protection―which is precisely what the prayers of house blessings invoke:
► BLESSING: In blessing the home, the priest prays: “Hear us, holy Lord and Father, almighty everlasting God, and in Thy goodness visit, we beseech thee, O Lord, this dwelling, to protect all who live in this home and drive far from it the snares of the enemy; let Thy holy angels watch over and dwell therein, to be with them, give them comfort and encouragement, and to preserve them in peace, and let Thy blessing be always upon them, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► ALTERNATIVE BLESSING: “God the Father almighty, we fervently implore Thee, for the sake of this home and its occupants and possessions, that Thou may bless and sanctify them, enriching them by Thy kindness in every way possible. Pour out on them, Lord, heavenly dew in good measure, as well as an abundance of earthly needs. Mercifully listen to their prayers, and grant that their desires be fulfilled. At our lowly coming, be pleased to bless and sanctify this home, as Thou once were pleased to bless the home of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Within these walls, let Thy angels of light preside and stand watch over those who live here; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: It is sheer foolishness, imprudence and complacency to neglect having one’s house blessed by the priest! From the spiritual perspective it fortifies your home against all kinds of potential dangers―coming from both devils and men. In this present era, when it seems as though Our Lady of La Salette’s prophecy is being fulfilled ― “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell ... The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God. Everywhere, as true Faith fades, a false light will brighten the people … The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis ... All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family. Blood will flow in the streets! Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes!” In such an environment, only a fool would wish to live a house which, through neglect and indifference, has not been blessed!
The Sacramental of the Crucifix
The blessed Crucifix is always part and parcel of the things that an exorcist priest will take with him to the exorcism. It was on the Cross that the crucified Christ won His definitive victory over Satan and the powers of Hell. The Crucifix always reminds Satan of his defeat at the hands of Christ―that is why it is so important and so powerful a Sacramental. It is not for nothing that in Ancient Roman times, the future emperor Constantine, was facing battle while being heavily outnumbered. Constantine realized that he needed help from a power greater than himself―but who or what? He had his doubts about the traditional Roman gods. He prayed earnestly that the true God―whoever that may be―would “reveal to him who he is, and stretch forth his right hand to help him.” God gave him a vision of a cross together with the words: “In hoc signo vinces” which is a Latin phrase that means: “In this sign thou shalt conquer!” This sign brought Constantine the assurance he needed. He accepted this as the answer to his prayer and ordered his soldiers to inscribe crosses on their shields. Encouraged by his vision in the heavens, he hurled his troops against his rival Maxentius, at Rome’s Milvian Bridge. Surprisingly, Constantine was victorious. Maxentius was among those who drowned in the Tiber. Afterward Constantine does not forget to whom he owes his victory. Constantine issued orders that the Christian Church was to be tolerated―just as other religions were. Although he did not make Christianity the official religion of the Empire, Constantine bestowed favor upon it, built places of worship for Christians, and presided over the first general Church council. He became the first emperor to embrace Christianity and was be baptized on his death bed.
► BLESSING: In blessing the Crucifix the priest prays: “O Holy Lord, almighty Father, eternal God, bless this cross that it be a saving help to mankind. Let it be a bulwark of Faith, an encouragement to good works, the redemption of souls; and may it be consolation, protection and a shield against the cruel darts of the enemy. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
“Bless, O Lord Jesus Christ this cross by which Thou hast snatched the world from Satan’s grasp and upon which Thou hast overcome, by thy suffering, him who is the prompter of sin, who rejoiced in Adam’s deception at the accursed tree of Paradise. May this symbol of salvation be sanctified in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and may all who kneel and pray before this cross for our Lord’s honor receive health of body and soul. Through the selfsame Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: Seek to place a blessed Crucifix in all the rooms of your house. You can also place a Crucifix in your outdoor buildings―garage, barn, shed, etc. You could add to the Crucifix a small plaque, or a simply frame a small sheet of paper upon which you could type the following Scriptural quotes:
“If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And whoever does not take up his cross and follows Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Parents have every right to bless their own children. They can do so by making the Sign of the Cross on their child’s forehead while saying: “May God bless you and keep you, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” They could even make the same Sign of the Cross using a blessed Crucifix.
When you are tempted, make the Sign of the Cross over yourself―slowly and deliberately―many times if necessary. Additionally, you could take your blessed Crucifix and sign yourself with the Sign of the Cross using the blessed Crucifix.
The Sacramental of the St. Benedict Medal
The Medal of St. Benedict is powerful to ward off all dangers of body and soul coming from the evil spirit. [read more here] We are exposed to the wicked assaults of the devil day and night. St. Peter says: “Your adversary the devil, as roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). In the life of St. Benedict we see how the devil tried to do harm to his soul and body, and also to his spiritual children. Father Paul of Moll, saintly Flemish Benedictine wonder-worker (1824-1896), frustrated the evil doings of the spirits of darkness chiefly through the use of the Medal of St. Benedict, which has proved a most powerful protection against the snares and delusions of Satan. Missionaries in pagan lands used this Medal with such a great effect that it was been given the remarkable name, “The devil-chasing Medal.”
The Medal is a powerful means:
● To destroy witchcraft and all other diabolical influences.
● To keep away the spells of magicians, of wicked and evil-minded persons.
● To impart protection to persons tempted, deluded or tormented by evil spirits.
● To obtain the conversion of sinners, especially when they are in danger of death.
● To secure a timely and healthy birth for children.
● To help and strengthen a person at the time of death.
● To serve as an armor in temptations against holy purity.
● To destroy the effects of poison.
● To give protection against storms and lightning.
● To serve as an efficacious remedy for bodily afflictions and a means of protection against contagious diseases.
● For animals infected with plague or other maladies, and for fields when invaded by harmful insects.
The front of the medal depicts St. Benedict holding in his right hand a cross, and in his left, the book of his Rule. On his right is a poisoned cup, and on his left a raven with a poisoned loaf. A jealous enemy had given him this cup and loaf; when St. Benedict made the Sign of the Cross over them, the cup shattered and a raven flew in and carried away the loaf. Above these items are the Latin words “CRUX SANCTI PATRIS BENEDICTI” (The Cross of our holy father Benedict). Surrounding the figure of St. Benedict are the words “EIUS IN OBITU NOSTRO PRAESENTIA MUNIAMUR!” (May we be strengthened by his presence in the hour of our death), as he was always regarded by the Benedictines as the patron of a happy death.
The back of the medal depicts a Cross. On the Cross are the letters C S S M L ― N D S M D, initials of the Latin words “CRUX SACRA SIT MIHI LUX! NUNQUAM DRACO SIT MIHI DUX!” (May the Holy Cross be my light! May the dragon never be my guide!). Above the cross is the word PAX (peace.) Encircling the cross are the letters V R S N S M V - S M Q L I V B, the initials of “VADE RETRO SATANA! NUNQUAM SUADE MIHI VANA! SUNT MALA QUAE LIBAS. IPSE VENENA BIBAS!” (Begone Satan! Never tempt me with your vanities! What you offer me is evil. Drink the poison yourself!)
The purpose of the medal is to call down God’s blessing and protection upon us, wherever we are, and upon our homes and possessions, especially through the intercession of St. Benedict. By the conscious and devout use of the medal, it becomes a constant silent prayer and a reminder of our dignity as followers of Christ.
► BLESSING: In blessing the St. Benedict Medal, the priest prays: “I purge you medals of evil by God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth and of the sea and of all that they contain. O every power of the adversary, every cohort of the devil, every attack and appearance of Satan―get thee out of these medals and fly afar! And may they become for all who will use them a help for body and soul, in the Name of the Father Almighty, in the Name of Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord, in the Name of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, and in the love of the selfsame Lord Jesus Christ, Who shall come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire.”
“Almighty God, lavish Dispenser of every good, we Thy suppliants pray that, by the intercession of St. Benedict, Thou wouldst pour out Thy blessing on these sacred medals. Let all who will wear them, with minds intent on good works, deserve to obtain health of body and soul; the grace of making progress in holiness; as well as the indulgences which have been granted (to us). And may they seek to avoid, by Thy merciful help, every onslaught and fraud of the devil, and finally stand before thee sinless and holy. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: There is no special way prescribed for carrying or wearing the Medal of St. Benedict. It can be worn on a chain around the neck, attached to one’s Rosary, kept in one’s pocket or purse, or placed in one’s car or home. The medal is often put into the foundations of houses and building, on the walls of barns and sheds, or in one’s place of business. You can even purchase what is called a “St. Benedict Home Blessing Door Hang” for around $15, which hangs on door knobs or hooks. It includes St. Benedict crucifix and two St. Benedict medals, being around 11” long overall. However, you can create your own “door hangs” by combining the St. Benedict Medal with, not only a Crucifix or St. Benedict Crucifix, but also the Miraculous Medal, the Green Scapular, and any other Sacramental you wish. Place one such combination―not only on your exterior entrance doors, but on every door and above or below every window in the house. You could also plant the blessed St. Benedict Medals in the soil all around the perimeter of your house, spacing them out as you wish. Attach or plant a medal in your exterior buildings―barn, shed, garage, etc. Plant some further away from the house―especially at the main entrance and other entrances to your property. Don't just have one or two medals at home, buy lots of them and have them blessed. It is a very powerful Sacramental with centuries of a proven track record.
The Sacramental of the Holy Rosary
Make no mistake about it―the Holy Rosary is THE weapon for our present day. It was St. Padre Pio who called the THE weapon―and he himself would pray anywhere from 30 to 50 Rosaries each day! The Rosary praying Jesuit priests of Hiroshima, who survived, in good health, the dropping of the 1945 Atom Bomb by the Americans on Hiroshima, repeatedly said: “The Rosary is more powerful than the Atom Bomb!”
In 1957, Sister Lucia of Fatima told us what Our Lady revealed to her about the Holy Rosary: “The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary, to such an extent, that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or, above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
That is why Our Lady repeatedly insisted, at every single Fatima apparition, upon the Rosary being prayed a lot: “Pray the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war!” (May 1917) … “Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and the end of the war … (June 1917) … “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you! … If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted!” (July 1917) … “Continue to say the Rosary every day! … Pray, pray very much!” (August 1917) … “Continue to pray the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war!” (September 1917) … “I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (October 1917). At Akita, in 1973, Our Lady adds: “The only weapons that will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the pope, the bishops, and the priests! … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men! … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor!”
► BLESSING: In blessing the Rosary beads, the priest prays: “Almighty and merciful God, in Thy great charity and out of love for us, Thine only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ didst descend to earth, was announced by the Angel, received flesh in the holy womb of our Lady, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary; was crucified and became subject to death; and on the third day gloriously willed to rise from the dead, in order that we might be delivered from the power of the devil. We beg Thy great mercy, that this Rosary, used by the assembly of Thy faithful for the honor and praise of the same Mother of Thy Son, may be blessed and sanctified; so that through the overflowing power of Thy Holy Ghost, at whatever hour or in whatever place it is carried, or retained in their homes, through it, according to the institutes of Thy holy Society, they may be led to Thee by the contemplation of Thy divine mysteries in devout prayer, being nourished and preserved in abundant devotion. Partaking of all the graces, privileges, and indulgences which the Holy See has granted; may they always and everywhere be protected from every visible or invisible power of this world; and upon leaving it, may the same Blessed Virgin Mother of God present them to Thee, robed in an abundance of good works. This we ask of Thee through the same Jesus Christ . . . world without end. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: Copy, paste, save, read and re-read the miracles of Rosary that you will find in the preceding article. It will foster in you an abiding confidence in the power of the Rosary. St. Louis de Montfort’s book, The Secret of the Rosary, is a testimony to the power of the Rosary and the esteem with which Our Lady and Heaven show towards the Rosary. It is an excellent book to kindle our fires of love towards the Holy Rosary. Get a copy! Read it! Remember―it is not how MANY Rosaries we SAY, but HOW WELL WE PRAY them. As St. Louis writes in his book: “A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly!”
That is why devil―if he sees that he cannot make you abandon the Rosary―he will then tempt you to do the lesser good. That lesser good is to make you SAY the Rosary, rather than have you PRAY the Rosary. SAYING the Rosary means only saying the words of the prayers without meditating on the mysteries; whereas PRAYING the Rosary means not only saying the words, but also MEDITATING upon the mysteries. Furthermore, TRUE meditation always involves MAKING AND TAKING RESOLUTIONS based upon what you have meditated―otherwise it is like making a meal or baking a cake, and then not eating it. Probably 99.9% of Catholics merely SAY the Rosary, but NEVER PRAY the Rosary. Small wonder that souls never become better, or that so many souls are lost.
St. Louis further adds: “God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin. How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? People who do that forfeit God’s blessing, which is changed into a curse for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: ‘Cursed be the one who does God’s work negligently!’ (Jeremias 48:10). Our Lady said to Blessed Alan de la Roche in a vision ‘When people say 150 Hail Marys, that prayer is very helpful to them and a most pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me more if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of this prayer.’ For the Rosary said without the meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation would almost be a body without a soul, excellent matter, but without the form, which is the meditation.
“Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin. The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
Another point to be made is that of having lots of blessed Rosaries available in your home―they can be of various kinds, simple string Rosaries that are knotted to create the “beads”, or a good number of plastic Rosaries for distribution to others who may be in need, plus the kind of Rosaries that you personally prefer. As a suggestion, the so-called “ladder Rosaries” seem to be more hardy and durable than the thin-wire like Rosaries―obviously you pay more, but they are worth the money. If you can get someone to make you Rosary from scratch, then it is suggested that you include other Sacramentals as part of your “tailor-made” Rosary. For example, for the center piece medallion use the Miraculous Medal; for the Our Father beads uses the St. Benedict Medal; for the Crucifix use a St. Benedict Crucifix which has the St. Benedict Medal embedded at the point where the horizontal and vertical beams cross, right behind the head of Christ. Thus, when you have your Rosary blessed, ask the priest to give the Rosary beads a multiple blessing: (1) the special blessing for the Rosary; (2) the special blessing for the Crucifix; (3) the special blessing for the Miraculous Medal, and (4) the special blessing for the St. Benedict Medal. These four blessings, one after another, will take around 8 to 10 minutes. Not all priests will be willing to do that―too much time and trouble―but it is worth asking around until you find one that will. That will give you a very powerful multi-Sacramental Rosary!
Finally, make sure to ALWAYS carry your Rosary with you. St. Padre Pio would NEVER be without his Rosary beads. Even when he could no longer wash himself and tend to his stigmata, and had to have others do these things, he would always hold his Rosary beads in one hand while they washed the other hand. He would take his Rosary beads to bed with him. DO THE SAME! Soldiers sleep alongside their weapons! Sleep with you Rosary! Some people will even wear their Rosary beads around their neck. The devils despise blessed Rosary beads. St. Louis de Montfort, in The Secret of the Rosary, writes: “Blessed Alan relates that a man he knew had tried desperately all kinds of devotions to rid himself of the evil spirit which possessed him, but without success. Finally, he thought of wearing his Rosary round his neck, which eased him considerably. He discovered that whenever he took it off the devil tormented him cruelly, so he resolved to wear it night and day. This drove the evil spirit away forever because he could not bear such a terrible chain. Blessed Alan also testifies that he delivered a great number of those who were possessed by putting a Rosary round their necks.”
The Sacramental of the Brown Scapular
Just as the Holy Rosary is the weapon for our times, so too is the Brown Scapular a weapon for our days. You could loosely look upon the Rosary as a sword and the Scapular as a shield or a suit of armor. In fact, a full size monk’s scapular pretty much covers him like a suit of armor―being shoulder width and hanging down almost to the ground front and back. Sister Lucia of Fatima said that Our Lady was dressed as Our Lady of Mount Carmel at her sixth and last apparition at Fatima―holding out the Scapular towards all the people, which signified that Our Lady wanted everyone to accept and wear the Brown Scapular. The essence of the Scapular is defense―as stated in the blessing of the Scapular:
► BLESSING: In blessing the Brown Scapular, the priest prays: “O Lord Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, sanctify by Thy right hand these scapulars, which for love of Thee and for love of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Thy servants will wear devoutly, so that through the intercession of the same Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and protected against the evil spirit, they persevere until death in Thy grace. Thou who live and reign world without end. Amen.”
“Receive this blessed Scapular and beseech the Blessed Virgin that through her merits, you may wear it without stain. May it defend you against all adversity and accompany you to eternal life. Amen.”
“I, by the power vested in me, admit you to participate in all the spiritual benefits obtained through the mercy of Jesus Christ by the Religious Order of Mount Carmel. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
“May God Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, bless you, He who has deigned to join you to the Confraternity of the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel; we beseech her to crush the head of the ancient serpent at the hour of your death, so that you my enter into possession of your eternal heritage, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: It is important that you know the rules and regulations of wearing the Brown Scapular and being enrolled in the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. To help you with this task, check our webpage on FAQs about the Brown Scapular [click here]. As with the Rosaries and Medals, keep a large stock of Brown Scapulars at home. You could also, together with other mentioned Sacramentals, hang them above your doors and windows―keeping in mind the protective nature of the Brown Scapular.
Have confidence in your Brown Scapular―read about some of the many miracles that the Brown Scapular has produced over the years [to read click here]. Many of those miracles were not granted to saints, but to everyday people. In some cases, the miracles were in response to a positive request, Faith and confidence on the part of the recipient. In other cases the miracles happened without being requested and in some cases totally unknown to the recipient until afterwards. You can see an example of each in the previous article, under the Brown Scapular section―here is one miracle that was not asked for, nor was known to have happened until later:
A French priest on pilgrimage was walking to the local church to celebrate Mass. As he drew near to the church, the priest realized he forgot something. He had forgotten to put on his Brown Scapular after washing and dressing that morning. Disturbed by the thought of being without his Scapular and offering Mass without it, the priest ran back to get his Scapular, preferring to celebrate Mass clothed with his Scapular. Later, as he was offering the Holy Sacrifice, a young man approached the altar, pulled out a gun, and shot the priest in the back. To the amazement of all, the priest continued to say the prayers of the Mass as though nothing had occurred. It was at first presumed that the bullet had miraculously missed its target. However, upon examination, the bullet was found STUCK TO THE BROWN SCAPULAR which the priest had so obstinately refused to be without.
Similarly, in May of 1957, a Carmelite priest in Germany published the unusual story of how the Scapular saved a home from fire. An entire row of homes had caught fire in Westboden, Germany. The devout Catholic inhabitants of a home in the middle of this row, seeing the fire, immediately fastened a Scapular to the main door of the house. Sparks flew over it and around it, but the house remained unharmed. Within 5 hours, 22 homes had been reduced to ashes. The one structure which stood undamaged, amidst all the destruction, was that which had the Scapular attached to its door. The hundreds of people who came to see the place Our Lady had saved are eyewitnesses to the power of the Scapular and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
It is not for nothing that Our Lady held out the Brown Scapular to the world at her final October 13th, 1917, apparition at Fatima. Take it and wear it and use it! Let it be a magnet that attracts graces and protection from Heaven. You can read more about the history and meaning of the Brown Scapular [by clicking here].
The Sacramental of the Miraculous Medal
The very name “Miraculous Medal” smacks of miracles! In fact, the real name of the “Miraculous Medal” is actually “The Medal of the Immaculate Conception”―but it received its popular name of “Miraculous Medal” on account of the multitude of miracles that it brought about [read about the miracles here]. Here is just a sample:
A girl, some twenty years old, came to the hospital covered with the most repugnant scabs which the doctors had said were incurable. The nun, who cared for her wounds, one day told her that the Most Holy Virgin had the power to cure her and that, if she wanted to wear the medal and ask for a cure, she would obtain it. Knowing the doctors had given up, she answered roughly: “I do not believe in your Holy Virgin, nor do I want a medal.” The nun answered: “Very well then, in that case, keep your wounds!” Some days later, the girl asked for the medal and placed it around her neck, and soon after found herself preparing to be baptized. Shortly thereafter, she left the hospital in perfect health―to the great astonishment of the doctors, who had been unanimous in considering her sickness incurable.
In another miracle, the person was also converted but not cured. Nevertheless she died a happy and holy death. A religious sister relates the story: “A poor young Protestant girl, who was brought to our hospital to be treated for a grave malady, had so great a horror of our holy religion, that, at the very sight of a Catholic near her, she acted like someone possessed. The presence of a Sister was especially irritating, and one day she even went so far as to spit in the Sister’s face, but the latter, not dismayed and ever hoping that the God of all mercy would change this wolf into a lamb, continued her kind attentions―the more disrespectful her patient, the more gentle and considerate the Sister. The Sister was at last inspired with the thought of slipping a Miraculous Medal between the two mattresses―she acted upon the inspiration, and, the following night, the Immaculate Mary’s image became an instrument of salvation and happiness to that guilty soul. Pitching and tossing upon her bed―by reason of a high fever―the patient, in some unaccountable manner, found the Medal, and the Sister’s astonishment next morning―at seeing her clasping it in her hands, and covering it with kisses―was second only to that she experienced on perceiving the wonderful transformation grace had wrought in this poor creature’s soul. A supernatural light had revealed to her the sad state of her conscience; her criminal life filled her with horror, and, penetrated with regret for the past, she sighed only for holy Baptism. After the necessary instruction, she was baptized; and, during the remainder of her sickness―which was long and tedious―her patience and fervor never faltered. She persevered in these edifying sentiments, until a happy death placed the seal upon the graces she had received through the intercession of Mary Immaculate.”
Finally, we see another miraculous cure. An officer, in Austrian army, suffered from a serious wound in the right arm. At the general hospital, he was placed under the especial treatment of Dr. Rzehazeh, a very eminent surgeon. The doctor exhausted all his skills, but in vain―and after a few weeks he saw the necessity of amputation to save the officer’s life. The religious sisters in the hospital offered him a Miraculous Medal, which he accepted only out of courtesy. In the few days prior to the operation, he felt inspired with a great confidence in his Medal, and frequently repeated the invocation engraven upon it: “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!” The danger was now imminent, and the amputation, which must not be delayed, was to take place on the next day. One of the Sisters―seeing that the young officer’s confidence expressed itself in continual prayer―suggested on the eve of the amputation that he lay the medal upon his afflicted arm, and let it remain all night. He gladly and joyfully complied. Next morning she hastened to ascertain her patient’s condition, and get the Medal. He had spent a quiet night―his sufferings being less severe than usual. The Sister, while attributing his improvement to the medicine that had been prescribed, understood full well that the precious Medal had also been instrumental in procuring relief, and that Mary had looked compassionately upon him―but she did not yet realize the full extent of the blessing. The surgeon came a few hours after, and whilst awaiting his assistants, he carefully examined the wounded arm, he touched it, he probed it, and to his great astonishment, realized that amputation was no longer necessary. The other doctors, on arriving, confirmed his opinion of this surprising change. The officer was struck dumb with happiness, and, not until he found himself alone with the chief surgeon, did the patient reveal his secret about the Medal, which, in his opinion, caused this wonderful change. On leaving him, the surgeon could not refrain from saying to the Sister: “I believe the Sisters of Charity have engaged the good God in this case!” The officer’s arm was entirely healed. A few weeks later he left the hospital, taking with him the precious Medal as a memento of gratitude and love for Mary Immaculate.
The design of the Miraculous Medal came straight from the hands of Our Lady―for she showed the design that she wanted to St. Catherine Labouré in a 1830 vision at the Rue du Bac, in Paris, France. Concerning the rays of light that came forth from the rings on the fingers of her outstretched hands (see front of Medal), she was told: “These rays symbolize the graces I shed upon those who ask for them. The gems, from which rays do not fall, are the graces for which souls neglect to ask.” The voice added: “Have a Medal struck after this model. All who wear it will receive great graces; they should wear it around the neck. Graces will abound for persons who wear it with confidence.”
► BLESSING: In blessing the Miraculous Medal, the priest prays: “Almighty and merciful God, Who, by the many appearances on Earth of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, were pleased to work miracles again and again for the salvation of souls; kindly pour out Thy blessing on this Medal, so that all who devoutly wear it and reverence it may experience the patronage of Mary Immaculate and obtain mercy from Thee; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
“Take this holy medal; wear it with Faith, and handle it with due devotion, so that the holy and Immaculate Queen of Heaven may protect and defend you. And as she is ever ready to renew her wondrous acts of kindness, may she obtain for you in her mercy whatever you humbly ask of God, so that both in life and in death you may rest happily in her motherly embrace. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: First and foremost, always wear your blessed Miraculous Medal around your neck. If you also wear the Brown Scapular, you may―if you so wish―attach the Miraculous Medal to the cords of your Scapular; or you wear the Medal on a chain or cord of its own. However, do not limit the use of the Miraculous Medal to being worn around your neck. As with the other Sacramentals mentioned above, you could attach the blessed Medal above every door and window in the house; or plant a large number of blessed Medals in the soil around the perimeter of your house―thus creating, as it were, a spiritual moat or spiritual wall of grace around the house. Likewise, attach or plant a medal in your exterior buildings―barn, shed, garage, etc. Plant some further away from the house―especially at the main entrance and other entrances to your property. Plant the blessed Medal in the homes of those whom you seek to convert to the Faith or bring back to the Faith from sin. Always keep a blessed Medal in your car as extra insurance against accidents, theft and other dangers.
The Sacramental of Blessed Candles
Finally―though there are many more Sacramentals that could be examined in addition to the above handful―we come to blessed candles. Candles are an integral part of the Catholic Faith―Our Lord refers to them and the Church constantly uses them. Our Lord said: “You are the light of the world. Men do not light a candle and put it under a bucket, but upon a candlestick, so that it may shine to all that are in the house! So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16). Every single Sacrifice of the Mass is offered with candles burning―and the priest is forbidden to say Mass without candles. In a High Mass or Sung Mass, the altar servers (acolytes) enter the church carrying lit candles. When we have Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament―candles likewise must be lit. When the priest makes a sick call to a home, he traditionally had to be greeted by a family member carrying a lit candle. A newly baptized person receives a lit candle during the baptismal ceremony. Candles surround the coffin at a funeral. Deacons carry a lit candle during their ordination to the priesthood. A bishop, when performing solemn ceremonies, has an extra candle that is carried for him by one of the altar servers. We have the Paschal Candle at Easter and the Advent Candles during Advent. The Easter Vigil procession with the Paschal Candle into the dark church has the faithful carrying lit candles during the procession. These are just some of the many instances where candles are used in the Liturgy of the Church.
The candle represents or is symbolic of both Christ and ourselves. Our Lord says: “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12) and then He adds: “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). The wax is symbolic of our body, the wick is symbolic of our soul (hidden within the body), and the flame is symbolic of the divinity of God, charity of God and grace of God in the soul. A candle is useless unless it is lit―and our soul is useless if it does not possess the charity and grace of God: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
There is no better day than February 2nd to have your candles blessed―even though candles can be blessed on any day of the year. Why then February 2nd? Well, February 2nd―besides being the feast of the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple and the Purification of His Most Holy Mother, February 2nd is also commonly and popularly known as “Candlemas Day” [read more here] ― the title originates from the fact that candles receive a special solemn blessing at Mass on that day (Candles blessed at Mass on that day = Candlemas Day). As you will see below, the regular blessing for candles on any day of the year pales away into the shadows when compared to the solemn blessing of candles on Candlemas Day. Additionally, some saints and mystics insist that the beeswax candles to be used for the so-called “Three Days of Darkness” are meant to be blessed on Candlemas Day.
► REGULAR BLESSING OF CANDLES: In blessing the candles, the priest prays: “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, bless these candles at our supplication. By the power of the Holy Cross, pour out upon them a heavenly blessing, O Lord, Who gave them to human kind in order to repel the darkness. From this signing with the Holy Cross may they receive such blessing that, wherever they are set up or lighted, the princes of darkness may begin to tremble and depart, may flee in fear with all their ministers from such dwelling places, and may not dare again to disquiet or molest those who serve Thee, almighty God, who live and reign forever and ever. Amen.”
► BLESSING OF CANDLES WITH EXORCISM: An “upgrade” on the regular blessing of candles is the blessing of candles coupled with an exorcism of those candles. When exorcising and blessing the candles, the priest prays: “O candles, I exorcise you in the Name of God the Father Almighty, in the Name of Jesus Christ his Son, our Lord, and in the Name of the Holy Spirit. May God uproot and cast out from these objects, all power of the devil, all attacks of the unclean spirit, and all deceptions of Satan, so that they may bring health of mind and body to all who use them. We ask this through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is coming to judge both the living and the dead and the world by fire. Amen.”
“O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, light of everlasting life, Thou hast given us candles to dispel the darkness. We humbly implore Thee now, to bless these candles at our lowly request, and hallow them by the light of Thy grace. By the power of the Holy Cross, endow them with a heavenly blessing. May the blessing they receive be so powerful that, wherever they are placed or lighted, the princes of darkness shall flee in fear, along with all their legions, and never more dare to disturb those who serve Thee, the almighty God. Let the entire building in which these candles are kept, be free from the power of the adversary, and be defended from the snares of the enemy. Grant we pray, that those who will use these candles may be protected from every assault of the evil spirit, and be safeguarded from all danger. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
► CANDLESMAS DAY BLESSING: However, the most solemn blessing of candles is that which is done at the start of Mass on Candlemas Day (February 2nd). Before the start of Mass, in blessing the candles at the altar, the priest prays: “O Holy Lord, Father almighty, everlasting God, who hast created all things out of nothing, and by Thy command hast caused this liquid to become perfect wax by the labor of bees: and who, on this day didst fulfill the petition of the righteous man Simeon: we humbly entreat Thee, that by the invocation of Thy most holy Name and through the intercession of Blessed Mary ever Virgin whose feast is today devoutly observed, and by the prayers of all Thy Saints, Thou wouldst vouchsafe to bless and sanctify these candles for the service of men and for the health of their bodies and souls, whether on land or on sea: and that Thou wouldst hear from Thy holy heaven, and from the throne of Thy Majesty the voices of this Thy people, who desire to carry them in their hands with honor, and to praise Thee with hymns; and wouldst be propitious to all that call upon Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.”
“O almighty and everlasting God, who on this day didst present Thine only-begotten Son in Thy holy Temple to be received in the arms of holy Simeon: we humbly entreat Thy clemency, that Thou wouldst vouchsafe to bless and sanctify and to kindle with the light of Thy heavenly benediction these candles, which we, Thy servants, desire to receive and to bear lighted in the honor of Thy Name: that, by offering them to Thee our Lord God, being worthily inflamed with the holy fire of Thy most sweet charity, we may deserve to be presented in the holy Temple of Thy glory. Through the same Jesus Christ, thy Son, Our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.”
“O Lord Jesus Christ, the true Light who enlightenest every man that cometh into this world: pour forth Thy blessing upon these candles, and sanctify them with the light of Thy grace, and mercifully grant, that as these lights enkindled with visible fire dispel the darkness of night, so our hearts illumined by invisible fire, that is, by the splendor of the Holy Spirit, may be free from the blindness of all vice, that the eye of our mind being cleansed, we may be able to discern what is pleasing to Thee and profitable to our salvation; so that after the perilous darkness of this life we may deserve to attain to never failing light: through Thee, O Christ Jesus, Savior of the world, who in the perfect Trinity, livest and reignest, God, world without end. Amen.”
“O almighty and everlasting God, who by Thy servant Moses didst command the purest oil to be prepared for lamps to burn continuously before Thee: vouchsafe to pour forth the grace of Thy blessing upon these candles: that they may so afford us light outwardly that by Thy gift, the gift of Thy Spirit may never be wanting inwardly to our minds.
Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.”
“O Lord Jesus Christ, who appearing on this day among men in the substance of our flesh, wast presented by Thy parents in the temple: whom the venerable and aged Simeon, illuminated by the light of Thy Spirit, recognized, received into his arms, and blessed: mercifully grant that, enlightened and taught by the grace of the same Holy Ghost, we may truly acknowledge Thee and faithfully love Thee; Who with God the Father in the unity of the same Holy Ghost livest and reignest, God, world without end. Amen.”
Ideally, it would be wonderful if Holy Mother Church combined all of the above three versions into one version!
► BLESSING OF CANDLES ON THE FEAST OF ST. BLAISE, FEBRUARY 3rd: Incidentally, on the feast of St. Blaise on February 3rd―the day following Candlemas Day―it has been traditional since the 8th century to bless two candles in honor of St. Blaise and then use those two candles to bless the throats of the faithful. In blessing the candles, the priest prays:
“O God, almighty and all-mild, by Thy Word alone did create the manifold things in the world, and willed that that same Word, by Whom all things were made, take flesh in order to redeem mankind; Thou art great and immeasurable, awesome and praiseworthy, a worker of marvels. Hence in professing his Faith in Thee, the glorious martyr and bishop, Blaise, did not fear any manner of torment, but gladly accepted the palm of martyrdom. In virtue of which Thou hast bestowed on him, among other gifts, the power to heal all ailments of the throat. And now we implore Thy majesty that, overlooking our guilt, and considering only his merits and intercession, it may please Thee to bless, and sanctify, and impart Thy grace to these candles. Let all men of Faith, whose necks are touched with them, be healed of every malady of the throat, and, being restored in health and good spirits, let them return thanks to Thee in Thy holy Church, and praise Thy glorious name which is blessed forever; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Then, in placing the two candles (crossed-over in the form of an “X” or a cross) like “scissors” on the neck of the person receiving the blessing, the priest prays: “By the intercession of St. Blaise, bishop and martyr, may God deliver you from every malady of the throat, and from every possible mishap; in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
► PRACTICAL ADVICE: The feast of Candlemas is just over 1 week away. Call your local priest to see if he will be blessing candles at the start of Mass on February 2nd―if not, then call around until you find one. Tip: priests who still say the Traditional Latin Mass (also known as: “Mass in the Extraordinary Rite”) will no doubt be blessing candles on that day. Then ask if he would also kindly bless a box or several boxes of candles for you. Then call around, or look online, for suppliers of 100% beeswax candles and buy as many as you can afford (and as many as you think the priest will accept to bless―he probably won’t be happy if you turn with 50 boxes of candles!). Additionally, as an insurance for the so-called “Three Days of Darkness”, it is advised to get some 100% beeswax candles in glass jars that will be burn for at least three days―you can expect to pay anything from $22 to $46 per jar (they vary in burning time from 100 hours or 4 days, to as much as 7 days). Yes―they are like sanctuary lights that burn alongside the tabernacle, but these will be 100% beeswax. Have those jar-candles also blessed on February 2nd if possible.
As for when to use blessed candles―there are a number of occasions for which the Church recommends that blessed candles be lit. One such occasion is during times of threatening storms or earthquakes. Blessed candles are also a powerful Sacramental to use against evil spirits roaming about. We all know that the devil lives in darkness, and so the light of the blessed candle invokes the power of God to keep the devil’s influence at bay. Another occasion is at times of danger of any kind―whether of human or natural source. You can also light a blessed candle at times of family disruption by arguments, division, bad temper or even violence. Blessed candles would also be lit and placed at the bedside of both sick persons and dying persons.
Conclusion
You probably thought there would be no conclusion to this interminable article which is more like a book than an article. Apologies for the length, but no apologies for the need. We are rapidly approaching grave times for which no human solution will work. How well protected are you? Are you ready for emergencies? What is the likelihood of your survival? As Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Why do we stupidly try to solve our problems by firstly having recourse to human means, human intelligence and human skills? Our Lord said: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God!” (Luke 12:31) ― why then do we often turn to God as a last resort?
The Sacramentals of the Church are God’s gifts to men―aimed at helping us in all our troubles and adversities. Use them and don’t abuse them by neglecting them! As you sow, so shall you reap: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:8).
Article 8
Friday January 20th & Saturday January 21st, 2023
You Need to "Prep" with Sacramentals!
Friday January 20th & Saturday January 21st, 2023
You Need to "Prep" with Sacramentals!
What is a Sacramental?
Some years ago, two women were touring a desert region of southwest USA. They wandered off from their party and go lost. For two full days they tramped and tramped in search of a road or dwelling. They found none. One of them, in true womanly fashion, took out her compact, to repair the damage done by sun and dust. The sun flashed off the mirror. She got an idea. Someone might see the reflected light. They flashed the mirror in all directions. Rescuers saw the flashes, hurried to the source, and saved the two ladies. Who would have thought that such a simple thing as a mirror could save human lives? This essential piece of female equipment did not directly save their lives, but it was the means, the instrument for attracting attention and bringing help. The Sacramentals are something like that. Of themselves they do not save souls, but they are the means for securing heavenly help for those who use them properly.
A Sacramental is a sacred object, or religious action, which the Catholic Church, in imitation of the Sacraments, uses for the purpose of obtaining spiritual favors, especially through her prayer. A Sacramental is anything set apart or blessed by the Church, to excite good thoughts and to help devotion, and thus secure grace and take away venial sin, or the temporal punishment due to sin.
Let us compare and contrast the Sacraments and the Sacramentals:
(1) The Sacraments were instituted by Christ Himself; the Sacramentals were founded by Christ’s Church.
(2) The Sacraments are limited to the seven Sacraments instituted by Christ―namely, Baptism, Confirmation, Confession, Holy Eucharist, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders and Matrimony; whereas the Sacramentals are not a fixed number, but are numerous, varied and can increase in number, according to the directions of Holy Mother Church.
(3) The Sacraments produce grace directly in the soul, if there is no obstacle on the part of the recipient; the Sacramentals do not produce grace directly and of themselves―they produce grace indirectly by disposing and preparing the soul for this divine gift of grace.
(4) The words used in the Sacraments, except in Extreme Unction, positively declare that God is producing certain effects in the soul; the prayers used in the Sacramentals merely ask God to produce certain effects and to grant certain graces.
(5) The Sacraments give or increase sanctifying grace; and the Sacramentals are the means to actual graces.
We might divide the Sacramentals into prayers, pious objects, sacred signs, and religious ceremonies. Some Sacramentals are a combination―they fall into two or more classes. The Rosary, for example, is a pious object and a prayer. The Sign of the Cross is a prayer and a sign. The Crucifix, pictures and statues are pious objects. Certain ceremonies, performed in the various Sacraments, are also Sacramentals, like the extending of the hands in Confirmation; or the giving of blessed salt in Baptism; or anointing with Holy Oil in Baptism; giving the newly ordained priest a blessed candle during the ordination ceremony, etc.
How can mere material things help us on the way to Heaven? How can water, metal, wax, plaster, stone, or a piece of cloth help save our souls? You must ever remember that these objects in themselves have no power to save or help us. It would be superstitious to say they had any such power in themselves and by themselves. But things like blessed Crucifixes, holy pictures, statues, candles, etc., can and do excite spiritual thoughts and feelings in those who use them correctly. They excite the fear and love of God; they arouse trust and hope in His mercy; they awaken sorrow and joy in the Lord. Their value lies in the fact that they have been set aside by the Church for sacred purposes, by the power of the Church’s official prayer, and by the merits of Christ, preserved and distributed by His Church.
Are Sacramentals Important?
Obviously Sacramentals are not as important as the Sacraments―yet they nevertheless very important, as you will see later in this article. Our Lady reputedly will, one day, save the world through her Rosary and her Brown Scapular. This prediction occurred in Rome, in the 13th century. Three famous men of God met on a street corner in Rome. They were the friar, St. Dominic, busy gathering recruits to a new Religious Order of Preachers; the brother, St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of another religious order, the Franciscans; and St. Angelus of Jerusalem, a Caremlite, who had been invited to Rome from Mount Carmel, in Palestine, because of his fame as a preacher. At their chance meeting, by the light of the Holy Spirit each of the three men recognized each other and, in the course of their conversation (as recorded by various followers who were present), they made prophecies to each other. Saint Angelus foretold the stigmata of Saint Francis, and Saint Dominic said: “One day, Brother Angelus, to your Order of Carmel the Most Blessed Virgin Mary will give a devotion to be known as the Brown Scapular, and to my Order of Preachers she will give a devotion to be known as the Rosary. AND ONE DAY, THROUGH THE ROSARY AND THE SCAPULAR, SHE WILL SAVE THE WORLD.”
Miracles of the Brown Scapular
► In November of 1955 a plane carrying 27 passengers crashed. All died except one young lady. When this girl saw that the plane was going down, she took hold of her Scapular, and called on Mary for help. She suffered burns, her clothing was reduced to ashes, but the flames did not touch her Brown Scapular.
► In the same year of 1955, a similar miracle occurred in the Midwest. A 3rd-grader stopped in a gasoline station to put air in his bicycle tires, and at the very moment an explosion occurred. The boy’s clothing was burned off, but his Brown Scapular remained unaffected: a symbol of Mary’s protection. Today, although he still bears a few scars from the explosion, this young man has special reason to remember our Blessed Mother’s protection in time of danger.
► In May of 1957, a Carmelite priest in Germany published the unusual story of how the Scapular saved a home from fire. An entire row of homes had caught fire in Westboden, Germany. The pious inhabitants of a home in the middle of this row, seeing the fire, immediately fastened a Scapular to the main door of the house. Sparks flew over it and around it, but the house remained unharmed. Within 5 hours, 22 homes had been reduced to ashes. The one structure which stood undamaged amidst the destruction was that which had the Scapular attached to its door. The hundreds of people who came to see the place Our Lady had saved are eyewitnesses to the power of the Scapular and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
► Another Scapular miracle took place in 1845. The English ship, King of the Ocean, on its way to Australia, found itself in the middle of a hurricane not far from Cape Hope on the southern tip of South Africa. As wind and sea mercilessly lashed the ship, a Protestant minister, with his wife and children and other passengers, struggled to the deck to pray for mercy and forgiveness―as the end seemed at hand. Among the crew was a young Irishman, John McAuliffe. On seeing the urgency of the situation, he opened his shirt, took off his Brown Scapular, and, making the Sign of the Cross with it over the raging waves, tossed the Scapular into the ocean. At that very moment, the wind calmed. Only one more wave washed the deck, bringing with it the Scapular which came to rest at the young man’s feet. All the while the Protestant minister―a Mr. Fisher―had been carefully observing McAuliffe’s actions and the miraculous effect of those actions. Upon questioning the young man, he was told about the Holy Virgin and her Scapular. Mr. Fisher and his family became determined to enter the Catholic Church as soon as possible, and thereby enjoy the same protection of Our Lady’s Scapular. This they did shortly after landing in Australia.
► When the French the town of Montpellier was in a state of siege in 1622, there occurred a miracle in the sight of the entire army and under the eyes of the King of France, Louis XIII. During the attack, one of his officers, Champrond De Beauregard, received a bullet wound in the chest. The wound should have been fatal, but the bullet, after piercing the clothing, flattened out against the Scapular, without doing the least bit of harm to the officer. Astonished by the miracle, the officer told all that were around him. Those who surrounded him, witnesses to this wonder, spread it through the army from rank to rank. Eventually news of the miracle reached the monarch’s ear. Louis XIII came forward to see this wonder that had been brought to his attention. He examined the facts very carefully, and after having convinced himself with his own eyes of the reality of the wonder, he wanted to dress himself in this heavenly armor, to receive the Scapular from the hands of the Carmelites and be enrolled as one of the members of the Confraternity.
[You can read of more Brown Scapular miracles by clicking here]
Miraculous Medal Miracles
► A girl, some twenty years old, came to the hospital covered with the most repugnant scabs which the doctors had said were incurable. The nun, who cared for her wounds, one day told her that the Most Holy Virgin had the power to cure her and that, if she wanted to wear the medal and ask for a cure, she would obtain it. Knowing the doctors had given up, she answered roughly: “I do not believe in your Holy Virgin, nor do I want a medal!” The nun answered: “Very well then! In that case, keep your wounds!” Some days later, she asked for the medal and placed it around her neck, and prepared to be baptized. Shortly thereafter she left the hospital in perfect health, to the great astonishment of the doctors, who had been unanimous in considering her sickness incurable.
► An Austrian officer in the garrison at Gratz, suffered from a serious wound in the right arm. He was brought to the general hospital, that he might be more conveniently under the especial treatment of Dr. Rzehazeh, a very eminent surgeon. The latter exhausted all his skill, but in vain―and after a few weeks he saw the necessity of amputation to save the officer’s life. Learning of the doctor’s decision, the patient was deeply grieved, and his oppressed heart sought refuge in piety. He―who had never spoken of God, who had accepted the offered Medal only out of courtesy―now appeared to experience a genuine satisfaction when the Sisters told him they would implore the Blessed Virgin in his behalf. During the few days immediately preceding the operation, he felt inspired with a great confidence in his Medal, and frequently repeated the invocation engraven upon it: “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!”
The danger was now imminent, and the amputation, which must not be delayed, was to take place on the next day. One of the Sisters―seeing that the young officer’s confidence expressed itself in continual prayer―suggested that evening that he lay the medal upon his afflicted arm, and let it remain all night. The suggestion was joyfully received. Next morning she hastened to ascertain her patient’s condition, and get the Medal. He had spent a quiet night―his sufferings being less severe than usual. The Sister, while attributing his improvement to the medicine that had been prescribed, understood full well that the precious Medal had also been instrumental in procuring relief, and that Mary had looked compassionately upon him―but she did not yet realize the full extent of the blessing. The surgeon came a few hours after, and whilst awaiting his assistants, he carefully examined the wounded arm, he touched it, he probed it, and to his great astonishment, perceived that amputation was not necessary. The other doctors on arriving, confirmed his opinion of this surprising change. The officer was struck dumb with happiness, and, not until he found himself alone with the chief surgeon, did he impart to the latter, as a secret, his opinion as to the cause of this wonderful change. On leaving him, the surgeon (despite the obligation of secrecy), could not refrain from saying to the Sister: “I believe the Sisters of Charity have engaged the good God in this case.” The officer’s arm was entirely healed. A few weeks later he left the hospital, taking with him the precious Medal as a memento of gratitude and love for Mary Immaculate.
► Despite the miracles associated with the Miraculous Medal, many people don’t believe it can make such a difference. Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., was one of those people. Not long after he had been ordained, a Vincentian priest encouraged him and others to promote the Miraculous Medal―because Blessed Mother really does work miracles through it. Although Fr. Hardon ordered a free pamphlet on how to bless the medals and enroll people in the Confraternity of the Miraculous Medal, he didn’t get one for himself. But later, in 1948, when the United States priest encountered a ten-year-old boy who was in a coma after a sledding accident, he decided to see if it would help. A sister who worked at the hospital found one and a ribbon the priest could use to hang it around the boy’s neck. Even though the boy had been diagnosed with inoperable permanent brain damage, the priest read the prayer that enrolled the boy in the Confraternity of the Miraculous Medal. As soon as he finished the prayer, the boy opened his eyes and asked his mother for ice cream. It was the first time he had spoken in nearly two weeks. New x-rays showed the brain damage had disappeared, and the boy was released from the hospital after about three days. Like the boy and his family, the priest’s life and his belief in the medal were forever changed.
[You can read of more Miraculous Medal miracles by clicking here]
Rosary Miracles
► LEPANTO ― The Battle of Lepanto in 1571 was a crucial conflict between the defending Christians and the invading Ottoman Turks, one of the greatest naval battles of all time. The Christian lands around Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean were constantly getting sacked by Muslim pirates, and Ottoman warships were capturing Christian ships and enslaving vast numbers of sailors. Knowing the odds for victory were poor, Pope Saint Pius V called on the Catholic powers of Europe to unite in a crusade against the enemy threatening Christendom. After raising a crusade, he asked every non-combatant across the whole Christian world to pray the Rosary.
Even after this call to arms, the Christian fleet at Lepanto was greatly outnumbered by the Ottoman Turks. On the morning of the battle, the Christian forces all attended the Holy Sacrifice of Mass on their respective ships and received absolution. Before sailing into battle, the Christian soldiers and sailors spent several hours praying the Rosary. When they sailed to battle, the wind was against them―but then miraculously it changed and was now behind them―and now blowing against the Muslim fleet, hindering their progress and maneuvers. As the battle ensued, the Muslims were yelling, screaming, and banging anything that would make noise. In contrast, the Christians kept an ominous silence, weapons in one hand, and Rosaries in the other. Soon after, the Christians and the Muslims were immersed in a bloody battle. Don Juan of Austria valiantly led the Christians from the bridge of his flagship. The Muslims took aim at the large crucifix on the main deck of his vessel, but as the cannonball approached, the body of Our Lord miraculously turned to avoid the collision.
Muslim chroniclers of the battle also reported seeing, in the sky, a lady dressed in armor holding a child, and with a terrible gaze. As another point of interest, Admiral Andrea Doria carried a small image of Our Lady of Guadalupe into battle. This image is now venerated in the Church of San Stefano in Aveto, Italy. Terrified at the sight, the Turks began to lose control of the fleet, and the Christians pressed the attack. Thus it was that on October 7th, 1571, the Christian fleet was blessed with a miraculous victory. [read our seven-part series here]
Pope Pius V was blessed with a vision of the victory at Lepanto, and ordered public processions in thanksgiving. While in the Vatican, hundreds of miles away from battle, the good Pope is said to have suddenly stood up at the moment of victory, gone over to a window and exclaimed: “The Christian fleet is victorious!” When messengers arrived in Rome a week later to report the victory of the Christian fleet, they were quite surprised to find everyone already knew the outcome, the Holy Pontiff ordering all the bells in the city rung to announce the news. He immediately credited the victory to Our Lady, establishing October 7th as the feast of the Most Holy Rosary.
► SATANIST CONVERTED ― Bartolo Longo was born in 1841 to a devout Catholic family. During this period, there was a strong nationalistic movement in Italy and much anti-clericalism. When Bartolo grew up he decided to study law. Naples at that time was undergoing a tremendous spiritual crisis. Many of his college professors were ex-priests who had a negative view of the Catholic Church. Paganism and Satanism of all sorts were abounding. Bartolo was not immune to these influences and started to dabble in the occult, eventually embracing Satanism. He was consecrated a Satanic priest and promised his soul to a demon. To his family’s dismay, who tried their hardest to get him to convert, he preached against the Catholic Faith and presided over blasphemous rituals.
However, Satanism began to torment his mind, his family convinced him to make a good confession. His mental and physical health deteriorated and he sought help from a saintly Dominican priest, Fr. Alberto Radente, who helped lead him back to the Catholic Faith and encouraged his devotion to the Rosary. During this time, Bartolo had a miraculous conversion and, in 1870, he became a third order Dominican and chose to live a life in penance for all the terrible sins he had committed against the Church.
Nevertheless, Bartolo was still plagued with guilt about his past life, in particular making the promise of giving his soul to a demon. One day, he nearly succumbed to the sin of despair, feeling that God could never forgive the terrible sins he had committed against the Church. Doubting that God would forgive him, nearly drove him to suicide. But then he remembered a homily he had heard on the power of the Rosary. At that moment he received divine inspiration and remembered the Blessed Virgin’s promise that she would help in all their necessities those who propagate her Rosary. As he later wrote: “Falling to my knees, I exclaimed: ‘If your words are true―that he who propagates your Rosary will be saved―then I shall attain salvation, because I shall not leave this Earth without propagating your Rosary!’”
He set out to restore the dilapidated chapel at Pompeii and to promote the Rosary to whoever would listen. Pamphlets about the Rosary were distributed to help the people learn to pray this powerful devotion. He tried to find an image of Our Lady of the Rosary worthy of hanging in the chapel, but was only offered a worm-eaten painting with an image that he felt was coarse and not worthy of veneration, however he accepted it from the convent in which it was stored. As Bartolo continued his work of propagating the Rosary, the chapel’s membership grew tremendously and many miracles began to be associated with Our Lady of Pompeii. Cures and spiritual conversions occurred due to the devotions through this new shrine. The people pledged their support to have a large church built that would properly honor Our Lady of the Rosary. Bartolo spent the rest of his life promoting this prayer and built the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii, which would become Italy’s premier Rosary shrine. In 1894, Bartolo and his wife gave the church over to the care of the Vatican.
Bartolo died on October 5th, 1926. The original image, which he had found in the convent, was restored for the last time in 1965 and the pope crowned the heads of Jesus and Mary with diadems donated by the people of Pompeii. On October 26th, 1980, Bartolo Longo was beatified by John Paul II, who called him “the man of the Madonna” and the “Apostle of the Rosary.”
► ROSARY PRIEST CURED ― Praying the Rosary led to a miraculous cure for Fr. Patrick Peyton, the famous “Rosary Priest”. Fr. Patrick Peyton was born on January 9th, 1909 in County Mayo, Ireland. He was the sixth among a family of nine children. At age 19 he and his brother, Tom, emigrated to the United States. He wanted to become a priest but his family in Ireland could not financially afford the required education.
He moved in with his sister Nellie and obtained a job working as a janitor at St. Stanislaus Cathedral in Pennsylvania. With help from Monsignor Paul Kelley, Patrick was able to pursue his schooling to become a priest. He entered the seminary at the Congregation of Holy Cross in Notre Dame, Indiana in 1932.
In October, 1938, at the age of 29, he started coughing blood and doctors discovered he had advanced stages of Tuberculosis, which was incurable in those days. His sister Nellie encouraged him to ask our Holy Mother for help. Patrick consecrated himself completely to the Blessed Virgin Mary and devoted himself to praying the Rosary. To the astonishment of his doctors, he was completely and miraculously cured. The doctors discovered that the patches on his lungs had disappeared with no scientific explanation. With this miraculous cure, through the Rosary of our Holy Mother, Father Peyton vowed to Mary that he would promote the Rosary for the rest of his life.
Finally, on June 15th, 1941, Father Patrick Peyton was ordained a priest. He became one of the first evangelizers to use the electronic media to spread the word of God, the Holy Rosary and, in particular, encouraging families to regularly pray the Rosary together. Father Peyton coined the phrase: “The family that prays together, stays together.”
Father Patrick Peyton died peacefully on June 3rd, 1992 holding a Rosary in his hands. The cause for his sainthood began on June 1st, 2001.
In 1938, after he had emigrated to the United States from Ireland, he became very ill and was diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis, an incurable condition at the time. His sister suggested that he turn to Our Lady. He was one of the pioneering television evangelists who used the medium to promote the Rosary. His cause for canonization is underway.
► CANADIAN SQUADRON PROTECTED IN WORLD WAR II ― Here is an account on how the Rosary saved an entire Air Force Squadron in the Second World War. The following story was recounted to Dominican priest Fr. Gabriel Harty, by a non-Catholic devotee of the Rosary from Canada.
It was May, 1940, and we joined the Air Force in late September. We were grouped into squadrons. About thirty to fifty men made up a squadron, along with the squadron leader who gave all the orders and kept us functioning in unity. They told us that we were going overseas and would be in action right away. We eagerly awaited our new squadron leader. As an officer he would, we believed, go straight to the officers’ quarters. However, this squadron leader, Stan Fulton, in full uniform, headed for our bunk house, where he settled in with the rest of us. He threw his bag on an upper bunk. Our sqadron leader, an officer, sleeping here with us! We liked him at once and our liking and our admiration grew each day.
That first night he knelt on the floor and prayed his Rosary in silence. Astounded, we were struck dumb. When he finished, he looked at us with his friendly smile and said, “I hope you guys don’t mind a fellow saying some prayers―because where we’re going, we’re going to need them!” Next night, he repeated his prayer session. Although our group had been together for six months at least, I had never seen anyone kneel in prayer, and had no idea that any of our group was Catholic. The third night three of our companions joined Fulton in saying the Rosary. The rest of us did not understand, but we kept a respectful silence. We were weren’t slow however on the pick-up. Soon we were all answering the Hail Marys and Our Fathers. So, we ended each day in prayer. Shortly enough, we were to begin a series of night raids from England over Germany. The evening before, Fulton gave each of us a Rosary. “We shall be in some tight situations, but if you agree to keep the Rosary with you and to say it, I promise you that Our Lady will bring you all back safe.”
“Sure thing!” we replied, little thinking we would be in action for four years, often in dreadful danger. At such times, Fulton’s voice would ring through each plane, “Hail Mary…” and we would devoutly respond! We must have said hundreds of Rosaries in the skies. Ours was the only squadron that had not lost a plane or a single life. We said nothing―but we treasured our secret weapon. We did survive, too! All the squadron returned to Canada in 1945, fully convinced that Our Lady had taken care of us. So I never forget to keep my Rosary with me and say it every day although I am not a Catholic. When I change my trousers, the first thing I transfer, even before my wallet, is my Rosary.
► HIROSHIMA ― In the final stages of World War II, around 8:15 a.m. on August 6th, 1945, an American Boeing B-29 Super-fortress bomber, christened Enola Gay, dropped the first atomic bomb in history over Hiroshima in Japan. The atomic blast generated an unimaginable ground heat of 10,832°F (6,000°C) and a tremendous wind at the sonic speed of 2.7 miles (4.4 kilometers) per second. Everything within a 1.2 mile radius of the hypocenter was annihilated, instantly killing 140,000 people. Concrete buildings collapsed into pieces and broken glass was thrown through the air as far as 10 miles away. The atomic radiation generated by the bomb was so unbelievably strong, that many persons outside of the range, who were exposed to it, lost all bodily functions, their cells underwent apoptosis – a kind of cellular suicide, and died within days. Between the blast itself, the resulting fires throughout the city and the radiation burns, some estimate that 200,000 citizens of Hiroshima lost their lives.
Yet, in the midst of burned bodies, charred skeletons, and structural damage, just eight blocks from ground zero (around half-a-mile), a two storey Catholic presbytery miraculously remained intact. When an investigation was made, it was discovered that there survived a community of eight German Jesuit priests who were all found unscathed, with only a few minor injuries. Among the survivors were Jesuit priests named Hugo Lassalle, Hubert Schiffer, Wilhelm Kleinsorge, Paul Ruge and Hubert Cieslik.
Father Hubert Schiffer who headed the community was 30 years old when the atomic bomb exploded at Hiroshima and lived another 33 years in good health to tell of the miracle. The same can be said of the other seven priests of the community. Aside from some slight surface abrasions or scratches, they all lived out their days in full health with no radiation sickness, no loss of hearing, or any other visible long term defects, or cancer from radiation. Father Schiffer was thoroughly examined and questioned by more than 200 scientists who were unable to explain how he and his companions had survived the atomic blast. He attributed the miracle to the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He declared: “I was in the middle of the atomic explosion and I am still here alive and well. I was not struck down by its destruction.” Furthermore, for several years, hundreds of experts and investigators continued to study and investigate the scientific reasons as to why the presbytery was not affected, and, when asked, Father Schiffer remarked each time: “We believe that we survived because we were living the Message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that home.”
To put into proper scientific perspective just how bewildering this survival tale is, consider the expert testimony of Dr. Stephen Rinehart, a nuclear physicist with the U.S. Department of Defense. He said: “Their residence should have been utterly destroyed (with a temperature of at least 2,000 Fahrenheit and air blast pressures of 100 pounds per square inch (psi). Unreinforced masonry, or brick walls (representative of commercial construction), are destroyed at pressures of 3 pounds per square inch (3 psi), which will also cause car damage and burst windows. At 10 psi, a human will experience severe lung and heart damage, burst eardrums and at 20 psi your limbs can be blown off. Your head will be blown off by 40 psi and no residential or unreinforced commercial construction would be left standing. At 80 psi even reinforced concrete is heavily damaged and no human would be alive because your skull would be crushed. All the cotton clothes would be on fire at 350 F (probably at 275 F) and your lungs would be inoperative within a minute breathing air (even for a few seconds) at these temperatures.”
The expected outcome described by this expert, in fact, perfectly describes what occurred in the area immediately surrounding the Jesuit rectory. One of the survivors priests said years later, in his recollection of the event, that after the nuclear blast occurred, he had opened his eyes and found himself laying on the ground. He looked around and there was NOTHING in any direction: the railroad station and buildings in all directions were leveled to the ground. The only physical harm to himself was that he could feel a few pieces of glass in the back of his neck. As far as he could tell, there was nothing else physically wrong. There are no physical laws to explain why the Jesuits were untouched in the Hiroshima air blast. All who were at this range from the epicenter should have received enough radiation to be dead within at most a matter of minutes if nothing else happened to them. There is no known way to design a uranium-235 atomic bomb, which could leave such a large discrete area intact while destroying everything around it immediately outside the fireball. From a scientific viewpoint, what happened to those Jesuits at Hiroshima still defies all human logic from the laws of physics as understood today (or at any time in the future). It must be concluded that some other external force was present whose power and/or capability to transform energy and matter as it relates to humans is beyond current comprehension. As Fr. Hubert Schiffer, one of Hiroshima priest survivors, said: “Prayer is more powerful than the atom bomb!”
► AUSTRIA FREED FROM COMMUNIST INVADERS ― The key player here is Father Petrus Pavlicek, who was born in Austria on January 6th, 1902. As a young boy, he felt called to the religious life, but grew indifferent in later years―eventually falling away from the Faith by the age of 19 and led a wild life. In 1935, during a grave illness, he received the grace of conversion resolving once again to embrace his vocation. On December 14th, 1941, he was ordained a priest of the Capuchin Order. In 1942, on May 13th, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, 1942, he was arrested by the German Gestapo for a supposed military-forces draft evasion and was brought to a court martial. The process ended with an acquittal ― but he was nevertheless forcefully conscripted into the German Army. On October 7th, the feast of the Holy Rosary, he was sent to the Western Front as a paramedic. On August 15th, 1944, the feast of the Assumption, he was captured by Americans and became a prisoner of war. It was during imprisonment that he first learned about Our Lady’s apparitions and messages at Fatima. Released on July 16th, 1945, the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, he went to Austria as a missionary. In 1946, on February 2nd― the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the Purification of Our Lady ― he went on pilgrimage to principal Marian shrine of Mariazell in Austria, to thank Mary for her protection in gratitude for the fortunate return home from the Second World War. It was at the shrine that he heard an interior voice, which said to him: “Do, as I say, and there will be peace!” These words reminded him of the message of Fatima and he founded, in February 1947, the Crusade of Reparation of the Holy Rosary for Peace in the World.
It was right after the Second World War (1939-1945) that much of Austria came under Communist control. After the war, Austria was divided up by the Allies―America, France, the United Kingdom, and Russia. The eastern half of Austria was handed over to be controlled by the Russian Communists. In 1947, with his country at the mercy of atheistic Soviet Marxism, Fr. Pavlicek began gathering people in villages, towns and cities across Soviet controlled Austria on the 13th of each month to pray the Rosary together and in public and he called it the Rosary Crusade. From 1947 until 1955, Fr. Pavlicek conducted public Rosary processions and rallies on the 13th of each month. Many people gathered at first, but often they could not sustain their spiritual practices, so the Rosary Crusade ebbed and flowed ― but Fr. Pavlicek persevered in his confidence in Our Lady. From September of 1948, every month in the Franciscan church of Vienna, there took place ceremonies for peace. From 1949, Fr. Pavlicek published a periodical, which is named “Betendes Gottesvolk” today. From 1950 to 1955, he organized, in the month of September, the yearly procession of the Holy Name of Mary (feast day September 12th) in the Vienna Ring Road. By 1955, eight years later, despite the initial resistance of Austria’s Catholic Church, Fr. Pavlicek’s “Rosary Atonement Crusade”, more than a half million Austrians (out of a 1955 Austrian population of around 7 million―therefore 1 out of 14 persons) had pledged to pray the Rosary every day, begging for the conversion of sinners, peace in the world and freedom in Austria. Tens of thousands of Catholics, both clergy and laity, and even politicians, were seen marching in the streets, praying the Rosary and bearing votive candles for the intention of peace in the world.
Throughout this time the politicians conducted more than 260 peace conferences in the effort to remove the Soviets from power. But these efforts only ended with the Russians tightening their iron grip on Austria. Man alone does not have the power to change the course of history or bring peace. This is a job for the Queen of Peace. But she asks our cooperation in praying the daily Rosary. The Cold War intensified, and Communism refined its methods of religious persecution in Austria. It seemed that God wanted to test the Faith of those who had prayed so zealously for their country’s freedom. Their Faith having been sufficiently tested, the grace was finally given. On March 24th, 1955, the eve of the feast of the Annunciation, the Soviet governors invited the Austrians to a conference. Believing that his nation’s future would be sealed in Moscow, Prime Minister Raab entreated Father Pavlicek before his departure: “Please pray ― and ask your people to pray harder than ever!” To the world’s surprise, the Soviets signed the Austrian State Treaty guaranteeing the independence of Austria, by which they and the Allied Powers ended their post-war occupation of Austria, and stated they would withdraw their troops from Austria in just three months. On May 15th, during the Month of Mary, the Soviets signed a treaty. And on October 26th, 1955, very fittingly and appropriately during the month of the Holy Rosary, the last Russian soldier left the occupied eastern sector of Austria.
Basically, it was a large spiritual army of lay people, led by a priest, that had peacefully overcome the might of Communist Russia. That is the power of the Holy Rosary! What was achieved back then, can also be achieved today! However, it took almost 10% of the population to pray the Rosary and they had to pray and wait for over seven years before their prayers were answered and granted! Do we have the same tenacity and perseverance today?
► COMMUNISTS DRIVEN OUT IN BRAZIL ― In the late 1950s and start of the 1960s, the world was in a state of fear and confusion. Russia was trying to make headway in converting as many countries as possible to Communism under their rule. Impoverished nations with corrupt governments in turmoil were easy targets. Cuba had just fallen to the Soviets in 1960, and Brazil was another planned conquest. The president of Brazil, Joao Goulart, began to embrace Communism and began pushing for a Communist form of government. He started to install known Communists into high governmental positions, while at the same time dispatching representatives to convince the citizens that Communism was good for the country.
With Catholicism still strong in the country, Cardinal de Barros Camara told people through a weekly radio address that by following the directives of Our Lady of Fatima regarding prayer and penance, Brazil could overthrow the Communist threat. In a speech, President Goulart mocked the Rosary, saying that governmental control, not reciting the prayers of the Rosary, would save the economy from collapse. During this time, he was lining his pockets with dollars given to Brazil in foreign aid from the U.S. and other countries.
A fifty-nine-year-old retired Brazilian woman schoolteacher, named Dona Amelia Bastos, was very concerned about this imminent danger. Her husband belonged to a group of men called the Anti-Reds who were opposed to Communism in Brazil. One night Dona Amelia listened as the Anti-Reds discussed the threat facing their beloved country. She decided that she too could do something about it. Of her decision, she said: “I suddenly decided that politics had become too important to be left entirely to the men. Moreover, who has more at stake in what’s happening to our country than we women?”
She immediately formed a group called Campaign of Women for Democracy (CAMDE) and started to recruit as many people as possible to pray the Rosary in large groups to thwart the plan for Communist takeover. In a town called Belo Horizonte a group of 20,000 women, reciting the Rosary aloud, broke up a pro-Communist rally. The success of this peaceful protest fed the impetus for the Catholic women to do more.
With the help of Heaven and the strong influence of Archbishop Cardinal de Barros Camara, Dona Amelia recruited an amazing number of 600,000 women who marched in Sao Paulo to pray the Rosary for peace. They called their protest, “March of the Family with God Toward Freedom” under the declaration, “Mother of God, preserve us from the fate and suffering of the martyred women of Cuba, Poland, Hungary, and other enslaved nations.” Leone Brizola, a Communist high government official, left in a rage when his planned speech was thwarted by the rattling of 3,000 Rosaries and the murmuring of the prayers in the assembly hall. Not one life was lost in this most amazing peaceful anti-Communist protest, which is described by many witnesses as: “One of the most moving demonstrations in Brazilian History.” Many more Rosary rallies were held in major cities in spite of threats of military action against the crusading women. Under this mounting pressure, on April 1st, 1964 President Goulart fled the country along with many members of the government.
► CORRUPT GOVERNMENT OVERTHROWN ― In the Philippines, the corrupt Marcos regime was defeated entirely through peaceful means in 1986. While their leaders were living in luxury, many of the Philippine people were poor and some were starving. To this day people make jokes about Imelda Marcos’s shoes because she had 3,000 pairs, along with 15 mink coats, 1,000 purses, and 508 fancy gowns. The people sought to elect a new leader―Benigno Aquino. He was assassinated right in front of his wife and family as he stepped off a plane to run for office in Manila. After this brutal murder, Ninoy’s wife Corazon “Cory” Aquino became active in protests against the Marcos regime and one million people signed a petition for his widow, Corazon Aquino, to run for presidency in her assassinated husband’s place. She fulfilled the people’s wishes.
President Marcos called a snap election day on February 7th, 1986 which turned out to be a bloody, violent, and fraud-filled event. President Marcos―declared the winner by his corrupt government―took control of the media and sent out the military to quell any protests. Cardinal Sin of the Archdiocese of Manila urged a peaceful protest and the Catholic people came out in droves. They surrounded the military tanks and armed soldiers, prayed the Rosary, and sang religious hymns and protest songs. Holy Masses and prayer vigils took place in churches. This prayerful protest continued for almost a week when unexpectedly, the soldiers stepped away from their tanks, put down their guns, and joined the peaceful crowd.
President Marcos fled the country on February 26th, 1986 and the whole nation took to the streets in celebration. Prayers of thanksgiving and holy masses were held in gratitude to God. As the new President, Cory Aquino made sweeping changes and the Philippines became a free and democratic country. To this day people are in awe that the evil, corrupt regime of Marcos was completely overturned through peaceful means.
In one account of the events, Sister Ocariza and 16 other nuns, standing in pairs, led the Rosary as soldiers escorted rolling military tanks with their turrets trained on the sisters. The nun said staring down those tanks has been the scariest experience of her life. “I said, ‘Lord forgive me for all my sins and even the offenses of our Filipino people.’ If really the tanks would crush us, at least the two of us … kill us sisters, not the people because we (did not) want bloodshed. I love my country.” But the tanks stopped, and the soldiers joined the protesters reciting the Rosary, that was really a miracle! Sister Ocariza said that God peacefully delivered them from the hands of a dictator and saved the country from what would have ultimately provoked a violent reaction. She said she looked back to that time as a source of courage and a reminder to stand for what is right always. The Chicago Tribune reported: “Instead of guns, there were prayers; instead of bloodshed, celebrations; instead of casualties, converts in, guns fell to Rosaries in Philippine Revolution.”
► SAVED FROM MURDER ― Ted Bundy was one of the worst serial killers in history. On the night of January 15th, 1978, at 3:00 am, Ted Bundy entered the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University and murdered two girls before heading off to search for more victims. He entered a third room, but dropped his bat and fled when he saw a girl clutching a Rosary in her hands.
Later the girl told authorities that before she left for college she had promised her worried grandmother that she would pray the Rosary every night for protection, even if she fell asleep in the process. This is what she had done that night, and she was still holding the Rosary when the murderer entered her room.
Bundy later confessed to over thirty murders. When Bundy was awaiting his execution, he asked for a priest. The priest, Fr. Esper, asked him what happened that night. Bundy said he intended to murder the girl, but “some mysterious power prevented him.”
Father Joseph M. Esper says in his book With Mary to Jesus: “Ironically, when Ted Bundy was on death row, awaiting execution for his crimes, he asked Monsignor Kerr to serve as a spiritual counselor, and the priest took the opportunity to ask about that terrible night. Bundy explained that when he entered the girl’s room, he had fully intended on murdering her; some mysterious power was preventing him.”
Father Esper adds: “And not only does it (the Rosary) aid our own spiritual growth ― it also undermines the kingdom of Satan.” The famous Vatican exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth testified: “One day a colleague of mine heard the devil say during an exorcism, ‘Every Hail Mary is like a blow on my head. If Christians knew how powerful the Rosary was, it would be my end!’”
► ROSARY IN AFRICA ― There are many online testimonials recounting miraculous escapes from danger and death by virtue of fidelity to the Rosary. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Immaculée Ilibagiza, and seven other women, spent ninety-one days hidden in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor’s house. Immaculée believed that praying the Rosary spared her from being slaughtered during the genocide, in which her family and more than a million other innocent people were brutally murdered. As well as physical protection, she also recounts the amazing spiritual benefits brought to her by the prayer during this time.
Another instance is that of Father Valentine Ezeagu, who was driving through Imo state in Nigeria, on December 15th, 2020, on the way to his father’s funeral, when he was ambushed by four armed men. The priest was unexpectedly freed thirty-six hours later. Reporting his release to his religious superior, Father Ezeagu said the abductors had let him go after seeing him pray the Rosary. Speaking to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Father George Okorie, Superior General of the Congregation of the Sons of Mary, Mother of Mercy, said: “When I spoke to Father Valentine, he told me that seeing him praying the Rosary made his abductors confused … They started having a guilty conscience. It made them realize that, since he was wearing a cassock, they had not got the right person, so they gave him some food and released him.”
► THE ROSARY CAN EVEN SAVE YOU! As you no doubt know―very few souls get to Heaven. Will you be one of the few? No matter how bad you are or have been, the Rosary can save you too! This is what St. Louis de Montfort says on the matter in his book The Secret of the Rosary―take it to heart:
“If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins ‘you shall receive a never‑fading crown of glory’ (1 Peter 5:4). Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in Hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and save your soul, if — and mark well what I say — if you say the Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins. In this book there are several stories of great sinners who were converted through the power of the Rosary. Please read and meditate upon them. Never will anyone be able to understand the marvelous riches of sanctification which are contained in the prayers and mysteries of the Holy Rosary. It gradually brings us a perfect knowledge of Jesus Christ; it purifies our souls from sin; it gives us victory over all our enemies; it makes the practice of virtue easy; it sets us on fire with the love of Our Lord; it enriches us with graces and merits; it supplies us with what is needed to pay all our debts to God and to our fellow‑men, and, finally, it obtains all kinds of graces from God.
“When St. Dominic was preaching the Rosary near Carcassone, an man was brought to him who was possessed by the devil. The Saint exorcised him in the presence of a great crowd of people. The devils, who were in possession of this wretched man were forced to answer St. Dominic’s questions in spite of themselves. They said: ‘This Mother of Jesus is most powerful in saving her servants from falling into Hell! She is like the sun which destroys the darkness of our wiles and subtlety! It is she who uncovers our hidden plots, breaks our snares, and makes our temptations useless and ineffective! We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us! Many Christians who call on her at the hour of death and who really ought to be damned according to our ordinary standards are saved by her intercession! Now that we are forced to speak, we must also tell you that nobody who perseveres in saying the Rosary will be damned, because she obtains for her servants the grace of true contrition for their sins by which they obtain pardon and mercy!’
“Are you in the miserable state of sin? Then call on Mary! … Are you groping in the darkness of ignorance and error? Go to Mary! … Are you in sorrow? Turn to Mary! … Have you lost the state of grace? The Blessed Virgin will give you some of her graces! … Are you alone, having lost God’s protection? Pray to Mary! … Have you become an outcast and been accursed by God? Our Lady will bless you! … Do you hunger for the bread of grace and the bread of life? Draw near to her!
“Catholics who bear the mark of God’s reprobation think but little of the Rosary. They either neglect to say it or only say it quickly and in a lukewarm manner. It is a good thing to think over how we should pray if we want to please God and become more holy. To say the Holy Rosary with advantage one must be in a state of grace or at least be fully determined to give up sin, for all our theology teaches us that good works and prayers are dead works if they are done in a state of mortal sin.
“Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin. The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!
“In order to pray well, it is not enough to give expression to our petitions by means of that most excellent of all prayers, the Rosary, but we must also pray with great attention, for God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin. How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? How can we expect him to be pleased if, while in the presence of His tremendous majesty, we give in to distractions, like a child running after a butterfly? People who do that forfeit God’s blessing, which is changed into a curse for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: ‘Cursed be the one who does God’s work negligently’ (Jeremias 48:10). Of course, you cannot say your Rosary without having a few involuntary distractions; it is even difficult to say a Hail Mary without your imagination troubling you a little, for it is never still; but you can say it without voluntary [deliberate] distractions.”
Can You See? Have Your Realized?
Hopefully―if you are still awake―you can see the immense power of Sacramentals. The above listed “tip-of-the-iceberg” of miracles that Sacramentals have produced―and it really is merely the tip-of-the-iceberg of millions of miracles both great and small―has hopefully enkindled in you a similar hope for such miracles in the future to protect and benefit you and your nearest and dearest. God is good! As Our Lady of La Salette said―speaking of our current “End Times” which Our Lady of Fatima affirmed we have entered: “God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other! Yet God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will!” These “End Times” will also be “Sacramental Times” ― which will contribute to the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Our Lady has repeatedly and forcefully spoken of and placed before our eyes the purpose, usefulness and power of Sacramentals. The Rosary in particular and Prayer in general are Sacramentals―and Our Lady clearly stated: “The only weapons that will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … With the Rosary, pray for the pope, the bishops, and the pries!” (Akita). At Fatima, it was the same message: “Pray the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war!” (May 1917) … “Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and the end of the war … (June 1917) … “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you! … If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted!” (July 1917) … “Continue to say the Rosary every day! … Pray, pray very much!” (August 1917) … “Continue to pray the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war!” (September 1917) … “I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (October 1917).
The Brown Scapular―and all blessed Scapulars―are Sacramentals. It is to be noted and not forgotten that, at her final apparition at Fatima, on October 13th, 1917, Our Lady appeared as Our Lady of Mount Carmel and held out a Brown Scapular to the people. Sister Lucia said that the Blessed Mother wants everyone to wear it: “Our Lady never looked so beautiful as when she appeared in Her Carmelite habit! Our Lady held the Scapular in her hands because she wants us all to wear it. Our Lady wants everyone to wear it for it is the sign of consecration to her Immaculate Heart. The Scapular and the Rosary are inseparable!”
There will come a time―and it has already begun―when priests will be scarcer and scarcer. Therefore the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Holy Eucharist, Confession, Extreme Unction and the other Sacraments will become scarcer and scarcer. Blessings will be scarcer because there will no priests to bless things. In a family, when the husband dies, then the wife has to take over many if not all of his duties and perform them the best that she can. Likewise, when the Sacraments (the husband) become scarce and rare, then the Sacramentals (the wife) will have to do what they can to make up for the missing Sacraments.
Now is the Time! Now is the Hour! Where are Your Sacramentals?
In light of all this, and in light of what is currently happening in our world of darkness, it seems that now is the time and now is the hour to “prep” our Sacramentals and stock-up on Sacramentals. Yes―God can perform miracles without using anybody or anything―but, as the Church teaches: “God does not do the extraordinary when the ordinary suffices!” Our Lady has repeatedly brought and placed Sacramentals before our blind eyes! Why? To instruct of their existence and power and to encourage us to use them.
In 1830, at the Rue de Bac in Paris, France, Our Lady appeared to St. Catherine Labouré and showed her the design for the “Miraculous Medal” (the Medal of the Immaculate Conception is its proper name)―which is, of course, a Sacramental―stating that she wanted this medal to be made and worn by everyone, adding: “Have a Medal struck after this model. All who wear it will receive great graces; they should wear it around the neck. Graces will abound for persons who wear it with confidence.”
In 1846, at La Salette in France, Our Lady insisted upon another Sacramental―which is prayer. Of course, she also insisted upon prayer at all her other apparitions.
In 1858, at Lourdes, Our Lady placed the focus on water―not only the miraculous Holy Water of Lourdes, but also the Holy Water in general, which is a Sacramental of the Church.
In 1917, at Fatima in Portugal, the focus was primarily on the Sacramental of the Holy Rosary, and secondarily upon the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
Penances―such as abstinence and fasting―are also Sacramentals, and Our Lady has insisted on penance and sacrifice at all of her apparitions.
Other commonly used Sacramentals are blessed oil, blessed candles, various approved scapulars, and many approved medals, such as the St. Benedict Medal, which is the oldest and most highly indulgenced of all Sacramental objects. But the term covers much more. Apart from the Sacraments and the public prayer of the Church (divine office and five litanies), blessings of ashes and palms, blessed crucifixes, pictures and statues, bells, cords, blessed foods, and even the Confiteors and Creeds and the giving of alms―all these and more besides can all be considered as Sacramentals. Even the exorcisms of the Church are Sacramentals.
Are we actively using and profiting from these Sacramentals? God, through His Church, has placed before us a wonderful wealth of spiritual riches and powers through these Sacramentals! What an insult to God it would be to refuse, misuse or abuse these powerful Sacramentals! Yet they are refused, misused and abused! Part of the reason is our ignorance about them―for, as the philosophical rule states: “You cannot love what you do not know!” St. Thérèse of Lisieux lamented that Jesus is so little loved because He is so little known―the same can be said of the Sacramentals. Along the same lines you could say: “You will not use something if you do not know how it works!” That is why, in the coming weeks, we will take a closer look at the Sacramentals and explain their purpose, power and effect―for we are fast approaching a time when we will need miracles like those described above. That is why the examples given above were deliberately taken from instances of national danger, personal danger, sickness and disease, etc. ― for we most certainly will increasingly find ourselves faced with those same dangers some time soon.
Some years ago, two women were touring a desert region of southwest USA. They wandered off from their party and go lost. For two full days they tramped and tramped in search of a road or dwelling. They found none. One of them, in true womanly fashion, took out her compact, to repair the damage done by sun and dust. The sun flashed off the mirror. She got an idea. Someone might see the reflected light. They flashed the mirror in all directions. Rescuers saw the flashes, hurried to the source, and saved the two ladies. Who would have thought that such a simple thing as a mirror could save human lives? This essential piece of female equipment did not directly save their lives, but it was the means, the instrument for attracting attention and bringing help. The Sacramentals are something like that. Of themselves they do not save souls, but they are the means for securing heavenly help for those who use them properly.
A Sacramental is a sacred object, or religious action, which the Catholic Church, in imitation of the Sacraments, uses for the purpose of obtaining spiritual favors, especially through her prayer. A Sacramental is anything set apart or blessed by the Church, to excite good thoughts and to help devotion, and thus secure grace and take away venial sin, or the temporal punishment due to sin.
Let us compare and contrast the Sacraments and the Sacramentals:
(1) The Sacraments were instituted by Christ Himself; the Sacramentals were founded by Christ’s Church.
(2) The Sacraments are limited to the seven Sacraments instituted by Christ―namely, Baptism, Confirmation, Confession, Holy Eucharist, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders and Matrimony; whereas the Sacramentals are not a fixed number, but are numerous, varied and can increase in number, according to the directions of Holy Mother Church.
(3) The Sacraments produce grace directly in the soul, if there is no obstacle on the part of the recipient; the Sacramentals do not produce grace directly and of themselves―they produce grace indirectly by disposing and preparing the soul for this divine gift of grace.
(4) The words used in the Sacraments, except in Extreme Unction, positively declare that God is producing certain effects in the soul; the prayers used in the Sacramentals merely ask God to produce certain effects and to grant certain graces.
(5) The Sacraments give or increase sanctifying grace; and the Sacramentals are the means to actual graces.
We might divide the Sacramentals into prayers, pious objects, sacred signs, and religious ceremonies. Some Sacramentals are a combination―they fall into two or more classes. The Rosary, for example, is a pious object and a prayer. The Sign of the Cross is a prayer and a sign. The Crucifix, pictures and statues are pious objects. Certain ceremonies, performed in the various Sacraments, are also Sacramentals, like the extending of the hands in Confirmation; or the giving of blessed salt in Baptism; or anointing with Holy Oil in Baptism; giving the newly ordained priest a blessed candle during the ordination ceremony, etc.
How can mere material things help us on the way to Heaven? How can water, metal, wax, plaster, stone, or a piece of cloth help save our souls? You must ever remember that these objects in themselves have no power to save or help us. It would be superstitious to say they had any such power in themselves and by themselves. But things like blessed Crucifixes, holy pictures, statues, candles, etc., can and do excite spiritual thoughts and feelings in those who use them correctly. They excite the fear and love of God; they arouse trust and hope in His mercy; they awaken sorrow and joy in the Lord. Their value lies in the fact that they have been set aside by the Church for sacred purposes, by the power of the Church’s official prayer, and by the merits of Christ, preserved and distributed by His Church.
Are Sacramentals Important?
Obviously Sacramentals are not as important as the Sacraments―yet they nevertheless very important, as you will see later in this article. Our Lady reputedly will, one day, save the world through her Rosary and her Brown Scapular. This prediction occurred in Rome, in the 13th century. Three famous men of God met on a street corner in Rome. They were the friar, St. Dominic, busy gathering recruits to a new Religious Order of Preachers; the brother, St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of another religious order, the Franciscans; and St. Angelus of Jerusalem, a Caremlite, who had been invited to Rome from Mount Carmel, in Palestine, because of his fame as a preacher. At their chance meeting, by the light of the Holy Spirit each of the three men recognized each other and, in the course of their conversation (as recorded by various followers who were present), they made prophecies to each other. Saint Angelus foretold the stigmata of Saint Francis, and Saint Dominic said: “One day, Brother Angelus, to your Order of Carmel the Most Blessed Virgin Mary will give a devotion to be known as the Brown Scapular, and to my Order of Preachers she will give a devotion to be known as the Rosary. AND ONE DAY, THROUGH THE ROSARY AND THE SCAPULAR, SHE WILL SAVE THE WORLD.”
Miracles of the Brown Scapular
► In November of 1955 a plane carrying 27 passengers crashed. All died except one young lady. When this girl saw that the plane was going down, she took hold of her Scapular, and called on Mary for help. She suffered burns, her clothing was reduced to ashes, but the flames did not touch her Brown Scapular.
► In the same year of 1955, a similar miracle occurred in the Midwest. A 3rd-grader stopped in a gasoline station to put air in his bicycle tires, and at the very moment an explosion occurred. The boy’s clothing was burned off, but his Brown Scapular remained unaffected: a symbol of Mary’s protection. Today, although he still bears a few scars from the explosion, this young man has special reason to remember our Blessed Mother’s protection in time of danger.
► In May of 1957, a Carmelite priest in Germany published the unusual story of how the Scapular saved a home from fire. An entire row of homes had caught fire in Westboden, Germany. The pious inhabitants of a home in the middle of this row, seeing the fire, immediately fastened a Scapular to the main door of the house. Sparks flew over it and around it, but the house remained unharmed. Within 5 hours, 22 homes had been reduced to ashes. The one structure which stood undamaged amidst the destruction was that which had the Scapular attached to its door. The hundreds of people who came to see the place Our Lady had saved are eyewitnesses to the power of the Scapular and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
► Another Scapular miracle took place in 1845. The English ship, King of the Ocean, on its way to Australia, found itself in the middle of a hurricane not far from Cape Hope on the southern tip of South Africa. As wind and sea mercilessly lashed the ship, a Protestant minister, with his wife and children and other passengers, struggled to the deck to pray for mercy and forgiveness―as the end seemed at hand. Among the crew was a young Irishman, John McAuliffe. On seeing the urgency of the situation, he opened his shirt, took off his Brown Scapular, and, making the Sign of the Cross with it over the raging waves, tossed the Scapular into the ocean. At that very moment, the wind calmed. Only one more wave washed the deck, bringing with it the Scapular which came to rest at the young man’s feet. All the while the Protestant minister―a Mr. Fisher―had been carefully observing McAuliffe’s actions and the miraculous effect of those actions. Upon questioning the young man, he was told about the Holy Virgin and her Scapular. Mr. Fisher and his family became determined to enter the Catholic Church as soon as possible, and thereby enjoy the same protection of Our Lady’s Scapular. This they did shortly after landing in Australia.
► When the French the town of Montpellier was in a state of siege in 1622, there occurred a miracle in the sight of the entire army and under the eyes of the King of France, Louis XIII. During the attack, one of his officers, Champrond De Beauregard, received a bullet wound in the chest. The wound should have been fatal, but the bullet, after piercing the clothing, flattened out against the Scapular, without doing the least bit of harm to the officer. Astonished by the miracle, the officer told all that were around him. Those who surrounded him, witnesses to this wonder, spread it through the army from rank to rank. Eventually news of the miracle reached the monarch’s ear. Louis XIII came forward to see this wonder that had been brought to his attention. He examined the facts very carefully, and after having convinced himself with his own eyes of the reality of the wonder, he wanted to dress himself in this heavenly armor, to receive the Scapular from the hands of the Carmelites and be enrolled as one of the members of the Confraternity.
[You can read of more Brown Scapular miracles by clicking here]
Miraculous Medal Miracles
► A girl, some twenty years old, came to the hospital covered with the most repugnant scabs which the doctors had said were incurable. The nun, who cared for her wounds, one day told her that the Most Holy Virgin had the power to cure her and that, if she wanted to wear the medal and ask for a cure, she would obtain it. Knowing the doctors had given up, she answered roughly: “I do not believe in your Holy Virgin, nor do I want a medal!” The nun answered: “Very well then! In that case, keep your wounds!” Some days later, she asked for the medal and placed it around her neck, and prepared to be baptized. Shortly thereafter she left the hospital in perfect health, to the great astonishment of the doctors, who had been unanimous in considering her sickness incurable.
► An Austrian officer in the garrison at Gratz, suffered from a serious wound in the right arm. He was brought to the general hospital, that he might be more conveniently under the especial treatment of Dr. Rzehazeh, a very eminent surgeon. The latter exhausted all his skill, but in vain―and after a few weeks he saw the necessity of amputation to save the officer’s life. Learning of the doctor’s decision, the patient was deeply grieved, and his oppressed heart sought refuge in piety. He―who had never spoken of God, who had accepted the offered Medal only out of courtesy―now appeared to experience a genuine satisfaction when the Sisters told him they would implore the Blessed Virgin in his behalf. During the few days immediately preceding the operation, he felt inspired with a great confidence in his Medal, and frequently repeated the invocation engraven upon it: “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!”
The danger was now imminent, and the amputation, which must not be delayed, was to take place on the next day. One of the Sisters―seeing that the young officer’s confidence expressed itself in continual prayer―suggested that evening that he lay the medal upon his afflicted arm, and let it remain all night. The suggestion was joyfully received. Next morning she hastened to ascertain her patient’s condition, and get the Medal. He had spent a quiet night―his sufferings being less severe than usual. The Sister, while attributing his improvement to the medicine that had been prescribed, understood full well that the precious Medal had also been instrumental in procuring relief, and that Mary had looked compassionately upon him―but she did not yet realize the full extent of the blessing. The surgeon came a few hours after, and whilst awaiting his assistants, he carefully examined the wounded arm, he touched it, he probed it, and to his great astonishment, perceived that amputation was not necessary. The other doctors on arriving, confirmed his opinion of this surprising change. The officer was struck dumb with happiness, and, not until he found himself alone with the chief surgeon, did he impart to the latter, as a secret, his opinion as to the cause of this wonderful change. On leaving him, the surgeon (despite the obligation of secrecy), could not refrain from saying to the Sister: “I believe the Sisters of Charity have engaged the good God in this case.” The officer’s arm was entirely healed. A few weeks later he left the hospital, taking with him the precious Medal as a memento of gratitude and love for Mary Immaculate.
► Despite the miracles associated with the Miraculous Medal, many people don’t believe it can make such a difference. Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., was one of those people. Not long after he had been ordained, a Vincentian priest encouraged him and others to promote the Miraculous Medal―because Blessed Mother really does work miracles through it. Although Fr. Hardon ordered a free pamphlet on how to bless the medals and enroll people in the Confraternity of the Miraculous Medal, he didn’t get one for himself. But later, in 1948, when the United States priest encountered a ten-year-old boy who was in a coma after a sledding accident, he decided to see if it would help. A sister who worked at the hospital found one and a ribbon the priest could use to hang it around the boy’s neck. Even though the boy had been diagnosed with inoperable permanent brain damage, the priest read the prayer that enrolled the boy in the Confraternity of the Miraculous Medal. As soon as he finished the prayer, the boy opened his eyes and asked his mother for ice cream. It was the first time he had spoken in nearly two weeks. New x-rays showed the brain damage had disappeared, and the boy was released from the hospital after about three days. Like the boy and his family, the priest’s life and his belief in the medal were forever changed.
[You can read of more Miraculous Medal miracles by clicking here]
Rosary Miracles
► LEPANTO ― The Battle of Lepanto in 1571 was a crucial conflict between the defending Christians and the invading Ottoman Turks, one of the greatest naval battles of all time. The Christian lands around Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean were constantly getting sacked by Muslim pirates, and Ottoman warships were capturing Christian ships and enslaving vast numbers of sailors. Knowing the odds for victory were poor, Pope Saint Pius V called on the Catholic powers of Europe to unite in a crusade against the enemy threatening Christendom. After raising a crusade, he asked every non-combatant across the whole Christian world to pray the Rosary.
Even after this call to arms, the Christian fleet at Lepanto was greatly outnumbered by the Ottoman Turks. On the morning of the battle, the Christian forces all attended the Holy Sacrifice of Mass on their respective ships and received absolution. Before sailing into battle, the Christian soldiers and sailors spent several hours praying the Rosary. When they sailed to battle, the wind was against them―but then miraculously it changed and was now behind them―and now blowing against the Muslim fleet, hindering their progress and maneuvers. As the battle ensued, the Muslims were yelling, screaming, and banging anything that would make noise. In contrast, the Christians kept an ominous silence, weapons in one hand, and Rosaries in the other. Soon after, the Christians and the Muslims were immersed in a bloody battle. Don Juan of Austria valiantly led the Christians from the bridge of his flagship. The Muslims took aim at the large crucifix on the main deck of his vessel, but as the cannonball approached, the body of Our Lord miraculously turned to avoid the collision.
Muslim chroniclers of the battle also reported seeing, in the sky, a lady dressed in armor holding a child, and with a terrible gaze. As another point of interest, Admiral Andrea Doria carried a small image of Our Lady of Guadalupe into battle. This image is now venerated in the Church of San Stefano in Aveto, Italy. Terrified at the sight, the Turks began to lose control of the fleet, and the Christians pressed the attack. Thus it was that on October 7th, 1571, the Christian fleet was blessed with a miraculous victory. [read our seven-part series here]
Pope Pius V was blessed with a vision of the victory at Lepanto, and ordered public processions in thanksgiving. While in the Vatican, hundreds of miles away from battle, the good Pope is said to have suddenly stood up at the moment of victory, gone over to a window and exclaimed: “The Christian fleet is victorious!” When messengers arrived in Rome a week later to report the victory of the Christian fleet, they were quite surprised to find everyone already knew the outcome, the Holy Pontiff ordering all the bells in the city rung to announce the news. He immediately credited the victory to Our Lady, establishing October 7th as the feast of the Most Holy Rosary.
► SATANIST CONVERTED ― Bartolo Longo was born in 1841 to a devout Catholic family. During this period, there was a strong nationalistic movement in Italy and much anti-clericalism. When Bartolo grew up he decided to study law. Naples at that time was undergoing a tremendous spiritual crisis. Many of his college professors were ex-priests who had a negative view of the Catholic Church. Paganism and Satanism of all sorts were abounding. Bartolo was not immune to these influences and started to dabble in the occult, eventually embracing Satanism. He was consecrated a Satanic priest and promised his soul to a demon. To his family’s dismay, who tried their hardest to get him to convert, he preached against the Catholic Faith and presided over blasphemous rituals.
However, Satanism began to torment his mind, his family convinced him to make a good confession. His mental and physical health deteriorated and he sought help from a saintly Dominican priest, Fr. Alberto Radente, who helped lead him back to the Catholic Faith and encouraged his devotion to the Rosary. During this time, Bartolo had a miraculous conversion and, in 1870, he became a third order Dominican and chose to live a life in penance for all the terrible sins he had committed against the Church.
Nevertheless, Bartolo was still plagued with guilt about his past life, in particular making the promise of giving his soul to a demon. One day, he nearly succumbed to the sin of despair, feeling that God could never forgive the terrible sins he had committed against the Church. Doubting that God would forgive him, nearly drove him to suicide. But then he remembered a homily he had heard on the power of the Rosary. At that moment he received divine inspiration and remembered the Blessed Virgin’s promise that she would help in all their necessities those who propagate her Rosary. As he later wrote: “Falling to my knees, I exclaimed: ‘If your words are true―that he who propagates your Rosary will be saved―then I shall attain salvation, because I shall not leave this Earth without propagating your Rosary!’”
He set out to restore the dilapidated chapel at Pompeii and to promote the Rosary to whoever would listen. Pamphlets about the Rosary were distributed to help the people learn to pray this powerful devotion. He tried to find an image of Our Lady of the Rosary worthy of hanging in the chapel, but was only offered a worm-eaten painting with an image that he felt was coarse and not worthy of veneration, however he accepted it from the convent in which it was stored. As Bartolo continued his work of propagating the Rosary, the chapel’s membership grew tremendously and many miracles began to be associated with Our Lady of Pompeii. Cures and spiritual conversions occurred due to the devotions through this new shrine. The people pledged their support to have a large church built that would properly honor Our Lady of the Rosary. Bartolo spent the rest of his life promoting this prayer and built the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii, which would become Italy’s premier Rosary shrine. In 1894, Bartolo and his wife gave the church over to the care of the Vatican.
Bartolo died on October 5th, 1926. The original image, which he had found in the convent, was restored for the last time in 1965 and the pope crowned the heads of Jesus and Mary with diadems donated by the people of Pompeii. On October 26th, 1980, Bartolo Longo was beatified by John Paul II, who called him “the man of the Madonna” and the “Apostle of the Rosary.”
► ROSARY PRIEST CURED ― Praying the Rosary led to a miraculous cure for Fr. Patrick Peyton, the famous “Rosary Priest”. Fr. Patrick Peyton was born on January 9th, 1909 in County Mayo, Ireland. He was the sixth among a family of nine children. At age 19 he and his brother, Tom, emigrated to the United States. He wanted to become a priest but his family in Ireland could not financially afford the required education.
He moved in with his sister Nellie and obtained a job working as a janitor at St. Stanislaus Cathedral in Pennsylvania. With help from Monsignor Paul Kelley, Patrick was able to pursue his schooling to become a priest. He entered the seminary at the Congregation of Holy Cross in Notre Dame, Indiana in 1932.
In October, 1938, at the age of 29, he started coughing blood and doctors discovered he had advanced stages of Tuberculosis, which was incurable in those days. His sister Nellie encouraged him to ask our Holy Mother for help. Patrick consecrated himself completely to the Blessed Virgin Mary and devoted himself to praying the Rosary. To the astonishment of his doctors, he was completely and miraculously cured. The doctors discovered that the patches on his lungs had disappeared with no scientific explanation. With this miraculous cure, through the Rosary of our Holy Mother, Father Peyton vowed to Mary that he would promote the Rosary for the rest of his life.
Finally, on June 15th, 1941, Father Patrick Peyton was ordained a priest. He became one of the first evangelizers to use the electronic media to spread the word of God, the Holy Rosary and, in particular, encouraging families to regularly pray the Rosary together. Father Peyton coined the phrase: “The family that prays together, stays together.”
Father Patrick Peyton died peacefully on June 3rd, 1992 holding a Rosary in his hands. The cause for his sainthood began on June 1st, 2001.
In 1938, after he had emigrated to the United States from Ireland, he became very ill and was diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis, an incurable condition at the time. His sister suggested that he turn to Our Lady. He was one of the pioneering television evangelists who used the medium to promote the Rosary. His cause for canonization is underway.
► CANADIAN SQUADRON PROTECTED IN WORLD WAR II ― Here is an account on how the Rosary saved an entire Air Force Squadron in the Second World War. The following story was recounted to Dominican priest Fr. Gabriel Harty, by a non-Catholic devotee of the Rosary from Canada.
It was May, 1940, and we joined the Air Force in late September. We were grouped into squadrons. About thirty to fifty men made up a squadron, along with the squadron leader who gave all the orders and kept us functioning in unity. They told us that we were going overseas and would be in action right away. We eagerly awaited our new squadron leader. As an officer he would, we believed, go straight to the officers’ quarters. However, this squadron leader, Stan Fulton, in full uniform, headed for our bunk house, where he settled in with the rest of us. He threw his bag on an upper bunk. Our sqadron leader, an officer, sleeping here with us! We liked him at once and our liking and our admiration grew each day.
That first night he knelt on the floor and prayed his Rosary in silence. Astounded, we were struck dumb. When he finished, he looked at us with his friendly smile and said, “I hope you guys don’t mind a fellow saying some prayers―because where we’re going, we’re going to need them!” Next night, he repeated his prayer session. Although our group had been together for six months at least, I had never seen anyone kneel in prayer, and had no idea that any of our group was Catholic. The third night three of our companions joined Fulton in saying the Rosary. The rest of us did not understand, but we kept a respectful silence. We were weren’t slow however on the pick-up. Soon we were all answering the Hail Marys and Our Fathers. So, we ended each day in prayer. Shortly enough, we were to begin a series of night raids from England over Germany. The evening before, Fulton gave each of us a Rosary. “We shall be in some tight situations, but if you agree to keep the Rosary with you and to say it, I promise you that Our Lady will bring you all back safe.”
“Sure thing!” we replied, little thinking we would be in action for four years, often in dreadful danger. At such times, Fulton’s voice would ring through each plane, “Hail Mary…” and we would devoutly respond! We must have said hundreds of Rosaries in the skies. Ours was the only squadron that had not lost a plane or a single life. We said nothing―but we treasured our secret weapon. We did survive, too! All the squadron returned to Canada in 1945, fully convinced that Our Lady had taken care of us. So I never forget to keep my Rosary with me and say it every day although I am not a Catholic. When I change my trousers, the first thing I transfer, even before my wallet, is my Rosary.
► HIROSHIMA ― In the final stages of World War II, around 8:15 a.m. on August 6th, 1945, an American Boeing B-29 Super-fortress bomber, christened Enola Gay, dropped the first atomic bomb in history over Hiroshima in Japan. The atomic blast generated an unimaginable ground heat of 10,832°F (6,000°C) and a tremendous wind at the sonic speed of 2.7 miles (4.4 kilometers) per second. Everything within a 1.2 mile radius of the hypocenter was annihilated, instantly killing 140,000 people. Concrete buildings collapsed into pieces and broken glass was thrown through the air as far as 10 miles away. The atomic radiation generated by the bomb was so unbelievably strong, that many persons outside of the range, who were exposed to it, lost all bodily functions, their cells underwent apoptosis – a kind of cellular suicide, and died within days. Between the blast itself, the resulting fires throughout the city and the radiation burns, some estimate that 200,000 citizens of Hiroshima lost their lives.
Yet, in the midst of burned bodies, charred skeletons, and structural damage, just eight blocks from ground zero (around half-a-mile), a two storey Catholic presbytery miraculously remained intact. When an investigation was made, it was discovered that there survived a community of eight German Jesuit priests who were all found unscathed, with only a few minor injuries. Among the survivors were Jesuit priests named Hugo Lassalle, Hubert Schiffer, Wilhelm Kleinsorge, Paul Ruge and Hubert Cieslik.
Father Hubert Schiffer who headed the community was 30 years old when the atomic bomb exploded at Hiroshima and lived another 33 years in good health to tell of the miracle. The same can be said of the other seven priests of the community. Aside from some slight surface abrasions or scratches, they all lived out their days in full health with no radiation sickness, no loss of hearing, or any other visible long term defects, or cancer from radiation. Father Schiffer was thoroughly examined and questioned by more than 200 scientists who were unable to explain how he and his companions had survived the atomic blast. He attributed the miracle to the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He declared: “I was in the middle of the atomic explosion and I am still here alive and well. I was not struck down by its destruction.” Furthermore, for several years, hundreds of experts and investigators continued to study and investigate the scientific reasons as to why the presbytery was not affected, and, when asked, Father Schiffer remarked each time: “We believe that we survived because we were living the Message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that home.”
To put into proper scientific perspective just how bewildering this survival tale is, consider the expert testimony of Dr. Stephen Rinehart, a nuclear physicist with the U.S. Department of Defense. He said: “Their residence should have been utterly destroyed (with a temperature of at least 2,000 Fahrenheit and air blast pressures of 100 pounds per square inch (psi). Unreinforced masonry, or brick walls (representative of commercial construction), are destroyed at pressures of 3 pounds per square inch (3 psi), which will also cause car damage and burst windows. At 10 psi, a human will experience severe lung and heart damage, burst eardrums and at 20 psi your limbs can be blown off. Your head will be blown off by 40 psi and no residential or unreinforced commercial construction would be left standing. At 80 psi even reinforced concrete is heavily damaged and no human would be alive because your skull would be crushed. All the cotton clothes would be on fire at 350 F (probably at 275 F) and your lungs would be inoperative within a minute breathing air (even for a few seconds) at these temperatures.”
The expected outcome described by this expert, in fact, perfectly describes what occurred in the area immediately surrounding the Jesuit rectory. One of the survivors priests said years later, in his recollection of the event, that after the nuclear blast occurred, he had opened his eyes and found himself laying on the ground. He looked around and there was NOTHING in any direction: the railroad station and buildings in all directions were leveled to the ground. The only physical harm to himself was that he could feel a few pieces of glass in the back of his neck. As far as he could tell, there was nothing else physically wrong. There are no physical laws to explain why the Jesuits were untouched in the Hiroshima air blast. All who were at this range from the epicenter should have received enough radiation to be dead within at most a matter of minutes if nothing else happened to them. There is no known way to design a uranium-235 atomic bomb, which could leave such a large discrete area intact while destroying everything around it immediately outside the fireball. From a scientific viewpoint, what happened to those Jesuits at Hiroshima still defies all human logic from the laws of physics as understood today (or at any time in the future). It must be concluded that some other external force was present whose power and/or capability to transform energy and matter as it relates to humans is beyond current comprehension. As Fr. Hubert Schiffer, one of Hiroshima priest survivors, said: “Prayer is more powerful than the atom bomb!”
► AUSTRIA FREED FROM COMMUNIST INVADERS ― The key player here is Father Petrus Pavlicek, who was born in Austria on January 6th, 1902. As a young boy, he felt called to the religious life, but grew indifferent in later years―eventually falling away from the Faith by the age of 19 and led a wild life. In 1935, during a grave illness, he received the grace of conversion resolving once again to embrace his vocation. On December 14th, 1941, he was ordained a priest of the Capuchin Order. In 1942, on May 13th, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, 1942, he was arrested by the German Gestapo for a supposed military-forces draft evasion and was brought to a court martial. The process ended with an acquittal ― but he was nevertheless forcefully conscripted into the German Army. On October 7th, the feast of the Holy Rosary, he was sent to the Western Front as a paramedic. On August 15th, 1944, the feast of the Assumption, he was captured by Americans and became a prisoner of war. It was during imprisonment that he first learned about Our Lady’s apparitions and messages at Fatima. Released on July 16th, 1945, the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, he went to Austria as a missionary. In 1946, on February 2nd― the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the Purification of Our Lady ― he went on pilgrimage to principal Marian shrine of Mariazell in Austria, to thank Mary for her protection in gratitude for the fortunate return home from the Second World War. It was at the shrine that he heard an interior voice, which said to him: “Do, as I say, and there will be peace!” These words reminded him of the message of Fatima and he founded, in February 1947, the Crusade of Reparation of the Holy Rosary for Peace in the World.
It was right after the Second World War (1939-1945) that much of Austria came under Communist control. After the war, Austria was divided up by the Allies―America, France, the United Kingdom, and Russia. The eastern half of Austria was handed over to be controlled by the Russian Communists. In 1947, with his country at the mercy of atheistic Soviet Marxism, Fr. Pavlicek began gathering people in villages, towns and cities across Soviet controlled Austria on the 13th of each month to pray the Rosary together and in public and he called it the Rosary Crusade. From 1947 until 1955, Fr. Pavlicek conducted public Rosary processions and rallies on the 13th of each month. Many people gathered at first, but often they could not sustain their spiritual practices, so the Rosary Crusade ebbed and flowed ― but Fr. Pavlicek persevered in his confidence in Our Lady. From September of 1948, every month in the Franciscan church of Vienna, there took place ceremonies for peace. From 1949, Fr. Pavlicek published a periodical, which is named “Betendes Gottesvolk” today. From 1950 to 1955, he organized, in the month of September, the yearly procession of the Holy Name of Mary (feast day September 12th) in the Vienna Ring Road. By 1955, eight years later, despite the initial resistance of Austria’s Catholic Church, Fr. Pavlicek’s “Rosary Atonement Crusade”, more than a half million Austrians (out of a 1955 Austrian population of around 7 million―therefore 1 out of 14 persons) had pledged to pray the Rosary every day, begging for the conversion of sinners, peace in the world and freedom in Austria. Tens of thousands of Catholics, both clergy and laity, and even politicians, were seen marching in the streets, praying the Rosary and bearing votive candles for the intention of peace in the world.
Throughout this time the politicians conducted more than 260 peace conferences in the effort to remove the Soviets from power. But these efforts only ended with the Russians tightening their iron grip on Austria. Man alone does not have the power to change the course of history or bring peace. This is a job for the Queen of Peace. But she asks our cooperation in praying the daily Rosary. The Cold War intensified, and Communism refined its methods of religious persecution in Austria. It seemed that God wanted to test the Faith of those who had prayed so zealously for their country’s freedom. Their Faith having been sufficiently tested, the grace was finally given. On March 24th, 1955, the eve of the feast of the Annunciation, the Soviet governors invited the Austrians to a conference. Believing that his nation’s future would be sealed in Moscow, Prime Minister Raab entreated Father Pavlicek before his departure: “Please pray ― and ask your people to pray harder than ever!” To the world’s surprise, the Soviets signed the Austrian State Treaty guaranteeing the independence of Austria, by which they and the Allied Powers ended their post-war occupation of Austria, and stated they would withdraw their troops from Austria in just three months. On May 15th, during the Month of Mary, the Soviets signed a treaty. And on October 26th, 1955, very fittingly and appropriately during the month of the Holy Rosary, the last Russian soldier left the occupied eastern sector of Austria.
Basically, it was a large spiritual army of lay people, led by a priest, that had peacefully overcome the might of Communist Russia. That is the power of the Holy Rosary! What was achieved back then, can also be achieved today! However, it took almost 10% of the population to pray the Rosary and they had to pray and wait for over seven years before their prayers were answered and granted! Do we have the same tenacity and perseverance today?
► COMMUNISTS DRIVEN OUT IN BRAZIL ― In the late 1950s and start of the 1960s, the world was in a state of fear and confusion. Russia was trying to make headway in converting as many countries as possible to Communism under their rule. Impoverished nations with corrupt governments in turmoil were easy targets. Cuba had just fallen to the Soviets in 1960, and Brazil was another planned conquest. The president of Brazil, Joao Goulart, began to embrace Communism and began pushing for a Communist form of government. He started to install known Communists into high governmental positions, while at the same time dispatching representatives to convince the citizens that Communism was good for the country.
With Catholicism still strong in the country, Cardinal de Barros Camara told people through a weekly radio address that by following the directives of Our Lady of Fatima regarding prayer and penance, Brazil could overthrow the Communist threat. In a speech, President Goulart mocked the Rosary, saying that governmental control, not reciting the prayers of the Rosary, would save the economy from collapse. During this time, he was lining his pockets with dollars given to Brazil in foreign aid from the U.S. and other countries.
A fifty-nine-year-old retired Brazilian woman schoolteacher, named Dona Amelia Bastos, was very concerned about this imminent danger. Her husband belonged to a group of men called the Anti-Reds who were opposed to Communism in Brazil. One night Dona Amelia listened as the Anti-Reds discussed the threat facing their beloved country. She decided that she too could do something about it. Of her decision, she said: “I suddenly decided that politics had become too important to be left entirely to the men. Moreover, who has more at stake in what’s happening to our country than we women?”
She immediately formed a group called Campaign of Women for Democracy (CAMDE) and started to recruit as many people as possible to pray the Rosary in large groups to thwart the plan for Communist takeover. In a town called Belo Horizonte a group of 20,000 women, reciting the Rosary aloud, broke up a pro-Communist rally. The success of this peaceful protest fed the impetus for the Catholic women to do more.
With the help of Heaven and the strong influence of Archbishop Cardinal de Barros Camara, Dona Amelia recruited an amazing number of 600,000 women who marched in Sao Paulo to pray the Rosary for peace. They called their protest, “March of the Family with God Toward Freedom” under the declaration, “Mother of God, preserve us from the fate and suffering of the martyred women of Cuba, Poland, Hungary, and other enslaved nations.” Leone Brizola, a Communist high government official, left in a rage when his planned speech was thwarted by the rattling of 3,000 Rosaries and the murmuring of the prayers in the assembly hall. Not one life was lost in this most amazing peaceful anti-Communist protest, which is described by many witnesses as: “One of the most moving demonstrations in Brazilian History.” Many more Rosary rallies were held in major cities in spite of threats of military action against the crusading women. Under this mounting pressure, on April 1st, 1964 President Goulart fled the country along with many members of the government.
► CORRUPT GOVERNMENT OVERTHROWN ― In the Philippines, the corrupt Marcos regime was defeated entirely through peaceful means in 1986. While their leaders were living in luxury, many of the Philippine people were poor and some were starving. To this day people make jokes about Imelda Marcos’s shoes because she had 3,000 pairs, along with 15 mink coats, 1,000 purses, and 508 fancy gowns. The people sought to elect a new leader―Benigno Aquino. He was assassinated right in front of his wife and family as he stepped off a plane to run for office in Manila. After this brutal murder, Ninoy’s wife Corazon “Cory” Aquino became active in protests against the Marcos regime and one million people signed a petition for his widow, Corazon Aquino, to run for presidency in her assassinated husband’s place. She fulfilled the people’s wishes.
President Marcos called a snap election day on February 7th, 1986 which turned out to be a bloody, violent, and fraud-filled event. President Marcos―declared the winner by his corrupt government―took control of the media and sent out the military to quell any protests. Cardinal Sin of the Archdiocese of Manila urged a peaceful protest and the Catholic people came out in droves. They surrounded the military tanks and armed soldiers, prayed the Rosary, and sang religious hymns and protest songs. Holy Masses and prayer vigils took place in churches. This prayerful protest continued for almost a week when unexpectedly, the soldiers stepped away from their tanks, put down their guns, and joined the peaceful crowd.
President Marcos fled the country on February 26th, 1986 and the whole nation took to the streets in celebration. Prayers of thanksgiving and holy masses were held in gratitude to God. As the new President, Cory Aquino made sweeping changes and the Philippines became a free and democratic country. To this day people are in awe that the evil, corrupt regime of Marcos was completely overturned through peaceful means.
In one account of the events, Sister Ocariza and 16 other nuns, standing in pairs, led the Rosary as soldiers escorted rolling military tanks with their turrets trained on the sisters. The nun said staring down those tanks has been the scariest experience of her life. “I said, ‘Lord forgive me for all my sins and even the offenses of our Filipino people.’ If really the tanks would crush us, at least the two of us … kill us sisters, not the people because we (did not) want bloodshed. I love my country.” But the tanks stopped, and the soldiers joined the protesters reciting the Rosary, that was really a miracle! Sister Ocariza said that God peacefully delivered them from the hands of a dictator and saved the country from what would have ultimately provoked a violent reaction. She said she looked back to that time as a source of courage and a reminder to stand for what is right always. The Chicago Tribune reported: “Instead of guns, there were prayers; instead of bloodshed, celebrations; instead of casualties, converts in, guns fell to Rosaries in Philippine Revolution.”
► SAVED FROM MURDER ― Ted Bundy was one of the worst serial killers in history. On the night of January 15th, 1978, at 3:00 am, Ted Bundy entered the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University and murdered two girls before heading off to search for more victims. He entered a third room, but dropped his bat and fled when he saw a girl clutching a Rosary in her hands.
Later the girl told authorities that before she left for college she had promised her worried grandmother that she would pray the Rosary every night for protection, even if she fell asleep in the process. This is what she had done that night, and she was still holding the Rosary when the murderer entered her room.
Bundy later confessed to over thirty murders. When Bundy was awaiting his execution, he asked for a priest. The priest, Fr. Esper, asked him what happened that night. Bundy said he intended to murder the girl, but “some mysterious power prevented him.”
Father Joseph M. Esper says in his book With Mary to Jesus: “Ironically, when Ted Bundy was on death row, awaiting execution for his crimes, he asked Monsignor Kerr to serve as a spiritual counselor, and the priest took the opportunity to ask about that terrible night. Bundy explained that when he entered the girl’s room, he had fully intended on murdering her; some mysterious power was preventing him.”
Father Esper adds: “And not only does it (the Rosary) aid our own spiritual growth ― it also undermines the kingdom of Satan.” The famous Vatican exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth testified: “One day a colleague of mine heard the devil say during an exorcism, ‘Every Hail Mary is like a blow on my head. If Christians knew how powerful the Rosary was, it would be my end!’”
► ROSARY IN AFRICA ― There are many online testimonials recounting miraculous escapes from danger and death by virtue of fidelity to the Rosary. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Immaculée Ilibagiza, and seven other women, spent ninety-one days hidden in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor’s house. Immaculée believed that praying the Rosary spared her from being slaughtered during the genocide, in which her family and more than a million other innocent people were brutally murdered. As well as physical protection, she also recounts the amazing spiritual benefits brought to her by the prayer during this time.
Another instance is that of Father Valentine Ezeagu, who was driving through Imo state in Nigeria, on December 15th, 2020, on the way to his father’s funeral, when he was ambushed by four armed men. The priest was unexpectedly freed thirty-six hours later. Reporting his release to his religious superior, Father Ezeagu said the abductors had let him go after seeing him pray the Rosary. Speaking to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Father George Okorie, Superior General of the Congregation of the Sons of Mary, Mother of Mercy, said: “When I spoke to Father Valentine, he told me that seeing him praying the Rosary made his abductors confused … They started having a guilty conscience. It made them realize that, since he was wearing a cassock, they had not got the right person, so they gave him some food and released him.”
► THE ROSARY CAN EVEN SAVE YOU! As you no doubt know―very few souls get to Heaven. Will you be one of the few? No matter how bad you are or have been, the Rosary can save you too! This is what St. Louis de Montfort says on the matter in his book The Secret of the Rosary―take it to heart:
“If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins ‘you shall receive a never‑fading crown of glory’ (1 Peter 5:4). Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in Hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and save your soul, if — and mark well what I say — if you say the Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins. In this book there are several stories of great sinners who were converted through the power of the Rosary. Please read and meditate upon them. Never will anyone be able to understand the marvelous riches of sanctification which are contained in the prayers and mysteries of the Holy Rosary. It gradually brings us a perfect knowledge of Jesus Christ; it purifies our souls from sin; it gives us victory over all our enemies; it makes the practice of virtue easy; it sets us on fire with the love of Our Lord; it enriches us with graces and merits; it supplies us with what is needed to pay all our debts to God and to our fellow‑men, and, finally, it obtains all kinds of graces from God.
“When St. Dominic was preaching the Rosary near Carcassone, an man was brought to him who was possessed by the devil. The Saint exorcised him in the presence of a great crowd of people. The devils, who were in possession of this wretched man were forced to answer St. Dominic’s questions in spite of themselves. They said: ‘This Mother of Jesus is most powerful in saving her servants from falling into Hell! She is like the sun which destroys the darkness of our wiles and subtlety! It is she who uncovers our hidden plots, breaks our snares, and makes our temptations useless and ineffective! We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us! Many Christians who call on her at the hour of death and who really ought to be damned according to our ordinary standards are saved by her intercession! Now that we are forced to speak, we must also tell you that nobody who perseveres in saying the Rosary will be damned, because she obtains for her servants the grace of true contrition for their sins by which they obtain pardon and mercy!’
“Are you in the miserable state of sin? Then call on Mary! … Are you groping in the darkness of ignorance and error? Go to Mary! … Are you in sorrow? Turn to Mary! … Have you lost the state of grace? The Blessed Virgin will give you some of her graces! … Are you alone, having lost God’s protection? Pray to Mary! … Have you become an outcast and been accursed by God? Our Lady will bless you! … Do you hunger for the bread of grace and the bread of life? Draw near to her!
“Catholics who bear the mark of God’s reprobation think but little of the Rosary. They either neglect to say it or only say it quickly and in a lukewarm manner. It is a good thing to think over how we should pray if we want to please God and become more holy. To say the Holy Rosary with advantage one must be in a state of grace or at least be fully determined to give up sin, for all our theology teaches us that good works and prayers are dead works if they are done in a state of mortal sin.
“Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin. The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!
“In order to pray well, it is not enough to give expression to our petitions by means of that most excellent of all prayers, the Rosary, but we must also pray with great attention, for God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin. How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? How can we expect him to be pleased if, while in the presence of His tremendous majesty, we give in to distractions, like a child running after a butterfly? People who do that forfeit God’s blessing, which is changed into a curse for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: ‘Cursed be the one who does God’s work negligently’ (Jeremias 48:10). Of course, you cannot say your Rosary without having a few involuntary distractions; it is even difficult to say a Hail Mary without your imagination troubling you a little, for it is never still; but you can say it without voluntary [deliberate] distractions.”
Can You See? Have Your Realized?
Hopefully―if you are still awake―you can see the immense power of Sacramentals. The above listed “tip-of-the-iceberg” of miracles that Sacramentals have produced―and it really is merely the tip-of-the-iceberg of millions of miracles both great and small―has hopefully enkindled in you a similar hope for such miracles in the future to protect and benefit you and your nearest and dearest. God is good! As Our Lady of La Salette said―speaking of our current “End Times” which Our Lady of Fatima affirmed we have entered: “God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other! Yet God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will!” These “End Times” will also be “Sacramental Times” ― which will contribute to the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Our Lady has repeatedly and forcefully spoken of and placed before our eyes the purpose, usefulness and power of Sacramentals. The Rosary in particular and Prayer in general are Sacramentals―and Our Lady clearly stated: “The only weapons that will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … With the Rosary, pray for the pope, the bishops, and the pries!” (Akita). At Fatima, it was the same message: “Pray the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war!” (May 1917) … “Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and the end of the war … (June 1917) … “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you! … If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted!” (July 1917) … “Continue to say the Rosary every day! … Pray, pray very much!” (August 1917) … “Continue to pray the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war!” (September 1917) … “I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (October 1917).
The Brown Scapular―and all blessed Scapulars―are Sacramentals. It is to be noted and not forgotten that, at her final apparition at Fatima, on October 13th, 1917, Our Lady appeared as Our Lady of Mount Carmel and held out a Brown Scapular to the people. Sister Lucia said that the Blessed Mother wants everyone to wear it: “Our Lady never looked so beautiful as when she appeared in Her Carmelite habit! Our Lady held the Scapular in her hands because she wants us all to wear it. Our Lady wants everyone to wear it for it is the sign of consecration to her Immaculate Heart. The Scapular and the Rosary are inseparable!”
There will come a time―and it has already begun―when priests will be scarcer and scarcer. Therefore the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Holy Eucharist, Confession, Extreme Unction and the other Sacraments will become scarcer and scarcer. Blessings will be scarcer because there will no priests to bless things. In a family, when the husband dies, then the wife has to take over many if not all of his duties and perform them the best that she can. Likewise, when the Sacraments (the husband) become scarce and rare, then the Sacramentals (the wife) will have to do what they can to make up for the missing Sacraments.
Now is the Time! Now is the Hour! Where are Your Sacramentals?
In light of all this, and in light of what is currently happening in our world of darkness, it seems that now is the time and now is the hour to “prep” our Sacramentals and stock-up on Sacramentals. Yes―God can perform miracles without using anybody or anything―but, as the Church teaches: “God does not do the extraordinary when the ordinary suffices!” Our Lady has repeatedly brought and placed Sacramentals before our blind eyes! Why? To instruct of their existence and power and to encourage us to use them.
In 1830, at the Rue de Bac in Paris, France, Our Lady appeared to St. Catherine Labouré and showed her the design for the “Miraculous Medal” (the Medal of the Immaculate Conception is its proper name)―which is, of course, a Sacramental―stating that she wanted this medal to be made and worn by everyone, adding: “Have a Medal struck after this model. All who wear it will receive great graces; they should wear it around the neck. Graces will abound for persons who wear it with confidence.”
In 1846, at La Salette in France, Our Lady insisted upon another Sacramental―which is prayer. Of course, she also insisted upon prayer at all her other apparitions.
In 1858, at Lourdes, Our Lady placed the focus on water―not only the miraculous Holy Water of Lourdes, but also the Holy Water in general, which is a Sacramental of the Church.
In 1917, at Fatima in Portugal, the focus was primarily on the Sacramental of the Holy Rosary, and secondarily upon the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
Penances―such as abstinence and fasting―are also Sacramentals, and Our Lady has insisted on penance and sacrifice at all of her apparitions.
Other commonly used Sacramentals are blessed oil, blessed candles, various approved scapulars, and many approved medals, such as the St. Benedict Medal, which is the oldest and most highly indulgenced of all Sacramental objects. But the term covers much more. Apart from the Sacraments and the public prayer of the Church (divine office and five litanies), blessings of ashes and palms, blessed crucifixes, pictures and statues, bells, cords, blessed foods, and even the Confiteors and Creeds and the giving of alms―all these and more besides can all be considered as Sacramentals. Even the exorcisms of the Church are Sacramentals.
Are we actively using and profiting from these Sacramentals? God, through His Church, has placed before us a wonderful wealth of spiritual riches and powers through these Sacramentals! What an insult to God it would be to refuse, misuse or abuse these powerful Sacramentals! Yet they are refused, misused and abused! Part of the reason is our ignorance about them―for, as the philosophical rule states: “You cannot love what you do not know!” St. Thérèse of Lisieux lamented that Jesus is so little loved because He is so little known―the same can be said of the Sacramentals. Along the same lines you could say: “You will not use something if you do not know how it works!” That is why, in the coming weeks, we will take a closer look at the Sacramentals and explain their purpose, power and effect―for we are fast approaching a time when we will need miracles like those described above. That is why the examples given above were deliberately taken from instances of national danger, personal danger, sickness and disease, etc. ― for we most certainly will increasingly find ourselves faced with those same dangers some time soon.
Article 7
Tuesday January 17th & Wednesday January 18th, 2023
Be a Spiritual "Prepper"! You Won't Regret It!
Tuesday January 17th & Wednesday January 18th, 2023
Be a Spiritual "Prepper"! You Won't Regret It!
“Prepping” is a Part of the Bible
We tend to associate the word “prepping” with the brewing crisis in the world today―but “prepping” has been around for a long time. Our Lord and Holy Scripture even speak of it! “Prepping” is, of course, an modern-day abbreviation for the word “preparing”. Preparing is akin to planning. It is because we plan and look ahead, that we consequently prepare for what lies ahead.
God was telling us prepare back in the time of Moses: “Thou shalt prepare…” (Exodus 25:26). “Thou shalt prepare…” (Exodus 25:29). “Thou shalt prepare…” (Exodus 28:40). “Prepare and make thyself ready!” (Ezechiel 38:7). “Prepare all kind of provisions that are necessary!” (Tobias 8:21). “Prepare war! Rouse up the strong! Let them come, let all the men of war come up!” (Joel 3:9). “Every man shall prepare to fight!” (Deuteronomy 20:9). “Prepare ye war!” (Jeremias 6:4). “Prepare thyself for battle…” (4 Kings 18:20). “Prepared to fight!” (Judges 20:17). “Prepare thy chariot!” (3 Kings 18:44). “Prepare ye the shield and buckler―and go forth to battle!” (Jeremias 46:3). “Prepare yourselves against Babylon! All you that bend the bow―fight against her! Spare not arrows―because she hath sinned against the Lord!” (Jeremias 50:14).
Bible Speaks of Spiritual “Prepping”
Considering that “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1) and that we must “fight the good fight of Faith” (1 Timothy 6:12) and that “the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8), then we should be always prepared for the fight and always prepared for temptation―as Scripture says: “When thou comest to the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). The key words here are “prepare thy soul” ― for the soul comes above the body and all the supplies that the body might need: “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36).
To this Our Lord adds: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal … Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on! … Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns―and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you of much more value than they?
Be not solicitous therefore, saying: ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘With what shall we be clothed?’ For after all these things do the heathens seek. Your Father knows that you have need of all these things. [33] Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you! Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow―for the morrow will be solicitous for itself!” (Matthew 6:19-34).
Coming back to the above quote: “When thou comest to the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). Our Lord echoes this danger of temptation and the need to prepare against it, more than once when He says to Saints Peter, James and John during His Agony in the Garden: “Jesus came into a country place which is called Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples: ‘Sit here, while I go yonder and pray!’ And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee [James and John], He began to grow sorrowful and to be sad. Then He said to them: ‘My soul is sorrowful even unto death! Stay here and watch with Me!’ And going a little further, He fell upon His face, praying. Then He came to His disciples, and found them asleep, and He said to Peter: ‘What? Could you not watch one hour with Me? Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation! The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak!’ Again the second time, He went and prayed. Afterwards, He came again and found them sleeping―for their eyes were heavy. And, leaving them, He went again and prayed the third time. Then He came to His disciples, and said to them: ‘Sleep now and take your rest! Behold the hour is at hand!’” (Matthew 26:36-45).
“And Jesus came and found them sleeping. And He said to Peter: ‘Simon! Sleepest thou? Could you not watch for one hour? Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation! The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak!’ And going away again, He prayed. And when He returned, He found them again asleep―for their eyes were heavy―and they knew not what to answer Him. And He came the third time, and said to them: ‘Sleep ye now and take your rest! It is enough! The hour is come!’” (Mark 14:37-41).
“When Jesus was come to the place [Garden of Gethsemane], He said to them: ‘Pray, lest ye enter into temptation!’ … Later, when He rose up from prayer, and was come back to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow, and He said to them: ‘Why do you sleep? Arise, pray, lest you enter into temptation!’” (Luke 22:40-46)
The whole idea behind “prepping” is being ready for a time when something goes wrong. That is why you purchase insurance policies for health, home, vehicle, appliances and travel; that is why you have a spare tire in the car; parachutes in planes; lifeboats on ships; fire-extinguishers and generators in buildings; candles, flashlights and first-aid kits at home; emergency services locally, etc. In this world―time and time again―things inevitably go wrong and we have to be prepared for those moments if we wish to survive them with the minimum of hardship, injury, loss and pain. Being prepared can reduce fear, anxiety, and losses that accompany disasters.
Our Lord even alludes to “prepping” on several occasions.
“The Kingdom of Heaven be like to ten virgins, who taking their lamps went out to meet the bridegroom and the bride. And five of them were foolish, and five wise. But the five foolish virgins, having taken their lamps, did not take oil with them―but the wise virgins took oil in their vessels with the lamps. And the bridegroom tarrying, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made: ‘Behold the bridegroom cometh! Go ye forth to meet him!’ Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish virgins said to the wise: ‘Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out!’ The wise virgins answered, saying: ‘Go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves―lest perhaps there be not enough for us and for you!’ Now while they went to buy, the bridegroom came―and they that were ready, went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. But at last the other virgins came, saying: ‘Lord! Lord! Open to the door for us!’ But he, answering, said: ‘Amen I say to you, I know you not!’ Watch ye therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour!” (Matthew 25:1-13).
“Heaven and Earth shall pass, but My words shall not pass! But of that day and hour no one knows―not the angels of Heaven, but the Father alone! And as in the days of Noe, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage―even till that day in which Noe entered into the ark, and they knew not till the flood came and took them all away―so also shall the coming of the Son of man be. Watch ye therefore, because ye know not what hour your Lord will come! But know this ye, that if the good man of the house knew at what hour the thief would come, he would certainly watch, and would not suffer his house to be broken open. Wherefore be you also ready, because at what hour you know not the Son of man will come. Blessed is that servant, whom when his lord shall come he shall find so doing. Amen I say to you, he shall place him over all his goods. But if that evil servant shall say in his heart: ‘My lord is long a coming!’ and shall begin to strike his fellow servants, and shall eat and drink with drunkards. The lord of that servant shall come in a day that he hopes not, and at an hour that he knows not, and shall separate him, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 25:35-51).
To “Prep” or Not to “Prep”―That is the Question!
Prepping has been on the rise for quite some time now. Research shows 45% of Americans spent money preparing for emergencies or spent money on survival materials. About 15 million Americans are actively prepping right now on a regular basis. If you count in the number who dabble in prepping, then that rises to around 115 million. In terms of percentage of households, regular preppers account for around 10% of all households. Just a few years ago, it was only 2% or 3%. So in only a few years it has increased around 4 to 5 times―a 400% or 500% increase. In addition to the roughly 45% (115 million) that bought survival supplies in the last year, with a further 27% of American adults (69 million) say they didn’t need to hit the stores because their homes already included survival items at the ready for an emergency. Adding up the numbers, that’s roughly 72% of American adults (184.6 million adults) who are prepping for call it what you want: the end times, a massive disaster, a nuclear war, societal breakdown, civil unrest and collapse, etc. This is a dramatic increase ― up to 72% from only 55% of American adults at the start of 2020.
The degree of prepping ranges from almost non-existent prepping (having a week’s supply of food and drink in reserve) to gigantic gargantuan feats of prepping. Even mainstream stores like Walmart and Home Depot sell prepping supplies these days. The internet is choc-a-bloc with prepper websites―each with its own recommendations, hundreds of articles, and regular sales-pitches: “The essential 100 items a prepper must have!” … “The #1 prepping item for 2023!” … “These books are an absolute must for any serious prepper!” etc., etc.
Is it right or wrong to hoard food, drink and other items in preparation for some future emergency? No―it is not wrong, but it must be kept in its rightful place in our sense of values―whereby the soul and the spiritual always takes precedence over the body and the material. As Our Lord said: “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36). To solely prep on the material side of things, while ignoring or relegating any kind of prepping on the spiritual side of things, is to reverse the values imposed by God. In the Baltimore Catechism #3, we read: “Question 152. Of which must we take more care, our soul or our body? Answer: We must take more care of our soul than of our body. Question 153. Why must we take more care of our soul than of our body? Answer: We must take more care of our soul than of our body, because in losing our soul we lose God and everlasting happiness.”
Unfortunately, the time we spend upon our body and its material needs, far outweighs the time that we spend upon the soul and its spiritual needs. The same is true for the excessive amount of time we spend on material things in general―ultimately, it is our soul and perhaps even our salvation that will suffer the consequences.
Joseph the Egyptian Prepper
We see an astounding case of successful prepping on the part of Joseph, one of Jacob’s 12 sons, in the Old Testament. Having been sold into slavery by his envious and murderous brothers, Joseph―assisted by God’s Providence―eventually emerged from slavery to become the Egyptian Pharao’s right-hand-man by correctly interpreting two dreams that Pharao dreamt―the one dream was about seven fat cows who were devoured by seven thin cows; the other dream had seven plump and good ears of grain swallowed up by seven thin and blighted ears of grain. He was troubled by these dreams, and called together all the magicians and wise men of Egypt―but no one could interpret the dreams for him.
Eventually, someone told Pharao about the successful dream interpreter Joseph, who at that time was languishing in prison. Pharao commanded that Joseph be brought to him from the dungeon. After hearing the account of the dreams, Joseph told Pharaoh that the seven good cows and seven plump ears of grain signified seven years of great abundance throughout the land of Egypt, but that the seven thin cows and seven worthless heads of grain signified seven years of famine that would follow. Joseph warned Pharao that the reason the dream was given in two forms was that the matter has been firmly decided by God, and God would do it soon. Joseph advised Pharao to set aside a decent quantity of the harvests during the seven years of abundance, so as tide them over the seven years of famine. Pharao, amazed and grateful for this interpretation of his dreams, put Joseph in charge of Egypt and its operations―with only Pharao being above Joseph.
During the seven years of abundance the land produced plentifully. Joseph collected all the food produced in those seven years of abundance in Egypt and stored it in the cities. He stored up huge quantities of grain, like the sand of the sea; it was so much that he stopped keeping records because it was beyond measure. When the seven years of abundance in Egypt came to an end, the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had said. There was famine in all the other surrounding countries, but in the whole land of Egypt there was food. When the famine had spread over the whole country, Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe throughout Egypt. And all the surrounding countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe everywhere. Pretty good prepper, huh?
We see two more striking instances where God plays the role of “prepper” by miraculously supplying what is needed by the miraculous intervention of two of His prophets―Elias and Elisesus.
ELIAS ― “The word of the Lord came to Elias, saying: ‘Arise, and go to Sarephta of the Sidonians, and dwell there: for I have commanded a widow woman there to feed thee!’ He arose and went to Sarephta. And when he was come to the gate of the city, he saw the widow woman gathering sticks, and he called her, and said to her: ‘Give me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink!’ And when she was going to fetch it he called after her, saying: ‘Bring me also, I beseech thee, a morsel of bread in thy hand!’ And she answered: ‘As the Lord thy God liveth, I have no bread, but only a handful of meal in a pot, and a little oil in a cruse! Behold I am gathering two sticks that I may go in and dress it, for me and my son, that we may eat it and die!’ And Elias said to her: ‘Fear not, but go, and do as thou hast said! But first make for me of the same meal a little hearth cake, and bring it to me; and, after, make some for thyself and thy son. For thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: “The pot of meal shall not waste, nor the vessel of oil be diminished, until the day wherein the Lord will give rain upon the face of the Earth!”’ She went and did according to the word of Elias―and he ate, and she, and her house. And from that day the pot of meal wasted not, and the vessel of oil was not diminished, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke in the hand of Elias” (3 Kings 17:8-16).
ELISEUS ― “Now a certain woman of the wives of the prophets cried to Eliseus, saying: ‘Thy servant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant was one that feared God! And behold the creditor is come to take away my two sons to serve him!’ And Eliseus said to her: ‘What wilt thou have me to do for thee? Tell me―what hast thou in thy house?’ And she answered: ‘I thy handmaid have nothing in my house but a little oil, to anoint me!’ And he said to her: ‘Go, borrow from all thy neighbors, empty vessels―and not just a few! And go into thy house and shut the door! When thou art inside with thy sons, pour out your oil into all those vessels―and when they are full take them away!’ So the woman went and shut the door upon herself and upon her sons. They brought her the vessels, and she poured in the oil. And when the vessels were full, she said to her son: ‘Bring me another a vessel!’ And he answered: ‘I have no more!’ And the oil stopped flowing. And she came, and told the man of God. And he said: ‘Go, sell the oil, and pay thy creditor! And thou and thy sons live off the rest!’” (4 Kings 4:1-7).
God is a Prepper
Prepping or preparation requires a knowledge―the more we know, the better we can prepare and the more bases we can cover. God’s knowledge is all-encompassing―He knows everything that is and everything that could be. Nothing escapes the knowledge of God! He even knows what we will do before we do it! Just as there are no limits to what God knows, neither are there any limits as to what God can do. He is omnipotent, all-powerful, all-mighty. What better prepper could you find? God is the prepper par-excellence! He is the supreme prepper! There is no better prepper than God! The whole of God’s creation is a miracle of preparation. St. Thomas Aquinas says that God’s creation is the primary and most perfect revelation of the Divine. It has to be―for an all-perfect God cannot make an imperfect thing. God is perfect, so He created things perfect―anything imperfect is due to sin, not to the way God made it originally.
God’s creation is so perfect that He has placed in His creation the antidote for anything and everything―even sin. God does not need to revise or tweak anything. God does not have to alter His creation in order to “keep up with the times”―God is always ahead of the times. God has not overlooked anything―His creation contains all that we would ever need. Just think of how the human body can heal itself from within and recover by also using elements of God’s creation. Unfortunately, due to our sins, God proportionately blinds us and justly prevents us from discovering all that His creation contains.
God made a perfect world―but the sins of mankind, beginning with Adam and Eve, brought imperfection and destruction into the world. “God commanded Adam, saying: ‘Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat! But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death!’” Scripture adds: “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “Sin hath reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21). “Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:15).
God’s Prepping for the Exodus
When the Israelites left Egypt, they were at least 2 million in number. 2 million is a very low and conservative estimate―some biblical scholars say the number of Israelites could have been as high as 4 to 6 million! Imagine the “prepping” that would go into such an enterprise! Yet, if you have God on your side, then there are certain things that He will take care of and look after―provided that you honor God and keep His commandments: “The Lord, Who is your leader, He Himself will be with thee! He will not leave thee, nor forsake thee! Fear not, neither be dismayed!” (Deuteronomy 31:8). “If God be for us, who can stand against us?” (Romans 8:31). “I will deliver thee in that day, saith the Lord, and thou shalt not be given into the hands of the men whom thou fearest … I will deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword―but thy life shall be saved for thee, because thou hast put thy trust in Me, saith the Lord” (Jeremias 39:17-18). “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper” (Isaias 57:13). “The Lord is my shepherd and I shall want nothing. He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment. He hath led me on the paths … and though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me!” (Psalm 22:1-4).
“He will overshadow thee with His shoulders: and under his wings thou shalt trust. His truth shall compass thee with a shield. Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night; of the arrow that flies; of the snare of the hunters; of invasion, or of the noonday devil. No evil shall come to thee; nor shall the pestilence come near thy dwelling. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand―but it shall not come near thee. For He has given His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up! Because he hoped in Me I will deliver him! I will protect him because he hath known My Name!” (Psalm 90:3-14).
We see all of this in God’s dealings with His Chosen People at the time of the Exodus from Egypt and their 40-year path to finally arriving at the Promised Land. God protects them from the plots of Pharao and the pursuing Egyptian army. God miraculously divides the Red Sea so that His Chosen People can safely cross. They had to get across the Red Sea at night. Now, if they crossed the Red Sea on a narrow path, double file (two-by-two), the line would be over 800 miles long and would require at 35 days and nights to get through. To be able to cross the Red Sea in one night, you would need an opening in the Red Sea that was at least 3 miles wide, so that they could walk approximately 5,000 abreast. When the Egyptians pursued them into these divided waters, God brought the waters together again to drown them all. Could Moses have “prepped” for this? Leave it to God!
But then, there is another problem—each time they camped at the end of the day, space for anywhere from 2 million to 6 million people (plus their tents and animals) was required! They are not camping standing-up and shoulder-to-shoulder. Tents take up space and there must also be space between tents in order to be able to move around and keep animals tethered. Mathematicians have estimated that―depending upon how many people there were (2 million to 6 million), they would have needed a camp site anywhere from 30 square miles to 90 square miles. Do you think Moses figured all this out before he left Egypt? Of course not! Moses believed in God. God took care of these things for him.
Serious Amount of Food and Water
God’s Heavenly Catering Corps fed around 2 million Israelites in the desert on a daily basis—miraculously. How on earth are you going to feed 2 million (or 4 or 6 million people) on a daily basis in the desert? Manna was the miraculous food that God gave to the Israelites during their 40-year wandering in the desert. The word “manna” means “What is it?” in Hebrew. Not long after the Jewish people had escaped Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, they ran out of the food they had brought with them. They began to grumble, recalling the tasty meals they had enjoyed when they were slaves. God told Moses he would rain down bread from Heaven for the people. That evening quail came and covered the camp. The people killed the birds and ate their meat. The next morning, when the dew evaporated, a white substance covered the ground. The Bible describes manna as white like coriander seed and tasting like wafers made with honey. Moses instructed the people to gather an omer of manna, or about two quarts’ worth, for each person each day. When some of the people tried to save extra, it became wormy and spoiled. Manna appeared for six days in a row. On Fridays the Hebrews were to gather a double portion, because it did not appear on the next day, the Sabbath. And yet, the portion they saved for the Sabbath did not spoil. From this we learn that God will give us what we NEED, but not what we WANT—for we usually want more than we need.
But just stop and think about this miraculous feeding (which Our Lord would imitate, in some way, in the New Testament, with the fishes and loaves). We have 2 million people to feed. Each person has a quart of manna each day. That comes to 4 million pints, or 500,000 gallons of manna a day. You’ve all seen the crates that contain four 1-gallon jugs of milk—well, there would have to be 125,000 such crates to feed the Israelites DAILY!! God’s Heavenly Catering Corps is having to supply to some serious amounts of food! The Book of Exodus says the Israelites ate manna every day for 40 years. Miraculously, when Josue and the people came to the border of Chanaan and ate the food of the Promised Land, manna stopped the next day and was never seen again: “And the children of Israel ate manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land: with this meat were they fed, until they reached the borders of the land of Chanaan” (Exodus 16:35).
They had to be fed, and feeding 2 or 3 million people requires a lot of food. According to the Quartermaster General in the Army (and these figures can of course vary greatly, but they will suffice for a general picture), it is reported that Moses would have to have had 1,500 tons of food each day. Do you know that to bring that much food each day, two freight trains, each around a mile long, would be required! And just think―they were forty years in transit! And, Oh yes! They would have to have water. If they only had enough to drink and wash a few dishes, it would take as much as 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 gallons each day (for humans alone drinking only 4 pints a day, never mind the animals). Do you think Moses figured all this out before he left Egypt? Most certainly not! You see, Moses believed in God. God took care of these things for him. Now do you think God has any problem taking care of all your needs?
When all Hell breaks loose, and we have nothing or very little to eat, and do not know where to go, or how on Earth we will survive—let us remember and pray upon the plight of the Israelites for forty years. What God has done before, God can do again. God looks after His own, but He also punishes His own terribly, if they are unfaithful, if they murmur about their plight—as did the Israelites—which is why God condemned to 40 years of servitude in the desert as a punishment for murmuring and complaining about their conditions in the desert and the dissatisfaction they expressed when they saw the Promised Land from afar and had it reconnoitered.
No Water? No Problem!
At another time during the enforced 40 year long wanderings of Israelites in the desert wilderness, God miraculously provided water out of a rock for them: “Then all the multitude of the children of Israel setting forward from the desert of Sin, encamped in Raphidim, where there was no water for the people to drink. And they complained to Moses, and said: ‘Give us water, so that we may drink!’ And Moses answered them: ‘Why do you chide me? Why do you tempt the Lord?’ So the people were thirsty there for lack of water, and murmured against Moses, saying: ‘Why didst thou make us go forth out of Egypt? Was it to kill us and our children and our beasts with thirst?’ And Moses cried to the Lord, saying: ‘What shall I do for this people? Yet a little more and they will stone me!’ And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Go before the people, and take with thee of the ancients of Israel. And take in thy hand the rod wherewith thou didst strike the river, and go! Behold I will stand there before thee, upon the rock Horeb, and thou shalt strike the rock, and water shall come out of it that the people may drink!’ Moses did so before the ancients of Israel” (Exodus 17:1-6).
“And the people wanting water, came together against Moses and Aaron. And making a sedition, they said: ‘Would to God that we had perished among our brethren before the Lord! Why have you brought out the church of the Lord into the wilderness, was it so that both we and our cattle should die? Why have you made us come up out of Egypt, and have brought us into this wretched place which cannot be sowed, nor bringeth forth figs, nor vines, nor pomegranates, neither is there any water to drink?’ And Moses and Aaron leaving the multitude, went into the tabernacle of the covenant, and fell flat upon the ground, and cried to the Lord and said: ‘O Lord God, hear the cry of this people, and open to them thy treasure, a fountain of living water, that being satisfied, they may cease to murmur!’ And the glory of the Lord appeared over them. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Take the rod, and assemble the people together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak to the rock before them, and it shall yield waters. And when thou hast brought forth water out of the rock, all the multitude and their cattle shall drink!’ Moses therefore took the rod, which was before the Lord, as he had commanded him. And having gathered together the multitude before the rock, he said to them: ‘Hear, ye rebellious and incredulous! Can we bring you forth water out of this rock?’ And when Moses had lifted up his hand, and struck the rock twice with the rod, there came forth water in great abundance, so that the people and their cattle drank” (Numbers 20:2-11).
God’s “Drones” Bring Bread and Meat to Elias
Another instance of God supplying the needs of His chosen ones is seen in the case of the Elias the Prophet: “The word of the Lord came to Elias, saying: ‘Get thee hence, and go towards the east and hide thyself by the torrent of Carith, which is over against the Jordan! There thou shalt drink of the torrent and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there!’ So Elias went, and did according to the word of the Lord. And going, he dwelt by the torrent Carith, which is over against the Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the torrent” (3 Kings 17:2-6).
God Shuts the Mouths of Lions
We read of Daniel being placed into the lion’s den for being faithful to the one true God. The envious enemies of Daniel―whom King Darius had elevated to being the #2 man in the land―plotted, arranged and cornered King Darius into formulating a putting Daniel into the lion’s den for disobeying the King’s edict that forbade God protects and saves Daniel from being eaten alive in the lion’s den (cf. Daniel chapter 6).
“The king thought to set Daniel over all the kingdom―whereupon the princes and the governors sought to find occasion against Daniel with regard to the king. And they could find no cause, nor suspicion concerning Daniel―because he was faithful, and no fault, nor suspicion was found in him. Then these men said: ‘We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, unless perhaps concerning the law of his God!’ Then the princes and the governors craftily suggested to the king and spoke thus unto him: ‘King Darius! Live for ever! All the princes of the kingdom, the magistrates, and governors, the senators, and judges have consulted together, and decided that an imperial decree and an edict be published―saying that whosoever shall ask any petition of any god, or man, for thirty days, other than thee, O King, shall be cast into the den of lions! Now, therefore, O King, confirm the sentence, and sign the decree―so that what is decreed may not be altered, nor any man be allowed to transgress it!’ So King Darius set forth issued and established the decree.” (Daniel 6:4-9).
The conspirators then accused Daniel of breaking the decree―which also broke the heart of King Darius, who esteemed and loved Daniel so much, and Daniel was last the person that Darius would want to condemn to the lion’s den: “They came and spoke to the king concerning the edict: ‘O king, hast thou not decreed, that every man that should make a request to any of the gods, or men, for thirty days, but to thyself, O king, should be cast into the den of the lions?’ And the king answered them, saying: ‘The word is true according to the decree, which it is not lawful to violate!’ Then they answered, and said to the king: ‘Daniel, who is of the children of the captivity of Juda, has not obeyed thy law, nor the decree that thou hast made―but three times a day he makes his prayer!’ Now when the king had heard these words, he was very much grieved, and, as regards Daniel, he set his heart to deliver him and even till sunset he labored to save him. But those men, seeing the king's design, said to him: ‘Know thou, O king, that the law is that no decree which the king hath made, may be altered?’ Then the king commanded that they bring Daniel and cast him into the den of the lions” (Daniel 6:12-16).
When Daniel was seen to have survived the night in the den of lions, King Darius rejoiced and, in place of Daniel, commanded that those who had conspired against Daniel be thrown into the den of lions together with their families:
“Then the king, rising very early in the morning, went in haste to the den of lions. And coming near to the den, he cried with a lamentable voice to Daniel, and said to him: ‘Daniel, servant of the living God! Has thy God―whom thou always serve―been able to deliver thee from the lions?’ And Daniel answering the king, said: ‘My God has sent His angel, and has shut up the mouths of the lions, and they have not hurt me! Forasmuch as before God justice has been found in me; and before thee, O king, I have done no offence!’ Then was the king exceedingly glad for him and he commanded that Daniel should be taken out of the den―and Daniel was taken out of the den, and no hurt was found in him, because he believed in his God. And, by the king's commandment, those men who had accused Daniel were brought to him and they were cast into the den of lions―they and their children, and their wives―and they did not reach the bottom of the den, before the lions caught them, and broke all their bones in pieces” (Daniel 6:19-24).
God Knocks Down the Walls of Jericho
The story of Josue leading the Israelites to bring down the walls of Jericho is another powerful testimony of God “prepping” on behalf of His Chosen People. Jericho was the gateway city to Canaan―the Promised Land. The city of Jericho was surrounded by walls which served as solid protection against attacks. The fall of the walls of Jericho was the first of many God-assisted conquests that would lead to taking possession of the Promised Land. Just as God told Isaias: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways!” (Isaias 55:8), so did He prove at Jericho. How would a human mind “prep” in order to conquer Jericho? Most certainly not the way God had “prepped” its downfall! God had given Josue very specific instructions on what to do to cause the walls of Jericho to collapse, so that the Israelites could enter and defeat Jericho and claim the city: “All you fighting men, go round about the city, once a day―so shall you do for six days. On the seventh day the priests shall take the seven trumpets and shall go before the ark of the covenant: and you shall go around the city seven times, and the priests shall sound the trumpets. And when the voice of the trumpet shall give a longer and broken tune, all the people shall shout together with a very great shout, and the walls of the city shall fall to the ground, and they shall enter in every one at the place against which they shall stand” (Josue 6:3-5).
Josue gathered the army and priests just as God instructed. To Josue, his army, and the priests, this may have seemed like a very different, unusual and unlikely approach to overthrowing the city of Jericho. However, Josue led the Israelites to do what God had instructed. Nevertheless, bowing to the commands of God, for the first six days, the armed men marched around the city once, while the priests had trumpets and carried the ark of the covenant. They did this for six days. On the seventh day, as God instructed, they marched around the city seven times, the priests blew their trumpets, and the army gave a loud shout: “So all the people making a shout, and the trumpets sounding, when the voice and the sound thundered in the ears of the multitude, the walls forthwith fell down: and every man went up by the place that was over against him: and they took the city, and killed all that were in it, man and woman, young and old. The oxen also and the sheep, and the asses, they slew with the edge of the sword.” (Josue 6:20-21).
According to the God’s promise, by the Israelites being obedient to what God instructed, by the power of God the walls of Jericho fell in an amazing victory for the Israelites. The walls of Jericho should have been impenetrable. What Josue and the Israelites were up against may have seemed impossible to them. But they followed God anyway―with full trust and hope in His promise that He would indeed fight for them to claim the land that was promised to them. This reminds us of the words of Our Lord: “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Luke 18:27). “With men this is impossible―but with God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:26) … “And Jesus looking on them, said: ‘With men it is impossible; but not with God: for all things are possible with God!’” (Mark 10:27).
The account of the walls of Jericho coming down is a significant part of God’s promise coming to pass that the Israelites would indeed enter into and possess the Promised Land. God had promised the Israelites this land. The Israelites were not given permission by God to simply storm the city when they were ready. God did not instruct Josue and his army to storm the city upon arrival. He had meticulous steps for them to take to achieve the desired outcome of victory. God was very specific and purposeful in how He orchestrated the walls of Jericho falling. They had to wait seven days. They marched, they camped, and they waited on God to move. If the Israelites had resisted the instructions given by God to Josue, the walls of Jericho would not have come down. The Israelites would have lost and been forced out of the Promised Land. Their obedience to God mattered.
Perhaps some of the armed men wondered as they were marching around the walls if this was really the way to claim victory over Jericho. Maybe others thought it would be best to win the city with a proven military strategy. We may find ourselves thinking similar thoughts when it comes to waiting on God to make a move. The answer is to keep waiting on God. The Israelites could have marched around the walls of Jericho a million times, they could have blown a thousand horns, and shouted until they lost their voices, but without God’s power, the walls of Jericho never would have fallen. We are not entirely self-sufficient―we truly need God. As Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). We need God to win our battles, to overcome obstacles, to save our souls and to make a lasting impact in the world. We need God in our everyday lives, our friendships, our careers, our marriages, and our families. We need God! When we are tempted to think otherwise, let us find wisdom from this biblical story about Josue and walls of Jericho―and convince ourselves that we really do need God in all areas of our lives. The fall of the walls of Jericho is a grand reminder that God fulfills what He promises. A huge amount of time passed between when God initially promised the land to the Israelites, and when they actually came to enter and claim that land. Regardless of how much time passes, God will always make good on His promises. We can trust that God is faithful to His promises and be at peace while we wait for a promise to come to pass. “The eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
The Negative “Prepping” Side of God
God is good! As Our Lord said: “One is good―God!” (Matthew 19:17) … “None is good but God alone!” (Luke 18:19) … “None is good except one―and that is God!” (Mark 10:18). “He is good because His mercy endures for ever!” (1 Machabees 4:24). However, “Be not deceived! God is not mocked!” (Galatians 5:6). “See both the goodness and the severity of God! Severity towards them that sin; but goodness towards those that abide in goodness” (Romans 11:22).
Sinners sin and say: “God is merciful! I will commit this sin, and I will confess it afterwards!” They say, observes the Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine: “God is good! I will do whatever I please!” That is the language of sinners―but such too was the language of so many who are now in Hell. Say not―says the Lord―that the mercies of God are great; that however enormous your sins may be, you shall obtain pardon by an act of contrition!
“Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin! And say not: ‘The mercy of the Lord is great! He will have mercy on the multitude of my sins!’ For mercy and wrath quickly come from Him, and His wrath looks upon sinners. Delay not to be converted to the Lord, and defer it not from day to day! For His wrath shall come suddenly, and in the time of vengeance He will destroy thee!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5-9). The mercy of God is infinite―but the acts of His mercy, or His mercies, are finite. God is merciful, but He is also just. “I am just and merciful,” said Our Lord to St. Bridget; “but sinners see me only as merciful!” Another Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Basil, writes that sinners wish to consider God only as good and merciful. St. Augustine says: “Woe to him who hopes in mercy in order to sin! O how many has this vain hope deluded and brought to perdition!” Mercy is promised―not to those who abuse it―but to those who fear God. “And His mercy,” said Our Lady, “is to those that fear Him” (Luke 1:50).
Miserable is the man who abuses the mercy of God to offer new insults to his majesty! St. Bernard says that Lucifer’s chastisement was accelerated, because he rebelled against God with the hope of escaping punishment. In the Bible we see that King Manasses sinned―but afterwards repented, and obtained pardon. His son, Amon, seeing that his father’s sins were so easily forgiven, abandoned himself to a wicked life with the hope of pardon―but for Amon there was no mercy. Hence St. John Chrysostom asserts that Judas was lost because he sinned through confidence in the benignity of Jesus Christ. God bears with sinners, but He does not bear forever. If God were to bear forever with sinners, no one would be damned―but the most common opinion of theologians is that the greater part of adults, even among Christians, are lost. “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there are that go in thereat” (Matthew 7:13). The net with which the devil drags to hell almost all Christians who are damned, is the delusion by which he leads them into sin with the hope of pardon. Sin freely, he says to them; for after all your iniquities, you shall be saved. But God curses the man that sins with the hope of mercy. According to St. Augustine, he who offends God with the hope of pardon, “is a scoffer, not a penitent.” A clear example of this is seen in the case of Sodom and Gomorrha. The sinful ways of Sodom and Gomorrah were so corrupt that God destroyed the two cities with fire sparing only the family of Lot.
Spiritual Prepping Before Material Prepping
All of the above indicates to us the paramount importance of spiritual prepping―as Our Lord said: “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36). One of the most important elements in spiritual prepping is penance―Our Lord clearly warns: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just men who need not penance! … There shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance! ” (Luke 5:3; 13:3-5; 15:7-10) ... “God now declares unto men, that all should everywhere do penance!” (Acts 17:30) ... “The Lord delays not His promise, as some imagine, but deals patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9) … “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness and patience, and longsuffering? Do you not know that the benignity of God leads you to penance?” (Romans 2:4) … “I mourn many of them that sinned before, and have not done penance for the uncleanness, and fornication, and lasciviousness, that they have committed!” (2 Corinthians 12:21) … “Let him do penance for his sin!” (Leviticus 5:5) ... “Hear, I beseech you, and do penance!” (Job 21:2) ... “Do penance―for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! … Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance!” (Matthew 3:2, 8) ... “Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin!” (Ezechiel 18:30) ... “Do penance and pray to God, that perhaps you may be forgiven!” (Acts 8:22) ... “If My people― being converted―shall pray to Me and seek out My face, and do penance for their most wicked ways―then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land!” (2 Paralipomenon 7:14) ... “God has given him place for penance, but he pridefully abuses it!” (Job 24:23) ... “I gave her time so that she might do penance, and she will not repent!” (Apocalypse 2:21) ... “There is none that does penance for his sin!” (Jeremias 8:6) ... “Neither did they penance for their murders, nor for their sorceries, nor for their fornication, nor for their thefts!” (Apocalypse 9:21) … “They blasphemed the God of Heaven, and did not penance for their works” (Apocalypse 16:11) … “Do penance―if not, I will come to thee quickly with the sword of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 2:16).
The words of Our Lady―in her modern day apparitions―merely echo the words of Our Lord and Holy Scripture: “Penance! Penance! Penance! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … Oh, if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! … there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left offering sacrifice for the sake of the world! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! ... etc.”
We tend to associate the word “prepping” with the brewing crisis in the world today―but “prepping” has been around for a long time. Our Lord and Holy Scripture even speak of it! “Prepping” is, of course, an modern-day abbreviation for the word “preparing”. Preparing is akin to planning. It is because we plan and look ahead, that we consequently prepare for what lies ahead.
God was telling us prepare back in the time of Moses: “Thou shalt prepare…” (Exodus 25:26). “Thou shalt prepare…” (Exodus 25:29). “Thou shalt prepare…” (Exodus 28:40). “Prepare and make thyself ready!” (Ezechiel 38:7). “Prepare all kind of provisions that are necessary!” (Tobias 8:21). “Prepare war! Rouse up the strong! Let them come, let all the men of war come up!” (Joel 3:9). “Every man shall prepare to fight!” (Deuteronomy 20:9). “Prepare ye war!” (Jeremias 6:4). “Prepare thyself for battle…” (4 Kings 18:20). “Prepared to fight!” (Judges 20:17). “Prepare thy chariot!” (3 Kings 18:44). “Prepare ye the shield and buckler―and go forth to battle!” (Jeremias 46:3). “Prepare yourselves against Babylon! All you that bend the bow―fight against her! Spare not arrows―because she hath sinned against the Lord!” (Jeremias 50:14).
Bible Speaks of Spiritual “Prepping”
Considering that “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1) and that we must “fight the good fight of Faith” (1 Timothy 6:12) and that “the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8), then we should be always prepared for the fight and always prepared for temptation―as Scripture says: “When thou comest to the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). The key words here are “prepare thy soul” ― for the soul comes above the body and all the supplies that the body might need: “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36).
To this Our Lord adds: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal … Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on! … Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns―and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you of much more value than they?
Be not solicitous therefore, saying: ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘With what shall we be clothed?’ For after all these things do the heathens seek. Your Father knows that you have need of all these things. [33] Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you! Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow―for the morrow will be solicitous for itself!” (Matthew 6:19-34).
Coming back to the above quote: “When thou comest to the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). Our Lord echoes this danger of temptation and the need to prepare against it, more than once when He says to Saints Peter, James and John during His Agony in the Garden: “Jesus came into a country place which is called Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples: ‘Sit here, while I go yonder and pray!’ And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee [James and John], He began to grow sorrowful and to be sad. Then He said to them: ‘My soul is sorrowful even unto death! Stay here and watch with Me!’ And going a little further, He fell upon His face, praying. Then He came to His disciples, and found them asleep, and He said to Peter: ‘What? Could you not watch one hour with Me? Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation! The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak!’ Again the second time, He went and prayed. Afterwards, He came again and found them sleeping―for their eyes were heavy. And, leaving them, He went again and prayed the third time. Then He came to His disciples, and said to them: ‘Sleep now and take your rest! Behold the hour is at hand!’” (Matthew 26:36-45).
“And Jesus came and found them sleeping. And He said to Peter: ‘Simon! Sleepest thou? Could you not watch for one hour? Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation! The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak!’ And going away again, He prayed. And when He returned, He found them again asleep―for their eyes were heavy―and they knew not what to answer Him. And He came the third time, and said to them: ‘Sleep ye now and take your rest! It is enough! The hour is come!’” (Mark 14:37-41).
“When Jesus was come to the place [Garden of Gethsemane], He said to them: ‘Pray, lest ye enter into temptation!’ … Later, when He rose up from prayer, and was come back to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow, and He said to them: ‘Why do you sleep? Arise, pray, lest you enter into temptation!’” (Luke 22:40-46)
The whole idea behind “prepping” is being ready for a time when something goes wrong. That is why you purchase insurance policies for health, home, vehicle, appliances and travel; that is why you have a spare tire in the car; parachutes in planes; lifeboats on ships; fire-extinguishers and generators in buildings; candles, flashlights and first-aid kits at home; emergency services locally, etc. In this world―time and time again―things inevitably go wrong and we have to be prepared for those moments if we wish to survive them with the minimum of hardship, injury, loss and pain. Being prepared can reduce fear, anxiety, and losses that accompany disasters.
Our Lord even alludes to “prepping” on several occasions.
“The Kingdom of Heaven be like to ten virgins, who taking their lamps went out to meet the bridegroom and the bride. And five of them were foolish, and five wise. But the five foolish virgins, having taken their lamps, did not take oil with them―but the wise virgins took oil in their vessels with the lamps. And the bridegroom tarrying, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made: ‘Behold the bridegroom cometh! Go ye forth to meet him!’ Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish virgins said to the wise: ‘Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out!’ The wise virgins answered, saying: ‘Go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves―lest perhaps there be not enough for us and for you!’ Now while they went to buy, the bridegroom came―and they that were ready, went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. But at last the other virgins came, saying: ‘Lord! Lord! Open to the door for us!’ But he, answering, said: ‘Amen I say to you, I know you not!’ Watch ye therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour!” (Matthew 25:1-13).
“Heaven and Earth shall pass, but My words shall not pass! But of that day and hour no one knows―not the angels of Heaven, but the Father alone! And as in the days of Noe, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage―even till that day in which Noe entered into the ark, and they knew not till the flood came and took them all away―so also shall the coming of the Son of man be. Watch ye therefore, because ye know not what hour your Lord will come! But know this ye, that if the good man of the house knew at what hour the thief would come, he would certainly watch, and would not suffer his house to be broken open. Wherefore be you also ready, because at what hour you know not the Son of man will come. Blessed is that servant, whom when his lord shall come he shall find so doing. Amen I say to you, he shall place him over all his goods. But if that evil servant shall say in his heart: ‘My lord is long a coming!’ and shall begin to strike his fellow servants, and shall eat and drink with drunkards. The lord of that servant shall come in a day that he hopes not, and at an hour that he knows not, and shall separate him, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 25:35-51).
To “Prep” or Not to “Prep”―That is the Question!
Prepping has been on the rise for quite some time now. Research shows 45% of Americans spent money preparing for emergencies or spent money on survival materials. About 15 million Americans are actively prepping right now on a regular basis. If you count in the number who dabble in prepping, then that rises to around 115 million. In terms of percentage of households, regular preppers account for around 10% of all households. Just a few years ago, it was only 2% or 3%. So in only a few years it has increased around 4 to 5 times―a 400% or 500% increase. In addition to the roughly 45% (115 million) that bought survival supplies in the last year, with a further 27% of American adults (69 million) say they didn’t need to hit the stores because their homes already included survival items at the ready for an emergency. Adding up the numbers, that’s roughly 72% of American adults (184.6 million adults) who are prepping for call it what you want: the end times, a massive disaster, a nuclear war, societal breakdown, civil unrest and collapse, etc. This is a dramatic increase ― up to 72% from only 55% of American adults at the start of 2020.
The degree of prepping ranges from almost non-existent prepping (having a week’s supply of food and drink in reserve) to gigantic gargantuan feats of prepping. Even mainstream stores like Walmart and Home Depot sell prepping supplies these days. The internet is choc-a-bloc with prepper websites―each with its own recommendations, hundreds of articles, and regular sales-pitches: “The essential 100 items a prepper must have!” … “The #1 prepping item for 2023!” … “These books are an absolute must for any serious prepper!” etc., etc.
Is it right or wrong to hoard food, drink and other items in preparation for some future emergency? No―it is not wrong, but it must be kept in its rightful place in our sense of values―whereby the soul and the spiritual always takes precedence over the body and the material. As Our Lord said: “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36). To solely prep on the material side of things, while ignoring or relegating any kind of prepping on the spiritual side of things, is to reverse the values imposed by God. In the Baltimore Catechism #3, we read: “Question 152. Of which must we take more care, our soul or our body? Answer: We must take more care of our soul than of our body. Question 153. Why must we take more care of our soul than of our body? Answer: We must take more care of our soul than of our body, because in losing our soul we lose God and everlasting happiness.”
Unfortunately, the time we spend upon our body and its material needs, far outweighs the time that we spend upon the soul and its spiritual needs. The same is true for the excessive amount of time we spend on material things in general―ultimately, it is our soul and perhaps even our salvation that will suffer the consequences.
Joseph the Egyptian Prepper
We see an astounding case of successful prepping on the part of Joseph, one of Jacob’s 12 sons, in the Old Testament. Having been sold into slavery by his envious and murderous brothers, Joseph―assisted by God’s Providence―eventually emerged from slavery to become the Egyptian Pharao’s right-hand-man by correctly interpreting two dreams that Pharao dreamt―the one dream was about seven fat cows who were devoured by seven thin cows; the other dream had seven plump and good ears of grain swallowed up by seven thin and blighted ears of grain. He was troubled by these dreams, and called together all the magicians and wise men of Egypt―but no one could interpret the dreams for him.
Eventually, someone told Pharao about the successful dream interpreter Joseph, who at that time was languishing in prison. Pharao commanded that Joseph be brought to him from the dungeon. After hearing the account of the dreams, Joseph told Pharaoh that the seven good cows and seven plump ears of grain signified seven years of great abundance throughout the land of Egypt, but that the seven thin cows and seven worthless heads of grain signified seven years of famine that would follow. Joseph warned Pharao that the reason the dream was given in two forms was that the matter has been firmly decided by God, and God would do it soon. Joseph advised Pharao to set aside a decent quantity of the harvests during the seven years of abundance, so as tide them over the seven years of famine. Pharao, amazed and grateful for this interpretation of his dreams, put Joseph in charge of Egypt and its operations―with only Pharao being above Joseph.
During the seven years of abundance the land produced plentifully. Joseph collected all the food produced in those seven years of abundance in Egypt and stored it in the cities. He stored up huge quantities of grain, like the sand of the sea; it was so much that he stopped keeping records because it was beyond measure. When the seven years of abundance in Egypt came to an end, the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had said. There was famine in all the other surrounding countries, but in the whole land of Egypt there was food. When the famine had spread over the whole country, Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe throughout Egypt. And all the surrounding countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe everywhere. Pretty good prepper, huh?
We see two more striking instances where God plays the role of “prepper” by miraculously supplying what is needed by the miraculous intervention of two of His prophets―Elias and Elisesus.
ELIAS ― “The word of the Lord came to Elias, saying: ‘Arise, and go to Sarephta of the Sidonians, and dwell there: for I have commanded a widow woman there to feed thee!’ He arose and went to Sarephta. And when he was come to the gate of the city, he saw the widow woman gathering sticks, and he called her, and said to her: ‘Give me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink!’ And when she was going to fetch it he called after her, saying: ‘Bring me also, I beseech thee, a morsel of bread in thy hand!’ And she answered: ‘As the Lord thy God liveth, I have no bread, but only a handful of meal in a pot, and a little oil in a cruse! Behold I am gathering two sticks that I may go in and dress it, for me and my son, that we may eat it and die!’ And Elias said to her: ‘Fear not, but go, and do as thou hast said! But first make for me of the same meal a little hearth cake, and bring it to me; and, after, make some for thyself and thy son. For thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: “The pot of meal shall not waste, nor the vessel of oil be diminished, until the day wherein the Lord will give rain upon the face of the Earth!”’ She went and did according to the word of Elias―and he ate, and she, and her house. And from that day the pot of meal wasted not, and the vessel of oil was not diminished, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke in the hand of Elias” (3 Kings 17:8-16).
ELISEUS ― “Now a certain woman of the wives of the prophets cried to Eliseus, saying: ‘Thy servant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant was one that feared God! And behold the creditor is come to take away my two sons to serve him!’ And Eliseus said to her: ‘What wilt thou have me to do for thee? Tell me―what hast thou in thy house?’ And she answered: ‘I thy handmaid have nothing in my house but a little oil, to anoint me!’ And he said to her: ‘Go, borrow from all thy neighbors, empty vessels―and not just a few! And go into thy house and shut the door! When thou art inside with thy sons, pour out your oil into all those vessels―and when they are full take them away!’ So the woman went and shut the door upon herself and upon her sons. They brought her the vessels, and she poured in the oil. And when the vessels were full, she said to her son: ‘Bring me another a vessel!’ And he answered: ‘I have no more!’ And the oil stopped flowing. And she came, and told the man of God. And he said: ‘Go, sell the oil, and pay thy creditor! And thou and thy sons live off the rest!’” (4 Kings 4:1-7).
God is a Prepper
Prepping or preparation requires a knowledge―the more we know, the better we can prepare and the more bases we can cover. God’s knowledge is all-encompassing―He knows everything that is and everything that could be. Nothing escapes the knowledge of God! He even knows what we will do before we do it! Just as there are no limits to what God knows, neither are there any limits as to what God can do. He is omnipotent, all-powerful, all-mighty. What better prepper could you find? God is the prepper par-excellence! He is the supreme prepper! There is no better prepper than God! The whole of God’s creation is a miracle of preparation. St. Thomas Aquinas says that God’s creation is the primary and most perfect revelation of the Divine. It has to be―for an all-perfect God cannot make an imperfect thing. God is perfect, so He created things perfect―anything imperfect is due to sin, not to the way God made it originally.
God’s creation is so perfect that He has placed in His creation the antidote for anything and everything―even sin. God does not need to revise or tweak anything. God does not have to alter His creation in order to “keep up with the times”―God is always ahead of the times. God has not overlooked anything―His creation contains all that we would ever need. Just think of how the human body can heal itself from within and recover by also using elements of God’s creation. Unfortunately, due to our sins, God proportionately blinds us and justly prevents us from discovering all that His creation contains.
God made a perfect world―but the sins of mankind, beginning with Adam and Eve, brought imperfection and destruction into the world. “God commanded Adam, saying: ‘Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat! But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death!’” Scripture adds: “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “Sin hath reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21). “Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:15).
God’s Prepping for the Exodus
When the Israelites left Egypt, they were at least 2 million in number. 2 million is a very low and conservative estimate―some biblical scholars say the number of Israelites could have been as high as 4 to 6 million! Imagine the “prepping” that would go into such an enterprise! Yet, if you have God on your side, then there are certain things that He will take care of and look after―provided that you honor God and keep His commandments: “The Lord, Who is your leader, He Himself will be with thee! He will not leave thee, nor forsake thee! Fear not, neither be dismayed!” (Deuteronomy 31:8). “If God be for us, who can stand against us?” (Romans 8:31). “I will deliver thee in that day, saith the Lord, and thou shalt not be given into the hands of the men whom thou fearest … I will deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword―but thy life shall be saved for thee, because thou hast put thy trust in Me, saith the Lord” (Jeremias 39:17-18). “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper” (Isaias 57:13). “The Lord is my shepherd and I shall want nothing. He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment. He hath led me on the paths … and though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me!” (Psalm 22:1-4).
“He will overshadow thee with His shoulders: and under his wings thou shalt trust. His truth shall compass thee with a shield. Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night; of the arrow that flies; of the snare of the hunters; of invasion, or of the noonday devil. No evil shall come to thee; nor shall the pestilence come near thy dwelling. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand―but it shall not come near thee. For He has given His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up! Because he hoped in Me I will deliver him! I will protect him because he hath known My Name!” (Psalm 90:3-14).
We see all of this in God’s dealings with His Chosen People at the time of the Exodus from Egypt and their 40-year path to finally arriving at the Promised Land. God protects them from the plots of Pharao and the pursuing Egyptian army. God miraculously divides the Red Sea so that His Chosen People can safely cross. They had to get across the Red Sea at night. Now, if they crossed the Red Sea on a narrow path, double file (two-by-two), the line would be over 800 miles long and would require at 35 days and nights to get through. To be able to cross the Red Sea in one night, you would need an opening in the Red Sea that was at least 3 miles wide, so that they could walk approximately 5,000 abreast. When the Egyptians pursued them into these divided waters, God brought the waters together again to drown them all. Could Moses have “prepped” for this? Leave it to God!
But then, there is another problem—each time they camped at the end of the day, space for anywhere from 2 million to 6 million people (plus their tents and animals) was required! They are not camping standing-up and shoulder-to-shoulder. Tents take up space and there must also be space between tents in order to be able to move around and keep animals tethered. Mathematicians have estimated that―depending upon how many people there were (2 million to 6 million), they would have needed a camp site anywhere from 30 square miles to 90 square miles. Do you think Moses figured all this out before he left Egypt? Of course not! Moses believed in God. God took care of these things for him.
Serious Amount of Food and Water
God’s Heavenly Catering Corps fed around 2 million Israelites in the desert on a daily basis—miraculously. How on earth are you going to feed 2 million (or 4 or 6 million people) on a daily basis in the desert? Manna was the miraculous food that God gave to the Israelites during their 40-year wandering in the desert. The word “manna” means “What is it?” in Hebrew. Not long after the Jewish people had escaped Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, they ran out of the food they had brought with them. They began to grumble, recalling the tasty meals they had enjoyed when they were slaves. God told Moses he would rain down bread from Heaven for the people. That evening quail came and covered the camp. The people killed the birds and ate their meat. The next morning, when the dew evaporated, a white substance covered the ground. The Bible describes manna as white like coriander seed and tasting like wafers made with honey. Moses instructed the people to gather an omer of manna, or about two quarts’ worth, for each person each day. When some of the people tried to save extra, it became wormy and spoiled. Manna appeared for six days in a row. On Fridays the Hebrews were to gather a double portion, because it did not appear on the next day, the Sabbath. And yet, the portion they saved for the Sabbath did not spoil. From this we learn that God will give us what we NEED, but not what we WANT—for we usually want more than we need.
But just stop and think about this miraculous feeding (which Our Lord would imitate, in some way, in the New Testament, with the fishes and loaves). We have 2 million people to feed. Each person has a quart of manna each day. That comes to 4 million pints, or 500,000 gallons of manna a day. You’ve all seen the crates that contain four 1-gallon jugs of milk—well, there would have to be 125,000 such crates to feed the Israelites DAILY!! God’s Heavenly Catering Corps is having to supply to some serious amounts of food! The Book of Exodus says the Israelites ate manna every day for 40 years. Miraculously, when Josue and the people came to the border of Chanaan and ate the food of the Promised Land, manna stopped the next day and was never seen again: “And the children of Israel ate manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land: with this meat were they fed, until they reached the borders of the land of Chanaan” (Exodus 16:35).
They had to be fed, and feeding 2 or 3 million people requires a lot of food. According to the Quartermaster General in the Army (and these figures can of course vary greatly, but they will suffice for a general picture), it is reported that Moses would have to have had 1,500 tons of food each day. Do you know that to bring that much food each day, two freight trains, each around a mile long, would be required! And just think―they were forty years in transit! And, Oh yes! They would have to have water. If they only had enough to drink and wash a few dishes, it would take as much as 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 gallons each day (for humans alone drinking only 4 pints a day, never mind the animals). Do you think Moses figured all this out before he left Egypt? Most certainly not! You see, Moses believed in God. God took care of these things for him. Now do you think God has any problem taking care of all your needs?
When all Hell breaks loose, and we have nothing or very little to eat, and do not know where to go, or how on Earth we will survive—let us remember and pray upon the plight of the Israelites for forty years. What God has done before, God can do again. God looks after His own, but He also punishes His own terribly, if they are unfaithful, if they murmur about their plight—as did the Israelites—which is why God condemned to 40 years of servitude in the desert as a punishment for murmuring and complaining about their conditions in the desert and the dissatisfaction they expressed when they saw the Promised Land from afar and had it reconnoitered.
No Water? No Problem!
At another time during the enforced 40 year long wanderings of Israelites in the desert wilderness, God miraculously provided water out of a rock for them: “Then all the multitude of the children of Israel setting forward from the desert of Sin, encamped in Raphidim, where there was no water for the people to drink. And they complained to Moses, and said: ‘Give us water, so that we may drink!’ And Moses answered them: ‘Why do you chide me? Why do you tempt the Lord?’ So the people were thirsty there for lack of water, and murmured against Moses, saying: ‘Why didst thou make us go forth out of Egypt? Was it to kill us and our children and our beasts with thirst?’ And Moses cried to the Lord, saying: ‘What shall I do for this people? Yet a little more and they will stone me!’ And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Go before the people, and take with thee of the ancients of Israel. And take in thy hand the rod wherewith thou didst strike the river, and go! Behold I will stand there before thee, upon the rock Horeb, and thou shalt strike the rock, and water shall come out of it that the people may drink!’ Moses did so before the ancients of Israel” (Exodus 17:1-6).
“And the people wanting water, came together against Moses and Aaron. And making a sedition, they said: ‘Would to God that we had perished among our brethren before the Lord! Why have you brought out the church of the Lord into the wilderness, was it so that both we and our cattle should die? Why have you made us come up out of Egypt, and have brought us into this wretched place which cannot be sowed, nor bringeth forth figs, nor vines, nor pomegranates, neither is there any water to drink?’ And Moses and Aaron leaving the multitude, went into the tabernacle of the covenant, and fell flat upon the ground, and cried to the Lord and said: ‘O Lord God, hear the cry of this people, and open to them thy treasure, a fountain of living water, that being satisfied, they may cease to murmur!’ And the glory of the Lord appeared over them. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Take the rod, and assemble the people together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak to the rock before them, and it shall yield waters. And when thou hast brought forth water out of the rock, all the multitude and their cattle shall drink!’ Moses therefore took the rod, which was before the Lord, as he had commanded him. And having gathered together the multitude before the rock, he said to them: ‘Hear, ye rebellious and incredulous! Can we bring you forth water out of this rock?’ And when Moses had lifted up his hand, and struck the rock twice with the rod, there came forth water in great abundance, so that the people and their cattle drank” (Numbers 20:2-11).
God’s “Drones” Bring Bread and Meat to Elias
Another instance of God supplying the needs of His chosen ones is seen in the case of the Elias the Prophet: “The word of the Lord came to Elias, saying: ‘Get thee hence, and go towards the east and hide thyself by the torrent of Carith, which is over against the Jordan! There thou shalt drink of the torrent and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there!’ So Elias went, and did according to the word of the Lord. And going, he dwelt by the torrent Carith, which is over against the Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the torrent” (3 Kings 17:2-6).
God Shuts the Mouths of Lions
We read of Daniel being placed into the lion’s den for being faithful to the one true God. The envious enemies of Daniel―whom King Darius had elevated to being the #2 man in the land―plotted, arranged and cornered King Darius into formulating a putting Daniel into the lion’s den for disobeying the King’s edict that forbade God protects and saves Daniel from being eaten alive in the lion’s den (cf. Daniel chapter 6).
“The king thought to set Daniel over all the kingdom―whereupon the princes and the governors sought to find occasion against Daniel with regard to the king. And they could find no cause, nor suspicion concerning Daniel―because he was faithful, and no fault, nor suspicion was found in him. Then these men said: ‘We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, unless perhaps concerning the law of his God!’ Then the princes and the governors craftily suggested to the king and spoke thus unto him: ‘King Darius! Live for ever! All the princes of the kingdom, the magistrates, and governors, the senators, and judges have consulted together, and decided that an imperial decree and an edict be published―saying that whosoever shall ask any petition of any god, or man, for thirty days, other than thee, O King, shall be cast into the den of lions! Now, therefore, O King, confirm the sentence, and sign the decree―so that what is decreed may not be altered, nor any man be allowed to transgress it!’ So King Darius set forth issued and established the decree.” (Daniel 6:4-9).
The conspirators then accused Daniel of breaking the decree―which also broke the heart of King Darius, who esteemed and loved Daniel so much, and Daniel was last the person that Darius would want to condemn to the lion’s den: “They came and spoke to the king concerning the edict: ‘O king, hast thou not decreed, that every man that should make a request to any of the gods, or men, for thirty days, but to thyself, O king, should be cast into the den of the lions?’ And the king answered them, saying: ‘The word is true according to the decree, which it is not lawful to violate!’ Then they answered, and said to the king: ‘Daniel, who is of the children of the captivity of Juda, has not obeyed thy law, nor the decree that thou hast made―but three times a day he makes his prayer!’ Now when the king had heard these words, he was very much grieved, and, as regards Daniel, he set his heart to deliver him and even till sunset he labored to save him. But those men, seeing the king's design, said to him: ‘Know thou, O king, that the law is that no decree which the king hath made, may be altered?’ Then the king commanded that they bring Daniel and cast him into the den of the lions” (Daniel 6:12-16).
When Daniel was seen to have survived the night in the den of lions, King Darius rejoiced and, in place of Daniel, commanded that those who had conspired against Daniel be thrown into the den of lions together with their families:
“Then the king, rising very early in the morning, went in haste to the den of lions. And coming near to the den, he cried with a lamentable voice to Daniel, and said to him: ‘Daniel, servant of the living God! Has thy God―whom thou always serve―been able to deliver thee from the lions?’ And Daniel answering the king, said: ‘My God has sent His angel, and has shut up the mouths of the lions, and they have not hurt me! Forasmuch as before God justice has been found in me; and before thee, O king, I have done no offence!’ Then was the king exceedingly glad for him and he commanded that Daniel should be taken out of the den―and Daniel was taken out of the den, and no hurt was found in him, because he believed in his God. And, by the king's commandment, those men who had accused Daniel were brought to him and they were cast into the den of lions―they and their children, and their wives―and they did not reach the bottom of the den, before the lions caught them, and broke all their bones in pieces” (Daniel 6:19-24).
God Knocks Down the Walls of Jericho
The story of Josue leading the Israelites to bring down the walls of Jericho is another powerful testimony of God “prepping” on behalf of His Chosen People. Jericho was the gateway city to Canaan―the Promised Land. The city of Jericho was surrounded by walls which served as solid protection against attacks. The fall of the walls of Jericho was the first of many God-assisted conquests that would lead to taking possession of the Promised Land. Just as God told Isaias: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways!” (Isaias 55:8), so did He prove at Jericho. How would a human mind “prep” in order to conquer Jericho? Most certainly not the way God had “prepped” its downfall! God had given Josue very specific instructions on what to do to cause the walls of Jericho to collapse, so that the Israelites could enter and defeat Jericho and claim the city: “All you fighting men, go round about the city, once a day―so shall you do for six days. On the seventh day the priests shall take the seven trumpets and shall go before the ark of the covenant: and you shall go around the city seven times, and the priests shall sound the trumpets. And when the voice of the trumpet shall give a longer and broken tune, all the people shall shout together with a very great shout, and the walls of the city shall fall to the ground, and they shall enter in every one at the place against which they shall stand” (Josue 6:3-5).
Josue gathered the army and priests just as God instructed. To Josue, his army, and the priests, this may have seemed like a very different, unusual and unlikely approach to overthrowing the city of Jericho. However, Josue led the Israelites to do what God had instructed. Nevertheless, bowing to the commands of God, for the first six days, the armed men marched around the city once, while the priests had trumpets and carried the ark of the covenant. They did this for six days. On the seventh day, as God instructed, they marched around the city seven times, the priests blew their trumpets, and the army gave a loud shout: “So all the people making a shout, and the trumpets sounding, when the voice and the sound thundered in the ears of the multitude, the walls forthwith fell down: and every man went up by the place that was over against him: and they took the city, and killed all that were in it, man and woman, young and old. The oxen also and the sheep, and the asses, they slew with the edge of the sword.” (Josue 6:20-21).
According to the God’s promise, by the Israelites being obedient to what God instructed, by the power of God the walls of Jericho fell in an amazing victory for the Israelites. The walls of Jericho should have been impenetrable. What Josue and the Israelites were up against may have seemed impossible to them. But they followed God anyway―with full trust and hope in His promise that He would indeed fight for them to claim the land that was promised to them. This reminds us of the words of Our Lord: “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Luke 18:27). “With men this is impossible―but with God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:26) … “And Jesus looking on them, said: ‘With men it is impossible; but not with God: for all things are possible with God!’” (Mark 10:27).
The account of the walls of Jericho coming down is a significant part of God’s promise coming to pass that the Israelites would indeed enter into and possess the Promised Land. God had promised the Israelites this land. The Israelites were not given permission by God to simply storm the city when they were ready. God did not instruct Josue and his army to storm the city upon arrival. He had meticulous steps for them to take to achieve the desired outcome of victory. God was very specific and purposeful in how He orchestrated the walls of Jericho falling. They had to wait seven days. They marched, they camped, and they waited on God to move. If the Israelites had resisted the instructions given by God to Josue, the walls of Jericho would not have come down. The Israelites would have lost and been forced out of the Promised Land. Their obedience to God mattered.
Perhaps some of the armed men wondered as they were marching around the walls if this was really the way to claim victory over Jericho. Maybe others thought it would be best to win the city with a proven military strategy. We may find ourselves thinking similar thoughts when it comes to waiting on God to make a move. The answer is to keep waiting on God. The Israelites could have marched around the walls of Jericho a million times, they could have blown a thousand horns, and shouted until they lost their voices, but without God’s power, the walls of Jericho never would have fallen. We are not entirely self-sufficient―we truly need God. As Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). We need God to win our battles, to overcome obstacles, to save our souls and to make a lasting impact in the world. We need God in our everyday lives, our friendships, our careers, our marriages, and our families. We need God! When we are tempted to think otherwise, let us find wisdom from this biblical story about Josue and walls of Jericho―and convince ourselves that we really do need God in all areas of our lives. The fall of the walls of Jericho is a grand reminder that God fulfills what He promises. A huge amount of time passed between when God initially promised the land to the Israelites, and when they actually came to enter and claim that land. Regardless of how much time passes, God will always make good on His promises. We can trust that God is faithful to His promises and be at peace while we wait for a promise to come to pass. “The eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
The Negative “Prepping” Side of God
God is good! As Our Lord said: “One is good―God!” (Matthew 19:17) … “None is good but God alone!” (Luke 18:19) … “None is good except one―and that is God!” (Mark 10:18). “He is good because His mercy endures for ever!” (1 Machabees 4:24). However, “Be not deceived! God is not mocked!” (Galatians 5:6). “See both the goodness and the severity of God! Severity towards them that sin; but goodness towards those that abide in goodness” (Romans 11:22).
Sinners sin and say: “God is merciful! I will commit this sin, and I will confess it afterwards!” They say, observes the Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine: “God is good! I will do whatever I please!” That is the language of sinners―but such too was the language of so many who are now in Hell. Say not―says the Lord―that the mercies of God are great; that however enormous your sins may be, you shall obtain pardon by an act of contrition!
“Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin! And say not: ‘The mercy of the Lord is great! He will have mercy on the multitude of my sins!’ For mercy and wrath quickly come from Him, and His wrath looks upon sinners. Delay not to be converted to the Lord, and defer it not from day to day! For His wrath shall come suddenly, and in the time of vengeance He will destroy thee!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5-9). The mercy of God is infinite―but the acts of His mercy, or His mercies, are finite. God is merciful, but He is also just. “I am just and merciful,” said Our Lord to St. Bridget; “but sinners see me only as merciful!” Another Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Basil, writes that sinners wish to consider God only as good and merciful. St. Augustine says: “Woe to him who hopes in mercy in order to sin! O how many has this vain hope deluded and brought to perdition!” Mercy is promised―not to those who abuse it―but to those who fear God. “And His mercy,” said Our Lady, “is to those that fear Him” (Luke 1:50).
Miserable is the man who abuses the mercy of God to offer new insults to his majesty! St. Bernard says that Lucifer’s chastisement was accelerated, because he rebelled against God with the hope of escaping punishment. In the Bible we see that King Manasses sinned―but afterwards repented, and obtained pardon. His son, Amon, seeing that his father’s sins were so easily forgiven, abandoned himself to a wicked life with the hope of pardon―but for Amon there was no mercy. Hence St. John Chrysostom asserts that Judas was lost because he sinned through confidence in the benignity of Jesus Christ. God bears with sinners, but He does not bear forever. If God were to bear forever with sinners, no one would be damned―but the most common opinion of theologians is that the greater part of adults, even among Christians, are lost. “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there are that go in thereat” (Matthew 7:13). The net with which the devil drags to hell almost all Christians who are damned, is the delusion by which he leads them into sin with the hope of pardon. Sin freely, he says to them; for after all your iniquities, you shall be saved. But God curses the man that sins with the hope of mercy. According to St. Augustine, he who offends God with the hope of pardon, “is a scoffer, not a penitent.” A clear example of this is seen in the case of Sodom and Gomorrha. The sinful ways of Sodom and Gomorrah were so corrupt that God destroyed the two cities with fire sparing only the family of Lot.
Spiritual Prepping Before Material Prepping
All of the above indicates to us the paramount importance of spiritual prepping―as Our Lord said: “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8:36). One of the most important elements in spiritual prepping is penance―Our Lord clearly warns: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … No, I say to you― unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish ... Again I say to you― except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just men who need not penance! … There shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance! ” (Luke 5:3; 13:3-5; 15:7-10) ... “God now declares unto men, that all should everywhere do penance!” (Acts 17:30) ... “The Lord delays not His promise, as some imagine, but deals patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9) … “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness and patience, and longsuffering? Do you not know that the benignity of God leads you to penance?” (Romans 2:4) … “I mourn many of them that sinned before, and have not done penance for the uncleanness, and fornication, and lasciviousness, that they have committed!” (2 Corinthians 12:21) … “Let him do penance for his sin!” (Leviticus 5:5) ... “Hear, I beseech you, and do penance!” (Job 21:2) ... “Do penance―for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! … Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance!” (Matthew 3:2, 8) ... “Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin!” (Ezechiel 18:30) ... “Do penance and pray to God, that perhaps you may be forgiven!” (Acts 8:22) ... “If My people― being converted―shall pray to Me and seek out My face, and do penance for their most wicked ways―then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land!” (2 Paralipomenon 7:14) ... “God has given him place for penance, but he pridefully abuses it!” (Job 24:23) ... “I gave her time so that she might do penance, and she will not repent!” (Apocalypse 2:21) ... “There is none that does penance for his sin!” (Jeremias 8:6) ... “Neither did they penance for their murders, nor for their sorceries, nor for their fornication, nor for their thefts!” (Apocalypse 9:21) … “They blasphemed the God of Heaven, and did not penance for their works” (Apocalypse 16:11) … “Do penance―if not, I will come to thee quickly with the sword of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 2:16).
The words of Our Lady―in her modern day apparitions―merely echo the words of Our Lord and Holy Scripture: “Penance! Penance! Penance! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … Oh, if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! … there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left offering sacrifice for the sake of the world! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! ... etc.”
Article 6
Sunday January 15th, 2023
What Will the Year 2023 Bring?
Sunday January 15th, 2023
What Will the Year 2023 Bring?
What does the Future Hold? Who Holds the Future?
“Man is ignorant of things past, and things to come he cannot know! … A man cannot tell what hath been before him and what shall be after him!” (Ecclesiastes 8:7; 10:14). “Boast not for tomorrow, for thou knowest not what the day to come may bring forth!” (Proverbs 27:1). “You say: ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and there we will spend a year, and will trade, and make our gain!’ Whereas you know not what shall happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is like a mist which appears for a little while, and afterwards shall vanish away. For that you should say: ‘If the Lord will, and if we shall live, we will do this or that!’” (James 4:13-15). “Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and be not anxious over tomorrow―for tomorrow will be anxious for itself! Sufficient for today is its own evil!” (Matthew 6:34).
The Apostles were often seeking to know the future. On one of those occasions, at the Ascension, Our Lord said to them: “It is not for you to know the times, or moments, which the Father hath put in His own power!” (Acts 1:7). God Himself says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9). When Our Lord was foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem (which took place in 70 AD) and our own present “End Times” or “Last Days”, He said: “Of that day or hour, no man knows―neither the angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but the Father! Take ye heed, watch and pray! For ye know not when the time is!” (Mark 13:32). Elsewhere Our Lord warns: “Watch ye, therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour!” (Matthew 25:13).
Accepting God’s Future Designs
“We know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to His purpose, are called to be saints!” (Romans 8:28). This was clearly evident in the case of Job, as we read in the Old Testament:
“There was a man in the land of Hus, whose name was Job, and that man was simple and upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil. And there were born to him seven sons and three daughters. And his possession was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a family exceeding great: and this man was great among all the people of the east. And his sons went, and made a feast by houses everyone in his day. And sending they called their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of their feasting were gone about, Job sent to them, and sanctified them: and rising up early offered holocausts for every one of them. For he said: ‘Lest perhaps my sons have sinned and have blessed God in their hearts!’ So did Job all days.
“Now on a certain day when the sons of God came to stand before the Lord, Satan also was present among them. And the Lord said to him: ‘From where comest thou?’ And he answered and said: ‘I have gone round about the Earth, and walked through it!’ And the Lord said to him: ‘Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the Earth―a simple and upright man, and fearing God, and avoiding evil?’ And Satan answering, said: ‘Doth Job fear God in vain? Hast Thou not made a fence for him and his house, and all his substance round about, and blessed the works of his hands, and his possession hath increased on the Earth? But just stretch forth Thy hand a little, and touch all that he has, and then see if he blesses Thee not to Thy face!’ Then the Lord said to Satan: ‘Behold, all that he hath is in thy hand―only put not forth thy hand upon his person!’ And Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.
“Now upon a certain day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their eldest brother, There came a messenger to Job, and said: ‘The oxen were ploughing, and the asses feeding beside them, and the Sabeans rushed in, and took all away, and slew the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell thee!’ And while he was yet speaking, another came, and said: ‘The fire of God fell from Heaven, and striking the sheep and the servants, hath consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell thee!’ And while he also was yet speaking, there came another, and said: ‘The Chaldeans made three troops of soldiers, and have fallen upon the camels, and taken them, moreover they have slain the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell thee! He was yet speaking, and behold another came in, and said: ‘Thy sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their elder brother! A violent wind came on all of a sudden, from the side of the desert, and shook the four corners of the house, and it fell upon thy children and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell thee!’
“Then Job rose up, and tore his garments, and, having shaven his head, fell down upon the ground and worshiped, and said: ‘Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there! The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away! As it hath pleased the Lord so is it done! Blessed be the Name of the Lord!’ In all these things Job sinned not by his lips, nor spoke he any foolish thing against God” (Job 1:1-22).
That was not the end of Job’s woes! Satan, having failed to make Job turn against God by bringing all these calamities upon him, goes back to God and asks for permission to afflict Job even more―this time with regard to his health: “And it came to pass, when on a certain day the sons of God came, and stood before the Lord, and Satan came among them, and stood in His sight. And the Lord said to Satan: ‘From where comest thou?’ And he answered and said: ‘I have gone round about the Earth, and walked through it!’ And the Lord said to Satan: ‘Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the Earth, a man simple, and upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil, and still keeping his innocence? But thou hast moved Me against him, that I should afflict him without cause!’ And Satan answered, and said: ‘Skin for skin, and all that a man hath he will give for his life! Just put forth Thy hand and touch his bones and his flesh, and then Thou shalt see if he will bless Thee to Thy face!’ And the Lord said to Satan: ‘Behold he is in thy hands, but yet save his life!’
“So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with a very grievous ulcer, from the sole of the foot even to the top of his head. And Job took a piece of a broken clay pot and scraped the corrupt matter, while sitting on a dunghill. And his wife said to him: ‘Dost thou still continue in thy simplicity? Bless God and die!’ And he said to her: ‘Thou hast spoken like one of the foolish women! If we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil?’ In all these things Job did not sin with his lips” (Job 2:1-10).
God is Fair! We Get What We Deserve!
Since God is all-perfect and perfection itself, then one of the many attributes of God is His fairness―which is a part of His justice. In fact, since God is all-perfect, He is more than fair―He has never punished anyone as much as they really deserve to be punished. Part of the reason for that is the fact that the mercy of God is the greatest of His works: “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all his works” (Psalm 144:8-9). We see the truth of those words reflected in God’s own comments: “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die! Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? If the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, then living he shall live and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done―in his justice, which he hath wrought, he shall live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-23).
The problem is that there is little or no sign of the sinful world converting to God―in fact, the opposite is happening, and, as a whole, we are committing more and more sins with each successive year! Holy Scripture warns us of the consequences this: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
Our Lady has said that we are sinning too much and that God will not tolerate this―despite the fact that mercy is the greatest of His works. We are abusing that mercy! Our Lady stated: “These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! … Many souls go to Hell! … Many men in this world afflict the Lord! … People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended! … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity! It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth! … Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead! … The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness! … Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will strike in an unprecedented way! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together! … The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God.” (Words of Our Lady at her various apparitions).
Sickening Indifference of Catholics
If God, Our Lady and Heaven see things as stated above―how can we, how dare we, Catholics be so indifferent and dismissive of the current sinful state of the world in general and the Church in particular? Whose side are we really on? We just silently witness all this going and pray, sacrifice, say and do little or nothing about it. As Our Lady of Good Success said: “Those who should speak out will be silent!” Our Lady of La Salette further stating: “There are no more generous souls! … They have neglected prayer and penance … by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures! … People think of nothing but amusement!” To which Our Lady of Fatima added: “There are none to sacrifice themselves and pray!” While Our Lady of Akita implored: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord! I desire souls to console Him and to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish for souls who will repair―by their suffering―for the sinners!” Our Lady of La Salette adding: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it!”
Yet these words of Our Lady fall upon indifferent and uncaring ears―as Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad because no one has paid attention to her Message! … Believe me ― God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent! It will be very sad for everyone if the world does not pray and do penance before then! … It is my mission not just to tell about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No―my mission is to tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin!”
This indifference of Catholics is damnably reprehensible! Our Lord call us the light of world and the salt of the Earth: “You are the salt of the Earth. But if the salt loses its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more, except to be cast out and to be trodden upon by men! You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men!” (Matthew 5:13-16).
God insists that we are watchmen and guards, who are meant to warn others of impending dangers: “Son of man, I have made you a watchman to the house of Israel (the Church)! And you shall hear the word out of My mouth, and shall tell it to them from Me! If, when I say to the wicked: ‘You shall surely die!’ ― and you do not declare it to him, nor speak to him, so that he might be converted from his wicked ways and live, then the same wicked man shall certainly die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at your hand! But if you give warning to the wicked, and he does not convert from his wickedness and from his evil ways―then he indeed shall die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your soul! Moreover, if the just man shall turn away from his justice, and shall commit iniquity―then I will lay a stumbling-block before him and he shall die―because you have not warned him! He shall die in his sin, and all his justices which he has done beforehand, shall not be remembered―but I will require his blood at your hand! But if you warn the just man, so that the just may not sin, and he does not sin―then living he shall live, because you have warned him, and you will have saved your soul!” (Ezechiel 3:17-21).
That is exactly what Sr. Lucia of Fatima echoed in 1957 to Fr. Fuentes: “Father, we should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway!”
So What Will 2023 Bring?
2022 was a historically calamitous year and one that will trickle into 2023 as we continue to wrestle with many of the same issues. There will be massive inflation, not only financially, but also with immorality and troubles.
● Sins will continue to rise in number and gravity. Governments will legislate and adopt more and more sins as being good and lawful.
● Apostasy from the Church will continue to increase.
● Compromise with the sinful world by Church authorities will increase.
● Division within the Church will also increase.
● The “Behind-the-Scenes-Powers-that-be” will continue to destabilize, demoralize, and create crises as a means to obtaining greater control.
● Government propaganda, lies, clampdowns, lockdowns, surveillance, censorship, silencing, bullying, enforcement and authoritarianism will also increase.
● The media censorship and hiding of certain truths will continue, while they will continue to spew out the propaganda and lies that their owners are forced to serve up.
● Technology will increasingly continue to invade privacy and rights, to surveil, manipulate, subjugate and control people.
● The war in Ukraine, the dominant issue of 2022, will continue to divide nations, drain money, resources and lives.
● Division among nations will increase and division within nations will increase.
● Pandemics will continue to be created and vaccinations will come hot on their heels. The tactic was an immense success in duping, so they will not stop now.
● Food shortages will increase as supply chains decrease. Food will be increasingly modified and controlled.
● Job losses will increase and employers will be able to impose draconian demands on employees―obey or you’re out.
● Death rates will continue to climb dramatically as the successful world depopulation agenda takes a stranglehold.
Is There a Solution?
The current situation is dire and promises to get worse. Prophecy paints an even more dire picture for the future! Is there a solution or is everything inevitable? Prophecy is always conditional―meaning that what is prophesied can be avoided if certain things are done. You could actually call “prophecy” by the name “warning”―for that is what negative prophecies are, they are warnings of what will happen if we continue to sin.
Since God is almighty, there is no situation that is irretrievable: “With men this is impossible―but with God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:26). “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Luke 18:27). “And Jesus said: ‘With men it is impossible; but not with God―for all things are possible with God!” (Mark 10:27). And the Angel Gabriel said to Mary: “No word shall be impossible with God!” (Luke 1:37). All of that should fill us with confidence and hope―but not complacency and presumption. For at no time is God going to reward sinfulness. If sin continues, then punishments will escalate. As Our Lady of Akita said: “If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them!”
What is the solution? It a soul-ution! We all know what it is―stop sinning; pray for the conversion of sinners; do penance and make sacrifices. The problem is that we are too busy and too preoccupied with material things―and so have no time for these spiritual things. Yet it is ONLY the spiritual solution that will work―as Our Lady of Good Success pointed out: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. Oh, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!”
Downfall
During the 20th century, religious life started to decline very steeply. Worldwide, after the Second Vatican Council, the number of religious decreased by 33% between 1970 and 2020. In the West, the decline is more severe. In the United States, the numbers dropped by 71% between 1970 and 2018, and in Europe by 59% between 1973 and 2018. Even lay people are leaving their religious upbringing behind. Since 2007 the American public has shown one of the highest rates of secularization found in any country―with the American public showing the fourth largest amount of secularization to be found among the 49 countries that were researched. Whichever survey you look at, the general trend is always the same even though the actual numbers may vary―less and less people believe in God, less and less people pray, less and less people go to church regularly, less and less people read the Bible or other spiritual books, less and less people accept the traditional moral teachings of God, etc., etc., etc.
Unfortunately, the year 2023 is unlikely to see a reversal in this trend of giving-up upon God. The prophesied apostasy will continue as long as we Catholics refuse or neglect to be “the salt of the Earth” and “the light of world”―preferring instead to take our place among the worldly ones that we should be trying to convert by our prayers, sacrifices and example. The consequences of our neglect will catch up with on the Day of Judgment―for, as the Father and Doctor of the Church, St. John Chrysostom, says God will judge us upon everything that happened upon Earth in our lifetime, because our prayers and sacrifices should have reached everyone everywhere.
Not a Time for Flight―But a Time to Fight!
If Christ said that He had come to seek and save those who were lost; and if the supreme law of the Church is the salvation of souls; then we, as soldiers and servants of Christ and His Church should be preoccupying ourselves with saving souls and not saving things on our smartphones and laptops! We should be spending much more time in front of the tabernacle begging for mercy for ourselves and sinners, and less time in front of the ‘tabernacle’ of the television or some other screen entertaining ourselves. Life is not meant to be fun and entertainment―“The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) … “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12) … “Suffer no man to stay behind―but let all come to the battle!” (1 Machabees 5:42) … “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular things!” (2 Timothy 2:3-4). The enemies of God, Christ and His Church are most certainly fighting―but where are we?
Even Our Lady of La Salette calls us to the fight: “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!”
You had better believe that we are in a fight! As Sister Lucia of Fatima said: “The Blessed Virgin did not tell me [explicitly] that we are in the last times of the world, but I understood this [implicitly] for three reasons. (1) The first is because she told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle! It is a final battle ― where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat! So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil ― there is no middle ground! (2) The second reason is because she told me, as well as my cousins, that God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary― they are the final ones, means that there will be no others. (3) And the third reason is because in the plans of the Divine Providence, when God is going to chastise the world He always first exhausts all other remedies!” [NOTE: When Lucia speaks of “the last times of the world” ― this does not mean that the end of the world comes very soon. According to Our Lady’s prophecies and other prophecies, we must first see an apparent triumph of evil, a world war, the annihilation of many nations, the death of the majority of the world’s population, then the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, then a period of great holiness and peace, then the appearance of the Antichrist and another great apostasy with an apparent triumph of the Antichrist, but Christ and Our Lady will triumph over him. In amongst all these battles there will what prophecy calls “The Holy Pope” and “The Great Monarch”].
Satan Does Not Fight Alone
When Sister Lucia says that “the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle! It is a final battle ― where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat!” ― this does not mean that the Devil will be fighting Our Lady alone, while all the rest of Hell and the entire Earth just stands and watches them “fight-it-out”! That is plain naivety and stupidity! No! Our Lady herself has said that Satan and all the demons of Hell will conquer souls of humans and make use of them in their fight. Neither is Our Lady alone who is the object of this attack, but all that is good―God, Christ, the Holy Ghost, Our Lady, the saints and all the souls on Earth―especially those of Catholics, even more especially those of faithful Catholics, and even more so, those of priests and religious. Our Lady has clearly stated this.
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell ... God will allow the demons to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family … They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … Masonry will take control of the civil government and will enact iniquitous laws, making it easy for everyone to live in sin … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy the Church … The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord ... Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor, with cruel and subtle astuteness, to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them … The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God ... The devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth. People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. The wicked will make use of all their evil ways.” (Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Akita).
Whose Side Are You Really On?
As Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed: “From now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil ― there is no middle ground!” Our Lord Himself had said: “He that is not with Me, is against Me! … Everyone that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 12:30; 10:32-33; Luke 11:23). Furthermore, Holy Scripture puts into the mouth of the Messias the following words: “Who shall rise up for Me against the evildoers? Or who shall stand with Me against the workers of iniquity?” (Psalm 93:16) … “I looked about, and there was none to help! I sought, and there was none to give aid! … I have trodden the winepress alone and there is not a man with Me!” (Isaias 63:3-5). Our Lord further adds: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6).
Are we among the passive Catholics amid the Passion of the Church? Are we mere spectators amid the slaughter of the Church and the Faith? Are we playing when we should be praying? Do we “pray without ceasing” (Thessalonians), or do we play without ceasing? Are we practicing self-gratification when it should be self-mortification? Are our fingers more on the smartphone and computer keys rather than the Rosary beads? Do we prefer going to the Mall rather than Mass? Do we “meditate” more about material and worldly things, rather than spiritual and heavenly things? Most Catholics have been lulled and seduced into a satanic slumber, whereby spiritual things no longer seem to matter and we can sin as much as we want because God is kind, doting, merciful God who will not damn anyone!
St. Louis de Montfort echoes this idea in his Letter to the Friends of the Cross, wherein he writes: “The world’s group―the devil’s group in fact―is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendid in attire. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded, although they are broad and ever broadening with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver … Worldlings rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure!’ they shout, ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play! God is good, He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples; we shall not die!’ And so they continue.”
Our Lady of Good Success also echoes the same idea: “The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs and the precious light of Faith almost extinguished … There will be unbridled luxury that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost … They will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women … There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty … Under the appearance of virtue and bad-spirited zeal, Catholics will turn upon Religion … They will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … Satan will achieve his victories by means of foreign and faithless people so numerous that, like a black cloud, it will obscure the heavens! … With these people, every type of vice will enter, calling down in turn every type of chastisement, such as plagues, famines, internal fighting and external disputes with other nations, and apostasy … In order to dissipate this black cloud, there will be a formidable and frightful war! … O if men only understood how to appreciate the time given to them and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!”
Is the Catholic World Really Catholic?
There are almost 1,400 million Catholics in the world today, out of a total world population of almost 8,000 million. Yet how many of them are really Catholic? How many are faithful Catholics and how many are Catholics in name only. Do not kid yourself into thinking that the vast majority of Catholics are true Catholics, good Catholics, faithful Catholics. It has been stated many times―and even many times is far from being enough times―that most Catholics end up losing their souls and being damned. That cannot happen if they are true Catholics, good Catholics and faithful Catholics. The fact that regular Sunday Mass attendance by American Catholics has dropped from 75% in the late 1950s, to 54% in 1970, to around 20% just before the “Plannedemic” began in 2020.
Objectively speaking, that means that 80% of Catholics are in mortal sin on the single issue of missing Sunday Mass―never mind the myriad of other mortal sins that they are susceptible to! If Our Lady of Fatima revealed that the sins that damn the largest number of souls are sins of impurity in thought, word or deed―then one can imagine how many Catholics are victims to this sin, especially since Our Lady of Good Success warned that in our days, “Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women … There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty!” You can sin mortally against purity by merely looking at someone or something with an impure intent or pleasure―as Our Lord said: “Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart!” (Matthew 5:28) ― the same applies to any gender of person, not just looking at women.
Add onto the above the current opinions of today’s Catholics on a variety of moral issues―such as abortion, contraception, cohabitation without marriage, homosexuality, same-sex marriages, drug and alcohol abuse, immodesty, etc. ― and you will find that the majority of Catholics hold opinions that are anti-Catholic and immoral. Anywhere from 60% to 80% (varying with age and where they live) no longer believe in the Real Presence of Christ with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist. Hardly anyone goes to Confession at a time when sin is sky-high, yet almost everyone who does attend Sunday Mass, goes to Holy Communion! One pope after another, starting with the Second World War pope, Pius XII, has lamented that people have lost the sense of sin―and that list of lamenters even includes the Liberal and Modernist popes too! Nobody really believes what the Catechisms have to say about sin: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
Once you lose the sense of sin, then you automatically lose the fear of sinning. We can see that to be case all around us. Our Lady’s words about sin are either not known or deliberately ignored: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord! … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended! … Sins cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door! … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity! … You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell!”
Nobody really cares about what Our Lady has to say―they might listen, but then they go their own way and do their own thing. That is why Sister Lucia of Fatima said: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on the road of goodness with their life of virtue and apostolate without paying attention to this Message―they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners, the bad―because of their sins―do not see God’s chastisement about to fall upon them presently, and keep following the road of evil through sin, ignoring the Message, because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But, Father, you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way!” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Who shoulders the greatest blame for all this? The sinners? They, of course, shoulder the blame for their sins. However, it has to be said that Catholics will shoulder an even greater blame for the sins of sinners―because they have the duty to pray and sacrifice for the conversion of sinners: “That servant who knew the will of his lord, and prepared not himself, and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes! But he that knew not the will of the Lord, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more! (Luke 12:47-48).
Catholics are, in the words of Our Lord, “the salt of the Earth … and the light of the world! … A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men!” (Matthew 5:13-16). What is that “light”? That “light” is both Christ and the Faith. Our goal and task is to let Christ take-over our lives so that He can truly live in us and shine through us―as St. Paul says: “I live, now not I―but Christ liveth in me!” And that I live now in the flesh, I live in the Faith of the Son of God!” (Galatians 2:20) … “Try your own selves if you be in the Faith; prove ye yourselves. Know you not your own selves, that Christ Jesus is in you, unless perhaps you be reprobates?” (2 Corinthians 13:5). To which St. John adds: “For whatsoever is born of God, overcomes the world―and this is the victory which overcomes the world, our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). Therefore, “fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12).
So What is Coming in 2023?
We get what we deserve. As we sow, so shall we reap: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8). Prophecy is usually conditional―it is a case of if you this then this will happen, but if you do that then that will happen. If we “get real” and “get serious” and really start to pray and sacrifice, then we can mitigate or soften what is to come. Nevertheless, as even the Modernist and Liberal Pope John Paul II said in 1980, at Fulda in Germany―we can no longer fully avoid the chastisement that is coming, but we can reduce it. The Holy Father was asked: “What about the Third Secret of Fatima? Should it not have already been published by 1960?”
Pope John Paul II replied: “Given the seriousness of the contents, my predecessors in the Petrine office diplomatically preferred to postpone publication, so as not to encourage the world power of Communism to make certain moves. On the other hand, it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this: if there is a message in which it is written that the oceans will flood whole areas of the earth, and that from one moment to the next millions of people will perish, truly the publication of such a message is no longer something to be so much desired. Many wish to know simply from curiosity and a taste for the sensational, but they forget that knowledge also implies responsibility. They only seek the satisfaction of their curiosity, and that is dangerous if at the same time they are not disposed to do something, and if they are convinced that it is impossible to do anything against evil.” At this point the Pope grasped a Rosary and said: “Here is the remedy against this evil. Pray! Pray, and ask for nothing more! Leave everything else to the Mother of God!”
The Holy Father was then asked: “What is going to happen to the Church?” He answered: “We must prepare ourselves to suffer great trials before long, such as will demand of us a disposition to give up even life, and a total dedication to Christ and for Christ! … With your and my prayer it is possible to mitigate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because only thus can the Church be effectively renewed! How many times has the renewal of the Church sprung from blood! This time, too, it will not be otherwise! We must be strong and prepared, and trust in Christ and His Mother, and be very, very assiduous in praying the Rosary!”
Notice the word “assiduous” ― it fits with what Our Lady has been saying about praying the Rosary: “Say many Rosaries!” (Fatima, May 1917). “Say the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, June 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). “Continue to say the Rosary every day! Pray, pray very much!” (Fatima, August 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (Fatima, September 1917). “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, October 1917). “Pray very much! … Be faithful and fervent in prayer! … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach!” (Akita, 1973).
“Man is ignorant of things past, and things to come he cannot know! … A man cannot tell what hath been before him and what shall be after him!” (Ecclesiastes 8:7; 10:14). “Boast not for tomorrow, for thou knowest not what the day to come may bring forth!” (Proverbs 27:1). “You say: ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and there we will spend a year, and will trade, and make our gain!’ Whereas you know not what shall happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is like a mist which appears for a little while, and afterwards shall vanish away. For that you should say: ‘If the Lord will, and if we shall live, we will do this or that!’” (James 4:13-15). “Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and be not anxious over tomorrow―for tomorrow will be anxious for itself! Sufficient for today is its own evil!” (Matthew 6:34).
The Apostles were often seeking to know the future. On one of those occasions, at the Ascension, Our Lord said to them: “It is not for you to know the times, or moments, which the Father hath put in His own power!” (Acts 1:7). God Himself says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9). When Our Lord was foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem (which took place in 70 AD) and our own present “End Times” or “Last Days”, He said: “Of that day or hour, no man knows―neither the angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but the Father! Take ye heed, watch and pray! For ye know not when the time is!” (Mark 13:32). Elsewhere Our Lord warns: “Watch ye, therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour!” (Matthew 25:13).
Accepting God’s Future Designs
“We know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to His purpose, are called to be saints!” (Romans 8:28). This was clearly evident in the case of Job, as we read in the Old Testament:
“There was a man in the land of Hus, whose name was Job, and that man was simple and upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil. And there were born to him seven sons and three daughters. And his possession was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a family exceeding great: and this man was great among all the people of the east. And his sons went, and made a feast by houses everyone in his day. And sending they called their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of their feasting were gone about, Job sent to them, and sanctified them: and rising up early offered holocausts for every one of them. For he said: ‘Lest perhaps my sons have sinned and have blessed God in their hearts!’ So did Job all days.
“Now on a certain day when the sons of God came to stand before the Lord, Satan also was present among them. And the Lord said to him: ‘From where comest thou?’ And he answered and said: ‘I have gone round about the Earth, and walked through it!’ And the Lord said to him: ‘Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the Earth―a simple and upright man, and fearing God, and avoiding evil?’ And Satan answering, said: ‘Doth Job fear God in vain? Hast Thou not made a fence for him and his house, and all his substance round about, and blessed the works of his hands, and his possession hath increased on the Earth? But just stretch forth Thy hand a little, and touch all that he has, and then see if he blesses Thee not to Thy face!’ Then the Lord said to Satan: ‘Behold, all that he hath is in thy hand―only put not forth thy hand upon his person!’ And Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.
“Now upon a certain day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their eldest brother, There came a messenger to Job, and said: ‘The oxen were ploughing, and the asses feeding beside them, and the Sabeans rushed in, and took all away, and slew the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell thee!’ And while he was yet speaking, another came, and said: ‘The fire of God fell from Heaven, and striking the sheep and the servants, hath consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell thee!’ And while he also was yet speaking, there came another, and said: ‘The Chaldeans made three troops of soldiers, and have fallen upon the camels, and taken them, moreover they have slain the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell thee! He was yet speaking, and behold another came in, and said: ‘Thy sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their elder brother! A violent wind came on all of a sudden, from the side of the desert, and shook the four corners of the house, and it fell upon thy children and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell thee!’
“Then Job rose up, and tore his garments, and, having shaven his head, fell down upon the ground and worshiped, and said: ‘Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there! The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away! As it hath pleased the Lord so is it done! Blessed be the Name of the Lord!’ In all these things Job sinned not by his lips, nor spoke he any foolish thing against God” (Job 1:1-22).
That was not the end of Job’s woes! Satan, having failed to make Job turn against God by bringing all these calamities upon him, goes back to God and asks for permission to afflict Job even more―this time with regard to his health: “And it came to pass, when on a certain day the sons of God came, and stood before the Lord, and Satan came among them, and stood in His sight. And the Lord said to Satan: ‘From where comest thou?’ And he answered and said: ‘I have gone round about the Earth, and walked through it!’ And the Lord said to Satan: ‘Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the Earth, a man simple, and upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil, and still keeping his innocence? But thou hast moved Me against him, that I should afflict him without cause!’ And Satan answered, and said: ‘Skin for skin, and all that a man hath he will give for his life! Just put forth Thy hand and touch his bones and his flesh, and then Thou shalt see if he will bless Thee to Thy face!’ And the Lord said to Satan: ‘Behold he is in thy hands, but yet save his life!’
“So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with a very grievous ulcer, from the sole of the foot even to the top of his head. And Job took a piece of a broken clay pot and scraped the corrupt matter, while sitting on a dunghill. And his wife said to him: ‘Dost thou still continue in thy simplicity? Bless God and die!’ And he said to her: ‘Thou hast spoken like one of the foolish women! If we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil?’ In all these things Job did not sin with his lips” (Job 2:1-10).
God is Fair! We Get What We Deserve!
Since God is all-perfect and perfection itself, then one of the many attributes of God is His fairness―which is a part of His justice. In fact, since God is all-perfect, He is more than fair―He has never punished anyone as much as they really deserve to be punished. Part of the reason for that is the fact that the mercy of God is the greatest of His works: “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all and His tender mercies are over all his works” (Psalm 144:8-9). We see the truth of those words reflected in God’s own comments: “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die! Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? If the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, then living he shall live and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done―in his justice, which he hath wrought, he shall live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-23).
The problem is that there is little or no sign of the sinful world converting to God―in fact, the opposite is happening, and, as a whole, we are committing more and more sins with each successive year! Holy Scripture warns us of the consequences this: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
Our Lady has said that we are sinning too much and that God will not tolerate this―despite the fact that mercy is the greatest of His works. We are abusing that mercy! Our Lady stated: “These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! … Many souls go to Hell! … Many men in this world afflict the Lord! … People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended! … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity! It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth! … Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead! … The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness! … Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will strike in an unprecedented way! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together! … The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God.” (Words of Our Lady at her various apparitions).
Sickening Indifference of Catholics
If God, Our Lady and Heaven see things as stated above―how can we, how dare we, Catholics be so indifferent and dismissive of the current sinful state of the world in general and the Church in particular? Whose side are we really on? We just silently witness all this going and pray, sacrifice, say and do little or nothing about it. As Our Lady of Good Success said: “Those who should speak out will be silent!” Our Lady of La Salette further stating: “There are no more generous souls! … They have neglected prayer and penance … by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures! … People think of nothing but amusement!” To which Our Lady of Fatima added: “There are none to sacrifice themselves and pray!” While Our Lady of Akita implored: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord! I desire souls to console Him and to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish for souls who will repair―by their suffering―for the sinners!” Our Lady of La Salette adding: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it!”
Yet these words of Our Lady fall upon indifferent and uncaring ears―as Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad because no one has paid attention to her Message! … Believe me ― God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent! It will be very sad for everyone if the world does not pray and do penance before then! … It is my mission not just to tell about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No―my mission is to tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin!”
This indifference of Catholics is damnably reprehensible! Our Lord call us the light of world and the salt of the Earth: “You are the salt of the Earth. But if the salt loses its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more, except to be cast out and to be trodden upon by men! You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men!” (Matthew 5:13-16).
God insists that we are watchmen and guards, who are meant to warn others of impending dangers: “Son of man, I have made you a watchman to the house of Israel (the Church)! And you shall hear the word out of My mouth, and shall tell it to them from Me! If, when I say to the wicked: ‘You shall surely die!’ ― and you do not declare it to him, nor speak to him, so that he might be converted from his wicked ways and live, then the same wicked man shall certainly die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at your hand! But if you give warning to the wicked, and he does not convert from his wickedness and from his evil ways―then he indeed shall die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your soul! Moreover, if the just man shall turn away from his justice, and shall commit iniquity―then I will lay a stumbling-block before him and he shall die―because you have not warned him! He shall die in his sin, and all his justices which he has done beforehand, shall not be remembered―but I will require his blood at your hand! But if you warn the just man, so that the just may not sin, and he does not sin―then living he shall live, because you have warned him, and you will have saved your soul!” (Ezechiel 3:17-21).
That is exactly what Sr. Lucia of Fatima echoed in 1957 to Fr. Fuentes: “Father, we should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway!”
So What Will 2023 Bring?
2022 was a historically calamitous year and one that will trickle into 2023 as we continue to wrestle with many of the same issues. There will be massive inflation, not only financially, but also with immorality and troubles.
● Sins will continue to rise in number and gravity. Governments will legislate and adopt more and more sins as being good and lawful.
● Apostasy from the Church will continue to increase.
● Compromise with the sinful world by Church authorities will increase.
● Division within the Church will also increase.
● The “Behind-the-Scenes-Powers-that-be” will continue to destabilize, demoralize, and create crises as a means to obtaining greater control.
● Government propaganda, lies, clampdowns, lockdowns, surveillance, censorship, silencing, bullying, enforcement and authoritarianism will also increase.
● The media censorship and hiding of certain truths will continue, while they will continue to spew out the propaganda and lies that their owners are forced to serve up.
● Technology will increasingly continue to invade privacy and rights, to surveil, manipulate, subjugate and control people.
● The war in Ukraine, the dominant issue of 2022, will continue to divide nations, drain money, resources and lives.
● Division among nations will increase and division within nations will increase.
● Pandemics will continue to be created and vaccinations will come hot on their heels. The tactic was an immense success in duping, so they will not stop now.
● Food shortages will increase as supply chains decrease. Food will be increasingly modified and controlled.
● Job losses will increase and employers will be able to impose draconian demands on employees―obey or you’re out.
● Death rates will continue to climb dramatically as the successful world depopulation agenda takes a stranglehold.
Is There a Solution?
The current situation is dire and promises to get worse. Prophecy paints an even more dire picture for the future! Is there a solution or is everything inevitable? Prophecy is always conditional―meaning that what is prophesied can be avoided if certain things are done. You could actually call “prophecy” by the name “warning”―for that is what negative prophecies are, they are warnings of what will happen if we continue to sin.
Since God is almighty, there is no situation that is irretrievable: “With men this is impossible―but with God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:26). “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God!” (Luke 18:27). “And Jesus said: ‘With men it is impossible; but not with God―for all things are possible with God!” (Mark 10:27). And the Angel Gabriel said to Mary: “No word shall be impossible with God!” (Luke 1:37). All of that should fill us with confidence and hope―but not complacency and presumption. For at no time is God going to reward sinfulness. If sin continues, then punishments will escalate. As Our Lady of Akita said: “If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them!”
What is the solution? It a soul-ution! We all know what it is―stop sinning; pray for the conversion of sinners; do penance and make sacrifices. The problem is that we are too busy and too preoccupied with material things―and so have no time for these spiritual things. Yet it is ONLY the spiritual solution that will work―as Our Lady of Good Success pointed out: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. Oh, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!”
Downfall
During the 20th century, religious life started to decline very steeply. Worldwide, after the Second Vatican Council, the number of religious decreased by 33% between 1970 and 2020. In the West, the decline is more severe. In the United States, the numbers dropped by 71% between 1970 and 2018, and in Europe by 59% between 1973 and 2018. Even lay people are leaving their religious upbringing behind. Since 2007 the American public has shown one of the highest rates of secularization found in any country―with the American public showing the fourth largest amount of secularization to be found among the 49 countries that were researched. Whichever survey you look at, the general trend is always the same even though the actual numbers may vary―less and less people believe in God, less and less people pray, less and less people go to church regularly, less and less people read the Bible or other spiritual books, less and less people accept the traditional moral teachings of God, etc., etc., etc.
Unfortunately, the year 2023 is unlikely to see a reversal in this trend of giving-up upon God. The prophesied apostasy will continue as long as we Catholics refuse or neglect to be “the salt of the Earth” and “the light of world”―preferring instead to take our place among the worldly ones that we should be trying to convert by our prayers, sacrifices and example. The consequences of our neglect will catch up with on the Day of Judgment―for, as the Father and Doctor of the Church, St. John Chrysostom, says God will judge us upon everything that happened upon Earth in our lifetime, because our prayers and sacrifices should have reached everyone everywhere.
Not a Time for Flight―But a Time to Fight!
If Christ said that He had come to seek and save those who were lost; and if the supreme law of the Church is the salvation of souls; then we, as soldiers and servants of Christ and His Church should be preoccupying ourselves with saving souls and not saving things on our smartphones and laptops! We should be spending much more time in front of the tabernacle begging for mercy for ourselves and sinners, and less time in front of the ‘tabernacle’ of the television or some other screen entertaining ourselves. Life is not meant to be fun and entertainment―“The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) … “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12) … “Suffer no man to stay behind―but let all come to the battle!” (1 Machabees 5:42) … “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular things!” (2 Timothy 2:3-4). The enemies of God, Christ and His Church are most certainly fighting―but where are we?
Even Our Lady of La Salette calls us to the fight: “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!”
You had better believe that we are in a fight! As Sister Lucia of Fatima said: “The Blessed Virgin did not tell me [explicitly] that we are in the last times of the world, but I understood this [implicitly] for three reasons. (1) The first is because she told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle! It is a final battle ― where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat! So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil ― there is no middle ground! (2) The second reason is because she told me, as well as my cousins, that God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary― they are the final ones, means that there will be no others. (3) And the third reason is because in the plans of the Divine Providence, when God is going to chastise the world He always first exhausts all other remedies!” [NOTE: When Lucia speaks of “the last times of the world” ― this does not mean that the end of the world comes very soon. According to Our Lady’s prophecies and other prophecies, we must first see an apparent triumph of evil, a world war, the annihilation of many nations, the death of the majority of the world’s population, then the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, then a period of great holiness and peace, then the appearance of the Antichrist and another great apostasy with an apparent triumph of the Antichrist, but Christ and Our Lady will triumph over him. In amongst all these battles there will what prophecy calls “The Holy Pope” and “The Great Monarch”].
Satan Does Not Fight Alone
When Sister Lucia says that “the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle! It is a final battle ― where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat!” ― this does not mean that the Devil will be fighting Our Lady alone, while all the rest of Hell and the entire Earth just stands and watches them “fight-it-out”! That is plain naivety and stupidity! No! Our Lady herself has said that Satan and all the demons of Hell will conquer souls of humans and make use of them in their fight. Neither is Our Lady alone who is the object of this attack, but all that is good―God, Christ, the Holy Ghost, Our Lady, the saints and all the souls on Earth―especially those of Catholics, even more especially those of faithful Catholics, and even more so, those of priests and religious. Our Lady has clearly stated this.
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell ... God will allow the demons to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family … They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … Masonry will take control of the civil government and will enact iniquitous laws, making it easy for everyone to live in sin … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy the Church … The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord ... Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor, with cruel and subtle astuteness, to make them deviate from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them … The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God ... The devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth. People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. The wicked will make use of all their evil ways.” (Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Akita).
Whose Side Are You Really On?
As Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed: “From now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil ― there is no middle ground!” Our Lord Himself had said: “He that is not with Me, is against Me! … Everyone that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 12:30; 10:32-33; Luke 11:23). Furthermore, Holy Scripture puts into the mouth of the Messias the following words: “Who shall rise up for Me against the evildoers? Or who shall stand with Me against the workers of iniquity?” (Psalm 93:16) … “I looked about, and there was none to help! I sought, and there was none to give aid! … I have trodden the winepress alone and there is not a man with Me!” (Isaias 63:3-5). Our Lord further adds: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6).
Are we among the passive Catholics amid the Passion of the Church? Are we mere spectators amid the slaughter of the Church and the Faith? Are we playing when we should be praying? Do we “pray without ceasing” (Thessalonians), or do we play without ceasing? Are we practicing self-gratification when it should be self-mortification? Are our fingers more on the smartphone and computer keys rather than the Rosary beads? Do we prefer going to the Mall rather than Mass? Do we “meditate” more about material and worldly things, rather than spiritual and heavenly things? Most Catholics have been lulled and seduced into a satanic slumber, whereby spiritual things no longer seem to matter and we can sin as much as we want because God is kind, doting, merciful God who will not damn anyone!
St. Louis de Montfort echoes this idea in his Letter to the Friends of the Cross, wherein he writes: “The world’s group―the devil’s group in fact―is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendid in attire. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded, although they are broad and ever broadening with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver … Worldlings rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure!’ they shout, ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play! God is good, He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples; we shall not die!’ And so they continue.”
Our Lady of Good Success also echoes the same idea: “The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs and the precious light of Faith almost extinguished … There will be unbridled luxury that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost … They will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women … There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty … Under the appearance of virtue and bad-spirited zeal, Catholics will turn upon Religion … They will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … Satan will achieve his victories by means of foreign and faithless people so numerous that, like a black cloud, it will obscure the heavens! … With these people, every type of vice will enter, calling down in turn every type of chastisement, such as plagues, famines, internal fighting and external disputes with other nations, and apostasy … In order to dissipate this black cloud, there will be a formidable and frightful war! … O if men only understood how to appreciate the time given to them and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!”
Is the Catholic World Really Catholic?
There are almost 1,400 million Catholics in the world today, out of a total world population of almost 8,000 million. Yet how many of them are really Catholic? How many are faithful Catholics and how many are Catholics in name only. Do not kid yourself into thinking that the vast majority of Catholics are true Catholics, good Catholics, faithful Catholics. It has been stated many times―and even many times is far from being enough times―that most Catholics end up losing their souls and being damned. That cannot happen if they are true Catholics, good Catholics and faithful Catholics. The fact that regular Sunday Mass attendance by American Catholics has dropped from 75% in the late 1950s, to 54% in 1970, to around 20% just before the “Plannedemic” began in 2020.
Objectively speaking, that means that 80% of Catholics are in mortal sin on the single issue of missing Sunday Mass―never mind the myriad of other mortal sins that they are susceptible to! If Our Lady of Fatima revealed that the sins that damn the largest number of souls are sins of impurity in thought, word or deed―then one can imagine how many Catholics are victims to this sin, especially since Our Lady of Good Success warned that in our days, “Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women … There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty!” You can sin mortally against purity by merely looking at someone or something with an impure intent or pleasure―as Our Lord said: “Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart!” (Matthew 5:28) ― the same applies to any gender of person, not just looking at women.
Add onto the above the current opinions of today’s Catholics on a variety of moral issues―such as abortion, contraception, cohabitation without marriage, homosexuality, same-sex marriages, drug and alcohol abuse, immodesty, etc. ― and you will find that the majority of Catholics hold opinions that are anti-Catholic and immoral. Anywhere from 60% to 80% (varying with age and where they live) no longer believe in the Real Presence of Christ with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist. Hardly anyone goes to Confession at a time when sin is sky-high, yet almost everyone who does attend Sunday Mass, goes to Holy Communion! One pope after another, starting with the Second World War pope, Pius XII, has lamented that people have lost the sense of sin―and that list of lamenters even includes the Liberal and Modernist popes too! Nobody really believes what the Catechisms have to say about sin: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
Once you lose the sense of sin, then you automatically lose the fear of sinning. We can see that to be case all around us. Our Lady’s words about sin are either not known or deliberately ignored: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord! … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended! … Sins cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door! … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity! … You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell!”
Nobody really cares about what Our Lady has to say―they might listen, but then they go their own way and do their own thing. That is why Sister Lucia of Fatima said: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on the road of goodness with their life of virtue and apostolate without paying attention to this Message―they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners, the bad―because of their sins―do not see God’s chastisement about to fall upon them presently, and keep following the road of evil through sin, ignoring the Message, because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But, Father, you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way!” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Who shoulders the greatest blame for all this? The sinners? They, of course, shoulder the blame for their sins. However, it has to be said that Catholics will shoulder an even greater blame for the sins of sinners―because they have the duty to pray and sacrifice for the conversion of sinners: “That servant who knew the will of his lord, and prepared not himself, and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes! But he that knew not the will of the Lord, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more! (Luke 12:47-48).
Catholics are, in the words of Our Lord, “the salt of the Earth … and the light of the world! … A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men!” (Matthew 5:13-16). What is that “light”? That “light” is both Christ and the Faith. Our goal and task is to let Christ take-over our lives so that He can truly live in us and shine through us―as St. Paul says: “I live, now not I―but Christ liveth in me!” And that I live now in the flesh, I live in the Faith of the Son of God!” (Galatians 2:20) … “Try your own selves if you be in the Faith; prove ye yourselves. Know you not your own selves, that Christ Jesus is in you, unless perhaps you be reprobates?” (2 Corinthians 13:5). To which St. John adds: “For whatsoever is born of God, overcomes the world―and this is the victory which overcomes the world, our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). Therefore, “fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12).
So What is Coming in 2023?
We get what we deserve. As we sow, so shall we reap: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8). Prophecy is usually conditional―it is a case of if you this then this will happen, but if you do that then that will happen. If we “get real” and “get serious” and really start to pray and sacrifice, then we can mitigate or soften what is to come. Nevertheless, as even the Modernist and Liberal Pope John Paul II said in 1980, at Fulda in Germany―we can no longer fully avoid the chastisement that is coming, but we can reduce it. The Holy Father was asked: “What about the Third Secret of Fatima? Should it not have already been published by 1960?”
Pope John Paul II replied: “Given the seriousness of the contents, my predecessors in the Petrine office diplomatically preferred to postpone publication, so as not to encourage the world power of Communism to make certain moves. On the other hand, it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this: if there is a message in which it is written that the oceans will flood whole areas of the earth, and that from one moment to the next millions of people will perish, truly the publication of such a message is no longer something to be so much desired. Many wish to know simply from curiosity and a taste for the sensational, but they forget that knowledge also implies responsibility. They only seek the satisfaction of their curiosity, and that is dangerous if at the same time they are not disposed to do something, and if they are convinced that it is impossible to do anything against evil.” At this point the Pope grasped a Rosary and said: “Here is the remedy against this evil. Pray! Pray, and ask for nothing more! Leave everything else to the Mother of God!”
The Holy Father was then asked: “What is going to happen to the Church?” He answered: “We must prepare ourselves to suffer great trials before long, such as will demand of us a disposition to give up even life, and a total dedication to Christ and for Christ! … With your and my prayer it is possible to mitigate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because only thus can the Church be effectively renewed! How many times has the renewal of the Church sprung from blood! This time, too, it will not be otherwise! We must be strong and prepared, and trust in Christ and His Mother, and be very, very assiduous in praying the Rosary!”
Notice the word “assiduous” ― it fits with what Our Lady has been saying about praying the Rosary: “Say many Rosaries!” (Fatima, May 1917). “Say the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, June 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). “Continue to say the Rosary every day! Pray, pray very much!” (Fatima, August 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (Fatima, September 1917). “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, October 1917). “Pray very much! … Be faithful and fervent in prayer! … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach!” (Akita, 1973).
Article 5
Sunday January 8th to Thursday January 11th, 2023
Feast of the Holy Family
One Big Happy Family?
Sunday January 8th to Thursday January 11th, 2023
Feast of the Holy Family
One Big Happy Family?
Christmas and the Family
Christmas is a time to focus on the family; not only your own family, but also the Holy Family—meaning, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The family is the building block of society. If you can sanctify the family, then you can sanctify society through the family. “The Holy Family” should not just be the title for the family containing Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but it should be the title for every family―for God wants every family to be holy. Just as Jesus was born and lived among us for our imitation; likewise the Holy Family was created and lived among us as an example of godly family life.
Before looking at the “One Big Happy Family” aspect, let us first of all look at the “Blueprint” of what a family should be like. That “Blueprint” is, of course, the Holy Family, consisting of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Why do we not call it the “Happy Family”? The reason is quite simply this―it is HOLINESS that leads to HAPPINESS. Furthermore, even though―as St. Thomas Aquinas says―everyone seeks happiness and wants to be happy, most people seek a false happiness, an inferior happiness, an imperfect happiness in this world. It is not the happiness that God has intended for us―namely, the happiness of Heaven―which can only be reached by holiness. So, to reach the “Happiness of Heaven” we must first practice “Holiness on Earth”.
Our Lady put it into a nutshell when she said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next world!” Those words of Our Lady are an echo of the words spoken by Our Lord to His Apostles at the Last Supper: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice and you shall be made sorrowful―but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” [in Heaven] (John 16:20).
The Apostles learned that lesson and repeat it to us. St. Paul repeatedly insists: “I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come! If we suffer with Christ, it is that we may be also glorified with Him!” (Romans 8:18) … “For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us―so also, by Christ, does our comfort abound!” (2 Corinthians 1:5) … “God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ―by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14) ... “We also glory in tribulations! … For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come!” (Romans 5:3; 8:18). St. Peter states: “If you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice that when His glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy! If you be reproached for the Name of Christ, you shall be blessed!” (1 Peter 4:13-14). That is why St. James writes: “Count it all joy, when you shall fall into various afflictions and persecutions!” (James 1:2).
Let us then first look at the “blueprint” of family life ― the Holy Family ― in order to see how we can make our families holier, so as to simultaneously make them holier.
THE HISTORY
The Feast of the Holy Family
The Feast of the Holy Family is of recent origin, being instituted by Pope Leo XIII in 1892. It used to be celebrated on the third Sunday after the Epiphany, but has now been moved, by Benedict XV to the first Sunday after the Epiphany. The feast serves as an example of family life. Like other liturgical feasts, it can be a source of many graces in our daily lives. The prayer of the Mass indicates this, when it pleads for the grace to imitate the example of the Holy Family.
The Suffering Holy Family
Normally, we do not want our beloved family members to suffer―we do all that we can to avoid sufferings coming their way, or if they are suffering, we seek to remove those sufferings, or at least alleviate them. If Jesus, Mary and Joseph were so close to God the Father, then you would imagine that He would “wrap them in cotton wool” and protect from all adversity and suffering. Not so! “For whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth; and He scourgeth every son whom he receiveth!” (Hebrews 12:6). God loved nobody more than His Only-begotten Son―and God’s Providence never allowed anyone to suffer as much as Our Lord. “Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow in His footsteps!” (1 Peter 2:21). The same applied to Our Lady―she was God’s masterpiece, yet nobody (apart from Our Lord) suffered more than Our Lady.
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady said: “My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … It was not necessary to suffer so much! … Yet He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! … He began to suffer, and as soon as He was born into the world He and I were banished by Herod into a desert, and His sufferings continued until He died on the Cross … He it was who gave His own life and subjected Himself to sufferings for the good of His creatures without waiting for any merits on their part … for whom, as man, He had suffered and died … Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, and willingly enter upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, and to carry it after Christ ...
“But the worldlings, in their torpidity, are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! … They want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as of eternal life, while Christ their Creator has suffered the most bitter pains and torments in order to enter Heaven and to show them by His example how they are to find the way of light … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! … As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation …
“My Son and I embraced the way of the Cross and suffering for the whole course of our natural life! … My Son and I suffered so much for creatures and for their salvation! … For them We suffered and endured bitter sorrows! … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good! … My life was a continual suffering! ... The sorrow which I suffered is so little noticed by the living! … I suffered much more than the martyrs in all their torments! … What tribulations and hardships we suffered! … I blessed the Lord to be able to suffer! … All that I suffered seemed little―and I continually longed to suffer still more! ... I suffered with eagerness! … This desire for suffering led me on in the way of suffering … thus permitting me to endure so much the greater sufferings! … I would have been ready to suffer the greatest torments of the world! … I desired to take upon myself the sufferings of all men … There is no torment, not even death itself, that I would have refused, if such had been necessary to save any of the damned―and to save them, I would have esteemed all sufferings a sweet alleviation! ... … I never presumed to ask the Lord anything for the sake of ridding myself of suffering!”
“I and my holy spouse Joseph were poor, and at times we suffered great need―but none of them were powerful enough to engender within our hearts the plague of avarice ... Apart from the labors of my most holy Son, the greatest suffering of my life was to see the tribulations of my spouse Saint Joseph, and his grief in the matter of not knowing the cause of my pregnancy … Also, I knew that what my holy spouse Joseph expected would not happen on our journey to Bethlehem … Who would be so hardened as not to be moved to tenderness at the sight of their God become man, humiliated in poverty, despised, unknown, entering the world in a cave, lying in a manger surrounded by brute animals, protected only by a poverty-stricken Mother, and cast off by the foolish arrogance of the world? Who will dare to love the vanity and pride, which was openly abhorred and condemned by the Creator of Heaven and Earth in His conduct? No one can despise the humility, poverty and indigence, which the Lord loved and chose for Himself as the very means of teaching the way of eternal life. Few there are, who stop to consider this truth and example―and, on account of this vile ingratitude, only the few will reap the fruit of these great mysteries … The Most High does not wish to see the creatures disturbed by afflictions, but that they gain merit; not that they lose courage, but that they test their own power when aided by grace. Although the more violent temptations are wont to close the haven of exalted peace and knowledge of God, and although they ground the creature more firmly in the knowledge of its own lowliness … I shared Joseph’s sufferings and hardships with heartfelt compassion; but at the same time I praised the Most High and thanked Him for the blessings of affliction conferred on His servant. If sometimes I sought to relieve his pains, it was not in order to deprive him of the occasion of meriting … Let the humble care and watchfulness of my spouse Saint Joseph, his submission to divine direction and his esteem for heavenly enlightenment, serve thee as an example.” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
The Exiled Holy Family
Joseph and Mary and the Child Jesus had been living in Egypt only a few months when Herod died. Before long, an angel appeared to the head of the Holy Family, St. Joseph, and reported this latest intelligence. It was time to go home. Without any hemming and hawing or seeking after additional details, Joseph and Mary quietly packed up and started off. They had no sooner arrived in Judea than a new problem presented itself in the person of Archelaus.
Herod’s kingdom had been split up among his sons: Archelaus, Antipas, and Philip. Archelaus was to inherit the throne of Judea and therefore control of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. He already had a reputation for diabolical wickedness. The Jews sent a fifty-man delegation to Rome to plead with Caesar Augustus to break up the Herodian dynasty. They had no success. However, Archelaus’ reign was short-lived. He was so cruel and tyrannical that the Jews combined with their old enemies, the Samaritans, and sent off a fresh delegation in 6 A.D. This time Augustus summoned Archelaus to Rome and speedily banished him to Vienne in Gaul. When the Holy Family arrived in Judea, however, Archelaus was apparently still in power and St. Joseph, as guardian of Jesus and Mary, was afraid to settle in his territory. Once again his confidence in God was rewarded by the now familiar visit of the angel. “Being warned in a dream, he withdrew into the region of Galilee.”
The Hidden Life of the Holy Family
Now begins the hidden life of Christ. All we know about the next eleven years is packed into a single verse from St. Luke: “And the Child grew and became strong. He was full of wisdom and the grace of God was upon Him.” Although we have no facts, it is easy to picture Mary stealing occasional glances at her mysteriously wonderful Boy and wondering with a mother’s tender sadness about the prophetic visit of the Magi and the soul-searing prophecy of old Simeon. Her intuitions proved to be correct for the next time Christ appears in the Gospel, now a Boy of twelve, we see her heart wrung anew.
The Trials of the Holy Family
Every Jewish male thirteen years of age or older was obliged to visit the Temple in Jerusalem three times a year on the big feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Women and children frequently accompanied the men of the family. If they came from a distance, such as Galilee, they traveled in a caravan. Once a caravan got started for the day, it usually splintered up into small groups and anyone could float from one group to another as the spirit moved him. At the evening stopover, everybody got back together again. It was all very free and easy and a holiday mood prevailed.
We must not suspect Mary or Joseph of the least neglect of duty when Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem. They had every reason to assume He was visiting with friends or neighbors along the way as He no doubt had done on the way down from Nazareth and perhaps even many times before on previous trips. It was at the end of the first day’s travel that the disappearance of Jesus was discovered.
In our own day we hear enough about kidnapped and missing children to appreciate the panic that grips, with steel fingers, the hearts of mothers or fathers who have lost a child. Imagine, then, how Mary and Joseph must have felt when the slow-dawning truth burst fully upon them: Their personal charge, their exclusive responsibility, the Boy Messias, Who had been entrusted to them, had vanished!
It took almost a full day to retrace the route to Jerusalem and another doubt and fear-filled twenty-four hours of buffeting holiday crowds before Jesus could be found. The rest of the story we know. Jesus was in the Temple and had been engaged in a discussion with the teachers and doctors.
And all who were listening to Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers. And when they saw Him, they were astonished. And His mother said to Him, “Son, why hast Thou done so to us? Behold, Thy father and I have been seeking Thee sorrowing.” And He said to them: “How is it that you sought Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” And they did not understand the word that He spoke to them. And He went down with them and, came to Nazareth, and was subject to them; and His mother kept all these things carefully in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace before God and men. (Luke 2:46-52).
The Holy Family in Complete Obscurity
When Jesus left Jerusalem to go back to Nazareth and be subject to His parents, He began the second phase of His hidden life. He lived in complete obscurity, an unknown, and was subject in humility and obedience to His earthly mother and father. The incarnate Second Person of the Trinity, the Messias, who later on would dazzle the public with miracles, this God of all mankind hid Himself away in a small town and performed the dull tasks of a carpenter’s helper. Later, after Joseph died, Jesus supported His mother by the work of His hands. In fact, when He afterward came back to His home town and spoke in the local synagogue, neighbors and relatives who had known Him almost since birth and had watched Him grow up, referred to Him by His trade: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary ... ?”
THE MEANING
The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph serves in many ways as the model for the family virtues. One virtue of the Holy Family that modem families might well emulate is humility. Humility can do much to smooth out the petty frictions and molehill mountains that inevitably rise to the surface when human beings live close together for long periods of time. The young Creator, the God who shaped the cosmos with one effortless volition, now bends to learn the carpenter’s skill from a human foster father and struggles with crude tools to shape stubborn lumber into a useful bit of furniture.
The Humility of the Holy Family
This resplendent example of divine humility should be enough to inspire, for instance, the unsung housewife who goes along for years doing the menial, humdrum jobs without any particular recognition or praise. There may be no glamour in this kind of existence, but it already shines with the far brighter brilliance of paradise. If you are not hounded by the demands of public life, if you are not in the limelight, if you are not soiled with the dust and smut of the world, it is much easier to give yourself to God, to dedicate yourself entirely to the one single purpose of life, saving your immortal soul.
How much harder it must be for the wealthy businessman, the big movie star, the socialite, the politician, for anyone who wastes so much time chasing after money or fame or power. The peace and tranquility that goes with the hidden life is a valuable possession, certainly much more to be prized than the glamour and glitter and noise of the world. If you ever have any doubts about this, remember that when God became man He could have had His pick of any type of life at all. Christ could have been a rich merchant, an idol of the Roman circus, the admired leader of Roman high society, Caesar himself. Christ had His choice. He chose to be a workingman.
The Obedience of the Holy Family
Another virtue perfectly mirrored in the Holy Family is obedience, the virtue that inclines us to submit our will to that of our lawful superiors insofar as they are the representatives of God. The most important words of that definition are the last ones. When we obey a superior whether it be husband, mother or father, a policeman on the corner of the street, the president of the United States, our pastor or bishop―we are obeying God at least indirectly.
It is difficult for us to grasp the concept of obedience because we have been educated in a tradition that glorifies independence. What we are talking about here, however, is a question of order. In nature we find a God-instituted order: on the lowest rung of the ladder of creation are minerals, then plants, animals, men, and finally angels. The higher creatures use the lower ones to their own advantage and to achieve their ends. Thus plants, which utilize minerals, are in turn eaten by animals, and animals are used by men. This is God’s plan and it is His will that inferiors be subject to superiors. It is also God’s plan to manifest His will to us through our fellow men. And that’s where the rub comes in. We would be delighted and privileged to obey God if He came down on earth and delivered His orders to us in person, but that is not God’s way and we should try to see in our superiors the envoys of God.
We pay a good deal of attention to obedience because it is the rock-bottom foundation of family life. Children must be obedient to their parents and—despite feminist propaganda and modern heresies—wives must be obedient to their husbands as head of the family.
Role Models in Jesus, Mary & Joseph
This is not to say that husbands are free to act as tyrants. They must carry their authority lightly and rule with justice and kindness. They should take St. Joseph as their ideal of the model father.
Mary, of course, is par excellence the model mother. Children have as their pattern none other than the Boy Jesus Himself. Although children need not obey their parents after they are themselves married and have homes of their own or after they reach their majority, they are never exempt from the command to love and respect their parents. Even after our parents die, we still have the obligation to pray for them that they may not be detained long in Purgatory.
THE PRACTICE
Supreme Lesson of the Holy Family
The supreme lesson of the Holy Family is this: If the God-Man, Jesus Christ, could subject Himself to earthly parents, if God could obey us, His creatures, cannot we obey God? He has clearly spelled out His will for us in His commandments and in the commandments of His Church. The practice of the virtue of obedience is the first and most necessary step in making your family a holy family. Furthermore, if Our Lord and Our Lady, and to a lesser extent St. Joseph, were so innocent and sinless, yet they chose to suffer enormously for our sins―then why are we sinners so reluctant in suffering for our sins also? Why should the innocent suffer alone, while the guilty refuse to suffer? The only way to Heaven is through the Cross―and the cross means suffering. Heaven has to won by fighting the world to get there. “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12).
The Family is a Microcosm of the Church
The family is a microcosm of the Church and has, therefore, a hierarchical structure. The husband is the head of the family (1 Corinthians 11:3). Yet the woman is not a slave, but a help-mate for the man, just as the priest is a collaborator of the bishop, i.e. someone who labors with the bishop. The man can be likened to the head, the woman to the heart. The body of the family needs both and they both have an important role to play. Without them to form their children, they become ‘headless chickens’ or ‘heartless animals’. For both man and wife have complementary abilities and strengths, each of which greatly contributes to the well being of family life.
The flock that husband and wife must look after are their children. Yet how few parents realize the gravity and magnitude of the task entrusted to them. They often forget that God will judge them as to how they have raised or failed to raise their children. Parents cannot selfishly live for themselves, they have a responsibility in justice towards their children, they also have a responsibility towards God, who created the souls of those children. Too many parents have abdicated from the authority and responsibility of parenting, with disastrous results. When the world gets its often derailed family life back on the tracks, then, too, will society at large live as it ought. And what most often derails family life is a lack of authority and discipline, joined to an absence of God and His grace.
Counterfeit Catholics and Fake Families
We continually and stubbornly and insanely ignore “the elephant in the room” ― pretending that it is not there! What is this “elephant in the room” or subject that nobody wants to address and everybody ignores? It is quite simply the fact that most souls end up being damned in Hell! Our Lord, Our Lady and the saints have repeatedly stated this truth in each and every century―yet we bury our heads in the sand, or plug our ears, or close our eyes and minds to that massive elephant of truth! [read more here on the fewness of saved souls] Only true Catholics go to Heaven―fake Catholics go to Hell. Catholic families should drill this truth into their heads―repeatedly―just like a good sports coach will repeatedly drill the basic and essential tactics and truths into the minds of his athletes.
Our Lord did not “fudge” or “water-down” this truth: “And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. But when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: ‘Lord! Open to us!’ And He, answering, shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are!’ Then you shall begin to say: ‘We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!” And He shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are! Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity!’ There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!’” (Luke 13:23-28). “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14).
How many parents tell this to their children? How often is this vital, striking and indispensable truth repeated? How many even believe this? Ignoring this truth will not make it go away! Ignoring this truth will not excuse us under the false pretext of invincible ignorance! If most souls are lost―then that means that most souls were counterfeit Catholics from fake families!
“What truth can come from that which is false?” (Ecclesiasticus 34:4) … “Many false prophets shall rise, and shall seduce many” (Matthew 24:11) … “There will rise up false Christs and false prophets” (Mark 13:22) … “The prophets prophesy falsely in My Name! I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, nor have I spoken to them! They prophesy unto you a lying vision, and divination and deceit, and the seduction of their own heart!” (Jeremias 14:14) … “Such false apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ―and no wonder: for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light!” (2 Corinthians 11:13-14). Scripture speaks of “perils from false brethren” (2 Corinthians 11:26) ... “There were also false prophets among the people, even as there shall be lying teachers among you” (2 Peter 2:1) … “Ravening wolves will enter in among you” (Acts 20:29) … “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew 7:15).
Our Lord and Holy Scripture describes them: “This people honor Me with their lips―but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8) … “They profess that they know God―but in their works they deny Him!” (Titus 1:16) … “Lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God! Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid!” (2 Timothy 3:2-5) … “Any man thinking himself to be religious, while not bridling his tongue, but deceiving his own heart―this man's religion is vain!” (James 1:26) … “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23) … “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
Love Means Obedience
Our Lord hit the nail on the head, saying: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). At the Last Supper, He further explains: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24). The same applies to the authority within families―God has constituted the father as the head of the family. The father does not rule the family as he himself wants, but he must rule the family as God wants the family to be ruled. The father is merely an ambassador or representative for God―the family is not ultimately his own personal family, but it is God’s family: “Behold all souls are mine―as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine!” (Ezechiel 18:4). There is NO INDEPENDENCE from God! If the father does not introduce and impose God’s laws in his family, then the following words are applicable to him: “It were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones!” (Luke 17:2).
Parents are meant to lead their children to God―and not allow the world to lead their children away from God! Parents are meant to show their children―by their own parental example―what it means to “love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength” (Mark 12:30). The lifestyle, attitudes, words and examples of the parents should clearly show what these words of Holy Scripture mean: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Parents who allow their children to become worldly are in danger of such a terrible judgment by God. As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Who is so dull and insipid as not to know the dangers of the worldly life! … The sons of the world are ignorant, precisely because they are lovers of earthly riches ... This deceitful error has filled the Earth with lovers of the world; it has filled the world with avarice and concupiscence against the law of the Creator; it has made men insane in their desires―for all of them commonly chase after riches and earthly possessions; claiming, thereby, merely to satisfy their needs―which is only a lame pretext for hiding their lack of interest in higher things, spiritual things. In reality they lie to themselves abominously, since they are seeking superfluous things that they do not really need and not what is really necessary―but what ministers to worldly pride … O insanity never sufficiently to be bewailed and so little considered by the children of Adam! All their life they labor and exert themselves to become more and more entangled in the snares of their passions, to be consumed in deceitful vanities and to deliver themselves over to an inextinguishable fire, death and everlasting perdition in Hell, as if all were a mere joke!”
What Spirit Drives Your Family?
It has to be said―no matter how hard it is to take―most families are not spiritual. We are not talking about all the families in the world―but only Catholic families and Catholic individuals. Catholics account for 1,400 million (1.4 billion) of the 8,000 million (8 billion) people in the world―which means that Catholics make up 17.5% of the world’s population (or roughly 3 out of 16 persons). Over the past century, the number of Catholics has increased almost fivefold, from an estimated 291 million in 1910 to nearly 1,400 million in 2023―a 380% increase. Over the same time frame, the world population has increased from 1,800 million in 1919, to almost 8,000 in 2023―a 345% increase.
At a mere 17.5% (or roughly 3 out of 16 persons) of the world population, Catholics are obviously heavily outnumbered by a world consisting of false religions or no religion (atheists) or those indifferent towards religion. There is a grave danger that the axiom: “The greater absorbs the lesser” results in the lesser number of Catholics being absorbed into the greater number of non-Catholics and thereby having their Faith diluted or even destroyed. At the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, when the priest adds a little water to the wine in the chalice, the wine remains wine, while the water is absorbed into the wine and exists no longer as pure water. St. Thomas Aquinas explains: “The water is changed into wine, and the wine into blood. Now, this could not be done unless so little water was used that it would be changed into wine. Consequently, it is always safer to add little water, especially if the wine be weak, because the Sacrament could not be celebrated if there were such addition of water as to destroy the species of the wine” (Summa, 3a, q. 74, art. 8).
The water is symbolic of us humans, and the wine is symbolic of Christ and divinity. Christ became man in order to make us like Him―“God became man that man might become God,” says the Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Athanasius (298–373 AD). In the chalice at Holy Mass, there is far more wine than the mere few drops of water―which is fitting, since Christ (being divine) and symbolized by the wine, is infinitely greater than humanity symbolized by the water. The water is absorbed and changed into wine, and then changed into the Precious Blood of Christ―likewise, the pagan world (symbolized by water) needs to be baptized with water in order to be absorbed into the Mystical Body of Christ, and from there Christ will gradually transform and change them into being living images of Himself―in other words, saints. That is the calling for your family! Are you all living up to that calling? Or have you turned you back to it?
What is the predominant spirit that rules your family the majority of the time? Could these words be applied to you or members of your family: “They are of the world―therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them!” (1 John 4:5). Can you truly say: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me!” (Galatians 2:20)? Has your family “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator” (Colossians 3:10)? “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh and its concupiscences!” (Romans 13:14). Do you bear the image of the Man of Heaven―Jesus Christ: “The first man [Adam] was of the Earth, earthly―the second Man [Jesus Christ], was from Heaven, heavenly. Such as is the earthly, such also are the earthly: and such as is the heavenly, such also are they that are heavenly. Therefore, as we have borne the image of the earthly, let us now bear also the image of the heavenly. For this I say, my brethren, that flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God―neither shall corruption possess incorruption!” (1 Corinthians 15:47-50).
The Spirit of Holiness Should Drive Every Family
Everyone is driven by a predominant spirit that for the most part defines who they are, how they think, how they speak and what they do. Essentially and ultimately, there are only two spirits that drive us. One is the spirit of God and His Church―the other is the spirit of Satan and his princedom, the world. Our Lord and Holy Scripture only speak of these two spirits and they place these two spirits in diametrical opposition to each other. Our Lord speaks of serving either God or mammon (Matthew 1:24).
Elsewhere He says what every Catholic should repeatedly be saying to their children, year after year: “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7). To which Scripture adds: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Everyone wants a “happy family” and everyone wants to go to Heaven ― but there can be no true happiness without holiness. But there can be no true holiness if it is mixed with worldliness. There can be no getting to Heaven for the stubbornly worldly folk. That is what Our Lord meant when He said: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). “He that loveth his life [in this world] shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal!” (John 12:25).
Holy Scripture adds: “They that are according to the flesh, care about things that are of the flesh―but they that are according to the spirit, care about the things that are of the spirit. The wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God―for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be. And they who are in the flesh, cannot please God.” (Romans 8:5-8). “I say then, walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit: and the spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary one to another: so that you do not the things that you would. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the Kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:16-21). “Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the Kingdom of God? Do not err! Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers [using verbally abusive language], nor extortioners, shall possess the Kingdom of God!” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
We must also avoid mixing with worldly people: “Know this first, that in the Last Days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts” (2 Peter 3:3). “In the Last Times there will come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodliness. These are they, who are sensual men, who separate themselves, having not the Spirit” (Jude 1:18-19). “Know also this, that, in the Last Days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves and lovers of pleasures more than of God. Ever learning and never attaining to the knowledge of the truth. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God. Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid!”” (2 Timothy 3:1-7).
Acquiring the Spirit of Holiness
The Benedictine, Dom Hubert van Zeller, OSB―in his 1963 book, Holiness: A Guide for Beginners (formerly entitled: Sanctity in Other Words), which is really worth the read by any family―writes: “If personal holiness is thought of as being a name at the top of a list, it is understood wrong. If it is thought of as something that merits a feast in the Church’s calendar, it is understood wrong. If it is thought of as something to which is attached the power of working miracles, it is understood wrong. If it is thought of as mooning about in a state of pious contentment (or sweet ecstasy or noble and aloof virtue), it is understood wrong. There is nothing “superior” — in the sense of being one up on everybody else — about it.
“The way to think of sanctity is as something that, by being generous and faithful to grace, gives back to God the love He has given to the soul. So it is for God’s sake, more than for our own, that we should want to be saints. We work away at holiness not because we are ambitious, and want to be experts in a particular kind of lofty career, but because God wants us to be saints and is praised by our striving after sanctity.
“Anyone can be holy, or rather act holy, so long as others are saying, “There’s a saint for you,” but sooner or later this sort of holiness wears off. Either the person sees the trap, becomes humble, and goes ahead toward real holiness, or keeping up the act becomes too much of a strain and there’s a swing toward worldliness and perhaps to a lasting unholiness. The whole secret of sanctity is that it is a thing of grace, and so cannot be switched on as a part to be played.
“This means that however determined you are to be a saint, you will not become one if you rely on your own strength of mind. The only thing that can get you to sanctity is God’s grace. You will need all the strength of mind you have just to work together with God’s grace, but if you imagine that making good, strong resolutions will carry you the whole way, you are wrong. About the first thing to happen will be that God lets you break some of those good, strong resolutions before you get properly started. This will be to put you in your place, and show you that you can do nothing without Him.
“Once you are decently humbled, knowing that left to yourself you cannot even carry out the things that you very much want to carry out, you are getting ready to be used. You are being softened up like a steak. When all the toughness and pride and glamorized ideas of holiness have been beaten out of you by the down-to-earth action of truth, then God has got something there on which He can work. Without false notions and fancy plans, you can now begin to fall in with the true notions of holiness and with the plan God has in mind for you. It stands to reason. God is not going to reward anyone else’s work but His own. You cannot expect Him to recognize a holiness that He has done nothing to bring about. When you get right down to it, there is only one real goodness, one perfection, one sanctity, and that is God’s. When man invents a holiness of his own, God lets him look for it but does not help him find it, because a holiness of one’s own does not exist, and it is a waste of time searching for it. It is as if someone were to look for moonlight without the moon. Once you admit that all moonlight is bound to come from one particular place, and that it is a thing you cannot make yourself, you have learned something.
“All right then, what is it that the saints do that makes them into saints? The answer is that they do two things: on the one side they keep clear of anything that they think is going to get in the way of grace, and on the other they head directly for Our Lord. The only thing to be added to this is that they do it for the glory of God and not for what they can get out of it. They are the ones who “seek first the kingdom of God,” and for the King’s sake rather than for their own, and who are ready to wait as long as God likes for the day when “all these things” shall be added to them (Mathew 6:33).
“So it is not that the saints do particularly “saintly” things (like fierce penances, whole nights spent on their knees, miracles, prophecies, or raptures in prayer); it is more that they do all things in a particularly saintly way, in exactly the way that they feel God wants. To them the only thing in the world that matters is God’s will. They know that by doing God’s will as perfectly as they can, they are imitating Our Lord, they are expressing Charity, and they are being true to the best that is in them.
“All this should be a great encouragement to us because it shows that our service of God does not depend upon how we feel about it, but upon how God looks at it; not upon acts that are seen to be heroic, but upon how ready we are to let God draw heroism out of us; not upon battling our way to a certain point that will give us the title of “saint,” but upon following blindly the course that is set by God’s will.”
The book, Holiness: A Guide for Beginners―from which the above passages were taken (chapter 1)―is a very concise book, using simple vocabulary and imagery, with short sentences and short chapters, in small format (5 inches by 7 inches), and containing only 112 pages (which translates to 18 pages in Letter Size format: 8.5 x 11 inches) and is a perfect choice for injecting the family (and yourself) with easily digestible small bites of spirituality that can be served every day of the week, whether before or during family meals, or before the family Rosary, or during morning and night prayers, etc. If you have read this article, then you would have read over half-the-book of Dom Hubert Van Zeller. Let it be said that this book is not the “be-all-and-end-all” of books meaning that it is the only book on the spiritual life that you should read. No! It is more like kindling-wood is for a bonfire―which is what your spiritual life should be―and which will necessitate much more reading on your part―for, as the title of book suggests: “Holiness: A Guide for Beginners” ― a beginning is not the end; we begin journeys that we have to also end by arriving at the destination. Your hopeful potential destination is Heaven―but if you never begin or set-out on the road of holiness, then you have zero chance of reaching the destination of holiness!
So―if you want true happiness, lasting happiness, eternal happiness―then you must realize and convince yourself of the fact that true happiness can only be found in true holiness. Furthermore, it cannot be found in this world (though it can begin in this world) but will only grow to achieve perfection in Heaven―as Our Lady said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next!” Start working towards that true happiness and true holiness now! Plant the seeds! The book, Holiness: A Guide for Beginners, will help you plant your seeds of holiness and start sprouting holiness―but there is a long way still to go. As Our Lord said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. Which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and dwell in the branches thereof” (Matthew 13:31-32).
Yet God expects more than a beginning―He expects fruit! Our Lord pointed this out at the Last Supper: “I am the true vine and My Father is the farmer. Every branch in Me, that bears not fruit, He will take away; and every one that bears fruit, He will purge it, so that it may bring forth even more fruit. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine and you the branches! He that abides in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit―for, without Me, you can do nothing! If anyone abides not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burns!” (John 15:1-6).
Christmas is a time to focus on the family; not only your own family, but also the Holy Family—meaning, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The family is the building block of society. If you can sanctify the family, then you can sanctify society through the family. “The Holy Family” should not just be the title for the family containing Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but it should be the title for every family―for God wants every family to be holy. Just as Jesus was born and lived among us for our imitation; likewise the Holy Family was created and lived among us as an example of godly family life.
Before looking at the “One Big Happy Family” aspect, let us first of all look at the “Blueprint” of what a family should be like. That “Blueprint” is, of course, the Holy Family, consisting of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Why do we not call it the “Happy Family”? The reason is quite simply this―it is HOLINESS that leads to HAPPINESS. Furthermore, even though―as St. Thomas Aquinas says―everyone seeks happiness and wants to be happy, most people seek a false happiness, an inferior happiness, an imperfect happiness in this world. It is not the happiness that God has intended for us―namely, the happiness of Heaven―which can only be reached by holiness. So, to reach the “Happiness of Heaven” we must first practice “Holiness on Earth”.
Our Lady put it into a nutshell when she said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next world!” Those words of Our Lady are an echo of the words spoken by Our Lord to His Apostles at the Last Supper: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice and you shall be made sorrowful―but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” [in Heaven] (John 16:20).
The Apostles learned that lesson and repeat it to us. St. Paul repeatedly insists: “I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come! If we suffer with Christ, it is that we may be also glorified with Him!” (Romans 8:18) … “For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us―so also, by Christ, does our comfort abound!” (2 Corinthians 1:5) … “God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ―by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14) ... “We also glory in tribulations! … For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come!” (Romans 5:3; 8:18). St. Peter states: “If you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice that when His glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy! If you be reproached for the Name of Christ, you shall be blessed!” (1 Peter 4:13-14). That is why St. James writes: “Count it all joy, when you shall fall into various afflictions and persecutions!” (James 1:2).
Let us then first look at the “blueprint” of family life ― the Holy Family ― in order to see how we can make our families holier, so as to simultaneously make them holier.
THE HISTORY
The Feast of the Holy Family
The Feast of the Holy Family is of recent origin, being instituted by Pope Leo XIII in 1892. It used to be celebrated on the third Sunday after the Epiphany, but has now been moved, by Benedict XV to the first Sunday after the Epiphany. The feast serves as an example of family life. Like other liturgical feasts, it can be a source of many graces in our daily lives. The prayer of the Mass indicates this, when it pleads for the grace to imitate the example of the Holy Family.
The Suffering Holy Family
Normally, we do not want our beloved family members to suffer―we do all that we can to avoid sufferings coming their way, or if they are suffering, we seek to remove those sufferings, or at least alleviate them. If Jesus, Mary and Joseph were so close to God the Father, then you would imagine that He would “wrap them in cotton wool” and protect from all adversity and suffering. Not so! “For whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth; and He scourgeth every son whom he receiveth!” (Hebrews 12:6). God loved nobody more than His Only-begotten Son―and God’s Providence never allowed anyone to suffer as much as Our Lord. “Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow in His footsteps!” (1 Peter 2:21). The same applied to Our Lady―she was God’s masterpiece, yet nobody (apart from Our Lord) suffered more than Our Lady.
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady said: “My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! … It was not necessary to suffer so much! … Yet He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! … He began to suffer, and as soon as He was born into the world He and I were banished by Herod into a desert, and His sufferings continued until He died on the Cross … He it was who gave His own life and subjected Himself to sufferings for the good of His creatures without waiting for any merits on their part … for whom, as man, He had suffered and died … Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, and willingly enter upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, and to carry it after Christ ...
“But the worldlings, in their torpidity, are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! … They want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as of eternal life, while Christ their Creator has suffered the most bitter pains and torments in order to enter Heaven and to show them by His example how they are to find the way of light … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! … As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation …
“My Son and I embraced the way of the Cross and suffering for the whole course of our natural life! … My Son and I suffered so much for creatures and for their salvation! … For them We suffered and endured bitter sorrows! … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good! … My life was a continual suffering! ... The sorrow which I suffered is so little noticed by the living! … I suffered much more than the martyrs in all their torments! … What tribulations and hardships we suffered! … I blessed the Lord to be able to suffer! … All that I suffered seemed little―and I continually longed to suffer still more! ... I suffered with eagerness! … This desire for suffering led me on in the way of suffering … thus permitting me to endure so much the greater sufferings! … I would have been ready to suffer the greatest torments of the world! … I desired to take upon myself the sufferings of all men … There is no torment, not even death itself, that I would have refused, if such had been necessary to save any of the damned―and to save them, I would have esteemed all sufferings a sweet alleviation! ... … I never presumed to ask the Lord anything for the sake of ridding myself of suffering!”
“I and my holy spouse Joseph were poor, and at times we suffered great need―but none of them were powerful enough to engender within our hearts the plague of avarice ... Apart from the labors of my most holy Son, the greatest suffering of my life was to see the tribulations of my spouse Saint Joseph, and his grief in the matter of not knowing the cause of my pregnancy … Also, I knew that what my holy spouse Joseph expected would not happen on our journey to Bethlehem … Who would be so hardened as not to be moved to tenderness at the sight of their God become man, humiliated in poverty, despised, unknown, entering the world in a cave, lying in a manger surrounded by brute animals, protected only by a poverty-stricken Mother, and cast off by the foolish arrogance of the world? Who will dare to love the vanity and pride, which was openly abhorred and condemned by the Creator of Heaven and Earth in His conduct? No one can despise the humility, poverty and indigence, which the Lord loved and chose for Himself as the very means of teaching the way of eternal life. Few there are, who stop to consider this truth and example―and, on account of this vile ingratitude, only the few will reap the fruit of these great mysteries … The Most High does not wish to see the creatures disturbed by afflictions, but that they gain merit; not that they lose courage, but that they test their own power when aided by grace. Although the more violent temptations are wont to close the haven of exalted peace and knowledge of God, and although they ground the creature more firmly in the knowledge of its own lowliness … I shared Joseph’s sufferings and hardships with heartfelt compassion; but at the same time I praised the Most High and thanked Him for the blessings of affliction conferred on His servant. If sometimes I sought to relieve his pains, it was not in order to deprive him of the occasion of meriting … Let the humble care and watchfulness of my spouse Saint Joseph, his submission to divine direction and his esteem for heavenly enlightenment, serve thee as an example.” (Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
The Exiled Holy Family
Joseph and Mary and the Child Jesus had been living in Egypt only a few months when Herod died. Before long, an angel appeared to the head of the Holy Family, St. Joseph, and reported this latest intelligence. It was time to go home. Without any hemming and hawing or seeking after additional details, Joseph and Mary quietly packed up and started off. They had no sooner arrived in Judea than a new problem presented itself in the person of Archelaus.
Herod’s kingdom had been split up among his sons: Archelaus, Antipas, and Philip. Archelaus was to inherit the throne of Judea and therefore control of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. He already had a reputation for diabolical wickedness. The Jews sent a fifty-man delegation to Rome to plead with Caesar Augustus to break up the Herodian dynasty. They had no success. However, Archelaus’ reign was short-lived. He was so cruel and tyrannical that the Jews combined with their old enemies, the Samaritans, and sent off a fresh delegation in 6 A.D. This time Augustus summoned Archelaus to Rome and speedily banished him to Vienne in Gaul. When the Holy Family arrived in Judea, however, Archelaus was apparently still in power and St. Joseph, as guardian of Jesus and Mary, was afraid to settle in his territory. Once again his confidence in God was rewarded by the now familiar visit of the angel. “Being warned in a dream, he withdrew into the region of Galilee.”
The Hidden Life of the Holy Family
Now begins the hidden life of Christ. All we know about the next eleven years is packed into a single verse from St. Luke: “And the Child grew and became strong. He was full of wisdom and the grace of God was upon Him.” Although we have no facts, it is easy to picture Mary stealing occasional glances at her mysteriously wonderful Boy and wondering with a mother’s tender sadness about the prophetic visit of the Magi and the soul-searing prophecy of old Simeon. Her intuitions proved to be correct for the next time Christ appears in the Gospel, now a Boy of twelve, we see her heart wrung anew.
The Trials of the Holy Family
Every Jewish male thirteen years of age or older was obliged to visit the Temple in Jerusalem three times a year on the big feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Women and children frequently accompanied the men of the family. If they came from a distance, such as Galilee, they traveled in a caravan. Once a caravan got started for the day, it usually splintered up into small groups and anyone could float from one group to another as the spirit moved him. At the evening stopover, everybody got back together again. It was all very free and easy and a holiday mood prevailed.
We must not suspect Mary or Joseph of the least neglect of duty when Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem. They had every reason to assume He was visiting with friends or neighbors along the way as He no doubt had done on the way down from Nazareth and perhaps even many times before on previous trips. It was at the end of the first day’s travel that the disappearance of Jesus was discovered.
In our own day we hear enough about kidnapped and missing children to appreciate the panic that grips, with steel fingers, the hearts of mothers or fathers who have lost a child. Imagine, then, how Mary and Joseph must have felt when the slow-dawning truth burst fully upon them: Their personal charge, their exclusive responsibility, the Boy Messias, Who had been entrusted to them, had vanished!
It took almost a full day to retrace the route to Jerusalem and another doubt and fear-filled twenty-four hours of buffeting holiday crowds before Jesus could be found. The rest of the story we know. Jesus was in the Temple and had been engaged in a discussion with the teachers and doctors.
And all who were listening to Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers. And when they saw Him, they were astonished. And His mother said to Him, “Son, why hast Thou done so to us? Behold, Thy father and I have been seeking Thee sorrowing.” And He said to them: “How is it that you sought Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” And they did not understand the word that He spoke to them. And He went down with them and, came to Nazareth, and was subject to them; and His mother kept all these things carefully in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace before God and men. (Luke 2:46-52).
The Holy Family in Complete Obscurity
When Jesus left Jerusalem to go back to Nazareth and be subject to His parents, He began the second phase of His hidden life. He lived in complete obscurity, an unknown, and was subject in humility and obedience to His earthly mother and father. The incarnate Second Person of the Trinity, the Messias, who later on would dazzle the public with miracles, this God of all mankind hid Himself away in a small town and performed the dull tasks of a carpenter’s helper. Later, after Joseph died, Jesus supported His mother by the work of His hands. In fact, when He afterward came back to His home town and spoke in the local synagogue, neighbors and relatives who had known Him almost since birth and had watched Him grow up, referred to Him by His trade: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary ... ?”
THE MEANING
The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph serves in many ways as the model for the family virtues. One virtue of the Holy Family that modem families might well emulate is humility. Humility can do much to smooth out the petty frictions and molehill mountains that inevitably rise to the surface when human beings live close together for long periods of time. The young Creator, the God who shaped the cosmos with one effortless volition, now bends to learn the carpenter’s skill from a human foster father and struggles with crude tools to shape stubborn lumber into a useful bit of furniture.
The Humility of the Holy Family
This resplendent example of divine humility should be enough to inspire, for instance, the unsung housewife who goes along for years doing the menial, humdrum jobs without any particular recognition or praise. There may be no glamour in this kind of existence, but it already shines with the far brighter brilliance of paradise. If you are not hounded by the demands of public life, if you are not in the limelight, if you are not soiled with the dust and smut of the world, it is much easier to give yourself to God, to dedicate yourself entirely to the one single purpose of life, saving your immortal soul.
How much harder it must be for the wealthy businessman, the big movie star, the socialite, the politician, for anyone who wastes so much time chasing after money or fame or power. The peace and tranquility that goes with the hidden life is a valuable possession, certainly much more to be prized than the glamour and glitter and noise of the world. If you ever have any doubts about this, remember that when God became man He could have had His pick of any type of life at all. Christ could have been a rich merchant, an idol of the Roman circus, the admired leader of Roman high society, Caesar himself. Christ had His choice. He chose to be a workingman.
The Obedience of the Holy Family
Another virtue perfectly mirrored in the Holy Family is obedience, the virtue that inclines us to submit our will to that of our lawful superiors insofar as they are the representatives of God. The most important words of that definition are the last ones. When we obey a superior whether it be husband, mother or father, a policeman on the corner of the street, the president of the United States, our pastor or bishop―we are obeying God at least indirectly.
It is difficult for us to grasp the concept of obedience because we have been educated in a tradition that glorifies independence. What we are talking about here, however, is a question of order. In nature we find a God-instituted order: on the lowest rung of the ladder of creation are minerals, then plants, animals, men, and finally angels. The higher creatures use the lower ones to their own advantage and to achieve their ends. Thus plants, which utilize minerals, are in turn eaten by animals, and animals are used by men. This is God’s plan and it is His will that inferiors be subject to superiors. It is also God’s plan to manifest His will to us through our fellow men. And that’s where the rub comes in. We would be delighted and privileged to obey God if He came down on earth and delivered His orders to us in person, but that is not God’s way and we should try to see in our superiors the envoys of God.
We pay a good deal of attention to obedience because it is the rock-bottom foundation of family life. Children must be obedient to their parents and—despite feminist propaganda and modern heresies—wives must be obedient to their husbands as head of the family.
Role Models in Jesus, Mary & Joseph
This is not to say that husbands are free to act as tyrants. They must carry their authority lightly and rule with justice and kindness. They should take St. Joseph as their ideal of the model father.
Mary, of course, is par excellence the model mother. Children have as their pattern none other than the Boy Jesus Himself. Although children need not obey their parents after they are themselves married and have homes of their own or after they reach their majority, they are never exempt from the command to love and respect their parents. Even after our parents die, we still have the obligation to pray for them that they may not be detained long in Purgatory.
THE PRACTICE
Supreme Lesson of the Holy Family
The supreme lesson of the Holy Family is this: If the God-Man, Jesus Christ, could subject Himself to earthly parents, if God could obey us, His creatures, cannot we obey God? He has clearly spelled out His will for us in His commandments and in the commandments of His Church. The practice of the virtue of obedience is the first and most necessary step in making your family a holy family. Furthermore, if Our Lord and Our Lady, and to a lesser extent St. Joseph, were so innocent and sinless, yet they chose to suffer enormously for our sins―then why are we sinners so reluctant in suffering for our sins also? Why should the innocent suffer alone, while the guilty refuse to suffer? The only way to Heaven is through the Cross―and the cross means suffering. Heaven has to won by fighting the world to get there. “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12).
The Family is a Microcosm of the Church
The family is a microcosm of the Church and has, therefore, a hierarchical structure. The husband is the head of the family (1 Corinthians 11:3). Yet the woman is not a slave, but a help-mate for the man, just as the priest is a collaborator of the bishop, i.e. someone who labors with the bishop. The man can be likened to the head, the woman to the heart. The body of the family needs both and they both have an important role to play. Without them to form their children, they become ‘headless chickens’ or ‘heartless animals’. For both man and wife have complementary abilities and strengths, each of which greatly contributes to the well being of family life.
The flock that husband and wife must look after are their children. Yet how few parents realize the gravity and magnitude of the task entrusted to them. They often forget that God will judge them as to how they have raised or failed to raise their children. Parents cannot selfishly live for themselves, they have a responsibility in justice towards their children, they also have a responsibility towards God, who created the souls of those children. Too many parents have abdicated from the authority and responsibility of parenting, with disastrous results. When the world gets its often derailed family life back on the tracks, then, too, will society at large live as it ought. And what most often derails family life is a lack of authority and discipline, joined to an absence of God and His grace.
Counterfeit Catholics and Fake Families
We continually and stubbornly and insanely ignore “the elephant in the room” ― pretending that it is not there! What is this “elephant in the room” or subject that nobody wants to address and everybody ignores? It is quite simply the fact that most souls end up being damned in Hell! Our Lord, Our Lady and the saints have repeatedly stated this truth in each and every century―yet we bury our heads in the sand, or plug our ears, or close our eyes and minds to that massive elephant of truth! [read more here on the fewness of saved souls] Only true Catholics go to Heaven―fake Catholics go to Hell. Catholic families should drill this truth into their heads―repeatedly―just like a good sports coach will repeatedly drill the basic and essential tactics and truths into the minds of his athletes.
Our Lord did not “fudge” or “water-down” this truth: “And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. But when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: ‘Lord! Open to us!’ And He, answering, shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are!’ Then you shall begin to say: ‘We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!” And He shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are! Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity!’ There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!’” (Luke 13:23-28). “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14).
How many parents tell this to their children? How often is this vital, striking and indispensable truth repeated? How many even believe this? Ignoring this truth will not make it go away! Ignoring this truth will not excuse us under the false pretext of invincible ignorance! If most souls are lost―then that means that most souls were counterfeit Catholics from fake families!
“What truth can come from that which is false?” (Ecclesiasticus 34:4) … “Many false prophets shall rise, and shall seduce many” (Matthew 24:11) … “There will rise up false Christs and false prophets” (Mark 13:22) … “The prophets prophesy falsely in My Name! I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, nor have I spoken to them! They prophesy unto you a lying vision, and divination and deceit, and the seduction of their own heart!” (Jeremias 14:14) … “Such false apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ―and no wonder: for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light!” (2 Corinthians 11:13-14). Scripture speaks of “perils from false brethren” (2 Corinthians 11:26) ... “There were also false prophets among the people, even as there shall be lying teachers among you” (2 Peter 2:1) … “Ravening wolves will enter in among you” (Acts 20:29) … “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew 7:15).
Our Lord and Holy Scripture describes them: “This people honor Me with their lips―but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8) … “They profess that they know God―but in their works they deny Him!” (Titus 1:16) … “Lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God! Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid!” (2 Timothy 3:2-5) … “Any man thinking himself to be religious, while not bridling his tongue, but deceiving his own heart―this man's religion is vain!” (James 1:26) … “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23) … “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
Love Means Obedience
Our Lord hit the nail on the head, saying: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). At the Last Supper, He further explains: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24). The same applies to the authority within families―God has constituted the father as the head of the family. The father does not rule the family as he himself wants, but he must rule the family as God wants the family to be ruled. The father is merely an ambassador or representative for God―the family is not ultimately his own personal family, but it is God’s family: “Behold all souls are mine―as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine!” (Ezechiel 18:4). There is NO INDEPENDENCE from God! If the father does not introduce and impose God’s laws in his family, then the following words are applicable to him: “It were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones!” (Luke 17:2).
Parents are meant to lead their children to God―and not allow the world to lead their children away from God! Parents are meant to show their children―by their own parental example―what it means to “love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength” (Mark 12:30). The lifestyle, attitudes, words and examples of the parents should clearly show what these words of Holy Scripture mean: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Parents who allow their children to become worldly are in danger of such a terrible judgment by God. As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Who is so dull and insipid as not to know the dangers of the worldly life! … The sons of the world are ignorant, precisely because they are lovers of earthly riches ... This deceitful error has filled the Earth with lovers of the world; it has filled the world with avarice and concupiscence against the law of the Creator; it has made men insane in their desires―for all of them commonly chase after riches and earthly possessions; claiming, thereby, merely to satisfy their needs―which is only a lame pretext for hiding their lack of interest in higher things, spiritual things. In reality they lie to themselves abominously, since they are seeking superfluous things that they do not really need and not what is really necessary―but what ministers to worldly pride … O insanity never sufficiently to be bewailed and so little considered by the children of Adam! All their life they labor and exert themselves to become more and more entangled in the snares of their passions, to be consumed in deceitful vanities and to deliver themselves over to an inextinguishable fire, death and everlasting perdition in Hell, as if all were a mere joke!”
What Spirit Drives Your Family?
It has to be said―no matter how hard it is to take―most families are not spiritual. We are not talking about all the families in the world―but only Catholic families and Catholic individuals. Catholics account for 1,400 million (1.4 billion) of the 8,000 million (8 billion) people in the world―which means that Catholics make up 17.5% of the world’s population (or roughly 3 out of 16 persons). Over the past century, the number of Catholics has increased almost fivefold, from an estimated 291 million in 1910 to nearly 1,400 million in 2023―a 380% increase. Over the same time frame, the world population has increased from 1,800 million in 1919, to almost 8,000 in 2023―a 345% increase.
At a mere 17.5% (or roughly 3 out of 16 persons) of the world population, Catholics are obviously heavily outnumbered by a world consisting of false religions or no religion (atheists) or those indifferent towards religion. There is a grave danger that the axiom: “The greater absorbs the lesser” results in the lesser number of Catholics being absorbed into the greater number of non-Catholics and thereby having their Faith diluted or even destroyed. At the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, when the priest adds a little water to the wine in the chalice, the wine remains wine, while the water is absorbed into the wine and exists no longer as pure water. St. Thomas Aquinas explains: “The water is changed into wine, and the wine into blood. Now, this could not be done unless so little water was used that it would be changed into wine. Consequently, it is always safer to add little water, especially if the wine be weak, because the Sacrament could not be celebrated if there were such addition of water as to destroy the species of the wine” (Summa, 3a, q. 74, art. 8).
The water is symbolic of us humans, and the wine is symbolic of Christ and divinity. Christ became man in order to make us like Him―“God became man that man might become God,” says the Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Athanasius (298–373 AD). In the chalice at Holy Mass, there is far more wine than the mere few drops of water―which is fitting, since Christ (being divine) and symbolized by the wine, is infinitely greater than humanity symbolized by the water. The water is absorbed and changed into wine, and then changed into the Precious Blood of Christ―likewise, the pagan world (symbolized by water) needs to be baptized with water in order to be absorbed into the Mystical Body of Christ, and from there Christ will gradually transform and change them into being living images of Himself―in other words, saints. That is the calling for your family! Are you all living up to that calling? Or have you turned you back to it?
What is the predominant spirit that rules your family the majority of the time? Could these words be applied to you or members of your family: “They are of the world―therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them!” (1 John 4:5). Can you truly say: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me!” (Galatians 2:20)? Has your family “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator” (Colossians 3:10)? “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh and its concupiscences!” (Romans 13:14). Do you bear the image of the Man of Heaven―Jesus Christ: “The first man [Adam] was of the Earth, earthly―the second Man [Jesus Christ], was from Heaven, heavenly. Such as is the earthly, such also are the earthly: and such as is the heavenly, such also are they that are heavenly. Therefore, as we have borne the image of the earthly, let us now bear also the image of the heavenly. For this I say, my brethren, that flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God―neither shall corruption possess incorruption!” (1 Corinthians 15:47-50).
The Spirit of Holiness Should Drive Every Family
Everyone is driven by a predominant spirit that for the most part defines who they are, how they think, how they speak and what they do. Essentially and ultimately, there are only two spirits that drive us. One is the spirit of God and His Church―the other is the spirit of Satan and his princedom, the world. Our Lord and Holy Scripture only speak of these two spirits and they place these two spirits in diametrical opposition to each other. Our Lord speaks of serving either God or mammon (Matthew 1:24).
Elsewhere He says what every Catholic should repeatedly be saying to their children, year after year: “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7). To which Scripture adds: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Everyone wants a “happy family” and everyone wants to go to Heaven ― but there can be no true happiness without holiness. But there can be no true holiness if it is mixed with worldliness. There can be no getting to Heaven for the stubbornly worldly folk. That is what Our Lord meant when He said: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). “He that loveth his life [in this world] shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal!” (John 12:25).
Holy Scripture adds: “They that are according to the flesh, care about things that are of the flesh―but they that are according to the spirit, care about the things that are of the spirit. The wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God―for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be. And they who are in the flesh, cannot please God.” (Romans 8:5-8). “I say then, walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit: and the spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary one to another: so that you do not the things that you would. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the Kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:16-21). “Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the Kingdom of God? Do not err! Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers [using verbally abusive language], nor extortioners, shall possess the Kingdom of God!” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
We must also avoid mixing with worldly people: “Know this first, that in the Last Days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts” (2 Peter 3:3). “In the Last Times there will come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodliness. These are they, who are sensual men, who separate themselves, having not the Spirit” (Jude 1:18-19). “Know also this, that, in the Last Days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves and lovers of pleasures more than of God. Ever learning and never attaining to the knowledge of the truth. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God. Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid!”” (2 Timothy 3:1-7).
Acquiring the Spirit of Holiness
The Benedictine, Dom Hubert van Zeller, OSB―in his 1963 book, Holiness: A Guide for Beginners (formerly entitled: Sanctity in Other Words), which is really worth the read by any family―writes: “If personal holiness is thought of as being a name at the top of a list, it is understood wrong. If it is thought of as something that merits a feast in the Church’s calendar, it is understood wrong. If it is thought of as something to which is attached the power of working miracles, it is understood wrong. If it is thought of as mooning about in a state of pious contentment (or sweet ecstasy or noble and aloof virtue), it is understood wrong. There is nothing “superior” — in the sense of being one up on everybody else — about it.
“The way to think of sanctity is as something that, by being generous and faithful to grace, gives back to God the love He has given to the soul. So it is for God’s sake, more than for our own, that we should want to be saints. We work away at holiness not because we are ambitious, and want to be experts in a particular kind of lofty career, but because God wants us to be saints and is praised by our striving after sanctity.
“Anyone can be holy, or rather act holy, so long as others are saying, “There’s a saint for you,” but sooner or later this sort of holiness wears off. Either the person sees the trap, becomes humble, and goes ahead toward real holiness, or keeping up the act becomes too much of a strain and there’s a swing toward worldliness and perhaps to a lasting unholiness. The whole secret of sanctity is that it is a thing of grace, and so cannot be switched on as a part to be played.
“This means that however determined you are to be a saint, you will not become one if you rely on your own strength of mind. The only thing that can get you to sanctity is God’s grace. You will need all the strength of mind you have just to work together with God’s grace, but if you imagine that making good, strong resolutions will carry you the whole way, you are wrong. About the first thing to happen will be that God lets you break some of those good, strong resolutions before you get properly started. This will be to put you in your place, and show you that you can do nothing without Him.
“Once you are decently humbled, knowing that left to yourself you cannot even carry out the things that you very much want to carry out, you are getting ready to be used. You are being softened up like a steak. When all the toughness and pride and glamorized ideas of holiness have been beaten out of you by the down-to-earth action of truth, then God has got something there on which He can work. Without false notions and fancy plans, you can now begin to fall in with the true notions of holiness and with the plan God has in mind for you. It stands to reason. God is not going to reward anyone else’s work but His own. You cannot expect Him to recognize a holiness that He has done nothing to bring about. When you get right down to it, there is only one real goodness, one perfection, one sanctity, and that is God’s. When man invents a holiness of his own, God lets him look for it but does not help him find it, because a holiness of one’s own does not exist, and it is a waste of time searching for it. It is as if someone were to look for moonlight without the moon. Once you admit that all moonlight is bound to come from one particular place, and that it is a thing you cannot make yourself, you have learned something.
“All right then, what is it that the saints do that makes them into saints? The answer is that they do two things: on the one side they keep clear of anything that they think is going to get in the way of grace, and on the other they head directly for Our Lord. The only thing to be added to this is that they do it for the glory of God and not for what they can get out of it. They are the ones who “seek first the kingdom of God,” and for the King’s sake rather than for their own, and who are ready to wait as long as God likes for the day when “all these things” shall be added to them (Mathew 6:33).
“So it is not that the saints do particularly “saintly” things (like fierce penances, whole nights spent on their knees, miracles, prophecies, or raptures in prayer); it is more that they do all things in a particularly saintly way, in exactly the way that they feel God wants. To them the only thing in the world that matters is God’s will. They know that by doing God’s will as perfectly as they can, they are imitating Our Lord, they are expressing Charity, and they are being true to the best that is in them.
“All this should be a great encouragement to us because it shows that our service of God does not depend upon how we feel about it, but upon how God looks at it; not upon acts that are seen to be heroic, but upon how ready we are to let God draw heroism out of us; not upon battling our way to a certain point that will give us the title of “saint,” but upon following blindly the course that is set by God’s will.”
The book, Holiness: A Guide for Beginners―from which the above passages were taken (chapter 1)―is a very concise book, using simple vocabulary and imagery, with short sentences and short chapters, in small format (5 inches by 7 inches), and containing only 112 pages (which translates to 18 pages in Letter Size format: 8.5 x 11 inches) and is a perfect choice for injecting the family (and yourself) with easily digestible small bites of spirituality that can be served every day of the week, whether before or during family meals, or before the family Rosary, or during morning and night prayers, etc. If you have read this article, then you would have read over half-the-book of Dom Hubert Van Zeller. Let it be said that this book is not the “be-all-and-end-all” of books meaning that it is the only book on the spiritual life that you should read. No! It is more like kindling-wood is for a bonfire―which is what your spiritual life should be―and which will necessitate much more reading on your part―for, as the title of book suggests: “Holiness: A Guide for Beginners” ― a beginning is not the end; we begin journeys that we have to also end by arriving at the destination. Your hopeful potential destination is Heaven―but if you never begin or set-out on the road of holiness, then you have zero chance of reaching the destination of holiness!
So―if you want true happiness, lasting happiness, eternal happiness―then you must realize and convince yourself of the fact that true happiness can only be found in true holiness. Furthermore, it cannot be found in this world (though it can begin in this world) but will only grow to achieve perfection in Heaven―as Our Lady said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next!” Start working towards that true happiness and true holiness now! Plant the seeds! The book, Holiness: A Guide for Beginners, will help you plant your seeds of holiness and start sprouting holiness―but there is a long way still to go. As Our Lord said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. Which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and dwell in the branches thereof” (Matthew 13:31-32).
Yet God expects more than a beginning―He expects fruit! Our Lord pointed this out at the Last Supper: “I am the true vine and My Father is the farmer. Every branch in Me, that bears not fruit, He will take away; and every one that bears fruit, He will purge it, so that it may bring forth even more fruit. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine and you the branches! He that abides in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit―for, without Me, you can do nothing! If anyone abides not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burns!” (John 15:1-6).
Article 4
Friday January 6th & Saturday January 7th, 2023
Modern-Day Kings Have Taken a Wrong Turning and Lost Their Way
Friday January 6th & Saturday January 7th, 2023
Modern-Day Kings Have Taken a Wrong Turning and Lost Their Way
Modern-Day Kings and Queens
Would you like to be a king or a queen? No gender change allowed! When we think of kings and queens, we might become envious of their status, rights, privileges, wealth and possessions! However, there would many kings and queens of old who would envy you today! For today, most of us live like kings and queens, but we don’t even realize it! How many kings and queens had access to the variety of food and drink that modern man can find in any supermarket? How many kings and queens of old had the enormous amount of electronic gadgets, appliances, utensils and tools that we have at our disposal? Literally thousands of them―just walk into any department store or DIY store and look around. The most common items at our disposal are clothes washing machines and dryers, ovens, stoves, refrigerators, freezers, microwaves, slow-cookers, pressure-cookers, grills, electric kettles, blenders, food-mixers, saws, drills, nail-guns, screw-guns, sanders, lawn-mowers, hedge-trimmers, tree-saws, etc., etc., etc. How many had the medical support that is available today?
We have a mountains of over-the-counter medical supplies and aids in any pharmacy―which is usually on minutes away. There are literally hundreds of doctors and dentists, nurses and trained professionals living in the town or city which we inhabit. We have access to the latest medical devices and procedures that could not even have been imagined by the kings and queens of old. These modern appliances are seen in dentistry, diagnostics, surgery, and regular health care. The kings and queens of old had no ambulances with trained medical first responders to take them to an ER (Emergency Room) for immediate care and attention. They had no x-rays, cat-scans, MRIs, ultra-sound, micro-surgery, computer assisted surgery, robotic surgery, etc. They had no hospitals as we know them. No ICU (Intensive Care Unit) with 24-hour round the clock surveillance and assistance.
How many had such comfortable, economical life, with glass windows and double-glazing; electric lights; central heating; air-conditioning; electricity throughout the entire house; running-water; indoor toilets; sewage disposal; drains; insulated walls; sump-pumps; ? The kings and queens of old would have jumped at the chance to trade-in their horse and carriage for one of our cars with its interior heating, air-conditioning, reclining seats, radios, CD/DVD players, on-board television, GPS guidance, and high-speed travel!
The kings and queens of old could not even imagine the communications and electronic appliances available to us today, with their possibilities of instant communications with anyone anywhere in the world via voice, text, e-mail, imaging, etc. We have landline phones, cell-phones, smartphones, desktop computers, laptops, tablets, iPads, CD players, DVD players, MP3 players, MP4 players, MP5 players, smartwatches, personal computer assistants (Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, etc.).
The list of advantages that we have over the kings and queens of old is endless.
You Are Richer Than the King of Kings
You have probably never thought about this―but not only do you own more “goodies” than the kings and queens of old, but you also own far more than the King of kings, Jesus Christ, ever owned while He was on Earth. The Introit or Entrance Hymn for the Mass of the Epiphany of Our Lord says: “Behold, the Lord and Ruler is come; and the kingdom is in His hand, and power, and dominion!” Yet this King of kings comes―not in glory and wealth―but in humility and poverty: “Behold, thy King will come to thee, the Savior! He is poor, and riding upon an ass! [not in a car]” (Zacharias 9:9). He says to us: “Learn of Me, for I am humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29). “Our Lord Jesus Christ, being rich, He became poor, for your sakes; that through His poverty you might be rich! … As having nothing, and possessing all things!” (2 Corinthians 8:9; 6:10). “Jesus said: ‘Blessed are ye poor―for yours is the kingdom of God!’” (Luke 6:20). “Blessed are the poor in spirit―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:3). “Jesus said: ‘The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests―but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head!’” (Matthew 8:20; Luke 9:58). “And Jesus commanded them that they should take nothing for the way, but a staff only―no scrip, no bread, nor money in their purse” (Mark 6:8).
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all the things you need shall be added unto you! Sell what you possess and give alms! Make to yourselves a treasure in Heaven―which fails not; where no thief approaches; nor moth corrupts. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also!” (Luke 12:31-34). To the rich young man who wanted to save his soul and get to Heaven, Jesus said: “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in Heaven―and come follow Me!” (Matthew 19:21). The reaction and response of the rich young man was much like our reaction would be to those words of Jesus: “And when the young man had heard these words, he went away sad―for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that hardly a rich man shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:22-24).
The early Christians lived in this spirit of Christ’s poverty. Selfishness and greed was not a part of their community, for they shared everything they had with one another. Not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them. No one said: “That’s mine! You can’t have it!” They shared everything. Some who owned houses or land sold them and brought the proceeds before the Apostles to distribute to those without. Not a single person among them was needy. “And the multitude of believers had but one heart and one soul―neither did anyone say that anything of the things which he possessed, was his own―but all things were common unto them. Neither was there any one needy among them. For as many as were owners of lands or houses―sold them and brought the price of the things they sold, and laid it down before the feet of the Apostles. And distribution was made to everyone according as he had need” (Acts 4:32-35).
You Are Richer Than the Queen of Heaven and Earth
Our Lady was and is the greatest creature ever to come from hands of God. She is greater than all the angels and saints put together! Yet you are much richer than she ever was on Earth! To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady revealed:
“My most holy Son has set me as the teacher and living example of the love of humility and true contempt of worldly vanity and pride … I lived in the greatest constraint, in poverty and detached from earthly things … Therefore, when anything was wanting of the necessaries of life, I remained in peace and contentedness and deemed it all perfectly reasonable and proper in my regard, since I had merited none of the gifts and could justly be deprived of all of them …
“My most holy Son also sought destitution and poverty … in order to teach mortals the shortest and surest way for reaching the heights of divine love and union with God ... No one can despise the humility, poverty and indigence, which the Lord loved and chose for Himself as the very means of teaching the way of eternal life. Neither you, nor all creatures together, can ever understand the spirit of poverty of my most holy Son―His being born in poverty and what He has taught me concerning it. Who will dare to love the vanity and pride, which was openly abhorred and condemned by the Creator of Heaven and Earth in His conduct? By the divine light I knew―better than all other creatures―what a low value the Most High places on earthly advantages and riches. Therefore, in my holy liberty of spirit, I felt myself troubled and inconvenienced by the possession of the treasures of the Three Kings offered to my most holy Son in Bethlehem. I did not wish to keep them for myself, nor dispose of them according to my own will, but according to the wishes of my spouse Joseph.
“Few know the poverty of Christ, and fewer embrace it. All abhor poverty and thirst after riches, none of them being willing to recognize their emptiness. They strive after riches, and contemn poverty; they long after pleasure and dread mortification. If men would keep their heart disengaged and if they would rightly and worthily consider this great mystery of the kindness of the Most High towards men, if they would only make use of their freedom to treat this mystery with the reverence due to its greatness, who would be so hardened as not to be moved at the sight of their God become man, humiliated in poverty, despised, unknown, entering the world in a cave, lying in a manger surrounded by brute animals, protected only by a poverty-stricken Mother, and cast off by the foolish arrogance of the world?
“I remind and exhort thee to forget all that is of Earth and lose it out of thy sight; that thou seek nothing, or engage thyself with nothing except what can help thee to withdraw and detach thee from the world and its inhabitants; so that, with a heart freed from all terrestrial affection, thou dispose thyself to celebrate in it the mysteries of the poverty, humility and divine love of the incarnate God ... His coming down from Heaven onto the Earth, His being born in humility and poverty, His living and dying in it―giving such rare example of the contempt of the world and its deceits …
“Imitate me in being very careful to practice poverty of spirit concerning the use of necessities and comforts, offered thee by well-wishers. Choose and accept only the most poor and most ordinary, the most undesirable and humble things for thy use―for otherwise thou canst not imitate me in the spirit, in which, without ostentation, I refused all comforts and good things of this life that were offered to me by the faithful of Jerusalem, and of which I accepted only what was absolutely necessary.
“Seek also to guard thyself from another very common mistake―namely that by which men, instead of acknowledging that all the goods of body and soul belong to the Lord, nevertheless appropriate all of them to themselves and consider them so much their own, that they not only refuse to offer them freely to their Creator, but even, if at any time they must part with them, they lament and are aggrieved over their loss, as if they had been injured, or as if God had treated them unjustly. Hence they dare, not only condemn the rulings of divine Providence, but they show that they esteem the possession of these transitory earthly goods as their highest aim, and that, if they were permitted, they would live many ages upon Earth content with these apparent and perishing things.” (The Mystical City of God, Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Wrong Ideas Lead to Wrong Turns
There are some who erroneously think that riches and success are always a blessing from God, while poverty and failure is a punishment from God. This can SOMETIMES be true. The classic case is that of Job in the Old Testament, who was just and righteous in the eyes of God―as God Himself said to Satan: “Job was a man who was simple and upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil. And his possession was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a family exceedingly great. And the Lord said to Satan: ‘Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a simple and upright man, and fearing God, and avoiding evil?’ And Satan answering, said: ‘Does Job fear God in vain? Hast not thou made a fence for him, and his house, and all his substance round about, blessed the works of his hands, and increased his possessions on the Earth? But stretch forth thy hand a little, and touch all that he hath, and see if he no longer blesses Thee to Thy face?’” (Job 1:1-11).
This is a clear indication that God blesses those who are faithful to Him. We all, however, know what happened next―God allowed Satan to afflict Job in order to see if Job was only a “fairweather follower” of God, who would turn against God if things did not go well for him. Well―Satan caused Job to lose his children, his friends, his health, his wealth and livestock. Despite feeling confused and depressed about all those losses, Job did not cease to bless God in his woes and troubles, saying: “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there! The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away! As it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done! Blessed be the Name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21). Job was not a “fair-weather follower” of God―He still praised and loved God even when allowed almost everything to be taken away from Job.
Love of Adversity―Adversity Tests Love
The true test of our love of God will always be how we handle adversity. It is easy to love when things go well―but true love will continue to love in hardship and loss. Our Lord Himself implied that when He said: “Blessed are the poor! … Blessed are they that mourn! … Blessed are they that hunger and thirst! … Blessed are they that suffer persecution! … Blessed are you when they shall revile you and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly! … Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:3-11).
God does not want to be loved as a “happy heavenly handout” who is only loved for as long as He hands-out favors, gifts and graces. Look at it from a modern-day perspective. If a billionaire wants to get married, what is the best approach to finding a good spouse? Is it by flaunting his millions in a lavish manifestation of his wealth; or is it by hiding the fact that he is a billionaire? If he flaunts his wealth, the potential spouses are more likely to marry him, not because they like and love him, but because they like and love the idea of being married to all that money and not so much the man.
The worldly way to celebrate the central event of all history―the Incarnation and Birth of the Son of God―would be a worldwide mega-party. The humility of God goes in the opposite direction! God the Father had centuries to prepare for this event, and He did not even book a room for Mary and Joseph at one of the local inns for the event! They had to suffer the ignominy of bringing the Son of God into this world in a dingy, smelly, cold little cave! To human eyes, it looks like the Master of Providence had “failed big-time” when it mattered the most! But that is the human ‘take’ on things, not the Divine ‘take’ on things―as God Himself says: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9). To God, the arrangements for the birth of His Son were perfect, as God’s will always is perfect. Despite all the adversity at Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph could just as well say with Job: “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away! As it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done! Blessed be the Name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21).
Our Lord Himself had similar sentiments when His Passion approached: “He went and He fell upon His face, praying, and saying: ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me! If Thou wilt, remove this chalice from Me! Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt! My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, then Thy will be done!” (Matthew 26:39-42; Luke 22:42; Mark 14:36). That is true love! Even the secular world says: “True love is proven by adversity!”
The Correct Way of Love
The same idea is found in two beautiful chapters from The Imitation of Christ, wherein we read:
“Love is an excellent thing, a very great blessing. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, long-suffering. It makes every difficulty easy, and bears all wrongs calmly. For it bears a burden without being weighted, and renders sweet all that is bitter. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, and does not plead impossibility, because it believes that it may and can do all things. Love often knows no limits, but overflows all bounds. For this reason, it is able to do all, performing and effecting much, where he, who does not love, fails and falls. One who is in love flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free, not bound. The noble love of Jesus spurs to great deeds and excites longing for that which is more perfect. Love is never self-seeking, for in whatever a person seeks himself, there he falls from love. Love is mean and contemptible in its own eyes, while being devoted and thankful to God; always trusting and hoping in Him even when He is distasteful to it, for there is no living in love without sorrow. He who is not ready to suffer all things and to stand resigned to the will of the Beloved, is not worthy to be called a lover. A lover must embrace willingly all that is difficult and bitter, for the sake of the Beloved, and he should not turn away from Him because of adversities. Love wishes to be free and estranged from all worldly affections. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing is more pleasant, and nothing better in Heaven or on Earth―for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God. He gives all for all and possesses all in all, because he rests in God, from Whom every good flows and proceeds. He does not look to the gift, but turns himself above all gifts to the Giver. If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice!” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 5: The Wonderful Effect of Divine Love).
“My son, thou art not yet a valiant and a prudent lover!
“Why, O Lord?
“Because thou hast fallen off from what thou hast begun when meeting with a little adversity, and too eagerly seek after consolation. A valiant lover stands his ground in temptations, and yields not to the crafty persuasions of the enemy. As I please him when in prosperity, so I displease him not in adversity. A prudent lover considers not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver. A generous lover rests not in the gift―but in Me, above every gift!” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 6: Of the Proof of a True Lover).
Love is, so to speak, the heart or engine of our spiritual life. Or you could compare to the fuel for a car engine―without fuel the engine will not run and you are going nowhere fast! All of our thoughts, words and actions should be motivated by love―by a love of God in particular. We should be loving our neighbor out of a love of God―because our neighbor is also created in the image and likeness of God: “And God said: ‘Let us make man to our image and likeness!’” (Genesis 1:26). How do most resemble God? Well―Scripture tells us that “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) ― therefore the more charitable we are, the more we love, then the more we resemble God and show ourselves to be in His image and likeness.
“Let us love one another―for charity is of God. And everyone that loves, is born of God, and knows God. He that loves not, knows not God―for God is charity. By this hath the charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him. In this is charity―not as though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. If God hath so loved us; then we also ought to love one another. If we love one another, then God abides in us, and His charity is perfected in us. We know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His spirit. The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him, and He in God. And we have known and have believed the charity, which God hath to us. God is charity―and he that abidesth in charity, abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:7-16). God is charity and Jesus is God. Jesus tells us: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) ― which consequently means “Without charity, you can do nothing!” for God is charity and Jesus is God. That is why Holy Scripture says: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Would you like to be a king or a queen? No gender change allowed! When we think of kings and queens, we might become envious of their status, rights, privileges, wealth and possessions! However, there would many kings and queens of old who would envy you today! For today, most of us live like kings and queens, but we don’t even realize it! How many kings and queens had access to the variety of food and drink that modern man can find in any supermarket? How many kings and queens of old had the enormous amount of electronic gadgets, appliances, utensils and tools that we have at our disposal? Literally thousands of them―just walk into any department store or DIY store and look around. The most common items at our disposal are clothes washing machines and dryers, ovens, stoves, refrigerators, freezers, microwaves, slow-cookers, pressure-cookers, grills, electric kettles, blenders, food-mixers, saws, drills, nail-guns, screw-guns, sanders, lawn-mowers, hedge-trimmers, tree-saws, etc., etc., etc. How many had the medical support that is available today?
We have a mountains of over-the-counter medical supplies and aids in any pharmacy―which is usually on minutes away. There are literally hundreds of doctors and dentists, nurses and trained professionals living in the town or city which we inhabit. We have access to the latest medical devices and procedures that could not even have been imagined by the kings and queens of old. These modern appliances are seen in dentistry, diagnostics, surgery, and regular health care. The kings and queens of old had no ambulances with trained medical first responders to take them to an ER (Emergency Room) for immediate care and attention. They had no x-rays, cat-scans, MRIs, ultra-sound, micro-surgery, computer assisted surgery, robotic surgery, etc. They had no hospitals as we know them. No ICU (Intensive Care Unit) with 24-hour round the clock surveillance and assistance.
How many had such comfortable, economical life, with glass windows and double-glazing; electric lights; central heating; air-conditioning; electricity throughout the entire house; running-water; indoor toilets; sewage disposal; drains; insulated walls; sump-pumps; ? The kings and queens of old would have jumped at the chance to trade-in their horse and carriage for one of our cars with its interior heating, air-conditioning, reclining seats, radios, CD/DVD players, on-board television, GPS guidance, and high-speed travel!
The kings and queens of old could not even imagine the communications and electronic appliances available to us today, with their possibilities of instant communications with anyone anywhere in the world via voice, text, e-mail, imaging, etc. We have landline phones, cell-phones, smartphones, desktop computers, laptops, tablets, iPads, CD players, DVD players, MP3 players, MP4 players, MP5 players, smartwatches, personal computer assistants (Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, etc.).
The list of advantages that we have over the kings and queens of old is endless.
You Are Richer Than the King of Kings
You have probably never thought about this―but not only do you own more “goodies” than the kings and queens of old, but you also own far more than the King of kings, Jesus Christ, ever owned while He was on Earth. The Introit or Entrance Hymn for the Mass of the Epiphany of Our Lord says: “Behold, the Lord and Ruler is come; and the kingdom is in His hand, and power, and dominion!” Yet this King of kings comes―not in glory and wealth―but in humility and poverty: “Behold, thy King will come to thee, the Savior! He is poor, and riding upon an ass! [not in a car]” (Zacharias 9:9). He says to us: “Learn of Me, for I am humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29). “Our Lord Jesus Christ, being rich, He became poor, for your sakes; that through His poverty you might be rich! … As having nothing, and possessing all things!” (2 Corinthians 8:9; 6:10). “Jesus said: ‘Blessed are ye poor―for yours is the kingdom of God!’” (Luke 6:20). “Blessed are the poor in spirit―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:3). “Jesus said: ‘The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests―but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head!’” (Matthew 8:20; Luke 9:58). “And Jesus commanded them that they should take nothing for the way, but a staff only―no scrip, no bread, nor money in their purse” (Mark 6:8).
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all the things you need shall be added unto you! Sell what you possess and give alms! Make to yourselves a treasure in Heaven―which fails not; where no thief approaches; nor moth corrupts. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also!” (Luke 12:31-34). To the rich young man who wanted to save his soul and get to Heaven, Jesus said: “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in Heaven―and come follow Me!” (Matthew 19:21). The reaction and response of the rich young man was much like our reaction would be to those words of Jesus: “And when the young man had heard these words, he went away sad―for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that hardly a rich man shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:22-24).
The early Christians lived in this spirit of Christ’s poverty. Selfishness and greed was not a part of their community, for they shared everything they had with one another. Not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them. No one said: “That’s mine! You can’t have it!” They shared everything. Some who owned houses or land sold them and brought the proceeds before the Apostles to distribute to those without. Not a single person among them was needy. “And the multitude of believers had but one heart and one soul―neither did anyone say that anything of the things which he possessed, was his own―but all things were common unto them. Neither was there any one needy among them. For as many as were owners of lands or houses―sold them and brought the price of the things they sold, and laid it down before the feet of the Apostles. And distribution was made to everyone according as he had need” (Acts 4:32-35).
You Are Richer Than the Queen of Heaven and Earth
Our Lady was and is the greatest creature ever to come from hands of God. She is greater than all the angels and saints put together! Yet you are much richer than she ever was on Earth! To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady revealed:
“My most holy Son has set me as the teacher and living example of the love of humility and true contempt of worldly vanity and pride … I lived in the greatest constraint, in poverty and detached from earthly things … Therefore, when anything was wanting of the necessaries of life, I remained in peace and contentedness and deemed it all perfectly reasonable and proper in my regard, since I had merited none of the gifts and could justly be deprived of all of them …
“My most holy Son also sought destitution and poverty … in order to teach mortals the shortest and surest way for reaching the heights of divine love and union with God ... No one can despise the humility, poverty and indigence, which the Lord loved and chose for Himself as the very means of teaching the way of eternal life. Neither you, nor all creatures together, can ever understand the spirit of poverty of my most holy Son―His being born in poverty and what He has taught me concerning it. Who will dare to love the vanity and pride, which was openly abhorred and condemned by the Creator of Heaven and Earth in His conduct? By the divine light I knew―better than all other creatures―what a low value the Most High places on earthly advantages and riches. Therefore, in my holy liberty of spirit, I felt myself troubled and inconvenienced by the possession of the treasures of the Three Kings offered to my most holy Son in Bethlehem. I did not wish to keep them for myself, nor dispose of them according to my own will, but according to the wishes of my spouse Joseph.
“Few know the poverty of Christ, and fewer embrace it. All abhor poverty and thirst after riches, none of them being willing to recognize their emptiness. They strive after riches, and contemn poverty; they long after pleasure and dread mortification. If men would keep their heart disengaged and if they would rightly and worthily consider this great mystery of the kindness of the Most High towards men, if they would only make use of their freedom to treat this mystery with the reverence due to its greatness, who would be so hardened as not to be moved at the sight of their God become man, humiliated in poverty, despised, unknown, entering the world in a cave, lying in a manger surrounded by brute animals, protected only by a poverty-stricken Mother, and cast off by the foolish arrogance of the world?
“I remind and exhort thee to forget all that is of Earth and lose it out of thy sight; that thou seek nothing, or engage thyself with nothing except what can help thee to withdraw and detach thee from the world and its inhabitants; so that, with a heart freed from all terrestrial affection, thou dispose thyself to celebrate in it the mysteries of the poverty, humility and divine love of the incarnate God ... His coming down from Heaven onto the Earth, His being born in humility and poverty, His living and dying in it―giving such rare example of the contempt of the world and its deceits …
“Imitate me in being very careful to practice poverty of spirit concerning the use of necessities and comforts, offered thee by well-wishers. Choose and accept only the most poor and most ordinary, the most undesirable and humble things for thy use―for otherwise thou canst not imitate me in the spirit, in which, without ostentation, I refused all comforts and good things of this life that were offered to me by the faithful of Jerusalem, and of which I accepted only what was absolutely necessary.
“Seek also to guard thyself from another very common mistake―namely that by which men, instead of acknowledging that all the goods of body and soul belong to the Lord, nevertheless appropriate all of them to themselves and consider them so much their own, that they not only refuse to offer them freely to their Creator, but even, if at any time they must part with them, they lament and are aggrieved over their loss, as if they had been injured, or as if God had treated them unjustly. Hence they dare, not only condemn the rulings of divine Providence, but they show that they esteem the possession of these transitory earthly goods as their highest aim, and that, if they were permitted, they would live many ages upon Earth content with these apparent and perishing things.” (The Mystical City of God, Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Wrong Ideas Lead to Wrong Turns
There are some who erroneously think that riches and success are always a blessing from God, while poverty and failure is a punishment from God. This can SOMETIMES be true. The classic case is that of Job in the Old Testament, who was just and righteous in the eyes of God―as God Himself said to Satan: “Job was a man who was simple and upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil. And his possession was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a family exceedingly great. And the Lord said to Satan: ‘Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a simple and upright man, and fearing God, and avoiding evil?’ And Satan answering, said: ‘Does Job fear God in vain? Hast not thou made a fence for him, and his house, and all his substance round about, blessed the works of his hands, and increased his possessions on the Earth? But stretch forth thy hand a little, and touch all that he hath, and see if he no longer blesses Thee to Thy face?’” (Job 1:1-11).
This is a clear indication that God blesses those who are faithful to Him. We all, however, know what happened next―God allowed Satan to afflict Job in order to see if Job was only a “fairweather follower” of God, who would turn against God if things did not go well for him. Well―Satan caused Job to lose his children, his friends, his health, his wealth and livestock. Despite feeling confused and depressed about all those losses, Job did not cease to bless God in his woes and troubles, saying: “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there! The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away! As it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done! Blessed be the Name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21). Job was not a “fair-weather follower” of God―He still praised and loved God even when allowed almost everything to be taken away from Job.
Love of Adversity―Adversity Tests Love
The true test of our love of God will always be how we handle adversity. It is easy to love when things go well―but true love will continue to love in hardship and loss. Our Lord Himself implied that when He said: “Blessed are the poor! … Blessed are they that mourn! … Blessed are they that hunger and thirst! … Blessed are they that suffer persecution! … Blessed are you when they shall revile you and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly! … Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:3-11).
God does not want to be loved as a “happy heavenly handout” who is only loved for as long as He hands-out favors, gifts and graces. Look at it from a modern-day perspective. If a billionaire wants to get married, what is the best approach to finding a good spouse? Is it by flaunting his millions in a lavish manifestation of his wealth; or is it by hiding the fact that he is a billionaire? If he flaunts his wealth, the potential spouses are more likely to marry him, not because they like and love him, but because they like and love the idea of being married to all that money and not so much the man.
The worldly way to celebrate the central event of all history―the Incarnation and Birth of the Son of God―would be a worldwide mega-party. The humility of God goes in the opposite direction! God the Father had centuries to prepare for this event, and He did not even book a room for Mary and Joseph at one of the local inns for the event! They had to suffer the ignominy of bringing the Son of God into this world in a dingy, smelly, cold little cave! To human eyes, it looks like the Master of Providence had “failed big-time” when it mattered the most! But that is the human ‘take’ on things, not the Divine ‘take’ on things―as God Himself says: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!” (Isaias 55:8-9). To God, the arrangements for the birth of His Son were perfect, as God’s will always is perfect. Despite all the adversity at Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph could just as well say with Job: “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away! As it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done! Blessed be the Name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21).
Our Lord Himself had similar sentiments when His Passion approached: “He went and He fell upon His face, praying, and saying: ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me! If Thou wilt, remove this chalice from Me! Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt! My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, then Thy will be done!” (Matthew 26:39-42; Luke 22:42; Mark 14:36). That is true love! Even the secular world says: “True love is proven by adversity!”
The Correct Way of Love
The same idea is found in two beautiful chapters from The Imitation of Christ, wherein we read:
“Love is an excellent thing, a very great blessing. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, long-suffering. It makes every difficulty easy, and bears all wrongs calmly. For it bears a burden without being weighted, and renders sweet all that is bitter. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, and does not plead impossibility, because it believes that it may and can do all things. Love often knows no limits, but overflows all bounds. For this reason, it is able to do all, performing and effecting much, where he, who does not love, fails and falls. One who is in love flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free, not bound. The noble love of Jesus spurs to great deeds and excites longing for that which is more perfect. Love is never self-seeking, for in whatever a person seeks himself, there he falls from love. Love is mean and contemptible in its own eyes, while being devoted and thankful to God; always trusting and hoping in Him even when He is distasteful to it, for there is no living in love without sorrow. He who is not ready to suffer all things and to stand resigned to the will of the Beloved, is not worthy to be called a lover. A lover must embrace willingly all that is difficult and bitter, for the sake of the Beloved, and he should not turn away from Him because of adversities. Love wishes to be free and estranged from all worldly affections. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing is more pleasant, and nothing better in Heaven or on Earth―for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God. He gives all for all and possesses all in all, because he rests in God, from Whom every good flows and proceeds. He does not look to the gift, but turns himself above all gifts to the Giver. If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice!” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 5: The Wonderful Effect of Divine Love).
“My son, thou art not yet a valiant and a prudent lover!
“Why, O Lord?
“Because thou hast fallen off from what thou hast begun when meeting with a little adversity, and too eagerly seek after consolation. A valiant lover stands his ground in temptations, and yields not to the crafty persuasions of the enemy. As I please him when in prosperity, so I displease him not in adversity. A prudent lover considers not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver. A generous lover rests not in the gift―but in Me, above every gift!” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 6: Of the Proof of a True Lover).
Love is, so to speak, the heart or engine of our spiritual life. Or you could compare to the fuel for a car engine―without fuel the engine will not run and you are going nowhere fast! All of our thoughts, words and actions should be motivated by love―by a love of God in particular. We should be loving our neighbor out of a love of God―because our neighbor is also created in the image and likeness of God: “And God said: ‘Let us make man to our image and likeness!’” (Genesis 1:26). How do most resemble God? Well―Scripture tells us that “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) ― therefore the more charitable we are, the more we love, then the more we resemble God and show ourselves to be in His image and likeness.
“Let us love one another―for charity is of God. And everyone that loves, is born of God, and knows God. He that loves not, knows not God―for God is charity. By this hath the charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him. In this is charity―not as though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. If God hath so loved us; then we also ought to love one another. If we love one another, then God abides in us, and His charity is perfected in us. We know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His spirit. The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him, and He in God. And we have known and have believed the charity, which God hath to us. God is charity―and he that abidesth in charity, abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:7-16). God is charity and Jesus is God. Jesus tells us: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) ― which consequently means “Without charity, you can do nothing!” for God is charity and Jesus is God. That is why Holy Scripture says: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profits me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Article 3
December 31st, 2022
What Will the New Year Bring?
December 31st, 2022
What Will the New Year Bring?
What’s Around the Corner?
Wishing people a “Happy New Year!” in recent years has been much more wishful thinking than reality. Perhaps we should start saying: “Have a less miserable New Year than last year!” Recent New Years have been less and less happy and more and more miserable. Sure―you can crack a joke in prison and produce some laughter, but life in prison is more on the miserable side than the happy side. When Our Lady said to St. Bernadette: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next!” ― it seems like an understatement. However, Our Lady―being an honest person―did not mince her words in the many prophecies she made for our times. You could say―with tongue in cheek―that Our Lady is the patron saint of kill-joys! She was weeping at La Salette while handing out terrifying prophecies! Sister Lucia of Fatima said that Our Lady NEVER smiled during all her Fatima apparitions, while also handing out terrifying prophecies and repeatedly saying that many nations would be annihilated! At Akita her statue wept tears of blood over 100 times―and she also handed out more terrifying prophecies.
Cause of our Joy! Cause of our Terror! Mother of Fear!
If the Litany of Our Lady addresses her as “Cause of our joy!” ― then perhaps we could insert another couple of titles: “Cause of our terror!” and “Mother of Fear!” because her prophecies are most certainly terrifying and should put the fear of God into any sane human being! Nevertheless, Our Lady knows what she is doing―and if she chooses to sow the seeds of fear, then so be it! She knows what we need! Besides―fear can be a good thing that keeps us out of trouble―and it can also keep us out of sin! As the following Scripture verses testify:
“Come, children, hearken to me―I will teach you the fear of the Lord!” (Psalm 33:12) … “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1) … “From his infancy he taught him to fear God and to abstain from all sin” (Tobias 1:10) … “Fear not, my son! We lead indeed a poor life―but we shall have many good things if we fear God, and depart from all sin, and do that which is good!” (Tobias 4:23) … “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 110:10) …. “The root of wisdom is to fear the Lord!” (Ecclesiasticus 1:25) … “The fear of the Lord is the lesson of wisdom” (Proverbs 15:33) … “To fear God is the fullness of wisdom” (Ecclesiasticus 1:20) … “The fear of the Lord is a crown of wisdom” (Ecclesiasticus 1:22) … “It shall be well with them that fear God, who dread His face!” (Ecclesiastes 8:12) … “By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil” (Proverbs 16:6) … “The fear of the Lord driveth out sin” (Ecclesiasticus 1:27) … “Serve ye the Lord with fear and rejoice unto Him with trembling!” (Psalm 2:11) … “With fear and trembling give ye glory to Him” (Tobias 13:6) ... “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12) … “His salvation is near to them that fear Him” (Psalm 84:10) … “Let thy glory be in the fear of God!” (Ecclesiasticus 9:22) … “O how great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee!” (Psalm 30:20).
Who Can Foresee the Events of the New Year? Our Lady Can!
Time does not exist in heaven: There is no yesterday, no today, no tomorrow. Everyone in Heaven sees the past and the future in an eternal “now”. The future is seen as happening NOW. The past is seen as happening NOW. Everything is in the present moment―there no longer is a past and a future for those in Heaven. That is why Our Lady can make prophecies about the future with such precision―it is because she is seeing the future NOW―right there and then in front of her. The same is true of the past―the past is seen as being HERE AND NOW.
Now that she is in Heaven, does Our Lady know everything? Will we know everything in Heaven? Of course not. There are two reasons for that―and the first one is simply a confusion between Heaven and the Divinity of God. We will remain human in Heaven, therefore finite, therefore our knowledge will remain finite. True, we will share in God’s divine life, but this is just a share. The greater the saint that one is, the greater will be the share in God’s divine life. Hence, since Mary is the holier than all angels and saints, it stands to reason that God shares of His divine life with Mary than any other angel or saint. Hence, Mary knows more than any angel of saint, but she does not know everything because she is still a finite human being.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in Our Spiritual Life
► THE GOOD: God is good, sin is bad and the consequences of sin are ugly. As Our Lord said: “One is good―God” (Matthew 19:17) … “None is good, but one―that is God” (Mark 10:18). “He hath made all things good in their time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth … and God saw that it was good ... And God said: ‘Let the Earth bring forth the green herbs, and seeds, and fruit trees!’ ... And it was so done and God saw that it was good … And God said: ‘Let there be lights made in heaven, to divide the day and the night, to shine in the firmament of heaven, and to give light upon the Earth!’ And it was so done and God saw that it was good … God also said: ‘Let the waters bring forth the creeping creatures, and birds that may fly over the Earth!’ … And God saw that it was good … And God said: ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle, creeping things and beasts of the Earth!’ … And it was so done ... And God saw that it was good … And God said: ‘Let us make man to our image and likeness!’ … And God created man to His own image―to the image of God he created him, male and female He created them … And God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good” (Genesis, chapter 1).
We simply share in the goodness of God: “Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). “What hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). Thus you should be grateful for “all the good things which the Lord thy God hath given thee” (Deuteronomy 26:11). “We shall have many good things if we fear God, and depart from all sin, and do that which is good!” (Tobias 4:23). God Himself testifies to this and promises this:
“If you walk in My precepts, and keep My commandments, and do them, then I will give you rain in due seasons. And the ground shall bring forth its increase, and the trees shall be filled with fruit. The threshing of your harvest shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land without fear. I will give peace in your coasts: you shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid. I will take away evil beasts: and the sword shall not pass through your quarters. You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you. Five of yours shall pursue a hundred others, and a hundred of you ten thousand: your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. I will look on you, and make you increase: you shall be multiplied, and I will establish My covenant with you. You shall eat the oldest of the old store, and, new coming on, you shall cast away the old. I will set My tabernacle in the midst of you, and My soul shall not cast you off. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people. But if you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments, if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me, and to make void My covenant, then …” (Leviticus 26:3-14) ― see further below, in the UGLY subsection, the consequences with which God threatens us.
► THE BAD: Furthermore, our Catechisms tell us: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
► THE UGLY: As for the ugly consequences of sin, Holy Scripture frequently, clearly and starkly points out the ugliness of sin: “My people provoke Me to anger with their sins!” (3 Kings 16:2). “The people repented not, neither did they depart from their sins” (Ecclesiasticus 48:16). “For we have added to all our sins” (1 Kings 12:19) … “adding new sins to old ones” (Judges 10:6) and “have committed far greater sins” (2 Paralipomenon 33:23). We “wallow in sins” (Ecclesiasticus 23:16). “It is certain that God is so offended with sins, that He will deliver them up for their sins! … He will repay them for their sins!” (Judith 11:8, 15). “I will visit their iniquities with a rod; and their sins with stripes!” (Psalm 88:33). “If we sin willfully―after having the knowledge of the truth―then now there is left no sacrifice for sins!” (Hebrews 10:26). “God gives place for repentance for sins” (Wisdom 12:19). “God hath given him place for penance, and he abuses it unto pride!” (Job 24:23). “Let him do penance for his sin!” (Leviticus 5:5) “But if a man that fasts for his sins, and then does the same sin again, what does his humbling himself profit him? Who will hear his prayer?” (Ecclesiasticus 34:31). He has “increased his sin” (Exodus 9:34). ““Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “Your sins and iniquities have withheld good things from you and have turned these things away!” (Jeremias 5:25). “By reason of the multitude of thy iniquities, thy sins are hardened!” (Jeremias 30:14). “Therefore you shall die in your sins!” (John 8:24). “For the wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “Sin hath reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21). “Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:15). “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16).
Here is “the flip-side of the coin” to the “good side” of God quoted above (Leviticus 16:1-14). The Book of Leviticus clearly and strongly indicates the ugly consequences for disobeying God and His commandments: “But if you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments, if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me, and to make void My covenant, then … I will quickly visit you with poverty, and burning heat, which shall waste your eyes, and consume your lives. You shall sow your seed in vain, which shall be devoured by your enemies. I will set My face against you, and you shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you. I will break the pride of your stubbornness, and I will make to you the Heaven above as iron, and the Earth as brass! Your labor shall be spent in vain, the ground shall not bring forth her increase, nor the trees yield their fruit. I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins! And I will send in upon you beasts, to destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number, and that your highways may be desolate. And I will bring in upon you the sword. And when you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies! I will destroy and break your idols. You shall fall among the ruins of your idols, and My soul shall abhor you. I will bring your cities to be a wilderness. And I will destroy your land. And I will scatter you, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed. You shall perish among the Gentiles, and an enemy’s land shall consume you. And if some of them still remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies, and they shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers, and their own―until they confess their iniquities and the iniquities of their ancestors, by which they have sinned against Me, and walked contrary unto Me. Then shall they pray for their sins!” (Leviticus 26:15-41).
Our Lady, in her modern era apparitions at Quito (Ecuador), La Salette (France), Fatima (Portugal), Akita (Japan) and to Blessed Elena Aiello (Italy), has perfectly echoed and re-affirmed those ugly words concerning the ugly consequences of sin: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended … People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge [the Great Flood in the time of Noe], such as one never seen before! …
“These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! … Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth! … The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God! … God will strike in an unprecedented way! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together! … All the universe will be struck with terror, because they have not worshiped the true Christ! ... The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth ... God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other ... Physical and moral agonies will be suffered! ...
“Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … Masonry will take control of the civil government … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family … Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost! …
“The spirit of impurity will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … Moreover, in these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women, and in this supreme moment of need of the Church, those who should speak will fall silent … For a while the Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy the Church … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The Gospel of Jesus Christ having been forgotten … the devil will preach another Gospel contrary to that of the true Christ Jesus … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … They will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... In these unhappy times, people will only think of amusements and there will be unbridled luxury that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! … The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. The wicked will make use of all their evil ways! … How the Church will suffer during this dark night!”
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in this New Year
► GOOD ELEMENTS OF THE NEW YEAR:
As stated above―“One is good―God” (Matthew 19:17) … “None is good, but one―that is God” (Mark 10:18). “None is good but God alone!” (Luke 18:19). “He hath made all things good in their time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). To this we can add the following verses―all of which hammer home the same truth:
“O give thanks to the Lord, because He is good: because His mercy endures for ever and ever!” (Daniel 3:89). “Give glory to the Lord for He is good, for His mercy endures for ever!” (2 Paralipomenon 5:13). “Give glory to the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endures for ever!” (Psalm 105:1). “Give glory to the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endures for ever!” (Psalm 106:1). “Give praise to the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endures for ever!” (Psalm 117:1). “Give ye glory to the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endures for ever!” (1 Paralipomenon 16:34). “How good is God to them that are of a right heart!” (Psalm 72:1). “It is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God” (Psalm 72:28). “We shall have many good things if we fear God, and depart from all sin, and do that which is good!” (Tobias 4:23). “The Lord is good and gives strength in the day of trouble” (Nahum 1:7) ― and, boy, are we in trouble today! We are surrounded by trouble and those troubles keep on increasing!
God still exists! Thank God that He exists! As they say: “Where there is life, there is hope!” Well, likewise―and even more so―where there is God, there is hope! For the definition of Hell is “the absence of God” ― the fires of Hell merely distract souls from the terrible and excruciating fact that they have lost God. The worst punishment on Earth that God inflict upon us, is to leave and abandon us to our godless selves and our godless rulers and neighbors. Thank God that He has not yet abandoned us―though the likelihood is ever nearer, for Our Lady warned at La Salette: “God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other!”
► BAD ELEMENTS OF THE NEW YEAR:
Nevertheless, as we enter 2023, God is with us―but are we really with God? Most Catholics are NOT with God―for they disbelieve some of the truths about God, and they disobey the commandments of God. Our Lady of Good Success, prophesying about our times, speaks of “the small number of souls who will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue … [and] ... the Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals.” Our Lady of La Salette foretold that “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God.” Christ Himself warned us: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8).
We are certainly losing the Faith in increasing numbers today. Only a minority still believe in the dogma of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Over 50% of Catholics accept same-sex relationships and same-sex marriages. The majority of Catholics believe that you can be saved in any religion. The worldwide average of Catholics regularly attending Sunday Mass is less than 20%. The vast majority of Catholics are accepting of contraception. As the share of people presently married has declined, an increase in cohabitation. Nearly 70% of regular Mass attending Catholics say that they have cohabited (lived in sin with someone). Over 56% of Catholics believe that abortion should be made legal in all cases or most cases. Those numbers are increasing, not decreasing! 2023 will see them increase even more!
Despite all that, our good God is always trying to bring good out of evil. Yet, as St. Augustine says, God could save man without the cooperation of man―but God will not save man with man’s cooperation: “God created us without us: but God did not will to save us without us” (Sermon 169). That is why Our Lady comes to places like Fatima and says: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, July & August of 1917).
The greatest good for anyone is the salvation of their soul. Our Lord stated: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Likewise, Canon Law states: “The supreme law is the salvation of souls.” Are we willing to do good to others in order to help them save their souls? Are we willing to pray, sacrifice and suffer for the salvation of souls? Very few people are willing to do this―as Our Lady of Fatima pointed out: “Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” Are you one of the “none”? Just as “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14), likewise many are called to pray and sacrifice for sinners, but few choose to do so!
► GREATEST GOOD IS SALVATION:
The greatest good for anyone is the salvation of their soul. Our Lord stated: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Likewise, Canon Law states: “The supreme law is the salvation of souls.” Are we willing to do good to others in order to help them save their souls? Are we willing to pray, sacrifice and suffer for the salvation of souls? Very few people are willing to do this―as Our Lady of Fatima pointed out: “Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” Are you one of the “none”? Just as Scripture says: “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14), likewise many are called to pray and sacrifice for sinners, but few choose to do so! Their attitude is that of Cain: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9). Rather than seeking to save sinners, their attitude to sinners is more of an accusatory finger-pointing “Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54).
It would be wonderful New Year if we were to seek and save sinners by our sacrifices and prayers―but in all honesty, is that likely to happen? Are you likely to start accepting all that goes wrong for you; accepting all and any pain and suffering as a sacrifice for sinners; turning your failures into successes by sacrificing your failures for the salvation of sinners; accepting insults, calumnies, detraction and hatred from others as a sacrifice to save sinners? How likely is that? Are you all fired-up and raring to go? Very few have been, are or will be! What could be a good New Year as regards souls saved, will―as usual―be a good New Year for Satan in the number of souls he manages to damn! It is not for nothing that some of the saints saw visions of damned souls falling into Hell like snowflakes in a blizzard! “I saw souls falling into Hell like snowflakes!” (St. Teresa of Avila) … “I was watching souls falling down into the abyss like snowflakes falling thick and fast in the winter!” (St. Benedict Joseph Labre) ... “Those cast into Hell were as numerous as snowflakes in midwinter!” (Blessed Anna Maria Taigi) … “I tremble when I see so many souls lost these days. They fall into Hell as leaves fall from the trees at the approach of winter!” (St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars). How about some “spiritual climate change” beginning with this current winter, by sacrificing and saving some of Satan’s seduced slaves and snow-falling souls from the fires of Hell? St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the whole world―with all that is in it―has less value before God than one single soul in the state of Sanctifying Grace. In fact, St. Thomas claims that “forgiving men, taking pity on them, is a greater work than the creation of the world” (Summa Theologica, Ia-IIae, q. 113, art. 9). That is why Holy Scripture says: “He who causeth a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, shall save his soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins!” (James 5:20).
The main cause behind our lethargy and reluctance to pray and sacrifice for the conversion of sinners is our undervaluation of the gravity of sin, an undervaluation of the magnificence of sanctifying grace, and an undervaluation of eternal life. We imagine sin to be a minor thing; we imagine grace to be a “freebie” or an entitlement; and we imagine eternal life to be easily attainable with little effort on anyone’s part. We ignore, forget or “sweep under the carpet” such Scriptural quotes as: “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12) … “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21) … “For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20) … “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14) … “Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat!” (Matthew 7:13) ... “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) … “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12) “The kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) … “For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin!” (Hebrews 12:4).
If we forget these truths, then the New Year is most certainly going to be a bad year―as we pile sin upon sin, and incur debt upon debt, and perhaps even incur an eternal debt that will have to be eternally paid in Hell! Remember―most souls are lost! Don’t be stupid! Wake up and start asking yourself: “Why are they damned? What caused their damnation? Am I walking the same path?” Don’t be a fool and don’t be like the majority! “The perverse are hard to be corrected, and the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15).
► BAD ELEMENTS IN THE SECULAR WORLD:
Recent years and recent decades have seen the secular world become increasingly sinful. Those years have also seen a gradual “tightening of the noose” around our necks as we rapidly approach the scenario described by Our Lady and affirmed by Sister Lucia of Fatima. We can clearly see all around us the truth and realization of Our Lady’s warnings: “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective, making it easy for everyone to live in sin … These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government …. All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family ... Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions! … There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases! ... Nothing will be seen but murder! … Blood will flow in the streets! There will be civil wars! A general war will follow which will be appalling! ... Various nations will be annihilated ... Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes!”
Without spiritual counter-measures, that scenario will only get worse to the point where Communism takes over the whole world―Communism is merely a puppet for Satan and his hidden human secret satanic stooges, who lurk behind the scenes, organizing and controlling everything of importance within governments, finance, business, technology and other fields. In a July 15th, 1946, interview with Professor William Thomas Walsh, Sister Lucia was asked: “In your opinion, will every country, without exception, be overcome by Communism?” She answered: ‘Yes!’ Professor Walsh wanted to be positive about the answer and therefore repeated the question adding: “And does that mean the United States of America too?” Sister Lucia answered: “Yes!”
Obviously, real factual numbers are hard to come by when it comes to estimating how many deaths Communism has been responsible for in just over 100 years of existence. Nevertheless, some historical authorities estimate that all the worldwide Communist regimes are responsible for anywhere from 65 million to over 140 million deaths―which includes wars, executions, famine, deaths through forced labor, deportation, and imprisonment. Today Communism wears many masks that seek to deflect attention away from Communism. These associates, affiliates or subsidiaries of Communism go by names such as: Socialist Party, Labor Party, People’s Party, Worker’s Party, People’s Revolutionary Party, Liberation Party, National Liberation Front, Worker’s Front, etc.
The bottom line―regardless of which “-ISM” you believe in, subscribe to, support or work for―is that of squeezing life out of this world. Whether you base yourself upon the Georgia Guidestones (which state: “Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature”), or Bill Gates openly advocating for depopulation on public television, or the World Economic Forum’s lead advisor Yuval Noah Harari, and Klaus Schwab (a frontman for others) whose lifelong ambition has been global governance. Only an idiot can fail to see that the world is currently increasingly governed by a supra-national entity―meaning a body of persons that are above the authority and level of individual nations, a kind of a “Behind the Scenes United Nations” that is above any and all individual nations, above their dictates and authority. The almost miraculous worldwide coordination and cooperation of nations during the Covid pandemic―a never before seen phenomenon―was a good and clear indicator of the workings of such a supra-national body. In the words of David Rockefeller: “…The world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supra-national sovereignty of an intellectual Elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.” (quoted by Aspen Times, August 15th, 2011).
As Our Lady stated: “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective, making it easy for everyone to live in sin … These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government …. All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family.”
Speaking from his experience and insights about Satan, from his 30 years as an exorcist, FR. GABRIELE AMORTH says: “Satanism is spreading enormously! The loss of a sense of sin―that characterizes our era―helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office! Satanism is on the increase. Today Satan rules the world. The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands. Satan continually tries to dominate the world ― the whole world is in the power of the evil one!”
The New World Order―which includes many of main “-ISMS” of the world (Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Liberalism, Materialism, etc.)―is focused upon complete world dominance. Our Lady has foretold that this will come to pass, with atheistic Communism (another puppet of Satan) ruling the entire world. This nothing other than Satan seeking to wrench control of the world from God. Population control, better known as Depopulation, is the tool of the United Nations to annihilate the majority of the masses, so that no more than 500 million people are left on the face of the Earth―which makes control of people more manageable. The People’s Republic of China with its Communist regime’s brutal forced abortions under its one child per family policy, is one of many examples on Depopulation or Population Reduction tactics. The most effective ways to achieve Depopulation are sterilization of the human reproductive system which can easily be achieved with drugs and vaccines; or through contraception, or, if that fails, through abortion. All of these methods are advocated, legalized and promoted by the governments of the world. Other depopulation methods include the old tried-and-trusted methods of war, diseases, and famine. Throw them all together and you have a very powerful weapon of depopulation!
Now, of course, the mainstream media are frantically, forcefully and falsely labeling all such talk as “conspiracy theories” which implies that such opinions are either outright lies, twisted truths, exaggerations, misinformation or disinformation. However, most of the outright lies, twisted truths, exaggerations, misinformation and disinformation comes from the mainstream media. Some estimates claim as much as 90% of U.S. media is controlled by just six companies. The big six media companies right now are Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA), Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS), AT&T (NYSE:T), Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA), Sony (NYSE:SONY), and Fox (NASDAQ:FOX). Yet even those corporations are owned by a handful of behind-the-scenes persons who prefer not to be publicly known). Despite all the accusatory, mocking, stigmatizing talk about “conspiracy theories”, there is nothing more common than a conspiracy. We have lived in an atmosphere of conspiracy from the beginning of the world. We have all been victims of one kind of conspiracy or another at various points in our lives―whether at home in the family, among relatives, among friends, neighbors, work-colleagues, in politics, in business, in the military, in the workplace, in sports, in social life, etc. [read more here].
We should be trusting and believing God, Our Lady and Heaven, more than we trust men and the media! “God is true―and every man is a liar!” (Romans 3:4). “The sons of men are liars!” (Psalm 61:10). “Every man is a liar!” (Psalm 115:11). If Heaven has spoken on any subject, then let Heaven be believed rather than any man or the media! Our Lord could just as easily address the following words to today’s media: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do! He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar and the father of lies!” (John 8:44). “They have taught their tongue to speak lies!” (Jeremias 9:5).
Those words of Our Lord and Scripture take on a more powerful significance in our days, especially in light of the comment made by William Casey, the CIA Director from 1981 to 1987. At an early February 1981 meeting of the newly elected President Reagan and his new cabinet secretaries, to give reports about their agencies at the start of the new President’s administration, the CIA Director, William Casey, said: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
The media is of the world―but Our Lord is not of this world: “My kingdom is not of this world … My kingdom is not here!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above! You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23) ... “He that is not with Me, is against Me!” (Matthew 12:30) ... “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7). To which Scripture adds: “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). “They are of the world—therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them! We are of God. He that knoweth God, heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth us not. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error” (1 John 4:5-6).
The Show Must Go On!
Having come this far, the enemies of God are not going to stop now! The show must go on! Rather―the sham must go on! The agenda and propaganda that has been prepared by God’s enemies is a sham of shame! They pretend to do good, but beneath the apparent good lies a real evil! “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―who put darkness for light, and light for darkness!” (Isaias 5:20). “Woe to you hypocrites―because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of rapine (= greed, pillage, plunder) and uncleanness! … Woe to you hypocrites―because you are like to whitened sepulchers, which outwardly appear beautiful to men, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and all filthiness!” (Matthew 23:25-27).
Behind or beneath the pretence of caring for folk, there is the evil orchestration of war, diseases, poisonous medicines, economic crisis, high inflation, food shortage, increasing unemployment, etc. Is all this just random chance? No! As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said: “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
As Our Lady warned: “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... … The evil sect of Masonry will be in power, and will take control of the civil government …. All the civil governments will have one and the same plan―which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family!” That is what we are seeing―authorities “who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves!” (Matthew 7:15).
Even politicians have seen and condemned these wolves in sheep’s clothing:
► British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, already back in 19th century, stated: “So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes” (Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881, British Prime Minister from 1874 to 1880).
► Baron Nathan Mayer de Rothschild (1840-1915) who said: “I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the British Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.” What was true of the British Empire is equally true of the U.S. Empire, controlled remotely by the London based Elite through the Federal Reserve System.
► U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt said: “Behind the ostensible [visible] government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.” (Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography, 1913, Appendix B).
► U.S. President Woodrow Wilson stated: “Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it” (Woodrow Wilson, 1856-1924, 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921).
► British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, wrote around 1920: “From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, to those of Trotsky, Bela Kun, Rosa Luxembourg, and Emma Goldman, this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and reconstitution of society―on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence and impossible equality―has been steadily growing. It played a definitely recognizable role in the tragedy of French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the nineteenth century, and now at last, this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads, and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.” (Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, twice British Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945, and from 1951 to 1955).
Over 20 years later, when he was the British Prime Minister during World War II, Winston Churchill referred to the existence of a “High Cabal” that had brought about unprecedented bloodshed in human history. Churchill is also said to have remarked about the Elite: “They have transported Lenin in a sealed truck like a plague bacillus from Switzerland into Russia…” (quoted by John Coleman in The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, Global Publications 2006).
► U.S. President John F. Kennedy, in an address to the American Newspaper Publishers Association, on April 27th, 1961, said: “The word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society, and we are as a people, inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, secret oaths and secret proceedings. For we are opposed, around the world, by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy, that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence. It depends on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published, its mistakes are buried, not headlined, and its dissenters are silenced, not praised, no expenditure is questioned, no secret revealed… I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people.” (John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963, 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963).
So, as you can see, the control of the U.S. ― and of global politics ― by the wealthiest families on the planet is exercised in a powerful, profound and clandestine manner. Statements by men like Benjamin Disraeli, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy and others, should not leave any doubt in the mind of the reader about who controls the world. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote in November 1933 to Colonel Edward House: “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element, in the larger centers, has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson.” It may be recalled that Andrew Jackson, U.S. President from 1829-1837, was so enraged by the tactics of bankers (Rothschilds) that he said: “You are a den of vipers! I intend to rout you out and by the Eternal God I will rout you out! If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning!”
Wishing people a “Happy New Year!” in recent years has been much more wishful thinking than reality. Perhaps we should start saying: “Have a less miserable New Year than last year!” Recent New Years have been less and less happy and more and more miserable. Sure―you can crack a joke in prison and produce some laughter, but life in prison is more on the miserable side than the happy side. When Our Lady said to St. Bernadette: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next!” ― it seems like an understatement. However, Our Lady―being an honest person―did not mince her words in the many prophecies she made for our times. You could say―with tongue in cheek―that Our Lady is the patron saint of kill-joys! She was weeping at La Salette while handing out terrifying prophecies! Sister Lucia of Fatima said that Our Lady NEVER smiled during all her Fatima apparitions, while also handing out terrifying prophecies and repeatedly saying that many nations would be annihilated! At Akita her statue wept tears of blood over 100 times―and she also handed out more terrifying prophecies.
Cause of our Joy! Cause of our Terror! Mother of Fear!
If the Litany of Our Lady addresses her as “Cause of our joy!” ― then perhaps we could insert another couple of titles: “Cause of our terror!” and “Mother of Fear!” because her prophecies are most certainly terrifying and should put the fear of God into any sane human being! Nevertheless, Our Lady knows what she is doing―and if she chooses to sow the seeds of fear, then so be it! She knows what we need! Besides―fear can be a good thing that keeps us out of trouble―and it can also keep us out of sin! As the following Scripture verses testify:
“Come, children, hearken to me―I will teach you the fear of the Lord!” (Psalm 33:12) … “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1) … “From his infancy he taught him to fear God and to abstain from all sin” (Tobias 1:10) … “Fear not, my son! We lead indeed a poor life―but we shall have many good things if we fear God, and depart from all sin, and do that which is good!” (Tobias 4:23) … “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 110:10) …. “The root of wisdom is to fear the Lord!” (Ecclesiasticus 1:25) … “The fear of the Lord is the lesson of wisdom” (Proverbs 15:33) … “To fear God is the fullness of wisdom” (Ecclesiasticus 1:20) … “The fear of the Lord is a crown of wisdom” (Ecclesiasticus 1:22) … “It shall be well with them that fear God, who dread His face!” (Ecclesiastes 8:12) … “By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil” (Proverbs 16:6) … “The fear of the Lord driveth out sin” (Ecclesiasticus 1:27) … “Serve ye the Lord with fear and rejoice unto Him with trembling!” (Psalm 2:11) … “With fear and trembling give ye glory to Him” (Tobias 13:6) ... “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12) … “His salvation is near to them that fear Him” (Psalm 84:10) … “Let thy glory be in the fear of God!” (Ecclesiasticus 9:22) … “O how great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee!” (Psalm 30:20).
Who Can Foresee the Events of the New Year? Our Lady Can!
Time does not exist in heaven: There is no yesterday, no today, no tomorrow. Everyone in Heaven sees the past and the future in an eternal “now”. The future is seen as happening NOW. The past is seen as happening NOW. Everything is in the present moment―there no longer is a past and a future for those in Heaven. That is why Our Lady can make prophecies about the future with such precision―it is because she is seeing the future NOW―right there and then in front of her. The same is true of the past―the past is seen as being HERE AND NOW.
Now that she is in Heaven, does Our Lady know everything? Will we know everything in Heaven? Of course not. There are two reasons for that―and the first one is simply a confusion between Heaven and the Divinity of God. We will remain human in Heaven, therefore finite, therefore our knowledge will remain finite. True, we will share in God’s divine life, but this is just a share. The greater the saint that one is, the greater will be the share in God’s divine life. Hence, since Mary is the holier than all angels and saints, it stands to reason that God shares of His divine life with Mary than any other angel or saint. Hence, Mary knows more than any angel of saint, but she does not know everything because she is still a finite human being.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in Our Spiritual Life
► THE GOOD: God is good, sin is bad and the consequences of sin are ugly. As Our Lord said: “One is good―God” (Matthew 19:17) … “None is good, but one―that is God” (Mark 10:18). “He hath made all things good in their time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth … and God saw that it was good ... And God said: ‘Let the Earth bring forth the green herbs, and seeds, and fruit trees!’ ... And it was so done and God saw that it was good … And God said: ‘Let there be lights made in heaven, to divide the day and the night, to shine in the firmament of heaven, and to give light upon the Earth!’ And it was so done and God saw that it was good … God also said: ‘Let the waters bring forth the creeping creatures, and birds that may fly over the Earth!’ … And God saw that it was good … And God said: ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle, creeping things and beasts of the Earth!’ … And it was so done ... And God saw that it was good … And God said: ‘Let us make man to our image and likeness!’ … And God created man to His own image―to the image of God he created him, male and female He created them … And God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good” (Genesis, chapter 1).
We simply share in the goodness of God: “Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). “What hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). Thus you should be grateful for “all the good things which the Lord thy God hath given thee” (Deuteronomy 26:11). “We shall have many good things if we fear God, and depart from all sin, and do that which is good!” (Tobias 4:23). God Himself testifies to this and promises this:
“If you walk in My precepts, and keep My commandments, and do them, then I will give you rain in due seasons. And the ground shall bring forth its increase, and the trees shall be filled with fruit. The threshing of your harvest shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land without fear. I will give peace in your coasts: you shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid. I will take away evil beasts: and the sword shall not pass through your quarters. You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you. Five of yours shall pursue a hundred others, and a hundred of you ten thousand: your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. I will look on you, and make you increase: you shall be multiplied, and I will establish My covenant with you. You shall eat the oldest of the old store, and, new coming on, you shall cast away the old. I will set My tabernacle in the midst of you, and My soul shall not cast you off. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people. But if you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments, if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me, and to make void My covenant, then …” (Leviticus 26:3-14) ― see further below, in the UGLY subsection, the consequences with which God threatens us.
► THE BAD: Furthermore, our Catechisms tell us: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, by Spirago-Clarke; also the Catechism, My Catholic Faith, by Bishop Morrow, STD).
► THE UGLY: As for the ugly consequences of sin, Holy Scripture frequently, clearly and starkly points out the ugliness of sin: “My people provoke Me to anger with their sins!” (3 Kings 16:2). “The people repented not, neither did they depart from their sins” (Ecclesiasticus 48:16). “For we have added to all our sins” (1 Kings 12:19) … “adding new sins to old ones” (Judges 10:6) and “have committed far greater sins” (2 Paralipomenon 33:23). We “wallow in sins” (Ecclesiasticus 23:16). “It is certain that God is so offended with sins, that He will deliver them up for their sins! … He will repay them for their sins!” (Judith 11:8, 15). “I will visit their iniquities with a rod; and their sins with stripes!” (Psalm 88:33). “If we sin willfully―after having the knowledge of the truth―then now there is left no sacrifice for sins!” (Hebrews 10:26). “God gives place for repentance for sins” (Wisdom 12:19). “God hath given him place for penance, and he abuses it unto pride!” (Job 24:23). “Let him do penance for his sin!” (Leviticus 5:5) “But if a man that fasts for his sins, and then does the same sin again, what does his humbling himself profit him? Who will hear his prayer?” (Ecclesiasticus 34:31). He has “increased his sin” (Exodus 9:34). ““Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “Your sins and iniquities have withheld good things from you and have turned these things away!” (Jeremias 5:25). “By reason of the multitude of thy iniquities, thy sins are hardened!” (Jeremias 30:14). “Therefore you shall die in your sins!” (John 8:24). “For the wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “Sin hath reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21). “Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:15). “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16).
Here is “the flip-side of the coin” to the “good side” of God quoted above (Leviticus 16:1-14). The Book of Leviticus clearly and strongly indicates the ugly consequences for disobeying God and His commandments: “But if you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments, if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me, and to make void My covenant, then … I will quickly visit you with poverty, and burning heat, which shall waste your eyes, and consume your lives. You shall sow your seed in vain, which shall be devoured by your enemies. I will set My face against you, and you shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you. I will break the pride of your stubbornness, and I will make to you the Heaven above as iron, and the Earth as brass! Your labor shall be spent in vain, the ground shall not bring forth her increase, nor the trees yield their fruit. I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins! And I will send in upon you beasts, to destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number, and that your highways may be desolate. And I will bring in upon you the sword. And when you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies! I will destroy and break your idols. You shall fall among the ruins of your idols, and My soul shall abhor you. I will bring your cities to be a wilderness. And I will destroy your land. And I will scatter you, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed. You shall perish among the Gentiles, and an enemy’s land shall consume you. And if some of them still remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies, and they shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers, and their own―until they confess their iniquities and the iniquities of their ancestors, by which they have sinned against Me, and walked contrary unto Me. Then shall they pray for their sins!” (Leviticus 26:15-41).
Our Lady, in her modern era apparitions at Quito (Ecuador), La Salette (France), Fatima (Portugal), Akita (Japan) and to Blessed Elena Aiello (Italy), has perfectly echoed and re-affirmed those ugly words concerning the ugly consequences of sin: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended … People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge [the Great Flood in the time of Noe], such as one never seen before! …
“These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! … Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth! … The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God! … God will strike in an unprecedented way! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together! … All the universe will be struck with terror, because they have not worshiped the true Christ! ... The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth ... God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other ... Physical and moral agonies will be suffered! ...
“Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … Masonry will take control of the civil government … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family … Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost! …
“The spirit of impurity will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … Moreover, in these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women, and in this supreme moment of need of the Church, those who should speak will fall silent … For a while the Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy the Church … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The Gospel of Jesus Christ having been forgotten … the devil will preach another Gospel contrary to that of the true Christ Jesus … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … They will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... In these unhappy times, people will only think of amusements and there will be unbridled luxury that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost! … The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. The wicked will make use of all their evil ways! … How the Church will suffer during this dark night!”
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in this New Year
► GOOD ELEMENTS OF THE NEW YEAR:
As stated above―“One is good―God” (Matthew 19:17) … “None is good, but one―that is God” (Mark 10:18). “None is good but God alone!” (Luke 18:19). “He hath made all things good in their time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). To this we can add the following verses―all of which hammer home the same truth:
“O give thanks to the Lord, because He is good: because His mercy endures for ever and ever!” (Daniel 3:89). “Give glory to the Lord for He is good, for His mercy endures for ever!” (2 Paralipomenon 5:13). “Give glory to the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endures for ever!” (Psalm 105:1). “Give glory to the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endures for ever!” (Psalm 106:1). “Give praise to the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endures for ever!” (Psalm 117:1). “Give ye glory to the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endures for ever!” (1 Paralipomenon 16:34). “How good is God to them that are of a right heart!” (Psalm 72:1). “It is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God” (Psalm 72:28). “We shall have many good things if we fear God, and depart from all sin, and do that which is good!” (Tobias 4:23). “The Lord is good and gives strength in the day of trouble” (Nahum 1:7) ― and, boy, are we in trouble today! We are surrounded by trouble and those troubles keep on increasing!
God still exists! Thank God that He exists! As they say: “Where there is life, there is hope!” Well, likewise―and even more so―where there is God, there is hope! For the definition of Hell is “the absence of God” ― the fires of Hell merely distract souls from the terrible and excruciating fact that they have lost God. The worst punishment on Earth that God inflict upon us, is to leave and abandon us to our godless selves and our godless rulers and neighbors. Thank God that He has not yet abandoned us―though the likelihood is ever nearer, for Our Lady warned at La Salette: “God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other!”
► BAD ELEMENTS OF THE NEW YEAR:
Nevertheless, as we enter 2023, God is with us―but are we really with God? Most Catholics are NOT with God―for they disbelieve some of the truths about God, and they disobey the commandments of God. Our Lady of Good Success, prophesying about our times, speaks of “the small number of souls who will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue … [and] ... the Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith, until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals.” Our Lady of La Salette foretold that “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God.” Christ Himself warned us: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8).
We are certainly losing the Faith in increasing numbers today. Only a minority still believe in the dogma of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Over 50% of Catholics accept same-sex relationships and same-sex marriages. The majority of Catholics believe that you can be saved in any religion. The worldwide average of Catholics regularly attending Sunday Mass is less than 20%. The vast majority of Catholics are accepting of contraception. As the share of people presently married has declined, an increase in cohabitation. Nearly 70% of regular Mass attending Catholics say that they have cohabited (lived in sin with someone). Over 56% of Catholics believe that abortion should be made legal in all cases or most cases. Those numbers are increasing, not decreasing! 2023 will see them increase even more!
Despite all that, our good God is always trying to bring good out of evil. Yet, as St. Augustine says, God could save man without the cooperation of man―but God will not save man with man’s cooperation: “God created us without us: but God did not will to save us without us” (Sermon 169). That is why Our Lady comes to places like Fatima and says: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, July & August of 1917).
The greatest good for anyone is the salvation of their soul. Our Lord stated: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Likewise, Canon Law states: “The supreme law is the salvation of souls.” Are we willing to do good to others in order to help them save their souls? Are we willing to pray, sacrifice and suffer for the salvation of souls? Very few people are willing to do this―as Our Lady of Fatima pointed out: “Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” Are you one of the “none”? Just as “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14), likewise many are called to pray and sacrifice for sinners, but few choose to do so!
► GREATEST GOOD IS SALVATION:
The greatest good for anyone is the salvation of their soul. Our Lord stated: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Likewise, Canon Law states: “The supreme law is the salvation of souls.” Are we willing to do good to others in order to help them save their souls? Are we willing to pray, sacrifice and suffer for the salvation of souls? Very few people are willing to do this―as Our Lady of Fatima pointed out: “Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” Are you one of the “none”? Just as Scripture says: “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14), likewise many are called to pray and sacrifice for sinners, but few choose to do so! Their attitude is that of Cain: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9). Rather than seeking to save sinners, their attitude to sinners is more of an accusatory finger-pointing “Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54).
It would be wonderful New Year if we were to seek and save sinners by our sacrifices and prayers―but in all honesty, is that likely to happen? Are you likely to start accepting all that goes wrong for you; accepting all and any pain and suffering as a sacrifice for sinners; turning your failures into successes by sacrificing your failures for the salvation of sinners; accepting insults, calumnies, detraction and hatred from others as a sacrifice to save sinners? How likely is that? Are you all fired-up and raring to go? Very few have been, are or will be! What could be a good New Year as regards souls saved, will―as usual―be a good New Year for Satan in the number of souls he manages to damn! It is not for nothing that some of the saints saw visions of damned souls falling into Hell like snowflakes in a blizzard! “I saw souls falling into Hell like snowflakes!” (St. Teresa of Avila) … “I was watching souls falling down into the abyss like snowflakes falling thick and fast in the winter!” (St. Benedict Joseph Labre) ... “Those cast into Hell were as numerous as snowflakes in midwinter!” (Blessed Anna Maria Taigi) … “I tremble when I see so many souls lost these days. They fall into Hell as leaves fall from the trees at the approach of winter!” (St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars). How about some “spiritual climate change” beginning with this current winter, by sacrificing and saving some of Satan’s seduced slaves and snow-falling souls from the fires of Hell? St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the whole world―with all that is in it―has less value before God than one single soul in the state of Sanctifying Grace. In fact, St. Thomas claims that “forgiving men, taking pity on them, is a greater work than the creation of the world” (Summa Theologica, Ia-IIae, q. 113, art. 9). That is why Holy Scripture says: “He who causeth a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, shall save his soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins!” (James 5:20).
The main cause behind our lethargy and reluctance to pray and sacrifice for the conversion of sinners is our undervaluation of the gravity of sin, an undervaluation of the magnificence of sanctifying grace, and an undervaluation of eternal life. We imagine sin to be a minor thing; we imagine grace to be a “freebie” or an entitlement; and we imagine eternal life to be easily attainable with little effort on anyone’s part. We ignore, forget or “sweep under the carpet” such Scriptural quotes as: “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12) … “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21) … “For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20) … “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14) … “Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat!” (Matthew 7:13) ... “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) … “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12) “The kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) … “For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin!” (Hebrews 12:4).
If we forget these truths, then the New Year is most certainly going to be a bad year―as we pile sin upon sin, and incur debt upon debt, and perhaps even incur an eternal debt that will have to be eternally paid in Hell! Remember―most souls are lost! Don’t be stupid! Wake up and start asking yourself: “Why are they damned? What caused their damnation? Am I walking the same path?” Don’t be a fool and don’t be like the majority! “The perverse are hard to be corrected, and the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15).
► BAD ELEMENTS IN THE SECULAR WORLD:
Recent years and recent decades have seen the secular world become increasingly sinful. Those years have also seen a gradual “tightening of the noose” around our necks as we rapidly approach the scenario described by Our Lady and affirmed by Sister Lucia of Fatima. We can clearly see all around us the truth and realization of Our Lady’s warnings: “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective, making it easy for everyone to live in sin … These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government …. All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family ... Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions! … There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases! ... Nothing will be seen but murder! … Blood will flow in the streets! There will be civil wars! A general war will follow which will be appalling! ... Various nations will be annihilated ... Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes!”
Without spiritual counter-measures, that scenario will only get worse to the point where Communism takes over the whole world―Communism is merely a puppet for Satan and his hidden human secret satanic stooges, who lurk behind the scenes, organizing and controlling everything of importance within governments, finance, business, technology and other fields. In a July 15th, 1946, interview with Professor William Thomas Walsh, Sister Lucia was asked: “In your opinion, will every country, without exception, be overcome by Communism?” She answered: ‘Yes!’ Professor Walsh wanted to be positive about the answer and therefore repeated the question adding: “And does that mean the United States of America too?” Sister Lucia answered: “Yes!”
Obviously, real factual numbers are hard to come by when it comes to estimating how many deaths Communism has been responsible for in just over 100 years of existence. Nevertheless, some historical authorities estimate that all the worldwide Communist regimes are responsible for anywhere from 65 million to over 140 million deaths―which includes wars, executions, famine, deaths through forced labor, deportation, and imprisonment. Today Communism wears many masks that seek to deflect attention away from Communism. These associates, affiliates or subsidiaries of Communism go by names such as: Socialist Party, Labor Party, People’s Party, Worker’s Party, People’s Revolutionary Party, Liberation Party, National Liberation Front, Worker’s Front, etc.
The bottom line―regardless of which “-ISM” you believe in, subscribe to, support or work for―is that of squeezing life out of this world. Whether you base yourself upon the Georgia Guidestones (which state: “Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature”), or Bill Gates openly advocating for depopulation on public television, or the World Economic Forum’s lead advisor Yuval Noah Harari, and Klaus Schwab (a frontman for others) whose lifelong ambition has been global governance. Only an idiot can fail to see that the world is currently increasingly governed by a supra-national entity―meaning a body of persons that are above the authority and level of individual nations, a kind of a “Behind the Scenes United Nations” that is above any and all individual nations, above their dictates and authority. The almost miraculous worldwide coordination and cooperation of nations during the Covid pandemic―a never before seen phenomenon―was a good and clear indicator of the workings of such a supra-national body. In the words of David Rockefeller: “…The world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supra-national sovereignty of an intellectual Elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.” (quoted by Aspen Times, August 15th, 2011).
As Our Lady stated: “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective, making it easy for everyone to live in sin … These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government …. All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family.”
Speaking from his experience and insights about Satan, from his 30 years as an exorcist, FR. GABRIELE AMORTH says: “Satanism is spreading enormously! The loss of a sense of sin―that characterizes our era―helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office! Satanism is on the increase. Today Satan rules the world. The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands. Satan continually tries to dominate the world ― the whole world is in the power of the evil one!”
The New World Order―which includes many of main “-ISMS” of the world (Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Liberalism, Materialism, etc.)―is focused upon complete world dominance. Our Lady has foretold that this will come to pass, with atheistic Communism (another puppet of Satan) ruling the entire world. This nothing other than Satan seeking to wrench control of the world from God. Population control, better known as Depopulation, is the tool of the United Nations to annihilate the majority of the masses, so that no more than 500 million people are left on the face of the Earth―which makes control of people more manageable. The People’s Republic of China with its Communist regime’s brutal forced abortions under its one child per family policy, is one of many examples on Depopulation or Population Reduction tactics. The most effective ways to achieve Depopulation are sterilization of the human reproductive system which can easily be achieved with drugs and vaccines; or through contraception, or, if that fails, through abortion. All of these methods are advocated, legalized and promoted by the governments of the world. Other depopulation methods include the old tried-and-trusted methods of war, diseases, and famine. Throw them all together and you have a very powerful weapon of depopulation!
Now, of course, the mainstream media are frantically, forcefully and falsely labeling all such talk as “conspiracy theories” which implies that such opinions are either outright lies, twisted truths, exaggerations, misinformation or disinformation. However, most of the outright lies, twisted truths, exaggerations, misinformation and disinformation comes from the mainstream media. Some estimates claim as much as 90% of U.S. media is controlled by just six companies. The big six media companies right now are Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA), Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS), AT&T (NYSE:T), Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA), Sony (NYSE:SONY), and Fox (NASDAQ:FOX). Yet even those corporations are owned by a handful of behind-the-scenes persons who prefer not to be publicly known). Despite all the accusatory, mocking, stigmatizing talk about “conspiracy theories”, there is nothing more common than a conspiracy. We have lived in an atmosphere of conspiracy from the beginning of the world. We have all been victims of one kind of conspiracy or another at various points in our lives―whether at home in the family, among relatives, among friends, neighbors, work-colleagues, in politics, in business, in the military, in the workplace, in sports, in social life, etc. [read more here].
We should be trusting and believing God, Our Lady and Heaven, more than we trust men and the media! “God is true―and every man is a liar!” (Romans 3:4). “The sons of men are liars!” (Psalm 61:10). “Every man is a liar!” (Psalm 115:11). If Heaven has spoken on any subject, then let Heaven be believed rather than any man or the media! Our Lord could just as easily address the following words to today’s media: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do! He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar and the father of lies!” (John 8:44). “They have taught their tongue to speak lies!” (Jeremias 9:5).
Those words of Our Lord and Scripture take on a more powerful significance in our days, especially in light of the comment made by William Casey, the CIA Director from 1981 to 1987. At an early February 1981 meeting of the newly elected President Reagan and his new cabinet secretaries, to give reports about their agencies at the start of the new President’s administration, the CIA Director, William Casey, said: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
The media is of the world―but Our Lord is not of this world: “My kingdom is not of this world … My kingdom is not here!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above! You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23) ... “He that is not with Me, is against Me!” (Matthew 12:30) ... “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7). To which Scripture adds: “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). “They are of the world—therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them! We are of God. He that knoweth God, heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth us not. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error” (1 John 4:5-6).
The Show Must Go On!
Having come this far, the enemies of God are not going to stop now! The show must go on! Rather―the sham must go on! The agenda and propaganda that has been prepared by God’s enemies is a sham of shame! They pretend to do good, but beneath the apparent good lies a real evil! “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―who put darkness for light, and light for darkness!” (Isaias 5:20). “Woe to you hypocrites―because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of rapine (= greed, pillage, plunder) and uncleanness! … Woe to you hypocrites―because you are like to whitened sepulchers, which outwardly appear beautiful to men, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and all filthiness!” (Matthew 23:25-27).
Behind or beneath the pretence of caring for folk, there is the evil orchestration of war, diseases, poisonous medicines, economic crisis, high inflation, food shortage, increasing unemployment, etc. Is all this just random chance? No! As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said: “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
As Our Lady warned: “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... … The evil sect of Masonry will be in power, and will take control of the civil government …. All the civil governments will have one and the same plan―which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family!” That is what we are seeing―authorities “who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves!” (Matthew 7:15).
Even politicians have seen and condemned these wolves in sheep’s clothing:
► British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, already back in 19th century, stated: “So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes” (Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881, British Prime Minister from 1874 to 1880).
► Baron Nathan Mayer de Rothschild (1840-1915) who said: “I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the British Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.” What was true of the British Empire is equally true of the U.S. Empire, controlled remotely by the London based Elite through the Federal Reserve System.
► U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt said: “Behind the ostensible [visible] government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.” (Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography, 1913, Appendix B).
► U.S. President Woodrow Wilson stated: “Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it” (Woodrow Wilson, 1856-1924, 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921).
► British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, wrote around 1920: “From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, to those of Trotsky, Bela Kun, Rosa Luxembourg, and Emma Goldman, this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and reconstitution of society―on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence and impossible equality―has been steadily growing. It played a definitely recognizable role in the tragedy of French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the nineteenth century, and now at last, this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads, and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.” (Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, twice British Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945, and from 1951 to 1955).
Over 20 years later, when he was the British Prime Minister during World War II, Winston Churchill referred to the existence of a “High Cabal” that had brought about unprecedented bloodshed in human history. Churchill is also said to have remarked about the Elite: “They have transported Lenin in a sealed truck like a plague bacillus from Switzerland into Russia…” (quoted by John Coleman in The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, Global Publications 2006).
► U.S. President John F. Kennedy, in an address to the American Newspaper Publishers Association, on April 27th, 1961, said: “The word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society, and we are as a people, inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, secret oaths and secret proceedings. For we are opposed, around the world, by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy, that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence. It depends on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published, its mistakes are buried, not headlined, and its dissenters are silenced, not praised, no expenditure is questioned, no secret revealed… I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people.” (John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963, 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963).
So, as you can see, the control of the U.S. ― and of global politics ― by the wealthiest families on the planet is exercised in a powerful, profound and clandestine manner. Statements by men like Benjamin Disraeli, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy and others, should not leave any doubt in the mind of the reader about who controls the world. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote in November 1933 to Colonel Edward House: “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element, in the larger centers, has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson.” It may be recalled that Andrew Jackson, U.S. President from 1829-1837, was so enraged by the tactics of bankers (Rothschilds) that he said: “You are a den of vipers! I intend to rout you out and by the Eternal God I will rout you out! If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning!”
Article 2
December 28th, 2022
Looking for Jesus! Where is He?
December 28th, 2022
Looking for Jesus! Where is He?
Hide and Seek
Are we in the middle of a “game” of hide-and-seek? Who is seeking whom? Who is hiding from whom? Are you hiding from Jesus, or is Jesus hiding from you? Is Jesus seeking you? Are you seeking Jesus? Actually, it is a bit of both! There is no doubt that God seeks us and that Jesus seeks us―but He can also hide Himself from us. Likewise, we might be seeking Jesus―but there are times when we want to hide from Him so that we can do what we want to do! Jesus, “the Son of man, is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). Yet there are times we wish Jesus would get lost and leave us to pursue our pleasures. Jesus seeks to save us―but many do not really want to be saved. Or, if they wish to be saved, then they wish to be saved on THEIR terms and not on the terms of Jesus. They only want to be part-time Christians―spending some time with Jesus and a lot of time in the world. Thus they play a game of “Hide and Seek” with Jesus. They seek Him when it is convenient for them, but they hide from Jesus when it would be inconvenient for them to be with Him.
You can see this game of “Hide and Seek” throughout history―beginning with Adam and Eve. They sought to sin and as result of their sin they tried to hide from God: “The woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold, so she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened―and when they realized that they were naked, they sewed together fig leaves and made themselves aprons. When they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise at the afternoon air, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God, amidst the trees of paradise. And the Lord God called Adam, and said to him: ‘Where art thou?’ And Adam said: ‘I heard Thy voice in paradise and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself!’” (Genesis 3:6-10).
Just like Adam and Eve, we look at the world and see that it is “fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold” and we take some of the forbidden fruits (sinful things) of the world and eat them! Then, realizing our sin and the nakedness of no more having sanctifying grace in our soul, we too make aprons to cover-up our sins―those aprons are made up of excuses, finger-pointing, blaming others, etc. When we sin, we embark upon a path that is different to the path that God wants us to walk. God does not promise to walk with us down that path of sin and misfortune. Even Mary and Joseph embarked upon a path that was actually leading them away from Jesus―as this Scripture passage shows:
Mary and Joseph lost Jesus and had to go back to Jerusalem to seek Him: “And having fulfilled the days, when they returned, the Child Jesus remained in Jerusalem; and His parents knew it not. And thinking that he was in the company, they came a day’s journey, and sought Him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances. And not finding Him, they returned into Jerusalem, seeking Him” (Luke 2:43-45). From this incident―in which Jesus did not even spare the feelings of Mary and Joseph―we learn of the dangers of walking along our preferred path presumptuously imagining, like Mary and Joseph, that Jesus is walking with us. Mary and Joseph had only gone a single day’s journey before they discovered that their presumptions were erroneous and that Jesus was missing. Our presumptuous paths are most likely not just one day―but perhaps many years of walking down the wrong path vainly imagining Jesus was with us! Perhaps we are still on that presumptuous path, kidding ourselves all the time that Jesus is with us! Most Catholics fall into this category. “They shall go to seek the Lord, and shall not find Him―for He is withdrawn from them!” (Osee 5:6).
Seek God Above All Things
Our Lord puts our priorities into perspective when He says: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God!” (Matthew 6:33). To which Scripture adds: “Seek ye God and your soul shall live!” (Psalm 68:33). “And if any one seek not the Lord God, let him die!” (2 Paralipomenon 15:13). God is life itself, He is the Creator of life, He is the source of all life. On the other hand, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Our Lord came to lead us away from the death of sin to the life of Christ: “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10) … “And you will not come to Me that you may have life!” (John 5:40). “Give therefore your hearts and your souls to seek the Lord your God” (1 Paralipomenon 22:19). “Seek ye the Lord! Seek ye His face evermore!” (1 Paralipomenon 16:11). “Seek ye the Lord, while He may be found … while He is near!” (Isaias 55:6). “Seek ye the Lord, and live!’” (Amos 5:4). “Thou hast not forsaken them that seek Thee, O Lord!” (Psalm 9:11). “If thou seek Him, thou shalt find Him! But if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off for ever!” (1 Paralipomenon 28:9). “You shall find Him if you seek Him―but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you!” (2 Paralipomenon 15:2).
Where to Find God?
Where can we find God? A child can even answer that question from its First Communion Catechism:
Q. Where is God?
A. God is everywhere.
Holy Scripture develops that simple Catechetical answer thus: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place behold the good and the evil” (Proverbs 15:3). “‘Shall a man be hid in secret places, and I not see him?” saith the Lord” (Jeremias 23:24). “Neither is there any creature invisible in His sight―but all things are naked and open to His eyes” (Hebrews 4:13). “For His eyes are upon the ways of men, and He considers all their steps” (Job 34:21). “Where shall I go from Thy spirit? Or where shall I flee from Thy face? If I ascend into Heaven, Thou art there! If I descend into Hell, Thou art present! And I said: ‘Perhaps darkness shall cover me!’ But darkness shall not be dark to thee, and night shall be light as day!” (Psalm 138:7-12).
St. Thomas Aquinas teaches: “God is in all things by His power, inasmuch as all things are subject to His power; He is by His presence in all things, as all things are bare and open to His eyes; He is in all things by His essence, inasmuch as He is present to all as the cause of their being.”
Turn where you will―God is there. Fr. Faber says: “We are never really outside of God nor He outside of us.” The great Catholic theologian, Father Edward Leen, expresses in one of his books just how intimate God’s presence is in nature: “God’s power is put forth in every pulse of organic and inorganic being, in repose and movement, in every slightest change. Since every being and every aspect of being is the effect of God’s creative or conservative action, God’s power and exercise of that power is present to and in everything to the very depths of its reality.” (The Holy Spirit, p.112).
As our Catechisms further explain: God is omnipresent, i.e., He is in every place. After Jacob had seen, in the open country, the ladder reaching up to Heaven, he exclaimed, “God is in this place, and I knew it not!” (Genesis 28:16). The same words are true of every place. God is not only present everywhere with His power, but He Himself fills and penetrates all space. “Do not I fill Heaven and Earth, saith the Lord?” (Jeremias 23:24).
1. God is everywhere present, because all created things exist in God.
All creatures exist in God, as thought exists in our minds. As mind is of more extent than thought, so God is of more extent than the world and all it contains. As mind penetrates thought, so God penetrates the world. “In Him we live, and move, and exist” (Acts 17:28). God is at the same time quite distinct from creatures and from the whole world.
2. God is not circumscribed by any place, nor by the whole of creation, because He has no limits, either actual or possible.
In his prayer at the dedication of the Temple Solomon said: “If Heaven and the Heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee, how much less this house that I have built” (3 Kings viii. 27). The infinite cannot be contained in measurable space. Only bodies are contained in space. Spirits indeed are not contained in space, but they cannot be in more than one place at the same time. “God is everywhere,” says St. Bernard, “and yet nowhere. He is near us and yet is far away. All creation is in Him, and yet it is as if He were not in it.”
3. Yet God is of more extent than space, and therefore can be in every place at the same time.
Though God is of more extent than all space, and His presence extends from Earth to Heaven and far beyond, He is not scattered over the universe, partly on Earth and partly in Heaven, but He is wholly everywhere and wholly in each separate place; wholly in Heaven and wholly on Earth. He fills Heaven and Earth. So the soul of man fills his entire body, but yet it is wholly in every separate portion of His body.
4. God is present in a special manner in Heaven, in the Blessed Sacrament, and in the souls of the just by sanctifying grace.
God is present in Heaven to the gaze of the angels and saints. He is present as the God-man in the Blessed Sacrament; He is present in the souls of men through the Holy Ghost Who is given to them. A king is present in his whole palace, but is specially present in the chamber where he sits on his throne, and gives audiences to his subjects.
5. There is no place where God is not present.
“The eyes of the Lord in every place behold the good and the evil” (Proverbs 15:3). We sometimes see in churches a large eye painted over the altar, to remind us that God is present everywhere. “No one can hide himself from God” (Jeremias 23:23-24). Hence no one can escape from God (Psalm 138:7-8). Jonas made the attempt, but with very poor success. Hence learn to avoid every sin. See with what unspeakable shame a man is filled, if he is detected by one of his fellow-men in a despicable action. Yet we are not ashamed to practice the most disgraceful vices in the presence of God (St. Augustine).
6. We ought therefore continually to bear in mind that God is always present with us.
Think, wherever you are, that God is near you. As there is no moment of time when we are not enjoying some benefit from the hand of God, so there ought to be no moment of time when we have not God in our thoughts. “He who always has God in his thoughts,” says St. Ephrem, “will become like an angel on the Earth.”
Few Seek the Essential Truths
Isn’t it insane? We know―or we should know―that most souls are damned. Why? You would think that anyone with a sane mind would like to know why most souls end up being damned―just in case they themselves might end up being damned by doing whatever those damned souls were doing (or not doing). That would be the sane thing to do, wouldn’t it? If people around you―at work and in the neighborhood―are “dropping like flies”, then you would naturally and logically want to find out the cause, in case you yourself were at risk! Damnation seems to be the “elephant in the room”―meaning “a major problem or controversial issue that is obviously present, but which is avoided as a subject for discussion because it is more comfortable not to speak about it.” Yet Our Lady does dare to speak about it and is not comfortable keeping silence about it.
To Venerable Mary of Agreda she revealed: “People want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as of eternal life! … They are entirely taken up by that which is visible, and they therefore do not look upon the ultimate consequences of sin, which is the eternal punishment of Hell. All their life they labor to become more and more entangled their passions and deceitful vanities―and so deliver themselves over to an inextinguishable fire and everlasting perdition in Hell, as if all were a mere joke! … Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous lukewarmness. They live in the darkness of their passions and depraved inclinations―forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices … Imagine what ought to be the grief of really losing God by sin. But this seems far from the mind of carnal men―for, with a most perverse blindness, they continue to make much of the visible and fictitious goods, and they torment themselves and are unconsolable whenever they fail to get them. Many persons have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! …
“Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16) ... Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! Lucifer has hurled into Hell so great a number of souls and continues so to hurl them every day … The number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate is also be uncountable! … The Lord does not desire the damning of His creatures, but seeks to save them all, if they do not pursue perdition of their own free will ... The whole ruin or salvation of souls depends upon the use of their free will―but most men misuse and abuse it their free will and so damn themselves! … The greater part of them damn themselves, whereas they could save themselves! ... The sinners rest in their false security, being asleep and perfectly at ease as to their ruin! … It is most lamentable that while the rich could purchase eternal life by a correct and virtuous use their possessions, they abuse and misuse those riches, and thereby draw upon themselves damnation! … Bodily penances are so appropriate and fitted to mortal creatures, that the ignorance of this truth and the neglect and contempt of bodily mortification is the cause of the damnation of many souls and brings many more into the danger of eternal loss!”
“Great was the sorrow, and most bitter was the grief, of my most holy Son, that not everyone would make use of the fruits of His Redemption. This same thought also pierced my heart and immensely added to the sorrow of seeing Him spat upon, buffeted, and blasphemed more cruelly than can ever be understood by living man. But next to this sorrow, my greatest one was to know that, after all these death dealing sufferings of the Lord, so many men should still damn themselves! My Son and I suffered so much for creatures and for their salvation! … For them We suffered and endured such bitter sorrows! … What tribulations and hardships we suffered! … There is no torment, not even death itself, that I would have refused, if such had been necessary to save any of the damned! … But forgetful of the last things and of eternal torments, they show themselves sluggish and stupid in the work of saving their souls, but seem eager and strong to load upon themselves eternal damnation! … Men give themselves over, like brute beasts, to sensual pleasures, and consume their lives in the pursuit of false goods, until they suddenly fall a prey to eternal perdition! ... In reality such is the fate of innumerable foolish men. Let the despairing groans of the damned ever resound in thy ears! … Weep bitterly on account of the perdition of so many souls! … Weep thou in seeing them laugh at their eternal damnation! The result of this pathetic indifference to eternal damnation is dreadful. Sinners are asleep and perfectly at ease as to their ruin. Hence so many children of the Church are lost and damned!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
In her major modern-day apparitions she has said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! (Fatima) … “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell … They will put an end to Faith, little by little! Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls! … Hell will reign on Earth!” (La Salette) …. This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … There will be unbridled luxury and extravagance which will ensnare into sin, and will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost ...” (Quito) ... “The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness!” (Akita).
Our Lady Shows Hell to Children
The three children of Fatima―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―were shown a terrifying vision of Hell. This left an incredibly profound impact upon the children―to the point where they began to regularly make great sacrifices in order to try and stop souls from falling into Hell.
Lucia later says: “It is my mission not just to tell about the material punishments that will certainly come over the Earth if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity if we remain fixed in sin! … There are people, even devout ones, who are afraid to speak about Hell to children, lest they frighten them, but God did not hesitate to show it to three children, one of whom, Jacinta, was only seven years old! He knew she would be horrified to the point — I would say — of shriveling with fear …
“Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the Earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to Heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.”
Lucia continues her account: “Jacinta imbibed such great love for Jesus, for suffering and for sinners, for whose salvation she sacrificed herself so generously … Jacinta took this matter of making sacrifices for the conversion of sinners so much to heart, that she never let a single opportunity escape her. Jacinta’s thirst for making sacrifices seemed insatiable. Frequently she sat, meditating, on the ground or some stone, and began to exclaim: ‘Hell! Hell! How sorry I am for the souls that are going to Hell! And people burn there alive, like wood in fire! … Oh, Hell! Oh, Hell! … Mother of God―have pity on those who do not amend their lives! … If men only know what awaits them in eternity, they would do everything in their power to change their lives!’ And quivering a little, she would kneel on the ground with her hands joined and say the prayer Our Lady had taught us: ‘O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of Hell, lead all souls into Heaven, especially those who are most in need of Thy Mercy!’ Jacinta stayed for a long time on her knees, repeating the same prayer. Every now and then, as if waking us, she called to me or her brother, Francisco. ‘Francisco, are you praying with me? We need to pray a great deal to save souls from Hell. So many are going there! So many!’
“At other times she asked: ‘Why doesn’t Our Lady show Hell to sinners? If they saw it, they would never sin again and wouldn’t have to go there! You must tell Our Lady to show Hell to all those people! [She meant the people staying in Cova da Iria at the time of the Apparition]. You will see that they will be converted!’
“Some days later, a little despondent, she asked: ‘Why didn’t you tell Our Lady to show Hell to those people?’
“‘I forgot!’ I answered.
“‘I didn’t remember, either!’ she said sadly. Sometimes, she also asked: ‘What sins are committed by those people to make them go to Hell?’
“‘I don’t know. Perhaps not going to Mass on Sundays, stealing, saying wicked words, cursing, swearing.’
“‘What would it cost them to keep quiet and go to Mass! I am sorry for sinners! Oh, if I could only let them see Hell!’
“Sometimes she hugged me and said: ‘I am going to Heaven, but you have to stay here. If Our Lady lets you, tell everybody what Hell is like, so that they can escape it by not committing sins!’
“Other times, after thinking for a while, she said: ‘So many falling into Hell! So many in Hell!’” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima ― interview with Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957; also extracts from her letters and memoirs).
Lucia Gives a Priest Hell!
The following is a rare interview with Sister Lucia by the Liberal Italian Jesuit priest, Father Lombardi. It was recorded in the Vatican weekly “Osservatore della Domenica” on February 7th, 1954.
Fr. Lombardi: “Tell me, is the ‘Better World Movement’ a response of the Church to the words spoken to Our Lady?”
Lucia: “Father, there is certainly a great need for this renewal. If it is not done, and taking into account the present development of humanity, only a limited number of the human race will be saved.”
Fr. Lombardi: “Do you really believe that many will go to Hell? I hope that God will save the greater part of humanity.” [He had just written a book entitled: Salvation for Those Without Faith]
Lucia: “Father! Many will be lost!”
Fr. Lombardi: “It is true that the world is full of evil, but there is always a hope of salvation!”
Lucia: “No Father! Many, many will be lost!”
Father Lombardi remembered that Lucia had seen Hell and added: “Her words disturbed me. I returned to Italy with that grave warning impressed on my heart.”
More Hell by Our Lady
Our Lady also made a series of apparitions, in the 1950s, to Blessed Elena Aiello, an Italian stigmatic and foundress of a religious order. Elena relates: “The Madonna then came closer, and with a sad expression, showed me the flames of Hell. She said: ‘Satan reigns and triumphs on Earth! See how the souls are falling into Hell. See how high the flames are, and the souls who fall into them like flakes of snow, looking like transparent embers! How many sparks! How many cries of hate, and of despair! How much pain! See how many priestly souls! Look at the sign of their consecration in their transparent hands! What torture, my daughter, in my maternal Heart! Great is my sorrow to see that men do not change! The justice of the Father requires reparation — otherwise many will be lost! … The cause of my great sadness is the sight of so many souls going to Hell! … I wish prayers and penance, in order that I may again obtain mercy and salvation for many souls — otherwise they will be lost … Therefore I ask prayers, penance and sacrifice, so that I may act as Mediatrix with my Son in order to save souls!’”
When the Hell Will We Get the Message?
Hell is not a pleasant subject to talk about―but the truth is not always pleasant and Our Lady is not worried about pleasantries, she is more worried about the salvation of souls. We, however, are not too bothered about the salvation of souls! As Sr. Lucia said in 1957: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!
“The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground … The Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin and, as you know, what most offends God and what will gain him the greatest number of souls in the shortest time is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them! … For this reason, Father, it is my mission not just to speak about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to also tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin.
“We should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway. When God is going to chastise the world He always first exhausts all other remedies. When He sees that the world pays no attention whatsoever, then, as we say in our imperfect way of talking, with a certain fear He presents us the last means of salvation, His Blessed Mother … God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others …
“My cousins, Francisco and Jacinta, made sacrifices because they always saw the Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions! She never smiled at us! This anguish that we saw in her―caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners―penetrated our souls. And being children, we did not know what measures to devise except to pray and make sacrifices. Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world!”
Are we in the middle of a “game” of hide-and-seek? Who is seeking whom? Who is hiding from whom? Are you hiding from Jesus, or is Jesus hiding from you? Is Jesus seeking you? Are you seeking Jesus? Actually, it is a bit of both! There is no doubt that God seeks us and that Jesus seeks us―but He can also hide Himself from us. Likewise, we might be seeking Jesus―but there are times when we want to hide from Him so that we can do what we want to do! Jesus, “the Son of man, is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). Yet there are times we wish Jesus would get lost and leave us to pursue our pleasures. Jesus seeks to save us―but many do not really want to be saved. Or, if they wish to be saved, then they wish to be saved on THEIR terms and not on the terms of Jesus. They only want to be part-time Christians―spending some time with Jesus and a lot of time in the world. Thus they play a game of “Hide and Seek” with Jesus. They seek Him when it is convenient for them, but they hide from Jesus when it would be inconvenient for them to be with Him.
You can see this game of “Hide and Seek” throughout history―beginning with Adam and Eve. They sought to sin and as result of their sin they tried to hide from God: “The woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold, so she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened―and when they realized that they were naked, they sewed together fig leaves and made themselves aprons. When they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise at the afternoon air, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God, amidst the trees of paradise. And the Lord God called Adam, and said to him: ‘Where art thou?’ And Adam said: ‘I heard Thy voice in paradise and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself!’” (Genesis 3:6-10).
Just like Adam and Eve, we look at the world and see that it is “fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold” and we take some of the forbidden fruits (sinful things) of the world and eat them! Then, realizing our sin and the nakedness of no more having sanctifying grace in our soul, we too make aprons to cover-up our sins―those aprons are made up of excuses, finger-pointing, blaming others, etc. When we sin, we embark upon a path that is different to the path that God wants us to walk. God does not promise to walk with us down that path of sin and misfortune. Even Mary and Joseph embarked upon a path that was actually leading them away from Jesus―as this Scripture passage shows:
Mary and Joseph lost Jesus and had to go back to Jerusalem to seek Him: “And having fulfilled the days, when they returned, the Child Jesus remained in Jerusalem; and His parents knew it not. And thinking that he was in the company, they came a day’s journey, and sought Him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances. And not finding Him, they returned into Jerusalem, seeking Him” (Luke 2:43-45). From this incident―in which Jesus did not even spare the feelings of Mary and Joseph―we learn of the dangers of walking along our preferred path presumptuously imagining, like Mary and Joseph, that Jesus is walking with us. Mary and Joseph had only gone a single day’s journey before they discovered that their presumptions were erroneous and that Jesus was missing. Our presumptuous paths are most likely not just one day―but perhaps many years of walking down the wrong path vainly imagining Jesus was with us! Perhaps we are still on that presumptuous path, kidding ourselves all the time that Jesus is with us! Most Catholics fall into this category. “They shall go to seek the Lord, and shall not find Him―for He is withdrawn from them!” (Osee 5:6).
Seek God Above All Things
Our Lord puts our priorities into perspective when He says: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God!” (Matthew 6:33). To which Scripture adds: “Seek ye God and your soul shall live!” (Psalm 68:33). “And if any one seek not the Lord God, let him die!” (2 Paralipomenon 15:13). God is life itself, He is the Creator of life, He is the source of all life. On the other hand, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Our Lord came to lead us away from the death of sin to the life of Christ: “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10) … “And you will not come to Me that you may have life!” (John 5:40). “Give therefore your hearts and your souls to seek the Lord your God” (1 Paralipomenon 22:19). “Seek ye the Lord! Seek ye His face evermore!” (1 Paralipomenon 16:11). “Seek ye the Lord, while He may be found … while He is near!” (Isaias 55:6). “Seek ye the Lord, and live!’” (Amos 5:4). “Thou hast not forsaken them that seek Thee, O Lord!” (Psalm 9:11). “If thou seek Him, thou shalt find Him! But if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off for ever!” (1 Paralipomenon 28:9). “You shall find Him if you seek Him―but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you!” (2 Paralipomenon 15:2).
Where to Find God?
Where can we find God? A child can even answer that question from its First Communion Catechism:
Q. Where is God?
A. God is everywhere.
Holy Scripture develops that simple Catechetical answer thus: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place behold the good and the evil” (Proverbs 15:3). “‘Shall a man be hid in secret places, and I not see him?” saith the Lord” (Jeremias 23:24). “Neither is there any creature invisible in His sight―but all things are naked and open to His eyes” (Hebrews 4:13). “For His eyes are upon the ways of men, and He considers all their steps” (Job 34:21). “Where shall I go from Thy spirit? Or where shall I flee from Thy face? If I ascend into Heaven, Thou art there! If I descend into Hell, Thou art present! And I said: ‘Perhaps darkness shall cover me!’ But darkness shall not be dark to thee, and night shall be light as day!” (Psalm 138:7-12).
St. Thomas Aquinas teaches: “God is in all things by His power, inasmuch as all things are subject to His power; He is by His presence in all things, as all things are bare and open to His eyes; He is in all things by His essence, inasmuch as He is present to all as the cause of their being.”
Turn where you will―God is there. Fr. Faber says: “We are never really outside of God nor He outside of us.” The great Catholic theologian, Father Edward Leen, expresses in one of his books just how intimate God’s presence is in nature: “God’s power is put forth in every pulse of organic and inorganic being, in repose and movement, in every slightest change. Since every being and every aspect of being is the effect of God’s creative or conservative action, God’s power and exercise of that power is present to and in everything to the very depths of its reality.” (The Holy Spirit, p.112).
As our Catechisms further explain: God is omnipresent, i.e., He is in every place. After Jacob had seen, in the open country, the ladder reaching up to Heaven, he exclaimed, “God is in this place, and I knew it not!” (Genesis 28:16). The same words are true of every place. God is not only present everywhere with His power, but He Himself fills and penetrates all space. “Do not I fill Heaven and Earth, saith the Lord?” (Jeremias 23:24).
1. God is everywhere present, because all created things exist in God.
All creatures exist in God, as thought exists in our minds. As mind is of more extent than thought, so God is of more extent than the world and all it contains. As mind penetrates thought, so God penetrates the world. “In Him we live, and move, and exist” (Acts 17:28). God is at the same time quite distinct from creatures and from the whole world.
2. God is not circumscribed by any place, nor by the whole of creation, because He has no limits, either actual or possible.
In his prayer at the dedication of the Temple Solomon said: “If Heaven and the Heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee, how much less this house that I have built” (3 Kings viii. 27). The infinite cannot be contained in measurable space. Only bodies are contained in space. Spirits indeed are not contained in space, but they cannot be in more than one place at the same time. “God is everywhere,” says St. Bernard, “and yet nowhere. He is near us and yet is far away. All creation is in Him, and yet it is as if He were not in it.”
3. Yet God is of more extent than space, and therefore can be in every place at the same time.
Though God is of more extent than all space, and His presence extends from Earth to Heaven and far beyond, He is not scattered over the universe, partly on Earth and partly in Heaven, but He is wholly everywhere and wholly in each separate place; wholly in Heaven and wholly on Earth. He fills Heaven and Earth. So the soul of man fills his entire body, but yet it is wholly in every separate portion of His body.
4. God is present in a special manner in Heaven, in the Blessed Sacrament, and in the souls of the just by sanctifying grace.
God is present in Heaven to the gaze of the angels and saints. He is present as the God-man in the Blessed Sacrament; He is present in the souls of men through the Holy Ghost Who is given to them. A king is present in his whole palace, but is specially present in the chamber where he sits on his throne, and gives audiences to his subjects.
5. There is no place where God is not present.
“The eyes of the Lord in every place behold the good and the evil” (Proverbs 15:3). We sometimes see in churches a large eye painted over the altar, to remind us that God is present everywhere. “No one can hide himself from God” (Jeremias 23:23-24). Hence no one can escape from God (Psalm 138:7-8). Jonas made the attempt, but with very poor success. Hence learn to avoid every sin. See with what unspeakable shame a man is filled, if he is detected by one of his fellow-men in a despicable action. Yet we are not ashamed to practice the most disgraceful vices in the presence of God (St. Augustine).
6. We ought therefore continually to bear in mind that God is always present with us.
Think, wherever you are, that God is near you. As there is no moment of time when we are not enjoying some benefit from the hand of God, so there ought to be no moment of time when we have not God in our thoughts. “He who always has God in his thoughts,” says St. Ephrem, “will become like an angel on the Earth.”
Few Seek the Essential Truths
Isn’t it insane? We know―or we should know―that most souls are damned. Why? You would think that anyone with a sane mind would like to know why most souls end up being damned―just in case they themselves might end up being damned by doing whatever those damned souls were doing (or not doing). That would be the sane thing to do, wouldn’t it? If people around you―at work and in the neighborhood―are “dropping like flies”, then you would naturally and logically want to find out the cause, in case you yourself were at risk! Damnation seems to be the “elephant in the room”―meaning “a major problem or controversial issue that is obviously present, but which is avoided as a subject for discussion because it is more comfortable not to speak about it.” Yet Our Lady does dare to speak about it and is not comfortable keeping silence about it.
To Venerable Mary of Agreda she revealed: “People want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as of eternal life! … They are entirely taken up by that which is visible, and they therefore do not look upon the ultimate consequences of sin, which is the eternal punishment of Hell. All their life they labor to become more and more entangled their passions and deceitful vanities―and so deliver themselves over to an inextinguishable fire and everlasting perdition in Hell, as if all were a mere joke! … Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous lukewarmness. They live in the darkness of their passions and depraved inclinations―forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices … Imagine what ought to be the grief of really losing God by sin. But this seems far from the mind of carnal men―for, with a most perverse blindness, they continue to make much of the visible and fictitious goods, and they torment themselves and are unconsolable whenever they fail to get them. Many persons have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! …
“Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16) ... Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! Lucifer has hurled into Hell so great a number of souls and continues so to hurl them every day … The number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate is also be uncountable! … The Lord does not desire the damning of His creatures, but seeks to save them all, if they do not pursue perdition of their own free will ... The whole ruin or salvation of souls depends upon the use of their free will―but most men misuse and abuse it their free will and so damn themselves! … The greater part of them damn themselves, whereas they could save themselves! ... The sinners rest in their false security, being asleep and perfectly at ease as to their ruin! … It is most lamentable that while the rich could purchase eternal life by a correct and virtuous use their possessions, they abuse and misuse those riches, and thereby draw upon themselves damnation! … Bodily penances are so appropriate and fitted to mortal creatures, that the ignorance of this truth and the neglect and contempt of bodily mortification is the cause of the damnation of many souls and brings many more into the danger of eternal loss!”
“Great was the sorrow, and most bitter was the grief, of my most holy Son, that not everyone would make use of the fruits of His Redemption. This same thought also pierced my heart and immensely added to the sorrow of seeing Him spat upon, buffeted, and blasphemed more cruelly than can ever be understood by living man. But next to this sorrow, my greatest one was to know that, after all these death dealing sufferings of the Lord, so many men should still damn themselves! My Son and I suffered so much for creatures and for their salvation! … For them We suffered and endured such bitter sorrows! … What tribulations and hardships we suffered! … There is no torment, not even death itself, that I would have refused, if such had been necessary to save any of the damned! … But forgetful of the last things and of eternal torments, they show themselves sluggish and stupid in the work of saving their souls, but seem eager and strong to load upon themselves eternal damnation! … Men give themselves over, like brute beasts, to sensual pleasures, and consume their lives in the pursuit of false goods, until they suddenly fall a prey to eternal perdition! ... In reality such is the fate of innumerable foolish men. Let the despairing groans of the damned ever resound in thy ears! … Weep bitterly on account of the perdition of so many souls! … Weep thou in seeing them laugh at their eternal damnation! The result of this pathetic indifference to eternal damnation is dreadful. Sinners are asleep and perfectly at ease as to their ruin. Hence so many children of the Church are lost and damned!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
In her major modern-day apparitions she has said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! (Fatima) … “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell … They will put an end to Faith, little by little! Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls! … Hell will reign on Earth!” (La Salette) …. This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … There will be unbridled luxury and extravagance which will ensnare into sin, and will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost ...” (Quito) ... “The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness!” (Akita).
Our Lady Shows Hell to Children
The three children of Fatima―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―were shown a terrifying vision of Hell. This left an incredibly profound impact upon the children―to the point where they began to regularly make great sacrifices in order to try and stop souls from falling into Hell.
Lucia later says: “It is my mission not just to tell about the material punishments that will certainly come over the Earth if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity if we remain fixed in sin! … There are people, even devout ones, who are afraid to speak about Hell to children, lest they frighten them, but God did not hesitate to show it to three children, one of whom, Jacinta, was only seven years old! He knew she would be horrified to the point — I would say — of shriveling with fear …
“Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the Earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to Heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.”
Lucia continues her account: “Jacinta imbibed such great love for Jesus, for suffering and for sinners, for whose salvation she sacrificed herself so generously … Jacinta took this matter of making sacrifices for the conversion of sinners so much to heart, that she never let a single opportunity escape her. Jacinta’s thirst for making sacrifices seemed insatiable. Frequently she sat, meditating, on the ground or some stone, and began to exclaim: ‘Hell! Hell! How sorry I am for the souls that are going to Hell! And people burn there alive, like wood in fire! … Oh, Hell! Oh, Hell! … Mother of God―have pity on those who do not amend their lives! … If men only know what awaits them in eternity, they would do everything in their power to change their lives!’ And quivering a little, she would kneel on the ground with her hands joined and say the prayer Our Lady had taught us: ‘O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of Hell, lead all souls into Heaven, especially those who are most in need of Thy Mercy!’ Jacinta stayed for a long time on her knees, repeating the same prayer. Every now and then, as if waking us, she called to me or her brother, Francisco. ‘Francisco, are you praying with me? We need to pray a great deal to save souls from Hell. So many are going there! So many!’
“At other times she asked: ‘Why doesn’t Our Lady show Hell to sinners? If they saw it, they would never sin again and wouldn’t have to go there! You must tell Our Lady to show Hell to all those people! [She meant the people staying in Cova da Iria at the time of the Apparition]. You will see that they will be converted!’
“Some days later, a little despondent, she asked: ‘Why didn’t you tell Our Lady to show Hell to those people?’
“‘I forgot!’ I answered.
“‘I didn’t remember, either!’ she said sadly. Sometimes, she also asked: ‘What sins are committed by those people to make them go to Hell?’
“‘I don’t know. Perhaps not going to Mass on Sundays, stealing, saying wicked words, cursing, swearing.’
“‘What would it cost them to keep quiet and go to Mass! I am sorry for sinners! Oh, if I could only let them see Hell!’
“Sometimes she hugged me and said: ‘I am going to Heaven, but you have to stay here. If Our Lady lets you, tell everybody what Hell is like, so that they can escape it by not committing sins!’
“Other times, after thinking for a while, she said: ‘So many falling into Hell! So many in Hell!’” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima ― interview with Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957; also extracts from her letters and memoirs).
Lucia Gives a Priest Hell!
The following is a rare interview with Sister Lucia by the Liberal Italian Jesuit priest, Father Lombardi. It was recorded in the Vatican weekly “Osservatore della Domenica” on February 7th, 1954.
Fr. Lombardi: “Tell me, is the ‘Better World Movement’ a response of the Church to the words spoken to Our Lady?”
Lucia: “Father, there is certainly a great need for this renewal. If it is not done, and taking into account the present development of humanity, only a limited number of the human race will be saved.”
Fr. Lombardi: “Do you really believe that many will go to Hell? I hope that God will save the greater part of humanity.” [He had just written a book entitled: Salvation for Those Without Faith]
Lucia: “Father! Many will be lost!”
Fr. Lombardi: “It is true that the world is full of evil, but there is always a hope of salvation!”
Lucia: “No Father! Many, many will be lost!”
Father Lombardi remembered that Lucia had seen Hell and added: “Her words disturbed me. I returned to Italy with that grave warning impressed on my heart.”
More Hell by Our Lady
Our Lady also made a series of apparitions, in the 1950s, to Blessed Elena Aiello, an Italian stigmatic and foundress of a religious order. Elena relates: “The Madonna then came closer, and with a sad expression, showed me the flames of Hell. She said: ‘Satan reigns and triumphs on Earth! See how the souls are falling into Hell. See how high the flames are, and the souls who fall into them like flakes of snow, looking like transparent embers! How many sparks! How many cries of hate, and of despair! How much pain! See how many priestly souls! Look at the sign of their consecration in their transparent hands! What torture, my daughter, in my maternal Heart! Great is my sorrow to see that men do not change! The justice of the Father requires reparation — otherwise many will be lost! … The cause of my great sadness is the sight of so many souls going to Hell! … I wish prayers and penance, in order that I may again obtain mercy and salvation for many souls — otherwise they will be lost … Therefore I ask prayers, penance and sacrifice, so that I may act as Mediatrix with my Son in order to save souls!’”
When the Hell Will We Get the Message?
Hell is not a pleasant subject to talk about―but the truth is not always pleasant and Our Lady is not worried about pleasantries, she is more worried about the salvation of souls. We, however, are not too bothered about the salvation of souls! As Sr. Lucia said in 1957: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!
“The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground … The Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin and, as you know, what most offends God and what will gain him the greatest number of souls in the shortest time is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them! … For this reason, Father, it is my mission not just to speak about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to also tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin.
“We should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway. When God is going to chastise the world He always first exhausts all other remedies. When He sees that the world pays no attention whatsoever, then, as we say in our imperfect way of talking, with a certain fear He presents us the last means of salvation, His Blessed Mother … God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others …
“My cousins, Francisco and Jacinta, made sacrifices because they always saw the Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions! She never smiled at us! This anguish that we saw in her―caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners―penetrated our souls. And being children, we did not know what measures to devise except to pray and make sacrifices. Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world!”
Article 1
Christmas Day & Boxing Day
December 25th & 26th, 2022
Jesus is Here! He is Looking for You! Where Are You?
Christmas Day & Boxing Day
December 25th & 26th, 2022
Jesus is Here! He is Looking for You! Where Are You?
He is Calling for You!
“The Master is come and is calling for you!” Who is calling for who? The “Master”, of course, is Jesus. The words, “The Master is come and is calling for you!” (John 11:27) are addressed to Mary Magdalen by her sister, Martha. They can also be addressed to YOU too! Christmas has come! Christ has come! Christ is calling for YOU! Since it is Christmas―and Christ comes as a Baby―you could say that the Baby Jesus is calling for you! It would be cruel mother who would refuse to hear and answer the calls and cries of her baby. Likewise, it would be a cruel family member who would ignore the calls and cries of the baby. When a baby is born to a family, that baby is the center of attention―everyone wants to see, hold and ‘talk’ to the baby. Everyone is initially willing to go the “extra-mile” to see to the baby’s needs.
In the Gospel passage we read: “Martha called her sister Mary secretly, saying: ‘The Master [Jesus] is come, and calleth for thee!’ Mary, as soon as she heard this, rose quickly, and came to Him” (John 11:27-28). When Mary Magdalen heard that Jesus was calling for her, she “rose quickly and came to Him.”
Responding to the Call of Jesus
How quick are we to respond to the calls of Jesus? Some respond to His calls, others pretend not to hear, or ignore, or even angrily refuse His calls. The Apostles responded immediately to the call of Jesus: “And Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren―Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother―casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And He said to them: ‘Come ye after Me, and I will make you to be fishers of men!’ And they immediately leaving their nets, followed Him. And going on from there, Jesus saw two other brethren―James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother―in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. And Jesus called them. And they forthwith left their nets and father, and followed Him!” (Matthew 4:18-22). “Jesus went forth and saw a publican named Levi, and He said to him: ‘Follow Me!’ And leaving all things, he rose up and followed Him” (Luke 5:27-28).
Some Refuse the Calls of Jesus
However, not everyone responded to the calls of Jesus: “And another of his disciples said to Him: ‘Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father!’ But Jesus said to him: ‘Follow Me―and let the dead bury their dead!’” (Matthew 8:21-22). “Jesus said to another: ‘Follow Me!’ And he said: ‘Lord, suffer me first to go, and to bury my father!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Let the dead bury their dead―but go thou and preach the Kingdom of God!’ And another said: ‘I will follow Thee, Lord; but let me first take my leave of them that are at my house!’ Jesus said to him: ‘No man putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God!’” (Luke 9:59-62).
“And behold, a certain rich young man, running up and kneeling before Him, asked Him: ‘Good Master, what shall I do that I may receive life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he was very rich and had great possessions. And Jesus, seeing him become sorrowful, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ And Jesus looking on his disciples, said: ‘Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My Name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and, in the world to come, shall possess life everlasting!’” (combined account of Matthew 19:16-29; Mark 10:17-31; Luke 18:18-25).
The Scribes and Pharisees were called―but they opposed the calls of Jesus, hated His criticisms of their wrongdoings and actually sought to kill Him. Yet we see exceptions to that rule―for there were some who did follow Jesus. “A certain scribe came and said to Jesus: ‘Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou shalt go!’” (Matthew 8:19). “And there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night” (John 3:1-2). St. Paul was also a Pharisee―as he himself admitted: “I am a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees … I lived as a Pharisee!” (Acts 23:6; 26:5). St. Paul was an active persecutor of Christians: “I am the least of the Apostles, who am not worthy to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the church of God! … Beyond measure, I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it!” (1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:13) Yet even this declared enemy of Christ was called by Jesus to follow Him.
Many are Called―Few are Chosen!
Ono two separate occasions it is reported that Jesus said: “Many are called but few are chosen!” (Matthew 20:16; 22:14). Is that because many refuse to answer the call? Jesus calls everyone―He hates no one. But not everyone likes or wants to hear what Jesus is saying: “They would not listen, and they turned away the shoulder to depart. And they stopped their ears, not to hear!” (Zacharias 7:11). Jesus Himself says: “Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? Neither do you remember!” (Mark 8:18). “The heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut―lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them!” (Matthew 13:15).
Of such folk God says: “Hear, O foolish people, and without understanding―who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and hear not!” (Jeremias 5:21). “Thou dwellest in the midst of a provoking house―who have eyes to see and see not; and have ears to hear and hear not―for they are a provoking house!” (Ezechiel 12:2). “I will blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes―lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and I heal them” (Isaias 6:10). “And when, in their distress, they shall return to the Lord the God and shall seek Him, they shall find Him” (2 Paralipomenon 15:4).
How true are the following words of Holy Scripture for our typical Christmas celebrations: “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! The fool hath said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’ There is no fear of God before their eyes! They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways―there is none that doth good, no not one! Their throat is an open sepulcher―with their tongues they acted deceitfully; the poison of asps is under their lips! Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness! Their feet are swift to shed blood! Destruction and unhappiness in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known! They have not called upon God! There have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear. God hath scattered the bones of them that please men! They have been confounded, because God hath despised them!” (Psalm 13:1-3; Psalm 52:1-6).
Called to be Priest, Monk or Nun
Our Lady of Good Success speaks of the vital importance of monasteries and convents―which are the fields for those souls who have been called by Jesus to a religious vocation: “No one on the face of the Earth is aware from where comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents … Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils!”
On this point of being called to a religious vocation ― priest, monk, nun, etc. ― St. John Bosco was of the opinion that around 1 in 4 persons are called to a religious vocation. However, the current statistics show that the number of vocations is only 1 in 1,000 persons! In view of the above words of Our Lady, it is hardly surprising that the Church and the world are in such a mess―it is largely because of a lack of priests, monks and brothers, nuns and sisters. “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance!” said Our Lady―and we are in the middle of those woes today!
In similar bad times in the Old Testament―when Israelites were increasingly deviating from their vocation as God’s Chosen People by growing in corruption, increasingly following false idols, falling away from God and starting to crave a different form of government―God spoke less and less to His Chosen People through the prophets as a punishment. Furthermore, God’s providence allowed them to be also punished by the invasion of the Philistines, who had occupied large parts of the Iands of the Israelites. Around that time God called Samuel to be one of His prophets.
“Now the child Samuel ministered to the Lord before Heli [the high priest of the Temple]. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days―there was no manifest vision. Samuel slept in the Temple of the Lord, where the Ark of God was [Ark of the Covenant]. And the Lord called Samuel. And he answered: ‘Here I am!’ And he ran to the high priest Heli and said: ‘Here I am! For you called me!’ Heli said: ‘I did not call you! Go back and sleep!’ And Samuel went away and slept. And the Lord called Samuel again. And Samuel arose and went to Heli, and said: ‘Here I am! For you called me!’ Heli answered: ‘I did not call you, my son! Return and sleep!’ Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither had the word of the Lord been revealed to him. And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose up and went to Heli and said: ‘Here I am! For you called me!’ Then Heli understood that the Lord had called the child, and he said to Samuel: ‘Go, and sleep! And if He shall call you again, the you shall say: “Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening!”’ So Samuel went and slept in his place. And the Lord came and stood, and He called, as He had called the other times: ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ And Samuel said: ‘Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening!’” (1 Kings 3:1-10).
How many times has God called us? Have we been listening? Have we quickly risen―like Samuel, or Mary Magdalen―and gone to fulfill God’s commands and wishes? Could God say of us: “They would not listen, and they turned away the shoulder to depart. And they stopped their ears, not to hear!” (Zacharias 7:11). “The heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut―lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them!” (Matthew 13:15).
God Dethroned, Man Enthroned
Up to that time the Israelites were a theocracy―meaning that they were ruled by God, through God’s chosen prophets and judges. The Israelites desired to be like the other nations that surrounded them―which were monarchies, meaning that were ruled by one man, a king. The king is not chosen and called by divine election (God) but is chosen and called by human election (men). “Then all the ancients of Israel being assembled, came to Samuel and they said to him: ‘Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways! Make us a king―as all nations have―to judge us!’ And the word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel, that they should say: ‘Give us a king to judge us!’ And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel: ‘Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to thee! For they have not rejected thee, but Me, so that I should not reign over them! As they have done from the day when I brought them up out of Egypt until this day―forsaking me and serving other gods―so they are doing to thee!’” (1 Kings 8:4-8).
The problem with power is that it can easily corrupt―and, as they say, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely!” Many a king or prince allows power to go the head and makes them ignore God, or even turn away from God and refuse God’s absolute rule over everyone: “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes assembled together against the Lord and his Christ” (Acts 4:26). “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! There is no fear of God before their eyes! They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways―there is none that doth good, no not one! They have not called upon God!” (Psalm 13:1-3; Psalm 52:1-6).
God Calls You!
You are called by God! Why? Is it because you are so important or holy? No―it is because you are a sinner! Our Lord comes to call sinners: “I am not come to call the just, but sinners!” (Matthew 9:13) … “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). Are you not a sinner? Of course you are ― “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God!” (Romans 3:23). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10).
Along the same lines, Our Lady revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “So great is my love for sinners, that if they would only call upon me in time and with sincerity, none of them would perish! But the sinners and the reprobate do no such thing―because the wounds of sin do not distress them, and the more often they are committed, the less regret or sorrow do they cause! ... As the Mother of clemency, it is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for failing to call upon me, so many souls should be lost! ... This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict yourself, lament and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls!”
Be Attentive to God’s Calls
Our Lady revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Live attentive to the calls, urgings and aspirations, by which the angels seek to rouse thee! … God calls and rouses the soul by His holy inspirations and continual promptings … The Most High does not immediately forsake His creatures―He renews His mercy and His assistance, recalling them again and again, and if they respond to His first call, He adds others graces, increasing and multiplying them in proportion as the soul corresponds ... But if man neglects to rise above his low desires and his forgetfulness, then he yields to the enemy of God and man. The more he alienates himself from the goodness of God, so much the more unworthy does he become of the secret callings of the Most High, and so much the less does he appreciate His assistance … The greatest happiness which can befall any soul in this mortal life, is that the Almighty call her to His house consecrated to His service.
The Best Call of All
“The greatest happiness which can befall any soul in this mortal life, is that the Almighty call the soul to His house consecrated to His service [monastery or convent]. For by this benefit He rescues the soul from a dangerous slavery and relieves her of the vile servitude of the world. Who is so dull and insipid as not to know the dangers of the worldly life? The better part is religious life and retirement―in it is found security, outside is a torment and a stormy sea, full of sorrow and unhappiness. Through the hardness of their heart and the total forgetfulness of themselves, men do not know this truth and are not attracted by its blessings. But thou, O soul, be not deaf to the voice of the Most High, attend and correspond to it in thy actions! I wish to remind thee, that one of the greatest snares of the demon is to counteract the call of the Lord, whenever He seeks to attract and incline the soul to a life of perfection in His service.”
“The Master is come and is calling for you!” Who is calling for who? The “Master”, of course, is Jesus. The words, “The Master is come and is calling for you!” (John 11:27) are addressed to Mary Magdalen by her sister, Martha. They can also be addressed to YOU too! Christmas has come! Christ has come! Christ is calling for YOU! Since it is Christmas―and Christ comes as a Baby―you could say that the Baby Jesus is calling for you! It would be cruel mother who would refuse to hear and answer the calls and cries of her baby. Likewise, it would be a cruel family member who would ignore the calls and cries of the baby. When a baby is born to a family, that baby is the center of attention―everyone wants to see, hold and ‘talk’ to the baby. Everyone is initially willing to go the “extra-mile” to see to the baby’s needs.
In the Gospel passage we read: “Martha called her sister Mary secretly, saying: ‘The Master [Jesus] is come, and calleth for thee!’ Mary, as soon as she heard this, rose quickly, and came to Him” (John 11:27-28). When Mary Magdalen heard that Jesus was calling for her, she “rose quickly and came to Him.”
Responding to the Call of Jesus
How quick are we to respond to the calls of Jesus? Some respond to His calls, others pretend not to hear, or ignore, or even angrily refuse His calls. The Apostles responded immediately to the call of Jesus: “And Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren―Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother―casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And He said to them: ‘Come ye after Me, and I will make you to be fishers of men!’ And they immediately leaving their nets, followed Him. And going on from there, Jesus saw two other brethren―James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother―in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. And Jesus called them. And they forthwith left their nets and father, and followed Him!” (Matthew 4:18-22). “Jesus went forth and saw a publican named Levi, and He said to him: ‘Follow Me!’ And leaving all things, he rose up and followed Him” (Luke 5:27-28).
Some Refuse the Calls of Jesus
However, not everyone responded to the calls of Jesus: “And another of his disciples said to Him: ‘Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father!’ But Jesus said to him: ‘Follow Me―and let the dead bury their dead!’” (Matthew 8:21-22). “Jesus said to another: ‘Follow Me!’ And he said: ‘Lord, suffer me first to go, and to bury my father!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Let the dead bury their dead―but go thou and preach the Kingdom of God!’ And another said: ‘I will follow Thee, Lord; but let me first take my leave of them that are at my house!’ Jesus said to him: ‘No man putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God!’” (Luke 9:59-62).
“And behold, a certain rich young man, running up and kneeling before Him, asked Him: ‘Good Master, what shall I do that I may receive life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he was very rich and had great possessions. And Jesus, seeing him become sorrowful, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ And Jesus looking on his disciples, said: ‘Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My Name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and, in the world to come, shall possess life everlasting!’” (combined account of Matthew 19:16-29; Mark 10:17-31; Luke 18:18-25).
The Scribes and Pharisees were called―but they opposed the calls of Jesus, hated His criticisms of their wrongdoings and actually sought to kill Him. Yet we see exceptions to that rule―for there were some who did follow Jesus. “A certain scribe came and said to Jesus: ‘Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou shalt go!’” (Matthew 8:19). “And there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night” (John 3:1-2). St. Paul was also a Pharisee―as he himself admitted: “I am a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees … I lived as a Pharisee!” (Acts 23:6; 26:5). St. Paul was an active persecutor of Christians: “I am the least of the Apostles, who am not worthy to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the church of God! … Beyond measure, I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it!” (1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:13) Yet even this declared enemy of Christ was called by Jesus to follow Him.
Many are Called―Few are Chosen!
Ono two separate occasions it is reported that Jesus said: “Many are called but few are chosen!” (Matthew 20:16; 22:14). Is that because many refuse to answer the call? Jesus calls everyone―He hates no one. But not everyone likes or wants to hear what Jesus is saying: “They would not listen, and they turned away the shoulder to depart. And they stopped their ears, not to hear!” (Zacharias 7:11). Jesus Himself says: “Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? Neither do you remember!” (Mark 8:18). “The heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut―lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them!” (Matthew 13:15).
Of such folk God says: “Hear, O foolish people, and without understanding―who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and hear not!” (Jeremias 5:21). “Thou dwellest in the midst of a provoking house―who have eyes to see and see not; and have ears to hear and hear not―for they are a provoking house!” (Ezechiel 12:2). “I will blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes―lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and I heal them” (Isaias 6:10). “And when, in their distress, they shall return to the Lord the God and shall seek Him, they shall find Him” (2 Paralipomenon 15:4).
How true are the following words of Holy Scripture for our typical Christmas celebrations: “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! The fool hath said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’ There is no fear of God before their eyes! They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways―there is none that doth good, no not one! Their throat is an open sepulcher―with their tongues they acted deceitfully; the poison of asps is under their lips! Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness! Their feet are swift to shed blood! Destruction and unhappiness in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known! They have not called upon God! There have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear. God hath scattered the bones of them that please men! They have been confounded, because God hath despised them!” (Psalm 13:1-3; Psalm 52:1-6).
Called to be Priest, Monk or Nun
Our Lady of Good Success speaks of the vital importance of monasteries and convents―which are the fields for those souls who have been called by Jesus to a religious vocation: “No one on the face of the Earth is aware from where comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents … Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils!”
On this point of being called to a religious vocation ― priest, monk, nun, etc. ― St. John Bosco was of the opinion that around 1 in 4 persons are called to a religious vocation. However, the current statistics show that the number of vocations is only 1 in 1,000 persons! In view of the above words of Our Lady, it is hardly surprising that the Church and the world are in such a mess―it is largely because of a lack of priests, monks and brothers, nuns and sisters. “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance!” said Our Lady―and we are in the middle of those woes today!
In similar bad times in the Old Testament―when Israelites were increasingly deviating from their vocation as God’s Chosen People by growing in corruption, increasingly following false idols, falling away from God and starting to crave a different form of government―God spoke less and less to His Chosen People through the prophets as a punishment. Furthermore, God’s providence allowed them to be also punished by the invasion of the Philistines, who had occupied large parts of the Iands of the Israelites. Around that time God called Samuel to be one of His prophets.
“Now the child Samuel ministered to the Lord before Heli [the high priest of the Temple]. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days―there was no manifest vision. Samuel slept in the Temple of the Lord, where the Ark of God was [Ark of the Covenant]. And the Lord called Samuel. And he answered: ‘Here I am!’ And he ran to the high priest Heli and said: ‘Here I am! For you called me!’ Heli said: ‘I did not call you! Go back and sleep!’ And Samuel went away and slept. And the Lord called Samuel again. And Samuel arose and went to Heli, and said: ‘Here I am! For you called me!’ Heli answered: ‘I did not call you, my son! Return and sleep!’ Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither had the word of the Lord been revealed to him. And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose up and went to Heli and said: ‘Here I am! For you called me!’ Then Heli understood that the Lord had called the child, and he said to Samuel: ‘Go, and sleep! And if He shall call you again, the you shall say: “Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening!”’ So Samuel went and slept in his place. And the Lord came and stood, and He called, as He had called the other times: ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ And Samuel said: ‘Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening!’” (1 Kings 3:1-10).
How many times has God called us? Have we been listening? Have we quickly risen―like Samuel, or Mary Magdalen―and gone to fulfill God’s commands and wishes? Could God say of us: “They would not listen, and they turned away the shoulder to depart. And they stopped their ears, not to hear!” (Zacharias 7:11). “The heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut―lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them!” (Matthew 13:15).
God Dethroned, Man Enthroned
Up to that time the Israelites were a theocracy―meaning that they were ruled by God, through God’s chosen prophets and judges. The Israelites desired to be like the other nations that surrounded them―which were monarchies, meaning that were ruled by one man, a king. The king is not chosen and called by divine election (God) but is chosen and called by human election (men). “Then all the ancients of Israel being assembled, came to Samuel and they said to him: ‘Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways! Make us a king―as all nations have―to judge us!’ And the word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel, that they should say: ‘Give us a king to judge us!’ And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel: ‘Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to thee! For they have not rejected thee, but Me, so that I should not reign over them! As they have done from the day when I brought them up out of Egypt until this day―forsaking me and serving other gods―so they are doing to thee!’” (1 Kings 8:4-8).
The problem with power is that it can easily corrupt―and, as they say, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely!” Many a king or prince allows power to go the head and makes them ignore God, or even turn away from God and refuse God’s absolute rule over everyone: “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes assembled together against the Lord and his Christ” (Acts 4:26). “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together! There is no fear of God before their eyes! They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways―there is none that doth good, no not one! They have not called upon God!” (Psalm 13:1-3; Psalm 52:1-6).
God Calls You!
You are called by God! Why? Is it because you are so important or holy? No―it is because you are a sinner! Our Lord comes to call sinners: “I am not come to call the just, but sinners!” (Matthew 9:13) … “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). Are you not a sinner? Of course you are ― “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God!” (Romans 3:23). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10).
Along the same lines, Our Lady revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “So great is my love for sinners, that if they would only call upon me in time and with sincerity, none of them would perish! But the sinners and the reprobate do no such thing―because the wounds of sin do not distress them, and the more often they are committed, the less regret or sorrow do they cause! ... As the Mother of clemency, it is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for failing to call upon me, so many souls should be lost! ... This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict yourself, lament and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls!”
Be Attentive to God’s Calls
Our Lady revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Live attentive to the calls, urgings and aspirations, by which the angels seek to rouse thee! … God calls and rouses the soul by His holy inspirations and continual promptings … The Most High does not immediately forsake His creatures―He renews His mercy and His assistance, recalling them again and again, and if they respond to His first call, He adds others graces, increasing and multiplying them in proportion as the soul corresponds ... But if man neglects to rise above his low desires and his forgetfulness, then he yields to the enemy of God and man. The more he alienates himself from the goodness of God, so much the more unworthy does he become of the secret callings of the Most High, and so much the less does he appreciate His assistance … The greatest happiness which can befall any soul in this mortal life, is that the Almighty call her to His house consecrated to His service.
The Best Call of All
“The greatest happiness which can befall any soul in this mortal life, is that the Almighty call the soul to His house consecrated to His service [monastery or convent]. For by this benefit He rescues the soul from a dangerous slavery and relieves her of the vile servitude of the world. Who is so dull and insipid as not to know the dangers of the worldly life? The better part is religious life and retirement―in it is found security, outside is a torment and a stormy sea, full of sorrow and unhappiness. Through the hardness of their heart and the total forgetfulness of themselves, men do not know this truth and are not attracted by its blessings. But thou, O soul, be not deaf to the voice of the Most High, attend and correspond to it in thy actions! I wish to remind thee, that one of the greatest snares of the demon is to counteract the call of the Lord, whenever He seeks to attract and incline the soul to a life of perfection in His service.”
DAILY THOUGHTS FOR THE ADVENT SEASON
Article 16
Christmas Eve, December 24th, 2022
Christmas is Simple, or Should Be!
Christmas Eve, December 24th, 2022
Christmas is Simple, or Should Be!
Job Simple
“There was a man whose name was Job, and that man was simple and upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil. And there were born to him seven sons and three daughters. And his possession was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a family exceeding great: and this man was great among all the people of the east. And his sons went, and made a feast by houses everyone in his day [That is, each made a feast in his own house and had his day, inviting the others, and their sisters]. And sending they called their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of their feasting were gone about, Job sent to them, and sanctified them: and rising up early offered holocausts for every one of them. For he said: ‘Lest perhaps my sons have sinned, and have blessed God in their hearts!’ [that is to say, committed sacrilege, by sinning in their parties and then blessing God]. So did Job all days” (Job 1:1-5).
Here we see the dangers of having many things and much wealth! Job was able to handle it; his children could not handle it. Job was not the one going from one party to another, but his children could not refrain from organizing parties and “living-it-up”! Job realized the dangers and potential sins that his children could be committing, as was afraid of them being hypocritical towards God—sinning through their parties and feasts and then mocking God by pretending to be religious. So Job would daily offer sacrifices to God—both to protect them from evil and make reparation for any evil they may have committed at their parties and feasts. Nevertheless, it seems that all their partying and feasting led them astray, and it is generally accepted that they were punished by God by death: “Does God pervert judgment, or does the Almighty overthrow that which is just? … Thy children have sinned against Him, and He hath left them in the hand of their iniquity” (Job 8:3-4).
False gods and Futile Festivities
This preoccupation with eating, drinking and playing is nothing new. We see it in time of Moses, in the desert, when “Aaron said to them: ‘Take the golden earrings from the ears of your wives, and your sons and daughters, and bring them to me!’ And the people did what he had commanded, bringing the earrings to Aaron. And when he had received them, he fashioned and made of them a molten calf. And they said: ‘These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt!’ And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and … rising in the morning, they offered holocausts, and peace victims, and the people sat down to eat, and drink, and they rose up to play. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Go, get thee down! Thy people, which thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, hath sinned! They have quickly strayed from the way which thou didst show them: and they have made to themselves a molten calf, and have adored it, and sacrificing victims to it, have said: “These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt”!’” (Exodus 32:2-8).
“Moses returned from the mount … And when he came near to the camp, he saw the calf and the dances: and being very angry, he threw the tables out of his hand, and broke them at the foot of the mount: and laying hold of the calf which they had made, he burnt it, and beat it to powder … And he said to Aaron: ‘What has this people done to thee, that thou shouldst bring upon them a most heinous sin?’ And he answered him: ‘Let not my lord be offended! For thou knowest this people, that they are prone to evil. They said to me: “Make us gods, that may go before us: for as to this Moses, who brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is befallen him!”’” (Exodus 32:19-23).
When the Cat’s Away, the Mice...
As the saying goes, “While the cat’s away, the mice will play” and here, while Moses was away, the Chosen People forgot their One True God, and replaced him with this idol—the golden calf. Something similar has happened to Christmas. We have forgotten the real purpose of Christmas, the coming of the One True God, Jesus, to come and bring us out of our own “Land of Egypt” which is the increasingly sinful world that surrounds us. For most people, Christmas will be a matter of sitting down to eat and drink, and then rising up to play. Out of the estimated two million Israelites that were there in the desert, only one of them—Moses—was in the presence of God, up on the mountain with Him for forty-days and forty-nights.
Forty Days of Fun, or Forty Days with God
That mystical number of forty, has some significance here. Advent used to be a forty-day period—beginning in mid-November. These were forty days of preparation for the coming of God. Then, when God came at Christmas, there were and still are the forty day of Christmas, which take us up to the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary on February 2nd. How many people have spent these days of Advent on the mountain with God? How many will spend the forty days of Christmas on the mountain with God? God knows! We can only guess! But our guess might well be pretty accurate if we say “Hardly anyone will be found on that mountain!” The world is only giving God lip-service, while it adores the world and the parties and feasts that the world has to offer, especially at this time of year. What should be a spiritual feast, has degenerated into a material feast. Yes, we all celebrate Christmas, but in what manner? Like Job would? Or like Job’s sinful children? Like Moses would? Or like Moses’ sinful Israelites? God’s anger visited both Job’s children and the Israelites, just as Our Lady of La Salette says that God’s anger will visit us:
Fun will end up not being Funny
“Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God. God will strike in an unprecedented way. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together. The leaders of the people of God have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. Lucifer together with a large number of demons will be unloosed from Hell [much like Satan was unleashed by God upon Job]; they will put an end to Faith little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them [lukewarmness] in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell; several religious institutions will lose the Faith and will lose many souls [as in the case of the Job’s children and the Israelites in the desert]. Evil books will be abundant on Earth and the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening in all that concerns the service of God.
“People will think of nothing but amusement [like Job’s children and the idolaters with the golden calf, sitting down to eat and drink, and rising up to play]. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side until they reach fullness of years. Nature is asking for vengeance because of man, and she trembles with dread at what must happen to the Earth stained with crime. Tremble, Earth, and you who proclaim yourselves as serving Jesus Christ, and who, on the inside, only adore yourselves, tremble for God will hand you over to His enemy, because the holy places are in a state of corruption.” (Our Lady of La Salette, in 1846). At Fatima in 1917 and the alleged apparition (?) in Akita in 1973, she repeats this general warning.
Destroy the ‘golden calf’ Christmas
One of major complaints Our Lady had at La Salette was that people no longer attributed much importance to religion and their religious duties. They had become lukewarm. Today, matters have not improved, but have grown much worse. But Our Lady speaks of “the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers” ― hopefully this includes us, who do not want to be feasting with Job’s children and who do not want to adore the golden Christmas calf, with its ritual of sitting down to eat and drink and rising up to play, with God stuffed into a closet! Our Lady says that these “children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side until they reach fullness of years.” Let us return, therefore to the true notion of a Christian and Marian Christmas and, like Moses, burn and pulverize the ‘golden calf’ Christmas which only serves to fulfill Our Lady’s La Salette prophecy of “People will think of nothing but amusement.” We may find ourselves alone in this desire and resolution, but at least we will be alone with God and God alone.
“The Two Standards” and “The Two Christmases”
You probably have done an Ignatian Retreat at some point in your life and so are well aware of St. Ignatius’ classic meditation on “The Two Standards.” For those who have no idea what it is all about, very briefly, it is the meditation where the retreatant has to make a basic choice: whether to join the small army of Heaven led by Christ, or to join the much larger army of the world led by the devil.
We could take the same idea of “The Two Standards” and apply it the forthcoming Christmas, except we shall change the leaders of the armies (though the Ignatian model is a better one) and put the sisters Mary and Martha at the head of the armies. Here is the Scripture reference: “Jesus entered into a certain town and a certain woman, named Martha, received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who, sitting at the Lord’s feet, heard His word. But Martha was busy about much serving. Martha stood and said: ‘Lord! Hast Thou no care that my sister hath left me alone to serve? Speak to her, therefore, that she help me!’ And the Lord answering, said to her: ‘Martha! Martha! Thou art careful and art troubled about many things! But one thing is necessary! Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her!’” (Luke 10:38-42).
On one side, we have the small army of Mary, whose battle plan this Christmas is to sit at the feet of the new-born Christ, contemplating Him and drawing all kinds of nourishment and fruits from this “Bread that has come down from Heaven.” Her battle cry is “Love God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength!”
On the other side, we have the much larger and more popular army of Martha, whose battle plan is to busy herself with a myriad of things that she has planned for this Christmas. For her, the more there is to see, eat and do, the better Christmas will be. Her battle cry is: “Love your neighbor as yourself!”
This may seem comical, but it is also very true! “Many a true word said in jest!” Which “Standard” will I enlist under? How will I spend my Christmas? Will it be a Christmas that is sincerely focused on Christ―“a Mary Christmas”? Or will it be a Christmas mainly focused on my neighbor and myself―“a Martha Christmas”?
Danger! Busy Men at Work!
Being too busy, in the words of Fr. Faber, is one of chief assistants to the despicable, but ‘sweet-feeling’, disease of lukewarmness. It takes us away from God and our communication with God, which is done through our spiritual exercises. Fr. Faber says that one of the main remedies to lukewarmness is to make oneself less busy with our daily duties (Martha), so that we can find more time to think about and meditate upon eternal truths (like Mary). He says that the first remedy for lukewarmness is to meditate more, then he writes:
“The second remedy is not having so many things to do! It is no use. The times are busy. But we cannot save our souls if we have so many things to do. But what is the remedy? Good soul! There are some knots in life which cannot be untied; the thing is to cut them, and leave the consequences to help themselves! If you have more duties to do than you can do well, you must boldly neglect some of them. Only have Faith, and God will spirit the consequences away, so that you will see nothing more of them. The third remedy is the practice of silence. Not in any offensive or singular way, but in proportion to our state of life. God speaks in the silence of the mind and heart. The world is all about noise and distractions. Jesus will raise us back to life—to a true spiritual life—but we must banish the noise and tumult of the world.”
Fr. Faber hits the Christmas nail right on the head. What is Christmas like for most people? BUSY and NOISY! When you have those two around, you can wave a potentially spiritual Christmas “good-bye”! The best you will get is the lip-service that Our Lord complains about: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8). Christmas should be, par exellence, the time to “Seek ye first the kingdom of God!” (Luke 12:31). It is only when we seek that we shall find. It is only when we knock on Christ’s door, that it will be opened to us; if we are going to be knocking on other doors, then we will get little or nothing, except, perhaps, a decent Christmas meal and a present or two!
Worrying About the Wrong Things
“Be not solicitous therefore, saying, ‘What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed?’ For after all these things do the heathens seek!” (Matthew 6:31-32).
“No man can serve two masters [a spiritual Christmas and a material Christmas]. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon! Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life and what you shall eat; nor for your body and what you shall put on! Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the clothing? [and isn’t Christmas more than just food, drink, parties and presents?].” (Matthew 6:22-23).
The Seeds of Christmas
Christmas will be like the planting of a seed; but the soul, like soil, needs to be receptive and free from the weeds of the world. Our Lord’s words from the parable of the Sower of Seed come to mind here: “He that received the seed among thorns, is he that heareth the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choketh up the word, and he becometh fruitless” (Matthew 13:22). This is what will happen to us if we do not remove the thorns and weeds of the world before Christmas arrives—hence the time of Advent, a time of work and penance in tilling and preparing the soil of the soul.
If we prepare well, then the following words form the same parable will apply to us: “But he that received the seed upon good ground, is he that heareth the word, and understandeth, and beareth fruit, and yieldeth the one an hundredfold, and another sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold” (Matthew 13:23).
The world wants to impose upon us its false Christmas spirit and false Christmas customs. It is time to firmly and politely resist this vain, emotional and worldly gospel. It is time to leave the town of Bethlehem (the material Christmas) and seek out a cave (a lack of materialism) in which to await the graces Christ comes to gives us at Christmas.
‘Inns’ and Outs of Life
Of course, we will be frowned upon, just like Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem, and there will no room for us in the clicks or cliques that surround us, as there was no room for them at the various houses and inns. Those are the ‘inns’ and outs of life. Who cares? We seek to please God, not men! “Do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ!” (Galatians 1:10).
“What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God; as God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:16-17).
The hour is late, it is the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute of Advent, but still the Master comes to seek laborers, saying: “Why stand you here all the day idle? Go you also into my vineyard!” (Matthew 20:6-7). The Good Thief painfully and humbly worked out his salvation at the ‘eleventh hour’ of his life! “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). “If you turn to the Lord with all your heart, put away the strange gods from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve Him only: He will deliver you” (1 Kings 7:3).
It is never too late to switch ships, change direction, do an about-turn and choose to spiritualize your Christmas rather than materialize your Christmas! Have a Merry Mary Christmas!
ONCE AGAIN, RE-POSTED BELOW, YOU WILL FIND ALL THE MATERIAL THAT YOU NEED TO SPIRTUALIZE YOU CHRIST
► SUGGESTIONS FOR CHRISTMAS (click here)
This webpage provides you with many suggestions on how to spiritualize your Christmas. How to “Advertise Christ in Your Christmas” … How to “Prepare Your Presents for Christ” … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Celebration Schedule” … How to “Prepare Your Spiritual Food” (Prayers & Readings) … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Posters and Handouts” (download them from this website) … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Music” … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Celebration Activities” … How to “Prepare Your Symbolic Christmas Food and Drink”.
► CHRISTMAS POSTER DOWNLOADS (click here)
1. Christ Comes First in Christmas (a set of 24 posters)
2. If Jesus Came for Christmas Day (a poetry poster with Jesus knocking on the door)
3. Little Drummer Boy Poster (with the words to the song)
► CHRISTMAS EVE FAMILY RITUAL DOWNLOAD (click here)
1. The Purpose of Christmas (Read Christmas Eve Morning)
2. Morning Prayers & the Angelus
3. Fifteen Rosary Meditations for the Whole Day
4. The Story of St. Jerome Meeting Jesus at Bethlehem on Christmas Eve
5. Examination of Conscience (download available at devotiontoourlady.com)
6. Prayers and Ritual for the Family Blessing of the Crib
7. Proclamation of Christ’s Birth from the Church’s Martyrology for Christmas Eve
8. Prayers & Readings for the Lighting the Christ Candle
9. Prayer and Ritual for Placing Christ in His Crib
10. Liturgical Hymns and Carols (to sing, read or recite)
11. Prayers and Ritual for Eating the Oplatki (Christmas wafer bread)
12. Overnight Vigil arrangements and Prayers
► CHRISTMAS DAY FAMILY RITUAL DOWNLOAD (click here)
1. Morning Proclamation of Christ's Birth
2. Christmas Day Morning Prayers and Angelus
3. Fifteen Decade Rosary with meditations all on the Nativity, to be scheduled at intervals throughout the day
4. Day Vigil at the Crib arrangements
5. The Midday Angelus
6. Prayers and Reading before, during and after the Christmas Dinner
7. The Oplatki custom
8. The Evening Angelus
► CHRISTMAS QUIZ (click here)
A broad range of questions from the catechism that could be used for a Christmas Quiz in the family
Hopefully a Christmas themed quiz will also be added to this page before Christmas Day
► CHRISTMAS DAILY PRAYERS FOR EACH DAY OF THE WEEK ― click on any of the day links
Sundays ― Mondays ― Tuesdays ― Wednesdays ― Thursdays ― Fridays ― Saturdays
► CHRISTMAS FOOD FOR THOUGHT (click here) ―
A recipe for Lamb in honor of the birth of the Lamb of God
► CHRISTMAS SPIRITUAL READING
Christmas with St. Thomas Aquinas for every day of the Christmas season (click here)
Christmas with Dom Guéranger for every day of the Christmas season (click here)
“There was a man whose name was Job, and that man was simple and upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil. And there were born to him seven sons and three daughters. And his possession was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a family exceeding great: and this man was great among all the people of the east. And his sons went, and made a feast by houses everyone in his day [That is, each made a feast in his own house and had his day, inviting the others, and their sisters]. And sending they called their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of their feasting were gone about, Job sent to them, and sanctified them: and rising up early offered holocausts for every one of them. For he said: ‘Lest perhaps my sons have sinned, and have blessed God in their hearts!’ [that is to say, committed sacrilege, by sinning in their parties and then blessing God]. So did Job all days” (Job 1:1-5).
Here we see the dangers of having many things and much wealth! Job was able to handle it; his children could not handle it. Job was not the one going from one party to another, but his children could not refrain from organizing parties and “living-it-up”! Job realized the dangers and potential sins that his children could be committing, as was afraid of them being hypocritical towards God—sinning through their parties and feasts and then mocking God by pretending to be religious. So Job would daily offer sacrifices to God—both to protect them from evil and make reparation for any evil they may have committed at their parties and feasts. Nevertheless, it seems that all their partying and feasting led them astray, and it is generally accepted that they were punished by God by death: “Does God pervert judgment, or does the Almighty overthrow that which is just? … Thy children have sinned against Him, and He hath left them in the hand of their iniquity” (Job 8:3-4).
False gods and Futile Festivities
This preoccupation with eating, drinking and playing is nothing new. We see it in time of Moses, in the desert, when “Aaron said to them: ‘Take the golden earrings from the ears of your wives, and your sons and daughters, and bring them to me!’ And the people did what he had commanded, bringing the earrings to Aaron. And when he had received them, he fashioned and made of them a molten calf. And they said: ‘These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt!’ And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and … rising in the morning, they offered holocausts, and peace victims, and the people sat down to eat, and drink, and they rose up to play. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Go, get thee down! Thy people, which thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, hath sinned! They have quickly strayed from the way which thou didst show them: and they have made to themselves a molten calf, and have adored it, and sacrificing victims to it, have said: “These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt”!’” (Exodus 32:2-8).
“Moses returned from the mount … And when he came near to the camp, he saw the calf and the dances: and being very angry, he threw the tables out of his hand, and broke them at the foot of the mount: and laying hold of the calf which they had made, he burnt it, and beat it to powder … And he said to Aaron: ‘What has this people done to thee, that thou shouldst bring upon them a most heinous sin?’ And he answered him: ‘Let not my lord be offended! For thou knowest this people, that they are prone to evil. They said to me: “Make us gods, that may go before us: for as to this Moses, who brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is befallen him!”’” (Exodus 32:19-23).
When the Cat’s Away, the Mice...
As the saying goes, “While the cat’s away, the mice will play” and here, while Moses was away, the Chosen People forgot their One True God, and replaced him with this idol—the golden calf. Something similar has happened to Christmas. We have forgotten the real purpose of Christmas, the coming of the One True God, Jesus, to come and bring us out of our own “Land of Egypt” which is the increasingly sinful world that surrounds us. For most people, Christmas will be a matter of sitting down to eat and drink, and then rising up to play. Out of the estimated two million Israelites that were there in the desert, only one of them—Moses—was in the presence of God, up on the mountain with Him for forty-days and forty-nights.
Forty Days of Fun, or Forty Days with God
That mystical number of forty, has some significance here. Advent used to be a forty-day period—beginning in mid-November. These were forty days of preparation for the coming of God. Then, when God came at Christmas, there were and still are the forty day of Christmas, which take us up to the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary on February 2nd. How many people have spent these days of Advent on the mountain with God? How many will spend the forty days of Christmas on the mountain with God? God knows! We can only guess! But our guess might well be pretty accurate if we say “Hardly anyone will be found on that mountain!” The world is only giving God lip-service, while it adores the world and the parties and feasts that the world has to offer, especially at this time of year. What should be a spiritual feast, has degenerated into a material feast. Yes, we all celebrate Christmas, but in what manner? Like Job would? Or like Job’s sinful children? Like Moses would? Or like Moses’ sinful Israelites? God’s anger visited both Job’s children and the Israelites, just as Our Lady of La Salette says that God’s anger will visit us:
Fun will end up not being Funny
“Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God. God will strike in an unprecedented way. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together. The leaders of the people of God have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. Lucifer together with a large number of demons will be unloosed from Hell [much like Satan was unleashed by God upon Job]; they will put an end to Faith little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them [lukewarmness] in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell; several religious institutions will lose the Faith and will lose many souls [as in the case of the Job’s children and the Israelites in the desert]. Evil books will be abundant on Earth and the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening in all that concerns the service of God.
“People will think of nothing but amusement [like Job’s children and the idolaters with the golden calf, sitting down to eat and drink, and rising up to play]. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side until they reach fullness of years. Nature is asking for vengeance because of man, and she trembles with dread at what must happen to the Earth stained with crime. Tremble, Earth, and you who proclaim yourselves as serving Jesus Christ, and who, on the inside, only adore yourselves, tremble for God will hand you over to His enemy, because the holy places are in a state of corruption.” (Our Lady of La Salette, in 1846). At Fatima in 1917 and the alleged apparition (?) in Akita in 1973, she repeats this general warning.
Destroy the ‘golden calf’ Christmas
One of major complaints Our Lady had at La Salette was that people no longer attributed much importance to religion and their religious duties. They had become lukewarm. Today, matters have not improved, but have grown much worse. But Our Lady speaks of “the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers” ― hopefully this includes us, who do not want to be feasting with Job’s children and who do not want to adore the golden Christmas calf, with its ritual of sitting down to eat and drink and rising up to play, with God stuffed into a closet! Our Lady says that these “children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side until they reach fullness of years.” Let us return, therefore to the true notion of a Christian and Marian Christmas and, like Moses, burn and pulverize the ‘golden calf’ Christmas which only serves to fulfill Our Lady’s La Salette prophecy of “People will think of nothing but amusement.” We may find ourselves alone in this desire and resolution, but at least we will be alone with God and God alone.
“The Two Standards” and “The Two Christmases”
You probably have done an Ignatian Retreat at some point in your life and so are well aware of St. Ignatius’ classic meditation on “The Two Standards.” For those who have no idea what it is all about, very briefly, it is the meditation where the retreatant has to make a basic choice: whether to join the small army of Heaven led by Christ, or to join the much larger army of the world led by the devil.
We could take the same idea of “The Two Standards” and apply it the forthcoming Christmas, except we shall change the leaders of the armies (though the Ignatian model is a better one) and put the sisters Mary and Martha at the head of the armies. Here is the Scripture reference: “Jesus entered into a certain town and a certain woman, named Martha, received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who, sitting at the Lord’s feet, heard His word. But Martha was busy about much serving. Martha stood and said: ‘Lord! Hast Thou no care that my sister hath left me alone to serve? Speak to her, therefore, that she help me!’ And the Lord answering, said to her: ‘Martha! Martha! Thou art careful and art troubled about many things! But one thing is necessary! Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her!’” (Luke 10:38-42).
On one side, we have the small army of Mary, whose battle plan this Christmas is to sit at the feet of the new-born Christ, contemplating Him and drawing all kinds of nourishment and fruits from this “Bread that has come down from Heaven.” Her battle cry is “Love God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength!”
On the other side, we have the much larger and more popular army of Martha, whose battle plan is to busy herself with a myriad of things that she has planned for this Christmas. For her, the more there is to see, eat and do, the better Christmas will be. Her battle cry is: “Love your neighbor as yourself!”
This may seem comical, but it is also very true! “Many a true word said in jest!” Which “Standard” will I enlist under? How will I spend my Christmas? Will it be a Christmas that is sincerely focused on Christ―“a Mary Christmas”? Or will it be a Christmas mainly focused on my neighbor and myself―“a Martha Christmas”?
Danger! Busy Men at Work!
Being too busy, in the words of Fr. Faber, is one of chief assistants to the despicable, but ‘sweet-feeling’, disease of lukewarmness. It takes us away from God and our communication with God, which is done through our spiritual exercises. Fr. Faber says that one of the main remedies to lukewarmness is to make oneself less busy with our daily duties (Martha), so that we can find more time to think about and meditate upon eternal truths (like Mary). He says that the first remedy for lukewarmness is to meditate more, then he writes:
“The second remedy is not having so many things to do! It is no use. The times are busy. But we cannot save our souls if we have so many things to do. But what is the remedy? Good soul! There are some knots in life which cannot be untied; the thing is to cut them, and leave the consequences to help themselves! If you have more duties to do than you can do well, you must boldly neglect some of them. Only have Faith, and God will spirit the consequences away, so that you will see nothing more of them. The third remedy is the practice of silence. Not in any offensive or singular way, but in proportion to our state of life. God speaks in the silence of the mind and heart. The world is all about noise and distractions. Jesus will raise us back to life—to a true spiritual life—but we must banish the noise and tumult of the world.”
Fr. Faber hits the Christmas nail right on the head. What is Christmas like for most people? BUSY and NOISY! When you have those two around, you can wave a potentially spiritual Christmas “good-bye”! The best you will get is the lip-service that Our Lord complains about: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8). Christmas should be, par exellence, the time to “Seek ye first the kingdom of God!” (Luke 12:31). It is only when we seek that we shall find. It is only when we knock on Christ’s door, that it will be opened to us; if we are going to be knocking on other doors, then we will get little or nothing, except, perhaps, a decent Christmas meal and a present or two!
Worrying About the Wrong Things
“Be not solicitous therefore, saying, ‘What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed?’ For after all these things do the heathens seek!” (Matthew 6:31-32).
“No man can serve two masters [a spiritual Christmas and a material Christmas]. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon! Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life and what you shall eat; nor for your body and what you shall put on! Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the clothing? [and isn’t Christmas more than just food, drink, parties and presents?].” (Matthew 6:22-23).
The Seeds of Christmas
Christmas will be like the planting of a seed; but the soul, like soil, needs to be receptive and free from the weeds of the world. Our Lord’s words from the parable of the Sower of Seed come to mind here: “He that received the seed among thorns, is he that heareth the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choketh up the word, and he becometh fruitless” (Matthew 13:22). This is what will happen to us if we do not remove the thorns and weeds of the world before Christmas arrives—hence the time of Advent, a time of work and penance in tilling and preparing the soil of the soul.
If we prepare well, then the following words form the same parable will apply to us: “But he that received the seed upon good ground, is he that heareth the word, and understandeth, and beareth fruit, and yieldeth the one an hundredfold, and another sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold” (Matthew 13:23).
The world wants to impose upon us its false Christmas spirit and false Christmas customs. It is time to firmly and politely resist this vain, emotional and worldly gospel. It is time to leave the town of Bethlehem (the material Christmas) and seek out a cave (a lack of materialism) in which to await the graces Christ comes to gives us at Christmas.
‘Inns’ and Outs of Life
Of course, we will be frowned upon, just like Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem, and there will no room for us in the clicks or cliques that surround us, as there was no room for them at the various houses and inns. Those are the ‘inns’ and outs of life. Who cares? We seek to please God, not men! “Do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ!” (Galatians 1:10).
“What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God; as God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:16-17).
The hour is late, it is the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute of Advent, but still the Master comes to seek laborers, saying: “Why stand you here all the day idle? Go you also into my vineyard!” (Matthew 20:6-7). The Good Thief painfully and humbly worked out his salvation at the ‘eleventh hour’ of his life! “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). “If you turn to the Lord with all your heart, put away the strange gods from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve Him only: He will deliver you” (1 Kings 7:3).
It is never too late to switch ships, change direction, do an about-turn and choose to spiritualize your Christmas rather than materialize your Christmas! Have a Merry Mary Christmas!
ONCE AGAIN, RE-POSTED BELOW, YOU WILL FIND ALL THE MATERIAL THAT YOU NEED TO SPIRTUALIZE YOU CHRIST
► SUGGESTIONS FOR CHRISTMAS (click here)
This webpage provides you with many suggestions on how to spiritualize your Christmas. How to “Advertise Christ in Your Christmas” … How to “Prepare Your Presents for Christ” … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Celebration Schedule” … How to “Prepare Your Spiritual Food” (Prayers & Readings) … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Posters and Handouts” (download them from this website) … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Music” … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Celebration Activities” … How to “Prepare Your Symbolic Christmas Food and Drink”.
► CHRISTMAS POSTER DOWNLOADS (click here)
1. Christ Comes First in Christmas (a set of 24 posters)
2. If Jesus Came for Christmas Day (a poetry poster with Jesus knocking on the door)
3. Little Drummer Boy Poster (with the words to the song)
► CHRISTMAS EVE FAMILY RITUAL DOWNLOAD (click here)
1. The Purpose of Christmas (Read Christmas Eve Morning)
2. Morning Prayers & the Angelus
3. Fifteen Rosary Meditations for the Whole Day
4. The Story of St. Jerome Meeting Jesus at Bethlehem on Christmas Eve
5. Examination of Conscience (download available at devotiontoourlady.com)
6. Prayers and Ritual for the Family Blessing of the Crib
7. Proclamation of Christ’s Birth from the Church’s Martyrology for Christmas Eve
8. Prayers & Readings for the Lighting the Christ Candle
9. Prayer and Ritual for Placing Christ in His Crib
10. Liturgical Hymns and Carols (to sing, read or recite)
11. Prayers and Ritual for Eating the Oplatki (Christmas wafer bread)
12. Overnight Vigil arrangements and Prayers
► CHRISTMAS DAY FAMILY RITUAL DOWNLOAD (click here)
1. Morning Proclamation of Christ's Birth
2. Christmas Day Morning Prayers and Angelus
3. Fifteen Decade Rosary with meditations all on the Nativity, to be scheduled at intervals throughout the day
4. Day Vigil at the Crib arrangements
5. The Midday Angelus
6. Prayers and Reading before, during and after the Christmas Dinner
7. The Oplatki custom
8. The Evening Angelus
► CHRISTMAS QUIZ (click here)
A broad range of questions from the catechism that could be used for a Christmas Quiz in the family
Hopefully a Christmas themed quiz will also be added to this page before Christmas Day
► CHRISTMAS DAILY PRAYERS FOR EACH DAY OF THE WEEK ― click on any of the day links
Sundays ― Mondays ― Tuesdays ― Wednesdays ― Thursdays ― Fridays ― Saturdays
► CHRISTMAS FOOD FOR THOUGHT (click here) ―
A recipe for Lamb in honor of the birth of the Lamb of God
► CHRISTMAS SPIRITUAL READING
Christmas with St. Thomas Aquinas for every day of the Christmas season (click here)
Christmas with Dom Guéranger for every day of the Christmas season (click here)
Article 15
Friday December 23rd, 2022
Make it a Once in a Lifetime Christmas!
Friday December 23rd, 2022
Make it a Once in a Lifetime Christmas!
Enough of the “Same Old … Same Old”!
Isn’t it about time that we tried to give Our Lord what He really deserves? For how many Christmases have we “shortchanged” Our Lord? Are we not embarrassed? Have we no shame? Is that how we fulfill the commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). We can quite easily become accustomed to the mediocre―to the point where we imagine the mediocre to be excellence. Our “good enough” is frankly not good enough!
It is much the same with regard to Heaven―everyone somehow imagines that they are “good enough” to get into Heaven. Yet, the vast majority are just not good enough―regardless of what they thought of themselves. Some need to go to Purgatory, the vast majority to Hell. St. Padre Pio used to say that (except in cases of true martyrdom) hardly any soul went straight to Heaven. “If the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1 Peter 4:18). When you really and honestly think about it―this is only fair and to be expected, because sin (even venial) is the greatest evil that exists in this world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke; My Catholic Faith, Bishop Morrow, STD).
God―since He is all perfect―expects and demands the best. Unfortunately, from our viewpoint, doing our best has come to mean just getting by. Our minimums have become our maximums. It may have been the case with Cain and Abel―whereby God accepted Abel’s sacrifice because He gave God his best, but rejected Cain’s sacrifice because he did not give his best: “Abel offered to God a sacrifice exceeding that of Cain” (Hebrews 11:4). If you not demanding the best from yourself, you cannot expect the best from God. You cannot expect God to find your “second-best” as being acceptable. We expect the best from others. It is time for us to impose the same standards on ourselves that we place upon those around us. You may not be capable of equaling the efforts or successes of others, but you can focus on doing better than you have ever done.
A Merry Christmas or a More Christmas?
What is the standard of excellence that you should set for yourself? It is found in one word: MORE! With every passing year the child at school learns and knows MORE! With constant practice, a player of a musical instrument should become MORE proficient. With regular training, an athlete should be able to knock MORE and MORE seconds off the time it takes him to run a 100yds or 1 mile. A weightlifter will likewise be able to lift MORE and MORE weight. After all these years of Christmases, why is that we are not giving Jesus MORE and MORE? Why do we not give Him MORE attention, MORE thought, MORE prayers, MORE sacrifices, MORE time and make Him the subject and focal point of our Christmas conversations?
St. John the Baptist had the correct attitude towards Christ when he said: “He must increase, but I must decrease!” (John 3:30). This Christmas, let Christ increase and let the secular decrease! Let conversations about Christ and Christmas increase, and let worldly, trivial, vain conversation decrease! Yes―there will be family opposition, there will be grumbling, there will be sour Christmas faces, there will be sulking, there will be resentment―but just think of the grumbling, sourness, sulking and resentment that they will undergo in the fires of Purgatory, or, God forbid, the fires of Hell! Get your grumbling, sourness, sulking and resentment at a heavily discounted price here on Earth, rather than pay the full amount after death! If Our Lord has said that “every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment!” (Matthew 12:36) ― then what about, not only the idle words of Christmas, but what about the neglect of Christ at Christmas! How will that be judged in comparison to ‘mere’ idle words?
“Ah, but” you will say, “God is kind and merciful!” Of course He is―there is no doubt about that―however, in the ranking table of sins, it is the sins against God and the Faith that are the most offensive. In the ranking table of important feasts, Christmas is in the top three―together with Easter and Pentecost. If Our Lord―as the Sacred Heart―took time out to appear to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and complain about our lack of love towards Him, then the same can be said for Christmas, where Christ―to all intents and purposes―has been dethroned, His crib usurped and His birthday stolen. We act as if it was our own birthday. We are the recipients of many presents―while Christ gets none. We stuff ourselves with expensive foods―while Christ gets none. We wish others a “Merry Christmas”―while Christ gets no wishes. We focus on each other―while nobody focuses on Christ.
Let Christ Make You a New Christmas!
In the Book of the Apocalypse, Christ says: “Behold, I make all things new!” (Apocalypse 21:5). Holy Scripture adds: “If anyone be in Christ, then he is a new creature―the old things are passed away, behold all things are made new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). “Put on the new man, who, according to God, is created in justice and holiness of truth!” (Ephesians 4:24). “Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above! Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth!” (Colossians 3:1-2). Christ will give you a new heart for Christmas and a new spirit: “I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you! And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh!” (Ezechiel 36:26).
► SUGGESTIONS FOR CHRISTMAS (click here)
This webpage provides you with many suggestions on how to spiritualize your Christmas. How to “Advertise Christ in Your Christmas” … How to “Prepare Your Presents for Christ” … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Celebration Schedule” … How to “Prepare Your Spiritual Food” (Prayers & Readings) … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Posters and Handouts” (download them from this website) … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Music” … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Celebration Activities” … How to “Prepare Your Symbolic Christmas Food and Drink”.
► CHRISTMAS POSTER DOWNLOADS (click here)
1. Christ Comes First in Christmas (a set of 24 posters)
2. If Jesus Came for Christmas Day (a poetry poster with Jesus knocking on the door)
3. Little Drummer Boy Poster (with the words to the song)
► CHRISTMAS EVE FAMILY RITUAL DOWNLOAD (click here)
1. The Purpose of Christmas (Read Christmas Eve Morning)
2. Morning Prayers & the Angelus
3. Fifteen Rosary Meditations for the Whole Day
4. The Story of St. Jerome Meeting Jesus at Bethlehem on Christmas Eve
5. Examination of Conscience (download available at devotiontoourlady.com)
6. Prayers and Ritual for the Family Blessing of the Crib
7. Proclamation of Christ’s Birth from the Church’s Martyrology for Christmas Eve
8. Prayers & Readings for the Lighting the Christ Candle
9. Prayer and Ritual for Placing Christ in His Crib
10. Liturgical Hymns and Carols (to sing, read or recite)
11. Prayers and Ritual for Eating the Oplatki (Christmas wafer bread)
12. Overnight Vigil arrangements and Prayers
► CHRISTMAS DAY FAMILY RITUAL DOWNLOAD (click here)
1. Morning Proclamation of Christ's Birth
2. Christmas Day Morning Prayers and Angelus
3. Fifteen Decade Rosary with meditations all on the Nativity, to be scheduled at intervals throughout the day
4. Day Vigil at the Crib arrangements
5. The Midday Angelus
6. Prayers and Reading before, during and after the Christmas Dinner
7. The Oplatki custom
8. The Evening Angelus
► CHRISTMAS QUIZ (click here)
A broad range of questions from the catechism that could be used for a Christmas Quiz in the family
Hopefully a Christmas themed quiz will also be added to this page before Christmas Day
► CHRISTMAS DAILY PRAYERS FOR EACH DAY OF THE WEEK ― click on any of the day links
Sundays ― Mondays ― Tuesdays ― Wednesdays ― Thursdays ― Fridays ― Saturdays
► CHRISTMAS FOOD FOR THOUGHT (click here) ―
A recipe for Lamb in honor of the birth of the Lamb of God
► CHRISTMAS SPIRITUAL READING
Christmas with St. Thomas Aquinas for every day of the Christmas season (click here)
Christmas with Dom Guéranger for every day of the Christmas season (click here)
Isn’t it about time that we tried to give Our Lord what He really deserves? For how many Christmases have we “shortchanged” Our Lord? Are we not embarrassed? Have we no shame? Is that how we fulfill the commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). We can quite easily become accustomed to the mediocre―to the point where we imagine the mediocre to be excellence. Our “good enough” is frankly not good enough!
It is much the same with regard to Heaven―everyone somehow imagines that they are “good enough” to get into Heaven. Yet, the vast majority are just not good enough―regardless of what they thought of themselves. Some need to go to Purgatory, the vast majority to Hell. St. Padre Pio used to say that (except in cases of true martyrdom) hardly any soul went straight to Heaven. “If the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1 Peter 4:18). When you really and honestly think about it―this is only fair and to be expected, because sin (even venial) is the greatest evil that exists in this world: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke; My Catholic Faith, Bishop Morrow, STD).
God―since He is all perfect―expects and demands the best. Unfortunately, from our viewpoint, doing our best has come to mean just getting by. Our minimums have become our maximums. It may have been the case with Cain and Abel―whereby God accepted Abel’s sacrifice because He gave God his best, but rejected Cain’s sacrifice because he did not give his best: “Abel offered to God a sacrifice exceeding that of Cain” (Hebrews 11:4). If you not demanding the best from yourself, you cannot expect the best from God. You cannot expect God to find your “second-best” as being acceptable. We expect the best from others. It is time for us to impose the same standards on ourselves that we place upon those around us. You may not be capable of equaling the efforts or successes of others, but you can focus on doing better than you have ever done.
A Merry Christmas or a More Christmas?
What is the standard of excellence that you should set for yourself? It is found in one word: MORE! With every passing year the child at school learns and knows MORE! With constant practice, a player of a musical instrument should become MORE proficient. With regular training, an athlete should be able to knock MORE and MORE seconds off the time it takes him to run a 100yds or 1 mile. A weightlifter will likewise be able to lift MORE and MORE weight. After all these years of Christmases, why is that we are not giving Jesus MORE and MORE? Why do we not give Him MORE attention, MORE thought, MORE prayers, MORE sacrifices, MORE time and make Him the subject and focal point of our Christmas conversations?
St. John the Baptist had the correct attitude towards Christ when he said: “He must increase, but I must decrease!” (John 3:30). This Christmas, let Christ increase and let the secular decrease! Let conversations about Christ and Christmas increase, and let worldly, trivial, vain conversation decrease! Yes―there will be family opposition, there will be grumbling, there will be sour Christmas faces, there will be sulking, there will be resentment―but just think of the grumbling, sourness, sulking and resentment that they will undergo in the fires of Purgatory, or, God forbid, the fires of Hell! Get your grumbling, sourness, sulking and resentment at a heavily discounted price here on Earth, rather than pay the full amount after death! If Our Lord has said that “every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment!” (Matthew 12:36) ― then what about, not only the idle words of Christmas, but what about the neglect of Christ at Christmas! How will that be judged in comparison to ‘mere’ idle words?
“Ah, but” you will say, “God is kind and merciful!” Of course He is―there is no doubt about that―however, in the ranking table of sins, it is the sins against God and the Faith that are the most offensive. In the ranking table of important feasts, Christmas is in the top three―together with Easter and Pentecost. If Our Lord―as the Sacred Heart―took time out to appear to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and complain about our lack of love towards Him, then the same can be said for Christmas, where Christ―to all intents and purposes―has been dethroned, His crib usurped and His birthday stolen. We act as if it was our own birthday. We are the recipients of many presents―while Christ gets none. We stuff ourselves with expensive foods―while Christ gets none. We wish others a “Merry Christmas”―while Christ gets no wishes. We focus on each other―while nobody focuses on Christ.
Let Christ Make You a New Christmas!
In the Book of the Apocalypse, Christ says: “Behold, I make all things new!” (Apocalypse 21:5). Holy Scripture adds: “If anyone be in Christ, then he is a new creature―the old things are passed away, behold all things are made new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). “Put on the new man, who, according to God, is created in justice and holiness of truth!” (Ephesians 4:24). “Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above! Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth!” (Colossians 3:1-2). Christ will give you a new heart for Christmas and a new spirit: “I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you! And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh!” (Ezechiel 36:26).
► SUGGESTIONS FOR CHRISTMAS (click here)
This webpage provides you with many suggestions on how to spiritualize your Christmas. How to “Advertise Christ in Your Christmas” … How to “Prepare Your Presents for Christ” … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Celebration Schedule” … How to “Prepare Your Spiritual Food” (Prayers & Readings) … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Posters and Handouts” (download them from this website) … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Music” … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Celebration Activities” … How to “Prepare Your Symbolic Christmas Food and Drink”.
► CHRISTMAS POSTER DOWNLOADS (click here)
1. Christ Comes First in Christmas (a set of 24 posters)
2. If Jesus Came for Christmas Day (a poetry poster with Jesus knocking on the door)
3. Little Drummer Boy Poster (with the words to the song)
► CHRISTMAS EVE FAMILY RITUAL DOWNLOAD (click here)
1. The Purpose of Christmas (Read Christmas Eve Morning)
2. Morning Prayers & the Angelus
3. Fifteen Rosary Meditations for the Whole Day
4. The Story of St. Jerome Meeting Jesus at Bethlehem on Christmas Eve
5. Examination of Conscience (download available at devotiontoourlady.com)
6. Prayers and Ritual for the Family Blessing of the Crib
7. Proclamation of Christ’s Birth from the Church’s Martyrology for Christmas Eve
8. Prayers & Readings for the Lighting the Christ Candle
9. Prayer and Ritual for Placing Christ in His Crib
10. Liturgical Hymns and Carols (to sing, read or recite)
11. Prayers and Ritual for Eating the Oplatki (Christmas wafer bread)
12. Overnight Vigil arrangements and Prayers
► CHRISTMAS DAY FAMILY RITUAL DOWNLOAD (click here)
1. Morning Proclamation of Christ's Birth
2. Christmas Day Morning Prayers and Angelus
3. Fifteen Decade Rosary with meditations all on the Nativity, to be scheduled at intervals throughout the day
4. Day Vigil at the Crib arrangements
5. The Midday Angelus
6. Prayers and Reading before, during and after the Christmas Dinner
7. The Oplatki custom
8. The Evening Angelus
► CHRISTMAS QUIZ (click here)
A broad range of questions from the catechism that could be used for a Christmas Quiz in the family
Hopefully a Christmas themed quiz will also be added to this page before Christmas Day
► CHRISTMAS DAILY PRAYERS FOR EACH DAY OF THE WEEK ― click on any of the day links
Sundays ― Mondays ― Tuesdays ― Wednesdays ― Thursdays ― Fridays ― Saturdays
► CHRISTMAS FOOD FOR THOUGHT (click here) ―
A recipe for Lamb in honor of the birth of the Lamb of God
► CHRISTMAS SPIRITUAL READING
Christmas with St. Thomas Aquinas for every day of the Christmas season (click here)
Christmas with Dom Guéranger for every day of the Christmas season (click here)
Article 14
Wednesday December 21st, 2022, the Wednesday before Christmas Day
Too Close For Comfort!
Wednesday December 21st, 2022, the Wednesday before Christmas Day
Too Close For Comfort!
Living on the Edge!
Judging by Holy Scripture, the revelations of Our Lady and the teaching of the saints―it can be clearly assumed that we are perpetually “living on the edge” ― in this case, living on the edge of the precipice of Hell. God wants to save all souls―Christ came to save all souls―the Church accepts all souls―yet, judging by what we see around us, it is clearly evident that most souls are not living in a manner that would win for them salvation and eternal bliss in Heaven. Instead, they are walking a dangerous path that is far too close to the precipice from which they will fall into Hell―and we are not just talking about murderers, adulterers, fornicators, addicts to impurity, drunkards, drug addicts, thieves, embezzlers, apostates, fallen-away Catholics, Protestants, pagans, atheists and such like―we are even including those folk who imagine themselves to be good, who go to Mass, who say their prayers―just like the Pharisee in the Temple, who said to God:
“O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men―extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican [behind me]. I fast twice in a week! I give tithes of all that I possess!’ [by law, he only had to tithe on two items, not all of them] And the publican [the sinner], standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards Heaven; but struck his breast, saying: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I say to you, this man [the publican] went down into his house justified rather than the other [the Pharisee]―because every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted!” (Luke 18:11-14).
Both men―the Pharisee and the Publican―were “living on the edge.” However, the pride of the Pharisee contaminated his good works and risked his damnation and condemnation to Hell, where the Angel of Pride resides. Whereas the humility, honesty and sorrow of the Publican was a step in the right direction―away from sin and Hell―and, in Our Lord’s parable, brought about his justification.
Our Lord further said to the Pharisees―who were conservatives of the time and the upholders of religious tradition at that time: “O generation of vipers, how can you speak good things, whereas you are evil? … Ye brood of vipers, who hath shewed you to flee from the wrath to come? … You serpents, generation of vipers! How will you flee from the judgment of Hell?” (Matthew 12:34; 3:7; 23:33).
And to assembled crowd of Jews He added: “‘Whereunto shall I esteem this generation to be like? It is like to children sitting in the market place, who, crying to their companions say: ‘We have piped to you and you have not danced! We have lamented and you have not mourned! For John [the Baptist] came neither eating nor drinking―and they say: ‘He hath a devil!’ The Son of man came eating and drinking―and they say: ‘Behold a man that is a glutton and a wine drinker, a friend of publicans and sinners!’ Then Jesus began to upbraid the cities wherein were done the most of His miracles―for they had not done penance: ‘Woe to thee, Corozain! Woe to thee, Bethsaida! For if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they had long ago done penance in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, than for you! And thou Capharnaum―shalt thou be exalted up to Heaven? No―thou shalt go down even unto Hell! For if in Sodom had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in thee, perhaps Sodom would have remained unto this day! But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the Day of Judgment, than for thee!’” (Matthew 11:16:24).
Suicidal Insanity!
What a mess! What a tragedy! What insanity! Christ comes to save mankind―yet most of mankind seem hell-bent on not being saved! Not that they say so explicitly―they do not say: “I want to go to Hell!” They―like the Pharisee in the Temple―probably think, imagine, dream or hope to attain Heaven somehow! Yet that will not happen―and it has never happened throughout the entire history of mankind. Most souls―despite the wishes, desires and efforts of Our Lord―end up damning themselves. Perhaps the thing that most of those damned souls have in common is that they wish to be saved without taking the correct means to be saved. As the philosophic axiom states: “He who desires and end [goal, target, achievement], must also necessarily desire the means of attaining that end.” Our Lady, in speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, said the same thing: “Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him! … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment!”
Satanic Seduction and Sedation
Satan―in his own interests―will always preach a false gospel of universal salvation. He wants us to believe that everyone, or almost everyone, will be saved! Just believe in Jesus and you are saved―no matter what sins you commit or how many times you commit them! Martin Luther bought into this false gospel―as is seen by his ludicrous statement that as long as we believe in God and love God, then it doesn’t matter how many sins we commit: “Love God and sin boldly!” ― which is what Luther, the Catholic priest, ended up doing! One of his famous―or infamous quotes―was: “Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ!” That is nothing other than Satanic seduction and Satanic sedation!
Yet how many Catholics today actually do that? Many! There are many who like being sinners and sin strongly, but they think that by believing God’s mercy in the Sacrament of Confession, all those sins will be washed away like a weekly car wash washes the dirt off the car. If Martin Luther was so “hot” and attached to Holy Scripture and Scripture alone―then what about the words of the Old Testament and Our Lord’s own words in New Testament, where it says: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:10-11). “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). Those free-wheeling and free-sinning Catholics are playing with and risking their eternal salvation by treating the Sacrament of Confession like a “revolving-door”―whereby, as in a “vicious circle”, they go round and round in the same vicious sinful habits―sin freely throughout the week, then go to Confession just in time for Holy Communion; then go sin again freely throughout the week, and again go to Confession confessing the same old sins just in time for Holy Communion, and so on and so forth.
Catholics―for a very long time now―have been happily and insanely “drinking the Kool-Aid” of Satan. “Drinking Kool-Aid” refers to a sweet drink laced with poison and the expression is used to refer to a person who naively believes in a possibly doomed or dangerous idea, because of the propaganda of perceived potential high rewards―which in this case is: “Sin as much as you want―God will forgive you! Don’t do any penance―for Christ has already paid for your sins! God is love and mercy―He won’t damn you, He understands your weaknesses!” The only problem with that “Kool-Aid” is that God HAS damned the VAST MAJORITY of the human race―or, to put it more correctly, the vast majority of the human race HAS DAMNED ITSELF by abusing God’s mercy and refusing to keep His commandments. God damns nobody―God would like to save everybody―but to be saved you must follow God’s directions. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7).
Words of Our Lord Too True for Comfort!
Once again, Our Lord makes it blatantly clear in Holy Scripture: “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:10-11). “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). “Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! … Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Luke 13:24; Matthew 7:13-14; 22:14).
“And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. But when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: ‘Lord! Open to us!’ And He, answering, shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are!’ Then you shall begin to say: ‘We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!” And He shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are! Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity!’ There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!’” (Luke 13:23-28).
“Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
What is there in those words of Our Lord that is so hard to understand? Where is the problem? There is no Lutheran or Luciferian loophole! It is as clear as day! Yet century after century the insanity and complacency of mankind ignores Christ’s warnings and consequently damns itself! When will we wake up to the truth? When will we start to live as we ought to live: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Mark 12:30-31).
Instead of loving God with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength―we partially love Him; we halfheartedly love Him; we put Him on a waiting list behind all the other worldly things we prefer to get around to first; in our imagination we make what actually is a molehill of love for God into a mountain of love for God; and we make the mountain of our sins seem to be a mere molehill of sins! We ignore Our Lord’s words that without Him we can do nothing (John 15:5), while proudly and vainly imagining that our knowledge, intelligence, skills and successes are of our own making. Seeing that all good things come from God (James 1:17)―why is it that we spend very little time each day thanking God for the innumerable graces, favors and gifts He showers upon us. How is it that we thank God so little for Him having given us so much?
Stupid Stubbornness and Stubborn Stupidity
Albert Einstein is reputed to have said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” That is exactly what Catholics are doing! Holy Scripture clearly states what it is that leads to Hell―yet most Catholics persist in doing those damnable things imagining that for them the result will somehow be different! Idiocy! Insanity! Our Lord says that “Many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14)―and somehow we imagine that we will be among the few who are saved by living like the many who are damned! For us the result will somehow be different! Our Lord says that “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leadeth to life, and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14)―yet we somehow imagine that we can follow the broad wide road that is taken by many, and still somehow end up passing through the narrow gate that is only found by the few! In other words, our love of God is equal to our love of mammon! Our Lord says that we cannot love both―but somehow we are going to prove Our Lord wrong! At Christmas, we will place our plastic or plaster Jesus in his crib―but the real living Jesus, Whom we receive in Holy Communion, we will not place in our hearts! With our lips only we tell Him that we love Him―but we will not use those same lips to convert or correct others who are offending Him. Even worse―we feel comfortable thinking like this and doing all these things!
A Mary Christmas, or a Merry Christmas, or a Sad Christmess?
Over the years we have gradually created a Christmas charade―a “charade” is defined as “an absurd pretense intended to create a pleasant or respectable appearance; an empty or deceptive act, or a pretense.” This charade is our personal vision and version of Christmas―leaning heavily towards the material, visual, decorative, culinary, entertaining aspects―while leaning away from the spiritual, prayerful and meditative side of Christmas. For the most part, the spiritual side of Christmas is often left behind in the church after Christmas Day Mass and rarely makes it home―apart from perhaps “Grace Before Meals” and maybe a Rosary―but if less than 3% to 4% of Catholics pray the Rosary daily, then it is a long shot in most families to find time for the Rosary amid all the hustle and bustle of Christmas Day which has many, many more things on the plate compared to a regular day. It would almost be a miracle to find a family where the spiritual takes precedence over the material aspects of Christmas. Everyone is ready to happily chew upon the delicacies that will put on the Christmas Dinner table―but few there are who want to “chew upon” a meditation or spiritual reading. Talk at table will most definitely not be about the newborn Christ―but about a thousand-and-one secular matters. Perhaps some homes will play or sing Christmas carols―but don’t hold your breath or bet on it!
Our Lord just watches on disappointingly―relegated to the closet on His own birthday―year after year, with no change in sight! Do you really think that Our Lord would feel at home and interact with us in all the aspects of our modern day Christmas celebrations? Can you really picture that? He would be like a fish out of water. Our comfortable, secularized, modernized, mammonized Christmases―are not really leading us to Heaven, or bringing us closer to Christ. They are, in fact, subtly and gradually leading us away from the spiritual side of Christmas―which is the heart of Christmas―and therefore leading us away from God and Heaven. If most souls end up in Hell―which is what Our Lord implies and the saints teach―then do we really want to end up celebrating Christmas like most people celebrate it? We are walking a fine line at the best of times―let us not screw-up Our Lord’s birthday by making Christmas into a Christmess!
Is there anything wrong with celebrating Christmas in a materialistic way? There is nothing wrong with preparing special foods and enjoying a drink or two―but these things should be secondary to the spiritual feast of Christmas. They should be a reward or a payment for having done a “full-day’s work”―a full-day’s spiritual work. Otherwise, it is like getting paid for doing no work―or it is like only having the colorful feathers of a bird, but the bird being absent. Or having a fruit tree that grows no fruit; or a drinking glass without having anything to drink in it.
Our Lord said: “Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God! … The Bread of God is that which cometh down from Heaven, and giveth life to the world! … I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven! ... If any man eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever! … Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life everlasting, which the Son of man will give you! … The Bread that I will give, is My Flesh, for the life of the world! ... ... My Flesh is meat indeed and My Blood is drink indeed! … If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink! … I am the Bread of Life―he that cometh to Me shall not hunger: and he that believeth in Me shall never thirst! … Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you! He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, hath everlasting life! … He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him!” (Matthew 4:4; John 7:37; 6:27-57) and Scripture adds: “Be not drunk with wine, but be ye filled with the Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). What will we be “eating” this Christmas? What will we be “chewing upon” this Christmas? What will we be “drinking” this Christmas?
Judging by Holy Scripture, the revelations of Our Lady and the teaching of the saints―it can be clearly assumed that we are perpetually “living on the edge” ― in this case, living on the edge of the precipice of Hell. God wants to save all souls―Christ came to save all souls―the Church accepts all souls―yet, judging by what we see around us, it is clearly evident that most souls are not living in a manner that would win for them salvation and eternal bliss in Heaven. Instead, they are walking a dangerous path that is far too close to the precipice from which they will fall into Hell―and we are not just talking about murderers, adulterers, fornicators, addicts to impurity, drunkards, drug addicts, thieves, embezzlers, apostates, fallen-away Catholics, Protestants, pagans, atheists and such like―we are even including those folk who imagine themselves to be good, who go to Mass, who say their prayers―just like the Pharisee in the Temple, who said to God:
“O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men―extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican [behind me]. I fast twice in a week! I give tithes of all that I possess!’ [by law, he only had to tithe on two items, not all of them] And the publican [the sinner], standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards Heaven; but struck his breast, saying: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I say to you, this man [the publican] went down into his house justified rather than the other [the Pharisee]―because every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted!” (Luke 18:11-14).
Both men―the Pharisee and the Publican―were “living on the edge.” However, the pride of the Pharisee contaminated his good works and risked his damnation and condemnation to Hell, where the Angel of Pride resides. Whereas the humility, honesty and sorrow of the Publican was a step in the right direction―away from sin and Hell―and, in Our Lord’s parable, brought about his justification.
Our Lord further said to the Pharisees―who were conservatives of the time and the upholders of religious tradition at that time: “O generation of vipers, how can you speak good things, whereas you are evil? … Ye brood of vipers, who hath shewed you to flee from the wrath to come? … You serpents, generation of vipers! How will you flee from the judgment of Hell?” (Matthew 12:34; 3:7; 23:33).
And to assembled crowd of Jews He added: “‘Whereunto shall I esteem this generation to be like? It is like to children sitting in the market place, who, crying to their companions say: ‘We have piped to you and you have not danced! We have lamented and you have not mourned! For John [the Baptist] came neither eating nor drinking―and they say: ‘He hath a devil!’ The Son of man came eating and drinking―and they say: ‘Behold a man that is a glutton and a wine drinker, a friend of publicans and sinners!’ Then Jesus began to upbraid the cities wherein were done the most of His miracles―for they had not done penance: ‘Woe to thee, Corozain! Woe to thee, Bethsaida! For if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they had long ago done penance in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, than for you! And thou Capharnaum―shalt thou be exalted up to Heaven? No―thou shalt go down even unto Hell! For if in Sodom had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in thee, perhaps Sodom would have remained unto this day! But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the Day of Judgment, than for thee!’” (Matthew 11:16:24).
Suicidal Insanity!
What a mess! What a tragedy! What insanity! Christ comes to save mankind―yet most of mankind seem hell-bent on not being saved! Not that they say so explicitly―they do not say: “I want to go to Hell!” They―like the Pharisee in the Temple―probably think, imagine, dream or hope to attain Heaven somehow! Yet that will not happen―and it has never happened throughout the entire history of mankind. Most souls―despite the wishes, desires and efforts of Our Lord―end up damning themselves. Perhaps the thing that most of those damned souls have in common is that they wish to be saved without taking the correct means to be saved. As the philosophic axiom states: “He who desires and end [goal, target, achievement], must also necessarily desire the means of attaining that end.” Our Lady, in speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, said the same thing: “Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him! … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment!”
Satanic Seduction and Sedation
Satan―in his own interests―will always preach a false gospel of universal salvation. He wants us to believe that everyone, or almost everyone, will be saved! Just believe in Jesus and you are saved―no matter what sins you commit or how many times you commit them! Martin Luther bought into this false gospel―as is seen by his ludicrous statement that as long as we believe in God and love God, then it doesn’t matter how many sins we commit: “Love God and sin boldly!” ― which is what Luther, the Catholic priest, ended up doing! One of his famous―or infamous quotes―was: “Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ!” That is nothing other than Satanic seduction and Satanic sedation!
Yet how many Catholics today actually do that? Many! There are many who like being sinners and sin strongly, but they think that by believing God’s mercy in the Sacrament of Confession, all those sins will be washed away like a weekly car wash washes the dirt off the car. If Martin Luther was so “hot” and attached to Holy Scripture and Scripture alone―then what about the words of the Old Testament and Our Lord’s own words in New Testament, where it says: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:10-11). “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). Those free-wheeling and free-sinning Catholics are playing with and risking their eternal salvation by treating the Sacrament of Confession like a “revolving-door”―whereby, as in a “vicious circle”, they go round and round in the same vicious sinful habits―sin freely throughout the week, then go to Confession just in time for Holy Communion; then go sin again freely throughout the week, and again go to Confession confessing the same old sins just in time for Holy Communion, and so on and so forth.
Catholics―for a very long time now―have been happily and insanely “drinking the Kool-Aid” of Satan. “Drinking Kool-Aid” refers to a sweet drink laced with poison and the expression is used to refer to a person who naively believes in a possibly doomed or dangerous idea, because of the propaganda of perceived potential high rewards―which in this case is: “Sin as much as you want―God will forgive you! Don’t do any penance―for Christ has already paid for your sins! God is love and mercy―He won’t damn you, He understands your weaknesses!” The only problem with that “Kool-Aid” is that God HAS damned the VAST MAJORITY of the human race―or, to put it more correctly, the vast majority of the human race HAS DAMNED ITSELF by abusing God’s mercy and refusing to keep His commandments. God damns nobody―God would like to save everybody―but to be saved you must follow God’s directions. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7).
Words of Our Lord Too True for Comfort!
Once again, Our Lord makes it blatantly clear in Holy Scripture: “Go, and now sin no more!” (John 8:10-11). “Sin no more―lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14). “Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! … Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Luke 13:24; Matthew 7:13-14; 22:14).
“And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. But when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: ‘Lord! Open to us!’ And He, answering, shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are!’ Then you shall begin to say: ‘We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!” And He shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are! Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity!’ There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!’” (Luke 13:23-28).
“Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
What is there in those words of Our Lord that is so hard to understand? Where is the problem? There is no Lutheran or Luciferian loophole! It is as clear as day! Yet century after century the insanity and complacency of mankind ignores Christ’s warnings and consequently damns itself! When will we wake up to the truth? When will we start to live as we ought to live: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment! And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these!” (Mark 12:30-31).
Instead of loving God with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength―we partially love Him; we halfheartedly love Him; we put Him on a waiting list behind all the other worldly things we prefer to get around to first; in our imagination we make what actually is a molehill of love for God into a mountain of love for God; and we make the mountain of our sins seem to be a mere molehill of sins! We ignore Our Lord’s words that without Him we can do nothing (John 15:5), while proudly and vainly imagining that our knowledge, intelligence, skills and successes are of our own making. Seeing that all good things come from God (James 1:17)―why is it that we spend very little time each day thanking God for the innumerable graces, favors and gifts He showers upon us. How is it that we thank God so little for Him having given us so much?
Stupid Stubbornness and Stubborn Stupidity
Albert Einstein is reputed to have said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” That is exactly what Catholics are doing! Holy Scripture clearly states what it is that leads to Hell―yet most Catholics persist in doing those damnable things imagining that for them the result will somehow be different! Idiocy! Insanity! Our Lord says that “Many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14)―and somehow we imagine that we will be among the few who are saved by living like the many who are damned! For us the result will somehow be different! Our Lord says that “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leadeth to life, and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14)―yet we somehow imagine that we can follow the broad wide road that is taken by many, and still somehow end up passing through the narrow gate that is only found by the few! In other words, our love of God is equal to our love of mammon! Our Lord says that we cannot love both―but somehow we are going to prove Our Lord wrong! At Christmas, we will place our plastic or plaster Jesus in his crib―but the real living Jesus, Whom we receive in Holy Communion, we will not place in our hearts! With our lips only we tell Him that we love Him―but we will not use those same lips to convert or correct others who are offending Him. Even worse―we feel comfortable thinking like this and doing all these things!
A Mary Christmas, or a Merry Christmas, or a Sad Christmess?
Over the years we have gradually created a Christmas charade―a “charade” is defined as “an absurd pretense intended to create a pleasant or respectable appearance; an empty or deceptive act, or a pretense.” This charade is our personal vision and version of Christmas―leaning heavily towards the material, visual, decorative, culinary, entertaining aspects―while leaning away from the spiritual, prayerful and meditative side of Christmas. For the most part, the spiritual side of Christmas is often left behind in the church after Christmas Day Mass and rarely makes it home―apart from perhaps “Grace Before Meals” and maybe a Rosary―but if less than 3% to 4% of Catholics pray the Rosary daily, then it is a long shot in most families to find time for the Rosary amid all the hustle and bustle of Christmas Day which has many, many more things on the plate compared to a regular day. It would almost be a miracle to find a family where the spiritual takes precedence over the material aspects of Christmas. Everyone is ready to happily chew upon the delicacies that will put on the Christmas Dinner table―but few there are who want to “chew upon” a meditation or spiritual reading. Talk at table will most definitely not be about the newborn Christ―but about a thousand-and-one secular matters. Perhaps some homes will play or sing Christmas carols―but don’t hold your breath or bet on it!
Our Lord just watches on disappointingly―relegated to the closet on His own birthday―year after year, with no change in sight! Do you really think that Our Lord would feel at home and interact with us in all the aspects of our modern day Christmas celebrations? Can you really picture that? He would be like a fish out of water. Our comfortable, secularized, modernized, mammonized Christmases―are not really leading us to Heaven, or bringing us closer to Christ. They are, in fact, subtly and gradually leading us away from the spiritual side of Christmas―which is the heart of Christmas―and therefore leading us away from God and Heaven. If most souls end up in Hell―which is what Our Lord implies and the saints teach―then do we really want to end up celebrating Christmas like most people celebrate it? We are walking a fine line at the best of times―let us not screw-up Our Lord’s birthday by making Christmas into a Christmess!
Is there anything wrong with celebrating Christmas in a materialistic way? There is nothing wrong with preparing special foods and enjoying a drink or two―but these things should be secondary to the spiritual feast of Christmas. They should be a reward or a payment for having done a “full-day’s work”―a full-day’s spiritual work. Otherwise, it is like getting paid for doing no work―or it is like only having the colorful feathers of a bird, but the bird being absent. Or having a fruit tree that grows no fruit; or a drinking glass without having anything to drink in it.
Our Lord said: “Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God! … The Bread of God is that which cometh down from Heaven, and giveth life to the world! … I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven! ... If any man eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever! … Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life everlasting, which the Son of man will give you! … The Bread that I will give, is My Flesh, for the life of the world! ... ... My Flesh is meat indeed and My Blood is drink indeed! … If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink! … I am the Bread of Life―he that cometh to Me shall not hunger: and he that believeth in Me shall never thirst! … Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you! He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, hath everlasting life! … He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him!” (Matthew 4:4; John 7:37; 6:27-57) and Scripture adds: “Be not drunk with wine, but be ye filled with the Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). What will we be “eating” this Christmas? What will we be “chewing upon” this Christmas? What will we be “drinking” this Christmas?
Article 13
Monday December 19th, 2022, the 4th Monday of Advent
& Tuesday December 20th, 2022, the 4th Tuesday of Advent
Countdown to a Letdown?
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
Monday December 19th, 2022, the 4th Monday of Advent
& Tuesday December 20th, 2022, the 4th Tuesday of Advent
Countdown to a Letdown?
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
Coundown to a Letdown
We are counting down the day to Christmas! Is it a countdown to a letdown? Can we count on Christmas letting us down? Will we let Our Lord down (again) this Christmas? Have our Christmas celebration ever been what they ought to be? Have we ever really managed to raise our minds above the earthly worldly things in order to “love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Our Lord came down from Heaven to raise our minds and hearts to Heaven: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
Yet even though the miracle working Christ tried to raise and elevate the minds and hearts of those whom He encountered, most of them remained firmly attached to worldly things more than heavenly things! Jesus came “to enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death!” (Luke 1:79). “Jesus spoke to them, saying: ‘I am the light of the world! He that followeth Me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life!’” (John 8:12). Jesus “was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not! The light shineth in darkness―and the darkness did not comprehend it … The light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil … He came unto His own, and His own received Him not!” (John 1:5-13; 3:19). “They have not known nor understood! They walk on in darkness!” (Psalm 81:5). “They walk in darkness as if it were in light!” (Job 24:17). “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20). “If then the light that is in thee, be darkness―the darkness itself, how great shall it be!” (Matthew 6:23).
What if…
Just imagine what a letdown it would be if everyone arrived at your Christmas party, ready to celebrate and have a fun time―when, all of sudden, you have power outage! Without electrical power, you have no more Christmas lights, no house lighting, no refrigeration, no electric stove to cook the Christmas meal, no heating, no television, no more music, etc. Electricity―even though it is invisible―is so necessary to make many things work that we take too much for granted.
What you say about electricity, you could also say the same spirituality. Without a supply of true spirituality, there can be no truly spiritual Christmas. It will be like the refrigerator that still stands in the kitchen, but can no longer do what it is supposed to do. Or like the electric stove that now just stands there―but can do nothing more! Or like the television―which becomes a mere blank screen with nothing to offer. Or like the hi-fi―that has gone mute and utters not a sound! Or like the darkened house in which people can barely see! This is a symbol of our Faith without the required spiritual energy that can only come from a true love of God. A love of the world cannot produce true spirituality―it is a mere fake, a phantasm, a pretence, a smoke-screen. Such Catholics are like “false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew 7:15) … “Having an appearance of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:5).
The Letdown of the Letdown
We all hate to be let down. We hate things not living up their expectations. We hate it when promising things fail to fulfill those promising hopes. We hate it when people do not keep their promises. We enter marriage with certain hopeful expectations―nobody marries in the hope that things go badly, but in the hope that things go well. We buy a car with the expectation that it will be a good car, not in the hope that the car will malfunction or let us down. We invest our money in enterprises with the hope that it will return us some profit, but not with the hope that we lose money. We buy food with the hope that it will keep us healthy and not with the hope that it will make us sick. Or you order some items that you intend to give as Christmas presents, but the order only arrived after Christmas. We have all fallen for the hype over something or other, only to be letdown once we experienced it and saw it was far below all the heralded hype.
Letdowns invariably burst the bubbles of enthusiasm and hope. We even see this in good and holy people. Take, for example, the Apostles and disciples of Our Lord, who on Palm Sunday accompanied Jesus in His triumphal entry into Jerusalem―no doubt allowing themselves to dream and hope of further triumphs―only to see Jesus arrested by the following Thursday.
Just prior to His arrest, Our Lord Himself was let down by His three favorite and trusted Apostles―Peter, James and John―whom He had taken with Him into the Garden of Gethsemane for moral support and to pray with Him. Yet while Our Lord endured His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, the three Apostles fell asleep three times―despite being rebuked on each occasion by Our Lord for doing so: “And He cometh, and findeth them sleeping. And He saith to Peter: ‘Simon, sleepest thou? Couldst thou not watch one hour? Watch ye and pray that you enter not into temptation! The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak!’” (Mark 14:37-38).
Our Lord was also let down by Judas, who betrayed Him and basically sold Him into captivity for thirty pieces of silver. Jesus expressed His disappointment at being let down by Judas, saying: “Judas, friend, whereto art thou come? Dost thou betray the Son of man with a kiss?” (Matthew 26:50; Luke 22:48).
Immediately after His arrest, Our Lord was further let down by all His disciples: “Then His disciples, leaving Him, all fled away” (Mark 14:50) ― they no doubt felt let down by Jesus, whom they had seen performing many stupendous miracles, even raising people from the dead, and now His powers seemed to have left as He was arrested.
This general attitude among the disciples of Christ is further demonstrated after the resurrection of Jesus, when He―miraculously taking on an unrecognizable appearance―approached two of His disheartened disciples who were leaving Jerusalem on the road Emmaus: “And behold, two of them went, the same day, to a town which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, named Emmaus. And they talked together of all these things which had happened [the passion and death of Jesus]. And it came to pass, that while they talked and reasoned among themselves, Jesus Himself also drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held, that they should not know Him. And He said to them: ‘What are these discourses that you hold one with another as you walk, and are sad?’ And the one of them, whose name was Cleophas, answering, said to Him: ‘Art thou only a stranger to Jerusalem, and hast not known the things that have been done there in these days?’ To whom Jesus said: ‘What things?’ And they said: ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, Who was a prophet, mighty in work and word before God and all the people! And how our chief priests and princes delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we hoped that it was He that should have redeemed Israel! And now, besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done. Yea and certain women―also of our company―affrighted us, who, before it was light, were at the sepulcher, and, not finding His body, came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, who say that He is alive. And some of our people went to the sepulcher and found it so as the women had said, but Him they found not! Then Jesus said to them: ‘O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory? And, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, Jesus expounded to them in all the Scriptures, the things that were concerning Him” (Luke 24:13-27).
Wrong Idea Letdown
The Apostles and disciples―even though they had been with Our Lord for three years and had been taught by Him―still had the wrong idea about Him. Even after His resurrection, the Apostles were still thinking along the lines of an earthly kingdom of Christ, a conquest and expulsion of the Romans from Jerusalem and Judea, and a restoration of the Kingdom of Israel that had been broken up for several centuries. This line of thought and attitude is shown by the Apostles in a question to Our Lord after His resurrection from the dead: “They therefore who were come together, asked Him, saying: Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?’” (Acts 1:6).
Similarly, Catholics today have a wrong idea about Christ’s coming at Christmas. They imagine Christ coming for a celebration more than coming for our salvation. It is as though they―like the Apostles―imagine the Faith to be more worldly orientated and all about the “here and now”―rather than the hereafter. We are reminded of Our Lady’s words to St. Bernadette at Lourdes ― “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next!” This is further stressed by Our Lord’s words: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
Somehow, Catholics want to be happy in this world AND the next world. They are quick to feast, but slow to fast. Quick to play, but slow to pray. They do not fight for the Faith, but fight among themselves. They no longer have Rosaries in their hands, but smartphones in their hands. They prefer to go the Mall, rather than go to Mass. They will meditate for hours in front of the television, while never meditating in front of the tabernacle.
Our Lord’s Big Letdown
Does Our Lord feel let down? He sure does! It is one big letdown for Him! He has said as much over the centuries. To St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Our Lord said: “My Divine Heart is so passionately inflamed with love for men, that it can no longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its ardent charity, and needs spread them abroad … Behold this Heart which has so loved men that It spared nothing, even going so far as to exhaust and consume Itself, to prove to them Its love. And in return I receive from the greater part of men nothing but ingratitude, by the contempt, irreverence, sacrileges and coldness with which they treat Me … If they would only give Me some return of love, I should not reckon all that I have done for them, and I would do yet more if possible. But they have only coldness and contempt for all My endeavors to do them good. This is more grievous to Me than all that I endured in My Passion.”
In the same 17th century, Our Lord appeared to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, in Quito, Ecuador, and showed her His Sacred Heart, riddled with small, piercing thorns that stung Him cruelly. “Understand that these thorns are the serious as well as slight faults of those whom I deliver from the world … I desire that there be souls in whom I can rest from My fatigues and in whom I might take My repose ... It is their ingratitude and indifference that so cruelly wounds My Heart! Alas! If you could only know My intense interior suffering ... caused by the lack of correspondence to this deluge of graces which I pour upon them … Alas, if they only knew and were convinced of how much I love them and how much I desire that they should enter into the very depths of their souls! Then, without a doubt, they would find Me and would necessarily live a life of love, light and continuous union with Me … But when those so near to Me who belong to Me reject My spirit, abandoning Me alone in Tabernacles, rarely remembering that I live there especially for love of them, even more than for the rest of the faithful, then I am forced to let My Justice fall upon both cloisters and cities! Alas! If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small spineless imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me ... But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing! — according to My example, for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross! … Woe to souls like this! Woe!” (Our Lord to Mother Mariana, Quito Ecuador).
What’s Our Christmas Focal Point?
Christmas should be what the name suggests―all about Christ. It should be a time when Christ is the focal point of our lives―not just for a few minutes or one hour at Christmas Day Mass―though some folk even find it difficult to fully focus on Christ during Mass―not just the focal point for Christmas Day―but throughout the so-called “Twelve Days of Christmas” at least, even though the Christmas season itself is 40-day long (ending on the Feast of the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple and the Purification of His Holy Mother, on February 2nd). We are not supposed to love Christ (our God) for a mere hour at Mass on Christmas Day, nor just for Christmas Day―for is a long way from fulfilling the commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
Instead, our chief focal point―at least in time allocated―are the Christmas celebrations and entertainment! Hours shopping for gifts (not for Christ, but others); hours in wrapping those gifts and writing cards; hours in food preparation; hours eating, drinking and then snacking; hours in watching television; hours in listening to music; hours on internet or smartphone; hours in idle chatter; hours playing games―leaving barely any time for Christ, whose birthday we are supposed to be celebrating! Wouldn’t you feel a big letdown on YOUR birthday party, if everyone, after wishing you a “Happy Birthday”, barely spoke to you after that and generally ignored you for the rest of the party? Of course you would! Especially if you had done a lot for those persons all year round! We cannot even imagine all that Christ has done for us―year in year out! A whole year would not suffice for thanking Our Lord for all He has done―especially since we have spent the whole year offending Him by sinning (at least venially) each and every day! Yet for most people, Christ will be nowhere near “top of the list” of Christmas priorities. What makes it even worse is that those, who know better and personally do better themselves, are afraid to correct those around them, who have perverted the true spirit of Christmas by injecting into it large amounts of toxic worldliness―as Our Lady of Good Success lamented: “Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’ … And those who should speak out, will be silent!”
Christmas Birth or Christmas Resurrection?
It would seem that Christmas as regards Christ’s birth has died the death and is in need of a resurrection! We have managed to corrupt Christmas to the point where we are left with merely colorful feathers, but with no bird beneath those feathers. For all intents and purposes we have reduced the living Christ to the plaster or plastic doll effigy that we ceremoniously place in the crib of our nativity scenes! Christ has become just as unimportant as that doll. A symbolic mention―and then let’s down to nitty-gritty, eating and drinking, joking and laughing, television watching and game playing Christmas that we all love and look forward to! Our Lord has words for such a Christmas attitude: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). Our Lord would offer us a new heart, a change of heart―if we would only accept it or want it ourselves: “I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you―and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh!” (Ezechiel 36:26) ― but there are very few takers!
The same could be said of our Christmases―Christ could say: “I will give you a new Christmas, and put a new Christmas spirit within you―and I will take away the fake Christmas heart out of you, and will give you a true Christmas heart! I will take away your fake material Christmas and give you a true spiritual Christmas!” ― but there are few takers! Most people prefer their material, worldly, entertainment filled, stomach filled, dizzy Christmases. After all, those kinds of Christmases have become traditional over the years―we have little or no experience of any other kind of Christmas―it was the kind of Christmas that our parents gave us and we dutifully pass it on to our children!
Will anyone have the courage to swim against the tide―the false materialistic Christmastide―and try to resurrect a truly spiritual Christmas? How much further down the slippery slope must we slide before we realize that we are celebrating Christmas badly or imperfectly? How many more gluttonous, drunken (or at least tipsy), risqué conversationalist, immodest, television ‘tabernacle’ centered Christmases must we repeat and endure until we finally say: “Enough is enough!” There is no Christ in such Christmases―and Christ would even hesitate or refuse to come to such Christmases! Christ did not come down from Heaven for a big letdown! We have let Him down too many times! When will we understand God’s words: “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). Why are we trying to fit Christ into a Christmas of our liking―which is like hammering a square peg into a round hole―instead of allowing Christ to raise us above ourselves into a Christmas of His liking? Whose birthday is it, anyway? Certainly not ours―but Christ’s! Don’t we ask people: “What would you like for your birthday? How would you like to celebrate your birthday?” If we asked Christ those questions, then He most certainly not reply: “I want to spend as little time in church as possible! I want lots of food, lots of booze, lots of fun and games, lots of entertainment, lots of partying!”
Courage for Christmas
Why don’t you ask Christ for courage for Christmas? Ask Christ to help you to stand up for a true spiritual Christmas! Remember His words: “Everyone therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven! But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household! He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me! He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for Me, shall find it!” (Matthew 10:32-39). Yes! Stand up for Christ! Stand up for Christmas! Never mind what your father, mother, son, daughter, son-in-law and daughter-in-law, brother, sister, aunt or uncle think! “Everyone therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven! But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father! … He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me!”
Goals Requires Means―Targets Need Tools
So far, we have merely spoken about how bad things are―without actually giving any advice on how to make things better. God never sets us targets without also giving us the tools to achieve those targets. The website has more than enough tools for you to improve your usual Christmas season and make it truly spiritual. Here is a brief listing of what can be found on what page―with links provided:
► SUGGESTIONS FOR CHRISTMAS (click here)
This webpage provides you with many suggestions on how to spiritualize your Christmas. How to “Advertise Christ in Your Christmas” … How to “Prepare Your Presents for Christ” … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Celebration Schedule” … How to “Prepare Your Spiritual Food” (Prayers & Readings) … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Posters and Handouts” (download them from this website) … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Music” … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Celebration Activities” … How to “Prepare Your Symbolic Christmas Food and Drink”.
► CHRISTMAS POSTER DOWNLOADS (click here)
1. Christ Comes First in Christmas (a set of 24 posters)
2. If Jesus Came for Christmas Day (a poetry poster with Jesus knocking on the door)
3. Little Drummer Boy Poster (with the words to the song)
► CHRISTMAS EVE FAMILY RITUAL DOWNLOAD (click here)
1. The Purpose of Christmas (Read Christmas Eve Morning)
2. Morning Prayers & the Angelus
3. Fifteen Rosary Meditations for the Whole Day
4. The Story of St. Jerome Meeting Jesus at Bethlehem on Christmas Eve
5. Examination of Conscience (download available at devotiontoourlady.com)
6. Prayers and Ritual for the Family Blessing of the Crib
7. Proclamation of Christ’s Birth from the Church’s Martyrology for Christmas Eve
8. Prayers & Readings for the Lighting the Christ Candle
9. Prayer and Ritual for Placing Christ in His Crib
10. Liturgical Hymns and Carols (to sing, read or recite)
11. Prayers and Ritual for Eating the Oplatki (Christmas wafer bread)
12. Overnight Vigil arrangements and Prayers
► CHRISTMAS DAY FAMILY RITUAL DOWNLOAD (click here)
1. Morning Proclamation of Christ's Birth
2. Christmas Day Morning Prayers and Angelus
3. Fifteen Decade Rosary with meditations all on the Nativity, to be scheduled at intervals throughout the day
4. Day Vigil at the Crib arrangements
5. The Midday Angelus
6. Prayers and Reading before, during and after the Christmas Dinner
7. The Oplatki custom
8. The Evening Angelus
► CHRISTMAS QUIZ (click here)
A broad range of questions from the catechism that could be used for a Christmas Quiz in the family
Hopefully a Christmas themed quiz will also be added to this page before Christmas Day
► CHRISTMAS DAILY PRAYERS FOR EACH DAY OF THE WEEK ― click on any of the day links
Sundays ― Mondays ― Tuesdays ― Wednesdays ― Thursdays ― Fridays ― Saturdays
► CHRISTMAS FOOD FOR THOUGHT (click here) ―
A recipe for Lamb in honor of the birth of the Lamb of God
► CHRISTMAS SPIRITUAL READING
Christmas with St. Thomas Aquinas for every day of the Christmas season (click here)
Christmas with Dom Guéranger for every day of the Christmas season (click here)
We are counting down the day to Christmas! Is it a countdown to a letdown? Can we count on Christmas letting us down? Will we let Our Lord down (again) this Christmas? Have our Christmas celebration ever been what they ought to be? Have we ever really managed to raise our minds above the earthly worldly things in order to “love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Our Lord came down from Heaven to raise our minds and hearts to Heaven: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
Yet even though the miracle working Christ tried to raise and elevate the minds and hearts of those whom He encountered, most of them remained firmly attached to worldly things more than heavenly things! Jesus came “to enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death!” (Luke 1:79). “Jesus spoke to them, saying: ‘I am the light of the world! He that followeth Me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life!’” (John 8:12). Jesus “was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not! The light shineth in darkness―and the darkness did not comprehend it … The light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil … He came unto His own, and His own received Him not!” (John 1:5-13; 3:19). “They have not known nor understood! They walk on in darkness!” (Psalm 81:5). “They walk in darkness as if it were in light!” (Job 24:17). “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20). “If then the light that is in thee, be darkness―the darkness itself, how great shall it be!” (Matthew 6:23).
What if…
Just imagine what a letdown it would be if everyone arrived at your Christmas party, ready to celebrate and have a fun time―when, all of sudden, you have power outage! Without electrical power, you have no more Christmas lights, no house lighting, no refrigeration, no electric stove to cook the Christmas meal, no heating, no television, no more music, etc. Electricity―even though it is invisible―is so necessary to make many things work that we take too much for granted.
What you say about electricity, you could also say the same spirituality. Without a supply of true spirituality, there can be no truly spiritual Christmas. It will be like the refrigerator that still stands in the kitchen, but can no longer do what it is supposed to do. Or like the electric stove that now just stands there―but can do nothing more! Or like the television―which becomes a mere blank screen with nothing to offer. Or like the hi-fi―that has gone mute and utters not a sound! Or like the darkened house in which people can barely see! This is a symbol of our Faith without the required spiritual energy that can only come from a true love of God. A love of the world cannot produce true spirituality―it is a mere fake, a phantasm, a pretence, a smoke-screen. Such Catholics are like “false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew 7:15) … “Having an appearance of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:5).
The Letdown of the Letdown
We all hate to be let down. We hate things not living up their expectations. We hate it when promising things fail to fulfill those promising hopes. We hate it when people do not keep their promises. We enter marriage with certain hopeful expectations―nobody marries in the hope that things go badly, but in the hope that things go well. We buy a car with the expectation that it will be a good car, not in the hope that the car will malfunction or let us down. We invest our money in enterprises with the hope that it will return us some profit, but not with the hope that we lose money. We buy food with the hope that it will keep us healthy and not with the hope that it will make us sick. Or you order some items that you intend to give as Christmas presents, but the order only arrived after Christmas. We have all fallen for the hype over something or other, only to be letdown once we experienced it and saw it was far below all the heralded hype.
Letdowns invariably burst the bubbles of enthusiasm and hope. We even see this in good and holy people. Take, for example, the Apostles and disciples of Our Lord, who on Palm Sunday accompanied Jesus in His triumphal entry into Jerusalem―no doubt allowing themselves to dream and hope of further triumphs―only to see Jesus arrested by the following Thursday.
Just prior to His arrest, Our Lord Himself was let down by His three favorite and trusted Apostles―Peter, James and John―whom He had taken with Him into the Garden of Gethsemane for moral support and to pray with Him. Yet while Our Lord endured His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, the three Apostles fell asleep three times―despite being rebuked on each occasion by Our Lord for doing so: “And He cometh, and findeth them sleeping. And He saith to Peter: ‘Simon, sleepest thou? Couldst thou not watch one hour? Watch ye and pray that you enter not into temptation! The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak!’” (Mark 14:37-38).
Our Lord was also let down by Judas, who betrayed Him and basically sold Him into captivity for thirty pieces of silver. Jesus expressed His disappointment at being let down by Judas, saying: “Judas, friend, whereto art thou come? Dost thou betray the Son of man with a kiss?” (Matthew 26:50; Luke 22:48).
Immediately after His arrest, Our Lord was further let down by all His disciples: “Then His disciples, leaving Him, all fled away” (Mark 14:50) ― they no doubt felt let down by Jesus, whom they had seen performing many stupendous miracles, even raising people from the dead, and now His powers seemed to have left as He was arrested.
This general attitude among the disciples of Christ is further demonstrated after the resurrection of Jesus, when He―miraculously taking on an unrecognizable appearance―approached two of His disheartened disciples who were leaving Jerusalem on the road Emmaus: “And behold, two of them went, the same day, to a town which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, named Emmaus. And they talked together of all these things which had happened [the passion and death of Jesus]. And it came to pass, that while they talked and reasoned among themselves, Jesus Himself also drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held, that they should not know Him. And He said to them: ‘What are these discourses that you hold one with another as you walk, and are sad?’ And the one of them, whose name was Cleophas, answering, said to Him: ‘Art thou only a stranger to Jerusalem, and hast not known the things that have been done there in these days?’ To whom Jesus said: ‘What things?’ And they said: ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, Who was a prophet, mighty in work and word before God and all the people! And how our chief priests and princes delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we hoped that it was He that should have redeemed Israel! And now, besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done. Yea and certain women―also of our company―affrighted us, who, before it was light, were at the sepulcher, and, not finding His body, came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, who say that He is alive. And some of our people went to the sepulcher and found it so as the women had said, but Him they found not! Then Jesus said to them: ‘O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory? And, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, Jesus expounded to them in all the Scriptures, the things that were concerning Him” (Luke 24:13-27).
Wrong Idea Letdown
The Apostles and disciples―even though they had been with Our Lord for three years and had been taught by Him―still had the wrong idea about Him. Even after His resurrection, the Apostles were still thinking along the lines of an earthly kingdom of Christ, a conquest and expulsion of the Romans from Jerusalem and Judea, and a restoration of the Kingdom of Israel that had been broken up for several centuries. This line of thought and attitude is shown by the Apostles in a question to Our Lord after His resurrection from the dead: “They therefore who were come together, asked Him, saying: Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?’” (Acts 1:6).
Similarly, Catholics today have a wrong idea about Christ’s coming at Christmas. They imagine Christ coming for a celebration more than coming for our salvation. It is as though they―like the Apostles―imagine the Faith to be more worldly orientated and all about the “here and now”―rather than the hereafter. We are reminded of Our Lady’s words to St. Bernadette at Lourdes ― “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next!” This is further stressed by Our Lord’s words: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
Somehow, Catholics want to be happy in this world AND the next world. They are quick to feast, but slow to fast. Quick to play, but slow to pray. They do not fight for the Faith, but fight among themselves. They no longer have Rosaries in their hands, but smartphones in their hands. They prefer to go the Mall, rather than go to Mass. They will meditate for hours in front of the television, while never meditating in front of the tabernacle.
Our Lord’s Big Letdown
Does Our Lord feel let down? He sure does! It is one big letdown for Him! He has said as much over the centuries. To St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Our Lord said: “My Divine Heart is so passionately inflamed with love for men, that it can no longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its ardent charity, and needs spread them abroad … Behold this Heart which has so loved men that It spared nothing, even going so far as to exhaust and consume Itself, to prove to them Its love. And in return I receive from the greater part of men nothing but ingratitude, by the contempt, irreverence, sacrileges and coldness with which they treat Me … If they would only give Me some return of love, I should not reckon all that I have done for them, and I would do yet more if possible. But they have only coldness and contempt for all My endeavors to do them good. This is more grievous to Me than all that I endured in My Passion.”
In the same 17th century, Our Lord appeared to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, in Quito, Ecuador, and showed her His Sacred Heart, riddled with small, piercing thorns that stung Him cruelly. “Understand that these thorns are the serious as well as slight faults of those whom I deliver from the world … I desire that there be souls in whom I can rest from My fatigues and in whom I might take My repose ... It is their ingratitude and indifference that so cruelly wounds My Heart! Alas! If you could only know My intense interior suffering ... caused by the lack of correspondence to this deluge of graces which I pour upon them … Alas, if they only knew and were convinced of how much I love them and how much I desire that they should enter into the very depths of their souls! Then, without a doubt, they would find Me and would necessarily live a life of love, light and continuous union with Me … But when those so near to Me who belong to Me reject My spirit, abandoning Me alone in Tabernacles, rarely remembering that I live there especially for love of them, even more than for the rest of the faithful, then I am forced to let My Justice fall upon both cloisters and cities! Alas! If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small spineless imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me ... But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing! — according to My example, for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross! … Woe to souls like this! Woe!” (Our Lord to Mother Mariana, Quito Ecuador).
What’s Our Christmas Focal Point?
Christmas should be what the name suggests―all about Christ. It should be a time when Christ is the focal point of our lives―not just for a few minutes or one hour at Christmas Day Mass―though some folk even find it difficult to fully focus on Christ during Mass―not just the focal point for Christmas Day―but throughout the so-called “Twelve Days of Christmas” at least, even though the Christmas season itself is 40-day long (ending on the Feast of the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple and the Purification of His Holy Mother, on February 2nd). We are not supposed to love Christ (our God) for a mere hour at Mass on Christmas Day, nor just for Christmas Day―for is a long way from fulfilling the commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
Instead, our chief focal point―at least in time allocated―are the Christmas celebrations and entertainment! Hours shopping for gifts (not for Christ, but others); hours in wrapping those gifts and writing cards; hours in food preparation; hours eating, drinking and then snacking; hours in watching television; hours in listening to music; hours on internet or smartphone; hours in idle chatter; hours playing games―leaving barely any time for Christ, whose birthday we are supposed to be celebrating! Wouldn’t you feel a big letdown on YOUR birthday party, if everyone, after wishing you a “Happy Birthday”, barely spoke to you after that and generally ignored you for the rest of the party? Of course you would! Especially if you had done a lot for those persons all year round! We cannot even imagine all that Christ has done for us―year in year out! A whole year would not suffice for thanking Our Lord for all He has done―especially since we have spent the whole year offending Him by sinning (at least venially) each and every day! Yet for most people, Christ will be nowhere near “top of the list” of Christmas priorities. What makes it even worse is that those, who know better and personally do better themselves, are afraid to correct those around them, who have perverted the true spirit of Christmas by injecting into it large amounts of toxic worldliness―as Our Lady of Good Success lamented: “Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’ … And those who should speak out, will be silent!”
Christmas Birth or Christmas Resurrection?
It would seem that Christmas as regards Christ’s birth has died the death and is in need of a resurrection! We have managed to corrupt Christmas to the point where we are left with merely colorful feathers, but with no bird beneath those feathers. For all intents and purposes we have reduced the living Christ to the plaster or plastic doll effigy that we ceremoniously place in the crib of our nativity scenes! Christ has become just as unimportant as that doll. A symbolic mention―and then let’s down to nitty-gritty, eating and drinking, joking and laughing, television watching and game playing Christmas that we all love and look forward to! Our Lord has words for such a Christmas attitude: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). Our Lord would offer us a new heart, a change of heart―if we would only accept it or want it ourselves: “I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you―and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh!” (Ezechiel 36:26) ― but there are very few takers!
The same could be said of our Christmases―Christ could say: “I will give you a new Christmas, and put a new Christmas spirit within you―and I will take away the fake Christmas heart out of you, and will give you a true Christmas heart! I will take away your fake material Christmas and give you a true spiritual Christmas!” ― but there are few takers! Most people prefer their material, worldly, entertainment filled, stomach filled, dizzy Christmases. After all, those kinds of Christmases have become traditional over the years―we have little or no experience of any other kind of Christmas―it was the kind of Christmas that our parents gave us and we dutifully pass it on to our children!
Will anyone have the courage to swim against the tide―the false materialistic Christmastide―and try to resurrect a truly spiritual Christmas? How much further down the slippery slope must we slide before we realize that we are celebrating Christmas badly or imperfectly? How many more gluttonous, drunken (or at least tipsy), risqué conversationalist, immodest, television ‘tabernacle’ centered Christmases must we repeat and endure until we finally say: “Enough is enough!” There is no Christ in such Christmases―and Christ would even hesitate or refuse to come to such Christmases! Christ did not come down from Heaven for a big letdown! We have let Him down too many times! When will we understand God’s words: “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). Why are we trying to fit Christ into a Christmas of our liking―which is like hammering a square peg into a round hole―instead of allowing Christ to raise us above ourselves into a Christmas of His liking? Whose birthday is it, anyway? Certainly not ours―but Christ’s! Don’t we ask people: “What would you like for your birthday? How would you like to celebrate your birthday?” If we asked Christ those questions, then He most certainly not reply: “I want to spend as little time in church as possible! I want lots of food, lots of booze, lots of fun and games, lots of entertainment, lots of partying!”
Courage for Christmas
Why don’t you ask Christ for courage for Christmas? Ask Christ to help you to stand up for a true spiritual Christmas! Remember His words: “Everyone therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven! But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household! He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me! He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for Me, shall find it!” (Matthew 10:32-39). Yes! Stand up for Christ! Stand up for Christmas! Never mind what your father, mother, son, daughter, son-in-law and daughter-in-law, brother, sister, aunt or uncle think! “Everyone therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven! But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father! … He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me!”
Goals Requires Means―Targets Need Tools
So far, we have merely spoken about how bad things are―without actually giving any advice on how to make things better. God never sets us targets without also giving us the tools to achieve those targets. The website has more than enough tools for you to improve your usual Christmas season and make it truly spiritual. Here is a brief listing of what can be found on what page―with links provided:
► SUGGESTIONS FOR CHRISTMAS (click here)
This webpage provides you with many suggestions on how to spiritualize your Christmas. How to “Advertise Christ in Your Christmas” … How to “Prepare Your Presents for Christ” … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Celebration Schedule” … How to “Prepare Your Spiritual Food” (Prayers & Readings) … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Posters and Handouts” (download them from this website) … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Music” … How to “Prepare Your Christmas Celebration Activities” … How to “Prepare Your Symbolic Christmas Food and Drink”.
► CHRISTMAS POSTER DOWNLOADS (click here)
1. Christ Comes First in Christmas (a set of 24 posters)
2. If Jesus Came for Christmas Day (a poetry poster with Jesus knocking on the door)
3. Little Drummer Boy Poster (with the words to the song)
► CHRISTMAS EVE FAMILY RITUAL DOWNLOAD (click here)
1. The Purpose of Christmas (Read Christmas Eve Morning)
2. Morning Prayers & the Angelus
3. Fifteen Rosary Meditations for the Whole Day
4. The Story of St. Jerome Meeting Jesus at Bethlehem on Christmas Eve
5. Examination of Conscience (download available at devotiontoourlady.com)
6. Prayers and Ritual for the Family Blessing of the Crib
7. Proclamation of Christ’s Birth from the Church’s Martyrology for Christmas Eve
8. Prayers & Readings for the Lighting the Christ Candle
9. Prayer and Ritual for Placing Christ in His Crib
10. Liturgical Hymns and Carols (to sing, read or recite)
11. Prayers and Ritual for Eating the Oplatki (Christmas wafer bread)
12. Overnight Vigil arrangements and Prayers
► CHRISTMAS DAY FAMILY RITUAL DOWNLOAD (click here)
1. Morning Proclamation of Christ's Birth
2. Christmas Day Morning Prayers and Angelus
3. Fifteen Decade Rosary with meditations all on the Nativity, to be scheduled at intervals throughout the day
4. Day Vigil at the Crib arrangements
5. The Midday Angelus
6. Prayers and Reading before, during and after the Christmas Dinner
7. The Oplatki custom
8. The Evening Angelus
► CHRISTMAS QUIZ (click here)
A broad range of questions from the catechism that could be used for a Christmas Quiz in the family
Hopefully a Christmas themed quiz will also be added to this page before Christmas Day
► CHRISTMAS DAILY PRAYERS FOR EACH DAY OF THE WEEK ― click on any of the day links
Sundays ― Mondays ― Tuesdays ― Wednesdays ― Thursdays ― Fridays ― Saturdays
► CHRISTMAS FOOD FOR THOUGHT (click here) ―
A recipe for Lamb in honor of the birth of the Lamb of God
► CHRISTMAS SPIRITUAL READING
Christmas with St. Thomas Aquinas for every day of the Christmas season (click here)
Christmas with Dom Guéranger for every day of the Christmas season (click here)
Article 12
Saturday December 17th, 2022, 3rd Saturday of Advent
& December 18th, 2022, the 4th Sunday of Advent
Getting Ready for Christ!
Saturday December 17th, 2022, 3rd Saturday of Advent
& December 18th, 2022, the 4th Sunday of Advent
Getting Ready for Christ!
The Problem of Christ
Christmas can be a problem! Christ can be a problem! Christmas is coming! Christ is coming! Do we really want a true Christmas? Or is it true that we would prefer Christmas without Christ? Or Christmas with Christ in the closet? Christ will always tell you the truth. Christ said that He is the Truth (John 14:6). He also said: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!” (John 8:32). But does the truth of Christ make us sad? The truth is meant to make us free, not make us sad―but if we have bought into an alternative truth to the Truth of Christ―such as the ‘truth’ of the world―then there arises a conflict, a division, a polarization, a mutual exclusion. Christ came to Bethlehem to redeem us with His Truth from the lies (‘truth’) of the world and its prince, the devil―who are liars and murderers of the Truth of Christ. Our Lord says to the world (and perhaps to us also): “Why do you not know My speech? Because you cannot hear My word! You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do! He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him! When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies. But if I say the truth, you believe Me not! … If I say the truth to you, why do you not believe Me? He that is of God, heareth the words of God. Therefore you hear them not, because you are not of God!” (John 8:43-47). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
Much of modern-day Christmas is not of God! It has become secularized―it has been stripped of the spiritual. It is the colorful feathers without the bird. There is no doubt whatsoever that, on the part of Jesus, He truly wants to come to us. He loves us beyond our comprehension and our wildest dreams. There is no problem on the part of Jesus. However, on our side, we have to ask the question: “Do we really want Jesus to come to us?” The stress is on the word “really” ― not just theoretically and not just by lip-service. Do we really and truly want Jesus in our lives? To drive the point home more clearly and to avoid misconceptions, do we really and truly want Jesus to be our life? Notice the words “be our life”, which is different to being “a part of our life.” If we want Jesus to be “a part of our life”, then we only partially want Him—for some that means on Sundays and prayer times only, for others a little more perhaps, but they place a limit on “how much of Jesus they can take.” They cannot take Jesus “straight” and “on-the-rocks”―they need to dilute Him and water Him down to make Him more palatable. He wants to be our whole life, not just a part of our life, and that is what is meant by the commandment to love God with our whole mind, heart, soul and strength.
Christ Missing From Christmas
You have no doubt heard the slogan: “Put Christ back into Christmas!” This is very true and necessary―but it is only a partial remedy, or merely the beginning of the remedy. Not only must we seek to put Christ back into Christmas―we must do so with all our mind, heart soul and strength! Just as God hates lukewarmness―Christ hates superficial Christmases. Just as God says of the lukewarm: “I know thy works―that thou art neither cold, nor hot! I wish thou wert cold or hot! But because thou art lukewarm―and neither cold nor hot―I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16)―Christ could just as well say of the typical modern Christmas celebrations: “I know thy celebrations―that they art neither spiritual, nor fervent! I wish thou wert spiritual and fervent! But because they are lukewarm―and neither spiritual nor fervent―I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!”
Christ seeks to be born anew, born more noticeably, born more effectively, born more powerfully, born more appreciatively, born more receptively. He is not coming to be ignored, to be sidelined, to be side-character or a bit-part-player. He does not expect to be left behind in church after the Christmas Day Mass―but He wants to come to your home for the party and celebrations! After all―whose birthday is it? Yours or Christ’s? A birthday party without the “Birthday Boy” is like a soccer game, football, basketball game or baseball game without the ball! The ball is the center of attention in these sports―that is why we call them “ball-games”. Likewise, Christ should be the center of attention throughout Christmas―that is why we call it “Christmas”. Imagine trying to play soccer, football, basketball or baseball without a ball! It would be a fake farce and a flop! Likewise, Christmas without Christ being the center of attention is bound to a fake farce and a flop. Christ would have to say: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’ And in vain do they worship Me―teaching instead the doctrines and precepts of men!” (Mark 7:6-7). Yes―we have increasingly removed the spiritual from Christmas and replaced it with human traditions, self-invented traditions, materialistic traditions―and those occupy most of our attention and love.
Christ is God―and we are told: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Among those whom we love, we pay special attention to their birthdays―do we not? The more we love someone, the more time and effort we put into making their birthday a truly special, joyous and happy day―that is part of the reason we say to people: “Happy Birthday!”
The Meaning of Christmas
Christmas is Christ’s birthday―the word Christmas originates from the phrase Old English words “Crīstes Maesse”, first recorded in 1038, which means “the Mass of Christ” or “Christ’s Mass”. However, the word “Mass” itself has deeper meanings than merely “the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.” We see that the Middle English word “messe, masse”, comes from Old English “mæsse”, which comes from the common Latin “messa” and from Late Latin “missa” ― meaning “dismissal” in the sense of being sent on a mission (see the connection between missa and mission) being the past participle of the Latin verb “mittere” meaning “to send”. The Latin word “missa” sometimes was glossed in Old English as “sendnes” or “send-ness”. At the end of the Traditional Latin Mass, the priest would say: “Ite, missa est!” which can be literally translated as Go (ite), sent (missa), is (est) ― whereas the missals translate it as: “Go, the Mass is ended!” The response to “Ite, missa est!” is “Deo gratias!” or “Thanks be to God!”
Who is sent? What is sent? Sent where? Sent by who? Sent in what way? Confused? Most people are―it’s only normal! St. Thomas Aquinas provides us with an answer. He wrote: “From this the Mass derives its name [missa]; because the priest sends [mittit] his prayers up to God through the angel, as the people do through the priest. Or else because Christ is the victim [hostia] sent [missa] to us: accordingly the deacon on festival days ‘dismisses’ the people at the end of the Mass, by saying: ‘Ite, missa est,’ ― that is, the victim [hostia] has been sent [missa est] to God through the angel, so that it may be accepted by God.” (Summa Theologica, IIIa q. 83, art. 4, ad 9).
The key here is that St. Thomas Aquinas supplies the Latin word “hostia” (feminine gender) meaning “victim” as the missing subject for “missa est”. Christ―the victim for the sacrifice―was sent to us and was born in Bethlehem. That same Christ―the victim of the sacrifice―sacrificed Himself on Mount Calvary in Jerusalem for our sins, and sent to His heavenly Father the payment for our redemption from sin. Each and every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a prolongation of Christ’s sacrifice throughout all successive centuries and sends to God that same redemptive sacrifice. So the dismissal ― “Ite, missa est!” ― can be translated and expanded as meaning: “Go, the victim has been sent to the throne of God and has been accepted.” The victim is Jesus Christ Himself, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world. The victim is the Body and Blood of Christ. In each and every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Christ renews and prolongs His initial sacrifice on Calvary. The result of the victim being ‘sent’ to God, wherever and whenever Mass is offered, reproduces or prolongs that sacrifice of Christ on Calvary for the forgiveness of sins, the reconciliation of man to God, in a word, the result of the sacrifice is salvation and peace. That is why we say: “Thanks be to God!”
Unappreciated, Underrated, Misunderstood Christmas
The underlying reason for our superficial, fake, secularized and worldly Christmas celebrations is the fact that we are not focusing upon neither Christ, nor the reason for His birth. Christ did not come to have fun! Christ came to die for sinners and thereby save them from Hell! “Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). “Behold the Lamb of God! Behold Him who taketh away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). “He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). “He hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of Himself! … So that, through death, He might destroy him who had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil” (Hebrews 9:26; 2:14). “When as yet we were sinners, according to the time, Christ died for us!” (Romans 5:8-9). Jesus Himself said: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no!” (Luke 12:51). “Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword!” (Matthew 10:34) “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). “Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but … I am come that they may have life!” (Matthew 5:17; John 10:10). “The Son of man is come to give His life as a redemption for many!” (Mark 10:45). “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! No, I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … Again, I say to you―except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 5:32; 13:3-5).
That is why Advent is supposed to be a time for penance. It should be a time wherein we recognize and confess our sinfulness: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10).
Unfortunately, there is little penance practiced during Advent! Heck! When Pope Paul VI reduced obligatory Lenten Penance by 95% ― to a mere two days, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday ― then what kind of message does that send with regard to penance during Advent, which is of lesser importance than Lent? Instead of penance, Advent is often filled with office Christmas parties, or school Christmas parties, etc. Feasting, not fasting, is on the mind of most as they gluttonously and avariciously scour the stores for food, wines, beers, spirits, and presents for their nearest and dearest (and themselves)―with little or no thought about what presents they are going to give Christ this Christmas (He usually ends up almost empty-handed). Many hours of toil will be spent upon preparing food and drinks, putting up Christmas decorations, planning parties, wrapping gifts, etc. All the talk will be about secular things, material things, amusements and entertainment!
Our Lord and Holy Scripture rebuke this kind of behavior: “They are of the world! Therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them!” (1 John 4:5). “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon! Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the raiment? … Be not solicitous therefore, saying: ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or “With what shall we be clothed?’ For after all these things do the heathens seek. Your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Therefore, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you!” (Matthew 6:19-33).
“For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea! And did all eat the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink―they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased―for they were overthrown in the desert! Now these things were done in a figure of us, that we should not covet evil things as they also coveted. Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them, as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play!’” (1 Corinthians 10:1-7).
Christmas can be a problem! Christ can be a problem! Christmas is coming! Christ is coming! Do we really want a true Christmas? Or is it true that we would prefer Christmas without Christ? Or Christmas with Christ in the closet? Christ will always tell you the truth. Christ said that He is the Truth (John 14:6). He also said: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!” (John 8:32). But does the truth of Christ make us sad? The truth is meant to make us free, not make us sad―but if we have bought into an alternative truth to the Truth of Christ―such as the ‘truth’ of the world―then there arises a conflict, a division, a polarization, a mutual exclusion. Christ came to Bethlehem to redeem us with His Truth from the lies (‘truth’) of the world and its prince, the devil―who are liars and murderers of the Truth of Christ. Our Lord says to the world (and perhaps to us also): “Why do you not know My speech? Because you cannot hear My word! You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do! He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him! When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies. But if I say the truth, you believe Me not! … If I say the truth to you, why do you not believe Me? He that is of God, heareth the words of God. Therefore you hear them not, because you are not of God!” (John 8:43-47). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
Much of modern-day Christmas is not of God! It has become secularized―it has been stripped of the spiritual. It is the colorful feathers without the bird. There is no doubt whatsoever that, on the part of Jesus, He truly wants to come to us. He loves us beyond our comprehension and our wildest dreams. There is no problem on the part of Jesus. However, on our side, we have to ask the question: “Do we really want Jesus to come to us?” The stress is on the word “really” ― not just theoretically and not just by lip-service. Do we really and truly want Jesus in our lives? To drive the point home more clearly and to avoid misconceptions, do we really and truly want Jesus to be our life? Notice the words “be our life”, which is different to being “a part of our life.” If we want Jesus to be “a part of our life”, then we only partially want Him—for some that means on Sundays and prayer times only, for others a little more perhaps, but they place a limit on “how much of Jesus they can take.” They cannot take Jesus “straight” and “on-the-rocks”―they need to dilute Him and water Him down to make Him more palatable. He wants to be our whole life, not just a part of our life, and that is what is meant by the commandment to love God with our whole mind, heart, soul and strength.
Christ Missing From Christmas
You have no doubt heard the slogan: “Put Christ back into Christmas!” This is very true and necessary―but it is only a partial remedy, or merely the beginning of the remedy. Not only must we seek to put Christ back into Christmas―we must do so with all our mind, heart soul and strength! Just as God hates lukewarmness―Christ hates superficial Christmases. Just as God says of the lukewarm: “I know thy works―that thou art neither cold, nor hot! I wish thou wert cold or hot! But because thou art lukewarm―and neither cold nor hot―I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16)―Christ could just as well say of the typical modern Christmas celebrations: “I know thy celebrations―that they art neither spiritual, nor fervent! I wish thou wert spiritual and fervent! But because they are lukewarm―and neither spiritual nor fervent―I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!”
Christ seeks to be born anew, born more noticeably, born more effectively, born more powerfully, born more appreciatively, born more receptively. He is not coming to be ignored, to be sidelined, to be side-character or a bit-part-player. He does not expect to be left behind in church after the Christmas Day Mass―but He wants to come to your home for the party and celebrations! After all―whose birthday is it? Yours or Christ’s? A birthday party without the “Birthday Boy” is like a soccer game, football, basketball game or baseball game without the ball! The ball is the center of attention in these sports―that is why we call them “ball-games”. Likewise, Christ should be the center of attention throughout Christmas―that is why we call it “Christmas”. Imagine trying to play soccer, football, basketball or baseball without a ball! It would be a fake farce and a flop! Likewise, Christmas without Christ being the center of attention is bound to a fake farce and a flop. Christ would have to say: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’ And in vain do they worship Me―teaching instead the doctrines and precepts of men!” (Mark 7:6-7). Yes―we have increasingly removed the spiritual from Christmas and replaced it with human traditions, self-invented traditions, materialistic traditions―and those occupy most of our attention and love.
Christ is God―and we are told: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). Among those whom we love, we pay special attention to their birthdays―do we not? The more we love someone, the more time and effort we put into making their birthday a truly special, joyous and happy day―that is part of the reason we say to people: “Happy Birthday!”
The Meaning of Christmas
Christmas is Christ’s birthday―the word Christmas originates from the phrase Old English words “Crīstes Maesse”, first recorded in 1038, which means “the Mass of Christ” or “Christ’s Mass”. However, the word “Mass” itself has deeper meanings than merely “the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.” We see that the Middle English word “messe, masse”, comes from Old English “mæsse”, which comes from the common Latin “messa” and from Late Latin “missa” ― meaning “dismissal” in the sense of being sent on a mission (see the connection between missa and mission) being the past participle of the Latin verb “mittere” meaning “to send”. The Latin word “missa” sometimes was glossed in Old English as “sendnes” or “send-ness”. At the end of the Traditional Latin Mass, the priest would say: “Ite, missa est!” which can be literally translated as Go (ite), sent (missa), is (est) ― whereas the missals translate it as: “Go, the Mass is ended!” The response to “Ite, missa est!” is “Deo gratias!” or “Thanks be to God!”
Who is sent? What is sent? Sent where? Sent by who? Sent in what way? Confused? Most people are―it’s only normal! St. Thomas Aquinas provides us with an answer. He wrote: “From this the Mass derives its name [missa]; because the priest sends [mittit] his prayers up to God through the angel, as the people do through the priest. Or else because Christ is the victim [hostia] sent [missa] to us: accordingly the deacon on festival days ‘dismisses’ the people at the end of the Mass, by saying: ‘Ite, missa est,’ ― that is, the victim [hostia] has been sent [missa est] to God through the angel, so that it may be accepted by God.” (Summa Theologica, IIIa q. 83, art. 4, ad 9).
The key here is that St. Thomas Aquinas supplies the Latin word “hostia” (feminine gender) meaning “victim” as the missing subject for “missa est”. Christ―the victim for the sacrifice―was sent to us and was born in Bethlehem. That same Christ―the victim of the sacrifice―sacrificed Himself on Mount Calvary in Jerusalem for our sins, and sent to His heavenly Father the payment for our redemption from sin. Each and every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a prolongation of Christ’s sacrifice throughout all successive centuries and sends to God that same redemptive sacrifice. So the dismissal ― “Ite, missa est!” ― can be translated and expanded as meaning: “Go, the victim has been sent to the throne of God and has been accepted.” The victim is Jesus Christ Himself, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world. The victim is the Body and Blood of Christ. In each and every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Christ renews and prolongs His initial sacrifice on Calvary. The result of the victim being ‘sent’ to God, wherever and whenever Mass is offered, reproduces or prolongs that sacrifice of Christ on Calvary for the forgiveness of sins, the reconciliation of man to God, in a word, the result of the sacrifice is salvation and peace. That is why we say: “Thanks be to God!”
Unappreciated, Underrated, Misunderstood Christmas
The underlying reason for our superficial, fake, secularized and worldly Christmas celebrations is the fact that we are not focusing upon neither Christ, nor the reason for His birth. Christ did not come to have fun! Christ came to die for sinners and thereby save them from Hell! “Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). “Behold the Lamb of God! Behold Him who taketh away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). “He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). “He hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of Himself! … So that, through death, He might destroy him who had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil” (Hebrews 9:26; 2:14). “When as yet we were sinners, according to the time, Christ died for us!” (Romans 5:8-9). Jesus Himself said: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no!” (Luke 12:51). “Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword!” (Matthew 10:34) “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). “Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but … I am come that they may have life!” (Matthew 5:17; John 10:10). “The Son of man is come to give His life as a redemption for many!” (Mark 10:45). “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! No, I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … Again, I say to you―except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 5:32; 13:3-5).
That is why Advent is supposed to be a time for penance. It should be a time wherein we recognize and confess our sinfulness: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10).
Unfortunately, there is little penance practiced during Advent! Heck! When Pope Paul VI reduced obligatory Lenten Penance by 95% ― to a mere two days, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday ― then what kind of message does that send with regard to penance during Advent, which is of lesser importance than Lent? Instead of penance, Advent is often filled with office Christmas parties, or school Christmas parties, etc. Feasting, not fasting, is on the mind of most as they gluttonously and avariciously scour the stores for food, wines, beers, spirits, and presents for their nearest and dearest (and themselves)―with little or no thought about what presents they are going to give Christ this Christmas (He usually ends up almost empty-handed). Many hours of toil will be spent upon preparing food and drinks, putting up Christmas decorations, planning parties, wrapping gifts, etc. All the talk will be about secular things, material things, amusements and entertainment!
Our Lord and Holy Scripture rebuke this kind of behavior: “They are of the world! Therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them!” (1 John 4:5). “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon! Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the raiment? … Be not solicitous therefore, saying: ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or “With what shall we be clothed?’ For after all these things do the heathens seek. Your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Therefore, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you!” (Matthew 6:19-33).
“For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea! And did all eat the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink―they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased―for they were overthrown in the desert! Now these things were done in a figure of us, that we should not covet evil things as they also coveted. Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them, as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play!’” (1 Corinthians 10:1-7).
Article 11
Thursday December 15th, 2022, 3rd Thursday of Advent &
Friday December 16th, 2022, 3rd Friday of Advent
Advent Reconquista
Thursday December 15th, 2022, 3rd Thursday of Advent &
Friday December 16th, 2022, 3rd Friday of Advent
Advent Reconquista
Reconquista? Huh?
What is “reconquista” mean? Is it a typo? A foreign word? What? No―it is not a typo. Yes―it is a foreign word. It is the Spanish word for―yes, you guessed it―reconquest. Then what on earth is “Advent Reconquista”? Well, to understand that, you need to understand a little about what the Spanish word “reconquista” refers to in the context of Spain’s history. So, at the risk of putting you to sleep, here is a brief account the Spanish Reconquista. If you are still awake after reading it―then it will dawn on you that we are facing similar problems in the world today.
Before the Spanish Reconquista
The Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) was invaded in the 8th century by the Muslim Umayyads. The Umayyad state, known as the Umayyad Caliphate, was based in Damascus. In 711, the Umayyads brought an army from North Africa and inflicted heavy defeats on the Visigoth regime in Iberia, at the Battle of Guadalete, on the southern tip of Spain―the gateway to Spain from North Africa. The Visigoths had converted to Catholicism in the 7th century and the Catholic Church was the national and established Church.
This Muslim victory, at the Battle of Guadalete, opened the way for the armies of Islam to conquer the whole Iberian Peninsula within seven years. However, the Muslim conquest of Spain was never total―with Christians still managing to hold on to the northern sections of Spain―for when Muslim Umayyad forces invaded Spain at the start of the 8th century, the remnants of the Christian armies retreated to the northwest corner of Spain, where they established the kingdom of Asturias. At the same time, Charlemagne founded the Spanish March east of this country, in Catalonia (northeast Spain)―which Charlemagne, the Frankish Emperor, used as a military buffer zone between himself and the Muslims. Thus, essentially, a large part of the very northern section of Spain was still under the control of Christians.
Between the 9th and 10th centuries, the Muslims experienced a golden age in Islamic Spain. In the capital of Cordoba, a massive mosque was built, second only to the Great Mosque in Mecca. At the same time, Christian Spain consisted of only a few small independent areas in the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula, where people prayed in low, cave-like churches.
By the 11th century, the Christian countries were reviving. At this time the monks of Cluny from France began to organize a pilgrimage to the great shrine of Santiago de Compostela in the still unconquered northwest of Spain. Feudal knights started arriving there after the monks and pilgrims, warmed by the crusading ideal of fighting non-believers. These knights breathed life into the ideals of the Reconquista.
By the beginning of the 11th century, a civil war had broken out in the Muslim Caliphate of Cordoba, after which the Iberian Peninsula disintegrated into several different Islamic kingdoms. This disagreement led to the expansion, advancement, and emergence of the Christian kingdoms to the north, among the strongest of which were the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. Christianity spread rapidly, and so began a movement to restore the dominance of the Christian kingdoms, in a period known as the Reconquista. The Reconquista, the reconquest of Spain, lasted seven centuries, from the 8th century to the 15th century―whereas the Muslims had conquered Spain in just seven years. Nevertheless, during that time, the Iberian Peninsula was gradually liberated from Muslim rule.
Can You See the Similarities?
You should be able to see the similarities between the Muslim conquest of Catholic Spain and today’s Satanic conquest of the world in general and the Catholic Church in particular. We were even forewarned of this conquest by Our Lady, who said:
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy the Church … The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord ... The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth! ... Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ...
“These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government, will see a cruel persecution of all religious communities … During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … They will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … By their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests will become cesspools of impurity … Several will abandon the Faith, and, additionally, a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective, making it easy for everyone to live in sin ... The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom ...”
“The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis ... Churches will be locked up or desecrated … and altars will be sacked … Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death. Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost! … Men will beat their heads against walls, call for their death, and on another side death will be their torment. Who will be the victor if God does not shorten the length of the test?”
Our Lady then speaks of her “Reconquista”: “This, however, will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss … Thus the Church and country will be finally free of his cruel tyranny! … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph ... I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful! I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! … Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession … At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent ... Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death ... Then water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified … Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God.” (taken from Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Fatima & Our Lady of Akita).
Your Own Conquista and Reconquista!
Just like the Catholics in Spain were conquered by the Muslims―today’s Catholic world has been conquered by worldliness and the modern-day equivalents of the Muslim Empire of old―namely, Materialism, Capitalism, Communism, Liberalism, Modernism, Atheism and Neo-Paganism. There is only a small minority of Catholics who “seek first the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33) and who seek to “love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength!” (Mark 12:30-31). The remainder of Catholics have capitulated and have been conquered by world and its prince, the devil (John 12:31). Are you and your family―or some of your family―victims of this conquest? Who is it that rules your life and rules your family? Is it God, or is the world and its attitudes, fashions and maxims? Most Catholic families are not ruled by God―He is merely a Sunday side-show! God is not fun―but the world most certainly is! Fun is the idol that most Catholics pursue. Priests try to make the Mass “fun”; teachers try to make religion class “fun”; families seek to make Catholic home life “fun”. As Our Lady of La Salette foretold of the people of our day: “They have neglected prayer and penance! The people will think of nothing but amusements!” They have become addicted to fun, they crave fun, they have been conquered by fun―and it is not funny, as they will find out upon their departure from this world one day!
Our Lord came into this world―not to have “fun”―but to suffer and die in order to save and redeem us from the “fun” of sin. We are all guilty of having indulged in the “fun” of sin―“Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin!’?” (Proverbs 20:9). Who dare say: “I am clean, and without sin! I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me!” (Job 33:9). “There is no just man upon Earth that doth good and sinneth not!” (Ecclesiastes 7:21). “For all have sinned, and do need the glory [mercy and grace] of God!” (Romans 3:23). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10).
Yes―Our Lord POTENTIALLY redeemed us by His Passion and Death on the Cross―but to make that potential become a reality we have to partake of and participate in Our Lord’s Passion and Death by following Him whilst carrying our own cross―which is not “fun”. “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Fight Against the “Fun” of Sin
That is why Our Lord and the Holy Ghost, speaking through Holy Scripture, repeatedly tell us to beware of, to avoid and to die to the “fun” of the world, which is usually the “fun” of sin.
Our Lord clearly and emphatically states that the world is His enemy and that the world is ruled by its prince, the devil, who is Christ’s ultimate enemy: “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings Our Lord says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
“The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). “They are of the world—therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them! We are of God. He that knoweth God, heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth us not!” (1 John 4:5-6). “The world cannot receive the Spirit of Truth, because it seeth Him not, nor knoweth Him!” (John 14:16-17). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
“All men are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of God” (Wisdom 13:1). “He that lacks understanding thinks vain things” (Ecclesiasticus 16:23; 34:1). “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of men, that they are vain” (Psalm 93:11). “Vain are the sons of men” (Psalm 61:10). “Their heart is vain!” (Psalm 5:10). “They are gone far from Me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain!” (Jeremias 2:5). “And their days were consumed in vanity” (Psalm 77:33). “Behold they are all in the wrong, and their works are vain―their idols are wind and vanity!” (Isaias 41:29). “O ye sons of men! Why do you love vanity?” (Psalm 4:3). “Why have the people devised vain things?” (Psalm 2:1). “Why do you speak vain things?” (Job 27:12). “They have spoken vain things, everyone to his neighbor!” (Psalm 11:3). They “are turned aside unto vain babbling” (1 Timothy 1:6). “Man counts it a glory to make vain things” (Wisdom 15:9). “Beauty is vain!” (Proverbs 31:30). “Youth and pleasure are vain!” (Ecclesiastes 11:10). “The laws of the people are vain” (Jeremias 10:3). “They are vain things and a ridiculous work―in the time of their visitation they shall perish! … They are vain works, and worthy to be laughed at, in the time of their visitation they shall perish!” (Jeremias 10:15; 51:18).
“Know this first, that in the Last Days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts” (2 Peter 3:3). “In the Last Times there will come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodliness. These are they, who are sensual men, who separate themselves, having not the Spirit” (Jude 1:18-19). “Now the Spirit manifestly saith, that, in the last times, some shall depart from the Faith, giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared [mind blinded]” (1 Timothy 4:1-2). “Know also this, that, in the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves and lovers of pleasures more than of God. Ever learning things and never attaining to the knowledge of the truth. Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid!” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).
“I say then, walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit: and the spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary one to another: so that you do not the things that you would. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, impurity, immodesty, luxury, … drunkenness, reveling [partying], and such like. Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the Kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:16-21).
What Have You Lost? What Must You Reconquer?
Life is not “fun”―life is a battle! “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14).
Are you―and your family―fighting the good fight of the Faith? Are you all fighting to get to Heaven? Or are you fighting among yourselves? Now fighting among yourselves is not necessarily bad―provided that it a fight to protect and increase the Faith―for Our Lord Himself spoke of internal family fights as being almost inevitable as a consequence of some family members being for Christ and others not so much for Him (lukewarm members), or even against Him (as in the case of those family members who have fallen away from the Faith). Jesus says: “Everyone therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven! But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household! He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me! He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for Me, shall find it!” (Matthew 10:32-39).
Your Weak Link
Scarce and rare are the families that have no internal strife and division. Scarce and rare are the families that are fervent. Every family has its weak link, or, most probably, several weak links. The devils―like any military leader―will always search out and focus the main part of the attack on the weak links―whether they are lukewarm or fallen away. These weak links will receive the brunt of attacks―for they know that they “get at you” indirectly through those weak links. Like a whining child, those weak links―even though they might be adults―will moan and groan about the spiritual exercises; they will be sulky and complain; they will want to do the minimum possible and do it as fast as possible.
They don’t like to pray; don’t pray much; don’t pray the Rosary unless they are made to pray; pray too fast; don’t like to talk about the Faith; don’t read about the Faith; don’t read the Bible; don’t do any spiritual reading; don’t meditate; don’t really like going to Mass and only go because they have to; don’t prepare properly for Holy Communion; don’t make a proper thanksgiving after Holy Communion; don’t visit the Blessed Sacrament outside of Mass times; don’t know much about the Faith; don’t defend the Faith; don’t speak out against sin; don’t correct others; don’t accept crosses; don’t like difficulties; don’t do much penance; don’t make many sacrifices; don’t make efforts to sin less; don’t make efforts to grow in virtue―and if you point it out to them, they just don’t care!
By such a blatantly lukewarm attitude, they drag down the spiritual level of the family. Others may be hot or fervent, but they are lukewarm or even cold. If you mix in lukewarm water into hot water, then even though the lukewarm water warms up some more, the hot water drops in temperature. Too many lukewarm souls in a family is dangerous and a recipe for disaster! This is how God Himself expresses His disgust for lukewarmness: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot! I would thou wert cold, or hot! But because thou art lukewarm―and neither cold, nor hot―I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). Such disgust for lukewarmness is one of the reasons why Our Lord put some of his mystic souls through Hell, so to speak, by having them suffer enormously for just a single lukewarm soul in order to “buy” from Our Lord the necessary graces to convert them! We―sadly and disgustingly―look upon lukewarmness as “no big deal” and, if we are lukewarm ourselves, we have qualms about remaining in that state! It is as though we thought that God’s threat to vomit us out of His mouth is merely an idle threat and mere rhetoric―something that a good, kind, loving, merciful God would never ever do! They why is it that the good, kind, loving, merciful God allows most souls to damned?
“And a certain man said to Jesus: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able ... Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it! … When the master of the house shall go inside and shut the door, you shall stand outside and knock on the door, saying: “Lord! Open to us!” And He, answering, shall say to you: “I know you not, whence you are!” Then you shall begin to say: “We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!” And He shall say to you: “I know you not, whence you are! Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity!” Not everyone that saith to Me: “Lord! Lord!” shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: “Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?” And then will I profess unto them: “I never knew you! Depart from Me!” There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!’ … For many are called, but few are chosen!’” (Luke 13:23-28; Matthew 7:13-14; 7:21-23; 22:14).
Hence Our Lord warns: “Everyone, therefore, that hears these My words, and does them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock―and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock. And every one that hears these My words, and doth them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand―and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof!” (Matthew 7:21-27).
Is your house standing firm or falling down? Is it built upon the rock of fervor, or upon the sands of lukewarmness? Are constant rain, floods and winds of worldliness and materialism beating upon your house and causing it to crumble, bit by bit, year by year? Is the world and its prince (Satan) conquering your house, or are you re-conquering ground that you have lost to the world and its prince? “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14).
What Guides You? Popularity or Truth?
Too many people worry about what others think about them―and so they seek to please others rather than irritate others. They don’t want to be a “killjoy” or a “party-pooper” or a “spoilsport” ― and so they dangerously “turn-a-blind-eye” to things and actions that God will most definitely not “turn-a-blind-eye” to and ignore. This kind of attitude is a false respect of persons and sins against true charity―which seeks the correction and betterment of others, which in turn would reduce the amount of punishment on the part of God’s justice. The bottom line with such a false respect and false love of persons is that we give more respect to the sinner than we give to God! We care more about hurting the sinner’s feelings, while caring little or nothing for the feelings of God who is offended by the things that we prefer to “turn-a-blind-eye” to! We care more for our popularity than the glory of God! Such an attitude will have grave consequences! Our Lady of Good Success rebuked this kind of human respect, saying: “Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’”
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady revealed: “The faithful are in such a dangerous and dreadful state of carelessness! Men are lost in forgetful rest and sleep―as if they had no vigilant and powerful enemies. This dreadful carelessness arises from two causes: on the one hand, men are so taken up with their earthly and material life, that they do not feel any other evils except those of a physical and material nature. Anything that is interior seems harmless in their estimation. On the other hand, since the princes of darkness are invisible and unperceived by any of the senses, and since carnal men neither touch, nor feel, nor see them―the result is that they forget the fear of them! … The Earth is filled with lovers of the world and it has made men insane in their desires―for all of them commonly chase after riches and earthly possessions; claiming, thereby, merely to satisfy their legitimate needs―which is only a lame pretext for hiding their lack of interest in higher things, spiritual things! ... Worldlings are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment.
“O insanity never sufficiently to be bewailed and so little considered! All their life they labor and exert themselves to become more and more entangled in the snares of their passions, to be consumed in deceitful vanities and to deliver themselves over to an inextinguishable fire, death and everlasting perdition in Hell, as if all were a mere joke! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! … How many men whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! … They want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as of eternal life! ... Who is so dull-minded and insipid as not to know the dangers of the worldly life? … Guard yourself against the lovers of the world―more than you would guard yourself against fire! … Worldly wisdom looks upon the exterior person―not at the state of the souls, nor at virtue, but only at outward show ... Each person ordinarily seeks to advance his or her honor and vainglory, struggling to be applauded and renowned. The learned and those who think themselves wise, wish to be applauded and looked up to, bragging about their knowledge. The unlearned try to appear wise. The rich glory in their riches and wish to be respected on their account. The poor strive to be or to appear rich―anxious to gain the approval of the wealthy ... Some confide in influential persons, praising and flattering them … The learned and wise, and the powerful of this world, so reluctantly correct and amend their lives. They play-down their faults, extol their virtues and abilities ... How many, being blind themselves, follow these still more blind leaders, until they together fall into the abyss of eternal pains, and they are followed by the bad Christians! … Infinite is the number of those who are entangled in this dangerous error … The number of fools is infinite, the number of the damned is also be uncountable! … Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16) ― fear this sentence and renew in thy heart the care and zeal for thy salvation!”
Start Your Reconquista Now!
We have all sinned―thus we have all lost ground to the devil. In a Vatican document on “Christian Faith and Demonology” it states: “To commit sin after Baptism is once more to abandon oneself to the power of the devil.” Holy Scripture says: “He that committeth sin is of the devil!” (1 John 3:8). Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, builds upon those truths, saying: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … Satan continually tries to dominate the world ― the whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Satanism is on the increase. Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
“We are all tempted by the devil, and will be for as long as we live! … Today, families are among the most targeted by the ordinary action of Satan … He seeks to enslave men by making them obey himself and disobey God … He hates God and that is why he seeks to convince people to commit sins and thus drag them down to Hell ... His ordinary activity is to tempt man toward evil, to lead him to temptation, to sin, to push him to break divine law ... He makes people believe that Hell does not exist, that sin does not exist, and that he is nothing but one more experience to try out ...
“Every man is on battle alert―because life on Earth is a trial of faithfulness to God. Satan’s power is felt more keenly in periods of history when the sinfulness of the community is more evident. Pope Leo XIII, in a vision, received a prophetic warning concerning this demonic attack on our times. Satanism is spreading enormously! The loss of a sense of sin―that characterizes our era―helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God. If the people of the Church do not unite themselves with determination against Satan and fight tooth and nail ― then Satan is free to create havoc and destruction with impunity. Satan’s biggest triumph is mankind’s conviction that he doesn’t exist!” (Fr. Gabriel Amorth, various different occasions).
Has Satan created havoc in your life and your family? How much ground has he conquered? It is time to fight back and try to regain what you have lost! What have you lost? Lost the amount of time you once used to spend in prayer and other spiritual exercises? Lost the level of virtue you once had? Lost the love of God you once had? Lost the frequency of attendance at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? Lost the frequency you once had in going to Confession? Lost interest in the Faith? Lost Faith in God? Lost the desire for spiritual things? It is time to tell the devil to get lost and to reclaim what you have lost! The tools are already known―much prayer (especially the Rosary); much penance (especially fasting); much greater attendance at Holy Mass; much more visits to the Blessed Sacrament and receiving Holy Communion; much more frequent humble Confessions. “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4).
What is “reconquista” mean? Is it a typo? A foreign word? What? No―it is not a typo. Yes―it is a foreign word. It is the Spanish word for―yes, you guessed it―reconquest. Then what on earth is “Advent Reconquista”? Well, to understand that, you need to understand a little about what the Spanish word “reconquista” refers to in the context of Spain’s history. So, at the risk of putting you to sleep, here is a brief account the Spanish Reconquista. If you are still awake after reading it―then it will dawn on you that we are facing similar problems in the world today.
Before the Spanish Reconquista
The Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) was invaded in the 8th century by the Muslim Umayyads. The Umayyad state, known as the Umayyad Caliphate, was based in Damascus. In 711, the Umayyads brought an army from North Africa and inflicted heavy defeats on the Visigoth regime in Iberia, at the Battle of Guadalete, on the southern tip of Spain―the gateway to Spain from North Africa. The Visigoths had converted to Catholicism in the 7th century and the Catholic Church was the national and established Church.
This Muslim victory, at the Battle of Guadalete, opened the way for the armies of Islam to conquer the whole Iberian Peninsula within seven years. However, the Muslim conquest of Spain was never total―with Christians still managing to hold on to the northern sections of Spain―for when Muslim Umayyad forces invaded Spain at the start of the 8th century, the remnants of the Christian armies retreated to the northwest corner of Spain, where they established the kingdom of Asturias. At the same time, Charlemagne founded the Spanish March east of this country, in Catalonia (northeast Spain)―which Charlemagne, the Frankish Emperor, used as a military buffer zone between himself and the Muslims. Thus, essentially, a large part of the very northern section of Spain was still under the control of Christians.
Between the 9th and 10th centuries, the Muslims experienced a golden age in Islamic Spain. In the capital of Cordoba, a massive mosque was built, second only to the Great Mosque in Mecca. At the same time, Christian Spain consisted of only a few small independent areas in the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula, where people prayed in low, cave-like churches.
By the 11th century, the Christian countries were reviving. At this time the monks of Cluny from France began to organize a pilgrimage to the great shrine of Santiago de Compostela in the still unconquered northwest of Spain. Feudal knights started arriving there after the monks and pilgrims, warmed by the crusading ideal of fighting non-believers. These knights breathed life into the ideals of the Reconquista.
By the beginning of the 11th century, a civil war had broken out in the Muslim Caliphate of Cordoba, after which the Iberian Peninsula disintegrated into several different Islamic kingdoms. This disagreement led to the expansion, advancement, and emergence of the Christian kingdoms to the north, among the strongest of which were the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. Christianity spread rapidly, and so began a movement to restore the dominance of the Christian kingdoms, in a period known as the Reconquista. The Reconquista, the reconquest of Spain, lasted seven centuries, from the 8th century to the 15th century―whereas the Muslims had conquered Spain in just seven years. Nevertheless, during that time, the Iberian Peninsula was gradually liberated from Muslim rule.
Can You See the Similarities?
You should be able to see the similarities between the Muslim conquest of Catholic Spain and today’s Satanic conquest of the world in general and the Catholic Church in particular. We were even forewarned of this conquest by Our Lady, who said:
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy the Church … The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord ... The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth! ... Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ...
“These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government, will see a cruel persecution of all religious communities … During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … They will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … By their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests will become cesspools of impurity … Several will abandon the Faith, and, additionally, a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective, making it easy for everyone to live in sin ... The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom ...”
“The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis ... Churches will be locked up or desecrated … and altars will be sacked … Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death. Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost! … Men will beat their heads against walls, call for their death, and on another side death will be their torment. Who will be the victor if God does not shorten the length of the test?”
Our Lady then speaks of her “Reconquista”: “This, however, will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss … Thus the Church and country will be finally free of his cruel tyranny! … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph ... I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful! I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! … Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession … At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent ... Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death ... Then water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified … Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God.” (taken from Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Fatima & Our Lady of Akita).
Your Own Conquista and Reconquista!
Just like the Catholics in Spain were conquered by the Muslims―today’s Catholic world has been conquered by worldliness and the modern-day equivalents of the Muslim Empire of old―namely, Materialism, Capitalism, Communism, Liberalism, Modernism, Atheism and Neo-Paganism. There is only a small minority of Catholics who “seek first the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33) and who seek to “love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength!” (Mark 12:30-31). The remainder of Catholics have capitulated and have been conquered by world and its prince, the devil (John 12:31). Are you and your family―or some of your family―victims of this conquest? Who is it that rules your life and rules your family? Is it God, or is the world and its attitudes, fashions and maxims? Most Catholic families are not ruled by God―He is merely a Sunday side-show! God is not fun―but the world most certainly is! Fun is the idol that most Catholics pursue. Priests try to make the Mass “fun”; teachers try to make religion class “fun”; families seek to make Catholic home life “fun”. As Our Lady of La Salette foretold of the people of our day: “They have neglected prayer and penance! The people will think of nothing but amusements!” They have become addicted to fun, they crave fun, they have been conquered by fun―and it is not funny, as they will find out upon their departure from this world one day!
Our Lord came into this world―not to have “fun”―but to suffer and die in order to save and redeem us from the “fun” of sin. We are all guilty of having indulged in the “fun” of sin―“Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin!’?” (Proverbs 20:9). Who dare say: “I am clean, and without sin! I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me!” (Job 33:9). “There is no just man upon Earth that doth good and sinneth not!” (Ecclesiastes 7:21). “For all have sinned, and do need the glory [mercy and grace] of God!” (Romans 3:23). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us!” (1 John 1:8-10).
Yes―Our Lord POTENTIALLY redeemed us by His Passion and Death on the Cross―but to make that potential become a reality we have to partake of and participate in Our Lord’s Passion and Death by following Him whilst carrying our own cross―which is not “fun”. “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Fight Against the “Fun” of Sin
That is why Our Lord and the Holy Ghost, speaking through Holy Scripture, repeatedly tell us to beware of, to avoid and to die to the “fun” of the world, which is usually the “fun” of sin.
Our Lord clearly and emphatically states that the world is His enemy and that the world is ruled by its prince, the devil, who is Christ’s ultimate enemy: “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To the worldlings Our Lord says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). Concerning His followers, Jesus says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
“The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). “They are of the world—therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them! We are of God. He that knoweth God, heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth us not!” (1 John 4:5-6). “The world cannot receive the Spirit of Truth, because it seeth Him not, nor knoweth Him!” (John 14:16-17). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
“All men are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of God” (Wisdom 13:1). “He that lacks understanding thinks vain things” (Ecclesiasticus 16:23; 34:1). “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of men, that they are vain” (Psalm 93:11). “Vain are the sons of men” (Psalm 61:10). “Their heart is vain!” (Psalm 5:10). “They are gone far from Me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain!” (Jeremias 2:5). “And their days were consumed in vanity” (Psalm 77:33). “Behold they are all in the wrong, and their works are vain―their idols are wind and vanity!” (Isaias 41:29). “O ye sons of men! Why do you love vanity?” (Psalm 4:3). “Why have the people devised vain things?” (Psalm 2:1). “Why do you speak vain things?” (Job 27:12). “They have spoken vain things, everyone to his neighbor!” (Psalm 11:3). They “are turned aside unto vain babbling” (1 Timothy 1:6). “Man counts it a glory to make vain things” (Wisdom 15:9). “Beauty is vain!” (Proverbs 31:30). “Youth and pleasure are vain!” (Ecclesiastes 11:10). “The laws of the people are vain” (Jeremias 10:3). “They are vain things and a ridiculous work―in the time of their visitation they shall perish! … They are vain works, and worthy to be laughed at, in the time of their visitation they shall perish!” (Jeremias 10:15; 51:18).
“Know this first, that in the Last Days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts” (2 Peter 3:3). “In the Last Times there will come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodliness. These are they, who are sensual men, who separate themselves, having not the Spirit” (Jude 1:18-19). “Now the Spirit manifestly saith, that, in the last times, some shall depart from the Faith, giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared [mind blinded]” (1 Timothy 4:1-2). “Know also this, that, in the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves and lovers of pleasures more than of God. Ever learning things and never attaining to the knowledge of the truth. Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid!” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).
“I say then, walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit: and the spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary one to another: so that you do not the things that you would. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, impurity, immodesty, luxury, … drunkenness, reveling [partying], and such like. Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the Kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:16-21).
What Have You Lost? What Must You Reconquer?
Life is not “fun”―life is a battle! “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14).
Are you―and your family―fighting the good fight of the Faith? Are you all fighting to get to Heaven? Or are you fighting among yourselves? Now fighting among yourselves is not necessarily bad―provided that it a fight to protect and increase the Faith―for Our Lord Himself spoke of internal family fights as being almost inevitable as a consequence of some family members being for Christ and others not so much for Him (lukewarm members), or even against Him (as in the case of those family members who have fallen away from the Faith). Jesus says: “Everyone therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven! But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household! He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me! He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for Me, shall find it!” (Matthew 10:32-39).
Your Weak Link
Scarce and rare are the families that have no internal strife and division. Scarce and rare are the families that are fervent. Every family has its weak link, or, most probably, several weak links. The devils―like any military leader―will always search out and focus the main part of the attack on the weak links―whether they are lukewarm or fallen away. These weak links will receive the brunt of attacks―for they know that they “get at you” indirectly through those weak links. Like a whining child, those weak links―even though they might be adults―will moan and groan about the spiritual exercises; they will be sulky and complain; they will want to do the minimum possible and do it as fast as possible.
They don’t like to pray; don’t pray much; don’t pray the Rosary unless they are made to pray; pray too fast; don’t like to talk about the Faith; don’t read about the Faith; don’t read the Bible; don’t do any spiritual reading; don’t meditate; don’t really like going to Mass and only go because they have to; don’t prepare properly for Holy Communion; don’t make a proper thanksgiving after Holy Communion; don’t visit the Blessed Sacrament outside of Mass times; don’t know much about the Faith; don’t defend the Faith; don’t speak out against sin; don’t correct others; don’t accept crosses; don’t like difficulties; don’t do much penance; don’t make many sacrifices; don’t make efforts to sin less; don’t make efforts to grow in virtue―and if you point it out to them, they just don’t care!
By such a blatantly lukewarm attitude, they drag down the spiritual level of the family. Others may be hot or fervent, but they are lukewarm or even cold. If you mix in lukewarm water into hot water, then even though the lukewarm water warms up some more, the hot water drops in temperature. Too many lukewarm souls in a family is dangerous and a recipe for disaster! This is how God Himself expresses His disgust for lukewarmness: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot! I would thou wert cold, or hot! But because thou art lukewarm―and neither cold, nor hot―I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). Such disgust for lukewarmness is one of the reasons why Our Lord put some of his mystic souls through Hell, so to speak, by having them suffer enormously for just a single lukewarm soul in order to “buy” from Our Lord the necessary graces to convert them! We―sadly and disgustingly―look upon lukewarmness as “no big deal” and, if we are lukewarm ourselves, we have qualms about remaining in that state! It is as though we thought that God’s threat to vomit us out of His mouth is merely an idle threat and mere rhetoric―something that a good, kind, loving, merciful God would never ever do! They why is it that the good, kind, loving, merciful God allows most souls to damned?
“And a certain man said to Jesus: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able ... Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it! … When the master of the house shall go inside and shut the door, you shall stand outside and knock on the door, saying: “Lord! Open to us!” And He, answering, shall say to you: “I know you not, whence you are!” Then you shall begin to say: “We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!” And He shall say to you: “I know you not, whence you are! Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity!” Not everyone that saith to Me: “Lord! Lord!” shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: “Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?” And then will I profess unto them: “I never knew you! Depart from Me!” There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!’ … For many are called, but few are chosen!’” (Luke 13:23-28; Matthew 7:13-14; 7:21-23; 22:14).
Hence Our Lord warns: “Everyone, therefore, that hears these My words, and does them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock―and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock. And every one that hears these My words, and doth them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand―and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof!” (Matthew 7:21-27).
Is your house standing firm or falling down? Is it built upon the rock of fervor, or upon the sands of lukewarmness? Are constant rain, floods and winds of worldliness and materialism beating upon your house and causing it to crumble, bit by bit, year by year? Is the world and its prince (Satan) conquering your house, or are you re-conquering ground that you have lost to the world and its prince? “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14).
What Guides You? Popularity or Truth?
Too many people worry about what others think about them―and so they seek to please others rather than irritate others. They don’t want to be a “killjoy” or a “party-pooper” or a “spoilsport” ― and so they dangerously “turn-a-blind-eye” to things and actions that God will most definitely not “turn-a-blind-eye” to and ignore. This kind of attitude is a false respect of persons and sins against true charity―which seeks the correction and betterment of others, which in turn would reduce the amount of punishment on the part of God’s justice. The bottom line with such a false respect and false love of persons is that we give more respect to the sinner than we give to God! We care more about hurting the sinner’s feelings, while caring little or nothing for the feelings of God who is offended by the things that we prefer to “turn-a-blind-eye” to! We care more for our popularity than the glory of God! Such an attitude will have grave consequences! Our Lady of Good Success rebuked this kind of human respect, saying: “Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’”
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady revealed: “The faithful are in such a dangerous and dreadful state of carelessness! Men are lost in forgetful rest and sleep―as if they had no vigilant and powerful enemies. This dreadful carelessness arises from two causes: on the one hand, men are so taken up with their earthly and material life, that they do not feel any other evils except those of a physical and material nature. Anything that is interior seems harmless in their estimation. On the other hand, since the princes of darkness are invisible and unperceived by any of the senses, and since carnal men neither touch, nor feel, nor see them―the result is that they forget the fear of them! … The Earth is filled with lovers of the world and it has made men insane in their desires―for all of them commonly chase after riches and earthly possessions; claiming, thereby, merely to satisfy their legitimate needs―which is only a lame pretext for hiding their lack of interest in higher things, spiritual things! ... Worldlings are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment.
“O insanity never sufficiently to be bewailed and so little considered! All their life they labor and exert themselves to become more and more entangled in the snares of their passions, to be consumed in deceitful vanities and to deliver themselves over to an inextinguishable fire, death and everlasting perdition in Hell, as if all were a mere joke! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! … How many men whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! … They want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as of eternal life! ... Who is so dull-minded and insipid as not to know the dangers of the worldly life? … Guard yourself against the lovers of the world―more than you would guard yourself against fire! … Worldly wisdom looks upon the exterior person―not at the state of the souls, nor at virtue, but only at outward show ... Each person ordinarily seeks to advance his or her honor and vainglory, struggling to be applauded and renowned. The learned and those who think themselves wise, wish to be applauded and looked up to, bragging about their knowledge. The unlearned try to appear wise. The rich glory in their riches and wish to be respected on their account. The poor strive to be or to appear rich―anxious to gain the approval of the wealthy ... Some confide in influential persons, praising and flattering them … The learned and wise, and the powerful of this world, so reluctantly correct and amend their lives. They play-down their faults, extol their virtues and abilities ... How many, being blind themselves, follow these still more blind leaders, until they together fall into the abyss of eternal pains, and they are followed by the bad Christians! … Infinite is the number of those who are entangled in this dangerous error … The number of fools is infinite, the number of the damned is also be uncountable! … Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16) ― fear this sentence and renew in thy heart the care and zeal for thy salvation!”
Start Your Reconquista Now!
We have all sinned―thus we have all lost ground to the devil. In a Vatican document on “Christian Faith and Demonology” it states: “To commit sin after Baptism is once more to abandon oneself to the power of the devil.” Holy Scripture says: “He that committeth sin is of the devil!” (1 John 3:8). Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, builds upon those truths, saying: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … Satan continually tries to dominate the world ― the whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Satanism is on the increase. Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
“We are all tempted by the devil, and will be for as long as we live! … Today, families are among the most targeted by the ordinary action of Satan … He seeks to enslave men by making them obey himself and disobey God … He hates God and that is why he seeks to convince people to commit sins and thus drag them down to Hell ... His ordinary activity is to tempt man toward evil, to lead him to temptation, to sin, to push him to break divine law ... He makes people believe that Hell does not exist, that sin does not exist, and that he is nothing but one more experience to try out ...
“Every man is on battle alert―because life on Earth is a trial of faithfulness to God. Satan’s power is felt more keenly in periods of history when the sinfulness of the community is more evident. Pope Leo XIII, in a vision, received a prophetic warning concerning this demonic attack on our times. Satanism is spreading enormously! The loss of a sense of sin―that characterizes our era―helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God. If the people of the Church do not unite themselves with determination against Satan and fight tooth and nail ― then Satan is free to create havoc and destruction with impunity. Satan’s biggest triumph is mankind’s conviction that he doesn’t exist!” (Fr. Gabriel Amorth, various different occasions).
Has Satan created havoc in your life and your family? How much ground has he conquered? It is time to fight back and try to regain what you have lost! What have you lost? Lost the amount of time you once used to spend in prayer and other spiritual exercises? Lost the level of virtue you once had? Lost the love of God you once had? Lost the frequency of attendance at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? Lost the frequency you once had in going to Confession? Lost interest in the Faith? Lost Faith in God? Lost the desire for spiritual things? It is time to tell the devil to get lost and to reclaim what you have lost! The tools are already known―much prayer (especially the Rosary); much penance (especially fasting); much greater attendance at Holy Mass; much more visits to the Blessed Sacrament and receiving Holy Communion; much more frequent humble Confessions. “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4).
Article 10
Monday December 12th, 2022, 3rd Monday of Advent to
Wednesday December 14th, 2022, 3rd Wednesday of Advent
Guadalupean Protection!
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
Monday December 12th, 2022, 3rd Monday of Advent to
Wednesday December 14th, 2022, 3rd Wednesday of Advent
Guadalupean Protection!
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
More Than Just Flowers
We all know the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe miraculously providing Juan Diego with an abundance of roses in a rocky place where roses had never grown before―as well doing this “out of season”, so that even if roses could grow in that rocky place, it would not be season for roses anyway!
We have this notion that somehow “ladies” and “flowers” go together―that they were made for each other. Our Lady certainly does nothing to dispel that idea in her December 12th apparition in 1531 as Our Lady of Guadalupe―for with Our Lady comes an abundance of roses! In the Litany of Loreto (the Litany of Our Lady), we honor her with the title “Mystical Rose”. Nevertheless, Our Lady did not come to the Tepeyac Hill, on the outskirts of what we today call Mexico City, just to “bring flowers of the rarest and blossoms most fairest”! The Litany of Loreto also calls Our Lady the “Tower of David.” That title shows that “tough” side of Our Lady and complements her “flowery” side. The title “Tower of David” is actually taken from Holy Scripture: “Thy neck is as the Tower of David, which is built with bulwarks: a thousand bucklers hang upon it, all the armor of valiant men” (Canticles 4:4). In praying the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception, we greet Mary, saying: “Hail, city of refuge; Hail, David’s high tower, With battlements crowned, And girded with power.”
It seems a strange greeting for the Virgin Mother―yet not so when we remember she was the Mother of Him who said: “I came not to bring peace, but the sword.” It is true he often speaks of His peace, but then it is that of the warrior who has conquered his foes. “When a strong man armed keepeth his court, those things are at peace that are within.” No one entered more deeply into the truth that Jesus came to declare war with the world, and with the “prince of this word,” as He called Satan, than His blessed Mother. Hence He always found her ready for the word of command, prepared to lead a soldier’s life, to have here “no abiding city,” to dwell first in one place, then in another, to fly the country if such seemed the most prudent step at the moment, as in the flight into Egypt, to retire into Galilee out of reach of the enemies’ headquarters, or to face danger and stand bravely in the midst of foes, as on Mount Calvary.
Guadalupe―the Big Picture
More often than not, we tend to separate and divorce incidents from the bigger background picture to which they belong. There is nothing that is totally independent from its surrounding circumstances, from its history, from its surrounding influences―just like no human being is an independent entity, but necessarily relies upon its parents for its conception, birth and upbringing; its influences, personality and character are a result of its siblings, friends, teachers and colleagues―not to mention the interventions of God through His Divine Providence.
God never does anything that is useless or pointless. Neither does Our Lady make her apparitions simply for “fun” or “attention” or because she is “bored” in Heaven and comes to Earth to find a “distraction”―she always comes for a purpose, she comes to make a point, she comes to make a difference. That is true of all her apparitions―it is true of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
It is important to place Our Lady’s apparition within the context of history―both Mexican history and worldwide history. Our Lady appears in Mexico in 1531. What was Mexico like in the early 16th century? What was Europe like in the early 16th century? What was going on in the world at that time?
Mexico had been totally pagan for around 1,500 years since Christ had walked the Earth and established His Church. Even though the Central American region had their own religions and gods, Holy Scripture tells us: “All the gods of the Gentiles are devils” (Psalm 95:5). Generation after generation had been raised in this worship of pagan gods―devils. This satanic paganism came with a high price―the mass slaughter of people as offerings to these gods (devils).
Mexico’s Bloody Battlefield
By the late 15th century, the Aztecs had won control over large swaths of central and southern Mexico. Human sacrifice was common in many parts of Mesoamerica (southern North America and most of Central America), so the rite was nothing new to the Aztecs when they arrived at the Valley of Mexico, nor was it something unique to pre-Columbian Mexico. Other Mesoamerican cultures―such as the Purépechas and Toltecs, and the Mayans―performed sacrifices as well, and archaeological evidence shows it existed since the time of the Olmecs (1200 BC to 400 BC). What distinguished Aztec practice from the Mayan human sacrifice was the way in which it was embedded as a part of everyday life.
The Aztecs were known for their incredibly large number of regular human sacrifice. The religion of the Aztec civilization flourished in ancient Mesoamerica from the 1300s into the 1500s. This pagan religion has gained an infamous reputation for bloodthirsty human sacrifice with nasty tales of the beating heart being ripped from the still-conscious victim, decapitation, skinning and dismemberment. When the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan was consecrated in 1487, the Aztecs recorded that 84,000 people were slaughtered in four days. Sacrifices were not isolated events, but daily events. The University of California, Berkeley, has recently estimated that the Aztecs sacrificed about 1 percent of the region's population of 25 million or 250,000 people a year―which is almost 5,000 per week―something that is similar to present day abortion proportions.
When the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men arrived in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in 1521, they described witnessing a grisly ceremony. Aztec priests, using razor-sharp obsidian blades, sliced open the chests of sacrificial victims and offered their still-beating hearts to the gods. They then tossed the victims’ lifeless bodies down the steps of the towering Templo Mayor.
Andrés de Tapia, a conquistador, described two rounded towers flanking the Templo Mayor made entirely of human skulls, and between them, a towering wooden rack displaying thousands more skulls with bored holes on either side to allow the skulls to slide onto the wooden poles.
In addition to slicing out the hearts of victims and spilling their blood on temple altars, the Aztecs also practiced a form of ritual cannibalism. After they were decapitated, the bodies of the victims would be gifted to noblemen and important members of the community. 16th century illustrations show body parts being cooked in large pots. The blood would be kept by the priests, used to mix with maize to create a dough that would be shaped as an effigy of the god, baked and then given as food to celebrants at the festival. The greatest amount of cannibalism coincided with times of harvest.
The rationale for Aztec human sacrifice was, first and foremost, a matter of survival. According to Aztec beliefs, the sun god Huitzilopochtli was waging a constant war against darkness, and if the darkness won, the world would end. The keep the sun moving across the sky and preserve their very lives, the Aztecs had to feed Huitzilopochtli with human hearts and blood.
Human sacrifice also served another purpose in the expanding Aztec empire of the 15th and 16th century: intimidation. The ritual killing of war captives and the large-scale displaying of skulls were visceral reminders of the strength of the empire and the extent of its dominion. DNA tests of recovered victims from the Templo Mayor site show that the vast majority of those sacrificed were outsiders, likely enemy soldiers or slaves.
With human sacrifices, the sacrificial victims were most often selected from captive warriors. Indeed, warfare was often conducted for the sole purpose of furnishing candidates for sacrifice. This was the so-called “flowery war” (xochiyaoyotl) where indecisive engagements were the result of the Aztecs being satisfied with taking only sufficient captives for sacrifice and where the eastern Tlaxcala state was a favorite hunting-ground. Those who had fought the most bravely or were the most handsome were considered the best candidates for sacrifice and more likely to please the gods. Indeed, human sacrifice was particularly reserved for those victims most worthy and was considered a high honor, a direct communion with a god.
Another source of sacrificial victims was the ritual ball-games where the losing captain or even the entire team paid the ultimate price for defeat. Children too could be sacrificed―in particular, to honor the rain god Tlaloc―in ceremonies held on sacred mountains. It was believed that the very tears of the child victims would propitiate rain. Slaves were another social group from which sacrificial victims were chosen, they could accompany their ruler in death or be given in offering by tradesmen to ensure prosperity in business.
Culture of Death
Arguably, you could say that today we are living that same “culture of death” ― for today we are killing or ‘sacrificing to the devil’ far more people than the bloodthirsty Aztecs ever did! Their sacrificial numbers of around 5,000 per week are blown away by our modern-day average of around
Around 140 million babies are born each year throughout the entire world―while 40 million abortions take place each year. Theoretically, that means that around 180 million babies are CONCEIVED each year, out of which 40 million are aborted (‘sacrificed’, murdered)―which means that 22% of conceived babies are aborted, or getting close to ever 1-in-4.
In the USA, over 3,600,000 (3.6 million) babies are born each year, with around an additional 900,000 babies suffering abortion. Thus the expected birth rate of 4,500,000 (4.5 million) sees 900,000 being aborted, which comes to 20% or 1-in-5.
In the last 40 years, worldwide, we have aborted (‘sacrificed’, murdered) over 1,648 million babies―or over 800,000 per week. In the USA, since Roe vs. Wade in 1973, over 64 million babies have been ‘sacrificed’―on average, that is around 1,280,000 per year or around 25,000 per week. The Aztec murderers would be envious of us!
Abortions aside, we now have the mass depopulation agenda―of which people like Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum (WEF) speak of with enthusiasm. Your favorite ‘jab’ or ‘vax’ is also a modern-day sacrificial tool that many are willingly (or forcibly) receiving.
Several US life insurance companies have recently revealed an overwhelming unexplained increase in all-cause deaths. The death rate is up by 40 percent from pre-pandemic levels according to Scott Davison, chief executive of OneAmerica, a major insurance company based in Indianapolis. During a news conference on December 30th, 2021, Davison said the change was unprecedented. “The data is consistent across every player in that business,” Davison said. “And what we saw just in the third quarter—we’re seeing it continue into the fourth quarter—is that death rates are up 40 percent over what they were pre-pandemic. Just to give you an idea of how bad that is―a three-sigma, or a one-in-200-year catastrophe, would be a 10% increase over pre-pandemic. So 40% is just unheard of.”
Three physician “whistle-blowers” have just released real data from the Department of Defense―drawn from the clinical diagnosis codes. The increases found that in 2021 there was a 40% increase in deaths, compared to the five year average from 2016 to 2020.
Myocardial infarction: 269% increase
Miscarriages: 300% increase
Bell’s palsy: 291% increase
Congenital malformations: 156% increase
Female infertility: 471% increase
Pulmonary embolisms: 467% increase
Neurologic abnormalities: 300% increase
Cancers: 300% increase
Even more alarming is where those death rates are hitting, with Davison saying it’s primarily among working aged people between the ages of 18 and 64 who are covered by OneAmerica’s group life policies. The insurance company says that’s similar to what the rest of the group life industry is seeing and is consistent with CDC data.
Culture of Spiritual Death
It was not just a time of bloody pagan sacrifices in 16th century Mexico when Our Lady of Guadalupe made her appearance in 1531―there was also a massive religious upheaval in Europe. In 1519 the seeds were being sown for the forthcoming Protestant Reformation (more correctly, it should be called “Protestant Revolution”)―which would bring about an ever-increasing spiritual death that would slowly grow and spread forth from Europe, like a cancer, throughout the rest of the world. The renegade Catholic Augustinian monk, Fr. Martin Luther, was the revolutionary spark within the Catholic Church that merely ignited what had brewing for centuries.
Just before Our Lady of Guadalupe made her appearance in Mexico, in 1531, the seeds of the Protestant Reformation were being sown back in Europe. Here is a brief timeline of the key events:
► EUROPE
● 1517―the Ninety-five Theses of Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation and Lutheranism.
● 1521―Luther refused to recant his theological opinions and writings at the Diet of Worms―as a consequence, the Pope excommunicates Luther.
● 1521―in the same year, the explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, claims the Philippines for Spain, which then sees the first mass conversion to Catholicism in East Asia.
● 1522―Luther produces his German version of the Bible.
● 1525―the Protestant Anabaptist movement begins―it was the first-ever Protestant missionary conference.
● 1526―Luther published his German Mass and The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.
● 1528―the Protestant Reformation in Denmark-Norway and Holstein, allowed Lutheranism to enter.
● 1530―the Protestant Augsburg Confession, produced the first doctrinal statement of the Lutheran Church.
● 1534―Henry VIII broke away from Catholic Rome and established a new independent entity―the Church of England.
● 1537―Christian III of Denmark decreed Lutheranism to be the state religion of Norway and Denmark.
► MEXICO
● 1519―two Franciscans accompanied Hernán Cortés in his expedition to Mexico
● 1520―the German missionary, Fr. Maximilian Uhland, also known as Fr. Bernardino de San José, went to Hispaniola with the newly appointed Bishop Geraldini.
● 1521―Pope Leo X granted Franciscan, Fr. Francis Quiñones, permission and faculties to go as a missionary to the New World.
● 1522―Portuguese missionaries established a Catholic presence on coast of Sri Lanka and begin moving inland with Portuguese military units
● 1524―Fr. Martin de Valencia went to New Spain (much of North America and northern parts of South America) with 12 Franciscan friars.
● 1525―Italian Franciscan missionary, Fr. Giulio Zarco, was sent to Michoacán on the western coast of Mexico.
● 1526―Franciscans entered Florida. Twelve Dominican friars arrived in the Mexican capital.
● 1528―Franciscan missionary, Fr. Juan de Padilla, arrived in Mexico. He accompanied Coronado's expedition searching for the Seven Cities and eventually settled among the Quivira (now called the Wichita).
● 1529―Franciscan Peter of Ghent wrote from Latin America that he and a colleague had baptized 14,000 people on one day.
● 1531―Franciscan, Fr. Juan de Padilla, began a series of missionary tours among Indian tribes southeast of Mexico City.
● 1532―Evangelization of Peru began when missionaries arrived with Francisco Pizzaro's military expedition
● 1540―The Jesuit Order (Society of Jesus) was founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, and helped reconvert large areas of Poland, Hungary, and south Germany, as well as sending missionaries to the New World, India, and China.
Lose Some―Win Some
As the British saying goes: “What you lose on the swings, you gain on the roundabouts!” ― which means that the losses, setbacks, or negative aspects of a certain situation are offset or balanced by equally advantageous or positive elements, or vice versa. Applied to the period surrounding Our Lady of Guadalupe’s 1531 apparitions, you could say that the souls that the Catholic Church was losing in Europe to Protestantism, was compensated by the souls that Catholic Church was converting in Central and South America and also in the Far East.
In the 16th century, Protestantism took on many different flavors. Lutheranism spread from Germany into Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and Iceland. Calvinist churches spread in Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland and France by Protestant Reformers such as Calvin, Zwingli and Knox. The political separation of the Church of England from the pope under King Henry VIII began Anglicanism, bringing England and Wales into this broad Reformation movement, under the leadership of reformer Thomas Cranmer, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, whose work forged Anglican doctrine and identity. Some Protestant denominations have a worldwide scope and distribution of church membership, while others are confined to a single country. A majority of Protestants are members of a handful of Protestant denominational families: Adventists, Anabaptists, Anglicans/Episcopalians, Baptists, Calvinist/Reformed, Lutherans, Methodists, Moravians, Plymouth Brethren, Presbyterians, and Quakers.
Our Lady’s Ever Timely Appearance
You could say that Our Lady is the “Mother of Good Timing”! She tends to give advance warning of future dangers, or even helps and strengthens in dangers that are already present. The Protestant Reformation represents the crucial break in the ideal and reality of Christendom, with Our Lady's 1531 apparition in Guadalupe in Mexico, being Mary's response to that particular revolution. The events connected with St. Catherine Labouré and the Miraculous Medal at Rue du Bac, Paris, in 1830, happened in the aftermath of the 1789 French Revolution and coincided with the Paris Revolution of 1830. Likewise, the apparition at La Salette in 1846, took place shortly before the European revolutionary outbursts of 1848. Our Lady’s apparitions at Lourdes in 1858, occurred just a year before the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species―an event which represents the beginning of the modern atheistic intellectual revolution. Her 1871 apparition at Pontmain in France, took place at the time of the Franco-Prussian War, while the apparition at Knock in Ireland, in 1879, fortified the Irish in their struggle against religious and social oppression. The apparitions at Fatima in Portugal, in 1917, took place just as the Russian Revolution and Communism were unfolding, while her apparitions at Beauraing and Banneux, in 1930s Belgium, took place just as Hitler was coming to power in Germany.
A Defender of the Faith―A Warrior for the Faith
Let us not have too much of a soft and wooly image of Our Lady and her role. Our Lady is a fighter! She fights for the Faith, she fights to defend us from the evils of the devil, the world and the flesh. Holy Mother Church attaches the following Scriptural quote to Our Lady: “Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in battle array?” (Canticles 6:10) ― a quote that the Legion of Mary has made part of its official prayers, using it as an antiphon for the prayer, Magnificat. The word “Legion” in the Legion of Mary, clearly implies an army, as in the case of the Roman Legions of old. The Legion of Mary professes itself to be Our Lady’s army consisting of the Catholic laity, under the guidance of priests.
Our Lady of La Salette speaks of fighting and fighting alongside us: “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side!
Mary in the Fight
St. Louis de Montfort, in his book True Devotion to Mary, speaks of this warrior Queen and her warrior children in their battle with Satan and the powers of Hell: “Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints who shall come at the end of the world are reserved for her … I have said that this would come to pass, particularly at the end of the world and, indeed, presently, because the Most High with His holy Mother has to form for Himself great saints, who shall surpass most of the other saints in sanctity …
“These great souls, full of grace and zeal, shall be chosen to match themselves against the enemies of God, who shall rage on all sides; and they shall be singularly devout to our Blessed Lady― so that they shall fight with one hand and build with the other. With the one hand they shall fight, overthrow and crush the heretics with their heresies, the schismatics with their schisms, the idolaters with their idolatries and the sinners with their impieties. With the other hand they shall build (2 Esdras 4:7) the temple of the true Solomon and the mystical city of God, that is to say, the most holy Virgin, called by the Fathers the “Temple of Solomon” and the “City of God.” … This city―which men shall find at the end of the world to convert themselves in, and to satisfy the hunger they have for justice―is the most holy Virgin, who is called by the Holy Ghost the “City of God.” (Psalm 86:3) …
“By their words and their examples they shall draw the whole world to true devotion to Mary. This shall bring upon them many enemies, but shall also bring many victories and much glory for God alone ... Mary must shine forth more than ever in mercy, in might and in grace, in these latter times―in mercy, to bring back and lovingly receive the poor strayed sinners, who shall be converted and shall return to the Catholic Church; in might, against the enemies of God, idolaters, schismatics, Mahometans, Jews and souls hardened in impiety, who shall rise in terrible revolt against God to seduce all those who shall oppose them and to make them fall by promises and threats; and, finally, she must shine forth in grace, in order to animate and sustain the valiant soldiers and faithful servants of Jesus Christ, who shall battle for His interests.
“Mary must be terrible to the devil and his crew, as an army ranged in battle, principally in these latter times, because the devil―knowing that he has but little time, and now less than ever, to destroy souls―will every day redouble his efforts and his combats. He will presently raise up cruel persecutions and will put terrible snares before the faithful servants and true children of Mary, whom it gives him more trouble to conquer than it does to conquer others ... These last and cruel persecutions of the devil, which shall go on increasing daily till the reign of Antichrist …
“We ought to understand that first and celebrated prediction and curse of God, pronounced in the terrestrial paradise, against the serpent: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel!” (Genesis 3:15) ... God has never made and formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and grow even to the end. It is between Mary, His worthy Mother, and the devil—between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin, and the children and tools of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies, which God has set up against the devil, is His holy Mother Mary. He has inspired her, even since the days of the earthly paradise—though she existed then only in His idea—with so much hatred against that cursed enemy of God, with so much ingenuity in unveiling the malice of that ancient serpent, with so much power to conquer, to overthrow and to crush that proud, impious rebel, that he fears her, not only more than all angels and men, but in a sense more than God Himself ...
“God has not only set an enmity, but enmities, not simply between Mary and the devil, but between the race of the holy Virgin and the race of the devil; that is to say, God has set enmities, antipathies and secret hatreds between the true children and servants of Mary and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love for each other. They have no sympathy for each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world (for it is the same thing) have always, up to this time, persecuted those who belong to our Blessed Lady, and will, in the future, persecute them more than ever …
“But the humble Mary will always have the victory over that proud spirit, and so great a victory that she will go so far as to crush his head, where his pride dwells. She will always discover the malice of the serpent. She will always lay bare his infernal plots and dissipate his diabolical councils, and even to the end of time will guard her faithful servants from his cruel claw ... But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel: that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world’s esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But, in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity, superior to all other creatures by their lively zeal, and so well sustained with God’s assistance that, with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph …
“But who shall those servants, slaves and children of Mary be? They shall be the ministers of the Lord who, like a burning fire, shall kindle the fire of divine love everywhere. They shall be “like sharp arrows in the hand of the powerful” Mary to pierce her enemies. (Psalm 126:4). They shall be the sons of Levi, well purified by the fire of great tribulation, and closely adhering to God (1 Corinthians 6:17), who shall carry the gold of love in their heart, the incense of prayer in their spirit, and the myrrh of mortification in their body. They shall be everywhere the good odor of Jesus Christ to the poor and to the little, while at the same time, they shall be an odor of death to the great, to the rich and to the proud worldlings.
“They shall be clouds thundering and flying through the air at the least breath of the Holy Ghost; who, detaching themselves from everything and troubling themselves about nothing … They shall thunder against sin; they shall storm against the world; they shall strike the devil and his crew; and they shall pierce through and through, for life or for death, with their two-edged sword of the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17), all those to whom they shall be sent on the part of the Most High.
“They shall be the true apostles of the latter times, to whom the Lord of Hosts shall give the word and the might to work marvels and to carry off with glory the spoils of His enemies. They shall sleep without gold or silver, and, what is more, without care, in the midst of the other priests, ecclesiastics, and clerics (Psalm 67:14); and yet they shall have the silvered wings of the dove to go, with the pure intention of the glory of God and the salvation of souls, wheresoever the Holy Ghost shall call them. Nor shall they leave behind them, in the places where they have preached, anything but the gold of charity, which is the fulfillment of the whole law. (Romans 13:10).
“In a word, we know that they shall be true disciples of Jesus Christ, walking in the footsteps of His poverty, humility, contempt of the world, charity; teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not accepting persons; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in their own behavior.
“These are the great men who are to come; but Mary is the one who, by order of the Most High, shall fashion them for the purpose of extending His empire over that of the impious, the idolaters and the Mahometans. But when and how shall this be? God alone knows. As for us, we have but to hold our tongues, to pray, to sigh and to wait: “With expectation I have waited!” (Psalm 39:2).” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, §35, §47, §48, §50 to §52, §56 to §59).
Scripture Says the Same
All of the above is quite simply an explanation and an elaboration of Scripture passages such as the following:
“The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God!” (2 Kings 10:12). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect” (Ephesians 6:11-13). “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-19). “This is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the Faith!” (2 Timothy 4:7).
Everyone is called to the fight―man, woman and child. Just look at the three children at Fatima―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―they were only 10-, 9- and 7-years old! “And Moses answered them: ‘What! Shall your brethren go to fight, and will you just sit here?’” (Numbers 32:6). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself!” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4).
God Is Our General and Our Hope
“God is the leader in our army!” (2 Paralipomenon 13:12). “Blessed be the Lord my God, Who teaches my hands to fight, and my fingers to war!” (Psalm 143:1). “With what counsel or strength dost thou prepare for war? On whom dost thou trust?” (Isaias 36:5). “Put not your trust in princes! … It is good to trust in the Lord, rather than to trust in princes” (Psalms 145:2; 117:9). “We should not trust in ourselves, but in God!” (2 Corinthians 1:9). “Nor put trust in money, nor in treasures” (Ecclesiasticus 31:8). “They trust in their weapons, but we trust in the Almighty Lord” (2 Machabees 8:18). “I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me” (Psalm 43:7). “Dost thou trust in chariots and horsemen?” (4 Kings 18:24). “Some trust in chariots and some in horses―but we will call upon the name of the Lord our God!” (Psalm 19:8). “Vain is the horse for safety! Neither shall he be saved by the abundance of his own strength!” (Psalm 32:17). “The horse is prepared for the day of battle―but the Lord giveth safety!” (Proverbs 21:31). “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal!” (2 Corinthians 10:4). “The Lord is as a man of war” (Exodus 15:3). “The Lord God, Who is your Leader, Himself will fight for you!” (Deuteronomy 1:30). “It shall not be you that shall fight, but only stand with confidence, and you shall see the help of the Lord over you! Fear ye not, nor be you dismayed!” (2 Paralipomenon 20:17). “If thou think that battles consist in the strength of the army, then God will allow thee to be overcome by the enemies―for it belongs to God both to help and to put to flight” (2 Paralipomenon 25:8).
Fighting the Wrong Way
We are far too humanistic in approach to the fight that we face! We have a tendency to relegate God to our level―rather than elevating ourselves to God’s level. He Himself tells us: “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9).
We have a tendency to trust in methods rather than divine methods. This is often due to a lack of spirituality on our part, or a lack of Faith in God. We trust more in our man-made weapons―and lack trust in God’s weapons. We are more likely to fight with bullets and bombs than with the beads on our Rosary. Yet Sister Lucia of Fatima tells us: “The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary, to such an extent, that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or, above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
St. Padre Pio used to call the Rosary “THE” weapon. Concerning the Rosary, Our Lady herself said to Padre Pio: “With this weapon you will win.” One evening, Padre Pio, grabbing the Rosary that he had put on the nightstand for a few seconds, said to Padre Onorato Marcucci: “With this—one wins the battles.” Convinced of the power of the Rosary, Padre Pio always held the Rosary in his hands. He used to carry, permanently, a Rosary in his hands and would pray it many times a day. Padre Pio always wore the Rosary around his arm at night. A few days before his death, as Padre Pio was getting into bed, he said to the friars who were in his room: “Give me my weapon!” And the friars, surprised and curious, asked him: “Where is the weapon? We cannot see anything!” Padre Pio replied: “It is in my habit, which you have just hung up!” After having gone through the pockets of his religious habit, the friars said to him: “Padre, there is no weapon in your habit! . . . We can only find your Rosary beads there!” Padre Pio immediately said: “And is this not a weapon? ... The true weapon?!”
Back to Our Lady of Guadalupe
As stated above, in 1531 the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Juan Diego and her image became miraculously imprinted on his tilma, a cloak of cactus fiber. She revealed herself as Our Lady of Guadalupe and devotion to her spread throughout South America, as well as in Europe. Throughout Europe copies of the holy image had been circulated. One of the first copies was given to Admiral Giovanni Andrea Doria, grandnephew of the renowned Admiral Andrea Doria. The young admiral took the picture aboard his flagship when he assumed command of a flotilla of ships sailing from Genoa to the Gulf of Lepanto. The Battle of Lepanto was fought on October 7th, 1571―exactly 40 years after Our Lady of Guadalupe apparition in 1531. Prior to the battle, Pope Pius V had encouraged everyone to take part in a Rosary Crusade, and many of the sailors prayed the Rosary before the battle. It is said that during the battle, Doria went to his ship’s cabin and knelt in prayer before the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Miraculously, the Christian fleet was victorious and many believed it was due to the protection of the Virgin Mary. Hence, you could say that Our Lady of Guadalupe was also present at the Battle of Lepanto! Seems like Our Lady loves a good fight! That is not surprising since her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, said that He was no pacifist:
“Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
We all know the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe miraculously providing Juan Diego with an abundance of roses in a rocky place where roses had never grown before―as well doing this “out of season”, so that even if roses could grow in that rocky place, it would not be season for roses anyway!
We have this notion that somehow “ladies” and “flowers” go together―that they were made for each other. Our Lady certainly does nothing to dispel that idea in her December 12th apparition in 1531 as Our Lady of Guadalupe―for with Our Lady comes an abundance of roses! In the Litany of Loreto (the Litany of Our Lady), we honor her with the title “Mystical Rose”. Nevertheless, Our Lady did not come to the Tepeyac Hill, on the outskirts of what we today call Mexico City, just to “bring flowers of the rarest and blossoms most fairest”! The Litany of Loreto also calls Our Lady the “Tower of David.” That title shows that “tough” side of Our Lady and complements her “flowery” side. The title “Tower of David” is actually taken from Holy Scripture: “Thy neck is as the Tower of David, which is built with bulwarks: a thousand bucklers hang upon it, all the armor of valiant men” (Canticles 4:4). In praying the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception, we greet Mary, saying: “Hail, city of refuge; Hail, David’s high tower, With battlements crowned, And girded with power.”
It seems a strange greeting for the Virgin Mother―yet not so when we remember she was the Mother of Him who said: “I came not to bring peace, but the sword.” It is true he often speaks of His peace, but then it is that of the warrior who has conquered his foes. “When a strong man armed keepeth his court, those things are at peace that are within.” No one entered more deeply into the truth that Jesus came to declare war with the world, and with the “prince of this word,” as He called Satan, than His blessed Mother. Hence He always found her ready for the word of command, prepared to lead a soldier’s life, to have here “no abiding city,” to dwell first in one place, then in another, to fly the country if such seemed the most prudent step at the moment, as in the flight into Egypt, to retire into Galilee out of reach of the enemies’ headquarters, or to face danger and stand bravely in the midst of foes, as on Mount Calvary.
Guadalupe―the Big Picture
More often than not, we tend to separate and divorce incidents from the bigger background picture to which they belong. There is nothing that is totally independent from its surrounding circumstances, from its history, from its surrounding influences―just like no human being is an independent entity, but necessarily relies upon its parents for its conception, birth and upbringing; its influences, personality and character are a result of its siblings, friends, teachers and colleagues―not to mention the interventions of God through His Divine Providence.
God never does anything that is useless or pointless. Neither does Our Lady make her apparitions simply for “fun” or “attention” or because she is “bored” in Heaven and comes to Earth to find a “distraction”―she always comes for a purpose, she comes to make a point, she comes to make a difference. That is true of all her apparitions―it is true of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
It is important to place Our Lady’s apparition within the context of history―both Mexican history and worldwide history. Our Lady appears in Mexico in 1531. What was Mexico like in the early 16th century? What was Europe like in the early 16th century? What was going on in the world at that time?
Mexico had been totally pagan for around 1,500 years since Christ had walked the Earth and established His Church. Even though the Central American region had their own religions and gods, Holy Scripture tells us: “All the gods of the Gentiles are devils” (Psalm 95:5). Generation after generation had been raised in this worship of pagan gods―devils. This satanic paganism came with a high price―the mass slaughter of people as offerings to these gods (devils).
Mexico’s Bloody Battlefield
By the late 15th century, the Aztecs had won control over large swaths of central and southern Mexico. Human sacrifice was common in many parts of Mesoamerica (southern North America and most of Central America), so the rite was nothing new to the Aztecs when they arrived at the Valley of Mexico, nor was it something unique to pre-Columbian Mexico. Other Mesoamerican cultures―such as the Purépechas and Toltecs, and the Mayans―performed sacrifices as well, and archaeological evidence shows it existed since the time of the Olmecs (1200 BC to 400 BC). What distinguished Aztec practice from the Mayan human sacrifice was the way in which it was embedded as a part of everyday life.
The Aztecs were known for their incredibly large number of regular human sacrifice. The religion of the Aztec civilization flourished in ancient Mesoamerica from the 1300s into the 1500s. This pagan religion has gained an infamous reputation for bloodthirsty human sacrifice with nasty tales of the beating heart being ripped from the still-conscious victim, decapitation, skinning and dismemberment. When the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan was consecrated in 1487, the Aztecs recorded that 84,000 people were slaughtered in four days. Sacrifices were not isolated events, but daily events. The University of California, Berkeley, has recently estimated that the Aztecs sacrificed about 1 percent of the region's population of 25 million or 250,000 people a year―which is almost 5,000 per week―something that is similar to present day abortion proportions.
When the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men arrived in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in 1521, they described witnessing a grisly ceremony. Aztec priests, using razor-sharp obsidian blades, sliced open the chests of sacrificial victims and offered their still-beating hearts to the gods. They then tossed the victims’ lifeless bodies down the steps of the towering Templo Mayor.
Andrés de Tapia, a conquistador, described two rounded towers flanking the Templo Mayor made entirely of human skulls, and between them, a towering wooden rack displaying thousands more skulls with bored holes on either side to allow the skulls to slide onto the wooden poles.
In addition to slicing out the hearts of victims and spilling their blood on temple altars, the Aztecs also practiced a form of ritual cannibalism. After they were decapitated, the bodies of the victims would be gifted to noblemen and important members of the community. 16th century illustrations show body parts being cooked in large pots. The blood would be kept by the priests, used to mix with maize to create a dough that would be shaped as an effigy of the god, baked and then given as food to celebrants at the festival. The greatest amount of cannibalism coincided with times of harvest.
The rationale for Aztec human sacrifice was, first and foremost, a matter of survival. According to Aztec beliefs, the sun god Huitzilopochtli was waging a constant war against darkness, and if the darkness won, the world would end. The keep the sun moving across the sky and preserve their very lives, the Aztecs had to feed Huitzilopochtli with human hearts and blood.
Human sacrifice also served another purpose in the expanding Aztec empire of the 15th and 16th century: intimidation. The ritual killing of war captives and the large-scale displaying of skulls were visceral reminders of the strength of the empire and the extent of its dominion. DNA tests of recovered victims from the Templo Mayor site show that the vast majority of those sacrificed were outsiders, likely enemy soldiers or slaves.
With human sacrifices, the sacrificial victims were most often selected from captive warriors. Indeed, warfare was often conducted for the sole purpose of furnishing candidates for sacrifice. This was the so-called “flowery war” (xochiyaoyotl) where indecisive engagements were the result of the Aztecs being satisfied with taking only sufficient captives for sacrifice and where the eastern Tlaxcala state was a favorite hunting-ground. Those who had fought the most bravely or were the most handsome were considered the best candidates for sacrifice and more likely to please the gods. Indeed, human sacrifice was particularly reserved for those victims most worthy and was considered a high honor, a direct communion with a god.
Another source of sacrificial victims was the ritual ball-games where the losing captain or even the entire team paid the ultimate price for defeat. Children too could be sacrificed―in particular, to honor the rain god Tlaloc―in ceremonies held on sacred mountains. It was believed that the very tears of the child victims would propitiate rain. Slaves were another social group from which sacrificial victims were chosen, they could accompany their ruler in death or be given in offering by tradesmen to ensure prosperity in business.
Culture of Death
Arguably, you could say that today we are living that same “culture of death” ― for today we are killing or ‘sacrificing to the devil’ far more people than the bloodthirsty Aztecs ever did! Their sacrificial numbers of around 5,000 per week are blown away by our modern-day average of around
Around 140 million babies are born each year throughout the entire world―while 40 million abortions take place each year. Theoretically, that means that around 180 million babies are CONCEIVED each year, out of which 40 million are aborted (‘sacrificed’, murdered)―which means that 22% of conceived babies are aborted, or getting close to ever 1-in-4.
In the USA, over 3,600,000 (3.6 million) babies are born each year, with around an additional 900,000 babies suffering abortion. Thus the expected birth rate of 4,500,000 (4.5 million) sees 900,000 being aborted, which comes to 20% or 1-in-5.
In the last 40 years, worldwide, we have aborted (‘sacrificed’, murdered) over 1,648 million babies―or over 800,000 per week. In the USA, since Roe vs. Wade in 1973, over 64 million babies have been ‘sacrificed’―on average, that is around 1,280,000 per year or around 25,000 per week. The Aztec murderers would be envious of us!
Abortions aside, we now have the mass depopulation agenda―of which people like Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum (WEF) speak of with enthusiasm. Your favorite ‘jab’ or ‘vax’ is also a modern-day sacrificial tool that many are willingly (or forcibly) receiving.
Several US life insurance companies have recently revealed an overwhelming unexplained increase in all-cause deaths. The death rate is up by 40 percent from pre-pandemic levels according to Scott Davison, chief executive of OneAmerica, a major insurance company based in Indianapolis. During a news conference on December 30th, 2021, Davison said the change was unprecedented. “The data is consistent across every player in that business,” Davison said. “And what we saw just in the third quarter—we’re seeing it continue into the fourth quarter—is that death rates are up 40 percent over what they were pre-pandemic. Just to give you an idea of how bad that is―a three-sigma, or a one-in-200-year catastrophe, would be a 10% increase over pre-pandemic. So 40% is just unheard of.”
Three physician “whistle-blowers” have just released real data from the Department of Defense―drawn from the clinical diagnosis codes. The increases found that in 2021 there was a 40% increase in deaths, compared to the five year average from 2016 to 2020.
Myocardial infarction: 269% increase
Miscarriages: 300% increase
Bell’s palsy: 291% increase
Congenital malformations: 156% increase
Female infertility: 471% increase
Pulmonary embolisms: 467% increase
Neurologic abnormalities: 300% increase
Cancers: 300% increase
Even more alarming is where those death rates are hitting, with Davison saying it’s primarily among working aged people between the ages of 18 and 64 who are covered by OneAmerica’s group life policies. The insurance company says that’s similar to what the rest of the group life industry is seeing and is consistent with CDC data.
Culture of Spiritual Death
It was not just a time of bloody pagan sacrifices in 16th century Mexico when Our Lady of Guadalupe made her appearance in 1531―there was also a massive religious upheaval in Europe. In 1519 the seeds were being sown for the forthcoming Protestant Reformation (more correctly, it should be called “Protestant Revolution”)―which would bring about an ever-increasing spiritual death that would slowly grow and spread forth from Europe, like a cancer, throughout the rest of the world. The renegade Catholic Augustinian monk, Fr. Martin Luther, was the revolutionary spark within the Catholic Church that merely ignited what had brewing for centuries.
Just before Our Lady of Guadalupe made her appearance in Mexico, in 1531, the seeds of the Protestant Reformation were being sown back in Europe. Here is a brief timeline of the key events:
► EUROPE
● 1517―the Ninety-five Theses of Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation and Lutheranism.
● 1521―Luther refused to recant his theological opinions and writings at the Diet of Worms―as a consequence, the Pope excommunicates Luther.
● 1521―in the same year, the explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, claims the Philippines for Spain, which then sees the first mass conversion to Catholicism in East Asia.
● 1522―Luther produces his German version of the Bible.
● 1525―the Protestant Anabaptist movement begins―it was the first-ever Protestant missionary conference.
● 1526―Luther published his German Mass and The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.
● 1528―the Protestant Reformation in Denmark-Norway and Holstein, allowed Lutheranism to enter.
● 1530―the Protestant Augsburg Confession, produced the first doctrinal statement of the Lutheran Church.
● 1534―Henry VIII broke away from Catholic Rome and established a new independent entity―the Church of England.
● 1537―Christian III of Denmark decreed Lutheranism to be the state religion of Norway and Denmark.
► MEXICO
● 1519―two Franciscans accompanied Hernán Cortés in his expedition to Mexico
● 1520―the German missionary, Fr. Maximilian Uhland, also known as Fr. Bernardino de San José, went to Hispaniola with the newly appointed Bishop Geraldini.
● 1521―Pope Leo X granted Franciscan, Fr. Francis Quiñones, permission and faculties to go as a missionary to the New World.
● 1522―Portuguese missionaries established a Catholic presence on coast of Sri Lanka and begin moving inland with Portuguese military units
● 1524―Fr. Martin de Valencia went to New Spain (much of North America and northern parts of South America) with 12 Franciscan friars.
● 1525―Italian Franciscan missionary, Fr. Giulio Zarco, was sent to Michoacán on the western coast of Mexico.
● 1526―Franciscans entered Florida. Twelve Dominican friars arrived in the Mexican capital.
● 1528―Franciscan missionary, Fr. Juan de Padilla, arrived in Mexico. He accompanied Coronado's expedition searching for the Seven Cities and eventually settled among the Quivira (now called the Wichita).
● 1529―Franciscan Peter of Ghent wrote from Latin America that he and a colleague had baptized 14,000 people on one day.
● 1531―Franciscan, Fr. Juan de Padilla, began a series of missionary tours among Indian tribes southeast of Mexico City.
● 1532―Evangelization of Peru began when missionaries arrived with Francisco Pizzaro's military expedition
● 1540―The Jesuit Order (Society of Jesus) was founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, and helped reconvert large areas of Poland, Hungary, and south Germany, as well as sending missionaries to the New World, India, and China.
Lose Some―Win Some
As the British saying goes: “What you lose on the swings, you gain on the roundabouts!” ― which means that the losses, setbacks, or negative aspects of a certain situation are offset or balanced by equally advantageous or positive elements, or vice versa. Applied to the period surrounding Our Lady of Guadalupe’s 1531 apparitions, you could say that the souls that the Catholic Church was losing in Europe to Protestantism, was compensated by the souls that Catholic Church was converting in Central and South America and also in the Far East.
In the 16th century, Protestantism took on many different flavors. Lutheranism spread from Germany into Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and Iceland. Calvinist churches spread in Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland and France by Protestant Reformers such as Calvin, Zwingli and Knox. The political separation of the Church of England from the pope under King Henry VIII began Anglicanism, bringing England and Wales into this broad Reformation movement, under the leadership of reformer Thomas Cranmer, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, whose work forged Anglican doctrine and identity. Some Protestant denominations have a worldwide scope and distribution of church membership, while others are confined to a single country. A majority of Protestants are members of a handful of Protestant denominational families: Adventists, Anabaptists, Anglicans/Episcopalians, Baptists, Calvinist/Reformed, Lutherans, Methodists, Moravians, Plymouth Brethren, Presbyterians, and Quakers.
Our Lady’s Ever Timely Appearance
You could say that Our Lady is the “Mother of Good Timing”! She tends to give advance warning of future dangers, or even helps and strengthens in dangers that are already present. The Protestant Reformation represents the crucial break in the ideal and reality of Christendom, with Our Lady's 1531 apparition in Guadalupe in Mexico, being Mary's response to that particular revolution. The events connected with St. Catherine Labouré and the Miraculous Medal at Rue du Bac, Paris, in 1830, happened in the aftermath of the 1789 French Revolution and coincided with the Paris Revolution of 1830. Likewise, the apparition at La Salette in 1846, took place shortly before the European revolutionary outbursts of 1848. Our Lady’s apparitions at Lourdes in 1858, occurred just a year before the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species―an event which represents the beginning of the modern atheistic intellectual revolution. Her 1871 apparition at Pontmain in France, took place at the time of the Franco-Prussian War, while the apparition at Knock in Ireland, in 1879, fortified the Irish in their struggle against religious and social oppression. The apparitions at Fatima in Portugal, in 1917, took place just as the Russian Revolution and Communism were unfolding, while her apparitions at Beauraing and Banneux, in 1930s Belgium, took place just as Hitler was coming to power in Germany.
A Defender of the Faith―A Warrior for the Faith
Let us not have too much of a soft and wooly image of Our Lady and her role. Our Lady is a fighter! She fights for the Faith, she fights to defend us from the evils of the devil, the world and the flesh. Holy Mother Church attaches the following Scriptural quote to Our Lady: “Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in battle array?” (Canticles 6:10) ― a quote that the Legion of Mary has made part of its official prayers, using it as an antiphon for the prayer, Magnificat. The word “Legion” in the Legion of Mary, clearly implies an army, as in the case of the Roman Legions of old. The Legion of Mary professes itself to be Our Lady’s army consisting of the Catholic laity, under the guidance of priests.
Our Lady of La Salette speaks of fighting and fighting alongside us: “I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side!
Mary in the Fight
St. Louis de Montfort, in his book True Devotion to Mary, speaks of this warrior Queen and her warrior children in their battle with Satan and the powers of Hell: “Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints who shall come at the end of the world are reserved for her … I have said that this would come to pass, particularly at the end of the world and, indeed, presently, because the Most High with His holy Mother has to form for Himself great saints, who shall surpass most of the other saints in sanctity …
“These great souls, full of grace and zeal, shall be chosen to match themselves against the enemies of God, who shall rage on all sides; and they shall be singularly devout to our Blessed Lady― so that they shall fight with one hand and build with the other. With the one hand they shall fight, overthrow and crush the heretics with their heresies, the schismatics with their schisms, the idolaters with their idolatries and the sinners with their impieties. With the other hand they shall build (2 Esdras 4:7) the temple of the true Solomon and the mystical city of God, that is to say, the most holy Virgin, called by the Fathers the “Temple of Solomon” and the “City of God.” … This city―which men shall find at the end of the world to convert themselves in, and to satisfy the hunger they have for justice―is the most holy Virgin, who is called by the Holy Ghost the “City of God.” (Psalm 86:3) …
“By their words and their examples they shall draw the whole world to true devotion to Mary. This shall bring upon them many enemies, but shall also bring many victories and much glory for God alone ... Mary must shine forth more than ever in mercy, in might and in grace, in these latter times―in mercy, to bring back and lovingly receive the poor strayed sinners, who shall be converted and shall return to the Catholic Church; in might, against the enemies of God, idolaters, schismatics, Mahometans, Jews and souls hardened in impiety, who shall rise in terrible revolt against God to seduce all those who shall oppose them and to make them fall by promises and threats; and, finally, she must shine forth in grace, in order to animate and sustain the valiant soldiers and faithful servants of Jesus Christ, who shall battle for His interests.
“Mary must be terrible to the devil and his crew, as an army ranged in battle, principally in these latter times, because the devil―knowing that he has but little time, and now less than ever, to destroy souls―will every day redouble his efforts and his combats. He will presently raise up cruel persecutions and will put terrible snares before the faithful servants and true children of Mary, whom it gives him more trouble to conquer than it does to conquer others ... These last and cruel persecutions of the devil, which shall go on increasing daily till the reign of Antichrist …
“We ought to understand that first and celebrated prediction and curse of God, pronounced in the terrestrial paradise, against the serpent: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel!” (Genesis 3:15) ... God has never made and formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and grow even to the end. It is between Mary, His worthy Mother, and the devil—between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin, and the children and tools of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies, which God has set up against the devil, is His holy Mother Mary. He has inspired her, even since the days of the earthly paradise—though she existed then only in His idea—with so much hatred against that cursed enemy of God, with so much ingenuity in unveiling the malice of that ancient serpent, with so much power to conquer, to overthrow and to crush that proud, impious rebel, that he fears her, not only more than all angels and men, but in a sense more than God Himself ...
“God has not only set an enmity, but enmities, not simply between Mary and the devil, but between the race of the holy Virgin and the race of the devil; that is to say, God has set enmities, antipathies and secret hatreds between the true children and servants of Mary and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love for each other. They have no sympathy for each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world (for it is the same thing) have always, up to this time, persecuted those who belong to our Blessed Lady, and will, in the future, persecute them more than ever …
“But the humble Mary will always have the victory over that proud spirit, and so great a victory that she will go so far as to crush his head, where his pride dwells. She will always discover the malice of the serpent. She will always lay bare his infernal plots and dissipate his diabolical councils, and even to the end of time will guard her faithful servants from his cruel claw ... But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel: that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world’s esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But, in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity, superior to all other creatures by their lively zeal, and so well sustained with God’s assistance that, with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph …
“But who shall those servants, slaves and children of Mary be? They shall be the ministers of the Lord who, like a burning fire, shall kindle the fire of divine love everywhere. They shall be “like sharp arrows in the hand of the powerful” Mary to pierce her enemies. (Psalm 126:4). They shall be the sons of Levi, well purified by the fire of great tribulation, and closely adhering to God (1 Corinthians 6:17), who shall carry the gold of love in their heart, the incense of prayer in their spirit, and the myrrh of mortification in their body. They shall be everywhere the good odor of Jesus Christ to the poor and to the little, while at the same time, they shall be an odor of death to the great, to the rich and to the proud worldlings.
“They shall be clouds thundering and flying through the air at the least breath of the Holy Ghost; who, detaching themselves from everything and troubling themselves about nothing … They shall thunder against sin; they shall storm against the world; they shall strike the devil and his crew; and they shall pierce through and through, for life or for death, with their two-edged sword of the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17), all those to whom they shall be sent on the part of the Most High.
“They shall be the true apostles of the latter times, to whom the Lord of Hosts shall give the word and the might to work marvels and to carry off with glory the spoils of His enemies. They shall sleep without gold or silver, and, what is more, without care, in the midst of the other priests, ecclesiastics, and clerics (Psalm 67:14); and yet they shall have the silvered wings of the dove to go, with the pure intention of the glory of God and the salvation of souls, wheresoever the Holy Ghost shall call them. Nor shall they leave behind them, in the places where they have preached, anything but the gold of charity, which is the fulfillment of the whole law. (Romans 13:10).
“In a word, we know that they shall be true disciples of Jesus Christ, walking in the footsteps of His poverty, humility, contempt of the world, charity; teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not accepting persons; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in their own behavior.
“These are the great men who are to come; but Mary is the one who, by order of the Most High, shall fashion them for the purpose of extending His empire over that of the impious, the idolaters and the Mahometans. But when and how shall this be? God alone knows. As for us, we have but to hold our tongues, to pray, to sigh and to wait: “With expectation I have waited!” (Psalm 39:2).” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, §35, §47, §48, §50 to §52, §56 to §59).
Scripture Says the Same
All of the above is quite simply an explanation and an elaboration of Scripture passages such as the following:
“The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God!” (2 Kings 10:12). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect” (Ephesians 6:11-13). “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-19). “This is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the Faith!” (2 Timothy 4:7).
Everyone is called to the fight―man, woman and child. Just look at the three children at Fatima―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―they were only 10-, 9- and 7-years old! “And Moses answered them: ‘What! Shall your brethren go to fight, and will you just sit here?’” (Numbers 32:6). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself!” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4).
God Is Our General and Our Hope
“God is the leader in our army!” (2 Paralipomenon 13:12). “Blessed be the Lord my God, Who teaches my hands to fight, and my fingers to war!” (Psalm 143:1). “With what counsel or strength dost thou prepare for war? On whom dost thou trust?” (Isaias 36:5). “Put not your trust in princes! … It is good to trust in the Lord, rather than to trust in princes” (Psalms 145:2; 117:9). “We should not trust in ourselves, but in God!” (2 Corinthians 1:9). “Nor put trust in money, nor in treasures” (Ecclesiasticus 31:8). “They trust in their weapons, but we trust in the Almighty Lord” (2 Machabees 8:18). “I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me” (Psalm 43:7). “Dost thou trust in chariots and horsemen?” (4 Kings 18:24). “Some trust in chariots and some in horses―but we will call upon the name of the Lord our God!” (Psalm 19:8). “Vain is the horse for safety! Neither shall he be saved by the abundance of his own strength!” (Psalm 32:17). “The horse is prepared for the day of battle―but the Lord giveth safety!” (Proverbs 21:31). “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal!” (2 Corinthians 10:4). “The Lord is as a man of war” (Exodus 15:3). “The Lord God, Who is your Leader, Himself will fight for you!” (Deuteronomy 1:30). “It shall not be you that shall fight, but only stand with confidence, and you shall see the help of the Lord over you! Fear ye not, nor be you dismayed!” (2 Paralipomenon 20:17). “If thou think that battles consist in the strength of the army, then God will allow thee to be overcome by the enemies―for it belongs to God both to help and to put to flight” (2 Paralipomenon 25:8).
Fighting the Wrong Way
We are far too humanistic in approach to the fight that we face! We have a tendency to relegate God to our level―rather than elevating ourselves to God’s level. He Himself tells us: “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9).
We have a tendency to trust in methods rather than divine methods. This is often due to a lack of spirituality on our part, or a lack of Faith in God. We trust more in our man-made weapons―and lack trust in God’s weapons. We are more likely to fight with bullets and bombs than with the beads on our Rosary. Yet Sister Lucia of Fatima tells us: “The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary, to such an extent, that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or, above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
St. Padre Pio used to call the Rosary “THE” weapon. Concerning the Rosary, Our Lady herself said to Padre Pio: “With this weapon you will win.” One evening, Padre Pio, grabbing the Rosary that he had put on the nightstand for a few seconds, said to Padre Onorato Marcucci: “With this—one wins the battles.” Convinced of the power of the Rosary, Padre Pio always held the Rosary in his hands. He used to carry, permanently, a Rosary in his hands and would pray it many times a day. Padre Pio always wore the Rosary around his arm at night. A few days before his death, as Padre Pio was getting into bed, he said to the friars who were in his room: “Give me my weapon!” And the friars, surprised and curious, asked him: “Where is the weapon? We cannot see anything!” Padre Pio replied: “It is in my habit, which you have just hung up!” After having gone through the pockets of his religious habit, the friars said to him: “Padre, there is no weapon in your habit! . . . We can only find your Rosary beads there!” Padre Pio immediately said: “And is this not a weapon? ... The true weapon?!”
Back to Our Lady of Guadalupe
As stated above, in 1531 the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Juan Diego and her image became miraculously imprinted on his tilma, a cloak of cactus fiber. She revealed herself as Our Lady of Guadalupe and devotion to her spread throughout South America, as well as in Europe. Throughout Europe copies of the holy image had been circulated. One of the first copies was given to Admiral Giovanni Andrea Doria, grandnephew of the renowned Admiral Andrea Doria. The young admiral took the picture aboard his flagship when he assumed command of a flotilla of ships sailing from Genoa to the Gulf of Lepanto. The Battle of Lepanto was fought on October 7th, 1571―exactly 40 years after Our Lady of Guadalupe apparition in 1531. Prior to the battle, Pope Pius V had encouraged everyone to take part in a Rosary Crusade, and many of the sailors prayed the Rosary before the battle. It is said that during the battle, Doria went to his ship’s cabin and knelt in prayer before the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Miraculously, the Christian fleet was victorious and many believed it was due to the protection of the Virgin Mary. Hence, you could say that Our Lady of Guadalupe was also present at the Battle of Lepanto! Seems like Our Lady loves a good fight! That is not surprising since her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, said that He was no pacifist:
“Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
Article 9
Sunday December 11th, 2022, 3rd Sunday of Advent
Is Ours a Joyful Joy or a Joyless Joy?
Sunday December 11th, 2022, 3rd Sunday of Advent
Is Ours a Joyful Joy or a Joyless Joy?
Gaudete! Rejoice! Again I Say, Rejoice!
The Introit of this Third Sunday of Advent tells us be joyful: “Rejoice in the Lord always! Again I say, rejoice! Let your moderation be known to all men! For the Lord is near! Have no anxiety, but in everything, by prayer let your petitions be made known to God!”
For some people, Advent―much like Lent―is a penitential prison or penitential penitentiary, in which they would rather not be! They feel imprisoned, constrained, cramped and straitjacketed by the Church’s recommendation to do penance. As regards the “Prison of Advent”, today―the Third Sunday of Advent―is called Gaudete Sunday. The title “Gaudete” originates from the reading at Mass on the Third Sunday of Advent, which is taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, for the Church uses the passage from Philippians chapter 4, verse 4, which says: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice!”
The Church uses that phrase, both in the entrance hymn and in the reading for the Third Sunday of Advent. To put it into its proper context, you need to know that St. Paul is writing this during the time of his imprisonment at Rome―and he is joyful despite that. Gaudete Sunday is the point in Advent when the traditional purple of Advent “lightens-up” and rose colored vestments are worn. Gaudete Sunday is the day upon which the Church encourages us to “lighten-up” a little and rejoice.
To rejoice! What does it mean “to rejoice”? When we look at that word and break it down, we see that it is a combination of two things: (1) to show joy, (2) once again. If we simplify or divide the word “rejoice” into more understandable parts, we come up with the prefix “re-” and word “joy.” The prefix “re-” means to do something over again or do something once more after a relapse. Hence we have similar examples in the following words: re-think, re-do, re-paint, re-write, re-make, etc.
What is “Rejoicing”?
To “re-joice” means to put aside sadness, sorrow, despondency, discouragement and despair, and take up once again feelings of joy. People are sad and disheartened in poverty, but they rejoice if somebody somehow alleviates their poverty, even if it is only for a short time. A nation can be discouraged and depressed in a war, but rejoices in victory, when the war is won, the enemy defeated and peace ensues.
The Example of St. Paul
In like manner, sinful mankind can be sad and sorrowful at sight of its sins; for which it is paying through penance and piteously pleading for pardon and peace; yet the Divine deafness leaves them downcast and discouraged under the domination of devils. All this can be seen united in the person of St. Paul: (1) He was a great sinner who had persecuted Christians until converted by Our Lord Himself; (2) He penitentially practiced powerful penances and perseveringly prayed for the rest of his life in order to make amends; (3) yet God seemed to turn a blind-eye to his penances and deaf-ear to his prayers, as Providence showered him with suffering after suffering. In fact, the Lord had said to Ananias, just after Paul’s conversion: “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake” (Acts 9:16). And suffer he did! Here is St. Paul’s partial list, written down by himself, of just a fraction of his sufferings:
“They are Hebrews: so am I. They are Israelites: so am I. They are the seed of Abraham: so am I. They are the ministers of Christ, I am more; in many more labors, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things which are without: my daily instance, the solicitude for all the churches. If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my infirmity” (2 Corinthians 11:22-30). And now he finds himself in prison, and what does he say? He writes to the Philippians:
“Brethren: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety, but in every prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God. And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord” (Philippians 4:4-7).
St. Paul’s Silver-Lined Cloud
This letter of St. Paul to the Christians of Philippi—his first converts in Europe—was written to them from his prison in Rome. When the Philippians, who were very attached to their Apostle, heard of Paul’s imprisonment, they sent one of the community, Epaphroditus, with a sum of money, and with instructions to remain with Paul, to help him in his needs. Epaphroditus became seriously ill in Rome and nearly died; when he recovered Paul sent him back and sent this letter with him to the Christians of Philippi. In it he thanks them and praises them for their generosity and true Christian love, he exhorts them to remain firm in the Faith, despite the present adversity of Paul being in prison. In the four verse extract, read at today’s Mass, St. Paul urges them to “rejoice always.” He repeats it to emphasize how important he thought it: “again I say rejoice.”
The joy St. Paul urges them to practice is the spiritual joy, which comes from the knowledge that, as Christians, they are incorporated by their baptism into the Mystical Body of Christ. Part of the ‘contract’ means having to take up your cross daily and carry it with joy, as did the Apostles, who “went from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus” (Acts 5:41). This was simply the small print of the ‘contract’ that Jesus revealed at the Last Supper, when He said: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20).
Can You Spot Christ?
We need our supernatural glasses, or contact lenses, to see Jesus in our sufferings―but, as the old adage goes: “Where there is the cross, there too is Christ!” St. Paul understood this and that is why he can speak so joyfully and courageously of the cross and suffering:
“For the word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness; but to them that are saved, that is, to us, it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18) ... “That I may live to God: with Christ I am nailed to the cross” (Galatians 2:19) ... “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14) ... “For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come” (Romans 8:18) ... “I Paul...now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh” (Colossians 1:23-24).
This attitude of St. Paul is approved and ‘rubber-stamped’ by St. Peter, who writes: “If you partake of the sufferings of Christ, then rejoice, that when His glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:13).
St. Peter and St. Paul fully realize, understand and accept that God’s gifts of grace and His promise of future glory, are sufficient at all times to give us a ready and joyful acceptance of God’s will in adversity as well as in prosperity. St. Paul himself “rejoices” in his imprisonment, because his chains have turned out to be a means of spreading the Gospel, and are, for him, a means to his own salvation as well the salvation of others (1:12-20).
Rejoice—No Matter What
There are many lessons we may learn from these words of St. Paul written from a Roman dungeon to the Christians of Philippi, but the principal lesson and the one the Church wishes to place before us today is the lesson of joy. We must rejoice in the Lord—no matter what. For all that happens to us and around us, is only happening because God either wants it to happen (if it something good and not sinful) or God has allowed it to happen (if the action we suffer happens to be unjust or sinful). In all events, we must remember that nothing can happen without God’s permission. This should give us a similar attitude to suffering to that of St. Paul.
Yet our joy should not only be a result of the crosses that come our way, but let us also stop for a moment to count our blessings and see how many positive reasons we have for rejoicing.
We are alive; we are probably reasonably healthy; reasonably well-off compared to the vast majority in this world who live in poverty or near poverty; we are most certainly much better off than the people who lived centuries ago; we are human beings who can think, reason and love; we have a body with many talents and gifts, we have a soul which is destined to last forever.
We have been redeemed and been given a chance to attain eternal happiness in Heaven; we have the means of going there and have a guarantee we will get there if we use those means. We are among the minority in this world who have been baptized; we are part of an even greater minority of the baptized who still practice the Faith; we are able to receive our God and Creator in Holy Communion—daily if we wish (in most cases); we have access to the Sacrament of Confession in the case we fall into mortal sin and lose, thereby, our chance of going to Heaven.
And while we battle and struggle on the road to Heaven, we are allowed to enjoy many temporal gifts offered us from the generous hand of a loving Father. Have we not reason to rejoice, to be glad? Indeed, can any true Christian be sad? Of course, we meet with snags and setbacks on the road. To reach the summit of the everlasting hills of Heaven we have to climb the rugged foothills that lead to the summit, but a true Christian will not moan and murmur because of that. It is only those who are going nowhere, those who are to remain forever in a lowly painful valley, who meet no obstacles and have no hills to climb. For them there is only the broad, wide road that leads downwards. We have a chance of going to Heaven and so we realize that every obstacle we overcome, every little summit we scale, is bringing us nearer to the lofty peaks where everlasting happiness and the “peace of God” will be our eternal reward together with an unending joy! Rejoice!
The ‘Joy’ of the Enemy―the ‘Joy’ of the Devil
Even though the Christian should rejoice and be full of joy, there is also a false ‘joy’ and a false ‘rejoicing’ or perverse ‘rejoicing’ that can be found on the side of the enemies of God, Christ and His Church. Our Lord alludes to this when He forewarns His Apostles and Disciples, at the Last Supper: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice, and you shall be made sorrowful―but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20). At the same Last Supper, Our Lord also said: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you―not as the world giveth, do I give unto you! Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid!” (John 14:27). He could just as well have said: “My joy I leave with you, My joy I give unto you! But not as the world gives joy!” There is a marked difference between the joy of Christians and Christ their King, and the joy of the world and Satan their prince! To the worldly listeners of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, the following words would have seemed like insanity: “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for the sake of justice―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven! Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly―for My sake! Be glad and rejoice―for your reward is very great in Heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you!” (Matthew 6:10-12).
Our Lord came to save the world―but He was also against the spirit of the world: “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To the lovers of the world He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, for I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
The Holy Ghost―through Holy Scripture―adds: “If you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice that when His glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy!” (1 Peter 4:13). To the worldly folk, that is insanity! Worldly folk base all their estimation of joy as being an absence of suffering! They want happiness here and now! Suffering is not happiness to them! Yet St. Paul―and countless other saints―found their ultimate joy in suffering for God: “I, Paul, now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His Body, which is the Church!” (1 Colossians 23-24). “We glory also in tribulations” (Romans 5:3).
Vain Joys of the World
King Solomon―son of King David and author of several books of the Bible, credited with writing Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs (Canticle of Canticles)―writes of the vanity of worldly things in Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity!” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). “The eye is not filled with seeing, neither is the ear filled with hearing” (Ecclesiastes 1:8). “I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity, and vexation of spirit” (Ecclesiastes 1:14). “I said in my heart: ‘I will go, and abound with delights, and enjoy good things!’ And I saw that this also was vanity. [2] Laughter I counted error: and to mirth I said: ‘Why art thou vainly deceived?’” (Ecclesiastes 2:1-2).
“I did great works for myself; I built myself houses and planted vineyards; I made gardens and orchards, and planted them with trees of all kinds; and I made me ponds of water to water the wood of the young trees; I got myself menservants, and maidservants, and had a great family; and I amassed herds of oxen, and great flocks of sheep, above all that were before me in Jerusalem! I heaped together for myself silver and gold, and the wealth of kings, and provinces! I made me singing men, and singing women, and the delights of the sons of men, cups and vessels to serve to pour out wine! And I surpassed in riches all that were before me in Jerusalem! My wisdom also remained with me. And whatsoever my eyes desired, I refused them not―and I withheld not my heart from enjoying every pleasure, and delighting itself in the things which I had prepared! And when I turned myself to look at all the works which my hands had wrought, and to the labors wherein I had labored in vain―I saw in all things vanity, and vexation of mind, and that nothing was lasting under the sun!” (Ecclesiastes 2:4-11).
“God hath given to a man all that is good in His sight―wisdom and knowledge, and joy! But to the sinner God hath given vexation and superfluous care, to heap up and to gather things together―but this is vanity and a fruitless solicitude of the mind!” (Ecclesiastes 2:4-11). Wisdom, knowledge and joy are interior spiritual things and these are more conducive to fostering peace and joy in the soul―rather than being vexed and anxious and solicitous about external material things. That is why Our Lord said: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal! But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal! For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). “Better is only a handful with rest, than both hands full with labor and vexation of mind!” (Ecclesiastes 4:6). In other words, more true joy will be found in having little, than fooling oneself with a false joy in having a lot.
As Our Lord says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:3) … “But woe to you that are rich―for you have your consolation! Woe to you that are filled―for you shall hunger! Woe to you that now laugh―for you shall mourn and weep! Woe to you when men shall bless you―for according to these things did their fathers to the false prophets!” (Luke 6:24-26), to which the Holy Ghost adds through Holy Scripture: “Go now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries, which shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten! Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire!” (James 5:1-3).
Joy in the Cross and Suffering―the True Riches!
The only thing worth having a lot of, is having a lot of the cross―for the cross is our key and ticket to Heaven. Holy Mother Church tells us: “Ave crux, spes unica! … In cruce salus!” ― “Hail, cross! Our only hope! … In the cross is salvation!”
The words “Ave crux, spes unica” are based upon the words “O Crux, ave, spes única!” which are sung during the Passiontide Liturgy, in the hymn Vexilla Regis Prodeunt (The Standard of the King Goes Forth)―which is sung at Vespers up until Holy Thursday. It was first sung in the November 19th procession in 569 AD, when a relic of the True Cross, sent by the Emperor Justin II from the East at the request of St. Radegunda, was carried in joyous procession with great pomp and ceremony from Tours to the monastery of Saint-Croix at Poitiers. Its original processional use is commemorated in the Roman Missal on Good Friday, when the Blessed Sacrament is carried in procession from the Repository to the High Altar. Its principal use however, is in the Divine Office, the Roman Breviary assigning it to Vespers from the Saturday before Passion Sunday daily to Maundy Thursday, and to Vespers of feasts of the Holy Cross, such as the Finding of the Cross (May 3rd), the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14th), the Triumph of the Cross (16 July 16th).
The Holy Thursday liturgy, in the Introit at Mass, says: “Nos autem gloriári opórtet in Cruce Dómini nostri Iesu Christi, in quo est salus, vita et resurréctio nostra: per quem salváti et liberáti sumus” ― “But it behooves us to glory in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ―in Whom is our salvation, life, and resurrection; by Whom we are saved and delivered.”
The following day, at the Good Friday Afternoon Liturgy, we have the adoration of the Cross―during which we sing repeatedly: “Ecce lignum Crucis, in quo salus mundi pepéndit! Veníte, adorémus!” … “Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the Savior of the world! Come, let us adore!” … further adding: “We adore Thy Cross, O Lord: and we praise and glorify Thy holy Resurrection―for behold, by the wood of the Cross, JOY has come into the whole world.” This is immediately followed by the magnificent hymn, Crux FIdelis ― O Faithful Cross. Here are just some of the references to the Cross:
Faithful Cross! Above all other,
One and only noble Tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peer may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.
Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle!
With completed victory rife!
And above the Cross's trophy
Tell the triumph of the strife:
How the world's Redeemer conquer'd
By the offering of His life.
Thirty years among us dwelling,
His appointed time fulfilled,
Born for this, He meets His Passion,
For that this He freely willed:
On the Cross the Lamb is lifted,
Where His life-blood shall be spilled.
Bend thy boughs, O Tree of glory!
Thy relaxing sinews bend;
For awhile the ancient rigor,
That thy birth bestowed, suspend:
And the King of heavenly beauty
On thy bosom gently tend!
Faithful Cross! Above all other,
One and only noble Tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peer may be.
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.
Thus we can see why Jesus recommended and insisted upon the cross so much: “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
This is why St. Paul rejoices in being able to carry the Cross of Christ in his own personal life: “God forbid that I should glory, except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ―by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14). “For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us!” (Romans 8:18). “Furthermore I count all things to be but a loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord―for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as dung, in order that I may gain Christ!” (Philippians 3:8).
Likewise the Apostles: “Then the high priest … and all they that were with him … laid hands on the Apostles and … brought them and set them before the council. And the high priest asked them, saying: ‘Commanding we commanded you that you should not teach in this Name [Jesus]; and behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and you have a mind to bring the Blood of this Man upon us. But Peter and the Apostles answering, said: ‘We ought to obey God, rather than men!’ … And calling in the Apostles, after they had scourged them, they charged them that they should not speak at all in the Name of Jesus; and they dismissed them. And the Apostles went from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the Name of Jesus” (Acts 5:17-41).
The Introit of this Third Sunday of Advent tells us be joyful: “Rejoice in the Lord always! Again I say, rejoice! Let your moderation be known to all men! For the Lord is near! Have no anxiety, but in everything, by prayer let your petitions be made known to God!”
For some people, Advent―much like Lent―is a penitential prison or penitential penitentiary, in which they would rather not be! They feel imprisoned, constrained, cramped and straitjacketed by the Church’s recommendation to do penance. As regards the “Prison of Advent”, today―the Third Sunday of Advent―is called Gaudete Sunday. The title “Gaudete” originates from the reading at Mass on the Third Sunday of Advent, which is taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, for the Church uses the passage from Philippians chapter 4, verse 4, which says: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice!”
The Church uses that phrase, both in the entrance hymn and in the reading for the Third Sunday of Advent. To put it into its proper context, you need to know that St. Paul is writing this during the time of his imprisonment at Rome―and he is joyful despite that. Gaudete Sunday is the point in Advent when the traditional purple of Advent “lightens-up” and rose colored vestments are worn. Gaudete Sunday is the day upon which the Church encourages us to “lighten-up” a little and rejoice.
To rejoice! What does it mean “to rejoice”? When we look at that word and break it down, we see that it is a combination of two things: (1) to show joy, (2) once again. If we simplify or divide the word “rejoice” into more understandable parts, we come up with the prefix “re-” and word “joy.” The prefix “re-” means to do something over again or do something once more after a relapse. Hence we have similar examples in the following words: re-think, re-do, re-paint, re-write, re-make, etc.
What is “Rejoicing”?
To “re-joice” means to put aside sadness, sorrow, despondency, discouragement and despair, and take up once again feelings of joy. People are sad and disheartened in poverty, but they rejoice if somebody somehow alleviates their poverty, even if it is only for a short time. A nation can be discouraged and depressed in a war, but rejoices in victory, when the war is won, the enemy defeated and peace ensues.
The Example of St. Paul
In like manner, sinful mankind can be sad and sorrowful at sight of its sins; for which it is paying through penance and piteously pleading for pardon and peace; yet the Divine deafness leaves them downcast and discouraged under the domination of devils. All this can be seen united in the person of St. Paul: (1) He was a great sinner who had persecuted Christians until converted by Our Lord Himself; (2) He penitentially practiced powerful penances and perseveringly prayed for the rest of his life in order to make amends; (3) yet God seemed to turn a blind-eye to his penances and deaf-ear to his prayers, as Providence showered him with suffering after suffering. In fact, the Lord had said to Ananias, just after Paul’s conversion: “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake” (Acts 9:16). And suffer he did! Here is St. Paul’s partial list, written down by himself, of just a fraction of his sufferings:
“They are Hebrews: so am I. They are Israelites: so am I. They are the seed of Abraham: so am I. They are the ministers of Christ, I am more; in many more labors, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things which are without: my daily instance, the solicitude for all the churches. If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my infirmity” (2 Corinthians 11:22-30). And now he finds himself in prison, and what does he say? He writes to the Philippians:
“Brethren: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety, but in every prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God. And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord” (Philippians 4:4-7).
St. Paul’s Silver-Lined Cloud
This letter of St. Paul to the Christians of Philippi—his first converts in Europe—was written to them from his prison in Rome. When the Philippians, who were very attached to their Apostle, heard of Paul’s imprisonment, they sent one of the community, Epaphroditus, with a sum of money, and with instructions to remain with Paul, to help him in his needs. Epaphroditus became seriously ill in Rome and nearly died; when he recovered Paul sent him back and sent this letter with him to the Christians of Philippi. In it he thanks them and praises them for their generosity and true Christian love, he exhorts them to remain firm in the Faith, despite the present adversity of Paul being in prison. In the four verse extract, read at today’s Mass, St. Paul urges them to “rejoice always.” He repeats it to emphasize how important he thought it: “again I say rejoice.”
The joy St. Paul urges them to practice is the spiritual joy, which comes from the knowledge that, as Christians, they are incorporated by their baptism into the Mystical Body of Christ. Part of the ‘contract’ means having to take up your cross daily and carry it with joy, as did the Apostles, who “went from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus” (Acts 5:41). This was simply the small print of the ‘contract’ that Jesus revealed at the Last Supper, when He said: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20).
Can You Spot Christ?
We need our supernatural glasses, or contact lenses, to see Jesus in our sufferings―but, as the old adage goes: “Where there is the cross, there too is Christ!” St. Paul understood this and that is why he can speak so joyfully and courageously of the cross and suffering:
“For the word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness; but to them that are saved, that is, to us, it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18) ... “That I may live to God: with Christ I am nailed to the cross” (Galatians 2:19) ... “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14) ... “For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come” (Romans 8:18) ... “I Paul...now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh” (Colossians 1:23-24).
This attitude of St. Paul is approved and ‘rubber-stamped’ by St. Peter, who writes: “If you partake of the sufferings of Christ, then rejoice, that when His glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:13).
St. Peter and St. Paul fully realize, understand and accept that God’s gifts of grace and His promise of future glory, are sufficient at all times to give us a ready and joyful acceptance of God’s will in adversity as well as in prosperity. St. Paul himself “rejoices” in his imprisonment, because his chains have turned out to be a means of spreading the Gospel, and are, for him, a means to his own salvation as well the salvation of others (1:12-20).
Rejoice—No Matter What
There are many lessons we may learn from these words of St. Paul written from a Roman dungeon to the Christians of Philippi, but the principal lesson and the one the Church wishes to place before us today is the lesson of joy. We must rejoice in the Lord—no matter what. For all that happens to us and around us, is only happening because God either wants it to happen (if it something good and not sinful) or God has allowed it to happen (if the action we suffer happens to be unjust or sinful). In all events, we must remember that nothing can happen without God’s permission. This should give us a similar attitude to suffering to that of St. Paul.
Yet our joy should not only be a result of the crosses that come our way, but let us also stop for a moment to count our blessings and see how many positive reasons we have for rejoicing.
We are alive; we are probably reasonably healthy; reasonably well-off compared to the vast majority in this world who live in poverty or near poverty; we are most certainly much better off than the people who lived centuries ago; we are human beings who can think, reason and love; we have a body with many talents and gifts, we have a soul which is destined to last forever.
We have been redeemed and been given a chance to attain eternal happiness in Heaven; we have the means of going there and have a guarantee we will get there if we use those means. We are among the minority in this world who have been baptized; we are part of an even greater minority of the baptized who still practice the Faith; we are able to receive our God and Creator in Holy Communion—daily if we wish (in most cases); we have access to the Sacrament of Confession in the case we fall into mortal sin and lose, thereby, our chance of going to Heaven.
And while we battle and struggle on the road to Heaven, we are allowed to enjoy many temporal gifts offered us from the generous hand of a loving Father. Have we not reason to rejoice, to be glad? Indeed, can any true Christian be sad? Of course, we meet with snags and setbacks on the road. To reach the summit of the everlasting hills of Heaven we have to climb the rugged foothills that lead to the summit, but a true Christian will not moan and murmur because of that. It is only those who are going nowhere, those who are to remain forever in a lowly painful valley, who meet no obstacles and have no hills to climb. For them there is only the broad, wide road that leads downwards. We have a chance of going to Heaven and so we realize that every obstacle we overcome, every little summit we scale, is bringing us nearer to the lofty peaks where everlasting happiness and the “peace of God” will be our eternal reward together with an unending joy! Rejoice!
The ‘Joy’ of the Enemy―the ‘Joy’ of the Devil
Even though the Christian should rejoice and be full of joy, there is also a false ‘joy’ and a false ‘rejoicing’ or perverse ‘rejoicing’ that can be found on the side of the enemies of God, Christ and His Church. Our Lord alludes to this when He forewarns His Apostles and Disciples, at the Last Supper: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice, and you shall be made sorrowful―but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20). At the same Last Supper, Our Lord also said: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you―not as the world giveth, do I give unto you! Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid!” (John 14:27). He could just as well have said: “My joy I leave with you, My joy I give unto you! But not as the world gives joy!” There is a marked difference between the joy of Christians and Christ their King, and the joy of the world and Satan their prince! To the worldly listeners of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, the following words would have seemed like insanity: “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for the sake of justice―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven! Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly―for My sake! Be glad and rejoice―for your reward is very great in Heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you!” (Matthew 6:10-12).
Our Lord came to save the world―but He was also against the spirit of the world: “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36). To the lovers of the world He says: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!” (John 8:23). To His followers He says: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, for I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7).
The Holy Ghost―through Holy Scripture―adds: “If you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice that when His glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy!” (1 Peter 4:13). To the worldly folk, that is insanity! Worldly folk base all their estimation of joy as being an absence of suffering! They want happiness here and now! Suffering is not happiness to them! Yet St. Paul―and countless other saints―found their ultimate joy in suffering for God: “I, Paul, now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His Body, which is the Church!” (1 Colossians 23-24). “We glory also in tribulations” (Romans 5:3).
Vain Joys of the World
King Solomon―son of King David and author of several books of the Bible, credited with writing Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs (Canticle of Canticles)―writes of the vanity of worldly things in Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity!” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). “The eye is not filled with seeing, neither is the ear filled with hearing” (Ecclesiastes 1:8). “I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity, and vexation of spirit” (Ecclesiastes 1:14). “I said in my heart: ‘I will go, and abound with delights, and enjoy good things!’ And I saw that this also was vanity. [2] Laughter I counted error: and to mirth I said: ‘Why art thou vainly deceived?’” (Ecclesiastes 2:1-2).
“I did great works for myself; I built myself houses and planted vineyards; I made gardens and orchards, and planted them with trees of all kinds; and I made me ponds of water to water the wood of the young trees; I got myself menservants, and maidservants, and had a great family; and I amassed herds of oxen, and great flocks of sheep, above all that were before me in Jerusalem! I heaped together for myself silver and gold, and the wealth of kings, and provinces! I made me singing men, and singing women, and the delights of the sons of men, cups and vessels to serve to pour out wine! And I surpassed in riches all that were before me in Jerusalem! My wisdom also remained with me. And whatsoever my eyes desired, I refused them not―and I withheld not my heart from enjoying every pleasure, and delighting itself in the things which I had prepared! And when I turned myself to look at all the works which my hands had wrought, and to the labors wherein I had labored in vain―I saw in all things vanity, and vexation of mind, and that nothing was lasting under the sun!” (Ecclesiastes 2:4-11).
“God hath given to a man all that is good in His sight―wisdom and knowledge, and joy! But to the sinner God hath given vexation and superfluous care, to heap up and to gather things together―but this is vanity and a fruitless solicitude of the mind!” (Ecclesiastes 2:4-11). Wisdom, knowledge and joy are interior spiritual things and these are more conducive to fostering peace and joy in the soul―rather than being vexed and anxious and solicitous about external material things. That is why Our Lord said: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal! But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal! For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). “Better is only a handful with rest, than both hands full with labor and vexation of mind!” (Ecclesiastes 4:6). In other words, more true joy will be found in having little, than fooling oneself with a false joy in having a lot.
As Our Lord says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:3) … “But woe to you that are rich―for you have your consolation! Woe to you that are filled―for you shall hunger! Woe to you that now laugh―for you shall mourn and weep! Woe to you when men shall bless you―for according to these things did their fathers to the false prophets!” (Luke 6:24-26), to which the Holy Ghost adds through Holy Scripture: “Go now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries, which shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten! Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire!” (James 5:1-3).
Joy in the Cross and Suffering―the True Riches!
The only thing worth having a lot of, is having a lot of the cross―for the cross is our key and ticket to Heaven. Holy Mother Church tells us: “Ave crux, spes unica! … In cruce salus!” ― “Hail, cross! Our only hope! … In the cross is salvation!”
The words “Ave crux, spes unica” are based upon the words “O Crux, ave, spes única!” which are sung during the Passiontide Liturgy, in the hymn Vexilla Regis Prodeunt (The Standard of the King Goes Forth)―which is sung at Vespers up until Holy Thursday. It was first sung in the November 19th procession in 569 AD, when a relic of the True Cross, sent by the Emperor Justin II from the East at the request of St. Radegunda, was carried in joyous procession with great pomp and ceremony from Tours to the monastery of Saint-Croix at Poitiers. Its original processional use is commemorated in the Roman Missal on Good Friday, when the Blessed Sacrament is carried in procession from the Repository to the High Altar. Its principal use however, is in the Divine Office, the Roman Breviary assigning it to Vespers from the Saturday before Passion Sunday daily to Maundy Thursday, and to Vespers of feasts of the Holy Cross, such as the Finding of the Cross (May 3rd), the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14th), the Triumph of the Cross (16 July 16th).
The Holy Thursday liturgy, in the Introit at Mass, says: “Nos autem gloriári opórtet in Cruce Dómini nostri Iesu Christi, in quo est salus, vita et resurréctio nostra: per quem salváti et liberáti sumus” ― “But it behooves us to glory in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ―in Whom is our salvation, life, and resurrection; by Whom we are saved and delivered.”
The following day, at the Good Friday Afternoon Liturgy, we have the adoration of the Cross―during which we sing repeatedly: “Ecce lignum Crucis, in quo salus mundi pepéndit! Veníte, adorémus!” … “Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the Savior of the world! Come, let us adore!” … further adding: “We adore Thy Cross, O Lord: and we praise and glorify Thy holy Resurrection―for behold, by the wood of the Cross, JOY has come into the whole world.” This is immediately followed by the magnificent hymn, Crux FIdelis ― O Faithful Cross. Here are just some of the references to the Cross:
Faithful Cross! Above all other,
One and only noble Tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peer may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.
Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle!
With completed victory rife!
And above the Cross's trophy
Tell the triumph of the strife:
How the world's Redeemer conquer'd
By the offering of His life.
Thirty years among us dwelling,
His appointed time fulfilled,
Born for this, He meets His Passion,
For that this He freely willed:
On the Cross the Lamb is lifted,
Where His life-blood shall be spilled.
Bend thy boughs, O Tree of glory!
Thy relaxing sinews bend;
For awhile the ancient rigor,
That thy birth bestowed, suspend:
And the King of heavenly beauty
On thy bosom gently tend!
Faithful Cross! Above all other,
One and only noble Tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peer may be.
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.
Thus we can see why Jesus recommended and insisted upon the cross so much: “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
This is why St. Paul rejoices in being able to carry the Cross of Christ in his own personal life: “God forbid that I should glory, except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ―by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14). “For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us!” (Romans 8:18). “Furthermore I count all things to be but a loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord―for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as dung, in order that I may gain Christ!” (Philippians 3:8).
Likewise the Apostles: “Then the high priest … and all they that were with him … laid hands on the Apostles and … brought them and set them before the council. And the high priest asked them, saying: ‘Commanding we commanded you that you should not teach in this Name [Jesus]; and behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and you have a mind to bring the Blood of this Man upon us. But Peter and the Apostles answering, said: ‘We ought to obey God, rather than men!’ … And calling in the Apostles, after they had scourged them, they charged them that they should not speak at all in the Name of Jesus; and they dismissed them. And the Apostles went from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the Name of Jesus” (Acts 5:17-41).
Article 8
Friday December 9th, 2022, 2nd Friday of Advent
Immaculate Hangover
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
Friday December 9th, 2022, 2nd Friday of Advent
Immaculate Hangover
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
Immaculate Hangover? Huh?
What on earth has the Immaculate Conception got to do with the a hangover? The word “hangover” is a compound of two words―”hang” & “over”. It is a fusion of the Old English verb “hon” meaning to suspend, whose past tense was “heng” and its past participle was “hangen” ― all of which can be traced back over the centuries to the Latin verb “cunctari” meaning “to delay, to hold up, to tarry, to linger”. In late Old English it was also used to describe the ultimate legal punishment of execution―and was originally applied to execution by crucifixion. Hung and hanged endured only in legal language in the 16th century northern England dialect, in reference to capital punishment, which gave birth to the metaphor “I'll be hanged!” The phrase “hang fire” ― first recorded in 1781 ― was originally was used of guns that were slow in firing after the pulling of the trigger. To “hang around” is from 1828 and means “to be idle, to loiter”. The word “hang” continued to evolve and branch-out in its meaning ― “to come to a standstill” (especially in “hung jury”) is from 1848, American English. The teenager slang sense of “hanging with” or “hang out with” ― meaning “spending time” with someone or something ― was first recorded 1951. By 1961, we have “hung-up” as being “obsessed about something.”
In these modern days, we tend to associate the word “hangover” with the uncomfortable, sickly and painful symptoms that often accompany an excessive consumption of alcohol, or even drugs. However, that was NOT the initial meaning of the word “hangover”. The alcoholic “hangover” came into use around the start of the 20th century, prior to which the real meaning of the word “hangover” was that of “a survival, a thing left over from before”. Most dictionaries will firstly list the original meaning of “hangover”, giving definitions such as: “a survival … something that remains from what is past (as a surviving custom) … something that continues from an earlier time … something remaining from a previous time or state … something remaining behind from a former period or state of affairs … an aftermath of or lingering effect … something from the past such as an idea or attitude … something that has survived from the past … a feeling, custom, idea, etc. that remains from the past.” These various dictionary definitions of the original meaning “hangover” give us a much broader and greater scope of “hangover” than merely “after effects caused by drinking an excess of alcohol.”
Therefore, a “hangover” can be something pleasant or unpleasant―depending upon what it is that “survives, lasts, continues, etc.” If you are enjoying something, then you want to “hang-around”, “hang with it”, you want it to hang over and beyond the time allocated to it. We see this in the case of children, who, when they are enjoying something, do not want it to end, they do not want to go home, they want it to last “for ever”! Yet the same is true spiritually! Heaven will be one, lasting, never-ending, happy hangover! We have also seen cases of “happy hangovers” in many instances in both Holy Scripture and in the lives of saints and even in our own lesser humdrum experiences.
Biblical Hangovers
In the New Testament we see several instances of “happy hangovers”. On the occasion of Our Lord’s transfiguration on the mountain―in the presence of His Apostles, Peter, James and John―we find Apostles wanting to “hang-around” on the mountain with Our Lord, “to delay” then end of the experience, wanting to “hold up” Our Lord and “tarry” and “linger” with Him. We can imagine the “happy hangover” effects that would have lingered after that “spiritual inebriation” of witnessing the transfiguration.
“And after six days, Jesus taketh unto Him Peter and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart. And He was transfigured before them. And His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became white as snow. And behold there appeared to them Moses and Elias talking with Jesus. And Peter answering, said to Jesus: ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here! If thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias!’ And as he was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying: ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased! Hear ye Him!’ And the disciples, hearing this, fell upon their faces and were very much afraid. And Jesus came and touched them and said to them: ‘Arise, and fear not!’ And they lifting up their eyes saw no one but only Jesus. And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying: ‘Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen from the dead!’” (Matthew 17:1-9).
We see a similar “happy hangover” in the case of the “spiritual inebriation” in the case of Mary Magdalen, who was “hanging-out” at the feet of Jesus, “hung-upon” every word that Jesus was saying: “Now it came to pass as they went, that Jesus entered into a certain town. And a certain woman named Martha, received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who, sitting also at the Lord’s feet, heard His word. But Martha was busy about much serving. Martha stood and said: ‘Lord, hast thou no care that my sister hath left me alone to serve? Speak to her therefore, so that she help me!’ And the Lord answering, said to her: ‘Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things! Only one thing is necessary! Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her!’” (Luke 10:38-42). We can only imagine what a “happy hangover” Mary must have had afterwards!
Another “happy hangover” is seen in Our Lord’s encounter, after His resurrection from the dead, with two of His depressed disciples on the road to Emmaus. Our Lord cured their depression with some “spiritual inebriation” to the point that they were begging Him to “hang out with them” when Our Lord indicated that He had to leave:
“And behold, two of them went, the same day, to a town which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, named Emmaus. And they talked together of all these things which had happened [Our Lord’s Passion and Death]. And it came to pass, that while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus Himself also drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held, that they should not know Him. And He said to them: ‘What are these discourses that you hold one with another as you walk, and are sad?’ And one of them, whose name was Cleophas, answering, said to Him: ‘Art thou only a stranger to Jerusalem, and hast not known the things that have been done there in these days?’ To whom Jesus said: ‘What things?’
“And they said: ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth―who was a prophet, mighty in work and word before God and all the people! And how our chief priests and princes delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we hoped, that it was He that should have redeemed Israel! And now, besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done. Yes and certain women―also of our company―frightened us, who, before it was light, were at the sepulcher! And, not finding His body, came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, who say that He is alive! And some of our people went to the sepulcher and found it so as the women had said, but Him they found not!’
“Then Jesus said to them: ‘O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?’ And, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures, the things that were concerning Him. And they drew near to the town where they were going―and Jesus made as though He would go farther. But they constrained Him; saying: ‘Stay with us, because it is towards evening, and the day is now far spent!’ And He went in with them. And it came to pass, that whilst He was at table with them, He took bread, and blessed, and broke, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened and they knew Him [recognized Him]―and then He vanished out of their sight. And they said one to the other: ‘Was not our heart burning within us whilst He spoke in this way and opened to us the Scriptures?’” (Luke 24:13-22).
Marian Hangovers
We can the many “happy hangovers” that Our Lady produced in those to whom she appeared―for example, to St. Catherine Labouré at the Rue du Bac, Paris (1830), to Melanie and Maximin at La Salette (1846); to St. Bernadette at Lourdes (1858); to Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta at Fatima (1917) and many others.
St. Catherine Labouré, to whom Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal appeared in 1830, recounts her feelings on that occasion: “It would be impossible for me to describe what I felt at that moment, or what passed within me, for it seemed to me that I could not possibly look upon the Blessed Virgin. Then, finally, looking upon the Blessed Virgin, I flung myself toward her, and falling upon my knees on the altar steps, I rested my hands in her lap. There a moment passed, the sweetest of my life. I could not say what I felt!”
One of the two seers at Our Lady’s 1946 La Salette, Melanie Calvat, relates her impressions and feelings upon seeing Our Lady: “Something inconceivably fantastic passed through me in that moment, and I felt myself being drawn. I felt a great respect, full of love, and my heart beat faster. I kept my eyes firmly fixed on this light, which was static, and as if it had opened up, I caught sight of another, much more brilliant light which was moving, and in this light I saw a most beautiful Lady sitting on top of our Paradise, with her head in her hands. This beautiful Lady stood up, she calmly crossed her arms while watching us, and spoke to us. Her soft and sweet words made me fly to her, and my heart desired to attach itself to her forever! Then, she walked on up to the place where I had gone to see our cows. Her feet touched nothing but the tips of the grass and without bending them. Once on the top of the little mound, the beautiful Lady stopped, and I hurried to stand in front of her to look at her so, so closely, and try and see which path she was most inclined to take. For it was all over for me. I had forgotten both my cows and the masters I worked for. I had linked myself forever and unconditionally to my Lady. Yes, I wanted never, never to leave her. I followed her with no other motive and fully disposed to serve her for the rest of my life. In the presence of my Lady, I felt I had forgotten paradise. I thought of nothing more but to serve her in every way possible; and I felt I could have done everything she could have asked me to do, for it seemed to me that she had a great deal of power. She looked at me with a tender kindness which drew me to her. I could have thrown myself into her arms with my eyes closed. She looked at me with her eyes so soft, so kind and so good that I felt she was drawing me inside her, and my heart seemed to open up to hers. And as my heart melted away, sweetly gladdened, the beautiful face of my good Lady disappeared little by little.”
Sister Lucia of Fatima was filled with similar emotions and feelings as a consequence of Our Lady’s 1917 apparitions to her in Fatima. She relates: “Our Lady said would never forsake me, and that her Immaculate Heart would be my refuge and the way that would lead me to God. As she spoke these words, she opened her hands, and from them streamed a light that penetrated to our inmost hearts. From that day onwards, our hearts were filled with a more ardent love for the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Apparition of Our Lady plunged us into the atmosphere of the supernatural, but gently. It left us filled with peace and expansive joy, which did not prevent us from speaking afterwards of what had happened.”
Saintly Hangovers
Born in 480 of wealthy parents, St. Benedict and St. Scholastica were twins brought up together until Benedict left central Italy for Rome to continue his studies. Twins often share the same interests and ideas with an equal intensity. Therefore, it is no surprise that Scholastica and her twin brother, Benedict, established religious communities within a few miles from each other. You have probably read of the “happy hangover” of brother and sister, St. Benedict and St. Scholastica. She founded a religious community for women near Monte Cassino at Plombariola, five miles from where her brother governed a monastery.
Once a year, Scholastica and Benedict would meet at a farmhouse between their abbeys to talk about spiritual matters and pray together. Scholastica was said to have relished these visits, finding them uplifting and encouraging. On one such occasion, when Benedict declared it was time for him to make the trek back up the hill, Scholastica sensed her death was close at hand and she begged Benedict to stay with her until the next day. The monk insisted he had to leave because he did not want to spend a night outside the monastery, thus breaking his own Rule. In response to her brother’s rejection, she folded her hands and bowed her head in prayer. Immediately, a terrible thunderstorm came upon them, and Benedict was unable to leave. Benedict cried out: “God forgive you, Sister! What have you done?” Scholastica replied: “I asked a favor of you and you refused. I asked it of God and he granted it!”
Three days later, Benedict was praying in his monastery and saw a shining white dove ascending to Heaven. He knew immediately that it was the soul of his sister. Benedict then announced the death of his sister to the monks and later buried her in the tomb that was originally intended for his own burial one day. That day came less than two months later, when Our Lord allowed the two to spend, not just some time, but all eternity together. Their love for one another was a reflection of their love for God.
What on earth has the Immaculate Conception got to do with the a hangover? The word “hangover” is a compound of two words―”hang” & “over”. It is a fusion of the Old English verb “hon” meaning to suspend, whose past tense was “heng” and its past participle was “hangen” ― all of which can be traced back over the centuries to the Latin verb “cunctari” meaning “to delay, to hold up, to tarry, to linger”. In late Old English it was also used to describe the ultimate legal punishment of execution―and was originally applied to execution by crucifixion. Hung and hanged endured only in legal language in the 16th century northern England dialect, in reference to capital punishment, which gave birth to the metaphor “I'll be hanged!” The phrase “hang fire” ― first recorded in 1781 ― was originally was used of guns that were slow in firing after the pulling of the trigger. To “hang around” is from 1828 and means “to be idle, to loiter”. The word “hang” continued to evolve and branch-out in its meaning ― “to come to a standstill” (especially in “hung jury”) is from 1848, American English. The teenager slang sense of “hanging with” or “hang out with” ― meaning “spending time” with someone or something ― was first recorded 1951. By 1961, we have “hung-up” as being “obsessed about something.”
In these modern days, we tend to associate the word “hangover” with the uncomfortable, sickly and painful symptoms that often accompany an excessive consumption of alcohol, or even drugs. However, that was NOT the initial meaning of the word “hangover”. The alcoholic “hangover” came into use around the start of the 20th century, prior to which the real meaning of the word “hangover” was that of “a survival, a thing left over from before”. Most dictionaries will firstly list the original meaning of “hangover”, giving definitions such as: “a survival … something that remains from what is past (as a surviving custom) … something that continues from an earlier time … something remaining from a previous time or state … something remaining behind from a former period or state of affairs … an aftermath of or lingering effect … something from the past such as an idea or attitude … something that has survived from the past … a feeling, custom, idea, etc. that remains from the past.” These various dictionary definitions of the original meaning “hangover” give us a much broader and greater scope of “hangover” than merely “after effects caused by drinking an excess of alcohol.”
Therefore, a “hangover” can be something pleasant or unpleasant―depending upon what it is that “survives, lasts, continues, etc.” If you are enjoying something, then you want to “hang-around”, “hang with it”, you want it to hang over and beyond the time allocated to it. We see this in the case of children, who, when they are enjoying something, do not want it to end, they do not want to go home, they want it to last “for ever”! Yet the same is true spiritually! Heaven will be one, lasting, never-ending, happy hangover! We have also seen cases of “happy hangovers” in many instances in both Holy Scripture and in the lives of saints and even in our own lesser humdrum experiences.
Biblical Hangovers
In the New Testament we see several instances of “happy hangovers”. On the occasion of Our Lord’s transfiguration on the mountain―in the presence of His Apostles, Peter, James and John―we find Apostles wanting to “hang-around” on the mountain with Our Lord, “to delay” then end of the experience, wanting to “hold up” Our Lord and “tarry” and “linger” with Him. We can imagine the “happy hangover” effects that would have lingered after that “spiritual inebriation” of witnessing the transfiguration.
“And after six days, Jesus taketh unto Him Peter and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart. And He was transfigured before them. And His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became white as snow. And behold there appeared to them Moses and Elias talking with Jesus. And Peter answering, said to Jesus: ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here! If thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias!’ And as he was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying: ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased! Hear ye Him!’ And the disciples, hearing this, fell upon their faces and were very much afraid. And Jesus came and touched them and said to them: ‘Arise, and fear not!’ And they lifting up their eyes saw no one but only Jesus. And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying: ‘Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen from the dead!’” (Matthew 17:1-9).
We see a similar “happy hangover” in the case of the “spiritual inebriation” in the case of Mary Magdalen, who was “hanging-out” at the feet of Jesus, “hung-upon” every word that Jesus was saying: “Now it came to pass as they went, that Jesus entered into a certain town. And a certain woman named Martha, received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who, sitting also at the Lord’s feet, heard His word. But Martha was busy about much serving. Martha stood and said: ‘Lord, hast thou no care that my sister hath left me alone to serve? Speak to her therefore, so that she help me!’ And the Lord answering, said to her: ‘Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things! Only one thing is necessary! Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her!’” (Luke 10:38-42). We can only imagine what a “happy hangover” Mary must have had afterwards!
Another “happy hangover” is seen in Our Lord’s encounter, after His resurrection from the dead, with two of His depressed disciples on the road to Emmaus. Our Lord cured their depression with some “spiritual inebriation” to the point that they were begging Him to “hang out with them” when Our Lord indicated that He had to leave:
“And behold, two of them went, the same day, to a town which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, named Emmaus. And they talked together of all these things which had happened [Our Lord’s Passion and Death]. And it came to pass, that while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus Himself also drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held, that they should not know Him. And He said to them: ‘What are these discourses that you hold one with another as you walk, and are sad?’ And one of them, whose name was Cleophas, answering, said to Him: ‘Art thou only a stranger to Jerusalem, and hast not known the things that have been done there in these days?’ To whom Jesus said: ‘What things?’
“And they said: ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth―who was a prophet, mighty in work and word before God and all the people! And how our chief priests and princes delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we hoped, that it was He that should have redeemed Israel! And now, besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done. Yes and certain women―also of our company―frightened us, who, before it was light, were at the sepulcher! And, not finding His body, came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, who say that He is alive! And some of our people went to the sepulcher and found it so as the women had said, but Him they found not!’
“Then Jesus said to them: ‘O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?’ And, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures, the things that were concerning Him. And they drew near to the town where they were going―and Jesus made as though He would go farther. But they constrained Him; saying: ‘Stay with us, because it is towards evening, and the day is now far spent!’ And He went in with them. And it came to pass, that whilst He was at table with them, He took bread, and blessed, and broke, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened and they knew Him [recognized Him]―and then He vanished out of their sight. And they said one to the other: ‘Was not our heart burning within us whilst He spoke in this way and opened to us the Scriptures?’” (Luke 24:13-22).
Marian Hangovers
We can the many “happy hangovers” that Our Lady produced in those to whom she appeared―for example, to St. Catherine Labouré at the Rue du Bac, Paris (1830), to Melanie and Maximin at La Salette (1846); to St. Bernadette at Lourdes (1858); to Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta at Fatima (1917) and many others.
St. Catherine Labouré, to whom Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal appeared in 1830, recounts her feelings on that occasion: “It would be impossible for me to describe what I felt at that moment, or what passed within me, for it seemed to me that I could not possibly look upon the Blessed Virgin. Then, finally, looking upon the Blessed Virgin, I flung myself toward her, and falling upon my knees on the altar steps, I rested my hands in her lap. There a moment passed, the sweetest of my life. I could not say what I felt!”
One of the two seers at Our Lady’s 1946 La Salette, Melanie Calvat, relates her impressions and feelings upon seeing Our Lady: “Something inconceivably fantastic passed through me in that moment, and I felt myself being drawn. I felt a great respect, full of love, and my heart beat faster. I kept my eyes firmly fixed on this light, which was static, and as if it had opened up, I caught sight of another, much more brilliant light which was moving, and in this light I saw a most beautiful Lady sitting on top of our Paradise, with her head in her hands. This beautiful Lady stood up, she calmly crossed her arms while watching us, and spoke to us. Her soft and sweet words made me fly to her, and my heart desired to attach itself to her forever! Then, she walked on up to the place where I had gone to see our cows. Her feet touched nothing but the tips of the grass and without bending them. Once on the top of the little mound, the beautiful Lady stopped, and I hurried to stand in front of her to look at her so, so closely, and try and see which path she was most inclined to take. For it was all over for me. I had forgotten both my cows and the masters I worked for. I had linked myself forever and unconditionally to my Lady. Yes, I wanted never, never to leave her. I followed her with no other motive and fully disposed to serve her for the rest of my life. In the presence of my Lady, I felt I had forgotten paradise. I thought of nothing more but to serve her in every way possible; and I felt I could have done everything she could have asked me to do, for it seemed to me that she had a great deal of power. She looked at me with a tender kindness which drew me to her. I could have thrown myself into her arms with my eyes closed. She looked at me with her eyes so soft, so kind and so good that I felt she was drawing me inside her, and my heart seemed to open up to hers. And as my heart melted away, sweetly gladdened, the beautiful face of my good Lady disappeared little by little.”
Sister Lucia of Fatima was filled with similar emotions and feelings as a consequence of Our Lady’s 1917 apparitions to her in Fatima. She relates: “Our Lady said would never forsake me, and that her Immaculate Heart would be my refuge and the way that would lead me to God. As she spoke these words, she opened her hands, and from them streamed a light that penetrated to our inmost hearts. From that day onwards, our hearts were filled with a more ardent love for the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Apparition of Our Lady plunged us into the atmosphere of the supernatural, but gently. It left us filled with peace and expansive joy, which did not prevent us from speaking afterwards of what had happened.”
Saintly Hangovers
Born in 480 of wealthy parents, St. Benedict and St. Scholastica were twins brought up together until Benedict left central Italy for Rome to continue his studies. Twins often share the same interests and ideas with an equal intensity. Therefore, it is no surprise that Scholastica and her twin brother, Benedict, established religious communities within a few miles from each other. You have probably read of the “happy hangover” of brother and sister, St. Benedict and St. Scholastica. She founded a religious community for women near Monte Cassino at Plombariola, five miles from where her brother governed a monastery.
Once a year, Scholastica and Benedict would meet at a farmhouse between their abbeys to talk about spiritual matters and pray together. Scholastica was said to have relished these visits, finding them uplifting and encouraging. On one such occasion, when Benedict declared it was time for him to make the trek back up the hill, Scholastica sensed her death was close at hand and she begged Benedict to stay with her until the next day. The monk insisted he had to leave because he did not want to spend a night outside the monastery, thus breaking his own Rule. In response to her brother’s rejection, she folded her hands and bowed her head in prayer. Immediately, a terrible thunderstorm came upon them, and Benedict was unable to leave. Benedict cried out: “God forgive you, Sister! What have you done?” Scholastica replied: “I asked a favor of you and you refused. I asked it of God and he granted it!”
Three days later, Benedict was praying in his monastery and saw a shining white dove ascending to Heaven. He knew immediately that it was the soul of his sister. Benedict then announced the death of his sister to the monks and later buried her in the tomb that was originally intended for his own burial one day. That day came less than two months later, when Our Lord allowed the two to spend, not just some time, but all eternity together. Their love for one another was a reflection of their love for God.
Article 7
Thursday December 8th, 2022, Feast of the Immaculate Conception
An Immaculate Mother Requires Immaculate Children!
Thursday December 8th, 2022, Feast of the Immaculate Conception
An Immaculate Mother Requires Immaculate Children!
You Have an Immaculate Mother
In his encyclical, Ineffabilis Deus of December 8th, 1854, Blessed Pope Pius IX pronounced and enforced the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary: “Wherefore, in humility and fasting, we unceasingly offered our private prayers as well as the public prayers of the Church to God the Father, through His Son, that He would deign to direct and strengthen our mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. In like manner did we implore the help of the entire heavenly host as we ardently invoked the Paraclete. Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: ‘We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of Original Sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.’” (Blessed Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus of December 8th, 1854).
Habemus Matrem
If at the election of a pope, we can shout “Habemus papam!” meaning “we have a pope (‘father’)”, then, in regard to this dogmatic declaration, we can shout “Habemus Matrem—Habemus Matrem Immaculatam”, meaning “We have a Mother—an Immaculate Mother!” Even more than the pope is the Holy Father, Our Lady is the Holiest of mothers.
Immaculate Mary needs Immaculate Children
We all know the saying: “Like father, like son!” or “Like mother, like daughter!” or “He takes after his father!” and “She’s just like her mother!” Our Lord and Our Lady—the new Adam and Eve—want us to imitate them and Heaven. Of Our Lady, it can be said: “I am clean, and without sin: I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me” (Job 33:9) .... “My word is pure, and I am clean in thy sight” (Job 11:4). “I am without sin and am innocent” (Jeremias 2:35). We became her spiritual children at the foot of the Cross, and so we should take on the traits of our spiritual Mother. Children imitate their parents.
Jesus said: “Learn of Me…!” (Matthew 11:29) … “If you love Me, keep My Commandments” (John 14:15) … “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) … “I am the Lord your God: be holy because I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44) … “You shall be holy unto Me, because I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from other people, that you should be Mine” (Leviticus 20:26). St. Peter repeats that command in the New Testament: “According to Him that hath called you, Who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy, because it is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:15-16).
Heaven is Only for the Immaculate of Heart
Only saints go to Heaven, that is the pedigree of the New Adam and Eve—we have to be immaculate to enter therein: “There shall not enter into it anything defiled” (Apocalypse 27:21). We have to be wholly holy, or “Holy, Holy, Holy” as we say in the Sanctus at Mass—which, incidentally, should remind of the three ever-increasing stages of holiness that we have to pass through: as beginners in holiness, (2) as proficients in holiness, and (3) as perfect in holiness. Purgatory will be necessary for even the slightest stains of sin or smallest unpaid debts for previously forgiven sin. For, as it was said above, God detests sin. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).
“For the Highest hateth sinners, and hath mercy on the penitent” (Ecclesiasticus 12:3). “Six things there are, which the Lord hateth, and the seventh His soul detesteth: (1) Haughty eyes, (2) a lying tongue, (3) hands that shed innocent blood, (4) heart that deviseth wicked plots, (5) feet that are swift to run into mischief, (6) deceitful witness that uttereth lies, and (7) him that soweth discord among brethren” (Proverbs 6:16-19). “I hate arrogance, and pride, and every wicked way, and a mouth with a double tongue” (Proverbs 8:13).
We Need to Clean Up Our Act
God never changes and His demands for holiness never change. In the Old Testament it says: “Turn away from evil and do good” (Psalms 33:15); and St. Peter repeats the same in the New Testament: “Let him decline from evil, and do good” (1 Peter 3:11). Our Lady even echoes this today, for at Fatima she said: “Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended.” However, Sr. Lucia tells us that: “the Blessed Virgin is very sad because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on with their life of virtue and apostolate, but they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners keep following the road of evil because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them.” St. Paul clearly tells us: “Let no sin therefore reign in your mortal body” (Romans 6:12). Not even the slightest Venial Sin, for that still separates us from God and has to paid for—either here or in Purgatory, as Our Lord says: “Amen I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou repay the last farthing” (Matthew 5:26).
“Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). But “Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanness” (Matthew 23:25).
Fatal Failure
Failure to clean up our act will have fatal consequences, as we already know: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son. It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it” (La Salette) … “As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead” (Akita).
We must cease being overly preoccupied with the things of the world, entertainment and amusement—all things that Our Lady has complained about—and begin to reform ourselves, to clean up our act. No matter how much we may have sinned—as with Mary Magdalen, the Good Thief, the Prodigal Son—there is a way back, but we have work hard and clean house. The foundation is prayer and penance—the things that Our Lady has insistently commanded in one apparition after another—there is no other way. We must pray VERY MUCH and we must do MUCH penance.
Detesting Sin and Worldliness
One of the chief contributors to the deluge of sin in the world today is the absence of a fear of God and a fear of offending God. This is there has to be a terrible, frightening chastisement—in order to re-establish the foundation of fear. Fear is essential, even when we love God—it is the foundation of the spiritual life. It is even one of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost—a Fear of the Lord. As Holy Scripture says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalms 110:10). “The fear of God is the beginning of His love” (Ecclesiasticus 25:16). “The fear of the Lord driveth out sin” (Ecclesiasticus 1:27). “The fear of the Lord hateth evil” (Proverbs 8:13). “The Lord hateth all abomination of error, and they that fear Him shall not love it” (Ecclesiasticus 15:13). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5).
“Neither shalt thou bring any thing of the idol into thy house, lest thou become an anathema, like it. Thou shalt detest it as dung, and shalt utterly abhor it as uncleanness and filth, because it is an anathema” (Deuteronomy 7:26). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4).
This detestation of the spirit of the world and of the ways of the world is absolutely essential if we are clean house and clean-up our act. The source of sin has to be stopped, like a leak in a boat, or the boat (soul) will sink. Once the incoming flow of sin has been dealt, then we can deal with the flooded basement (soul) and start pumping the bilge out.
Grace Cleans and Beautifies
We say of Our Lady: “Hail, full of grace!” Grace perfects our human nature, it heals the wounds of sin, it strengthens our weaknesses, it pushes us on to higher heights. St. Louis de Montfort speaks of this cleaning of soul and the role of grace in his Secret of Mary, saying:
“It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being. What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God! A marvelous work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving His grace abundantly and in an extraordinary manner. The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this.
“Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God.
“The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these, but we are sure that grace will be given to all, though not in the same measure. I say ‘not in the same measure,’ because God does not give His graces in equal measure to everyone (Romans 12:6), although in His infinite goodness He always gives sufficient grace to each. A person who corresponds to great graces performs great works, and one who corresponds to lesser graces performs lesser works. The value and high standard of our actions corresponds to the value and perfection of the grace given by God and responded to by the faithful soul. No one can contest these principles.” (St. Louis de Montfort, Secret of Mary).
To find the Grace of God, we must discover Mary
St. Louis continues: “It all comes to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God.
“I explain;
(1) Mary alone found grace with God for herself and for every individual person (Luke 1:30). No patriarch nor prophet nor any other holy person of the Old Law could manage to find this grace;
(2) It was Mary who gave existence and life to the author of all grace and, because of this, she is called the “Mother of Grace.”
(3) God the Father, from Whom, as from its essential source, every perfect gift and every grace come down to us (James 1:17), gave her every grace when He gave her His Son. Thus, as St. Bernard says, the will of God is manifested to her in Jesus and with Jesus.
(4) God chose her to be the treasurer, the administrator and the dispenser of all His graces, so that all His graces and gifts pass through her hands. Such is the power that she has received from Him that, according to St. Bernardine, she gives the graces of the eternal Father, the virtues of Jesus Christ, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost to whom she wills, as and when she wills, and as much as she wills.
(5) As in the natural life a child must have a father and a mother, so in the supernatural life of grace a true child of the Church must have God for his Father and Mary for his mother. If he prides himself on having God for his Father, but does not give Mary the tender affection of a true child, he is an imposter and his father is the devil.
(6) Since Mary produced the head of the elect, Jesus Christ, she must also produce the members of that head, that is, all true Christians. A mother does not conceive a head without members, nor members without a head. If anyone, then, wishes to become a member of Jesus Christ, and consequently be filled with grace and truth, (John 1:14), he must be formed in Mary through the grace of Jesus Christ, which she possesses with a fullness enabling her to communicate it abundantly to true members of Jesus Christ, her true children.
(7) The Holy Ghost espoused Mary and produced His greatest work, the incarnate Word, in her, by her and through her. He has never disowned her and so He continues to produce every day, in a mysterious but very real manner, the souls of the elect in her and through her.
(8) Mary received, from God, a unique dominion over souls, enabling her to nourish them and make them more and more godlike. St. Augustine went so far as to say that, even in this world, all the elect are enclosed in the womb of Mary, and that their real birthday is when this good mother brings them forth to eternal life. Consequently, just as an infant draws all its nourishment from its mother, who gives according to its needs, so the elect draw all their spiritual nourishment and all their strength from Mary.
(9) It was to Mary that God the Father said, ‘Dwell in Jacob’ (Ecclesiasticus 24:8, 12) that is, dwell in My elect, who are typified by Jacob. It was to Mary that God the Son said, “My dear Mother, your inheritance is in Israel,” that is, in the elect. It was to Mary that the Holy Ghost said, “Place your roots in My elect.” Whoever, then, is of the chosen and predestinate, will have the Blessed Virgin living within him, and he will let her plant in his very soul the roots of every virtue, but especially deep humility and ardent charity.
(10) Mary is called by St. Augustine, and is indeed, the ‘living mold of God.’ In her alone the God-man was formed in His human nature without losing any feature of the Godhead. In her alone, by the grace of Jesus Christ, man is made godlike as far as human nature is capable of it” (St. Louis de Montfort, Secret of Mary).
In his encyclical, Ineffabilis Deus of December 8th, 1854, Blessed Pope Pius IX pronounced and enforced the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary: “Wherefore, in humility and fasting, we unceasingly offered our private prayers as well as the public prayers of the Church to God the Father, through His Son, that He would deign to direct and strengthen our mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. In like manner did we implore the help of the entire heavenly host as we ardently invoked the Paraclete. Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: ‘We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of Original Sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.’” (Blessed Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus of December 8th, 1854).
Habemus Matrem
If at the election of a pope, we can shout “Habemus papam!” meaning “we have a pope (‘father’)”, then, in regard to this dogmatic declaration, we can shout “Habemus Matrem—Habemus Matrem Immaculatam”, meaning “We have a Mother—an Immaculate Mother!” Even more than the pope is the Holy Father, Our Lady is the Holiest of mothers.
Immaculate Mary needs Immaculate Children
We all know the saying: “Like father, like son!” or “Like mother, like daughter!” or “He takes after his father!” and “She’s just like her mother!” Our Lord and Our Lady—the new Adam and Eve—want us to imitate them and Heaven. Of Our Lady, it can be said: “I am clean, and without sin: I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me” (Job 33:9) .... “My word is pure, and I am clean in thy sight” (Job 11:4). “I am without sin and am innocent” (Jeremias 2:35). We became her spiritual children at the foot of the Cross, and so we should take on the traits of our spiritual Mother. Children imitate their parents.
Jesus said: “Learn of Me…!” (Matthew 11:29) … “If you love Me, keep My Commandments” (John 14:15) … “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) … “I am the Lord your God: be holy because I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44) … “You shall be holy unto Me, because I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from other people, that you should be Mine” (Leviticus 20:26). St. Peter repeats that command in the New Testament: “According to Him that hath called you, Who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy, because it is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:15-16).
Heaven is Only for the Immaculate of Heart
Only saints go to Heaven, that is the pedigree of the New Adam and Eve—we have to be immaculate to enter therein: “There shall not enter into it anything defiled” (Apocalypse 27:21). We have to be wholly holy, or “Holy, Holy, Holy” as we say in the Sanctus at Mass—which, incidentally, should remind of the three ever-increasing stages of holiness that we have to pass through: as beginners in holiness, (2) as proficients in holiness, and (3) as perfect in holiness. Purgatory will be necessary for even the slightest stains of sin or smallest unpaid debts for previously forgiven sin. For, as it was said above, God detests sin. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).
“For the Highest hateth sinners, and hath mercy on the penitent” (Ecclesiasticus 12:3). “Six things there are, which the Lord hateth, and the seventh His soul detesteth: (1) Haughty eyes, (2) a lying tongue, (3) hands that shed innocent blood, (4) heart that deviseth wicked plots, (5) feet that are swift to run into mischief, (6) deceitful witness that uttereth lies, and (7) him that soweth discord among brethren” (Proverbs 6:16-19). “I hate arrogance, and pride, and every wicked way, and a mouth with a double tongue” (Proverbs 8:13).
We Need to Clean Up Our Act
God never changes and His demands for holiness never change. In the Old Testament it says: “Turn away from evil and do good” (Psalms 33:15); and St. Peter repeats the same in the New Testament: “Let him decline from evil, and do good” (1 Peter 3:11). Our Lady even echoes this today, for at Fatima she said: “Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended.” However, Sr. Lucia tells us that: “the Blessed Virgin is very sad because no one heeds her message; neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on with their life of virtue and apostolate, but they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners keep following the road of evil because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them.” St. Paul clearly tells us: “Let no sin therefore reign in your mortal body” (Romans 6:12). Not even the slightest Venial Sin, for that still separates us from God and has to paid for—either here or in Purgatory, as Our Lord says: “Amen I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou repay the last farthing” (Matthew 5:26).
“Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). But “Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanness” (Matthew 23:25).
Fatal Failure
Failure to clean up our act will have fatal consequences, as we already know: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son. It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it” (La Salette) … “As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead” (Akita).
We must cease being overly preoccupied with the things of the world, entertainment and amusement—all things that Our Lady has complained about—and begin to reform ourselves, to clean up our act. No matter how much we may have sinned—as with Mary Magdalen, the Good Thief, the Prodigal Son—there is a way back, but we have work hard and clean house. The foundation is prayer and penance—the things that Our Lady has insistently commanded in one apparition after another—there is no other way. We must pray VERY MUCH and we must do MUCH penance.
Detesting Sin and Worldliness
One of the chief contributors to the deluge of sin in the world today is the absence of a fear of God and a fear of offending God. This is there has to be a terrible, frightening chastisement—in order to re-establish the foundation of fear. Fear is essential, even when we love God—it is the foundation of the spiritual life. It is even one of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost—a Fear of the Lord. As Holy Scripture says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalms 110:10). “The fear of God is the beginning of His love” (Ecclesiasticus 25:16). “The fear of the Lord driveth out sin” (Ecclesiasticus 1:27). “The fear of the Lord hateth evil” (Proverbs 8:13). “The Lord hateth all abomination of error, and they that fear Him shall not love it” (Ecclesiasticus 15:13). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5).
“Neither shalt thou bring any thing of the idol into thy house, lest thou become an anathema, like it. Thou shalt detest it as dung, and shalt utterly abhor it as uncleanness and filth, because it is an anathema” (Deuteronomy 7:26). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4).
This detestation of the spirit of the world and of the ways of the world is absolutely essential if we are clean house and clean-up our act. The source of sin has to be stopped, like a leak in a boat, or the boat (soul) will sink. Once the incoming flow of sin has been dealt, then we can deal with the flooded basement (soul) and start pumping the bilge out.
Grace Cleans and Beautifies
We say of Our Lady: “Hail, full of grace!” Grace perfects our human nature, it heals the wounds of sin, it strengthens our weaknesses, it pushes us on to higher heights. St. Louis de Montfort speaks of this cleaning of soul and the role of grace in his Secret of Mary, saying:
“It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being. What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God! A marvelous work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving His grace abundantly and in an extraordinary manner. The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this.
“Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God.
“The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these, but we are sure that grace will be given to all, though not in the same measure. I say ‘not in the same measure,’ because God does not give His graces in equal measure to everyone (Romans 12:6), although in His infinite goodness He always gives sufficient grace to each. A person who corresponds to great graces performs great works, and one who corresponds to lesser graces performs lesser works. The value and high standard of our actions corresponds to the value and perfection of the grace given by God and responded to by the faithful soul. No one can contest these principles.” (St. Louis de Montfort, Secret of Mary).
To find the Grace of God, we must discover Mary
St. Louis continues: “It all comes to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God.
“I explain;
(1) Mary alone found grace with God for herself and for every individual person (Luke 1:30). No patriarch nor prophet nor any other holy person of the Old Law could manage to find this grace;
(2) It was Mary who gave existence and life to the author of all grace and, because of this, she is called the “Mother of Grace.”
(3) God the Father, from Whom, as from its essential source, every perfect gift and every grace come down to us (James 1:17), gave her every grace when He gave her His Son. Thus, as St. Bernard says, the will of God is manifested to her in Jesus and with Jesus.
(4) God chose her to be the treasurer, the administrator and the dispenser of all His graces, so that all His graces and gifts pass through her hands. Such is the power that she has received from Him that, according to St. Bernardine, she gives the graces of the eternal Father, the virtues of Jesus Christ, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost to whom she wills, as and when she wills, and as much as she wills.
(5) As in the natural life a child must have a father and a mother, so in the supernatural life of grace a true child of the Church must have God for his Father and Mary for his mother. If he prides himself on having God for his Father, but does not give Mary the tender affection of a true child, he is an imposter and his father is the devil.
(6) Since Mary produced the head of the elect, Jesus Christ, she must also produce the members of that head, that is, all true Christians. A mother does not conceive a head without members, nor members without a head. If anyone, then, wishes to become a member of Jesus Christ, and consequently be filled with grace and truth, (John 1:14), he must be formed in Mary through the grace of Jesus Christ, which she possesses with a fullness enabling her to communicate it abundantly to true members of Jesus Christ, her true children.
(7) The Holy Ghost espoused Mary and produced His greatest work, the incarnate Word, in her, by her and through her. He has never disowned her and so He continues to produce every day, in a mysterious but very real manner, the souls of the elect in her and through her.
(8) Mary received, from God, a unique dominion over souls, enabling her to nourish them and make them more and more godlike. St. Augustine went so far as to say that, even in this world, all the elect are enclosed in the womb of Mary, and that their real birthday is when this good mother brings them forth to eternal life. Consequently, just as an infant draws all its nourishment from its mother, who gives according to its needs, so the elect draw all their spiritual nourishment and all their strength from Mary.
(9) It was to Mary that God the Father said, ‘Dwell in Jacob’ (Ecclesiasticus 24:8, 12) that is, dwell in My elect, who are typified by Jacob. It was to Mary that God the Son said, “My dear Mother, your inheritance is in Israel,” that is, in the elect. It was to Mary that the Holy Ghost said, “Place your roots in My elect.” Whoever, then, is of the chosen and predestinate, will have the Blessed Virgin living within him, and he will let her plant in his very soul the roots of every virtue, but especially deep humility and ardent charity.
(10) Mary is called by St. Augustine, and is indeed, the ‘living mold of God.’ In her alone the God-man was formed in His human nature without losing any feature of the Godhead. In her alone, by the grace of Jesus Christ, man is made godlike as far as human nature is capable of it” (St. Louis de Montfort, Secret of Mary).
Article 6
Wednesday December 7th, 2022, Second Wednesday of Advent
Advent Wreath and Candle Lesson
Wednesday December 7th, 2022, Second Wednesday of Advent
Advent Wreath and Candle Lesson
Little Knowledge Can Lead to Big Consequences
In our days of superficiality and ignorance, it is common to follow certain traditions whilst knowing very little or nothing about the origins, purpose, significance or symbolism of that tradition. We do things “blindly” and in a “dumb” manner, not seeing beyond the externals and not grasping with our understanding. We keep traditions going just because we have seen them being done by our predecessors―who, in turn, also had little knowledge of the origins, purpose, significance or symbolism of that same tradition that they were passing on to us. You could say it is―in the words of Our Lord―a case of the blind leading the blind: “They are blind, and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14) ― in this case, “into the pit” of ignorance, which, in turn, leads them “into the pit” of lovelessness―for you cannot love what you do not know, and you will only love a little what you know little about! That is why the Catechism says that we were made “to know, love and serve God” ― knowledge must come before love, for we cannot love what we do not know. Service follows love ― for we will not serve for very long those whom we do not love; and love makes service much easier. Hence St. Thérèse of Lisieux (of the Infant Jesus) used to say that Jesus is so little loved because He is so little known.
Once love leaves a marriage or family, then it is very hard to keep mutual service at any kind of decent level. Once love leaves, then we fall into the category of hypocrisy of which Our Lord condemned many of the Scribes, Pharisees and Jews: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). Similarly, when there is no deeper knowledge and understanding of our traditions, then there is no real love for those traditions, which leads to a superficial, indifferent, automatic and loveless participation in them and performance of them. This applies all across the board―whether it be Church traditions, family traditions, secular traditions or national traditions. Knowledge, love and service (performance) are―or should be―closely entwined.
So―with that said―let us take a closer and deeper look at the Advent Wreath and Advent Candle tradition, so that our deeper knowledge may lead to a deeper love of that tradition, and a more sincere and meaningful participation in that tradition.
A Pagan Custom Christianized
The Advent Wreath is one of the most popular Advent traditions. The Advent Wreath has deep origins, extending back to pre-Christian pagan customs of burning lights during the darkest months of winter. Its origin is in pre-Christian pagan Germany and Scandinavia, where the people gathered to both beg and celebrate the return of the sun during and after the winter solstice.
There is evidence of pre-Christian pagan Germanic peoples using wreaths, with lit candles, during the cold and dark December, days as a sign of hope in the future warmth and extended-sunlight days of spring. In Scandinavia, during winter, lighted candles were placed around a wheel, and prayers were offered to the god of light to turn “the wheel of the earth” back toward the sun to lengthen the days and restore warmth.
These pagan people thus tried to break the darkness of winter with candles and invoke the sun god to quickly return with the warmth and light of spring. In addition, the evergreen wreath would remind them, during the apparent death of nature during winter, that there is still life and the circle of time would again come back to spring and warmth. As the days grew longer, people lit more candles to offer thanks to the “sun god” for the light.
The design of today’s Advent Wreaths was borrowed from the customs of those pre-Christian pagan cultures, who used candles and greenery (often paired together), where the candle represents light and the evergreen represents life. The circular wreath made of evergreens, with four candles interspersed, and represented the circle of the seasons of year and the life that endures through the winter.
Medieval Christians retained the custom, while seeing such lights as an obvious symbol of Christ, for they used candles themselves in many liturgical functions, not least the Sacrifice of the Mass. For us, the lighting of the Advent candles represents the promise of the coming of Jesus, the light of the world. After all, Christ is “the Light that came into the world” to dispel the darkness of sin and to radiate the truth and love of God (John 3:19-21).
Today, many, if not most, Christian churches and families prominently display an evergreen wreath with four candles throughout the Advent Season. The Christian version of the winter wreath, or Advent Wreath, actually originated among the Lutherans of Eastern Germany in the 16th century. The Advent Wreath became quite popular in homes in post-Reformation Protestant Germany. Many German homes families had a custom of lighting four candles during Advent, candles placed in a wreath of evergreens.
When these candles were lit, Scripture and prayer was part of the custom and the family devotion time was a time of instructing the children about Christ’s coming. Later, the custom crossed over different denominational lines and other Christian religions adapted its use. It was quickly adopted by both Protestants and Catholics throughout Germany, and it was brought to the United States by German immigrants in the 19th century.
Symbolism Within the Wreath
The Advent Wreath is very symbolic and therefore, spiritually, very beautiful.
► The circle of the wreath reminds us of God Himself, His eternity and endless mercy, which has no beginning or end.
► The green of the wreath speaks of the hope that we have in God, the hope of newness, of renewal, of eternal life.
► The circular form reminds us that God’s love is eternal; it has no beginning and no end.
► The evergreen leaves of the wreath remind us that God never changes.
► The evergreens used for the wreath itself are a reminder of continuous life. Whereas most the leaves (the children) of most trees have lived their life and are now fallen and rotting on the ground, the evergreens live on, seemingly immortal, though some needles are fallen on the ground, the branches are still laden with them. The shaping of the evergreens into a circle reinforces that meaning.
► The circle of the wreath, which has no beginning or end, symbolizes the eternity of God, the immortality of the soul, and the everlasting life found in Christ. The Faith offers us a share in that immortality, not to mention the strength that it gives us to stand firm on our branch of the Faith, while those of other faiths die and fall to the ground at the approach of the hardships and harshness of winter (which symbolizes the devil and the world, in whom there is no warmth or love of God).
► It is traditionally made of some type or mixture of evergreens (fir, spruce, juniper, holly, etc.), symbolizing the continuation of life in the middle of the cold and dark winter (in the northerly latitudes, at least, which is where the Advent Wreath originated).
► The wreath is made of various evergreens, signifying different virtues.
► The evergreens have a traditional meaning which can be adapted to our faith.
► The laurel signifies victory over persecution and suffering.
► The pine, holly, and yew, signify immortality; and cedar, strength and healing. Holly also has a special Christian symbolism. One English legend tells of how the Cross was made from the wood of the holly tree.
► The prickly leaves remind us of the crown of thorns.
► The pine cones, nuts, or seedpods of the evergreens are used to decorate the wreath also symbolize life and resurrection.
► All together, the wreath of evergreens depicts the immortality of our soul and the new, everlasting life with all its joys, promised to us through Christ, the eternal Word of the Father, Who entered our world becoming true man and Who was victorious over sin and death through His own passion, death, and resurrection.
► Finally, the wreath reminds us of the crown of joy waiting for us in Heaven, if we are prepared to wear Christ’s crown of thorns here below!
A lot of food for thought, eh? These are just a fraction of many things―as numerous as the needles on the wreath―that can be found buried within the Advent Wreath! Once we stop swimming on the surface waters and dive deeper beneath the superficial surface, we can uncover a goldmine of inspiring thoughts that can only serve to enkindle in us the fire of divine love and help us achieve the commandment of loving God with our whole soul, our whole heart, our whole mind and our whole strength!
What Light Do the Candles Shed?
Let us now take a look at what light the Advent Candles can shed upon us, enlightening us about some of the deeper aspects of Advent and thus increasing our Advent fervor.Sometimes we risk taking God for granted. In our spiritual lives, we just go through the motions: automatic and thoughtless signs of the cross; mindless half-hearted prayers; robotic genuflections; chore-like and mundane assistance at Mass; empty-headed and profitless spiritual reading; sleepy and drowsy meditations; machine-gun-like and aimless Rosaries; absent-minded and ill-prepared confessions; fast-food or fast-track style Holy Communions and many other ways of showing the truth of Our Lord’s words: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8).
“Familiarity breeds contempt” is what they say, and that so readily applies to our Faith and our relationship with God. What was once a period of awe, amazement and attraction, has now for many become something bland, boring and burdensome. They say that routine is the prime killer of devotion—this is true not only in the natural sphere, but also in the supernatural sphere. This routine affects the relationship between spouses, parents and children, friends and work colleagues and even our relationship with God Himself.
We have been in God’s workplace, the Church, for so long, that familiarity has bred, if not contempt, then at least a growing indifference to God and the things of God. We hear the same readings at Mass year after year; we say the same prayers year after year; we hear the same sermons and appeals year after year; we see the same unimproved faults and weaknesses among our fellow Catholics year after year; we confess the same sins year after year; we seem to get away unpunished by God year after year—so it is hardly surprising that we find ourselves slipping into the fatal fantasy of feeling that God is somehow far away and couldn’t care less about what we are really doing or not doing. This helps us make a compromise with indifference and lukewarmness—at first uneasy, but more and more easy with each passing year.
This is one of the several ingredients that make us go through our spiritual and liturgical exercises in a half-awake, partially attentive, automatic, mindless, thoughtless and loveless manner, like some sort of cloned Catholic robot. Sure, we go through the motions, but our minds, thoughts, hearts and affections—if not yet divorced—are living separated from what we are doing, with only occasional ‘weekend visiting rights.’ The fact that so many religious and spiritual activities have become boring, bland and burdensome, inevitably makes this cancer slowly grow to rapidly approaching fatal levels.
Putting Things Right
How can we pull out this kind of spiritual tail-spin that will rapidly end our hopeful flight to Heaven? The traditional remedy has always been “agere contra” (do the opposite or act against) as St. Ignatius of Loyola puts it in his Rules for the Spiritual Exercises (rules, by the way, which were given to him by Our Lady, as being the fundamental rules that she herself followed in life).
Instead of becoming more superficial, agere contra would require that we go against our natural tendency and dig deeper than usual. Painful? Yes! But how many serious illnesses have a sweet, pleasant, instant remedy? Few, if none!
So in this season Advent, instead of passing through it superficially, with lukewarm or even cold hearts, let us dig deeper into the season and search for the precious nuggets of gold and nutritious minerals that it has to offer. Hard work, but rewarding work. With this in mind, let us try shedding some light on the darkness of our minds, with the deeper meaning and symbolism that lays beneath the all too often routine and superficial lighting of the Advent candles during this season. Our Lord says that men do not light a candle and then put it under a bucket―but they place it upon a candlestick so that it gives light to everyone in the house (Matthew 5:15). Our Advent candles should be shedding spiritual light in our house! Are they shedding light upon our Advent?
What the Candles Teach
Even the pagans gave their candles some kind of symbolism. For them, the candle represented a weak and poor imitation of their sun-god, who they thought gave them light and warmth. If they can see such things represented in a candle, how much more should a follower of Christ see in a candle!
Of course, for us, the candle also represents a deity―but not some pagan god, but the one, true God—Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are but poor and weak imitations of Christ in this world. Even though it was the Lutherans who initially, in the 1500s, took the pagan custom of lighting candles during the winter season and gave to the pagan custom a Christian meaning and symbolism, it does not annul certain truths found therein. Otherwise the Catholic Church would not have accepted and integrated the custom into its bosom. For some particular aspects of truth can still be discovered even by those who are in general error. Just as there is no person who is 100% evil―similarly, there is no person who is 100% wrong―even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day!
Candle Controversies
Some Advent wreaths have four candles; other wreaths have five. Those which have five, always have a larger white candle in the center of the four surrounding candles (4 purple, or 3 purple and 1 rose; or 4 white; or 4 blue—varying from country to country, and from one religious denomination to another). Some may argue over the number and the color and which is more appropriate, but personally, since the custom comes the pagans and was then ‘christened’ by the Lutherans, and only then was it adopted and adapted by the Catholics, one would think that it doesn’t really matter—after all, it is not a dogmatic thing, but a symbolic thing, and the symbolic interpretations are many and varied, even among Catholics alone!
Christ is Central
The most Christocentric combination would seem to be the larger, wider and taller central candle that represents Jesus Christ, being surrounded by the four smaller candles. For Christ should be at the center of all things; He should be the center of our existence; He should have the prime place in the center of our hearts; our whole life should revolve around Him: “In all things God may be honored through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11) … “Giving thanks always for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father” (Ephesians 5:20).
As for the color, it seems most fitting and theologically correct that the larger central candle, representing Christ, should, just like the Paschal Candle at Easter, be made of beeswax (symbolizing innocence and purity); and that the surrounding candles be purple—a color which symbolizes penance, which in turn presupposes, not innocence and purity, but sin and guilt, which are things that have to be paid for through penance. The small candles are not made of beeswax, but of some lesser material, representing the world, its sin, guilt and worldliness.
Advent Candles & Paschal Candles
All of this is a foreshadowing of the use of two kinds and sizes of candle used during the Paschal or Easter Vigil ceremonies, that bring to an end another penitential period—that of Lent. There we see the large Paschal Candle representing Christ, which is lit in total darkness—symbolizing the darkness of a world that tries to do without Christ—and, from that Paschal Candle, we light our smaller candles. Again, the Paschal Candle is made of beeswax, but the smaller candles are not. The more candles that are lit from the Paschal Candle, the more light is shed around and everything brightens up. Similarly, the greater the number of persons professing the light of the One True Faith, then the ‘brighter’ and better the world would be in proportion to that number.
The flame of the candles represents God, His divinity and grace. God the Father appeared to Moses in the burning bush; God the Son showed Himself as a burning heart to St. Margaret Mary; God the Holy Ghost came down upon Our Lady and the Apostles in the form of burning tongues of fire at Pentecost. God chooses fire to show both His love, His mercy and His justice. Those in Heaven experience the fire of His love; those in Purgatory experience the fire of His mercy; those in Hell experience the fire of His justice. We even say, in the prayer to the Holy Ghost: “Come O Holy Ghost … enkindle in us the fire of Thy love.” Without God and His grace in our souls (candles), we are useless―just like an extinguished candle is useless. A candle was made to burn, not to be extinguished. A candle without a flame of fire, is like a soul without the fire of love, or the light of Faith, or like a body without its soul. A candle should spend its life giving light to those around, as Our Lord said: “Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:15).
Candle & Virtue
The candle very fittingly represents the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. A candle gives off light, so that we see the things around us clearly, just as Faith helps us see God more clearly and helps us see the world for what it really is.
A candle is also necessary to light our path and to lead us out of pit or cavern of this sinful world, into which we have blundered. Without that light, there is a danger of injury in the darkness by stumbling into things, and there is no hope of seeing where to go in order to emerge from the darkness; this symbolizes the virtue of Hope.
The candle also gives off, not just light, but also warmth. This is a symbol of Charity, that we should show to all those around us, just as God does, so “that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who maketh His sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).
The combination of these three virtues should lead us to imitate the larger Candle of Christ, in burning ourselves out in this life for the love of God and neighbor … “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbor as thyself” (Luke 10:27) ... “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13) ... and our first and foremost Friend is God (Father, Son and Holy Ghost), then Our Lady, then the rest of the Mystical Body in hierarchical order.
Candle, Mercy & Grace
As the candle cannot light itself, neither can we obtain the grace of God by ourselves—nobody has an automatic meritorious right to the initial grace of God. Grace, as the catechism tells us, is “a gift of God, freely given.” God’s grace inspires us; God’s grace ‘jump-starts’ us; God’s grace keeps us running until we reach our destination—”Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Each time we re-light the Advent candles, we should think of the times when grace was absent from our souls, and God, by His mercy, re-lit divine life in our sinful repentant souls.
We spoke of the candles symbolizing both Christ and ourselves. Let us begin with a deeper reflection upon that point. The wax of candle is a figure of the body, and the wick inside the body of the candle represents the soul. If we use a 5-candle Advent wreath, with the 5th candle being a larger white candle, surrounded by four smaller purple candles, we can see the beautiful symbolism of the innocence of Christ reflected in the color white, and the guilt and need for penance of ourselves reflected in the color purple.
Weeping Burning Candles
The wax that the purple candles ‘weep’ and drip, is symbolic of tears of sorrow for sin. The diminishing size of the candles as they burn with the flame of love and sorrow, is a symbol of humility, as St. John the Baptist, the prophet of penance who burned in the scorching desert heat, said: “He must increase, but I must decrease”(John 3:30). These two aspects, humility and charity, are the foundation of our sanctity and salvation. Let us develop that theme a little a more.
The purple candles will have been lit and burned at different stages throughout Advent, yet all will have spent considerable time burning before they enjoy seeing the white candle of Christ finally lit and burning in the midst of them at the end of the Vigil of Christmas, at midnight, signifying the birth and long-awaited arrival of the Son of God at Bethlehem. The fact that the purple candles have been lit at different stages throughout Advent (1st week, 2nd week, 3rd week and 4th week) can interpreted in various ways.
Advent Candles and the Vineyard
One interpretation is linked to the parable of the workers in the vineyard, where the owner of the vineyard, “…went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And having agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing in the market place idle. And he said to them: ‘Go you also into my vineyard, and I will give you what shall be just.’ And they went their way. And again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did in like manner. But about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing, and he saith to them: ‘Why stand you here all the day idle?’ They say to him: ‘Because no man hath hired us’. He saith to them: ‘Go you also into my vineyard.’ And when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard saith to his steward: ‘Call the laborers and pay them their hire, beginning from the last even to the first.’ When therefore they were come, that came about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first also came, they thought that they should receive more: and they also received every man a penny. And receiving it they murmured against the master of the house, saying: ‘These last have worked but one hour, and thou hast made them equal to us, that have borne the burden of the day and the heats.’ But he answering said to one of them: ‘Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst thou not agree with me for a penny? Take what is thine, and go thy way. I will also give to this last even as to thee. Or, is it not lawful for me to do what I will? Is thy eye evil, because I am good?’” (Matthew 20:1-15).
This dovetails beautifully with the symbolism of the Advent candles. We have the master calling in workers at four main periods of the day, just as we have the four weeks of Advent: (1) the start of the day, as the first candle is lit at the start of Advent and burns throughout the whole Advent period; (2) at the third hour, which is akin to the second week of Advent; (3) at the sixth hour, which can represent the third week of Advent; and (4) the ninth hour, in which we can see the fourth week of Advent. Finally, being merciful, he goes out at the eleventh hour, which could represent Christmas Eve and even accepts workers at the last minute, like Christ accepted the Good Thief’s repentance on the cross, at the last hour of his life. Yet, no matter at what time the laborers came into work, they all saw the same reward—one penny! That penny seems a little thing to us today, for today’s minimum wage is many hundreds of pennies for just one hour’s work! Yet that little penny can also be seen to represent the little child Jesus, Who wants to give Himself to each and every one of us, no matter how early or how late we came in to labor and sweat in His vineyard. The reward is the same—the little ‘mustard-seed’ of the Infant Jesus is given to all who repent of sin, do penance and sincerely (and even half-sincerely) desire Him.
Seeing Sin
As we said earlier, the purple of small candles denotes penance. Faced with the adulteress and the crowd of stone-throwers, Jesus said: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7) for “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:10).
We are all in need of penance; whether we think we are good or bad. For God judges differently to man. We judge merely on the surface, but God, who notices the loss of one single hair from our head, and takes note of every idle word we utter, also takes into account everything that contributes to our sins. For some are tempted more frequently, others less frequently; some are tempted with great vehemence, others lightly; some have many souls praying for them, others have few praying for them; some may have a natural temperament that will open them up to more temptation, others have a naturally strong blend of temperaments that help them resist temptation; some are hated more by the devil, others hated less; some are trying hard to be spiritual and will thus attract the devil’s attention and temptations, others are lukewarm, and so they are partially doing the devil’s work for him.
The list of possibilities is endless. That is why the ex-Pharisee, St. Paul, writes: “It is a very small thing to be judged by you, or by man’s day; but neither do I judge my own self” (1 Corinthians 4:3).
Pharisees or Prostitutes
But the Pharisees, who were self-professed upholders of tradition and judges of religious matters, were not afraid to judge, but their judgment was merely superficial and biased. In fact, they judged those who were better than themselves and those who were worse than themselves in the same way—because neither was like themselves. They judged Our Lord as being possessed by a devil, in the same way as they judged the adulteress (St. Mary Magdalen), a whore who actually was possessed by seven devils. Yet both the innocent Jesus (the white candle) and the guilty Mary Magdalen (the purple candle) were accepted by God, whereas the Pharisees and their middle of road lukewarmness (extinguished candles) were rejected and cursed (cf. Matthew chapter 23) with Our Lord imprecating one woe after another in His tirade of indignation against them.
We remember well the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican: “The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: ‘O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican! I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess!’ And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards Heaven; but struck his breast, saying: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ ... I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other―because every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted!” (Luke 18:11-14). We see this parable play-out in reality at the banquet of Simon the Pharisee.
Love and Penance
Jesus (the white candle) burnt Himself out with pure love as a penance for our sins. Mary Magdalen (the purple candle) burnt out her impure love with penance performed out of love for the Pure Love. This is why she wept at Our Lord’s feet at the banquet of another Pharisee, Simon (Luke, chapter 7). Simon the Pharisee, “who had invited Him, seeing it, spoke within himself, saying: ‘This man, if He were a prophet, would know surely who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him, that she is a sinner. And Jesus answering, said to him: ‘Simon, I have something to say to thee … Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less. And He said to her: ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee’” (Luke 7:36-50).
Where Mary Magdalen had once burned with impure love, she now burned with a pure love. Love, like fire, burns away impurities. Love, like fires or flames, can be of differing temperatures. To one who loves much, much is forgiven; to one who loves less, less is forgiven. That is why a perfect act of contrition, which by its very essence is based upon love, can wipe out, not only the guilt of sin, but also all the temporal punishment due to sin in this world and in the next. In other words, someone who is the worst sinner in the world, can, only by God’s grace, make such a perfect act of contrition that it will take that sinner past the souls of persons who had lived much holier lives, but at a low degree of love, but are still languishing in Purgatory, and take that sinner straight to Heaven.
The ‘Fast-Track’ of Love
It is like seeing someone at the back of a super long airport check-in line or a supermarket check-out line, being ‘fast-tracked’ to the other side in a matter of seconds, while we may been standing in that line for over half-an-hour! The instinctive feeling is just like that of the laborers in the vineyard, who had borne the brunt of the work under the scorching heat—a reaction of indignation, injustice, anger and protest! The reply will be the same: “Is it not lawful for Me to do what I will? Is thy eye evil, because I am good?”
The priest is also instructed to approach penitents the same way in confession. If he judges that the penitent truly has great sorrow and remorse for what he/she has done, then he is instructed to give a lesser penance than he would give to somebody who merely confesses the sin as a matter of course. And if the priest discovers that the penitent has already done much penance for his/her transgression, then even less penance is to be given to the penitent. Such is the mind of the Church, which reflects the mind of Christ—as seen at the banquet of Simon the Pharisee.
Whom Does Jesus Love?
So when we encounter “sinners” in the world, we never know what has transpired in their heart or in the confessional. The sinner, whom I may hold in contempt, might well be very close to Our Lord and Our Lady, as was Mary Magdalen. The love of Jesus embraces all and He gives chances to all—but they must take and profit from those offers of His love. There are three kinds of persons of whom the Bible says that Jesus loved:
(1) The fervent and ever-present Apostle, the virgin, St. John, the “disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 20:2): “Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23). John’s white virginal candle burned to the end.
(2) The two women, Martha (the hard-working virgin) and her sister Mary Magdalen (the converted possessed whore), and their brother Lazarus: “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus” (John 11:5). Here we see both sinner and non-sinner, but of the three―Martha, Mary and Lazarus―Jesus loved Mary Magdalen the most—she was sat at His feet listening to His words; on another occasion, she laid weeping over His feet and drying His feet with her hair; on yet another occasion, she was standing at His feet as died on the Cross; and then stood at His feet as He was lying in the tomb. Her purple candle burned to the end.
(3) The third case was that of the rich young man “And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! Go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven; and come, follow Me!’” (Mark 10:21). But whereas the fisherman John left everything to follow Jesus, and Mary left sin to follow Jesus, this young man could not pull himself away from his love of his present state in the world: “Who being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful―for he had great possessions.” (Mark 10:22). He would not light his candle with the divine flame!
Words of Love
Let us finish with a few quotes from Our Lord, taken from the book Words of Love, by Fr. Bartholomew Gottemoller, which is compilation of extracts of revelations made by Our Lord to three mystics of the last century: Sr. Josefa Menendez, Sr. Consolata Betrone and Sr. Mary of the Trinity.
“Love is sanctity. The more you love Me, the more you will become holy!” … “He who never needs forgiveness is not the most happy, but rather he who has humbled himself many times.”
“I want to tell you this, that My best-loved and specially favored souls—My priests and My consecrated nuns—may learn it through you. My Heart is never wounded unless it be by My chosen souls. If their infidelities wound Me deeply, their love consoles and delights My Heart to such a degree that I, so to speak, forget the sins of many others on their account. I do not say that by the fact of My choice, a [chosen] soul is freed from her faults and wretchedness. That soul may and will fall often again, but if she humbles herself, if she recognizes her nothingness, if she tries to repair her faults by little acts of generosity and love, if she confides and surrenders herself once more to My Heart ... she gives Me more glory and can do more good to other souls than if she had never fallen. Miseries and weaknesses are of no consequence; what I do ask of them is love.”
“The obstinacy of a guilty soul wounds My Heart deeply, but the tender affection of one who loves Me, not only heals the wound, but turns away the effects of My Father’s Justice” … “As soon as a soul throws itself at My feet and implores My forgiveness, I forget all her sins” … “Love is reparation and reparation is love” … “It is love that makes reparation, because that which offends God in sin is the absence of love.”
“A soul will profit even after the greatest sins, if she humbles herself. I will raise up the humble, and make little of their frailties, and even of their falls, provided they have humility and love.” … “Yes, I love all souls, but with very special affection those who are the most weak and little.”
“Think no longer about yourself, about your perfection, on how to attain to sanctity, or about your defects, your present and future troubles. No. I will see to your sanctification, to your sanctity. You must henceforth think only of Me and of souls; of Me to love Me, and of souls to save them!”
“A true mother will not consider her child ugly, no matter how much it may be so; to her it is always lovely, and so it will always remain in her innermost heart. That is precisely the way My Heart feels toward souls: though they be ugly, soiled, filthy, My love considers them always beautiful. I suffer when their ugliness is confirmed to Me; on the other hand, I rejoice when, in conformity with My parental sentiments, someone dissuades Me about their ugliness and tells Me that it is not true and that they are still beautiful. The souls are Mine; for them I have given all My Blood!”
“I ask only for love. Ah, what are you doing about it ? … I prefer an act of love and a Communion of love to any other gift ... I thirst for love.” … “That soul is dearest to Me who loves Me the most.”
Reality, not Poetry
Beautiful words! Not just poetry, but reality! The reality of love! These quotes are a fitting finale to the Scriptural examples selected above. Advent is a time of preparation; a time of preparing to receive the seed of God, Who is Love itself, into our poor human souls with our meager love; a time of preparing this fire of love in the coldness of a dark wintry world. Love will light up any soul—the souls of sinners, the souls of the just and the souls of saints. It is a universal solution to the ills of the soul and the ills of the world. Truly, “love makes the world go around”, but only when it is a love with a divine flame! The absence of love, like the absence of God Who is Love itself, is pure Hell. “He that loveth not, knoweth not God: for God is charity” (1 John 4:8). “In this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid down His life for us―and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16). The candle is a symbol of that charity―burning itself out to extinction in order to give light to those around it.
In our days of superficiality and ignorance, it is common to follow certain traditions whilst knowing very little or nothing about the origins, purpose, significance or symbolism of that tradition. We do things “blindly” and in a “dumb” manner, not seeing beyond the externals and not grasping with our understanding. We keep traditions going just because we have seen them being done by our predecessors―who, in turn, also had little knowledge of the origins, purpose, significance or symbolism of that same tradition that they were passing on to us. You could say it is―in the words of Our Lord―a case of the blind leading the blind: “They are blind, and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14) ― in this case, “into the pit” of ignorance, which, in turn, leads them “into the pit” of lovelessness―for you cannot love what you do not know, and you will only love a little what you know little about! That is why the Catechism says that we were made “to know, love and serve God” ― knowledge must come before love, for we cannot love what we do not know. Service follows love ― for we will not serve for very long those whom we do not love; and love makes service much easier. Hence St. Thérèse of Lisieux (of the Infant Jesus) used to say that Jesus is so little loved because He is so little known.
Once love leaves a marriage or family, then it is very hard to keep mutual service at any kind of decent level. Once love leaves, then we fall into the category of hypocrisy of which Our Lord condemned many of the Scribes, Pharisees and Jews: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). Similarly, when there is no deeper knowledge and understanding of our traditions, then there is no real love for those traditions, which leads to a superficial, indifferent, automatic and loveless participation in them and performance of them. This applies all across the board―whether it be Church traditions, family traditions, secular traditions or national traditions. Knowledge, love and service (performance) are―or should be―closely entwined.
So―with that said―let us take a closer and deeper look at the Advent Wreath and Advent Candle tradition, so that our deeper knowledge may lead to a deeper love of that tradition, and a more sincere and meaningful participation in that tradition.
A Pagan Custom Christianized
The Advent Wreath is one of the most popular Advent traditions. The Advent Wreath has deep origins, extending back to pre-Christian pagan customs of burning lights during the darkest months of winter. Its origin is in pre-Christian pagan Germany and Scandinavia, where the people gathered to both beg and celebrate the return of the sun during and after the winter solstice.
There is evidence of pre-Christian pagan Germanic peoples using wreaths, with lit candles, during the cold and dark December, days as a sign of hope in the future warmth and extended-sunlight days of spring. In Scandinavia, during winter, lighted candles were placed around a wheel, and prayers were offered to the god of light to turn “the wheel of the earth” back toward the sun to lengthen the days and restore warmth.
These pagan people thus tried to break the darkness of winter with candles and invoke the sun god to quickly return with the warmth and light of spring. In addition, the evergreen wreath would remind them, during the apparent death of nature during winter, that there is still life and the circle of time would again come back to spring and warmth. As the days grew longer, people lit more candles to offer thanks to the “sun god” for the light.
The design of today’s Advent Wreaths was borrowed from the customs of those pre-Christian pagan cultures, who used candles and greenery (often paired together), where the candle represents light and the evergreen represents life. The circular wreath made of evergreens, with four candles interspersed, and represented the circle of the seasons of year and the life that endures through the winter.
Medieval Christians retained the custom, while seeing such lights as an obvious symbol of Christ, for they used candles themselves in many liturgical functions, not least the Sacrifice of the Mass. For us, the lighting of the Advent candles represents the promise of the coming of Jesus, the light of the world. After all, Christ is “the Light that came into the world” to dispel the darkness of sin and to radiate the truth and love of God (John 3:19-21).
Today, many, if not most, Christian churches and families prominently display an evergreen wreath with four candles throughout the Advent Season. The Christian version of the winter wreath, or Advent Wreath, actually originated among the Lutherans of Eastern Germany in the 16th century. The Advent Wreath became quite popular in homes in post-Reformation Protestant Germany. Many German homes families had a custom of lighting four candles during Advent, candles placed in a wreath of evergreens.
When these candles were lit, Scripture and prayer was part of the custom and the family devotion time was a time of instructing the children about Christ’s coming. Later, the custom crossed over different denominational lines and other Christian religions adapted its use. It was quickly adopted by both Protestants and Catholics throughout Germany, and it was brought to the United States by German immigrants in the 19th century.
Symbolism Within the Wreath
The Advent Wreath is very symbolic and therefore, spiritually, very beautiful.
► The circle of the wreath reminds us of God Himself, His eternity and endless mercy, which has no beginning or end.
► The green of the wreath speaks of the hope that we have in God, the hope of newness, of renewal, of eternal life.
► The circular form reminds us that God’s love is eternal; it has no beginning and no end.
► The evergreen leaves of the wreath remind us that God never changes.
► The evergreens used for the wreath itself are a reminder of continuous life. Whereas most the leaves (the children) of most trees have lived their life and are now fallen and rotting on the ground, the evergreens live on, seemingly immortal, though some needles are fallen on the ground, the branches are still laden with them. The shaping of the evergreens into a circle reinforces that meaning.
► The circle of the wreath, which has no beginning or end, symbolizes the eternity of God, the immortality of the soul, and the everlasting life found in Christ. The Faith offers us a share in that immortality, not to mention the strength that it gives us to stand firm on our branch of the Faith, while those of other faiths die and fall to the ground at the approach of the hardships and harshness of winter (which symbolizes the devil and the world, in whom there is no warmth or love of God).
► It is traditionally made of some type or mixture of evergreens (fir, spruce, juniper, holly, etc.), symbolizing the continuation of life in the middle of the cold and dark winter (in the northerly latitudes, at least, which is where the Advent Wreath originated).
► The wreath is made of various evergreens, signifying different virtues.
► The evergreens have a traditional meaning which can be adapted to our faith.
► The laurel signifies victory over persecution and suffering.
► The pine, holly, and yew, signify immortality; and cedar, strength and healing. Holly also has a special Christian symbolism. One English legend tells of how the Cross was made from the wood of the holly tree.
► The prickly leaves remind us of the crown of thorns.
► The pine cones, nuts, or seedpods of the evergreens are used to decorate the wreath also symbolize life and resurrection.
► All together, the wreath of evergreens depicts the immortality of our soul and the new, everlasting life with all its joys, promised to us through Christ, the eternal Word of the Father, Who entered our world becoming true man and Who was victorious over sin and death through His own passion, death, and resurrection.
► Finally, the wreath reminds us of the crown of joy waiting for us in Heaven, if we are prepared to wear Christ’s crown of thorns here below!
A lot of food for thought, eh? These are just a fraction of many things―as numerous as the needles on the wreath―that can be found buried within the Advent Wreath! Once we stop swimming on the surface waters and dive deeper beneath the superficial surface, we can uncover a goldmine of inspiring thoughts that can only serve to enkindle in us the fire of divine love and help us achieve the commandment of loving God with our whole soul, our whole heart, our whole mind and our whole strength!
What Light Do the Candles Shed?
Let us now take a look at what light the Advent Candles can shed upon us, enlightening us about some of the deeper aspects of Advent and thus increasing our Advent fervor.Sometimes we risk taking God for granted. In our spiritual lives, we just go through the motions: automatic and thoughtless signs of the cross; mindless half-hearted prayers; robotic genuflections; chore-like and mundane assistance at Mass; empty-headed and profitless spiritual reading; sleepy and drowsy meditations; machine-gun-like and aimless Rosaries; absent-minded and ill-prepared confessions; fast-food or fast-track style Holy Communions and many other ways of showing the truth of Our Lord’s words: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8).
“Familiarity breeds contempt” is what they say, and that so readily applies to our Faith and our relationship with God. What was once a period of awe, amazement and attraction, has now for many become something bland, boring and burdensome. They say that routine is the prime killer of devotion—this is true not only in the natural sphere, but also in the supernatural sphere. This routine affects the relationship between spouses, parents and children, friends and work colleagues and even our relationship with God Himself.
We have been in God’s workplace, the Church, for so long, that familiarity has bred, if not contempt, then at least a growing indifference to God and the things of God. We hear the same readings at Mass year after year; we say the same prayers year after year; we hear the same sermons and appeals year after year; we see the same unimproved faults and weaknesses among our fellow Catholics year after year; we confess the same sins year after year; we seem to get away unpunished by God year after year—so it is hardly surprising that we find ourselves slipping into the fatal fantasy of feeling that God is somehow far away and couldn’t care less about what we are really doing or not doing. This helps us make a compromise with indifference and lukewarmness—at first uneasy, but more and more easy with each passing year.
This is one of the several ingredients that make us go through our spiritual and liturgical exercises in a half-awake, partially attentive, automatic, mindless, thoughtless and loveless manner, like some sort of cloned Catholic robot. Sure, we go through the motions, but our minds, thoughts, hearts and affections—if not yet divorced—are living separated from what we are doing, with only occasional ‘weekend visiting rights.’ The fact that so many religious and spiritual activities have become boring, bland and burdensome, inevitably makes this cancer slowly grow to rapidly approaching fatal levels.
Putting Things Right
How can we pull out this kind of spiritual tail-spin that will rapidly end our hopeful flight to Heaven? The traditional remedy has always been “agere contra” (do the opposite or act against) as St. Ignatius of Loyola puts it in his Rules for the Spiritual Exercises (rules, by the way, which were given to him by Our Lady, as being the fundamental rules that she herself followed in life).
Instead of becoming more superficial, agere contra would require that we go against our natural tendency and dig deeper than usual. Painful? Yes! But how many serious illnesses have a sweet, pleasant, instant remedy? Few, if none!
So in this season Advent, instead of passing through it superficially, with lukewarm or even cold hearts, let us dig deeper into the season and search for the precious nuggets of gold and nutritious minerals that it has to offer. Hard work, but rewarding work. With this in mind, let us try shedding some light on the darkness of our minds, with the deeper meaning and symbolism that lays beneath the all too often routine and superficial lighting of the Advent candles during this season. Our Lord says that men do not light a candle and then put it under a bucket―but they place it upon a candlestick so that it gives light to everyone in the house (Matthew 5:15). Our Advent candles should be shedding spiritual light in our house! Are they shedding light upon our Advent?
What the Candles Teach
Even the pagans gave their candles some kind of symbolism. For them, the candle represented a weak and poor imitation of their sun-god, who they thought gave them light and warmth. If they can see such things represented in a candle, how much more should a follower of Christ see in a candle!
Of course, for us, the candle also represents a deity―but not some pagan god, but the one, true God—Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are but poor and weak imitations of Christ in this world. Even though it was the Lutherans who initially, in the 1500s, took the pagan custom of lighting candles during the winter season and gave to the pagan custom a Christian meaning and symbolism, it does not annul certain truths found therein. Otherwise the Catholic Church would not have accepted and integrated the custom into its bosom. For some particular aspects of truth can still be discovered even by those who are in general error. Just as there is no person who is 100% evil―similarly, there is no person who is 100% wrong―even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day!
Candle Controversies
Some Advent wreaths have four candles; other wreaths have five. Those which have five, always have a larger white candle in the center of the four surrounding candles (4 purple, or 3 purple and 1 rose; or 4 white; or 4 blue—varying from country to country, and from one religious denomination to another). Some may argue over the number and the color and which is more appropriate, but personally, since the custom comes the pagans and was then ‘christened’ by the Lutherans, and only then was it adopted and adapted by the Catholics, one would think that it doesn’t really matter—after all, it is not a dogmatic thing, but a symbolic thing, and the symbolic interpretations are many and varied, even among Catholics alone!
Christ is Central
The most Christocentric combination would seem to be the larger, wider and taller central candle that represents Jesus Christ, being surrounded by the four smaller candles. For Christ should be at the center of all things; He should be the center of our existence; He should have the prime place in the center of our hearts; our whole life should revolve around Him: “In all things God may be honored through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11) … “Giving thanks always for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father” (Ephesians 5:20).
As for the color, it seems most fitting and theologically correct that the larger central candle, representing Christ, should, just like the Paschal Candle at Easter, be made of beeswax (symbolizing innocence and purity); and that the surrounding candles be purple—a color which symbolizes penance, which in turn presupposes, not innocence and purity, but sin and guilt, which are things that have to be paid for through penance. The small candles are not made of beeswax, but of some lesser material, representing the world, its sin, guilt and worldliness.
Advent Candles & Paschal Candles
All of this is a foreshadowing of the use of two kinds and sizes of candle used during the Paschal or Easter Vigil ceremonies, that bring to an end another penitential period—that of Lent. There we see the large Paschal Candle representing Christ, which is lit in total darkness—symbolizing the darkness of a world that tries to do without Christ—and, from that Paschal Candle, we light our smaller candles. Again, the Paschal Candle is made of beeswax, but the smaller candles are not. The more candles that are lit from the Paschal Candle, the more light is shed around and everything brightens up. Similarly, the greater the number of persons professing the light of the One True Faith, then the ‘brighter’ and better the world would be in proportion to that number.
The flame of the candles represents God, His divinity and grace. God the Father appeared to Moses in the burning bush; God the Son showed Himself as a burning heart to St. Margaret Mary; God the Holy Ghost came down upon Our Lady and the Apostles in the form of burning tongues of fire at Pentecost. God chooses fire to show both His love, His mercy and His justice. Those in Heaven experience the fire of His love; those in Purgatory experience the fire of His mercy; those in Hell experience the fire of His justice. We even say, in the prayer to the Holy Ghost: “Come O Holy Ghost … enkindle in us the fire of Thy love.” Without God and His grace in our souls (candles), we are useless―just like an extinguished candle is useless. A candle was made to burn, not to be extinguished. A candle without a flame of fire, is like a soul without the fire of love, or the light of Faith, or like a body without its soul. A candle should spend its life giving light to those around, as Our Lord said: “Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:15).
Candle & Virtue
The candle very fittingly represents the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. A candle gives off light, so that we see the things around us clearly, just as Faith helps us see God more clearly and helps us see the world for what it really is.
A candle is also necessary to light our path and to lead us out of pit or cavern of this sinful world, into which we have blundered. Without that light, there is a danger of injury in the darkness by stumbling into things, and there is no hope of seeing where to go in order to emerge from the darkness; this symbolizes the virtue of Hope.
The candle also gives off, not just light, but also warmth. This is a symbol of Charity, that we should show to all those around us, just as God does, so “that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who maketh His sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).
The combination of these three virtues should lead us to imitate the larger Candle of Christ, in burning ourselves out in this life for the love of God and neighbor … “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbor as thyself” (Luke 10:27) ... “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13) ... and our first and foremost Friend is God (Father, Son and Holy Ghost), then Our Lady, then the rest of the Mystical Body in hierarchical order.
Candle, Mercy & Grace
As the candle cannot light itself, neither can we obtain the grace of God by ourselves—nobody has an automatic meritorious right to the initial grace of God. Grace, as the catechism tells us, is “a gift of God, freely given.” God’s grace inspires us; God’s grace ‘jump-starts’ us; God’s grace keeps us running until we reach our destination—”Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Each time we re-light the Advent candles, we should think of the times when grace was absent from our souls, and God, by His mercy, re-lit divine life in our sinful repentant souls.
We spoke of the candles symbolizing both Christ and ourselves. Let us begin with a deeper reflection upon that point. The wax of candle is a figure of the body, and the wick inside the body of the candle represents the soul. If we use a 5-candle Advent wreath, with the 5th candle being a larger white candle, surrounded by four smaller purple candles, we can see the beautiful symbolism of the innocence of Christ reflected in the color white, and the guilt and need for penance of ourselves reflected in the color purple.
Weeping Burning Candles
The wax that the purple candles ‘weep’ and drip, is symbolic of tears of sorrow for sin. The diminishing size of the candles as they burn with the flame of love and sorrow, is a symbol of humility, as St. John the Baptist, the prophet of penance who burned in the scorching desert heat, said: “He must increase, but I must decrease”(John 3:30). These two aspects, humility and charity, are the foundation of our sanctity and salvation. Let us develop that theme a little a more.
The purple candles will have been lit and burned at different stages throughout Advent, yet all will have spent considerable time burning before they enjoy seeing the white candle of Christ finally lit and burning in the midst of them at the end of the Vigil of Christmas, at midnight, signifying the birth and long-awaited arrival of the Son of God at Bethlehem. The fact that the purple candles have been lit at different stages throughout Advent (1st week, 2nd week, 3rd week and 4th week) can interpreted in various ways.
Advent Candles and the Vineyard
One interpretation is linked to the parable of the workers in the vineyard, where the owner of the vineyard, “…went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And having agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing in the market place idle. And he said to them: ‘Go you also into my vineyard, and I will give you what shall be just.’ And they went their way. And again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did in like manner. But about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing, and he saith to them: ‘Why stand you here all the day idle?’ They say to him: ‘Because no man hath hired us’. He saith to them: ‘Go you also into my vineyard.’ And when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard saith to his steward: ‘Call the laborers and pay them their hire, beginning from the last even to the first.’ When therefore they were come, that came about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first also came, they thought that they should receive more: and they also received every man a penny. And receiving it they murmured against the master of the house, saying: ‘These last have worked but one hour, and thou hast made them equal to us, that have borne the burden of the day and the heats.’ But he answering said to one of them: ‘Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst thou not agree with me for a penny? Take what is thine, and go thy way. I will also give to this last even as to thee. Or, is it not lawful for me to do what I will? Is thy eye evil, because I am good?’” (Matthew 20:1-15).
This dovetails beautifully with the symbolism of the Advent candles. We have the master calling in workers at four main periods of the day, just as we have the four weeks of Advent: (1) the start of the day, as the first candle is lit at the start of Advent and burns throughout the whole Advent period; (2) at the third hour, which is akin to the second week of Advent; (3) at the sixth hour, which can represent the third week of Advent; and (4) the ninth hour, in which we can see the fourth week of Advent. Finally, being merciful, he goes out at the eleventh hour, which could represent Christmas Eve and even accepts workers at the last minute, like Christ accepted the Good Thief’s repentance on the cross, at the last hour of his life. Yet, no matter at what time the laborers came into work, they all saw the same reward—one penny! That penny seems a little thing to us today, for today’s minimum wage is many hundreds of pennies for just one hour’s work! Yet that little penny can also be seen to represent the little child Jesus, Who wants to give Himself to each and every one of us, no matter how early or how late we came in to labor and sweat in His vineyard. The reward is the same—the little ‘mustard-seed’ of the Infant Jesus is given to all who repent of sin, do penance and sincerely (and even half-sincerely) desire Him.
Seeing Sin
As we said earlier, the purple of small candles denotes penance. Faced with the adulteress and the crowd of stone-throwers, Jesus said: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7) for “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:10).
We are all in need of penance; whether we think we are good or bad. For God judges differently to man. We judge merely on the surface, but God, who notices the loss of one single hair from our head, and takes note of every idle word we utter, also takes into account everything that contributes to our sins. For some are tempted more frequently, others less frequently; some are tempted with great vehemence, others lightly; some have many souls praying for them, others have few praying for them; some may have a natural temperament that will open them up to more temptation, others have a naturally strong blend of temperaments that help them resist temptation; some are hated more by the devil, others hated less; some are trying hard to be spiritual and will thus attract the devil’s attention and temptations, others are lukewarm, and so they are partially doing the devil’s work for him.
The list of possibilities is endless. That is why the ex-Pharisee, St. Paul, writes: “It is a very small thing to be judged by you, or by man’s day; but neither do I judge my own self” (1 Corinthians 4:3).
Pharisees or Prostitutes
But the Pharisees, who were self-professed upholders of tradition and judges of religious matters, were not afraid to judge, but their judgment was merely superficial and biased. In fact, they judged those who were better than themselves and those who were worse than themselves in the same way—because neither was like themselves. They judged Our Lord as being possessed by a devil, in the same way as they judged the adulteress (St. Mary Magdalen), a whore who actually was possessed by seven devils. Yet both the innocent Jesus (the white candle) and the guilty Mary Magdalen (the purple candle) were accepted by God, whereas the Pharisees and their middle of road lukewarmness (extinguished candles) were rejected and cursed (cf. Matthew chapter 23) with Our Lord imprecating one woe after another in His tirade of indignation against them.
We remember well the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican: “The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: ‘O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican! I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess!’ And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards Heaven; but struck his breast, saying: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ ... I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other―because every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted!” (Luke 18:11-14). We see this parable play-out in reality at the banquet of Simon the Pharisee.
Love and Penance
Jesus (the white candle) burnt Himself out with pure love as a penance for our sins. Mary Magdalen (the purple candle) burnt out her impure love with penance performed out of love for the Pure Love. This is why she wept at Our Lord’s feet at the banquet of another Pharisee, Simon (Luke, chapter 7). Simon the Pharisee, “who had invited Him, seeing it, spoke within himself, saying: ‘This man, if He were a prophet, would know surely who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him, that she is a sinner. And Jesus answering, said to him: ‘Simon, I have something to say to thee … Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less. And He said to her: ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee’” (Luke 7:36-50).
Where Mary Magdalen had once burned with impure love, she now burned with a pure love. Love, like fire, burns away impurities. Love, like fires or flames, can be of differing temperatures. To one who loves much, much is forgiven; to one who loves less, less is forgiven. That is why a perfect act of contrition, which by its very essence is based upon love, can wipe out, not only the guilt of sin, but also all the temporal punishment due to sin in this world and in the next. In other words, someone who is the worst sinner in the world, can, only by God’s grace, make such a perfect act of contrition that it will take that sinner past the souls of persons who had lived much holier lives, but at a low degree of love, but are still languishing in Purgatory, and take that sinner straight to Heaven.
The ‘Fast-Track’ of Love
It is like seeing someone at the back of a super long airport check-in line or a supermarket check-out line, being ‘fast-tracked’ to the other side in a matter of seconds, while we may been standing in that line for over half-an-hour! The instinctive feeling is just like that of the laborers in the vineyard, who had borne the brunt of the work under the scorching heat—a reaction of indignation, injustice, anger and protest! The reply will be the same: “Is it not lawful for Me to do what I will? Is thy eye evil, because I am good?”
The priest is also instructed to approach penitents the same way in confession. If he judges that the penitent truly has great sorrow and remorse for what he/she has done, then he is instructed to give a lesser penance than he would give to somebody who merely confesses the sin as a matter of course. And if the priest discovers that the penitent has already done much penance for his/her transgression, then even less penance is to be given to the penitent. Such is the mind of the Church, which reflects the mind of Christ—as seen at the banquet of Simon the Pharisee.
Whom Does Jesus Love?
So when we encounter “sinners” in the world, we never know what has transpired in their heart or in the confessional. The sinner, whom I may hold in contempt, might well be very close to Our Lord and Our Lady, as was Mary Magdalen. The love of Jesus embraces all and He gives chances to all—but they must take and profit from those offers of His love. There are three kinds of persons of whom the Bible says that Jesus loved:
(1) The fervent and ever-present Apostle, the virgin, St. John, the “disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 20:2): “Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23). John’s white virginal candle burned to the end.
(2) The two women, Martha (the hard-working virgin) and her sister Mary Magdalen (the converted possessed whore), and their brother Lazarus: “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus” (John 11:5). Here we see both sinner and non-sinner, but of the three―Martha, Mary and Lazarus―Jesus loved Mary Magdalen the most—she was sat at His feet listening to His words; on another occasion, she laid weeping over His feet and drying His feet with her hair; on yet another occasion, she was standing at His feet as died on the Cross; and then stood at His feet as He was lying in the tomb. Her purple candle burned to the end.
(3) The third case was that of the rich young man “And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! Go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven; and come, follow Me!’” (Mark 10:21). But whereas the fisherman John left everything to follow Jesus, and Mary left sin to follow Jesus, this young man could not pull himself away from his love of his present state in the world: “Who being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful―for he had great possessions.” (Mark 10:22). He would not light his candle with the divine flame!
Words of Love
Let us finish with a few quotes from Our Lord, taken from the book Words of Love, by Fr. Bartholomew Gottemoller, which is compilation of extracts of revelations made by Our Lord to three mystics of the last century: Sr. Josefa Menendez, Sr. Consolata Betrone and Sr. Mary of the Trinity.
“Love is sanctity. The more you love Me, the more you will become holy!” … “He who never needs forgiveness is not the most happy, but rather he who has humbled himself many times.”
“I want to tell you this, that My best-loved and specially favored souls—My priests and My consecrated nuns—may learn it through you. My Heart is never wounded unless it be by My chosen souls. If their infidelities wound Me deeply, their love consoles and delights My Heart to such a degree that I, so to speak, forget the sins of many others on their account. I do not say that by the fact of My choice, a [chosen] soul is freed from her faults and wretchedness. That soul may and will fall often again, but if she humbles herself, if she recognizes her nothingness, if she tries to repair her faults by little acts of generosity and love, if she confides and surrenders herself once more to My Heart ... she gives Me more glory and can do more good to other souls than if she had never fallen. Miseries and weaknesses are of no consequence; what I do ask of them is love.”
“The obstinacy of a guilty soul wounds My Heart deeply, but the tender affection of one who loves Me, not only heals the wound, but turns away the effects of My Father’s Justice” … “As soon as a soul throws itself at My feet and implores My forgiveness, I forget all her sins” … “Love is reparation and reparation is love” … “It is love that makes reparation, because that which offends God in sin is the absence of love.”
“A soul will profit even after the greatest sins, if she humbles herself. I will raise up the humble, and make little of their frailties, and even of their falls, provided they have humility and love.” … “Yes, I love all souls, but with very special affection those who are the most weak and little.”
“Think no longer about yourself, about your perfection, on how to attain to sanctity, or about your defects, your present and future troubles. No. I will see to your sanctification, to your sanctity. You must henceforth think only of Me and of souls; of Me to love Me, and of souls to save them!”
“A true mother will not consider her child ugly, no matter how much it may be so; to her it is always lovely, and so it will always remain in her innermost heart. That is precisely the way My Heart feels toward souls: though they be ugly, soiled, filthy, My love considers them always beautiful. I suffer when their ugliness is confirmed to Me; on the other hand, I rejoice when, in conformity with My parental sentiments, someone dissuades Me about their ugliness and tells Me that it is not true and that they are still beautiful. The souls are Mine; for them I have given all My Blood!”
“I ask only for love. Ah, what are you doing about it ? … I prefer an act of love and a Communion of love to any other gift ... I thirst for love.” … “That soul is dearest to Me who loves Me the most.”
Reality, not Poetry
Beautiful words! Not just poetry, but reality! The reality of love! These quotes are a fitting finale to the Scriptural examples selected above. Advent is a time of preparation; a time of preparing to receive the seed of God, Who is Love itself, into our poor human souls with our meager love; a time of preparing this fire of love in the coldness of a dark wintry world. Love will light up any soul—the souls of sinners, the souls of the just and the souls of saints. It is a universal solution to the ills of the soul and the ills of the world. Truly, “love makes the world go around”, but only when it is a love with a divine flame! The absence of love, like the absence of God Who is Love itself, is pure Hell. “He that loveth not, knoweth not God: for God is charity” (1 John 4:8). “In this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid down His life for us―and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16). The candle is a symbol of that charity―burning itself out to extinction in order to give light to those around it.
Article 5
Monday December 5th, 2022, Second Monday of Advent
& Tuesday December 6th, 2022, Second Tuesday of Advent
Advent Baptist Blueprint!
Monday December 5th, 2022, Second Monday of Advent
& Tuesday December 6th, 2022, Second Tuesday of Advent
Advent Baptist Blueprint!
What a Man!
Our Lord was somewhat sparing with public accolades about other people―which is hardly surprising since He lived and preached humility: “Learn of Me―for I am meek and humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29). The King of kings chose to be born in a cave or stable, rather than a palace or even a normal house. He said of Himself: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests―but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head!” (Matthew 8:20). He did not have a wardrobe like we do with our plentiful clothes―He would even say to His disciples: “Go and preach! … Do not possess gold, nor silver, nor money in your purses, nor scrip [wallet] for your journey, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor a staff―for the workman is worthy of his meat!” (Matthew 10:7-10).
Yet despite all this, Our Lord publicly says of St. John the Baptist: “Amen I say to you, there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist!” (Matthew 11:11). Why? Because St. John the Baptist was a man according to Our Lord’s own Heart and example. Therefore, St. John the Baptist has a pretty good pedigree and an excellent testimonial given by Christ Himself. Hence, there should be much to glean and learn from St. John the Baptist, especially in this Advent season.
Desert Life
We are given the story of the public ministry of St. John the Baptist, with some variation in details, in the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as well as in the Book of John. Luke tells us of the birth of John the Baptist in a town of Judaea, about six months before the birth of the Savior. The circumstances are miraculous and wonderful. The New Testament tells us nothing much of John’s early years. St. Luke tells us only that “the child grew, and was strengthened in spirit; and was in the deserts, until the day of his manifestation to Israel” (Luke 1:80).
Should we ask just when the Precursor went into the wilderness, an old tradition, echoed in the hymn, “Ut queant laxis”, composed in honor of the saint, gives an equally vague answer, hardly more precise than the statement of the Gospel, saying that in his early years he was in the desert praying. Other writers, thought they knew better.
For instance, St. Peter of Alexandria believed St. John was taken into the desert to escape the wrath of Herod, who, if we may believe report, was impelled by fear of losing his kingdom to seek the life of the Precursor, just as he was, later on, to seek that of the new-born Savior. It was added also that Herod on this account had Zachary put to death between the temple and the altar, because he had prophesied the coming of the Messias. These are legends, long since branded by St. Jerome as “apocryphorum somnia—apocryphal dreams”.
Man of Penance—Living Rough
The desert where St. John lived and fasted and prayed was actually a grazing land, unfit for growing crops but able to sustain the life of hermits and herds; nor was it rare in those days for hermits to seek a life of solitude in the desert. That he ate locusts (grasshoppers, if you prefer) invariably draws a shudder, but this was not uncommon, and is not uncommon today, for Arab and African people still dry and save them as protection against famine. Or they may have been carob beans, a common “fruit” used for thousands of years in Mediterranean lands and called by the name of locust. Wild honey, on the other hand, sounds quite delicious.
Rough Clothes, Tough Food
His garment, like the tents of Saul of Tarsus, was cloth woven of camel's hair, and he wore a leather girdle about his loins. This is the extent of his physical description. It is only when we meet him in public life that we discover what he was like; and when we hear him addressing the Pharisees and Sadducees in almost the same words Our Lord used later, we realize the divine cunning and wisdom in naming John the Voice that would announce Christ the Word.
Calling Others to Penance
“Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,”―this was John’s oft-repeated theme. For the evils of the times his remedy was individual purification. “Every tree,” he said, “that is not bringing forth good fruit is to be cut down and thrown into the fire.” The reformation of each person’s life must be complete—the wheat must be separated from the chaff and the chaff burned “with unquenchable fire.”
“Brood of vipers! Who has shown you how to flee from the wrath to come?” he cried out to their faces.
“Serpents, brood of vipers, how are you to escape the judgment of Hell?” Jesus would cry, perhaps to the same faces.
But John was tender; and when earnest seekers asked him what to do, he gave them straight answers that they could understand. “Let him who has two coats share with him who has none, and let him who has food do likewise.”
When the soldiers asked what they should do, he said: “Do not plunder, nor accuse the innocent falsely, and be content with your pay.” He told the tax collectors to take no more than was due from the people they taxed.
Foundation of Humility
He lived in humble surroundings; he ate humble food; he dressed humbly; and he had a humble opinion of himself. When the followers who loved him began to wonder if he was the Messias, he finally spoke the words for which he is most famous: “I, indeed, baptize you with water. But one mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose.”
Humility was his staple diet—in dwelling, in food, in clothing. It is humility that attracts the love and graces of God—as Our Lady said in her Magnificat, spoken to St. John’s mother, St. Elizabeth: “He hath regarded the humility of his handmaid … He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.”
Humility to a Point and No Further
Rarely does anyone sincerely say: “I am not worthy.” Most sinners, even pint-size sinners, are certain that their business is far too important to be interrupted for the tying of someone shoes. But when St. John says he is unworthy to tie Our Lord’s shoe, it is what all of us would say, isn’t it? Likewise when St. Peter said, at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday night, that he was not worthy to have Our Lord wash his feet—it is what anyone would say, right? Yet it is not just about Jesus, but all the other members of His Mystical Body.
We, Catholics, are the arms, legs, hands, feet, eyes, ears, mouth, etc., of Christ in His Mystical Body. Our Lord said that whatever we do to the least of His brethren, we do unto Him: “Amen I say to you, as long as you DID it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me ... as long as you DID IT NOT to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me” (Matthew 25:40, 45). This is not just about seeing Christ in Christ, but in seeing Christ in others.
Looking For and Seeing Christ in Others
If we are to see Christ in our brothers and sisters, then like St. John we are not even worthy to tie their shoes. We tend to want to lord it over others, but Jesus did the work of a servant before us, and told us to imitate Him: “Whosoever will be first among you, shall be the servant of all” (Mark 10:44). It is being another Christ and seeing Christ in one another, at one and the same time. To be like Him we must do as He did. To see Him in one another, we must feel as St. John did.
He Must Increase and I Must Decrease
John said, concerning Christ: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Once again, we have no problem if this refers to Christ—but if it refers to other Members of Christ’s Mystical Body, then we might be reluctant to say the same. After all, modern man’s attitude is one of “another man’s gain is my loss”. Much like the Apostles, who were arguing among themselves as to who was the greatest among them, we tend to bicker and squabble in a similar selfish way.
“And there was also a strife amongst them, which of them should seem to be the greater. And he said to them: ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that have power over them, are called beneficent. But you not so: but he that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger; and he that is the leader, as he that serveth. For which is greater, he that sitteth at table, or he that serveth? Is it not he that sitteth at table? But I am in the midst of you, as he that serveth.’” (Luke 22:24-27).
Amazing Life—Ignominious Death
John was an amazing man. Imagine the Faith of him, doggedly preaching the advent of Christ, Whom he would not recognize if he saw Him. That day Jesus approached to be baptized, he guessed, but not until it was done did he know. It had been so many years since their childhood and they had both changed so much.
Ironically enough, after all those years of self-denial and hardship; the reputation he had earned; the glowing testimonial Jesus had given of him, his final curtain-call and final bow was not what the world would look upon as successful—he was imprisoned and beheaded at the behest of a dancer! His death became an entertainment at a king’s birthday party. Another Herod was king, a son of the Herod who was king when John and Jesus were born; and beside him on the throne sat the impure wife of his brother.
In the course of John’s preaching, he had denounced in unmeasured terms the immorality of Herod’s petty court, and had even boldly upbraided Herod to his face for his defiance of old Jewish law, especially in having taken to himself the wife of his half-brother, Philip. This woman, the dissolute Herodias, was also Herod’s niece. Herod feared and reverenced John, knowing him to be a holy man, and he followed his advice in many matters; but he could not endure having his private life castigated.
Herodias stoked-up Herod’s anger by lies and artifices. His resentment at length got the better of his judgment and he had John cast into the fortress of Machaerus, near the Dead Sea. When Jesus heard of this, and knew that some of His disciples had gone to see John, He spoke thus of him: “What went you to see? A prophet? Yea, I say to you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold I send my angel before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way before Thee.’ For I say to you, amongst those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11: 10-12).
Herodias, Herod’s invalid wife, hated John because he had rebuked the sinfulness of their invalid adulterous marriage. Not content with having had him thrown in prison, she was determined to take his life. Slyly she watched Herod admire the dancing of her daughter. Greedily she waited for Herod to offer the girl a gift. When he did, the mother viciously whispered what it should be, and the child ran back to the king and said: “I want thee right away to give me on a dish the head of John the Baptist.” The strange thing is that Herod didn’t want to kill John, just as Pilate didn’t want the death of Jesus. But high men in high places cannot bear to lose face. St. Mark tells that because of his promise, and “because of his oath and because of his guests,” he sent an executioner and commanded that his head be brought on a dish.
John’s death, like Christ’s, was a spectacle, and St. Mark concludes his account of it with words that could refer to the death of Our Lord. “And his disciples, hearing it, came and took away his body, and laid it in a tomb”, while the angels with joy took away his soul to Heaven.
Learning from and Imitating St. John the Baptist
What do we learn from this man of whom Jesus said: “there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11)? We learn many things that can and should be imitated:
The Archangel Gabriel, when announcing the future birth of St. John the Baptist to his father, St. Zacahry, had said: “Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard; and they wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John: and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice in his nativity. For he shall be great before the Lord; and shall drink no wine nor strong drink: and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. And he shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias; that he may turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people” (1:8-17).
DETACHMENT FROM THE WORLD: St. John the Baptist—as great as he was in God’s eyes—lived away from the world in the barren, bleak lands of the desert.
POVERTY: St. John was the son of a priest—he could have had an illustrious and comfortable ‘career’ in the service of the Temple, yet his temple was the desert and rich trappings of the Temple he exchanged for the rich trappings of virtues in his soul. Life was far from comfortable, but life was far richer spiritually. His treasure was in Heaven, where thief cannot break in and steal, nor rust or moth corrupt. As Jesus would say: “Lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal” (Matthew 6:20).
PRAYER: What was St. John doing for those many years in the desert before God finally launched his public ministry? Building sand-castles? Counting grains of sand? Of course, not! His mind and heart would have been raised to God—which is the definition of prayer. Would Jesus give that glowing testimonial of St. John if he was not a man of prayer? Of course not! The desert is conducive to prayer—for there is little else there and little else to do. When God’s future chastisement renders earth desert-like (as prophecies have foretold), then those who survive will have little else to do but pray and clean up the mess.
PENANCE: “And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching” (Luke 3:1-3), clothed not in the soft garments of a courtier (Matthew 11:8; Luke 7:24), but in those “of camel’s hair, and a leather girdle about his loins”; and “his meat” — he looked as if he came neither eating nor drinking (Matthew 11:18; Luke 7:33) — “was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6); his whole countenance, far from suggesting the idea of a reed shaken by the wind (Matthew 11:7; Luke 7:24), manifested undaunted constancy. A few incredulous scoffers feigned to be scandalized: “He hath a devil” (Matthew 11:18). Nevertheless, “Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the country about Jordan” (Matthew 3:5), drawn by his strong and winning personality, went out to him; the austerity of his life added immensely to the weight of his words; for the simple folk, he was truly a prophet (Matthew 11:9; cf. Luke 1:76, 77). “Do penance―for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2), such was the burden of his teaching. Men of all conditions flocked around him.
COURAGE: St. John was not afraid to lay his life on the line for God and His Law. Just like Christ would do some time later. He could have remained silent, but Herod was living in sin. Truth would cost him his life, just as truth cost Jesus His life. For Catholics today, besieged by Liberalism, Modernism and a false Ecumenism with false religions, there is a temptation to turn a blind-eye; to be silent about compromises of the Faith; to go along with these false –ISMS and to scornfully say, like Pilate, “What is truth?” St. John may have lost his head, but he did not lose his soul, which reminds us of the words of Our Lord: “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell” (Matthew 10:28).
APOSTOLIC SPIRIT: The Archangel Gabriel said that St. John would be filled with the Holy Ghost and the spirit of the prophet Elias and that he would convert many souls to God. This is everyone’s calling to a certain degree. Our Lord said that we should go and preach and teach all nations, every creature and bring them to the Faith (Matthew 28:19-20). Priests alone (today less than 500,000) cannot convert and give spiritual maintenance to 8,000,000,000 souls by themselves—it is the work of the entire Mystical Body of Christ. That is why everyone, through the Sacrament of Confirmation, is made a soldier for Christ—not only to defend the Faith, but go out and conquer more souls for the Faith and ward-off the attacks of the enemies of the Church. “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12).
HUMILITY: So transcendent was the power radiating out from the holy man that, after hearing him, many believed he was indeed the long-awaited Messias. John quickly put them right, saying he had come only to prepare the way, and that he was not worthy to unloose the Master’s sandals. Although his preaching and baptizing continued for some months during the Savior’s own ministry, John always made plain that he was merely the Forerunner. His humility remained incorruptible even when his fame spread to Jerusalem and members of the higher priesthood came to make inquiries and to hear him. His whole desire was to efface himself, which is typified by his words: “He [Christ] must increase, but I must decrease!” (John 3:30).
Future John the Baptists―Either Freely or by Force
The Catholic Faith finds itself in its current mess because of the laxity, lukewarmness, indifference and neglect of Catholics―who are meant to be Soldiers of Christ. Instead, we have become cowardly Catholics, cafeteria Catholics, armchair Catholics, soap opera Catholics, refrigerator grazing Catholics, internet browsing Catholics, smartphone Catholics, tongue-wagging Catholics, ignorant Catholics, etc. Very few have John the Baptist backbones. Even less have the Baptist’s courage! Nobody willingly embraces the Baptist’s poverty and penance! We have―for the most part―gone AWOL (absent without leave). We are mere shells of soldiers―almost like toy soldiers―and not the real thing.
If we refuse or neglect to fulfill our soldierly duties, then we risk being found guilty of spiritual treason. Our Lady―in all her modern day apparitions, has been searching to soldiers who are willing to fight for Christ against the ever-increasing and ever-more-powerful enemies of God, Church and Faith―and the redeeming and salvation of sinners: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … A great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … . Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world … There are not any souls who, by their lives of immolation and sacrifice, appease the Divine Justice …
“I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Already souls who wish to pray are on the way to being gathered together … Will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time? … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send to you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears, in the privacy of your heart. Implore our Celestial Father ... that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary!” (combination of quotes from Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita).
A Desert-Like Earth! Hell on Earth!
If we refuse to obey Our Lady’s demands and commands, then all Hell will be let loose! “If sins increase in number and gravity [which is what is happening as we can all see and testify] there will be no longer pardon for them! … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors [whom we could call modern-day John the Baptists] will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead! … The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness … If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! … Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will strike in an unprecedented way. God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other. The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God.
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth! ... Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... The evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective, making it easy for everyone to live in sin ... The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth. People will think of nothing but amusement ... Passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of customs … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … Moreover, in these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women.
“For a while the Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis! … During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way, corrupting many of them … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness. This, then, will be the cause of the cursed demon taking possession … How the Church will suffer during this dark night! … The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom …
“Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will strike in an unprecedented way. God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other ... The seasons will be altered, the Earth, the stars will lose their regular motion, the moon will only reflect a faint reddish glow. Water and fire will give the Earth’s globe convulsions and terrible earthquakes which will swallow up mountains, cities, etc ... Nations will be annihilated … Paris will burn and Marseilles will be engulfed. Several cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes ... France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war ... Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … Blood will flow in the streets. There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost! … For a time, God will cease to remember France and Italy, because the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been forgotten. (Our Lady of Good Success, at Quito in Ecuador, Our Lady of La Salette, France; Our Lady of Fatima, Portugal; Our Lady of Akita, Japan).
Since we refuse to desert (leave) the world and its worldliness behind us, in “seeking first the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33), God in His justice will render the Earth to be desert-like―and, in this way, He will succeed in detaching us from the things of this world, by destroying those things that we idolize.
Father Constant Louis-Marie Pel (1876–1966) is not a name well-known among most souls, but he was gifted by God with a knowledge of how God is going to set today’s world straight. He was a priest very close to God―a doctor in theology, a seminary professor, a founder of a convent for women and of a seminary for men, and with a great devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He was also a personal friend of St. Padre Pio, who said of him to some French pilgrims in San Giovanni Rotondo: “Why do you come to see me when you have so great a saint in France?” Fr. Pel would spend nights on his feet in church with his forehead leaning against the Tabernacle, conversing with God in a permanent ecstasy. He made a prophecy, dating from 1945, concerning the chastisement which will strike France in particular. Here it is in an abbreviated form:
“Know that with the sins of the world increasing in horror as this age wears on, great punishments from God will come down on the world and no continent will be spared by the wrath of God. Everything will be laid waste and set on fire by peoples invading from the east, and also by great flaming meteorites falling in a rain of fire upon all the Earth. Revolution, war, epidemics, plagues, chemical poison gases, violent earthquakes and the re-awakening extinct volcanoes will destroy everything ... Any of God’s worst enemies, seeking refuge from the worldwide cataclysm, will be found out, wherever they hide, and put to death by devils, because the wrath of the Lord is just and holy … In this way, three quarters of mankind will be destroyed, and, in certain parts, survivors will have to go 60 miles to find another living human being! ... Several nations will disappear off the face of the map ... All the Cains and Judases will have disappeared in this Judgment upon the Nations.” According to Fr. Pel, this judgment is not yet the end of times, but so great is the punishment, due to the sins of the nations, that Our Lord told Fr. Pel that the desolation at world’s end will be lesser.
Our Lady had already said as much in her apparitions at La Salette, Fatima and Akita: “Because they have not worshiped the true Christ … the fire of Heaven will fall and consume cities ... Water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride … All the universe will be struck with terror ... Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like ... In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph ... Russia will be converted … Pagan Rome will disappear. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God ... and a period of peace will be granted to the world … Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere.”
We’ll Find Out That God Is Not Mocked!
As Holy Scripture warns: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “The Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake―not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9). “Be not deceived! God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
Our Lady complained that in these evil times, “in this supreme moment of need of the Church, those who should speak will fall silent!” We should have the spirit of St. John the Baptist in these evil times in which we live. “The word of the Lord was made unto John, the son of Zachary, in the desert. And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins: ‘Do penance―for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ … He was a voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight; and the rough ways plain; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God!’ He said to the multitudes: ‘Ye offspring of vipers, who hath shown you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth, therefore, fruits worthy of penance! … For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire!’ And he said to them: “There shall come one mightier than I, He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire! Whose fan is in His hand, and He will purge His floor, and will gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire! And many other things exhorting, did he preach to the people” (Matthew 3:2-10; Luke 3:2-18).
Imitating St. John the Baptist
Our Lady, in speaking of St. John the Baptist to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, said of John: “Do not be surprised that John feared and hesitated to come into the world―knowing of the loss which the world threatened, he feared the risk. It served him in good stead for entering securely into the world. The fortunate child began his career with such disgust and abhorrence of all earthly things, that his horror never abated. He made no peace with the flesh, nor partook of its poison, nor allowed vanity to enter his senses, nor obstruct his eyes. In abhorrence of the world and of worldly things, he gave his life for justice. The citizen of the true Jerusalem cannot be in peace or in alliance with Babylon; nor is it possible to enjoy at the same time the grace of the Most High and the friendship of his declared enemies―for no one can serve two hostile masters, nor can light and darkness, Christ and Belial, harmonize … In imitation of St. John the Baptist, prepare thy heart for all that the Holy Spirit wishes to work in thee―for His own glory and for the benefit of other souls. As far as depends upon thee, love solitude and withdraw thy soul from the confusion of created things. Whenever thy duty to God forces thee to deal with creatures, seek always thy own sanctification and the edification of thy neighbor, so that in thy outward conversation and communication the zeal of thy spirit may shine forth.”
Our Lord Himself points to St. John the Baptist as a model worthy of imitation. Speaking of St. John’s life in the desert, Our Lord says: “What went you out into the desert to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what went you out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Behold they that are clothed in soft garments and expensive clothing, live delicately in the houses of kings! … Amen I say to you, there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist! … And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:7-8, 11:11-12; Luke 7:24-28).
Unlike St. John the Baptist, we are for the most part “Reeds shaken by the wind.” We “are clothed in soft garments and expensive clothes, and live delicately in our kingly houses.” We reject the idea of fighting for Christ and the notion that “the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” Instead, we prefer the quote: “Follow peace with all men” (Hebrews 12:14) and so we believe in being at peace with everyone―even the enemies of the Church and Christ! It is much easier and less stressful than fighting them! The only fighting that we do is among ourselves! We prefer living in the city to living in St. John the Baptist’s desert. We screw our faces and turn up our noses to John’s diet of locusts, but we love the taste of honey! As for clothing ourselves in camel hair―the closest compromise for us is buying a $3,000 camel-hair coat! As for doing penance―spending $3,000 on a camel-hair coat is plenty of penance and we don’t need more than that!
Our Lord was somewhat sparing with public accolades about other people―which is hardly surprising since He lived and preached humility: “Learn of Me―for I am meek and humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29). The King of kings chose to be born in a cave or stable, rather than a palace or even a normal house. He said of Himself: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests―but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head!” (Matthew 8:20). He did not have a wardrobe like we do with our plentiful clothes―He would even say to His disciples: “Go and preach! … Do not possess gold, nor silver, nor money in your purses, nor scrip [wallet] for your journey, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor a staff―for the workman is worthy of his meat!” (Matthew 10:7-10).
Yet despite all this, Our Lord publicly says of St. John the Baptist: “Amen I say to you, there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist!” (Matthew 11:11). Why? Because St. John the Baptist was a man according to Our Lord’s own Heart and example. Therefore, St. John the Baptist has a pretty good pedigree and an excellent testimonial given by Christ Himself. Hence, there should be much to glean and learn from St. John the Baptist, especially in this Advent season.
Desert Life
We are given the story of the public ministry of St. John the Baptist, with some variation in details, in the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as well as in the Book of John. Luke tells us of the birth of John the Baptist in a town of Judaea, about six months before the birth of the Savior. The circumstances are miraculous and wonderful. The New Testament tells us nothing much of John’s early years. St. Luke tells us only that “the child grew, and was strengthened in spirit; and was in the deserts, until the day of his manifestation to Israel” (Luke 1:80).
Should we ask just when the Precursor went into the wilderness, an old tradition, echoed in the hymn, “Ut queant laxis”, composed in honor of the saint, gives an equally vague answer, hardly more precise than the statement of the Gospel, saying that in his early years he was in the desert praying. Other writers, thought they knew better.
For instance, St. Peter of Alexandria believed St. John was taken into the desert to escape the wrath of Herod, who, if we may believe report, was impelled by fear of losing his kingdom to seek the life of the Precursor, just as he was, later on, to seek that of the new-born Savior. It was added also that Herod on this account had Zachary put to death between the temple and the altar, because he had prophesied the coming of the Messias. These are legends, long since branded by St. Jerome as “apocryphorum somnia—apocryphal dreams”.
Man of Penance—Living Rough
The desert where St. John lived and fasted and prayed was actually a grazing land, unfit for growing crops but able to sustain the life of hermits and herds; nor was it rare in those days for hermits to seek a life of solitude in the desert. That he ate locusts (grasshoppers, if you prefer) invariably draws a shudder, but this was not uncommon, and is not uncommon today, for Arab and African people still dry and save them as protection against famine. Or they may have been carob beans, a common “fruit” used for thousands of years in Mediterranean lands and called by the name of locust. Wild honey, on the other hand, sounds quite delicious.
Rough Clothes, Tough Food
His garment, like the tents of Saul of Tarsus, was cloth woven of camel's hair, and he wore a leather girdle about his loins. This is the extent of his physical description. It is only when we meet him in public life that we discover what he was like; and when we hear him addressing the Pharisees and Sadducees in almost the same words Our Lord used later, we realize the divine cunning and wisdom in naming John the Voice that would announce Christ the Word.
Calling Others to Penance
“Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,”―this was John’s oft-repeated theme. For the evils of the times his remedy was individual purification. “Every tree,” he said, “that is not bringing forth good fruit is to be cut down and thrown into the fire.” The reformation of each person’s life must be complete—the wheat must be separated from the chaff and the chaff burned “with unquenchable fire.”
“Brood of vipers! Who has shown you how to flee from the wrath to come?” he cried out to their faces.
“Serpents, brood of vipers, how are you to escape the judgment of Hell?” Jesus would cry, perhaps to the same faces.
But John was tender; and when earnest seekers asked him what to do, he gave them straight answers that they could understand. “Let him who has two coats share with him who has none, and let him who has food do likewise.”
When the soldiers asked what they should do, he said: “Do not plunder, nor accuse the innocent falsely, and be content with your pay.” He told the tax collectors to take no more than was due from the people they taxed.
Foundation of Humility
He lived in humble surroundings; he ate humble food; he dressed humbly; and he had a humble opinion of himself. When the followers who loved him began to wonder if he was the Messias, he finally spoke the words for which he is most famous: “I, indeed, baptize you with water. But one mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose.”
Humility was his staple diet—in dwelling, in food, in clothing. It is humility that attracts the love and graces of God—as Our Lady said in her Magnificat, spoken to St. John’s mother, St. Elizabeth: “He hath regarded the humility of his handmaid … He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.”
Humility to a Point and No Further
Rarely does anyone sincerely say: “I am not worthy.” Most sinners, even pint-size sinners, are certain that their business is far too important to be interrupted for the tying of someone shoes. But when St. John says he is unworthy to tie Our Lord’s shoe, it is what all of us would say, isn’t it? Likewise when St. Peter said, at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday night, that he was not worthy to have Our Lord wash his feet—it is what anyone would say, right? Yet it is not just about Jesus, but all the other members of His Mystical Body.
We, Catholics, are the arms, legs, hands, feet, eyes, ears, mouth, etc., of Christ in His Mystical Body. Our Lord said that whatever we do to the least of His brethren, we do unto Him: “Amen I say to you, as long as you DID it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me ... as long as you DID IT NOT to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me” (Matthew 25:40, 45). This is not just about seeing Christ in Christ, but in seeing Christ in others.
Looking For and Seeing Christ in Others
If we are to see Christ in our brothers and sisters, then like St. John we are not even worthy to tie their shoes. We tend to want to lord it over others, but Jesus did the work of a servant before us, and told us to imitate Him: “Whosoever will be first among you, shall be the servant of all” (Mark 10:44). It is being another Christ and seeing Christ in one another, at one and the same time. To be like Him we must do as He did. To see Him in one another, we must feel as St. John did.
He Must Increase and I Must Decrease
John said, concerning Christ: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Once again, we have no problem if this refers to Christ—but if it refers to other Members of Christ’s Mystical Body, then we might be reluctant to say the same. After all, modern man’s attitude is one of “another man’s gain is my loss”. Much like the Apostles, who were arguing among themselves as to who was the greatest among them, we tend to bicker and squabble in a similar selfish way.
“And there was also a strife amongst them, which of them should seem to be the greater. And he said to them: ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that have power over them, are called beneficent. But you not so: but he that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger; and he that is the leader, as he that serveth. For which is greater, he that sitteth at table, or he that serveth? Is it not he that sitteth at table? But I am in the midst of you, as he that serveth.’” (Luke 22:24-27).
Amazing Life—Ignominious Death
John was an amazing man. Imagine the Faith of him, doggedly preaching the advent of Christ, Whom he would not recognize if he saw Him. That day Jesus approached to be baptized, he guessed, but not until it was done did he know. It had been so many years since their childhood and they had both changed so much.
Ironically enough, after all those years of self-denial and hardship; the reputation he had earned; the glowing testimonial Jesus had given of him, his final curtain-call and final bow was not what the world would look upon as successful—he was imprisoned and beheaded at the behest of a dancer! His death became an entertainment at a king’s birthday party. Another Herod was king, a son of the Herod who was king when John and Jesus were born; and beside him on the throne sat the impure wife of his brother.
In the course of John’s preaching, he had denounced in unmeasured terms the immorality of Herod’s petty court, and had even boldly upbraided Herod to his face for his defiance of old Jewish law, especially in having taken to himself the wife of his half-brother, Philip. This woman, the dissolute Herodias, was also Herod’s niece. Herod feared and reverenced John, knowing him to be a holy man, and he followed his advice in many matters; but he could not endure having his private life castigated.
Herodias stoked-up Herod’s anger by lies and artifices. His resentment at length got the better of his judgment and he had John cast into the fortress of Machaerus, near the Dead Sea. When Jesus heard of this, and knew that some of His disciples had gone to see John, He spoke thus of him: “What went you to see? A prophet? Yea, I say to you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold I send my angel before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way before Thee.’ For I say to you, amongst those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11: 10-12).
Herodias, Herod’s invalid wife, hated John because he had rebuked the sinfulness of their invalid adulterous marriage. Not content with having had him thrown in prison, she was determined to take his life. Slyly she watched Herod admire the dancing of her daughter. Greedily she waited for Herod to offer the girl a gift. When he did, the mother viciously whispered what it should be, and the child ran back to the king and said: “I want thee right away to give me on a dish the head of John the Baptist.” The strange thing is that Herod didn’t want to kill John, just as Pilate didn’t want the death of Jesus. But high men in high places cannot bear to lose face. St. Mark tells that because of his promise, and “because of his oath and because of his guests,” he sent an executioner and commanded that his head be brought on a dish.
John’s death, like Christ’s, was a spectacle, and St. Mark concludes his account of it with words that could refer to the death of Our Lord. “And his disciples, hearing it, came and took away his body, and laid it in a tomb”, while the angels with joy took away his soul to Heaven.
Learning from and Imitating St. John the Baptist
What do we learn from this man of whom Jesus said: “there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11)? We learn many things that can and should be imitated:
The Archangel Gabriel, when announcing the future birth of St. John the Baptist to his father, St. Zacahry, had said: “Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard; and they wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John: and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice in his nativity. For he shall be great before the Lord; and shall drink no wine nor strong drink: and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. And he shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias; that he may turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people” (1:8-17).
DETACHMENT FROM THE WORLD: St. John the Baptist—as great as he was in God’s eyes—lived away from the world in the barren, bleak lands of the desert.
POVERTY: St. John was the son of a priest—he could have had an illustrious and comfortable ‘career’ in the service of the Temple, yet his temple was the desert and rich trappings of the Temple he exchanged for the rich trappings of virtues in his soul. Life was far from comfortable, but life was far richer spiritually. His treasure was in Heaven, where thief cannot break in and steal, nor rust or moth corrupt. As Jesus would say: “Lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal” (Matthew 6:20).
PRAYER: What was St. John doing for those many years in the desert before God finally launched his public ministry? Building sand-castles? Counting grains of sand? Of course, not! His mind and heart would have been raised to God—which is the definition of prayer. Would Jesus give that glowing testimonial of St. John if he was not a man of prayer? Of course not! The desert is conducive to prayer—for there is little else there and little else to do. When God’s future chastisement renders earth desert-like (as prophecies have foretold), then those who survive will have little else to do but pray and clean up the mess.
PENANCE: “And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching” (Luke 3:1-3), clothed not in the soft garments of a courtier (Matthew 11:8; Luke 7:24), but in those “of camel’s hair, and a leather girdle about his loins”; and “his meat” — he looked as if he came neither eating nor drinking (Matthew 11:18; Luke 7:33) — “was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6); his whole countenance, far from suggesting the idea of a reed shaken by the wind (Matthew 11:7; Luke 7:24), manifested undaunted constancy. A few incredulous scoffers feigned to be scandalized: “He hath a devil” (Matthew 11:18). Nevertheless, “Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the country about Jordan” (Matthew 3:5), drawn by his strong and winning personality, went out to him; the austerity of his life added immensely to the weight of his words; for the simple folk, he was truly a prophet (Matthew 11:9; cf. Luke 1:76, 77). “Do penance―for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2), such was the burden of his teaching. Men of all conditions flocked around him.
COURAGE: St. John was not afraid to lay his life on the line for God and His Law. Just like Christ would do some time later. He could have remained silent, but Herod was living in sin. Truth would cost him his life, just as truth cost Jesus His life. For Catholics today, besieged by Liberalism, Modernism and a false Ecumenism with false religions, there is a temptation to turn a blind-eye; to be silent about compromises of the Faith; to go along with these false –ISMS and to scornfully say, like Pilate, “What is truth?” St. John may have lost his head, but he did not lose his soul, which reminds us of the words of Our Lord: “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in Hell” (Matthew 10:28).
APOSTOLIC SPIRIT: The Archangel Gabriel said that St. John would be filled with the Holy Ghost and the spirit of the prophet Elias and that he would convert many souls to God. This is everyone’s calling to a certain degree. Our Lord said that we should go and preach and teach all nations, every creature and bring them to the Faith (Matthew 28:19-20). Priests alone (today less than 500,000) cannot convert and give spiritual maintenance to 8,000,000,000 souls by themselves—it is the work of the entire Mystical Body of Christ. That is why everyone, through the Sacrament of Confirmation, is made a soldier for Christ—not only to defend the Faith, but go out and conquer more souls for the Faith and ward-off the attacks of the enemies of the Church. “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12).
HUMILITY: So transcendent was the power radiating out from the holy man that, after hearing him, many believed he was indeed the long-awaited Messias. John quickly put them right, saying he had come only to prepare the way, and that he was not worthy to unloose the Master’s sandals. Although his preaching and baptizing continued for some months during the Savior’s own ministry, John always made plain that he was merely the Forerunner. His humility remained incorruptible even when his fame spread to Jerusalem and members of the higher priesthood came to make inquiries and to hear him. His whole desire was to efface himself, which is typified by his words: “He [Christ] must increase, but I must decrease!” (John 3:30).
Future John the Baptists―Either Freely or by Force
The Catholic Faith finds itself in its current mess because of the laxity, lukewarmness, indifference and neglect of Catholics―who are meant to be Soldiers of Christ. Instead, we have become cowardly Catholics, cafeteria Catholics, armchair Catholics, soap opera Catholics, refrigerator grazing Catholics, internet browsing Catholics, smartphone Catholics, tongue-wagging Catholics, ignorant Catholics, etc. Very few have John the Baptist backbones. Even less have the Baptist’s courage! Nobody willingly embraces the Baptist’s poverty and penance! We have―for the most part―gone AWOL (absent without leave). We are mere shells of soldiers―almost like toy soldiers―and not the real thing.
If we refuse or neglect to fulfill our soldierly duties, then we risk being found guilty of spiritual treason. Our Lady―in all her modern day apparitions, has been searching to soldiers who are willing to fight for Christ against the ever-increasing and ever-more-powerful enemies of God, Church and Faith―and the redeeming and salvation of sinners: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … A great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … . Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world … There are not any souls who, by their lives of immolation and sacrifice, appease the Divine Justice …
“I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Already souls who wish to pray are on the way to being gathered together … Will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time? … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send to you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears, in the privacy of your heart. Implore our Celestial Father ... that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary!” (combination of quotes from Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita).
A Desert-Like Earth! Hell on Earth!
If we refuse to obey Our Lady’s demands and commands, then all Hell will be let loose! “If sins increase in number and gravity [which is what is happening as we can all see and testify] there will be no longer pardon for them! … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors [whom we could call modern-day John the Baptists] will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead! … The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness … If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! … Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will strike in an unprecedented way. God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other. The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God.
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth! ... Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... The evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective, making it easy for everyone to live in sin ... The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth. People will think of nothing but amusement ... Passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of customs … The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … Moreover, in these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women.
“For a while the Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis! … During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way, corrupting many of them … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness. This, then, will be the cause of the cursed demon taking possession … How the Church will suffer during this dark night! … The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom …
“Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will strike in an unprecedented way. God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other ... The seasons will be altered, the Earth, the stars will lose their regular motion, the moon will only reflect a faint reddish glow. Water and fire will give the Earth’s globe convulsions and terrible earthquakes which will swallow up mountains, cities, etc ... Nations will be annihilated … Paris will burn and Marseilles will be engulfed. Several cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes ... France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war ... Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … Blood will flow in the streets. There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost! … For a time, God will cease to remember France and Italy, because the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been forgotten. (Our Lady of Good Success, at Quito in Ecuador, Our Lady of La Salette, France; Our Lady of Fatima, Portugal; Our Lady of Akita, Japan).
Since we refuse to desert (leave) the world and its worldliness behind us, in “seeking first the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33), God in His justice will render the Earth to be desert-like―and, in this way, He will succeed in detaching us from the things of this world, by destroying those things that we idolize.
Father Constant Louis-Marie Pel (1876–1966) is not a name well-known among most souls, but he was gifted by God with a knowledge of how God is going to set today’s world straight. He was a priest very close to God―a doctor in theology, a seminary professor, a founder of a convent for women and of a seminary for men, and with a great devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He was also a personal friend of St. Padre Pio, who said of him to some French pilgrims in San Giovanni Rotondo: “Why do you come to see me when you have so great a saint in France?” Fr. Pel would spend nights on his feet in church with his forehead leaning against the Tabernacle, conversing with God in a permanent ecstasy. He made a prophecy, dating from 1945, concerning the chastisement which will strike France in particular. Here it is in an abbreviated form:
“Know that with the sins of the world increasing in horror as this age wears on, great punishments from God will come down on the world and no continent will be spared by the wrath of God. Everything will be laid waste and set on fire by peoples invading from the east, and also by great flaming meteorites falling in a rain of fire upon all the Earth. Revolution, war, epidemics, plagues, chemical poison gases, violent earthquakes and the re-awakening extinct volcanoes will destroy everything ... Any of God’s worst enemies, seeking refuge from the worldwide cataclysm, will be found out, wherever they hide, and put to death by devils, because the wrath of the Lord is just and holy … In this way, three quarters of mankind will be destroyed, and, in certain parts, survivors will have to go 60 miles to find another living human being! ... Several nations will disappear off the face of the map ... All the Cains and Judases will have disappeared in this Judgment upon the Nations.” According to Fr. Pel, this judgment is not yet the end of times, but so great is the punishment, due to the sins of the nations, that Our Lord told Fr. Pel that the desolation at world’s end will be lesser.
Our Lady had already said as much in her apparitions at La Salette, Fatima and Akita: “Because they have not worshiped the true Christ … the fire of Heaven will fall and consume cities ... Water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride … All the universe will be struck with terror ... Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like ... In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph ... Russia will be converted … Pagan Rome will disappear. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God ... and a period of peace will be granted to the world … Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere.”
We’ll Find Out That God Is Not Mocked!
As Holy Scripture warns: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5). “The Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake―not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance!” (2 Peter 3:9). “Be not deceived! God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
Our Lady complained that in these evil times, “in this supreme moment of need of the Church, those who should speak will fall silent!” We should have the spirit of St. John the Baptist in these evil times in which we live. “The word of the Lord was made unto John, the son of Zachary, in the desert. And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins: ‘Do penance―for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ … He was a voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight; and the rough ways plain; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God!’ He said to the multitudes: ‘Ye offspring of vipers, who hath shown you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth, therefore, fruits worthy of penance! … For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire!’ And he said to them: “There shall come one mightier than I, He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire! Whose fan is in His hand, and He will purge His floor, and will gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire! And many other things exhorting, did he preach to the people” (Matthew 3:2-10; Luke 3:2-18).
Imitating St. John the Baptist
Our Lady, in speaking of St. John the Baptist to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, said of John: “Do not be surprised that John feared and hesitated to come into the world―knowing of the loss which the world threatened, he feared the risk. It served him in good stead for entering securely into the world. The fortunate child began his career with such disgust and abhorrence of all earthly things, that his horror never abated. He made no peace with the flesh, nor partook of its poison, nor allowed vanity to enter his senses, nor obstruct his eyes. In abhorrence of the world and of worldly things, he gave his life for justice. The citizen of the true Jerusalem cannot be in peace or in alliance with Babylon; nor is it possible to enjoy at the same time the grace of the Most High and the friendship of his declared enemies―for no one can serve two hostile masters, nor can light and darkness, Christ and Belial, harmonize … In imitation of St. John the Baptist, prepare thy heart for all that the Holy Spirit wishes to work in thee―for His own glory and for the benefit of other souls. As far as depends upon thee, love solitude and withdraw thy soul from the confusion of created things. Whenever thy duty to God forces thee to deal with creatures, seek always thy own sanctification and the edification of thy neighbor, so that in thy outward conversation and communication the zeal of thy spirit may shine forth.”
Our Lord Himself points to St. John the Baptist as a model worthy of imitation. Speaking of St. John’s life in the desert, Our Lord says: “What went you out into the desert to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what went you out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Behold they that are clothed in soft garments and expensive clothing, live delicately in the houses of kings! … Amen I say to you, there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist! … And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:7-8, 11:11-12; Luke 7:24-28).
Unlike St. John the Baptist, we are for the most part “Reeds shaken by the wind.” We “are clothed in soft garments and expensive clothes, and live delicately in our kingly houses.” We reject the idea of fighting for Christ and the notion that “the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” Instead, we prefer the quote: “Follow peace with all men” (Hebrews 12:14) and so we believe in being at peace with everyone―even the enemies of the Church and Christ! It is much easier and less stressful than fighting them! The only fighting that we do is among ourselves! We prefer living in the city to living in St. John the Baptist’s desert. We screw our faces and turn up our noses to John’s diet of locusts, but we love the taste of honey! As for clothing ourselves in camel hair―the closest compromise for us is buying a $3,000 camel-hair coat! As for doing penance―spending $3,000 on a camel-hair coat is plenty of penance and we don’t need more than that!
Article 4
Saturday December 3rd, 2022, First Saturday of Advent
& Sunday December 4th, 2022, Second Sunday of Advent
Advent Misspent and Wasted!
Saturday December 3rd, 2022, First Saturday of Advent
& Sunday December 4th, 2022, Second Sunday of Advent
Advent Misspent and Wasted!
A Time to Use Time Well
Holy Scripture tells us to walk wisely and make the best use of time: “Walk with wisdom, redeeming the time!” (Colossians 4:5). “Be wise! Make good use of time, because the days are evil!” (Ephesians 5:16-20). Our Lady, in an apparition to Blessed Elena Aiello on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, 1956, said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
Holy Scripture likewise warns us: “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only―deceiving your own selves!” (James 1:22). “How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When will thou rise out of thy sleep?” (Proverbs 6:9). Holy Mother Church underlines this same point in the liturgical readings that she has chosen for the season of Advent: “Brethren! Understand, for it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep―because now our salvation is nearer than when we came to believe! The night is far advanced; the day is at hand! Let us therefore lay aside the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light! Let us walk becomingly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in debauchery and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy! But put on the Lord Jesus Christ!” (Mass of the First Sunday of Advent, Lesson from the letter of St. Paul to the Romans 13:11-14).
The Rise and Fall of Advent Fasting
We forget or deliberately ignore the fact that Advent is meant to be a time of penance. In past centuries, Advent used to be just as long as Lent―with 40 days of fasting being practiced. The renowned Benedictine abbot and liturgist, Dom Guéranger, in the section on Advent from his monumental multi-volume work, The Liturgical Year, writes:
“Forty, or rather of forty-three days, were consecrated to penance, as though Advent were a second Lent―though less strict and severe. We find the first Council of Macon, held in 582, ordaining that during the interval between St. Martin's day (November 10th) and Christmas (December 25th), the Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, should be fasting days. Not many years before that, namely in 567, the second Council of Tours had enjoined the monks to fast from the beginning of December till Christmas. This practice of penance soon extended to the whole forty days, even for the laity: and it was commonly called St. Martin's Lent.
“The obligation of observing this Lent (Advent), began to be relaxed, and the forty days from St. Martin's day to Christmas were reduced to four weeks. The first allusion to Advent's being reduced to four weeks is to be found in the ninth century. The discipline of the Churches of the west, after having reduced the time of the Advent fast, so far relented, in a few years, as to change the fast into a simple abstinence; and we even find Councils of the twelfth century, which seem to require only the clergy to observe this abstinence. The Council of Salisbury, held in 1281, would seem to expect none but monks to keep it.
“This much is certain, that, by degrees, the custom of fasting so far fell into disuse, that when, in 1362, Pope Urban V endeavored to prevent the total decay of the Advent penance, all he insisted upon was that all the clerics of his court should keep abstinence during Advent, without in any way including others, either clergy or laity, in this law. St. Charles Borromeo also strove to bring back his people of Milan to the spirit, if not to the letter, of ancient times. In his fourth Council, he enjoins the parish priests to exhort the faithful to go to Communion on the Sundays, at least, of Lent and Advent; and afterwards addressed to the faithful themselves a pastoral letter, in which, after having reminded them of the dispositions wherewith they ought to spend this holy time, he strongly urges them to fast on the Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at least, of each week in Advent. Finally, Pope Benedict XIV, when Archbishop of Bologna, following these illustrious examples, wrote his eleventh Ecclesiastical Institution for the purpose of exciting in the minds of his diocesans the exalted idea which the Christians of former times had of the holy season of Advent, and of removing an erroneous opinion which prevailed in those parts, namely, that Advent concerned religious only and not the laity.” (Dom Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Advent).
Discounted Penance!
In these modern times, we have lost the notion of the need for penance―especially in these Post-Vatican II days, whereby Pope Paul VI gave us a 95% discount on penance during Lent, by reducing the obligatory 40 days of Lenten fasting to a mere two days―Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Furthermore, the Ember Days of fasting and abstinence have been discarded. Penance seems like an antiquated and outdated practice that today seems to be optional! Yet that is a Liberal and Modernist error! Our Lord and Holy Scripture tell us the opposite:
Do Penance or Perish!
“Jesus began to preach, and to say: ‘Do penance! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’” (Matthew 4:17). “Seek out My face and do penance for your most wicked ways! Then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive your sins and will heal” (2 Paralipomenon 7:14). “God hath given him place for penance―and he abuseth it unto pride!” (Job 24:23). “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). “Let him do penance for his sin!” (Leviticus 5:5). Have you not sinned? Have we not sinned? “If we say that we have no sin, then we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us! If we say that we have not sinned, then we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10). “There is no just man upon earth, that doth good, and sinneth not!” (Ecclesiastes 7:21). “For all have sinned, and do need the glory of God!” (Romans 3:23). Therefore, all persons need to do penance! Yes―we either do penance, or we perish―as Our Lord warned. Most people foolishly ignore penance and most people therefore foolishly perish―“the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15).
Our Lady revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda (1602-1665): “The number of those foreknown as doomed is so great, and the number of those that save themselves is so small, that thou wouldst die at seeing such misfortune. If there were a way of rousing them to a sense of their duty―then the wrath of the divine Judge would be appeased, and there would be some reduction of the widespread ruin and damnation among Catholics. Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in dangerous lukewarmness. They live in the darkness of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices. Since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men!”
At Fatima, Our Lady warned that many souls go to Hell because there is nobody to offer prayers and sacrifices (penances) for them―which obviously means that those poor damned souls were not doing penance for their sins! At Akita, in 1973, Our Lady further said: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord ... In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind ... Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father ... I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
Armchair Advents Anathematized
Advent is a time for action, not apathy! The liturgical readings for the Advent season make this abundantly clear. “O Lord, make known Your ways to me and teach me Your paths!” (Mass of the First Sunday of Advent, Gradual). “Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare the ways of Your only-begotten Son!” (Mass of the Second Sunday of Advent Collect). “May we prepare with due observance for the coming festal season of our redemption!” (Mass of the Second Sunday of Advent, Postcommunion). “Teach us to disdain the things of Earth and love those of Heaven” (Mass of the Second Sunday of Advent, Postcommunion).
“Jesus began to say to the crowds concerning John, What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Behold, those who wear soft garments are in the houses of kings! But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet! This is he of whom it is written: “Behold, I send my messenger before Your face, who shall make ready Your way before You!”’” (Mass of the Second Sunday of Advent Gospel of St. Matthew 11:2-10).
Since the time that Our Lord spoke those words, we have been given messengers galore in every century and through the message of the Church―culminating with the “Queen of messengers”, Our Lady herself. Unfortunately and tragically―as Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed―“Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad because no one has paid attention to her Message, neither the good nor the bad. The good, because they continue on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad, because of their sins, do not see God’s chastisement already falling on them presently; they also continue on their path of badness, ignoring the Message. But, Father, you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way. The chastisement from Heaven is imminent.”
Heaven’s continuous “raining-down” of messages “flows like water off a duck’s back” ― we are focused on other things that we imagine to be ‘more important’ things, which are merely worldly things. Our Lady could rebuke us with the words of Our Lord: “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “You serpents, generation of vipers! How will you flee from the judgment of Hell? Behold―I send to you prophets and wise men, and some of them you put to death and crucify, and some you scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city!” (Matthew 23:33-34).
Yes―we call Him “Lord! Lord!” in our prayers; we say: “Thy will be done!” every time we pray the Our Father―but we ignore the demands and commands of Heaven! Our Lord speaks of such people when He says: “What think you? A certain man had two sons; and coming to the first, he said: ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard!’ And he, answering, said: ‘I will not!’ But afterwards, being moved with repentance, he went. And coming to the other son, he said, in like manner: ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard!’ And he, answering, said: ‘I go, Sir!’ ― but he went not. Which of the two sons did the father’s will? They say to him: ‘The first!’ Jesus said to them: ‘Amen I say to you, that the publicans and the harlots shall go into the kingdom of God before you!’” (Matthew 21:28-31).
The Gospel of Comfort vs. The Gospel of the Cross
We are so thick-headed and dull-hearted that we fail to acknowledge and accept the fact that ONLY way to Heaven is the “Way of the Cross”! We kid and con ourselves into thinking that we can get to Heaven by following the “Way of Comfort.” Our Lord punctures our infantile imagination, saying: “You cannot serve God and mammon … Enter ye in at the narrow gate! For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life, and few there are that find it! … If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his daily cross, and follow Me! … And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple! … And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 6:24; 7:12-14; 16:24; 10:38; Luke 9:23; 14:27).
The two key liturgical seasons of the year―Advent and Lent―are prefaces and preparations for the two chief feasts of the year, Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:8) … “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). If you refuse to work and prepare a meal―then there is nothing to eat! “If any man will not work, neither let him eat!” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). Advent and Lent are―like it or not, want it not―times of penance, times of sacrifice, times of increased prayer. Advent is a time not to be wasted, not to be misspent. What is our Advent like so far? We are one week in―have we really started? Have we upped the tempo? Have we increased our normal efforts? Heck! Most souls end up being damned! Do we really want to be among them? Sure―perhaps we not committing mortal sins―but lukewarmness is repulsive to God! He warns: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16).
Lukewarmness is not Love―Lukewarmness is Hypocritical Love
Even we hate lukewarmness! We hate the insincere “I love you!” that glibly rolls off the tongues of our insincere nearest and dearest! We hate lukewarm students or employees! We hate lukewarm efforts of colleagues in team-sports! We hate lukewarm service from vendors! We hate lukewarm fixes from lukewarm repairmen! We hate lukewarm food and lukewarm drinks! We hate those who drag their feet, are slow to reply, slow in doing things, half-hearted, indifferent, negligent, distracted folk who would rather be doing something else than doing something for us! Such people leave a sour taste in our mouths! How much more sour must be the mouth of God! No wonder He says: “I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” How much worse must we “taste” to God if we have been lukewarm towards Him, year after year, decade after decade! We must “taste” revolting to Him! Advent―just like Lent―is a time to “clean-up our act” and stop “acting” as though we love God and to start really loving Him! Otherwise, He will further say to us: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). Perhaps this Advent we should put our heart on a journey to Bethlehem―a journey to Christ―so that each day we leave the world (with its seductions and occupations) further and further behind us, as we draw closer and closer to Christ! That is ONLY kind of Advent that will please Christ and the ONLY kind of Advent that will profit our souls!
In order that Christ can be truly born into our souls this Christmas, we must put to death our lukewarmness during Advent. It is as simple as that! Do not forget that the greatest commandment is to LOVE God with your whole soul, mind, heart and strength: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). It is insanity to imagine that lukewarmness loves with the whole soul, whole heart, whole mind and whole strength! To pretend so would be a whopping lie and pure hypocrisy! Lukewarmness―by its very nature―is halfhearted, not wholehearted. It is a smoldering fire, not a raging fire. It is partial, not whole. It is simply not good enough!
Do You Want Christ to Come and Stay or Just Visit?
“God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and Christ is God―therefore Christ is Charity itself. He loves us beyond our comprehension and our wildest dreams. He gave up His life and died for us on the cross―even though we are lukewarm sinners. There is no doubt whatsoever that―on the part of Jesus―He truly wants to come to us. There is no problem on the part of Jesus. However, on our side, we have to ask the question: “Do we really want Jesus to come to us?” The key word is really, not just theoretically, and not just saying so by superficial lip-service. Do we really and truly want Jesus in our lives? Do we want Him to be the focal point of our lives? Do we want to love Him with our whole soul, mind, heart and strength? To drive the point home more clearly and to avoid misconceptions, do we really and truly want Jesus to be our life? Notice the words “be our life”, which is different to being “a part of our life.” If we want Jesus to be “a part of our life”, then we only partially want Him—for some that means on Sundays and prayer times only, for others a little more perhaps, but they place a limit on “how much of Jesus they can take.” He wants to be our whole life, not just a part of our life, and that is what is meant by the commandment to love God with our whole mind, heart, soul and strength.
In Quito, Ecuador, in the 1600s, Our Lord complained to Mother Mariana that “the times will come, when doctrine will be commonly known among the learned and the ignorant. ... Many religious books will be written. But the practice of the virtues and of these doctrines will be found in only a few souls; for this reason, saints will become rare. And precisely for this reason, My priests and My religious will fall into a fatal indifference. Their coldness will extinguish the fire of divine love, afflicting My Loving Heart with these small thorns that you see! Understand that these are the serious (mortal), as well as slight (venial) faults of My priests, secular and religious. It is their ingratitude and indifference that so cruelly wounds My Heart! Divine Justice releases terrible chastisements on entire nations―not only for the sins of the people, but especially for the sins of priests and religious persons. For the they are called, by the perfection of their state, to be the salt of the Earth, the masters of truth and the deflectors of divine wrath. Straying from their divine mission, they degrade themselves in such a way that, before the eyes of God, they quicken the rigor of the punishments. Alas, if they only knew and were convinced of how much I love them and how much I desire that they should enter into the very depths of their souls! Then, without a doubt, they would find Me and would necessarily live the life of love, light and continuous union with Me to which they were not only called, but chosen! Those so near to Me, who belong to Me, reject My spirit, abandoning Me alone in Tabernacles, rarely remembering that I live there especially for love of them, even more than for the rest of the faithful! Alas! If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small spineless imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me! ... But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing—according to My example! For I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross. Moreover, I have continued to live in the Tabernacle under the same roof with these hidden souls, exposing Myself to so many hateful profanations and sacrileges! For I know well all that takes place in My sacramental life! ... Woe to souls like this! Woe!” (Our Lord to Mother Mariana, in Quito, Ecuador).
Holy Scripture tells us to walk wisely and make the best use of time: “Walk with wisdom, redeeming the time!” (Colossians 4:5). “Be wise! Make good use of time, because the days are evil!” (Ephesians 5:16-20). Our Lady, in an apparition to Blessed Elena Aiello on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, 1956, said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
Holy Scripture likewise warns us: “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only―deceiving your own selves!” (James 1:22). “How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When will thou rise out of thy sleep?” (Proverbs 6:9). Holy Mother Church underlines this same point in the liturgical readings that she has chosen for the season of Advent: “Brethren! Understand, for it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep―because now our salvation is nearer than when we came to believe! The night is far advanced; the day is at hand! Let us therefore lay aside the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light! Let us walk becomingly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in debauchery and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy! But put on the Lord Jesus Christ!” (Mass of the First Sunday of Advent, Lesson from the letter of St. Paul to the Romans 13:11-14).
The Rise and Fall of Advent Fasting
We forget or deliberately ignore the fact that Advent is meant to be a time of penance. In past centuries, Advent used to be just as long as Lent―with 40 days of fasting being practiced. The renowned Benedictine abbot and liturgist, Dom Guéranger, in the section on Advent from his monumental multi-volume work, The Liturgical Year, writes:
“Forty, or rather of forty-three days, were consecrated to penance, as though Advent were a second Lent―though less strict and severe. We find the first Council of Macon, held in 582, ordaining that during the interval between St. Martin's day (November 10th) and Christmas (December 25th), the Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, should be fasting days. Not many years before that, namely in 567, the second Council of Tours had enjoined the monks to fast from the beginning of December till Christmas. This practice of penance soon extended to the whole forty days, even for the laity: and it was commonly called St. Martin's Lent.
“The obligation of observing this Lent (Advent), began to be relaxed, and the forty days from St. Martin's day to Christmas were reduced to four weeks. The first allusion to Advent's being reduced to four weeks is to be found in the ninth century. The discipline of the Churches of the west, after having reduced the time of the Advent fast, so far relented, in a few years, as to change the fast into a simple abstinence; and we even find Councils of the twelfth century, which seem to require only the clergy to observe this abstinence. The Council of Salisbury, held in 1281, would seem to expect none but monks to keep it.
“This much is certain, that, by degrees, the custom of fasting so far fell into disuse, that when, in 1362, Pope Urban V endeavored to prevent the total decay of the Advent penance, all he insisted upon was that all the clerics of his court should keep abstinence during Advent, without in any way including others, either clergy or laity, in this law. St. Charles Borromeo also strove to bring back his people of Milan to the spirit, if not to the letter, of ancient times. In his fourth Council, he enjoins the parish priests to exhort the faithful to go to Communion on the Sundays, at least, of Lent and Advent; and afterwards addressed to the faithful themselves a pastoral letter, in which, after having reminded them of the dispositions wherewith they ought to spend this holy time, he strongly urges them to fast on the Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at least, of each week in Advent. Finally, Pope Benedict XIV, when Archbishop of Bologna, following these illustrious examples, wrote his eleventh Ecclesiastical Institution for the purpose of exciting in the minds of his diocesans the exalted idea which the Christians of former times had of the holy season of Advent, and of removing an erroneous opinion which prevailed in those parts, namely, that Advent concerned religious only and not the laity.” (Dom Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Advent).
Discounted Penance!
In these modern times, we have lost the notion of the need for penance―especially in these Post-Vatican II days, whereby Pope Paul VI gave us a 95% discount on penance during Lent, by reducing the obligatory 40 days of Lenten fasting to a mere two days―Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Furthermore, the Ember Days of fasting and abstinence have been discarded. Penance seems like an antiquated and outdated practice that today seems to be optional! Yet that is a Liberal and Modernist error! Our Lord and Holy Scripture tell us the opposite:
Do Penance or Perish!
“Jesus began to preach, and to say: ‘Do penance! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’” (Matthew 4:17). “Seek out My face and do penance for your most wicked ways! Then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive your sins and will heal” (2 Paralipomenon 7:14). “God hath given him place for penance―and he abuseth it unto pride!” (Job 24:23). “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). “Let him do penance for his sin!” (Leviticus 5:5). Have you not sinned? Have we not sinned? “If we say that we have no sin, then we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us! If we say that we have not sinned, then we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10). “There is no just man upon earth, that doth good, and sinneth not!” (Ecclesiastes 7:21). “For all have sinned, and do need the glory of God!” (Romans 3:23). Therefore, all persons need to do penance! Yes―we either do penance, or we perish―as Our Lord warned. Most people foolishly ignore penance and most people therefore foolishly perish―“the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15).
Our Lady revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda (1602-1665): “The number of those foreknown as doomed is so great, and the number of those that save themselves is so small, that thou wouldst die at seeing such misfortune. If there were a way of rousing them to a sense of their duty―then the wrath of the divine Judge would be appeased, and there would be some reduction of the widespread ruin and damnation among Catholics. Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in dangerous lukewarmness. They live in the darkness of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices. Since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men!”
At Fatima, Our Lady warned that many souls go to Hell because there is nobody to offer prayers and sacrifices (penances) for them―which obviously means that those poor damned souls were not doing penance for their sins! At Akita, in 1973, Our Lady further said: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord ... In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind ... Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father ... I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
Armchair Advents Anathematized
Advent is a time for action, not apathy! The liturgical readings for the Advent season make this abundantly clear. “O Lord, make known Your ways to me and teach me Your paths!” (Mass of the First Sunday of Advent, Gradual). “Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare the ways of Your only-begotten Son!” (Mass of the Second Sunday of Advent Collect). “May we prepare with due observance for the coming festal season of our redemption!” (Mass of the Second Sunday of Advent, Postcommunion). “Teach us to disdain the things of Earth and love those of Heaven” (Mass of the Second Sunday of Advent, Postcommunion).
“Jesus began to say to the crowds concerning John, What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Behold, those who wear soft garments are in the houses of kings! But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet! This is he of whom it is written: “Behold, I send my messenger before Your face, who shall make ready Your way before You!”’” (Mass of the Second Sunday of Advent Gospel of St. Matthew 11:2-10).
Since the time that Our Lord spoke those words, we have been given messengers galore in every century and through the message of the Church―culminating with the “Queen of messengers”, Our Lady herself. Unfortunately and tragically―as Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed―“Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad because no one has paid attention to her Message, neither the good nor the bad. The good, because they continue on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad, because of their sins, do not see God’s chastisement already falling on them presently; they also continue on their path of badness, ignoring the Message. But, Father, you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way. The chastisement from Heaven is imminent.”
Heaven’s continuous “raining-down” of messages “flows like water off a duck’s back” ― we are focused on other things that we imagine to be ‘more important’ things, which are merely worldly things. Our Lady could rebuke us with the words of Our Lord: “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “You serpents, generation of vipers! How will you flee from the judgment of Hell? Behold―I send to you prophets and wise men, and some of them you put to death and crucify, and some you scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city!” (Matthew 23:33-34).
Yes―we call Him “Lord! Lord!” in our prayers; we say: “Thy will be done!” every time we pray the Our Father―but we ignore the demands and commands of Heaven! Our Lord speaks of such people when He says: “What think you? A certain man had two sons; and coming to the first, he said: ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard!’ And he, answering, said: ‘I will not!’ But afterwards, being moved with repentance, he went. And coming to the other son, he said, in like manner: ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard!’ And he, answering, said: ‘I go, Sir!’ ― but he went not. Which of the two sons did the father’s will? They say to him: ‘The first!’ Jesus said to them: ‘Amen I say to you, that the publicans and the harlots shall go into the kingdom of God before you!’” (Matthew 21:28-31).
The Gospel of Comfort vs. The Gospel of the Cross
We are so thick-headed and dull-hearted that we fail to acknowledge and accept the fact that ONLY way to Heaven is the “Way of the Cross”! We kid and con ourselves into thinking that we can get to Heaven by following the “Way of Comfort.” Our Lord punctures our infantile imagination, saying: “You cannot serve God and mammon … Enter ye in at the narrow gate! For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life, and few there are that find it! … If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his daily cross, and follow Me! … And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple! … And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 6:24; 7:12-14; 16:24; 10:38; Luke 9:23; 14:27).
The two key liturgical seasons of the year―Advent and Lent―are prefaces and preparations for the two chief feasts of the year, Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:8) … “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). If you refuse to work and prepare a meal―then there is nothing to eat! “If any man will not work, neither let him eat!” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). Advent and Lent are―like it or not, want it not―times of penance, times of sacrifice, times of increased prayer. Advent is a time not to be wasted, not to be misspent. What is our Advent like so far? We are one week in―have we really started? Have we upped the tempo? Have we increased our normal efforts? Heck! Most souls end up being damned! Do we really want to be among them? Sure―perhaps we not committing mortal sins―but lukewarmness is repulsive to God! He warns: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16).
Lukewarmness is not Love―Lukewarmness is Hypocritical Love
Even we hate lukewarmness! We hate the insincere “I love you!” that glibly rolls off the tongues of our insincere nearest and dearest! We hate lukewarm students or employees! We hate lukewarm efforts of colleagues in team-sports! We hate lukewarm service from vendors! We hate lukewarm fixes from lukewarm repairmen! We hate lukewarm food and lukewarm drinks! We hate those who drag their feet, are slow to reply, slow in doing things, half-hearted, indifferent, negligent, distracted folk who would rather be doing something else than doing something for us! Such people leave a sour taste in our mouths! How much more sour must be the mouth of God! No wonder He says: “I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” How much worse must we “taste” to God if we have been lukewarm towards Him, year after year, decade after decade! We must “taste” revolting to Him! Advent―just like Lent―is a time to “clean-up our act” and stop “acting” as though we love God and to start really loving Him! Otherwise, He will further say to us: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). Perhaps this Advent we should put our heart on a journey to Bethlehem―a journey to Christ―so that each day we leave the world (with its seductions and occupations) further and further behind us, as we draw closer and closer to Christ! That is ONLY kind of Advent that will please Christ and the ONLY kind of Advent that will profit our souls!
In order that Christ can be truly born into our souls this Christmas, we must put to death our lukewarmness during Advent. It is as simple as that! Do not forget that the greatest commandment is to LOVE God with your whole soul, mind, heart and strength: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). It is insanity to imagine that lukewarmness loves with the whole soul, whole heart, whole mind and whole strength! To pretend so would be a whopping lie and pure hypocrisy! Lukewarmness―by its very nature―is halfhearted, not wholehearted. It is a smoldering fire, not a raging fire. It is partial, not whole. It is simply not good enough!
Do You Want Christ to Come and Stay or Just Visit?
“God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and Christ is God―therefore Christ is Charity itself. He loves us beyond our comprehension and our wildest dreams. He gave up His life and died for us on the cross―even though we are lukewarm sinners. There is no doubt whatsoever that―on the part of Jesus―He truly wants to come to us. There is no problem on the part of Jesus. However, on our side, we have to ask the question: “Do we really want Jesus to come to us?” The key word is really, not just theoretically, and not just saying so by superficial lip-service. Do we really and truly want Jesus in our lives? Do we want Him to be the focal point of our lives? Do we want to love Him with our whole soul, mind, heart and strength? To drive the point home more clearly and to avoid misconceptions, do we really and truly want Jesus to be our life? Notice the words “be our life”, which is different to being “a part of our life.” If we want Jesus to be “a part of our life”, then we only partially want Him—for some that means on Sundays and prayer times only, for others a little more perhaps, but they place a limit on “how much of Jesus they can take.” He wants to be our whole life, not just a part of our life, and that is what is meant by the commandment to love God with our whole mind, heart, soul and strength.
In Quito, Ecuador, in the 1600s, Our Lord complained to Mother Mariana that “the times will come, when doctrine will be commonly known among the learned and the ignorant. ... Many religious books will be written. But the practice of the virtues and of these doctrines will be found in only a few souls; for this reason, saints will become rare. And precisely for this reason, My priests and My religious will fall into a fatal indifference. Their coldness will extinguish the fire of divine love, afflicting My Loving Heart with these small thorns that you see! Understand that these are the serious (mortal), as well as slight (venial) faults of My priests, secular and religious. It is their ingratitude and indifference that so cruelly wounds My Heart! Divine Justice releases terrible chastisements on entire nations―not only for the sins of the people, but especially for the sins of priests and religious persons. For the they are called, by the perfection of their state, to be the salt of the Earth, the masters of truth and the deflectors of divine wrath. Straying from their divine mission, they degrade themselves in such a way that, before the eyes of God, they quicken the rigor of the punishments. Alas, if they only knew and were convinced of how much I love them and how much I desire that they should enter into the very depths of their souls! Then, without a doubt, they would find Me and would necessarily live the life of love, light and continuous union with Me to which they were not only called, but chosen! Those so near to Me, who belong to Me, reject My spirit, abandoning Me alone in Tabernacles, rarely remembering that I live there especially for love of them, even more than for the rest of the faithful! Alas! If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small spineless imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me! ... But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing—according to My example! For I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross. Moreover, I have continued to live in the Tabernacle under the same roof with these hidden souls, exposing Myself to so many hateful profanations and sacrileges! For I know well all that takes place in My sacramental life! ... Woe to souls like this! Woe!” (Our Lord to Mother Mariana, in Quito, Ecuador).
Article 3
Wednesday November 30th, 2022, First Wednesday of Advent
to Friday December 2nd, 2022, First Friday of Advent
Advent is also an End!
Wednesday November 30th, 2022, First Wednesday of Advent
to Friday December 2nd, 2022, First Friday of Advent
Advent is also an End!
The End of Things! Things End!
Nothing in this world is infinite, endless, perpetual―our daily lives constantly and relentlessly preach this truth to us. Everything has a beginning and an end in this world―only Heaven is eternal and endless (so too is Hell, for that matter). The end is the end! Our life is full of endings. Some good, some bad. Infancy ends. Childhood ends. Adolescence ends. Youth ends. Prime of life ends. Health ends. Life itself ends! School ends. A job ends. Sources of income end. Supplies end. Days end. Nights end. Work days end. Weeks end. Months end. Years end. Seasons end. Relationships end. Friendships end. Marriages end. Fertility ends. One day, even the world will end.
Holy Scripture states this beautifully: “All things have their season, and in their times all things pass [end] under Heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to destroy, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather. A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. A time to get, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak. A time of love, and a time of hatred. A time of war, and a time of peace” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).
“Keep in mind of the end of all things, and think of what is to come!” (Ecclesiastes 7:3). “The time of our life is short and tedious, and in the end of a man there is no remedy. For our time is as the passing of a shadow, and there is no going back from our end―for it is fast sealed and no man returneth to his world! … No man hath been known to have returned from Hell!” (Wisdom 2:1; 2:5). “The end of all things is at hand! Be prudent therefore, and watch in prayers!” (1 Peter 4:7) “Hold firm unto the end!” (Hebrews 3:15). “He that shall persevere unto the end―he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:22).
Two Consecutive Sunday Speak of the End
In the Gospel readings for the Last Sunday of the Liturgical Year (Last Sunday after Pentecost: St. Matthew chapter 24) and the First Sunday of the Liturgical Year (First Sunday of Advent: St. Luke chapter 21), Holy Mother Church presents us with a picture of the End Times. This is not because there is not enough material in the Gospels for every Sunday of the year―there is more than enough, many times over. There must be a serious reason for this deliberate repetition of the same subject―namely, the End Times. Here is combination of those two Gospel readings:
“You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that ye be not troubled! Be not terrified! For these things must first come to pass, but the end is not yet! When you shall see Jerusalem [today = the Church] surrounded by an army; then know that the desolation is at hand. Then let those who are in Judea, flee to the mountains; and those who are in the midst thereof, depart out; and those who are in the countries, not enter into it. For these are the days of vengeance, that all things may be fulfilled, that are written. There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword; and shall be led away captives into all nations; and Jerusalem [today = the Church] shall be trodden down by the Gentiles!
“There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves! Men withering away for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world! For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be pestilences, famines, great earthquakes in places, terrors from heaven; and there shall be great signs! Now all these are the beginnings of sorrows! Many false prophets shall rise and shall seduce many! Because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold! And then shall many be scandalized and shall betray one another. And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends! They shall hate one another and you shall be hated by all nations for My Name’s sake! They shall persecute you! They will lay their hands upon you and deliver you up to be afflicted, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for My Name’s sake! And some of you they will put to death!
“But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand. Lay it up therefore into your hearts, not to meditate beforehand how you shall answer them―for I will give you words and wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist or argue against. A hair of your head shall not perish. In your patience you shall possess your souls. He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 24:6-13; Luke 21:9-28).
All Things Come to an End―Both Good and Bad
All things come to an end! All good things come to an end! All bad things come to an end! Except Heaven and Hell, of course! That is why Our Lord says: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
The main problem is that the vast majority of mankind is blatantly and stubbornly refusing to obey the greatest commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). What happens, here on Earth, when you commit the greatest crime possible? We all know―or should know―the answer. Committing the greatest crime deserves the greatest punishment! The problem is that God is INFINITE―and so, when we commit a crime [sin] against God, the offense is an INFINITE offense! Thus, strictly speaking, an INFINITE offense demands an INFINITE punishment―that infinite punishment is Hell. Hell is infinite, Hell is eternal, Hell is endless.
“Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8). “These shall go into everlasting punishment―into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels … they shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone … they shall be cast into the Hell of fire, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished … and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever … In a flame of fire, those who obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, shall suffer eternal punishment in destruction―but the just shall go into life everlasting” (Matthew 25:46, 41; Mark 9:46-47; 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9; Apocalypse 20:10, 21:8).
What Will Your End Be Like?
We hate to think of it―but we will die! We can be 100% certain of that! We can stake our salvation on the fact that we will die! “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:15). “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16). Yet even Our Lord’s and Our Lady’s lives on Earth came to an end―and they were sinless! Who are we―sinners that we are―to desire to be exempt from the just reward for sin? It is not so much death that should frighten us―but the destination that we risk being consigned to after death! “The examination of all is in the end ... In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin! … The way of sinners is darkness and pains, and their end is Hell! … Remember the end!” (Ecclesiasticus 16:22; 7:40; 21:11; 36:10). “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul― but rather fear Him Who can destroy both soul and body in Hell!” (Matthew 10:28).
God Desires a Happy Ending
God desires a happy ending to our life on Earth―namely, that we get to Heaven. However, if we wish otherwise and live in manner that destroys any chance of reaching Heaven―then God will abide by our decision, no matter how insane it is. That is why most souls are damned―God respected their free-will and did not wrestle with them and drag them into Heaven against their will. As the saying goes: “He who wishes the end, must also wish the means to that end.” If we want to get to Heaven, then we must also want to do the things that will get us to Heaven. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption [disease and death]. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8). We will get as good as we give! If we abandon God―then God will abandon us to ourselves. If we are negligent towards God―then God will neglect to give us special graces that could ensure our salvation. If we are mean towards God―then we are merely sowing meanness towards ourselves: “He that loveth iniquity hateth his own soul!” (Psalm 10:6).
Despite our sinfulness, God does not desire an unhappy ending for us: “Is it my will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? … The soul that sinneth, the same shall die! … But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment and justice, then living he shall live, and shall not die! I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done! In his justice―which he hath wrought―he shall live! … Therefore I will judge every man according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all of your transgressions by which you have transgressed, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God, return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32).
The Mercies of God are not Freebies
Some persons expect to reach Heaven without any toil and without doing penance! Insane! “And the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment … It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Some expect to be pardoned without penance! Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? In this science of suffering are renewed all the blessed riches of the creatures―those that fly from them are insane, those that know nothing of this science, are foolish!”
“Be mindful of this dangerous human folly. Consider all delights and joys of the world as insanity, its laughing as sorrow, sensible enjoyment as self deceit and the source of foolishness, which intoxicates the heart and hinders and destroys all true wisdom. The Creator cannot hate the beings which He has created; but He knows, in His wisdom, the endless damage caused in mortals by avarice and covetousness of visible things; and that this insane love would pervert human nature. The wisdom of the flesh has made men ignorant, foolish and hostile to God. Infinite is the number of those who are entangled in this dangerous error. Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! What pretense or excuse will men advance for having forgotten their own eternal salvation? Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls and that, since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men!”
Advent is a Time of Mercy
“Advent” is a compound word―made up of two words―the first word being “ad” which is Latin for “to”; and “venire” which is a Latin verb meaning “to come”. Therefore, the literal meaning of “Advent” is “to come to”―Advent is a time when Christ wants “to come to” us and be born, or born-anew, in our souls.
Our Lord speaks, on several occasions, about the purpose of His coming: “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). “Jesus said: ‘They that are in health need not a physician, but they that are ill. Go then and learn what this meaneth: “I will have mercy and not sacrifice!” For I am not come to call the just, but sinners!’” (Matthew 9:12-13). “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56). “Jesus … shall save His people from their sins!” (Matthew 1:21).
“God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; so that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). Our Lord adds: “This is the will of My Father that sent Me―that everyone who sees the Son, and believes in Him, may have life everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day!” (John 6:40). Nevertheless, eternal life, salvation and Heaven are not freebies or entitled social-security handouts―as Our Lady said above: “Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment!” As St. Augustine said: “God made us without our cooperation―but God will not save us without our cooperation!” Or, to put it another way: “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith! Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … Do you see that by works a man is justified―and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26). Where is your cooperation in the work of your salvation? Where are your works of Faith?
Building a Temple for Christ
We can imagine Advent like building a house for Christ from year to year―each year we add something more to our building―as they say: “Rome wasn’t built in a day!” Are we building for Christ? Or have we stopped building for Christ? Our soul should be temple for Christ: “Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid! … Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost―Who is in you, Whom you have from God―and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:15-19).
Are we building a temple for God in our souls? Or are we building a temple of worldliness? Are we praying or playing throughout Advent? Let not the coming of Jesus into the temple of our soul be a coming of wrath, on account of worldliness and lukewarmness! “And Jesus went into the Temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the Temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves, and He said to them: ‘It is written―“My House shall be called the House of prayer!”― but you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Matthew 21:12-13).
Advent a Time of Darkness and Blindness
Never before have the following words of Holy Scripture been more true―than in our present time: “God looked down from Heaven on the children of men―to see if there were any that did understand, or did seek God. All have gone aside! They are become unprofitable together! There is none that doth good―no, not one!” (Psalm 52:3-4). ). “They have not known, nor understood! For their eyes are covered that they may not see, and that they may not understand with their heart!” (Isaias 44:18). “Seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand!” (Matthew 13:13).
“The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us … In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men ... And the Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it … He was in the world, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:1-14). They “sat in darkness and in the shadow of death” (Psalm 106:10). “They have not known nor understood―they walk on in darkness” (Psalm 81:5). “They walk in darkness as if it were in light” (Job 24:17). “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness!” (Isaias 5:20). “If then the light that is in thee, is darkness―how great shall the darkness be!” (Matthew 6:23) “The fool walketh in darkness” (Ecclesiastes 2:14). “Do you not yet understand?” (Matthew 16:9). “How do you not yet understand?” (Mark 8:21). “O that they would be wise and would understand, and would provide for their last end!” (Deuteronomy 32:29). “Understand these things―you that forget God―lest He snatch you away and there be none to deliver you!” (Psalm 49:22).
“Understand, ye senseless among the people! You fools―be wise at last!” (Psalm 93:8). “O ye sons of men! How long will you be dull of heart?” (Psalm 4:3). “How long will you love childishness, and fools covet those things which are hurtful to themselves, and the unwise hate knowledge?” (Proverbs 1:22). “O unbelieving and perverse generation! How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?” (Matthew 17:16). “The unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 25:30). Are you profitable or unprofitable in the eyes of God?
Showing Profitability for God
Advent is a time to increase our stock, to increase our value in God’s eyes, to show greater profitability! You could apply the following Scriptures to this point:
“And seeing a certain fig tree by the way side, Jesus came to it, and found nothing on it―but leaves only, and He said to it: ‘May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever!’ And immediately the fig tree withered away” (Matthew 21:19). “He spoke also this parable: ‘A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. And he said to the dresser of the vineyard: “Behold, for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none! Cut it down therefore: why does it encumber the ground?” But he, answering, said to him: “Lord, let it alone this year also, until I dig about it, and dung it! And perhaps happily it bear fruit―but, if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down!”’” (Luke 13:6-9). “I am the true vine and My Father is the gardener. In this is my Father glorified; that you bring forth very much fruit! Every branch in Me, that beareth not fruit, He will take away―and every one that beareth fruit, He will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine and you the branches―he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit―for without Me you can do nothing! If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burneth!” (John 15:1-8). “Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire!” (Matthew 7:17-19). “For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire!” (Luke 3:9).
Advent Accountability
Similarly, in the parable of the talents, Our Lord expects us produce profit from the graces [talents] that He gives us. The man who failed to use his talent and buried it in the ground was “cast ye out into the exterior darkness, where there was a weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The same applies to us! “A man going into a far country, called his servants and delivered to them his goods. To one he gave five talents, and to another two talents, and to another one talent―to each one according to his own ability―and immediately he left on his journey. He that had received the five talents, went his way, and traded with those talents and gained other five. In like manner, he that had received two talents, gained other two. But he that had received one talent, going his way dug into the earth, and buried his lord’s money.
“After a long time, the lord of those servants came and reckoned with them. He that had received the five talents, brought other five talents, saying: ‘Lord, thou didst deliver to me five talents! Behold, I have gained another five talents over and above!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’ And he that had received the two talents came and said: ‘Lord, thou delivered two talents to me! Behold, I have gained another two talents!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’
“But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that thou art a hard man! Thou reapest where thou hast not sown, and gatherest where thou hast not strewed! Being afraid, I went and buried thy talent in the earth! Behold here thou hast that which is thine!’ And his lord, answering, said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! Thou knewest that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not strewn! Thou should, therefore, have committed my money to the bankers, and, at my coming, I should have received my own with profitable interest. Take ye away therefore the talent from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents! For to everyone that hath, shall be given ever more, and he shall abound! But from him, that hath not, that also which he seemeth to have, shall be taken away from him! And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
Each year ― for how years now? ― we have been given Advent to build, furnish and prepare a worthy and fitting temple for Our Lord to come and occupy at Christmas! What have we done in all those years? Have we built a temple within our soul that is worthy of Christ? Or is our temple half-finished and in a state of disrepair? “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8). Advent is no joke―nor is it an optional thing! Advent is a time of penance―and penance is due for sins that have been committed and forgiven. People often forget that we have to pay for our sins―merely receiving forgiveness in the Sacrament of Confession does not take care of the debt for sin. As Our Lord says: “I came not to call the just―but sinners to penance! I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! [Our Lord then repeats Himself] “No, I say to you; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 5:32; 13:3-5).
Nothing in this world is infinite, endless, perpetual―our daily lives constantly and relentlessly preach this truth to us. Everything has a beginning and an end in this world―only Heaven is eternal and endless (so too is Hell, for that matter). The end is the end! Our life is full of endings. Some good, some bad. Infancy ends. Childhood ends. Adolescence ends. Youth ends. Prime of life ends. Health ends. Life itself ends! School ends. A job ends. Sources of income end. Supplies end. Days end. Nights end. Work days end. Weeks end. Months end. Years end. Seasons end. Relationships end. Friendships end. Marriages end. Fertility ends. One day, even the world will end.
Holy Scripture states this beautifully: “All things have their season, and in their times all things pass [end] under Heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to destroy, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather. A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. A time to get, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak. A time of love, and a time of hatred. A time of war, and a time of peace” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).
“Keep in mind of the end of all things, and think of what is to come!” (Ecclesiastes 7:3). “The time of our life is short and tedious, and in the end of a man there is no remedy. For our time is as the passing of a shadow, and there is no going back from our end―for it is fast sealed and no man returneth to his world! … No man hath been known to have returned from Hell!” (Wisdom 2:1; 2:5). “The end of all things is at hand! Be prudent therefore, and watch in prayers!” (1 Peter 4:7) “Hold firm unto the end!” (Hebrews 3:15). “He that shall persevere unto the end―he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:22).
Two Consecutive Sunday Speak of the End
In the Gospel readings for the Last Sunday of the Liturgical Year (Last Sunday after Pentecost: St. Matthew chapter 24) and the First Sunday of the Liturgical Year (First Sunday of Advent: St. Luke chapter 21), Holy Mother Church presents us with a picture of the End Times. This is not because there is not enough material in the Gospels for every Sunday of the year―there is more than enough, many times over. There must be a serious reason for this deliberate repetition of the same subject―namely, the End Times. Here is combination of those two Gospel readings:
“You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that ye be not troubled! Be not terrified! For these things must first come to pass, but the end is not yet! When you shall see Jerusalem [today = the Church] surrounded by an army; then know that the desolation is at hand. Then let those who are in Judea, flee to the mountains; and those who are in the midst thereof, depart out; and those who are in the countries, not enter into it. For these are the days of vengeance, that all things may be fulfilled, that are written. There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword; and shall be led away captives into all nations; and Jerusalem [today = the Church] shall be trodden down by the Gentiles!
“There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves! Men withering away for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world! For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be pestilences, famines, great earthquakes in places, terrors from heaven; and there shall be great signs! Now all these are the beginnings of sorrows! Many false prophets shall rise and shall seduce many! Because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold! And then shall many be scandalized and shall betray one another. And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends! They shall hate one another and you shall be hated by all nations for My Name’s sake! They shall persecute you! They will lay their hands upon you and deliver you up to be afflicted, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for My Name’s sake! And some of you they will put to death!
“But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand. Lay it up therefore into your hearts, not to meditate beforehand how you shall answer them―for I will give you words and wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist or argue against. A hair of your head shall not perish. In your patience you shall possess your souls. He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 24:6-13; Luke 21:9-28).
All Things Come to an End―Both Good and Bad
All things come to an end! All good things come to an end! All bad things come to an end! Except Heaven and Hell, of course! That is why Our Lord says: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
The main problem is that the vast majority of mankind is blatantly and stubbornly refusing to obey the greatest commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). What happens, here on Earth, when you commit the greatest crime possible? We all know―or should know―the answer. Committing the greatest crime deserves the greatest punishment! The problem is that God is INFINITE―and so, when we commit a crime [sin] against God, the offense is an INFINITE offense! Thus, strictly speaking, an INFINITE offense demands an INFINITE punishment―that infinite punishment is Hell. Hell is infinite, Hell is eternal, Hell is endless.
“Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8). “These shall go into everlasting punishment―into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels … they shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone … they shall be cast into the Hell of fire, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished … and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever … In a flame of fire, those who obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, shall suffer eternal punishment in destruction―but the just shall go into life everlasting” (Matthew 25:46, 41; Mark 9:46-47; 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9; Apocalypse 20:10, 21:8).
What Will Your End Be Like?
We hate to think of it―but we will die! We can be 100% certain of that! We can stake our salvation on the fact that we will die! “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:15). “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16). Yet even Our Lord’s and Our Lady’s lives on Earth came to an end―and they were sinless! Who are we―sinners that we are―to desire to be exempt from the just reward for sin? It is not so much death that should frighten us―but the destination that we risk being consigned to after death! “The examination of all is in the end ... In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin! … The way of sinners is darkness and pains, and their end is Hell! … Remember the end!” (Ecclesiasticus 16:22; 7:40; 21:11; 36:10). “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul― but rather fear Him Who can destroy both soul and body in Hell!” (Matthew 10:28).
God Desires a Happy Ending
God desires a happy ending to our life on Earth―namely, that we get to Heaven. However, if we wish otherwise and live in manner that destroys any chance of reaching Heaven―then God will abide by our decision, no matter how insane it is. That is why most souls are damned―God respected their free-will and did not wrestle with them and drag them into Heaven against their will. As the saying goes: “He who wishes the end, must also wish the means to that end.” If we want to get to Heaven, then we must also want to do the things that will get us to Heaven. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption [disease and death]. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8). We will get as good as we give! If we abandon God―then God will abandon us to ourselves. If we are negligent towards God―then God will neglect to give us special graces that could ensure our salvation. If we are mean towards God―then we are merely sowing meanness towards ourselves: “He that loveth iniquity hateth his own soul!” (Psalm 10:6).
Despite our sinfulness, God does not desire an unhappy ending for us: “Is it my will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? … The soul that sinneth, the same shall die! … But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment and justice, then living he shall live, and shall not die! I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done! In his justice―which he hath wrought―he shall live! … Therefore I will judge every man according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all of your transgressions by which you have transgressed, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God, return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32).
The Mercies of God are not Freebies
Some persons expect to reach Heaven without any toil and without doing penance! Insane! “And the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment … It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should hate suffering, especially after all that my most holy Son suffered for them! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Some expect to be pardoned without penance! Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? In this science of suffering are renewed all the blessed riches of the creatures―those that fly from them are insane, those that know nothing of this science, are foolish!”
“Be mindful of this dangerous human folly. Consider all delights and joys of the world as insanity, its laughing as sorrow, sensible enjoyment as self deceit and the source of foolishness, which intoxicates the heart and hinders and destroys all true wisdom. The Creator cannot hate the beings which He has created; but He knows, in His wisdom, the endless damage caused in mortals by avarice and covetousness of visible things; and that this insane love would pervert human nature. The wisdom of the flesh has made men ignorant, foolish and hostile to God. Infinite is the number of those who are entangled in this dangerous error. Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! What pretense or excuse will men advance for having forgotten their own eternal salvation? Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls and that, since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men!”
Advent is a Time of Mercy
“Advent” is a compound word―made up of two words―the first word being “ad” which is Latin for “to”; and “venire” which is a Latin verb meaning “to come”. Therefore, the literal meaning of “Advent” is “to come to”―Advent is a time when Christ wants “to come to” us and be born, or born-anew, in our souls.
Our Lord speaks, on several occasions, about the purpose of His coming: “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!” (Luke 19:10). “Jesus said: ‘They that are in health need not a physician, but they that are ill. Go then and learn what this meaneth: “I will have mercy and not sacrifice!” For I am not come to call the just, but sinners!’” (Matthew 9:12-13). “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56). “Jesus … shall save His people from their sins!” (Matthew 1:21).
“God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; so that whosoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). Our Lord adds: “This is the will of My Father that sent Me―that everyone who sees the Son, and believes in Him, may have life everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day!” (John 6:40). Nevertheless, eternal life, salvation and Heaven are not freebies or entitled social-security handouts―as Our Lady said above: “Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment!” As St. Augustine said: “God made us without our cooperation―but God will not save us without our cooperation!” Or, to put it another way: “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith! Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … Do you see that by works a man is justified―and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26). Where is your cooperation in the work of your salvation? Where are your works of Faith?
Building a Temple for Christ
We can imagine Advent like building a house for Christ from year to year―each year we add something more to our building―as they say: “Rome wasn’t built in a day!” Are we building for Christ? Or have we stopped building for Christ? Our soul should be temple for Christ: “Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid! … Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost―Who is in you, Whom you have from God―and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:15-19).
Are we building a temple for God in our souls? Or are we building a temple of worldliness? Are we praying or playing throughout Advent? Let not the coming of Jesus into the temple of our soul be a coming of wrath, on account of worldliness and lukewarmness! “And Jesus went into the Temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the Temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves, and He said to them: ‘It is written―“My House shall be called the House of prayer!”― but you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Matthew 21:12-13).
Advent a Time of Darkness and Blindness
Never before have the following words of Holy Scripture been more true―than in our present time: “God looked down from Heaven on the children of men―to see if there were any that did understand, or did seek God. All have gone aside! They are become unprofitable together! There is none that doth good―no, not one!” (Psalm 52:3-4). ). “They have not known, nor understood! For their eyes are covered that they may not see, and that they may not understand with their heart!” (Isaias 44:18). “Seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand!” (Matthew 13:13).
“The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us … In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men ... And the Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it … He was in the world, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:1-14). They “sat in darkness and in the shadow of death” (Psalm 106:10). “They have not known nor understood―they walk on in darkness” (Psalm 81:5). “They walk in darkness as if it were in light” (Job 24:17). “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness!” (Isaias 5:20). “If then the light that is in thee, is darkness―how great shall the darkness be!” (Matthew 6:23) “The fool walketh in darkness” (Ecclesiastes 2:14). “Do you not yet understand?” (Matthew 16:9). “How do you not yet understand?” (Mark 8:21). “O that they would be wise and would understand, and would provide for their last end!” (Deuteronomy 32:29). “Understand these things―you that forget God―lest He snatch you away and there be none to deliver you!” (Psalm 49:22).
“Understand, ye senseless among the people! You fools―be wise at last!” (Psalm 93:8). “O ye sons of men! How long will you be dull of heart?” (Psalm 4:3). “How long will you love childishness, and fools covet those things which are hurtful to themselves, and the unwise hate knowledge?” (Proverbs 1:22). “O unbelieving and perverse generation! How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?” (Matthew 17:16). “The unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Matthew 25:30). Are you profitable or unprofitable in the eyes of God?
Showing Profitability for God
Advent is a time to increase our stock, to increase our value in God’s eyes, to show greater profitability! You could apply the following Scriptures to this point:
“And seeing a certain fig tree by the way side, Jesus came to it, and found nothing on it―but leaves only, and He said to it: ‘May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever!’ And immediately the fig tree withered away” (Matthew 21:19). “He spoke also this parable: ‘A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. And he said to the dresser of the vineyard: “Behold, for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none! Cut it down therefore: why does it encumber the ground?” But he, answering, said to him: “Lord, let it alone this year also, until I dig about it, and dung it! And perhaps happily it bear fruit―but, if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down!”’” (Luke 13:6-9). “I am the true vine and My Father is the gardener. In this is my Father glorified; that you bring forth very much fruit! Every branch in Me, that beareth not fruit, He will take away―and every one that beareth fruit, He will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine and you the branches―he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit―for without Me you can do nothing! If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burneth!” (John 15:1-8). “Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire!” (Matthew 7:17-19). “For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire!” (Luke 3:9).
Advent Accountability
Similarly, in the parable of the talents, Our Lord expects us produce profit from the graces [talents] that He gives us. The man who failed to use his talent and buried it in the ground was “cast ye out into the exterior darkness, where there was a weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The same applies to us! “A man going into a far country, called his servants and delivered to them his goods. To one he gave five talents, and to another two talents, and to another one talent―to each one according to his own ability―and immediately he left on his journey. He that had received the five talents, went his way, and traded with those talents and gained other five. In like manner, he that had received two talents, gained other two. But he that had received one talent, going his way dug into the earth, and buried his lord’s money.
“After a long time, the lord of those servants came and reckoned with them. He that had received the five talents, brought other five talents, saying: ‘Lord, thou didst deliver to me five talents! Behold, I have gained another five talents over and above!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’ And he that had received the two talents came and said: ‘Lord, thou delivered two talents to me! Behold, I have gained another two talents!’ His lord said to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things! Enter thou into the joy of thy lord!’
“But he that had received the one talent, came and said: ‘Lord, I know that thou art a hard man! Thou reapest where thou hast not sown, and gatherest where thou hast not strewed! Being afraid, I went and buried thy talent in the earth! Behold here thou hast that which is thine!’ And his lord, answering, said to him: ‘Wicked and slothful servant! Thou knewest that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not strewn! Thou should, therefore, have committed my money to the bankers, and, at my coming, I should have received my own with profitable interest. Take ye away therefore the talent from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents! For to everyone that hath, shall be given ever more, and he shall abound! But from him, that hath not, that also which he seemeth to have, shall be taken away from him! And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
Each year ― for how years now? ― we have been given Advent to build, furnish and prepare a worthy and fitting temple for Our Lord to come and occupy at Christmas! What have we done in all those years? Have we built a temple within our soul that is worthy of Christ? Or is our temple half-finished and in a state of disrepair? “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8). Advent is no joke―nor is it an optional thing! Advent is a time of penance―and penance is due for sins that have been committed and forgiven. People often forget that we have to pay for our sins―merely receiving forgiveness in the Sacrament of Confession does not take care of the debt for sin. As Our Lord says: “I came not to call the just―but sinners to penance! I say to you―unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! [Our Lord then repeats Himself] “No, I say to you; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 5:32; 13:3-5).
Article 2
Tuesday November 29th, First Tuesday of Advent, 2022
Advent is a New Beginning!
Tuesday November 29th, First Tuesday of Advent, 2022
Advent is a New Beginning!
Creation and Advent are Beginnings
“In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth!” (Genesis 1:1). “In the beginning, O Lord, thou didst found the Earth―and the Heavens are the works of thy hands!” (Psalm 101:26). God’s creation is full of “beginning-ending-beginning” cycles. There are cycles of years, cycles of seasons, cycles of life, etc. New days, new weeks, new months, new years, new sowing seasons, new harvest seasons―all of these have a beginning, an ending and new beginning. Days begin with a sunrise and end with a sunset―and then the whole process begins again the next day.
Similarly, the liturgical seasons come and go―they begin and end―they start and finish―and they continue an endless cycle throughout time. Advent is the beginning of the liturgical year, which prepares us ―year in, year out―for the redemptive birth of Jesus in our souls at Christmas.
Beginnings are often times of great hope and expectation. A new born baby begins it life and its parents are full of hope and expectation for the babe’s future! Marriages begin with great hopes of future love and happiness! Children begin school with great hopes and expectations. We begin new jobs with similar great hopes and expectations! Journeys begin with hopes and expectations! We begin to cook meals with hopes of success! We watch our favorite sports team begin another game and we have great hopes of winning! We sow seeds in the hope of a fruitful harvest! Doctors and patients together begin a course of treatment that they hope will lead to regaining health! The same is true of our spiritual health―whereby most souls are spiritually sick and must begin a course of “treatment” that will help them recover and regain their spiritual health.
Our spiritual life begins with our baptism, whereby each person’s God-created soul is filled with sanctifying grace and many other gifts and embarks upon a series of cycles that are meant to lead the soul back to Heaven. These various cycles of prayer, Sacraments, sacrifices, sufferings, etc. are meant to play a significant part in the health and growth of each soul as it navigates its way through the minefield of life and attains eternal life in Heaven.
Not All Happy Beginnings Have Happy Endings
Unfortunately, not all happy beginnings have happy endings―for most souls end up being damned and lost due their own negligence in obeying God’s instructions and keeping God’s commandments. “And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. But when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: ‘Lord! Open to us!’ And He, answering, shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are!’ Then you shall begin to say: ‘We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!” And He shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are! Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity!’ There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!’” (Luke 13:23-28).
God wishes to save everyone―but not everyone wants to be saved! “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son―so that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting!” (John 3:16). “Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under Heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). “God wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved―but he that believeth not, shall be condemned!” (Mark 16:16). Christ adds: “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world!” (John 12:47). “God, by His hand would save them―but they understood it not!” (Acts 7:25). “The light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light―for their works were evil!” (John 3:19). “They forgot God, who saved them!” (Psalm 105:21). “Be converted to Me―all ye ends of the Earth―and you shall be saved! For I am God and there is no other!” (Isaias 45:22).
Thank God for Second Chances and New Beginnings!
One of most worrying―even terrifying―things is, not so much that most souls are damned, but that most souls don’t really give a damn about being damned! Their insane pride (or Satan) seems to tell them: “Don’t worry about it!” ― and then there is added each person’s personally preferred “loophole” that cements their complacency: “God is good! God is love! God is kind! God is understanding! God will not let you be damned!” ― or, even more insidiously: “You go to Mass regularly (or fairly often)! You say the Rosary sometimes! You wear the Brown Scapular! You’ll get a chance to confess your mortal sins before you die!” (and many other similar false reasons).
St. Louis de Montfort touches on this in his Letter to the Friends of the Cross: “Dear Brethren, two groups appear before you each day―the followers of Christ and the followers of the world. Our loving Savior’s group is to the right …To the left is the world’s group, the devil’s in fact, which is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendidly dressed. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded, although they are broad and ever broadening with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver (Matthew 7:13-14). To the right, the little flock that follows Jesus can speak only of tears, penance, prayer and contempt for worldly things ... Worldlings, on the contrary, rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure!’ they shout, ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play! God is good, He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples; we shall not die!’ And so they continue!” (St. Louis de Montfort, Letter to the Friends of the Cross, §8 to §10).
Fr. Kilian Lynch, the former head of the Carmelites (1947-1959), draws our attention to the words of the Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori. Fr. Lynch writes: “Let us not conclude, however, that the Scapular is endowed with some kind of supernatural power which will save us no matter what we do or how much we sin. We might apply here what St. Alphonsus says about devotion to Mary in general: ‘When we declare that it is impossible for a servant of Mary to be lost, we do not mean those who by their devotion to Mary think themselves warranted to sin freely. We state that these reckless people, because of their presumption, deserve to be treated with rigor and not with kindness. We speak here of the servants of Mary who, to the fidelity with which they honor and invoke her, join the desire to amend their lives. I hold it morally impossible that these be lost … It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.’” (Fr. Kilian Lynch, The Scapular of Carmel, 1955).
You could, in a certain sense, give Our Lady the title “Mother of Second Chances and New Beginnings”, because she is the “Mother of Mercy” and the “Refuge of Sinners”. She herself revealed as much to St. Bridget of Sweden: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on Earth a sinner who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion―for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed [by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned], is so entirely cast-off by God, that he may not return and enjoy His mercy, if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who, in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his book The Glories of Mary, writes: “Mary, who, although a Queen, is not a queen of justice, intent on the punishment of the wicked, but a queen of mercy, intent only on commiserating and pardoning sinners … St. Bernard asks why the Church calls Mary ‘the Queen of Mercy’? And he replies, that ‘it is because we believe that she opens the abyss of the mercy of God to whomsoever she wills, when she wills, and as she wills; so that there is no sinner, however great, who is lost if Mary protects him’ … Perhaps we may fear that Mary would not intercede for some sinners, because they are so overloaded with crimes? To use the words of St. Bonaventure: ‘How can Mary, who is the Queen of Mercy, refuse to help the miserable? Who are the subjects for mercy, if not the miserable? And since you are the Queen of Mercy, and I am the most miserable of sinners, it follows that I am the first of your subjects! How, then, O Lady, can you do otherwise than show your mercy on me?’ Say not, O holy Virgin, that you cannot assist us on account of the number of our sins, for your power and compassion are such, that no number of sins, however great, can outweigh them. Have pity on us, then, O Queen of Mercy, and take charge of our salvation! …
“Let us, then, have recourse―and always have recourse―to this most sweet Queen, if we would be certain of salvation; and, if we are alarmed and disheartened at the sight of our sins, let us remember that it is in order to save the greatest and most abandoned sinners, who recommend themselves to her, that Mary is made the Queen of Mercy ... Resolve to sin no more, and I promise that undoubtedly thou wilt find Mary more ready to love thee than any earthly mother! … A certain sinner once said to Mary: ‘Show thyself a Mother!’ ― but the Blessed Virgin replied: ‘Show thyself a son!’ … For while disgusting her by a wicked life, who would even dare to wish to be the child of Mary? … God curses those who by their wicked life, and still more by their obstinacy in sin, afflict this tender Mother! ... But if a sinner, though he may not as yet have given up his sin, endeavors to do so, and for this purpose seeks the help of Mary, this good Mother will not fail to assist him, and make him recover the grace of God … Mary is the Mother of sinners who wish to repent … If only all sinners would have recourse to this sweet Mother―for then certainly all would be pardoned by God! … As long as a sinner is obstinate, Mary cannot love him; but if he―finding himself chained by some passion which keeps him a slave of Hell―recommends himself to the Blessed Virgin and implores her, with confidence and perseverance, to withdraw him from the state of sin in which he is, there can be no doubt that this good Mother will extend her powerful hand to him, will deliver him from his chains, and lead him to a state of salvation … Provided that he goes to her for help in order to amend, she will embrace him with the affection of a mother, and will not let him go, until, by her powerful intercession, she has reconciled him with God, and reinstated him in grace!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary).
A History of Second Chances and New Beginnings
● Adam and Eve could have been sent to Hell immediately after having committed their Original Sin―but God gave them a “Second Chance” by allowing them to have a “New Beginning” whereby through toil and suffering they could regain the Heaven that they had forfeited.
● Joseph―the one with the coat of many colors―was despised by his brothers, who sought to kill him. Eventually, instead of killing him, they sold him as a slave to passing merchants and he ended up in Egypt. God granted Joseph a “New Beginning” whereby he went from being in an Egyptian prison to being the “Number Two” man in Egypt, immediately behind the Pharao in rank and power (Genesis, chapters 37 to 50).
● Both the Old and New Testaments bear witness to a forgiving God. Moses, who murdered a man (Exodus 2:11-15) was still chosen by God to lead the Chosen People out of captivity.
● When the Chosen People disobeyed God and refused to enter and conquer the Promised Land―through fear of its inhabitants―God duly punished them by forcing them to wander in the desert for 40 years. Nevertheless, He gave them a “Second Chance” to fulfill His command to conquer the Promised Land, which they eventually accomplished.
● Jonas, who fled from God’s command to go preach in Ninive (Jonas 1), even though punished by God by being swallowed by a whale, was given a “Second Chance” to go and preach in Ninive―a chance that he now gladly accepted.
● King David, who committed adultery with Bethsabee and had her husband murdered (2 Kings, chapters 11 & 12), was duly punished by God, but still given a “Second Chance” and was allowed to continue ruling: “And the Lord sent Nathan to David. And when he was come to him, he said to him: ‘Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: “I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee from the hand of Saul, and gave thee the house of Israel and Juda! Why therefore hast thou despised the word of the Lord, to do evil in My sight? Thou hast killed Urias the Hethite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon!”’ … And David said to Nathan: ‘I have sinned against the Lord!’ And Nathan said to David: ‘The Lord also hath taken away thy sin! Thou shalt not die!’” (2 Kings 12:1-13).
● Rahab, who was a prostitute in Jericho (Josue 2);
● When Israel fell into idolatry after having conquered the Promised Land, God punished them with the Babylonian Captivity―but after many years gave them a “Second Chance” by providentially arranging for their return to Jerusalem in order to rebuild it.
Each of these—and dozens of other men and women like them in Scripture—stand as monuments of God's grace (cf. Hebrews 11).
Our Lord the Minister of Second Chances and New Beginnings
In the synagogue, Our Lord announces, in effect, His ministry of “Second Chances” when He applies a Scripture reading from the Book of Isaias to Himself: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. Wherefore He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the contrite of heart, to preach deliverance to the captives, and give sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised!” (Luke 4:18-19). Our Lord then proceeds to give “Second Chances” and “New Beginnings” to a whole variety of people―those who were morally sick and those who were physically sick and those who were possessed by demons.
● Jesus pardons and gives a “second chance” to the woman caught in adultery, whom the Pharisees wanted to stone to death and tells her to “go and sin no more” (John 8:3-11).
● Jesus gives “new beginnings” to the three persons that He raised from death back to life: the daughter of Jairus the centurion (Mark 5:21–43, Matthew 9:18–26 and Luke 8:40–56); the widow of Naim’s son (Luke 7:11-15), and Lazarus (John 11:38-44).
● When the criminal thief, dying on the cross next to Jesus, asks Jesus to remember him when He comes into His Kingdom, Christ responds by saying He will see the thief in paradise (Luke 23:32–43).
● Jesus pardons Peter, who had denied Jesus after His arrest, despite spending three years with Him (Matthew 26:69-75, Mark 14:66-72, Luke 22:55-62, John 18:15-17 and 25-27).
● Jesus also pardons the other Apostles who fled and abandoned Jesus when He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:50).
Jesus casts out devils from many persons and heals numerous sick people―thereby giving them a “Second Chance” in life and a “New Beginning”:
● “They brought to Him MANY that were possessed with devils: and He cast out the spirits with His word; and all that were sick He healed” (Matthew 8:16).
● “He healed MANY that were troubled with different diseases; and He cast out MANY devils” (Mark 1:34).
● “They brought to Him all that had any sick with various diseases. But He, laying His hands on every one of them, healed them and devils went out from MANY” (Luke 4:40-41).
● “And He was preaching in their synagogues and in all Galilee, and casting out devils. And there came a leper to Him, beseeching Him and kneeling down said to Him: ‘If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean!’ And Jesus, having compassion on him, stretched forth His hand and touching him, said to him: ‘I will! Be thou made clean!’ And when He had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him and he was made clean” (Mark 1:39-42).
● “There met Him a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling in the tombs, and no man now could bind him, not even with chains. For having been often bound with fetters and chains, he had burst the chains, and broken the fetters in pieces, and no one could tame him. And he was always day and night in the monuments and in the mountains, crying and cutting himself with stones. And seeing Jesus afar off, he ran and adored Him. Jesus said unto him: ‘Go out of the man, thou unclean spirit! And the unclean spirits going out, entered into nearby swine and the herd, being about two thousand, was carried headlong into the sea with great violence and drowned in the sea. And they that fed them fled, and told it in the city and in the fields. And they went out to see what was done. And they came to Jesus, and they saw the man that was troubled with the devil, sitting, clothed, and well in his wits” (Mark 5:2-15).
● “He was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb―and when He had cast out the devil, the dumb man spoke” (Luke 11:14).
● Our Lord, by inviting Himself to dinner in the home of Zacheus the Publican and tax-collector, inspired Zacheus to a change of heart and repentance for his extortionate ways by promising to repay fourfold what he had unjustly taken making amends by giving his possessions to the poor, Christ responds by saying: “Today salvation has come to this house!” (Luke 19:1–10).
Seventy-Times-Seven “Second Chances”
How many “Second Chances” have you been given? How many more do you expect? Are you glad of “Second Chances”? Have they led to “New Beginnings” or just more of the “same old, same old, same old” sins? “Second Chances” are not meant to be a “License to Sin” ― as seen by Our Lord’s words when He gave the woman caught in adultery a “Second Chance: “Jesus lifting up Himself, said to her: ‘Woman, where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee?’ Who said: ‘No man Lord!’ And Jesus said: ‘Neither will I condemn thee! Go, and now sin no more!’” (John 8:10-11). As Holy Scripture says: “The Lord is gracious and merciful, patient and plenteous in mercy! The Lord is sweet to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works!” (Psalm 144:8-9).
If we want mercy, then we must show mercy! “Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). “If thy brother sin against thee, reprove him: and if he do penance, forgive him. And if he sin against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day be converted unto thee, saying, ‘I repent!’― then forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4). “If you will not forgive, neither will your Father that is in Heaven, forgive you your sins” (Mark 11:26). “The glory of a man is to pass over wrongs” (Proverbs 19:11).
St. Peter, seeking guidance as to how much forgiveness we should show before “turning-off-the-tap” of forgiveness, approached Our Lord: “Then came Peter unto Him and said: ‘Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?’ Jesus said to him: ‘I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times. Therefore is the Kingdom of Heaven likened to a king, who would take an account of his servants. And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him, that owed him ten thousand talents (1 talent was 750 ounces of silver. At today’s silver prices of $21 an ounce, that would put the 10,000 talents at just over $157 million). And as he had not wherewith to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. But that servant falling down, besought him, saying: “Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!” And the lord of that servant being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt.
“ ‘But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him an hundred pence (the Roman penny was the eighth part of an ounce of silver. At today’s silver prices, a hundred pence would be just over $260): and laying hold of him, throttled him, saying: “Pay what thou owest!” And his fellow servant falling down, besought him, saying: “Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!” And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he paid the debt.
“ ‘Now his fellow servants seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him and said to him: “Thou wicked servant! I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest me! Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow servant, even as I had compassion on thee?” And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers, until he paid all the debt. So also shall My heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not everyone his brother from your hearts!’” (Matthew 18:21-35).
The 10,000 talents (or $157 million in today’s money) was almost 600,000 times more than the 100 pence ($262 in today’s money).
Don’t Take a Chance with “Second Chances”!
Despite the incredible mercies of God, the Lord is not to be doormat for our sins! “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin! And say not: ‘The mercy of the Lord is great, He will have mercy on the multitude of my sins!’” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5-6).
St. Alphonsus Liguori, a Doctor of the Church, states: “The sinner who abandons himself to sin without striving to resist temptations―or without at least asking God’s help to conquer them and hopes that the Lord will one day draw him from the precipice―tempts God to work miracles, or rather to show to him an extraordinary mercy that is not extended to the generality of Christians. God, as the Apostle says, “will have all men to be saved,” (1 Timothy 2:4); but He also wishes us all to labor for our own salvation, at least by adopting the means of overcoming our enemies, and of obeying Him when he calls us to repentance. Sinners hear the calls of God, but they forget them, and continue to offend Him. But God does not forget them. He numbers the graces which He dispenses, as well as the sins which we commit. Hence, when the time which He has fixed arrives, God deprives us of His graces, and begins to inflict chastisement.
“God has determined for each person the number of sins which He will pardon; and when this number is completed, He will pardon no more. God is ready to heal those who sincerely wish to amend their lives, but cannot take pity on the obstinate sinner. The Lord pardons sins, but He cannot pardon those who are determined to offend Him. Nor can we demand from God a reason why He pardons one person a hundred mortal sins, and takes others out of life, and sends them to Hell, after three or four mortal sins. How many has God sent to Hell for the first offence? St. Gregory relates, that a child of five years, who had arrived at the use of reason, for having uttered a blasphemy, was seized by the devil and carried to Hell. The divine Mother revealed to that great servant of God, Benedicta of Florence, that a boy of twelve years was damned after the first sin. Another boy of eight years died after his first sin and was lost. You say: “I am young: there are many who have committed more sins than I have!” But is God, on that account, obliged to wait for your repentance if you offend him? You must, then, tremble at the thought of committing a single mortal sin, particularly if you have already been guilty of mortal sins.
“Say not then, O sinner: “Since God has forgiven me other sins, so He will pardon me this one if I commit it!” Say not this; for, if to the sin which has been forgiven you add another, you have reason to fear that this new sin shall be united to your former guilt, and that thus the number will be completed, and that you shall be abandoned. God waits with patience until a certain number of sins is committed, but, when the measure of guilt is filled up, He waits no longer, but chastises the sinner. Sinners multiply their sins without keeping any account of them; but God numbers them that, when the harvest is ripe, that is, when the number of sins is completed, He may take vengeance on them. Listen, then, sinner, to the admonition of the Lord: “My son, hast thou sinned? Do so no more, but for thy former sins pray that they may be forgiven thee.” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1). Son, add not sins to those which you have already committed, but be careful to pray for the pardon of your past transgressions; otherwise, if you commit another mortal sin, the gates of the divine mercy may be closed against you, and your soul may be lost forever!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, from his Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent).
“In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth!” (Genesis 1:1). “In the beginning, O Lord, thou didst found the Earth―and the Heavens are the works of thy hands!” (Psalm 101:26). God’s creation is full of “beginning-ending-beginning” cycles. There are cycles of years, cycles of seasons, cycles of life, etc. New days, new weeks, new months, new years, new sowing seasons, new harvest seasons―all of these have a beginning, an ending and new beginning. Days begin with a sunrise and end with a sunset―and then the whole process begins again the next day.
Similarly, the liturgical seasons come and go―they begin and end―they start and finish―and they continue an endless cycle throughout time. Advent is the beginning of the liturgical year, which prepares us ―year in, year out―for the redemptive birth of Jesus in our souls at Christmas.
Beginnings are often times of great hope and expectation. A new born baby begins it life and its parents are full of hope and expectation for the babe’s future! Marriages begin with great hopes of future love and happiness! Children begin school with great hopes and expectations. We begin new jobs with similar great hopes and expectations! Journeys begin with hopes and expectations! We begin to cook meals with hopes of success! We watch our favorite sports team begin another game and we have great hopes of winning! We sow seeds in the hope of a fruitful harvest! Doctors and patients together begin a course of treatment that they hope will lead to regaining health! The same is true of our spiritual health―whereby most souls are spiritually sick and must begin a course of “treatment” that will help them recover and regain their spiritual health.
Our spiritual life begins with our baptism, whereby each person’s God-created soul is filled with sanctifying grace and many other gifts and embarks upon a series of cycles that are meant to lead the soul back to Heaven. These various cycles of prayer, Sacraments, sacrifices, sufferings, etc. are meant to play a significant part in the health and growth of each soul as it navigates its way through the minefield of life and attains eternal life in Heaven.
Not All Happy Beginnings Have Happy Endings
Unfortunately, not all happy beginnings have happy endings―for most souls end up being damned and lost due their own negligence in obeying God’s instructions and keeping God’s commandments. “And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. But when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: ‘Lord! Open to us!’ And He, answering, shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are!’ Then you shall begin to say: ‘We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!” And He shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are! Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity!’ There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!’” (Luke 13:23-28).
God wishes to save everyone―but not everyone wants to be saved! “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son―so that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting!” (John 3:16). “Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under Heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). “God wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved―but he that believeth not, shall be condemned!” (Mark 16:16). Christ adds: “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world!” (John 12:47). “God, by His hand would save them―but they understood it not!” (Acts 7:25). “The light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light―for their works were evil!” (John 3:19). “They forgot God, who saved them!” (Psalm 105:21). “Be converted to Me―all ye ends of the Earth―and you shall be saved! For I am God and there is no other!” (Isaias 45:22).
Thank God for Second Chances and New Beginnings!
One of most worrying―even terrifying―things is, not so much that most souls are damned, but that most souls don’t really give a damn about being damned! Their insane pride (or Satan) seems to tell them: “Don’t worry about it!” ― and then there is added each person’s personally preferred “loophole” that cements their complacency: “God is good! God is love! God is kind! God is understanding! God will not let you be damned!” ― or, even more insidiously: “You go to Mass regularly (or fairly often)! You say the Rosary sometimes! You wear the Brown Scapular! You’ll get a chance to confess your mortal sins before you die!” (and many other similar false reasons).
St. Louis de Montfort touches on this in his Letter to the Friends of the Cross: “Dear Brethren, two groups appear before you each day―the followers of Christ and the followers of the world. Our loving Savior’s group is to the right …To the left is the world’s group, the devil’s in fact, which is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendidly dressed. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded, although they are broad and ever broadening with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver (Matthew 7:13-14). To the right, the little flock that follows Jesus can speak only of tears, penance, prayer and contempt for worldly things ... Worldlings, on the contrary, rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure!’ they shout, ‘Enjoy life, peace and pleasure! Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play! God is good, He did not make us to damn us! God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves! We shall not be damned for that! Away with scruples; we shall not die!’ And so they continue!” (St. Louis de Montfort, Letter to the Friends of the Cross, §8 to §10).
Fr. Kilian Lynch, the former head of the Carmelites (1947-1959), draws our attention to the words of the Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori. Fr. Lynch writes: “Let us not conclude, however, that the Scapular is endowed with some kind of supernatural power which will save us no matter what we do or how much we sin. We might apply here what St. Alphonsus says about devotion to Mary in general: ‘When we declare that it is impossible for a servant of Mary to be lost, we do not mean those who by their devotion to Mary think themselves warranted to sin freely. We state that these reckless people, because of their presumption, deserve to be treated with rigor and not with kindness. We speak here of the servants of Mary who, to the fidelity with which they honor and invoke her, join the desire to amend their lives. I hold it morally impossible that these be lost … It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.’” (Fr. Kilian Lynch, The Scapular of Carmel, 1955).
You could, in a certain sense, give Our Lady the title “Mother of Second Chances and New Beginnings”, because she is the “Mother of Mercy” and the “Refuge of Sinners”. She herself revealed as much to St. Bridget of Sweden: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on Earth a sinner who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion―for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed [by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned], is so entirely cast-off by God, that he may not return and enjoy His mercy, if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who, in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his book The Glories of Mary, writes: “Mary, who, although a Queen, is not a queen of justice, intent on the punishment of the wicked, but a queen of mercy, intent only on commiserating and pardoning sinners … St. Bernard asks why the Church calls Mary ‘the Queen of Mercy’? And he replies, that ‘it is because we believe that she opens the abyss of the mercy of God to whomsoever she wills, when she wills, and as she wills; so that there is no sinner, however great, who is lost if Mary protects him’ … Perhaps we may fear that Mary would not intercede for some sinners, because they are so overloaded with crimes? To use the words of St. Bonaventure: ‘How can Mary, who is the Queen of Mercy, refuse to help the miserable? Who are the subjects for mercy, if not the miserable? And since you are the Queen of Mercy, and I am the most miserable of sinners, it follows that I am the first of your subjects! How, then, O Lady, can you do otherwise than show your mercy on me?’ Say not, O holy Virgin, that you cannot assist us on account of the number of our sins, for your power and compassion are such, that no number of sins, however great, can outweigh them. Have pity on us, then, O Queen of Mercy, and take charge of our salvation! …
“Let us, then, have recourse―and always have recourse―to this most sweet Queen, if we would be certain of salvation; and, if we are alarmed and disheartened at the sight of our sins, let us remember that it is in order to save the greatest and most abandoned sinners, who recommend themselves to her, that Mary is made the Queen of Mercy ... Resolve to sin no more, and I promise that undoubtedly thou wilt find Mary more ready to love thee than any earthly mother! … A certain sinner once said to Mary: ‘Show thyself a Mother!’ ― but the Blessed Virgin replied: ‘Show thyself a son!’ … For while disgusting her by a wicked life, who would even dare to wish to be the child of Mary? … God curses those who by their wicked life, and still more by their obstinacy in sin, afflict this tender Mother! ... But if a sinner, though he may not as yet have given up his sin, endeavors to do so, and for this purpose seeks the help of Mary, this good Mother will not fail to assist him, and make him recover the grace of God … Mary is the Mother of sinners who wish to repent … If only all sinners would have recourse to this sweet Mother―for then certainly all would be pardoned by God! … As long as a sinner is obstinate, Mary cannot love him; but if he―finding himself chained by some passion which keeps him a slave of Hell―recommends himself to the Blessed Virgin and implores her, with confidence and perseverance, to withdraw him from the state of sin in which he is, there can be no doubt that this good Mother will extend her powerful hand to him, will deliver him from his chains, and lead him to a state of salvation … Provided that he goes to her for help in order to amend, she will embrace him with the affection of a mother, and will not let him go, until, by her powerful intercession, she has reconciled him with God, and reinstated him in grace!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary).
A History of Second Chances and New Beginnings
● Adam and Eve could have been sent to Hell immediately after having committed their Original Sin―but God gave them a “Second Chance” by allowing them to have a “New Beginning” whereby through toil and suffering they could regain the Heaven that they had forfeited.
● Joseph―the one with the coat of many colors―was despised by his brothers, who sought to kill him. Eventually, instead of killing him, they sold him as a slave to passing merchants and he ended up in Egypt. God granted Joseph a “New Beginning” whereby he went from being in an Egyptian prison to being the “Number Two” man in Egypt, immediately behind the Pharao in rank and power (Genesis, chapters 37 to 50).
● Both the Old and New Testaments bear witness to a forgiving God. Moses, who murdered a man (Exodus 2:11-15) was still chosen by God to lead the Chosen People out of captivity.
● When the Chosen People disobeyed God and refused to enter and conquer the Promised Land―through fear of its inhabitants―God duly punished them by forcing them to wander in the desert for 40 years. Nevertheless, He gave them a “Second Chance” to fulfill His command to conquer the Promised Land, which they eventually accomplished.
● Jonas, who fled from God’s command to go preach in Ninive (Jonas 1), even though punished by God by being swallowed by a whale, was given a “Second Chance” to go and preach in Ninive―a chance that he now gladly accepted.
● King David, who committed adultery with Bethsabee and had her husband murdered (2 Kings, chapters 11 & 12), was duly punished by God, but still given a “Second Chance” and was allowed to continue ruling: “And the Lord sent Nathan to David. And when he was come to him, he said to him: ‘Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: “I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee from the hand of Saul, and gave thee the house of Israel and Juda! Why therefore hast thou despised the word of the Lord, to do evil in My sight? Thou hast killed Urias the Hethite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon!”’ … And David said to Nathan: ‘I have sinned against the Lord!’ And Nathan said to David: ‘The Lord also hath taken away thy sin! Thou shalt not die!’” (2 Kings 12:1-13).
● Rahab, who was a prostitute in Jericho (Josue 2);
● When Israel fell into idolatry after having conquered the Promised Land, God punished them with the Babylonian Captivity―but after many years gave them a “Second Chance” by providentially arranging for their return to Jerusalem in order to rebuild it.
Each of these—and dozens of other men and women like them in Scripture—stand as monuments of God's grace (cf. Hebrews 11).
Our Lord the Minister of Second Chances and New Beginnings
In the synagogue, Our Lord announces, in effect, His ministry of “Second Chances” when He applies a Scripture reading from the Book of Isaias to Himself: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. Wherefore He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the contrite of heart, to preach deliverance to the captives, and give sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised!” (Luke 4:18-19). Our Lord then proceeds to give “Second Chances” and “New Beginnings” to a whole variety of people―those who were morally sick and those who were physically sick and those who were possessed by demons.
● Jesus pardons and gives a “second chance” to the woman caught in adultery, whom the Pharisees wanted to stone to death and tells her to “go and sin no more” (John 8:3-11).
● Jesus gives “new beginnings” to the three persons that He raised from death back to life: the daughter of Jairus the centurion (Mark 5:21–43, Matthew 9:18–26 and Luke 8:40–56); the widow of Naim’s son (Luke 7:11-15), and Lazarus (John 11:38-44).
● When the criminal thief, dying on the cross next to Jesus, asks Jesus to remember him when He comes into His Kingdom, Christ responds by saying He will see the thief in paradise (Luke 23:32–43).
● Jesus pardons Peter, who had denied Jesus after His arrest, despite spending three years with Him (Matthew 26:69-75, Mark 14:66-72, Luke 22:55-62, John 18:15-17 and 25-27).
● Jesus also pardons the other Apostles who fled and abandoned Jesus when He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:50).
Jesus casts out devils from many persons and heals numerous sick people―thereby giving them a “Second Chance” in life and a “New Beginning”:
● “They brought to Him MANY that were possessed with devils: and He cast out the spirits with His word; and all that were sick He healed” (Matthew 8:16).
● “He healed MANY that were troubled with different diseases; and He cast out MANY devils” (Mark 1:34).
● “They brought to Him all that had any sick with various diseases. But He, laying His hands on every one of them, healed them and devils went out from MANY” (Luke 4:40-41).
● “And He was preaching in their synagogues and in all Galilee, and casting out devils. And there came a leper to Him, beseeching Him and kneeling down said to Him: ‘If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean!’ And Jesus, having compassion on him, stretched forth His hand and touching him, said to him: ‘I will! Be thou made clean!’ And when He had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him and he was made clean” (Mark 1:39-42).
● “There met Him a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling in the tombs, and no man now could bind him, not even with chains. For having been often bound with fetters and chains, he had burst the chains, and broken the fetters in pieces, and no one could tame him. And he was always day and night in the monuments and in the mountains, crying and cutting himself with stones. And seeing Jesus afar off, he ran and adored Him. Jesus said unto him: ‘Go out of the man, thou unclean spirit! And the unclean spirits going out, entered into nearby swine and the herd, being about two thousand, was carried headlong into the sea with great violence and drowned in the sea. And they that fed them fled, and told it in the city and in the fields. And they went out to see what was done. And they came to Jesus, and they saw the man that was troubled with the devil, sitting, clothed, and well in his wits” (Mark 5:2-15).
● “He was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb―and when He had cast out the devil, the dumb man spoke” (Luke 11:14).
● Our Lord, by inviting Himself to dinner in the home of Zacheus the Publican and tax-collector, inspired Zacheus to a change of heart and repentance for his extortionate ways by promising to repay fourfold what he had unjustly taken making amends by giving his possessions to the poor, Christ responds by saying: “Today salvation has come to this house!” (Luke 19:1–10).
Seventy-Times-Seven “Second Chances”
How many “Second Chances” have you been given? How many more do you expect? Are you glad of “Second Chances”? Have they led to “New Beginnings” or just more of the “same old, same old, same old” sins? “Second Chances” are not meant to be a “License to Sin” ― as seen by Our Lord’s words when He gave the woman caught in adultery a “Second Chance: “Jesus lifting up Himself, said to her: ‘Woman, where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee?’ Who said: ‘No man Lord!’ And Jesus said: ‘Neither will I condemn thee! Go, and now sin no more!’” (John 8:10-11). As Holy Scripture says: “The Lord is gracious and merciful, patient and plenteous in mercy! The Lord is sweet to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works!” (Psalm 144:8-9).
If we want mercy, then we must show mercy! “Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). “If thy brother sin against thee, reprove him: and if he do penance, forgive him. And if he sin against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day be converted unto thee, saying, ‘I repent!’― then forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4). “If you will not forgive, neither will your Father that is in Heaven, forgive you your sins” (Mark 11:26). “The glory of a man is to pass over wrongs” (Proverbs 19:11).
St. Peter, seeking guidance as to how much forgiveness we should show before “turning-off-the-tap” of forgiveness, approached Our Lord: “Then came Peter unto Him and said: ‘Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?’ Jesus said to him: ‘I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times. Therefore is the Kingdom of Heaven likened to a king, who would take an account of his servants. And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him, that owed him ten thousand talents (1 talent was 750 ounces of silver. At today’s silver prices of $21 an ounce, that would put the 10,000 talents at just over $157 million). And as he had not wherewith to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. But that servant falling down, besought him, saying: “Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!” And the lord of that servant being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt.
“ ‘But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him an hundred pence (the Roman penny was the eighth part of an ounce of silver. At today’s silver prices, a hundred pence would be just over $260): and laying hold of him, throttled him, saying: “Pay what thou owest!” And his fellow servant falling down, besought him, saying: “Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!” And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he paid the debt.
“ ‘Now his fellow servants seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him and said to him: “Thou wicked servant! I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest me! Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow servant, even as I had compassion on thee?” And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers, until he paid all the debt. So also shall My heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not everyone his brother from your hearts!’” (Matthew 18:21-35).
The 10,000 talents (or $157 million in today’s money) was almost 600,000 times more than the 100 pence ($262 in today’s money).
Don’t Take a Chance with “Second Chances”!
Despite the incredible mercies of God, the Lord is not to be doormat for our sins! “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8). “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin! And say not: ‘The mercy of the Lord is great, He will have mercy on the multitude of my sins!’” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5-6).
St. Alphonsus Liguori, a Doctor of the Church, states: “The sinner who abandons himself to sin without striving to resist temptations―or without at least asking God’s help to conquer them and hopes that the Lord will one day draw him from the precipice―tempts God to work miracles, or rather to show to him an extraordinary mercy that is not extended to the generality of Christians. God, as the Apostle says, “will have all men to be saved,” (1 Timothy 2:4); but He also wishes us all to labor for our own salvation, at least by adopting the means of overcoming our enemies, and of obeying Him when he calls us to repentance. Sinners hear the calls of God, but they forget them, and continue to offend Him. But God does not forget them. He numbers the graces which He dispenses, as well as the sins which we commit. Hence, when the time which He has fixed arrives, God deprives us of His graces, and begins to inflict chastisement.
“God has determined for each person the number of sins which He will pardon; and when this number is completed, He will pardon no more. God is ready to heal those who sincerely wish to amend their lives, but cannot take pity on the obstinate sinner. The Lord pardons sins, but He cannot pardon those who are determined to offend Him. Nor can we demand from God a reason why He pardons one person a hundred mortal sins, and takes others out of life, and sends them to Hell, after three or four mortal sins. How many has God sent to Hell for the first offence? St. Gregory relates, that a child of five years, who had arrived at the use of reason, for having uttered a blasphemy, was seized by the devil and carried to Hell. The divine Mother revealed to that great servant of God, Benedicta of Florence, that a boy of twelve years was damned after the first sin. Another boy of eight years died after his first sin and was lost. You say: “I am young: there are many who have committed more sins than I have!” But is God, on that account, obliged to wait for your repentance if you offend him? You must, then, tremble at the thought of committing a single mortal sin, particularly if you have already been guilty of mortal sins.
“Say not then, O sinner: “Since God has forgiven me other sins, so He will pardon me this one if I commit it!” Say not this; for, if to the sin which has been forgiven you add another, you have reason to fear that this new sin shall be united to your former guilt, and that thus the number will be completed, and that you shall be abandoned. God waits with patience until a certain number of sins is committed, but, when the measure of guilt is filled up, He waits no longer, but chastises the sinner. Sinners multiply their sins without keeping any account of them; but God numbers them that, when the harvest is ripe, that is, when the number of sins is completed, He may take vengeance on them. Listen, then, sinner, to the admonition of the Lord: “My son, hast thou sinned? Do so no more, but for thy former sins pray that they may be forgiven thee.” (Ecclesiasticus 21:1). Son, add not sins to those which you have already committed, but be careful to pray for the pardon of your past transgressions; otherwise, if you commit another mortal sin, the gates of the divine mercy may be closed against you, and your soul may be lost forever!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, from his Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent).
Article 1
Sunday November 27th, First Sunday of Advent, 2022
Advent is Here! Where Are You?
Sunday November 27th, First Sunday of Advent, 2022
Advent is Here! Where Are You?
The Meaning of Advent—The Reason for the Season
The name Advent comes from the Latin words, advenire (to come to) and adventus (an arrival), and refers to Christ’s coming into this world. The Lord is coming. However, it is every year at this time we celebrate his coming , and so there exists a real danger that through routine we can lose the feeling of expectancy and joyful anticipation, because, at the end of the season, everything seems to return to pretty much the same old lukewarm routine. If that is the case, then our preparation may have been lacking and we have therefore been robbed of much of the true meaning of this season.
The focus of Advent is by no means limited to just Christ’s first coming. An equal, if not more important theme found in the Advent Liturgy is the second coming of Christ, when He comes again to judge the world. Consequently, there is a double focus of, firstly, the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ in his first Advent, and the anticipation of the return of Christ the King in his Second Advent. In His first coming He comes as a child offering mercy. In His second coming He will come as a judge administering justice.
However, He is never merciful without being just, and He is never just without being merciful. Therefore, we must realize that to accept His mercy also requires that we accept His justice. He does not come to play, but to pay—pay for our sins. He does not come to enjoy life, but to give eternal life—and that comes at a price. He comes not to live on Earth forever, but to forever detach us from this Earth. He prefers poverty over power; humility over honors; rejection over riches and suffering over splendor. His way is not our way, yet He Who called Himself “the Way” shows us wayward wayfarers the true way—and it is not a pleasant way, but the Way of the Cross.
A New Beginning—A New Year—Another Chance!
Advent is not an end, but a beginning. Liturgically, Advent is the beginning of a new liturgical year. Even if it a beginning and not end, it should be, however, the end of our sinful life and the beginning to a holier more fervent life. It should be the beginning of the end of a life of sin and mediocrity—“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
Thus, Advent is far more than simply marking an approximate 2,000 year old event in history. It is celebrating a truth about God, the revelation of God in Christ whereby all of creation might be reconciled to God. That is a process in which we now participate, and the consummation of which we anticipate. The Word of God will come incarnate―in the flesh―so we should focus on the Word of God during Advent. Scripture reading for Advent should reflect and emphasize a joyful expectancy for the Redeemer―also including themes of accountability for faithfulness at His coming, judgment on sin, and the hope of eternal life.
Losing the Spirit of Advent
The liturgical color for the season of Advent is purple for purple shows the majesty which heralds the coming of the King of Kings. Yet that King comes in order to do penance on behalf of mankind, which has grievously offended God—so purple in this sense is also a color symbolic of penance and suffering, since our King came to suffer and die for us. “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance” (Luke 5:32). Christ would later remind us to join Him in that penance: “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say: ‘Do penance, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’” (Matthew 4:17). “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). As Holy Scripture adds: “God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride!” (Job 24:23). This modern-day age has almost totally put aside penance and taken to amusement and entertainment! Our Lady warned at Salette:
“Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance [in 1965, Pope Paul VI cut the Lenten penance of fasting by 95%, from 40 days to 2 days―Ash Wednesday and Good Friday], and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish … Demons will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell. The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God. Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls.
Penance is Our Daily Bread
Though we might not like its taste, penance is for us our daily bread. We have sinned and pay we must: “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us” (1 John 1:10) and “unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). Our Lady of Akita reminded us that “Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger.” Let it not be said of us: “God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride!” (Job 24:23). This prideful neglect of penance is what Our Lady complained of at La Salette, saying of the clergy—who should be leading the laity along the true path: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish.” This lack of penance—both preached and performed—is what causes laxity, as Our Lady of La Salette said: “The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement!”
Daily Duty is a Daily Penance
In a letter dated February 28th, 1943, Sister Lucy addressed issues that concerned both Portugal and Spain. She wrote:
“The Good Lord will allow Himself to be appeased, but He complains bitterly and sadly about the very limited number of souls in the state of grace, disposed to deny themselves according to what the observance of His law requires of them. Here is the true penance which the Good Lord requests today: the sacrifice which everybody must impose on himself to lead a life of justice in the observance of His law. And He desires that this law be clearly made known to souls, for many give to the word ‘penance’ the sense of great austerities, and as they feel neither the strength nor the generosity for that, they get discouraged and let themselves go into a life of lukewarmness and sin. Our Lord told me: ‘The penance that I request and require now is the sacrifice demanded of everybody by the accomplishment of his own duty and the observance of My law.’”
The Bishop of Gurza, to whom the letter of 1943 was addressed, saw to it that this message was spread throughout Portugal and Spain, and, as a result, many benefited from its instructions. Through this message we see that God does not ask us for difficult and austere penances. He desires of us sacrifices that we can all perform, namely the observance of His laws and the fulfillment of our duties as determined by our state in life. Yet let us not make light of these “duties of state”—for they are far more numerous than we would like, or imagine them to be! If Lucia spoke of penance, let us look at the life of penance and duties of state that the three little children of Fatima followed! For, if as the axiom says: “The greater contains the lesser”—then we adults should have no problem in accomplishing what little children can accomplish!
The lives of the three children of Fatima were entirely transformed by the heavenly apparitions. While fulfilling the duties of their state with the greatest fidelity, those children seemed now to live only for prayer and sacrifice, which they offered in a spirit of reparation to obtain peace and the conversion of sinners. They deprived themselves of water during the periods of great heat; they gave their lunch to poor children; they wore around their waists thick cords that even drew blood; they abstained from innocent pleasures and urged one another to the practice of prayer and penance with an ardor comparable to that of the great saints.
St. Jacinta Marto of Fatima, would cry out: “Men must do penance! If they amend their lives Our Lord will still pardon the world; but if they do not, the chastisement will come! … It is necessary to do penance!”—which is nothing other than what Our Lady of Lourdes commanded St. Bernadette: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” and on another occasion: “Kiss the ground as a penance for sinners!” and again: “Eat the grass as a penance!” and “Drink the [muddy] water from the spring!”
Sister Lucia Speaks About Jacinta
In her letter to the bishop, Sr. Lucia writes: “Your Excellency, as I told you in the writings I sent to you after I had read the book about Jacinta, she was greatly impressed by some things revealed in the secret. As a matter of fact, this was one of them. The vision of Hell frightened her so much that she did all the penances and mortifications she could to prevent more souls from going there.
“Now I shall answer the second question which is asked from all sides. How had Jacinta, still a child, understood such a spirit of mortification and penance, and how had she conquered it? In my opinion, it was, first of all, through a special grace God granted her through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; and secondly, through the vision of Hell and the unfortunate souls falling into it. There are people, even devout ones, who are afraid to speak about Hell to children lest they frighten them, but God did not hesitate to show it to three children, one of whom was only seven years old. He knew she would be horrified to the point — I would say — of shriveling with fear.” (Words of Sr. Lucia of Fatima).
People Burning Like Wood in Fire
Lucia (of Fatima) continues painting her picture of her little cousin, Jacinta:
“Frequently she sat, meditating, on the ground or some stone, and began to exclaim: ‘Hell! Hell! How sorry I am for the souls that are going to Hell! And people burn there alive, like wood in fire!’ And quivering a little, she would kneel on the ground with her hands joined and say the prayer Our Lady had taught us: ‘O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of Hell, lead all souls into Heaven, especially those who are most in need of Thy Mercy!’
“Now you can understand why I got the impression that the last words of this prayer are concerned with souls who are most in danger of damnation or nearest to it. Jacinta stayed for a long time on her knees, repeating the same prayer. Every now and then, as if waking us, she called to me or her brother, Francisco. ‘Francisco, are you praying with me? We need to pray a great deal to save souls from Hell. So many are going there! So many!’
“At other times she asked: ‘Why doesn't Our Lady show Hell to sinners? If they saw it, they would never sin again and wouldn't have to go there. You must tell Our Lady to show Hell to all those people. (She meant the people staying in Cova da Iria at the time of the Apparition). You will see that they will be converted!” Some days later, a little despondent, she asked: ‘Why didn't you tell Our Lady to show Hell to those people?’
“ ‘I forgot,’ I answered.
“ ‘I didn't remember, either,’ she said sadly.
“Sometimes, she also asked: ‘What sins are committed by those people to make them go to Hell?’
“ ‘I don't know. Perhaps not going to Mass on Sundays, stealing, saying wicked words, cursing, swearing.’
“ ‘What would it cost them to keep quiet and go to Mass! I am sorry for sinners! Oh, if I could only let them see Hell!”
"Sometimes she hugged me and said: “I am going to Heaven, but you have to stay here. If Our Lady lets you, tell everybody what Hell is like, so that they can escape it by not committing sins.’
“Other times, after thinking for a while, she said: ‘So many falling into Hell! So many in Hell!’
“To reassure her, I said: ‘Don't be afraid! You are going to Heaven!’
“ ‘Yes, I am going there,’ she said calmly. ‘But I also want everyone to go there!’”
A Child with a True Penitential Spirit
Lucia continues: “When, to mortify herself, she didn't want to eat, I said: ‘Jacinta, come on, eat now!’
“ ‘No, I am offering this sacrifice for sinners who eat too much!’
“When she was sick but was going to go to Mass anyway, I said: ‘Jacinta, don't! You aren't able! And it's not Sunday today!’
“ ‘It doesn't matter. I will go for sinners who don't even go on Sundays!
“If she happened to hear any loud cursing, she covered her face with her hands and said: ‘Oh my God! These people don't realize this kind of talk might send them to Hell! Forgive them, Jesus, and convert them. They certainly don't know they are offending God. Oh, what a pity, Jesus! I will pray for them!”
“And she repeated the prayer Our Lady had taught us: ‘O my Jesus, forgive us our sins! Save us from the fire of Hell’ etc.
What On Earth Are YOU Doing?
What on earth are you doing? Or, what are doing on earth? Hopefully, a little child, who is just starting out learning their catechism, could give us the answer to that question. Why are we here on earth? Why did God make us? God made us and put on this earth to KNOW Him, LOVE Him, SERVE Him in this world, so that we may be happy with Him in the next.
Another little child, Blessed Jacinta Marto of Fatima, goes beyond mere theory and fleshes-out that skeleton of a response with a real and practical proof and example of what it is to KNOW, LOVE and SERVE GOD!
We can make a little microcosm of the macrocosm (or a smaller model or the larger reality) and apply the above to Advent. What on earth are we doing during Advent? Why has God given us, through His Church, this season of Advent? Well, we can almost give the same answer as above: God gave us the season of Advent so that we might KNOW Jesus, LOVE Jesus and SERVE JESUS during Advent so that we might be truly and sincerely happy with Him throughout Christmas.
Christ is Coming—But Who the Heck Really Cares?
To the Israelites and Jews God gave all kinds of types, figures and prophecies of the “One Who is to come.” But as history teaches us, by the time Jesus was scheduled to come, most of the people had fallen into a religious superficiality, a spiritual blindness, and lukewarm indifference that left their minds, hearts, soul and strength so weak, that it could not recognize the Truth when it came; and, even though it was charmed and enchanted by the glamour of the shining miracles that Jesus performed, it was to them a sideshow, a superficial attraction, a titillation of the senses, much like Christmas is to most Catholics today. It’s mainly (but not entirely) about fun, presents, parties, visits, food, drink, entertainment, free-time off work and school—but of most, Jesus would say: “Their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8). To paraphrase the opening of the Gospel of St. John by putting the words in Jesus’ mouth, it would read:
“From the beginning I was the Word, and I was with God, and I was God. All things were made by Me: and without Me was made nothing that was made. In Me was life, and I was the light of men. And I shone in their darkness, and the darkness did not understand Me. I was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. I was in the world, and the world was made by Me, and the world knew Me not. I came unto My own, and My own received Me not. But as many as received Me, I gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in My name. And I was made flesh, and dwelt among you, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-14).
Many Start, But Never Finish
“Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). Many start on the road to Heaven, but most prefer the broad road that is easy and leads downhill to Hell; few seek and find the narrow, rocky, thorny path that climbs steeply to Heaven (Matthew 7:13-14). God wants all souls to be saved, but most will not be saved, because even though they want the goal (Heaven), they reject the means that get us to Heaven. They create their own ‘make-believe’ religion, where everything is sweet, cozy, comfortable and conformable to worldly values. They forget God’s condemnation of the world: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4).
To strive for Heaven, means to go AGAINST the current of the world, or the current trends of the world. The underlying goal of the world is to either destroy suffering or to flee suffering. The underlying principle of Christianity is to embrace the Cross and to carry the Cross. The two camps are diametrically opposed. There can be no peace or truce between them. As Holy Scripture says: “What concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever?” (2 Corinthians 6:15).
Preparing for Christmas or Christmess?
Unfortunately, it is Belial and the unbeliever who have set the tone for modern day trends to be followed during Advent and Christmas, and the believers like shy, shorn, silenced sheep meekly follow in their footsteps. Hence it is that Jesus and Mary are not loved as much as ‘Joe’ and ‘Sally’ who throw the Christmas party; those visits to the tabernacle “lose-out” in favor of visits to the modern tabernacles of TV’s, movie-theaters, and computer screens; so that possibilities to receive the Bread of Life more often, during the Christmas vacation time, are passed by in favor of enjoying earthly food and drink at some friend’s or relative’s home. “Black Friday” was symptomatic of the “Black Days” that are to come between now and Christmas—a materialistic ‘black-hole’ that sucks-in and negates all spirituality and desire for Christ. This ‘black-hole’ of materialism transforms Christmas into a “Christmess” more and more with each passing year.
Truly, the following words of Christ apply more to our day than any other age in the history of the Church: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall he find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). It has to be said that there is less and less Faith found on Earth with each passing year! While those, who still retain the Faith, find that their Faith has been contaminated more and more with each passing year. Each Christmas becomes more of a Christmess.
The name Advent comes from the Latin words, advenire (to come to) and adventus (an arrival), and refers to Christ’s coming into this world. The Lord is coming. However, it is every year at this time we celebrate his coming , and so there exists a real danger that through routine we can lose the feeling of expectancy and joyful anticipation, because, at the end of the season, everything seems to return to pretty much the same old lukewarm routine. If that is the case, then our preparation may have been lacking and we have therefore been robbed of much of the true meaning of this season.
The focus of Advent is by no means limited to just Christ’s first coming. An equal, if not more important theme found in the Advent Liturgy is the second coming of Christ, when He comes again to judge the world. Consequently, there is a double focus of, firstly, the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ in his first Advent, and the anticipation of the return of Christ the King in his Second Advent. In His first coming He comes as a child offering mercy. In His second coming He will come as a judge administering justice.
However, He is never merciful without being just, and He is never just without being merciful. Therefore, we must realize that to accept His mercy also requires that we accept His justice. He does not come to play, but to pay—pay for our sins. He does not come to enjoy life, but to give eternal life—and that comes at a price. He comes not to live on Earth forever, but to forever detach us from this Earth. He prefers poverty over power; humility over honors; rejection over riches and suffering over splendor. His way is not our way, yet He Who called Himself “the Way” shows us wayward wayfarers the true way—and it is not a pleasant way, but the Way of the Cross.
A New Beginning—A New Year—Another Chance!
Advent is not an end, but a beginning. Liturgically, Advent is the beginning of a new liturgical year. Even if it a beginning and not end, it should be, however, the end of our sinful life and the beginning to a holier more fervent life. It should be the beginning of the end of a life of sin and mediocrity—“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
Thus, Advent is far more than simply marking an approximate 2,000 year old event in history. It is celebrating a truth about God, the revelation of God in Christ whereby all of creation might be reconciled to God. That is a process in which we now participate, and the consummation of which we anticipate. The Word of God will come incarnate―in the flesh―so we should focus on the Word of God during Advent. Scripture reading for Advent should reflect and emphasize a joyful expectancy for the Redeemer―also including themes of accountability for faithfulness at His coming, judgment on sin, and the hope of eternal life.
Losing the Spirit of Advent
The liturgical color for the season of Advent is purple for purple shows the majesty which heralds the coming of the King of Kings. Yet that King comes in order to do penance on behalf of mankind, which has grievously offended God—so purple in this sense is also a color symbolic of penance and suffering, since our King came to suffer and die for us. “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance” (Luke 5:32). Christ would later remind us to join Him in that penance: “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say: ‘Do penance, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’” (Matthew 4:17). “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). As Holy Scripture adds: “God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride!” (Job 24:23). This modern-day age has almost totally put aside penance and taken to amusement and entertainment! Our Lady warned at Salette:
“Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance [in 1965, Pope Paul VI cut the Lenten penance of fasting by 95%, from 40 days to 2 days―Ash Wednesday and Good Friday], and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish … Demons will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell. The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God. Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls.
Penance is Our Daily Bread
Though we might not like its taste, penance is for us our daily bread. We have sinned and pay we must: “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us” (1 John 1:10) and “unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). Our Lady of Akita reminded us that “Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger.” Let it not be said of us: “God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride!” (Job 24:23). This prideful neglect of penance is what Our Lady complained of at La Salette, saying of the clergy—who should be leading the laity along the true path: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish.” This lack of penance—both preached and performed—is what causes laxity, as Our Lady of La Salette said: “The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement!”
Daily Duty is a Daily Penance
In a letter dated February 28th, 1943, Sister Lucy addressed issues that concerned both Portugal and Spain. She wrote:
“The Good Lord will allow Himself to be appeased, but He complains bitterly and sadly about the very limited number of souls in the state of grace, disposed to deny themselves according to what the observance of His law requires of them. Here is the true penance which the Good Lord requests today: the sacrifice which everybody must impose on himself to lead a life of justice in the observance of His law. And He desires that this law be clearly made known to souls, for many give to the word ‘penance’ the sense of great austerities, and as they feel neither the strength nor the generosity for that, they get discouraged and let themselves go into a life of lukewarmness and sin. Our Lord told me: ‘The penance that I request and require now is the sacrifice demanded of everybody by the accomplishment of his own duty and the observance of My law.’”
The Bishop of Gurza, to whom the letter of 1943 was addressed, saw to it that this message was spread throughout Portugal and Spain, and, as a result, many benefited from its instructions. Through this message we see that God does not ask us for difficult and austere penances. He desires of us sacrifices that we can all perform, namely the observance of His laws and the fulfillment of our duties as determined by our state in life. Yet let us not make light of these “duties of state”—for they are far more numerous than we would like, or imagine them to be! If Lucia spoke of penance, let us look at the life of penance and duties of state that the three little children of Fatima followed! For, if as the axiom says: “The greater contains the lesser”—then we adults should have no problem in accomplishing what little children can accomplish!
The lives of the three children of Fatima were entirely transformed by the heavenly apparitions. While fulfilling the duties of their state with the greatest fidelity, those children seemed now to live only for prayer and sacrifice, which they offered in a spirit of reparation to obtain peace and the conversion of sinners. They deprived themselves of water during the periods of great heat; they gave their lunch to poor children; they wore around their waists thick cords that even drew blood; they abstained from innocent pleasures and urged one another to the practice of prayer and penance with an ardor comparable to that of the great saints.
St. Jacinta Marto of Fatima, would cry out: “Men must do penance! If they amend their lives Our Lord will still pardon the world; but if they do not, the chastisement will come! … It is necessary to do penance!”—which is nothing other than what Our Lady of Lourdes commanded St. Bernadette: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” and on another occasion: “Kiss the ground as a penance for sinners!” and again: “Eat the grass as a penance!” and “Drink the [muddy] water from the spring!”
Sister Lucia Speaks About Jacinta
In her letter to the bishop, Sr. Lucia writes: “Your Excellency, as I told you in the writings I sent to you after I had read the book about Jacinta, she was greatly impressed by some things revealed in the secret. As a matter of fact, this was one of them. The vision of Hell frightened her so much that she did all the penances and mortifications she could to prevent more souls from going there.
“Now I shall answer the second question which is asked from all sides. How had Jacinta, still a child, understood such a spirit of mortification and penance, and how had she conquered it? In my opinion, it was, first of all, through a special grace God granted her through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; and secondly, through the vision of Hell and the unfortunate souls falling into it. There are people, even devout ones, who are afraid to speak about Hell to children lest they frighten them, but God did not hesitate to show it to three children, one of whom was only seven years old. He knew she would be horrified to the point — I would say — of shriveling with fear.” (Words of Sr. Lucia of Fatima).
People Burning Like Wood in Fire
Lucia (of Fatima) continues painting her picture of her little cousin, Jacinta:
“Frequently she sat, meditating, on the ground or some stone, and began to exclaim: ‘Hell! Hell! How sorry I am for the souls that are going to Hell! And people burn there alive, like wood in fire!’ And quivering a little, she would kneel on the ground with her hands joined and say the prayer Our Lady had taught us: ‘O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of Hell, lead all souls into Heaven, especially those who are most in need of Thy Mercy!’
“Now you can understand why I got the impression that the last words of this prayer are concerned with souls who are most in danger of damnation or nearest to it. Jacinta stayed for a long time on her knees, repeating the same prayer. Every now and then, as if waking us, she called to me or her brother, Francisco. ‘Francisco, are you praying with me? We need to pray a great deal to save souls from Hell. So many are going there! So many!’
“At other times she asked: ‘Why doesn't Our Lady show Hell to sinners? If they saw it, they would never sin again and wouldn't have to go there. You must tell Our Lady to show Hell to all those people. (She meant the people staying in Cova da Iria at the time of the Apparition). You will see that they will be converted!” Some days later, a little despondent, she asked: ‘Why didn't you tell Our Lady to show Hell to those people?’
“ ‘I forgot,’ I answered.
“ ‘I didn't remember, either,’ she said sadly.
“Sometimes, she also asked: ‘What sins are committed by those people to make them go to Hell?’
“ ‘I don't know. Perhaps not going to Mass on Sundays, stealing, saying wicked words, cursing, swearing.’
“ ‘What would it cost them to keep quiet and go to Mass! I am sorry for sinners! Oh, if I could only let them see Hell!”
"Sometimes she hugged me and said: “I am going to Heaven, but you have to stay here. If Our Lady lets you, tell everybody what Hell is like, so that they can escape it by not committing sins.’
“Other times, after thinking for a while, she said: ‘So many falling into Hell! So many in Hell!’
“To reassure her, I said: ‘Don't be afraid! You are going to Heaven!’
“ ‘Yes, I am going there,’ she said calmly. ‘But I also want everyone to go there!’”
A Child with a True Penitential Spirit
Lucia continues: “When, to mortify herself, she didn't want to eat, I said: ‘Jacinta, come on, eat now!’
“ ‘No, I am offering this sacrifice for sinners who eat too much!’
“When she was sick but was going to go to Mass anyway, I said: ‘Jacinta, don't! You aren't able! And it's not Sunday today!’
“ ‘It doesn't matter. I will go for sinners who don't even go on Sundays!
“If she happened to hear any loud cursing, she covered her face with her hands and said: ‘Oh my God! These people don't realize this kind of talk might send them to Hell! Forgive them, Jesus, and convert them. They certainly don't know they are offending God. Oh, what a pity, Jesus! I will pray for them!”
“And she repeated the prayer Our Lady had taught us: ‘O my Jesus, forgive us our sins! Save us from the fire of Hell’ etc.
What On Earth Are YOU Doing?
What on earth are you doing? Or, what are doing on earth? Hopefully, a little child, who is just starting out learning their catechism, could give us the answer to that question. Why are we here on earth? Why did God make us? God made us and put on this earth to KNOW Him, LOVE Him, SERVE Him in this world, so that we may be happy with Him in the next.
Another little child, Blessed Jacinta Marto of Fatima, goes beyond mere theory and fleshes-out that skeleton of a response with a real and practical proof and example of what it is to KNOW, LOVE and SERVE GOD!
We can make a little microcosm of the macrocosm (or a smaller model or the larger reality) and apply the above to Advent. What on earth are we doing during Advent? Why has God given us, through His Church, this season of Advent? Well, we can almost give the same answer as above: God gave us the season of Advent so that we might KNOW Jesus, LOVE Jesus and SERVE JESUS during Advent so that we might be truly and sincerely happy with Him throughout Christmas.
Christ is Coming—But Who the Heck Really Cares?
To the Israelites and Jews God gave all kinds of types, figures and prophecies of the “One Who is to come.” But as history teaches us, by the time Jesus was scheduled to come, most of the people had fallen into a religious superficiality, a spiritual blindness, and lukewarm indifference that left their minds, hearts, soul and strength so weak, that it could not recognize the Truth when it came; and, even though it was charmed and enchanted by the glamour of the shining miracles that Jesus performed, it was to them a sideshow, a superficial attraction, a titillation of the senses, much like Christmas is to most Catholics today. It’s mainly (but not entirely) about fun, presents, parties, visits, food, drink, entertainment, free-time off work and school—but of most, Jesus would say: “Their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8). To paraphrase the opening of the Gospel of St. John by putting the words in Jesus’ mouth, it would read:
“From the beginning I was the Word, and I was with God, and I was God. All things were made by Me: and without Me was made nothing that was made. In Me was life, and I was the light of men. And I shone in their darkness, and the darkness did not understand Me. I was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. I was in the world, and the world was made by Me, and the world knew Me not. I came unto My own, and My own received Me not. But as many as received Me, I gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in My name. And I was made flesh, and dwelt among you, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-14).
Many Start, But Never Finish
“Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). Many start on the road to Heaven, but most prefer the broad road that is easy and leads downhill to Hell; few seek and find the narrow, rocky, thorny path that climbs steeply to Heaven (Matthew 7:13-14). God wants all souls to be saved, but most will not be saved, because even though they want the goal (Heaven), they reject the means that get us to Heaven. They create their own ‘make-believe’ religion, where everything is sweet, cozy, comfortable and conformable to worldly values. They forget God’s condemnation of the world: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4).
To strive for Heaven, means to go AGAINST the current of the world, or the current trends of the world. The underlying goal of the world is to either destroy suffering or to flee suffering. The underlying principle of Christianity is to embrace the Cross and to carry the Cross. The two camps are diametrically opposed. There can be no peace or truce between them. As Holy Scripture says: “What concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever?” (2 Corinthians 6:15).
Preparing for Christmas or Christmess?
Unfortunately, it is Belial and the unbeliever who have set the tone for modern day trends to be followed during Advent and Christmas, and the believers like shy, shorn, silenced sheep meekly follow in their footsteps. Hence it is that Jesus and Mary are not loved as much as ‘Joe’ and ‘Sally’ who throw the Christmas party; those visits to the tabernacle “lose-out” in favor of visits to the modern tabernacles of TV’s, movie-theaters, and computer screens; so that possibilities to receive the Bread of Life more often, during the Christmas vacation time, are passed by in favor of enjoying earthly food and drink at some friend’s or relative’s home. “Black Friday” was symptomatic of the “Black Days” that are to come between now and Christmas—a materialistic ‘black-hole’ that sucks-in and negates all spirituality and desire for Christ. This ‘black-hole’ of materialism transforms Christmas into a “Christmess” more and more with each passing year.
Truly, the following words of Christ apply more to our day than any other age in the history of the Church: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall he find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). It has to be said that there is less and less Faith found on Earth with each passing year! While those, who still retain the Faith, find that their Faith has been contaminated more and more with each passing year. Each Christmas becomes more of a Christmess.
DAILY THOUGHTS FOR THE MONTH OF
THE HOLY SOULS IN PURGATORY
Article 14
Friday November 25th, 2022
Black Friday Can Leave a Black Mark on Your Soul!
Friday November 25th, 2022
Black Friday Can Leave a Black Mark on Your Soul!
Aping God
The devil likes to “ape” God, that is to say, he likes to imitate aspects of God and God’s Church. Tertullian once said: “Diabolos est Dei simia,” and that basically translates into “The devil is God’s monkey (or ape).” What Tertullian meant was that the devil likes nothing better than to ape God. Satanists and secret societies are pretty big on copying or aping certain elements of Catholic religious ceremonies—the Black Mass is one such blasphemous example. Satan is the “prince of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30) and he uses the material and physical aspects of this world in order to entrap mankind. Hence our materialism and sensuality. “Thanksgiving Day”, followed by “Black Friday”, followed by “Small Store Saturday” are three consecutive days that focus on fun and materialism. You could call them the “Anti-Sacred Triduum” of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
Black Friday
Talking of the word “black”, today happens to be what the world (at least in the USA world) calls “Black Friday” and it comes right after “Thanksgiving Day” which is always a Thursday. In recent years, most major retailers have opened very early and offered promotional sales to kick off the holiday shopping season, similar to Boxing Day (the day after Christmas Day) sales in many British Commonwealth nations. Many non-retail employees and schools have both Thanksgiving and the day after off, followed by a weekend, thereby increasing the number of potential shoppers.
For many years, it was common for retailers to open at 6:00 a.m. on the morning of Black Friday, but in the early 2000’s many had crept to 5:00 a.m. or even 4:00 a.m. This was taken to a new extreme in 2011, when several retailers (including Target, Kohl's, Macy's, Best Buy, and Bealls) opened at midnight for the first time. In 2012, Wal-Mart and several other retailers announced that they would open most of their stores at 8:00 p.m. In 2014, stores are even opening as early as 6:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. In 2022 certain limited Black Friday deals were being offered by Kohl’s on November 4th (three weeks or three Fridays before “Black Friday” on November 25th). Walmart jumped on board a few days later with its Black Friday deals on December 7th, Costco on December 14th, Lowes on the 17th, Best Buy, Macy’s and Target on the 20th. On and on it goes, the earlier and earlier it starts!
Black Friday has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005, although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate, have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time. In 2003, however, Black Friday actually was the busiest shopping day of the year, and it has retained that position every year since, with the exception of 2004. In 2013, approximately 141 million U.S. consumers shopped during Black Friday, spending a total of $57.4 billion (57 thousand million), with online sales reaching $1.2 billion (one thousand million).
Black Friday sales are projected to increase between 6% and 8% from 2021. The National Retail Federation (NRF) predicted holiday spending will be healthy in 2022, despite inflation. Holiday sales grew 13.5% in 2021 over 2020, shattering records. NRF predicted 2022 holiday retail sales will be between $942.6 billion and $960.4 billion.
70% of people are expected shop online for Black Friday. 64% of people are projected shop on Cyber Monday (Online Monday)―the Monday following Thanksgiving Day. This is a 42% increase from 2021. 42% of Black Friday purchases came through smartphones in 2021. Smartphones are used for more than purchasing as people check local inventories, compare prices, pay for their purchases with digital wallets and find retail locations.
Black Friday masquerades as the first day of traditional Christmas shopping, during which crowds of consumers are drawn to special offers by retailers. The thought sprang to mind that this has an uncanny resemblance to our Holy Thursday and Good Friday, except that it tends to go in the opposite direction. One could almost say that it is a parody. Here are the reasons that occurred in formulating this idea:
Comparisons
► The days are the same day: Holy Thursday and Good Friday / Thanksgiving Thursday and Black Friday.
► Holy Thursday is centered around the Last Supper; Thanksgiving in centered around the Thanksgiving meal.
► Good Friday and Black Friday are all about the world and materialism: Our Lord detaches Himself from the world and material things and dies to save souls; Black Friday is all about attaching oneself to materialism in order to save something too—money!
► Good Friday is frugal in its ceremony (the bare bones) and has somber black vestments; whereas Black Friday is all about opulence with its colorful glitz and glamor.
► The message of Good Friday is one of dying to this world—as Our Lord said: “I am not of this world!" (John 8:23). Whereas the message of Black Friday is one of living for the world and grabbing all one can of this world.
► Good Friday is a day of obligatory fasting; while Black Friday for many is almost a day of compulsory spending and indulging. It is common for prospective shoppers to camp out over the Thanksgiving holiday, even in cold freezing temperatures, in an effort to secure a place in front of the line and thus a better chance at getting desired items.
► Just as the Faith spread throughout the world, so too is Black Friday spreading throughout the world since really “taking-off” in the USA. Canada has started the Black Friday practice. Black Friday was the inspiration for the Mexican government and retailing industry to create an annual weekend of discounts and extended credit terms, El Buen Fin, meaning "the good weekend" in Spanish. Black Friday is also celebrated in the United Kingdom by major online retailers, and in 2014, more UK-based retailers have adopted the Black Friday marketing scheme than ever. In Panama Black Friday was first celebrated in 2012, as a move from the Government to attract local tourism to the countries capital city. In recent years, Black Friday has been promoted in Australia by online retailers. In 2012, after two years of disappointing results, several department stores in Brazil joined their foreign competitors in a successful Black Friday, which more than doubled the total revenue in comparison to the previous year. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Black Friday Sale is a joint sales initiative by hundreds of online vendors.
The Violence of Good Friday and Black Friday
We all know, of course, the extreme violence generated against Our Lord on Good Friday by the sinful passions of the Pharisees, Jews and Roman soldiers. Yet we also see those evil passions surge to the fore on Black Friday. Somehow money, things and greed combine to make a toxic poison for basic Christian charity―or even non-Christian charity and civility. In 2006, a man shopping at Best Buy was recorded on video assaulting another shopper in a dispute over an article that each wanted to buy. Unruly Wal-Mart shoppers at a store outside Columbus, Ohio, quickly flooded in the doors at opening, pinning several employees against stacks of merchandise. Nine shoppers in a California mall were injured, including an elderly woman who had to be taken to the hospital, when the crowd rushed to grab gift certificates that had been released from the ceiling. If only people had the same passion for attending Masses, receiving Holy Communion and going to Confession!
In 2008, a crowd of approximately 2,000 shoppers in Valley Stream, New York, waited outside for the 5:00 a.m. opening of the local Wal-Mart. [Wouldn’t it be a pleasant surprise for priests to find similar crowds outside their church on a morning, pining to get in!) As opening time approached, the crowd grew anxious and when the doors were opened the crowd pushed forward, breaking the door down, and trampling a 34-year old employee to death. The shoppers did not appear concerned with the victim's fate, expressing refusal to halt their stampede when other employees attempted to intervene and help the injured employee, complaining that they had been waiting in the cold and were not willing to wait any longer. Shoppers had begun assembling as early as 9:00 p.m. the night before [what a massive mortification for mammon, but for God, no mortification is shown!]. Even when police arrived and attempted to render aid to the injured man, shoppers continued to pour in, shoving and pushing the officers as they made their way into the store. Several other people incurred minor injuries, including a pregnant woman who had to be taken to the hospital. The incident may be the first case of a death occurring during Black Friday sales; according to the National Retail Federation, "We are not aware of any other circumstances where a retail employee has died working on the day after Thanksgiving."
On the same day, two people were fatally shot during an altercation at the Toys “R” Us store in Palm Desert, California.
During Black Friday 2010, a Madison, Wisconsin woman was arrested outside of a Toys “R” Us store after cutting in line, and threatening to shoot other shoppers who tried to object. A Toys for Tots volunteer in Georgia was stabbed by a shoplifter. An Indianapolis woman was arrested after causing a disturbance by arguing with other Wal-Mart shoppers. She had been asked to leave the store, but refused. A man in Buffalo, New York, was trampled when doors opened at a Target store and unruly shoppers rushed in, in an episode reminiscent of the deadly 2008 Wal-Mart stampede.
On Black Friday 2011, a woman at a Porter Ranch, California Wal-Mart used pepper spray on fellow shoppers, causing minor injuries to at least 10 people, who had been waiting hours for the store to open. It was later reported that the incident caused 20 injuries. The incident started as people waited in line for the newly discounted Xbox 360 (a video game console). A witness said a woman with two children in tow became upset with the way people were pushing in line. The witness said she pulled out pepper spray and sprayed the other people in line. Another account stated that the store had brought out a crate of discounted Xbox 360s, and a crowd had formed to wait for the unwrapping, when the woman began spraying people “in order to get an advantage,” according to the police. In an incident outside a Wal-Mart store in San Leandro, California, one man was wounded after being shot following Black Friday shopping at about 1:45 a.m.
On Black Friday 2012, two people were shot outside a Wal-Mart in Tallahassee, Florida during a dispute over a parking space.
On Black Friday in 2013, a person in Las Vegas who was carrying a big-screen TV home from a Target store on Thanksgiving was shot in the leg as he tried to wrestle the item back from a robber who had just stolen it from him at gunpoint. In Romeoville IL, a police officer shot a suspected shoplifter driving a car that was dragging a fellow officer at a Kohl's department store. The suspect and the dragged officer were treated for shoulder injuries. Three people were arrested.
Biggest Violence of All
But the biggest violence of committed on this Black Friday is the violence against the Faith. The whole spirit of Black Friday and what it represents, goes against the spirit of Christ and what He represents. Our Lord came to live in poverty, not in riches. He did not pamper His body by living in luxury, but lived a simple and mortified life: “Jesus saith to him: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests: but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20). He explicitly told us: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:19-21). “You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). “And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God .. Wherefore, Go out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing” (2 Corinthians 6:15-17).
Riches and Wealth Work Against Heaven
We see a clear example of this with the rich young man, who wanted to save his soul, yet also wanted to enjoy his possessions. Our Lord refused this two-facedness. Here is St. Matthew’s account: “And behold one came and said to him: ‘Good Master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?’ Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth, what is yet wanting to me?’ Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:16-24).
The Religion of Money and Goods
Many have argued that the new priesthood today consists of scientists, professors, teachers and merchants, and advertisers, who are organized as a part of a new secular tradition—they are a parody or an aping of the Church, with its pope, cardinals, bishops and priests. They deny (or relegate) the existence of the supernatural and ridicule it. For them, what is primary is the material world. The world is their god and their teacher, and they gratefully bow down and worship the world and all that the world can supply by means of material goods and their offshoot, or side-effect—money. These ‘priests’ of the secular religion of materialism, preach throughout their ‘churches’ of schools, colleges; universities, in the media and in the stores. The scientist, or man of natural knowledge, or entrepreneur has become a mini-god, falling into the same trap of Adam of Eve—who wanted to be like unto God. The devil, who in the words of Our Lord, is the prince of this world that they adore, will only too willingly aid and abet them in their folly. As materialists, they see themselves as material producers and consumers of goods, the lifestyle and economics of consumerist capitalism seems natural. Hedonism (the doctrine that pleasure is the highest good) also seems natural, because as a body that has certain needs and wants, what that idiot of a psychologist Freud rightly called modern man ― "desire-producing-machine," whereby life becomes primarily about the fulfillment of the desires of the body―the cult of the body.
Sts. Peter and Paul Prophesied This
“Know also this, that, in the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God: having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid” (2 Timothy 1-5).
“In the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts, saying:’ Where is His promise or His coming?’ … But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord delayeth not His promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance. But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence, and the elements shall be melted with heat, and the earth and the works which are in it, shall be burnt up” (2 Peter 3:3-10).
Not of the World
Speaking of the devil, Our Lord said: “The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he hath not any thing” (John 14:30). “And Jesus said to the Jews [today read that as pagan scientists, pagan academics, and the pagan entrepreneurs]: ‘You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!’” (John 8:23). Of His followers, He says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). “For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world [Black Friday]” (1 John 2:16). To which St. John adds: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4). This is why we are told: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
Besotted by the World
Today materialism has reached fever-pitch, even among so-called Catholics—who are really worshipers of mammon. As Our Lady said in her apparitions: “All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds ... The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God. Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the earth … People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin ... The secular Clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties. Lacking the divine compass, they will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain. How the Church will suffer during this dark night! … Woe to the Princes of the Church who think only of piling riches upon riches, to protect their authority and dominate with pride ... The priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity” (Our Lady of Good Success & Our Lady of La Salette).
An Insane Thirst and Attachment to the World
After the Last Supper, Our Lord went to the Garden of Gethsemane—after eating their Thanksgiving meal, many go to their Gardens of Getsomeforfree, the stores and shopping malls. Our Lord sweated blood thinking of His future passion and death for our sins—today’s souls sweat worryingly thinking about the deals and goodies that they might miss-out on. Our Lord said to His three Apostles: “Could you not watch one hour with Me?” ― Today we say: “Could you not shop one hour with me?” Our Lord was sold by Judas for thirty pieces of silver—today many sell themselves to the world and mammon, for a few paltry idols on a shelf. Our Lord was arrested, tied-up and taken captive—today many are tied-up and captivated by things of the world that have arrested their attention. On the Cross Our Lord said: “I thirst!”--thirsting for souls. The world thirsts too, but it is not for Christ nor the spiritual, but it is an unquenchable thirst for the things that this world has to offer. Our Lord was nearly stripped of all that He had and was attached to the Cross by nails—yet souls do not want to be divested of their possessions (they want even more of them) and they are so attached to them that we could say that “they are nailed to them.”
“Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4). This is why we are told: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
The devil likes to “ape” God, that is to say, he likes to imitate aspects of God and God’s Church. Tertullian once said: “Diabolos est Dei simia,” and that basically translates into “The devil is God’s monkey (or ape).” What Tertullian meant was that the devil likes nothing better than to ape God. Satanists and secret societies are pretty big on copying or aping certain elements of Catholic religious ceremonies—the Black Mass is one such blasphemous example. Satan is the “prince of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30) and he uses the material and physical aspects of this world in order to entrap mankind. Hence our materialism and sensuality. “Thanksgiving Day”, followed by “Black Friday”, followed by “Small Store Saturday” are three consecutive days that focus on fun and materialism. You could call them the “Anti-Sacred Triduum” of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
Black Friday
Talking of the word “black”, today happens to be what the world (at least in the USA world) calls “Black Friday” and it comes right after “Thanksgiving Day” which is always a Thursday. In recent years, most major retailers have opened very early and offered promotional sales to kick off the holiday shopping season, similar to Boxing Day (the day after Christmas Day) sales in many British Commonwealth nations. Many non-retail employees and schools have both Thanksgiving and the day after off, followed by a weekend, thereby increasing the number of potential shoppers.
For many years, it was common for retailers to open at 6:00 a.m. on the morning of Black Friday, but in the early 2000’s many had crept to 5:00 a.m. or even 4:00 a.m. This was taken to a new extreme in 2011, when several retailers (including Target, Kohl's, Macy's, Best Buy, and Bealls) opened at midnight for the first time. In 2012, Wal-Mart and several other retailers announced that they would open most of their stores at 8:00 p.m. In 2014, stores are even opening as early as 6:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. In 2022 certain limited Black Friday deals were being offered by Kohl’s on November 4th (three weeks or three Fridays before “Black Friday” on November 25th). Walmart jumped on board a few days later with its Black Friday deals on December 7th, Costco on December 14th, Lowes on the 17th, Best Buy, Macy’s and Target on the 20th. On and on it goes, the earlier and earlier it starts!
Black Friday has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005, although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate, have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time. In 2003, however, Black Friday actually was the busiest shopping day of the year, and it has retained that position every year since, with the exception of 2004. In 2013, approximately 141 million U.S. consumers shopped during Black Friday, spending a total of $57.4 billion (57 thousand million), with online sales reaching $1.2 billion (one thousand million).
Black Friday sales are projected to increase between 6% and 8% from 2021. The National Retail Federation (NRF) predicted holiday spending will be healthy in 2022, despite inflation. Holiday sales grew 13.5% in 2021 over 2020, shattering records. NRF predicted 2022 holiday retail sales will be between $942.6 billion and $960.4 billion.
70% of people are expected shop online for Black Friday. 64% of people are projected shop on Cyber Monday (Online Monday)―the Monday following Thanksgiving Day. This is a 42% increase from 2021. 42% of Black Friday purchases came through smartphones in 2021. Smartphones are used for more than purchasing as people check local inventories, compare prices, pay for their purchases with digital wallets and find retail locations.
Black Friday masquerades as the first day of traditional Christmas shopping, during which crowds of consumers are drawn to special offers by retailers. The thought sprang to mind that this has an uncanny resemblance to our Holy Thursday and Good Friday, except that it tends to go in the opposite direction. One could almost say that it is a parody. Here are the reasons that occurred in formulating this idea:
Comparisons
► The days are the same day: Holy Thursday and Good Friday / Thanksgiving Thursday and Black Friday.
► Holy Thursday is centered around the Last Supper; Thanksgiving in centered around the Thanksgiving meal.
► Good Friday and Black Friday are all about the world and materialism: Our Lord detaches Himself from the world and material things and dies to save souls; Black Friday is all about attaching oneself to materialism in order to save something too—money!
► Good Friday is frugal in its ceremony (the bare bones) and has somber black vestments; whereas Black Friday is all about opulence with its colorful glitz and glamor.
► The message of Good Friday is one of dying to this world—as Our Lord said: “I am not of this world!" (John 8:23). Whereas the message of Black Friday is one of living for the world and grabbing all one can of this world.
► Good Friday is a day of obligatory fasting; while Black Friday for many is almost a day of compulsory spending and indulging. It is common for prospective shoppers to camp out over the Thanksgiving holiday, even in cold freezing temperatures, in an effort to secure a place in front of the line and thus a better chance at getting desired items.
► Just as the Faith spread throughout the world, so too is Black Friday spreading throughout the world since really “taking-off” in the USA. Canada has started the Black Friday practice. Black Friday was the inspiration for the Mexican government and retailing industry to create an annual weekend of discounts and extended credit terms, El Buen Fin, meaning "the good weekend" in Spanish. Black Friday is also celebrated in the United Kingdom by major online retailers, and in 2014, more UK-based retailers have adopted the Black Friday marketing scheme than ever. In Panama Black Friday was first celebrated in 2012, as a move from the Government to attract local tourism to the countries capital city. In recent years, Black Friday has been promoted in Australia by online retailers. In 2012, after two years of disappointing results, several department stores in Brazil joined their foreign competitors in a successful Black Friday, which more than doubled the total revenue in comparison to the previous year. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Black Friday Sale is a joint sales initiative by hundreds of online vendors.
The Violence of Good Friday and Black Friday
We all know, of course, the extreme violence generated against Our Lord on Good Friday by the sinful passions of the Pharisees, Jews and Roman soldiers. Yet we also see those evil passions surge to the fore on Black Friday. Somehow money, things and greed combine to make a toxic poison for basic Christian charity―or even non-Christian charity and civility. In 2006, a man shopping at Best Buy was recorded on video assaulting another shopper in a dispute over an article that each wanted to buy. Unruly Wal-Mart shoppers at a store outside Columbus, Ohio, quickly flooded in the doors at opening, pinning several employees against stacks of merchandise. Nine shoppers in a California mall were injured, including an elderly woman who had to be taken to the hospital, when the crowd rushed to grab gift certificates that had been released from the ceiling. If only people had the same passion for attending Masses, receiving Holy Communion and going to Confession!
In 2008, a crowd of approximately 2,000 shoppers in Valley Stream, New York, waited outside for the 5:00 a.m. opening of the local Wal-Mart. [Wouldn’t it be a pleasant surprise for priests to find similar crowds outside their church on a morning, pining to get in!) As opening time approached, the crowd grew anxious and when the doors were opened the crowd pushed forward, breaking the door down, and trampling a 34-year old employee to death. The shoppers did not appear concerned with the victim's fate, expressing refusal to halt their stampede when other employees attempted to intervene and help the injured employee, complaining that they had been waiting in the cold and were not willing to wait any longer. Shoppers had begun assembling as early as 9:00 p.m. the night before [what a massive mortification for mammon, but for God, no mortification is shown!]. Even when police arrived and attempted to render aid to the injured man, shoppers continued to pour in, shoving and pushing the officers as they made their way into the store. Several other people incurred minor injuries, including a pregnant woman who had to be taken to the hospital. The incident may be the first case of a death occurring during Black Friday sales; according to the National Retail Federation, "We are not aware of any other circumstances where a retail employee has died working on the day after Thanksgiving."
On the same day, two people were fatally shot during an altercation at the Toys “R” Us store in Palm Desert, California.
During Black Friday 2010, a Madison, Wisconsin woman was arrested outside of a Toys “R” Us store after cutting in line, and threatening to shoot other shoppers who tried to object. A Toys for Tots volunteer in Georgia was stabbed by a shoplifter. An Indianapolis woman was arrested after causing a disturbance by arguing with other Wal-Mart shoppers. She had been asked to leave the store, but refused. A man in Buffalo, New York, was trampled when doors opened at a Target store and unruly shoppers rushed in, in an episode reminiscent of the deadly 2008 Wal-Mart stampede.
On Black Friday 2011, a woman at a Porter Ranch, California Wal-Mart used pepper spray on fellow shoppers, causing minor injuries to at least 10 people, who had been waiting hours for the store to open. It was later reported that the incident caused 20 injuries. The incident started as people waited in line for the newly discounted Xbox 360 (a video game console). A witness said a woman with two children in tow became upset with the way people were pushing in line. The witness said she pulled out pepper spray and sprayed the other people in line. Another account stated that the store had brought out a crate of discounted Xbox 360s, and a crowd had formed to wait for the unwrapping, when the woman began spraying people “in order to get an advantage,” according to the police. In an incident outside a Wal-Mart store in San Leandro, California, one man was wounded after being shot following Black Friday shopping at about 1:45 a.m.
On Black Friday 2012, two people were shot outside a Wal-Mart in Tallahassee, Florida during a dispute over a parking space.
On Black Friday in 2013, a person in Las Vegas who was carrying a big-screen TV home from a Target store on Thanksgiving was shot in the leg as he tried to wrestle the item back from a robber who had just stolen it from him at gunpoint. In Romeoville IL, a police officer shot a suspected shoplifter driving a car that was dragging a fellow officer at a Kohl's department store. The suspect and the dragged officer were treated for shoulder injuries. Three people were arrested.
Biggest Violence of All
But the biggest violence of committed on this Black Friday is the violence against the Faith. The whole spirit of Black Friday and what it represents, goes against the spirit of Christ and what He represents. Our Lord came to live in poverty, not in riches. He did not pamper His body by living in luxury, but lived a simple and mortified life: “Jesus saith to him: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests: but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20). He explicitly told us: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:19-21). “You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). “And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God .. Wherefore, Go out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing” (2 Corinthians 6:15-17).
Riches and Wealth Work Against Heaven
We see a clear example of this with the rich young man, who wanted to save his soul, yet also wanted to enjoy his possessions. Our Lord refused this two-facedness. Here is St. Matthew’s account: “And behold one came and said to him: ‘Good Master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?’ Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth, what is yet wanting to me?’ Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:16-24).
The Religion of Money and Goods
Many have argued that the new priesthood today consists of scientists, professors, teachers and merchants, and advertisers, who are organized as a part of a new secular tradition—they are a parody or an aping of the Church, with its pope, cardinals, bishops and priests. They deny (or relegate) the existence of the supernatural and ridicule it. For them, what is primary is the material world. The world is their god and their teacher, and they gratefully bow down and worship the world and all that the world can supply by means of material goods and their offshoot, or side-effect—money. These ‘priests’ of the secular religion of materialism, preach throughout their ‘churches’ of schools, colleges; universities, in the media and in the stores. The scientist, or man of natural knowledge, or entrepreneur has become a mini-god, falling into the same trap of Adam of Eve—who wanted to be like unto God. The devil, who in the words of Our Lord, is the prince of this world that they adore, will only too willingly aid and abet them in their folly. As materialists, they see themselves as material producers and consumers of goods, the lifestyle and economics of consumerist capitalism seems natural. Hedonism (the doctrine that pleasure is the highest good) also seems natural, because as a body that has certain needs and wants, what that idiot of a psychologist Freud rightly called modern man ― "desire-producing-machine," whereby life becomes primarily about the fulfillment of the desires of the body―the cult of the body.
Sts. Peter and Paul Prophesied This
“Know also this, that, in the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God: having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid” (2 Timothy 1-5).
“In the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts, saying:’ Where is His promise or His coming?’ … But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord delayeth not His promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance. But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence, and the elements shall be melted with heat, and the earth and the works which are in it, shall be burnt up” (2 Peter 3:3-10).
Not of the World
Speaking of the devil, Our Lord said: “The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he hath not any thing” (John 14:30). “And Jesus said to the Jews [today read that as pagan scientists, pagan academics, and the pagan entrepreneurs]: ‘You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world!’” (John 8:23). Of His followers, He says: “They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:16). “For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world [Black Friday]” (1 John 2:16). To which St. John adds: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4). This is why we are told: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
Besotted by the World
Today materialism has reached fever-pitch, even among so-called Catholics—who are really worshipers of mammon. As Our Lady said in her apparitions: “All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds ... The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God. Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the earth … People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin ... The secular Clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties. Lacking the divine compass, they will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain. How the Church will suffer during this dark night! … Woe to the Princes of the Church who think only of piling riches upon riches, to protect their authority and dominate with pride ... The priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity” (Our Lady of Good Success & Our Lady of La Salette).
An Insane Thirst and Attachment to the World
After the Last Supper, Our Lord went to the Garden of Gethsemane—after eating their Thanksgiving meal, many go to their Gardens of Getsomeforfree, the stores and shopping malls. Our Lord sweated blood thinking of His future passion and death for our sins—today’s souls sweat worryingly thinking about the deals and goodies that they might miss-out on. Our Lord said to His three Apostles: “Could you not watch one hour with Me?” ― Today we say: “Could you not shop one hour with me?” Our Lord was sold by Judas for thirty pieces of silver—today many sell themselves to the world and mammon, for a few paltry idols on a shelf. Our Lord was arrested, tied-up and taken captive—today many are tied-up and captivated by things of the world that have arrested their attention. On the Cross Our Lord said: “I thirst!”--thirsting for souls. The world thirsts too, but it is not for Christ nor the spiritual, but it is an unquenchable thirst for the things that this world has to offer. Our Lord was nearly stripped of all that He had and was attached to the Cross by nails—yet souls do not want to be divested of their possessions (they want even more of them) and they are so attached to them that we could say that “they are nailed to them.”
“Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4). This is why we are told: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
Article 13
Thursday November 24th, 2022
Thanksgiving Day! Thank Who? Thank You? Who Will You Thank?
Thursday November 24th, 2022
Thanksgiving Day! Thank Who? Thank You? Who Will You Thank?
Putting You to Sleep
If the Thanksgiving dinner hasn’t put you to sleep, then we shall do the best we can with the first part of this article to do what your Thanksgiving dinner failed to do. We will state the obvious; we will cover ground you have covered hundreds of times before; we will tell you what you already know! Or perhaps you don’t know, or don’t know all there is to know. So before we turn to God, let’s turn to history.
Will the First Thanksgiving Please Step Forward!
In the USA, the secular holiday of “Thanksgiving” is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November (it used to be on the last Thursday of November). This recalls the fact that in 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is today thought to be the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.
The First Thanksgiving was Catholic
However, the real honor of the first Thanksgiving goes to the city of St. Augustine, Florida, which is the first and oldest city of present day United States. The Spanish Captain General Pedro Menendez de Aviles and his fleet of soldiers and colonists – accompanied by priests – landed on the coast of Florida on the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, September 8th, 1565 and the events that followed qualify it as the first official Thanksgiving Day in present day USA. Why? Because…
► It was the first permanent European settlement in North America. There had been other attempts by the Spanish to establish colonies in Florida and Texas, but all were short-lived.
► In an official ceremony Don Pedro Menendez came ashore amid the sounding of trumpets, artillery salutes and the firing of cannons to claim the land for King Philip II and Spain. One of the priests, Fr. Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales, who had gone ashore the previous day, advanced to meet him, chanting the Te Deum Laudamus and carrying a Cross, which Menendez and those with him reverently kissed. Then the 500 soldiers, 200 sailors and 100 families and artisans, along with the Timucuan Indians from the nearby village of Seloy, gathered at a makeshift altar, and a Mass in honor of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary was said.
► The Mass was followed by a feast shared by the Spanish and the Timucuan Indians. The Timucuans brought wild turkey, venison, oysters and giant clams, as well as maize, beans, squash, nuts and fruits. The Spaniards contribution wascocido―a stew made with pork, garbanzo beans and onions, along with biscuits, olive oil and red wine.
In his well-researched book on the State of Florida titled Cross in the Sand, Dr. Michael Gannon duly affirmed that this Mass and feast was “the first community act of religion and thanksgiving in the first permanent European settlement in the land.”
The Second Thanksgiving was also Catholic
The second Thanksgiving was in Texas. On January 26th, 1598, a Spanish expedition set out from Mexico with the aim of founding a new kingdom. Three months later, after a long, dangerous trek forging a new trail northward, the now famous El Camino Real [The Royal Road], it crossed the Rio Grande and set up camp south of present day El Paso, Texas. On April 30th, a Mass of thanksgiving was said, and the valiant leader of the expedition, Don Juan de Oñate, took formal possession of the new land, called New Mexico, in the name of the Heavenly Lord, God Almighty, and the earthly lord King Philip II.
Then, after the Mass, the Franciscan priests blessed the food on tables abundant with fish, ducks and geese, and the 600-strong expedition of soldiers and colonists feasted. The celebration ended with a play enacting scenes of the native Indians hearing the first words of the Catholic Faith and receiving the Sacrament of Baptism.
The First Shall Be Last…
What is thought to be the first Thanksgiving, is therefore not quite so, but crosses the finishing-line a good 56 years after the first Thanksgiving in Florida, and 23 years after the Texan Thanksgiving. It came about after a small ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth in September of 1620, England, carrying 102 passengers — an assortment of religious separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their Faith and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the New World.
After a treacherous and uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days, they dropped anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination at the mouth of the Hudson River. One month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth.
Throughout that first brutal winter, most of the colonists remained on board the ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see the spring. In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from an Abenaki Indian who greeted them in English.
Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery before escaping to London and returning to his homeland on an exploratory expedition. Squanto taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants.
In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies. Now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving”— the festival lasted for three days. Pilgrims held their second Thanksgiving celebration in 1623 to mark the end of a long drought that had threatened that year’s harvest.
During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress designated one or more days of thanksgiving a year, and in 1789 George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the national government of the United States. His successors John Adams and James Madison also designated days of thanks during their presidencies.
In 1817, New York became the first of several states to officially adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday; each celebrated it on a different day, however, and the American South remained largely unfamiliar with the tradition. In 1827, a campaign was launched to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. This campaign lasted 36 years until Abraham Lincoln finally responded to the request in 1863. He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November, and it was celebrated on that day every year until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week, in an attempt to spur retail sales during the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s plan, known derisively as “Franksgiving”, was met with passionate opposition, and in 1941 the president reluctantly signed a bill making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.
Thanks be to God!
Holy Scripture is full of examples of the need and necessity of giving thanks to God, because, as Jesus says, with Him, we can do nothing: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Jesus, Himself, often gave thanks to God. We often see Him give thanks to God before performing a miracle. In the multiplication of loaves and fishes, Jesus, “taking the seven loaves and the fishes, and giving thanks, He broke, and gave to His disciples” (Matthew 15:36). Before raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus gives thanks to God: “They took therefore the stone away. And Jesus lifting up His eyes said: ‘Father, I give Thee thanks that Thou hast heard Me!’ … When he had said these things, he cried with a loud voice: ‘Lazarus, come forth!’” (John 11:41-43). Before the miracle of transubstantiation at the Last Supper, he also gives thanks to God: “And taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave to them.” (Matthew 26:27).
“Give thanks whilst thou art living, whilst thou art alive and in health thou shalt give thanks, and shalt praise God, and shalt glory in His mercies” (Ecclesiasticus 17:27). Who out there needs no mercy? Who out there has not sinned? Who out there has not profited from the mercies of God? Who out there takes the mercies of God for granted without returning to Him to give profuse thanks? “O give thanks to the Lord, because He is good: because His mercy endureth for ever and ever!” (Daniel 3:89).
Thankful Leper Accepted
This reminds us of the encounter Our Lord had with the Ten Lepers: “And it came to pass, as Jesus was going to Jerusalem, He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as He entered into a certain town, there met Him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off; and lifted up their voice, saying: ‘Jesus, master, have mercy on us!’ Whom when He saw, He said: ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests!’ And it came to pass, as they went, they were made clean. And one of them, when he saw that he was made clean, went back, with a loud voice glorifying God. And he fell on his face before His feet, giving thanks: and this was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering, said, ‘Were not ten made clean? And where are the nine? There is no one found to return and give glory to God, but this stranger!’” (Luke 17:11-18).
The “stranger” was a Samaritan, and the Samaritans were enemies of the Jews. Thus Our Lord performs a miracle for an “enemy” and He receives the thanks of an “enemy.” We have been enemies of God many a time through our sins and He has likewise shown mercy to us; but have we returned like the leper to give profuse thanks?
Thankful Pharisee Rejected
Yet not all thanksgiving is acceptable to God. We see this in the case of the Pharisee and the Publican, a parable wherein Our Lord rejected a form of thanksgiving: “Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: ‘O God, I give Thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican! I fast twice in a week; I give tithes of all that I possess!’ And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast, saying: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other: because everyone that exalts himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbles himself, shall be exalted” (Luke 18:11-14).
The Publicans were also “enemies” of the Jews. In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees were considered among the most pious and religious of all the believers in God. On the other hand, the publicans were branded as unfaithful and unjust extortionists. They were seen as the mafia of their day. You can see why, then, that Jesus’ conclusion of this parable literally stunned His audience. In the parable, the thanksgiving of the most pious and religious of all the believers in God was rejected.
Humble Thanks is Required
We see from this that humility must infuse our thanksgiving. The Leper prostrates himself flat on his face, a humble posture—whereas the Pharisee stand up proudly and speaks out proudly. As Holy Scripture says: “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord: though hand should be joined to hand, he is not innocent” (Proverbs 16:5) and Our Lady says in her Magnificat that God “hath regarded the humility of His handmaid” and “hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble” (Luke 1:48-52).
Perpetual Thanks in All Things
In the Preface of the Mass we are told that it is right and fitting to give thanks to God always and everywhere, at all times and in all places. Why? Because without Him, we can do nothing! (John 15:5). St. Paul says: “I give thanks to my God always!” (1 Corinthians 1:4). Do we give thanks always and everywhere, at all times and in all places? We are very quick to complain always and everywhere, at all times and in all places—but, as for giving thanks to God, we are forgetful, lazy or even ungrateful! “In the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, puffed up, proud, ungrateful, unmerciful, without affection, without kindness, and lovers of pleasures more than of God! Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof! (2 Timothy 3:1-5). “It should not be so!” (Genesis 48:18). “Give thanks in all things―for this is the will of God” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). “Give thanks always for all things, to God and the Father, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ!” (Ephesians 5:20). “We Thy people, and the sheep of Thy pasture, will give thanks to Thee for ever!” (Psalm 78:13). Tobias “continued immoveable in the fear of God, giving thanks to God all the days of his life” (Tobias 2:14). “Therefore will I give thanks to Thee, O Lord!” (2 Kings 22:50). “Now, therefore, our God, we give thanks to Thee!” (1 Paralipomenon 29:13).
Let us thank Him before and after our meals: “And when they had adored God, and given Him thanks, they sat down together” (Tobias 11:12). Of course we thank Him for all the good things—but what about the bad things, the misfortunes, the illnesses, the failures? Let us thank Him in all adversity like Job, who continued to thank and bless God in sickness and poverty, not just in health and prosperity, saying: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).
► “In all things give thanks.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
► “We ought always to give thanks to God” (2 Thessalonians 1:3)
► “In everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6)
► “Giving thanks always for all things in the House of the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:18-20)
► “One who does not feel grateful will abandon his rescuer.” (Ecclesiasticus 29:17)
Let’s Get This Straight!
For a Catholic, every day is—in a sense—“Thanksgiving Day.” The word “Eucharistia” is Greek for “thanksgiving”! The Holy Eucharist—or the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—is celebrated thousands of times each day throughout the world. The Holy Eucharist is God’s gift to man—in fact the greatest Gift that God could give man—because it is both God Himself, and also the Sacrifice of God for our sins and our salvation! The very gift of the Eucharist and the receiving of the Eucharist, should lead to a thanksgiving for the Eucharist—as is implied by its very name: “Holy Eucharist” meaning “Holy Thanksgiving”!
Our Lord and Thanksgiving
Jesus frequently gave us the example of thanksgiving throughout His life—that is to say, a thanksgiving to God His Father.
As a prefiguration of the Holy Eucharist, Our Lord performed, several times, the miracle of the multiplication of loaves—and we notice that on these occasions He always gave thanks to God before performing the miracle. “And taking the seven loaves and the fishes, and giving thanks, He broke, and gave to His disciples, and the disciples to the people” (Matthew 15:36). “And taking the seven loaves, giving thanks, He broke, and gave to His disciples for to set before them; and they set them before the people” (Mark 8:6). “And Jesus took the loaves: and when He had given thanks, He distributed to them that were set down” (John 6:11).
When Our Lord performed the stupendous miracle of raising Lazarus, after commanding that the stone of the tomb be rolled away and before commanding Lazarus to arise and come forth, Our Lord again first gives thanks to God: “They took therefore the stone away. And Jesus, lifting up His eyes, said: ‘Father, I give Thee thanks that Thou hast heard Me!’” (John 11:41).
At the Last Supper, when He instituted the Holy Eucharist (Holy Thanksgiving), He is reported by the Evangelists as once again giving thanks to God. “And taking bread, He gave thanks, and broke; and gave to them, saying: ‘This is My body, which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of Me!’” (Luke 22:19). “And having taken the chalice, He gave thanks, and said: ‘Take, and divide it among you!’” (Luke 22:17). “And taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: ‘Drink ye all of this!’” (Matthew 26:27). “And having taken the chalice, giving thanks, He gave it to them. And they all drank of it” (Mark 14:23).
Our Lord Condemns Ingratitude
The chief and most striking incident whereby Our Lord condemned in gratitude was His encounter with the Ten Lepers, where only one was found to come back and give thanks. “And as Jesus entered into a certain town, there met Him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off; and lifted up their voice, saying: ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ To whom, when He saw, He said: ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests!’ And it came to pass, as they went, they were made clean. And one of them, when he saw that he was made clean, went back, with a loud voice glorifying God. And he fell on his face before Jesus’ feet, giving thanks: and this was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering, said, ‘Were not ten made clean? And where are the nine? There is no one found to return and give glory [and thanks] to God, but this stranger!’” (Luke 17:12-18).
Today, it is not even one-in-ten that gives the thanks to God that ought to be given! It might not even be one-in-a-hundred-thousand! Many may think they give thanks, but, as you will read further below, it is mere lip service thanks, but not heart service thanks.
An Ungrateful Time, an Age of Ingratitude
Ingratitude has always been around, but St. Paul makes especial mention of it as a trait that will be seen in the End Times in particular: “Know also this, that, in the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God! Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid!” (2 Timothy 3:1-5). These kinds of persons have simply forgotten Our Lord’s incontestable truth: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). They have decided that they will do many things without Him, they will “do their own thing” and He will not be a part of it.
In these last days, Our Lady also asks for reparation for ungrateful sinners. Our Lady of Good Success speaks of “the grandeur of this restoring and life-giving Sacrament of Penance, so forgotten and even scorned by ungrateful men, who in their foolish madness, do not realize that it is the only sure means of salvation after one has lost his baptismal innocence” and how “the Host, is exposed to the sacrilegious profanations of His ungrateful sons.”
At Fatima, the Angel took the Chalice and Host. He gave Lucia the Sacred Host on the tongue. Then while giving the Precious Blood from the Chalice to Francisco and Jacinta, he said: “Eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Make reparation for their crimes and console your God.”
Some years after the 1917 Fatima apparitions, on Thursday, December 10th, 1925, the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by the Child Jesus, appeared to Lucia in her cell. Lucia recounted that Mary showed her a Heart encircled by thorns in her hand. The Child Jesus spoke first, saying: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.” Then Mary said: “My daughter, look at my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, try to console me.”
Some 43 years later, Our Lady said at Akita (August 1973): “Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair by their suffering and their poverty for the sinners and the ungrateful.”
Give Thanks Always, Everywhere and for Everything!
This is why St. Paul commands that we should be “giving thanks always for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father” (Ephesians 5:20). Again, elsewhere, he writes that should be “giving thanks to God the Father, who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:12) and that “All whatsoever you do in word or in work, do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him!” (Colossians 3:17).
The Eucharistic Sacrifice echoes these sentiments in every single one of its Prefaces, that precede the Canon of the Mass: “…we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks to thee, O Holy Lord, Father Almighty, eternal God, through Christ, our Lord.”
This means giving thanks, not only for the pleasant things in life, but also the unpleasant. Not only for things that God gives, but also when God takes away things—like health, wealth, possessions, benefits, jobs, friends, etc. Speaking of jobs, let us remind ourselves of Job’s famous words when God had taken from him his health, his wealth, his children and his livestock: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither! The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away! As it hath pleased the Lord so is it done! Blessed be the name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21).
Gratitude or Thankfulness is Not an Option!
We all remember being forcefully told by our parents to say “Thank you!” to someone who had just given us something or helped us some way! Even though we begrudgingly and sourly squeezed those words from our mouth, it cannot be said that we truly thankful or genuinely grateful—it was more a case of a “Shotgun-Thank-You!” whereby a metaphorical ‘gun’ was held to our head (a slap or a whack) to ‘encourage’ us to give thanks. But, as St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “thanksgiving is less thankful when compelled” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 106, art. 1). He goes on to say that “thankfulness a special part of justice”—meaning that it is owed in justice—and that “when there is greater favor on the part of the giver, greater thanks are due on the part of the recipient.”
In commenting upon the words of St. Paul, “in all things give thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:18), St. Thomas Aquinas points out that our greatest thanks are due to God, for He is the first principle or ultimate cause of all our goods. Our Lord laid the foundation for this truth with His own words, when He said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
Gratitude for Mercy!
Talking of ‘great gifts’—what greater gift is there than mercy? Holy Scripture tells us: “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all: and His tender mercies are over all his works!” (Psalm 144:8-9). God’s mercy is above all His works! What kind of gratitude should not be shown to someone who gives us the greatest gift possible? St. Thomas Aquinas says: “The penitent is more bound to give thanks than the innocent, because what he receives from God is more gratuitously given: since, whereas he was deserving of punishment, he has received grace” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 106, art. 2).
How much mercy have you received in your life? How much thanks is due from you in justice, in gratitude for the greatest gift of God—given time and time again? The 1st century Roman philosopher, Seneca, said that “Among all our many and great vices, none is as common as ingratitude … and the most ungrateful of all is the man who has forgotten a benefit.”
Blind to the Benefits of God!
How blind, indifferent, presumptuous and abusive we are to our greatest benefactor—the Good Lord. The One who gets thanked the least and gets taken for granted the most, is the Good Lord. Every day He gives us blessings beyond all counting through His Divine Providence. There is no provider like God. We breathe His air; we drink His water; we need His light and sunshine; we cultivate His soil; we eat His fruits and crops; we eat His fish and animals; we make medicines from his creation; we clothe ourselves with His materials; we depend upon His seasons; we build our homes with his materials; we depend upon His protection against animals, men and devils; it is He that gives us life by creating our soul; it is He that gives us health by His protective Providence; it is He who calls time, and brings death and final judgment.
Most of all He gave His only Son, Who remains living amongst us in the Blessed Sacrament. He gave us a share in His life through the sanctifying grace received at Baptism. He increased that supernatural life by the coming of his Holy Spirit, with His Gifts, into our souls at Confirmation. He has given us the treasure of the Sacrifice of the Mass—the greatest action that can possible take place anywhere in the world on any given day. To crown all that, He offers us eternal joys in Heaven. And how we take Him for granted! How we fail to say “thank you” to the One from Whom all good gifts come! It is a mystery, a tragedy, an injustice, a blindness, a neglect that should be punished; that has to be punished; and one that will be punished.
We should be spending the whole day, counting our blessings and thanking the One Who grants those blessings—the Almighty, All-Merciful, All-Providing God. As the Preface of the Mass so truly says: ”…we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks to thee, O Holy Lord, Father Almighty, eternal God, through Christ, our Lord.”
God is Owed Gratitude and Love!
St. Thomas points out that “a man owes love to his benefactor, just as he owes him gratitude” and that “to whom more is forgiven, he loveth more” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 106, art. 2). And St. John tells us: “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us!” (1 John 1:10). Therefore, we owe God much gratitude and great love, because “the Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all: and His tender mercies are over all his works!” (Psalm 144:8-9).
Nobody Excused From Thanksgiving—Neither Sinner, nor Just
“Now a favor is something bestowed freely without obligation [“gratis”]. Therefore, on the part of the giver, the favor may be greater on two counts. First, it may be great owing to the quantity of the thing given—and in this way the innocent person owes greater thanksgiving, because he receives a greater gift from God, also, absolutely speaking, a more continuous gift, other things being equal. Secondly, a favor may be said to be greater, because it is given more gratuitously; and in this sense the penitent is more bound to give thanks than the innocent, because what he receives from God is more gratuitously given—since, whereas the sinner was deserving of punishment, he has received grace. Wherefore, although the gift bestowed on the innocent is, considered absolutely, greater, yet the gift bestowed on the penitent is greater in relation to him—just as a small gift, given to a poor man, is greater to the poor man, than a great gift is to a rich man” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 106, art. 2).
Degree of Thankfulness
The degree of thankfulness in the recipient should correspond to the degree of favor in the giver — when there is greater favor on the part of the giver, greater thanks are due on the part of the recipient. In judging the magnitude of a favor two things are to be considered, namely, the affection of the heart and the gift itself.
St. Thomas quotes Seneca, who says “We are sometimes under a greater obligation to one who has given little with a large heart, and has bestowed a small favor, yet willingly.”
Holy Scripture bears this out, when Our Lord says: “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living.”
The more we thank God, the more inclined He is to give us more—we operate the same way, don’t we? Let us then think of the incredible mercies—and other graces too—that God has bestowed upon us, and let these thoughts trigger profuse sentiments of thanksgiving within us!
Two Pillars of Thanksgiving!
Have you ever read about the Two Pillars in St. John Bosco’s vision (click here)? One of the chief things we learn from those Two Pillars is thanksgiving! The word “Eucharistia” is Greek for “thanksgiving”! The very gift of the Eucharist and the receiving of the Eucharist, should lead to a thanksgiving for the Eucharist—as is implied by its very name: “Holy Eucharist” meaning “Holy Thanksgiving”!
Under the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the other pillar, was the inscription “Auxilium Christianorum” which means “Help of Christians”. Again, the “Help of Christians” should lead to a “Thanksgiving by Christians” for that help.
Finally, the very outcome of the battle seen by St. John Bosco, should again lead to a thanksgiving for the victory when all seemed lost. As was stated above, the more a person give thanks in gratitude, the more God seems to give; to those who thank but little, little is given.
Nobody was as grateful to God as Our Lady, and nobody received more from God than Our Lady. Her eyes were fully open to all the wonderful things God did for her, and she thanked Him for it—her canticle, the Magnificat, is an indication of this attitude: “My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is His Name. He hath shown might in His arm: He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away” (Luke 1:46-53).
Oh if we could learn how to thank God like He deserves to be thanked! Yet we fail to see that He “hath done great things to me” – for we take those “great things” for granted!
Our Lady Speaks on Gratitude
How many times do you thank God daily? With what fervor and sincerity of heart do you thank Him? How many different things do you thank Him for? If you can count the number of times you thank Him on both hands and both sets of toes (20 for the normal person) then you are a miserly miser! If you thank Him as many times as you have hairs on your head (bald men excluded), then you are still a miser! Our Lady says to the Venerable Mary of Agreda:
Our Lady’s Own Gratitude
“Every day, at beginning of dawn, I prostrated myself in the presence of the Most High and gave Him thanks and praise for his immutable Being, his infinite perfections, and for having created me out of nothing; acknowledging myself as His creature and the work of His hands, I blessed Him and adored Him, giving Him honor, magnificence and Divinity, as the supreme Lord and Creator of myself and of all that exists. I raised up my spirit to place it into His hands, offering myself with profound humility and resignation to Him and asking Him to dispose of me according to His will during that day and during all the days of my life, and to teach me to fulfill whatever would be to His greater pleasure. This I repeated many times during the external works of the day …
“I gave thanks to the Author of all things, acknowledging His works as benefits freely bestowed upon me, and not as dues, which He owed to me. Therefore, when anything was wanting of the necessaries of life, I remained in peace and contentedness and deemed it all perfectly reasonable and proper in my regard, since I had merited none of the gifts and could justly be deprived of all of them” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Our Lady Complains of Our Ingratitude
“Ponder upon the small return given by mortals for the love of my Son and Lord, and how forgetful of thanks even His faithful continue to be ... Let mortals inquire what treasures and riches they did possess before they came into life? What services had they rendered unto God, in order to merit them? And if out of nothing there cannot arise anything, and if they could not merit the being which they have received, what obligation is there on the part of God to preserve, out of justice, what was given to them entirely gratuitously?
“That God created man, was of no benefit to Himself; but to man it was a benefit, and one as great as the being given to him, and as high as the object for which it was given. And if, in His creation, man becomes indebted so much, that he never can pay his debt, tell me, what right can he invoke at present for his preservation? Has he not received his being without merit and many times forfeited it? What an execrable disorder and what a despicable blindness of mortals is this? For that, which the Lord gives them gratuitously, they do not thank Him, or even give Him acknowledgment, and for that which He denies them justly, and sometimes most mercifully, they are restless and proudly desirous, and they try to procure it by unjust and forbidden means, throwing themselves into the very destruction which flies from them” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
He Who Receives More Should Be More Grateful
“He that received more ought to consider himself more needy, since his debt becomes so much the greater. All should humiliate themselves since of themselves they are nothing, nor can they do anything or possess ought. On this account they, that are raised up by the hand of the Almighty, should humiliate themselves as mere dust. For, left to themselves and to their nothingness and unworthiness, they should esteem themselves so much the more indebted and bound to thankfulness, for that which, by themselves, they can never repay!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Those Who Give Thanks, Give Poor Thanks
“If some of them do render it, it is so coarse, inattentive and discourteous, that they do not merit reward, but chastisement. They revere and adore profoundly the princes and magnates of the Earth; they ask favors and seek to obtain them with the utmost diligence; they are effusive in their thanks, when they succeed, protesting their lifelong gratitude. But the supreme Lord, Who gives them being, life and activity, Who preserves and sustains them, Who has redeemed them and raised them to the dignity of sons, Who wishes to confer upon them His own glory, Who is in Himself the infinite and the highest Good; Him, the highest Majesty, they forget, because they cannot see Him with their corporal eyes. As if not all good came from Him, they return, at best, merely a sluggish remembrance and a hasty thanksgiving” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Ingratitude Will Be Punished
“Meditate much, and weigh over and over again, how exactly mortals ought to correspond to this immense kindness of God and to His eagerness to assist them. Compare at the same time the heartless obduracy of the children of Adam. I wish that thy heart be softened in affectionate thankfulness toward the Lord, and melted in sorrow at these unhappy proceedings of men. I assure thee, that on the day of the general judgment, the cause of the greatest wrath of the just Judge shall be man’s most ungrateful forgetfulness of this truth; and the confusion of men, on account of this wrath, shall be such, that, on that day, they would of their own accord cast themselves into the abyss of pain, if there were no ministers of divine justice to visit this retribution upon them ... Weep ceaselessly over the terrible loss sustained by so many insane and thankless souls, who are forgetful of God, of their duty and of their own selves!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Our Lady Encourages Gratitude
“By incessant praise and acknowledgment, show thyself thankful for the favor which God vouchsafed thee in appointing angels to assist thee, teach thee, and guide thee through the tribulations and sorrows. Mortals, in their abominable ingratitude and grossness, ordinarily forget this blessing ... Acknowledge these blessings and give Him thanks with all thy heart ... Raise thyself above thyself and give Him thanks for the special blessings conferred upon thee and for those conferred upon the human race ... . Thank Him for the benefits, which He has conferred and confers on all, whether they know Him or not, whether they confess or repudiate Him!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Humble Gratitude
“Accustom thyself to humble thanksgiving for the benefits which thou receivest … Do not deceive thyself with the pretext of being humble; for there is a great difference between thankful humility and humble thanklessness. Remember that the Lord very often shows great favors to the unworthy, in order to manifest His goodness and munificence. On the contrary let no one become inflated, but let everyone acknowledge so much the more his unworthiness, using it as a medicine against the poison of presumption. But gratitude will agree with this humble opinion of self, since we must acknowledge, that every good gift comes from the Father of lights ... Let then thy thanks be greater than that of all the creatures!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Gratitude Leads to Love, Love Gains More Favors
“Renew many times a day the memory of His blessings, always giving thanks to the Lord with humble and loving affection. Especially memorable among His benefits are that He has called thee, waited for thee, and excused thy faults, and added thereto such often repeated favors. This remembrance will cause in thee sweet and strong movements of love; and thou wilt find new grace and favor before the Lord, since He is so much pleased by a faithful and thankful heart” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Time for Thanksgiving that Will Spark Our Love
“Now, therefore, our God, we give thanks to Thee and we praise Thy glorious Name!” (1 Paralipomenon 29:13).
“Bless the Lord, O my soul: and let all that is within me bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and never forget all He hath done for thee. Who forgiveth all thy iniquities. Who healeth all thy diseases. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction. Who crowneth thee with mercy and compassion. Who satisfieth thy desire with good things” (Psalm 102:1-5). “For all these things bless the Lord” (Ecclesiasticus 32:17). “Therefore will I give thanks to Thee, O Lord!” (2 Kings 22:50). “I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall be always in my mouth” (Psalm 33:2). “I will bless the Lord, Who hath given me understanding” (Psalm 15:7). “I will give great thanks to the Lord with my mouth: and in the midst of many I will praise Him!” (Psalm 108:30). And, as Our Lady said: “Thou wilt find new grace and favor before the Lord, since He is so much pleased by a faithful and thankful heart.”
Loving and Thanking Our Lady and Our Lord More Than Anyone Else
So, yes, let there be someone whom we love more than our spouse, more than our children, more than our parents or anyone else. What was said in humor at the start of the article, let it be said seriously now—let it be said openly—let it be said often—let it be said as often as it needs to be said until the fact sinks into the minds of the family—not just in theory, for the theory is already there, but IN PRACTICE. Let it be seen and experienced by all that Jesus and Mary are your first loves. Let your actions speak louder than your words! Let your sacrifices speak louder than your prayers! Let everyone see that you attend to the needs and requests of Jesus and Mary, before those of any others.
Then they will start to grasp the reality of the commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength” (Mark 12:30). Then they will begin to understand Our Lord’s warning: “Everyone therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33) and His insistence that: “He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:37).
Heaven is Expensive
Heaven is expensive—any and every soul that has passed through Purgatory will tell you that. Let that be said in capital letters—EXPENSIVE! As St. Paul tells us: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). However, before we are let loose in Heaven, St. Paul also tells us that we have to “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). For “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) and “the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). That is why Christ gives us the mark of a soldier in the Sacrament of Confirmation, so that we might be soldiers of Christ who fight to defend and obtain this heavenly Kingdom.
If the Thanksgiving dinner hasn’t put you to sleep, then we shall do the best we can with the first part of this article to do what your Thanksgiving dinner failed to do. We will state the obvious; we will cover ground you have covered hundreds of times before; we will tell you what you already know! Or perhaps you don’t know, or don’t know all there is to know. So before we turn to God, let’s turn to history.
Will the First Thanksgiving Please Step Forward!
In the USA, the secular holiday of “Thanksgiving” is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November (it used to be on the last Thursday of November). This recalls the fact that in 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is today thought to be the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.
The First Thanksgiving was Catholic
However, the real honor of the first Thanksgiving goes to the city of St. Augustine, Florida, which is the first and oldest city of present day United States. The Spanish Captain General Pedro Menendez de Aviles and his fleet of soldiers and colonists – accompanied by priests – landed on the coast of Florida on the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, September 8th, 1565 and the events that followed qualify it as the first official Thanksgiving Day in present day USA. Why? Because…
► It was the first permanent European settlement in North America. There had been other attempts by the Spanish to establish colonies in Florida and Texas, but all were short-lived.
► In an official ceremony Don Pedro Menendez came ashore amid the sounding of trumpets, artillery salutes and the firing of cannons to claim the land for King Philip II and Spain. One of the priests, Fr. Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales, who had gone ashore the previous day, advanced to meet him, chanting the Te Deum Laudamus and carrying a Cross, which Menendez and those with him reverently kissed. Then the 500 soldiers, 200 sailors and 100 families and artisans, along with the Timucuan Indians from the nearby village of Seloy, gathered at a makeshift altar, and a Mass in honor of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary was said.
► The Mass was followed by a feast shared by the Spanish and the Timucuan Indians. The Timucuans brought wild turkey, venison, oysters and giant clams, as well as maize, beans, squash, nuts and fruits. The Spaniards contribution wascocido―a stew made with pork, garbanzo beans and onions, along with biscuits, olive oil and red wine.
In his well-researched book on the State of Florida titled Cross in the Sand, Dr. Michael Gannon duly affirmed that this Mass and feast was “the first community act of religion and thanksgiving in the first permanent European settlement in the land.”
The Second Thanksgiving was also Catholic
The second Thanksgiving was in Texas. On January 26th, 1598, a Spanish expedition set out from Mexico with the aim of founding a new kingdom. Three months later, after a long, dangerous trek forging a new trail northward, the now famous El Camino Real [The Royal Road], it crossed the Rio Grande and set up camp south of present day El Paso, Texas. On April 30th, a Mass of thanksgiving was said, and the valiant leader of the expedition, Don Juan de Oñate, took formal possession of the new land, called New Mexico, in the name of the Heavenly Lord, God Almighty, and the earthly lord King Philip II.
Then, after the Mass, the Franciscan priests blessed the food on tables abundant with fish, ducks and geese, and the 600-strong expedition of soldiers and colonists feasted. The celebration ended with a play enacting scenes of the native Indians hearing the first words of the Catholic Faith and receiving the Sacrament of Baptism.
The First Shall Be Last…
What is thought to be the first Thanksgiving, is therefore not quite so, but crosses the finishing-line a good 56 years after the first Thanksgiving in Florida, and 23 years after the Texan Thanksgiving. It came about after a small ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth in September of 1620, England, carrying 102 passengers — an assortment of religious separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their Faith and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the New World.
After a treacherous and uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days, they dropped anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination at the mouth of the Hudson River. One month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth.
Throughout that first brutal winter, most of the colonists remained on board the ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see the spring. In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from an Abenaki Indian who greeted them in English.
Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery before escaping to London and returning to his homeland on an exploratory expedition. Squanto taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants.
In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies. Now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving”— the festival lasted for three days. Pilgrims held their second Thanksgiving celebration in 1623 to mark the end of a long drought that had threatened that year’s harvest.
During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress designated one or more days of thanksgiving a year, and in 1789 George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the national government of the United States. His successors John Adams and James Madison also designated days of thanks during their presidencies.
In 1817, New York became the first of several states to officially adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday; each celebrated it on a different day, however, and the American South remained largely unfamiliar with the tradition. In 1827, a campaign was launched to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. This campaign lasted 36 years until Abraham Lincoln finally responded to the request in 1863. He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November, and it was celebrated on that day every year until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week, in an attempt to spur retail sales during the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s plan, known derisively as “Franksgiving”, was met with passionate opposition, and in 1941 the president reluctantly signed a bill making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.
Thanks be to God!
Holy Scripture is full of examples of the need and necessity of giving thanks to God, because, as Jesus says, with Him, we can do nothing: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Jesus, Himself, often gave thanks to God. We often see Him give thanks to God before performing a miracle. In the multiplication of loaves and fishes, Jesus, “taking the seven loaves and the fishes, and giving thanks, He broke, and gave to His disciples” (Matthew 15:36). Before raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus gives thanks to God: “They took therefore the stone away. And Jesus lifting up His eyes said: ‘Father, I give Thee thanks that Thou hast heard Me!’ … When he had said these things, he cried with a loud voice: ‘Lazarus, come forth!’” (John 11:41-43). Before the miracle of transubstantiation at the Last Supper, he also gives thanks to God: “And taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave to them.” (Matthew 26:27).
“Give thanks whilst thou art living, whilst thou art alive and in health thou shalt give thanks, and shalt praise God, and shalt glory in His mercies” (Ecclesiasticus 17:27). Who out there needs no mercy? Who out there has not sinned? Who out there has not profited from the mercies of God? Who out there takes the mercies of God for granted without returning to Him to give profuse thanks? “O give thanks to the Lord, because He is good: because His mercy endureth for ever and ever!” (Daniel 3:89).
Thankful Leper Accepted
This reminds us of the encounter Our Lord had with the Ten Lepers: “And it came to pass, as Jesus was going to Jerusalem, He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as He entered into a certain town, there met Him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off; and lifted up their voice, saying: ‘Jesus, master, have mercy on us!’ Whom when He saw, He said: ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests!’ And it came to pass, as they went, they were made clean. And one of them, when he saw that he was made clean, went back, with a loud voice glorifying God. And he fell on his face before His feet, giving thanks: and this was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering, said, ‘Were not ten made clean? And where are the nine? There is no one found to return and give glory to God, but this stranger!’” (Luke 17:11-18).
The “stranger” was a Samaritan, and the Samaritans were enemies of the Jews. Thus Our Lord performs a miracle for an “enemy” and He receives the thanks of an “enemy.” We have been enemies of God many a time through our sins and He has likewise shown mercy to us; but have we returned like the leper to give profuse thanks?
Thankful Pharisee Rejected
Yet not all thanksgiving is acceptable to God. We see this in the case of the Pharisee and the Publican, a parable wherein Our Lord rejected a form of thanksgiving: “Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: ‘O God, I give Thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican! I fast twice in a week; I give tithes of all that I possess!’ And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast, saying: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other: because everyone that exalts himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbles himself, shall be exalted” (Luke 18:11-14).
The Publicans were also “enemies” of the Jews. In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees were considered among the most pious and religious of all the believers in God. On the other hand, the publicans were branded as unfaithful and unjust extortionists. They were seen as the mafia of their day. You can see why, then, that Jesus’ conclusion of this parable literally stunned His audience. In the parable, the thanksgiving of the most pious and religious of all the believers in God was rejected.
Humble Thanks is Required
We see from this that humility must infuse our thanksgiving. The Leper prostrates himself flat on his face, a humble posture—whereas the Pharisee stand up proudly and speaks out proudly. As Holy Scripture says: “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord: though hand should be joined to hand, he is not innocent” (Proverbs 16:5) and Our Lady says in her Magnificat that God “hath regarded the humility of His handmaid” and “hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble” (Luke 1:48-52).
Perpetual Thanks in All Things
In the Preface of the Mass we are told that it is right and fitting to give thanks to God always and everywhere, at all times and in all places. Why? Because without Him, we can do nothing! (John 15:5). St. Paul says: “I give thanks to my God always!” (1 Corinthians 1:4). Do we give thanks always and everywhere, at all times and in all places? We are very quick to complain always and everywhere, at all times and in all places—but, as for giving thanks to God, we are forgetful, lazy or even ungrateful! “In the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, puffed up, proud, ungrateful, unmerciful, without affection, without kindness, and lovers of pleasures more than of God! Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof! (2 Timothy 3:1-5). “It should not be so!” (Genesis 48:18). “Give thanks in all things―for this is the will of God” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). “Give thanks always for all things, to God and the Father, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ!” (Ephesians 5:20). “We Thy people, and the sheep of Thy pasture, will give thanks to Thee for ever!” (Psalm 78:13). Tobias “continued immoveable in the fear of God, giving thanks to God all the days of his life” (Tobias 2:14). “Therefore will I give thanks to Thee, O Lord!” (2 Kings 22:50). “Now, therefore, our God, we give thanks to Thee!” (1 Paralipomenon 29:13).
Let us thank Him before and after our meals: “And when they had adored God, and given Him thanks, they sat down together” (Tobias 11:12). Of course we thank Him for all the good things—but what about the bad things, the misfortunes, the illnesses, the failures? Let us thank Him in all adversity like Job, who continued to thank and bless God in sickness and poverty, not just in health and prosperity, saying: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).
► “In all things give thanks.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
► “We ought always to give thanks to God” (2 Thessalonians 1:3)
► “In everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6)
► “Giving thanks always for all things in the House of the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:18-20)
► “One who does not feel grateful will abandon his rescuer.” (Ecclesiasticus 29:17)
Let’s Get This Straight!
For a Catholic, every day is—in a sense—“Thanksgiving Day.” The word “Eucharistia” is Greek for “thanksgiving”! The Holy Eucharist—or the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—is celebrated thousands of times each day throughout the world. The Holy Eucharist is God’s gift to man—in fact the greatest Gift that God could give man—because it is both God Himself, and also the Sacrifice of God for our sins and our salvation! The very gift of the Eucharist and the receiving of the Eucharist, should lead to a thanksgiving for the Eucharist—as is implied by its very name: “Holy Eucharist” meaning “Holy Thanksgiving”!
Our Lord and Thanksgiving
Jesus frequently gave us the example of thanksgiving throughout His life—that is to say, a thanksgiving to God His Father.
As a prefiguration of the Holy Eucharist, Our Lord performed, several times, the miracle of the multiplication of loaves—and we notice that on these occasions He always gave thanks to God before performing the miracle. “And taking the seven loaves and the fishes, and giving thanks, He broke, and gave to His disciples, and the disciples to the people” (Matthew 15:36). “And taking the seven loaves, giving thanks, He broke, and gave to His disciples for to set before them; and they set them before the people” (Mark 8:6). “And Jesus took the loaves: and when He had given thanks, He distributed to them that were set down” (John 6:11).
When Our Lord performed the stupendous miracle of raising Lazarus, after commanding that the stone of the tomb be rolled away and before commanding Lazarus to arise and come forth, Our Lord again first gives thanks to God: “They took therefore the stone away. And Jesus, lifting up His eyes, said: ‘Father, I give Thee thanks that Thou hast heard Me!’” (John 11:41).
At the Last Supper, when He instituted the Holy Eucharist (Holy Thanksgiving), He is reported by the Evangelists as once again giving thanks to God. “And taking bread, He gave thanks, and broke; and gave to them, saying: ‘This is My body, which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of Me!’” (Luke 22:19). “And having taken the chalice, He gave thanks, and said: ‘Take, and divide it among you!’” (Luke 22:17). “And taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: ‘Drink ye all of this!’” (Matthew 26:27). “And having taken the chalice, giving thanks, He gave it to them. And they all drank of it” (Mark 14:23).
Our Lord Condemns Ingratitude
The chief and most striking incident whereby Our Lord condemned in gratitude was His encounter with the Ten Lepers, where only one was found to come back and give thanks. “And as Jesus entered into a certain town, there met Him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off; and lifted up their voice, saying: ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ To whom, when He saw, He said: ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests!’ And it came to pass, as they went, they were made clean. And one of them, when he saw that he was made clean, went back, with a loud voice glorifying God. And he fell on his face before Jesus’ feet, giving thanks: and this was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering, said, ‘Were not ten made clean? And where are the nine? There is no one found to return and give glory [and thanks] to God, but this stranger!’” (Luke 17:12-18).
Today, it is not even one-in-ten that gives the thanks to God that ought to be given! It might not even be one-in-a-hundred-thousand! Many may think they give thanks, but, as you will read further below, it is mere lip service thanks, but not heart service thanks.
An Ungrateful Time, an Age of Ingratitude
Ingratitude has always been around, but St. Paul makes especial mention of it as a trait that will be seen in the End Times in particular: “Know also this, that, in the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God! Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid!” (2 Timothy 3:1-5). These kinds of persons have simply forgotten Our Lord’s incontestable truth: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). They have decided that they will do many things without Him, they will “do their own thing” and He will not be a part of it.
In these last days, Our Lady also asks for reparation for ungrateful sinners. Our Lady of Good Success speaks of “the grandeur of this restoring and life-giving Sacrament of Penance, so forgotten and even scorned by ungrateful men, who in their foolish madness, do not realize that it is the only sure means of salvation after one has lost his baptismal innocence” and how “the Host, is exposed to the sacrilegious profanations of His ungrateful sons.”
At Fatima, the Angel took the Chalice and Host. He gave Lucia the Sacred Host on the tongue. Then while giving the Precious Blood from the Chalice to Francisco and Jacinta, he said: “Eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Make reparation for their crimes and console your God.”
Some years after the 1917 Fatima apparitions, on Thursday, December 10th, 1925, the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by the Child Jesus, appeared to Lucia in her cell. Lucia recounted that Mary showed her a Heart encircled by thorns in her hand. The Child Jesus spoke first, saying: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.” Then Mary said: “My daughter, look at my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, try to console me.”
Some 43 years later, Our Lady said at Akita (August 1973): “Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair by their suffering and their poverty for the sinners and the ungrateful.”
Give Thanks Always, Everywhere and for Everything!
This is why St. Paul commands that we should be “giving thanks always for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father” (Ephesians 5:20). Again, elsewhere, he writes that should be “giving thanks to God the Father, who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:12) and that “All whatsoever you do in word or in work, do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him!” (Colossians 3:17).
The Eucharistic Sacrifice echoes these sentiments in every single one of its Prefaces, that precede the Canon of the Mass: “…we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks to thee, O Holy Lord, Father Almighty, eternal God, through Christ, our Lord.”
This means giving thanks, not only for the pleasant things in life, but also the unpleasant. Not only for things that God gives, but also when God takes away things—like health, wealth, possessions, benefits, jobs, friends, etc. Speaking of jobs, let us remind ourselves of Job’s famous words when God had taken from him his health, his wealth, his children and his livestock: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither! The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away! As it hath pleased the Lord so is it done! Blessed be the name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21).
Gratitude or Thankfulness is Not an Option!
We all remember being forcefully told by our parents to say “Thank you!” to someone who had just given us something or helped us some way! Even though we begrudgingly and sourly squeezed those words from our mouth, it cannot be said that we truly thankful or genuinely grateful—it was more a case of a “Shotgun-Thank-You!” whereby a metaphorical ‘gun’ was held to our head (a slap or a whack) to ‘encourage’ us to give thanks. But, as St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “thanksgiving is less thankful when compelled” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 106, art. 1). He goes on to say that “thankfulness a special part of justice”—meaning that it is owed in justice—and that “when there is greater favor on the part of the giver, greater thanks are due on the part of the recipient.”
In commenting upon the words of St. Paul, “in all things give thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:18), St. Thomas Aquinas points out that our greatest thanks are due to God, for He is the first principle or ultimate cause of all our goods. Our Lord laid the foundation for this truth with His own words, when He said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).
Gratitude for Mercy!
Talking of ‘great gifts’—what greater gift is there than mercy? Holy Scripture tells us: “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all: and His tender mercies are over all his works!” (Psalm 144:8-9). God’s mercy is above all His works! What kind of gratitude should not be shown to someone who gives us the greatest gift possible? St. Thomas Aquinas says: “The penitent is more bound to give thanks than the innocent, because what he receives from God is more gratuitously given: since, whereas he was deserving of punishment, he has received grace” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 106, art. 2).
How much mercy have you received in your life? How much thanks is due from you in justice, in gratitude for the greatest gift of God—given time and time again? The 1st century Roman philosopher, Seneca, said that “Among all our many and great vices, none is as common as ingratitude … and the most ungrateful of all is the man who has forgotten a benefit.”
Blind to the Benefits of God!
How blind, indifferent, presumptuous and abusive we are to our greatest benefactor—the Good Lord. The One who gets thanked the least and gets taken for granted the most, is the Good Lord. Every day He gives us blessings beyond all counting through His Divine Providence. There is no provider like God. We breathe His air; we drink His water; we need His light and sunshine; we cultivate His soil; we eat His fruits and crops; we eat His fish and animals; we make medicines from his creation; we clothe ourselves with His materials; we depend upon His seasons; we build our homes with his materials; we depend upon His protection against animals, men and devils; it is He that gives us life by creating our soul; it is He that gives us health by His protective Providence; it is He who calls time, and brings death and final judgment.
Most of all He gave His only Son, Who remains living amongst us in the Blessed Sacrament. He gave us a share in His life through the sanctifying grace received at Baptism. He increased that supernatural life by the coming of his Holy Spirit, with His Gifts, into our souls at Confirmation. He has given us the treasure of the Sacrifice of the Mass—the greatest action that can possible take place anywhere in the world on any given day. To crown all that, He offers us eternal joys in Heaven. And how we take Him for granted! How we fail to say “thank you” to the One from Whom all good gifts come! It is a mystery, a tragedy, an injustice, a blindness, a neglect that should be punished; that has to be punished; and one that will be punished.
We should be spending the whole day, counting our blessings and thanking the One Who grants those blessings—the Almighty, All-Merciful, All-Providing God. As the Preface of the Mass so truly says: ”…we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks to thee, O Holy Lord, Father Almighty, eternal God, through Christ, our Lord.”
God is Owed Gratitude and Love!
St. Thomas points out that “a man owes love to his benefactor, just as he owes him gratitude” and that “to whom more is forgiven, he loveth more” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 106, art. 2). And St. John tells us: “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us!” (1 John 1:10). Therefore, we owe God much gratitude and great love, because “the Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all: and His tender mercies are over all his works!” (Psalm 144:8-9).
Nobody Excused From Thanksgiving—Neither Sinner, nor Just
“Now a favor is something bestowed freely without obligation [“gratis”]. Therefore, on the part of the giver, the favor may be greater on two counts. First, it may be great owing to the quantity of the thing given—and in this way the innocent person owes greater thanksgiving, because he receives a greater gift from God, also, absolutely speaking, a more continuous gift, other things being equal. Secondly, a favor may be said to be greater, because it is given more gratuitously; and in this sense the penitent is more bound to give thanks than the innocent, because what he receives from God is more gratuitously given—since, whereas the sinner was deserving of punishment, he has received grace. Wherefore, although the gift bestowed on the innocent is, considered absolutely, greater, yet the gift bestowed on the penitent is greater in relation to him—just as a small gift, given to a poor man, is greater to the poor man, than a great gift is to a rich man” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 106, art. 2).
Degree of Thankfulness
The degree of thankfulness in the recipient should correspond to the degree of favor in the giver — when there is greater favor on the part of the giver, greater thanks are due on the part of the recipient. In judging the magnitude of a favor two things are to be considered, namely, the affection of the heart and the gift itself.
St. Thomas quotes Seneca, who says “We are sometimes under a greater obligation to one who has given little with a large heart, and has bestowed a small favor, yet willingly.”
Holy Scripture bears this out, when Our Lord says: “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living.”
The more we thank God, the more inclined He is to give us more—we operate the same way, don’t we? Let us then think of the incredible mercies—and other graces too—that God has bestowed upon us, and let these thoughts trigger profuse sentiments of thanksgiving within us!
Two Pillars of Thanksgiving!
Have you ever read about the Two Pillars in St. John Bosco’s vision (click here)? One of the chief things we learn from those Two Pillars is thanksgiving! The word “Eucharistia” is Greek for “thanksgiving”! The very gift of the Eucharist and the receiving of the Eucharist, should lead to a thanksgiving for the Eucharist—as is implied by its very name: “Holy Eucharist” meaning “Holy Thanksgiving”!
Under the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the other pillar, was the inscription “Auxilium Christianorum” which means “Help of Christians”. Again, the “Help of Christians” should lead to a “Thanksgiving by Christians” for that help.
Finally, the very outcome of the battle seen by St. John Bosco, should again lead to a thanksgiving for the victory when all seemed lost. As was stated above, the more a person give thanks in gratitude, the more God seems to give; to those who thank but little, little is given.
Nobody was as grateful to God as Our Lady, and nobody received more from God than Our Lady. Her eyes were fully open to all the wonderful things God did for her, and she thanked Him for it—her canticle, the Magnificat, is an indication of this attitude: “My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is His Name. He hath shown might in His arm: He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away” (Luke 1:46-53).
Oh if we could learn how to thank God like He deserves to be thanked! Yet we fail to see that He “hath done great things to me” – for we take those “great things” for granted!
Our Lady Speaks on Gratitude
How many times do you thank God daily? With what fervor and sincerity of heart do you thank Him? How many different things do you thank Him for? If you can count the number of times you thank Him on both hands and both sets of toes (20 for the normal person) then you are a miserly miser! If you thank Him as many times as you have hairs on your head (bald men excluded), then you are still a miser! Our Lady says to the Venerable Mary of Agreda:
Our Lady’s Own Gratitude
“Every day, at beginning of dawn, I prostrated myself in the presence of the Most High and gave Him thanks and praise for his immutable Being, his infinite perfections, and for having created me out of nothing; acknowledging myself as His creature and the work of His hands, I blessed Him and adored Him, giving Him honor, magnificence and Divinity, as the supreme Lord and Creator of myself and of all that exists. I raised up my spirit to place it into His hands, offering myself with profound humility and resignation to Him and asking Him to dispose of me according to His will during that day and during all the days of my life, and to teach me to fulfill whatever would be to His greater pleasure. This I repeated many times during the external works of the day …
“I gave thanks to the Author of all things, acknowledging His works as benefits freely bestowed upon me, and not as dues, which He owed to me. Therefore, when anything was wanting of the necessaries of life, I remained in peace and contentedness and deemed it all perfectly reasonable and proper in my regard, since I had merited none of the gifts and could justly be deprived of all of them” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Our Lady Complains of Our Ingratitude
“Ponder upon the small return given by mortals for the love of my Son and Lord, and how forgetful of thanks even His faithful continue to be ... Let mortals inquire what treasures and riches they did possess before they came into life? What services had they rendered unto God, in order to merit them? And if out of nothing there cannot arise anything, and if they could not merit the being which they have received, what obligation is there on the part of God to preserve, out of justice, what was given to them entirely gratuitously?
“That God created man, was of no benefit to Himself; but to man it was a benefit, and one as great as the being given to him, and as high as the object for which it was given. And if, in His creation, man becomes indebted so much, that he never can pay his debt, tell me, what right can he invoke at present for his preservation? Has he not received his being without merit and many times forfeited it? What an execrable disorder and what a despicable blindness of mortals is this? For that, which the Lord gives them gratuitously, they do not thank Him, or even give Him acknowledgment, and for that which He denies them justly, and sometimes most mercifully, they are restless and proudly desirous, and they try to procure it by unjust and forbidden means, throwing themselves into the very destruction which flies from them” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
He Who Receives More Should Be More Grateful
“He that received more ought to consider himself more needy, since his debt becomes so much the greater. All should humiliate themselves since of themselves they are nothing, nor can they do anything or possess ought. On this account they, that are raised up by the hand of the Almighty, should humiliate themselves as mere dust. For, left to themselves and to their nothingness and unworthiness, they should esteem themselves so much the more indebted and bound to thankfulness, for that which, by themselves, they can never repay!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Those Who Give Thanks, Give Poor Thanks
“If some of them do render it, it is so coarse, inattentive and discourteous, that they do not merit reward, but chastisement. They revere and adore profoundly the princes and magnates of the Earth; they ask favors and seek to obtain them with the utmost diligence; they are effusive in their thanks, when they succeed, protesting their lifelong gratitude. But the supreme Lord, Who gives them being, life and activity, Who preserves and sustains them, Who has redeemed them and raised them to the dignity of sons, Who wishes to confer upon them His own glory, Who is in Himself the infinite and the highest Good; Him, the highest Majesty, they forget, because they cannot see Him with their corporal eyes. As if not all good came from Him, they return, at best, merely a sluggish remembrance and a hasty thanksgiving” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Ingratitude Will Be Punished
“Meditate much, and weigh over and over again, how exactly mortals ought to correspond to this immense kindness of God and to His eagerness to assist them. Compare at the same time the heartless obduracy of the children of Adam. I wish that thy heart be softened in affectionate thankfulness toward the Lord, and melted in sorrow at these unhappy proceedings of men. I assure thee, that on the day of the general judgment, the cause of the greatest wrath of the just Judge shall be man’s most ungrateful forgetfulness of this truth; and the confusion of men, on account of this wrath, shall be such, that, on that day, they would of their own accord cast themselves into the abyss of pain, if there were no ministers of divine justice to visit this retribution upon them ... Weep ceaselessly over the terrible loss sustained by so many insane and thankless souls, who are forgetful of God, of their duty and of their own selves!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Our Lady Encourages Gratitude
“By incessant praise and acknowledgment, show thyself thankful for the favor which God vouchsafed thee in appointing angels to assist thee, teach thee, and guide thee through the tribulations and sorrows. Mortals, in their abominable ingratitude and grossness, ordinarily forget this blessing ... Acknowledge these blessings and give Him thanks with all thy heart ... Raise thyself above thyself and give Him thanks for the special blessings conferred upon thee and for those conferred upon the human race ... . Thank Him for the benefits, which He has conferred and confers on all, whether they know Him or not, whether they confess or repudiate Him!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Humble Gratitude
“Accustom thyself to humble thanksgiving for the benefits which thou receivest … Do not deceive thyself with the pretext of being humble; for there is a great difference between thankful humility and humble thanklessness. Remember that the Lord very often shows great favors to the unworthy, in order to manifest His goodness and munificence. On the contrary let no one become inflated, but let everyone acknowledge so much the more his unworthiness, using it as a medicine against the poison of presumption. But gratitude will agree with this humble opinion of self, since we must acknowledge, that every good gift comes from the Father of lights ... Let then thy thanks be greater than that of all the creatures!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Gratitude Leads to Love, Love Gains More Favors
“Renew many times a day the memory of His blessings, always giving thanks to the Lord with humble and loving affection. Especially memorable among His benefits are that He has called thee, waited for thee, and excused thy faults, and added thereto such often repeated favors. This remembrance will cause in thee sweet and strong movements of love; and thou wilt find new grace and favor before the Lord, since He is so much pleased by a faithful and thankful heart” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda).
Time for Thanksgiving that Will Spark Our Love
“Now, therefore, our God, we give thanks to Thee and we praise Thy glorious Name!” (1 Paralipomenon 29:13).
“Bless the Lord, O my soul: and let all that is within me bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and never forget all He hath done for thee. Who forgiveth all thy iniquities. Who healeth all thy diseases. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction. Who crowneth thee with mercy and compassion. Who satisfieth thy desire with good things” (Psalm 102:1-5). “For all these things bless the Lord” (Ecclesiasticus 32:17). “Therefore will I give thanks to Thee, O Lord!” (2 Kings 22:50). “I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall be always in my mouth” (Psalm 33:2). “I will bless the Lord, Who hath given me understanding” (Psalm 15:7). “I will give great thanks to the Lord with my mouth: and in the midst of many I will praise Him!” (Psalm 108:30). And, as Our Lady said: “Thou wilt find new grace and favor before the Lord, since He is so much pleased by a faithful and thankful heart.”
Loving and Thanking Our Lady and Our Lord More Than Anyone Else
So, yes, let there be someone whom we love more than our spouse, more than our children, more than our parents or anyone else. What was said in humor at the start of the article, let it be said seriously now—let it be said openly—let it be said often—let it be said as often as it needs to be said until the fact sinks into the minds of the family—not just in theory, for the theory is already there, but IN PRACTICE. Let it be seen and experienced by all that Jesus and Mary are your first loves. Let your actions speak louder than your words! Let your sacrifices speak louder than your prayers! Let everyone see that you attend to the needs and requests of Jesus and Mary, before those of any others.
Then they will start to grasp the reality of the commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength” (Mark 12:30). Then they will begin to understand Our Lord’s warning: “Everyone therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33) and His insistence that: “He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:37).
Heaven is Expensive
Heaven is expensive—any and every soul that has passed through Purgatory will tell you that. Let that be said in capital letters—EXPENSIVE! As St. Paul tells us: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). However, before we are let loose in Heaven, St. Paul also tells us that we have to “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). For “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) and “the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). That is why Christ gives us the mark of a soldier in the Sacrament of Confirmation, so that we might be soldiers of Christ who fight to defend and obtain this heavenly Kingdom.
Article 12
Tuesday November 22nd & Wednesday November 23rd, 2022
The Last Thing You Want to Think About is
the First Thing You Should Think About!
Tuesday November 22nd & Wednesday November 23rd, 2022
The Last Thing You Want to Think About is
the First Thing You Should Think About!
The World Will Not Last!
In this last week of the Liturgical Year, let us at least focus on what is last. One of the last things we want to hear is that our joys and pleasures will not last! O yes―we profess to be Catholics; we say we love God; we want to go to Heaven―but, for most persons, having to “walk-the-walk” and not just “talk-the-talk”, is the last thing on their minds and the last thing they want to do! They are quite happy in this world and would not mind living eternally in this world! To them, heaven can be found on Earth! Yet, our happiness―true happiness―cannot be found in this world. As Our Lady said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life, but in the next!” In other words, Our Lady is not going to make Bernadette happy in this world, but only in Heaven.
Our Lord pretty much said the same thing: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal! But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal! For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
That does not mean that we will not have some happy moments here on Earth―we will. However, lasting happiness, enduring happiness, eternal happiness, never-ending happiness can only be found in Heaven. Yet―as already stated―Heaven is the last thing on the minds of most people: “They are of the world! Therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them!” (1 John 4:5). Most Catholics “are of the world and of the world they speak” ― they are Catholics in name only, but their heart is tied to the world. Yet Scripture warns us of loving the world: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
This world will not last, but will perish―and if your heart is tied to this world, then you will perish with it: “The Earth shall be worn away like a garment, and the inhabitants thereof shall perish in like manner―but my salvation shall be for ever!” (Isaias 51:6). “The day of the Lord shall come as a thief―in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence, and the elements shall be melted with heat, and the Earth and the works which are in it, shall be burnt up!” (2 Peter 3:10). “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). “And I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth. For the first Heaven and the first Earth was gone, and the sea is now no more!” (Apocalypse 21:1). “Behold the Lord shall lay waste the Earth, and shall strip it, and shall afflict the face thereof … With desolation shall the Earth be laid waste, and it shall be utterly spoiled―for the Lord hath spoken this word! The Earth is weakened and faded away! The world faded away!” (Isaias 24:1-4). “Heaven and Earth shall pass away―but My words shall not pass away!” (Matthew 24:35).
Our Lady Bursts the Bubble of Blindness
Unfortunately and even tragically we live as though (1) this world will never end, (2) as though we will never die, and (3) as if there is no Hell! Yet Our Lady seeks to burst this bubble of diabolical disorientation―as is seen by these words spoken to the Venerable Mary of Agreda:
“Who is so dull and insipid as not to know the dangers of the worldly life! Wisdom seems far from the mind of carnal men―for, with a most perverse blindness, they continue to make much of the visible and fictitious good, and they torment themselves and are saddened, whenever it escapes them. This deceitful error has filled the Earth with lovers of the world; it has filled the world with avarice and concupiscence against the law of the Creator; it has made men insane in their desires―for all of them commonly chase after riches and earthly possessions. The rich glory in their riches and wish to be respected because of those riches. The poor strive to be and appear rich. The powerful seek to be feared, worshiped and obeyed. The learned and wise, and the powerful of this world, so reluctantly correct and amend their lives. They play-down their faults, extol their virtues and abilities. Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance! Because they never taste or recognize the highest and truest Good, they take no thought or appreciation of it. With this highest Good, the earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible; nor the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the bleary-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors, and so full of ignorant admiration for costly grandeur. This blindness robs them of remembrance and affection toward these higher things, which could raise them above their worldliness! Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment! The foolishness of men makes them stupid and deaf, their impious malice makes them scoffers, and their unbelieving perversity turns them away from God.
“What foolishness is it, for men pursue so blindly the deceitful and vile delights of the senses! Be mindful of this dangerous human folly! Consider all delights and joys of the world as insanity, its laughing as sorrow, sensible enjoyment as self-deceit, as the source of foolishness, which intoxicates the heart and hinders and destroys all true wisdom! Guard thyself against the lovers of the world more than against fire―for the wisdom of the sons of this world is carnal and diabolical, and their ways lead to death! Many are the infidels, many the bad Catholics, many the hypocrites! Their inclinations and their blind love of visible things, hold them back. The sons of the world are ignorant, precisely because they are lovers of earthly riches. They feel and suffer the heavy weight of riches, which pins them to the Earth and drives them into its very bowels to seek gold and silver with great anxiety, sleeplessness, labors and sweat―as if they were not men, but wild beasts that do not know what they are suffering and doing. And if they are thus weighed down before acquiring riches, then how much more are they weighed down when they have come into possession of those riches and possessions? Such souls receive an earthly reward―but no heavenly reward! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! God knows that this insane love will pervert the greater part of the human race, who are lost by the vice of avarice and greed. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices. They never taste or recognize the highest and truest Good, they take no thought or appreciation of it. Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous tepidity! The wisdom of the flesh has made men ignorant, foolish and hostile to God. Man is full of blindest inclinations, and if he does not restrain them, he will cause his eternal perdition! Men are so taken up with their earthly and material life, that they do not feel any other evils except those on a physical and material nature. How many men whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell!
“What pretense or excuse will men advance for having forgotten their own eternal salvation? None of the mortals will have any excuse for their foolish negligence―and much less will the children of the Holy Catholic Church have an excuse, since they have received the Faith and yet show in their lives little difference from that of infidels and pagans! The faithful debase themselves to the level of worthless creatures! O insanity! All their life they labor and exert themselves to become more and more entangled in the snares of their passions, to be consumed in deceitful vanities and to deliver themselves over to an inextinguishable fire, death and everlasting perdition in Hell, as if all were a mere joke! They want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as of eternal life! All of them commonly chase after riches and earthly possessions; claiming, thereby, merely to satisfy their needs―which is only a lame pretext for hiding their lack of interest in higher things, spiritual things. In reality they lie to themselves abominously, since they are seeking superfluous things that they do not really need and not what is really necessary! The faithful are in such a dangerous and dreadful state of carelessness! Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ Fear this sentence and renew in thy heart the care and zeal for thy salvation! Do not allow thyself to desire worldly things―a desire which seduces the human sense, disturbs the judgment and obscures reason. It will cause eternal perdition! The lovers of the world have subjected themselves and are following the standard and the fables of the devil! In the midst of this ruin, Hell has opened its mouth and the more it is fed, the more insatiable becomes its hunger! The number of fools is infinite, and the number of the damned is also uncountable!” (compilation of words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
Yes! Insanity!
Our Lady succinctly hits the nail on the head! “O insanity! All their life they are more and more entangled in deceitful vanities and deliver themselves over to the inextinguishable fire of Hell, as it all were a mere joke! Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ They want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as of eternal life! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! Many―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! They have subjected themselves and are following the standard and the fables of the devil! Hell has opened its mouth and the more it is fed, the more insatiable becomes its hunger! The number of fools is infinite, and the number of the damned is also uncountable!”
Living Paradoxes―Walking Contradictions!
Yes―we are insane! We are living paradoxes! We are walking contradictions! We are lying hypocrites! We are the unfaithful faithful! Unbelieving believers! We know there is a God―but we often live as though there was no God! We know that we must love God with our whole soul, mind, heart and strength (Mark 12:30)―but, instead, we love ourselves and the world with our whole soul, mind, heart and strength! We know we should “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17)―but we want to play without ceasing! We are told to “Seek first the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33)―but we first seek all that the world can offer us! We are told we “cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24)―but we have made a god out of mammon! We are told that “the wages for sin is death” (Romans 6:23)―but we imagine that the wages of sin to be fun! We are told, “unless you do penance, you will perish” (Luke 13:3)―but we imagine that if do have fun we will perish! We are told, “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! Narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leadeth to life and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14)―but we imagine almost everyone goes to Heaven and hardly anyone goes to Hell. We are told, “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved―but he that believeth not shall be condemned!” (Mark 16:16)―but through false ecumenism we now imagine that any and all religions can lead a person to Heaven!
Yes―we are insane! Our Lady has repeatedly warned us of the terrible chastisements that are to come and she has given us instructions on how we could avoid it, or at least mitigate it ― but “fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7) “A fool laughs at instruction” (Proverbs 15:5). “A fool shall be filled with his own ways” (Proverbs 14:14). “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes!” (Proverbs 12:15). “The thought of a fool is sin” (Proverbs 24:9). “A fool will laugh at sin!” (Proverbs 14:9). “The fool said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’” (Psalm 52:1). “The fool walketh in darkness!” (Ecclesiastes 2:14). “The number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). “Understand, ye senseless among the people! And you fools, be wise at last!” (Psalms 93:8). Yes―be wise at last! Since we find ourselves in the LAST week of the Liturgical Year, it is a good time to, at LAST, become wise! It is a good time to at last see that we have been foolishly seduced by the devil, the world, and our own selves!
A New Liturgical Year―A New You!
God is always trying to bring good out of evil! Let’s face it―we are evil. Does that insult you? Well, Our Lord called the world “evil” saying: “I give testimony of the world, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7). He even called all of his hearers by the word “evil” ― “If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from Heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask Him?” (Luke 11:13). The word “evil” ― philosophically defined ― means “an absence of a good that is due or expected from someone or something.” In that sense, we are all evil―because we are all lacking in one or more things that God expects from us.
St. Paul even admits to struggling with evil: “I am carnal―sold under sin! For that which I work, I understand not! For I do not that good which I want to do; but the evil which I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I do not want to do, … then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me! For I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good. For to want to do good, is present with me; but to accomplish that which is good, I find not. For the good which I want to do, I do not; but the evil which I do not want to do, that I do! Now, if I do that which I do not want to do, then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find, then, that when I have a desire to do good, evil is present with me. For I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man―but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:14-25).
“God is faithful, and will strengthen and keep you from evil!” (2 Thessalonians 3:3). God want us to be “healed of the evil” (Mark 5:29). “Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit, saith the Lord … I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you! And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh! … And I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels! And I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh!” (Ezechiel 18:31; 36:26; 11:19). “I will give them a heart to know Me―that I am the Lord! And they shall be My people, and I will be their God! Because they shall return to Me with their whole heart!” (Jeremias 24:7).
To the vast majority of people―perhaps yourself included―God says: “This people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify Me, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Isaias 29:13). So why don’t you cry out to the Lord: “Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within me!” (Psalm 50:12). Let this coming new Liturgical Year―beginning with the First Sunday of Advent―be the beginning of new life with a new heart and a new approach to God and the Faith!
In this last week of the Liturgical Year, let us at least focus on what is last. One of the last things we want to hear is that our joys and pleasures will not last! O yes―we profess to be Catholics; we say we love God; we want to go to Heaven―but, for most persons, having to “walk-the-walk” and not just “talk-the-talk”, is the last thing on their minds and the last thing they want to do! They are quite happy in this world and would not mind living eternally in this world! To them, heaven can be found on Earth! Yet, our happiness―true happiness―cannot be found in this world. As Our Lady said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life, but in the next!” In other words, Our Lady is not going to make Bernadette happy in this world, but only in Heaven.
Our Lord pretty much said the same thing: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal! But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal! For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24).
That does not mean that we will not have some happy moments here on Earth―we will. However, lasting happiness, enduring happiness, eternal happiness, never-ending happiness can only be found in Heaven. Yet―as already stated―Heaven is the last thing on the minds of most people: “They are of the world! Therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them!” (1 John 4:5). Most Catholics “are of the world and of the world they speak” ― they are Catholics in name only, but their heart is tied to the world. Yet Scripture warns us of loving the world: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
This world will not last, but will perish―and if your heart is tied to this world, then you will perish with it: “The Earth shall be worn away like a garment, and the inhabitants thereof shall perish in like manner―but my salvation shall be for ever!” (Isaias 51:6). “The day of the Lord shall come as a thief―in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence, and the elements shall be melted with heat, and the Earth and the works which are in it, shall be burnt up!” (2 Peter 3:10). “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). “And I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth. For the first Heaven and the first Earth was gone, and the sea is now no more!” (Apocalypse 21:1). “Behold the Lord shall lay waste the Earth, and shall strip it, and shall afflict the face thereof … With desolation shall the Earth be laid waste, and it shall be utterly spoiled―for the Lord hath spoken this word! The Earth is weakened and faded away! The world faded away!” (Isaias 24:1-4). “Heaven and Earth shall pass away―but My words shall not pass away!” (Matthew 24:35).
Our Lady Bursts the Bubble of Blindness
Unfortunately and even tragically we live as though (1) this world will never end, (2) as though we will never die, and (3) as if there is no Hell! Yet Our Lady seeks to burst this bubble of diabolical disorientation―as is seen by these words spoken to the Venerable Mary of Agreda:
“Who is so dull and insipid as not to know the dangers of the worldly life! Wisdom seems far from the mind of carnal men―for, with a most perverse blindness, they continue to make much of the visible and fictitious good, and they torment themselves and are saddened, whenever it escapes them. This deceitful error has filled the Earth with lovers of the world; it has filled the world with avarice and concupiscence against the law of the Creator; it has made men insane in their desires―for all of them commonly chase after riches and earthly possessions. The rich glory in their riches and wish to be respected because of those riches. The poor strive to be and appear rich. The powerful seek to be feared, worshiped and obeyed. The learned and wise, and the powerful of this world, so reluctantly correct and amend their lives. They play-down their faults, extol their virtues and abilities. Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance! Because they never taste or recognize the highest and truest Good, they take no thought or appreciation of it. With this highest Good, the earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible; nor the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the bleary-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors, and so full of ignorant admiration for costly grandeur. This blindness robs them of remembrance and affection toward these higher things, which could raise them above their worldliness! Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment! The foolishness of men makes them stupid and deaf, their impious malice makes them scoffers, and their unbelieving perversity turns them away from God.
“What foolishness is it, for men pursue so blindly the deceitful and vile delights of the senses! Be mindful of this dangerous human folly! Consider all delights and joys of the world as insanity, its laughing as sorrow, sensible enjoyment as self-deceit, as the source of foolishness, which intoxicates the heart and hinders and destroys all true wisdom! Guard thyself against the lovers of the world more than against fire―for the wisdom of the sons of this world is carnal and diabolical, and their ways lead to death! Many are the infidels, many the bad Catholics, many the hypocrites! Their inclinations and their blind love of visible things, hold them back. The sons of the world are ignorant, precisely because they are lovers of earthly riches. They feel and suffer the heavy weight of riches, which pins them to the Earth and drives them into its very bowels to seek gold and silver with great anxiety, sleeplessness, labors and sweat―as if they were not men, but wild beasts that do not know what they are suffering and doing. And if they are thus weighed down before acquiring riches, then how much more are they weighed down when they have come into possession of those riches and possessions? Such souls receive an earthly reward―but no heavenly reward! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! God knows that this insane love will pervert the greater part of the human race, who are lost by the vice of avarice and greed. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices. They never taste or recognize the highest and truest Good, they take no thought or appreciation of it. Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous tepidity! The wisdom of the flesh has made men ignorant, foolish and hostile to God. Man is full of blindest inclinations, and if he does not restrain them, he will cause his eternal perdition! Men are so taken up with their earthly and material life, that they do not feel any other evils except those on a physical and material nature. How many men whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell!
“What pretense or excuse will men advance for having forgotten their own eternal salvation? None of the mortals will have any excuse for their foolish negligence―and much less will the children of the Holy Catholic Church have an excuse, since they have received the Faith and yet show in their lives little difference from that of infidels and pagans! The faithful debase themselves to the level of worthless creatures! O insanity! All their life they labor and exert themselves to become more and more entangled in the snares of their passions, to be consumed in deceitful vanities and to deliver themselves over to an inextinguishable fire, death and everlasting perdition in Hell, as if all were a mere joke! They want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as of eternal life! All of them commonly chase after riches and earthly possessions; claiming, thereby, merely to satisfy their needs―which is only a lame pretext for hiding their lack of interest in higher things, spiritual things. In reality they lie to themselves abominously, since they are seeking superfluous things that they do not really need and not what is really necessary! The faithful are in such a dangerous and dreadful state of carelessness! Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ Fear this sentence and renew in thy heart the care and zeal for thy salvation! Do not allow thyself to desire worldly things―a desire which seduces the human sense, disturbs the judgment and obscures reason. It will cause eternal perdition! The lovers of the world have subjected themselves and are following the standard and the fables of the devil! In the midst of this ruin, Hell has opened its mouth and the more it is fed, the more insatiable becomes its hunger! The number of fools is infinite, and the number of the damned is also uncountable!” (compilation of words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, taken from The Mystical City of God).
Yes! Insanity!
Our Lady succinctly hits the nail on the head! “O insanity! All their life they are more and more entangled in deceitful vanities and deliver themselves over to the inextinguishable fire of Hell, as it all were a mere joke! Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ They want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as of eternal life! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! Many―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! They have subjected themselves and are following the standard and the fables of the devil! Hell has opened its mouth and the more it is fed, the more insatiable becomes its hunger! The number of fools is infinite, and the number of the damned is also uncountable!”
Living Paradoxes―Walking Contradictions!
Yes―we are insane! We are living paradoxes! We are walking contradictions! We are lying hypocrites! We are the unfaithful faithful! Unbelieving believers! We know there is a God―but we often live as though there was no God! We know that we must love God with our whole soul, mind, heart and strength (Mark 12:30)―but, instead, we love ourselves and the world with our whole soul, mind, heart and strength! We know we should “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17)―but we want to play without ceasing! We are told to “Seek first the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33)―but we first seek all that the world can offer us! We are told we “cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24)―but we have made a god out of mammon! We are told that “the wages for sin is death” (Romans 6:23)―but we imagine that the wages of sin to be fun! We are told, “unless you do penance, you will perish” (Luke 13:3)―but we imagine that if do have fun we will perish! We are told, “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! Narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leadeth to life and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14)―but we imagine almost everyone goes to Heaven and hardly anyone goes to Hell. We are told, “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved―but he that believeth not shall be condemned!” (Mark 16:16)―but through false ecumenism we now imagine that any and all religions can lead a person to Heaven!
Yes―we are insane! Our Lady has repeatedly warned us of the terrible chastisements that are to come and she has given us instructions on how we could avoid it, or at least mitigate it ― but “fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7) “A fool laughs at instruction” (Proverbs 15:5). “A fool shall be filled with his own ways” (Proverbs 14:14). “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes!” (Proverbs 12:15). “The thought of a fool is sin” (Proverbs 24:9). “A fool will laugh at sin!” (Proverbs 14:9). “The fool said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’” (Psalm 52:1). “The fool walketh in darkness!” (Ecclesiastes 2:14). “The number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). “Understand, ye senseless among the people! And you fools, be wise at last!” (Psalms 93:8). Yes―be wise at last! Since we find ourselves in the LAST week of the Liturgical Year, it is a good time to, at LAST, become wise! It is a good time to at last see that we have been foolishly seduced by the devil, the world, and our own selves!
A New Liturgical Year―A New You!
God is always trying to bring good out of evil! Let’s face it―we are evil. Does that insult you? Well, Our Lord called the world “evil” saying: “I give testimony of the world, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7). He even called all of his hearers by the word “evil” ― “If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from Heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask Him?” (Luke 11:13). The word “evil” ― philosophically defined ― means “an absence of a good that is due or expected from someone or something.” In that sense, we are all evil―because we are all lacking in one or more things that God expects from us.
St. Paul even admits to struggling with evil: “I am carnal―sold under sin! For that which I work, I understand not! For I do not that good which I want to do; but the evil which I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I do not want to do, … then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me! For I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good. For to want to do good, is present with me; but to accomplish that which is good, I find not. For the good which I want to do, I do not; but the evil which I do not want to do, that I do! Now, if I do that which I do not want to do, then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find, then, that when I have a desire to do good, evil is present with me. For I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man―but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:14-25).
“God is faithful, and will strengthen and keep you from evil!” (2 Thessalonians 3:3). God want us to be “healed of the evil” (Mark 5:29). “Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit, saith the Lord … I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you! And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh! … And I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels! And I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh!” (Ezechiel 18:31; 36:26; 11:19). “I will give them a heart to know Me―that I am the Lord! And they shall be My people, and I will be their God! Because they shall return to Me with their whole heart!” (Jeremias 24:7).
To the vast majority of people―perhaps yourself included―God says: “This people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify Me, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Isaias 29:13). So why don’t you cry out to the Lord: “Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within me!” (Psalm 50:12). Let this coming new Liturgical Year―beginning with the First Sunday of Advent―be the beginning of new life with a new heart and a new approach to God and the Faith!
Article 11
Sunday November 20th & Monday November 21st, 2022
It's the Last! Last Means Last!
Sunday November 20th & Monday November 21st, 2022
It's the Last! Last Means Last!
First or Last?
First things first! Last things first! First things last! Which is to be? “First things first” means that important matters should be dealt with before other things. Yet, sometimes, we put in first place what ought to be last. This happens when we fail to follow our reason and logic and objectivity, and, instead we follow our feelings, whims and prejudiced preferences―whereby we transform the values of things: downgrading what is important, and upgrading what is unimportant.
Today―Sunday, November 20th, 2022―is the LAST Sunday of the Liturgical Year. Therefore, next Sunday―November 27th―is the FIRST Sunday of the Liturgical Year, being the FIRST Sunday of Advent. So we go from LAST to FIRST! Our Lord Himself coined that phrase: “So shall the last be first, and the first last! For many are called, but few chosen!” (Matthew 20:16). On another occasion, after He had pointed out “‘how hard is it for them that trust in riches, to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God!’ The Apostles wondered, saying among themselves: ‘Who then can be saved?’ … Jesus answered: ‘But many that are first, shall be last: and the last, first!’” (Mark 10:24-25, 31).
Talking about putting “first things first” ― Our Lord further points out what should come first: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice―and all these [other less important] things shall be added unto you!” (Luke 12:31) ... “Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God and His justice―and all these things shall be added unto you!” (Matthew 6:33). Elsewhere, Our Lord repeats this same idea and command in the following terms: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
God must come first because He made all things and everything is subject to Him: “Know ye that the Lord, He is God! He made us, and not we ourselves!” (Psalm 99:3). “The Lord hath made all things for Himself!” (Proverbs 16:4). “Thou hast made Heaven and Earth by Thy great power!” (Jeremias 32:17). “Thou hast created all things―and for Thy will they were and have been created!” (Apocalypse 4:11). “All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made” (John 1:3). “For in Him were all things created in Heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible ― all things were created by Him and in Him. And He is before all, and by Him all things consist!” (Colossians 1:16-17). God Himself adds: “All things that are under Heaven are Mine!” (Job 41:2). “All the Earth is Mine!” (Exodus 19:5). “All souls are mine!” (Ezechiel 18:4). “All the beasts are Mine!” (Psalms 49:10).
Satan’s “First Things Last” Ploy
The essential cry and principle of Satan is: “I will not serve!” (Jeremias 2:20). It is from that principle that Satan seeks to persuade to follow him in rebellion against and not to put God first. One of the unmistakable traits of the devil is that he is continually trying to reverse the values that God has given us.
God says power comes from above (John 19:11), whereas the devil says power comes from below―as we see in modern day politics. Today, power rests with the people, not with God. “Power to the people!” is a cultural expression and political slogan that has been used in a wide variety of contexts. During the 1960s in the United States, young people began speaking and writing the phrase ― “Power to the people!” ― as a form of rebellion against what they perceived as the oppression by the older generation, especially The Establishment. The Black Panthers used the slogan “All Power to the People!” to protest against the rich, ruling class domination of society. Pro-democracy students used it to protest America's military campaign in Vietnam. In the mid-1980s the People Power movement arose in the Philippines to get rid of President Ferdinand Marcos. The Pakistan Peoples Party has as its creed: “Islam is our faith; democracy is our politics; socialism is our economy; all power to the people!” The former UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, criticized the use of the slogan by Socialists in a 1986 speech: “Socialists cry ‘Power to the people!’ ― and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean ― Power over people, power to the State!” Ultimately, “Power to people” ― because it takes power away from God ― ends up being “Power to Satan”, because, like Satan, we cry out: “I will not serve!”
When we no longer put God in first place, then we invariably put something else in the place of God―and that “something else” is usually ourselves―which is how Satan tempted Eve, telling her that if she disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit, then she would become like God and would a god to herself in place of the true God: “Eve said to the serpent [devil]: ‘Of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die!’ And the serpent said to the woman: ‘No, you shall not die the death! For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil!’ And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold―and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat” (Genesis 3:3-6). By refusing to put God first, Eve fell from grace. From being “first”, she ended up being “last”.
The Forbidden Fruits and Idols of Today
Idols are things that we put in the place of God. Idols are things that take first place above God. “Turn ye not to idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods! I am the Lord your God!” (Leviticus 19:4). “I will destroy and break your idols! You shall fall among the ruins of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you!” (Leviticus 26:30).
Idolatry damns souls. Idolatry looks completely different today from what it once was. Whereas there was a time when idols were inanimate figures and statues, today they can come in various forms. Idolatry is an issue of the heart and can thus only be broken by a transformation of the heart. As we come to end of the one Liturgical Year (Last Sunday after Pentecost), and are on the verge of beginning a new Liturgical Year (First Sunday of Advent), it would be a good time to cast out our idols and start a new life with coming new year! Here are just a few modern-day idols―you will surely think of many more:
(1) Identity / Self-Image / Reputation
(2) Physical Appearance / Body / Face / Hair / Nails / Clothing / Perfumes
(3) Intellectual Appearance / Appear to be Knowledgeable, Wise, Skillful, Talented, etc.
(4) Money / Material Things / Possessions / Prosperity
(5) Work / Jobs / Status / Power / Influence / Fame / Success
(6) Entertainment / Sports / Hobbies / Fun
(7) Sexual Pleasure
(8) Comfort / Ease
(9) Phones / Technology / Internet / Social Media / Information
(10) Family / Children / Friends / Socializing
How Much Do You Idolize Your Idols?
We all have our “pet” idols―nobody can or should try to deny that. What damage are they doing to us? Are they a “stumbling-block” to us? Are we idolizing our idols more than we are idolizing God? Remember what Christ commands: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Mark 12:30; Matthew 22:37-38). In His Sermon on the Mount, Christ said: “No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (mammon = riches, pleasures, worldly things, etc.) … Your Father knoweth that you have need of things. Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you! … Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also!” (Matthew 6:24; 6:32-33; 6:19-21). We would do well to examine ourselves on this matter. Here is just the tip of the iceberg of the many questions we should be asking ourselves:
● Where Do I Spend My Time? How much time do I spend on the above things and activities? How much time on health matters and reading about health? How much time beautifying the body in the gym or at home, or on the hair, skin or nails, or cosmetics, or in front of a mirror? How much time in the bathroom? How much time on sports or fashions? How much time spent watching secular television shows, videos or movies? How much time on the computer, the secular internet and social media? How much time socializing? How much time talking/texting/browsing on the phone? How much time on internet forums? How much time on hobbies, or house projects, or on the car? How much time cooking? How much time in the stores or virtual stores online? How much time reading the news? How much time gossiping? How much time in idle useless senseless conversations?
Then compare this to how much time you dedicate to God each day! How much time in prayer? How much time in spiritual reading? How much time reading the Bible? How much time reading the Catechism or books about the lives of the Saints? How much time reading Church history? How much time is meditation? How much time at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? How much is visiting the Blessed Sacrament? How much time in talking about spiritual matters, the Faith and things connected to the Faith? How much time examining your conscience each day? That is a simple litmus test of how much you really love God! Actions speak louder than words!
● Where Do I Spend My Money? How much money is spent on “extras” like entertainment, sports, fashions, electronic gizmos and gadgets, special foods and drinks? How much money is spent on unnecessary subscriptions on various services and items? How much money is spent on house projects that are not really necessary? (we always find excuses to categorize them as “necessary”). How much money on the car and car improvements―including electronic gadgets, radios, CD/DVD players, computers, accessories, etc.? How much money on kitchen gadgets and accessories that are not really needed? Likewise for power tools? Likewise for video games and other game hardware/software? How much money is spent on extra televisions or computers for the home? How much money is spent on health and fitness? How much on alcohol and cigarettes? How much money is spent on decorations and trinkets? How much money is spent on toys? Etc.
Then compare this with how much money you spend on spiritual and religious things. How much money do you spend on religious books―Bible, Catechism, spiritual life, lives of saints, story books for children, Church history, liturgy, Faith and Morals, etc.? How much money do you spend on crucifixes, religious pictures, statues and other religious objects for the home? How much money do you spend on things like Rosaries, Scapulars and Medals? How much money do you spend on religious audio or video materials―such as sermons, spiritual conferences, catechism, religious movies, documentaries on the Faith, religious music, etc? Once again, all of this is a simple litmus test of how much you really love God! Actions speak louder than words!
● Where Do I Get My Joy? In all honesty―what excites you the most? Is it something spiritual or something non-spiritual, something to do with God or something to do with the world? Do you find more joy in religious activities, talks, things―or is worldly things that grab your attention and give you excitement? Are you happier in front of the tabernacle than you are in front of the television screen / computer screen / smartphone screen? Does going to Mass excite you more than going to a movie / play / or sports game? Are spiritual conversations more satisfying than worldly conversations? Do you prefer to pray or play? Do you prefer self-gratification or self-mortification? Yet again, a simple litmus test to see how much you really love God!
● What’s Always On My Mind? What things do think about most during the day? From the moment we rise in the morning to the time we fall asleep at night―our mind is active and constantly thinking. Even while we are at work, we can simultaneously be thinking of things that are unrelated to work―such as what we will do later, or we think of family and friends, or recall a variety of things and incidents that we have encountered, or we just daydream, etc. How much of that daily thinking time is dedicated to God and spiritual / religious things? Holy Scripture commands that we “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and that we “we ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). How can we pray always without ceasing? Well, what is prayer? Prayer is defined as “the raising of the mind and heart to God” which allows for far more variety than just saying Our Fathers and Hail Marys without ceasing. It is possible to have God on our minds and in our hearts all the time―even while we are engrossed in other occupations and duties. Heck! We even drive and talk to other persons as we drive! We talk on the phone as we drive! We think about many other things while we drive or work! Having God on the mind and in the heart is not that hard―if you really want Him there, that is!
Idolatry Damns Souls
Idolatry―in all of its many forms―damns souls: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings [partying], and such like. Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God!” (Galatians 5:19-21).
Who are “they that do such things”? “They” are most of world―just about everyone has one or more idols that they have deliberately chosen to place above and before God. Most of world is idolatrous. “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together: there is none that doth good, no not one!” (Psalm 13:2-3). “The creatures of God are turned to the idols of the Gentiles ― an abomination and a temptation to the souls of men, and a snare to the feet of the unwise” (Wisdom 14:11) … “All the gods of the nations are idols!” (1 Paralipomenon 16:26) ... “All the gods of the Gentiles are devils!” (Psalm 95:5) … “The idols of the gentiles are silver and gold, the works of the hands of men” (Psalm 113:12) … “And they mingled among the heathens and learned their works; and served their idols―and it became a stumbling-block to them” (Psalm 105:35-37).
Last and First Sundays Warn of the Last Times
On this Last Sunday of the Liturgical Year―which is door into the Last Week of the Liturgical Year―Holy Mother Church presents, in the readings in Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, before our eyes an account of Last Times of the world. Then, one week later, on the First Sunday of the next Liturgical Year―the First Sunday of Advent―Holy Mother Church AGAIN presents, to us in the Holy Mass, another reading about the Last Times of the world! So both the LAST and the FIRST speak of the LAST Times!
► THE LAST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR (November 20th): “At that time, Jesus said to His disciples: ‘When you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place ― let him who reads understand ― then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything from his house; and let him who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. But woe to those who are with child, or have infants at the breast in those days! But pray that your flight may not be in the winter, or on the Sabbath! For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor will be! And unless those days had been shortened, no living creature would be saved! But, for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened. Then if anyone say to you: “Behold, here is the Christ!” or “There He is!” ― do not believe it! For false christs and false prophets will arise, and will show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect! Behold, I have told it to you beforehand. If therefore they say to you: “Behold, He is in the desert!” ― do not go forth; ‘Behold, He is in the inner chambers!’ ― do not believe it! For, as the lightning comes forth from the east and shines even to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the body is, there will the eagles be gathered together. But immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give her light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. And then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven; and then will all tribes of the Earth mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of Heaven with great power and majesty! And He will send forth His angels with a trumpet and a great sound, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. Now from the fig tree learn this parable. When its branch is now tender, and the leaves break forth, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, know that it is near, even at the door. Amen I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things have been accomplished. Heaven and Earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away!’” (Matthew 24:15-35).
► THE FIRST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR (November 27th): “At that time, Jesus said to His disciples: ‘There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and upon the Earth distress of nations, bewildered by the roaring of sea and waves; men fainting for fear and for expectation of the things that are coming on the world; for the powers of Heaven will be shaken! And then they will see the son of Man, coming upon a cloud, with great power and majesty! But when these things begin to come to pass―look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand!’ And He spoke to them a parable: ‘Behold the fig tree and all the trees! When they now put forth their buds, you know that summer is near! Even so, when you see these things coming to pass, know that the kingdom of God is near! Amen I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all things have been accomplished! Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away!’” (Luke 21:25-33).
Sister Lucia of Fatima Says the Last Times are Our Times
Sr. Lucia of Fatima warns us that―already back in 1957―we have entered the “Last Times” or “End Times” of the world:
“Father, the Blessed Virgin did not tell me [explicitly] that we are in the LAST TIMES OF THE WORLD, but I understood this [implicitly] for three reasons:
“The first is because she told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is A FINAL BATTLE where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground.
“The second reason is because she told me, as well as my cousins, that God is giving two LAST REMEDIES to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary ... The Most Holy Virgin, in these LAST TIMES in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary! … And, being the LAST REMEDIES, that is to say, they are the FINAL ones, means that there will be no others.”
“And the third, because in the plans of the Divine Providence, when God is going to chastise the world He always first exhausts all other remedies. When He sees that the world pays no attention whatsoever, then, as we say in our imperfect way of talking, with a certain fear He presents us the LAST MEANS of salvation, His Blessed Mother. If we despise and reject this LAST MEANS, Heaven will no longer pardon us!” (Sister Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Augustino Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Will You Last the Last Times?
These “Last Times” could last a long time! Will you last? Or will you be one of the first to fall? These are times of apostasy from the Faith―and “without Faith it is impossible to please God!” (Hebrews 11:6). Our Lord speaks of this mass apostasy when He says: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). “Are you fearful, O ye of little Faith?” (Matthew 8:26). “Why are you fearful? Have you not Faith yet?” (Mark 4:40). “Where is your Faith?” (Luke 8:25). “Have the Faith of God!” (Mark 11:22).
Our Lady, in her many modern day apparitions, has also warned us about this apostasy and a massive loss of Faith: “The passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of customs, for Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government, will see a cruel persecution of all religious communities … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective, making it easy for everyone to live in sin. The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to deviate them from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness. This, then, will be the cause of the cursed demon taking possession … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ...
“The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs. In these unhappy times, people will only think of amusements and there will be unbridled luxury that would conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... This, in turn, will call down every type of chastisement―such as plagues, famines, internal fighting and external disputes with other nations, and apostasy―the cause of the perdition of so many souls so dear to Jesus Christ and to me … The righteous will suffer greatly ... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom …
“The Gospel of Jesus Christ having been forgotten … the devil will preach another Gospel contrary to that of the true Christ Jesus …
The Holy Eucharist will be subject to many horrible sacrileges and profanations—both public and secret.
It will be difficult to receive the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation.
The Sacrament of Penance will be forgotten and even scorned.
The Sacrament of Matrimony will be attacked and profaned.
The Sacrament of Extreme Unction will be little esteemed.
The Sacred Sacrament of Holy Orders will be ridiculed, oppressed and despised―vocations to the priesthood will be lost.
There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings.” (Compilation of quotes from Our Lady of Good Success and Our Lady of La Salette).
Last Times and Last Chance
Sister Lucia of Fatima said: “The Most Holy Virgin has made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She has told me that the devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Virgin, and a decisive battle is a final battle, in which one side wins, the other side loses. Also, starting with the present time, we belong either to God, or we belong to the demon—there is no middle ground … God is giving two last remedies to the ― the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others!” Sister Lucia said that Our Blessed Mother had told herself, Jacinta and Francisco “many times ... that many nations will disappear from the face of the Earth.” We only have the one recorded instance in July 1917, but Lucia said Our Lady spoke of the annihilation of many nations “many times!”
Our Lady of Akita echoes this “Last Times” and “Last Remedies” idea: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord ... In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind … the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!”
Do not kid yourself into being too complacent! We are living in very evil times and soon it will get unimaginably worse! We are without doubt in the Last Times of the World. That does not mean to say the world will end soon―for as Our Lady foretold, first there must come terrible times; then comes the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; after which comes a short period of great holiness and peace worldwide; this is to be followed by more terrible times and the coming of the Antichrist; after which comes the defeat of the Antichrist, which will be followed by the end of the world. Yet of all these things fall under the umbrella of “The Last Times”.
Right now, we are seeing the dawning of those terrible times that precede the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart―times that will be truly frightening, faith shattering, life threatening, nature upheaving and war mongering, during which the majority of the world’s population will be wiped out―in the words of Our Lady: “During this period, there will be great physical and moral calamities, both public and private … The seasons will be altered … Water and fire will give the Earth’s globe convulsions and terrible earthquakes, which will swallow up mountains and cities ... Several cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes ... There will be famines, plagues and infectious diseases … There will be bloody wars and internal fighting [civil wars] and external disputes with other nations … A general war will follow which will be appalling. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... Many nations will be annihilated!”
The Last Remedies are the Last Things on Our Mind
As always with God―everything is variable and “negotiable”. If we take and use the remedies offered to us, then we can still do something about what is to come. Do not dream and imagine that we can totally avoid it―the world is way far too sinful for that to happen.
As Our Lady said to Blessed Elena Ailello, back in 1956: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
Those words were echoed by Our Lady of Akita in 1973: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord ... If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them … the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead.”
Seven years later, in Fulda, Germany, Pope John Paul II revealed that we can no longer avoid and avert the chastisement that is to come―but we can mitigate and soften the blow of what is coming.
Our Lady of Akita had indicated the same thing in 1973: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming an army of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger!”
Using the Last Remedies
Catholics have good reason to take to heart the words: “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12), for “unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required―and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48). As a Catholic, you have been given far, far more than those in false religions or paganism. The gift of Faith is not for the mantelpiece, but for the “workshop” ― for “Faith without works is dead!” (James 2:20). If “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), then the adopted sons or children of God have to do the same thing―seek and save those who are lost.
The problem is that we tend to “point-the-finger” instead of “saving-the-soul”! Scripture commands: “Cease to point the finger and to speak that which profiteth not!” (Isaias 58:9). “Take heed that you exercise not the judgment of man, but of the Lord―for whatsoever you judge, it shall come back upon you!” (2 Paralipomenon 19:6) ― to which Our Lord adds: “Judge not, that you may not be judged―for with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged; and with what measure you give to others, it shall be measured to you again. Why seest thou the speck that is in thy brother’s eye; and seest not the plank that is in thy own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy brother: ‘Let me cast the speck out of thy eye; and behold there is a plank in thy own eye? Thou hypocrite! Cast out first the beam in thy own eye, and then shalt thou be able to see to cast out the speck out of thy brother’s eye!” (Matthew 7:1-5). “Thus saith the Lord: ‘Judge ye true judgment, and let every man show mercy and compassion to his brother!’” (Zacharias 7:9) ― to which Our Lord adds: “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy! … For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences” (Matthew 5:7; 6:14). Scripture further adds: “Let all bitterness, and anger, and indignation, and clamor, and blasphemy, be put away from you, with all malice. And be ye kind one to another; merciful, forgiving one another, even as God hath forgiven you in Christ!” (Ephesians 4:31-32) … “Bearing with one another and forgiving one another―if any have a complaint against another―even as the Lord has forgiven you, so do you also!” (Colossians 3:13). “But judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy!” (James 2:13).
Our Lady―in her apparitions during these “Last Times”―did not tell us “point-the-finger”, nor to “hound-the-sinner.” No―far from it! She asked: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners?” She insisted: “Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! (Fatima). “I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this!” (Akita).
Are you―and your family―following this path of “prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices”? Or are you following the path of “play, self-indulgence and daring fashions”? Are you “softening the Father’s anger”? Or are you softening your Catholic Faith? Are you prepared to be a “victim soul” for the conversion of sinners? Or are victimizing the souls of sinners by your finger-pointing and words of hate? These current “Last Times” will eventually end with our Last Judgment! Are we judging in a way that we hope to be judged? Or are we judging in a way that we ourselves will fear to be judged? “Judge not, that you may not be judged―for with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged; and with what measure you give to others, it shall be measured to you again!” (Matthew 7:1-2). “Thou shalt not judge unjustly ... but judge thy neighbor according to justice!” (Leviticus 19:15).
Our Lord came, not to point the finger at sinners, but to save sinners! His Apostles―James and John―wanted to call down fire from Heaven to destroy a Samaritan town that had refused Jesus: “They received Him not, because His face was of one going to Jerusalem [for the Samaritans hated Jews]. And when His disciples, James and John, had seen this, they said: ‘Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?’ And turning, Jesus rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save! … The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! … I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!’” (Luke 9:53-56; 19:10; 5:32). Is our natural approach to sinners like that of James and John? To destroy them? Or is our attitude like that of Our Lord? To seek and save sinners and call them to penance?
We are certainly living in the “Last Times” and each day is a day closer to our “Last Judgment” ― will we at last wake up to what Heaven is requesting from us and start seeking and saving those who are lost―rather than condemning them? That number―of those who are lost―includes Pope Francis, the Liberal and Modernist clergy, the perverts, the abusers, the drunkards and druggies, the Protestants, the Jews, the pagans―in fact, it consists of the vast majority of the world! So let us stop pointing and wagging the finger―and let us, instead, finger our Rosary beads for those poor deluded stubborn insane souls. For, as Sister Lucia of Fatima said in 1957, the Rosary is the answer to all the problems in the world (which is what Our Lady later re-affirmed in 1973 at Akita):
“The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary—to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.” (Sr. Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
So how many Rosaries are you and your family praying daily? Our Lady insisted: “Say many Rosaries!” (Fatima, May 1917). “Say the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, June 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). “Continue to say the Rosary every day! Pray, pray very much!” (Fatima, August 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (Fatima, September 1917). “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, October 1917). “Pray very much! … Be faithful and fervent in prayer! … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach!” (Akita, 1973).
Maybe this last week of the Liturgical Year and the approach of a new Liturgical Year (with the First Sunday of Advent) is the time when we at last start to pay attention to Our Lady’s message and put it into practice! “Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity!”
First things first! Last things first! First things last! Which is to be? “First things first” means that important matters should be dealt with before other things. Yet, sometimes, we put in first place what ought to be last. This happens when we fail to follow our reason and logic and objectivity, and, instead we follow our feelings, whims and prejudiced preferences―whereby we transform the values of things: downgrading what is important, and upgrading what is unimportant.
Today―Sunday, November 20th, 2022―is the LAST Sunday of the Liturgical Year. Therefore, next Sunday―November 27th―is the FIRST Sunday of the Liturgical Year, being the FIRST Sunday of Advent. So we go from LAST to FIRST! Our Lord Himself coined that phrase: “So shall the last be first, and the first last! For many are called, but few chosen!” (Matthew 20:16). On another occasion, after He had pointed out “‘how hard is it for them that trust in riches, to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God!’ The Apostles wondered, saying among themselves: ‘Who then can be saved?’ … Jesus answered: ‘But many that are first, shall be last: and the last, first!’” (Mark 10:24-25, 31).
Talking about putting “first things first” ― Our Lord further points out what should come first: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice―and all these [other less important] things shall be added unto you!” (Luke 12:31) ... “Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God and His justice―and all these things shall be added unto you!” (Matthew 6:33). Elsewhere, Our Lord repeats this same idea and command in the following terms: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31).
God must come first because He made all things and everything is subject to Him: “Know ye that the Lord, He is God! He made us, and not we ourselves!” (Psalm 99:3). “The Lord hath made all things for Himself!” (Proverbs 16:4). “Thou hast made Heaven and Earth by Thy great power!” (Jeremias 32:17). “Thou hast created all things―and for Thy will they were and have been created!” (Apocalypse 4:11). “All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made” (John 1:3). “For in Him were all things created in Heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible ― all things were created by Him and in Him. And He is before all, and by Him all things consist!” (Colossians 1:16-17). God Himself adds: “All things that are under Heaven are Mine!” (Job 41:2). “All the Earth is Mine!” (Exodus 19:5). “All souls are mine!” (Ezechiel 18:4). “All the beasts are Mine!” (Psalms 49:10).
Satan’s “First Things Last” Ploy
The essential cry and principle of Satan is: “I will not serve!” (Jeremias 2:20). It is from that principle that Satan seeks to persuade to follow him in rebellion against and not to put God first. One of the unmistakable traits of the devil is that he is continually trying to reverse the values that God has given us.
God says power comes from above (John 19:11), whereas the devil says power comes from below―as we see in modern day politics. Today, power rests with the people, not with God. “Power to the people!” is a cultural expression and political slogan that has been used in a wide variety of contexts. During the 1960s in the United States, young people began speaking and writing the phrase ― “Power to the people!” ― as a form of rebellion against what they perceived as the oppression by the older generation, especially The Establishment. The Black Panthers used the slogan “All Power to the People!” to protest against the rich, ruling class domination of society. Pro-democracy students used it to protest America's military campaign in Vietnam. In the mid-1980s the People Power movement arose in the Philippines to get rid of President Ferdinand Marcos. The Pakistan Peoples Party has as its creed: “Islam is our faith; democracy is our politics; socialism is our economy; all power to the people!” The former UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, criticized the use of the slogan by Socialists in a 1986 speech: “Socialists cry ‘Power to the people!’ ― and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean ― Power over people, power to the State!” Ultimately, “Power to people” ― because it takes power away from God ― ends up being “Power to Satan”, because, like Satan, we cry out: “I will not serve!”
When we no longer put God in first place, then we invariably put something else in the place of God―and that “something else” is usually ourselves―which is how Satan tempted Eve, telling her that if she disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit, then she would become like God and would a god to herself in place of the true God: “Eve said to the serpent [devil]: ‘Of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die!’ And the serpent said to the woman: ‘No, you shall not die the death! For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil!’ And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold―and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat” (Genesis 3:3-6). By refusing to put God first, Eve fell from grace. From being “first”, she ended up being “last”.
The Forbidden Fruits and Idols of Today
Idols are things that we put in the place of God. Idols are things that take first place above God. “Turn ye not to idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods! I am the Lord your God!” (Leviticus 19:4). “I will destroy and break your idols! You shall fall among the ruins of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you!” (Leviticus 26:30).
Idolatry damns souls. Idolatry looks completely different today from what it once was. Whereas there was a time when idols were inanimate figures and statues, today they can come in various forms. Idolatry is an issue of the heart and can thus only be broken by a transformation of the heart. As we come to end of the one Liturgical Year (Last Sunday after Pentecost), and are on the verge of beginning a new Liturgical Year (First Sunday of Advent), it would be a good time to cast out our idols and start a new life with coming new year! Here are just a few modern-day idols―you will surely think of many more:
(1) Identity / Self-Image / Reputation
(2) Physical Appearance / Body / Face / Hair / Nails / Clothing / Perfumes
(3) Intellectual Appearance / Appear to be Knowledgeable, Wise, Skillful, Talented, etc.
(4) Money / Material Things / Possessions / Prosperity
(5) Work / Jobs / Status / Power / Influence / Fame / Success
(6) Entertainment / Sports / Hobbies / Fun
(7) Sexual Pleasure
(8) Comfort / Ease
(9) Phones / Technology / Internet / Social Media / Information
(10) Family / Children / Friends / Socializing
How Much Do You Idolize Your Idols?
We all have our “pet” idols―nobody can or should try to deny that. What damage are they doing to us? Are they a “stumbling-block” to us? Are we idolizing our idols more than we are idolizing God? Remember what Christ commands: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Mark 12:30; Matthew 22:37-38). In His Sermon on the Mount, Christ said: “No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (mammon = riches, pleasures, worldly things, etc.) … Your Father knoweth that you have need of things. Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you! … Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth! … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also!” (Matthew 6:24; 6:32-33; 6:19-21). We would do well to examine ourselves on this matter. Here is just the tip of the iceberg of the many questions we should be asking ourselves:
● Where Do I Spend My Time? How much time do I spend on the above things and activities? How much time on health matters and reading about health? How much time beautifying the body in the gym or at home, or on the hair, skin or nails, or cosmetics, or in front of a mirror? How much time in the bathroom? How much time on sports or fashions? How much time spent watching secular television shows, videos or movies? How much time on the computer, the secular internet and social media? How much time socializing? How much time talking/texting/browsing on the phone? How much time on internet forums? How much time on hobbies, or house projects, or on the car? How much time cooking? How much time in the stores or virtual stores online? How much time reading the news? How much time gossiping? How much time in idle useless senseless conversations?
Then compare this to how much time you dedicate to God each day! How much time in prayer? How much time in spiritual reading? How much time reading the Bible? How much time reading the Catechism or books about the lives of the Saints? How much time reading Church history? How much time is meditation? How much time at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? How much is visiting the Blessed Sacrament? How much time in talking about spiritual matters, the Faith and things connected to the Faith? How much time examining your conscience each day? That is a simple litmus test of how much you really love God! Actions speak louder than words!
● Where Do I Spend My Money? How much money is spent on “extras” like entertainment, sports, fashions, electronic gizmos and gadgets, special foods and drinks? How much money is spent on unnecessary subscriptions on various services and items? How much money is spent on house projects that are not really necessary? (we always find excuses to categorize them as “necessary”). How much money on the car and car improvements―including electronic gadgets, radios, CD/DVD players, computers, accessories, etc.? How much money on kitchen gadgets and accessories that are not really needed? Likewise for power tools? Likewise for video games and other game hardware/software? How much money is spent on extra televisions or computers for the home? How much money is spent on health and fitness? How much on alcohol and cigarettes? How much money is spent on decorations and trinkets? How much money is spent on toys? Etc.
Then compare this with how much money you spend on spiritual and religious things. How much money do you spend on religious books―Bible, Catechism, spiritual life, lives of saints, story books for children, Church history, liturgy, Faith and Morals, etc.? How much money do you spend on crucifixes, religious pictures, statues and other religious objects for the home? How much money do you spend on things like Rosaries, Scapulars and Medals? How much money do you spend on religious audio or video materials―such as sermons, spiritual conferences, catechism, religious movies, documentaries on the Faith, religious music, etc? Once again, all of this is a simple litmus test of how much you really love God! Actions speak louder than words!
● Where Do I Get My Joy? In all honesty―what excites you the most? Is it something spiritual or something non-spiritual, something to do with God or something to do with the world? Do you find more joy in religious activities, talks, things―or is worldly things that grab your attention and give you excitement? Are you happier in front of the tabernacle than you are in front of the television screen / computer screen / smartphone screen? Does going to Mass excite you more than going to a movie / play / or sports game? Are spiritual conversations more satisfying than worldly conversations? Do you prefer to pray or play? Do you prefer self-gratification or self-mortification? Yet again, a simple litmus test to see how much you really love God!
● What’s Always On My Mind? What things do think about most during the day? From the moment we rise in the morning to the time we fall asleep at night―our mind is active and constantly thinking. Even while we are at work, we can simultaneously be thinking of things that are unrelated to work―such as what we will do later, or we think of family and friends, or recall a variety of things and incidents that we have encountered, or we just daydream, etc. How much of that daily thinking time is dedicated to God and spiritual / religious things? Holy Scripture commands that we “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and that we “we ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). How can we pray always without ceasing? Well, what is prayer? Prayer is defined as “the raising of the mind and heart to God” which allows for far more variety than just saying Our Fathers and Hail Marys without ceasing. It is possible to have God on our minds and in our hearts all the time―even while we are engrossed in other occupations and duties. Heck! We even drive and talk to other persons as we drive! We talk on the phone as we drive! We think about many other things while we drive or work! Having God on the mind and in the heart is not that hard―if you really want Him there, that is!
Idolatry Damns Souls
Idolatry―in all of its many forms―damns souls: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings [partying], and such like. Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God!” (Galatians 5:19-21).
Who are “they that do such things”? “They” are most of world―just about everyone has one or more idols that they have deliberately chosen to place above and before God. Most of world is idolatrous. “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together: there is none that doth good, no not one!” (Psalm 13:2-3). “The creatures of God are turned to the idols of the Gentiles ― an abomination and a temptation to the souls of men, and a snare to the feet of the unwise” (Wisdom 14:11) … “All the gods of the nations are idols!” (1 Paralipomenon 16:26) ... “All the gods of the Gentiles are devils!” (Psalm 95:5) … “The idols of the gentiles are silver and gold, the works of the hands of men” (Psalm 113:12) … “And they mingled among the heathens and learned their works; and served their idols―and it became a stumbling-block to them” (Psalm 105:35-37).
Last and First Sundays Warn of the Last Times
On this Last Sunday of the Liturgical Year―which is door into the Last Week of the Liturgical Year―Holy Mother Church presents, in the readings in Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, before our eyes an account of Last Times of the world. Then, one week later, on the First Sunday of the next Liturgical Year―the First Sunday of Advent―Holy Mother Church AGAIN presents, to us in the Holy Mass, another reading about the Last Times of the world! So both the LAST and the FIRST speak of the LAST Times!
► THE LAST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR (November 20th): “At that time, Jesus said to His disciples: ‘When you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place ― let him who reads understand ― then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything from his house; and let him who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. But woe to those who are with child, or have infants at the breast in those days! But pray that your flight may not be in the winter, or on the Sabbath! For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor will be! And unless those days had been shortened, no living creature would be saved! But, for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened. Then if anyone say to you: “Behold, here is the Christ!” or “There He is!” ― do not believe it! For false christs and false prophets will arise, and will show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect! Behold, I have told it to you beforehand. If therefore they say to you: “Behold, He is in the desert!” ― do not go forth; ‘Behold, He is in the inner chambers!’ ― do not believe it! For, as the lightning comes forth from the east and shines even to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the body is, there will the eagles be gathered together. But immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give her light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. And then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven; and then will all tribes of the Earth mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of Heaven with great power and majesty! And He will send forth His angels with a trumpet and a great sound, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. Now from the fig tree learn this parable. When its branch is now tender, and the leaves break forth, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, know that it is near, even at the door. Amen I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things have been accomplished. Heaven and Earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away!’” (Matthew 24:15-35).
► THE FIRST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR (November 27th): “At that time, Jesus said to His disciples: ‘There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and upon the Earth distress of nations, bewildered by the roaring of sea and waves; men fainting for fear and for expectation of the things that are coming on the world; for the powers of Heaven will be shaken! And then they will see the son of Man, coming upon a cloud, with great power and majesty! But when these things begin to come to pass―look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand!’ And He spoke to them a parable: ‘Behold the fig tree and all the trees! When they now put forth their buds, you know that summer is near! Even so, when you see these things coming to pass, know that the kingdom of God is near! Amen I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all things have been accomplished! Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away!’” (Luke 21:25-33).
Sister Lucia of Fatima Says the Last Times are Our Times
Sr. Lucia of Fatima warns us that―already back in 1957―we have entered the “Last Times” or “End Times” of the world:
“Father, the Blessed Virgin did not tell me [explicitly] that we are in the LAST TIMES OF THE WORLD, but I understood this [implicitly] for three reasons:
“The first is because she told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is A FINAL BATTLE where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground.
“The second reason is because she told me, as well as my cousins, that God is giving two LAST REMEDIES to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary ... The Most Holy Virgin, in these LAST TIMES in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary! … And, being the LAST REMEDIES, that is to say, they are the FINAL ones, means that there will be no others.”
“And the third, because in the plans of the Divine Providence, when God is going to chastise the world He always first exhausts all other remedies. When He sees that the world pays no attention whatsoever, then, as we say in our imperfect way of talking, with a certain fear He presents us the LAST MEANS of salvation, His Blessed Mother. If we despise and reject this LAST MEANS, Heaven will no longer pardon us!” (Sister Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Augustino Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Will You Last the Last Times?
These “Last Times” could last a long time! Will you last? Or will you be one of the first to fall? These are times of apostasy from the Faith―and “without Faith it is impossible to please God!” (Hebrews 11:6). Our Lord speaks of this mass apostasy when He says: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). “Are you fearful, O ye of little Faith?” (Matthew 8:26). “Why are you fearful? Have you not Faith yet?” (Mark 4:40). “Where is your Faith?” (Luke 8:25). “Have the Faith of God!” (Mark 11:22).
Our Lady, in her many modern day apparitions, has also warned us about this apostasy and a massive loss of Faith: “The passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of customs, for Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government, will see a cruel persecution of all religious communities … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective, making it easy for everyone to live in sin. The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way and he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to deviate them from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness. This, then, will be the cause of the cursed demon taking possession … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ...
“The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs. In these unhappy times, people will only think of amusements and there will be unbridled luxury that would conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops ... Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... This, in turn, will call down every type of chastisement―such as plagues, famines, internal fighting and external disputes with other nations, and apostasy―the cause of the perdition of so many souls so dear to Jesus Christ and to me … The righteous will suffer greatly ... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom …
“The Gospel of Jesus Christ having been forgotten … the devil will preach another Gospel contrary to that of the true Christ Jesus …
The Holy Eucharist will be subject to many horrible sacrileges and profanations—both public and secret.
It will be difficult to receive the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation.
The Sacrament of Penance will be forgotten and even scorned.
The Sacrament of Matrimony will be attacked and profaned.
The Sacrament of Extreme Unction will be little esteemed.
The Sacred Sacrament of Holy Orders will be ridiculed, oppressed and despised―vocations to the priesthood will be lost.
There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings.” (Compilation of quotes from Our Lady of Good Success and Our Lady of La Salette).
Last Times and Last Chance
Sister Lucia of Fatima said: “The Most Holy Virgin has made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She has told me that the devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Virgin, and a decisive battle is a final battle, in which one side wins, the other side loses. Also, starting with the present time, we belong either to God, or we belong to the demon—there is no middle ground … God is giving two last remedies to the ― the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others!” Sister Lucia said that Our Blessed Mother had told herself, Jacinta and Francisco “many times ... that many nations will disappear from the face of the Earth.” We only have the one recorded instance in July 1917, but Lucia said Our Lady spoke of the annihilation of many nations “many times!”
Our Lady of Akita echoes this “Last Times” and “Last Remedies” idea: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord ... In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind … the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!”
Do not kid yourself into being too complacent! We are living in very evil times and soon it will get unimaginably worse! We are without doubt in the Last Times of the World. That does not mean to say the world will end soon―for as Our Lady foretold, first there must come terrible times; then comes the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; after which comes a short period of great holiness and peace worldwide; this is to be followed by more terrible times and the coming of the Antichrist; after which comes the defeat of the Antichrist, which will be followed by the end of the world. Yet of all these things fall under the umbrella of “The Last Times”.
Right now, we are seeing the dawning of those terrible times that precede the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart―times that will be truly frightening, faith shattering, life threatening, nature upheaving and war mongering, during which the majority of the world’s population will be wiped out―in the words of Our Lady: “During this period, there will be great physical and moral calamities, both public and private … The seasons will be altered … Water and fire will give the Earth’s globe convulsions and terrible earthquakes, which will swallow up mountains and cities ... Several cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes ... There will be famines, plagues and infectious diseases … There will be bloody wars and internal fighting [civil wars] and external disputes with other nations … A general war will follow which will be appalling. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... Many nations will be annihilated!”
The Last Remedies are the Last Things on Our Mind
As always with God―everything is variable and “negotiable”. If we take and use the remedies offered to us, then we can still do something about what is to come. Do not dream and imagine that we can totally avoid it―the world is way far too sinful for that to happen.
As Our Lady said to Blessed Elena Ailello, back in 1956: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
Those words were echoed by Our Lady of Akita in 1973: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord ... If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them … the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead.”
Seven years later, in Fulda, Germany, Pope John Paul II revealed that we can no longer avoid and avert the chastisement that is to come―but we can mitigate and soften the blow of what is coming.
Our Lady of Akita had indicated the same thing in 1973: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming an army of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger!”
Using the Last Remedies
Catholics have good reason to take to heart the words: “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12), for “unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required―and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48). As a Catholic, you have been given far, far more than those in false religions or paganism. The gift of Faith is not for the mantelpiece, but for the “workshop” ― for “Faith without works is dead!” (James 2:20). If “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), then the adopted sons or children of God have to do the same thing―seek and save those who are lost.
The problem is that we tend to “point-the-finger” instead of “saving-the-soul”! Scripture commands: “Cease to point the finger and to speak that which profiteth not!” (Isaias 58:9). “Take heed that you exercise not the judgment of man, but of the Lord―for whatsoever you judge, it shall come back upon you!” (2 Paralipomenon 19:6) ― to which Our Lord adds: “Judge not, that you may not be judged―for with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged; and with what measure you give to others, it shall be measured to you again. Why seest thou the speck that is in thy brother’s eye; and seest not the plank that is in thy own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy brother: ‘Let me cast the speck out of thy eye; and behold there is a plank in thy own eye? Thou hypocrite! Cast out first the beam in thy own eye, and then shalt thou be able to see to cast out the speck out of thy brother’s eye!” (Matthew 7:1-5). “Thus saith the Lord: ‘Judge ye true judgment, and let every man show mercy and compassion to his brother!’” (Zacharias 7:9) ― to which Our Lord adds: “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy! … For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences” (Matthew 5:7; 6:14). Scripture further adds: “Let all bitterness, and anger, and indignation, and clamor, and blasphemy, be put away from you, with all malice. And be ye kind one to another; merciful, forgiving one another, even as God hath forgiven you in Christ!” (Ephesians 4:31-32) … “Bearing with one another and forgiving one another―if any have a complaint against another―even as the Lord has forgiven you, so do you also!” (Colossians 3:13). “But judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy!” (James 2:13).
Our Lady―in her apparitions during these “Last Times”―did not tell us “point-the-finger”, nor to “hound-the-sinner.” No―far from it! She asked: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners?” She insisted: “Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! (Fatima). “I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this!” (Akita).
Are you―and your family―following this path of “prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices”? Or are you following the path of “play, self-indulgence and daring fashions”? Are you “softening the Father’s anger”? Or are you softening your Catholic Faith? Are you prepared to be a “victim soul” for the conversion of sinners? Or are victimizing the souls of sinners by your finger-pointing and words of hate? These current “Last Times” will eventually end with our Last Judgment! Are we judging in a way that we hope to be judged? Or are we judging in a way that we ourselves will fear to be judged? “Judge not, that you may not be judged―for with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged; and with what measure you give to others, it shall be measured to you again!” (Matthew 7:1-2). “Thou shalt not judge unjustly ... but judge thy neighbor according to justice!” (Leviticus 19:15).
Our Lord came, not to point the finger at sinners, but to save sinners! His Apostles―James and John―wanted to call down fire from Heaven to destroy a Samaritan town that had refused Jesus: “They received Him not, because His face was of one going to Jerusalem [for the Samaritans hated Jews]. And when His disciples, James and John, had seen this, they said: ‘Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?’ And turning, Jesus rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save! … The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! … I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!’” (Luke 9:53-56; 19:10; 5:32). Is our natural approach to sinners like that of James and John? To destroy them? Or is our attitude like that of Our Lord? To seek and save sinners and call them to penance?
We are certainly living in the “Last Times” and each day is a day closer to our “Last Judgment” ― will we at last wake up to what Heaven is requesting from us and start seeking and saving those who are lost―rather than condemning them? That number―of those who are lost―includes Pope Francis, the Liberal and Modernist clergy, the perverts, the abusers, the drunkards and druggies, the Protestants, the Jews, the pagans―in fact, it consists of the vast majority of the world! So let us stop pointing and wagging the finger―and let us, instead, finger our Rosary beads for those poor deluded stubborn insane souls. For, as Sister Lucia of Fatima said in 1957, the Rosary is the answer to all the problems in the world (which is what Our Lady later re-affirmed in 1973 at Akita):
“The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary—to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.” (Sr. Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
So how many Rosaries are you and your family praying daily? Our Lady insisted: “Say many Rosaries!” (Fatima, May 1917). “Say the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, June 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). “Continue to say the Rosary every day! Pray, pray very much!” (Fatima, August 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (Fatima, September 1917). “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, October 1917). “Pray very much! … Be faithful and fervent in prayer! … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach!” (Akita, 1973).
Maybe this last week of the Liturgical Year and the approach of a new Liturgical Year (with the First Sunday of Advent) is the time when we at last start to pay attention to Our Lady’s message and put it into practice! “Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity!”
Article 10
Thursday November 17th to Saturday November 19th, 2022
It's a Miracle! Can You Believe It?
Thursday November 17th to Saturday November 19th, 2022
It's a Miracle! Can You Believe It?
Who Doesn’t Want a Miracle?
Apart from Satan and his stooges―everyone would or should want a miracle! Boy, do we need a miracle! Heck! Are we not in a massive mess that is getting worse with each passing month? As the enemies of the Church, State and mankind gleefully tighten the noose around our necks, who, in their right state of mind, can be happy about the current world situation―both materially and spiritually?
We Will Soon Be Begging for a Miracle!
As Our Lady warned about our current times: “All the universe will be struck with terror and many will let themselves be led astray, because they have not worshiped the true Christ … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth. People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin ... Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … God will strike in an unprecedented way. God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered ... Because the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been forgotten. The seasons will be altered, the Earth, the stars will lose their regular motion, the moon will only reflect a faint reddish glow. Water and fire will give the Earth’s globe convulsions and terrible earthquakes which will swallow up mountains and cities.
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The Church will witness a frightful crisis! … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay! … The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord! … A great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops! … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls! ... The devil will make himself like the king of all hearts! …
“Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws [the U.S. Senate, on November 16th, by a 67-32 vote, took a further step towards enshrining same-sex marriages into U.S. Law] … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan―which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds … There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases … Various nations will be annihilated! … Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling! Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach … The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom … The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession!”
Then Comes the Miracle!
Our Lady then foretells a miraculous victory over Satan and the evil in the world: “At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent ... This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous [miraculous] way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss ... In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph ... Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. ... Russia will be converted … Pagan Rome will disappear. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God ... and a period of peace will be granted to the world … Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the Holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in Its poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and mankind will make great progress in its Faith, for there will be unity among the workers of Jesus Christ and man will live in fear of God.”
How Do We God About Getting the Miracle?
So how do we get this miraculous victory over all the evil in the world today? Well, as it is in life, so it is with God―you get what you pay for! “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8) … “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly!” (2 Corinthians 9:6). Our Lord criticizes the person “that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God” (Luke 12:21) ― yet that is what most people are like! We have lots of time for ourselves and very little time for God. We chaff and complain when a Mass takes longer than we think it should take, or when a sermon is longer than we would like―because the time “lost” by the longer Mass or sermon is holding us back from getting to the things that we really want to do en enjoy! We are “cheap” to say the least―and miracles are not cheap!
Don’t Just Sit There! Do Something!
Yes―we know that Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5)―but that does not mean that Our Lord is going to do everything for us while we sit around in armchairs eating snacks while He does all the work! Don’t expect God to do what you won’t do. Jesus could have converted the whole world by Himself, without choosing Twelve Apostles and a bunch of disciples and sending those imperfect men out in the world with the command to convert and baptize the whole world! He made them work! Yes―there would be miracles and miraculous conversions―but they would have to play their part, roll-up their sleeves and do the work! Our Lord speaks of us WORKING in Lord’s vineyard. Scripture tells us “WORK out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12]) ― rather than just casually sitting around in our armchairs. Some say: “Live at the level that your miracle requires!” If you need a miracle then you will have to live at a level in God that will support a miracle.
Ultimately, God wants us to grow in Him by growing in grace and holiness. Usually people won’t grow unless they have to ― unless they are forced to do something. Sometimes the hard issues of life force us to do just that. We need to do what God commands in order to receive what God promises. When we do what we are supposed to do, then God does what He desires to do and what He has promised He would do. And most of the time, the bigger the request, the bigger the effort. You do not earn God’s favor except by having the kind of faith that is necessary ― for big things require sacrifice and effort. When the disciples could not cast the devil out of the little boy in Mark chapter 9, Jesus told them: “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting!” (Mark 9:29). Some things take an extra effort. Jesus always paid the price, evidently, the disciples did not!
“Time-Delayed” Miracles
Too many people expect to be at their “beck-and-call”―as though they just have snap their fingers and God will come running! That is an abuse of God! How dare we―sinners that we all are―expect God to cater to our whims! Yes―Christ said that “the Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister” (Mark 10:45), but Holy Scripture repeatedly says: “You shall serve the Lord your God!” (Exodus 23:25 and in many other places). If we serve God faithfully, then, after a time of testing, God will be faithful in helping us.
Most of the time miracles are “time delayed”, so to speak, because God is waiting for us to play our part and put forth some effort. In Holy Scripture (4 Kings 5:1-16), we see the prophet Eliseus tell Naaman the leper to go wash himself in the River Jordan in order to receive a miracle cure. God could have cured Naaman on the spot―through the word of His prophet―without any further effort required on the part of Naaman! Yet Naaman was commanded to wash himself in the Jordan―not once, but seven times! The miracle could have taken place after the first washing―but it didn’t; nor after the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth time. Naaman had to go through a lot of humiliation first―can you imagine his pagan soldiers laughing at him and mocking him behind his back: “What an idiot! He thinks that washing in a dirty river is going to cure is leprosy! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
Have Faith! Do Works!
We get prayer requests all the time, or perhaps we ourselves make prayer requests all the time. They all go something like this: “Please pray for me! I have a terrible issue and I desperately need God’s help!” Yes, we can pray for them, and we do, but real help only comes when people rise up themselves and do the things they need to do. Unfortunately, “they say and do not!” (Matthew 23:3). This reminds us of Our Lady of Fatima’s reply to those who were asking her―through the children at Fatima―for a personal miracle in their lives. Our Lady’s response was: “Some yes, but not others. They must amend their lives and ask forgiveness for their sins!” Of one man Our Lady said: “If he is converted, he will be cured during the year.” Even YOU will not do extraordinary favors for those people who offend you, insult you or attack you! We really need to show some changes in our lives if we are to have any realistic hope of God’s miraculous interventions in the public and private crises that we presently find ourselves in―and which are only going to get worse.
Most things in God do not “just happen”. Where did we ever get the idea that Faith in God was easy, and that it would not take effort? Faith alone is not enough: “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith! Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … Do you see that by works a man is justified―and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26). It may take everything you have to get an answer from God by Faith and works. That is why it happens so rarely. He is not reluctant to move on our behalf but He requires much, and few are willing to do it. Are you willing? Do you want it that bad? Big things take big Faith and big Faith takes big effort. The Bible says to seek FIRST the Kingdom of God and THEN you will receive the things you need. Making Him “Number One” may require making many major changes in your life.
Miracles Are Not Freebies
We often expect the rich person to pay for everything! “Oh, they’ll take care of it―they can afford it! They’re loaded with money!” We often expect the rich to do more than their share―just because they are rich. It is the same with God. We think that just because God is omnipotent (= “can do anything and everything”), then we expect God to do more than His fair share. When Our Lord says, “Without Me you can do nothing!” (John 15:5), He does not mean to say: “I will do everything!” Undoubtedly you have heard of the saying: “God helps those who help themselves!” ― which means to say that God will do things for us if He sees us doing what we can do. There is an axiom in theology that says: “God will not do the extraordinary when the ordinary suffices!” God will not miraculously cure you of an illness that can be cured by seeking medical help. Neither will a doctor perform invasive surgery if a simple medicine can bring about the desired cure. We do not use a nuclear bomb to kill a mosquito. In other words, we do not do something extraordinary when simple ordinary measures will do the job.
God will not “download” into your mind everything that there is to know about the Faith―He wants you to toil and put in the effort to read, learn and memorize things about the Faith. God could have infused the grace of impeccability (= “not sinning at all”) into our soul at our Baptism, but instead He wants to see us fight and overcome temptations and thereby prove our love for Him and gain merit for eternal life. God could miraculously protect and preserve us from all harm―but sometimes we need to be punished for our sins by things going wrong or badly for us, which is like God slapping us on the wrist. As Scripture says: “Whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth―and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth!” (Hebrews 12:6) … “For whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth―and, as a father in the son, He pleaseth Himself” (Proverbs 3:12).
Apart from Satan and his stooges―everyone would or should want a miracle! Boy, do we need a miracle! Heck! Are we not in a massive mess that is getting worse with each passing month? As the enemies of the Church, State and mankind gleefully tighten the noose around our necks, who, in their right state of mind, can be happy about the current world situation―both materially and spiritually?
We Will Soon Be Begging for a Miracle!
As Our Lady warned about our current times: “All the universe will be struck with terror and many will let themselves be led astray, because they have not worshiped the true Christ … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth. People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin ... Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … God will strike in an unprecedented way. God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered ... Because the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been forgotten. The seasons will be altered, the Earth, the stars will lose their regular motion, the moon will only reflect a faint reddish glow. Water and fire will give the Earth’s globe convulsions and terrible earthquakes which will swallow up mountains and cities.
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The Church will witness a frightful crisis! … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay! … The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord! … A great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops! … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls! ... The devil will make himself like the king of all hearts! …
“Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws [the U.S. Senate, on November 16th, by a 67-32 vote, took a further step towards enshrining same-sex marriages into U.S. Law] … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan―which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds … There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases … Various nations will be annihilated! … Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling! Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach … The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom … The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession!”
Then Comes the Miracle!
Our Lady then foretells a miraculous victory over Satan and the evil in the world: “At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent ... This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous [miraculous] way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss ... In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph ... Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. ... Russia will be converted … Pagan Rome will disappear. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God ... and a period of peace will be granted to the world … Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the Holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in Its poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and mankind will make great progress in its Faith, for there will be unity among the workers of Jesus Christ and man will live in fear of God.”
How Do We God About Getting the Miracle?
So how do we get this miraculous victory over all the evil in the world today? Well, as it is in life, so it is with God―you get what you pay for! “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap!” (Galatians 6:7-8) … “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly!” (2 Corinthians 9:6). Our Lord criticizes the person “that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God” (Luke 12:21) ― yet that is what most people are like! We have lots of time for ourselves and very little time for God. We chaff and complain when a Mass takes longer than we think it should take, or when a sermon is longer than we would like―because the time “lost” by the longer Mass or sermon is holding us back from getting to the things that we really want to do en enjoy! We are “cheap” to say the least―and miracles are not cheap!
Don’t Just Sit There! Do Something!
Yes―we know that Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5)―but that does not mean that Our Lord is going to do everything for us while we sit around in armchairs eating snacks while He does all the work! Don’t expect God to do what you won’t do. Jesus could have converted the whole world by Himself, without choosing Twelve Apostles and a bunch of disciples and sending those imperfect men out in the world with the command to convert and baptize the whole world! He made them work! Yes―there would be miracles and miraculous conversions―but they would have to play their part, roll-up their sleeves and do the work! Our Lord speaks of us WORKING in Lord’s vineyard. Scripture tells us “WORK out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12]) ― rather than just casually sitting around in our armchairs. Some say: “Live at the level that your miracle requires!” If you need a miracle then you will have to live at a level in God that will support a miracle.
Ultimately, God wants us to grow in Him by growing in grace and holiness. Usually people won’t grow unless they have to ― unless they are forced to do something. Sometimes the hard issues of life force us to do just that. We need to do what God commands in order to receive what God promises. When we do what we are supposed to do, then God does what He desires to do and what He has promised He would do. And most of the time, the bigger the request, the bigger the effort. You do not earn God’s favor except by having the kind of faith that is necessary ― for big things require sacrifice and effort. When the disciples could not cast the devil out of the little boy in Mark chapter 9, Jesus told them: “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting!” (Mark 9:29). Some things take an extra effort. Jesus always paid the price, evidently, the disciples did not!
“Time-Delayed” Miracles
Too many people expect to be at their “beck-and-call”―as though they just have snap their fingers and God will come running! That is an abuse of God! How dare we―sinners that we all are―expect God to cater to our whims! Yes―Christ said that “the Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister” (Mark 10:45), but Holy Scripture repeatedly says: “You shall serve the Lord your God!” (Exodus 23:25 and in many other places). If we serve God faithfully, then, after a time of testing, God will be faithful in helping us.
Most of the time miracles are “time delayed”, so to speak, because God is waiting for us to play our part and put forth some effort. In Holy Scripture (4 Kings 5:1-16), we see the prophet Eliseus tell Naaman the leper to go wash himself in the River Jordan in order to receive a miracle cure. God could have cured Naaman on the spot―through the word of His prophet―without any further effort required on the part of Naaman! Yet Naaman was commanded to wash himself in the Jordan―not once, but seven times! The miracle could have taken place after the first washing―but it didn’t; nor after the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth time. Naaman had to go through a lot of humiliation first―can you imagine his pagan soldiers laughing at him and mocking him behind his back: “What an idiot! He thinks that washing in a dirty river is going to cure is leprosy! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
Have Faith! Do Works!
We get prayer requests all the time, or perhaps we ourselves make prayer requests all the time. They all go something like this: “Please pray for me! I have a terrible issue and I desperately need God’s help!” Yes, we can pray for them, and we do, but real help only comes when people rise up themselves and do the things they need to do. Unfortunately, “they say and do not!” (Matthew 23:3). This reminds us of Our Lady of Fatima’s reply to those who were asking her―through the children at Fatima―for a personal miracle in their lives. Our Lady’s response was: “Some yes, but not others. They must amend their lives and ask forgiveness for their sins!” Of one man Our Lady said: “If he is converted, he will be cured during the year.” Even YOU will not do extraordinary favors for those people who offend you, insult you or attack you! We really need to show some changes in our lives if we are to have any realistic hope of God’s miraculous interventions in the public and private crises that we presently find ourselves in―and which are only going to get worse.
Most things in God do not “just happen”. Where did we ever get the idea that Faith in God was easy, and that it would not take effort? Faith alone is not enough: “Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith! Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well―but the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … Do you see that by works a man is justified―and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26). It may take everything you have to get an answer from God by Faith and works. That is why it happens so rarely. He is not reluctant to move on our behalf but He requires much, and few are willing to do it. Are you willing? Do you want it that bad? Big things take big Faith and big Faith takes big effort. The Bible says to seek FIRST the Kingdom of God and THEN you will receive the things you need. Making Him “Number One” may require making many major changes in your life.
Miracles Are Not Freebies
We often expect the rich person to pay for everything! “Oh, they’ll take care of it―they can afford it! They’re loaded with money!” We often expect the rich to do more than their share―just because they are rich. It is the same with God. We think that just because God is omnipotent (= “can do anything and everything”), then we expect God to do more than His fair share. When Our Lord says, “Without Me you can do nothing!” (John 15:5), He does not mean to say: “I will do everything!” Undoubtedly you have heard of the saying: “God helps those who help themselves!” ― which means to say that God will do things for us if He sees us doing what we can do. There is an axiom in theology that says: “God will not do the extraordinary when the ordinary suffices!” God will not miraculously cure you of an illness that can be cured by seeking medical help. Neither will a doctor perform invasive surgery if a simple medicine can bring about the desired cure. We do not use a nuclear bomb to kill a mosquito. In other words, we do not do something extraordinary when simple ordinary measures will do the job.
God will not “download” into your mind everything that there is to know about the Faith―He wants you to toil and put in the effort to read, learn and memorize things about the Faith. God could have infused the grace of impeccability (= “not sinning at all”) into our soul at our Baptism, but instead He wants to see us fight and overcome temptations and thereby prove our love for Him and gain merit for eternal life. God could miraculously protect and preserve us from all harm―but sometimes we need to be punished for our sins by things going wrong or badly for us, which is like God slapping us on the wrist. As Scripture says: “Whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth―and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth!” (Hebrews 12:6) … “For whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth―and, as a father in the son, He pleaseth Himself” (Proverbs 3:12).
Article 9
Tuesday November 15th & Wednesday November 16th, 2022
Who Got Most Seats in Congress? Christ or Satan?
Tuesday November 15th & Wednesday November 16th, 2022
Who Got Most Seats in Congress? Christ or Satan?
Two Masters
Think what you want―say what you want―but ultimately there are only two masters; only two rulers; only two employers; only two sides that we can choose and serve. They are God and Satan, or, if you like, Christ and Satan. Christ calls Satan “the prince of this world” (John 12:31) … “that old serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world; and he was cast unto the Earth, and his angels [devils] were thrown down with him” (Apocalypse 12:9). The world is Satan’s playground and hunting ground: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places!” (Ephesians 6:12).
Satan―Prince of the World & Prince of Politics
Since Satan is the prince of this world, he gives power to those who choose to follow him and adore him ― we even see Satan tempting Our Lord in that manner: “The devil led Jesus into a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; and he said to him: ‘To Thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered and, to whomever I will, I give them. If Thou therefore wilt adore before me, all shall be Thine!’ Then Jesus saith to him: ‘Begone, Satan! For it is written, “The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve!”’” (Matthew 4:8-10; Luke 4:5-7).
Many have sold their souls to Satan in exchange for power! FR. GABRIELE AMORTH, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome and exorcist for 30 years, said: “Jesus works through His Church, Satan through his empire of evil. Ignoring these simple truths means not having a true awareness. Unfortunately, Christians no longer believe in these things these days ... But in this way, their power is only increased. This is perhaps why, in this day and age, Satan is so powerful and his influence over mankind is so great! … Satanism is spreading enormously! The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Today Satan rules the world! … Pope Paul VI talked about the ‘smoke of Satan’ infiltrating the Vatican as long ago as 1972 ... When one speaks of ‘the smoke of Satan’ [a phrase coined by Pope Paul VI in 1972] in the holy rooms [in the Church], it is all true―including these latest stories of violence and pedophilia! … Satan sets out to damage the leadership of the Church―and of politics, industry and sport, for that matter!
“The demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! Evil exists in politics ... The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office! … Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies! … The devil has a double way of acting―the normal way and the extraordinary way. The normal way is to lead man towards evil to make him fall into sin … His ordinary activity is to tempt man toward evil, to lead him to temptation, to sin, to push him to break divine law … He makes us doubt the existence of sin and Hell and Paradise and of their eternity …
“Another trick is to make evil appear good, a gain rather than a loss ... The devil also makes evil appear interesting, positive, and beautiful … Sins like euthanasia and abortion are passed off as signs of humanity’s progress … We see it in laws that go totally against nature, such as divorce, abortion, ‘gay marriage’ ― we have forgotten God! ... On the occasion of the referendum on divorce, I saw many Catholics vote for divorce … Many Catholics voted for divorce, then, even worse, many Catholics voted for abortion … We live in a world so upset that if today a referendum were held on euthanasia it could be passed. If a referendum were held on adoption of children by homosexual couples it could pass ...
“One day Padre Pio said to me very sorrowfully: ‘You know what, Gabriele? It is Satan who has been introduced into the bosom of the Church and within a very short time he will come to rule a false Church!’ It must have been about 1960, since I was already a priest then … I was with Padre Pio for 26 years and remember how furious he was about the invention of television: ‘You will see what it will do!’ he said. It has also allowed some good things―but I’m very much in the midst of people and see how many people have been ruined by television and the Internet! … There is no doubt that today’s media have done much in favor of Satan, first by the immorality of certain shows, the abundance of movies showing violence, horror or sex … Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies! … The loss of a sense of sin―that characterizes our era―helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God, weakens the consciences of men and women and leads them toward egoism, closing their hearts, lack of forgiveness, and doing everything for money, power, and sex.”
Chew This Over!
There are idiots out there who are running-around like crazies with “Conspiracy Theory” stickers that they plaster on anything or anybody who questions or criticizes the current Liberal, Modernist, Neo-Pagan, Atheistic, Immoral, Materialistic and Anti-Christian atmosphere which surrounds us all today. To most of these modern-day crazies or idiots, good is now bad, and bad is good; sin is no longer sin and evil is no longer evil―but it is passed off as being good or at least acceptable, or natural. Sin is no longer sin because that is how God made us! Homosexuality is not sinful because we were born that way! Lust is not sinful, but only a natural desire that is inbuilt into our nature! Criticism of sin is evil, but acceptance and tolerance of sin is seen as being charitable! “Who am I to judge?” says Pope Francis! Who am I to refuse Holy Communion to practicing homosexuals? Who am I to refuse Holy Communion to remarried divorcees? Who am I to judge same-sex marriages? Who am I to refuse transgenderism? The list could go on endlessly. God says: ”Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! … For they have cast away the law of the Lord and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One!” (Isaias 5:20, 24).
We are either for God or against God. If we not with God, then are, automatically by default, with Satan. There is no alternative; no third option; no middle path; no neutrality; no spectators allowed. You either fight for God and with God―or you fight against God with Satan. The battle cry of Satan is clear: “I will not serve!” Satan rejected God’s law and command. Adam and Eve rejected God’s law and command. It is quite simple―it all boils down to the Law of the Lord. If we love, then we obey―Our Lord Himself pointed this out: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words … If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24; 15:10). “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:20-21). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me. And in vain do they worship Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-9).
Christian Congress Cons Christ
In the 117th Congress (just ended), most members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate are Christians, with the House (88% Christian) just slightly more Christian than the Senate (87% Christian). Nearly nine-in-ten members of Congress identify as Christian (88%), compared with only two-thirds of the general public (65% Christian). The percentage of Protestants in Congress is greater than the percentage of Protestants in the U.S. adult population overall. The same can be said of Catholics in Congress (30% of Congress) compared to Catholics in the U.S. adult population overall (30% vs. 20%).
With Congress being overwhelmingly Christian, you would think that those governmental lawmakers would base all of their laws upon the law of God! Yet they do not! The laws that have been formulated and passed by those lawmakers in Congress blatantly oppose many of the laws of God! Nowhere do the laws of God allow abortion, contraception, divorce and remarriage, same-sex marriages, homosexuality, immodesty, impurity, intoxication (alcohol or drugs), religious freedom, separation of State from Church, etc. Yet that is what “Christian” lawmakers have legislated for and enabled.
Holy Scripture warns: “God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7) ― yet they have made a mockery of God and His laws! Those laws are not of God―therefore, by default, they are of Satan. Those who have suggested those laws and passed those laws, have not done the work of God, but they have done the work of Satan―for those laws are sinful laws: “He that committeth sin is of the devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning!” (1 John 3:8). Our Lord can rightly and justly say to them: “He that is of God, heareth the words of God! Therefore you hear them not, because you are not of God! … You do the works of your father! … You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do! … He that is of God, heareth the words of God. Therefore you hear them not, because you are not of God!” (John 14:6; 8:41-47).
A Christian Government and Court Bans Christian Religious Displays
The self-professed and so-called “Christian” members of Congress with their 88% Christian majority, clearly show their hypocrisy towards Christ by effectively banning Christ and Christian elements from being publically taught and displayed on government property and in public schools! Religious displays on public property can be legal, but they must pass constitutional muster by not violating the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which requires government “neutrality” towards religion. Public displays of religious symbols, including Ten Commandments monuments, are subject to review under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Establishment Clause provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” When a religious symbol is displayed on government property, it might be construed as a governmental act establishing a religion reflected by that symbol.
Over the past few decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued several decisions regarding public displays of religious symbols. Although a few of these cases have involved temporary religious holiday displays, the more recent cases have involved permanent monuments of religious symbols, specifically the Ten Commandments. In deciding whether or not particular religious displays violate the establishment clause, courts look to two Supreme Court tests, (1) the Lemon Test and (2) the Endorsement Test.
A more recent test that has gained popularity in the courts is the Endorsement Test. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor first outlined this test in her concurring opinion in the 1983 decision Lynch v. Donnelly, which involved a city-owned holiday display containing religious elements in a public park in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. This approach examines the following questions: (1) Did the state actor subjectively intend to promote religion through its actions? and (2) Would the reasonable observer interpret the actions of the state as an endorsement of religion?
The elements of both tests should be examined before a government representative posts any religious documents or engages in other forms of religious expression.
► In the 1980s, in Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU, the Court held that the display of a crèche (Christmas nativity scene) at a county courthouse violated the Establishment Clause. The crèche was the sole element of the display inside the courthouse and included a sign that indicated that it was donated by a religious group and displayed a related religious message. Because the display did not include anything to “detract from the crèche’s religious message” and the overall effect of the display was the endorsement of the religious message, the Court held that the display was unconstitutional.
► In 1980, the issue of governmental sponsorship of public display of the Ten Commandments first came before the U.S. Supreme Court in Stone v. Graham. A Kentucky statute mandated posting the Ten Commandments on the wall of each public school classroom in the state. The displays were to be paid for by private funds, and an inscription below each was to read: “[T]he secular application of the Ten Commandments is clearly seen in its adoption as the fundamental legal code of Western Civilization and the Common Law of the United States.” In a per curiam (unsigned) opinion, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the displays violated the establishment clause. For this the Court relied upon the first part of its three-part Lemon test, which stated, “First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion. . . ; finally, the statute must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion” (Lemon v. Kurtzman [1971]). Kentucky’s avowed secular purpose notwithstanding, the Court said the statute violated the first prong of the test because “(t)he pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature.”
► In 2001, shortly after being elected to the position of chief justice of the Alabama State Supreme Court, Roy Moore had installed in the lobby of the Judicial Building a 5,280-pound monument of the Ten Commandments, commissioned at his personal expense. Moore placed the Commandments in the courthouse without consulting his fellow justices. Shortly thereafter, a suit was brought against the action by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. A federal district court judge ruled against Alabama chief justice Roy Moore, requiring him to remove the Ten Commandments monument, and when Chief Justice Moore refused to comply, a three-judge panel of the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the lower court judge to proceed with enforcement of the ruling in Glassroth v. Moore (11th Cir. 2003). The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently denied Moore’s appeal on November 3rd, 2003, and, just 10 days later, a judicial ethics panel in Alabama removed Chief Justice Moore from his seat on the state court.
► In June of 2005, two cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court illustrate how even the high court can reach very different conclusions in ruling on seemingly similar religious-display cases. Both McCreary County v. ACLU and Van Orden v. Perry involved displays of the Ten Commandments on public property. In writing for the 5-4 majority in McCreary v. ACLU, Justice David Souter used the Lemon test and determined that the Ten Commandments displays in the two Kentucky courthouses conveyed a religious message to the public, failing to satisfy the first prong of the Lemon test that the display must have a secular purpose. Therefore, the Court majority found the Ten Commandment displays in McCreary were unconstitutional.
► In June of 2005, Ii Van Orden v. Perry, which was decided on the same day as the above mentioned McCreary v. ACLU case, the high court ruled that a Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds was constitutional. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, in writing the plurality opinion for the Court, was quick in dismissing the Lemon test as the appropriate way to evaluate the case. (The vote was 4-1-4.) Instead, Rehnquist focused on the nature and setting of the monument. The monument was part of a larger display containing 17 monuments and 21 historical markers celebrating the “people, ideals, and events that compose Texan identity.” In determining that the monument was of a secular purpose, and therefore constitutional, Justice Stephen Breyer in his concurring opinion noted that because the monument had been on display for 40 years before being challenged, it “suggests more strongly than can any set of formulaic tests that few individuals, whatever their system of beliefs, are likely to have understood the monument amounting, in any significantly detrimental way, to a government effort to favor a particular religious sect.”
U.S. Government Recognizes Satanism as a Religion and Church
The insane modern concept of “freedom of religion” is just the kind of freedom Satan likes ― “then Satan is free to create havoc and destruction with impunity!” (Fr. Gabriele Amorthe, exorcist). So much so that in April 2019, the US government, based on its insane “freedom of religion” platform, accepted and welcomed The Satanic Temple into its classification of religions by giving The Satanic Temple the same tax exempt status that it gives to religious groups and religious organizations. In other words, The Satanic Temple has been recognized as a religious organization―and therefore it has certain rights and privileges that are granted to other religious organizations.
The Satanic Temple announced on its social networking service, Instagram account: “We are pleased to announce that for the very [first] time in history, a satanic organization has been recognized by the United States federal government as being a church … This acknowledgment will make sure The Satanic Temple has the same access to public spaces as other religious organizations, affirm our standing in court when battling religious discrimination, and enable us to apply for faith-based government grants.” the Instagram post stated. In a statement, co-founder of The Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves said that “accepting religious tax-exemption — rather than renouncing it in protest — can help us to better assert our claims to equal access and exemption while laying to rest any suspicion that we don’t meet the qualifications of a true religious organization. Satanism is here to stay!” he added. Freedom of religion, huh?
This granting of religious status to The Satanic Temple gave them the opportunity to place the thin-end of a wedge into gaining access to many religious rights based on that false premise of “freedom of religion” which tolerates all religions―which is an insult to Almighty God. The co-founders of The Satanic Temple were Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry―who met in 2012 and in 2013 founded The Satanic Temple. Essentially, it was a schism from the Church of Satan, which Greaves and Jarry criticized for not being active enough in the world at large.
The Satanic Temple first gained media attention in January 2013 after a group of Satanists assembled at the Florida State Capitol to show their approval over a bill that Governor Rick Scott signed into law the prior year, Senate Bill 98, which allowed student-led prayer at school assemblies. The group further stated that, as the bill did not specify a religion, the prayers could be led by a student from any religion—including Satanism. The Satanic Temple members announced they “were coming out to say how happy we were because now our Satanic children could pray to Satan in school.” Freedom of religion, huh?
In 2013, outside the Texas State Capitol building, during protests in favor of late-term abortion, pro-life demonstrators dueled with abortion-rights advocates (which included many members of The Satanic Temple). The pro-life contingent sang “Amazing Grace.” Whereas The Satanic Temple had brought along children to the Texas Capitol who chanted “F**k You!” and “Hail Satan!”, while holding signs reading “Stay Out Of My Mommy’s Vagina.” Freedom of religion, huh?
Several years later, in 2016, Lucien Greaves and Malcom Jarry opened the official headquarters of The Satanic Temple in Salem, Massachusetts―and installed therein its main attraction, an 8-foot, 6-inch bronze statue of a goat-headed, winged demon called Baphomet. The Satanic Temple would gain notoriety through two attempts to have a statue of the demon Baphomet legally placed on two state capitol grounds—Oklahoma in 2015 and in Arkansas in 2018—in reaction to government-sanctioned 10 Commandments monuments. Freedom of religion, huh?
In 2016, The Satanic Temple announced it was pursuing After School Satan Clubs in cities across the United States, including Atlanta, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Pensacola, Washington, D.C., Tucson, Springfield, Missouri, Seattle and Portland. This was a direct response to the Protestant Christian Good News Clubs, an afterschool program designed by the Child Evangelism Fellowship. Despite initial widespread media attention to the announcements, only one school in Tacoma, Washington, ever served any students―teaching just a single child from a nearby school once per month from December 2016 to June 2017. The program did not return the following year, and by the fall of 2017, The Satanic Temple representative, Chalice Blythe, confirmed in an interview there were no active programs. In January 2022, a second After School Satan program launched in Moline, Illinois, Monthly meetings are scheduled through May 2023, with a focus on board and card games, crafts, and science projects. In this resurrected campaign or “second satanic wave”, The Satanic Temple is organizing its After School Satan Clubs in Illinois, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Freedom of religion, huh?
The reason that After School Satan Club programs can operate is thanks to the Good News Club, run by the Child Evangelism Fellowship ― an evangelical group that was refused access to schools by the lower courts, but fought their case for the right to operate in schools, all the way to the Supreme Court and won. In 2001, in the case that commanded the resources of powerful legal advocacy groups on the religious right, including the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Liberty Counsel, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that to exclude an after-school program, on account of the religious views of its sponsors, amounted to a violation of free-speech rights. In their case, the Good News Club argued that, despite the fact that they are a religious organization, they should be allowed to use school facilities to operate their club. After the federal district court and Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Good News Club’s claimed free speech violation, the Supreme Court reversed the lower Courts’ decisions.
The Child Evangelism Fellowship then hit the ground running, and within 10 years, by 2011, it reported 3,560 Good News Clubs, putting them in more than 5% of the nation’s public elementary schools. The rationale used by the Supreme Court to allow the evangelical Christian group to operate an afterschool program on school grounds applies to all recognized religious organizations, which now includes The Satanic Temple―ever since the government recognized them as a religious organization through the IRS. So long as the After School Satan Club, or Good News Club, is not held during school hours, does not restrict membership, follows the same rules other clubs must follow, and is not promoted by the school itself, a school cannot prohibit a group with a religious viewpoint from meeting.
Lucien Greaves, co-founder and spokesman for The Satanic Church, said: “We would like to thank the Liberty Counsel specifically for opening the doors to the After School Satan Clubs through their dedication to religious liberty! The Satanic Temple leverages religious freedom laws that put ‘After-School Clubs’ in elementary schools nationwide ... We are only doing this … to highlight religious hypocrisy and encroachment on religious freedom … because Good News Clubs have created a need for this. If Good News Clubs would operate in churches rather than public schools, that need would disappear. But our point is that if you let one religion into the public schools you have to let others, otherwise it’s an establishment of religion.”
Christian Congress or Anti-Christian Congress?
For all of this to be allowed under the false notion of “freedom of religion” is not only catastrophic and disgusting―it is also satanic in itself. If the U.S. House of Representatives is 88% Christian and the Senate is 87% Christians―then why the hell are those Christians not legislating against Satan and his stooges and instruments? What comes first for a Christian―God or a human Constitution? The God of Christians―Our Lord Jesus Christ―is as blunt and clear as can be in speaking to His Christian followers:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). If they profess themselves to be Christians, then Our Lord gives them a “litmus test”: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24). “But I know you, that you have not the love of God in you” (John 5:42). “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
Christ wants nothing to do with Satan―so why does a so-called “Christian” Government that should be showing love and obedience to Christ, enable and allow Satanists to enter what should be a Christian society? Our Lord “But I know you, that you have not the love of God in you” (John 5:42). “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “For leaving the commandments of God, you hold to the traditions of men!” (Mark 7:8) ― they ignore the Laws of God and replace them with the laws of men, for example, The U.S. Constitution with its errors and anti-God positions.
God cast Satan and his devils out of the heavens―and a “Christian” government has problems with casting Satan out of their nation? Christ said of Satan: “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything! … The prince of this world is already judged! ... Now shall the prince of this world be cast out!” (John 12:31; 16:11; 14:30).
Rather than casting-out Satan, why is an 88% “Christian” Government allowing Satan, the prince of this world, to gain a foothold in what should, by all rights, be a Christian nation? Why is an 88% “Christian” Government recognizing Satanism as bona-fide religion and granting it rights and tax-relief? Is there any tax-relief Hell? Are there any rights in Hell? Why is an 88% “Christian” government allowing Satanists into schools? Is that loving God with your whole mind, heart, soul and strength? Is that showing obedience to God? Why has an 88% “Christian” government allowed Satanist meetings in the military under the false premise of “religious freedom”? THE TRUE UNDERSTANDING CONCERNING OUR FREEDOMS is that we are free to do WHAT IS GOOD―but we are not free to do WHAT IS EVIL. For a “Christian” Congress, Satan and Satanism should be seen as an evil and not as something good. Freedoms apply only to what is GOOD and not to what is EVIL. The prisons are proof of that principle―we lock up and take away the freedom of people who abuse their freedom to do what is evil!
Holy Scripture Condemns Counterfeit Christians
For a “Christian” Congress to allow and legislate for evil is an evil in itself: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! … For they have cast away the law of the Lord and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One!” (Isaias 5:20, 24). “But know this, that in the last days, dangerous times will come….” (2 Timothy 3:1). “In the last times some shall depart from the Faith―giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared! For there will come a time when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but having itching ears, will heap up to themselves teachers according to their own lusts, and they will turn away their hearing from the truth and turn aside rather to fables” (2 Timothy 4:1-4). “For such false apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder―for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light! Therefore, it is no great thing if Satan’s ministers be transformed to look like the ministers of justice [or look like Christians]” (1 Corinthians 11:13-15). “There were also false prophets among the people, even as there shall be among you lying teachers, who shall bring in sects of perdition, and deny the Lord who bought them: bringing upon themselves swift destruction” (2 Peter 2:1).
“I beseech you, brethren, to take note of them who make dissensions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them. For they that are such, serve not Christ our Lord, but by pleasing speeches and good words, seduce the hearts of the innocent!” (Romans 16:17-18). “Jesus said: ‘Take heed that no man seduce you! For many will come in My name saying, I am Christ [or I am a Christian― and they will seduce and lead many astray! There shall arise false Christs and false prophets [and false Christians], and they shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive―if possible―even the elect! Behold I have told it to you, beforehand!” (Matthew 24:4-5; 24:24-25).
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep {Christians], but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them. Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:15-21).
No true and good (tree) Christian government can bring forth evil fruit such as allowing and legislating for freedom to abortion, same-sex marriages, homosexuality, divorce with remarriage, cohabitation, contraception, gender change; nor give unassailable and untouchable rights to Satanism, LGBTQ, and anti-Christian religions and pagans. “Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire!” The 88% - 87% “Christian” Congress of the United States― U.S. House of Representatives is 88% Christian and the Senate is 87% Christian―calls itself “Christian” but, as Our Lord rebukes, “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6) ― in other words, “Well can it said of this “Christian” Congress: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” Just as the term “RINO” refers to those who are “Republican In Name Only”, likewise Congress can be said to be “CINO”, or “Christian In Name Only” ― for “a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire! Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them!”
Think what you want―say what you want―but ultimately there are only two masters; only two rulers; only two employers; only two sides that we can choose and serve. They are God and Satan, or, if you like, Christ and Satan. Christ calls Satan “the prince of this world” (John 12:31) … “that old serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world; and he was cast unto the Earth, and his angels [devils] were thrown down with him” (Apocalypse 12:9). The world is Satan’s playground and hunting ground: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places!” (Ephesians 6:12).
Satan―Prince of the World & Prince of Politics
Since Satan is the prince of this world, he gives power to those who choose to follow him and adore him ― we even see Satan tempting Our Lord in that manner: “The devil led Jesus into a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; and he said to him: ‘To Thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered and, to whomever I will, I give them. If Thou therefore wilt adore before me, all shall be Thine!’ Then Jesus saith to him: ‘Begone, Satan! For it is written, “The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve!”’” (Matthew 4:8-10; Luke 4:5-7).
Many have sold their souls to Satan in exchange for power! FR. GABRIELE AMORTH, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome and exorcist for 30 years, said: “Jesus works through His Church, Satan through his empire of evil. Ignoring these simple truths means not having a true awareness. Unfortunately, Christians no longer believe in these things these days ... But in this way, their power is only increased. This is perhaps why, in this day and age, Satan is so powerful and his influence over mankind is so great! … Satanism is spreading enormously! The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Today Satan rules the world! … Pope Paul VI talked about the ‘smoke of Satan’ infiltrating the Vatican as long ago as 1972 ... When one speaks of ‘the smoke of Satan’ [a phrase coined by Pope Paul VI in 1972] in the holy rooms [in the Church], it is all true―including these latest stories of violence and pedophilia! … Satan sets out to damage the leadership of the Church―and of politics, industry and sport, for that matter!
“The demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! Evil exists in politics ... The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office! … Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies! … The devil has a double way of acting―the normal way and the extraordinary way. The normal way is to lead man towards evil to make him fall into sin … His ordinary activity is to tempt man toward evil, to lead him to temptation, to sin, to push him to break divine law … He makes us doubt the existence of sin and Hell and Paradise and of their eternity …
“Another trick is to make evil appear good, a gain rather than a loss ... The devil also makes evil appear interesting, positive, and beautiful … Sins like euthanasia and abortion are passed off as signs of humanity’s progress … We see it in laws that go totally against nature, such as divorce, abortion, ‘gay marriage’ ― we have forgotten God! ... On the occasion of the referendum on divorce, I saw many Catholics vote for divorce … Many Catholics voted for divorce, then, even worse, many Catholics voted for abortion … We live in a world so upset that if today a referendum were held on euthanasia it could be passed. If a referendum were held on adoption of children by homosexual couples it could pass ...
“One day Padre Pio said to me very sorrowfully: ‘You know what, Gabriele? It is Satan who has been introduced into the bosom of the Church and within a very short time he will come to rule a false Church!’ It must have been about 1960, since I was already a priest then … I was with Padre Pio for 26 years and remember how furious he was about the invention of television: ‘You will see what it will do!’ he said. It has also allowed some good things―but I’m very much in the midst of people and see how many people have been ruined by television and the Internet! … There is no doubt that today’s media have done much in favor of Satan, first by the immorality of certain shows, the abundance of movies showing violence, horror or sex … Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies! … The loss of a sense of sin―that characterizes our era―helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God, weakens the consciences of men and women and leads them toward egoism, closing their hearts, lack of forgiveness, and doing everything for money, power, and sex.”
Chew This Over!
There are idiots out there who are running-around like crazies with “Conspiracy Theory” stickers that they plaster on anything or anybody who questions or criticizes the current Liberal, Modernist, Neo-Pagan, Atheistic, Immoral, Materialistic and Anti-Christian atmosphere which surrounds us all today. To most of these modern-day crazies or idiots, good is now bad, and bad is good; sin is no longer sin and evil is no longer evil―but it is passed off as being good or at least acceptable, or natural. Sin is no longer sin because that is how God made us! Homosexuality is not sinful because we were born that way! Lust is not sinful, but only a natural desire that is inbuilt into our nature! Criticism of sin is evil, but acceptance and tolerance of sin is seen as being charitable! “Who am I to judge?” says Pope Francis! Who am I to refuse Holy Communion to practicing homosexuals? Who am I to refuse Holy Communion to remarried divorcees? Who am I to judge same-sex marriages? Who am I to refuse transgenderism? The list could go on endlessly. God says: ”Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! … For they have cast away the law of the Lord and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One!” (Isaias 5:20, 24).
We are either for God or against God. If we not with God, then are, automatically by default, with Satan. There is no alternative; no third option; no middle path; no neutrality; no spectators allowed. You either fight for God and with God―or you fight against God with Satan. The battle cry of Satan is clear: “I will not serve!” Satan rejected God’s law and command. Adam and Eve rejected God’s law and command. It is quite simple―it all boils down to the Law of the Lord. If we love, then we obey―Our Lord Himself pointed this out: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words … If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24; 15:10). “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:20-21). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me. And in vain do they worship Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-9).
Christian Congress Cons Christ
In the 117th Congress (just ended), most members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate are Christians, with the House (88% Christian) just slightly more Christian than the Senate (87% Christian). Nearly nine-in-ten members of Congress identify as Christian (88%), compared with only two-thirds of the general public (65% Christian). The percentage of Protestants in Congress is greater than the percentage of Protestants in the U.S. adult population overall. The same can be said of Catholics in Congress (30% of Congress) compared to Catholics in the U.S. adult population overall (30% vs. 20%).
With Congress being overwhelmingly Christian, you would think that those governmental lawmakers would base all of their laws upon the law of God! Yet they do not! The laws that have been formulated and passed by those lawmakers in Congress blatantly oppose many of the laws of God! Nowhere do the laws of God allow abortion, contraception, divorce and remarriage, same-sex marriages, homosexuality, immodesty, impurity, intoxication (alcohol or drugs), religious freedom, separation of State from Church, etc. Yet that is what “Christian” lawmakers have legislated for and enabled.
Holy Scripture warns: “God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7) ― yet they have made a mockery of God and His laws! Those laws are not of God―therefore, by default, they are of Satan. Those who have suggested those laws and passed those laws, have not done the work of God, but they have done the work of Satan―for those laws are sinful laws: “He that committeth sin is of the devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning!” (1 John 3:8). Our Lord can rightly and justly say to them: “He that is of God, heareth the words of God! Therefore you hear them not, because you are not of God! … You do the works of your father! … You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do! … He that is of God, heareth the words of God. Therefore you hear them not, because you are not of God!” (John 14:6; 8:41-47).
A Christian Government and Court Bans Christian Religious Displays
The self-professed and so-called “Christian” members of Congress with their 88% Christian majority, clearly show their hypocrisy towards Christ by effectively banning Christ and Christian elements from being publically taught and displayed on government property and in public schools! Religious displays on public property can be legal, but they must pass constitutional muster by not violating the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which requires government “neutrality” towards religion. Public displays of religious symbols, including Ten Commandments monuments, are subject to review under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Establishment Clause provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” When a religious symbol is displayed on government property, it might be construed as a governmental act establishing a religion reflected by that symbol.
Over the past few decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued several decisions regarding public displays of religious symbols. Although a few of these cases have involved temporary religious holiday displays, the more recent cases have involved permanent monuments of religious symbols, specifically the Ten Commandments. In deciding whether or not particular religious displays violate the establishment clause, courts look to two Supreme Court tests, (1) the Lemon Test and (2) the Endorsement Test.
A more recent test that has gained popularity in the courts is the Endorsement Test. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor first outlined this test in her concurring opinion in the 1983 decision Lynch v. Donnelly, which involved a city-owned holiday display containing religious elements in a public park in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. This approach examines the following questions: (1) Did the state actor subjectively intend to promote religion through its actions? and (2) Would the reasonable observer interpret the actions of the state as an endorsement of religion?
The elements of both tests should be examined before a government representative posts any religious documents or engages in other forms of religious expression.
► In the 1980s, in Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU, the Court held that the display of a crèche (Christmas nativity scene) at a county courthouse violated the Establishment Clause. The crèche was the sole element of the display inside the courthouse and included a sign that indicated that it was donated by a religious group and displayed a related religious message. Because the display did not include anything to “detract from the crèche’s religious message” and the overall effect of the display was the endorsement of the religious message, the Court held that the display was unconstitutional.
► In 1980, the issue of governmental sponsorship of public display of the Ten Commandments first came before the U.S. Supreme Court in Stone v. Graham. A Kentucky statute mandated posting the Ten Commandments on the wall of each public school classroom in the state. The displays were to be paid for by private funds, and an inscription below each was to read: “[T]he secular application of the Ten Commandments is clearly seen in its adoption as the fundamental legal code of Western Civilization and the Common Law of the United States.” In a per curiam (unsigned) opinion, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the displays violated the establishment clause. For this the Court relied upon the first part of its three-part Lemon test, which stated, “First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion. . . ; finally, the statute must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion” (Lemon v. Kurtzman [1971]). Kentucky’s avowed secular purpose notwithstanding, the Court said the statute violated the first prong of the test because “(t)he pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature.”
► In 2001, shortly after being elected to the position of chief justice of the Alabama State Supreme Court, Roy Moore had installed in the lobby of the Judicial Building a 5,280-pound monument of the Ten Commandments, commissioned at his personal expense. Moore placed the Commandments in the courthouse without consulting his fellow justices. Shortly thereafter, a suit was brought against the action by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. A federal district court judge ruled against Alabama chief justice Roy Moore, requiring him to remove the Ten Commandments monument, and when Chief Justice Moore refused to comply, a three-judge panel of the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the lower court judge to proceed with enforcement of the ruling in Glassroth v. Moore (11th Cir. 2003). The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently denied Moore’s appeal on November 3rd, 2003, and, just 10 days later, a judicial ethics panel in Alabama removed Chief Justice Moore from his seat on the state court.
► In June of 2005, two cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court illustrate how even the high court can reach very different conclusions in ruling on seemingly similar religious-display cases. Both McCreary County v. ACLU and Van Orden v. Perry involved displays of the Ten Commandments on public property. In writing for the 5-4 majority in McCreary v. ACLU, Justice David Souter used the Lemon test and determined that the Ten Commandments displays in the two Kentucky courthouses conveyed a religious message to the public, failing to satisfy the first prong of the Lemon test that the display must have a secular purpose. Therefore, the Court majority found the Ten Commandment displays in McCreary were unconstitutional.
► In June of 2005, Ii Van Orden v. Perry, which was decided on the same day as the above mentioned McCreary v. ACLU case, the high court ruled that a Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds was constitutional. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, in writing the plurality opinion for the Court, was quick in dismissing the Lemon test as the appropriate way to evaluate the case. (The vote was 4-1-4.) Instead, Rehnquist focused on the nature and setting of the monument. The monument was part of a larger display containing 17 monuments and 21 historical markers celebrating the “people, ideals, and events that compose Texan identity.” In determining that the monument was of a secular purpose, and therefore constitutional, Justice Stephen Breyer in his concurring opinion noted that because the monument had been on display for 40 years before being challenged, it “suggests more strongly than can any set of formulaic tests that few individuals, whatever their system of beliefs, are likely to have understood the monument amounting, in any significantly detrimental way, to a government effort to favor a particular religious sect.”
U.S. Government Recognizes Satanism as a Religion and Church
The insane modern concept of “freedom of religion” is just the kind of freedom Satan likes ― “then Satan is free to create havoc and destruction with impunity!” (Fr. Gabriele Amorthe, exorcist). So much so that in April 2019, the US government, based on its insane “freedom of religion” platform, accepted and welcomed The Satanic Temple into its classification of religions by giving The Satanic Temple the same tax exempt status that it gives to religious groups and religious organizations. In other words, The Satanic Temple has been recognized as a religious organization―and therefore it has certain rights and privileges that are granted to other religious organizations.
The Satanic Temple announced on its social networking service, Instagram account: “We are pleased to announce that for the very [first] time in history, a satanic organization has been recognized by the United States federal government as being a church … This acknowledgment will make sure The Satanic Temple has the same access to public spaces as other religious organizations, affirm our standing in court when battling religious discrimination, and enable us to apply for faith-based government grants.” the Instagram post stated. In a statement, co-founder of The Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves said that “accepting religious tax-exemption — rather than renouncing it in protest — can help us to better assert our claims to equal access and exemption while laying to rest any suspicion that we don’t meet the qualifications of a true religious organization. Satanism is here to stay!” he added. Freedom of religion, huh?
This granting of religious status to The Satanic Temple gave them the opportunity to place the thin-end of a wedge into gaining access to many religious rights based on that false premise of “freedom of religion” which tolerates all religions―which is an insult to Almighty God. The co-founders of The Satanic Temple were Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry―who met in 2012 and in 2013 founded The Satanic Temple. Essentially, it was a schism from the Church of Satan, which Greaves and Jarry criticized for not being active enough in the world at large.
The Satanic Temple first gained media attention in January 2013 after a group of Satanists assembled at the Florida State Capitol to show their approval over a bill that Governor Rick Scott signed into law the prior year, Senate Bill 98, which allowed student-led prayer at school assemblies. The group further stated that, as the bill did not specify a religion, the prayers could be led by a student from any religion—including Satanism. The Satanic Temple members announced they “were coming out to say how happy we were because now our Satanic children could pray to Satan in school.” Freedom of religion, huh?
In 2013, outside the Texas State Capitol building, during protests in favor of late-term abortion, pro-life demonstrators dueled with abortion-rights advocates (which included many members of The Satanic Temple). The pro-life contingent sang “Amazing Grace.” Whereas The Satanic Temple had brought along children to the Texas Capitol who chanted “F**k You!” and “Hail Satan!”, while holding signs reading “Stay Out Of My Mommy’s Vagina.” Freedom of religion, huh?
Several years later, in 2016, Lucien Greaves and Malcom Jarry opened the official headquarters of The Satanic Temple in Salem, Massachusetts―and installed therein its main attraction, an 8-foot, 6-inch bronze statue of a goat-headed, winged demon called Baphomet. The Satanic Temple would gain notoriety through two attempts to have a statue of the demon Baphomet legally placed on two state capitol grounds—Oklahoma in 2015 and in Arkansas in 2018—in reaction to government-sanctioned 10 Commandments monuments. Freedom of religion, huh?
In 2016, The Satanic Temple announced it was pursuing After School Satan Clubs in cities across the United States, including Atlanta, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Pensacola, Washington, D.C., Tucson, Springfield, Missouri, Seattle and Portland. This was a direct response to the Protestant Christian Good News Clubs, an afterschool program designed by the Child Evangelism Fellowship. Despite initial widespread media attention to the announcements, only one school in Tacoma, Washington, ever served any students―teaching just a single child from a nearby school once per month from December 2016 to June 2017. The program did not return the following year, and by the fall of 2017, The Satanic Temple representative, Chalice Blythe, confirmed in an interview there were no active programs. In January 2022, a second After School Satan program launched in Moline, Illinois, Monthly meetings are scheduled through May 2023, with a focus on board and card games, crafts, and science projects. In this resurrected campaign or “second satanic wave”, The Satanic Temple is organizing its After School Satan Clubs in Illinois, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Freedom of religion, huh?
The reason that After School Satan Club programs can operate is thanks to the Good News Club, run by the Child Evangelism Fellowship ― an evangelical group that was refused access to schools by the lower courts, but fought their case for the right to operate in schools, all the way to the Supreme Court and won. In 2001, in the case that commanded the resources of powerful legal advocacy groups on the religious right, including the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Liberty Counsel, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that to exclude an after-school program, on account of the religious views of its sponsors, amounted to a violation of free-speech rights. In their case, the Good News Club argued that, despite the fact that they are a religious organization, they should be allowed to use school facilities to operate their club. After the federal district court and Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Good News Club’s claimed free speech violation, the Supreme Court reversed the lower Courts’ decisions.
The Child Evangelism Fellowship then hit the ground running, and within 10 years, by 2011, it reported 3,560 Good News Clubs, putting them in more than 5% of the nation’s public elementary schools. The rationale used by the Supreme Court to allow the evangelical Christian group to operate an afterschool program on school grounds applies to all recognized religious organizations, which now includes The Satanic Temple―ever since the government recognized them as a religious organization through the IRS. So long as the After School Satan Club, or Good News Club, is not held during school hours, does not restrict membership, follows the same rules other clubs must follow, and is not promoted by the school itself, a school cannot prohibit a group with a religious viewpoint from meeting.
Lucien Greaves, co-founder and spokesman for The Satanic Church, said: “We would like to thank the Liberty Counsel specifically for opening the doors to the After School Satan Clubs through their dedication to religious liberty! The Satanic Temple leverages religious freedom laws that put ‘After-School Clubs’ in elementary schools nationwide ... We are only doing this … to highlight religious hypocrisy and encroachment on religious freedom … because Good News Clubs have created a need for this. If Good News Clubs would operate in churches rather than public schools, that need would disappear. But our point is that if you let one religion into the public schools you have to let others, otherwise it’s an establishment of religion.”
Christian Congress or Anti-Christian Congress?
For all of this to be allowed under the false notion of “freedom of religion” is not only catastrophic and disgusting―it is also satanic in itself. If the U.S. House of Representatives is 88% Christian and the Senate is 87% Christians―then why the hell are those Christians not legislating against Satan and his stooges and instruments? What comes first for a Christian―God or a human Constitution? The God of Christians―Our Lord Jesus Christ―is as blunt and clear as can be in speaking to His Christian followers:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). If they profess themselves to be Christians, then Our Lord gives them a “litmus test”: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24). “But I know you, that you have not the love of God in you” (John 5:42). “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
Christ wants nothing to do with Satan―so why does a so-called “Christian” Government that should be showing love and obedience to Christ, enable and allow Satanists to enter what should be a Christian society? Our Lord “But I know you, that you have not the love of God in you” (John 5:42). “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “For leaving the commandments of God, you hold to the traditions of men!” (Mark 7:8) ― they ignore the Laws of God and replace them with the laws of men, for example, The U.S. Constitution with its errors and anti-God positions.
God cast Satan and his devils out of the heavens―and a “Christian” government has problems with casting Satan out of their nation? Christ said of Satan: “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). “The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything! … The prince of this world is already judged! ... Now shall the prince of this world be cast out!” (John 12:31; 16:11; 14:30).
Rather than casting-out Satan, why is an 88% “Christian” Government allowing Satan, the prince of this world, to gain a foothold in what should, by all rights, be a Christian nation? Why is an 88% “Christian” Government recognizing Satanism as bona-fide religion and granting it rights and tax-relief? Is there any tax-relief Hell? Are there any rights in Hell? Why is an 88% “Christian” government allowing Satanists into schools? Is that loving God with your whole mind, heart, soul and strength? Is that showing obedience to God? Why has an 88% “Christian” government allowed Satanist meetings in the military under the false premise of “religious freedom”? THE TRUE UNDERSTANDING CONCERNING OUR FREEDOMS is that we are free to do WHAT IS GOOD―but we are not free to do WHAT IS EVIL. For a “Christian” Congress, Satan and Satanism should be seen as an evil and not as something good. Freedoms apply only to what is GOOD and not to what is EVIL. The prisons are proof of that principle―we lock up and take away the freedom of people who abuse their freedom to do what is evil!
Holy Scripture Condemns Counterfeit Christians
For a “Christian” Congress to allow and legislate for evil is an evil in itself: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! … For they have cast away the law of the Lord and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One!” (Isaias 5:20, 24). “But know this, that in the last days, dangerous times will come….” (2 Timothy 3:1). “In the last times some shall depart from the Faith―giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared! For there will come a time when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but having itching ears, will heap up to themselves teachers according to their own lusts, and they will turn away their hearing from the truth and turn aside rather to fables” (2 Timothy 4:1-4). “For such false apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder―for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light! Therefore, it is no great thing if Satan’s ministers be transformed to look like the ministers of justice [or look like Christians]” (1 Corinthians 11:13-15). “There were also false prophets among the people, even as there shall be among you lying teachers, who shall bring in sects of perdition, and deny the Lord who bought them: bringing upon themselves swift destruction” (2 Peter 2:1).
“I beseech you, brethren, to take note of them who make dissensions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them. For they that are such, serve not Christ our Lord, but by pleasing speeches and good words, seduce the hearts of the innocent!” (Romans 16:17-18). “Jesus said: ‘Take heed that no man seduce you! For many will come in My name saying, I am Christ [or I am a Christian― and they will seduce and lead many astray! There shall arise false Christs and false prophets [and false Christians], and they shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive―if possible―even the elect! Behold I have told it to you, beforehand!” (Matthew 24:4-5; 24:24-25).
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep {Christians], but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them. Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven―but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:15-21).
No true and good (tree) Christian government can bring forth evil fruit such as allowing and legislating for freedom to abortion, same-sex marriages, homosexuality, divorce with remarriage, cohabitation, contraception, gender change; nor give unassailable and untouchable rights to Satanism, LGBTQ, and anti-Christian religions and pagans. “Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire!” The 88% - 87% “Christian” Congress of the United States― U.S. House of Representatives is 88% Christian and the Senate is 87% Christian―calls itself “Christian” but, as Our Lord rebukes, “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6) ― in other words, “Well can it said of this “Christian” Congress: ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” Just as the term “RINO” refers to those who are “Republican In Name Only”, likewise Congress can be said to be “CINO”, or “Christian In Name Only” ― for “a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire! Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them!”
Article 8
Sunday November 13th, 2022
Did You Vote for a Murderer?
Sunday November 13th, 2022
Did You Vote for a Murderer?
Election or Dissection or Die-Section?
In you live in the USA, then you have just emerged from the mid-term elections. So who did you vote for? What did you vote for? Did you vote at all? There is more on the ballot than just a name! There is more to a candidate than just a name, a face and a party. What if you were told that one of your candidates was a murderer―would you vote for him or her? If you were an employer―would you employ a murderer? A thing that many people forget about during these mid-term elections is the fact that many of these candidates―current members of Congress or future members of Congress―are murderers. That is not an exaggeration―though it will be hotly denied. Many of these mid-term Congressional candidates are guilty of enabling mid-term abortions by being firm believers, supporters and advocates of making abortion freely available throughout the nation. They even want to enshrine the right to abortion into the U.S. Law. They might not be the actual evil murderous doctor who by surgical dissection or suction or other gruesome means kills the baby in the womb―but those politicians are just as guilty of murder as the person who hires a “hit-man” to assassinate someone for them.
From the top down―the USA (and the world) is infested and populated by cold-blooded, sweet-smiling, self-excusing murderers. If we can say: “Like Father, like son!” and Scripture adds: “As the mother was, so also is her daughter!” (Ezechiel 16:44) ― so too can we say: “Like President, like elector!” or perhaps more so: “Like elector, like President!” Just as children imitate their parents, we can also say that citizens take their lead from and follow the example of their rulers―and rulers will try to pander to and accommodate the preferences and wishes of the citizens. No politicians will include in his or her manifesto something that is extremely unpopular among the citizen voters―which politician has ever run on the grounds of increased sacrifice, increased mortification, increased religiosity, increased prayer, less worldliness, less money, anti-divorce, anti-contraception, anti-LGBTQ, anti-cohabitation, anti-immodesty, etc. If a politician decided to run for office while advocating those things―then he or she would be run-out-office or would never be elected to office in the first place. It would be a loser’s ticket! If you want votes, then you have to pander to the voter, you have to “bribe” the voter into voting for you by giving them something that they desire.
Today, one thing that is high on the demand list of many voters is abortion. So much so that President Biden, in the build up to these mid-term U.S. elections, said on October 18th, 2022, in Washington: “Here is the promise I make to you and the American people! The first bill that I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v Wade!” ― which means enshrining abortion into American law. What is Biden saying here? Scripture rebukes our blindness: “Hear, O foolish people, and without understanding―who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and hear not!” (Jeremias 5:21). “They have not known, nor understood! For their eyes are covered that they may not see, and that they may not understand with their heart!” (Isaias 44:18). To which Our Lord adds: “Having eyes, see you not? Having ears, hear you not?” (Mark 8:18).
The bottom-line is that abortion―regardless of what term the baby has reached―is MURDER. The fact that most people want abortion to be freely available and most politicians vote and legislate for the availability of abortion―places all of them into the category of being MURDERERS. It does not matter if they do not actually perform the surgery, or suck-out the baby with a vacuum, or poison the baby with chemicals―they are guilty accomplices to murder, for they played a major role in making the murder of babies legal and freely available and protected and harbored the actual murdering doctors and nurses.
Rabid Reaction to Ruling
When the U.S. Supreme Court officially reversed Roe v. Wade on June 24th, 2022, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly a half century, no longer exists―there was a rabid, raging reaction from, not only citizens, but also politicians. What is even more shocking is to see the rabid, raging reaction that came from “Catholic” politicians! There are a total of 535 Members of Congress. 100 serve in the U.S. Senate and 435 serve in the U.S. House of Representatives―and Catholics make up around 30% of the current (117th) Congress―thus occupying at least 160 of those 535 Congressional seats. On top of that, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, is Catholic―and the House Speaker (prior to these mid-term elections), Nancy Pelosi is also Catholic. Yet when the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade on June 24th, 2022, there was a public raging rabid reaction from OVER HALF of those CATHOLIC members of Congress. Here below are just some of the raging comments those “Catholic” Congress members spouted at the beginning of May 2022―when the eventual Supreme Court decision of June 24th was initially leaked to the press and the public. The expanded list of quotes by Catholic Members of Congress can be found in the APPENDIX below, at the end of this article.
GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “Our daughters, sisters, mothers, and grandmothers will not be silenced. The world is about to hear their fury. California will not sit back. We are going to fight like Hell.” (May 2nd, 2022). “California will not stand idly by as women across America are stripped of their rights and the progress so many have fought for gets erased.” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR STEVE SISOLAK, a Catholic Democrat for Nevada, said: “In Nevada, we’re committed to protecting reproductive rights – I’ve signed legislation affirming this right and expanding access to healthcare.” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR PHIL MURPHY, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “A truly dark day in America with news reports that the Supreme Court has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, a Catholic Democrat for New Mexico, said: “The ramifications of this decision would be devastating for New Mexico women!” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “For anyone who needs access to care, our state will welcome you with open arms. Abortion will always be safe and accessible in New York!” (May 2nd, 2022).
SENATOR MARK KELLY, a Catholic Democrat for Arizona, said: “If this draft Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe is true, it’s an enormous step backwards for our country!” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR ALEX PADILLA, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “I’m in.” (replying to Governor Newsom’s tweet, “We can’t trust the Supreme Court of the United States to protect the right to abortion, so we will do it ourselves!” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR BOB MENENDEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “In this moment, I want women in New Jersey and across the country to know that I will never stop fighting for your right to choose!” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “We must codify the right to an abortion into federal law—even if it means eliminating the filibuster …. And states like New York must open our doors!” (May 2nd, 2022).
SENATOR BOB CASEY, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “If this draft opinion becomes the final opinion of the Court, I have serious concerns about what overturning almost 50 years of legal precedent will mean for women in states passing near or total bans on abortion.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR MARIA CANTWELL, a Catholic Democrat for Washington, said: “If the reporting about the draft opinion is true, America is on the path to returning to a dangerous time.” (May 2nd, 2022).
SENATOR PATTY MURRAY, a Catholic Democrat for Washington, said: “If this is true, this kind of outcome is exactly what I’ve been ringing alarm bells about—and this is a five alarm fire….In a matter of days or weeks, the horrifying reality is that we could live in a country without Roe. If this is true, women will be forced to remain pregnant no matter their personal circumstances.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE NANCY PELOSI, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “The Republican-appointed Justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history!” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE RUBEN GALLEGO, a Catholic Democrat for Arizona, said: “Pro-choice elected officials need to ban together and fight for reproductive rights at every office.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MIKE THOMPSON, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “The Senate must send the Women’s Health Protection Act to the President of the United States now, to protect access to safe abortion care and save lives.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ANNA ESHOO, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “[T]his is a sad day because again…it just reeks of not respecting women.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE PETE AGUILAR, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “Right-wing extremists and their allies on the Supreme Court are trying to change the country. Because they cannot do so through legislation, they want to do it through the courts.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE TED LIEU, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “We can make Roe vs. Wade the law of the land next year! … Eliminate the filibuster!” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE NORMA TORRES, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “We can no longer afford to wait to pass federal legislation protecting a woman’s right to choose.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JIMMY GOMEZ, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “We can’t go back to the days where a woman is criminalized for deciding what she does with her own body.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE NANETTE BARRAGAN, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “Abortion is STILL legal right now….A right I’ll fight like Hell to make sure women continue to have!” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MIKE LEVIN, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “This callous and reckless decision will threaten the lives of women everywhere.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MARIE NEWMAN, a Catholic Democrat for Illinois, said: “Civil rights, economic rights and LGBTQ rights are next.” (May 3rd, 2022). “We will never stop fighting.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE CHUY GARCÍA, a Catholic Democrat for Illinois, said: “Striking down Roe is a direct attack on Latinos, Black Americans, and communities of color.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JIM MCGOVERN, a Catholic Democrat for Massachusetts, said: “We must stay focused, stay organized and use every tool at our disposal to fight back!” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE LORI TRAHAN, a Catholic Democrat for Massachusetts, said: “The fight is on! We need the Women’s Health Protection Act! We need it NOW!” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE DEBBIE DINGELL, a Catholic Democrat for Michigan, said: “If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, no fundamental right in this country will be safe.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE BETTY MCCOLLUM, a Catholic Democrat for Minnesota, said: “Women’s reproductive choice belongs to women, not a right wing Supreme Court that will allow this fundamental human right to be criminalized.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE TERESA LEGER FERNANDEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New Mexico, said: “[I]n the face of this anticipated and devastating draft decision, New Mexico will stand with women and families. We will remain a leader in ensuring that patients have access to the full spectrum of healthcare they need and deserve, including access to abortion care.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE KATHLEEN RICE, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “Abortion is still your legal right. If you are in need of care, please reach out to a provider immediately.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE NYDIA VELÁZQUEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “This is an attack on the right to a safe abortion all over the country. We will fight this.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “Time is running out—we have to expand the court before it’s too late!” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “As we’ve warned, the Supreme Court of the United States isn’t just coming for abortion – they’re coming for the right to privacy Roe rests on, which includes gay marriage and civil rights!” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE TIM RYAN, a Catholic Democrat for Ohio, said: “Every single one of my GOP opponents supports extreme, restrictive anti-abortion laws. We cannot let them near the Senate.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE PETER DEFAZIO, a Catholic Democrat for Oregon, said: “The leaked draft decision from the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, if enacted, would be dangerous—it completely disregards science and would put the health of millions of women at risk.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MADELEINE DEAN, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “This is terrifying and confirms what we already knew: This extreme Supreme Court is hostile to abortion.” (May 2nd, 2022).
Shocking Statements
The above 36 extracts from a much longer list of 86 Catholic members of Congress (54% of all Catholic members of Congress) who made public statements (that number of 86 Catholics might well be much higher) is shocking when you objectively consider what abortion really is―it is MURDER. If politicians refuse to legislate in favor of abortion, then the number of murders would be massively reduced. By legislating IN FAVOR OF ABORTION, lawmakers enable murder to be committed without guilt and punishment in the courts. They, in effect, aid and abet the murder of innocent, helpless babies.
According to law, any form of involvement in the planning or commission of a crime makes you equally responsible. Driving the get-away car, hiding a criminal, giving them money, helping them plan the crime and/or the get-away, sharing in the profits, or just knowing about the crime and not reporting it―then it is aiding and abetting. As the U.S. law states: “Aiding and abetting involves some participation in the criminal act and must be evidenced by some word, act, or deed. No particular acts are necessary, nor is it necessary that any physical part in the commission of the crime is taken or that there was an express agreement there for. Mere encouragement or assistance is sufficient.” In order to be found guilty of aiding and abetting, the defendant must intend that the crime be committed―and if you legislate in favor of abortion, then you most certainly intend the crime of abortion/murder to take place.
What does aiding and abetting murder mean? To abet another to commit a murder is to command, procure, counsel, encourage, induce, or assist. Aiding and abetting means helping someone commit murder and you intentionally provide that help―to legislate in favor of abortion is clearly providing that help to murder. A person who is convicted of aiding and abetting faces the same penalties as the principal perpetrator. According US law, the murder of a child is an aggravating circumstance that can subject a defendant to the death penalty. As of January 2022, fourteen states authorized the death penalty for the murder of a child victim.
"Catholic" Abortion Murderers
► “CATHOLIC” BIDEN ― The Sunday Mass attending and Rosary praying U.S. “Catholic” President, Joe Biden, allows most of these things to flourish under his governance―so too do all the “Catholic” members of Congress, as well as the past and present “Catholic” governors of various states. Clinging to the false notion of a separation of Church and State, many American politicians who identify as Catholics have perfected the art of the split personality, using the “I-would-never-impose-my-beliefs-on-others” get-out clause at the first hint of having to back-up an unpopular position championed by the Church―for example, abortion. President Biden, one of the more prominent “Catholics” in American politics, has said: “I accept my Church’s position that life begins at conception … [but] I do not believe that we have a right to tell other people that women can’t control their body.” Or to put in another way ― “I accept my Church’s teaching that abortion is the murder of an unborn baby, but I do not believe that I should tell others not to murder their babies if they want to!”
On the day that the Supreme Court had released its decision overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established abortion as a constitutional right, and angry President Joe Biden said: “This fall, Roe is on the ballot! … Personal freedoms are on the ballot! The right to privacy, liberty, equality, they’re all on the ballot … We must elect more senators and representatives who will codify a woman’s right to choose into federal law once again, elect more state leaders to protect this right at the local level!”
In the build-up to the current/recent U.S. mid-term elections―held on November 8th, 2022―President “Catholic” Biden boldly stated on October 18th in Washington: “Here is the promise I make to you and the American people! The first bill that I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v Wade!” ― which means enshrining abortion into American law. But passing a bill on abortion could be difficult even if Democrats hold onto their Senate majority, as that chamber's rules require 60 of the 100 senators to agree on most legislation. Republicans largely oppose abortion rights, while Democrats largely support them. Prior to these mid-term election, Democrats had a slim majority in the House and control the equally split 50-50 Senate through Vice President Kamala Harris’ ability to cast tie-breaking votes.
► “CATHOLIC” PELOSI ― The House Speaker, “Catholic” Nancy Pelosi―just like “Catholic” Biden―is a vehement advocate of abortion. So much so that in May of 2022, the Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, sent a letter to San Francisco resident Pelosi―as well as a letter for the general public―in which the Archbishop stated that Nancy Pelosi can no longer receive Holy Communion in the Catholic Church because of her stance on abortion access:
In the letter the Archbishop states: “The Church’s ancient and consistent teaching is that from the first moment of conception life must be guarded with the greatest care while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes. Christians have, indeed, always upheld the dignity of human life in every stage―especially the most vulnerable, beginning with life in the womb ... This fundamental moral truth has consequences for Catholics in how they live their lives, especially those entrusted with promoting and protecting the public good of society ... Those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a grave and clear obligation to oppose any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them … A Catholic legislator who supports procured abortion, after knowing the teaching of the Church, commits a manifestly grave sin, which is a cause of most serious scandal to others. Therefore, universal Church law provides that such persons “are not to be admitted to Holy Communion” (Code of Canon Law, canon 915) …
“The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote to the U.S. bishops in 2004 explaining the approach to be taken: ‘… when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest―understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws―then his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.’
“I am grateful to you for the time you have given me in the past to speak about these matters. Unfortunately, I have not received such an accommodation to my many requests to speak with you again since then … That is why I communicated my concerns to you via letter on April 7th, 2022, and informed you there that, should you not publicly repudiate your advocacy for abortion “rights” or else refrain from referring to your Catholic Faith in public and receiving Holy Communion, I would have no choice but to make a declaration, in keeping with canon 915 [of the Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church], that you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion. As you have not publically repudiated your position on abortion, and continue to refer to your Catholic faith in justifying your position and to receive Holy Communion, that time has now come. Therefore, in light of my responsibility as the Archbishop of San Francisco to be “concerned for all the Christian faithful entrusted to [my] care” (Code of Canon Law, can. 383, §1), by means of this communication, I am hereby notifying you that you are not to present yourself for Holy Communion and, should you do so, you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion, until such time as you publicly repudiate your advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion and confess and receive absolution of this grave sin in the sacrament of Penance.” (Letter to Nancy Pelosi from Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, May 20th, 2022).
In the public version of his letter, the Archbishop writes: “As the Archbishop of San Francisco, I am bound to be concerned for all the Christian faithful entrusted to my care (Code of Canon Law, can. 383, §1). This most serious duty can sometimes become unpleasant, especially when Catholics in public life explicitly promote practices that involve the direct taking of innocent human life, which is what abortion does. I have struggled with this issue in my own conscience for many years now―especially with regard to the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and member of our Archdiocese, Nancy Pelosi. I have received letters from very many of you over the years expressing distress over the scandal being caused by such Catholics in public life who promote such grievously evil practices as abortion. I have responded that conversion is always better than exclusion, and before any such action can be taken it must be preceded by sincere and diligent efforts at dialogue and persuasion.
“With regard to Speaker Pelosi, I have striven to follow this wise route. Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s position on abortion has become only more extreme over the years, especially in the last few months. Just earlier this month she once again―as she has many times before―explicitly cited her Catholic Faith while justifying abortion as a “choice,” this time setting herself in direct opposition to Pope Francis. [Pelosi said:] ‘The very idea that they [the Church, the Pope and bishops] would be telling women the size, timing or whatever of their family―the personal nature of this is so appalling! And I say that as a devout Catholic! They say to me, “Nancy Pelosi thinks she knows more about having babies than the Pope!” Yes I do! Are you stupid?’
“After numerous attempts to speak with her to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that the point has come in which I must make a public declaration that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion unless and until she publicly repudiate her support for abortion “rights” and confess and receive absolution for her cooperation in this evil in the sacrament of Penance. I have accordingly sent her a Notification to this effect, which I have now made public” (Letter to the general public concerning Nancy Pelosi; from Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, May 20th, 2022).
Unfortunately, the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference debated what to do with President Biden―who was guilty of taking the same position on abortion as Pelosi―but the U.S. bishops decided to take no disciplinary measures against “Catholic” Biden.
House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was not short of words and quickly made a public reply to her public admonition and punishment. In an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday followed Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s public letter, Pelosi “clutched at straws” to try and squirm out of guilt by “firing-back” and calling-out the Catholic Church for having double-standards. She pointed out that the Catholic Church has not denied Holy Communion to lawmakers who back the death penalty — which (she wrongly claimed) also violates the Church’s Catechism. She protested: “I wonder about death penalty―which I am opposed to―and so is the Church, but they take no action against people who may not share their view ... So, we just have to be prayerful. We have to be respectful. I come from a largely pro-life Italian American Catholic family, so I respect people’s views about that. But I don’t respect us foisting it onto others. Now our Archbishop (Salvatore Cordileone) has been vehemently against LGBTQ rights, too. In fact, he led the way in some of the initiatives on — an initiative on the ballot in California. So, this decision taking us to privacy and precedent, is very dangerous in the lives of so many of the American people.”
► “CATHOLIC” CUOMO ― The recent Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, whom The New York Times called “a practicing Catholic,” the product of a family and childhood “steeped in Catholicism”—outlined, in his state of the state address, a plan to enact what he called a Reproductive Health Act, but which many called an unprecedented expansion of access to late-term abortion. To the wild applause of those in attendance, Cuomo, the “devout” Catholic governor, chanted his reasoning: “Because it is her body, it is her choice! Because it’s her body, it’s her choice! Because it’s her body, it’s her choice!” Nevertheless, at the end of day, politicians “come and go” and “Cuomo had to Guomo!” As Our Lord says: “The grass that is in the field today, tomorrow is cast into the oven!” (Luke 12:28). The “devout” “Catholic” governor was forced to resign after he was found have been “devoutly” and “fervently” groping several woman while in office! Whatever happened to his mantra: “It’s her body, it’s her choice!”? Those women chose not to be groped―but he went ahead anyway! “He … is blind and groping, having forgotten his old sins!” (2 Peter 1:9). “They shall grope as in the dark, and not in the light, and the Lord shall make them stagger like men that are drunk” (Job 12:25). Today he has staggered out of office and has been replaced by another “Catholic” pro-abortion/murder politician, Kathy Hochul, who said: “For anyone who needs access to care [meaning abortion], our state will welcome you with open arms. Abortion will always be safe and accessible in New York!”
Abortion is Murder―No Wiggle Room!
We should all be more or less aware of the traditional Catholic teaching on the subject of abortion as being an act of murder―but even the Liberal and Modernist Church of today upholds the same teaching.
► Even the Liberal and Modernist Pope Francis―who has controversially spoken against many traditional teachings of the Church―minces no words on the subject of abortion being murder. In September of 2021, he stated: “The problem of abortion―it is more than a problem, it is homicide! Whoever has an abortion, kills! No mincing words! Take any book on embryology for medical students. The third week after conception, all the organs are already there, even the DNA ― it is a human life! This human life must be respected! This principle is so clear! To those who cannot understand, I would ask this question: ‘Is it right to kill a human life to solve a problem? Is it right to hire a hit-man to kill a human life? Scientifically, it is a human life. Is it right to take it out to solve a problem?’ That is why the Church is so harsh on this issue, because if it accepts this, it is as if it accepts daily murder!”
► Even the Modern Catechism of the Catholic Church says abortion is murder and that a Catholic who procures an abortion, automatically excommunicates themselves from the Church: “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law. Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. A person who procures a completed abortion incurs by the very commission of the offense an excommunication by the very commission of the offense. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society. The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights. Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 2271-2273).
► Liberal and Modernist bishops also say abortion is murder, as can be seen in this extract from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: “In response to those who say this teaching has changed or is of recent origin, here are the facts:
● From earliest times, Christians sharply distinguished themselves from surrounding pagan cultures by rejecting abortion and infanticide. The earliest widely used documents of Christian teaching and practice, condemned both practices, as did early regional and particular Church councils.
● Many Christian thinkers accepted the biological theories of their time, based on the writings of Aristotle (4th century BC) and other philosophers. However, such mistaken biological theories never changed the Church's common conviction that abortion is gravely wrong at every stage.
● In the 5th century AD this rejection of abortion at every stage was affirmed by the great bishop and theologian, St. Augustine. He knew of theories about the human soul not being present until some weeks into pregnancy … but he also held that human knowledge of biology was very limited, and he wisely warned against misusing such theories to risk committing homicide.
● In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas made extensive use of Aristotle’s thought, but he also rejected abortion as gravely wrong at every stage, observing that it is a sin ‘against nature’ to reject God's gift of a new life.
● During these centuries, theories derived from Aristotle and others influenced the grading of penalties for abortion in Church law. Some canonical penalties were more severe for a direct abortion after the stage when the human soul was thought to be present. However, abortion at all stages continued to be seen as a grave moral evil.
● From the 13th to 19th centuries, some theologians speculated about rare and difficult cases where they thought an abortion before ‘formation’ or ‘ensoulment’ might be morally justified. But these theories were discussed and then always rejected, as the Church refined and reaffirmed its understanding of abortion as an intrinsically evil act that can never be morally right.
● In 1827, with the discovery of the human ovum, the mistaken biology of Aristotle was discredited. Scientists increasingly understood that the union of sperm and egg at conception produces a new living being that is distinct from both mother and father. Modern genetics demonstrated that this individual is, at the outset, distinctively human, with the inherent and active potential to mature into a human fetus, infant, child and adult. From 1869 onward the obsolete [and mistaken] distinction between the "ensouled" and "unensouled" fetus was permanently removed from Canon Law on abortion.
● Secular laws against abortion were being reformed at the same time and in the same way, based on the realization by secular medical experts that ‘no other doctrine appears to be consonant with reason or physiology but that which admits the embryo to possess vitality from the very moment of conception’ (American Medical Association, Report on Criminal Abortion, 1871).
● Modern science has not changed the Church’s constant teaching against abortion, but has underscored how important and reasonable it is, by confirming that the life of each individual of the human species begins with the earliest embryo. Given the scientific fact that a human life begins at conception, the only moral norm needed to understand the Church's opposition to abortion is the principle that each and every human life must be treated with the respect due to a human person.” (Statement by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on the subject of abortion).
Pro-Abortionists Admit Abortion Kills
► Even an abortionist admits abortions kill babies! Back in 2011, the abortionist, Judith Arcana, said at a seminar: “I performed abortions, I have had an abortion and I am favor of women having abortions when we choose to do so. But we should never disregard the fact that being pregnant means there is a baby growing inside of a woman, a baby whose life is ended. We ought not to pretend this is not happening.” This feminist, herself an abortionist, readily admits that abortion kills a baby. She clearly feels that abortions are justified, even though they kill human beings. She has no problem with the belief that a woman has the right to murder her own children for personal reasons.
► Consider this statement by “Catholic” President Joe Biden, made on May 3rd after the Supreme Court’s future (June 24th) decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade was leaked―Biden said: “The idea that we’re gonna make a judgment that is going to say that no one can make the judgment to choose to abort a child based on a decision by the Supreme Court I think goes way overboard.” Those words were spoken by President Joe Biden―another slip of the tongue which inadvertently revealed the truth about Biden’s real views on abortion. Calling an unborn baby a “child” ― which is what Biden did ― is strictly off-limits for pro-abortion advocates. When you linguistically humanize a fetus by calling it “a child” ―then you make it impossible to deny the reality of abortion: which is the deliberate termination of a CHILD'S life.
► The famous American actress, comedienne, author, and television personality, Whoopi Goldberg, also slipped. In an angry rant against the Supreme Court’s leaked draft, Goldberg said abortion should be a decision made between a woman and her doctor and her “CHILD.” So how can the unborn child vote for self-extermination? Goldberg quickly moved past the comment―perhaps recognizing her faux pas―but the camera was rolling. The logical inconsistencies required to uphold pro-abortion views are hard to reconcile and impossible to miss.
Newspeak, Newhistory and Newscience
NEWSPEAK is the deliberately ambiguous and contradictory language that is used to mislead and manipulate the public. In George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949), Newspeak is the language devised by the totalitarian government to replace English, which is called “Oldspeak”. Rather than speaking about things as they really are―Newspeak changes, hides, eliminates, tweaks and twists reality with honeyed, sweetened, calming phrases designed to remove suspicions, modify facts and divert one’s attention from reality and difficulties. Liberals often employ the use of what you could call “linguistic misinformation” or “revising the meaning of words” or “moving the linguistic goal posts” ― which means that someone takes a familiar and agreed-upon concept or meaning of a word, and then changes the definition of the world to promote an agenda. Newspeak is a propagandistic language that is characterized by euphemism and circumlocution, and the inversion of customary meanings.
A euphemism is a mild or indirect word or expression that is substituted for a word that is considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing―for example, “alternative facts” is the smoke-screen lingo for what we call “bald-faced lying”; “downsizing” is a euphemism for “sacking” or “firing”; or saying that you are “between jobs” is a euphemism for being “unemployed” or “redundant”; or saying that someone “passed on” is a euphemism for “death”; or saying “they were done away with” instead of saying “they were murdered”; saying that a couple “are living together” instead of saying they “are living in sin.”
Today, abortion has been “scrubbed” of the word “abortion” as well as the truthful fact that it is “murder”―and have replaced the word “abortion” with the nice-sounding euphemism “women’s health care” and the reality of “child murder” with the innocent-sounding “a woman’s right to choose.” Avoiding the word “abortion” isn’t the only word game abortion advocates play. The favored tactic of pro-abortionists is the use of high-flown language to cloak the reality of what abortion actually does. Thus, “Planned Parenthood” is a euphemism or nicer sounding expression than “planned murder.” “Pro-choice” sounds nice, but it is nothing other than “pro-murder”. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, recently sought the backing of her State Supreme Court in order to ensure that abortion is a protected right under the state constitution. What’s at stake in abortion, Whitmer loftily declared in high-flown language, are “the woman’s privacy rights, a woman’s health rights and bodily autonomy.” The words sound swell, fine and dandy — until you recall that what is most directly at stake in an abortion, is not the privacy, health or autonomy of the woman carrying the child, but what is really at stake is the life of a unique, unborn human being whom the abortion will kill. People have been hoodwinked and brainwashed by the media into thinking that killing the unborn is a harmless procedure that is serving noble ends like “a woman’s privacy rights, health rights and bodily autonomy.”
NEWHISTORY is a new version of history. Totalitarian states will often “revise” and “change” things to further their cause. “Revisionist History”, for example, means the re-framing or re-painting a historical figure, event, or narrative in a distorted and dishonest way, in order to advance a particular social or political agenda―which includes minimizing or even ignoring evidence that would disprove their “revisionist” argument, or prove the argument of those who disagree with the “revisionists”. Those “revisionists” of history will often (falsely) claim that they are defending history from people like us, who, they say are trying to warp history or use it as a weapon―whereas it is the “revisionists” who are actually trying to warp history and use it as weapon. True history has been “scrubbed” of many truths, which have now been replaced by false facts, falsehoods, re-interpretations and misrepresentations.
NEWSCIENCE follows the same pattern. “Oldscience” is excommunicated and tossed into the garbage can―together with its “true truths”―and “Newscience” replaces it with “false truths” which are raised to the level of being dogmas. For all the “I believe in science” dogma spewed from those on the left, they regularly ignore and deny basic biological facts. For example, life begins at conception and abortion stops a beating heart. The Orwellian use of terms like “reproductive rights” also makes little sense. Reproduction, by definition, cultivates life. It would be more sensible to say “destruction rights,” but accurate language clarifies abortion’s violent reality and Liberals don’t like that! This is precisely why Biden’s comment (see above) was a big “no-no” in abortionist circles. It’s also why When Liberals say access to abortion is about “women’s rights” or that any restriction to abortion “does violence” to a woman’s bodily autonomy, few want to oppose that. Liberals have universally redefined words and socially criminalized those who disagree with them. Yet those murderous Liberals will not utter one single word about the BABY’S RIGHTS and the fact that abortion DOES VIOLENCE to a BABY’S BODILY AUTONOMY! “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! … For they have cast away the law of the Lord and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One!” (Isaias 5:20, 24).
Who Voted for Murder?
There were five states where voters had abortion on the ballot. Those five states were Kentucky, Michigan, California, Vermont, and Montana. And across all five of them, voters ultimately supported protecting abortion access, rather than restricting it. Surveys estimate that 61% of Americans say abortion should be legal. Or, say it as it really is: 61% of Americans say the murder of babies should be legal!
Gallup polls show Americans’ support for abortion in all or most cases at 80% in May 2021, only slightly higher than in 1975 (76%), and the Pew Research Center finds 59% of adults believe abortion should be legal, compared to 60% in 1995. The share of Americans in Gallup’s poll who say abortion is morally acceptable reached a record high of 47% in May, up from a low of 36% in 2009, and a Quinnipiac poll found support for abortion being legal in all or most cases reached a near-record high in September 2021 with 63% support.
Heaven Predicted an Attack on Children and the Family
In all of this we are reminded of the words of Our Lady of Good Success (Quito, Ecuador) in the 17th century, where she spoke of the future and our times: “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... The evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws … They will focus particularly on the children in order to achieve this general corruption. Woe to the children of these times! Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women!”
In the 20th century, Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed what Heaven had told her: “The final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about Marriage and the Family. Don't be afraid … because whoever works for the sanctity of Marriage and the Family will always be fought against and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue!” She ended saying, “nevertheless, Our Lady has already crushed his head!”
In many respects the history of this past century is the history of the attack by Satan and his stooges on the family – an effort which appears only now to be reaching its true climax, as we witness divorce, contraception, pornography, cohabitation, and even so-called same-sex “marriage,” and transgenderism becoming the nearly unquestioned societal norm! Recent estimates show that about 40% of (2 out of 5) births in the United States occur outside of marriage, up from 28% in 1990. America is fast becoming “Fatherless America” and a “Children’s Hell” ― if a baby can avoid being aborted (In 2020, about one in five pregnancies ended in abortion), then there is 40% chance of the baby being born out of wedlock! Even if the baby is born to a married couple, there is a massive chance that the baby’s parents will divorce! Today, it is thought approximately 42% to 45% of marriages in the United States end in divorce (this does not include legal separations). When you break that down by number of marriages:
● 42-45% percent of first marriages end in divorce.
● 60% of second marriages end in divorce.
● 73% of third marriages end in divorce.
The sins of 1956 seem like nothing compared to the sins of today―yet in 1956 Our Lady revealed to Blessed Elena Aiello: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
Things did not improve since 1956―for, in 1973, Our Lady again essentially repeated the same message at Akita in Japan: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord ... In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger! … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
In you live in the USA, then you have just emerged from the mid-term elections. So who did you vote for? What did you vote for? Did you vote at all? There is more on the ballot than just a name! There is more to a candidate than just a name, a face and a party. What if you were told that one of your candidates was a murderer―would you vote for him or her? If you were an employer―would you employ a murderer? A thing that many people forget about during these mid-term elections is the fact that many of these candidates―current members of Congress or future members of Congress―are murderers. That is not an exaggeration―though it will be hotly denied. Many of these mid-term Congressional candidates are guilty of enabling mid-term abortions by being firm believers, supporters and advocates of making abortion freely available throughout the nation. They even want to enshrine the right to abortion into the U.S. Law. They might not be the actual evil murderous doctor who by surgical dissection or suction or other gruesome means kills the baby in the womb―but those politicians are just as guilty of murder as the person who hires a “hit-man” to assassinate someone for them.
From the top down―the USA (and the world) is infested and populated by cold-blooded, sweet-smiling, self-excusing murderers. If we can say: “Like Father, like son!” and Scripture adds: “As the mother was, so also is her daughter!” (Ezechiel 16:44) ― so too can we say: “Like President, like elector!” or perhaps more so: “Like elector, like President!” Just as children imitate their parents, we can also say that citizens take their lead from and follow the example of their rulers―and rulers will try to pander to and accommodate the preferences and wishes of the citizens. No politicians will include in his or her manifesto something that is extremely unpopular among the citizen voters―which politician has ever run on the grounds of increased sacrifice, increased mortification, increased religiosity, increased prayer, less worldliness, less money, anti-divorce, anti-contraception, anti-LGBTQ, anti-cohabitation, anti-immodesty, etc. If a politician decided to run for office while advocating those things―then he or she would be run-out-office or would never be elected to office in the first place. It would be a loser’s ticket! If you want votes, then you have to pander to the voter, you have to “bribe” the voter into voting for you by giving them something that they desire.
Today, one thing that is high on the demand list of many voters is abortion. So much so that President Biden, in the build up to these mid-term U.S. elections, said on October 18th, 2022, in Washington: “Here is the promise I make to you and the American people! The first bill that I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v Wade!” ― which means enshrining abortion into American law. What is Biden saying here? Scripture rebukes our blindness: “Hear, O foolish people, and without understanding―who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and hear not!” (Jeremias 5:21). “They have not known, nor understood! For their eyes are covered that they may not see, and that they may not understand with their heart!” (Isaias 44:18). To which Our Lord adds: “Having eyes, see you not? Having ears, hear you not?” (Mark 8:18).
The bottom-line is that abortion―regardless of what term the baby has reached―is MURDER. The fact that most people want abortion to be freely available and most politicians vote and legislate for the availability of abortion―places all of them into the category of being MURDERERS. It does not matter if they do not actually perform the surgery, or suck-out the baby with a vacuum, or poison the baby with chemicals―they are guilty accomplices to murder, for they played a major role in making the murder of babies legal and freely available and protected and harbored the actual murdering doctors and nurses.
Rabid Reaction to Ruling
When the U.S. Supreme Court officially reversed Roe v. Wade on June 24th, 2022, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly a half century, no longer exists―there was a rabid, raging reaction from, not only citizens, but also politicians. What is even more shocking is to see the rabid, raging reaction that came from “Catholic” politicians! There are a total of 535 Members of Congress. 100 serve in the U.S. Senate and 435 serve in the U.S. House of Representatives―and Catholics make up around 30% of the current (117th) Congress―thus occupying at least 160 of those 535 Congressional seats. On top of that, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, is Catholic―and the House Speaker (prior to these mid-term elections), Nancy Pelosi is also Catholic. Yet when the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade on June 24th, 2022, there was a public raging rabid reaction from OVER HALF of those CATHOLIC members of Congress. Here below are just some of the raging comments those “Catholic” Congress members spouted at the beginning of May 2022―when the eventual Supreme Court decision of June 24th was initially leaked to the press and the public. The expanded list of quotes by Catholic Members of Congress can be found in the APPENDIX below, at the end of this article.
GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “Our daughters, sisters, mothers, and grandmothers will not be silenced. The world is about to hear their fury. California will not sit back. We are going to fight like Hell.” (May 2nd, 2022). “California will not stand idly by as women across America are stripped of their rights and the progress so many have fought for gets erased.” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR STEVE SISOLAK, a Catholic Democrat for Nevada, said: “In Nevada, we’re committed to protecting reproductive rights – I’ve signed legislation affirming this right and expanding access to healthcare.” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR PHIL MURPHY, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “A truly dark day in America with news reports that the Supreme Court has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, a Catholic Democrat for New Mexico, said: “The ramifications of this decision would be devastating for New Mexico women!” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “For anyone who needs access to care, our state will welcome you with open arms. Abortion will always be safe and accessible in New York!” (May 2nd, 2022).
SENATOR MARK KELLY, a Catholic Democrat for Arizona, said: “If this draft Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe is true, it’s an enormous step backwards for our country!” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR ALEX PADILLA, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “I’m in.” (replying to Governor Newsom’s tweet, “We can’t trust the Supreme Court of the United States to protect the right to abortion, so we will do it ourselves!” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR BOB MENENDEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “In this moment, I want women in New Jersey and across the country to know that I will never stop fighting for your right to choose!” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “We must codify the right to an abortion into federal law—even if it means eliminating the filibuster …. And states like New York must open our doors!” (May 2nd, 2022).
SENATOR BOB CASEY, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “If this draft opinion becomes the final opinion of the Court, I have serious concerns about what overturning almost 50 years of legal precedent will mean for women in states passing near or total bans on abortion.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR MARIA CANTWELL, a Catholic Democrat for Washington, said: “If the reporting about the draft opinion is true, America is on the path to returning to a dangerous time.” (May 2nd, 2022).
SENATOR PATTY MURRAY, a Catholic Democrat for Washington, said: “If this is true, this kind of outcome is exactly what I’ve been ringing alarm bells about—and this is a five alarm fire….In a matter of days or weeks, the horrifying reality is that we could live in a country without Roe. If this is true, women will be forced to remain pregnant no matter their personal circumstances.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE NANCY PELOSI, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “The Republican-appointed Justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history!” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE RUBEN GALLEGO, a Catholic Democrat for Arizona, said: “Pro-choice elected officials need to ban together and fight for reproductive rights at every office.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MIKE THOMPSON, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “The Senate must send the Women’s Health Protection Act to the President of the United States now, to protect access to safe abortion care and save lives.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ANNA ESHOO, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “[T]his is a sad day because again…it just reeks of not respecting women.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE PETE AGUILAR, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “Right-wing extremists and their allies on the Supreme Court are trying to change the country. Because they cannot do so through legislation, they want to do it through the courts.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE TED LIEU, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “We can make Roe vs. Wade the law of the land next year! … Eliminate the filibuster!” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE NORMA TORRES, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “We can no longer afford to wait to pass federal legislation protecting a woman’s right to choose.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JIMMY GOMEZ, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “We can’t go back to the days where a woman is criminalized for deciding what she does with her own body.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE NANETTE BARRAGAN, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “Abortion is STILL legal right now….A right I’ll fight like Hell to make sure women continue to have!” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MIKE LEVIN, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “This callous and reckless decision will threaten the lives of women everywhere.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MARIE NEWMAN, a Catholic Democrat for Illinois, said: “Civil rights, economic rights and LGBTQ rights are next.” (May 3rd, 2022). “We will never stop fighting.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE CHUY GARCÍA, a Catholic Democrat for Illinois, said: “Striking down Roe is a direct attack on Latinos, Black Americans, and communities of color.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JIM MCGOVERN, a Catholic Democrat for Massachusetts, said: “We must stay focused, stay organized and use every tool at our disposal to fight back!” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE LORI TRAHAN, a Catholic Democrat for Massachusetts, said: “The fight is on! We need the Women’s Health Protection Act! We need it NOW!” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE DEBBIE DINGELL, a Catholic Democrat for Michigan, said: “If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, no fundamental right in this country will be safe.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE BETTY MCCOLLUM, a Catholic Democrat for Minnesota, said: “Women’s reproductive choice belongs to women, not a right wing Supreme Court that will allow this fundamental human right to be criminalized.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE TERESA LEGER FERNANDEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New Mexico, said: “[I]n the face of this anticipated and devastating draft decision, New Mexico will stand with women and families. We will remain a leader in ensuring that patients have access to the full spectrum of healthcare they need and deserve, including access to abortion care.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE KATHLEEN RICE, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “Abortion is still your legal right. If you are in need of care, please reach out to a provider immediately.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE NYDIA VELÁZQUEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “This is an attack on the right to a safe abortion all over the country. We will fight this.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “Time is running out—we have to expand the court before it’s too late!” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “As we’ve warned, the Supreme Court of the United States isn’t just coming for abortion – they’re coming for the right to privacy Roe rests on, which includes gay marriage and civil rights!” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE TIM RYAN, a Catholic Democrat for Ohio, said: “Every single one of my GOP opponents supports extreme, restrictive anti-abortion laws. We cannot let them near the Senate.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE PETER DEFAZIO, a Catholic Democrat for Oregon, said: “The leaked draft decision from the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, if enacted, would be dangerous—it completely disregards science and would put the health of millions of women at risk.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MADELEINE DEAN, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “This is terrifying and confirms what we already knew: This extreme Supreme Court is hostile to abortion.” (May 2nd, 2022).
Shocking Statements
The above 36 extracts from a much longer list of 86 Catholic members of Congress (54% of all Catholic members of Congress) who made public statements (that number of 86 Catholics might well be much higher) is shocking when you objectively consider what abortion really is―it is MURDER. If politicians refuse to legislate in favor of abortion, then the number of murders would be massively reduced. By legislating IN FAVOR OF ABORTION, lawmakers enable murder to be committed without guilt and punishment in the courts. They, in effect, aid and abet the murder of innocent, helpless babies.
According to law, any form of involvement in the planning or commission of a crime makes you equally responsible. Driving the get-away car, hiding a criminal, giving them money, helping them plan the crime and/or the get-away, sharing in the profits, or just knowing about the crime and not reporting it―then it is aiding and abetting. As the U.S. law states: “Aiding and abetting involves some participation in the criminal act and must be evidenced by some word, act, or deed. No particular acts are necessary, nor is it necessary that any physical part in the commission of the crime is taken or that there was an express agreement there for. Mere encouragement or assistance is sufficient.” In order to be found guilty of aiding and abetting, the defendant must intend that the crime be committed―and if you legislate in favor of abortion, then you most certainly intend the crime of abortion/murder to take place.
What does aiding and abetting murder mean? To abet another to commit a murder is to command, procure, counsel, encourage, induce, or assist. Aiding and abetting means helping someone commit murder and you intentionally provide that help―to legislate in favor of abortion is clearly providing that help to murder. A person who is convicted of aiding and abetting faces the same penalties as the principal perpetrator. According US law, the murder of a child is an aggravating circumstance that can subject a defendant to the death penalty. As of January 2022, fourteen states authorized the death penalty for the murder of a child victim.
"Catholic" Abortion Murderers
► “CATHOLIC” BIDEN ― The Sunday Mass attending and Rosary praying U.S. “Catholic” President, Joe Biden, allows most of these things to flourish under his governance―so too do all the “Catholic” members of Congress, as well as the past and present “Catholic” governors of various states. Clinging to the false notion of a separation of Church and State, many American politicians who identify as Catholics have perfected the art of the split personality, using the “I-would-never-impose-my-beliefs-on-others” get-out clause at the first hint of having to back-up an unpopular position championed by the Church―for example, abortion. President Biden, one of the more prominent “Catholics” in American politics, has said: “I accept my Church’s position that life begins at conception … [but] I do not believe that we have a right to tell other people that women can’t control their body.” Or to put in another way ― “I accept my Church’s teaching that abortion is the murder of an unborn baby, but I do not believe that I should tell others not to murder their babies if they want to!”
On the day that the Supreme Court had released its decision overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established abortion as a constitutional right, and angry President Joe Biden said: “This fall, Roe is on the ballot! … Personal freedoms are on the ballot! The right to privacy, liberty, equality, they’re all on the ballot … We must elect more senators and representatives who will codify a woman’s right to choose into federal law once again, elect more state leaders to protect this right at the local level!”
In the build-up to the current/recent U.S. mid-term elections―held on November 8th, 2022―President “Catholic” Biden boldly stated on October 18th in Washington: “Here is the promise I make to you and the American people! The first bill that I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v Wade!” ― which means enshrining abortion into American law. But passing a bill on abortion could be difficult even if Democrats hold onto their Senate majority, as that chamber's rules require 60 of the 100 senators to agree on most legislation. Republicans largely oppose abortion rights, while Democrats largely support them. Prior to these mid-term election, Democrats had a slim majority in the House and control the equally split 50-50 Senate through Vice President Kamala Harris’ ability to cast tie-breaking votes.
► “CATHOLIC” PELOSI ― The House Speaker, “Catholic” Nancy Pelosi―just like “Catholic” Biden―is a vehement advocate of abortion. So much so that in May of 2022, the Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, sent a letter to San Francisco resident Pelosi―as well as a letter for the general public―in which the Archbishop stated that Nancy Pelosi can no longer receive Holy Communion in the Catholic Church because of her stance on abortion access:
In the letter the Archbishop states: “The Church’s ancient and consistent teaching is that from the first moment of conception life must be guarded with the greatest care while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes. Christians have, indeed, always upheld the dignity of human life in every stage―especially the most vulnerable, beginning with life in the womb ... This fundamental moral truth has consequences for Catholics in how they live their lives, especially those entrusted with promoting and protecting the public good of society ... Those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a grave and clear obligation to oppose any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them … A Catholic legislator who supports procured abortion, after knowing the teaching of the Church, commits a manifestly grave sin, which is a cause of most serious scandal to others. Therefore, universal Church law provides that such persons “are not to be admitted to Holy Communion” (Code of Canon Law, canon 915) …
“The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote to the U.S. bishops in 2004 explaining the approach to be taken: ‘… when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest―understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws―then his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.’
“I am grateful to you for the time you have given me in the past to speak about these matters. Unfortunately, I have not received such an accommodation to my many requests to speak with you again since then … That is why I communicated my concerns to you via letter on April 7th, 2022, and informed you there that, should you not publicly repudiate your advocacy for abortion “rights” or else refrain from referring to your Catholic Faith in public and receiving Holy Communion, I would have no choice but to make a declaration, in keeping with canon 915 [of the Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church], that you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion. As you have not publically repudiated your position on abortion, and continue to refer to your Catholic faith in justifying your position and to receive Holy Communion, that time has now come. Therefore, in light of my responsibility as the Archbishop of San Francisco to be “concerned for all the Christian faithful entrusted to [my] care” (Code of Canon Law, can. 383, §1), by means of this communication, I am hereby notifying you that you are not to present yourself for Holy Communion and, should you do so, you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion, until such time as you publicly repudiate your advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion and confess and receive absolution of this grave sin in the sacrament of Penance.” (Letter to Nancy Pelosi from Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, May 20th, 2022).
In the public version of his letter, the Archbishop writes: “As the Archbishop of San Francisco, I am bound to be concerned for all the Christian faithful entrusted to my care (Code of Canon Law, can. 383, §1). This most serious duty can sometimes become unpleasant, especially when Catholics in public life explicitly promote practices that involve the direct taking of innocent human life, which is what abortion does. I have struggled with this issue in my own conscience for many years now―especially with regard to the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and member of our Archdiocese, Nancy Pelosi. I have received letters from very many of you over the years expressing distress over the scandal being caused by such Catholics in public life who promote such grievously evil practices as abortion. I have responded that conversion is always better than exclusion, and before any such action can be taken it must be preceded by sincere and diligent efforts at dialogue and persuasion.
“With regard to Speaker Pelosi, I have striven to follow this wise route. Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s position on abortion has become only more extreme over the years, especially in the last few months. Just earlier this month she once again―as she has many times before―explicitly cited her Catholic Faith while justifying abortion as a “choice,” this time setting herself in direct opposition to Pope Francis. [Pelosi said:] ‘The very idea that they [the Church, the Pope and bishops] would be telling women the size, timing or whatever of their family―the personal nature of this is so appalling! And I say that as a devout Catholic! They say to me, “Nancy Pelosi thinks she knows more about having babies than the Pope!” Yes I do! Are you stupid?’
“After numerous attempts to speak with her to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that the point has come in which I must make a public declaration that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion unless and until she publicly repudiate her support for abortion “rights” and confess and receive absolution for her cooperation in this evil in the sacrament of Penance. I have accordingly sent her a Notification to this effect, which I have now made public” (Letter to the general public concerning Nancy Pelosi; from Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, May 20th, 2022).
Unfortunately, the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference debated what to do with President Biden―who was guilty of taking the same position on abortion as Pelosi―but the U.S. bishops decided to take no disciplinary measures against “Catholic” Biden.
House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was not short of words and quickly made a public reply to her public admonition and punishment. In an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday followed Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s public letter, Pelosi “clutched at straws” to try and squirm out of guilt by “firing-back” and calling-out the Catholic Church for having double-standards. She pointed out that the Catholic Church has not denied Holy Communion to lawmakers who back the death penalty — which (she wrongly claimed) also violates the Church’s Catechism. She protested: “I wonder about death penalty―which I am opposed to―and so is the Church, but they take no action against people who may not share their view ... So, we just have to be prayerful. We have to be respectful. I come from a largely pro-life Italian American Catholic family, so I respect people’s views about that. But I don’t respect us foisting it onto others. Now our Archbishop (Salvatore Cordileone) has been vehemently against LGBTQ rights, too. In fact, he led the way in some of the initiatives on — an initiative on the ballot in California. So, this decision taking us to privacy and precedent, is very dangerous in the lives of so many of the American people.”
► “CATHOLIC” CUOMO ― The recent Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, whom The New York Times called “a practicing Catholic,” the product of a family and childhood “steeped in Catholicism”—outlined, in his state of the state address, a plan to enact what he called a Reproductive Health Act, but which many called an unprecedented expansion of access to late-term abortion. To the wild applause of those in attendance, Cuomo, the “devout” Catholic governor, chanted his reasoning: “Because it is her body, it is her choice! Because it’s her body, it’s her choice! Because it’s her body, it’s her choice!” Nevertheless, at the end of day, politicians “come and go” and “Cuomo had to Guomo!” As Our Lord says: “The grass that is in the field today, tomorrow is cast into the oven!” (Luke 12:28). The “devout” “Catholic” governor was forced to resign after he was found have been “devoutly” and “fervently” groping several woman while in office! Whatever happened to his mantra: “It’s her body, it’s her choice!”? Those women chose not to be groped―but he went ahead anyway! “He … is blind and groping, having forgotten his old sins!” (2 Peter 1:9). “They shall grope as in the dark, and not in the light, and the Lord shall make them stagger like men that are drunk” (Job 12:25). Today he has staggered out of office and has been replaced by another “Catholic” pro-abortion/murder politician, Kathy Hochul, who said: “For anyone who needs access to care [meaning abortion], our state will welcome you with open arms. Abortion will always be safe and accessible in New York!”
Abortion is Murder―No Wiggle Room!
We should all be more or less aware of the traditional Catholic teaching on the subject of abortion as being an act of murder―but even the Liberal and Modernist Church of today upholds the same teaching.
► Even the Liberal and Modernist Pope Francis―who has controversially spoken against many traditional teachings of the Church―minces no words on the subject of abortion being murder. In September of 2021, he stated: “The problem of abortion―it is more than a problem, it is homicide! Whoever has an abortion, kills! No mincing words! Take any book on embryology for medical students. The third week after conception, all the organs are already there, even the DNA ― it is a human life! This human life must be respected! This principle is so clear! To those who cannot understand, I would ask this question: ‘Is it right to kill a human life to solve a problem? Is it right to hire a hit-man to kill a human life? Scientifically, it is a human life. Is it right to take it out to solve a problem?’ That is why the Church is so harsh on this issue, because if it accepts this, it is as if it accepts daily murder!”
► Even the Modern Catechism of the Catholic Church says abortion is murder and that a Catholic who procures an abortion, automatically excommunicates themselves from the Church: “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law. Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. A person who procures a completed abortion incurs by the very commission of the offense an excommunication by the very commission of the offense. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society. The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights. Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 2271-2273).
► Liberal and Modernist bishops also say abortion is murder, as can be seen in this extract from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: “In response to those who say this teaching has changed or is of recent origin, here are the facts:
● From earliest times, Christians sharply distinguished themselves from surrounding pagan cultures by rejecting abortion and infanticide. The earliest widely used documents of Christian teaching and practice, condemned both practices, as did early regional and particular Church councils.
● Many Christian thinkers accepted the biological theories of their time, based on the writings of Aristotle (4th century BC) and other philosophers. However, such mistaken biological theories never changed the Church's common conviction that abortion is gravely wrong at every stage.
● In the 5th century AD this rejection of abortion at every stage was affirmed by the great bishop and theologian, St. Augustine. He knew of theories about the human soul not being present until some weeks into pregnancy … but he also held that human knowledge of biology was very limited, and he wisely warned against misusing such theories to risk committing homicide.
● In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas made extensive use of Aristotle’s thought, but he also rejected abortion as gravely wrong at every stage, observing that it is a sin ‘against nature’ to reject God's gift of a new life.
● During these centuries, theories derived from Aristotle and others influenced the grading of penalties for abortion in Church law. Some canonical penalties were more severe for a direct abortion after the stage when the human soul was thought to be present. However, abortion at all stages continued to be seen as a grave moral evil.
● From the 13th to 19th centuries, some theologians speculated about rare and difficult cases where they thought an abortion before ‘formation’ or ‘ensoulment’ might be morally justified. But these theories were discussed and then always rejected, as the Church refined and reaffirmed its understanding of abortion as an intrinsically evil act that can never be morally right.
● In 1827, with the discovery of the human ovum, the mistaken biology of Aristotle was discredited. Scientists increasingly understood that the union of sperm and egg at conception produces a new living being that is distinct from both mother and father. Modern genetics demonstrated that this individual is, at the outset, distinctively human, with the inherent and active potential to mature into a human fetus, infant, child and adult. From 1869 onward the obsolete [and mistaken] distinction between the "ensouled" and "unensouled" fetus was permanently removed from Canon Law on abortion.
● Secular laws against abortion were being reformed at the same time and in the same way, based on the realization by secular medical experts that ‘no other doctrine appears to be consonant with reason or physiology but that which admits the embryo to possess vitality from the very moment of conception’ (American Medical Association, Report on Criminal Abortion, 1871).
● Modern science has not changed the Church’s constant teaching against abortion, but has underscored how important and reasonable it is, by confirming that the life of each individual of the human species begins with the earliest embryo. Given the scientific fact that a human life begins at conception, the only moral norm needed to understand the Church's opposition to abortion is the principle that each and every human life must be treated with the respect due to a human person.” (Statement by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on the subject of abortion).
Pro-Abortionists Admit Abortion Kills
► Even an abortionist admits abortions kill babies! Back in 2011, the abortionist, Judith Arcana, said at a seminar: “I performed abortions, I have had an abortion and I am favor of women having abortions when we choose to do so. But we should never disregard the fact that being pregnant means there is a baby growing inside of a woman, a baby whose life is ended. We ought not to pretend this is not happening.” This feminist, herself an abortionist, readily admits that abortion kills a baby. She clearly feels that abortions are justified, even though they kill human beings. She has no problem with the belief that a woman has the right to murder her own children for personal reasons.
► Consider this statement by “Catholic” President Joe Biden, made on May 3rd after the Supreme Court’s future (June 24th) decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade was leaked―Biden said: “The idea that we’re gonna make a judgment that is going to say that no one can make the judgment to choose to abort a child based on a decision by the Supreme Court I think goes way overboard.” Those words were spoken by President Joe Biden―another slip of the tongue which inadvertently revealed the truth about Biden’s real views on abortion. Calling an unborn baby a “child” ― which is what Biden did ― is strictly off-limits for pro-abortion advocates. When you linguistically humanize a fetus by calling it “a child” ―then you make it impossible to deny the reality of abortion: which is the deliberate termination of a CHILD'S life.
► The famous American actress, comedienne, author, and television personality, Whoopi Goldberg, also slipped. In an angry rant against the Supreme Court’s leaked draft, Goldberg said abortion should be a decision made between a woman and her doctor and her “CHILD.” So how can the unborn child vote for self-extermination? Goldberg quickly moved past the comment―perhaps recognizing her faux pas―but the camera was rolling. The logical inconsistencies required to uphold pro-abortion views are hard to reconcile and impossible to miss.
Newspeak, Newhistory and Newscience
NEWSPEAK is the deliberately ambiguous and contradictory language that is used to mislead and manipulate the public. In George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949), Newspeak is the language devised by the totalitarian government to replace English, which is called “Oldspeak”. Rather than speaking about things as they really are―Newspeak changes, hides, eliminates, tweaks and twists reality with honeyed, sweetened, calming phrases designed to remove suspicions, modify facts and divert one’s attention from reality and difficulties. Liberals often employ the use of what you could call “linguistic misinformation” or “revising the meaning of words” or “moving the linguistic goal posts” ― which means that someone takes a familiar and agreed-upon concept or meaning of a word, and then changes the definition of the world to promote an agenda. Newspeak is a propagandistic language that is characterized by euphemism and circumlocution, and the inversion of customary meanings.
A euphemism is a mild or indirect word or expression that is substituted for a word that is considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing―for example, “alternative facts” is the smoke-screen lingo for what we call “bald-faced lying”; “downsizing” is a euphemism for “sacking” or “firing”; or saying that you are “between jobs” is a euphemism for being “unemployed” or “redundant”; or saying that someone “passed on” is a euphemism for “death”; or saying “they were done away with” instead of saying “they were murdered”; saying that a couple “are living together” instead of saying they “are living in sin.”
Today, abortion has been “scrubbed” of the word “abortion” as well as the truthful fact that it is “murder”―and have replaced the word “abortion” with the nice-sounding euphemism “women’s health care” and the reality of “child murder” with the innocent-sounding “a woman’s right to choose.” Avoiding the word “abortion” isn’t the only word game abortion advocates play. The favored tactic of pro-abortionists is the use of high-flown language to cloak the reality of what abortion actually does. Thus, “Planned Parenthood” is a euphemism or nicer sounding expression than “planned murder.” “Pro-choice” sounds nice, but it is nothing other than “pro-murder”. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, recently sought the backing of her State Supreme Court in order to ensure that abortion is a protected right under the state constitution. What’s at stake in abortion, Whitmer loftily declared in high-flown language, are “the woman’s privacy rights, a woman’s health rights and bodily autonomy.” The words sound swell, fine and dandy — until you recall that what is most directly at stake in an abortion, is not the privacy, health or autonomy of the woman carrying the child, but what is really at stake is the life of a unique, unborn human being whom the abortion will kill. People have been hoodwinked and brainwashed by the media into thinking that killing the unborn is a harmless procedure that is serving noble ends like “a woman’s privacy rights, health rights and bodily autonomy.”
NEWHISTORY is a new version of history. Totalitarian states will often “revise” and “change” things to further their cause. “Revisionist History”, for example, means the re-framing or re-painting a historical figure, event, or narrative in a distorted and dishonest way, in order to advance a particular social or political agenda―which includes minimizing or even ignoring evidence that would disprove their “revisionist” argument, or prove the argument of those who disagree with the “revisionists”. Those “revisionists” of history will often (falsely) claim that they are defending history from people like us, who, they say are trying to warp history or use it as a weapon―whereas it is the “revisionists” who are actually trying to warp history and use it as weapon. True history has been “scrubbed” of many truths, which have now been replaced by false facts, falsehoods, re-interpretations and misrepresentations.
NEWSCIENCE follows the same pattern. “Oldscience” is excommunicated and tossed into the garbage can―together with its “true truths”―and “Newscience” replaces it with “false truths” which are raised to the level of being dogmas. For all the “I believe in science” dogma spewed from those on the left, they regularly ignore and deny basic biological facts. For example, life begins at conception and abortion stops a beating heart. The Orwellian use of terms like “reproductive rights” also makes little sense. Reproduction, by definition, cultivates life. It would be more sensible to say “destruction rights,” but accurate language clarifies abortion’s violent reality and Liberals don’t like that! This is precisely why Biden’s comment (see above) was a big “no-no” in abortionist circles. It’s also why When Liberals say access to abortion is about “women’s rights” or that any restriction to abortion “does violence” to a woman’s bodily autonomy, few want to oppose that. Liberals have universally redefined words and socially criminalized those who disagree with them. Yet those murderous Liberals will not utter one single word about the BABY’S RIGHTS and the fact that abortion DOES VIOLENCE to a BABY’S BODILY AUTONOMY! “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! … For they have cast away the law of the Lord and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One!” (Isaias 5:20, 24).
Who Voted for Murder?
There were five states where voters had abortion on the ballot. Those five states were Kentucky, Michigan, California, Vermont, and Montana. And across all five of them, voters ultimately supported protecting abortion access, rather than restricting it. Surveys estimate that 61% of Americans say abortion should be legal. Or, say it as it really is: 61% of Americans say the murder of babies should be legal!
Gallup polls show Americans’ support for abortion in all or most cases at 80% in May 2021, only slightly higher than in 1975 (76%), and the Pew Research Center finds 59% of adults believe abortion should be legal, compared to 60% in 1995. The share of Americans in Gallup’s poll who say abortion is morally acceptable reached a record high of 47% in May, up from a low of 36% in 2009, and a Quinnipiac poll found support for abortion being legal in all or most cases reached a near-record high in September 2021 with 63% support.
Heaven Predicted an Attack on Children and the Family
In all of this we are reminded of the words of Our Lady of Good Success (Quito, Ecuador) in the 17th century, where she spoke of the future and our times: “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ... The evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws … They will focus particularly on the children in order to achieve this general corruption. Woe to the children of these times! Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women!”
In the 20th century, Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed what Heaven had told her: “The final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about Marriage and the Family. Don't be afraid … because whoever works for the sanctity of Marriage and the Family will always be fought against and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue!” She ended saying, “nevertheless, Our Lady has already crushed his head!”
In many respects the history of this past century is the history of the attack by Satan and his stooges on the family – an effort which appears only now to be reaching its true climax, as we witness divorce, contraception, pornography, cohabitation, and even so-called same-sex “marriage,” and transgenderism becoming the nearly unquestioned societal norm! Recent estimates show that about 40% of (2 out of 5) births in the United States occur outside of marriage, up from 28% in 1990. America is fast becoming “Fatherless America” and a “Children’s Hell” ― if a baby can avoid being aborted (In 2020, about one in five pregnancies ended in abortion), then there is 40% chance of the baby being born out of wedlock! Even if the baby is born to a married couple, there is a massive chance that the baby’s parents will divorce! Today, it is thought approximately 42% to 45% of marriages in the United States end in divorce (this does not include legal separations). When you break that down by number of marriages:
● 42-45% percent of first marriages end in divorce.
● 60% of second marriages end in divorce.
● 73% of third marriages end in divorce.
The sins of 1956 seem like nothing compared to the sins of today―yet in 1956 Our Lady revealed to Blessed Elena Aiello: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! [The Deluge was the Great Flood in Noe’s time] All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
Things did not improve since 1956―for, in 1973, Our Lady again essentially repeated the same message at Akita in Japan: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord ... In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger! … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
APPENDIX TO ARTICLE 8
Expanded List of Catholic Members of the 117th Congress who manifested their opposition to
the Supreme Court's June 24th, 2020, ruling to overturn Roe vs. Wade as a constitutional right.
Expanded List of Catholic Members of the 117th Congress who manifested their opposition to
the Supreme Court's June 24th, 2020, ruling to overturn Roe vs. Wade as a constitutional right.
GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “Our daughters, sisters, mothers, and grandmothers will not be silenced. The world is about to hear their fury. California will not sit back. We are going to fight like Hell.” (May 2nd, 2022).
“California will not stand idly by as women across America are stripped of their rights and the progress so many have fought for gets erased.” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR STEVE SISOLAK, a Catholic Democrat for Nevada, said: “In Nevada, we’re committed to protecting reproductive rights – I’ve signed legislation affirming this right and expanding access to healthcare.” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR PHIL MURPHY, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “A truly dark day in America with news reports that the Supreme Court has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, a Catholic Democrat for New Mexico, said: “The ramifications of this decision would be devastating for New Mexico women.” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “For anyone who needs access to care, our state will welcome you with open arms. Abortion will always be safe & accessible in New York.” (May 2nd, 2022).
SENATOR MARK KELLY, a Catholic Democrat for Arizona, said: “If this draft Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe is true, it’s an enormous step backwards for our country.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR LISA MURKOWSKI, a Catholic Republican for Alaska, said: “If it goes in the direction that this leaked copy has indicated, I will just tell you that it rocks my confidence in the court right now.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR ALEX PADILLA, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “I’m in.” (replying to Governor Newsom’s tweet, “We can’t trust the Supreme Court of the United States to protect the right to abortion, so we will do it ourselves.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR DICK DURBIN, a Catholic Democrat for Illinois, said: “If true, this draft opinion that circulated last night would end a half-century guarantee that reproductive rights are protected by our Constitution.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS, a Catholic Republican for Maine, said: “If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR BOB MENENDEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “In this moment, I want women in NJ and across the country to know that I will never stop fighting for your right to choose.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR BEN RAY LUJÁN, a Catholic Democrat for New Mexico, said: “This is unconscionable.” (May 2nd, 2022).
SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “We must codify the right to an abortion into federal law—even if it means eliminating the filibuster….And states like NY must open our doors.” (May 2nd, 2022).
SENATOR BOB CASEY, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “If this draft opinion becomes the final opinion of the Court, I have serious concerns about what overturning almost 50 years of legal precedent will mean for women in states passing near or total bans on abortion.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY, a Catholic Democrat for Vermont, said: “If the reporting is correct, the Supreme Court could send us tumbling backward in time, stripping away a bedrock constitutional right that has granted women autonomy over their bodies and health for nearly five decades.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR TIM KAINE, a Catholic Democrat for Virginia, said: “The draft opinion shows why the Senate GOP denied Merrick Garland a hearing and rushed Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation. 2 stolen seats = Taking away women’s rights.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR MARIA CANTWELL, a Catholic Democrat for Washington, said: “Women’s lives and their health care are not political footballs.” (May 2nd, 2022).
“If the reporting about the draft opinion is true, America is on the path to returning to a dangerous time.” (May 2nd, 2022).
SENATOR PATTY MURRAY, a Catholic Democrat for WA)
“If this is true, this kind of outcome is exactly what I’ve been ringing alarm bells about—and this is a five alarm fire….In a matter of days or weeks, the horrifying reality is that we could live in a country without Roe. If this is true, women will be forced to remain pregnant no matter their personal circumstances.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE NANCY PELOSI, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “The Republican-appointed Justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ANN KIRKPATRICK, a Catholic Democrat for Arizona, said: “There’s been a lot of horrific long-term damaging news over the past several years, none have hit me like this.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE RAÚL GRIJALVA, a Catholic Democrat for Arizona, said: “The news is a reminder of what we know to be true: the Senate must end the filibuster to protect reproductive rights and make the Women’s Health Protection Act law.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE RUBEN GALLEGO, a Catholic Democrat for Arizona, said: “Pro-choice elected officials need to ban together & fight for reproductive rights at every office.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE GREG STANTON, a Catholic Democrat for Arizona, said: “It’s outrageous the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn the right to an abortion.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MIKE THOMPSON, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “The Senate must send the Women’s Health Protection Act to @POTUS now to protect access to safe abortion care and save lives.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MARK DESAULNIER, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “This leaked draft opinion threatens the fundamental right to choose, undoing 50 years of precedent & dismantling access to reproductive health care.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JACKIE SPEIER, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “I am apoplectic about what this leaked Supreme Court of the United States decision will do to a generation of women in this country. There has not been one word about the responsibility of the impregnator.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JIM COSTA, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “This attempt could erase decades of progress and freedom for millions of women across our country.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ANNA ESHOO, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “[T]his is a sad day because again…it just reeks of not respecting women.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JIMMY PANETTA, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “News of a draft Supreme Court of the United States opinion on Roe v. Wade makes it clear that we must act now to protect a woman’s right to choose.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE SALUD CARBAJAL, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “A decision that overturns a half century of legal precedent will be a betrayal of our Constitution and a betrayal of millions of women who count on its protections to retain control of their own bodies and choices.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE PETE AGUILAR, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “Right-wing extremists and their allies on the Supreme Court are trying to change the country. Because they cannot do so through legislation, they want to do it through the courts.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE GRACE NAPOLITANO, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “The Supreme Court has confirmed the validity of the draft opinion and our worst fears….We must codify Roe and protect the fundamental right to control our own bodies & lives at all costs.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE TED LIEU, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “We can make Roe vs. Wade the law of the land next year:… Eliminate the filibuster.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JIMMY GOMEZ, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “We can’t go back to the days where a woman is criminalized for deciding what she does with her own body.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE NORMA TORRES, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “We can no longer afford to wait to pass federal legislation protecting a woman’s right to choose.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE LINDA SÁNCHEZ, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “I am deeply alarmed by this draft opinion.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE NANETTE BARRAGAN, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “Abortion is STILL legal right now….A right I’ll fight like Hell to make sure women continue to have.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE LOU CORREA, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “I don’t want to see women return to clandestine medical procedures.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MIKE LEVIN, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “This callous and reckless decision will threaten the lives of women everywhere.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JUAN VARGAS, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “A woman’s right to make her own health care decisions shouldn’t be stripped away.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JOHN LARSON, a Catholic Democrat for Connecticut, said: “If the Supreme Court moves forward with this draft as written, it will be devastating.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JOE COURTNEY, a Catholic Democrat for Connecticut, said: “[This] is a full-throated attack on Supreme Court case law that has been painstakingly built over decades to protect the right of privacy for all Americans.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ROSE DELAURO, a Catholic Democrat for Connecticut, said: “I am horrified, ashamed, and angry.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE DARREN SOTO, a Catholic Democrat for Florida, said: “Leaked Sup Ct opinion would set women’s rights back over 50 yrs in America.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MARIE NEWMAN, a Catholic Democrat for Illinois, said: “Civil rights, economic rights and LGBTQ rights are next.” (May 3rd, 2022).
“We will never stop fighting.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE CHUY GARCÍA, a Catholic Democrat for Illinois, said: “Striking down Roe is a direct attack on Latinos, Black Americans, & communities of color.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE CHERI BUSTOS, a Catholic Democrat for Illinois, said: “If the Court formally adopts the leaked draft opinion, it would represent a radical departure from longstanding protections of personal freedom and bodily autonomy.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE FRANK MRVAN, a Catholic Democrat for Indiana, said: “I am a staunch supporter of women’s rights, and that includes the rights to access medical treatment, to have autonomy over their own bodies, and the ability to make their own life decisions.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE CINDY AXNE, a Catholic Democrat for Iowa, said: “Women have been empowered to make their own decisions about their bodies and reproductive rights for nearly half a century and I will not stand idly by and let decades of progress slip away.” – May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ANTHONY BROWN, a Catholic Democrat for Maryland, said: “This draft decision is extreme, it’s dangerous, and will erase decades of progress for women’s rights.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE RICHARD NEAL, a Catholic Democrat for Massachusetts, said: “Here in Massachusetts, a woman’s right to choose remains sacred. We must continue to ensure that women across our country share that same access to vital health care resources.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JIM MCGOVERN, a Catholic Democrat for Massachusetts, said: “We must stay focused, stay organized & use every tool at our disposal to fight back.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE LORI TRAHAN, a Catholic Democrat for Massachusetts, said: “The fight is on. We need the Women’s Health Protection Act. We need it NOW!” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE STEPHEN LYNCH, a Catholic Democrat for Massachusetts, said: “[I]ts misguided reasoning represents an abrupt and wrong-headed departure from the basic Constitutional protections identified by Roe….” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE DAN KILDEE, a Catholic Democrat for Michigan, said: “The Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade would be an unprecedented attack on women’s health.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE DEBBIE DINGELL, a Catholic Democrat for Michigan, said: “If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, no fundamental right in this country will be safe.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE BETTY MCCOLLUM, a Catholic Democrat for Minnesota, said: “Women’s reproductive choice belongs to women, not a right wing Supreme Court that will allow this fundamental human right to be criminalized.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE SUSIE LEE, a Catholic Democrat for Nevada, said: “5 justices shouldn’t be able to overrule our will, our rights, & our health care choices.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE FRANK PALLONE, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “If this draft opinion is accurate, the Supreme Court is on the cusp of overturning half a century of precedent and decimating reproductive rights for millions of Americans.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ALBIO SIRES, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “The Supreme Court of the United States draft opinion would represent a dangerous erosion of women’s rights….” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE BILL PASCRELL, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “An overwhelming majority of Americans support Roe v. Wade. That’s why republicans today are whining about leaks: to distract you from what they’ve done.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MIKIE SHERRILL, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “This draft decision is a shocking attack on women’s health.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE TERESA LEGER FERNANDEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New Mexico, said: “[I]n the face of this anticipated and devastating draft decision, NM will stand with women and families. We will remain a leader in ensuring that patients have access to the full spectrum of healthcare they need and deserve, including access to abortion care.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE TOM SUOZZI, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “The Supreme Court’s leaked majority opinion to overturn Roe vs. Wade would have devastating consequences for women in this country.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE KATHLEEN RICE, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “To be clear, this leaked opinion we are seeing is a draft, not a final order. Abortion is still your legal right. If you are in need of care, please reach out to a provider immediately.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE NYDIA VELÁZQUEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “This is an attack on the right to a safe abortion all over the country. We will fight this.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “Time is running out—we have to expand the court before it’s too late.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “As we’ve warned, the Supreme Court of the United States isn’t just coming for abortion – they’re coming for the right to privacy Roe rests on, which includes gay marriage + civil rights.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “If true, this is a draconian step backward.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE PAUL TONKO, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “The decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will do horrendous damage to the rights of millions of Americans….” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPH MORELLE, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “In one fell swoop, they are poised to roll back centuries of hard-fought progress, creating a dystopia where women no longer have autonomy over their own bodies.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE BRIAN HIGGINS, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “The Supreme Court is on the verge of decimating the rights of women across our country.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MARCY KAPTUR, a Catholic Democrat for Ohio, said: “If the Supreme Court were in fact to overturn Roe v. Wade, it would further invite state legislatures with partisan agendas to interfere in one of the most important and private decisions a woman can make.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE TIM RYAN, a Catholic Democrat for Ohio, said: “Every single one of my GOP opponents supports extreme, restrictive anti-abortion laws. We cannot let them near the Senate.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE PETER DEFAZIO, a Catholic Democrat for Oregon, said: “The leaked draft decision from the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, if enacted, would be dangerous—it completely disregards science and would put the health of millions of women at risk.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE BRENDAN BOYLE, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “This is a recipe for disaster.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MADELEINE DEAN, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “This is terrifying and confirms what we already knew: This extreme Supreme Court is hostile to abortion.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MARY GAY SCANLON, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “This leaked opinion shows we were right to be terrified. The Senate must move NOW to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE CONOR LAMB, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “The draft Supreme Court opinion, which restricts women’s access to safe, legal abortion services, is outrageous.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MIKE DOYLE, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “If the leak’s real, the Supreme Court of the United States is going to repeal Roe vs. Wade – an earth-shattering change which most Americans oppose and which would harm women’s access to healthcare.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JIM LANGEVIN, a Catholic Democrat for Rhode Island, said: “If this reported leak is in fact accurate, it represents the most severe rollback of women’s rights in this country’s history, overturning decades of settled case law.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE VERONICA ESCOBAR, a Catholic Democrat for Texas, said: “The Senate must not wait to codify Roe to ensure women have the freedom to make personal decisions with those they love and trust without politicians trying to control them.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE HENRY CUELLAR, a Catholic Democrat for Texas, said: “My faith is clear: abortion must be rare and safe.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE SYLVIA GARCIA, a Catholic Democrat for Texas, said: “If this Supreme Court of the United States leak is real, it is not only incredibly disturbing, but it is completely unprecedented for our nation’s highest court….I urge my Senate colleagues to codify Roe v. Wade immediately.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE PETER WELCH, a Catholic Democrat for Vermont, said: “Reports of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will be the greatest infringement of freedom in generations.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE GERRY CONNOLLY, a Catholic Democrat for Virginia, said: “By taking away a right for the first time in constitutional history, these zealots have utterly discredited the third branch of government & unleashed forces that will fracture America.” (May 2nd, 2022).
“California will not stand idly by as women across America are stripped of their rights and the progress so many have fought for gets erased.” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR STEVE SISOLAK, a Catholic Democrat for Nevada, said: “In Nevada, we’re committed to protecting reproductive rights – I’ve signed legislation affirming this right and expanding access to healthcare.” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR PHIL MURPHY, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “A truly dark day in America with news reports that the Supreme Court has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, a Catholic Democrat for New Mexico, said: “The ramifications of this decision would be devastating for New Mexico women.” (May 2nd, 2022).
GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “For anyone who needs access to care, our state will welcome you with open arms. Abortion will always be safe & accessible in New York.” (May 2nd, 2022).
SENATOR MARK KELLY, a Catholic Democrat for Arizona, said: “If this draft Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe is true, it’s an enormous step backwards for our country.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR LISA MURKOWSKI, a Catholic Republican for Alaska, said: “If it goes in the direction that this leaked copy has indicated, I will just tell you that it rocks my confidence in the court right now.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR ALEX PADILLA, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “I’m in.” (replying to Governor Newsom’s tweet, “We can’t trust the Supreme Court of the United States to protect the right to abortion, so we will do it ourselves.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR DICK DURBIN, a Catholic Democrat for Illinois, said: “If true, this draft opinion that circulated last night would end a half-century guarantee that reproductive rights are protected by our Constitution.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS, a Catholic Republican for Maine, said: “If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR BOB MENENDEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “In this moment, I want women in NJ and across the country to know that I will never stop fighting for your right to choose.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR BEN RAY LUJÁN, a Catholic Democrat for New Mexico, said: “This is unconscionable.” (May 2nd, 2022).
SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “We must codify the right to an abortion into federal law—even if it means eliminating the filibuster….And states like NY must open our doors.” (May 2nd, 2022).
SENATOR BOB CASEY, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “If this draft opinion becomes the final opinion of the Court, I have serious concerns about what overturning almost 50 years of legal precedent will mean for women in states passing near or total bans on abortion.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY, a Catholic Democrat for Vermont, said: “If the reporting is correct, the Supreme Court could send us tumbling backward in time, stripping away a bedrock constitutional right that has granted women autonomy over their bodies and health for nearly five decades.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR TIM KAINE, a Catholic Democrat for Virginia, said: “The draft opinion shows why the Senate GOP denied Merrick Garland a hearing and rushed Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation. 2 stolen seats = Taking away women’s rights.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SENATOR MARIA CANTWELL, a Catholic Democrat for Washington, said: “Women’s lives and their health care are not political footballs.” (May 2nd, 2022).
“If the reporting about the draft opinion is true, America is on the path to returning to a dangerous time.” (May 2nd, 2022).
SENATOR PATTY MURRAY, a Catholic Democrat for WA)
“If this is true, this kind of outcome is exactly what I’ve been ringing alarm bells about—and this is a five alarm fire….In a matter of days or weeks, the horrifying reality is that we could live in a country without Roe. If this is true, women will be forced to remain pregnant no matter their personal circumstances.” (May 3rd, 2022).
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE NANCY PELOSI, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “The Republican-appointed Justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ANN KIRKPATRICK, a Catholic Democrat for Arizona, said: “There’s been a lot of horrific long-term damaging news over the past several years, none have hit me like this.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE RAÚL GRIJALVA, a Catholic Democrat for Arizona, said: “The news is a reminder of what we know to be true: the Senate must end the filibuster to protect reproductive rights and make the Women’s Health Protection Act law.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE RUBEN GALLEGO, a Catholic Democrat for Arizona, said: “Pro-choice elected officials need to ban together & fight for reproductive rights at every office.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE GREG STANTON, a Catholic Democrat for Arizona, said: “It’s outrageous the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn the right to an abortion.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MIKE THOMPSON, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “The Senate must send the Women’s Health Protection Act to @POTUS now to protect access to safe abortion care and save lives.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MARK DESAULNIER, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “This leaked draft opinion threatens the fundamental right to choose, undoing 50 years of precedent & dismantling access to reproductive health care.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JACKIE SPEIER, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “I am apoplectic about what this leaked Supreme Court of the United States decision will do to a generation of women in this country. There has not been one word about the responsibility of the impregnator.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JIM COSTA, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “This attempt could erase decades of progress and freedom for millions of women across our country.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ANNA ESHOO, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “[T]his is a sad day because again…it just reeks of not respecting women.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JIMMY PANETTA, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “News of a draft Supreme Court of the United States opinion on Roe v. Wade makes it clear that we must act now to protect a woman’s right to choose.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE SALUD CARBAJAL, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “A decision that overturns a half century of legal precedent will be a betrayal of our Constitution and a betrayal of millions of women who count on its protections to retain control of their own bodies and choices.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE PETE AGUILAR, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “Right-wing extremists and their allies on the Supreme Court are trying to change the country. Because they cannot do so through legislation, they want to do it through the courts.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE GRACE NAPOLITANO, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “The Supreme Court has confirmed the validity of the draft opinion and our worst fears….We must codify Roe and protect the fundamental right to control our own bodies & lives at all costs.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE TED LIEU, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “We can make Roe vs. Wade the law of the land next year:… Eliminate the filibuster.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JIMMY GOMEZ, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “We can’t go back to the days where a woman is criminalized for deciding what she does with her own body.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE NORMA TORRES, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “We can no longer afford to wait to pass federal legislation protecting a woman’s right to choose.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE LINDA SÁNCHEZ, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “I am deeply alarmed by this draft opinion.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE NANETTE BARRAGAN, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “Abortion is STILL legal right now….A right I’ll fight like Hell to make sure women continue to have.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE LOU CORREA, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “I don’t want to see women return to clandestine medical procedures.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MIKE LEVIN, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “This callous and reckless decision will threaten the lives of women everywhere.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JUAN VARGAS, a Catholic Democrat for California, said: “A woman’s right to make her own health care decisions shouldn’t be stripped away.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JOHN LARSON, a Catholic Democrat for Connecticut, said: “If the Supreme Court moves forward with this draft as written, it will be devastating.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JOE COURTNEY, a Catholic Democrat for Connecticut, said: “[This] is a full-throated attack on Supreme Court case law that has been painstakingly built over decades to protect the right of privacy for all Americans.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ROSE DELAURO, a Catholic Democrat for Connecticut, said: “I am horrified, ashamed, and angry.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE DARREN SOTO, a Catholic Democrat for Florida, said: “Leaked Sup Ct opinion would set women’s rights back over 50 yrs in America.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MARIE NEWMAN, a Catholic Democrat for Illinois, said: “Civil rights, economic rights and LGBTQ rights are next.” (May 3rd, 2022).
“We will never stop fighting.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE CHUY GARCÍA, a Catholic Democrat for Illinois, said: “Striking down Roe is a direct attack on Latinos, Black Americans, & communities of color.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE CHERI BUSTOS, a Catholic Democrat for Illinois, said: “If the Court formally adopts the leaked draft opinion, it would represent a radical departure from longstanding protections of personal freedom and bodily autonomy.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE FRANK MRVAN, a Catholic Democrat for Indiana, said: “I am a staunch supporter of women’s rights, and that includes the rights to access medical treatment, to have autonomy over their own bodies, and the ability to make their own life decisions.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE CINDY AXNE, a Catholic Democrat for Iowa, said: “Women have been empowered to make their own decisions about their bodies and reproductive rights for nearly half a century and I will not stand idly by and let decades of progress slip away.” – May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ANTHONY BROWN, a Catholic Democrat for Maryland, said: “This draft decision is extreme, it’s dangerous, and will erase decades of progress for women’s rights.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE RICHARD NEAL, a Catholic Democrat for Massachusetts, said: “Here in Massachusetts, a woman’s right to choose remains sacred. We must continue to ensure that women across our country share that same access to vital health care resources.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JIM MCGOVERN, a Catholic Democrat for Massachusetts, said: “We must stay focused, stay organized & use every tool at our disposal to fight back.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE LORI TRAHAN, a Catholic Democrat for Massachusetts, said: “The fight is on. We need the Women’s Health Protection Act. We need it NOW!” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE STEPHEN LYNCH, a Catholic Democrat for Massachusetts, said: “[I]ts misguided reasoning represents an abrupt and wrong-headed departure from the basic Constitutional protections identified by Roe….” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE DAN KILDEE, a Catholic Democrat for Michigan, said: “The Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade would be an unprecedented attack on women’s health.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE DEBBIE DINGELL, a Catholic Democrat for Michigan, said: “If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, no fundamental right in this country will be safe.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE BETTY MCCOLLUM, a Catholic Democrat for Minnesota, said: “Women’s reproductive choice belongs to women, not a right wing Supreme Court that will allow this fundamental human right to be criminalized.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE SUSIE LEE, a Catholic Democrat for Nevada, said: “5 justices shouldn’t be able to overrule our will, our rights, & our health care choices.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE FRANK PALLONE, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “If this draft opinion is accurate, the Supreme Court is on the cusp of overturning half a century of precedent and decimating reproductive rights for millions of Americans.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ALBIO SIRES, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “The Supreme Court of the United States draft opinion would represent a dangerous erosion of women’s rights….” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE BILL PASCRELL, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “An overwhelming majority of Americans support Roe v. Wade. That’s why republicans today are whining about leaks: to distract you from what they’ve done.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MIKIE SHERRILL, a Catholic Democrat for New Jersey, said: “This draft decision is a shocking attack on women’s health.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE TERESA LEGER FERNANDEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New Mexico, said: “[I]n the face of this anticipated and devastating draft decision, NM will stand with women and families. We will remain a leader in ensuring that patients have access to the full spectrum of healthcare they need and deserve, including access to abortion care.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE TOM SUOZZI, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “The Supreme Court’s leaked majority opinion to overturn Roe vs. Wade would have devastating consequences for women in this country.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE KATHLEEN RICE, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “To be clear, this leaked opinion we are seeing is a draft, not a final order. Abortion is still your legal right. If you are in need of care, please reach out to a provider immediately.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE NYDIA VELÁZQUEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “This is an attack on the right to a safe abortion all over the country. We will fight this.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “Time is running out—we have to expand the court before it’s too late.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “As we’ve warned, the Supreme Court of the United States isn’t just coming for abortion – they’re coming for the right to privacy Roe rests on, which includes gay marriage + civil rights.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “If true, this is a draconian step backward.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE PAUL TONKO, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “The decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will do horrendous damage to the rights of millions of Americans….” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPH MORELLE, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “In one fell swoop, they are poised to roll back centuries of hard-fought progress, creating a dystopia where women no longer have autonomy over their own bodies.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE BRIAN HIGGINS, a Catholic Democrat for New York, said: “The Supreme Court is on the verge of decimating the rights of women across our country.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MARCY KAPTUR, a Catholic Democrat for Ohio, said: “If the Supreme Court were in fact to overturn Roe v. Wade, it would further invite state legislatures with partisan agendas to interfere in one of the most important and private decisions a woman can make.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE TIM RYAN, a Catholic Democrat for Ohio, said: “Every single one of my GOP opponents supports extreme, restrictive anti-abortion laws. We cannot let them near the Senate.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE PETER DEFAZIO, a Catholic Democrat for Oregon, said: “The leaked draft decision from the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, if enacted, would be dangerous—it completely disregards science and would put the health of millions of women at risk.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE BRENDAN BOYLE, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “This is a recipe for disaster.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MADELEINE DEAN, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “This is terrifying and confirms what we already knew: This extreme Supreme Court is hostile to abortion.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MARY GAY SCANLON, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “This leaked opinion shows we were right to be terrified. The Senate must move NOW to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act.” (May 2nd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE CONOR LAMB, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “The draft Supreme Court opinion, which restricts women’s access to safe, legal abortion services, is outrageous.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE MIKE DOYLE, a Catholic Democrat for Pennsylvania, said: “If the leak’s real, the Supreme Court of the United States is going to repeal Roe vs. Wade – an earth-shattering change which most Americans oppose and which would harm women’s access to healthcare.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE JIM LANGEVIN, a Catholic Democrat for Rhode Island, said: “If this reported leak is in fact accurate, it represents the most severe rollback of women’s rights in this country’s history, overturning decades of settled case law.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE VERONICA ESCOBAR, a Catholic Democrat for Texas, said: “The Senate must not wait to codify Roe to ensure women have the freedom to make personal decisions with those they love and trust without politicians trying to control them.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE HENRY CUELLAR, a Catholic Democrat for Texas, said: “My faith is clear: abortion must be rare and safe.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE SYLVIA GARCIA, a Catholic Democrat for Texas, said: “If this Supreme Court of the United States leak is real, it is not only incredibly disturbing, but it is completely unprecedented for our nation’s highest court….I urge my Senate colleagues to codify Roe v. Wade immediately.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE PETER WELCH, a Catholic Democrat for Vermont, said: “Reports of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will be the greatest infringement of freedom in generations.” (May 3rd, 2022).
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE GERRY CONNOLLY, a Catholic Democrat for Virginia, said: “By taking away a right for the first time in constitutional history, these zealots have utterly discredited the third branch of government & unleashed forces that will fracture America.” (May 2nd, 2022).
Article 7
Friday November 11th, 2022
Let the Politics of God Trump the Politics of Man!
Friday November 11th, 2022
Let the Politics of God Trump the Politics of Man!
What on Earth Are You Talking About?
Prior to any discussion on any topic, you have you know what you are talking about―which is to say, you have to know the exact meaning of the key words that will be discussed. Otherwise, you are going nowhere―except into chaos, subjectivism, misunderstanding and misinformation. In this case, we are talking about POLITICS. We all have heard of the word, we have all probably used the word, and we all have some kind of idea (vague) of what the word means―but, more often than not, we have formed our own personal, subjective, biased, colored and imprecise idea of what the word “politics” really means and we have next to no knowledge of the history of politics. Therefore …
We can trace the root of the word “politics” as coming from the Old French noun “politique” and adjective “political” ― which in turn comes from the Latin “politicus” (masc.) and “politica” (fem.) meaning “of the state”, which in turn comes from the earlier Greek “politikós” and “politiká” (meaning “affairs of the cities; civic, constitutional, public, social”), which is based upon “politēs” (meaning “citizen”) and “polis” (meaning “city”).
Thus, in the broadest sense of the word, we can say that “politics” is the set of activities concerning the affairs of the State, Nation, City, etc. It pertains to civic, constitutional, public and social domains. It is associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals―such as the making of laws, distribution of resources or status; the formation of public and social policies and anything else that pertains to the government of the nation/state/city/community.
We call the skill in these matters “the art or science of government” whereby a individual ruler, or combination of individuals or political parties (groups) exercise the power of making decisions that affect others and institutions (i.e., government, legal system, military, police) and which governs based on those decisions. The major types of political systems are republics, democracies, monarchies, oligarchies, technocracies, and authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.
A political system is a framework which defines acceptable political methods within a society. Whatever type of political system is used by whichever nation/state/city/community, the common factor is the scope of political system. They all have a set of policies, methods and activities in making decisions for their nation/state/city/community such as the distribution of resources or status; demands and obligations placed on the populous; negotiation with other political subjects; making laws; exercising internal and external force, including warfare against adversaries, etc. Politics is exercised on a wide range of social levels, from clans and tribes of traditional societies, through modern local governments, companies and institutions up to sovereign states, to the international level.
In modern nation states, people often form political parties to represent their ideas. Members of a party often agree to take the same position on many issues and agree to support the same changes to law and the same leaders. An election is usually a competition between different parties. The history of political thought can be traced back thousands of years to early antiquity, with seminal works such as Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics in the West, and Confucius's political manuscripts and Chanakya's Arthashastra in the East.
Yet, in the broad sense, politics is as old as Adam and Eve! God chose, elected and appointed Adam as the leader of his tiny “nation” or “state” or “city” or “family”―it was not Eve who “voted” for Adam and “democratically” elected Adam to the office of “president” of the family―it as God who did the choosing, electing and appointing! From that time onward, wherever there were communities of people, there was also necessarily a “politic” between them or amongst them. You even have your very own “family politics”―even though you might not call it by that name―where certain people rule and others follow; you have a “governmental hierarchy” where everyone knows their place; you have certain “laws”, “rules”, “customs”, “policies”, “law enforcement” and “punishments.” You have “political relations” with other families―some of which are your “allies” and other which are your “enemies.”
Having briefly established the broad sense of the meaning of the word “politics”, we should now look and see where God belongs in all of this!
Can You Exclude God From Politics?
There are some who hold that politics is reserved solely for man and that politics is independent of God. The consequence of such an attitude has led to the present day ‘secular dogma’ of “Separation of Church and State.” This secular, or man-made, dogma is currently held and believed by the ruling classes all throughout the world.
It was God who “chose” and “elected” Noe―and not the people. Abraham was “chosen” or “elected” by God―not the people. Moses was “elected” by God―not the people! Even when God’s Chosen People were tired of being a Theopany (ruled by God) and wanted to become a Monarchy (ruled by a man, a king)―it was not the Chosen People, but rather God who “chose” and “elected” their first king, Saul. Likewise with David. Even outside the realm of the Chosen People, it was ultimately God who gave power to kings, rulers and governors―as shown by Christ’s words to the Roman Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate: “Thou shouldst not have any power against Me, unless it were given thee from above!” (John 19:11). Holy Scripture adds: “O Lord, Thou art above all princes!” (1 Paralipomenon 29:11). “O Lord our God, Thou hast created all things; and for Thy will they were and have been created!” (Apocalypse 4:11).
The Latin phrase “Vox populi, vox Dei” ― meaning “The voice of the people [is] the voice of God” ― is an old proverb. An early reference to the expression is found in a letter from the renowned Catholic scholar, a deacon in the Church, Alcuin, to the Emperor Charlemagne in 798. This passage indicates that already by the end of the eighth century the phrase had become an aphorism of political common wisdom. Writing in the early 12th century, William of Malmesbury refers to the saying as a “proverb.”
This phrase, coming from a highly reputed of the Catholic Church in the early Middle-Ages, sounds like music in the ears of the modern-day politician: “The voice of the people [is] the voice of God!” Yet many a phrase can be made to look like anything you want if you take it out of context. The full quotation concerning “vox populi, vox Dei” from Alcuin reads: “Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit” ― which means: “And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.” In other words, Alcuin is counseling against listening to the voice of people as being something dangerous, volatile and insane. Today, we have turned that upside-down so that it represents something “wise” rather than “insane”. Ha! Insanity wins!
Whenever God granted the wishes of His murmuring Chosen People, or whenever they stubbornly chose what THEY WANTED and not what GOD WANTED―then the result was disaster. When the Chosen People grew tired of being a Theophany (i.e. ruled by God) and begged God to let then become a Monarchy (i.e. ruled by man), God listened to their insane demands and gave then Saul for their first king―but that was the beginning of the end for them! Everything gradually went downhill from there onwards. Yes, there were some good times―but only a case of one-step forwards and three-steps backwards. That is why we have the proverb with regards to prayer to God: “Be careful what you ask for―God just might hear and grant your prayer!”
In the times of the Roman Empire, popular opinion, or the opinion of the populous (the people) was despised in ancient Rome. Yet, nowadays, with the advent of Protestantism―and especially since the Masonically inspired and abetted French Revolution of 1789―this “voice of the people” is something that is dogmatized, sought, stressed and canonized. All of this has clearly affected modern day politics in the sense that “the voice of the people” has replaced “the voice of God”; the wishes of the people have replaced the wishes of God; man-made laws have replaced God’s Laws.
The Rebellious Voice of the People
In the times of the Roman Empire, popular opinion, or the opinion of the populous (the people) was despised in ancient Rome. Yet, nowadays, with the advent of Protestantism―and especially since the Masonically inspired and abetted French Revolution of 1789―this “voice of the people” is something that is dogmatized, sought, stressed and canonized. All of this has clearly affected modern day politics in the sense that “the voice of the people” has replaced “the voice of God”; the wishes of the people have replaced the wishes of God; man-made laws have replaced God’s Laws.
“Our kings and our princes have not kept Thy law, and have not minded Thy commandments, and they have not served Thee in their kingdoms” (2 Esdras 9:34-35). “The spirits of devils go forth unto the kings of the whole Earth, to gather them to battle against Almighty God” (Apocalypse 16:14). “The beast and the kings of the Earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war with Him [Christ] that sat upon the horse, and with His army” (Apocalypse 19:19). “The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder! And let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). “All their princes are revolters!” (Osee 9:15).
Provoking the Anger of God
“All nations are before Him as if they had no being at all, and are counted by Him as nothing and vanity” (Isaias 40:17). “O ye kings, understand! Receive instruction, you that judge the Earth! Serve the Lord with fear and trembling! Embrace discipline―lest at any time the Lord be angry, and you perish from the just way when His wrath shall be kindled in a short while!” (Psalm 2:10-13). “Many nations and great kings the Lord will repay according to their deeds, and according to the works of their hands!” (Jeremias 25:14). “The Lord hath broken kings in the day of His wrath!” (Psalm 109:5). “The Lord brought down kings to destruction, and easily broke their power in pieces!” (Ecclesiasticus 48:6). “He struck many nations and slew mighty kings!” (Psalm 134:10). “‘I will destroy kings and princes,’ saith the Lord” (Jeremias 49:38). “For gold and silver hath reached the heart of kings and perverted them!” (Ecclesiasticus 8:3).
“Hear therefore, ye kings, and understand! Learn, ye that are judges of the ends of the Earth. Give ear, you that rule the people, and that please yourselves in multitudes of nations! For power is given you by the Lord, who will examine your works, and search out your thoughts! Because, being ministers of His kingdom, you have not judged rightly, nor kept the law of justice, nor walked according to the will of God. Horribly and speedily will He appear to you! For a most severe judgment shall be given for them that rule! For God will not except any man’s person, neither will he stand in awe of any man’s greatness! For God made the little and the great! But a greater punishment is ready for the more mighty! To you, therefore, O kings, are these my words, that you may learn wisdom, and not fall from it!” (Wisdom 6:2-10).
God is Sovereign over All Rulers and All People and All Things
Do you believe God is sovereign? The word “sovereign” means “supreme ruler” ― which consequently means that God does what He wants, when He wants, where He wants, how He wants, and that no one can thwart His plans? Hopefully you do believe this―but there are many folk (most folk) who live in way that casts doubt over the fact that they believe God is sovereign! Rulers, governments and politicians―in large numbers―live, act and legislate as though they were the sovereign ones and not God!
This sovereignty of God is a vital truth, for God is God, and He is in charge of all things. Not only does God know what is going to take place, but He orders it or allows it to take place. Nothing happens that God does not expressly desire, command or permit―God desires and commands good, but God at times also allows evil because He knows that nobody will get away with doing the tiniest evil. God is never surprised. There are no accidents. Nothing happens by chance. With perfect knowledge, power, love and wisdom, God directs and oversees everything, in accordance with His eternal purposes, and for His eternal glory. “And all the inhabitants of the Earth are reputed as nothing before Him―for He does according to His will, with both the powers of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the Earth. There is none that can resist His hand, and say to Him: ‘Why hast Thou done it?’” (Daniel 4:35).
The sovereignty of God relates directly to nations, states, cities, communities, families and even your own personal individual life. God planned your birth and He caused it to happen. He knows the day you will die and He will bring it about. “Lord, thou hast known me! Thou hast known my sitting down, and my rising up! Thou hast understood my thoughts afar off! Thou hast foreseen all my ways! O Lord, Thou hast known all things! Thy knowledge is wonderful! It is high, and I cannot reach to it! Where shall I go or where shall I flee from Thy face? If I ascend into Heaven―Thou art there! If I descend into Hell―thou art present! My interior bones are not hidden from Thee! Thy eyes see my imperfections, and in Thy book all is written!” (Psalm 138:1-16).
God planned when you would live and where you would live. He made from one man (Adam) every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, and He determined their appointed times and boundaries (Acts 17:26). “Thou thyself, O Lord alone, hast made Heaven and the Earth and all things that are in it! And Thou givest life to all these things” (2 Esdras 9:6). “Let all Thy creatures serve Thee―because Thou hast spoken and they were made! Thou didst send forth Thy spirit, and they were created; and there is no one that can resist Thy voice!” (Judith 16:17). “For He created all things that they might be and He made the nations of the Earth” (Wisdom 1:14). “All things were made by Him―and without Him was made nothing that was made” (John 1:3). God Himself says: “All souls are Mine!” (Ezechiel 18:4) … “All the Earth is Mine!” (Exodus 19:5).
Yes, God is sovereign over the entire world – every country, city, nation, person, relationship, animal, event and atom. “Who is he that hath commanded a thing to be done, when the Lord commandeth it not?” (Lamentations 3:37). God is sovereign over rulers (Isaias 40:23), over Israel (Psalm 33:10-12), over the Church (Matthew 16:18), over your job (James 4:13-15), and over the devil (Job 1:6-12). God is always sovereign: “Remember this and be ashamed! Return, ye transgressors! Remember I am God, and there is no God beside, neither is there anything like Me! … My counsel shall stand, and all My will shall be done! … I have spoken and will bring it to pass! I have created, and I will do it! Hear me, O ye hardhearted, who are far from justice!” (Isaias 46:8-11).
God’s sovereignty also has a direct bearing on Bible prophecy being fulfilled. Think of the prophecies about Christ’s first coming, and how they all were perfectly carried out: that Jesus was born of a virgin (Isaias 7:14), where He was born (Micheas 5:2), that He rode on a donkey (Zacharias 9:9), how Jesus died (Psalm 22), and so forth. The fact that all Bible prophecy comes true is one of the clearest and strongest proofs that God is sovereign.
Rejection of God Sovereignty and Rule
Unfortunately, man―especially modern-day man―has rejected this sovereignty of God. They have uncrowned and dethroned God the Supreme Ruler and have crowned themselves as kings and placed themselves upon His throne. “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). Just as the Jews rejected Christ in the presence of Pontius Pilate―so too does modern day politics reject Christ today: “Pilate said to the Jews: ‘Behold your king!’ But they cried out: ‘Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him!’ Pilate said to them: ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ The chief priests answered: ‘We have no king but Caesar!’” (John 19:14-15). Today we face a similar situation―more and more in the world reject Christ, screaming: “Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him! We have no king but ourselves [or the world]! Away with Him! We don’t need His Laws―we can make our own laws to suit our preferences! Away with Him! Crucify Him!”
That is what many a “Catholic” politician, governor, president and prime minister is saying these days. Man’s law has replaced God’s Law; man’s wishes come before God’s wishes; man now decides what is right and wrong, good and evil―not God. Today abortion is good; contraception is good; divorce is good; remarriage after divorce is good; sex outside marriage is good; homosexuality, lesbianism and transgenderism is good; pornography is good; immodesty is good; promiscuity is good; drunkenness and street-drug use is good; etc.
Holy Scripture condemns such an attitude: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! … For they have cast away the law of the Lord and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One!” (Isaias 5:20, 24).
The Sunday Mass attending and Rosary praying U.S. “Catholic” President, Joe Biden, allows most of these things to flourish under his governance―so too do all the “Catholic” members of Congress, as well as the past and present “Catholic” governors of various states. Clinging to the false notion of a separation of Church and State, many American politicians who identify as Catholics have perfected the art of the split personality, using the “I-would-never-impose-my-beliefs-on-others” get-out clause at the first hint of having to back-up an unpopular position championed by the Church―for example, abortion. President Biden, one of the more prominent “Catholics” in American politics, has said: “I accept my Church’s position that life begins at conception … [but] I do not believe that we have a right to tell other people that women can’t control their body.” Or to put in another way ― “I accept my Church’s teaching that abortion is the murder of an unborn baby, but I do not believe that I should tell others not to murder their babies if they want to!” In the build-up to the current/recent U.S. mid-term elections―held on November 8th, 2022―President “Catholic” Biden boldly stated on October 18th in Washington: “Here is the promise I make to you and the American people! The first bill that I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v Wade!” ― which means enshrining abortion into American law. But passing a bill on abortion could be difficult even if Democrats hold onto their Senate majority, as that chamber's rules require 60 of the 100 senators to agree on most legislation. Republicans largely oppose abortion rights, while Democrats largely support them. Prior to these mid-term election, Democrats had a slim majority in the House and control the equally split 50-50 Senate through Vice President Kamala Harris’ ability to cast tie-breaking votes.
The recent Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, whom The New York Times called “a practicing Catholic,” the product of a family and childhood “steeped in Catholicism”—outlined, in his state of the state address, a plan to enact what he called a Reproductive Health Act, but which many called an unprecedented expansion of access to late-term abortion. To the wild applause of those in attendance, Cuomo, the “devout” Catholic governor, chanted his reasoning: “Because it is her body, it is her choice! Because it’s her body, it’s her choice! Because it’s her body, it’s her choice!”
Prior to any discussion on any topic, you have you know what you are talking about―which is to say, you have to know the exact meaning of the key words that will be discussed. Otherwise, you are going nowhere―except into chaos, subjectivism, misunderstanding and misinformation. In this case, we are talking about POLITICS. We all have heard of the word, we have all probably used the word, and we all have some kind of idea (vague) of what the word means―but, more often than not, we have formed our own personal, subjective, biased, colored and imprecise idea of what the word “politics” really means and we have next to no knowledge of the history of politics. Therefore …
We can trace the root of the word “politics” as coming from the Old French noun “politique” and adjective “political” ― which in turn comes from the Latin “politicus” (masc.) and “politica” (fem.) meaning “of the state”, which in turn comes from the earlier Greek “politikós” and “politiká” (meaning “affairs of the cities; civic, constitutional, public, social”), which is based upon “politēs” (meaning “citizen”) and “polis” (meaning “city”).
Thus, in the broadest sense of the word, we can say that “politics” is the set of activities concerning the affairs of the State, Nation, City, etc. It pertains to civic, constitutional, public and social domains. It is associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals―such as the making of laws, distribution of resources or status; the formation of public and social policies and anything else that pertains to the government of the nation/state/city/community.
We call the skill in these matters “the art or science of government” whereby a individual ruler, or combination of individuals or political parties (groups) exercise the power of making decisions that affect others and institutions (i.e., government, legal system, military, police) and which governs based on those decisions. The major types of political systems are republics, democracies, monarchies, oligarchies, technocracies, and authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.
A political system is a framework which defines acceptable political methods within a society. Whatever type of political system is used by whichever nation/state/city/community, the common factor is the scope of political system. They all have a set of policies, methods and activities in making decisions for their nation/state/city/community such as the distribution of resources or status; demands and obligations placed on the populous; negotiation with other political subjects; making laws; exercising internal and external force, including warfare against adversaries, etc. Politics is exercised on a wide range of social levels, from clans and tribes of traditional societies, through modern local governments, companies and institutions up to sovereign states, to the international level.
In modern nation states, people often form political parties to represent their ideas. Members of a party often agree to take the same position on many issues and agree to support the same changes to law and the same leaders. An election is usually a competition between different parties. The history of political thought can be traced back thousands of years to early antiquity, with seminal works such as Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics in the West, and Confucius's political manuscripts and Chanakya's Arthashastra in the East.
Yet, in the broad sense, politics is as old as Adam and Eve! God chose, elected and appointed Adam as the leader of his tiny “nation” or “state” or “city” or “family”―it was not Eve who “voted” for Adam and “democratically” elected Adam to the office of “president” of the family―it as God who did the choosing, electing and appointing! From that time onward, wherever there were communities of people, there was also necessarily a “politic” between them or amongst them. You even have your very own “family politics”―even though you might not call it by that name―where certain people rule and others follow; you have a “governmental hierarchy” where everyone knows their place; you have certain “laws”, “rules”, “customs”, “policies”, “law enforcement” and “punishments.” You have “political relations” with other families―some of which are your “allies” and other which are your “enemies.”
Having briefly established the broad sense of the meaning of the word “politics”, we should now look and see where God belongs in all of this!
Can You Exclude God From Politics?
There are some who hold that politics is reserved solely for man and that politics is independent of God. The consequence of such an attitude has led to the present day ‘secular dogma’ of “Separation of Church and State.” This secular, or man-made, dogma is currently held and believed by the ruling classes all throughout the world.
It was God who “chose” and “elected” Noe―and not the people. Abraham was “chosen” or “elected” by God―not the people. Moses was “elected” by God―not the people! Even when God’s Chosen People were tired of being a Theopany (ruled by God) and wanted to become a Monarchy (ruled by a man, a king)―it was not the Chosen People, but rather God who “chose” and “elected” their first king, Saul. Likewise with David. Even outside the realm of the Chosen People, it was ultimately God who gave power to kings, rulers and governors―as shown by Christ’s words to the Roman Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate: “Thou shouldst not have any power against Me, unless it were given thee from above!” (John 19:11). Holy Scripture adds: “O Lord, Thou art above all princes!” (1 Paralipomenon 29:11). “O Lord our God, Thou hast created all things; and for Thy will they were and have been created!” (Apocalypse 4:11).
The Latin phrase “Vox populi, vox Dei” ― meaning “The voice of the people [is] the voice of God” ― is an old proverb. An early reference to the expression is found in a letter from the renowned Catholic scholar, a deacon in the Church, Alcuin, to the Emperor Charlemagne in 798. This passage indicates that already by the end of the eighth century the phrase had become an aphorism of political common wisdom. Writing in the early 12th century, William of Malmesbury refers to the saying as a “proverb.”
This phrase, coming from a highly reputed of the Catholic Church in the early Middle-Ages, sounds like music in the ears of the modern-day politician: “The voice of the people [is] the voice of God!” Yet many a phrase can be made to look like anything you want if you take it out of context. The full quotation concerning “vox populi, vox Dei” from Alcuin reads: “Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit” ― which means: “And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.” In other words, Alcuin is counseling against listening to the voice of people as being something dangerous, volatile and insane. Today, we have turned that upside-down so that it represents something “wise” rather than “insane”. Ha! Insanity wins!
Whenever God granted the wishes of His murmuring Chosen People, or whenever they stubbornly chose what THEY WANTED and not what GOD WANTED―then the result was disaster. When the Chosen People grew tired of being a Theophany (i.e. ruled by God) and begged God to let then become a Monarchy (i.e. ruled by man), God listened to their insane demands and gave then Saul for their first king―but that was the beginning of the end for them! Everything gradually went downhill from there onwards. Yes, there were some good times―but only a case of one-step forwards and three-steps backwards. That is why we have the proverb with regards to prayer to God: “Be careful what you ask for―God just might hear and grant your prayer!”
In the times of the Roman Empire, popular opinion, or the opinion of the populous (the people) was despised in ancient Rome. Yet, nowadays, with the advent of Protestantism―and especially since the Masonically inspired and abetted French Revolution of 1789―this “voice of the people” is something that is dogmatized, sought, stressed and canonized. All of this has clearly affected modern day politics in the sense that “the voice of the people” has replaced “the voice of God”; the wishes of the people have replaced the wishes of God; man-made laws have replaced God’s Laws.
The Rebellious Voice of the People
In the times of the Roman Empire, popular opinion, or the opinion of the populous (the people) was despised in ancient Rome. Yet, nowadays, with the advent of Protestantism―and especially since the Masonically inspired and abetted French Revolution of 1789―this “voice of the people” is something that is dogmatized, sought, stressed and canonized. All of this has clearly affected modern day politics in the sense that “the voice of the people” has replaced “the voice of God”; the wishes of the people have replaced the wishes of God; man-made laws have replaced God’s Laws.
“Our kings and our princes have not kept Thy law, and have not minded Thy commandments, and they have not served Thee in their kingdoms” (2 Esdras 9:34-35). “The spirits of devils go forth unto the kings of the whole Earth, to gather them to battle against Almighty God” (Apocalypse 16:14). “The beast and the kings of the Earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war with Him [Christ] that sat upon the horse, and with His army” (Apocalypse 19:19). “The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder! And let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). “All their princes are revolters!” (Osee 9:15).
Provoking the Anger of God
“All nations are before Him as if they had no being at all, and are counted by Him as nothing and vanity” (Isaias 40:17). “O ye kings, understand! Receive instruction, you that judge the Earth! Serve the Lord with fear and trembling! Embrace discipline―lest at any time the Lord be angry, and you perish from the just way when His wrath shall be kindled in a short while!” (Psalm 2:10-13). “Many nations and great kings the Lord will repay according to their deeds, and according to the works of their hands!” (Jeremias 25:14). “The Lord hath broken kings in the day of His wrath!” (Psalm 109:5). “The Lord brought down kings to destruction, and easily broke their power in pieces!” (Ecclesiasticus 48:6). “He struck many nations and slew mighty kings!” (Psalm 134:10). “‘I will destroy kings and princes,’ saith the Lord” (Jeremias 49:38). “For gold and silver hath reached the heart of kings and perverted them!” (Ecclesiasticus 8:3).
“Hear therefore, ye kings, and understand! Learn, ye that are judges of the ends of the Earth. Give ear, you that rule the people, and that please yourselves in multitudes of nations! For power is given you by the Lord, who will examine your works, and search out your thoughts! Because, being ministers of His kingdom, you have not judged rightly, nor kept the law of justice, nor walked according to the will of God. Horribly and speedily will He appear to you! For a most severe judgment shall be given for them that rule! For God will not except any man’s person, neither will he stand in awe of any man’s greatness! For God made the little and the great! But a greater punishment is ready for the more mighty! To you, therefore, O kings, are these my words, that you may learn wisdom, and not fall from it!” (Wisdom 6:2-10).
God is Sovereign over All Rulers and All People and All Things
Do you believe God is sovereign? The word “sovereign” means “supreme ruler” ― which consequently means that God does what He wants, when He wants, where He wants, how He wants, and that no one can thwart His plans? Hopefully you do believe this―but there are many folk (most folk) who live in way that casts doubt over the fact that they believe God is sovereign! Rulers, governments and politicians―in large numbers―live, act and legislate as though they were the sovereign ones and not God!
This sovereignty of God is a vital truth, for God is God, and He is in charge of all things. Not only does God know what is going to take place, but He orders it or allows it to take place. Nothing happens that God does not expressly desire, command or permit―God desires and commands good, but God at times also allows evil because He knows that nobody will get away with doing the tiniest evil. God is never surprised. There are no accidents. Nothing happens by chance. With perfect knowledge, power, love and wisdom, God directs and oversees everything, in accordance with His eternal purposes, and for His eternal glory. “And all the inhabitants of the Earth are reputed as nothing before Him―for He does according to His will, with both the powers of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the Earth. There is none that can resist His hand, and say to Him: ‘Why hast Thou done it?’” (Daniel 4:35).
The sovereignty of God relates directly to nations, states, cities, communities, families and even your own personal individual life. God planned your birth and He caused it to happen. He knows the day you will die and He will bring it about. “Lord, thou hast known me! Thou hast known my sitting down, and my rising up! Thou hast understood my thoughts afar off! Thou hast foreseen all my ways! O Lord, Thou hast known all things! Thy knowledge is wonderful! It is high, and I cannot reach to it! Where shall I go or where shall I flee from Thy face? If I ascend into Heaven―Thou art there! If I descend into Hell―thou art present! My interior bones are not hidden from Thee! Thy eyes see my imperfections, and in Thy book all is written!” (Psalm 138:1-16).
God planned when you would live and where you would live. He made from one man (Adam) every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, and He determined their appointed times and boundaries (Acts 17:26). “Thou thyself, O Lord alone, hast made Heaven and the Earth and all things that are in it! And Thou givest life to all these things” (2 Esdras 9:6). “Let all Thy creatures serve Thee―because Thou hast spoken and they were made! Thou didst send forth Thy spirit, and they were created; and there is no one that can resist Thy voice!” (Judith 16:17). “For He created all things that they might be and He made the nations of the Earth” (Wisdom 1:14). “All things were made by Him―and without Him was made nothing that was made” (John 1:3). God Himself says: “All souls are Mine!” (Ezechiel 18:4) … “All the Earth is Mine!” (Exodus 19:5).
Yes, God is sovereign over the entire world – every country, city, nation, person, relationship, animal, event and atom. “Who is he that hath commanded a thing to be done, when the Lord commandeth it not?” (Lamentations 3:37). God is sovereign over rulers (Isaias 40:23), over Israel (Psalm 33:10-12), over the Church (Matthew 16:18), over your job (James 4:13-15), and over the devil (Job 1:6-12). God is always sovereign: “Remember this and be ashamed! Return, ye transgressors! Remember I am God, and there is no God beside, neither is there anything like Me! … My counsel shall stand, and all My will shall be done! … I have spoken and will bring it to pass! I have created, and I will do it! Hear me, O ye hardhearted, who are far from justice!” (Isaias 46:8-11).
God’s sovereignty also has a direct bearing on Bible prophecy being fulfilled. Think of the prophecies about Christ’s first coming, and how they all were perfectly carried out: that Jesus was born of a virgin (Isaias 7:14), where He was born (Micheas 5:2), that He rode on a donkey (Zacharias 9:9), how Jesus died (Psalm 22), and so forth. The fact that all Bible prophecy comes true is one of the clearest and strongest proofs that God is sovereign.
Rejection of God Sovereignty and Rule
Unfortunately, man―especially modern-day man―has rejected this sovereignty of God. They have uncrowned and dethroned God the Supreme Ruler and have crowned themselves as kings and placed themselves upon His throne. “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). Just as the Jews rejected Christ in the presence of Pontius Pilate―so too does modern day politics reject Christ today: “Pilate said to the Jews: ‘Behold your king!’ But they cried out: ‘Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him!’ Pilate said to them: ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ The chief priests answered: ‘We have no king but Caesar!’” (John 19:14-15). Today we face a similar situation―more and more in the world reject Christ, screaming: “Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him! We have no king but ourselves [or the world]! Away with Him! We don’t need His Laws―we can make our own laws to suit our preferences! Away with Him! Crucify Him!”
That is what many a “Catholic” politician, governor, president and prime minister is saying these days. Man’s law has replaced God’s Law; man’s wishes come before God’s wishes; man now decides what is right and wrong, good and evil―not God. Today abortion is good; contraception is good; divorce is good; remarriage after divorce is good; sex outside marriage is good; homosexuality, lesbianism and transgenderism is good; pornography is good; immodesty is good; promiscuity is good; drunkenness and street-drug use is good; etc.
Holy Scripture condemns such an attitude: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! … For they have cast away the law of the Lord and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One!” (Isaias 5:20, 24).
The Sunday Mass attending and Rosary praying U.S. “Catholic” President, Joe Biden, allows most of these things to flourish under his governance―so too do all the “Catholic” members of Congress, as well as the past and present “Catholic” governors of various states. Clinging to the false notion of a separation of Church and State, many American politicians who identify as Catholics have perfected the art of the split personality, using the “I-would-never-impose-my-beliefs-on-others” get-out clause at the first hint of having to back-up an unpopular position championed by the Church―for example, abortion. President Biden, one of the more prominent “Catholics” in American politics, has said: “I accept my Church’s position that life begins at conception … [but] I do not believe that we have a right to tell other people that women can’t control their body.” Or to put in another way ― “I accept my Church’s teaching that abortion is the murder of an unborn baby, but I do not believe that I should tell others not to murder their babies if they want to!” In the build-up to the current/recent U.S. mid-term elections―held on November 8th, 2022―President “Catholic” Biden boldly stated on October 18th in Washington: “Here is the promise I make to you and the American people! The first bill that I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v Wade!” ― which means enshrining abortion into American law. But passing a bill on abortion could be difficult even if Democrats hold onto their Senate majority, as that chamber's rules require 60 of the 100 senators to agree on most legislation. Republicans largely oppose abortion rights, while Democrats largely support them. Prior to these mid-term election, Democrats had a slim majority in the House and control the equally split 50-50 Senate through Vice President Kamala Harris’ ability to cast tie-breaking votes.
The recent Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, whom The New York Times called “a practicing Catholic,” the product of a family and childhood “steeped in Catholicism”—outlined, in his state of the state address, a plan to enact what he called a Reproductive Health Act, but which many called an unprecedented expansion of access to late-term abortion. To the wild applause of those in attendance, Cuomo, the “devout” Catholic governor, chanted his reasoning: “Because it is her body, it is her choice! Because it’s her body, it’s her choice! Because it’s her body, it’s her choice!”
Article 6
Tuesday November 8th, 2022
Voting! Damned if You Do! Damned if You Don't!
Tuesday November 8th, 2022
Voting! Damned if You Do! Damned if You Don't!
Did You Vote? Who Will Win?
As the mid-term elections come to a close in the United States of America, the inevitable question is who will be the ultimate winner? Will there winner? Will both Democrats and Republicans be winners? Or will both be losers? Does it really matter who wins? Regardless of who wins, you will still be the loser! For the real winner will be neither the Democrats, nor the Republicans ― the real winner will be Satan! Why? Because it is Satan who really controls most governments, regardless of what color and flavor they might happen to be. For, as was stated in the previous article, there is a solid link between Satan, Freemasonry and Government―they are all in the same boat and the same bed.
Just to recap, here are some key quotes from that previous article that shows who is really in control and who is linked to who:
► EXORCIST FR. AMORTH, the former chief exorcist of Rome, said: “Satan continually tries to dominate the world ― the whole world is in the power of the evil one! … The Devil does not like to be seen … Satan hides and disguises himself in a thousand ways … The devil prefers this way … Satan works through his empire of evil. Satan uses his churches, his cult, his devotees, his adorers and the followers of his promises ... The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Today Satan rules the world! Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. The demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority―those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
► THE CHURCH OF SATAN, on its website, states the following: “The Church of Satan does not have an “official” political position ... Satanists do not exist to serve any political agenda … The Church of Satan is a loosely knit cabal of individuals whose political opinions may (and do) vary … One’s politics are up to each individual member, and most of our members are political pragmatists. Our members span an amazing political spectrum, which includes but is not limited to: Libertarians, Liberals, Conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Reform Party members, Independents, Capitalists, Socialists, Communists, Stalinists, Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Zionists, Monarchists, Fascists, Anarchists, and just about anything else you could possibly imagine. It is up to each member to apply Satanism and determine what political means will reach his or her ends.”
► OUR LADY confirms these diabolical connections by saying: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government, will see a cruel persecution of all religious communities … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family … The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth! ... During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church.”
In case you didn’t spot it ― Our Lady said that Satan would reign almost completely by means of Masonic sects and that Masonry would take control of civil government. Therefore, you have the link between Satan, Freemasonry and governments and their politicians. Satan and Masonry don’t care what political color a politician might ― Satan and Masonry are not prejudiced, they will take any political type ― as the Church of Satan said: “Our members span an amazing political spectrum, which includes but is not limited to: Libertarians, Liberals, Conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Reform Party members, Independents, Capitalists, Socialists, Communists, Stalinists, Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Zionists, Monarchists, Fascists, Anarchists, and just about anything else you could possibly imagine. It is up to each member to apply Satanism…”
What has been forgotten by most dumbed-down Americans―or what is even unknown to them―is that many of the founding fathers of the United States were Freemasons. Some of the more notable founding fathers were: George Washington, Ben Franklin, Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Chief Justice John Marshall, who greatly influenced the shaping of the Supreme Court. It is believed that at least nine of the fifty-six men (that is at least 16%) that signed the Declaration of Independence were verifiable Freemasons but there likely more than that, since not every Mason revealed his membership. Of the thirty-nine that signed the US Constitutions thirteen (33% or 1 in 3) were verifiable Freemasons ― which again means that there was also a likelihood of some additional Freemasons being among the 39 but who did not want to reveal their Masonic membership.
► 20 GREATEST NAMES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
John Adams ― Spoke favorably of Freemasonry — never joined
Samuel Adams ― (Close and principle associate of Hancock, Revere & other Masons
Ethan Allen ― Mason
Edmund Burke ― Mason
John Claypoole ― Mason
William Daws ― Mason
Benjamin Franklin ― Mason
Nathan Hale ― No evidence of Masonic connections
John Hancock ― Mason
Benjamin Harrison ― No evidence of Masonic connections
Patrick Henry ― No evidence of Masonic connections
Thomas Jefferson ― Deist with some evidence of Masonic connections
John Paul Jones ― Mason
Francis Scott Key ― No evidence of Masonic connections
Robert Livingston ― Mason
James Madison ― Some evidence of Masonic membership
Thomas Paine ― Humanist
Paul Revere ― Mason
Colonel Benjamin Tupper ― Mason
George Washington ― Mason
Daniel Webster ― Some evidence of Masonic connections
Summary: 10 Masons, 3 probable Masons, 1 Humanist, 2 Advocates of Freemasonry, 4 no record of connections.
► SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Known Masons (8): Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Joseph Hewes, William Hooper, Robert Treat Payne, Richard Stockton, George Walton, William Whipple
Evidence of Membership And/or Affiliations (7): Elbridge Berry, Lyman Hall, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Nelson Jr., John Penn, George Read, Roger Sherman
Summary: 15 of 56 Signers were Freemasons or probable Freemasons.
It’s true that this represents only 27% of the total signers. But this 27% included the principle movers of the Revolution, most notably Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, the primary authors of the Declaration. The former was a Freemason, the latter a deist and possible Freemason. If one were to analyze the Declaration, he would see the humanistic influences.
In any event, there is no evidence that even 27% of the signers were true Christians. In considering whether or not this is a Christian nation, it isn’t the number of Masons that is as important as is the number of founders overall who were non-believers.
► SIGNERS OF THE CONSTITUTION
Known Masons (9): Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Blair, David Brearly, Jacob Broom, Daniel Carrol, John Dickinson, Benjamin Franklin, Rufus King, George Washington
Evidence of Membership And/or Affiliations (13): Abraham Baldwin, William Blount, Elbridge Gerry, Nicholas Gilman, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Lansing, Jr., James Madison, George Mason, George Read, Robert Morris, Roger Sherman, George Wythe
Those Who Later Became Masons (6): William Richardson Davie, Jr., Jonathan Dayton, Dr. James McHenry, John Francis Mercer, William Patterson, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer
Summary: 28 of 40 signers of the Constitution were Freemasons or possible Freemasons based on evidence other than Lodge records.
► MASONIC INFLUENCES IN EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY
● Lafayette, French liaison to the Colonies, without whose aid the war could not have been won, was a Freemason.
● The majority of the commanders of the Continental Army were Freemasons and members of “Army Lodges.”
● Most of Washington’s Generals were Freemasons.
● The Boston Tea Party was planned at the Green Dragon Tavern, also known as the “Freemasons’ Arms,” and “the Headquarters of the Revolution.”
● George Washington was sworn in as the first President of the United States by Robert Livingston, Grand Master of New York’s Masonic Lodge. The Bible on which he took his oath was from his own Masonic lodge.
● The Cornerstone of the Capital building was laid by the Grand Lodge of Maryland.
Even if the initiators of the Revolution had been Christians, the fact remains that the Revolutionary War and the nation’s government were structured by the tenets of Freemasonry, not God’s Word. It was an unholy alliance at best. Today there are over two million Freemasons in North America, and Masonic Lodges are found in almost every community throughout the United States. With the 2022 adult population of the United States estimated at being around 264 million and the Freemasons making up 2 million of that 264 million―that means 1 in every 132 adult persons is a Freemason! That includes not just men, but women too. If you limit it only to men―then around 1 in 65 men is a Freemason.
You can wield a heck of lot influence and control with those kinds of numbers―especially when you belong to a highly organized, rich and powerful organization such as Freemasonry! Those kinds of numbers dove-tail with what Our Lady had said of Freemasonry: “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … The evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds!”
Not only has Satan seen to the creation of Freemasonry―Satan has also seen to the infiltration of all the major domains of life by Freemasonry: Government, Religion, Media, Entertainment, Education and Health ― not to mention the innumerable financial institutions, corporations, food chains, suppliers, and a whole variety of services, all the way down to grass roots levels. Just as God is said to be ubiquitous (which means being everywhere), so too is Satan trying to be ubiquitous by recruiting stooges and placing them everywhere ― all the way from the top to the very bottom.
Masonic U.S. Presidents
The following list shows the names of verifiable FREEMASONS AMONG THE 46 PRESIDENTS of the United States―which shows the endless streak of Masonic influence in the American political field.
GEORGE WASHINGTON (1732–1799): President from 1789 –1797: Initiated into Masonry in 1752. Elected Worshipful Master in 1788.
JAMES MONROE (1758–1831): President from 1817–1825: Initiated into Masonry in 1775.
ANDREW JACKSON (1767–1845): President from 1829–1837: Initiated into Masonry in (year unknown). Elected Grand Master in 1822.
JAMES K. POLK (1795–1849): President from 1845–1849: Initiated into Masonry in 1820.
JAMES BUCHANAN (1791–1868): President from 1857–1861: Initiated into Masonry in 1816. Appointed District Deputy Grand Master in 1824.
ANDREW JOHNSON (1808–1875): President from 1865–1869: Initiated into Masonry in 1851.
JAMES A. GARFIELD (1831–1881): President from 1881–1881: Initiated into Masonry in 1861.
WILLIAM MCKINLEY (1843–1901): President from 1897–1901: Initiated into Masonry in 1865.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT (1858–1919): President from 1901–1909: Initiated into Masonry in 1901.
WILLIAM H. TAFT (1857–1930): President from 1909–1913: Initiated into Masonry in 1909.
WARREN G. HARDING (1865–1923): President from 1921–1923: Initiated into Masonry in 1901.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT (1882–1945): President from 1933–1945: Initiated into Masonry in 1911. Made Honorary Grand Master of the Order of DeMolay in 1934.
HARRY S. TRUMAN (1884–1972): President from 1945–1953: Initiated into Masonry in 1909. First Worshipful Master of in 1911. Elected Grand Master of Missouri in 1940 and received the 33rd Degree in 1945. Made Honorary Grand Master of the Order of DeMolay in 1959.
GERALD FORD (1913–2006): President from 1974–1977: Initiated into Masonry in 1949. Made Honorary Grand Master of the Order of DeMolay in April 1975.
In addition to the individuals listed above…
LYNDON B. JOHNSON (1963-1969) was initiated into the first degree of Freemasonry – “Entered Apprentice” in 1937, but did not advance any further and did not become a full member of his lodge.
RONALD REAGAN (1981-1989) was made an honorary Freemason.
BILL CLINTON (1993-2001) was a member of the Order of DeMolay as a youth.
THOMAS JEFFERSON (1801-1809) was thought by many to be a Freemason; however, there is no record of him being initiated into any lodge, nor are there any references to Masonic membership in his personal papers.
All of the above verified Freemasons, honorary Freemasons, or putative Freemasons governed the United States in the capacity of president for a total of 104 years out of a total of the 233 years that have passed since the first president took office in 1789.
All of this merely “fleshes out” the “backbone” stated by Our Lady: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell … From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds … The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … The Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church.”
American Anti-Catholic Hatred
Anti-Catholic sentiments are part of the American historical record and, arguably, the most stunning thing about them is that they came forth at a time when there were almost no Catholics in America. At the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, roughly 2.15 million persons lived in the 13 colonies. The vast majority was of Anglo-Saxon-Celtic descent and nearly 100% were Protestant. Catholics played almost no role in the founding of America. Of the prominent American founders of the Revolution there were only two practicing Catholics, Charles Carroll of Carrollton and his cousin John “Jacky” Carroll.
Catholics had a reputation among Protestants as being the evil purveyors of darkness, oppression, and superstition. Historians have studied the motivations for anti-Catholicism in the history of the United States. The historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. characterized prejudice against Catholics as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people.” The historian John Higham described anti-Catholicism as “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.” The historian John Tracy Ellis wrote that a “universal anti-Catholic bias was brought to Jamestown in 1607 and vigorously cultivated in all the thirteen colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia.” Colonial charters and laws contained specific prohibitions against Roman Catholics having any political power. Ellis also noted that a common hatred of the Roman Catholic Church brought together Anglican and Puritan clergy and laity, despite their many other disagreements.
Bouts of anti-Catholicism were simply rooted in the American republican tradition, and blatant and violent acts against Roman Catholics can be found, time and again, all throughout the history of the United States. Catholics could not worship publicly, and children could even, by law, be removed permanently from their parents and sent to live with Protestant families in England if the Catholic parents attempted to educate their children in a “Catholic fashion.” Every American colony had some form of anti-Catholic law, except for Pennsylvania. The farther north you traveled, the stronger the anti-Catholicism became.
► The 1600s ― As early as the 1640s, for example, the New England colonies had passed a law that a man could enter a congregation only if armed with his weapon and firearm, in case of a Catholic or Indian attack. In 1642, the Colony of Virginia enacted a law prohibiting Catholic settlers. Five years later, a similar statute was enacted by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1649, the Act of Toleration was passed in Maryland, where “blasphemy and the calling of opprobrious religious names” became punishable offenses, but it was repealed in 1654 and thus Catholics were outlawed once again. By 1692, Catholic Maryland overthrew its Government, established the Protestant Church of England by force of law, and forced Catholics to pay heavy taxes towards its support. Catholics were cut off from all participation in politics and additional laws were introduced that outlawed the Mass, the Church’s Sacraments, and Catholic schools.
► The 1700s ― In 1719, Rhode Island imposed civil restrictions on Catholics, such as denial of voting rights. In the build-up to the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)―also known as the Revolutionary War, or American War of Independence―the friend and sympathizer of Freemasonry, John Adams, in his 1765 book, A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law, showed enormous anti-Catholic hatred. He was not alone.
The very first act of the Continental Congress, in 1774, was to pass a condemnation of any lifting of restrictions on Roman Catholics. In 1788, John Jay urged the New York Legislature to require office-holders to renounce the pope and foreign authorities “in all matters ecclesiastical as well as civil.” With the almost unanimous backing of the New England colonies, the condemnation found widespread support. When New England militia went into battle during the War for Independence, their war cry was: “No king, no popery!”
► The 1900s ― The 1800s were no different. Anti-Catholicism reached a peak in the mid-1800s when Protestant leaders became alarmed by the heavy influx of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany. Some Protestant leaders believed that the Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon that is mentioned in the Book of the Apocalypse. In the 1830s and 1840s, prominent Protestant leaders attacked the Catholic Church, by accusing it of being theologically unsound and also being an enemy of the government’s values. Intolerance of Catholics escalated into violence, when, in 1834, a mob set fire to an Ursuline convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts. This kind of attitude increased in its hatred of Catholics and was whipped into a frenzy of anti-Catholicism which led to mob violence, the burning of Catholic property, and the killing of Catholics. This violence was fed by claims that Catholics were destroying the culture of the United States.
In the 1900s, anti-Catholic sentiment was popular enough that The Menace, a weekly newspaper with a virulently anti-Catholic stance, was founded in 1911 and quickly reached a nationwide circulation of 1.5 million among a United States population of 92 million. Anti-Catholicism was widespread in the 1920s. Anti-Catholics, including the Ku Klux Klan, believed that Catholicism was incompatible with democracy and that parochial schools encouraged separatism and kept Catholics from becoming loyal Americans. All this increased hatred found its roots in the fierce anti-Catholicism of the Freemasons and the Ku Klux Klan. With the rapid growth of the second Ku Klux Klan (KKK) 1921–25, anti-Catholic rhetoric intensified. 1921, Father James Coyle was fatally shot on his rectory porch in Birmingham, Alabama. The shooter was Rev. E. R. Stephenson, a Southern Methodist Episcopal minister. The Klu Klux Klan collapsed in the mid-1920s.
In 1928, Democrat Al Smith became the first Roman Catholic to gain a major party's nomination for president, but his Catholic Faith became a major issue during the campaign. His nomination gave anti-Catholicism a rallying point―especially for Lutheran and Southern Baptist ministers. They warned that national autonomy would be threatened because Smith would be listening not to the American people but to secret orders from the pope. Across the country, Protestant ministers spoke out. A survey of 8,500 Southern Methodist ministers found only four who publicly supported Smith. Many Americans justified their opposition to Smith because they believed the Catholic Church was an “un-American” and “alien” culture that opposed freedom and democracy. They claimed that the Catholic Church was hostile to American principles of separation of Church and State and of religious toleration.
The War Weakens Anti-Catholicism―but also Weakens the Faith
The Second World War (1939-1945), which brought about America’s involvement, was the decisive event that brought some religious tolerance to the front in American life. The military had to develop personnel policies that mixed America’s diverse white ethnic and religious population. The sudden removal from the comforts of home, the often degrading and humiliating experiences of military life, and the unity and friendship-building procedures used in military training, reminded the soldiers of all they had in common as Americans. Under fire, the men survived by leaning on buddies, regardless of their ethnicity or religion. After coming home, the veterans helped reshape American society. The massive changes in ethnic and religious relations and toleration in the United States came from the military experience in the Second World War. However, this also served to weaken the Faith of staunch Catholics, who were now readily and frequently mixing with non-Catholics. This created a false ecumenism that American Catholics began to live―and which was “exported” to the Second Vatican Council when it eventually began in 1962.
More Than Just Anti-Catholic
Freemasonry is not just anti-Catholic, but also anti-Christian (Protestant version) and anti-State and anti-morality. Fifteen years after the foundation of modern-day Freemasonry in 1723, POPE CLEMENT XII in his 1738 Pontifical Constitution “In Eminenti” condemned Freemasonry as being Counter-Church and Counter-State: “We have resolved and decreed to condemn and forbid such societies, assemblies, reunions, conventions, aggregations or meetings called either Freemasonic, or known under some other denomination. We condemn and forbid them by this, our present constitution, which is to be considered valid for ever.”
POPE BENEDICT XIV ― in his 1751 Constitution “Providas” ― inserted in full In Eminenti, the Bull which had been written by his predecessor, Clement XII, in order to make it very evident that the condemnation of Freemasonry was irrevocable and was to be applied to the future as well as to the present. Furthermore, in his Constitution, “Providas,” Benedict XIV enumerates six reasons which drove Pope Clement XII to strike Secret Societies; they are (1) the Interconfessonalism (or Interfaith) of Freemasons; (2) their secret; (3) their oath; (4) their opposition to Church and State; (5) the interdiction pronounced against them in several States by the Heads of such countries; and, (6) their immorality which the Pope characterizes thus: “Those Societies―according to men who are prudent and honest―are ill-famed, and, to become a member thereof, would lead to evil and perversion.”
Soon after his election as POPE LEO XII, in his 1825 Encyclical “Quo Graviora”, condemned Freemasonry, as well as all other Secret Societies: “We have endeavored to discover the state, number and influence of secret societies and We easily have been able to acknowledge that, if only due to the number of new sects which have joined them, their audacity has increased ... What is definitely ascertained is that those different sects, despite the diversity of their names, are all united and linked by the similarity of their infamous plans ... They have dared publish works on Religion and Affairs of State, they have exposed their contempt for authority, their hatred of Sovereignty, their attacks against the Divinity of Jesus Christ and the very existence of God. They openly vaunt their materialism, as well as their codes and statutes, which explain their plans and efforts in order to overthrow the legitimate Heads of State and completely destroy the Church. Those men are like those to whom, according to Saint John, the Apostle, hospitality and greetings should be denied. (2 John 5:10). They are the same men whom our Fathers, without hesitation, termed as being the first-born of the devil.”
POPE PIUS VIII, in his 1829 Encyclical “Traditi”, renewed all the condemnations of Freemasons made by his predecessors, repeating that all Masonic sects come from the “Well of Perdition,” adding that “Its aim is to corrupt youth in schools” and he applies to Masons those words of Pope St. Leo the Great: “Their law is untruth: their god is the devil and their cult is turpitude.”
POPE GREGORY XVI, in his 1832, Encyclical Mirari Vos wrote: “Truly indeed we can say that this is the hour granted to the power of darkness to grind the elect as wheat ... Evil comes out of Secret Societies, bottomless abyss of misery, which those conspiring societies have dug and in which heresies and sects have, as may be said, vomited as in a toilet all they hold of licentiousness, sacrilege and blasphemy.”
POPE PIUS IX, in his 1846 Encyclical ― written on November 9th, around 8 weeks after Our Lady’s apparition at La Salette in France ― Pope Pius IX condemned Freemasonry and similar organizations, who “pursue a merciless war against the Catholic Religion, the Divine Authority of the Church and its laws in order to trample upon the rights of both the Ecclesiastical and Civil power … Such is the aim of those Secret Societies issuing from darkness, seeking the eventual ruin of Religion and States … We condemn this Masonic Society and all other societies of the same order which―although different in appearance, but pursuing the same aim against the Church or legitimate Civil Power―are constantly being formed. The Satanic spirit of the Sect was particularly evidenced, in the past century, during the course of the Revolutions of France which shook the entire world ... The Masonic Sect of which we speak has been neither defeated nor overthrown―just the reverse. The Sect has developed to such an extent that, in these days of great difficulty, it shows itself everywhere with impunity and raises a more audacious face … Those abominable sects of perdition which are fatally destructive of the salvation of souls as of the welfare and peace of secular society … We, once again, condemn, forbid and anathematize them. ”
POPE LEO XIII, in his 1884 Encyclical Humanum Genus, also condemns Freemasonry: “Today, evil doers all seem to be allied in a tremendous effort, inspired by and with the help of a society powerfully organized and widely spread over the world, which is the Society of Freemasons. In fact, those people no longer even try to hide their intentions … They now publicly and openly undertake to ruin the Holy Church, so as to succeed, if it is possible, in the complete dispossession of Christian nations of all the gifts they owe to Our Savior Jesus Christ. As a result, in the space of a century and a half, the sect of the Freemasons has made incredible progress. Making use at the same time of audacity and cunning, Masonry has invaded all the ranks of social hierarchy, and, in the modern States, it has begun to seize a power which is almost equivalent to Sovereignty … There is no denying that in this foolish and criminal plan it is easy to understand the implacable hatred and passion for revenge which animate Satan toward Jesus Christ. We refuse to follow the dictates of such iniquitous masters that bear the names of Satan and of all evil passions.”
POPE BENEDICT XV, in his letter to Cardinal Gasparri on June 20th, 1919, speaks “the inept and essentially anti-Catholic doctrine of Freemasonry, a doctrine issued from deism, born of the Reformation. A doctrine which, as it is today clearly evident, leads fatally to the very denial of God, to social atheism, to irreligious teaching and impiety and is greatly detrimental to nations; it aims at removing from every association every trace of religion and every Church mediation.”
POPE PIUS XI, on November 16th, 1923, stated: “Masonry is our mortal enemy.”
American Mason on Global Conspiracy
The masons took great pride in ensuring that their order stayed private and was not known to the outside world. Masons―who were in the public eye like George Washington and Ben Franklin―did not openly connect their political views to their Masonic association. Without any concrete evidence of what the Masons believed, it has been left open to the speculation and interpretation of later Masons and historians. A view, that is shared by all, is that Masons, during the revolutionary period, were the ones pushing for America to break away from Great Britain and become its own nation. Can the same be said today concerning things like “The Great Reset”, “New World Order”, “One World Government” and “One World Religion” ― in short, a “Global Conspiracy”?
Nothing changes―as we see in the case of former House Representative, the Democrat Nick Rahall who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 2015, who is also a 73-year-old Freemason as well as being a 33rd Degree Mason, who joined the Freemasons about five years before he ran for Congress in 1976. Rahall said he achieved his 33rd Degree status by two routes: through the Scottish Rite and through the York Rite, where he participated in the Commandery―which is the section of the Freemason tradition that makes Rahall a Knight Templar. In a 2009 interview, after answering some questions on Freemasonry, he was asked: “So is there a global conspiracy?” Rahall replied: “No!” The reporter then said: “But you wouldn’t tell me if there was―would you?” To which Rahall replied with a smile: “That’s right!”
Mark Schmeller, a history professor at Syracuse University, states that from the time of the Masonic foundation of the United States, Freemasonry continued to grow in the United States during the first two decades of the 19th century, in part because it was a good way for people who wanted to enter politics to network: “It’s a way for professional men, newspaper editors and politicians to kind of get to know one another,” he says. “So, if you’re embarking on a political career, it’s a pretty good idea to join a Masonic lodge.”
Freemasonry was the first widespread and well-connected organization to espouse religious toleration and liberty—principles that the fraternity helped spread through the American colonies. In its symbols and ideas, Masonry conveyed a sense that something new was being born in America: that the individual's conscience was beyond denominational affiliation or government command.
As the mid-term elections come to a close in the United States of America, the inevitable question is who will be the ultimate winner? Will there winner? Will both Democrats and Republicans be winners? Or will both be losers? Does it really matter who wins? Regardless of who wins, you will still be the loser! For the real winner will be neither the Democrats, nor the Republicans ― the real winner will be Satan! Why? Because it is Satan who really controls most governments, regardless of what color and flavor they might happen to be. For, as was stated in the previous article, there is a solid link between Satan, Freemasonry and Government―they are all in the same boat and the same bed.
Just to recap, here are some key quotes from that previous article that shows who is really in control and who is linked to who:
► EXORCIST FR. AMORTH, the former chief exorcist of Rome, said: “Satan continually tries to dominate the world ― the whole world is in the power of the evil one! … The Devil does not like to be seen … Satan hides and disguises himself in a thousand ways … The devil prefers this way … Satan works through his empire of evil. Satan uses his churches, his cult, his devotees, his adorers and the followers of his promises ... The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Today Satan rules the world! Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. The demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority―those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!”
► THE CHURCH OF SATAN, on its website, states the following: “The Church of Satan does not have an “official” political position ... Satanists do not exist to serve any political agenda … The Church of Satan is a loosely knit cabal of individuals whose political opinions may (and do) vary … One’s politics are up to each individual member, and most of our members are political pragmatists. Our members span an amazing political spectrum, which includes but is not limited to: Libertarians, Liberals, Conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Reform Party members, Independents, Capitalists, Socialists, Communists, Stalinists, Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Zionists, Monarchists, Fascists, Anarchists, and just about anything else you could possibly imagine. It is up to each member to apply Satanism and determine what political means will reach his or her ends.”
► OUR LADY confirms these diabolical connections by saying: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government, will see a cruel persecution of all religious communities … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family … The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth! ... During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church.”
In case you didn’t spot it ― Our Lady said that Satan would reign almost completely by means of Masonic sects and that Masonry would take control of civil government. Therefore, you have the link between Satan, Freemasonry and governments and their politicians. Satan and Masonry don’t care what political color a politician might ― Satan and Masonry are not prejudiced, they will take any political type ― as the Church of Satan said: “Our members span an amazing political spectrum, which includes but is not limited to: Libertarians, Liberals, Conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Reform Party members, Independents, Capitalists, Socialists, Communists, Stalinists, Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Zionists, Monarchists, Fascists, Anarchists, and just about anything else you could possibly imagine. It is up to each member to apply Satanism…”
What has been forgotten by most dumbed-down Americans―or what is even unknown to them―is that many of the founding fathers of the United States were Freemasons. Some of the more notable founding fathers were: George Washington, Ben Franklin, Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Chief Justice John Marshall, who greatly influenced the shaping of the Supreme Court. It is believed that at least nine of the fifty-six men (that is at least 16%) that signed the Declaration of Independence were verifiable Freemasons but there likely more than that, since not every Mason revealed his membership. Of the thirty-nine that signed the US Constitutions thirteen (33% or 1 in 3) were verifiable Freemasons ― which again means that there was also a likelihood of some additional Freemasons being among the 39 but who did not want to reveal their Masonic membership.
► 20 GREATEST NAMES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
John Adams ― Spoke favorably of Freemasonry — never joined
Samuel Adams ― (Close and principle associate of Hancock, Revere & other Masons
Ethan Allen ― Mason
Edmund Burke ― Mason
John Claypoole ― Mason
William Daws ― Mason
Benjamin Franklin ― Mason
Nathan Hale ― No evidence of Masonic connections
John Hancock ― Mason
Benjamin Harrison ― No evidence of Masonic connections
Patrick Henry ― No evidence of Masonic connections
Thomas Jefferson ― Deist with some evidence of Masonic connections
John Paul Jones ― Mason
Francis Scott Key ― No evidence of Masonic connections
Robert Livingston ― Mason
James Madison ― Some evidence of Masonic membership
Thomas Paine ― Humanist
Paul Revere ― Mason
Colonel Benjamin Tupper ― Mason
George Washington ― Mason
Daniel Webster ― Some evidence of Masonic connections
Summary: 10 Masons, 3 probable Masons, 1 Humanist, 2 Advocates of Freemasonry, 4 no record of connections.
► SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Known Masons (8): Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Joseph Hewes, William Hooper, Robert Treat Payne, Richard Stockton, George Walton, William Whipple
Evidence of Membership And/or Affiliations (7): Elbridge Berry, Lyman Hall, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Nelson Jr., John Penn, George Read, Roger Sherman
Summary: 15 of 56 Signers were Freemasons or probable Freemasons.
It’s true that this represents only 27% of the total signers. But this 27% included the principle movers of the Revolution, most notably Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, the primary authors of the Declaration. The former was a Freemason, the latter a deist and possible Freemason. If one were to analyze the Declaration, he would see the humanistic influences.
In any event, there is no evidence that even 27% of the signers were true Christians. In considering whether or not this is a Christian nation, it isn’t the number of Masons that is as important as is the number of founders overall who were non-believers.
► SIGNERS OF THE CONSTITUTION
Known Masons (9): Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Blair, David Brearly, Jacob Broom, Daniel Carrol, John Dickinson, Benjamin Franklin, Rufus King, George Washington
Evidence of Membership And/or Affiliations (13): Abraham Baldwin, William Blount, Elbridge Gerry, Nicholas Gilman, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Lansing, Jr., James Madison, George Mason, George Read, Robert Morris, Roger Sherman, George Wythe
Those Who Later Became Masons (6): William Richardson Davie, Jr., Jonathan Dayton, Dr. James McHenry, John Francis Mercer, William Patterson, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer
Summary: 28 of 40 signers of the Constitution were Freemasons or possible Freemasons based on evidence other than Lodge records.
► MASONIC INFLUENCES IN EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY
● Lafayette, French liaison to the Colonies, without whose aid the war could not have been won, was a Freemason.
● The majority of the commanders of the Continental Army were Freemasons and members of “Army Lodges.”
● Most of Washington’s Generals were Freemasons.
● The Boston Tea Party was planned at the Green Dragon Tavern, also known as the “Freemasons’ Arms,” and “the Headquarters of the Revolution.”
● George Washington was sworn in as the first President of the United States by Robert Livingston, Grand Master of New York’s Masonic Lodge. The Bible on which he took his oath was from his own Masonic lodge.
● The Cornerstone of the Capital building was laid by the Grand Lodge of Maryland.
Even if the initiators of the Revolution had been Christians, the fact remains that the Revolutionary War and the nation’s government were structured by the tenets of Freemasonry, not God’s Word. It was an unholy alliance at best. Today there are over two million Freemasons in North America, and Masonic Lodges are found in almost every community throughout the United States. With the 2022 adult population of the United States estimated at being around 264 million and the Freemasons making up 2 million of that 264 million―that means 1 in every 132 adult persons is a Freemason! That includes not just men, but women too. If you limit it only to men―then around 1 in 65 men is a Freemason.
You can wield a heck of lot influence and control with those kinds of numbers―especially when you belong to a highly organized, rich and powerful organization such as Freemasonry! Those kinds of numbers dove-tail with what Our Lady had said of Freemasonry: “Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … The evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds!”
Not only has Satan seen to the creation of Freemasonry―Satan has also seen to the infiltration of all the major domains of life by Freemasonry: Government, Religion, Media, Entertainment, Education and Health ― not to mention the innumerable financial institutions, corporations, food chains, suppliers, and a whole variety of services, all the way down to grass roots levels. Just as God is said to be ubiquitous (which means being everywhere), so too is Satan trying to be ubiquitous by recruiting stooges and placing them everywhere ― all the way from the top to the very bottom.
Masonic U.S. Presidents
The following list shows the names of verifiable FREEMASONS AMONG THE 46 PRESIDENTS of the United States―which shows the endless streak of Masonic influence in the American political field.
GEORGE WASHINGTON (1732–1799): President from 1789 –1797: Initiated into Masonry in 1752. Elected Worshipful Master in 1788.
JAMES MONROE (1758–1831): President from 1817–1825: Initiated into Masonry in 1775.
ANDREW JACKSON (1767–1845): President from 1829–1837: Initiated into Masonry in (year unknown). Elected Grand Master in 1822.
JAMES K. POLK (1795–1849): President from 1845–1849: Initiated into Masonry in 1820.
JAMES BUCHANAN (1791–1868): President from 1857–1861: Initiated into Masonry in 1816. Appointed District Deputy Grand Master in 1824.
ANDREW JOHNSON (1808–1875): President from 1865–1869: Initiated into Masonry in 1851.
JAMES A. GARFIELD (1831–1881): President from 1881–1881: Initiated into Masonry in 1861.
WILLIAM MCKINLEY (1843–1901): President from 1897–1901: Initiated into Masonry in 1865.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT (1858–1919): President from 1901–1909: Initiated into Masonry in 1901.
WILLIAM H. TAFT (1857–1930): President from 1909–1913: Initiated into Masonry in 1909.
WARREN G. HARDING (1865–1923): President from 1921–1923: Initiated into Masonry in 1901.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT (1882–1945): President from 1933–1945: Initiated into Masonry in 1911. Made Honorary Grand Master of the Order of DeMolay in 1934.
HARRY S. TRUMAN (1884–1972): President from 1945–1953: Initiated into Masonry in 1909. First Worshipful Master of in 1911. Elected Grand Master of Missouri in 1940 and received the 33rd Degree in 1945. Made Honorary Grand Master of the Order of DeMolay in 1959.
GERALD FORD (1913–2006): President from 1974–1977: Initiated into Masonry in 1949. Made Honorary Grand Master of the Order of DeMolay in April 1975.
In addition to the individuals listed above…
LYNDON B. JOHNSON (1963-1969) was initiated into the first degree of Freemasonry – “Entered Apprentice” in 1937, but did not advance any further and did not become a full member of his lodge.
RONALD REAGAN (1981-1989) was made an honorary Freemason.
BILL CLINTON (1993-2001) was a member of the Order of DeMolay as a youth.
THOMAS JEFFERSON (1801-1809) was thought by many to be a Freemason; however, there is no record of him being initiated into any lodge, nor are there any references to Masonic membership in his personal papers.
All of the above verified Freemasons, honorary Freemasons, or putative Freemasons governed the United States in the capacity of president for a total of 104 years out of a total of the 233 years that have passed since the first president took office in 1789.
All of this merely “fleshes out” the “backbone” stated by Our Lady: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell … From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds … The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … The Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church.”
American Anti-Catholic Hatred
Anti-Catholic sentiments are part of the American historical record and, arguably, the most stunning thing about them is that they came forth at a time when there were almost no Catholics in America. At the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, roughly 2.15 million persons lived in the 13 colonies. The vast majority was of Anglo-Saxon-Celtic descent and nearly 100% were Protestant. Catholics played almost no role in the founding of America. Of the prominent American founders of the Revolution there were only two practicing Catholics, Charles Carroll of Carrollton and his cousin John “Jacky” Carroll.
Catholics had a reputation among Protestants as being the evil purveyors of darkness, oppression, and superstition. Historians have studied the motivations for anti-Catholicism in the history of the United States. The historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. characterized prejudice against Catholics as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people.” The historian John Higham described anti-Catholicism as “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.” The historian John Tracy Ellis wrote that a “universal anti-Catholic bias was brought to Jamestown in 1607 and vigorously cultivated in all the thirteen colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia.” Colonial charters and laws contained specific prohibitions against Roman Catholics having any political power. Ellis also noted that a common hatred of the Roman Catholic Church brought together Anglican and Puritan clergy and laity, despite their many other disagreements.
Bouts of anti-Catholicism were simply rooted in the American republican tradition, and blatant and violent acts against Roman Catholics can be found, time and again, all throughout the history of the United States. Catholics could not worship publicly, and children could even, by law, be removed permanently from their parents and sent to live with Protestant families in England if the Catholic parents attempted to educate their children in a “Catholic fashion.” Every American colony had some form of anti-Catholic law, except for Pennsylvania. The farther north you traveled, the stronger the anti-Catholicism became.
► The 1600s ― As early as the 1640s, for example, the New England colonies had passed a law that a man could enter a congregation only if armed with his weapon and firearm, in case of a Catholic or Indian attack. In 1642, the Colony of Virginia enacted a law prohibiting Catholic settlers. Five years later, a similar statute was enacted by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1649, the Act of Toleration was passed in Maryland, where “blasphemy and the calling of opprobrious religious names” became punishable offenses, but it was repealed in 1654 and thus Catholics were outlawed once again. By 1692, Catholic Maryland overthrew its Government, established the Protestant Church of England by force of law, and forced Catholics to pay heavy taxes towards its support. Catholics were cut off from all participation in politics and additional laws were introduced that outlawed the Mass, the Church’s Sacraments, and Catholic schools.
► The 1700s ― In 1719, Rhode Island imposed civil restrictions on Catholics, such as denial of voting rights. In the build-up to the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)―also known as the Revolutionary War, or American War of Independence―the friend and sympathizer of Freemasonry, John Adams, in his 1765 book, A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law, showed enormous anti-Catholic hatred. He was not alone.
The very first act of the Continental Congress, in 1774, was to pass a condemnation of any lifting of restrictions on Roman Catholics. In 1788, John Jay urged the New York Legislature to require office-holders to renounce the pope and foreign authorities “in all matters ecclesiastical as well as civil.” With the almost unanimous backing of the New England colonies, the condemnation found widespread support. When New England militia went into battle during the War for Independence, their war cry was: “No king, no popery!”
► The 1900s ― The 1800s were no different. Anti-Catholicism reached a peak in the mid-1800s when Protestant leaders became alarmed by the heavy influx of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany. Some Protestant leaders believed that the Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon that is mentioned in the Book of the Apocalypse. In the 1830s and 1840s, prominent Protestant leaders attacked the Catholic Church, by accusing it of being theologically unsound and also being an enemy of the government’s values. Intolerance of Catholics escalated into violence, when, in 1834, a mob set fire to an Ursuline convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts. This kind of attitude increased in its hatred of Catholics and was whipped into a frenzy of anti-Catholicism which led to mob violence, the burning of Catholic property, and the killing of Catholics. This violence was fed by claims that Catholics were destroying the culture of the United States.
In the 1900s, anti-Catholic sentiment was popular enough that The Menace, a weekly newspaper with a virulently anti-Catholic stance, was founded in 1911 and quickly reached a nationwide circulation of 1.5 million among a United States population of 92 million. Anti-Catholicism was widespread in the 1920s. Anti-Catholics, including the Ku Klux Klan, believed that Catholicism was incompatible with democracy and that parochial schools encouraged separatism and kept Catholics from becoming loyal Americans. All this increased hatred found its roots in the fierce anti-Catholicism of the Freemasons and the Ku Klux Klan. With the rapid growth of the second Ku Klux Klan (KKK) 1921–25, anti-Catholic rhetoric intensified. 1921, Father James Coyle was fatally shot on his rectory porch in Birmingham, Alabama. The shooter was Rev. E. R. Stephenson, a Southern Methodist Episcopal minister. The Klu Klux Klan collapsed in the mid-1920s.
In 1928, Democrat Al Smith became the first Roman Catholic to gain a major party's nomination for president, but his Catholic Faith became a major issue during the campaign. His nomination gave anti-Catholicism a rallying point―especially for Lutheran and Southern Baptist ministers. They warned that national autonomy would be threatened because Smith would be listening not to the American people but to secret orders from the pope. Across the country, Protestant ministers spoke out. A survey of 8,500 Southern Methodist ministers found only four who publicly supported Smith. Many Americans justified their opposition to Smith because they believed the Catholic Church was an “un-American” and “alien” culture that opposed freedom and democracy. They claimed that the Catholic Church was hostile to American principles of separation of Church and State and of religious toleration.
The War Weakens Anti-Catholicism―but also Weakens the Faith
The Second World War (1939-1945), which brought about America’s involvement, was the decisive event that brought some religious tolerance to the front in American life. The military had to develop personnel policies that mixed America’s diverse white ethnic and religious population. The sudden removal from the comforts of home, the often degrading and humiliating experiences of military life, and the unity and friendship-building procedures used in military training, reminded the soldiers of all they had in common as Americans. Under fire, the men survived by leaning on buddies, regardless of their ethnicity or religion. After coming home, the veterans helped reshape American society. The massive changes in ethnic and religious relations and toleration in the United States came from the military experience in the Second World War. However, this also served to weaken the Faith of staunch Catholics, who were now readily and frequently mixing with non-Catholics. This created a false ecumenism that American Catholics began to live―and which was “exported” to the Second Vatican Council when it eventually began in 1962.
More Than Just Anti-Catholic
Freemasonry is not just anti-Catholic, but also anti-Christian (Protestant version) and anti-State and anti-morality. Fifteen years after the foundation of modern-day Freemasonry in 1723, POPE CLEMENT XII in his 1738 Pontifical Constitution “In Eminenti” condemned Freemasonry as being Counter-Church and Counter-State: “We have resolved and decreed to condemn and forbid such societies, assemblies, reunions, conventions, aggregations or meetings called either Freemasonic, or known under some other denomination. We condemn and forbid them by this, our present constitution, which is to be considered valid for ever.”
POPE BENEDICT XIV ― in his 1751 Constitution “Providas” ― inserted in full In Eminenti, the Bull which had been written by his predecessor, Clement XII, in order to make it very evident that the condemnation of Freemasonry was irrevocable and was to be applied to the future as well as to the present. Furthermore, in his Constitution, “Providas,” Benedict XIV enumerates six reasons which drove Pope Clement XII to strike Secret Societies; they are (1) the Interconfessonalism (or Interfaith) of Freemasons; (2) their secret; (3) their oath; (4) their opposition to Church and State; (5) the interdiction pronounced against them in several States by the Heads of such countries; and, (6) their immorality which the Pope characterizes thus: “Those Societies―according to men who are prudent and honest―are ill-famed, and, to become a member thereof, would lead to evil and perversion.”
Soon after his election as POPE LEO XII, in his 1825 Encyclical “Quo Graviora”, condemned Freemasonry, as well as all other Secret Societies: “We have endeavored to discover the state, number and influence of secret societies and We easily have been able to acknowledge that, if only due to the number of new sects which have joined them, their audacity has increased ... What is definitely ascertained is that those different sects, despite the diversity of their names, are all united and linked by the similarity of their infamous plans ... They have dared publish works on Religion and Affairs of State, they have exposed their contempt for authority, their hatred of Sovereignty, their attacks against the Divinity of Jesus Christ and the very existence of God. They openly vaunt their materialism, as well as their codes and statutes, which explain their plans and efforts in order to overthrow the legitimate Heads of State and completely destroy the Church. Those men are like those to whom, according to Saint John, the Apostle, hospitality and greetings should be denied. (2 John 5:10). They are the same men whom our Fathers, without hesitation, termed as being the first-born of the devil.”
POPE PIUS VIII, in his 1829 Encyclical “Traditi”, renewed all the condemnations of Freemasons made by his predecessors, repeating that all Masonic sects come from the “Well of Perdition,” adding that “Its aim is to corrupt youth in schools” and he applies to Masons those words of Pope St. Leo the Great: “Their law is untruth: their god is the devil and their cult is turpitude.”
POPE GREGORY XVI, in his 1832, Encyclical Mirari Vos wrote: “Truly indeed we can say that this is the hour granted to the power of darkness to grind the elect as wheat ... Evil comes out of Secret Societies, bottomless abyss of misery, which those conspiring societies have dug and in which heresies and sects have, as may be said, vomited as in a toilet all they hold of licentiousness, sacrilege and blasphemy.”
POPE PIUS IX, in his 1846 Encyclical ― written on November 9th, around 8 weeks after Our Lady’s apparition at La Salette in France ― Pope Pius IX condemned Freemasonry and similar organizations, who “pursue a merciless war against the Catholic Religion, the Divine Authority of the Church and its laws in order to trample upon the rights of both the Ecclesiastical and Civil power … Such is the aim of those Secret Societies issuing from darkness, seeking the eventual ruin of Religion and States … We condemn this Masonic Society and all other societies of the same order which―although different in appearance, but pursuing the same aim against the Church or legitimate Civil Power―are constantly being formed. The Satanic spirit of the Sect was particularly evidenced, in the past century, during the course of the Revolutions of France which shook the entire world ... The Masonic Sect of which we speak has been neither defeated nor overthrown―just the reverse. The Sect has developed to such an extent that, in these days of great difficulty, it shows itself everywhere with impunity and raises a more audacious face … Those abominable sects of perdition which are fatally destructive of the salvation of souls as of the welfare and peace of secular society … We, once again, condemn, forbid and anathematize them. ”
POPE LEO XIII, in his 1884 Encyclical Humanum Genus, also condemns Freemasonry: “Today, evil doers all seem to be allied in a tremendous effort, inspired by and with the help of a society powerfully organized and widely spread over the world, which is the Society of Freemasons. In fact, those people no longer even try to hide their intentions … They now publicly and openly undertake to ruin the Holy Church, so as to succeed, if it is possible, in the complete dispossession of Christian nations of all the gifts they owe to Our Savior Jesus Christ. As a result, in the space of a century and a half, the sect of the Freemasons has made incredible progress. Making use at the same time of audacity and cunning, Masonry has invaded all the ranks of social hierarchy, and, in the modern States, it has begun to seize a power which is almost equivalent to Sovereignty … There is no denying that in this foolish and criminal plan it is easy to understand the implacable hatred and passion for revenge which animate Satan toward Jesus Christ. We refuse to follow the dictates of such iniquitous masters that bear the names of Satan and of all evil passions.”
POPE BENEDICT XV, in his letter to Cardinal Gasparri on June 20th, 1919, speaks “the inept and essentially anti-Catholic doctrine of Freemasonry, a doctrine issued from deism, born of the Reformation. A doctrine which, as it is today clearly evident, leads fatally to the very denial of God, to social atheism, to irreligious teaching and impiety and is greatly detrimental to nations; it aims at removing from every association every trace of religion and every Church mediation.”
POPE PIUS XI, on November 16th, 1923, stated: “Masonry is our mortal enemy.”
American Mason on Global Conspiracy
The masons took great pride in ensuring that their order stayed private and was not known to the outside world. Masons―who were in the public eye like George Washington and Ben Franklin―did not openly connect their political views to their Masonic association. Without any concrete evidence of what the Masons believed, it has been left open to the speculation and interpretation of later Masons and historians. A view, that is shared by all, is that Masons, during the revolutionary period, were the ones pushing for America to break away from Great Britain and become its own nation. Can the same be said today concerning things like “The Great Reset”, “New World Order”, “One World Government” and “One World Religion” ― in short, a “Global Conspiracy”?
Nothing changes―as we see in the case of former House Representative, the Democrat Nick Rahall who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 2015, who is also a 73-year-old Freemason as well as being a 33rd Degree Mason, who joined the Freemasons about five years before he ran for Congress in 1976. Rahall said he achieved his 33rd Degree status by two routes: through the Scottish Rite and through the York Rite, where he participated in the Commandery―which is the section of the Freemason tradition that makes Rahall a Knight Templar. In a 2009 interview, after answering some questions on Freemasonry, he was asked: “So is there a global conspiracy?” Rahall replied: “No!” The reporter then said: “But you wouldn’t tell me if there was―would you?” To which Rahall replied with a smile: “That’s right!”
Mark Schmeller, a history professor at Syracuse University, states that from the time of the Masonic foundation of the United States, Freemasonry continued to grow in the United States during the first two decades of the 19th century, in part because it was a good way for people who wanted to enter politics to network: “It’s a way for professional men, newspaper editors and politicians to kind of get to know one another,” he says. “So, if you’re embarking on a political career, it’s a pretty good idea to join a Masonic lodge.”
Freemasonry was the first widespread and well-connected organization to espouse religious toleration and liberty—principles that the fraternity helped spread through the American colonies. In its symbols and ideas, Masonry conveyed a sense that something new was being born in America: that the individual's conscience was beyond denominational affiliation or government command.
Article 5
Monday November 7th, 2022
To Elect or Eject? Reject or Resurrect? Neglect or Genuflect?
A Look at Elections, Politics and God
Monday November 7th, 2022
To Elect or Eject? Reject or Resurrect? Neglect or Genuflect?
A Look at Elections, Politics and God
The Politics of Man versus the Politics of God
It can clearly be seen that Christ has been increasingly uncrowned and dethroned in one country after another―with man taking the place and usurping the authority of God! “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven upon the children of men―to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside! They are become unprofitable together! There is none that doth good―no, not one! Their throat is an open sepulcher! With their tongues they acted deceitfully! The poison of asps is under their lips! Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness! Their feet are swift to shed blood! Destruction and unhappiness in their ways and the way of peace they have not known! There is no fear of God before their eyes! They have not called upon the Lord! There have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear!” (Psalm 13:2-5). “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). When Pontius Pilate presented Christ before the Jews, saying: “‘Behold your King!’ But they cried out: ‘Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him!’ Pilate saith to them: ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered: ‘We have no king but Caesar!’” (John 19:14-15).
Away with God’s Laws! We Will Make Our Own Laws!
Today, the vast majority―and an ever increasing majority―also cry out concerning Christ: “Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him! We have no king but [fill in the blank]!’ They do not want to listen to Christ’s teachings! They refuse to obey His commandments! They have fallen for the multitude of temptations presented to them by Satan―the prince of this world―and seek to become gods unto themselves; to decide for themselves what to believe and what not to believe; and what is good and what is evil. They trash the commandments of God and replace them with the commandments of men. They refuse to call abortion, contraception, masturbation, cohabitation, divorce and remarriage, LGBT relations, drug and alcohol abuse, immodesty and blasphemy as evil things―but now hold to be good or at least acceptable. Politicians and governments legislate for these things―giving them free rein and freedom under the law. “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil! Woe to you that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes, and prudent in your own conceits! Woe to you that are mighty to drink wine, and stout men at drunkenness! ... For they have cast away the law of the Lord, and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One!” (Isaias 5:20-24).
The bottom line is that most of the world has voted God out of politics and condemned Him to the closet of Sunday religion. The world has more or less divorced God―even Catholics―whereby they might “worship” God on Sunday, but then they will live pagans from Monday to Saturday. This is true of the spiritual life, social life, cultural life and politics. Everyone can a have a god in their closet―but other than that, no god is invited to the “party.”
Satan’s Virus of Pride and Rebellion
God is not indifferent to the politics of man―God wants to be at the heart of man’s politics. In a certain sense, that is how God “set things up” in the first place for both angels and men. Yet Lucifer caused the first separation between Church (God) and State (the angels) with his infamous cry of “Non serviam!” ― meaning, “I will not serve!” and a third of the angels followed Lucifer in this separation of Church (God) and State (the angels).
The “separation virus” was born and Lucifer next infected Eve, by encouraging her to separate herself from God’s commands and laws―thus achieving a separation of “Church and State” by causing a division between God and man. Lucifer achieved this by seducing Eve with the idea that she and Adam could be like gods unto themselves: “Your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods―knowing good and evil!” (Genesis 3:5) ― an offer Eve found too hard to resist. Lucifer played on Eve’s pride and used that pride to separate her from God through disobedience. She separated herself from God’s law, ate the forbidden fruit, and caught the “non serviam virus”, which she then passed on to Adam by getting him to disobey God also. Adam and Eve, having caught the “separation virus” or “non serviam virus”, then passed it on to their descendents ― we know the virus by the name of “Original Sin” ― which is essentially, as the Church teaches, a sin of pride and disobedience.
This pride and disobedience currently oozes from the pores of politicians around the world―their pride leads them to despise the laws of God and they readily and willingly show disobedience to the laws of their Creator. They have lost their way and they are losing their souls―as well as dragging many souls with them into Hell, as the “sheeple” follow those Pied-Piper politicians into the pit. They are the “blind leaders” that Our Lord speaks of: “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14). “O foolish people, and without understanding: who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and hear not!” (Jeremias 5:21). “Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a provoking house―who have eyes to see, and see not: and ears to hear, and hear not―for they are a provoking house!” (Ezechiel 12:2). “For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut―lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them!” (Matthew 13:15).
Christ Seeks Those Who Are Lost
Yet that is what God wishes to do―to heal and to save―despite the unprecedented sinfulness of the world. “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” says Our Lord (Luke 19:10) … “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32) … “Go then and learn what this meaneth: ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice!’ For I am not come to call the just, but sinners!” (Matthew 9:13). We have an integral and important part to play in penetrating today’s “hearts of stone” and trying to give them a “heart of flesh” ― “I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 36:26) ― and it through our prayers, penances and sacrifices that this can be obtained. This conversion of sinners is not a “freebie”, but has to be paid by prayer, penance and sacrifice―and lots of them. Sin is expensive and costly―therefore conversions are not cheap. It is not “mission impossible”― no matter how evil the world and politics is, for “where sin abounded, grace did more abound!” (Romans 5:20).
The problem is that we are not seeking those graces of conversion nor are we paying for them ― even though Our Lady of Fatima asked for that payment, not even exempting young children from the task! She asked a 10-year-old (Lucia), an 8-year-old (Francisco) and a 7-year-old (Jacinta) to pray, sacrifice and suffer for sinners: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.” We do not have to be in politics to be able to influence politics. It is the grace of God that influences the entire world―yet that grace is not cheap.
Lazy Lukewarm Soldiers of Christ
We can change the world―but nobody, or very few, are willing to pay the price. Until we reconsider and change our minds, there will be no change in the fatal direction in which the world is being led by its politicians and politics. We have it in our power to do something―but we refuse to do so! In one sense, our guilt is as great if not greater, and our punishment will most likely be greater than that of these neo-pagans: “That servant who knew the will of his lord, and prepared not himself, and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes!” (Luke 12:47). We have not been placed in this world to have fun and enjoy life as much as possible―we have been placed on Earth as Catholics to be soldiers for Christ, the salt of the Earth, the light of the world, and the leaven that raises up the bread. “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men! You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and hide it under a table, but put it upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men!” (Matthew 5:13-16).
Obey Caesar Rather Than Christ!
Today―Christianity and Politics seem to be an explosive mixture. For most people, it is prudent and even desirable to keep Christianity out of politics―which is the false idea that there can be a separation of Church and State. Such people are always quoting Holy Scripture as proof of their position, where Christ said: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God, the things that are God’s!” (Matthew 22:21) and glue it onto another quote of Christ’s: “My kingdom is not of this world!” … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36) as well as the Scripture which says: “Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation. For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil” (Romans 13:1-3) ― but what if those rulers, those princes, those higher powers are themselves evil or are proposing evil things, or even legislating evil things? What then? Obedience to authorities is fine and good―if they themselves require and command what is good. But that’s a far cry from the notion that whatever the government does is somehow automatically right, or replacements for God’s will, or irresistible in their power. Daniel rightly disobeys the political edict that he must bow down to the king. The Hebrew midwives are blessed by God for disobeying Pharaoh. Rahab is heralded as an example of Faith, in both Hebrews 11 and in the book of James, for her disobedience to the political authorities in Jericho.
Obey God Rather Than Men!
For Our Lord is equally clear on who is boss, when He says: “All power is given to me in Heaven and in Earth!” (Matthew 28:18) and when He tells Pontius Pilate: “Thou shouldst not have any power against Me, unless it were given thee from above” (John 19:11) ― which is echoed by St. Paul: “There is no power but from God” (Romans 13:1) ― with St. Peter adding: “We ought to obey God, rather than men!” (Acts 5:29) ―especially when those men propose evil or legislate for evil. “For we must ALL (not just believers) be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10).
Though true Christians―not the false Christians who support abortion, divorce and remarriage, same-sex relations and marriage, contraception, LGBT and the rest―true Christians have become a minority, both socially and in politics. There is barely a politician anywhere who has not compromised on God’s laws and accepted and voted for legislation supporting sin. It is almost as though entering politics increases you chances of damnation a hundredfold or a thousandfold. It is such politics and such politicians that MUST be resisted by true Christians. Our Lord is clear on the matter: “He that is not with Me, is against Me: and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth!” (Matthew 12:30). That resistance must first and foremost be a resistance that uses the weapons of prayer and sacrifice―for, as Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Without Our Lord and His powerful graces, we are not going to change anyone, nor reform any political party or politician!
Change Means and Requires Suffering
“But before all these things, they will lay their hands upon you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for My Name’s sake. Lay it up therefore into your hearts, not to meditate before how you shall answer―for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and speak against!” (Luke 21:12-15). “For they shall deliver you up to councils, and in the synagogues you shall be beaten, and you shall stand before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony unto them. And when they shall lead you and deliver you up, be not thoughtful beforehand what you shall speak; but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye. For it is not you that speak―but the Holy Ghost!” (Mark 13:9-11). “You shall be brought before governors, and before kings for My sake―for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak―for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak. For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you!” (Matthew 10:18-20).
There is no simple blueprint or rule that we can apply in all times and in all cases to get this exactly right. It is our ongoing task as Christians―being firstly citizens of God’s kingdom and only secondly citizens of earthly kingdoms―to live so as to give government its proper respect without seeing it as completely corrupt or evil on the one hand (as if God hasn’t ordained it) or treating it as completely infallible on the other (as if God has made government His infallible representative on Earth). When the government loses sight of God, loses Faith in God, opposes the laws of God―then, in God’s eyes, it becomes an enemy of God. Governments are not exempt from Christ’s command of “SEEK YE FIRST the kingdom of God and HIS justice!” (Luke 12:31), as well as “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Mark 12:30; Matthew 22:37-38). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words … If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love … This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you” (John 14:15, 14:21-24; 15:10; 15:12). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).
Separate Yourself from the Worldly Ones … Or Else!
“Bear not the yoke with unbelievers! What fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God! As God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17). “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places!” (Ephesians 6:12). “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
The problem is that most Catholics are well and truly integrated into the world―they are at home with the world, comfortable in the world, and loving the world! They have become enemies of God! In that role of enemies of God, they have no problem voting for and electing enemies of God into positions of power on the political stage! God help us!
Part of the World but Apart From the World
If our heads were “screwed-on-strait” then we would understand that we may well be a part of this world, but we must also keep ourselves apart from this world―as the above Scripture says: “Go out from among them, and be ye separate! … Be not conformed to this world … that we be not condemned with this world!” As Our Lord points out, Satan is the prince of this world: “The prince of this world cometh! … Now shall the prince of this world be cast out … because the prince of this world is already judged!” (John 14:30; 12:31; 16:11).
As Our Lady warned: “From the end of the 19th century and especially during the 20th century … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … The Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis! … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds! … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth!” Holy Scripture adds: “That old serpent―who is called the devil and Satan―seduceth the whole world!” (Apocalypse 12:9).
Modern day politics is satanic politics―it is inspired and ruled by the spirit of Satan. Our Lord would say to most modern politicians what He once said to some of the Jews: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do! He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth―because truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Modern day politics is largely built upon deception and lies―as we see in the following quote. Barbara Honegger―Assistant to the Chief Domestic Policy Adviser to President Reagan―revealed that William Casey, CIA Director from 1981 to 1987, allegedly said to President Reagan during a Presidential Briefing in early February of 1981: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
Call it what you want―misinformation, disinformation, distortion, deception, propaganda or just plain lies―it ultimately stems from the “father of lies”, Satan. Today’s world labors under a tsunami of lies, deception, misinformation, disinformation, half-truths, exaggerations, fabrications and propaganda. Hitler’s propagandist, Joseph Goebbels used to say: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it!” We see that to be so very true today―especially with the ubiquitous tools supplied by modern technology―which, in the hands of Satan’s human minions, constantly bombard us with an endless stream of lies and propaganda.
Puppet Politicians and Puppet Masters
It is often said that politicians―especially those at the top end of the political ladder―are merely puppets who are controlled by the unseen puppet-masters behind the scenes, the money-men, the elite, or, as some call them “Deep State” or “The Swamp”―but “Deep State” or “The Swamp” is itself in the hands of higher powers―Satan himself. This is the hallmark, trademark, preferred tactic of Satan himself―proud though he is, he prefers to work behind the scenes, subtly, craftily, quietly, allowing the glory of his successes to be given to his human stooges or instruments.
Perhaps “puppet-masters” is an appropriate term―for politics is merely a stage, a circus, a game, a distraction that allows those “pulling-the-strings” to quietly, hiddenly, subtly, craftily work behind the scenes of the “smoke-and-mirrors” political stage that they have created and control. Talking of “control”―it seems that never before have been more controllable and malleable that in the present “dumbed-down” era.
A Nation of Idiots
A Chicago Tribune article, entitled “Political Circus Embarrassing, Not Entertaining” from October 4th, 2018, states: “America by and large is full of idiots ... boring, pathetic … fat, dumb people, who have no interests except McDonald's and malls … Many of the cable news networks air the same tired, yet successful formula―give viewers 10% of actual news followed by 90% of pontification from a peanut gallery of self-described experts ... Too many national media outlets focus on the opinions on the latest scandal. And we keep getting stabbed in the eye by our political leaders with help from national media … To the rest of the world, we must appear to be, yes, a nation full of idiots. Deep down, we know this to be true. Yet we don't do anything about it. It’s an embarrassment!”
You could almost call politics as an extension of Hollywood. It claims that it is “a government of the people, by the people and for the people” ― but you would have to say it more of a “theater of people to fool the people” ― a “front”, a “distraction” that is meant to make people focus on the wrong things, secondary things, while they are being pick-pocketed of the rights and freedoms. This is the “magical” world of politics, which follows the stage or theatrical “magician’s” principles of deception.
Magically Fooled
In theatrical magic, misdirection is a form of deception in which the performer draws audience attention to one thing to distract it from another. Managing audience attention is the aim of all theater, and the foremost requirement of all magic acts. In magic, the performer and the audience share an understanding―feats that appear to be real are actually optical illusions. When executed properly, all magic, deceives observers, tricking them into believing what they see. Magicians pull this off using the art of misdirection. Misdirection—or direction, as some magicians prefer to call it—is the subtle, deceptive art of directing an audience’s attention towards one thing (a magical effect) so it does not notice another (the method or mechanics of a trick). It can refer to both the effect of a spectator’s mind being focused on an unimportant thing, or the action that causes it.
Magicians misdirect audience attention in two basic ways. One leads the audience to look away for a fleeting moment, so that they don’t detect some sleight-of-hand or move. The other approach re-frames the audience’s perception, distracting them into thinking that an extraneous factor has much to do with the accomplishment of the feat (trick), when it really has no bearing on the effect at all. The true skill of the magician is in the skill he exhibits in influencing the spectator’s mind. “Misdirection has nothing to do with distraction. It has everything to do with controlling audience attention, at all times” (Gary Kurtz, magician). “Not only shouldn’t they see anything, they shouldn’t suspect anything” (Erdnase, magician). “As a magician, you must learn how magicians use misdirection to make sure your spectators don’t see the things you do not want them to see. It’s not about hiding moves. It’s not about turning your back while you do a suspicious half pass; it’s about controlling audience attention so that when you are going to make a move, the audience is not only focused somewhere else, but they don’t even suspect you are doing anything. It is about making sure that suspicion doesn’t even cross your spectator’s mind” (Merchant of Magic). You would imagine that magicians would make the best politicians!
In The Encyclopedia of Magic and Magicians, author T.A. Waters writes that “Misdirection is the cornerstone of nearly all successful magic; without it, even the most skilled Sleight of Hand or mechanical device is unlikely to create an illusion of real magic.” Misdirection uses the limits of the human mind to give the wrong picture and memory. The mind of a typical audience member can only concentrate on one thing at a time. The magician uses this to manipulate the audience's ideas, or, perceptions of sensory input, leading them to false conclusions. As one magician, Tommy Wonder, says: “When a great magician uses misdirection correctly, the audience doesn’t FEEL distracted at all. Quite opposite, they would swear they’ve been staring at the magician’s hands the entire time—and that they’ve NEVER looked away. That’s what misdirection is all about. We want our spectators to believe that THEY are in control of their attention. In reality, we choose where they look, and what they see, at every moment.”
In the book, The Secret Art of Magic, authors Eric Evans and Nowlin Craver state that magic is directly related to warfare, and relies on the same principles for success. They reference the Ancient Chinese military strategist, Sun Tzu’s book, Art of War, to show how deception is essential to any successful campaign. Craver goes on to illustrate, through the 36 strategies, how they form a blueprint for every known method of misdirection. In World War II, British military intelligence employed stage magician Jasper Maskelyne to help devise various forms of misdirection such as ruses, deception, and camouflage.
Take, for example, the Trump impeachment fiasco ― it was merely the latest in a never-ending series of distractions, distortions, and political theater aimed at diverting the public’s attention from the sinister advances of the American Police State. That has been succeeded by the latest movie: “Coronavirus Plannedemic” or “Covid-19 and the Masked Men”, also known as “SARS-CoV2” which you say stands for “Stupid Abysmal Reasoning Skills Conned Over Virus Too!”
Dumb, Distracted and Deceived
Dumbed-down, entertainment stuffed, media-drunk, internet-infested, couch-potato Christian soldiers of Christ have allowed themselves to be distracted, diverted or mesmerized by the cheap theater tricks. These “Hollywood” made spectacles are Shakespearean in their scope. The wall-to-wall media coverage full of sound, fury and fear―stirs the emotions, fools the mind, but signifies little or nothing in comparison to the things they are distracting you from―the more important and more sinister things that are being planned behind the scenes.
We’ve been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so long—sold to us in the name of national security and global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised as law and order, and enforced by a standing army of militarized police and a political elite determined to maintain their powers at all costs—that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started going downhill, but we’re certainly on that downward trajectory now, and things are moving fast. The Republic has fallen. The “Deep State’s” plot to take over America has succeeded in all but the final icing on the cake. The cake is cooked. The American system of representative government has been overthrown by a profit-driven, militaristic, corporate oligarchy bent on total control and global domination through the imposition of martial law here at home and by fomenting wars abroad. Even now, we are being pushed and prodded towards a civil war, not because the American people are so divided but because that’s how corrupt governments control a populace (i.e., divide and conquer).
Political Power is Often Satanic Power
Politicians aspire to power, are elected to powerful positions and this power brings its own temptations ― especially if you are not in a state of sanctifying grace (and most of the world is not in a state of grace), which can then very easily lead you down the slippery slopes of corruption. On this point, it is well worth remembering the words of the recently deceased (2016) former chief-exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, on the topic of politicians and leaders in general (business and otherwise). Fr. Amorth said: “Satanism is spreading enormously! The loss of a sense of sin―that characterizes our era―helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God, weakens the consciences of men and women and leads them toward egoism, closing their hearts, lack of forgiveness, and doing everything for money, power, and sex. The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Satanism is on the increase. Today Satan rules the world. The masses no longer believe in God. And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! Evil exists in politics, quite often in fact! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!” (Fr. Gabriele Amorth).
Our Lady, in her revelations to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, adds: “The inestimable treasure of the virtue of divine Faith is hidden to those mortals who have only carnal and earthly eyes. How many men―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―on account of the lack of light of Faith, have precipitated themselves from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell! How many kingdoms and provinces, being blind themselves, follow these still more blind leaders until they together fall into the abyss of eternal pains, and they are followed by the bad Christians, who having received the grace and blessing of Faith, live as if they had it not in their hearts! … There are very few in the world in our days who use well the temporal riches and offer them to their God and Lord … Witness how cruel and avaricious human nature has become … Witness the nobility of the souls so degraded and abased in the service of vile greed of gold with all its evil powers. As if all things had been created for the individual use of the rich, they amass them to themselves and deprive the poor, and denying them even to God, Who created and preserves all things, and Who can give or take at will … Trusting in deceit and in the powerful of this world; those that are not moderate in their desires and greedily covet what is unnecessary for the sustenance of life; they anxiously cling to what they possess, fearing that it may be diminished … There are few who know how to use wealth properly and who can retain it without inordinate greed … It is most lamentable that while the rich might purchase eternal life with their possessions, they abuse them to draw upon themselves damnation!”
The Politics of Greed
Usually―almost exclusively―politics focuses on greed. Politics plays on the natural greed that we have for things and money (money buys more things). Politics knows that we are greedy and it will feed the greed by promising more of something―bigger wages that bring you more money; tax cuts that save your money; and all kinds of benefits and handouts. Two of the most common campaign promises revolve around tax cuts and job creation. Presidential candidates make a lot of promises while they are campaigning. However, these promises are, more often than not, used as pleasing, persuasive, pleasurable sound bytes rather than being actual real promises that are going to be kept.
We have all experienced greed and its effects at some time in our lives. Most children experience greed in relation to food— endlessly longing for sweets, longings that lead to hoarding, stealing, or some combination of these. Excessive indulgence in favorite foods, especially sweet ones, by children often leads to sickness. Consequently, many of us learn while quite young that greed has its dangers, that it causes suffering. Yet we kid ourselves into thinking that there is just no way that money and wealth will bring us suffering! Some people desire riches, money and wealth far more than they desire Heaven!
Greed is one amongst many seeds of sinfulness that Original Sin plants within us. Today―with all the advances in science and technology―we live in what could be called a “Culture of Greed”. The dictionaries define greed as:
● An excessive desire to acquire or possess, as wealth, or power, beyond what one needs or deserves.
● A selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed.
● An uncontrolled longing for increase in the acquisition or use of material gain (food, money, land, or possessions); or social value, such as status, or power.
● An intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food.
● The desire to have more of something―such as food or money―more than is necessary or fair.
● An excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth, possessions or power.
Consider greed as an emotional hunger where more is never enough. Have you ever heard one of your Liberal friends complain about government greed? Corporate greed, perhaps―but government greed: never or rarely. Yet greed for political power is more dangerous than greed for money. Power is harder to measure than money, especially power springing from “excessive desire” to tell other people what to think, want, feel, do, or how to live. Politicians are in the business of acquiring power―while claiming to serve the public good. Yet more and more people notice that “service” is not always the goal of the politician―certainly not the service of the people, but more so in being at the service of corporations and money merchants and the furthering of their interests.
The salary of a politician ranges from zero to six figures in the United States, with those serving at the local levels earning the least and those elected to state and federal offices earning the most. The president of the United States is paid $400,000 a year. The vice president earns $235,100 annually. The House Speaker makes $223,500, Majority and Minority Leaders earn $193,400. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate earn a base salary of $174,000 a year―some earn more than the mere salary. On top of their base salary, Members of the House receive a $900,000 annual allowance for a staff, as well as a $250,000 budget for travel and office expenses, paid for entirely by taxpayers. Each Senator, on the other hand, gets a budget close to $3.3 million. Governors are paid between $70,000 and $201,000. Full-time elected lawmakers, at the state level, make an average of $75,415. California’s legislature gives a $110,459 base salary for lawmakers―which is the highest in the nation. Senators and representatives may only earn up to 15% in excess of their annual congressional salary. Federal laws prevent them from earning any income from fiduciary relationships. This rule helps prevent any conflicts of interest within Congress. Congress members may earn income from their personal investments since the law considers them "unearned" income. This could include money made from rent, interest or stock dividends. These earnings don't contribute to the 15% rule because members in this situation collect income on assets they already own. Furthermore, Members of Congress have 72% of their health care premiums paid for by a federal subsidy. After serving for five years, a member of Congress becomes eligible for a pension plan. Their retirement benefits depend on their plan, age and time served in Congress. A member of Congress can collect their full pension at the age of 62, or earlier if they are 50 years old with 20 years of service. Their pension can give them up to 80% of their final salary. Based on the current Congressional pay of $174,000 per year, an 80% pension grants members a lifelong pension benefit of $139,200.
Warnings Against Greed
In the fifth century, St. Augustine wrote: “Greed is not a defect in the gold that is desired, but a defect in the man who loves it perversely by falling from justice, which he ought to esteem as being incomparably superior to gold.”
St. Thomas Aquinas states greed “is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things.” He also wrote that “greed can be a sin directly against one's neighbor, since one man cannot be superabundant in external riches, without another man lacking them―because temporal goods cannot be possessed by many at the same time.”
Holy Scripture warns against the dangers of money, which can also be applied to the dangers of power that money often purchases―for we also speak of the “purchasing power” of money: “We brought nothing into this world and certainly we can carry nothing out! They that want to become rich, fall into temptation and into the snare of the devil, and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires, which drown men into destruction and perdition. For the desire of money [and also power] is the root of all evils―some, by coveting it, have erred from the Faith and have entangled themselves in many sorrows!” (1 Timothy 6:7-10).
Hence we have the modern-day proverb: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely!” ― which is taken from a letter by Lord Acton to Bishop Creighton, wherein he writes: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority!”
Our Lady spoke of the tragic consequences of greed―words that could just as well be addressed to the politicians of this day and age: “God knows, in His wisdom, the endless damage caused in mortals by greed and covetousness of visible things; and God knows that this insane love will pervert the greater part of the mankind, who are lost by the vice of avarice and cupidity. How many men are not fascinated by their unbounded greed? This blind greed is the root of all evils! There are very few in the world in our days who use well the temporal riches and offer them to their God. All of them ordinarily stake their hopes on gold and material riches; and, in order to increase them, they exert all the forces of their natural being. Those who have riches, trust in them―and those who have none, greedily chase after them! Some obtain them by very reprehensible ways and means! Some confide in influential persons, praising and flattering them. They show vanity; they indulge greed and avarice; they serve their own interest; they love money, they place their hopes in treasures of silver and gold; they submit to the flatteries and to the slavery of the worldly and powerful. They are not moderate in their desires and greedily covet what is unnecessary for the sustenance of life; those that anxiously cling to what they possess, fearing that it may be diminished. And if they are thus weighed down before acquiring riches, how much more weighed down are they when they have come into possession of those riches and possessions? Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it; let their incalculable anxieties of preserving their riches, and much more, let the intolerable laws, which riches and those that possess them have foisted upon the world, testify what is required to retain them! The lovers of its vanity have subjected themselves and are following the standard and the fables of the devil.
“And so it happens that very few seek the Lord in such a way as to deserve His providential care. Very few trust in God, who is willing to provide for His children, who will nourish and sustain them without fail in all necessities. This deceitful error has filled the Earth with lovers of the world; it has filled the world with avarice and concupiscence against the law of the Creator; it has made men insane in their desires―for all of them commonly chase after riches and earthly possessions; claiming, thereby, merely to satisfy their needs―which is only a lame pretext for hiding their lack of interest in higher things, spiritual things. The wisdom of the flesh has made men ignorant, foolish and hostile to God! Thus they spend all the time of their life―which was given them in order to gain eternal salvation and happiness―in these vanities. They lose themselves in these dark labyrinths and mazes! It is the height of perversion for man to mix up the end and the means in an affair so important and urgent as the salvation of his soul―whereby he devotes all his time, all his care, all the exertion of his powers and all the alertness of his mind to the life of his body, of which he knows not the duration nor the end, and that, on the other hand, in many years of his existence he spares only one hour for his poor soul, and that hour is very often the last hour and the worst one of his whole life!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Elitist Power is a Corrupt Power
Satan―the “prince of this world” (John 12:31; 16:11; 14:30)―dangles riches and power in the face of many of his targets whom he seeks to enslave into his service. Satan even tried that tactic on Our Lord during the temptations that be besieged Our Lord with in the desert: “Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights … the devil took Him up into a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: ‘All these will I give Thee, if, falling down, Thou wilt adore me!’” (Matthew 4:1-9). Jesus refused to fall down and adore Satan―but there have been many who were only too willing to bow down and adore Satan in exchange for power and riches!
The recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, said: “Satan continually tries to dominate the world ― the whole world is in the power of the evil one! … Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies … He seeks to enslave men by making them obey himself and disobey God. The Devil does not like to be seen … Satan hides and disguises himself in a thousand ways … The devil prefers this way … Satan works through his empire of evil. Satan uses his churches, his cult, his devotees, his adorers, the followers of his promises. Satan gives specific powers to his followers for the destruction of body and soul―just as Christ gave His Apostles and followers specific powers for the good of body and soul. The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Satanism is on the increase. Today Satan rules the world. The masses no longer believe in God. And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority―those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!” Even though we have “Separation of Church and State”―it seems there is no separation of Satan and State!
The Church of Satan, on its website, dedicates a page to politics, wherein it states the following: “The Church of Satan does not have an “official” political position ... Satanists do not exist to serve any political agenda … The Church of Satan is a loosely knit cabal of individuals whose political opinions may (and do) vary … We as an organization only need to continue, as we have for five decades, to offer the tools through which our members may see through the conceptual traps that enslave the masses … As has been said many times before―one’s politics are up to each individual member, and most of our members are political pragmatists. They support political candidates and movements whose goals reflect their own practical needs and desires. Our members span an amazing political spectrum, which includes but is not limited to: Libertarians, Liberals, Conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Reform Party members, Independents, Capitalists, Socialists, Communists, Stalinists, Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Zionists, Monarchists, Fascists, Anarchists, and just about anything else you could possibly imagine. It is up to each member to apply Satanism and determine what political means will reach his or her ends.”
Satan, Freemasonry & Politics
Ultimately―when everything else is stripped-away―all boils down to a struggle between Christ and Satan. We either stand alongside Christ, or, by default, we stand with Satan: “He that is not with Me, is against Me!” (Matthew 12:30) ... “No man can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). The word “mammon” means the riches of the world and worldly interest―and Satan is the “prince of this world” (John 12:31; 16:11; 14:30). Since its birth and foundation in 1717, modern-day Freemasonry has been systematically been condemned by one pope after another. In 1717 Pope Clement XII forbade membership in the lodge and since then seven other popes have warned the faithful against the dangers of Masonic naturalism to the Christian Faith. Perhaps one of the more famous condemnations came in 1864 with Pius IX, in his Syllabus of Errors, he referred to the Masons as “the synagogue of Satan.” Two decades later, Pope Leo XIII wrote the encyclical Humanum Genus. In it he warns that Freemasons desire to assail or assault the Church, they have no faith in God’s divine revelation; that they want to destroy the chief foundations of justice and honesty and that they aim at the destruction of the Christian name.
Our Lady confirms these diabolical connections by saying: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government, will see a cruel persecution of all religious communities … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family … The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth! ... During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church.”
In case you didn’t spot it ― Our Lady said that Satan would reign almost completely by means of Masonic sects and that Masonry would take control of civil government. Therefore, you have the link between Satan, Freemasonry and governments and their politicians. Satan and Masonry don’t care what political color a politician might ― Satan and Masonry are not prejudiced, they will take any political type ― as the Church of Satan said: “Our members span an amazing political spectrum, which includes but is not limited to: Libertarians, Liberals, Conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Reform Party members, Independents, Capitalists, Socialists, Communists, Stalinists, Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Zionists, Monarchists, Fascists, Anarchists, and just about anything else you could possibly imagine. It is up to each member to apply Satanism…”
It can clearly be seen that Christ has been increasingly uncrowned and dethroned in one country after another―with man taking the place and usurping the authority of God! “The Lord hath looked down from Heaven upon the children of men―to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside! They are become unprofitable together! There is none that doth good―no, not one! Their throat is an open sepulcher! With their tongues they acted deceitfully! The poison of asps is under their lips! Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness! Their feet are swift to shed blood! Destruction and unhappiness in their ways and the way of peace they have not known! There is no fear of God before their eyes! They have not called upon the Lord! There have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear!” (Psalm 13:2-5). “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3). When Pontius Pilate presented Christ before the Jews, saying: “‘Behold your King!’ But they cried out: ‘Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him!’ Pilate saith to them: ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered: ‘We have no king but Caesar!’” (John 19:14-15).
Away with God’s Laws! We Will Make Our Own Laws!
Today, the vast majority―and an ever increasing majority―also cry out concerning Christ: “Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him! We have no king but [fill in the blank]!’ They do not want to listen to Christ’s teachings! They refuse to obey His commandments! They have fallen for the multitude of temptations presented to them by Satan―the prince of this world―and seek to become gods unto themselves; to decide for themselves what to believe and what not to believe; and what is good and what is evil. They trash the commandments of God and replace them with the commandments of men. They refuse to call abortion, contraception, masturbation, cohabitation, divorce and remarriage, LGBT relations, drug and alcohol abuse, immodesty and blasphemy as evil things―but now hold to be good or at least acceptable. Politicians and governments legislate for these things―giving them free rein and freedom under the law. “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil! Woe to you that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes, and prudent in your own conceits! Woe to you that are mighty to drink wine, and stout men at drunkenness! ... For they have cast away the law of the Lord, and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One!” (Isaias 5:20-24).
The bottom line is that most of the world has voted God out of politics and condemned Him to the closet of Sunday religion. The world has more or less divorced God―even Catholics―whereby they might “worship” God on Sunday, but then they will live pagans from Monday to Saturday. This is true of the spiritual life, social life, cultural life and politics. Everyone can a have a god in their closet―but other than that, no god is invited to the “party.”
Satan’s Virus of Pride and Rebellion
God is not indifferent to the politics of man―God wants to be at the heart of man’s politics. In a certain sense, that is how God “set things up” in the first place for both angels and men. Yet Lucifer caused the first separation between Church (God) and State (the angels) with his infamous cry of “Non serviam!” ― meaning, “I will not serve!” and a third of the angels followed Lucifer in this separation of Church (God) and State (the angels).
The “separation virus” was born and Lucifer next infected Eve, by encouraging her to separate herself from God’s commands and laws―thus achieving a separation of “Church and State” by causing a division between God and man. Lucifer achieved this by seducing Eve with the idea that she and Adam could be like gods unto themselves: “Your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods―knowing good and evil!” (Genesis 3:5) ― an offer Eve found too hard to resist. Lucifer played on Eve’s pride and used that pride to separate her from God through disobedience. She separated herself from God’s law, ate the forbidden fruit, and caught the “non serviam virus”, which she then passed on to Adam by getting him to disobey God also. Adam and Eve, having caught the “separation virus” or “non serviam virus”, then passed it on to their descendents ― we know the virus by the name of “Original Sin” ― which is essentially, as the Church teaches, a sin of pride and disobedience.
This pride and disobedience currently oozes from the pores of politicians around the world―their pride leads them to despise the laws of God and they readily and willingly show disobedience to the laws of their Creator. They have lost their way and they are losing their souls―as well as dragging many souls with them into Hell, as the “sheeple” follow those Pied-Piper politicians into the pit. They are the “blind leaders” that Our Lord speaks of: “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14). “O foolish people, and without understanding: who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and hear not!” (Jeremias 5:21). “Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a provoking house―who have eyes to see, and see not: and ears to hear, and hear not―for they are a provoking house!” (Ezechiel 12:2). “For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut―lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them!” (Matthew 13:15).
Christ Seeks Those Who Are Lost
Yet that is what God wishes to do―to heal and to save―despite the unprecedented sinfulness of the world. “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” says Our Lord (Luke 19:10) … “I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32) … “Go then and learn what this meaneth: ‘I will have mercy and not sacrifice!’ For I am not come to call the just, but sinners!” (Matthew 9:13). We have an integral and important part to play in penetrating today’s “hearts of stone” and trying to give them a “heart of flesh” ― “I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 36:26) ― and it through our prayers, penances and sacrifices that this can be obtained. This conversion of sinners is not a “freebie”, but has to be paid by prayer, penance and sacrifice―and lots of them. Sin is expensive and costly―therefore conversions are not cheap. It is not “mission impossible”― no matter how evil the world and politics is, for “where sin abounded, grace did more abound!” (Romans 5:20).
The problem is that we are not seeking those graces of conversion nor are we paying for them ― even though Our Lady of Fatima asked for that payment, not even exempting young children from the task! She asked a 10-year-old (Lucia), an 8-year-old (Francisco) and a 7-year-old (Jacinta) to pray, sacrifice and suffer for sinners: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.” We do not have to be in politics to be able to influence politics. It is the grace of God that influences the entire world―yet that grace is not cheap.
Lazy Lukewarm Soldiers of Christ
We can change the world―but nobody, or very few, are willing to pay the price. Until we reconsider and change our minds, there will be no change in the fatal direction in which the world is being led by its politicians and politics. We have it in our power to do something―but we refuse to do so! In one sense, our guilt is as great if not greater, and our punishment will most likely be greater than that of these neo-pagans: “That servant who knew the will of his lord, and prepared not himself, and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes!” (Luke 12:47). We have not been placed in this world to have fun and enjoy life as much as possible―we have been placed on Earth as Catholics to be soldiers for Christ, the salt of the Earth, the light of the world, and the leaven that raises up the bread. “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men! You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and hide it under a table, but put it upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men!” (Matthew 5:13-16).
Obey Caesar Rather Than Christ!
Today―Christianity and Politics seem to be an explosive mixture. For most people, it is prudent and even desirable to keep Christianity out of politics―which is the false idea that there can be a separation of Church and State. Such people are always quoting Holy Scripture as proof of their position, where Christ said: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God, the things that are God’s!” (Matthew 22:21) and glue it onto another quote of Christ’s: “My kingdom is not of this world!” … My kingdom is not from hence!” (John 18:36) as well as the Scripture which says: “Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation. For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil” (Romans 13:1-3) ― but what if those rulers, those princes, those higher powers are themselves evil or are proposing evil things, or even legislating evil things? What then? Obedience to authorities is fine and good―if they themselves require and command what is good. But that’s a far cry from the notion that whatever the government does is somehow automatically right, or replacements for God’s will, or irresistible in their power. Daniel rightly disobeys the political edict that he must bow down to the king. The Hebrew midwives are blessed by God for disobeying Pharaoh. Rahab is heralded as an example of Faith, in both Hebrews 11 and in the book of James, for her disobedience to the political authorities in Jericho.
Obey God Rather Than Men!
For Our Lord is equally clear on who is boss, when He says: “All power is given to me in Heaven and in Earth!” (Matthew 28:18) and when He tells Pontius Pilate: “Thou shouldst not have any power against Me, unless it were given thee from above” (John 19:11) ― which is echoed by St. Paul: “There is no power but from God” (Romans 13:1) ― with St. Peter adding: “We ought to obey God, rather than men!” (Acts 5:29) ―especially when those men propose evil or legislate for evil. “For we must ALL (not just believers) be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10).
Though true Christians―not the false Christians who support abortion, divorce and remarriage, same-sex relations and marriage, contraception, LGBT and the rest―true Christians have become a minority, both socially and in politics. There is barely a politician anywhere who has not compromised on God’s laws and accepted and voted for legislation supporting sin. It is almost as though entering politics increases you chances of damnation a hundredfold or a thousandfold. It is such politics and such politicians that MUST be resisted by true Christians. Our Lord is clear on the matter: “He that is not with Me, is against Me: and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth!” (Matthew 12:30). That resistance must first and foremost be a resistance that uses the weapons of prayer and sacrifice―for, as Our Lord said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). Without Our Lord and His powerful graces, we are not going to change anyone, nor reform any political party or politician!
Change Means and Requires Suffering
“But before all these things, they will lay their hands upon you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for My Name’s sake. Lay it up therefore into your hearts, not to meditate before how you shall answer―for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and speak against!” (Luke 21:12-15). “For they shall deliver you up to councils, and in the synagogues you shall be beaten, and you shall stand before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony unto them. And when they shall lead you and deliver you up, be not thoughtful beforehand what you shall speak; but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye. For it is not you that speak―but the Holy Ghost!” (Mark 13:9-11). “You shall be brought before governors, and before kings for My sake―for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak―for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak. For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you!” (Matthew 10:18-20).
There is no simple blueprint or rule that we can apply in all times and in all cases to get this exactly right. It is our ongoing task as Christians―being firstly citizens of God’s kingdom and only secondly citizens of earthly kingdoms―to live so as to give government its proper respect without seeing it as completely corrupt or evil on the one hand (as if God hasn’t ordained it) or treating it as completely infallible on the other (as if God has made government His infallible representative on Earth). When the government loses sight of God, loses Faith in God, opposes the laws of God―then, in God’s eyes, it becomes an enemy of God. Governments are not exempt from Christ’s command of “SEEK YE FIRST the kingdom of God and HIS justice!” (Luke 12:31), as well as “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Mark 12:30; Matthew 22:37-38). “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words … If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love … This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you” (John 14:15, 14:21-24; 15:10; 15:12). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).
Separate Yourself from the Worldly Ones … Or Else!
“Bear not the yoke with unbelievers! What fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God! As God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17). “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places!” (Ephesians 6:12). “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
The problem is that most Catholics are well and truly integrated into the world―they are at home with the world, comfortable in the world, and loving the world! They have become enemies of God! In that role of enemies of God, they have no problem voting for and electing enemies of God into positions of power on the political stage! God help us!
Part of the World but Apart From the World
If our heads were “screwed-on-strait” then we would understand that we may well be a part of this world, but we must also keep ourselves apart from this world―as the above Scripture says: “Go out from among them, and be ye separate! … Be not conformed to this world … that we be not condemned with this world!” As Our Lord points out, Satan is the prince of this world: “The prince of this world cometh! … Now shall the prince of this world be cast out … because the prince of this world is already judged!” (John 14:30; 12:31; 16:11).
As Our Lady warned: “From the end of the 19th century and especially during the 20th century … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … The Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis! … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds! … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth!” Holy Scripture adds: “That old serpent―who is called the devil and Satan―seduceth the whole world!” (Apocalypse 12:9).
Modern day politics is satanic politics―it is inspired and ruled by the spirit of Satan. Our Lord would say to most modern politicians what He once said to some of the Jews: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do! He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth―because truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar, and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Modern day politics is largely built upon deception and lies―as we see in the following quote. Barbara Honegger―Assistant to the Chief Domestic Policy Adviser to President Reagan―revealed that William Casey, CIA Director from 1981 to 1987, allegedly said to President Reagan during a Presidential Briefing in early February of 1981: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
Call it what you want―misinformation, disinformation, distortion, deception, propaganda or just plain lies―it ultimately stems from the “father of lies”, Satan. Today’s world labors under a tsunami of lies, deception, misinformation, disinformation, half-truths, exaggerations, fabrications and propaganda. Hitler’s propagandist, Joseph Goebbels used to say: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it!” We see that to be so very true today―especially with the ubiquitous tools supplied by modern technology―which, in the hands of Satan’s human minions, constantly bombard us with an endless stream of lies and propaganda.
Puppet Politicians and Puppet Masters
It is often said that politicians―especially those at the top end of the political ladder―are merely puppets who are controlled by the unseen puppet-masters behind the scenes, the money-men, the elite, or, as some call them “Deep State” or “The Swamp”―but “Deep State” or “The Swamp” is itself in the hands of higher powers―Satan himself. This is the hallmark, trademark, preferred tactic of Satan himself―proud though he is, he prefers to work behind the scenes, subtly, craftily, quietly, allowing the glory of his successes to be given to his human stooges or instruments.
Perhaps “puppet-masters” is an appropriate term―for politics is merely a stage, a circus, a game, a distraction that allows those “pulling-the-strings” to quietly, hiddenly, subtly, craftily work behind the scenes of the “smoke-and-mirrors” political stage that they have created and control. Talking of “control”―it seems that never before have been more controllable and malleable that in the present “dumbed-down” era.
A Nation of Idiots
A Chicago Tribune article, entitled “Political Circus Embarrassing, Not Entertaining” from October 4th, 2018, states: “America by and large is full of idiots ... boring, pathetic … fat, dumb people, who have no interests except McDonald's and malls … Many of the cable news networks air the same tired, yet successful formula―give viewers 10% of actual news followed by 90% of pontification from a peanut gallery of self-described experts ... Too many national media outlets focus on the opinions on the latest scandal. And we keep getting stabbed in the eye by our political leaders with help from national media … To the rest of the world, we must appear to be, yes, a nation full of idiots. Deep down, we know this to be true. Yet we don't do anything about it. It’s an embarrassment!”
You could almost call politics as an extension of Hollywood. It claims that it is “a government of the people, by the people and for the people” ― but you would have to say it more of a “theater of people to fool the people” ― a “front”, a “distraction” that is meant to make people focus on the wrong things, secondary things, while they are being pick-pocketed of the rights and freedoms. This is the “magical” world of politics, which follows the stage or theatrical “magician’s” principles of deception.
Magically Fooled
In theatrical magic, misdirection is a form of deception in which the performer draws audience attention to one thing to distract it from another. Managing audience attention is the aim of all theater, and the foremost requirement of all magic acts. In magic, the performer and the audience share an understanding―feats that appear to be real are actually optical illusions. When executed properly, all magic, deceives observers, tricking them into believing what they see. Magicians pull this off using the art of misdirection. Misdirection—or direction, as some magicians prefer to call it—is the subtle, deceptive art of directing an audience’s attention towards one thing (a magical effect) so it does not notice another (the method or mechanics of a trick). It can refer to both the effect of a spectator’s mind being focused on an unimportant thing, or the action that causes it.
Magicians misdirect audience attention in two basic ways. One leads the audience to look away for a fleeting moment, so that they don’t detect some sleight-of-hand or move. The other approach re-frames the audience’s perception, distracting them into thinking that an extraneous factor has much to do with the accomplishment of the feat (trick), when it really has no bearing on the effect at all. The true skill of the magician is in the skill he exhibits in influencing the spectator’s mind. “Misdirection has nothing to do with distraction. It has everything to do with controlling audience attention, at all times” (Gary Kurtz, magician). “Not only shouldn’t they see anything, they shouldn’t suspect anything” (Erdnase, magician). “As a magician, you must learn how magicians use misdirection to make sure your spectators don’t see the things you do not want them to see. It’s not about hiding moves. It’s not about turning your back while you do a suspicious half pass; it’s about controlling audience attention so that when you are going to make a move, the audience is not only focused somewhere else, but they don’t even suspect you are doing anything. It is about making sure that suspicion doesn’t even cross your spectator’s mind” (Merchant of Magic). You would imagine that magicians would make the best politicians!
In The Encyclopedia of Magic and Magicians, author T.A. Waters writes that “Misdirection is the cornerstone of nearly all successful magic; without it, even the most skilled Sleight of Hand or mechanical device is unlikely to create an illusion of real magic.” Misdirection uses the limits of the human mind to give the wrong picture and memory. The mind of a typical audience member can only concentrate on one thing at a time. The magician uses this to manipulate the audience's ideas, or, perceptions of sensory input, leading them to false conclusions. As one magician, Tommy Wonder, says: “When a great magician uses misdirection correctly, the audience doesn’t FEEL distracted at all. Quite opposite, they would swear they’ve been staring at the magician’s hands the entire time—and that they’ve NEVER looked away. That’s what misdirection is all about. We want our spectators to believe that THEY are in control of their attention. In reality, we choose where they look, and what they see, at every moment.”
In the book, The Secret Art of Magic, authors Eric Evans and Nowlin Craver state that magic is directly related to warfare, and relies on the same principles for success. They reference the Ancient Chinese military strategist, Sun Tzu’s book, Art of War, to show how deception is essential to any successful campaign. Craver goes on to illustrate, through the 36 strategies, how they form a blueprint for every known method of misdirection. In World War II, British military intelligence employed stage magician Jasper Maskelyne to help devise various forms of misdirection such as ruses, deception, and camouflage.
Take, for example, the Trump impeachment fiasco ― it was merely the latest in a never-ending series of distractions, distortions, and political theater aimed at diverting the public’s attention from the sinister advances of the American Police State. That has been succeeded by the latest movie: “Coronavirus Plannedemic” or “Covid-19 and the Masked Men”, also known as “SARS-CoV2” which you say stands for “Stupid Abysmal Reasoning Skills Conned Over Virus Too!”
Dumb, Distracted and Deceived
Dumbed-down, entertainment stuffed, media-drunk, internet-infested, couch-potato Christian soldiers of Christ have allowed themselves to be distracted, diverted or mesmerized by the cheap theater tricks. These “Hollywood” made spectacles are Shakespearean in their scope. The wall-to-wall media coverage full of sound, fury and fear―stirs the emotions, fools the mind, but signifies little or nothing in comparison to the things they are distracting you from―the more important and more sinister things that are being planned behind the scenes.
We’ve been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so long—sold to us in the name of national security and global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised as law and order, and enforced by a standing army of militarized police and a political elite determined to maintain their powers at all costs—that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started going downhill, but we’re certainly on that downward trajectory now, and things are moving fast. The Republic has fallen. The “Deep State’s” plot to take over America has succeeded in all but the final icing on the cake. The cake is cooked. The American system of representative government has been overthrown by a profit-driven, militaristic, corporate oligarchy bent on total control and global domination through the imposition of martial law here at home and by fomenting wars abroad. Even now, we are being pushed and prodded towards a civil war, not because the American people are so divided but because that’s how corrupt governments control a populace (i.e., divide and conquer).
Political Power is Often Satanic Power
Politicians aspire to power, are elected to powerful positions and this power brings its own temptations ― especially if you are not in a state of sanctifying grace (and most of the world is not in a state of grace), which can then very easily lead you down the slippery slopes of corruption. On this point, it is well worth remembering the words of the recently deceased (2016) former chief-exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, on the topic of politicians and leaders in general (business and otherwise). Fr. Amorth said: “Satanism is spreading enormously! The loss of a sense of sin―that characterizes our era―helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God, weakens the consciences of men and women and leads them toward egoism, closing their hearts, lack of forgiveness, and doing everything for money, power, and sex. The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Satanism is on the increase. Today Satan rules the world. The masses no longer believe in God. And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! Evil exists in politics, quite often in fact! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!” (Fr. Gabriele Amorth).
Our Lady, in her revelations to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, adds: “The inestimable treasure of the virtue of divine Faith is hidden to those mortals who have only carnal and earthly eyes. How many men―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―on account of the lack of light of Faith, have precipitated themselves from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell! How many kingdoms and provinces, being blind themselves, follow these still more blind leaders until they together fall into the abyss of eternal pains, and they are followed by the bad Christians, who having received the grace and blessing of Faith, live as if they had it not in their hearts! … There are very few in the world in our days who use well the temporal riches and offer them to their God and Lord … Witness how cruel and avaricious human nature has become … Witness the nobility of the souls so degraded and abased in the service of vile greed of gold with all its evil powers. As if all things had been created for the individual use of the rich, they amass them to themselves and deprive the poor, and denying them even to God, Who created and preserves all things, and Who can give or take at will … Trusting in deceit and in the powerful of this world; those that are not moderate in their desires and greedily covet what is unnecessary for the sustenance of life; they anxiously cling to what they possess, fearing that it may be diminished … There are few who know how to use wealth properly and who can retain it without inordinate greed … It is most lamentable that while the rich might purchase eternal life with their possessions, they abuse them to draw upon themselves damnation!”
The Politics of Greed
Usually―almost exclusively―politics focuses on greed. Politics plays on the natural greed that we have for things and money (money buys more things). Politics knows that we are greedy and it will feed the greed by promising more of something―bigger wages that bring you more money; tax cuts that save your money; and all kinds of benefits and handouts. Two of the most common campaign promises revolve around tax cuts and job creation. Presidential candidates make a lot of promises while they are campaigning. However, these promises are, more often than not, used as pleasing, persuasive, pleasurable sound bytes rather than being actual real promises that are going to be kept.
We have all experienced greed and its effects at some time in our lives. Most children experience greed in relation to food— endlessly longing for sweets, longings that lead to hoarding, stealing, or some combination of these. Excessive indulgence in favorite foods, especially sweet ones, by children often leads to sickness. Consequently, many of us learn while quite young that greed has its dangers, that it causes suffering. Yet we kid ourselves into thinking that there is just no way that money and wealth will bring us suffering! Some people desire riches, money and wealth far more than they desire Heaven!
Greed is one amongst many seeds of sinfulness that Original Sin plants within us. Today―with all the advances in science and technology―we live in what could be called a “Culture of Greed”. The dictionaries define greed as:
● An excessive desire to acquire or possess, as wealth, or power, beyond what one needs or deserves.
● A selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed.
● An uncontrolled longing for increase in the acquisition or use of material gain (food, money, land, or possessions); or social value, such as status, or power.
● An intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food.
● The desire to have more of something―such as food or money―more than is necessary or fair.
● An excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth, possessions or power.
Consider greed as an emotional hunger where more is never enough. Have you ever heard one of your Liberal friends complain about government greed? Corporate greed, perhaps―but government greed: never or rarely. Yet greed for political power is more dangerous than greed for money. Power is harder to measure than money, especially power springing from “excessive desire” to tell other people what to think, want, feel, do, or how to live. Politicians are in the business of acquiring power―while claiming to serve the public good. Yet more and more people notice that “service” is not always the goal of the politician―certainly not the service of the people, but more so in being at the service of corporations and money merchants and the furthering of their interests.
The salary of a politician ranges from zero to six figures in the United States, with those serving at the local levels earning the least and those elected to state and federal offices earning the most. The president of the United States is paid $400,000 a year. The vice president earns $235,100 annually. The House Speaker makes $223,500, Majority and Minority Leaders earn $193,400. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate earn a base salary of $174,000 a year―some earn more than the mere salary. On top of their base salary, Members of the House receive a $900,000 annual allowance for a staff, as well as a $250,000 budget for travel and office expenses, paid for entirely by taxpayers. Each Senator, on the other hand, gets a budget close to $3.3 million. Governors are paid between $70,000 and $201,000. Full-time elected lawmakers, at the state level, make an average of $75,415. California’s legislature gives a $110,459 base salary for lawmakers―which is the highest in the nation. Senators and representatives may only earn up to 15% in excess of their annual congressional salary. Federal laws prevent them from earning any income from fiduciary relationships. This rule helps prevent any conflicts of interest within Congress. Congress members may earn income from their personal investments since the law considers them "unearned" income. This could include money made from rent, interest or stock dividends. These earnings don't contribute to the 15% rule because members in this situation collect income on assets they already own. Furthermore, Members of Congress have 72% of their health care premiums paid for by a federal subsidy. After serving for five years, a member of Congress becomes eligible for a pension plan. Their retirement benefits depend on their plan, age and time served in Congress. A member of Congress can collect their full pension at the age of 62, or earlier if they are 50 years old with 20 years of service. Their pension can give them up to 80% of their final salary. Based on the current Congressional pay of $174,000 per year, an 80% pension grants members a lifelong pension benefit of $139,200.
Warnings Against Greed
In the fifth century, St. Augustine wrote: “Greed is not a defect in the gold that is desired, but a defect in the man who loves it perversely by falling from justice, which he ought to esteem as being incomparably superior to gold.”
St. Thomas Aquinas states greed “is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things.” He also wrote that “greed can be a sin directly against one's neighbor, since one man cannot be superabundant in external riches, without another man lacking them―because temporal goods cannot be possessed by many at the same time.”
Holy Scripture warns against the dangers of money, which can also be applied to the dangers of power that money often purchases―for we also speak of the “purchasing power” of money: “We brought nothing into this world and certainly we can carry nothing out! They that want to become rich, fall into temptation and into the snare of the devil, and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires, which drown men into destruction and perdition. For the desire of money [and also power] is the root of all evils―some, by coveting it, have erred from the Faith and have entangled themselves in many sorrows!” (1 Timothy 6:7-10).
Hence we have the modern-day proverb: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely!” ― which is taken from a letter by Lord Acton to Bishop Creighton, wherein he writes: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority!”
Our Lady spoke of the tragic consequences of greed―words that could just as well be addressed to the politicians of this day and age: “God knows, in His wisdom, the endless damage caused in mortals by greed and covetousness of visible things; and God knows that this insane love will pervert the greater part of the mankind, who are lost by the vice of avarice and cupidity. How many men are not fascinated by their unbounded greed? This blind greed is the root of all evils! There are very few in the world in our days who use well the temporal riches and offer them to their God. All of them ordinarily stake their hopes on gold and material riches; and, in order to increase them, they exert all the forces of their natural being. Those who have riches, trust in them―and those who have none, greedily chase after them! Some obtain them by very reprehensible ways and means! Some confide in influential persons, praising and flattering them. They show vanity; they indulge greed and avarice; they serve their own interest; they love money, they place their hopes in treasures of silver and gold; they submit to the flatteries and to the slavery of the worldly and powerful. They are not moderate in their desires and greedily covet what is unnecessary for the sustenance of life; those that anxiously cling to what they possess, fearing that it may be diminished. And if they are thus weighed down before acquiring riches, how much more weighed down are they when they have come into possession of those riches and possessions? Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it; let their incalculable anxieties of preserving their riches, and much more, let the intolerable laws, which riches and those that possess them have foisted upon the world, testify what is required to retain them! The lovers of its vanity have subjected themselves and are following the standard and the fables of the devil.
“And so it happens that very few seek the Lord in such a way as to deserve His providential care. Very few trust in God, who is willing to provide for His children, who will nourish and sustain them without fail in all necessities. This deceitful error has filled the Earth with lovers of the world; it has filled the world with avarice and concupiscence against the law of the Creator; it has made men insane in their desires―for all of them commonly chase after riches and earthly possessions; claiming, thereby, merely to satisfy their needs―which is only a lame pretext for hiding their lack of interest in higher things, spiritual things. The wisdom of the flesh has made men ignorant, foolish and hostile to God! Thus they spend all the time of their life―which was given them in order to gain eternal salvation and happiness―in these vanities. They lose themselves in these dark labyrinths and mazes! It is the height of perversion for man to mix up the end and the means in an affair so important and urgent as the salvation of his soul―whereby he devotes all his time, all his care, all the exertion of his powers and all the alertness of his mind to the life of his body, of which he knows not the duration nor the end, and that, on the other hand, in many years of his existence he spares only one hour for his poor soul, and that hour is very often the last hour and the worst one of his whole life!” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Elitist Power is a Corrupt Power
Satan―the “prince of this world” (John 12:31; 16:11; 14:30)―dangles riches and power in the face of many of his targets whom he seeks to enslave into his service. Satan even tried that tactic on Our Lord during the temptations that be besieged Our Lord with in the desert: “Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights … the devil took Him up into a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: ‘All these will I give Thee, if, falling down, Thou wilt adore me!’” (Matthew 4:1-9). Jesus refused to fall down and adore Satan―but there have been many who were only too willing to bow down and adore Satan in exchange for power and riches!
The recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, said: “Satan continually tries to dominate the world ― the whole world is in the power of the evil one! … Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies … He seeks to enslave men by making them obey himself and disobey God. The Devil does not like to be seen … Satan hides and disguises himself in a thousand ways … The devil prefers this way … Satan works through his empire of evil. Satan uses his churches, his cult, his devotees, his adorers, the followers of his promises. Satan gives specific powers to his followers for the destruction of body and soul―just as Christ gave His Apostles and followers specific powers for the good of body and soul. The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Satanism is on the increase. Today Satan rules the world. The masses no longer believe in God. And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority―those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!” Even though we have “Separation of Church and State”―it seems there is no separation of Satan and State!
The Church of Satan, on its website, dedicates a page to politics, wherein it states the following: “The Church of Satan does not have an “official” political position ... Satanists do not exist to serve any political agenda … The Church of Satan is a loosely knit cabal of individuals whose political opinions may (and do) vary … We as an organization only need to continue, as we have for five decades, to offer the tools through which our members may see through the conceptual traps that enslave the masses … As has been said many times before―one’s politics are up to each individual member, and most of our members are political pragmatists. They support political candidates and movements whose goals reflect their own practical needs and desires. Our members span an amazing political spectrum, which includes but is not limited to: Libertarians, Liberals, Conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Reform Party members, Independents, Capitalists, Socialists, Communists, Stalinists, Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Zionists, Monarchists, Fascists, Anarchists, and just about anything else you could possibly imagine. It is up to each member to apply Satanism and determine what political means will reach his or her ends.”
Satan, Freemasonry & Politics
Ultimately―when everything else is stripped-away―all boils down to a struggle between Christ and Satan. We either stand alongside Christ, or, by default, we stand with Satan: “He that is not with Me, is against Me!” (Matthew 12:30) ... “No man can serve two masters! For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). The word “mammon” means the riches of the world and worldly interest―and Satan is the “prince of this world” (John 12:31; 16:11; 14:30). Since its birth and foundation in 1717, modern-day Freemasonry has been systematically been condemned by one pope after another. In 1717 Pope Clement XII forbade membership in the lodge and since then seven other popes have warned the faithful against the dangers of Masonic naturalism to the Christian Faith. Perhaps one of the more famous condemnations came in 1864 with Pius IX, in his Syllabus of Errors, he referred to the Masons as “the synagogue of Satan.” Two decades later, Pope Leo XIII wrote the encyclical Humanum Genus. In it he warns that Freemasons desire to assail or assault the Church, they have no faith in God’s divine revelation; that they want to destroy the chief foundations of justice and honesty and that they aim at the destruction of the Christian name.
Our Lady confirms these diabolical connections by saying: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … These years, during which the evil sect of Masonry will take control of the civil government, will see a cruel persecution of all religious communities … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family … The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth! ... During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church.”
In case you didn’t spot it ― Our Lady said that Satan would reign almost completely by means of Masonic sects and that Masonry would take control of civil government. Therefore, you have the link between Satan, Freemasonry and governments and their politicians. Satan and Masonry don’t care what political color a politician might ― Satan and Masonry are not prejudiced, they will take any political type ― as the Church of Satan said: “Our members span an amazing political spectrum, which includes but is not limited to: Libertarians, Liberals, Conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Reform Party members, Independents, Capitalists, Socialists, Communists, Stalinists, Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Zionists, Monarchists, Fascists, Anarchists, and just about anything else you could possibly imagine. It is up to each member to apply Satanism…”
Article 4
Friday November 4th & Saturday November 5th & Sunday November 6th, 2022
Fiery Fear & Calm Confidence!
Friday November 4th & Saturday November 5th & Sunday November 6th, 2022
Fiery Fear & Calm Confidence!
You might―or might not―have read Fr. Schouppe’s masterpiece of a book, Purgatory Explained. For some folk who are short on time (or short on concentration and interest), such a voluminous book might be off-putting and daunting to say the least. In order to help such persons out, here are some pertinent extracts from his book. Nevertheless, they are but a miniscule tip of an iceberg in relation to the book itself. However, as the saying goes: “Half-a-loaf is better than none!” ― or in this case: “One crumb from a loaf is better than none!” ― or as the Canaanite woman said to Our Lord: “Dogs also get to eat of the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters” (Matthew 15:27). So let us go the table of Fr. Schouppe and get what crumbs that we can! Some additional comments will be made, here and there, after some of the selected quotes.
Fires of Hell, but Focused on Heaven
“The word ‘Purgatory’ is sometimes taken to mean a place, sometimes as an intermediate state, between Hell and Heaven. It is, properly speaking, the condition of souls which, at the moment of death, are in the state of grace, but which have not completely expiated their faults, nor attained the degree of purity necessary to enjoy the vision of God” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Isn’t it amazing how much thought, time, sweat, effort and money we put into things that in a few years will be left behind as we are forced (by death) to evacuate this world and travel to one of two eternal destinations and abodes―Hell or Heaven (or Heaven via Purgatory). We think a lot of what is really little―and we think little of what is really a lot! We seem to have forgotten, or deliberately ignored, or adamantly refused to take note of Our Lord’s words: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other! You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). You would have thought that with so much being at stake, people would live for Heaven alone! Yet most souls are damned! And of the few that are saved―most of that small number end up having to go through Purgatory! Are we stubbornly insane or what? “The perverse are hard to be corrected and the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15).
Passions Were Satisfied; Justice Must Be Satisfied
“Purgatory is, then, a transitory state which terminates in a life of everlasting happiness. It is not a trial by which merit may be gained or lost, but a state of atonement and expiation. The soul has arrived at the term of its earthly career; that life was a time of trial, a time of merit for the soul, a time of mercy on the part of God. This time once expired, nothing but justice is to be expected from God, whilst the soul can neither gain nor lose merit. She remains in the state in which death found her; and since it found her in the state of sanctifying grace, she is certain of never forfeiting that happy state, and of arriving at the eternal possession of God. Nevertheless, since she is burdened with certain debts of temporal punishment, she must satisfy Divine Justice by enduring this punishment in all its rigor” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Notice what Fr. Schouppe says: “Life was a time of trial―a time of merit for the soul.” How few are those who see things this way! Most people see life as being a time for fun! Not a time of gaining merit before God―but a time of gaining wealth and possessions in this world and enjoying those things! This inevitably leads to a love of the world more than a love of God―and is sadly highlighted in Our Lord’s encounter with the rich young man, who loved the world and God:
“And behold, a certain rich young man, running up and kneeling before Him, asked Him: ‘Good Master, what shall I do that I may receive life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!’
“And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he was very rich and had great possessions. And Jesus, seeing him become sorrowful, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’
“And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus again answering, said to them: ‘Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches, to enter into the Kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God!’ Who wondered the more, saying among themselves: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus looking on them, said: ‘With men it is impossible; but not with God! For all things are possible with God!’”
“Then Peter answering, began to say unto Him: ‘Behold we have left all things, and have followed Thee! What therefore shall we have?’ And Jesus answering, said to them: ‘Amen, I say to you, that you, who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of His majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel! And every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My Name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and, in the world to come, shall possess life everlasting!’” (combined account of Matthew 19:16-29; Mark 10:17-31; Luke 18:18-25).
Once again, we are reminded of Our Lord’s earlier words: “You cannot serve God and mammon!” To which Scripture adds: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Lovers of Earth Banished to Earth
Fr. Schouppe writes: “Although Faith tells us nothing definite regarding the location of Purgatory, the most common opinion, that which most accords with the language of Scripture, and which is the most generally received among theologians, places it in the bowels of the Earth, not far from the Hell of the reprobates. Theologians are almost unanimous, says Bellarmine, in teaching that Purgatory, at least the ordinary place of expiation, is situated in the interior of the Earth, that the souls in Purgatory and the reprobate are in the same subterranean space in the deep abyss which the Scripture calls Hell. (Roman Catechism, chapter 6, §1)” (Fr. Schouppe,Purgatory Explained).
It would seem only fitting that God should use this Earth as means of punishing us for being too attached to this world. “By what things a man sinneth, by the same also he is tormented” (Wisdom 11:17). “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:8). God punished Adam and Eve with earthly punishment, after they had sinned: “Because thou hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work―with labor and toil shalt thou eat of the earth all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee! In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken! For dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return!” (Genesis 3:17-19). Same for all of us―to dust we shall return. 60, 70, or 80 years of life on Earth is insignificant when compared to eternity in Heaven or Hell! We should be spending most of time trying to gain the former and avoid the latter―but we don’t!
Different Kinds of Hell
Fr. Schouppe writes: “When we say in the Apostles Creed that after His death ‘Jesus Christ descended into Hell,’ the name Hell, says the Catechism of the Council of Trent, signifies those hidden places where the souls are detained which have not yet reached eternal beatitude. But these prisons are of different kinds. One is a dark and gloomy dungeon, where the damned are continually tormented by evil spirits, and by a fire which is never extinguished. This place, which is Hell properly so called, is also named Gehenna and abyss” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Strictly speaking, Hell is defined as “the absence of God”, whereas Heaven is the presence of God. Purgatory, too, is an absence of God―but only a temporary absence, which will end once the soul has paid its unpaid debt for past forgiven sins. On the contrary, Hell is a perpetual absence of God, wherein the soul will eternally tormented for having rejected God and His Laws in this life on Earth. Some persons have mixed the two together―Purgatory and Hell―and have then been led to believe that Hell is not perpetual―which is utter nonsense! Nevertheless, as some saints say―among them St. Thomas Aquinas―that the fires of Purgatory are the same fires as those of Hell, except that fire in Purgatory will not have to endured eternally.
The Hell of Purgatory
“There is another Hell, which contains the fire of Purgatory. There the souls of the just suffer for a certain time, that they may become entirely purified before being admitted into their heavenly fatherland, where nothing defiled can ever enter” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
The Hell of Limbo
“A third Hell was that into which the souls of the saints who died before the coming of Jesus Christ were received, and in which they enjoyed peaceful repose, exempt from pain, consoled and sustained by the hope of their redemption. They were those holy souls which awaited Jesus Christ in Abraham’s bosom, and which were delivered when Christ descended into Hell. Our Savior suddenly diffused among them a brilliant light, which filled them with infinite joy, and gave them sovereign beatitude, which is the vision of God. Then was fulfilled the promise of Jesus to the good thief: This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
“A very probable opinion,” says St. Thomas, “and one which, moreover, corresponds with the words of the saints in particular revelation is, that Purgatory has a double place for expiation. The first will be destined for the generality of souls, and is situated below, near to Hell; the second will be for particular cases, and it is from thence that so many apparitions occur.” (Summa Theologica, Suppl., part. 3, ques. ult.).” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
“The holy Doctor admits, then, like so many others who share his opinions, that sometimes Divine Justice assigns a special place of purification to certain souls, and even permits them to appear either to instruct the living or to procure for the departed the suffrages of which they stand in need; sometimes also for other motives worthy of the wisdom and mercy of God” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Fitting Fires of Hell
“Such is the general view concerning the location of Purgatory. Since we are not writing a controversial treatise, we add neither proofs nor refutations; these can be seen in authors such as Suarez and Bellarmine. We will content ourselves by remarking that the opinion concerning a subterranean Hell has nothing to fear from modern science. A science purely natural is incompetent in questions which belong, as does this one, to the supernatural order. Moreover, we know that spirits may be in a place occupied by bodies, as though these bodies did not exist. Whatever, then, the interior of the Earth may be, whether it be entirely of fire, as geologists commonly say, or whether it be in any other state, there is nothing to prevent its serving as a sojourn of spirits, even of spirits clothed with a risen body. The Apostle, St. Paul teaches us that the air is filled with a multitude of evil spirits: We have to combat, says he, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places (Ephesians 6:12).” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
“On the other hand, we know that the good angels who protect us are no less numerous in the world. Now, if angels and other spirits can inhabit our atmosphere, whilst the physical world is not in the least degree changed, why cannot the souls of the dead dwell in the bosom of the Earth?” (Fr. Schouppe,Purgatory Explained).
Fear and Confidence
“In order to be perfect, devotion, to the souls in Purgatory must be animated both by a spirit of fear and a spirit of confidence. On the one hand, the Sanctity of God and His Justice inspires us with a salutary fear; on the other, His infinite Mercy gives us boundless confidence” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Do You Realize the Holiness of God?
“God is Sanctity itself, much more so than the sun is light, and no shadow of sin can endure before His face. ‘Thine eyes are pure,’ says the prophet, ‘and thou canst not look on iniquity’ (Habacuc 1:13). When iniquity manifests itself in creatures, the Sanctity of God exacts expiation, and when this expiation is made in all the rigor of justice, it is terrible. It is for this reason that the Scripture says again, ‘Holy and terrible is His name’ (Ps. 110:7); as though it would say, His Justice is terrible because His Sanctity is infinite” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
The Tiniest Sin is Greatly Displeasing
“The Justice of God is terrible, and it punishes with extreme rigor even the most trivial faults. The reason is, that these faults, light in our eyes, are in nowise so before God. The least sin displeases Him infinitely, and, on account of the infinite Sanctity which is offended, the demands enormous atonement. This explains the terrible severity of the pains of the other life, and should penetrate us with a holy fear” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Purpose to the Pain
“This fear of Purgatory is a salutary fear; its effect is, not only to animate us with a charitable compassion towards the poor suffering souls, but also with a vigilant zeal for our own spiritual welfare. Think of the fire of Purgatory, and you will endeavor to avoid the least faults; think of the fire of Purgatory, and you will practice penance, that you may satisfy Divine Justice in this world rather than in the next” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Fear, but with Confidence
“Let us, however, guard against excessive fear, and not lose confidence. Let us not forget the Mercy of God, which is not less infinite than His Justice. ‘Thy mercy, Lord, is great above the Heavens’, says the prophet (Psalm 107:5); and elsewhere, ‘The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient, and plenteous in mercy’ (Psalm 144:8). This ineffable mercy should calm the most lively apprehensions, and fill us with a holy confidence, according to the words, ‘In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped; let me never be put to confusion’ (Psalm 70:1)” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
“If we are animated with this double sentiment, if our confidence in God s Mercy is equal to the fear with which His Justice inspires us, we shall have the true spirit of devotion to the souls in Purgatory. This double sentiment springs naturally from the dogma of Purgatory rightly understood a dogma which contains the double mystery of Justice and Mercy: of Justice which punishes, of Mercy which pardons. It is from this double point of view that we are about to consider Purgatory and illustrate its doctrine” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Fires of Hell, but Focused on Heaven
“The word ‘Purgatory’ is sometimes taken to mean a place, sometimes as an intermediate state, between Hell and Heaven. It is, properly speaking, the condition of souls which, at the moment of death, are in the state of grace, but which have not completely expiated their faults, nor attained the degree of purity necessary to enjoy the vision of God” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Isn’t it amazing how much thought, time, sweat, effort and money we put into things that in a few years will be left behind as we are forced (by death) to evacuate this world and travel to one of two eternal destinations and abodes―Hell or Heaven (or Heaven via Purgatory). We think a lot of what is really little―and we think little of what is really a lot! We seem to have forgotten, or deliberately ignored, or adamantly refused to take note of Our Lord’s words: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other―or he will sustain the one, and despise the other! You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). You would have thought that with so much being at stake, people would live for Heaven alone! Yet most souls are damned! And of the few that are saved―most of that small number end up having to go through Purgatory! Are we stubbornly insane or what? “The perverse are hard to be corrected and the number of fools is infinite!” (Ecclesiastes 1:15).
Passions Were Satisfied; Justice Must Be Satisfied
“Purgatory is, then, a transitory state which terminates in a life of everlasting happiness. It is not a trial by which merit may be gained or lost, but a state of atonement and expiation. The soul has arrived at the term of its earthly career; that life was a time of trial, a time of merit for the soul, a time of mercy on the part of God. This time once expired, nothing but justice is to be expected from God, whilst the soul can neither gain nor lose merit. She remains in the state in which death found her; and since it found her in the state of sanctifying grace, she is certain of never forfeiting that happy state, and of arriving at the eternal possession of God. Nevertheless, since she is burdened with certain debts of temporal punishment, she must satisfy Divine Justice by enduring this punishment in all its rigor” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Notice what Fr. Schouppe says: “Life was a time of trial―a time of merit for the soul.” How few are those who see things this way! Most people see life as being a time for fun! Not a time of gaining merit before God―but a time of gaining wealth and possessions in this world and enjoying those things! This inevitably leads to a love of the world more than a love of God―and is sadly highlighted in Our Lord’s encounter with the rich young man, who loved the world and God:
“And behold, a certain rich young man, running up and kneeling before Him, asked Him: ‘Good Master, what shall I do that I may receive life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee! If thou wilt be perfect, go sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come follow Me!’
“And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he was very rich and had great possessions. And Jesus, seeing him become sorrowful, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’
“And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus again answering, said to them: ‘Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches, to enter into the Kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God!’ Who wondered the more, saying among themselves: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus looking on them, said: ‘With men it is impossible; but not with God! For all things are possible with God!’”
“Then Peter answering, began to say unto Him: ‘Behold we have left all things, and have followed Thee! What therefore shall we have?’ And Jesus answering, said to them: ‘Amen, I say to you, that you, who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of His majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel! And every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My Name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and, in the world to come, shall possess life everlasting!’” (combined account of Matthew 19:16-29; Mark 10:17-31; Luke 18:18-25).
Once again, we are reminded of Our Lord’s earlier words: “You cannot serve God and mammon!” To which Scripture adds: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Lovers of Earth Banished to Earth
Fr. Schouppe writes: “Although Faith tells us nothing definite regarding the location of Purgatory, the most common opinion, that which most accords with the language of Scripture, and which is the most generally received among theologians, places it in the bowels of the Earth, not far from the Hell of the reprobates. Theologians are almost unanimous, says Bellarmine, in teaching that Purgatory, at least the ordinary place of expiation, is situated in the interior of the Earth, that the souls in Purgatory and the reprobate are in the same subterranean space in the deep abyss which the Scripture calls Hell. (Roman Catechism, chapter 6, §1)” (Fr. Schouppe,Purgatory Explained).
It would seem only fitting that God should use this Earth as means of punishing us for being too attached to this world. “By what things a man sinneth, by the same also he is tormented” (Wisdom 11:17). “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:8). God punished Adam and Eve with earthly punishment, after they had sinned: “Because thou hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work―with labor and toil shalt thou eat of the earth all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee! In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken! For dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return!” (Genesis 3:17-19). Same for all of us―to dust we shall return. 60, 70, or 80 years of life on Earth is insignificant when compared to eternity in Heaven or Hell! We should be spending most of time trying to gain the former and avoid the latter―but we don’t!
Different Kinds of Hell
Fr. Schouppe writes: “When we say in the Apostles Creed that after His death ‘Jesus Christ descended into Hell,’ the name Hell, says the Catechism of the Council of Trent, signifies those hidden places where the souls are detained which have not yet reached eternal beatitude. But these prisons are of different kinds. One is a dark and gloomy dungeon, where the damned are continually tormented by evil spirits, and by a fire which is never extinguished. This place, which is Hell properly so called, is also named Gehenna and abyss” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Strictly speaking, Hell is defined as “the absence of God”, whereas Heaven is the presence of God. Purgatory, too, is an absence of God―but only a temporary absence, which will end once the soul has paid its unpaid debt for past forgiven sins. On the contrary, Hell is a perpetual absence of God, wherein the soul will eternally tormented for having rejected God and His Laws in this life on Earth. Some persons have mixed the two together―Purgatory and Hell―and have then been led to believe that Hell is not perpetual―which is utter nonsense! Nevertheless, as some saints say―among them St. Thomas Aquinas―that the fires of Purgatory are the same fires as those of Hell, except that fire in Purgatory will not have to endured eternally.
The Hell of Purgatory
“There is another Hell, which contains the fire of Purgatory. There the souls of the just suffer for a certain time, that they may become entirely purified before being admitted into their heavenly fatherland, where nothing defiled can ever enter” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
The Hell of Limbo
“A third Hell was that into which the souls of the saints who died before the coming of Jesus Christ were received, and in which they enjoyed peaceful repose, exempt from pain, consoled and sustained by the hope of their redemption. They were those holy souls which awaited Jesus Christ in Abraham’s bosom, and which were delivered when Christ descended into Hell. Our Savior suddenly diffused among them a brilliant light, which filled them with infinite joy, and gave them sovereign beatitude, which is the vision of God. Then was fulfilled the promise of Jesus to the good thief: This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
“A very probable opinion,” says St. Thomas, “and one which, moreover, corresponds with the words of the saints in particular revelation is, that Purgatory has a double place for expiation. The first will be destined for the generality of souls, and is situated below, near to Hell; the second will be for particular cases, and it is from thence that so many apparitions occur.” (Summa Theologica, Suppl., part. 3, ques. ult.).” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
“The holy Doctor admits, then, like so many others who share his opinions, that sometimes Divine Justice assigns a special place of purification to certain souls, and even permits them to appear either to instruct the living or to procure for the departed the suffrages of which they stand in need; sometimes also for other motives worthy of the wisdom and mercy of God” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Fitting Fires of Hell
“Such is the general view concerning the location of Purgatory. Since we are not writing a controversial treatise, we add neither proofs nor refutations; these can be seen in authors such as Suarez and Bellarmine. We will content ourselves by remarking that the opinion concerning a subterranean Hell has nothing to fear from modern science. A science purely natural is incompetent in questions which belong, as does this one, to the supernatural order. Moreover, we know that spirits may be in a place occupied by bodies, as though these bodies did not exist. Whatever, then, the interior of the Earth may be, whether it be entirely of fire, as geologists commonly say, or whether it be in any other state, there is nothing to prevent its serving as a sojourn of spirits, even of spirits clothed with a risen body. The Apostle, St. Paul teaches us that the air is filled with a multitude of evil spirits: We have to combat, says he, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places (Ephesians 6:12).” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
“On the other hand, we know that the good angels who protect us are no less numerous in the world. Now, if angels and other spirits can inhabit our atmosphere, whilst the physical world is not in the least degree changed, why cannot the souls of the dead dwell in the bosom of the Earth?” (Fr. Schouppe,Purgatory Explained).
Fear and Confidence
“In order to be perfect, devotion, to the souls in Purgatory must be animated both by a spirit of fear and a spirit of confidence. On the one hand, the Sanctity of God and His Justice inspires us with a salutary fear; on the other, His infinite Mercy gives us boundless confidence” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Do You Realize the Holiness of God?
“God is Sanctity itself, much more so than the sun is light, and no shadow of sin can endure before His face. ‘Thine eyes are pure,’ says the prophet, ‘and thou canst not look on iniquity’ (Habacuc 1:13). When iniquity manifests itself in creatures, the Sanctity of God exacts expiation, and when this expiation is made in all the rigor of justice, it is terrible. It is for this reason that the Scripture says again, ‘Holy and terrible is His name’ (Ps. 110:7); as though it would say, His Justice is terrible because His Sanctity is infinite” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
The Tiniest Sin is Greatly Displeasing
“The Justice of God is terrible, and it punishes with extreme rigor even the most trivial faults. The reason is, that these faults, light in our eyes, are in nowise so before God. The least sin displeases Him infinitely, and, on account of the infinite Sanctity which is offended, the demands enormous atonement. This explains the terrible severity of the pains of the other life, and should penetrate us with a holy fear” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Purpose to the Pain
“This fear of Purgatory is a salutary fear; its effect is, not only to animate us with a charitable compassion towards the poor suffering souls, but also with a vigilant zeal for our own spiritual welfare. Think of the fire of Purgatory, and you will endeavor to avoid the least faults; think of the fire of Purgatory, and you will practice penance, that you may satisfy Divine Justice in this world rather than in the next” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Fear, but with Confidence
“Let us, however, guard against excessive fear, and not lose confidence. Let us not forget the Mercy of God, which is not less infinite than His Justice. ‘Thy mercy, Lord, is great above the Heavens’, says the prophet (Psalm 107:5); and elsewhere, ‘The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient, and plenteous in mercy’ (Psalm 144:8). This ineffable mercy should calm the most lively apprehensions, and fill us with a holy confidence, according to the words, ‘In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped; let me never be put to confusion’ (Psalm 70:1)” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
“If we are animated with this double sentiment, if our confidence in God s Mercy is equal to the fear with which His Justice inspires us, we shall have the true spirit of devotion to the souls in Purgatory. This double sentiment springs naturally from the dogma of Purgatory rightly understood a dogma which contains the double mystery of Justice and Mercy: of Justice which punishes, of Mercy which pardons. It is from this double point of view that we are about to consider Purgatory and illustrate its doctrine” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Article 3
Thursday November 3rd, 2022
Air-Conditioned, Climate-Controlled Purgatory!
Thursday November 3rd, 2022
Air-Conditioned, Climate-Controlled Purgatory!
Today’s Air-Conditioned Purgatory
Some people have the weirdest ideas about Purgatory. They amount of sins that they commit would make you think that they imagine Purgatory to be like a five-star hotel, with a bar and Jacuzzi in every room, air-conditioning and climate-control, Olympic size swimming-pool and golf-course thrown in. They sin more and more so that they can spend more and more time there! The Modernist or Liberal Catholic, may well accept the existence of Purgatory in theory, however, in practice, they live as though Purgatory is empty. Let’s face it, how many sermons do you hear on Purgatory these days? Even when they are preached, many ‘water-down’ Purgatory to a point where we think little of the sufferings of the souls detained there—as though they were merely stuck in a traffic jam or in slow-moving traffic on the road to Heaven! The Modernist and Liberal mentality is, in the words of Fr. Felix Salvany, in his book Liberalism is a Sin,
Offend God rather than Neighbor!
“The Catholic simply tainted with Liberalism is generally a good man and sincerely pious; he exhales nevertheless an odor of Liberalism in everything he says, writes, or takes up. This courageous man reasons, speaks, and acts as a Liberal without knowing it. His strong point is charity; he is charity itself. … How the devil must chuckle over the mushy charity held out as a bait to abet his own cause! … Charity is a supernatural virtue which induces us to love God above all things and our neighbors as ourselves for the love of God. … Charity is primarily the love of God, secondarily the love of our neighbor for God’s sake. To sacrifice the first is to abandon the latter. Therefore, to offend our neighbor for the love of God is a true act of charity. Not to offend our neighbor for the love of God is a sin. Modern Liberalism reverses this order; it imposes a false notion of charity: our neighbor first, and, if at all, God afterwards” (Fr. Felix Salvany, Liberalism Is A Sin).
Hey! Nobody’s Perfect!
The result of this reversal of charity therefore sees people being prepared to see God offended rather than having to be ‘uncharitable’ by correcting the sinning neighbor! Unbelievable! Yet this modern behavior consequently allows mountains of sins to be piled-up under the pretext of what they think and protest is charity—all they really do is allow others to pile-up their Purgatory! “Sin now, burn later”—that’s their idea of charity. They help their neighbor pile-up the firewood with their excuses for not correcting others--”Everyone has their faults!” … “Nobody’s perfect!” … “It’s only a Venial Sin!” Huh? Only a Venial Sin? Well read some accounts of the suffering undergone in the fires of Purgatory for only Venial Sins! Then come back and say “only”! The entrance fee to Heaven is PERFECTION—as Our Lord Himself said: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), which echoes the Old Testament: “Thou shalt be perfect, and without spot before the Lord thy God” (Deuteronomy 18:13). Heaven is no place for mediocrity or half-baked Catholics—hence the need for the fires of Purgatory to full-bake the half-baked Catholics. Remember—many, if not most saints, had to pass to through Purgatory—with the exception of martyrs.
Dense Wood Burns Longer
They say that dense wood burns for much longer—well, these Liberals and Modernists with their fake and false notions of charity and sin, must be pretty dense. Therefore, if they manage to scrape into Purgatory, they will burn all the longer. The physician cauterizing his patient or cutting off his gangrened limb may nonetheless love him. Likewise the ‘cauterizing’ effect of Purgatory is an inexplicably painful act of mercy and love by God—God chastises those who He loves: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth. Because thou sayest: ‘I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing!’ And knowest not, that thou art wretched [a sinner], and miserable [finding joy in the world, not God], and poor [in grace and merits], and blind [lukewarm], and naked [without virtues]. I counsel thee to buy of Me gold fire tried [true charity], that thou mayest be made rich; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore, and do penance!” (Apocalypse 3:15-19).
As Penance Goes Down, the Temperature Goes Up
It is lack of penance that places souls in the terrible fires of Purgatory. Our Lord has warned us: product of confession is the receiving and doing of penance. “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3).
The dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church on the doctrine of Purgatory was specified in 1439 by the Council of Florence, which declared: “It has likewise been defined that, if those truly penitent have departed in the love of God, before they have made satisfaction by worthy fruits of penance for sins of commission and omission, the souls of these are cleansed after death by purgatorial punishments.”
The Council of Trent later added: “If anyone says that, after receiving the grace of justification, the guilt of any repentant sinner is remitted and the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out, in such a way that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be paid, either in this life or in Purgatory, before the gate to the kingdom of Heaven can be opened: let him be anathema.”
White-Weddings, Okay! White-Funerals? You’re Kidding!
St. Paul said that in the last times there would be people with “itching ears” seeking after novelties and believing fables. Well, one of those fables is that Purgatory and Hell are empty—or almost empty. God is love, and love is sweet, and the sweet loving God in His loving sweetness cannot bear to send anyone to Purgatory, let alone Hell!
This novelty of funerals in white is a fable-feeding funeral—funerals in white used to be performed ONLY for children who had died below the “age-of-reason” and were thus incapable of committing sin—which meant that after death they went straight to Heaven, hence the “funeral in white” with the Mass being that of the Angels, not the Requiem Mass. Today, everyone gets a “White-Funeral” and everyone talks as though the deceased is already clinking glasses with the angels and saints in Heaven, at a homecoming party! Sadly, Heaven IS NOT filling up and Purgatory is NOT empty. In fact, the common opinion among theologians is that MOST SOULS, that end up going to Heaven, have to pass through the fires of Purgatory. As Scripture says: “There shall not enter into it anything defiled, or that worketh abomination or maketh a lie …” (Apocalypse 21:27).
Full-Price Ticket to Heaven
The poor souls in Purgatory still have the stains of sin within them. This means two things. First, it means that the souls have not yet paid the temporal penalty due to sin, either for venial sins, or for mortal sins whose guilt was forgiven before death. There is also the problem of unrepented and unforgiven venial sin, for which the guilt and punishment were not removed before death. It is not certain whether the guilt of venial sins is strictly speaking remitted after death, and if so, how the remission takes place.
Discounts Only On Earth
We can pay for damage of sin after death in Purgatory, or we can pay the penalties of satisfaction for sin on Earth before death, which can be done by souls in a state of grace during the course of their whole life on Earth. Whereas before death a soul can cleanse itself by freely choosing to suffer for its sins, and so can gain merit for this suffering; a soul in Purgatory cannot choose to do so and gains no merit for its suffering and no increase in its glory. Rather, it is cleansed according to the demands of Divine Justice.
The Price is Right!
There are simply, or perhaps even too obviously, several basic reasons why souls have to undergo the terrible, yet at the same time joyful, sufferings of Purgatory. To keep things simple, let us enumerate them in a list form:
(1) Those who never lost the grace of God throughout their life, and died after having committed only venial sins in their life, but who were not sufficiently sorry for those venial sins, nor did sufficient penance for them, nor accepted the trials and sufferings that God sent them as a payment for their sins.
(2) Those who have committed mortal sins and therefore lost the grace of God, which they regained through the Sacrament of Confession, but like the case above, they were not sufficiently sorry for those venial sins, nor did sufficient penance for them, nor accepted the trials and sufferings that God sent them as a payment for their sins. Of course, mortal sin is much more expensive than venial sin, and so requires more penance than would be required for venial sin.
(3) The third group, of course, is a combination of the two previous groups listed above—those who have sinned both mortally and venially, and who have died with their mortal sins confessed and forgiven in the Sacrament of Confession. These have an even greater debt for having committed a combination of both kinds of sins.
Each Size of Sin Has Its Price Tag
What modifies this is the personal number and kind of sin that has been committed. There is a hierarchy among sins, which only God can properly and correctly evaluate. Objective and subjective elements come into play to create almost infinite levels of gravity for the same species of sin—the sin of violence will be judged differently in each case: what was duration of the act of violence? What was its intensity? On whom was it inflicted? Was it in self-defense? What damage or injury was inflicted? Was there any sorrow? Was there any apology made? Was any reparation made? Did the behavior improve or cease?
A Just Judge Judges the Just
These are just a few of the many questions that need to be asked to form a correct and just judgment of the level of guilt involved. Thank heavens it God Who judges and nobody else? It would be hard enough to judge one single sin correctly, let alone the thousands or hundreds of thousands of sins that one single person has committed!
It is good to know that, in all of His judgments, God is always both merciful and just. He never applies His justice without mercy; and He never shows mercy without justice. If He would do so, then He would be lacking in one or the other virtue—but God is perfect and so He exercises both in perfect balance and with the utmost harmony. However, it is worth noting one of the psalms, from Holy Scripture, which says: “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy! The Lord is sweet to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works!” (Psalm 144:8-9).
Mercy in Hell?
Even those who are damned in Hell, realize that God is merciful to them, and has not permitted them to be punished to degree that they truly deserved—even though they will be punished for eternity. The time of punishment remains the same—eternity—but the degree or intensity of punishment has been reduced. A combination of justice and mercy.
Sweeping Purgatory Under the Carpet?
Unfortunately, our sense of values has been deformed and corrupted, and we have no real inkling of the gravity of sin, nor of the punishment that sin deserves. Furthermore, we have little idea of what Purgatory is really like. For many, it is like a taboo subject—let’s not talk about it, let’s talk about something more pleasant! But when we avoid looking at the doctrine and revelations about Purgatory, we risk harming ourselves by avoiding the issue of the gravity and consequence of sin. When we read and truly meditate upon what goes on in Purgatory, we cannot avoid being struck with a salutary and healthy fear of the consequences of even the most ‘trivial’ sin (if one dare call sin ‘trivial’) and the rigor of God’s justice, even though he simultaneously applies some of His mercy.
“Ouch” and “Ouch” again!
If you read Fr. Schouppe’s book, Purgatory Explained, you will read some very sobering passages about Purgatory. One of the things he points out is the fact that the fires of Purgatory are the same fires as those of Hell. He also points out that there is in Purgatory, as in Hell, a double pain—the pain of loss in the soul and the pain of the senses. The pain suffered by the loss of God, is greater than the pain of the fire, or any of the other tortures, that the soul suffers.
Massive Loss
The pain of loss consists in being deprived for a time of the sight of God, Who is our Supreme Good, for Whom our souls were made. In Purgatory, there is a thirst for God—which should have been there while living on Earth, but the soul thirsted more for worldly things rather than God. The pain of sense, or sensible suffering, is the same as that which we experience in our flesh. Its nature is not defined by Faith, but it is the common opinion of the Doctors that it consists in fire and other species of suffering.
Fearsome Fire—Hot as Hell
The fire of Purgatory, say the Fathers, is that of Hell, of which the rich glutton speaks when he says: “I am tormented in this flame” (Luke 16:24). The same fire, says Pope St. Gregory the Great, torments the damned and purifies the elect. “Almost all theologians,” says the cardinal, St. Robert Bellarmine, “teach that the damned in Hell and the souls in Purgatory suffer the action of the same fire.” It must be held as certain, writes St. Robert Bellarmine, that there is no proportion between the sufferings of this life and those of Purgatory. St. Catherine of Genoa, in her book on Purgatory, writes: “As to the suffering, it is equal to that of Hell.”
We know what a terrible thing fire is, and what pain is caused by the slightest burn, no matter how feeble the flame may be; how much more terrible must be that fire which is fed neither with wood, gas nor oil.
St. Catherine of Genoa, in her book on Purgatory, says: “The souls endure a torment so extreme that no tongue can describe it, nor could the understanding conceive the least notion of it, if God did not make it known by a particular grace.”
Perfectly Weighted Justice
As regards the severity of these pains, since they are inflicted by Infinite Justice, they are proportioned to the nature, gravity, and number of sins committed. Each one receives according to his works, each one must acquit himself of the debts with which he sees himself charged before God. Now these debts differ greatly in quality. Some, which have accumulated during a long life, have reached the ten thousand talents of the Gospel, that is to say, millions and tens of millions; whilst others are reduced to a few farthings, the trifling remainder of that which has not been expiated on Earth. It follows from this that the souls undergo various kinds of sufferings, that there are innumerable degrees of expiation in Purgatory, and that some are incomparably more severe than others. However, speaking in general, the doctors agree in saying that the pains are most excruciating.
Terrible Time of Torment
St. Augustine believes that even though the souls in Purgatory will be saved, no doubt, after the trial of fire, but that trial will be terrible, that torment of Purgatory will be far more intolerable than all the most excruciating sufferings in this world. St. Thomas goes even further; he maintains that the least pain of Purgatory surpasses all the sufferings of this life, whatsoever they may be. The author of The Imitation of Christ explains this doctrine by a practical and striking sentence. Speaking in general of the sufferings of the other life, he says: “There, one hour of torment will be more terrible than a hundred years of rigorous penance done here!”
Crazy Catholics
Why, O why, do people want to pile up unnecessary punishment in the unimaginably painful and hot fires of Purgatory, which are in essence the fires of Hell, when they could avoid that by either not-sinning here below, or doing fitting serious penance for past sins. If people were physically burned on Earth each time they committed a Mortal or Venial Sin, then sin would soon stop. Because there payment is deferred to a later time, they sin like crazy! They—and we—are crazy! You have to be—if you stop and think about it seriously!
Some people have the weirdest ideas about Purgatory. They amount of sins that they commit would make you think that they imagine Purgatory to be like a five-star hotel, with a bar and Jacuzzi in every room, air-conditioning and climate-control, Olympic size swimming-pool and golf-course thrown in. They sin more and more so that they can spend more and more time there! The Modernist or Liberal Catholic, may well accept the existence of Purgatory in theory, however, in practice, they live as though Purgatory is empty. Let’s face it, how many sermons do you hear on Purgatory these days? Even when they are preached, many ‘water-down’ Purgatory to a point where we think little of the sufferings of the souls detained there—as though they were merely stuck in a traffic jam or in slow-moving traffic on the road to Heaven! The Modernist and Liberal mentality is, in the words of Fr. Felix Salvany, in his book Liberalism is a Sin,
Offend God rather than Neighbor!
“The Catholic simply tainted with Liberalism is generally a good man and sincerely pious; he exhales nevertheless an odor of Liberalism in everything he says, writes, or takes up. This courageous man reasons, speaks, and acts as a Liberal without knowing it. His strong point is charity; he is charity itself. … How the devil must chuckle over the mushy charity held out as a bait to abet his own cause! … Charity is a supernatural virtue which induces us to love God above all things and our neighbors as ourselves for the love of God. … Charity is primarily the love of God, secondarily the love of our neighbor for God’s sake. To sacrifice the first is to abandon the latter. Therefore, to offend our neighbor for the love of God is a true act of charity. Not to offend our neighbor for the love of God is a sin. Modern Liberalism reverses this order; it imposes a false notion of charity: our neighbor first, and, if at all, God afterwards” (Fr. Felix Salvany, Liberalism Is A Sin).
Hey! Nobody’s Perfect!
The result of this reversal of charity therefore sees people being prepared to see God offended rather than having to be ‘uncharitable’ by correcting the sinning neighbor! Unbelievable! Yet this modern behavior consequently allows mountains of sins to be piled-up under the pretext of what they think and protest is charity—all they really do is allow others to pile-up their Purgatory! “Sin now, burn later”—that’s their idea of charity. They help their neighbor pile-up the firewood with their excuses for not correcting others--”Everyone has their faults!” … “Nobody’s perfect!” … “It’s only a Venial Sin!” Huh? Only a Venial Sin? Well read some accounts of the suffering undergone in the fires of Purgatory for only Venial Sins! Then come back and say “only”! The entrance fee to Heaven is PERFECTION—as Our Lord Himself said: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), which echoes the Old Testament: “Thou shalt be perfect, and without spot before the Lord thy God” (Deuteronomy 18:13). Heaven is no place for mediocrity or half-baked Catholics—hence the need for the fires of Purgatory to full-bake the half-baked Catholics. Remember—many, if not most saints, had to pass to through Purgatory—with the exception of martyrs.
Dense Wood Burns Longer
They say that dense wood burns for much longer—well, these Liberals and Modernists with their fake and false notions of charity and sin, must be pretty dense. Therefore, if they manage to scrape into Purgatory, they will burn all the longer. The physician cauterizing his patient or cutting off his gangrened limb may nonetheless love him. Likewise the ‘cauterizing’ effect of Purgatory is an inexplicably painful act of mercy and love by God—God chastises those who He loves: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth. Because thou sayest: ‘I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing!’ And knowest not, that thou art wretched [a sinner], and miserable [finding joy in the world, not God], and poor [in grace and merits], and blind [lukewarm], and naked [without virtues]. I counsel thee to buy of Me gold fire tried [true charity], that thou mayest be made rich; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore, and do penance!” (Apocalypse 3:15-19).
As Penance Goes Down, the Temperature Goes Up
It is lack of penance that places souls in the terrible fires of Purgatory. Our Lord has warned us: product of confession is the receiving and doing of penance. “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3).
The dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church on the doctrine of Purgatory was specified in 1439 by the Council of Florence, which declared: “It has likewise been defined that, if those truly penitent have departed in the love of God, before they have made satisfaction by worthy fruits of penance for sins of commission and omission, the souls of these are cleansed after death by purgatorial punishments.”
The Council of Trent later added: “If anyone says that, after receiving the grace of justification, the guilt of any repentant sinner is remitted and the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out, in such a way that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be paid, either in this life or in Purgatory, before the gate to the kingdom of Heaven can be opened: let him be anathema.”
White-Weddings, Okay! White-Funerals? You’re Kidding!
St. Paul said that in the last times there would be people with “itching ears” seeking after novelties and believing fables. Well, one of those fables is that Purgatory and Hell are empty—or almost empty. God is love, and love is sweet, and the sweet loving God in His loving sweetness cannot bear to send anyone to Purgatory, let alone Hell!
This novelty of funerals in white is a fable-feeding funeral—funerals in white used to be performed ONLY for children who had died below the “age-of-reason” and were thus incapable of committing sin—which meant that after death they went straight to Heaven, hence the “funeral in white” with the Mass being that of the Angels, not the Requiem Mass. Today, everyone gets a “White-Funeral” and everyone talks as though the deceased is already clinking glasses with the angels and saints in Heaven, at a homecoming party! Sadly, Heaven IS NOT filling up and Purgatory is NOT empty. In fact, the common opinion among theologians is that MOST SOULS, that end up going to Heaven, have to pass through the fires of Purgatory. As Scripture says: “There shall not enter into it anything defiled, or that worketh abomination or maketh a lie …” (Apocalypse 21:27).
Full-Price Ticket to Heaven
The poor souls in Purgatory still have the stains of sin within them. This means two things. First, it means that the souls have not yet paid the temporal penalty due to sin, either for venial sins, or for mortal sins whose guilt was forgiven before death. There is also the problem of unrepented and unforgiven venial sin, for which the guilt and punishment were not removed before death. It is not certain whether the guilt of venial sins is strictly speaking remitted after death, and if so, how the remission takes place.
Discounts Only On Earth
We can pay for damage of sin after death in Purgatory, or we can pay the penalties of satisfaction for sin on Earth before death, which can be done by souls in a state of grace during the course of their whole life on Earth. Whereas before death a soul can cleanse itself by freely choosing to suffer for its sins, and so can gain merit for this suffering; a soul in Purgatory cannot choose to do so and gains no merit for its suffering and no increase in its glory. Rather, it is cleansed according to the demands of Divine Justice.
The Price is Right!
There are simply, or perhaps even too obviously, several basic reasons why souls have to undergo the terrible, yet at the same time joyful, sufferings of Purgatory. To keep things simple, let us enumerate them in a list form:
(1) Those who never lost the grace of God throughout their life, and died after having committed only venial sins in their life, but who were not sufficiently sorry for those venial sins, nor did sufficient penance for them, nor accepted the trials and sufferings that God sent them as a payment for their sins.
(2) Those who have committed mortal sins and therefore lost the grace of God, which they regained through the Sacrament of Confession, but like the case above, they were not sufficiently sorry for those venial sins, nor did sufficient penance for them, nor accepted the trials and sufferings that God sent them as a payment for their sins. Of course, mortal sin is much more expensive than venial sin, and so requires more penance than would be required for venial sin.
(3) The third group, of course, is a combination of the two previous groups listed above—those who have sinned both mortally and venially, and who have died with their mortal sins confessed and forgiven in the Sacrament of Confession. These have an even greater debt for having committed a combination of both kinds of sins.
Each Size of Sin Has Its Price Tag
What modifies this is the personal number and kind of sin that has been committed. There is a hierarchy among sins, which only God can properly and correctly evaluate. Objective and subjective elements come into play to create almost infinite levels of gravity for the same species of sin—the sin of violence will be judged differently in each case: what was duration of the act of violence? What was its intensity? On whom was it inflicted? Was it in self-defense? What damage or injury was inflicted? Was there any sorrow? Was there any apology made? Was any reparation made? Did the behavior improve or cease?
A Just Judge Judges the Just
These are just a few of the many questions that need to be asked to form a correct and just judgment of the level of guilt involved. Thank heavens it God Who judges and nobody else? It would be hard enough to judge one single sin correctly, let alone the thousands or hundreds of thousands of sins that one single person has committed!
It is good to know that, in all of His judgments, God is always both merciful and just. He never applies His justice without mercy; and He never shows mercy without justice. If He would do so, then He would be lacking in one or the other virtue—but God is perfect and so He exercises both in perfect balance and with the utmost harmony. However, it is worth noting one of the psalms, from Holy Scripture, which says: “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy! The Lord is sweet to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works!” (Psalm 144:8-9).
Mercy in Hell?
Even those who are damned in Hell, realize that God is merciful to them, and has not permitted them to be punished to degree that they truly deserved—even though they will be punished for eternity. The time of punishment remains the same—eternity—but the degree or intensity of punishment has been reduced. A combination of justice and mercy.
Sweeping Purgatory Under the Carpet?
Unfortunately, our sense of values has been deformed and corrupted, and we have no real inkling of the gravity of sin, nor of the punishment that sin deserves. Furthermore, we have little idea of what Purgatory is really like. For many, it is like a taboo subject—let’s not talk about it, let’s talk about something more pleasant! But when we avoid looking at the doctrine and revelations about Purgatory, we risk harming ourselves by avoiding the issue of the gravity and consequence of sin. When we read and truly meditate upon what goes on in Purgatory, we cannot avoid being struck with a salutary and healthy fear of the consequences of even the most ‘trivial’ sin (if one dare call sin ‘trivial’) and the rigor of God’s justice, even though he simultaneously applies some of His mercy.
“Ouch” and “Ouch” again!
If you read Fr. Schouppe’s book, Purgatory Explained, you will read some very sobering passages about Purgatory. One of the things he points out is the fact that the fires of Purgatory are the same fires as those of Hell. He also points out that there is in Purgatory, as in Hell, a double pain—the pain of loss in the soul and the pain of the senses. The pain suffered by the loss of God, is greater than the pain of the fire, or any of the other tortures, that the soul suffers.
Massive Loss
The pain of loss consists in being deprived for a time of the sight of God, Who is our Supreme Good, for Whom our souls were made. In Purgatory, there is a thirst for God—which should have been there while living on Earth, but the soul thirsted more for worldly things rather than God. The pain of sense, or sensible suffering, is the same as that which we experience in our flesh. Its nature is not defined by Faith, but it is the common opinion of the Doctors that it consists in fire and other species of suffering.
Fearsome Fire—Hot as Hell
The fire of Purgatory, say the Fathers, is that of Hell, of which the rich glutton speaks when he says: “I am tormented in this flame” (Luke 16:24). The same fire, says Pope St. Gregory the Great, torments the damned and purifies the elect. “Almost all theologians,” says the cardinal, St. Robert Bellarmine, “teach that the damned in Hell and the souls in Purgatory suffer the action of the same fire.” It must be held as certain, writes St. Robert Bellarmine, that there is no proportion between the sufferings of this life and those of Purgatory. St. Catherine of Genoa, in her book on Purgatory, writes: “As to the suffering, it is equal to that of Hell.”
We know what a terrible thing fire is, and what pain is caused by the slightest burn, no matter how feeble the flame may be; how much more terrible must be that fire which is fed neither with wood, gas nor oil.
St. Catherine of Genoa, in her book on Purgatory, says: “The souls endure a torment so extreme that no tongue can describe it, nor could the understanding conceive the least notion of it, if God did not make it known by a particular grace.”
Perfectly Weighted Justice
As regards the severity of these pains, since they are inflicted by Infinite Justice, they are proportioned to the nature, gravity, and number of sins committed. Each one receives according to his works, each one must acquit himself of the debts with which he sees himself charged before God. Now these debts differ greatly in quality. Some, which have accumulated during a long life, have reached the ten thousand talents of the Gospel, that is to say, millions and tens of millions; whilst others are reduced to a few farthings, the trifling remainder of that which has not been expiated on Earth. It follows from this that the souls undergo various kinds of sufferings, that there are innumerable degrees of expiation in Purgatory, and that some are incomparably more severe than others. However, speaking in general, the doctors agree in saying that the pains are most excruciating.
Terrible Time of Torment
St. Augustine believes that even though the souls in Purgatory will be saved, no doubt, after the trial of fire, but that trial will be terrible, that torment of Purgatory will be far more intolerable than all the most excruciating sufferings in this world. St. Thomas goes even further; he maintains that the least pain of Purgatory surpasses all the sufferings of this life, whatsoever they may be. The author of The Imitation of Christ explains this doctrine by a practical and striking sentence. Speaking in general of the sufferings of the other life, he says: “There, one hour of torment will be more terrible than a hundred years of rigorous penance done here!”
Crazy Catholics
Why, O why, do people want to pile up unnecessary punishment in the unimaginably painful and hot fires of Purgatory, which are in essence the fires of Hell, when they could avoid that by either not-sinning here below, or doing fitting serious penance for past sins. If people were physically burned on Earth each time they committed a Mortal or Venial Sin, then sin would soon stop. Because there payment is deferred to a later time, they sin like crazy! They—and we—are crazy! You have to be—if you stop and think about it seriously!
Article 2
Wednesday November 2nd, 2022
Pray Now! Pay Now! Play Later!
Wednesday November 2nd, 2022
Pray Now! Pay Now! Play Later!
Poor Priorities
Everybody has priorities! A priority is defined as “something that requires being dealt with or done first.” Things that are priorities come “prior” to other things. If you have a slight cut on the finger and also break a bone in your arm or leg, then it is obvious which you will attend to first of all. If you drop and break a plate on the floor, just as the overheated oil in your deep-fryer on the stove bursts into flames―then, again, it is obvious which situation you will deal with first. If an armed robber points a gun at you and threatens to shoot you if you refuse to give him your wallet―then it is obvious that you will prioritize you life over your money.
Our Lord Himself speaks of having a correct set of priorities when He says: “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Elsewhere He also adds: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also!” (Matthew 6:19-21).
Sadly and unfortunately, most people today prioritize earthly things above heavenly things; they like money more than grace; they see more benefit in having fun than doing penance; self-gratification over self-sanctification; they are quick to play and slow to pray; they are worldly, not spiritual. In short, they have poor priorities―or even pathetic priorities. People seek earthly happiness and worldly pleasures more than they seek eternal happiness and heavenly joys. Our Lady herself said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life―but in the next life!”
Yes―of course―some things are very important in life. We all need to pay attention to our health; our families and relationships; our work and income; even our houses and their contents; our cars and other possessions―but all of these are, in the words of Our Lord, secondary to following Him and saving our souls: “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26) … “He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:37).
What a waste of time to spend one’s life pursuing riches and the comforts they can buy when they risk making us lose Heaven, or at best procuring for us a long time in the fires of Purgatory! Have we forgotten Our Lord’s encounter with the rich young man? “And behold a certain man running up and kneeling before Him: ‘Good Master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Thou knowest the commandments—keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Jesus: ‘All these I have kept from my youth, what is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee: go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven; and come, follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
“Then Jesus, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you: How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus again answering, said to them: ‘Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches, to enter into the Kingdom of God!’ And when they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus looking on them, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!’” (Matthew 19:16-26; Mark 10:17-27).
Our Lady speaks of this vanity and danger: “People will think only of amusements! … Priests … will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain! … Who think only of piling riches upon riches!” (Our Lady of Good Success and La Salette). If priests and religious are doing this, it only encourages the laity to do it even more! God says: “Let not the rich man glory in his riches! But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, for I am the Lord” (Jeremias 9:23-24). “Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:23-24).
Insanity of Insanities!
No doubt you have heard the famous quote about insanity: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results!” Who said that? You will go insane trying to find out―for innumerable people have been credited as being the origin of that quote. Nevertheless, the bottom-line is that the quote speaks the truth. If what I am doing always fails―then why the heck am I doing it in exactly the same way again and again and again? Surely I have to tweak something or even radically change something in the process if it always results in failure. Yes―inventors seem to do the same thing again and again and again in their experiments―but they are tweaking or changing certain elements in that process. Of course, when they succeed―they will repeat that eventual successful formula again and again and again in order to see if this time it repeatedly and unfailingly brings success or the desired result (instead of the earlier failures).
Our insanity―and the insanity of the souls in Purgatory and Hell―comes from repeating and repeating and repeating the insane mistakes of all those souls that are now in either Purgatory or Hell. There are some dangerous quotes that give us a false sense of security in being part of the majority: “Safety in numbers!” … “The majority is always right!” Most people believe most of the things they believe only because they believe that most people believe them! Yes―the majority MIGHT be right, but the majority MIGHT also be wrong! Even non-Catholics, atheists, pagans and worldly folk attest to that―as you can see in the following quotes:
“There is a view of life which conceives that where the crowd is, there is also truth. There is another view of life which conceives that wherever there is a crowd, there is untruth.” (Soren Kierkegaard, a 19th century Protestant theologian and philosopher).
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).” (The Presbyterian, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name “Mark Twain”, 1835–1910, an American writer and an anti-Catholic).
“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it!” (Leo Tolstoy, famous Russian writer and Christian anarchist).
“When you’re the only sane person, you look like the only insane person!” (Christopher James Gilbert, American poet and existentialist philosopher).
“I don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over!” (Henrik Ibsen, 19th century Norwegian playwright). A billion foolish people do not form even a single wise person.
“It’s time to introduce a new fallacy that we have coined the ‘Kool-Aid Fallacy’. It goes like this: ‘You disagree with me and I’m in the majority while you’re in the minority. Therefore you’re a cult. Jim Jones led a cult and all of his followers drank poisoned Kool-Aid. Therefore, you’re a suicide cult!’ It’s unbelievable how many times this fallacy appears on social media. Any strong-minded minority with ideas that challenge the common herd, will automatically be called a cult and then it is inevitable that Kool-Aid will be mentioned. Any scientist that wants to change the prevailing paradigm is automatically branded a heretic, apostate, infidel, blasphemer, maverick or lunatic. The scientist must accept the majority or break with his peers, and have his job, career and funding placed in extreme jeopardy. How many careerist scientists are up for that? The answer is zero. The result is that scientists go on thinking what the establishment and the funding bodies expect them to think, even though they themselves must, deep down, know they are supporting ludicrous claims that make no sense.” (Dr. Thomas Stark, professor of philosophy, Extra Scientiam Nulla Salus: How Science Undermines Reason).
Following the Insane Majority to Hell or Purgatory
Our Lord―who tried to save the majority―Himself warns us against following the majority: “And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Not everyone that saith to Me, “Lord! Lord!” shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! … Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! ... Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!’” (Luke 13:23-24; Matthew 7:13-14; 7:21; 22:14).
The saints have taken up the above quotes and commented upon them―here is just a brief selection of quotes from some of those saints:
Pope St. Gregory the Great (540-604): “There are many who arrive at the Faith, but few who are led into the heavenly kingdom. Behold how many are gathered here for today’s feast-day―we fill the church from wall to wall! Yet who knows how few they are who shall be numbered in that chosen company of the Elect? The Ark, which in the midst of the Flood was a symbol of the Church, was wide below and narrow above; and, at the summit, measured only a single cubit. […] It was wide where the animals were, narrow where men lived―for the Holy Church is indeed wide in the number of those who are carnal-minded, narrow in the number of those who are spiritual! They who are to be saved as Saints, and wish to be saved as imperfect souls, shall not be saved!”
St. Justin Martyr, Father of the Church (100-165): “The majority of men shall not see God, except those who live justly, purified by righteousness and every other virtue.”
St. Jerome, Doctor and Father of the Church (347-420): “So that you will better appreciate the meaning of Our Lord’s words, and perceive more clearly how few the Elect are, note that Christ did not say that those who walked in the path to Heaven are few in number, but that there were few who found that narrow way. It is as though the Savior intended to say: The path leading to Heaven is so narrow and so rough, so overgrown, so dark and difficult to discern, that there are many who never find it their whole life long. And those who do find it are constantly exposed to the danger of deviating from it, of mistaking their way, and unwittingly wandering away from it.”
St. John Chrysostom, Doctor and Father of the Church (347-407): “What do you think? How many of the inhabitants of this city may perhaps be saved? What I am about to tell you is very terrible, yet I will not conceal it from you. Out of this thickly populated city with its thousands of inhabitants not one hundred people will be saved. I even doubt whether there will be as many as that!”
St. Augustine, Doctor and Father of the Church (354-430): “Take care not to resemble the multitude whose knowledge of God’s will only condemns them to more severe punishment … It is certain that few are saved … If you wish to imitate the multitude, then you shall not be among the few who shall enter in by the narrow gate … Not all, nor even a majority, are saved ... Beyond a doubt the elect are few.”
St. John Climacus, Father of the Church (579-649): “Live with the few if you want to reign with the few.” (St. John Climacus, Father of the Church).
St. Bede the Venerable, Doctor and Father of the Church (673-735): “Nor should we think that it is enough for salvation that we are no worse off than the mass of the careless and indifferent, or that in our Faith we are, like so many others, uninstructed!”
St. Anselm, Doctor of the Church (1033-1109): “If thou wouldst be certain of being in the number of the elect, strive to be one of the few, not of the many. And if thou wouldst be quite sure of thy salvation, strive to be among the fewest of the few… Do not follow the great majority of mankind, but follow those who enter upon the narrow way, who renounce the world, who give themselves to prayer, and who never relax their efforts by day or by night, so that they may attain everlasting blessedness!”
St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church (1225-1274): “There are a select few who are saved … Those who are saved are in the minority!”
St. Louis Marie de Montfort (1673-1716): “Be one of the small number who find the way to life, and enter by the narrow gate into Heaven! Take care not to follow the majority and the common herd, so many of whom are lost! Do not be deceived―there are only two roads―one that leads to life and is narrow; the other that leads to death and is wide. There is no middle way.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church (1696-1787): “Everyone desires to be saved but the greater part is lost ... The common opinion is that the greater part of adults is lost … It is certainly a great happiness for some sinners who, after a bad life, are converted at their death, and are saved; but these cases are very rare: ordinarily he that leads a bad life dies a bad death … What is the number of those who love Thee, O God? How few they are! The Elect are much fewer than the damned! … In the Great Deluge in the days of Noe, nearly all mankind perished, eight persons alone being saved in the Ark. In our days a deluge, not of water but of sins, continually inundates the Earth, and out of this deluge very few escape, especially among seculars. Scarcely anyone is saved! … All persons desire to be saved, but the greater part are lost, because they will not adopt the means of being saved! … All would wish to be saved and to enjoy the glory of paradise; but to gain Heaven, it is necessary to walk in the straight road that leads to eternal bliss! … He who abuses too much the mercy of God will be abandoned by Him! ... The saints are few, but we must live with the few if we would be saved with the few! O God, too few indeed they are; yet among those few I wish to be! … Some will say: ‘It is enough for me to be saved!’ ‘No,’ says St. Augustine, ‘it is not enough; if you say that it is enough, you will be lost!’”
Are You with the Insane Majority or the Sane Few?
Ask any soul who has been through Purgatory, or still burns in Purgatory, if they prefer Purgatory instead of doing penance upon Earth. The unanimous MAJORITY answer in this case will be sane and correct―they would all have preferred to have paid the price for their sins here on Earth in the short life that they had, rather than burn (some for centuries) in the fires of Purgatory―which, by the way, St. Thomas Aquinas and many other saints say are just as painful as the fires of Hell; except in the fact that the fires of Purgatory will not be burning the soul for eternity.
Just about everyone is this world always seeks to “get the best deal possible” ― who on earth wants to pay $40,000 for an item when you can get the exact same item elsewhere for $35,000. So why “pay over the odds” to get to Heaven (by going to Purgatory) when you could get to Heaven for far less by doing penance in this life. Unfortunately for the souls in Purgatory, they did not take the sane option―but went with the insane option!
What Price on No More Suffering of Any Kind?
Heaven offers us a life free from any illness or suffering. Imagine what kind of money people would pay for that kind of blessing and guarantee here on Earth! Hundreds of thousands! Even millions! Look at the price of one surgical operation! Of course, insurance companies pay the largest chunk—but people pay insurance companies hundreds a month, every month!
Americans consume 80 percent of the world’s supply of painkillers. Pain also appeared to be a major driver of health-care costs. Research has shown that Americans spent just under $5,000 million in over-the-counter pain medications and another nearly $18,000 million on outpatient analgesics. In the United States, the total amount of money spent on medicines reached approximately $574,000 million ($574 billion) on all forms of medication. Average expenditure is about $1,300 per person per year. Health spending per person in the U.S. averaged out at $12,000 in 2020 ― this number is the average total spent per person by combining both out-of-pocket expenses made by the individual and payments made by health insurance companies.
In a 2019 survey, covering 1,170 Americans aged 18-65, the results show how much time men, women, and different age groups really spend keeping fit and healthy. Americans spend 11.7 hours per week (the average number) on their health & fitness regime.
What is the proportion of time, money and effort spent on spiritual health? Very little. Less than 20% of Catholics take the ‘medication’ of Holy Mass once a week; less than 3% to 4% take the ‘medication’ of the Holy Rosary daily! It seems like most Catholics don’t believe in “Holy-istic” medicine! Unfortunate! Even less is the number of Catholics who will take some spiritual exercise and suffer some regular penance—only to find themselves in REAL suffering in Purgatory, if they can scrape in there! “The Dogma of Purgatory is too much forgotten by the majority of the faithful; the Church Suffering, where they have so many brethren to succor, whither they foresee that they themselves must one day go, seems a strange land to them” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained). Of course, everyone suffers in this life—but very few seem to profit from that suffering if, as Our Lord, Our Lady and most theologians hold that most souls are lost. There were two crucified thieves who suffered alongside Christ on Calvary—one suffered well and his sufferings brought an eternal end to suffering in Paradise; the other suffered badly and it brought him eternal suffering in Hell.
As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Understand the ignorance and error of mortals, and how far they drift from the way of light, when, as a rule, nearly all of them strive to avoid labor and suffering and are frightened by the royal and secure road of mortification and the Cross. Full of this deceitful ignorance, they do not only abhor resemblance to Christ’s suffering and my own, and deprive themselves of the true and highest blessing of this life; but they make their recovery impossible, since all of them are weak and afflicted by many sins, for which the only remedy is suffering. Sin is committed by base indulgence and is repugnant to suffering sorrow, while tribulation earns the pardon of the just Judge.”
What Price on Beauty?
No aging, no getting older, ‘wrinklier’, weaker, or ‘wobblier’. No matter in what state we die—old, bald, fat, ugly, deformed or ‘dandruffed’—in Heaven we will find ourselves in the prime of life (early adulthood years) and with perfections of body that vain people of this world would kill for! They fork out thousands of dollars trying to achieve a perfect body, and God will give it to us for free—if we are good! Here, on Earth, billions is spent in the vain (for most) search for the perfect body, the beautiful face, hair care, hair restoration, etc. African Americans spent $507,000 million in 2009 on hair care and personal grooming items. In Britain women spend an average of $6,000 to $8,000 a year on beauty and maintenance. U.S. women spend on average between $12,000 to $15,000 every year on products and salon services. The amount of money spent annually on cosmetics in the United States is $8,000 million dollars! $20,000 million is spent in the U.S. annually on dieting, including diet books, diet drugs and weight-loss surgeries.
As Fr. Schouppe writes, in his book Purgatory Explained: “Souls that allow themselves to be dazzled by the vanities of the world, even if they have the good fortune to escape damnation, will have to undergo terrible punishment. Let us open the Revelations of St. Bridget. We read there that the saint saw herself transported in spirit into Purgatory, and that, among others, she saw there a young lady of high birth who had formerly abandoned herself to the luxury and vanities of the world. This unfortunate soul related to her the history of her life, and the sad state in which she then was found: ‘Happily,’ before death I confessed my sins in such dispositions as to escape Hell, but now I suffer here to expiate the worldly life that my mother did not prevent me from leading!’
“She then added: “Alas! This head of mine, which loved to be adorned, and which sought to draw the attention of others, is now devoured with flames inside and out, and these flames are so violent that, every moment, it seems to me that I must die. These shoulders, these arms, which I loved to see admired, are cruelly bound in chains of red-hot iron. These feet, formerly trained for the dance, are now surrounded with vipers that tear them with their fangs and soil them with their filthy slime. All these parts of the body which I have adorned with jewels, flowers, and a variety of other ornaments, are now a prey to the most horrible torture! O mother, mother!’ she cried, ‘how culpable have you been in my regard! It was you who, by a fatal indulgence, encouraged my taste for display and extravagant expense; it was you that took me to theaters, parties, and dances, and to those worldly assemblies which are the ruin of souls!’” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Eplained).
“Blessed Mary Villani, a Dominican Religious, was transported in spirit to Purgatory. Among the souls that suffered there she saw one more cruelly tormented than the others, in the midst of flames which entirely enveloped her. Touched with compassion, Blessed Mary Villani questioned the soul, who replied: ‘I have been here for a very long time, punished for my vanity and my scandalous extravagance. Thus far I have not received the least alleviation. Whilst I was upon Earth, being wholly occupied with my appearance, my pleasures, and worldly amusements, I thought very little of my duties as a Christian, and fulfilled them only with great reluctance, and in a slothful manner.” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Eplained).
What Price on Happiness?
Happiness and joy beyond our wildest dreams will be ours. Though there will be no equality in Heaven, there will also be no envy, no jealousy, no pride, no anger, no lust, no greed, no resentment, no desire for revenge, no harboring of grudges, no suspicion, no fear, no arguing, no fighting, etc. What price would you pay to experience that on Earth? You couldn’t pay for it, because it is priceless!
In 2000, the US population spent over $200 billion (200,000 million dollars) on entertainment—just to try find some happiness or joy—which is three times the amount spent on education. Other ‘Make Me Happy’ expenditures are $30,000 million on candy; $76,000 million on soda; $50,000 million on alcohol and $49,000 million on tobacco. That’s only the money side of it—how much time was spent indulging in these things? Our Lady’s complaints at Quito and La Salette are haunting: “The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs … Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement.”
As Fr. Schouppe writes, in his book Purgatory Explained: “The venerable servant of God, Frances of Pampeluna, who was favored with several visions of Purgatory, saw, one day, a man of the world, who, although he had otherwise been a tolerably good Christian, passed fifty-nine years in Purgatory on account of seeking his ease and comfort. Another passed thirty-five years there for the same reason; a third, who had too strong, a passion for gambling, was detained there for sixty-four years. If God is severe towards the rich and the pleasure-seekers of the world, He will not be less so towards princes, magistrates, parents, and, in general, towards all those who have the charge of souls and authority over others.” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Eplained).
You Won’t Miss Anything if by Dozing-Off!
In Heaven you won’t miss out on anything. You will have more time to do things than you ever had here on Earth! Well, one reason for that is the “eternity factor” which makes a long-life on Earth seem like a joke! The other factor is that you won’t sleep in Heaven (so get all the sleep you can now!), for there will be no need for sleep! That must be the worldly man’s dream, for whom “time means money”! The less you sleep, the more you can work and so the more money you can make—much like the stores that want to stay open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Heavenly Diet
The beauty of body in Heaven will be aided by a heavenly diet—which is a diet of no food at all! We won’t need to eat to sustain our bodies. That means no more having to grow, hunt or shop for food; no more check-out lines; no more slaving over a hot oven; no more dirty dishes to wash! Put a price on that! You can’t, it’s priceless!
So there we are, just a few of the “Perks of Paradise”! And we want all that for what price??? God will say: “You’ve gotta be kidding Me!” Your offer is a joke! When you develop a mature and real sense of values, then come back and we’ll talk about it!”
That was the attitude of most souls in Purgatory. It was a totally unrealistic view of Heaven and its value. In effect, they wanted to swindle God, by getting all the above and more besides, for a few paltry prayers; some soppy sacrifices; lukewarm lines of “Love ya!”; mediocre Masses; rushed Rosaries and the like.
That is not the way to treat God, nor will God let us get away with it—it’s not His way, though it might be ours. With these false expectations for Heaven, stemming from our self-love and pride, God could well tell us to go to “the other place.” Yet He knows what we are made of and He shows compassion:
“The Lord is compassionate and merciful: long-suffering and plenteous in mercy. He will not always be angry: nor will He threaten for ever. He hath not dealt with us according to our sins: nor rewarded us according to our iniquities ... As a father hath compassion on his children, so hath the Lord compassion on them that fear Him: for He knoweth our frame. He remembereth that we are dust” (Psalm 102:8-14).
The Real Price of Real Estate
In that kindness, compassion and mercy, He seeks for a solution to our cheap and insulting offer for a piece of Heaven’s real-estate. The solution is Purgatory. As Fr. Schouppe says, in his book, Purgatory Explained:
“The Justice of God is terrible, and it punishes with extreme rigor even the most trivial faults. The reason is, that these faults, light in our eyes, are in nowise so before God. The least sin displeases Him infinitely, and, on account of the infinite Sanctity which is offended, the slightest transgression assumes enormous proportions, and demands enormous atonement.
“This explains the terrible severity of the pains of the other life, and should penetrate us with a holy fear. This fear of Purgatory is a salutary fear; its effect is, not only to animate us with a charitable compassion towards the poor suffering souls, but also with a vigilant zeal for our own spiritual welfare. Think of the fire of Purgatory, and you will endeavor to avoid the least faults; think of the fire of Purgatory, and you will practice penance, that you may satisfy Divine Justice in this world rather than in the next. Let us, however, guard against excessive fear, and not lose confidence.
“Let us not forget the Mercy of God, which is not less infinite than His Justice. Thy mercy, Lord, is great above the Heavens, says the prophet; and elsewhere, The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient, and plenteous in mercy? This ineffable mercy should calm the most lively apprehensions, and fill us with a holy confidence, according to the words: ‘In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped; let me never be put to confusion.’ If we are animated with this double sentiment, if our confidence in God’s Mercy is equal to the fear with which His Justice inspires us, we shall have the true spirit of devotion to the souls in Purgatory.” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Everybody has priorities! A priority is defined as “something that requires being dealt with or done first.” Things that are priorities come “prior” to other things. If you have a slight cut on the finger and also break a bone in your arm or leg, then it is obvious which you will attend to first of all. If you drop and break a plate on the floor, just as the overheated oil in your deep-fryer on the stove bursts into flames―then, again, it is obvious which situation you will deal with first. If an armed robber points a gun at you and threatens to shoot you if you refuse to give him your wallet―then it is obvious that you will prioritize you life over your money.
Our Lord Himself speaks of having a correct set of priorities when He says: “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Elsewhere He also adds: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also!” (Matthew 6:19-21).
Sadly and unfortunately, most people today prioritize earthly things above heavenly things; they like money more than grace; they see more benefit in having fun than doing penance; self-gratification over self-sanctification; they are quick to play and slow to pray; they are worldly, not spiritual. In short, they have poor priorities―or even pathetic priorities. People seek earthly happiness and worldly pleasures more than they seek eternal happiness and heavenly joys. Our Lady herself said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life―but in the next life!”
Yes―of course―some things are very important in life. We all need to pay attention to our health; our families and relationships; our work and income; even our houses and their contents; our cars and other possessions―but all of these are, in the words of Our Lord, secondary to following Him and saving our souls: “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26) … “He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me! And he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:37).
What a waste of time to spend one’s life pursuing riches and the comforts they can buy when they risk making us lose Heaven, or at best procuring for us a long time in the fires of Purgatory! Have we forgotten Our Lord’s encounter with the rich young man? “And behold a certain man running up and kneeling before Him: ‘Good Master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Thou knowest the commandments—keep the commandments!’ The young man said to Jesus: ‘All these I have kept from my youth, what is yet wanting to me?’ And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: ‘One thing is wanting unto thee: go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven; and come, follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
“Then Jesus, looking round about, said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you: How hardly shall they that have riches, enter into the Kingdom of God! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus again answering, said to them: ‘Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches, to enter into the Kingdom of God!’ And when they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus looking on them, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!’” (Matthew 19:16-26; Mark 10:17-27).
Our Lady speaks of this vanity and danger: “People will think only of amusements! … Priests … will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain! … Who think only of piling riches upon riches!” (Our Lady of Good Success and La Salette). If priests and religious are doing this, it only encourages the laity to do it even more! God says: “Let not the rich man glory in his riches! But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, for I am the Lord” (Jeremias 9:23-24). “Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’” (Matthew 19:23-24).
Insanity of Insanities!
No doubt you have heard the famous quote about insanity: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results!” Who said that? You will go insane trying to find out―for innumerable people have been credited as being the origin of that quote. Nevertheless, the bottom-line is that the quote speaks the truth. If what I am doing always fails―then why the heck am I doing it in exactly the same way again and again and again? Surely I have to tweak something or even radically change something in the process if it always results in failure. Yes―inventors seem to do the same thing again and again and again in their experiments―but they are tweaking or changing certain elements in that process. Of course, when they succeed―they will repeat that eventual successful formula again and again and again in order to see if this time it repeatedly and unfailingly brings success or the desired result (instead of the earlier failures).
Our insanity―and the insanity of the souls in Purgatory and Hell―comes from repeating and repeating and repeating the insane mistakes of all those souls that are now in either Purgatory or Hell. There are some dangerous quotes that give us a false sense of security in being part of the majority: “Safety in numbers!” … “The majority is always right!” Most people believe most of the things they believe only because they believe that most people believe them! Yes―the majority MIGHT be right, but the majority MIGHT also be wrong! Even non-Catholics, atheists, pagans and worldly folk attest to that―as you can see in the following quotes:
“There is a view of life which conceives that where the crowd is, there is also truth. There is another view of life which conceives that wherever there is a crowd, there is untruth.” (Soren Kierkegaard, a 19th century Protestant theologian and philosopher).
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).” (The Presbyterian, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name “Mark Twain”, 1835–1910, an American writer and an anti-Catholic).
“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it!” (Leo Tolstoy, famous Russian writer and Christian anarchist).
“When you’re the only sane person, you look like the only insane person!” (Christopher James Gilbert, American poet and existentialist philosopher).
“I don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over!” (Henrik Ibsen, 19th century Norwegian playwright). A billion foolish people do not form even a single wise person.
“It’s time to introduce a new fallacy that we have coined the ‘Kool-Aid Fallacy’. It goes like this: ‘You disagree with me and I’m in the majority while you’re in the minority. Therefore you’re a cult. Jim Jones led a cult and all of his followers drank poisoned Kool-Aid. Therefore, you’re a suicide cult!’ It’s unbelievable how many times this fallacy appears on social media. Any strong-minded minority with ideas that challenge the common herd, will automatically be called a cult and then it is inevitable that Kool-Aid will be mentioned. Any scientist that wants to change the prevailing paradigm is automatically branded a heretic, apostate, infidel, blasphemer, maverick or lunatic. The scientist must accept the majority or break with his peers, and have his job, career and funding placed in extreme jeopardy. How many careerist scientists are up for that? The answer is zero. The result is that scientists go on thinking what the establishment and the funding bodies expect them to think, even though they themselves must, deep down, know they are supporting ludicrous claims that make no sense.” (Dr. Thomas Stark, professor of philosophy, Extra Scientiam Nulla Salus: How Science Undermines Reason).
Following the Insane Majority to Hell or Purgatory
Our Lord―who tried to save the majority―Himself warns us against following the majority: “And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Not everyone that saith to Me, “Lord! Lord!” shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! … Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! ... Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!’” (Luke 13:23-24; Matthew 7:13-14; 7:21; 22:14).
The saints have taken up the above quotes and commented upon them―here is just a brief selection of quotes from some of those saints:
Pope St. Gregory the Great (540-604): “There are many who arrive at the Faith, but few who are led into the heavenly kingdom. Behold how many are gathered here for today’s feast-day―we fill the church from wall to wall! Yet who knows how few they are who shall be numbered in that chosen company of the Elect? The Ark, which in the midst of the Flood was a symbol of the Church, was wide below and narrow above; and, at the summit, measured only a single cubit. […] It was wide where the animals were, narrow where men lived―for the Holy Church is indeed wide in the number of those who are carnal-minded, narrow in the number of those who are spiritual! They who are to be saved as Saints, and wish to be saved as imperfect souls, shall not be saved!”
St. Justin Martyr, Father of the Church (100-165): “The majority of men shall not see God, except those who live justly, purified by righteousness and every other virtue.”
St. Jerome, Doctor and Father of the Church (347-420): “So that you will better appreciate the meaning of Our Lord’s words, and perceive more clearly how few the Elect are, note that Christ did not say that those who walked in the path to Heaven are few in number, but that there were few who found that narrow way. It is as though the Savior intended to say: The path leading to Heaven is so narrow and so rough, so overgrown, so dark and difficult to discern, that there are many who never find it their whole life long. And those who do find it are constantly exposed to the danger of deviating from it, of mistaking their way, and unwittingly wandering away from it.”
St. John Chrysostom, Doctor and Father of the Church (347-407): “What do you think? How many of the inhabitants of this city may perhaps be saved? What I am about to tell you is very terrible, yet I will not conceal it from you. Out of this thickly populated city with its thousands of inhabitants not one hundred people will be saved. I even doubt whether there will be as many as that!”
St. Augustine, Doctor and Father of the Church (354-430): “Take care not to resemble the multitude whose knowledge of God’s will only condemns them to more severe punishment … It is certain that few are saved … If you wish to imitate the multitude, then you shall not be among the few who shall enter in by the narrow gate … Not all, nor even a majority, are saved ... Beyond a doubt the elect are few.”
St. John Climacus, Father of the Church (579-649): “Live with the few if you want to reign with the few.” (St. John Climacus, Father of the Church).
St. Bede the Venerable, Doctor and Father of the Church (673-735): “Nor should we think that it is enough for salvation that we are no worse off than the mass of the careless and indifferent, or that in our Faith we are, like so many others, uninstructed!”
St. Anselm, Doctor of the Church (1033-1109): “If thou wouldst be certain of being in the number of the elect, strive to be one of the few, not of the many. And if thou wouldst be quite sure of thy salvation, strive to be among the fewest of the few… Do not follow the great majority of mankind, but follow those who enter upon the narrow way, who renounce the world, who give themselves to prayer, and who never relax their efforts by day or by night, so that they may attain everlasting blessedness!”
St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church (1225-1274): “There are a select few who are saved … Those who are saved are in the minority!”
St. Louis Marie de Montfort (1673-1716): “Be one of the small number who find the way to life, and enter by the narrow gate into Heaven! Take care not to follow the majority and the common herd, so many of whom are lost! Do not be deceived―there are only two roads―one that leads to life and is narrow; the other that leads to death and is wide. There is no middle way.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church (1696-1787): “Everyone desires to be saved but the greater part is lost ... The common opinion is that the greater part of adults is lost … It is certainly a great happiness for some sinners who, after a bad life, are converted at their death, and are saved; but these cases are very rare: ordinarily he that leads a bad life dies a bad death … What is the number of those who love Thee, O God? How few they are! The Elect are much fewer than the damned! … In the Great Deluge in the days of Noe, nearly all mankind perished, eight persons alone being saved in the Ark. In our days a deluge, not of water but of sins, continually inundates the Earth, and out of this deluge very few escape, especially among seculars. Scarcely anyone is saved! … All persons desire to be saved, but the greater part are lost, because they will not adopt the means of being saved! … All would wish to be saved and to enjoy the glory of paradise; but to gain Heaven, it is necessary to walk in the straight road that leads to eternal bliss! … He who abuses too much the mercy of God will be abandoned by Him! ... The saints are few, but we must live with the few if we would be saved with the few! O God, too few indeed they are; yet among those few I wish to be! … Some will say: ‘It is enough for me to be saved!’ ‘No,’ says St. Augustine, ‘it is not enough; if you say that it is enough, you will be lost!’”
Are You with the Insane Majority or the Sane Few?
Ask any soul who has been through Purgatory, or still burns in Purgatory, if they prefer Purgatory instead of doing penance upon Earth. The unanimous MAJORITY answer in this case will be sane and correct―they would all have preferred to have paid the price for their sins here on Earth in the short life that they had, rather than burn (some for centuries) in the fires of Purgatory―which, by the way, St. Thomas Aquinas and many other saints say are just as painful as the fires of Hell; except in the fact that the fires of Purgatory will not be burning the soul for eternity.
Just about everyone is this world always seeks to “get the best deal possible” ― who on earth wants to pay $40,000 for an item when you can get the exact same item elsewhere for $35,000. So why “pay over the odds” to get to Heaven (by going to Purgatory) when you could get to Heaven for far less by doing penance in this life. Unfortunately for the souls in Purgatory, they did not take the sane option―but went with the insane option!
What Price on No More Suffering of Any Kind?
Heaven offers us a life free from any illness or suffering. Imagine what kind of money people would pay for that kind of blessing and guarantee here on Earth! Hundreds of thousands! Even millions! Look at the price of one surgical operation! Of course, insurance companies pay the largest chunk—but people pay insurance companies hundreds a month, every month!
Americans consume 80 percent of the world’s supply of painkillers. Pain also appeared to be a major driver of health-care costs. Research has shown that Americans spent just under $5,000 million in over-the-counter pain medications and another nearly $18,000 million on outpatient analgesics. In the United States, the total amount of money spent on medicines reached approximately $574,000 million ($574 billion) on all forms of medication. Average expenditure is about $1,300 per person per year. Health spending per person in the U.S. averaged out at $12,000 in 2020 ― this number is the average total spent per person by combining both out-of-pocket expenses made by the individual and payments made by health insurance companies.
In a 2019 survey, covering 1,170 Americans aged 18-65, the results show how much time men, women, and different age groups really spend keeping fit and healthy. Americans spend 11.7 hours per week (the average number) on their health & fitness regime.
What is the proportion of time, money and effort spent on spiritual health? Very little. Less than 20% of Catholics take the ‘medication’ of Holy Mass once a week; less than 3% to 4% take the ‘medication’ of the Holy Rosary daily! It seems like most Catholics don’t believe in “Holy-istic” medicine! Unfortunate! Even less is the number of Catholics who will take some spiritual exercise and suffer some regular penance—only to find themselves in REAL suffering in Purgatory, if they can scrape in there! “The Dogma of Purgatory is too much forgotten by the majority of the faithful; the Church Suffering, where they have so many brethren to succor, whither they foresee that they themselves must one day go, seems a strange land to them” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained). Of course, everyone suffers in this life—but very few seem to profit from that suffering if, as Our Lord, Our Lady and most theologians hold that most souls are lost. There were two crucified thieves who suffered alongside Christ on Calvary—one suffered well and his sufferings brought an eternal end to suffering in Paradise; the other suffered badly and it brought him eternal suffering in Hell.
As Our Lady said to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Understand the ignorance and error of mortals, and how far they drift from the way of light, when, as a rule, nearly all of them strive to avoid labor and suffering and are frightened by the royal and secure road of mortification and the Cross. Full of this deceitful ignorance, they do not only abhor resemblance to Christ’s suffering and my own, and deprive themselves of the true and highest blessing of this life; but they make their recovery impossible, since all of them are weak and afflicted by many sins, for which the only remedy is suffering. Sin is committed by base indulgence and is repugnant to suffering sorrow, while tribulation earns the pardon of the just Judge.”
What Price on Beauty?
No aging, no getting older, ‘wrinklier’, weaker, or ‘wobblier’. No matter in what state we die—old, bald, fat, ugly, deformed or ‘dandruffed’—in Heaven we will find ourselves in the prime of life (early adulthood years) and with perfections of body that vain people of this world would kill for! They fork out thousands of dollars trying to achieve a perfect body, and God will give it to us for free—if we are good! Here, on Earth, billions is spent in the vain (for most) search for the perfect body, the beautiful face, hair care, hair restoration, etc. African Americans spent $507,000 million in 2009 on hair care and personal grooming items. In Britain women spend an average of $6,000 to $8,000 a year on beauty and maintenance. U.S. women spend on average between $12,000 to $15,000 every year on products and salon services. The amount of money spent annually on cosmetics in the United States is $8,000 million dollars! $20,000 million is spent in the U.S. annually on dieting, including diet books, diet drugs and weight-loss surgeries.
As Fr. Schouppe writes, in his book Purgatory Explained: “Souls that allow themselves to be dazzled by the vanities of the world, even if they have the good fortune to escape damnation, will have to undergo terrible punishment. Let us open the Revelations of St. Bridget. We read there that the saint saw herself transported in spirit into Purgatory, and that, among others, she saw there a young lady of high birth who had formerly abandoned herself to the luxury and vanities of the world. This unfortunate soul related to her the history of her life, and the sad state in which she then was found: ‘Happily,’ before death I confessed my sins in such dispositions as to escape Hell, but now I suffer here to expiate the worldly life that my mother did not prevent me from leading!’
“She then added: “Alas! This head of mine, which loved to be adorned, and which sought to draw the attention of others, is now devoured with flames inside and out, and these flames are so violent that, every moment, it seems to me that I must die. These shoulders, these arms, which I loved to see admired, are cruelly bound in chains of red-hot iron. These feet, formerly trained for the dance, are now surrounded with vipers that tear them with their fangs and soil them with their filthy slime. All these parts of the body which I have adorned with jewels, flowers, and a variety of other ornaments, are now a prey to the most horrible torture! O mother, mother!’ she cried, ‘how culpable have you been in my regard! It was you who, by a fatal indulgence, encouraged my taste for display and extravagant expense; it was you that took me to theaters, parties, and dances, and to those worldly assemblies which are the ruin of souls!’” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Eplained).
“Blessed Mary Villani, a Dominican Religious, was transported in spirit to Purgatory. Among the souls that suffered there she saw one more cruelly tormented than the others, in the midst of flames which entirely enveloped her. Touched with compassion, Blessed Mary Villani questioned the soul, who replied: ‘I have been here for a very long time, punished for my vanity and my scandalous extravagance. Thus far I have not received the least alleviation. Whilst I was upon Earth, being wholly occupied with my appearance, my pleasures, and worldly amusements, I thought very little of my duties as a Christian, and fulfilled them only with great reluctance, and in a slothful manner.” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Eplained).
What Price on Happiness?
Happiness and joy beyond our wildest dreams will be ours. Though there will be no equality in Heaven, there will also be no envy, no jealousy, no pride, no anger, no lust, no greed, no resentment, no desire for revenge, no harboring of grudges, no suspicion, no fear, no arguing, no fighting, etc. What price would you pay to experience that on Earth? You couldn’t pay for it, because it is priceless!
In 2000, the US population spent over $200 billion (200,000 million dollars) on entertainment—just to try find some happiness or joy—which is three times the amount spent on education. Other ‘Make Me Happy’ expenditures are $30,000 million on candy; $76,000 million on soda; $50,000 million on alcohol and $49,000 million on tobacco. That’s only the money side of it—how much time was spent indulging in these things? Our Lady’s complaints at Quito and La Salette are haunting: “The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs … Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement.”
As Fr. Schouppe writes, in his book Purgatory Explained: “The venerable servant of God, Frances of Pampeluna, who was favored with several visions of Purgatory, saw, one day, a man of the world, who, although he had otherwise been a tolerably good Christian, passed fifty-nine years in Purgatory on account of seeking his ease and comfort. Another passed thirty-five years there for the same reason; a third, who had too strong, a passion for gambling, was detained there for sixty-four years. If God is severe towards the rich and the pleasure-seekers of the world, He will not be less so towards princes, magistrates, parents, and, in general, towards all those who have the charge of souls and authority over others.” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Eplained).
You Won’t Miss Anything if by Dozing-Off!
In Heaven you won’t miss out on anything. You will have more time to do things than you ever had here on Earth! Well, one reason for that is the “eternity factor” which makes a long-life on Earth seem like a joke! The other factor is that you won’t sleep in Heaven (so get all the sleep you can now!), for there will be no need for sleep! That must be the worldly man’s dream, for whom “time means money”! The less you sleep, the more you can work and so the more money you can make—much like the stores that want to stay open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Heavenly Diet
The beauty of body in Heaven will be aided by a heavenly diet—which is a diet of no food at all! We won’t need to eat to sustain our bodies. That means no more having to grow, hunt or shop for food; no more check-out lines; no more slaving over a hot oven; no more dirty dishes to wash! Put a price on that! You can’t, it’s priceless!
So there we are, just a few of the “Perks of Paradise”! And we want all that for what price??? God will say: “You’ve gotta be kidding Me!” Your offer is a joke! When you develop a mature and real sense of values, then come back and we’ll talk about it!”
That was the attitude of most souls in Purgatory. It was a totally unrealistic view of Heaven and its value. In effect, they wanted to swindle God, by getting all the above and more besides, for a few paltry prayers; some soppy sacrifices; lukewarm lines of “Love ya!”; mediocre Masses; rushed Rosaries and the like.
That is not the way to treat God, nor will God let us get away with it—it’s not His way, though it might be ours. With these false expectations for Heaven, stemming from our self-love and pride, God could well tell us to go to “the other place.” Yet He knows what we are made of and He shows compassion:
“The Lord is compassionate and merciful: long-suffering and plenteous in mercy. He will not always be angry: nor will He threaten for ever. He hath not dealt with us according to our sins: nor rewarded us according to our iniquities ... As a father hath compassion on his children, so hath the Lord compassion on them that fear Him: for He knoweth our frame. He remembereth that we are dust” (Psalm 102:8-14).
The Real Price of Real Estate
In that kindness, compassion and mercy, He seeks for a solution to our cheap and insulting offer for a piece of Heaven’s real-estate. The solution is Purgatory. As Fr. Schouppe says, in his book, Purgatory Explained:
“The Justice of God is terrible, and it punishes with extreme rigor even the most trivial faults. The reason is, that these faults, light in our eyes, are in nowise so before God. The least sin displeases Him infinitely, and, on account of the infinite Sanctity which is offended, the slightest transgression assumes enormous proportions, and demands enormous atonement.
“This explains the terrible severity of the pains of the other life, and should penetrate us with a holy fear. This fear of Purgatory is a salutary fear; its effect is, not only to animate us with a charitable compassion towards the poor suffering souls, but also with a vigilant zeal for our own spiritual welfare. Think of the fire of Purgatory, and you will endeavor to avoid the least faults; think of the fire of Purgatory, and you will practice penance, that you may satisfy Divine Justice in this world rather than in the next. Let us, however, guard against excessive fear, and not lose confidence.
“Let us not forget the Mercy of God, which is not less infinite than His Justice. Thy mercy, Lord, is great above the Heavens, says the prophet; and elsewhere, The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient, and plenteous in mercy? This ineffable mercy should calm the most lively apprehensions, and fill us with a holy confidence, according to the words: ‘In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped; let me never be put to confusion.’ If we are animated with this double sentiment, if our confidence in God’s Mercy is equal to the fear with which His Justice inspires us, we shall have the true spirit of devotion to the souls in Purgatory.” (Fr. Schouppe, Purgatory Explained).
Article 1
Tuesday November 1st, 2022
Your Vocation! Be a Saint!
Tuesday November 1st, 2022
Your Vocation! Be a Saint!
Today is Your Feast Day!
Today is the feast of All Saints! Well, happy feast to do, dear saint! “Aw c’mon!”you say, “Stop joking around! I’m no saint and you know it!” Well, maybe and probably you are no saint—but are you on the way to being a saint? Is that your goal in life? Is that—apart from the superior goal of glorifying God—the main focus of your life?
There’s Only One Way
“There are those who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Every sin though it should be venial, must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified.” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, Vol. 1, “Introduction”).
Therefore, in Heaven, the saint is not someone extraordinary, the saint is someone who is ordinary, for there are only saints in Heaven—that is one thing that they all have in common, and something that is common is not extraordinary.
Saintly Common Denominator
Another thing that all the saints have in common is that they owe their sanctity, in part, to Our Lady. Explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly, knowingly or unknowingly, they all depended upon Our Lady who is the Mediatrix of all Grace. It is through her that God has chosen to distribute all of His graces. Therefore, to pass the exam of sanctity; to achieve sanctity in this life on Earth and to avoid the remedial school of sanctity in Purgatory, we need to seek-out Mary, to find Mary, to work with Mary, to let Mary teach us, guide us, encourage us and lead to those heights of sanctity which God ear-marked for us on the day He first created our soul.
Your Saintly Calling
St. Louis de Montfort puts it so beautifully in his booklet, The Secret of Mary:
“Chosen soul, living image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, God wants you to become holy like Him in this life, and glorious like Him in the next. It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being. What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God! A marvelous work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving His grace abundantly and in an extraordinary manner. The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this.
Heaven Ain’t Cheap, Ya Know!
It must be remembered that most saints have to pass through the fires of Purgatory before they are allowed admittance into Heaven—except, of course, martyrs, who would go straight to Heaven. But remember, too, that for martyrdom to ‘work’, the martyr has to be sorry for all his sins, otherwise the martyrdom would be in vain (in the case of unrepented mortal sin) and require Purgatory for unrepented venial sin. So even some martyrs could, in theory, pass some time in Purgatory if they refuse to be sorry for some of their venial sins.
And if the non-martyred saint has the grace and gift of going straight to Heaven after death, then rest assured that the saint has most certainly done his or her Purgatory here on Earth, by the trials, sorrows, anxieties, humiliations, persecutions, illnesses, pains and sufferings that they would have undergone before being granted such a great privilege.
Burn We Must
At the end of the day, it is the degree of love for God in the heart of the soul that decides the fate of the soul: Heaven, Purgatory or Hell. Love or charity is what will be judged. As St. Paul writes: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). To which Jesus adds: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much” (Luke 7:47), while St. Peter affirms: “Charity covereth a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). Charity is a fire that burns sins in this world—if we refuse to burn here, we will burn in Purgatory or Hell, but burn we must!
The Remedial School of Saints
Which brings us to the subject of saints and life on Earth. We are all called to be saints, for only saints go to Heaven. We know this in theory, but it is frightening to see how few people try to live this out in practice. If we don’t successfully pass our “sainthood exam” here on Earth, then we will have to spend a long time in the remedial school of sanctity in the fires of Purgatory. Most people have an erroneous notion that Heaven will be populated by the saints on the one hand, and themselves—plain old Mr. and Mrs. so and so on the other hand. They seem to think that Heaven is a place for both sanctity and plain old mediocrity. FALSE! That could not be further from the truth!
Heaven’s Mixed-Bag of Saints
In Heaven, there are all kinds of saints: big and small saints; strong and weak saints; old and young saints; male and female saints; rich and poor saints; “never-sinned-much” saints and “sinned-a-lot” saints; quickly processed saints and slowly processed saints; saints from all kinds of different backgrounds, countries, times and circumstances. But the one thing they have in common is that they are SAINTS and NOT mediocre souls. The mediocre souls find a place in Purgatory, where they have to make up for lost and wasted time and misguided efforts.
How Will I Ever Become A Saint?
“Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God.” (The Secret of Mary by St. Louis de Montfort).
“The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these, but we are sure that grace will be given to all, though not in the same measure. I say “not in the same measure,” because God does not give His graces in equal measure to everyone (Romans 12:6), although in His infinite goodness He always gives sufficient grace to each. A person who corresponds to great graces performs great works, and one who corresponds to lesser graces performs lesser works. The value and high standard of our actions corresponds to the value and perfection of the grace given by God and responded to by the faithful soul. No one can contest these principles.” (The Secret of Mary by St. Louis de Montfort).
Sanctity Needs Grace; Grace Comes Through Mary
“To find the grace of God, we must discover Mary. It all comes to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God.” (The Secret of Mary by St. Louis de Montfort).
This truth was later most perfectly manifested by Our Lady’s apparitions to St. Catherine Labouré, in 1830, at the convent of the Sisters of Charity on the Rue du Bac in Paris, France. It is from these apparitions that we received the so-called “Miraculous Medal.” However, it is more formally known as “The Medal of Our Lady of Grace” and “The Medal of the Immaculate Conception.”
Our Lady herself stipulated the design of the medal, by showing St. Catherine a vision of what it was to look like. There are rays of light beaming forth out of the rings upon Our Lady’s fingers. St. Catherine asked what these rays of light were. Our Lady replied that they were graces. St. Catherine noticed that some rays were shining brilliantly, while other rays of light were dull, so she asked Our Lady what they meant. Our Lady replied that the bright rays were graces that God gave to people, but the dull rays were graces that God did not give to people. St. Catherine, disappointed, asked why God would withhold some graces from us. Our Lady simply replied that they are withheld from us because we don’t ask for them!
If Only I Would Have ...
The poor souls in Purgatory could have avoided those fires if they had only taken their life, their spiritual life, much more seriously. Grace and sanctity was not at the top of their shopping-list, nor did they ask Our Lady for the graces they would have needed to avoid being sent to Purgatory. The words of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, already partially quoted above, perfectly represent this truth and we will repeat the aforementioned quote adding a further passage to it:
The Real Life, the One That Matters
“The interior life, thus conceived, is something far more profound and more necessary in us than intellectual life or the cultivation of the sciences, than artistic or literary life, than social or political life. Unfortunately, some great scholars, mathematicians, physicists and astronomers, have no interior life, so to speak, but devote themselves to the study of their science, as if God did not exist. In their moments of solitude they have no intimate conversation with Him.
“Their life appears to be, in certain respects, the search for the true and the good in a more or less definite and restricted domain, but it is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride, that we may legitimately question whether it will bear fruit for eternity. Many artists, literary men, and statesmen never rise above this level of purely human activity which is, in short, quite exterior. Do the depths of their souls live by God? It would seem not.
“This shows that the interior life, or the life of the soul with God, well deserves to be called the one thing necessary, since by it we tend to our last end and assure our salvation. This last must not be too widely separated from progressive sanctification, for it is the very way of salvation.
“There are those who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul.
“Every sin though it should be venial, must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified.” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, Vol. 1, “Introduction”).
A Tall Order!
As St. Louis de Montfort already said above: “Chosen soul, living image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, God wants you to become holy like Him in this life, and glorious like Him in the next. It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being!”
Whew! That’s a tall order, but one that is possible for everyone, for God never demands the impossible! We might be tempted to agree with the Apostles: “When they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus beholding, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!’” (Matthew 19:25-26). Our Lord adds: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) ― Our Lord is the Author of Grace and without His grace we can do nothing with regard to saving our souls and reaching Heaven. Grace perfects nature, and therefore we need to drink copiously from the fountains of grace—which are found in the Sacraments, in quality prayer and in generous sacrifices, penances and alms-giving.
This is what St. Louis de Montfort also says—that this tall order can only be accomplished by grace: “Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God. The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these, but we are sure that grace will be given to all, though not in the same measure. I say ‘not in the same measure,’ because God does not give His graces in equal measure to everyone (Romans 12:6), although in His infinite goodness He always gives sufficient grace to each. A person who corresponds to great graces performs great works, and one who corresponds to lesser graces performs lesser works” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary).
To Find God’s Grace, We Need Mary
St. Louis goes on to say what Our Lady herself will later reiterate in a variety of ways: “It all comes to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary). At Fatima, Our Lady said of herself: “Only she (Our Lady of the Rosary) can help you now!” At Akita, Our Lady said: “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved.” This merely echoes what the Church says in her liturgy concerning Our Lady: “He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord!” (Proverbs 8:35; Mass of the Immaculate Conception, traditional or extraordinary rite, Epistle). It is only saints that go to Heaven, and there is no saint who became a saint without the Mother of God, the Mediatrix of All Graces.
This is why the saints can say the following things about Our Lady:
● St. Albert the Great (a Doctor of the Church), says: “They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish.”
● St. Bonaventure (a Doctor of the Church) repeats the same thought when he says: “They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation.”
● St. Ignatius of Antioch (a Father of the Church), a martyr of the second century, writes: “A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost.”
If a lack of devotion to her is a mark of eternal reprobation a constant love for her must be a sign of eternal salvation. Many spiritual writers state that devotion to Mary is a sign of predestination.
● St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church) says: “It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.”
● St. Anselm (a Doctor of the Church) writes: “He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost.”
● St. Antonine is of the same opinion. He says: “As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified.”
You could fill books with quotes from saints about Our Lady—these few barely whet the appetite or do her justice. Nevertheless, on this feast of All Saints let all souls realize that all graces come to us through Mary; and, in her own words, she is all we have left in the current dire predicament of the world. Whether we want to survive, or get to Heaven, without her, there is not even the slightest hope of either or both.
Mary Accelerates Sanctification
Fr. Faber, in his Preface to his own translation, from the original French, of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary, emphatically points out the need for Mary in our sanctification and the sanctification of the world: “All those who are likely to read this book [True Devotion to Mary], love God, and lament that they do not love Him more; all desire something for His glory—the spread of some good work, the success of some devotion, the coming of some good time. One man has been striving for years to overcome a particular fault, and has not succeeded. Another mourns, and almost wonders while he mourns, that so few of his relations and friends have been converted to the Faith. One grieves that he has not devotion enough; another that he has a cross to carry which is a peculiarly impossible cross to him; while a third has domestic troubles and family unhappinesses which feel almost incompatible with his salvation; and for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy.
“But what is the remedy that is wanted? What is the remedy indicated by God Himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady; but, remember, nothing short of an immense one. Here in England, Mary is not half enough preached. Devotion to her is low and thin and poor. ... It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be. It has no faith in itself. Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls which might be saints wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized.
“Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background. Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them. It is the miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines. Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother.
"I cannot think of a higher work or a broader vocation for anyone than the simple spreading of this peculiar devotion of the Venerable Grignion De Montfort. Let a man but try it for himself, and his surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations it causes in his soul, will soon convince him of its otherwise almost incredible efficacy as a means for the salvation of men, and for the coming of the kingdom of Christ.
"Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our faith, and how different would our Communions be! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our sole Lord and Savior, her dearest and most blessed Son!” (Fr. Frederick Faber, Preface to his translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary).
Holy Cross—Cross of Holiness
The Holy Cross is what makes us holy and fit for Heaven! Our Lord does not mince His words when: “He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me [to Heaven], let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). However, “the laborer is worthy of his reward” (1 Timothy 5:18) and “Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:12). For “as it is written: ‘That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him!’” (1 Corinthians 2:9). You cannot outdo God in generosity!
Rewards Amidst the Cross
Yet, even among the sufferings of this world, in our strenuous efforts to be saints, we will also receive a reward—“Amen, I say to you, there is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the Kingdom of God’s sake, who shall not receive much more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting” (Luke 18:29-30). This was Our Lord’s reply to St. Peter, who had asked Him: “Behold, we have left all things, and have followed thee!” (Luke 18:28). St. Mark adds the unpleasant Cross in his report of Jesus’ reply to Peter: “Amen I say to you, there is no man who hath left house or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, for My sake and for the Gospel, who shall not receive an hundred times as much, now in this time―houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions―and in the world to come life everlasting” (Mark 10:29-30).
Wait For It!
However, the full reward, the true reward, the lasting reward will come in the next life—as Our Lady told St. Bernadette: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life, but in the next!” This merely echoes what Our Lord promised His Apostles and disciples before entering into His own Passion, Cross and Death: “They shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for My Name’s sake … And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake. But he that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved … Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy … Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake! Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven!” (Matthew 24:9; 5:11-12; Mark 13:13; John 16:20).
Not Always What It Seems!
C.S. Lewis offers a beautiful reflection on the path to sanctity in his book Weight of Glory: “The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of theses destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal … Our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins, in spite of which we love the sinner — no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ is the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden” (C.S. Lewis, Weight of Glory).
Preconceived Ideas About Saints
Workers of miracles—readers of minds—makers of prophecy—severe penances—endless prayers—faultless lives—these and similar traits are what we tend to associate with saints and becoming saints. We forget that when in was announced in the Carmelite Convent of Lisieux that one of the deceased sisters was “up for canonization”—when the sisters finally extracted the name of the candidate from “those in the know”, they were shocked to find out that it Thérèse of the Infant Jesus! The common reaction was one of “What did she ever do that was worthy of canonization?” Of course, we now know that ‘her way’ is what we now call “The Little Way”—and Pope St. Pius X calls her the model for sanctity in this modern world.
Even Sinner Saints!
For those discouraged about achieving sanctity, there can be no better thing than to read and study the lives of the great sinners who became great saints. They are walking proof of the words of God in Holy Scripture, Who said: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool” (Isaias 1:18).
Around the time of Our Lord, we think of St. Mary Magdalen, who was possessed by seven devils and caught in adultery. Then there is St. Dismas, the Good Thief on the cross, who, by his sufferings and sorrow for sin, steals Heaven with his dying breath. There too, on Calvary, in the Roman legionary, St. Longinus, who pierces Our Lord’s heart with his spear, and ends up being pierced with sorrow in his own heart—finally converting, leaving the military and becoming a saint. Then there is St. Paul the persecutor of Christians, who converts and becomes a pillar of the Faith and paying for his sins through a lifetime of suffering.
A little later in time, as the Church grows, we have St. Callixtus of Rome, who had a very sinful life before being taken under the wing of Victor I, a second century pope. He embezzled money and started a public riot, amongst other criminal affairs, but left that all behind early in the third century, when he reformed. Callixtus went on to become a pope himself, and died a martyr shortly thereafter, thereby sufficiently paying his debts for sin.
St. Mary of Egypt (c.344-c.421), at the age of 12, ran away from home to Alexandria, the most ‘exciting’ city in the Roman Empire. She became an accomplished seductress, who took special pleasure in corrupting innocent young men. Once, on a whim, she joined a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. By the time the ship reached its destination, Mary had seduced the entire crew and all of the pilgrims. In Jerusalem she realized the enormity of her sins, when a supernatural force prevented her from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Filled with remorse, Mary sought the Mother of God's intercession and made a good confession. In penance, Mary then spent the rest of her life as a hermit, alone in the Jordanian desert.
The beautiful, teenage St. Pelagia would have been every parent’s nightmare. As legend has it, she was a dancer and courtesan by her early teens. Pelagia’s conversion occurred all of a sudden, following a chance encounter with Saint Nonnus, the bishop of Edessa. The young girl was baptized, gave away her possessions to the poor and lived as a hermit for the rest of her life.
Another sinner turned saint was St. Olga (879-969). When a neighboring tribe assassinated her husband, St. Olga, princess of Kiev, went to war. Olga slaughtered her husband's murderer and almost all of his people. In vengeance, she massacred virtually the entire tribe; the few who did survive she sold into slavery. Years later, while in Constantinople to make an alliance with the emperor, Olga visited a church and was in awe of the magnificence of the liturgy. She took instruction, was baptized and returned to Kiev as a Christian, zealous to convert her people. Olga tried to convert her people, but hardly anyone would listen to her―even her family rejected Christianity. Olga died believing that as a missionary, she was a failure. Yet, she planted a seed of Faith which flourished. Today, Catholic and Orthodox Christians of Russia and Ukraine hail her as “Equal to the Apostles.”
Heaven’s Surprise
I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven’s door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp--
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash!
There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.
Herb, who I always thought
Was rotting away in Hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.
I nudged Jesus, "What’s the deal?
I would love to hear your take!"
"How’d all these sinners get up here?
God must’ve made a mistake!"
‘And why’s everyone so quiet, so somber?"
"Give me a clue!’
"My Friend," He said, "They’re all in shock!"
"They never thought they’d be seeing you!"
As St. Augustine says: “The Church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital of sinners … There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future” (St. Augustine of Hippo, Doctor of the Church—sinners need a good doctor!).
Saints can seem remote and distant, close to God, but far from people. But they’re more like us than we give them credit for. Their lives were like ours, full of dilemmas and struggles, with bad choices as well as good. But their goodness won out in the end, as ours can. Interest in angels is quite popular at the moment, but it is the saints who are really like us in both their strengths and frailties.
Museum or Hospital?
As St. Augustine says: “The Church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital of sinners … There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future” (St. Augustine of Hippo, Doctor of the Church—sinners need a good doctor!).
Saints can seem remote and distant, close to God, but far from people. But they’re more like us than we give them credit for. Their lives were like ours, full of dilemmas and struggles, with bad choices as well as good. But their goodness won out in the end, as ours can. Interest in angels is quite popular at the moment, but it is the saints who are really like us in both their strengths and frailties. They came to Heaven’s Hospital wounded by sin, and they found a cure—sometimes a painful cure—in Christ’s care.
You’d Better Believe It and Want It!
Let it be said and let it be understood and let it be believed and let it be desired: God expects you to be a saint and Our Lady will help you be a saint! Don’t question it and don’t doubt it! It is not, as you may think, an act of pride to want and expect to be a saint—it is an act of insanity not to do so! What’s the alternative to not wanting to and actually becoming a saint in this life? It is either Hell or Purgatory! Either way, it is insanity! Why pay a thousand times more or pay eternally for what could have been bought at a fraction of the effort and pain here below? You are expected to be a saint. You can be a saint. You must be a saint. Only saints go to Heaven.
Today is the feast of All Saints! Well, happy feast to do, dear saint! “Aw c’mon!”you say, “Stop joking around! I’m no saint and you know it!” Well, maybe and probably you are no saint—but are you on the way to being a saint? Is that your goal in life? Is that—apart from the superior goal of glorifying God—the main focus of your life?
There’s Only One Way
“There are those who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Every sin though it should be venial, must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified.” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, Vol. 1, “Introduction”).
Therefore, in Heaven, the saint is not someone extraordinary, the saint is someone who is ordinary, for there are only saints in Heaven—that is one thing that they all have in common, and something that is common is not extraordinary.
Saintly Common Denominator
Another thing that all the saints have in common is that they owe their sanctity, in part, to Our Lady. Explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly, knowingly or unknowingly, they all depended upon Our Lady who is the Mediatrix of all Grace. It is through her that God has chosen to distribute all of His graces. Therefore, to pass the exam of sanctity; to achieve sanctity in this life on Earth and to avoid the remedial school of sanctity in Purgatory, we need to seek-out Mary, to find Mary, to work with Mary, to let Mary teach us, guide us, encourage us and lead to those heights of sanctity which God ear-marked for us on the day He first created our soul.
Your Saintly Calling
St. Louis de Montfort puts it so beautifully in his booklet, The Secret of Mary:
“Chosen soul, living image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, God wants you to become holy like Him in this life, and glorious like Him in the next. It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being. What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God! A marvelous work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving His grace abundantly and in an extraordinary manner. The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this.
Heaven Ain’t Cheap, Ya Know!
It must be remembered that most saints have to pass through the fires of Purgatory before they are allowed admittance into Heaven—except, of course, martyrs, who would go straight to Heaven. But remember, too, that for martyrdom to ‘work’, the martyr has to be sorry for all his sins, otherwise the martyrdom would be in vain (in the case of unrepented mortal sin) and require Purgatory for unrepented venial sin. So even some martyrs could, in theory, pass some time in Purgatory if they refuse to be sorry for some of their venial sins.
And if the non-martyred saint has the grace and gift of going straight to Heaven after death, then rest assured that the saint has most certainly done his or her Purgatory here on Earth, by the trials, sorrows, anxieties, humiliations, persecutions, illnesses, pains and sufferings that they would have undergone before being granted such a great privilege.
Burn We Must
At the end of the day, it is the degree of love for God in the heart of the soul that decides the fate of the soul: Heaven, Purgatory or Hell. Love or charity is what will be judged. As St. Paul writes: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). To which Jesus adds: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much” (Luke 7:47), while St. Peter affirms: “Charity covereth a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). Charity is a fire that burns sins in this world—if we refuse to burn here, we will burn in Purgatory or Hell, but burn we must!
The Remedial School of Saints
Which brings us to the subject of saints and life on Earth. We are all called to be saints, for only saints go to Heaven. We know this in theory, but it is frightening to see how few people try to live this out in practice. If we don’t successfully pass our “sainthood exam” here on Earth, then we will have to spend a long time in the remedial school of sanctity in the fires of Purgatory. Most people have an erroneous notion that Heaven will be populated by the saints on the one hand, and themselves—plain old Mr. and Mrs. so and so on the other hand. They seem to think that Heaven is a place for both sanctity and plain old mediocrity. FALSE! That could not be further from the truth!
Heaven’s Mixed-Bag of Saints
In Heaven, there are all kinds of saints: big and small saints; strong and weak saints; old and young saints; male and female saints; rich and poor saints; “never-sinned-much” saints and “sinned-a-lot” saints; quickly processed saints and slowly processed saints; saints from all kinds of different backgrounds, countries, times and circumstances. But the one thing they have in common is that they are SAINTS and NOT mediocre souls. The mediocre souls find a place in Purgatory, where they have to make up for lost and wasted time and misguided efforts.
How Will I Ever Become A Saint?
“Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God.” (The Secret of Mary by St. Louis de Montfort).
“The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these, but we are sure that grace will be given to all, though not in the same measure. I say “not in the same measure,” because God does not give His graces in equal measure to everyone (Romans 12:6), although in His infinite goodness He always gives sufficient grace to each. A person who corresponds to great graces performs great works, and one who corresponds to lesser graces performs lesser works. The value and high standard of our actions corresponds to the value and perfection of the grace given by God and responded to by the faithful soul. No one can contest these principles.” (The Secret of Mary by St. Louis de Montfort).
Sanctity Needs Grace; Grace Comes Through Mary
“To find the grace of God, we must discover Mary. It all comes to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God.” (The Secret of Mary by St. Louis de Montfort).
This truth was later most perfectly manifested by Our Lady’s apparitions to St. Catherine Labouré, in 1830, at the convent of the Sisters of Charity on the Rue du Bac in Paris, France. It is from these apparitions that we received the so-called “Miraculous Medal.” However, it is more formally known as “The Medal of Our Lady of Grace” and “The Medal of the Immaculate Conception.”
Our Lady herself stipulated the design of the medal, by showing St. Catherine a vision of what it was to look like. There are rays of light beaming forth out of the rings upon Our Lady’s fingers. St. Catherine asked what these rays of light were. Our Lady replied that they were graces. St. Catherine noticed that some rays were shining brilliantly, while other rays of light were dull, so she asked Our Lady what they meant. Our Lady replied that the bright rays were graces that God gave to people, but the dull rays were graces that God did not give to people. St. Catherine, disappointed, asked why God would withhold some graces from us. Our Lady simply replied that they are withheld from us because we don’t ask for them!
If Only I Would Have ...
The poor souls in Purgatory could have avoided those fires if they had only taken their life, their spiritual life, much more seriously. Grace and sanctity was not at the top of their shopping-list, nor did they ask Our Lady for the graces they would have needed to avoid being sent to Purgatory. The words of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, already partially quoted above, perfectly represent this truth and we will repeat the aforementioned quote adding a further passage to it:
The Real Life, the One That Matters
“The interior life, thus conceived, is something far more profound and more necessary in us than intellectual life or the cultivation of the sciences, than artistic or literary life, than social or political life. Unfortunately, some great scholars, mathematicians, physicists and astronomers, have no interior life, so to speak, but devote themselves to the study of their science, as if God did not exist. In their moments of solitude they have no intimate conversation with Him.
“Their life appears to be, in certain respects, the search for the true and the good in a more or less definite and restricted domain, but it is so tainted with self-love and intellectual pride, that we may legitimately question whether it will bear fruit for eternity. Many artists, literary men, and statesmen never rise above this level of purely human activity which is, in short, quite exterior. Do the depths of their souls live by God? It would seem not.
“This shows that the interior life, or the life of the soul with God, well deserves to be called the one thing necessary, since by it we tend to our last end and assure our salvation. This last must not be too widely separated from progressive sanctification, for it is the very way of salvation.
“There are those who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in Heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death or after purification in Purgatory. No one enters Heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul.
“Every sin though it should be venial, must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself. Should a soul enter Heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into Purgatory to be purified.” (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, Vol. 1, “Introduction”).
A Tall Order!
As St. Louis de Montfort already said above: “Chosen soul, living image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, God wants you to become holy like Him in this life, and glorious like Him in the next. It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being!”
Whew! That’s a tall order, but one that is possible for everyone, for God never demands the impossible! We might be tempted to agree with the Apostles: “When they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus beholding, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!’” (Matthew 19:25-26). Our Lord adds: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) ― Our Lord is the Author of Grace and without His grace we can do nothing with regard to saving our souls and reaching Heaven. Grace perfects nature, and therefore we need to drink copiously from the fountains of grace—which are found in the Sacraments, in quality prayer and in generous sacrifices, penances and alms-giving.
This is what St. Louis de Montfort also says—that this tall order can only be accomplished by grace: “Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God. The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these, but we are sure that grace will be given to all, though not in the same measure. I say ‘not in the same measure,’ because God does not give His graces in equal measure to everyone (Romans 12:6), although in His infinite goodness He always gives sufficient grace to each. A person who corresponds to great graces performs great works, and one who corresponds to lesser graces performs lesser works” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary).
To Find God’s Grace, We Need Mary
St. Louis goes on to say what Our Lady herself will later reiterate in a variety of ways: “It all comes to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary). At Fatima, Our Lady said of herself: “Only she (Our Lady of the Rosary) can help you now!” At Akita, Our Lady said: “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved.” This merely echoes what the Church says in her liturgy concerning Our Lady: “He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord!” (Proverbs 8:35; Mass of the Immaculate Conception, traditional or extraordinary rite, Epistle). It is only saints that go to Heaven, and there is no saint who became a saint without the Mother of God, the Mediatrix of All Graces.
This is why the saints can say the following things about Our Lady:
● St. Albert the Great (a Doctor of the Church), says: “They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish.”
● St. Bonaventure (a Doctor of the Church) repeats the same thought when he says: “They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation.”
● St. Ignatius of Antioch (a Father of the Church), a martyr of the second century, writes: “A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost.”
If a lack of devotion to her is a mark of eternal reprobation a constant love for her must be a sign of eternal salvation. Many spiritual writers state that devotion to Mary is a sign of predestination.
● St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church) says: “It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.”
● St. Anselm (a Doctor of the Church) writes: “He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost.”
● St. Antonine is of the same opinion. He says: “As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified.”
You could fill books with quotes from saints about Our Lady—these few barely whet the appetite or do her justice. Nevertheless, on this feast of All Saints let all souls realize that all graces come to us through Mary; and, in her own words, she is all we have left in the current dire predicament of the world. Whether we want to survive, or get to Heaven, without her, there is not even the slightest hope of either or both.
Mary Accelerates Sanctification
Fr. Faber, in his Preface to his own translation, from the original French, of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary, emphatically points out the need for Mary in our sanctification and the sanctification of the world: “All those who are likely to read this book [True Devotion to Mary], love God, and lament that they do not love Him more; all desire something for His glory—the spread of some good work, the success of some devotion, the coming of some good time. One man has been striving for years to overcome a particular fault, and has not succeeded. Another mourns, and almost wonders while he mourns, that so few of his relations and friends have been converted to the Faith. One grieves that he has not devotion enough; another that he has a cross to carry which is a peculiarly impossible cross to him; while a third has domestic troubles and family unhappinesses which feel almost incompatible with his salvation; and for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy.
“But what is the remedy that is wanted? What is the remedy indicated by God Himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady; but, remember, nothing short of an immense one. Here in England, Mary is not half enough preached. Devotion to her is low and thin and poor. ... It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be. It has no faith in itself. Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls which might be saints wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized.
“Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background. Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them. It is the miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines. Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother.
"I cannot think of a higher work or a broader vocation for anyone than the simple spreading of this peculiar devotion of the Venerable Grignion De Montfort. Let a man but try it for himself, and his surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations it causes in his soul, will soon convince him of its otherwise almost incredible efficacy as a means for the salvation of men, and for the coming of the kingdom of Christ.
"Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our faith, and how different would our Communions be! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our sole Lord and Savior, her dearest and most blessed Son!” (Fr. Frederick Faber, Preface to his translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary).
Holy Cross—Cross of Holiness
The Holy Cross is what makes us holy and fit for Heaven! Our Lord does not mince His words when: “He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me [to Heaven], let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). However, “the laborer is worthy of his reward” (1 Timothy 5:18) and “Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:12). For “as it is written: ‘That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him!’” (1 Corinthians 2:9). You cannot outdo God in generosity!
Rewards Amidst the Cross
Yet, even among the sufferings of this world, in our strenuous efforts to be saints, we will also receive a reward—“Amen, I say to you, there is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the Kingdom of God’s sake, who shall not receive much more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting” (Luke 18:29-30). This was Our Lord’s reply to St. Peter, who had asked Him: “Behold, we have left all things, and have followed thee!” (Luke 18:28). St. Mark adds the unpleasant Cross in his report of Jesus’ reply to Peter: “Amen I say to you, there is no man who hath left house or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, for My sake and for the Gospel, who shall not receive an hundred times as much, now in this time―houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions―and in the world to come life everlasting” (Mark 10:29-30).
Wait For It!
However, the full reward, the true reward, the lasting reward will come in the next life—as Our Lady told St. Bernadette: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life, but in the next!” This merely echoes what Our Lord promised His Apostles and disciples before entering into His own Passion, Cross and Death: “They shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for My Name’s sake … And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake. But he that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved … Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy … Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake! Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven!” (Matthew 24:9; 5:11-12; Mark 13:13; John 16:20).
Not Always What It Seems!
C.S. Lewis offers a beautiful reflection on the path to sanctity in his book Weight of Glory: “The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of theses destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal … Our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins, in spite of which we love the sinner — no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ is the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden” (C.S. Lewis, Weight of Glory).
Preconceived Ideas About Saints
Workers of miracles—readers of minds—makers of prophecy—severe penances—endless prayers—faultless lives—these and similar traits are what we tend to associate with saints and becoming saints. We forget that when in was announced in the Carmelite Convent of Lisieux that one of the deceased sisters was “up for canonization”—when the sisters finally extracted the name of the candidate from “those in the know”, they were shocked to find out that it Thérèse of the Infant Jesus! The common reaction was one of “What did she ever do that was worthy of canonization?” Of course, we now know that ‘her way’ is what we now call “The Little Way”—and Pope St. Pius X calls her the model for sanctity in this modern world.
Even Sinner Saints!
For those discouraged about achieving sanctity, there can be no better thing than to read and study the lives of the great sinners who became great saints. They are walking proof of the words of God in Holy Scripture, Who said: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool” (Isaias 1:18).
Around the time of Our Lord, we think of St. Mary Magdalen, who was possessed by seven devils and caught in adultery. Then there is St. Dismas, the Good Thief on the cross, who, by his sufferings and sorrow for sin, steals Heaven with his dying breath. There too, on Calvary, in the Roman legionary, St. Longinus, who pierces Our Lord’s heart with his spear, and ends up being pierced with sorrow in his own heart—finally converting, leaving the military and becoming a saint. Then there is St. Paul the persecutor of Christians, who converts and becomes a pillar of the Faith and paying for his sins through a lifetime of suffering.
A little later in time, as the Church grows, we have St. Callixtus of Rome, who had a very sinful life before being taken under the wing of Victor I, a second century pope. He embezzled money and started a public riot, amongst other criminal affairs, but left that all behind early in the third century, when he reformed. Callixtus went on to become a pope himself, and died a martyr shortly thereafter, thereby sufficiently paying his debts for sin.
St. Mary of Egypt (c.344-c.421), at the age of 12, ran away from home to Alexandria, the most ‘exciting’ city in the Roman Empire. She became an accomplished seductress, who took special pleasure in corrupting innocent young men. Once, on a whim, she joined a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. By the time the ship reached its destination, Mary had seduced the entire crew and all of the pilgrims. In Jerusalem she realized the enormity of her sins, when a supernatural force prevented her from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Filled with remorse, Mary sought the Mother of God's intercession and made a good confession. In penance, Mary then spent the rest of her life as a hermit, alone in the Jordanian desert.
The beautiful, teenage St. Pelagia would have been every parent’s nightmare. As legend has it, she was a dancer and courtesan by her early teens. Pelagia’s conversion occurred all of a sudden, following a chance encounter with Saint Nonnus, the bishop of Edessa. The young girl was baptized, gave away her possessions to the poor and lived as a hermit for the rest of her life.
Another sinner turned saint was St. Olga (879-969). When a neighboring tribe assassinated her husband, St. Olga, princess of Kiev, went to war. Olga slaughtered her husband's murderer and almost all of his people. In vengeance, she massacred virtually the entire tribe; the few who did survive she sold into slavery. Years later, while in Constantinople to make an alliance with the emperor, Olga visited a church and was in awe of the magnificence of the liturgy. She took instruction, was baptized and returned to Kiev as a Christian, zealous to convert her people. Olga tried to convert her people, but hardly anyone would listen to her―even her family rejected Christianity. Olga died believing that as a missionary, she was a failure. Yet, she planted a seed of Faith which flourished. Today, Catholic and Orthodox Christians of Russia and Ukraine hail her as “Equal to the Apostles.”
Heaven’s Surprise
I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven’s door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp--
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash!
There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.
Herb, who I always thought
Was rotting away in Hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.
I nudged Jesus, "What’s the deal?
I would love to hear your take!"
"How’d all these sinners get up here?
God must’ve made a mistake!"
‘And why’s everyone so quiet, so somber?"
"Give me a clue!’
"My Friend," He said, "They’re all in shock!"
"They never thought they’d be seeing you!"
As St. Augustine says: “The Church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital of sinners … There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future” (St. Augustine of Hippo, Doctor of the Church—sinners need a good doctor!).
Saints can seem remote and distant, close to God, but far from people. But they’re more like us than we give them credit for. Their lives were like ours, full of dilemmas and struggles, with bad choices as well as good. But their goodness won out in the end, as ours can. Interest in angels is quite popular at the moment, but it is the saints who are really like us in both their strengths and frailties.
Museum or Hospital?
As St. Augustine says: “The Church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital of sinners … There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future” (St. Augustine of Hippo, Doctor of the Church—sinners need a good doctor!).
Saints can seem remote and distant, close to God, but far from people. But they’re more like us than we give them credit for. Their lives were like ours, full of dilemmas and struggles, with bad choices as well as good. But their goodness won out in the end, as ours can. Interest in angels is quite popular at the moment, but it is the saints who are really like us in both their strengths and frailties. They came to Heaven’s Hospital wounded by sin, and they found a cure—sometimes a painful cure—in Christ’s care.
You’d Better Believe It and Want It!
Let it be said and let it be understood and let it be believed and let it be desired: God expects you to be a saint and Our Lady will help you be a saint! Don’t question it and don’t doubt it! It is not, as you may think, an act of pride to want and expect to be a saint—it is an act of insanity not to do so! What’s the alternative to not wanting to and actually becoming a saint in this life? It is either Hell or Purgatory! Either way, it is insanity! Why pay a thousand times more or pay eternally for what could have been bought at a fraction of the effort and pain here below? You are expected to be a saint. You can be a saint. You must be a saint. Only saints go to Heaven.
Article 13
Monday October 31st, 2022
O Hell! It's Hell-O-Ween!
Monday October 31st, 2022
O Hell! It's Hell-O-Ween!
The International Association of Exorcists Casts Out a Warning!
In 1990, the recently deceased (2016) Chief Exorcist of Rome, Father Gabriele Amorth, along with five other priests, founded the International Association of Catholic Exorcists. This organization holds an international conference every other year in Rome. In 2014, the International Association of Catholic Exorcists was officially recognized by the Vatican. At the international conference for exorcists, held in Rome that same year, the exorcist and spokesman for the International Association of Catholic Exorcists, Fr. Aldo Buonaiuto, said the Association’s emergency number receives around 40 calls a day around October 31st. The most common are calls from parents who are concerned that their child has become involved in the supernatural.
Fr. Buonaiuto, a former President of the International Association of Catholic Exorcists, said: “Many say Halloween is a simple carnival, but in fact, there is nothing innocent or fun about it – it is the antechamber to something much more disturbing and dangerous! For devotees of the occult, October 31st is the satanic new year. With the arrival of Halloween, there is an increase in black magic rites, sacrilege and the adoration of Satan, as well as demonic possessions. There are always more evil rituals, animal sacrifices, desecrations of cemeteries and thefts of sacred bones at the time of the October 31st. For Satanic sects, it is the best time of year to recruit new members. It’s a time for luring new converts. From here, the door to the devil can be opened. For this reason, it’s necessary for us to speak out and not play down the danger. Halloween pushes new generations towards a mentality of esoteric magic and it attacks sacred and spiritual values through a devious initiation to the art and images of the occult.”
It’s More Than a Game! It’s Devilishly Real!
Another priest―who is not an exorcist―wisely writes: “Some priest-exorcists have been sharing their vast experience with the wide public, and have made it known that during exorcisms, Satan usually speaks through the possessed person. The devil makes known certain things which a lot of people would normally not be aware of. One of the important pieces of information which has been gathered during exorcisms has to do with Halloween. As it turns out, the night between October 31st and November 1st is a time when, all over the world, Satanic practice is on the increase, because on that night, the greatest number of satanic rituals are performed, especially so-called demonic “black masses” which are celebrated with the use of animal or even human sacrifice.
“So someone may say: ‘Okay, fair enough, but I have nothing to do with it. My children have nothing to do with it. How does this concern me and my children, if what we are doing on Halloween is just a game with my kids wearing all kinds of funny costumes?’ Dressing up in costumes that stand for demons, goblins, witches, and vampires is not the same as putting on a mask with the face of a sports star or pop star, or a shirt similar to the one used by Elvis Presley. Exorcists have been finding out that when we start playing with something that resembles Satan, and his demons, we open ourselves to these malevolent creatures’ influence, which is not just something psychological or intellectual in nature. Satan sees such behavior as an invitation on our part: an open door to his evil spiritual influence on the minds and souls of human beings. As exorcists confirm unequivocally, even if we are not consciously seeking demonic influence, it is still possible for us to be dangerously affected by it. Actually, it is a lot easier for the devil to enter into the mind of those who think nothing of things that “innocently” resemble the devil.
“So while it is true that there is an unhealthy intellectual and psychological aspect which negatively influences children dressing up in costumes of demons, witches, goblins, and vampires, there is an even more serious area which we should be concerned about: the spiritual aspect of demonic activity which appears innocent and harmless. It becomes more dangerous, because the innocent appearance of evil desensitizes us to what we are dealing with. Let us never forget that it is not only members of Satanic cults who enter into a spiritual relationship with Satan. A spiritual relationship with the devil can take place in various degrees. It does not always have to end up in diabolical possession. But, as exorcists warn, exposing kids to something which has some kind of a demonic connotation, draws the risk of entering into a relationship with the devil. It is like a slightly open window that a thief sees from a distance: for him it a signal which he interprets as an invitation to enter into the house. Dressing up children in costumes of all kinds of evil spirits and creatures, hanging pumpkins outside the house with evil faces carved on them, is like sending an invitation card to the devil by express mail. We can be assured that the devil will get interested in the invitation. But once he comes, it will not be that easy to fend him off.
“We can try to imagine the following situation. Let’s say we see a freshly baked delicious cake, but we do not know that someone laced it with poison. We start eating it. Will the fact that we are not aware of the poison prevent us from getting sick, or even dying? Of course not. The poisonous effects will take their course regardless of our will or our awareness of what’s inside the cake. This is precisely what happens with Halloween, but with one exception. We are fortunate to have the information which more and more priest-exorcists are sharing about its tremendous danger. Knowing what we know now, who in his right mind would want to dress up his children in costumes of demonic creatures? Parents’ concerns should go in a totally different direction. Have we ever wondered why so many young people start drinking, taking drugs, fall into depression, end up in a bad company, and even commit suicide? Parents often say: ‘What have we done wrong? We have always tried to give our children a lot of love; we taught them respect and proper behavior. So what went wrong?’”
“While each situation could be analyzed separately, parents may be wise to ask themselves whether throughout the years that their children were growing up, they might have senselessly and naively exposed them to Satan’s influence which had appeared as something innocent, but was actually infiltrating their kids’ minds and souls more and more. We must never take the devil lightly. Playing with fire is neither a game nor a joke. But knowing this is not enough to protect ourselves from demonic influence. It is also necessary to be in the state of grace, and to be strengthened by the frequent reception of the Sacraments – especially Holy Communion and Confession. It is also important to wear the Miraculous Medal of the Blessed Virgin Mary and to have Holy Water in the house. We know for certain that the devil stays away from homes which have a crucifix in a prominent location on the wall and saints’ images hanging in various places in the house—with a pride of place given to the image of the Divine Mercy, the Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. All these things are crucially important in order to create an environment where all the members of the household are protected. Exorcists tell us that Satan does not visit homes where family members pray the Rosary together, where the Bible as well as the Catechism are read regularly, and where all in the family practice their faith diligently.” (Fr. Jacek Stefanski).
Teach and Preach Against Halloween
Fr. Jeremy Davis, Jeremy Davies, has been an exorcist of over 40 years experience for the Archdiocese of Westminster (London, England). Interestingly, Fr. Davies sees potential opportunities for the Church to do good in face of the fact that Halloween has gained an ever-higher profile year by year. “Halloween is a good opportunity,” he suggests, “to teach the faith and help all of us — especially children — to understand the reality of evil and the truth of Christ and his Church.” It is the occasion, he feels, to “teach against” the festival using the word of God and the “clear teaching of the Church.” This now-omnipresent paganized holiday is the moment, he says, “to warn the world not just to avoid Halloween; it is also an opportunity to tell people about Christ.”
Staying on that side of “pond”, at the annual Synod of the Dioceses of Derry and Raphoe, in Northern Ireland, Fr. David Crooks said: “Halloween ... is turning into this ridiculous nonsense ... In shops and all over the place, we see all these accoutrements of witchcraft and all that kind of horrible nonsense! People say ‘Oh, it’s just for the children!’ Well, I think it’s sending the wrong message to children ― it’s actually highly dangerous! It can lead children to start looking at the internet and finding there things like tarot cards and séances, it can grow into all of that. It’s highly dangerous stuff.”
Another Irish priest, Fr. Richard O’Connor ― of the Diocese of Kerry, Ireland ― says he wants to see Halloween “get back to its true meaning” and that Catholics should lead the way: He said: “The word ‘Halloween’ means the eve of the feast of All Saints. Yet on shop windows and even on school windows, we see images of ghosts, skeletons, witches, demons etc., at this time of year, indeed of all sorts of ugly things that remind one of the occult and of Satan―and are avenues towards the occult. We’re supposed to be celebrating the Feast of All Saints (November 1st) and we have the kids dressing up as demons and devils and witches and things like that―the very opposite! But many Catholic parents and the boards of Catholic schools seem to have no problem with this. Instead, they see it, naively, as good fun even though such things are what might be called ‘avenues’ leading towards the occult; and this at a time when Satan-worship, black masses, and séances are on the increase all over the world. It shows a complete betrayal of the Christian Faith on this particular point. Certainly, have Halloween parties, but have them centered on the saints. I would say certainly make a big thing of Halloween and have a great party but be celebrating the saints instead of the demons. I would expect Catholic schools to give the lead in that respect. Look at Christmas―the school will have a little play centered on the Nativity, and the kids love dressing up as shepherds, the three kings, and all the rest of it. The same way you could have a party centered on the saints. It would give real meaning. If Halloween is to get back its true meaning, why not make this a time when parents encourage young people to dress up as their favorite saints, and schools, then, give prizes for the best efforts. Furthermore, instead of ‘trick-or-treating’, the young could also go around to their neighbors offering to pray to those saints for their intentions.”
Fr. Vincent Lampert, aged 59 (as of October 2022), ordained in 1991 and for over 15 years, since 2005, an exorcist for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis―says that the manner in which Halloween is celebrated can be an invitation for evil. Fr. Lampert says that he doesn’t see anything wrong with kids dressing up in innocent costumes, such as a cowboy or Cinderella, and asking for candy―“That’s all good, clean fun!” he said. However, he adds that there is danger in costumes that “deliberately glorify evil and instill fear in people”; further adding: “The devil and evil spirits do not have any additional authority on Halloween. It is what people do that invites the devil in. Perhaps by the way they’re celebrating that day, they’re actually inviting more evil into their lives. A lot of children are out celebrating Halloween, perhaps evil is being glorified, but we’re not really sitting around and talking about why certain practices are not conducive with our Catholic Faith and our Catholic identity. I think using it as a teachable moment would be a great thing to do.” Additionally, Fr. Lampert states that even if it’s “just for fun,” it is dangerous. He then references the Bible―Deuteronomy chapter 18―explaining that “it talks about not trying to consult the spirits of the dead, not consulting those who dabble in magic and witchcraft and the like…” Why? He says it’s “because it’s a violation of a church commandment that people are putting other things ahead of their relationship with God. And that would be the danger of Halloween that somehow God is lost in all of this, the religious connotation is lost and then people end up glorifying evil.”
Already back in the 1990s, in south Louisiana, the exorcist Fr. Mario Termini (who died in 2002), was saying: “Halloween is the most dangerous time of the year when it comes to spiritual warfare, because the ancient pagan festival is the night when Satan and his minions are most active — as are Satan worshipers. It’s the time when Satanists practice human sacrifice―especially of children. We have satanic cells around here. They exist in all big cities.” Sgt. C.P. Wilson, of the Baton Rouge City Police intelligence division, confirmed what the exorcist priest had said―but the police officer refused to discuss investigations in detail, but did confirm that Father Termini’s observations square with his own experiences: “This is difficult to talk about and deal with from a law enforcement standpoint,” the officer said. “Some of this stuff is sounds so far-fetched, that it’s very difficult to convince people that it’s really going on.”
Don’t Play with the Devil
On the surface, Halloween is made out to be a “fun time.” Halloween has become part of every American child’s life experience―and has even spread its tentacles around the world. To question Halloween, to criticize Halloween, to call Halloween dangerous or outright evil―risks having you labeled as a “loony”, a “religious fanatic”, and―these days―even a “terrorist” without even wearing a terrifying Satanic mask or wielding a witch’s broom! Yet that is how the devil works―always under the guides of good; always sugar-coating things and labeling them as being “fun”.
While Halloween masquerades as childish fun and frolic, it’s serious business in the occult world. Witchcraft, Wicca, Satanism and paganism believe, that on the night of Halloween, devils and spirits are unleashed. They perform their most hideous and potent rituals on the night of Halloween. Here are some testimonies from Satanists and writers on Satanism:
“Samhain: This is the Witch’s New Year and the primary Sabbat from which all others flow” (Silver RavenWolf, Teen Witch, p. 42). “Halloween is one of the four major Sabbats celebrated by the modern Witch, and it is by far the most popular and important of the eight that are observed. . . Witches regard Halloween as their New Year’s Eve, celebrating it with sacred rituals” (Gerina Dunwich, The Pagan Book of Halloween, p. 120).
Halloween is also among Satanism’s most cherished days. Anton LaVey, founder of The Church of Satan and author of The Satanic Bible writes: “After one's own birthday, the two major Satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht (Witches Night, May 1st) and Halloween” (Anton LaVey, The Satanic Bible, p. 96). On another occasion Anton LaVey said: “I’m glad that Christian parents let their children worship the devil at least one night out of the year!”
The Satanic High Priestess, Blanche Barton, on The Church of Satan web site, praises Halloween: “It [Halloween] gives even the most mundane people the opportunity to taste wickedness for one night. They have a chance to dance with the Devil ... I see Satanists all over the world meeting in small groups this night and Halloweens 500 years hence, to raise a glass to the Infernal Hosts.”
The Satanic Calendar decrees for Halloween: “One of the two most important nights of the year. . . Blood and sexual rituals. Sexual association with demons. Animal and human sacrifice—male or female.”
Former occultist Johanna Michaelsen reveals, “Halloween is also a prime recruiting season for Satanists.” (Johanna Michaelsen, Like Lambs to the Slaughter, p. 192).
In 1990, the recently deceased (2016) Chief Exorcist of Rome, Father Gabriele Amorth, along with five other priests, founded the International Association of Catholic Exorcists. This organization holds an international conference every other year in Rome. In 2014, the International Association of Catholic Exorcists was officially recognized by the Vatican. At the international conference for exorcists, held in Rome that same year, the exorcist and spokesman for the International Association of Catholic Exorcists, Fr. Aldo Buonaiuto, said the Association’s emergency number receives around 40 calls a day around October 31st. The most common are calls from parents who are concerned that their child has become involved in the supernatural.
Fr. Buonaiuto, a former President of the International Association of Catholic Exorcists, said: “Many say Halloween is a simple carnival, but in fact, there is nothing innocent or fun about it – it is the antechamber to something much more disturbing and dangerous! For devotees of the occult, October 31st is the satanic new year. With the arrival of Halloween, there is an increase in black magic rites, sacrilege and the adoration of Satan, as well as demonic possessions. There are always more evil rituals, animal sacrifices, desecrations of cemeteries and thefts of sacred bones at the time of the October 31st. For Satanic sects, it is the best time of year to recruit new members. It’s a time for luring new converts. From here, the door to the devil can be opened. For this reason, it’s necessary for us to speak out and not play down the danger. Halloween pushes new generations towards a mentality of esoteric magic and it attacks sacred and spiritual values through a devious initiation to the art and images of the occult.”
It’s More Than a Game! It’s Devilishly Real!
Another priest―who is not an exorcist―wisely writes: “Some priest-exorcists have been sharing their vast experience with the wide public, and have made it known that during exorcisms, Satan usually speaks through the possessed person. The devil makes known certain things which a lot of people would normally not be aware of. One of the important pieces of information which has been gathered during exorcisms has to do with Halloween. As it turns out, the night between October 31st and November 1st is a time when, all over the world, Satanic practice is on the increase, because on that night, the greatest number of satanic rituals are performed, especially so-called demonic “black masses” which are celebrated with the use of animal or even human sacrifice.
“So someone may say: ‘Okay, fair enough, but I have nothing to do with it. My children have nothing to do with it. How does this concern me and my children, if what we are doing on Halloween is just a game with my kids wearing all kinds of funny costumes?’ Dressing up in costumes that stand for demons, goblins, witches, and vampires is not the same as putting on a mask with the face of a sports star or pop star, or a shirt similar to the one used by Elvis Presley. Exorcists have been finding out that when we start playing with something that resembles Satan, and his demons, we open ourselves to these malevolent creatures’ influence, which is not just something psychological or intellectual in nature. Satan sees such behavior as an invitation on our part: an open door to his evil spiritual influence on the minds and souls of human beings. As exorcists confirm unequivocally, even if we are not consciously seeking demonic influence, it is still possible for us to be dangerously affected by it. Actually, it is a lot easier for the devil to enter into the mind of those who think nothing of things that “innocently” resemble the devil.
“So while it is true that there is an unhealthy intellectual and psychological aspect which negatively influences children dressing up in costumes of demons, witches, goblins, and vampires, there is an even more serious area which we should be concerned about: the spiritual aspect of demonic activity which appears innocent and harmless. It becomes more dangerous, because the innocent appearance of evil desensitizes us to what we are dealing with. Let us never forget that it is not only members of Satanic cults who enter into a spiritual relationship with Satan. A spiritual relationship with the devil can take place in various degrees. It does not always have to end up in diabolical possession. But, as exorcists warn, exposing kids to something which has some kind of a demonic connotation, draws the risk of entering into a relationship with the devil. It is like a slightly open window that a thief sees from a distance: for him it a signal which he interprets as an invitation to enter into the house. Dressing up children in costumes of all kinds of evil spirits and creatures, hanging pumpkins outside the house with evil faces carved on them, is like sending an invitation card to the devil by express mail. We can be assured that the devil will get interested in the invitation. But once he comes, it will not be that easy to fend him off.
“We can try to imagine the following situation. Let’s say we see a freshly baked delicious cake, but we do not know that someone laced it with poison. We start eating it. Will the fact that we are not aware of the poison prevent us from getting sick, or even dying? Of course not. The poisonous effects will take their course regardless of our will or our awareness of what’s inside the cake. This is precisely what happens with Halloween, but with one exception. We are fortunate to have the information which more and more priest-exorcists are sharing about its tremendous danger. Knowing what we know now, who in his right mind would want to dress up his children in costumes of demonic creatures? Parents’ concerns should go in a totally different direction. Have we ever wondered why so many young people start drinking, taking drugs, fall into depression, end up in a bad company, and even commit suicide? Parents often say: ‘What have we done wrong? We have always tried to give our children a lot of love; we taught them respect and proper behavior. So what went wrong?’”
“While each situation could be analyzed separately, parents may be wise to ask themselves whether throughout the years that their children were growing up, they might have senselessly and naively exposed them to Satan’s influence which had appeared as something innocent, but was actually infiltrating their kids’ minds and souls more and more. We must never take the devil lightly. Playing with fire is neither a game nor a joke. But knowing this is not enough to protect ourselves from demonic influence. It is also necessary to be in the state of grace, and to be strengthened by the frequent reception of the Sacraments – especially Holy Communion and Confession. It is also important to wear the Miraculous Medal of the Blessed Virgin Mary and to have Holy Water in the house. We know for certain that the devil stays away from homes which have a crucifix in a prominent location on the wall and saints’ images hanging in various places in the house—with a pride of place given to the image of the Divine Mercy, the Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. All these things are crucially important in order to create an environment where all the members of the household are protected. Exorcists tell us that Satan does not visit homes where family members pray the Rosary together, where the Bible as well as the Catechism are read regularly, and where all in the family practice their faith diligently.” (Fr. Jacek Stefanski).
Teach and Preach Against Halloween
Fr. Jeremy Davis, Jeremy Davies, has been an exorcist of over 40 years experience for the Archdiocese of Westminster (London, England). Interestingly, Fr. Davies sees potential opportunities for the Church to do good in face of the fact that Halloween has gained an ever-higher profile year by year. “Halloween is a good opportunity,” he suggests, “to teach the faith and help all of us — especially children — to understand the reality of evil and the truth of Christ and his Church.” It is the occasion, he feels, to “teach against” the festival using the word of God and the “clear teaching of the Church.” This now-omnipresent paganized holiday is the moment, he says, “to warn the world not just to avoid Halloween; it is also an opportunity to tell people about Christ.”
Staying on that side of “pond”, at the annual Synod of the Dioceses of Derry and Raphoe, in Northern Ireland, Fr. David Crooks said: “Halloween ... is turning into this ridiculous nonsense ... In shops and all over the place, we see all these accoutrements of witchcraft and all that kind of horrible nonsense! People say ‘Oh, it’s just for the children!’ Well, I think it’s sending the wrong message to children ― it’s actually highly dangerous! It can lead children to start looking at the internet and finding there things like tarot cards and séances, it can grow into all of that. It’s highly dangerous stuff.”
Another Irish priest, Fr. Richard O’Connor ― of the Diocese of Kerry, Ireland ― says he wants to see Halloween “get back to its true meaning” and that Catholics should lead the way: He said: “The word ‘Halloween’ means the eve of the feast of All Saints. Yet on shop windows and even on school windows, we see images of ghosts, skeletons, witches, demons etc., at this time of year, indeed of all sorts of ugly things that remind one of the occult and of Satan―and are avenues towards the occult. We’re supposed to be celebrating the Feast of All Saints (November 1st) and we have the kids dressing up as demons and devils and witches and things like that―the very opposite! But many Catholic parents and the boards of Catholic schools seem to have no problem with this. Instead, they see it, naively, as good fun even though such things are what might be called ‘avenues’ leading towards the occult; and this at a time when Satan-worship, black masses, and séances are on the increase all over the world. It shows a complete betrayal of the Christian Faith on this particular point. Certainly, have Halloween parties, but have them centered on the saints. I would say certainly make a big thing of Halloween and have a great party but be celebrating the saints instead of the demons. I would expect Catholic schools to give the lead in that respect. Look at Christmas―the school will have a little play centered on the Nativity, and the kids love dressing up as shepherds, the three kings, and all the rest of it. The same way you could have a party centered on the saints. It would give real meaning. If Halloween is to get back its true meaning, why not make this a time when parents encourage young people to dress up as their favorite saints, and schools, then, give prizes for the best efforts. Furthermore, instead of ‘trick-or-treating’, the young could also go around to their neighbors offering to pray to those saints for their intentions.”
Fr. Vincent Lampert, aged 59 (as of October 2022), ordained in 1991 and for over 15 years, since 2005, an exorcist for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis―says that the manner in which Halloween is celebrated can be an invitation for evil. Fr. Lampert says that he doesn’t see anything wrong with kids dressing up in innocent costumes, such as a cowboy or Cinderella, and asking for candy―“That’s all good, clean fun!” he said. However, he adds that there is danger in costumes that “deliberately glorify evil and instill fear in people”; further adding: “The devil and evil spirits do not have any additional authority on Halloween. It is what people do that invites the devil in. Perhaps by the way they’re celebrating that day, they’re actually inviting more evil into their lives. A lot of children are out celebrating Halloween, perhaps evil is being glorified, but we’re not really sitting around and talking about why certain practices are not conducive with our Catholic Faith and our Catholic identity. I think using it as a teachable moment would be a great thing to do.” Additionally, Fr. Lampert states that even if it’s “just for fun,” it is dangerous. He then references the Bible―Deuteronomy chapter 18―explaining that “it talks about not trying to consult the spirits of the dead, not consulting those who dabble in magic and witchcraft and the like…” Why? He says it’s “because it’s a violation of a church commandment that people are putting other things ahead of their relationship with God. And that would be the danger of Halloween that somehow God is lost in all of this, the religious connotation is lost and then people end up glorifying evil.”
Already back in the 1990s, in south Louisiana, the exorcist Fr. Mario Termini (who died in 2002), was saying: “Halloween is the most dangerous time of the year when it comes to spiritual warfare, because the ancient pagan festival is the night when Satan and his minions are most active — as are Satan worshipers. It’s the time when Satanists practice human sacrifice―especially of children. We have satanic cells around here. They exist in all big cities.” Sgt. C.P. Wilson, of the Baton Rouge City Police intelligence division, confirmed what the exorcist priest had said―but the police officer refused to discuss investigations in detail, but did confirm that Father Termini’s observations square with his own experiences: “This is difficult to talk about and deal with from a law enforcement standpoint,” the officer said. “Some of this stuff is sounds so far-fetched, that it’s very difficult to convince people that it’s really going on.”
Don’t Play with the Devil
On the surface, Halloween is made out to be a “fun time.” Halloween has become part of every American child’s life experience―and has even spread its tentacles around the world. To question Halloween, to criticize Halloween, to call Halloween dangerous or outright evil―risks having you labeled as a “loony”, a “religious fanatic”, and―these days―even a “terrorist” without even wearing a terrifying Satanic mask or wielding a witch’s broom! Yet that is how the devil works―always under the guides of good; always sugar-coating things and labeling them as being “fun”.
While Halloween masquerades as childish fun and frolic, it’s serious business in the occult world. Witchcraft, Wicca, Satanism and paganism believe, that on the night of Halloween, devils and spirits are unleashed. They perform their most hideous and potent rituals on the night of Halloween. Here are some testimonies from Satanists and writers on Satanism:
“Samhain: This is the Witch’s New Year and the primary Sabbat from which all others flow” (Silver RavenWolf, Teen Witch, p. 42). “Halloween is one of the four major Sabbats celebrated by the modern Witch, and it is by far the most popular and important of the eight that are observed. . . Witches regard Halloween as their New Year’s Eve, celebrating it with sacred rituals” (Gerina Dunwich, The Pagan Book of Halloween, p. 120).
Halloween is also among Satanism’s most cherished days. Anton LaVey, founder of The Church of Satan and author of The Satanic Bible writes: “After one's own birthday, the two major Satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht (Witches Night, May 1st) and Halloween” (Anton LaVey, The Satanic Bible, p. 96). On another occasion Anton LaVey said: “I’m glad that Christian parents let their children worship the devil at least one night out of the year!”
The Satanic High Priestess, Blanche Barton, on The Church of Satan web site, praises Halloween: “It [Halloween] gives even the most mundane people the opportunity to taste wickedness for one night. They have a chance to dance with the Devil ... I see Satanists all over the world meeting in small groups this night and Halloweens 500 years hence, to raise a glass to the Infernal Hosts.”
The Satanic Calendar decrees for Halloween: “One of the two most important nights of the year. . . Blood and sexual rituals. Sexual association with demons. Animal and human sacrifice—male or female.”
Former occultist Johanna Michaelsen reveals, “Halloween is also a prime recruiting season for Satanists.” (Johanna Michaelsen, Like Lambs to the Slaughter, p. 192).
Article 12
Sunday October 30th, 2022
Ignore the King at Your Own Peril
Sunday October 30th, 2022
Ignore the King at Your Own Peril
Christ the King―a King Uncrowned
On this day―the last Sunday of October―as we celebrate the traditional and original feast of Christ the King―nobody is better qualified to introduce and lay the foundation for this article on Christ the King, than the very person who introduced this feast day into the Church’s liturgical calendar back in 1925, namely Pope Pius XI, with his encyclical letter Quas Primas. So, by means of introduction or as a preface to this article, here are a few selected and arranged pertinent quotes from that encyclical. Pope Pius XI writes:
“The Empire of our Redeemer embraces all men. His Empire includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian Faith; so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ … The manifold evils in the world … the chief causes of the difficulties under which mankind is laboring are due to the fact that the majority of men have thrust Jesus Christ and His holy law out of their lives―so that these have no place either in private affairs or in politics! … With God and Jesus Christ excluded from political life; with authority derived not from God but from man; then the very basis of that authority has been taken away, because the chief reason of the distinction between ruler and subject has been eliminated. The result is that human society is tottering to its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid foundation!
“This evil spirit and plague of anti-clericalism, its errors and impious activities has not come into being in one day; it has long lurked beneath the surface. The Empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ Himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the state and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God’s religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart.
“There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences―seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder so much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin.
“It is a grave error to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since, by virtue of the absolute Empire over all creatures committed to Him by the Father, all things are in His power ... Christ has received from the Father ‘power and glory and a Kingdom’ (Daniel 7:13-14) … Therefore He necessarily has supreme and absolute dominion over all things created. Do we not read throughout the Scriptures that Christ is the King? He it is that shall come out of Jacob to rule (Numbers 24:19); ‘Who has been set by the Father as king over Sion, His holy mount, and shall have the Gentiles for His inheritance, and the utmost parts of the Earth for His possession’ (Psalm 2). There are many similar passages, but there is one in which Christ is even more clearly indicated. Here it is foretold that His Kingdom will have no limits, and will be enriched with justice and peace: ‘in His days shall justice spring up, and abundance of peace ... And He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the Earth’ (Psalm 121).
“Moreover, Christ Himself speaks of His own kingly authority: in His last discourse, speaking of the rewards and punishments that will be the eternal lot of the just and the damned; in His reply to the Roman magistrate, who asked Him publicly whether He were a king or not; after His resurrection, when giving to His Apostles the mission of teaching and baptizing all nations, He took the opportunity to call Himself king (Matthew 25:31-40), confirming the title publicly (John 18:37), and solemnly proclaimed that all power was given Him in Heaven and on Earth (Matthew 28:18). These words can only be taken to indicate the greatness of His power, the infinite extent of His Kingdom. What wonder, then, that He whom St. John calls the ‘prince of the kings of the Earth’ (Apocalypse 1:5) appears in the Apostle’s vision of the future as He who ‘hath on His garment and on His thigh written “King of kings and Lord of lords!”’ (Apocalypse 19:16). It is Christ whom the Father ‘hath appointed Heir of all things’ (Hebrews 1:2); ‘for He must reign until, at the end of the world, He hath put all His enemies under the feet of God and the Father’ (1 Corinthians 15:25).
“As long as individuals and states refuse to submit to the rule of our Savior, there will be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations. Men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ … Peace cannot be more effectually restored, nor placed upon a more solid basis, than through the restoration of the Empire of Our Lord ... Nor is there any difference in this matter between the individual and the family or the State; for all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ. In Him is the salvation of the individual, in Him is the salvation of society. ‘Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under Heaven given to men whereby we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12). He is the author of happiness and true prosperity for every man and for every nation. If the rulers of nations wish to preserve their authority, to promote and increase the prosperity of their countries, they will not neglect the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ.
“Our Lord’s kingly office invests the human authority of princes and rulers with a religious significance; it ennobles the citizen’s duty of obedience ... If princes and magistrates duly elected are filled with the persuasion that they rule, not by their own right, but by the mandate and in the place of the Divine King, they will exercise their authority piously and wisely, and they will make laws and administer them, having in view the common good and also the human dignity of their subjects. The result will be a stable peace and tranquility, for there will be no longer any cause of discontent. Men will see in their king, or in their rulers, men like themselves, perhaps unworthy or open to criticism, but they will not on that account refuse obedience if they see reflected in them the authority of Christ God and Man.” (Pope Piux XI, selection of quotes from his encyclical, Quas Primas, on Christ the King).
The Teaching Side and Influence of Feast Days
The Feast of Christ the King is traditionally celebrated on the last Sunday of October. Pope Paul VI went and changed the date to the last Sunday of the liturgical year (or the Sunday before the First Sunday of Advent). Regardless of the date, the Feast of Christ the King, as established by Pope Pius XI in 1925, was meant to be an antidote to Secularism. This heinous state of Secularism, is a way of life which leaves God out of man’s thinking, allowing man to live and organize his life as if God did not exist: “God looked down from Heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, or did seek God. They have not called upon God! The fool said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’ All have gone aside, they are become unprofitable together, there is none that doth good, no not one. They are corrupted, and become abominable in iniquities! There is none that doth good!” (Psalm 52:1-6) ... “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3).
Pope Pius XI instituted this feast in 1925 to help the Church respond to this rising Secularism and Atheism in the world. Pope Pius XI cited the precedent for introducing new feast days into the liturgical calendar: The Church has a pressing need for the culture around it to be reminded of some particular aspect of the Catholic Faith. The feast of Corpus Christi was instituted when devotion to the Holy Eucharist was waning. Pius IX also says: “The feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was instituted at a time when men were oppressed by the sad and gloomy severity of Jansenism, which had made their hearts grow cold, and shut them out from the love of God and the hope of salvation.” Pius XI cites his reasons for establishing the feast of Christ the King as the widespread prevalence of relativism and anti-clericalism. He desires to remind the world that Christ—and his Church—are truly Lord over all.
The Feast of Christ the King is intended to proclaim in a striking and effective manner Christ’s royalty over individuals, families, society, governments, and nations. This feast can and should be a springboard to re-establishing Christ’s absolute authority and rule in ourselves first of all, and then in our families.
Even Catholics are guilty of Secularism, for even though they know in their minds that God exists, there is little place for God in their hearts, for they live as though God did not exist. Is your family guilty of this? Are some members of your family tending towards this? Have they contracted the fatal disease of Secularism, at least its early stages?
Kings today are an unfamiliar breed. The few that are left have no political power. But, in ancient times, kings were sacred and absolute. They were crowned at their coronation with a special consecration and anointing. And the ancient king set the tone and spirit of his realm. A good king made for a prosperous and orderly kingdom.
That idea is by no means dead today. The influence of a leader is still a powerful factor in modern life. For example, take education. A school takes its spirit from the principal. Does he or she love and respect children? The staff will reflect that spirit in the classrooms.
Take business: Is the owner or manager an honest man or a crook? His employees will be quick to follow his ways.
Take government: Are the leaders people of integrity, dedicated to the good of their country, or are they unscrupulous and on the make? Their kind of government will filter down through the bureaucracy.
The same is true of Christ ― Who is meant to be the leader of a worldwide Christian community, the Catholic Church, into which He wishes to bring every human being. His spirit must be the spirit of the people of His Kingdom. Do you have the spirit of Christ? Or do you have the spirit of the world? The spirit of the world is ultimately the spirit of Satan, or Belial, or the Devil―whom Christ calls “the prince of this world” (John 12:31). Holy Scripture warns: “What concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God! As God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17).
Christ the King is not “The In-Thing”
Sadly—and tragically for mankind in the future—devotion, honor and homage to Christ the King has not grown. Instead, the secularism—which prompted the encyclical and the feast in the first place—has continued to grow unabated, to the point that it caused the collapse of the Catholic world, with Catholics leaving the Church in droves and regular Sunday Mass attendance plummeting, and the Sacrament of Confession falling into almost total disuse.
The chief reason behind the ignoring of the Social Reign of Christ the King is that politics has separated itself from religion, the State has separated itself from the Church, the world has separated itself from Heaven, and man has separated himself from God. What was once “one house” has now been divided and made into a “duplex” or “semi-detached” house. In North America, a “duplex” house is a single building having two apartments with separate entrances for two households. This includes two-story houses having a complete apartment on each floor and also side-by-side apartments on a single lot that share a common wall. In Britain, a “duplex house” is called a “Semi-detached house”—this is what politics and religion, or the State and Church, or man and God, have become: “semi-detached.”
Marriage and Christ the King
We could also liken the world’s relationship and our relationship to Christ the King through an analogy to the current plight of marriage throughout the world. Marriage on Earth is meant to be a reflection of our union with God―or especially our union with the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ. “I will espouse thee to Me forever: and I will espouse thee to Me in justice, and judgment, and in mercy, and in commiserations. I will espouse thee to Me in Faith: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord!” (Osee 2:19-20). It is hard to imagine someone loving, adoring, obeying and pleasing God if they cannot achieve that in an earthly, human, family setting!
Marital problems reflect God problems. The prevalence of adultery, separation and divorce is an indicator of how mankind acts in relation to God. We commit spiritual adultery by seeking to love something else, other than God and even love it more than God—and that something is the world. Holy Scripture calls such lovers of the world by the name “adulterers”, and just as adultery causes enmity between spouses, so too does spiritual adultery with the world, cause enmity with God: “Adulterers! Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). Many seek a separation from God, so as to better enjoy the world! This is what Our Lord and King condemns, when He says: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:19-24). Yet many do try to serve God and mammon—which is like trying to have a spouse and a lover―and can be likened to partially or sporadically practicing the Faith. Some even go further, and do not merely separate themselves from their spouse for a while, in order to be with the lover, but they want a divorce—a permanent cutting of the bond of marriage—which can be likened to apostasy from the Faith.
There are very, very few truly Catholic marriages in the world today—Our Lady even revealed to St. Jacinta Marto of Fatima that most marriages (even back in 1917) were not of God and not pleasing to God! An overgrown selfishness and a near non-existent selflessness is one of the chief causes of such marriages. True love is more outgoing than incoming.
We Must Fight For Christ Our King
Following Christ our King means having to fight! “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Fight the good fight of faith: lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called, and hast confessed a good confession before many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6:12). “This is the victory which overcometh the world, our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). Yet Faith is not an end in itself, but a stepping-stone to love and charity: “If I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). We must fight for Christ the King primarily through love or charity: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Christ our King tells us: “You shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Matthew 10:22), yet “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake! Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you!” (Matthew 5:11-12). “Bless them that persecute you: bless, and curse not. To no man rendering evil for evil. If it be possible, as much as is in you, have peace with all men. Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved; but give place unto wrath, for it is written: ‘Revenge is mine, I will repay,’ saith the Lord. But if thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink. For, doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good” (Romans 12:9-21).
What’s the Point?
Why do we celebrate Christ the King? Is He only King for a day? So many Catholics fly through feasts like this on “auto-pilot”—they know it is the feast day, but it is a feast only in name, and not in action. Yesterday was the feast of Christ the King—today is a different day! So put Christ back in His closet and let’s move on! Why should we do the opposite? The reason is simply a case of “agere contra” or “doing the opposite”! The world today, especially and increasingly over the last 200+ years (since the American and French Revolutions which triggered a domino-effect of Revolutions), the world has sought to throw-off the yoke of Christ—it rejects Christ, it rejects His Laws, it rejects His rightful social reign over nations and families.
“Thou hast broken My yoke, thou hast burst My bands, and thou saidst: ‘I will not serve!’” (Jeremias 2:20). “Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things? The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ. ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder: and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’ He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them. Then shall He speak to them in his anger, and trouble them in His rage” (Psalm 2:1-5).
Catholics Burst Free of Christ
Today, many Catholics—even entire Catholic families—have broken loose from the saving bonds of Christ, preferring a ‘better deal’ that is offered by the world, and its invisible prince who works in its shadows—the devil. They forget Holy Scripture’s warning that the world is no friend, but an enemy: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4) and that their true king, Christ, has disassociated Himself from this world: “I am not of this world” (John 8:23). All those who are true Christians—not the fake ‘by name only’ Christians—Our Lord also disassociates from this world: “because they are not of the world; as I also am not of the world” (John 17:14); but the fake, ‘by name only’ Christians He does associate with the world: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world” (John 8:23).
The Great Escape
The Catholic world is on the verge—and already quite some way down the slippery slope—of a mass apostasy: a great escape from Christ. Vatican II opened the windows and doors of the Church to the world—in the hope that the world would “come-in”; but all that has happened is that the Catholics have “got-out”: they have left in droves in the last 50 years: thousands of priests left the priesthood, many of them married; the same goes for an even greater number of desertion among the male and female religious; those who are left have fallen-foul of many terrible vices that surfaced in the last decade or two, which lend credence to Our Lady’s prophecy that the clergy, the religious and the faithful will be inundated with impurity and become cesspools of impurity.
Lust Blinds the Soul
As the spiritual masters teach us, lust blinds the mind, whereas “Blessed are the pure for they shall see God”; which blindness Our Lady speaks of, saying: “The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty ... There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of ... making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church ... The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way, corrupting many of them ... The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence ... These corrupted priests and religious persons ... straying from their divine mission, they degrade themselves in such a way that, before the eyes of God they quicken the rigor of the punishments ... Without virginity it will be necessary for fire from Heaven to rain down upon these lands in order to purify them” (Our Lady of Good Success & Our Lady of La Salette).
Days of Self-Service
All this is the result of having shaken-off the yoke of Christ, of having uncrowned Him and having placed the crown on the world, some person in the world, or themselves. O abominable pride! “Never suffer pride to reign in thy mind, or in thy words: for from it all perdition took its beginning” (Tobias 4:14).
Pride reigns in place of the humble Christ! Christ is not served—we now serve the world and ourselves. Which is very apt in these days of “self-service” that we see in stores, restaurants and gas-stations. It is a serious thing to usurp the throne of Christ, steal His crown, and cast Him out of the world! What else but calamity can result from this—both calamity for the world and calamity for individuals. Pride stems from self-love―and the bottom-line for most people is that they loves themselves far more than they love God. Hence, they tend to please themselves before they seek to please God. Love is an inescapable aspect of human life―but love has to be well-ordered and correctly valued. Our Lord tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God above all things and to love Him with our whole being: mind, heart, soul and strength.
The Law Of Divine Love Is The Standard For All Human Actions
St. Thomas Aquinas, in one of his conferences, says: “It is evident that not all are able to labor at learning and for that reason Christ has given a short law. Everyone can know this law and no one may be excused from observing it because of ignorance. This is the law of divine love. ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31).
“This law of love should be the standard for all human actions. In the case of products of human manufacture, each product is considered right and good when it conforms to a standard. So also each human act is considered right and virtuous when it conforms to the standard of divine love. ‘A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another’ (John 13:34-35). But when a human act does not conform to the standard of love, then it is not right, nor good, nor perfect.
“This law of divine love accomplishes in a person four things that are much to be desired.
“First, it is the cause of one’s spiritual life. For it is evident that by the very nature of the action what is loved is in the one who loves. Therefore whoever loves God possesses God in himself; for scripture says, Whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. It is the nature of love to transform the lover into the object loved. And so if we love God, we ourselves become divinized; for again, ‘Whoever is joined to God becomes one spirit with Him.’ St. Augustine adds: ‘As the soul is the life of the body, so God is the life of the soul.’ Thus the soul acts virtuously and perfectly when she acts through charity, and, through charity, God lives in her; indeed, without charity she cannot act; for Scripture says: ‘Whoever does not love, remains in death.’ If a person possesses all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but lacks charity, that person has no life. For it matters not whether one has the grace of tongues, or the gift of faith, or any other gift such as prophecy; these do not bring life without charity. Even if a dead body should be adorned with gold and precious jewels, it nevertheless remains dead. Holy Scripture says this clearly: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing!’ (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The second point about charity is that it leads to the observance of the divine commandments. Our Lord says: ‘If you love Me, keep My commandments!’ (John 14:15). Gregory the Great says that charity is not idle. For charity is present if one is occupied about great things; but if one is not so occupied, charity is not present. We see a lover do great and difficult things because of the one loved, and that is why the Lord says: ‘If any one love Me, he will keep My word” (John 14:23). Whoever keeps this command and the law of divine love, fulfills the whole law.
“A third point about charity is that it provides protection against adversity. For misfortune cannot harm one who has charity; rather it becomes useful to that person; as Holy Scripture says: ‘All things work for good for those who love God’ (Romans 8:28). Furthermore, misfortune and difficulties seem pleasant to the lover, and our own experience verifies this.
“A fourth point about charity is that it truly leads to happiness, since eternal blessedness is promised only to those who have charity. For all other things are insufficient without charity. You must note that it is only the different degrees of charity, and not those of any other virtues, which constitute the different degrees of blessedness. Many of the saints were more abstemious than the Apostles, but the Apostles excel all the other saints in blessedness because of their higher degree of charity.” (From a conference by St. Thomas Aquinas, Opuscula, In duo praecenta).
Stop and Think of the Consequences of Christ Being King!
Words often glibly slip from our tongues without much thought being given to them. It is the same with prayers—we sometimes don’t even remember saying our prayers. Christ our King speaks of this inattentiveness, glibness, indifference and superficiality when He complains: “Jesus said to them: ‘Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: “This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me”’” (Mark 7:6).
This especially applies to our calling Jesus “King” without really realizing what are the consequences of our calling him a “King.” As they say, “Words are cheap” and the honor, homage and service we render to Christ the King is also cheap! Have you noticed the way or manner with which most people say “I love you” to their nearest and dearest? It is often a glib, superficial, half-hearted statement that is routinely and glibly used—much like the superficial and basically dishonest question we ask many times a week, or even many times a day—namely, “How are you doing?” Do we REALLY want to know how people are doing? We would be shocked and disappointed if someone suddenly decided to take up 15 to 30 minutes of our time in proceeding to tell us how they really doing, instead of giving the equally dishonest common reply of “Fine, thanks!” This kind of routine creeps into our relations with God in general, or Christ the King in particular. So much of our so-called ‘devotion’ is mere routine, that we try to camouflage as a real love and devotion. We are doing nothing other than what Our Lord complained of—we are merely honoring Him with our lips, while our hearts are far from Him.
Whose Side Are You On? Who Are You Rooting For?
The basic idea behind the “Social Kingship” of Christ is extremely easy to understand: God or the Devil. We either accept God and submit ourselves to His authority, or we revolt and say “Non serviam!” like Satan. Either we bend our knee before Jesus our Lord (Philippians 2:10), or we drink one of the many flavors of the Kool-Aid of Materialism, Atheism, Hedonism (pleasure-seeking), etc. We are either “for “ Christ the King, or we are “against” Christ the King—there can be no neutrality, no spectators—Christ our King said so Himself: “He that is not with Me, is against Me: and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth! … Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 12:30; 10:32-33). Unlike our words—which often from our lips and not from our heart—these words of Our Lord come from both His lips and His Heart and we should take them to heart and engrave them in our hearts!
Sr. Lucia reveals the same thing—that we must choose either Christ or the devil, and that there can be no neutrality and no mere non-committal spectating or ‘fence-sitting’ in our days: “Father, the Blessed Virgin … told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one side will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God or we are with the Devil; there is no middle ground.”
This comment--“From now on, we are either with God or we are with the Devil; there is no middle ground”―is not just applicable to Catholics, but to the whole world. Christ is King—not only of Catholics, not only of Christians, not only believers in a God―but Christ is even King over pagans.
King of Everyone and Everything
In Quas primas, his encyclical on Christ the King, Pope Pius XI reaffirmed Church teaching that civil States and Nations, as well as individuals, must submit themselves to the rule of Christ the King. In affirming this fundamental truth of our Faith, Pope Pius XI was not referring simply to Catholic nations, or even to Christian nations, but to the whole of mankind. He stated this truth unequivocally by quoting a passage from the encyclical Annum sacrum of Pope Leo XIII:
“The empire of Christ the King includes, not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons, who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian Faith: so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ.”
Twofold King
All men, both as individuals and as nations, are subject to the rule of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King, and this for two reasons. Firstly, Christ is our King because He owns everyone—He is our creator: “All things were made by Him: and without Him was made nothing that was made” (John 1:3). Secondly, Christ is our King because He has redeemed us, rescued us, ransomed us, bought us back from slavery to sin and the devil by paying the price of the ransom with His Precious Blood: “In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the remission of sins” (Colossians 1:14).
Firstly, because, as God, He is our Creator. Psalm 32 summarizes the correct Creator-creature relationship in the following inspired terms: “Let all the Earth fear the Lord: and let all the inhabitants of the world be in awe of Him. For He spoke and they were made: He commanded and they were created.” God is our Creator. We are His creatures. Without Him we would not exist. We owe Him everything, and He owes us nothing. Those who are created have an absolute obligation to love and serve their Creator. This obligation is unqualified; there is no question of any possible right on the part of any man at any time to withhold his obedience.
A King Betrayed by a Betraying Council
In a world wherein we speak so often of “religious liberty” and the “separation of Church and State,” it is difficult for us to conceptualize such a social reign of Christ. The language of the Church herself has been nuanced to such an extent that we strain to find even the faintest echoes of Quas Primas (1925) forty years later in Dignitatis Humanae (1965), Vatican II’s declaration on religious freedom. The teaching of this encyclical was ignored and passed over, if not actually contradicted, by the Second Vatican Council. It is an indisputable fact that the Second Vatican Council conspicuously and, one must conclude, deliberately, failed to reaffirm the teaching of Quas primas in which Pope Pius XI reaffirmed the unbroken teaching of his predecessors, saying that States as well as individuals, must submit themselves to the rule of Christ the King.
It is very tempting, in a world that has grown so small, and which experiences so much cultural cross-pollination, to embrace, as though it was a matter of law, an “every religion is equal” religious indifferentism. How do we account for the differing faiths of so many people in melting pots like America? America was founded in large part on the principle that the government “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” And yet, is this not the very kind of attitude that Pope Pius XI warned against, when he admonished rulers not to neglect “the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ”?
Indeed, Pope Pius XI observed the result of failing to do so even in his own time:
“The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the state and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God’s religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart. There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences.”
“The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder! And let us cast away Their yoke from us!’ He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them. Then shall He speak to them in His anger, and trouble them in His rage!” (Psalm 2:2-5).
Is this not the situation we find ourselves in today? Vicious, savagely immoral governments are all that is to be found now in the post-Christian West. Catholics are reduced to pleas for the very sort of religious liberty the Church once condemned as an error, and are forced to embrace the essentially anarchic principles of libertarianism, all out of desperation to preserve their ability to simply continue to exist “ignominiously on the same level” with other, false religions. Meanwhile, pagan and occult practices are on the rise — not underground, but in the open — because no logical excuse exists by which the secular state can deny them the same freedom as any other religion already given equal footing in the public square.
Like Father, Like Son―Like Mother, Like Daughter—Like Nation, Like Citizen
The proverb―“Like father, like son”—is based on the Latin phrase: “qualis pater, talis filius”—of which a more correct translation reads: “As the father was, so shall the son be!” The female equivalent--“Like mother, like daughter”—finds its source in Holy Scripture: “Behold every one that useth a common proverb, shall use this against thee, saying: ‘As the mother was, so also is her daughter!’” (Ezechiel 16:44).
Everyone is heavily influenced by their family, relatives and surrounding environment. It is natural and instinctive for children to copy their parents. The same is true, to a certain extent, of our environment and its culture. There is a lot of truth to the famous saying: “You cannot put clothes in a smoky room without them taking on the smell of smoke.” If you are immersed in a Liberal environment, then you will increasingly take on traits of Liberalism. If you surround yourself with pagans and paganism, you will begin to accept certain pagan values. If a Catholic family is lukewarm, it will more likely produce souls for Hell rather than Heaven. A French say—that some attribute to St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars—says: “A saintly priest will produce a holy parish. Whereas a holy priest will only produce a good parish. However, a good priest will produce a lukewarm parish, but a lukewarm priest will produce a parish of devils.” The principle being that your subordinates will usually be at a lower standard or level to where you are.
Liquid can eat through metal! Someone found this hard to believe until they saw it with their own two eyes. A person had a metal pot with some stains on the bottom. They put chlorine bleach in the pot and left it for a few days. They were surprised after the second day when they noticed what appeared to be rust spots developing in the pot. Over the next couple of days, the rust spots grew. After about 4 days, they finally dumped the chlorine out. Most of the stain was gone, but when they held the pot up to the sunlight, there were a number of small holes in the bottom of the pot. The pot said “stainless steel” on the bottom, created by the JA Bornschaft Company. So there you have it: Proof that you should not attempt to clean metal pots (at least Stainless Steel ones) with chlorine bleach! However, the moral of true story is that no matter how tough and strong you may imagine your Faith to be, it can be corroded and eroded if it is immersed in a hostile, or worldly atmosphere. The soft liquid eroded the hard steel! Food for thought!
On this day―the last Sunday of October―as we celebrate the traditional and original feast of Christ the King―nobody is better qualified to introduce and lay the foundation for this article on Christ the King, than the very person who introduced this feast day into the Church’s liturgical calendar back in 1925, namely Pope Pius XI, with his encyclical letter Quas Primas. So, by means of introduction or as a preface to this article, here are a few selected and arranged pertinent quotes from that encyclical. Pope Pius XI writes:
“The Empire of our Redeemer embraces all men. His Empire includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian Faith; so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ … The manifold evils in the world … the chief causes of the difficulties under which mankind is laboring are due to the fact that the majority of men have thrust Jesus Christ and His holy law out of their lives―so that these have no place either in private affairs or in politics! … With God and Jesus Christ excluded from political life; with authority derived not from God but from man; then the very basis of that authority has been taken away, because the chief reason of the distinction between ruler and subject has been eliminated. The result is that human society is tottering to its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid foundation!
“This evil spirit and plague of anti-clericalism, its errors and impious activities has not come into being in one day; it has long lurked beneath the surface. The Empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ Himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the state and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God’s religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart.
“There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences―seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder so much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin.
“It is a grave error to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since, by virtue of the absolute Empire over all creatures committed to Him by the Father, all things are in His power ... Christ has received from the Father ‘power and glory and a Kingdom’ (Daniel 7:13-14) … Therefore He necessarily has supreme and absolute dominion over all things created. Do we not read throughout the Scriptures that Christ is the King? He it is that shall come out of Jacob to rule (Numbers 24:19); ‘Who has been set by the Father as king over Sion, His holy mount, and shall have the Gentiles for His inheritance, and the utmost parts of the Earth for His possession’ (Psalm 2). There are many similar passages, but there is one in which Christ is even more clearly indicated. Here it is foretold that His Kingdom will have no limits, and will be enriched with justice and peace: ‘in His days shall justice spring up, and abundance of peace ... And He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the Earth’ (Psalm 121).
“Moreover, Christ Himself speaks of His own kingly authority: in His last discourse, speaking of the rewards and punishments that will be the eternal lot of the just and the damned; in His reply to the Roman magistrate, who asked Him publicly whether He were a king or not; after His resurrection, when giving to His Apostles the mission of teaching and baptizing all nations, He took the opportunity to call Himself king (Matthew 25:31-40), confirming the title publicly (John 18:37), and solemnly proclaimed that all power was given Him in Heaven and on Earth (Matthew 28:18). These words can only be taken to indicate the greatness of His power, the infinite extent of His Kingdom. What wonder, then, that He whom St. John calls the ‘prince of the kings of the Earth’ (Apocalypse 1:5) appears in the Apostle’s vision of the future as He who ‘hath on His garment and on His thigh written “King of kings and Lord of lords!”’ (Apocalypse 19:16). It is Christ whom the Father ‘hath appointed Heir of all things’ (Hebrews 1:2); ‘for He must reign until, at the end of the world, He hath put all His enemies under the feet of God and the Father’ (1 Corinthians 15:25).
“As long as individuals and states refuse to submit to the rule of our Savior, there will be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations. Men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ … Peace cannot be more effectually restored, nor placed upon a more solid basis, than through the restoration of the Empire of Our Lord ... Nor is there any difference in this matter between the individual and the family or the State; for all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ. In Him is the salvation of the individual, in Him is the salvation of society. ‘Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under Heaven given to men whereby we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12). He is the author of happiness and true prosperity for every man and for every nation. If the rulers of nations wish to preserve their authority, to promote and increase the prosperity of their countries, they will not neglect the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ.
“Our Lord’s kingly office invests the human authority of princes and rulers with a religious significance; it ennobles the citizen’s duty of obedience ... If princes and magistrates duly elected are filled with the persuasion that they rule, not by their own right, but by the mandate and in the place of the Divine King, they will exercise their authority piously and wisely, and they will make laws and administer them, having in view the common good and also the human dignity of their subjects. The result will be a stable peace and tranquility, for there will be no longer any cause of discontent. Men will see in their king, or in their rulers, men like themselves, perhaps unworthy or open to criticism, but they will not on that account refuse obedience if they see reflected in them the authority of Christ God and Man.” (Pope Piux XI, selection of quotes from his encyclical, Quas Primas, on Christ the King).
The Teaching Side and Influence of Feast Days
The Feast of Christ the King is traditionally celebrated on the last Sunday of October. Pope Paul VI went and changed the date to the last Sunday of the liturgical year (or the Sunday before the First Sunday of Advent). Regardless of the date, the Feast of Christ the King, as established by Pope Pius XI in 1925, was meant to be an antidote to Secularism. This heinous state of Secularism, is a way of life which leaves God out of man’s thinking, allowing man to live and organize his life as if God did not exist: “God looked down from Heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, or did seek God. They have not called upon God! The fool said in his heart: ‘There is no God!’ All have gone aside, they are become unprofitable together, there is none that doth good, no not one. They are corrupted, and become abominable in iniquities! There is none that doth good!” (Psalm 52:1-6) ... “The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ [saying]: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’” (Psalm 2:2-3).
Pope Pius XI instituted this feast in 1925 to help the Church respond to this rising Secularism and Atheism in the world. Pope Pius XI cited the precedent for introducing new feast days into the liturgical calendar: The Church has a pressing need for the culture around it to be reminded of some particular aspect of the Catholic Faith. The feast of Corpus Christi was instituted when devotion to the Holy Eucharist was waning. Pius IX also says: “The feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was instituted at a time when men were oppressed by the sad and gloomy severity of Jansenism, which had made their hearts grow cold, and shut them out from the love of God and the hope of salvation.” Pius XI cites his reasons for establishing the feast of Christ the King as the widespread prevalence of relativism and anti-clericalism. He desires to remind the world that Christ—and his Church—are truly Lord over all.
The Feast of Christ the King is intended to proclaim in a striking and effective manner Christ’s royalty over individuals, families, society, governments, and nations. This feast can and should be a springboard to re-establishing Christ’s absolute authority and rule in ourselves first of all, and then in our families.
Even Catholics are guilty of Secularism, for even though they know in their minds that God exists, there is little place for God in their hearts, for they live as though God did not exist. Is your family guilty of this? Are some members of your family tending towards this? Have they contracted the fatal disease of Secularism, at least its early stages?
Kings today are an unfamiliar breed. The few that are left have no political power. But, in ancient times, kings were sacred and absolute. They were crowned at their coronation with a special consecration and anointing. And the ancient king set the tone and spirit of his realm. A good king made for a prosperous and orderly kingdom.
That idea is by no means dead today. The influence of a leader is still a powerful factor in modern life. For example, take education. A school takes its spirit from the principal. Does he or she love and respect children? The staff will reflect that spirit in the classrooms.
Take business: Is the owner or manager an honest man or a crook? His employees will be quick to follow his ways.
Take government: Are the leaders people of integrity, dedicated to the good of their country, or are they unscrupulous and on the make? Their kind of government will filter down through the bureaucracy.
The same is true of Christ ― Who is meant to be the leader of a worldwide Christian community, the Catholic Church, into which He wishes to bring every human being. His spirit must be the spirit of the people of His Kingdom. Do you have the spirit of Christ? Or do you have the spirit of the world? The spirit of the world is ultimately the spirit of Satan, or Belial, or the Devil―whom Christ calls “the prince of this world” (John 12:31). Holy Scripture warns: “What concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God! As God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17).
Christ the King is not “The In-Thing”
Sadly—and tragically for mankind in the future—devotion, honor and homage to Christ the King has not grown. Instead, the secularism—which prompted the encyclical and the feast in the first place—has continued to grow unabated, to the point that it caused the collapse of the Catholic world, with Catholics leaving the Church in droves and regular Sunday Mass attendance plummeting, and the Sacrament of Confession falling into almost total disuse.
The chief reason behind the ignoring of the Social Reign of Christ the King is that politics has separated itself from religion, the State has separated itself from the Church, the world has separated itself from Heaven, and man has separated himself from God. What was once “one house” has now been divided and made into a “duplex” or “semi-detached” house. In North America, a “duplex” house is a single building having two apartments with separate entrances for two households. This includes two-story houses having a complete apartment on each floor and also side-by-side apartments on a single lot that share a common wall. In Britain, a “duplex house” is called a “Semi-detached house”—this is what politics and religion, or the State and Church, or man and God, have become: “semi-detached.”
Marriage and Christ the King
We could also liken the world’s relationship and our relationship to Christ the King through an analogy to the current plight of marriage throughout the world. Marriage on Earth is meant to be a reflection of our union with God―or especially our union with the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ. “I will espouse thee to Me forever: and I will espouse thee to Me in justice, and judgment, and in mercy, and in commiserations. I will espouse thee to Me in Faith: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord!” (Osee 2:19-20). It is hard to imagine someone loving, adoring, obeying and pleasing God if they cannot achieve that in an earthly, human, family setting!
Marital problems reflect God problems. The prevalence of adultery, separation and divorce is an indicator of how mankind acts in relation to God. We commit spiritual adultery by seeking to love something else, other than God and even love it more than God—and that something is the world. Holy Scripture calls such lovers of the world by the name “adulterers”, and just as adultery causes enmity between spouses, so too does spiritual adultery with the world, cause enmity with God: “Adulterers! Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). Many seek a separation from God, so as to better enjoy the world! This is what Our Lord and King condemns, when He says: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:19-24). Yet many do try to serve God and mammon—which is like trying to have a spouse and a lover―and can be likened to partially or sporadically practicing the Faith. Some even go further, and do not merely separate themselves from their spouse for a while, in order to be with the lover, but they want a divorce—a permanent cutting of the bond of marriage—which can be likened to apostasy from the Faith.
There are very, very few truly Catholic marriages in the world today—Our Lady even revealed to St. Jacinta Marto of Fatima that most marriages (even back in 1917) were not of God and not pleasing to God! An overgrown selfishness and a near non-existent selflessness is one of the chief causes of such marriages. True love is more outgoing than incoming.
We Must Fight For Christ Our King
Following Christ our King means having to fight! “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12). “Fight the good fight of faith: lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called, and hast confessed a good confession before many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6:12). “This is the victory which overcometh the world, our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). Yet Faith is not an end in itself, but a stepping-stone to love and charity: “If I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). We must fight for Christ the King primarily through love or charity: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Christ our King tells us: “You shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Matthew 10:22), yet “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake! Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you!” (Matthew 5:11-12). “Bless them that persecute you: bless, and curse not. To no man rendering evil for evil. If it be possible, as much as is in you, have peace with all men. Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved; but give place unto wrath, for it is written: ‘Revenge is mine, I will repay,’ saith the Lord. But if thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink. For, doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good” (Romans 12:9-21).
What’s the Point?
Why do we celebrate Christ the King? Is He only King for a day? So many Catholics fly through feasts like this on “auto-pilot”—they know it is the feast day, but it is a feast only in name, and not in action. Yesterday was the feast of Christ the King—today is a different day! So put Christ back in His closet and let’s move on! Why should we do the opposite? The reason is simply a case of “agere contra” or “doing the opposite”! The world today, especially and increasingly over the last 200+ years (since the American and French Revolutions which triggered a domino-effect of Revolutions), the world has sought to throw-off the yoke of Christ—it rejects Christ, it rejects His Laws, it rejects His rightful social reign over nations and families.
“Thou hast broken My yoke, thou hast burst My bands, and thou saidst: ‘I will not serve!’” (Jeremias 2:20). “Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things? The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ. ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder: and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’ He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them. Then shall He speak to them in his anger, and trouble them in His rage” (Psalm 2:1-5).
Catholics Burst Free of Christ
Today, many Catholics—even entire Catholic families—have broken loose from the saving bonds of Christ, preferring a ‘better deal’ that is offered by the world, and its invisible prince who works in its shadows—the devil. They forget Holy Scripture’s warning that the world is no friend, but an enemy: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4) and that their true king, Christ, has disassociated Himself from this world: “I am not of this world” (John 8:23). All those who are true Christians—not the fake ‘by name only’ Christians—Our Lord also disassociates from this world: “because they are not of the world; as I also am not of the world” (John 17:14); but the fake, ‘by name only’ Christians He does associate with the world: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world” (John 8:23).
The Great Escape
The Catholic world is on the verge—and already quite some way down the slippery slope—of a mass apostasy: a great escape from Christ. Vatican II opened the windows and doors of the Church to the world—in the hope that the world would “come-in”; but all that has happened is that the Catholics have “got-out”: they have left in droves in the last 50 years: thousands of priests left the priesthood, many of them married; the same goes for an even greater number of desertion among the male and female religious; those who are left have fallen-foul of many terrible vices that surfaced in the last decade or two, which lend credence to Our Lady’s prophecy that the clergy, the religious and the faithful will be inundated with impurity and become cesspools of impurity.
Lust Blinds the Soul
As the spiritual masters teach us, lust blinds the mind, whereas “Blessed are the pure for they shall see God”; which blindness Our Lady speaks of, saying: “The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty ... There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women … Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of ... making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church ... The demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way, corrupting many of them ... The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence ... These corrupted priests and religious persons ... straying from their divine mission, they degrade themselves in such a way that, before the eyes of God they quicken the rigor of the punishments ... Without virginity it will be necessary for fire from Heaven to rain down upon these lands in order to purify them” (Our Lady of Good Success & Our Lady of La Salette).
Days of Self-Service
All this is the result of having shaken-off the yoke of Christ, of having uncrowned Him and having placed the crown on the world, some person in the world, or themselves. O abominable pride! “Never suffer pride to reign in thy mind, or in thy words: for from it all perdition took its beginning” (Tobias 4:14).
Pride reigns in place of the humble Christ! Christ is not served—we now serve the world and ourselves. Which is very apt in these days of “self-service” that we see in stores, restaurants and gas-stations. It is a serious thing to usurp the throne of Christ, steal His crown, and cast Him out of the world! What else but calamity can result from this—both calamity for the world and calamity for individuals. Pride stems from self-love―and the bottom-line for most people is that they loves themselves far more than they love God. Hence, they tend to please themselves before they seek to please God. Love is an inescapable aspect of human life―but love has to be well-ordered and correctly valued. Our Lord tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God above all things and to love Him with our whole being: mind, heart, soul and strength.
The Law Of Divine Love Is The Standard For All Human Actions
St. Thomas Aquinas, in one of his conferences, says: “It is evident that not all are able to labor at learning and for that reason Christ has given a short law. Everyone can know this law and no one may be excused from observing it because of ignorance. This is the law of divine love. ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31).
“This law of love should be the standard for all human actions. In the case of products of human manufacture, each product is considered right and good when it conforms to a standard. So also each human act is considered right and virtuous when it conforms to the standard of divine love. ‘A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another’ (John 13:34-35). But when a human act does not conform to the standard of love, then it is not right, nor good, nor perfect.
“This law of divine love accomplishes in a person four things that are much to be desired.
“First, it is the cause of one’s spiritual life. For it is evident that by the very nature of the action what is loved is in the one who loves. Therefore whoever loves God possesses God in himself; for scripture says, Whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. It is the nature of love to transform the lover into the object loved. And so if we love God, we ourselves become divinized; for again, ‘Whoever is joined to God becomes one spirit with Him.’ St. Augustine adds: ‘As the soul is the life of the body, so God is the life of the soul.’ Thus the soul acts virtuously and perfectly when she acts through charity, and, through charity, God lives in her; indeed, without charity she cannot act; for Scripture says: ‘Whoever does not love, remains in death.’ If a person possesses all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but lacks charity, that person has no life. For it matters not whether one has the grace of tongues, or the gift of faith, or any other gift such as prophecy; these do not bring life without charity. Even if a dead body should be adorned with gold and precious jewels, it nevertheless remains dead. Holy Scripture says this clearly: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing!’ (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The second point about charity is that it leads to the observance of the divine commandments. Our Lord says: ‘If you love Me, keep My commandments!’ (John 14:15). Gregory the Great says that charity is not idle. For charity is present if one is occupied about great things; but if one is not so occupied, charity is not present. We see a lover do great and difficult things because of the one loved, and that is why the Lord says: ‘If any one love Me, he will keep My word” (John 14:23). Whoever keeps this command and the law of divine love, fulfills the whole law.
“A third point about charity is that it provides protection against adversity. For misfortune cannot harm one who has charity; rather it becomes useful to that person; as Holy Scripture says: ‘All things work for good for those who love God’ (Romans 8:28). Furthermore, misfortune and difficulties seem pleasant to the lover, and our own experience verifies this.
“A fourth point about charity is that it truly leads to happiness, since eternal blessedness is promised only to those who have charity. For all other things are insufficient without charity. You must note that it is only the different degrees of charity, and not those of any other virtues, which constitute the different degrees of blessedness. Many of the saints were more abstemious than the Apostles, but the Apostles excel all the other saints in blessedness because of their higher degree of charity.” (From a conference by St. Thomas Aquinas, Opuscula, In duo praecenta).
Stop and Think of the Consequences of Christ Being King!
Words often glibly slip from our tongues without much thought being given to them. It is the same with prayers—we sometimes don’t even remember saying our prayers. Christ our King speaks of this inattentiveness, glibness, indifference and superficiality when He complains: “Jesus said to them: ‘Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: “This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me”’” (Mark 7:6).
This especially applies to our calling Jesus “King” without really realizing what are the consequences of our calling him a “King.” As they say, “Words are cheap” and the honor, homage and service we render to Christ the King is also cheap! Have you noticed the way or manner with which most people say “I love you” to their nearest and dearest? It is often a glib, superficial, half-hearted statement that is routinely and glibly used—much like the superficial and basically dishonest question we ask many times a week, or even many times a day—namely, “How are you doing?” Do we REALLY want to know how people are doing? We would be shocked and disappointed if someone suddenly decided to take up 15 to 30 minutes of our time in proceeding to tell us how they really doing, instead of giving the equally dishonest common reply of “Fine, thanks!” This kind of routine creeps into our relations with God in general, or Christ the King in particular. So much of our so-called ‘devotion’ is mere routine, that we try to camouflage as a real love and devotion. We are doing nothing other than what Our Lord complained of—we are merely honoring Him with our lips, while our hearts are far from Him.
Whose Side Are You On? Who Are You Rooting For?
The basic idea behind the “Social Kingship” of Christ is extremely easy to understand: God or the Devil. We either accept God and submit ourselves to His authority, or we revolt and say “Non serviam!” like Satan. Either we bend our knee before Jesus our Lord (Philippians 2:10), or we drink one of the many flavors of the Kool-Aid of Materialism, Atheism, Hedonism (pleasure-seeking), etc. We are either “for “ Christ the King, or we are “against” Christ the King—there can be no neutrality, no spectators—Christ our King said so Himself: “He that is not with Me, is against Me: and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth! … Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 12:30; 10:32-33). Unlike our words—which often from our lips and not from our heart—these words of Our Lord come from both His lips and His Heart and we should take them to heart and engrave them in our hearts!
Sr. Lucia reveals the same thing—that we must choose either Christ or the devil, and that there can be no neutrality and no mere non-committal spectating or ‘fence-sitting’ in our days: “Father, the Blessed Virgin … told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one side will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God or we are with the Devil; there is no middle ground.”
This comment--“From now on, we are either with God or we are with the Devil; there is no middle ground”―is not just applicable to Catholics, but to the whole world. Christ is King—not only of Catholics, not only of Christians, not only believers in a God―but Christ is even King over pagans.
King of Everyone and Everything
In Quas primas, his encyclical on Christ the King, Pope Pius XI reaffirmed Church teaching that civil States and Nations, as well as individuals, must submit themselves to the rule of Christ the King. In affirming this fundamental truth of our Faith, Pope Pius XI was not referring simply to Catholic nations, or even to Christian nations, but to the whole of mankind. He stated this truth unequivocally by quoting a passage from the encyclical Annum sacrum of Pope Leo XIII:
“The empire of Christ the King includes, not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons, who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian Faith: so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ.”
Twofold King
All men, both as individuals and as nations, are subject to the rule of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King, and this for two reasons. Firstly, Christ is our King because He owns everyone—He is our creator: “All things were made by Him: and without Him was made nothing that was made” (John 1:3). Secondly, Christ is our King because He has redeemed us, rescued us, ransomed us, bought us back from slavery to sin and the devil by paying the price of the ransom with His Precious Blood: “In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the remission of sins” (Colossians 1:14).
Firstly, because, as God, He is our Creator. Psalm 32 summarizes the correct Creator-creature relationship in the following inspired terms: “Let all the Earth fear the Lord: and let all the inhabitants of the world be in awe of Him. For He spoke and they were made: He commanded and they were created.” God is our Creator. We are His creatures. Without Him we would not exist. We owe Him everything, and He owes us nothing. Those who are created have an absolute obligation to love and serve their Creator. This obligation is unqualified; there is no question of any possible right on the part of any man at any time to withhold his obedience.
A King Betrayed by a Betraying Council
In a world wherein we speak so often of “religious liberty” and the “separation of Church and State,” it is difficult for us to conceptualize such a social reign of Christ. The language of the Church herself has been nuanced to such an extent that we strain to find even the faintest echoes of Quas Primas (1925) forty years later in Dignitatis Humanae (1965), Vatican II’s declaration on religious freedom. The teaching of this encyclical was ignored and passed over, if not actually contradicted, by the Second Vatican Council. It is an indisputable fact that the Second Vatican Council conspicuously and, one must conclude, deliberately, failed to reaffirm the teaching of Quas primas in which Pope Pius XI reaffirmed the unbroken teaching of his predecessors, saying that States as well as individuals, must submit themselves to the rule of Christ the King.
It is very tempting, in a world that has grown so small, and which experiences so much cultural cross-pollination, to embrace, as though it was a matter of law, an “every religion is equal” religious indifferentism. How do we account for the differing faiths of so many people in melting pots like America? America was founded in large part on the principle that the government “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” And yet, is this not the very kind of attitude that Pope Pius XI warned against, when he admonished rulers not to neglect “the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ”?
Indeed, Pope Pius XI observed the result of failing to do so even in his own time:
“The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the state and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God’s religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart. There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences.”
“The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ: ‘Let us break Their bonds asunder! And let us cast away Their yoke from us!’ He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them. Then shall He speak to them in His anger, and trouble them in His rage!” (Psalm 2:2-5).
Is this not the situation we find ourselves in today? Vicious, savagely immoral governments are all that is to be found now in the post-Christian West. Catholics are reduced to pleas for the very sort of religious liberty the Church once condemned as an error, and are forced to embrace the essentially anarchic principles of libertarianism, all out of desperation to preserve their ability to simply continue to exist “ignominiously on the same level” with other, false religions. Meanwhile, pagan and occult practices are on the rise — not underground, but in the open — because no logical excuse exists by which the secular state can deny them the same freedom as any other religion already given equal footing in the public square.
Like Father, Like Son―Like Mother, Like Daughter—Like Nation, Like Citizen
The proverb―“Like father, like son”—is based on the Latin phrase: “qualis pater, talis filius”—of which a more correct translation reads: “As the father was, so shall the son be!” The female equivalent--“Like mother, like daughter”—finds its source in Holy Scripture: “Behold every one that useth a common proverb, shall use this against thee, saying: ‘As the mother was, so also is her daughter!’” (Ezechiel 16:44).
Everyone is heavily influenced by their family, relatives and surrounding environment. It is natural and instinctive for children to copy their parents. The same is true, to a certain extent, of our environment and its culture. There is a lot of truth to the famous saying: “You cannot put clothes in a smoky room without them taking on the smell of smoke.” If you are immersed in a Liberal environment, then you will increasingly take on traits of Liberalism. If you surround yourself with pagans and paganism, you will begin to accept certain pagan values. If a Catholic family is lukewarm, it will more likely produce souls for Hell rather than Heaven. A French say—that some attribute to St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars—says: “A saintly priest will produce a holy parish. Whereas a holy priest will only produce a good parish. However, a good priest will produce a lukewarm parish, but a lukewarm priest will produce a parish of devils.” The principle being that your subordinates will usually be at a lower standard or level to where you are.
Liquid can eat through metal! Someone found this hard to believe until they saw it with their own two eyes. A person had a metal pot with some stains on the bottom. They put chlorine bleach in the pot and left it for a few days. They were surprised after the second day when they noticed what appeared to be rust spots developing in the pot. Over the next couple of days, the rust spots grew. After about 4 days, they finally dumped the chlorine out. Most of the stain was gone, but when they held the pot up to the sunlight, there were a number of small holes in the bottom of the pot. The pot said “stainless steel” on the bottom, created by the JA Bornschaft Company. So there you have it: Proof that you should not attempt to clean metal pots (at least Stainless Steel ones) with chlorine bleach! However, the moral of true story is that no matter how tough and strong you may imagine your Faith to be, it can be corroded and eroded if it is immersed in a hostile, or worldly atmosphere. The soft liquid eroded the hard steel! Food for thought!
Article 11
Wednesday October 26th to Friday October 28th, 2022
From Separation of Church & State to Separation of Faith & Medicine
Wednesday October 26th to Friday October 28th, 2022
From Separation of Church & State to Separation of Faith & Medicine
Article 10
Monday October 24th & Tuesday October 25th, 2022
God's Medicine or Man's Medicine?
Monday October 24th & Tuesday October 25th, 2022
God's Medicine or Man's Medicine?
God the Healer
Today we celebrate the traditional feast of St. Raphael the Archangel (October 24th)―which the modern Church has now cancelled and clumped both St. Raphael and St. Gabriel (from March 24th) into St. Michael the Archangel’s feast day of September 29th. You could take the famous statement: “How many angels can you fit onto a pinhead?” and change that to: “How many angels can you stuff into one single feast day?” However, let us not get into Modernist changes and destruction―but let us focus on St. Raphael the Archangel, whose feast it is (or should be) today.
Raphael, is compound of two Hebrew words: “rapha” meaning “to heal”, and “el” which means “God” ― hence, “Raphael” means “God Heals,” or the “Divine Healer,” or “The Medicine of God”, or “The Remedy of God.” In the hymn that is sung in the Divine Office at the hour of Matins for the feast of St. Raphael, we have the verse:
“Angel Physician, health on man bestowing,
Raphael send us from the skies all glowing,
All sickness curing, wisest counsel showing
In doubt and danger.”
The Archangel Raphael says to Tobias: “The Lord sent me to heal thee!” These words point out to us that all cures ultimately come from God―for, as Our Lord so rightly said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). God can cure directly by performing a miracle―or God can cure indirectly by using a person or a thing, such as an angel or a human being such as a physician, through the means of a plant, seed, water, oil, etc.
We read in the Book of Tobias that the elder Tobias (the father of the young Tobias) and Sara, the daughter of Raguel, had both been afflicted in different ways―Tobias with blindness and Sara was afflicted by a devil who killed each of her seven husbands. Both had poured forth humble and fervent prayers begging God’s help and mercy. “The prayers of them both were heard in the sight of the most high God and the holy angel of the Lord, Raphael, was sent to heal them both” (Tobias 3:24-25). Raphael then said to “Be of good courage, thy cure from God is at hand!” (Tobias 5:13). From these words we see that―even though it seemed that Raphael cured Tobias, or the parts of a fish that Raphael used for the cure ― it was nevertheless God that cured through the instrumentality of Raphael and those fish part.
“The angel said to Tobias: ‘Take out the entrails of the fish, and lay up his heart, and his gall, and his liver for thee: for these are necessary for useful medicines!’ Then Tobias asked the angel: I beseech thee, tell me what remedies are these things good for, which thou hast bid me keep of the fish?’ And the angel, answering, said to him: ‘If thou put a little piece of its heart upon coals, the smoke thereof driveth away all kind of devils, either from man or from woman, so that they come no more to them ... Lay the liver of the fish on the fire, and the devil shall be driven away … And the gall is good for anointing the eyes, in which there is a white speck, and they shall be cured!’” (Tobias 6:5-9, 19).
God chose to use Raphael to heal both Tobias and Sara―and Raphael was to use the parts of a fish to do this―but ultimately it is God who cures, not Raphael, nor the parts of the fish. “Not even the teeth of venomous serpents overcame Thy children―for Thy mercy came and healed them! … For it was neither herb, nor mollifying plaster that healed them, but Thy word, O Lord, which healeth all things. For it is Thou, O Lord, that hast power of life and death, and leadest down to the gates of death, and bringest back again!” (Wisdom 16:1-13).
When Our Lord decided to cure the ten lepers, He first commanded them to go and show themselves to the priests: “And as Jesus entered into a certain town, there met Him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off and lifted up their voice, saying: ‘Jesus, master, have mercy on us!’ Whom when He saw, He said: ‘Go show yourselves to the priests!’ And it came to pass, as they went, they were made clean” (Luke 17:12-14). He could just as well say: “God show yourselves to the physicians!” Nevertheless, healing is a grace that comes from God―hence we call it “the grace of healing” (1 Corinthians 12:30). In all cases God merely makes use of priests and physicians are mere instruments and intermediaries―the ultimate and true healer is God: “Thy word, O Lord, healeth all things!” (Wisdom 16:12). “All healing is from God” (Ecclesiasticus 38:2).
Prevention and Protection from Disease and Harm
As they say: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!” God does not only use angles to heal and cure―He also uses them to prevent any harm, disease of danger from arising in the first place: “The eyes of the Lord are upon them that fear Him, He is their powerful protector and strong defense” (Ecclesiasticus 34:19). “The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear God and shall deliver them” (Psalm 33:8). “No evil shall come to thee! Nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling. For He hath given His angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up―lest thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Psalm 90:10-12).
We see this to be true in the case of the three young men being thrown into a furnace for refusing to worship a false idol: “King Nabuchodonosor made a statue of gold and called together the nobles, the magistrates, and the judges, the captains, the rulers, and governors, and all the chief men of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the statue which king Nabuchodonosor had set up. Then they commanded to fall down and adore the golden statue ― but if any man shall not fall down and adore, he shall be cast into a furnace of burning fire.
“Some Chaldeans came and accused the Jews, and said to king Nabuchodonosor: ‘Thou, O king, hast made a decree that every man shall prostrate himself, and adore the golden statue, and that if any man shall not fall down and adore, he should be cast into a furnace of burning fire. Now there are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the works of the province of Babylon―Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago. These men worship not thy gods, nor do they adore the golden statue which thou hast set up!’ Then Nabuchodonosor in fury and in wrath, commanded that Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago should be immediately brought before the king. And Nabuchodonosor said: Is it true, O Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, that you do not worship my gods, nor adore the golden statue that I have made? If you do not adore, you shall be cast into the furnace of burning fire: and who is the God that shall deliver you out of my hand?’
“Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago answered: ‘Be it known to thee, O king, that we will not worship thy gods, nor adore the golden statue which thou hast set up! Our God, whom we worship, is able to save us from the furnace of burning fire, and to deliver us out of thy hands, O king!’
“Then Nabuchodonosor, filled with fury, commanded that the furnace should be heated seven times more than it had been accustomed to be heated. And he commanded the strongest men that were in his army, to bind the feet of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, and to cast them into the furnace of burning fire … The furnace was heated exceedingly, and the flame of the fire slew those men that cast in Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago. But Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, walked in the midst of the flame, praising God and blessing the Lord.
The king's servants that had cast them in, ceased not to heat the furnace with brimstone, and tow, and pitch, and dry sticks―and the flame mounted forty-nine cubits up above the furnace, and it broke forth, and burnt such of the Chaldeans as it found near the furnace. But the angel of the Lord went down with Azarias and his companions into the furnace and he drove the flame of the fire out of the furnace, and made the midst of the furnace like the blowing of a wind bringing dew, and the fire touched them not at all, nor troubled them, nor did them any harm.
“Then Nabuchodonosor the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and said to his nobles: ‘Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?’ They answered the king and said: ‘True, O king!’ He answered, and said: ‘Behold I see four men walking in the midst of the fire, and there is no hurt in them, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God!’ Then Nabuchodonosor came to the door of the burning fiery furnace, and said: ‘Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, ye servants of the most high God, come out!’ And immediately Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago came out from the midst of the fire. And the nobles, and the magistrates, and the judges, and the great men of the king being gathered together, considered these men, that the fire had no power on their bodies, and that not a hair of their head had been singed, nor their garments altered, nor the smell of the fire had passed on them.
“Then Nabuchodonosor breaking forth, said: ‘Blessed be the God of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, who hath sent His angel and delivered His servants that believed in Him, and delivered up their bodies that they might not serve, nor adore any god, except their own God! By me, therefore, this decree is made―that every people, tribe, and tongue, which shall speak blasphemy against the God of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, shall be destroyed, and their houses laid waste―for there is no other God that can save in this manner!’” (Daniel 3:1-96).
Yes, truly, “The eyes of the Lord are upon them that fear Him, He is their powerful protector and strong defense” (Ecclesiasticus 34:19). “The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear God and shall deliver them” (Psalm 33:8). “No evil shall come to thee! Nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling. For He hath given His angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up―lest thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Psalm 90:10-12).
A Lot of Angelic Help for Lot!
We see something similar in the case of Abraham’s nephew Lot, who was warned and delivered from the destruction of Sodom: “Two angels came to Sodom in the evening, while Lot was sitting in the gate of the city. Seeing them, he rose up and went to meet them … And they said to Lot: ‘Hast thou here any of thine? Son-in-law, or sons, or daughters? All that are thine, bring them out of this city, for we will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord, who hath sent us to destroy them!’ So Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law that were to have his daughters, and said: ‘Arise! Get you out of this place, because the Lord will destroy this city!’ And he seemed to them to speak as it were in jest. And when it was morning, the angels pressed him, saying: ‘Arise, take thy wife, and the two daughters which thou hast―lest thou also perish in the wickedness of the city!’ And because he lingered, they took his hand, and the hand of his wife, and of his two daughters, and they brought him forth, and set him without the city and there they spoke to him, saying: ‘Save thy life! Look not back! Neither stay thou in the surrounding countryside―but save thyself in the mountain, lest thou be also consumed!’ … Lot entered went to the city of Segor. And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven. And He destroyed these cities, and all the country about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all things that spring from the earth!” (Genesis 19:1-25).
The Cure of Naaman
We see God use His prophet, Eliseus, as an intermediary; and the instrumentality of the waters of the River Jordan in the curing of a pagan: “Naaman, general of the army of the King of Syria, was a great man, a valiant man and rich―but a leper. Now there was a little maid out of the land of Israel, and she waited upon Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress: ‘I wish my master had been with the prophet, that is in Samaria―he would certainly have healed him of the leprosy which he has!’ Then Naaman went to his lord and told him, saying: ‘Thus and thus said the girl from the land of Israel!’ And the King of Syria said to him: ‘Go, and I will send a letter to the King of Israel!” And Naaman departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of clothing, and brought the letter to the King of Israel, in these words: ‘When thou shalt receive this letter, know that I have sent to thee Naaman my servant, that thou mayest heal him of his leprosy!’ And when the King of Israel had read the letter, he tore his garments and said: ‘Am I God, to be able to kill and give life, that this man hath sent to me, to heal a man of his leprosy? Mark and see how he seeks an occasion against me!’
“And when the prophet Eliseus, the man of God, had heard this, that the King of Israel had torn his garments, he sent to him, saying: Why hast thou torn thy garments? Let him come to me, and let him know that there is a prophet in Israel!’ So Naaman came, with his horses and chariots, and stood at the door of the house of the prophet Eliseus. And Eliseus sent a messenger to him, saying: ‘Go, and wash seven times in the Jordan, and thy flesh shall recover health, and thou shalt be clean!’
“Naaman was angry and went away, saying: ‘I thought he would have come out to me, and standing over me, would have invoked the Name of the Lord his God, and touched with his hand the place of the leprosy, and healed me! Are not the Abana, and the Pharphar, both rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel, that I may wash in them, and be made clean?’ So as he turned, and was going away with indignation, his servants came to him, and said to him: ‘Father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great and difficult thing, surely thou shouldst have done it! How much rather what he now hath said to thee: ‘Wash, and thou shalt he clean’? Then he went down, and washed in the Jordan seven times―according to the word of the man of God―and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was made clean. And returning to the man of God, he came and stood before him, and said: ‘In truth, I know there is no other God in all the earth, but only in Israel!’” (4 Kings 5:1-15).
Be Good―Be Safe!
No doubt you have heard the expression: “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours!” It is an expression that is used to tell someone that if they help you, you will help them. That is how it is with God―if we look after His concerns, then He will look after our concerns. “If thou wilt hear the voice of the Lord thy God, and do what is right before Him, and obey His commandments, and keep all His precepts―then none of the evils and diseases that I have laid upon Egypt, will I bring upon thee! For I am the Lord thy healer!” (Exodus 15:26). “The Lord will take away from thee all sickness―and the grievous infirmities of Egypt He will not bring upon thee” (Deuteronomy 7:15).
On the other hand, if we deliberately choose to ignore God’s concerns and God’s commandments, choosing to sin instead―then evils and diseases will befall us: “But if you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments; if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments … then I will set My face against you, and I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins! … I will send the pestilence in the midst of you! … will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins!” (Leviticus 26:14-28). “There is no other God besides Me! I will kill and I will make to live! I will strike, and I will heal! And there is none that can deliver out of My hand!” (Deuteronomy 32:39). “For He wounds, and cures! He strikes, and His hands shall heal!” (Job 5:18). “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16). For “the wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23) and “the sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned … Death reigned from Adam!” (Romans 5:12-14). “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8).
A Tale of Two Sick Kings
“In those days King Ezechias was sick unto death, and Isaias the prophet came and said to him: ‘Thus saith the Lord God: “Thou shalt die, and not live!”’ And Ezechias turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying: ‘I beseech Thee, O Lord, remember how I have walked before Thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is pleasing before Thee!’ And Ezechias wept with much weeping. And before Isaias had left the middle of the court, the word of the Lord came to him, saying: ‘Go back, and tell Ezechias―“Thus saith the Lord the God of David thy father: I have heard thy prayer, and I have seen thy tears: and behold I have healed thee! And I will add to thy life fifteen years!”’” (4 Kings 20:1-6).
Another king―King Asa―was likewise sick but did not turn to God: “And King Asa fell sick in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, of a most violent pain in his feet―and yet, in his illness, he did not seek the Lord, but rather trusted in the skill of physicians” (2 Paralipomenon 16:12). Who is more skilled than God? What an insult it must be to God to see those whom He has created, first going to seek cures from inferior physicians without having any recourse whatsoever to God!
In all our ailments, illnesses, sicknesses and diseases we should first turn to God―even if we will also seek the help of physicians: “In thy sickness neglect not thyself, but pray to the Lord, and He shall heal thee” (with or without the intervention of a physician) (Ecclesiasticus 38:9). “He will heal us―He will strike but He will cure us!” (Osee 6:2). “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed!” (Jeremias 17:14).
Jesus the Physician of Both Body and Soul
Our Lord Himself came, not only as a physician for sick souls, but also as physician for sick bodies: “Jesus said: ‘I will come and heal him!’” (Matthew 8:7) “And when the sun was down, all they that had any sick with divers diseases, brought them to Him. But He, laying His hands on every one of them, healed them” (Luke 4:40) … “The people followed Him and He received them and healed them who had need of healing” (Luke 9:11) … “Great multitudes followed Him and He healed them” (Matthew 19:2) ... “Many followed Him, and He healed them all” (Matthew 12:15) … “And there came to Him the blind and the lame―and He healed them” (Matthew 21:14) … “He cured many of their diseases and hurts, and to many that were blind He gave sight” (Luke 7:21) … “All that were sick He healed” (Matthew 8:16) … “And Jesus went about all the cities and towns, healing every disease and every infirmity” (Matthew 9:35) … “And Jesus went about all Galilee, healing all manner of sickness and every infirmity, among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria, and they presented to Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and such as were possessed by devils, and lunatics, and those that had palsy, and He cured them!” (Matthew 4:23-24).
He also cured the ultimate and incurable disease―death! We read of three persons that He raised from the dead―the daughter of Jairus who had only just died hours ago (Mark 5:22-43; Luke 8:41-56); He then raised to life the son of the widow of Naim who had been dead for some days and was being carried out for burial (Luke 7:11-17); He then raised Lazarus from the dead and who had already been buried for 4 days (John 11:1-44).
Our Lord, replying to the imprisoned St. John the Baptist, who had asked if Jesus was the expected Messias―Jesus said: “Go and relate to John what you have heard and seen―the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead rise again!” (Luke 7:22; Matthew 11:4-5).
As for his many physical cures as a physician of the body, here is just a sample:
● The Nobleman’s Son (John 4:46).
● The Man with an Unclean Spirit (Mark 1:21, Luke 4:31).
● Simon Peter’s Mother-in-Law (Matthew 8:14, Mark 1:29, Luke 4:38).
● The Healing of the Leper (Matthew 8:1, Mark 1:40, Luke 5:12).
● The Healing of the Paralytic (Matthew 9:1, Mark 2:1, Luke 5:17).
● The Man at Bethesda pool (John. 5:2).
● The Man with the Withered Hand (Matthew 12:9, Mark 3:1, Luke 6:6).
● The Centurion’s Servant (Matthew 8:5; Luke 7:2)
● Demoniacs at Gadara (Matthew 8:28; Mark 5:1; Luke 8:26)
● Woman with the Issue of Blood (Matthew 9:20; Mark 5:25; Luke 8:43)
● Jairus’s Deceased Daughter (Matthew 9:18; Mark 5:21; Luke 8:40)
● Two Blind Men (Matthew 9:27)
● Mute, Possessed Man (Matthew 9:32)
● Daughter of Canaanite (Matthew 15:21; Mark 4:24)
● Deaf Man with Impediment (Mark 7:32)
● Blind Man at Bethsaida (Mark 8:22)
● Epileptic Boy (Matthew 17:14; Mark 9:14; Luke 9:37)
● Man Born Blind (John 9:1)
● Man, Blind, Dumb, Possessed (Matthew 12:22; Luke 11:14)
● Woman Bent Double (Luke 13:10)
● Man with Dropsy (Luke 14:1)
● Ten Lepers (Luke 17:11)
● Blind Bartimaeus (Matthew 20:29; Mark 10:45; Luke 18:35)
● Malchus (Luke 22:50)
Faith in God plays a major part in obtaining cures and healing from God―as we see in the following excerpts:
“A woman who was under an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things from many physicians; and had spent all that she had, and was none the better, but rather worse! When she had heard of Jesus, she came in the crowd behind Him, and touched His garment―for she said: ‘If I shall touch but his garment, I shall be whole!’ And immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the evil … And Jesus said to her: ‘Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole! Go in peace, and be thou healed of thy disease!’” (Mark 5:25-29, 34). She had spent a lot of time and spent all her money on physicians and their medicines―but was not cured. Our Lord cured her in an instant and at no cost to her―it was free!
“And there followed Jesus two blind men crying out and saying: ‘Have mercy on us, O Son of David!’ And when He was come to the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus said to them: ‘Do you believe that I can do this unto you?’ They say to Him: ‘Yes, Lord!’ Then He touched their eyes, saying: ‘According to your faith, be it done unto you!’ And their eyes were opened” (Matthew 9:27-30).
“A woman of Canaan crying out, said to him: ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord! My daughter is grieviously troubled by the devil! Jesus answered her not a word. And His disciples came, saying: ‘Send her away! For she crieth after us!’ And Jesus said to her: ‘I was not sent except to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel!’ But she came and adored Him, saying: ‘Lord, help me!’ Jesus answering, said: ‘It is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs!’ But she said: Yes, Lord! But even dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters!’ Then Jesus answering, said to her: ‘O woman, great is thy faith! Be it done to thee as thou wilt!’ And her daughter was cured from that hour” (Matthew 15:22-28).
“When Jesus had entered into Capharnaum, there came to Him a centurion, beseeching Him and saying: ‘Lord, my servant lays at home sick of the palsy, and is grieviously tormented!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘I will come and heal him!’ And the centurion making answer, said: ‘Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof! Only say the word and my servant shall be healed! For I also am a man subject to authority, having under me soldiers―and I say to this one: “Go!” and he goes, and to another: “Come!” and he comes, and to my servant: “Do this!” and he does it!’ And Jesus hearing this, marveled; and said to them that followed Him: ‘Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel!’ … And Jesus said to the centurion: ‘Go, and as thou hast believed, so be it done to thee!’ And the servant was healed at the same hour” (Matthew 8:5-13).
Jesus Shares His Healing Powers
“And having called His twelve disciples together, Jesus gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of diseases, and all manner of infirmities … These twelve Jesus sent, commanding them, saying: ‘Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils! Freely have you received, freely give!’” (Matthew 10:1-8).
“Calling together the twelve Apostles, He gave them power to cure diseases and to heal the sick … And going out, they went about through the towns, healing everywhere” (Luke 9:1-6). The ultimate power to cure comes from God.
“And after these things, the Lord appointed also another seventy-two―and He sent them two and two into every city and place where He Himself was to come. And He said to them: ‘Into whatsoever house you enter, first say: “Peace be to this house!” And heal the sick that are therein!’” (Luke 10:1-9).
“Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord. And the prayer of Faith shall save the sick man and the Lord shall raise him up!” (James 5:14-15).
God’s Healing versus Human Healing
There is wide-ranging, vigorous and sometimes heated debate these days over the role that human medicine plays in the grand scheme of healing. There are some who totally refuse to accept any human medical intervention at all―firmly believing and hoping in God for all cures and all health matters. There are others who make human medical interventions into a kind of a “religion” with its own “priesthood”, “rituals”, “sacraments”, “sacrifices”, “dogmas”, “sins”, “punishments” and “excommunications”.
If “all healing is from God” (Ecclesiasticus 38:2) … if “He will heal us and He will cure us!” (Osee 6:2) … if “His hands shall heal!” (Job 5:18) ... if “the Lord will take away all sickness” (Deuteronomy 7:15) ― then what need do we have for physicians and human medicine? God will do it all―and if He does not do it, then it must be His will that we remain sick, or that we should even die! Is that how it is supposed to be? Common sense and Holy Scripture clearly tell us that this is not how God wants to operate. In Holy Scripture we clearly see that God works through His creation―whether it be created persons or created things. Scripture says: “Honor the physician―for the need thou hast of him―for the most High hath created him!” (Ecclesiasticus 38:1). Our Lord Himself speaks of physicians and their need: “They that are in health need not a physician―but they that are ill” (Matthew 9:12).
Nevertheless, there are physicians who are evil―sick in mind and morals. Physicians are not immune from doing evil! Some physicians need to be told: “Physician, heal thyself!” (Luke 4:23). Physicians―just like any other person or profession―can become infected by sin and error. “They quickly forsook the way in which their fathers had walked―and, hearing the commandments of the Lord, they did all things contrary!” (Judges 2:17). Increasing elements of today’s modern medicine have forsaken the way in which earlier medical practitioners worked by keeping within the boundaries of God’s commandments―and today they do many things that are contrary to commandments of God. Hence, Holy Scripture says―in speaking of evil physicians―says: “He that sinneth in the sight of his Maker, shall fall into the hands of the physician” (Ecclesiasticus 38:15).
Today we celebrate the traditional feast of St. Raphael the Archangel (October 24th)―which the modern Church has now cancelled and clumped both St. Raphael and St. Gabriel (from March 24th) into St. Michael the Archangel’s feast day of September 29th. You could take the famous statement: “How many angels can you fit onto a pinhead?” and change that to: “How many angels can you stuff into one single feast day?” However, let us not get into Modernist changes and destruction―but let us focus on St. Raphael the Archangel, whose feast it is (or should be) today.
Raphael, is compound of two Hebrew words: “rapha” meaning “to heal”, and “el” which means “God” ― hence, “Raphael” means “God Heals,” or the “Divine Healer,” or “The Medicine of God”, or “The Remedy of God.” In the hymn that is sung in the Divine Office at the hour of Matins for the feast of St. Raphael, we have the verse:
“Angel Physician, health on man bestowing,
Raphael send us from the skies all glowing,
All sickness curing, wisest counsel showing
In doubt and danger.”
The Archangel Raphael says to Tobias: “The Lord sent me to heal thee!” These words point out to us that all cures ultimately come from God―for, as Our Lord so rightly said: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). God can cure directly by performing a miracle―or God can cure indirectly by using a person or a thing, such as an angel or a human being such as a physician, through the means of a plant, seed, water, oil, etc.
We read in the Book of Tobias that the elder Tobias (the father of the young Tobias) and Sara, the daughter of Raguel, had both been afflicted in different ways―Tobias with blindness and Sara was afflicted by a devil who killed each of her seven husbands. Both had poured forth humble and fervent prayers begging God’s help and mercy. “The prayers of them both were heard in the sight of the most high God and the holy angel of the Lord, Raphael, was sent to heal them both” (Tobias 3:24-25). Raphael then said to “Be of good courage, thy cure from God is at hand!” (Tobias 5:13). From these words we see that―even though it seemed that Raphael cured Tobias, or the parts of a fish that Raphael used for the cure ― it was nevertheless God that cured through the instrumentality of Raphael and those fish part.
“The angel said to Tobias: ‘Take out the entrails of the fish, and lay up his heart, and his gall, and his liver for thee: for these are necessary for useful medicines!’ Then Tobias asked the angel: I beseech thee, tell me what remedies are these things good for, which thou hast bid me keep of the fish?’ And the angel, answering, said to him: ‘If thou put a little piece of its heart upon coals, the smoke thereof driveth away all kind of devils, either from man or from woman, so that they come no more to them ... Lay the liver of the fish on the fire, and the devil shall be driven away … And the gall is good for anointing the eyes, in which there is a white speck, and they shall be cured!’” (Tobias 6:5-9, 19).
God chose to use Raphael to heal both Tobias and Sara―and Raphael was to use the parts of a fish to do this―but ultimately it is God who cures, not Raphael, nor the parts of the fish. “Not even the teeth of venomous serpents overcame Thy children―for Thy mercy came and healed them! … For it was neither herb, nor mollifying plaster that healed them, but Thy word, O Lord, which healeth all things. For it is Thou, O Lord, that hast power of life and death, and leadest down to the gates of death, and bringest back again!” (Wisdom 16:1-13).
When Our Lord decided to cure the ten lepers, He first commanded them to go and show themselves to the priests: “And as Jesus entered into a certain town, there met Him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off and lifted up their voice, saying: ‘Jesus, master, have mercy on us!’ Whom when He saw, He said: ‘Go show yourselves to the priests!’ And it came to pass, as they went, they were made clean” (Luke 17:12-14). He could just as well say: “God show yourselves to the physicians!” Nevertheless, healing is a grace that comes from God―hence we call it “the grace of healing” (1 Corinthians 12:30). In all cases God merely makes use of priests and physicians are mere instruments and intermediaries―the ultimate and true healer is God: “Thy word, O Lord, healeth all things!” (Wisdom 16:12). “All healing is from God” (Ecclesiasticus 38:2).
Prevention and Protection from Disease and Harm
As they say: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!” God does not only use angles to heal and cure―He also uses them to prevent any harm, disease of danger from arising in the first place: “The eyes of the Lord are upon them that fear Him, He is their powerful protector and strong defense” (Ecclesiasticus 34:19). “The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear God and shall deliver them” (Psalm 33:8). “No evil shall come to thee! Nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling. For He hath given His angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up―lest thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Psalm 90:10-12).
We see this to be true in the case of the three young men being thrown into a furnace for refusing to worship a false idol: “King Nabuchodonosor made a statue of gold and called together the nobles, the magistrates, and the judges, the captains, the rulers, and governors, and all the chief men of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the statue which king Nabuchodonosor had set up. Then they commanded to fall down and adore the golden statue ― but if any man shall not fall down and adore, he shall be cast into a furnace of burning fire.
“Some Chaldeans came and accused the Jews, and said to king Nabuchodonosor: ‘Thou, O king, hast made a decree that every man shall prostrate himself, and adore the golden statue, and that if any man shall not fall down and adore, he should be cast into a furnace of burning fire. Now there are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the works of the province of Babylon―Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago. These men worship not thy gods, nor do they adore the golden statue which thou hast set up!’ Then Nabuchodonosor in fury and in wrath, commanded that Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago should be immediately brought before the king. And Nabuchodonosor said: Is it true, O Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, that you do not worship my gods, nor adore the golden statue that I have made? If you do not adore, you shall be cast into the furnace of burning fire: and who is the God that shall deliver you out of my hand?’
“Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago answered: ‘Be it known to thee, O king, that we will not worship thy gods, nor adore the golden statue which thou hast set up! Our God, whom we worship, is able to save us from the furnace of burning fire, and to deliver us out of thy hands, O king!’
“Then Nabuchodonosor, filled with fury, commanded that the furnace should be heated seven times more than it had been accustomed to be heated. And he commanded the strongest men that were in his army, to bind the feet of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, and to cast them into the furnace of burning fire … The furnace was heated exceedingly, and the flame of the fire slew those men that cast in Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago. But Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, walked in the midst of the flame, praising God and blessing the Lord.
The king's servants that had cast them in, ceased not to heat the furnace with brimstone, and tow, and pitch, and dry sticks―and the flame mounted forty-nine cubits up above the furnace, and it broke forth, and burnt such of the Chaldeans as it found near the furnace. But the angel of the Lord went down with Azarias and his companions into the furnace and he drove the flame of the fire out of the furnace, and made the midst of the furnace like the blowing of a wind bringing dew, and the fire touched them not at all, nor troubled them, nor did them any harm.
“Then Nabuchodonosor the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and said to his nobles: ‘Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?’ They answered the king and said: ‘True, O king!’ He answered, and said: ‘Behold I see four men walking in the midst of the fire, and there is no hurt in them, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God!’ Then Nabuchodonosor came to the door of the burning fiery furnace, and said: ‘Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, ye servants of the most high God, come out!’ And immediately Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago came out from the midst of the fire. And the nobles, and the magistrates, and the judges, and the great men of the king being gathered together, considered these men, that the fire had no power on their bodies, and that not a hair of their head had been singed, nor their garments altered, nor the smell of the fire had passed on them.
“Then Nabuchodonosor breaking forth, said: ‘Blessed be the God of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, who hath sent His angel and delivered His servants that believed in Him, and delivered up their bodies that they might not serve, nor adore any god, except their own God! By me, therefore, this decree is made―that every people, tribe, and tongue, which shall speak blasphemy against the God of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, shall be destroyed, and their houses laid waste―for there is no other God that can save in this manner!’” (Daniel 3:1-96).
Yes, truly, “The eyes of the Lord are upon them that fear Him, He is their powerful protector and strong defense” (Ecclesiasticus 34:19). “The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear God and shall deliver them” (Psalm 33:8). “No evil shall come to thee! Nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling. For He hath given His angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up―lest thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Psalm 90:10-12).
A Lot of Angelic Help for Lot!
We see something similar in the case of Abraham’s nephew Lot, who was warned and delivered from the destruction of Sodom: “Two angels came to Sodom in the evening, while Lot was sitting in the gate of the city. Seeing them, he rose up and went to meet them … And they said to Lot: ‘Hast thou here any of thine? Son-in-law, or sons, or daughters? All that are thine, bring them out of this city, for we will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord, who hath sent us to destroy them!’ So Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law that were to have his daughters, and said: ‘Arise! Get you out of this place, because the Lord will destroy this city!’ And he seemed to them to speak as it were in jest. And when it was morning, the angels pressed him, saying: ‘Arise, take thy wife, and the two daughters which thou hast―lest thou also perish in the wickedness of the city!’ And because he lingered, they took his hand, and the hand of his wife, and of his two daughters, and they brought him forth, and set him without the city and there they spoke to him, saying: ‘Save thy life! Look not back! Neither stay thou in the surrounding countryside―but save thyself in the mountain, lest thou be also consumed!’ … Lot entered went to the city of Segor. And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven. And He destroyed these cities, and all the country about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all things that spring from the earth!” (Genesis 19:1-25).
The Cure of Naaman
We see God use His prophet, Eliseus, as an intermediary; and the instrumentality of the waters of the River Jordan in the curing of a pagan: “Naaman, general of the army of the King of Syria, was a great man, a valiant man and rich―but a leper. Now there was a little maid out of the land of Israel, and she waited upon Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress: ‘I wish my master had been with the prophet, that is in Samaria―he would certainly have healed him of the leprosy which he has!’ Then Naaman went to his lord and told him, saying: ‘Thus and thus said the girl from the land of Israel!’ And the King of Syria said to him: ‘Go, and I will send a letter to the King of Israel!” And Naaman departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of clothing, and brought the letter to the King of Israel, in these words: ‘When thou shalt receive this letter, know that I have sent to thee Naaman my servant, that thou mayest heal him of his leprosy!’ And when the King of Israel had read the letter, he tore his garments and said: ‘Am I God, to be able to kill and give life, that this man hath sent to me, to heal a man of his leprosy? Mark and see how he seeks an occasion against me!’
“And when the prophet Eliseus, the man of God, had heard this, that the King of Israel had torn his garments, he sent to him, saying: Why hast thou torn thy garments? Let him come to me, and let him know that there is a prophet in Israel!’ So Naaman came, with his horses and chariots, and stood at the door of the house of the prophet Eliseus. And Eliseus sent a messenger to him, saying: ‘Go, and wash seven times in the Jordan, and thy flesh shall recover health, and thou shalt be clean!’
“Naaman was angry and went away, saying: ‘I thought he would have come out to me, and standing over me, would have invoked the Name of the Lord his God, and touched with his hand the place of the leprosy, and healed me! Are not the Abana, and the Pharphar, both rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel, that I may wash in them, and be made clean?’ So as he turned, and was going away with indignation, his servants came to him, and said to him: ‘Father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great and difficult thing, surely thou shouldst have done it! How much rather what he now hath said to thee: ‘Wash, and thou shalt he clean’? Then he went down, and washed in the Jordan seven times―according to the word of the man of God―and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was made clean. And returning to the man of God, he came and stood before him, and said: ‘In truth, I know there is no other God in all the earth, but only in Israel!’” (4 Kings 5:1-15).
Be Good―Be Safe!
No doubt you have heard the expression: “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours!” It is an expression that is used to tell someone that if they help you, you will help them. That is how it is with God―if we look after His concerns, then He will look after our concerns. “If thou wilt hear the voice of the Lord thy God, and do what is right before Him, and obey His commandments, and keep all His precepts―then none of the evils and diseases that I have laid upon Egypt, will I bring upon thee! For I am the Lord thy healer!” (Exodus 15:26). “The Lord will take away from thee all sickness―and the grievous infirmities of Egypt He will not bring upon thee” (Deuteronomy 7:15).
On the other hand, if we deliberately choose to ignore God’s concerns and God’s commandments, choosing to sin instead―then evils and diseases will befall us: “But if you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments; if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments … then I will set My face against you, and I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins! … I will send the pestilence in the midst of you! … will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins!” (Leviticus 26:14-28). “There is no other God besides Me! I will kill and I will make to live! I will strike, and I will heal! And there is none that can deliver out of My hand!” (Deuteronomy 32:39). “For He wounds, and cures! He strikes, and His hands shall heal!” (Job 5:18). “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16). For “the wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23) and “the sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned … Death reigned from Adam!” (Romans 5:12-14). “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8).
A Tale of Two Sick Kings
“In those days King Ezechias was sick unto death, and Isaias the prophet came and said to him: ‘Thus saith the Lord God: “Thou shalt die, and not live!”’ And Ezechias turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying: ‘I beseech Thee, O Lord, remember how I have walked before Thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is pleasing before Thee!’ And Ezechias wept with much weeping. And before Isaias had left the middle of the court, the word of the Lord came to him, saying: ‘Go back, and tell Ezechias―“Thus saith the Lord the God of David thy father: I have heard thy prayer, and I have seen thy tears: and behold I have healed thee! And I will add to thy life fifteen years!”’” (4 Kings 20:1-6).
Another king―King Asa―was likewise sick but did not turn to God: “And King Asa fell sick in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, of a most violent pain in his feet―and yet, in his illness, he did not seek the Lord, but rather trusted in the skill of physicians” (2 Paralipomenon 16:12). Who is more skilled than God? What an insult it must be to God to see those whom He has created, first going to seek cures from inferior physicians without having any recourse whatsoever to God!
In all our ailments, illnesses, sicknesses and diseases we should first turn to God―even if we will also seek the help of physicians: “In thy sickness neglect not thyself, but pray to the Lord, and He shall heal thee” (with or without the intervention of a physician) (Ecclesiasticus 38:9). “He will heal us―He will strike but He will cure us!” (Osee 6:2). “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed!” (Jeremias 17:14).
Jesus the Physician of Both Body and Soul
Our Lord Himself came, not only as a physician for sick souls, but also as physician for sick bodies: “Jesus said: ‘I will come and heal him!’” (Matthew 8:7) “And when the sun was down, all they that had any sick with divers diseases, brought them to Him. But He, laying His hands on every one of them, healed them” (Luke 4:40) … “The people followed Him and He received them and healed them who had need of healing” (Luke 9:11) … “Great multitudes followed Him and He healed them” (Matthew 19:2) ... “Many followed Him, and He healed them all” (Matthew 12:15) … “And there came to Him the blind and the lame―and He healed them” (Matthew 21:14) … “He cured many of their diseases and hurts, and to many that were blind He gave sight” (Luke 7:21) … “All that were sick He healed” (Matthew 8:16) … “And Jesus went about all the cities and towns, healing every disease and every infirmity” (Matthew 9:35) … “And Jesus went about all Galilee, healing all manner of sickness and every infirmity, among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria, and they presented to Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and such as were possessed by devils, and lunatics, and those that had palsy, and He cured them!” (Matthew 4:23-24).
He also cured the ultimate and incurable disease―death! We read of three persons that He raised from the dead―the daughter of Jairus who had only just died hours ago (Mark 5:22-43; Luke 8:41-56); He then raised to life the son of the widow of Naim who had been dead for some days and was being carried out for burial (Luke 7:11-17); He then raised Lazarus from the dead and who had already been buried for 4 days (John 11:1-44).
Our Lord, replying to the imprisoned St. John the Baptist, who had asked if Jesus was the expected Messias―Jesus said: “Go and relate to John what you have heard and seen―the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead rise again!” (Luke 7:22; Matthew 11:4-5).
As for his many physical cures as a physician of the body, here is just a sample:
● The Nobleman’s Son (John 4:46).
● The Man with an Unclean Spirit (Mark 1:21, Luke 4:31).
● Simon Peter’s Mother-in-Law (Matthew 8:14, Mark 1:29, Luke 4:38).
● The Healing of the Leper (Matthew 8:1, Mark 1:40, Luke 5:12).
● The Healing of the Paralytic (Matthew 9:1, Mark 2:1, Luke 5:17).
● The Man at Bethesda pool (John. 5:2).
● The Man with the Withered Hand (Matthew 12:9, Mark 3:1, Luke 6:6).
● The Centurion’s Servant (Matthew 8:5; Luke 7:2)
● Demoniacs at Gadara (Matthew 8:28; Mark 5:1; Luke 8:26)
● Woman with the Issue of Blood (Matthew 9:20; Mark 5:25; Luke 8:43)
● Jairus’s Deceased Daughter (Matthew 9:18; Mark 5:21; Luke 8:40)
● Two Blind Men (Matthew 9:27)
● Mute, Possessed Man (Matthew 9:32)
● Daughter of Canaanite (Matthew 15:21; Mark 4:24)
● Deaf Man with Impediment (Mark 7:32)
● Blind Man at Bethsaida (Mark 8:22)
● Epileptic Boy (Matthew 17:14; Mark 9:14; Luke 9:37)
● Man Born Blind (John 9:1)
● Man, Blind, Dumb, Possessed (Matthew 12:22; Luke 11:14)
● Woman Bent Double (Luke 13:10)
● Man with Dropsy (Luke 14:1)
● Ten Lepers (Luke 17:11)
● Blind Bartimaeus (Matthew 20:29; Mark 10:45; Luke 18:35)
● Malchus (Luke 22:50)
Faith in God plays a major part in obtaining cures and healing from God―as we see in the following excerpts:
“A woman who was under an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things from many physicians; and had spent all that she had, and was none the better, but rather worse! When she had heard of Jesus, she came in the crowd behind Him, and touched His garment―for she said: ‘If I shall touch but his garment, I shall be whole!’ And immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the evil … And Jesus said to her: ‘Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole! Go in peace, and be thou healed of thy disease!’” (Mark 5:25-29, 34). She had spent a lot of time and spent all her money on physicians and their medicines―but was not cured. Our Lord cured her in an instant and at no cost to her―it was free!
“And there followed Jesus two blind men crying out and saying: ‘Have mercy on us, O Son of David!’ And when He was come to the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus said to them: ‘Do you believe that I can do this unto you?’ They say to Him: ‘Yes, Lord!’ Then He touched their eyes, saying: ‘According to your faith, be it done unto you!’ And their eyes were opened” (Matthew 9:27-30).
“A woman of Canaan crying out, said to him: ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord! My daughter is grieviously troubled by the devil! Jesus answered her not a word. And His disciples came, saying: ‘Send her away! For she crieth after us!’ And Jesus said to her: ‘I was not sent except to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel!’ But she came and adored Him, saying: ‘Lord, help me!’ Jesus answering, said: ‘It is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs!’ But she said: Yes, Lord! But even dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters!’ Then Jesus answering, said to her: ‘O woman, great is thy faith! Be it done to thee as thou wilt!’ And her daughter was cured from that hour” (Matthew 15:22-28).
“When Jesus had entered into Capharnaum, there came to Him a centurion, beseeching Him and saying: ‘Lord, my servant lays at home sick of the palsy, and is grieviously tormented!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘I will come and heal him!’ And the centurion making answer, said: ‘Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof! Only say the word and my servant shall be healed! For I also am a man subject to authority, having under me soldiers―and I say to this one: “Go!” and he goes, and to another: “Come!” and he comes, and to my servant: “Do this!” and he does it!’ And Jesus hearing this, marveled; and said to them that followed Him: ‘Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel!’ … And Jesus said to the centurion: ‘Go, and as thou hast believed, so be it done to thee!’ And the servant was healed at the same hour” (Matthew 8:5-13).
Jesus Shares His Healing Powers
“And having called His twelve disciples together, Jesus gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of diseases, and all manner of infirmities … These twelve Jesus sent, commanding them, saying: ‘Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils! Freely have you received, freely give!’” (Matthew 10:1-8).
“Calling together the twelve Apostles, He gave them power to cure diseases and to heal the sick … And going out, they went about through the towns, healing everywhere” (Luke 9:1-6). The ultimate power to cure comes from God.
“And after these things, the Lord appointed also another seventy-two―and He sent them two and two into every city and place where He Himself was to come. And He said to them: ‘Into whatsoever house you enter, first say: “Peace be to this house!” And heal the sick that are therein!’” (Luke 10:1-9).
“Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord. And the prayer of Faith shall save the sick man and the Lord shall raise him up!” (James 5:14-15).
God’s Healing versus Human Healing
There is wide-ranging, vigorous and sometimes heated debate these days over the role that human medicine plays in the grand scheme of healing. There are some who totally refuse to accept any human medical intervention at all―firmly believing and hoping in God for all cures and all health matters. There are others who make human medical interventions into a kind of a “religion” with its own “priesthood”, “rituals”, “sacraments”, “sacrifices”, “dogmas”, “sins”, “punishments” and “excommunications”.
If “all healing is from God” (Ecclesiasticus 38:2) … if “He will heal us and He will cure us!” (Osee 6:2) … if “His hands shall heal!” (Job 5:18) ... if “the Lord will take away all sickness” (Deuteronomy 7:15) ― then what need do we have for physicians and human medicine? God will do it all―and if He does not do it, then it must be His will that we remain sick, or that we should even die! Is that how it is supposed to be? Common sense and Holy Scripture clearly tell us that this is not how God wants to operate. In Holy Scripture we clearly see that God works through His creation―whether it be created persons or created things. Scripture says: “Honor the physician―for the need thou hast of him―for the most High hath created him!” (Ecclesiasticus 38:1). Our Lord Himself speaks of physicians and their need: “They that are in health need not a physician―but they that are ill” (Matthew 9:12).
Nevertheless, there are physicians who are evil―sick in mind and morals. Physicians are not immune from doing evil! Some physicians need to be told: “Physician, heal thyself!” (Luke 4:23). Physicians―just like any other person or profession―can become infected by sin and error. “They quickly forsook the way in which their fathers had walked―and, hearing the commandments of the Lord, they did all things contrary!” (Judges 2:17). Increasing elements of today’s modern medicine have forsaken the way in which earlier medical practitioners worked by keeping within the boundaries of God’s commandments―and today they do many things that are contrary to commandments of God. Hence, Holy Scripture says―in speaking of evil physicians―says: “He that sinneth in the sight of his Maker, shall fall into the hands of the physician” (Ecclesiasticus 38:15).
Article 9
Friday October 21st, 2022
Try It For Yourself and See!
Friday October 21st, 2022
Try It For Yourself and See!
Taste and See!
Taste what? Taste God! God is love: “God is charity!” (1 John 4:8) and there is nothing sweeter than charity, nothing better than love! Holy Scripture says: “O taste, and see that the Lord is sweet!” (Psalms 33:9). Charity is sweet because the Lord is sweet! The Imitation of Christ has a most beautiful chapter entitled ― “The Effects of Divine Love” ― in which it says:
“Love is an excellent thing, a very great blessing, indeed. It makes every difficulty easy, and bears all wrongs with equanimity. For it bears a burden without being weighted and renders sweet all that is bitter. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, and does not plead impossibility, because it believes that it may and can do all things. For this reason, it is able to do all, performing and effecting much, where he, who does not love, fails and falls. Love often knows no limits, but overflows all bounds. Love is watchful. Sleeping, it does not slumber. Wearied, it is not tired. Pressed, it is not straitened. Alarmed, it is not confused, but like a living flame, a burning torch, it forces its way upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle.
“Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, or higher, or wider; nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in Heaven or on Earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is above all created things. He gives all for all and possesses all in all, because he rests in the one sovereign Good, Who is above all things, and from Whom every good flows and proceeds. He does not look to the gift, but turns himself above all gifts to the Giver. The noble love of Jesus spurs to great deeds and excites longing for that which is more perfect. Love tends upward; it will not be held down by anything low. Love wishes to be free and estranged from all worldly affections, lest its inward sight be obstructed, lest it be entangled in any temporal interest and overcome by adversity.
“One who is in love flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free, not bound. Love is swift, sincere, kind, pleasant, and delightful. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, long-suffering, and manly. Love is never self-seeking, for in whatever a person seeks himself, there he falls from love. Love is circumspect, humble, and upright. It is neither soft nor light, nor intent upon vain things. It is sober and chaste, firm and quiet, guarded in all the senses. Love is subject and obedient to superiors. It is mean and contemptible in its own eyes, devoted and thankful to God; always trusting and hoping in Him even when He is distasteful to it, for there is no living in love without sorrow. He who is not ready to suffer all things and to stand resigned to the will of the Beloved, is not worthy to be called a lover. A lover must embrace willingly all that is difficult and bitter, for the sake of the Beloved, and he should not turn away from Him because of adversities. If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice!” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 5: “The Wonderful Effects of Divine Love”).
Mother of Love
Holy Mother Church calls Our Lady “the Mother of Fair Love”―applying to her the following words of Holy Scripture in the Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (August 22nd): “I am the mother of fair love! … Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits! For my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb! … They that eat me, shall yet hunger―and they that drink me, shall yet thirst!” (Ecclesiasticus 24:24-29).
Sadly―and unfortunately for many souls―Mary is not on the menu these days! As Fr. Faber writes in the Preface of his own personal translation from the French of St. Louis de Montfort’s book, True Devotion to Mary: “Mary is not half enough preached! Devotion to her is low and thin and poor! It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be! It has no Faith in itself! Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls, which might be saints, wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized. Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background! Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them! It is the miserable, unworthy shadow, which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin, that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines!
“Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother. I cannot think of a higher work, or a broader vocation, for anyone―than the simple spreading of this peculiar devotion of the Venerable [St. Louis-Marie] Grignion de Montfort. Let a man just try it for himself, and his surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations it causes in his soul, will soon convince him of its otherwise almost incredible efficacy as a means for the salvation of men, and for the coming of the kingdom of Christ!”
To this, we can add the words of St. Louis de Montfort himself from the aforementioned book, True Devotion to Mary, wherein he writes: “We must cry out with the saints: ‘De Maria numquam satis!’ — ‘Of Mary there is never enough!’ We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought! She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service!”
Lifeboat of Mary
As we draw close to that feast on the horizon―the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th―and as we draw closer and sink deeper into the ever-worsening Satanic whirlpool that is slowly and relentlessly dragging the world and souls into Hell, there is nothing more crucial to us than to seek and find the “lifeboat” of Mary. As it says in the Epistle of Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (August 22nd): “In me is all hope of life … He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded! … They that explain me shall have life everlasting!” (Ecclesiasticus 24:2531). Or as Our Lady herself has said in her modern-day apparitions: “Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima 1917) … “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!” (Akita 1973).
Speaking of that “lifeboat” of Mary, St. Bernard of Clairvaux has this to say: “When the storm of temptation arises, when you are midst the reefs and shoals of tribulation, fix your gaze upon the Star of the Sea―call upon Mary! If tossed by the rising tide of pride and ambition, if lost upon the troubled waters of scandal and contention―look then at the Star, invoke her name! Do the billows of anger, of avarice, of lust batter against your soul―cast thy eyes upon Mary! Does the greatness of your crime fill your soul with terror? Does your wretched conscience beat you down in shame and the fear of judgment paralyze your heart?―then, when about to sink to the depths of despondency, to plunge headlong into despair, then think of Mary! In perils and in sorrows and in fears―think of her, call upon her name! Let her name be ever on your lips and the thought of her be ever in your heart! Follow her―so that the power of her intercession may attend to your needs! Imitate her―for in her footsteps you cannot go astray! Call upon her―and you will not despair! Think of her―and you cannot fail. If she holds you by the hand―how can you fall? Under her protection you shall know no fear! Under her guidance you shall not falter! Under her patronage you shall surely reach the goal!” (St. Bernard of Clairvaux).
The Effect of Mary on Souls ― Love at First Sight
You have no doubt heard of the expression: “Love at first sight!” Well, that is the effect that Our Lady has on most persons―apart from the devils. You would not be wasting your time by researching and rereading the accounts of Our Lady’s apparitions from the perspective of the effect that Our Lady had upon the emotions, feelings and senses of the persons to whom she appeared.
► OUR LADY OF THE MRACULOUS MEDAL (1830): Catherine Labouré had been sleeping some two hours when a sudden light flickered in the dormitory. The light came from a candle carried by a little child of four or five, a child of extraordinary beauty and so surrounded with radiance that the whiteness of his little gown was dazzling. He approached the bed where Catherine lay. He called her softly: “Sister Labouré!” She did not stir. He called again, insistently: “Sister Labouré!” She moved a little. Then: “Sister Labouré!” once more, and Catherine awoke. She sat up quickly and drew the curtains. The child said: “Come to the chapel! The Blessed Virgin awaits you!” Catherine was not frightened. Catherine jumped out of bed and threw on her clothes. She was neither excited, nor upset, nor in ecstasy. The child led the way to the chapel on the first floor. Catherine’s wonder mounted: everywhere the lamps were lit, and yet they met no one. At the chapel door, Catherine gasped in astonishment when the heavy door, which must be locked, swung wide at the child’s mere touch. The chapel was ablaze with light! The child moved on into the sanctuary. Obediently, Catherine followed. Instinctively, Catherine knelt. Nothing happened. The Virgin was not there. The child stood calmly waiting. The minutes were long and Catherine anxiously glanced over her shoulder in case the night Sisters, up with the sick, might be passing. But there was no one. Suddenly the child spoke: “Here is the Blessed Virgin.”
In the same instant Catherine heard a sound like the rustling of a silk dress, and, looking toward the direction of the sound, saw a lady descending the altar steps. The lady seated herself in the Director’s chair. Was this really the Mother of God? The child reassured her: “This is the Blessed Virgin.” Even this did not allay all her doubts. The Lady was looking at her, waiting. The child spoke again―startling her―for now his voice was a man’s voice, deep and commanding and stern. She held back no more, but threw herself at Our Lady’s knee and rested her hands in Our Lady’s lap. Then she lifted her head and looked up, up, into her Mother’s eyes. Many years later she was to write with ecstatic remembrance of this moment, that it was the sweetest of her life.
“My child,” said Our Lady, “the good God wishes to charge you with a mission.” But that could wait. This moment was Catherine’s; and Mary went on to tell her of God’s plans for her, to warn her of the trials that would come upon her, and to show her how she should bear them. The good God wished to charge her with a mission. She would meet with many difficulties in carrying it out, but she would overcome the difficulties by thinking upon the glory of God as her reason for doing what He wanted. Most comforting of all, she would know with unerring certainty the Will of God; she would be spiritually secure, for she would recognize at all times what God wanted of her. “You will be tormented,” Our Lady continued, “until you have told him who is charged with directing you. You will be contradicted, but do not fear, you will have grace. Tell with confidence all that passes within you; tell it with simplicity. Have confidence. Do not be afraid. You will see certain things: give an account of what you see and hear. You will be inspired in your prayers: give an account of what I tell you and of what you will understand in your prayers. The times are very evil. Sorrows will come upon France; the throne will be overturned. The whole world will be upset by miseries of every kind.” As she delivered this ominous prophecy, pain crossed the Virgin’s face. There was a remedy however: “Come to the foot of the altar.” She indicated the spot. “There graces will be shed upon all, great and little, who ask for them. Graces will be especially shed upon those who ask for them.”
Then Our Lady began to speak of the miseries to come upon France and the whole world. “There will be an abundance of sorrows; and the danger will be great. Yet do not be afraid! The protection of God shall be ever present in a special way! I shall be with you myself. Always, I have my eye upon you. I will grant you many graces. The moment will come when the danger will be enormous; it will seem that all is lost! At that moment I will be with you―have confidence! You will recognize my coming―you will see the protection of God! Have confidence! Do not be discouraged! I shall be with you!” Mary then began to specify the sorrows and dangers, fighting back the tears that stood in her eyes. She could not go on. Tears choked her voice, and her lovely face twisted in pain. She could only conclude: “My child, the whole world will be in sadness.”
The conversation was not one-sided. Catherine spoke freely, unfolding the secrets of her soul, asking questions which Mary graciously answered. Then, like the fading of a shadow, Our Lady was gone. Slowly, Catherine got up from her knees. Her heart was filled with gladness and horror; with hope and bliss, all jumbled together. Just then the clock struck two. She had been with Our Lady over two hours! She slept no more that night. This apparition of the Virgin Mary to Catherine Labouré had a personal atmosphere about it, unlike any other in history. Even the manner of Our Lady’s coming was different. In other famous appearances to chosen souls, Our Lady has burst suddenly upon their sight, as it were, from out of nowhere. Here, her coming was a calm, logical climax to years of intimacy. She arranged it with a sort of heavenly etiquette. First of all, she led Catherine, in her thoughts, to expect it. Then she sent an angel to announce her coming. When Catherine, following the angel, arrived at the chapel, she found it all in readiness for the great happening, brilliant and lighted as if for a midnight Mass. The good Sisters had unwittingly lent their hands to the preparation: spreading their best linen on the altars and decking them with flowers, scrubbing the floor until it shone, for St. Vincent’s feast on the morrow. Then Catherine heard the rustle of a silken gown, and Mary came. The crowning touch of the personal, however, was the privilege given Catherine of kneeling at Mary’s knee and resting her hands in her lap. So great a favor has been granted to no other seer. Not to St. Bernadette of Lourdes: she was granted, once, to kiss the golden rose on Our Lady’s foot. Not to the children of Fatima, not even to Lucia, upon whose shoulders the desperate message for the modern world’s salvation was laid. Only to Catherine Labouré. Here they talked, the Mother and child, for two hours—a long, long time.
► OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE (1846): For example, regarding Our Lady’s apparition at La Salette, to 14-year-old Melanie Calvat and 11-year-old Maximin Giraud, Melanie describes her emotions upon seeing Our Lady for the first time: “I said to Maximin (the other seer): ‘Maximin, do you see what is over there? O my God!’ At the same moment, I dropped the stick I was holding. Something inconceivably fantastic passed through me in that moment, and I felt myself being drawn. I felt a great respect, full of love, and my heart beat faster. I kept my eyes firmly fixed on this light, which was static, and as if it had opened up, I caught sight of another, much more brilliant light which was moving, and in this light I saw a most beautiful Lady sitting with her head in her hands. This beautiful Lady stood up, she calmly crossed her arms while watching us, and said to us: ‘Come, my children! Fear not! I am here to proclaim great news to you!’ These soft and sweet words made me fly to her, and my heart desired to attach itself to her forever. When I was up close to the beautiful Lady, she began to speak and, from her beautiful eyes, tears also started to flow.”
At the end of the apparition, when Our Lady was leaving, Melanie writes: “The most beautiful Lady crossed the stream, and we were following her, for we were drawn to her by her brilliance and even more by her kindness which elated me, which seemed to melt my heart!”
Do you feel the same “great respect, full of love”? Does Our Lady make your “heart beat faster”? Do her “soft and sweet words make [you] fly to her”? Does your “heart desire to attach itself to her forever”? Are you also “drawn to her by her brilliance and her kindness”? Are you “following” Our Lady? Are you “following her” apparitions by reading more and more about them―like anyone would do about something that they love? Are you “following her” commands and requests? For she could say―as her Son Jesus said: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words … If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24; 15:10).
► OUR LADY OF LOURDES (1858): Our Lady again chose a 14-year-old girl, Bernadette Soubirous, to be the recipient of her next major apparition―this time at Lourdes. Bernadette later writes: “I had just begun to take off my first stocking when suddenly I heard a great noise like the sound of a storm. I looked around but nothing moved. I thought I was mistaken. I went on taking off my shoes and stockings, when I heard again a noise like the first. Then I was frightened and stood straight up. I lost all power of speech and thought, when, turning my head toward the grotto, I saw at one of the openings of the rock a bush, one only, moving as if it were very windy. Almost at the same time, there came out of the interior of the grotto a golden colored cloud, and soon after a Lady, young and beautiful, exceedingly beautiful―the like of whom I had never seen. She came and placed herself at the entrance of the opening above the bush. She looked at me immediately, smiled at me and signed me to advance, as if she had been my mother. All fear had left me, but I seemed to know no longer where I was. I rubbed my eyes, I shut them, I opened them; but the Lady was still there continuing to smile at me and making me understand that I was not mistaken.
“Without thinking of what I was doing, I put my hand in my pocket and took out my Rosary. With my Rosary in my hands I fell on my knees. The Lady made a sign of approval with her head and took into her hands a Rosary which hung on her right arm. When I attempted to begin the Rosary and wanted to make the sign of the Cross, I tried to lift my hand to my forehead, my arm remained paralyzed. Then I was seized by a great fear. The Lady took up the Rosary she held in her hands and she made the Sign of the Cross. I tried again to make the Sign of the Cross and this time I could. My great fear went as soon as I had made the Sign of the Cross. From that moment I felt perfectly undisturbed in mind. The Lady left me to pray all alone, while she passed the beads of her Rosary between her fingers―but she said nothing; only at the end of each decade did she say the ‘Gloria Patri’ with me. When the recitation of the Rosary was finished, the Lady she beckoned me to go nearer but I did not dare go. I stayed in the same place. The Lady then returned to the interior of the rock and the golden cloud disappeared with her.”
When Father Peyramale, the local parish priest, questioned Bernadette about the happiness she found at the Grotto, Bernadette answered: “When I see her I feel as if I’m no longer of this world! And when the vision disappears I’m amazed to find myself still here!” Yet here again, Our Lady, whilst giving joy, also promised pain and suffering. She said to Bernadette: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next world!”
► OUR LADY OF FATIMA (1917): Lucia, the eldest of the three seers at Fatima―being 10-years-old at the time (Francisco was 9 and Jacinta was 7)―wrote her memoirs later in life. She states: “I was playing with Jacinta and Francisco. Suddenly we saw what seemed to be a flash of lightning. “We’d better go home,” I said to my cousins, “that’s lightning―we may have a thunderstorm!” We began to go down the slope. We were more or less half-way down the slope, when we saw another flash of lightning. We beheld a Lady all dressed in white. She was more brilliant than the sun, and radiated a light more clear and intense than a crystal glass filled with sparkling water, when the rays of the burning sun shine through it.
“We stopped, astounded, before the Apparition. The fear which we felt, was not really fear of Our Lady, but rather fear of the thunderstorm which we thought was coming. It was from this that we wished to escape, as we were used to seeing lightning only when it thundered. The Apparitions of Our Lady inspired neither fear nor fright, but rather surprise. We were so close, just a few feet from her, that we were bathed in the light which surrounded her, or rather, which radiated from her. The Apparition of Our Lady plunged us once more into the atmosphere of the supernatural, but this time more gently. Instead of that annihilation in the Divine Presence, which exhausted us even physically, it left us filled with peace and expansive joy, which did not prevent us from speaking afterwards of what had happened.
“However, with regard to the light communicated to us when Our Lady opened her hands, and everything connected with this light, we experienced a kind of interior impulse that compelled us to keep silent. The Apparitions of Our Lady produced in us very different effects. We felt the same intimate joy, the same peace and happiness, but instead of physical prostration, we experienced an expansive ease of movement; instead of this annihilation in the Divine Presence, a joyful exultation; instead of the difficulty in speaking, we felt a certain communicative enthusiasm.
“Jacinta, unable to contain herself for joy, broke our agreement to keep the whole matter to ourselves. That very afternoon [of the first apparition of Our Lady], while we remained thoughtful and rapt in wonder, Jacinta kept breaking into enthusiastic exclamations: “Oh, what a beautiful Lady!”
“I can see what’s going to happen,” I said, “you’ll end up saying that to somebody else!”
“No, I won’t,” Jacinta answered “don’t worry!”
Next day, Francisco came running to tell me how she had told them everything at home the night before.
“You see, that’s just what I thought would happen!” I said to Jacinta.
“There was something within me that wouldn’t let me keep quiet!” she said, with tears in her eyes.
“Well, don’t cry now!” I said, “and don’t tell anything else to anybody about what the Lady said to us!”
“But I’ve already told them! I said that the Lady promised to take us to Heaven!”
“To think you told them that!”
“Forgive me! I won’t tell anybody anything ever again!”
Then she went on: “How good that Lady is! She has already promised to take us to Heaven!”
“Jacinta took this matter of making sacrifices for the conversion of sinners so much to heart, that she never let a single opportunity escape her. Jacinta’s thirst for making sacrifices seemed insatiable. “I want to suffer for the conversion of sinners” she would say.
“Ever since the day Our Lady taught us to offer our sacrifices to Jesus, any time we had something to suffer, or agreed to make a sacrifice, Jacinta asked: “Did you already tell Jesus that it’s for love of Him?”
“If I said I hadn’t,” she answered: “Then I’ll tell Him!” and joining her hands, she raised her eyes to Heaven and said: “O Jesus, it is for love of You and for the conversion of sinners!”
“Long before anybody spoke to her of the possibility of her entering the hospital of Vila Nova de Ourém, she said one day: “Our Lady wants me to go to two hospitals, not to be cured, but to suffer more for love of Our Lord and for sinners.”
“When Jacinta was in the last stages of her life, she joyfully and willingly accepted all sufferings out of love for Our Lady. “Our Lady came to see us,” Jacinta said. “She told us she would come to take Francisco to Heaven very soon, and she asked me if I still wanted to convert more sinners. I said I did. She told me I would be going to a hospital where I would suffer a great deal; and that I am to suffer for the conversion of sinners, in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and for love of Jesus. I asked if you would go with me. She said you wouldn’t, and that is what I find hardest. She said my mother would take me, and then I would have to stay there all alone!”
Again, I asked her: “Are you better?”
“You know I’m not getting better,” she replied, and added: “I’ve such pains in my chest! But I don’t say anything. I’m suffering for the conversion of sinners.”
“After this, she was thoughtful for awhile, and then added: “If only you could be with me! The hardest part is to go without you. Maybe, the hospital is a big dark house, where you can’t see, and I’ll be there suffering all alone! But never mind! I’ll suffer for love of Our Lord, to make reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the conversion of sinners and for the Holy Father.”
“On another occasion, her mother brought her a cup of milk and told her to take it. “I don’t want it, mother!” she answered, pushing the cup away with her little hand. My aunt [her mother] insisted a little, and then left the room, saying: “I don’t know how to make her take anything; she has no appetite.” As soon as we were alone, I asked her: “How can you disobey your mother like that, and not offer this sacrifice to Our Lord?” When she heard this, she shed a few tears which I had the happiness of drying, and said: “I forgot this time.” She called her mother, asked her forgiveness, and said she’d take whatever she wanted. Her mother brought back the cup of milk, and Jacinta drank it down without the slightest sign of repugnance. Later, she told me: “If you only knew how hard it was to drink that!” Another time, she said to me: “It’s becoming harder and harder for me to take milk and broth, but I don’t say anything. I drink it all for love of Our Lord and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our dear heavenly Mother.”
“The day came for Jacinta to go to hospital (This was St. Augustine’s Hospital in Vila Nova de Ourém. She was taken there on July 1st and left it on August 31st, 1919). There indeed she was to suffer a great deal. When her mother went to see her, she asked if she wanted anything. She begged her mother to bring me with her next time she came to see her. So my good aunt, who loved to make her little daughter happy, took me with her a second time.
“I visited Jacinta in hospital. This was no easy matter for my aunt, but she took me with her at the first opportunity. As soon as Jacinta saw me, she joyfully threw her arms around me, and asked her mother to leave me with her while she went to do her shopping. I found Jacinta as joyful as ever, glad to suffer for the love of our Good God and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for sinners and the Holy Father. That was her ideal, and she could speak of nothing else.
“She had a large open wound in her chest which had to be treated every day, but she bore this without complaint and without the least sign of irritation. Then I asked her if she was suffering a lot. She replied: “Yes, I am. But I offer everything for sinners, and in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” Then, filled with enthusiasm, she spoke of Our Lord and Our Lady: “Oh, how much I love to suffer for love of Them, just to give Them pleasure! They greatly love those who suffer for the conversion of sinners.” The time allotted for the visit passed rapidly, and my aunt arrived to take me home.
“Jacinta used to tell me sometimes: “My chest hurts so much, but I’m not saying anything to my mother! I want to suffer for Our Lord, in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the Holy Father and for the conversion of sinners.” At times, she kissed and embraced a crucifix, exclaiming: “O my Jesus! I love You, and I want to suffer very much for love of You.” She often said: “O Jesus! Now You can convert many sinners, because this is really a big sacrifice!” On one occasion, I found her clasping a picture of Our Lady to her heart, and saying, “O my dearest heavenly Mother, do I have to die all alone?” The poor child seemed so frightened at the thought of dying alone! I tried to comfort her, saying: “What does it matter if you die alone, so long as Our Lady is coming to fetch you?” Jacinta replied: “It’s true, it doesn’t matter, really! I don’t know why it is, but I sometimes forget Our Lady is coming to take me. I only remember that I’ll die without having you near me!”
As for Lucia herself, she suffered tremendously in the bosom of her own family―especially at the hands of her mother and sisters, who thought she was lying about the apparitions. She would receive frequent tongue-lashings and at times her mother would even beat her with a stick, demanding that Lucia admit that she was lying. Lucia later wrote: “‘My God! My God!’ I exclaimed in the privacy of my room. ‘I never thought You had so much suffering in store for me! But I suffer for love of You, in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the Holy Father and for the conversion of sinners!’”
The Common Denominator
What do we find in common among the seers in the above apparitions of Our Lady? The common denominator consists of LOVE and SUFFERING―which ultimately leads to the love of suffering. As Our Lord said: “Greater love than this no man has―that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). What Our Lord is saying is that the ultimate love is shown by the ultimate suffering―which is death itself. The pinnacle of love is reached and proven by the pinnacle of suffering―which is the laying down of one’s life for another. Nevertheless, suffering without love is like a body without a soul―it is dead! This is why Holy Scripture points out: “If I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
As St. Louis de Montfort writes in his book, True Devotion to Mary, there are varying degrees of devotion to Our Lady and also false devotions to Our Lady. The ultimate true devotion to Our Lady is that which is prepared to suffer for Our Lady and even laying down one’s life for Our Lady: “This devotion … will not be equally understood by everybody. Some will stop at what is exterior in it, and will go no further, and these will be the greatest number. Some, in small number, will enter into its inward spirit; but they will only mount one step. Who will mount to the second step? Who will get as far as the third? Lastly, who will so advance as to make this devotion his habitual state? … A person who wishes to devoutly and piously live in Jesus Christ, must consequently to suffer persecutions and carry his cross daily … This devotion makes us give to Jesus and Mary… all our … sufferings … All we suffer … belongs to Mary … The faithful servants of this good Mother have so many occasions of suffering―nay, even more than others who are not so devout to her! They are contradicted, they are persecuted, they are calumniated, the world cannot endure them; or again, they walk in interior darkness and in deserts where there is not the least drop of the dew of Heaven … The most faithful servants of the Blessed Virgin, being also her greatest favorites, receive from her the greatest graces and favors of Heaven, which are crosses. But it is also the servants of Mary who carry these crosses with more ease, more merit and more glory ...
“Who shall those servants, slaves and children of Mary be? They shall be … well purified by the fire of great tribulation, and … shall carry the gold of love in their heart, the incense of prayer in their soul, and the myrrh of mortification in their body ... It is quite true that the most faithful servants of the Blessed Virgin―being also her greatest favorites―receive from her the greatest graces and favors of Heaven, which are crosses. But it is also the servants of Mary who carry these crosses with more ease, more merit and more glory … The Holy Ghost prepares her servants’ crosses with so much pure love as to make them gladly acceptable, no matter how bitter they may be in themselves. True devotion to Our Lady comes from the mind and the heart and the love which we have for her ... in the crosses, toils and disappointments of life … It is on this account that a person loves and serves her as faithfully in his disgusts and dryness as in his sweetness and sensible fervor. He loves her as much on Calvary as at the marriage of Cana.”
The bottom line is that if you say you love Our Lady, then suffering is part of the baggage that she brings with her! She even asked three young children―Lucia (10 years-old), Francisco (9 years) and Jacinta (7 years)―if they were prepared to suffer: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners?” When they agreed, Our Lady minced no words but said: “Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.”
At Akita, Our Lady said much the same thing: I seek, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful!”
To St. Bernadette at Lourdes, Our Lady promised sufferings: “I will not make you happy in this life, but in the next!”
To St. Catherine Labouré Our Lady said: "My child, the good God wishes to charge you with a mission. There will be an abundance of sorrows, and the danger will be great! … You will be tormented! …. You will have much to suffer, but you will rise above these sufferings by reflecting that what you do is for the glory of God! The moment will come when the danger will be extreme. It will seem that all is lost. At that time, I will be with you! … Have confidence! Do not be discouraged! I will be with you!”
Taste what? Taste God! God is love: “God is charity!” (1 John 4:8) and there is nothing sweeter than charity, nothing better than love! Holy Scripture says: “O taste, and see that the Lord is sweet!” (Psalms 33:9). Charity is sweet because the Lord is sweet! The Imitation of Christ has a most beautiful chapter entitled ― “The Effects of Divine Love” ― in which it says:
“Love is an excellent thing, a very great blessing, indeed. It makes every difficulty easy, and bears all wrongs with equanimity. For it bears a burden without being weighted and renders sweet all that is bitter. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, and does not plead impossibility, because it believes that it may and can do all things. For this reason, it is able to do all, performing and effecting much, where he, who does not love, fails and falls. Love often knows no limits, but overflows all bounds. Love is watchful. Sleeping, it does not slumber. Wearied, it is not tired. Pressed, it is not straitened. Alarmed, it is not confused, but like a living flame, a burning torch, it forces its way upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle.
“Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, or higher, or wider; nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in Heaven or on Earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is above all created things. He gives all for all and possesses all in all, because he rests in the one sovereign Good, Who is above all things, and from Whom every good flows and proceeds. He does not look to the gift, but turns himself above all gifts to the Giver. The noble love of Jesus spurs to great deeds and excites longing for that which is more perfect. Love tends upward; it will not be held down by anything low. Love wishes to be free and estranged from all worldly affections, lest its inward sight be obstructed, lest it be entangled in any temporal interest and overcome by adversity.
“One who is in love flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free, not bound. Love is swift, sincere, kind, pleasant, and delightful. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, long-suffering, and manly. Love is never self-seeking, for in whatever a person seeks himself, there he falls from love. Love is circumspect, humble, and upright. It is neither soft nor light, nor intent upon vain things. It is sober and chaste, firm and quiet, guarded in all the senses. Love is subject and obedient to superiors. It is mean and contemptible in its own eyes, devoted and thankful to God; always trusting and hoping in Him even when He is distasteful to it, for there is no living in love without sorrow. He who is not ready to suffer all things and to stand resigned to the will of the Beloved, is not worthy to be called a lover. A lover must embrace willingly all that is difficult and bitter, for the sake of the Beloved, and he should not turn away from Him because of adversities. If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice!” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 5: “The Wonderful Effects of Divine Love”).
Mother of Love
Holy Mother Church calls Our Lady “the Mother of Fair Love”―applying to her the following words of Holy Scripture in the Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (August 22nd): “I am the mother of fair love! … Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits! For my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb! … They that eat me, shall yet hunger―and they that drink me, shall yet thirst!” (Ecclesiasticus 24:24-29).
Sadly―and unfortunately for many souls―Mary is not on the menu these days! As Fr. Faber writes in the Preface of his own personal translation from the French of St. Louis de Montfort’s book, True Devotion to Mary: “Mary is not half enough preached! Devotion to her is low and thin and poor! It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be! It has no Faith in itself! Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls, which might be saints, wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized. Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background! Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them! It is the miserable, unworthy shadow, which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin, that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines!
“Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother. I cannot think of a higher work, or a broader vocation, for anyone―than the simple spreading of this peculiar devotion of the Venerable [St. Louis-Marie] Grignion de Montfort. Let a man just try it for himself, and his surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations it causes in his soul, will soon convince him of its otherwise almost incredible efficacy as a means for the salvation of men, and for the coming of the kingdom of Christ!”
To this, we can add the words of St. Louis de Montfort himself from the aforementioned book, True Devotion to Mary, wherein he writes: “We must cry out with the saints: ‘De Maria numquam satis!’ — ‘Of Mary there is never enough!’ We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought! She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service!”
Lifeboat of Mary
As we draw close to that feast on the horizon―the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th―and as we draw closer and sink deeper into the ever-worsening Satanic whirlpool that is slowly and relentlessly dragging the world and souls into Hell, there is nothing more crucial to us than to seek and find the “lifeboat” of Mary. As it says in the Epistle of Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (August 22nd): “In me is all hope of life … He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded! … They that explain me shall have life everlasting!” (Ecclesiasticus 24:2531). Or as Our Lady herself has said in her modern-day apparitions: “Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima 1917) … “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!” (Akita 1973).
Speaking of that “lifeboat” of Mary, St. Bernard of Clairvaux has this to say: “When the storm of temptation arises, when you are midst the reefs and shoals of tribulation, fix your gaze upon the Star of the Sea―call upon Mary! If tossed by the rising tide of pride and ambition, if lost upon the troubled waters of scandal and contention―look then at the Star, invoke her name! Do the billows of anger, of avarice, of lust batter against your soul―cast thy eyes upon Mary! Does the greatness of your crime fill your soul with terror? Does your wretched conscience beat you down in shame and the fear of judgment paralyze your heart?―then, when about to sink to the depths of despondency, to plunge headlong into despair, then think of Mary! In perils and in sorrows and in fears―think of her, call upon her name! Let her name be ever on your lips and the thought of her be ever in your heart! Follow her―so that the power of her intercession may attend to your needs! Imitate her―for in her footsteps you cannot go astray! Call upon her―and you will not despair! Think of her―and you cannot fail. If she holds you by the hand―how can you fall? Under her protection you shall know no fear! Under her guidance you shall not falter! Under her patronage you shall surely reach the goal!” (St. Bernard of Clairvaux).
The Effect of Mary on Souls ― Love at First Sight
You have no doubt heard of the expression: “Love at first sight!” Well, that is the effect that Our Lady has on most persons―apart from the devils. You would not be wasting your time by researching and rereading the accounts of Our Lady’s apparitions from the perspective of the effect that Our Lady had upon the emotions, feelings and senses of the persons to whom she appeared.
► OUR LADY OF THE MRACULOUS MEDAL (1830): Catherine Labouré had been sleeping some two hours when a sudden light flickered in the dormitory. The light came from a candle carried by a little child of four or five, a child of extraordinary beauty and so surrounded with radiance that the whiteness of his little gown was dazzling. He approached the bed where Catherine lay. He called her softly: “Sister Labouré!” She did not stir. He called again, insistently: “Sister Labouré!” She moved a little. Then: “Sister Labouré!” once more, and Catherine awoke. She sat up quickly and drew the curtains. The child said: “Come to the chapel! The Blessed Virgin awaits you!” Catherine was not frightened. Catherine jumped out of bed and threw on her clothes. She was neither excited, nor upset, nor in ecstasy. The child led the way to the chapel on the first floor. Catherine’s wonder mounted: everywhere the lamps were lit, and yet they met no one. At the chapel door, Catherine gasped in astonishment when the heavy door, which must be locked, swung wide at the child’s mere touch. The chapel was ablaze with light! The child moved on into the sanctuary. Obediently, Catherine followed. Instinctively, Catherine knelt. Nothing happened. The Virgin was not there. The child stood calmly waiting. The minutes were long and Catherine anxiously glanced over her shoulder in case the night Sisters, up with the sick, might be passing. But there was no one. Suddenly the child spoke: “Here is the Blessed Virgin.”
In the same instant Catherine heard a sound like the rustling of a silk dress, and, looking toward the direction of the sound, saw a lady descending the altar steps. The lady seated herself in the Director’s chair. Was this really the Mother of God? The child reassured her: “This is the Blessed Virgin.” Even this did not allay all her doubts. The Lady was looking at her, waiting. The child spoke again―startling her―for now his voice was a man’s voice, deep and commanding and stern. She held back no more, but threw herself at Our Lady’s knee and rested her hands in Our Lady’s lap. Then she lifted her head and looked up, up, into her Mother’s eyes. Many years later she was to write with ecstatic remembrance of this moment, that it was the sweetest of her life.
“My child,” said Our Lady, “the good God wishes to charge you with a mission.” But that could wait. This moment was Catherine’s; and Mary went on to tell her of God’s plans for her, to warn her of the trials that would come upon her, and to show her how she should bear them. The good God wished to charge her with a mission. She would meet with many difficulties in carrying it out, but she would overcome the difficulties by thinking upon the glory of God as her reason for doing what He wanted. Most comforting of all, she would know with unerring certainty the Will of God; she would be spiritually secure, for she would recognize at all times what God wanted of her. “You will be tormented,” Our Lady continued, “until you have told him who is charged with directing you. You will be contradicted, but do not fear, you will have grace. Tell with confidence all that passes within you; tell it with simplicity. Have confidence. Do not be afraid. You will see certain things: give an account of what you see and hear. You will be inspired in your prayers: give an account of what I tell you and of what you will understand in your prayers. The times are very evil. Sorrows will come upon France; the throne will be overturned. The whole world will be upset by miseries of every kind.” As she delivered this ominous prophecy, pain crossed the Virgin’s face. There was a remedy however: “Come to the foot of the altar.” She indicated the spot. “There graces will be shed upon all, great and little, who ask for them. Graces will be especially shed upon those who ask for them.”
Then Our Lady began to speak of the miseries to come upon France and the whole world. “There will be an abundance of sorrows; and the danger will be great. Yet do not be afraid! The protection of God shall be ever present in a special way! I shall be with you myself. Always, I have my eye upon you. I will grant you many graces. The moment will come when the danger will be enormous; it will seem that all is lost! At that moment I will be with you―have confidence! You will recognize my coming―you will see the protection of God! Have confidence! Do not be discouraged! I shall be with you!” Mary then began to specify the sorrows and dangers, fighting back the tears that stood in her eyes. She could not go on. Tears choked her voice, and her lovely face twisted in pain. She could only conclude: “My child, the whole world will be in sadness.”
The conversation was not one-sided. Catherine spoke freely, unfolding the secrets of her soul, asking questions which Mary graciously answered. Then, like the fading of a shadow, Our Lady was gone. Slowly, Catherine got up from her knees. Her heart was filled with gladness and horror; with hope and bliss, all jumbled together. Just then the clock struck two. She had been with Our Lady over two hours! She slept no more that night. This apparition of the Virgin Mary to Catherine Labouré had a personal atmosphere about it, unlike any other in history. Even the manner of Our Lady’s coming was different. In other famous appearances to chosen souls, Our Lady has burst suddenly upon their sight, as it were, from out of nowhere. Here, her coming was a calm, logical climax to years of intimacy. She arranged it with a sort of heavenly etiquette. First of all, she led Catherine, in her thoughts, to expect it. Then she sent an angel to announce her coming. When Catherine, following the angel, arrived at the chapel, she found it all in readiness for the great happening, brilliant and lighted as if for a midnight Mass. The good Sisters had unwittingly lent their hands to the preparation: spreading their best linen on the altars and decking them with flowers, scrubbing the floor until it shone, for St. Vincent’s feast on the morrow. Then Catherine heard the rustle of a silken gown, and Mary came. The crowning touch of the personal, however, was the privilege given Catherine of kneeling at Mary’s knee and resting her hands in her lap. So great a favor has been granted to no other seer. Not to St. Bernadette of Lourdes: she was granted, once, to kiss the golden rose on Our Lady’s foot. Not to the children of Fatima, not even to Lucia, upon whose shoulders the desperate message for the modern world’s salvation was laid. Only to Catherine Labouré. Here they talked, the Mother and child, for two hours—a long, long time.
► OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE (1846): For example, regarding Our Lady’s apparition at La Salette, to 14-year-old Melanie Calvat and 11-year-old Maximin Giraud, Melanie describes her emotions upon seeing Our Lady for the first time: “I said to Maximin (the other seer): ‘Maximin, do you see what is over there? O my God!’ At the same moment, I dropped the stick I was holding. Something inconceivably fantastic passed through me in that moment, and I felt myself being drawn. I felt a great respect, full of love, and my heart beat faster. I kept my eyes firmly fixed on this light, which was static, and as if it had opened up, I caught sight of another, much more brilliant light which was moving, and in this light I saw a most beautiful Lady sitting with her head in her hands. This beautiful Lady stood up, she calmly crossed her arms while watching us, and said to us: ‘Come, my children! Fear not! I am here to proclaim great news to you!’ These soft and sweet words made me fly to her, and my heart desired to attach itself to her forever. When I was up close to the beautiful Lady, she began to speak and, from her beautiful eyes, tears also started to flow.”
At the end of the apparition, when Our Lady was leaving, Melanie writes: “The most beautiful Lady crossed the stream, and we were following her, for we were drawn to her by her brilliance and even more by her kindness which elated me, which seemed to melt my heart!”
Do you feel the same “great respect, full of love”? Does Our Lady make your “heart beat faster”? Do her “soft and sweet words make [you] fly to her”? Does your “heart desire to attach itself to her forever”? Are you also “drawn to her by her brilliance and her kindness”? Are you “following” Our Lady? Are you “following her” apparitions by reading more and more about them―like anyone would do about something that they love? Are you “following her” commands and requests? For she could say―as her Son Jesus said: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words … If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24; 15:10).
► OUR LADY OF LOURDES (1858): Our Lady again chose a 14-year-old girl, Bernadette Soubirous, to be the recipient of her next major apparition―this time at Lourdes. Bernadette later writes: “I had just begun to take off my first stocking when suddenly I heard a great noise like the sound of a storm. I looked around but nothing moved. I thought I was mistaken. I went on taking off my shoes and stockings, when I heard again a noise like the first. Then I was frightened and stood straight up. I lost all power of speech and thought, when, turning my head toward the grotto, I saw at one of the openings of the rock a bush, one only, moving as if it were very windy. Almost at the same time, there came out of the interior of the grotto a golden colored cloud, and soon after a Lady, young and beautiful, exceedingly beautiful―the like of whom I had never seen. She came and placed herself at the entrance of the opening above the bush. She looked at me immediately, smiled at me and signed me to advance, as if she had been my mother. All fear had left me, but I seemed to know no longer where I was. I rubbed my eyes, I shut them, I opened them; but the Lady was still there continuing to smile at me and making me understand that I was not mistaken.
“Without thinking of what I was doing, I put my hand in my pocket and took out my Rosary. With my Rosary in my hands I fell on my knees. The Lady made a sign of approval with her head and took into her hands a Rosary which hung on her right arm. When I attempted to begin the Rosary and wanted to make the sign of the Cross, I tried to lift my hand to my forehead, my arm remained paralyzed. Then I was seized by a great fear. The Lady took up the Rosary she held in her hands and she made the Sign of the Cross. I tried again to make the Sign of the Cross and this time I could. My great fear went as soon as I had made the Sign of the Cross. From that moment I felt perfectly undisturbed in mind. The Lady left me to pray all alone, while she passed the beads of her Rosary between her fingers―but she said nothing; only at the end of each decade did she say the ‘Gloria Patri’ with me. When the recitation of the Rosary was finished, the Lady she beckoned me to go nearer but I did not dare go. I stayed in the same place. The Lady then returned to the interior of the rock and the golden cloud disappeared with her.”
When Father Peyramale, the local parish priest, questioned Bernadette about the happiness she found at the Grotto, Bernadette answered: “When I see her I feel as if I’m no longer of this world! And when the vision disappears I’m amazed to find myself still here!” Yet here again, Our Lady, whilst giving joy, also promised pain and suffering. She said to Bernadette: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next world!”
► OUR LADY OF FATIMA (1917): Lucia, the eldest of the three seers at Fatima―being 10-years-old at the time (Francisco was 9 and Jacinta was 7)―wrote her memoirs later in life. She states: “I was playing with Jacinta and Francisco. Suddenly we saw what seemed to be a flash of lightning. “We’d better go home,” I said to my cousins, “that’s lightning―we may have a thunderstorm!” We began to go down the slope. We were more or less half-way down the slope, when we saw another flash of lightning. We beheld a Lady all dressed in white. She was more brilliant than the sun, and radiated a light more clear and intense than a crystal glass filled with sparkling water, when the rays of the burning sun shine through it.
“We stopped, astounded, before the Apparition. The fear which we felt, was not really fear of Our Lady, but rather fear of the thunderstorm which we thought was coming. It was from this that we wished to escape, as we were used to seeing lightning only when it thundered. The Apparitions of Our Lady inspired neither fear nor fright, but rather surprise. We were so close, just a few feet from her, that we were bathed in the light which surrounded her, or rather, which radiated from her. The Apparition of Our Lady plunged us once more into the atmosphere of the supernatural, but this time more gently. Instead of that annihilation in the Divine Presence, which exhausted us even physically, it left us filled with peace and expansive joy, which did not prevent us from speaking afterwards of what had happened.
“However, with regard to the light communicated to us when Our Lady opened her hands, and everything connected with this light, we experienced a kind of interior impulse that compelled us to keep silent. The Apparitions of Our Lady produced in us very different effects. We felt the same intimate joy, the same peace and happiness, but instead of physical prostration, we experienced an expansive ease of movement; instead of this annihilation in the Divine Presence, a joyful exultation; instead of the difficulty in speaking, we felt a certain communicative enthusiasm.
“Jacinta, unable to contain herself for joy, broke our agreement to keep the whole matter to ourselves. That very afternoon [of the first apparition of Our Lady], while we remained thoughtful and rapt in wonder, Jacinta kept breaking into enthusiastic exclamations: “Oh, what a beautiful Lady!”
“I can see what’s going to happen,” I said, “you’ll end up saying that to somebody else!”
“No, I won’t,” Jacinta answered “don’t worry!”
Next day, Francisco came running to tell me how she had told them everything at home the night before.
“You see, that’s just what I thought would happen!” I said to Jacinta.
“There was something within me that wouldn’t let me keep quiet!” she said, with tears in her eyes.
“Well, don’t cry now!” I said, “and don’t tell anything else to anybody about what the Lady said to us!”
“But I’ve already told them! I said that the Lady promised to take us to Heaven!”
“To think you told them that!”
“Forgive me! I won’t tell anybody anything ever again!”
Then she went on: “How good that Lady is! She has already promised to take us to Heaven!”
“Jacinta took this matter of making sacrifices for the conversion of sinners so much to heart, that she never let a single opportunity escape her. Jacinta’s thirst for making sacrifices seemed insatiable. “I want to suffer for the conversion of sinners” she would say.
“Ever since the day Our Lady taught us to offer our sacrifices to Jesus, any time we had something to suffer, or agreed to make a sacrifice, Jacinta asked: “Did you already tell Jesus that it’s for love of Him?”
“If I said I hadn’t,” she answered: “Then I’ll tell Him!” and joining her hands, she raised her eyes to Heaven and said: “O Jesus, it is for love of You and for the conversion of sinners!”
“Long before anybody spoke to her of the possibility of her entering the hospital of Vila Nova de Ourém, she said one day: “Our Lady wants me to go to two hospitals, not to be cured, but to suffer more for love of Our Lord and for sinners.”
“When Jacinta was in the last stages of her life, she joyfully and willingly accepted all sufferings out of love for Our Lady. “Our Lady came to see us,” Jacinta said. “She told us she would come to take Francisco to Heaven very soon, and she asked me if I still wanted to convert more sinners. I said I did. She told me I would be going to a hospital where I would suffer a great deal; and that I am to suffer for the conversion of sinners, in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and for love of Jesus. I asked if you would go with me. She said you wouldn’t, and that is what I find hardest. She said my mother would take me, and then I would have to stay there all alone!”
Again, I asked her: “Are you better?”
“You know I’m not getting better,” she replied, and added: “I’ve such pains in my chest! But I don’t say anything. I’m suffering for the conversion of sinners.”
“After this, she was thoughtful for awhile, and then added: “If only you could be with me! The hardest part is to go without you. Maybe, the hospital is a big dark house, where you can’t see, and I’ll be there suffering all alone! But never mind! I’ll suffer for love of Our Lord, to make reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the conversion of sinners and for the Holy Father.”
“On another occasion, her mother brought her a cup of milk and told her to take it. “I don’t want it, mother!” she answered, pushing the cup away with her little hand. My aunt [her mother] insisted a little, and then left the room, saying: “I don’t know how to make her take anything; she has no appetite.” As soon as we were alone, I asked her: “How can you disobey your mother like that, and not offer this sacrifice to Our Lord?” When she heard this, she shed a few tears which I had the happiness of drying, and said: “I forgot this time.” She called her mother, asked her forgiveness, and said she’d take whatever she wanted. Her mother brought back the cup of milk, and Jacinta drank it down without the slightest sign of repugnance. Later, she told me: “If you only knew how hard it was to drink that!” Another time, she said to me: “It’s becoming harder and harder for me to take milk and broth, but I don’t say anything. I drink it all for love of Our Lord and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our dear heavenly Mother.”
“The day came for Jacinta to go to hospital (This was St. Augustine’s Hospital in Vila Nova de Ourém. She was taken there on July 1st and left it on August 31st, 1919). There indeed she was to suffer a great deal. When her mother went to see her, she asked if she wanted anything. She begged her mother to bring me with her next time she came to see her. So my good aunt, who loved to make her little daughter happy, took me with her a second time.
“I visited Jacinta in hospital. This was no easy matter for my aunt, but she took me with her at the first opportunity. As soon as Jacinta saw me, she joyfully threw her arms around me, and asked her mother to leave me with her while she went to do her shopping. I found Jacinta as joyful as ever, glad to suffer for the love of our Good God and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for sinners and the Holy Father. That was her ideal, and she could speak of nothing else.
“She had a large open wound in her chest which had to be treated every day, but she bore this without complaint and without the least sign of irritation. Then I asked her if she was suffering a lot. She replied: “Yes, I am. But I offer everything for sinners, and in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” Then, filled with enthusiasm, she spoke of Our Lord and Our Lady: “Oh, how much I love to suffer for love of Them, just to give Them pleasure! They greatly love those who suffer for the conversion of sinners.” The time allotted for the visit passed rapidly, and my aunt arrived to take me home.
“Jacinta used to tell me sometimes: “My chest hurts so much, but I’m not saying anything to my mother! I want to suffer for Our Lord, in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the Holy Father and for the conversion of sinners.” At times, she kissed and embraced a crucifix, exclaiming: “O my Jesus! I love You, and I want to suffer very much for love of You.” She often said: “O Jesus! Now You can convert many sinners, because this is really a big sacrifice!” On one occasion, I found her clasping a picture of Our Lady to her heart, and saying, “O my dearest heavenly Mother, do I have to die all alone?” The poor child seemed so frightened at the thought of dying alone! I tried to comfort her, saying: “What does it matter if you die alone, so long as Our Lady is coming to fetch you?” Jacinta replied: “It’s true, it doesn’t matter, really! I don’t know why it is, but I sometimes forget Our Lady is coming to take me. I only remember that I’ll die without having you near me!”
As for Lucia herself, she suffered tremendously in the bosom of her own family―especially at the hands of her mother and sisters, who thought she was lying about the apparitions. She would receive frequent tongue-lashings and at times her mother would even beat her with a stick, demanding that Lucia admit that she was lying. Lucia later wrote: “‘My God! My God!’ I exclaimed in the privacy of my room. ‘I never thought You had so much suffering in store for me! But I suffer for love of You, in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the Holy Father and for the conversion of sinners!’”
The Common Denominator
What do we find in common among the seers in the above apparitions of Our Lady? The common denominator consists of LOVE and SUFFERING―which ultimately leads to the love of suffering. As Our Lord said: “Greater love than this no man has―that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). What Our Lord is saying is that the ultimate love is shown by the ultimate suffering―which is death itself. The pinnacle of love is reached and proven by the pinnacle of suffering―which is the laying down of one’s life for another. Nevertheless, suffering without love is like a body without a soul―it is dead! This is why Holy Scripture points out: “If I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
As St. Louis de Montfort writes in his book, True Devotion to Mary, there are varying degrees of devotion to Our Lady and also false devotions to Our Lady. The ultimate true devotion to Our Lady is that which is prepared to suffer for Our Lady and even laying down one’s life for Our Lady: “This devotion … will not be equally understood by everybody. Some will stop at what is exterior in it, and will go no further, and these will be the greatest number. Some, in small number, will enter into its inward spirit; but they will only mount one step. Who will mount to the second step? Who will get as far as the third? Lastly, who will so advance as to make this devotion his habitual state? … A person who wishes to devoutly and piously live in Jesus Christ, must consequently to suffer persecutions and carry his cross daily … This devotion makes us give to Jesus and Mary… all our … sufferings … All we suffer … belongs to Mary … The faithful servants of this good Mother have so many occasions of suffering―nay, even more than others who are not so devout to her! They are contradicted, they are persecuted, they are calumniated, the world cannot endure them; or again, they walk in interior darkness and in deserts where there is not the least drop of the dew of Heaven … The most faithful servants of the Blessed Virgin, being also her greatest favorites, receive from her the greatest graces and favors of Heaven, which are crosses. But it is also the servants of Mary who carry these crosses with more ease, more merit and more glory ...
“Who shall those servants, slaves and children of Mary be? They shall be … well purified by the fire of great tribulation, and … shall carry the gold of love in their heart, the incense of prayer in their soul, and the myrrh of mortification in their body ... It is quite true that the most faithful servants of the Blessed Virgin―being also her greatest favorites―receive from her the greatest graces and favors of Heaven, which are crosses. But it is also the servants of Mary who carry these crosses with more ease, more merit and more glory … The Holy Ghost prepares her servants’ crosses with so much pure love as to make them gladly acceptable, no matter how bitter they may be in themselves. True devotion to Our Lady comes from the mind and the heart and the love which we have for her ... in the crosses, toils and disappointments of life … It is on this account that a person loves and serves her as faithfully in his disgusts and dryness as in his sweetness and sensible fervor. He loves her as much on Calvary as at the marriage of Cana.”
The bottom line is that if you say you love Our Lady, then suffering is part of the baggage that she brings with her! She even asked three young children―Lucia (10 years-old), Francisco (9 years) and Jacinta (7 years)―if they were prepared to suffer: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners?” When they agreed, Our Lady minced no words but said: “Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.”
At Akita, Our Lady said much the same thing: I seek, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful!”
To St. Bernadette at Lourdes, Our Lady promised sufferings: “I will not make you happy in this life, but in the next!”
To St. Catherine Labouré Our Lady said: "My child, the good God wishes to charge you with a mission. There will be an abundance of sorrows, and the danger will be great! … You will be tormented! …. You will have much to suffer, but you will rise above these sufferings by reflecting that what you do is for the glory of God! The moment will come when the danger will be extreme. It will seem that all is lost. At that time, I will be with you! … Have confidence! Do not be discouraged! I will be with you!”
Article 8
Thursday October 13th to Monday October 17th, 2022
Is the Fatima Solar Miracle a Sign of More to Come?
Thursday October 13th to Monday October 17th, 2022
Is the Fatima Solar Miracle a Sign of More to Come?
Stacking the Odds Against Yourself!
Sometimes, when God works a miracle, He deliberately stacks the odds against Himself in order to make the miracle all the more stupefying and stupendous. That is exactly what happened at Fatima with the “Miracle of the Sun”. God arranged it so that the remote events and proximate events―that is to say, things that had already taken place in earlier years, and things that were happening right there and then―were for the most part stacked against the success of the miracle that Our Lady had promised beforehand. To announce that something miraculous is going to occur, way ahead of time, puts enormous pressure on the fulfilling of the promise and meeting the expectations of people.
We are probably not aware of several circumstances that existed during those days in Portugal in the build-up to the “Miracle of the Sun” on October 13th, 1917.
(1) The growing spirit of the times was one of atheism (there is no God) or agnosticism (even if there is God, He cannot be known for certain). The prevailing and increasing philosophical mood of the time was epitomized by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who boldly asserted, in the late 1800s, that “God is dead.”
(2) Also, in 1917, Portugal―like the majority of the world―was in the middle of a war. As the First World War (19140=-1918) raged throughout most of Europe, Portugal found itself unable to maintain its initial neutrality and joined forces with the Allies. Over 220,000 Portuguese civilians had died during the war; thousands due to food shortages, and thousands more due to the Spanish flu.
(3) Few years before, in 1910, a revolution had led to the establishment of the First Portuguese Republic in 1910 and a new Liberal constitution was drafted under the influence of Freemasonry, which sought to suppress the Faith from public life.
(4) Catholic churches and schools were seized by the government, and the wearing of clerical or religious clothing in public, the ringing of church bells, and the celebration of public religious festivals―were all banned. Between 1911-1916, nearly 2,000 priests, monks and nuns were killed by anti-Christian groups.
(5) This was the backdrop against which Mary, in 1917, had appeared, month after month, from May to October, to three shepherd children – Lucia dos Santos, 10, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, 9 and 7 – in a field in Fatima, Portugal, bringing with her religious requests for the recitation of the Rosary, for sacrifices on behalf of sinners, and a secret regarding the fate of the world.
(6) To prove that the apparitions were true and put her reputation “on the line”, Mary had promised the children that during the last of her six appearances she would provide a “sign” so people would believe in the apparitions and in her message.
(7) God’s Providence had also arranged for a crowd of around 70,000 people – believers and skeptics alike – to gather in order to see the miracle that Mary had promised. Freemason authorities and newspaper reporters were present in great numbers―ready to mock, scorn and reject the promised miracle.
(8) God’s Providence had also arranged for torrential rain to fall for many hours prior to the miracle―soaking the ground so much that it had turned muddy.
(9) As for the children, they made their way to the Cova amid the adulation and skepticism which had followed them since May. When they arrived they found critics who questioned their veracity and the punctuality of the Lady―who had promised to arrive at noon. It was well past noon by the official time [legal time] of the country. However, when the sun arrived at its zenith―which was noon in “real time” or “sun time”―the Lady appeared as she had said she would.
Seeing is Believing!
How many persons were at the Cova da Iria to witness the Miracle of the Sun? The maximum estimate was from Dr. Almeida Garrett, and was proposed some months after the event. It estimates the spectators numbered at least one hundred thousand. In the local atheistic newspaper, O Seculo of October 15th, its editor, the Freemason Avelino de Almeida, wrote: “The crowd, by the unprejudiced calculations of cultivated persons very new to mystical influences, was estimated at thirty or forty thousand people.” In his article of October 29th, he corrected and increased his original estimate: “On October 13th, according to the calculations established by people free from every prejudice, some fifty thousand people were gathered on the moor of Fatima.” A neutral newspaper, the Primeiro de Janeiro, also estimated the crowd at fifty thousand individuals. We can therefore say, with a quasi-certainty, that this figure is an absolute minimum―that is why the majority of historians propose, as very probable, the presence of a crowd of seventy thousand witnesses.
The proofs for the Miracle of the Sun are greatly aided by the fact that the miracle itself was witnessed by some 70,000 people present on that day. Their testimony is unanimous―even among non-believers, freemasons, atheistic journalists. Among that large crowd were faithful Catholics, fallen away Catholics, skeptics, mockers, Freemasons, doctors, scientists, professors, teachers, journalists, policemen, soldiers, priests, etc. The Portuguese historian, Leopoldo Nuñes, who was present on the scene on October 13th, says, “At the moment of the great miracle there were present some of the most illustrious men of letters, in the arts and the sciences, and almost all were unbelievers coming out of curiosity, led by the prediction of the seers. Even the Minister of Education of the Masonic government was there.”
So we see here how many modern-day skeptics and debunkers are refuted, because exactly the men whom they claim were not present at the miracle, actually were present at Fatima at the moment of the miracle. Here we have to thank Our Lady, who sought to prove the authenticity of her Fatima Message to the unbelievers by “advertizing” it months in advance so as to pique the curiosity of everyone―believers and non-believers alike. Our Lady had said in July of 1917 that she would perform a miracle at midday on the 13th of October.
Another marvelous thing was that the phenomenon of the Miracle of the Sun could be admired from beyond Fatima. And even, some perfectly credible witnesses, who were very far away from the Cova da Iria, related having seen the unprecedented spectacle of the dance of the sun, exactly like the thousands of pilgrims gathered around the holmoak.
Testimony of the Newspaper Editor, the Freemason Avelino de Almeida
Again, we return to the account of the miraculous events on the day of the 13th given us by the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, the self-professed anti-Catholic witness, who was also the editor of O Seculo. In his editorial Article of October 15th, 1917 (two days after the Miracle of the Sun), he wrote: “And then we witnessed a unique spectacle― an incredible spectacle, unbelievable if you did not witness it. From above the road ... we see the immense crowd turn towards the sun, which appeared at its zenith, clear of the clouds. It looked like a plate of dull silver, and it was possible to stare at it without the least discomfort. It did not burn the eyes. It did not blind. One might say that an eclipse had occurred!” It is worth noting that the editors of the other anti-Catholic newspapers attacked Avelino de Almeida for his report. But even in the face of such criticism by his anti-Catholic comrades, he did not change his testimony. In fact, 15 days after his original account of the miracle, he published another story about the events, this time illustrating it with 12 pictures taken of the crowd in the midst of the Miracle of the Sun. Throughout this article, the Freemason, de Almeida, just kept repeating, “I saw it … I saw it … I saw it.”
Who Saw What?
Just as there are no two people who are exactly alike, down to the tiniest degree; and just as God gives varying degrees of grace to souls on Earth; and just as there are no two saints who are exactly alike in Heaven; and no two damned souls who are exactly alike in Hell―so, too, at the Miracle of Sun at Fatima, there were varying levels of who saw what and to what degree they saw it. If you think that is illogical or unlikely―then recall that when Our Lady of Fatima appeared to the three children―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―each of them had different degrees or levels of participation in those apparitions. As was the case during the first apparition, Lucia was the only one of the three to speak to Our Lady. Jacinta was allowed to see and hear Our Lady’s words. Francisco was permitted to see Our Lady, but could not hear her words. Thus, it is hardly surprising that the same principle was applied to each of those 70,000 persons who were present at the Miracle of the Sun.
Testimony of a Scientist, Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett
Let us follow the account of the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, adding to it the testimony of another eyewitness Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett, professor of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Coimbra―a testimony given by Dr. Garret to Fr. Manuel Formigão.
The testimony of Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrettbegins on October 12th, 1917, when he arrives at Fatima to “see” the non-fulfillment of the prophecy of a miracle. Here, the unbeliever — who was obviously impressed with the faith of the believers, says, “On the road, we encounter the first groups which are on their way to the holy place, a good 13 miles away … Men and women are for the most part barefoot, the latter carrying their shoes in bags on their heads, while the men lean on thin sticks and are also prudently armed with umbrellas. Apparently indifferent to what is going on around them, they do not seem to notice the countryside, nor their fellow-travelers, but murmur the Rosary as they go immersed in thought … A woman recites the first part of the Ave Maria and immediately her companions continue the second part in chorus. They move rhythmically and rapidly in order to reach the place of the apparitions by nightfall. Here, under the stars they will sleep, keeping the first and best places near the little tree.”
What a moving account. He must have been profoundly moved by what he saw. We can only wonder about his attitude. Perhaps it was one of pity for what he thought were the pathetic hopes of the people.
The whole night it rained. This was a change in the weather from what had occurred earlier in the autumn season. It was as if Our Lady was perfectly stage managing the scene to emphasize the miracle. The rain transformed the dusty roads into muddy quagmires. What does de Almeida say concerning the response of the people to these adverse conditions? “They did not lose hope and they did not forget the cause for which they came.”
The day of October 13th arrived. Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett continues, “By 10 a.m., the sky was completely hidden behind the clouds and the rain began to fall in earnest. Swept by the strong wind and beating upon the faces of the people, it soaked the pilgrims, often without protection against the weather, to the marrow of their bones … But no one complained or turned back … Hours of waiting …The great mass of people congregate round the oak tree which, according to the children, is Our Lady’s pedestal.”
Doubting Thomas Priest
What amazes us about the Miracle of the Sun is the specificity of Our Lady. Our Lady said, on July 13th 1917, that she would perform a miracle at midday on the 13th of October. Then when noon came and went on October 13th―there was no sign of Our Lady and no sign of a miracle! Since it was after noon, how can we say that Our Lady’s promise was being fulfilled? Here it is necessary to say that the Portuguese government―due to its belligerency with France and Britain during the First World War―decided that the clocks were to be set 90 minutes ahead, so that Portugal would be in the same time zone as her fellow belligerents. On October 13th, 1917, 1:30 p.m. was actually midday, sun time―and the government time of 12 noon that was imposed by the Portuguese government, was actually 10:30 a.m. according to sun time.
The hour of the miracle approached (according to government time). The presence of the seers was announced shortly before the scheduled time of the apparition and miracle; they arrive about one-half hour early. The little girls Jacinta and Lucy, crowned with flowers, are led to the place where the platform has been erected. When Lucy asks them―actually, she orders them―to shut their umbrellas in the drenching rain, something that goes against intuition and common sense, the order is transmitted and executed right away without resistance. Then they wait. What if there was no miracle? But there was.
Near the time of 1:30 p.m. (government time), a priest―who stood by the children and had been waiting since the evening―began to grow impatient. “Look its midday now! Our Lady does not lie! Well, well, well!” After a few minutes with nothing happening, except the rain pouring down on the uncovered thousands, the priest again looked at his watch and said: “Look, it’s midday now! Our Lady doesn’t lie! It’s past midday! You see it’s all a delusion! Run along all of you! Go away! It’s a delusion!” In response to this priestly skepticism and doubt, Lucy refused to go. It was midday, so the priest began to push the three children away from the site. Then the simple faith of Lucy took over. She began to cry and said: “If anyone wants to go, I shall stay where I am! Our Lady said she would come! She came the other times and she will come this time too!”
At that moment Lucy looked to the east and said to Jacinta, “Jacinta, kneel down. Our Lady is coming. I saw the lightning.” According to Sister Lucy’s account, the impatient priest did not say another word and the children never saw him again. It was at this moment that the miracle commenced.
Back to theTestimony of the Scientist, Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett
“It must have been 1:30 p.m. when there arose at the exact spot where the children were, a column of smoke, thin, fine and bluish, which extended up to perhaps two meters above their heads, and evaporated at that height. This phenomenon, perfectly visible to the naked eye, lasted for a few seconds. Not having noted how long it had lasted, I cannot say whether it was more or less than a minute. The smoke dissipated abruptly, and after some time, it came back to occur a second time, then a third time...”
Whereas “the low and heavy sky had a very dark color, laden with moisture, released an abundant and long lasting rain,” during the time of the apparition, the rain stopped totally. Abruptly the sky cleared: “The sun triumphantly pierced the thick bed of clouds hiding it until then, and shone intensely.”
“Suddenly I heard the uproar of thousands of voices, and I saw the whole multitude spread out in that vast space at my feet ... turn their backs to that spot where, until then, all their expectations focused, and look at the sun on the other side ... I turned around, too, toward the point commanding their gazes, and I could see the sun, like a very clear disc, with its sharp edge, which gleamed without hurting the sight ... It could not be confused with the sun seen through a fog (there was no fog at that moment), for it was neither veiled, nor dim. At Fatima, it kept its light and heat, and stood out clearly in the sky, with a sharp edge, like a large gaming table. The most astonishing thing was to be able to stare at the solar disc for a long time, brilliant with light and heat, without hurting the eyes, or damaging the retina.” (testimony of Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett).
The Vision of the Sun
Why “the vision of the sun”? Because at this moment, contrary to the normal phenomenon, everyone, and this is a unanimous testimony without contradiction, could look at the sun clearly, directly, and without wincing or closing their eyes. No one needed to turn away. This is what the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, editor of O Seculo says: “Then they saw a unique spectacle, [an] unbelievable spectacle for anyone who did not witness it. From the road … one could see the immense multitude turn towards the sun, which appeared free from clouds and in its zenith. It resembles a dull silver disc, and it is possible to look at it without the least discomfort.”
Dr. Almeida Garrett, however, made this observation, “Suddenly I heard the uproar of thousands of voices, and I saw the whole multitude, spread out in that vast space at my feet, ... turn their backs to that spot where, until then, all their expectations focused, and look at the sun on the other side ... I turned around, too, toward the point commanding their gazes, and I could see the sun, like a very clear disc, with its sharp edge, which gleamed without hurting the sight ... It kept its light and heat, and stood out clearly in the sky … It could not be confused with the sun seen through a fog (there was no fog at that moment), for it was neither veiled, nor dim … but which did not hurt the eyes. The most astonishing thing was to be able to stare at the solar disc for a long time, brilliant with light and heat, without hurting the eyes, or damaging the retina … I do not agree with the comparison which I have heard made in Fatima — that of a dull silver disc. It was a clearer, richer, brighter color, having something of the luster of a pearl … I felt it to be a living body … It looked like a glazed wheel made of mother of pearl … It was a remarkable fact that one could fix one’s eyes on this brazier of light and heat without any pain in the eyes or blinding of the retina.” (Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett).
Other Testimonies
What is truly amazing about this miracle is that Our Lady perfectly “stage managed” the entire event. Each aspect of the miracle was directed to accentuate the miraculous nature of the phenomenon. Dr. Almeida Garrett reports, “The sky, which had been overcast all day, suddenly clears up; the rain stops and it looks like the sun is about to fill with light the countryside that the wintry morning had made so gloomy.” This sudden change of weather surprised all of the witnesses. Dr. Pereira Gens simply reports, “The rain suddenly stopped”; it “suddenly stopped,” of course, at the exact moment which had been predicted for the miracle to take place.
This abrupt change of weather took all the eyewitnesses by surprise: “It was a day of heavy and continuous rain. But a few minutes before the miracle, it stopped raining.” (testimony of Alfredo da Silva Santos). “The people could look at the sun as we look at the moon.” (Maria do Carmo). One would think that this would be enough, being able to look at the sun without having to turn away, but Our Lady wanted to demonstrate her power in a more convincing way. So this sun that all the witnesses could observe without irritation “danced.” This was called by many of the common folk present, “The Dance of the Sun.”
The Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, says concerning this “dance”: “The sun trembled, the sun made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws — the sun ‘danced’ according to the typical expression of the people. It shook and trembled; it seemed like a wheel of fire.” Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett adds, “The sun’s disc did not remain immobile. This was not the sparkling of a heavenly body for it spun round upon itself, it made a whirl.” Also, “It spun like a fire-wheel, taking on all the colors of the rainbow … It looked like a ball of snow, revolving upon itself.”
According to Ti Marto, the father of Jacinta and Francisco, “At a certain moment the sun seemed to stop and then began to move and dance … However, the sun stops, only to begin its strange dance all over again after a brief interruption, whirling upon itself, giving the impression of approaching or receding.” This “dance,” which was seen by the 70,000 witnesses, was actually repeated three times during the course of the 10 minute long miracle.
Suddenly, the heavenly body began to tremble, to shake with abrupt movements, and finally to turn on itself at a dizzying speed while throwing out rays of light, all colors of the rainbow: “The sun turned like a fire wheel, taking on all the colors of the rainbow.” (Maria do Carmo). “It appeared like a globe of snow turning on itself.” (Father Lourenço). “The pearl-like disc had a giddy motion. This was not the twinkling of a star in all its brilliance. It turned on itself with impetuous speed.” (Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett). “At a certain moment, the sun stopped and then began again to dance, to spin; it stopped again, and began again to dance.” (Ti Marto). It is indeed therefore a triple “dance of the sun” which thousands of witnesses affirm, having contemplated it for several minutes.
With the Dance of the Sun something else began to happen. The landscape, and everything in it, began to take on, in succession, all the colors of the rainbow. Dr. Garrett testifies: “During the solar phenomenon … there were changes of color in the atmosphere … I looked first at the nearest objects and then extended my glance further afield as far as the horizon, I saw everything an amethyst color. Objects around me, the sky and the atmosphere, were of the same color … Soon I heard a peasant who was near me shout out in tones of stupefaction: LOOK, THAT LADY IS ALL YELLOW! And in fact everything both near and far had changed to yellow. People looked as if they were suffering jaundice … My own hand was of the same color.” The exact same report comes from other witnesses: “The sun took on all the colors of the rainbow. Everything assumed those same colors: our faces, our clothes, the earth itself.” (Maria do Carmo). “A light, whose colors changed from one moment to the next, was reflected on the people and on things.” (Dr. Pereira Gens).
The poet Alfonso Lopes Vieira, who lived over 30 miles away from Fatima, also witnessed the phenomenon. He wrote: “On that day, 13th October, 1917, without remembering the predictions of the children, I was enchanted by a remarkable spectacle in the sky of a kind I had never seen before.!”
The miracle was also seen by sailors on a British ship, off the coast of Portugal. One sailor who saw the miracle from his ship, wrote about it to his wife without obviously understanding what it meant or its significance.
A young boy, Inacio Lourenco, who was a schoolchild of nine when he saw the miracle at a village about 12 miles from Fatima. He described how the children and their teachers were attracted outside by a commotion in front of the school to see the Miracle of the Sun. He tells of how he could look at the sun, which looked like “a ball of snow revolving on itself,” before it suddenly came down in a zigzag toward the Earth.
The Falling of the Sun
Now we come to a part of the miracle that made many of those present on the scene of the Cova da Iria believe that the world was ending — such was the fearsomeness of the experience. This was clearly Our Lady’s warning that the Message of Fatima was not only a “message,” but, also, a very grave warning. What happened at that stage of the miracle is called the “falling” of the sun. “The sun whirling wildly, began to move and dance, until it seemed that it was being detached from the sky and was threateningly falling on us, as if to crush us with its huge weight and fiery mass! It was a terrible moment! It seemed like a wheel of fire that was about to fall on the people.” (Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett).
Dr. Domingos Pinto Coelho, a lawyer reporting for a Catholic newspaper of the time, described the event as follows: “The sun, at one moment surrounded with scarlet flame, at another aureoled in yellow and deep purple, seemed to be in an exceedingly swift and whirling movement, at times appearing to be loosened from the sky and to be approaching the Earth, strongly radiating heat.”
Other witnesses state: “The sun began to dance and, at a certain moment, it appeared to detach itself from the firmament and to rush forward on us, like a fire wheel.” (Alfredo da Silva Santos). “I saw the sun turn and it seemed to descend. It was like a bicycle wheel.” (John Carreira). “I saw it perfectly descending, as if it came to crash on the Earth. It seemed to detach itself from the sky and rush toward us. It maintained itself at a short distance above our heads; but that sort of attack was of very short duration ... It seemed very near the people and it continued to turn in the opposite direction.” (Maria do Carmo). “From those thousands of mouths, I heard shouts of joy and love to the Most Holy Virgin. And then I believed. I had the certainty of not having been the victim of a suggestion. I had seen the sun as I would never see it again!” (Mario Godinho).
Many thought that the time of the universal judgment had arrived, and so they quite literally cried out their sins at the top of their voice, begging the Lord’s pardon. Even though many thousands were expecting imminent death and were making their final preparations for that event, the miracle was not the end, but a warning and an indication of the mercy of God and the intercessory power of the Mother of God — because the sun returned to the heavens.
Everybody’s Clothes Were Dry
Then the final miracle that came right after the Miracle of the Sun―the sudden instantaneous drying of all the rain-sodden land, clothes, bodies and hair―the last manifestation of the intimate knowledge and love that God and His Blessed Mother has for mankind and for the pious faithful. Fr. Lourenço says: “This enormous multitude was drenched, for it had rained unceasingly since dawn. But — though this may appear incredible — after the great miracle everyone felt comfortable, and found his garments quite dry, a subject of general wonder … The truth of this fact has been guaranteed with the greatest sincerity by dozens and dozens of persons of absolute trustworthiness, whom I have known intimately from childhood, and who are still alive [1937].” We have it from Dr. Pereira Gens that, “I still remember the delicious sensation that this warm caress of the sun gave me … I [felt] my clothes almost dry now, although they were all wet a few moments ago.”
Implications for Our Lives and Our Times
What do we gain from this great manifestation of God? What should this miracle say to us? What basic truths do these events confirm for our “modern” minds? I would say this. First, that the true God, Master over Heaven and Earth, showed His power over Nature. He brought forward to the modern mind the simple idea that God is omnipotent and yet He is present to us in an intimate and personal way.
When before have we ever had a miracle that was predicted in advance, down to the very moment of its performance? Even the Resurrection itself had been predicted, but, perhaps, only Our Lady was expecting it. With the Miracle of the Sun, 70,000 were in some way expecting the miracle — either hopefully or skeptically — which had been predicted for three consecutive months, July, August, and September 1917. In response to the simple request of the earnest Lucy, Our Lady said in July: “In October I will work a miracle so that all may see and believe.” Here we have, for all “virtual” modern men, a miracle which appeals to our senses and our desire for the sensational. It involves our senses working with reason; our senses working with reason and speaking to us about the activity of the Supreme Cause.
It was not, however, just a manifestation of the omnipotence of God Himself. The Miracle of the Sun occurred while Lucy and the other children were viewing the apparition. Lucy indicated that in the apparition, Our Lady extended her hands and it was the light coming from her own hands which reflected on the sun at the moment of the miracle. The sun danced for Our Lady, the Ark of the New Covenant, just as David danced before the Ark of the Old Covenant. This miracle speaks about Our Lady’s all-powerful intercession. The obviousness of this fact is the reason why there is such shock and bemusement when the witnesses were asked: “What did you think at the moment of the miracle?” Ti Marto, the father of Francisco and Jacinta, answered such a question by saying, “What did I think? That it was the power of God. And if you ask me again, what do you think now? I think the same thing. How God is great!”
Another amazing aspect of this miracle was the response of the faithful. During the miracle they were praying, saying the Act of Contrition, pleading for Our Lord and Our Lady’s mercy for their sins because they believed, perhaps, that this was the end of their lives. They also, however, saw this miracle as a great triumph for them — a great consolation from Our Lady. In the face of persecution, in the face of mockery by the press, by the government, by the intellectuals of the Catholic Faith, that Faith was affirmed in a miraculous way that no one could deny. It was a confirmation of all of their beliefs and hopes.
We are moved when we read of the shock which the faithful felt, after the miracle occurred, when they saw that some of the other witnesses had their heads covered with their hats. This was a sacred event; hence, their outrage. There was an old man who was, throughout the apparition, reciting the Creed. He turned to another group, unbelievers, who had seen the same thing that he had seen and he violently protested and requested that they take off their hats before such an extraordinary manifestation of the existence of God. Believing ladies responded in the same way to the sacrilegious rudeness of the unbelievers. They cried out, as if suffocated with emotion: “What a pity, there are still men who do not uncover their heads when they find themselves before such a stupefying spectacle!” Even the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, editor of the Masonic and Atheistic newspaper, O Seculo, left visibly shaken to the core in his unbelief.
We Need a Miracle Today!
Nobody of sane mind would dispute the fact we are in dire need of a miracle today to save from the apocalyptic path that we are being forced to march. Only an idiot or an ignoramus can be totally unaware of the foreboding similarities, if not fulfillment, of Our Lady’s earlier warnings for our days:
“Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance … The Church will be full of those who accept compromises … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness ... Many priests will lose their spirit … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... They will become attached to wealth and riches … The demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among them there will even be bishops … . Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... This, then, will be the cause of the cursed demon taking possession … From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century, the passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of morals … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell ... The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … [cf. “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the nations, which are over the four quarters of the Earth” (Apocalypse 20:7)] …
“Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … All the civil [Masonic] governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights ... During this period, there will be great physical and moral calamities, both public and private … All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family ... They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption. Woe to the children of these times! …
“During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … Satan, making use of both good people and evil people, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … How the Church will suffer during this dark night! … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth! ... There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases … Various nations will be annihilated! ... Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost! …
Our Lady Promises a Miracle — But It Comes at a Great Price!
Our indiscipline, indifference, irreverence, ingratitude and insanity has the audacity to expect “miracles on tap” ― just turn on the tap and the miracles will pour out in abundance free of charge and at no cost to us! Even though God can and sometimes does perform miracles for sinners―and even through sinners―that is not God’s normal way of operating.
Millions have flocked to Lourdes hoping for a miracle since Our Lady’s apparition there in 1858―but very, very few have come away with the miracle they desired.
Already back in the Middle-Ages, in the peak of Christendom, one of Our Lord’s mystics asked Him why, at that time, there were so few miracles in comparison to the early days of the Church―Our Lord replied that it was largely due to a lack Faith.
We even see that same cause―lack of Faith―preventing miracles in the Gospels: “Jesus went into his own country … and He could not do any miracles there … because of their unbelief” (Mark 6:5-5). When the Gospel says: “He could not”―this is not because of a lack of power, but because Jesus would not work miracles in favor of obstinate and incredulous people, who were unworthy of such favors.
When Pontius Pilate sent Jesus to King Herod, when meeting Jesus, Herod had hoped to see some miracles done by Jesus for his own entertainment―but Jesus refused to even answer his questions, let alone perform a miracle for his amusement―even if it could have saved His life and prevented His Passion and Death. Miracles are never to be done for an individual’s entertainment even if the individual is a king! “Herod, seeing Jesus, was very glad―for he was desirous of a long time to see Him, because he had heard many things of Him; and he hoped to see some sign [miracle] wrought by Him. And he questioned Him in many words. But Jesus answered him nothing … And Herod mocked Him and sent Him back to Pilate” (Luke 23:6-11).
When Jesus was crucified on Calvary, the “Bad Thief” asked Jesus to perform a miracle by getting them all out of the mess that they found themselves in: “And one of those robbers who were hanged, blasphemed Him, saying: ‘If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us!’ But the other thief answering, rebuked him, saying: ‘Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds―but this Man hath done no evil!’” (Luke 23:39-41). The “Bad Thief” was unrepentant ― thus, rather than obtain a miracle, the words of Our Lord to the Pharisees could be applied to him: “You shall die in your sin! Where I go, you cannot come!” (John 8:21). The “Good Thief” was miraculously saved―for he repented of his sins and accepted his crucifixion as a just punishment for his sins. The miracle was that he would nevertheless save his soul in the last minutes of his life and go to Paradise with Christ: “And Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise!’” (Luke 23:43).
We Reap What We Sow!
If we want a miracle today―a miracle that will overturn the ever increasing stranglehold of clearly Satanic evil that currently has us gripped by the throat―then we are going to have to pay, and pay big time! For it is sin that has brought about and allowed these current events―events which are only the beginning of things: “For these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet!” (Matthew 24:6) … “For such things must needs be, but the end is not yet!” (Mark 13:7) … “These things must first come to pass; but the end is not yet presently!” (Luke 21:9) … “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:8).
God clearly and powerfully emphasizes that we shall reap what we sow by the following words from the Book of Leviticus: “If you walk in My precepts, and keep My commandments and do them, then I will give you rain in due seasons and the ground shall bring forth its increase, and the trees shall be filled with fruit. You shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land without fear. I will give peace in your coasts! You shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid. You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you! I will look on you, and make you increase―you shall be multiplied, and I will establish My covenant with you! I will set My tabernacle in the midst of you, and My soul shall not cast you off. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people.
“If you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me … I will quickly visit you with poverty and burning heat! You shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you! I will chastise you seven times more for your sins! I will send the pestilence in the midst of you. I will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins! I will break the pride of your stubbornness! I will bring in upon you the sword and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies! I will bring your cities to be a wilderness, and I will make your sanctuaries desolate! I will destroy your land and I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed! You shall perish among the Gentiles, and an enemy’s land shall consume you! And if some remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies, and they shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers, and their own sins.. They shall pray for their sins, because they rejected My judgments, and despised My laws. And yet for all that, I will not cast them off altogether, neither will I despise them so that they should be totally consumed―for I am the Lord their God. When they confess their iniquities and the iniquities of their ancestors, whereby they have transgressed against Me, and walked contrary unto Me, then I will remember My former covenant to be their God. I am the Lord!” (Leviticus 26:14-44).
The bottom-line is: “Do not be deceived! God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
What Could Happen Today!
We have already seen―on a small level or in microcosm―what could happen if only the Pope would correctly consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That smaller example took place in Portugal in 1931. At her convent, Sister Lucia had been informed of Heaven’s desire that Portugal be solemnly consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and she had, through her bishop, Bishop da Silva, convinced the Portuguese bishops to take this decisive action. Thus, through a common retreat, made by the bishops in 1931, they determined to collectively and solemnly consecrate Portugal to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This consecration took place on May 13th, 1931, during which Cardinal Cerejeira declared to Our Lady:
“The Shepherds―chosen by your Son, to watch over and feed, in His name, the sheep He has acquired, at the price of His Blood, in this Land of Holy Mary, whose name cannot be pronounced without pronouncing your own―come today as the official and consecrated representatives of their flocks, and in an act of filial homage, of faith, love and trust to solemnly consecrate the Portuguese nation to your Immaculate Heart. Take it from our fragile hands into your own; defend it and guard it as your own property; make Jesus reign, conquer and rule in it. Outside of Him there is no salvation.”
Thus, the request of Heaven, made known through God’s messenger Sister Lucia, was fulfilled by this beautiful act made by all of the Portuguese bishops. The benefits obtained through the Portuguese bishops obedience were truly miraculous: the country was converted and underwent a Catholic Renaissance; the government, which only recently had openly displayed its hatred toward Christ and His Church by every means in its power, underwent a miraculous political and social renewal; and Portugal was miraculously spared from the communist terror that consumed Spain during its civil war, and from the horrible Second World War.
We can see from the example of the Portuguese Bishops that when God desires something from His Shepherds, He will reward the world greatly for their compliance. The pitiful state of Portugal at the beginning of the Twentieth-Century, godless and full of hate, would surely have been revisited upon that country if the bishops had not given Portugal into the hands of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. Yet in return for the bishops humble act of compliance, God miraculously transformed Portugal. That same possibility exists for the whole world today―if only the Pope and all the bishops of the world would consecrate Russia in the manner requested by Our Lord and Our Lady! So far they have not! How much more evil has to occur in the Church and world before they obey? As Our Lord foretold: “They did not wish to heed My request. Like the king of France, they will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions of the Church; the Holy Father will have much to suffer” (Our Lord to Sr. Lucia of Fatima, at Tuy, June 13th, 1929).
Your are Not a Spectator but a Soldier!
Nevertheless, we are not outside of all this! We cannot stand on the periphery! We are not mere bystanders and spectators sat on the sidelines munching our favorite snacks and sipping our favorite drinks while we watch and wait for all these things to unfold! We are Soldiers of Christ―not Spectators of Christ! Our place is not the sidelines, but on the battlefield! We are meant to using our weapons of prayers, sacrifices and penances in order to win the graces from Heaven that are indispensably necessary for all this to happen. That is why Our Lady repeatedly said to US and not just the Pope and clergy:
“Many men in this world afflict the Lord. In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind ... If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before ... Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger ... Be faithful and fervent in prayer to console the Master … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son [which is, of course, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―therefore pray MANY Rosaries and attend MANY Masses and give stipends to priests to have MANY Masses offered against the evil in the world and the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart]. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests! … Pray very much for the Pope, Bishops, and Priests! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary!” (Akita, 1973). “Say many Rosaries!” (Fatima, May 1917). “Say the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, June 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). “Continue to say the Rosary every day! Pray, pray very much!” (Fatima, August 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (Fatima, September 1917). “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, October 1917).
As Our Lord Himself said: “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times!” (Luke 21:36). “We ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! … The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save! … I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … No, I say to you; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 19:10; 9:56; 5:32; 13:3-5).
To which Holy Scripture adds: “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) … “There is none that doth penance for his sin” (Jeremias 8:6) ... “God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride” (Job 24:23) ... “Let him do penance for his sin!” (Leviticus 5:5). “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die! … But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. Return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32).
What is our answer? Will we continue to idly sit on our backsides, munching and dirking, and watching what happens in the world? Or will we get up off our backsides and get down on our knees and start doing what Heaven has long since requested? We have to pay a price for God's miraculous intervention and Our Lady's Triumph of the Immaculate Heart! That price is not cheap! It is not merely a hurried and distracted single Rosary per day! It means praying from the heart and not just the lips―as Our Lady said:
“Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’ … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … Oh, if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! … There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left offering sacrifice for the sake of the world! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom … who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world ... The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession … At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent ... This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss ... Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified … Thus the Church and country will be finally free of his cruel tyranny! … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
So, Soldier of Christ, it is time to get up and off the backside! It is time to get down on our knees and pray MANY Rosaries EACH DAY! It is time to make MANY MORE SACRIFICES by attending the SACRIFICE OF THE MASS MANY MORE TIMES EACH WEEK! We are at war! It is not a video-game war, nor a movie screen war, but a REAL WAR and many, many souls are being "killed" each day by mortal sins and many, many souls are falling into Hell each day because of their mortal sins and because “there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left offering sacrifice for the sake of the world! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!"
It’s time to pull oneself away from the screens and think of the screams in Hell! It is time pray rather than play! It is time for mortification and not gratification! Your final judgment may well depend on it! As St. John Chrysostom―a Father and Doctor of the Church―used to say: “O Christian soul! When you die you will be judged for all that happened in the world during your life on Earth!” There is SO MUCH that we can influence, effect and prevent by our prayers and sacrifices!
Sometimes, when God works a miracle, He deliberately stacks the odds against Himself in order to make the miracle all the more stupefying and stupendous. That is exactly what happened at Fatima with the “Miracle of the Sun”. God arranged it so that the remote events and proximate events―that is to say, things that had already taken place in earlier years, and things that were happening right there and then―were for the most part stacked against the success of the miracle that Our Lady had promised beforehand. To announce that something miraculous is going to occur, way ahead of time, puts enormous pressure on the fulfilling of the promise and meeting the expectations of people.
We are probably not aware of several circumstances that existed during those days in Portugal in the build-up to the “Miracle of the Sun” on October 13th, 1917.
(1) The growing spirit of the times was one of atheism (there is no God) or agnosticism (even if there is God, He cannot be known for certain). The prevailing and increasing philosophical mood of the time was epitomized by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who boldly asserted, in the late 1800s, that “God is dead.”
(2) Also, in 1917, Portugal―like the majority of the world―was in the middle of a war. As the First World War (19140=-1918) raged throughout most of Europe, Portugal found itself unable to maintain its initial neutrality and joined forces with the Allies. Over 220,000 Portuguese civilians had died during the war; thousands due to food shortages, and thousands more due to the Spanish flu.
(3) Few years before, in 1910, a revolution had led to the establishment of the First Portuguese Republic in 1910 and a new Liberal constitution was drafted under the influence of Freemasonry, which sought to suppress the Faith from public life.
(4) Catholic churches and schools were seized by the government, and the wearing of clerical or religious clothing in public, the ringing of church bells, and the celebration of public religious festivals―were all banned. Between 1911-1916, nearly 2,000 priests, monks and nuns were killed by anti-Christian groups.
(5) This was the backdrop against which Mary, in 1917, had appeared, month after month, from May to October, to three shepherd children – Lucia dos Santos, 10, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, 9 and 7 – in a field in Fatima, Portugal, bringing with her religious requests for the recitation of the Rosary, for sacrifices on behalf of sinners, and a secret regarding the fate of the world.
(6) To prove that the apparitions were true and put her reputation “on the line”, Mary had promised the children that during the last of her six appearances she would provide a “sign” so people would believe in the apparitions and in her message.
(7) God’s Providence had also arranged for a crowd of around 70,000 people – believers and skeptics alike – to gather in order to see the miracle that Mary had promised. Freemason authorities and newspaper reporters were present in great numbers―ready to mock, scorn and reject the promised miracle.
(8) God’s Providence had also arranged for torrential rain to fall for many hours prior to the miracle―soaking the ground so much that it had turned muddy.
(9) As for the children, they made their way to the Cova amid the adulation and skepticism which had followed them since May. When they arrived they found critics who questioned their veracity and the punctuality of the Lady―who had promised to arrive at noon. It was well past noon by the official time [legal time] of the country. However, when the sun arrived at its zenith―which was noon in “real time” or “sun time”―the Lady appeared as she had said she would.
Seeing is Believing!
How many persons were at the Cova da Iria to witness the Miracle of the Sun? The maximum estimate was from Dr. Almeida Garrett, and was proposed some months after the event. It estimates the spectators numbered at least one hundred thousand. In the local atheistic newspaper, O Seculo of October 15th, its editor, the Freemason Avelino de Almeida, wrote: “The crowd, by the unprejudiced calculations of cultivated persons very new to mystical influences, was estimated at thirty or forty thousand people.” In his article of October 29th, he corrected and increased his original estimate: “On October 13th, according to the calculations established by people free from every prejudice, some fifty thousand people were gathered on the moor of Fatima.” A neutral newspaper, the Primeiro de Janeiro, also estimated the crowd at fifty thousand individuals. We can therefore say, with a quasi-certainty, that this figure is an absolute minimum―that is why the majority of historians propose, as very probable, the presence of a crowd of seventy thousand witnesses.
The proofs for the Miracle of the Sun are greatly aided by the fact that the miracle itself was witnessed by some 70,000 people present on that day. Their testimony is unanimous―even among non-believers, freemasons, atheistic journalists. Among that large crowd were faithful Catholics, fallen away Catholics, skeptics, mockers, Freemasons, doctors, scientists, professors, teachers, journalists, policemen, soldiers, priests, etc. The Portuguese historian, Leopoldo Nuñes, who was present on the scene on October 13th, says, “At the moment of the great miracle there were present some of the most illustrious men of letters, in the arts and the sciences, and almost all were unbelievers coming out of curiosity, led by the prediction of the seers. Even the Minister of Education of the Masonic government was there.”
So we see here how many modern-day skeptics and debunkers are refuted, because exactly the men whom they claim were not present at the miracle, actually were present at Fatima at the moment of the miracle. Here we have to thank Our Lady, who sought to prove the authenticity of her Fatima Message to the unbelievers by “advertizing” it months in advance so as to pique the curiosity of everyone―believers and non-believers alike. Our Lady had said in July of 1917 that she would perform a miracle at midday on the 13th of October.
Another marvelous thing was that the phenomenon of the Miracle of the Sun could be admired from beyond Fatima. And even, some perfectly credible witnesses, who were very far away from the Cova da Iria, related having seen the unprecedented spectacle of the dance of the sun, exactly like the thousands of pilgrims gathered around the holmoak.
Testimony of the Newspaper Editor, the Freemason Avelino de Almeida
Again, we return to the account of the miraculous events on the day of the 13th given us by the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, the self-professed anti-Catholic witness, who was also the editor of O Seculo. In his editorial Article of October 15th, 1917 (two days after the Miracle of the Sun), he wrote: “And then we witnessed a unique spectacle― an incredible spectacle, unbelievable if you did not witness it. From above the road ... we see the immense crowd turn towards the sun, which appeared at its zenith, clear of the clouds. It looked like a plate of dull silver, and it was possible to stare at it without the least discomfort. It did not burn the eyes. It did not blind. One might say that an eclipse had occurred!” It is worth noting that the editors of the other anti-Catholic newspapers attacked Avelino de Almeida for his report. But even in the face of such criticism by his anti-Catholic comrades, he did not change his testimony. In fact, 15 days after his original account of the miracle, he published another story about the events, this time illustrating it with 12 pictures taken of the crowd in the midst of the Miracle of the Sun. Throughout this article, the Freemason, de Almeida, just kept repeating, “I saw it … I saw it … I saw it.”
Who Saw What?
Just as there are no two people who are exactly alike, down to the tiniest degree; and just as God gives varying degrees of grace to souls on Earth; and just as there are no two saints who are exactly alike in Heaven; and no two damned souls who are exactly alike in Hell―so, too, at the Miracle of Sun at Fatima, there were varying levels of who saw what and to what degree they saw it. If you think that is illogical or unlikely―then recall that when Our Lady of Fatima appeared to the three children―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―each of them had different degrees or levels of participation in those apparitions. As was the case during the first apparition, Lucia was the only one of the three to speak to Our Lady. Jacinta was allowed to see and hear Our Lady’s words. Francisco was permitted to see Our Lady, but could not hear her words. Thus, it is hardly surprising that the same principle was applied to each of those 70,000 persons who were present at the Miracle of the Sun.
Testimony of a Scientist, Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett
Let us follow the account of the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, adding to it the testimony of another eyewitness Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett, professor of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Coimbra―a testimony given by Dr. Garret to Fr. Manuel Formigão.
The testimony of Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrettbegins on October 12th, 1917, when he arrives at Fatima to “see” the non-fulfillment of the prophecy of a miracle. Here, the unbeliever — who was obviously impressed with the faith of the believers, says, “On the road, we encounter the first groups which are on their way to the holy place, a good 13 miles away … Men and women are for the most part barefoot, the latter carrying their shoes in bags on their heads, while the men lean on thin sticks and are also prudently armed with umbrellas. Apparently indifferent to what is going on around them, they do not seem to notice the countryside, nor their fellow-travelers, but murmur the Rosary as they go immersed in thought … A woman recites the first part of the Ave Maria and immediately her companions continue the second part in chorus. They move rhythmically and rapidly in order to reach the place of the apparitions by nightfall. Here, under the stars they will sleep, keeping the first and best places near the little tree.”
What a moving account. He must have been profoundly moved by what he saw. We can only wonder about his attitude. Perhaps it was one of pity for what he thought were the pathetic hopes of the people.
The whole night it rained. This was a change in the weather from what had occurred earlier in the autumn season. It was as if Our Lady was perfectly stage managing the scene to emphasize the miracle. The rain transformed the dusty roads into muddy quagmires. What does de Almeida say concerning the response of the people to these adverse conditions? “They did not lose hope and they did not forget the cause for which they came.”
The day of October 13th arrived. Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett continues, “By 10 a.m., the sky was completely hidden behind the clouds and the rain began to fall in earnest. Swept by the strong wind and beating upon the faces of the people, it soaked the pilgrims, often without protection against the weather, to the marrow of their bones … But no one complained or turned back … Hours of waiting …The great mass of people congregate round the oak tree which, according to the children, is Our Lady’s pedestal.”
Doubting Thomas Priest
What amazes us about the Miracle of the Sun is the specificity of Our Lady. Our Lady said, on July 13th 1917, that she would perform a miracle at midday on the 13th of October. Then when noon came and went on October 13th―there was no sign of Our Lady and no sign of a miracle! Since it was after noon, how can we say that Our Lady’s promise was being fulfilled? Here it is necessary to say that the Portuguese government―due to its belligerency with France and Britain during the First World War―decided that the clocks were to be set 90 minutes ahead, so that Portugal would be in the same time zone as her fellow belligerents. On October 13th, 1917, 1:30 p.m. was actually midday, sun time―and the government time of 12 noon that was imposed by the Portuguese government, was actually 10:30 a.m. according to sun time.
The hour of the miracle approached (according to government time). The presence of the seers was announced shortly before the scheduled time of the apparition and miracle; they arrive about one-half hour early. The little girls Jacinta and Lucy, crowned with flowers, are led to the place where the platform has been erected. When Lucy asks them―actually, she orders them―to shut their umbrellas in the drenching rain, something that goes against intuition and common sense, the order is transmitted and executed right away without resistance. Then they wait. What if there was no miracle? But there was.
Near the time of 1:30 p.m. (government time), a priest―who stood by the children and had been waiting since the evening―began to grow impatient. “Look its midday now! Our Lady does not lie! Well, well, well!” After a few minutes with nothing happening, except the rain pouring down on the uncovered thousands, the priest again looked at his watch and said: “Look, it’s midday now! Our Lady doesn’t lie! It’s past midday! You see it’s all a delusion! Run along all of you! Go away! It’s a delusion!” In response to this priestly skepticism and doubt, Lucy refused to go. It was midday, so the priest began to push the three children away from the site. Then the simple faith of Lucy took over. She began to cry and said: “If anyone wants to go, I shall stay where I am! Our Lady said she would come! She came the other times and she will come this time too!”
At that moment Lucy looked to the east and said to Jacinta, “Jacinta, kneel down. Our Lady is coming. I saw the lightning.” According to Sister Lucy’s account, the impatient priest did not say another word and the children never saw him again. It was at this moment that the miracle commenced.
Back to theTestimony of the Scientist, Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett
“It must have been 1:30 p.m. when there arose at the exact spot where the children were, a column of smoke, thin, fine and bluish, which extended up to perhaps two meters above their heads, and evaporated at that height. This phenomenon, perfectly visible to the naked eye, lasted for a few seconds. Not having noted how long it had lasted, I cannot say whether it was more or less than a minute. The smoke dissipated abruptly, and after some time, it came back to occur a second time, then a third time...”
Whereas “the low and heavy sky had a very dark color, laden with moisture, released an abundant and long lasting rain,” during the time of the apparition, the rain stopped totally. Abruptly the sky cleared: “The sun triumphantly pierced the thick bed of clouds hiding it until then, and shone intensely.”
“Suddenly I heard the uproar of thousands of voices, and I saw the whole multitude spread out in that vast space at my feet ... turn their backs to that spot where, until then, all their expectations focused, and look at the sun on the other side ... I turned around, too, toward the point commanding their gazes, and I could see the sun, like a very clear disc, with its sharp edge, which gleamed without hurting the sight ... It could not be confused with the sun seen through a fog (there was no fog at that moment), for it was neither veiled, nor dim. At Fatima, it kept its light and heat, and stood out clearly in the sky, with a sharp edge, like a large gaming table. The most astonishing thing was to be able to stare at the solar disc for a long time, brilliant with light and heat, without hurting the eyes, or damaging the retina.” (testimony of Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett).
The Vision of the Sun
Why “the vision of the sun”? Because at this moment, contrary to the normal phenomenon, everyone, and this is a unanimous testimony without contradiction, could look at the sun clearly, directly, and without wincing or closing their eyes. No one needed to turn away. This is what the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, editor of O Seculo says: “Then they saw a unique spectacle, [an] unbelievable spectacle for anyone who did not witness it. From the road … one could see the immense multitude turn towards the sun, which appeared free from clouds and in its zenith. It resembles a dull silver disc, and it is possible to look at it without the least discomfort.”
Dr. Almeida Garrett, however, made this observation, “Suddenly I heard the uproar of thousands of voices, and I saw the whole multitude, spread out in that vast space at my feet, ... turn their backs to that spot where, until then, all their expectations focused, and look at the sun on the other side ... I turned around, too, toward the point commanding their gazes, and I could see the sun, like a very clear disc, with its sharp edge, which gleamed without hurting the sight ... It kept its light and heat, and stood out clearly in the sky … It could not be confused with the sun seen through a fog (there was no fog at that moment), for it was neither veiled, nor dim … but which did not hurt the eyes. The most astonishing thing was to be able to stare at the solar disc for a long time, brilliant with light and heat, without hurting the eyes, or damaging the retina … I do not agree with the comparison which I have heard made in Fatima — that of a dull silver disc. It was a clearer, richer, brighter color, having something of the luster of a pearl … I felt it to be a living body … It looked like a glazed wheel made of mother of pearl … It was a remarkable fact that one could fix one’s eyes on this brazier of light and heat without any pain in the eyes or blinding of the retina.” (Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett).
Other Testimonies
What is truly amazing about this miracle is that Our Lady perfectly “stage managed” the entire event. Each aspect of the miracle was directed to accentuate the miraculous nature of the phenomenon. Dr. Almeida Garrett reports, “The sky, which had been overcast all day, suddenly clears up; the rain stops and it looks like the sun is about to fill with light the countryside that the wintry morning had made so gloomy.” This sudden change of weather surprised all of the witnesses. Dr. Pereira Gens simply reports, “The rain suddenly stopped”; it “suddenly stopped,” of course, at the exact moment which had been predicted for the miracle to take place.
This abrupt change of weather took all the eyewitnesses by surprise: “It was a day of heavy and continuous rain. But a few minutes before the miracle, it stopped raining.” (testimony of Alfredo da Silva Santos). “The people could look at the sun as we look at the moon.” (Maria do Carmo). One would think that this would be enough, being able to look at the sun without having to turn away, but Our Lady wanted to demonstrate her power in a more convincing way. So this sun that all the witnesses could observe without irritation “danced.” This was called by many of the common folk present, “The Dance of the Sun.”
The Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, says concerning this “dance”: “The sun trembled, the sun made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws — the sun ‘danced’ according to the typical expression of the people. It shook and trembled; it seemed like a wheel of fire.” Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett adds, “The sun’s disc did not remain immobile. This was not the sparkling of a heavenly body for it spun round upon itself, it made a whirl.” Also, “It spun like a fire-wheel, taking on all the colors of the rainbow … It looked like a ball of snow, revolving upon itself.”
According to Ti Marto, the father of Jacinta and Francisco, “At a certain moment the sun seemed to stop and then began to move and dance … However, the sun stops, only to begin its strange dance all over again after a brief interruption, whirling upon itself, giving the impression of approaching or receding.” This “dance,” which was seen by the 70,000 witnesses, was actually repeated three times during the course of the 10 minute long miracle.
Suddenly, the heavenly body began to tremble, to shake with abrupt movements, and finally to turn on itself at a dizzying speed while throwing out rays of light, all colors of the rainbow: “The sun turned like a fire wheel, taking on all the colors of the rainbow.” (Maria do Carmo). “It appeared like a globe of snow turning on itself.” (Father Lourenço). “The pearl-like disc had a giddy motion. This was not the twinkling of a star in all its brilliance. It turned on itself with impetuous speed.” (Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett). “At a certain moment, the sun stopped and then began again to dance, to spin; it stopped again, and began again to dance.” (Ti Marto). It is indeed therefore a triple “dance of the sun” which thousands of witnesses affirm, having contemplated it for several minutes.
With the Dance of the Sun something else began to happen. The landscape, and everything in it, began to take on, in succession, all the colors of the rainbow. Dr. Garrett testifies: “During the solar phenomenon … there were changes of color in the atmosphere … I looked first at the nearest objects and then extended my glance further afield as far as the horizon, I saw everything an amethyst color. Objects around me, the sky and the atmosphere, were of the same color … Soon I heard a peasant who was near me shout out in tones of stupefaction: LOOK, THAT LADY IS ALL YELLOW! And in fact everything both near and far had changed to yellow. People looked as if they were suffering jaundice … My own hand was of the same color.” The exact same report comes from other witnesses: “The sun took on all the colors of the rainbow. Everything assumed those same colors: our faces, our clothes, the earth itself.” (Maria do Carmo). “A light, whose colors changed from one moment to the next, was reflected on the people and on things.” (Dr. Pereira Gens).
The poet Alfonso Lopes Vieira, who lived over 30 miles away from Fatima, also witnessed the phenomenon. He wrote: “On that day, 13th October, 1917, without remembering the predictions of the children, I was enchanted by a remarkable spectacle in the sky of a kind I had never seen before.!”
The miracle was also seen by sailors on a British ship, off the coast of Portugal. One sailor who saw the miracle from his ship, wrote about it to his wife without obviously understanding what it meant or its significance.
A young boy, Inacio Lourenco, who was a schoolchild of nine when he saw the miracle at a village about 12 miles from Fatima. He described how the children and their teachers were attracted outside by a commotion in front of the school to see the Miracle of the Sun. He tells of how he could look at the sun, which looked like “a ball of snow revolving on itself,” before it suddenly came down in a zigzag toward the Earth.
The Falling of the Sun
Now we come to a part of the miracle that made many of those present on the scene of the Cova da Iria believe that the world was ending — such was the fearsomeness of the experience. This was clearly Our Lady’s warning that the Message of Fatima was not only a “message,” but, also, a very grave warning. What happened at that stage of the miracle is called the “falling” of the sun. “The sun whirling wildly, began to move and dance, until it seemed that it was being detached from the sky and was threateningly falling on us, as if to crush us with its huge weight and fiery mass! It was a terrible moment! It seemed like a wheel of fire that was about to fall on the people.” (Dr. Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett).
Dr. Domingos Pinto Coelho, a lawyer reporting for a Catholic newspaper of the time, described the event as follows: “The sun, at one moment surrounded with scarlet flame, at another aureoled in yellow and deep purple, seemed to be in an exceedingly swift and whirling movement, at times appearing to be loosened from the sky and to be approaching the Earth, strongly radiating heat.”
Other witnesses state: “The sun began to dance and, at a certain moment, it appeared to detach itself from the firmament and to rush forward on us, like a fire wheel.” (Alfredo da Silva Santos). “I saw the sun turn and it seemed to descend. It was like a bicycle wheel.” (John Carreira). “I saw it perfectly descending, as if it came to crash on the Earth. It seemed to detach itself from the sky and rush toward us. It maintained itself at a short distance above our heads; but that sort of attack was of very short duration ... It seemed very near the people and it continued to turn in the opposite direction.” (Maria do Carmo). “From those thousands of mouths, I heard shouts of joy and love to the Most Holy Virgin. And then I believed. I had the certainty of not having been the victim of a suggestion. I had seen the sun as I would never see it again!” (Mario Godinho).
Many thought that the time of the universal judgment had arrived, and so they quite literally cried out their sins at the top of their voice, begging the Lord’s pardon. Even though many thousands were expecting imminent death and were making their final preparations for that event, the miracle was not the end, but a warning and an indication of the mercy of God and the intercessory power of the Mother of God — because the sun returned to the heavens.
Everybody’s Clothes Were Dry
Then the final miracle that came right after the Miracle of the Sun―the sudden instantaneous drying of all the rain-sodden land, clothes, bodies and hair―the last manifestation of the intimate knowledge and love that God and His Blessed Mother has for mankind and for the pious faithful. Fr. Lourenço says: “This enormous multitude was drenched, for it had rained unceasingly since dawn. But — though this may appear incredible — after the great miracle everyone felt comfortable, and found his garments quite dry, a subject of general wonder … The truth of this fact has been guaranteed with the greatest sincerity by dozens and dozens of persons of absolute trustworthiness, whom I have known intimately from childhood, and who are still alive [1937].” We have it from Dr. Pereira Gens that, “I still remember the delicious sensation that this warm caress of the sun gave me … I [felt] my clothes almost dry now, although they were all wet a few moments ago.”
Implications for Our Lives and Our Times
What do we gain from this great manifestation of God? What should this miracle say to us? What basic truths do these events confirm for our “modern” minds? I would say this. First, that the true God, Master over Heaven and Earth, showed His power over Nature. He brought forward to the modern mind the simple idea that God is omnipotent and yet He is present to us in an intimate and personal way.
When before have we ever had a miracle that was predicted in advance, down to the very moment of its performance? Even the Resurrection itself had been predicted, but, perhaps, only Our Lady was expecting it. With the Miracle of the Sun, 70,000 were in some way expecting the miracle — either hopefully or skeptically — which had been predicted for three consecutive months, July, August, and September 1917. In response to the simple request of the earnest Lucy, Our Lady said in July: “In October I will work a miracle so that all may see and believe.” Here we have, for all “virtual” modern men, a miracle which appeals to our senses and our desire for the sensational. It involves our senses working with reason; our senses working with reason and speaking to us about the activity of the Supreme Cause.
It was not, however, just a manifestation of the omnipotence of God Himself. The Miracle of the Sun occurred while Lucy and the other children were viewing the apparition. Lucy indicated that in the apparition, Our Lady extended her hands and it was the light coming from her own hands which reflected on the sun at the moment of the miracle. The sun danced for Our Lady, the Ark of the New Covenant, just as David danced before the Ark of the Old Covenant. This miracle speaks about Our Lady’s all-powerful intercession. The obviousness of this fact is the reason why there is such shock and bemusement when the witnesses were asked: “What did you think at the moment of the miracle?” Ti Marto, the father of Francisco and Jacinta, answered such a question by saying, “What did I think? That it was the power of God. And if you ask me again, what do you think now? I think the same thing. How God is great!”
Another amazing aspect of this miracle was the response of the faithful. During the miracle they were praying, saying the Act of Contrition, pleading for Our Lord and Our Lady’s mercy for their sins because they believed, perhaps, that this was the end of their lives. They also, however, saw this miracle as a great triumph for them — a great consolation from Our Lady. In the face of persecution, in the face of mockery by the press, by the government, by the intellectuals of the Catholic Faith, that Faith was affirmed in a miraculous way that no one could deny. It was a confirmation of all of their beliefs and hopes.
We are moved when we read of the shock which the faithful felt, after the miracle occurred, when they saw that some of the other witnesses had their heads covered with their hats. This was a sacred event; hence, their outrage. There was an old man who was, throughout the apparition, reciting the Creed. He turned to another group, unbelievers, who had seen the same thing that he had seen and he violently protested and requested that they take off their hats before such an extraordinary manifestation of the existence of God. Believing ladies responded in the same way to the sacrilegious rudeness of the unbelievers. They cried out, as if suffocated with emotion: “What a pity, there are still men who do not uncover their heads when they find themselves before such a stupefying spectacle!” Even the Freemason, Avelino de Almeida, editor of the Masonic and Atheistic newspaper, O Seculo, left visibly shaken to the core in his unbelief.
We Need a Miracle Today!
Nobody of sane mind would dispute the fact we are in dire need of a miracle today to save from the apocalyptic path that we are being forced to march. Only an idiot or an ignoramus can be totally unaware of the foreboding similarities, if not fulfillment, of Our Lady’s earlier warnings for our days:
“Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance … The Church will be full of those who accept compromises … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness ... Many priests will lose their spirit … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... They will become attached to wealth and riches … The demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among them there will even be bishops … . Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ... This, then, will be the cause of the cursed demon taking possession … From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century, the passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of morals … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell ... The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … [cf. “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the nations, which are over the four quarters of the Earth” (Apocalypse 20:7)] …
“Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … All the civil [Masonic] governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights ... During this period, there will be great physical and moral calamities, both public and private … All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family ... They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption. Woe to the children of these times! …
“During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … Satan, making use of both good people and evil people, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … How the Church will suffer during this dark night! … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth! ... There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases … Various nations will be annihilated! ... Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost! …
Our Lady Promises a Miracle — But It Comes at a Great Price!
Our indiscipline, indifference, irreverence, ingratitude and insanity has the audacity to expect “miracles on tap” ― just turn on the tap and the miracles will pour out in abundance free of charge and at no cost to us! Even though God can and sometimes does perform miracles for sinners―and even through sinners―that is not God’s normal way of operating.
Millions have flocked to Lourdes hoping for a miracle since Our Lady’s apparition there in 1858―but very, very few have come away with the miracle they desired.
Already back in the Middle-Ages, in the peak of Christendom, one of Our Lord’s mystics asked Him why, at that time, there were so few miracles in comparison to the early days of the Church―Our Lord replied that it was largely due to a lack Faith.
We even see that same cause―lack of Faith―preventing miracles in the Gospels: “Jesus went into his own country … and He could not do any miracles there … because of their unbelief” (Mark 6:5-5). When the Gospel says: “He could not”―this is not because of a lack of power, but because Jesus would not work miracles in favor of obstinate and incredulous people, who were unworthy of such favors.
When Pontius Pilate sent Jesus to King Herod, when meeting Jesus, Herod had hoped to see some miracles done by Jesus for his own entertainment―but Jesus refused to even answer his questions, let alone perform a miracle for his amusement―even if it could have saved His life and prevented His Passion and Death. Miracles are never to be done for an individual’s entertainment even if the individual is a king! “Herod, seeing Jesus, was very glad―for he was desirous of a long time to see Him, because he had heard many things of Him; and he hoped to see some sign [miracle] wrought by Him. And he questioned Him in many words. But Jesus answered him nothing … And Herod mocked Him and sent Him back to Pilate” (Luke 23:6-11).
When Jesus was crucified on Calvary, the “Bad Thief” asked Jesus to perform a miracle by getting them all out of the mess that they found themselves in: “And one of those robbers who were hanged, blasphemed Him, saying: ‘If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us!’ But the other thief answering, rebuked him, saying: ‘Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds―but this Man hath done no evil!’” (Luke 23:39-41). The “Bad Thief” was unrepentant ― thus, rather than obtain a miracle, the words of Our Lord to the Pharisees could be applied to him: “You shall die in your sin! Where I go, you cannot come!” (John 8:21). The “Good Thief” was miraculously saved―for he repented of his sins and accepted his crucifixion as a just punishment for his sins. The miracle was that he would nevertheless save his soul in the last minutes of his life and go to Paradise with Christ: “And Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise!’” (Luke 23:43).
We Reap What We Sow!
If we want a miracle today―a miracle that will overturn the ever increasing stranglehold of clearly Satanic evil that currently has us gripped by the throat―then we are going to have to pay, and pay big time! For it is sin that has brought about and allowed these current events―events which are only the beginning of things: “For these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet!” (Matthew 24:6) … “For such things must needs be, but the end is not yet!” (Mark 13:7) … “These things must first come to pass; but the end is not yet presently!” (Luke 21:9) … “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:8).
God clearly and powerfully emphasizes that we shall reap what we sow by the following words from the Book of Leviticus: “If you walk in My precepts, and keep My commandments and do them, then I will give you rain in due seasons and the ground shall bring forth its increase, and the trees shall be filled with fruit. You shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land without fear. I will give peace in your coasts! You shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid. You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you! I will look on you, and make you increase―you shall be multiplied, and I will establish My covenant with you! I will set My tabernacle in the midst of you, and My soul shall not cast you off. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be My people.
“If you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me … I will quickly visit you with poverty and burning heat! You shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you! I will chastise you seven times more for your sins! I will send the pestilence in the midst of you. I will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins! I will break the pride of your stubbornness! I will bring in upon you the sword and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies! I will bring your cities to be a wilderness, and I will make your sanctuaries desolate! I will destroy your land and I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed! You shall perish among the Gentiles, and an enemy’s land shall consume you! And if some remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies, and they shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers, and their own sins.. They shall pray for their sins, because they rejected My judgments, and despised My laws. And yet for all that, I will not cast them off altogether, neither will I despise them so that they should be totally consumed―for I am the Lord their God. When they confess their iniquities and the iniquities of their ancestors, whereby they have transgressed against Me, and walked contrary unto Me, then I will remember My former covenant to be their God. I am the Lord!” (Leviticus 26:14-44).
The bottom-line is: “Do not be deceived! God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
What Could Happen Today!
We have already seen―on a small level or in microcosm―what could happen if only the Pope would correctly consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That smaller example took place in Portugal in 1931. At her convent, Sister Lucia had been informed of Heaven’s desire that Portugal be solemnly consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and she had, through her bishop, Bishop da Silva, convinced the Portuguese bishops to take this decisive action. Thus, through a common retreat, made by the bishops in 1931, they determined to collectively and solemnly consecrate Portugal to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This consecration took place on May 13th, 1931, during which Cardinal Cerejeira declared to Our Lady:
“The Shepherds―chosen by your Son, to watch over and feed, in His name, the sheep He has acquired, at the price of His Blood, in this Land of Holy Mary, whose name cannot be pronounced without pronouncing your own―come today as the official and consecrated representatives of their flocks, and in an act of filial homage, of faith, love and trust to solemnly consecrate the Portuguese nation to your Immaculate Heart. Take it from our fragile hands into your own; defend it and guard it as your own property; make Jesus reign, conquer and rule in it. Outside of Him there is no salvation.”
Thus, the request of Heaven, made known through God’s messenger Sister Lucia, was fulfilled by this beautiful act made by all of the Portuguese bishops. The benefits obtained through the Portuguese bishops obedience were truly miraculous: the country was converted and underwent a Catholic Renaissance; the government, which only recently had openly displayed its hatred toward Christ and His Church by every means in its power, underwent a miraculous political and social renewal; and Portugal was miraculously spared from the communist terror that consumed Spain during its civil war, and from the horrible Second World War.
We can see from the example of the Portuguese Bishops that when God desires something from His Shepherds, He will reward the world greatly for their compliance. The pitiful state of Portugal at the beginning of the Twentieth-Century, godless and full of hate, would surely have been revisited upon that country if the bishops had not given Portugal into the hands of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. Yet in return for the bishops humble act of compliance, God miraculously transformed Portugal. That same possibility exists for the whole world today―if only the Pope and all the bishops of the world would consecrate Russia in the manner requested by Our Lord and Our Lady! So far they have not! How much more evil has to occur in the Church and world before they obey? As Our Lord foretold: “They did not wish to heed My request. Like the king of France, they will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions of the Church; the Holy Father will have much to suffer” (Our Lord to Sr. Lucia of Fatima, at Tuy, June 13th, 1929).
Your are Not a Spectator but a Soldier!
Nevertheless, we are not outside of all this! We cannot stand on the periphery! We are not mere bystanders and spectators sat on the sidelines munching our favorite snacks and sipping our favorite drinks while we watch and wait for all these things to unfold! We are Soldiers of Christ―not Spectators of Christ! Our place is not the sidelines, but on the battlefield! We are meant to using our weapons of prayers, sacrifices and penances in order to win the graces from Heaven that are indispensably necessary for all this to happen. That is why Our Lady repeatedly said to US and not just the Pope and clergy:
“Many men in this world afflict the Lord. In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind ... If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before ... Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger ... Be faithful and fervent in prayer to console the Master … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son [which is, of course, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―therefore pray MANY Rosaries and attend MANY Masses and give stipends to priests to have MANY Masses offered against the evil in the world and the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart]. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests! … Pray very much for the Pope, Bishops, and Priests! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary!” (Akita, 1973). “Say many Rosaries!” (Fatima, May 1917). “Say the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, June 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). “Continue to say the Rosary every day! Pray, pray very much!” (Fatima, August 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (Fatima, September 1917). “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, October 1917).
As Our Lord Himself said: “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times!” (Luke 21:36). “We ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost! … The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save! … I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance! … Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish! … No, I say to you; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 19:10; 9:56; 5:32; 13:3-5).
To which Holy Scripture adds: “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) … “There is none that doth penance for his sin” (Jeremias 8:6) ... “God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride” (Job 24:23) ... “Let him do penance for his sin!” (Leviticus 5:5). “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die! … But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities―and iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit―and why will you die? For I desire not the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. Return ye and live!” (Ezechiel 18:20-32).
What is our answer? Will we continue to idly sit on our backsides, munching and dirking, and watching what happens in the world? Or will we get up off our backsides and get down on our knees and start doing what Heaven has long since requested? We have to pay a price for God's miraculous intervention and Our Lady's Triumph of the Immaculate Heart! That price is not cheap! It is not merely a hurried and distracted single Rosary per day! It means praying from the heart and not just the lips―as Our Lady said:
“Cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’ … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … Oh, if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! … There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left offering sacrifice for the sake of the world! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom … who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world ... The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession … At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent ... This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss ... Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified … Thus the Church and country will be finally free of his cruel tyranny! … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
So, Soldier of Christ, it is time to get up and off the backside! It is time to get down on our knees and pray MANY Rosaries EACH DAY! It is time to make MANY MORE SACRIFICES by attending the SACRIFICE OF THE MASS MANY MORE TIMES EACH WEEK! We are at war! It is not a video-game war, nor a movie screen war, but a REAL WAR and many, many souls are being "killed" each day by mortal sins and many, many souls are falling into Hell each day because of their mortal sins and because “there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left offering sacrifice for the sake of the world! … Many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!"
It’s time to pull oneself away from the screens and think of the screams in Hell! It is time pray rather than play! It is time for mortification and not gratification! Your final judgment may well depend on it! As St. John Chrysostom―a Father and Doctor of the Church―used to say: “O Christian soul! When you die you will be judged for all that happened in the world during your life on Earth!” There is SO MUCH that we can influence, effect and prevent by our prayers and sacrifices!
Article 7
The Feast of the Divine Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Tuesday October 11th & Wednesday October 12th, 2022
The Consequences of the Divine Motherhood for You!
The Feast of the Divine Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Tuesday October 11th & Wednesday October 12th, 2022
The Consequences of the Divine Motherhood for You!
No Little Matter!
Today, October 11th, we traditionally celebrate the feast of the Divine Motherhood, or the Divine Maternity―which refers to Our Lady being the Mother of God. “Mother of God” ― it’s just a title, isn’t it? Or is it more than just a title? The title, “Mother of God”, may mean little to most people―but it is no little matter! Most people don’t think twice about that title―yet we should think more about it―especially if we say our Rosary daily. For if we pray the Rosary just once (5 decades) daily, then we are saying or using that title―“Mother of God”― almost 20,000 times a year! We say 50 Hail Marys (plus the 3 Hail Marys at the start) in each Rosary―and in each Hail Mary we say: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners…”―and 53 times 365 (the number of days in a year) gives you a total of 19,345 Hail Marys (which contain the words “Mother of God”) per year. How can we not think twice about something we say almost 20,000 times a year? Yet, sadly, most people are indifferent to the title “Mother of God” ― for it is one of many titles that Our Lady holds!
What could be more important than God? Nothing! That is why we are told: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). If God is so important, then the Mother of God must next-in-line in the order of importance. This is what Pope Pius XI said in his encyclical letter, Lux Veritatis, which promulgated the feast of the Divine Motherhood:
“The Blessed Virgin Mary is to be acknowledged and venerated by all as really and truly the Mother of God … There follows of necessity the dogma of the Divine Maternity, which We preach as belonging to the Blessed Virgin Mary … If the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary is God, then she who bore him is rightly and deservedly to be called the Mother of God … Let us all, therefore, venerate the tender Mother of God … From this dogma of the Divine Maternity, as from the outpouring of a hidden spring, there flows forth the singular grace of Mary and her dignity―which is the highest after God … The Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God; therefore she is far more excellent than all the Angels, even the Seraphim and Cherubim. She is the Mother of God; therefore she is most pure and most holy, so that, apart from God, no greater purity can be imagined. She is the Mother of God; therefore whatever privilege (in the order of sanctifying grace) has been granted to any one of the Saints, she obtains it more than all …
“But there is another matter, Venerable Brethren, which We think We should recall in regard to Mary’s office of Maternity, something which is sweeter and more pleasing; namely that she, because she brought forth the Redeemer of mankind, is also in a manner the most tender mother of us all, whom Christ our Lord deigned to have as His brothers … From this it comes that we are all drawn to her by a powerful attraction, that we may confidently entrust to her all things that are ours―namely our joys, if we are gladdened; our troubles, if we are in anguish; our hopes, if we are striving to reach at length to better things. From this it comes that if more difficult times fall upon the Church; if Faith fail, if charity have grown cold, if private and public morals take a turn for the worse; if any danger be hanging over the Catholic name and civil society, we all take refuge with her, imploring heavenly aid. From this it comes, lastly, that in the supreme crisis of death, when no other hope is given, no other help, we lift up to her our tearful eyes and our trembling hands, praying through her for pardon from her Son, and for eternal happiness in Heaven.” (Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Letter, Lux Veritatis, December 25th, 1931).
As Pope Pius XI so rightly says: “From this dogma of the Divine Maternity, there flows forth the singular grace of Mary and her dignity―which is the highest after God … The Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God―she is far more excellent than all the Angels, even the Seraphim and Cherubim. She is the Mother of God―therefore she is most pure and most holy, so that, apart from God, no greater purity can be imagined. She is the Mother of God―therefore whatever privilege has been granted to any one of the Saints, she obtains it more than all!”
No Greater Title!
We often judge the importance of a person by the title they hold. The greater the title―or the higher the rank―then the more respect, honor and esteem that title should be given. For example, we honor a pope more than a cardinal or a bishop; we honor a king or queen more than the prince or princess, or lord or lady; we honor a president more than a senator or governor, etc. After the Holy Trinity―God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost―there is no greater rank than that of the Mother of God. There are some titles that she holds that are a logical consequence of, or extension to, or give a different perspective to the title of “Mother of God” ― such as “Mother of Christ”, or “Mother of the Savior”, or “Mother of the Redeemer” ― but essentially they all refer to God, for Christ is God, the Savior is God, the Redeemer is God. All the other titles of Our Lady refer to something connected to Our Lady and not directly connected to God ― Immaculate Conception; Immaculate Heart of Mary, Sorrowful Heart of Mary, Mother of Mercy; Queen of Heaven and Earth; Virgin Most Pure; Virgin Most Chaste; Virgin Most Powerful; Seat of Wisdom; Queen of Angels, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins & Saints; Refuge of Sinners, Help of Christians; etc. ― all of these focus either on some virtue or quality of Our Lady, or Our Lady’s relation to mankind. Other geographical titles, such as Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Akita, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Czestochowa, Our Lady of Walsingham, etc., merely commemorate Our Lady’s appearances and messages given at those locations. The title “Mother of God” outranks all of these because it is directly and solely connected with God and nothing less than God, nothing inferior to God.
Theotokos ― Mother of God
We should distinguish the term Theotokos from “Mother of God”, because there is a subtle yet important difference. The term Theotokos is more specific and precise and less open to being misinterpreted. Theotokos simply implies that Mary carried God in her womb and gave birth to Him. Mary was the human agent through whom the eternal Son of God took on a human body and a human nature and entered the world. The term Theotokos was a succinct expression of the biblical teaching of the Incarnation ― whereby Christ became man ― and that is how the Council of Ephesus used the word. Mary is the “God-bearer” in the sense that within her body the divine person of God the Son took on human nature in addition to His pre-existing divine nature. Since Jesus is fully God and fully man, it is correct to say that Mary “bore” God.
The term “Mother of God” could be taken wrongly as implying that Mary somehow predated God and was the source, originator or creator of God―which is clearly unbiblical, heretical and nonsensical. The Faith teaches that God is eternal and that Jesus Christ has a pre-existent, divine nature. The title “Mother of God” means that Mary gave birth to Jesus, who is fully God and fully human. Jesus is one person, but He has two natures―His Divine Nature and His human nature. He always possessed His Divine Nature, but He only took on His human nature at the time of the Incarnation, when at the Annunciation, Mary accepted God’s plan to become the Mother of Jesus, Mother of the Son of God, hence Mother of God. She did not create God, but she was chosen by God to provide His Son the human, material, physical aspects that would enable Christ to take on human flesh and a human nature.
God could have done all this miraculously and created the human body and nature of Christ out of nothing―but God chose to use Mary as the vehicle for His Son taking on human flesh and a human nature. We say that she is the “Mother of God” in the sense that she carried in her womb a divine person—Jesus Christ, God “in the flesh” (2 John 7, cf. John 1:14)—and in the sense that she contributed the genetic matter to the human form that God took in Jesus Christ. Pope Pius IX, in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus, defining the Immaculate Conception, asserts that Mary’s maternity was predestined: “From the very beginning, and before time began, the Eternal Father chose and prepared for His only-begotten Son, a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, He would be born into this world.” Thus we are talking about the greatest birth ever known in the history of mankind, to the greatest mother the world has ever known in the history of mankind! How is it that we pretty much indifferent to that? Why does it have little or no effect upon us?
The Mother of God is Our Exemplar
An exemplar is someone or something that is considered to be so good that they should be copied or imitated. After Christ Himself, what better exemplar do we have than Our Blessed Mother? The following words of St. Louis de Montfort, taken from various different sections of his book, True Devotion to Mary, should serve as an encouragement and inspiration in forming a greater love and true devotion towards our heavenly Mother―who is not only the Mother of God, but, in light of Christ’s command from the cross: “Behold they Mother!”, she is also our Mother too. St. Louis writes:
“Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High … Mary is the admirable Mother of the Son … Mary is faithful spouse of the Holy Ghost … Mary is the sanctuary and the repose of the Holy Trinity … Mary is the terrestrial paradise of the New Adam, where He was made flesh by the operation of the Holy Ghost … She is the magnificence of the Most High, most excellent and most precious … The saints have said admirable things of this holy city of God. Yet, after all they have said, they cry out that the height of her merits cannot be fully seen; that the breadth of her charity is in truth immeasurable; that the length of her power―which she exercises even over God Himself―is incomprehensible; and finally, that the depth of her humility and all her virtues and graces, is an abyss which never can be sounded. O height incomprehensible! O breadth unspeakable! O length immeasurable! O abyss impenetrable!
“Every day, from one end of the Earth to the other, everything preaches, everything publishes, the admirable Mary! … The whole Earth is full of her glory, especially among Christians, by whom she is taken as the protectress of many kingdoms, provinces, dioceses and cities. Many cathedrals are consecrated to God under her name. There is not a church without an altar in her honor, not a country, nor a canton, where there are not some miraculous images where all sorts of evils are cured and all sorts of good gifts obtained. Who can count the confraternities and congregations founded in her honor? How many religious orders have been founded in her name and under her protection? How many members in these confraternities, and how many religious men and women in all these orders, who publish her praises and confess her mercies! Nay, the very devils in Hell respect her while they fear her! After all that, we must cry out with the saints: “De Maria numquam satis!”—“Of Mary there is never enough!” We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought! She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service!”
“It was only through Mary that God the Father gave His Only-Begotten to the world … He gave Him to Mary, in order that the world might receive Him through her … The Son of God became man for our salvation―but it was in Mary and by Mary … God the Father communicated to Mary the power to produce His Son and all the members of His Mystical Body ... The Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady by producing―in her and by her―Jesus Christ and His members … God the Son wishes to form Himself, to incarnate Himself, in His members by His dear Mother … God the Father wishes to have children by Mary till the consummation of the world … The first man that is born in Mary is the Man-God, Jesus Christ; the second is a mere man, the child of God and Mary by adoption … If Jesus Christ, the Head of men, is born in her, then the predestinate, who are the members of that Head, ought also to be born in her by a necessary consequence … St. Augustine affirms that all the predestinate are, in this world, hidden in the womb of the most holy Virgin―where they are guarded, nourished, brought up and made to grow by that good Mother, until she has brought them forth to glory after death … Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time … The greatest saints, the souls richest in graces and virtues, shall be the most assiduous in praying to our Blessed Lady, and in having her always present as their perfect model for imitation and their powerful aid for help.
“All the true children of God, the predestinate, have God for their Father and Mary for their Mother. He who has not Mary for his Mother, has not God for his Father … Our Blessed Lady is the means Our Lord made use of to come to us. She is also the means which we must make use of to go to Him … To go to Jesus, we must go to Mary … He who shall find Mary, shall find life … But no one can find Mary who does not seek her … No one can seek her who does not know her―for we cannot seek or desire an unknown object. It is necessary, then, that Mary should be more than ever known … Mary must shine forth more than ever in these latter times … God wishes that His holy Mother should be at present more known, more loved, more honored than she has ever been … The Holy Ghost says that a man who honors his mother is like a man who layeth up a treasure―that is to say, he who honors Mary, his Mother, to the extent of subjecting himself to her and obeying her in all things, will soon become exceedingly rich, because he is every day amassing treasures … The more you look at Mary in your prayers, contemplations, actions and sufferings, the more perfectly will you find Jesus Christ, who is always, with Mary …
“The predestinate tenderly love and truly honor our Blessed Lady as their good Mother and Mistress. They love her not only in word but in truth. They honor her not only outwardly but in the depths of their hearts … The predestinate are subject and obedient to our Blessed Lady as to their good Mother, after the example of Jesus Christ, who, of the three and thirty years He lived on Earth, employed thirty to glorify God His Father by a perfect and entire subjection to His holy Mother … The predestinate have also great confidence in the goodness and power of our Blessed Lady, their good Mother. They call incessantly for her help … Lastly, the predestinate keep the ways of our Blessed Lady, their good Mother; that is to say, they imitate her. It is on this point that they are truly happy and truly devout, and bear the infallible mark of their predestination, according to the words this good Mother speaks to them: ‘Blessed are they who practice my virtues’ (Proverbs 8:32), and with the help of divine grace walk in the footsteps of my life.” (St. Louis de Motfort, True Devotion to Mary, various passages).
The Mother of God is YOUR Mother Also!
Mary is more than just the Mother of God―Mary is your Mother too! St. Alphonsus, in his book The Glories of Mary, writes: “A certain sinner once said to Mary, ‘Show thyself a Mother!’ ― but the Blessed Virgin replied, ‘Show thyself a son!’” We expect her to fulfill the role of a “mother” towards us―but do we fulfill our role of a child towards her? We expect to receive many graces from the Mediatrix of All Grace―but are we “in her good graces” by giving things to her. Love is reciprocal―it is a “two-way-street”―it is about giving and not just receiving! We love to read about things that we love―how much do we read about our Mother Mary? We love to think about things that we love―how often do we think about our Mother Mary? We love to talk about things that we love―how often do we talk about Mary? We love to speak to persons whom we love―how often do we speak to Mary? We give gifts to those whom we love―what gifts do we give to Mary? We willingly make sacrifices for people that we love―how many sacrifices do we make for Mary? Our Lord said of some of the Jews: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8)―could Our Lady say the same thing about us?
Today, October 11th, we traditionally celebrate the feast of the Divine Motherhood, or the Divine Maternity―which refers to Our Lady being the Mother of God. “Mother of God” ― it’s just a title, isn’t it? Or is it more than just a title? The title, “Mother of God”, may mean little to most people―but it is no little matter! Most people don’t think twice about that title―yet we should think more about it―especially if we say our Rosary daily. For if we pray the Rosary just once (5 decades) daily, then we are saying or using that title―“Mother of God”― almost 20,000 times a year! We say 50 Hail Marys (plus the 3 Hail Marys at the start) in each Rosary―and in each Hail Mary we say: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners…”―and 53 times 365 (the number of days in a year) gives you a total of 19,345 Hail Marys (which contain the words “Mother of God”) per year. How can we not think twice about something we say almost 20,000 times a year? Yet, sadly, most people are indifferent to the title “Mother of God” ― for it is one of many titles that Our Lady holds!
What could be more important than God? Nothing! That is why we are told: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the greatest and the first commandment!” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31). If God is so important, then the Mother of God must next-in-line in the order of importance. This is what Pope Pius XI said in his encyclical letter, Lux Veritatis, which promulgated the feast of the Divine Motherhood:
“The Blessed Virgin Mary is to be acknowledged and venerated by all as really and truly the Mother of God … There follows of necessity the dogma of the Divine Maternity, which We preach as belonging to the Blessed Virgin Mary … If the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary is God, then she who bore him is rightly and deservedly to be called the Mother of God … Let us all, therefore, venerate the tender Mother of God … From this dogma of the Divine Maternity, as from the outpouring of a hidden spring, there flows forth the singular grace of Mary and her dignity―which is the highest after God … The Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God; therefore she is far more excellent than all the Angels, even the Seraphim and Cherubim. She is the Mother of God; therefore she is most pure and most holy, so that, apart from God, no greater purity can be imagined. She is the Mother of God; therefore whatever privilege (in the order of sanctifying grace) has been granted to any one of the Saints, she obtains it more than all …
“But there is another matter, Venerable Brethren, which We think We should recall in regard to Mary’s office of Maternity, something which is sweeter and more pleasing; namely that she, because she brought forth the Redeemer of mankind, is also in a manner the most tender mother of us all, whom Christ our Lord deigned to have as His brothers … From this it comes that we are all drawn to her by a powerful attraction, that we may confidently entrust to her all things that are ours―namely our joys, if we are gladdened; our troubles, if we are in anguish; our hopes, if we are striving to reach at length to better things. From this it comes that if more difficult times fall upon the Church; if Faith fail, if charity have grown cold, if private and public morals take a turn for the worse; if any danger be hanging over the Catholic name and civil society, we all take refuge with her, imploring heavenly aid. From this it comes, lastly, that in the supreme crisis of death, when no other hope is given, no other help, we lift up to her our tearful eyes and our trembling hands, praying through her for pardon from her Son, and for eternal happiness in Heaven.” (Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Letter, Lux Veritatis, December 25th, 1931).
As Pope Pius XI so rightly says: “From this dogma of the Divine Maternity, there flows forth the singular grace of Mary and her dignity―which is the highest after God … The Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God―she is far more excellent than all the Angels, even the Seraphim and Cherubim. She is the Mother of God―therefore she is most pure and most holy, so that, apart from God, no greater purity can be imagined. She is the Mother of God―therefore whatever privilege has been granted to any one of the Saints, she obtains it more than all!”
No Greater Title!
We often judge the importance of a person by the title they hold. The greater the title―or the higher the rank―then the more respect, honor and esteem that title should be given. For example, we honor a pope more than a cardinal or a bishop; we honor a king or queen more than the prince or princess, or lord or lady; we honor a president more than a senator or governor, etc. After the Holy Trinity―God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost―there is no greater rank than that of the Mother of God. There are some titles that she holds that are a logical consequence of, or extension to, or give a different perspective to the title of “Mother of God” ― such as “Mother of Christ”, or “Mother of the Savior”, or “Mother of the Redeemer” ― but essentially they all refer to God, for Christ is God, the Savior is God, the Redeemer is God. All the other titles of Our Lady refer to something connected to Our Lady and not directly connected to God ― Immaculate Conception; Immaculate Heart of Mary, Sorrowful Heart of Mary, Mother of Mercy; Queen of Heaven and Earth; Virgin Most Pure; Virgin Most Chaste; Virgin Most Powerful; Seat of Wisdom; Queen of Angels, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins & Saints; Refuge of Sinners, Help of Christians; etc. ― all of these focus either on some virtue or quality of Our Lady, or Our Lady’s relation to mankind. Other geographical titles, such as Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Akita, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Czestochowa, Our Lady of Walsingham, etc., merely commemorate Our Lady’s appearances and messages given at those locations. The title “Mother of God” outranks all of these because it is directly and solely connected with God and nothing less than God, nothing inferior to God.
Theotokos ― Mother of God
We should distinguish the term Theotokos from “Mother of God”, because there is a subtle yet important difference. The term Theotokos is more specific and precise and less open to being misinterpreted. Theotokos simply implies that Mary carried God in her womb and gave birth to Him. Mary was the human agent through whom the eternal Son of God took on a human body and a human nature and entered the world. The term Theotokos was a succinct expression of the biblical teaching of the Incarnation ― whereby Christ became man ― and that is how the Council of Ephesus used the word. Mary is the “God-bearer” in the sense that within her body the divine person of God the Son took on human nature in addition to His pre-existing divine nature. Since Jesus is fully God and fully man, it is correct to say that Mary “bore” God.
The term “Mother of God” could be taken wrongly as implying that Mary somehow predated God and was the source, originator or creator of God―which is clearly unbiblical, heretical and nonsensical. The Faith teaches that God is eternal and that Jesus Christ has a pre-existent, divine nature. The title “Mother of God” means that Mary gave birth to Jesus, who is fully God and fully human. Jesus is one person, but He has two natures―His Divine Nature and His human nature. He always possessed His Divine Nature, but He only took on His human nature at the time of the Incarnation, when at the Annunciation, Mary accepted God’s plan to become the Mother of Jesus, Mother of the Son of God, hence Mother of God. She did not create God, but she was chosen by God to provide His Son the human, material, physical aspects that would enable Christ to take on human flesh and a human nature.
God could have done all this miraculously and created the human body and nature of Christ out of nothing―but God chose to use Mary as the vehicle for His Son taking on human flesh and a human nature. We say that she is the “Mother of God” in the sense that she carried in her womb a divine person—Jesus Christ, God “in the flesh” (2 John 7, cf. John 1:14)—and in the sense that she contributed the genetic matter to the human form that God took in Jesus Christ. Pope Pius IX, in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus, defining the Immaculate Conception, asserts that Mary’s maternity was predestined: “From the very beginning, and before time began, the Eternal Father chose and prepared for His only-begotten Son, a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, He would be born into this world.” Thus we are talking about the greatest birth ever known in the history of mankind, to the greatest mother the world has ever known in the history of mankind! How is it that we pretty much indifferent to that? Why does it have little or no effect upon us?
The Mother of God is Our Exemplar
An exemplar is someone or something that is considered to be so good that they should be copied or imitated. After Christ Himself, what better exemplar do we have than Our Blessed Mother? The following words of St. Louis de Montfort, taken from various different sections of his book, True Devotion to Mary, should serve as an encouragement and inspiration in forming a greater love and true devotion towards our heavenly Mother―who is not only the Mother of God, but, in light of Christ’s command from the cross: “Behold they Mother!”, she is also our Mother too. St. Louis writes:
“Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High … Mary is the admirable Mother of the Son … Mary is faithful spouse of the Holy Ghost … Mary is the sanctuary and the repose of the Holy Trinity … Mary is the terrestrial paradise of the New Adam, where He was made flesh by the operation of the Holy Ghost … She is the magnificence of the Most High, most excellent and most precious … The saints have said admirable things of this holy city of God. Yet, after all they have said, they cry out that the height of her merits cannot be fully seen; that the breadth of her charity is in truth immeasurable; that the length of her power―which she exercises even over God Himself―is incomprehensible; and finally, that the depth of her humility and all her virtues and graces, is an abyss which never can be sounded. O height incomprehensible! O breadth unspeakable! O length immeasurable! O abyss impenetrable!
“Every day, from one end of the Earth to the other, everything preaches, everything publishes, the admirable Mary! … The whole Earth is full of her glory, especially among Christians, by whom she is taken as the protectress of many kingdoms, provinces, dioceses and cities. Many cathedrals are consecrated to God under her name. There is not a church without an altar in her honor, not a country, nor a canton, where there are not some miraculous images where all sorts of evils are cured and all sorts of good gifts obtained. Who can count the confraternities and congregations founded in her honor? How many religious orders have been founded in her name and under her protection? How many members in these confraternities, and how many religious men and women in all these orders, who publish her praises and confess her mercies! Nay, the very devils in Hell respect her while they fear her! After all that, we must cry out with the saints: “De Maria numquam satis!”—“Of Mary there is never enough!” We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought! She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service!”
“It was only through Mary that God the Father gave His Only-Begotten to the world … He gave Him to Mary, in order that the world might receive Him through her … The Son of God became man for our salvation―but it was in Mary and by Mary … God the Father communicated to Mary the power to produce His Son and all the members of His Mystical Body ... The Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady by producing―in her and by her―Jesus Christ and His members … God the Son wishes to form Himself, to incarnate Himself, in His members by His dear Mother … God the Father wishes to have children by Mary till the consummation of the world … The first man that is born in Mary is the Man-God, Jesus Christ; the second is a mere man, the child of God and Mary by adoption … If Jesus Christ, the Head of men, is born in her, then the predestinate, who are the members of that Head, ought also to be born in her by a necessary consequence … St. Augustine affirms that all the predestinate are, in this world, hidden in the womb of the most holy Virgin―where they are guarded, nourished, brought up and made to grow by that good Mother, until she has brought them forth to glory after death … Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time … The greatest saints, the souls richest in graces and virtues, shall be the most assiduous in praying to our Blessed Lady, and in having her always present as their perfect model for imitation and their powerful aid for help.
“All the true children of God, the predestinate, have God for their Father and Mary for their Mother. He who has not Mary for his Mother, has not God for his Father … Our Blessed Lady is the means Our Lord made use of to come to us. She is also the means which we must make use of to go to Him … To go to Jesus, we must go to Mary … He who shall find Mary, shall find life … But no one can find Mary who does not seek her … No one can seek her who does not know her―for we cannot seek or desire an unknown object. It is necessary, then, that Mary should be more than ever known … Mary must shine forth more than ever in these latter times … God wishes that His holy Mother should be at present more known, more loved, more honored than she has ever been … The Holy Ghost says that a man who honors his mother is like a man who layeth up a treasure―that is to say, he who honors Mary, his Mother, to the extent of subjecting himself to her and obeying her in all things, will soon become exceedingly rich, because he is every day amassing treasures … The more you look at Mary in your prayers, contemplations, actions and sufferings, the more perfectly will you find Jesus Christ, who is always, with Mary …
“The predestinate tenderly love and truly honor our Blessed Lady as their good Mother and Mistress. They love her not only in word but in truth. They honor her not only outwardly but in the depths of their hearts … The predestinate are subject and obedient to our Blessed Lady as to their good Mother, after the example of Jesus Christ, who, of the three and thirty years He lived on Earth, employed thirty to glorify God His Father by a perfect and entire subjection to His holy Mother … The predestinate have also great confidence in the goodness and power of our Blessed Lady, their good Mother. They call incessantly for her help … Lastly, the predestinate keep the ways of our Blessed Lady, their good Mother; that is to say, they imitate her. It is on this point that they are truly happy and truly devout, and bear the infallible mark of their predestination, according to the words this good Mother speaks to them: ‘Blessed are they who practice my virtues’ (Proverbs 8:32), and with the help of divine grace walk in the footsteps of my life.” (St. Louis de Motfort, True Devotion to Mary, various passages).
The Mother of God is YOUR Mother Also!
Mary is more than just the Mother of God―Mary is your Mother too! St. Alphonsus, in his book The Glories of Mary, writes: “A certain sinner once said to Mary, ‘Show thyself a Mother!’ ― but the Blessed Virgin replied, ‘Show thyself a son!’” We expect her to fulfill the role of a “mother” towards us―but do we fulfill our role of a child towards her? We expect to receive many graces from the Mediatrix of All Grace―but are we “in her good graces” by giving things to her. Love is reciprocal―it is a “two-way-street”―it is about giving and not just receiving! We love to read about things that we love―how much do we read about our Mother Mary? We love to think about things that we love―how often do we think about our Mother Mary? We love to talk about things that we love―how often do we talk about Mary? We love to speak to persons whom we love―how often do we speak to Mary? We give gifts to those whom we love―what gifts do we give to Mary? We willingly make sacrifices for people that we love―how many sacrifices do we make for Mary? Our Lord said of some of the Jews: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8)―could Our Lady say the same thing about us?
Article 6
Sunday October 9th & Monday October 10th, 2022
The Rosary Frees From Sin and Satan
Sunday October 9th & Monday October 10th, 2022
The Rosary Frees From Sin and Satan
More Power Than You Think!
The Rosary has more power than you imagine! It is not for nothing that a prophecy from Middle-Ages states: “One day through the Rosary and the Scapular she will save the world!” made at the chance meeting in Rome between St. Dominic (to whom Our Lady gave the Rosary), St. Francis of Assisi, and the famous preacher from the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, St. Angelus. In the pages of an ancient history of the Carmelite Order—written in medieval Latin by a priest named Fr. Marianus Ventimiglia—we find this historical account:
“Three famous men of God met on a street corner in Rome. They were Friar Dominic, busy gathering recruits to a new Religious Order of Preachers; Brother Francis, the friend of birds and beasts and especially dear to the poor; and Angelus, who had been invited to Rome from Mount Carmel, in Palestine, because of his fame as a preacher. At their chance meeting, by the light of the Holy Spirit each of the three men recognized each other and, in the course of their conversation (as recorded by various followers who were present), they made prophecies to each other. St. Angelus foretold the stigmata of St. Francis, and St. Dominic said: ‘One day, Brother Angelus, to your Order of Carmel the Most Blessed Virgin Mary will give a devotion to be known as the Brown Scapular, and to my Order of Preachers she will give a devotion to be known as the Rosary. ONE DAY, THROUGH THE ROSARY AND THE SCAPULAR, SHE WILL SAVE THE WORLD.’” Today, a chapel on that very same street corner in Rome, commemorates the meeting of St. Dominic, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Angelus.
Simple Prayer, Short Prayer, Superweapon Prayer
The Rosary consists of a few very short prayers, but they have a most powerful effect. The Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be form the backbone and are the essence of the Rosary. If these simple prayers are used well—prayed slowly and with devotion while meditating upon the mysteries—then marvelous results can flow forth. But mark well the words “prayed slowly and with devotion and meditating the mysteries”! That can be a real challenge, even for the best of folk! God is not mocked, and, therefore, we should pray in a manner that manifests our seriousness about what we are doing, and shows that we really want to pray, thereby, saying what we mean, and meaning what we say! Then, a simple prayer can be powerful and will simply produce powerful results. The power of the simple Rosary is beautifully shown by St. Louis de Montfort, when he relates an wonderful incident in his book, The Secret of the Rosary, in the chapter entitled “Thirty-Third Rose” :
When St. Dominic was preaching the Rosary near Carcassone, an Albigensian was brought to him who was possessed by the devil. The Saint exorcised him in the presence of a great crowd of people; it appears that over twelve thousand had come to hear him speak. The devils, who were in possession of this wretched man, were forced to answer St. Dominic’s questions, in spite of themselves. They said:
(1) That there were fifteen thousand of them in the body of that poor man, because he had attacked the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary;
(2) That by the Rosary which he preached, he put fear and horror into the depths of Hell, and that he was the man they hated most throughout the world because of the souls he snatched from them by the devotion of the Rosary.
(3) They revealed several other things.
St. Dominic put his Rosary around the neck of the possessed man and asked them who, of all the saints in Heaven, was the one they feared most, who should, therefore, be the most loved and revered by men.
At this, they let out such unearthly screams, that most of the people fell to the ground, seized with fear. Then, using all their cunning so as not to answer, the devils wept and wailed in such a pitiful way, that many of the people wept also, out of pure natural pity. The devils, speaking through the mouth of the Albigensian, pleaded in a heart-rending voice,
“Dominic, Dominic, have pity on us, we promise you we will never harm you. You have always had compassion for sinners and those in distress; have pity on us, for we are in grievous straits. We are suffering so much already! Why do you delight in increasing our pains? Can’t you be satisfied with the pains we now endure? Have mercy on us, have mercy on us!”
St. Dominic was not in the least moved by the pathetic words of those wretched spirits, and told them he would not let them alone until they had answered his question. Then they said they would whisper the answer, in such a way, that only St. Dominic would be able to hear. The latter firmly insisted upon their answering clearly and audibly. Then the devils kept quiet and would not say another word, completely disregarding St. Dominic’s orders. So he knelt down and said this prayer to Our Lady: “Oh, most glorious Virgin Mary, I implore you by the power of the holy Rosary command these enemies of the human race to answer my question.”
No sooner had he said this prayer than a glowing flame leaped out of the ears, nostrils and mouth of the possessed man. Everyone shook with fear, but the fire did not hurt anyone. Then the devils cried, “Dominic, we beseech you, by the passion of Jesus Christ and the merits of His holy Mother and of all the saints, let us leave the body of this man without speaking further; for the angels will answer your question whenever you wish. After all, are we not liars –so why should you want to believe us? Do not torment us any more, have pity on us.”
“Woe to you, wretched spirits, who do not deserve to be heard,” St. Dominic said, and kneeling down he prayed to the Blessed Virgin: “O most worthy Mother of Wisdom, I am praying for the people assembled here, who have already learned how to say the Angelic Salutation properly. I beg you, for the salvation of those here present, compel these adversaries of yours to proclaim the whole truth here and now before the people.”
St. Dominic had scarcely finished this prayer when he saw the Blessed Virgin near at hand surrounded by a multitude of angels. She struck the possessed man with a golden rod, that she held, and said, “Answer my servant Dominic at once.” (It must be noted that the people neither saw nor heard Our Lady, only St. Dominic.)
Then the devils started screaming: “Oh, you who are enemy, our downfall and our destruction, why have you come from Heaven to torture us so grievously? O advocate of sinners, you who snatch them from the very jaws of Hell, you who are a most sure path to Heaven, must we, in spite of ourselves, tell the whole truth and confess before everyone who it is who is the cause of our shame and our ruin? Oh, woe to us, princes of darkness.
“Then listen, you Christians. This Mother of Jesus is most powerful in saving her servants from falling into Hell. She is like the sun which destroys the darkness of our wiles and subtlety. It is she who uncovers our hidden plots, breaks our snares, and makes our temptations useless and ineffective.
“We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us; one single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints. We fear her more than all the other saints in Heaven together, and we have no success with her faithful servants.
“Many Christians, who call on her at the hour of death, and who really ought to be damned according to our ordinary standards, are saved by her intercession. And if that Marietta (it is thus in their fury they called her) did not counter our plans and our efforts, we should have overcome the Church and destroyed it long before this, and caused all the Orders in the Church to fall into error and infidelity.
“Now that we are forced to speak, we must also tell you that nobody who perseveres in saying the Rosary will be damned, because she obtains, for her servants, the grace of true contrition for their sins by which they obtain pardon and mercy.”
Then St. Dominic had all the people say the Rosary very slowly and with great devotion, and a wonderful thing happened: at each Hail Mary, which he and the people said, a large number of devils issued forth from the wretched man’s body, under the guise of red-hot coals. When the devils had all been expelled and the heretic completely delivered from them, Our Lady, although invisible, gave her blessing to the assembled company, and they were filled with joy. (The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Third Rose”).
Popes Praise the Power of the Rosary
► POPE ADRIAN VI said: “The Rosary is the scourge of the devil!”
► POPE LEO XIII wrote: “Devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary is most opportune for the needs of these times … It is the remedy for all our evils, the root of all our blessings. There is no more excellent way of praying! … Thanks to this new method of prayer—when adopted and properly carried out as instituted by the Holy Father, St. Dominic—piety, Faith and union began to return, and the projects and devices of the heretics to fall to pieces … By it [praying the Holy Rosary] the Church triumphed magnificently over every obstacle … The invincible Queen of the Rosary, has such great power over the forces of Hell!”
► BLESSED POPE PIUS IX said: “Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world!”
► POPE ST. PIUS X stated: “If there were one million families praying the Rosary every day, the entire world would be saved.”
► POPE PIUS XI wrote that “The Rosary is a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight and a most powerful weapon to overcome the devil ... to put the demons to flight and to keep oneself from sin … It serves admirably to overcome the enemies of God and of religion!”
► POPE PIUS XI also wrote that “If our age in its pride laughs at and rejects Our Lady’s Rosary, a countless legion of the most saintly men of every age and of every condition have―not only held it most dear and have most piously recited it―but have also used it at all times as a most powerful weapon to overcome the devil, to preserve the purity of their lives, to acquire virtue more zealously, in a word, to promote peace among men.”
► POPE PIUS XII stated: “We do not hesitate to affirm publicly that We put great confidence in the Holy Rosary for the healing of evils of our times! … The Christian people should be led to understand the dignity, the power and the excellence of the Rosary.”
Saints Praise the Power of the Rosary
► ST. DOMINIC: “The Rosary is a fortress against evil. It is a sign to Satan that you belong to Our Lady!”
► ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT: “The Hail Mary well said—that is, with attention, devotion, and modesty—is, according to the saints, the enemy of the devil, which puts him to flight, and the hammer which crushes him!” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, §253). This is echoed by the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, who said: “During an exorcism, Satan told me, through the possessed person: ‘Every Hail Mary of the Rosary is a blow to the head for me! If Christians knew the power of the Rosary, it would be the end of me!’”
“Never will anyone, who says his Rosary every day, become a formal heretic, or be led astray by the devil. This is a statement which I would sign with my blood!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, 25th Rose).
“If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins, you shall receive a never fading crown of glory. For even if you are now on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in Hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil ― sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and save your soul, if ― and mark well what I say ― if you say the Holy Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, A Red Rose).
One day, St. Dominic prayed to Our Lady that she would force the devils, who possessed a man whom he was exorcizing, to reveal the truth about devotion to her. The devils were forced by Our Lady to reveal the following. Listen to what the devils said: “Now that we are forced to speak we must also tell you this: Nobody who perseveres in saying the Rosary will be damned, because she obtains for her servants the grace of true contrition for their sins and by means of this they obtain God’s forgiveness and mercy.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, 33rd Rose).
► ST. PADRE PIO OF PIETRELCINA: Convinced of the power of the Rosary, Padre Pio always held the Rosary in his hands. He used to carry, permanently, a Rosary in his hands and would pray it many times a day. Fr. Marcellino testified that he had to help Padre Pio wash his hands one at a time, “because he didn’t want to let go of the Rosary beads, and passed the Rosary from one hand to the other.” Padre Pio always wore the Rosary around his arm at night. A few days before his death, as Padre Pio was getting into bed, he said to the friars who were in his room: “Give me my weapon!” And the friars, surprised and curious, asked him: “Where is the weapon? We cannot see anything!” Padre Pio replied: “It is in my habit, which you have just hung up!” After having gone through the pockets of his religious habit, the friars said to him: “Padre, there is no weapon in your habit! . . . We can only find your Rosary beads there!” Padre Pio immediately said: “And is this not a weapon? ... The true weapon?!”
Padre Pio further adds: “Some people are so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Blessed Mother. Love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for her Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world today! … Always say the Rosary. Say it well. Say it as often as you can! Be souls of prayer. Never tire of praying―it is what is essential! … The Rosary is the weapon for these times! … The Rosary is THE weapon! … With this weapon you will win!”
► ST. JOHN VIANNEY: Praying the Rosary keeps you from sin ― “It is impossible to meditate with devotion upon the mysteries of the Rosary and live in a state of sin.”
Exorcists Praise the Power of the Rosary
► FR. GABRIELE AMORTH (recently deceased [2016] chief exorcist of Rome): During exorcisms he invokes Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces, and had his assistants pray the Rosary silently during the time of exorcism. “One day a colleague of mine heard the devil say during an exorcism: ‘Every Hail Mary is like a blow on my head! If Christians knew how powerful the Rosary was, it would be my end!’ The secret that makes this prayer so effective is that the Rosary is both prayer and meditation ... Spread this powerful prayer of exorcism! Anyone who goes to Mary and prays the Rosary cannot be touched by Satan. Is it any wonder that anyone who prays the Rosary from the heart is so blessed and protected and powerful in their prayers for others? … The demon is terrified of Mary. Pray the Rosary. It is an extremely powerful weapon against the devil and will give us strong protection and liberation from evil. Sr. Lucia of Fatima revealed that God conferred a power so great on the Rosary that there is no evil: personal, family or social that cannot be defeated by praying the Rosary with Faith.”
► MSGR. STEPHEN ROSSETTI (71-year-old Chief Exorcist of the Archdiocese of Washington for over 13 years). “One of the most powerful [weapons] is the Rosary. Pray it daily to cast out Satan and to invoke the aid of the Blessed Mother! ... One night, I had just gone to bed, but hadn't fallen asleep yet. Suddenly I was invisibly attacked. It was unbelievably powerful and incredibly fast. With a graced insight, I instantly knew what it was. Satan was attacking me. And I was going to be quickly overwhelmed. My Rosary beads were on the table at the foot of my bed. The moment the attack started, I instantly thought of these beads. I lunged out of bed and thrust out my hand to grab my Rosary. The demons were attacking me―so I grabbed my Rosary and held it up … The instant I touched the beads, the attack stopped. Instantly, the demons were undone and fled! … I go throughout the day with the Rosary in my hands!”
► FR. AMBROGIO VILLA (Exorcist of the Archdiocese of Milan, Italy). Fr. Ambrogio Villa, exorcist priest of the diocese of Milan, during an exorcism on October 7th, 2019, in Milan, Italy, forced the devil to reveal the power that the Rosary had over him. The devil said: “The Rosary is destroying me! Every Hail Mary is like a blow that pierces my mind. It is a simple prayer that not everyone prays. But the one who makes it is united to the lives of Christ and Mary. My mind is pierced with pounding pain whenever I hear someone pick up that chain! I can't stand it! I also get irritated when people hold it in their hands, even when they are not praying it! I can't stand it! But Mary loves this prayer. Whoever prays it in the family has a special protection from her. I cannot enter into that home. I have not been given permission. Because the power of the Holy Rosary in the family crushes me. And in those families, even if there is only one person who prays the Rosary, it can save the others in the family … The mysteries that she likes the most are the Sorrowful Mysteries, those of the Passion of Christ, because there found the entire salvation of the human race … But to whoever recites the Rosary, I come to disturb this person by thoughts, disturbances and distractions … You should pray with the children. Teach them this prayer before I start to tempt them, because afterwards I steal their purity. Mothers should pray the Rosary for these children―because I want to destroy the family and the young ones! … Those who pray the Rosary receive so many graces! Really many, many graces! I can't stand it!”
Satanist Priest Becomes a Rosary Promoting Dominican
Bartolo Longo, was born into a wealthy family on February 10th, 1841 in the small town of Latiano, near Brindisi, in southern Italy. His parents were devout Roman Catholics. In 1851, when he was only 10 years old, Longo’s father died and his mother remarried a lawyer. Despite Longo’s stepfather wanting him to become a teacher, Longo was set on becoming a lawyer. In 1861, now aged 20, Longo succeeded in convincing his stepfather and was sent to the University of Naples to study law. Unfortunately, as is increasingly often the case, when he went to university, he began to drift away from his Catholic Faith. Many of his professors were ex-priests preaching nationalist venom against the Church. He was quickly caught up in their fervor. “I, too, grew to hate monks, priests and the Pope,” he would later write, “and in particular [I detested] the Dominicans, the most formidable, furious opponents of those great modern professors, proclaimed by the university the sons of progress, the defenders of science, the champions of every sort of freedom.”
At that time, in the 1860s, the Catholic Church in Italy found itself at odds with a strong secular nationalistic movement. General Giuseppe Garibaldi, who played a key role in Italian unification, saw the Pope as an antagonist to Italian nationalism and actively campaigned for the elimination of the papal office altogether.
The Catholic Church in Europe was also competing with a growing popularity in Spiritualism and Occultism. Because of this, many students at the University of Naples took part in demonstrations against the pope, dabbled in witchcraft and consulted Neapolitan mediums. Bartolo Longo became involved with a movement that he claimed led him into a Satanist cult. He took part in séances, fortune-telling, and the sexual depravity of orgies which are part of satanic worship. Along with the Satanism came a deep hatred of Catholicism and active attempts to destroy the Faith of others and draw them into the occult. After some study and several ‘spiritual’ experiences Longo said that he was ordained as a satanic priest.
In the following years, Bartolo Longo’s life became a descent into darkness and brought about inner despair, depression, paranoia, nervousness, confusion and hatred. He began to be horribly afflicted by dark diabolical visions which frightened him and threw him into a cycle of ever declining health. He ultimately experienced a mental and emotional breakdown. In his despair, he heard the voice of his deceased father urging him to “Return to God! Return to God!”
His family back home tried to talk him out of the path he had chosen―but to no avail. They began to pray and to ask for help from whoever might lend a hand. Professor Vincenzo Pepe, a solidly Catholic professor at the university, responded. He was family friend from Bartolo’s home town. He sought out Bartolo, accosting him, and saying: “Do you want to die in an insane asylum and be damned forever?” Bartolo couldn’t ignore the psychological and physiological state he was in. In his fear and despair, he felt obliged to turn to Professor Pepe for guidance―who told him to renounce Satan and meet with a priest. It was Vincenzo Pepe who convinced him, in Longo’s account, to abandon Satanism and introduced him to the Dominican priest, Fr. Alberto Radente, who heard his Confession and helped him to further reclaim his life by leading him to a devotion to the Rosary. After three weeks of lengthy conversations, on the feast of the Sacred Heart in 1865, was able to welcome him back into the Church and give him absolution. To keep an eye on him, Professor Pepe allowed Bartolo to move in with him and started to surround him with faithful and dedicated Catholics.
Each day for two years, as a voluntarily-imposed penance, Bartolo worked in the Neapolitan Hospital for Incurables. He prayed. He became a third-order Dominican. He made a promise of celibacy to serve God with an undivided heart. He sought to do reparation for his scandal by returning to his Satanist hangouts, holding up the Rosary and publicly renouncing his former ways. On one occasion, for example, he interrupted a séance by holding up a medal of Our Lady and proclaiming out loud to all present: “I renounce Spiritualism because it is nothing but a maze of error and falsehood!” Nevertheless, the devil did not give up easily and Bartolo Longo was still wracked with guilt and despair. He couldn’t forgive himself or see how God could ever forgive him. One day, while fulfilling some legal business in Pompeii for his client Countess Mariana di Fusco, and seeing how great was the people’s poverty, ignorance, moral corruption and dependence on witchcraft, God helped him to see both how he could be saved and how he could spend his life saving others.
One evening, as he walked near a chapel at Pompeii, Bartolo had a profound mystical experience. He wrote: “One day in the fields around Pompeii, I recalled my former condition as a priest of Satan … I thought that perhaps, as the priesthood of Christ is for eternity, so also the priesthood of Satan is for eternity. So, despite my repentance, I thought: ‘I am still consecrated to Satan, and I am still his slave and property as he awaits me in Hell!’ As I pondered over my condition, I experienced a deep sense of despair and almost committed suicide. Then I heard an echo in my ear of the voice of Fr. Alberto repeating the words of the Blessed Virgin Mary: ‘He who promotes my Rosary shall be saved.’ Falling to my knees, I exclaimed: ‘If your words are true that he who propagates your Rosary will be saved, I shall reach salvation―because I shall not leave this Earth without propagating your Rosary!’ This reminds us of the promise of Our Lady to St. Dominic: “He who promotes my Rosary will be saved.” Longo wrote that this promise is what convinced him to encourage public devotion to the Rosary.
On October 7th, 1871―the feast of the Holy Rosary―Bartolo Longo, now aged 30, became a Dominican tertiary and took the name “Brother Rosario”. Around this time, he also came into contact with some Franciscans with whom he helped the poor and incurably ill for two years. Bartolo also kept up his law practice, which took him to the nearby village of Pompei. He went to Pompei to take care of the legal affairs of Countess Marianna Farnararo De Fusco.
With the help of Countess Mariana di Fusco, he inaugurated a confraternity of the Holy Rosary and, in October 1873, started restoring a dilapidated church in Pompeii as a church in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary. To serve as a spiritual focus for this group, Bartolo needed a painting of the Blessed Virgin. Sister Maria Concetta de Litala, of the Monastery of the Rosary at Porta Medina, offered him one that she got at a Neapolitan junk shop. She paid only 3.40 lire ― a tiny, insignificant sum even at the time. The painting portrayed Our Lady of the Rosary with St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena. Though it was of modest artistic accomplishment and in very poor condition, it served Bartolo’s purpose. He described it in his journal: “Not only was it worm-eaten, but the face of the Madonna was that of a coarse, rough country-woman. A piece of canvas was missing just above her head. .Her mantle was cracked! Nothing need be said of the hideousness of the other figures! St. Dominic looked like a street idiot! To Our Lady’s left was a St. Rose. This I had changed later into a St. Catherine of Siena. I hesitated whether to refuse the gift or to accept. I took it!” After a restoration and beautification of the ‘ugly’ picture, he installed the painting of Our Lady of the Rosary in the dilapidated church of Our Lady of the Rosary which he had also restored and beautified. Within hours of its installation miracles began to be reported and people came to the church in droves.
He also sponsored a festival in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary. Within five years work was started on a larger church. It was consecrated in 1891. In 1939 the church was enlarged and re-consecrated and officially renamed the Basilica of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of Pompeii.
The former Satanist eventually became a friend of Pope Leo XIII, who had a great devotion to the Rosary. At the suggestion of Pope Leo XIII, Bartolo Longo (then aged 44) and the Countess Mariana di Fusco were married on April 7th, 1885. The couple remained continent (abstained from intercourse), and continued to do many charitable works and founded orphanages, elementary schools, and a technical school to give the children of convicted criminals the opportunity to succeed ―which was radical for its time.
In Pompei, Bartolo Longo later recounted that he was shocked at the erosion of the people’s Faith. He wrote: “Their religion was a mixture of superstition and popular tradition. ... For their every need ... they would go to a witch, a sorceress, in order to obtain charms and witchcraft.” Through talking to the citizens, Bartolo Longo came to recognize their severe lack of catechesis. When he asked one man if there was only one God, the fellow answered: “When I was a child, I remember people telling me there were three! Now, after so many years, I don’t know if one of them is dead or one has married!”
Bartolo Longo continued to promote the Rosary until his death in 1926 at the ripe old age of 85. His final words were: “My only desire is to see Mary―who saved me and will save me from the clutches of Satan.” Almost immediately the cause for his canonization was opened. On October 26th, 1980, he was beatified (given the title “Blessed”) by Pope John Paul II, who called him the “Apostle of the Rosary.”Pope Benedict XVI visited the shrine in October 2008, and took the opportunity to consecrate the world to Mary. In his homily, the Pope said Bartolo Longo was like St. Paul―who, after first persecuting the Church, became her humble servant: “Wherever God comes in this desert, flowers bloom! Even Blessed Bartolo Longo, with his personal conversion, bears witness to this spiritual power that transforms man from within and makes him capable of doing great things according to God’s designs!”
Fifteen Promises Concerning the Holy Rosary
Just as Barolo Longo was greatly encouraged and strengthened by the words: “He who promotes my Rosary shall be saved!” ― which is actually a combination of several promises made by Our Lady in her “Fifteen Promises of the Rosary” ― let us then look at those promises to encourage ourselves. Our Lady is said to have given the following promises concerning the Rosary to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan de la Roche. They should give great encouragement to those who faithfully pray the Rosary―or give a great incentive to pray the Rosary to those who do not pray, or rarely pray it. They are as follows.
(1) Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal [notable/major] graces.
(2) I promise my special protection and the greatest graces, to all who shall recite the Rosary.
(3) The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against Hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies.
(4) It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. O that souls would sanctify themselves by this means!
(5) The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall not perish.
(6) Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its sacred mysteries, shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice; he shall not perish by an unprovided death; and, if he be just, he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life.
(7) Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary, shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church.
(8) Those who are faithful in reciting the Rosary shall have, during their life and at their death, the light of God and the plenitude of His graces; and, at the moment of death, they shall participate in the merits of the saints in Paradise.
(9) I shall deliver from Purgatory, those who have been devoted to the Rosary.
(10) The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven.
(11) You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.
(12) All those who propagate the Holy Rosary, shall be aided by me in their necessities.
(13) I have obtained from my Divine Son, that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors, the entire celestial court, during their life and at the hour of death.
(14) All who recite the Rosary are my sons, and brothers of my only Son Jesus Christ.
(15) Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.
Our Lady Demands the Rosary
Let us finish with the words of Our Lady herself concerning the Holy Rosary. The following quotes are merely the tip of a massive ‘iceberg’ of quotes that could be used.
“If you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Rosary!” (Our Lady to St. Dominic).
“When you give a sermon, urge people to say my Rosary, and in this way your words will bear much fruit for souls” (Our Lady to St. Dominic).
“When you say your Rosary, the angels rejoice, the Blessed Trinity delights in it, my Son finds joy in it too, and I myself am happier than you can possibly guess. After the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, there is nothing in the Church that I love as much as the Rosary” (Our Lady to Blessed Alan de la Roche).
“You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.” (Our Lady to Blessed Alan de la Roche).
“Pray and let the Rosary always be in your hands as a sign to Satan that you belong to me.” (Our Lady to St. Simon Stock).
“‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!’ No creature has ever said anything that was more pleasing to me, nor will anyone ever be able to find or say to me anything that pleases me more” (Our Lady to Saint Mechtilde).
“Making the Rosary a family prayer is very pleasing to me. I ask that all families strive to do so. But be careful to say the Rosary with great devotion, meditating on each mystery and striving to imitate in your daily lives the virtues depicted. Live the mysteries of the Rosary as I lived them, and it will become a chain binding you to me forever. They who are found in the circle of my Rosary will never be lost. I myself will lead them at death to the throne of my Son, to be eternally united to Him” (Our Lady of America).
At Fatima Our Lady repeatedly demanded that the Rosary be prayed: “Pray the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war!” (May 1917) … “Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and the end of the war … (June 1917) … “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you! … If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted!” (July 1917) … “Continue to say the Rosary every day! … Pray, pray very much!” (August 1917) … “Continue to pray the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war!” (September 1917) … “I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (October 1917).
“Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary. I alone am able to save you from the calamities which approach!” (Our Lady in Akita, Japan).
“The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!” (Our Lady in Akita, Japan).
The Rosary has more power than you imagine! It is not for nothing that a prophecy from Middle-Ages states: “One day through the Rosary and the Scapular she will save the world!” made at the chance meeting in Rome between St. Dominic (to whom Our Lady gave the Rosary), St. Francis of Assisi, and the famous preacher from the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, St. Angelus. In the pages of an ancient history of the Carmelite Order—written in medieval Latin by a priest named Fr. Marianus Ventimiglia—we find this historical account:
“Three famous men of God met on a street corner in Rome. They were Friar Dominic, busy gathering recruits to a new Religious Order of Preachers; Brother Francis, the friend of birds and beasts and especially dear to the poor; and Angelus, who had been invited to Rome from Mount Carmel, in Palestine, because of his fame as a preacher. At their chance meeting, by the light of the Holy Spirit each of the three men recognized each other and, in the course of their conversation (as recorded by various followers who were present), they made prophecies to each other. St. Angelus foretold the stigmata of St. Francis, and St. Dominic said: ‘One day, Brother Angelus, to your Order of Carmel the Most Blessed Virgin Mary will give a devotion to be known as the Brown Scapular, and to my Order of Preachers she will give a devotion to be known as the Rosary. ONE DAY, THROUGH THE ROSARY AND THE SCAPULAR, SHE WILL SAVE THE WORLD.’” Today, a chapel on that very same street corner in Rome, commemorates the meeting of St. Dominic, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Angelus.
Simple Prayer, Short Prayer, Superweapon Prayer
The Rosary consists of a few very short prayers, but they have a most powerful effect. The Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be form the backbone and are the essence of the Rosary. If these simple prayers are used well—prayed slowly and with devotion while meditating upon the mysteries—then marvelous results can flow forth. But mark well the words “prayed slowly and with devotion and meditating the mysteries”! That can be a real challenge, even for the best of folk! God is not mocked, and, therefore, we should pray in a manner that manifests our seriousness about what we are doing, and shows that we really want to pray, thereby, saying what we mean, and meaning what we say! Then, a simple prayer can be powerful and will simply produce powerful results. The power of the simple Rosary is beautifully shown by St. Louis de Montfort, when he relates an wonderful incident in his book, The Secret of the Rosary, in the chapter entitled “Thirty-Third Rose” :
When St. Dominic was preaching the Rosary near Carcassone, an Albigensian was brought to him who was possessed by the devil. The Saint exorcised him in the presence of a great crowd of people; it appears that over twelve thousand had come to hear him speak. The devils, who were in possession of this wretched man, were forced to answer St. Dominic’s questions, in spite of themselves. They said:
(1) That there were fifteen thousand of them in the body of that poor man, because he had attacked the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary;
(2) That by the Rosary which he preached, he put fear and horror into the depths of Hell, and that he was the man they hated most throughout the world because of the souls he snatched from them by the devotion of the Rosary.
(3) They revealed several other things.
St. Dominic put his Rosary around the neck of the possessed man and asked them who, of all the saints in Heaven, was the one they feared most, who should, therefore, be the most loved and revered by men.
At this, they let out such unearthly screams, that most of the people fell to the ground, seized with fear. Then, using all their cunning so as not to answer, the devils wept and wailed in such a pitiful way, that many of the people wept also, out of pure natural pity. The devils, speaking through the mouth of the Albigensian, pleaded in a heart-rending voice,
“Dominic, Dominic, have pity on us, we promise you we will never harm you. You have always had compassion for sinners and those in distress; have pity on us, for we are in grievous straits. We are suffering so much already! Why do you delight in increasing our pains? Can’t you be satisfied with the pains we now endure? Have mercy on us, have mercy on us!”
St. Dominic was not in the least moved by the pathetic words of those wretched spirits, and told them he would not let them alone until they had answered his question. Then they said they would whisper the answer, in such a way, that only St. Dominic would be able to hear. The latter firmly insisted upon their answering clearly and audibly. Then the devils kept quiet and would not say another word, completely disregarding St. Dominic’s orders. So he knelt down and said this prayer to Our Lady: “Oh, most glorious Virgin Mary, I implore you by the power of the holy Rosary command these enemies of the human race to answer my question.”
No sooner had he said this prayer than a glowing flame leaped out of the ears, nostrils and mouth of the possessed man. Everyone shook with fear, but the fire did not hurt anyone. Then the devils cried, “Dominic, we beseech you, by the passion of Jesus Christ and the merits of His holy Mother and of all the saints, let us leave the body of this man without speaking further; for the angels will answer your question whenever you wish. After all, are we not liars –so why should you want to believe us? Do not torment us any more, have pity on us.”
“Woe to you, wretched spirits, who do not deserve to be heard,” St. Dominic said, and kneeling down he prayed to the Blessed Virgin: “O most worthy Mother of Wisdom, I am praying for the people assembled here, who have already learned how to say the Angelic Salutation properly. I beg you, for the salvation of those here present, compel these adversaries of yours to proclaim the whole truth here and now before the people.”
St. Dominic had scarcely finished this prayer when he saw the Blessed Virgin near at hand surrounded by a multitude of angels. She struck the possessed man with a golden rod, that she held, and said, “Answer my servant Dominic at once.” (It must be noted that the people neither saw nor heard Our Lady, only St. Dominic.)
Then the devils started screaming: “Oh, you who are enemy, our downfall and our destruction, why have you come from Heaven to torture us so grievously? O advocate of sinners, you who snatch them from the very jaws of Hell, you who are a most sure path to Heaven, must we, in spite of ourselves, tell the whole truth and confess before everyone who it is who is the cause of our shame and our ruin? Oh, woe to us, princes of darkness.
“Then listen, you Christians. This Mother of Jesus is most powerful in saving her servants from falling into Hell. She is like the sun which destroys the darkness of our wiles and subtlety. It is she who uncovers our hidden plots, breaks our snares, and makes our temptations useless and ineffective.
“We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us; one single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints. We fear her more than all the other saints in Heaven together, and we have no success with her faithful servants.
“Many Christians, who call on her at the hour of death, and who really ought to be damned according to our ordinary standards, are saved by her intercession. And if that Marietta (it is thus in their fury they called her) did not counter our plans and our efforts, we should have overcome the Church and destroyed it long before this, and caused all the Orders in the Church to fall into error and infidelity.
“Now that we are forced to speak, we must also tell you that nobody who perseveres in saying the Rosary will be damned, because she obtains, for her servants, the grace of true contrition for their sins by which they obtain pardon and mercy.”
Then St. Dominic had all the people say the Rosary very slowly and with great devotion, and a wonderful thing happened: at each Hail Mary, which he and the people said, a large number of devils issued forth from the wretched man’s body, under the guise of red-hot coals. When the devils had all been expelled and the heretic completely delivered from them, Our Lady, although invisible, gave her blessing to the assembled company, and they were filled with joy. (The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Third Rose”).
Popes Praise the Power of the Rosary
► POPE ADRIAN VI said: “The Rosary is the scourge of the devil!”
► POPE LEO XIII wrote: “Devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary is most opportune for the needs of these times … It is the remedy for all our evils, the root of all our blessings. There is no more excellent way of praying! … Thanks to this new method of prayer—when adopted and properly carried out as instituted by the Holy Father, St. Dominic—piety, Faith and union began to return, and the projects and devices of the heretics to fall to pieces … By it [praying the Holy Rosary] the Church triumphed magnificently over every obstacle … The invincible Queen of the Rosary, has such great power over the forces of Hell!”
► BLESSED POPE PIUS IX said: “Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world!”
► POPE ST. PIUS X stated: “If there were one million families praying the Rosary every day, the entire world would be saved.”
► POPE PIUS XI wrote that “The Rosary is a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight and a most powerful weapon to overcome the devil ... to put the demons to flight and to keep oneself from sin … It serves admirably to overcome the enemies of God and of religion!”
► POPE PIUS XI also wrote that “If our age in its pride laughs at and rejects Our Lady’s Rosary, a countless legion of the most saintly men of every age and of every condition have―not only held it most dear and have most piously recited it―but have also used it at all times as a most powerful weapon to overcome the devil, to preserve the purity of their lives, to acquire virtue more zealously, in a word, to promote peace among men.”
► POPE PIUS XII stated: “We do not hesitate to affirm publicly that We put great confidence in the Holy Rosary for the healing of evils of our times! … The Christian people should be led to understand the dignity, the power and the excellence of the Rosary.”
Saints Praise the Power of the Rosary
► ST. DOMINIC: “The Rosary is a fortress against evil. It is a sign to Satan that you belong to Our Lady!”
► ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT: “The Hail Mary well said—that is, with attention, devotion, and modesty—is, according to the saints, the enemy of the devil, which puts him to flight, and the hammer which crushes him!” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, §253). This is echoed by the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, who said: “During an exorcism, Satan told me, through the possessed person: ‘Every Hail Mary of the Rosary is a blow to the head for me! If Christians knew the power of the Rosary, it would be the end of me!’”
“Never will anyone, who says his Rosary every day, become a formal heretic, or be led astray by the devil. This is a statement which I would sign with my blood!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, 25th Rose).
“If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins, you shall receive a never fading crown of glory. For even if you are now on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in Hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil ― sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and save your soul, if ― and mark well what I say ― if you say the Holy Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, A Red Rose).
One day, St. Dominic prayed to Our Lady that she would force the devils, who possessed a man whom he was exorcizing, to reveal the truth about devotion to her. The devils were forced by Our Lady to reveal the following. Listen to what the devils said: “Now that we are forced to speak we must also tell you this: Nobody who perseveres in saying the Rosary will be damned, because she obtains for her servants the grace of true contrition for their sins and by means of this they obtain God’s forgiveness and mercy.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, 33rd Rose).
► ST. PADRE PIO OF PIETRELCINA: Convinced of the power of the Rosary, Padre Pio always held the Rosary in his hands. He used to carry, permanently, a Rosary in his hands and would pray it many times a day. Fr. Marcellino testified that he had to help Padre Pio wash his hands one at a time, “because he didn’t want to let go of the Rosary beads, and passed the Rosary from one hand to the other.” Padre Pio always wore the Rosary around his arm at night. A few days before his death, as Padre Pio was getting into bed, he said to the friars who were in his room: “Give me my weapon!” And the friars, surprised and curious, asked him: “Where is the weapon? We cannot see anything!” Padre Pio replied: “It is in my habit, which you have just hung up!” After having gone through the pockets of his religious habit, the friars said to him: “Padre, there is no weapon in your habit! . . . We can only find your Rosary beads there!” Padre Pio immediately said: “And is this not a weapon? ... The true weapon?!”
Padre Pio further adds: “Some people are so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Blessed Mother. Love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for her Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world today! … Always say the Rosary. Say it well. Say it as often as you can! Be souls of prayer. Never tire of praying―it is what is essential! … The Rosary is the weapon for these times! … The Rosary is THE weapon! … With this weapon you will win!”
► ST. JOHN VIANNEY: Praying the Rosary keeps you from sin ― “It is impossible to meditate with devotion upon the mysteries of the Rosary and live in a state of sin.”
Exorcists Praise the Power of the Rosary
► FR. GABRIELE AMORTH (recently deceased [2016] chief exorcist of Rome): During exorcisms he invokes Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces, and had his assistants pray the Rosary silently during the time of exorcism. “One day a colleague of mine heard the devil say during an exorcism: ‘Every Hail Mary is like a blow on my head! If Christians knew how powerful the Rosary was, it would be my end!’ The secret that makes this prayer so effective is that the Rosary is both prayer and meditation ... Spread this powerful prayer of exorcism! Anyone who goes to Mary and prays the Rosary cannot be touched by Satan. Is it any wonder that anyone who prays the Rosary from the heart is so blessed and protected and powerful in their prayers for others? … The demon is terrified of Mary. Pray the Rosary. It is an extremely powerful weapon against the devil and will give us strong protection and liberation from evil. Sr. Lucia of Fatima revealed that God conferred a power so great on the Rosary that there is no evil: personal, family or social that cannot be defeated by praying the Rosary with Faith.”
► MSGR. STEPHEN ROSSETTI (71-year-old Chief Exorcist of the Archdiocese of Washington for over 13 years). “One of the most powerful [weapons] is the Rosary. Pray it daily to cast out Satan and to invoke the aid of the Blessed Mother! ... One night, I had just gone to bed, but hadn't fallen asleep yet. Suddenly I was invisibly attacked. It was unbelievably powerful and incredibly fast. With a graced insight, I instantly knew what it was. Satan was attacking me. And I was going to be quickly overwhelmed. My Rosary beads were on the table at the foot of my bed. The moment the attack started, I instantly thought of these beads. I lunged out of bed and thrust out my hand to grab my Rosary. The demons were attacking me―so I grabbed my Rosary and held it up … The instant I touched the beads, the attack stopped. Instantly, the demons were undone and fled! … I go throughout the day with the Rosary in my hands!”
► FR. AMBROGIO VILLA (Exorcist of the Archdiocese of Milan, Italy). Fr. Ambrogio Villa, exorcist priest of the diocese of Milan, during an exorcism on October 7th, 2019, in Milan, Italy, forced the devil to reveal the power that the Rosary had over him. The devil said: “The Rosary is destroying me! Every Hail Mary is like a blow that pierces my mind. It is a simple prayer that not everyone prays. But the one who makes it is united to the lives of Christ and Mary. My mind is pierced with pounding pain whenever I hear someone pick up that chain! I can't stand it! I also get irritated when people hold it in their hands, even when they are not praying it! I can't stand it! But Mary loves this prayer. Whoever prays it in the family has a special protection from her. I cannot enter into that home. I have not been given permission. Because the power of the Holy Rosary in the family crushes me. And in those families, even if there is only one person who prays the Rosary, it can save the others in the family … The mysteries that she likes the most are the Sorrowful Mysteries, those of the Passion of Christ, because there found the entire salvation of the human race … But to whoever recites the Rosary, I come to disturb this person by thoughts, disturbances and distractions … You should pray with the children. Teach them this prayer before I start to tempt them, because afterwards I steal their purity. Mothers should pray the Rosary for these children―because I want to destroy the family and the young ones! … Those who pray the Rosary receive so many graces! Really many, many graces! I can't stand it!”
Satanist Priest Becomes a Rosary Promoting Dominican
Bartolo Longo, was born into a wealthy family on February 10th, 1841 in the small town of Latiano, near Brindisi, in southern Italy. His parents were devout Roman Catholics. In 1851, when he was only 10 years old, Longo’s father died and his mother remarried a lawyer. Despite Longo’s stepfather wanting him to become a teacher, Longo was set on becoming a lawyer. In 1861, now aged 20, Longo succeeded in convincing his stepfather and was sent to the University of Naples to study law. Unfortunately, as is increasingly often the case, when he went to university, he began to drift away from his Catholic Faith. Many of his professors were ex-priests preaching nationalist venom against the Church. He was quickly caught up in their fervor. “I, too, grew to hate monks, priests and the Pope,” he would later write, “and in particular [I detested] the Dominicans, the most formidable, furious opponents of those great modern professors, proclaimed by the university the sons of progress, the defenders of science, the champions of every sort of freedom.”
At that time, in the 1860s, the Catholic Church in Italy found itself at odds with a strong secular nationalistic movement. General Giuseppe Garibaldi, who played a key role in Italian unification, saw the Pope as an antagonist to Italian nationalism and actively campaigned for the elimination of the papal office altogether.
The Catholic Church in Europe was also competing with a growing popularity in Spiritualism and Occultism. Because of this, many students at the University of Naples took part in demonstrations against the pope, dabbled in witchcraft and consulted Neapolitan mediums. Bartolo Longo became involved with a movement that he claimed led him into a Satanist cult. He took part in séances, fortune-telling, and the sexual depravity of orgies which are part of satanic worship. Along with the Satanism came a deep hatred of Catholicism and active attempts to destroy the Faith of others and draw them into the occult. After some study and several ‘spiritual’ experiences Longo said that he was ordained as a satanic priest.
In the following years, Bartolo Longo’s life became a descent into darkness and brought about inner despair, depression, paranoia, nervousness, confusion and hatred. He began to be horribly afflicted by dark diabolical visions which frightened him and threw him into a cycle of ever declining health. He ultimately experienced a mental and emotional breakdown. In his despair, he heard the voice of his deceased father urging him to “Return to God! Return to God!”
His family back home tried to talk him out of the path he had chosen―but to no avail. They began to pray and to ask for help from whoever might lend a hand. Professor Vincenzo Pepe, a solidly Catholic professor at the university, responded. He was family friend from Bartolo’s home town. He sought out Bartolo, accosting him, and saying: “Do you want to die in an insane asylum and be damned forever?” Bartolo couldn’t ignore the psychological and physiological state he was in. In his fear and despair, he felt obliged to turn to Professor Pepe for guidance―who told him to renounce Satan and meet with a priest. It was Vincenzo Pepe who convinced him, in Longo’s account, to abandon Satanism and introduced him to the Dominican priest, Fr. Alberto Radente, who heard his Confession and helped him to further reclaim his life by leading him to a devotion to the Rosary. After three weeks of lengthy conversations, on the feast of the Sacred Heart in 1865, was able to welcome him back into the Church and give him absolution. To keep an eye on him, Professor Pepe allowed Bartolo to move in with him and started to surround him with faithful and dedicated Catholics.
Each day for two years, as a voluntarily-imposed penance, Bartolo worked in the Neapolitan Hospital for Incurables. He prayed. He became a third-order Dominican. He made a promise of celibacy to serve God with an undivided heart. He sought to do reparation for his scandal by returning to his Satanist hangouts, holding up the Rosary and publicly renouncing his former ways. On one occasion, for example, he interrupted a séance by holding up a medal of Our Lady and proclaiming out loud to all present: “I renounce Spiritualism because it is nothing but a maze of error and falsehood!” Nevertheless, the devil did not give up easily and Bartolo Longo was still wracked with guilt and despair. He couldn’t forgive himself or see how God could ever forgive him. One day, while fulfilling some legal business in Pompeii for his client Countess Mariana di Fusco, and seeing how great was the people’s poverty, ignorance, moral corruption and dependence on witchcraft, God helped him to see both how he could be saved and how he could spend his life saving others.
One evening, as he walked near a chapel at Pompeii, Bartolo had a profound mystical experience. He wrote: “One day in the fields around Pompeii, I recalled my former condition as a priest of Satan … I thought that perhaps, as the priesthood of Christ is for eternity, so also the priesthood of Satan is for eternity. So, despite my repentance, I thought: ‘I am still consecrated to Satan, and I am still his slave and property as he awaits me in Hell!’ As I pondered over my condition, I experienced a deep sense of despair and almost committed suicide. Then I heard an echo in my ear of the voice of Fr. Alberto repeating the words of the Blessed Virgin Mary: ‘He who promotes my Rosary shall be saved.’ Falling to my knees, I exclaimed: ‘If your words are true that he who propagates your Rosary will be saved, I shall reach salvation―because I shall not leave this Earth without propagating your Rosary!’ This reminds us of the promise of Our Lady to St. Dominic: “He who promotes my Rosary will be saved.” Longo wrote that this promise is what convinced him to encourage public devotion to the Rosary.
On October 7th, 1871―the feast of the Holy Rosary―Bartolo Longo, now aged 30, became a Dominican tertiary and took the name “Brother Rosario”. Around this time, he also came into contact with some Franciscans with whom he helped the poor and incurably ill for two years. Bartolo also kept up his law practice, which took him to the nearby village of Pompei. He went to Pompei to take care of the legal affairs of Countess Marianna Farnararo De Fusco.
With the help of Countess Mariana di Fusco, he inaugurated a confraternity of the Holy Rosary and, in October 1873, started restoring a dilapidated church in Pompeii as a church in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary. To serve as a spiritual focus for this group, Bartolo needed a painting of the Blessed Virgin. Sister Maria Concetta de Litala, of the Monastery of the Rosary at Porta Medina, offered him one that she got at a Neapolitan junk shop. She paid only 3.40 lire ― a tiny, insignificant sum even at the time. The painting portrayed Our Lady of the Rosary with St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena. Though it was of modest artistic accomplishment and in very poor condition, it served Bartolo’s purpose. He described it in his journal: “Not only was it worm-eaten, but the face of the Madonna was that of a coarse, rough country-woman. A piece of canvas was missing just above her head. .Her mantle was cracked! Nothing need be said of the hideousness of the other figures! St. Dominic looked like a street idiot! To Our Lady’s left was a St. Rose. This I had changed later into a St. Catherine of Siena. I hesitated whether to refuse the gift or to accept. I took it!” After a restoration and beautification of the ‘ugly’ picture, he installed the painting of Our Lady of the Rosary in the dilapidated church of Our Lady of the Rosary which he had also restored and beautified. Within hours of its installation miracles began to be reported and people came to the church in droves.
He also sponsored a festival in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary. Within five years work was started on a larger church. It was consecrated in 1891. In 1939 the church was enlarged and re-consecrated and officially renamed the Basilica of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of Pompeii.
The former Satanist eventually became a friend of Pope Leo XIII, who had a great devotion to the Rosary. At the suggestion of Pope Leo XIII, Bartolo Longo (then aged 44) and the Countess Mariana di Fusco were married on April 7th, 1885. The couple remained continent (abstained from intercourse), and continued to do many charitable works and founded orphanages, elementary schools, and a technical school to give the children of convicted criminals the opportunity to succeed ―which was radical for its time.
In Pompei, Bartolo Longo later recounted that he was shocked at the erosion of the people’s Faith. He wrote: “Their religion was a mixture of superstition and popular tradition. ... For their every need ... they would go to a witch, a sorceress, in order to obtain charms and witchcraft.” Through talking to the citizens, Bartolo Longo came to recognize their severe lack of catechesis. When he asked one man if there was only one God, the fellow answered: “When I was a child, I remember people telling me there were three! Now, after so many years, I don’t know if one of them is dead or one has married!”
Bartolo Longo continued to promote the Rosary until his death in 1926 at the ripe old age of 85. His final words were: “My only desire is to see Mary―who saved me and will save me from the clutches of Satan.” Almost immediately the cause for his canonization was opened. On October 26th, 1980, he was beatified (given the title “Blessed”) by Pope John Paul II, who called him the “Apostle of the Rosary.”Pope Benedict XVI visited the shrine in October 2008, and took the opportunity to consecrate the world to Mary. In his homily, the Pope said Bartolo Longo was like St. Paul―who, after first persecuting the Church, became her humble servant: “Wherever God comes in this desert, flowers bloom! Even Blessed Bartolo Longo, with his personal conversion, bears witness to this spiritual power that transforms man from within and makes him capable of doing great things according to God’s designs!”
Fifteen Promises Concerning the Holy Rosary
Just as Barolo Longo was greatly encouraged and strengthened by the words: “He who promotes my Rosary shall be saved!” ― which is actually a combination of several promises made by Our Lady in her “Fifteen Promises of the Rosary” ― let us then look at those promises to encourage ourselves. Our Lady is said to have given the following promises concerning the Rosary to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan de la Roche. They should give great encouragement to those who faithfully pray the Rosary―or give a great incentive to pray the Rosary to those who do not pray, or rarely pray it. They are as follows.
(1) Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal [notable/major] graces.
(2) I promise my special protection and the greatest graces, to all who shall recite the Rosary.
(3) The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against Hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies.
(4) It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. O that souls would sanctify themselves by this means!
(5) The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall not perish.
(6) Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its sacred mysteries, shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice; he shall not perish by an unprovided death; and, if he be just, he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life.
(7) Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary, shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church.
(8) Those who are faithful in reciting the Rosary shall have, during their life and at their death, the light of God and the plenitude of His graces; and, at the moment of death, they shall participate in the merits of the saints in Paradise.
(9) I shall deliver from Purgatory, those who have been devoted to the Rosary.
(10) The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven.
(11) You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.
(12) All those who propagate the Holy Rosary, shall be aided by me in their necessities.
(13) I have obtained from my Divine Son, that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors, the entire celestial court, during their life and at the hour of death.
(14) All who recite the Rosary are my sons, and brothers of my only Son Jesus Christ.
(15) Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.
Our Lady Demands the Rosary
Let us finish with the words of Our Lady herself concerning the Holy Rosary. The following quotes are merely the tip of a massive ‘iceberg’ of quotes that could be used.
“If you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Rosary!” (Our Lady to St. Dominic).
“When you give a sermon, urge people to say my Rosary, and in this way your words will bear much fruit for souls” (Our Lady to St. Dominic).
“When you say your Rosary, the angels rejoice, the Blessed Trinity delights in it, my Son finds joy in it too, and I myself am happier than you can possibly guess. After the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, there is nothing in the Church that I love as much as the Rosary” (Our Lady to Blessed Alan de la Roche).
“You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.” (Our Lady to Blessed Alan de la Roche).
“Pray and let the Rosary always be in your hands as a sign to Satan that you belong to me.” (Our Lady to St. Simon Stock).
“‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!’ No creature has ever said anything that was more pleasing to me, nor will anyone ever be able to find or say to me anything that pleases me more” (Our Lady to Saint Mechtilde).
“Making the Rosary a family prayer is very pleasing to me. I ask that all families strive to do so. But be careful to say the Rosary with great devotion, meditating on each mystery and striving to imitate in your daily lives the virtues depicted. Live the mysteries of the Rosary as I lived them, and it will become a chain binding you to me forever. They who are found in the circle of my Rosary will never be lost. I myself will lead them at death to the throne of my Son, to be eternally united to Him” (Our Lady of America).
At Fatima Our Lady repeatedly demanded that the Rosary be prayed: “Pray the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war!” (May 1917) … “Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and the end of the war … (June 1917) … “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you! … If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted!” (July 1917) … “Continue to say the Rosary every day! … Pray, pray very much!” (August 1917) … “Continue to pray the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war!” (September 1917) … “I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (October 1917).
“Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary. I alone am able to save you from the calamities which approach!” (Our Lady in Akita, Japan).
“The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!” (Our Lady in Akita, Japan).
Article 5
The Feast of the Holy Rosary, Friday October 7th & Saturday October 8th, 2022
The Soul of the Holy Rosary
The Feast of the Holy Rosary, Friday October 7th & Saturday October 8th, 2022
The Soul of the Holy Rosary
The Heart of the Matter
In Holy Scripture—both Old and New Testaments—we are told to love God above all other things: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37; Luke 10:27; Mark 12:30). In a certain sense, it is all about love or charity for God is love: “God is charity … In this is charity―not as though we had loved God first, but because He hath first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins! … Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us!” (1 John 4:8, 10, 19). However, Our Lord warns that in the end times, “the charity of many shall grow cold” (Matthew 24:12).
God can never be loved to an excess and there can be no middle level between excess and neglect in loving God. Our temperature is expected to be rising all the time. This is why God says in the Apocalypse: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot! I would thou wert cold, or hot! But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth” (Apocalypse 3:15-16).
Jesus accepted the ‘accepting Mary Magdalen’, but rejected the ‘rejecting Pharisees’. Of Mary Magdalen He says: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less” (Luke 7:47). Yet, of the Pharisees He says: “You shall die in your sins!” (John 8:24). Jesus had won over Mary's heart, but the Pharisees closed their hearts to Him. It is all a matter of heart—especially in our prayer life, and even more so in praying the Rosary.
For the heart plays a major role with God. We are told love God with our whole heart (mind, soul, strength). He detests a lukewarm heart: “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.” (Apocalypse 3:16). We are told to “fear the Lord, and serve Him with a perfect heart and most sincere heart” (Josue 24:14). Jesus complains of the lack of heart in prayer: “This people honoreth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8). We beg of the Holy Ghost to enkindle in our hearts the fire of His love. Jesus wants to be especially honored in His Sacred Heart. He also wants the world to show devotion, with their hearts, to both the Sorrowful Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We cannot serve God and the world and “where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.” (Matthew 6:21). If our hearts treasure the world and its amusements, then we will have little heart for prayer; but if our heart is in God, then we will have little love in our hearts for the world. We cannot have both. “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God.” (James 4:4).
Our spiritual life, our prayer life, and therefore our Rosary, is primarily a matter of heart. “Whatsoever you do, do it from the heart” (Colossians 3:23). “But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19). It is the heart that loves — and prayer is meant to be a communication with the One we love.
“I went to the Lord, and besought Him, and said with my whole heart...” (Wisdom 8:21). “I entreated Thy face with all my heart” (Psalm 118:58). “You shall seek Me, and shall find Me: when you shall seek Me with all your heart” (Jeremias 29:13). God was moved to action only when “they all begged of God with all their heart” (Judith 4:16). “With his whole heart he praised the Lord, and loved God that made him: and He gave him power against his enemies” (Ecclesiasticus 47:10). So, “let us draw near with a true heart” (Hebrews 10:22).
The Power of Love
The Imitation of Christ has a truly beautiful passage on the power and effects of love: “Ah, Lord God, my holy Love, when You come into my heart, all that is within me will rejoice! ... The noble love of Jesus spurs to great deeds and excites longing for that which is more perfect. Love tends upward; it will not be held down by anything low. Love wishes to be free and estranged from all worldly affections, lest its inward sight be obstructed, lest it be entangled in any temporal interest and overcome by adversity. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger or higher or wider; nothing is more pleasant and nothing better in Heaven or on Earth ... One who is in love flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free, not bound ... Love often knows no limits but overflows all bounds. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, and does not plead impossibility, because it believes that it may and can do all things. For this reason, it is able to do all, performing and effecting much where he who does not love fails and falls ... Wearied, it is not tired. Pressed, it is not straitened. Alarmed, it is not confused, but like a living flame, a burning torch, it forces its way upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle. If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, chapter 5: “The Wonderful Effect of Divine Love”).
Such is the importance of love, that without love, all seems to be nothing, worthless, useless: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, but have not Charity ― then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith so that I could remove mountains, but have not Charity ― then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, but have not Charity ― then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Meditation Presupposes Love
We rarely spend extra time on someone or something, unless we really love the person, activity or thing. When you visit someone whom you do not really love or like―then you cannot wait to “get-away” and leave! However, if you really like or love the person―then you want to stay and regret having to leave when it is time to go home. Meditating a Rosary takes more time than merely “saying” a Rosary. The “saying” is superficial, whereas the “meditation” goes deeper. A true heart goes beyond a Rosary lip-service, or lip-recitation, and seeks out a ‘heart-meditation’. A true heart does not look forward to the Rosary ending as soon as possible―instead, it enjoys lingering longer, does not mind digging deeper, and feels cheated if there is no meditation attached to the mere “saying” of the Rosary.
Our Lady said that the soul of the Rosary is the meditation, not the vocal prayers: “Our Lady said to Blessed Alan de la Roche in a vision: ‘When people say 150 Hail Marys, that prayer is very helpful to them and a most pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me more if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death, and Passion of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of this prayer!’ For the Rosary said without the meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation would almost be a body without a soul, excellent matter, but without the form, which is the meditation, and which distinguishes it from other devotions” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-First Rose”). As the Psalmist says: “My heart grew hot within me: and, in my meditation, a fire shall flame out” (Psalm 38:4). After His Resurrection from the dead, Jesus appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus ― and basically led them through a meditation on Scripture concerning Himself: “And they said one to the other: ‘Was not our heart burning within us, whilst He spoke in this way, and opened to us the Scriptures?’” (Luke 24:32). Our hearts can similarly burn within us if we open up the Rosary by meditating it!
St. Louis de Montfort says: “It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor [the love] with which it is said which pleases God and touches His heart. A single Hail Mary said properly [with great love] is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly!” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-First Rose”). The charity or love that we say our prayers with, greatly increase their value and power. Our Lady had such a great and sincere love of God, that the slightest prayer of hers was capable of moving mountains. This is why the devils themselves admitted to the power of her prayers during an exorcism: “We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us; one single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints.” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Third Rose”) ― the reason why “one single sigh” achieves so much is simply due to the love that is found behind it.
Sadly, especially today, too many persons pray with a divided heart. They want to love God, but they also want to love the world. They want to be loved by God, and they also want to be loved by the world. It cannot be! “A heart that goeth two ways shall not have success!” (Ecclesiasticus 3:28). Such a divided heart will be rejected by God: “The perverse heart did not cleave to Me, and the malignant heart, that turned aside from Me, I would not know!” (Psalm 100:4). “Their heart is divided! Now they shall perish! He shall break down their idols, He shall destroy their altars!” (Osee 10:2) … “so that the house of Israel may be caught in their own heart, with which they have departed from me through all their idols!” (Ezechiel 14:5).
Do You Want Fire, Fire or Fire?
Our Lord has come “to cast fire on the Earth” (Luke 12:49) and to cast fire into our hearts. Whether we realize it not, admit it or not, like it or not—the fact remains that we were made to burn. It is an inescapable fact that we will and must burn somewhere — either in fires of Hell, or in the fires of Purgatory, or in the fires of charity here on Earth. We have to serve, in one place or another, our ‘sentence’ to be burned. Our Lord would prefer that we burn out of charity here on Earth ― and our prayers or communication with God must also burn with a fire of love. He Himself said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49) and we beg the Holy Ghost: “Come, O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in us the fire of Thy love!” Sadly, most souls are merely a spark of charity, that never sparks their life into a blazing fire of charity and they live out their lives in a mound of lukewarm embers ― barely giving-off any heat. Such souls insult God, for He says: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot! But, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). In view of those words, let us cry out all the more fervently: “Come, O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in us the fire of Thy love!”
God—Who is love—seems to prefer fire above all else. In the Old Testament God appears to Moses under the guise of a burning bush; then later, during the Exodus from Egypt, God leads them by a pillar of fire at night in desert; and later we see God’s presence on Mount Sinai as a gigantic fire, that set the summit of the mountain on fire. In His ordinances for Temple worship, God demands that a fire burn at all times in the Temple. Elias calls fire down the fire of God onto his sacrifice on Mount Carmel. In the New Testament, Our says that He has come to cast fire on Earth and wants it kindling; the Holy Ghost appears as tongues of fire at Pentecost and ‘sets fire’ to those gathered in the Upper Room, making them look like human candles; Our Lord later reveals Himself as the Sacred Heart, on fire with love for us.
Yes ― we may well pray: “Come, O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love!” ― but are our Rosaries being enkindled with the fire of love? If we pray (or merely say) our Rosaries with little love, then they have little power ― for God measures everything by the amount of love that is present. A lack of the “fire of love” in our prayers betrays a lack of a “fire of love” in our spiritual lives as a whole and a lack of a “fire of love” towards God. It is a lack of fire in the lives and loves of souls that predominantly send them Hell. We are told by theologians that Hell is essentially an absence of God. What is God? “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). Therefore Hell is an absence of charity. We might have a naïve idea of the devils being friends with one another, or even befriending the damned, or the damned befriending each other — but there can be no friendship in Hell and there is no friendship in Hell — there is only hatred of one another. Heaven is a place of eternal and superabundant love — Hell is a place of eternal and superabundant hatred. The fire in Heaven is a fire of love ― the fire in Hell is a fire of hatred. The way you PRAY (not just say) you Rosary will play a large part as to where you will finally end up ― Heaven or Hell.
Faith Needs Charity
Many Protestants―and quite a few Catholics―appeal to the line in Holy Scripture which says: “You are saved through Faith!” (Ephesians 2:8). For them, charity is not as important as Faith. However, it must be pointed out to them that we are not saved by Faith alone, “but Faith that worketh by Charity” (Galatians 5:6). Faith is merely a foundation or platform upon which we must build with Charity. “What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath Faith, but hath not works? Shall Faith be able to save him? … Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself … Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith. Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well: the devils also believe and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:14-26).
Yet, just as “Faith without works is dead”, so too are works without charity dead. St. Paul could not put this any more clearly than when he said: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, but have not Charity ― then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal! And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not Charity ― then I am nothing! And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, but have not Charity ― then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Hence, Faith is not enough, nor are works enough, “but Faith that worketh by Charity” (Galatians 5:6). Without Faith, we will not know what to do; but doing things without the spirit of Charity, is useless in itself and by itself. Faith and Charity and like man-and-wife, begetting their children—which are various different kinds of works.
But for prayer to make charity grow, we must, first of all, be in a state of sanctifying grace—for charity lives in the soul through divine grace. We cannot pretend to love God if we are in a state of mortal sin! As Our Lord says: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24). The committing of mortal sins is most certainly NOT keeping God’s commandments! Therefore, mortal sin is incompatible with a love of God.
Quality Prayer versus Quantity Prayer
Let us not multiply generous acts of love of God in a mechanical fashion―such as counting them. As good theologians teach, God is more glorified by a single act of charity of ten talents, than by ten acts of charity of one talent each. Similarly, as the saints say, one Our Father or Hail Mary prayed well, is worth more than hundreds prayed badly. Likewise a single very perfect just soul pleases God more than the combined aggregate of many other souls who remain in mediocrity or tepidity. Quality is always superior to quantity. This is why the plenitude of grace in Mary surpassed, from the first day of her existence, that of all the saints―just as a single diamond is worth more than a large quantity of other lesser precious stones.
Unfortunately, today’s world is often more about quantity than quality—we call it a “Consumer Society” where everyone is encouraged to consume as much as possible—therefore things are made to be cheap as possible and are ‘cheaply’ made. This is not the case in the spiritual life—where quality comes before quality. Yet it is far common to hear someone say: “I said three (or four, or five, etc) Rosaries today!” rather than hearing someone say: “I spent an extra 15 minutes in praying my five-decade Rosary today!”
St. Louis de Montfort bemoans the lack of quality in prayer, saying that a “fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary, is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
That is why St. Louis de Montfort reminds us: “It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly.” The charity or love with which we say our prayers, greatly increases their value and power. Our Lady had such a great and sincere love of God, that the slightest prayer of hers was capable of moving mountains. This is why the devils themselves admitted during an exorcism to the power of Our Lady’s prayers: “One single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints!” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Third Rose”). Let us spend this month of October examining and improving our manner of praying―and the first thing to do is to restore the primacy of QUALITY over mere quantity! Let our Rosaries be among the very first prayers that we overhaul and improve!
Satisfied with Profitless Knowledge rather than Profitable Charity
Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing! It is much like food and drink―we should be “eating to live” and not “living to eat”! Too much food and wine will lead to adverse effects. Overeating causes the stomach to expand beyond its normal size to adjust to the large amount of food. The expanded stomach pushes against other organs, making you uncomfortable. This discomfort can take the form of feeling tired, sluggish or drowsy. Similarly, too much knowledge can cause the head to expand beyond its normal size due to pride at knowing so much!
Today, we live in age that simply adores knowledge. We have even developed the phrase: “Knowledge is power!” The phrase “knowledge is power” is attributed to Francis Bacon, from his Meditationes Sacrae (1597). Be careful of how much bacon you eat! Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing! “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required! And to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48). Modern technology has made the Internet the ‘god of knowledge’ and many indiscriminately believe all that they read on the Internet as though it were a dogma! “There shall be a time, when they will not endure sound teaching; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and will turn away their hearing from the truth, and will be turned unto fables!” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Knowing has become more important than loving. “We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up; but charity edifies” (1 Corinthians 8:1). Knowledge is not power. The real power consists in the ability to act upon knowledge and to influence people and work with them effectively.
Speaking of our times to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame), Our Lord prophesied that “the times will come when doctrine will be commonly known among the learned and the ignorant ... Many religious books will be written, but the practice of the virtues and of these doctrines will be found in only a few souls! For this reason, saints will become rare. And precisely for this reason, My priests and My religious will fall into a fatal indifference. Their coldness will extinguish the fire of divine love, afflicting My Loving Heart with these small thorns that you see!” (Our Lord to Mother Mariana).
Today, we are living the times that Our Lord prophesied! Today, anything and everything can be known by the learned and the ignorant―that is due to the fact that, with the advent of the Internet and search engines, everyone can find out anything by simply typing in a question in their chosen search engine― Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Bing, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, etc. In a matter of seconds, millions of sites will have searched and you will have hundreds of answers to pick from―whether you are a learned person or an ignorant person―you have all the answers you need at the tip of your fingers and on your screen!
“Every man is become a fool for knowledge” (Jeremias 10:14)—but the wrong kind of knowledge: the knowledge and wisdom of the world. To which Holy Scripture says: “He is proud, knowing nothing!” (1 Timothy 6:4). “Every man is become foolish by his knowledge” (Jeremias 51:17). “The heart of the wise seeketh instruction: and the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness” (Proverbs 15:14). “The sensual man perceiveth not these things that are of God; for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand” (1 Corinthians 2:14). “And, as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense” (Romans 1:28). “The Lord chose not them, neither did they find the way of knowledge: therefore did they perish” (Baruch 3:27).
You can have all the knowledge in the world―but it will not guarantee your salvation! “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). “If I should should know all mysteries and all knowledge, but have not Charity ― then I am nothing and it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The Benefits of Knowing About God
If you do not know something, then you can neither hope to obtain something from it, nor can you love it. This is a fundamental principle or axiom: “You cannot love what you do not know.” If you do not know that a cure exists for a particular fatal disease, then you have no hope of being cured by it. If we do not know about the power of the Holy Rosary, then we have little hope in the Rosary. Nor will we love the Rosary. Hence, St. Thérèse of Lisieux—the Little Flower—said: “Jesus is so little loved, because He is so little known!” We could apply that same truth to the Holy Rosary: “The Rosary is so little loved, because it so little known.” We all know, of course, of its existence and what it is—but we do not know enough, nor appreciate enough, nor hope enough in its power, and, therefore, we do not love it enough. “Among Catholics, those who bear the mark of God’s reprobation think but little of the Rosary. They either neglect to say it or only say it quickly and in a lukewarm manner!” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Seventeenth Rose”).
Our Lady Reveals …
In St. Louis de Montfort’s book, The Secret of the Rosary, we see both the displeasure of Our Lady concerning badly said Rosaries, as well as her pleasure with regard to well-prayed Rosaries. Here are some extracts from his book that illustrate this point.
Our Lady appeared to the Venerable Dominic, a Carthusian devoted to the Holy Rosary, who lived at Treves, and said to him: “Whenever one of the faithful, in a state of grace, says the Rosary while meditating on the mysteries of the life and Passion of Christ, he obtains full and entire remission of all his sins.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Eighth Rose”).
She also said to Blessed Alan, “I want you to know that, although there are numerous indulgences already attached to the recitation of my Rosary, I shall add many more to every five decades for those who, free from serious sin, say them with devotion, on their knees. And whosoever shall persevere in the devotion of the Holy Rosary, with its prayers and meditations, shall be rewarded for it; I shall obtain for him full remission of the penalty and the guilt of all his sins at the end of his life. And let this not seem incredible to you; it is easy for me because I am the Mother of the King of Heaven, and He calls me full of grace. And being filled with grace, I am able to dispense it freely to my dear children.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Eighth Rose”).
One day, Our Lady showed herself to an immoral man who used to say the Rosary regularly every day. She showed him a bowl of beautiful fruit, but the bowl itself was covered with filth. The man was horrified to see this, and Our Lady said to him, “This is the way you are honoring me! You are giving me beautiful roses in a dirty bowl! Do you think I can find them pleasing to me?” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-First Rose”).
We read in the life of Blessed Hermann of the Order of the Premonstratensians, that at one time when he used to say the Rosary attentively and devoutly while meditating on the mysteries, Our Lady used to appear to him resplendent in breathtaking majesty and beauty. But, as time went on, his fervor cooled and he fell into the way of saying his Rosary hurriedly and without giving it his full attention. Then one day Our Lady appeared to him again, but this time she was far from beautiful, and her face was furrowed and drawn with sadness. Blessed Hermann was appalled at the change in her, and Our Lady explained, “This is how I look to you, Hermann, because this is how you are treating me; as a woman to be despised and of no importance! Why do you no longer greet me with respect and attention while meditating on my mysteries and praising my privileges?” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-Second Rose”).
Blessed Alan de la Roche and other writers, including Robert Bellarmine, tell the story of how a good priest advised three of his penitents, who happened to be sisters, to say the Rosary every day without fail for a whole year. This was so that they might make a beautiful robe of glory for the Blessed Virgin out of their Rosaries. This was a secret that the priest had received from Heaven.
So the three sisters said the Rosary faithfully for a year, and on the feast of the Purification Our Lady appeared to them at night when they had retired. St. Catherine and St. Agnes were with her, and she was wearing a dress brilliant with light, on which was written in letters of gold the words “Hail, Mary, full of grace.” Our Lady approached the eldest sister and said, “I greet you, my daughter, who have greeted me so often and so well. I want to thank you for the beautiful robes you have made me.” The two virgin saints who accompanied Our Lady also thanked her and all three disappeared.
An hour later, Our Lady, with the same two companions, entered the room again, but this time she was wearing a green dress which had no gold lettering and did not shine. She went to the second sister and thanked her for the robe she had made by saying her Rosary. But since this sister had seen Our Lady appear to the eldest sister much more magnificently dressed, she asked the reason why. Our Lady answered, “Your sister made me more beautiful clothes―because she has been saying the Rosary better than you!”
About an hour after this, she appeared to the youngest of the sisters wearing tattered and dirty rags. “My daughter,” she said, “I want to thank you for these clothes you have made me!” The young girl, feeling ashamed, cried out, “O my Lady, how could I have dressed you so badly! I beg you to forgive me! Please grant me a little more time to make you a beautiful robe by saying my Rosary better!” Our Lady and the two saints vanished, leaving the girl heartbroken. She told her confessor everything that had happened and he urged them to say the Rosary for another year and to say it with more devotion than ever.
At the end of this second year, on the same day of the Purification, Our Lady, clothed in a magnificent robe, and again attended by St. Catherine and St. Agnes, wearing crowns, appeared to them in the evening. She said to them, “I have come to tell you that you have earned Heaven at last, and you will all have the great joy of going there tomorrow!” The three of them cried, “Our hearts are ready, dearest Queen, our hearts are ready.” Then the vision faded. That same night they became ill and sent for their confessor, and received the last sacraments, after having thanked him for the holy practice he had taught them. After Compline, Our Lady appeared with a large company of virgins and had the three sisters clothed in white robes. While angels were singing, “Come, spouses of Jesus Christ, receive the crowns which have been prepared for you for all eternity,” they departed from this life. (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-Fourth Rose”).
In Holy Scripture—both Old and New Testaments—we are told to love God above all other things: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37; Luke 10:27; Mark 12:30). In a certain sense, it is all about love or charity for God is love: “God is charity … In this is charity―not as though we had loved God first, but because He hath first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins! … Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us!” (1 John 4:8, 10, 19). However, Our Lord warns that in the end times, “the charity of many shall grow cold” (Matthew 24:12).
God can never be loved to an excess and there can be no middle level between excess and neglect in loving God. Our temperature is expected to be rising all the time. This is why God says in the Apocalypse: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot! I would thou wert cold, or hot! But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth” (Apocalypse 3:15-16).
Jesus accepted the ‘accepting Mary Magdalen’, but rejected the ‘rejecting Pharisees’. Of Mary Magdalen He says: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less” (Luke 7:47). Yet, of the Pharisees He says: “You shall die in your sins!” (John 8:24). Jesus had won over Mary's heart, but the Pharisees closed their hearts to Him. It is all a matter of heart—especially in our prayer life, and even more so in praying the Rosary.
For the heart plays a major role with God. We are told love God with our whole heart (mind, soul, strength). He detests a lukewarm heart: “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.” (Apocalypse 3:16). We are told to “fear the Lord, and serve Him with a perfect heart and most sincere heart” (Josue 24:14). Jesus complains of the lack of heart in prayer: “This people honoreth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8). We beg of the Holy Ghost to enkindle in our hearts the fire of His love. Jesus wants to be especially honored in His Sacred Heart. He also wants the world to show devotion, with their hearts, to both the Sorrowful Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We cannot serve God and the world and “where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.” (Matthew 6:21). If our hearts treasure the world and its amusements, then we will have little heart for prayer; but if our heart is in God, then we will have little love in our hearts for the world. We cannot have both. “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth … but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven! … For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also! … No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:19-24). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God.” (James 4:4).
Our spiritual life, our prayer life, and therefore our Rosary, is primarily a matter of heart. “Whatsoever you do, do it from the heart” (Colossians 3:23). “But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19). It is the heart that loves — and prayer is meant to be a communication with the One we love.
“I went to the Lord, and besought Him, and said with my whole heart...” (Wisdom 8:21). “I entreated Thy face with all my heart” (Psalm 118:58). “You shall seek Me, and shall find Me: when you shall seek Me with all your heart” (Jeremias 29:13). God was moved to action only when “they all begged of God with all their heart” (Judith 4:16). “With his whole heart he praised the Lord, and loved God that made him: and He gave him power against his enemies” (Ecclesiasticus 47:10). So, “let us draw near with a true heart” (Hebrews 10:22).
The Power of Love
The Imitation of Christ has a truly beautiful passage on the power and effects of love: “Ah, Lord God, my holy Love, when You come into my heart, all that is within me will rejoice! ... The noble love of Jesus spurs to great deeds and excites longing for that which is more perfect. Love tends upward; it will not be held down by anything low. Love wishes to be free and estranged from all worldly affections, lest its inward sight be obstructed, lest it be entangled in any temporal interest and overcome by adversity. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger or higher or wider; nothing is more pleasant and nothing better in Heaven or on Earth ... One who is in love flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free, not bound ... Love often knows no limits but overflows all bounds. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, and does not plead impossibility, because it believes that it may and can do all things. For this reason, it is able to do all, performing and effecting much where he who does not love fails and falls ... Wearied, it is not tired. Pressed, it is not straitened. Alarmed, it is not confused, but like a living flame, a burning torch, it forces its way upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle. If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, chapter 5: “The Wonderful Effect of Divine Love”).
Such is the importance of love, that without love, all seems to be nothing, worthless, useless: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, but have not Charity ― then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith so that I could remove mountains, but have not Charity ― then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, but have not Charity ― then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Meditation Presupposes Love
We rarely spend extra time on someone or something, unless we really love the person, activity or thing. When you visit someone whom you do not really love or like―then you cannot wait to “get-away” and leave! However, if you really like or love the person―then you want to stay and regret having to leave when it is time to go home. Meditating a Rosary takes more time than merely “saying” a Rosary. The “saying” is superficial, whereas the “meditation” goes deeper. A true heart goes beyond a Rosary lip-service, or lip-recitation, and seeks out a ‘heart-meditation’. A true heart does not look forward to the Rosary ending as soon as possible―instead, it enjoys lingering longer, does not mind digging deeper, and feels cheated if there is no meditation attached to the mere “saying” of the Rosary.
Our Lady said that the soul of the Rosary is the meditation, not the vocal prayers: “Our Lady said to Blessed Alan de la Roche in a vision: ‘When people say 150 Hail Marys, that prayer is very helpful to them and a most pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me more if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death, and Passion of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of this prayer!’ For the Rosary said without the meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation would almost be a body without a soul, excellent matter, but without the form, which is the meditation, and which distinguishes it from other devotions” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-First Rose”). As the Psalmist says: “My heart grew hot within me: and, in my meditation, a fire shall flame out” (Psalm 38:4). After His Resurrection from the dead, Jesus appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus ― and basically led them through a meditation on Scripture concerning Himself: “And they said one to the other: ‘Was not our heart burning within us, whilst He spoke in this way, and opened to us the Scriptures?’” (Luke 24:32). Our hearts can similarly burn within us if we open up the Rosary by meditating it!
St. Louis de Montfort says: “It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor [the love] with which it is said which pleases God and touches His heart. A single Hail Mary said properly [with great love] is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly!” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-First Rose”). The charity or love that we say our prayers with, greatly increase their value and power. Our Lady had such a great and sincere love of God, that the slightest prayer of hers was capable of moving mountains. This is why the devils themselves admitted to the power of her prayers during an exorcism: “We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us; one single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints.” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Third Rose”) ― the reason why “one single sigh” achieves so much is simply due to the love that is found behind it.
Sadly, especially today, too many persons pray with a divided heart. They want to love God, but they also want to love the world. They want to be loved by God, and they also want to be loved by the world. It cannot be! “A heart that goeth two ways shall not have success!” (Ecclesiasticus 3:28). Such a divided heart will be rejected by God: “The perverse heart did not cleave to Me, and the malignant heart, that turned aside from Me, I would not know!” (Psalm 100:4). “Their heart is divided! Now they shall perish! He shall break down their idols, He shall destroy their altars!” (Osee 10:2) … “so that the house of Israel may be caught in their own heart, with which they have departed from me through all their idols!” (Ezechiel 14:5).
Do You Want Fire, Fire or Fire?
Our Lord has come “to cast fire on the Earth” (Luke 12:49) and to cast fire into our hearts. Whether we realize it not, admit it or not, like it or not—the fact remains that we were made to burn. It is an inescapable fact that we will and must burn somewhere — either in fires of Hell, or in the fires of Purgatory, or in the fires of charity here on Earth. We have to serve, in one place or another, our ‘sentence’ to be burned. Our Lord would prefer that we burn out of charity here on Earth ― and our prayers or communication with God must also burn with a fire of love. He Himself said: “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49) and we beg the Holy Ghost: “Come, O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in us the fire of Thy love!” Sadly, most souls are merely a spark of charity, that never sparks their life into a blazing fire of charity and they live out their lives in a mound of lukewarm embers ― barely giving-off any heat. Such souls insult God, for He says: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot! But, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). In view of those words, let us cry out all the more fervently: “Come, O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in us the fire of Thy love!”
God—Who is love—seems to prefer fire above all else. In the Old Testament God appears to Moses under the guise of a burning bush; then later, during the Exodus from Egypt, God leads them by a pillar of fire at night in desert; and later we see God’s presence on Mount Sinai as a gigantic fire, that set the summit of the mountain on fire. In His ordinances for Temple worship, God demands that a fire burn at all times in the Temple. Elias calls fire down the fire of God onto his sacrifice on Mount Carmel. In the New Testament, Our says that He has come to cast fire on Earth and wants it kindling; the Holy Ghost appears as tongues of fire at Pentecost and ‘sets fire’ to those gathered in the Upper Room, making them look like human candles; Our Lord later reveals Himself as the Sacred Heart, on fire with love for us.
Yes ― we may well pray: “Come, O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love!” ― but are our Rosaries being enkindled with the fire of love? If we pray (or merely say) our Rosaries with little love, then they have little power ― for God measures everything by the amount of love that is present. A lack of the “fire of love” in our prayers betrays a lack of a “fire of love” in our spiritual lives as a whole and a lack of a “fire of love” towards God. It is a lack of fire in the lives and loves of souls that predominantly send them Hell. We are told by theologians that Hell is essentially an absence of God. What is God? “God is charity” (1 John 4:8). Therefore Hell is an absence of charity. We might have a naïve idea of the devils being friends with one another, or even befriending the damned, or the damned befriending each other — but there can be no friendship in Hell and there is no friendship in Hell — there is only hatred of one another. Heaven is a place of eternal and superabundant love — Hell is a place of eternal and superabundant hatred. The fire in Heaven is a fire of love ― the fire in Hell is a fire of hatred. The way you PRAY (not just say) you Rosary will play a large part as to where you will finally end up ― Heaven or Hell.
Faith Needs Charity
Many Protestants―and quite a few Catholics―appeal to the line in Holy Scripture which says: “You are saved through Faith!” (Ephesians 2:8). For them, charity is not as important as Faith. However, it must be pointed out to them that we are not saved by Faith alone, “but Faith that worketh by Charity” (Galatians 5:6). Faith is merely a foundation or platform upon which we must build with Charity. “What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath Faith, but hath not works? Shall Faith be able to save him? … Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself … Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith. Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well: the devils also believe and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:14-26).
Yet, just as “Faith without works is dead”, so too are works without charity dead. St. Paul could not put this any more clearly than when he said: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, but have not Charity ― then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal! And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not Charity ― then I am nothing! And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, but have not Charity ― then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Hence, Faith is not enough, nor are works enough, “but Faith that worketh by Charity” (Galatians 5:6). Without Faith, we will not know what to do; but doing things without the spirit of Charity, is useless in itself and by itself. Faith and Charity and like man-and-wife, begetting their children—which are various different kinds of works.
But for prayer to make charity grow, we must, first of all, be in a state of sanctifying grace—for charity lives in the soul through divine grace. We cannot pretend to love God if we are in a state of mortal sin! As Our Lord says: “If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words!” (John 14:15, 14:21-24). The committing of mortal sins is most certainly NOT keeping God’s commandments! Therefore, mortal sin is incompatible with a love of God.
Quality Prayer versus Quantity Prayer
Let us not multiply generous acts of love of God in a mechanical fashion―such as counting them. As good theologians teach, God is more glorified by a single act of charity of ten talents, than by ten acts of charity of one talent each. Similarly, as the saints say, one Our Father or Hail Mary prayed well, is worth more than hundreds prayed badly. Likewise a single very perfect just soul pleases God more than the combined aggregate of many other souls who remain in mediocrity or tepidity. Quality is always superior to quantity. This is why the plenitude of grace in Mary surpassed, from the first day of her existence, that of all the saints―just as a single diamond is worth more than a large quantity of other lesser precious stones.
Unfortunately, today’s world is often more about quantity than quality—we call it a “Consumer Society” where everyone is encouraged to consume as much as possible—therefore things are made to be cheap as possible and are ‘cheaply’ made. This is not the case in the spiritual life—where quality comes before quality. Yet it is far common to hear someone say: “I said three (or four, or five, etc) Rosaries today!” rather than hearing someone say: “I spent an extra 15 minutes in praying my five-decade Rosary today!”
St. Louis de Montfort bemoans the lack of quality in prayer, saying that a “fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary, is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
That is why St. Louis de Montfort reminds us: “It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly.” The charity or love with which we say our prayers, greatly increases their value and power. Our Lady had such a great and sincere love of God, that the slightest prayer of hers was capable of moving mountains. This is why the devils themselves admitted during an exorcism to the power of Our Lady’s prayers: “One single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints!” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Third Rose”). Let us spend this month of October examining and improving our manner of praying―and the first thing to do is to restore the primacy of QUALITY over mere quantity! Let our Rosaries be among the very first prayers that we overhaul and improve!
Satisfied with Profitless Knowledge rather than Profitable Charity
Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing! It is much like food and drink―we should be “eating to live” and not “living to eat”! Too much food and wine will lead to adverse effects. Overeating causes the stomach to expand beyond its normal size to adjust to the large amount of food. The expanded stomach pushes against other organs, making you uncomfortable. This discomfort can take the form of feeling tired, sluggish or drowsy. Similarly, too much knowledge can cause the head to expand beyond its normal size due to pride at knowing so much!
Today, we live in age that simply adores knowledge. We have even developed the phrase: “Knowledge is power!” The phrase “knowledge is power” is attributed to Francis Bacon, from his Meditationes Sacrae (1597). Be careful of how much bacon you eat! Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing! “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required! And to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more!” (Luke 12:48). Modern technology has made the Internet the ‘god of knowledge’ and many indiscriminately believe all that they read on the Internet as though it were a dogma! “There shall be a time, when they will not endure sound teaching; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and will turn away their hearing from the truth, and will be turned unto fables!” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Knowing has become more important than loving. “We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up; but charity edifies” (1 Corinthians 8:1). Knowledge is not power. The real power consists in the ability to act upon knowledge and to influence people and work with them effectively.
Speaking of our times to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame), Our Lord prophesied that “the times will come when doctrine will be commonly known among the learned and the ignorant ... Many religious books will be written, but the practice of the virtues and of these doctrines will be found in only a few souls! For this reason, saints will become rare. And precisely for this reason, My priests and My religious will fall into a fatal indifference. Their coldness will extinguish the fire of divine love, afflicting My Loving Heart with these small thorns that you see!” (Our Lord to Mother Mariana).
Today, we are living the times that Our Lord prophesied! Today, anything and everything can be known by the learned and the ignorant―that is due to the fact that, with the advent of the Internet and search engines, everyone can find out anything by simply typing in a question in their chosen search engine― Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Bing, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, etc. In a matter of seconds, millions of sites will have searched and you will have hundreds of answers to pick from―whether you are a learned person or an ignorant person―you have all the answers you need at the tip of your fingers and on your screen!
“Every man is become a fool for knowledge” (Jeremias 10:14)—but the wrong kind of knowledge: the knowledge and wisdom of the world. To which Holy Scripture says: “He is proud, knowing nothing!” (1 Timothy 6:4). “Every man is become foolish by his knowledge” (Jeremias 51:17). “The heart of the wise seeketh instruction: and the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness” (Proverbs 15:14). “The sensual man perceiveth not these things that are of God; for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand” (1 Corinthians 2:14). “And, as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense” (Romans 1:28). “The Lord chose not them, neither did they find the way of knowledge: therefore did they perish” (Baruch 3:27).
You can have all the knowledge in the world―but it will not guarantee your salvation! “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). “If I should should know all mysteries and all knowledge, but have not Charity ― then I am nothing and it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The Benefits of Knowing About God
If you do not know something, then you can neither hope to obtain something from it, nor can you love it. This is a fundamental principle or axiom: “You cannot love what you do not know.” If you do not know that a cure exists for a particular fatal disease, then you have no hope of being cured by it. If we do not know about the power of the Holy Rosary, then we have little hope in the Rosary. Nor will we love the Rosary. Hence, St. Thérèse of Lisieux—the Little Flower—said: “Jesus is so little loved, because He is so little known!” We could apply that same truth to the Holy Rosary: “The Rosary is so little loved, because it so little known.” We all know, of course, of its existence and what it is—but we do not know enough, nor appreciate enough, nor hope enough in its power, and, therefore, we do not love it enough. “Among Catholics, those who bear the mark of God’s reprobation think but little of the Rosary. They either neglect to say it or only say it quickly and in a lukewarm manner!” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Seventeenth Rose”).
Our Lady Reveals …
In St. Louis de Montfort’s book, The Secret of the Rosary, we see both the displeasure of Our Lady concerning badly said Rosaries, as well as her pleasure with regard to well-prayed Rosaries. Here are some extracts from his book that illustrate this point.
Our Lady appeared to the Venerable Dominic, a Carthusian devoted to the Holy Rosary, who lived at Treves, and said to him: “Whenever one of the faithful, in a state of grace, says the Rosary while meditating on the mysteries of the life and Passion of Christ, he obtains full and entire remission of all his sins.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Eighth Rose”).
She also said to Blessed Alan, “I want you to know that, although there are numerous indulgences already attached to the recitation of my Rosary, I shall add many more to every five decades for those who, free from serious sin, say them with devotion, on their knees. And whosoever shall persevere in the devotion of the Holy Rosary, with its prayers and meditations, shall be rewarded for it; I shall obtain for him full remission of the penalty and the guilt of all his sins at the end of his life. And let this not seem incredible to you; it is easy for me because I am the Mother of the King of Heaven, and He calls me full of grace. And being filled with grace, I am able to dispense it freely to my dear children.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Eighth Rose”).
One day, Our Lady showed herself to an immoral man who used to say the Rosary regularly every day. She showed him a bowl of beautiful fruit, but the bowl itself was covered with filth. The man was horrified to see this, and Our Lady said to him, “This is the way you are honoring me! You are giving me beautiful roses in a dirty bowl! Do you think I can find them pleasing to me?” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-First Rose”).
We read in the life of Blessed Hermann of the Order of the Premonstratensians, that at one time when he used to say the Rosary attentively and devoutly while meditating on the mysteries, Our Lady used to appear to him resplendent in breathtaking majesty and beauty. But, as time went on, his fervor cooled and he fell into the way of saying his Rosary hurriedly and without giving it his full attention. Then one day Our Lady appeared to him again, but this time she was far from beautiful, and her face was furrowed and drawn with sadness. Blessed Hermann was appalled at the change in her, and Our Lady explained, “This is how I look to you, Hermann, because this is how you are treating me; as a woman to be despised and of no importance! Why do you no longer greet me with respect and attention while meditating on my mysteries and praising my privileges?” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-Second Rose”).
Blessed Alan de la Roche and other writers, including Robert Bellarmine, tell the story of how a good priest advised three of his penitents, who happened to be sisters, to say the Rosary every day without fail for a whole year. This was so that they might make a beautiful robe of glory for the Blessed Virgin out of their Rosaries. This was a secret that the priest had received from Heaven.
So the three sisters said the Rosary faithfully for a year, and on the feast of the Purification Our Lady appeared to them at night when they had retired. St. Catherine and St. Agnes were with her, and she was wearing a dress brilliant with light, on which was written in letters of gold the words “Hail, Mary, full of grace.” Our Lady approached the eldest sister and said, “I greet you, my daughter, who have greeted me so often and so well. I want to thank you for the beautiful robes you have made me.” The two virgin saints who accompanied Our Lady also thanked her and all three disappeared.
An hour later, Our Lady, with the same two companions, entered the room again, but this time she was wearing a green dress which had no gold lettering and did not shine. She went to the second sister and thanked her for the robe she had made by saying her Rosary. But since this sister had seen Our Lady appear to the eldest sister much more magnificently dressed, she asked the reason why. Our Lady answered, “Your sister made me more beautiful clothes―because she has been saying the Rosary better than you!”
About an hour after this, she appeared to the youngest of the sisters wearing tattered and dirty rags. “My daughter,” she said, “I want to thank you for these clothes you have made me!” The young girl, feeling ashamed, cried out, “O my Lady, how could I have dressed you so badly! I beg you to forgive me! Please grant me a little more time to make you a beautiful robe by saying my Rosary better!” Our Lady and the two saints vanished, leaving the girl heartbroken. She told her confessor everything that had happened and he urged them to say the Rosary for another year and to say it with more devotion than ever.
At the end of this second year, on the same day of the Purification, Our Lady, clothed in a magnificent robe, and again attended by St. Catherine and St. Agnes, wearing crowns, appeared to them in the evening. She said to them, “I have come to tell you that you have earned Heaven at last, and you will all have the great joy of going there tomorrow!” The three of them cried, “Our hearts are ready, dearest Queen, our hearts are ready.” Then the vision faded. That same night they became ill and sent for their confessor, and received the last sacraments, after having thanked him for the holy practice he had taught them. After Compline, Our Lady appeared with a large company of virgins and had the three sisters clothed in white robes. While angels were singing, “Come, spouses of Jesus Christ, receive the crowns which have been prepared for you for all eternity,” they departed from this life. (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-Fourth Rose”).
Article 4
Wednesday October 5th & Thursday October 6th, 2022
The Power of the Holy Rosary
Wednesday October 5th & Thursday October 6th, 2022
The Power of the Holy Rosary
A Powerful Weapon―An Underestimated Weapon
In the modern age of gigantic advances in all fields of science and technology, weaponry has seen unimaginable advances. From ancient bows and arrows, swords and spears, horsemen and rock-throwing catapults―we now have rifles, machine-guns, grenades, flame-throwers, bazookas, long-range cannons, tanks, fighter-planes, drones, nuclear submarines, missiles, laser weapons, frequency weapons, biological and chemical weapons, and nuclear bombs, etc.
The atomic bomb is often thought of as the deadliest weapon, but there are a number of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons that can have an equally, or even more, devastating effect. The atomic bomb flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 200,000 people. Yet it is not the deadliest weapon in the world’s military arsenals. The hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, can be more than 1,000 times more powerful. Biological weapons, or germ warfare, involve toxins or infectious agents used to incapacitate or kill. The potential for damage is huge, even bigger than the H-bomb. Russia and the United States currently possess 93% of all nuclear weapons―with Moscow holding 6,850 and Washington another 6,450. On average, each nuclear bomb (depending on size) can destroy anywhere from 80 square miles (e.g., an area that is 9 miles long by 9 miles wide) to 160 square miles (e.g., an area that is 12 miles long by 13 miles wide).
Now, take all of the above modern weapons and place a Rosary alongside them! Could you call the Rosary as being a “weapon”? Could you say that the Rosary is more powerful than all of modern-man’s weaponry? Most people would laugh you to scorn if you said that! What? A bunch of beads on a string or chain? More powerful than a nuclear weapon? Are you crazy? You must be nuts! Back in the Old Testament, the King Saul and Israelite army thought David was crazy for refusing Saul’s armor and weapons before going out to fight Goliath! Yet David chose for his weapons a mere sling and five pebbles! You could argue that this was a prototype of a set of Rosary beads―5 decades of “pebbles” slung together on a string or chain. We all know what happened―Goliath, for all his size and all his weaponry was defeated by one single pebble!
Concerning the Rosary, Our Lady herself said to Padre Pio: “With this weapon you will win.” One evening, Padre Pio, grabbing the Rosary that he had put on the nightstand for a few seconds, said to Padre Onorato Marcucci: “With this—one wins the battles.” Convinced of the power of the Rosary, Padre Pio always held the Rosary in his hands. He used to carry, permanently, a Rosary in his hands and would pray it many times a day. Padre Marcellino testified that he had to help Padre Pio wash his hands one at a time, “because he didn't want to let go of the Rosary beads, and passed the Rosary from one hand to the other.” Padre Pio always wore the Rosary around his arm at night. A few days before his death, as Padre Pio was getting into bed, he said to the friars who were in his room: “Give me my weapon!” And the friars, surprised and curious, asked him: “Where is the weapon? We cannot see anything!” Padre Pio replied: “It is in my habit, which you have just hung up!” After having gone through the pockets of his religious habit, the friars said to him: “Padre, there is no weapon in your habit! . . . We can only find your Rosary beads there!” Padre Pio immediately said: “And is this not a weapon? ... The true weapon?!”
Rosary versus Atom Bomb
At 8:15 on the morning on Monday August 6th, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped by the United States on Hiroshima, Japan. The people of Hiroshima and the world would never be the same. The intense heat and radiation spread immediately and engulfed all those in its path. Over 80,000 people were killed instantly. Thousands more would die later from radiation poisoning. Men, women and children endured incomprehensible suffering. The temperature at the center of the blast was said to be as hot as the surface of the sun. The heat evaporated metal, melted glass, and ignited clothing miles away. Eight square miles were reduced to ash in resulting fires. Those whose flesh had not melted away, faced horrible suffering in a variety of symptoms, as the radiation destroyed the cells in their bodies.
Hiroshima was obliterated in seconds, but beneath the mushroom cloud, in the midst of horror, a miracle would rise from the ashes of destruction and bear witness to the power of the Rosary and the truth of the Promises of Our Lady of Fatima. Just eight blocks (less than 1 mile) from the epicenter (ground zero), the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption was in ruins. However, the nearby rectory, which housed eight Jesuit priests, was still standing. Four of the priests were in the rectory when the bomb was dropped―Father Hugo Lassalle, Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, Father Hubert Schiffer and Father Hubert Cieslik. They were showered with glass and debris. Four other priests were in the surrounding vicinity but, they too, survived the initial blast.
On the morning of August 6th, 1945, Fr. Schiffer had just finished offering Holy Mass, and, after his thanksgiving, he went into the rectory and sat down at the breakfast table. He was about to start eating when there was a bright flash of light. His first thought was that it was an explosion in the harbor―for this was a major military port where the Japanese refueled their submarines.
In the words of Fr. Schiffer: “Suddenly, a terrific explosion filled the air with one bursting thunderstroke. An invisible force lifted me from the chair, hurled me through the air, shook me, battered me, whirled me ‘round and ‘round like a leaf in a gust of autumn wind.” The next thing he remembered, he opened his eyes and he was laying on the ground. He looked around and there was NOTHING in any direction: the railroad station and buildings in all directions were leveled to the ground. “The light was suddenly gone. All was darkness, silence, nothingness. I was not unconscious, because I was trying to think what was happening. I felt with my fingers in the total blackness enveloping me. I was lying with my face down on broken and splintered pieces of wood, some heavy load pressed on my back, blood was running down my face. I could see nothing, hear no sound. I must be dead I thought. Then I heard my own voice. That was the most frightening experience of all, because it showed me I was still alive, and convinced me that some horrible catastrophe had occurred.”
The only physical harm to himself was that he could feel a few pieces of glass in the back of his neck. As far as he could tell, there was nothing else physically wrong with himself. Fr. Lassalle had rushed out of his room, but was bathed in his own blood from being hit by flying glass fragments. Fr. Hubert Cieslik, who had been preparing for a theology test, was able to escape from his room. Fr. Wilhelm Kleinsorge helped to evacuate from the chapel, which was about to be engulfed in flames. Many thousands were killed or maimed by the explosion of the Atom Bomb. Even though all of the four priests were wounded to some degree or another, they had not only survived the blast, they lived for decades in relatively good health.
After the conquest by the Americans, their army doctors and scientists, who cared for them after the blast, explained to Fr. Schiffer that his body would begin to deteriorate because of the radiation. They warned that radiation poisoning to which they had been exposed would cause serious lesions, illness and even death. Many of the Japanese people had blisters and sores from the radiation. The doctors were all astounded when, after examining all eight of the priests, there were no findings of elevated radiation. They exhibited absolutely no ill-effects from the bomb! Over 200 medical exams in the following years showed no ill effects, confounding the doctors who had predicted dire consequences, who could not offer any explanation for their survival. To the amazement of the doctors, Fr. Schiffer’s body contained no radiation or ill-effects from the bomb.
Fr. Schiffer attributes this to devotion to the Blessed Mother, and his daily Fatima Rosary. He feels that he received a protective shield from the Blessed Mother which protected him from all radiation and ill-effects. Fr. Hubert Schiffer said the reason they had survived the nuclear holocaust was because, “In that house the Rosary was prayed every day. In that house, we were living the message of Fatima.” Secular scientists were all in agreement that the priests should have died but, they could not agree on the reason for their miraculous survival. In a later book that he wrote―The Rosary of Hiroshima―Fr. Schiffer writes: “We all need and desperately want world-peace! And what do we do to attain it? International conferences, economic measures, defense production, civil defense training. We do almost everything we can think of, except the most important thing: PRAYER. Prayer is more powerful than the atom bomb.”
Life is a Lifelong Fight!
Usually, no normal person wants to fight―yet we cannot avoid a fight because “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). That statement has never been as true as it is today! Today we are at war―not the kind of explicit, gun-in-your-face, bomb-on-your-house, open warfare that we are used to seeing in the movies―but a more subtle, silent, surreptitious, sly, slow, smoke-screened war that many even fail to notice and acknowledge. It is ultimately a spiritual warfare―but it also includes a physical warfare because you can influence, seduce or wound the soul through the body. Our Lord wants us to attain Heaven―but that will not happen without a fight. He Himself said:
“Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
Spiritual Warfare Requires Spiritual Weapons
Our ultimate enemy is Satan and all the other devils. We will not defeat Satan with guns, bullets, bombs and nuclear weapons. Yes―the Satan is “the prince of this world” (John 14:30)―but he uses the things of this world as his weapons: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9). “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the nations, which are over the four quarters of the Earth” (Apocalypse 20:7) ― which is what Our Lady of La Salette foretold: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God!”
Rather than human weapons to combat Satan and the world, we need spiritual weapons: “Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect” (Ephesians 6:11-13). “That we be not overreached by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11).
Just as the body cannot live without a spiritual soul, likewise the material and physical world cannot function correctly without the spiritual―as Lord so emphatically said: “Without Me, you can do NOTHING!” (John 15:5). Heaven has ruled―for our present day and age―that the spiritual weapons (besides the general “prayer and penance” that always applies) are going to be the Holy Sacrifice of Mass and the Holy Rosary. Our Lady has already stated this many times in one way or another: “The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son [the Mass]! … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary!” (Our Lady of Akita). “Offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners! … You are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners!” (Our Lady of Fatima). At Lourdes she demanded: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” At La Salette she bemoaned that “the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God … There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people ... There are no more generous souls! … The people of God have neglected prayer and penance! … People think of nothing but amusement.”
The Hidden Power of the Spiritual
Our Lady of Good Success clearly stated that the spiritual side of things is the responsible for what goes on in the world: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents.” Today, monasteries and convents have fallen apart due to a lack of religious vocations. Worldwide, the number of religious decreased massively between 1970 (just after the Second Vatican Council) and 2020. In the West, the decline is more severe. In the United States, the numbers dropped by 71% between 1970 and 2018, and in Europe by 60% between 1973 and 2018.
USA FEMALE RELIGIOUS (Nuns & Sisters)
1965: 181,421 ― at the close of the Second Vatican Council
1970: 153,645 ― 15% decline
1995: 92,107 ― 50% decline
2010: 57,544 ―68 % decline
2021: 39,452 ― 78% decline
USA MALE RELIGIOUS (Monks & Brothers)
1965: 12,255 ― at the close of the Second Vatican Council
1970: 11,623 ― 5% decline
1995: 6,578 ― 46% decline
2010: 4,690 ― 62% decline
2021: 3,832 ―69 % decline
USA SEMINARIANS (both secular & religious)
1965: 48,046 ― at the close of the Second Vatican Council
1970: 28,819 ― 40% decline
1995: 5,083 ― 82% decline
2010: 3,483 ― 87% decline
2021: 3,650 ― 87% decline
In the modern age of gigantic advances in all fields of science and technology, weaponry has seen unimaginable advances. From ancient bows and arrows, swords and spears, horsemen and rock-throwing catapults―we now have rifles, machine-guns, grenades, flame-throwers, bazookas, long-range cannons, tanks, fighter-planes, drones, nuclear submarines, missiles, laser weapons, frequency weapons, biological and chemical weapons, and nuclear bombs, etc.
The atomic bomb is often thought of as the deadliest weapon, but there are a number of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons that can have an equally, or even more, devastating effect. The atomic bomb flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 200,000 people. Yet it is not the deadliest weapon in the world’s military arsenals. The hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, can be more than 1,000 times more powerful. Biological weapons, or germ warfare, involve toxins or infectious agents used to incapacitate or kill. The potential for damage is huge, even bigger than the H-bomb. Russia and the United States currently possess 93% of all nuclear weapons―with Moscow holding 6,850 and Washington another 6,450. On average, each nuclear bomb (depending on size) can destroy anywhere from 80 square miles (e.g., an area that is 9 miles long by 9 miles wide) to 160 square miles (e.g., an area that is 12 miles long by 13 miles wide).
Now, take all of the above modern weapons and place a Rosary alongside them! Could you call the Rosary as being a “weapon”? Could you say that the Rosary is more powerful than all of modern-man’s weaponry? Most people would laugh you to scorn if you said that! What? A bunch of beads on a string or chain? More powerful than a nuclear weapon? Are you crazy? You must be nuts! Back in the Old Testament, the King Saul and Israelite army thought David was crazy for refusing Saul’s armor and weapons before going out to fight Goliath! Yet David chose for his weapons a mere sling and five pebbles! You could argue that this was a prototype of a set of Rosary beads―5 decades of “pebbles” slung together on a string or chain. We all know what happened―Goliath, for all his size and all his weaponry was defeated by one single pebble!
Concerning the Rosary, Our Lady herself said to Padre Pio: “With this weapon you will win.” One evening, Padre Pio, grabbing the Rosary that he had put on the nightstand for a few seconds, said to Padre Onorato Marcucci: “With this—one wins the battles.” Convinced of the power of the Rosary, Padre Pio always held the Rosary in his hands. He used to carry, permanently, a Rosary in his hands and would pray it many times a day. Padre Marcellino testified that he had to help Padre Pio wash his hands one at a time, “because he didn't want to let go of the Rosary beads, and passed the Rosary from one hand to the other.” Padre Pio always wore the Rosary around his arm at night. A few days before his death, as Padre Pio was getting into bed, he said to the friars who were in his room: “Give me my weapon!” And the friars, surprised and curious, asked him: “Where is the weapon? We cannot see anything!” Padre Pio replied: “It is in my habit, which you have just hung up!” After having gone through the pockets of his religious habit, the friars said to him: “Padre, there is no weapon in your habit! . . . We can only find your Rosary beads there!” Padre Pio immediately said: “And is this not a weapon? ... The true weapon?!”
Rosary versus Atom Bomb
At 8:15 on the morning on Monday August 6th, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped by the United States on Hiroshima, Japan. The people of Hiroshima and the world would never be the same. The intense heat and radiation spread immediately and engulfed all those in its path. Over 80,000 people were killed instantly. Thousands more would die later from radiation poisoning. Men, women and children endured incomprehensible suffering. The temperature at the center of the blast was said to be as hot as the surface of the sun. The heat evaporated metal, melted glass, and ignited clothing miles away. Eight square miles were reduced to ash in resulting fires. Those whose flesh had not melted away, faced horrible suffering in a variety of symptoms, as the radiation destroyed the cells in their bodies.
Hiroshima was obliterated in seconds, but beneath the mushroom cloud, in the midst of horror, a miracle would rise from the ashes of destruction and bear witness to the power of the Rosary and the truth of the Promises of Our Lady of Fatima. Just eight blocks (less than 1 mile) from the epicenter (ground zero), the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption was in ruins. However, the nearby rectory, which housed eight Jesuit priests, was still standing. Four of the priests were in the rectory when the bomb was dropped―Father Hugo Lassalle, Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, Father Hubert Schiffer and Father Hubert Cieslik. They were showered with glass and debris. Four other priests were in the surrounding vicinity but, they too, survived the initial blast.
On the morning of August 6th, 1945, Fr. Schiffer had just finished offering Holy Mass, and, after his thanksgiving, he went into the rectory and sat down at the breakfast table. He was about to start eating when there was a bright flash of light. His first thought was that it was an explosion in the harbor―for this was a major military port where the Japanese refueled their submarines.
In the words of Fr. Schiffer: “Suddenly, a terrific explosion filled the air with one bursting thunderstroke. An invisible force lifted me from the chair, hurled me through the air, shook me, battered me, whirled me ‘round and ‘round like a leaf in a gust of autumn wind.” The next thing he remembered, he opened his eyes and he was laying on the ground. He looked around and there was NOTHING in any direction: the railroad station and buildings in all directions were leveled to the ground. “The light was suddenly gone. All was darkness, silence, nothingness. I was not unconscious, because I was trying to think what was happening. I felt with my fingers in the total blackness enveloping me. I was lying with my face down on broken and splintered pieces of wood, some heavy load pressed on my back, blood was running down my face. I could see nothing, hear no sound. I must be dead I thought. Then I heard my own voice. That was the most frightening experience of all, because it showed me I was still alive, and convinced me that some horrible catastrophe had occurred.”
The only physical harm to himself was that he could feel a few pieces of glass in the back of his neck. As far as he could tell, there was nothing else physically wrong with himself. Fr. Lassalle had rushed out of his room, but was bathed in his own blood from being hit by flying glass fragments. Fr. Hubert Cieslik, who had been preparing for a theology test, was able to escape from his room. Fr. Wilhelm Kleinsorge helped to evacuate from the chapel, which was about to be engulfed in flames. Many thousands were killed or maimed by the explosion of the Atom Bomb. Even though all of the four priests were wounded to some degree or another, they had not only survived the blast, they lived for decades in relatively good health.
After the conquest by the Americans, their army doctors and scientists, who cared for them after the blast, explained to Fr. Schiffer that his body would begin to deteriorate because of the radiation. They warned that radiation poisoning to which they had been exposed would cause serious lesions, illness and even death. Many of the Japanese people had blisters and sores from the radiation. The doctors were all astounded when, after examining all eight of the priests, there were no findings of elevated radiation. They exhibited absolutely no ill-effects from the bomb! Over 200 medical exams in the following years showed no ill effects, confounding the doctors who had predicted dire consequences, who could not offer any explanation for their survival. To the amazement of the doctors, Fr. Schiffer’s body contained no radiation or ill-effects from the bomb.
Fr. Schiffer attributes this to devotion to the Blessed Mother, and his daily Fatima Rosary. He feels that he received a protective shield from the Blessed Mother which protected him from all radiation and ill-effects. Fr. Hubert Schiffer said the reason they had survived the nuclear holocaust was because, “In that house the Rosary was prayed every day. In that house, we were living the message of Fatima.” Secular scientists were all in agreement that the priests should have died but, they could not agree on the reason for their miraculous survival. In a later book that he wrote―The Rosary of Hiroshima―Fr. Schiffer writes: “We all need and desperately want world-peace! And what do we do to attain it? International conferences, economic measures, defense production, civil defense training. We do almost everything we can think of, except the most important thing: PRAYER. Prayer is more powerful than the atom bomb.”
Life is a Lifelong Fight!
Usually, no normal person wants to fight―yet we cannot avoid a fight because “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). That statement has never been as true as it is today! Today we are at war―not the kind of explicit, gun-in-your-face, bomb-on-your-house, open warfare that we are used to seeing in the movies―but a more subtle, silent, surreptitious, sly, slow, smoke-screened war that many even fail to notice and acknowledge. It is ultimately a spiritual warfare―but it also includes a physical warfare because you can influence, seduce or wound the soul through the body. Our Lord wants us to attain Heaven―but that will not happen without a fight. He Himself said:
“Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
Spiritual Warfare Requires Spiritual Weapons
Our ultimate enemy is Satan and all the other devils. We will not defeat Satan with guns, bullets, bombs and nuclear weapons. Yes―the Satan is “the prince of this world” (John 14:30)―but he uses the things of this world as his weapons: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9). “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the nations, which are over the four quarters of the Earth” (Apocalypse 20:7) ― which is what Our Lady of La Salette foretold: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God!”
Rather than human weapons to combat Satan and the world, we need spiritual weapons: “Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect” (Ephesians 6:11-13). “That we be not overreached by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11).
Just as the body cannot live without a spiritual soul, likewise the material and physical world cannot function correctly without the spiritual―as Lord so emphatically said: “Without Me, you can do NOTHING!” (John 15:5). Heaven has ruled―for our present day and age―that the spiritual weapons (besides the general “prayer and penance” that always applies) are going to be the Holy Sacrifice of Mass and the Holy Rosary. Our Lady has already stated this many times in one way or another: “The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son [the Mass]! … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary!” (Our Lady of Akita). “Offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners! … You are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners!” (Our Lady of Fatima). At Lourdes she demanded: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” At La Salette she bemoaned that “the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God … There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people ... There are no more generous souls! … The people of God have neglected prayer and penance! … People think of nothing but amusement.”
The Hidden Power of the Spiritual
Our Lady of Good Success clearly stated that the spiritual side of things is the responsible for what goes on in the world: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents.” Today, monasteries and convents have fallen apart due to a lack of religious vocations. Worldwide, the number of religious decreased massively between 1970 (just after the Second Vatican Council) and 2020. In the West, the decline is more severe. In the United States, the numbers dropped by 71% between 1970 and 2018, and in Europe by 60% between 1973 and 2018.
USA FEMALE RELIGIOUS (Nuns & Sisters)
1965: 181,421 ― at the close of the Second Vatican Council
1970: 153,645 ― 15% decline
1995: 92,107 ― 50% decline
2010: 57,544 ―68 % decline
2021: 39,452 ― 78% decline
USA MALE RELIGIOUS (Monks & Brothers)
1965: 12,255 ― at the close of the Second Vatican Council
1970: 11,623 ― 5% decline
1995: 6,578 ― 46% decline
2010: 4,690 ― 62% decline
2021: 3,832 ―69 % decline
USA SEMINARIANS (both secular & religious)
1965: 48,046 ― at the close of the Second Vatican Council
1970: 28,819 ― 40% decline
1995: 5,083 ― 82% decline
2010: 3,483 ― 87% decline
2021: 3,650 ― 87% decline
Wednesday October 5th & Thursday October 6th, 2022 THE POWER OF THE SPIRITUAL
Stepping Into the Breach
If a pilot becomes incapacitated while flying the plane, the co-pilot takes over the responsibility. When a President dies in office, the Vice-President takes charge of the country. When a husband dies, the wife takes over many of his responsibilities in order to keep the family functioning. If a commanding officer is killed in battle, the next-in-command (the person who is closet in rank to the deceased officer) takes charge. If both airline pilots die or are killed in flight, then it is logical that some other person must take their place in cockpit―even if they are not qualified. If there is an emergency that requires treatment by a doctor―but no doctor is available―then some other person must take charge and do the best they possibly can do in order to save the injured or wounded person’s life.
The same is true in the spiritual sphere. For example, take the case of the Sacrament of Baptism. Normally, it would be the parish priest who would be expected to baptize a baby or a convert. However, this can be delegated to his assistant priest if necessary. If neither priest is able to baptize―then, if there is a deacon available, then he would take responsibility. If no member of the clergy is available and there is, for example, a danger of the unbaptized baby or convert dying, then the next best option would be in line of order, (1) a male religious, (2) a female religious, (3) a Catholic layman, (4) a Catholic laywoman, (5) a Catholic male youth, (6) a Catholic female youth, etc. If no Catholics are available―for example in the case of a car crash and danger of death from the sustained injuries, then even a non-Catholic Christian (Protestant) or, if not available, even a pagan could baptize as long they agree to do what the Church intends to be done; use the correct words; use the correct matter (water); and administer it properly. That is the teaching of traditional Catholic Moral Theology.
With the above documented collapse of the religious orders―the numbers of monasteries and convents have been greatly reduced―and with that great reduction there automatically comes a great reduction in the prayers and sacrifices that would normally continually rise up to Heaven from those monasteries and convents. Seriously reflect and ponder upon the above words of Our Lady of Good Success: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance―for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils! ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents.” Yes―woe to us―because we are gravely lacking monasteries and convents! Hence enormous advances and invasions of all kinds of evils are increasingly being witnessed all throughout the world.
What is to be done? Well―as stated above―the lay people have to “take up the slack” and “stand in the breach” left that woeful and pitiful abandonment of religious vocations. The Catholic home has to now become―in some degree―the monastery or convent that has been abandoned by the vast hordes who have refused or left their God-given vocation. St. John Bosco was of the opinion that ONE-IN-THREE persons was called to a religious or priestly vocation! Today, you will scarcely find 1-in-3,000 who responds to God’s calling! Today we have over 1,300 million Catholics in the world and only 1 million priests and religious (combined total). But that number includes the “old-timers”―and there are plenty of them, with the average age of priests being over 65 years of age and the average age of religious vocations being over 70 years of age. In the USA, a survey of 433 major superiors throughout the country saw 79% of them reporting that they had NOBODY enter their religious order in 2020. Another 50 major superiors (9%) reported only ONE new entrant; and 64 major superiors (12%) reported TWO or more new entrants―and that is from a U.S. Catholic population of anywhere from 67 million to 73 million. Our Lady of Good Success, speaking of our present day times, said: “Secular education will increase, which will be one reason for the lack of priestly and religious vocations … Many authentic vocations will perish! … During these unfortunate times, evil will invade childhood innocence. In this way, vocations to the priesthood will be lost, resulting in a true calamity!”
The results of such a lack of vocations is a partial reason why Our Lady sought out children and the laity to supply for what was lacking in the religious field. Our Lady of Fatima said to the three young children at Fatima (aged 10, 9 and 7): “Pray! Pray a great deal and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to Hell because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them.” Just over 50 years later, Our Lady of Akita is looking for souls who will answer God’s call for prayer, penance and sacrifices: “I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His Precious Blood, and beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this!”
Sister Lucia of Fatima speaks of this involvement of the laity in these “End Times” in which we find ourselves in: “Father, the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground … The Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin and, as you know, what most offends God and what will gain him the greatest number of souls in the shortest time is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them! …
“The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary, to such an extent, that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or, above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
For this reason, Father, it is my mission not just to speak about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to also tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin. Father, we should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway!” (Sister Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1917).
We Are At War with the Devil and the World!
As Sister Lucia of Fatima said: “The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground!” Where are you? There is no hiding place! Would Moses address these words to us also: “And Moses answered them: ‘What! Shall your brethren go to fight, and will you just sit here?’” (Numbers 32:6). Remember that “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to whom He hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) ― and it is with the Rosary that we will bear it away!
As Sister Lucia said―the primary weapon that Heaven has placed into the hands of every Catholic is the most Holy Rosary, of which St. Padre Pio said: “With this weapon you will win! … With this—one wins the battles! … Is this not a weapon? ... The true weapon? … The Rosary is THE weapon! … The Rosary is the weapon of defense and salvation … The Rosary is the weapon given us by Mary to use against the tricks of the infernal enemy … Mary has recommended the Rosary at Lourdes and Fatima because of its exceptional value for us and our times … Pray the Rosary, for the Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world! …. Always recite the Rosary! … Recite the Rosary and recite it always! Recite it as much as you can! … In all the free time you have, once you have finished your duties of state, you should kneel down and pray the Rosary. Pray the Rosary before the Blessed Sacrament, or before a crucifix! … When you get tired reciting the Rosary, rest a bit, and then restart again! … Some days I say forty Rosaries, some other days fifty Rosaries. How do I do it?—How do you manage not to say any?”
Austrian Rosary Miracle
Did you know that after the Second World War (1939-1945), much of Austria was under the Iron Curtain? After the war, Austria was divided up by the Allies: America, France, the United Kingdom, and Russia. The eastern half of Austria, that was handed over to be controlled by the Russian Communists, was the richest part of Austria and included the city of Vienna. The Viennese were subject to the all the atrocities and tyrannies of Communism. Until 1991, the Soviets never lost a nation ― but something different happened here. The key player in all of this would be Petrus Pavlicek.
Petrus Pavlicek was born in Innsbruck, Austria in 1902. He was born Otto Pavlicek ― Petrus would later be his religious name upon entering the Franciscans. As a young boy, he felt called to the religious life, but grew indifferent in his teenage years. He fell away from the Faith and left the Catholic Church in 1921, when he was 19. Then, from 1922 to 1924, he entered and served in the military to complete his compulsory military service. Upon completing his military service, he worked in Prague for the company Brown, Boveri & Cie. Since there the work was not to his satisfaction, he studied from 1927 to 1930 in the academy of fine arts in Wroclaw, after that lived a wild life as an artist in Paris and London, where, on December 10th, 1932, “married” the artist Kathleen Nell Brockhouse in a civil ceremony―which was against the laws of the Catholic Church. The marriage lasted only a few months. Pavlicek moved to Cambridge, lived during 1933 in Brno and then in Prague.
In 1935 he was struck with a life threatening illness which led to his conversion, and he came back into the fold of the Catholic Church on December 15th, 1935. Once he recovered from the severe illness in 1936, he felt his childhood call to become a priest, but now, after such an unfaithful life, he felt unworthy. Seeking advice, he visited Therese Neumann, a famous Catholic mystic at the time. She confirmed his decision and strengthened his resolve, and, after failing to be accepted by the Franciscans of Innsbruck and Vienna, he was finally accepted into the Franciscan Order at Prague and received the religious name Petrus. On August 29th, 1938, he made his simple religious vows, three years later, in 1941, he took his solemn religious vows. On December 14th, 1941, he was ordained a priest.
Now pay attention to the dates on which things happen in the life of Petrus Pavlicek ― many of them were Marian feast days ― to show that, even before he committed his life to Mary, she was guiding everything!
In 1942, on May 13th, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, 1942, he was arrested by the Gestapo for supposed military-forces draft evasion and was brought to a court martial. The process ended with an acquittal ― but he was nevertheless conscripted into the German Army. On October 7th, the feast of the Holy Rosary, he was sent to the Western Front as a paramedic. On August 15th, 1944, the feast of the Assumption, he was captured by Americans and became a prisoner of war ― which seems even worse ― except Mary had it secretly under control. He was taken to Cherbourg-Octeville, where he acted as a Prisoner of War Camp priest and learnt, for the first time, through a brochure, about the Marian apparitions in Fatima: Our Lady of Fatima.
It was during this imprisonment that he learned for the first time about Our Lady’s apparition and messages at Fatima. Fr. Pavlicek was inspired by the words of Our Lady at Fatima where she had said that the actions of men would not be enough, and that only she could help us through the Rosary, and, if we did what she asked, many souls would be saved and there would be peace. Reminded of this Fr. Pavlicek would say: “Peace is a gift of God, not the work of politicians!” And the gifts of God are obtained through the Rosary that storms Heaven as soldiers storm a fort ― with confidence and determination.
In 1945, on July 16th, the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, he was released from captivity, but he could not return to the monastery in Prague and went to Vienna. There he was appointed as missionary. In 1946, on February 2nd― the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the Purification of Our Lady ― he went on pilgrimage to principal Marian shrine of Mariazell in Austria, to thank Mary for her protection in gratitude for the fortunate return home from the Second World War, and to seek the will of God. Here, he heard an interior voice, which said: “Do, as I say, and there will be peace!” These words reminded him of the message of Fatima and he founded, in February 1947, the Crusade of Reparation of the Holy Rosary for Peace in the World (RSK).
The Austrian Rosary Crusade Takes-Off
In 1947, with his country at the mercy of atheistic Soviet Marxism, Fr. Pavlicek began gathering people in villages, towns and cities across Soviet controlled Austria on the 13th of each month to pray the Rosary together and in public and he called it the Rosary Crusade. At first people were afraid, but seeing others praying the Rosary strengthened them and gave them hope.
From 1947 until 1955, Fr. Pavlicek conducted public Rosary processions and rallies on the 13th of each month. Many people gathered at first, but often they could not sustain their spiritual practices, so the Rosary Crusade ebbed and flowed ― but Fr. Pavlicek persevered in his confidence in Our Lady.
From September of 1948, every month in the Franciscan church of Vienna, there took place ceremonies for peace. From 1949, Fr. Pavlicek published a periodical, which is named “Betendes Gottesvolk” today. From 1950 to 1955, he organized, in the month of September, the yearly procession of the Name of Mary (feast day September 12th) in the Vienna Ring Road.
By 1955, eight years later, despite the initial resistance of Austria’s upper hierarchy, Fr. Pavlicek’s “Rosary Atonement Crusade”, more than a half million Austrians (out of a 1955 Austrian population of around 7 million) had pledged to pray the Rosary every day, begging for the conversion of sinners, peace in the world and freedom in Austria. The Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, Theodor Innitzer, ultimately did join the Crusade, as did Austria’s Prime Minister, Leopold Figl, members of his cabinet, and Figl’s successor, Julius Raab. Tens of thousands of Catholics, both clergy and laity, and even politicians, were seen marching in the streets, praying the Rosary and bearing votive candles for the intention of peace in the world.
Throughout this time the politicians conducted more than 260 peace conferences in the effort to remove the Soviets from power. But these efforts only ended with the Russians tightening their iron grip on Austria. Man alone does not have the power to change the course of history or bring peace. This is a job for the Queen of Peace. But she asks our cooperation in praying the daily Rosary.
The Cold War intensified, and Communism refined its methods of religious persecution in Austria. It seemed that God wanted to test the Faith of those who had prayed so zealously for their country’s freedom.
Their Faith having been sufficiently tried, the grace was finally given. On March 24th, 1955, the eve of the feast of the Annunciation, the Soviet governors invited the Austrians to a conference. Believing that his nation’s future would be sealed in Moscow, Prime Minister Raab entreated Father Pavlicek before his departure: “Please pray ― and ask your people to pray harder than ever!”
To the world’s surprise, the Soviets signed the Austrian State Treaty guaranteeing the independence of Austria, by which they and the Allied Powers ended their post-war occupation of Austria, and stated they would withdraw their troops from Austria in just three months. On May 15th, during the Month of Mary, the Soviets signed a treaty. And on October 26th, 1955, very fittingly and appropriately during the month of the Holy Rosary, the last Russian soldier left the occupied eastern sector of Austria.
Concerning this event, the historian Sigfried Beer of Columbia University writes: “The question as to why the Soviets finally decided to abandon their military presence in eastern Austria in the spring of 1955 and to agree to a negotiated withdrawal has preoccupied historians ever since.” And well it should, for in human terms the Soviets’ abrupt departure from Austria, leaving behind the treasures of Vienna, is simply inexplicable. As the historian Rolf Steininger notes, “the West was taken aback” by the communiqué from Moscow announcing its agreement to withdraw its forces, and Sir Geoffrey Arnold Wallinger, Britain’s High Commissioner in occupied Austria, pronounced the result “far too good to be true, to be honest.” But it was true. And the Soviet departure from Austria stands today as a modern testament to the Church’s and Rosary’s power over the world—if only that power would be exercised. A simple priest, leading a Marian movement in Austria, succeeded in driving the Soviets from the soil of that Catholic nation without even firing a shot! The Soviets didn’t have a chance against the Blessed Virgin, whose intercessory power had been called down upon them by a lowly Catholic cleric. Basically, it was a large spiritual army of lay people, led by a priest, that had peacefully overcome the might of Communist Russia. That is the power of the Holy Rosary! What was achieved back then, can also be achieved today! However, it took almost 10% of the population to pray the Rosary and they had to pray and wait for over seven years before their prayers were answered and granted! Do we have the same tenacity and perseverance today?
Fr. Pavlicek considered the signing of the Austrian State Treaty, in May of 1955, as an achievement of his Rosary and prayer movement. Father Pavlicek led the “Crusade of Reparation of the Holy Rosary” until his death on December 14th, 1982. He was buried in the Franciscan Church. His canonization process was started on October 13th, 2000.
If a pilot becomes incapacitated while flying the plane, the co-pilot takes over the responsibility. When a President dies in office, the Vice-President takes charge of the country. When a husband dies, the wife takes over many of his responsibilities in order to keep the family functioning. If a commanding officer is killed in battle, the next-in-command (the person who is closet in rank to the deceased officer) takes charge. If both airline pilots die or are killed in flight, then it is logical that some other person must take their place in cockpit―even if they are not qualified. If there is an emergency that requires treatment by a doctor―but no doctor is available―then some other person must take charge and do the best they possibly can do in order to save the injured or wounded person’s life.
The same is true in the spiritual sphere. For example, take the case of the Sacrament of Baptism. Normally, it would be the parish priest who would be expected to baptize a baby or a convert. However, this can be delegated to his assistant priest if necessary. If neither priest is able to baptize―then, if there is a deacon available, then he would take responsibility. If no member of the clergy is available and there is, for example, a danger of the unbaptized baby or convert dying, then the next best option would be in line of order, (1) a male religious, (2) a female religious, (3) a Catholic layman, (4) a Catholic laywoman, (5) a Catholic male youth, (6) a Catholic female youth, etc. If no Catholics are available―for example in the case of a car crash and danger of death from the sustained injuries, then even a non-Catholic Christian (Protestant) or, if not available, even a pagan could baptize as long they agree to do what the Church intends to be done; use the correct words; use the correct matter (water); and administer it properly. That is the teaching of traditional Catholic Moral Theology.
With the above documented collapse of the religious orders―the numbers of monasteries and convents have been greatly reduced―and with that great reduction there automatically comes a great reduction in the prayers and sacrifices that would normally continually rise up to Heaven from those monasteries and convents. Seriously reflect and ponder upon the above words of Our Lady of Good Success: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance―for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils! ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents.” Yes―woe to us―because we are gravely lacking monasteries and convents! Hence enormous advances and invasions of all kinds of evils are increasingly being witnessed all throughout the world.
What is to be done? Well―as stated above―the lay people have to “take up the slack” and “stand in the breach” left that woeful and pitiful abandonment of religious vocations. The Catholic home has to now become―in some degree―the monastery or convent that has been abandoned by the vast hordes who have refused or left their God-given vocation. St. John Bosco was of the opinion that ONE-IN-THREE persons was called to a religious or priestly vocation! Today, you will scarcely find 1-in-3,000 who responds to God’s calling! Today we have over 1,300 million Catholics in the world and only 1 million priests and religious (combined total). But that number includes the “old-timers”―and there are plenty of them, with the average age of priests being over 65 years of age and the average age of religious vocations being over 70 years of age. In the USA, a survey of 433 major superiors throughout the country saw 79% of them reporting that they had NOBODY enter their religious order in 2020. Another 50 major superiors (9%) reported only ONE new entrant; and 64 major superiors (12%) reported TWO or more new entrants―and that is from a U.S. Catholic population of anywhere from 67 million to 73 million. Our Lady of Good Success, speaking of our present day times, said: “Secular education will increase, which will be one reason for the lack of priestly and religious vocations … Many authentic vocations will perish! … During these unfortunate times, evil will invade childhood innocence. In this way, vocations to the priesthood will be lost, resulting in a true calamity!”
The results of such a lack of vocations is a partial reason why Our Lady sought out children and the laity to supply for what was lacking in the religious field. Our Lady of Fatima said to the three young children at Fatima (aged 10, 9 and 7): “Pray! Pray a great deal and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to Hell because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them.” Just over 50 years later, Our Lady of Akita is looking for souls who will answer God’s call for prayer, penance and sacrifices: “I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His Precious Blood, and beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this!”
Sister Lucia of Fatima speaks of this involvement of the laity in these “End Times” in which we find ourselves in: “Father, the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground … The Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin and, as you know, what most offends God and what will gain him the greatest number of souls in the shortest time is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them! …
“The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary, to such an extent, that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or, above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
For this reason, Father, it is my mission not just to speak about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to also tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin. Father, we should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway!” (Sister Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1917).
We Are At War with the Devil and the World!
As Sister Lucia of Fatima said: “The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground!” Where are you? There is no hiding place! Would Moses address these words to us also: “And Moses answered them: ‘What! Shall your brethren go to fight, and will you just sit here?’” (Numbers 32:6). Remember that “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus! No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses; so that he may please Him to whom He hath engaged himself” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) ― and it is with the Rosary that we will bear it away!
As Sister Lucia said―the primary weapon that Heaven has placed into the hands of every Catholic is the most Holy Rosary, of which St. Padre Pio said: “With this weapon you will win! … With this—one wins the battles! … Is this not a weapon? ... The true weapon? … The Rosary is THE weapon! … The Rosary is the weapon of defense and salvation … The Rosary is the weapon given us by Mary to use against the tricks of the infernal enemy … Mary has recommended the Rosary at Lourdes and Fatima because of its exceptional value for us and our times … Pray the Rosary, for the Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world! …. Always recite the Rosary! … Recite the Rosary and recite it always! Recite it as much as you can! … In all the free time you have, once you have finished your duties of state, you should kneel down and pray the Rosary. Pray the Rosary before the Blessed Sacrament, or before a crucifix! … When you get tired reciting the Rosary, rest a bit, and then restart again! … Some days I say forty Rosaries, some other days fifty Rosaries. How do I do it?—How do you manage not to say any?”
Austrian Rosary Miracle
Did you know that after the Second World War (1939-1945), much of Austria was under the Iron Curtain? After the war, Austria was divided up by the Allies: America, France, the United Kingdom, and Russia. The eastern half of Austria, that was handed over to be controlled by the Russian Communists, was the richest part of Austria and included the city of Vienna. The Viennese were subject to the all the atrocities and tyrannies of Communism. Until 1991, the Soviets never lost a nation ― but something different happened here. The key player in all of this would be Petrus Pavlicek.
Petrus Pavlicek was born in Innsbruck, Austria in 1902. He was born Otto Pavlicek ― Petrus would later be his religious name upon entering the Franciscans. As a young boy, he felt called to the religious life, but grew indifferent in his teenage years. He fell away from the Faith and left the Catholic Church in 1921, when he was 19. Then, from 1922 to 1924, he entered and served in the military to complete his compulsory military service. Upon completing his military service, he worked in Prague for the company Brown, Boveri & Cie. Since there the work was not to his satisfaction, he studied from 1927 to 1930 in the academy of fine arts in Wroclaw, after that lived a wild life as an artist in Paris and London, where, on December 10th, 1932, “married” the artist Kathleen Nell Brockhouse in a civil ceremony―which was against the laws of the Catholic Church. The marriage lasted only a few months. Pavlicek moved to Cambridge, lived during 1933 in Brno and then in Prague.
In 1935 he was struck with a life threatening illness which led to his conversion, and he came back into the fold of the Catholic Church on December 15th, 1935. Once he recovered from the severe illness in 1936, he felt his childhood call to become a priest, but now, after such an unfaithful life, he felt unworthy. Seeking advice, he visited Therese Neumann, a famous Catholic mystic at the time. She confirmed his decision and strengthened his resolve, and, after failing to be accepted by the Franciscans of Innsbruck and Vienna, he was finally accepted into the Franciscan Order at Prague and received the religious name Petrus. On August 29th, 1938, he made his simple religious vows, three years later, in 1941, he took his solemn religious vows. On December 14th, 1941, he was ordained a priest.
Now pay attention to the dates on which things happen in the life of Petrus Pavlicek ― many of them were Marian feast days ― to show that, even before he committed his life to Mary, she was guiding everything!
In 1942, on May 13th, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, 1942, he was arrested by the Gestapo for supposed military-forces draft evasion and was brought to a court martial. The process ended with an acquittal ― but he was nevertheless conscripted into the German Army. On October 7th, the feast of the Holy Rosary, he was sent to the Western Front as a paramedic. On August 15th, 1944, the feast of the Assumption, he was captured by Americans and became a prisoner of war ― which seems even worse ― except Mary had it secretly under control. He was taken to Cherbourg-Octeville, where he acted as a Prisoner of War Camp priest and learnt, for the first time, through a brochure, about the Marian apparitions in Fatima: Our Lady of Fatima.
It was during this imprisonment that he learned for the first time about Our Lady’s apparition and messages at Fatima. Fr. Pavlicek was inspired by the words of Our Lady at Fatima where she had said that the actions of men would not be enough, and that only she could help us through the Rosary, and, if we did what she asked, many souls would be saved and there would be peace. Reminded of this Fr. Pavlicek would say: “Peace is a gift of God, not the work of politicians!” And the gifts of God are obtained through the Rosary that storms Heaven as soldiers storm a fort ― with confidence and determination.
In 1945, on July 16th, the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, he was released from captivity, but he could not return to the monastery in Prague and went to Vienna. There he was appointed as missionary. In 1946, on February 2nd― the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the Purification of Our Lady ― he went on pilgrimage to principal Marian shrine of Mariazell in Austria, to thank Mary for her protection in gratitude for the fortunate return home from the Second World War, and to seek the will of God. Here, he heard an interior voice, which said: “Do, as I say, and there will be peace!” These words reminded him of the message of Fatima and he founded, in February 1947, the Crusade of Reparation of the Holy Rosary for Peace in the World (RSK).
The Austrian Rosary Crusade Takes-Off
In 1947, with his country at the mercy of atheistic Soviet Marxism, Fr. Pavlicek began gathering people in villages, towns and cities across Soviet controlled Austria on the 13th of each month to pray the Rosary together and in public and he called it the Rosary Crusade. At first people were afraid, but seeing others praying the Rosary strengthened them and gave them hope.
From 1947 until 1955, Fr. Pavlicek conducted public Rosary processions and rallies on the 13th of each month. Many people gathered at first, but often they could not sustain their spiritual practices, so the Rosary Crusade ebbed and flowed ― but Fr. Pavlicek persevered in his confidence in Our Lady.
From September of 1948, every month in the Franciscan church of Vienna, there took place ceremonies for peace. From 1949, Fr. Pavlicek published a periodical, which is named “Betendes Gottesvolk” today. From 1950 to 1955, he organized, in the month of September, the yearly procession of the Name of Mary (feast day September 12th) in the Vienna Ring Road.
By 1955, eight years later, despite the initial resistance of Austria’s upper hierarchy, Fr. Pavlicek’s “Rosary Atonement Crusade”, more than a half million Austrians (out of a 1955 Austrian population of around 7 million) had pledged to pray the Rosary every day, begging for the conversion of sinners, peace in the world and freedom in Austria. The Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, Theodor Innitzer, ultimately did join the Crusade, as did Austria’s Prime Minister, Leopold Figl, members of his cabinet, and Figl’s successor, Julius Raab. Tens of thousands of Catholics, both clergy and laity, and even politicians, were seen marching in the streets, praying the Rosary and bearing votive candles for the intention of peace in the world.
Throughout this time the politicians conducted more than 260 peace conferences in the effort to remove the Soviets from power. But these efforts only ended with the Russians tightening their iron grip on Austria. Man alone does not have the power to change the course of history or bring peace. This is a job for the Queen of Peace. But she asks our cooperation in praying the daily Rosary.
The Cold War intensified, and Communism refined its methods of religious persecution in Austria. It seemed that God wanted to test the Faith of those who had prayed so zealously for their country’s freedom.
Their Faith having been sufficiently tried, the grace was finally given. On March 24th, 1955, the eve of the feast of the Annunciation, the Soviet governors invited the Austrians to a conference. Believing that his nation’s future would be sealed in Moscow, Prime Minister Raab entreated Father Pavlicek before his departure: “Please pray ― and ask your people to pray harder than ever!”
To the world’s surprise, the Soviets signed the Austrian State Treaty guaranteeing the independence of Austria, by which they and the Allied Powers ended their post-war occupation of Austria, and stated they would withdraw their troops from Austria in just three months. On May 15th, during the Month of Mary, the Soviets signed a treaty. And on October 26th, 1955, very fittingly and appropriately during the month of the Holy Rosary, the last Russian soldier left the occupied eastern sector of Austria.
Concerning this event, the historian Sigfried Beer of Columbia University writes: “The question as to why the Soviets finally decided to abandon their military presence in eastern Austria in the spring of 1955 and to agree to a negotiated withdrawal has preoccupied historians ever since.” And well it should, for in human terms the Soviets’ abrupt departure from Austria, leaving behind the treasures of Vienna, is simply inexplicable. As the historian Rolf Steininger notes, “the West was taken aback” by the communiqué from Moscow announcing its agreement to withdraw its forces, and Sir Geoffrey Arnold Wallinger, Britain’s High Commissioner in occupied Austria, pronounced the result “far too good to be true, to be honest.” But it was true. And the Soviet departure from Austria stands today as a modern testament to the Church’s and Rosary’s power over the world—if only that power would be exercised. A simple priest, leading a Marian movement in Austria, succeeded in driving the Soviets from the soil of that Catholic nation without even firing a shot! The Soviets didn’t have a chance against the Blessed Virgin, whose intercessory power had been called down upon them by a lowly Catholic cleric. Basically, it was a large spiritual army of lay people, led by a priest, that had peacefully overcome the might of Communist Russia. That is the power of the Holy Rosary! What was achieved back then, can also be achieved today! However, it took almost 10% of the population to pray the Rosary and they had to pray and wait for over seven years before their prayers were answered and granted! Do we have the same tenacity and perseverance today?
Fr. Pavlicek considered the signing of the Austrian State Treaty, in May of 1955, as an achievement of his Rosary and prayer movement. Father Pavlicek led the “Crusade of Reparation of the Holy Rosary” until his death on December 14th, 1982. He was buried in the Franciscan Church. His canonization process was started on October 13th, 2000.
Article 3
Monday October 3rd & Tuesday October 4th, 2022
Supercharging Your Rosaries!
Monday October 3rd & Tuesday October 4th, 2022
Supercharging Your Rosaries!
Is Your Rosary Drained, Flat and Powerless?
We are way too superficial and shallow in our approach to our Faith and spiritual life! We have no real depth and barely dip our big-toe in deep ocean that God has created for us! Our Lord has unequivocally said: “Amen I say to you―if you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from hence hither!’ and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 17:19). “If you had Faith like to a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry tree: ‘Be thou rooted up, and be thou transplanted into the sea!’ and it would obey you!” (Luke 17:6). Therefore the more Faith we have, the more likely we can get God to make things happen. “Amen, amen I say to you, he that believeth in Me, the works that I do, he also shall do; and greater than these shall he do” (John 14:12).
Our own personal experience seems to be the opposite―as amply illustrated by Fr. Faber in his Preface to his own personal translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary, wherein he paints a picture of abject failure: “One man has been striving for years to overcome a particular fault, and has not succeeded. Another mourns, and almost wonders while he mourns, that so few of his relations and friends have been converted to the Faith. One grieves that he has not devotion enough; another that he has a cross to carry which is a peculiarly impossible cross to him; while a third has domestic troubles and family unhappinesses which feel almost incompatible with his salvation; and for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy.”
We can easily relate to those sad words of Fr. Faber! We pray―and very little seems to result from our prayers! Most prayers are weak at best, and ineffective at worst. Why do so many of our prayers go unanswered? St. Augustine gives us some idea of the answer when he says that our prayers are unheard because of one or more of these three conditions:
(1) We are bad people
(2) We ask for bad things
(3) We pray badly
BAD PEOPLE: Of course, we all know that, if we are in a state of mortal sin, our prayers for others are totally ineffective; they will only work to bring about graces will lead to our conversion and a return to a state of grace—if we cooperate with those graces―but are useless for obtaining anything else other than our conversion and return to God. Even venial sin will hinder the effects of our prayers. If mortal sin can be likened to trying to strike a mortal blow at God―for example a gunshot wound, knife wound, etc. ― then venial sin is slightly lesser blow struck against God―for example, trying to hit God with some object, or a punch, or vicious slap, etc. If you striking God with blows and asking Him for favors at the same time―what do think the result will be?
BAD THINGS: Neither will God hear our prayer if what we ask for is evil in His sight; or if it will lead to harm our souls and the possibility of salvation. Nor will He hear us if we are vengefully asking God to do some evil to those who have insulted us, or hurt us some way. Sometimes what appears good and desirable to us, is actually not so good and will be harmful to us. God sees that and so refuses to give us what we naively ask of Him.
BADLY DONE: Things that we look upon as being unimportant, we tend to ignore them, refuse them, abuse them, misuse them, mistreat them, or neglect them. That is the attitude of most people towards prayer. For them, there are a thousand more important things to attend to each day. Yet St. Augustine says: “What more excellent than prayer? What more useful and profitable? What sweeter and more delicious? What higher and more exalted in the whole scheme of our Christian religion?” Our reply might be: “The TV is better than prayer! The internet is better than prayer! Sports are better than prayer! etc.”
Familiarity Breeds Contempt
We have all heard of the saying: “Familiarity breeds contempt.” The more we become used to something, then the chances are that we will gradually—perhaps even imperceptibly—lose our estimation and respect for it. Marriage is a wonderful (or should we say “terrible”) example of this. The respect, patience, efforts and love, spent in winning-over the future spouse, can very quickly evaporate over the years and give place to their opposites. The same applies to newly bought items—at first we take such great care over them, handle them gently, keep them sparkling clean, etc. However, over time, all that is forgotten and we can even give way to misuse and abuse.
The same can be said of prayer—whether it be the supreme prayer of the Sacrifice of the Mass, or the Divine Office, or the Holy Rosary. If we are not careful, our assistance at Mass will degenerate with relative ease, and our Rosaries and other prayers will slide comfortably into a daily mechanical routine that we apply to so many other things and chores of life.
Respect for God
When we pray, we enter into the presence of the majesty of God. St. John Chrysostom warns us: “Consider the height, dignity and glory to which the Lord has raised you.” Prayer can be looked upon as being given a private audience with God! Think of the time and preparation we would put into preparing for a private audience with some high-ranking or famous person here on Earth―for example, a king, queen, president, or any one of a thousand similar personages! Yet we treat God (and Our Lady/Saints/Angels) is such a miserable off-hand, unfocused, inattentive, lukewarm manner. The words of God should make us tremble: “I know that thou art neither cold, nor hot! I would thou wert cold, or hot! But, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16).
Pope Celestine, in a decree dealing with prayer says: “What time is there in which we have no need of God? None! Therefore at all times, and in all cases, in all affairs we need to have recourse to Him by prayer and crave His favor. For it is a great pride for a weak and miserable man to presume anything by himself.” We expect to be given a “license to pray” without any training, without being tested, with making any serious effort of our own―and then we expect those prayers to be answered rapidly! What temerity! What rashness! What an insult to God!
The Apprenticeship of Prayer
Prayer is an art. It is a skill that be acquired by the unskillful. It is an apprenticeship. It can be an immense power wielded by the powerless. Ultimately, prayer, like a weapon, is only as good and the person using it. We could compare this very broadly to someone who has worked at a skill for many years of his life—let us say, shearing sheep. The many years of effort and labor have now given him the skill of being able to shear a sheep. A beginner might take 15 minutes or more to shear a sheep. A professional shearer can shear a sheep in less than 2 minutes. The world record is 37 seconds. Jim Moore, a professional shearer and teacher of shearing at Montana State University, said: “When someone is first learning, it will take them about 15 minutes to shear a sheep. But a professional can do the job well in 2 minutes. I tell new students, it will take them about 1,000 sheep before they get the proper positioning and pattern down. But they will need to have 10,000 sheep under their belt before they can call themselves a professional.”
Similarly, in the spiritual life, the saints and spiritual authors clearly depict three chief stages that we have to pass through before being “professional” enough, or holy enough, to enter Heaven:
(1) The Way of Beginners―also known as the Purgative Way (because we purge ourselves of the stains of sin).
(2) The Way of the Proficient―also known as the Illuminative Way (because our minds are increasingly illumined by the grace of God once we have purged ourselves of sin and its stains.
(3) The Way of the Perfect―also known as the Unitive Way (because at this level we truly start to unite ourselves to God in a manner that far exceeds our infantile and clumsy and “unprofessional” attempts while in the two lower stages.
What is shocking is that experts in the spiritual life―such as Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, who taught Ascetical and Mystical Theology at the Dominican Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelicum, in Rome, from 1909 to 1960―are of the opinion that MOST SOULS ARE NOT EVEN BEGINNERS in the spiritual life!!
Each of the above mentioned three chief stages―Beginners, Proficient, Perfect―has within itself many different degrees or nuances. Furthermore, in each of these stages (and stages within stages), there is a gradual and progressive perfection in our prayer life―as you will see from the chart below, by Dom Chautard (1858-1935), one of the leading figures in the Trappist Order (the Cistercians). In 1897, he was elected Abbot of Chambarand, and from 1899 until his death in 1935, he served as the Abbot of Sept-Fons. He also directed several other Cistercian monasteries. The following list is taken from Dom Chautard’s spiritual classic entitled Soul of the Apostolate. Pope St. Pius X was said to have kept this book on his night stand:
1. HARDENED IN SIN
MORTAL SIN: Stubborn persistence in sin, either out of ignorance or because of a maliciously warped conscience.
PRAYER: Deliberate refusal to have any recourse to God.
2. SURFACE CHRISTIANITY (Way of Beginners)
MORTAL SIN: Considered as a trifling evil, easily forgiven. The soul easily gives way and commits mortal sin at almost every possible occasion or temptation. Confession almost without contrition.
PRAYER: Mechanical; either inattention, or always dictated by temporal interest—such souls enter into themselves rarely and superficially.
3. MEDIOCRE PIETY (Way of Beginners)
MORTAL SIN: Weak resistance. Hardly ever avoids occasions but seriously regrets having sinned and makes good confessions.
VENIAL SIN: Complete acceptance of this sin, which is considered as insignificant. Hence tepidity or lukewarmness of the will. Does nothing whatever to prevent venial sin, or to extirpate it, or to find it out, when it is concealed.
PRAYER: From time to time, prays well.—Momentary fits of fervor.
4. INTERMITTENT PIETY (Way of the Proficient)
MORTAL SIN: Loyal resistance. Habitually avoids occasions. Deep regrets if there is a fall into mortal sin. Does penance to make reparation.
VENIAL SIN: Sometimes deliberate. Puts up weak fight. Sorrow only superficial. Makes particular examination of conscience, but without any method or coherence.
PRAYER: Not firmly resolved to remain faithful to meditation. Gives it up as soon as dryness is felt or as soon as there is business to attend to.
5. SUSTAINED PIETY (Way of the Proficient)
MORTAL SIN: Never. At most, very rare, when taken suddenly and violently by surprise. And then, often it is to be doubted if the sin is mortal. It is followed by ardent compunction and penance.
VENIAL SIN: Vigilant in avoiding and fighting it. Rarely deliberate. Keen sorrow, but does little by way of reparation. Consistent particular examen, but aiming only at avoidance of deliberate venial sin.
IMPERFECTIONS: The soul either avoids uncovering them so as not to have to fight them, or else easily excuses them. Approves the thought of renouncing them, and would like to do so, but makes little effort in that direction.
PRAYER: Always faithful to prayer, no matter what happens. Often affective. Alternating consolations and dryness, the latter endured with considerable hardship.
6. FERVOR (Way of the Proficient)
MORTAL SIN: Never.
VENIAL SIN: Never deliberate. By surprise, sometimes, or with imperfect advertence. Keenly regretted, and serious reparation made.
IMPERFECTIONS: Wants nothing to do with them. Watches over them, fights them with courage, in order to be more pleasing to God. Sometimes accepted, however, but regretted at once. Frequent acts of renunciation. Particular examen aims at perfection in a given virtue.
PRAYER: Mental prayer gladly prolonged. Prayer on the affective side, or even prayer of simplicity. Alternation between powerful consolations and fierce trials.
7. RELATIVE PERFECTION (Way of the Perfect)
MORTAL SIN: Never.
VENIAL SIN: Very rare. Never deliberate. Deeply regretted with serious reparation being made.
IMPERFECTIONS: Guards against them energetically and with much love of God. They only happen with half-advertence.
PRAYER: Habitual life of prayer even when occupied in external works. Thirst for self-renunciation, annihilation, detachment, and divine love. Hunger for the Eucharist, and for heaven. Graces of infused prayer, of different degrees. Often, passive purification.
8. HEROIC PERFECTION (Way of the Perfect)
MORTAL SIN: Never.
VENIAL SIN: Never.
IMPERFECTIONS: Nothing but the first impulse.
PRAYER: Supernatural graces of contemplation, sometimes accompanied by extraordinary phenomena. Pronounced passive purifications. Contempt of self to the point of complete self-forgetfulness. Prefers suffering to joys.
9. COMPLETE SANCTITY (Way of the Perfect)
MORTAL SIN: Never.
VENIAL SIN: Never.
IMPERFECTIONS: Hardly apparent.
PRAYER: Usually, transforming union. Spiritual marriage. Purifications by love. Ardent thirst for sufferings and humiliations. (Few and far between are the souls that belong to the last two, even to the last three categories.)
Not All Prayer is Good Prayer!
Not all actions are good actions. Neither are all words good words. Nor are all thoughts good thoughts. Similarly, not all prayers are good prayers. We are all familiar with Our Lord’s condemnation of those who merely pray with their lips but not with their hearts: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). Prayer is a form of communication with God. Yet praying with just our lips is just not good enough―Our Lord did not say that we must love God with our lips, but He said: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength” (Mark 12:30). The word “whole” excludes all forms of minimalism. “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). The modern term would be: “You get what you pay for!” or should we say: “You get what you pray for, or how you prayed for it!” This is why St. Augustine says that one of the reasons our prayers are not answered is that we pray badly.
St. Louis de Montfort has this to say on the matter of prayers said badly and how to improve them: “A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly. Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should … In order to pray well, it is not enough to give expression to our petitions by means of that most excellent of all prayers, the Rosary, but we must also pray with great attention, for God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin.
“How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? How can we expect him to be pleased if, while in the presence of his tremendous majesty, we give in to distractions, like a child running after a butterfly? People who do that forfeit God’s blessing, which is changed into a curse for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: ‘Cursed be the one who does God’s work negligently’ (Jeremias 48:10) … Being human, we easily become tired and slipshod, but the devil makes these difficulties worse when we are saying the Rosary. Before we even begin, he makes us feel bored, distracted, or exhausted; and when we have started praying, he oppresses us from all sides, and when after much difficulty and many distractions.
“Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin.
“The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will.
“It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
Prayer From The Heart
Prayer―to simplify things, or perhaps over-simplify things―is meant to be an “I love You!” spoken to God (or Our Lady, etc.). For an “I love You!” to be true, it must come from the heart and not just the lips. “Whatsoever you do―do it from the heart” (Colossians 3:23). They say “familiarity breeds contempt” ― and we often see that in family life, whereby, after many years of marriage, the “I love you!” becomes more of a “lip-service” and less and less a “heart-service”. What we easily do to our “loved” ones, we even more easily do to God.
It is time to change that! We need to go to God with our whole heart, not just half of it, and not just with our lips―which is merely “talking the talk, but not walking the walk.” Scripture affirms that: “I went to the Lord, and besought Him, and said with my whole heart...” (Wisdom 8:21). “I entreated Thy face with all my heart” (Psalm 118:58). “You shall seek Me, and shall find Me: when you shall seek Me with all your heart” (Jeremias 29:13). God was moved to action only when “they all begged of God with all their heart” (Judith 4:16). “With his whole heart he praised the Lord, and loved God that made him―and the Lord gave him power against his enemies” (Ecclesiasticus 47:10). So, “let us draw near with a true heart” (Hebrews 10:22).
The renowned Benedictine abbot, Dom Columba Marmion (1858-1923), one of the most popular and influential Catholic authors of the 20th century, writes: “It happens to some souls that, when they have recited many formulas, they realize that they have said nothing to God from the bottom of their hearts. Our mind may be far distant from the words that fall from our lips ... In our prayer, we must give up to God our whole heart and our whole mind .... Just as the sanctuary light burns itself up without reserving anything, so our soul, in its conversation with God, must be entirely dedicated to the Almighty. We must free ourselves from preoccupations and from vain thoughts, which tie the soul down to earth and prevent it from being entirely given over to the Lord” (Dom Marmion, Christ—The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
Is There Room For God?
Too many people limit prayer to an isolated part of the day—first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Yet God should be part of our whole day, not just a mere ten minutes. This is what is meant by loving God with our whole mind, our whole heart, our whole soul and our whole strength. God is so badly ‘short-changed’ and given ‘short-shrift’ by so, so, so many people—who nevertheless feel smug about their ‘prayer-life’! Our Lord and Holy Scripture clearly say: “We ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1) … “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times!” (Luke 21:36) … “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
Dom Columba Marmion adds: “Prayer in our life, must not be limited to a number of isolated, passing incidents. We must cultivate a spirit of prayer. What must we understand by this? A spirit of prayer is an habitual disposition of soul whereby, in our troubles and discouragements, as well as in our joys and successes, our hearts turn towards Our Lady and Our Lord, as to our best friends and most intimate confidants of our feelings. And it is not only in the morning and in the evening that the soul should be raised heavenwards, but always: ‘My eyes are ever towards the Lord’ (Psalm 24:15)” (Dom Marmion, Christ—The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
Ways to Fortify or Supercharge Our Prayers
Many of us become discouraged with prayer because our prayers are rarely, if ever heard. Yet there are ways in which we can almost infallibly get our prayers answered. Looking through the recommendations of varous spiritual writers the following list of cardinal points can be taken as an “infallible” means of having our prayers favorably heard and answered. The following mnemonic device (a memory technique)―which, in this case, takes the first letter of each attribute and tries to form a sentence with those letters―will help you remember them all.
The sentence is: DAD SET ALTAR CAPS FFGH or
D.A.D. S.E.T. A.L.T.A.R. C.A.P.S. F.F.G.H. all of which stand for…
Dignity ― Attention ― Devotion ― Slow ― Effort ― Time ― Adoring ― Loving ― Thanking ― Asking ― Reparation ― Confidence ― Amendment ― Perseverance ― Sacrifice ― Fervor ― Forgiveness ― Good Things ― Humility.
DAD
● The first letter “D” is for dignity. We should pray with DIGNITY: Dignity can refer to our posture; our manner of praying; the words we use, etc. Our external posture often reflects the interior disposition of our soul. Dignity does not always mean kneeling. Sometimes we can pray as we are walking or even working, but we should always reserve time for prayer in a formal, dignified and humble position. Since the exterior can influence the interior, a humble posture is often useful and necessary―such as kneeling or even lying flat on your face (though only in private) as the priest does at the start of the Good Friday ceremonies.
● The letter “A” is for attention. We should pray with ATTENTION: Don’t rush into prayer without thinking what you are about to do or Whom you are about to address. Place yourself in the presence of God. Formulate an intention for your prayer. We don’t leave our homes without having a reason for doing so, neither should we start praying without an intention. The word ALTAR will help supply an intention. Do not fear distractions. They often make prayer more powerful and meritorious when we are faithful in driving them away and thus showing our desire to remain in the presence of God.
● The second letter “D” is for devotion. We should pray with DEVOTION: Devotion is in the heart―not on the lips. We should say what we mean and mean what we say. It helps if we really want what we are praying for; or if we really appreciate God and what He has done for us; or if we are really sorry for our past sins.
SET
● The letter “S” is for slowly. We should pray SLOWLY. St. Francis de Sales, writing on prayer, says: “DO NOT HURRY ALONG and say many things, but try to speak from your heart. A single Our Father said with feeling has greater value than many said quickly and hurriedly....However, if you have the gift of mental prayer, you should always give it first place. The mental prayer you substitute for them is more pleasing to God and more profitable for your soul. I make an exception for the Divine Office, if you are obliged to say it, for in that case you must fulfill your obligation” (St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 2, chap.1). St. Francis de Sales also says that: “Precipitation is the plague of devotion.”
St. Louis de Montfort adds: “Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should … The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!”
● The letter “A” is for attention. Prayer requires EFFORT. Many find prayer difficult. That is only natural, since we are trying to communicate with the supernatural world: “PRAYER ALWAYS REQUIRES A CERTAIN EFFORT, even from those who find in it their delight, because a certain strain is involved in the concentration necessary to speak to God; it is always more or less difficult to maintain the soul in an atmosphere which is above its usual level. That is why prayer can serve as a sacramental penance. We must not be surprised at this difficulty in applying ourselves to prayer: for to raise ourselves towards God, even in the smallest degree, is to exceed our natural powers” (Dom Marmion, Christ―The Ideal of the Priest, chap. 15).
● The letter “T” is for time. We must find and make TIME For Prayer. Too many people limit prayer to an isolated part of the day―first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Yet God should be part of our whole day, not just a mere ten minutes: “Prayer in our life, must not be limited to a number of isolated, passing incidents. We must cultivate a spirit of prayer. What must we understand by this? A spirit of prayer is an habitual disposition of soul whereby, in our troubles and discouragements, as well as in our joys and successes, our hearts turn towards Our Lady and Our Lord, as to our best friends and most intimate confidants of our feelings. And it is not only in the morning and in the evening that the soul should be raised heavenwards, but always” (Dom Marmion, Christ―The Ideal of the Priest, chap. 15).
ALTAR
The word ALTAR presents us with the main motives for prayer.
● The letter “A” is for adoration, which is the primary of duty of man toward God. Just look at the power of God’s creation! A simple study of the sciences manifests His greatness! What miracles He has wrought throughout history! Let us adore Him!
● The letter “L” is for love. God is love. He created us in love, to share His love with us. God so loved the world that he sent His only begotten Son to die for us. Love is reciprocal. That love must be returned. Greater love no man has than he who lays down his life for his friends. Jesus laid down His life for us, we should do the same out of love for Him.
● The letter “T” is for thanksgiving. Our Lord would often give thanks to His heavenly Father, thus giving us the example of gratitude. Thank Him for general and particular graces. Thank Him for His mercy and His providence.
● The second letter “A” is for asking. Our Lord commanded us: “Ask and you shall receive....All things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.” Let us pray for the Church, for our country, our community, our family and ourselves. Let us pray for the living and the dead, for our friends and enemies.
● Finally, the letter “R” is for reparation. If we say we have no sins, then we are liars. We are all sinners who need to do penance and prayer is a form of penance.
CAPS
● The letter “C” is for confidence. We should pray with confidence ― Our Lord praised the Faith and confidence of persons on many occasions, saying: “Go, thy Faith has made thee whole!” (Matthew 9:22; Mark 5:34; 10:52; Luke 17:19; 18:42). He also told us that “all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive” (Matthew 21:22). Do we have that confidence in prayer? “And immediately the father of the boy crying out, with tears said: ‘I do believe, Lord! Help my unbelief!’” (Mark 9:23). Lord, I believe, increase my belief!
● The letter “A” is for amendment. We should amend our life ― If we persist in leading a life of sin, then we greatly handicap the chances of having our prayers heard. “He who turns his ears from hearing the law, his prayer is an abomination” (Proverbs 28:9). Our Lord Himself says: “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21) … “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
● The letter “P” is for perseverance. We should pray with perseverance ― “He delays the granting to increase our desire and appreciation” says St. Augustine. Our Lord Himself said: “Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say to you: Ask, and it shall be given you! Seek, and you shall find! Knock, and it shall be opened to you!” (Luke 11:8-9). We see this actually happen in the case of the persevering Canaanite woman, whose daughter was possessed by a devil―who was repeatedly rejected by Our Lord, but persevered and refused to take “No!’ for an answer: “And behold a Syro-Phoenician born woman of Canaan, a Gentile, who came out of those coasts, crying out, besought Him that He would cast forth the devil out of her daughter, saying to Him: ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou son of David! My daughter is grieviously troubled by the devil!’ Jesus answered her not a word. And His disciples came and besought Him, saying: ‘Send her away! For she crieth after us!’ And Jesus answering, said to her: ‘I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel!’ But she came and adored Him, saying: ‘Lord! Help me!’ Jesus answering, said: ‘Suffer first the children to be filled―for it is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs!’ But she answered and said to Him: ‘Yea, Lord―for the whelps under the table also eat of the crumbs of the children that fall from the table of their masters!’ Then Jesus answering, said to her: ‘O woman, great is thy Faith! For this saying go thy way! Be it done to thee as thou wilt! The devil is gone out of thy daughter!’ And her daughter was cured from that hour. And when she was come into her house, she found the girl lying upon the bed, and that the devil was gone out of her daughter” (Matthew 15:22-28; Mark 7:16).
Our Lord once revealed to one of His mystics that He is often prepared to grant what people are asking and praying for―but that they give up too soon and lack perseverance. This manifests a “cheapness” and pride on our part―whereby we are only prepared to pay a little for whatever we ask of God.
● The letter “S” is for sacrifice. Our prayer should be united to sacrifices or good works ― “Prayer is good with fasting and alms” (Tobias 12:8). “What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath Faith, but hath not works? Shall Faith be able to save him? … Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith. Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well! But the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:14-26).
FFGH
● The first letter “F” is for fervor. Our prayer must be fervent ― Too often our prayers are said listlessly, routinely, mechanically; our heart is not in them. Of such Our Lord said: “This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:7). Our prayers should be like grains of incense, placed on the hot coals of our hearts: “Let my prayer be directed as incense in Thy sight, O Lord!” (Psalm 140:2) … “And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God” (Apocalypse 8:4). If our hearts are cold or lukewarm, then our prayers will not be changed into the rising smoke of incense and will fail to rise to Heaven.
● The second letter “F” is for forgiveness. We should forgive those who have injured us ― This was the example of Christ dying on the cross: “Father, forgive them! They know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). “If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee―Leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother: and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). “Forgive thy neighbor if he hath hurt thee, and then shall thy sins be forgiven to thee when thou prayest” (Ecclesiasticus 28:2). “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
● The letter “G” is for good. Pray for what is good and not sinful or harmful to our salvation ― We should always remember that what we want is not always what we need. At times adversity is a better route to heaven than prosperity. St. Augustine says: “We ought to be persuaded that what God refuses to our prayer, He grants to our salvation.” In the Gospels we the mother of the Apostles James and John asking for something beyond what Christ was prepared to give: “Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee with her sons, came to Jesus adoring and asking something of him. Jesus said to her: ‘What dost thou want?’ She said to Him: ‘Say that these, my two sons, may sit, the one on Thy right hand, and the other on Thy left, in Thy kingdom!’ And Jesus, answering, said: ‘You know not what you ask! Can you drink the chalice that I shall drink?’ They say to Him: ‘We can!’ He said to them: ‘My chalice indeed you shall drink! But to sit on My right or left hand, is not Mine to give to you, but to them for whom it is prepared by My Father!’” (Matthew 20:20-23).
● The letter “H” is for humility. Our prayer must be humble ― Remember the prayer of the Pharisee and the Publican―the Pharisee prayed proudly: “I am not like the rest of men ...” (Luke 18:11), whereas “the Publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast, saying: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I say to you, this Publican went down into his house justified, rather than the Pharisee―because everyone that exalts himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbles himself, shall be exalted!” (Luke 18:13-14). Remember, too, Our Lady’s prayer, the Magnificat, wherein she says that God has “regarded the humility of His handmaidYHe hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble.” (Luke 1:48-52). The Old Testament says: “...nor from the beginning have the proud been acceptable to Thee: but the prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased Thee” (Judith 9:16). “May the Lord destroy all deceitful lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things” (Psalm 11:4). “Thou hast rebuked the proud” (Psalm 118:21). “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5).
If we would only pray in the above manner, we would be amazed at the response our prayers would bring from Heaven! Keep in mind the words of the Little Flower: “The power of prayer is really tremendous.” The fault or weakness is not in the weapon, but it the person using the weapon! Put right those faults and you will be amazed at the power of your prayers!
We are way too superficial and shallow in our approach to our Faith and spiritual life! We have no real depth and barely dip our big-toe in deep ocean that God has created for us! Our Lord has unequivocally said: “Amen I say to you―if you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from hence hither!’ and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 17:19). “If you had Faith like to a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry tree: ‘Be thou rooted up, and be thou transplanted into the sea!’ and it would obey you!” (Luke 17:6). Therefore the more Faith we have, the more likely we can get God to make things happen. “Amen, amen I say to you, he that believeth in Me, the works that I do, he also shall do; and greater than these shall he do” (John 14:12).
Our own personal experience seems to be the opposite―as amply illustrated by Fr. Faber in his Preface to his own personal translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary, wherein he paints a picture of abject failure: “One man has been striving for years to overcome a particular fault, and has not succeeded. Another mourns, and almost wonders while he mourns, that so few of his relations and friends have been converted to the Faith. One grieves that he has not devotion enough; another that he has a cross to carry which is a peculiarly impossible cross to him; while a third has domestic troubles and family unhappinesses which feel almost incompatible with his salvation; and for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy.”
We can easily relate to those sad words of Fr. Faber! We pray―and very little seems to result from our prayers! Most prayers are weak at best, and ineffective at worst. Why do so many of our prayers go unanswered? St. Augustine gives us some idea of the answer when he says that our prayers are unheard because of one or more of these three conditions:
(1) We are bad people
(2) We ask for bad things
(3) We pray badly
BAD PEOPLE: Of course, we all know that, if we are in a state of mortal sin, our prayers for others are totally ineffective; they will only work to bring about graces will lead to our conversion and a return to a state of grace—if we cooperate with those graces―but are useless for obtaining anything else other than our conversion and return to God. Even venial sin will hinder the effects of our prayers. If mortal sin can be likened to trying to strike a mortal blow at God―for example a gunshot wound, knife wound, etc. ― then venial sin is slightly lesser blow struck against God―for example, trying to hit God with some object, or a punch, or vicious slap, etc. If you striking God with blows and asking Him for favors at the same time―what do think the result will be?
BAD THINGS: Neither will God hear our prayer if what we ask for is evil in His sight; or if it will lead to harm our souls and the possibility of salvation. Nor will He hear us if we are vengefully asking God to do some evil to those who have insulted us, or hurt us some way. Sometimes what appears good and desirable to us, is actually not so good and will be harmful to us. God sees that and so refuses to give us what we naively ask of Him.
BADLY DONE: Things that we look upon as being unimportant, we tend to ignore them, refuse them, abuse them, misuse them, mistreat them, or neglect them. That is the attitude of most people towards prayer. For them, there are a thousand more important things to attend to each day. Yet St. Augustine says: “What more excellent than prayer? What more useful and profitable? What sweeter and more delicious? What higher and more exalted in the whole scheme of our Christian religion?” Our reply might be: “The TV is better than prayer! The internet is better than prayer! Sports are better than prayer! etc.”
Familiarity Breeds Contempt
We have all heard of the saying: “Familiarity breeds contempt.” The more we become used to something, then the chances are that we will gradually—perhaps even imperceptibly—lose our estimation and respect for it. Marriage is a wonderful (or should we say “terrible”) example of this. The respect, patience, efforts and love, spent in winning-over the future spouse, can very quickly evaporate over the years and give place to their opposites. The same applies to newly bought items—at first we take such great care over them, handle them gently, keep them sparkling clean, etc. However, over time, all that is forgotten and we can even give way to misuse and abuse.
The same can be said of prayer—whether it be the supreme prayer of the Sacrifice of the Mass, or the Divine Office, or the Holy Rosary. If we are not careful, our assistance at Mass will degenerate with relative ease, and our Rosaries and other prayers will slide comfortably into a daily mechanical routine that we apply to so many other things and chores of life.
Respect for God
When we pray, we enter into the presence of the majesty of God. St. John Chrysostom warns us: “Consider the height, dignity and glory to which the Lord has raised you.” Prayer can be looked upon as being given a private audience with God! Think of the time and preparation we would put into preparing for a private audience with some high-ranking or famous person here on Earth―for example, a king, queen, president, or any one of a thousand similar personages! Yet we treat God (and Our Lady/Saints/Angels) is such a miserable off-hand, unfocused, inattentive, lukewarm manner. The words of God should make us tremble: “I know that thou art neither cold, nor hot! I would thou wert cold, or hot! But, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16).
Pope Celestine, in a decree dealing with prayer says: “What time is there in which we have no need of God? None! Therefore at all times, and in all cases, in all affairs we need to have recourse to Him by prayer and crave His favor. For it is a great pride for a weak and miserable man to presume anything by himself.” We expect to be given a “license to pray” without any training, without being tested, with making any serious effort of our own―and then we expect those prayers to be answered rapidly! What temerity! What rashness! What an insult to God!
The Apprenticeship of Prayer
Prayer is an art. It is a skill that be acquired by the unskillful. It is an apprenticeship. It can be an immense power wielded by the powerless. Ultimately, prayer, like a weapon, is only as good and the person using it. We could compare this very broadly to someone who has worked at a skill for many years of his life—let us say, shearing sheep. The many years of effort and labor have now given him the skill of being able to shear a sheep. A beginner might take 15 minutes or more to shear a sheep. A professional shearer can shear a sheep in less than 2 minutes. The world record is 37 seconds. Jim Moore, a professional shearer and teacher of shearing at Montana State University, said: “When someone is first learning, it will take them about 15 minutes to shear a sheep. But a professional can do the job well in 2 minutes. I tell new students, it will take them about 1,000 sheep before they get the proper positioning and pattern down. But they will need to have 10,000 sheep under their belt before they can call themselves a professional.”
Similarly, in the spiritual life, the saints and spiritual authors clearly depict three chief stages that we have to pass through before being “professional” enough, or holy enough, to enter Heaven:
(1) The Way of Beginners―also known as the Purgative Way (because we purge ourselves of the stains of sin).
(2) The Way of the Proficient―also known as the Illuminative Way (because our minds are increasingly illumined by the grace of God once we have purged ourselves of sin and its stains.
(3) The Way of the Perfect―also known as the Unitive Way (because at this level we truly start to unite ourselves to God in a manner that far exceeds our infantile and clumsy and “unprofessional” attempts while in the two lower stages.
What is shocking is that experts in the spiritual life―such as Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, who taught Ascetical and Mystical Theology at the Dominican Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelicum, in Rome, from 1909 to 1960―are of the opinion that MOST SOULS ARE NOT EVEN BEGINNERS in the spiritual life!!
Each of the above mentioned three chief stages―Beginners, Proficient, Perfect―has within itself many different degrees or nuances. Furthermore, in each of these stages (and stages within stages), there is a gradual and progressive perfection in our prayer life―as you will see from the chart below, by Dom Chautard (1858-1935), one of the leading figures in the Trappist Order (the Cistercians). In 1897, he was elected Abbot of Chambarand, and from 1899 until his death in 1935, he served as the Abbot of Sept-Fons. He also directed several other Cistercian monasteries. The following list is taken from Dom Chautard’s spiritual classic entitled Soul of the Apostolate. Pope St. Pius X was said to have kept this book on his night stand:
1. HARDENED IN SIN
MORTAL SIN: Stubborn persistence in sin, either out of ignorance or because of a maliciously warped conscience.
PRAYER: Deliberate refusal to have any recourse to God.
2. SURFACE CHRISTIANITY (Way of Beginners)
MORTAL SIN: Considered as a trifling evil, easily forgiven. The soul easily gives way and commits mortal sin at almost every possible occasion or temptation. Confession almost without contrition.
PRAYER: Mechanical; either inattention, or always dictated by temporal interest—such souls enter into themselves rarely and superficially.
3. MEDIOCRE PIETY (Way of Beginners)
MORTAL SIN: Weak resistance. Hardly ever avoids occasions but seriously regrets having sinned and makes good confessions.
VENIAL SIN: Complete acceptance of this sin, which is considered as insignificant. Hence tepidity or lukewarmness of the will. Does nothing whatever to prevent venial sin, or to extirpate it, or to find it out, when it is concealed.
PRAYER: From time to time, prays well.—Momentary fits of fervor.
4. INTERMITTENT PIETY (Way of the Proficient)
MORTAL SIN: Loyal resistance. Habitually avoids occasions. Deep regrets if there is a fall into mortal sin. Does penance to make reparation.
VENIAL SIN: Sometimes deliberate. Puts up weak fight. Sorrow only superficial. Makes particular examination of conscience, but without any method or coherence.
PRAYER: Not firmly resolved to remain faithful to meditation. Gives it up as soon as dryness is felt or as soon as there is business to attend to.
5. SUSTAINED PIETY (Way of the Proficient)
MORTAL SIN: Never. At most, very rare, when taken suddenly and violently by surprise. And then, often it is to be doubted if the sin is mortal. It is followed by ardent compunction and penance.
VENIAL SIN: Vigilant in avoiding and fighting it. Rarely deliberate. Keen sorrow, but does little by way of reparation. Consistent particular examen, but aiming only at avoidance of deliberate venial sin.
IMPERFECTIONS: The soul either avoids uncovering them so as not to have to fight them, or else easily excuses them. Approves the thought of renouncing them, and would like to do so, but makes little effort in that direction.
PRAYER: Always faithful to prayer, no matter what happens. Often affective. Alternating consolations and dryness, the latter endured with considerable hardship.
6. FERVOR (Way of the Proficient)
MORTAL SIN: Never.
VENIAL SIN: Never deliberate. By surprise, sometimes, or with imperfect advertence. Keenly regretted, and serious reparation made.
IMPERFECTIONS: Wants nothing to do with them. Watches over them, fights them with courage, in order to be more pleasing to God. Sometimes accepted, however, but regretted at once. Frequent acts of renunciation. Particular examen aims at perfection in a given virtue.
PRAYER: Mental prayer gladly prolonged. Prayer on the affective side, or even prayer of simplicity. Alternation between powerful consolations and fierce trials.
7. RELATIVE PERFECTION (Way of the Perfect)
MORTAL SIN: Never.
VENIAL SIN: Very rare. Never deliberate. Deeply regretted with serious reparation being made.
IMPERFECTIONS: Guards against them energetically and with much love of God. They only happen with half-advertence.
PRAYER: Habitual life of prayer even when occupied in external works. Thirst for self-renunciation, annihilation, detachment, and divine love. Hunger for the Eucharist, and for heaven. Graces of infused prayer, of different degrees. Often, passive purification.
8. HEROIC PERFECTION (Way of the Perfect)
MORTAL SIN: Never.
VENIAL SIN: Never.
IMPERFECTIONS: Nothing but the first impulse.
PRAYER: Supernatural graces of contemplation, sometimes accompanied by extraordinary phenomena. Pronounced passive purifications. Contempt of self to the point of complete self-forgetfulness. Prefers suffering to joys.
9. COMPLETE SANCTITY (Way of the Perfect)
MORTAL SIN: Never.
VENIAL SIN: Never.
IMPERFECTIONS: Hardly apparent.
PRAYER: Usually, transforming union. Spiritual marriage. Purifications by love. Ardent thirst for sufferings and humiliations. (Few and far between are the souls that belong to the last two, even to the last three categories.)
Not All Prayer is Good Prayer!
Not all actions are good actions. Neither are all words good words. Nor are all thoughts good thoughts. Similarly, not all prayers are good prayers. We are all familiar with Our Lord’s condemnation of those who merely pray with their lips but not with their hearts: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). Prayer is a form of communication with God. Yet praying with just our lips is just not good enough―Our Lord did not say that we must love God with our lips, but He said: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength” (Mark 12:30). The word “whole” excludes all forms of minimalism. “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6). The modern term would be: “You get what you pay for!” or should we say: “You get what you pray for, or how you prayed for it!” This is why St. Augustine says that one of the reasons our prayers are not answered is that we pray badly.
St. Louis de Montfort has this to say on the matter of prayers said badly and how to improve them: “A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly. Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should … In order to pray well, it is not enough to give expression to our petitions by means of that most excellent of all prayers, the Rosary, but we must also pray with great attention, for God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin.
“How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? How can we expect him to be pleased if, while in the presence of his tremendous majesty, we give in to distractions, like a child running after a butterfly? People who do that forfeit God’s blessing, which is changed into a curse for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: ‘Cursed be the one who does God’s work negligently’ (Jeremias 48:10) … Being human, we easily become tired and slipshod, but the devil makes these difficulties worse when we are saying the Rosary. Before we even begin, he makes us feel bored, distracted, or exhausted; and when we have started praying, he oppresses us from all sides, and when after much difficulty and many distractions.
“Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin.
“The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will.
“It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).
Prayer From The Heart
Prayer―to simplify things, or perhaps over-simplify things―is meant to be an “I love You!” spoken to God (or Our Lady, etc.). For an “I love You!” to be true, it must come from the heart and not just the lips. “Whatsoever you do―do it from the heart” (Colossians 3:23). They say “familiarity breeds contempt” ― and we often see that in family life, whereby, after many years of marriage, the “I love you!” becomes more of a “lip-service” and less and less a “heart-service”. What we easily do to our “loved” ones, we even more easily do to God.
It is time to change that! We need to go to God with our whole heart, not just half of it, and not just with our lips―which is merely “talking the talk, but not walking the walk.” Scripture affirms that: “I went to the Lord, and besought Him, and said with my whole heart...” (Wisdom 8:21). “I entreated Thy face with all my heart” (Psalm 118:58). “You shall seek Me, and shall find Me: when you shall seek Me with all your heart” (Jeremias 29:13). God was moved to action only when “they all begged of God with all their heart” (Judith 4:16). “With his whole heart he praised the Lord, and loved God that made him―and the Lord gave him power against his enemies” (Ecclesiasticus 47:10). So, “let us draw near with a true heart” (Hebrews 10:22).
The renowned Benedictine abbot, Dom Columba Marmion (1858-1923), one of the most popular and influential Catholic authors of the 20th century, writes: “It happens to some souls that, when they have recited many formulas, they realize that they have said nothing to God from the bottom of their hearts. Our mind may be far distant from the words that fall from our lips ... In our prayer, we must give up to God our whole heart and our whole mind .... Just as the sanctuary light burns itself up without reserving anything, so our soul, in its conversation with God, must be entirely dedicated to the Almighty. We must free ourselves from preoccupations and from vain thoughts, which tie the soul down to earth and prevent it from being entirely given over to the Lord” (Dom Marmion, Christ—The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
Is There Room For God?
Too many people limit prayer to an isolated part of the day—first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Yet God should be part of our whole day, not just a mere ten minutes. This is what is meant by loving God with our whole mind, our whole heart, our whole soul and our whole strength. God is so badly ‘short-changed’ and given ‘short-shrift’ by so, so, so many people—who nevertheless feel smug about their ‘prayer-life’! Our Lord and Holy Scripture clearly say: “We ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1) … “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times!” (Luke 21:36) … “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
Dom Columba Marmion adds: “Prayer in our life, must not be limited to a number of isolated, passing incidents. We must cultivate a spirit of prayer. What must we understand by this? A spirit of prayer is an habitual disposition of soul whereby, in our troubles and discouragements, as well as in our joys and successes, our hearts turn towards Our Lady and Our Lord, as to our best friends and most intimate confidants of our feelings. And it is not only in the morning and in the evening that the soul should be raised heavenwards, but always: ‘My eyes are ever towards the Lord’ (Psalm 24:15)” (Dom Marmion, Christ—The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
Ways to Fortify or Supercharge Our Prayers
Many of us become discouraged with prayer because our prayers are rarely, if ever heard. Yet there are ways in which we can almost infallibly get our prayers answered. Looking through the recommendations of varous spiritual writers the following list of cardinal points can be taken as an “infallible” means of having our prayers favorably heard and answered. The following mnemonic device (a memory technique)―which, in this case, takes the first letter of each attribute and tries to form a sentence with those letters―will help you remember them all.
The sentence is: DAD SET ALTAR CAPS FFGH or
D.A.D. S.E.T. A.L.T.A.R. C.A.P.S. F.F.G.H. all of which stand for…
Dignity ― Attention ― Devotion ― Slow ― Effort ― Time ― Adoring ― Loving ― Thanking ― Asking ― Reparation ― Confidence ― Amendment ― Perseverance ― Sacrifice ― Fervor ― Forgiveness ― Good Things ― Humility.
DAD
● The first letter “D” is for dignity. We should pray with DIGNITY: Dignity can refer to our posture; our manner of praying; the words we use, etc. Our external posture often reflects the interior disposition of our soul. Dignity does not always mean kneeling. Sometimes we can pray as we are walking or even working, but we should always reserve time for prayer in a formal, dignified and humble position. Since the exterior can influence the interior, a humble posture is often useful and necessary―such as kneeling or even lying flat on your face (though only in private) as the priest does at the start of the Good Friday ceremonies.
● The letter “A” is for attention. We should pray with ATTENTION: Don’t rush into prayer without thinking what you are about to do or Whom you are about to address. Place yourself in the presence of God. Formulate an intention for your prayer. We don’t leave our homes without having a reason for doing so, neither should we start praying without an intention. The word ALTAR will help supply an intention. Do not fear distractions. They often make prayer more powerful and meritorious when we are faithful in driving them away and thus showing our desire to remain in the presence of God.
● The second letter “D” is for devotion. We should pray with DEVOTION: Devotion is in the heart―not on the lips. We should say what we mean and mean what we say. It helps if we really want what we are praying for; or if we really appreciate God and what He has done for us; or if we are really sorry for our past sins.
SET
● The letter “S” is for slowly. We should pray SLOWLY. St. Francis de Sales, writing on prayer, says: “DO NOT HURRY ALONG and say many things, but try to speak from your heart. A single Our Father said with feeling has greater value than many said quickly and hurriedly....However, if you have the gift of mental prayer, you should always give it first place. The mental prayer you substitute for them is more pleasing to God and more profitable for your soul. I make an exception for the Divine Office, if you are obliged to say it, for in that case you must fulfill your obligation” (St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 2, chap.1). St. Francis de Sales also says that: “Precipitation is the plague of devotion.”
St. Louis de Montfort adds: “Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should … The second fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before!”
● The letter “A” is for attention. Prayer requires EFFORT. Many find prayer difficult. That is only natural, since we are trying to communicate with the supernatural world: “PRAYER ALWAYS REQUIRES A CERTAIN EFFORT, even from those who find in it their delight, because a certain strain is involved in the concentration necessary to speak to God; it is always more or less difficult to maintain the soul in an atmosphere which is above its usual level. That is why prayer can serve as a sacramental penance. We must not be surprised at this difficulty in applying ourselves to prayer: for to raise ourselves towards God, even in the smallest degree, is to exceed our natural powers” (Dom Marmion, Christ―The Ideal of the Priest, chap. 15).
● The letter “T” is for time. We must find and make TIME For Prayer. Too many people limit prayer to an isolated part of the day―first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Yet God should be part of our whole day, not just a mere ten minutes: “Prayer in our life, must not be limited to a number of isolated, passing incidents. We must cultivate a spirit of prayer. What must we understand by this? A spirit of prayer is an habitual disposition of soul whereby, in our troubles and discouragements, as well as in our joys and successes, our hearts turn towards Our Lady and Our Lord, as to our best friends and most intimate confidants of our feelings. And it is not only in the morning and in the evening that the soul should be raised heavenwards, but always” (Dom Marmion, Christ―The Ideal of the Priest, chap. 15).
ALTAR
The word ALTAR presents us with the main motives for prayer.
● The letter “A” is for adoration, which is the primary of duty of man toward God. Just look at the power of God’s creation! A simple study of the sciences manifests His greatness! What miracles He has wrought throughout history! Let us adore Him!
● The letter “L” is for love. God is love. He created us in love, to share His love with us. God so loved the world that he sent His only begotten Son to die for us. Love is reciprocal. That love must be returned. Greater love no man has than he who lays down his life for his friends. Jesus laid down His life for us, we should do the same out of love for Him.
● The letter “T” is for thanksgiving. Our Lord would often give thanks to His heavenly Father, thus giving us the example of gratitude. Thank Him for general and particular graces. Thank Him for His mercy and His providence.
● The second letter “A” is for asking. Our Lord commanded us: “Ask and you shall receive....All things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.” Let us pray for the Church, for our country, our community, our family and ourselves. Let us pray for the living and the dead, for our friends and enemies.
● Finally, the letter “R” is for reparation. If we say we have no sins, then we are liars. We are all sinners who need to do penance and prayer is a form of penance.
CAPS
● The letter “C” is for confidence. We should pray with confidence ― Our Lord praised the Faith and confidence of persons on many occasions, saying: “Go, thy Faith has made thee whole!” (Matthew 9:22; Mark 5:34; 10:52; Luke 17:19; 18:42). He also told us that “all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive” (Matthew 21:22). Do we have that confidence in prayer? “And immediately the father of the boy crying out, with tears said: ‘I do believe, Lord! Help my unbelief!’” (Mark 9:23). Lord, I believe, increase my belief!
● The letter “A” is for amendment. We should amend our life ― If we persist in leading a life of sin, then we greatly handicap the chances of having our prayers heard. “He who turns his ears from hearing the law, his prayer is an abomination” (Proverbs 28:9). Our Lord Himself says: “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 7:21) … “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
● The letter “P” is for perseverance. We should pray with perseverance ― “He delays the granting to increase our desire and appreciation” says St. Augustine. Our Lord Himself said: “Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say to you: Ask, and it shall be given you! Seek, and you shall find! Knock, and it shall be opened to you!” (Luke 11:8-9). We see this actually happen in the case of the persevering Canaanite woman, whose daughter was possessed by a devil―who was repeatedly rejected by Our Lord, but persevered and refused to take “No!’ for an answer: “And behold a Syro-Phoenician born woman of Canaan, a Gentile, who came out of those coasts, crying out, besought Him that He would cast forth the devil out of her daughter, saying to Him: ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou son of David! My daughter is grieviously troubled by the devil!’ Jesus answered her not a word. And His disciples came and besought Him, saying: ‘Send her away! For she crieth after us!’ And Jesus answering, said to her: ‘I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel!’ But she came and adored Him, saying: ‘Lord! Help me!’ Jesus answering, said: ‘Suffer first the children to be filled―for it is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs!’ But she answered and said to Him: ‘Yea, Lord―for the whelps under the table also eat of the crumbs of the children that fall from the table of their masters!’ Then Jesus answering, said to her: ‘O woman, great is thy Faith! For this saying go thy way! Be it done to thee as thou wilt! The devil is gone out of thy daughter!’ And her daughter was cured from that hour. And when she was come into her house, she found the girl lying upon the bed, and that the devil was gone out of her daughter” (Matthew 15:22-28; Mark 7:16).
Our Lord once revealed to one of His mystics that He is often prepared to grant what people are asking and praying for―but that they give up too soon and lack perseverance. This manifests a “cheapness” and pride on our part―whereby we are only prepared to pay a little for whatever we ask of God.
● The letter “S” is for sacrifice. Our prayer should be united to sacrifices or good works ― “Prayer is good with fasting and alms” (Tobias 12:8). “What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath Faith, but hath not works? Shall Faith be able to save him? … Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith. Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well! But the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:14-26).
FFGH
● The first letter “F” is for fervor. Our prayer must be fervent ― Too often our prayers are said listlessly, routinely, mechanically; our heart is not in them. Of such Our Lord said: “This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:7). Our prayers should be like grains of incense, placed on the hot coals of our hearts: “Let my prayer be directed as incense in Thy sight, O Lord!” (Psalm 140:2) … “And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God” (Apocalypse 8:4). If our hearts are cold or lukewarm, then our prayers will not be changed into the rising smoke of incense and will fail to rise to Heaven.
● The second letter “F” is for forgiveness. We should forgive those who have injured us ― This was the example of Christ dying on the cross: “Father, forgive them! They know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). “If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee―Leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother: and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). “Forgive thy neighbor if he hath hurt thee, and then shall thy sins be forgiven to thee when thou prayest” (Ecclesiasticus 28:2). “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
● The letter “G” is for good. Pray for what is good and not sinful or harmful to our salvation ― We should always remember that what we want is not always what we need. At times adversity is a better route to heaven than prosperity. St. Augustine says: “We ought to be persuaded that what God refuses to our prayer, He grants to our salvation.” In the Gospels we the mother of the Apostles James and John asking for something beyond what Christ was prepared to give: “Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee with her sons, came to Jesus adoring and asking something of him. Jesus said to her: ‘What dost thou want?’ She said to Him: ‘Say that these, my two sons, may sit, the one on Thy right hand, and the other on Thy left, in Thy kingdom!’ And Jesus, answering, said: ‘You know not what you ask! Can you drink the chalice that I shall drink?’ They say to Him: ‘We can!’ He said to them: ‘My chalice indeed you shall drink! But to sit on My right or left hand, is not Mine to give to you, but to them for whom it is prepared by My Father!’” (Matthew 20:20-23).
● The letter “H” is for humility. Our prayer must be humble ― Remember the prayer of the Pharisee and the Publican―the Pharisee prayed proudly: “I am not like the rest of men ...” (Luke 18:11), whereas “the Publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast, saying: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I say to you, this Publican went down into his house justified, rather than the Pharisee―because everyone that exalts himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbles himself, shall be exalted!” (Luke 18:13-14). Remember, too, Our Lady’s prayer, the Magnificat, wherein she says that God has “regarded the humility of His handmaidYHe hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble.” (Luke 1:48-52). The Old Testament says: “...nor from the beginning have the proud been acceptable to Thee: but the prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased Thee” (Judith 9:16). “May the Lord destroy all deceitful lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things” (Psalm 11:4). “Thou hast rebuked the proud” (Psalm 118:21). “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5).
If we would only pray in the above manner, we would be amazed at the response our prayers would bring from Heaven! Keep in mind the words of the Little Flower: “The power of prayer is really tremendous.” The fault or weakness is not in the weapon, but it the person using the weapon! Put right those faults and you will be amazed at the power of your prayers!
Article 2
October 2nd
Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, 2022
Unemployed Guardian Angels Looking For Work!
October 2nd
Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, 2022
Unemployed Guardian Angels Looking For Work!
Out of Sight―Out of Mind―Out of Work!
You have, no doubt, heard the saying: “Out of sight, out of mind” ― meaning that things that we do not have before our eyes, will quickly be removed from our minds and thoughts. You soon forget people or things that are no longer visible or present. It is the same with information and knowledge―if we do not review what we once learnt, then we will quickly forget it! For example, look at the number of adult Catholics who can no longer answer the simple questions of their First Holy Communion Catechism! Most of them cannot even remember all of the Ten Commandments! That is one reason why we have religious pictures, statues and other religious objects in our homes and pockets―because they help to always keep God and the things of God firmly entrenched in our minds. This is also true of our Guardian Angels―once we lose “sight” of them, we soon forget them―and once we forget them, we fail to call upon their powerful help and, in a sense, force them into a kind of a “rendundancy”, whereby they are redundant to our needs―we feel we can get along without them and have no need of their help. In that sense, we reduce them to ranks of the unemployed.
Neglect Your Angel At Your Peril!
We are living in a world that is leagued against Christ and that seeks our damnation. Our Lord is not of this world, nor are we supposed to be of this world. The world belongs to the prince of this world—the devil. Whoever loves this world is an enemy of God and is in danger of losing their own soul. If you love the world, then there is a very great likelihood that you will end up being damned. Don’t believe it? Let Holy Scripture clarify the matter for you:
“Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world ... Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (1 John 2:15; James 4:4). “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27). “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). Our Lord Himself confirms this: “And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Not every one that saith to Me, “Lord! Lord!” shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! … Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! ... Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!’” (Luke 13:23-24; Matthew 7:13-14; 7:21; 22:14).
The World Belongs To Satan
Our Lord “was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew him not” (John 1:10). He Himself said: “I am the light of the world”, but “I am not of this world” (John 8:12; 8:23) … “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:5), but “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). “Yet a little while: and the world seeth Me no more” (John 14:19). “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19). “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal” (John 12:25). “We know that we are of God, and the whole world is seated in wickedness” (1 John 5:19).
Our Lord Himself points out the “prince of this world” and says that He has nothing to do with him: “Now is the judgment of the world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31) … “The prince of this world is already judged” (John 16:11) … “The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he hath not any thing” (John 14:30). This is seen to be the case when the “prince of this world” tried to tempt Our Lord: “The devil took him up into a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: ‘All these will I give Thee, if falling down Thou wilt adore me!’ Then Jesus saith to him: ‘Begone, Satan! For it is written: “The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve!”‘ Then the devil left Him; and behold angels came and ministered to Him” (Matthew 4:8-10).
What Do You Love?
This is why the Apostles tell us: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world” ( 1 John 2:15-16). “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God … For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God …Therefore I say, brethren; the time is short; it remaineth, that they that use this world, should use it as if they used it not: for the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Corinthians 2:12; 3:19; 7:29-31). ”Be dead with Christ from the elements of this world” (Colossians 2:20). “Denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this world” (Titus 2:12). “Flying from the pollutions of the world”( 2 Peter 2:20). “For we brought nothing into this world: and certainly we can carry nothing out” (1 Timothy 6:7). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4).
We were once of the world, but should no longer be of the world, as St. Paul writes: “And you, when you were dead in your offences, and sins, wherein in time past you walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of this air, of the spirit that now worketh on the children of unbelief. In which also we all conversed in time past, in the desires of our flesh, fulfilling the will of the flesh and of our thoughts, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest” (Ephesians 2:1-3). As Our Lord points out: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
To Fight Satan and the World, We Need the Angels of God
If we expect to overcome the world and its prince by ourselves, then we are grossly mistaken and dangerously complacent. If we think we can make a friend of this world, then we call God a liar—you cannot serve God and mammon. “No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). As the saying goes: “You must fight fire with fire!” Similarly, we can only fight the fires of Hell and overcome the fiery darts of the devil, through the fires of love and fiery love of God’s angelic spirits—the angels.
Fire is Needed
Our Lord says: “I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49) and we say to God: “Come, O Holy Ghost, … enkindle in us the fire of Thy love”, so that we “may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one” (Ephesians 6:16). There is biblical connection between angels and fire. We read that “He maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire” (Hebrews 1:7), and that “there appeared to Moses, in the desert of Mount Sinai, an angel in a flame of fire in a bush” (Acts 7:30) ... “And another angel came out from the altar, who had power over fire … And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun, and it was given unto him to afflict men with heat and fire … And I saw another mighty angel come down from Heaven, and his face was as the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire” (Apocalypse 14:18; 16:8; 10:1). In Genesis (3:24), we read of Cherubims with flaming swords of fire. To be able to fight the evil angels with their fiery darts, we need the good angels with their fiery swords. Otherwise, we are out of our league!
Angelic Authority
If there was ever an earthly authority on Angels, it was St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. He talked to them regularly as you and I talk with our family and friends. He sent them all over the world on “missions” to his spiritual children, and received messages back via the angels as often as we receive mail. Here are a few of his thoughts on these magnificent heavenly beings.
St. Padre Pio and His Guardian Angel
St. Padre Pio had the privilege of having his Guardian Angel visibly beside him all his life. He played with him when he was a child, and the Guardian Angel sang for him when he was sad. St. Padre Pio, speaking of his Guardian Angel, said: “My Guardian Angel has been my friend since my infancy. Little companion of my infancy, ‘angiolino’, ‘angioletto’, my secretary, inseparable companion, celestial person, celestial messenger, brother, friend, prevents danger, one of the family, translates for me the letters in other languages, I send him to console people suffering, prevents from stumbling, never lives us alone for an instant, from the cradle to the grave, even when we are sinning.”
Companion in Prayer
When Padre Pio was a young friar, he wrote a letter to his confessor in which he said: “When I close my eyes and the night comes, I can see the Heaven that appears in front of me. I am encouraged by this vision so I can sleep with a sweet smile on the lips and with a perfect calm on the forehead, waiting my small companion of my infancy came to wake up me and start praying together prayers to the beloved of our hearts.” The Angel would keep Padre Pio up at night, so that they could both chant God’s praises.
Faithful Secretary
Padre Pio lived in close contact with his Guardian Angel, who taught him to translate letters in French and Greek. He said: “If the mission of our Guardian Angel is a great mission, the mission of mine is for sure greater than the others, because he has to be a teacher and explain to me other languages” … “The mission of my Guardian Angel includes explaining me other languages.” When asked: “How do you take care of the so many letters you receive?” The good Padre replied: “The Angel does his job.”
After Taking A Beating!
St. Padre Pio’s Angel would also ease the pain that he suffered from the beatings he received from demons. St. Padre Pio wrote the following to his spiritual director on November 5th, 1912: “I cannot tell you the way these scoundrels [the demons] beat me. Sometimes I feel I am about to die. On Saturday, it seemed to me that they intended to put an end to me and I did not know what saint to invoke. I turned to my Angel and, after he had kept me waiting a while, there he was hovering close to me, singing hymns to the divine Majesty in his angelic voice . . . I rebuked him bitterly for having kept me waiting so long when I had not failed to call him to my assistance. To punish him, I did not want to look him in the face; I wanted to get away, to escape from him. But he, poor creature, caught up with me almost in tears and held me, until I raised my eyes to his face and found him all upset. Then he said: ‘I am always close to you, my beloved young man!’”
A Companion in Need is a Companion Indeed
One winter, a spiritual daughter of Padre Pio was walking along a country road to the Convent where the good Padre was waiting for her. The road was so heavily covered with snow, in which it was even difficult to walk, that she was uncertain if she would reach the Convent in time for the appointment. Full of faith, she prayed to her Guardian Angel to tell Padre Pio she would have to arrive late, because of the snow. When she finally reached the convent, she saw Padre Pio smiling, waiting for her behind a window. The Guardian Angel had done his job!
A woman was sitting in the square of the church of the Capuchins. The Church was closed. It was late and she prayed with the thought, and repeated with the heart: “Padre Pio, help me! Guardian Angel, please, go to tell Padre Pio to help me, otherwise my sister will die!” From the window, above her, came St. Padre Pio’s voice: “Who is calling me at this time? What is the problem?” The woman told him about her sister’s illness. St. Padre Pio bilocated, went to the sick woman and healed her.
Here are some other things that St. Padre Pio said about the Angels:
Angelic Assistance At Mass
We cannot imagine the number of Angels that assist at each Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—and with such devotion, that we would blush for shame if we could only witness it. Perhaps we need to ask our Guardian Angels to obtain for us the grace of “cleaning-up our act” and assistance and the greatest Event on Earth in a more fitting and fervent manner!
● “Oh, if all men could understand this great gift that God, assigned to us; this celestial spirit.”
● “All of Paradise is close to the altar when I say Mass.”
● “The angels attend my Mass In legions.”
● “The angels around the altar adore and love.”
Acquiring An Angelic Attitude
We are so caught up in ourselves that we forget our best friend—outside of Jesus and Mary. Our Guardian Angel has done so much for us and all he gets is perhaps a mechanical and routine, 5-second prayer… “Angel of God, my Guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits me here. Ever this day (night) be at my side, to light, to guard, to rule, to guide. Amen.” Or perhaps he doesn’t even get that! St. Padre Pio has these words to say on the subject:
● “Do not forget this invisible companion, always present to listen to you; always ready to console you.”
● “Your Guardian Angel prays for you; offers to God all the good works you accomplish; your holy and pure desires.”
● “Invoke your Guardian Angel that he will illuminate you and will guide you. God has given him to you for this reason. Therefore use him!”
● “Often remember his presence; thank him; pray to him; respect him; be in constant fear of offending the purity of his gaze.”
● “Our Guardian Angel never leaves us, even when we are disgusting God with our behavior!” Others may leave us, but our Guardian Angels don’t!
● “Oh if all men could understand this great gift that God assigned to us; this celestial spirit!”
Feeling Lonely?
For those who feel abandoned, lonely, isolated—St. Padre has this to say:
● “For people that live alone there is the Guardian Angel.”
● “When you seem to be alone, here a friendly soul to whom you can unburden yourself and in whom you can confide your sorrows.”
● “We will pray for your mother, so that the Guardian Angel will be with her in company.”
● “For whomever is alone, there is his Guardian Angel.”
● “Do not forget this invisible companion, always present to listen to you; always ready to console you.”
● One time, St. Padre Pio was asked: “With all those Angels around you—don’t they bother you?” He answered, “No. They are so obedient.”
Communication Problems?
For those who need to communicate, St. Padre Pio recommends using the Guardian Angels (not a bad idea in these of communications surveillance and Big-Brother watching and listening to you! Perhaps instead of e-mails or electronic mail, we can use a-mails, or angelic mail!). Padre Pio often recommended that, if people wanted to send him a message or a petition, they could send him their Guardian Angel. Fr. Dominic, who handled the American mail for Padre Pio, asked him: “Padre . . . a woman wants to know if she sends her Guardian Angel to you, does he come?” Padre Pio replied, “Tell her that her Angel is not like she is. Her Angel is very obedient—and when she sends him, he comes!” Here are some other comments of St. Padre Pio on this subject:
● “Pick a name for your Guardian Angel and call him by the name always. When you send him to me, he will come instantly.”
● “Send the Guardian Angel. He doesn’t pay a train ticket and doesn’t wear-out shoes.”
● “Don’t write to me because I cannot answer you. Send me your Guardian Angel and I will do everything.”
● “Your Guardian Angel has reported to me some sentences that have made me understand your mistrust.”
● Someone complained to St. Padre Pio: “Father, my income doesn’t allow me to come to see you as often as I’d like.” St. Padre Pio replied: “Who told you to come here? Don’t you have your Guardian Angel? Tell him what you want, send him here, and you will have an answer right away.”
● A person asked St. Padre Pio, “Father, are you able to hear what the Guardian Angels tell you?” And Padre Pio answered, “Of course! Do you think Angels are disobedient as you? Send me your Guardian Angel!”
● An Italian-American, from California, used to pray to his Guardian Angel to tell his needs to St. Padre Pio. One day, after confession, he asked St. Padre Pio if he really heard his Guardian Angel. “Do you think I am deaf?” And he repeated what he had told recently his Guardian Angel to tell St. Padre Pio.
● Padre Lino Barbati sent his Guardian Angel to ask of St. Padre Pio the healing of a person. That person was not getting better. He asked St. Padre Pio: “Could it be that at times the Guardian Angel doesn’t do what we ask him to do?” St. Padre Pio answered: “What? Are you thinking that he is disobedient like me and you?”
● One of the spiritual children of St. Padre Pio said: “It seems that Padre Pio always listens to everybody who calls him.” One evening, a group of friends arrived at San Giovanni Rotondo. They summarized the graces that they would like to ask of St. Padre Pio, and they asked their Guardian Angels to bring their requests to St. Padre Pio as soon as possible. The next day, after the Holy Mass, St. Padre Pio reproached them: “You do not leave me in peace even at night!” Watching Padre Pio’s smile, they understood their prayer had been accepted.
● Padre Alessio approached St. Padre Pio with some letters in his hand in order to ask him something but St. Padre Pio told him abruptly: “Boy! Leave me alone! Don’t you see that I am busy?” Padre Alessio went away mortified. Later, St. Padre Pio apologized and explained: “Didn’t you see all those Angels who were with me? They are the Guardian Angels of my spiritual children who brought me their messages. I had to report to them the answers they needed.”
● Padre Eusebio said: “I was going to London by plane, against Padre Pio’s suggestion not to use this mean of transport. When we were flying over the Channel, a violent storm put the plane in danger. Amid the general terror I prayed and, without knowing what to do, I sent my Guardian Angel to Padre Pio. When I went back to San Giovanni Rotondo, I met Padre Pio, who said to me: ‘Are you well? Is everything OK?’ I answered: ‘I thought I’d die!’ The saintly padre responded: ‘Then why don’t you obey?’ I responded: ‘But I have sent you my Guardian Angel!’ Padre Pio then said: ‘Fortunately, he arrived just in time!’”
Need Help?
The Guardian Angels are not just messengers, but helpers in the greatest degree! St. Padre Pio states:
● “Our Guardian Angel prays constantly for us.”
● “Let’s confide to Our Guardian Angel our pains and sorrows. He is like a friend, like a brother.”
● “The duty of the Guardian Angel is not only of spiritual guidance. He also prevents bodily harm for us.”
● An Italian Lawyer named Attilio De Sanctis, from Fano, Italy, was driving back home to Bologna with his wife and two children. During the trip he fell asleep at the wheel. He woke up a few miles from home. He said: “Who drove my car?” The wife said: “You were still, and didn’t answer to us, and you avoided several collisions at last second. Your driving was different from usual.” Two months later he visited Padre Pio, who told him from afar: “You were asleep and the Guardian Angel drove your car.” The mystery was solved.
Angel Envy?
With all that power, you would think that there is nothing that the angels could envy about humans. However, St. Padre Pio tells us: “The Angels envy us for one thing only: they cannot suffer for God.”
Dying to See our Guardian Angel
St. Padre Pio tells us that seeing our Guardian Angel at the moment of our death will be a truly stupendous sight to behod—if we die well and in the state of grace!
● “It will be a great joy when, at the moment of death, we will be able to see our Guardian Angel.”
● “What consolation when, at the moment of death, you will see this Angel, who accompanied you through life and was so generous in maternal care.”
● “May the desire to see this inseparable companion incite you to leave this body quickly.”
● “When we die, our Guardian Angel will take our soul to Heaven.”
Do Not Neglect Your Angel!
Woe to those who neglect to profit from their Guardian Angel in this life! Therefore St. Padre Pio encourages us:
● St. Padre Pio, in a letter, April 20th, 1915, wrote: “Often repeat the beautiful prayer: ‘Angel of God, my guardian to whom the goodness of the heavenly Father entrusts me, enlighten, protect and guide me now and forever.’”
● “Invoke often this Guardian Angel, and repeat the beautiful prayer: ‘Oh, Angel of God . . .’”
St. Padre Pio’s Daily Prayer to His Guardian Angel
Angel of God, my guardian, to whom the goodness of the Heavenly Father entrusts me. Enlighten, protect and guide me! Now and for ever! Amen.
St. Gemma Galgani and Her Guardian Angel
Another wonderful example of the role and influence of the Guardian Angel can be seen in the life of St. Gemma Galgani (1878-1903). She was called by God to be a victim soul, that is, to suffer for the conversion of sinners—which is essentially the message that Our Lady at Fatima, where she asked of all of us—not quite to be victim souls—but to pray and offer sacrifices for the conversion of sinners. God never demands the impossible, and, if He asked a great deal of Gemma Galgani, He also gave her great helps to achieve her calling. One of these great helps was the incredible assistance given to Gemma by her Guardian Angel.
The biographer of St. Gemma Galgani, the Venerable Father Germanus C.P., writes in his book, The Life of St. Gemma Galgani, that: “Gemma saw her guardian angel with her own eyes, touched him with her hand, as if he were a being of this world, and would talk to him as would one friend to another ... ‘Jesus’, she once said ‘has not left me alone; He makes my guardian angel stay with me always.’”
Spiritual Helper
The Venerable Father Germanus continues “He let her see him sometimes raised in the air with outspread wings, with his hands extended over her, or else hands joined in an attitude of prayer. At other times he would kneel beside her. If they were reciting vocal prayers or the Psalms, they did so alternately; if aspirations or prayers from the heart, ‘they rivaled one another’ [these are Gemma’s words] that is, they had a holy rivalry as to whom would say them with more fervor saying ‘Viva Gesu’ or ‘Benedetto di Dio’ and other such beautiful invocations. When it was time for meditation, the angel inspired her with sublimest ideas, and moved her affections so that the result of this holy exercise may be more perfect. The subject of these meditations was, for the most part, the Passion of Our Lord, the angel like a good master, laid open its profound mysteries to her soul. ‘Look’ he would exclaim, ‘at what Jesus suffered for men. Consider each of these wounds. It is love that has opened them all. See how horrible sin is, since to expiate it, so much pain and so much love have been necessary’. These and other such reflections went straight to the heart of the fervent Gemma.”
Angel and Mary
On another occasion she writes: “I was in bed suffering greatly, when, all of a sudden, I became absorbed in prayer. I joined my hands and, moved with heartfelt sorrow for my countless sins, I made an act of deep contrition. My mind was wholly plunged in this abyss of my crime against my God, when I beheld my Angel standing by my bed. I felt ashamed of being in his presence. He instead was more than courteous with me, and said, kindly: ‘Jesus loves thee greatly. Love Him greatly in return!’ Then he added: ‘Are you fond of Jesus’ Mother? Salute her very often, for she values such attention very much, and unfailingly returns the salutations offered to her; and if you do not sense this, know that she makes a proof of your unfailing trust.’ He blessed me and disappeared.”
Angelic Spiritual Adviser
In her Autobiography, Gemma writes “One evening, when I was suffering more than usual, I was complaining to Jesus and telling him that I would not have prayed so much, if I had known that He was not going to cure me, and I asked Him why I had to be sick this way. My Angel answered me as follows: ‘If Jesus afflicts you in your body, it is always to purify you in your soul. Be good!’ Oh, how many times during my long illness did I not experience such consoling words in my heart! But I never profited by them.” (We see, in these words, Gemma’s humility).
Ticked-Off Angel
“From the moment I got up from my sick bed, my Guardian Angel began to be my master and guide. He corrected me every time I did something wrong, and he taught me to speak but little, and only when I was spoken to. One day, when those in the house were speaking of some person, and were not speaking very well of her, I wanted to speak up, but the Angel gave me a severe rebuke. He taught me to keep my eyes cast down, and one time in Church he reproved me strongly saying to me: ‘Is this the way you conduct yourself in the presence of God?’ And another time he admonished me in this way ‘If you are not good, I will not let you see me anymore!’ He taught me many times how to act in the presence of God; that is, to adore Him in His infinite goodness, His infinite majesty, His mercy and in all His attributes.”
Once, Gemma’s Guardian Angel ordered her to write the following: “Remember daughter, that whoever truly loves Jesus speaks little and bears all things. I command thee, on behalf of Jesus, to always refrain from giving your own opinion, unless it is asked; always to prefer silence to upholding your own views. Whenever you have committed a fault, accuse yourself of it at once, and do not wait for others to accuse thee. Give full obedience to your confessor, and to those whom he commands thee to obey; and be always sincere with them. Remember to guard your eyes, and be assured that the eyes that are mortified, shall behold the beauties of Heaven.” To humble her, her guardian angel once said to her: “Poor child! How imperfect you are! How much you need others to keep a constant guard over thee. Oh, how much patience I must have with thee.”
Angelic Good Samaritan
Concerning this care that the Angel gave her, Father Germano writes: “Gemma had once been beaten cruelly by the devil during her evening prayer, and being unable to move, the Angel lifted her to her bed, and stood there watching by her pillow.”
Angelic Counselor
In her Autobiography she writes: “I recall very well one time I was given a gold watch and chain. Ambitious as I was, I could hardly wait to put it on and go out (an indication, dear Father, that my imagination was working on me). I did in fact go out with it on and when I returned home and started to take it off I saw an angel (whom I recognized immediately as my Guardian Angel) who said to me very seriously: ‘Remember that the precious jewelry, that adorns the spouse of the Crucified King, can only be thorns and the cross!’”
“I did not even tell my confessor about this. In fact, I tell it now for the first time. These words made me fear, as did the angel himself. But a little later, while reflecting on them without understanding them at all, I made this resolution: I resolve for the love of Jesus, and to please Him, never to wear the watch again, and not even to speak of things that savor of vanity. At the time I also had a ring on my finger. I took it off immediately and from then until now I have not worn such things”
Angelic Messenger
Another extraordinary angelic event is the fact that Gemma often sent her Guardian Angel on errands, to ask Jesus, Mary, or St. Gabriel Possenti, some permission or assistance. Later her Guardian Angel would return, with such a reply or permission as she requested.
Angelic Mailman
However, the most unusual angelic errands were the one’s that Father Germano writes about in Gemma’s biography. Gemma would write a letter to him (Father Germano) seeking some spiritual guidance, and then place it in a “Little Manger Shrine” that was in the Gianinni home (her “adopted” family), and because she had no money for stamps, she would request her angel to deliver the letter for her. Father Germanus, living several hundred miles away in Rome at the time, would soon “find” the letter unstamped on his desk, or another such place. (yet another reason for the angelic deliveries was the fact that Father Germanus travelled extensively in his preaching ministry, and Gemma never knew where to reach him)
Realizing how unusual this was, Father Germano asked Heaven for a sign that these “angelic deliveries” were it was in accord with God’s Will. Afterwards, while he was staying at the Passionist house in Corneto, Italy, a “young boy” knocked at the door asking for him. Father Germanus answered the door and the boy handed him a letter from Gemma, and ubruptly turned and left without saying a word. Who was the boy and how could Gemma have known that he was visiting at Corneto? He opened the letter and immediately realized that God answered his prayer as to the authenticity of these “angelic” deliveries. On most other occasions when these “angelic letter deliveries” occurred, Father Germanus would simply find Gemma’s unstamped letter on his desk, when he arrived in his office.
After Gemma’s death, he wrote: “I always received the angelic letters faithfully. The fact is unusual … I confess I do not understand it at all ...To how many tests did I not I submit this singular phenomenon, in order to convince myself that it took place through a supernatural intervention! And yet none of my tests ever failed; and thus I was convinced again and again that in this, like in many other extraordinary things in her life, Heaven was delighted in amusing itself, as it were, with this innocent and dear maiden.”
Angelic Correction
The Venerable Father Germanus writes: “When necessary, her Guardian Angel knew how to show severity. She one day told me this in the following words ‘My Angel is a little severe, but I am glad of it. During the last few days, he corrected me as often as three or four times a day!’”
Gemma writes “Yesterday while at table I raised my eyes and saw my Angel looking at me with frightening severity. Later, when I went to my room—Oh my God! How angry he was! I looked at him, but lowered my eyes immediately. He said: ‘Are you not ashamed to commit such faults in my presence?’ He cast such severe looks at me! And I did nothing but cry and recommend myself to my God and to my Blessed Mother, that they might take me away, because I could not bear it much longer. Every now and then he repeated: ‘I am ashamed of you!’ I prayed also that others might not see him so angry; for if they did, no one would come near me ... I did not have courage to say a word to him, for whenever I raised my eyes, he was looking at me severely!.... Yesterday evening, I found it impossible to sleep, and at last at about 2:00 am I saw him approach. He put his hand on my forehead saying: ‘Sleep my poor child!’— then he disappeared.”
Angelic Love
Her spiritual director Father Gemanus writes: “Gemma, seeing the great charity her angel lavished upon her, loved her angel immensely, and his name was always on her tongue as well as in her heart.
‘Dear Angel’ she would say ‘I love you so!’
‘And why’ the Angel asked.
‘Because you teach me how to be good, and to keep humble, and to please Jesus.’”
The Popes and Angels
Pope Pius XI (1922-1939) once told a certain group of visitors that he was faithful in praying to his Guardian Angel—every day, both morning and evening. Whenever he encountered difficulties, he would once again turn to his Guardian Angel for help. He added: “It is good for us to say this, also out of gratitude! We have always seen ourselves as wonderfully helped by our Guardian Angel. Very often, we feel that he is here, close by, ready to help us.” St. Bernard of Clairvaux had spoken of our obligation to show respect, love and trust towards our Guardian Angels. The counsels of St. Bernard had made a profound impression upon Pope Piuz XI, who revealed that he followed this advice since his earliest days of manhood. He added that his devotion to his Guardian Angel developed throughout time, to the point where it played a part in all and any good the pope did in his life.
The successor of Pius XI, Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), speaking to several hundred American visitors on October 3rd, 1958—the day after the feast of the Guardian Angels—just six days before his death on the 9th, described the role the Guardian Angels played in their lives: “Did Christ not say, speaking to little children, who were so loved by his pure and loving heart: ‘Their angels always behold the face of my Father Who is in Heaven’ (Matthew 18:10). When children become adults, do their Guardian Angels abandon them? Not at all! The hymn at first vespers in yesterday’s liturgy told us: ‘Let us sing to the Guardian Angels of men, heavenly companions, given by the Father to our frail nature, lest we succumb to the enemies who threaten us.’ This same thinking is to be found time and time again in the writings of the Fathers of the Church. Everyone, no matter how humble he may be, has Angels to watch over him. They are heavenly, pure and splendid, and yet they have been given us to keep us company on our way: they have been given the task of keeping careful watch over you so that you do not become separated from Christ, their Lord. And not only do they want to protect you from the dangers which waylay you throughout your journey: they are actually by your side, helping your souls as you strive to go ever higher in your union with God through Christ.”
Whereas we are inclined sometimes to limit the role of the guardian angels to that of defending and protecting us, especially as regards the material side of things, Pius XII goes much further, in keeping with all Christian tradition: our Guardian Angel, he says actually promotes our spiritual improvement and helps develop our intimacy with God. He is a teacher of asceticism and mysticism, a guide who will lead us right to the summit.
Pius XII ends his address by exhorting the faithful to be on familiar terms, here and now, with their invisible traveling companions: “We do not want to take our leave of you ... without exhorting you to awaken, to revive, your sense of the invisible world which is all around us—because we look not to the things which are seen, but the things that are unseen (2 Corinthians 4:18)—and to have a certain familiarly with the Angels, who are forever solicitous for your salvation and your sanctification. If God wishes, you will spend a happy eternity with the angels: get to know them here, from now on.”
The Avenging Angel of the Passover
We have much to learn of the “Avenging Angels” of the Old Testament, sent by God, in response to prayer and penance, for the protection of His Chosen People.
God speaks to Moses and prepares the Chosen People for the night of the original Passover, when the Avenging Angel would pass over Egypt and kill the firstborn in those houses that did not have the blood of the lamb smeared on the upper door posts: “And they shall take of the blood thereof, and put it upon both the side posts, and on the upper door posts of the houses … And I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and will kill every firstborn in the land of Egypt both man and beast: and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be unto you for a sign in the houses where you shall be: and I shall see the blood, and shall pass over you: and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I shall strike the land of Egypt” (Exodus, chapter 12).
The blood of the lamb on the wooden door posts was simply a prefiguration of the Blood of the Lamb of God—Our Lord Jesus Christ—that stained the wood of the Cross. If we have the Cross in our lives, and if we carry it willingly, then we shall be saved—as the Liturgy says: “In cruce salus” (In the Cross is Salvation) and “Ave crux, spes unica!” (Hail Cross, our only hope!).
Avenging Angels and the Destruction of Sodom
Sodom was destined for destruction, due to its sinfulness. God sent two Angels to accomplish its destruction: “And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of the city … And they said to Lot: ‘Hast thou here any of thine? Son-in-law, or sons, or daughters? All that are thine bring them out of this city: for we will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord, Who hath sent us to destroy them!’
“So Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, that were to have his daughters, and said: ‘Arise! Get you out of this place, because the Lord will destroy this city!’ And he seemed, to them, to speak as it were in jest. And when it was morning, the angels pressed him, saying: ‘Arise, take thy wife, and the two daughters which thou hast: lest thou also perish in the wickedness of the city!’ And as he lingered, they took his hand, and the hand of his wife, and of his two daughters, because the Lord spared him. And they brought him forth, and set him without the city: and there they spoke to him, saying: ‘Save thy life! Look not back! Neither stay thou in all the country about, but save thyself in the mountain, lest thou be also consumed!’” (Genesis, chapter 19).
Today, we are being told the same thing: God “will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord!” Yet, like Lot’s sons-in-law, we think it is all a joke. We are told: “Arise! Get you out of this place, because the Lord will destroy this city!” Yet we are, like Lot and his family, reluctant to separate ourselves from the world. We are told “Save thy life! Look not back! Neither stay thou in all the country about, but save thyself in the mountain, lest thou be also consumed!”—but we are prepared to take the risk, and so, like the frog in the ever increasingly hotter pan of heated water, we stay where we are rationalizing and compromising.
The Avenging Angels of the Machabees
We see God send three Angels to protect the Temple of Jerusalem. Heliodorus was about to ransack the Temple of Jerusalem and its treasury, “but the spirit of the almighty God gave a great evidence of His presence, so that all that had presumed to obey him, falling down by the power of God, were struck with fainting and dread. For there appeared to them a horse with a terrible rider upon him, adorned with a very rich covering: and he ran fiercely and struck Heliodorus with his fore feet, and he that sat upon him seemed to have armor of gold. Moreover there appeared two other young men beautiful and strong, bright and glorious, and in comely apparel: who stood by him, on either side, and scourged him without ceasing with many stripes. And Heliodorus suddenly fell to the ground, and they took him up covered with great darkness, and having put him into a litter they carried him out. So he that came with many servants, and all his guard into the aforesaid treasury, was carried out, no one being able to help him, the manifest power of God being known. And he indeed, by the power of God, lay speechless, and without all hope of recovery” (2 Machabees 3:24-29).
The same thing happened later, when “Antiochus prepared for a second journey into Egypt. And it came to pass that through the whole city of Jerusalem, for the space of forty days, there were seen horsemen running in the air, in gilded raiment, and armed with spears, like bands of soldiers. And horses set in order by ranks, running one against another, with the shakings of shields, and a multitude of men in helmets, with drawn swords, and casting of darts, and glittering of golden armor, and of harnesses of all sorts” (2 Machabees 5:1-3).
The leader of the Machabees in battle, Judas Machabeus, would pray before battle and God would send Angels to guard and protect him in battle: “Timotheus who before had been overcome by the Jews, having called together a multitude of foreign troops, and assembled horsemen out of Asia, came as though he would take Judea by force of arms.
“But Machabeus and they that were with him, when he drew near, prayed to the Lord, sprinkling earth upon their heads and girding their loins with haircloth, and lying prostrate at the foot of the altar, besought him to be merciful to them, and to be an enemy to their enemies, and an adversary to their adversaries, as the law saith. And so after prayer taking their arms, they went forth further from the city, and when they were come very near the enemies they rested.
“But as soon as the sun was risen both sides joined battle: the one part having with their valor the Lord for a surety of victory and success: but the other side making their rage their leader in battle. But when they were in the heat of the engagement there appeared to the enemies from heaven five men upon horses, comely with golden bridles, conducting the Jews: two of whom took Machabeus between them, and covered him on every side with their arms, and kept him safe: but cast darts and fireballs against the enemy, so that they fell down, being both confounded with blindness, and filled with trouble. And there were slain twenty thousand five hundred, and six hundred horsemen. But Timotheus fled into Gazara” (2 Machabees 10:24-32).
When Lysias came to lay siege to Jerusalem, once again Judas Machabeus had recourse to God through prayer and yet again God sent an Angel to the rescue: “But when Machabeus and they that were with him, understood that the strong holds were besieged, they and all the people besought the Lord with lamentations and tears, that he would send a good angel to save Israel.
“Then Machabeus himself, first taking his arms, exhorted the rest to expose themselves together with him, to the danger, and to succour their brethren. And when they were going forth together with a willing mind, there appeared at Jerusalem a horseman going before them in white clothing, with golden armor, shaking a spear. Then they all together blessed the merciful Lord, and took great courage, being ready to break through not only men, but also the fiercest beasts, and walls of iron. So they went on courageously, having a helper from Heaven, who showed mercy to them. And rushing violently upon the enemy, like lions, they slew of them eleven thousand footmen, and one thousand six hundred horsemen: and put all the rest to flight: many of them being wounded, escaped naked: yea and Lysias himself fled away shamefully, and escaped” (2 Machabees 11:6-12).
The one time that Judas Machabeus did not pray to the Lord for protection and victory—due to his now acquired complacency as being invincible—he fell and was killed in the battle. As Our Lord says to us: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). But if we invoke Him, then the words of St. Paul will apply: “If God be for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31). “For He hath given His angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways” (Psalm 90:11).
Avenging Angels of Our Days
Explaining the parable of the Sower of the Seed, Our Lord says: “He that soweth the good seed, is the Son of man. And the field, is the world. And the good seed are the children of the kingdom. And the cockle, are the children of the wicked one. And the enemy that sowed them, is the devil. But the harvest is the end of the world. And the reapers are the angels. Even as cockle therefore is gathered up, and burnt with fire: so shall it be at the end of the world. The Son of man shall send His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all scandals, and them that work iniquity … So shall it be at the end of the world. The angels shall go out, and shall separate the wicked from among the just. And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth … For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels: and then will He render to every man according to his works” (Matthew 13:37-41; 13:49-50; 16:27).
Sr. Lucia of Fatima speaks of an Angel with a flaming sword, sent to punish the Earth: “After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor, that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand. Then pointing to the Earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’”
We see this same idea reproduced by Our Lady’s prophecy at La Salette, where she speaks of the wrath of God that will fall upon the sinful world and especially the enemies of God:
“At the first blow of His thundering sword, the mountains and all Nature will tremble in terror, for the disorders and crimes of men have pierced the vault of the Heavens. Cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes. People will believe that all is lost. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of arms and blasphemy. The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession. And then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere” (Our Lady of La Salette).
This is perhaps what the Book of Apocalypse alludes to—”I heard a voice from the four horns of the great altar, which is before the eyes of God, saying to the sixth angel, who had the trumpet: ‘Loose the four angels!’ … And the four angels were loosed … to kill the third part of men” (Apocalypse 9:13-15). Our Lady of Akita says: “As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead.”
Nothing Changes—The Key Remains the Same!
What God said of old, to Moses and His Chosen People, He says now to us—but on condition that we pray much and do penance. It as prayer and penance than unlocked the heart of God in the Old Testament, and nothing has changed. That is why Our Lady is always asking for prayer and penance in our day. As Our Lady of La Salette said: “The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession. And then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death.
You have, no doubt, heard the saying: “Out of sight, out of mind” ― meaning that things that we do not have before our eyes, will quickly be removed from our minds and thoughts. You soon forget people or things that are no longer visible or present. It is the same with information and knowledge―if we do not review what we once learnt, then we will quickly forget it! For example, look at the number of adult Catholics who can no longer answer the simple questions of their First Holy Communion Catechism! Most of them cannot even remember all of the Ten Commandments! That is one reason why we have religious pictures, statues and other religious objects in our homes and pockets―because they help to always keep God and the things of God firmly entrenched in our minds. This is also true of our Guardian Angels―once we lose “sight” of them, we soon forget them―and once we forget them, we fail to call upon their powerful help and, in a sense, force them into a kind of a “rendundancy”, whereby they are redundant to our needs―we feel we can get along without them and have no need of their help. In that sense, we reduce them to ranks of the unemployed.
Neglect Your Angel At Your Peril!
We are living in a world that is leagued against Christ and that seeks our damnation. Our Lord is not of this world, nor are we supposed to be of this world. The world belongs to the prince of this world—the devil. Whoever loves this world is an enemy of God and is in danger of losing their own soul. If you love the world, then there is a very great likelihood that you will end up being damned. Don’t believe it? Let Holy Scripture clarify the matter for you:
“Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world ... Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (1 John 2:15; James 4:4). “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27). “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32). Our Lord Himself confirms this: “And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Not every one that saith to Me, “Lord! Lord!” shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! … Strive to enter by the narrow gate―for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able! ... Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it! … For many are called, but few are chosen!’” (Luke 13:23-24; Matthew 7:13-14; 7:21; 22:14).
The World Belongs To Satan
Our Lord “was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew him not” (John 1:10). He Himself said: “I am the light of the world”, but “I am not of this world” (John 8:12; 8:23) … “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:5), but “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). “Yet a little while: and the world seeth Me no more” (John 14:19). “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19). “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal” (John 12:25). “We know that we are of God, and the whole world is seated in wickedness” (1 John 5:19).
Our Lord Himself points out the “prince of this world” and says that He has nothing to do with him: “Now is the judgment of the world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31) … “The prince of this world is already judged” (John 16:11) … “The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he hath not any thing” (John 14:30). This is seen to be the case when the “prince of this world” tried to tempt Our Lord: “The devil took him up into a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: ‘All these will I give Thee, if falling down Thou wilt adore me!’ Then Jesus saith to him: ‘Begone, Satan! For it is written: “The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve!”‘ Then the devil left Him; and behold angels came and ministered to Him” (Matthew 4:8-10).
What Do You Love?
This is why the Apostles tell us: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world” ( 1 John 2:15-16). “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God … For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God …Therefore I say, brethren; the time is short; it remaineth, that they that use this world, should use it as if they used it not: for the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Corinthians 2:12; 3:19; 7:29-31). ”Be dead with Christ from the elements of this world” (Colossians 2:20). “Denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this world” (Titus 2:12). “Flying from the pollutions of the world”( 2 Peter 2:20). “For we brought nothing into this world: and certainly we can carry nothing out” (1 Timothy 6:7). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4).
We were once of the world, but should no longer be of the world, as St. Paul writes: “And you, when you were dead in your offences, and sins, wherein in time past you walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of this air, of the spirit that now worketh on the children of unbelief. In which also we all conversed in time past, in the desires of our flesh, fulfilling the will of the flesh and of our thoughts, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest” (Ephesians 2:1-3). As Our Lord points out: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
To Fight Satan and the World, We Need the Angels of God
If we expect to overcome the world and its prince by ourselves, then we are grossly mistaken and dangerously complacent. If we think we can make a friend of this world, then we call God a liar—you cannot serve God and mammon. “No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). As the saying goes: “You must fight fire with fire!” Similarly, we can only fight the fires of Hell and overcome the fiery darts of the devil, through the fires of love and fiery love of God’s angelic spirits—the angels.
Fire is Needed
Our Lord says: “I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49) and we say to God: “Come, O Holy Ghost, … enkindle in us the fire of Thy love”, so that we “may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one” (Ephesians 6:16). There is biblical connection between angels and fire. We read that “He maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire” (Hebrews 1:7), and that “there appeared to Moses, in the desert of Mount Sinai, an angel in a flame of fire in a bush” (Acts 7:30) ... “And another angel came out from the altar, who had power over fire … And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun, and it was given unto him to afflict men with heat and fire … And I saw another mighty angel come down from Heaven, and his face was as the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire” (Apocalypse 14:18; 16:8; 10:1). In Genesis (3:24), we read of Cherubims with flaming swords of fire. To be able to fight the evil angels with their fiery darts, we need the good angels with their fiery swords. Otherwise, we are out of our league!
Angelic Authority
If there was ever an earthly authority on Angels, it was St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. He talked to them regularly as you and I talk with our family and friends. He sent them all over the world on “missions” to his spiritual children, and received messages back via the angels as often as we receive mail. Here are a few of his thoughts on these magnificent heavenly beings.
St. Padre Pio and His Guardian Angel
St. Padre Pio had the privilege of having his Guardian Angel visibly beside him all his life. He played with him when he was a child, and the Guardian Angel sang for him when he was sad. St. Padre Pio, speaking of his Guardian Angel, said: “My Guardian Angel has been my friend since my infancy. Little companion of my infancy, ‘angiolino’, ‘angioletto’, my secretary, inseparable companion, celestial person, celestial messenger, brother, friend, prevents danger, one of the family, translates for me the letters in other languages, I send him to console people suffering, prevents from stumbling, never lives us alone for an instant, from the cradle to the grave, even when we are sinning.”
Companion in Prayer
When Padre Pio was a young friar, he wrote a letter to his confessor in which he said: “When I close my eyes and the night comes, I can see the Heaven that appears in front of me. I am encouraged by this vision so I can sleep with a sweet smile on the lips and with a perfect calm on the forehead, waiting my small companion of my infancy came to wake up me and start praying together prayers to the beloved of our hearts.” The Angel would keep Padre Pio up at night, so that they could both chant God’s praises.
Faithful Secretary
Padre Pio lived in close contact with his Guardian Angel, who taught him to translate letters in French and Greek. He said: “If the mission of our Guardian Angel is a great mission, the mission of mine is for sure greater than the others, because he has to be a teacher and explain to me other languages” … “The mission of my Guardian Angel includes explaining me other languages.” When asked: “How do you take care of the so many letters you receive?” The good Padre replied: “The Angel does his job.”
After Taking A Beating!
St. Padre Pio’s Angel would also ease the pain that he suffered from the beatings he received from demons. St. Padre Pio wrote the following to his spiritual director on November 5th, 1912: “I cannot tell you the way these scoundrels [the demons] beat me. Sometimes I feel I am about to die. On Saturday, it seemed to me that they intended to put an end to me and I did not know what saint to invoke. I turned to my Angel and, after he had kept me waiting a while, there he was hovering close to me, singing hymns to the divine Majesty in his angelic voice . . . I rebuked him bitterly for having kept me waiting so long when I had not failed to call him to my assistance. To punish him, I did not want to look him in the face; I wanted to get away, to escape from him. But he, poor creature, caught up with me almost in tears and held me, until I raised my eyes to his face and found him all upset. Then he said: ‘I am always close to you, my beloved young man!’”
A Companion in Need is a Companion Indeed
One winter, a spiritual daughter of Padre Pio was walking along a country road to the Convent where the good Padre was waiting for her. The road was so heavily covered with snow, in which it was even difficult to walk, that she was uncertain if she would reach the Convent in time for the appointment. Full of faith, she prayed to her Guardian Angel to tell Padre Pio she would have to arrive late, because of the snow. When she finally reached the convent, she saw Padre Pio smiling, waiting for her behind a window. The Guardian Angel had done his job!
A woman was sitting in the square of the church of the Capuchins. The Church was closed. It was late and she prayed with the thought, and repeated with the heart: “Padre Pio, help me! Guardian Angel, please, go to tell Padre Pio to help me, otherwise my sister will die!” From the window, above her, came St. Padre Pio’s voice: “Who is calling me at this time? What is the problem?” The woman told him about her sister’s illness. St. Padre Pio bilocated, went to the sick woman and healed her.
Here are some other things that St. Padre Pio said about the Angels:
Angelic Assistance At Mass
We cannot imagine the number of Angels that assist at each Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—and with such devotion, that we would blush for shame if we could only witness it. Perhaps we need to ask our Guardian Angels to obtain for us the grace of “cleaning-up our act” and assistance and the greatest Event on Earth in a more fitting and fervent manner!
● “Oh, if all men could understand this great gift that God, assigned to us; this celestial spirit.”
● “All of Paradise is close to the altar when I say Mass.”
● “The angels attend my Mass In legions.”
● “The angels around the altar adore and love.”
Acquiring An Angelic Attitude
We are so caught up in ourselves that we forget our best friend—outside of Jesus and Mary. Our Guardian Angel has done so much for us and all he gets is perhaps a mechanical and routine, 5-second prayer… “Angel of God, my Guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits me here. Ever this day (night) be at my side, to light, to guard, to rule, to guide. Amen.” Or perhaps he doesn’t even get that! St. Padre Pio has these words to say on the subject:
● “Do not forget this invisible companion, always present to listen to you; always ready to console you.”
● “Your Guardian Angel prays for you; offers to God all the good works you accomplish; your holy and pure desires.”
● “Invoke your Guardian Angel that he will illuminate you and will guide you. God has given him to you for this reason. Therefore use him!”
● “Often remember his presence; thank him; pray to him; respect him; be in constant fear of offending the purity of his gaze.”
● “Our Guardian Angel never leaves us, even when we are disgusting God with our behavior!” Others may leave us, but our Guardian Angels don’t!
● “Oh if all men could understand this great gift that God assigned to us; this celestial spirit!”
Feeling Lonely?
For those who feel abandoned, lonely, isolated—St. Padre has this to say:
● “For people that live alone there is the Guardian Angel.”
● “When you seem to be alone, here a friendly soul to whom you can unburden yourself and in whom you can confide your sorrows.”
● “We will pray for your mother, so that the Guardian Angel will be with her in company.”
● “For whomever is alone, there is his Guardian Angel.”
● “Do not forget this invisible companion, always present to listen to you; always ready to console you.”
● One time, St. Padre Pio was asked: “With all those Angels around you—don’t they bother you?” He answered, “No. They are so obedient.”
Communication Problems?
For those who need to communicate, St. Padre Pio recommends using the Guardian Angels (not a bad idea in these of communications surveillance and Big-Brother watching and listening to you! Perhaps instead of e-mails or electronic mail, we can use a-mails, or angelic mail!). Padre Pio often recommended that, if people wanted to send him a message or a petition, they could send him their Guardian Angel. Fr. Dominic, who handled the American mail for Padre Pio, asked him: “Padre . . . a woman wants to know if she sends her Guardian Angel to you, does he come?” Padre Pio replied, “Tell her that her Angel is not like she is. Her Angel is very obedient—and when she sends him, he comes!” Here are some other comments of St. Padre Pio on this subject:
● “Pick a name for your Guardian Angel and call him by the name always. When you send him to me, he will come instantly.”
● “Send the Guardian Angel. He doesn’t pay a train ticket and doesn’t wear-out shoes.”
● “Don’t write to me because I cannot answer you. Send me your Guardian Angel and I will do everything.”
● “Your Guardian Angel has reported to me some sentences that have made me understand your mistrust.”
● Someone complained to St. Padre Pio: “Father, my income doesn’t allow me to come to see you as often as I’d like.” St. Padre Pio replied: “Who told you to come here? Don’t you have your Guardian Angel? Tell him what you want, send him here, and you will have an answer right away.”
● A person asked St. Padre Pio, “Father, are you able to hear what the Guardian Angels tell you?” And Padre Pio answered, “Of course! Do you think Angels are disobedient as you? Send me your Guardian Angel!”
● An Italian-American, from California, used to pray to his Guardian Angel to tell his needs to St. Padre Pio. One day, after confession, he asked St. Padre Pio if he really heard his Guardian Angel. “Do you think I am deaf?” And he repeated what he had told recently his Guardian Angel to tell St. Padre Pio.
● Padre Lino Barbati sent his Guardian Angel to ask of St. Padre Pio the healing of a person. That person was not getting better. He asked St. Padre Pio: “Could it be that at times the Guardian Angel doesn’t do what we ask him to do?” St. Padre Pio answered: “What? Are you thinking that he is disobedient like me and you?”
● One of the spiritual children of St. Padre Pio said: “It seems that Padre Pio always listens to everybody who calls him.” One evening, a group of friends arrived at San Giovanni Rotondo. They summarized the graces that they would like to ask of St. Padre Pio, and they asked their Guardian Angels to bring their requests to St. Padre Pio as soon as possible. The next day, after the Holy Mass, St. Padre Pio reproached them: “You do not leave me in peace even at night!” Watching Padre Pio’s smile, they understood their prayer had been accepted.
● Padre Alessio approached St. Padre Pio with some letters in his hand in order to ask him something but St. Padre Pio told him abruptly: “Boy! Leave me alone! Don’t you see that I am busy?” Padre Alessio went away mortified. Later, St. Padre Pio apologized and explained: “Didn’t you see all those Angels who were with me? They are the Guardian Angels of my spiritual children who brought me their messages. I had to report to them the answers they needed.”
● Padre Eusebio said: “I was going to London by plane, against Padre Pio’s suggestion not to use this mean of transport. When we were flying over the Channel, a violent storm put the plane in danger. Amid the general terror I prayed and, without knowing what to do, I sent my Guardian Angel to Padre Pio. When I went back to San Giovanni Rotondo, I met Padre Pio, who said to me: ‘Are you well? Is everything OK?’ I answered: ‘I thought I’d die!’ The saintly padre responded: ‘Then why don’t you obey?’ I responded: ‘But I have sent you my Guardian Angel!’ Padre Pio then said: ‘Fortunately, he arrived just in time!’”
Need Help?
The Guardian Angels are not just messengers, but helpers in the greatest degree! St. Padre Pio states:
● “Our Guardian Angel prays constantly for us.”
● “Let’s confide to Our Guardian Angel our pains and sorrows. He is like a friend, like a brother.”
● “The duty of the Guardian Angel is not only of spiritual guidance. He also prevents bodily harm for us.”
● An Italian Lawyer named Attilio De Sanctis, from Fano, Italy, was driving back home to Bologna with his wife and two children. During the trip he fell asleep at the wheel. He woke up a few miles from home. He said: “Who drove my car?” The wife said: “You were still, and didn’t answer to us, and you avoided several collisions at last second. Your driving was different from usual.” Two months later he visited Padre Pio, who told him from afar: “You were asleep and the Guardian Angel drove your car.” The mystery was solved.
Angel Envy?
With all that power, you would think that there is nothing that the angels could envy about humans. However, St. Padre Pio tells us: “The Angels envy us for one thing only: they cannot suffer for God.”
Dying to See our Guardian Angel
St. Padre Pio tells us that seeing our Guardian Angel at the moment of our death will be a truly stupendous sight to behod—if we die well and in the state of grace!
● “It will be a great joy when, at the moment of death, we will be able to see our Guardian Angel.”
● “What consolation when, at the moment of death, you will see this Angel, who accompanied you through life and was so generous in maternal care.”
● “May the desire to see this inseparable companion incite you to leave this body quickly.”
● “When we die, our Guardian Angel will take our soul to Heaven.”
Do Not Neglect Your Angel!
Woe to those who neglect to profit from their Guardian Angel in this life! Therefore St. Padre Pio encourages us:
● St. Padre Pio, in a letter, April 20th, 1915, wrote: “Often repeat the beautiful prayer: ‘Angel of God, my guardian to whom the goodness of the heavenly Father entrusts me, enlighten, protect and guide me now and forever.’”
● “Invoke often this Guardian Angel, and repeat the beautiful prayer: ‘Oh, Angel of God . . .’”
St. Padre Pio’s Daily Prayer to His Guardian Angel
Angel of God, my guardian, to whom the goodness of the Heavenly Father entrusts me. Enlighten, protect and guide me! Now and for ever! Amen.
St. Gemma Galgani and Her Guardian Angel
Another wonderful example of the role and influence of the Guardian Angel can be seen in the life of St. Gemma Galgani (1878-1903). She was called by God to be a victim soul, that is, to suffer for the conversion of sinners—which is essentially the message that Our Lady at Fatima, where she asked of all of us—not quite to be victim souls—but to pray and offer sacrifices for the conversion of sinners. God never demands the impossible, and, if He asked a great deal of Gemma Galgani, He also gave her great helps to achieve her calling. One of these great helps was the incredible assistance given to Gemma by her Guardian Angel.
The biographer of St. Gemma Galgani, the Venerable Father Germanus C.P., writes in his book, The Life of St. Gemma Galgani, that: “Gemma saw her guardian angel with her own eyes, touched him with her hand, as if he were a being of this world, and would talk to him as would one friend to another ... ‘Jesus’, she once said ‘has not left me alone; He makes my guardian angel stay with me always.’”
Spiritual Helper
The Venerable Father Germanus continues “He let her see him sometimes raised in the air with outspread wings, with his hands extended over her, or else hands joined in an attitude of prayer. At other times he would kneel beside her. If they were reciting vocal prayers or the Psalms, they did so alternately; if aspirations or prayers from the heart, ‘they rivaled one another’ [these are Gemma’s words] that is, they had a holy rivalry as to whom would say them with more fervor saying ‘Viva Gesu’ or ‘Benedetto di Dio’ and other such beautiful invocations. When it was time for meditation, the angel inspired her with sublimest ideas, and moved her affections so that the result of this holy exercise may be more perfect. The subject of these meditations was, for the most part, the Passion of Our Lord, the angel like a good master, laid open its profound mysteries to her soul. ‘Look’ he would exclaim, ‘at what Jesus suffered for men. Consider each of these wounds. It is love that has opened them all. See how horrible sin is, since to expiate it, so much pain and so much love have been necessary’. These and other such reflections went straight to the heart of the fervent Gemma.”
Angel and Mary
On another occasion she writes: “I was in bed suffering greatly, when, all of a sudden, I became absorbed in prayer. I joined my hands and, moved with heartfelt sorrow for my countless sins, I made an act of deep contrition. My mind was wholly plunged in this abyss of my crime against my God, when I beheld my Angel standing by my bed. I felt ashamed of being in his presence. He instead was more than courteous with me, and said, kindly: ‘Jesus loves thee greatly. Love Him greatly in return!’ Then he added: ‘Are you fond of Jesus’ Mother? Salute her very often, for she values such attention very much, and unfailingly returns the salutations offered to her; and if you do not sense this, know that she makes a proof of your unfailing trust.’ He blessed me and disappeared.”
Angelic Spiritual Adviser
In her Autobiography, Gemma writes “One evening, when I was suffering more than usual, I was complaining to Jesus and telling him that I would not have prayed so much, if I had known that He was not going to cure me, and I asked Him why I had to be sick this way. My Angel answered me as follows: ‘If Jesus afflicts you in your body, it is always to purify you in your soul. Be good!’ Oh, how many times during my long illness did I not experience such consoling words in my heart! But I never profited by them.” (We see, in these words, Gemma’s humility).
Ticked-Off Angel
“From the moment I got up from my sick bed, my Guardian Angel began to be my master and guide. He corrected me every time I did something wrong, and he taught me to speak but little, and only when I was spoken to. One day, when those in the house were speaking of some person, and were not speaking very well of her, I wanted to speak up, but the Angel gave me a severe rebuke. He taught me to keep my eyes cast down, and one time in Church he reproved me strongly saying to me: ‘Is this the way you conduct yourself in the presence of God?’ And another time he admonished me in this way ‘If you are not good, I will not let you see me anymore!’ He taught me many times how to act in the presence of God; that is, to adore Him in His infinite goodness, His infinite majesty, His mercy and in all His attributes.”
Once, Gemma’s Guardian Angel ordered her to write the following: “Remember daughter, that whoever truly loves Jesus speaks little and bears all things. I command thee, on behalf of Jesus, to always refrain from giving your own opinion, unless it is asked; always to prefer silence to upholding your own views. Whenever you have committed a fault, accuse yourself of it at once, and do not wait for others to accuse thee. Give full obedience to your confessor, and to those whom he commands thee to obey; and be always sincere with them. Remember to guard your eyes, and be assured that the eyes that are mortified, shall behold the beauties of Heaven.” To humble her, her guardian angel once said to her: “Poor child! How imperfect you are! How much you need others to keep a constant guard over thee. Oh, how much patience I must have with thee.”
Angelic Good Samaritan
Concerning this care that the Angel gave her, Father Germano writes: “Gemma had once been beaten cruelly by the devil during her evening prayer, and being unable to move, the Angel lifted her to her bed, and stood there watching by her pillow.”
Angelic Counselor
In her Autobiography she writes: “I recall very well one time I was given a gold watch and chain. Ambitious as I was, I could hardly wait to put it on and go out (an indication, dear Father, that my imagination was working on me). I did in fact go out with it on and when I returned home and started to take it off I saw an angel (whom I recognized immediately as my Guardian Angel) who said to me very seriously: ‘Remember that the precious jewelry, that adorns the spouse of the Crucified King, can only be thorns and the cross!’”
“I did not even tell my confessor about this. In fact, I tell it now for the first time. These words made me fear, as did the angel himself. But a little later, while reflecting on them without understanding them at all, I made this resolution: I resolve for the love of Jesus, and to please Him, never to wear the watch again, and not even to speak of things that savor of vanity. At the time I also had a ring on my finger. I took it off immediately and from then until now I have not worn such things”
Angelic Messenger
Another extraordinary angelic event is the fact that Gemma often sent her Guardian Angel on errands, to ask Jesus, Mary, or St. Gabriel Possenti, some permission or assistance. Later her Guardian Angel would return, with such a reply or permission as she requested.
Angelic Mailman
However, the most unusual angelic errands were the one’s that Father Germano writes about in Gemma’s biography. Gemma would write a letter to him (Father Germano) seeking some spiritual guidance, and then place it in a “Little Manger Shrine” that was in the Gianinni home (her “adopted” family), and because she had no money for stamps, she would request her angel to deliver the letter for her. Father Germanus, living several hundred miles away in Rome at the time, would soon “find” the letter unstamped on his desk, or another such place. (yet another reason for the angelic deliveries was the fact that Father Germanus travelled extensively in his preaching ministry, and Gemma never knew where to reach him)
Realizing how unusual this was, Father Germano asked Heaven for a sign that these “angelic deliveries” were it was in accord with God’s Will. Afterwards, while he was staying at the Passionist house in Corneto, Italy, a “young boy” knocked at the door asking for him. Father Germanus answered the door and the boy handed him a letter from Gemma, and ubruptly turned and left without saying a word. Who was the boy and how could Gemma have known that he was visiting at Corneto? He opened the letter and immediately realized that God answered his prayer as to the authenticity of these “angelic” deliveries. On most other occasions when these “angelic letter deliveries” occurred, Father Germanus would simply find Gemma’s unstamped letter on his desk, when he arrived in his office.
After Gemma’s death, he wrote: “I always received the angelic letters faithfully. The fact is unusual … I confess I do not understand it at all ...To how many tests did I not I submit this singular phenomenon, in order to convince myself that it took place through a supernatural intervention! And yet none of my tests ever failed; and thus I was convinced again and again that in this, like in many other extraordinary things in her life, Heaven was delighted in amusing itself, as it were, with this innocent and dear maiden.”
Angelic Correction
The Venerable Father Germanus writes: “When necessary, her Guardian Angel knew how to show severity. She one day told me this in the following words ‘My Angel is a little severe, but I am glad of it. During the last few days, he corrected me as often as three or four times a day!’”
Gemma writes “Yesterday while at table I raised my eyes and saw my Angel looking at me with frightening severity. Later, when I went to my room—Oh my God! How angry he was! I looked at him, but lowered my eyes immediately. He said: ‘Are you not ashamed to commit such faults in my presence?’ He cast such severe looks at me! And I did nothing but cry and recommend myself to my God and to my Blessed Mother, that they might take me away, because I could not bear it much longer. Every now and then he repeated: ‘I am ashamed of you!’ I prayed also that others might not see him so angry; for if they did, no one would come near me ... I did not have courage to say a word to him, for whenever I raised my eyes, he was looking at me severely!.... Yesterday evening, I found it impossible to sleep, and at last at about 2:00 am I saw him approach. He put his hand on my forehead saying: ‘Sleep my poor child!’— then he disappeared.”
Angelic Love
Her spiritual director Father Gemanus writes: “Gemma, seeing the great charity her angel lavished upon her, loved her angel immensely, and his name was always on her tongue as well as in her heart.
‘Dear Angel’ she would say ‘I love you so!’
‘And why’ the Angel asked.
‘Because you teach me how to be good, and to keep humble, and to please Jesus.’”
The Popes and Angels
Pope Pius XI (1922-1939) once told a certain group of visitors that he was faithful in praying to his Guardian Angel—every day, both morning and evening. Whenever he encountered difficulties, he would once again turn to his Guardian Angel for help. He added: “It is good for us to say this, also out of gratitude! We have always seen ourselves as wonderfully helped by our Guardian Angel. Very often, we feel that he is here, close by, ready to help us.” St. Bernard of Clairvaux had spoken of our obligation to show respect, love and trust towards our Guardian Angels. The counsels of St. Bernard had made a profound impression upon Pope Piuz XI, who revealed that he followed this advice since his earliest days of manhood. He added that his devotion to his Guardian Angel developed throughout time, to the point where it played a part in all and any good the pope did in his life.
The successor of Pius XI, Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), speaking to several hundred American visitors on October 3rd, 1958—the day after the feast of the Guardian Angels—just six days before his death on the 9th, described the role the Guardian Angels played in their lives: “Did Christ not say, speaking to little children, who were so loved by his pure and loving heart: ‘Their angels always behold the face of my Father Who is in Heaven’ (Matthew 18:10). When children become adults, do their Guardian Angels abandon them? Not at all! The hymn at first vespers in yesterday’s liturgy told us: ‘Let us sing to the Guardian Angels of men, heavenly companions, given by the Father to our frail nature, lest we succumb to the enemies who threaten us.’ This same thinking is to be found time and time again in the writings of the Fathers of the Church. Everyone, no matter how humble he may be, has Angels to watch over him. They are heavenly, pure and splendid, and yet they have been given us to keep us company on our way: they have been given the task of keeping careful watch over you so that you do not become separated from Christ, their Lord. And not only do they want to protect you from the dangers which waylay you throughout your journey: they are actually by your side, helping your souls as you strive to go ever higher in your union with God through Christ.”
Whereas we are inclined sometimes to limit the role of the guardian angels to that of defending and protecting us, especially as regards the material side of things, Pius XII goes much further, in keeping with all Christian tradition: our Guardian Angel, he says actually promotes our spiritual improvement and helps develop our intimacy with God. He is a teacher of asceticism and mysticism, a guide who will lead us right to the summit.
Pius XII ends his address by exhorting the faithful to be on familiar terms, here and now, with their invisible traveling companions: “We do not want to take our leave of you ... without exhorting you to awaken, to revive, your sense of the invisible world which is all around us—because we look not to the things which are seen, but the things that are unseen (2 Corinthians 4:18)—and to have a certain familiarly with the Angels, who are forever solicitous for your salvation and your sanctification. If God wishes, you will spend a happy eternity with the angels: get to know them here, from now on.”
The Avenging Angel of the Passover
We have much to learn of the “Avenging Angels” of the Old Testament, sent by God, in response to prayer and penance, for the protection of His Chosen People.
God speaks to Moses and prepares the Chosen People for the night of the original Passover, when the Avenging Angel would pass over Egypt and kill the firstborn in those houses that did not have the blood of the lamb smeared on the upper door posts: “And they shall take of the blood thereof, and put it upon both the side posts, and on the upper door posts of the houses … And I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and will kill every firstborn in the land of Egypt both man and beast: and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be unto you for a sign in the houses where you shall be: and I shall see the blood, and shall pass over you: and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I shall strike the land of Egypt” (Exodus, chapter 12).
The blood of the lamb on the wooden door posts was simply a prefiguration of the Blood of the Lamb of God—Our Lord Jesus Christ—that stained the wood of the Cross. If we have the Cross in our lives, and if we carry it willingly, then we shall be saved—as the Liturgy says: “In cruce salus” (In the Cross is Salvation) and “Ave crux, spes unica!” (Hail Cross, our only hope!).
Avenging Angels and the Destruction of Sodom
Sodom was destined for destruction, due to its sinfulness. God sent two Angels to accomplish its destruction: “And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of the city … And they said to Lot: ‘Hast thou here any of thine? Son-in-law, or sons, or daughters? All that are thine bring them out of this city: for we will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord, Who hath sent us to destroy them!’
“So Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, that were to have his daughters, and said: ‘Arise! Get you out of this place, because the Lord will destroy this city!’ And he seemed, to them, to speak as it were in jest. And when it was morning, the angels pressed him, saying: ‘Arise, take thy wife, and the two daughters which thou hast: lest thou also perish in the wickedness of the city!’ And as he lingered, they took his hand, and the hand of his wife, and of his two daughters, because the Lord spared him. And they brought him forth, and set him without the city: and there they spoke to him, saying: ‘Save thy life! Look not back! Neither stay thou in all the country about, but save thyself in the mountain, lest thou be also consumed!’” (Genesis, chapter 19).
Today, we are being told the same thing: God “will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord!” Yet, like Lot’s sons-in-law, we think it is all a joke. We are told: “Arise! Get you out of this place, because the Lord will destroy this city!” Yet we are, like Lot and his family, reluctant to separate ourselves from the world. We are told “Save thy life! Look not back! Neither stay thou in all the country about, but save thyself in the mountain, lest thou be also consumed!”—but we are prepared to take the risk, and so, like the frog in the ever increasingly hotter pan of heated water, we stay where we are rationalizing and compromising.
The Avenging Angels of the Machabees
We see God send three Angels to protect the Temple of Jerusalem. Heliodorus was about to ransack the Temple of Jerusalem and its treasury, “but the spirit of the almighty God gave a great evidence of His presence, so that all that had presumed to obey him, falling down by the power of God, were struck with fainting and dread. For there appeared to them a horse with a terrible rider upon him, adorned with a very rich covering: and he ran fiercely and struck Heliodorus with his fore feet, and he that sat upon him seemed to have armor of gold. Moreover there appeared two other young men beautiful and strong, bright and glorious, and in comely apparel: who stood by him, on either side, and scourged him without ceasing with many stripes. And Heliodorus suddenly fell to the ground, and they took him up covered with great darkness, and having put him into a litter they carried him out. So he that came with many servants, and all his guard into the aforesaid treasury, was carried out, no one being able to help him, the manifest power of God being known. And he indeed, by the power of God, lay speechless, and without all hope of recovery” (2 Machabees 3:24-29).
The same thing happened later, when “Antiochus prepared for a second journey into Egypt. And it came to pass that through the whole city of Jerusalem, for the space of forty days, there were seen horsemen running in the air, in gilded raiment, and armed with spears, like bands of soldiers. And horses set in order by ranks, running one against another, with the shakings of shields, and a multitude of men in helmets, with drawn swords, and casting of darts, and glittering of golden armor, and of harnesses of all sorts” (2 Machabees 5:1-3).
The leader of the Machabees in battle, Judas Machabeus, would pray before battle and God would send Angels to guard and protect him in battle: “Timotheus who before had been overcome by the Jews, having called together a multitude of foreign troops, and assembled horsemen out of Asia, came as though he would take Judea by force of arms.
“But Machabeus and they that were with him, when he drew near, prayed to the Lord, sprinkling earth upon their heads and girding their loins with haircloth, and lying prostrate at the foot of the altar, besought him to be merciful to them, and to be an enemy to their enemies, and an adversary to their adversaries, as the law saith. And so after prayer taking their arms, they went forth further from the city, and when they were come very near the enemies they rested.
“But as soon as the sun was risen both sides joined battle: the one part having with their valor the Lord for a surety of victory and success: but the other side making their rage their leader in battle. But when they were in the heat of the engagement there appeared to the enemies from heaven five men upon horses, comely with golden bridles, conducting the Jews: two of whom took Machabeus between them, and covered him on every side with their arms, and kept him safe: but cast darts and fireballs against the enemy, so that they fell down, being both confounded with blindness, and filled with trouble. And there were slain twenty thousand five hundred, and six hundred horsemen. But Timotheus fled into Gazara” (2 Machabees 10:24-32).
When Lysias came to lay siege to Jerusalem, once again Judas Machabeus had recourse to God through prayer and yet again God sent an Angel to the rescue: “But when Machabeus and they that were with him, understood that the strong holds were besieged, they and all the people besought the Lord with lamentations and tears, that he would send a good angel to save Israel.
“Then Machabeus himself, first taking his arms, exhorted the rest to expose themselves together with him, to the danger, and to succour their brethren. And when they were going forth together with a willing mind, there appeared at Jerusalem a horseman going before them in white clothing, with golden armor, shaking a spear. Then they all together blessed the merciful Lord, and took great courage, being ready to break through not only men, but also the fiercest beasts, and walls of iron. So they went on courageously, having a helper from Heaven, who showed mercy to them. And rushing violently upon the enemy, like lions, they slew of them eleven thousand footmen, and one thousand six hundred horsemen: and put all the rest to flight: many of them being wounded, escaped naked: yea and Lysias himself fled away shamefully, and escaped” (2 Machabees 11:6-12).
The one time that Judas Machabeus did not pray to the Lord for protection and victory—due to his now acquired complacency as being invincible—he fell and was killed in the battle. As Our Lord says to us: “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5). But if we invoke Him, then the words of St. Paul will apply: “If God be for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31). “For He hath given His angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways” (Psalm 90:11).
Avenging Angels of Our Days
Explaining the parable of the Sower of the Seed, Our Lord says: “He that soweth the good seed, is the Son of man. And the field, is the world. And the good seed are the children of the kingdom. And the cockle, are the children of the wicked one. And the enemy that sowed them, is the devil. But the harvest is the end of the world. And the reapers are the angels. Even as cockle therefore is gathered up, and burnt with fire: so shall it be at the end of the world. The Son of man shall send His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all scandals, and them that work iniquity … So shall it be at the end of the world. The angels shall go out, and shall separate the wicked from among the just. And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth … For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels: and then will He render to every man according to his works” (Matthew 13:37-41; 13:49-50; 16:27).
Sr. Lucia of Fatima speaks of an Angel with a flaming sword, sent to punish the Earth: “After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor, that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand. Then pointing to the Earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’”
We see this same idea reproduced by Our Lady’s prophecy at La Salette, where she speaks of the wrath of God that will fall upon the sinful world and especially the enemies of God:
“At the first blow of His thundering sword, the mountains and all Nature will tremble in terror, for the disorders and crimes of men have pierced the vault of the Heavens. Cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes. People will believe that all is lost. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of arms and blasphemy. The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession. And then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere” (Our Lady of La Salette).
This is perhaps what the Book of Apocalypse alludes to—”I heard a voice from the four horns of the great altar, which is before the eyes of God, saying to the sixth angel, who had the trumpet: ‘Loose the four angels!’ … And the four angels were loosed … to kill the third part of men” (Apocalypse 9:13-15). Our Lady of Akita says: “As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead.”
Nothing Changes—The Key Remains the Same!
What God said of old, to Moses and His Chosen People, He says now to us—but on condition that we pray much and do penance. It as prayer and penance than unlocked the heart of God in the Old Testament, and nothing has changed. That is why Our Lady is always asking for prayer and penance in our day. As Our Lady of La Salette said: “The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession. And then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death.
Article 1
October 1st, 2022
Time to Sharpen the Weapon!
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
October 1st, 2022
Time to Sharpen the Weapon!
This article is currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
The Weapon
OUR LADY OF AKITA speaks of the Rosary as being a weapon: “The only weapons that will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!”
OUR LADY, way back in 1208, had already stated that the Rosary is the chief weapon that Heaven wants to be used. Our Lady said to St. Dominic: “Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world? … I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the principal weapon has always been the Angelic Psalter [the Rosary]” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, §11).
ST. PADRE PIO emphatically said that: “The Rosary is THE weapon!”
BLESSED POPE PIUS IX insisted: “Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world!”
POPE PIUS XI wrote that “The Rosary is a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight and to keep oneself from sin . . . It serves admirably to overcome the enemies of God and of religion.”
SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA, in her 1957 interview with Father Fuentes, said. “Father! ... God is giving two last remedies to the world. They are the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These are the last two remedies, which signify that there will be no others!”
SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA, in a letter to Dom Umberto Maria Pasquale, an Italian Salesian priest, wrote: “The decadence which exists in the world is without doubt the consequence of a lack the spirit of prayer. It was in anticipation of this confusion that the Blessed Virgin recommended the recitation of the Rosary with such insistence. And, as the Rosary is, after the Mass, the most appropriate prayer for preserving the Faith in souls, the devil has unleashed his struggle against it.”
FR. GABRIELE AMORTH, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, said: “During an exorcism Satan told me, through the possessed person: ‘Every Hail Mary of the Rosary is a blow to the head for me! If Christians knew the power of the Rosary, it would be the end of me!’”
Weapons and Warfare
Usually, a few shots or a few bombs, do not win a war. Of course, since the advent of weapons of mass destruction, beginning with the Atom Bomb, and then developing in various kinds of Nuclear Bombs and Missiles, and now even more powerful means of destruction—a war could be over in minutes, with mass carnage all around.
‘Nuclear’ Prayer Power
In spiritual warfare the same can said to be true—but just as very few nations possess the “top of the range” nuclear weaponry, so too are very few souls capable of producing ‘nuclear’ prayer—though it has to be said that Our Lady is certainly one those who can. Perhaps this is why she says at Fatima and Akita: “Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you.” (Fatima, July 13th, 1917) and “The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Continue to pray very much ... very much ... Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary. I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved.”
Devils Admit To Mary’s ‘Nuclear’ Prayer Power
The ‘nuclear’ spiritual power of Our Lady’s prayers is admitted by the devils themselves, who, when commanded by Our Lady during an exorcism to speak out and tell the truth, they responded: “Oh, you who are enemy, our downfall and our destruction, why have you come from Heaven to torture us so grievously? You who snatch souls from the very jaws of Hell; you who are a most sure path to Heaven, must we, in spite of ourselves, tell the whole truth and confess before everyone who it is who is the cause of our shame and our ruin? Oh, woe to us, princes of darkness! Then listen, you Christians. This Mother of Jesus is most powerful in saving her servants from falling into Hell. She is like the sun which destroys the darkness of our wiles and subtlety. It is she who uncovers our hidden plots, breaks our snares, and makes our temptations useless and ineffective. We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us … Now that we are forced to speak, we must also tell you that nobody, who perseveres in saying the Rosary, will be damned, because she obtains for her servants the grace of true contrition for their sins by which they obtain pardon and mercy.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Third Rose”).
A Simple Weapon Anyone Can Use
Sometimes you may find it hard to believe that such a little simple thing like the Rosary can be called a weapon. Yet that is what the Popes and Saints of the Church tell us. Simple, but powerful! That is what can be said of the Holy Rosary. In fact, when we look at how God works, it can be generally said that God acts simply, but powerfully. The magnificent act of Creation could not have been simpler—God simply said a few words and it happened! Not much fuss, just simple and powerful. “And God said: Be light made. And light was made.” (Genesis 1:3) and so on throughout the remaining days of Creation. God simply said, and it happened.
Throughout the Old Testament we see God’s simple, yet powerful, way of acting. He has Moses simply strike a rock in the desert, and, miraculously, water flows forth.
God’s prophets also followed the same pattern.
The Prophet Elias “stretched, and measured himself upon the child three times, and cried to the Lord, and said: ‘O Lord my God, let the soul of this child, I beseech thee, return into his body!’ And the Lord heard the voice of Elias: and the soul of the child returned into him, and he revived.” (3 Kings 21-22).
The Prophet Eliseus tells Naaman the leper, to simply wash seven times in the Jordan. Naaman thought this was ridiculously simplistic and was about to go home, until his servant persuaded him to try it—and lo and behold, he was cured (4 Kings 1-14).
A boy with a simple sling shot and one pebble kills Goliath, whom the weapons and soldiers of the Israelites had failed to defeat.
Simple, but Powerful
We see God the Son act in the same simple, but powerful way, in the miracles that he performed. Not much fuss, just simple actions or simple commands:
► The leper said “‘Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.’ And Jesus stretching forth His hand, touched him, saying: ‘I will, be thou made clean!’ And forthwith his leprosy was cleansed.” (Matthew 8:2-3). Simple, but powerful!
► “And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying, and sick of a fever: and He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose and ministered to them.” (Matthew 8:14-15). Simple, but powerful!
► “And behold they brought to Him one sick of the palsy, lying in a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, … said: ‘Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house!’ And he arose, and went into his house.” (Matthew 9:2-7). Simple, but powerful!
► “Jesus said: ‘Give place, for the girl is not dead, but sleepeth!’ And they laughed Him to scorn. And when the multitude was put forth, He went in, and took her by the hand. And the maid arose.” (Matthew 9:24-25). Simple, but powerful!
► “And when He was come to the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus saith to them, ‘Do you believe, that I can do this unto you?’ They say to him, ‘Yea, Lord!’ Then He touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith, be it done unto you!’ And their eyes were opened.” (Matthew 9:28-30). Simple, but powerful!
► “They besought Jesus that they might touch but the hem of His garment. And as many as touched, were made whole.” (Matthew 14:36). Simple, but powerful!
► “And taking the seven loaves and the fishes, and giving thanks, He brake, and gave to His disciples, and the disciples to the people. And they did all eat, and had their fill. And they took up seven baskets full, of what remained of the fragments. And they that did eat, were four thousand men, beside children and women.” (Matthew 15:26:38). Simple, but powerful!
► “Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out of him, and the child was cured from that hour.” (Matthew 17:17).
► “And behold two blind men, sitting by the way side, cried out, saying: O Lord, Thou son of David, have mercy on us .... And Jesus stood, and called them, and said: ‘What will ye that I do to you?’ They say to Him: ‘Lord, that our eyes be opened!’ And Jesus having compassion on them, touched their eyes. And immediately they saw, and followed Him.” (Matthew 20:20-34). Simple, but powerful!
► “And Jesus entered again into the synagogue, and there was a man there who had a withered hand ... He saith to the man: ‘Stretch forth thy hand!’ And he stretched it forth: and his hand was restored unto him.” (Mark 3:1-5).
► “As Jesus was in the ship: and there were other ships with Him. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that the ship was filled. And He was sleeping; and they awake Him, and say to Him: ‘Master, doth it not concern Thee that we perish?’ And rising up, He rebuked the wind, and said to the sea: Peace, be still. And the wind ceased: and there was made a great calm.” (Mark 4:36-39). Simple, but powerful!
► “And whithersoever he entered, into towns or into villages or cities, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that they might touch but the hem of His garment: and as many as touched Him were made whole.” (Mark 6:56). Simple, but powerful!
► “And they bring to him one deaf and dumb; and they besought him that he would lay his hand upon him. And taking him from the multitude apart, He put his fingers into his ears, and spitting, He touched his tongue: and looking up to Heaven, He groaned, and said to him: ‘Ephpheta!’ which is, ‘Be thou opened!’ And immediately his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke right.” (Mark 7:32-35). Simple, but powerful!
► “Bartimeus the blind man, began to cry out: ‘Jesus son of David, have mercy on me!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘What wilt thou that I should do to thee?’ And the blind man said to Him: ‘Rabboni, that I may see!’ And Jesus saith to him: ‘Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole!’ And immediately he saw, and followed Him in the way.” (Mark 10:47-52). Simple, but powerful!
► “When Jesus had said these things, He cried with a loud voice: ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ And he, that had been dead, came forth, bound feet and hands with winding bands; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them: ‘Loose him, and let him go!’” (John 11:43:44). Simple, but powerful!
With God nothing is impossible! As the Archangel Gabriel said to Mary, at the Annunciation “No word shall be impossible with God!” (Luke 1:37). Which was later echoed by Jesus, when He said “With God all things are possible!” Matthew 19:26). With God, the impossible is simply possible—because God is God, and whatever He wants, happens!
Modern-Day Simplicity
This same simplicity, yet power, carries over into our day and age.
At Baptism, can we fully grasp the incredible things that happen at the simple, but powerful, words “I baptize thee, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” while simple water is simply poured on the one being baptized? Miracles of grace suddenly take place! The baptized has Original Sin and all their personal sins removed; grace is poured into the soul; the Gifts of the Holy Ghost are planted within the soul; the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity come into the soul; the person becomes an adopted child of God and an heir to the kingdom of Heaven! Simple words and actions, but an awesome and powerful result!
The same can be said of the Sacrament of Confession. Even though the priest may say additional prayers while giving absolution from sin, the key words are “I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen” while making a sign of the cross over the penitent. The worst crimes, the most shameful sins, no matter how many times committed, can be forgiven and forgotten by God using those simple words and actions.
When there is an impossibility to get to Confession, in such a case it is possible (though not guaranteed) that one short true act of perfect contrition can remove all guilt of sin and restore grace to the soul (provided one intends to confess those sins at the soonest possible time). Note, that we say TRUE and PERFECT act of contrition! This is sorrow that is based upon a true love of God, not a fear of His punishments. It is amazing what God will do when He sees that we TRULY mean those simple words “I am sorry!” “I love you!”
The same applies to the Consecration at Mass, when God, using the ministry of His servants, the priests, changes mere bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of His Only-Begotten Son. What brings about such an awesome miracle? Again, like the Sacrament of Confession, even though more words are used, the essential words are the simple ones of “This is My Body” and “This is My Blood.” Simple words, beautiful result! Simply beautiful!
Now what has thing long-winded, interminably dragging, endless article got to do with Our Lady, the Rosary or the month of October? Well, before you build a house upwards, you have to go in the opposite direction beforehand, namely, dig-out and lay the foundations.
The purpose of these endless examples of divine doings, has been to establish the principle (not just a rare occurrence) of how God usually works with mankind. It is quite simple and quite powerful at the same time. The Rosary is one of those simple things that Heaven has given to us. It is so simple, that some, like Naaman the Leper, think it is beneath them, and they are tempted to turn away from the Rosary and go their own way. They would be foolish to do so! We often seek complicated human solutions, when Heaven wants us to use simple divine solutions! Do we really think that Our Lady does not know what she is talking about, when she tells us to pray the Rosary daily?
Are You Firing Blanks?
We have all heard of the saying “Familiarity breeds contempt.” The more we become used to something, then the chances are that we will gradually—perhaps even imperceptibly—lose our estimation and respect for it. Marriage is a wonderful (or should we say “terrible”) example of this. The respect, patience, efforts and love, spent in winning-over the future spouse, can very quickly evaporate over the years and give place to their opposites. The same applies to newly bought items—at first we take such great care over them, handle them gently, keep them sparkling clean, etc. However, over time, all that is forgotten and we can even give way to misuse and abuse.
The same can be said of prayer—whether it be the supreme prayer of the Sacrifice of the Mass, or the Divine Office, or the Holy Rosary. If we are not careful, our assistance at Mass will degenerate with relative ease, and our Rosaries and other prayers will slide comfortably into a daily mechanical routine that we apply to so many other things and chores of life. The saints warn us against this:
St. Augustine says “What more excellent than prayer? What more useful and profitable? What sweeter and more delicious? What higher and more exalted in the whole scheme of our Christian religion?”
St. Bernard says that the angels receive our prayers and present them before God - as the angel said to Tobias “When thou didst pray with tears, I offered thy prayer to God” (Tobias 12:12). St. Hilary says the same “The angels preside over the prayers of the saints and offer them each day to God.”
When we pray, we enter into the presence of the majesty of God. St. John Chrysostom warns us “Consider the height, dignity and glory to which the Lord has raised you.”
At Lourdes, it was noticed that Our Lady prayed the Rosary, with St. Bernadette, SLOWLY and RESPECTFULLY. At La Salette, Our Lady asked the two children if they said their prayers well—which startled them and they had to embarrassingly reply “Oh! No, not so much!” St. Louis de Montfort, in his The Secret of the Rosary, writes “It is a good thing to think over how we should pray if we want to please God and become more holy.”
Then, a little further, he continues: “In order to pray well, it is not enough to give expression to our petitions, by means of that most excellent of all prayers, the Rosary, but we must also pray with great attention, for God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin. How can we expect God to listen to us, if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? … People who do that forfeit God’s blessing, which is changed into a curse, for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: “Cursed be the one who does God’s work negligently.” (Jeremias 48:10).”
Missing the Target! Shooting Yourself in the Foot!
“We read in the life of Blessed Hermann of the Order of the Premonstratensians, that at one time when he used to say the Rosary attentively and devoutly, while meditating on the mysteries, Our Lady used to appear to him resplendent in breathtaking majesty and beauty. But, as time went on, his fervor cooled and he fell into the way of saying his Rosary hurriedly and without giving it his full attention. Then one day Our Lady appeared to him again, but this time she was far from beautiful, and her face was furrowed and drawn with sadness. Blessed Hermann was appalled at the change in her, and Our Lady explained, ‘This is how I look to you, Hermann, because this is how you are treating me; as a woman to be despised and of no importance. Why do you no longer greet me with respect and attention while meditating on my mysteries and praising my privileges?’”
A further passage of St. Louis hits the nerve of so many people:
“The fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before.”
Why does that happen? Usually because of the phrase we used earlier—”Familiarity breeds contempt.” So let us resolve to improve the way we approach and pray our Rosaries. A few moments of quiet reflection before starting could make a big difference in changing our Rosaries from being sinful (a thought which shocks many, no doubt) to being virtuous. As St. Louis says elsewhere: “It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly.” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-First Rose”).
Let us put our minds and hearts into our Rosaries and then we may begin to see great things starting to happen around us. Let us not take it for granted, nor relegate it to the level of a chore. It is a great privilege and honor to be able to honor our Queen and Mother, when the vast majority of the world ignores her—nay, even blasphemes her! Let this October be beginning of a new attitude to prayer in general, and to the Rosary in particular.
OUR LADY OF AKITA speaks of the Rosary as being a weapon: “The only weapons that will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!”
OUR LADY, way back in 1208, had already stated that the Rosary is the chief weapon that Heaven wants to be used. Our Lady said to St. Dominic: “Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world? … I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the principal weapon has always been the Angelic Psalter [the Rosary]” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, §11).
ST. PADRE PIO emphatically said that: “The Rosary is THE weapon!”
BLESSED POPE PIUS IX insisted: “Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world!”
POPE PIUS XI wrote that “The Rosary is a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight and to keep oneself from sin . . . It serves admirably to overcome the enemies of God and of religion.”
SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA, in her 1957 interview with Father Fuentes, said. “Father! ... God is giving two last remedies to the world. They are the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These are the last two remedies, which signify that there will be no others!”
SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA, in a letter to Dom Umberto Maria Pasquale, an Italian Salesian priest, wrote: “The decadence which exists in the world is without doubt the consequence of a lack the spirit of prayer. It was in anticipation of this confusion that the Blessed Virgin recommended the recitation of the Rosary with such insistence. And, as the Rosary is, after the Mass, the most appropriate prayer for preserving the Faith in souls, the devil has unleashed his struggle against it.”
FR. GABRIELE AMORTH, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, said: “During an exorcism Satan told me, through the possessed person: ‘Every Hail Mary of the Rosary is a blow to the head for me! If Christians knew the power of the Rosary, it would be the end of me!’”
Weapons and Warfare
Usually, a few shots or a few bombs, do not win a war. Of course, since the advent of weapons of mass destruction, beginning with the Atom Bomb, and then developing in various kinds of Nuclear Bombs and Missiles, and now even more powerful means of destruction—a war could be over in minutes, with mass carnage all around.
‘Nuclear’ Prayer Power
In spiritual warfare the same can said to be true—but just as very few nations possess the “top of the range” nuclear weaponry, so too are very few souls capable of producing ‘nuclear’ prayer—though it has to be said that Our Lady is certainly one those who can. Perhaps this is why she says at Fatima and Akita: “Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you.” (Fatima, July 13th, 1917) and “The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. Continue to pray very much ... very much ... Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary. I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved.”
Devils Admit To Mary’s ‘Nuclear’ Prayer Power
The ‘nuclear’ spiritual power of Our Lady’s prayers is admitted by the devils themselves, who, when commanded by Our Lady during an exorcism to speak out and tell the truth, they responded: “Oh, you who are enemy, our downfall and our destruction, why have you come from Heaven to torture us so grievously? You who snatch souls from the very jaws of Hell; you who are a most sure path to Heaven, must we, in spite of ourselves, tell the whole truth and confess before everyone who it is who is the cause of our shame and our ruin? Oh, woe to us, princes of darkness! Then listen, you Christians. This Mother of Jesus is most powerful in saving her servants from falling into Hell. She is like the sun which destroys the darkness of our wiles and subtlety. It is she who uncovers our hidden plots, breaks our snares, and makes our temptations useless and ineffective. We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us … Now that we are forced to speak, we must also tell you that nobody, who perseveres in saying the Rosary, will be damned, because she obtains for her servants the grace of true contrition for their sins by which they obtain pardon and mercy.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Third Rose”).
A Simple Weapon Anyone Can Use
Sometimes you may find it hard to believe that such a little simple thing like the Rosary can be called a weapon. Yet that is what the Popes and Saints of the Church tell us. Simple, but powerful! That is what can be said of the Holy Rosary. In fact, when we look at how God works, it can be generally said that God acts simply, but powerfully. The magnificent act of Creation could not have been simpler—God simply said a few words and it happened! Not much fuss, just simple and powerful. “And God said: Be light made. And light was made.” (Genesis 1:3) and so on throughout the remaining days of Creation. God simply said, and it happened.
Throughout the Old Testament we see God’s simple, yet powerful, way of acting. He has Moses simply strike a rock in the desert, and, miraculously, water flows forth.
God’s prophets also followed the same pattern.
The Prophet Elias “stretched, and measured himself upon the child three times, and cried to the Lord, and said: ‘O Lord my God, let the soul of this child, I beseech thee, return into his body!’ And the Lord heard the voice of Elias: and the soul of the child returned into him, and he revived.” (3 Kings 21-22).
The Prophet Eliseus tells Naaman the leper, to simply wash seven times in the Jordan. Naaman thought this was ridiculously simplistic and was about to go home, until his servant persuaded him to try it—and lo and behold, he was cured (4 Kings 1-14).
A boy with a simple sling shot and one pebble kills Goliath, whom the weapons and soldiers of the Israelites had failed to defeat.
Simple, but Powerful
We see God the Son act in the same simple, but powerful way, in the miracles that he performed. Not much fuss, just simple actions or simple commands:
► The leper said “‘Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.’ And Jesus stretching forth His hand, touched him, saying: ‘I will, be thou made clean!’ And forthwith his leprosy was cleansed.” (Matthew 8:2-3). Simple, but powerful!
► “And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying, and sick of a fever: and He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose and ministered to them.” (Matthew 8:14-15). Simple, but powerful!
► “And behold they brought to Him one sick of the palsy, lying in a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, … said: ‘Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house!’ And he arose, and went into his house.” (Matthew 9:2-7). Simple, but powerful!
► “Jesus said: ‘Give place, for the girl is not dead, but sleepeth!’ And they laughed Him to scorn. And when the multitude was put forth, He went in, and took her by the hand. And the maid arose.” (Matthew 9:24-25). Simple, but powerful!
► “And when He was come to the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus saith to them, ‘Do you believe, that I can do this unto you?’ They say to him, ‘Yea, Lord!’ Then He touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith, be it done unto you!’ And their eyes were opened.” (Matthew 9:28-30). Simple, but powerful!
► “They besought Jesus that they might touch but the hem of His garment. And as many as touched, were made whole.” (Matthew 14:36). Simple, but powerful!
► “And taking the seven loaves and the fishes, and giving thanks, He brake, and gave to His disciples, and the disciples to the people. And they did all eat, and had their fill. And they took up seven baskets full, of what remained of the fragments. And they that did eat, were four thousand men, beside children and women.” (Matthew 15:26:38). Simple, but powerful!
► “Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out of him, and the child was cured from that hour.” (Matthew 17:17).
► “And behold two blind men, sitting by the way side, cried out, saying: O Lord, Thou son of David, have mercy on us .... And Jesus stood, and called them, and said: ‘What will ye that I do to you?’ They say to Him: ‘Lord, that our eyes be opened!’ And Jesus having compassion on them, touched their eyes. And immediately they saw, and followed Him.” (Matthew 20:20-34). Simple, but powerful!
► “And Jesus entered again into the synagogue, and there was a man there who had a withered hand ... He saith to the man: ‘Stretch forth thy hand!’ And he stretched it forth: and his hand was restored unto him.” (Mark 3:1-5).
► “As Jesus was in the ship: and there were other ships with Him. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that the ship was filled. And He was sleeping; and they awake Him, and say to Him: ‘Master, doth it not concern Thee that we perish?’ And rising up, He rebuked the wind, and said to the sea: Peace, be still. And the wind ceased: and there was made a great calm.” (Mark 4:36-39). Simple, but powerful!
► “And whithersoever he entered, into towns or into villages or cities, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that they might touch but the hem of His garment: and as many as touched Him were made whole.” (Mark 6:56). Simple, but powerful!
► “And they bring to him one deaf and dumb; and they besought him that he would lay his hand upon him. And taking him from the multitude apart, He put his fingers into his ears, and spitting, He touched his tongue: and looking up to Heaven, He groaned, and said to him: ‘Ephpheta!’ which is, ‘Be thou opened!’ And immediately his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke right.” (Mark 7:32-35). Simple, but powerful!
► “Bartimeus the blind man, began to cry out: ‘Jesus son of David, have mercy on me!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘What wilt thou that I should do to thee?’ And the blind man said to Him: ‘Rabboni, that I may see!’ And Jesus saith to him: ‘Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole!’ And immediately he saw, and followed Him in the way.” (Mark 10:47-52). Simple, but powerful!
► “When Jesus had said these things, He cried with a loud voice: ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ And he, that had been dead, came forth, bound feet and hands with winding bands; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them: ‘Loose him, and let him go!’” (John 11:43:44). Simple, but powerful!
With God nothing is impossible! As the Archangel Gabriel said to Mary, at the Annunciation “No word shall be impossible with God!” (Luke 1:37). Which was later echoed by Jesus, when He said “With God all things are possible!” Matthew 19:26). With God, the impossible is simply possible—because God is God, and whatever He wants, happens!
Modern-Day Simplicity
This same simplicity, yet power, carries over into our day and age.
At Baptism, can we fully grasp the incredible things that happen at the simple, but powerful, words “I baptize thee, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” while simple water is simply poured on the one being baptized? Miracles of grace suddenly take place! The baptized has Original Sin and all their personal sins removed; grace is poured into the soul; the Gifts of the Holy Ghost are planted within the soul; the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity come into the soul; the person becomes an adopted child of God and an heir to the kingdom of Heaven! Simple words and actions, but an awesome and powerful result!
The same can be said of the Sacrament of Confession. Even though the priest may say additional prayers while giving absolution from sin, the key words are “I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen” while making a sign of the cross over the penitent. The worst crimes, the most shameful sins, no matter how many times committed, can be forgiven and forgotten by God using those simple words and actions.
When there is an impossibility to get to Confession, in such a case it is possible (though not guaranteed) that one short true act of perfect contrition can remove all guilt of sin and restore grace to the soul (provided one intends to confess those sins at the soonest possible time). Note, that we say TRUE and PERFECT act of contrition! This is sorrow that is based upon a true love of God, not a fear of His punishments. It is amazing what God will do when He sees that we TRULY mean those simple words “I am sorry!” “I love you!”
The same applies to the Consecration at Mass, when God, using the ministry of His servants, the priests, changes mere bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of His Only-Begotten Son. What brings about such an awesome miracle? Again, like the Sacrament of Confession, even though more words are used, the essential words are the simple ones of “This is My Body” and “This is My Blood.” Simple words, beautiful result! Simply beautiful!
Now what has thing long-winded, interminably dragging, endless article got to do with Our Lady, the Rosary or the month of October? Well, before you build a house upwards, you have to go in the opposite direction beforehand, namely, dig-out and lay the foundations.
The purpose of these endless examples of divine doings, has been to establish the principle (not just a rare occurrence) of how God usually works with mankind. It is quite simple and quite powerful at the same time. The Rosary is one of those simple things that Heaven has given to us. It is so simple, that some, like Naaman the Leper, think it is beneath them, and they are tempted to turn away from the Rosary and go their own way. They would be foolish to do so! We often seek complicated human solutions, when Heaven wants us to use simple divine solutions! Do we really think that Our Lady does not know what she is talking about, when she tells us to pray the Rosary daily?
Are You Firing Blanks?
We have all heard of the saying “Familiarity breeds contempt.” The more we become used to something, then the chances are that we will gradually—perhaps even imperceptibly—lose our estimation and respect for it. Marriage is a wonderful (or should we say “terrible”) example of this. The respect, patience, efforts and love, spent in winning-over the future spouse, can very quickly evaporate over the years and give place to their opposites. The same applies to newly bought items—at first we take such great care over them, handle them gently, keep them sparkling clean, etc. However, over time, all that is forgotten and we can even give way to misuse and abuse.
The same can be said of prayer—whether it be the supreme prayer of the Sacrifice of the Mass, or the Divine Office, or the Holy Rosary. If we are not careful, our assistance at Mass will degenerate with relative ease, and our Rosaries and other prayers will slide comfortably into a daily mechanical routine that we apply to so many other things and chores of life. The saints warn us against this:
St. Augustine says “What more excellent than prayer? What more useful and profitable? What sweeter and more delicious? What higher and more exalted in the whole scheme of our Christian religion?”
St. Bernard says that the angels receive our prayers and present them before God - as the angel said to Tobias “When thou didst pray with tears, I offered thy prayer to God” (Tobias 12:12). St. Hilary says the same “The angels preside over the prayers of the saints and offer them each day to God.”
When we pray, we enter into the presence of the majesty of God. St. John Chrysostom warns us “Consider the height, dignity and glory to which the Lord has raised you.”
At Lourdes, it was noticed that Our Lady prayed the Rosary, with St. Bernadette, SLOWLY and RESPECTFULLY. At La Salette, Our Lady asked the two children if they said their prayers well—which startled them and they had to embarrassingly reply “Oh! No, not so much!” St. Louis de Montfort, in his The Secret of the Rosary, writes “It is a good thing to think over how we should pray if we want to please God and become more holy.”
Then, a little further, he continues: “In order to pray well, it is not enough to give expression to our petitions, by means of that most excellent of all prayers, the Rosary, but we must also pray with great attention, for God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin. How can we expect God to listen to us, if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? … People who do that forfeit God’s blessing, which is changed into a curse, for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: “Cursed be the one who does God’s work negligently.” (Jeremias 48:10).”
Missing the Target! Shooting Yourself in the Foot!
“We read in the life of Blessed Hermann of the Order of the Premonstratensians, that at one time when he used to say the Rosary attentively and devoutly, while meditating on the mysteries, Our Lady used to appear to him resplendent in breathtaking majesty and beauty. But, as time went on, his fervor cooled and he fell into the way of saying his Rosary hurriedly and without giving it his full attention. Then one day Our Lady appeared to him again, but this time she was far from beautiful, and her face was furrowed and drawn with sadness. Blessed Hermann was appalled at the change in her, and Our Lady explained, ‘This is how I look to you, Hermann, because this is how you are treating me; as a woman to be despised and of no importance. Why do you no longer greet me with respect and attention while meditating on my mysteries and praising my privileges?’”
A further passage of St. Louis hits the nerve of so many people:
“The fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before.”
Why does that happen? Usually because of the phrase we used earlier—”Familiarity breeds contempt.” So let us resolve to improve the way we approach and pray our Rosaries. A few moments of quiet reflection before starting could make a big difference in changing our Rosaries from being sinful (a thought which shocks many, no doubt) to being virtuous. As St. Louis says elsewhere: “It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly.” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Forty-First Rose”).
Let us put our minds and hearts into our Rosaries and then we may begin to see great things starting to happen around us. Let us not take it for granted, nor relegate it to the level of a chore. It is a great privilege and honor to be able to honor our Queen and Mother, when the vast majority of the world ignores her—nay, even blasphemes her! Let this October be beginning of a new attitude to prayer in general, and to the Rosary in particular.
Article 12
Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, Thurday September 29th & Friday September 30th, 2022
Into Battle with St. Michael
Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, Thurday September 29th & Friday September 30th, 2022
Into Battle with St. Michael
St. Michael the Fightangel
They say: “Everyone loves a good fight!” Well, we are in one hell of a fight right now! Are you loving it? You could say that “St. Michael loves a good fight!” ― for we often read of him fighting for God’s glory against Satan and powers of Hell. Hence, St. Michael the Archangel is not only the patron saint of grocers and paramedics―but he is also the patron saint of sailors, paratroopers, police officers and military personnel. The military forces certainly know how to pick a winner―and St. Michael is that “winner”, being undefeated to this very day! He is a fighting angel and a very successful fighting angel―we could even call him “St. Michael the Fightangel”! In Christian art, Michael is almost always depicted as a sword-carrying warrior. His name―“Mi-cha-el” meaning “Who is like God?”―was the war-cry of the good angels in the battle fought in Heaven against the Lucifer and his followers.
We see this “fighting spirit” being accorded to St. Michael by Christian tradition, which gives to St. Michael four chief offices:
(1) To fight against Satan.
(2) To rescue the souls of the faithful from the power of the enemy, especially at the hour of death.
(3) To be the champion of God’s people―the Jews in the Old Law; and the Christians in the New Testament; therefore he was the patron of the Church, and of the many Orders of Knights during the Middle Ages.
(4) To call away from Earth and bring men’s souls to judgment.
Rank
The 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia, speaks of the rank of St. Michael among the other angels: “Regarding his rank in the celestial hierarchy opinions vary; St. Basil and other Greek Fathers, also Salmeron, St. Robert Bellarmine, etc., place St. Michael over all the angels; they say he is called ‘archangel’ because he is the prince of the other angels; others believe that he is the prince of the seraphim, the first [in rank] of the nine angelic orders. But, according to St. Thomas (Summa Ia, q.113, art.3), he is the prince of the last and lowest choir, the angels. The Roman Liturgy seems to follow the Greek Fathers; it calls him ‘Princeps militiae coelestis quem honorificant angelorum cives’ (the prince of the heavenly army who is honored by angelic citizens). The hymn of the Mozarabic Breviary places St. Michael even above the Twenty-four Elders. The Greek Liturgy styles him Archistrategos, ‘highest general’.”
This discussion over “Is he first? Is he last?” could be simply summed-up by the words of Our Lord, which reconcile the fact of the lowest also being the highest: “They are last that shall be first; and they are first that shall be last!” (Luke 13:30) ― thus we can understand how the humility and lowliness of St. Michael (according to St. Thomas) merits him being raised to be the leader of all. Likewise, Our Lord said of Himself―the greatest of all men―“You know that the princes of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that are the greater, exercise power upon them. It shall not be so among you―but whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister! And he that will be first among you, shall be your servant―just as the Son of man has not come to be ministered unto, but to minister!” (Matthew 20:25-28).
Avenging Angel of Egypt and More
The Angel who appeared to Moses in the burning bush was St. Michael, according to the teaching of the Church Father, St. Gregory Nazianzen. It was also this mighty angel who performed the ten wonders which took place at the departure of the Israelites from Egypt―the last of which was the killing of all the first-born in Egypt―whereby, in the time of Moses, during the Israelite captivity in Egypt, we see God send an “Avenging Angel” to kill all the first born in the land: “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Yet one plague more will I bring upon Pharao and Egypt … At midnight I will enter into Egypt. And every firstborn in the land of the Egyptians shall die, from the firstborn of Pharao who sitteth on his throne, even to the first born of the handmaid that is at the mill, and all the firstborn of beasts. And there shall be a great cry in all the land of Egypt, such as neither hath been before, nor shall be hereafter ... And it came to pass at midnight, the Lord slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharao, who sat on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive woman that was in the prison, and all the firstborn of cattle” (Exodus 11:1 to 12:36). Even though the word “angel” is not explicitly mentioned, the vast majority of commentators agree that God used as angel for this work―which is also echoed in the “avenging angels” who do more or less the same work in the Book of the Apocalypse.
After the death of Moses, according to an ancient Jewish tradition to which St. Jude refers in his Epistle (1:9), St. Michael concealed the tomb of Moses from the people, and also from Satan who wished to disclose it to the Israelites to seduce them thereby to the sin of false worship.
The Fathers of the Church tell us that even though in many instances the name of St. Michael is not mentioned in Holy Scripture when reference is made to the services of an Angel, we may confidently believe that it was either St. Michael himself who rendered assistance, or his Angelic subjects, who did so at his command.
They speculate that it may have been St. Michael who warned Noe, and that it was through St. Michael that Abraham was named the father of the Chosen People and received that wonderful promise which Holy Church has immortalized in her prayers for the dead: “May the holy standard-bearer, Michael, introduce them into that holy light which You promised of old to Abraham and his descendants.”
The Angel who appeared to Moses in the burning bush was St. Michael, according to the teaching of the Church Father, St. Gregory Nazianzen. It was this mighty angel who performed the wonders which took place at the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and through whom God gave the Ten Commandments to the Israelites on Mount Sinai. Likewise, the angel who routed the army of Sennacherib was the holy Archangel Michael: “And it came to pass that night, that an angel of the Lord came, and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when he arose early in the morning, he saw all the bodies of the dead. And Sennacherib king of the Assyrians departing went away, and he returned and abode in Ninive” (4 Kings 19:35-36)
God revealed to St. Michael the designs of His justice and mercy regarding His Chosen People. Of this the prophecies of Daniel and Zacharias bear witness. Finally, it was this great celestial prince who aided the Israelites and rendered the army of Judas Machabeus victorious over their enemies.
Machabean Warrior Angels
In Holy Scripture―in the Second Book of Machabees―we read of several instances where God sends angels to help the Jews in their battles with their enemies. Some Fathers of the Church say it was the great celestial prince Michael who led other angels in aiding the Israelites and rendering the army of Judas Machabeus victorious over their enemies.
► Angels of the Lord protect the Temple treasury from the Greeks: Heliodorus, at the king’s command, sought to confiscate the money in Temple treasury for the king’s treasury. When he arrived at the Temple treasury, “there appeared a horse with a terrible rider [an angel] upon him, adorned with a very rich covering. And he ran fiercely and struck Heliodorus with his fore feet, and he [the angle] that sat upon him seemed to have armor of gold … There appeared two other young men [angels], beautiful and strong, bright and glorious, and in comely apparel: who stood by him on either side, and scourged him without ceasing with many stripes. And Heliodorus suddenly fell to the ground, and they took him up covered with great darkness, and having put him into a litter they carried him out. So he that came with many servants, and all his guard into the aforesaid treasury, was carried out, no one being able to help him, the manifest power of God being known. And he indeed by the power of God lay speechless, and without all hope of recovery … Then some of the friends of Heliodorus begged of Onias [the Jewish High Priest], that he would call upon the most High to grant Herodius his life, who was ready to give up the ghost. The high priest offered a sacrifice of health for the recovery of the man. And when the high priest was praying, the same young men [angels] in the same clothing stood by Heliodorus, and said to him: ‘Give thanks to Onias the priest! Because for his sake the Lord hath granted thee life! And thou, having been scourged by God, declare unto all men the great works and the power of God!’ And having spoken thus, they appeared no more. So Heliodorus―after he had offered a sacrifice to God and made great vows to him, that had granted him life, and given thanks to Onias―taking his troops with him, returned to the king” (2 Machabees 3:25-29; 3:31-35).
► Numerous Warrior Angels suddenly appear throughout Jerusalem: When King Antiochus made his second invasion, it happened that over all the city of Jerusalem, for almost forty days, there appeared troops of golden-clad horsemen [angels], fully armed with lances and drawn swords, and armor of all sorts, charging through the air, brandishing shields, carrying spears, hurling missiles: “For the space of forty days there were seen horsemen [angels] running in the air, in gilded clothing, and armed with spears, like bands of soldiers. And horses set in order by ranks, running one against another, with the shakings of shields, and a multitude of men [angels] in helmets, with drawn swords, and casting of darts, and glittering of golden armor, and of harnesses of all sorts” (2 Machabees 5:2-3).
► Five Warrior Angels joined Judas Machabaeus in Battle against the Pagan Greeks: When the battle became fierce, five angels appeared from Heaven. They surrounding Judas Machabeus and protected him with their own armor and weapons, they kept him from being wounded, while showering arrows and thunderbolts upon the enemy: so that after becoming confused and blinded, they were thrown into disorder and cut to pieces. Twenty thousand five hundred were slaughtered, besides six hundred horsemen. “As soon as the sun was risen, both sides joined battle … When they were in the heat of the battle, there appeared to the enemies five men from Heaven upon horses, conducting the Jews. Two of whom took Machabeus between them, and covered him on every side with their arms, and kept him safe―while casting darts and fireballs against the enemy, so that they fell down, being both confounded with blindness, and filled with trouble. And there were slain twenty thousand five hundred, and six hundred horsemen” (2 Machabees 10:28-31).
► A Warrior Angel arrives to support the Jews against the Greeks: When Maccabeus and his men got word that Lysias was besieging the strongholds, they and all the people, with lamentations and tears, prayed for the Lord to send a good angel to save Israel: “When Machabeus and they that were with him, understood that the strong holds were besieged, they and all the people besought the Lord with lamentations and tears, that he would send a good angel to save Israel. Then Machabeus himself, first taking his arms, exhorted the rest to expose themselves together with him, to the danger, and to help their brethren. And when they were going forth together with a willing mind, there appeared at Jerusalem a horseman [an angle] going before them in white clothing, with golden armor, shaking a spear. Then they all together blessed the merciful Lord, and took great courage, being ready to break through not only men, but also the fiercest beasts, and walls of iron. So they went on courageously, having a helper from Heaven, and the Lord who showed mercy to them. And rushing violently upon the enemy, like lions, they slew of them eleven thousand footmen, and one thousand six hundred horsemen, and put all the rest to flight―many of them being wounded, escaped naked―even Lysias [their leader] himself fled away shamefully and escaped. And since Lysias was a man of understanding, considering within himself the loss that he had suffered, perceived that the Hebrews could not be overcome because they relied upon the help sent to them by the Almighty God” (2 Machabees 11:6-13).
Archangel Michael the Marine
In modern times, we see the Warrior Angel Michael defending a U.S. Marine, who had been named Michael in honor of St. Michael. What follows is a copy of a letter that was written by a young Marine to his mother while he was hospitalized after being wounded on a Korean battlefield in 1950. It came into the hands of a Navy Chaplain, who read the letter before 5,060 Marines at a San Diego Naval Base in 1951.
The Navy chaplain had talked to the boy, to the boy’s mother and to the Sergeant in charge of the patrol. This navy chaplain, Father Walter Muldy, would always assure anyone who asked that this is a true story.
This letter had been read once a year in the 1960s over a Midwestern radio station at Christmas time. Since October is the month of the Holy Angels, we thought our readers would find it of interest. We present the letter and let it stand on its own merits.
Dear Mom,
I wouldn’t dare write this letter to anyone but you―because no one else would believe it. Maybe even you will find it hard, but I have got to tell somebody. First off, I am in a hospital. Now, don’t worry, you hear me, don’t worry! I was wounded―but I am okay you understand. Okay! The doctor says that I will be up and around in a month. But that is not what I want to tell you.
Remember when I joined the Marines last year; remember when I left, how you told me to say a prayer to St. Michael every day. You really didn’t have to tell me that. Ever since I can remember you always told me to pray to St. Michael the Archangel. You even named me after him. Well, I always have.
When I got to Korea, I prayed even harder. Remember the prayer that you taught me? “Michael, Michael of the morning, fresh corps of Heaven adorning ,..” ― you know the rest of it. Well I said it every day. Sometimes when I was marching, or sometimes resting. But always before I went to sleep. I even got some of the other fellas to say it.
Well, one day I was with an advance detail, way up over the front lines. We were scouting for the Commies [seeking the whereabouts of the Communist soldiers]. I was plodding along in the bitter cold, my breath was like cigar smoke. I thought I knew every guy in the patrol, when another Marine I never met before, comes beside me. He was bigger than any other Marine I’d ever seen. He must have been 6’ 4” and built in proportion. It gave me a feeling of security to have such a body near.
Anyway, there we were trudging along. The rest of the patrol spread out. Just to start a conversation I said, “Cold ain’t it.” And then I laughed. Here I was with a good chance of getting killed any minute and I am talking about the weather.
My companion seemed to understand. I heard him laugh softly.
I looked at him, “I have never seen you before, I thought I knew every man in the outfit.”
“I just joined at the last minute”, he replied. “The name is Michael.”
“Is that so!” I said surprised. “That is my name too!”
“I know,” he said and then went on, “Michael, Michael of the morning...”
I was too amazed to say anything for a minute. How did he know my name, and a prayer that you had taught me? Then I smiled to myself, every guy in the outfit knew about me. Hadn’t I taught the prayer to anybody who would listen? Why, now and then, they even referred to me as St. Michael.
Neither of us spoke for a time and then he broke the silence. “We are going to have some trouble up ahead!”
He must have been in fine physical shape, or he was breathing so lightly I couldn’t see his breath. Mine poured out in great clouds. There was no smile on his face now. Trouble ahead, I thought to myself, well with the Commies all around us, that is no great revelation.
Snow began to fall in great thick globs. In a brief moment the whole countryside was blotted out. And I was marching in a white fog of wet sticky particles. My companion disappeared.
“Michael!” I shouted in sudden alarm.
I felt his hand on my arm, his voice was rich and strong, “This will stop shortly.”
His prophecy proved to be correct. In a few minutes the snow stopped as abruptly as it had begun. The sun was a hard shining disc.
I looked back for the rest of the patrol, there was no one in sight. We lost them in that heavy fall of snow. I looked ahead as we came over a little rise. Mom, my heart stopped. There were seven of them. Seven Commies in their padded pants and jackets and their funny hats. Only there wasn’t anything funny about them now. Seven rifles were aimed at us.
“Down Michael!” I screamed and hit the frozen earth. I heard those rifles fire almost as one. I heard the bullets. There was Michael still standing. Mom, those guys couldn’t have missed, not at that range. I expected to see him literally blown to bits. But there he stood, making no effort to fire himself. He was paralyzed with fear. It happens sometimes, Mom, even to the bravest. He was like a bird fascinated by a snake. At least, that was what I thought then. I jumped up to pull him down and that was when I got mine. I felt a sudden flame in my chest. I often wondered what it felt like to be hit―now I know.
I remember feeling strong arms about me, arms that laid me ever so gently on a pillow of snow. I opened my eyes, for one last look. I was dying. Maybe I was even dead, I remember thinking: “Well, this is not so bad!” Maybe I was looking into the sun. Maybe I was in shock. But it seemed. I saw Michael standing erect again only this time his face was shining with a terrible splendor.
As I say, maybe it was the sun in my eyes, but he seemed to change as I watched him. He grew bigger, his arms stretched out wide, maybe it was the snow falling again, but there was a brightness around him like the wings of an angel. In his hand was a sword. A sword that flashed with a million lights.
Well, that is the last thing I remember until the rest of the fellas came up and found me. I do not now how much time had passed. Now and then I had but a moment’s rest from the pain and fever. I remember telling them of the enemy just ahead.
“Where is Michael,” I asked. I saw them look at one another.
“Where’s who?” asked one.
“Michael that big Marine I was walking with, just before the snow squall hit us.”
“Kid,” said the sergeant, “You weren’t walking with anyone. I had my eyes on you the whole time. You were getting too far out. I was just going to call you in, when you disappeared in the snow.”
He looked at me, curiously. “How did you do it kid?”
“How’d I do what?” I asked half angry despite my wound. “This marine named Michael and I were just...”
“Son,” said the sergeant kindly, “I picked this outfit myself and there just ain’t another Michael in it. You are the only Mike in it.”
He paused for a minute, “Just how did you do it kid? We heard shots. There hasn’t been a shot fired from your rifle. And there isn’t a bit of lead in them seven bodies over the hill there.”
I didn’t say anything, what could I say. I could only look open-mouthed with amazement.
It was then the sergeant spoke again, “Kid,” he said gently, “everyone of those seven Commies was killed by a sword stroke.”
That is all I can tell you Mom. As I say, it may have been the sun in my eyes, it may have been the cold or the pain. But that is what happened.
Love, Michael
Michael the Warrior and Defender
God sends His angels to help Daniel in his dangerous circumstances: “The prince of the kingdom of the Persians resisted me and behold Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me!” (Daniel 10:13). A little further, he is told that St. Michael, in the end times, shall stand by the faithful people of God: “At that time shall Michael rise up, the great prince, who standeth for the children of thy people: and a time shall come such as never was from the time that nations began even until that time” (Daniel 12:1).
Our Lady of La Salette mentions St. Michael’s participation, as well as that of other angels, saying of the End Times: “Here is the king of kings of darkness, here is the Beast with his subjects, calling himself the savior of the world. He will rise proudly into the air to go to Heaven. He will be smothered by the breath of the Archangel Saint Michael. He will fall, and the Earth, which will have been in a continuous series of evolutions for three days, will open up its fiery bowels; and he will have plunged for all eternity with all his followers into the everlasting chasms of Hell. God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified” (Our Lady of La Salette).
In a booklet entitled, ‘Neath St. Michael’s Shield (printed in 1946), we read: “The Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich was frequently granted visions of the past and future combats of the Church. Repeatedly she saw St. Michael, in the form of a warrior, standing with blood-stained sword above the Church, replacing the sword in his scabbard as a sign of victory. She was also shown how, in the present-day struggles of the Church, St. Michael would bring about a most glorious victory. This thought should be consoling to all the faithful Christians who view with alarm the many shafts of persecution now being directed against the Church.” [‘Neath St. Michael’s Shield].
Time and again, in centuries past, St. Michael came to the rescue when dreadful wars and persecutions threatened to destroy Christianity. He it was who, at the command of Mary, Queen of Angels, came to the assistance of Constantine the Great in the fourth century and helped his forces to gain a brilliant victory over the pagan Emperor Maxentius. The Archangel himself revealed his identity in this instance. Appearing to Constantine, after the completion of a beautiful church which the latter had erected to his honor in gratitude, he said: “I am Michael. the chief of the Angelic legions of the Lord of hosts, the protector of the Christian Religion, who while you were battling against godless tyrants placed the weapons in your hands.” This famous edifice, generally know as the Michaelion, has been the scene of many miracles wrought through the great Archangel.
Later, St. Michael proved himself a powerful protector against the invasions of barbarian hordes. The Greek Emperor Justinian I erected six churches in his honor, in grateful recognition of this assistance. In the fifteenth century when it seemed that the Turks would conquer all Europe, St. Michael, at the command of the Blessed Virgin, again championed the cause of Christianity, and a glorious victory was gained over the infidels. St. Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans, who in the fifteenth century saved France, ascribed her vocation and her victories to St. Michael. Three times he appeared to her and informed her that she was called to deliver her country.
Old Testament Angel “Assassins”
We read of many instances where God sends His angels to act, as it were, as “assassins” and kill those who were troubling God’s people. As already stated above, even though God can act directly upon His creation, He usually acts upon His creation and creatures indirectly through the medium of His angels. The word “angel” means “messenger” and a messenger is someone who acts on behalf of the message sender―just like the postman gives you a letter that has been sent by someone else.
These angelic victories abound in the Old Testament: “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Yet one plague more will I bring upon Pharao and Egypt! At midnight I will enter into Egypt. And every firstborn in the land of the Egyptians shall die, from the firstborn of Pharao who sitteth on his throne, even to the first born of the handmaid that is at the mill, and all the firstborn of beasts. And there shall be a great cry in all the land of Egypt, such as neither hath been before, nor shall be hereafter!’ … And it came to pass at midnight, the Lord slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharao, who sat on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive woman that was in the prison, and all the firstborn of cattle” (Exodus 11:1-6; 12:29).
“And the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel, and there died seventy thousand men. And when the angel of the Lord had stretched out his hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord had pity on the affliction, and said to the angel that slew the people: ‘It is enough now! Hold thy hand!’” (2 Kings 24:15-16).
The Fourth Book of Kings describes how God provides an army of angels leading horses and chariots of fire to protect the prophet Eliseus and his servant, and opens the servant’s eyes so that he can see the angelic army surrounding them: “The king of Syria warred against Israel … Therefore he sent there horses and chariots, and the strength of an army. And they came by night and beset the city of Dothan (where Eliseus was to be found) … And the servant of the man of God rising early, went out and saw an army round about the city, with horses and chariots. And he told Eliseus, saying: ‘Alas, alas, alas, my lord! What shall we do?’ But Eliseus answered: ‘Fear not! For there are more with us than with them!’ And Eliseus prayed, and said: ‘Lord, open his eyes, that he may see!’ And the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw―and behold the mountain was full of horses, and chariots of fire round about Eliseus. And the enemies came down to him, but Eliseus prayed to the Lord, saying: ‘Strike, I beseech thee, this people with blindness!’ And the Lord struck them with blindness, according to the word of Eliseus” (4 Kings 6:8-18).
On another occasion, “the angel of the Lord went out, and slew, in the camp of the Assyrians, a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And they arose in the morning, and behold they were all dead corpses” (Isaias 37:36) … “And it came to pass that night, that an angel of the Lord came, and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when he arose early in the morning, he saw all the bodies of the dead” (4 Kings 19:35).
They say: “Everyone loves a good fight!” Well, we are in one hell of a fight right now! Are you loving it? You could say that “St. Michael loves a good fight!” ― for we often read of him fighting for God’s glory against Satan and powers of Hell. Hence, St. Michael the Archangel is not only the patron saint of grocers and paramedics―but he is also the patron saint of sailors, paratroopers, police officers and military personnel. The military forces certainly know how to pick a winner―and St. Michael is that “winner”, being undefeated to this very day! He is a fighting angel and a very successful fighting angel―we could even call him “St. Michael the Fightangel”! In Christian art, Michael is almost always depicted as a sword-carrying warrior. His name―“Mi-cha-el” meaning “Who is like God?”―was the war-cry of the good angels in the battle fought in Heaven against the Lucifer and his followers.
We see this “fighting spirit” being accorded to St. Michael by Christian tradition, which gives to St. Michael four chief offices:
(1) To fight against Satan.
(2) To rescue the souls of the faithful from the power of the enemy, especially at the hour of death.
(3) To be the champion of God’s people―the Jews in the Old Law; and the Christians in the New Testament; therefore he was the patron of the Church, and of the many Orders of Knights during the Middle Ages.
(4) To call away from Earth and bring men’s souls to judgment.
Rank
The 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia, speaks of the rank of St. Michael among the other angels: “Regarding his rank in the celestial hierarchy opinions vary; St. Basil and other Greek Fathers, also Salmeron, St. Robert Bellarmine, etc., place St. Michael over all the angels; they say he is called ‘archangel’ because he is the prince of the other angels; others believe that he is the prince of the seraphim, the first [in rank] of the nine angelic orders. But, according to St. Thomas (Summa Ia, q.113, art.3), he is the prince of the last and lowest choir, the angels. The Roman Liturgy seems to follow the Greek Fathers; it calls him ‘Princeps militiae coelestis quem honorificant angelorum cives’ (the prince of the heavenly army who is honored by angelic citizens). The hymn of the Mozarabic Breviary places St. Michael even above the Twenty-four Elders. The Greek Liturgy styles him Archistrategos, ‘highest general’.”
This discussion over “Is he first? Is he last?” could be simply summed-up by the words of Our Lord, which reconcile the fact of the lowest also being the highest: “They are last that shall be first; and they are first that shall be last!” (Luke 13:30) ― thus we can understand how the humility and lowliness of St. Michael (according to St. Thomas) merits him being raised to be the leader of all. Likewise, Our Lord said of Himself―the greatest of all men―“You know that the princes of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that are the greater, exercise power upon them. It shall not be so among you―but whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister! And he that will be first among you, shall be your servant―just as the Son of man has not come to be ministered unto, but to minister!” (Matthew 20:25-28).
Avenging Angel of Egypt and More
The Angel who appeared to Moses in the burning bush was St. Michael, according to the teaching of the Church Father, St. Gregory Nazianzen. It was also this mighty angel who performed the ten wonders which took place at the departure of the Israelites from Egypt―the last of which was the killing of all the first-born in Egypt―whereby, in the time of Moses, during the Israelite captivity in Egypt, we see God send an “Avenging Angel” to kill all the first born in the land: “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Yet one plague more will I bring upon Pharao and Egypt … At midnight I will enter into Egypt. And every firstborn in the land of the Egyptians shall die, from the firstborn of Pharao who sitteth on his throne, even to the first born of the handmaid that is at the mill, and all the firstborn of beasts. And there shall be a great cry in all the land of Egypt, such as neither hath been before, nor shall be hereafter ... And it came to pass at midnight, the Lord slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharao, who sat on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive woman that was in the prison, and all the firstborn of cattle” (Exodus 11:1 to 12:36). Even though the word “angel” is not explicitly mentioned, the vast majority of commentators agree that God used as angel for this work―which is also echoed in the “avenging angels” who do more or less the same work in the Book of the Apocalypse.
After the death of Moses, according to an ancient Jewish tradition to which St. Jude refers in his Epistle (1:9), St. Michael concealed the tomb of Moses from the people, and also from Satan who wished to disclose it to the Israelites to seduce them thereby to the sin of false worship.
The Fathers of the Church tell us that even though in many instances the name of St. Michael is not mentioned in Holy Scripture when reference is made to the services of an Angel, we may confidently believe that it was either St. Michael himself who rendered assistance, or his Angelic subjects, who did so at his command.
They speculate that it may have been St. Michael who warned Noe, and that it was through St. Michael that Abraham was named the father of the Chosen People and received that wonderful promise which Holy Church has immortalized in her prayers for the dead: “May the holy standard-bearer, Michael, introduce them into that holy light which You promised of old to Abraham and his descendants.”
The Angel who appeared to Moses in the burning bush was St. Michael, according to the teaching of the Church Father, St. Gregory Nazianzen. It was this mighty angel who performed the wonders which took place at the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and through whom God gave the Ten Commandments to the Israelites on Mount Sinai. Likewise, the angel who routed the army of Sennacherib was the holy Archangel Michael: “And it came to pass that night, that an angel of the Lord came, and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when he arose early in the morning, he saw all the bodies of the dead. And Sennacherib king of the Assyrians departing went away, and he returned and abode in Ninive” (4 Kings 19:35-36)
God revealed to St. Michael the designs of His justice and mercy regarding His Chosen People. Of this the prophecies of Daniel and Zacharias bear witness. Finally, it was this great celestial prince who aided the Israelites and rendered the army of Judas Machabeus victorious over their enemies.
Machabean Warrior Angels
In Holy Scripture―in the Second Book of Machabees―we read of several instances where God sends angels to help the Jews in their battles with their enemies. Some Fathers of the Church say it was the great celestial prince Michael who led other angels in aiding the Israelites and rendering the army of Judas Machabeus victorious over their enemies.
► Angels of the Lord protect the Temple treasury from the Greeks: Heliodorus, at the king’s command, sought to confiscate the money in Temple treasury for the king’s treasury. When he arrived at the Temple treasury, “there appeared a horse with a terrible rider [an angel] upon him, adorned with a very rich covering. And he ran fiercely and struck Heliodorus with his fore feet, and he [the angle] that sat upon him seemed to have armor of gold … There appeared two other young men [angels], beautiful and strong, bright and glorious, and in comely apparel: who stood by him on either side, and scourged him without ceasing with many stripes. And Heliodorus suddenly fell to the ground, and they took him up covered with great darkness, and having put him into a litter they carried him out. So he that came with many servants, and all his guard into the aforesaid treasury, was carried out, no one being able to help him, the manifest power of God being known. And he indeed by the power of God lay speechless, and without all hope of recovery … Then some of the friends of Heliodorus begged of Onias [the Jewish High Priest], that he would call upon the most High to grant Herodius his life, who was ready to give up the ghost. The high priest offered a sacrifice of health for the recovery of the man. And when the high priest was praying, the same young men [angels] in the same clothing stood by Heliodorus, and said to him: ‘Give thanks to Onias the priest! Because for his sake the Lord hath granted thee life! And thou, having been scourged by God, declare unto all men the great works and the power of God!’ And having spoken thus, they appeared no more. So Heliodorus―after he had offered a sacrifice to God and made great vows to him, that had granted him life, and given thanks to Onias―taking his troops with him, returned to the king” (2 Machabees 3:25-29; 3:31-35).
► Numerous Warrior Angels suddenly appear throughout Jerusalem: When King Antiochus made his second invasion, it happened that over all the city of Jerusalem, for almost forty days, there appeared troops of golden-clad horsemen [angels], fully armed with lances and drawn swords, and armor of all sorts, charging through the air, brandishing shields, carrying spears, hurling missiles: “For the space of forty days there were seen horsemen [angels] running in the air, in gilded clothing, and armed with spears, like bands of soldiers. And horses set in order by ranks, running one against another, with the shakings of shields, and a multitude of men [angels] in helmets, with drawn swords, and casting of darts, and glittering of golden armor, and of harnesses of all sorts” (2 Machabees 5:2-3).
► Five Warrior Angels joined Judas Machabaeus in Battle against the Pagan Greeks: When the battle became fierce, five angels appeared from Heaven. They surrounding Judas Machabeus and protected him with their own armor and weapons, they kept him from being wounded, while showering arrows and thunderbolts upon the enemy: so that after becoming confused and blinded, they were thrown into disorder and cut to pieces. Twenty thousand five hundred were slaughtered, besides six hundred horsemen. “As soon as the sun was risen, both sides joined battle … When they were in the heat of the battle, there appeared to the enemies five men from Heaven upon horses, conducting the Jews. Two of whom took Machabeus between them, and covered him on every side with their arms, and kept him safe―while casting darts and fireballs against the enemy, so that they fell down, being both confounded with blindness, and filled with trouble. And there were slain twenty thousand five hundred, and six hundred horsemen” (2 Machabees 10:28-31).
► A Warrior Angel arrives to support the Jews against the Greeks: When Maccabeus and his men got word that Lysias was besieging the strongholds, they and all the people, with lamentations and tears, prayed for the Lord to send a good angel to save Israel: “When Machabeus and they that were with him, understood that the strong holds were besieged, they and all the people besought the Lord with lamentations and tears, that he would send a good angel to save Israel. Then Machabeus himself, first taking his arms, exhorted the rest to expose themselves together with him, to the danger, and to help their brethren. And when they were going forth together with a willing mind, there appeared at Jerusalem a horseman [an angle] going before them in white clothing, with golden armor, shaking a spear. Then they all together blessed the merciful Lord, and took great courage, being ready to break through not only men, but also the fiercest beasts, and walls of iron. So they went on courageously, having a helper from Heaven, and the Lord who showed mercy to them. And rushing violently upon the enemy, like lions, they slew of them eleven thousand footmen, and one thousand six hundred horsemen, and put all the rest to flight―many of them being wounded, escaped naked―even Lysias [their leader] himself fled away shamefully and escaped. And since Lysias was a man of understanding, considering within himself the loss that he had suffered, perceived that the Hebrews could not be overcome because they relied upon the help sent to them by the Almighty God” (2 Machabees 11:6-13).
Archangel Michael the Marine
In modern times, we see the Warrior Angel Michael defending a U.S. Marine, who had been named Michael in honor of St. Michael. What follows is a copy of a letter that was written by a young Marine to his mother while he was hospitalized after being wounded on a Korean battlefield in 1950. It came into the hands of a Navy Chaplain, who read the letter before 5,060 Marines at a San Diego Naval Base in 1951.
The Navy chaplain had talked to the boy, to the boy’s mother and to the Sergeant in charge of the patrol. This navy chaplain, Father Walter Muldy, would always assure anyone who asked that this is a true story.
This letter had been read once a year in the 1960s over a Midwestern radio station at Christmas time. Since October is the month of the Holy Angels, we thought our readers would find it of interest. We present the letter and let it stand on its own merits.
Dear Mom,
I wouldn’t dare write this letter to anyone but you―because no one else would believe it. Maybe even you will find it hard, but I have got to tell somebody. First off, I am in a hospital. Now, don’t worry, you hear me, don’t worry! I was wounded―but I am okay you understand. Okay! The doctor says that I will be up and around in a month. But that is not what I want to tell you.
Remember when I joined the Marines last year; remember when I left, how you told me to say a prayer to St. Michael every day. You really didn’t have to tell me that. Ever since I can remember you always told me to pray to St. Michael the Archangel. You even named me after him. Well, I always have.
When I got to Korea, I prayed even harder. Remember the prayer that you taught me? “Michael, Michael of the morning, fresh corps of Heaven adorning ,..” ― you know the rest of it. Well I said it every day. Sometimes when I was marching, or sometimes resting. But always before I went to sleep. I even got some of the other fellas to say it.
Well, one day I was with an advance detail, way up over the front lines. We were scouting for the Commies [seeking the whereabouts of the Communist soldiers]. I was plodding along in the bitter cold, my breath was like cigar smoke. I thought I knew every guy in the patrol, when another Marine I never met before, comes beside me. He was bigger than any other Marine I’d ever seen. He must have been 6’ 4” and built in proportion. It gave me a feeling of security to have such a body near.
Anyway, there we were trudging along. The rest of the patrol spread out. Just to start a conversation I said, “Cold ain’t it.” And then I laughed. Here I was with a good chance of getting killed any minute and I am talking about the weather.
My companion seemed to understand. I heard him laugh softly.
I looked at him, “I have never seen you before, I thought I knew every man in the outfit.”
“I just joined at the last minute”, he replied. “The name is Michael.”
“Is that so!” I said surprised. “That is my name too!”
“I know,” he said and then went on, “Michael, Michael of the morning...”
I was too amazed to say anything for a minute. How did he know my name, and a prayer that you had taught me? Then I smiled to myself, every guy in the outfit knew about me. Hadn’t I taught the prayer to anybody who would listen? Why, now and then, they even referred to me as St. Michael.
Neither of us spoke for a time and then he broke the silence. “We are going to have some trouble up ahead!”
He must have been in fine physical shape, or he was breathing so lightly I couldn’t see his breath. Mine poured out in great clouds. There was no smile on his face now. Trouble ahead, I thought to myself, well with the Commies all around us, that is no great revelation.
Snow began to fall in great thick globs. In a brief moment the whole countryside was blotted out. And I was marching in a white fog of wet sticky particles. My companion disappeared.
“Michael!” I shouted in sudden alarm.
I felt his hand on my arm, his voice was rich and strong, “This will stop shortly.”
His prophecy proved to be correct. In a few minutes the snow stopped as abruptly as it had begun. The sun was a hard shining disc.
I looked back for the rest of the patrol, there was no one in sight. We lost them in that heavy fall of snow. I looked ahead as we came over a little rise. Mom, my heart stopped. There were seven of them. Seven Commies in their padded pants and jackets and their funny hats. Only there wasn’t anything funny about them now. Seven rifles were aimed at us.
“Down Michael!” I screamed and hit the frozen earth. I heard those rifles fire almost as one. I heard the bullets. There was Michael still standing. Mom, those guys couldn’t have missed, not at that range. I expected to see him literally blown to bits. But there he stood, making no effort to fire himself. He was paralyzed with fear. It happens sometimes, Mom, even to the bravest. He was like a bird fascinated by a snake. At least, that was what I thought then. I jumped up to pull him down and that was when I got mine. I felt a sudden flame in my chest. I often wondered what it felt like to be hit―now I know.
I remember feeling strong arms about me, arms that laid me ever so gently on a pillow of snow. I opened my eyes, for one last look. I was dying. Maybe I was even dead, I remember thinking: “Well, this is not so bad!” Maybe I was looking into the sun. Maybe I was in shock. But it seemed. I saw Michael standing erect again only this time his face was shining with a terrible splendor.
As I say, maybe it was the sun in my eyes, but he seemed to change as I watched him. He grew bigger, his arms stretched out wide, maybe it was the snow falling again, but there was a brightness around him like the wings of an angel. In his hand was a sword. A sword that flashed with a million lights.
Well, that is the last thing I remember until the rest of the fellas came up and found me. I do not now how much time had passed. Now and then I had but a moment’s rest from the pain and fever. I remember telling them of the enemy just ahead.
“Where is Michael,” I asked. I saw them look at one another.
“Where’s who?” asked one.
“Michael that big Marine I was walking with, just before the snow squall hit us.”
“Kid,” said the sergeant, “You weren’t walking with anyone. I had my eyes on you the whole time. You were getting too far out. I was just going to call you in, when you disappeared in the snow.”
He looked at me, curiously. “How did you do it kid?”
“How’d I do what?” I asked half angry despite my wound. “This marine named Michael and I were just...”
“Son,” said the sergeant kindly, “I picked this outfit myself and there just ain’t another Michael in it. You are the only Mike in it.”
He paused for a minute, “Just how did you do it kid? We heard shots. There hasn’t been a shot fired from your rifle. And there isn’t a bit of lead in them seven bodies over the hill there.”
I didn’t say anything, what could I say. I could only look open-mouthed with amazement.
It was then the sergeant spoke again, “Kid,” he said gently, “everyone of those seven Commies was killed by a sword stroke.”
That is all I can tell you Mom. As I say, it may have been the sun in my eyes, it may have been the cold or the pain. But that is what happened.
Love, Michael
Michael the Warrior and Defender
God sends His angels to help Daniel in his dangerous circumstances: “The prince of the kingdom of the Persians resisted me and behold Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me!” (Daniel 10:13). A little further, he is told that St. Michael, in the end times, shall stand by the faithful people of God: “At that time shall Michael rise up, the great prince, who standeth for the children of thy people: and a time shall come such as never was from the time that nations began even until that time” (Daniel 12:1).
Our Lady of La Salette mentions St. Michael’s participation, as well as that of other angels, saying of the End Times: “Here is the king of kings of darkness, here is the Beast with his subjects, calling himself the savior of the world. He will rise proudly into the air to go to Heaven. He will be smothered by the breath of the Archangel Saint Michael. He will fall, and the Earth, which will have been in a continuous series of evolutions for three days, will open up its fiery bowels; and he will have plunged for all eternity with all his followers into the everlasting chasms of Hell. God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified” (Our Lady of La Salette).
In a booklet entitled, ‘Neath St. Michael’s Shield (printed in 1946), we read: “The Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich was frequently granted visions of the past and future combats of the Church. Repeatedly she saw St. Michael, in the form of a warrior, standing with blood-stained sword above the Church, replacing the sword in his scabbard as a sign of victory. She was also shown how, in the present-day struggles of the Church, St. Michael would bring about a most glorious victory. This thought should be consoling to all the faithful Christians who view with alarm the many shafts of persecution now being directed against the Church.” [‘Neath St. Michael’s Shield].
Time and again, in centuries past, St. Michael came to the rescue when dreadful wars and persecutions threatened to destroy Christianity. He it was who, at the command of Mary, Queen of Angels, came to the assistance of Constantine the Great in the fourth century and helped his forces to gain a brilliant victory over the pagan Emperor Maxentius. The Archangel himself revealed his identity in this instance. Appearing to Constantine, after the completion of a beautiful church which the latter had erected to his honor in gratitude, he said: “I am Michael. the chief of the Angelic legions of the Lord of hosts, the protector of the Christian Religion, who while you were battling against godless tyrants placed the weapons in your hands.” This famous edifice, generally know as the Michaelion, has been the scene of many miracles wrought through the great Archangel.
Later, St. Michael proved himself a powerful protector against the invasions of barbarian hordes. The Greek Emperor Justinian I erected six churches in his honor, in grateful recognition of this assistance. In the fifteenth century when it seemed that the Turks would conquer all Europe, St. Michael, at the command of the Blessed Virgin, again championed the cause of Christianity, and a glorious victory was gained over the infidels. St. Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans, who in the fifteenth century saved France, ascribed her vocation and her victories to St. Michael. Three times he appeared to her and informed her that she was called to deliver her country.
Old Testament Angel “Assassins”
We read of many instances where God sends His angels to act, as it were, as “assassins” and kill those who were troubling God’s people. As already stated above, even though God can act directly upon His creation, He usually acts upon His creation and creatures indirectly through the medium of His angels. The word “angel” means “messenger” and a messenger is someone who acts on behalf of the message sender―just like the postman gives you a letter that has been sent by someone else.
These angelic victories abound in the Old Testament: “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Yet one plague more will I bring upon Pharao and Egypt! At midnight I will enter into Egypt. And every firstborn in the land of the Egyptians shall die, from the firstborn of Pharao who sitteth on his throne, even to the first born of the handmaid that is at the mill, and all the firstborn of beasts. And there shall be a great cry in all the land of Egypt, such as neither hath been before, nor shall be hereafter!’ … And it came to pass at midnight, the Lord slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharao, who sat on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive woman that was in the prison, and all the firstborn of cattle” (Exodus 11:1-6; 12:29).
“And the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel, and there died seventy thousand men. And when the angel of the Lord had stretched out his hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord had pity on the affliction, and said to the angel that slew the people: ‘It is enough now! Hold thy hand!’” (2 Kings 24:15-16).
The Fourth Book of Kings describes how God provides an army of angels leading horses and chariots of fire to protect the prophet Eliseus and his servant, and opens the servant’s eyes so that he can see the angelic army surrounding them: “The king of Syria warred against Israel … Therefore he sent there horses and chariots, and the strength of an army. And they came by night and beset the city of Dothan (where Eliseus was to be found) … And the servant of the man of God rising early, went out and saw an army round about the city, with horses and chariots. And he told Eliseus, saying: ‘Alas, alas, alas, my lord! What shall we do?’ But Eliseus answered: ‘Fear not! For there are more with us than with them!’ And Eliseus prayed, and said: ‘Lord, open his eyes, that he may see!’ And the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw―and behold the mountain was full of horses, and chariots of fire round about Eliseus. And the enemies came down to him, but Eliseus prayed to the Lord, saying: ‘Strike, I beseech thee, this people with blindness!’ And the Lord struck them with blindness, according to the word of Eliseus” (4 Kings 6:8-18).
On another occasion, “the angel of the Lord went out, and slew, in the camp of the Assyrians, a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And they arose in the morning, and behold they were all dead corpses” (Isaias 37:36) … “And it came to pass that night, that an angel of the Lord came, and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when he arose early in the morning, he saw all the bodies of the dead” (4 Kings 19:35).
Article 11
Monday September 26th, 2022
Lessons from the North American Martyrs
Monday September 26th, 2022
Lessons from the North American Martyrs
Some Saintly Facts First
The eight North American martyrs―also known as the Canadian Martyrs, the Jesuit Martyrs of North America or the Martyrs of France―included six priests and two lay brothers. They were members of the Society of Jesus (also known as the Jesuits) who were martyred in North America in order to bring the Faith, which is necessary for salvation, to the Huron, the Iroquois and the Mohawk Indians. Five of the eight North American martyrs were put to death in what is now Canada, and three of them in New York State.
They were beatified on June 21st, 1925, by Pope Pius XI; and 5 years later they were canonized on June 29th, 1930, by the same Pope Pius XI. The feast day for the North American Martyrs differs between the USA and Canada. In Canada it is celebrated on September 26th, while in the USA it is celebrated on October 19th. Thus, you could say that we are about to enter the North American Martyr season―September 26th to October 19th. There is a shrine at Auriesville in New York State, USA, in honor of the three martyrs who were martyred in the United States (Goupil, Jogues and Lalande) and there is a shrine to the Canadian martyrs (Daniel, Brebeuf, Garnier, Chabanel and Lalement) at Fort Saint Mary, near Midland, in Ontario, Canada.
The names of the eight North American martyrs are:
Saint Rene Goupil (1608-1642), a lay brother martyred in 1642 in New York State
Saint Isaac Jogues (1607-1646), a priest, martyred in 1646 in New York State
Saint John de Lalande (martyred 1646), a lay brother, martyred in 1646 in New York State
Saint Anthony Daniel (1601-1648), a priest, martyred in Canada in 1648
Saint John de Brebeuf (1593-1649), a priest, martyred in Canada in 1649
Saint Charles Garnier (1606-1649), a priest, martyred in Canada in 1649
Saint Noel Chabanel (1613-1649) a priest, martyred in Canada in 1649
Saint Gabriel Lalemant (1610-1649), a priest, martyred in Canada in 1649.
Jesuit missionaries worked among the Huron Indians, an Iroquoian-speaking people, who occupied territory in the Georgian Bay area of Central Ontario. They were not part of the Iroquois Confederacy, initially made up of five tribes south and east of the Great Lakes. The area of their traditional territory is called Huronia. The Huron Indians in this area were farmers, fishermen and traders who lived in villages surrounded by defensive wooden palisades for protection. Sainte-Marie among the Hurons was the headquarters for the French Jesuit Mission to the Huron people.
By the late 1640s, the Jesuits believed they were making progress in their mission to the Huron, and claimed to have made many converts. But, the priests were not universally trusted by the Indians. Many Huron considered the priests to be evil shamans, who brought death and disease wherever they traveled; because after contacts with Europeans, the Huron Indians had suffered, after 1634, high fatalities in epidemics of smallpox and other Eurasian infectious diseases.
The nations of the Iroquois Confederacy considered the Jesuits legitimate targets for their raids and warfare, as the missionaries were nominally allies of the Huron and French fur traders. Retaliating for French colonial attacks against the Iroquois was also a reason for their raids against the Huron and Jesuits.
In 1642, the Mohawk captured the lay-brother René Goupil, and Father Isaac Jogues, bringing them back to their village of Ossernenon south of the Mohawk River. They ritually tortured both men and killed the lay-brother Goupil. After several months of captivity, Fr. Jogues was ransomed by Dutch traders and the minister Johannes Megapolensis from New Netherland (later Albany). He returned for a time to France, but then sailed back to Quebec. In 1646 Fr. Jogues and another lay-brother, John de Lalande, were killed during a visit to Ossernenon intended to achieve peace between the French and the Mohawk. Other Jesuit missionaries were killed by the Mohawk and martyred in the following years: Antoine Daniel (1648), John de Brébeuf (1649), Noël Chabanel (1649), Charles Garnier (1649), and Gabriel Lalemant (1649).
The eight North American martyrs―also known as the Canadian Martyrs, the Jesuit Martyrs of North America or the Martyrs of France―included six priests and two lay brothers. They were members of the Society of Jesus (also known as the Jesuits) who were martyred in North America in order to bring the Faith, which is necessary for salvation, to the Huron, the Iroquois and the Mohawk Indians. Five of the eight North American martyrs were put to death in what is now Canada, and three of them in New York State.
They were beatified on June 21st, 1925, by Pope Pius XI; and 5 years later they were canonized on June 29th, 1930, by the same Pope Pius XI. The feast day for the North American Martyrs differs between the USA and Canada. In Canada it is celebrated on September 26th, while in the USA it is celebrated on October 19th. Thus, you could say that we are about to enter the North American Martyr season―September 26th to October 19th. There is a shrine at Auriesville in New York State, USA, in honor of the three martyrs who were martyred in the United States (Goupil, Jogues and Lalande) and there is a shrine to the Canadian martyrs (Daniel, Brebeuf, Garnier, Chabanel and Lalement) at Fort Saint Mary, near Midland, in Ontario, Canada.
The names of the eight North American martyrs are:
Saint Rene Goupil (1608-1642), a lay brother martyred in 1642 in New York State
Saint Isaac Jogues (1607-1646), a priest, martyred in 1646 in New York State
Saint John de Lalande (martyred 1646), a lay brother, martyred in 1646 in New York State
Saint Anthony Daniel (1601-1648), a priest, martyred in Canada in 1648
Saint John de Brebeuf (1593-1649), a priest, martyred in Canada in 1649
Saint Charles Garnier (1606-1649), a priest, martyred in Canada in 1649
Saint Noel Chabanel (1613-1649) a priest, martyred in Canada in 1649
Saint Gabriel Lalemant (1610-1649), a priest, martyred in Canada in 1649.
Jesuit missionaries worked among the Huron Indians, an Iroquoian-speaking people, who occupied territory in the Georgian Bay area of Central Ontario. They were not part of the Iroquois Confederacy, initially made up of five tribes south and east of the Great Lakes. The area of their traditional territory is called Huronia. The Huron Indians in this area were farmers, fishermen and traders who lived in villages surrounded by defensive wooden palisades for protection. Sainte-Marie among the Hurons was the headquarters for the French Jesuit Mission to the Huron people.
By the late 1640s, the Jesuits believed they were making progress in their mission to the Huron, and claimed to have made many converts. But, the priests were not universally trusted by the Indians. Many Huron considered the priests to be evil shamans, who brought death and disease wherever they traveled; because after contacts with Europeans, the Huron Indians had suffered, after 1634, high fatalities in epidemics of smallpox and other Eurasian infectious diseases.
The nations of the Iroquois Confederacy considered the Jesuits legitimate targets for their raids and warfare, as the missionaries were nominally allies of the Huron and French fur traders. Retaliating for French colonial attacks against the Iroquois was also a reason for their raids against the Huron and Jesuits.
In 1642, the Mohawk captured the lay-brother René Goupil, and Father Isaac Jogues, bringing them back to their village of Ossernenon south of the Mohawk River. They ritually tortured both men and killed the lay-brother Goupil. After several months of captivity, Fr. Jogues was ransomed by Dutch traders and the minister Johannes Megapolensis from New Netherland (later Albany). He returned for a time to France, but then sailed back to Quebec. In 1646 Fr. Jogues and another lay-brother, John de Lalande, were killed during a visit to Ossernenon intended to achieve peace between the French and the Mohawk. Other Jesuit missionaries were killed by the Mohawk and martyred in the following years: Antoine Daniel (1648), John de Brébeuf (1649), Noël Chabanel (1649), Charles Garnier (1649), and Gabriel Lalemant (1649).
Article 10
Monday September 19th, Feast of Our Lady of La Salette to Wednesday September 21st, 2022
La Salette and YOU!
Monday September 19th, Feast of Our Lady of La Salette to Wednesday September 21st, 2022
La Salette and YOU!
Not a Museum Piece!
The apparition of Our Lady of La Salette is not a historical museum piece that is consigned to a glass case and placed in some corner of a “Mary Museum” to be looked at from time to time, but which serves little or no use apart from known and accepted. With God, there is no such thing as “time” ― everything for Him is the “present” and not in the “past” or the “future”. The fact of “time” is only an earthly “gauge” or “measuring stick” that does not apply to Heaven. That is whenever Our Lady speaks of “future” things happenings, for her it happening right there and then ― for, as with God, she sees everything in the “present” and not in “past” and the “future” ― even though she uses those terms so as not confuse and befuddle us.
In this sense, we could that Our Lady’s apparitions and messages are “timeless” and do not deserve to be and are not meant to be consigned to just one particular day, month and year. From the moment the apparition occurs and the message is delivered, they become “timeless” or “eternal” and are applicable to people of all ages, nations and centuries in those things that are not directly and solely requested or commanded of whichever person Our Lady might be appearing and speaking to. The general messages, requests and commands are applicable to all persons of all times―much like the words of Our Lord, when He said: “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). Here, Our Lord is not only talking to all the people gathered together in His presence―but those words extend further than that, they extend to all people, of all nations, of all times. Likewise, when He says to His Apostles: “If you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here to there!’ and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 17:19). He is not promising that only to His Apostles, but to all the Christians of His day and all future Christians. As Our Lord says: “Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away!” (Luke 21:33), to which Holy Scripture adds: “The word of the Lord endureth for ever” (1 Peter 1:25).
Furthermore, if Our Lord could say to His Apostles: “He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me!” (Luke 10:16) ― then how much applicable would those words not be if addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Queen of Apostles and Queen of All Saints, who far surpasses the Apostles and all the saints? If we are meant to listen to and obey the prophets of God―then how much more should be not be listening to and obeying the Queen of Prophets? Holy Mother Church puts the following words into the mouth of Our Lady: “From the mouth of the Most High I came forth, the firstborn before all creatures. Over all the land, over every people and nation I held sway, and by my power I have trodden under my feet the hearts of all the high and low. He who obeys me will not be put to shame, and they who work by me shall not sin. They who explain me shall have life everlasting!” (Epistle from the Mass of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, based on Ecclesiasticus 24:5; 14:7; 14:9-11; 24:30-31). “Happy the man who obeys me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at my doorsteps, for he who finds me finds life, and wins favor from the Lord!” (Epistle from the Mass of the Immaculate Conception, based on Proverbs 8:34).
The Universal Message of Our Lady of La Salette
Even though Our Lady only appeared to two children at La Salette―Melanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud―her message was for all people of all times. She begins by clearly extending the scope of her message beyond those two mere children, saying: “I am here to proclaim great news to you! If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually! And all of you think little of this! In vain you will pray! In vain you will act! You will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken over for all of you!” Then, after going into great detail in her message, she ends it by saying: “AND SO, MY CHILDREN, YOU WILL PASS THIS ON TO ALL MY PEOPLE!” Then, as Our Lady left the scene of the apparition, she again repeated her command: “AND SO, MY CHILDREN, YOU WILL PASS THIS ON TO ALL MY PEOPLE!”
From these words we see that this message does not apply to only Melanie and Maximin, but to Our Lady's “PEOPLE” ― and who exactly are “Our Lady’s People”? If Our Lady is Queen of Heaven and Earth, then ALL PEOPLE are “her people”! As we saw in the extract from the Mass of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Church states that Our Lady is Queen “over all the land, over every people and nation!” Nobody is exempt from her reign―even her enemies are not exempt.
Furthermore, what also backs up this “universality” of the message of Our Lady is that she is speaking of events that will happen long after the death of both of Melanie and Maximin. The mentioning of such events by Our Lady is pointless if the message was intended for Melanie and Maximin alone, or even the people of their day. No―the message of La Salette is intended, as Our Lady said, to ALL her people and thus she says: “You will PASS THIS ON to ALL my people!” Therefore, this message is intended for all people of all times―including YOU! Even more than that, YOU are also meant to PASS ON the message of Our Lady―for, as Scripture says: “I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you” (1 Corinthians 11:23) and “My word, which shall go forth from My mouth―it shall not return to Me void, but it shall achieve whatsoever I desire, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it!” (Isaias 55:11) Our reward for being obedient to Our Lady’s command to pass on her message, can be seen in the words the Church allocates to Our Lady: “Happy the man who obeys me!” (Mass of the Immaculate Conception). “They who explain me shall have life everlasting!” (Mass of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary).
Love Your Neighbor & Blow Your Trumpet!
Do not forget that you do not exist for yourself alone! Just like all of your body parts are interconnected and help one another, so too is the world connected and God requires that we help one another. Our Lord and Holy Scripture make this abundantly clear: “Let us love one another, for charity is of God―and every one that loves, is born of God!” (1 John 4:7). “In this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid down his life for us―and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that has the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him? Let us not love only in word, nor in tongue, but in deeds, and in truth” (1 John 3:16-18). “If any man say, ‘I love God’ and hateth his brother; then he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom He seeth not?” (1 John 4:20).
Do not forget the parable of Our Lord in which He damns those who did nothing for their neighbor―for in doing things for our neighbor, we are actually doing those things to Christ: “Then He shall say to them also that shall be on His left hand: ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave Me not to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave Me not to drink. I was a stranger, and you took Me not in; naked, and you covered Me not; sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me! Then they also shall answer Him, saying: ‘Lord! When did we see Thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to Thee?’ Then He shall answer them, saying: ‘Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me!’ And these shall go into everlasting punishment!” (Matthew 25:31-46).
You might be tempted to say―with the murderous Cain―that you are not your brother’s keeper: “And the Lord said to Cain: ‘Where is thy brother Abel?’ And Cain answered: ‘I know not! Am I my brother’s keeper?’ And the Lord said to him: ‘What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to Me from the Earth! Now, therefore, cursed shalt thou be upon the Earth, which hath opened her mouth and received the blood of thy brother at thy hand!’” (Genesis 4:9-11).
The very first thing we should do for our neighbor is to sound the trumpet of warning! For we are―not only the “salt of the Earth” and the “light of the world”―but, consequently, we are also “watchmen” of the world who are meant to warn the world of God’s forthcoming chastisements if the world does not stop sinning at its ever-escalating rate! “And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ‘Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and say to them: “When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of that land take a man―one of their meanest―and make him a watchman over them, and that man sees the sword coming upon that land, and so sounds the trumpet to tell the people―then he that hears the sound of the trumpet, whosoever he may be, and does not look to himself, so that the sword comes and cuts him off―then his blood shall be upon his own head! For he heard the sound of the trumpet and did not look to himself―so his blood shall be upon him―but if he look to himself, then he shall save his life. And if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not sound the trumpet, and the people do not look to themselves, so that the sword comes and cut off any soul from among them, then he indeed will be taken away in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at the hand of the watchman! So, O son of man, I have made you a watchman to the house of Israel! Therefore you shall hear the word from My mouth, and shall tell it them from Me!” (Ezechiel 33:1-8).
We can clearly see the “sword of the Lord” coming―but are we sounding the trumpet? If Our Lord says that we will be judged for every single idle word―“I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the Day of Judgment!” (Matthew 12:36)―then we will most certainly be judged for keeping silence and not sounding the trumpet of warning to our fellow men! Our lame excuse of “Am I my brother’s keeper” will meet with same condemnation as was given to Cain.
So What Applies to You?
What applies to you? A lot applies to you! That is because you ARE your brother’s keeper! St. John Chrysostom says that at our final judgment, God will judge us for everything that happened on Earth during our own personal lifetime! However, as the famous axiom says: “You cannot give what you have not got!” We are going to pass on little or nothing if we know little or nothing! The first thing to do is to acquaint yourself with what Our Lady said at La Salette (as well as her other apparitions)! Heck! If Our Lady took to the trouble to come to Earth to deliver us a message―then we had better make sure that we look at the message! This website has lots of information under the general dropdown tabs of “APPARITIONS”, “PROPHECIES” and “SHRINES”.
Before going into more detail of Our Lady’s La Salette message, let us firstly list what applies to you and what you are supposed to pass on to others.
(1) Fearful chastisements are coming because mankind refuses to submit to God and keep His commandments, preferring instead to indulge in the pleasures, amusements and sins of the world.
(2) The preventative measures of prayer and penance have been ignored by priests and people.
(3) As an initial consequence, God, as a punishment, has allowed Lucifer and his demons to roam the Earth, to cause division everywhere and progressively put an end to the Faith―little by little―even to the point of corrupting bishops, priests and religious.
(4) Local wars, civil wars and eventually an appalling worldwide war will be experienced, with enormous loss of life.
(5) Things will get progressively worse, with the Faith being increasingly lost and souls being lost, until enough persons wake-up to the need of bombarding Heaven with intense and non-stop prayers and penances. If you are a faithful Catholic, then Our Lady calls you to the fight. It is not an option, but an obligation. When sufficient prayers will have been said and enough penance has been done, God will step in and turn everything around, slaying the evil ones and restoring the Faith throughout the world―with Our Lady playing a major role in this.
The Price of Negligence
In this world of “fun” nobody wants to be the “sourpuss” or “spoilsport” or “party-pooper” walking around with a grim face, wearing a sandwich-board with the proverbial words written on it: “Repent! The End is Nigh!” Yet there will even greater grim faces when all Hell breaks loose―and even greater sourpusses from souls that end up in Hell! Most Catholics prefer “not to rock the boat” of fun ― they have, what you could call the “Jonas Syndrome”, which refers to the Old Testament prophet Jonas. God had commanded Jonas to go the gigantic wicked city of Nineve and preach their impending doom to them due to their sinful ways. Jonas neglected to do so―instead, he fled in the opposite direction and tried to sail away to Tharsis. We all know the story―a violent storm arose, Jonas was thrown overboard and swallowed by a big fish. A tough price to pay for neglecting to pass on God’s message to sinners!
“The word of the Lord came to Jonas, saying: ‘Arise and go to Ninive, the great city, and preach in it! For the wickedness thereof is come up before Me!’ But Jonas rose up to flee into Tharsis from the face of the Lord, and he found a ship going to Tharsis and paid the fare to go with them to Tharsis from the face of the Lord. But the Lord sent a great wind into the sea, and a great tempest was raised in the sea, and the ship was in danger of being broken. And the mariners were afraid, and the men cried to their god. And they said to each other: ‘Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know why this evil is upon us!’ And they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonas. And they said to him: ‘Tell us for what cause this evil is upon us!’ … And Jonas said to them: ‘I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord the God of Heaven!’ And the men were greatly afraid, and they said to him: ‘Why hast thou done this?’ ― for the men knew that he fled from the face of the Lord, because he had told them. And they said to him: ‘What shall we do to thee, so that the sea may be calm to us? And he said to them: ‘Cast me into the sea and the sea shall be calm to you! For I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you!’ … And they took Jonas, and cast him into the sea, and the sea ceased from raging …
“Now the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonas: and Jonas was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights … And Jonas prayed to the Lord his God out of the belly of the fish … And the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited out Jonas upon the dry land … And the word of the Lord came to Jonas the second time, saying: ‘Arise and go to Ninive the great city, and preach in it the preaching that I bid thee!’ And Jonas arose and went to Ninive, according to the word of the Lord … And Jonas entered into the city one and he cried: “Another forty days and Ninive shall be destroyed! And the men of Ninive believed in God, and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least. And the king of Ninive rose up out of his throne and cast away his robe from him, and was clothed with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he proclaimed and published in Ninive, saying: ‘Let neither men nor beasts, oxen nor sheep, taste anything! Let them not feed, nor drink water! And let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth, and cry to the Lord with all their strength, and let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the iniquity that is in their hands! Who can tell if God will turn, and forgive and will turn away from his fierce anger, and we shall not perish?’ And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way―and God had mercy with regard to the evil which He had said that He would do to them, and He did it not” (Jonas chapters 1 & 2).
Do Something!
Remember―“What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath Faith, but hath not works? Shall Faith be able to save him? … Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith. Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well! But the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:14-26).
God is not necessarily asking you to go into some great city to preach His message of imminent chastisement for sin―but, like most things, it starts in the family and our immediate surroundings. The vast majority of Catholic families ignore Our Lady’s messages from her modern-day apparitions―they don’t give a hoot about them! Catholics could be “brakes” on this runaway train of sin that is plummeting downhill towards Hell―but instead of putting the brakes on, they dangerously prefer to “live-it-up” with all the other worldly passengers on that runaway train, ignoring the warnings of Scripture: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).
Nevertheless, we are called to be a Jonas in our own way, in our own setting and environment, among our own family, relatives, work-colleagues, friends and neighbors―as Our Lord said: “You are the salt of the Earth. But if the salt loses its flavor, with what shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more, except to be cast out and to be trodden on by men! You are the light of the world! A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid! Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bucket, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house! So let your light shine before men!” (Matthew 5:13-16). Are you enlightening others with the light of the Faith? Are you prepared to be “salty” in correcting others in order to preserve their Faith or in order to convert them to the Faith? You are Soldier of Christ, are you not? Are you defending the Faith and are you conquering for the Faith? If we will be judged for every idle word that we speak―then we most certainly will be judged for neglecting to live the life of a Catholic Soldier of Christ!
We should recall the words of the Angel of Portugal to the three children of Fatima―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―who were innocently playing. The Angel scolded the children for playing: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
Likewise the words of Our Lady to the three children: “Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended! … You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, July, August & October of 1917).
Sr. Lucia of Fatima would later say to Fr. Fuentes in 1957: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!”
“Father, we should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway. When God is going to chastise the world He always first exhausts all other remedies. When He sees that the world pays no attention whatsoever, then, as we say in our imperfect way of talking, with a certain fear He presents us the last means of salvation, His Blessed Mother … God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others … My cousins, Francisco and Jacinta, made sacrifices because they always saw the Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions! She never smiled at us! This anguish that we saw in her―caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners―penetrated our souls. And being children, we did not know what measures to devise except to pray and make sacrifices. Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world!”
Deathly Silence!
How much discussion takes place at home concerning the above “anguish” and “sadness” of Our Lady? How much teaching takes place in schools on the Blessed Virgin Mary and, above all, her modern-day messages (those of Our Lady of Good Success, La Salette, Fatima and Akita especially)? How much attention is being paid to Our Lady’s instructions, commands and warnings? How does that reflect or show itself in the daily life of the family, or the classroom, or the parish? You know the answer! There is very little or no discussion of those things! Instead there is a death silence―just as Our Lady of Good Success predicted: “Those who should speak will fall silent!”
Are we among the “silent”? Are we afraid to “go against the grain” of acceptable social conversation―which can to some degree be summed-up by the proverbial phrase: “In polite company, one must never discuss politics and religion.” Why are religion and politics often considered forbidden topics in polite conversation? The reason is that most people don’t see eye to eye on any of those topics. These topics usually end in arguments and anger. Afterward, most participants are more convinced than ever that their viewpoint is correct.
This reluctance to speak about serious religious matters with others, can, to some degree, be summed-up by the proverbial phrase: “In polite company, one must never discuss politics and religion.” Why are religion and politics often considered forbidden topics in polite conversation? The reason is that most people don’t see eye to eye on any of those topics. These topics usually end in arguments and anger. Afterward, most participants are more convinced than ever that their viewpoint is correct.
Silence Caused by Liberalism
All of this is natural consequence of Liberalism―which can be summed up as a freedom to believe what you want to believe, regardless of what the evidence says. Fr. Salvany, in his book Liberalism Is A Sin, gives a description of Liberalism: “Liberalism is the dogmatic affirmation of the absolute independence of the individual and of the social reason … Rejecting the principle of authority in religion―on the principle that every individual or sect may interpret the deposit of Revelation according to the dictates of private judgment―it gives birth to endless differences and contradictions ... It finally arrives at the conclusion that one creed is as good as another … Belief is not imposed by a legitimate and divine authority, but springs directly and freely from the individual’s reason or feelings or desires … The individual or sect interprets Revelation it pleases—rejecting or accepting what it chooses. This is popularly called liberty of conscience … As a result, authoritative religion has met with utter disaster and religious beliefs or unbeliefs have come to be mere matters of opinion, each person being free to make or unmake his own creed—or accept no creed … Liberalism, whether in the doctrinal or practical order, is a sin … it is a sin against the commandments of God and of the Church, for it virtually transgresses all commandments [picking and choosing what and how much it agrees with and wants to obey] … and it is, in the declaration of its own fundamental dogma, the absolute independence of the individual and the social reason, in that it denies all Christian dogmas in general … It knows no dogma except the dogma of self-assertion … It follows, therefore, that Liberalism denies the absolute jurisdiction of Jesus Christ, who is God, over individuals and over society … It refuses everything which it itself does not agree with. But not being able to affirm any truth beyond its own reach, Liberalism denies the possibility of any truth which it does not understand … As with Lucifer, its maxim is, ‘I will not serve!’ Such is the general negation uttered by Liberalism.”
Dangers of Ignorance or False ‘Truths’
Most of us believe what we believe because our parents believed it and we simply absorbed their views as we grew up. Reason played no part. Their “views” or “opinions” became our “truth.” Some, like typical Liberals, rebel against the views of their parents and come to hold contradicting positions, but the truth still holds true―very little of what we believe is actually based upon reason, instead, it is based on personal opinions, personal desires, personal agendas, half-truths, perceptions, emotions, feelings and also our ignorance of the real truth and our unwillingness to research the evidence for the truth.
Speaking of ignorance―it is one of the major reasons why we refuse to speak about religion with others, because we are, more often than not, handicapped by a woeful ignorance of our Faith! We rely on flimsy phrases, off-the-cuff statements, popular opinions, unresearched “facts” or mere internet quotes. We have no time for serious religious study―yet we expect people to take us seriously when we talk about religion! The fact is that most Conservative and Traditional Catholics cannot even list the Ten Commandments―and that is supposed to be First Communion Catechism material intended for 7-year-olds!
Speaking of ignorance―it is one of the major reasons why we refuse to speak about religion with others, because we are, more often than not, handicapped by a woeful ignorance of our Faith! We rely on flimsy phrases, off-the-cuff statements, popular opinions, unresearched “facts” or mere internet quotes. We have no time for serious religious study―yet we expect people to take us seriously when we talk about religion! The fact is that most Conservative and Traditional Catholics cannot even list the Ten Commandments―and that is supposed to be First Communion Catechism material intended for 7-year-olds! We are not even talking about defending the Faith, or converting others to the Faith―we are talking about simple parrot-fashion memorization that can be done by a 7-year-old! Yet we are meant to be Soldiers of Christ―a soldier defends and a soldier conquers! The only things that most Soldiers of Christ are defending are their own self-interests and their ‘reputation’ by making flimsy excuses to God as to why they are fighting and functioning as soldiers as they ought to be! The danger is that we content ourselves by looking around and saying to ourselves―by way of excuse―“At least I am not like the rest of men!” Yet those very same words were the words of the Pharisee, in Our Lord’s parable about the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:9-14) and the Pharisee ended up being condemned!
Perhaps the greatest ignorance of all is the ignorance (perhaps deliberate ignorance) of the fact that most souls are damned―not just non-Catholic souls, but Catholic souls too! That is an “elephant in the room” that nobody wants to address. It is almost as though it is a sin to talk about Hell and damnation! That is just what the devil wants―ignore it until it is too late! This majority damnation of Catholics or Christians (the only true Christians are Catholics) is not just a phenomenon of our terrible day and age―it always was the case, which is clearly shown by the words of Our Lord when He walked the Earth, and it has been reiterated by numerous “big” saints throughout each and every century [read here]―culminating with the vision of Hell that Our Lady showed the three children of Fatima.
One of those three Fatima children―Sr. Lucia of Fatima―later wrote in her Memoirs (Fatima in Lucia’s Own Words): “Some people, even the most devout, refuse to speak to children about Hell, in case it would frighten them. Yet God did not hesitate to show Hell to three children, one of whom was only six years old, knowing well that they would be horrified to the point of, I would almost dare to say, withering away with fear!”
Pope Pius IX (reigned from 1846 to 1878) used to preach on Hell and would ask priests to preach more often on Hell. Pius IX once told a French priest: “Preach many great truths of salvation. Preach especially about Hell! Let there be no hiding it! Tell the whole truth about Hell, very clearly and out loud! Nothing is more capable of making people think and of bringing poor sinners back to God!”
The apparition of Our Lady of La Salette is not a historical museum piece that is consigned to a glass case and placed in some corner of a “Mary Museum” to be looked at from time to time, but which serves little or no use apart from known and accepted. With God, there is no such thing as “time” ― everything for Him is the “present” and not in the “past” or the “future”. The fact of “time” is only an earthly “gauge” or “measuring stick” that does not apply to Heaven. That is whenever Our Lady speaks of “future” things happenings, for her it happening right there and then ― for, as with God, she sees everything in the “present” and not in “past” and the “future” ― even though she uses those terms so as not confuse and befuddle us.
In this sense, we could that Our Lady’s apparitions and messages are “timeless” and do not deserve to be and are not meant to be consigned to just one particular day, month and year. From the moment the apparition occurs and the message is delivered, they become “timeless” or “eternal” and are applicable to people of all ages, nations and centuries in those things that are not directly and solely requested or commanded of whichever person Our Lady might be appearing and speaking to. The general messages, requests and commands are applicable to all persons of all times―much like the words of Our Lord, when He said: “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3). Here, Our Lord is not only talking to all the people gathered together in His presence―but those words extend further than that, they extend to all people, of all nations, of all times. Likewise, when He says to His Apostles: “If you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here to there!’ and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 17:19). He is not promising that only to His Apostles, but to all the Christians of His day and all future Christians. As Our Lord says: “Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away!” (Luke 21:33), to which Holy Scripture adds: “The word of the Lord endureth for ever” (1 Peter 1:25).
Furthermore, if Our Lord could say to His Apostles: “He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me!” (Luke 10:16) ― then how much applicable would those words not be if addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Queen of Apostles and Queen of All Saints, who far surpasses the Apostles and all the saints? If we are meant to listen to and obey the prophets of God―then how much more should be not be listening to and obeying the Queen of Prophets? Holy Mother Church puts the following words into the mouth of Our Lady: “From the mouth of the Most High I came forth, the firstborn before all creatures. Over all the land, over every people and nation I held sway, and by my power I have trodden under my feet the hearts of all the high and low. He who obeys me will not be put to shame, and they who work by me shall not sin. They who explain me shall have life everlasting!” (Epistle from the Mass of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, based on Ecclesiasticus 24:5; 14:7; 14:9-11; 24:30-31). “Happy the man who obeys me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at my doorsteps, for he who finds me finds life, and wins favor from the Lord!” (Epistle from the Mass of the Immaculate Conception, based on Proverbs 8:34).
The Universal Message of Our Lady of La Salette
Even though Our Lady only appeared to two children at La Salette―Melanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud―her message was for all people of all times. She begins by clearly extending the scope of her message beyond those two mere children, saying: “I am here to proclaim great news to you! If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually! And all of you think little of this! In vain you will pray! In vain you will act! You will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken over for all of you!” Then, after going into great detail in her message, she ends it by saying: “AND SO, MY CHILDREN, YOU WILL PASS THIS ON TO ALL MY PEOPLE!” Then, as Our Lady left the scene of the apparition, she again repeated her command: “AND SO, MY CHILDREN, YOU WILL PASS THIS ON TO ALL MY PEOPLE!”
From these words we see that this message does not apply to only Melanie and Maximin, but to Our Lady's “PEOPLE” ― and who exactly are “Our Lady’s People”? If Our Lady is Queen of Heaven and Earth, then ALL PEOPLE are “her people”! As we saw in the extract from the Mass of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Church states that Our Lady is Queen “over all the land, over every people and nation!” Nobody is exempt from her reign―even her enemies are not exempt.
Furthermore, what also backs up this “universality” of the message of Our Lady is that she is speaking of events that will happen long after the death of both of Melanie and Maximin. The mentioning of such events by Our Lady is pointless if the message was intended for Melanie and Maximin alone, or even the people of their day. No―the message of La Salette is intended, as Our Lady said, to ALL her people and thus she says: “You will PASS THIS ON to ALL my people!” Therefore, this message is intended for all people of all times―including YOU! Even more than that, YOU are also meant to PASS ON the message of Our Lady―for, as Scripture says: “I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you” (1 Corinthians 11:23) and “My word, which shall go forth from My mouth―it shall not return to Me void, but it shall achieve whatsoever I desire, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it!” (Isaias 55:11) Our reward for being obedient to Our Lady’s command to pass on her message, can be seen in the words the Church allocates to Our Lady: “Happy the man who obeys me!” (Mass of the Immaculate Conception). “They who explain me shall have life everlasting!” (Mass of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary).
Love Your Neighbor & Blow Your Trumpet!
Do not forget that you do not exist for yourself alone! Just like all of your body parts are interconnected and help one another, so too is the world connected and God requires that we help one another. Our Lord and Holy Scripture make this abundantly clear: “Let us love one another, for charity is of God―and every one that loves, is born of God!” (1 John 4:7). “In this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid down his life for us―and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that has the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him? Let us not love only in word, nor in tongue, but in deeds, and in truth” (1 John 3:16-18). “If any man say, ‘I love God’ and hateth his brother; then he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom He seeth not?” (1 John 4:20).
Do not forget the parable of Our Lord in which He damns those who did nothing for their neighbor―for in doing things for our neighbor, we are actually doing those things to Christ: “Then He shall say to them also that shall be on His left hand: ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave Me not to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave Me not to drink. I was a stranger, and you took Me not in; naked, and you covered Me not; sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me! Then they also shall answer Him, saying: ‘Lord! When did we see Thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to Thee?’ Then He shall answer them, saying: ‘Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me!’ And these shall go into everlasting punishment!” (Matthew 25:31-46).
You might be tempted to say―with the murderous Cain―that you are not your brother’s keeper: “And the Lord said to Cain: ‘Where is thy brother Abel?’ And Cain answered: ‘I know not! Am I my brother’s keeper?’ And the Lord said to him: ‘What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to Me from the Earth! Now, therefore, cursed shalt thou be upon the Earth, which hath opened her mouth and received the blood of thy brother at thy hand!’” (Genesis 4:9-11).
The very first thing we should do for our neighbor is to sound the trumpet of warning! For we are―not only the “salt of the Earth” and the “light of the world”―but, consequently, we are also “watchmen” of the world who are meant to warn the world of God’s forthcoming chastisements if the world does not stop sinning at its ever-escalating rate! “And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ‘Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and say to them: “When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of that land take a man―one of their meanest―and make him a watchman over them, and that man sees the sword coming upon that land, and so sounds the trumpet to tell the people―then he that hears the sound of the trumpet, whosoever he may be, and does not look to himself, so that the sword comes and cuts him off―then his blood shall be upon his own head! For he heard the sound of the trumpet and did not look to himself―so his blood shall be upon him―but if he look to himself, then he shall save his life. And if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not sound the trumpet, and the people do not look to themselves, so that the sword comes and cut off any soul from among them, then he indeed will be taken away in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at the hand of the watchman! So, O son of man, I have made you a watchman to the house of Israel! Therefore you shall hear the word from My mouth, and shall tell it them from Me!” (Ezechiel 33:1-8).
We can clearly see the “sword of the Lord” coming―but are we sounding the trumpet? If Our Lord says that we will be judged for every single idle word―“I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the Day of Judgment!” (Matthew 12:36)―then we will most certainly be judged for keeping silence and not sounding the trumpet of warning to our fellow men! Our lame excuse of “Am I my brother’s keeper” will meet with same condemnation as was given to Cain.
So What Applies to You?
What applies to you? A lot applies to you! That is because you ARE your brother’s keeper! St. John Chrysostom says that at our final judgment, God will judge us for everything that happened on Earth during our own personal lifetime! However, as the famous axiom says: “You cannot give what you have not got!” We are going to pass on little or nothing if we know little or nothing! The first thing to do is to acquaint yourself with what Our Lady said at La Salette (as well as her other apparitions)! Heck! If Our Lady took to the trouble to come to Earth to deliver us a message―then we had better make sure that we look at the message! This website has lots of information under the general dropdown tabs of “APPARITIONS”, “PROPHECIES” and “SHRINES”.
Before going into more detail of Our Lady’s La Salette message, let us firstly list what applies to you and what you are supposed to pass on to others.
(1) Fearful chastisements are coming because mankind refuses to submit to God and keep His commandments, preferring instead to indulge in the pleasures, amusements and sins of the world.
(2) The preventative measures of prayer and penance have been ignored by priests and people.
(3) As an initial consequence, God, as a punishment, has allowed Lucifer and his demons to roam the Earth, to cause division everywhere and progressively put an end to the Faith―little by little―even to the point of corrupting bishops, priests and religious.
(4) Local wars, civil wars and eventually an appalling worldwide war will be experienced, with enormous loss of life.
(5) Things will get progressively worse, with the Faith being increasingly lost and souls being lost, until enough persons wake-up to the need of bombarding Heaven with intense and non-stop prayers and penances. If you are a faithful Catholic, then Our Lady calls you to the fight. It is not an option, but an obligation. When sufficient prayers will have been said and enough penance has been done, God will step in and turn everything around, slaying the evil ones and restoring the Faith throughout the world―with Our Lady playing a major role in this.
The Price of Negligence
In this world of “fun” nobody wants to be the “sourpuss” or “spoilsport” or “party-pooper” walking around with a grim face, wearing a sandwich-board with the proverbial words written on it: “Repent! The End is Nigh!” Yet there will even greater grim faces when all Hell breaks loose―and even greater sourpusses from souls that end up in Hell! Most Catholics prefer “not to rock the boat” of fun ― they have, what you could call the “Jonas Syndrome”, which refers to the Old Testament prophet Jonas. God had commanded Jonas to go the gigantic wicked city of Nineve and preach their impending doom to them due to their sinful ways. Jonas neglected to do so―instead, he fled in the opposite direction and tried to sail away to Tharsis. We all know the story―a violent storm arose, Jonas was thrown overboard and swallowed by a big fish. A tough price to pay for neglecting to pass on God’s message to sinners!
“The word of the Lord came to Jonas, saying: ‘Arise and go to Ninive, the great city, and preach in it! For the wickedness thereof is come up before Me!’ But Jonas rose up to flee into Tharsis from the face of the Lord, and he found a ship going to Tharsis and paid the fare to go with them to Tharsis from the face of the Lord. But the Lord sent a great wind into the sea, and a great tempest was raised in the sea, and the ship was in danger of being broken. And the mariners were afraid, and the men cried to their god. And they said to each other: ‘Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know why this evil is upon us!’ And they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonas. And they said to him: ‘Tell us for what cause this evil is upon us!’ … And Jonas said to them: ‘I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord the God of Heaven!’ And the men were greatly afraid, and they said to him: ‘Why hast thou done this?’ ― for the men knew that he fled from the face of the Lord, because he had told them. And they said to him: ‘What shall we do to thee, so that the sea may be calm to us? And he said to them: ‘Cast me into the sea and the sea shall be calm to you! For I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you!’ … And they took Jonas, and cast him into the sea, and the sea ceased from raging …
“Now the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonas: and Jonas was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights … And Jonas prayed to the Lord his God out of the belly of the fish … And the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited out Jonas upon the dry land … And the word of the Lord came to Jonas the second time, saying: ‘Arise and go to Ninive the great city, and preach in it the preaching that I bid thee!’ And Jonas arose and went to Ninive, according to the word of the Lord … And Jonas entered into the city one and he cried: “Another forty days and Ninive shall be destroyed! And the men of Ninive believed in God, and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least. And the king of Ninive rose up out of his throne and cast away his robe from him, and was clothed with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he proclaimed and published in Ninive, saying: ‘Let neither men nor beasts, oxen nor sheep, taste anything! Let them not feed, nor drink water! And let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth, and cry to the Lord with all their strength, and let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the iniquity that is in their hands! Who can tell if God will turn, and forgive and will turn away from his fierce anger, and we shall not perish?’ And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way―and God had mercy with regard to the evil which He had said that He would do to them, and He did it not” (Jonas chapters 1 & 2).
Do Something!
Remember―“What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath Faith, but hath not works? Shall Faith be able to save him? … Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith. Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well! But the devils also believe and tremble! But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead? Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by Faith only? … For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:14-26).
God is not necessarily asking you to go into some great city to preach His message of imminent chastisement for sin―but, like most things, it starts in the family and our immediate surroundings. The vast majority of Catholic families ignore Our Lady’s messages from her modern-day apparitions―they don’t give a hoot about them! Catholics could be “brakes” on this runaway train of sin that is plummeting downhill towards Hell―but instead of putting the brakes on, they dangerously prefer to “live-it-up” with all the other worldly passengers on that runaway train, ignoring the warnings of Scripture: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).
Nevertheless, we are called to be a Jonas in our own way, in our own setting and environment, among our own family, relatives, work-colleagues, friends and neighbors―as Our Lord said: “You are the salt of the Earth. But if the salt loses its flavor, with what shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more, except to be cast out and to be trodden on by men! You are the light of the world! A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid! Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bucket, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house! So let your light shine before men!” (Matthew 5:13-16). Are you enlightening others with the light of the Faith? Are you prepared to be “salty” in correcting others in order to preserve their Faith or in order to convert them to the Faith? You are Soldier of Christ, are you not? Are you defending the Faith and are you conquering for the Faith? If we will be judged for every idle word that we speak―then we most certainly will be judged for neglecting to live the life of a Catholic Soldier of Christ!
We should recall the words of the Angel of Portugal to the three children of Fatima―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―who were innocently playing. The Angel scolded the children for playing: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
Likewise the words of Our Lady to the three children: “Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended! … You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, July, August & October of 1917).
Sr. Lucia of Fatima would later say to Fr. Fuentes in 1957: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!”
“Father, we should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway. When God is going to chastise the world He always first exhausts all other remedies. When He sees that the world pays no attention whatsoever, then, as we say in our imperfect way of talking, with a certain fear He presents us the last means of salvation, His Blessed Mother … God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others … My cousins, Francisco and Jacinta, made sacrifices because they always saw the Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions! She never smiled at us! This anguish that we saw in her―caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners―penetrated our souls. And being children, we did not know what measures to devise except to pray and make sacrifices. Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world!”
Deathly Silence!
How much discussion takes place at home concerning the above “anguish” and “sadness” of Our Lady? How much teaching takes place in schools on the Blessed Virgin Mary and, above all, her modern-day messages (those of Our Lady of Good Success, La Salette, Fatima and Akita especially)? How much attention is being paid to Our Lady’s instructions, commands and warnings? How does that reflect or show itself in the daily life of the family, or the classroom, or the parish? You know the answer! There is very little or no discussion of those things! Instead there is a death silence―just as Our Lady of Good Success predicted: “Those who should speak will fall silent!”
Are we among the “silent”? Are we afraid to “go against the grain” of acceptable social conversation―which can to some degree be summed-up by the proverbial phrase: “In polite company, one must never discuss politics and religion.” Why are religion and politics often considered forbidden topics in polite conversation? The reason is that most people don’t see eye to eye on any of those topics. These topics usually end in arguments and anger. Afterward, most participants are more convinced than ever that their viewpoint is correct.
This reluctance to speak about serious religious matters with others, can, to some degree, be summed-up by the proverbial phrase: “In polite company, one must never discuss politics and religion.” Why are religion and politics often considered forbidden topics in polite conversation? The reason is that most people don’t see eye to eye on any of those topics. These topics usually end in arguments and anger. Afterward, most participants are more convinced than ever that their viewpoint is correct.
Silence Caused by Liberalism
All of this is natural consequence of Liberalism―which can be summed up as a freedom to believe what you want to believe, regardless of what the evidence says. Fr. Salvany, in his book Liberalism Is A Sin, gives a description of Liberalism: “Liberalism is the dogmatic affirmation of the absolute independence of the individual and of the social reason … Rejecting the principle of authority in religion―on the principle that every individual or sect may interpret the deposit of Revelation according to the dictates of private judgment―it gives birth to endless differences and contradictions ... It finally arrives at the conclusion that one creed is as good as another … Belief is not imposed by a legitimate and divine authority, but springs directly and freely from the individual’s reason or feelings or desires … The individual or sect interprets Revelation it pleases—rejecting or accepting what it chooses. This is popularly called liberty of conscience … As a result, authoritative religion has met with utter disaster and religious beliefs or unbeliefs have come to be mere matters of opinion, each person being free to make or unmake his own creed—or accept no creed … Liberalism, whether in the doctrinal or practical order, is a sin … it is a sin against the commandments of God and of the Church, for it virtually transgresses all commandments [picking and choosing what and how much it agrees with and wants to obey] … and it is, in the declaration of its own fundamental dogma, the absolute independence of the individual and the social reason, in that it denies all Christian dogmas in general … It knows no dogma except the dogma of self-assertion … It follows, therefore, that Liberalism denies the absolute jurisdiction of Jesus Christ, who is God, over individuals and over society … It refuses everything which it itself does not agree with. But not being able to affirm any truth beyond its own reach, Liberalism denies the possibility of any truth which it does not understand … As with Lucifer, its maxim is, ‘I will not serve!’ Such is the general negation uttered by Liberalism.”
Dangers of Ignorance or False ‘Truths’
Most of us believe what we believe because our parents believed it and we simply absorbed their views as we grew up. Reason played no part. Their “views” or “opinions” became our “truth.” Some, like typical Liberals, rebel against the views of their parents and come to hold contradicting positions, but the truth still holds true―very little of what we believe is actually based upon reason, instead, it is based on personal opinions, personal desires, personal agendas, half-truths, perceptions, emotions, feelings and also our ignorance of the real truth and our unwillingness to research the evidence for the truth.
Speaking of ignorance―it is one of the major reasons why we refuse to speak about religion with others, because we are, more often than not, handicapped by a woeful ignorance of our Faith! We rely on flimsy phrases, off-the-cuff statements, popular opinions, unresearched “facts” or mere internet quotes. We have no time for serious religious study―yet we expect people to take us seriously when we talk about religion! The fact is that most Conservative and Traditional Catholics cannot even list the Ten Commandments―and that is supposed to be First Communion Catechism material intended for 7-year-olds!
Speaking of ignorance―it is one of the major reasons why we refuse to speak about religion with others, because we are, more often than not, handicapped by a woeful ignorance of our Faith! We rely on flimsy phrases, off-the-cuff statements, popular opinions, unresearched “facts” or mere internet quotes. We have no time for serious religious study―yet we expect people to take us seriously when we talk about religion! The fact is that most Conservative and Traditional Catholics cannot even list the Ten Commandments―and that is supposed to be First Communion Catechism material intended for 7-year-olds! We are not even talking about defending the Faith, or converting others to the Faith―we are talking about simple parrot-fashion memorization that can be done by a 7-year-old! Yet we are meant to be Soldiers of Christ―a soldier defends and a soldier conquers! The only things that most Soldiers of Christ are defending are their own self-interests and their ‘reputation’ by making flimsy excuses to God as to why they are fighting and functioning as soldiers as they ought to be! The danger is that we content ourselves by looking around and saying to ourselves―by way of excuse―“At least I am not like the rest of men!” Yet those very same words were the words of the Pharisee, in Our Lord’s parable about the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:9-14) and the Pharisee ended up being condemned!
Perhaps the greatest ignorance of all is the ignorance (perhaps deliberate ignorance) of the fact that most souls are damned―not just non-Catholic souls, but Catholic souls too! That is an “elephant in the room” that nobody wants to address. It is almost as though it is a sin to talk about Hell and damnation! That is just what the devil wants―ignore it until it is too late! This majority damnation of Catholics or Christians (the only true Christians are Catholics) is not just a phenomenon of our terrible day and age―it always was the case, which is clearly shown by the words of Our Lord when He walked the Earth, and it has been reiterated by numerous “big” saints throughout each and every century [read here]―culminating with the vision of Hell that Our Lady showed the three children of Fatima.
One of those three Fatima children―Sr. Lucia of Fatima―later wrote in her Memoirs (Fatima in Lucia’s Own Words): “Some people, even the most devout, refuse to speak to children about Hell, in case it would frighten them. Yet God did not hesitate to show Hell to three children, one of whom was only six years old, knowing well that they would be horrified to the point of, I would almost dare to say, withering away with fear!”
Pope Pius IX (reigned from 1846 to 1878) used to preach on Hell and would ask priests to preach more often on Hell. Pius IX once told a French priest: “Preach many great truths of salvation. Preach especially about Hell! Let there be no hiding it! Tell the whole truth about Hell, very clearly and out loud! Nothing is more capable of making people think and of bringing poor sinners back to God!”
Article 9
Friday September 16th & Saturday September 17th, 2022
Applying the Seven Sorrows to Your Own Life
Friday September 16th & Saturday September 17th, 2022
Applying the Seven Sorrows to Your Own Life
Seven or Seventy Times Seven?
Our Lady did not only suffer seven times―it would be ridiculous to imagine and hold such a viewpoint. As Our Lady herself reveals―to the Venerable Mary of Agreda―her life was a life of continual suffering, just like that of her Divine Son. She says: “In order merely to save mortals, it was not necessary to suffer so much … My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! … He began to suffer as soon as He was born into the world, and His sufferings continued until He died on the Cross! … After I was born into the world, I was resigned and contented in all the difficulties, which I underwent … I underwent the hardships of infancy as other children and I was reared and treated as others of the same condition. I felt hunger, thirst, sleepiness and other infirmities of the body, and, as a daughter of Adam, I was subject to these accidental necessities; for it was just that I should imitate my most holy Son, who subjected Himself to these hardships and defects … At other times it was necessary for me to suffer and to be afflicted in the lower part of my soul or in my sensitive faculties; at other times again I suffered want, loneliness and interior dereliction … Many times sorrows would have deprived me of life, if the Lord himself had not preserved it ... I wish thee to remember that to suffer and to be afflicted, with or without one’s fault, is a benefit of which one cannot be worthy without special and great mercy of the Almighty. Moreover, to be allowed to suffer for one’s sins, is not only a mercy, but is demanded by justice. If this doctrine of suffering were not most valuable and secure, We would not have taught suffering by word and example. Many times I shall repeat to thee the lesson containing the greatest wisdom for souls―which consists in the knowledge of the cross; in the love of sufferings; and in putting this knowledge into practice by bearing afflictions with patience.”
Why did Our Lord suffer? Why did Our Lady suffer? The answer is twofold―they suffered because of our sins; and they suffered because of their pity, compassion and love for poor sinners.
Born to Suffer and Die!
Believe it or not―like it or not―accept it or not―the truth remains true. We were born to suffer! It is an inescapable consequence of Original Sin as well our own personal sins. Sins requires the “death sentence” as its punishment because sin is the greatest evil in the world. The following quotes will prove this: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke; My Catholic Faith, Bishop Morrow, STD).
A “death sentence” is the natural consequential punishment for having committed a great crime―and, as the above quote shows, sin is the greatest crime that there is and it is the umbrella for countless different kinds of sins. “Sin hath reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21). “Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:15). “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16). “From the woman came the beginning of sin, and by her we all die!” (Ecclesiasticus 25:33). “Death reigned from Adam” (Romans 5:14). “By one man sin entered into this world [like a virus―the virus of Original Sin], and, by sin, death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned!” (Romans 5:12). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10).
We Like to Sin―But We Hate Suffering For It
Our credit-conscious world―buy now and pay later―hides from us the real consequences of the purchases that we wildly, blindly and imprudently make! Everyone is debt―nations and individuals. Debt is no longer a “four-letter” word that should be avoided―today, debt is part and parcel of “normal” life. Our culture has become a “buy now and pay later” culture, with little care or worry being given to the debts that incur. We think very little of spending beyond our means and capacity to repay what we buy on credit. Unfortunately, that attitude spills over into the spiritual sphere, whereby we think little of price of sin, and only look at the immediate pleasure that sin can bring! Sin brings pleasure, the cost brings sorrow. Since we have all committed the two greatest evils in the world―mortal sin and venial sin―we quite naturally and justly deserve to suffer and experience sorrow. Without payment for sin and sorrow for sin, there can be no joy of Heaven. Hence, you can quite rightly say that sorrow is our staple diet in this world―which is why, in the prayer, Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen), we speak of our life on Earth as being a “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.” We, on the other hand, would prefer to live life “laughing and rejoicing in valley of fun”! How naïve and self-centered can we possibly be? As Our Lady lamented to the Venerable Mary of Agreda:
“It is a great shame and a great boldness on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering! For as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … Their inclinations and their blind love of visible things, detains them and makes them hard and heavy of heart―these inclinations and this blindness rob them of remembrance and affection toward these higher things, which could raise them above their worldliness … Nearly all of them strive to avoid labor and suffering and are frightened by the royal and secure road of mortification and the Cross … They do not seek the medicine of suffering … Why then will mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? They play-down their faults, extol their virtues and abilities! … Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment! … As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation!”
As We Sow, So We Reap
What Our Lady says is so true ― “They expecting, in spite of their sins, to become worthy of enjoying God! … They play-down their faults, extol their virtues and abilities! … Some expect to be distinguished by God, while others expect to be pardoned without penance!” That pretty much paints an accurate picture of most Catholics―minimalists, half-hearted, distracted, part-timers, lukewarm and worldly! There is no place for such persons in Heaven. Our Lord made that abundantly clear on many occasions:
“The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world!” (John 18:36). “You are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7). “I came to call sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32) … “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3) … “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38) … “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God!” (Luke 18:18-25) ... “For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12).
Holy Scripture elsewhere adds: “For I am the Lord your God―be holy because I am holy! … You shall be holy unto Me, because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have separated you from other people, that you should be Mine!” (Leviticus 11:44; 20:26) … “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32) … “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
Laugh Now and Pay Later―Or Sorrow Now and Laugh Later!
As the Imitation of Christ says: “It is vanity, therefore, to seek and trust in riches that perish. It is vanity also to court honor and to be puffed up with pride. It is vanity to follow the lusts of the body and to desire things for which severe punishment later must come. It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life. It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come. It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides” (Book 1, Chapter 1). In other words, the seeking of joys is vanity, whereas the sorrow that comes from living a truly Christian life is wisdom.
As stated above―sin automatically and justly brings suffering with it. How on earth can be expect to live a life of unhindered joy and fun after having offended Almighty God. The Imitation of Christ further adds: “Do you expect to escape what no mortal man can ever avoid? Which of the saints was without a cross or trial on this Earth? Not even Jesus Christ! … Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him!” (Book 2, Chapter 11).
Holy Scripture warns us: “When thou comest to the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation! … For gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1, 5) … “As silver is tried by fire, and gold in the furnace―so the Lord trieth the hearts” (Proverbs 17:3). To which the Imitation of Christ adds: “No man is fit to enjoy Heaven unless he has resigned himself to suffer hardship for Christ! Nothing is more acceptable to God, nothing more helpful for you on this Earth than to suffer willingly for Christ! … The whole life of Christ was a cross and a martyrdom, and do you seek rest and enjoyment for yourself? You deceive yourself, you are mistaken if you seek anything but to suffer, for this mortal life is full of miseries and marked with crosses on all sides ... Why, then, do you fear to take up the cross when through it you can win a kingdom? … There is no salvation of soul nor hope of everlasting life except in the cross … Take up your cross, therefore, and follow Jesus, and you shall enter eternal life! … If you share His suffering, you shall also share His glory! …
“Go where you will, seek what you will … arrange and order everything to suit your will and preferences―and you will still find that some suffering must always be borne, willingly or unwillingly, and thus you will always find the cross. Either you will experience bodily pain or you will undergo tribulation of spirit in your soul. At times you will be forsaken by God, at times troubled by those about you and, what is worse, you will often grow weary of yourself. You cannot escape, you cannot be relieved by any remedy or comfort but must bear with it as long as God wills. For He wishes you to learn to bear trial without consolation, to submit yourself wholly to Him so that you may become more humble through suffering ... The cross, therefore, is always ready; it awaits you everywhere. No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it, for wherever you go you take yourself with you and shall always find yourself. Turn where you will — above, below, without, or within — you will find a cross in everything! … If you cast away one cross, you will find another and perhaps a heavier one! … If, indeed, there were anything better or more useful for man’s salvation than suffering, Christ would have shown it by word and example. But He clearly exhorts the disciples who follow Him and all who wish to follow Him to carry the cross” (Book 2, Chapter 12).
The Cross is a Sorrow―Suffering is a Sorrow!
There is no escaping the fact that cross brings sorrow, just as suffering brings sorrow―in fact, you could say that the “cross” and “suffering” are both flip-sides of the same coin. Our Lord is equally known as the “Man of Sorrows” (Isaias 53:3) as well being known as the “Man on the Cross” (Matthew 27:40-42; Mark 15:30-32). Christ and His followers are not made for partying: “Let us walk honestly, not in partying and drunkenness” (Romans 13:13) … “Be not drunk with wine, but be ye filled with the Holy Spirit!” (Ephesians 5:18). “A fool lifts up his voice in laughter―but a wise man will scarce laugh low to himself!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:23). “Laughter shall be mingled with sorrow, and mourning taketh hold of joy!” (Proverbs 14:13) … “Laughter I counted as an error! And to mirth I said: ‘Why art thou vainly deceived?’” (Ecclesiastes 2:2). “The laughter of sinners is at the pleasures of sin” (Ecclesiasticus 27:14). “Cleanse your hands, ye sinners: and purify your hearts, ye double minded! Be afflicted, mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into sorrow!” (James 4:8-9). Our Lord affirmed and confirmed this at the Last Supper, when He said to His Apostles: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20) ― where and when? In Heaven at the end of their lives! Until then, they would suffer and be sorrowful, much as Our Lady said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life, but in the next life!” ― which was also true for Our Lady’s own life on Earth, which was one of continual suffering.
Mary’s School of Suffering
Our Lady herself speaks of her school of suffering to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, seeking an enrollment in its classes: “My most holy Son and myself are trying to find among those who have arrived at the way of the Cross, some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the souls, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings (cf. Matthew 5:10) ... When my Son assumed all the sufferings of His Passion, He became for us a Teacher, who practices what He teaches! … This was set before the eyes of the Catholics, and can be plainly read by them, like a book of life, during their whole earthly pilgrimage―but there are only a few and remotely scattered souls who enter into this school and study this book, while countless are the wayward and foolish, who ignore this science in their unwillingness to be taught! ... This is the teaching of the school of the Redeemer, hidden from those living in Babylon and from those who love vanity! … If you wish to be Our disciple, then enter into this school―in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross … In this science of suffering are renewed all the blessed riches of the creatures―those that flee from them are insane, those that know nothing of this science, are foolish! … In order that you may advance in my school, I wish to see you poor, humble, despised, abased―yet always with a cheerful heart and countenance ... In the school of humility, I want you to be studious and diligent; and this should be your first and principal care … I admonish and command you to go to the greatest extremes, if you wish to remain in my school and be endowed with the perfection taught in my school! … In my school I want you to learn the love, the gratitude and humility that is required of a true disciple of mine; for I desire that you distinguish yourself and advance exceedingly! ... Do not try to repay yourself with the applause or the love of any creature, nor allow human sentiment to rule over you! … Earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible with this wisdom; nor is the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the bleary-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors!”
Seven Sorrows in the School of Suffering
As already stated above―Our Lady did not merely suffer seven things in her life, but her life was filled with continuous suffering. She herself says to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “My life was a continual suffering! ... The sorrow which I suffered is so little noticed by the living! … I suffered much more than the martyrs in all their torments! … My Son and I embraced the way of the Cross and suffering for the whole course of our natural life! … My Son and I suffered so much for creatures and for their salvation! … For them We suffered and endured such bitter sorrows! … What tribulations and hardships we suffered! … I blessed the Lord to be able to suffer! … All that I suffered seemed little―and I continually longed to suffer still more! ... I suffered with eagerness! … This desire for suffering led me on in the way of suffering … thus permitting me to endure so much the greater sufferings! … I would have been ready to suffer the greatest torments of the world! … I desired to take upon myself the sufferings of all men … There is no torment, not even death itself, that I would have refused, if such had been necessary to save any of the damned―and to save them, I would have esteemed all sufferings a sweet alleviation! ... … I never presumed to ask the Lord anything for the sake of ridding myself of suffering!”
It is in the so-called “Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary” that we receive an introductory course, a brief overview, a selection of seven sufferings out the innumerable, countless, unimaginable sufferings that she actually endured. These seven selected sufferings are like a “taster”―much like the sausage on the stick offered in supermarkets to tempt to taste it so that you might be tempted to purchase it. Or you could compare these seven sufferings to a movie-trailer which seeks to entice you to actually go and see the whole movie.
Just like the Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, each of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady contain a myriad, a plethora, a treasure chest of teachings, instructions, examples and encouragements. They are like a bottomless well of grace and consolation. The words of the Epistle from a Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary could also be applied to these Seven Sorrows: “In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue! Come to me, all you that yearn for me, and be filled with my fruits! For my spirit is sweeter than honey, and my inheritance better to have than honey and the honeycomb. My memory is to everlasting generations! They who eat of me will hunger still more, and they who drink of me will thirst for more!” Let us then “eat” and “taste” these Seven Sorrows of Our Lady and savor their “sweetness” and rejoice in their “truths” and “drink” their instructions, while begging for the grace to “hunger” and “thirst for more”!
► THE FIRST SORROW ― SIMEON’S PROPHECY
We all know―or should know―the prophecy that St. Simeon made to Our Lady in the Temple at the time of Our Lord’s presentation in the Temple shortly after His birth: “And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother: ‘Behold this Child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; and thy own soul a sword shall pierce, so that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed!’” (Luke 2:34-35).
What should be a joyful occasion is ‘ruined’ (according to a worldly attitude) by this prophecy of great sorrow! Simeon foretold to Mary her martyrdom of sorrow; the damnation of those who would reject Jesus and the salvation of those who would accept Him. Mary, hearing this terrible prediction, did not answer one word, felt no agitation of mind, no dread for the future―but courageously and sweetly committed all to God’s holy will. In effect, her attitude echoed her words at the Annunciation: “Be it done unto me according to thy word!”
Yet that acceptance of God’s will was not just in sweet, pleasant, advantageous and beneficial things and circumstances―but also in things and circumstances that were bitter, unpleasant, disadvantageous, detrimental, unjust, painful and excruciating! She would not shirk suffering and sorrow―she would embrace being the Mother of Sorrows. She would later say to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside ... How persistently they forget, that their Teacher and Master has first accepted sufferings, and has honored and sanctified them in his own Person! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering, even after my most holy Son did suffer for them! You cannot follow Christ, if you refuse to embrace the Cross and rejoice in it!”
Being a Christian means carrying Christ’s cross ― “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
In a certain sense, Simeon’s prophecy about Christ being contradicted and rejected, with a sword piercing Mary’s soul―is also a prophecy that applies to every single Christian: “The sword reacheth even to the soul” (Jeremias 4:10). Our Lord said to His followers: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). In fact, if the world loves you―then you have to start asking yourself: “What am I doing wrong?” To be loved by the world is just a serious a situation as Pope Francis being loved by the enemies of the Church! [read about it here].
We cannot have God as our Master while simultaneously have the world as our master ― “You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). Yet how many Catholics, who pretend to love God, actually love the world and think about the world more they love and think about God? The vast majority! Is it then a surprise or a shock that the vast majority of Catholics are lost and damned? “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! [Neither is Our Lady!] For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8).
If we wish to be saved, then we will inescapably be disliked, hated, persecuted and even put to death by the world―salvation requires that our souls be pierced by the sword of the world. “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
Simeon’s prophecy also applies to us for we the spiritual children of the Mother of God―“As the mother was, so also is her daughter” (Ezechiel 16:44). “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). We must therefore―like Our Lord and Our Lady―“Fight the good fight of Faith and lay hold on eternal life, whereunto we arr called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). Consequently, the sword that we must fight with is the Word of God: “In all things taking the shield of Faith and the sword of the Spirit―which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:16-17). “He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword!” (Isaias 49:2). “I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth!” (Apocalypse 2:16). “From His mouth came out a sharp two-edged sword” (Apocalypse 1:16). “For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword; reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).
In this fight of the Faith and for the Faith, we will be attacked with worldly swords―the words of the world, the sharp criticisms, the piercing mockeries, the slashes from satanic seductions. We will be attacked on all sides―attacks from te world and attacks from within the Catholic Church; attacks from governing bodies and attacks from our own clergy; attacks from enemies and attacks from ‘friends’; attacks from strangers and attacks from family. Our souls will be truly pierced if we are truly Catholic. Such is lot of Christ’s faithful―such is the prophecy for Mary’s children.
► THE SECOND SORROW ― FLIGHT INTO EGYPT
Christ fled! Mary and Joseph fled! Christ was the almighty God―the Second Person of the Holy Trinity! Why did God flee from men? Wasn’t that an act of cowardice? Couldn’t Christ have changed King Herod’s murderous mind? Couldn’t He have paralyzed his murderous plans? Couldn’t He have even struck the murderous Herod dead? Didn’t God destroy Pharao’s murderously pursuing army in the Red Sea? Didn’t God strike down nations that threatened Israel? Well here is someone greater that the Chosen People―here we Christ the Son of God being threatened! Did not the Machabees fight instead of fleeing? “Then Judas Machabeus said: ‘God forbid that we should flee away from them! But if our time is come, then let us die manfully for our brethren!” (1 Machabees 9:10).
Holy Scripture speaks of there being a suitable time for all things: “All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under Heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to destroy, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather. A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. A time to get, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak. A time of love, and a time of hatred. A time of war, and a time of peace” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) ― to which we could add: “A time to fight, and a time to flee!” Which is why, among the passions that God has built into human nature, we have the passions that drive us to fight and also drive us to flee.
On many occasions God has commanded His Chosen ones to fight―and yet on other occasions He has commanded them to flee. God, through His prophet Jeremias, often counsels certain persons to flee the cities or kingdoms in which they lived in order to avoid the impending destruction of God’s chastisements: “Flee! Save your lives! Be as heath in the wilderness!” (Jeremias 48:6) … “A few men that shall flee from the sword, shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Juda!” (Jeremias 44:28) … “Flee and go down into the deep hole, ye inhabitants of Dedan! For I have brought the destruction upon him in the time of his visitation!” (Jeremias 49:8) … “Flee! Get away speedily and sit in deep holes, you that inhabit Asor, saith the Lord. For Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, hath taken counsel against you, and hath conceived designs against you!” (Jeremias 49:30) … “Flee ye from the midst of Babylon and let everyone save his own life! For it is the time of revenge from the Lord, he will I render unto her what she hath deserved!” (Jeremias 51:6).
We see God’s favored one―King David, whom God said was “a man according to My Own Heart” (Acts 13:22)―also flee danger: “Saul endeavored to nail David to the wall with his spear. And David slipped away out of the presence of Saul and the spear missed him, and was fastened in the wall, and David fled and escaped that night” (1 Kings 19:10). “David said in his heart: ‘I shall one day or other fall into the hands of Saul! Is it not better for me to flee and to be saved in the land of the Philistines, so that Saul may cease to seek me? I will flee then out of his hands!’” (1 Kings 27:1). “David said to his servants, that were with him in Jerusalem: ‘Arise and let us flee! For we shall not otherwise escape else from the face of Absalom! Make haste to go out, lest he come and overtake us, and bring ruin upon us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword!’” (2 Kings 15:14).
Our Lord Himself says: “And when they shall persecute you in this city―flee into another!” (Matthew 10:23) … “When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place―then they that are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains! … But pray that your flight be not in the winter!” (Matthew 24:16, 20). Jesus also fled when they wanted to make Him king: “Jesus, when He knew that they would come to take Him by force and make Him king, fled into the mountain Himself alone” (John 6:15).
In the Summa Theologica (IIa-IIae, q. 97, article 1), St. Thomas Aquinas, quotes St. Augustine: “Hence Augustine says that ‘St. Paul fled, not through ceasing to believe in God, but lest he should tempt God, if he were not to flee when he had the means of flight.’” St. Thomas also observes that to flee an evil through fear of God’s chastisement is something that is praiseworthy.
Furthermore, we are encouraged to “flee from evil things” (Proverbs 13:19) ― which obviously includes the world and the worldly: “What fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God! As God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).
Our Lady and St. Joseph―with only a moment’s notice―packed what little they had taken to Bethlehem from their home in Nazareth and fled to Egypt. They were obliged to leave behind their property, their belongings, their family, relatives and friends, their country of birth―and flee to a foreign country where they would have little or no support, no friends, no family, no guaranteed labor, no guaranteed place of abode, etc.
Sometimes we might also be forced to flee from our own family, our friends, our home, our job, even our country or state because of a threat to our Faith. Our Lord did not promise a “hunky-dory” Catholics milieu or environment to us―not even among family! He said, as already partially quoted above:
“Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no; but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:34-39; Luke 12:51-53).
Today, many families are divided―even Catholic families. The Faith no longer unites them―instead, the world divides them. That is the ploy of Satan―to divide and conquer. Our Lady of La Salette warned that “God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family.” Gradually, yet ceaselessly, as Our Lady also said: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God!” We are right in the middle of that erosion of the Faith and the crumbling of the Church. When a building is crumbling and collapsing, it is sheer stupidity to remain inside it―one has to flee to a safe distance!
Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich has spoken at length about the visions that God showed her concerning a collapsing Church and Faith in our days. She said: “They were building a large, strange, and extravagant church there in Rome … I did not see a single angel, nor a single saint helping in the work ... There was nothing holy in it. They had preaching and singing, but nothing else [which possibly implies the absence of the true Sacrifice of the Mass in this new church], and only very few attended it. All was dead, the work of human skill, a church of the latest style, a church of man’s invention like the new heterodox church in Rome … There was something proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed very successful. I saw the fatal consequences of this counterfeit church … All sorts of abominations were perpetrated there … I saw how harmful would be the consequences of this false church. I saw it increase in size; I saw heretics of all kinds flocking to the city of Rome … Everyone was to be admitted in it in order to be united and have equal rights―Evangelicals, Catholics, sects of every description [all of which describes the current false spirit of Ecumenism that invaded the Church at the Council] ... The Protestant doctrine and that of the schismatic Greeks is to spread everywhere! … Then I saw that everything pertaining to Protestantism was gradually gaining the upper hand, and the Catholic religion fell into complete decadence ... I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions ... Then I saw darkness spreading around and people no longer seeking the true Church … The Church is in great danger! It was shown to me that there were almost no Christians left in the old acceptation of the word! … The Church is completely isolated and as if completely deserted. It seems that everyone is running away.” As Our Lord warned: “When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, then flee to the mountains!” (Matthew 24:15-16).
Our Lady did not only suffer seven times―it would be ridiculous to imagine and hold such a viewpoint. As Our Lady herself reveals―to the Venerable Mary of Agreda―her life was a life of continual suffering, just like that of her Divine Son. She says: “In order merely to save mortals, it was not necessary to suffer so much … My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much! He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls! … He began to suffer as soon as He was born into the world, and His sufferings continued until He died on the Cross! … After I was born into the world, I was resigned and contented in all the difficulties, which I underwent … I underwent the hardships of infancy as other children and I was reared and treated as others of the same condition. I felt hunger, thirst, sleepiness and other infirmities of the body, and, as a daughter of Adam, I was subject to these accidental necessities; for it was just that I should imitate my most holy Son, who subjected Himself to these hardships and defects … At other times it was necessary for me to suffer and to be afflicted in the lower part of my soul or in my sensitive faculties; at other times again I suffered want, loneliness and interior dereliction … Many times sorrows would have deprived me of life, if the Lord himself had not preserved it ... I wish thee to remember that to suffer and to be afflicted, with or without one’s fault, is a benefit of which one cannot be worthy without special and great mercy of the Almighty. Moreover, to be allowed to suffer for one’s sins, is not only a mercy, but is demanded by justice. If this doctrine of suffering were not most valuable and secure, We would not have taught suffering by word and example. Many times I shall repeat to thee the lesson containing the greatest wisdom for souls―which consists in the knowledge of the cross; in the love of sufferings; and in putting this knowledge into practice by bearing afflictions with patience.”
Why did Our Lord suffer? Why did Our Lady suffer? The answer is twofold―they suffered because of our sins; and they suffered because of their pity, compassion and love for poor sinners.
Born to Suffer and Die!
Believe it or not―like it or not―accept it or not―the truth remains true. We were born to suffer! It is an inescapable consequence of Original Sin as well our own personal sins. Sins requires the “death sentence” as its punishment because sin is the greatest evil in the world. The following quotes will prove this: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth” … “Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Venial sin is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin” (The Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke; My Catholic Faith, Bishop Morrow, STD).
A “death sentence” is the natural consequential punishment for having committed a great crime―and, as the above quote shows, sin is the greatest crime that there is and it is the umbrella for countless different kinds of sins. “Sin hath reigned to death!” (Romans 5:21). “Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:15). “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “Everyone shall die for his own sin!” (Deuteronomy 24:16). “From the woman came the beginning of sin, and by her we all die!” (Ecclesiasticus 25:33). “Death reigned from Adam” (Romans 5:14). “By one man sin entered into this world [like a virus―the virus of Original Sin], and, by sin, death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned!” (Romans 5:12). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10).
We Like to Sin―But We Hate Suffering For It
Our credit-conscious world―buy now and pay later―hides from us the real consequences of the purchases that we wildly, blindly and imprudently make! Everyone is debt―nations and individuals. Debt is no longer a “four-letter” word that should be avoided―today, debt is part and parcel of “normal” life. Our culture has become a “buy now and pay later” culture, with little care or worry being given to the debts that incur. We think very little of spending beyond our means and capacity to repay what we buy on credit. Unfortunately, that attitude spills over into the spiritual sphere, whereby we think little of price of sin, and only look at the immediate pleasure that sin can bring! Sin brings pleasure, the cost brings sorrow. Since we have all committed the two greatest evils in the world―mortal sin and venial sin―we quite naturally and justly deserve to suffer and experience sorrow. Without payment for sin and sorrow for sin, there can be no joy of Heaven. Hence, you can quite rightly say that sorrow is our staple diet in this world―which is why, in the prayer, Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen), we speak of our life on Earth as being a “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.” We, on the other hand, would prefer to live life “laughing and rejoicing in valley of fun”! How naïve and self-centered can we possibly be? As Our Lady lamented to the Venerable Mary of Agreda:
“It is a great shame and a great boldness on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering! For as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … Their inclinations and their blind love of visible things, detains them and makes them hard and heavy of heart―these inclinations and this blindness rob them of remembrance and affection toward these higher things, which could raise them above their worldliness … Nearly all of them strive to avoid labor and suffering and are frightened by the royal and secure road of mortification and the Cross … They do not seek the medicine of suffering … Why then will mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? They play-down their faults, extol their virtues and abilities! … Some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment! … As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation!”
As We Sow, So We Reap
What Our Lady says is so true ― “They expecting, in spite of their sins, to become worthy of enjoying God! … They play-down their faults, extol their virtues and abilities! … Some expect to be distinguished by God, while others expect to be pardoned without penance!” That pretty much paints an accurate picture of most Catholics―minimalists, half-hearted, distracted, part-timers, lukewarm and worldly! There is no place for such persons in Heaven. Our Lord made that abundantly clear on many occasions:
“The prince of this world [the devil] cometh, and in Me he hath not anything!” (John 14:30). “My kingdom is not of this world!” (John 18:36). “You are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). “The world hateth Me because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil!” (John 7:7). “I came to call sinners to penance!” (Luke 5:32) … “Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3) … “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38) … “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God!” (Luke 18:18-25) ... “For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20) … “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12).
Holy Scripture elsewhere adds: “For I am the Lord your God―be holy because I am holy! … You shall be holy unto Me, because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have separated you from other people, that you should be Mine!” (Leviticus 11:44; 20:26) … “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32) … “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8).
Laugh Now and Pay Later―Or Sorrow Now and Laugh Later!
As the Imitation of Christ says: “It is vanity, therefore, to seek and trust in riches that perish. It is vanity also to court honor and to be puffed up with pride. It is vanity to follow the lusts of the body and to desire things for which severe punishment later must come. It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life. It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come. It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides” (Book 1, Chapter 1). In other words, the seeking of joys is vanity, whereas the sorrow that comes from living a truly Christian life is wisdom.
As stated above―sin automatically and justly brings suffering with it. How on earth can be expect to live a life of unhindered joy and fun after having offended Almighty God. The Imitation of Christ further adds: “Do you expect to escape what no mortal man can ever avoid? Which of the saints was without a cross or trial on this Earth? Not even Jesus Christ! … Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him!” (Book 2, Chapter 11).
Holy Scripture warns us: “When thou comest to the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation! … For gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation!” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1, 5) … “As silver is tried by fire, and gold in the furnace―so the Lord trieth the hearts” (Proverbs 17:3). To which the Imitation of Christ adds: “No man is fit to enjoy Heaven unless he has resigned himself to suffer hardship for Christ! Nothing is more acceptable to God, nothing more helpful for you on this Earth than to suffer willingly for Christ! … The whole life of Christ was a cross and a martyrdom, and do you seek rest and enjoyment for yourself? You deceive yourself, you are mistaken if you seek anything but to suffer, for this mortal life is full of miseries and marked with crosses on all sides ... Why, then, do you fear to take up the cross when through it you can win a kingdom? … There is no salvation of soul nor hope of everlasting life except in the cross … Take up your cross, therefore, and follow Jesus, and you shall enter eternal life! … If you share His suffering, you shall also share His glory! …
“Go where you will, seek what you will … arrange and order everything to suit your will and preferences―and you will still find that some suffering must always be borne, willingly or unwillingly, and thus you will always find the cross. Either you will experience bodily pain or you will undergo tribulation of spirit in your soul. At times you will be forsaken by God, at times troubled by those about you and, what is worse, you will often grow weary of yourself. You cannot escape, you cannot be relieved by any remedy or comfort but must bear with it as long as God wills. For He wishes you to learn to bear trial without consolation, to submit yourself wholly to Him so that you may become more humble through suffering ... The cross, therefore, is always ready; it awaits you everywhere. No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it, for wherever you go you take yourself with you and shall always find yourself. Turn where you will — above, below, without, or within — you will find a cross in everything! … If you cast away one cross, you will find another and perhaps a heavier one! … If, indeed, there were anything better or more useful for man’s salvation than suffering, Christ would have shown it by word and example. But He clearly exhorts the disciples who follow Him and all who wish to follow Him to carry the cross” (Book 2, Chapter 12).
The Cross is a Sorrow―Suffering is a Sorrow!
There is no escaping the fact that cross brings sorrow, just as suffering brings sorrow―in fact, you could say that the “cross” and “suffering” are both flip-sides of the same coin. Our Lord is equally known as the “Man of Sorrows” (Isaias 53:3) as well being known as the “Man on the Cross” (Matthew 27:40-42; Mark 15:30-32). Christ and His followers are not made for partying: “Let us walk honestly, not in partying and drunkenness” (Romans 13:13) … “Be not drunk with wine, but be ye filled with the Holy Spirit!” (Ephesians 5:18). “A fool lifts up his voice in laughter―but a wise man will scarce laugh low to himself!” (Ecclesiasticus 21:23). “Laughter shall be mingled with sorrow, and mourning taketh hold of joy!” (Proverbs 14:13) … “Laughter I counted as an error! And to mirth I said: ‘Why art thou vainly deceived?’” (Ecclesiastes 2:2). “The laughter of sinners is at the pleasures of sin” (Ecclesiasticus 27:14). “Cleanse your hands, ye sinners: and purify your hearts, ye double minded! Be afflicted, mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into sorrow!” (James 4:8-9). Our Lord affirmed and confirmed this at the Last Supper, when He said to His Apostles: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20) ― where and when? In Heaven at the end of their lives! Until then, they would suffer and be sorrowful, much as Our Lady said to St. Bernadette at Lourdes: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life, but in the next life!” ― which was also true for Our Lady’s own life on Earth, which was one of continual suffering.
Mary’s School of Suffering
Our Lady herself speaks of her school of suffering to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, seeking an enrollment in its classes: “My most holy Son and myself are trying to find among those who have arrived at the way of the Cross, some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the souls, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings (cf. Matthew 5:10) ... When my Son assumed all the sufferings of His Passion, He became for us a Teacher, who practices what He teaches! … This was set before the eyes of the Catholics, and can be plainly read by them, like a book of life, during their whole earthly pilgrimage―but there are only a few and remotely scattered souls who enter into this school and study this book, while countless are the wayward and foolish, who ignore this science in their unwillingness to be taught! ... This is the teaching of the school of the Redeemer, hidden from those living in Babylon and from those who love vanity! … If you wish to be Our disciple, then enter into this school―in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross … In this science of suffering are renewed all the blessed riches of the creatures―those that flee from them are insane, those that know nothing of this science, are foolish! … In order that you may advance in my school, I wish to see you poor, humble, despised, abased―yet always with a cheerful heart and countenance ... In the school of humility, I want you to be studious and diligent; and this should be your first and principal care … I admonish and command you to go to the greatest extremes, if you wish to remain in my school and be endowed with the perfection taught in my school! … In my school I want you to learn the love, the gratitude and humility that is required of a true disciple of mine; for I desire that you distinguish yourself and advance exceedingly! ... Do not try to repay yourself with the applause or the love of any creature, nor allow human sentiment to rule over you! … Earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible with this wisdom; nor is the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the bleary-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors!”
Seven Sorrows in the School of Suffering
As already stated above―Our Lady did not merely suffer seven things in her life, but her life was filled with continuous suffering. She herself says to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “My life was a continual suffering! ... The sorrow which I suffered is so little noticed by the living! … I suffered much more than the martyrs in all their torments! … My Son and I embraced the way of the Cross and suffering for the whole course of our natural life! … My Son and I suffered so much for creatures and for their salvation! … For them We suffered and endured such bitter sorrows! … What tribulations and hardships we suffered! … I blessed the Lord to be able to suffer! … All that I suffered seemed little―and I continually longed to suffer still more! ... I suffered with eagerness! … This desire for suffering led me on in the way of suffering … thus permitting me to endure so much the greater sufferings! … I would have been ready to suffer the greatest torments of the world! … I desired to take upon myself the sufferings of all men … There is no torment, not even death itself, that I would have refused, if such had been necessary to save any of the damned―and to save them, I would have esteemed all sufferings a sweet alleviation! ... … I never presumed to ask the Lord anything for the sake of ridding myself of suffering!”
It is in the so-called “Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary” that we receive an introductory course, a brief overview, a selection of seven sufferings out the innumerable, countless, unimaginable sufferings that she actually endured. These seven selected sufferings are like a “taster”―much like the sausage on the stick offered in supermarkets to tempt to taste it so that you might be tempted to purchase it. Or you could compare these seven sufferings to a movie-trailer which seeks to entice you to actually go and see the whole movie.
Just like the Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, each of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady contain a myriad, a plethora, a treasure chest of teachings, instructions, examples and encouragements. They are like a bottomless well of grace and consolation. The words of the Epistle from a Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary could also be applied to these Seven Sorrows: “In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue! Come to me, all you that yearn for me, and be filled with my fruits! For my spirit is sweeter than honey, and my inheritance better to have than honey and the honeycomb. My memory is to everlasting generations! They who eat of me will hunger still more, and they who drink of me will thirst for more!” Let us then “eat” and “taste” these Seven Sorrows of Our Lady and savor their “sweetness” and rejoice in their “truths” and “drink” their instructions, while begging for the grace to “hunger” and “thirst for more”!
► THE FIRST SORROW ― SIMEON’S PROPHECY
We all know―or should know―the prophecy that St. Simeon made to Our Lady in the Temple at the time of Our Lord’s presentation in the Temple shortly after His birth: “And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother: ‘Behold this Child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; and thy own soul a sword shall pierce, so that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed!’” (Luke 2:34-35).
What should be a joyful occasion is ‘ruined’ (according to a worldly attitude) by this prophecy of great sorrow! Simeon foretold to Mary her martyrdom of sorrow; the damnation of those who would reject Jesus and the salvation of those who would accept Him. Mary, hearing this terrible prediction, did not answer one word, felt no agitation of mind, no dread for the future―but courageously and sweetly committed all to God’s holy will. In effect, her attitude echoed her words at the Annunciation: “Be it done unto me according to thy word!”
Yet that acceptance of God’s will was not just in sweet, pleasant, advantageous and beneficial things and circumstances―but also in things and circumstances that were bitter, unpleasant, disadvantageous, detrimental, unjust, painful and excruciating! She would not shirk suffering and sorrow―she would embrace being the Mother of Sorrows. She would later say to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside ... How persistently they forget, that their Teacher and Master has first accepted sufferings, and has honored and sanctified them in his own Person! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering, even after my most holy Son did suffer for them! You cannot follow Christ, if you refuse to embrace the Cross and rejoice in it!”
Being a Christian means carrying Christ’s cross ― “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
In a certain sense, Simeon’s prophecy about Christ being contradicted and rejected, with a sword piercing Mary’s soul―is also a prophecy that applies to every single Christian: “The sword reacheth even to the soul” (Jeremias 4:10). Our Lord said to His followers: “If you had been of the world, the world would love its own! But because you are not of the world―for I have chosen you out of the world―therefore the world hateth you!” (John 15:19). “If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you!” (John 15:18). In fact, if the world loves you―then you have to start asking yourself: “What am I doing wrong?” To be loved by the world is just a serious a situation as Pope Francis being loved by the enemies of the Church! [read about it here].
We cannot have God as our Master while simultaneously have the world as our master ― “You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). Yet how many Catholics, who pretend to love God, actually love the world and think about the world more they love and think about God? The vast majority! Is it then a surprise or a shock that the vast majority of Catholics are lost and damned? “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! [Neither is Our Lady!] For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8).
If we wish to be saved, then we will inescapably be disliked, hated, persecuted and even put to death by the world―salvation requires that our souls be pierced by the sword of the world. “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! You shall be hated by all men and all nations for My Name’s sake! ... Many shall betray one another and shall hate one another! … You shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake! They will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death! The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death; and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22, 34-36; 24:9-10; Luke 12:51-53).
Simeon’s prophecy also applies to us for we the spiritual children of the Mother of God―“As the mother was, so also is her daughter” (Ezechiel 16:44). “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). We must therefore―like Our Lord and Our Lady―“Fight the good fight of Faith and lay hold on eternal life, whereunto we arr called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). Consequently, the sword that we must fight with is the Word of God: “In all things taking the shield of Faith and the sword of the Spirit―which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:16-17). “He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword!” (Isaias 49:2). “I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth!” (Apocalypse 2:16). “From His mouth came out a sharp two-edged sword” (Apocalypse 1:16). “For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword; reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).
In this fight of the Faith and for the Faith, we will be attacked with worldly swords―the words of the world, the sharp criticisms, the piercing mockeries, the slashes from satanic seductions. We will be attacked on all sides―attacks from te world and attacks from within the Catholic Church; attacks from governing bodies and attacks from our own clergy; attacks from enemies and attacks from ‘friends’; attacks from strangers and attacks from family. Our souls will be truly pierced if we are truly Catholic. Such is lot of Christ’s faithful―such is the prophecy for Mary’s children.
► THE SECOND SORROW ― FLIGHT INTO EGYPT
Christ fled! Mary and Joseph fled! Christ was the almighty God―the Second Person of the Holy Trinity! Why did God flee from men? Wasn’t that an act of cowardice? Couldn’t Christ have changed King Herod’s murderous mind? Couldn’t He have paralyzed his murderous plans? Couldn’t He have even struck the murderous Herod dead? Didn’t God destroy Pharao’s murderously pursuing army in the Red Sea? Didn’t God strike down nations that threatened Israel? Well here is someone greater that the Chosen People―here we Christ the Son of God being threatened! Did not the Machabees fight instead of fleeing? “Then Judas Machabeus said: ‘God forbid that we should flee away from them! But if our time is come, then let us die manfully for our brethren!” (1 Machabees 9:10).
Holy Scripture speaks of there being a suitable time for all things: “All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under Heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to destroy, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather. A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. A time to get, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak. A time of love, and a time of hatred. A time of war, and a time of peace” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) ― to which we could add: “A time to fight, and a time to flee!” Which is why, among the passions that God has built into human nature, we have the passions that drive us to fight and also drive us to flee.
On many occasions God has commanded His Chosen ones to fight―and yet on other occasions He has commanded them to flee. God, through His prophet Jeremias, often counsels certain persons to flee the cities or kingdoms in which they lived in order to avoid the impending destruction of God’s chastisements: “Flee! Save your lives! Be as heath in the wilderness!” (Jeremias 48:6) … “A few men that shall flee from the sword, shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Juda!” (Jeremias 44:28) … “Flee and go down into the deep hole, ye inhabitants of Dedan! For I have brought the destruction upon him in the time of his visitation!” (Jeremias 49:8) … “Flee! Get away speedily and sit in deep holes, you that inhabit Asor, saith the Lord. For Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, hath taken counsel against you, and hath conceived designs against you!” (Jeremias 49:30) … “Flee ye from the midst of Babylon and let everyone save his own life! For it is the time of revenge from the Lord, he will I render unto her what she hath deserved!” (Jeremias 51:6).
We see God’s favored one―King David, whom God said was “a man according to My Own Heart” (Acts 13:22)―also flee danger: “Saul endeavored to nail David to the wall with his spear. And David slipped away out of the presence of Saul and the spear missed him, and was fastened in the wall, and David fled and escaped that night” (1 Kings 19:10). “David said in his heart: ‘I shall one day or other fall into the hands of Saul! Is it not better for me to flee and to be saved in the land of the Philistines, so that Saul may cease to seek me? I will flee then out of his hands!’” (1 Kings 27:1). “David said to his servants, that were with him in Jerusalem: ‘Arise and let us flee! For we shall not otherwise escape else from the face of Absalom! Make haste to go out, lest he come and overtake us, and bring ruin upon us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword!’” (2 Kings 15:14).
Our Lord Himself says: “And when they shall persecute you in this city―flee into another!” (Matthew 10:23) … “When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place―then they that are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains! … But pray that your flight be not in the winter!” (Matthew 24:16, 20). Jesus also fled when they wanted to make Him king: “Jesus, when He knew that they would come to take Him by force and make Him king, fled into the mountain Himself alone” (John 6:15).
In the Summa Theologica (IIa-IIae, q. 97, article 1), St. Thomas Aquinas, quotes St. Augustine: “Hence Augustine says that ‘St. Paul fled, not through ceasing to believe in God, but lest he should tempt God, if he were not to flee when he had the means of flight.’” St. Thomas also observes that to flee an evil through fear of God’s chastisement is something that is praiseworthy.
Furthermore, we are encouraged to “flee from evil things” (Proverbs 13:19) ― which obviously includes the world and the worldly: “What fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God! As God saith: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people!’ Wherefore, ‘Go out from among them, and be ye separate!’ saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17). “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).
Our Lady and St. Joseph―with only a moment’s notice―packed what little they had taken to Bethlehem from their home in Nazareth and fled to Egypt. They were obliged to leave behind their property, their belongings, their family, relatives and friends, their country of birth―and flee to a foreign country where they would have little or no support, no friends, no family, no guaranteed labor, no guaranteed place of abode, etc.
Sometimes we might also be forced to flee from our own family, our friends, our home, our job, even our country or state because of a threat to our Faith. Our Lord did not promise a “hunky-dory” Catholics milieu or environment to us―not even among family! He said, as already partially quoted above:
“Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no; but separation! Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:34-39; Luke 12:51-53).
Today, many families are divided―even Catholic families. The Faith no longer unites them―instead, the world divides them. That is the ploy of Satan―to divide and conquer. Our Lady of La Salette warned that “God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family.” Gradually, yet ceaselessly, as Our Lady also said: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God!” We are right in the middle of that erosion of the Faith and the crumbling of the Church. When a building is crumbling and collapsing, it is sheer stupidity to remain inside it―one has to flee to a safe distance!
Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich has spoken at length about the visions that God showed her concerning a collapsing Church and Faith in our days. She said: “They were building a large, strange, and extravagant church there in Rome … I did not see a single angel, nor a single saint helping in the work ... There was nothing holy in it. They had preaching and singing, but nothing else [which possibly implies the absence of the true Sacrifice of the Mass in this new church], and only very few attended it. All was dead, the work of human skill, a church of the latest style, a church of man’s invention like the new heterodox church in Rome … There was something proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed very successful. I saw the fatal consequences of this counterfeit church … All sorts of abominations were perpetrated there … I saw how harmful would be the consequences of this false church. I saw it increase in size; I saw heretics of all kinds flocking to the city of Rome … Everyone was to be admitted in it in order to be united and have equal rights―Evangelicals, Catholics, sects of every description [all of which describes the current false spirit of Ecumenism that invaded the Church at the Council] ... The Protestant doctrine and that of the schismatic Greeks is to spread everywhere! … Then I saw that everything pertaining to Protestantism was gradually gaining the upper hand, and the Catholic religion fell into complete decadence ... I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions ... Then I saw darkness spreading around and people no longer seeking the true Church … The Church is in great danger! It was shown to me that there were almost no Christians left in the old acceptation of the word! … The Church is completely isolated and as if completely deserted. It seems that everyone is running away.” As Our Lord warned: “When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, then flee to the mountains!” (Matthew 24:15-16).
Article 8
Thursday September 15th, 2022
Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Living in Mary's Sorrowful Heart and Soul!
Thursday September 15th, 2022
Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Living in Mary's Sorrowful Heart and Soul!
Like Son, Like Mother! Like Mother, Like Son!
You have, no doubt heard of the idiom: “They are like two peas in a pod!” ― meaning that two things are so similar that there is very little difference between them. The idiom “two peas in a pod” is applied to two people are very much alike; one being similar to the other person, either in appearance, character, attitude, viewpoints, or because both people like doing the same things. In this sense, you could say of Jesus and Mary are like “two peas in a pod” ― for one reflects the other perfectly.
We also have a common phrase that is somewhat similar: “Like father, like son; like mother, like daughter!” ― which we also find in Holy Scripture, stated thus: “As the mother was, so also is her daughter!” (Ezechiel 16:44). Children, at a very young age, tend to imitate all that they see their parents do―are we the same with Jesus and Mary? St. Paul says more than once: “Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers [imitators] of me, as I also am of Christ! … Be ye followers [imitators] of me, as I also am of Christ! … And you became followers of us, and of the Lord; receiving the word in much tribulation!” (1 Corinthians 4:16; 11:1; 1 Thessalonians 1:6) … “For yourselves know how you ought to imitate us: for we give ourselves as a pattern unto you, to imitate us” (2 Thessalonians 3:7-9). To which St. Peter adds: “Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow His steps!” (1 Peter 2:21). St. John further adds: “He that says he abides in Christ, ought himself also to walk, even as Christ walked!” (1 John 2:6).
Another pertinent saying is: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness!” Our Lord and Our Lady are greatness personified―and we are mediocrity personified! The best thing that we can try and do is to imitate Our Lord and Our Lady! That imitation of Jesus and Mary includes that dreaded, hated, repulsive, shocking requirement of SUFFERING! As Our Lord says of that dreaded, hated, repulsive and shocking cross that He requires us to carry: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Our Lady―who is also the Mother of Sorrows―adds: “My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much and that He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls … He began to suffer as soon as He was born into the world and His sufferings continued until He died on the Cross … It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering, even after my most holy Son did suffer for them … Many there are who wish to follow Christ, but very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … Thou canst not follow Christ, if thou refuse to embrace the Cross and rejoice in it! … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment! … nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation!”
Soul to Soul with Our Sorrowful Mother
On this feast of the Seven Sorrows, it might be a good idea to have a ‘soul to soul’ conversation with our Sorrowful Mother, and let her tell us some of the things that cause her pain. We speak of the Seven Swords of Sorrow that pierced her Sorrowful Heart, but there are not only Seven Sorrows, they must be as innumerable as the grains of sand on the beach or the stars in the sky. We often say, “A problem shared is a problem halved!” Perhaps Our Lady will share some of her anxieties and sufferings with us! We will take her at her word by the words she spoke to the Venerable Mary of Agreda—whose body still lies uncorrupted today, just as Our Lady’s words are still as incorrupt today as they were back in the 1600’s.
Holy Soul
The physical body of the Venerable Mary of Agreda is incorruptible, that is, not subject to rot and decay after death. During an opening of her casket in 1909, a cursory scientific examination was performed on the body. In 1989, a Spanish physician, named Andreas Medina, participated in another examination of Sister María de Jesús de Ágreda, as she lay in the convent of the Conceptionist nuns, the same monastery where she had lived in the 17th century. Dr. Medina told investigative journalist Javier Sierra, in 1991: “What most surprised me about that case is that when we compared the state of the body, as it was described in the medical report from 1909, with how it appeared in 1989, we realized it had absolutely not deteriorated at all in the last eighty years.” Complete photographic and other evidence was obtained by investigators before her casket was re-sealed. Now, her incorrupt body can be visited in the Church of the Convent of Ágreda.
The words that follow are almost exclusively the words of Our Lady, as she dictated them to the Venerable Sister María de Jesús de Ágreda. A short comment or liasing phrase may be inserted here or there. The subtitles are, of course, added to give or create a uniformity of thought.
Backward Souls
“Many other souls have reached the heights of perfection and have then fallen most unfortunately, arriving at a state in which they almost despaired, or found themselves incapable of rising. This sad state causes many things. The first is the dismay and endless confusion of one who feels that he has fallen from an exalted state of virtue; for he knows that he has not only lost great blessings, but now he does not expect to obtain greater ones than those of the past and those he has lost; nor can he guarantee more firmness with himself in keeping those he can obtain, through renewed efforts, than he has shown in the past with those blessings he acquired but has now lost through his ingratitude” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Hopeless Souls
“From this dangerous distrust of self, in not knowing if he will do better in the future, originates lukewarmness, lack of fervor and diligence, absence of zeal and devotion. Such a heavy and distrustful heart extinguishes all these in the soul, just as the opposite―the liveliness of ardent hope―overcomes many difficulties, and strengthens weak human creatures to undertake great works” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Negligent Irreverent Souls
“Another obstacle there is, not less formidable, namely: that the souls accustomed to the blessings of God, either through their office—as priests and religious—or by the exercise of virtues and the abundance of divine favors—as spiritual minded persons—these souls usually aggravate their sins by a certain contempt of these very blessings and a certain abuse of divine things. For, because of the abundance of the divine favors, they fall into a dangerous dullness of mind. They begin to think little of the divine favors and become irreverent. Thus failing to cooperate with God’s grace, they hinder its effect. They lose the grace of holy fear of the Lord, which arouses and stimulates the will to obey the divine commandments and to be alert in the avoidance of sin and pursuit of eternal life in the friendship of God” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Lukewarm Souls
“This is an evident danger for lukewarm priests, who frequent the Holy Eucharist and other Sacraments, without fear and reverence; also for the souls of the learned and wise, as well as those who hold some power in this world, who are so reluctant to correct and amend their lives. They have lost the appreciation and veneration of the remedial helps of the Church, namely, the Sacraments, preaching and instruction. Thus, these medicines, which for other sinners are so salutary and counteract ignorance, end up weakening those who are the physicians of the spiritual life” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
“The worldlings in their lukewarmness are moved, neither by the duty of conforming to their Father and Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Sinful Souls
“Ordinarily the demons have no power over souls, unless they gain entrance by some venial or mortal fault. Mortal sin gives them a sort of direct right over those who commit it; while venial sin weakens the strength of the soul and invites their attacks. Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous lukewarmness” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Careless Neglectful Souls
“The same enemy instills into the parents a base neglectfulness and carnal love for their offspring; and he incites the teachers to carelessness, so that the children find no support against evil in their education, but become depraved and spoiled by many bad habits, losing sight of virtue and of their good inclinations and going the way of perdition” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Unrestrained Souls
They live amid the darkness of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and show no care for where they walk, even if it is to the most dangerous precipices” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Tormented Souls
“Imagine what ought to be the grief of losing God really by sin! But this wisdom seems far from the mind of carnal men: with a most perverse blindness they continue to acquire and make much of the visible and fictitious goods of the world, and they torment themselves and are disconsolate, whenever it fails them. Because they never taste, or recognize, the highest and truest Good, they take no thought or reckoning of It. O sorrow, how easily Charity [which is a love of God, first and foremost] is wasted and set aside for any kind of pleasure, and how often Faith remains without any fruit and is involved in death!” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Faithless Souls
“If the faithful do not feel these and even more wonderful effects of Faith, it is not because Faith has not the strength and efficacy to produce them, but it is because some of the faithful are so forgetting and negligent, while others give themselves up so much to a carnal and bestial life and thereby counteract the blessing of Faith. They think so rarely of it, that they might as well not have received it at all. As they live like the infidels, who have never enjoyed its advantages, and, as they gradually become conscious of their unhappy infidelity, they fall into greater wickedness than the unbelievers. For such is the result of their abominable ingratitude and contempt for this exalted and sovereign gift of their Faith” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Unhappy Souls
“Hence thou canst judge of the blind ignorance with which their deadly enemies have fascinated mortals, since all men, in the inordinate desire and pursuit of happiness, neglect the divine law, where alone it can be found; and hence few really attain happiness” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Pleasure-Seeking Souls
“Consider then, whether anything deserves greater pity, than to see so many men misled into danger and made forgetful of it; how some of them cast themselves into it, on account of their lightheartedness, some of them for trivial reasons, others for a short and instantaneous pleasure, others through negligence, and yet others on account of their inordinate appetites” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Fearless Souls
“In this life, any punishment or tribulation fills mortals with fear and dread, but the guilt of sin does not fill them with dread. Men are entirely taken up by that which is visible, and they therefore do not look upon the ultimate consequences of sin, which is the eternal punishment of Hell. The human heart becomes so forgetful that it remains, as if it were stupefied, in its wickedness, because it does not feel it present in its senses. Though it could see and feel it by Faith, its Faith is itself listless and dead. (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Blind Souls
“O most unhappy blindness of mortals! O lukewarm negligence, that holds so many souls in deceit! There are not words or sentences sufficient to describe this terrible and tremendous danger. Fear and flee such an unhappy state, and deliver thyself up to all the troubles and torments of life, which pass soon, rather than incur such a danger; for nothing will be lacking to thee, if thou do not lose God. Be convinced that there are no small faults! Fear greatly the small things, for in despising small faults the Most High knows, that the human heart invites other greater ones” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Preoccupied Souls
“In conversing with or worshiping the Most High, they fail to form a worthy concept of His infinite greatness, and fail to free themselves from thoughts of their earthly occupations, which thus make them lukewarm and carnal, unworthy and unfit for the magnificent communication with God [through prayer]. And this ill-bred coarseness entails another disorder: namely, that whenever they talk with their neighbors, they do it without order, measure or discretion; they become entangled in their outward actions, and losing the memory and presence of God in the excitement of their passions, and become completely entangled in what is earthly” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Thankless Souls
“If the children of the Holy Church would pause in their vain occupations and be ashamed of their lukewarm forgetfulness and repudiate their vile ingratitude. Let them be undeceived, for most terrible punishments await them” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Lost Souls
“They are surrounded by innumerable enemies [the invisible devils], who pursue them with diabolical treachery, unceasing vigilance, unquenchable wrath and restless diligence. What wonder then, that from such extremes, or rather from such unequal combat, irreparable defeats should arise among the mortals? And that, since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the damned should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men? May God preserve thee from such a misfortune; and do thou weep and deplore the misfortunes of thy brethren, continually asking for their salvation, as far as is possible” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Fervent Souls
“The fulfillment of the precepts of the Lord must not be cold and lukewarm, but most fervent and devoted” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
“Thou must continue without intervals of lukewarmness, lest thou disgust Him. At all times and in all places, occupations and operations, thou must keep God in sight. I command thee to treat Him with a magnanimous heart, with decorum and reverence, with deep felt fear of the soul. And whatever pertains to His divine worship, I desire that thou handle with all attention and care. Above all, in order to enter into His presence by prayer and petitions, free thyself from all sensible and earthly images” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
“It is necessary, that thou live retired within thyself, forgetful of all the visible and terrestrial things, most attentive to the divine light, which assists thee and protects thy sensible faculties with double vestments against the influences of lukewarmness and coldness on the way of perfection; and it is necessary, that thou resist the incitements of thy unruly passions” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Abandoned Souls
“Receive knowledge and enlightenment for avoiding such dangerous and gross lukewarmness. Jesus withdraws from the lukewarm and negligent souls, or deals with them only according to the general rules of His divine Providence … [which will then bring about] “the losses sustained by them through their lukewarmness and negligence” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Reformed Souls
Let us take these words to heart and reform our souls! Who is there, among us, who can say: “I am good enough! I have no need to change anything in my life! I have nobody else to reach and convert! I have paid all my debts for past sin! I will go straight to Heaven with no fear of Purgatory or Hell!” If there is someone like that out there reading this—then please pray for the rest of us!!
Let the Sorrowful Hearts Speak
Today being the feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is only fitting that we let our Sorrowful Mother and her Sorrowful Son—the Man of Sorrows—do most of the talking, while we, like Mary Magdalen place ourselves at their feet—either listening attentively to their words, or weeping sincerely over their feet for our may sins.
Our Lord Wants…
Berthe Petit, was a humble Franciscan Tertiary, a victim soul and apostle of Devotion to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Born January 23rd, 1870 in Enghien, Belgium and dying during the Second World War in 1943, Berthe had been privileged with visions of both Our Lord and The Blessed Virgin Mary since she was 4-years-old. From the age of 38, for the last 35 years of her life, she lived only on Holy Communion, taking no other food. To Berthe Petit, Our Lord said: “Teach souls to love the Heart of My Mother pierced with sorrow that transfixed My Own Heart.”
“My Mother’s Heart has the right to the title of Sorrowful. I desire that it be set before her title of Immaculate, because she herself has won it. The Church has recognized what I Myself did for My Mother: her Immaculate Conception. Now it is necessary, and it is My wish, that this title, which is, by right, My Mother’s, should be understood and recognized. This title she earned by her identification with all My sufferings, by her sorrow, her sacrifice, her immolation on Calvary, and indeed for the salvation of mankind.”
“My desire flows from My love on Calvary. In giving John to My Mother as a son, I entrusted the whole world to her Sorrowful Motherhood.”
“The title of Immaculate belongs to the whole being of My Mother and not specially to her Heart. The title flows from my gratuitous gift to the Virgin, who was to give Me birth. My Mother has acquired, from her Heart, the title of ‘Sorrowful’ by sharing generously in all the sufferings of My Heart and My Body—from the crib to the cross. There is not one of these Sorrows which did not pierce the Heart of My Mother. Living image of My crucified Body, her virginal flesh bore the invisible marks of My wounds, as her Heart felt the Sorrows of My own. Nothing could ever tarnish the incorruptibility of her Immaculate Heart. The title of ‘Sorrowful’ belongs, therefore, to the Heart of My Mother, and more than any other, this title is dear to her, because it springs from the union of her Heart with Mine in the redemption of humanity. This title has been acquired by her through her full participation in My Calvary, and it precedes the gratuitous title ‘Immaculate’ which My love bestowed upon her by a singular privilege.”
“The time is now ripe and I wish mankind to turn to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother. Let this prayer be uttered by every soul: ‘Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.’ Let this prayer dictated by My Love as a supreme succor be approved and indulgenced, no longer partially and for a small portion of My flock, but for the whole universe, so that it may spread as a refreshing and purifying balm of reparation that will appease My anger. This Devotion to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother will restore faith and hope to broken hearts and to ruined families: it will help to repair the destruction: it will sweeten sorrow. It will be a new strength for My Church, bringing souls, not only to confidence in My Heart, but also to abandonment to the Sorrowful Heart of My Mother.”
“It is hearts that must be changed. This will be accomplished only by the Devotion proclaimed, explained, preached and recommended everywhere. Recourse to My Mother under the title I wish for her universally, is the last help I shall give before the end of time.”
“This is the last help which I give before the end of time: the recourse to My Mother under the title which I desire shall be hers throughout the whole world.”
“In the hour of triumph” Our Lord said to Berthe one day “it will be made clearly manifest that I Myself have inspired, in those whom I have freely chosen, a devotion similar to that given to My own Heart. It is as a Son that I have conceived this devotion for My Mother. It is as God that I impose it.”
“Let every soul cry out: Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.”
Fatima and the Sorrowful Heart of Mary
Our Lady explicitly spoke of her Sorrowful Heart at her fifth apparition at Fatima: “Continue to pray the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war. In October Our Lord will come, as well as Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Carmel” (Our Lady at Fatima, September 13th).
By 1925, Lucia, who was now 18, had become a postulant with the Sisters of St. Dorothy at Pontevedra in Spain, and on Thursday 10 December, 1925, the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by the Child Jesus on a little cloud, appeared to her in her cell. Lucia recounted that Mary rested her hand on her shoulder, while showing her a Heart encircled by thorns in her other hand. The Child Jesus spoke first: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.”
Then Mary said: “My daughter, look at my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, try to console me, and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months go to confession and receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for a quarter of an hour while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”
Listen to Your Mother
The following passages are all excerpts taken from the words spoken by Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, as recounted in her book, Thy Mystical City of God.
Many Called, Few Chosen…Why?
“By the divine teaching, thou knowest the mysteries of the Passion and Death of Christ and the one true way of life, which is the Cross; and thou knowest that not all who are called, are chosen. Many there are who wish to follow Christ, but very few truly dispose themselves to imitate Him; for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross they cast it aside. Laborious exertions are very painful and averse to human nature according to the flesh. On this account there are so many among mortals, who seek the flesh and the continual indulgence of its pleasures. They ardently seek honors and fly from injuries: they strive after riches, and despise poverty; they long after pleasure and dread mortification. All these are enemies of the Cross of Christ and with dreadful aversion they fly from it” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Deluded Christians Fooling Themselves
“Another deceit has spread through the world: many imagine that they are following Christ their Master, though they neither suffer affliction nor engage in any exertion or labor. They are content with avoiding boldness in committing sins, and place all their perfection in a certain prudence or hollow self-love, which prevents them from denying anything to their will and from practicing any virtues at the cost of their flesh. They would easily escape this deception, if they would consider that my Son, although He well could do it, He chose not a life of softness and ease for the flesh, but one full of labors and pains; for He judged his instructions to be incomplete and insufficient, if He failed to teach them how to overcome the demon, the flesh and their own self. He wished to inculcate, that this magnificent victory is gained by the Cross, by labors, penances, mortifications and the acceptance of contempt: all of which are the trademarks and evidences of true love and the special watchwords of the predestined” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Giving “Bottom-Dollar’ for Heaven
“Tell me then, my daughter: if my Lord and Master has made Himself the Life and the Way for men through His Passion and Death, is it not evident that, in order to go that way and live up to this Truth, they must follow Christ crucified, afflicted, scourged and affronted? Consider the ignorance of men who wish to come to the Father without following Christ, since they expect to reign with God without suffering, or imitating His Passion, without even a thought of accepting any part of His Suffering and Death, or of thanking Him for it. They want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as those of Eternal Life, while Christ their Creator has suffered the most bitter pains and torments, in order to enter Heaven and to show them, by His example, how they are to find the Way of Light” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Our Lady is Angry and Incensed!
“All the faithful in such a dangerous and dreadful state of carelessness, when they have the Passion and Death of my Divine Son before their eyes. What then are the thoughts of the Angels and Saints, and what are my thoughts, in beholding this world and the small return made by heartless and ungrateful men for all our pains; and the lack of attention displayed by mortals through their lukewarmness and negligence? I am much incensed to find so few who console me and who try to console my Son in His sorrows. This hardness of heart will cause great confusion to them, on the Day of Judgment; since they will then see, with irreparable sorrow, not only that they were ungrateful, but were also inhuman and cruel towards my Divine Son, towards me and towards themselves” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
“I tell thee truly, only my intercession and the merits of His, Son, which I offer to the Eternal Father, can delay the punishment and placate His wrath, and delay the destruction of the world and the severe chastisement of the children of the Church, who know His will and fail to fulfill it” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
False and Fake Piety
“Weigh in thy heart, how much it cost my Lord to reconcile mankind to the Eternal Father and regain for them His friendship. Weep and afflict thyself that so many should live in such forgetfulness! And that so many should labor, with all their might, at destroying and losing what was bought by the Blood of God. Awaken in thy heart the deepest grief, that, in His Holy Church, there should be many followers of the hypocritical and sacrilegious priests who, under cover of a false piety, still condemn Christ; that pride and sumptuousness, with other grave vices, should be placed in authority and exalted, while humility, truth, justice and all virtues be so oppressed and debased, while avarice and vanity should prevail. Few know the poverty of Christ, and fewer embrace it. Holy Faith is hindered, and is not spread among the nations, on account of the boundless ambition of the mighty of this earth. The Faith, in many Catholics, is inactive and dead, and, what should be living, is near to death and to eternal perdition. The counsels of the Gospel are forgotten, its precepts trodden under foot, true charity is almost extinct” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
The Science of Saints
“My daughter, in all that thou art made to understand and write concerning these mysteries, thou drawest upon thyself, and upon mortals, a severe judgment, if thou dost not overcome thy pusillanimity, ingratitude and baseness, by meditating day and night on the Passion and Death of Jesus crucified. This is the great Science of the Saints, so little heeded by the worldly, it is the Bread of Life and the Spiritual Food of the little ones, which gives Wisdom to them and the lack of which starves the lovers of this proud world. In this science I wish thee to be studious and wise, for with it thou canst buy thyself all good things. My Son and Lord taught us this Science when He said: ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life: no one cometh to My Father except through Me’ (John 14:6).” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
The School of Saints
“My most holy Son and myself are trying to find, among those who have arrived at the Way of the Cross, some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine Science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the sons of Adam, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If thou wishest to be our disciple enter into this school, in which alone is taught the Doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights. With this wisdom, the earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible; nor the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the bleary-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors, and so full of ignorant admiration for costly grandeur” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
“By such standards must thou measure the value of suffering, which the worldly will not understand. Since they are unworthy of heavenly knowledge, they despise it in proportion to their ignorance. Rejoice and congratulate thyself in thy sufferings, and whenever the Almighty deigns to send thee any, hasten to meet it and welcome it as one of his blessings and pledges of his glorious love” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Don’t Just Listen ... Do Something
“With meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass. For he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was” (James 1:21-24).
Two-in One! No Kidding!
Our Lord had two natures in one person―He had the Divine nature and human nature. You could say Catholics also have two natures in one person―we are natural and supernatural, or, to hit the nail on the head—we try to be both worldly and devout! We try to live for God and live for the world. We want the benefits of both lives—earthly life and eternal life, we want our cake while wanting to eat it.
Double Trouble
Catholics often divorce Catholic theory from Catholic practice—we tend to lead “double” lives. We say our prayers but we don’t pray them. We go to Confession, confess our sins and say we are sorry—but we quickly go back to those sins without skipping a heartbeat. We know the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the same as Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary—but we are “quick-in and quick-out” with a half-hearted assistance throughout. We know we cannot serve God and mammon—but we try to fit both into our lives nonetheless. We are quicker to demand God’s forgiveness for ourselves—but are slow to forgive others. We know we should “pray without ceasing”—but we’ve long since ceased trying. We know that to follow Our Lord we take up our cross daily—yet we never cease to search for greater comfort and ease. All of this merely confirms that we are most likely on the “broad way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat” (Matthew 7:13). At best, we might be keeping our fingers-crossed daily that we at least make it into fires of Purgatory, but “crossed-fingers” is not the kind of “cross” Our Lord wants us to have!
You have, no doubt heard of the idiom: “They are like two peas in a pod!” ― meaning that two things are so similar that there is very little difference between them. The idiom “two peas in a pod” is applied to two people are very much alike; one being similar to the other person, either in appearance, character, attitude, viewpoints, or because both people like doing the same things. In this sense, you could say of Jesus and Mary are like “two peas in a pod” ― for one reflects the other perfectly.
We also have a common phrase that is somewhat similar: “Like father, like son; like mother, like daughter!” ― which we also find in Holy Scripture, stated thus: “As the mother was, so also is her daughter!” (Ezechiel 16:44). Children, at a very young age, tend to imitate all that they see their parents do―are we the same with Jesus and Mary? St. Paul says more than once: “Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers [imitators] of me, as I also am of Christ! … Be ye followers [imitators] of me, as I also am of Christ! … And you became followers of us, and of the Lord; receiving the word in much tribulation!” (1 Corinthians 4:16; 11:1; 1 Thessalonians 1:6) … “For yourselves know how you ought to imitate us: for we give ourselves as a pattern unto you, to imitate us” (2 Thessalonians 3:7-9). To which St. Peter adds: “Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow His steps!” (1 Peter 2:21). St. John further adds: “He that says he abides in Christ, ought himself also to walk, even as Christ walked!” (1 John 2:6).
Another pertinent saying is: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness!” Our Lord and Our Lady are greatness personified―and we are mediocrity personified! The best thing that we can try and do is to imitate Our Lord and Our Lady! That imitation of Jesus and Mary includes that dreaded, hated, repulsive, shocking requirement of SUFFERING! As Our Lord says of that dreaded, hated, repulsive and shocking cross that He requires us to carry: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
Our Lady―who is also the Mother of Sorrows―adds: “My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much and that He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls … He began to suffer as soon as He was born into the world and His sufferings continued until He died on the Cross … It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering, even after my most holy Son did suffer for them … Many there are who wish to follow Christ, but very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … Thou canst not follow Christ, if thou refuse to embrace the Cross and rejoice in it! … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment! … nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation!”
Soul to Soul with Our Sorrowful Mother
On this feast of the Seven Sorrows, it might be a good idea to have a ‘soul to soul’ conversation with our Sorrowful Mother, and let her tell us some of the things that cause her pain. We speak of the Seven Swords of Sorrow that pierced her Sorrowful Heart, but there are not only Seven Sorrows, they must be as innumerable as the grains of sand on the beach or the stars in the sky. We often say, “A problem shared is a problem halved!” Perhaps Our Lady will share some of her anxieties and sufferings with us! We will take her at her word by the words she spoke to the Venerable Mary of Agreda—whose body still lies uncorrupted today, just as Our Lady’s words are still as incorrupt today as they were back in the 1600’s.
Holy Soul
The physical body of the Venerable Mary of Agreda is incorruptible, that is, not subject to rot and decay after death. During an opening of her casket in 1909, a cursory scientific examination was performed on the body. In 1989, a Spanish physician, named Andreas Medina, participated in another examination of Sister María de Jesús de Ágreda, as she lay in the convent of the Conceptionist nuns, the same monastery where she had lived in the 17th century. Dr. Medina told investigative journalist Javier Sierra, in 1991: “What most surprised me about that case is that when we compared the state of the body, as it was described in the medical report from 1909, with how it appeared in 1989, we realized it had absolutely not deteriorated at all in the last eighty years.” Complete photographic and other evidence was obtained by investigators before her casket was re-sealed. Now, her incorrupt body can be visited in the Church of the Convent of Ágreda.
The words that follow are almost exclusively the words of Our Lady, as she dictated them to the Venerable Sister María de Jesús de Ágreda. A short comment or liasing phrase may be inserted here or there. The subtitles are, of course, added to give or create a uniformity of thought.
Backward Souls
“Many other souls have reached the heights of perfection and have then fallen most unfortunately, arriving at a state in which they almost despaired, or found themselves incapable of rising. This sad state causes many things. The first is the dismay and endless confusion of one who feels that he has fallen from an exalted state of virtue; for he knows that he has not only lost great blessings, but now he does not expect to obtain greater ones than those of the past and those he has lost; nor can he guarantee more firmness with himself in keeping those he can obtain, through renewed efforts, than he has shown in the past with those blessings he acquired but has now lost through his ingratitude” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Hopeless Souls
“From this dangerous distrust of self, in not knowing if he will do better in the future, originates lukewarmness, lack of fervor and diligence, absence of zeal and devotion. Such a heavy and distrustful heart extinguishes all these in the soul, just as the opposite―the liveliness of ardent hope―overcomes many difficulties, and strengthens weak human creatures to undertake great works” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Negligent Irreverent Souls
“Another obstacle there is, not less formidable, namely: that the souls accustomed to the blessings of God, either through their office—as priests and religious—or by the exercise of virtues and the abundance of divine favors—as spiritual minded persons—these souls usually aggravate their sins by a certain contempt of these very blessings and a certain abuse of divine things. For, because of the abundance of the divine favors, they fall into a dangerous dullness of mind. They begin to think little of the divine favors and become irreverent. Thus failing to cooperate with God’s grace, they hinder its effect. They lose the grace of holy fear of the Lord, which arouses and stimulates the will to obey the divine commandments and to be alert in the avoidance of sin and pursuit of eternal life in the friendship of God” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Lukewarm Souls
“This is an evident danger for lukewarm priests, who frequent the Holy Eucharist and other Sacraments, without fear and reverence; also for the souls of the learned and wise, as well as those who hold some power in this world, who are so reluctant to correct and amend their lives. They have lost the appreciation and veneration of the remedial helps of the Church, namely, the Sacraments, preaching and instruction. Thus, these medicines, which for other sinners are so salutary and counteract ignorance, end up weakening those who are the physicians of the spiritual life” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
“The worldlings in their lukewarmness are moved, neither by the duty of conforming to their Father and Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Sinful Souls
“Ordinarily the demons have no power over souls, unless they gain entrance by some venial or mortal fault. Mortal sin gives them a sort of direct right over those who commit it; while venial sin weakens the strength of the soul and invites their attacks. Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous lukewarmness” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Careless Neglectful Souls
“The same enemy instills into the parents a base neglectfulness and carnal love for their offspring; and he incites the teachers to carelessness, so that the children find no support against evil in their education, but become depraved and spoiled by many bad habits, losing sight of virtue and of their good inclinations and going the way of perdition” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Unrestrained Souls
They live amid the darkness of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and show no care for where they walk, even if it is to the most dangerous precipices” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Tormented Souls
“Imagine what ought to be the grief of losing God really by sin! But this wisdom seems far from the mind of carnal men: with a most perverse blindness they continue to acquire and make much of the visible and fictitious goods of the world, and they torment themselves and are disconsolate, whenever it fails them. Because they never taste, or recognize, the highest and truest Good, they take no thought or reckoning of It. O sorrow, how easily Charity [which is a love of God, first and foremost] is wasted and set aside for any kind of pleasure, and how often Faith remains without any fruit and is involved in death!” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Faithless Souls
“If the faithful do not feel these and even more wonderful effects of Faith, it is not because Faith has not the strength and efficacy to produce them, but it is because some of the faithful are so forgetting and negligent, while others give themselves up so much to a carnal and bestial life and thereby counteract the blessing of Faith. They think so rarely of it, that they might as well not have received it at all. As they live like the infidels, who have never enjoyed its advantages, and, as they gradually become conscious of their unhappy infidelity, they fall into greater wickedness than the unbelievers. For such is the result of their abominable ingratitude and contempt for this exalted and sovereign gift of their Faith” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Unhappy Souls
“Hence thou canst judge of the blind ignorance with which their deadly enemies have fascinated mortals, since all men, in the inordinate desire and pursuit of happiness, neglect the divine law, where alone it can be found; and hence few really attain happiness” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Pleasure-Seeking Souls
“Consider then, whether anything deserves greater pity, than to see so many men misled into danger and made forgetful of it; how some of them cast themselves into it, on account of their lightheartedness, some of them for trivial reasons, others for a short and instantaneous pleasure, others through negligence, and yet others on account of their inordinate appetites” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Fearless Souls
“In this life, any punishment or tribulation fills mortals with fear and dread, but the guilt of sin does not fill them with dread. Men are entirely taken up by that which is visible, and they therefore do not look upon the ultimate consequences of sin, which is the eternal punishment of Hell. The human heart becomes so forgetful that it remains, as if it were stupefied, in its wickedness, because it does not feel it present in its senses. Though it could see and feel it by Faith, its Faith is itself listless and dead. (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Blind Souls
“O most unhappy blindness of mortals! O lukewarm negligence, that holds so many souls in deceit! There are not words or sentences sufficient to describe this terrible and tremendous danger. Fear and flee such an unhappy state, and deliver thyself up to all the troubles and torments of life, which pass soon, rather than incur such a danger; for nothing will be lacking to thee, if thou do not lose God. Be convinced that there are no small faults! Fear greatly the small things, for in despising small faults the Most High knows, that the human heart invites other greater ones” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Preoccupied Souls
“In conversing with or worshiping the Most High, they fail to form a worthy concept of His infinite greatness, and fail to free themselves from thoughts of their earthly occupations, which thus make them lukewarm and carnal, unworthy and unfit for the magnificent communication with God [through prayer]. And this ill-bred coarseness entails another disorder: namely, that whenever they talk with their neighbors, they do it without order, measure or discretion; they become entangled in their outward actions, and losing the memory and presence of God in the excitement of their passions, and become completely entangled in what is earthly” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Thankless Souls
“If the children of the Holy Church would pause in their vain occupations and be ashamed of their lukewarm forgetfulness and repudiate their vile ingratitude. Let them be undeceived, for most terrible punishments await them” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Lost Souls
“They are surrounded by innumerable enemies [the invisible devils], who pursue them with diabolical treachery, unceasing vigilance, unquenchable wrath and restless diligence. What wonder then, that from such extremes, or rather from such unequal combat, irreparable defeats should arise among the mortals? And that, since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the damned should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men? May God preserve thee from such a misfortune; and do thou weep and deplore the misfortunes of thy brethren, continually asking for their salvation, as far as is possible” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Fervent Souls
“The fulfillment of the precepts of the Lord must not be cold and lukewarm, but most fervent and devoted” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
“Thou must continue without intervals of lukewarmness, lest thou disgust Him. At all times and in all places, occupations and operations, thou must keep God in sight. I command thee to treat Him with a magnanimous heart, with decorum and reverence, with deep felt fear of the soul. And whatever pertains to His divine worship, I desire that thou handle with all attention and care. Above all, in order to enter into His presence by prayer and petitions, free thyself from all sensible and earthly images” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
“It is necessary, that thou live retired within thyself, forgetful of all the visible and terrestrial things, most attentive to the divine light, which assists thee and protects thy sensible faculties with double vestments against the influences of lukewarmness and coldness on the way of perfection; and it is necessary, that thou resist the incitements of thy unruly passions” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Abandoned Souls
“Receive knowledge and enlightenment for avoiding such dangerous and gross lukewarmness. Jesus withdraws from the lukewarm and negligent souls, or deals with them only according to the general rules of His divine Providence … [which will then bring about] “the losses sustained by them through their lukewarmness and negligence” (Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, from The Mystical City of God).
Reformed Souls
Let us take these words to heart and reform our souls! Who is there, among us, who can say: “I am good enough! I have no need to change anything in my life! I have nobody else to reach and convert! I have paid all my debts for past sin! I will go straight to Heaven with no fear of Purgatory or Hell!” If there is someone like that out there reading this—then please pray for the rest of us!!
Let the Sorrowful Hearts Speak
Today being the feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is only fitting that we let our Sorrowful Mother and her Sorrowful Son—the Man of Sorrows—do most of the talking, while we, like Mary Magdalen place ourselves at their feet—either listening attentively to their words, or weeping sincerely over their feet for our may sins.
Our Lord Wants…
Berthe Petit, was a humble Franciscan Tertiary, a victim soul and apostle of Devotion to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Born January 23rd, 1870 in Enghien, Belgium and dying during the Second World War in 1943, Berthe had been privileged with visions of both Our Lord and The Blessed Virgin Mary since she was 4-years-old. From the age of 38, for the last 35 years of her life, she lived only on Holy Communion, taking no other food. To Berthe Petit, Our Lord said: “Teach souls to love the Heart of My Mother pierced with sorrow that transfixed My Own Heart.”
“My Mother’s Heart has the right to the title of Sorrowful. I desire that it be set before her title of Immaculate, because she herself has won it. The Church has recognized what I Myself did for My Mother: her Immaculate Conception. Now it is necessary, and it is My wish, that this title, which is, by right, My Mother’s, should be understood and recognized. This title she earned by her identification with all My sufferings, by her sorrow, her sacrifice, her immolation on Calvary, and indeed for the salvation of mankind.”
“My desire flows from My love on Calvary. In giving John to My Mother as a son, I entrusted the whole world to her Sorrowful Motherhood.”
“The title of Immaculate belongs to the whole being of My Mother and not specially to her Heart. The title flows from my gratuitous gift to the Virgin, who was to give Me birth. My Mother has acquired, from her Heart, the title of ‘Sorrowful’ by sharing generously in all the sufferings of My Heart and My Body—from the crib to the cross. There is not one of these Sorrows which did not pierce the Heart of My Mother. Living image of My crucified Body, her virginal flesh bore the invisible marks of My wounds, as her Heart felt the Sorrows of My own. Nothing could ever tarnish the incorruptibility of her Immaculate Heart. The title of ‘Sorrowful’ belongs, therefore, to the Heart of My Mother, and more than any other, this title is dear to her, because it springs from the union of her Heart with Mine in the redemption of humanity. This title has been acquired by her through her full participation in My Calvary, and it precedes the gratuitous title ‘Immaculate’ which My love bestowed upon her by a singular privilege.”
“The time is now ripe and I wish mankind to turn to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother. Let this prayer be uttered by every soul: ‘Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.’ Let this prayer dictated by My Love as a supreme succor be approved and indulgenced, no longer partially and for a small portion of My flock, but for the whole universe, so that it may spread as a refreshing and purifying balm of reparation that will appease My anger. This Devotion to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother will restore faith and hope to broken hearts and to ruined families: it will help to repair the destruction: it will sweeten sorrow. It will be a new strength for My Church, bringing souls, not only to confidence in My Heart, but also to abandonment to the Sorrowful Heart of My Mother.”
“It is hearts that must be changed. This will be accomplished only by the Devotion proclaimed, explained, preached and recommended everywhere. Recourse to My Mother under the title I wish for her universally, is the last help I shall give before the end of time.”
“This is the last help which I give before the end of time: the recourse to My Mother under the title which I desire shall be hers throughout the whole world.”
“In the hour of triumph” Our Lord said to Berthe one day “it will be made clearly manifest that I Myself have inspired, in those whom I have freely chosen, a devotion similar to that given to My own Heart. It is as a Son that I have conceived this devotion for My Mother. It is as God that I impose it.”
“Let every soul cry out: Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.”
Fatima and the Sorrowful Heart of Mary
Our Lady explicitly spoke of her Sorrowful Heart at her fifth apparition at Fatima: “Continue to pray the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war. In October Our Lord will come, as well as Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Carmel” (Our Lady at Fatima, September 13th).
By 1925, Lucia, who was now 18, had become a postulant with the Sisters of St. Dorothy at Pontevedra in Spain, and on Thursday 10 December, 1925, the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by the Child Jesus on a little cloud, appeared to her in her cell. Lucia recounted that Mary rested her hand on her shoulder, while showing her a Heart encircled by thorns in her other hand. The Child Jesus spoke first: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.”
Then Mary said: “My daughter, look at my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, try to console me, and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months go to confession and receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for a quarter of an hour while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”
Listen to Your Mother
The following passages are all excerpts taken from the words spoken by Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, as recounted in her book, Thy Mystical City of God.
Many Called, Few Chosen…Why?
“By the divine teaching, thou knowest the mysteries of the Passion and Death of Christ and the one true way of life, which is the Cross; and thou knowest that not all who are called, are chosen. Many there are who wish to follow Christ, but very few truly dispose themselves to imitate Him; for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross they cast it aside. Laborious exertions are very painful and averse to human nature according to the flesh. On this account there are so many among mortals, who seek the flesh and the continual indulgence of its pleasures. They ardently seek honors and fly from injuries: they strive after riches, and despise poverty; they long after pleasure and dread mortification. All these are enemies of the Cross of Christ and with dreadful aversion they fly from it” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Deluded Christians Fooling Themselves
“Another deceit has spread through the world: many imagine that they are following Christ their Master, though they neither suffer affliction nor engage in any exertion or labor. They are content with avoiding boldness in committing sins, and place all their perfection in a certain prudence or hollow self-love, which prevents them from denying anything to their will and from practicing any virtues at the cost of their flesh. They would easily escape this deception, if they would consider that my Son, although He well could do it, He chose not a life of softness and ease for the flesh, but one full of labors and pains; for He judged his instructions to be incomplete and insufficient, if He failed to teach them how to overcome the demon, the flesh and their own self. He wished to inculcate, that this magnificent victory is gained by the Cross, by labors, penances, mortifications and the acceptance of contempt: all of which are the trademarks and evidences of true love and the special watchwords of the predestined” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Giving “Bottom-Dollar’ for Heaven
“Tell me then, my daughter: if my Lord and Master has made Himself the Life and the Way for men through His Passion and Death, is it not evident that, in order to go that way and live up to this Truth, they must follow Christ crucified, afflicted, scourged and affronted? Consider the ignorance of men who wish to come to the Father without following Christ, since they expect to reign with God without suffering, or imitating His Passion, without even a thought of accepting any part of His Suffering and Death, or of thanking Him for it. They want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as those of Eternal Life, while Christ their Creator has suffered the most bitter pains and torments, in order to enter Heaven and to show them, by His example, how they are to find the Way of Light” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Our Lady is Angry and Incensed!
“All the faithful in such a dangerous and dreadful state of carelessness, when they have the Passion and Death of my Divine Son before their eyes. What then are the thoughts of the Angels and Saints, and what are my thoughts, in beholding this world and the small return made by heartless and ungrateful men for all our pains; and the lack of attention displayed by mortals through their lukewarmness and negligence? I am much incensed to find so few who console me and who try to console my Son in His sorrows. This hardness of heart will cause great confusion to them, on the Day of Judgment; since they will then see, with irreparable sorrow, not only that they were ungrateful, but were also inhuman and cruel towards my Divine Son, towards me and towards themselves” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
“I tell thee truly, only my intercession and the merits of His, Son, which I offer to the Eternal Father, can delay the punishment and placate His wrath, and delay the destruction of the world and the severe chastisement of the children of the Church, who know His will and fail to fulfill it” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
False and Fake Piety
“Weigh in thy heart, how much it cost my Lord to reconcile mankind to the Eternal Father and regain for them His friendship. Weep and afflict thyself that so many should live in such forgetfulness! And that so many should labor, with all their might, at destroying and losing what was bought by the Blood of God. Awaken in thy heart the deepest grief, that, in His Holy Church, there should be many followers of the hypocritical and sacrilegious priests who, under cover of a false piety, still condemn Christ; that pride and sumptuousness, with other grave vices, should be placed in authority and exalted, while humility, truth, justice and all virtues be so oppressed and debased, while avarice and vanity should prevail. Few know the poverty of Christ, and fewer embrace it. Holy Faith is hindered, and is not spread among the nations, on account of the boundless ambition of the mighty of this earth. The Faith, in many Catholics, is inactive and dead, and, what should be living, is near to death and to eternal perdition. The counsels of the Gospel are forgotten, its precepts trodden under foot, true charity is almost extinct” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
The Science of Saints
“My daughter, in all that thou art made to understand and write concerning these mysteries, thou drawest upon thyself, and upon mortals, a severe judgment, if thou dost not overcome thy pusillanimity, ingratitude and baseness, by meditating day and night on the Passion and Death of Jesus crucified. This is the great Science of the Saints, so little heeded by the worldly, it is the Bread of Life and the Spiritual Food of the little ones, which gives Wisdom to them and the lack of which starves the lovers of this proud world. In this science I wish thee to be studious and wise, for with it thou canst buy thyself all good things. My Son and Lord taught us this Science when He said: ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life: no one cometh to My Father except through Me’ (John 14:6).” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
The School of Saints
“My most holy Son and myself are trying to find, among those who have arrived at the Way of the Cross, some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine Science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the sons of Adam, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If thou wishest to be our disciple enter into this school, in which alone is taught the Doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights. With this wisdom, the earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible; nor the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the bleary-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors, and so full of ignorant admiration for costly grandeur” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
“By such standards must thou measure the value of suffering, which the worldly will not understand. Since they are unworthy of heavenly knowledge, they despise it in proportion to their ignorance. Rejoice and congratulate thyself in thy sufferings, and whenever the Almighty deigns to send thee any, hasten to meet it and welcome it as one of his blessings and pledges of his glorious love” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).
Don’t Just Listen ... Do Something
“With meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass. For he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was” (James 1:21-24).
Two-in One! No Kidding!
Our Lord had two natures in one person―He had the Divine nature and human nature. You could say Catholics also have two natures in one person―we are natural and supernatural, or, to hit the nail on the head—we try to be both worldly and devout! We try to live for God and live for the world. We want the benefits of both lives—earthly life and eternal life, we want our cake while wanting to eat it.
Double Trouble
Catholics often divorce Catholic theory from Catholic practice—we tend to lead “double” lives. We say our prayers but we don’t pray them. We go to Confession, confess our sins and say we are sorry—but we quickly go back to those sins without skipping a heartbeat. We know the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the same as Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary—but we are “quick-in and quick-out” with a half-hearted assistance throughout. We know we cannot serve God and mammon—but we try to fit both into our lives nonetheless. We are quicker to demand God’s forgiveness for ourselves—but are slow to forgive others. We know we should “pray without ceasing”—but we’ve long since ceased trying. We know that to follow Our Lord we take up our cross daily—yet we never cease to search for greater comfort and ease. All of this merely confirms that we are most likely on the “broad way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat” (Matthew 7:13). At best, we might be keeping our fingers-crossed daily that we at least make it into fires of Purgatory, but “crossed-fingers” is not the kind of “cross” Our Lord wants us to have!
Article 7
Wednesday September 14th, 2022
Feast of the Finding and Exaltation of the True Cross
The Cross Makes Us Cross!
Wednesday September 14th, 2022
Feast of the Finding and Exaltation of the True Cross
The Cross Makes Us Cross!
Everyone’s Life is a Crossroad!
Like it not―everyone suffers! Not only do Christians suffer―but pagans also suffer! Not only do the poor people suffer―but rich people also suffer! As the Imitation of Christ so truly states: “Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, chapter 11: “Few Love the Cross of Jesus”).
Yes―we chaff and complain; we moan and groan; we buckle and flee at the sight of the Cross! Such people are like the term RINOS (Republicans in name only)―except in this case they are CINOS (Catholics or Christians in name only).
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady revealed: “In order merely to save them, it was not necessary to suffer so much … My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much and that He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls … He began to suffer, and as soon as He was born into the world He and I were banished by Herod into a desert, and His sufferings continued until He died on the Cross … It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering, even after my most holy Son did suffer for them … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside ... … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment … As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation. And yet even all this is insufficient, since their inclinations and their blind love of visible things, detains them and makes them hard and heavy of heart―these inclinations and this blindness rob them of remembrance and affection toward these higher things, which could raise them above their worldliness … They do not seek the medicine of suffering!”
The Imitation of Christ adds: “To many the saying: ‘Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me!’ seems hard, but it will be much harder to hear that final word: ‘Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.’ Those who hear the word of the cross and follow it willingly now, need not fear that they will hear of eternal damnation on the Day of Judgment. This sign of the cross will be in the heavens when the Lord comes to judge. Why, then, do you fear to take up the cross when through it you can win a kingdom? In the cross is salvation, in the cross is life, in the cross is protection from enemies, in the cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness, in the cross is strength of mind, in the cross is joy of spirit, in the cross is highest virtue, in the cross is perfect holiness. There is no salvation of soul nor hope of everlasting life except in the cross. Take up your cross, therefore, and follow Jesus, and you shall enter eternal life. In the cross is everything, and upon your dying on the cross everything depends. There is no other way to life and to true inward peace than the way of the holy cross and daily mortification. Go where you will, seek what you will, you will not find a higher way, nor a less exalted but safer way, than the way of the holy cross. Arrange and order everything to suit your will and judgment, and still you will find that some suffering must always be borne, willingly or unwillingly, and thus you will always find the cross! … The cross, therefore, is always ready; it awaits you everywhere. No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it, for wherever you go you take yourself with you and shall always find yourself. Turn where you will — above, below, without, or within — you will find a cross in everything, and everywhere you must have patience if you would have peace within and merit an eternal crown” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12: “The Royal Road of the Cross”).
A Strange Bunch of Things!
“Truth”, as they say, “is stranger than fiction.” What do snakes, rods, snake-oil, bread, traps and cures have in common? A lot more than you would at first imagine. Today ― September 14th ― we celebrate the feast of the Holy Cross. There is more to all this than initially “meets the eye”—so let us dig deeper and see what can be found!
Slippery Snake
The snake or serpent first makes an appearance in the Book of Genesis: “Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: ‘Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?’ And the woman answered him, saying: ‘Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die.’ And the serpent said to the woman: ‘No, you shall not die the death! For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.’
“And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened: and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons. And when they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise at the afternoon air, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God, amidst the trees of paradise. And the Lord God called Adam, and said to him: Where art thou? And he said: I heard thy voice in paradise; and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. And the Lord God said to him: And who hath told thee that thou wast naked, but that thou hast eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat? And Adam said: The woman, whom thou gavest me to be my companion, gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said to the woman: Why hast thou done this? And she answered: The serpent deceived me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel!’” (Genesis 3:1-15).
From this ruse and deceit of Satan under the guise of a serpent, we get the idiom for a sly or deceitful person—“as slippery as a snake”—and Holy Scripture later applies it the tribe of Dan (out of which the Antichrist is supposed to emerge): “Let Dan be a snake in the way, a serpent in the path, that biteth the horse’s heels that his rider may fall backward.” Holy Scripture also applies the term “snake” to intoxicating wine: (Genesis 49:17). “Who hath woe? Whose father hath woe? Who hath contentions? Who falls into pits? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink of their cups. Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the color thereof shineth in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly, but in the end, it will bite like a snake, and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk” (Proverbs 23:29-32).
Snake-Oil
This deception of Satan in the form of a serpent, leads us to another deception—that of the proverbially called “snake-oil”—originally a fraudulent liniment without snake extract, which has come to refer to any product with questionable or unverifiable quality or benefit, and by extension, a “snake-oil salesman” which is someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods, or who is a fraud, quack, or charlatan. The snake-oil peddler became a stock character in Western movies: a traveling “doctor” with dubious credentials, selling fake medicines with boisterous marketing hype, often supported by pseudo-scientific evidence. To increase sales, an accomplice in the crowd (a shill) would often attest to the value of the product in an effort to provoke buying enthusiasm. The “doctor” would leave town before his customers realized they had been cheated. A little bit of an echo from Satan, the “snake-oil salesman” in the Garden of Eden, or Paradise.
However, anything that is called a “fake” presupposes that there is something that it is imitating or faking—that is to say, there must exist a true item, a non-fake item, or “the real deal” as they say. The use of snake-oil long predates the 19th century “snake-oil salesman”. In Europe, viper oil had been commonly recommended for many afflictions, including the ones for which rattlesnake-oil was later favored―rheumatism and skin diseases. In China, oil, made from Chinese water snake fat, which is rich in the omega-3 acids, is a traditional liniment used for treating joint pain since it strong analgetic and anti-inflammatory properties.
The 1800s saw thousands of Chinese workers arriving in the United States as indentured laborers to work on the Transcontinental Railroad. About 180,000 Chinese immigrated to the United States between 1849 and 1882. Among the items the Chinese railroad workers brought with them to the States were various medicines — including snake-oil. Made from the oil of the Chinese water snake, which is rich in the omega-3 acids that help reduce inflammation, snake-oil in its original form really was effective, especially when used to treat arthritis and bursitis. The workers would rub the oil, used for centuries in China, on their joints after a long hard day at work. The story goes that the Chinese workers began sharing the oil with some American counterparts, who marveled at the effects.
Snake-Oil Salesmen
As word of the healing powers of Chinese snake-oil grew, many Americans wondered how they could make their own snake-oil here in the United States. Because there were no Chinese water snakes handy in the American West, many healers began using rattlesnakes to make their own versions of snake-oil.
So how did a legitimate medicine become a symbol of fraud? The origins of snake-oil as a derogatory phrase trace back to the latter half of the 19th century, which saw a dramatic rise in the popularity of “patent medicines.” Often sold on the back pages of newspapers, these tonics promised to cure a wide variety of ailments including chronic pain, headaches, “female complaints” and kidney trouble. In time, all of these false “cures” began to be referred to as snake-oil.
This set the stage for entrepreneur Clark Stanley, aka “The Rattlesnake King”. In an 1897 pamphlet about Stanley’s life and exploits, the former cowboy claimed he had learned about the healing power of rattlesnake-oil from Hopi medicine men. He never publicly mentioned Chinese snake-oil at all. Stanley created a huge stir at the 1893 World’s Exposition in Chicago before a crowd of onlookers, when Stanley reached into a sack, plucked out a live snake, slit it open and plunged it into boiling water. When the fat rose to the top, he skimmed it off and used it on the spot to create “Stanley’s Snake-oil,” a liniment that was immediately snapped up by the throng that had gathered to watch the spectacle. There were two major problems with Stanley’s claim about his oil:
Firstly, rattlesnake-oil was far less effective than the original Chinese snake-oil it was trying to emulate. A 1989 letter to The Western Journal of Medicine, from researcher Richard Kunin, revealed that the Chinese oil contained almost triple the amount of a vital acid as did rattlesnake-oil.
Secondly, Stanley’s Snake-oil didn’t contain any snake-oil at all. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 sought to clamp down on the sale of patent medicines and it was that legislation that led to Stanley’s undoing. After seizing a shipment of Stanley’s Snake-oil in 1917, federal investigators found that it primarily contained mineral oil, a fatty oil believed to be beef fat, red pepper, turpentine and camphor. That’s right — Stanley’s signature product did not contain a drop of actual snake-oil, and hundreds of consumers discovered they had been had—just like Adam and Eve! It was probably around then that snake-oil became symbolic of fraud. Snake-oil salesmen and traveling doctors became stock characters in American Westerns. As for what happened to Clark Stanley after it was found that his whole empire was based on a lie? He was fined $20 (that’s about $429 in today’s dollars) for violating the Food and Drug Act and for “misbranding” his product by “falsely and fraudulently representing it as a remedy for all pain.” Stanley did not dispute the charges, just as Satan the Serpent did not dispute God’s judgment in the Garden of Eden. Today, Satan, the prince of this world (John 12:31), has millions of “Satanic Snake-Oil Salesmen” peddling Satan’s false solutions for life in this world—while the real solution is barely known, hardly advertised, rarely sold, and even more rarely taken and used.
God, Moses, the Rod and the Serpent
Not only do we see a serpent in the opening moments of life on Earth—tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden—but we also see God deliberately make use of a serpent in a miraculous way, for it to be a testimony of the authority that God had given to Moses. “Moses answered and said: ‘They will not believe me, nor hear my voice, but they will say: “The Lord hath not appeared to thee.” Then the Lord God said to Moses: ‘What is that thou holdest in thy hand?’ He answered: ‘A rod.’ And the Lord said: ‘Cast it down upon the ground.’ He cast it down, and it was turned into a serpent: so that Moses fled from it. And the Lord said: ‘Put out thy hand and take it by the tail.’ He put forth his hand, and took hold of it, and it was turned into a rod. ‘That they may believe,’ saith he, ‘that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared to thee!’’ (Exodus 4:1-5).
Later, God makes Moses repeat the miracle of the rod changing into a serpent, before Pharao of Egypt, so that he would allow the Israelites—then slaves of the Egyptians (a symbol of slavery to sin)—to leave Egypt for the Promised Land. “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Behold I have appointed thee the God [meaning “judge”] of Pharao: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. Thou shalt speak to him all that I command thee; and he shall speak to Pharao, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land. But I shall harden his heart, and shall multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. And he will not hear you: and I will lay my hand upon Egypt, and will bring forth my army and my people the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, by very great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, who have stretched forth my hand upon Egypt, and have brought forth the children of Israel out of the midst of them.
“And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord had commanded: so did they. And Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three, when they spoke to Pharao. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: ‘When Pharao shall say to you, “Show signs!” thou shalt say to Aaron: “Take thy rod, and cast it down before Pharao!” and it shall be turned into a serpent. So Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharao, and did as the Lord had commanded. And Aaron took the rod before Pharao, and his servants, and it was turned into a serpent. And Pharao called the wise men and the magicians: and they also by Egyptian enchantments and certain secrets did in like manner. And they every one cast down their rods, and they were turned into serpents: but Aaron’s rod devoured their rods. And Pharao’s heart was hardened, and he did not hearken to them, as the Lord had commanded.” (Genesis 7:1-13).
God’s “Snake-Oil” Cure in the Desert
The journey to the Promised Land, under Moses, did not go smoothly—in great part due to the murmuring and sinfulness of the Israelites. God would punish this by a plague of serpents that would invade and bite many of the murmuring sinners. God would then provide His own version of “snake-oil” to cure them! “And they marched from Mount Hor, by the way that leadeth to the Red Sea, to compass the land of Edom. And the people began to be weary of their journey and labor. And speaking against God and Moses, they said: ‘Why didst thou bring us out of Egypt, to die in the wilderness? There is no bread, nor have we any waters: our soul now loatheth this very light food [the manna]!’ Wherefore the Lord sent among the people fiery serpents, which bit them and killed many of them. Upon which they came to Moses, and said: ‘We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and thee! Pray that he may take away these serpents from us!’ And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to him: ‘Make brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign! Whosoever being struck shall look on it, shall live!’ Moses therefore made a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: which, when they that were bitten looked upon, they were healed” (Numbers 21:4-9).
The Rods of Moses and Aaron
The Bible tells how, along with Moses’s rod, Aaron’s rod was endowed with miraculous power during the Plagues of Egypt that preceded the Exodus. In the culture of the Israelites, the rod would be a natural symbol of authority, as the tool used by the shepherd to correct and guide his flock (Psalm 23:4). Moses’s rod is, in fact, cited in Exodus 4:2 as carried by him while he tended his sheep; and later (Exodus 4:20) becomes his symbol of authority over the Israelites (Psalm 2:9, Psalm 89:32, Isaias 10:24 and 11:4, Ezekiel 20:37). The rods of both Moses and Aaron were endowed with miraculous power during the Plagues of Egypt (Exodus 7:17, 8:5, 8:16-17, 9:23, and 10:13); God commanded Moses to raise his rod over the Red Sea when it was to be parted (Exodus 14:16) and in prayer over Israel in battle (Exodus 17:9); Moses brings forth water from a stone using his rod (Exodus 17, Numbers 20:11).
Aaron’s rod, however, is cited twice as exhibiting miraculous power on its own, when not physically in the grasp of its owner. In Exodus chapter 7, God sends Moses and Aaron to the Pharao once more, instructing Aaron that when the Pharao demands to see a miracle, he is to cast down his rod and it will become a serpent. In Numbers chapter 17, Core’s rebellion against Moses’ proclamation of the tribe of Levi as the priesthood has been quashed and the entire congregation’s ensuing rebellion has resulted in a plague, ended only by the intercession of Moses and Aaron. In order to “stop the complaints” of the Israelites, God commands that each of the Twelve Tribes provide a rod; and only that of the tribe chosen to become priests, will miraculously sprout overnight. Aaron provides his rod to represent the tribe of Levi, and it put forth buds, produced blossoms, and bore ripe almonds (Numbers 17:1-12), as an evidence of the exclusive right to the priesthood of the tribe of Levi. In commemoration of this decision it was commanded that the rod be put again “before the testimony” (Numbers 17:10). According to tradition, the rod of Aaron bore sweet almonds on one side and bitter on the other; if the Israelites followed the Lord, the sweet almonds would be ripe and edible, but if they were to forsake the path of the Lord, the bitter almonds would predominate. A New Testament book (Hebrews 9:4) asserts that the rod of Aaron was kept in the Ark of the Covenant along with the manna and the Ten Commandments.
“Hot Cross Buns”
Speaking of manna, reminds us of the English hot cross buns. A hot cross bun is a spiced sweet round bread bun made with currants or raisins, marked with a cross on the top, and traditionally eaten on Good Friday in the British Isles, Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and some parts of America. The buns mark the end of Lent and different parts of the hot cross bun have a certain meaning, including the cross representing the crucifixion of Jesus, and the spices inside signifying the spices used to embalm him at His burial.
“Hot Cross Buns” is also an English language nursery rhyme, Easter song, and street cry:
“Hot cross buns!
“Hot cross buns!
“One a penny, two a penny,
“Hot cross buns!
“If you have no daughters,
“Give them to your sons.
“One a penny two a penny,
Hot cross buns!”
The earliest record of the rhyme is in Christmas Box, published in London in 1798. However, there are earlier references to the rhyme as a street cry in London, for example in the Poor Robin’s Almanack for 1733, which noted:
“Good Friday comes this month, the old woman runs
“With one or two a penny hot cross buns.”
In many historically Christian countries, plain buns made without dairy products (forbidden in Lent) are traditionally eaten hot or toasted during Lent, beginning with the evening of Shrove Tuesday (the evening before Ash Wednesday).
The ancient Greeks may have marked cakes with a cross.
One theory is that the Hot Cross Bun originates from the town of St. Albans in England (St. Alban was the first known English martyr), where Brother Thomas Rocliffe, a 14th Century monk at St Albans Abbey, developed a similar recipe called an ‘Alban Bun’ and distributed the bun to the local poor on Good Friday, starting in 1361.
In Protestant England, which saw a massive persecution of Catholics, during the time of Elizabeth I of England (1592), the London Clerk of Markets issued a decree forbidding the sale of hot cross buns and other spiced breads, except at burials, on Good Friday, or at Christmas. The punishment for transgressing the decree was forfeiture of all the forbidden product to the poor. As a result of this decree, hot cross buns at the time were primarily made in home kitchens. Further attempts to suppress the sale of these items took place during the reign of James I of England/James VI of Scotland (1603–1625).
English folklore includes many superstitions surrounding hot cross buns. One of them says that buns baked and served on Good Friday will not spoil or grow moldy during the subsequent year. Another encourages keeping such a bun for medicinal purposes. A piece of it given to someone ill is said to help them recover. If taken on a sea voyage, hot cross buns are said to protect against shipwreck. If hung in the kitchen, they are said to protect against fires and ensure that all breads turn out perfectly. The hanging bun is replaced each year. The hot cross buns even made it as far as Hawaii. The earliest record of that was an 1884 advertisement announcing the sale of hot cross buns for Good Friday in a Hawaiian newspaper.
The hot cross buns remind us of the sacred host that we receive in Holy Communion, which is often stamped with the sign of the cross. We are now getting closer to the point of all this blathering! The sacred Host that we receive in Holy Communion is a product of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is nothing other that a re-presentation or re-enactment of the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross at Calvary. From this perspective, you could say that the sacred Host you receive in Holy Communion, is, very broadly and loosely speaking, like a splinter of the True Cross that Christ shares with you. It was customary—before the New Mass came along—for the priest to make a sign of the cross with small host over each communicant before placing the host on the tongue. Nowadays it is just unceremoniously plonked in the persons hand. After receiving the sacred Host, the communicants would usually make a sign of the cross over themselves before returning to their pew. From this perspective, you could envisage Holy Communion as not just giving out the Body of Christ, but also the Cross of Christ.
Unity in Diversity
So we have finally arrived at the point of all this seemingly endless and pointless diversity and can examine the beauty of all this—for the definition of beauty is “unity in diversity”—and all of these seemingly incongruous elements will find themselves united in the Cross of Christ.
The “Tree of Life” in the midst of the Garden of Eden or Paradise, the fruit of which preserved the natural physical life of Adam and Eve, is a symbol of the Holy Cross or the Sacrifice of Christ (the Holy Eucharist) which stands at the center of the Church and all its Sacraments. Upon this “Tree of Life” Christ, is the fruit that preserves our spiritual life and leads to eternal life. That Christ is a ‘fruit’ is evident from the words of the Archangel Gabriel, who said to Mary: “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb!” (Luke 1:42) and this fruit must be eaten, as Our Lord Himself said: “I am the living bread which came down from Heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is My flesh, for the life of the world … Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day” (John 6:51-55).
This brings us the “Bread” that was spoken of earlier—the hot cross bun. Christ is the bread of life, but there is no Christ without the Cross, and the bread of life must be united to the crosses of life. “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’ … Whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 9:23; 14:27). “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Therefore, when we say, in the Our Father--“Give us this day our daily bread!”—we may as well be saying: “Give us this day our daily crosses!” It is the “Bread of Life”—that we receive in Holy Communion—which gives us the strength to carry those crosses. The words “daily bread”—and not merely “Sunday bread”—should instill in us the desire to receive Our Lord daily in Holy Communion. For some that is not possible—but the desire for it should still be there and what is there to stop anybody from reading every day the prayers of each daily Mass and making a spiritual communion (or many of them) at home or in any other location? Nothing stops us from doing that—except our indifference or lukewarmness.
Likewise with the serpent or snake, and the snake-oil. When the Israelites were punished for murmuring against God and Moses by being bitten by snakes—God, who likes to bring good out of evil, provided His own version of “snake-oil” by having Moses make a “And the Lord said to him: ‘Make brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: whosoever being struck shall look on it, shall live!’ Moses therefore made a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: which when they that were bitten looked upon, they were healed” (Numbers 21:8-9). Through the eating of the fruit of one tree—the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil—death came into the world. Through the eating of the fruit of another tree—the Tree of the Cross and its fruit Jesus—the possibility of eternal life was restored to the world. Looking upon the brazen serpent healed the snake-bitten Israelites and helped them realize the dangers that their murmuring had led them into and that they were facing death as a consequence. A snake brought death and “brazen serpent” brought life. For Christians, looking at the Cross reminds them of the price of sin—a price to be paid, not only by Christ, but also by every sinner—and the cross is part of that price and punishment. Yet, as the snake led to death but also to healing and life, so too does the cross lead to death—hopefully a death to the desire for sin—and it also leads to life by paying for the debt of sin.
The “Rods” of Moses and Aaron that could perform miracles or turn into serpents that kill, are a reminder that our crosses can bring about miracles or they can lead us to Hell. As St. Augustine says, the same cross can lead one soul to Heaven, but lead another soul to Hell. What does he mean? He speaks of the manner in which we look upon the cross, on whether we accept it or not, whether we grumble and murmur or not, whether we end up carrying it or throwing it aside. Strangely enough, the Old English Medieval word for “cross” was the word “rood”—which is very similar to “rod”. In fact, the screen that separated the sanctuary from the nave in the church, used to be called the “Rood Screen”—on account of the large cross with the crucified Christ that nestled on top of the screen, looking down upon the faithful in the nave. “Rood Screen” essentially meant “Cross Screen” and one day we shall be “screened” as to how we have carried our crosses and our salvation will depend upon it.
Nailed to the Cross for a Good Reason
On Good Friday, Jesus was nailed to the Cross. He was nailed to the Cross for good! Good Friday has been the focal point of the Church ever since that first Good Friday. Our Lord was nailed to the Cross for our good and He wishes that this act be planted in the center of our hearts for good! For on this brutal day, God brings good out of evil and through His goodness He pays for our evil. Yet there is something missing—it is our own personal and willing crucifixion alongside that of Jesus.
We need to follow the attitude of St. Paul, who says: “But we preach Christ crucified … For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2). “And they that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24). “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6).
Nailing Our Sins For the Good of Our Soul
Sin is the greatest evil in this world—no natural disaster, no disease, nothing is a great an evil as sin. War is even a punishment for sin. The impending chastisement, where Our Lady says that most of mankind will be wiped out (around three quarters it seems), is a consequence of sin. If we cannot grasp the price of sin in such a scenario, then we never will! Sin is the only real evil in world—if it was lessened, then all the other evils would also lessened in proportion. It is the most costly thing around—look at Our Savior on the Cross and you get an inkling of an idea as to its expense.
Therefore, it is important that we nail our sins as much as possible—that we put the final nail in the coffin of our sins as much as we can: for nobody outside of Our Lord and Our Lady are impeccable—“For a just man shall fall seven times and shall rise again” (Proverbs 24:16)—but we can all drastically reduce the amount of sins that we commit daily. If only we could say that we only committed a mere seven sins a day—that would be phenomenal!
Nailing Our Sins Before God Nails Them!
In Holy Scripture we encounter many passages that warn us of the attitude of God to wanton, unrepented and unpaid sin:
“If you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments, if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me, then I will do these things to you: I will quickly visit you with poverty, and burning heat, which shall waste your eyes, and consume your lives. You shall sow your seed in vain, which shall be devoured by your enemies. I will set my face against you, and you shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you, you shall flee when no man pursueth you.
“But if you will not yet for all this obey Me: I will chastise you seven times more for your sins, and I will break the pride of your stubbornness, and I will make to you the Heaven above as iron, and the Earth as brass; your labor shall be spent in vain, the ground shall not bring forth her increase, nor the trees yield their fruit.
“If you walk contrary to Me, and will not hearken to Me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins. And I will send in upon you the beasts of the field, to destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number, and that your highways may be desolate.
“And if even so you will not amend, but will walk contrary to Me, then I also will walk contrary to you, and will strike you seven times for your sins. And I will bring in upon you the sword that shall avenge my covenant. And when you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies.
“But if you will not for all this hearken to Me, but will walk against Me, then I will also go against you with opposite fury, and I will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins, so that you shall eat the flesh of your sons and of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, and break your idols. You shall fall among the ruins of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. Insomuch that I will bring your cities to be a wilderness, and I will make your sanctuaries desolate. And I will destroy your land, and your enemies shall be astonished at it, when they shall be the inhabitants thereof. And I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed” (Leviticus 26:14-33).
Chastisement of Jerusalem & Today’s Chastisement
Jerusalem—with its Priests, Scribes, Pharisees and people—asked that Jesus be nailed to the Cross. They cried out: “Let His blood be upon us and our children!” (Matthew 27:25). Be careful what you say, is all I can say!
God took them at their word and around one generation later, in 70 AD, the Romans utterly destroyed Jerusalem, so much so that in the succeeding years, if any passes by the place, they could not tell that a great city had once been located on that site. Over 1 million Jews were slaughtered in the Siege of Jerusalem—thousands of them being nailed to crosses and crucified by the Romans. Why? Because Jerusalem did not repent but remained entrenched in its rejection of Christ’s teaching.
What goes around, comes around. What happened to Jerusalem back then, is a ‘microcosm’ of the ‘macrocosm’ that awaits the world today—as foretold repeatedly by Our Lady in these modern times. Fire from the heavens; natural disasters throughout the world; wars and plagues upon Earth; brutality and butchery everywhere—why? Because we have, as a whole, refused the message of the Queen of prophets. What goes around, comes around—the prophets of old were stoned to death, while, today, we are as deaf as a stone to the words of Our Lady.
The Price of Rejection
She could well have spoken the same words to the world, as Our Lord addressed to Jerusalem just before being nailed to the Cross: “Wherefore you are witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of them that killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. You serpents, generation of vipers, how will you flee from the judgment of Hell? Therefore behold I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them you will put to death and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city.
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not? Behold, your house shall be left to you, desolate!’ And Jesus, being come out of the Temple, said to them: Do you see all these buildings? Amen I say to you there shall not be left here a stone upon a stone that shall not be destroyed!” (Matthew 23:31-38; 24:1-2).
The Arm, the Hammer and Nails for Sin
Above, we spoke of those who “have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24), so that “our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6). What is the hammer that we must use? What are the nails? What of the arm that delivers the hammer blows? All these are readily available to anyone who wants to use them. They are prayer, penance, and sanctifying grace (charity, which is lost when grace is lost).
The Hammer of Prayer
The hammer could be said to prayer, for, through prayer, we must continually hammer and bang on the door of Heaven. We see similarities between hammering and praying: “The noise of the hammer is always in his ears” (Ecclesiasticus 38:30) … “Pray without ceasing … We ought always to pray, and not to faint … To him that knocketh, it shall be opened” (1 Thessalonians 5:17; Luke 18:1; Luke 11:10).
“Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and shall say to him: ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine is come off his journey to me, and I have not what to set before him!’ And he from within should answer, and say: ‘Trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee!’ Yet if he shall continue knocking [hammering], I say to you, although he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise, and give him as many as he needeth … Knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Luke 11:5-9).
The Nails of Sacrifice
The Nails are acts of sacrifices, mortifications and penances. “Let him do penance for his sin” (Leviticus 5:5) … “Prayer is good with fasting and alms” (Tobias 12:8) … “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:20) … “I covered my soul in fasting” (Psalm 68:11) ... “I set my face to the Lord my God, to pray and make supplication with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes” (Daniel 9:3) … “and they praying in this place, shall do penance to thy name, and shall be converted from their sins” (3 Kings 8:35).
But we need to be in a state of grace (and charity) for all the above mentioned power tools to work—grace and charity are like electricity that makes the electrical tools work. They are like body and soul, mind and heart, husband and wife, pilot and co-pilot—they give the spirit and direction to the work. If we have lost God’s sanctifying grace, we also lose charity, and our prayers and acts are useless as regards meriting or obtaining anything other than an actual grace to lead us to conversion and the regaining of sanctifying grace.
St. Paul puts it powerfully and clearly when he writes: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The Inhuman Nailing of Christ Our Lord
We read in The Mystical City of God, an account of the inhuman way in which Jesus was nailed to the Cross: “In order to find the places for the augerholes on the Cross, the executioners haughtily commanded the Creator of the universe. The Teacher of humility obeyed without hesitation. But they, following their inhuman instinct of cruelty, marked the places for the holes, not according to the size of his body, but larger—having in mind a new torture for their Victim.
“This inhuman intent was known to the Mother of light, and the knowledge of it was one of the greatest afflictions of her heart during the whole Passion. She saw through the intentions of these ministers of sin and she anticipated the torments to be endured by her beloved Son when his limbs should be wrenched from their sockets in being nailed to the Cross. But she could not do anything to prevent it, as it was the will of the Lord to suffer these pains for men” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“When He rose from the Cross, and they set about boring the holes, the great Lady approached and took hold of one of his hands, adoring Him and kissing it with greatest reverence. The executioners allowed this because they thought that the sight of his Mother would cause so much the greater affliction to the Lord; for they wished to spare Him no sorrow they could cause Him. But they were ignorant of the hidden mysteries; for the Lord during his Passion had no greater source of consolation and interior joy than to see in the soul of his most Blessed Mother, the beautiful likeness of Himself and the full fruits of his Passion and Death. This joy, to a certain extent, comforted Christ our Lord also in that hour” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Having bored the three holes into the Cross, the executioners again commanded Christ the Lord to stretch Himself out upon it in order to be nailed to it. The supreme and almighty King, as the Author of patience, obeyed, and at the will of the hangmen, placed Himself with outstretched arms upon the blessed wood. The Lord was so weakened, disfigured and exhausted, that if the ferocious cruelty of those men had left the least room for natural reason and kindness, they could not have brought themselves to inflict further torments upon the innocent and meek Lamb, humbly suffering such nameless sorrows and pains. But not so with them; for the judges and their executioners were transformed in their malice and deathly hatred into demons, void of the feelings of sensible and earthly men and urged on only by diabolical wrath and fury” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Presently one of the executioners seized the hand of Jesus our Savior and placed it upon the auger hole, while another hammered a large and rough nail through the palm. The veins and sinews were torn, and the bones of the sacred hand, which made the heavens and all that exists, were forced apart. When they stretched out the other hand, they found that it did not reach up to the auger hole; for the sinews of the other arm had been shortened and the executioners had maliciously set the holes too far apart. In order to overcome the difficulty, they took the chain, with which the Savior had been bound in the garden, and looping one end through a ring around his wrist, they, with unheard of cruelty, pulled the hand over the hole and fastened it with another nail” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Thereupon they seized His feet, and placing them one above the other, they tied the same chain around both and stretched them with barbarous ferocity down to the third hole. Then they drove through both feet a large nail into the Cross. Thus the sacred body, in which dwelled the Divinity, was nailed motionless to the holy Cross, and the handiwork of His deified members, formed by the Holy Ghost, was so stretched and torn asunder, that the bones of His body, dislocated and forced from their natural position, could all be counted. The bones of His breast, of His shoulders and arms, and of His whole body yielded to the cruel violence and were torn from their sinews” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“It is impossible for human tongue or words of mouth to describe the torments of our Savior Jesus and what He suffered on this occasion. On the last day alone more will be known, in order that his cause may be justified before sinners and the praise and exaltation of the saints may be so much the greater” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Our Lady Hits the Nail on the Head
Speaking of these events, and drawing conclusions from them, Our Lady says: “Thy state of life must be for thee a most rigid cross on which thou must remain crucified, and thou must not widen thy path by seeking for dispensation and weakening interpretation of thy rules to make it easy and comfortable, but at the same time, insecure and full of imperfections. This is the deception into which the children of Babylon and of Adam fall, that each one, according to his state, seeks to find ease in the work commanded by the law of God. They set aside the salvation of their soul in their efforts to buy Heaven very cheaply, or risk losing it by dreading the restrictions and entire subjection necessary to observe rigorously the divine law and its precepts” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Hence arises the desire to find explanations and opinions, which smooth the paths and highways of eternal life, without heeding the doctrine of my divine Son, that the path of life is very narrow. They forget that the Lord Himself has walked these narrow paths, in order that no one might imagine he can reach eternal life over paths more spacious and comfortable to the flesh and to the inclinations vitiated by sins” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“This danger is greater for ecclesiastics and religious, who by their very state must follow the Master and must accommodate themselves to His life of poverty and must choose for this purpose the way of the Cross. Some of them however are apt to seek the dignities attached to the religious state for their temporal advantage, for the increase of their own honor and praise” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“In order to secure it they lighten the Cross they have promised to bear, so that they live a carnal life, little restricted and much eased by deceptive dispensations and vain excuses. In their time they shall recognize the truth and that saying of the Holy Ghost: Each one thinks his path secure, but the Lord weighs in His hands the hearts of men” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“So far from this deceit, do I wish thee to be, my daughter, that thou must live strictly in such a way that thou canst not stretch thyself in any way, being nailed immovably to the Cross with Christ. Thou must set aside all temporal advantages, for the least point pertaining to the utmost perfection of thy state” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Thy right hand, my daughter, must be nailed to the Cross by obedience, and reserve not for thyself the least movement, the least activity, or word, or thought not controlled by this virtue. Thou must not maintain any position that is of thy own choice, but only such as is willed by others; thou must not appear wise in thy own conceit in anything, but ignorant and blind, in order to follow entirely the guidance of thy superiors (Proverbs 3:7). He that promises, says the wise man (Proverbs 6:1), binds his hands, and by his words shall he be bound and chained” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Thy left hand thou hast nailed to the Cross by the vow of poverty, depriving thee of all right to follow any inclination toward the objects usually coveted by the eyes; for both in the use and in the desire for such creatures thou must rigorously imitate Christ impoverished and despoiled upon the Cross” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“By chastity, thy feet are nailed to the Cross, in order that all thy steps and movements may be pure, chaste and beautiful. For this thou must not permit in thy presence the least word offensive to purity, nor, by looking upon or touching any human creature, allow any sensual image or impression within thee; thy eyes and all thy senses are to remain consecrated to chastity, without making more use of them than to fix them upon Jesus crucified” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Contemplate and consider in thy heart the image of my Son and Lord full of blood, torments, sorrows, and at last nailed to the Cross, no part of His sacred body being exempt from wounds and excruciating pains. The Lord and I were most solicitous and compassionate toward all the children of men; for them We suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that they might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good and in return for so obliging a love. Therefore, let mortals show themselves thankful, willingly entering upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, to bear it after Christ. Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
As St. Paul says, “They that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24). “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6). “That I may live to God: with Christ I am nailed to the cross” (Galatians 2:19).
Like it not―everyone suffers! Not only do Christians suffer―but pagans also suffer! Not only do the poor people suffer―but rich people also suffer! As the Imitation of Christ so truly states: “Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, chapter 11: “Few Love the Cross of Jesus”).
Yes―we chaff and complain; we moan and groan; we buckle and flee at the sight of the Cross! Such people are like the term RINOS (Republicans in name only)―except in this case they are CINOS (Catholics or Christians in name only).
To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady revealed: “In order merely to save them, it was not necessary to suffer so much … My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much and that He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls … He began to suffer, and as soon as He was born into the world He and I were banished by Herod into a desert, and His sufferings continued until He died on the Cross … It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering, even after my most holy Son did suffer for them … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside ... … Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? … Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment … As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation. And yet even all this is insufficient, since their inclinations and their blind love of visible things, detains them and makes them hard and heavy of heart―these inclinations and this blindness rob them of remembrance and affection toward these higher things, which could raise them above their worldliness … They do not seek the medicine of suffering!”
The Imitation of Christ adds: “To many the saying: ‘Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me!’ seems hard, but it will be much harder to hear that final word: ‘Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.’ Those who hear the word of the cross and follow it willingly now, need not fear that they will hear of eternal damnation on the Day of Judgment. This sign of the cross will be in the heavens when the Lord comes to judge. Why, then, do you fear to take up the cross when through it you can win a kingdom? In the cross is salvation, in the cross is life, in the cross is protection from enemies, in the cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness, in the cross is strength of mind, in the cross is joy of spirit, in the cross is highest virtue, in the cross is perfect holiness. There is no salvation of soul nor hope of everlasting life except in the cross. Take up your cross, therefore, and follow Jesus, and you shall enter eternal life. In the cross is everything, and upon your dying on the cross everything depends. There is no other way to life and to true inward peace than the way of the holy cross and daily mortification. Go where you will, seek what you will, you will not find a higher way, nor a less exalted but safer way, than the way of the holy cross. Arrange and order everything to suit your will and judgment, and still you will find that some suffering must always be borne, willingly or unwillingly, and thus you will always find the cross! … The cross, therefore, is always ready; it awaits you everywhere. No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it, for wherever you go you take yourself with you and shall always find yourself. Turn where you will — above, below, without, or within — you will find a cross in everything, and everywhere you must have patience if you would have peace within and merit an eternal crown” (Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 12: “The Royal Road of the Cross”).
A Strange Bunch of Things!
“Truth”, as they say, “is stranger than fiction.” What do snakes, rods, snake-oil, bread, traps and cures have in common? A lot more than you would at first imagine. Today ― September 14th ― we celebrate the feast of the Holy Cross. There is more to all this than initially “meets the eye”—so let us dig deeper and see what can be found!
Slippery Snake
The snake or serpent first makes an appearance in the Book of Genesis: “Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: ‘Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?’ And the woman answered him, saying: ‘Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die.’ And the serpent said to the woman: ‘No, you shall not die the death! For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.’
“And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened: and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons. And when they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise at the afternoon air, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God, amidst the trees of paradise. And the Lord God called Adam, and said to him: Where art thou? And he said: I heard thy voice in paradise; and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. And the Lord God said to him: And who hath told thee that thou wast naked, but that thou hast eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat? And Adam said: The woman, whom thou gavest me to be my companion, gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said to the woman: Why hast thou done this? And she answered: The serpent deceived me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel!’” (Genesis 3:1-15).
From this ruse and deceit of Satan under the guise of a serpent, we get the idiom for a sly or deceitful person—“as slippery as a snake”—and Holy Scripture later applies it the tribe of Dan (out of which the Antichrist is supposed to emerge): “Let Dan be a snake in the way, a serpent in the path, that biteth the horse’s heels that his rider may fall backward.” Holy Scripture also applies the term “snake” to intoxicating wine: (Genesis 49:17). “Who hath woe? Whose father hath woe? Who hath contentions? Who falls into pits? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink of their cups. Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the color thereof shineth in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly, but in the end, it will bite like a snake, and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk” (Proverbs 23:29-32).
Snake-Oil
This deception of Satan in the form of a serpent, leads us to another deception—that of the proverbially called “snake-oil”—originally a fraudulent liniment without snake extract, which has come to refer to any product with questionable or unverifiable quality or benefit, and by extension, a “snake-oil salesman” which is someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods, or who is a fraud, quack, or charlatan. The snake-oil peddler became a stock character in Western movies: a traveling “doctor” with dubious credentials, selling fake medicines with boisterous marketing hype, often supported by pseudo-scientific evidence. To increase sales, an accomplice in the crowd (a shill) would often attest to the value of the product in an effort to provoke buying enthusiasm. The “doctor” would leave town before his customers realized they had been cheated. A little bit of an echo from Satan, the “snake-oil salesman” in the Garden of Eden, or Paradise.
However, anything that is called a “fake” presupposes that there is something that it is imitating or faking—that is to say, there must exist a true item, a non-fake item, or “the real deal” as they say. The use of snake-oil long predates the 19th century “snake-oil salesman”. In Europe, viper oil had been commonly recommended for many afflictions, including the ones for which rattlesnake-oil was later favored―rheumatism and skin diseases. In China, oil, made from Chinese water snake fat, which is rich in the omega-3 acids, is a traditional liniment used for treating joint pain since it strong analgetic and anti-inflammatory properties.
The 1800s saw thousands of Chinese workers arriving in the United States as indentured laborers to work on the Transcontinental Railroad. About 180,000 Chinese immigrated to the United States between 1849 and 1882. Among the items the Chinese railroad workers brought with them to the States were various medicines — including snake-oil. Made from the oil of the Chinese water snake, which is rich in the omega-3 acids that help reduce inflammation, snake-oil in its original form really was effective, especially when used to treat arthritis and bursitis. The workers would rub the oil, used for centuries in China, on their joints after a long hard day at work. The story goes that the Chinese workers began sharing the oil with some American counterparts, who marveled at the effects.
Snake-Oil Salesmen
As word of the healing powers of Chinese snake-oil grew, many Americans wondered how they could make their own snake-oil here in the United States. Because there were no Chinese water snakes handy in the American West, many healers began using rattlesnakes to make their own versions of snake-oil.
So how did a legitimate medicine become a symbol of fraud? The origins of snake-oil as a derogatory phrase trace back to the latter half of the 19th century, which saw a dramatic rise in the popularity of “patent medicines.” Often sold on the back pages of newspapers, these tonics promised to cure a wide variety of ailments including chronic pain, headaches, “female complaints” and kidney trouble. In time, all of these false “cures” began to be referred to as snake-oil.
This set the stage for entrepreneur Clark Stanley, aka “The Rattlesnake King”. In an 1897 pamphlet about Stanley’s life and exploits, the former cowboy claimed he had learned about the healing power of rattlesnake-oil from Hopi medicine men. He never publicly mentioned Chinese snake-oil at all. Stanley created a huge stir at the 1893 World’s Exposition in Chicago before a crowd of onlookers, when Stanley reached into a sack, plucked out a live snake, slit it open and plunged it into boiling water. When the fat rose to the top, he skimmed it off and used it on the spot to create “Stanley’s Snake-oil,” a liniment that was immediately snapped up by the throng that had gathered to watch the spectacle. There were two major problems with Stanley’s claim about his oil:
Firstly, rattlesnake-oil was far less effective than the original Chinese snake-oil it was trying to emulate. A 1989 letter to The Western Journal of Medicine, from researcher Richard Kunin, revealed that the Chinese oil contained almost triple the amount of a vital acid as did rattlesnake-oil.
Secondly, Stanley’s Snake-oil didn’t contain any snake-oil at all. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 sought to clamp down on the sale of patent medicines and it was that legislation that led to Stanley’s undoing. After seizing a shipment of Stanley’s Snake-oil in 1917, federal investigators found that it primarily contained mineral oil, a fatty oil believed to be beef fat, red pepper, turpentine and camphor. That’s right — Stanley’s signature product did not contain a drop of actual snake-oil, and hundreds of consumers discovered they had been had—just like Adam and Eve! It was probably around then that snake-oil became symbolic of fraud. Snake-oil salesmen and traveling doctors became stock characters in American Westerns. As for what happened to Clark Stanley after it was found that his whole empire was based on a lie? He was fined $20 (that’s about $429 in today’s dollars) for violating the Food and Drug Act and for “misbranding” his product by “falsely and fraudulently representing it as a remedy for all pain.” Stanley did not dispute the charges, just as Satan the Serpent did not dispute God’s judgment in the Garden of Eden. Today, Satan, the prince of this world (John 12:31), has millions of “Satanic Snake-Oil Salesmen” peddling Satan’s false solutions for life in this world—while the real solution is barely known, hardly advertised, rarely sold, and even more rarely taken and used.
God, Moses, the Rod and the Serpent
Not only do we see a serpent in the opening moments of life on Earth—tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden—but we also see God deliberately make use of a serpent in a miraculous way, for it to be a testimony of the authority that God had given to Moses. “Moses answered and said: ‘They will not believe me, nor hear my voice, but they will say: “The Lord hath not appeared to thee.” Then the Lord God said to Moses: ‘What is that thou holdest in thy hand?’ He answered: ‘A rod.’ And the Lord said: ‘Cast it down upon the ground.’ He cast it down, and it was turned into a serpent: so that Moses fled from it. And the Lord said: ‘Put out thy hand and take it by the tail.’ He put forth his hand, and took hold of it, and it was turned into a rod. ‘That they may believe,’ saith he, ‘that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared to thee!’’ (Exodus 4:1-5).
Later, God makes Moses repeat the miracle of the rod changing into a serpent, before Pharao of Egypt, so that he would allow the Israelites—then slaves of the Egyptians (a symbol of slavery to sin)—to leave Egypt for the Promised Land. “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Behold I have appointed thee the God [meaning “judge”] of Pharao: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. Thou shalt speak to him all that I command thee; and he shall speak to Pharao, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land. But I shall harden his heart, and shall multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. And he will not hear you: and I will lay my hand upon Egypt, and will bring forth my army and my people the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, by very great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, who have stretched forth my hand upon Egypt, and have brought forth the children of Israel out of the midst of them.
“And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord had commanded: so did they. And Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three, when they spoke to Pharao. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: ‘When Pharao shall say to you, “Show signs!” thou shalt say to Aaron: “Take thy rod, and cast it down before Pharao!” and it shall be turned into a serpent. So Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharao, and did as the Lord had commanded. And Aaron took the rod before Pharao, and his servants, and it was turned into a serpent. And Pharao called the wise men and the magicians: and they also by Egyptian enchantments and certain secrets did in like manner. And they every one cast down their rods, and they were turned into serpents: but Aaron’s rod devoured their rods. And Pharao’s heart was hardened, and he did not hearken to them, as the Lord had commanded.” (Genesis 7:1-13).
God’s “Snake-Oil” Cure in the Desert
The journey to the Promised Land, under Moses, did not go smoothly—in great part due to the murmuring and sinfulness of the Israelites. God would punish this by a plague of serpents that would invade and bite many of the murmuring sinners. God would then provide His own version of “snake-oil” to cure them! “And they marched from Mount Hor, by the way that leadeth to the Red Sea, to compass the land of Edom. And the people began to be weary of their journey and labor. And speaking against God and Moses, they said: ‘Why didst thou bring us out of Egypt, to die in the wilderness? There is no bread, nor have we any waters: our soul now loatheth this very light food [the manna]!’ Wherefore the Lord sent among the people fiery serpents, which bit them and killed many of them. Upon which they came to Moses, and said: ‘We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and thee! Pray that he may take away these serpents from us!’ And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to him: ‘Make brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign! Whosoever being struck shall look on it, shall live!’ Moses therefore made a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: which, when they that were bitten looked upon, they were healed” (Numbers 21:4-9).
The Rods of Moses and Aaron
The Bible tells how, along with Moses’s rod, Aaron’s rod was endowed with miraculous power during the Plagues of Egypt that preceded the Exodus. In the culture of the Israelites, the rod would be a natural symbol of authority, as the tool used by the shepherd to correct and guide his flock (Psalm 23:4). Moses’s rod is, in fact, cited in Exodus 4:2 as carried by him while he tended his sheep; and later (Exodus 4:20) becomes his symbol of authority over the Israelites (Psalm 2:9, Psalm 89:32, Isaias 10:24 and 11:4, Ezekiel 20:37). The rods of both Moses and Aaron were endowed with miraculous power during the Plagues of Egypt (Exodus 7:17, 8:5, 8:16-17, 9:23, and 10:13); God commanded Moses to raise his rod over the Red Sea when it was to be parted (Exodus 14:16) and in prayer over Israel in battle (Exodus 17:9); Moses brings forth water from a stone using his rod (Exodus 17, Numbers 20:11).
Aaron’s rod, however, is cited twice as exhibiting miraculous power on its own, when not physically in the grasp of its owner. In Exodus chapter 7, God sends Moses and Aaron to the Pharao once more, instructing Aaron that when the Pharao demands to see a miracle, he is to cast down his rod and it will become a serpent. In Numbers chapter 17, Core’s rebellion against Moses’ proclamation of the tribe of Levi as the priesthood has been quashed and the entire congregation’s ensuing rebellion has resulted in a plague, ended only by the intercession of Moses and Aaron. In order to “stop the complaints” of the Israelites, God commands that each of the Twelve Tribes provide a rod; and only that of the tribe chosen to become priests, will miraculously sprout overnight. Aaron provides his rod to represent the tribe of Levi, and it put forth buds, produced blossoms, and bore ripe almonds (Numbers 17:1-12), as an evidence of the exclusive right to the priesthood of the tribe of Levi. In commemoration of this decision it was commanded that the rod be put again “before the testimony” (Numbers 17:10). According to tradition, the rod of Aaron bore sweet almonds on one side and bitter on the other; if the Israelites followed the Lord, the sweet almonds would be ripe and edible, but if they were to forsake the path of the Lord, the bitter almonds would predominate. A New Testament book (Hebrews 9:4) asserts that the rod of Aaron was kept in the Ark of the Covenant along with the manna and the Ten Commandments.
“Hot Cross Buns”
Speaking of manna, reminds us of the English hot cross buns. A hot cross bun is a spiced sweet round bread bun made with currants or raisins, marked with a cross on the top, and traditionally eaten on Good Friday in the British Isles, Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and some parts of America. The buns mark the end of Lent and different parts of the hot cross bun have a certain meaning, including the cross representing the crucifixion of Jesus, and the spices inside signifying the spices used to embalm him at His burial.
“Hot Cross Buns” is also an English language nursery rhyme, Easter song, and street cry:
“Hot cross buns!
“Hot cross buns!
“One a penny, two a penny,
“Hot cross buns!
“If you have no daughters,
“Give them to your sons.
“One a penny two a penny,
Hot cross buns!”
The earliest record of the rhyme is in Christmas Box, published in London in 1798. However, there are earlier references to the rhyme as a street cry in London, for example in the Poor Robin’s Almanack for 1733, which noted:
“Good Friday comes this month, the old woman runs
“With one or two a penny hot cross buns.”
In many historically Christian countries, plain buns made without dairy products (forbidden in Lent) are traditionally eaten hot or toasted during Lent, beginning with the evening of Shrove Tuesday (the evening before Ash Wednesday).
The ancient Greeks may have marked cakes with a cross.
One theory is that the Hot Cross Bun originates from the town of St. Albans in England (St. Alban was the first known English martyr), where Brother Thomas Rocliffe, a 14th Century monk at St Albans Abbey, developed a similar recipe called an ‘Alban Bun’ and distributed the bun to the local poor on Good Friday, starting in 1361.
In Protestant England, which saw a massive persecution of Catholics, during the time of Elizabeth I of England (1592), the London Clerk of Markets issued a decree forbidding the sale of hot cross buns and other spiced breads, except at burials, on Good Friday, or at Christmas. The punishment for transgressing the decree was forfeiture of all the forbidden product to the poor. As a result of this decree, hot cross buns at the time were primarily made in home kitchens. Further attempts to suppress the sale of these items took place during the reign of James I of England/James VI of Scotland (1603–1625).
English folklore includes many superstitions surrounding hot cross buns. One of them says that buns baked and served on Good Friday will not spoil or grow moldy during the subsequent year. Another encourages keeping such a bun for medicinal purposes. A piece of it given to someone ill is said to help them recover. If taken on a sea voyage, hot cross buns are said to protect against shipwreck. If hung in the kitchen, they are said to protect against fires and ensure that all breads turn out perfectly. The hanging bun is replaced each year. The hot cross buns even made it as far as Hawaii. The earliest record of that was an 1884 advertisement announcing the sale of hot cross buns for Good Friday in a Hawaiian newspaper.
The hot cross buns remind us of the sacred host that we receive in Holy Communion, which is often stamped with the sign of the cross. We are now getting closer to the point of all this blathering! The sacred Host that we receive in Holy Communion is a product of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is nothing other that a re-presentation or re-enactment of the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross at Calvary. From this perspective, you could say that the sacred Host you receive in Holy Communion, is, very broadly and loosely speaking, like a splinter of the True Cross that Christ shares with you. It was customary—before the New Mass came along—for the priest to make a sign of the cross with small host over each communicant before placing the host on the tongue. Nowadays it is just unceremoniously plonked in the persons hand. After receiving the sacred Host, the communicants would usually make a sign of the cross over themselves before returning to their pew. From this perspective, you could envisage Holy Communion as not just giving out the Body of Christ, but also the Cross of Christ.
Unity in Diversity
So we have finally arrived at the point of all this seemingly endless and pointless diversity and can examine the beauty of all this—for the definition of beauty is “unity in diversity”—and all of these seemingly incongruous elements will find themselves united in the Cross of Christ.
The “Tree of Life” in the midst of the Garden of Eden or Paradise, the fruit of which preserved the natural physical life of Adam and Eve, is a symbol of the Holy Cross or the Sacrifice of Christ (the Holy Eucharist) which stands at the center of the Church and all its Sacraments. Upon this “Tree of Life” Christ, is the fruit that preserves our spiritual life and leads to eternal life. That Christ is a ‘fruit’ is evident from the words of the Archangel Gabriel, who said to Mary: “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb!” (Luke 1:42) and this fruit must be eaten, as Our Lord Himself said: “I am the living bread which came down from Heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is My flesh, for the life of the world … Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day” (John 6:51-55).
This brings us the “Bread” that was spoken of earlier—the hot cross bun. Christ is the bread of life, but there is no Christ without the Cross, and the bread of life must be united to the crosses of life. “And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’ … Whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 9:23; 14:27). “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Therefore, when we say, in the Our Father--“Give us this day our daily bread!”—we may as well be saying: “Give us this day our daily crosses!” It is the “Bread of Life”—that we receive in Holy Communion—which gives us the strength to carry those crosses. The words “daily bread”—and not merely “Sunday bread”—should instill in us the desire to receive Our Lord daily in Holy Communion. For some that is not possible—but the desire for it should still be there and what is there to stop anybody from reading every day the prayers of each daily Mass and making a spiritual communion (or many of them) at home or in any other location? Nothing stops us from doing that—except our indifference or lukewarmness.
Likewise with the serpent or snake, and the snake-oil. When the Israelites were punished for murmuring against God and Moses by being bitten by snakes—God, who likes to bring good out of evil, provided His own version of “snake-oil” by having Moses make a “And the Lord said to him: ‘Make brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: whosoever being struck shall look on it, shall live!’ Moses therefore made a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: which when they that were bitten looked upon, they were healed” (Numbers 21:8-9). Through the eating of the fruit of one tree—the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil—death came into the world. Through the eating of the fruit of another tree—the Tree of the Cross and its fruit Jesus—the possibility of eternal life was restored to the world. Looking upon the brazen serpent healed the snake-bitten Israelites and helped them realize the dangers that their murmuring had led them into and that they were facing death as a consequence. A snake brought death and “brazen serpent” brought life. For Christians, looking at the Cross reminds them of the price of sin—a price to be paid, not only by Christ, but also by every sinner—and the cross is part of that price and punishment. Yet, as the snake led to death but also to healing and life, so too does the cross lead to death—hopefully a death to the desire for sin—and it also leads to life by paying for the debt of sin.
The “Rods” of Moses and Aaron that could perform miracles or turn into serpents that kill, are a reminder that our crosses can bring about miracles or they can lead us to Hell. As St. Augustine says, the same cross can lead one soul to Heaven, but lead another soul to Hell. What does he mean? He speaks of the manner in which we look upon the cross, on whether we accept it or not, whether we grumble and murmur or not, whether we end up carrying it or throwing it aside. Strangely enough, the Old English Medieval word for “cross” was the word “rood”—which is very similar to “rod”. In fact, the screen that separated the sanctuary from the nave in the church, used to be called the “Rood Screen”—on account of the large cross with the crucified Christ that nestled on top of the screen, looking down upon the faithful in the nave. “Rood Screen” essentially meant “Cross Screen” and one day we shall be “screened” as to how we have carried our crosses and our salvation will depend upon it.
Nailed to the Cross for a Good Reason
On Good Friday, Jesus was nailed to the Cross. He was nailed to the Cross for good! Good Friday has been the focal point of the Church ever since that first Good Friday. Our Lord was nailed to the Cross for our good and He wishes that this act be planted in the center of our hearts for good! For on this brutal day, God brings good out of evil and through His goodness He pays for our evil. Yet there is something missing—it is our own personal and willing crucifixion alongside that of Jesus.
We need to follow the attitude of St. Paul, who says: “But we preach Christ crucified … For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2). “And they that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24). “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6).
Nailing Our Sins For the Good of Our Soul
Sin is the greatest evil in this world—no natural disaster, no disease, nothing is a great an evil as sin. War is even a punishment for sin. The impending chastisement, where Our Lady says that most of mankind will be wiped out (around three quarters it seems), is a consequence of sin. If we cannot grasp the price of sin in such a scenario, then we never will! Sin is the only real evil in world—if it was lessened, then all the other evils would also lessened in proportion. It is the most costly thing around—look at Our Savior on the Cross and you get an inkling of an idea as to its expense.
Therefore, it is important that we nail our sins as much as possible—that we put the final nail in the coffin of our sins as much as we can: for nobody outside of Our Lord and Our Lady are impeccable—“For a just man shall fall seven times and shall rise again” (Proverbs 24:16)—but we can all drastically reduce the amount of sins that we commit daily. If only we could say that we only committed a mere seven sins a day—that would be phenomenal!
Nailing Our Sins Before God Nails Them!
In Holy Scripture we encounter many passages that warn us of the attitude of God to wanton, unrepented and unpaid sin:
“If you will not hear Me, nor do all My commandments, if you despise My laws, and contemn My judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by Me, then I will do these things to you: I will quickly visit you with poverty, and burning heat, which shall waste your eyes, and consume your lives. You shall sow your seed in vain, which shall be devoured by your enemies. I will set my face against you, and you shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you, you shall flee when no man pursueth you.
“But if you will not yet for all this obey Me: I will chastise you seven times more for your sins, and I will break the pride of your stubbornness, and I will make to you the Heaven above as iron, and the Earth as brass; your labor shall be spent in vain, the ground shall not bring forth her increase, nor the trees yield their fruit.
“If you walk contrary to Me, and will not hearken to Me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins. And I will send in upon you the beasts of the field, to destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number, and that your highways may be desolate.
“And if even so you will not amend, but will walk contrary to Me, then I also will walk contrary to you, and will strike you seven times for your sins. And I will bring in upon you the sword that shall avenge my covenant. And when you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies.
“But if you will not for all this hearken to Me, but will walk against Me, then I will also go against you with opposite fury, and I will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins, so that you shall eat the flesh of your sons and of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, and break your idols. You shall fall among the ruins of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. Insomuch that I will bring your cities to be a wilderness, and I will make your sanctuaries desolate. And I will destroy your land, and your enemies shall be astonished at it, when they shall be the inhabitants thereof. And I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed” (Leviticus 26:14-33).
Chastisement of Jerusalem & Today’s Chastisement
Jerusalem—with its Priests, Scribes, Pharisees and people—asked that Jesus be nailed to the Cross. They cried out: “Let His blood be upon us and our children!” (Matthew 27:25). Be careful what you say, is all I can say!
God took them at their word and around one generation later, in 70 AD, the Romans utterly destroyed Jerusalem, so much so that in the succeeding years, if any passes by the place, they could not tell that a great city had once been located on that site. Over 1 million Jews were slaughtered in the Siege of Jerusalem—thousands of them being nailed to crosses and crucified by the Romans. Why? Because Jerusalem did not repent but remained entrenched in its rejection of Christ’s teaching.
What goes around, comes around. What happened to Jerusalem back then, is a ‘microcosm’ of the ‘macrocosm’ that awaits the world today—as foretold repeatedly by Our Lady in these modern times. Fire from the heavens; natural disasters throughout the world; wars and plagues upon Earth; brutality and butchery everywhere—why? Because we have, as a whole, refused the message of the Queen of prophets. What goes around, comes around—the prophets of old were stoned to death, while, today, we are as deaf as a stone to the words of Our Lady.
The Price of Rejection
She could well have spoken the same words to the world, as Our Lord addressed to Jerusalem just before being nailed to the Cross: “Wherefore you are witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of them that killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. You serpents, generation of vipers, how will you flee from the judgment of Hell? Therefore behold I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them you will put to death and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city.
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not? Behold, your house shall be left to you, desolate!’ And Jesus, being come out of the Temple, said to them: Do you see all these buildings? Amen I say to you there shall not be left here a stone upon a stone that shall not be destroyed!” (Matthew 23:31-38; 24:1-2).
The Arm, the Hammer and Nails for Sin
Above, we spoke of those who “have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24), so that “our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6). What is the hammer that we must use? What are the nails? What of the arm that delivers the hammer blows? All these are readily available to anyone who wants to use them. They are prayer, penance, and sanctifying grace (charity, which is lost when grace is lost).
The Hammer of Prayer
The hammer could be said to prayer, for, through prayer, we must continually hammer and bang on the door of Heaven. We see similarities between hammering and praying: “The noise of the hammer is always in his ears” (Ecclesiasticus 38:30) … “Pray without ceasing … We ought always to pray, and not to faint … To him that knocketh, it shall be opened” (1 Thessalonians 5:17; Luke 18:1; Luke 11:10).
“Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and shall say to him: ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine is come off his journey to me, and I have not what to set before him!’ And he from within should answer, and say: ‘Trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee!’ Yet if he shall continue knocking [hammering], I say to you, although he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise, and give him as many as he needeth … Knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Luke 11:5-9).
The Nails of Sacrifice
The Nails are acts of sacrifices, mortifications and penances. “Let him do penance for his sin” (Leviticus 5:5) … “Prayer is good with fasting and alms” (Tobias 12:8) … “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:20) … “I covered my soul in fasting” (Psalm 68:11) ... “I set my face to the Lord my God, to pray and make supplication with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes” (Daniel 9:3) … “and they praying in this place, shall do penance to thy name, and shall be converted from their sins” (3 Kings 8:35).
But we need to be in a state of grace (and charity) for all the above mentioned power tools to work—grace and charity are like electricity that makes the electrical tools work. They are like body and soul, mind and heart, husband and wife, pilot and co-pilot—they give the spirit and direction to the work. If we have lost God’s sanctifying grace, we also lose charity, and our prayers and acts are useless as regards meriting or obtaining anything other than an actual grace to lead us to conversion and the regaining of sanctifying grace.
St. Paul puts it powerfully and clearly when he writes: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
The Inhuman Nailing of Christ Our Lord
We read in The Mystical City of God, an account of the inhuman way in which Jesus was nailed to the Cross: “In order to find the places for the augerholes on the Cross, the executioners haughtily commanded the Creator of the universe. The Teacher of humility obeyed without hesitation. But they, following their inhuman instinct of cruelty, marked the places for the holes, not according to the size of his body, but larger—having in mind a new torture for their Victim.
“This inhuman intent was known to the Mother of light, and the knowledge of it was one of the greatest afflictions of her heart during the whole Passion. She saw through the intentions of these ministers of sin and she anticipated the torments to be endured by her beloved Son when his limbs should be wrenched from their sockets in being nailed to the Cross. But she could not do anything to prevent it, as it was the will of the Lord to suffer these pains for men” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“When He rose from the Cross, and they set about boring the holes, the great Lady approached and took hold of one of his hands, adoring Him and kissing it with greatest reverence. The executioners allowed this because they thought that the sight of his Mother would cause so much the greater affliction to the Lord; for they wished to spare Him no sorrow they could cause Him. But they were ignorant of the hidden mysteries; for the Lord during his Passion had no greater source of consolation and interior joy than to see in the soul of his most Blessed Mother, the beautiful likeness of Himself and the full fruits of his Passion and Death. This joy, to a certain extent, comforted Christ our Lord also in that hour” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Having bored the three holes into the Cross, the executioners again commanded Christ the Lord to stretch Himself out upon it in order to be nailed to it. The supreme and almighty King, as the Author of patience, obeyed, and at the will of the hangmen, placed Himself with outstretched arms upon the blessed wood. The Lord was so weakened, disfigured and exhausted, that if the ferocious cruelty of those men had left the least room for natural reason and kindness, they could not have brought themselves to inflict further torments upon the innocent and meek Lamb, humbly suffering such nameless sorrows and pains. But not so with them; for the judges and their executioners were transformed in their malice and deathly hatred into demons, void of the feelings of sensible and earthly men and urged on only by diabolical wrath and fury” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Presently one of the executioners seized the hand of Jesus our Savior and placed it upon the auger hole, while another hammered a large and rough nail through the palm. The veins and sinews were torn, and the bones of the sacred hand, which made the heavens and all that exists, were forced apart. When they stretched out the other hand, they found that it did not reach up to the auger hole; for the sinews of the other arm had been shortened and the executioners had maliciously set the holes too far apart. In order to overcome the difficulty, they took the chain, with which the Savior had been bound in the garden, and looping one end through a ring around his wrist, they, with unheard of cruelty, pulled the hand over the hole and fastened it with another nail” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Thereupon they seized His feet, and placing them one above the other, they tied the same chain around both and stretched them with barbarous ferocity down to the third hole. Then they drove through both feet a large nail into the Cross. Thus the sacred body, in which dwelled the Divinity, was nailed motionless to the holy Cross, and the handiwork of His deified members, formed by the Holy Ghost, was so stretched and torn asunder, that the bones of His body, dislocated and forced from their natural position, could all be counted. The bones of His breast, of His shoulders and arms, and of His whole body yielded to the cruel violence and were torn from their sinews” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“It is impossible for human tongue or words of mouth to describe the torments of our Savior Jesus and what He suffered on this occasion. On the last day alone more will be known, in order that his cause may be justified before sinners and the praise and exaltation of the saints may be so much the greater” (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
Our Lady Hits the Nail on the Head
Speaking of these events, and drawing conclusions from them, Our Lady says: “Thy state of life must be for thee a most rigid cross on which thou must remain crucified, and thou must not widen thy path by seeking for dispensation and weakening interpretation of thy rules to make it easy and comfortable, but at the same time, insecure and full of imperfections. This is the deception into which the children of Babylon and of Adam fall, that each one, according to his state, seeks to find ease in the work commanded by the law of God. They set aside the salvation of their soul in their efforts to buy Heaven very cheaply, or risk losing it by dreading the restrictions and entire subjection necessary to observe rigorously the divine law and its precepts” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Hence arises the desire to find explanations and opinions, which smooth the paths and highways of eternal life, without heeding the doctrine of my divine Son, that the path of life is very narrow. They forget that the Lord Himself has walked these narrow paths, in order that no one might imagine he can reach eternal life over paths more spacious and comfortable to the flesh and to the inclinations vitiated by sins” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“This danger is greater for ecclesiastics and religious, who by their very state must follow the Master and must accommodate themselves to His life of poverty and must choose for this purpose the way of the Cross. Some of them however are apt to seek the dignities attached to the religious state for their temporal advantage, for the increase of their own honor and praise” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“In order to secure it they lighten the Cross they have promised to bear, so that they live a carnal life, little restricted and much eased by deceptive dispensations and vain excuses. In their time they shall recognize the truth and that saying of the Holy Ghost: Each one thinks his path secure, but the Lord weighs in His hands the hearts of men” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“So far from this deceit, do I wish thee to be, my daughter, that thou must live strictly in such a way that thou canst not stretch thyself in any way, being nailed immovably to the Cross with Christ. Thou must set aside all temporal advantages, for the least point pertaining to the utmost perfection of thy state” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Thy right hand, my daughter, must be nailed to the Cross by obedience, and reserve not for thyself the least movement, the least activity, or word, or thought not controlled by this virtue. Thou must not maintain any position that is of thy own choice, but only such as is willed by others; thou must not appear wise in thy own conceit in anything, but ignorant and blind, in order to follow entirely the guidance of thy superiors (Proverbs 3:7). He that promises, says the wise man (Proverbs 6:1), binds his hands, and by his words shall he be bound and chained” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Thy left hand thou hast nailed to the Cross by the vow of poverty, depriving thee of all right to follow any inclination toward the objects usually coveted by the eyes; for both in the use and in the desire for such creatures thou must rigorously imitate Christ impoverished and despoiled upon the Cross” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“By chastity, thy feet are nailed to the Cross, in order that all thy steps and movements may be pure, chaste and beautiful. For this thou must not permit in thy presence the least word offensive to purity, nor, by looking upon or touching any human creature, allow any sensual image or impression within thee; thy eyes and all thy senses are to remain consecrated to chastity, without making more use of them than to fix them upon Jesus crucified” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
“Contemplate and consider in thy heart the image of my Son and Lord full of blood, torments, sorrows, and at last nailed to the Cross, no part of His sacred body being exempt from wounds and excruciating pains. The Lord and I were most solicitous and compassionate toward all the children of men; for them We suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that they might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good and in return for so obliging a love. Therefore, let mortals show themselves thankful, willingly entering upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, to bear it after Christ. Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).
As St. Paul says, “They that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24). “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Romans 6:6). “That I may live to God: with Christ I am nailed to the cross” (Galatians 2:19).
Article 6
Monday September 12th, 2022
Feast of the Holy Name of Mary
The Power of the Holy Name of Mary
Monday September 12th, 2022
Feast of the Holy Name of Mary
The Power of the Holy Name of Mary
The Holy Name of Mary
from the Mystical City of God by the Ven. Mary of Agreda
The petitions of the holy Joachim and Anne reached the throne of the holy Trinity, where they were accepted and the will of God was made known to the holy angels. The three divine Persons, according to our way of expressing such things, spoke to them as follows:
“We have resolved, that the Person of the Word shall assume human flesh and that through Him all the race of mortals shall find a remedy. We have already manifested and promised this to Our servants, the Prophets, in order that they might announce it to the world. The sins of the living, and their malice are so great, that We are much constrained by the rigor of justice. But Our goodness and mercy is greater than all their evil-doing, nor can it extinguish our love toward men. We will look with mercy upon the works of Our hands, which We have created according to Our image and likeness, so as to enable them to become inheritors and participators of Our eternal. And above all have We before Our eyes her, who is to be the Chosen One, who is to be acceptable above all creatures and singled out for Our delight and pleasure; because she is to conceive the person of the Word in her womb and clothe Him with human flesh. Since there must be a beginning of this work, this shall be the acceptable and opportune time for its execution. Joachim and Anne have found grace in Our eyes; We look upon them with pleasure and shall enrich them with choicest gifts and graces. They have been faithful and constant in their trials and, in simplicity and uprightness their souls, have become acceptable and pleasing before Us. Let Gabriel as Our ambassador bring tidings of joy for them and for the whole human race; let him announce to them, that in Our condescension We have looked upon them and chosen them.”
Thus the celestial spirits were instructed in regard to the will and the decree of the Almighty. The holy archangel Gabriel humbled himself before the throne of the most blessed Trinity, adoring and revering the divine Majesty in the manner which befits these most pure and spiritual substances. From the throne an intellectual voice proceeded, saying: “Gabriel, enlighten, enliven and console Joachim and Anne, Our servants, and tell them, that their prayers have come to Our attention and their petitions are heard in clemency. Promise them, that by the favour of Our right hand, Anne shall conceive a Daughter, to whom We give the name of MARY.”
Together with this command of the Most High many mysteries and sacraments pertaining to this message were revealed to saint Gabriel. With it he descended from Heaven and appeared to holy Joachim, while he was in prayer, saying to him:
“O Just and upright man, the Almighty has taken notice of thy desires and has heard thy sighs and prayers, and has made thee fortunate on earth. Thy spouse Anne shall conceive and bear a Daughter, who shall be blessed among women. The nations shall know her as the Blessed. The eternal God sends me to thee, because thy works and alms have been acceptable. Love has softened the heart of the Almighty, and has hastened his mercies, and, in His generosity, He wishes to enrich thy house and thy family with a Daughter, whom Anne shall conceive; the Lord Himself has chosen for her the name of MARY. From her childhood, let her be consecrated to the Temple and to God, as thou hast promised. She shall be elect, exalted, powerful and full of the Holy Ghost; on account of the sterility of Anne her conception shall be miraculous; she shall be a Daughter wonderful in all her doings and in all her life. Praise the Lord, Joachim, for this benefit, and magnify Him, for in no other nation has He wrought the like. Thou shalt go to give thanks in the Temple of Jerusalem and, in testimony of the truth of this joyful message, thou shalt meet, at the Golden Gate, thy sister Anne, who is coming to the Temple for the same purpose.”
All this happened to St. Joachim during his prolonged prayer and in a miraculous sleep, into which he fell for the purpose of receiving this message. He experienced something similar to that which happened to St. Joseph, the spouse of the most holy Mary, when it was made known to him, that her pregnancy was the work of the Holy Ghost. The most fortunate St. Joachim awoke in great joy of soul and with solicitous and ingenuous prudence he concealed within his heart the sacrament of the King. With a lively faith and hope he poured forth his soul in the presence of the Most High, and full of tenderness and gratitude, he thanked and praised Him for his inscrutable judgments. In order to do this more fittingly, he hastened to the Temple as he had been ordered.
Mary in the Hail Mary
Ave Maria! This name was inserted into the Hail Mary, not by the Angel, but by the devotion of the faithful. The Evangelist Luke says significantly, “And the name of the Virgin was Mary.” This most holy, sweet, and worthy name was eminently fitting to so holy, sweet, and worthy a virgin.
If many of God’s servants received their names from God, the Mother of the Redeemer, surpassing them all in dignity, surely received her name directly from God. He was supremely interested in the name of His Daughter, Mother, and Spouse. There can be no doubt that the name of Mary must possess, as much as the name of the Redeemer, a meaning by virtue of divine inspiration, which corresponds to the dignity and position of her who bears it. The ancients considered the Hebrew “Miryam” as a compound of two words: jam (more) and marah (to be bitter). The best and richest explanation is the one that St. Jerome gives; namely, “enlightening.” It characterizes Mary’s own position and activity, that is, her Divine Motherhood. In virtue of this privilege, according to the expression of the Church, she reflects as a spotless mirror the Eternal Light of the World, which is first poured into herself and illuminates her; as Mother of the spiritual and heavenly life she is the mediatrix of the light of grace to mankind. In this way the meaning of “Stella Maris” (star of the sea) is also associated with the name “Mary.” Mary is the “woman clothed with the sun” of the Apocalypse. Others have interpreted it to mean “Lady.” As we call Jesus “Our Lord,” we call Mary “Our Lady.” Whenever we pray the Hail Mary, we mention both of these holy names.
The most holy names of Jesus and Mary possess a hidden power which puts to flight the demon and fills the soul of him who utters them in loving faith with consolation and hope. It is certain that God has attached a wonderful power of sanctification and life to the devout uttering of these two names by the faithful, because Jesus and Mary are the desired objects of His love. Hence one of the reasons why we should pray, like little Francisco of Fatima, many Rosaries daily—to shield ourselves from the attacks of the devil and to repel those attacks.
The saints derived much consolation from the name of Mary. St. Francis of Assisi exclaimed: “When I pray ‘Hail Mary,’ the heavens smile, the angels rejoice, the earth is happy and the devils tremble.” St. Bernard writes: “O great, O holy, O ineffable Virgin, thy name is so sweet and lovely that it cannot be pronounced without our becoming inflamed with love for thee and for God Who gave this name to thee!”
Eight days after the birth of Mary, according to the custom of the Jews, her parents, Joachim and Anna, gave her the name of Mary. Wherefore, during the Octave of her Nativity, the liturgy keeps a feast in honor of this holy name. Spain with the approval of Rome, in 1513, was the first to celebrate it; in 1683 it was extended to the whole Church by Innocent XI to thank Mary for the victory which John Sobieski, King of Poland, had just gained against the Turks who besieged Vienna (see below).
The Name of Mary is a source of power, consolation and hope. Prove your love for your heavenly Mother by often uttering her holy name with loving confidence. If you do so frequently in life, you will surely do so at the hour of your death, when you will need her most. After receiving the Last Sacraments of the Church, you cannot be better prepared to meet your Divine Judge than with the names of Jesus and Mary upon your lips.
The Background to the Feast
In 1513, a feast of “The Holy Name of Mary” was granted, by the Papal indult of Pope Julius II, to the diocese of Cuenta in Spain. It was given its very own liturgical Office, assigned to September 15th, the octave day of Our Lady’s Nativity. When Pope St. Pius V reformed the Breviary, the feast was abolished, but made its comeback under St. Pius V’s successor, Pope Sixtus V, who changed the feast day to September 15th to the 17th. Later, the feast was taken on-board by the Archdiocese of Toledo in Spain [1622] and, eventually, by all of Spain and also the Kingdom of Naples [1671].
Throughout this time, permission to celebrate the feast was also given to various religious orders in a prudent manner, as has been the custom throughout Church history regarding feast-days, their dates, offices, liturgical expression, etc. However, this Feast of the Holy Name of Mary would one day happily find itself extended to the Universal Church, and this came about by some very dramatic events, which revolves around one of Poland’s great military heroes, John Sobieski [1629-1696].
John Sobieski
While acting as field-marshal under King John Casimir, Sobieski had raised a force of 8,000 men and enough provisions to withstand a siege of invading Cossacks and Tartars, who were forced to retreat at great loss. In 1672, under the reign of King Michael Wisniowiecki, Sobieski engaged and defeated the Turkish army, who lost 20,000 men at Chocim.
When King Michael died, Sobieski, a beloved hero at that point, was crowned King of Poland. But, even before his coronation could take place, he would again engage and drive back the Turkish hordes in separate battles including the raising of the siege at Trembowla. Once crowned, he advanced to the Ruthenian provinces, where, having too few soldiers to attack the Turks, who outnumbered his men—ten to one, he literally wore out the enemy, garrisoning his troops at Zurawno. Because of this heroic effort, he was able to regain, by treaty, a good portion of the Ukraine. With both Turks and Poles weary from battle, peace reigned for a time, until the Turks set their sights on Austria, setting out through Hungary with an army of approximately 300,000 men.
Into Battle With Mary
Fleeing from Austria, Emperor Leopold asked for Sobieski’s assistance, a plea which was seconded by the Papal Nuncio. In July 1683, the Turkish Grand Vizier, Kara Mustapha, had reached Vienna and laid siege to the city, which was being defended by only 15,000 men. Sobieski set out for Vienna in August, his forces marching behind the banner of the Blessed Virgin. Passing by the Sanctuary of Mary in Czestochowa, they implored Our Lady’s help and blessing. Writing centuries later, to the bishops of Poland, Pope Pius XII recalled the supplications of Sobieski to Mary, at the Sanctuary on Jasna Gora [i.e., “Bright Hill”], the site of the Shrine: “To the same Heavenly Queen, on Clear Mountain, the illustrious John Sobieski, whose eminent valor freed Christianity from the attacks of its old enemies, confided himself.” [Letter, Cum iam lustri abeat, 1951].
In September, the Sobieski’s men joined with the German troops, who were led by John George, Elector of Saxony, and Prince Charles of Lorraine. On the eighth day of the month, the Feast of the Nativity of Mary, Sobieski prepared himself for the forthcoming battle by the reception of Holy Communion. Battle was engaged before the walls of Vienna on September 12th, 1683, with Sobieski seemingly put to flight by the fierce Turkish forces. However, this retreat was only a minor setback. The Hussars renewed their assault and charged the Turks, this time sending the enemy into a retreat. The combat raged on, until Sobieski finally stormed the enemy camp. The Turkish forces were routed, Vienna was saved, and Sobieski sent the captured Moslem “Standard of the Prophet” to Pope Innocent XI, along with the good news. In a letter to the Pontiff, Sobieski summed up his victory with a play upon Julius Caesar’s famous words Veni, vidi, vici, meaning “I came, I saw, I conquered!” which Sobieski changed to: Veni, vidi, Deus vicit — “I came, I saw, God conquered!”
To commemorate this glorious victory, render thanksgiving to God and give honor to Our Lady, for their help in the struggle, Pope Innocent XI extended the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary to the Universal Church. The feast was to be celebrated on the Sunday after the Nativity of Mary, but, in the 20th century, Pope St. Pius X decreed that it be celebrated on September 12th, the day of the victory of the Catholic forces under John Sobieski. The history of this feast reminds us in some ways of that of the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, which was instituted to celebrate and commemorate the victory of the Catholic forces over the Turkish navy at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571: “And thus Christ’s faithful warriors, prepared to sacrifice their life and blood, for the welfare of their Faith and their country, proceeded undauntedly to meet their foe, near the Gulf of Corinth; while those who were unable to join them, formed a band of pious supplicants, who called on Mary and, as one, saluted her again and again in the words of the Rosary, imploring her to grant victory to their companions engaged in battle. Our sovereign Lady did grant her aid.” (Pope Leo XIII, encyclical Supremi Apostolatus, 1883).
What’s in a Name?
Pondering the Meaning of “Mary” we see that, in Hebrew, the name Mary is Miryam. In Our Lady’s time, Aramaic was the spoken language, and the form of the name then in use was Mariam. Derived from the root, merur, the name signifies “bitterness.” Miryam was the name of the sister of Moses; and the ancient rabbinical scholars seeing in it a symbol of the slavery of the Israelites at the hands of the Egyptians, held that Miryam was given this name, because she was born during the time of the oppression of her people—a time of “bitterness”. The Old Testament, being the chronicle of the “Time of Expectation” of the Redeemer, is filled with various “types,” or foreshadowings of people and events which would be made manifest during the “Time of Redemption,” when Christ walked the earth. Yet we can only look at them “through a glass darkly,” so to speak, under the guidance of the Catholic Church, which alone possesses the authority to interpret the sacred texts. Miryam, the sister of Moses is a “type” or prefiguration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Miryam was a prophetess, who sang a canticle of thanksgiving, after the safe crossing of the Red Sea and the destruction of Pharaoh’s army; Mary prophesied in her canticle, the Magnificat, that all generations would honor her by calling her “blessed”, and she sang of how God would overturn the proud and raise-up the humble. Miryam supported her brother, Moses, the liberator of his people; just as Mary, as the Co-Redemptrix, united her sufferings to those of Jesus on Calvary, for Mary labored alongside the Redeemer, the true Liberator of His people. Just as Jesus was the “antitype” [i.e., the fulfillment] of Moses, so was Our Lady the “antitype” of Miryam, the fullest realization of the courageous woman standing beside, and laboring with, the one who comes to free captives.
Saintly Explanations
Throughout the centuries, Saints and scholars have put forth different interpretations for the name “Mary.” A mixture of etymology and devotion has combined to produce an interesting array of meanings:
“Mary means enlightener, because she brought forth the Light of the world. In the Syriac tongue, Mary signifies Lady” (St. Isidore of Seville +636).
“Let me say something concerning this name also, which is interpreted to mean Star of the sea, and admirably suits the Virgin Mother.” (St. Bernard +1153).
“Mary means Star of the sea, for as mariners are guided to port by the ocean star, so Christians attain to glory through Mary’s maternal intercession.” (St. Thomas Aquinas +1274)
“This most holy, sweet and worthy name was ‘eminently fitted to so holy, sweet and worthy a virgin. For Mary means a bitter sea, star of the sea, the illuminated or illuminatrix. Mary is interpreted Lady. Mary is a bitter sea to the demons; to men, she is the Star of the sea; to the angels, she is Illuminatrix; and to all creatures, she is Lady.” [St. Bonaventure +1274]
“God the Father gathered all the waters together and called them the seas or ‘maria’ [Latin for’ sea’]. He gathered all His grace together and called it Mary or Maria ... This immense treasury is none other than Mary whom the Saints call the ‘treasury of the Lord.’ From Her fullness all men are made rich” (St. Louis de Montfort +1716)
The hallowed title, “Star of the Sea,” dates back to St. Jerome (+420). It has been said that the great Doctor had originally used the phrase Stilla Maris to describe Mary as a “drop of the sea,” the sea being God. A copyist’s error, then, could have resulted in stilla [drop] being written down as stella [star]. Maybe it was God’s Providence that brought about the copyist’s error, for, of course, the hallowed title, “Star of the Sea,” suits Our Lady perfectly:
“‘And the Virgin’s name was Mary.’ Let us say a few things about this name, which can be interpreted to mean Star of the sea, an apt designation for the Virgin Mother. She is most beautifully likened to a star, for a star pours forth its light without losing anything of its nature. She gave us her Son without losing anything of her virginity. The glowing rays of a star take nothing away from its beauty. Neither has the Son taken anything away from His Mother’s integrity.
“She is that noble star of Jacob, illuminating the whole world, penetrating from the highest heavens to the deepest depths of Hell. The warmth of her brilliance shines in the minds of men, encouraging virtue, extinguishing vice. She is that glorious star lighting the way across this vast ocean of life, glowing with merits, guiding by example.
“When you find yourself tossed by the raging storms on this great sea of life, far from land, keep your eyes fixed on this Star to avoid disaster. When the winds of temptation or the rocks of tribulation threaten, look up to the Star, call upon Mary!” (St. Bernard, Second Homily on the Missus Est)
The interpretation “Lady” for Mary was also proposed by St. Jerome, based on the Aramaic word, mar, meaning “Lord”. This would render the meaning “Lady” in the regal or noble sense, as in “Lord and Lady.” Catholic sensibility, however, recognizing in Mary the simple dignity of a Mother, as well as the grandeur of a Queen, did not hesitate to add an affectionate touch to this majestic title. Mary is not just “Lady”, she is “Madonna” or “Notre Dame” meaning, she is Our Lady. This aspect of Mary —”Lady” or “Mistress” — is close to Our Lord’s Heart. We read in the Scriptures how, for a time, the youthful Christ made Himself “subject” to her and St. Joseph, an act of Divine condescension which caused St. Bernard to wonder:
“Which shall we admire first? The tremendous submission of the Son of God, or the tremendous God-given dignity of the Mother of God? Both are marvels: both amazing. When God obeys a woman, it is humility without precedent. When a woman commands her God, it is sublime beyond measure” (First Homily on the Missus Est)
There is No Mary Without Sorrow
It is not difficult to see why these various interpretations of the name “Mary” should have been proposed and cherished, for they encapsulate many of our Marian doctrines and beliefs. “Bitter sea” (mara = bitter; yam = sea), for instance, in addition to the interpretation given by St. Bonaventure, also calls to mind Our Lady’s Seven Sorrows and the sword which “pierced” Her soul on Calvary, recalling the lamentation of the mother-in-law of Ruth, who had lost a husband and two sons: “Call me not Noemi [meaning, beautiful], but call me Mara, [meaning, bitter] for the Almighty hath quite filled me with bitterness: (Ruth 1:20). Maror are “bitter herbs,” such as are found on the seder plate at a Passover meal.
Mary the Guiding Light
The “Illuminated” points us to St. John’s apocalyptic image of the “Woman clothed with the Sun,” a dual image encompassing both the Catholic Church and Mary, the Mother and Image of the Church. In addition, the “Illuminated” has also been rendered as the “Enlightener” and, like St. Bernard, St. Aelred (+1167) combines this meaning with that of the Stella Maris in a powerful passage:
“Therefore a certain Star has risen for us today: Our Lady, Saint Mary. Her name means Star of the sea; no doubt the Star of this sea which is the world. Therefore, we ought to lift up our eyes to this Star that has appeared on earth today in order that she may lead us, in order that she may enlighten us, in order that she may show us these steps so that we shall know them, in order that she may help us so that we may be able to ascend. And therefore it is a beautiful thing that Mary is placed in this stairway of which we are speaking, there where we must begin to climb. As the Evangelist says, Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, so immediately at the very moment of our conversion she appears to us and receives us into her care and enlightens us in her light and accompanies us along this laborious path” (Sermon 24, For the Nativity of Holy Mary).
Mary as a Beautiful Mountain of God
There is another interpretation for the name “Mary” which is quite interesting in that it relates to the Church as well. This supposes the name to be derived from the Hebrew verb mara, meaning “to be fleshy or robust.” In the East, such descriptions were used to indicate beauty and fecundity. Here, then, Our Lady’s name would indicate “The Beautiful One,” quite fitting for the Immaculate Conception, as the liturgy from that feast says--Tota Pulchra Es, Maria!, meaning, “You are all beautiful, Mary!” The Psalms, prophetically describe the Church in this manner, all alluding to the fruitfulness and spiritual gifts of the Holy Ghost: “The mountain of God is a fat mountain. A curdled mountain, a fat mountain ... A mountain in which God is well pleased to dwell” (Psalm 67:16-17). This immediately brings to mind Mount Carmel, which could be easily seen from Mary’s home in Nazareth, which is known as the fruitful, beautiful garden of the Holy Land.
This image resonates with the prophecy of Isaias concerning the New Dispensation [and the Church], and with the words of Our Lord: “And in the last days, the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all the nations shall flow unto it” (Isaias 2:2) ... “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a mountain cannot be hid” (Matthew 5:14). Mount Carmel, the mountain Mary saw daily, could not be hid either, and neither should devotion to the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel be hidden.
It is here that the Psalms intersect with St. John’s Apocalyptic vision, to present the maternal function of the Church, a virginal maternity, mirroring that of Our Lady, which begets new “brethren” of Christ, new sons and daughters of Mary (“the rest of Her seed,” as Catholics are called by St. John in his Apocalypse) and new children of God the Father: “But as many as received Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in His name. Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).
High Above All Others
“The foundations thereof are in the holy mountains: The Lord loveth the gates of Sion above all the tabernacles of Jacob. Glorious things are said of Thee, O city of God . . . Shall not Sion say: This man and that man is born in her? And the Highest Himself hath founded her” (Psalm 86:1-3, 5).
The inspired texts prophesy that the Church will be “exalted”—It shall be exalted above the hills, and all the nations shall flow unto it. So, too, will be the Mother of the Church, she who prophesied that “all generations shall call me blessed.” Another proposed meaning for the Blessed Virgin’s name reflects this exaltation, the majesty of the Queen of Heaven. It derives from ancient Canaanite literature, where the word mrym (pronounced a little like Maryam) means “height” [sharing the same derivation as marom, the Hebrew word for “height”). This would render Mary’s name as “Highness” or “The Exalted One.” In the end times, Our Lord tells us to flee to the mountain—which also signifies fleeing to Our Lady, for she has said that only she can help us now!
This fascinating—and very, very Catholic—desire to explore the meaning and depths of the holy name of “Mary” is not merely a pious pursuit, unrelated to any theological concerns. In the various interpretations set forth, a wealth of Marian doctrine is made manifest, not in the clinical language of theology, but in rich, colorful meditations on Our Lady’s name, and sacred truths are explored and taught in language easily comprehended and appreciated by all.
In his book, The Wondrous Childhood of the Most Holy Mother of God, St. John Eudes (+1680) offers meditations on seventeen interpretations of the name “Mary,” taken from the writings of “the Holy Fathers and by some celebrated Doctors.” Among these various interpretations are “God born of my race,” (St. Ambrose); “Rain of the sea, falling at convenient time and season,” (St. Peter Canisius); “Myrrh of the Sea,” (St. Jerome); and “The hope of those who voyage on the stormy sea of this world.” (St. Epiphanius) It is quite clear—from Scripture, Tradition and history—that the Church owes so much to Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer and our Mother “in the order of grace.” How does the gratitude and affection of her spiritual children manifest itself in the beautiful Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, and what does this cherished name mean to those who love and venerate the Mother of God?
The Power of Our Lady’s Name
A balanced view of salvation history, will grant to the Blessed Virgin her proper place in, both the Incarnation of the Second Divine Person and in the Kingdom won by Him on Calvary. Therefore, she is venerated with thanksgiving as, both the one who, in union with the Blessed Trinity, gave Jesus to the world, and as the one who stood by Him during His Passion, uniting Her “Com-Passion” to His Salvific Passion, for the restoration of fallen mankind to the friendship of God.
Power Through Suffering
It was prophesied in Eden that the Mother of Christ would be given a share in the work of the One Mediator and, because of this, a unique share in His glory. As had been prophesied by Simeon in the Temple, the soul of the Co-Redemptrix was pierced beneath the Cross on Calvary. The Mother of the Church, who experienced no physical labor pains during the birth of the Incarnate God at Bethlehem, did undergo unimaginable spiritual ‘labor pains’ as her Son hung on the Cross, dying the cruelest death imaginable. And God, in His wisdom, has decreed that these sufferings of Mary count for something, and something indescribably precious, in the economy of salvation. They were not the sufferings which redeemed humanity, like those of Jesus. They were not needed in order to augment or complete the superabundant Sacrifice of Jesus, which alone could and did atone for all the sins of the world. Yet, God decreed that Our Lady unite Her Sufferings to those of Jesus, the Woman of Genesis standing beside her Seed during the restoration of the world.
Our Lady did this—suffered as she did—for us, for the spiritual children left to her by Jesus in the person of St. John: “Woman, behold Thy son!” Therefore, we truly are brethren of Jesus, “the rest of Her seed.”
“And a great sign appeared in Heaven: A Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under Her feet, and on Her head a crown of twelve stars: And being with child, She cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered ... And She brought forth a man Child, Who was to rule all nations with an iron rod: and Her son was taken up to God, and to His throne ... And the dragon was angry against the Woman: and went to make war with the rest of Her seed, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” [Apocalypse 1-2, 5,17]
“And the Virgin’s Name was Mary”
The Woman prophesied in Eden ... The Virgin prophesied by Isaias ... The Beautiful One of the Canticles ... When the time had finally come, the world knew her name at last: “And the Virgin’s name was Mary.” This woman uniquely honored with the title, Co-Redemptrix, was rewarded by her Lord and Redeemer with a queenly crown in His Kingdom . . . and with the role of Mediatrix of All Graces, to dispense those graces which had cost her Son so dearly on the Cross.
And so, we call out to this Mother and Queen in confidence: Ave Maria . . . Salve Regina . . . Ave Maris Stella . . . Ave Regina Caelorum. Because of this, we honor, respect and set aside in our hearts a special place for her Holy Name, “Mary,” for it was the beacon of our redemption. During the nine months that Jesus rested in His Mother’s womb, no one encountered Christ except through Mary, as did the infant St. John the Baptist in the womb of St. Elizabeth. Men and women still, and always will, go to Jesus through Mary: “Considering things as they are, because God has decided to begin and accomplish His greatest works through the Blessed Virgin ever since He created her, we can safely believe that He will not change His plan in the time to come, for He is God and therefore does not change in His thoughts or His way of acting.” (True Devotion to Mary)
Not Just a Statue or a Story
Mary, the daughter of Joachim and Anne ... She is not a goddess, not a mythological warrior-queen, not a curious, elusive character recalled through the mists of antiquity. She is a person, a uniquely blessed and honored individual, but a person still. “When you approach the time for reading about Mary Immaculate,” wrote St. Maximilian Kolbe, “always remember that you are entering into contact with a living, loving person.” No wonder, then, that Catholics should hold their Blessed Mother’s name in such esteem. It reminds us of God’s goodness, of His mercy and generosity to struggling mankind: “The name of Mary is a name of salvation for those who are regenerated; it is the insignia of virtue, the honor of chastity, the sacrifice agreeable to God, the virtue of hospitality, the school of sanctity, a name altogether maternal” (St. Peter Chrysologus).
Name of Salvation
Of course, in a proper understanding of doctrine and Scripture, such a declaration will not be misinterpreted as any contradiction to the words of St. Paul concerning Our Lord and His sacred Name: “For which cause God also hath exalted Him, and hath given Him a Name which is above all names: that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth: and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).
St. Peter Chrysologus did not say that the name of Mary is a “name of salvation.” He wrote that “the name of Mary is a name of salvation for those who are regenerated.” A person who wishes to follow Christ, yet denies the Mother given to him by Jesus on Calvary, is fooling himself. Through the inspired Gospels, Our Lady has been presented to the world as Advocate and Mediatrix in the Visitation and Wedding at Cana, and as Spiritual Mother on Calvary. Because there are no empty shows or meaningless displays with God, then we are bound to understand Mary’s advocacy and spiritual maternity as active, vital components in the life of the soul, for it is the good of souls that moved God to ordain the Incarnation: “For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting (John 3:16) ... For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10).
The Blessed Virgin, then is a Divine bestowal, a gift bequeathed to the Church by Her dying Savior. And her name? Her name will become more than a name. It will be a sign of Our Lord’s solicitude, a pledge of His love ... and a prayer unto itself: “We scarce remember now that once this name was spoken softly in a time before the Aves rang. Perhaps across some threshold it was said, so casually, by one who called to her, ‘Mary.’ Then, she might have turned and come, obedient from where the children played together in the dusk: and no one knew that more was said than just a young girl’s name.” (Fr. John W. Lynch, A Woman Wrapped in Silence).
The Introit for the Mass of the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary, taken from Psalm 44, is an eloquent testimony to the reason we celebrate this beautiful name: “All the rich among the people shall entreat Thy countenance: after Her shall virgins be brought to the King: Her neighbors shall be brought to Thee in gladness and rejoicing . . . My heart hath uttered a good word: I will speak my works to the King.”
Have Confidence in Her Name
We are presented to Christ by His Mother. She presents our needs and petitions to Him; she is the instrument of His mercy and of the disposition of the “Treasury of Grace” won by Him for us on Calvary; she consoles our hearts and through her maternal care, imparts to her children whatever peace or happiness we can know in this vale of tears—nothing less than the peace of Christ. We may struggle to maintain this peace in our bruised and weary hearts, but Our Lady is always ready and eager to share it with us again and again. Yes, the name of Mary, this brief, simple name, speaks volumes to us. “There is hidden in that Divine name [of Mary] a spell so potent,” wrote Abbé Orsini, “and of such marvelous sweetness, that merely to pronounce it softens the heart, merely to write it beautifies the style.” St. Bonaventure declared that the name of Mary “cannot be pronounced without bringing some grace to him who does so devoutly.”
The Holy Name of Mary - The Power of Her Name
By St. Alphonsus de Liguori
Richard of St. Laurence states “there is not such powerful help in any name, nor is there any other name given to men, after that of Jesus, from which so much salvation is poured forth upon men as from the name of Mary.” He continues, “that the devout invocation of this sweet and holy name, leads to the acquisition of superabundant graces in this life, and a very high degree of glory in the next.”
After the most sacred Name of Jesus, the name of Mary is so rich in every good thing, that on earth and in Heaven there is no other from which devout souls receive so much grace, hope, and sweetness.
Hence Richard of St. Laurence encourages sinners to have recourse to this great name, “because it alone will suffice to cure them of all their evils;” and “there is no disorder, however malignant, that does not immediately yield to the power of the name of Mary.” The Blessed Raymond Jordano says, “that however hardened and diffident a heart may be, the name of this most Blessed Virgin has such efficacy, that if it is only pronounced that heart will be wonderfully softened.” Moreover, it is well known, and is daily experienced by the clients of Mary, that her powerful name gives the particular strength necessary to overcome temptations against purity.
In fine, “thy name, O Mother of God, is filled with divine graces and blessings,” as St. Methodius says. So much so, that St. Bonaventure declares, “that thy name, O Mary, cannot be pronounced without bringing some grace to him who does so devoutly.” Grant, O Lady, that we may often remember to name thee with love and confidence; for this practice either shows the possession of divine grace, or else is a pledge that we shall soon recover it.
On the other hand, Thomas a Kempis affirms “that the devils fear the Queen of Heaven to such a degree, that only on hearing her great name pronounced, they fly from him who does so, as from a burning fire.” The Blessed Virgin herself revealed to St. Bridget “that there is not on earth a sinner, however devoid he may be of the love of God, from whom the devil is not obliged immediately to fly, if he invokes her holy name with a determination to repent.” On another occasion she repeated the same thing to the saint, saying, “that all the devils venerate and fear her name to such a degree, that, on hearing it, they immediately loosen the claws with which they hold the soul captive.” Our Blessed Lady also told St. Bridget, “that in the same way as the rebel angels fly from sinners, who invoke the name of Mary, so also do the good angels approach nearer to just souls, who pronounce her name with devotion.”
Promises
Consoling indeed are the promises of help, made by Jesus Christ, to those who have devotion to the name of Mary; for one day in the hearing of St. Bridget, He promised His Most Holy Mother that He would grant three special graces to those who invoke that holy name with confidence: first, that He would grant them perfect sorrow for their sins; secondly, that their crimes should be atoned for; and, thirdly, that He would give them strength to attain perfection, and at length the glory of paradise. And then our Divine Savior added: “For thy words, O My Mother, are so sweet and agreeable to Me, that I cannot deny what thou askest.”
St. Ephrem goes so far as to say, “that the name of Mary is the key of the gates of Heaven,” in the hands of those who devoutly invoke it. And thus it is not without reason that St. Bonaventure says “that Mary is the salvation of all who call upon her.” Blessed Henry Suso exclaims: “O most sweet name! O Mary, what must thou thyself be, since thy name alone is thus amiable and gracious!”
Let us, therefore, always take advantage of the beautiful advice given us by St. Bernard, in these words: “In dangers, in perplexities, in doubtful cases, think of Mary, call on Mary; let her not leave thy lips; let her not depart from thy heart.”
Names of Jesus and Mary
In every danger of forfeiting divine grace, we should think of Mary, and invoke her name, together with that of Jesus; for these two names always go together. O, then, never let us permit these two most sweet names to leave our hearts, or be off our lips; for they will give us strength, not only not to yield, but to conquer all our temptations.
“The invocation of the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary,” says Thomas a Kempis, “is a short prayer, which is as sweet to the mind, and as powerful to protect those who use it against the enemies of their salvation, as it is easy to remember.”
Hour of Death
Thus we see that the most holy name of Mary is sweet indeed to her clients during life, on account of the very great graces that she obtains for them. But sweeter still will it be to them in death, on account of the tranquil and holy end that it will insure them.
Let us then, O devout reader, beg God to grant us, that, at death, the name of Mary may be the last word on our lips. This was the prayer of St. Germanus: “May the last movement of my tongue be to pronounce the name of the Mother of God;” O sweet, O safe is that death, which is accompanied and protected by so saying a name; for God only grants the grace of invoking it to those whom He is about to save.
Father Sertorius Caputo, of the Society of Jesus, exhorted all, who assist the dying, frequently to pronounce the name of Mary; for this name of life and hope, when repeated at the hour of death, suffices to put the devils to flight, and to comfort such persons in their sufferings.
The Most Holy Name of Mary said Devoutly is a Prayer
St. Bonaventure exclaims: “Blessed is the man who loves thy name, O Mary! Yes, truly blessed is he who loves thy sweet name, O Mother of God! For, thy name is so glorious and admirable, that no one, who remembers it, has any fears at the hour of death.” Such is its power, that none of those, who invoke it at the hour of death, fear the assaults of their enemies. St. Camillus de Lellis urged the members of his community to remind the dying often to utter the holy names of Jesus and Mary. Such was his custom when assisting people in their last hour.
Oh, that we may end our lives as did the Capuchin Father, Fulgentius of Ascoli, who expired singing, “O Mary, O Mary, the most beautiful of creatures! Let us depart together.”
Let us conclude with the tender prayer of St. Bonaventure: “I ask thee, O Mary, for the glory of thy name, to come and meet my soul, when it is departing from this world, and to take it in thine arms.”
Excerpts from the Breviary for the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary (September 12th)
“It is said: And the Virgin’s name was Mary. Let us speak a few words upon this name, which signifieth, being interpreted, Star of the Sea, and suiteth very well the Maiden Mother, who may very fittingly be likened unto a star. A star giveth forth her rays, without any harm to herself, and the Virgin brought forth her Son without any hurt to her virginity. The light of a star taketh nothing away from the Virginity of Mary. She is that noble star, which was to come out of Jacob, whose brightness still sheddeth lustre upon all the earth, whose rays are most brilliant in Heaven, and shine even unto Hell, lighting up earth midway, and warming souls, rather than bodies, fostering good and scaring away evil. She, I say, is a clear and shining star, twinkling with excellencies, and resplendent with example, needfully set to look down upon the surface of this great and wide sea.
“O thou, whosoever thou art, that knowest thyself to be here, not so much walking upon firm ground, as battered to and fro by the gales and storms of this life’s ocean, if thou wouldest not be overwhelmed by the tempest, keep thine eyes fixed upon this star’s clear shining. If the hurricanes of temptation rise against thee, or thou art running upon the rocks of trouble, look to the star, call on Mary. If the waves of pride, or ambition, or slander, or envy toss thee, look to the star, call on Mary. If the billows of anger, or avarice, or the enticements of the flesh beat against thy soul’s bark, look to Mary. If the enormity of thy sins trouble thee, if the foulness of thy conscience confound thee, if the dread of judgment appall thee, if thou begin to slip into the deep of despondency, into the pit of despair, think of Mary.
“In danger, in difficulty, or in doubt, think on Mary, call on Mary. Let her not be away from thy mouth, or from thine heart, and that thou mayest not lack the help of her prayers, turn not aside from the example of her conversation. If thou follow her, thou wilt never go astray. If thou pray to her, thou wilt never have need to despair. If thou keep her in mind, thou wilt never fall. If she lead thee, thou wilt never be weary. If she help thee, thou wilt reach home safe at the last — and so thou wilt prove, in thyself, how fittingly it is said: ‘And the Virgin’s name was Mary.’”
from the Mystical City of God by the Ven. Mary of Agreda
The petitions of the holy Joachim and Anne reached the throne of the holy Trinity, where they were accepted and the will of God was made known to the holy angels. The three divine Persons, according to our way of expressing such things, spoke to them as follows:
“We have resolved, that the Person of the Word shall assume human flesh and that through Him all the race of mortals shall find a remedy. We have already manifested and promised this to Our servants, the Prophets, in order that they might announce it to the world. The sins of the living, and their malice are so great, that We are much constrained by the rigor of justice. But Our goodness and mercy is greater than all their evil-doing, nor can it extinguish our love toward men. We will look with mercy upon the works of Our hands, which We have created according to Our image and likeness, so as to enable them to become inheritors and participators of Our eternal. And above all have We before Our eyes her, who is to be the Chosen One, who is to be acceptable above all creatures and singled out for Our delight and pleasure; because she is to conceive the person of the Word in her womb and clothe Him with human flesh. Since there must be a beginning of this work, this shall be the acceptable and opportune time for its execution. Joachim and Anne have found grace in Our eyes; We look upon them with pleasure and shall enrich them with choicest gifts and graces. They have been faithful and constant in their trials and, in simplicity and uprightness their souls, have become acceptable and pleasing before Us. Let Gabriel as Our ambassador bring tidings of joy for them and for the whole human race; let him announce to them, that in Our condescension We have looked upon them and chosen them.”
Thus the celestial spirits were instructed in regard to the will and the decree of the Almighty. The holy archangel Gabriel humbled himself before the throne of the most blessed Trinity, adoring and revering the divine Majesty in the manner which befits these most pure and spiritual substances. From the throne an intellectual voice proceeded, saying: “Gabriel, enlighten, enliven and console Joachim and Anne, Our servants, and tell them, that their prayers have come to Our attention and their petitions are heard in clemency. Promise them, that by the favour of Our right hand, Anne shall conceive a Daughter, to whom We give the name of MARY.”
Together with this command of the Most High many mysteries and sacraments pertaining to this message were revealed to saint Gabriel. With it he descended from Heaven and appeared to holy Joachim, while he was in prayer, saying to him:
“O Just and upright man, the Almighty has taken notice of thy desires and has heard thy sighs and prayers, and has made thee fortunate on earth. Thy spouse Anne shall conceive and bear a Daughter, who shall be blessed among women. The nations shall know her as the Blessed. The eternal God sends me to thee, because thy works and alms have been acceptable. Love has softened the heart of the Almighty, and has hastened his mercies, and, in His generosity, He wishes to enrich thy house and thy family with a Daughter, whom Anne shall conceive; the Lord Himself has chosen for her the name of MARY. From her childhood, let her be consecrated to the Temple and to God, as thou hast promised. She shall be elect, exalted, powerful and full of the Holy Ghost; on account of the sterility of Anne her conception shall be miraculous; she shall be a Daughter wonderful in all her doings and in all her life. Praise the Lord, Joachim, for this benefit, and magnify Him, for in no other nation has He wrought the like. Thou shalt go to give thanks in the Temple of Jerusalem and, in testimony of the truth of this joyful message, thou shalt meet, at the Golden Gate, thy sister Anne, who is coming to the Temple for the same purpose.”
All this happened to St. Joachim during his prolonged prayer and in a miraculous sleep, into which he fell for the purpose of receiving this message. He experienced something similar to that which happened to St. Joseph, the spouse of the most holy Mary, when it was made known to him, that her pregnancy was the work of the Holy Ghost. The most fortunate St. Joachim awoke in great joy of soul and with solicitous and ingenuous prudence he concealed within his heart the sacrament of the King. With a lively faith and hope he poured forth his soul in the presence of the Most High, and full of tenderness and gratitude, he thanked and praised Him for his inscrutable judgments. In order to do this more fittingly, he hastened to the Temple as he had been ordered.
Mary in the Hail Mary
Ave Maria! This name was inserted into the Hail Mary, not by the Angel, but by the devotion of the faithful. The Evangelist Luke says significantly, “And the name of the Virgin was Mary.” This most holy, sweet, and worthy name was eminently fitting to so holy, sweet, and worthy a virgin.
If many of God’s servants received their names from God, the Mother of the Redeemer, surpassing them all in dignity, surely received her name directly from God. He was supremely interested in the name of His Daughter, Mother, and Spouse. There can be no doubt that the name of Mary must possess, as much as the name of the Redeemer, a meaning by virtue of divine inspiration, which corresponds to the dignity and position of her who bears it. The ancients considered the Hebrew “Miryam” as a compound of two words: jam (more) and marah (to be bitter). The best and richest explanation is the one that St. Jerome gives; namely, “enlightening.” It characterizes Mary’s own position and activity, that is, her Divine Motherhood. In virtue of this privilege, according to the expression of the Church, she reflects as a spotless mirror the Eternal Light of the World, which is first poured into herself and illuminates her; as Mother of the spiritual and heavenly life she is the mediatrix of the light of grace to mankind. In this way the meaning of “Stella Maris” (star of the sea) is also associated with the name “Mary.” Mary is the “woman clothed with the sun” of the Apocalypse. Others have interpreted it to mean “Lady.” As we call Jesus “Our Lord,” we call Mary “Our Lady.” Whenever we pray the Hail Mary, we mention both of these holy names.
The most holy names of Jesus and Mary possess a hidden power which puts to flight the demon and fills the soul of him who utters them in loving faith with consolation and hope. It is certain that God has attached a wonderful power of sanctification and life to the devout uttering of these two names by the faithful, because Jesus and Mary are the desired objects of His love. Hence one of the reasons why we should pray, like little Francisco of Fatima, many Rosaries daily—to shield ourselves from the attacks of the devil and to repel those attacks.
The saints derived much consolation from the name of Mary. St. Francis of Assisi exclaimed: “When I pray ‘Hail Mary,’ the heavens smile, the angels rejoice, the earth is happy and the devils tremble.” St. Bernard writes: “O great, O holy, O ineffable Virgin, thy name is so sweet and lovely that it cannot be pronounced without our becoming inflamed with love for thee and for God Who gave this name to thee!”
Eight days after the birth of Mary, according to the custom of the Jews, her parents, Joachim and Anna, gave her the name of Mary. Wherefore, during the Octave of her Nativity, the liturgy keeps a feast in honor of this holy name. Spain with the approval of Rome, in 1513, was the first to celebrate it; in 1683 it was extended to the whole Church by Innocent XI to thank Mary for the victory which John Sobieski, King of Poland, had just gained against the Turks who besieged Vienna (see below).
The Name of Mary is a source of power, consolation and hope. Prove your love for your heavenly Mother by often uttering her holy name with loving confidence. If you do so frequently in life, you will surely do so at the hour of your death, when you will need her most. After receiving the Last Sacraments of the Church, you cannot be better prepared to meet your Divine Judge than with the names of Jesus and Mary upon your lips.
The Background to the Feast
In 1513, a feast of “The Holy Name of Mary” was granted, by the Papal indult of Pope Julius II, to the diocese of Cuenta in Spain. It was given its very own liturgical Office, assigned to September 15th, the octave day of Our Lady’s Nativity. When Pope St. Pius V reformed the Breviary, the feast was abolished, but made its comeback under St. Pius V’s successor, Pope Sixtus V, who changed the feast day to September 15th to the 17th. Later, the feast was taken on-board by the Archdiocese of Toledo in Spain [1622] and, eventually, by all of Spain and also the Kingdom of Naples [1671].
Throughout this time, permission to celebrate the feast was also given to various religious orders in a prudent manner, as has been the custom throughout Church history regarding feast-days, their dates, offices, liturgical expression, etc. However, this Feast of the Holy Name of Mary would one day happily find itself extended to the Universal Church, and this came about by some very dramatic events, which revolves around one of Poland’s great military heroes, John Sobieski [1629-1696].
John Sobieski
While acting as field-marshal under King John Casimir, Sobieski had raised a force of 8,000 men and enough provisions to withstand a siege of invading Cossacks and Tartars, who were forced to retreat at great loss. In 1672, under the reign of King Michael Wisniowiecki, Sobieski engaged and defeated the Turkish army, who lost 20,000 men at Chocim.
When King Michael died, Sobieski, a beloved hero at that point, was crowned King of Poland. But, even before his coronation could take place, he would again engage and drive back the Turkish hordes in separate battles including the raising of the siege at Trembowla. Once crowned, he advanced to the Ruthenian provinces, where, having too few soldiers to attack the Turks, who outnumbered his men—ten to one, he literally wore out the enemy, garrisoning his troops at Zurawno. Because of this heroic effort, he was able to regain, by treaty, a good portion of the Ukraine. With both Turks and Poles weary from battle, peace reigned for a time, until the Turks set their sights on Austria, setting out through Hungary with an army of approximately 300,000 men.
Into Battle With Mary
Fleeing from Austria, Emperor Leopold asked for Sobieski’s assistance, a plea which was seconded by the Papal Nuncio. In July 1683, the Turkish Grand Vizier, Kara Mustapha, had reached Vienna and laid siege to the city, which was being defended by only 15,000 men. Sobieski set out for Vienna in August, his forces marching behind the banner of the Blessed Virgin. Passing by the Sanctuary of Mary in Czestochowa, they implored Our Lady’s help and blessing. Writing centuries later, to the bishops of Poland, Pope Pius XII recalled the supplications of Sobieski to Mary, at the Sanctuary on Jasna Gora [i.e., “Bright Hill”], the site of the Shrine: “To the same Heavenly Queen, on Clear Mountain, the illustrious John Sobieski, whose eminent valor freed Christianity from the attacks of its old enemies, confided himself.” [Letter, Cum iam lustri abeat, 1951].
In September, the Sobieski’s men joined with the German troops, who were led by John George, Elector of Saxony, and Prince Charles of Lorraine. On the eighth day of the month, the Feast of the Nativity of Mary, Sobieski prepared himself for the forthcoming battle by the reception of Holy Communion. Battle was engaged before the walls of Vienna on September 12th, 1683, with Sobieski seemingly put to flight by the fierce Turkish forces. However, this retreat was only a minor setback. The Hussars renewed their assault and charged the Turks, this time sending the enemy into a retreat. The combat raged on, until Sobieski finally stormed the enemy camp. The Turkish forces were routed, Vienna was saved, and Sobieski sent the captured Moslem “Standard of the Prophet” to Pope Innocent XI, along with the good news. In a letter to the Pontiff, Sobieski summed up his victory with a play upon Julius Caesar’s famous words Veni, vidi, vici, meaning “I came, I saw, I conquered!” which Sobieski changed to: Veni, vidi, Deus vicit — “I came, I saw, God conquered!”
To commemorate this glorious victory, render thanksgiving to God and give honor to Our Lady, for their help in the struggle, Pope Innocent XI extended the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary to the Universal Church. The feast was to be celebrated on the Sunday after the Nativity of Mary, but, in the 20th century, Pope St. Pius X decreed that it be celebrated on September 12th, the day of the victory of the Catholic forces under John Sobieski. The history of this feast reminds us in some ways of that of the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, which was instituted to celebrate and commemorate the victory of the Catholic forces over the Turkish navy at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571: “And thus Christ’s faithful warriors, prepared to sacrifice their life and blood, for the welfare of their Faith and their country, proceeded undauntedly to meet their foe, near the Gulf of Corinth; while those who were unable to join them, formed a band of pious supplicants, who called on Mary and, as one, saluted her again and again in the words of the Rosary, imploring her to grant victory to their companions engaged in battle. Our sovereign Lady did grant her aid.” (Pope Leo XIII, encyclical Supremi Apostolatus, 1883).
What’s in a Name?
Pondering the Meaning of “Mary” we see that, in Hebrew, the name Mary is Miryam. In Our Lady’s time, Aramaic was the spoken language, and the form of the name then in use was Mariam. Derived from the root, merur, the name signifies “bitterness.” Miryam was the name of the sister of Moses; and the ancient rabbinical scholars seeing in it a symbol of the slavery of the Israelites at the hands of the Egyptians, held that Miryam was given this name, because she was born during the time of the oppression of her people—a time of “bitterness”. The Old Testament, being the chronicle of the “Time of Expectation” of the Redeemer, is filled with various “types,” or foreshadowings of people and events which would be made manifest during the “Time of Redemption,” when Christ walked the earth. Yet we can only look at them “through a glass darkly,” so to speak, under the guidance of the Catholic Church, which alone possesses the authority to interpret the sacred texts. Miryam, the sister of Moses is a “type” or prefiguration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Miryam was a prophetess, who sang a canticle of thanksgiving, after the safe crossing of the Red Sea and the destruction of Pharaoh’s army; Mary prophesied in her canticle, the Magnificat, that all generations would honor her by calling her “blessed”, and she sang of how God would overturn the proud and raise-up the humble. Miryam supported her brother, Moses, the liberator of his people; just as Mary, as the Co-Redemptrix, united her sufferings to those of Jesus on Calvary, for Mary labored alongside the Redeemer, the true Liberator of His people. Just as Jesus was the “antitype” [i.e., the fulfillment] of Moses, so was Our Lady the “antitype” of Miryam, the fullest realization of the courageous woman standing beside, and laboring with, the one who comes to free captives.
Saintly Explanations
Throughout the centuries, Saints and scholars have put forth different interpretations for the name “Mary.” A mixture of etymology and devotion has combined to produce an interesting array of meanings:
“Mary means enlightener, because she brought forth the Light of the world. In the Syriac tongue, Mary signifies Lady” (St. Isidore of Seville +636).
“Let me say something concerning this name also, which is interpreted to mean Star of the sea, and admirably suits the Virgin Mother.” (St. Bernard +1153).
“Mary means Star of the sea, for as mariners are guided to port by the ocean star, so Christians attain to glory through Mary’s maternal intercession.” (St. Thomas Aquinas +1274)
“This most holy, sweet and worthy name was ‘eminently fitted to so holy, sweet and worthy a virgin. For Mary means a bitter sea, star of the sea, the illuminated or illuminatrix. Mary is interpreted Lady. Mary is a bitter sea to the demons; to men, she is the Star of the sea; to the angels, she is Illuminatrix; and to all creatures, she is Lady.” [St. Bonaventure +1274]
“God the Father gathered all the waters together and called them the seas or ‘maria’ [Latin for’ sea’]. He gathered all His grace together and called it Mary or Maria ... This immense treasury is none other than Mary whom the Saints call the ‘treasury of the Lord.’ From Her fullness all men are made rich” (St. Louis de Montfort +1716)
The hallowed title, “Star of the Sea,” dates back to St. Jerome (+420). It has been said that the great Doctor had originally used the phrase Stilla Maris to describe Mary as a “drop of the sea,” the sea being God. A copyist’s error, then, could have resulted in stilla [drop] being written down as stella [star]. Maybe it was God’s Providence that brought about the copyist’s error, for, of course, the hallowed title, “Star of the Sea,” suits Our Lady perfectly:
“‘And the Virgin’s name was Mary.’ Let us say a few things about this name, which can be interpreted to mean Star of the sea, an apt designation for the Virgin Mother. She is most beautifully likened to a star, for a star pours forth its light without losing anything of its nature. She gave us her Son without losing anything of her virginity. The glowing rays of a star take nothing away from its beauty. Neither has the Son taken anything away from His Mother’s integrity.
“She is that noble star of Jacob, illuminating the whole world, penetrating from the highest heavens to the deepest depths of Hell. The warmth of her brilliance shines in the minds of men, encouraging virtue, extinguishing vice. She is that glorious star lighting the way across this vast ocean of life, glowing with merits, guiding by example.
“When you find yourself tossed by the raging storms on this great sea of life, far from land, keep your eyes fixed on this Star to avoid disaster. When the winds of temptation or the rocks of tribulation threaten, look up to the Star, call upon Mary!” (St. Bernard, Second Homily on the Missus Est)
The interpretation “Lady” for Mary was also proposed by St. Jerome, based on the Aramaic word, mar, meaning “Lord”. This would render the meaning “Lady” in the regal or noble sense, as in “Lord and Lady.” Catholic sensibility, however, recognizing in Mary the simple dignity of a Mother, as well as the grandeur of a Queen, did not hesitate to add an affectionate touch to this majestic title. Mary is not just “Lady”, she is “Madonna” or “Notre Dame” meaning, she is Our Lady. This aspect of Mary —”Lady” or “Mistress” — is close to Our Lord’s Heart. We read in the Scriptures how, for a time, the youthful Christ made Himself “subject” to her and St. Joseph, an act of Divine condescension which caused St. Bernard to wonder:
“Which shall we admire first? The tremendous submission of the Son of God, or the tremendous God-given dignity of the Mother of God? Both are marvels: both amazing. When God obeys a woman, it is humility without precedent. When a woman commands her God, it is sublime beyond measure” (First Homily on the Missus Est)
There is No Mary Without Sorrow
It is not difficult to see why these various interpretations of the name “Mary” should have been proposed and cherished, for they encapsulate many of our Marian doctrines and beliefs. “Bitter sea” (mara = bitter; yam = sea), for instance, in addition to the interpretation given by St. Bonaventure, also calls to mind Our Lady’s Seven Sorrows and the sword which “pierced” Her soul on Calvary, recalling the lamentation of the mother-in-law of Ruth, who had lost a husband and two sons: “Call me not Noemi [meaning, beautiful], but call me Mara, [meaning, bitter] for the Almighty hath quite filled me with bitterness: (Ruth 1:20). Maror are “bitter herbs,” such as are found on the seder plate at a Passover meal.
Mary the Guiding Light
The “Illuminated” points us to St. John’s apocalyptic image of the “Woman clothed with the Sun,” a dual image encompassing both the Catholic Church and Mary, the Mother and Image of the Church. In addition, the “Illuminated” has also been rendered as the “Enlightener” and, like St. Bernard, St. Aelred (+1167) combines this meaning with that of the Stella Maris in a powerful passage:
“Therefore a certain Star has risen for us today: Our Lady, Saint Mary. Her name means Star of the sea; no doubt the Star of this sea which is the world. Therefore, we ought to lift up our eyes to this Star that has appeared on earth today in order that she may lead us, in order that she may enlighten us, in order that she may show us these steps so that we shall know them, in order that she may help us so that we may be able to ascend. And therefore it is a beautiful thing that Mary is placed in this stairway of which we are speaking, there where we must begin to climb. As the Evangelist says, Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, so immediately at the very moment of our conversion she appears to us and receives us into her care and enlightens us in her light and accompanies us along this laborious path” (Sermon 24, For the Nativity of Holy Mary).
Mary as a Beautiful Mountain of God
There is another interpretation for the name “Mary” which is quite interesting in that it relates to the Church as well. This supposes the name to be derived from the Hebrew verb mara, meaning “to be fleshy or robust.” In the East, such descriptions were used to indicate beauty and fecundity. Here, then, Our Lady’s name would indicate “The Beautiful One,” quite fitting for the Immaculate Conception, as the liturgy from that feast says--Tota Pulchra Es, Maria!, meaning, “You are all beautiful, Mary!” The Psalms, prophetically describe the Church in this manner, all alluding to the fruitfulness and spiritual gifts of the Holy Ghost: “The mountain of God is a fat mountain. A curdled mountain, a fat mountain ... A mountain in which God is well pleased to dwell” (Psalm 67:16-17). This immediately brings to mind Mount Carmel, which could be easily seen from Mary’s home in Nazareth, which is known as the fruitful, beautiful garden of the Holy Land.
This image resonates with the prophecy of Isaias concerning the New Dispensation [and the Church], and with the words of Our Lord: “And in the last days, the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all the nations shall flow unto it” (Isaias 2:2) ... “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a mountain cannot be hid” (Matthew 5:14). Mount Carmel, the mountain Mary saw daily, could not be hid either, and neither should devotion to the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel be hidden.
It is here that the Psalms intersect with St. John’s Apocalyptic vision, to present the maternal function of the Church, a virginal maternity, mirroring that of Our Lady, which begets new “brethren” of Christ, new sons and daughters of Mary (“the rest of Her seed,” as Catholics are called by St. John in his Apocalypse) and new children of God the Father: “But as many as received Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in His name. Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).
High Above All Others
“The foundations thereof are in the holy mountains: The Lord loveth the gates of Sion above all the tabernacles of Jacob. Glorious things are said of Thee, O city of God . . . Shall not Sion say: This man and that man is born in her? And the Highest Himself hath founded her” (Psalm 86:1-3, 5).
The inspired texts prophesy that the Church will be “exalted”—It shall be exalted above the hills, and all the nations shall flow unto it. So, too, will be the Mother of the Church, she who prophesied that “all generations shall call me blessed.” Another proposed meaning for the Blessed Virgin’s name reflects this exaltation, the majesty of the Queen of Heaven. It derives from ancient Canaanite literature, where the word mrym (pronounced a little like Maryam) means “height” [sharing the same derivation as marom, the Hebrew word for “height”). This would render Mary’s name as “Highness” or “The Exalted One.” In the end times, Our Lord tells us to flee to the mountain—which also signifies fleeing to Our Lady, for she has said that only she can help us now!
This fascinating—and very, very Catholic—desire to explore the meaning and depths of the holy name of “Mary” is not merely a pious pursuit, unrelated to any theological concerns. In the various interpretations set forth, a wealth of Marian doctrine is made manifest, not in the clinical language of theology, but in rich, colorful meditations on Our Lady’s name, and sacred truths are explored and taught in language easily comprehended and appreciated by all.
In his book, The Wondrous Childhood of the Most Holy Mother of God, St. John Eudes (+1680) offers meditations on seventeen interpretations of the name “Mary,” taken from the writings of “the Holy Fathers and by some celebrated Doctors.” Among these various interpretations are “God born of my race,” (St. Ambrose); “Rain of the sea, falling at convenient time and season,” (St. Peter Canisius); “Myrrh of the Sea,” (St. Jerome); and “The hope of those who voyage on the stormy sea of this world.” (St. Epiphanius) It is quite clear—from Scripture, Tradition and history—that the Church owes so much to Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer and our Mother “in the order of grace.” How does the gratitude and affection of her spiritual children manifest itself in the beautiful Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, and what does this cherished name mean to those who love and venerate the Mother of God?
The Power of Our Lady’s Name
A balanced view of salvation history, will grant to the Blessed Virgin her proper place in, both the Incarnation of the Second Divine Person and in the Kingdom won by Him on Calvary. Therefore, she is venerated with thanksgiving as, both the one who, in union with the Blessed Trinity, gave Jesus to the world, and as the one who stood by Him during His Passion, uniting Her “Com-Passion” to His Salvific Passion, for the restoration of fallen mankind to the friendship of God.
Power Through Suffering
It was prophesied in Eden that the Mother of Christ would be given a share in the work of the One Mediator and, because of this, a unique share in His glory. As had been prophesied by Simeon in the Temple, the soul of the Co-Redemptrix was pierced beneath the Cross on Calvary. The Mother of the Church, who experienced no physical labor pains during the birth of the Incarnate God at Bethlehem, did undergo unimaginable spiritual ‘labor pains’ as her Son hung on the Cross, dying the cruelest death imaginable. And God, in His wisdom, has decreed that these sufferings of Mary count for something, and something indescribably precious, in the economy of salvation. They were not the sufferings which redeemed humanity, like those of Jesus. They were not needed in order to augment or complete the superabundant Sacrifice of Jesus, which alone could and did atone for all the sins of the world. Yet, God decreed that Our Lady unite Her Sufferings to those of Jesus, the Woman of Genesis standing beside her Seed during the restoration of the world.
Our Lady did this—suffered as she did—for us, for the spiritual children left to her by Jesus in the person of St. John: “Woman, behold Thy son!” Therefore, we truly are brethren of Jesus, “the rest of Her seed.”
“And a great sign appeared in Heaven: A Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under Her feet, and on Her head a crown of twelve stars: And being with child, She cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered ... And She brought forth a man Child, Who was to rule all nations with an iron rod: and Her son was taken up to God, and to His throne ... And the dragon was angry against the Woman: and went to make war with the rest of Her seed, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” [Apocalypse 1-2, 5,17]
“And the Virgin’s Name was Mary”
The Woman prophesied in Eden ... The Virgin prophesied by Isaias ... The Beautiful One of the Canticles ... When the time had finally come, the world knew her name at last: “And the Virgin’s name was Mary.” This woman uniquely honored with the title, Co-Redemptrix, was rewarded by her Lord and Redeemer with a queenly crown in His Kingdom . . . and with the role of Mediatrix of All Graces, to dispense those graces which had cost her Son so dearly on the Cross.
And so, we call out to this Mother and Queen in confidence: Ave Maria . . . Salve Regina . . . Ave Maris Stella . . . Ave Regina Caelorum. Because of this, we honor, respect and set aside in our hearts a special place for her Holy Name, “Mary,” for it was the beacon of our redemption. During the nine months that Jesus rested in His Mother’s womb, no one encountered Christ except through Mary, as did the infant St. John the Baptist in the womb of St. Elizabeth. Men and women still, and always will, go to Jesus through Mary: “Considering things as they are, because God has decided to begin and accomplish His greatest works through the Blessed Virgin ever since He created her, we can safely believe that He will not change His plan in the time to come, for He is God and therefore does not change in His thoughts or His way of acting.” (True Devotion to Mary)
Not Just a Statue or a Story
Mary, the daughter of Joachim and Anne ... She is not a goddess, not a mythological warrior-queen, not a curious, elusive character recalled through the mists of antiquity. She is a person, a uniquely blessed and honored individual, but a person still. “When you approach the time for reading about Mary Immaculate,” wrote St. Maximilian Kolbe, “always remember that you are entering into contact with a living, loving person.” No wonder, then, that Catholics should hold their Blessed Mother’s name in such esteem. It reminds us of God’s goodness, of His mercy and generosity to struggling mankind: “The name of Mary is a name of salvation for those who are regenerated; it is the insignia of virtue, the honor of chastity, the sacrifice agreeable to God, the virtue of hospitality, the school of sanctity, a name altogether maternal” (St. Peter Chrysologus).
Name of Salvation
Of course, in a proper understanding of doctrine and Scripture, such a declaration will not be misinterpreted as any contradiction to the words of St. Paul concerning Our Lord and His sacred Name: “For which cause God also hath exalted Him, and hath given Him a Name which is above all names: that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth: and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).
St. Peter Chrysologus did not say that the name of Mary is a “name of salvation.” He wrote that “the name of Mary is a name of salvation for those who are regenerated.” A person who wishes to follow Christ, yet denies the Mother given to him by Jesus on Calvary, is fooling himself. Through the inspired Gospels, Our Lady has been presented to the world as Advocate and Mediatrix in the Visitation and Wedding at Cana, and as Spiritual Mother on Calvary. Because there are no empty shows or meaningless displays with God, then we are bound to understand Mary’s advocacy and spiritual maternity as active, vital components in the life of the soul, for it is the good of souls that moved God to ordain the Incarnation: “For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting (John 3:16) ... For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10).
The Blessed Virgin, then is a Divine bestowal, a gift bequeathed to the Church by Her dying Savior. And her name? Her name will become more than a name. It will be a sign of Our Lord’s solicitude, a pledge of His love ... and a prayer unto itself: “We scarce remember now that once this name was spoken softly in a time before the Aves rang. Perhaps across some threshold it was said, so casually, by one who called to her, ‘Mary.’ Then, she might have turned and come, obedient from where the children played together in the dusk: and no one knew that more was said than just a young girl’s name.” (Fr. John W. Lynch, A Woman Wrapped in Silence).
The Introit for the Mass of the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary, taken from Psalm 44, is an eloquent testimony to the reason we celebrate this beautiful name: “All the rich among the people shall entreat Thy countenance: after Her shall virgins be brought to the King: Her neighbors shall be brought to Thee in gladness and rejoicing . . . My heart hath uttered a good word: I will speak my works to the King.”
Have Confidence in Her Name
We are presented to Christ by His Mother. She presents our needs and petitions to Him; she is the instrument of His mercy and of the disposition of the “Treasury of Grace” won by Him for us on Calvary; she consoles our hearts and through her maternal care, imparts to her children whatever peace or happiness we can know in this vale of tears—nothing less than the peace of Christ. We may struggle to maintain this peace in our bruised and weary hearts, but Our Lady is always ready and eager to share it with us again and again. Yes, the name of Mary, this brief, simple name, speaks volumes to us. “There is hidden in that Divine name [of Mary] a spell so potent,” wrote Abbé Orsini, “and of such marvelous sweetness, that merely to pronounce it softens the heart, merely to write it beautifies the style.” St. Bonaventure declared that the name of Mary “cannot be pronounced without bringing some grace to him who does so devoutly.”
The Holy Name of Mary - The Power of Her Name
By St. Alphonsus de Liguori
Richard of St. Laurence states “there is not such powerful help in any name, nor is there any other name given to men, after that of Jesus, from which so much salvation is poured forth upon men as from the name of Mary.” He continues, “that the devout invocation of this sweet and holy name, leads to the acquisition of superabundant graces in this life, and a very high degree of glory in the next.”
After the most sacred Name of Jesus, the name of Mary is so rich in every good thing, that on earth and in Heaven there is no other from which devout souls receive so much grace, hope, and sweetness.
Hence Richard of St. Laurence encourages sinners to have recourse to this great name, “because it alone will suffice to cure them of all their evils;” and “there is no disorder, however malignant, that does not immediately yield to the power of the name of Mary.” The Blessed Raymond Jordano says, “that however hardened and diffident a heart may be, the name of this most Blessed Virgin has such efficacy, that if it is only pronounced that heart will be wonderfully softened.” Moreover, it is well known, and is daily experienced by the clients of Mary, that her powerful name gives the particular strength necessary to overcome temptations against purity.
In fine, “thy name, O Mother of God, is filled with divine graces and blessings,” as St. Methodius says. So much so, that St. Bonaventure declares, “that thy name, O Mary, cannot be pronounced without bringing some grace to him who does so devoutly.” Grant, O Lady, that we may often remember to name thee with love and confidence; for this practice either shows the possession of divine grace, or else is a pledge that we shall soon recover it.
On the other hand, Thomas a Kempis affirms “that the devils fear the Queen of Heaven to such a degree, that only on hearing her great name pronounced, they fly from him who does so, as from a burning fire.” The Blessed Virgin herself revealed to St. Bridget “that there is not on earth a sinner, however devoid he may be of the love of God, from whom the devil is not obliged immediately to fly, if he invokes her holy name with a determination to repent.” On another occasion she repeated the same thing to the saint, saying, “that all the devils venerate and fear her name to such a degree, that, on hearing it, they immediately loosen the claws with which they hold the soul captive.” Our Blessed Lady also told St. Bridget, “that in the same way as the rebel angels fly from sinners, who invoke the name of Mary, so also do the good angels approach nearer to just souls, who pronounce her name with devotion.”
Promises
Consoling indeed are the promises of help, made by Jesus Christ, to those who have devotion to the name of Mary; for one day in the hearing of St. Bridget, He promised His Most Holy Mother that He would grant three special graces to those who invoke that holy name with confidence: first, that He would grant them perfect sorrow for their sins; secondly, that their crimes should be atoned for; and, thirdly, that He would give them strength to attain perfection, and at length the glory of paradise. And then our Divine Savior added: “For thy words, O My Mother, are so sweet and agreeable to Me, that I cannot deny what thou askest.”
St. Ephrem goes so far as to say, “that the name of Mary is the key of the gates of Heaven,” in the hands of those who devoutly invoke it. And thus it is not without reason that St. Bonaventure says “that Mary is the salvation of all who call upon her.” Blessed Henry Suso exclaims: “O most sweet name! O Mary, what must thou thyself be, since thy name alone is thus amiable and gracious!”
Let us, therefore, always take advantage of the beautiful advice given us by St. Bernard, in these words: “In dangers, in perplexities, in doubtful cases, think of Mary, call on Mary; let her not leave thy lips; let her not depart from thy heart.”
Names of Jesus and Mary
In every danger of forfeiting divine grace, we should think of Mary, and invoke her name, together with that of Jesus; for these two names always go together. O, then, never let us permit these two most sweet names to leave our hearts, or be off our lips; for they will give us strength, not only not to yield, but to conquer all our temptations.
“The invocation of the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary,” says Thomas a Kempis, “is a short prayer, which is as sweet to the mind, and as powerful to protect those who use it against the enemies of their salvation, as it is easy to remember.”
Hour of Death
Thus we see that the most holy name of Mary is sweet indeed to her clients during life, on account of the very great graces that she obtains for them. But sweeter still will it be to them in death, on account of the tranquil and holy end that it will insure them.
Let us then, O devout reader, beg God to grant us, that, at death, the name of Mary may be the last word on our lips. This was the prayer of St. Germanus: “May the last movement of my tongue be to pronounce the name of the Mother of God;” O sweet, O safe is that death, which is accompanied and protected by so saying a name; for God only grants the grace of invoking it to those whom He is about to save.
Father Sertorius Caputo, of the Society of Jesus, exhorted all, who assist the dying, frequently to pronounce the name of Mary; for this name of life and hope, when repeated at the hour of death, suffices to put the devils to flight, and to comfort such persons in their sufferings.
The Most Holy Name of Mary said Devoutly is a Prayer
St. Bonaventure exclaims: “Blessed is the man who loves thy name, O Mary! Yes, truly blessed is he who loves thy sweet name, O Mother of God! For, thy name is so glorious and admirable, that no one, who remembers it, has any fears at the hour of death.” Such is its power, that none of those, who invoke it at the hour of death, fear the assaults of their enemies. St. Camillus de Lellis urged the members of his community to remind the dying often to utter the holy names of Jesus and Mary. Such was his custom when assisting people in their last hour.
Oh, that we may end our lives as did the Capuchin Father, Fulgentius of Ascoli, who expired singing, “O Mary, O Mary, the most beautiful of creatures! Let us depart together.”
Let us conclude with the tender prayer of St. Bonaventure: “I ask thee, O Mary, for the glory of thy name, to come and meet my soul, when it is departing from this world, and to take it in thine arms.”
Excerpts from the Breviary for the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary (September 12th)
“It is said: And the Virgin’s name was Mary. Let us speak a few words upon this name, which signifieth, being interpreted, Star of the Sea, and suiteth very well the Maiden Mother, who may very fittingly be likened unto a star. A star giveth forth her rays, without any harm to herself, and the Virgin brought forth her Son without any hurt to her virginity. The light of a star taketh nothing away from the Virginity of Mary. She is that noble star, which was to come out of Jacob, whose brightness still sheddeth lustre upon all the earth, whose rays are most brilliant in Heaven, and shine even unto Hell, lighting up earth midway, and warming souls, rather than bodies, fostering good and scaring away evil. She, I say, is a clear and shining star, twinkling with excellencies, and resplendent with example, needfully set to look down upon the surface of this great and wide sea.
“O thou, whosoever thou art, that knowest thyself to be here, not so much walking upon firm ground, as battered to and fro by the gales and storms of this life’s ocean, if thou wouldest not be overwhelmed by the tempest, keep thine eyes fixed upon this star’s clear shining. If the hurricanes of temptation rise against thee, or thou art running upon the rocks of trouble, look to the star, call on Mary. If the waves of pride, or ambition, or slander, or envy toss thee, look to the star, call on Mary. If the billows of anger, or avarice, or the enticements of the flesh beat against thy soul’s bark, look to Mary. If the enormity of thy sins trouble thee, if the foulness of thy conscience confound thee, if the dread of judgment appall thee, if thou begin to slip into the deep of despondency, into the pit of despair, think of Mary.
“In danger, in difficulty, or in doubt, think on Mary, call on Mary. Let her not be away from thy mouth, or from thine heart, and that thou mayest not lack the help of her prayers, turn not aside from the example of her conversation. If thou follow her, thou wilt never go astray. If thou pray to her, thou wilt never have need to despair. If thou keep her in mind, thou wilt never fall. If she lead thee, thou wilt never be weary. If she help thee, thou wilt reach home safe at the last — and so thou wilt prove, in thyself, how fittingly it is said: ‘And the Virgin’s name was Mary.’”
Article 5
Friday September 9th & Saturday September 10th, 2022
The Mother of Sorrows Gives Birth to the Man of Sorrows
Friday September 9th & Saturday September 10th, 2022
The Mother of Sorrows Gives Birth to the Man of Sorrows
Sorrowful Prophecy
As we approach the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows on September 15th, which is providentially preceded by the feast of the Finding of Holy Cross on September 14th, we would be wise to reflect on the need and the role of sorrows and crosses in our life. The Old Testament foretold that the Messias would a “Man of Sorrows” who would suffer for our sins: “There is no beauty in Him, nor comeliness―and we have seen Him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of Him! Despised and the most abject of men―a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity! And His look was, as it were, hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed Him not! Surely He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows―and we have thought of Him as though He were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted! But He was wounded for our iniquities; He was bruised for our sins; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His bruises we are healed! The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was sacrificed because it was His own will, and He opened not His mouth―He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before His shearer, and He shall not open His mouth! He is cut off out of the land of the living for the wickedness of the people the Lord struck Him. He hath done no iniquity, neither was there deceit in His mouth. And the Lord was pleased to bruise Him with infirmity. He shall lay down His life for sin. He hath delivered His soul unto death, and was reputed with the wicked; and He hath borne the sins of many, and hath prayed for the transgressors” (Isaias 53:2-12).
Sorrow in the Flesh
Our Lord―the True Messias―echoes and fulfills the prophecy of Isaias in the flesh: “From that time, Jesus began to teach and show His disciples, that He, the Son of man, must go to Jerusalem and be rejected and suffer many things from the ancients and Scribes and Chief Priests, and be killed and put to death, and after three days, rise again. And He spoke this openly. And Peter taking Him, began to rebuke Him, saying: ‘Lord, be it far from Thee, this shall not be unto Thee!’ Jesus, turning to His disciples, said to Peter: ‘Get behind Me, Satan! Thou art a scandal unto Me! Because thou savorest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!’” (Matthew 16:21-23; Mark 8:31-33).
On another occasion, Jesus repeats Himself: they were in the way going up to Jerusalem: and Jesus went before them, and they were astonished; and, following Him, they were afraid. And taking again the Twelve [Apostles], He began to tell them the things that would befall Him, saying: ‘Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed to the chief priests, and to the scribes and ancients―and they shall condemn Him to death and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles. And they shall mock Him, and spit on Him, and scourge Him, and kill Him―and, on the third day, He shall rise again!’” (Mark 10:32-34).
Sorrow in the Heart
Although Our Lady suffered all throughout her life, nevertheless, from the very first days after giving birth to Jesus, Our Lady was the recipient of a prophecy of sorrow. It occurred during the presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple, where she encountered the holy priest of the Temple, St. Simeon: “There was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Ghost was in him. And he had received an answer from the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. And he came by the Spirit into the Temple. And when His parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, Simeon also took Him into his arms and blessed God, and said: ‘Now thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word in peace―because my eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples! A light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel!’ And His father and mother were wondering at those things which were spoken concerning Him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, His mother: ‘Behold this Child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted! And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, so that out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed!’” (Luke 2:25-35).
Our Lady, in speaking of this incident to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, says: “Strive after the constancy and expansion of heart, by which you can prepare yourself to accept blessings and adversity, the sweet and the bitter with equal calmness and peace of soul. How narrow and unwilling is the human heart toward that which is contrary and distasteful to its earthly inclinations! How it chafes in labors! How impatiently it meets them! How insufferable it judges all that is contrary to its desires! How persistently it forgets, that its Teacher and Master has first accepted sufferings, and has honored and sanctified them in His own Person! It is a great shame and a great boldness, on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering―especially since my most holy Son suffered for them! This lack of acceptance of suffering is so base and vile! When the occasion of tasting the chalice and the cross of suffering is at hand, you must not turn away in sorrow and affliction from the sufferings―for it is through suffering that the sincerity of a loving and affectionate heart is to be tried and tested. You cannot follow Christ, if you refuse to embrace the cross and rejoice in it, nor shall you find me by any other way.
“If creatures fail and let you down; if temptation or troubles attack you; if the sorrows of death encompass you, you must in no way be disturbed or disheartened―since nothing displeases my most holy Son or me more, than seeing souls misusing it and receiving it in vain, which gives a great victory to the demon, who glories much in having disturbed or subjected any soul that calls itself a disciple of Christ and of me. Having once knocked you down in small things, he will soon oppress you in greater ones. Confide, then, in the protection of the Most High and press onward trusting in me. Full of this trust, whenever tribulation comes over you, fervently exclaim: ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?’ Remember the sorrow, which pierced my heart at the prophecies of Simeon, and how I remained in peace and tranquility, without any sign of disturbance―although my heart and soul were pierced by a sword of pain. In every event I sought motives for glorifying and adoring God’s admirable wisdom. If the passing labors and sufferings are accepted with joy and with serenity of heart, they spiritualize the creature, they elevate it and furnish it with a divine insight. Ponder and meditate without intermission upon that, which my most holy Son suffered, so that your soul can be a participant in His sorrows. Let the holy memory of His sufferings engender in you such a disgust and abhorrence of all earthly pleasures that you despise and forget all that is visible, and instead, follow the Author of eternal life.”
Which Sorrow Came First?
You have, no doubt, heard the question: “What came first? The chicken or the egg?” You could also ask: “Whose sorrow came first? Mary’s or Jesus’?” Sorrow begets sorrow! The problem is that Mary gave birth to Jesus, but Jesus, being God, made Mary! In order to find the source of sorrow, we need to go back to Adam and Eve―for, ultimately, sin is source of sorrow. God forbade Adam and Eve from eating a certain fruit: “Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat―but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death” (Genesis 2:16-17). You have to agree―there is no sorrow like the sorrow death! As we all know, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit! Sorrow followed! God said to Eve: “I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions―in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children!” (Genesis 3:16). To Adam God said: “Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labor and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life! Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth! In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken―for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return!” (Genesis 3:17-19).
Holy Scripture adds: “By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death―and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned! … Death reigned from Adam unto Moses, even over them who have not sinned after the similitude of the transgression of Adam! … The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 5:12-14; 6:23) … “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4 & 20). Sin brings the suffering of death―and death bring sorrow. Hence, sin leads to suffering―and suffering leads to sorrow. “Tribulation and anguish comes upon the soul of every man that worketh evil!” (Romans 2:9). “Every man is tempted by his own concupiscence … Then when concupiscence hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. But sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:14-15). Thus it is that St. Paul writes: “Sin seduced me, and it killed me! … Sin wrought death in me!” (Romans 7:11-13) ― hence, even though Paul converted, God would still exact the price of sin and Christ said to Ananias, concerning Paul: “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake!” (Acts 9:16).
St. Paul elsewhere lists some of those sufferings that paid for his sins: “Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:24-27). “But God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ―by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14). Most of us wince and whine, curse and complain, mutter and murmur in our sufferings, yet Scripture so rightly says: “Why hath a living man murmured―man suffering for his sins?” (Lamentations 3:39), sufferings which are never and nowhere near to “suffering the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 1:7).
Sorrowful Hearts not Sweet Hearts!
We know, of course, that Holy Scripture says: “O taste and see that the Lord is sweet!” (Psalm 33:9). Yet it is not joy and laughter that redeemed us from sin, but sorrow and suffering! The Hearts of Jesus and Mary both show aspects of sorrow―Our Lord’s Sacred Heart is surrounded and pierced by thorns; Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart is pierced by a sword.
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque―to whom the Sacred Heart of Jesus first manifested Itself―writes: “This Divine Heart was shown to me as on a throne of flames, more dazzling than the sun and transparent as crystal, with that adorable wound, and surrounded with a crown of thorns signifying the pricks caused to It by our sins; and above there was a cross, which meant that from the first moment of His Incarnation, that is as soon as this Sacred Heart was formed, the cross was planted in It, and that It was filled at once with all the bitterness which humiliations and poverty, pains and scorn, would cause to It, and which His Sacred Humanity was to suffer throughout all His lifetime and in His Sacred Passion.”
As regards the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on December 10th, 1925―over 8 years since her last apparition at Fatima―the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by the Child Jesus, appeared to St. Lucia of Fatima in her convent cell. The Child Jesus spoke first: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.” Then Our Lady said: “My daughter, look at my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, try to console me!”
Man of Sorrows―Mother of Sorrows! Are We Children of Sorrows?
Our Lord and Our Lady have shared in the sorrows and sufferings brought about by sin―but have we shown sorrow for our sins? Our Lady, on several occasions, stressed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda the paramount need of sorrow for sin: “Great was the sorrow, most bitter the grief, of my most holy Son, that not all should make use of the fruits of His Redemption. This same thought also pierced my heart and immensely added to the sorrow of seeing Him spat upon, buffeted, and blasphemed more cruelly than can ever be understood by living man. But I understood all these sufferings clearly and as they should be understood; therefore my sorrow was great in proportion to this knowledge. But next to this sorrow, my greatest one was to know that, after all these death dealing sufferings of the Lord, so many men should still damn themselves. I wish that you imitate and follow me in this sorrow and that you lament this fearful misfortune―for, among all the losses sustained by men, there is none which deserves to be so deplored, nor which can ever be compared to it.
“My Son and I look with especial love upon those who imitate this sorrow and afflict themselves on account of the perdition of so many souls! … Weep bitterly and do not lose the merit of such a sorrow―and let it be so deep, that you find no relief, except in affliction for the sake of the Lord whom you love. Think of what I did, in order to stave off the damnation of Herod and to prevent the damnation of those who wish to avail themselves of my intercession! … So great is my love for sinners, that if they would only call upon me in time and with sincerity, none of them would perish! But the sinners and the reprobate do no such thing―because the wounds of sin do not distress them, and the more often they are committed, the less regret or sorrow do they cause! ... As the Mother of clemency, it is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for failing to call upon me, so many souls should be lost! ... This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict yourself, lament and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls!
“Bewail such a sad state, and invite Heaven and Earth to help you in your weeping―for there are few who sorrow on account of it! … Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls! … The Lord and I were most solicitous and compassionate toward all the children of men; for them We suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that they might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good and in return for so obliging a love! ... They live in the obscurity of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings! Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires! … These vices will soon drive away the infinite mercy of God and cause eternal punishment of men, unless they amend in sorrow! …
“Weep with bitterest sorrow over the stubbornness and blindness of mortals! … Lament with great sorrow the fact that Judas, in his malice and treachery, has many more followers than Christ. Many are the infidels, many the bad Catholics, many the hypocrites, who under the name of a Christian, sell and deliver Him and crucify Him anew! … Let your heart be torn in sorrow! … Sorrowfully satisfy for your own faults in sorrow and penance! … Purify your soul by many acts of sorrow for having offended Him! … Do not delay even for one instant sorrow for your sins and a firm purpose of confessing them as soon as you find yourself guilty of any sin and of amending the least of your imperfections! … Let not the sun go down, or the day pass, without having sorrowed for it or confessed it! ... Deplore your faults with true sorrow! ... Acknowledge your fault, confessing it in sorrow! … Humbly and sorrowfully confess your faults with a heartfelt sorrow for your sins! … Crown your heart with the thorns of sorrow! … Wash and purify yourself in the Blood of your Redeemer, Christ, by a truly sorrowful confession and apply this cleansing many times by renewing your loving sorrow for your sins! … Seek Him in sorrow and tears! … By the bitterness of sorrow and affliction the vapors of sin are allayed! … I am much incensed to find so few who condole with me and try to console my Son in His sorrows.”
The Need for Great Sorrow in a Time of Great Sorrow
In case you hadn’t noticed―we are living in a time of extreme sorrow. Already back in 1956―times which seem “innocent” when compared to our present-day times―Our Lady had this to say: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! Materialism marches on ever fomenting bloody strifes and fratricidal struggles. Clear signs warn that peace is in danger. That scourge, like the shadow of a dark cloud, is now moving across mankind―only my power, as Mother of God, is preventing the outbreak of the storm. All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
Notice that Our Lady said that Elena Aiello would surely die of sorrow and grief if Our Lady were to show her the sins committed in the world in JUST ONE SINGLE DAY! Where are we on the “grief-scale” or “sorrow-scale” as a result of what is happening, not in 1956, but in 2022?
Speaking of our days, back in the 1600s, Our Lady of Good Success said to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, that we “will need great strength of will, constancy, valor and confidence” because “the small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom.” She further adds that we should “clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears in the privacy of your heart, imploring our heavenly Father that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times!” Mother Mariana saw the Tabernacle open and Christ Himself emerged, suffering as He had at Golgotha. Mother Mariana asked: “My Lady, am I to blame for this sadness?” “No,” she replied, “it is not you―but the criminal world!” Then as Our Lord began His Agony, she heard the voice of the Eternal Father saying: “This punishment will be for the 20th century.” The Holy Virgin continued: “My daughter, will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time?” Mother Mariana replied, “I am willing.” And immediately the swords moved away from the agonizing Christ and buried themselves in the heart of Mother Mariana, who fell dead through the violence of the pain.
By 1917, when Our Lady appeared at Fatima, the message and need had not changed. She showed Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta a vision of the real Hell and then asked the children to sacrifice themselves and suffer in order to earn the graces that would prevent at least some souls from falling into Hell: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917). Already prior to that, the Angel of Portugal had scolded the three children for playing too much and praying too little―saying: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers unceasingly and sacrifice yourselves to the Most High. Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
Sorrow and Suffering in Our Own Lives
What are we like when the Lord sends sufferings to us? Do we accept them with submission, gladly suffering them to save souls from Hell (our own soul included)? Or do we chaff, cantankerously complain, or even curse at having suffering inflicted upon us? Our Lady speaks of such complaining Catholics to the Venerable Mary of Agreda:
“My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much and that He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls … He began to suffer, and as soon as He was born into the world and His sufferings continued until He died on the Cross … Understand the ignorance and error of mortals, nearly all of them strive to avoid labor and suffering and are frightened by the royal and secure road of mortification and the Cross ... Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment … Full of this deceitful ignorance, they not only abhor resemblance to Christ’s suffering, but they make their recovery impossible―since all of them are weak and afflicted by many sins, for which the only remedy is suffering ... Guard thyself against those living in darkness and the lovers of the world more than against fire―for the wisdom of the sons of this world is carnal and diabolical, and their ways lead to death. Worldly wisdom looks upon the person, not at the state of the souls, nor at virtue, but at outward ostentation. Each one ordinarily seeks to advance his honor and vainglory, struggling to be applauded and renowned ... Many persons―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell proclaim it! Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16) ... The number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate is also be uncountable! …
“Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside ... You cannot follow Christ, if you refuse to embrace the Cross and rejoice in it! … Nor do I count anyone a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son … The worldlings in their torpidity are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Father and Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings … How persistently they forget that their Teacher and Master has first accepted sufferings, and has honored and sanctified them in His own Person! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering, even after my most holy Son did suffer for them … For some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others expect to be pardoned without penance! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments―so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo and suffer them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation! ... The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good! Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, willingly entering upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, to bear it after Christ! Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness!”
In Times of Sorrow, We Are Living It Up!
When someone has just died in the family, it is not the appropriate time for jokes and laughter; small talk and gossiping. The gravity of the situation demands a certain “gravitas” ― meaning a dignity, seriousness, or solemnity of manner; good taste in behavior and speech. Likewise, it is no joking or laughing matter when, on average, around 150,000 people die each day (or 55 million per year) with the likelihood that the vast majority of them are falling into Hell.
Yet, judging by appearances and talk―it seems that most Catholics don’t give a damn about the damned! They certainly don’t give any prayers and sacrifices to prevent the damnation of others! Life is for fun and playing―not sacrifice and praying! Instead of spending hours in prayer and making sacrifices―most people spend hours in front of a television, or on the internet, or on their smartphones! Instead of finding ways of making sacrifices, they instead find ways of practicing self-indulgence and self-gratification. Instead of weeping over the number souls being damned, they prefer to laugh and joke about things of this world.
Sorrowful Mother Begets Sorrowful Children
In most of her modern-day apparitions, Our Lady was far from being laughing, upbeat and joyful in appearance―the chief reason being the worldwide tsunami of sin and the resulting tsunami of damned souls falling into Hell upon their death. Sister Lucia of Fatima says: “My cousins, Francisco and Jacinta, made sacrifices because they always saw that the Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions! She never smiled at us! This anguish that we saw in her―caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners―penetrated our souls. And being children, we did not know what measures to devise―except to pray and make sacrifices.”
Our Lady had shown the three children a vision of Hell―which Lucia said was so frightening that they would have died on the spot had not the grace of God kept them alive. Our Lady had a purpose in showing them Hell―she wanted souls to pray and sacrifice for sinners and obtain from God graces of repentance so as to avoid Hell―she said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
Finding Joy in Sorrow
The three shepherd children immediately gave themselves up to prayer and sacrifice. It was the response of children who opened their heart completely to this cause, and gave everything they had. Since the first apparition, the children looked for ways to multiply their mortifications for the conversion of sinners. They did not tire of looking for new ways of offering sacrifices for sinners. They suffered illness cheerfully, went without water for an entire day on hot and humid days; they gave away their lunch or breakfast to other poor local children; they sacrificed childlike pleasures like dancing, playing games and playing with friends in order to devote more time to prayer; they fasted throughout the Lenten season even though, as children, they were not obliged to do so; and they suffered their final illnesses, from the complications of the Spanish influenza of 1918, without complaint.
One day, shortly time after the fourth apparition, Jacinta found a cord and thought of tying it around her waist and tightening it as a sacrifice. Lucia and Francisco liked the idea and cut the cord in three pieces and put it around their waists directly over their skin. Lucy narrates that this was a sacrifice that made them suffer terribly—so much so, that Jacinta was unable to contain the tears. If they tried to talk her out of it, she immediately responded that there was no way she was going to take the rope off, because it was for the conversion of sinners. In the beginning she wore the cord during the day and night, but in one apparition, Our Lady said to Jacinta, “Our Lord is very pleased with your sacrifices but doesn’t desire for you to sleep with the cord. Wear it only during the day.” They obeyed, and with greater fervor, they persevered in this difficult penance, knowing it pleased God and Our Lady. Francisco and Jacinta wore the cord until their final illness, in which their cords appeared to be stained with blood.
Lucia’s God-Sent Sorrows
Our Lady, when asking the children if they were willing to suffer for the conversion of sinners, was not joking. Sufferings came in abundance. You could say that the tsunami of sin required a tsunami of suffering. Those waves of suffering swept over all of the three Fatima children. Remember―they were only 10, 9 and 7 years old! However, God Himself would send His willing children the most fruitful sacrifices. The trials that would overwhelm Lucia’s family coincided almost exactly with the time of the first few apparitions. Little by little, her home life grew unhappy. This was all the more painful for Lucia because, until then, she had known great joy in her family, whom she tenderly cherished and who cherished her in return.
Many neighbors, strangers, and also family members, were disbelieving of Our Lady’s apparitions, believing instead that the children were making-up these stories and were blatantly and unashamedly lying. The children were directly the laughing-stock of many―even the newspapers―and this mockery indirectly rebounded on their families. Sister Lucia, in her memoirs, speaks of the general disbelief that surrounded Our Lady’s apparitions in Fatima:
“In the meantime, news of what had happened [the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima] was spreading. My poor mother worried more and more, as she saw the crowds who came flocking from all parts. My mother was getting worried, and wanted at all costs to make me deny what I had said. She was determined to make me confess that I was telling lies, and to this end she spared neither caresses, nor threats, nor even the broomstick. She told me that she had never tolerated a single lie among her children, and much less would she allow a lie of this kind. She warned me that she would force me, that very evening, to go to those people whom I had deceived, confess that I had lied and ask their pardon … I could see that my mother was deeply distressed, and that she wanted at all costs to compel me, as she put it, to admit that I had lied. She often said: ‘I’ve seen to it that my children always told the truth, and am I now going to let the youngest get away with a thing like this? If it were just a small thing! But a lie of such proportions, deceiving so many people and bringing them all the way here! These poor people come here, taken in by your trickery, you can be sure of that, and I really don’t know what I can do to undeceive them!’
“After these bitter complaints, she would turn to me, saying: ‘Make up your mind which you want! Either undo all this deception by telling these people that you’ve lied, or I’ll lock you up in a dark room where you won’t even see the light of the sun. After all the troubles I’ve been through, and now a thing like this to happen!’ My sisters sided with my mother, and all around me the atmosphere was one of utter scorn and contempt.
“In the intimacy of my own family, there was fresh trouble, and the blame for this was thrown on me. The Cova da Iria was a piece of land belonging to my parents. In the hollow, it was more fertile, and there we cultivated maize, greens, peas and other vegetables. On the slopes grew olive trees, oaks and holm oaks. Now, ever since the people began to go there, we had been unable to cultivate anything at all. Everything was trampled on. As the majority came mounted, their animals ate up all they could find and wrecked the whole place. My mother bewailed her loss―she said to me: ‘You, now, when you want something to eat, go and ask the Lady for it!’ My sisters chimed in with: ‘Yes, you can have what grows in the Cova da Iria!’ These remarks cut me to the heart, so much so that I hardly dared to take a piece of bread to eat. To force me to tell the truth, my mother―more often than not―beat me soundly with the broom-handle or a stick from the woodpile near the fireplace.”
“Several people who came from a distance to see us, noticing that I looked very pale and anemic, asked my mother to let me go and spend a few days in their homes, saying the change of air would do me good. With this end in view, my mother gave her consent, and they took me with them, now to one place, now to another. When away from home like this, I did not always meet with esteem and affection. While there were some who admired me and considered me a saint, there were always others who heaped abuse upon me and called me a hypocrite, a visionary and a sorceress. On such occasions, I used to think to myself: ‘They are all mistaken! I’m not a saint, as some say, and I’m not a liar either, as others say! Only God knows what I am!’”
Sister Lucia adds: “Although I was only a child, I understood perfectly the situation we were in. Then I remembered the Angel’s words: ‘Above all, accept with submission the sacrifices that the Lord will send you.’ At such times, I used to withdraw to a solitary place, so as not to add to my mother’s suffering by letting her see my own. This place, usually, was our well. There, on my knees, leaning over the edge of the stone slabs that covered the well, my tears mingled with the water below and I offered my suffering to God. Sometimes, Jacinta and Francisco would come and find me like this, in bitter grief. As my voice was choked with sobs and I couldn’t say a word, they shared my suffering to such a degree that they also wept copious tears.”
Jacinta’s God-Sent Sorrows
Jacinta was of clear intelligence, joyful, and agile. She was always running, jumping and dancing. The vision of Hell had impressed her very much, and she did all she could to prevent sinners from going there. Jacinta, two years younger and more outgoing, felt the anguish of the visions that they saw. Jacinta thoroughly changed by understanding and accepting the need for much prayer, mortification and penance. She lived passionately for the conversion of sinners. One time she exclaimed: “I grieve for sinners! … If only I could show them Hell!” She was consumed with an insatiable thirst to save the poor souls in danger of Hell. Jacinta attended daily Mass with a great desire of receiving Jesus in Holy Communion in reparation for poor sinners. Jacinta separated herself from the things of the world to focus her attention on the things of Heaven. By nature an extrovert and “people-person”, she now searched for silence and solitude to be in contemplation.
Her cousin, Lucia, writes: “Jacinta took this matter of making sacrifices for the conversion of sinners so much to heart, that she never let a single opportunity escape her. Jacinta’s thirst for making sacrifices seemed insatiable. There were two families in Moita (at that time it was a small village to the north of the Cova da Iria about half-a-mile from the place of the Apparitions) whose. As we were going along with our sheep, we met some local children who used to go round begging from door-to-door. As soon as she saw them, Jacinta said to us: ‘Let us give our lunch to those poor children, for the conversion of sinners!’ And she ran to take it to them.
“That same afternoon, she told me she was hungry. There were holm-oaks and oak trees nearby. Jacinta remembered that we could eat the ones on the oak trees and thus make a sacrifice by eating the bitter kind. So it was there, that afternoon, that we enjoyed this delicious meal! Jacinta made this one of her usual sacrifices, and often picked the bitter acorns off the oaks or the olives off the trees. One day I said to her: ‘Jacinta, don’t eat that! It’s too bitter!’ She replied: ‘But it’s because it’s bitter that I’m eating it, for the conversion of sinners!’
“These were not the only times we fasted. We had agreed that whenever we met any poor children like these, we would give them our lunch. They were only too happy to receive such an alms, and they used to wait for us along the road to make sure that they would meet us. We no sooner saw them than Jacinta ran to give them all the food we had for that day, as happy as if she had no need of it herself. On days like that, our only nourishment consisted of pine nuts, and little berries about the size of an olive which grow on the roots of yellow bell-flowers, as well as blackberries, mushrooms, and some other things we found on the roots of pine trees.
“One day, at the height of summer, we met our dear poor children, and Jacinta ran to give them our usual alms. The sun was blazing. We were parched with thirst, and there wasn’t a single drop of water for us to drink! The heat was getting more and more intense. The shrill singing of the crickets and grasshoppers coupled with the croaking of the frogs in the neighboring pond made an uproar that was almost unbearable. Jacinta, frail as she was, and weakened still more by the lack of food and drink, said to me with that simplicity which was natural to her: ‘Tell the crickets and the frogs to keep quiet! I have such a terrible headache!’ Then Francisco asked her: ‘Don’t you want to suffer this for sinners?’ The poor child, clasping her head between her two little hands, replied: ‘Yes, I do! Let them sing!’
“We were playing one day at the well. Close to it, there was a grape vine belonging to Jacinta’s mother. Her mother cut a few clusters and brought them to us to eat. But Jacinta never forgot her sinners. ‘We won’t eat them!’ she said, ‘We’ll offer this sacrifice for sinners!’ Then she ran out with the grapes and gave them to the other children playing on the road. She returned radiant with joy, for she had found our poor children, and given them the grapes.
“Another time, my aunt called us to come and eat some figs which she had brought home. Jacinta sat down happily next to the basket with the rest of us, and picked up the first fig. She was just about to eat it, when she suddenly remembered, and said: ‘It’s true! Today we haven’t yet made a single sacrifice for sinners! We’ll have to make this one!’ She put the fig back in the basket, and made the offering; and we, too, left our figs in the basket for the conversion of sinners. Jacinta made such sacrifices over and over again, but I won’t stop to tell any more, or I shall never end!”
In December 1918, Jacinta became ill with an epidemic of bronco-pneumonia ― commonly called “The Spanish Flu”. Jacinta and Francisco both fell ill to the influenza pandemic that swept through Europe in the autumn of 1918. Both lingered for many months, insisting on walking to church to make Eucharistic devotions and prostrating themselves to pray for hours, kneeling with their heads on the ground as they said the angel had instructed them to do. Around five months after contracting the disease, on April 3rd, 1919, Francisco declined hospital treatment and died at home the next day.
When Francisco lay dying, Jacinta said that Our Lady came to tell her Francisco would soon be going to Heaven. Sr. Lucia relates the words of Jacinta: “Our Lady came to see us! She told us she would come to take Francisco to Heaven very soon, and she asked me if I still wanted to convert more sinners. I said I did. She told me I would be going to a hospital where I would suffer a great deal; and that I am to suffer for the conversion of sinners, in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and for love of Jesus. I asked if you would go with me. She said you wouldn’t, and that is what I find hardest. She said my mother would take me, and then I would have to stay there all alone!” Jacinta suffered much because of her brother’s death. In an attempt to save Jacinta’s life, which she insisted was futile, Jacinta was moved to the nearby Ourém Hospital. Around this time she reveals: “The Virgin came to see me and asked me if I still want to save sinners. I responded ‘yes,’ and she then told me that soon I will enter the hospital and suffer much. But she said to embrace all for love of Jesus, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the offenses committed against her Heart and the Heart of Jesus. She said ‘mummy’ will accompany me but later I will be alone.”
And this is precisely what happened. Jacinta was confined to her bed during the long winter months. During her illness she confided to her cousin, Lucia: “I suffer much, but I offer everything for the conversion of sinners and to make reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” She was moved to the hospital in Ourem in July 1919, where she underwent the painful treatment prescribed for her, but without much effect. She returned home in August, 1919, with an open wound in her side. The Blessed Mother had foretold that she would die alone in a hospital without her family. In January 1920, a specialist doctor insisted that Jacinta’s mother take her to the hospital in Lisbon for better care. This departure was painful for Jacinta, especially because she was separated from Lucy. She was taken to Lisbon where she was diagnosed as having purulent pleurisy and diseased ribs. She knew it was the last time she would see Lucia. She was admitted to the hospital in February, 1920. Her mother accompanied her to the hospital, but after several days she had to return home and Jacinta stayed alone in the hospital.
On February 10th, 1920, she underwent another painful operation to remove two ribs. Because of the condition of her heart, she could not be fully anesthetized, and suffered terrible pain, which she said would help to convert many sinners. This left her with a large wound in her side, as wide as a hand, that had to be dressed daily, causing her great agony. The pain was dreadful, especially at the time of treatment and dressing the wound. But due to lack of hygiene, the wound became progressively more infected and developed into a real torment for Jacinta. It was a continuous martyrdom, but she always suffered without any complaint. Her only words were to call the Virgin Mary and to offer her sufferings for the conversion of sinners. She tried to hide all these sufferings in the presence of her mother to avoid causing her more sufferings. She even consoled her mother by telling her that she was better.
Three days before her death, Jacinta revealed to the nurse: “The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared, assuring me that soon she will come for me. Ever since then, I have had no pain!” On the evening of February 20th, 1920, Jacinta said she was feeling bad and requested the Last Sacraments to be given as soon as possible ― Confession and the Viaticum (Holy Communion) ― because she knew her death was near. The local priest was called and heard her final Confession, but he insisted on waiting till morning to bring her Holy Communion―despite her protests that she would die that night. The priest did not see the urgency and promised to come the following day. But shortly after she died. Alone. She was almost 11 years old. As Our Lady had foretold, she died alone in her hospital bed later that evening, far from her family.
Francisco’s God-Sent Sorrows
Sr. Lucia describes Francisco’s character thus: “Francisco spoke very little. He usually did everything he saw us doing, and rarely suggested anything himself. Apart from his features and his practice of virtue, Francisco did not seem at all to be Jacinta’s brother. Unlike her, he was neither capricious, nor vivacious. On the contrary, he was quiet and submissive by nature. He took everything his mother offered him, and she could never discover which things he disliked. He went on like this until the day came for him to go to Heaven. When we were at play and he won the game, if anyone made a point of denying him his rights as winner, he yielded without more ado and merely said: “You think you won? That’s alright! I don’t mind!”
“He showed no love for dancing, as Jacinta did; he much preferred playing the flute while the others danced. In our games he was quite lively; but few of us liked to play with him as he nearly always lost. I must confess that I myself did not always feel too kindly disposed towards him, as his naturally calm temperament exasperated my own excessive vivacity. Sometimes, I caught him by the arm, made him sit down on the ground or on a stone, and told him to keep still; he obeyed me as if I had real authority over him. Afterwards, I felt sorry, and went and took him by the hand, and he would come along with me as good-humoredly as though nothing had happened. If one of the other children insisted on taking away something belonging to him, he said: “Let them have it! What do I care?”
“I recall how, one day, he came to my house and was delighted to show me a handkerchief with a picture of Our Lady of Nazaré on it, which someone had brought him from the seaside. All the children gathered round him to admire it. The handkerchief was passed from hand to hand, and in a few minutes it disappeared. We looked for it, but it was nowhere to be found. A little later, I found it myself in another small boy’s pocket. I wanted to take it away from him, but he insisted that it was his own, and that someone had brought him one from the beach as well. To put an end to the quarrel, Francisco then went up to him and said: “Let him have it! What does a handkerchief matter to me?”
Naturally quiet and reserved, Francisco was transformed by the apparitions of the Angel and Our Lady. His only remaining desire in life became to please God by doing what he thought Mary asked of him. The Apparition of Our Lady was seen by Francisco, but he could hear nothing of what Our Lady was saying―only the two girls, Lucia and Jacinta heard her speak. Lucia writes: “Afterwards, we told Francisco all that Our Lady had said. He was overjoyed and expressed the happiness he felt when he heard of the promise that he would go to Heaven. Crossing his hands on his breast, he exclaimed, “Oh, my dear Our Lady! I’ll say as many Rosaries as you want!” And from then on, he made a habit of moving away from us, as though going for a walk. When we called him and asked him what he was doing, he raised his hand and showed me his Rosary. If we told him to come and play, and say the Rosary with us afterwards, he replied: “Don’t you remember that Our Lady said I must pray many Rosaries?”
“One day, when I showed how unhappy I was over the persecution now beginning both in my family and outside, Francisco tried to encourage me with these words:
“Never mind! Didn’t Our Lady say that we would have much to suffer, to make reparation to Our Lord and to her own Immaculate Heart for all the sins by which They are offended? They are so sad! If we can console them with these sufferings, how happy we shall be!”
When we arrived at our pasturage a few days after Our Lady’s first Apparition, he climbed up to the top of a steep rock, and called out to us:
“Don’t come up here; let me stay here alone.”
“All right.” And off I went, chasing butterflies with Jacinta.
We no sooner caught them than we made the sacrifice of letting them fly away, and we never gave another thought to Francisco. When lunch time came, we missed him and went to call him: “Francisco, don’t you want to come for your lunch?”
“No, you eat.”
“And to pray the Rosary?”
“That, yes, later on. Call me again.”
When I went to call him again, he said to me: “You come up here and pray with me.”
We climbed up to the peak, where the three of us could scarcely find room to kneel down, and I asked him: “But what have you been doing all this time?”
“I am thinking about God, Who is so sad because of so many sins! If only I could give Him joy!”
Both Jacinta and Francisco fell ill to the influenza pandemic that swept through Europe in the autumn of 1918. Francisco recovered somewhat and there were hopes that he might become well, but he realized that he was destined to die young―just as Our Lady had foretold, and his condition worsened again. He offered up all his sufferings as a way of consoling God for the sinfulness and ingratitude of mankind and in supplication for the conversion of sinners. Lucia writes: “During his illness, he suffered with heroic patience, without ever letting the slightest moan or the least complaint escape his lips. One day, shortly before his death, I asked him: “Are you suffering a lot, Francisco?” He replied: “Yes, but I suffer it all for love of Our Lord and Our Lady!” The day before his death, he said to Jacinta and myself: “I am going to Heaven, but when I’m there, I will pray a great deal to Our Lord and Our Lady, asking them to bring you there, too, very soon.”
As we approach the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows on September 15th, which is providentially preceded by the feast of the Finding of Holy Cross on September 14th, we would be wise to reflect on the need and the role of sorrows and crosses in our life. The Old Testament foretold that the Messias would a “Man of Sorrows” who would suffer for our sins: “There is no beauty in Him, nor comeliness―and we have seen Him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of Him! Despised and the most abject of men―a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity! And His look was, as it were, hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed Him not! Surely He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows―and we have thought of Him as though He were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted! But He was wounded for our iniquities; He was bruised for our sins; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His bruises we are healed! The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was sacrificed because it was His own will, and He opened not His mouth―He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before His shearer, and He shall not open His mouth! He is cut off out of the land of the living for the wickedness of the people the Lord struck Him. He hath done no iniquity, neither was there deceit in His mouth. And the Lord was pleased to bruise Him with infirmity. He shall lay down His life for sin. He hath delivered His soul unto death, and was reputed with the wicked; and He hath borne the sins of many, and hath prayed for the transgressors” (Isaias 53:2-12).
Sorrow in the Flesh
Our Lord―the True Messias―echoes and fulfills the prophecy of Isaias in the flesh: “From that time, Jesus began to teach and show His disciples, that He, the Son of man, must go to Jerusalem and be rejected and suffer many things from the ancients and Scribes and Chief Priests, and be killed and put to death, and after three days, rise again. And He spoke this openly. And Peter taking Him, began to rebuke Him, saying: ‘Lord, be it far from Thee, this shall not be unto Thee!’ Jesus, turning to His disciples, said to Peter: ‘Get behind Me, Satan! Thou art a scandal unto Me! Because thou savorest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!’” (Matthew 16:21-23; Mark 8:31-33).
On another occasion, Jesus repeats Himself: they were in the way going up to Jerusalem: and Jesus went before them, and they were astonished; and, following Him, they were afraid. And taking again the Twelve [Apostles], He began to tell them the things that would befall Him, saying: ‘Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed to the chief priests, and to the scribes and ancients―and they shall condemn Him to death and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles. And they shall mock Him, and spit on Him, and scourge Him, and kill Him―and, on the third day, He shall rise again!’” (Mark 10:32-34).
Sorrow in the Heart
Although Our Lady suffered all throughout her life, nevertheless, from the very first days after giving birth to Jesus, Our Lady was the recipient of a prophecy of sorrow. It occurred during the presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple, where she encountered the holy priest of the Temple, St. Simeon: “There was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Ghost was in him. And he had received an answer from the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. And he came by the Spirit into the Temple. And when His parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, Simeon also took Him into his arms and blessed God, and said: ‘Now thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word in peace―because my eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples! A light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel!’ And His father and mother were wondering at those things which were spoken concerning Him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, His mother: ‘Behold this Child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted! And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, so that out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed!’” (Luke 2:25-35).
Our Lady, in speaking of this incident to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, says: “Strive after the constancy and expansion of heart, by which you can prepare yourself to accept blessings and adversity, the sweet and the bitter with equal calmness and peace of soul. How narrow and unwilling is the human heart toward that which is contrary and distasteful to its earthly inclinations! How it chafes in labors! How impatiently it meets them! How insufferable it judges all that is contrary to its desires! How persistently it forgets, that its Teacher and Master has first accepted sufferings, and has honored and sanctified them in His own Person! It is a great shame and a great boldness, on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering―especially since my most holy Son suffered for them! This lack of acceptance of suffering is so base and vile! When the occasion of tasting the chalice and the cross of suffering is at hand, you must not turn away in sorrow and affliction from the sufferings―for it is through suffering that the sincerity of a loving and affectionate heart is to be tried and tested. You cannot follow Christ, if you refuse to embrace the cross and rejoice in it, nor shall you find me by any other way.
“If creatures fail and let you down; if temptation or troubles attack you; if the sorrows of death encompass you, you must in no way be disturbed or disheartened―since nothing displeases my most holy Son or me more, than seeing souls misusing it and receiving it in vain, which gives a great victory to the demon, who glories much in having disturbed or subjected any soul that calls itself a disciple of Christ and of me. Having once knocked you down in small things, he will soon oppress you in greater ones. Confide, then, in the protection of the Most High and press onward trusting in me. Full of this trust, whenever tribulation comes over you, fervently exclaim: ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?’ Remember the sorrow, which pierced my heart at the prophecies of Simeon, and how I remained in peace and tranquility, without any sign of disturbance―although my heart and soul were pierced by a sword of pain. In every event I sought motives for glorifying and adoring God’s admirable wisdom. If the passing labors and sufferings are accepted with joy and with serenity of heart, they spiritualize the creature, they elevate it and furnish it with a divine insight. Ponder and meditate without intermission upon that, which my most holy Son suffered, so that your soul can be a participant in His sorrows. Let the holy memory of His sufferings engender in you such a disgust and abhorrence of all earthly pleasures that you despise and forget all that is visible, and instead, follow the Author of eternal life.”
Which Sorrow Came First?
You have, no doubt, heard the question: “What came first? The chicken or the egg?” You could also ask: “Whose sorrow came first? Mary’s or Jesus’?” Sorrow begets sorrow! The problem is that Mary gave birth to Jesus, but Jesus, being God, made Mary! In order to find the source of sorrow, we need to go back to Adam and Eve―for, ultimately, sin is source of sorrow. God forbade Adam and Eve from eating a certain fruit: “Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat―but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death” (Genesis 2:16-17). You have to agree―there is no sorrow like the sorrow death! As we all know, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit! Sorrow followed! God said to Eve: “I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions―in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children!” (Genesis 3:16). To Adam God said: “Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labor and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life! Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth! In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken―for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return!” (Genesis 3:17-19).
Holy Scripture adds: “By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death―and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned! … Death reigned from Adam unto Moses, even over them who have not sinned after the similitude of the transgression of Adam! … The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 5:12-14; 6:23) … “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die!” (Ezechiel 18:4 & 20). Sin brings the suffering of death―and death bring sorrow. Hence, sin leads to suffering―and suffering leads to sorrow. “Tribulation and anguish comes upon the soul of every man that worketh evil!” (Romans 2:9). “Every man is tempted by his own concupiscence … Then when concupiscence hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. But sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:14-15). Thus it is that St. Paul writes: “Sin seduced me, and it killed me! … Sin wrought death in me!” (Romans 7:11-13) ― hence, even though Paul converted, God would still exact the price of sin and Christ said to Ananias, concerning Paul: “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake!” (Acts 9:16).
St. Paul elsewhere lists some of those sufferings that paid for his sins: “Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:24-27). “But God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ―by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14). Most of us wince and whine, curse and complain, mutter and murmur in our sufferings, yet Scripture so rightly says: “Why hath a living man murmured―man suffering for his sins?” (Lamentations 3:39), sufferings which are never and nowhere near to “suffering the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 1:7).
Sorrowful Hearts not Sweet Hearts!
We know, of course, that Holy Scripture says: “O taste and see that the Lord is sweet!” (Psalm 33:9). Yet it is not joy and laughter that redeemed us from sin, but sorrow and suffering! The Hearts of Jesus and Mary both show aspects of sorrow―Our Lord’s Sacred Heart is surrounded and pierced by thorns; Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart is pierced by a sword.
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque―to whom the Sacred Heart of Jesus first manifested Itself―writes: “This Divine Heart was shown to me as on a throne of flames, more dazzling than the sun and transparent as crystal, with that adorable wound, and surrounded with a crown of thorns signifying the pricks caused to It by our sins; and above there was a cross, which meant that from the first moment of His Incarnation, that is as soon as this Sacred Heart was formed, the cross was planted in It, and that It was filled at once with all the bitterness which humiliations and poverty, pains and scorn, would cause to It, and which His Sacred Humanity was to suffer throughout all His lifetime and in His Sacred Passion.”
As regards the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on December 10th, 1925―over 8 years since her last apparition at Fatima―the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by the Child Jesus, appeared to St. Lucia of Fatima in her convent cell. The Child Jesus spoke first: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.” Then Our Lady said: “My daughter, look at my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, try to console me!”
Man of Sorrows―Mother of Sorrows! Are We Children of Sorrows?
Our Lord and Our Lady have shared in the sorrows and sufferings brought about by sin―but have we shown sorrow for our sins? Our Lady, on several occasions, stressed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda the paramount need of sorrow for sin: “Great was the sorrow, most bitter the grief, of my most holy Son, that not all should make use of the fruits of His Redemption. This same thought also pierced my heart and immensely added to the sorrow of seeing Him spat upon, buffeted, and blasphemed more cruelly than can ever be understood by living man. But I understood all these sufferings clearly and as they should be understood; therefore my sorrow was great in proportion to this knowledge. But next to this sorrow, my greatest one was to know that, after all these death dealing sufferings of the Lord, so many men should still damn themselves. I wish that you imitate and follow me in this sorrow and that you lament this fearful misfortune―for, among all the losses sustained by men, there is none which deserves to be so deplored, nor which can ever be compared to it.
“My Son and I look with especial love upon those who imitate this sorrow and afflict themselves on account of the perdition of so many souls! … Weep bitterly and do not lose the merit of such a sorrow―and let it be so deep, that you find no relief, except in affliction for the sake of the Lord whom you love. Think of what I did, in order to stave off the damnation of Herod and to prevent the damnation of those who wish to avail themselves of my intercession! … So great is my love for sinners, that if they would only call upon me in time and with sincerity, none of them would perish! But the sinners and the reprobate do no such thing―because the wounds of sin do not distress them, and the more often they are committed, the less regret or sorrow do they cause! ... As the Mother of clemency, it is a great cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and that, for failing to call upon me, so many souls should be lost! ... This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict yourself, lament and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls!
“Bewail such a sad state, and invite Heaven and Earth to help you in your weeping―for there are few who sorrow on account of it! … Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls! … The Lord and I were most solicitous and compassionate toward all the children of men; for them We suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that they might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good and in return for so obliging a love! ... They live in the obscurity of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings! Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires! … These vices will soon drive away the infinite mercy of God and cause eternal punishment of men, unless they amend in sorrow! …
“Weep with bitterest sorrow over the stubbornness and blindness of mortals! … Lament with great sorrow the fact that Judas, in his malice and treachery, has many more followers than Christ. Many are the infidels, many the bad Catholics, many the hypocrites, who under the name of a Christian, sell and deliver Him and crucify Him anew! … Let your heart be torn in sorrow! … Sorrowfully satisfy for your own faults in sorrow and penance! … Purify your soul by many acts of sorrow for having offended Him! … Do not delay even for one instant sorrow for your sins and a firm purpose of confessing them as soon as you find yourself guilty of any sin and of amending the least of your imperfections! … Let not the sun go down, or the day pass, without having sorrowed for it or confessed it! ... Deplore your faults with true sorrow! ... Acknowledge your fault, confessing it in sorrow! … Humbly and sorrowfully confess your faults with a heartfelt sorrow for your sins! … Crown your heart with the thorns of sorrow! … Wash and purify yourself in the Blood of your Redeemer, Christ, by a truly sorrowful confession and apply this cleansing many times by renewing your loving sorrow for your sins! … Seek Him in sorrow and tears! … By the bitterness of sorrow and affliction the vapors of sin are allayed! … I am much incensed to find so few who condole with me and try to console my Son in His sorrows.”
The Need for Great Sorrow in a Time of Great Sorrow
In case you hadn’t noticed―we are living in a time of extreme sorrow. Already back in 1956―times which seem “innocent” when compared to our present-day times―Our Lady had this to say: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! Materialism marches on ever fomenting bloody strifes and fratricidal struggles. Clear signs warn that peace is in danger. That scourge, like the shadow of a dark cloud, is now moving across mankind―only my power, as Mother of God, is preventing the outbreak of the storm. All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
Notice that Our Lady said that Elena Aiello would surely die of sorrow and grief if Our Lady were to show her the sins committed in the world in JUST ONE SINGLE DAY! Where are we on the “grief-scale” or “sorrow-scale” as a result of what is happening, not in 1956, but in 2022?
Speaking of our days, back in the 1600s, Our Lady of Good Success said to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, that we “will need great strength of will, constancy, valor and confidence” because “the small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom.” She further adds that we should “clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears in the privacy of your heart, imploring our heavenly Father that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times!” Mother Mariana saw the Tabernacle open and Christ Himself emerged, suffering as He had at Golgotha. Mother Mariana asked: “My Lady, am I to blame for this sadness?” “No,” she replied, “it is not you―but the criminal world!” Then as Our Lord began His Agony, she heard the voice of the Eternal Father saying: “This punishment will be for the 20th century.” The Holy Virgin continued: “My daughter, will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time?” Mother Mariana replied, “I am willing.” And immediately the swords moved away from the agonizing Christ and buried themselves in the heart of Mother Mariana, who fell dead through the violence of the pain.
By 1917, when Our Lady appeared at Fatima, the message and need had not changed. She showed Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta a vision of the real Hell and then asked the children to sacrifice themselves and suffer in order to earn the graces that would prevent at least some souls from falling into Hell: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917). Already prior to that, the Angel of Portugal had scolded the three children for playing too much and praying too little―saying: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers unceasingly and sacrifice yourselves to the Most High. Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
Sorrow and Suffering in Our Own Lives
What are we like when the Lord sends sufferings to us? Do we accept them with submission, gladly suffering them to save souls from Hell (our own soul included)? Or do we chaff, cantankerously complain, or even curse at having suffering inflicted upon us? Our Lady speaks of such complaining Catholics to the Venerable Mary of Agreda:
“My Son and Lord could have redeemed the human race without suffering so much and that He wished to increase His sufferings only on account of the immensity of His love for souls … He began to suffer, and as soon as He was born into the world and His sufferings continued until He died on the Cross … Understand the ignorance and error of mortals, nearly all of them strive to avoid labor and suffering and are frightened by the royal and secure road of mortification and the Cross ... Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment … Full of this deceitful ignorance, they not only abhor resemblance to Christ’s suffering, but they make their recovery impossible―since all of them are weak and afflicted by many sins, for which the only remedy is suffering ... Guard thyself against those living in darkness and the lovers of the world more than against fire―for the wisdom of the sons of this world is carnal and diabolical, and their ways lead to death. Worldly wisdom looks upon the person, not at the state of the souls, nor at virtue, but at outward ostentation. Each one ordinarily seeks to advance his honor and vainglory, struggling to be applauded and renowned ... Many persons―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell proclaim it! Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16) ... The number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate is also be uncountable! …
“Why do mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside ... You cannot follow Christ, if you refuse to embrace the Cross and rejoice in it! … Nor do I count anyone a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son … The worldlings in their torpidity are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Father and Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings … How persistently they forget that their Teacher and Master has first accepted sufferings, and has honored and sanctified them in His own Person! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering, even after my most holy Son did suffer for them … For some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others expect to be pardoned without penance! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments―so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo and suffer them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation! ... The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good! Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, willingly entering upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, to bear it after Christ! Thus will they walk upon the direct path toward Heaven and gain an eternal happiness!”
In Times of Sorrow, We Are Living It Up!
When someone has just died in the family, it is not the appropriate time for jokes and laughter; small talk and gossiping. The gravity of the situation demands a certain “gravitas” ― meaning a dignity, seriousness, or solemnity of manner; good taste in behavior and speech. Likewise, it is no joking or laughing matter when, on average, around 150,000 people die each day (or 55 million per year) with the likelihood that the vast majority of them are falling into Hell.
Yet, judging by appearances and talk―it seems that most Catholics don’t give a damn about the damned! They certainly don’t give any prayers and sacrifices to prevent the damnation of others! Life is for fun and playing―not sacrifice and praying! Instead of spending hours in prayer and making sacrifices―most people spend hours in front of a television, or on the internet, or on their smartphones! Instead of finding ways of making sacrifices, they instead find ways of practicing self-indulgence and self-gratification. Instead of weeping over the number souls being damned, they prefer to laugh and joke about things of this world.
Sorrowful Mother Begets Sorrowful Children
In most of her modern-day apparitions, Our Lady was far from being laughing, upbeat and joyful in appearance―the chief reason being the worldwide tsunami of sin and the resulting tsunami of damned souls falling into Hell upon their death. Sister Lucia of Fatima says: “My cousins, Francisco and Jacinta, made sacrifices because they always saw that the Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions! She never smiled at us! This anguish that we saw in her―caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners―penetrated our souls. And being children, we did not know what measures to devise―except to pray and make sacrifices.”
Our Lady had shown the three children a vision of Hell―which Lucia said was so frightening that they would have died on the spot had not the grace of God kept them alive. Our Lady had a purpose in showing them Hell―she wanted souls to pray and sacrifice for sinners and obtain from God graces of repentance so as to avoid Hell―she said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
Finding Joy in Sorrow
The three shepherd children immediately gave themselves up to prayer and sacrifice. It was the response of children who opened their heart completely to this cause, and gave everything they had. Since the first apparition, the children looked for ways to multiply their mortifications for the conversion of sinners. They did not tire of looking for new ways of offering sacrifices for sinners. They suffered illness cheerfully, went without water for an entire day on hot and humid days; they gave away their lunch or breakfast to other poor local children; they sacrificed childlike pleasures like dancing, playing games and playing with friends in order to devote more time to prayer; they fasted throughout the Lenten season even though, as children, they were not obliged to do so; and they suffered their final illnesses, from the complications of the Spanish influenza of 1918, without complaint.
One day, shortly time after the fourth apparition, Jacinta found a cord and thought of tying it around her waist and tightening it as a sacrifice. Lucia and Francisco liked the idea and cut the cord in three pieces and put it around their waists directly over their skin. Lucy narrates that this was a sacrifice that made them suffer terribly—so much so, that Jacinta was unable to contain the tears. If they tried to talk her out of it, she immediately responded that there was no way she was going to take the rope off, because it was for the conversion of sinners. In the beginning she wore the cord during the day and night, but in one apparition, Our Lady said to Jacinta, “Our Lord is very pleased with your sacrifices but doesn’t desire for you to sleep with the cord. Wear it only during the day.” They obeyed, and with greater fervor, they persevered in this difficult penance, knowing it pleased God and Our Lady. Francisco and Jacinta wore the cord until their final illness, in which their cords appeared to be stained with blood.
Lucia’s God-Sent Sorrows
Our Lady, when asking the children if they were willing to suffer for the conversion of sinners, was not joking. Sufferings came in abundance. You could say that the tsunami of sin required a tsunami of suffering. Those waves of suffering swept over all of the three Fatima children. Remember―they were only 10, 9 and 7 years old! However, God Himself would send His willing children the most fruitful sacrifices. The trials that would overwhelm Lucia’s family coincided almost exactly with the time of the first few apparitions. Little by little, her home life grew unhappy. This was all the more painful for Lucia because, until then, she had known great joy in her family, whom she tenderly cherished and who cherished her in return.
Many neighbors, strangers, and also family members, were disbelieving of Our Lady’s apparitions, believing instead that the children were making-up these stories and were blatantly and unashamedly lying. The children were directly the laughing-stock of many―even the newspapers―and this mockery indirectly rebounded on their families. Sister Lucia, in her memoirs, speaks of the general disbelief that surrounded Our Lady’s apparitions in Fatima:
“In the meantime, news of what had happened [the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima] was spreading. My poor mother worried more and more, as she saw the crowds who came flocking from all parts. My mother was getting worried, and wanted at all costs to make me deny what I had said. She was determined to make me confess that I was telling lies, and to this end she spared neither caresses, nor threats, nor even the broomstick. She told me that she had never tolerated a single lie among her children, and much less would she allow a lie of this kind. She warned me that she would force me, that very evening, to go to those people whom I had deceived, confess that I had lied and ask their pardon … I could see that my mother was deeply distressed, and that she wanted at all costs to compel me, as she put it, to admit that I had lied. She often said: ‘I’ve seen to it that my children always told the truth, and am I now going to let the youngest get away with a thing like this? If it were just a small thing! But a lie of such proportions, deceiving so many people and bringing them all the way here! These poor people come here, taken in by your trickery, you can be sure of that, and I really don’t know what I can do to undeceive them!’
“After these bitter complaints, she would turn to me, saying: ‘Make up your mind which you want! Either undo all this deception by telling these people that you’ve lied, or I’ll lock you up in a dark room where you won’t even see the light of the sun. After all the troubles I’ve been through, and now a thing like this to happen!’ My sisters sided with my mother, and all around me the atmosphere was one of utter scorn and contempt.
“In the intimacy of my own family, there was fresh trouble, and the blame for this was thrown on me. The Cova da Iria was a piece of land belonging to my parents. In the hollow, it was more fertile, and there we cultivated maize, greens, peas and other vegetables. On the slopes grew olive trees, oaks and holm oaks. Now, ever since the people began to go there, we had been unable to cultivate anything at all. Everything was trampled on. As the majority came mounted, their animals ate up all they could find and wrecked the whole place. My mother bewailed her loss―she said to me: ‘You, now, when you want something to eat, go and ask the Lady for it!’ My sisters chimed in with: ‘Yes, you can have what grows in the Cova da Iria!’ These remarks cut me to the heart, so much so that I hardly dared to take a piece of bread to eat. To force me to tell the truth, my mother―more often than not―beat me soundly with the broom-handle or a stick from the woodpile near the fireplace.”
“Several people who came from a distance to see us, noticing that I looked very pale and anemic, asked my mother to let me go and spend a few days in their homes, saying the change of air would do me good. With this end in view, my mother gave her consent, and they took me with them, now to one place, now to another. When away from home like this, I did not always meet with esteem and affection. While there were some who admired me and considered me a saint, there were always others who heaped abuse upon me and called me a hypocrite, a visionary and a sorceress. On such occasions, I used to think to myself: ‘They are all mistaken! I’m not a saint, as some say, and I’m not a liar either, as others say! Only God knows what I am!’”
Sister Lucia adds: “Although I was only a child, I understood perfectly the situation we were in. Then I remembered the Angel’s words: ‘Above all, accept with submission the sacrifices that the Lord will send you.’ At such times, I used to withdraw to a solitary place, so as not to add to my mother’s suffering by letting her see my own. This place, usually, was our well. There, on my knees, leaning over the edge of the stone slabs that covered the well, my tears mingled with the water below and I offered my suffering to God. Sometimes, Jacinta and Francisco would come and find me like this, in bitter grief. As my voice was choked with sobs and I couldn’t say a word, they shared my suffering to such a degree that they also wept copious tears.”
Jacinta’s God-Sent Sorrows
Jacinta was of clear intelligence, joyful, and agile. She was always running, jumping and dancing. The vision of Hell had impressed her very much, and she did all she could to prevent sinners from going there. Jacinta, two years younger and more outgoing, felt the anguish of the visions that they saw. Jacinta thoroughly changed by understanding and accepting the need for much prayer, mortification and penance. She lived passionately for the conversion of sinners. One time she exclaimed: “I grieve for sinners! … If only I could show them Hell!” She was consumed with an insatiable thirst to save the poor souls in danger of Hell. Jacinta attended daily Mass with a great desire of receiving Jesus in Holy Communion in reparation for poor sinners. Jacinta separated herself from the things of the world to focus her attention on the things of Heaven. By nature an extrovert and “people-person”, she now searched for silence and solitude to be in contemplation.
Her cousin, Lucia, writes: “Jacinta took this matter of making sacrifices for the conversion of sinners so much to heart, that she never let a single opportunity escape her. Jacinta’s thirst for making sacrifices seemed insatiable. There were two families in Moita (at that time it was a small village to the north of the Cova da Iria about half-a-mile from the place of the Apparitions) whose. As we were going along with our sheep, we met some local children who used to go round begging from door-to-door. As soon as she saw them, Jacinta said to us: ‘Let us give our lunch to those poor children, for the conversion of sinners!’ And she ran to take it to them.
“That same afternoon, she told me she was hungry. There were holm-oaks and oak trees nearby. Jacinta remembered that we could eat the ones on the oak trees and thus make a sacrifice by eating the bitter kind. So it was there, that afternoon, that we enjoyed this delicious meal! Jacinta made this one of her usual sacrifices, and often picked the bitter acorns off the oaks or the olives off the trees. One day I said to her: ‘Jacinta, don’t eat that! It’s too bitter!’ She replied: ‘But it’s because it’s bitter that I’m eating it, for the conversion of sinners!’
“These were not the only times we fasted. We had agreed that whenever we met any poor children like these, we would give them our lunch. They were only too happy to receive such an alms, and they used to wait for us along the road to make sure that they would meet us. We no sooner saw them than Jacinta ran to give them all the food we had for that day, as happy as if she had no need of it herself. On days like that, our only nourishment consisted of pine nuts, and little berries about the size of an olive which grow on the roots of yellow bell-flowers, as well as blackberries, mushrooms, and some other things we found on the roots of pine trees.
“One day, at the height of summer, we met our dear poor children, and Jacinta ran to give them our usual alms. The sun was blazing. We were parched with thirst, and there wasn’t a single drop of water for us to drink! The heat was getting more and more intense. The shrill singing of the crickets and grasshoppers coupled with the croaking of the frogs in the neighboring pond made an uproar that was almost unbearable. Jacinta, frail as she was, and weakened still more by the lack of food and drink, said to me with that simplicity which was natural to her: ‘Tell the crickets and the frogs to keep quiet! I have such a terrible headache!’ Then Francisco asked her: ‘Don’t you want to suffer this for sinners?’ The poor child, clasping her head between her two little hands, replied: ‘Yes, I do! Let them sing!’
“We were playing one day at the well. Close to it, there was a grape vine belonging to Jacinta’s mother. Her mother cut a few clusters and brought them to us to eat. But Jacinta never forgot her sinners. ‘We won’t eat them!’ she said, ‘We’ll offer this sacrifice for sinners!’ Then she ran out with the grapes and gave them to the other children playing on the road. She returned radiant with joy, for she had found our poor children, and given them the grapes.
“Another time, my aunt called us to come and eat some figs which she had brought home. Jacinta sat down happily next to the basket with the rest of us, and picked up the first fig. She was just about to eat it, when she suddenly remembered, and said: ‘It’s true! Today we haven’t yet made a single sacrifice for sinners! We’ll have to make this one!’ She put the fig back in the basket, and made the offering; and we, too, left our figs in the basket for the conversion of sinners. Jacinta made such sacrifices over and over again, but I won’t stop to tell any more, or I shall never end!”
In December 1918, Jacinta became ill with an epidemic of bronco-pneumonia ― commonly called “The Spanish Flu”. Jacinta and Francisco both fell ill to the influenza pandemic that swept through Europe in the autumn of 1918. Both lingered for many months, insisting on walking to church to make Eucharistic devotions and prostrating themselves to pray for hours, kneeling with their heads on the ground as they said the angel had instructed them to do. Around five months after contracting the disease, on April 3rd, 1919, Francisco declined hospital treatment and died at home the next day.
When Francisco lay dying, Jacinta said that Our Lady came to tell her Francisco would soon be going to Heaven. Sr. Lucia relates the words of Jacinta: “Our Lady came to see us! She told us she would come to take Francisco to Heaven very soon, and she asked me if I still wanted to convert more sinners. I said I did. She told me I would be going to a hospital where I would suffer a great deal; and that I am to suffer for the conversion of sinners, in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and for love of Jesus. I asked if you would go with me. She said you wouldn’t, and that is what I find hardest. She said my mother would take me, and then I would have to stay there all alone!” Jacinta suffered much because of her brother’s death. In an attempt to save Jacinta’s life, which she insisted was futile, Jacinta was moved to the nearby Ourém Hospital. Around this time she reveals: “The Virgin came to see me and asked me if I still want to save sinners. I responded ‘yes,’ and she then told me that soon I will enter the hospital and suffer much. But she said to embrace all for love of Jesus, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the offenses committed against her Heart and the Heart of Jesus. She said ‘mummy’ will accompany me but later I will be alone.”
And this is precisely what happened. Jacinta was confined to her bed during the long winter months. During her illness she confided to her cousin, Lucia: “I suffer much, but I offer everything for the conversion of sinners and to make reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” She was moved to the hospital in Ourem in July 1919, where she underwent the painful treatment prescribed for her, but without much effect. She returned home in August, 1919, with an open wound in her side. The Blessed Mother had foretold that she would die alone in a hospital without her family. In January 1920, a specialist doctor insisted that Jacinta’s mother take her to the hospital in Lisbon for better care. This departure was painful for Jacinta, especially because she was separated from Lucy. She was taken to Lisbon where she was diagnosed as having purulent pleurisy and diseased ribs. She knew it was the last time she would see Lucia. She was admitted to the hospital in February, 1920. Her mother accompanied her to the hospital, but after several days she had to return home and Jacinta stayed alone in the hospital.
On February 10th, 1920, she underwent another painful operation to remove two ribs. Because of the condition of her heart, she could not be fully anesthetized, and suffered terrible pain, which she said would help to convert many sinners. This left her with a large wound in her side, as wide as a hand, that had to be dressed daily, causing her great agony. The pain was dreadful, especially at the time of treatment and dressing the wound. But due to lack of hygiene, the wound became progressively more infected and developed into a real torment for Jacinta. It was a continuous martyrdom, but she always suffered without any complaint. Her only words were to call the Virgin Mary and to offer her sufferings for the conversion of sinners. She tried to hide all these sufferings in the presence of her mother to avoid causing her more sufferings. She even consoled her mother by telling her that she was better.
Three days before her death, Jacinta revealed to the nurse: “The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared, assuring me that soon she will come for me. Ever since then, I have had no pain!” On the evening of February 20th, 1920, Jacinta said she was feeling bad and requested the Last Sacraments to be given as soon as possible ― Confession and the Viaticum (Holy Communion) ― because she knew her death was near. The local priest was called and heard her final Confession, but he insisted on waiting till morning to bring her Holy Communion―despite her protests that she would die that night. The priest did not see the urgency and promised to come the following day. But shortly after she died. Alone. She was almost 11 years old. As Our Lady had foretold, she died alone in her hospital bed later that evening, far from her family.
Francisco’s God-Sent Sorrows
Sr. Lucia describes Francisco’s character thus: “Francisco spoke very little. He usually did everything he saw us doing, and rarely suggested anything himself. Apart from his features and his practice of virtue, Francisco did not seem at all to be Jacinta’s brother. Unlike her, he was neither capricious, nor vivacious. On the contrary, he was quiet and submissive by nature. He took everything his mother offered him, and she could never discover which things he disliked. He went on like this until the day came for him to go to Heaven. When we were at play and he won the game, if anyone made a point of denying him his rights as winner, he yielded without more ado and merely said: “You think you won? That’s alright! I don’t mind!”
“He showed no love for dancing, as Jacinta did; he much preferred playing the flute while the others danced. In our games he was quite lively; but few of us liked to play with him as he nearly always lost. I must confess that I myself did not always feel too kindly disposed towards him, as his naturally calm temperament exasperated my own excessive vivacity. Sometimes, I caught him by the arm, made him sit down on the ground or on a stone, and told him to keep still; he obeyed me as if I had real authority over him. Afterwards, I felt sorry, and went and took him by the hand, and he would come along with me as good-humoredly as though nothing had happened. If one of the other children insisted on taking away something belonging to him, he said: “Let them have it! What do I care?”
“I recall how, one day, he came to my house and was delighted to show me a handkerchief with a picture of Our Lady of Nazaré on it, which someone had brought him from the seaside. All the children gathered round him to admire it. The handkerchief was passed from hand to hand, and in a few minutes it disappeared. We looked for it, but it was nowhere to be found. A little later, I found it myself in another small boy’s pocket. I wanted to take it away from him, but he insisted that it was his own, and that someone had brought him one from the beach as well. To put an end to the quarrel, Francisco then went up to him and said: “Let him have it! What does a handkerchief matter to me?”
Naturally quiet and reserved, Francisco was transformed by the apparitions of the Angel and Our Lady. His only remaining desire in life became to please God by doing what he thought Mary asked of him. The Apparition of Our Lady was seen by Francisco, but he could hear nothing of what Our Lady was saying―only the two girls, Lucia and Jacinta heard her speak. Lucia writes: “Afterwards, we told Francisco all that Our Lady had said. He was overjoyed and expressed the happiness he felt when he heard of the promise that he would go to Heaven. Crossing his hands on his breast, he exclaimed, “Oh, my dear Our Lady! I’ll say as many Rosaries as you want!” And from then on, he made a habit of moving away from us, as though going for a walk. When we called him and asked him what he was doing, he raised his hand and showed me his Rosary. If we told him to come and play, and say the Rosary with us afterwards, he replied: “Don’t you remember that Our Lady said I must pray many Rosaries?”
“One day, when I showed how unhappy I was over the persecution now beginning both in my family and outside, Francisco tried to encourage me with these words:
“Never mind! Didn’t Our Lady say that we would have much to suffer, to make reparation to Our Lord and to her own Immaculate Heart for all the sins by which They are offended? They are so sad! If we can console them with these sufferings, how happy we shall be!”
When we arrived at our pasturage a few days after Our Lady’s first Apparition, he climbed up to the top of a steep rock, and called out to us:
“Don’t come up here; let me stay here alone.”
“All right.” And off I went, chasing butterflies with Jacinta.
We no sooner caught them than we made the sacrifice of letting them fly away, and we never gave another thought to Francisco. When lunch time came, we missed him and went to call him: “Francisco, don’t you want to come for your lunch?”
“No, you eat.”
“And to pray the Rosary?”
“That, yes, later on. Call me again.”
When I went to call him again, he said to me: “You come up here and pray with me.”
We climbed up to the peak, where the three of us could scarcely find room to kneel down, and I asked him: “But what have you been doing all this time?”
“I am thinking about God, Who is so sad because of so many sins! If only I could give Him joy!”
Both Jacinta and Francisco fell ill to the influenza pandemic that swept through Europe in the autumn of 1918. Francisco recovered somewhat and there were hopes that he might become well, but he realized that he was destined to die young―just as Our Lady had foretold, and his condition worsened again. He offered up all his sufferings as a way of consoling God for the sinfulness and ingratitude of mankind and in supplication for the conversion of sinners. Lucia writes: “During his illness, he suffered with heroic patience, without ever letting the slightest moan or the least complaint escape his lips. One day, shortly before his death, I asked him: “Are you suffering a lot, Francisco?” He replied: “Yes, but I suffer it all for love of Our Lord and Our Lady!” The day before his death, he said to Jacinta and myself: “I am going to Heaven, but when I’m there, I will pray a great deal to Our Lord and Our Lady, asking them to bring you there, too, very soon.”
Article 4
Thursday September 8th, 2022
Happy Birthday, Our Lady!
Thursday September 8th, 2022
Happy Birthday, Our Lady!
Will Our Lady’s Birthday See You Empty-Handed and Giftless?
Birthdays are usually synonymous with gifts. We normally give persons gifts on their birthdays. What can you give Our Lady on her birthday? In a certain sense, she has everything! She is the masterpiece of God’s creation! She was always immaculate, sinless and full of grace! She is more powerful than all the angels and saints put together! She is honored beyond imagination by God, angels and saints! She is the best company anyone could wish for! Her knowledge and love exceeds that of all creatures put together! She is the treasurer of all of God’s graces! This is just touching the tip of the iceberg of what she is and what she has! What on Earth could we give her for her birthday?
The above is somewhat echoed in the words of Our Lord, spoken to Sr. Mary of the Trinity: “Your value does not lie in your personal capabilities, however brilliant they may be, but in your capacity to receive your Creator and allow Him to live and shine through you … Most religious give Me their work and their talents—I have sufficient talents at My disposal; what I desire is the soul, to make it My place of rest and of work, because a soul that would give herself to Me without reserve, how I would use her for the glory of God and of the Church, for the salvation of other souls, to a degree that you cannot imagine! … All souls could rapidly attain to the plenitude of their sanctity if they allowed Me to act, without resisting. Oh, the unacknowledged reserves of selfishness which paralyze the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit within you! … The most important work is not that which you do, it is that which you allow Me to do among you … The best work that you can do is to obtain My cooperation—and, when you yourself have done all you could, to let Me act. I work with time … Let Me act! You are not competent to do anything; it is not your province ... It is because you are nothing that I can take possession of you, substitute Myself for you. Oh, how I thirst for souls, how I long for them to surrender themselves to Me so that I may transform them, for them to surrender their humanity to Me so that I may work in the world! … Oh, if you would leave Me to act; I would splendidly transform each one of your lives. But you oppose Me by your desires, your tastes, your resistance. My omnipotent Love is limited by the limit of your generosity …
“Why do you not hear My call? Have I not exhausted every means to beg for your attention and your gratitude? … The purpose of your life does not lie in the personal merit due to your generosity; your merit will lie in using all your generosity to allow Me to live in you … Remember this: the value of your existence is not in what you have done, or said, or suffered: it is in the part of your being that you have given to your Savior; in what you have allowed Me to do with you. Give Me your heart—and your heart is your whole life! … It is the sun that gives the earth its beauty and animates it. It is My grace that gives souls their beauty and that animates them. My Omnipotence is limited only by your liberty. It is with coal that I make diamonds. What would I not do with a soul, however black she might be, who would give herself to Me ... Yes, I can transform all ugliness into beauty―all poverty into spiritual wealth―all sin into a source of grace―all rancor into forgiveness―all bitterness into sweetness―all sadness into joy―all suffering into Redemption ... when you give them to Me and let Me act” (Our Lord to Sr. Mary of the Trinity, taken from Words of Love, by Fr. Gottemolloer, chapter 2).
When In Doubt, Just Ask!
Sometimes, instead of trying to guess what someone want for their birthday, it is better just to ask them. Another option would be to try and recall what they talked about the most, or what they may have said that they needed or wished that they had. If the present is not liked, then they have only themselves to blame! So let us look at what it is that Our Lady has mostly spoken in the past. Furthermore, if we listen to Sr. Lucia of Fatima, she tells us what is making Our Lady sad on account of her not getting what she asked: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message” (Sr. Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957). What, then, is the core or the essential part of that message? We can deduce what is important by the number of times it is addressed—the more something is spoken about, the more important it must be—that is only logical.
There are several things that Our Lady seems to be bringing-up again and again. These will not be looked at in any logical order, or in order of importance—only Our Lady can know that—let us deal with them in any order. Since everything in nature has a positive and a negative, we can presume that there are presents that Our Lady wants and does not want. The things she does not want to be given on her birthday—or on any other day for that matter—are sins and offenses against God. She has made this abundantly clear—again and again and again.
Sister Lucia says: “The Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions. She never smiled at us. This anguish that we saw in her, caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners, penetrated our souls … Also, since Our Lord is a very good Son, He will not permit that we offend and despise His Blessed Mother.”
Our Lady herself said: “I have come to warn the faithful to amend their lives and ask for pardon for their sins. They must not offend Our Lord any more, for He is already too grievously offended by the sins of men … Certain fashions will be introduced that will offend Our Lord very much … Woe to women lacking in modesty!” (Fatima) … “Woe to the 20th century! … The precious light of Faith will be extinguished in souls by the almost total corruption of morals … In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to ensnare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost!” (Quito) … “Many men in this world afflict the Lord … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity! … I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much!” (Akita).
Our Lady Want These Gifts Above All Others
In the above quotes, Our Lady seems to be focused on mercy for sinners. One could say that the first thing Our Lady wants is Mercy—not for herself, but for sinners. The other gifts that she wants are a means of obtaining that Mercy. Our Lady spoke about the means to Mercy very frequently—and these means were Devotion to Mary, the Rosary, Sacrifices and Penance. Let us look at her modern-day apparitions and we will see all those things emerge repeatedly.
At Quito, Ecuador, Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, to whom Our Lady of Good Success appeared, was destined to die THREE times in her life. After one of those deaths, she stood before the judgment seat of God. Our Lord presented Mother Mariana with two crowns: one of immortal glory of indescribable beauty, the other of white lilies surrounded by thorns. Mother Mariana understood that if she would choose the former, she would remain in celestial glory. With the other, she would return to suffer in the world. Her first desire was to remain in Heaven to be assured of her salvation and to enjoy the unsurpassable happiness of the Beatific Vision. During her difficult struggle, Our Lady approached her and said. “My daughter, I left the glories of Heaven and descended to Earth to protect my children. I desire that you also imitate me in this and return to life!” … “Understand how powerful I am in placating the Divine Justice and obtaining mercy and pardon for every sinner who comes to me with a contrite heart, for I am the Mother of Mercy and in me there is only goodness and love!”
Our Lady—the Mother of Mercy—Wants Mercy
At Quito, Our Lady of Good Success foretold: “The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom. Many will succumb to death from the violence of their sufferings and those who sacrifice themselves for the Church and their country will be counted as martyrs. In order to free men from the bondage, those whom the merciful love of my most Holy Son has designated to bring about the restoration, will need great strength of will, constancy, valor and confidence of the just. There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. This then will be the happy beginning of the complete restoration.”
Our Lady of Good Success had already pointed-out the primacy of prayer in being the chief “mover and shaker” in world events. She said: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. Oh, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!” Once again, it all about souls!
At Las Salette (1846), Our Lady echoed her Quito apparitions and reinforced what she wanted from us, her spiritual children: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay. But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me … I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit … who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world. It is time they came out and filled the world with light. Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children. I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see. For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends.” What are we fighting for? Souls!
At Lourdes Our Lady demanded: “Pray for sinners” … “Penance! Penance! Penance!” … “Kiss the ground as a penance for sinners.” Once again—it is all about souls.
At Fatima, before Our Lady appeared, the Angel of Portugal appeared to the three Fatima children, telling them what Heaven wanted: “Pray! Pray a great deal! The Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary have designs of mercy on you. Offer unceasingly prayers and sacrifice yourselves to the Most High … Make of everything you can a sacrifice and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and in supplication for the conversion of sinners ... Above all, accept and bear with submission the sufferings which the Lord will send you!” The focus is on the souls of sinners and finding mercy for them.
When Our Lady of Fatima later appeared, she asked the three Fatima children: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.” Then she gravely said: “Sacrifice yourselves for sinners and say often, especially when you make some sacrifice, ‘Jesus, this is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’” The focus is further placed on the souls of sinners and finding a way for mercy to be shown to them.
At Akita, Our Lady tells us what she is wishing for and repeats the same idea as at Fatima: “With my Son, I wish for souls who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His Precious Blood, and beloved souls, who console Him forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this also from your community―that it love poverty, that it sanctify itself and pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men.” Souls, souls, souls ... mercy, mercy, mercy!
We Live in a Merciless Society
Though Our Lady wants to show mercy and wants us to help her in that regard―by our prayers, sacrifices and penances―we, on the contrary, show very little mercy since we are immersed in a merciless world. We are more than ready to point the finger, wag the finger, even show the finger to someone—but showing mercy is more like pulling teeth! We seem to forget that Heaven is a place of mercy and that everyone in Heaven has forgiven everyone everything—just as Our Lord said of his executioners and persecutors as He died on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). Hell is a place of mutual and eternal recrimination, mutual grudges, mutual hatred and mutual unforgiveness. Heaven is the exact opposite. Holy Scripture warns us: “For judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy. And mercy exalteth itself above judgment” (James 2:13)—but we place judgment before mercy, we prefer to judge rather than show mercy.
We forget that Holy Scripture says: “Revenge is Mine, and I will repay them in due time, that their foot may slide! The day of destruction is at hand, and that time makes haste to come!” (Deuteronomy 32:35). Which is why St. Paul adds: “Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved; but give place unto wrath, for it is written: ‘Revenge is Mine, I will repay!’ saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19). Every single one of the few that make it to Heaven will have paid for all their sins in full—and if they have paid in full, then there can be no dwelling on the past. God’s mercy obliterates the past and God’s justice makes sure the debt is paid—whether in this life or the next. We should try to imitate God in His mercy, for, as Holy Scripture says, “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works” (Psalm 144:8-9). “Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
The Deadly Consequences of Unforgiveness
Let us look at unforgiveness from a scientific or medical perspective. Unforgiveness is classified in medical books as a disease. According to Dr. Steven Standiford, chief of surgery at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, refusing to forgive makes people sick and keeps them that way. With that in mind, forgiveness therapy is now being used to help treat diseases, such as cancer. Dr. Standiford said: “It’s important to treat emotional wounds or disorders because they really can hinder someone’s reactions to the treatments, even someone’s willingness to pursue treatment.” Of all cancer patients, 61% have forgiveness issues, and of those, more than half are severe, according to research by Dr. Michael Barry, the author of the book, The Forgiveness Project. Whether it’s a simple spat with your spouse or long-held resentment toward a family member or friend, unresolved conflict can go deeper than you may realize—it may be affecting your physical health.
Dr. Standiford explained: “Harboring these negative emotions, this anger and hatred, creates a state of chronic anxiety. Chronic anxiety very predictably produces excess adrenaline and cortisol, which deplete the production of natural killer cells, which is your body’s foot soldier in the fight against cancer.”
Dr. Barry said the first step in learning to forgive is to realize how much we have been forgiven by God. “When a person forgives from the heart―which is the gold standard we see in Matthew chapter 18, forgiveness from the heart―we find that they are able to find a sense of peacefulness. Quite often our patients refer to that as a feeling of lightness.” Dr. Barry said most people don’t realize what a burden anger and hatred were―until they let them go.
Studies have found that the act of forgiveness can reap huge rewards for your health, lowering the risk of heart attack; improving cholesterol levels and sleep; and reducing pain, blood pressure, and levels of anxiety, depression and stress. And research points to an increase in the forgiveness-health connection as you age.
“There is an enormous physical burden to being hurt and disappointed,” says Karen Swartz, M.D., director of the Mood Disorders Adult Consultation Clinic at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Chronic anger puts you into a fight-or-flight mode, which results in numerous changes in heart rate, blood pressure and immune response. Those changes, then, increase the risk of depression, heart disease and diabetes, among other conditions.
Mental and emotional health also suffers from unforgiveness. Worthington and Scherer (2004) in the research study concluded that as unforgiveness is a type of stress response, it has a direct impact on the mental health and psychology of a person. According to McCullough (1998), unforgiveness triggers those stressors which force a person to think that people have harmed them in an ethically and morally wrong way. A person with such a mental state can take potentially harmful steps, and in extreme cases people develop suicidal tendencies.
Can You Learn to Be More Forgiving?
Forgiveness, however, calms stress levels, leading to improved health. Forgiveness is not just about saying the words. “It is an active process in which you make a conscious decision to let go of negative feelings whether the person deserves it or not,” Dr. Swartz says. As you release the anger, resentment and hostility, you begin to feel empathy, compassion and sometimes even affection for the person who wronged you.
We see the following instances in the life our Our Lord and His Apostles. When a Samaritan town turned their backs on Jesus because He was set on going to Jerusalem—which was enemy territory for Samaritans—James and John in an unforgiving fit of anger and indignation wanted fire to fall from Heaven and destroy the town: “Jesus steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. And He sent messengers before His face; and going, they entered into a city of the Samaritans, to prepare for him. And they received Him not, because His face was of one going to Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John had seen this, they said: ‘Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven, and consume them?’ And turning, He rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:51-56).
We can link this to St. Peter and his inquiry as to how often he should forgive a wrongdoer: “Then came Peter unto Him and said: ‘Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?’ Jesus said to him: ‘I say not to thee, till seven times―but till seventy times seven times! Therefore is the Kingdom of Heaven likened to a king, who would take an account of his servants. And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him, that owed him ten thousand talents. And as he had not wherewith to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. But that servant falling down, besought him, saying: ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!’ And the lord of that servant being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt. But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him an hundred pence: and laying hold of him, throttled him, saying: ‘Pay what thou owest!’ And his fellow servant falling down, begged him, saying: ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!’ And he would not: but went and cast him into prison till he paid the debt. Now his fellow servants seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him; and said to him: ‘Thou wicked servant! I forgave thee all the debt, because thou begged me! Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow servant, even as I had compassion on thee?’ And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt. So also shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not everyone his brother from your hearts!’” (Matthew 18:21-35).
A talent was 750 ounces of silver and so ten thousand talents came to 7,500,000 (7½ million ounces). The Roman penny was the eighth part of an ounce of silver—so a hundred pence would be a mere 12½ ounces of silver compared to the larger debt of 7½ million ounces! Our Lord is painting a striking picture here. With the forgiveness of the large debt, it encourages us in seeing that even very grave sins can be cured and forgiven—showing the extreme kindness of the God of mercy. Our Lord tells us: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). “For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences” (Matthew 6:14).
Making Forgiveness Part of Your Life
Studies have found that some people are just naturally more forgiving. Consequently, they tend to be more satisfied with their lives and to have less depression, anxiety, stress, anger and hostility. People who hang on to grudges, however, are more likely to experience severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as other health conditions. But that does not mean that they cannot train themselves to act in healthier ways. In fact, 62% of American adults say they need to show more forgiveness in their personal lives, according to a survey by the Fetzer Institute.
Forgiveness is a choice, Dr. Swartz says. “You are choosing to offer compassion and empathy to the person who wronged you.” Who are you helping most when you forgive the person who hurt you? Actually, you’re helping yourself more than the other person. Most people look at forgiving people who hurt them as being something really hard to do. They think it is so unfair for the offender to receive forgiveness when they had innocently been hurt. The one offended received pain, and the offender received freedom without having to pay for the pain they caused. Nevertheless, we must try to realize that we are helping ourselves when we choose to forgive.
We are also helping the other person by releasing them from our ‘prison’ and handing them over to God, so that God can do what only He can do. If we get in the way—trying to get revenge, or take care of the situation ourselves in our own human way, instead of trusting and obeying God—then He has no obligation to deal with that person, He leaves them with us. However, God will deal with those who hurt us if we’ll put them in His hands through forgiveness. The act of forgiving is our seed of obedience to His Word. Once we have sown our seed, He is faithful to bring a harvest of blessings to us, one way or another, sooner or later. Meditate on the account of Joseph and his brothers, who tried to kill him, but then sold him into captivity as a slave. God rewarded Joseph—not immediately, but only many years later, when he became the Pharaoh’s right hand man—and, lest we forget, Joseph forgave his brothers!
Another way that forgiveness helps us is that it releases God to do His work in us. We are happier and feel better physically when we are not filled with the poison of unforgiveness. Serious diseases can develop as a result of the stress and pressure that bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness put on a person. Our Lord clearly teaches us that unforgiveness hinders our faith from working: “And Jesus answering, said to them: ‘Have the faith of God!’ Amen I say to you, that whosoever shall say to this mountain―“Be thou removed and be cast into the sea!”―and shall not stagger in his heart, but believe, that whatsoever he says shall be done, then it shall be done unto him. Therefore I say unto you, all things, whatsoever you ask when ye pray, believe that you shall receive; and they shall come unto you. And when you shall stand to pray, first forgive, if you have anything against any man; so that your Father also, Who is in Heaven, may forgive you your sins. But if you will not forgive, neither will your Father that is in Heaven, forgive you your sins” (Mark 11:22-26). The Father cannot forgive our sins, if we do not forgive other people. We reap what we sow. Sow mercy, and you’ll reap mercy; sow judgment, and you’ll reap judgment. So do yourself a favor—and forgive.
If you find yourself focusing on the wrongs that others have done to you, then try focusing on the wrongs that you have done to others and to God! Perhaps the wrongs that have happened to you are a direct result (punishment) of the wrongs that you have to done to others and to God. “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25:40). “Why seest thou the mote in thy brother’s eye: but the beam that is in thy own eye thou considerest not? Or how canst thou say to thy brother: ‘Brother, let me pull the mote out of thy eye!’ when thou thyself seest not the beam in thy own eye? Hypocrite! First cast out the beam from thy own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to take out the mote from thy brother’s eye” (Luke 6:41-42).
There are still more benefits of forgiveness. Your friendship with God flows freely when you are willing to forgive, but it gets blocked by unforgiveness. For the very sin that you refuse to forgive a particular person, God may have already forgiven that person’s sin as a result of his/her confession in the Sacrament of Penance! Thus you are at “loggerheads” with God over the issue. Forgiveness also keeps Satan from getting an advantage over us: “And to whom you have pardoned anything, I also. For, what I have pardoned, if I have pardoned anything, for your sakes have I done it in the person of Christ. That we be not overreached by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:10-11). The devil is the unforgiving—the devils are not true friends, but hate each other and hate themselves—and the devils try to sow the same unforgiving feelings in us. Holy Scripture tells us not to let the sun go down on our anger, or give the devil any such foothold or opportunity: “Be angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Give not place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26-27). Remember that the devil must have a foothold before he can get a stronghold. Do not help Satan torture you! Be quick to forgive.
How to Forgive
Would you like to become more successful at forgiving others? There are practical steps that must be taken. We may well ask why so many people want to forgive, but are not successful in doing it. Perhaps the following requirements for forgiveness were not being followed or applied:
1. Decide to Forgive From Your Heart, Not Your Lips – You will never forgive if you wait until you feel like it. Choose to obey God and steadfastly resist the devil in his attempts to poison you with bitter thoughts. Make a sincere decision from the heart (not the lips) to forgive, and God will heal your wounded emotions in due time: “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors … For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences” (Matthew 6:12-15).
2. Depend on God – You cannot forgive without the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s too hard to do on your own. If you are truly willing, God will enable you, but you must humble yourself and cry out to Him for help. In John 20:22-23 Jesus breathed on the disciples and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (John 20:22). His next instruction was about forgiving people: “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them!” (John 20:23). Ask God to breathe the Holy Ghost into you also, so you can forgive those who have hurt you—it is a great grace of God to be able to forgive as God forgives.
3. Pray and Bless – Holy Scripture tells us several things we must do concerning forgiving our enemies:
(a) Pray for your enemies and those who abuse and misuse you. Pray for their happiness and welfare: “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you. Bless them that curse you, and pray for them that calumniate you” (Luke 6:27-28). If you pray for them, God can give them the grace of enlightenment that will bring them out of self-deception. They may not even be aware they hurt you, or maybe they are aware, but are so self-centered that they don’t care. Either way, they need the grace of enlightenment—and that comes through praying for them.
(b) “Bless them that persecute you: bless, and curse not” (Romans 12:14). In the Greek, to bless means “to speak well of” and to curse means “to speak evil of.” You cannot profess to be forgiving and be a gossip. You must stop repeatedly talking about the offense. You cannot get over it if you continue to talk about it—it is like continually picking at the scab of a wound—it will never heal if you continually re-open it. In the Book of Proverbs it says that he who covers an offense seeks love: “He that conceals a transgression, seeks friendships. He that repeats it again, separates friends” (Proverbs 17:9).
Who Should Be Forgiven?
Forgive the person who badly hurt you long ago; and also forgive the stranger who stepped on your toe in the grocery store. Take those two extremes and forgive them in addition to everyone in between. St. Maria Goretti and her family forgave her attempted rapist and murderer—and he became a close friend of the family after murdering Maria. Our Lord forgave Mary Magdalen—an adulteress possessed by seven devils, as well as the thief on the cross (who most likely was also an occasional murderer as a part of his trade). Forgive quickly. The quicker you do it, the easier it is. Forgive freely. Our Lord says: “Freely you have received, freely give!” (Matthew 10:8). To forgive means “to excuse a fault, absolve from payment, pardon, send away, cancel, and bestow favor unconditionally.”
When you forgive, you must cancel the debt. Do not spend your life paying and collecting debts. Hebrews 10:30 says that vengeance belongs to the Lord; He will repay and settle the cases of His people. Let God take care of past injustices. Do not try to collect from the people who hurt you, because the people who hurt you cannot pay you―or at least they cannot pay you in the way God can pay you. Also, forgive yourself for past sins and hurts you have caused others―this will help you to forgive others as you forgive yourself—as they say: “Love your neighbor as yourself!” (Matthew 19:19). You cannot pay people back, so ask God to pay for you.
Forgive God if you are angry with Him just because your life didn’t turn out the way you thought it should. God is always just. There may be things you don’t understand, but God loves you, and people make a serious mistake when they don’t receive help from the only One who can truly help them.
You may even need to ‘forgive’ a situation or an object—the post office, the bank, the hospital, a certain store that may have cheated you, a car that always gave you trouble, bad weather that ruined your vacation or damaged your home, etc. Get rid of all poison that comes from bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is spiritual filthiness, so get washed in the water of God’s grace and His holy Word in Holy Scripture, so that you can forgive as God forgives.
The Mother of Mercy
St. Alphonsus Liguori writes: “No discourse is so profitable to the people, or excites more compunction among them, than that on the mercy of Mary. I say on the mercy of Mary: for St. Bernard says, we may praise her humility, and marvel at her virginity; but being poor sinners, we are more pleased and attracted by hearing of her mercy; for to this we more affectionately cling, this we more often remember and invoke … Mary, who, although queen, is not queen of justice, intent upon the punishment of the guilty, but queen of mercy, solely intent upon compassion and pardon for sinners. Mary, then, is queen; but let all learn for their consolation that she is a mild and merciful queen, desiring the good of us poor sinners. Hence the holy Church bids us salute her in this prayer, and name her the Queen of Mercy … St. Bernard asks, Why does the Church name Mary Queen of Mercy?’ and answers, ‘Because we believe that she opens the depths of the mercy of God, to whom she will, when she will, and as she will; so that not even the vilest sinner is lost, if Mary protects him.’ But it may, perhaps, be feared that Mary disdains interposing in behalf of some sinners, because she finds them so laden with sins? Perhaps the majesty and sanctity of this great queen should alarm us? No, says St. Gregory, in proportion to her greatness and holiness are her clemency and mercy towards sinners who desire to amend, and who have recourse to her” (St. Alphonsus, The Glories of Mary).
“How great then should be our confidence in this queen, knowing how powerful she is with God, and at the same time how rich and full of mercy; so much so that there is no one on Earth who does not share in the mercies and favors of Mary! This the blessed Virgin herself revealed to St. Bridget: ‘I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on Earth a sinner who is so accursed, that he is deprived of my compassion! For everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be! No one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed (by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned), is so entirely cast off by God that he may not return and enjoy His mercy if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them.’ And then she concluded by saying: ‘Therefore he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this, being able, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners.’” (St. Alphonsus, The Glories of Mary).
“Let us then have recourse, let us always have recourse to this most sweet queen, if we would be sure of our salvation; and if the sight of our sins terrifies and disheartens us, let us remember that Mary was made queen of mercy for this very end, that she might save by her protection the greatest and most abandoned sinners who have recourse to her. They are to be her crown in Heaven, as her divine spouse has said: ‘Come from Libanus, my spouse, come from Libanus, come; thou shalt be crowned from the dens of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards.’ And what are these dens of wild beasts and monsters, if not miserable sinners, whose souls become dens of sins, the most deformed monsters?” (St. Alphonsus, The Glories of Mary).
Children of Mercy?
What a beautiful birthday present it would be—to give Our Lady a crown of jewels, in which the jewels are the converted and reformed souls of once deformed sinners! “He must know that he who causes a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, shall save his soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20). “They seek Me from day to day … and they ask of me … ‘Why have we fasted, and thou hast not regarded? Have we humbled our souls, and thou hast not taken notice?’ Behold in the day of your fast your own will is found, and you exact of all your debtors. Behold you fast for debates and strife. and strike with the fist wickedly … Is not this rather the fast that I have chosen? Loosen the bands of wickedness, undo the bundles that oppress, let them that are broken go free, and break asunder every burden. Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the harborless into thy house: when thou shalt see one naked, cover him, and despise not thy own flesh. If thou wilt take away the chain out of the midst of thee, and cease to stretch out the finger, and to speak that which profiteth not. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy health shall speedily arise, and thy justice shall go before thy face, and the glory of the Lord shall gather thee up … Then shall thy light rise up in darkness, and thy darkness shall be as the noonday” (Isaias 58:2-10).
Birthdays are usually synonymous with gifts. We normally give persons gifts on their birthdays. What can you give Our Lady on her birthday? In a certain sense, she has everything! She is the masterpiece of God’s creation! She was always immaculate, sinless and full of grace! She is more powerful than all the angels and saints put together! She is honored beyond imagination by God, angels and saints! She is the best company anyone could wish for! Her knowledge and love exceeds that of all creatures put together! She is the treasurer of all of God’s graces! This is just touching the tip of the iceberg of what she is and what she has! What on Earth could we give her for her birthday?
The above is somewhat echoed in the words of Our Lord, spoken to Sr. Mary of the Trinity: “Your value does not lie in your personal capabilities, however brilliant they may be, but in your capacity to receive your Creator and allow Him to live and shine through you … Most religious give Me their work and their talents—I have sufficient talents at My disposal; what I desire is the soul, to make it My place of rest and of work, because a soul that would give herself to Me without reserve, how I would use her for the glory of God and of the Church, for the salvation of other souls, to a degree that you cannot imagine! … All souls could rapidly attain to the plenitude of their sanctity if they allowed Me to act, without resisting. Oh, the unacknowledged reserves of selfishness which paralyze the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit within you! … The most important work is not that which you do, it is that which you allow Me to do among you … The best work that you can do is to obtain My cooperation—and, when you yourself have done all you could, to let Me act. I work with time … Let Me act! You are not competent to do anything; it is not your province ... It is because you are nothing that I can take possession of you, substitute Myself for you. Oh, how I thirst for souls, how I long for them to surrender themselves to Me so that I may transform them, for them to surrender their humanity to Me so that I may work in the world! … Oh, if you would leave Me to act; I would splendidly transform each one of your lives. But you oppose Me by your desires, your tastes, your resistance. My omnipotent Love is limited by the limit of your generosity …
“Why do you not hear My call? Have I not exhausted every means to beg for your attention and your gratitude? … The purpose of your life does not lie in the personal merit due to your generosity; your merit will lie in using all your generosity to allow Me to live in you … Remember this: the value of your existence is not in what you have done, or said, or suffered: it is in the part of your being that you have given to your Savior; in what you have allowed Me to do with you. Give Me your heart—and your heart is your whole life! … It is the sun that gives the earth its beauty and animates it. It is My grace that gives souls their beauty and that animates them. My Omnipotence is limited only by your liberty. It is with coal that I make diamonds. What would I not do with a soul, however black she might be, who would give herself to Me ... Yes, I can transform all ugliness into beauty―all poverty into spiritual wealth―all sin into a source of grace―all rancor into forgiveness―all bitterness into sweetness―all sadness into joy―all suffering into Redemption ... when you give them to Me and let Me act” (Our Lord to Sr. Mary of the Trinity, taken from Words of Love, by Fr. Gottemolloer, chapter 2).
When In Doubt, Just Ask!
Sometimes, instead of trying to guess what someone want for their birthday, it is better just to ask them. Another option would be to try and recall what they talked about the most, or what they may have said that they needed or wished that they had. If the present is not liked, then they have only themselves to blame! So let us look at what it is that Our Lady has mostly spoken in the past. Furthermore, if we listen to Sr. Lucia of Fatima, she tells us what is making Our Lady sad on account of her not getting what she asked: “The Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message” (Sr. Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957). What, then, is the core or the essential part of that message? We can deduce what is important by the number of times it is addressed—the more something is spoken about, the more important it must be—that is only logical.
There are several things that Our Lady seems to be bringing-up again and again. These will not be looked at in any logical order, or in order of importance—only Our Lady can know that—let us deal with them in any order. Since everything in nature has a positive and a negative, we can presume that there are presents that Our Lady wants and does not want. The things she does not want to be given on her birthday—or on any other day for that matter—are sins and offenses against God. She has made this abundantly clear—again and again and again.
Sister Lucia says: “The Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions. She never smiled at us. This anguish that we saw in her, caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners, penetrated our souls … Also, since Our Lord is a very good Son, He will not permit that we offend and despise His Blessed Mother.”
Our Lady herself said: “I have come to warn the faithful to amend their lives and ask for pardon for their sins. They must not offend Our Lord any more, for He is already too grievously offended by the sins of men … Certain fashions will be introduced that will offend Our Lord very much … Woe to women lacking in modesty!” (Fatima) … “Woe to the 20th century! … The precious light of Faith will be extinguished in souls by the almost total corruption of morals … In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to ensnare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost!” (Quito) … “Many men in this world afflict the Lord … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity! … I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much!” (Akita).
Our Lady Want These Gifts Above All Others
In the above quotes, Our Lady seems to be focused on mercy for sinners. One could say that the first thing Our Lady wants is Mercy—not for herself, but for sinners. The other gifts that she wants are a means of obtaining that Mercy. Our Lady spoke about the means to Mercy very frequently—and these means were Devotion to Mary, the Rosary, Sacrifices and Penance. Let us look at her modern-day apparitions and we will see all those things emerge repeatedly.
At Quito, Ecuador, Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, to whom Our Lady of Good Success appeared, was destined to die THREE times in her life. After one of those deaths, she stood before the judgment seat of God. Our Lord presented Mother Mariana with two crowns: one of immortal glory of indescribable beauty, the other of white lilies surrounded by thorns. Mother Mariana understood that if she would choose the former, she would remain in celestial glory. With the other, she would return to suffer in the world. Her first desire was to remain in Heaven to be assured of her salvation and to enjoy the unsurpassable happiness of the Beatific Vision. During her difficult struggle, Our Lady approached her and said. “My daughter, I left the glories of Heaven and descended to Earth to protect my children. I desire that you also imitate me in this and return to life!” … “Understand how powerful I am in placating the Divine Justice and obtaining mercy and pardon for every sinner who comes to me with a contrite heart, for I am the Mother of Mercy and in me there is only goodness and love!”
Our Lady—the Mother of Mercy—Wants Mercy
At Quito, Our Lady of Good Success foretold: “The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom. Many will succumb to death from the violence of their sufferings and those who sacrifice themselves for the Church and their country will be counted as martyrs. In order to free men from the bondage, those whom the merciful love of my most Holy Son has designated to bring about the restoration, will need great strength of will, constancy, valor and confidence of the just. There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. This then will be the happy beginning of the complete restoration.”
Our Lady of Good Success had already pointed-out the primacy of prayer in being the chief “mover and shaker” in world events. She said: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. Oh, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!” Once again, it all about souls!
At Las Salette (1846), Our Lady echoed her Quito apparitions and reinforced what she wanted from us, her spiritual children: “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay. But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me … I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit … who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world. It is time they came out and filled the world with light. Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children. I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see. For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends.” What are we fighting for? Souls!
At Lourdes Our Lady demanded: “Pray for sinners” … “Penance! Penance! Penance!” … “Kiss the ground as a penance for sinners.” Once again—it is all about souls.
At Fatima, before Our Lady appeared, the Angel of Portugal appeared to the three Fatima children, telling them what Heaven wanted: “Pray! Pray a great deal! The Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary have designs of mercy on you. Offer unceasingly prayers and sacrifice yourselves to the Most High … Make of everything you can a sacrifice and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and in supplication for the conversion of sinners ... Above all, accept and bear with submission the sufferings which the Lord will send you!” The focus is on the souls of sinners and finding mercy for them.
When Our Lady of Fatima later appeared, she asked the three Fatima children: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.” Then she gravely said: “Sacrifice yourselves for sinners and say often, especially when you make some sacrifice, ‘Jesus, this is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’” The focus is further placed on the souls of sinners and finding a way for mercy to be shown to them.
At Akita, Our Lady tells us what she is wishing for and repeats the same idea as at Fatima: “With my Son, I wish for souls who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His Precious Blood, and beloved souls, who console Him forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this also from your community―that it love poverty, that it sanctify itself and pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men.” Souls, souls, souls ... mercy, mercy, mercy!
We Live in a Merciless Society
Though Our Lady wants to show mercy and wants us to help her in that regard―by our prayers, sacrifices and penances―we, on the contrary, show very little mercy since we are immersed in a merciless world. We are more than ready to point the finger, wag the finger, even show the finger to someone—but showing mercy is more like pulling teeth! We seem to forget that Heaven is a place of mercy and that everyone in Heaven has forgiven everyone everything—just as Our Lord said of his executioners and persecutors as He died on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34). Hell is a place of mutual and eternal recrimination, mutual grudges, mutual hatred and mutual unforgiveness. Heaven is the exact opposite. Holy Scripture warns us: “For judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy. And mercy exalteth itself above judgment” (James 2:13)—but we place judgment before mercy, we prefer to judge rather than show mercy.
We forget that Holy Scripture says: “Revenge is Mine, and I will repay them in due time, that their foot may slide! The day of destruction is at hand, and that time makes haste to come!” (Deuteronomy 32:35). Which is why St. Paul adds: “Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved; but give place unto wrath, for it is written: ‘Revenge is Mine, I will repay!’ saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19). Every single one of the few that make it to Heaven will have paid for all their sins in full—and if they have paid in full, then there can be no dwelling on the past. God’s mercy obliterates the past and God’s justice makes sure the debt is paid—whether in this life or the next. We should try to imitate God in His mercy, for, as Holy Scripture says, “The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works” (Psalm 144:8-9). “Blessed are the merciful―for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
The Deadly Consequences of Unforgiveness
Let us look at unforgiveness from a scientific or medical perspective. Unforgiveness is classified in medical books as a disease. According to Dr. Steven Standiford, chief of surgery at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, refusing to forgive makes people sick and keeps them that way. With that in mind, forgiveness therapy is now being used to help treat diseases, such as cancer. Dr. Standiford said: “It’s important to treat emotional wounds or disorders because they really can hinder someone’s reactions to the treatments, even someone’s willingness to pursue treatment.” Of all cancer patients, 61% have forgiveness issues, and of those, more than half are severe, according to research by Dr. Michael Barry, the author of the book, The Forgiveness Project. Whether it’s a simple spat with your spouse or long-held resentment toward a family member or friend, unresolved conflict can go deeper than you may realize—it may be affecting your physical health.
Dr. Standiford explained: “Harboring these negative emotions, this anger and hatred, creates a state of chronic anxiety. Chronic anxiety very predictably produces excess adrenaline and cortisol, which deplete the production of natural killer cells, which is your body’s foot soldier in the fight against cancer.”
Dr. Barry said the first step in learning to forgive is to realize how much we have been forgiven by God. “When a person forgives from the heart―which is the gold standard we see in Matthew chapter 18, forgiveness from the heart―we find that they are able to find a sense of peacefulness. Quite often our patients refer to that as a feeling of lightness.” Dr. Barry said most people don’t realize what a burden anger and hatred were―until they let them go.
Studies have found that the act of forgiveness can reap huge rewards for your health, lowering the risk of heart attack; improving cholesterol levels and sleep; and reducing pain, blood pressure, and levels of anxiety, depression and stress. And research points to an increase in the forgiveness-health connection as you age.
“There is an enormous physical burden to being hurt and disappointed,” says Karen Swartz, M.D., director of the Mood Disorders Adult Consultation Clinic at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Chronic anger puts you into a fight-or-flight mode, which results in numerous changes in heart rate, blood pressure and immune response. Those changes, then, increase the risk of depression, heart disease and diabetes, among other conditions.
Mental and emotional health also suffers from unforgiveness. Worthington and Scherer (2004) in the research study concluded that as unforgiveness is a type of stress response, it has a direct impact on the mental health and psychology of a person. According to McCullough (1998), unforgiveness triggers those stressors which force a person to think that people have harmed them in an ethically and morally wrong way. A person with such a mental state can take potentially harmful steps, and in extreme cases people develop suicidal tendencies.
Can You Learn to Be More Forgiving?
Forgiveness, however, calms stress levels, leading to improved health. Forgiveness is not just about saying the words. “It is an active process in which you make a conscious decision to let go of negative feelings whether the person deserves it or not,” Dr. Swartz says. As you release the anger, resentment and hostility, you begin to feel empathy, compassion and sometimes even affection for the person who wronged you.
We see the following instances in the life our Our Lord and His Apostles. When a Samaritan town turned their backs on Jesus because He was set on going to Jerusalem—which was enemy territory for Samaritans—James and John in an unforgiving fit of anger and indignation wanted fire to fall from Heaven and destroy the town: “Jesus steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. And He sent messengers before His face; and going, they entered into a city of the Samaritans, to prepare for him. And they received Him not, because His face was of one going to Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John had seen this, they said: ‘Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven, and consume them?’ And turning, He rebuked them, saying: ‘You know not of what spirit you are! The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!’” (Luke 9:51-56).
We can link this to St. Peter and his inquiry as to how often he should forgive a wrongdoer: “Then came Peter unto Him and said: ‘Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?’ Jesus said to him: ‘I say not to thee, till seven times―but till seventy times seven times! Therefore is the Kingdom of Heaven likened to a king, who would take an account of his servants. And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him, that owed him ten thousand talents. And as he had not wherewith to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. But that servant falling down, besought him, saying: ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!’ And the lord of that servant being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt. But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him an hundred pence: and laying hold of him, throttled him, saying: ‘Pay what thou owest!’ And his fellow servant falling down, begged him, saying: ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!’ And he would not: but went and cast him into prison till he paid the debt. Now his fellow servants seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him; and said to him: ‘Thou wicked servant! I forgave thee all the debt, because thou begged me! Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow servant, even as I had compassion on thee?’ And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt. So also shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not everyone his brother from your hearts!’” (Matthew 18:21-35).
A talent was 750 ounces of silver and so ten thousand talents came to 7,500,000 (7½ million ounces). The Roman penny was the eighth part of an ounce of silver—so a hundred pence would be a mere 12½ ounces of silver compared to the larger debt of 7½ million ounces! Our Lord is painting a striking picture here. With the forgiveness of the large debt, it encourages us in seeing that even very grave sins can be cured and forgiven—showing the extreme kindness of the God of mercy. Our Lord tells us: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). “For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences” (Matthew 6:14).
Making Forgiveness Part of Your Life
Studies have found that some people are just naturally more forgiving. Consequently, they tend to be more satisfied with their lives and to have less depression, anxiety, stress, anger and hostility. People who hang on to grudges, however, are more likely to experience severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as other health conditions. But that does not mean that they cannot train themselves to act in healthier ways. In fact, 62% of American adults say they need to show more forgiveness in their personal lives, according to a survey by the Fetzer Institute.
Forgiveness is a choice, Dr. Swartz says. “You are choosing to offer compassion and empathy to the person who wronged you.” Who are you helping most when you forgive the person who hurt you? Actually, you’re helping yourself more than the other person. Most people look at forgiving people who hurt them as being something really hard to do. They think it is so unfair for the offender to receive forgiveness when they had innocently been hurt. The one offended received pain, and the offender received freedom without having to pay for the pain they caused. Nevertheless, we must try to realize that we are helping ourselves when we choose to forgive.
We are also helping the other person by releasing them from our ‘prison’ and handing them over to God, so that God can do what only He can do. If we get in the way—trying to get revenge, or take care of the situation ourselves in our own human way, instead of trusting and obeying God—then He has no obligation to deal with that person, He leaves them with us. However, God will deal with those who hurt us if we’ll put them in His hands through forgiveness. The act of forgiving is our seed of obedience to His Word. Once we have sown our seed, He is faithful to bring a harvest of blessings to us, one way or another, sooner or later. Meditate on the account of Joseph and his brothers, who tried to kill him, but then sold him into captivity as a slave. God rewarded Joseph—not immediately, but only many years later, when he became the Pharaoh’s right hand man—and, lest we forget, Joseph forgave his brothers!
Another way that forgiveness helps us is that it releases God to do His work in us. We are happier and feel better physically when we are not filled with the poison of unforgiveness. Serious diseases can develop as a result of the stress and pressure that bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness put on a person. Our Lord clearly teaches us that unforgiveness hinders our faith from working: “And Jesus answering, said to them: ‘Have the faith of God!’ Amen I say to you, that whosoever shall say to this mountain―“Be thou removed and be cast into the sea!”―and shall not stagger in his heart, but believe, that whatsoever he says shall be done, then it shall be done unto him. Therefore I say unto you, all things, whatsoever you ask when ye pray, believe that you shall receive; and they shall come unto you. And when you shall stand to pray, first forgive, if you have anything against any man; so that your Father also, Who is in Heaven, may forgive you your sins. But if you will not forgive, neither will your Father that is in Heaven, forgive you your sins” (Mark 11:22-26). The Father cannot forgive our sins, if we do not forgive other people. We reap what we sow. Sow mercy, and you’ll reap mercy; sow judgment, and you’ll reap judgment. So do yourself a favor—and forgive.
If you find yourself focusing on the wrongs that others have done to you, then try focusing on the wrongs that you have done to others and to God! Perhaps the wrongs that have happened to you are a direct result (punishment) of the wrongs that you have to done to others and to God. “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25:40). “Why seest thou the mote in thy brother’s eye: but the beam that is in thy own eye thou considerest not? Or how canst thou say to thy brother: ‘Brother, let me pull the mote out of thy eye!’ when thou thyself seest not the beam in thy own eye? Hypocrite! First cast out the beam from thy own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to take out the mote from thy brother’s eye” (Luke 6:41-42).
There are still more benefits of forgiveness. Your friendship with God flows freely when you are willing to forgive, but it gets blocked by unforgiveness. For the very sin that you refuse to forgive a particular person, God may have already forgiven that person’s sin as a result of his/her confession in the Sacrament of Penance! Thus you are at “loggerheads” with God over the issue. Forgiveness also keeps Satan from getting an advantage over us: “And to whom you have pardoned anything, I also. For, what I have pardoned, if I have pardoned anything, for your sakes have I done it in the person of Christ. That we be not overreached by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:10-11). The devil is the unforgiving—the devils are not true friends, but hate each other and hate themselves—and the devils try to sow the same unforgiving feelings in us. Holy Scripture tells us not to let the sun go down on our anger, or give the devil any such foothold or opportunity: “Be angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Give not place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26-27). Remember that the devil must have a foothold before he can get a stronghold. Do not help Satan torture you! Be quick to forgive.
How to Forgive
Would you like to become more successful at forgiving others? There are practical steps that must be taken. We may well ask why so many people want to forgive, but are not successful in doing it. Perhaps the following requirements for forgiveness were not being followed or applied:
1. Decide to Forgive From Your Heart, Not Your Lips – You will never forgive if you wait until you feel like it. Choose to obey God and steadfastly resist the devil in his attempts to poison you with bitter thoughts. Make a sincere decision from the heart (not the lips) to forgive, and God will heal your wounded emotions in due time: “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors … For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences” (Matthew 6:12-15).
2. Depend on God – You cannot forgive without the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s too hard to do on your own. If you are truly willing, God will enable you, but you must humble yourself and cry out to Him for help. In John 20:22-23 Jesus breathed on the disciples and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (John 20:22). His next instruction was about forgiving people: “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them!” (John 20:23). Ask God to breathe the Holy Ghost into you also, so you can forgive those who have hurt you—it is a great grace of God to be able to forgive as God forgives.
3. Pray and Bless – Holy Scripture tells us several things we must do concerning forgiving our enemies:
(a) Pray for your enemies and those who abuse and misuse you. Pray for their happiness and welfare: “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you. Bless them that curse you, and pray for them that calumniate you” (Luke 6:27-28). If you pray for them, God can give them the grace of enlightenment that will bring them out of self-deception. They may not even be aware they hurt you, or maybe they are aware, but are so self-centered that they don’t care. Either way, they need the grace of enlightenment—and that comes through praying for them.
(b) “Bless them that persecute you: bless, and curse not” (Romans 12:14). In the Greek, to bless means “to speak well of” and to curse means “to speak evil of.” You cannot profess to be forgiving and be a gossip. You must stop repeatedly talking about the offense. You cannot get over it if you continue to talk about it—it is like continually picking at the scab of a wound—it will never heal if you continually re-open it. In the Book of Proverbs it says that he who covers an offense seeks love: “He that conceals a transgression, seeks friendships. He that repeats it again, separates friends” (Proverbs 17:9).
Who Should Be Forgiven?
Forgive the person who badly hurt you long ago; and also forgive the stranger who stepped on your toe in the grocery store. Take those two extremes and forgive them in addition to everyone in between. St. Maria Goretti and her family forgave her attempted rapist and murderer—and he became a close friend of the family after murdering Maria. Our Lord forgave Mary Magdalen—an adulteress possessed by seven devils, as well as the thief on the cross (who most likely was also an occasional murderer as a part of his trade). Forgive quickly. The quicker you do it, the easier it is. Forgive freely. Our Lord says: “Freely you have received, freely give!” (Matthew 10:8). To forgive means “to excuse a fault, absolve from payment, pardon, send away, cancel, and bestow favor unconditionally.”
When you forgive, you must cancel the debt. Do not spend your life paying and collecting debts. Hebrews 10:30 says that vengeance belongs to the Lord; He will repay and settle the cases of His people. Let God take care of past injustices. Do not try to collect from the people who hurt you, because the people who hurt you cannot pay you―or at least they cannot pay you in the way God can pay you. Also, forgive yourself for past sins and hurts you have caused others―this will help you to forgive others as you forgive yourself—as they say: “Love your neighbor as yourself!” (Matthew 19:19). You cannot pay people back, so ask God to pay for you.
Forgive God if you are angry with Him just because your life didn’t turn out the way you thought it should. God is always just. There may be things you don’t understand, but God loves you, and people make a serious mistake when they don’t receive help from the only One who can truly help them.
You may even need to ‘forgive’ a situation or an object—the post office, the bank, the hospital, a certain store that may have cheated you, a car that always gave you trouble, bad weather that ruined your vacation or damaged your home, etc. Get rid of all poison that comes from bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is spiritual filthiness, so get washed in the water of God’s grace and His holy Word in Holy Scripture, so that you can forgive as God forgives.
The Mother of Mercy
St. Alphonsus Liguori writes: “No discourse is so profitable to the people, or excites more compunction among them, than that on the mercy of Mary. I say on the mercy of Mary: for St. Bernard says, we may praise her humility, and marvel at her virginity; but being poor sinners, we are more pleased and attracted by hearing of her mercy; for to this we more affectionately cling, this we more often remember and invoke … Mary, who, although queen, is not queen of justice, intent upon the punishment of the guilty, but queen of mercy, solely intent upon compassion and pardon for sinners. Mary, then, is queen; but let all learn for their consolation that she is a mild and merciful queen, desiring the good of us poor sinners. Hence the holy Church bids us salute her in this prayer, and name her the Queen of Mercy … St. Bernard asks, Why does the Church name Mary Queen of Mercy?’ and answers, ‘Because we believe that she opens the depths of the mercy of God, to whom she will, when she will, and as she will; so that not even the vilest sinner is lost, if Mary protects him.’ But it may, perhaps, be feared that Mary disdains interposing in behalf of some sinners, because she finds them so laden with sins? Perhaps the majesty and sanctity of this great queen should alarm us? No, says St. Gregory, in proportion to her greatness and holiness are her clemency and mercy towards sinners who desire to amend, and who have recourse to her” (St. Alphonsus, The Glories of Mary).
“How great then should be our confidence in this queen, knowing how powerful she is with God, and at the same time how rich and full of mercy; so much so that there is no one on Earth who does not share in the mercies and favors of Mary! This the blessed Virgin herself revealed to St. Bridget: ‘I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on Earth a sinner who is so accursed, that he is deprived of my compassion! For everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be! No one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed (by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned), is so entirely cast off by God that he may not return and enjoy His mercy if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them.’ And then she concluded by saying: ‘Therefore he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this, being able, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners.’” (St. Alphonsus, The Glories of Mary).
“Let us then have recourse, let us always have recourse to this most sweet queen, if we would be sure of our salvation; and if the sight of our sins terrifies and disheartens us, let us remember that Mary was made queen of mercy for this very end, that she might save by her protection the greatest and most abandoned sinners who have recourse to her. They are to be her crown in Heaven, as her divine spouse has said: ‘Come from Libanus, my spouse, come from Libanus, come; thou shalt be crowned from the dens of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards.’ And what are these dens of wild beasts and monsters, if not miserable sinners, whose souls become dens of sins, the most deformed monsters?” (St. Alphonsus, The Glories of Mary).
Children of Mercy?
What a beautiful birthday present it would be—to give Our Lady a crown of jewels, in which the jewels are the converted and reformed souls of once deformed sinners! “He must know that he who causes a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, shall save his soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20). “They seek Me from day to day … and they ask of me … ‘Why have we fasted, and thou hast not regarded? Have we humbled our souls, and thou hast not taken notice?’ Behold in the day of your fast your own will is found, and you exact of all your debtors. Behold you fast for debates and strife. and strike with the fist wickedly … Is not this rather the fast that I have chosen? Loosen the bands of wickedness, undo the bundles that oppress, let them that are broken go free, and break asunder every burden. Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the harborless into thy house: when thou shalt see one naked, cover him, and despise not thy own flesh. If thou wilt take away the chain out of the midst of thee, and cease to stretch out the finger, and to speak that which profiteth not. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy health shall speedily arise, and thy justice shall go before thy face, and the glory of the Lord shall gather thee up … Then shall thy light rise up in darkness, and thy darkness shall be as the noonday” (Isaias 58:2-10).
Article 3
Wednesday September 7th, 2022
Are Your Going to Our Lady's Birthday Party?
Wednesday September 7th, 2022
Are Your Going to Our Lady's Birthday Party?
Does Our Lady Throw Parties
It is somewhat comical and even irreverent to imagine Our Lady as a “party-girl”―but if parties are about celebrations, then Our Lady most certainly did, does and will celebrate―whether the focal point be herself or some other person. We read of Mary’s participation at the Wedding Feast of Cana, which she attended with Jesus: “There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there” (John 2:1). As we all know, this wedding feast ran out of wine and Or Lady persuaded Our Lord to perform His first public miracle by changing water into wine! We can safely assume that this would not have been the only celebration (or party if you wish to call it that) which she attended. There would have been many opportunities to attend such family celebrations amongst the relatives of Joseph and herself. Yet we can also safely assume that Our Lady would not have desired nor attempted to be the center of attention at those celebrations―this would not be in keeping with the modesty and humility of the Mother of God.
We read of a modest “celebration” of the birth of Jesus with arrival of the Three Magi with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. We can also imagine another modest “celebration” when Mary visited her likewise miraculously pregnant cousin, St. Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-56). In their own modest way―dictated by Divine Providence―Mary and Joseph would have “celebrated” the birth of Jesus in a cave of Bethlehem.
Jesus Goes to Banquets and Feasts
The Gospels say nothing about any celebrations within the Holy Family―even though it is highly likely that certain major days, such as birthdays, anniversaries, etc., would have been commemorated―but here again, we can imagine them to be “low-key” celebrations. Our Lord Himself attended banquets―besides the one at Cana (John 2:1-11)―“Jesus saw a publican named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom, and He said to him: ‘Follow Me!’ And leaving all things, he rose up and followed Him. And Levi made Him a great feast in his own house; and there was a great company of publicans and of others, that were at table with them. But the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying to His disciples: ‘Why do you eat and drink with publicans and sinners?’ And Jesus answering, said to them: ‘They that are whole, need not the physician―but they that are sick! I came not to call the just―but sinners to penance!’” (Luke 5:27-32).
On the occasion of another banquet, Jesus “spoke a parable to them that were invited, noticing how they chose the first seats at the table, saying to them: ‘When thou art invited to a wedding, sit not down in the first place, lest perhaps one more honorable than thou be invited by him. And he that invited thee and him, come and say to thee: “Give this man place!” ― and then thou begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when thou art invited, go, sit down in the lowest place; that when he who invited thee, cometh, he may say to thee: “Friend, go up higher!” Then shalt thou have glory before them that sit at table with thee. Because every one that exalts himself, shall be humbled; and he that humbles himself, shall be exalted!’ And he said to him also that had invited Him: ‘When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen, nor thy neighbors who are rich―lest perhaps they also invite thee again and so a recompense be made to thee! But when thou makest a feast―call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind―and thou shalt be blessed, because they have not wherewith to make thee recompense: for recompense shall be made thee at the resurrection of the just!’” (Luke 14:7-14).
Jesus Speaks of Banquets and Feasts
In His teachings, Jesus would use banquets and feasts symbolically in order to get His point across: “And Jesus spoke again in parables to them, saying: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a king, who made a marriage for his son. And he sent his servants, to call them that were invited to the marriage; and they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying: “Tell them that were invited: ‘Behold, I have prepared my dinner! My calves and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready! Come ye to the marriage!’” But they neglected, and went their own ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise. And the rest laid hands on his servants, and having treated them contumeliously, put them to death. But when the king had heard of it, he was angry, and sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers, and burnt their city. Then he said to his servants: “The marriage indeed is ready! But they that were invited were not worthy! Go ye therefore into the highways―and as many as you shall find, call to the marriage!” And his servants going forth into the ways, gathered together all that they found, both bad and good: and the marriage was filled with guests. And the king went in to see the guests―and he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment. And he said to him: “Friend, how camest thou in here not having a wedding garment?” But he was silent. Then the king said to the waiters: “Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! For many are called, but few are chosen!”’” (Matthew 22:1-14).
Our Lord delivers another parable about banquets and feasts, saying: “A certain man made a great supper, and invited many. And he sent his servant at the hour of supper to say to them that were invited, that they should come, for now all things are ready. And they began all at once to make excuse. The first said to him: “I have bought a farm, and I must needs go out and see it! I pray thee, hold me excused!” And another said: “I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to try them! I pray thee, hold me excused!” And another said: “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come!” And the servant returning, told these things to his lord. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant: “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the feeble, and the blind, and the lame!” And the servant said: “Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded―and yet there is room!” And the Lord said to the servant: “Go out into the highways and hedges―and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled! But I say unto you, that none of those men that were invited, shall taste of my supper!’” (Luke 14:17-24).
Mary’s Banquet
You could take some of the above and transpose it into a Marian setting―where instead of a king holding a wedding banquet for his son, you could have God arranging a banquet for Mary―of whom St. Louis de Montfort writes: “God wishes to reveal and make known Mary, the masterpiece of His hands, in these latter times … Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High! … She is the grand and divine world of God, where there are beauties and treasures unspeakable. She is the magnificence of the Most High, where He hid all that is most excellent and most precious ... We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought! She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service!”
Therefore we could take the above Gospel passages and rephrase them to read thus:
God prepared a banquet for Mary’s birthday and invited many. He sent His servants―the clergy―at the time of Mary’s birthday―to say to them that were invited: “Come! Everything is ready! Come to my birthday banquet for Mary!” But they neglected to come and began all at once to make excuses and went their own ways―one to his television, another to the internet, another to his smartphone, another to his hobbies. The first said to him: “I have bought a DVD and I must go home and see it! I pray thee, hold me excused!” And another said: “I need to do some browsing on the internet and cannot find any time for Mary. I pray thee, hold me excused!” Another said: “I have bought a new smartphone and I must go to try it―I have no time to speak to Mary on her birthday! I pray thee, hold me excused!” And another said: “I have a hobby I want to indulge in―Mary will not miss me! I pray thee, hold me excused!” And the servants told these things to their Lord. Then the Lord God, being angry, said to his servants: “The banquet indeed is ready! But they that were invited were not worthy! Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the feeble, and the blind, and the lame!” And the servants said: “Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded―and yet there is room!” And the Lord said to the servant: “Go out into the highways and hedges―and compel them to come in, so that Mary’s banquet may be filled! But I say unto you, that none of those men that were invited, shall taste of My banquet!” And His servants going forth into the ways, gathered together all that they found, both bad and good―and the marriage was filled with guests. And the Lord God went in to see the guests―and he saw there a man who had not on the garment of Mary―the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mounts Carmel. And the Lord said to him: “Friend, how camest thou in here not having a Mary’s garment?” But he was silent. Then the Lord said to His servants: “Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! For many are called, but few are chosen!”
Ignore Mary’s Invite At Your Peril!
Mary is much more necessary to us than we might imagine. She herself said to St. Bridget of Sweden: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on Earth a sinner who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion―for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed [by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned], is so entirely cast-off by God, that he may not return and enjoy His mercy, if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them.” And then Our Lady concluded by saying: “Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners.”
Those words of warning by Our Lady are echoed by numerous saints―some of which we quote here:
► St. Albert the Great (a Doctor of the Church), says: “They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish!”
► St. Bonaventure (a Doctor of the Church) repeats the same thought when he says: “They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins!” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation!”
► St. Ignatius of Antioch (a Father of the Church), a martyr of the second century, writes: “A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost.”
If a lack of devotion to her is a mark of eternal reprobation a constant love for her must be a sign of eternal salvation. Many spiritual writers state that devotion to Mary is a sign of predestination.
► St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church) says: “It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.”
► St. Anselm (a Doctor of the Church) writes: “He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost!”
► St. Antonine is of the same opinion. He says: “As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified.”
► St. John Damascene (a Doctor of the Church) says: “To be devout to you, O holy Virgin, is an arm of salvation which God gives to those whom He wishes to save.”
► St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church), in his book, The Glories of Mary, says: “The intercession of Mary is even necessary to salvation. We say ‘necessary’, not absolutely, but morally. This necessity proceeds from the will itself of God, that all graces that He dispenses should pass by the hands of Mary, according to the opinion of St. Bernard.”
► St. Louis de Montfort adds: “The learned and pious Jesuit, Suarez, the erudite and devout Justus Lipsius, doctor of Louvain, and many others, have proved invincibly, from the sentiments of the Fathers of the Church―among others, St. Augustine, St. Ephrem, deacon of Edessa, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Germanus of Constantinople, St. John Damascene, St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure―that devotion to our Blessed Lady is necessary to salvation, and that it is an infallible mark of reprobation to have no esteem and love for the holy Virgin; while on the other hand, it is an infallible mark of predestination to be entirely and truly devoted to her.”
► St. Bernardine of Sienna addresses these words to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “O Lady, thou art the dispenser of all graces, and since the grace of salvation can only come through thy hands, our salvation depends on thee!”
Mary’s Sorrowful Banquet
Usually, one imagines parties and banquets to be full of sweet things―not so with Mary’s banquets. At La Salette in 1846, Our Lady appears as a weeping Sorrowful Mother. At Fatima, in 1917, Our Lady never smiled, not even once, at the three children―as revealed by Sister Lucia of Fatima. At Akita, Our Lady’s statue wept over a 100 times. Our Lord revealed to one of His mystics―the Belgian, Berthe Petit―“My Mother’s Heart has the right to the title of Sorrowful. I desire that it be set before her title of Immaculate, because she herself has won it. This title she earned by her identification with all My sufferings, by her sorrow, her sacrifice, her immolation on Calvary, and indeed for the salvation of mankind.” Take note that Our Lord is not asking for, nor giving Our Lady the title “Sweet”―but the title “Sorrowful”!
If we profess to be her spiritual children, then we should imitate our spiritual Mother ― as Holy Scripture says: “As the mother was, so also is her daughter!” (Ezechiel 16:44). When Our Lady is a Mother of Sorrows, whose “soul a sword shall pierce” (Luke 2:35) and who is also the Mother of the “Man of Sorrows” ― Jesus Christ (Isaias 53:3), why do we seek and pursue pleasures and sweetness?
The three children at Fatima were invited to Our Lady’s banquet of suffering when she said to them: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
At Akita, in 1973, Our Lady again invited souls to her banquet of suffering when she said: “I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor!”
The words that Our Lord spoke to His Apostles at the Last Supper, Mary could also address to her followers and servants: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20). As they say: “He who laughs last, laughs longest!” ― and we want to laugh in Heaven for eternity, and not on Earth for only a short time! We could compare suffering to the pots of water at the Marriage Feast of Cana, which Our Lord eventually changed into pots of wine―thus our sufferings will eventually be changed in endless joy!
Our Lady revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda the immensity and beauty of what God serves at His banquet―namely, sanctifying grace: “There are no terms of human language equal to the task of expressing what participations and perfections of God are contained in sanctifying grace. It is little to say that it is more pure and spotless than the snow; more refulgent than the sun; more precious than gold or precious stones, more charming, more amiable and pleasing than all the most delightful feasts and entertainments.”
Our Lady continues: “Hear the voice of thy Master. He calls all men and invites them to the feast of His words of eternal life. But so great is the dangerous deception of this mortal life, that only very few souls wish to hear and understand the way of light. Many follow the delights presented to them by the prince of darkness―and those that follow them, know not where they are being led. But thou art called by the Most High to the paths of true light; follow them by imitating me, and thou wilt have thy longings fulfilled. Deny thyself to all that is earthly and visible; ignore it and refuse to look upon it; have no desire for it and pay no attention to it. You should welcome bitterness and sorrow and put aside ease and pleasure of the senses! Avoid being known, and let no creatures have any part in thee; guard thou thy secret, and thy treasure from the fascination of men and from the devil.”
“Sensible pleasures are always present and easily fascinate the faculties of man! Satan, with tireless malice, labors to overthrow the barriers of restraint, so that, forgetful of the last things and of eternal torment, men may give themselves over, like brute beasts, to sensual pleasures, and unmindful of themselves consume their lives in the pursuit of apparent good, who seek diversion in worldly pleasures and attended upon the outward and deceitful vanities of this earthly life, until they suddenly fall a prey to eternal perdition. In order to cast souls into this abyss of wickedness Lucifer meets them with the vain pride and honor of this world and with its base pleasures, representing them as alone important and desirable. Thus the ignorant children of perdition loosen the bonds of reason in order to follow the degrading pleasures of their flesh and be enslaved by their mortal enemy.
“Such is in reality the fate of innumerable foolish men, who abhor any restraint imposed upon them. Let the despairing groans of the damned, which begin at the end of their lives and at the beginning of their eternal damnation, ever resound in your ears: ‘O we fools, who esteemed the life of the just as madness! O how are they counted among the sons of God, and their lot is among the saints! We have erred then from the path of truth and of justice! The sun has not arisen for us! We have wearied ourselves in the ways of iniquity and destruction, we have sought difficult paths and erred by our own fault from the way of the Lord. What has pride profited us? What advantage has the boasting of riches brought us? All has passed away from us like a shadow. O had we but never been born!’ This you must fear and ponder in your heart, so that, before you go to that land of darkness and of eternal dungeons from which there is no return, you may provide against evil and avoid it by doing the good. During your mortal life, and out of love, perform now that of which the damned in their despair are forced to warn you by the excess of their punishment.”
Bitter is Better!
In the realm of food, many nutritionists will tell you that bitter-tasting foods are usually far more healthy than sweet-tasting foods. Our Lady seems to tell us the same thing. Again, to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady reveals:
“My most holy Son and myself are trying to find among those who have arrived at the way of the Cross, some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the souls, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If you wish to be Our disciple, then enter into this school―in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross … In this science of suffering are renewed all the blessed riches of the creatures―those that flee from them are insane, those that know nothing of this science, are foolish! … In order that you may advance in my school, I wish to see you poor, humble, despised, abased―yet always with a cheerful heart and countenance ... In the school of humility, I want you to be studious and diligent; and this should be your first and principal care … I admonish and command you to go to the greatest extremes, if you wish to remain in my school and be endowed with the perfection taught in my school! … In my school I want you to learn the love, the gratitude and humility that is required of a true disciple of mine; for I desire that you distinguish yourself and advance exceedingly! ... Do not try to repay yourself with the applause or the love of any creature, nor allow human sentiment to rule over you! … Earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible with this wisdom; nor is the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the blear-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors!”
“Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment. I do not count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, then they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation. And yet even all this is insufficient, since their inclinations and their blind love of visible things, detains them and makes them hard and heavy of heart! These inclinations and this blindness rob them of remembrance and affection toward these higher things, which could raise them above their worldliness! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Hence it is that men do not find joy in their tribulations, nor rest in their labors, nor consolation in their sorrows, nor any peace in adversities. For, being altogether different from the saints―who glory in tribulation as the fulfillment of their most earnest desires―these worldlings desire none of it and abhor everything that is painful.
“In many of the faithful this ignorance goes still farther―for some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored! Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! … They act like men who have done little to penetrate into the mysteries and into the spirit of what they had seen and heard in the school of their Master ... This school was established by my most holy and loving Son when He proclaimed and set up the eight beatitudes (Matthew 5:10). Afterwards, when He Himself assumed all the sufferings of His Passion, He became for us a Teacher, who practices what He teaches! … This was set before the eyes of the Catholics, and can be plainly read by them, like a book of life, during their whole earthly pilgrimage―but there are only a few and remotely scattered souls who enter into this school and study this book, while countless are the wayward and foolish, who ignore this science in their unwillingness to be taught! ... This is the teaching of the school of the Redeemer, hidden from those living in Babylon and from those who love vanity! … Many persons―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16) ... The number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate is also be uncountable!”
No Partying at Our Lady’s Banquet!
From all of the above―and much more that could and should have been quoted―we can clearly see that Our Lady sense of values and priorities refused to place, what we call “partying”, above her sense of duty in her service of souls and their salvation. In time of war, partying has to take a back-seat―and our whole life is a time of war: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) and, therefore, we must “fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). So, “labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself!” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12) and we “have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” ― and all the other true enemies of God (Hebrews 12:4). Therefore, let us “be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God!” (2 Kings 10:12). Or does Our Lady have to say to us what Moses said to the cowardly Israelites: “And Moses said them: ‘What! Shall your brethren go to fight, and will you just sit here?’” (Numbers 32:6).
Those, too, are the words of Our Lady of La Salette in speaking of our times―not times for partying, but times of massive prayer and penance: “Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence ... for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. The sins of men are the cause of all the troubles on this Earth. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little … The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis … The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls … and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds … The Earth will be struck by calamities of all kinds! There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases. In addition to plague and famine which will be widespread. There will be a series of wars, until the last war, a general war, which will be appalling. Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes. People will believe that all is lost. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy. Blood will flow on all sides. The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession.
“I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you―provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! I shall fight at their side! … For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the Holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in Its poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and mankind will make great progress in its Faith, for there will be unity among the workers of Jesus Christ and man will live in fear of God.”
There Will Be Time to “Party”
When that victory occurs―then it will be time to “party”―until then it is a time of suffering and warfare as we fight for God and the Faith! Unfortunately, there are very few who respond to Our Lady’s invitation to come to the “banquet” of the fight! As Sister Lucia of Fatima said back in 1957: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!
“Father, the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground … The Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin and, as you know, what most offends God and what will gain him the greatest number of souls in the shortest time is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them! … For this reason, Father, it is my mission not just to speak about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to also tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin.
“Father, we should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway. When God is going to chastise the world He always first exhausts all other remedies. When He sees that the world pays no attention whatsoever, then, as we say in our imperfect way of talking, with a certain fear He presents us the last means of salvation, His Blessed Mother … God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others … My cousins, Francisco and Jacinta, made sacrifices because they always saw the Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions! She never smiled at us! This anguish that we saw in her―caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners―penetrated our souls. And being children, we did not know what measures to devise except to pray and make sacrifices. Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world!” Prayer, Sacrifices and Penances are the best gifts you can bring to Our Lady's Birthday Party!
It is somewhat comical and even irreverent to imagine Our Lady as a “party-girl”―but if parties are about celebrations, then Our Lady most certainly did, does and will celebrate―whether the focal point be herself or some other person. We read of Mary’s participation at the Wedding Feast of Cana, which she attended with Jesus: “There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there” (John 2:1). As we all know, this wedding feast ran out of wine and Or Lady persuaded Our Lord to perform His first public miracle by changing water into wine! We can safely assume that this would not have been the only celebration (or party if you wish to call it that) which she attended. There would have been many opportunities to attend such family celebrations amongst the relatives of Joseph and herself. Yet we can also safely assume that Our Lady would not have desired nor attempted to be the center of attention at those celebrations―this would not be in keeping with the modesty and humility of the Mother of God.
We read of a modest “celebration” of the birth of Jesus with arrival of the Three Magi with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. We can also imagine another modest “celebration” when Mary visited her likewise miraculously pregnant cousin, St. Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-56). In their own modest way―dictated by Divine Providence―Mary and Joseph would have “celebrated” the birth of Jesus in a cave of Bethlehem.
Jesus Goes to Banquets and Feasts
The Gospels say nothing about any celebrations within the Holy Family―even though it is highly likely that certain major days, such as birthdays, anniversaries, etc., would have been commemorated―but here again, we can imagine them to be “low-key” celebrations. Our Lord Himself attended banquets―besides the one at Cana (John 2:1-11)―“Jesus saw a publican named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom, and He said to him: ‘Follow Me!’ And leaving all things, he rose up and followed Him. And Levi made Him a great feast in his own house; and there was a great company of publicans and of others, that were at table with them. But the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying to His disciples: ‘Why do you eat and drink with publicans and sinners?’ And Jesus answering, said to them: ‘They that are whole, need not the physician―but they that are sick! I came not to call the just―but sinners to penance!’” (Luke 5:27-32).
On the occasion of another banquet, Jesus “spoke a parable to them that were invited, noticing how they chose the first seats at the table, saying to them: ‘When thou art invited to a wedding, sit not down in the first place, lest perhaps one more honorable than thou be invited by him. And he that invited thee and him, come and say to thee: “Give this man place!” ― and then thou begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when thou art invited, go, sit down in the lowest place; that when he who invited thee, cometh, he may say to thee: “Friend, go up higher!” Then shalt thou have glory before them that sit at table with thee. Because every one that exalts himself, shall be humbled; and he that humbles himself, shall be exalted!’ And he said to him also that had invited Him: ‘When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen, nor thy neighbors who are rich―lest perhaps they also invite thee again and so a recompense be made to thee! But when thou makest a feast―call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind―and thou shalt be blessed, because they have not wherewith to make thee recompense: for recompense shall be made thee at the resurrection of the just!’” (Luke 14:7-14).
Jesus Speaks of Banquets and Feasts
In His teachings, Jesus would use banquets and feasts symbolically in order to get His point across: “And Jesus spoke again in parables to them, saying: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a king, who made a marriage for his son. And he sent his servants, to call them that were invited to the marriage; and they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying: “Tell them that were invited: ‘Behold, I have prepared my dinner! My calves and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready! Come ye to the marriage!’” But they neglected, and went their own ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise. And the rest laid hands on his servants, and having treated them contumeliously, put them to death. But when the king had heard of it, he was angry, and sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers, and burnt their city. Then he said to his servants: “The marriage indeed is ready! But they that were invited were not worthy! Go ye therefore into the highways―and as many as you shall find, call to the marriage!” And his servants going forth into the ways, gathered together all that they found, both bad and good: and the marriage was filled with guests. And the king went in to see the guests―and he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment. And he said to him: “Friend, how camest thou in here not having a wedding garment?” But he was silent. Then the king said to the waiters: “Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! For many are called, but few are chosen!”’” (Matthew 22:1-14).
Our Lord delivers another parable about banquets and feasts, saying: “A certain man made a great supper, and invited many. And he sent his servant at the hour of supper to say to them that were invited, that they should come, for now all things are ready. And they began all at once to make excuse. The first said to him: “I have bought a farm, and I must needs go out and see it! I pray thee, hold me excused!” And another said: “I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to try them! I pray thee, hold me excused!” And another said: “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come!” And the servant returning, told these things to his lord. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant: “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the feeble, and the blind, and the lame!” And the servant said: “Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded―and yet there is room!” And the Lord said to the servant: “Go out into the highways and hedges―and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled! But I say unto you, that none of those men that were invited, shall taste of my supper!’” (Luke 14:17-24).
Mary’s Banquet
You could take some of the above and transpose it into a Marian setting―where instead of a king holding a wedding banquet for his son, you could have God arranging a banquet for Mary―of whom St. Louis de Montfort writes: “God wishes to reveal and make known Mary, the masterpiece of His hands, in these latter times … Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High! … She is the grand and divine world of God, where there are beauties and treasures unspeakable. She is the magnificence of the Most High, where He hid all that is most excellent and most precious ... We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought! She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service!”
Therefore we could take the above Gospel passages and rephrase them to read thus:
God prepared a banquet for Mary’s birthday and invited many. He sent His servants―the clergy―at the time of Mary’s birthday―to say to them that were invited: “Come! Everything is ready! Come to my birthday banquet for Mary!” But they neglected to come and began all at once to make excuses and went their own ways―one to his television, another to the internet, another to his smartphone, another to his hobbies. The first said to him: “I have bought a DVD and I must go home and see it! I pray thee, hold me excused!” And another said: “I need to do some browsing on the internet and cannot find any time for Mary. I pray thee, hold me excused!” Another said: “I have bought a new smartphone and I must go to try it―I have no time to speak to Mary on her birthday! I pray thee, hold me excused!” And another said: “I have a hobby I want to indulge in―Mary will not miss me! I pray thee, hold me excused!” And the servants told these things to their Lord. Then the Lord God, being angry, said to his servants: “The banquet indeed is ready! But they that were invited were not worthy! Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the feeble, and the blind, and the lame!” And the servants said: “Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded―and yet there is room!” And the Lord said to the servant: “Go out into the highways and hedges―and compel them to come in, so that Mary’s banquet may be filled! But I say unto you, that none of those men that were invited, shall taste of My banquet!” And His servants going forth into the ways, gathered together all that they found, both bad and good―and the marriage was filled with guests. And the Lord God went in to see the guests―and he saw there a man who had not on the garment of Mary―the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mounts Carmel. And the Lord said to him: “Friend, how camest thou in here not having a Mary’s garment?” But he was silent. Then the Lord said to His servants: “Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! For many are called, but few are chosen!”
Ignore Mary’s Invite At Your Peril!
Mary is much more necessary to us than we might imagine. She herself said to St. Bridget of Sweden: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on Earth a sinner who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion―for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be. No one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed [by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned], is so entirely cast-off by God, that he may not return and enjoy His mercy, if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them.” And then Our Lady concluded by saying: “Therefore, he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this life, being able to do so, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners.”
Those words of warning by Our Lady are echoed by numerous saints―some of which we quote here:
► St. Albert the Great (a Doctor of the Church), says: “They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish!”
► St. Bonaventure (a Doctor of the Church) repeats the same thought when he says: “They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins!” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation!”
► St. Ignatius of Antioch (a Father of the Church), a martyr of the second century, writes: “A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost.”
If a lack of devotion to her is a mark of eternal reprobation a constant love for her must be a sign of eternal salvation. Many spiritual writers state that devotion to Mary is a sign of predestination.
► St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church) says: “It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.”
► St. Anselm (a Doctor of the Church) writes: “He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost!”
► St. Antonine is of the same opinion. He says: “As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified.”
► St. John Damascene (a Doctor of the Church) says: “To be devout to you, O holy Virgin, is an arm of salvation which God gives to those whom He wishes to save.”
► St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church), in his book, The Glories of Mary, says: “The intercession of Mary is even necessary to salvation. We say ‘necessary’, not absolutely, but morally. This necessity proceeds from the will itself of God, that all graces that He dispenses should pass by the hands of Mary, according to the opinion of St. Bernard.”
► St. Louis de Montfort adds: “The learned and pious Jesuit, Suarez, the erudite and devout Justus Lipsius, doctor of Louvain, and many others, have proved invincibly, from the sentiments of the Fathers of the Church―among others, St. Augustine, St. Ephrem, deacon of Edessa, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Germanus of Constantinople, St. John Damascene, St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure―that devotion to our Blessed Lady is necessary to salvation, and that it is an infallible mark of reprobation to have no esteem and love for the holy Virgin; while on the other hand, it is an infallible mark of predestination to be entirely and truly devoted to her.”
► St. Bernardine of Sienna addresses these words to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “O Lady, thou art the dispenser of all graces, and since the grace of salvation can only come through thy hands, our salvation depends on thee!”
Mary’s Sorrowful Banquet
Usually, one imagines parties and banquets to be full of sweet things―not so with Mary’s banquets. At La Salette in 1846, Our Lady appears as a weeping Sorrowful Mother. At Fatima, in 1917, Our Lady never smiled, not even once, at the three children―as revealed by Sister Lucia of Fatima. At Akita, Our Lady’s statue wept over a 100 times. Our Lord revealed to one of His mystics―the Belgian, Berthe Petit―“My Mother’s Heart has the right to the title of Sorrowful. I desire that it be set before her title of Immaculate, because she herself has won it. This title she earned by her identification with all My sufferings, by her sorrow, her sacrifice, her immolation on Calvary, and indeed for the salvation of mankind.” Take note that Our Lord is not asking for, nor giving Our Lady the title “Sweet”―but the title “Sorrowful”!
If we profess to be her spiritual children, then we should imitate our spiritual Mother ― as Holy Scripture says: “As the mother was, so also is her daughter!” (Ezechiel 16:44). When Our Lady is a Mother of Sorrows, whose “soul a sword shall pierce” (Luke 2:35) and who is also the Mother of the “Man of Sorrows” ― Jesus Christ (Isaias 53:3), why do we seek and pursue pleasures and sweetness?
The three children at Fatima were invited to Our Lady’s banquet of suffering when she said to them: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners! ... Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners―for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!”
At Akita, in 1973, Our Lady again invited souls to her banquet of suffering when she said: “I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor!”
The words that Our Lord spoke to His Apostles at the Last Supper, Mary could also address to her followers and servants: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20). As they say: “He who laughs last, laughs longest!” ― and we want to laugh in Heaven for eternity, and not on Earth for only a short time! We could compare suffering to the pots of water at the Marriage Feast of Cana, which Our Lord eventually changed into pots of wine―thus our sufferings will eventually be changed in endless joy!
Our Lady revealed to the Venerable Mary of Agreda the immensity and beauty of what God serves at His banquet―namely, sanctifying grace: “There are no terms of human language equal to the task of expressing what participations and perfections of God are contained in sanctifying grace. It is little to say that it is more pure and spotless than the snow; more refulgent than the sun; more precious than gold or precious stones, more charming, more amiable and pleasing than all the most delightful feasts and entertainments.”
Our Lady continues: “Hear the voice of thy Master. He calls all men and invites them to the feast of His words of eternal life. But so great is the dangerous deception of this mortal life, that only very few souls wish to hear and understand the way of light. Many follow the delights presented to them by the prince of darkness―and those that follow them, know not where they are being led. But thou art called by the Most High to the paths of true light; follow them by imitating me, and thou wilt have thy longings fulfilled. Deny thyself to all that is earthly and visible; ignore it and refuse to look upon it; have no desire for it and pay no attention to it. You should welcome bitterness and sorrow and put aside ease and pleasure of the senses! Avoid being known, and let no creatures have any part in thee; guard thou thy secret, and thy treasure from the fascination of men and from the devil.”
“Sensible pleasures are always present and easily fascinate the faculties of man! Satan, with tireless malice, labors to overthrow the barriers of restraint, so that, forgetful of the last things and of eternal torment, men may give themselves over, like brute beasts, to sensual pleasures, and unmindful of themselves consume their lives in the pursuit of apparent good, who seek diversion in worldly pleasures and attended upon the outward and deceitful vanities of this earthly life, until they suddenly fall a prey to eternal perdition. In order to cast souls into this abyss of wickedness Lucifer meets them with the vain pride and honor of this world and with its base pleasures, representing them as alone important and desirable. Thus the ignorant children of perdition loosen the bonds of reason in order to follow the degrading pleasures of their flesh and be enslaved by their mortal enemy.
“Such is in reality the fate of innumerable foolish men, who abhor any restraint imposed upon them. Let the despairing groans of the damned, which begin at the end of their lives and at the beginning of their eternal damnation, ever resound in your ears: ‘O we fools, who esteemed the life of the just as madness! O how are they counted among the sons of God, and their lot is among the saints! We have erred then from the path of truth and of justice! The sun has not arisen for us! We have wearied ourselves in the ways of iniquity and destruction, we have sought difficult paths and erred by our own fault from the way of the Lord. What has pride profited us? What advantage has the boasting of riches brought us? All has passed away from us like a shadow. O had we but never been born!’ This you must fear and ponder in your heart, so that, before you go to that land of darkness and of eternal dungeons from which there is no return, you may provide against evil and avoid it by doing the good. During your mortal life, and out of love, perform now that of which the damned in their despair are forced to warn you by the excess of their punishment.”
Bitter is Better!
In the realm of food, many nutritionists will tell you that bitter-tasting foods are usually far more healthy than sweet-tasting foods. Our Lady seems to tell us the same thing. Again, to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady reveals:
“My most holy Son and myself are trying to find among those who have arrived at the way of the Cross, some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the souls, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If you wish to be Our disciple, then enter into this school―in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross … In this science of suffering are renewed all the blessed riches of the creatures―those that flee from them are insane, those that know nothing of this science, are foolish! … In order that you may advance in my school, I wish to see you poor, humble, despised, abased―yet always with a cheerful heart and countenance ... In the school of humility, I want you to be studious and diligent; and this should be your first and principal care … I admonish and command you to go to the greatest extremes, if you wish to remain in my school and be endowed with the perfection taught in my school! … In my school I want you to learn the love, the gratitude and humility that is required of a true disciple of mine; for I desire that you distinguish yourself and advance exceedingly! ... Do not try to repay yourself with the applause or the love of any creature, nor allow human sentiment to rule over you! … Earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible with this wisdom; nor is the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the blear-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors!”
“Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment. I do not count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, then they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation. And yet even all this is insufficient, since their inclinations and their blind love of visible things, detains them and makes them hard and heavy of heart! These inclinations and this blindness rob them of remembrance and affection toward these higher things, which could raise them above their worldliness! … They do not seek the medicine of suffering! … Hence it is that men do not find joy in their tribulations, nor rest in their labors, nor consolation in their sorrows, nor any peace in adversities. For, being altogether different from the saints―who glory in tribulation as the fulfillment of their most earnest desires―these worldlings desire none of it and abhor everything that is painful.
“In many of the faithful this ignorance goes still farther―for some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored! Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! … They act like men who have done little to penetrate into the mysteries and into the spirit of what they had seen and heard in the school of their Master ... This school was established by my most holy and loving Son when He proclaimed and set up the eight beatitudes (Matthew 5:10). Afterwards, when He Himself assumed all the sufferings of His Passion, He became for us a Teacher, who practices what He teaches! … This was set before the eyes of the Catholics, and can be plainly read by them, like a book of life, during their whole earthly pilgrimage―but there are only a few and remotely scattered souls who enter into this school and study this book, while countless are the wayward and foolish, who ignore this science in their unwillingness to be taught! ... This is the teaching of the school of the Redeemer, hidden from those living in Babylon and from those who love vanity! … Many persons―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16) ... The number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate is also be uncountable!”
No Partying at Our Lady’s Banquet!
From all of the above―and much more that could and should have been quoted―we can clearly see that Our Lady sense of values and priorities refused to place, what we call “partying”, above her sense of duty in her service of souls and their salvation. In time of war, partying has to take a back-seat―and our whole life is a time of war: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1) and, therefore, we must “fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). So, “labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself!” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12) and we “have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” ― and all the other true enemies of God (Hebrews 12:4). Therefore, let us “be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God!” (2 Kings 10:12). Or does Our Lady have to say to us what Moses said to the cowardly Israelites: “And Moses said them: ‘What! Shall your brethren go to fight, and will you just sit here?’” (Numbers 32:6).
Those, too, are the words of Our Lady of La Salette in speaking of our times―not times for partying, but times of massive prayer and penance: “Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence ... for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. The sins of men are the cause of all the troubles on this Earth. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little … The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis … The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls … and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds … The Earth will be struck by calamities of all kinds! There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases. In addition to plague and famine which will be widespread. There will be a series of wars, until the last war, a general war, which will be appalling. Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes. People will believe that all is lost. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy. Blood will flow on all sides. The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession.
“I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God! I call on the true followers of Christ! I call on my children, the true faithful! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you―provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! I shall fight at their side! … For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the Holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in Its poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and mankind will make great progress in its Faith, for there will be unity among the workers of Jesus Christ and man will live in fear of God.”
There Will Be Time to “Party”
When that victory occurs―then it will be time to “party”―until then it is a time of suffering and warfare as we fight for God and the Faith! Unfortunately, there are very few who respond to Our Lady’s invitation to come to the “banquet” of the fight! As Sister Lucia of Fatima said back in 1957: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent!
“Father, the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground … The Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin and, as you know, what most offends God and what will gain him the greatest number of souls in the shortest time is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them! … For this reason, Father, it is my mission not just to speak about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to also tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin.
“Father, we should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway. When God is going to chastise the world He always first exhausts all other remedies. When He sees that the world pays no attention whatsoever, then, as we say in our imperfect way of talking, with a certain fear He presents us the last means of salvation, His Blessed Mother … God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others … My cousins, Francisco and Jacinta, made sacrifices because they always saw the Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions! She never smiled at us! This anguish that we saw in her―caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners―penetrated our souls. And being children, we did not know what measures to devise except to pray and make sacrifices. Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world!” Prayer, Sacrifices and Penances are the best gifts you can bring to Our Lady's Birthday Party!
Article 2
Saturday September 3rd & Sunday September 4th, 2022
What Present Will You Be Giving Mary on Her Birthday?
Saturday September 3rd & Sunday September 4th, 2022
What Present Will You Be Giving Mary on Her Birthday?
Getting Gifts We Don’t Want
Have you ever received a gift that you did not like or did not want? Of course you have! The tastes, likes, opinions and evaluations of the “giver” do not always match the tastes, likes, opinion and evaluations of the “receiver”! If not two people are alike―then you can bet that in evaluating and giving gifts no two opinions or preferences will be alike! More often than not―and there are exceptions to the rule of course―we are minimalists in what we give. We tend to give the bare minimum that we can get away with, while trying to please the person to whom we are giving the gift. We seek to get the “biggest bang for our buck” and superficiality is often the name of the game! We want our gift-giving to look good while spending the bare minimum. The more we love a person, the more we are likely to spend on that person. Normally speaking, our own mother should be pretty high on the list of those whom we love. If ever we are tempted to spend more in buying someone a present, then it should usually be the case with our mothers.
On the topic of mothers, we could say that all have two mothers―our physical biological earthly mothers and our spiritual heavenly Mother―the Blessed Virgin Mary―whom Our crucified Lord entrusted, not only to St. John, but to all of us: “When Jesus had seen His mother and the disciple whom He loved, standing, He said to His Mother: ‘Woman, behold thy son!’ After that, Jesus said to the disciple: ‘Behold thy Mother!’ And, from that hour, the disciple took her to his own” (John 19:26-27). Mary has certainly “beheld” us ― but have we “beheld” Mary? We mean a lot to Mary ― but does Mary mean a lot to us? Mary has been faithful to us as our spiritual Mother ― but have we been faithful to Mary as her spiritual children? Do we show Mary the love that she shows us? Are we merely giving Mary “lip-service” or are we giving her “heart-service”? Could Mary say to us the words that Our Lord addressed to the Scribes, Pharisees and Jews: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8).
What Does a Mother Want?
When mom’s birthday comes around, it can be a real headache to know what to get for her birthday. Usually, mothers are past the ritzy-glitzy gift and entertainment phase. What does an expensive gift say anyway—“I’m expensive! You’d better say ‘Ooo! Aaaah!’” We all know the sayings: “It's not the gift, but the thought that counts!” and “Look beyond the gift to the giver!” An expensive gift from someone who doesn’t real care about you, is almost meaningless—except for the fact that you sell the gift afterwards!
Which leads one to think of the other famous saying regarding gifts: “Beware of the Greeks when they bring gifts!”―its literal meaning is “I fear the Greeks, even those bearing gifts” or “even when they bear gifts” and originates from the Trojan Wars with the Greeks. The retreating Greeks, built and left behind a massive Horse. The Trojan Horse actually contains a hand-picked team of crack Greek warriors hidden in its wooden belly. The Trojan priest Laocoön suspects that some menace is hidden in the horse, and he warns the Trojans not to accept the gift. We all know the ending to that story!
What would you look at more―the gift or the giver? What would you rate higher―the gift or the love that is behind it? It is a little like that with God—He gives us many gifts, but He does not want to us rate the gift higher than the Giver. We are supposed to love the Creator more than His creatures or creations. If you love a painting more than artist himself, then you definitely do have the best of the deal―for the artist can paint you many pictures.
Loveless Gifts
If someone offers you a gift without love—you know that the person hates you, but is just giving you a birthday gift because of human convention or custom―then that gift is almost painful, rather than pleasurable. We could apply Our Lord’s words to such a situation: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). We, too often, offer God things superficially without our hearts really being in and behind what we give—our prayers are said routinely and listlessly, we assist at Holy Mass inattentively and mechanically, we go to Confession robotically and automatically, etc. “This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!” It is much the same with our devotion to our Blessed Mother—it is, more often than not, lacking heart, lacking love, lacking intensity, lacking fervor, lacking consistency. Such a devotion, or love, is merely lukewarm—we don’t hate her, but there is little in our lives to prove that we really love her. If that is pretty true in our case, then we should tremble at the words of the Apocalypse, which can be equally applied to coming from Our Lady as well as God:
Hey! Will You Listen!!?
“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot! But, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth! Because thou sayest: ‘I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing!’ and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked! I counsel thee to buy of Me gold, fire-tried, that thou mayest be made rich; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore, and do penance! Behold, I stand at the gate, and knock. If any man shall hear My voice, and open to me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.” (Apocalypse 3:15-20).
► “If any man shall hear My voice…”―Do we really hear the voice of Heaven and the voice of Our Lady? Sr. Lucia of Fatima tells us that we do not! To Fr. Fuentes, she says: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message [no one listens to her voice]; neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on with their life of virtue and apostolate, but they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners keep following the road of evil because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them.”
► “… and open to me the door…”—is the door of our heart really open to Our Lady? Or if we let her in, is it only for a while and then do we show her the door? In the Epistle from Mass of the Immaculate Conception, we read these words, which Holy Mother Church has placed in the mouth of Our Lady: “Now therefore, ye children, hear me! Blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not! Blessed is the man that heareth me, and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors. He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord! But he that shall sin against me, shall hurt his own soul! All that hate me, love death!” (Proverbs 8:32-36).
Give Whatever You Give With Love
As was already said, a loveless gift from an enemy, or from someone who is indifferent towards you, brings more pain than pleasure. Love has to be the essential ingredient in all that we think, say or do. It is said that, at our final judgment, God will be looking for and judging us on the love that was, or was not, present in all our thoughts, words and actions. We might pride ourselves on having done many things—but if they lacked love, then they were worthless. All those things that we prided ourselves upon, will be judged as mere counterfeit money and will fail to buy our entrance into Heaven.
This is why St Paul emphatically states: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
St. Paul then goes on to paint a practical picture of charity: “Charity is patient, is kind; charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely; is not puffed up; is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
Charity must be behind all things, all thoughts, all words, all actions and all gifts. Our Lady will look beyond and through our gift to examine, rate and judge the charity or love that lays behind it.
Imitate This Kind of Love...
This is why the author of the Imitation of Christ waxes lyrical about “The Wonderful Effect of Divine Love” (Book 3, chapter 5), saying:
“Love is an excellent thing, a very great blessing, indeed. It makes every difficulty easy, and bears all wrongs with equanimity. For it bears a burden without being weighted and renders sweet all that is bitter. The noble love of Jesus spurs to great deeds and excites longing for that which is more perfect. Love tends upward; it will not be held down by anything low. Love wishes to be free and estranged from all worldly affections, lest its inward sight be obstructed, lest it be entangled in any temporal interest and overcome by adversity. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger or higher or wider; nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in Heaven or on earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is above all created things.
“One who is in love flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free, not bound. He gives all for all and possesses all in all, because he rests in the one sovereign Good, Who is above all things, and from Whom every good flows and proceeds. He does not look to the gift but turns himself above all gifts to the Giver. Love often knows no limits but overflows all bounds. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, and does not plead impossibility, because it believes that it may and can do all things. For this reason, it is able to do all, performing and effecting much where he who does not love fails and falls. Love is watchful. Sleeping, it does not slumber. Wearied, it is not tired. Pressed, it is not straitened. Alarmed, it is not confused, but like a living flame, a burning torch, it forces its way upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle. If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice.
“Love is swift, sincere, kind, pleasant, and delightful. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, long-suffering, and manly. Love is never self-seeking, for in whatever a person seeks himself there he falls from love. Love is circumspect, humble, and upright. It is neither soft nor light, nor intent upon vain things. It is sober and chaste, firm and quiet, guarded in all the senses. Love is subject and obedient to superiors. It is mean and contemptible in its own eyes, devoted and thankful to God; always trusting and hoping in Him even when He is distasteful to it, for there is no living in love without sorrow. He who is not ready to suffer all things and to stand resigned to the will of the Beloved is not worthy to be called a lover. A lover must embrace willingly all that is difficult and bitter for the sake of the Beloved, and he should not turn away from Him because of adversities.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 3, chapter 5).
If Our Lady were to see such a love in us, then that would be the sole present that she would desire on her birthday!
Love and Obedience
There is an close link between love and obedience. We all know from experience that a child―who regularly disobeys its parents and argues with them―is a poor example of love towards its parents. Our Lord puts it in a nutshell at the Last Supper, when He says: “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15) … “He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me” (John 14:21) … “He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words” (John 14:24). “If any one love Me, he will keep My word” (John 14:23) … “You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you” (John 15:14). … “If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love; as I also have kept My Father’s commandments, and do abide in His love” (John 15:10).
St. Thomas Aquinas says that charity produces concord and the effect of concord is a union of wills. To love and obey God—or even Our Lady—does not mean that we must destroy our own will. There are some, who wrongly think that Christians should strive for a kind of unity between their wills and the God’s Will, in which the human will is crushed and replaced fully with the Divine Will. From St. Thomas’ point of view, that kind of unity―the destruction of the human will―would defeat the plan of creation. Why would God create and give to His creatures an intellectual mind and a free-will, only to have their freedom destroyed so that they become equal to a mindless herd of animals? As St. Thomas states that this, freedom-killing unity of wills, is not at all part of God’s plan. St. Thomas understand God to intend a unity of wills, but the unity that is required―between the will of the Christian and the will of God―is a unity of friendship. In the unity of wills between friends, the individuality and freedom of each person is preserved and respected.
In the same way, God and Our Lady respect our use (or misuse) of our mind and free-will. It will either land us in Heaven or in Hell. Heaven will advise us, warn us, threaten us—but at the end of the day, we act according to our own reason and will. We can either unite our will to the will of Heaven, or we can do our own will in opposition to Heaven and end up in Hell. The choice is ours—God has given us a free-will that He will respect, even if we choose to go to Hell. Likewise with Our Lady, she could forcibly change each and any one of us, or even all of us—God has given he such a great power that this would be a “piece of cake” to her. Yet she will not violate our free will. She advises, warns, predicts, threatens—but, at the end of the day, she does not twist anyone’s arm to obey her. Love and obedience of her is a free-will act that we either do or don’t do. Our choice. Our decision. Our Fate.
The Effects of Love and a Lack of Love
Fr. Faber personally translated St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary, from its original French into English in the the mid-1800’s. Fr. Faber penned a Preface to his translation which should be frequently read by all Catholics—whether or not they have a love and a devotion to Our Lady. The following three successive paragraphs sum up a love or lack of love perfectly:
“All those who are likely to read this book [True Devotion to Mary], love God, and lament that they do not love Him more; all desire something for His glory—the spread of some good work, the success of some devotion, the coming of some good time. One man has been striving for years to overcome a particular fault, and has not succeeded. Another mourns, and almost wonders while he mourns, that so few of his relations and friends have been converted to the Faith. One grieves that he has not devotion enough; another that he has a cross to carry which is a peculiarly impossible cross to him; while a third has domestic troubles and family unhappinesses which feel almost incompatible with his salvation; and for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy.
“But what is the remedy that is wanted? What is the remedy indicated by God Himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady; but, remember, nothing short of an immense one. Here in England [and pretty much everywhere else], Mary is not half enough preached. Devotion to her is low and thin and poor. It is frightened out of its wits by the sneers of heresy. It is always invoking human respect and carnal prudence, wishing to make Mary so little of a Mary that Protestants may feel at ease about her. Its ignorance of theology makes it unsubstantial and unworthy. It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be. It has no faith in itself. Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls which might be saints wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized.
“Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background. Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them. It is the miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines. Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother. I cannot think of a higher work or a broader vocation for anyone than the simple spreading of this peculiar devotion of the Venerable [St. Louis-Marie] Grignion De Montfort. Let a man but try it for himself, and his surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations it causes in his soul, will soon convince him of its otherwise almost incredible efficacy as a means for the salvation of men, and for the coming of the kingdom of Christ. Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our faith, and how different would our Communions be! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our sole Lord and Savior, her dearest and most blessed Son!” (Preface of Fr. Faber, in his translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary).
Let Our Lady’s Nativity Be a Real Birthday!
Let this feast of the Nativity of Our Lady—Mary’s birthday—be the day when she is truly born into your soul. Let her birthday be the day when you make a real and committed change for the better in the way that you look upon her, love her and serve her. Let her birthday be the first day of the rest of your Marian life. Let it be a spiritual rebirth, whereby, like St. Paul, the scales of blindness fall from your eyes and you see Our Lady, like St. Paul saw Our Lord, in a new light, a different light, a better light.
Do not let Our Lady take second, or third, or goodness knows what place, behind other earthly things that you love much more. Look at what it is that you love to do the most, or what occupies most of your waking hours, or what you think and speak about the most. That is the kind of level of commitment that we should be giving to Our Lady—after all, did she not say at Akita: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! [ Neither is Our Lady! ] For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8). “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who soweth in blessings, shall also reap blessings” (2 Corinthians 9:6). You will proportionately get what you have put into it!
The “Nitty-Gritty” of Loving Our Lady
Loving Our Lady is the best present you can give her, but it is no ‘Hollywood Love’ that is needed. Crunch and munch over these words of Our Lord about love: “This is My commandment, that you love one another [and don’t forget to include Our Lady], as I have loved you. Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you” (John 15:12-14)—and doing the things that Our Lord or Our Lady command is pretty much like laying down your life! Loving Our Lady can be pretty tough—but the wages are out of this world!
Don’t Just Say You Love, Prove Your Love!
“If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you” (John 14:15-23; 15:14). If this is true of loving Our Lord, then it is also true in manifesting a love of Our Lady. What, then, has Our Lady said, counseled and commanded? Let us look at some key statements made at her apparitions in more recent times—as Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Akita.
What She Wants!
As Our Lady of Good Success, she asked for a greater appreciation and zeal for spiritual things: “Oh, if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! But some let themselves be dazzled by the false glamour of honors and human greatness, while others are blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness, that immense evil” (Our Lady of Good Success).
She asked for more religious vocations because they protect the world: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. Oh, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!” (Our Lady of Good Success).
She wants a great reduction in the offences being shown to God: “The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended” (Fatima). “As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them” (Akita).
“There are not any souls who, by their lives of immolation and sacrifice, appease the Divine Justice … I am the Mother of Mercy and in me there is only goodness and love … They should come to me, for I will lead them to Him” (Our Lady of Good Success).
This same sentiment was expressed by Our Lady to St. Bridget: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on earth a sinner who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion; for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be; no one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed” (by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned), “is so entirely cast off by God that he may not return and enjoy His mercy―if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this, being able, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners” (Recorded by St. Alphonsus Liguori in The Glories of Mary).
Love Our Lady? Then Love the Sacraments!
Speaking of birthdays and gifts, Our Lord has left us many valuable gifts in the form of the Sacraments of the Church. What a joy it is to Our Lady to see them used well, and what a sorrow it is to her to see them unused, misused or abused. For, as Our Lord said in one of His parables: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40). The same could be said by Our Lady with regard to the Sacraments of Holy Mother Church.
Treat the Holy Eucharist with Dignity
Referring to the “the Most August Sacrament of the Eucharist”, Our Lady of Good Success requires that we “comprehend the sublimity of this mystery and the reverence with which it should be treated and received by the faithful. It will be their antidote against sin, and an easy and powerful means for souls to unite themselves to their God and Redeemer.” Today, most Catholics no longer believe in “the Most August Sacrament of the Eucharist”―while sacrileges abound everywhere throughout the world. May your Holy Communions be pleasing gifts to Our Lady!
Treat the Confession with Dignity
Regarding the Sacrament of Confession, Our Lady of Good Success states: “See and contemplate the grandeur of this restoring and life-giving Sacrament of Penance, so forgotten and even scorned by ungrateful men. In their foolish madness, they do not realize that it is the only sure means of salvation after one has lost his baptismal innocence … Many view with cold indifference this valuable and precious treasure, which has been placed in their hands for the restoration of souls redeemed by the Blood of the Redeemer. There are those who consider hearing confession [or going to confession] as a loss of time and a futile thing.” Let your confessions be pleasing gifts to Our Lady!
Treat Matrimony with Dignity
Our Lady of Good Success adds: “As for the Sacrament of Matrimony, which symbolizes the union of Christ with His Church, it will be attacked and profaned in the fullest sense of the word. Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of doing away with this Sacrament. This will make it easy for everyone to live in sin and will encourage the procreation of illegitimate children born without being incorporated into the Church. The Christian spirit will rapidly decay and the precious light of Faith will gradually be extinguished until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals.” We see this today, with overwhelming levels of infidelity being manifested secretly by adulterous thoughts, and even manifested by adulterous conversations and actions! As Blessed Jacinta Marto of Fatima would say many years later: “Most marriages are not of God!” Make of your marriage a pleasing gift to Our Lady!
Treat the Clergy with Dignity
Our Lady of Good Success further says: “The Sacred Sacrament of Holy Orders will be ridiculed, oppressed and despised. ... The demon will try to persecute the ministers of the Lord in every possible way. He will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to deviate them from the spirit of their vocation and will corrupt many of them. These depraved priests, who will scandalize the Christian people, will incite the hatred of the bad Christians and the enemies of the Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church to fall upon all priests.” At Fatima, Our Lady urged us to pray for priests—as Blessed Jacinta revealed: “Pray much for priests, for Religious!” At Akita, Our Lady again demanded the same: “With the Rosary, pray for the pope, the bishops, and the priests. The work of the devil will infiltrate even the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against other bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their conferees.”
How do you treat the clergy? We expect encouragement, prayers, protection and help from them! But do you encourage them? Do you pray for them? Do you offer sacrifices for them? Or do you criticize them? Gossip about them? Ignore them? Rarely pray for them? As they say, “Do not bite the hand that feeds you!”
SPECIFIC GIFTS FOR OUR LADY
She Wants Purity!
Our Lady of Good Success, speaking of our times, says: “The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … Without virginity, it would be necessary for fire from Heaven to rain down to purify them.” Mother Mariana not only had Our Lady speak to her of this, but as she had a vision of Our Lord beginning His Agony, she heard the voice of the Eternal Father saying: “This punishment will be for the 20th century!” She saw three swords hanging over the head of Christ. On each was written, “I shall punish heresy, I shall punish heresy blasphemy and I shall punish heresy impurity.” With this, she was given to understand all that would take place in the present era.
Her message at Fatima was no different—she said that most souls, already way back in 1917, were going to Hell for sins of impurity: thoughts, words and actions.
She Wants Sacrifices!
Our Lady of Good Success, speaking of our times, says: “Prepare your soul so that, increasingly purified, it might enter into the fullness of the joy of Our Lord. Oh, if mortals, and in particular religious souls, could know what Heaven is and what it is to possess God! How differently they would live! Nor would they spare themselves any sacrifice in order to possess Him!”
The children at Fatima are asked by Our Lady to sacrifice themselves for sinners: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort! … “Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary!’”
Sr. Lucia of Fatima reports a complaint by Our Lord: “On June 12th, 1941, He complained especially about the coldness and laxity of the clergy in Spain, both secular and regular, and the indifference of the sinful life of the Christian people. And He continued thus: ‘… I ardently desire … the reform of the Christian people and to remedy the laxity of the clergy and a great part of religious. The number of those who serve Me in the practice of sacrifice is very limited. I have need of souls and of priests who serve Me by sacrificing themselves for Me and for souls.’” This is nothing less or nothing more than a reiteration of Our Lady’s demand for sacrifices 24 years earlier—and demand that was, for the most part, ignored.
She Wants to See Penance!
At La Salette, Our Lady complains that “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin.”
At Lourdes, Our Lady emphatically commended: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” Bernadette was also told to eat some leaves from a green herb. Our Lady also commanded her: “Kiss the ground as a penance for sinners!”
At Fatima, in preparation for the apparitions of Our Lady, an Angel appeared to the three children. At the second apparition, during the summer of 1916, when the seers were playing near the well of Lucia’s house. The Angel scolded them: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! The Hearts of Jesus and Mary have merciful designs on you. Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High!” The children asked: “How must we sacrifice ourselves?” The angel said: “Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. By this you will bring peace to your country. I am its Guardian Angel, the Angel of Portugal. Above all accept and bear with submission all the suffering the Lord will send you.” From that moment, they began to offer to the Lord everything in reparation for things that offended Him, without trying to find any other ways of mortification or penance.
Our Lady, later, reinforces that demand: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them” (August 19th, 1917).
At Akita, the same demands continue: “Pray in reparation for the sins of men … Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair by their suffering and their poverty for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger.” (Akita).
Before her death, Blessed Jacinta Marto of Fatima exclaimed: “Oh! Men must do penance! If they amend their lives Our Lord will still pardon the world; but if they do not, the chastisement will come!”
In a letter dated February 28th, 1943, Sister Lucia addressed wrote: “The Good Lord will allow Himself to be appeased, but He complains bitterly and sadly about the very limited number of souls in the state of grace, disposed to deny themselves according to what the observance of His law requires of them. Here is the true penance which the Good Lord requests today: the sacrifice which everybody must impose on himself to lead a life of justice in the observance of His law. And He desires that this law be clearly made known to souls, for many give to the word ‘penance’ the sense of great austerities, and as they feel neither the strength nor the generosity for that, they get discouraged and let themselves go into a life of lukewarmness and sin.”
Sr. Lucia later adds: “And I still say, prayer and penance, as done in Portugal, has not yet placated Divine Justice, for they have been accompanied neither by contrition nor amendment.” There is no point praying and doing penance if you have intention to quit sinning!
Later, in 1957, Sr. Lucia said in an interview with Fr. Fuentes: “Father, we should not wait for an appeal to the world to come from Rome on the part of the Holy Father, to do penance! Nor should we wait for the call from our bishops in our dioceses, nor from the religious congregations! No! Our Lord has already, very often, used these means and the world has not paid attention. That is why now it is necessary for each one of us to begin to reform ourselves spiritually!”
She Wants Many Prayers!
Our Lady of Good Success revealed the importance and power of prayer when she said: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils. No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents.” That same spirit of prayer should be found in your home also!
What Our Lady said to Mother Mariana--“you should offer your sacrifices and prayers to shorten the duration of this terrible catastrophe!”—can well be applied to us today. In fact that is what Pope John Paul II said, at Fulda in 1980, when speaking of the terrible threats in the Third Secret of Fatima. The Pope grasped a Rosary and said: “Here is the remedy against this evil. Pray, pray, and ask for nothing more. Leave everything else to the Mother of God.” The Holy Father was then asked: “What is going to happen to the Church?” He answered: “We must prepare ourselves to suffer great trials before long, such as will demand of us a disposition to give up even life, and a total dedication to Christ and for Christ … With your and my prayer it is possible to mitigate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because only thus can the Church be effectively renewed. How many times has the renewal of the Church sprung from blood! This time, too, it will not be otherwise. We must be strong and prepared, and trust in Christ and His Mother, and be very, very assiduous in praying the Rosary.”
At La Salette, Our Lady complains that “I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually ... The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer…” Our Lady, on the other hand begs for and commands much prayer, lots of prayer, fervent prayer. At La Salette she asks: “Do you say your prayers properly, my children?” When they shamefully replied: “Oh! No, Madame! Not so much!” Our Lady chided: “Oh, my children, you must!”
At Fatima, the three children (who also prayed badly) were given a lesson on prayer by the Angel. It was the first apparition of the Angel, in the Spring of 1916. They were busy playing, when a strong wind blew that swayed the trees and a sudden white light enveloped them. In the middle of that light appeared a cloud in the form of a young man who said to them: “Fear not! I am the Angel of Peace. Pray with me!” The angel knelt on the ground and bowed very low. The children imitated the angel and repeated his words three times: “My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love Thee. I beg pardon of Thee for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love Thee.” Then he rose and said: “Pray this way. The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are attentive to the voice of your supplications.” From that time, besides their later penitential acts, they would spend hour after hour, bowed to the ground, repeating the prayer that the angel had taught them.
Once Our Lady began appearing, she added to the demands: “Pray the Rosary every day!” (June 13th) … “Continue to pray the Rosary every day!” (July 13th) … “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (August 19th) … “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (September 13th) … “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (October 13th)—thus we a continual and relentless insistence upon prayer, which is nothing other than what Holy Scripture commands: “And Jesus spoke also a parable to them, that we ought always to pray, and not to faint!” (Luke 18:1) … “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
At Akita, Our Lady demands more of the same: “Pray very much for the Pope, Bishops, and Priests … Continue to pray very much―very much ... Pray with fervor …” (Akita).
She Wants to See Virtue!
Most people want to be rich in money, but Our Lady’s followers should seek to be rich in virtues. Our Lord points out, to Mother Mariana Jesus de Torres, that “communities can only be preserved — while they exist — at the cost of much penance, humiliations and daily and solid practice of religious virtues by those religious who are good. Woe to these corrupt members during those times of calamity!” There will only be a few who cling to the Faith and virtue “in those times of calamity” as shown by the words of Our Lady of Good Success: “Communities can only be preserved — while they exist — at the cost of much penance, humiliations and daily and solid practice of religious virtues … The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom.” Our Lord added: “The times will come when doctrine will be commonly known among the learned and the ignorant ... Many religious books will be written. But the practice of the virtues and of these doctrines will be found in only a few souls; for this reason, saints will become rare.”
Our Lady of La Salette speaks of God’s intervention in those times of calamity and virtue-less days: “But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me … And then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the Holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in Its poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ.”
She Wants Us To Fight!
Our Lady of La Salette says: “But the children of the Holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side, until they reach a fullness of years … Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession …
“I make an urgent appeal to the Earth. I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven; I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men; I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those who have lived on my spirit. Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world. It is time they came out and filled the world with light. Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children. I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light! You, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!” (Our Lady of La Salette).
There are many more gifts that we can give her, but, as was said earlier, whatever we give must be given with love, with a love that comes from a true devotion to her—and not a routine, mechanical, half-hearted, listless, lukewarm offering. Let this feast of the Nativity of Our Lady, be a birthday for us—whereby a new, stronger, better, more fervent, more consistent devotion is born in our souls.
Have you ever received a gift that you did not like or did not want? Of course you have! The tastes, likes, opinions and evaluations of the “giver” do not always match the tastes, likes, opinion and evaluations of the “receiver”! If not two people are alike―then you can bet that in evaluating and giving gifts no two opinions or preferences will be alike! More often than not―and there are exceptions to the rule of course―we are minimalists in what we give. We tend to give the bare minimum that we can get away with, while trying to please the person to whom we are giving the gift. We seek to get the “biggest bang for our buck” and superficiality is often the name of the game! We want our gift-giving to look good while spending the bare minimum. The more we love a person, the more we are likely to spend on that person. Normally speaking, our own mother should be pretty high on the list of those whom we love. If ever we are tempted to spend more in buying someone a present, then it should usually be the case with our mothers.
On the topic of mothers, we could say that all have two mothers―our physical biological earthly mothers and our spiritual heavenly Mother―the Blessed Virgin Mary―whom Our crucified Lord entrusted, not only to St. John, but to all of us: “When Jesus had seen His mother and the disciple whom He loved, standing, He said to His Mother: ‘Woman, behold thy son!’ After that, Jesus said to the disciple: ‘Behold thy Mother!’ And, from that hour, the disciple took her to his own” (John 19:26-27). Mary has certainly “beheld” us ― but have we “beheld” Mary? We mean a lot to Mary ― but does Mary mean a lot to us? Mary has been faithful to us as our spiritual Mother ― but have we been faithful to Mary as her spiritual children? Do we show Mary the love that she shows us? Are we merely giving Mary “lip-service” or are we giving her “heart-service”? Could Mary say to us the words that Our Lord addressed to the Scribes, Pharisees and Jews: “Hypocrites! Well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!’” (Matthew 15:7-8).
What Does a Mother Want?
When mom’s birthday comes around, it can be a real headache to know what to get for her birthday. Usually, mothers are past the ritzy-glitzy gift and entertainment phase. What does an expensive gift say anyway—“I’m expensive! You’d better say ‘Ooo! Aaaah!’” We all know the sayings: “It's not the gift, but the thought that counts!” and “Look beyond the gift to the giver!” An expensive gift from someone who doesn’t real care about you, is almost meaningless—except for the fact that you sell the gift afterwards!
Which leads one to think of the other famous saying regarding gifts: “Beware of the Greeks when they bring gifts!”―its literal meaning is “I fear the Greeks, even those bearing gifts” or “even when they bear gifts” and originates from the Trojan Wars with the Greeks. The retreating Greeks, built and left behind a massive Horse. The Trojan Horse actually contains a hand-picked team of crack Greek warriors hidden in its wooden belly. The Trojan priest Laocoön suspects that some menace is hidden in the horse, and he warns the Trojans not to accept the gift. We all know the ending to that story!
What would you look at more―the gift or the giver? What would you rate higher―the gift or the love that is behind it? It is a little like that with God—He gives us many gifts, but He does not want to us rate the gift higher than the Giver. We are supposed to love the Creator more than His creatures or creations. If you love a painting more than artist himself, then you definitely do have the best of the deal―for the artist can paint you many pictures.
Loveless Gifts
If someone offers you a gift without love—you know that the person hates you, but is just giving you a birthday gift because of human convention or custom―then that gift is almost painful, rather than pleasurable. We could apply Our Lord’s words to such a situation: “Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!’” (Mark 7:6). We, too often, offer God things superficially without our hearts really being in and behind what we give—our prayers are said routinely and listlessly, we assist at Holy Mass inattentively and mechanically, we go to Confession robotically and automatically, etc. “This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me!” It is much the same with our devotion to our Blessed Mother—it is, more often than not, lacking heart, lacking love, lacking intensity, lacking fervor, lacking consistency. Such a devotion, or love, is merely lukewarm—we don’t hate her, but there is little in our lives to prove that we really love her. If that is pretty true in our case, then we should tremble at the words of the Apocalypse, which can be equally applied to coming from Our Lady as well as God:
Hey! Will You Listen!!?
“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot! But, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth! Because thou sayest: ‘I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing!’ and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked! I counsel thee to buy of Me gold, fire-tried, that thou mayest be made rich; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore, and do penance! Behold, I stand at the gate, and knock. If any man shall hear My voice, and open to me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.” (Apocalypse 3:15-20).
► “If any man shall hear My voice…”―Do we really hear the voice of Heaven and the voice of Our Lady? Sr. Lucia of Fatima tells us that we do not! To Fr. Fuentes, she says: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one heeds her message [no one listens to her voice]; neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on with their life of virtue and apostolate, but they do not unite their lives to the message of Fatima. Sinners keep following the road of evil because they do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them.”
► “… and open to me the door…”—is the door of our heart really open to Our Lady? Or if we let her in, is it only for a while and then do we show her the door? In the Epistle from Mass of the Immaculate Conception, we read these words, which Holy Mother Church has placed in the mouth of Our Lady: “Now therefore, ye children, hear me! Blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not! Blessed is the man that heareth me, and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors. He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord! But he that shall sin against me, shall hurt his own soul! All that hate me, love death!” (Proverbs 8:32-36).
Give Whatever You Give With Love
As was already said, a loveless gift from an enemy, or from someone who is indifferent towards you, brings more pain than pleasure. Love has to be the essential ingredient in all that we think, say or do. It is said that, at our final judgment, God will be looking for and judging us on the love that was, or was not, present in all our thoughts, words and actions. We might pride ourselves on having done many things—but if they lacked love, then they were worthless. All those things that we prided ourselves upon, will be judged as mere counterfeit money and will fail to buy our entrance into Heaven.
This is why St Paul emphatically states: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
St. Paul then goes on to paint a practical picture of charity: “Charity is patient, is kind; charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely; is not puffed up; is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
Charity must be behind all things, all thoughts, all words, all actions and all gifts. Our Lady will look beyond and through our gift to examine, rate and judge the charity or love that lays behind it.
Imitate This Kind of Love...
This is why the author of the Imitation of Christ waxes lyrical about “The Wonderful Effect of Divine Love” (Book 3, chapter 5), saying:
“Love is an excellent thing, a very great blessing, indeed. It makes every difficulty easy, and bears all wrongs with equanimity. For it bears a burden without being weighted and renders sweet all that is bitter. The noble love of Jesus spurs to great deeds and excites longing for that which is more perfect. Love tends upward; it will not be held down by anything low. Love wishes to be free and estranged from all worldly affections, lest its inward sight be obstructed, lest it be entangled in any temporal interest and overcome by adversity. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger or higher or wider; nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in Heaven or on earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is above all created things.
“One who is in love flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free, not bound. He gives all for all and possesses all in all, because he rests in the one sovereign Good, Who is above all things, and from Whom every good flows and proceeds. He does not look to the gift but turns himself above all gifts to the Giver. Love often knows no limits but overflows all bounds. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, and does not plead impossibility, because it believes that it may and can do all things. For this reason, it is able to do all, performing and effecting much where he who does not love fails and falls. Love is watchful. Sleeping, it does not slumber. Wearied, it is not tired. Pressed, it is not straitened. Alarmed, it is not confused, but like a living flame, a burning torch, it forces its way upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle. If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice.
“Love is swift, sincere, kind, pleasant, and delightful. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, long-suffering, and manly. Love is never self-seeking, for in whatever a person seeks himself there he falls from love. Love is circumspect, humble, and upright. It is neither soft nor light, nor intent upon vain things. It is sober and chaste, firm and quiet, guarded in all the senses. Love is subject and obedient to superiors. It is mean and contemptible in its own eyes, devoted and thankful to God; always trusting and hoping in Him even when He is distasteful to it, for there is no living in love without sorrow. He who is not ready to suffer all things and to stand resigned to the will of the Beloved is not worthy to be called a lover. A lover must embrace willingly all that is difficult and bitter for the sake of the Beloved, and he should not turn away from Him because of adversities.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 3, chapter 5).
If Our Lady were to see such a love in us, then that would be the sole present that she would desire on her birthday!
Love and Obedience
There is an close link between love and obedience. We all know from experience that a child―who regularly disobeys its parents and argues with them―is a poor example of love towards its parents. Our Lord puts it in a nutshell at the Last Supper, when He says: “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15) … “He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me” (John 14:21) … “He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words” (John 14:24). “If any one love Me, he will keep My word” (John 14:23) … “You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you” (John 15:14). … “If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love; as I also have kept My Father’s commandments, and do abide in His love” (John 15:10).
St. Thomas Aquinas says that charity produces concord and the effect of concord is a union of wills. To love and obey God—or even Our Lady—does not mean that we must destroy our own will. There are some, who wrongly think that Christians should strive for a kind of unity between their wills and the God’s Will, in which the human will is crushed and replaced fully with the Divine Will. From St. Thomas’ point of view, that kind of unity―the destruction of the human will―would defeat the plan of creation. Why would God create and give to His creatures an intellectual mind and a free-will, only to have their freedom destroyed so that they become equal to a mindless herd of animals? As St. Thomas states that this, freedom-killing unity of wills, is not at all part of God’s plan. St. Thomas understand God to intend a unity of wills, but the unity that is required―between the will of the Christian and the will of God―is a unity of friendship. In the unity of wills between friends, the individuality and freedom of each person is preserved and respected.
In the same way, God and Our Lady respect our use (or misuse) of our mind and free-will. It will either land us in Heaven or in Hell. Heaven will advise us, warn us, threaten us—but at the end of the day, we act according to our own reason and will. We can either unite our will to the will of Heaven, or we can do our own will in opposition to Heaven and end up in Hell. The choice is ours—God has given us a free-will that He will respect, even if we choose to go to Hell. Likewise with Our Lady, she could forcibly change each and any one of us, or even all of us—God has given he such a great power that this would be a “piece of cake” to her. Yet she will not violate our free will. She advises, warns, predicts, threatens—but, at the end of the day, she does not twist anyone’s arm to obey her. Love and obedience of her is a free-will act that we either do or don’t do. Our choice. Our decision. Our Fate.
The Effects of Love and a Lack of Love
Fr. Faber personally translated St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary, from its original French into English in the the mid-1800’s. Fr. Faber penned a Preface to his translation which should be frequently read by all Catholics—whether or not they have a love and a devotion to Our Lady. The following three successive paragraphs sum up a love or lack of love perfectly:
“All those who are likely to read this book [True Devotion to Mary], love God, and lament that they do not love Him more; all desire something for His glory—the spread of some good work, the success of some devotion, the coming of some good time. One man has been striving for years to overcome a particular fault, and has not succeeded. Another mourns, and almost wonders while he mourns, that so few of his relations and friends have been converted to the Faith. One grieves that he has not devotion enough; another that he has a cross to carry which is a peculiarly impossible cross to him; while a third has domestic troubles and family unhappinesses which feel almost incompatible with his salvation; and for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy.
“But what is the remedy that is wanted? What is the remedy indicated by God Himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady; but, remember, nothing short of an immense one. Here in England [and pretty much everywhere else], Mary is not half enough preached. Devotion to her is low and thin and poor. It is frightened out of its wits by the sneers of heresy. It is always invoking human respect and carnal prudence, wishing to make Mary so little of a Mary that Protestants may feel at ease about her. Its ignorance of theology makes it unsubstantial and unworthy. It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be. It has no faith in itself. Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls which might be saints wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized.
“Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background. Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them. It is the miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines. Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother. I cannot think of a higher work or a broader vocation for anyone than the simple spreading of this peculiar devotion of the Venerable [St. Louis-Marie] Grignion De Montfort. Let a man but try it for himself, and his surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations it causes in his soul, will soon convince him of its otherwise almost incredible efficacy as a means for the salvation of men, and for the coming of the kingdom of Christ. Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our faith, and how different would our Communions be! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our sole Lord and Savior, her dearest and most blessed Son!” (Preface of Fr. Faber, in his translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary).
Let Our Lady’s Nativity Be a Real Birthday!
Let this feast of the Nativity of Our Lady—Mary’s birthday—be the day when she is truly born into your soul. Let her birthday be the day when you make a real and committed change for the better in the way that you look upon her, love her and serve her. Let her birthday be the first day of the rest of your Marian life. Let it be a spiritual rebirth, whereby, like St. Paul, the scales of blindness fall from your eyes and you see Our Lady, like St. Paul saw Our Lord, in a new light, a different light, a better light.
Do not let Our Lady take second, or third, or goodness knows what place, behind other earthly things that you love much more. Look at what it is that you love to do the most, or what occupies most of your waking hours, or what you think and speak about the most. That is the kind of level of commitment that we should be giving to Our Lady—after all, did she not say at Akita: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! [ Neither is Our Lady! ] For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8). “He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who soweth in blessings, shall also reap blessings” (2 Corinthians 9:6). You will proportionately get what you have put into it!
The “Nitty-Gritty” of Loving Our Lady
Loving Our Lady is the best present you can give her, but it is no ‘Hollywood Love’ that is needed. Crunch and munch over these words of Our Lord about love: “This is My commandment, that you love one another [and don’t forget to include Our Lady], as I have loved you. Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you” (John 15:12-14)—and doing the things that Our Lord or Our Lady command is pretty much like laying down your life! Loving Our Lady can be pretty tough—but the wages are out of this world!
Don’t Just Say You Love, Prove Your Love!
“If you love Me, keep My commandments … He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words … If anyone love Me, he will keep My word … You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you” (John 14:15-23; 15:14). If this is true of loving Our Lord, then it is also true in manifesting a love of Our Lady. What, then, has Our Lady said, counseled and commanded? Let us look at some key statements made at her apparitions in more recent times—as Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Akita.
What She Wants!
As Our Lady of Good Success, she asked for a greater appreciation and zeal for spiritual things: “Oh, if only human beings and religious knew what Heaven is and what it is to possess God, how differently they would live, sparing no sacrifice in order to enter more fully into possession of it! But some let themselves be dazzled by the false glamour of honors and human greatness, while others are blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness, that immense evil” (Our Lady of Good Success).
She asked for more religious vocations because they protect the world: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. Oh, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!” (Our Lady of Good Success).
She wants a great reduction in the offences being shown to God: “The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended” (Fatima). “As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them” (Akita).
“There are not any souls who, by their lives of immolation and sacrifice, appease the Divine Justice … I am the Mother of Mercy and in me there is only goodness and love … They should come to me, for I will lead them to Him” (Our Lady of Good Success).
This same sentiment was expressed by Our Lady to St. Bridget: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on earth a sinner who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion; for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be; no one, therefore, who is not entirely accursed” (by which is meant the final and irrevocable malediction pronounced against the damned), “is so entirely cast off by God that he may not return and enjoy His mercy―if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this, being able, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners” (Recorded by St. Alphonsus Liguori in The Glories of Mary).
Love Our Lady? Then Love the Sacraments!
Speaking of birthdays and gifts, Our Lord has left us many valuable gifts in the form of the Sacraments of the Church. What a joy it is to Our Lady to see them used well, and what a sorrow it is to her to see them unused, misused or abused. For, as Our Lord said in one of His parables: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me!” (Matthew 25:40). The same could be said by Our Lady with regard to the Sacraments of Holy Mother Church.
Treat the Holy Eucharist with Dignity
Referring to the “the Most August Sacrament of the Eucharist”, Our Lady of Good Success requires that we “comprehend the sublimity of this mystery and the reverence with which it should be treated and received by the faithful. It will be their antidote against sin, and an easy and powerful means for souls to unite themselves to their God and Redeemer.” Today, most Catholics no longer believe in “the Most August Sacrament of the Eucharist”―while sacrileges abound everywhere throughout the world. May your Holy Communions be pleasing gifts to Our Lady!
Treat the Confession with Dignity
Regarding the Sacrament of Confession, Our Lady of Good Success states: “See and contemplate the grandeur of this restoring and life-giving Sacrament of Penance, so forgotten and even scorned by ungrateful men. In their foolish madness, they do not realize that it is the only sure means of salvation after one has lost his baptismal innocence … Many view with cold indifference this valuable and precious treasure, which has been placed in their hands for the restoration of souls redeemed by the Blood of the Redeemer. There are those who consider hearing confession [or going to confession] as a loss of time and a futile thing.” Let your confessions be pleasing gifts to Our Lady!
Treat Matrimony with Dignity
Our Lady of Good Success adds: “As for the Sacrament of Matrimony, which symbolizes the union of Christ with His Church, it will be attacked and profaned in the fullest sense of the word. Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of doing away with this Sacrament. This will make it easy for everyone to live in sin and will encourage the procreation of illegitimate children born without being incorporated into the Church. The Christian spirit will rapidly decay and the precious light of Faith will gradually be extinguished until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of morals.” We see this today, with overwhelming levels of infidelity being manifested secretly by adulterous thoughts, and even manifested by adulterous conversations and actions! As Blessed Jacinta Marto of Fatima would say many years later: “Most marriages are not of God!” Make of your marriage a pleasing gift to Our Lady!
Treat the Clergy with Dignity
Our Lady of Good Success further says: “The Sacred Sacrament of Holy Orders will be ridiculed, oppressed and despised. ... The demon will try to persecute the ministers of the Lord in every possible way. He will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to deviate them from the spirit of their vocation and will corrupt many of them. These depraved priests, who will scandalize the Christian people, will incite the hatred of the bad Christians and the enemies of the Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church to fall upon all priests.” At Fatima, Our Lady urged us to pray for priests—as Blessed Jacinta revealed: “Pray much for priests, for Religious!” At Akita, Our Lady again demanded the same: “With the Rosary, pray for the pope, the bishops, and the priests. The work of the devil will infiltrate even the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against other bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their conferees.”
How do you treat the clergy? We expect encouragement, prayers, protection and help from them! But do you encourage them? Do you pray for them? Do you offer sacrifices for them? Or do you criticize them? Gossip about them? Ignore them? Rarely pray for them? As they say, “Do not bite the hand that feeds you!”
SPECIFIC GIFTS FOR OUR LADY
She Wants Purity!
Our Lady of Good Success, speaking of our times, says: “The spirit of impurity that will permeate the atmosphere during these times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world … Without virginity, it would be necessary for fire from Heaven to rain down to purify them.” Mother Mariana not only had Our Lady speak to her of this, but as she had a vision of Our Lord beginning His Agony, she heard the voice of the Eternal Father saying: “This punishment will be for the 20th century!” She saw three swords hanging over the head of Christ. On each was written, “I shall punish heresy, I shall punish heresy blasphemy and I shall punish heresy impurity.” With this, she was given to understand all that would take place in the present era.
Her message at Fatima was no different—she said that most souls, already way back in 1917, were going to Hell for sins of impurity: thoughts, words and actions.
She Wants Sacrifices!
Our Lady of Good Success, speaking of our times, says: “Prepare your soul so that, increasingly purified, it might enter into the fullness of the joy of Our Lord. Oh, if mortals, and in particular religious souls, could know what Heaven is and what it is to possess God! How differently they would live! Nor would they spare themselves any sacrifice in order to possess Him!”
The children at Fatima are asked by Our Lady to sacrifice themselves for sinners: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort! … “Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary!’”
Sr. Lucia of Fatima reports a complaint by Our Lord: “On June 12th, 1941, He complained especially about the coldness and laxity of the clergy in Spain, both secular and regular, and the indifference of the sinful life of the Christian people. And He continued thus: ‘… I ardently desire … the reform of the Christian people and to remedy the laxity of the clergy and a great part of religious. The number of those who serve Me in the practice of sacrifice is very limited. I have need of souls and of priests who serve Me by sacrificing themselves for Me and for souls.’” This is nothing less or nothing more than a reiteration of Our Lady’s demand for sacrifices 24 years earlier—and demand that was, for the most part, ignored.
She Wants to See Penance!
At La Salette, Our Lady complains that “The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin.”
At Lourdes, Our Lady emphatically commended: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” Bernadette was also told to eat some leaves from a green herb. Our Lady also commanded her: “Kiss the ground as a penance for sinners!”
At Fatima, in preparation for the apparitions of Our Lady, an Angel appeared to the three children. At the second apparition, during the summer of 1916, when the seers were playing near the well of Lucia’s house. The Angel scolded them: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! The Hearts of Jesus and Mary have merciful designs on you. Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High!” The children asked: “How must we sacrifice ourselves?” The angel said: “Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. By this you will bring peace to your country. I am its Guardian Angel, the Angel of Portugal. Above all accept and bear with submission all the suffering the Lord will send you.” From that moment, they began to offer to the Lord everything in reparation for things that offended Him, without trying to find any other ways of mortification or penance.
Our Lady, later, reinforces that demand: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them” (August 19th, 1917).
At Akita, the same demands continue: “Pray in reparation for the sins of men … Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair by their suffering and their poverty for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger.” (Akita).
Before her death, Blessed Jacinta Marto of Fatima exclaimed: “Oh! Men must do penance! If they amend their lives Our Lord will still pardon the world; but if they do not, the chastisement will come!”
In a letter dated February 28th, 1943, Sister Lucia addressed wrote: “The Good Lord will allow Himself to be appeased, but He complains bitterly and sadly about the very limited number of souls in the state of grace, disposed to deny themselves according to what the observance of His law requires of them. Here is the true penance which the Good Lord requests today: the sacrifice which everybody must impose on himself to lead a life of justice in the observance of His law. And He desires that this law be clearly made known to souls, for many give to the word ‘penance’ the sense of great austerities, and as they feel neither the strength nor the generosity for that, they get discouraged and let themselves go into a life of lukewarmness and sin.”
Sr. Lucia later adds: “And I still say, prayer and penance, as done in Portugal, has not yet placated Divine Justice, for they have been accompanied neither by contrition nor amendment.” There is no point praying and doing penance if you have intention to quit sinning!
Later, in 1957, Sr. Lucia said in an interview with Fr. Fuentes: “Father, we should not wait for an appeal to the world to come from Rome on the part of the Holy Father, to do penance! Nor should we wait for the call from our bishops in our dioceses, nor from the religious congregations! No! Our Lord has already, very often, used these means and the world has not paid attention. That is why now it is necessary for each one of us to begin to reform ourselves spiritually!”
She Wants Many Prayers!
Our Lady of Good Success revealed the importance and power of prayer when she said: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils. No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents.” That same spirit of prayer should be found in your home also!
What Our Lady said to Mother Mariana--“you should offer your sacrifices and prayers to shorten the duration of this terrible catastrophe!”—can well be applied to us today. In fact that is what Pope John Paul II said, at Fulda in 1980, when speaking of the terrible threats in the Third Secret of Fatima. The Pope grasped a Rosary and said: “Here is the remedy against this evil. Pray, pray, and ask for nothing more. Leave everything else to the Mother of God.” The Holy Father was then asked: “What is going to happen to the Church?” He answered: “We must prepare ourselves to suffer great trials before long, such as will demand of us a disposition to give up even life, and a total dedication to Christ and for Christ … With your and my prayer it is possible to mitigate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because only thus can the Church be effectively renewed. How many times has the renewal of the Church sprung from blood! This time, too, it will not be otherwise. We must be strong and prepared, and trust in Christ and His Mother, and be very, very assiduous in praying the Rosary.”
At La Salette, Our Lady complains that “I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually ... The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer…” Our Lady, on the other hand begs for and commands much prayer, lots of prayer, fervent prayer. At La Salette she asks: “Do you say your prayers properly, my children?” When they shamefully replied: “Oh! No, Madame! Not so much!” Our Lady chided: “Oh, my children, you must!”
At Fatima, the three children (who also prayed badly) were given a lesson on prayer by the Angel. It was the first apparition of the Angel, in the Spring of 1916. They were busy playing, when a strong wind blew that swayed the trees and a sudden white light enveloped them. In the middle of that light appeared a cloud in the form of a young man who said to them: “Fear not! I am the Angel of Peace. Pray with me!” The angel knelt on the ground and bowed very low. The children imitated the angel and repeated his words three times: “My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love Thee. I beg pardon of Thee for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love Thee.” Then he rose and said: “Pray this way. The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are attentive to the voice of your supplications.” From that time, besides their later penitential acts, they would spend hour after hour, bowed to the ground, repeating the prayer that the angel had taught them.
Once Our Lady began appearing, she added to the demands: “Pray the Rosary every day!” (June 13th) … “Continue to pray the Rosary every day!” (July 13th) … “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (August 19th) … “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (September 13th) … “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (October 13th)—thus we a continual and relentless insistence upon prayer, which is nothing other than what Holy Scripture commands: “And Jesus spoke also a parable to them, that we ought always to pray, and not to faint!” (Luke 18:1) … “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
At Akita, Our Lady demands more of the same: “Pray very much for the Pope, Bishops, and Priests … Continue to pray very much―very much ... Pray with fervor …” (Akita).
She Wants to See Virtue!
Most people want to be rich in money, but Our Lady’s followers should seek to be rich in virtues. Our Lord points out, to Mother Mariana Jesus de Torres, that “communities can only be preserved — while they exist — at the cost of much penance, humiliations and daily and solid practice of religious virtues by those religious who are good. Woe to these corrupt members during those times of calamity!” There will only be a few who cling to the Faith and virtue “in those times of calamity” as shown by the words of Our Lady of Good Success: “Communities can only be preserved — while they exist — at the cost of much penance, humiliations and daily and solid practice of religious virtues … The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom.” Our Lord added: “The times will come when doctrine will be commonly known among the learned and the ignorant ... Many religious books will be written. But the practice of the virtues and of these doctrines will be found in only a few souls; for this reason, saints will become rare.”
Our Lady of La Salette speaks of God’s intervention in those times of calamity and virtue-less days: “But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me … And then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the Holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in Its poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ.”
She Wants Us To Fight!
Our Lady of La Salette says: “But the children of the Holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side, until they reach a fullness of years … Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession …
“I make an urgent appeal to the Earth. I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven; I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men; I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those who have lived on my spirit. Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world. It is time they came out and filled the world with light. Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children. I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light! You, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!” (Our Lady of La Salette).
There are many more gifts that we can give her, but, as was said earlier, whatever we give must be given with love, with a love that comes from a true devotion to her—and not a routine, mechanical, half-hearted, listless, lukewarm offering. Let this feast of the Nativity of Our Lady, be a birthday for us—whereby a new, stronger, better, more fervent, more consistent devotion is born in our souls.
Article 1
Tuesday August 30th to Friday September 2nd, 2022
Child Soldiers
Tuesday August 30th to Friday September 2nd, 2022
Child Soldiers
Think About It!
Normally, we do not relate children with soldiers. We imagine childhood to be connected to playing and soldiers linked with fighting. Holy Scripture gives plenty of analogies about the Christian being a soldier because “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1). “This is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself!” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). We even refer to the Church on Earth as the “Church Militant” ― which clearly evokes military and soldierly attributes. Furthermore, the Church teaches that, by virtue of the Sacrament of Confirmation, we are made “Soldiers of Christ” with an obligation to fight for Christ, His honor, His glory and His Church.
God is even depicted in Scripture as being a God of war: “The Lord is as a man of war” (Exodus 15:3). “The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, as a man of war, and He shall prevail against His enemies” (Isaias 42:13). Our Lord echoes that when He says: “Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword!” (Matthew 10:34), further adding: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) and “Whosoever will save his life, shall lose it―and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel, shall save it!” (Mark 8:35).
Yes―if you wish to get to Heaven, you will not achieve that goal without a fight: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). Yet, at the same time, Our Lord also says: “Amen I say to you, unless you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 18:3). Unless we fight and suffer the violence of the battle, we shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven―and, on the other hand, if we do not become like little children, we shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven! This seems to imply or link fighting with being little children? How can that be? How is that possible? For when we think of a warrior―the last thing we think of is a child! That was also the case in the Old Testament when the Israelites faced the Philistine army with their “super-warrior” Goliath.
David and Goliath
The Israelites were in terror of the Philistines on account of Goliath. They were, so to speak, paralyzed with fear. All the Israelite soldiers were scared-stiff of him―so much so that not one of them would take up Goliath’s challenge to a “one-on-one” fight to the death. It took a child―relatively speaking―in the person of David, to take on and defeat Goliath. He was a shepherd not a soldier, his only weapon being a sling, and he was a mere “nobody” in the eyes of others. The Philistine soldier, Goliath, was massive man, ‘armed-to-the-teeth’ with the best weapons, a renowned warrior, who boasted of his strength and skill―whereas the Israelite, David, was only a boy or youth. David was a shepherd not a soldier, his only weapon being a sling, and he was a mere “nobody” in the eyes of others. The actual age of David when he slew Goliath is not specified in the Scriptures. Biblical scholars say that he was around 15 to 17 years old when he slew Goliath.
“And all the Israelites, when they saw Goliath, fled from his face, fearing him exceedingly. And David spoke to the men that stood by him, saying: ‘Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God? And the words which David spoke were heard, and repeated before Saul. And when David was brought to Saul, he said to him: ‘Let not any man’s heart be dismayed in him! I, thy servant, will go, and will fight against the Philistine!’ And Saul said to David: ‘Thou art not able to withstand this Philistine, nor to fight against him―for thou art but a boy, but he is a warrior from his youth!’ And David said to Saul: ‘Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, or a bear, and took a ram out of the midst of the flock. And I pursued after them, and struck them, and delivered it out of their mouth: and they rose up against me, and I caught them by the throat, and I strangled and killed them. For I, thy servant, have killed both a lion and a bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be also as one of them. I will go now, and take away the reproach of the people: for who is this uncircumcised Philistine, who hath dared to curse the army of the living God? The Lord who delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine!’ And Saul said to David: ‘Go, and the Lord be with thee!’” (1 Kings 17:24-37).
When David finally came face-to-face with Goliath, “the Philistine looked, and beheld David, he despised him. And the Philistine said to David: ‘Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with a staff?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And he said to David: ‘Come to me, and I will give thy flesh to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the earth!’ And David said to the Philistine: ‘Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield―but I come to thee in the Name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, which thou hast defied. This day, and the Lord will deliver thee into my hand, and I will slay thee, and take away thy head from thee: and, this day, I will give the carcasses of the army of the Philistines to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the earth: that all the Earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know, that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear―for it is His battle, and He will deliver you into our hands!’ And when the Philistine arose and was coming, and drew closer to meet David, David made haste, and ran to the fight to meet the Philistine. And he put his hand into his scrip, and took a stone, and cast it with the sling, and fetching it about struck the Philistine in the forehead: and the stone was fixed in his forehead, and he fell on his face upon the earth. And David prevailed over the Philistine, with a sling and a stone, and he struck, and slew the Philistine. And, as David had no sword in his hand, he ran and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath, and slew him, and cut off his head. And the Philistines seeing that their champion was dead, fled away!” (1 Kings 17:43-51).
Thus we see a boy shepherd put adult soldiers to shame and embarrassment. Is that the attitude of our young “Soldiers of Christ” today―who have received the strengthening graces of the Sacrament of Confirmation to enable them to fight the “Goliaths” of today―the world and devil?
The Children’s Crusade of 1212
Europe, just before the birth of St. Thomas Aquinas in 1228, witnessed a striking phenomenon that came to be called “The Children’s Crusade of 1212”―which saw two separate crusades organized by children with the intention of going to the Holy Land and converting the Mohammedans/Muslims/Saracens.
The era of Crusades―which saw five Crusades in total―lasted from 1095 to 1291, almost 200 years. The actual “war-time” total was . The First Crusade was from 1095 to 1099 which recaptured Jerusalem from Islam. Jerusalem remained Christian and free until 1130, when it was recaptured by Islamic forces. This resulted in the Second Crusade―from 1147 to 1149―which ended in a humiliating Christian defeat. The Third Crusade was from 1187 to 1192―and though the Christian forces fared better this time, they could not fully overcome their Islamic opponents and it ended with a peace treaty between both combatants. The Fourth Crusade―from 1202 to 1204―petered out because of in-fighting. The Fifth Crusade was to be the longest of them all―lasting from 1208 to 1271. During the time of the Crusades, there were always many recruiting appeals being made throughout Christendom to obtain soldiers for the Crusades―with recruiters going from town to town, village to village, trying to recruit soldiers.
All of this talk and recruitment and talk about crusades was witnessed, not only by adults, but also by children. In the spring of 1212, the children of France and Germany heard the Pope’s plea and began to stir. Near Cloyes, France, a 12-year-old shepherd boy named Stephen announced a vision in which he saw the children of Christendom part the Mediterranean Sea and march unopposed through the miraculously opened gates of Jerusalem. He proclaimed that an army of harmless children would win Jerusalem for Christ by the power of their purity and innocence.
About the same time a ten-year-old German boy named Nicholas was heralding a similar message in the city of Cologne. He, too, summoned an army of children to conquer Jerusalem and convert all of Palestine from Islam to Christianity. He assured his breathless audiences that though the crusading knights of the great kings had failed, they, by their simple dependence on God Himself, would succeed. Thousands of children answered his call.
►STEPHEN OF CLOYES IN FRANCE : The first crusade movement was led by a twelve-year-old French shepherd boy named Stephen (Étienne) of Cloyes, who said in June that he bore a letter for the king of France from Jesus. Large gangs of youths, about the same age as Stephen, were drawn to him, most of whom claimed to possess special gifts of God and thought themselves miracle workers. Attracting a following of over 30,000 adults and children, Stephen went to Saint-Denis (near Paris), where he was reported to cause miracles. On the orders of the French King, Philip II, who was being advised by the University of Paris, the people were implored to return home. King Philip himself did not appear impressed, especially since his unexpected visitors were led by a mere child, and refused to take them seriously. Stephen, however, was not dissuaded and began preaching at a nearby abbey.
From Saint-Denis, Stephen traveled around France, spreading his messages as he went, promising to lead charges of Christ to Jerusalem. Although the Church was skeptical, many adults were impressed by his teaching. Few of those who initially joined him possessed his activeness; it is estimated that there were less than half the initial 30,000 remaining, a figure that was shrinking rapidly, rather than growing as perhaps anticipated. At the end of June 1212, Stephen led his largely juvenile Crusaders from Vendôme to Marseilles. They survived by begging for food, while the vast majority seem to have been disheartened by the hardship of this journey and returned to their families.
►NICHOLAS OF COLOGNE IN GERMANY : In the other crusade movement, ten-year-old Nicholas, a shepherd from the Rhineland in Germany, tried to lead a group across the Alps and into Italy in the early spring of 1212. Nicholas said that the sea would dry up before them and allow his followers to cross into the Holy Land. Rather than intending to fight the Saracens, he said that the Muslim kingdoms would be defeated when their citizens converted to Catholicism. His disciples went off to preach the call for the “Crusade” across the German lands, and they massed in Cologne after a few weeks. Splitting into two groups, the crowds took different roads through Switzerland. Two out of every three people on the journey died, while many others returned to their homes. About 7,000 arrived in Genoa in late August. They immediately marched to the harbor, expecting the sea to divide before them; when it did not many became bitterly disappointed. A few accused Nicholas of betraying them, while others settled down to wait for God to change his mind, since they believed that it was unthinkable he would not eventually do so.
The Genoese authorities were impressed by the little band, and they offered citizenship to those who wished to settle in their city. Most of the would-be Crusaders took up this opportunity. Nicholas refused to say he was defeated and traveled to Pisa, his movement continuing to break up along the way. In Pisa two ships directed to Palestine agreed to embark several of the children who, perhaps, managed to reach the Holy Land. Nicholas and a few loyal followers, instead, continued to the Papal States, where they met Pope Innocent III. The remaining ones departed for Germany after the Pontiff exhorted them to be good and to return home to their families. Nicholas did not survive the second attempt across the Alps; back home his father was arrested and hanged under pressure from angry families whose relatives had perished while following the children. Some of the most dedicated members of this Crusade were later reported to have wandered to Ancona and Brindisi; none are known to have reached the Holy Land.
The Black Prince
Just over 100 years after the ill-fated Children’s Crusades of 1212, the “Black Prince” ― Prince Edward ― was born in 1330, as the first child of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault. Because of the tumultuous times, provoked for the most part by his father, the young Prince of Wales was active in warfare at a younger age than most sons of even the most bellicose of medieval leaders. While too young to participate in his father’s early efforts at the battle of Sluys and at the siege of Tournai (1340) or in the Breton civil war (1342) ― for at that time he would have only been 10 and 12 years old―once King Edward III was again able to attack the French in 1346, the young 16-year-old prince went with him. Whether the noble youth could have anticipated what awaited him in France cannot be known; it was to be quite the introduction to warfare.
The speed and scope of the English march from their landing at Saint-Vaast-la-Hogue to Crecy was impressive. Between July 11th and 26 August, not only did the English maneuver across a large amount of enemy territory, but they also captured many towns and fortifications, including the historical capital of Normandy, Caen. The sources do not say what the Black Prince’s role in the affair was to this point, but no doubt he was getting an education in how to lead an army from one of the best generals of the medieval world, his father, King Edward III. In turn, he must have inspired such trust that his father gave him heavy responsibilities in the battle to follow.
On the morning of August 26th, with King Philip VI’s army quickly approaching the battlefield, King Edward III ordered his troops in a defensive formation. All troops were to fight on foot, the cavalry dismounting to stand alongside the rest of the infantry. Even the Black Prince, who was placed in command of the centre line, was dismounted. Why was Prince Edward placed in this position of responsibility when still so young? It is difficult to say without being able to look into Edward III’s psyche; if his son failed in his task at Crecy, his future military leadership would be largely ineffective. The Black Prince, however, would not fail.
After a largely one-sided archery duel, in which the English longbowmen clearly proved their strength against Genoese crossbowmen fighting in the employ of the French, Philip VI his cavalry to charge the English position, directly at the centre of the line commanded by the Black Prince. It was a brutal fight, described as “very perilous, murderous, without pity, cruel, and very horrible.” The Herald of Chandos agrees: “That day was there battle so horrible that never was there a man so bold that would not be abashed thereby.” The French cavalry made a number of attacks on the English line. These charges became directed at the centre of the English front line, the section commanded by the Black Prince. Indeed, the Prince himself became the target of many direct attacks, but despite on one occasion being “compelled to fight on his knees,” he and his men held their position.
Although having previously been knighted when the English landed at Saint-Vaast-la-Hogue, it was in this battle experience that the teenaged Edward, the Black Prince, “earned his spurs.” Praise for his performance at Crecy was almost unceasing. The following day, when the English king conducted a funeral service for all those who had fought and died on both sides, the Black Prince stood by his side.
St. Joan of Arc
Two centuries later Joan of Arc would also guide France as a teenager. Joan of Arc’s exact age cannot be determined from the sources available; she never revealed it nor was she asked at her trial how old she was. Unfortunately, without a clear answer to such a question, Joan’s age during the events of her military career cannot be known for sure. Some believe she was born in 1412, which would make her seventeen years old when she began her military adventures. Others give 1414 or 1411 as her birth year. Since none of these dates is based on the least amount of original source evidence, scholars, such as Regine Pernoud and Jules Quicherat, have simply not discussed her age, except to say that she was still a teenager, even at her death in 1431.
What were these two teenagers doing, fighting in a war which seemed to know no chronological bounds, especially if, as was shown above, it might have been unusual for teenagers to have fought in medieval wars? Indeed, not only were they fighting, but they were also leading other soldiers far older and more veteran than they. And why did adult men follow them into these and other military engagements? The answer is quite simple: their youth did not matter. Should they have failed in their military tasks, their age might have mattered. What mattered was their victories, which most contemporary commentators and eye-witnesses credit to their bravery, leadership, and military skills.
Joan of Arc did not have the wealth, education, nor the advantages of King Edward III’s eldest son―the “Black Prince”. Nor, it should be said, did she have the responsibilities. The only similarity she had with the “Black Prince”, aside from her age, was her ability to make followers of much older troops, soldiers who seemed not to have considered her too young to lead them once she had proven her capabilities on the battlefield.
Born in Domremy, Lorraine, of comparatively wealthy peasant parents, Joan had a relatively normal young girl’s rural life until the fall of 1428 when she approached the castle of Vaucouleurs with her now famous tale of having heard heavenly voices, most often those of Saints Michael, Margaret, and Catherine. Their message, spoken to her since childhood, was that she was to seek out Charles, Dauphin of France, and he would give her an army with which she would deliver France from its English occupiers. Why the castellans at Vaucouleurs did not turn her away is undoubtedly one of the great mysteries of history, surpassed only by the mystery of why later at Chinon the Dauphin actually provided her with her desired army. Yet, Joan still had to perform some great military feat to validate the Faith the Dauphin had placed in her. Her chance came at Orleans.
Joan joined the French army at Orleans in April 1429. It was a demoralized force, led by Jean, Bastard of Orleans who, only two weeks before, had led his troops to an extremely embarrassing defeat at the battle of the Herrings. The Bastard of Orleans was reluctant to attack the English in their well armed and fortified siege-works; instead, he wished to retreat from the city and leave it to the English. Joan would have none of this, for her voices had told her that a victory at Orleans must precede the crowning of the Dauphin. A new strategy was undertaken, with the French attacking several of the boulevards surrounding the town. Finally, on May 7th, Joan herself led her soldiers against the most fortified and well armed boulevard held by the English, the boulevard of the Augustins, which had been erected to add protection to the Tourelles.
There was never any question in Joan’s mission about her need to relieve the siege of Orleans. This had always been one of her tasks and she had talked unceasingly about it during her time at Vaucouleurs and Chinon. No one would have forgiven her had she shunned it on the morning of May 7th, 1429. As for herself, Joan was adamantly opposed to caution and promised to lead the main attack in a direct assault of the fortress. She knew this would be risky; in fact, she prophesied to her confessor that she herself would be wounded. Despite the risks, Joan was certain that she would be supported by her troops in an undertaking for which she felt some urgency.
In the midst of the battle, Joan was wounded, precisely as she had predicted. Yet, this did not stop her from carrying on the battle. Her fellow leader, the Bastard of Orleans, recalled the event as follows: “On May 7th, early in the morning, when the attack was beginning against the enemy who were within the boulevard of the bridge [the Tourelles], Joan was wounded by an arrow which penetrated her flesh between her neck and her shoulder, for a depth of half a foot. Nevertheless, her wound not restraining her, she did not retreat from the conflict, nor did she take medication for her wound.”
When other leaders, including the Bastard of Orleans, became fatigued and wished to retreat from the fight to rest until the following day, Joan refused. The Bastard continued his testimony: “The attack lasted from early morning until the eighth hour of vespers [eight o’clock in the evening], so that there was almost no hope of victory on this day. On account of this, this lord [the Bastard of Orleans] chose to break it off and wanted the army to retreat to the city. And then the Maid came to him and requested that he wait for a little while, and at that time she mounted her horse and retired alone into a vineyard at a distance from the crowd of men. In this vineyard she was in prayer for a space of seven minutes. She returned from that place, immediately took her standard in her hands and placed it on the side of the ditch. And instantly, once she was there, the English became afraid and trembled. The soldiers of the king regained their courage and began to climb [up the ramparts], making an attack on those against the boulevard, not finding any resistance. And then the fortification was taken and the English in it were put to flight.” Joan corroborates this testimony when she testified at her own trial that she “was the first to put her ladder on the boulevard of the Tourelles.”
Joan’s military career was far from over. Although it would last less than a year longer, her relieving of the siege of Orleans with the attack of the Tourelles was recognized by both the French and the English as the defining moment in the way the Hundred Years War would fare. John, Duke of Bedford and Regent of England, wrote to his nephew, King Henry VI: “And all things prospered for you until the time that the siege of Orleans was undertaken . . . At which time . . . by the hand of God, as it seemed, a great offense upon your soldiers who were assembled there in great number, caused to a large party of them . . . by a disciple and follower of the Fiend, called the Pucelle, who used false enchantments and sorcery. This offense and destruction not only lowered by great party the number of your soldiers there, but as well removed the courage of the remnant in a marvelous way, and encouraged your opponents and enemies to assemble themselves afterwards in great number.”
The French were more positive about what had occurred. The Dauphin’s secretary, Alain Chartier, writing to an unnamed prince at the end of July 1429, could not help but extol Joan’s virtues in raising the siege: “This Maid, whom divine precept burns to satisfy, immediately asked him to give her an army to succor the Orleanais who were then in danger. He [the Dauphin], to whom she showed no fear, at first denied her request, but finally conceded to it. This having been accepted, she took a huge amount of foodstuffs to Orleans. Crossing under the enemy camps, they perceived nothing hostile . . . Leaving the victuals in the city and attacking these camps, which in a way was a miracle, in a short space of time she captured them, especially that which was erected almost in the middle of the bridge [the Tourelles]. It was so strong, so well armed with all types of weapons, and so fortified that, if all people, if all nations fought against it, they could not capture it . . . Here is she who seems not to come from anywhere on earth, who seems to be sent from heaven to sustain with her neck and shoulders a fallen France. She raised the king out of the vast abyss onto the harbor and shore by laboring in storms and tempests, and she lifted up the spirits of the French to a greater hope. By restraining the ferocity of the English, she excited the bravery of the French, she prohibited the ruin of France, and she extinguished the fires of France. O singular virgin, worthy of all glory, worthy of all praise, worthy of divine honors! You are the honor of the reign, you are the light of the lily, you are the beauty, the glory, not only of France, but of all Christendom.”
Neither side seemed to focus on the fact that she was a woman, or even a teenager.
It would be folly to suggest that the above information proves that either many or few teenagers participated in medieval combat. Because of the scantiness of age-related evidence on medieval soldiers, such a suggestion is not defensible. Perhaps more importantly, this discussion reveals that when one encounters what seem to be historical examples of adolescent warriors fighting in the Middle Ages, caution must be followed: were they truly teenagers and, if so, did their youth seem to affect their fighting skills or leadership? Perhaps the only conclusion that can be reached is that in the Middle Ages when teenagers participated in a military engagement if they performed their task well their youth did not seem to matter to their contemporaries.
St. Teresa of Avila
Being raised in a spiritual home, Teresa and her brother Rodrigo became completely fascinated by stories of the saints and martyrs. Once, when Teresa was almost seven years old, they both made a plan to run away to Africa to preach the Gospel to the infidel Moors, in the hope that they might be beheaded by them and so achieve martyrdom. Teresa appears to have been the driving force behind the attempt to go away, buoyed up as she was by the stories of the saints in which she immersed herself as well as thoughts of the Reconquest of Spain (the Reconquista) and her mother`s stories of chivalry. They set out secretly, expecting to beg their way like the poor friars, but had gone only a short distance from home, having just passed through the Adaja Gate, when they were met by an uncle and brought back to their anxious mother, who had sent servants into the streets to search for them. She and her brother now thought they would like to become hermits, and tried to build themselves little cells from stones they found in the garden. Thus we see that religious thoughts and influences dominated the mind of the future saint in childhood., St Teresa describes these incidents in her Autobiography:
“One of my brothers was nearly of my own age; and he it was whom I most loved, though I was very fond of them all, and they of me. He and I used to read Lives of Saints together. When I read of martyrdom undergone by the Saints for the love of God, it struck me that the vision of God was very cheaply purchased; and I had a great desire to die a martyr's death―not out of any love of Him of which I was conscious, but that I might most quickly attain to the fruition of those great joys of which I read that they were reserved in Heaven; and I used to discuss with my brother how we could become martyrs. We settled to go together to the country of the Moors, begging our way for the love of God, that we might be there beheaded; and our Lord, I believe, had given us courage enough, even at so tender an age, if we could have found the means to proceed; but our greatest difficulty seemed to be our father and mother. It astonished us greatly to find it said in what we were reading that pain and bliss were everlasting. We happened very often to talk about this; and we had a pleasure in repeating frequently, ‘For ever, ever, ever!’ Through the constant uttering of these words, our Lord was pleased that I should receive an abiding impression of the way of truth when I was yet a child. As soon as I saw it was impossible to go to any place where people would put me to death for the sake of God, my brother and I set about becoming hermits; and in an orchard belonging to the house we contrived, as well as we could, to build hermitages, by piling up small stones one on the other, which fell down immediately; and so it came to pass that we found no means of accomplishing our wish.”
Child Soldiers in History
History is filled with children who have been trained and used for fighting, assigned to support roles such as porters or messengers, used as sex slaves, or recruited for tactical advantage as human shields or for political advantage in propaganda.
The ancient Greek city of Sparta was a military superpower, and its children were enveloped within this fighting ethos from a very early age. Soon after birth, a council of inspectors would judge a male infant’s physical attributes; if he was deemed unfit, the baby would most likely be abandoned on a nearby hillside. At the age of seven, Spartan boys were removed from their parents’ homes and conscripted into a military training scheme. The first-century AD Roman historian Plutarch detailed their regime: “Their training was calculated to make them obey commands well, endure hardships and conquer in battle … When they were 12 years old, they no longer had tunics to wear, received one cloak a year, had hard flesh, and knew little of baths.”
Between the 14th and 19th centuries, the Turkish Islamic Ottoman Empire trained elite infantry units known as Janissaries. These units were populated by strong children, aged between 7 and 18, who had either been kidnapped from local non-Muslim families or taken during military campaigns against Christian communities.
In the 17th century, the British Royal Navy first began using the term “powder monkey” to describe young boys who would be recruited or press-ganged to service artillery guns on warships. Their job was to ferry gunpowder from the magazine in the ship’s hold to the gun crews. It was a dangerous job: gun carriages would regularly dismount and maim crewmembers, scalding iron rained from misfired guns and giant splinters would penetrate flesh.
In 1814, Napoleon conscripted many teenagers for his French armies. During the U.S Civil War (1861-1865), young Johnny Clem, ten years old, put down his drum at the battle of Shiloh, picked up a rifle, and shot dead a Confederate officer – a story endlessly repeated by the Union PR team. Also during the Civil War, Willie Johnson received one of the first Congressional Medals of Honor – at the age of only 13. Thousands of children participated on all sides of the First World War and the Second World War.
Modern-Day Child Soldiers
parts of Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. During the First World War (1914-1918), boys as young as 12 were caught up in the overwhelming tide of patriotism and in huge numbers enlisted for active service. In the Second World War (1939-1945), children under the age of 18 were widely used by all sides in formal and informal military roles. Children were readily indoctrinated into the prevailing ideology of the warring parties, quickly trained, and often sent to the front line; many were wounded or killed. The lack of a legal definition of a child, combined with the absence of a system for verifying the ages of prospective child recruits, contributed to the extensive use of children in the war.
Around the time of the Second World War, the “Hitler Youth” (Hitlerjugend) was established as an organization in Nazi Germany that physically trained youth and indoctrinated them with Nazi ideology to the point of fanaticism. Even at the onset of war, the Hitler Youth totaled 8.8 million members. Numbers decreased significantly (to just over one million) once the war began, as many local and district leaders were conscripted for the national army. The previous average age for local and district leaders was 24, but following the onset of war, this had to change to those who were 16 and 17 years of age. These youths were in command of up to 500 boys. One Hitler Youth soldier, Heinz Shuetze aged 15 from Leipzig, was only given a half-day of training with a Panzerfaust (antitank weapon). He was immediately given an SS uniform and directed to the front lines to fight. Later, in 1942, camps were created in Germany to train Hitler Youth boys aged 16–18. They learnt how to handle German infantry weaponry, including hand grenades, machine guns and hand pistols. By 1943, Hitler Youth boys were facing the forces of Britain, the United States and USSR. Huge numbers of underage males were removed from school in early 1945, and sent on what were essentially suicide missions. Hitler Youth activities often included learning to throw grenades and dig trenches, bayonet drills and escaping under barbed wire under pistol fire; the boys were encouraged to find these activities exhilarating and exciting. The Hitler Youth was essentially an army of fit, young Germans that Hitler had created, trained to fight for their country. They had the “choice” either to follow Nazi party orders, or to face trial with the possibility of execution.
During a horrific, decade-long conflict in the 1980s, Iran sent waves of young children into battle against Iraq. Young people also formed the core of the Taliban, which coalesced in the early 1990s. “Taliban” means “students,” and many of the fighters were originally Afghan students.
In the Americas since 1990, child soldiers have fought in Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Peru. The most substantial numbers are in Colombia, where more than 11,000 children are being used as soldiers, meaning that one out of every four irregular combatants is underage. They have served on both the rebel side and with the Colombian government's military. As many as two-thirds of these child fighters are under 15 years of age, with the youngest being 7 years old. Up to 30 percent of some FARC guerrilla units are made up of children. These child guerrillas are used to collect intelligence, make and deploy mines, and serve as advance troops in ambush attacks against paramilitaries, soldiers, and police officers. They can sneak weapons through checkpoints without suspicion. Some government-linked paramilitary units are 85% children, with soldiers as young as 8-years-old seen patrolling.
In central Africa, the leadership of Boko Haram―the largest Islamist militant groups in Africa―is also getting younger. The average age of Boko Haram’s fighting force keeps dropping. Now, the majority of fighters are teenagers. Boko Haram has also increasingly been relying on children for their suicide bombings. The number of children involved in such blasts grew more than tenfold, from four in 2014 to 44 in 2015. An alarming trend emerged during 2013 of numerous non-state armed groups abducting, recruiting, and exploiting children in conflicts that erupted in Africa and in the Middle East.
The prevalence of child-soldiers in our modern day era is quite striking―otherwise we would not have the United Nations and several humanitarian organizations such as Save-the-Children campaigning for an end to use of children as soldiers. The official definition of a child-soldier is “a child associated with an armed force or armed group.” It refers to any boy or girl under age 18 who is recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity. It does not refer only to a child who is taking a direct part in hostilities.
How Children Become Soldiers
Children become soldiers in different ways. Some are forcibly recruited. They may be abducted, threatened or coerced into joining, while others are enticed with money, drugs or in other ways. Others join armed forces to fight for a cause that they or their family support, often with little clear understanding of the implications of their decision. In many cases, children choose to join as a result of economic or social pressures.
Child soldiers are boys and girls who are often abducted and used as combatants, forced to act as human shields or conduct executions, deployed as suicide bombers, or used to make or transport explosives. Once recruited, child soldiers may serve as porters or cooks, guards, messengers or spies. Many are pressed into combat, where they may be forced to the front lines or sent into minefields ahead of older troops. Some children have been used for suicide missions.
Children are sometimes forced to commit atrocities against their own family or neighbors. A number of former child combatants from the Central African Republic have reported that they were forced to perform horrific acts, such as killing their own parents as a form of initiation into the armed group. It is thought that this initiation hardens them to brutality and breaks the bonds with their community, making it difficult to return. Such practices help ensure that the child is “stigmatized” and unable to return to his or her home community. Many child soldiers end up desensitized to violence, which can psychologically damage them. Many are traumatized by what they have been forced to do or have witnessed.
How many child soldiers are there? It’s impossible to know how many child soldiers are associated with armed conflicts around the world―since nobody is going to keep records and stats of such a thing. For every child that is verified as being used as a solder, there are many more who escape attention. Today, due to the widespread military use of children in areas where armed conflict and insecurity prevent access by UN officials and other observers, it is difficult to estimate how many children are affected. In 2003, one estimate calculated that child soldiers participated in about three-quarters of ongoing conflicts. Between 2005 and 2018, a total of 65,081 children are officially verified to have been recruited and used by armed forces and groups, but actual numbers are likely much higher ― as many as hundreds of thousands of children. Some are as young as 8-years-old. By 2019, the number of children used in armed conflict around the world had more than doubled since 2012, with a 159% rise and almost 30,000 recruitment cases verified―which means that there are many, many more unverified cases. The data is distressing ― but only represents the tip of the iceberg.
Fifty countries still allow children to be recruited into armed forces, according to Child Soldiers International. Many non-state armed groups also recruit children. Despite global efforts to end the use of child soldiers, girls and boys are still forced into combat ― as fighters and in other roles ― in at least 14 countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Somalia. A few of the countries who have reported use of child soldiers since 2011 are Afghanistan, Colombia, India, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Pakistan, Thailand, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Despite a government agreement in the District of Chad to demobilize the recruitment of child soldiers, there were between 7,000 and 10,000 children under 18 serving in combat and fulfilling other purposes in 2007 just in the District of Chad!
The UN has identified 14 countries where children have been widely used as soldiers. These countries are Afghanistan, Colombia, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Mali, Myanmar, Nigeria, the Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The use of child soldiers not only spans the globe, it also happens in many locations where the world’s superpowers have deployed their own military forces.
In the last 15 years, the use of child soldiers has spread to almost every region of the world and every armed conflict. Though an exact number is impossible to define, thousands of child soldiers are illegally serving in armed conflict around the world. In just 2019 alone, more than 7,740 children, some as young as six, were recruited and used as soldiers around the world, according to the United Nations. Most are recruited by non-state groups. The Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Syria and Yemen currently have the largest number of child soldiers. Not all child soldiers are boys holding guns. Many girls are also used by armed forces and groups across the globe, including in Afghanistan, Colombia, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Girls make up an estimated 10% to 30% of child soldiers used for fighting and other purposes. In some countries, like Nepal, Sri Lanka and Uganda, a third or more of the child soldiers were reported to be girls.
Our Lady Recruits Them Young!
Our Lady herself is not afraid to call young children into battle―to the spiritual warfare for souls against the devil. We have a striking example of this at Fatima, where Our Lady chose to appear to three little children (she could have chosen to appear to adults) and called them to the fight for the salvation of souls from the clutches of Satan and Hell. The three little children ― at the time of the first apparition in May of 1917 ― were aged 10 (Lucia), 8 (Francisco) and 7 (Jacinta). Yet Our Lady chooses to show them a real vision of Hell and then recruits them to the fight for saving souls from Hell, saying: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
It was also to two children at La Salette in France in 1846―Melanie Calvat aged 14 and Maximin Giraud aged 11―that Our Lady appeared and instructed as to the terrible plight awaiting the world unless it converted and did penance. It was also to those two young children that she addressed the following “fighting talk” that they were to communicate to the world. She first of all paints the gloomy picture of what is come―then she calls us to the fight:
“Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together. The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish. God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family. Physical and moral agonies will be suffered. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other! … The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little … In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts. The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls … and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds … People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. The sins of men are the cause of all the troubles on this Earth. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! The Earth will be struck by calamities of all kinds! There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases. In addition to plague and famine which will be widespread. There will be a series of wars, until the last war … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. A general war will follow which will be appalling. Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes. People will believe that all is lost. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy. Men will beat their heads against walls, call for their death, and on another side death will be their torment. Blood will flow on all sides. Who will be the victor if God does not shorten the length of the test? The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession.
“I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven! I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side!
“God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the Holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in Its poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and mankind will make great progress in its Faith, for there will be unity among the workers of Jesus Christ and man will live in fear of God.”
What This Means
All of the above―whether in secular field or the religious field―manifests the fact that war and fighting in wars is not beyond the scope and powers of children. It is not for nothing that children are made “Soldiers of Christ” by receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation―a Sacrament that they DO NOT receive as adults, but receive it while STILL BEING CHILDREN. God never demands the impossible―therefore, if God gives the “military” graces of the Sacrament of Confirmation to children, then God knows that those children are capable of engaging in a spiritual warfare against the enemies of the Church.
In fact―even though the Children’s Crusade of 1212 failed miserably―it has to be said that their attitude, zeal, courage and Faith was at a level far beyond that of most adults. Obviously, not everyone of the 30,000 or more that participated in the French and German Crusades had the same high level of zeal, courage and Faith as the two boys who called for and organized their respective Crusade―just as we don’t have the same level of virtue and Faith of the saints, who are our brothers and sisters in the Catholic Faith―but if you look at what Our Lord said in Holy Scripture, then He most certainly would not have criticized the ambitions, zeal, courage and Faith of those young Crusaders. Our Lord was always challenging our Faith and confidence in Him and criticizing a lack of Faith of confidence:
“And Jesus said to them: ‘Why are you fearful, O ye of little Faith?’ Then rising up He commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm” (Matthew 8:26). These young children―or at least their leaders―were not fearful, even though they were children and not adults and warriors. They, like David, trusted in God and set out to meet their own “Goliath” in the Holy Land. “According to your Faith, be it done unto you!” (Matthew 9:29). Were those children silly and stupid in imagining that the Mediterranean Sea would part for them, as the Red Sea parted for Moses, so that they could walk across it on dry land? Perhaps―but did Our Lord not say: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:26). Those so-called “naïve” child crusaders were not relying on themselves, but they were hoping in God. Did not Jesus say: “Amen, amen I say to you, he that believeth in Me and the works that I do, he also shall do; and greater than these shall he do!” (John 14:12) … “If you shall have faith as a grain of mustard seed and stagger not, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here! Take up and cast thyself into the sea!’ ― it shall be done and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 117:19, 21:21). “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark 9:22).
Talking of being in sea―did not St. Peter ask Our Lord if he could come to Him by walking on the waves of the sea: “The boat was tossed with the waves in the midst of the sea―for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to them, walking upon the sea. And they seeing Him walk upon the sea, were troubled, saying: ‘It is an apparition!’ And they cried out for fear. And immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying: ‘Be of good heart! It is I―fear ye not!’ And Peter said: ‘Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come to Thee upon the waters!’ And Jesus said: ‘Come!’ And Peter, going out of the boat, walked upon the water to come to Jesus. But seeing the wind strong, he was afraid―and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying: ‘Lord, save me!’ And immediately Jesus stretching forth His hand took hold of him, and said to Him: ‘O thou of little Faith! Why didst thou doubt?’” (Matthew 14:24-31).
So why did the Children’s Crusade fail? We do not really know and, before we jump to rash conclusions, we must humbly acknowledge the truth of God’s words: “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). Having said that, we do not really know if the Children’s Crusade actually was a failure. You could call Our Lord’s life a failure if you only look at His crucifixion and death―and that is how even many of disciples saw things―they thought Our Lord had ultimately failed as a result of His arrest, sentence and death. Yet that seeming “failure” was the greatest success in the history of mankind! Who can possibly know the graces that the “failed” Children’s Crusade obtained from Heaven? Only God knows! What we do know is that the prayers and sacrifices of children can potentially be far more powerful than the prayers of adults. Why? Because they are―as the Children’s Crusade leaders stressed―pure and innocent, or at least purer and more innocent than most adults. Usually, children have committed far less sins in their short lives than the great number of sins committed by adults in their longer lives. Children can be true powerhouses in obtaining things from God!
Untrained Little Soldiers
Unfortunately and sadly, priests, parents and teachers fail to train these potential powerhouses of prayer and sacrifice to “fight the good fight of Faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). Instead, they let children waste and whittle away their God-given precious time in playing games―thus allowing them to grow up into soft, spineless, selfish, self-gratifying adults. This brings to mind the incident at Fatima, where the Angle of Portugal appeared to the three little children on three occasions before the first apparition of Our Lady. On one occasion, the Angel found the three little children playing―a nice, normal and needful activity for children, don’t you think? Well, the Angel thought otherwise as he scolded them, saying: “What are you doing? You must pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
The Angel was already putting the children into a spiritual “boot camp” to make “Marian Marines” out of them! Our Lady continued this demand for prayer, sacrifice and suffering in her apparitions: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” These demands, since they were made in the year prior to Our Lady’s first apparition in May of 1917, meant that three children were even younger― when 3 children—Lucia was a 9-year-old, Francisco an 8-year old, and Jacinta a little 6-year-old.
Before all these apparitions of the Angel and Our Lady, the three children―though well-intentioned―were originally quite lukewarm! For example, instead of properly praying the Rosary, they would shorten each Hail Mary by merely saying the first two words of the prayers―Hail Mary. Their version of all the Rosary prayers was to only say the first two words of the prayers and no more―Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be! In this way, a five-decade Rosary was finished in just over 1 minute. Why did they do this? They did so that they would have more time to play games! To play was more important than to pray. Lucia explains: “We had been told to say the Rosary after our lunch, but, since the whole day seemed too short for playing games, we worked out a fine way of getting through the Rosary quickly. We simply passed the beads through our fingers, saying nothing but ‘Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary...’ At the end of each mystery, we paused for a moment, then simply said ‘Our Father’ and so, in the twinkling of an eye, as they say, we had our Rosary finished!”
Militant Marian Marines
Yet once they had experienced Heaven’s “Boot Camp” ― being shown a vision of the real Hell, and being instructed repeatedly by the Angel and Our Lady, they quickly evolved from being play-loving children into being “Militant Marian Marines” fighting to save souls from Hell.
Since the first apparition, the children looked for ways to multiply their mortifications for the conversion of sinners. They mortified their will and character by depriving themselves of food to give to the poor children; by not drinking water for an entire day, especially in the heat; by fasting during the Lenten season; and by renouncing their most favored games to spend more time in prayer. They did not tire of looking for new ways of offering sacrifices for sinners.
One day, shortly the fourth apparition of August 1917, Jacinta found a cord and thought of putting it around her waist and tightening it as a sacrifice. Agreeing, the children cut the cord in three pieces and put it around their waists over their skin. Lucia writes that this was a sacrifice that made them suffer terribly—so much so, that Jacinta was unable to contain the tears: “If we tried to talk her out of it, she immediately responded that by no means it would be taken off because it was for the conversion of sinners.” In the beginning Jacinta wore the cord both day and night―but at one point, Our Lady said to Jacinta: “Our Lord is very pleased with your sacrifices but He doesn’t want you to sleep with the cord around your waist. Wear it only during the day.” They obeyed, yet with greater fervor, they persevered in this difficult penance, knowing it pleased God and our Lady. Francisco and Jacinta wore the cord until their final illness, in which it appeared stained with blood.
Lucia further writes: “Jacinta took this matter of making sacrifices for the conversion of sinners so much to heart, that she never let a single opportunity escape her. There were two families in Moita (at that time it was a small village to the north of the Cova da Iria about half-a-mile from the place of the Apparitions) whose children used to go round begging from door to door. We met them one day, as we were going along with our sheep. As soon as she saw them, Jacinta said to us: ‘Let us give our lunch to those poor children, for the conversion of sinners!’ And she ran to take it to them.
“That same afternoon, she told me she was hungry. There were holm-oaks and oak trees nearby. The acorns were still quite green. However, I told her we could eat them. Francisco climbed up a holm-oak to fill his pockets, but Jacinta remembered that we could eat the ones on the oak trees instead, and thus make a sacrifice by eating the bitter kind. So it was there, that afternoon, that we enjoyed this delicious meal! Jacinta made this one of her usual sacrifices, and often picked the acorns off the oaks or the olives off the trees. One day I said to her: ‘Jacinta, don’t eat that! It’s too bitter!’ She replied: ‘But it’s because it’s bitter that I’m eating it, for the conversion of sinners!’
“These were not the only times we fasted. We had agreed that whenever we met any poor children like these, we would give them our lunch. They were only too happy to receive such an alms, and they took good care to meet us; they used to wait for us along the road. We no sooner saw them than Jacinta ran to give them all the food we had for that day, as happy as if she had no need of it herself. On days like that, our only nourishment consisted of pine nuts, and little berries about the size of an olive which grow on the roots of yellow bell-flowers, as well as blackberries, mushrooms, and some other things we found on the roots of pine trees – I can’t remember now what these were called. If there was fruit available on the land belonging to our parents, we used to eat that.
“Jacinta’s thirst for making sacrifices seemed insatiable. One day a neighbor offered my mother a good pasture for our sheep. Though it was quite far away and we were at the height of summer, my mother accepted the offer made so generously, and sent me there. She told me that we should take our siesta in the shade of the trees, as there was a pond nearby where the flock could go and drink. On the way, we met our dear poor children, and Jacinta ran to give them our usual alms. It was a lovely day, but the sun was blazing, and in that arid, stony wasteland, it seemed as though it would burn everything up. We were parched with thirst, and there wasn’t a single drop of water for us to drink!”
“The heat was getting more and more intense. The shrill singing of the crickets and grasshoppers coupled with the croaking of the frogs in the neighboring pond made an uproar that was almost unbearable. Jacinta, frail as she was, and weakened still more by the lack of food and drink, said to me with that simplicity which was natural to her: ‘Tell the crickets and the frogs to keep quiet! I have such a terrible headache!’ Then Francisco asked her: ‘Don’t you want to suffer this for sinners?’ The poor child, clasping her head between her two little hands, replied: ‘Yes, I do! Let them sing!’
“We were playing one day at the well I have already mentioned. Close to it, there was a grape vine belonging to Jacinta’s mother. Her mother cut a few clusters and brought them to us to eat. But Jacinta never forgot her sinners. ‘We won’t eat them!’ she said, ‘We’ll offer this sacrifice for sinners!’ Then she ran out with the grapes and gave them to the other children playing on the road. She returned radiant with joy, for she had found our poor children, and given them the grapes.
“Another time, my aunt called us to come and eat some figs, which she had brought home, and indeed they would have given anybody an appetite. Jacinta sat down happily next to the basket with the rest of us, and picked up the first fig. She was just about to eat it, when she suddenly remembered, and said: ‘It’s true! Today we haven’t yet made a single sacrifice for sinners! We’ll have to make this one!’ She put the fig back in the basket, and made the offering; and we, too, left our figs in the basket for the conversion of sinners. Jacinta made such sacrifices over and over again, but I won’t stop to tell any more, or I shall never end!”
Normally, we do not relate children with soldiers. We imagine childhood to be connected to playing and soldiers linked with fighting. Holy Scripture gives plenty of analogies about the Christian being a soldier because “the life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1). “This is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). “Fight the good fight of Faith!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself!” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). We even refer to the Church on Earth as the “Church Militant” ― which clearly evokes military and soldierly attributes. Furthermore, the Church teaches that, by virtue of the Sacrament of Confirmation, we are made “Soldiers of Christ” with an obligation to fight for Christ, His honor, His glory and His Church.
God is even depicted in Scripture as being a God of war: “The Lord is as a man of war” (Exodus 15:3). “The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, as a man of war, and He shall prevail against His enemies” (Isaias 42:13). Our Lord echoes that when He says: “Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth! I came not to send peace, but the sword!” (Matthew 10:34), further adding: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) and “Whosoever will save his life, shall lose it―and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel, shall save it!” (Mark 8:35).
Yes―if you wish to get to Heaven, you will not achieve that goal without a fight: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). Yet, at the same time, Our Lord also says: “Amen I say to you, unless you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 18:3). Unless we fight and suffer the violence of the battle, we shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven―and, on the other hand, if we do not become like little children, we shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven! This seems to imply or link fighting with being little children? How can that be? How is that possible? For when we think of a warrior―the last thing we think of is a child! That was also the case in the Old Testament when the Israelites faced the Philistine army with their “super-warrior” Goliath.
David and Goliath
The Israelites were in terror of the Philistines on account of Goliath. They were, so to speak, paralyzed with fear. All the Israelite soldiers were scared-stiff of him―so much so that not one of them would take up Goliath’s challenge to a “one-on-one” fight to the death. It took a child―relatively speaking―in the person of David, to take on and defeat Goliath. He was a shepherd not a soldier, his only weapon being a sling, and he was a mere “nobody” in the eyes of others. The Philistine soldier, Goliath, was massive man, ‘armed-to-the-teeth’ with the best weapons, a renowned warrior, who boasted of his strength and skill―whereas the Israelite, David, was only a boy or youth. David was a shepherd not a soldier, his only weapon being a sling, and he was a mere “nobody” in the eyes of others. The actual age of David when he slew Goliath is not specified in the Scriptures. Biblical scholars say that he was around 15 to 17 years old when he slew Goliath.
“And all the Israelites, when they saw Goliath, fled from his face, fearing him exceedingly. And David spoke to the men that stood by him, saying: ‘Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God? And the words which David spoke were heard, and repeated before Saul. And when David was brought to Saul, he said to him: ‘Let not any man’s heart be dismayed in him! I, thy servant, will go, and will fight against the Philistine!’ And Saul said to David: ‘Thou art not able to withstand this Philistine, nor to fight against him―for thou art but a boy, but he is a warrior from his youth!’ And David said to Saul: ‘Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, or a bear, and took a ram out of the midst of the flock. And I pursued after them, and struck them, and delivered it out of their mouth: and they rose up against me, and I caught them by the throat, and I strangled and killed them. For I, thy servant, have killed both a lion and a bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be also as one of them. I will go now, and take away the reproach of the people: for who is this uncircumcised Philistine, who hath dared to curse the army of the living God? The Lord who delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine!’ And Saul said to David: ‘Go, and the Lord be with thee!’” (1 Kings 17:24-37).
When David finally came face-to-face with Goliath, “the Philistine looked, and beheld David, he despised him. And the Philistine said to David: ‘Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with a staff?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And he said to David: ‘Come to me, and I will give thy flesh to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the earth!’ And David said to the Philistine: ‘Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield―but I come to thee in the Name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, which thou hast defied. This day, and the Lord will deliver thee into my hand, and I will slay thee, and take away thy head from thee: and, this day, I will give the carcasses of the army of the Philistines to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the earth: that all the Earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know, that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear―for it is His battle, and He will deliver you into our hands!’ And when the Philistine arose and was coming, and drew closer to meet David, David made haste, and ran to the fight to meet the Philistine. And he put his hand into his scrip, and took a stone, and cast it with the sling, and fetching it about struck the Philistine in the forehead: and the stone was fixed in his forehead, and he fell on his face upon the earth. And David prevailed over the Philistine, with a sling and a stone, and he struck, and slew the Philistine. And, as David had no sword in his hand, he ran and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath, and slew him, and cut off his head. And the Philistines seeing that their champion was dead, fled away!” (1 Kings 17:43-51).
Thus we see a boy shepherd put adult soldiers to shame and embarrassment. Is that the attitude of our young “Soldiers of Christ” today―who have received the strengthening graces of the Sacrament of Confirmation to enable them to fight the “Goliaths” of today―the world and devil?
The Children’s Crusade of 1212
Europe, just before the birth of St. Thomas Aquinas in 1228, witnessed a striking phenomenon that came to be called “The Children’s Crusade of 1212”―which saw two separate crusades organized by children with the intention of going to the Holy Land and converting the Mohammedans/Muslims/Saracens.
The era of Crusades―which saw five Crusades in total―lasted from 1095 to 1291, almost 200 years. The actual “war-time” total was . The First Crusade was from 1095 to 1099 which recaptured Jerusalem from Islam. Jerusalem remained Christian and free until 1130, when it was recaptured by Islamic forces. This resulted in the Second Crusade―from 1147 to 1149―which ended in a humiliating Christian defeat. The Third Crusade was from 1187 to 1192―and though the Christian forces fared better this time, they could not fully overcome their Islamic opponents and it ended with a peace treaty between both combatants. The Fourth Crusade―from 1202 to 1204―petered out because of in-fighting. The Fifth Crusade was to be the longest of them all―lasting from 1208 to 1271. During the time of the Crusades, there were always many recruiting appeals being made throughout Christendom to obtain soldiers for the Crusades―with recruiters going from town to town, village to village, trying to recruit soldiers.
All of this talk and recruitment and talk about crusades was witnessed, not only by adults, but also by children. In the spring of 1212, the children of France and Germany heard the Pope’s plea and began to stir. Near Cloyes, France, a 12-year-old shepherd boy named Stephen announced a vision in which he saw the children of Christendom part the Mediterranean Sea and march unopposed through the miraculously opened gates of Jerusalem. He proclaimed that an army of harmless children would win Jerusalem for Christ by the power of their purity and innocence.
About the same time a ten-year-old German boy named Nicholas was heralding a similar message in the city of Cologne. He, too, summoned an army of children to conquer Jerusalem and convert all of Palestine from Islam to Christianity. He assured his breathless audiences that though the crusading knights of the great kings had failed, they, by their simple dependence on God Himself, would succeed. Thousands of children answered his call.
►STEPHEN OF CLOYES IN FRANCE : The first crusade movement was led by a twelve-year-old French shepherd boy named Stephen (Étienne) of Cloyes, who said in June that he bore a letter for the king of France from Jesus. Large gangs of youths, about the same age as Stephen, were drawn to him, most of whom claimed to possess special gifts of God and thought themselves miracle workers. Attracting a following of over 30,000 adults and children, Stephen went to Saint-Denis (near Paris), where he was reported to cause miracles. On the orders of the French King, Philip II, who was being advised by the University of Paris, the people were implored to return home. King Philip himself did not appear impressed, especially since his unexpected visitors were led by a mere child, and refused to take them seriously. Stephen, however, was not dissuaded and began preaching at a nearby abbey.
From Saint-Denis, Stephen traveled around France, spreading his messages as he went, promising to lead charges of Christ to Jerusalem. Although the Church was skeptical, many adults were impressed by his teaching. Few of those who initially joined him possessed his activeness; it is estimated that there were less than half the initial 30,000 remaining, a figure that was shrinking rapidly, rather than growing as perhaps anticipated. At the end of June 1212, Stephen led his largely juvenile Crusaders from Vendôme to Marseilles. They survived by begging for food, while the vast majority seem to have been disheartened by the hardship of this journey and returned to their families.
►NICHOLAS OF COLOGNE IN GERMANY : In the other crusade movement, ten-year-old Nicholas, a shepherd from the Rhineland in Germany, tried to lead a group across the Alps and into Italy in the early spring of 1212. Nicholas said that the sea would dry up before them and allow his followers to cross into the Holy Land. Rather than intending to fight the Saracens, he said that the Muslim kingdoms would be defeated when their citizens converted to Catholicism. His disciples went off to preach the call for the “Crusade” across the German lands, and they massed in Cologne after a few weeks. Splitting into two groups, the crowds took different roads through Switzerland. Two out of every three people on the journey died, while many others returned to their homes. About 7,000 arrived in Genoa in late August. They immediately marched to the harbor, expecting the sea to divide before them; when it did not many became bitterly disappointed. A few accused Nicholas of betraying them, while others settled down to wait for God to change his mind, since they believed that it was unthinkable he would not eventually do so.
The Genoese authorities were impressed by the little band, and they offered citizenship to those who wished to settle in their city. Most of the would-be Crusaders took up this opportunity. Nicholas refused to say he was defeated and traveled to Pisa, his movement continuing to break up along the way. In Pisa two ships directed to Palestine agreed to embark several of the children who, perhaps, managed to reach the Holy Land. Nicholas and a few loyal followers, instead, continued to the Papal States, where they met Pope Innocent III. The remaining ones departed for Germany after the Pontiff exhorted them to be good and to return home to their families. Nicholas did not survive the second attempt across the Alps; back home his father was arrested and hanged under pressure from angry families whose relatives had perished while following the children. Some of the most dedicated members of this Crusade were later reported to have wandered to Ancona and Brindisi; none are known to have reached the Holy Land.
The Black Prince
Just over 100 years after the ill-fated Children’s Crusades of 1212, the “Black Prince” ― Prince Edward ― was born in 1330, as the first child of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault. Because of the tumultuous times, provoked for the most part by his father, the young Prince of Wales was active in warfare at a younger age than most sons of even the most bellicose of medieval leaders. While too young to participate in his father’s early efforts at the battle of Sluys and at the siege of Tournai (1340) or in the Breton civil war (1342) ― for at that time he would have only been 10 and 12 years old―once King Edward III was again able to attack the French in 1346, the young 16-year-old prince went with him. Whether the noble youth could have anticipated what awaited him in France cannot be known; it was to be quite the introduction to warfare.
The speed and scope of the English march from their landing at Saint-Vaast-la-Hogue to Crecy was impressive. Between July 11th and 26 August, not only did the English maneuver across a large amount of enemy territory, but they also captured many towns and fortifications, including the historical capital of Normandy, Caen. The sources do not say what the Black Prince’s role in the affair was to this point, but no doubt he was getting an education in how to lead an army from one of the best generals of the medieval world, his father, King Edward III. In turn, he must have inspired such trust that his father gave him heavy responsibilities in the battle to follow.
On the morning of August 26th, with King Philip VI’s army quickly approaching the battlefield, King Edward III ordered his troops in a defensive formation. All troops were to fight on foot, the cavalry dismounting to stand alongside the rest of the infantry. Even the Black Prince, who was placed in command of the centre line, was dismounted. Why was Prince Edward placed in this position of responsibility when still so young? It is difficult to say without being able to look into Edward III’s psyche; if his son failed in his task at Crecy, his future military leadership would be largely ineffective. The Black Prince, however, would not fail.
After a largely one-sided archery duel, in which the English longbowmen clearly proved their strength against Genoese crossbowmen fighting in the employ of the French, Philip VI his cavalry to charge the English position, directly at the centre of the line commanded by the Black Prince. It was a brutal fight, described as “very perilous, murderous, without pity, cruel, and very horrible.” The Herald of Chandos agrees: “That day was there battle so horrible that never was there a man so bold that would not be abashed thereby.” The French cavalry made a number of attacks on the English line. These charges became directed at the centre of the English front line, the section commanded by the Black Prince. Indeed, the Prince himself became the target of many direct attacks, but despite on one occasion being “compelled to fight on his knees,” he and his men held their position.
Although having previously been knighted when the English landed at Saint-Vaast-la-Hogue, it was in this battle experience that the teenaged Edward, the Black Prince, “earned his spurs.” Praise for his performance at Crecy was almost unceasing. The following day, when the English king conducted a funeral service for all those who had fought and died on both sides, the Black Prince stood by his side.
St. Joan of Arc
Two centuries later Joan of Arc would also guide France as a teenager. Joan of Arc’s exact age cannot be determined from the sources available; she never revealed it nor was she asked at her trial how old she was. Unfortunately, without a clear answer to such a question, Joan’s age during the events of her military career cannot be known for sure. Some believe she was born in 1412, which would make her seventeen years old when she began her military adventures. Others give 1414 or 1411 as her birth year. Since none of these dates is based on the least amount of original source evidence, scholars, such as Regine Pernoud and Jules Quicherat, have simply not discussed her age, except to say that she was still a teenager, even at her death in 1431.
What were these two teenagers doing, fighting in a war which seemed to know no chronological bounds, especially if, as was shown above, it might have been unusual for teenagers to have fought in medieval wars? Indeed, not only were they fighting, but they were also leading other soldiers far older and more veteran than they. And why did adult men follow them into these and other military engagements? The answer is quite simple: their youth did not matter. Should they have failed in their military tasks, their age might have mattered. What mattered was their victories, which most contemporary commentators and eye-witnesses credit to their bravery, leadership, and military skills.
Joan of Arc did not have the wealth, education, nor the advantages of King Edward III’s eldest son―the “Black Prince”. Nor, it should be said, did she have the responsibilities. The only similarity she had with the “Black Prince”, aside from her age, was her ability to make followers of much older troops, soldiers who seemed not to have considered her too young to lead them once she had proven her capabilities on the battlefield.
Born in Domremy, Lorraine, of comparatively wealthy peasant parents, Joan had a relatively normal young girl’s rural life until the fall of 1428 when she approached the castle of Vaucouleurs with her now famous tale of having heard heavenly voices, most often those of Saints Michael, Margaret, and Catherine. Their message, spoken to her since childhood, was that she was to seek out Charles, Dauphin of France, and he would give her an army with which she would deliver France from its English occupiers. Why the castellans at Vaucouleurs did not turn her away is undoubtedly one of the great mysteries of history, surpassed only by the mystery of why later at Chinon the Dauphin actually provided her with her desired army. Yet, Joan still had to perform some great military feat to validate the Faith the Dauphin had placed in her. Her chance came at Orleans.
Joan joined the French army at Orleans in April 1429. It was a demoralized force, led by Jean, Bastard of Orleans who, only two weeks before, had led his troops to an extremely embarrassing defeat at the battle of the Herrings. The Bastard of Orleans was reluctant to attack the English in their well armed and fortified siege-works; instead, he wished to retreat from the city and leave it to the English. Joan would have none of this, for her voices had told her that a victory at Orleans must precede the crowning of the Dauphin. A new strategy was undertaken, with the French attacking several of the boulevards surrounding the town. Finally, on May 7th, Joan herself led her soldiers against the most fortified and well armed boulevard held by the English, the boulevard of the Augustins, which had been erected to add protection to the Tourelles.
There was never any question in Joan’s mission about her need to relieve the siege of Orleans. This had always been one of her tasks and she had talked unceasingly about it during her time at Vaucouleurs and Chinon. No one would have forgiven her had she shunned it on the morning of May 7th, 1429. As for herself, Joan was adamantly opposed to caution and promised to lead the main attack in a direct assault of the fortress. She knew this would be risky; in fact, she prophesied to her confessor that she herself would be wounded. Despite the risks, Joan was certain that she would be supported by her troops in an undertaking for which she felt some urgency.
In the midst of the battle, Joan was wounded, precisely as she had predicted. Yet, this did not stop her from carrying on the battle. Her fellow leader, the Bastard of Orleans, recalled the event as follows: “On May 7th, early in the morning, when the attack was beginning against the enemy who were within the boulevard of the bridge [the Tourelles], Joan was wounded by an arrow which penetrated her flesh between her neck and her shoulder, for a depth of half a foot. Nevertheless, her wound not restraining her, she did not retreat from the conflict, nor did she take medication for her wound.”
When other leaders, including the Bastard of Orleans, became fatigued and wished to retreat from the fight to rest until the following day, Joan refused. The Bastard continued his testimony: “The attack lasted from early morning until the eighth hour of vespers [eight o’clock in the evening], so that there was almost no hope of victory on this day. On account of this, this lord [the Bastard of Orleans] chose to break it off and wanted the army to retreat to the city. And then the Maid came to him and requested that he wait for a little while, and at that time she mounted her horse and retired alone into a vineyard at a distance from the crowd of men. In this vineyard she was in prayer for a space of seven minutes. She returned from that place, immediately took her standard in her hands and placed it on the side of the ditch. And instantly, once she was there, the English became afraid and trembled. The soldiers of the king regained their courage and began to climb [up the ramparts], making an attack on those against the boulevard, not finding any resistance. And then the fortification was taken and the English in it were put to flight.” Joan corroborates this testimony when she testified at her own trial that she “was the first to put her ladder on the boulevard of the Tourelles.”
Joan’s military career was far from over. Although it would last less than a year longer, her relieving of the siege of Orleans with the attack of the Tourelles was recognized by both the French and the English as the defining moment in the way the Hundred Years War would fare. John, Duke of Bedford and Regent of England, wrote to his nephew, King Henry VI: “And all things prospered for you until the time that the siege of Orleans was undertaken . . . At which time . . . by the hand of God, as it seemed, a great offense upon your soldiers who were assembled there in great number, caused to a large party of them . . . by a disciple and follower of the Fiend, called the Pucelle, who used false enchantments and sorcery. This offense and destruction not only lowered by great party the number of your soldiers there, but as well removed the courage of the remnant in a marvelous way, and encouraged your opponents and enemies to assemble themselves afterwards in great number.”
The French were more positive about what had occurred. The Dauphin’s secretary, Alain Chartier, writing to an unnamed prince at the end of July 1429, could not help but extol Joan’s virtues in raising the siege: “This Maid, whom divine precept burns to satisfy, immediately asked him to give her an army to succor the Orleanais who were then in danger. He [the Dauphin], to whom she showed no fear, at first denied her request, but finally conceded to it. This having been accepted, she took a huge amount of foodstuffs to Orleans. Crossing under the enemy camps, they perceived nothing hostile . . . Leaving the victuals in the city and attacking these camps, which in a way was a miracle, in a short space of time she captured them, especially that which was erected almost in the middle of the bridge [the Tourelles]. It was so strong, so well armed with all types of weapons, and so fortified that, if all people, if all nations fought against it, they could not capture it . . . Here is she who seems not to come from anywhere on earth, who seems to be sent from heaven to sustain with her neck and shoulders a fallen France. She raised the king out of the vast abyss onto the harbor and shore by laboring in storms and tempests, and she lifted up the spirits of the French to a greater hope. By restraining the ferocity of the English, she excited the bravery of the French, she prohibited the ruin of France, and she extinguished the fires of France. O singular virgin, worthy of all glory, worthy of all praise, worthy of divine honors! You are the honor of the reign, you are the light of the lily, you are the beauty, the glory, not only of France, but of all Christendom.”
Neither side seemed to focus on the fact that she was a woman, or even a teenager.
It would be folly to suggest that the above information proves that either many or few teenagers participated in medieval combat. Because of the scantiness of age-related evidence on medieval soldiers, such a suggestion is not defensible. Perhaps more importantly, this discussion reveals that when one encounters what seem to be historical examples of adolescent warriors fighting in the Middle Ages, caution must be followed: were they truly teenagers and, if so, did their youth seem to affect their fighting skills or leadership? Perhaps the only conclusion that can be reached is that in the Middle Ages when teenagers participated in a military engagement if they performed their task well their youth did not seem to matter to their contemporaries.
St. Teresa of Avila
Being raised in a spiritual home, Teresa and her brother Rodrigo became completely fascinated by stories of the saints and martyrs. Once, when Teresa was almost seven years old, they both made a plan to run away to Africa to preach the Gospel to the infidel Moors, in the hope that they might be beheaded by them and so achieve martyrdom. Teresa appears to have been the driving force behind the attempt to go away, buoyed up as she was by the stories of the saints in which she immersed herself as well as thoughts of the Reconquest of Spain (the Reconquista) and her mother`s stories of chivalry. They set out secretly, expecting to beg their way like the poor friars, but had gone only a short distance from home, having just passed through the Adaja Gate, when they were met by an uncle and brought back to their anxious mother, who had sent servants into the streets to search for them. She and her brother now thought they would like to become hermits, and tried to build themselves little cells from stones they found in the garden. Thus we see that religious thoughts and influences dominated the mind of the future saint in childhood., St Teresa describes these incidents in her Autobiography:
“One of my brothers was nearly of my own age; and he it was whom I most loved, though I was very fond of them all, and they of me. He and I used to read Lives of Saints together. When I read of martyrdom undergone by the Saints for the love of God, it struck me that the vision of God was very cheaply purchased; and I had a great desire to die a martyr's death―not out of any love of Him of which I was conscious, but that I might most quickly attain to the fruition of those great joys of which I read that they were reserved in Heaven; and I used to discuss with my brother how we could become martyrs. We settled to go together to the country of the Moors, begging our way for the love of God, that we might be there beheaded; and our Lord, I believe, had given us courage enough, even at so tender an age, if we could have found the means to proceed; but our greatest difficulty seemed to be our father and mother. It astonished us greatly to find it said in what we were reading that pain and bliss were everlasting. We happened very often to talk about this; and we had a pleasure in repeating frequently, ‘For ever, ever, ever!’ Through the constant uttering of these words, our Lord was pleased that I should receive an abiding impression of the way of truth when I was yet a child. As soon as I saw it was impossible to go to any place where people would put me to death for the sake of God, my brother and I set about becoming hermits; and in an orchard belonging to the house we contrived, as well as we could, to build hermitages, by piling up small stones one on the other, which fell down immediately; and so it came to pass that we found no means of accomplishing our wish.”
Child Soldiers in History
History is filled with children who have been trained and used for fighting, assigned to support roles such as porters or messengers, used as sex slaves, or recruited for tactical advantage as human shields or for political advantage in propaganda.
The ancient Greek city of Sparta was a military superpower, and its children were enveloped within this fighting ethos from a very early age. Soon after birth, a council of inspectors would judge a male infant’s physical attributes; if he was deemed unfit, the baby would most likely be abandoned on a nearby hillside. At the age of seven, Spartan boys were removed from their parents’ homes and conscripted into a military training scheme. The first-century AD Roman historian Plutarch detailed their regime: “Their training was calculated to make them obey commands well, endure hardships and conquer in battle … When they were 12 years old, they no longer had tunics to wear, received one cloak a year, had hard flesh, and knew little of baths.”
Between the 14th and 19th centuries, the Turkish Islamic Ottoman Empire trained elite infantry units known as Janissaries. These units were populated by strong children, aged between 7 and 18, who had either been kidnapped from local non-Muslim families or taken during military campaigns against Christian communities.
In the 17th century, the British Royal Navy first began using the term “powder monkey” to describe young boys who would be recruited or press-ganged to service artillery guns on warships. Their job was to ferry gunpowder from the magazine in the ship’s hold to the gun crews. It was a dangerous job: gun carriages would regularly dismount and maim crewmembers, scalding iron rained from misfired guns and giant splinters would penetrate flesh.
In 1814, Napoleon conscripted many teenagers for his French armies. During the U.S Civil War (1861-1865), young Johnny Clem, ten years old, put down his drum at the battle of Shiloh, picked up a rifle, and shot dead a Confederate officer – a story endlessly repeated by the Union PR team. Also during the Civil War, Willie Johnson received one of the first Congressional Medals of Honor – at the age of only 13. Thousands of children participated on all sides of the First World War and the Second World War.
Modern-Day Child Soldiers
parts of Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. During the First World War (1914-1918), boys as young as 12 were caught up in the overwhelming tide of patriotism and in huge numbers enlisted for active service. In the Second World War (1939-1945), children under the age of 18 were widely used by all sides in formal and informal military roles. Children were readily indoctrinated into the prevailing ideology of the warring parties, quickly trained, and often sent to the front line; many were wounded or killed. The lack of a legal definition of a child, combined with the absence of a system for verifying the ages of prospective child recruits, contributed to the extensive use of children in the war.
Around the time of the Second World War, the “Hitler Youth” (Hitlerjugend) was established as an organization in Nazi Germany that physically trained youth and indoctrinated them with Nazi ideology to the point of fanaticism. Even at the onset of war, the Hitler Youth totaled 8.8 million members. Numbers decreased significantly (to just over one million) once the war began, as many local and district leaders were conscripted for the national army. The previous average age for local and district leaders was 24, but following the onset of war, this had to change to those who were 16 and 17 years of age. These youths were in command of up to 500 boys. One Hitler Youth soldier, Heinz Shuetze aged 15 from Leipzig, was only given a half-day of training with a Panzerfaust (antitank weapon). He was immediately given an SS uniform and directed to the front lines to fight. Later, in 1942, camps were created in Germany to train Hitler Youth boys aged 16–18. They learnt how to handle German infantry weaponry, including hand grenades, machine guns and hand pistols. By 1943, Hitler Youth boys were facing the forces of Britain, the United States and USSR. Huge numbers of underage males were removed from school in early 1945, and sent on what were essentially suicide missions. Hitler Youth activities often included learning to throw grenades and dig trenches, bayonet drills and escaping under barbed wire under pistol fire; the boys were encouraged to find these activities exhilarating and exciting. The Hitler Youth was essentially an army of fit, young Germans that Hitler had created, trained to fight for their country. They had the “choice” either to follow Nazi party orders, or to face trial with the possibility of execution.
During a horrific, decade-long conflict in the 1980s, Iran sent waves of young children into battle against Iraq. Young people also formed the core of the Taliban, which coalesced in the early 1990s. “Taliban” means “students,” and many of the fighters were originally Afghan students.
In the Americas since 1990, child soldiers have fought in Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Peru. The most substantial numbers are in Colombia, where more than 11,000 children are being used as soldiers, meaning that one out of every four irregular combatants is underage. They have served on both the rebel side and with the Colombian government's military. As many as two-thirds of these child fighters are under 15 years of age, with the youngest being 7 years old. Up to 30 percent of some FARC guerrilla units are made up of children. These child guerrillas are used to collect intelligence, make and deploy mines, and serve as advance troops in ambush attacks against paramilitaries, soldiers, and police officers. They can sneak weapons through checkpoints without suspicion. Some government-linked paramilitary units are 85% children, with soldiers as young as 8-years-old seen patrolling.
In central Africa, the leadership of Boko Haram―the largest Islamist militant groups in Africa―is also getting younger. The average age of Boko Haram’s fighting force keeps dropping. Now, the majority of fighters are teenagers. Boko Haram has also increasingly been relying on children for their suicide bombings. The number of children involved in such blasts grew more than tenfold, from four in 2014 to 44 in 2015. An alarming trend emerged during 2013 of numerous non-state armed groups abducting, recruiting, and exploiting children in conflicts that erupted in Africa and in the Middle East.
The prevalence of child-soldiers in our modern day era is quite striking―otherwise we would not have the United Nations and several humanitarian organizations such as Save-the-Children campaigning for an end to use of children as soldiers. The official definition of a child-soldier is “a child associated with an armed force or armed group.” It refers to any boy or girl under age 18 who is recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity. It does not refer only to a child who is taking a direct part in hostilities.
How Children Become Soldiers
Children become soldiers in different ways. Some are forcibly recruited. They may be abducted, threatened or coerced into joining, while others are enticed with money, drugs or in other ways. Others join armed forces to fight for a cause that they or their family support, often with little clear understanding of the implications of their decision. In many cases, children choose to join as a result of economic or social pressures.
Child soldiers are boys and girls who are often abducted and used as combatants, forced to act as human shields or conduct executions, deployed as suicide bombers, or used to make or transport explosives. Once recruited, child soldiers may serve as porters or cooks, guards, messengers or spies. Many are pressed into combat, where they may be forced to the front lines or sent into minefields ahead of older troops. Some children have been used for suicide missions.
Children are sometimes forced to commit atrocities against their own family or neighbors. A number of former child combatants from the Central African Republic have reported that they were forced to perform horrific acts, such as killing their own parents as a form of initiation into the armed group. It is thought that this initiation hardens them to brutality and breaks the bonds with their community, making it difficult to return. Such practices help ensure that the child is “stigmatized” and unable to return to his or her home community. Many child soldiers end up desensitized to violence, which can psychologically damage them. Many are traumatized by what they have been forced to do or have witnessed.
How many child soldiers are there? It’s impossible to know how many child soldiers are associated with armed conflicts around the world―since nobody is going to keep records and stats of such a thing. For every child that is verified as being used as a solder, there are many more who escape attention. Today, due to the widespread military use of children in areas where armed conflict and insecurity prevent access by UN officials and other observers, it is difficult to estimate how many children are affected. In 2003, one estimate calculated that child soldiers participated in about three-quarters of ongoing conflicts. Between 2005 and 2018, a total of 65,081 children are officially verified to have been recruited and used by armed forces and groups, but actual numbers are likely much higher ― as many as hundreds of thousands of children. Some are as young as 8-years-old. By 2019, the number of children used in armed conflict around the world had more than doubled since 2012, with a 159% rise and almost 30,000 recruitment cases verified―which means that there are many, many more unverified cases. The data is distressing ― but only represents the tip of the iceberg.
Fifty countries still allow children to be recruited into armed forces, according to Child Soldiers International. Many non-state armed groups also recruit children. Despite global efforts to end the use of child soldiers, girls and boys are still forced into combat ― as fighters and in other roles ― in at least 14 countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Somalia. A few of the countries who have reported use of child soldiers since 2011 are Afghanistan, Colombia, India, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Pakistan, Thailand, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Despite a government agreement in the District of Chad to demobilize the recruitment of child soldiers, there were between 7,000 and 10,000 children under 18 serving in combat and fulfilling other purposes in 2007 just in the District of Chad!
The UN has identified 14 countries where children have been widely used as soldiers. These countries are Afghanistan, Colombia, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Mali, Myanmar, Nigeria, the Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The use of child soldiers not only spans the globe, it also happens in many locations where the world’s superpowers have deployed their own military forces.
In the last 15 years, the use of child soldiers has spread to almost every region of the world and every armed conflict. Though an exact number is impossible to define, thousands of child soldiers are illegally serving in armed conflict around the world. In just 2019 alone, more than 7,740 children, some as young as six, were recruited and used as soldiers around the world, according to the United Nations. Most are recruited by non-state groups. The Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Syria and Yemen currently have the largest number of child soldiers. Not all child soldiers are boys holding guns. Many girls are also used by armed forces and groups across the globe, including in Afghanistan, Colombia, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Girls make up an estimated 10% to 30% of child soldiers used for fighting and other purposes. In some countries, like Nepal, Sri Lanka and Uganda, a third or more of the child soldiers were reported to be girls.
Our Lady Recruits Them Young!
Our Lady herself is not afraid to call young children into battle―to the spiritual warfare for souls against the devil. We have a striking example of this at Fatima, where Our Lady chose to appear to three little children (she could have chosen to appear to adults) and called them to the fight for the salvation of souls from the clutches of Satan and Hell. The three little children ― at the time of the first apparition in May of 1917 ― were aged 10 (Lucia), 8 (Francisco) and 7 (Jacinta). Yet Our Lady chooses to show them a real vision of Hell and then recruits them to the fight for saving souls from Hell, saying: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
It was also to two children at La Salette in France in 1846―Melanie Calvat aged 14 and Maximin Giraud aged 11―that Our Lady appeared and instructed as to the terrible plight awaiting the world unless it converted and did penance. It was also to those two young children that she addressed the following “fighting talk” that they were to communicate to the world. She first of all paints the gloomy picture of what is come―then she calls us to the fight:
“Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together. The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish. God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family. Physical and moral agonies will be suffered. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other! … The Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little … In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts. The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls … and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds … People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. The sins of men are the cause of all the troubles on this Earth. Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! The Earth will be struck by calamities of all kinds! There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases. In addition to plague and famine which will be widespread. There will be a series of wars, until the last war … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. A general war will follow which will be appalling. Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes. People will believe that all is lost. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy. Men will beat their heads against walls, call for their death, and on another side death will be their torment. Blood will flow on all sides. Who will be the victor if God does not shorten the length of the test? The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession.
“I make an urgent appeal to the Earth! I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven! I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men! I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit! Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends! … But the children of the holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Ghost! I shall fight at their side!
“God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like. And then water and fire will purge the Earth and consume all the works of man’s pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the Holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in Its poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and mankind will make great progress in its Faith, for there will be unity among the workers of Jesus Christ and man will live in fear of God.”
What This Means
All of the above―whether in secular field or the religious field―manifests the fact that war and fighting in wars is not beyond the scope and powers of children. It is not for nothing that children are made “Soldiers of Christ” by receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation―a Sacrament that they DO NOT receive as adults, but receive it while STILL BEING CHILDREN. God never demands the impossible―therefore, if God gives the “military” graces of the Sacrament of Confirmation to children, then God knows that those children are capable of engaging in a spiritual warfare against the enemies of the Church.
In fact―even though the Children’s Crusade of 1212 failed miserably―it has to be said that their attitude, zeal, courage and Faith was at a level far beyond that of most adults. Obviously, not everyone of the 30,000 or more that participated in the French and German Crusades had the same high level of zeal, courage and Faith as the two boys who called for and organized their respective Crusade―just as we don’t have the same level of virtue and Faith of the saints, who are our brothers and sisters in the Catholic Faith―but if you look at what Our Lord said in Holy Scripture, then He most certainly would not have criticized the ambitions, zeal, courage and Faith of those young Crusaders. Our Lord was always challenging our Faith and confidence in Him and criticizing a lack of Faith of confidence:
“And Jesus said to them: ‘Why are you fearful, O ye of little Faith?’ Then rising up He commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm” (Matthew 8:26). These young children―or at least their leaders―were not fearful, even though they were children and not adults and warriors. They, like David, trusted in God and set out to meet their own “Goliath” in the Holy Land. “According to your Faith, be it done unto you!” (Matthew 9:29). Were those children silly and stupid in imagining that the Mediterranean Sea would part for them, as the Red Sea parted for Moses, so that they could walk across it on dry land? Perhaps―but did Our Lord not say: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:26). Those so-called “naïve” child crusaders were not relying on themselves, but they were hoping in God. Did not Jesus say: “Amen, amen I say to you, he that believeth in Me and the works that I do, he also shall do; and greater than these shall he do!” (John 14:12) … “If you shall have faith as a grain of mustard seed and stagger not, you shall say to this mountain: ‘Remove from here! Take up and cast thyself into the sea!’ ― it shall be done and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you!” (Matthew 117:19, 21:21). “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark 9:22).
Talking of being in sea―did not St. Peter ask Our Lord if he could come to Him by walking on the waves of the sea: “The boat was tossed with the waves in the midst of the sea―for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to them, walking upon the sea. And they seeing Him walk upon the sea, were troubled, saying: ‘It is an apparition!’ And they cried out for fear. And immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying: ‘Be of good heart! It is I―fear ye not!’ And Peter said: ‘Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come to Thee upon the waters!’ And Jesus said: ‘Come!’ And Peter, going out of the boat, walked upon the water to come to Jesus. But seeing the wind strong, he was afraid―and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying: ‘Lord, save me!’ And immediately Jesus stretching forth His hand took hold of him, and said to Him: ‘O thou of little Faith! Why didst thou doubt?’” (Matthew 14:24-31).
So why did the Children’s Crusade fail? We do not really know and, before we jump to rash conclusions, we must humbly acknowledge the truth of God’s words: “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). Having said that, we do not really know if the Children’s Crusade actually was a failure. You could call Our Lord’s life a failure if you only look at His crucifixion and death―and that is how even many of disciples saw things―they thought Our Lord had ultimately failed as a result of His arrest, sentence and death. Yet that seeming “failure” was the greatest success in the history of mankind! Who can possibly know the graces that the “failed” Children’s Crusade obtained from Heaven? Only God knows! What we do know is that the prayers and sacrifices of children can potentially be far more powerful than the prayers of adults. Why? Because they are―as the Children’s Crusade leaders stressed―pure and innocent, or at least purer and more innocent than most adults. Usually, children have committed far less sins in their short lives than the great number of sins committed by adults in their longer lives. Children can be true powerhouses in obtaining things from God!
Untrained Little Soldiers
Unfortunately and sadly, priests, parents and teachers fail to train these potential powerhouses of prayer and sacrifice to “fight the good fight of Faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). Instead, they let children waste and whittle away their God-given precious time in playing games―thus allowing them to grow up into soft, spineless, selfish, self-gratifying adults. This brings to mind the incident at Fatima, where the Angle of Portugal appeared to the three little children on three occasions before the first apparition of Our Lady. On one occasion, the Angel found the three little children playing―a nice, normal and needful activity for children, don’t you think? Well, the Angel thought otherwise as he scolded them, saying: “What are you doing? You must pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
The Angel was already putting the children into a spiritual “boot camp” to make “Marian Marines” out of them! Our Lady continued this demand for prayer, sacrifice and suffering in her apparitions: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” These demands, since they were made in the year prior to Our Lady’s first apparition in May of 1917, meant that three children were even younger― when 3 children—Lucia was a 9-year-old, Francisco an 8-year old, and Jacinta a little 6-year-old.
Before all these apparitions of the Angel and Our Lady, the three children―though well-intentioned―were originally quite lukewarm! For example, instead of properly praying the Rosary, they would shorten each Hail Mary by merely saying the first two words of the prayers―Hail Mary. Their version of all the Rosary prayers was to only say the first two words of the prayers and no more―Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be! In this way, a five-decade Rosary was finished in just over 1 minute. Why did they do this? They did so that they would have more time to play games! To play was more important than to pray. Lucia explains: “We had been told to say the Rosary after our lunch, but, since the whole day seemed too short for playing games, we worked out a fine way of getting through the Rosary quickly. We simply passed the beads through our fingers, saying nothing but ‘Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary...’ At the end of each mystery, we paused for a moment, then simply said ‘Our Father’ and so, in the twinkling of an eye, as they say, we had our Rosary finished!”
Militant Marian Marines
Yet once they had experienced Heaven’s “Boot Camp” ― being shown a vision of the real Hell, and being instructed repeatedly by the Angel and Our Lady, they quickly evolved from being play-loving children into being “Militant Marian Marines” fighting to save souls from Hell.
Since the first apparition, the children looked for ways to multiply their mortifications for the conversion of sinners. They mortified their will and character by depriving themselves of food to give to the poor children; by not drinking water for an entire day, especially in the heat; by fasting during the Lenten season; and by renouncing their most favored games to spend more time in prayer. They did not tire of looking for new ways of offering sacrifices for sinners.
One day, shortly the fourth apparition of August 1917, Jacinta found a cord and thought of putting it around her waist and tightening it as a sacrifice. Agreeing, the children cut the cord in three pieces and put it around their waists over their skin. Lucia writes that this was a sacrifice that made them suffer terribly—so much so, that Jacinta was unable to contain the tears: “If we tried to talk her out of it, she immediately responded that by no means it would be taken off because it was for the conversion of sinners.” In the beginning Jacinta wore the cord both day and night―but at one point, Our Lady said to Jacinta: “Our Lord is very pleased with your sacrifices but He doesn’t want you to sleep with the cord around your waist. Wear it only during the day.” They obeyed, yet with greater fervor, they persevered in this difficult penance, knowing it pleased God and our Lady. Francisco and Jacinta wore the cord until their final illness, in which it appeared stained with blood.
Lucia further writes: “Jacinta took this matter of making sacrifices for the conversion of sinners so much to heart, that she never let a single opportunity escape her. There were two families in Moita (at that time it was a small village to the north of the Cova da Iria about half-a-mile from the place of the Apparitions) whose children used to go round begging from door to door. We met them one day, as we were going along with our sheep. As soon as she saw them, Jacinta said to us: ‘Let us give our lunch to those poor children, for the conversion of sinners!’ And she ran to take it to them.
“That same afternoon, she told me she was hungry. There were holm-oaks and oak trees nearby. The acorns were still quite green. However, I told her we could eat them. Francisco climbed up a holm-oak to fill his pockets, but Jacinta remembered that we could eat the ones on the oak trees instead, and thus make a sacrifice by eating the bitter kind. So it was there, that afternoon, that we enjoyed this delicious meal! Jacinta made this one of her usual sacrifices, and often picked the acorns off the oaks or the olives off the trees. One day I said to her: ‘Jacinta, don’t eat that! It’s too bitter!’ She replied: ‘But it’s because it’s bitter that I’m eating it, for the conversion of sinners!’
“These were not the only times we fasted. We had agreed that whenever we met any poor children like these, we would give them our lunch. They were only too happy to receive such an alms, and they took good care to meet us; they used to wait for us along the road. We no sooner saw them than Jacinta ran to give them all the food we had for that day, as happy as if she had no need of it herself. On days like that, our only nourishment consisted of pine nuts, and little berries about the size of an olive which grow on the roots of yellow bell-flowers, as well as blackberries, mushrooms, and some other things we found on the roots of pine trees – I can’t remember now what these were called. If there was fruit available on the land belonging to our parents, we used to eat that.
“Jacinta’s thirst for making sacrifices seemed insatiable. One day a neighbor offered my mother a good pasture for our sheep. Though it was quite far away and we were at the height of summer, my mother accepted the offer made so generously, and sent me there. She told me that we should take our siesta in the shade of the trees, as there was a pond nearby where the flock could go and drink. On the way, we met our dear poor children, and Jacinta ran to give them our usual alms. It was a lovely day, but the sun was blazing, and in that arid, stony wasteland, it seemed as though it would burn everything up. We were parched with thirst, and there wasn’t a single drop of water for us to drink!”
“The heat was getting more and more intense. The shrill singing of the crickets and grasshoppers coupled with the croaking of the frogs in the neighboring pond made an uproar that was almost unbearable. Jacinta, frail as she was, and weakened still more by the lack of food and drink, said to me with that simplicity which was natural to her: ‘Tell the crickets and the frogs to keep quiet! I have such a terrible headache!’ Then Francisco asked her: ‘Don’t you want to suffer this for sinners?’ The poor child, clasping her head between her two little hands, replied: ‘Yes, I do! Let them sing!’
“We were playing one day at the well I have already mentioned. Close to it, there was a grape vine belonging to Jacinta’s mother. Her mother cut a few clusters and brought them to us to eat. But Jacinta never forgot her sinners. ‘We won’t eat them!’ she said, ‘We’ll offer this sacrifice for sinners!’ Then she ran out with the grapes and gave them to the other children playing on the road. She returned radiant with joy, for she had found our poor children, and given them the grapes.
“Another time, my aunt called us to come and eat some figs, which she had brought home, and indeed they would have given anybody an appetite. Jacinta sat down happily next to the basket with the rest of us, and picked up the first fig. She was just about to eat it, when she suddenly remembered, and said: ‘It’s true! Today we haven’t yet made a single sacrifice for sinners! We’ll have to make this one!’ She put the fig back in the basket, and made the offering; and we, too, left our figs in the basket for the conversion of sinners. Jacinta made such sacrifices over and over again, but I won’t stop to tell any more, or I shall never end!”
Article 10
Thursday August 25th to Saturday August 27th, 2022
Heaven is Waiting! What Are You Doing?
Thursday August 25th to Saturday August 27th, 2022
Heaven is Waiting! What Are You Doing?
Risky Silence and Dangerous Neglect
If your boss, or your parents, command you or ask you to do something―then it is a risky policy to ignore their commands or requests. Obedience is an underlying sign of love―as Our Lord says: “If you love Me, keep My commandments! … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me! … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word!” (John 14:15, 21, 23), further adding: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). Ultimately, with disobedience, there can be only one loser―and it will not be the boss or the parents! As Holy Scripture commands: “Let every soul be subject to higher powers―for there is no power but from God―and those that have power, are ordained of God. Therefore he that resists the power, resists the ordinance of God. And they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation!” (Romans 13:1-2). That is even more true in the case of commands that come from God. If Our Lord can warn: “I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment!” (Matthew 12:36) ― then He could also say: “You will have to give an account for every single act of disobedience―whether great or trivial―on the day of judgment!”
In a certain sense, there is nothing trivial about sin―even Venial Sin―for, as our Catechism teaches: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke; My Catholic Faith, Bishop Morrow, STD).
Lost the Sense of Sin
The fact that we look upon sin as being trivial, is an indication that we have lost the sense of sin―which is something that popes have lamented (even the Liberal-Modernist popes) since the time of Pope Pius XII (reigned 1939-1958). In an October 1946 Radio Message to the participants in the National Catechetical Congress of the United States―in Boston, Massachusetts, USA―Pope Pius XII spoke a prophetic word: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin.” Pope Pius XII said this in the wake of the horrors of World War II and John Paul II, Benedict and Francis have all repeated it.
Pope John Paul II, on March 14th, 2005, in a message to the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin. Christ’s invitation to conversion is all the more urgent!”
In homily on March 13th, 2011, the first Sunday of Lent, Pope Benedict XVI said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. In effect this is correct: If we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, we cannot speak of sin. Just as when the sun is hidden the shadows disappear and the shadows appear only if the sun is there, so, too, the eclipse of God necessarily brings the eclipse of sin. Thus the meaning of sin ― which is a different thing from ‘guilt feelings’ as these are understood in psychology ― is only grasped in discovering the meaning of God … God’s response to moral evil is to oppose sin and save the sinner. God does not tolerate evil because He is Love, Justice, Fidelity; and it is precisely because of this that He does not wish the death of the sinner, but desires that the sinner covert and live.”
In a homily on January 31st, 2014, Pope Francis also echoed Pope Pius XII’s statement and lament: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble … It would be good for us to pray today, that the Lord gives us the grace to not lose the sense of sin, so that the Kingdom of God doesn’t crumble!”
Obedience Must Be Godly and Moral
God requires that we obey all legitimate and moral human authority―“Children, obey your parents … Servants, be obedient to them that are your lords, as to Christ” (Galatians 6:1-5). “Servants, be subject to your masters” (1 Peter 2:18). “Obey your prelates and be subject to them” (Hebrews 13:17). “Be subject to princes and powers, to obey at a word, to be ready to every good work” (Titus 3:1). “Be subject to every human creature for God’s sake―whether it be to the king, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of the good―for such is the will of God!” (1 Peter 2:13-15). Our Lord, in speaking to the governor, Pontius Pilate, affirmed and confirmed that all legitimate rulers have their powers only from God and because of God: “Thou shouldst not have any power against Me, unless it were given to thee from above!” (John 19:11).
Human beings―human bosses and authorities―can sometimes command or request something that is wrong in itself. They can “get things wrong” and command or request something that is unreasonable, against right reason, or something immoral or sinful. In such cases we know what to do: “We ought to obey God rather than men!” (Acts 5:29). Even the Church or a pope can sometimes command what is wrong―in which case “we ought to obey God rather than men!” We see St. Paul resist the first pope, St. Peter, in a matter where Paul judged Peter to be wrong: “But when Cephas [Peter] was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed!” (Galatians 2:11). Elsewhere, St. Paul tells us to even resist an angel of God, or the Apostles themselves, if they teach anything contrary to what the Apostles have previously taught: “Though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach a Gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, then let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a Gospel, besides that which you have received [from us], let him be anathema … For I give you to understand, brethren, that the Gospel, which was preached by me, is not according to man!” (Galatians 1:8-11).
Mary Embodies God’s Will
You could say that Our Lady is the embodiment of the will of God. After all, did she not say at the Annunciation―when she learned that God had chosen her to be the mother of His Divine Son―“Be it done unto me according to Thy word!” (Luke 1:38)? Her humble submission to the will of God brought our Savior into this world. We could also say of Christ: “Like Mother like Son!” ― for Christ also echoed Our Lady’s “Be it done unto me according to Thy word” when He said, in the Garden of Gethsemane, faced with His Passion and Death: “Father, if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from Me―but yet not My will, but Thine be done!” (Luke 22:42).
St. Louis de Montfort, in his book True Devotion to Mary, writes: “Mary, being altogether transformed into God by grace and by the glory which transforms all the saints into Him, asks nothing, wishes nothing, does nothing contrary to the eternal and immutable will of God … What Eve has damned and lost by disobedience, Mary has saved by obedience. Eve, in obeying the serpent, has destroyed all her children together with herself, and has delivered them to him; Mary, in being perfectly faithful to God, has saved all her children and servants together with herself, and has consecrated them to His Majesty.”
Like Mother, Like Son!
Children tend to copy and imitate what they see their parents doing and saying. “As the mother was, so also is her daughter’” (Ezechiel 16:44). The Blessed Virgin Mary―our spiritual Mother―was supremely obedient to the will of God. We, being her spiritual children, should naturally imitate our Mother like children always tend to do. Are we supremely obedient to the will of God? Or have we left our spiritual mother to live with our stepmother―the world? As the saying goes: “Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you what kind of person you are!” We tend to imitate those with whom we mix and associate. If the world is our friend, then we stink in the opinion of God: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Our Lady further reveals to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Guard thyself against those living in darkness and the lovers of the world more than against fire―for the wisdom of the sons of this world is carnal and diabolical, and their ways lead to death. Worldly wisdom looks upon the person, not at the state of the souls, nor at virtue, but at outward ostentation. Each one ordinarily seeks to advance his honor and vainglory, struggling to be applauded and renowned. The learned and those who think themselves wise, wish to be applauded and looked up to, bragging about their knowledge. The unlearned try to appear wise. The rich glory in their riches and wish to be respected on their account. The poor strive to be and appear rich, anxious to gain the approbation of the wealthy. The powerful seek to be feared, worshipped and obeyed. All of them are pursuing the same deceit of seeking to appear what they are not in fact, and fail in reality to come up to what they appear to be. The learned and wise, and the powerful of this world, so reluctantly correct and amend their lives. They play-down their faults, extol their virtues and abilities, they attribute to themselves the goods and the blessings, as if they had not received them from God. How many men whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise have thrown themselves, on account of the lack of light of Faith, from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell!”
The Wisdom of the World is Hell-Bound
If you want to save your soul and get to Heaven―then don’t bother asking the world on how to do it! “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God” (1 Corinthians 3:19) ... “The world, by wisdom, knew not God” (1 Corinthians 1:21) … “For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16) … “The light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light―for their works were evil” (John 3:19) … As Jesus said: “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
In speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady warns: “Who is so dull and insipid as not to know the dangers of the worldly life, which is hampered by all the abominable and most wicked laws and customs introduced by the astuteness of the devil and the perversity of men? Guard yourself against those living in darkness and the lovers of the world, more than you would guard yourself against fire―for the wisdom of the sons of this world is carnal and diabolical, and their ways lead to death. The wisdom of the flesh has made men ignorant, foolish and hostile to God, because it is of the devil, deceitful, earthly and rebellious to the divine laws! The sons of the world are ignorant, precisely because they are lovers of earthly riches … If they are weighed down before acquiring riches, how much more weighed down are they when they have come into possession of those riches and possessions? Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! How many men whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise have thrown themselves, on account of the lack of light of Faith, from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell! Infinite is the number of those who are entangled in this dangerous error! Consider all delights and joys of the world as insanity, its laughing as sorrow, sensible enjoyment as self deceit, as the source of foolishness, which intoxicates the heart and hinders and destroys all true wisdom!”
True Wisdom―Wise Advice!
The gospel of the world is a gospel of fun, of self-indulgence, self-gratification, self-aggrandizement, wealth, power and fame. This is totally opposed to the Gospel of Christ which preaches penance, mortification, suffering, detachment, poverty and humility.
Holy Scripture warns us against this false “wisdom” which does not come from God, but the world: “There is a wisdom that abounds in evil” (Ecclesiasticus 21:15) … “The wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God―for it is not subject to the law of God” (Romans 8:7) … “This is not wisdom, descending from above―but earthly, sensual, devilish!” (James 3:15) … “Their wisdom is become unprofitable” (Jeremias 49:7) … “For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent I will reject!’ Where is the wise? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? … The world, by its wisdom, knew not God!” (1 Corinthians 1:19-21).
True wisdom comes only from God: “All wisdom is from the Lord God” (Ecclesiasticus 1:1) and “Wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins” (Wisdom 1:4). The true wisdom that comes from God is more precious than all our earthly treasures: “What good is it for a fool to have riches, seeing he cannot buy wisdom?” (Proverbs 17:16). “Wisdom is better than all the most precious things: and whatsoever may be desired cannot be compared to it” (Proverbs 8:11). “Get wisdom, because it is better than gold” (Proverbs 16:16) … “Wisdom is better than strength” (Ecclesiastes 9:16) … “Wisdom is better than strength, and a wise man is better than a strong man” (Wisdom 6:1) … “Better is wisdom, than weapons of war” (Ecclesiastes 9:18) … “Wisdom is mightier than all” (Wisdom 10:12).
The pinnacle of the true wisdom that comes only from God, is the wisdom of the cross and suffering. St. Paul speaks of this wisdom: “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel―not in wisdom of speech, lest the cross of Christ should be made void. For the word of the cross―to them indeed that perish―is foolishness; but to them that are saved―that is, to us―it is the power of God. For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise!’ Where is the wise? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world, by wisdom, knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of our preaching, to save them that believe. For both the Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom―but we preach Christ crucified, who is unto the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness! But unto them that are called, it is the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men!” (1 Corinthians 1:17-25).
It is Heaven’s Way or the Highway to Hell
God made all things. He created the Heavens and the Earth and all things therein. All belongs to God. It is God’s creation to do with it at as He pleases. God sets the boundaries. God makes the rules. God sets the level of expectation for salvation. It is salvation at His price, and not the peanuts that we prefer to pay! “God is in Heaven―He hath done all things whatsoever He wanted” (Psalm 113:11). “Whatsoever the Lord hath pleased He hath done, in Heaven and on Earth” (Psalm 134:6).
Heaven is not a “freebie”―it is not Social Security handout―it is not free like the air we all can breathe―it is not a guaranteed ending to our life―it is not a right, but an opportunity―it is not reached without effort―it is not gained without a fight―it is only for saints, there is no place for mediocrity in Heaven―it is place that God intended for everyone, but few get there―it is only reached by doing things “God’s way” and not “Our way”―there is nobody in Heaven singing the song: “I Did It My Way!”―that is the song that everyone sings in Hell!
Holy Scripture is very, very clear about the way to Heaven. Here is a compendium and compilation of the most evident biblical quotes on the path to Heaven and what it takes to get there. Heaven is only attained by adhering to God’s way and not to our own invented ways: “Is it My way that is not right, or rather is it not your ways that are perverse?” (Ezechiel 18:25) … “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor are your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). Jesus says: “I am the way! … No man cometh to the Father, but by Me!” (John 14:6) ... “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 7:21) ... “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). What are the chief things that He says we must do to gain Heaven? Our Lord tells us: “Love the Lord God with your whole heart, whole mind, whole soul and whole strength ... Sin no more! … Keep My commandments! … Pray without ceasing! Pray always and faint not! … Do penance! … Take up your cross daily! … Suffer for Christ! … Love one another! … Forgive one another! … Seek and save those who are lost! … Love not the world!” (Mark 12:30; John 5:14; John 14:15; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Luke 18:1; Matthew 4:17; Luke 9:23; Philippians 1:29; John 13:34; Matthew 18:35; Luke 19:10; 1 John 2:15).
In her many apparitions, Our Lady, of course, echoes the will of her divine Son: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended … Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures is spread all over the Earth … People think of nothing but amusements! There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls … There are not any souls who, by their lives of immolation and sacrifice, appease the Divine Justice … I desire souls who will repair for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this! … Will you sacrifice yourself? … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send to you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary!” (combination of quotes from Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita).
Soldiers Obey!
In any army worthy of the name “army”, there is a hierarchical structure that has to be followed―there is a “chain of command” that must be respected. Every soldier has superiors that must be obeyed. The following is taken from Articles 90 to 92 of the Military Code of Law, describing the penalties to be administered for a variety of degrees of disobedience to orders:
ARTICLE 90
“Any person who willfully disobeys a lawful command of that person’s superior commissioned officer--
(1) if the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct; and
(2) if the offense is committed at any other time, …
shall be punished by such punishment, other than death, as a court-martial may direct.
ARTICLE 91
“Any warrant officer or enlisted member who--
(1) strikes or assaults a warrant officer, noncommissioned officer, or petty officer, while that officer is in the execution of his office;
(2) willfully disobeys the lawful order of a warrant officer, noncommissioned officer, or petty officer; or
(3) treats with contempt or is disrespectful in language or deportment toward a warrant officer, noncommissioned officer, or petty officer, while that officer is in the execution of his office; …
shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
ARTICLE 92
“If you are convicted for violating or disobeying an order your military career will be over. In addition to being discharged, you can face other consequences. The seriousness of these consequences will depend on the type of order you violate or disobey.
► The penalties for violating or failing to obey a lawful general order or regulation include:
(1) Dishonorable discharge;
(2) Forfeiture of pay and allowances; and/or
(3) No more than 2 years of confinement.
► The penalties for violating or failing to obey other lawful orders include:
(1) Bad conduct discharge;
(2) Forfeiture of pay and allowances; and/or
(3) No more than 6 months of confinement.
► The penalties for willful dereliction of duties include:
(1) Bad conduct discharge;
(2) Forfeiture of pay and allowances; and/or
(3) No more than 6 months of confinement.
► The penalties for negligent dereliction of duties include:
(1) Forfeiture of two-thirds of your pay for 3 months, and/or
(2) No more than 3 months of confinement.
In dereliction of duty cases, the threshold question is whether the accused had a particular duty. The duty can be imposed by any number of sources, including custom of the service. The key, again, is that the accused must have had knowledge of the particular duty.”
Soldiers of Christ Must Obey!
If the above is true, fair and acceptable in the militaries of this world―then how much more true, fair and acceptable should it not be in Christ’s Military! By virtue of our having received the Sacrament of Confirmation, we are all Soldiers of Christ―“Whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all kings shall serve Him, and shall obey Him!” (Daniel 7:27) … “He commandeth both the winds and the sea, and they obey Him” (Luke 8:25) … “Even the unclean spirits obey Him” (Mark 1:27). “It is good to obey the holy God” (Ecclesiasticus 46:12). “Will you not receive instruction, to obey My words, saith the Lord?” (Jeremias 35:13). “Be obedient in all things!” (2 Corinthians 2:9).
We should be speaking of “the obedience of your confession unto the Gospel of Christ” (2 Corinthians 9:13). “But all do not obey the Gospel” (Romans 10:16). Why then do we disobey so many commands of our Commanders? Why do we pick and choose which orders we wish to obey? Why are negligent and insubordinate in carrying out what has been commanded of us? Why do we lack a sufficient “obedience to the Faith” (Romans 1:5). “Who hath bewitched you that you should not obey” (Galatians 3:1) … “To rebel, to refuse to obey, is like the sin of witchcraft and like the crime of idolatry” (1 Kings 15:23).This is so opposed to the spirit of our Commander-in-Chief, Jesus Christ: “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). “Whereas indeed He was the Son of God, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8) who obediently said to His Father when faced by the terrible sufferings of His Passion and Death: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me! Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt … If this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, Thy will be done!” (Matthew 26:39-42).
Soldiers of Christ Must Suffer!
JESUS CHRIST, our Commander-in-Chief has ordered that we enter Heaven by walking through the same door of suffering that He chose to go through here on Earth: “I am the door” (John 10:7) … “I am the way. No man cometh to the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6) … “I am the door. By Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved!” (John 10:9). “Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). That narrow gate and narrow path is the path of suffering. That way to Heaven is the Way of the Cross. Without suffering there is no way to Heaven: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Our Lord further indicates the degree of soldiering that we must attain: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) … “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake!” (Acts 9:16) … “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for the sake of justice―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake―be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:10-12). “You shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake―but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:22). “For whosoever will seek to save his life, shall lose it―and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel, shall save it!” (Mark 8:35).
ST. PAUL learnt the lesson of suffering well―for he would later write: “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). “In all things we suffer tribulation, but are not distressed; we are straitened, but are not destitute; we suffer persecution, but are not forsaken; we are cast down, but we perish not!” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). “We suffer with Him, so that we may be also glorified with Him. For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come!” (Romans 8:17-18). “God forbid that I should glory in anything, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ―by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14). “I am in many labors, in prisons frequently, in stripes above measure, in danger of death often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, minus one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27). “If you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice!” (1 Peter 4:12) … “For if we suffer [for Him], then we shall also reign with Him!” (2 Timothy 2:12).
In Private Revelations, OUR LADY merely echoes what has already been revealed in the Divine Public Revelation of Holy Scripture. Our Lady, in speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, speaks of the cross and suffering: “Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment. I do not count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son ... The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good … My most holy Son and myself are trying to find among those who have arrived at the way of the Cross, some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the souls, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If you wish to be Our disciple, then enter into this school―in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross … In this science of suffering, earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible with this wisdom …
“Worldlings in their torpidity are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Father and Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings and that His sinful children must reap the fruit of the Redemption by imitation of their sinless Chief … How persistently they forget, that their Teacher and Master has first accepted sufferings, and has honored and sanctified them in his own Person! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering, even after my most holy Son did suffer for them … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside ... Nearly all of them strive to avoid labor and suffering and are frightened by the royal and secure road of mortification and the Cross ... They do not seek the medicine of suffering … Full of this deceitful ignorance, they not only abhor resemblance to Christ’s suffering, but they make their recovery impossible―since all of them are weak and afflicted by many sins, for which the only remedy is suffering … Why then will mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? … As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation. Yet even all this is insufficient, since their inclinations and their blind love of visible things, detains them and makes them hard and heavy of heart …
“In many of the faithful this ignorance goes still farther―for some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored! Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! … They act like men who have done little to penetrate into the mysteries and into the spirit of what they had seen and heard in the school of their Master ... This school was established by my most holy and loving Son when He proclaimed and set up the eight beatitudes (Matthew 5:10). Afterwards, when He Himself assumed all the sufferings of His Passion, He became for us a Teacher, who practices what He teaches! … This was set before the eyes of the Catholics, and can be plainly read by them, like a book of life, during their whole earthly pilgrimage―but there are only a few and remotely scattered souls who enter into this school and study this book, while countless are the wayward and foolish, who ignore this science in their unwillingness to be taught! ... This is the teaching of the school of the Redeemer, hidden from those living in Babylon and from those who love vanity! … Many persons―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16) ... The number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate is also be uncountable!”
Even Children Must Suffer!
Children are not exempt from fighting for the Kingdom of Christ. There are numerous examples of “child soldiers” throughout the history of the Church―as well as in the secular field.
If your boss, or your parents, command you or ask you to do something―then it is a risky policy to ignore their commands or requests. Obedience is an underlying sign of love―as Our Lord says: “If you love Me, keep My commandments! … He that has My commandments, and keeps them; he it is that loves Me! … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word!” (John 14:15, 21, 23), further adding: “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). Ultimately, with disobedience, there can be only one loser―and it will not be the boss or the parents! As Holy Scripture commands: “Let every soul be subject to higher powers―for there is no power but from God―and those that have power, are ordained of God. Therefore he that resists the power, resists the ordinance of God. And they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation!” (Romans 13:1-2). That is even more true in the case of commands that come from God. If Our Lord can warn: “I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment!” (Matthew 12:36) ― then He could also say: “You will have to give an account for every single act of disobedience―whether great or trivial―on the day of judgment!”
In a certain sense, there is nothing trivial about sin―even Venial Sin―for, as our Catechism teaches: “Sin is the only evil upon Earth … Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God … Mortal sin must be a most terrible thing indeed to make a just and merciful God create Hell for the everlasting punishment of the rebellious angels and of sinners who die with even only one mortal sin … Venial sin is a less serious offense against the law of God … We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin. In Holy Scripture we see from many examples how God regards venial sin; even in this life He has punished it most severely. For only a slight doubt about God's mercy, because of the wickedness of his people, Moses was punished [by death on the borders of the Promised Land and] he was not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land” (The Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke; My Catholic Faith, Bishop Morrow, STD).
Lost the Sense of Sin
The fact that we look upon sin as being trivial, is an indication that we have lost the sense of sin―which is something that popes have lamented (even the Liberal-Modernist popes) since the time of Pope Pius XII (reigned 1939-1958). In an October 1946 Radio Message to the participants in the National Catechetical Congress of the United States―in Boston, Massachusetts, USA―Pope Pius XII spoke a prophetic word: “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin.” Pope Pius XII said this in the wake of the horrors of World War II and John Paul II, Benedict and Francis have all repeated it.
Pope John Paul II, on March 14th, 2005, in a message to the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, wrote: “We live in a society that seems to have lost the sense of God and of sin. Christ’s invitation to conversion is all the more urgent!”
In homily on March 13th, 2011, the first Sunday of Lent, Pope Benedict XVI said: “The word ‘sin’ is not accepted by many, because it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. In effect this is correct: If we eliminate God from the horizon of the world, we cannot speak of sin. Just as when the sun is hidden the shadows disappear and the shadows appear only if the sun is there, so, too, the eclipse of God necessarily brings the eclipse of sin. Thus the meaning of sin ― which is a different thing from ‘guilt feelings’ as these are understood in psychology ― is only grasped in discovering the meaning of God … God’s response to moral evil is to oppose sin and save the sinner. God does not tolerate evil because He is Love, Justice, Fidelity; and it is precisely because of this that He does not wish the death of the sinner, but desires that the sinner covert and live.”
In a homily on January 31st, 2014, Pope Francis also echoed Pope Pius XII’s statement and lament: “When the Kingdom of God is forgotten, when the Kingdom of God diminishes, one of the signs is that the sense of sin is lost … When you lose the sense of sin, you also lose the sense of the Kingdom of God … When we lose the sense of sin, when we let the Kingdom of God crumble … It would be good for us to pray today, that the Lord gives us the grace to not lose the sense of sin, so that the Kingdom of God doesn’t crumble!”
Obedience Must Be Godly and Moral
God requires that we obey all legitimate and moral human authority―“Children, obey your parents … Servants, be obedient to them that are your lords, as to Christ” (Galatians 6:1-5). “Servants, be subject to your masters” (1 Peter 2:18). “Obey your prelates and be subject to them” (Hebrews 13:17). “Be subject to princes and powers, to obey at a word, to be ready to every good work” (Titus 3:1). “Be subject to every human creature for God’s sake―whether it be to the king, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of the good―for such is the will of God!” (1 Peter 2:13-15). Our Lord, in speaking to the governor, Pontius Pilate, affirmed and confirmed that all legitimate rulers have their powers only from God and because of God: “Thou shouldst not have any power against Me, unless it were given to thee from above!” (John 19:11).
Human beings―human bosses and authorities―can sometimes command or request something that is wrong in itself. They can “get things wrong” and command or request something that is unreasonable, against right reason, or something immoral or sinful. In such cases we know what to do: “We ought to obey God rather than men!” (Acts 5:29). Even the Church or a pope can sometimes command what is wrong―in which case “we ought to obey God rather than men!” We see St. Paul resist the first pope, St. Peter, in a matter where Paul judged Peter to be wrong: “But when Cephas [Peter] was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed!” (Galatians 2:11). Elsewhere, St. Paul tells us to even resist an angel of God, or the Apostles themselves, if they teach anything contrary to what the Apostles have previously taught: “Though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach a Gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, then let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a Gospel, besides that which you have received [from us], let him be anathema … For I give you to understand, brethren, that the Gospel, which was preached by me, is not according to man!” (Galatians 1:8-11).
Mary Embodies God’s Will
You could say that Our Lady is the embodiment of the will of God. After all, did she not say at the Annunciation―when she learned that God had chosen her to be the mother of His Divine Son―“Be it done unto me according to Thy word!” (Luke 1:38)? Her humble submission to the will of God brought our Savior into this world. We could also say of Christ: “Like Mother like Son!” ― for Christ also echoed Our Lady’s “Be it done unto me according to Thy word” when He said, in the Garden of Gethsemane, faced with His Passion and Death: “Father, if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from Me―but yet not My will, but Thine be done!” (Luke 22:42).
St. Louis de Montfort, in his book True Devotion to Mary, writes: “Mary, being altogether transformed into God by grace and by the glory which transforms all the saints into Him, asks nothing, wishes nothing, does nothing contrary to the eternal and immutable will of God … What Eve has damned and lost by disobedience, Mary has saved by obedience. Eve, in obeying the serpent, has destroyed all her children together with herself, and has delivered them to him; Mary, in being perfectly faithful to God, has saved all her children and servants together with herself, and has consecrated them to His Majesty.”
Like Mother, Like Son!
Children tend to copy and imitate what they see their parents doing and saying. “As the mother was, so also is her daughter’” (Ezechiel 16:44). The Blessed Virgin Mary―our spiritual Mother―was supremely obedient to the will of God. We, being her spiritual children, should naturally imitate our Mother like children always tend to do. Are we supremely obedient to the will of God? Or have we left our spiritual mother to live with our stepmother―the world? As the saying goes: “Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you what kind of person you are!” We tend to imitate those with whom we mix and associate. If the world is our friend, then we stink in the opinion of God: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him!” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4) ... “Keep yourself unspotted from this world!” (James 1:27) … “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) … “That we be not condemned with this world!” (1 Corinthians 11:32).
Our Lady further reveals to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Guard thyself against those living in darkness and the lovers of the world more than against fire―for the wisdom of the sons of this world is carnal and diabolical, and their ways lead to death. Worldly wisdom looks upon the person, not at the state of the souls, nor at virtue, but at outward ostentation. Each one ordinarily seeks to advance his honor and vainglory, struggling to be applauded and renowned. The learned and those who think themselves wise, wish to be applauded and looked up to, bragging about their knowledge. The unlearned try to appear wise. The rich glory in their riches and wish to be respected on their account. The poor strive to be and appear rich, anxious to gain the approbation of the wealthy. The powerful seek to be feared, worshipped and obeyed. All of them are pursuing the same deceit of seeking to appear what they are not in fact, and fail in reality to come up to what they appear to be. The learned and wise, and the powerful of this world, so reluctantly correct and amend their lives. They play-down their faults, extol their virtues and abilities, they attribute to themselves the goods and the blessings, as if they had not received them from God. How many men whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise have thrown themselves, on account of the lack of light of Faith, from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell!”
The Wisdom of the World is Hell-Bound
If you want to save your soul and get to Heaven―then don’t bother asking the world on how to do it! “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God” (1 Corinthians 3:19) ... “The world, by wisdom, knew not God” (1 Corinthians 1:21) … “For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16) … “The light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light―for their works were evil” (John 3:19) … As Jesus said: “The world hates Me because I give testimony of it, that the works of the world are evil!” (John 7:7).
In speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, Our Lady warns: “Who is so dull and insipid as not to know the dangers of the worldly life, which is hampered by all the abominable and most wicked laws and customs introduced by the astuteness of the devil and the perversity of men? Guard yourself against those living in darkness and the lovers of the world, more than you would guard yourself against fire―for the wisdom of the sons of this world is carnal and diabolical, and their ways lead to death. The wisdom of the flesh has made men ignorant, foolish and hostile to God, because it is of the devil, deceitful, earthly and rebellious to the divine laws! The sons of the world are ignorant, precisely because they are lovers of earthly riches … If they are weighed down before acquiring riches, how much more weighed down are they when they have come into possession of those riches and possessions? Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! How many men whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise have thrown themselves, on account of the lack of light of Faith, from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of Hell! Infinite is the number of those who are entangled in this dangerous error! Consider all delights and joys of the world as insanity, its laughing as sorrow, sensible enjoyment as self deceit, as the source of foolishness, which intoxicates the heart and hinders and destroys all true wisdom!”
True Wisdom―Wise Advice!
The gospel of the world is a gospel of fun, of self-indulgence, self-gratification, self-aggrandizement, wealth, power and fame. This is totally opposed to the Gospel of Christ which preaches penance, mortification, suffering, detachment, poverty and humility.
Holy Scripture warns us against this false “wisdom” which does not come from God, but the world: “There is a wisdom that abounds in evil” (Ecclesiasticus 21:15) … “The wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God―for it is not subject to the law of God” (Romans 8:7) … “This is not wisdom, descending from above―but earthly, sensual, devilish!” (James 3:15) … “Their wisdom is become unprofitable” (Jeremias 49:7) … “For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent I will reject!’ Where is the wise? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? … The world, by its wisdom, knew not God!” (1 Corinthians 1:19-21).
True wisdom comes only from God: “All wisdom is from the Lord God” (Ecclesiasticus 1:1) and “Wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins” (Wisdom 1:4). The true wisdom that comes from God is more precious than all our earthly treasures: “What good is it for a fool to have riches, seeing he cannot buy wisdom?” (Proverbs 17:16). “Wisdom is better than all the most precious things: and whatsoever may be desired cannot be compared to it” (Proverbs 8:11). “Get wisdom, because it is better than gold” (Proverbs 16:16) … “Wisdom is better than strength” (Ecclesiastes 9:16) … “Wisdom is better than strength, and a wise man is better than a strong man” (Wisdom 6:1) … “Better is wisdom, than weapons of war” (Ecclesiastes 9:18) … “Wisdom is mightier than all” (Wisdom 10:12).
The pinnacle of the true wisdom that comes only from God, is the wisdom of the cross and suffering. St. Paul speaks of this wisdom: “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel―not in wisdom of speech, lest the cross of Christ should be made void. For the word of the cross―to them indeed that perish―is foolishness; but to them that are saved―that is, to us―it is the power of God. For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise!’ Where is the wise? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world, by wisdom, knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of our preaching, to save them that believe. For both the Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom―but we preach Christ crucified, who is unto the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness! But unto them that are called, it is the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men!” (1 Corinthians 1:17-25).
It is Heaven’s Way or the Highway to Hell
God made all things. He created the Heavens and the Earth and all things therein. All belongs to God. It is God’s creation to do with it at as He pleases. God sets the boundaries. God makes the rules. God sets the level of expectation for salvation. It is salvation at His price, and not the peanuts that we prefer to pay! “God is in Heaven―He hath done all things whatsoever He wanted” (Psalm 113:11). “Whatsoever the Lord hath pleased He hath done, in Heaven and on Earth” (Psalm 134:6).
Heaven is not a “freebie”―it is not Social Security handout―it is not free like the air we all can breathe―it is not a guaranteed ending to our life―it is not a right, but an opportunity―it is not reached without effort―it is not gained without a fight―it is only for saints, there is no place for mediocrity in Heaven―it is place that God intended for everyone, but few get there―it is only reached by doing things “God’s way” and not “Our way”―there is nobody in Heaven singing the song: “I Did It My Way!”―that is the song that everyone sings in Hell!
Holy Scripture is very, very clear about the way to Heaven. Here is a compendium and compilation of the most evident biblical quotes on the path to Heaven and what it takes to get there. Heaven is only attained by adhering to God’s way and not to our own invented ways: “Is it My way that is not right, or rather is it not your ways that are perverse?” (Ezechiel 18:25) … “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor are your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). Jesus says: “I am the way! … No man cometh to the Father, but by Me!” (John 14:6) ... “Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 7:21) ... “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). What are the chief things that He says we must do to gain Heaven? Our Lord tells us: “Love the Lord God with your whole heart, whole mind, whole soul and whole strength ... Sin no more! … Keep My commandments! … Pray without ceasing! Pray always and faint not! … Do penance! … Take up your cross daily! … Suffer for Christ! … Love one another! … Forgive one another! … Seek and save those who are lost! … Love not the world!” (Mark 12:30; John 5:14; John 14:15; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Luke 18:1; Matthew 4:17; Luke 9:23; Philippians 1:29; John 13:34; Matthew 18:35; Luke 19:10; 1 John 2:15).
In her many apparitions, Our Lady, of course, echoes the will of her divine Son: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended … Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures is spread all over the Earth … People think of nothing but amusements! There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls … There are not any souls who, by their lives of immolation and sacrifice, appease the Divine Justice … I desire souls who will repair for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this! … Will you sacrifice yourself? … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send to you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary!” (combination of quotes from Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita).
Soldiers Obey!
In any army worthy of the name “army”, there is a hierarchical structure that has to be followed―there is a “chain of command” that must be respected. Every soldier has superiors that must be obeyed. The following is taken from Articles 90 to 92 of the Military Code of Law, describing the penalties to be administered for a variety of degrees of disobedience to orders:
ARTICLE 90
“Any person who willfully disobeys a lawful command of that person’s superior commissioned officer--
(1) if the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct; and
(2) if the offense is committed at any other time, …
shall be punished by such punishment, other than death, as a court-martial may direct.
ARTICLE 91
“Any warrant officer or enlisted member who--
(1) strikes or assaults a warrant officer, noncommissioned officer, or petty officer, while that officer is in the execution of his office;
(2) willfully disobeys the lawful order of a warrant officer, noncommissioned officer, or petty officer; or
(3) treats with contempt or is disrespectful in language or deportment toward a warrant officer, noncommissioned officer, or petty officer, while that officer is in the execution of his office; …
shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
ARTICLE 92
“If you are convicted for violating or disobeying an order your military career will be over. In addition to being discharged, you can face other consequences. The seriousness of these consequences will depend on the type of order you violate or disobey.
► The penalties for violating or failing to obey a lawful general order or regulation include:
(1) Dishonorable discharge;
(2) Forfeiture of pay and allowances; and/or
(3) No more than 2 years of confinement.
► The penalties for violating or failing to obey other lawful orders include:
(1) Bad conduct discharge;
(2) Forfeiture of pay and allowances; and/or
(3) No more than 6 months of confinement.
► The penalties for willful dereliction of duties include:
(1) Bad conduct discharge;
(2) Forfeiture of pay and allowances; and/or
(3) No more than 6 months of confinement.
► The penalties for negligent dereliction of duties include:
(1) Forfeiture of two-thirds of your pay for 3 months, and/or
(2) No more than 3 months of confinement.
In dereliction of duty cases, the threshold question is whether the accused had a particular duty. The duty can be imposed by any number of sources, including custom of the service. The key, again, is that the accused must have had knowledge of the particular duty.”
Soldiers of Christ Must Obey!
If the above is true, fair and acceptable in the militaries of this world―then how much more true, fair and acceptable should it not be in Christ’s Military! By virtue of our having received the Sacrament of Confirmation, we are all Soldiers of Christ―“Whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all kings shall serve Him, and shall obey Him!” (Daniel 7:27) … “He commandeth both the winds and the sea, and they obey Him” (Luke 8:25) … “Even the unclean spirits obey Him” (Mark 1:27). “It is good to obey the holy God” (Ecclesiasticus 46:12). “Will you not receive instruction, to obey My words, saith the Lord?” (Jeremias 35:13). “Be obedient in all things!” (2 Corinthians 2:9).
We should be speaking of “the obedience of your confession unto the Gospel of Christ” (2 Corinthians 9:13). “But all do not obey the Gospel” (Romans 10:16). Why then do we disobey so many commands of our Commanders? Why do we pick and choose which orders we wish to obey? Why are negligent and insubordinate in carrying out what has been commanded of us? Why do we lack a sufficient “obedience to the Faith” (Romans 1:5). “Who hath bewitched you that you should not obey” (Galatians 3:1) … “To rebel, to refuse to obey, is like the sin of witchcraft and like the crime of idolatry” (1 Kings 15:23).This is so opposed to the spirit of our Commander-in-Chief, Jesus Christ: “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). “Whereas indeed He was the Son of God, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8) who obediently said to His Father when faced by the terrible sufferings of His Passion and Death: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me! Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt … If this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, Thy will be done!” (Matthew 26:39-42).
Soldiers of Christ Must Suffer!
JESUS CHRIST, our Commander-in-Chief has ordered that we enter Heaven by walking through the same door of suffering that He chose to go through here on Earth: “I am the door” (John 10:7) … “I am the way. No man cometh to the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6) … “I am the door. By Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved!” (John 10:9). “Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). That narrow gate and narrow path is the path of suffering. That way to Heaven is the Way of the Cross. Without suffering there is no way to Heaven: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38). Our Lord further indicates the degree of soldiering that we must attain: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) … “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake!” (Acts 9:16) … “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for the sake of justice―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake―be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven!” (Matthew 5:10-12). “You shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake―but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:22). “For whosoever will seek to save his life, shall lose it―and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel, shall save it!” (Mark 8:35).
ST. PAUL learnt the lesson of suffering well―for he would later write: “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). “In all things we suffer tribulation, but are not distressed; we are straitened, but are not destitute; we suffer persecution, but are not forsaken; we are cast down, but we perish not!” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). “We suffer with Him, so that we may be also glorified with Him. For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come!” (Romans 8:17-18). “God forbid that I should glory in anything, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ―by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14). “I am in many labors, in prisons frequently, in stripes above measure, in danger of death often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, minus one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27). “If you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice!” (1 Peter 4:12) … “For if we suffer [for Him], then we shall also reign with Him!” (2 Timothy 2:12).
In Private Revelations, OUR LADY merely echoes what has already been revealed in the Divine Public Revelation of Holy Scripture. Our Lady, in speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, speaks of the cross and suffering: “Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment. I do not count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son ... The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good … My most holy Son and myself are trying to find among those who have arrived at the way of the Cross, some soul, whom We can instruct systematically in this divine science and whom We can withdraw from the worldly and diabolical wisdom, in which the souls, with blind stubbornness, are rejecting the salutary discipline of sufferings. If you wish to be Our disciple, then enter into this school―in which alone is taught the doctrine of the Cross … In this science of suffering, earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible with this wisdom …
“Worldlings in their torpidity are moved neither by the duty of conforming to their Father and Lord, nor by His declaration that all their salvation consists in following Christ in His sufferings and that His sinful children must reap the fruit of the Redemption by imitation of their sinless Chief … How persistently they forget, that their Teacher and Master has first accepted sufferings, and has honored and sanctified them in his own Person! It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering, even after my most holy Son did suffer for them … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside ... Nearly all of them strive to avoid labor and suffering and are frightened by the royal and secure road of mortification and the Cross ... They do not seek the medicine of suffering … Full of this deceitful ignorance, they not only abhor resemblance to Christ’s suffering, but they make their recovery impossible―since all of them are weak and afflicted by many sins, for which the only remedy is suffering … Why then will mortals continue to deceive themselves, by expecting, in spite of their sins, to become pure and worthy of enjoying God, without the furnace or the file of sorrows? … As for those who are forgetful of this truth and are so adverse to suffering―our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation. Yet even all this is insufficient, since their inclinations and their blind love of visible things, detains them and makes them hard and heavy of heart …
“In many of the faithful this ignorance goes still farther―for some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored! Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in His Passion! … They act like men who have done little to penetrate into the mysteries and into the spirit of what they had seen and heard in the school of their Master ... This school was established by my most holy and loving Son when He proclaimed and set up the eight beatitudes (Matthew 5:10). Afterwards, when He Himself assumed all the sufferings of His Passion, He became for us a Teacher, who practices what He teaches! … This was set before the eyes of the Catholics, and can be plainly read by them, like a book of life, during their whole earthly pilgrimage―but there are only a few and remotely scattered souls who enter into this school and study this book, while countless are the wayward and foolish, who ignore this science in their unwillingness to be taught! ... This is the teaching of the school of the Redeemer, hidden from those living in Babylon and from those who love vanity! … Many persons―whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise―have thrown themselves into the eternal darkness of Hell! Let the countless numbers that have fallen into Hell with their burden, proclaim it! Do not think that it is written in vain: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen!’ (Matthew 20:16) ... The number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate is also be uncountable!”
Even Children Must Suffer!
Children are not exempt from fighting for the Kingdom of Christ. There are numerous examples of “child soldiers” throughout the history of the Church―as well as in the secular field.
Article 9
Monday August 22nd to Wednesday August 24th, 2022
The Immaculate Heart Saves!
Monday August 22nd to Wednesday August 24th, 2022
The Immaculate Heart Saves!
The Heart of Mary
Today, August 22nd, we celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. What, if anything, is so important about this feast―or rather, what is so important about the Immaculate Heart of Mary? Well, it is not just the Immaculate Heart of Mary that is important―but Mary as a whole. The Immaculate Heart of Mary is only one aspect of Mary―she is also known by a multitude of other titles. Nevertheless, on this feast of the Immaculate Heart, let us first of all look at Our Lady under that title―and then look beyond that.
The word ‘heart’, expresses the free ‘I’ of the superior and rational part of the soul, the queen of the other faculties, the root of good and evil, and the mother of virtue and of vice.
Our Lord refers to this heart when He says: “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth that which is evil.” Here, “a good heart” means the righteous will of the just man, from which all kinds of good can come; and “an evil heart” means the bad will of the wicked, which is a source of all kinds of evil.
We must also understand by the word “heart” that highest part of the soul which theologians call the point of the spirit. It is the seat of contemplation, which consists in turning the mind directly toward God and viewing Him in all simplicity, without discursive reasoning or multiplicity of thoughts. The Fathers of the Church apply to this power of the soul those words which the Holy Ghost puts in the mouth of the Blessed Virgin Mary: “I sleep, and my heart watcheth.” According to St. Bernardine of Siena and several other writers, sleep and rest of the body did not prevent Mary’s holy Heart, that is, the highest part of her mind, from being always united to God in sublime contemplation.
At times “heart” stands for the whole interior life of man; I mean, of course, the spiritual life, as indicated by these words spoken by the Son of God to the faithful soul: “Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm,” that is, stamp the image of my interior and exterior life in your interior and exterior life, in your soul and in your body, by a perfect imitation of Me.
The word “heart” can also signify the Holy Spirit, the veritable Heart of the Father and the Son, Whom They desire to give us for our own mind and heart. “And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you.” The Son of God is called the Heart of the Eternal Father in Sacred Scripture, and it is of this heart that the Father speaks to His Spouse, the Blessed Virgin, when He says to her: “Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse,” or according to the Septuagint: “Thou hast ravished my heart.” And the Son of God Himself is called in Scripture “The breath of our mouth,” that is, the soul of our soul and our hearts very heart.
All these hearts are to be found in Mary, the Mother of Fair Love, and they form in her one single heart, because all the faculties of the superior and the inferior part of her soul were always harmoniously united. Moreover, Jesus, who is the heart of His Father, and the Holy Ghost, who is the heart of the Father and the Son, were given to Mary to be the soul of her soul and the heart of her heart.
To understand more clearly what is meant by the Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we must recall that, just as we adore in the Most Holy Trinity and in the Incarnate Word three hearts which form but one heart, so also do we honor in the Mother of God three hearts united in one.
The first heart of Mary, the Mother of God, is the heart of flesh enclosed in her virginal breast. Although this heart is corporeal, it is nevertheless completely spiritualized by the spirit of grace and the spirit of God which fill it.
The second heart is her spiritual heart, made God-like, not indeed by the hypostatic union as in the Incarnate Word, but by a superlative participation in the divine perfections. This heart is referred to by the words of the Holy Ghost: “All the glory of the king’s daughter is within,” that is, has its origin in her heart and her inmost soul.
The third heart of Mary is divine and is truly God Himself, for it is none other than the love of God. This is the heart of which she says: “I sleep, and my heart watcheth” ― which means according to the interpretation of several holy Doctors: “While I grant necessary rest to my body, my Son Jesus, who is my Heart and whom I love like my own heart, is always watching over me and for me.”
These three hearts of the Mother of God constitute a single Heart, through the holiest and most intimate union that ever was and will be, next to the hypostatic union. Of these three hearts, or rather, of this single Heart, the Holy Ghost has said twice: “Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.” “Cor unum et anima una”, that is, “One heart and one soul.”
The Feast and Devotion to the Heart of Mary
Historically, devotion to the Heart of Mary can be traced to the twelfth century with such writers as St. Anselm (d. 1109) and St. Bernard of Clairvaux (died 1153) who is considered as one of the most influential writers in Marian devotion. St. Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444) has been called the Doctor of the Heart of Mary due to his writings on Mary’s heart. He wrote, “from her heart, as from a furnace of Divine Love, the Blessed Virgin spoke the words of the most ardent love.” St. John Eudes (1601 -1680) helped by his writings to begin a renewal in this devotion. Both Pope Leo XIII and Pope St. Pius X called him, “the father, Doctor, and Apostle of the liturgical cult of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.” Even two decades before the first liturgical celebrations in honor of the Heart of Jesus, St. John Eudes and his followers observed February 8th as the feast of the Heart of Mary as early as 1643. Pope Pius VII (died 1823) extended its celebration to any diocese or congregation requesting it.
Devotion to Mary’s Heart has a greater flowering following the manifestation of the Miraculous Medal to St. Catherine Laboure in 1830 and the Appearances of’ Our Lady in Fatima. From May 13 to October 13th, 1917, our Blessed Mother Mary appeared to three children, Jacinta and Francisco Marto and their cousin Lucia dos Santos in Fatima, Portugal. She revealed to them: “Jesus wants to make me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world. I promise salvation to whoever embraces it!”“ (Our Lady of Fatima, June 1917) and the following month, Our Lady reiterates: “God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart” (Our Lady of Fatima, July 1917).
In 1942, the twenty-fifth anniversary of Fatima, Pope Pius XII consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That same year, he assigned the feast day to August 22nd, the octave of the Assumption. On May 4th, 1944, he extended the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to the Universal Church. With the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council in 1969, the feast was uprooted from its traditional date―like many other feasts―and given a new date on the day following the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus―so that the modern Church now observes it on the Saturday after the second Sunday after Pentecost.
The Immaculate Heart Promises Salvation
Notice that Our Lady promises salvation to those who embrace devotion to her Immaculate Heart: “Jesus wants to make me known and loved. Jesus wishes to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world. I promise salvation to whoever embraces it!” This dovetails with what many of the saints have said about Our Lady and salvation.
● St. Albert the Great (a Doctor of the Church), says: “They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish.”
● St. Bonaventure (a Doctor of the Church) repeats the same thought when he says: “They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation.”
● St. Ignatius of Antioch (a Father of the Church), a martyr of the second century, writes: “A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost.”
● St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church) says: “It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.”
● St. Anselm (a Doctor of the Church) writes: “He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost.”
● St. Antonine is of the same opinion. He says: “As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified.”
● St. John Damascene (a Doctor of the Church) says: “To be devout to you, O holy Virgin, is an arm of salvation which God gives to those whom He wishes to save.”
● St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church), in his book, The Glories of Mary, says: “The intercession of Mary is even necessary to salvation. We say ‘necessary’, not absolutely, but morally. This necessity proceeds from the will itself of God, that all graces that He dispenses should pass by the hands of Mary, according to the opinion of St. Bernard.”
● St. Louis de Montfort adds: “Devotion to our Blessed Lady is necessary to salvation, and that it is an infallible mark of reprobation to have no esteem and love for the holy Virgin; while on the other hand, it is an infallible mark of predestination to be entirely and truly devoted to her.”
● St. Bernardine of Sienna addresses these words to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “O Lady, thou art the dispenser of all graces, and since the grace of salvation can only come through thy hands, our salvation depends on thee!”
The Power of the Immaculate Heart
After God Himself―that is to say, the Holy Trinity: the Father, Son and Holy Ghost―there is nobody or nothing as powerful as the Immaculate Heart of Mary, or Mary in general. However, there are three virtues that the devils detest are powerless against―Charity, Humility and Purity. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, in his book Mother of the Savior, writes of Mary that “her progress merited for her gradually that eminent degree of charity, humility, and purity which made her, on the Annunciation day, the worthy mother of the Savior.”
These three virtues are among the ten principal virtues of Our Lady, listed by St. Louis de Montfort, in his book True Devotion to Mary, wherein he states: “Devotion to Our Lady is holy; that is to say, it leads the soul to avoid sin and to imitate the virtues of the Blessed Virgin, particularly her ardent charity, her profound humility, her divine purity, her lively Faith, her blind obedience, her continual prayer, her universal mortification, her heroic patience, her angelic sweetness and her divine wisdom. These are the ten principal virtues of the most holy Virgin.”
Mary’s Charity
We mention charity―because Satan knows no charity. The devils are not even charitable amongst themselves. There is no love in Hell and everyone hates each other in Hell. The lesser devils fear Lucifer, but they do not love him―they hate him. Likewise with all those who are damned―no matter how much they might have loved each other on Earth―they now utterly detest and hate each other and everyone else in Hell. In Hell you are all alone, with not one single friend, and everyone hates you and you hate everyone else. There is no charity in Hell. Yet “God is charity … Charity is of God. And every one that loves, is born of God, and knows God … If we love one another, God abides in us!” (1 John 4:7-12). “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost” (Romans 5:5). “Waters cannot quench [the fire of] charity, neither can the floods drown it” (Canticle 8:7), whereas “charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12). Without Charity―much like without God―whatever we do is useless: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his book The Glories of Mary, quotes several other saints on Our Lady: “St. Anselm says that ‘wherever there is the greatest purity, there is also the greatest charity.’ The more a heart is pure and empty of itself, the greater is the fullness of its love towards God. The most holy Mary―because she was all humility and had nothing of self in her―was filled with Divine love, so that ‘her love towards God surpassed that of all men and Angels,’ as St. Bernardine writes. Therefore St. Francis de Sales, with good reason, called her ‘the Queen of love’ … Who has ever fulfilled as she did that first commandment, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart’? In her, Divine love was so ardent that no defect of any kind could have access to her. ‘Divine love,’ says St. Bernard, ‘so penetrated and filled the soul of Mary, that no part of her was left untouched; so that she loved with her whole heart, with her whole soul, with her whole strength, and was full of grace.’ God, Who is love, (1 John 4:8) came on Earth to enkindle in the hearts of everyone the flame of His Divine love―but in no heart did He enkindle it so much as in that of His Mother; for her heart was entirely pure from all earthly affections, and fully prepared to burn with this blessed flame. Hence the heart of Mary became all fire and flames … Hence St. Bernardine of Siena asserts that the most holy Virgin was never tempted by Hell―for, he says: ‘As flies are driven away by a great fire, so were the evil spirits driven away by her ardent love; so much so, that they did not even dare approach her!’ Richard of St. Victor also says, that ‘the Blessed Virgin was terrible to the princes of darkness, so that they did not presume to tempt or approach her―for the fire of her charity deterred them” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary).
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, in his book Mother of the Savior, writes: “Her charity—her love of God in Himself and of souls for His sake—surpassed even in its beginnings the charity of all the saints combined, for it was of the same degree as her fullness of grace ... No disordered passion, no vain fear, no distraction, checked the surge of her love for God. Her love for souls was of the same intensity, she offered her Son and herself unceasingly for souls.”
Mary’s Humility
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, in his book Mother of the Savior, writes: “Her humility never had to struggle against the slightest movement of pride or vanity. She recognized that of herself she was nothing and could do nothing in the supernatural order. Therefore she bowed down before the Divine Majesty and before all that there was of God in creation. She placed all her greatness in God alone … The Most High descended to us by way of the humble Mary … Her whole life long, humility was manifested in her bearing, her modesty, her voluntary poverty, in the lowly tasks she performed—and all that, even though she had received graces as no other mere human ever did … ‘The demons suffer more,’ says St. Louis Grignon de Montfort, ‘from being conquered by the humility of Mary than by the Omnipotence of God’ … She is terrible to the demons by the depth of her humility and the ardor of her charity … The measure of her ever-growing charity, her humility, and her purity ... verified most strikingly the words: ‘God gives His grace to the humble’ … ‘The humble Mary,’ says St. Louis Grignon de Montfort, ‘will make you a sharer in her deep humility, so that you will despise yourself and no one else, and you will love to be despised.’”
In his book, True Devotion to Mary, St. Louis de Montfort magnificently describes Mary’s humility: “Her humility was so profound that she had no inclination on Earth, more powerful or more constant, than that of hiding herself, from herself, as well as from every other creature, so as to be known to God only. He heard her prayers when she begged to be hidden, to be humbled and to be treated in all respects as poor and of no account. He took pleasure in hiding her from all human creatures―in her conception, in her birth, in her life, in her mysteries, and in her resurrection and Assumption. God the Father consented that she should work no miracle―at least no public one, during her life―although He had given her the power to do so. God the Son took pleasure in humbling and concealing her during her life in order to favor her humility, calling her by the name of “woman” (John 2:4; 19:26), as if she were a stranger, although, in His heart, He esteemed and loved her above all angels and all men. God the Son consented that she should hardly ever speak―though He had communicated His wisdom to her. God the Holy Ghost―though she was His faithful spouse―consented that His Apostles and Evangelists should speak very little of her, and no more than was necessary to make Jesus Christ known … She hid herself in this world and put herself lower than the dust by her profound humility, having obtained from God and from His Apostles and Evangelists that she should not be made manifest ... The depth of her humility, and of all her virtues and graces, is an abyss which never can be sounded.
“Our Blessed Lord began His miracles by Mary. He sanctified St. John in the womb of his mother, St. Elizabeth―but it was by Mary’s word. No sooner had Mary spoken, John was sanctified―and this was His first miracle of grace. At the marriage of Cana He changed the water into wine―but it was at Mary’s humble prayer. It has been the will of God that we should have everything through Mary, so that she―who, impoverished, humbled, and who hid herself even unto the abyss of nothingness by her profound humility her whole life long―should now be enriched and exalted and honored by the Most High ... The authority, which God has been well pleased to give her, is so great that it seems as if she had the same power as God; and that her prayers and petitions are so powerful with God, that they always pass for commandments with His Majesty, Who never resists the prayer of His dear Mother, because she is always humble and conformed to His will. In the Heavens, Mary commands the angels and the saints. As a reward for her profound humility, God has empowered her and commissioned her to fill with saints the empty thrones, from which the apostate angels fell by pride. The will of the Most High, Who exalts the humble, is that Heaven, Earth and Hell bend, with good will or bad will, to the commandments of the humble Mary, whom He has made sovereign of Heaven and Earth―general of His armies, treasurer of His treasures, dispenser of His graces, worker of His greatest marvels, restorer of the human race, Mediatrix of men, the exterminator of the enemies of God, and the faithful companion of His grandeurs and triumphs.
“God has never made and formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and grow even to the end. It is between Mary and the devil—between the [humble] children and servants of the Blessed Virgin, and the [proud] children and tools of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies, which God has set up against the [proud] devil, is His [humble] Mother Mary. He has inspired her with so much hatred against that cursed enemy of God, with so much ingenuity in unveiling the malice of that ancient serpent, with so much power to conquer, to overthrow and to crush that proud, impious rebel, that he fears her, not only more than all angels and men, but in a sense more than God Himself. Not that the anger, the hatred and the power of God are not infinitely greater than those of the Blessed Virgin―for the perfections of Mary are limited―but first, because Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God, and her humility humbles him more than the divine power; and secondly, because God has given Mary such great power against the devils that—as they have often been obliged to confess, in spite of themselves, by the mouths of the possessed—they fear one of her sighs for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats against them more than all other torments. What Lucifer has lost by pride, Mary has gained by humility. The humble Mary will always have the victory over that proud spirit, and so great a victory that she will go so far as to crush his head, where his pride dwells. She will always discover the malice of the serpent. She will always lay bare his infernal plots and dissipate his diabolical councils, and even to the end of time will guard her faithful servants from his cruel claw.
“But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel: that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world’s esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But, in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity, superior to all other creatures by their lively zeal, and so well sustained with God’s assistance that, with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph.”
Mary’s Purity
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, in his book Mother of the Savior, writes: “As St. Thomas very accurately indicates, it was becoming that the Mother of God should be most pure … Thus Mary is virgin of virgins, most pure, a most pure mirror of God … Purity is increased by withdrawing from its opposite―hence, if a creature can be free from all contagion of sin, then nothing more pure is possible in creation. Such was the purity of the Blessed Virgin who was immune from Original and Actual Sin … Mary was a faithful and most pure image of God and incapable of sin … She surpassed the angels in purity, even though they are pure spirits, for she was both pure in herself and the source of purity to others. Not only was she exempt from Original Sin and from all Mortal and Venial Sin, but she escaped the curse due to sin … Precisely because she was so pure, precisely because her heart was consumed by the love of God, Mary suffered pains to which our imperfection makes us insensible. We suffer if our self-love is wounded, or our pride, or our susceptibilities. Mary, however, suffered from sin, proportionate to the measure of her love of God Whom sin offends, and her love of Her Son Whom sin crucifies; she suffered in the measure of her love of us, whom sin wounds and kills ... She grew continuously in the pure and strong love of God … Her progress gradually merited for her that eminent degree of charity, humility, and purity which made her, on the Annunciation day, the worthy mother of the Savior ... Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God! … She had conceived Him miraculously. She loved Him with the love of a virgin—the purest, richest and most tender charity that has ever been a mother’s … It is good also to consecrate to her our bodies and our senses that she may keep them pure … She will introduce into your heart that pure love of which she has all the treasures so that you will no longer serve the God of love in fear, as you have done, but in pure love.”
St. Louis de Montfort, in his book, True Devotion to Mary, adds: “Our Lord, who is infinitely pure and hates infinitely the least stain upon our souls, will not unite Himself to us, and will cast us out from His presence ... Pure love is only communicated to souls dead to themselves, souls whose life is hidden with Jesus Christ in God ... The fruitful Virgin who never has had, and never will have, her equal in purity … The sublimity of her intentions, which are so pure that she gives more glory to God by the least of her actions … Is our purity great enough to unite us directly to Him, and by ourselves? Have we not need of a mediator with the Mediator Himself? … When we present anything to Jesus by ourselves, and relying on our own efforts and dispositions, Jesus examines the offering, and often rejects it because of the stains it has contracted through self-love. But when we present Him anything by the pure and virginal hands of His well-beloved, we take Him by His weak side―if it is allowable to use such a term. He does not consider so much the thing that is given Him, as the Mother who presents it. He does not consider so much whence the offering comes, as by whom it comes …
“By this practice of true devotion to Mary, we give to Our Lord, by His Mother’s hands, all our good works, that good Mother purifies them, embellishes them and makes them acceptable to her Son. She purifies them of all the stain of self-love, and of that imperceptible attachment to created things which slips unnoticed into our best actions. As soon as they are in her most pure and fruitful hands, those same hands, which have never been sullied or idle and which purify whatever they touch, take away from the present which we give her all that was spoiled or imperfect about it … But we must remark that, inasmuch as our good works pass through the hands of Mary, they receive an augmentation of purity, and consequently of merit, and of satisfactory and impetratory value … We must do all our actions with Mary; that is to say, we must in all our actions regard Mary as an accomplished model of every virtue and perfection which the Holy Ghost has formed in a pure creature for us to imitate according to our little measure. We must therefore in every action consider how Mary has done it, or how she would have done it, had she been in our place.”
Mary Saves!
Of course, we know that Jesus Christ is the sole Savior and Redeemer of mankind, and the sole Mediator with God: “There is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus―Who gave Himself a redemption for all” (1 Timothy 2:5-6) … “Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other Name under Heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Nevertheless, our Lord and Savior, our Mediator and Redeemer Jesus Christ chooses to use instruments to effect and apply that salvation to others: “Go, therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost―teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you! … He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me! … Whatsoever you shall bind upon Earth, shall be bound also in Heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon Earth, shall be loosed also in Heaven!” (Matthew 28:19-20; 18:18; Luke 10:16).
Just as God used Angels, Prophets and Apostles to communicate with, lead and guide, warn and punish, protect and save mankind in days of Old, so too, today, does God use the Queen of Angels, Queen of Prophets and Queen of Apostles to do the same things today. That is why Our Lady is telling us things like: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved … Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession … Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you! … There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. This then will be the happy beginning of the complete restoration … This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
Today, August 22nd, we celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. What, if anything, is so important about this feast―or rather, what is so important about the Immaculate Heart of Mary? Well, it is not just the Immaculate Heart of Mary that is important―but Mary as a whole. The Immaculate Heart of Mary is only one aspect of Mary―she is also known by a multitude of other titles. Nevertheless, on this feast of the Immaculate Heart, let us first of all look at Our Lady under that title―and then look beyond that.
The word ‘heart’, expresses the free ‘I’ of the superior and rational part of the soul, the queen of the other faculties, the root of good and evil, and the mother of virtue and of vice.
Our Lord refers to this heart when He says: “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth that which is evil.” Here, “a good heart” means the righteous will of the just man, from which all kinds of good can come; and “an evil heart” means the bad will of the wicked, which is a source of all kinds of evil.
We must also understand by the word “heart” that highest part of the soul which theologians call the point of the spirit. It is the seat of contemplation, which consists in turning the mind directly toward God and viewing Him in all simplicity, without discursive reasoning or multiplicity of thoughts. The Fathers of the Church apply to this power of the soul those words which the Holy Ghost puts in the mouth of the Blessed Virgin Mary: “I sleep, and my heart watcheth.” According to St. Bernardine of Siena and several other writers, sleep and rest of the body did not prevent Mary’s holy Heart, that is, the highest part of her mind, from being always united to God in sublime contemplation.
At times “heart” stands for the whole interior life of man; I mean, of course, the spiritual life, as indicated by these words spoken by the Son of God to the faithful soul: “Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm,” that is, stamp the image of my interior and exterior life in your interior and exterior life, in your soul and in your body, by a perfect imitation of Me.
The word “heart” can also signify the Holy Spirit, the veritable Heart of the Father and the Son, Whom They desire to give us for our own mind and heart. “And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you.” The Son of God is called the Heart of the Eternal Father in Sacred Scripture, and it is of this heart that the Father speaks to His Spouse, the Blessed Virgin, when He says to her: “Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse,” or according to the Septuagint: “Thou hast ravished my heart.” And the Son of God Himself is called in Scripture “The breath of our mouth,” that is, the soul of our soul and our hearts very heart.
All these hearts are to be found in Mary, the Mother of Fair Love, and they form in her one single heart, because all the faculties of the superior and the inferior part of her soul were always harmoniously united. Moreover, Jesus, who is the heart of His Father, and the Holy Ghost, who is the heart of the Father and the Son, were given to Mary to be the soul of her soul and the heart of her heart.
To understand more clearly what is meant by the Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we must recall that, just as we adore in the Most Holy Trinity and in the Incarnate Word three hearts which form but one heart, so also do we honor in the Mother of God three hearts united in one.
The first heart of Mary, the Mother of God, is the heart of flesh enclosed in her virginal breast. Although this heart is corporeal, it is nevertheless completely spiritualized by the spirit of grace and the spirit of God which fill it.
The second heart is her spiritual heart, made God-like, not indeed by the hypostatic union as in the Incarnate Word, but by a superlative participation in the divine perfections. This heart is referred to by the words of the Holy Ghost: “All the glory of the king’s daughter is within,” that is, has its origin in her heart and her inmost soul.
The third heart of Mary is divine and is truly God Himself, for it is none other than the love of God. This is the heart of which she says: “I sleep, and my heart watcheth” ― which means according to the interpretation of several holy Doctors: “While I grant necessary rest to my body, my Son Jesus, who is my Heart and whom I love like my own heart, is always watching over me and for me.”
These three hearts of the Mother of God constitute a single Heart, through the holiest and most intimate union that ever was and will be, next to the hypostatic union. Of these three hearts, or rather, of this single Heart, the Holy Ghost has said twice: “Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.” “Cor unum et anima una”, that is, “One heart and one soul.”
The Feast and Devotion to the Heart of Mary
Historically, devotion to the Heart of Mary can be traced to the twelfth century with such writers as St. Anselm (d. 1109) and St. Bernard of Clairvaux (died 1153) who is considered as one of the most influential writers in Marian devotion. St. Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444) has been called the Doctor of the Heart of Mary due to his writings on Mary’s heart. He wrote, “from her heart, as from a furnace of Divine Love, the Blessed Virgin spoke the words of the most ardent love.” St. John Eudes (1601 -1680) helped by his writings to begin a renewal in this devotion. Both Pope Leo XIII and Pope St. Pius X called him, “the father, Doctor, and Apostle of the liturgical cult of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.” Even two decades before the first liturgical celebrations in honor of the Heart of Jesus, St. John Eudes and his followers observed February 8th as the feast of the Heart of Mary as early as 1643. Pope Pius VII (died 1823) extended its celebration to any diocese or congregation requesting it.
Devotion to Mary’s Heart has a greater flowering following the manifestation of the Miraculous Medal to St. Catherine Laboure in 1830 and the Appearances of’ Our Lady in Fatima. From May 13 to October 13th, 1917, our Blessed Mother Mary appeared to three children, Jacinta and Francisco Marto and their cousin Lucia dos Santos in Fatima, Portugal. She revealed to them: “Jesus wants to make me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world. I promise salvation to whoever embraces it!”“ (Our Lady of Fatima, June 1917) and the following month, Our Lady reiterates: “God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart” (Our Lady of Fatima, July 1917).
In 1942, the twenty-fifth anniversary of Fatima, Pope Pius XII consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That same year, he assigned the feast day to August 22nd, the octave of the Assumption. On May 4th, 1944, he extended the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to the Universal Church. With the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council in 1969, the feast was uprooted from its traditional date―like many other feasts―and given a new date on the day following the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus―so that the modern Church now observes it on the Saturday after the second Sunday after Pentecost.
The Immaculate Heart Promises Salvation
Notice that Our Lady promises salvation to those who embrace devotion to her Immaculate Heart: “Jesus wants to make me known and loved. Jesus wishes to establish the devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world. I promise salvation to whoever embraces it!” This dovetails with what many of the saints have said about Our Lady and salvation.
● St. Albert the Great (a Doctor of the Church), says: “They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish.”
● St. Bonaventure (a Doctor of the Church) repeats the same thought when he says: “They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation.”
● St. Ignatius of Antioch (a Father of the Church), a martyr of the second century, writes: “A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost.”
● St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church) says: “It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.”
● St. Anselm (a Doctor of the Church) writes: “He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost.”
● St. Antonine is of the same opinion. He says: “As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified.”
● St. John Damascene (a Doctor of the Church) says: “To be devout to you, O holy Virgin, is an arm of salvation which God gives to those whom He wishes to save.”
● St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church), in his book, The Glories of Mary, says: “The intercession of Mary is even necessary to salvation. We say ‘necessary’, not absolutely, but morally. This necessity proceeds from the will itself of God, that all graces that He dispenses should pass by the hands of Mary, according to the opinion of St. Bernard.”
● St. Louis de Montfort adds: “Devotion to our Blessed Lady is necessary to salvation, and that it is an infallible mark of reprobation to have no esteem and love for the holy Virgin; while on the other hand, it is an infallible mark of predestination to be entirely and truly devoted to her.”
● St. Bernardine of Sienna addresses these words to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “O Lady, thou art the dispenser of all graces, and since the grace of salvation can only come through thy hands, our salvation depends on thee!”
The Power of the Immaculate Heart
After God Himself―that is to say, the Holy Trinity: the Father, Son and Holy Ghost―there is nobody or nothing as powerful as the Immaculate Heart of Mary, or Mary in general. However, there are three virtues that the devils detest are powerless against―Charity, Humility and Purity. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, in his book Mother of the Savior, writes of Mary that “her progress merited for her gradually that eminent degree of charity, humility, and purity which made her, on the Annunciation day, the worthy mother of the Savior.”
These three virtues are among the ten principal virtues of Our Lady, listed by St. Louis de Montfort, in his book True Devotion to Mary, wherein he states: “Devotion to Our Lady is holy; that is to say, it leads the soul to avoid sin and to imitate the virtues of the Blessed Virgin, particularly her ardent charity, her profound humility, her divine purity, her lively Faith, her blind obedience, her continual prayer, her universal mortification, her heroic patience, her angelic sweetness and her divine wisdom. These are the ten principal virtues of the most holy Virgin.”
Mary’s Charity
We mention charity―because Satan knows no charity. The devils are not even charitable amongst themselves. There is no love in Hell and everyone hates each other in Hell. The lesser devils fear Lucifer, but they do not love him―they hate him. Likewise with all those who are damned―no matter how much they might have loved each other on Earth―they now utterly detest and hate each other and everyone else in Hell. In Hell you are all alone, with not one single friend, and everyone hates you and you hate everyone else. There is no charity in Hell. Yet “God is charity … Charity is of God. And every one that loves, is born of God, and knows God … If we love one another, God abides in us!” (1 John 4:7-12). “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost” (Romans 5:5). “Waters cannot quench [the fire of] charity, neither can the floods drown it” (Canticle 8:7), whereas “charity covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12). Without Charity―much like without God―whatever we do is useless: “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not Charity―then I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity―then I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not Charity―then it profiteth me nothing!” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his book The Glories of Mary, quotes several other saints on Our Lady: “St. Anselm says that ‘wherever there is the greatest purity, there is also the greatest charity.’ The more a heart is pure and empty of itself, the greater is the fullness of its love towards God. The most holy Mary―because she was all humility and had nothing of self in her―was filled with Divine love, so that ‘her love towards God surpassed that of all men and Angels,’ as St. Bernardine writes. Therefore St. Francis de Sales, with good reason, called her ‘the Queen of love’ … Who has ever fulfilled as she did that first commandment, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart’? In her, Divine love was so ardent that no defect of any kind could have access to her. ‘Divine love,’ says St. Bernard, ‘so penetrated and filled the soul of Mary, that no part of her was left untouched; so that she loved with her whole heart, with her whole soul, with her whole strength, and was full of grace.’ God, Who is love, (1 John 4:8) came on Earth to enkindle in the hearts of everyone the flame of His Divine love―but in no heart did He enkindle it so much as in that of His Mother; for her heart was entirely pure from all earthly affections, and fully prepared to burn with this blessed flame. Hence the heart of Mary became all fire and flames … Hence St. Bernardine of Siena asserts that the most holy Virgin was never tempted by Hell―for, he says: ‘As flies are driven away by a great fire, so were the evil spirits driven away by her ardent love; so much so, that they did not even dare approach her!’ Richard of St. Victor also says, that ‘the Blessed Virgin was terrible to the princes of darkness, so that they did not presume to tempt or approach her―for the fire of her charity deterred them” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary).
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, in his book Mother of the Savior, writes: “Her charity—her love of God in Himself and of souls for His sake—surpassed even in its beginnings the charity of all the saints combined, for it was of the same degree as her fullness of grace ... No disordered passion, no vain fear, no distraction, checked the surge of her love for God. Her love for souls was of the same intensity, she offered her Son and herself unceasingly for souls.”
Mary’s Humility
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, in his book Mother of the Savior, writes: “Her humility never had to struggle against the slightest movement of pride or vanity. She recognized that of herself she was nothing and could do nothing in the supernatural order. Therefore she bowed down before the Divine Majesty and before all that there was of God in creation. She placed all her greatness in God alone … The Most High descended to us by way of the humble Mary … Her whole life long, humility was manifested in her bearing, her modesty, her voluntary poverty, in the lowly tasks she performed—and all that, even though she had received graces as no other mere human ever did … ‘The demons suffer more,’ says St. Louis Grignon de Montfort, ‘from being conquered by the humility of Mary than by the Omnipotence of God’ … She is terrible to the demons by the depth of her humility and the ardor of her charity … The measure of her ever-growing charity, her humility, and her purity ... verified most strikingly the words: ‘God gives His grace to the humble’ … ‘The humble Mary,’ says St. Louis Grignon de Montfort, ‘will make you a sharer in her deep humility, so that you will despise yourself and no one else, and you will love to be despised.’”
In his book, True Devotion to Mary, St. Louis de Montfort magnificently describes Mary’s humility: “Her humility was so profound that she had no inclination on Earth, more powerful or more constant, than that of hiding herself, from herself, as well as from every other creature, so as to be known to God only. He heard her prayers when she begged to be hidden, to be humbled and to be treated in all respects as poor and of no account. He took pleasure in hiding her from all human creatures―in her conception, in her birth, in her life, in her mysteries, and in her resurrection and Assumption. God the Father consented that she should work no miracle―at least no public one, during her life―although He had given her the power to do so. God the Son took pleasure in humbling and concealing her during her life in order to favor her humility, calling her by the name of “woman” (John 2:4; 19:26), as if she were a stranger, although, in His heart, He esteemed and loved her above all angels and all men. God the Son consented that she should hardly ever speak―though He had communicated His wisdom to her. God the Holy Ghost―though she was His faithful spouse―consented that His Apostles and Evangelists should speak very little of her, and no more than was necessary to make Jesus Christ known … She hid herself in this world and put herself lower than the dust by her profound humility, having obtained from God and from His Apostles and Evangelists that she should not be made manifest ... The depth of her humility, and of all her virtues and graces, is an abyss which never can be sounded.
“Our Blessed Lord began His miracles by Mary. He sanctified St. John in the womb of his mother, St. Elizabeth―but it was by Mary’s word. No sooner had Mary spoken, John was sanctified―and this was His first miracle of grace. At the marriage of Cana He changed the water into wine―but it was at Mary’s humble prayer. It has been the will of God that we should have everything through Mary, so that she―who, impoverished, humbled, and who hid herself even unto the abyss of nothingness by her profound humility her whole life long―should now be enriched and exalted and honored by the Most High ... The authority, which God has been well pleased to give her, is so great that it seems as if she had the same power as God; and that her prayers and petitions are so powerful with God, that they always pass for commandments with His Majesty, Who never resists the prayer of His dear Mother, because she is always humble and conformed to His will. In the Heavens, Mary commands the angels and the saints. As a reward for her profound humility, God has empowered her and commissioned her to fill with saints the empty thrones, from which the apostate angels fell by pride. The will of the Most High, Who exalts the humble, is that Heaven, Earth and Hell bend, with good will or bad will, to the commandments of the humble Mary, whom He has made sovereign of Heaven and Earth―general of His armies, treasurer of His treasures, dispenser of His graces, worker of His greatest marvels, restorer of the human race, Mediatrix of men, the exterminator of the enemies of God, and the faithful companion of His grandeurs and triumphs.
“God has never made and formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and grow even to the end. It is between Mary and the devil—between the [humble] children and servants of the Blessed Virgin, and the [proud] children and tools of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies, which God has set up against the [proud] devil, is His [humble] Mother Mary. He has inspired her with so much hatred against that cursed enemy of God, with so much ingenuity in unveiling the malice of that ancient serpent, with so much power to conquer, to overthrow and to crush that proud, impious rebel, that he fears her, not only more than all angels and men, but in a sense more than God Himself. Not that the anger, the hatred and the power of God are not infinitely greater than those of the Blessed Virgin―for the perfections of Mary are limited―but first, because Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God, and her humility humbles him more than the divine power; and secondly, because God has given Mary such great power against the devils that—as they have often been obliged to confess, in spite of themselves, by the mouths of the possessed—they fear one of her sighs for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats against them more than all other torments. What Lucifer has lost by pride, Mary has gained by humility. The humble Mary will always have the victory over that proud spirit, and so great a victory that she will go so far as to crush his head, where his pride dwells. She will always discover the malice of the serpent. She will always lay bare his infernal plots and dissipate his diabolical councils, and even to the end of time will guard her faithful servants from his cruel claw.
“But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel: that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world’s esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But, in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity, superior to all other creatures by their lively zeal, and so well sustained with God’s assistance that, with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph.”
Mary’s Purity
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, in his book Mother of the Savior, writes: “As St. Thomas very accurately indicates, it was becoming that the Mother of God should be most pure … Thus Mary is virgin of virgins, most pure, a most pure mirror of God … Purity is increased by withdrawing from its opposite―hence, if a creature can be free from all contagion of sin, then nothing more pure is possible in creation. Such was the purity of the Blessed Virgin who was immune from Original and Actual Sin … Mary was a faithful and most pure image of God and incapable of sin … She surpassed the angels in purity, even though they are pure spirits, for she was both pure in herself and the source of purity to others. Not only was she exempt from Original Sin and from all Mortal and Venial Sin, but she escaped the curse due to sin … Precisely because she was so pure, precisely because her heart was consumed by the love of God, Mary suffered pains to which our imperfection makes us insensible. We suffer if our self-love is wounded, or our pride, or our susceptibilities. Mary, however, suffered from sin, proportionate to the measure of her love of God Whom sin offends, and her love of Her Son Whom sin crucifies; she suffered in the measure of her love of us, whom sin wounds and kills ... She grew continuously in the pure and strong love of God … Her progress gradually merited for her that eminent degree of charity, humility, and purity which made her, on the Annunciation day, the worthy mother of the Savior ... Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God! … She had conceived Him miraculously. She loved Him with the love of a virgin—the purest, richest and most tender charity that has ever been a mother’s … It is good also to consecrate to her our bodies and our senses that she may keep them pure … She will introduce into your heart that pure love of which she has all the treasures so that you will no longer serve the God of love in fear, as you have done, but in pure love.”
St. Louis de Montfort, in his book, True Devotion to Mary, adds: “Our Lord, who is infinitely pure and hates infinitely the least stain upon our souls, will not unite Himself to us, and will cast us out from His presence ... Pure love is only communicated to souls dead to themselves, souls whose life is hidden with Jesus Christ in God ... The fruitful Virgin who never has had, and never will have, her equal in purity … The sublimity of her intentions, which are so pure that she gives more glory to God by the least of her actions … Is our purity great enough to unite us directly to Him, and by ourselves? Have we not need of a mediator with the Mediator Himself? … When we present anything to Jesus by ourselves, and relying on our own efforts and dispositions, Jesus examines the offering, and often rejects it because of the stains it has contracted through self-love. But when we present Him anything by the pure and virginal hands of His well-beloved, we take Him by His weak side―if it is allowable to use such a term. He does not consider so much the thing that is given Him, as the Mother who presents it. He does not consider so much whence the offering comes, as by whom it comes …
“By this practice of true devotion to Mary, we give to Our Lord, by His Mother’s hands, all our good works, that good Mother purifies them, embellishes them and makes them acceptable to her Son. She purifies them of all the stain of self-love, and of that imperceptible attachment to created things which slips unnoticed into our best actions. As soon as they are in her most pure and fruitful hands, those same hands, which have never been sullied or idle and which purify whatever they touch, take away from the present which we give her all that was spoiled or imperfect about it … But we must remark that, inasmuch as our good works pass through the hands of Mary, they receive an augmentation of purity, and consequently of merit, and of satisfactory and impetratory value … We must do all our actions with Mary; that is to say, we must in all our actions regard Mary as an accomplished model of every virtue and perfection which the Holy Ghost has formed in a pure creature for us to imitate according to our little measure. We must therefore in every action consider how Mary has done it, or how she would have done it, had she been in our place.”
Mary Saves!
Of course, we know that Jesus Christ is the sole Savior and Redeemer of mankind, and the sole Mediator with God: “There is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus―Who gave Himself a redemption for all” (1 Timothy 2:5-6) … “Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other Name under Heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Nevertheless, our Lord and Savior, our Mediator and Redeemer Jesus Christ chooses to use instruments to effect and apply that salvation to others: “Go, therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost―teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you! … He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me! … Whatsoever you shall bind upon Earth, shall be bound also in Heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon Earth, shall be loosed also in Heaven!” (Matthew 28:19-20; 18:18; Luke 10:16).
Just as God used Angels, Prophets and Apostles to communicate with, lead and guide, warn and punish, protect and save mankind in days of Old, so too, today, does God use the Queen of Angels, Queen of Prophets and Queen of Apostles to do the same things today. That is why Our Lady is telling us things like: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved … Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession … Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you! … There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. This then will be the happy beginning of the complete restoration … This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
Article 8
August 19th & Saturday August 20th, 2022
Give As Good As You Get!
August 19th & Saturday August 20th, 2022
Give As Good As You Get!
Sounds Good, Huh?
“Give as good as you get!” sounds good, huh? Immediately similar phrases spring to mind: “Whosoever shall shed man’s blood, his blood shall be shed!” (Genesis 9:6) … “He that striketh a man with a will to kill him, shall be put to death! … Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe!” (Exodus 21:12, 24-25) … “Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, shall he restore. What blemish he gave, the like shall he be compelled to suffer!” (Leviticus 24:20) … “Thou shalt not pity him, but shalt require life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot!” (Deuteronomy 19:21).
The various dictionaries tell us that if you give as good as you get, “you argue, fight, or compete as strongly and as fiercely as your opponent; to give back blow for blow; you treat people in the same way that they treat you, especially in an argument or a fight; you are prepared to treat people as badly as they treat you.” That seems to the “gospel” of the world today―“Give as good you get!” Or even, “Give them ten times what you get!” We have the “gospel” of “pre-emptive strikes” ― meaning, hit them before they even hit you! Shoot them before they shoot you!
Culture of Death
All of this is hardly surprising since we live a “culture of death” that is part of the gospel of Satan―the prince of the world (John 14:30), and the prince of death: “The devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8-9) … “He was a murderer from the beginning!” (John 8:44). That culture of death is rampant today―especially with the cult of abortion: “And they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils” (Psalm 105:37). You could call abortion a kind of “pre-emptive killing” ― kill the baby before it is born and kills me financially!
A U.S. exorcist, Mgr. Stephen Rossetti, writes of the demon of abortion as possessing a woman who had an abortion―he gives the woman a pseudonym of ‘Lucy’ to protect her real identity: “‘Lucy’ is possessed and being tortured nightly by the demons. They taunt her, mark her body with scratches and burns, claim that they own her, and often twist her bad leg, which is excruciating for her. Demons are merciless and relentless. Having their demonic names gives additional power to cast them out and suggests that the time of their exit is approaching. So I demanded again and again and again: “Dic mihi nomen tuum” (“Tell me your name”). This line is a direct quote from the traditional Rite of Exorcism. The demon resisted mightily. Finally, with great reluctance, it gave up its name, “Abyzou.” I looked it up. Several sources concur: Abyzou (also spelled Abizou, Obizu, Obizuth, Obyzouth, Byzou) is the name of a “female” demon in the Near East blamed for miscarriages and infant mortality. It made perfect sense. Sadly, Lucy had had an abortion. She sincerely repented, went to confession, and remained very contrite. While any and all sins are forgiven in the sacrament, this does not mean that associated demons are immediately cast out. Often, a time of purgation is necessary. Given the gravity of the sin and the resulting tragic child’s death, it was going to be a fight to cast out this demon. Abyzou taunted Lucy for having had an abortion. The demon told her she could never be forgiven. It played on her deep sense of guilt and attempted to drag her into the darkness of hopelessness and despair. This is typical demonic behavior. Demons not only tempt you to commit sin but then if you do, they taunt you and shame you for doing so. We assured Lucy that her sin was truly forgiven and said a prayer for her baby. Lucy may also need post-abortion counseling and/or work with post-abortion healing groups.” (taken from Monsignor Rossetti’s book, Diary of an American Exorcist).
Contraception, also, could be said to be a “pre-emptive killing”―whereby the baby is not even given a chance of being conceived, as the selfish couple copulate for carnal pleasure and not the purpose God intended―which is that of having children, the primary purpose of marriage.
The culture of death has come out of the tomb of the womb and sees the slaughter of adults and children by the vaccines of devils―many of those vaccines grotesquely contain cells from aborted babies! Death in the womb has evolved into a vaccine for the tomb. Aborting babies has evolved into aborting adults. As a variation on “Give as good as you get!”―you could say of the vaccines: “Stick the lying vaccine in them before someone sticks the truth in them!” Our Lord said: “I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly!” (John 10:10). Whereas Big Pharma (and those who ultimately control their puppet Big Pharma) says: “I have come that they may have death and have it more abundantly!” ― and we are seeing death in abundance! God’s, “Thou shalt not kill” has now become: “Kill if you need to kill, kill if you want to kill and kill whoever gets in your way!”
Science, which should be subjugated to Faith and the Laws of God, has now become―not a tool of life, but a tool of death―we see this in abortion, abortive drugs, in medicines with toxic side effects, in poisonous or toxic man made products, in the weapons of war, etc. Thus these man-made “vaccines of death and depopulation” are instrumental in the current worldwide massive increase in death rates―which insurance companies and funeral directors are revealing to be up by at least 40% and still climbing! Understand this―the insurance statisticians tell us that in a “once-every-two-hundred-years” catastrophe occurred, then the death rate increase would only be 10% ― not the current 40%!!! Behind-the-scenes news reports say that deaths of the vaccinated have been exponentially increasing to the point where far more of the vaccinated population are dying than the non-vaccinated―but when you are in control of the world’s mainstream media outlets, then you can block and hide that information and replace it with the propaganda of your choice. Hence the mainstream media says things like: “The unvaccinated have a 93% greater chance of dying from Covid-19” ― but you can counter that with: “The vaccinated have a 93% greater chance (or whatever % you like to choose) of dying from the effects of the vaccine!”
Another aspect of this Satanic “Culture of Death” is the practice of Eugenics and forced sterilizations. Eugenics, the set of beliefs and practices which aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population (by removing or preventing the birth of undesirables), played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States from the late 19th century into the mid-20th century.
Eugenics is the scientifically erroneous and immoral theory of “racial improvement” and “planned breeding” by preventing the conception and birth of “undesirables” in the racial domain, disability domain, poverty domain, religious domain, or moral domain. Eugenics gained popularity during the early 20th century. More than 60,000 people were sterilized in 32 states during the 20th century based on the bogus “science” of eugenics, a term coined by Francis Galton in 1883. The United States has a long history of forced sterilization campaigns that lasted into the 21st century. Forced sterilization policies in the United States targeted minorities and those with disabilities. Eugenicists worldwide believed that they could perfect human beings and eliminate so-called social ills through genetics and heredity. The Elites had strong biases about who was “fit” and “unfit” embraced eugenics. Blacks, Indigenous people, poor whites and people with disabilities, became targets of eugenics programs. Indiana passed the world’s first sterilization law in 1907. Thirty-one States followed suit. State-sanctioned sterilizations reached their peak in the 1930s and 1940s but continued and, in some States, rose during the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1960s and 1970s, new federal programs like Medicaid also started funding non-consensual sterilizations.
The United States was an international leader in eugenics. Its sterilization laws actually influenced and shaped the Eugenics of Nazi Germany. The Third Reich’s 1933 “Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases” was modeled on laws in Indiana and California. Under this law, the Nazis sterilized approximately 400,000 children and adults, mostly Jews and other “undesirables,” labeled as being “defective.” Forced sterilization continues on. Romani (gypsy) women have been sterilized unwillingly in the Czech Republic as recently as 2007. In northern China, Uighurs, a religious and racial minority group, have been subjected to mass sterilization and other measures of extreme population control. Today, in a very crafty manner, that same kind of forced sterilization is being achieved through vaccinations. Many scientists and doctors claim that these recent Covid vaccines risk (1) provoking miscarriages in already pregnant women, and (2) risk sterilizing women so that they can no longer conceive and give birth to babies. Of course, the mainstream media―owned by you know who―hotly, indignantly, and mockingly decried such claims as being stupid, unscientific and nothing other than conspiracy theories concocted by deranged scientists and doctors! Yet the indisputable fact is that miscarriages among vaccinated women have soared―and infertility is on the rise.
Culture of Lies
The mainstream media is ultimately controlled by the “Elite”, who themselves are controlled by “the prince of this world” ― Satan (John 14:30) of whom Our Lord says: “He stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar and the father of lies!” (John 8:44) ― Our Lord would say the same of the mainstream media today. They will tell you the truth in things that are insignificant to the Globalist New World Order agenda―but in matters that are crucial to their agenda, they will blatantly lie, misinform, misrepresent, exaggerate or downplay if it is necessary. As the saying goes: “The devil will admits nine truths in order to get you to believe one lie.” The threats from Covid-19 (a glorified flu) are not what they are made out to be, and the vaccines are not what they are made out be either―but scientists, doctors and medical staff are threatened with the sack, being struck-off, financial reprisals or loss of career if they say the truth about Covid-19, its variants and the vaccines. As Our Lady of Good Success said: “Those who should speak out will remain silent!” To those words of Our Lady we could also add: “And those who dare speak out will be silenced!”
“Give as good as you get!” sounds good, huh? Immediately similar phrases spring to mind: “Whosoever shall shed man’s blood, his blood shall be shed!” (Genesis 9:6) … “He that striketh a man with a will to kill him, shall be put to death! … Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe!” (Exodus 21:12, 24-25) … “Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, shall he restore. What blemish he gave, the like shall he be compelled to suffer!” (Leviticus 24:20) … “Thou shalt not pity him, but shalt require life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot!” (Deuteronomy 19:21).
The various dictionaries tell us that if you give as good as you get, “you argue, fight, or compete as strongly and as fiercely as your opponent; to give back blow for blow; you treat people in the same way that they treat you, especially in an argument or a fight; you are prepared to treat people as badly as they treat you.” That seems to the “gospel” of the world today―“Give as good you get!” Or even, “Give them ten times what you get!” We have the “gospel” of “pre-emptive strikes” ― meaning, hit them before they even hit you! Shoot them before they shoot you!
Culture of Death
All of this is hardly surprising since we live a “culture of death” that is part of the gospel of Satan―the prince of the world (John 14:30), and the prince of death: “The devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8-9) … “He was a murderer from the beginning!” (John 8:44). That culture of death is rampant today―especially with the cult of abortion: “And they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils” (Psalm 105:37). You could call abortion a kind of “pre-emptive killing” ― kill the baby before it is born and kills me financially!
A U.S. exorcist, Mgr. Stephen Rossetti, writes of the demon of abortion as possessing a woman who had an abortion―he gives the woman a pseudonym of ‘Lucy’ to protect her real identity: “‘Lucy’ is possessed and being tortured nightly by the demons. They taunt her, mark her body with scratches and burns, claim that they own her, and often twist her bad leg, which is excruciating for her. Demons are merciless and relentless. Having their demonic names gives additional power to cast them out and suggests that the time of their exit is approaching. So I demanded again and again and again: “Dic mihi nomen tuum” (“Tell me your name”). This line is a direct quote from the traditional Rite of Exorcism. The demon resisted mightily. Finally, with great reluctance, it gave up its name, “Abyzou.” I looked it up. Several sources concur: Abyzou (also spelled Abizou, Obizu, Obizuth, Obyzouth, Byzou) is the name of a “female” demon in the Near East blamed for miscarriages and infant mortality. It made perfect sense. Sadly, Lucy had had an abortion. She sincerely repented, went to confession, and remained very contrite. While any and all sins are forgiven in the sacrament, this does not mean that associated demons are immediately cast out. Often, a time of purgation is necessary. Given the gravity of the sin and the resulting tragic child’s death, it was going to be a fight to cast out this demon. Abyzou taunted Lucy for having had an abortion. The demon told her she could never be forgiven. It played on her deep sense of guilt and attempted to drag her into the darkness of hopelessness and despair. This is typical demonic behavior. Demons not only tempt you to commit sin but then if you do, they taunt you and shame you for doing so. We assured Lucy that her sin was truly forgiven and said a prayer for her baby. Lucy may also need post-abortion counseling and/or work with post-abortion healing groups.” (taken from Monsignor Rossetti’s book, Diary of an American Exorcist).
Contraception, also, could be said to be a “pre-emptive killing”―whereby the baby is not even given a chance of being conceived, as the selfish couple copulate for carnal pleasure and not the purpose God intended―which is that of having children, the primary purpose of marriage.
The culture of death has come out of the tomb of the womb and sees the slaughter of adults and children by the vaccines of devils―many of those vaccines grotesquely contain cells from aborted babies! Death in the womb has evolved into a vaccine for the tomb. Aborting babies has evolved into aborting adults. As a variation on “Give as good as you get!”―you could say of the vaccines: “Stick the lying vaccine in them before someone sticks the truth in them!” Our Lord said: “I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly!” (John 10:10). Whereas Big Pharma (and those who ultimately control their puppet Big Pharma) says: “I have come that they may have death and have it more abundantly!” ― and we are seeing death in abundance! God’s, “Thou shalt not kill” has now become: “Kill if you need to kill, kill if you want to kill and kill whoever gets in your way!”
Science, which should be subjugated to Faith and the Laws of God, has now become―not a tool of life, but a tool of death―we see this in abortion, abortive drugs, in medicines with toxic side effects, in poisonous or toxic man made products, in the weapons of war, etc. Thus these man-made “vaccines of death and depopulation” are instrumental in the current worldwide massive increase in death rates―which insurance companies and funeral directors are revealing to be up by at least 40% and still climbing! Understand this―the insurance statisticians tell us that in a “once-every-two-hundred-years” catastrophe occurred, then the death rate increase would only be 10% ― not the current 40%!!! Behind-the-scenes news reports say that deaths of the vaccinated have been exponentially increasing to the point where far more of the vaccinated population are dying than the non-vaccinated―but when you are in control of the world’s mainstream media outlets, then you can block and hide that information and replace it with the propaganda of your choice. Hence the mainstream media says things like: “The unvaccinated have a 93% greater chance of dying from Covid-19” ― but you can counter that with: “The vaccinated have a 93% greater chance (or whatever % you like to choose) of dying from the effects of the vaccine!”
Another aspect of this Satanic “Culture of Death” is the practice of Eugenics and forced sterilizations. Eugenics, the set of beliefs and practices which aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population (by removing or preventing the birth of undesirables), played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States from the late 19th century into the mid-20th century.
Eugenics is the scientifically erroneous and immoral theory of “racial improvement” and “planned breeding” by preventing the conception and birth of “undesirables” in the racial domain, disability domain, poverty domain, religious domain, or moral domain. Eugenics gained popularity during the early 20th century. More than 60,000 people were sterilized in 32 states during the 20th century based on the bogus “science” of eugenics, a term coined by Francis Galton in 1883. The United States has a long history of forced sterilization campaigns that lasted into the 21st century. Forced sterilization policies in the United States targeted minorities and those with disabilities. Eugenicists worldwide believed that they could perfect human beings and eliminate so-called social ills through genetics and heredity. The Elites had strong biases about who was “fit” and “unfit” embraced eugenics. Blacks, Indigenous people, poor whites and people with disabilities, became targets of eugenics programs. Indiana passed the world’s first sterilization law in 1907. Thirty-one States followed suit. State-sanctioned sterilizations reached their peak in the 1930s and 1940s but continued and, in some States, rose during the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1960s and 1970s, new federal programs like Medicaid also started funding non-consensual sterilizations.
The United States was an international leader in eugenics. Its sterilization laws actually influenced and shaped the Eugenics of Nazi Germany. The Third Reich’s 1933 “Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases” was modeled on laws in Indiana and California. Under this law, the Nazis sterilized approximately 400,000 children and adults, mostly Jews and other “undesirables,” labeled as being “defective.” Forced sterilization continues on. Romani (gypsy) women have been sterilized unwillingly in the Czech Republic as recently as 2007. In northern China, Uighurs, a religious and racial minority group, have been subjected to mass sterilization and other measures of extreme population control. Today, in a very crafty manner, that same kind of forced sterilization is being achieved through vaccinations. Many scientists and doctors claim that these recent Covid vaccines risk (1) provoking miscarriages in already pregnant women, and (2) risk sterilizing women so that they can no longer conceive and give birth to babies. Of course, the mainstream media―owned by you know who―hotly, indignantly, and mockingly decried such claims as being stupid, unscientific and nothing other than conspiracy theories concocted by deranged scientists and doctors! Yet the indisputable fact is that miscarriages among vaccinated women have soared―and infertility is on the rise.
Culture of Lies
The mainstream media is ultimately controlled by the “Elite”, who themselves are controlled by “the prince of this world” ― Satan (John 14:30) of whom Our Lord says: “He stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own―for he is a liar and the father of lies!” (John 8:44) ― Our Lord would say the same of the mainstream media today. They will tell you the truth in things that are insignificant to the Globalist New World Order agenda―but in matters that are crucial to their agenda, they will blatantly lie, misinform, misrepresent, exaggerate or downplay if it is necessary. As the saying goes: “The devil will admits nine truths in order to get you to believe one lie.” The threats from Covid-19 (a glorified flu) are not what they are made out to be, and the vaccines are not what they are made out be either―but scientists, doctors and medical staff are threatened with the sack, being struck-off, financial reprisals or loss of career if they say the truth about Covid-19, its variants and the vaccines. As Our Lady of Good Success said: “Those who should speak out will remain silent!” To those words of Our Lady we could also add: “And those who dare speak out will be silenced!”
Article 7
Wednesday August 17th & Thursday August 18th, 2022
Get Yourself a New Heart
Wednesday August 17th & Thursday August 18th, 2022
Get Yourself a New Heart
Catholic Heart Failure
The feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is merely days away! Perhaps it is time to prepare our hearts to greet and meet the Immaculate Heart! Or, to be more precise, perhaps it is time to prepare and repair our lukewarm or sinful hearts to greet, meet and receive the Immaculate Heart into our own hearts. Can you even find a Catholic whose heart needs no preparation, restoration or repair in order to be worthy to greet and meet the Immaculate Heart? Our Lady could rightly ask us: “Is thy heart right as my heart is with thy heart?” (4 Kings 10:15).
A healthy heart goes a long way in guaranteeing a long life. Likewise, a healthy spiritual heart goes a long way towards guaranteeing eternal life. At Fatima, Our Lady herself said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved!” It is therefore in our eternal interests that we foster a true and efficacious devotion in our own hearts to the Immaculate Heart of Mary!
Unfortunately, most Catholics are beset by spiritual heart disease, spiritual heart congestion and spiritual heart failure of one kind or another! Our Lady could say of them what Our Lord once said: “These people honor me with their lips―but their heart is far from me!” (Matthew 15:8). Or as Scripture adds: “Their heart was not right with Him [her], nor were they counted as being faithful” (Psalm 77:37) … “For thy heart is not right in the sight of God!” (Acts 8:21).
Most people have gorged themselves on “junk-food” in the sense of stuffing themselves with the things of this world. Just as “junk-food” has a bad effect upon the heart ― likewise materialism and worldliness has a similar bad effect on our “spiritual heart”. It is hard to love an invisible God when the world piles your plate high with so many visible “goodies” to whet and divert your appetite. Instead of “Taste, and see that the Lord is sweet!” (Psalm 33:9)―it now becomes “Taste and see that the world is sweet!”
Sugar Sweet World
If we eat certain wrong foods, they will eventually provoke heart failure and a heart attack. The following quote is from the American Heart Association (AHA) or should that be “Aha!”
“Added sugar was not a significant component of the human diet until the advent of modern food-processing methods. Since then, the intake of sugar has risen steadily. The average US sugar utilization per capita on the basis of food disappearance data was 120 lbs per year in 1970, and it reached 150 lbs per year in 1995 (almost half-a-pound per day)… Sugar has no nutritional value other than to provide calories. To improve the overall nutrient density of the diet and to help reduce the intake of excess calories, individuals should be sure foods high in added sugar are not displacing foods with essential nutrients or increasing calorie intake.” Their studies and research go on to irrefutably link a high sugar intake with cardio-vascular disease.
The World Serves Junk for the Soul
If we replace the good ‘spiritual food’ that our ‘spiritual’ hearts were made for, with the highly sweetened junk ‘food’ offered by the world, we will eventually suffer a ‘spiritual-cardiac-arrest’! By highly sweetened junk food we mean the pleasures, amusements, distractions and fun that world offers, which is meant to displace the spirit of mortification and sacrifice that Heaven wants us to feed our souls upon.
Holy Scripture tells us this: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4). “The charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him” (1 John 4:9). “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11).
Heart and Health
Those with a dying heart, often have a last attempt at life with a “heart transplant.” Of course, man’s version of a “heart transplant” is immoral and tantamount to murder—“With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). God can give you a “heart transplant”—for He Himself says: “And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 36:26).
The heart is at the heart of our well-being and existence. If the heart is weak, then that weakness will eventually extend itself to our entire being, directly or indirectly. Even our intellectual life will suffer indirectly, as the heart pumps blood to brain, and the brain needs much oxygen to function well, and that oxygen is carried by the blood the heart is supposed to pump.
The same is true of our spiritual life. If our ‘spiritual’ heart is healthy, then the healthier will be our entire spiritual life. “Soundness of heart is the life of the flesh” (Proverbs 14:30). That healthy heart refers to the love in our ‘heart’. This is also the key element in the apparitions and messages of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Love is the Health of the Heart
The heart of our spiritual life is love. Love is and has to be the soul of all that we do. “Let all your things be done in charity” (1 Corinthians 16:14). “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Therefore, once again: “Let all your things be done in charity” (1 Corinthians 16:14).
God is Love―and God and Love are the Health of the Soul
God Himself is Charity, He is Charity Itself: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and the Church’s Liturgy puts into the mouth of Our Lady the following words: “I am the mother of fair love” (Ecclesiasticus 24:24). This charity God has shown to a world that has not deserved or merited it—it is not as though we had something first, that necessitated God to repay. “Who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be made him?” (Romans 11:35). In fact, the world, by its sins, was more deserving of punishment and damnation than it was deserving of God’s charity! Yet that did not extinguish the charity of God: “For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16).
Heart Failure in Loving God
Yet despite this great and undeserved love of God, we have failed, on the whole, to fully appreciate and return that love. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that love is reciprocal—it is not just “give”; it is not just “take”; but it is a case of “give and take.” St. Augustine says (De Catech. Rud. iv): “Nothing will incite another more to love you, than that you love him first: for he must have a hard heart, indeed, who not only refuses to love, but declines to return love already given.” Yet this is precisely our guilt, as Our Lord would say to St. Margaret Mary:
“My Divine Heart is so inflamed with love for men, that, being unable any longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its burning Charity, It must needs spread them abroad and manifest Itself to them (mankind) in order to enrich them with the precious graces of sanctification and salvation necessary to withdraw them from the abyss of perdition.
“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus.”
The Immaculate Heart of Mary could just as well have spoken those words! Actually, she said something very similar at La Salette: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually! And all of you think little of this! In vain you will pray! In vain you will act! You will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken over for all of you!”
Heartless, Hardhearted Humans
We live in a “fast” world, where we are “always on the go”, where there is little time for detail as we content ourselves with superficialities. We have “fast food”, “express-check-outs”, “instant access”, “drive-thru” facilities, “same-day-deliveries”, “ready-made-meals”, instant worldwide communication abilities, etc. We love the time-saving, no-hassle, convenience of these things. The problem is that all of this easily spills over into our spiritual life, whereby we prefer “fast prayers”, “express-check-outs” after Holy Mass, “instant holiness”, “ready-made-thanksgivings”, “same-day-answers” to those “fast prayers”, etc.
So much so have we set our hearts on the world, above setting our heart on God and Heaven, that the following words are rightfully addressed to us: “How long will you be dull of heart?” (Psalm 4:3) … “The heart of this people is grown gross!” (Matthew 13:15) … “Their heart is vain!” (Psalm 5:10) … “Their heart was blinded!” (Mark 6:52) ... “His heart was lifted up unto pride!” (Daniel 5:20) ... “Thy heart is not right in the sight of God!” (Acts 8:21) ... “Their heart was not right with Him!” (Psalm 77:37) … “His heart was not perfect with the Lord” (3 Kings 15:3). “His heart was turned away by women” (3 Kings 11:4) ... “They always err in heart! They have not known My ways!” (Hebrews 3:10). “Their heart is divided” (Osee 10:2) … “With a double heart have they spoken!” (Psalm 11:3) … “A heart that goeth two ways shall not have success!” (Ecclesiasticus 3:28).
You Reap What You Sow!
Holy Scripture is clear on this matter: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:8). “Sow not evils in the furrows of injustice, and thou shalt not reap them sevenfold!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:3). In Our Lord’s parable about the Sower of the Seed (by which He means Sowing the Word of God), even though the seeds were sown, in most cases they did not bring forth any fruit―as Our Lord explains:
“Some seed fell by the way side, and it was trodden down by men, and the birds of the air came and ate it up. And some seed fell upon stony ground, where it had not much depth of earth, and the seed sprouted and shot up immediately, because there was no deepness of earth. But when the sun was risen, the sprouted seed was scorched, because it had no root and no moisture. And other seed fell among thorns: and the thorns grew up with it and choked it and it yielded no fruit … The seed is the word of God. When any one hears the word of the kingdom and understands it not, the devil, Satan, comes [the birds of the air] and takes the word [of God], which was sown in his heart, out of his heart―lest believing he should be saved―this is he that received the seed by the way side. And he that received the seed upon the rock or stony ground, is he that hears the word of God, immediately receives it with joy and believes for a while. Yet he has no root in himself, but keeps the word of God only for a time. For, in time of temptation, when tribulation and persecution arises because of the word of God, he is suddenly scandalized [weakened] and he falls away. And he that received the seed among thorns, is he that hears the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the pleasures of this life, choke up the word of God, and the word becomes fruitless and yields no fruit. But he that received the seed upon good ground, is he that hears and understands the word of God in a good and perfect heart, and bring forth fruit in patience; and the yield for one is a hundredfold, for another sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold!’” (Matthew 13:3-8, 13:18-23; Mark 4:3-8; Luke 8:5-15).
Today, the seed of the Word of God is simply wasted, trodden on, left to wither and die. People no longer care! They don’t want to know―it is the seeds of the world that they are happily sowing. They love the world―not the word of God. They boldly and blatantly ignore the fact that “You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). Where Our Lord says: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven” (Matthew 6:19-20) ― they do the exact opposite! They lay up for themselves treasures and pleasures on Earth, and end up losing the treasures and pleasures of Heaven.
All of that betrays the presence of a spiritual heart disease. One would think that people―especially Catholics―would see that these symptoms of worldliness, materialism and sensualism are clear indicators of that spiritual heart disease, but shockingly and incredibly they do not see! As Scripture says: “O foolish people, and without understanding―who have eyes, and see not; and ears, and hear not!” (Jeremias 5:21). Our Lord adds: “Seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And the prophecy of Isaias is fulfilled in them, who saith: ‘By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand, and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive!’ For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear!” (Matthew 13:13-16). But are your eyes blessed? Are your ears blessed? Or do you have one eye on God and the other eye on the world? Do you listen with one ear to God and with the other ear do you listen to the world? If that is the case, then your spiritual heart is congested with worldly things and risks eventually failing!
Eyes Forward! Heart in Heaven!
In the Preface of Mass―just before the Canon of the Mass―we have the following words: “Lift up you hearts!” says the priest, and you reply: “We have raised them up to the Lord!” Is that really true? Is your heart always raised up to Our Lord and Our Lady? Or is your heart divided between Heaven and Earth? A divided heart is like an adulterer―who pretends to love both the spouse and the adulterous lover. That is exactly what Holy Scripture tells us: “Adulterers, know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).
Our Lord basically tells us that we look at the most, that is what we will love the most: “The light of thy body is your eye. If your eye be single [focused on Heaven], your whole body shall be lightsome. But if your eye is evil [focused on the world, whose works are for the most part evil], then your whole body shall be darksome. If, then, the light that is in thee is darkness [the world and its delights] how great shall that darkness be! No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth can consume, and where thieves do not break through and steal. For where your treasure is, there is your heart also!” (Matthew 6:19-23).
Let’s face it―the “treasure” for most people is this life on Earth and what it offers and what they can get out of it. It is on this that most of their time, efforts and money is spent. If you compare all that they spend on this world, in comparison to what they spend on their spiritual life, then it is absolutely “no contest”―the obvious winner, by a massive margin, is the world. A phenomenal amount of time is spent and wasted on various forms of entertainment―each has his or her own preferred areas. “Screen-watching”―which includes television, computer and smartphone use―takes up, on average, well over 8 hours a day (and that is a conservative amount!).
Even those who protest that they have little or no time for entertainment―end up doing a “Martha” rather a “Mary”―which refers to the sisters in the Bible, one of whom was busy, busy, busy with household chores, while the other seemed to “lazily” sit at the feet of Our Lord listening to Him. “Jesus entered into a certain town and a certain woman, named Martha, received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who, sitting at the Lord’s feet, heard His word. But Martha was busy about much serving. Martha stood and said: ‘Lord! Hast Thou no care that my sister hath left me alone to serve? Speak to her, therefore, that she help me!’ And the Lord answering, said to her: ‘Martha! Martha! Thou art careful and art troubled about many things! But one thing is necessary! Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her!’” (Luke 10:38-42).
They say: “Home is where the heart is!” Mary’s heart was at the feet of Jesus. For Martha, her heart was in her home alright, but at the expense of Jesus. She was not doing anything evil―but Our Lord chided or rebuked her for being TOO busy with material things to the neglect of spiritual things! Are you a “Martha” or a “Martin” ― too busy with material things, which, though non-sinful, could be said to be immaterial when compared to spiritual things? Most people are too materialistically inclined to the detriment of their spiritual health.
Blind Minds and Hearts!
The world blinds us to God with its worldly ways: “The god of this world hath blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ should not shine unto them!” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Holy Scripture further warns us: “Walk not as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts!” (Ephesians 4:17-18). “Their own malice blinded them!” (Wisdom 2:21). Sin blinds the minds and hearts of men―and it can get to the point where God, in His just anger, will refuse to remove that blindness: “And the Lord said: ‘Go, and thou shalt say to this people: “Hearing, hear and understand not; and see the vision, and know it not!” Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes―lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and I heal them!” (Isaias 6:9-10). “They shall walk like blind men because they have sinned against the Lord!” (Sophonias 1:17). “Can the blind lead the blind? Do they not both fall into the ditch?” (Luke 6:39). “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14). What a terrible warning to us―if we fail to use our God-given faculties as God intended them to be used, and not focusing them solely and predominantly on the world and its delights!
Our two faculties of the soul are, in everyday language, our MIND and our HEART―or, philosophically speaking, our INTELLECT (Mind) and our WILL (Heart). It is the MIND (the Intellect) that knows―and it is the HEART (the Will) that loves, desires, wants―it is the “gimme-gimme-gimme” power. Of itself, by itself, the HEART or WILL is blind, but very strong―it needs guidance as to what to love. The MIND or INTELLECT can see, but is not as strong as the HEART or WILL―yet, by not being blind, it can see the nuances in things and can discern good from evil (if it is a well-trained and well-exercised mind or intellect). In brief, then, the MIND or INTELLECT studies things, analyzes things, discovers nuances, knows things, stores that knowledge and remembers things. Whereas the HEART or WILL loves, desires, wants, and puts into action all other powers of the person to attain what it loves and wants.
In everyday life, it is the MIND or INTELLECT that probes, researches, gathers evidence, sifts through information, looks at the pros and cons of things, and finally presents its findings and suggestions to the HEART or WILL. Besides being the engine-room of desire, love and charity, the role of the HEART or WILL is to review the information and evidence presented by the MIND or INTELLECT and then make a judgment as to what to do, say, believe, etc. This judgment will usually be in harmony with what the HEART or WILL likes, loves or to what it naturally tends toward. You could say that―due to the effects of Original Sin―the HEART or WILL is somewhat biased in favor of what it like, loves, enjoys, etc. If the HEART or WILL has not been trained, disciplined, mortified and correctly strengthened―then it liable to judge badly, based on personal pleasure, personal gain, personal advantage. An untrained and undisciplined HEART or WILL is likely to ignore, refuse or by-pass any information presented by the MIND or INTELLECT through fear of having to go against its own biased preferences. An untrained HEART or WILL is a WEAK HEART or WEAK WILL―and today, the world is full such persons.
In matters of Faith, then, we can say that the virtue of Faith resides in the MIND or INTELLECT; whereas the virtue of Charity resides in the HEART or WILL. Of these, Charity is more important than Faith ― “Now there remain Faith, Hope, and Charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity!” (1 Corinthians 13:13). However, Charity needs the help of Faith―for we cannot love with Charity if we do not know through Faith. As the philosophical axiom states: “You cannot love what you do not know!” If you only know a little about God, then you will only love Him a little. If you know nothing about God, then you will not love Him at all. This is why St. Thérèse of Lisieux (of the Infant Jesus, a.k.a. “The Little Flower”) used to say: “Jesus is so little loved because He is so little known!” We can say the same about Our Lady: “Mary is so little loved because she is so little known!”
The Fruits of Ignorant Minds and Weak Hearts
Fr. Frederick Faber touches on this issue in his Preface to his personal translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary from the original French into English. In that Preface, Fr. Faber writes:
“All those who are likely to read this book [True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort], love God, and lament that they do not love Him more; all desire something for His glory—the spread of some good work, the success of some devotion, the coming of some good time. One man has been striving for years to overcome a particular fault, and has not succeeded. Another mourns―and almost wonders while he mourns―that so few of his relations and friends have been converted to the Faith. One grieves that he has not devotion enough; another that he has a cross to carry, which is a peculiarly impossible cross to him; while a third has domestic troubles and family unhappinesses, which feel almost incompatible with his salvation―and for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy.
“But what is the remedy that is wanted? What is the remedy indicated by God Himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady―but, remember, nothing short of an immense one! Mary is not half enough preached! Devotion to her is low and thin and poor! Its ignorance of theology makes it unsubstantial and unworthy! It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be! It has no Faith in itself! Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls, which might be saints, wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized. Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background! Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them! It is the miserable, unworthy shadow, which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin, that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines!
“Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother. I cannot think of a higher work, or a broader vocation, for anyone―than the simple spreading of this peculiar devotion of the Venerable [St. Louis-Marie] Grignion de Montfort. Let a man but try it for himself, and his surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations it causes in his soul, will soon convince him of its otherwise almost incredible efficacy as a means for the salvation of men, and for the coming of the kingdom of Christ! Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our Faith, and how different would our Communions be! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our sole Lord and Savior, her dearest and most blessed Son!”
Notice how what Fr. Faber says fits perfectly with what has been said about the relation between the MIND or INTELLECT and the HEART or WILL. It was said above that you cannot love what you do not know and that you will love very little what you know very little about―that is exactly what Fr. Faber alludes to. He speaks of the need of “an immense increase in devotion to Our Blessed Lady” ― which is, of course, an immense increase in love and charity. Devotion―being an expression of love and charity―resides and comes from the HEART or WILL. But the HEART or WILL is blind―it is like a fire that cannot burn unless you put logs upon it―in this case, “logs” of information, knowledge, etc. Little knowledge means little love―and Fr. Faber speaks of “an immense increase of devotion”, therefore, an immense increase in love and charity. These “logs” of information are lacking―that is why devotion is lacking―for he says: “Mary is not half enough preached!” and that is why “Devotion to her is low and thin and poor!” He further links this lack of love to lack of knowledge, by speaking of “ignorance of theology” (lack of knowledge) which makes it “unsubstantial and unworthy” ― adding, “Hence it is that Jesus is not loved” ― meaning that Jesus is little loved because He is little known, due to our “ignorance of theology.” He, thus, says of our devotion: “It is the miserable, unworthy shadow, which we call our devotion to Mary, that is the cause of all these wants and blights, evils and omissions and declines!”
Most people deliberately choose not to increase their knowledge about Our Lady―for whatever personal reasons: laziness, worldliness, sinfulness, etc. Most people like their worldly interests far more than any interest they might have in Our Lady―they think of her very little; they read little about her; they speak little of her; they pray little to her; they do little for her.
Time for a Change of Heart!
Lukewarm hearts create indignation in Heaven and obtain very little by way of grace: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16), says God.
► OUR LORD, appearing to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame), said to her: “Alas! If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small spineless imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me ... But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing! — according to My example ― for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross. Moreover, I have continued to live in the Tabernacle under the same roof with these hidden souls, exposing Myself to so many hateful profanations and sacrileges! For I know well all that takes place in My sacramental life! ... Woe to souls like this! Woe!”
► OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS also lamented lukewarmness: “O cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’ … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness … Some let themselves be dazzled by the false glamour of honors and human greatness, while others are blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness, that immense evil which … destroys their fervor, humility, self-renunciation and the ceaseless practice of virtues and fraternal charity and child-like simplicity!”
► OUR LADY spoke of lukewarmness to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, saying: “The fulfillment of the precepts of the Lord must not be cold and lukewarm, but most fervent and devoted and not sometimes fervent, sometimes lukewarm … He approaches closely to those souls, who thus love and serve Him in all things, while He withdraws from the lukewarm and negligent ones … Be roused to great wonder, sorrow and compassion at the lack of attention displayed by mortals and at the losses sustained by them through their lukewarmness and negligence. Many souls have reached the heights of perfection and have thence fallen most unfortunately, arriving at a state in which they almost despaired or found themselves incapable of rising.
“This sad state in the creature originates from many causes. The first is the dismay and boundless confusion of one who feels that he has fallen from an exalted state of virtue; for he knows that he has not only lost great blessings, but he does not expect to obtain greater ones than those of the past and those he has lost; nor does he promise himself more firmness in keeping those he can obtain through renewed efforts, than he has shown in those acquired and now lost through his ingratitude. From this dangerous distrust originates lukewarmness, want of fervor and diligence, absence of zeal and devotion; since diffidence extinguishes all these in the soul, just as the sprightliness of ardent hope overcomes many difficulties, strengthens and vivifies weak human creatures to undertake great works.
“Another obstacle there is, not less formidable, namely: the souls accustomed to the blessings of God, either through their office, as the priests and religious, or by the exercise of virtues and the abundance of divine favors, as spiritual minded persons, usually aggravate their sins by a certain contempt of these very blessings and a certain abuse of the divine things. For by the abundance of the divine favors they fall into a dangerous dullness of mind and the enemy leads them into a dangerous lukewarmness and negligence. They begin to think little of the divine favors and become irreverent. Thus failing to cooperate with God’s grace, they hinder its effect. They lose the grace of holy fear of the Lord, which arouses and stimulates the will to obey the divine commandments and to be alert in the avoidance of sin and pursuit of eternal life in the friendship of God. This is an evident danger for lukewarm priests, who frequent the Holy Eucharist and other Sacraments, without fear and reverence; also for the learned and wise, and the powerful of this world, who so reluctantly correct and amend their lives.
“Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous tepidity. They live in the obscurity of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices. They are surrounded by innumerable enemies, who pursue them with diabolical treachery, unceasing vigilance, unquenchable wrath and restless diligence. What wonder then, that from such extremes, or rather from such unequal combat, irreparable defeats should arise among the mortals? And that, since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men?”
► ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS, writes: “The peculiarity of lukewarmness is the want of earnestness in, and of interior solicitude for, the things of God … Dissipation of the mind engenders in its turn spiritual sloth and lukewarmness, which grow into weariness and sadness in divine things, so that in the end we come to hate them.”
► FR. FABER, in his book Growth in Holiness, dedicates an entire chapter to lukewarmness, in which he writes: “Either we are lukewarm, or we are fervent … There is nothing in the spiritual life which arrests our attention so forcibly as lukewarmness because of the unusual language in which it has pleased God to express His ineffable disgust with it! … But why does He hate it so? Because it is a deliberate appreciation of other things over God. It cheapens God, and parts with Him secondhand. Even though it is not open wickedness―it is even an open profession and exterior practice of His service―it nevertheless pretends friendship, and takes rank in the world as one of God’s friends; because of this it involves the twofold guilt of treachery and hypocrisy. It thus has a peculiar ability to wound God’s glory by the scandal it gives. It has God’s honor in its power, but treats it shamefully and cruelly. It profanes grace by the indifference with which it misuses it. It takes grace as being a right, and misapplies it―just as a dishonest man spends money on purposes for which it was not entrusted to him. It is taking a liberty with the majesty of God’s exceeding goodness―which is a terrible thing to do. It were better to play with His thunderbolts, than to make sport with His compassions. And all this is done with knowledge, the double knowledge of God and of evil. What wonder that it turns God’s whole being, and sours even the sweetness of the Sacred Heart! … I fear this evil of lukewarmness is very common, and that at this moment it is gnawing the life out of many souls who suspect not its presence there. It is a great grace, a prophecy of a miraculous cure, to find out that we are lukewarm; but we are lost if we do not act with vigor, the moment we make this frightening discovery. It is like going to sleep in the snow, almost a pleasant tingling feeling at the first, and then—lost forever!”
► FR. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE, who for several decades (1909 to 1960) taught courses on Ascetical and Mystical Theology at the elite Dominican seminary in Rome, writes about lukewarmness in his book, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, wherein he states: “Some souls, because of their negligence or spiritual sloth, do not pass from the age of beginners to that of proficients. These are retarded souls―in the spiritual life they are like abnormal children, who do not happily pass through the crisis of adolescence and who, though they do not remain children, never reach the full development of maturity. Unfortunately they are numerous. Of these retarded souls, some, who formerly served God with fidelity, are now in a state bordering on indifference. Though in the past they knew true spiritual fervor, they seriously misused divine graces. How did these souls reach this state of tepidity [lukewarmness]? As a rule, two principal causes are indicated: (1) the neglect of little things in the service of God and (2) the refusal to make the sacrifices He asks.
"The neglect of little things seems slight in itself, but it may become grave in its results. In the service of God, things which seem small in themselves are great in their relation to God, who should be loved above all else. The neglect of little things in the service of God leads rapidly to neglect of great things ... All personal piety disappears and gradually gives place to piety that is, in a way, official and exterior [superficial]. Gradually emphasis would be shifted from what is of greatest importance in life to what is secondary. We start seeking self in our activity, to the point of forgetting the salvation of souls and all that it demands on our part. Neglect of little things in the service of God may lead us to this forgetfulness, which renders everything unfruitful.
“There are four things prejudicial to the spiritual life: (1) the esteem of purely human talents and qualities; (2) the care to make friends for solely human reasons; (3) a politic conduct directed only by human prudence, a spirit that is sly and opposed to evangelical simplicity; (4) superfluous recreations, which the soul seeks, or conversations and reading which give a wholly natural satisfaction to the mind. These four enemies of the spiritual life give rise to ambition, the desire for eminent positions, or the wish to make a reputation for oneself in the sciences, and the seeking after one’s ease; all of which are manifestly opposed to spiritual progress. We must be on the alert to preserve in our souls the subordination of the natural activity of the mind to the essentially supernatural virtues.
“A second cause of tepidity in retarded souls is the refusal to make the sacrifices which the Lord asks ... if not directly at least indirectly, by seeking diversions. Some are preoccupied with doing something, for example, writing a book, doing a work that would let the world know they exist … Then it loses zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of its neighbor, the fervor of charity. It falls into tepidity [lukewarmness], which is affection for venial sin, or the disposition of the will to commit certain venial sins deliberately when the occasion presents itself. Other causes may produce this tepidity of retarded souls: namely, levity of spirit, the thoughtlessness with which one tells, for example, officious lies (i.e., lies of expediency) whenever the occasion offers; spiritual sloth, which leads finally to the abandonment of the spiritual war against our defects, against our predominant fault, which quite frequently tries to pass for a virtue, and gives rise in us to other more or less inordinate passions. A person thus arrives at carelessness and indifference in regard to perfection and no longer truly tends toward the loftiness of the supreme precept: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind” (Luke 10: 27).
“Among the causes of tepidity [lukewarmness] in retarded souls, the tendency to derision [mockery] should be particularly noted. To deride or to ridicule someone, is to show that we do not esteem him; and derision may become a mortal sin if it affects persons or things that deserve high esteem. It is a grievous sin to ridicule the things of God, or our parents, or superiors, or good persons who lead a virtuous life. Derision may even become very grievous by reason of its consequences, for it may turn weak souls forever away from the practice of good. The derider is himself a retarded soul, holding others back and becoming, often without being aware of it, the instrument of the spirit of evil. The derider, who wishes “to play the rogue,” ridicules the just man who tends truly to perfection; he emphasizes the latter’s defects and depreciates his good qualities. Why is this? Because he feels that he himself has little virtue, and he is unwilling to admit his inferiority. Then, out of spite, he lessens the real and fundamental value of his neighbor and the necessity of virtue itself. He may greatly harm weak souls which he intimidates, and, while working his own ruin, he may labor at their perdition.
“The saints tell us that retarded and tepid souls may reach such a state of blindness of spirit and hardness of heart that it is very difficult to reform them. This statement is borne out by St. Bernard, who says: “You will more easily see a great number of seculars renounce vice and embrace virtue, than a single religious pass from tepidity [lukewarmness] to fervor” (Epist. ad Richard). The higher a retarded or tepid lukewarm soul has been raised, the more deplorable is its fall and also the more difficult is its conversion; in fact, it reaches the point where it judges its state to be satisfactory, and no longer has a desire to ascend higher. When the time of the Lord’s visit is disregarded, He sometimes returns only after long petitions. Retarded souls are in danger; they should be entrusted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who alone can bring them back to the Savior and obtain for them the graces that will rekindle in them the desire for perfection.”
► ST. JOHN VIANNEY also addresses the matter of lukewarmness in one of his sermons: “In speaking to you of the dreadful state of the lukewarm soul … I am going to show you this condition so clearly that perhaps many among you will be hurt by it. But that will matter little to me―for I am always going to tell you what I ought to tell you, and then you will do what you wish about it! I think, brethren, that you would like to know what is the state of the lukewarm soul. Well, this is it. A lukewarm soul is not yet quite dead in the eyes of God because the Faith, the Hope, and the Charity, which are its spiritual life, are not altogether extinct. But it is a Faith without zeal, a Hope without resolution, a Charity without ardor ... I would say further, my brethren, that whoever wants to please both the world and God leads one of the most unhappy of lives. Someone who gives himself up to the pleasures of the world or develops some evil habit. Nothing touches this soul! It hears the word of God―yes, that is true―but often it just bores it, like someone who thinks that he knows enough about it and does enough of what he should. It is still alive, but it is not capable of doing anything to gain Heaven ... The lukewarm soul comes to the point of being completely indifferent to its own loss ... For the last twenty years this soul has been filled with good intentions without doing anything at all to correct its habits. It would like to act, but its will has become so softened that it lacks either the force or the courage to accomplish its wishes.
“It is true that a Christian who lives in tepidity still regularly fulfils his duties ― in appearance at least. He will indeed get down on his knees every morning to say his prayers. He will go to the Sacraments. But in all of this there will be such a distaste, so much slackness and so much indifference, so little preparation, so little change in his way of life, that it is easy to see that he is only fulfilling his duties from habit and routine. His careless demeanor shows this very clearly. He assists at Holy Mass very much as he would at any ordinary activity. He does not think at all seriously of what he is doing and finds no trouble in chatting about all sorts of things while on the way there. Possibly he will not give a single thought to the fact that he is about to participate in the greatest of all the gifts that God, all‑powerful as He is, could give us. His Confessions and his Communions are not sacrilegious―but they are Confessions and Communions which bear no fruit, which, far from making him more perfect and more pleasing to God, only make him more unworthy. After having received Holy Communion, this person will hardly give another thought to God in all the days to follow.
“A lukewarm soul will go to Confession regularly, and even quite frequently. But what kind of Confessions are they? No preparation, no desire to correct faults, or, at the least, a desire so feeble and so small that the slightest difficulty will put a stop to it altogether. A lukewarm Christian thinks very little upon the state of his poor soul and almost never lets his mind run over the past. He does give some thought to the needs of his own soul, yes, but a very small and feeble amount of thought indeed. The Confessions of such a person are merely repetitions of old ones, which would be a happy state of affairs indeed if there were nothing to add to them. Twenty years ago he was accusing himself of the same things he confesses today, and if he goes to Confession for the next twenty years, he will say the same things. A lukewarm soul will not, if you like, commit the big sins. With such people everything that is not a really serious sin is good enough. Some slander or backbiting, a lie, a feeling of hatred, of dislike, of jealousy, a slight touch of deceit or double‑dealing ― these count for nothing with it. He believes that once he has confessed his sins, he ought to be perfectly happy and at peace.
As for his prayersC said, of course, without any preparationCit is not God who occupies his thoughts, nor the salvation of his poor soul. His mind is so wrapped up in the things of earth that the thought of God has no place in it. To say his prayers, he gets down on his knees, undoubtedly―but he does not know what he wants to ask God, nor what he needs, nor even before whom he is kneeling. A lukewarm soul has no difficulty, on the slightest pretext, in talking during the course of his prayers. For no reason at all he will abandon them, partly at least, thinking that he will finish them in another moment. Does he want to offer his day to God, to say his Grace Before and After Meals? He does all that―but often mechanically, without thinking of the One who is addressed.
“When he performs good or beneficial actions, his intentions are often very mixed ― sometimes it is to please someone, sometimes it is out of compassion, and sometimes it is just to please the world. They like doing good, being faithful, but they wish that it did not cost them anything or, at least, that it cost very little. They would like to visit the sick, indeed, but it would be more convenient if the sick would come to them. They have something to give away in alms, they know quite well that a certain person has need of help, but they wait until she comes to ask them instead of anticipating her, which would make the kindness so very much more meritorious. We will even say, my brethren, that the person who leads a lukewarm life does not fail to do plenty of good works, to frequent the Sacraments, to assist regularly at all church services―but in all of this one sees only a weak, languishing faith, hope which the slightest trial will upset, a love of God and of neighbor which is without warmth or pleasure.
“See, before God, my brethren, on what side you are. On the side of the sinners, who have abandoned everything and plunge themselves into sin without remorse? On the side of the just souls, who seek but God alone? Or are you of the number of these slack, tepid, and indifferent souls such as we have just been depicting for you? Down which road are you travelling? Who can dare assure himself that he is neither a great sinner, nor a lukewarm tepid soul, but that he is one of the elect? Alas, my brethren, how many seem to be good Christians in the eyes of the world who are really tepid lukewarm souls in the eyes of God! Let us ask God with all our hearts, if we are in this state, to give us the grace to get out of it, so that we may take the route that all the saints have taken and arrive at the happiness that they are enjoying. That is what I desire for you!”
A Change of Heart―A New Heart!
A change of heart necessitates changing our lukewarm hearts into fervent hearts. The saints say that this can be a very difficult―yet, as Our Lord said: “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God” (Luke 18:27). However, that being said, it must be stressed that what is possible, is certainly not easy! Unfortunately, one of the symptoms of lukewarmness is that of always wanting things to be easy!
► FR. ADOLPHE TANQUEREY, in his book, The Spiritual Life, speaks of some remedies for lukewarmness: “Our Lord has Himself pointed out the remedies: ‘I counsel thee to buy of me gold fire-tried, that thou mayest be made rich (the gold of charity and fervor of spirit); and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear (purity of conscience); and anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see (frankness towards self and towards one’s confessor). Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore, and do penance. Behold, I stand at the gate, and knock. If any man shall hear my voice, and open to me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.’ One must, therefore, never despair. Jesus is ever ready to give us His friendship, nay, His intimate friendship, if we be converted. To be converted:
(1) One must needs have frequent recourse to a wise confessor, frankly open one’s soul to him and sincerely beg his help to overcome tepidity. One must take and follow his counsels energetically and with constancy.
(2) Under his guidance, one will return to the fervent practice of the exercises of piety, especially of those that secure the fulfillment of the others; namely, mental prayer, examination of conscience and the frequent renewal of the intention of doing all for God. The fervor of which we here speak lies not in feeling, but in a generous will that strives to refuse God nothing.
(3) One will also take up once more the practice of the virtues and the fulfillment of one’s duties of state in all earnestness, making one’s particular examination of conscience successively upon the chief points, and giving an account thereof in confession.
“By these means one will regain fervor and one will not forget that past faults demand an atonement through the spirit and the works of penance.”
► FR. FABER also speaks of the remedies: “A few words on its remedies, and the hateful subject may be dismissed. Its cure is immensely difficult; St. Bernard would make us almost despair of its being curable at all. Only, we made up our minds at the beginning to hold this all through, that nothing is incurable, though many things in the spiritual life are nearly so; and neither doctor, nor father, nor saint, but only the Pope, shall drive us from this doctrine. St. Bernard therefore will be satisfied if we say that its cure is immensely difficult, because all the Saints have said so, because the evil is unsuspected, because even the good is mixed with evil, because men do not realize the possible forfeiture of grace to keep precepts when they have been playing fast and loose with counsels, and because, as St. Theresa teaches, for some souls perfection is accidentally necessary even for their salvation! How absurd it seems to mention the feeble remedies!
“The first is to quicken faith by meditation on eternal truths, so as to possess our minds habitually with their overwhelming importance and their exacting purity.
“The second is, not having so many things to do. It is no use. The times are busy. But we cannot save our souls if we have so many things to do. But the remedy? Good soul! There are some knots in life which cannot be untied; the thing is to cut them, and leave the consequences to help themselves. If you have more duties to do than you can do well, you must boldly neglect some of them. Only have Faith, and God will spirit the consequences away, so that you will see nothing more of them.
“The third remedy is the practice of silence, not in any offensive or singular way, but proportionately to our state of life.
“The fourth is to persevere in our spiritual exercises in spite of dryness and distractions;
“And the fifth, which is nearer a specific than any of the others, is a habit of mortification, not interior, but exterior. The interior will look out for itself when its time comes. Just now I want the flesh to suffer. If you turn away from this I give you up. It is the quinine for your ague. Alas! Alas! What does all this come to but the admission that the only sure remedy for lukewarmness is never to be lukewarm, an oracle worthy of the pompous physician of the old comedy? Yet does it not in reality say a great deal?”
► CARDINAL ANTONIO BACCI (1881-1971). As one cardinal from more traditional times said: “The ONLY choice in the life of a Catholic is between fervor and sin! The tepid or negligent soul cannot remain long in the grace of God and, when God’s grace is removed, it means the death of the soul. The spiritual life resembles a steep hill. A man cannot stay still. He must keep going upwards or begin to slip downwards. Whoever struggles on, up the hill, is approaching perfection and Heaven; whoever slips backwards, is approaching sin, a dead soul and Hell. There is NO MIDDLE WAY! Those who are lukewarm are an object of DISGUST to their Creator, Who casts them away from Himself ― “Because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot,” the Holy Spirit says, “I am about to vomit thee out of my mouth” (Apocalypse 3:16). So, it is not enough to be mediocre Catholic. The half-hearted and indifferent are already travelling along the slippery path of sin and are on the waiting list for Hell! It is dangerous for anyone to remain thoughtlessly in this state of spiritual ineptitude. A man who never thinks of his own salvation, is suffering from a serious illness. He is running a very great risk of eternal damnation. He has one foot in Hell while still living here on this Earth!”
The feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is merely days away! Perhaps it is time to prepare our hearts to greet and meet the Immaculate Heart! Or, to be more precise, perhaps it is time to prepare and repair our lukewarm or sinful hearts to greet, meet and receive the Immaculate Heart into our own hearts. Can you even find a Catholic whose heart needs no preparation, restoration or repair in order to be worthy to greet and meet the Immaculate Heart? Our Lady could rightly ask us: “Is thy heart right as my heart is with thy heart?” (4 Kings 10:15).
A healthy heart goes a long way in guaranteeing a long life. Likewise, a healthy spiritual heart goes a long way towards guaranteeing eternal life. At Fatima, Our Lady herself said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved!” It is therefore in our eternal interests that we foster a true and efficacious devotion in our own hearts to the Immaculate Heart of Mary!
Unfortunately, most Catholics are beset by spiritual heart disease, spiritual heart congestion and spiritual heart failure of one kind or another! Our Lady could say of them what Our Lord once said: “These people honor me with their lips―but their heart is far from me!” (Matthew 15:8). Or as Scripture adds: “Their heart was not right with Him [her], nor were they counted as being faithful” (Psalm 77:37) … “For thy heart is not right in the sight of God!” (Acts 8:21).
Most people have gorged themselves on “junk-food” in the sense of stuffing themselves with the things of this world. Just as “junk-food” has a bad effect upon the heart ― likewise materialism and worldliness has a similar bad effect on our “spiritual heart”. It is hard to love an invisible God when the world piles your plate high with so many visible “goodies” to whet and divert your appetite. Instead of “Taste, and see that the Lord is sweet!” (Psalm 33:9)―it now becomes “Taste and see that the world is sweet!”
Sugar Sweet World
If we eat certain wrong foods, they will eventually provoke heart failure and a heart attack. The following quote is from the American Heart Association (AHA) or should that be “Aha!”
“Added sugar was not a significant component of the human diet until the advent of modern food-processing methods. Since then, the intake of sugar has risen steadily. The average US sugar utilization per capita on the basis of food disappearance data was 120 lbs per year in 1970, and it reached 150 lbs per year in 1995 (almost half-a-pound per day)… Sugar has no nutritional value other than to provide calories. To improve the overall nutrient density of the diet and to help reduce the intake of excess calories, individuals should be sure foods high in added sugar are not displacing foods with essential nutrients or increasing calorie intake.” Their studies and research go on to irrefutably link a high sugar intake with cardio-vascular disease.
The World Serves Junk for the Soul
If we replace the good ‘spiritual food’ that our ‘spiritual’ hearts were made for, with the highly sweetened junk ‘food’ offered by the world, we will eventually suffer a ‘spiritual-cardiac-arrest’! By highly sweetened junk food we mean the pleasures, amusements, distractions and fun that world offers, which is meant to displace the spirit of mortification and sacrifice that Heaven wants us to feed our souls upon.
Holy Scripture tells us this: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4). “The charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him” (1 John 4:9). “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11).
Heart and Health
Those with a dying heart, often have a last attempt at life with a “heart transplant.” Of course, man’s version of a “heart transplant” is immoral and tantamount to murder—“With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). God can give you a “heart transplant”—for He Himself says: “And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 36:26).
The heart is at the heart of our well-being and existence. If the heart is weak, then that weakness will eventually extend itself to our entire being, directly or indirectly. Even our intellectual life will suffer indirectly, as the heart pumps blood to brain, and the brain needs much oxygen to function well, and that oxygen is carried by the blood the heart is supposed to pump.
The same is true of our spiritual life. If our ‘spiritual’ heart is healthy, then the healthier will be our entire spiritual life. “Soundness of heart is the life of the flesh” (Proverbs 14:30). That healthy heart refers to the love in our ‘heart’. This is also the key element in the apparitions and messages of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Love is the Health of the Heart
The heart of our spiritual life is love. Love is and has to be the soul of all that we do. “Let all your things be done in charity” (1 Corinthians 16:14). “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Therefore, once again: “Let all your things be done in charity” (1 Corinthians 16:14).
God is Love―and God and Love are the Health of the Soul
God Himself is Charity, He is Charity Itself: “God is charity” (1 John 4:8) and the Church’s Liturgy puts into the mouth of Our Lady the following words: “I am the mother of fair love” (Ecclesiasticus 24:24). This charity God has shown to a world that has not deserved or merited it—it is not as though we had something first, that necessitated God to repay. “Who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be made him?” (Romans 11:35). In fact, the world, by its sins, was more deserving of punishment and damnation than it was deserving of God’s charity! Yet that did not extinguish the charity of God: “For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16).
Heart Failure in Loving God
Yet despite this great and undeserved love of God, we have failed, on the whole, to fully appreciate and return that love. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that love is reciprocal—it is not just “give”; it is not just “take”; but it is a case of “give and take.” St. Augustine says (De Catech. Rud. iv): “Nothing will incite another more to love you, than that you love him first: for he must have a hard heart, indeed, who not only refuses to love, but declines to return love already given.” Yet this is precisely our guilt, as Our Lord would say to St. Margaret Mary:
“My Divine Heart is so inflamed with love for men, that, being unable any longer to contain within Itself the flames of Its burning Charity, It must needs spread them abroad and manifest Itself to them (mankind) in order to enrich them with the precious graces of sanctification and salvation necessary to withdraw them from the abyss of perdition.
“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus.”
The Immaculate Heart of Mary could just as well have spoken those words! Actually, she said something very similar at La Salette: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually! And all of you think little of this! In vain you will pray! In vain you will act! You will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken over for all of you!”
Heartless, Hardhearted Humans
We live in a “fast” world, where we are “always on the go”, where there is little time for detail as we content ourselves with superficialities. We have “fast food”, “express-check-outs”, “instant access”, “drive-thru” facilities, “same-day-deliveries”, “ready-made-meals”, instant worldwide communication abilities, etc. We love the time-saving, no-hassle, convenience of these things. The problem is that all of this easily spills over into our spiritual life, whereby we prefer “fast prayers”, “express-check-outs” after Holy Mass, “instant holiness”, “ready-made-thanksgivings”, “same-day-answers” to those “fast prayers”, etc.
So much so have we set our hearts on the world, above setting our heart on God and Heaven, that the following words are rightfully addressed to us: “How long will you be dull of heart?” (Psalm 4:3) … “The heart of this people is grown gross!” (Matthew 13:15) … “Their heart is vain!” (Psalm 5:10) … “Their heart was blinded!” (Mark 6:52) ... “His heart was lifted up unto pride!” (Daniel 5:20) ... “Thy heart is not right in the sight of God!” (Acts 8:21) ... “Their heart was not right with Him!” (Psalm 77:37) … “His heart was not perfect with the Lord” (3 Kings 15:3). “His heart was turned away by women” (3 Kings 11:4) ... “They always err in heart! They have not known My ways!” (Hebrews 3:10). “Their heart is divided” (Osee 10:2) … “With a double heart have they spoken!” (Psalm 11:3) … “A heart that goeth two ways shall not have success!” (Ecclesiasticus 3:28).
You Reap What You Sow!
Holy Scripture is clear on this matter: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:8). “Sow not evils in the furrows of injustice, and thou shalt not reap them sevenfold!” (Ecclesiasticus 7:3). In Our Lord’s parable about the Sower of the Seed (by which He means Sowing the Word of God), even though the seeds were sown, in most cases they did not bring forth any fruit―as Our Lord explains:
“Some seed fell by the way side, and it was trodden down by men, and the birds of the air came and ate it up. And some seed fell upon stony ground, where it had not much depth of earth, and the seed sprouted and shot up immediately, because there was no deepness of earth. But when the sun was risen, the sprouted seed was scorched, because it had no root and no moisture. And other seed fell among thorns: and the thorns grew up with it and choked it and it yielded no fruit … The seed is the word of God. When any one hears the word of the kingdom and understands it not, the devil, Satan, comes [the birds of the air] and takes the word [of God], which was sown in his heart, out of his heart―lest believing he should be saved―this is he that received the seed by the way side. And he that received the seed upon the rock or stony ground, is he that hears the word of God, immediately receives it with joy and believes for a while. Yet he has no root in himself, but keeps the word of God only for a time. For, in time of temptation, when tribulation and persecution arises because of the word of God, he is suddenly scandalized [weakened] and he falls away. And he that received the seed among thorns, is he that hears the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the pleasures of this life, choke up the word of God, and the word becomes fruitless and yields no fruit. But he that received the seed upon good ground, is he that hears and understands the word of God in a good and perfect heart, and bring forth fruit in patience; and the yield for one is a hundredfold, for another sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold!’” (Matthew 13:3-8, 13:18-23; Mark 4:3-8; Luke 8:5-15).
Today, the seed of the Word of God is simply wasted, trodden on, left to wither and die. People no longer care! They don’t want to know―it is the seeds of the world that they are happily sowing. They love the world―not the word of God. They boldly and blatantly ignore the fact that “You cannot serve God and mammon!” (Matthew 6:24). Where Our Lord says: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―but lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven” (Matthew 6:19-20) ― they do the exact opposite! They lay up for themselves treasures and pleasures on Earth, and end up losing the treasures and pleasures of Heaven.
All of that betrays the presence of a spiritual heart disease. One would think that people―especially Catholics―would see that these symptoms of worldliness, materialism and sensualism are clear indicators of that spiritual heart disease, but shockingly and incredibly they do not see! As Scripture says: “O foolish people, and without understanding―who have eyes, and see not; and ears, and hear not!” (Jeremias 5:21). Our Lord adds: “Seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And the prophecy of Isaias is fulfilled in them, who saith: ‘By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand, and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive!’ For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear!” (Matthew 13:13-16). But are your eyes blessed? Are your ears blessed? Or do you have one eye on God and the other eye on the world? Do you listen with one ear to God and with the other ear do you listen to the world? If that is the case, then your spiritual heart is congested with worldly things and risks eventually failing!
Eyes Forward! Heart in Heaven!
In the Preface of Mass―just before the Canon of the Mass―we have the following words: “Lift up you hearts!” says the priest, and you reply: “We have raised them up to the Lord!” Is that really true? Is your heart always raised up to Our Lord and Our Lady? Or is your heart divided between Heaven and Earth? A divided heart is like an adulterer―who pretends to love both the spouse and the adulterous lover. That is exactly what Holy Scripture tells us: “Adulterers, know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becomes an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).
Our Lord basically tells us that we look at the most, that is what we will love the most: “The light of thy body is your eye. If your eye be single [focused on Heaven], your whole body shall be lightsome. But if your eye is evil [focused on the world, whose works are for the most part evil], then your whole body shall be darksome. If, then, the light that is in thee is darkness [the world and its delights] how great shall that darkness be! No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Lay not up to yourselves treasures on Earth―where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven―where neither the rust nor moth can consume, and where thieves do not break through and steal. For where your treasure is, there is your heart also!” (Matthew 6:19-23).
Let’s face it―the “treasure” for most people is this life on Earth and what it offers and what they can get out of it. It is on this that most of their time, efforts and money is spent. If you compare all that they spend on this world, in comparison to what they spend on their spiritual life, then it is absolutely “no contest”―the obvious winner, by a massive margin, is the world. A phenomenal amount of time is spent and wasted on various forms of entertainment―each has his or her own preferred areas. “Screen-watching”―which includes television, computer and smartphone use―takes up, on average, well over 8 hours a day (and that is a conservative amount!).
Even those who protest that they have little or no time for entertainment―end up doing a “Martha” rather a “Mary”―which refers to the sisters in the Bible, one of whom was busy, busy, busy with household chores, while the other seemed to “lazily” sit at the feet of Our Lord listening to Him. “Jesus entered into a certain town and a certain woman, named Martha, received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who, sitting at the Lord’s feet, heard His word. But Martha was busy about much serving. Martha stood and said: ‘Lord! Hast Thou no care that my sister hath left me alone to serve? Speak to her, therefore, that she help me!’ And the Lord answering, said to her: ‘Martha! Martha! Thou art careful and art troubled about many things! But one thing is necessary! Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her!’” (Luke 10:38-42).
They say: “Home is where the heart is!” Mary’s heart was at the feet of Jesus. For Martha, her heart was in her home alright, but at the expense of Jesus. She was not doing anything evil―but Our Lord chided or rebuked her for being TOO busy with material things to the neglect of spiritual things! Are you a “Martha” or a “Martin” ― too busy with material things, which, though non-sinful, could be said to be immaterial when compared to spiritual things? Most people are too materialistically inclined to the detriment of their spiritual health.
Blind Minds and Hearts!
The world blinds us to God with its worldly ways: “The god of this world hath blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ should not shine unto them!” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Holy Scripture further warns us: “Walk not as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts!” (Ephesians 4:17-18). “Their own malice blinded them!” (Wisdom 2:21). Sin blinds the minds and hearts of men―and it can get to the point where God, in His just anger, will refuse to remove that blindness: “And the Lord said: ‘Go, and thou shalt say to this people: “Hearing, hear and understand not; and see the vision, and know it not!” Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes―lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and I heal them!” (Isaias 6:9-10). “They shall walk like blind men because they have sinned against the Lord!” (Sophonias 1:17). “Can the blind lead the blind? Do they not both fall into the ditch?” (Luke 6:39). “Leave them alone! They are blind, and leaders of the blind! And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit!” (Matthew 15:14). What a terrible warning to us―if we fail to use our God-given faculties as God intended them to be used, and not focusing them solely and predominantly on the world and its delights!
Our two faculties of the soul are, in everyday language, our MIND and our HEART―or, philosophically speaking, our INTELLECT (Mind) and our WILL (Heart). It is the MIND (the Intellect) that knows―and it is the HEART (the Will) that loves, desires, wants―it is the “gimme-gimme-gimme” power. Of itself, by itself, the HEART or WILL is blind, but very strong―it needs guidance as to what to love. The MIND or INTELLECT can see, but is not as strong as the HEART or WILL―yet, by not being blind, it can see the nuances in things and can discern good from evil (if it is a well-trained and well-exercised mind or intellect). In brief, then, the MIND or INTELLECT studies things, analyzes things, discovers nuances, knows things, stores that knowledge and remembers things. Whereas the HEART or WILL loves, desires, wants, and puts into action all other powers of the person to attain what it loves and wants.
In everyday life, it is the MIND or INTELLECT that probes, researches, gathers evidence, sifts through information, looks at the pros and cons of things, and finally presents its findings and suggestions to the HEART or WILL. Besides being the engine-room of desire, love and charity, the role of the HEART or WILL is to review the information and evidence presented by the MIND or INTELLECT and then make a judgment as to what to do, say, believe, etc. This judgment will usually be in harmony with what the HEART or WILL likes, loves or to what it naturally tends toward. You could say that―due to the effects of Original Sin―the HEART or WILL is somewhat biased in favor of what it like, loves, enjoys, etc. If the HEART or WILL has not been trained, disciplined, mortified and correctly strengthened―then it liable to judge badly, based on personal pleasure, personal gain, personal advantage. An untrained and undisciplined HEART or WILL is likely to ignore, refuse or by-pass any information presented by the MIND or INTELLECT through fear of having to go against its own biased preferences. An untrained HEART or WILL is a WEAK HEART or WEAK WILL―and today, the world is full such persons.
In matters of Faith, then, we can say that the virtue of Faith resides in the MIND or INTELLECT; whereas the virtue of Charity resides in the HEART or WILL. Of these, Charity is more important than Faith ― “Now there remain Faith, Hope, and Charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity!” (1 Corinthians 13:13). However, Charity needs the help of Faith―for we cannot love with Charity if we do not know through Faith. As the philosophical axiom states: “You cannot love what you do not know!” If you only know a little about God, then you will only love Him a little. If you know nothing about God, then you will not love Him at all. This is why St. Thérèse of Lisieux (of the Infant Jesus, a.k.a. “The Little Flower”) used to say: “Jesus is so little loved because He is so little known!” We can say the same about Our Lady: “Mary is so little loved because she is so little known!”
The Fruits of Ignorant Minds and Weak Hearts
Fr. Frederick Faber touches on this issue in his Preface to his personal translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary from the original French into English. In that Preface, Fr. Faber writes:
“All those who are likely to read this book [True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort], love God, and lament that they do not love Him more; all desire something for His glory—the spread of some good work, the success of some devotion, the coming of some good time. One man has been striving for years to overcome a particular fault, and has not succeeded. Another mourns―and almost wonders while he mourns―that so few of his relations and friends have been converted to the Faith. One grieves that he has not devotion enough; another that he has a cross to carry, which is a peculiarly impossible cross to him; while a third has domestic troubles and family unhappinesses, which feel almost incompatible with his salvation―and for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy.
“But what is the remedy that is wanted? What is the remedy indicated by God Himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady―but, remember, nothing short of an immense one! Mary is not half enough preached! Devotion to her is low and thin and poor! Its ignorance of theology makes it unsubstantial and unworthy! It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be! It has no Faith in itself! Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls, which might be saints, wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized. Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background! Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them! It is the miserable, unworthy shadow, which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin, that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines!
“Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother. I cannot think of a higher work, or a broader vocation, for anyone―than the simple spreading of this peculiar devotion of the Venerable [St. Louis-Marie] Grignion de Montfort. Let a man but try it for himself, and his surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations it causes in his soul, will soon convince him of its otherwise almost incredible efficacy as a means for the salvation of men, and for the coming of the kingdom of Christ! Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our Faith, and how different would our Communions be! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our sole Lord and Savior, her dearest and most blessed Son!”
Notice how what Fr. Faber says fits perfectly with what has been said about the relation between the MIND or INTELLECT and the HEART or WILL. It was said above that you cannot love what you do not know and that you will love very little what you know very little about―that is exactly what Fr. Faber alludes to. He speaks of the need of “an immense increase in devotion to Our Blessed Lady” ― which is, of course, an immense increase in love and charity. Devotion―being an expression of love and charity―resides and comes from the HEART or WILL. But the HEART or WILL is blind―it is like a fire that cannot burn unless you put logs upon it―in this case, “logs” of information, knowledge, etc. Little knowledge means little love―and Fr. Faber speaks of “an immense increase of devotion”, therefore, an immense increase in love and charity. These “logs” of information are lacking―that is why devotion is lacking―for he says: “Mary is not half enough preached!” and that is why “Devotion to her is low and thin and poor!” He further links this lack of love to lack of knowledge, by speaking of “ignorance of theology” (lack of knowledge) which makes it “unsubstantial and unworthy” ― adding, “Hence it is that Jesus is not loved” ― meaning that Jesus is little loved because He is little known, due to our “ignorance of theology.” He, thus, says of our devotion: “It is the miserable, unworthy shadow, which we call our devotion to Mary, that is the cause of all these wants and blights, evils and omissions and declines!”
Most people deliberately choose not to increase their knowledge about Our Lady―for whatever personal reasons: laziness, worldliness, sinfulness, etc. Most people like their worldly interests far more than any interest they might have in Our Lady―they think of her very little; they read little about her; they speak little of her; they pray little to her; they do little for her.
Time for a Change of Heart!
Lukewarm hearts create indignation in Heaven and obtain very little by way of grace: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16), says God.
► OUR LORD, appearing to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame), said to her: “Alas! If men would only realize how greatly I am wounded and displeased with the coldness, indifference, lack of confidence and small spineless imperfections on the part of those who so closely belong to Me ... But I will not tolerate this! Halfway measures are not pleasing to Me! I desire all or nothing! — according to My example ― for I gave of Myself to the last drop of Blood and Water from My shattered Body on the Cross. Moreover, I have continued to live in the Tabernacle under the same roof with these hidden souls, exposing Myself to so many hateful profanations and sacrileges! For I know well all that takes place in My sacramental life! ... Woe to souls like this! Woe!”
► OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS also lamented lukewarmness: “O cursed human respect, which makes one ask: ‘What will others say about this?’ … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness … Some let themselves be dazzled by the false glamour of honors and human greatness, while others are blinded by self-love, not realizing that they are falling into lukewarmness, that immense evil which … destroys their fervor, humility, self-renunciation and the ceaseless practice of virtues and fraternal charity and child-like simplicity!”
► OUR LADY spoke of lukewarmness to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, saying: “The fulfillment of the precepts of the Lord must not be cold and lukewarm, but most fervent and devoted and not sometimes fervent, sometimes lukewarm … He approaches closely to those souls, who thus love and serve Him in all things, while He withdraws from the lukewarm and negligent ones … Be roused to great wonder, sorrow and compassion at the lack of attention displayed by mortals and at the losses sustained by them through their lukewarmness and negligence. Many souls have reached the heights of perfection and have thence fallen most unfortunately, arriving at a state in which they almost despaired or found themselves incapable of rising.
“This sad state in the creature originates from many causes. The first is the dismay and boundless confusion of one who feels that he has fallen from an exalted state of virtue; for he knows that he has not only lost great blessings, but he does not expect to obtain greater ones than those of the past and those he has lost; nor does he promise himself more firmness in keeping those he can obtain through renewed efforts, than he has shown in those acquired and now lost through his ingratitude. From this dangerous distrust originates lukewarmness, want of fervor and diligence, absence of zeal and devotion; since diffidence extinguishes all these in the soul, just as the sprightliness of ardent hope overcomes many difficulties, strengthens and vivifies weak human creatures to undertake great works.
“Another obstacle there is, not less formidable, namely: the souls accustomed to the blessings of God, either through their office, as the priests and religious, or by the exercise of virtues and the abundance of divine favors, as spiritual minded persons, usually aggravate their sins by a certain contempt of these very blessings and a certain abuse of the divine things. For by the abundance of the divine favors they fall into a dangerous dullness of mind and the enemy leads them into a dangerous lukewarmness and negligence. They begin to think little of the divine favors and become irreverent. Thus failing to cooperate with God’s grace, they hinder its effect. They lose the grace of holy fear of the Lord, which arouses and stimulates the will to obey the divine commandments and to be alert in the avoidance of sin and pursuit of eternal life in the friendship of God. This is an evident danger for lukewarm priests, who frequent the Holy Eucharist and other Sacraments, without fear and reverence; also for the learned and wise, and the powerful of this world, who so reluctantly correct and amend their lives.
“Weep in deepest sorrow over the ruin of so many souls absorbed in such dangerous tepidity. They live in the obscurity of their passions and depraved inclinations, forgetful of the danger, unmoved by their losses, and heedless of their dealings. Instead of fearing and avoiding the occasions of evil, they encounter and seek for them in blind ignorance. In senseless fury they follow their pleasures, place no restraint on their passionate desires, and care not where they walk, even if to the most dangerous precipices. They are surrounded by innumerable enemies, who pursue them with diabolical treachery, unceasing vigilance, unquenchable wrath and restless diligence. What wonder then, that from such extremes, or rather from such unequal combat, irreparable defeats should arise among the mortals? And that, since the number of fools is infinite, the number of the reprobate should also be uncountable, and that the demon should be inflated by his triumphs in the perdition of so many men?”
► ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS, writes: “The peculiarity of lukewarmness is the want of earnestness in, and of interior solicitude for, the things of God … Dissipation of the mind engenders in its turn spiritual sloth and lukewarmness, which grow into weariness and sadness in divine things, so that in the end we come to hate them.”
► FR. FABER, in his book Growth in Holiness, dedicates an entire chapter to lukewarmness, in which he writes: “Either we are lukewarm, or we are fervent … There is nothing in the spiritual life which arrests our attention so forcibly as lukewarmness because of the unusual language in which it has pleased God to express His ineffable disgust with it! … But why does He hate it so? Because it is a deliberate appreciation of other things over God. It cheapens God, and parts with Him secondhand. Even though it is not open wickedness―it is even an open profession and exterior practice of His service―it nevertheless pretends friendship, and takes rank in the world as one of God’s friends; because of this it involves the twofold guilt of treachery and hypocrisy. It thus has a peculiar ability to wound God’s glory by the scandal it gives. It has God’s honor in its power, but treats it shamefully and cruelly. It profanes grace by the indifference with which it misuses it. It takes grace as being a right, and misapplies it―just as a dishonest man spends money on purposes for which it was not entrusted to him. It is taking a liberty with the majesty of God’s exceeding goodness―which is a terrible thing to do. It were better to play with His thunderbolts, than to make sport with His compassions. And all this is done with knowledge, the double knowledge of God and of evil. What wonder that it turns God’s whole being, and sours even the sweetness of the Sacred Heart! … I fear this evil of lukewarmness is very common, and that at this moment it is gnawing the life out of many souls who suspect not its presence there. It is a great grace, a prophecy of a miraculous cure, to find out that we are lukewarm; but we are lost if we do not act with vigor, the moment we make this frightening discovery. It is like going to sleep in the snow, almost a pleasant tingling feeling at the first, and then—lost forever!”
► FR. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE, who for several decades (1909 to 1960) taught courses on Ascetical and Mystical Theology at the elite Dominican seminary in Rome, writes about lukewarmness in his book, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, wherein he states: “Some souls, because of their negligence or spiritual sloth, do not pass from the age of beginners to that of proficients. These are retarded souls―in the spiritual life they are like abnormal children, who do not happily pass through the crisis of adolescence and who, though they do not remain children, never reach the full development of maturity. Unfortunately they are numerous. Of these retarded souls, some, who formerly served God with fidelity, are now in a state bordering on indifference. Though in the past they knew true spiritual fervor, they seriously misused divine graces. How did these souls reach this state of tepidity [lukewarmness]? As a rule, two principal causes are indicated: (1) the neglect of little things in the service of God and (2) the refusal to make the sacrifices He asks.
"The neglect of little things seems slight in itself, but it may become grave in its results. In the service of God, things which seem small in themselves are great in their relation to God, who should be loved above all else. The neglect of little things in the service of God leads rapidly to neglect of great things ... All personal piety disappears and gradually gives place to piety that is, in a way, official and exterior [superficial]. Gradually emphasis would be shifted from what is of greatest importance in life to what is secondary. We start seeking self in our activity, to the point of forgetting the salvation of souls and all that it demands on our part. Neglect of little things in the service of God may lead us to this forgetfulness, which renders everything unfruitful.
“There are four things prejudicial to the spiritual life: (1) the esteem of purely human talents and qualities; (2) the care to make friends for solely human reasons; (3) a politic conduct directed only by human prudence, a spirit that is sly and opposed to evangelical simplicity; (4) superfluous recreations, which the soul seeks, or conversations and reading which give a wholly natural satisfaction to the mind. These four enemies of the spiritual life give rise to ambition, the desire for eminent positions, or the wish to make a reputation for oneself in the sciences, and the seeking after one’s ease; all of which are manifestly opposed to spiritual progress. We must be on the alert to preserve in our souls the subordination of the natural activity of the mind to the essentially supernatural virtues.
“A second cause of tepidity in retarded souls is the refusal to make the sacrifices which the Lord asks ... if not directly at least indirectly, by seeking diversions. Some are preoccupied with doing something, for example, writing a book, doing a work that would let the world know they exist … Then it loses zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of its neighbor, the fervor of charity. It falls into tepidity [lukewarmness], which is affection for venial sin, or the disposition of the will to commit certain venial sins deliberately when the occasion presents itself. Other causes may produce this tepidity of retarded souls: namely, levity of spirit, the thoughtlessness with which one tells, for example, officious lies (i.e., lies of expediency) whenever the occasion offers; spiritual sloth, which leads finally to the abandonment of the spiritual war against our defects, against our predominant fault, which quite frequently tries to pass for a virtue, and gives rise in us to other more or less inordinate passions. A person thus arrives at carelessness and indifference in regard to perfection and no longer truly tends toward the loftiness of the supreme precept: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind” (Luke 10: 27).
“Among the causes of tepidity [lukewarmness] in retarded souls, the tendency to derision [mockery] should be particularly noted. To deride or to ridicule someone, is to show that we do not esteem him; and derision may become a mortal sin if it affects persons or things that deserve high esteem. It is a grievous sin to ridicule the things of God, or our parents, or superiors, or good persons who lead a virtuous life. Derision may even become very grievous by reason of its consequences, for it may turn weak souls forever away from the practice of good. The derider is himself a retarded soul, holding others back and becoming, often without being aware of it, the instrument of the spirit of evil. The derider, who wishes “to play the rogue,” ridicules the just man who tends truly to perfection; he emphasizes the latter’s defects and depreciates his good qualities. Why is this? Because he feels that he himself has little virtue, and he is unwilling to admit his inferiority. Then, out of spite, he lessens the real and fundamental value of his neighbor and the necessity of virtue itself. He may greatly harm weak souls which he intimidates, and, while working his own ruin, he may labor at their perdition.
“The saints tell us that retarded and tepid souls may reach such a state of blindness of spirit and hardness of heart that it is very difficult to reform them. This statement is borne out by St. Bernard, who says: “You will more easily see a great number of seculars renounce vice and embrace virtue, than a single religious pass from tepidity [lukewarmness] to fervor” (Epist. ad Richard). The higher a retarded or tepid lukewarm soul has been raised, the more deplorable is its fall and also the more difficult is its conversion; in fact, it reaches the point where it judges its state to be satisfactory, and no longer has a desire to ascend higher. When the time of the Lord’s visit is disregarded, He sometimes returns only after long petitions. Retarded souls are in danger; they should be entrusted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who alone can bring them back to the Savior and obtain for them the graces that will rekindle in them the desire for perfection.”
► ST. JOHN VIANNEY also addresses the matter of lukewarmness in one of his sermons: “In speaking to you of the dreadful state of the lukewarm soul … I am going to show you this condition so clearly that perhaps many among you will be hurt by it. But that will matter little to me―for I am always going to tell you what I ought to tell you, and then you will do what you wish about it! I think, brethren, that you would like to know what is the state of the lukewarm soul. Well, this is it. A lukewarm soul is not yet quite dead in the eyes of God because the Faith, the Hope, and the Charity, which are its spiritual life, are not altogether extinct. But it is a Faith without zeal, a Hope without resolution, a Charity without ardor ... I would say further, my brethren, that whoever wants to please both the world and God leads one of the most unhappy of lives. Someone who gives himself up to the pleasures of the world or develops some evil habit. Nothing touches this soul! It hears the word of God―yes, that is true―but often it just bores it, like someone who thinks that he knows enough about it and does enough of what he should. It is still alive, but it is not capable of doing anything to gain Heaven ... The lukewarm soul comes to the point of being completely indifferent to its own loss ... For the last twenty years this soul has been filled with good intentions without doing anything at all to correct its habits. It would like to act, but its will has become so softened that it lacks either the force or the courage to accomplish its wishes.
“It is true that a Christian who lives in tepidity still regularly fulfils his duties ― in appearance at least. He will indeed get down on his knees every morning to say his prayers. He will go to the Sacraments. But in all of this there will be such a distaste, so much slackness and so much indifference, so little preparation, so little change in his way of life, that it is easy to see that he is only fulfilling his duties from habit and routine. His careless demeanor shows this very clearly. He assists at Holy Mass very much as he would at any ordinary activity. He does not think at all seriously of what he is doing and finds no trouble in chatting about all sorts of things while on the way there. Possibly he will not give a single thought to the fact that he is about to participate in the greatest of all the gifts that God, all‑powerful as He is, could give us. His Confessions and his Communions are not sacrilegious―but they are Confessions and Communions which bear no fruit, which, far from making him more perfect and more pleasing to God, only make him more unworthy. After having received Holy Communion, this person will hardly give another thought to God in all the days to follow.
“A lukewarm soul will go to Confession regularly, and even quite frequently. But what kind of Confessions are they? No preparation, no desire to correct faults, or, at the least, a desire so feeble and so small that the slightest difficulty will put a stop to it altogether. A lukewarm Christian thinks very little upon the state of his poor soul and almost never lets his mind run over the past. He does give some thought to the needs of his own soul, yes, but a very small and feeble amount of thought indeed. The Confessions of such a person are merely repetitions of old ones, which would be a happy state of affairs indeed if there were nothing to add to them. Twenty years ago he was accusing himself of the same things he confesses today, and if he goes to Confession for the next twenty years, he will say the same things. A lukewarm soul will not, if you like, commit the big sins. With such people everything that is not a really serious sin is good enough. Some slander or backbiting, a lie, a feeling of hatred, of dislike, of jealousy, a slight touch of deceit or double‑dealing ― these count for nothing with it. He believes that once he has confessed his sins, he ought to be perfectly happy and at peace.
As for his prayersC said, of course, without any preparationCit is not God who occupies his thoughts, nor the salvation of his poor soul. His mind is so wrapped up in the things of earth that the thought of God has no place in it. To say his prayers, he gets down on his knees, undoubtedly―but he does not know what he wants to ask God, nor what he needs, nor even before whom he is kneeling. A lukewarm soul has no difficulty, on the slightest pretext, in talking during the course of his prayers. For no reason at all he will abandon them, partly at least, thinking that he will finish them in another moment. Does he want to offer his day to God, to say his Grace Before and After Meals? He does all that―but often mechanically, without thinking of the One who is addressed.
“When he performs good or beneficial actions, his intentions are often very mixed ― sometimes it is to please someone, sometimes it is out of compassion, and sometimes it is just to please the world. They like doing good, being faithful, but they wish that it did not cost them anything or, at least, that it cost very little. They would like to visit the sick, indeed, but it would be more convenient if the sick would come to them. They have something to give away in alms, they know quite well that a certain person has need of help, but they wait until she comes to ask them instead of anticipating her, which would make the kindness so very much more meritorious. We will even say, my brethren, that the person who leads a lukewarm life does not fail to do plenty of good works, to frequent the Sacraments, to assist regularly at all church services―but in all of this one sees only a weak, languishing faith, hope which the slightest trial will upset, a love of God and of neighbor which is without warmth or pleasure.
“See, before God, my brethren, on what side you are. On the side of the sinners, who have abandoned everything and plunge themselves into sin without remorse? On the side of the just souls, who seek but God alone? Or are you of the number of these slack, tepid, and indifferent souls such as we have just been depicting for you? Down which road are you travelling? Who can dare assure himself that he is neither a great sinner, nor a lukewarm tepid soul, but that he is one of the elect? Alas, my brethren, how many seem to be good Christians in the eyes of the world who are really tepid lukewarm souls in the eyes of God! Let us ask God with all our hearts, if we are in this state, to give us the grace to get out of it, so that we may take the route that all the saints have taken and arrive at the happiness that they are enjoying. That is what I desire for you!”
A Change of Heart―A New Heart!
A change of heart necessitates changing our lukewarm hearts into fervent hearts. The saints say that this can be a very difficult―yet, as Our Lord said: “The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God” (Luke 18:27). However, that being said, it must be stressed that what is possible, is certainly not easy! Unfortunately, one of the symptoms of lukewarmness is that of always wanting things to be easy!
► FR. ADOLPHE TANQUEREY, in his book, The Spiritual Life, speaks of some remedies for lukewarmness: “Our Lord has Himself pointed out the remedies: ‘I counsel thee to buy of me gold fire-tried, that thou mayest be made rich (the gold of charity and fervor of spirit); and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear (purity of conscience); and anoint thy eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see (frankness towards self and towards one’s confessor). Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore, and do penance. Behold, I stand at the gate, and knock. If any man shall hear my voice, and open to me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.’ One must, therefore, never despair. Jesus is ever ready to give us His friendship, nay, His intimate friendship, if we be converted. To be converted:
(1) One must needs have frequent recourse to a wise confessor, frankly open one’s soul to him and sincerely beg his help to overcome tepidity. One must take and follow his counsels energetically and with constancy.
(2) Under his guidance, one will return to the fervent practice of the exercises of piety, especially of those that secure the fulfillment of the others; namely, mental prayer, examination of conscience and the frequent renewal of the intention of doing all for God. The fervor of which we here speak lies not in feeling, but in a generous will that strives to refuse God nothing.
(3) One will also take up once more the practice of the virtues and the fulfillment of one’s duties of state in all earnestness, making one’s particular examination of conscience successively upon the chief points, and giving an account thereof in confession.
“By these means one will regain fervor and one will not forget that past faults demand an atonement through the spirit and the works of penance.”
► FR. FABER also speaks of the remedies: “A few words on its remedies, and the hateful subject may be dismissed. Its cure is immensely difficult; St. Bernard would make us almost despair of its being curable at all. Only, we made up our minds at the beginning to hold this all through, that nothing is incurable, though many things in the spiritual life are nearly so; and neither doctor, nor father, nor saint, but only the Pope, shall drive us from this doctrine. St. Bernard therefore will be satisfied if we say that its cure is immensely difficult, because all the Saints have said so, because the evil is unsuspected, because even the good is mixed with evil, because men do not realize the possible forfeiture of grace to keep precepts when they have been playing fast and loose with counsels, and because, as St. Theresa teaches, for some souls perfection is accidentally necessary even for their salvation! How absurd it seems to mention the feeble remedies!
“The first is to quicken faith by meditation on eternal truths, so as to possess our minds habitually with their overwhelming importance and their exacting purity.
“The second is, not having so many things to do. It is no use. The times are busy. But we cannot save our souls if we have so many things to do. But the remedy? Good soul! There are some knots in life which cannot be untied; the thing is to cut them, and leave the consequences to help themselves. If you have more duties to do than you can do well, you must boldly neglect some of them. Only have Faith, and God will spirit the consequences away, so that you will see nothing more of them.
“The third remedy is the practice of silence, not in any offensive or singular way, but proportionately to our state of life.
“The fourth is to persevere in our spiritual exercises in spite of dryness and distractions;
“And the fifth, which is nearer a specific than any of the others, is a habit of mortification, not interior, but exterior. The interior will look out for itself when its time comes. Just now I want the flesh to suffer. If you turn away from this I give you up. It is the quinine for your ague. Alas! Alas! What does all this come to but the admission that the only sure remedy for lukewarmness is never to be lukewarm, an oracle worthy of the pompous physician of the old comedy? Yet does it not in reality say a great deal?”
► CARDINAL ANTONIO BACCI (1881-1971). As one cardinal from more traditional times said: “The ONLY choice in the life of a Catholic is between fervor and sin! The tepid or negligent soul cannot remain long in the grace of God and, when God’s grace is removed, it means the death of the soul. The spiritual life resembles a steep hill. A man cannot stay still. He must keep going upwards or begin to slip downwards. Whoever struggles on, up the hill, is approaching perfection and Heaven; whoever slips backwards, is approaching sin, a dead soul and Hell. There is NO MIDDLE WAY! Those who are lukewarm are an object of DISGUST to their Creator, Who casts them away from Himself ― “Because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot,” the Holy Spirit says, “I am about to vomit thee out of my mouth” (Apocalypse 3:16). So, it is not enough to be mediocre Catholic. The half-hearted and indifferent are already travelling along the slippery path of sin and are on the waiting list for Hell! It is dangerous for anyone to remain thoughtlessly in this state of spiritual ineptitude. A man who never thinks of his own salvation, is suffering from a serious illness. He is running a very great risk of eternal damnation. He has one foot in Hell while still living here on this Earth!”
Article 6
Monday August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven & Tuesday August 16th, 2022
The Dangers of an Assumption Presumption
Monday August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven & Tuesday August 16th, 2022
The Dangers of an Assumption Presumption
Homecoming
What a beautiful moment it must have been―Mary’s Assumption into Heaven! In a certain sense, you can call it a “Homecoming”―for Mary’s souls was “Made in Heaven” and now it returns “home” taking her body along―for she was assumed into Heaven with both body and soul. In fact, until the end of the world with its resurrection of all the dead―at which point everyone’s soul will be reunited to their body for the General Final Judgment, the only persons in Heaven with both and soul are Our Lord and Our Lady―everyone else in Heaven (and Purgatory and Hell) are there in soul alone.
We rightfully celebrate Mary’s Assumption into Heaven every year―on August 15th―it is even a holy day of obligation. Mary being assumed into Heaven is also meant to be a “blueprint” or “figure” or “example” of our life’s end on this Earth. Like Mary―our souls are stamped with the label “Made in Heaven” and Heaven is meant to be our true and permanent home―our homes on Earth are merely temporary homes, not eternal homes. Our Lord Himself said: “In My Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you―because I go to prepare a place for you! And if I shall go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself; so that where I am, you also may be! And where I go you know, and the way you know!” (John 14:2-4).
What a beautiful moment it must have been―Mary’s Assumption into Heaven! In a certain sense, you can call it a “Homecoming”―for Mary’s souls was “Made in Heaven” and now it returns “home” taking her body along―for she was assumed into Heaven with both body and soul. In fact, until the end of the world with its resurrection of all the dead―at which point everyone’s soul will be reunited to their body for the General Final Judgment, the only persons in Heaven with both and soul are Our Lord and Our Lady―everyone else in Heaven (and Purgatory and Hell) are there in soul alone.
We rightfully celebrate Mary’s Assumption into Heaven every year―on August 15th―it is even a holy day of obligation. Mary being assumed into Heaven is also meant to be a “blueprint” or “figure” or “example” of our life’s end on this Earth. Like Mary―our souls are stamped with the label “Made in Heaven” and Heaven is meant to be our true and permanent home―our homes on Earth are merely temporary homes, not eternal homes: “For we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). Our Lord Himself said: “In My Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you―because I go to prepare a place for you! And if I shall go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself; so that where I am, you also may be! And where I go you know, and the way you know!” (John 14:2-4).
Mary was assumed into Heaven―do we assume and presume that we too will be assumed into Heaven? It is amazing that most people―never mind Catholics―assume and presume that they will go to Heaven! Yet Our Lord, Our Lady and the Saints tell us that most souls are damned. That is not what God intended―“God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son―so that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “God sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17). “The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14). “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). “God our Savior wants all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: Who gave Himself a redemption for all” (1 Timothy 2:3-6).
Don’t Assume and Presume Your Assumption!
Yet even though God wishes to save all and Jesus died for all―we are foolish to assume and presume that all will be saved! Not all are saved, nor will be saved, as Jesus Himself clearly tells us in the following encounter: “And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. But when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: ‘Lord! Open to us!’ And He, answering, shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are!’ Then you shall begin to say: ‘We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!” And He shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are! Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity!’ There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!’” (Luke 13:23-28). “Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14).
Oh No! Here We Go Again!
You may be tempted to say: “Oh no! Here we go again! It’s this broken record of ― Most Souls Are Damned! I’ve read this a million times! I’m sick and tired of reading it! For heaven’s sake―can’t you write about something else! I’m sick, sick, sick, sick, sick of hearing about this ‘Hell’ and ‘All souls are damned’ stuff again and again and again! For goodness sakes―can’t you write about something else? Come on! God is love!”
That―it would be fair to assume and presume―is the viewpoint of most people. The modern Church seems to cater to the desires and tastes of most people―and therefore you rarely, or ever, or never hear sermons on Hell, the countless number of souls that end up in Hell, and the small number of souls that are saved. It is almost taboo to speak about Hell―especially if you want to keep the collection baskets full and fruitful!
As for being a “broken-record” on the matter of few souls being saved (or most souls being damned)―Our Lady must also stand accused of the same thing! If you are truly objective and impartial about her messages―then you have admit that the vast majority of what she speaks about is GRIM. There would no point talking about Hell if nobody was going there―and if the vast majority are going there, then it would be criminal not to talk about it. Unfortunately, since the thought of Hell is unpleasant and not sweet―most people hate to hear about Hell and hate to hear that most souls go there, but are stupid enough not to do anything about it! As Our Lady of Good Success lamented: “Those who should speak out will be silent!”
Lucia, Jacinta and Hell
Sister Lucia―one of the three children to whom Our Lady appeared at Fatima―speaks out about the vision of Hell that Our Lady showed them and the necessity of speaking out more about Hell. In her memoirs she writes:
“Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the Earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to Heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror. We then looked up at Our Lady, who said to us so kindly and so sadly: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved.”
“The vision of Hell filled Jacinta with horror to such a degree, that every penance and mortification was as nothing in her eyes, if it could only prevent souls from going there. How is it that Jacinta, small as she was (six, going on seven years old), let herself be possessed by such a spirit of mortification and penance, and understood it so well? I think the reason is this: firstly, God willed to bestow on her a special grace, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; and secondly, it was because she had looked upon Hell, and had seen the ruin of souls who fall therein.
“Some people, even the most devout, refuse to speak to children about Hell, in case it would frighten them. Yet God did not hesitate to show Hell to three children, one of whom was only six years old, knowing well that they would be horrified to the point of, I would almost dare to say, withering away with fear.
“Jacinta often sat thoughtfully on the ground or on a rock, and exclaimed: “Oh, Hell! Hell! How sorry I am for the souls who go to Hell! And the people down there, burning alive, like wood in the fire!” Then, shuddering, she knelt down with her hands joined, and recited the prayer that Our Lady had taught us: “O my Jesus! Forgive us, save us from the fire of Hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are most in need.”
“Now you will understand how my own impression was that the final words of this prayer refer to souls in greatest danger of damnation, or those who are nearest to it. Jacinta remained on her knees like this for long periods of time, saying the same prayer over and over again. From time to time, like someone awaking from sleep, she called out to her brother or myself: “Francisco! Francisco! Are you praying with me? We must pray very much, to save souls from Hell! So many go there! So many!”
“At other times, she asked: “Why doesn’t Our Lady show Hell to sinners? If they saw it, they would not sin, so as to avoid going there! You must tell Our Lady to show Hell to all the people. You’ll see how they will be converted!”
Afterwards, unsatisfied, she asked me: “Why didn’t you tell Our Lady to show Hell to those people?”
“I forgot,” I answered.
“I didn’t remember either!” she said, looking very sad.
Sometimes, she also asked: “What are the sins people commit, for which they go to Hell?”
“I don’t know! Perhaps the sin of not going to Mass on Sunday, of stealing, of saying ugly words, of cursing and of swearing.”
“So for just one word, then, people can go to Hell?”
“Well―it’s a sin!”
“It wouldn’t be hard for them to keep quiet, and to go to Mass! I’m so sorry for sinners! If only I could show them Hell!”
Suddenly, she would seize hold of me and say: “I’m going to Heaven, but you are staying here. If Our Lady lets you, tell everybody what Hell is like, so that they won’t commit any more sins and not go to Hell.”
At other times, after thinking for a while, she said: “So many people falling into Hell! So many people in Hell!”
To quieten her, I said: “Don’t be afraid! You’re going to Heaven.”
“Yes, I am,” she said serenely, “but I want all those people to go there too!”
Shamed by a Seven-Year-Old!
Doesn’t little six, going on seven year old Jacinta put all of us to great shame? Of course. So many souls are being damned and not being assumed into Heaven―which is what God would prefer―because WE are not doing what Jacinta was doing! Many don’t give a damn about Hell―until one day they find themselves damned to Hell!
At this point it will be good to refer to an interview that a Liberal priest from Rome had with Sr. Lucia in 1954. It was recorded in the Vatican weekly “Osservatore della Domenica” on February 7th, 1954.
Fr. Lombardi: “Tell me, is the ‘Better World Movement’ a response of the Church to the words spoken to Our Lady?”
Lucia: “Father, there is certainly a great need for this renewal. If it is not done, and taking into account the present development of humanity, only a limited number of the human race will be saved.”
Fr. Lombardi: “Do you really believe that many will go to Hell? I hope that God will save the greater part of humanity.” [He had just written a book entitled: Salvation for Those Without Faith]
Lucia: “Father, many will be lost!”
Fr. Lombardi: “It is true that the world is full of evil, but there is always a hope of salvation!”
Lucia: “No Father, many will be lost!”
Father Lombardi remembered that Lucia had seen Hell and added: “Her words disturbed me. I returned to Italy with that grave warning impressed on my heart.”
If “Sweet-Talking” Fails to Produce Results, Then…
Nobody likes to be negative. Nobody likes negative people. We prefer the positive. Yet, when the “positive” or “sweet-talk” fails to bring about any change, then we all know what comes next―it is no rocket-science, it is just plain old common sense (which sadly seems to be no longer all that common these days). If you are caught speeding in your car―you might possibly be given a stern warning, but no speeding-ticket. Nevertheless, the warning is recorded and if you are caught speeding again, when they check your driver’s license on the computer in the police car, that earlier warning will show up―and you will receive no more leniency. Likewise with repeated offences. The U.S. Department of Justice website says: “The fine for the second offense is allowed to differ from the fine for the first offense. A policy of increasing penalties achieves better deterrence, because it indirectly imposes higher penalties on individuals with higher offense propensities.” Even parents discipline their children in a similar fashion―for a first offence the child might be “grounded” for a day; for the second offense in the same matter, the child might be “grounded” for two days; for the third offence in the same matter, it might be three days, etc. Heaven acts no differently, if we continue to sin and offend, then the punishment will become worse. Our Lord sums it up in warning the sick man whom He had just cured: “Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more―lest perhaps some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14).
Nobody can pretend to argue that Our Lady came as a “Sweet-Talker” at Quito in Ecuador (Our Lady of Good Success), or at La Salette, or at Fatima, or Akita. The reverse is true―which is shown by the incidentals at all those apparitions.
► OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS says: “I am Mary of Good Success, the Queen of Heaven and Earth... As His Mother, I carry the Child Jesus here, in my left arm, so that together we might restrain the hand of Divine Justice, which is always so ready to chastise this unfortunate and criminal world!” She was not chirpy and happily laughing when she foretold: “From the end of the 19th century and shortly after the middle of the 20th century, the passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of morals, for Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ― the Masonic sects having infiltrated all the social classes … The Catholic spirit will rapidly decay; the precious light of the Faith will gradually be extinguished … In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury, which will ensnare the rest into sin and conquer innumerable frivolous souls, who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women ... The spirit of impurity that will saturate the atmosphere in those times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty ... In this supreme moment of need of the Church, the one who should speak will fall silent! … The small number of souls who, hidden, will preserve the treasure of the Faith and the virtues will suffer an unspeakably cruel and prolonged martyrdom. Many of them will succumb to death from the violence of their sufferings!” Further addressing Mother Marian de Jesus Torres, Our Lady said: “Alas! My chosen daughter! If it were given to you to live in that time of darkness (20th century onwards), you would die of sorrow to see all that I have revealed to you here take place!” Overwhelmed by the magnitude of the evils she saw and the countless souls that would be condemned during these times, Mother Mariana fell unconscious. The religious Sisters found her, as if dead, except for the violent beating of her heart. All of the doctor's efforts to restore her to consciousness proved useless. In fact he said, humanly speaking, her life should have ended from the shock she had received. That is hardly what you could call a “Sweet-Talking” Our Lady! She was quite the opposite!
► OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE did not appear as a “Sweet-Talker” either, but her initial appearance was a woman weeping bitterly with her head in her hands. She then arose and said: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually! And all of you think little of this! In vain you will pray! In vain you will act! You will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken over for all of you! … Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying my Son again! The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people ... Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God! … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten, … the Gospel of Jesus Christ having been forgotten … the devil will preach another Gospel contrary to that of the true Christ Jesus … People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin … Nature is asking for vengeance because of man, and she trembles, with dread, at what must happen to the Earth stained with crime. Tremble, Earth, and you who proclaim yourselves as serving Jesus Christ and who, on the inside, only adore yourselves! … The Earth will be struck by calamities of all kinds ― in addition to plague and famine which will be widespread. There will be a series of wars, until the last war!” Our Lady of La Salette brought her apparition to an end, saying: “AND SO, MY CHILDREN, YOU WILL PASS THIS ON TO ALL MY PEOPLE!”
Not a popular, or sweet, or positive message to pass on, is it? Nevertheless, she demands that it be communicated to everyone―regardless of whether they want it or not, like it or not, accept it or not.
► OUR LADY OF FATIMA was not very positive and full of joy, laughter and good news when she appeared at Fatima. In fact, she was quite the opposite! First of all, SHE NEVER SMILED ONCE at the three children. Secondly, she did not and show them a vision of Heaven―instead she “scared the Hell out them” by showing them a real, live, horrific vision of Hell. Thirdly, she brought terrible news that included the damnation of most souls, the annihilation of many nations in the world, the spread of atheistic Communism throughout the world, a mass apostasy from the Faith, a great persecution of the Church and the Pope.
Sr. Lucia no doubt surprises our “imagination” of Our Lady’s apparition at Fatima by telling us: “The Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions! She never smiled at us! This anguish that we saw in her―caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners―penetrated our souls.”
Our Lady gave one “positive” to the three children―they would all be “assumed” into Heaven after their deaths. Sr. Lucia then writes in her memoirs of the “negatives” that followed the “positive”: “After having promised to take us to Heaven, she asked: ‘Are you willing to offer yourselves to God to bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?’ ‘Yes, we are willing,’ was our reply. ‘Then, you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.’”
Sr. Lucia then adds confirmation of the other “negative” aspects of Our Lady’s message: “Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the Earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to Heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror. We then looked up at Our Lady, who said to us so kindly and so sadly: ‘You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved!’”
Sr. Lucia also reveals the “negativity” of Our Lady forecasting the annihilation of many nations. Our Lady had said: “God is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father ... Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph” (Our Lady of Fatima, July 1917). Regarding this annihilation of nations, it is important to note that during the Father Fuentes interview in 1957, Sister Lucia said that Our Blessed Mother had told herself, Jacinta and Francisco “many times ... that many nations will disappear from the face of the Earth.” We only have the one recorded instance of Our Lady's words, in July 1917, regarding the annihilation of nations, but Lucia said Our Lady spoke of the annihilation of many nations “many times!”
Sr. Lucia continues with the “negative” message, saying: “The Most Holy Virgin has made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She has told me that the devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Virgin, and a decisive battle is a final battle, in which one side wins, the other side loses. Also, starting with the present time, we belong either to God, or we belong to the demon—there is no middle ground. The final triumph of Mary’s Heart is certain, and it will be definitive. But it will take place ‘in the end,’ that is to say, after a terrible purification of sinful mankind in a baptism of fire, blood and tears! … It is my mission not just to tell about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin!”
As an addendum, it should be noted that there have been may reported instances of statues of Our Lady of Fatima seen to be weeping. Why would she be weeping? Are her tears to be seen as “tears of happiness” or “tears of sadness”. She would indicate the answer to that question at her apparition at Akita, Japan, in 1973―when her statue was weeping tears of blood! However, before looking at that, let us look at the negativity of Our Lady as expressed to Blessed Elena Aiello in 1956―17 years before Akita.
► OUR LADY TO BLESSED ELENA AIELLO. Blessed Sister Elena Aiello (1895-1961) was a mystic, stigmatic, victim soul, prophetess and foundress of the Minim Tertiaries of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In an apparition on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, 1956, Our Lady “negatively” said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! Materialism marches on ever fomenting bloody strifes and fratricidal struggles. Clear signs warn that peace is in danger. That scourge, like the shadow of a dark cloud, is now moving across mankind―only my power, as Mother of God, is preventing the outbreak of the storm. All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
► OUR LADY OF AKITA. After a series of preparatory apparitions by an angel―much like what happened at Fatima―Our Lady first spoke to Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa on July 6th, 1973. Sister Agnes reported three messages from the Blessed Virgin during 1973―in addition to a stigmata, a cross-shaped wound, on the inside left hand of Sr. Agnes, which first appeared on June 28th, 1973―eight days before Our Lady first apparition or message. The cross-shaped wound, or stigmata, bled profusely and caused her much pain. On the same day, or the following day, when the sisters entered the chapel to pray before the Virgin, some of the sisters with amazement noticed drops of blood flowing from the right hand of the statue. Upon closer observation, they noticed that there was a cross-shaped wound identical to that which Sister Agnes had. On four occasions, this act of blood flow repeated itself. The wound also bled every Friday of July 1973, as it happened with the wound of the religious. The wound in the statue’s hand remained until September 29th, when it disappeared.
On the night of September 29th, 1973, the whole community noticed that a great light emanated from the statue that immediately transformed into something that looked like humidity. The sisters noticed the statue had now begun to “sweat”, especially on the forehead and neck. The liquid was dried with cotton which was then sent to the laboratories of Akita University, who ascertained that the composition corresponded to “human liquid”. Several scientific investigations have been carried out on the blood and tears produced by the statue. On January 4th, 1975, the wooden statue from which Sister Agnese had heard the Virgin’s voice begin to weep. The tears, sweat and blood from the statue were sent for laboratory analysis. This was conducted by Professor Sagisaka of the Faculty of Legal Medicine of the University of Akita, confirmed that the blood, tears and sweat were real and of human origin. They were of three blood groups: O, B and AB.
Almost three months earlier to this, on July 6th, 1973, Sr. Agnes heard a voice coming from the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the chapel where she was praying. On August 3rd, Sr. Agnes received a second message. On October 13th, she received a final third message. Two years later, on January 4th, 1975, the statue of the Blessed Virgin began to weep. It continued to weep at intervals for the next 6 years and eight months. It wept on 101 occasions.
In April 1984, Monsignor John Shojiro Ito, bishop of Niigata in Japan, after an extensive and thorough investigation lasting several years, declared that Akita’s events are to be considered of supernatural origin and authorized the veneration of the Holy Mother of Akita in the entire diocese. The bishop said: “Akita’s message is the continuation of the Fatima message.” In June 1988, the then Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Holy See, made a definitive judgment on the matter by defining the events of Akita that are reliable and worthy of Faith.
Once again, let it be said, that Our Lady’s statue was most certainly not weeping tears of joy―but bitter tears of sadness, as was confirmed by the content of her “negative” messages to Sr. Agnes, in which she said: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord ... In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger! … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
Weeping Woman or Laughing Lady?
There have been numerous cases of statues of Our Lady weeping miraculously―we have yet to find a case where a statue of Our Lady has been laughing hysterically! The general tone of Our Lady’s messages is “negative”―because the world is in a “negative” state by the overwhelming flood or tsunami of sin. “Sweet-talking” has failed―it makes sinners feel complacent and comfortable, as does nothing to extract them from their sinful state. In medicine, if you cannot cure a gangrened limb with medicine (the equivalent of “sweet-talking” or “positivity”), then the only solution left is surgery and the amputation of the gangrened limb―which is a “negative”―if you want to save the person’s life. Likewise, if you want a save a person’s soul and give them a chance of eternal life in Heaven―if the regular spiritual medicine is not working, or is being refused by the sinner or “patient”―then the drastic, negative, bitter solution of “spiritual amputation” or “spiritual surgery” has to come into play. God will do that surgery by means of His chastisements―which Our Lady has sufficiently described in her “negative” messages during her “negative” apparitions. Here is just a partial or brief description of the surgery that will have to take place:
“Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! … Many men in this world afflict the Lord … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … God will strike in an unprecedented way. God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered ... The Earth will see convulsions and terrible earthquakes, which will swallow up mountains, cities, etc. … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead! … The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness … The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God.
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth! ... All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family ... Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling ... Various nations will be annihilated … Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost!
“The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … For a while the Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis! … The demons of the air will perform great wonders on Earth and in the atmosphere, and men will become more and more perverted! … How the Church will suffer during this dark night! … Churches will be locked up or desecrated … and altars will be sacked … Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death. Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops!” (compilation of various quotes from Our Lady of Good Success, La Salette, Fatima and Akita).
Our Lady is no less “negative” than her divine Son, Who also said: “There shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be! And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened! … There shall be great earthquakes in various places, and pestilences, and famines, and terrors from Heaven! … You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars … For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom … They will lay their hands upon you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, and in the synagogues you shall be beaten! … They shall drag you before kings and governors, and shall deliver you up to councils for My Name’s sake … And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends; and some of you they will put to death! … And the brother shall betray his brother unto death, and the father his son; and children shall rise up against the parents, and shall work their death. And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake … And there shall be upon the Earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves! Men withering away for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world!” (Matthew 24:6-22; Mark 13:7-13; Luke 21:11-26).
A Look on the Bright Side―the Surgery will be a Success!
As they say: “He who laughs last, laughs the longest!” Our Lord says: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20). For, as Holy Scripture foretells: “The Gentiles raged and the people devised vain things. The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ, saying: ‘Let us break their bonds asunder, and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’ But He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh at them, and the Lord shall deride them! Then shall He speak to them in His anger, and trouble them in His rage!” (Psalm 2:1-5). “But thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them! Thou shalt bring all the nations to nothing!” (Psalm 58:9). “The Lord shall laugh them to scorn!” (Wisdom 4:18).
Our Lady chimes in: “There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. This then will be the happy beginning of the complete restoration … This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved … God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will ... The children of the holy Church, the true disciples of the living God, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God! … Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession … At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent ... Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death.
“The fire of Heaven will fall and consume cities. All the universe will be struck with terror and many will let themselves be led astray, because they have not worshiped the true Christ. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like ... In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph ... Russia will be converted … Pagan Rome will disappear. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God ... and a period of peace will be granted to the world … Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the Holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in Its poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and mankind will make great progress in its Faith, for there will be unity among the workers of Jesus Christ and man will live in fear of God.
What a beautiful moment it must have been―Mary’s Assumption into Heaven! In a certain sense, you can call it a “Homecoming”―for Mary’s souls was “Made in Heaven” and now it returns “home” taking her body along―for she was assumed into Heaven with both body and soul. In fact, until the end of the world with its resurrection of all the dead―at which point everyone’s soul will be reunited to their body for the General Final Judgment, the only persons in Heaven with both and soul are Our Lord and Our Lady―everyone else in Heaven (and Purgatory and Hell) are there in soul alone.
We rightfully celebrate Mary’s Assumption into Heaven every year―on August 15th―it is even a holy day of obligation. Mary being assumed into Heaven is also meant to be a “blueprint” or “figure” or “example” of our life’s end on this Earth. Like Mary―our souls are stamped with the label “Made in Heaven” and Heaven is meant to be our true and permanent home―our homes on Earth are merely temporary homes, not eternal homes. Our Lord Himself said: “In My Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you―because I go to prepare a place for you! And if I shall go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself; so that where I am, you also may be! And where I go you know, and the way you know!” (John 14:2-4).
What a beautiful moment it must have been―Mary’s Assumption into Heaven! In a certain sense, you can call it a “Homecoming”―for Mary’s souls was “Made in Heaven” and now it returns “home” taking her body along―for she was assumed into Heaven with both body and soul. In fact, until the end of the world with its resurrection of all the dead―at which point everyone’s soul will be reunited to their body for the General Final Judgment, the only persons in Heaven with both and soul are Our Lord and Our Lady―everyone else in Heaven (and Purgatory and Hell) are there in soul alone.
We rightfully celebrate Mary’s Assumption into Heaven every year―on August 15th―it is even a holy day of obligation. Mary being assumed into Heaven is also meant to be a “blueprint” or “figure” or “example” of our life’s end on this Earth. Like Mary―our souls are stamped with the label “Made in Heaven” and Heaven is meant to be our true and permanent home―our homes on Earth are merely temporary homes, not eternal homes: “For we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). Our Lord Himself said: “In My Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you―because I go to prepare a place for you! And if I shall go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself; so that where I am, you also may be! And where I go you know, and the way you know!” (John 14:2-4).
Mary was assumed into Heaven―do we assume and presume that we too will be assumed into Heaven? It is amazing that most people―never mind Catholics―assume and presume that they will go to Heaven! Yet Our Lord, Our Lady and the Saints tell us that most souls are damned. That is not what God intended―“God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son―so that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). “God sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17). “The Father hath sent His Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14). “The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save!” (Luke 9:56). “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). “God our Savior wants all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: Who gave Himself a redemption for all” (1 Timothy 2:3-6).
Don’t Assume and Presume Your Assumption!
Yet even though God wishes to save all and Jesus died for all―we are foolish to assume and presume that all will be saved! Not all are saved, nor will be saved, as Jesus Himself clearly tells us in the following encounter: “And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. But when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: ‘Lord! Open to us!’ And He, answering, shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are!’ Then you shall begin to say: ‘We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!” And He shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are! Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity!’ There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!’” (Luke 13:23-28). “Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat! How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). “For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Matthew 22:14).
Oh No! Here We Go Again!
You may be tempted to say: “Oh no! Here we go again! It’s this broken record of ― Most Souls Are Damned! I’ve read this a million times! I’m sick and tired of reading it! For heaven’s sake―can’t you write about something else! I’m sick, sick, sick, sick, sick of hearing about this ‘Hell’ and ‘All souls are damned’ stuff again and again and again! For goodness sakes―can’t you write about something else? Come on! God is love!”
That―it would be fair to assume and presume―is the viewpoint of most people. The modern Church seems to cater to the desires and tastes of most people―and therefore you rarely, or ever, or never hear sermons on Hell, the countless number of souls that end up in Hell, and the small number of souls that are saved. It is almost taboo to speak about Hell―especially if you want to keep the collection baskets full and fruitful!
As for being a “broken-record” on the matter of few souls being saved (or most souls being damned)―Our Lady must also stand accused of the same thing! If you are truly objective and impartial about her messages―then you have admit that the vast majority of what she speaks about is GRIM. There would no point talking about Hell if nobody was going there―and if the vast majority are going there, then it would be criminal not to talk about it. Unfortunately, since the thought of Hell is unpleasant and not sweet―most people hate to hear about Hell and hate to hear that most souls go there, but are stupid enough not to do anything about it! As Our Lady of Good Success lamented: “Those who should speak out will be silent!”
Lucia, Jacinta and Hell
Sister Lucia―one of the three children to whom Our Lady appeared at Fatima―speaks out about the vision of Hell that Our Lady showed them and the necessity of speaking out more about Hell. In her memoirs she writes:
“Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the Earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to Heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror. We then looked up at Our Lady, who said to us so kindly and so sadly: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved.”
“The vision of Hell filled Jacinta with horror to such a degree, that every penance and mortification was as nothing in her eyes, if it could only prevent souls from going there. How is it that Jacinta, small as she was (six, going on seven years old), let herself be possessed by such a spirit of mortification and penance, and understood it so well? I think the reason is this: firstly, God willed to bestow on her a special grace, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; and secondly, it was because she had looked upon Hell, and had seen the ruin of souls who fall therein.
“Some people, even the most devout, refuse to speak to children about Hell, in case it would frighten them. Yet God did not hesitate to show Hell to three children, one of whom was only six years old, knowing well that they would be horrified to the point of, I would almost dare to say, withering away with fear.
“Jacinta often sat thoughtfully on the ground or on a rock, and exclaimed: “Oh, Hell! Hell! How sorry I am for the souls who go to Hell! And the people down there, burning alive, like wood in the fire!” Then, shuddering, she knelt down with her hands joined, and recited the prayer that Our Lady had taught us: “O my Jesus! Forgive us, save us from the fire of Hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are most in need.”
“Now you will understand how my own impression was that the final words of this prayer refer to souls in greatest danger of damnation, or those who are nearest to it. Jacinta remained on her knees like this for long periods of time, saying the same prayer over and over again. From time to time, like someone awaking from sleep, she called out to her brother or myself: “Francisco! Francisco! Are you praying with me? We must pray very much, to save souls from Hell! So many go there! So many!”
“At other times, she asked: “Why doesn’t Our Lady show Hell to sinners? If they saw it, they would not sin, so as to avoid going there! You must tell Our Lady to show Hell to all the people. You’ll see how they will be converted!”
Afterwards, unsatisfied, she asked me: “Why didn’t you tell Our Lady to show Hell to those people?”
“I forgot,” I answered.
“I didn’t remember either!” she said, looking very sad.
Sometimes, she also asked: “What are the sins people commit, for which they go to Hell?”
“I don’t know! Perhaps the sin of not going to Mass on Sunday, of stealing, of saying ugly words, of cursing and of swearing.”
“So for just one word, then, people can go to Hell?”
“Well―it’s a sin!”
“It wouldn’t be hard for them to keep quiet, and to go to Mass! I’m so sorry for sinners! If only I could show them Hell!”
Suddenly, she would seize hold of me and say: “I’m going to Heaven, but you are staying here. If Our Lady lets you, tell everybody what Hell is like, so that they won’t commit any more sins and not go to Hell.”
At other times, after thinking for a while, she said: “So many people falling into Hell! So many people in Hell!”
To quieten her, I said: “Don’t be afraid! You’re going to Heaven.”
“Yes, I am,” she said serenely, “but I want all those people to go there too!”
Shamed by a Seven-Year-Old!
Doesn’t little six, going on seven year old Jacinta put all of us to great shame? Of course. So many souls are being damned and not being assumed into Heaven―which is what God would prefer―because WE are not doing what Jacinta was doing! Many don’t give a damn about Hell―until one day they find themselves damned to Hell!
At this point it will be good to refer to an interview that a Liberal priest from Rome had with Sr. Lucia in 1954. It was recorded in the Vatican weekly “Osservatore della Domenica” on February 7th, 1954.
Fr. Lombardi: “Tell me, is the ‘Better World Movement’ a response of the Church to the words spoken to Our Lady?”
Lucia: “Father, there is certainly a great need for this renewal. If it is not done, and taking into account the present development of humanity, only a limited number of the human race will be saved.”
Fr. Lombardi: “Do you really believe that many will go to Hell? I hope that God will save the greater part of humanity.” [He had just written a book entitled: Salvation for Those Without Faith]
Lucia: “Father, many will be lost!”
Fr. Lombardi: “It is true that the world is full of evil, but there is always a hope of salvation!”
Lucia: “No Father, many will be lost!”
Father Lombardi remembered that Lucia had seen Hell and added: “Her words disturbed me. I returned to Italy with that grave warning impressed on my heart.”
If “Sweet-Talking” Fails to Produce Results, Then…
Nobody likes to be negative. Nobody likes negative people. We prefer the positive. Yet, when the “positive” or “sweet-talk” fails to bring about any change, then we all know what comes next―it is no rocket-science, it is just plain old common sense (which sadly seems to be no longer all that common these days). If you are caught speeding in your car―you might possibly be given a stern warning, but no speeding-ticket. Nevertheless, the warning is recorded and if you are caught speeding again, when they check your driver’s license on the computer in the police car, that earlier warning will show up―and you will receive no more leniency. Likewise with repeated offences. The U.S. Department of Justice website says: “The fine for the second offense is allowed to differ from the fine for the first offense. A policy of increasing penalties achieves better deterrence, because it indirectly imposes higher penalties on individuals with higher offense propensities.” Even parents discipline their children in a similar fashion―for a first offence the child might be “grounded” for a day; for the second offense in the same matter, the child might be “grounded” for two days; for the third offence in the same matter, it might be three days, etc. Heaven acts no differently, if we continue to sin and offend, then the punishment will become worse. Our Lord sums it up in warning the sick man whom He had just cured: “Behold thou art made whole! Sin no more―lest perhaps some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14).
Nobody can pretend to argue that Our Lady came as a “Sweet-Talker” at Quito in Ecuador (Our Lady of Good Success), or at La Salette, or at Fatima, or Akita. The reverse is true―which is shown by the incidentals at all those apparitions.
► OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS says: “I am Mary of Good Success, the Queen of Heaven and Earth... As His Mother, I carry the Child Jesus here, in my left arm, so that together we might restrain the hand of Divine Justice, which is always so ready to chastise this unfortunate and criminal world!” She was not chirpy and happily laughing when she foretold: “From the end of the 19th century and shortly after the middle of the 20th century, the passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of morals, for Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects ― the Masonic sects having infiltrated all the social classes … The Catholic spirit will rapidly decay; the precious light of the Faith will gradually be extinguished … In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury, which will ensnare the rest into sin and conquer innumerable frivolous souls, who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women ... The spirit of impurity that will saturate the atmosphere in those times. Like a filthy ocean, it will run through the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty ... In this supreme moment of need of the Church, the one who should speak will fall silent! … The small number of souls who, hidden, will preserve the treasure of the Faith and the virtues will suffer an unspeakably cruel and prolonged martyrdom. Many of them will succumb to death from the violence of their sufferings!” Further addressing Mother Marian de Jesus Torres, Our Lady said: “Alas! My chosen daughter! If it were given to you to live in that time of darkness (20th century onwards), you would die of sorrow to see all that I have revealed to you here take place!” Overwhelmed by the magnitude of the evils she saw and the countless souls that would be condemned during these times, Mother Mariana fell unconscious. The religious Sisters found her, as if dead, except for the violent beating of her heart. All of the doctor's efforts to restore her to consciousness proved useless. In fact he said, humanly speaking, her life should have ended from the shock she had received. That is hardly what you could call a “Sweet-Talking” Our Lady! She was quite the opposite!
► OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE did not appear as a “Sweet-Talker” either, but her initial appearance was a woman weeping bitterly with her head in her hands. She then arose and said: “If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! I have suffered all of the time for all of you! If I do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray for this continually! And all of you think little of this! In vain you will pray! In vain you will act! You will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken over for all of you! … Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying my Son again! The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people ... Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance! … Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God! … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten, … the Gospel of Jesus Christ having been forgotten … the devil will preach another Gospel contrary to that of the true Christ Jesus … People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin … Nature is asking for vengeance because of man, and she trembles, with dread, at what must happen to the Earth stained with crime. Tremble, Earth, and you who proclaim yourselves as serving Jesus Christ and who, on the inside, only adore yourselves! … The Earth will be struck by calamities of all kinds ― in addition to plague and famine which will be widespread. There will be a series of wars, until the last war!” Our Lady of La Salette brought her apparition to an end, saying: “AND SO, MY CHILDREN, YOU WILL PASS THIS ON TO ALL MY PEOPLE!”
Not a popular, or sweet, or positive message to pass on, is it? Nevertheless, she demands that it be communicated to everyone―regardless of whether they want it or not, like it or not, accept it or not.
► OUR LADY OF FATIMA was not very positive and full of joy, laughter and good news when she appeared at Fatima. In fact, she was quite the opposite! First of all, SHE NEVER SMILED ONCE at the three children. Secondly, she did not and show them a vision of Heaven―instead she “scared the Hell out them” by showing them a real, live, horrific vision of Hell. Thirdly, she brought terrible news that included the damnation of most souls, the annihilation of many nations in the world, the spread of atheistic Communism throughout the world, a mass apostasy from the Faith, a great persecution of the Church and the Pope.
Sr. Lucia no doubt surprises our “imagination” of Our Lady’s apparition at Fatima by telling us: “The Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions! She never smiled at us! This anguish that we saw in her―caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners―penetrated our souls.”
Our Lady gave one “positive” to the three children―they would all be “assumed” into Heaven after their deaths. Sr. Lucia then writes in her memoirs of the “negatives” that followed the “positive”: “After having promised to take us to Heaven, she asked: ‘Are you willing to offer yourselves to God to bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?’ ‘Yes, we are willing,’ was our reply. ‘Then, you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.’”
Sr. Lucia then adds confirmation of the other “negative” aspects of Our Lady’s message: “Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the Earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to Heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror. We then looked up at Our Lady, who said to us so kindly and so sadly: ‘You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved!’”
Sr. Lucia also reveals the “negativity” of Our Lady forecasting the annihilation of many nations. Our Lady had said: “God is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father ... Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph” (Our Lady of Fatima, July 1917). Regarding this annihilation of nations, it is important to note that during the Father Fuentes interview in 1957, Sister Lucia said that Our Blessed Mother had told herself, Jacinta and Francisco “many times ... that many nations will disappear from the face of the Earth.” We only have the one recorded instance of Our Lady's words, in July 1917, regarding the annihilation of nations, but Lucia said Our Lady spoke of the annihilation of many nations “many times!”
Sr. Lucia continues with the “negative” message, saying: “The Most Holy Virgin has made me understand that we are in the last times of the world. She has told me that the devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Virgin, and a decisive battle is a final battle, in which one side wins, the other side loses. Also, starting with the present time, we belong either to God, or we belong to the demon—there is no middle ground. The final triumph of Mary’s Heart is certain, and it will be definitive. But it will take place ‘in the end,’ that is to say, after a terrible purification of sinful mankind in a baptism of fire, blood and tears! … It is my mission not just to tell about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin!”
As an addendum, it should be noted that there have been may reported instances of statues of Our Lady of Fatima seen to be weeping. Why would she be weeping? Are her tears to be seen as “tears of happiness” or “tears of sadness”. She would indicate the answer to that question at her apparition at Akita, Japan, in 1973―when her statue was weeping tears of blood! However, before looking at that, let us look at the negativity of Our Lady as expressed to Blessed Elena Aiello in 1956―17 years before Akita.
► OUR LADY TO BLESSED ELENA AIELLO. Blessed Sister Elena Aiello (1895-1961) was a mystic, stigmatic, victim soul, prophetess and foundress of the Minim Tertiaries of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In an apparition on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, 1956, Our Lady “negatively” said: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! Materialism marches on ever fomenting bloody strifes and fratricidal struggles. Clear signs warn that peace is in danger. That scourge, like the shadow of a dark cloud, is now moving across mankind―only my power, as Mother of God, is preventing the outbreak of the storm. All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
► OUR LADY OF AKITA. After a series of preparatory apparitions by an angel―much like what happened at Fatima―Our Lady first spoke to Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa on July 6th, 1973. Sister Agnes reported three messages from the Blessed Virgin during 1973―in addition to a stigmata, a cross-shaped wound, on the inside left hand of Sr. Agnes, which first appeared on June 28th, 1973―eight days before Our Lady first apparition or message. The cross-shaped wound, or stigmata, bled profusely and caused her much pain. On the same day, or the following day, when the sisters entered the chapel to pray before the Virgin, some of the sisters with amazement noticed drops of blood flowing from the right hand of the statue. Upon closer observation, they noticed that there was a cross-shaped wound identical to that which Sister Agnes had. On four occasions, this act of blood flow repeated itself. The wound also bled every Friday of July 1973, as it happened with the wound of the religious. The wound in the statue’s hand remained until September 29th, when it disappeared.
On the night of September 29th, 1973, the whole community noticed that a great light emanated from the statue that immediately transformed into something that looked like humidity. The sisters noticed the statue had now begun to “sweat”, especially on the forehead and neck. The liquid was dried with cotton which was then sent to the laboratories of Akita University, who ascertained that the composition corresponded to “human liquid”. Several scientific investigations have been carried out on the blood and tears produced by the statue. On January 4th, 1975, the wooden statue from which Sister Agnese had heard the Virgin’s voice begin to weep. The tears, sweat and blood from the statue were sent for laboratory analysis. This was conducted by Professor Sagisaka of the Faculty of Legal Medicine of the University of Akita, confirmed that the blood, tears and sweat were real and of human origin. They were of three blood groups: O, B and AB.
Almost three months earlier to this, on July 6th, 1973, Sr. Agnes heard a voice coming from the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the chapel where she was praying. On August 3rd, Sr. Agnes received a second message. On October 13th, she received a final third message. Two years later, on January 4th, 1975, the statue of the Blessed Virgin began to weep. It continued to weep at intervals for the next 6 years and eight months. It wept on 101 occasions.
In April 1984, Monsignor John Shojiro Ito, bishop of Niigata in Japan, after an extensive and thorough investigation lasting several years, declared that Akita’s events are to be considered of supernatural origin and authorized the veneration of the Holy Mother of Akita in the entire diocese. The bishop said: “Akita’s message is the continuation of the Fatima message.” In June 1988, the then Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Holy See, made a definitive judgment on the matter by defining the events of Akita that are reliable and worthy of Faith.
Once again, let it be said, that Our Lady’s statue was most certainly not weeping tears of joy―but bitter tears of sadness, as was confirmed by the content of her “negative” messages to Sr. Agnes, in which she said: “Many men in this world afflict the Lord ... In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger! … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
Weeping Woman or Laughing Lady?
There have been numerous cases of statues of Our Lady weeping miraculously―we have yet to find a case where a statue of Our Lady has been laughing hysterically! The general tone of Our Lady’s messages is “negative”―because the world is in a “negative” state by the overwhelming flood or tsunami of sin. “Sweet-talking” has failed―it makes sinners feel complacent and comfortable, as does nothing to extract them from their sinful state. In medicine, if you cannot cure a gangrened limb with medicine (the equivalent of “sweet-talking” or “positivity”), then the only solution left is surgery and the amputation of the gangrened limb―which is a “negative”―if you want to save the person’s life. Likewise, if you want a save a person’s soul and give them a chance of eternal life in Heaven―if the regular spiritual medicine is not working, or is being refused by the sinner or “patient”―then the drastic, negative, bitter solution of “spiritual amputation” or “spiritual surgery” has to come into play. God will do that surgery by means of His chastisements―which Our Lady has sufficiently described in her “negative” messages during her “negative” apparitions. Here is just a partial or brief description of the surgery that will have to take place:
“Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son! It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it! … Many men in this world afflict the Lord … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … God will strike in an unprecedented way. God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered ... The Earth will see convulsions and terrible earthquakes, which will swallow up mountains, cities, etc. … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead! … The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness … The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God.
“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … From the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century … Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects … The cursed demon will achieve his victories by means of numerous faithless people … This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings! … Hell will reign on Earth! ... All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds. They will abolish civil rights, as well as ecclesiastical rights. All order and all justice will be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension will be seen, without love for country or family ... Men will kill each other, massacre each other, even in their homes … France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling ... Various nations will be annihilated … Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of weapons and blasphemy ... Blood will flow on all sides ... There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. People will believe that all is lost!
“The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … During this time the Church will find herself attacked by terrible assaults from the Masonic sect … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … For a while the Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis! … The demons of the air will perform great wonders on Earth and in the atmosphere, and men will become more and more perverted! … How the Church will suffer during this dark night! … Churches will be locked up or desecrated … and altars will be sacked … Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death. Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops!” (compilation of various quotes from Our Lady of Good Success, La Salette, Fatima and Akita).
Our Lady is no less “negative” than her divine Son, Who also said: “There shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be! And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened! … There shall be great earthquakes in various places, and pestilences, and famines, and terrors from Heaven! … You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars … For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom … They will lay their hands upon you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, and in the synagogues you shall be beaten! … They shall drag you before kings and governors, and shall deliver you up to councils for My Name’s sake … And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends; and some of you they will put to death! … And the brother shall betray his brother unto death, and the father his son; and children shall rise up against the parents, and shall work their death. And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake … And there shall be upon the Earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves! Men withering away for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world!” (Matthew 24:6-22; Mark 13:7-13; Luke 21:11-26).
A Look on the Bright Side―the Surgery will be a Success!
As they say: “He who laughs last, laughs the longest!” Our Lord says: “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy!” (John 16:20). For, as Holy Scripture foretells: “The Gentiles raged and the people devised vain things. The kings of the Earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ, saying: ‘Let us break their bonds asunder, and let us cast away Their yoke from us!’ But He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh at them, and the Lord shall deride them! Then shall He speak to them in His anger, and trouble them in His rage!” (Psalm 2:1-5). “But thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them! Thou shalt bring all the nations to nothing!” (Psalm 58:9). “The Lord shall laugh them to scorn!” (Wisdom 4:18).
Our Lady chimes in: “There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. This then will be the happy beginning of the complete restoration … This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved … God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will ... The children of the holy Church, the true disciples of the living God, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God! … Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession … At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent ... Then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death.
“The fire of Heaven will fall and consume cities. All the universe will be struck with terror and many will let themselves be led astray, because they have not worshiped the true Christ. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the Earth will become desert-like ... In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph ... Russia will be converted … Pagan Rome will disappear. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God ... and a period of peace will be granted to the world … Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the Holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in Its poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and mankind will make great progress in its Faith, for there will be unity among the workers of Jesus Christ and man will live in fear of God.
Article 5
Saturday August 13th & Sunday August 14th, 2022
Kidnapped by a Freemason
Saturday August 13th & Sunday August 14th, 2022
Kidnapped by a Freemason
The Cast
We imagine that everything is “hunky-dory” and “a bed of roses” for those persons to whom Our Lady appears―yet this is far from the truth! Our Lady often brings “troubles” with her, in the form of consequent disbelief, mockery and even persecution. We see this to be especially true in the lives of the three seers of Fatima. In the following account―mainly from the mouth of Sister Lucia of Fatima herself―there are several chief figures that play a prominent part.
August 13th, 1917, was supposed to the date of the 4th apparition of Our Lady of Fatima―she herself had said to the children on May 13th, 1917: “I have come to ask you to come here for six months in succession on the thirteenth day of each month at this same hour.” In the successive months of June and July―everything went according to plan. However, in the month of August, the three children were prevented from keeping that “appointment” by being kidnapped and imprisoned by their local mayor, who happened to also be a Freemason.
The chief persons in this story are obviously the three young children to whom Our Lady appeared to at Fatima in 1917―Lucia dos Santos (aged 10 at that time), Francisco Marto (aged 9) and his sister Jacinta (aged 7).
Lucia’s father was António dos Santos, and her mother was Maria Rosa dos Santos. Francisco and Jacinta’s parents were Manuel Pedro Marto (known affectionately as “Ti” Marto) and Olimpia Marto.
The local Administrator or Mayor (of Ourem―the nearest large town) was the Freemason, Artur de Oliveira Santos. Although he had little formal education, Artur Santos was made the editor the local newspaper Ouriense, in which he displayed his anti-monarchical and anti-religious opinions. In his twenties he was elected to the Masonic lodge of Leiria, and then founded a separate Lodge at Vila Nova de Ourém, his native town. Shortly after that he was made Municipal Administrator of Ourém. This position was essentially an appointed mayor, a delegate of the central government who was tasked with, among other things, maintaining public order. Artur Santos was known for his hostility towards organized religion in general and Catholicism in particular. He was especially hostile with regards to the apparitions and repeatedly sent law enforcement officials to seek to impede public access to the site. He went so far as to kidnap the three children and place them in jail, in order to prevent them from proclaiming another apparition. Years later, Lucia would recall how the three had been jailed, and that Santos had threatened the children with being boiled in oil, unless they revealed to him the secret which the children had reported as having received from the Lady.
Mistreatment and Abuse of the Fatima Children
If Our Lord says: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10:14)―then why did God allow the three children of Fatima (Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta) to be accused, abused, mistreated, kidnapped and imprisoned? These accusations, abuses and mistreatment did not only come from strangers―but also from family members, who were disbelieving of Our Lady’s apparitions, believing instead that the children were making-up these stories and were blatantly and unashamedly lying. The children were directly the laughing-stock of many―even the newspapers―and this mockery indirectly rebounded on their families.
Home Atmosphere of Scorn and Contempt
Sister Lucia, in her memoirs, speaks of the general disbelief that surrounded Our Lady’s apparitions in Fatima:
“In the meantime, news of what had happened [the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima] was spreading. My poor mother worried more and more, as she saw the crowds who came flocking from all parts. My mother was getting worried, and wanted at all costs to make me deny what I had said. She was determined to make me confess that I was telling lies, and to this end she spared neither caresses, nor threats, nor even the broomstick. To all this she received nothing but a mute silence, or the confirmation of all that had already said. She told me that she had never tolerated a single lie among her children, and much less would she allow a lie of this kind. She warned me that she would force me, that very evening, to go to those people whom I had deceived, confess that I had lied and ask their pardon … I could see that my mother was deeply distressed, and that she wanted at all costs to compel me, as she put it, to admit that I had lied. I wanted so much to do as she wished, but the only way I could do so was to tell a lie. From the cradle, she had instilled into her children a great horror of Iying, and she used to chastise severely any one of us who told an untruth. She often said: ‘I’ve seen to it that my children always told the truth, and am I now going to let the youngest get away with a thing like this? If it were just a small thing! But a lie of such proportions, deceiving so many people and bringing them all the way here! These poor people come here, taken in by your trickery, you can be sure of that, and I really don’t know what I can do to undeceive them!’
“After these bitter complaints, she would turn to me, saying: ‘Make up your mind which you want! Either undo all this deception by telling these people that you’ve lied, or I’ll lock you up in a dark room where you won’t even see the light of the sun. After all the troubles I’ve been through, and now a thing like this to happen!’ My sisters sided with my mother, and all around me the atmosphere was one of utter scorn and contempt.
“A poor man―who boasted of making fun of us, of insulting us and of even going so far as to beat us―asked my mother one day: ‘Well, madam, what have you got to say about your daughter’s visions?’ She answered: ‘I don’t know! lt seems to me that she is nothing but a fake, who is leading half the world astray!’ The man replied: ‘Don’t say that out loud, or somebody’s likely to kill her! I think there are people around here, who’d be only too glad to do so!’ My mother answered: ‘Oh, I don’t care! Just so long as they force her to confess the truth! As for me, I always tell the truth, whether against my children, or anybody else, or even against myself!’ And, truly, this was so. My mother always told the truth, even against herself. We, her children, are indebted to her for this good example.
Taken to be Interrogated by the Priest
“Around that time, our parish priest came to know of what was happening, and sent word to my mother to take me to his house. My mother felt she could breathe again, thinking the priest was going to take responsibility for these events on himself. She therefore said to me: ‘Tomorrow, we’re going to Mass, the first thing in the morning. Then, you are going to the Reverend Father’s house. Just let him compel you to tell the truth, no matter how he does it; let him punish you; let him do whatever he likes with you, just so long as he forces you to admit that you have lied; and then I’ll be satisfied.’ My sisters also took my mother’s part and invented endless threats, just to frighten me about the interview with the parish priest.
“I told Jacinta and her brother, Francisco, all about it. They replied: ‘We’re going also! The Reverend Father told our mother to take us there too, but she didn’t say any of those things to us. Never mind! If they beat us, we’ll suffer for love of Our Lord and for sinners.’
My mother resolved to make a fresh attempt to compel me to retract all that I had said, as she put it. She made up her mind to take me back the very next day to the parish priest’s house. Once there, I was to confess that I had lied, to ask his pardon, and to perform whatever penance His Reverence thought fit or desired to impose on me. This time the attack was so strong, that I did not know what to do. At a certain point, I said to her, trembling: ‘But, mother, how can I say that I did not see, when I did see?’ My mother was silent.
Without another word, we climbed the stairs, and the good priest received us in his study with the greatest kindness and even, I might almost say, with affection. He questioned me seriously, but most courteously, and resorted to various stratagems to see if I would contradict myself, or be inconsistent in my statements. Finally, he dismissed us, shrugging his shoulders, as if to imply: “I don’t know what to make of all this!”
“Next day I walked along behind my mother, who did not address one single word to me the whole way. I must admit that I was trembling at the thought of what was going to happen. As we drew near the priest’s house, she declared: “Just you listen to me! What I want is that you should tell the truth. If you saw, say so! But if you didn’t see, admit that you lied.” I followed my mother out of the church over to the priest’s house, and started up the stairs leading to the verandah. We had climbed only a few steps, when my mother turned round and exclaimed: ‘Don’t annoy me any more! Tell the Reverend Father now that you lied, so that on Sunday he can say in the church that it was all a lie, and that will be the end of the whole affair. A nice business, this is! All this crowd running to the Cova da Iria, just to pray in front of a holm oak bush!’
“Without more ado, she knocked on the door. The good priest’s sister opened the door and invited us to sit down on a bench and wait a while. At last, the parish priest appeared. The good priest took and received us in his study with the greatest kindness and even, I might almost say, with affection. He questioned me seriously, but most courteously, and resorted to various stratagems to see if I would contradict myself, or be inconsistent in my statements. When I found that His Reverence was questioning me quite calmly, and with such a kindly manner, I was amazed. I was still fearful, however, of what was yet to come. The interrogation was very minute and, I would even venture to say, tiresome. Finally, he dismissed us, shrugging his shoulders, as if to imply: ‘I don’t know what to make of all this!’ His Reverence concluded with this brief observation: It doesn’t seem to me like a revelation from Heaven. It is usual in such cases for Our Lord to tell the souls to whom He makes such communications to give their confessor or parish priest an account of what has happened. But this child, on the contrary, keeps it to herself as far as she can. This may also be a deceit of the devil. We shall see. The future will show us what we are to think about it all.’
Called to Appear Before the Administrative Court
Lucia then speaks of the day they were summoned to appear in court to be questioned by region’s Administrator or Mayor― the Freemason, Artur de Oliveira Santos: “Not many days later (August 10th), our parents were notified to the effect that all three of us―Jacinta, Francisco and myself, together with our fathers―were to appear, at noon on the following day, before the Administration in Vila Nova de Ourém. This meant that we had to make a journey of about nine miles, a considerable distance for three small children. The only means of transport in those days was either our own two feet or to ride on a donkey. My uncle sent word right away to say that he would appear himself, but as for his children, he was not taking them. ‘I’m not going to take my children, nor present them before any tribunal! I’ll go myself and see what they want! There’s no sense in bringing two children like that before a court! Why―they’re not old enough to be responsible for their actions, and, besides all that, they could never stand the long journey on foot to Vila Nova de Ourém. They’d never stand the trip on foot, and, not being used to riding, they could never manage to stay on the donkey!’ My parents thought the very opposite. My father said: ‘My daughter is going! Let her answer for herself! As for me, I understand nothing of these things! If she’s lying, it’s a good thing that she should be punished for it!’ They all took advantage of this occasion to frighten us in every way they could.
Lucia continues: “Very early, the next morning (August 11th), they put me on a donkey and off I went. As we were passing by my uncle’s house, my father had to wait a few minutes for my uncle. I ran to say goodbye to Jacinta, who was still in bed. Doubtful as to whether we would ever see one another again, I threw my arms around her. Bursting into tears, the poor child sobbed: ‘If they kill you, tell them that Francisco and I are just the same as you, and that we want to die too! I’m going right now to the well with Francisco, and we’ll pray hard for you!’
“I then set off, accompanied by my father and uncle. I fell off the donkey three times along the way. How much Jacinta and Francisco suffered that day, thinking that I was going to be killed! As for me, what hurt me most, was the indifference shown me by my parents. This was all the more obvious, since I could see how affectionately my aunt and uncle treated their children. I remember thinking to myself as we went along: ‘How different my parents are from my uncle and aunt. They risk themselves to defend their children, while my parents hand me over with the greatest indifference, and let them do what they like with me! But I must be patient,’ I reminded myself in my inmost heart, ‘since this means I have the happiness of suffering more for love of You, O my God, and for the conversion of sinners.’ This reflection never failed to bring me consolation.
As regards her appearance at the tribunal of the local Administration, in Ourem which was 9 miles away, Lucia says: “At the Administration office, I was interrogated by the Administrator, who was also the mayor (the Freemason, Artur de Oliveira Santos), in the presence of my father, my uncle and several other gentlemen who were strangers to me. The Administrator was determined to force me to reveal the secret and to promise him never again to return to the Cova da Iria (the location for the apparitions of Our Lady). To attain his end, he spared neither promises, nor even threats. Seeing that he was getting nowhere, he dismissed me, protesting however, that he would achieve his end, even if this meant that he had to take my life. He then strongly reprimanded my uncle for not having carried out his orders, and finally let us go home.
Here is the account of that day in court, on August 11th, coming from the mouth of “Ti” Marto―the father of Francisco and Jacinta and also the uncle of Lucia:
“My brother-in-law, Antonio, had received the same summons to appear with his daughter at the Town Hall of Ourem on August 11th, at noon. They both came to my house that morning, while I was eating my breakfast, and the first thing Lucia asked me was: ‘Are Jacinta and Francisco coming?’ I replied: ‘Now, what would two small children like that be doing there at the Town Hall, Lucia? I’m going down to answer for them myself!’ Well, the next thing I knew, Lucia had rushed inside, and we could hear Jacinta saying to her, ‘If they’re going to kill you, tell them that Francisco and I are just the same as you, we believe the same thing, and we wished to be killed, too!’ And my little one meant it, but never mind now. I left with Lucia and her father. On the way Lucia fell off the donkey three times, and Antonio―who was full of fear of the mayor―went rushing ahead, so as not to be late. When Lucia and I finally got to the square, we saw Antonio waiting there.
“I asked him: ‘What happened?’ He was all excited and said: ‘The door was locked! There’s no one there!’ But it wasn’t noon yet, anyhow, so we waited. After a while we tried the Town Hall. It was still closed. Someone came along about then and told us the mayor didn’t work there any more, so we were taken to him, and the first thing the mayor demanded of me was: ‘Where is the child?’ I replied: ‘What child?’ I waited. He didn’t seem to know that there were three children, but, of course, in a while, he caught on. Anyway, I said to him: ‘Now, look, sir! It’s more than nine miles distance to our village and the little children couldn’t walk it. No, sir, and they’re not used to the donkey, either!’ I felt like adding a whole lot more―but I was wise enough to hold my tongue. Oh, he was very annoyed, but I didn’t care. He began to question Lucia then, trying to get the secret out of her. A fine chance he had. She wouldn’t tell him a word.
“Then the mayor turned to my brother-in-law, saying: ‘You people in Fatima―do you believe this stuff?’ Antonio said: ‘No, sir! We believe it’s just women’s talk!’ I interrupted then. I said to the mayor: ‘I’m right here, your Honor, and I believe everything my children say!’ He looked at me. ‘You do? You believe it?’ I replied: ‘Yes, I do!’ Well, everyone standing around began to laugh, but it made no difference to me. There were reporters there from the newspapers, and they said they were going to write it up. After a while they let us go, but right up to the end the mayor kept threatening Lucia. He even said that if she didn’t reveal her secret, he would have her killed. I said to him then, as we were leaving: ‘If you send for us, I know that we’ll have to come, but please remember we have our own lives to lead!’
Safe Return to Tears
It was Lucia’s first interview with the civil authorities, and, if it was not a pleasant one, she at least escaped unscathed. At home Jacinta and Francisco did not have this comforting assurance. They wept by the well in Lucia’s yard, and when they saw her, finally, they rubbed their eyes, as though gazing at some youthful resurrected Lazarus.
Lucia explains what happened once she had safely returned home: “When I got back at night fall, I ran to the well, and there were the pair of them on their knees, leaning over the side of the well, their heads buried in their hands, weeping bitterly. As soon as they saw me, they cried out in astonishment: ‘You’ve come then? Why, your sister came here to draw water and told us that they’d killed you! We’ve been praying and crying so much for you!’
Persecution Within the Family
“In the intimacy of my own family, there was fresh trouble, and the blame for this was thrown on me. The Cova da Iria was a piece of land belonging to my parents. In the hollow, it was more fertile, and there we cultivated maize, greens, peas and other vegetables. On the slopes grew olive trees, oaks and holm oaks. Now, ever since the people began to go there, we had been unable to cultivate anything at all. Everything was trampled on. As the majority came mounted, their animals ate up all they could find and wrecked the whole place. My mother bewailed her loss―she said to me: ‘You, now, when you want something to eat, go and ask the Lady for it!’ My sisters chimed in with: ‘Yes, you can have what grows in the Cova da Iria!’ These remarks cut me to the heart, so much so that I hardly dared to take a piece of bread to eat. To force me to tell the truth, my mother―more often than not―beat me soundly with the broom-handle or a stick from the woodpile near the fireplace.”
“Several people who came from a distance to see us, noticing that I looked very pale and anemic, asked my mother to let me go and spend a few days in their homes, saying the change of air would do me good. With this end in view, my mother gave her consent, and they took me with them, now to one place, now to another. When away from home like this, I did not always meet with esteem and affection. While there were some who admired me and considered me a saint, there were always others who heaped abuse upon me and called me a hypocrite, a visionary and a sorceress. On such occasions, I used to think to myself: ‘They are all mistaken! I’m not a saint, as some say, and I’m not a liar either, as others say! Only God knows what I am!’”
More Trouble on the Horizon
If Lucia’s family and Francisco and Jacinta’s family thought that the winds of trouble had blown by after that August 11th appearance before the tribunal of the local administration and its chief―the Administrator or Mayor, the Freemason Arturo dos Santos―then they had another think coming! The troubled winds had not blown-over, but were just starting! On the morning of August 13th ― the day of Our Lady’s regularly 4th apparition, scheduled for the usual time of noon ― the Freemasonic Mayor, Arturo dos Santos, turned up at Francisco and Jacinta’s home―having dragged along the local parish priest with him. “Ti” Marto ― the father of Francisco and Jacinta (he was also Lucia’s uncle) takes up the story as to what happened next on continues:
“On the morning of August 13th—it was a Monday—I got a summons to come home from my work at once. All right, I went. There were a lot of people outside my house, but I was used to that by now. I went inside and was washing my hands. My wife was sitting there. She was nervous and upset and all she did was point to the living room. ‘All right,’ I said: ‘I’ll go in there! Why such a fuss?’ So I walked inside still using a towel, and who should I see but the mayor himself. Even then, I suppose, I wasn’t very polite to him, because I saw that a priest was there, too, and I went first to shake hands with the priest. Then I said to the mayor, ‘I did not expect to see you here, sir!’
Full of Lies and Tricks
“He was a great actor, that man. He said to me: ‘I thought that, after all, I would like to go to the miracle today!’ What’s this? I asked myself, but the mayor went on: ‘I thought that we would all go together in my carriage. We will see, and then believe, like St. Thomas!’ [He was referring to the “doubting” St. Thomas the Apostle, who refused to believe that Christ had risen from the dead unless he saw the living Christ with his own eyes].
“I watched him closely now, because I could see he was nervous. He kept looking around before he finally said: ‘Aren’t the children coming? It is almost time for the apparition!’ I replied: ‘There is no need to call them. They will be ready when it is time to go.’ Just then they came into the room, the three of them, looking no different―and the mayor invited them to go in his carriage. That wasn’t necessary, the children told him. The mayor insisted, saying: ‘It will be better that way! No one will bother you on the way and, besides, I want to stop off at Fatima to see Father Ferreira!’ So what could we do? We went along—myself, the children, and Lucia’s father.
“Upon arrival, the [Freemasonic] Mayor went in to see Father Ferreira at the presbytery, then, in no time at all, he called down: ‘Send the first one up!’ I replied: ‘The first what?’ His tone was different now. He was full of authority. ‘Send Lucia!’ he said. ‘All right!’ I said. No use getting into too much trouble. ‘Go ahead, Lucia!’ I said―and she went into the house, supposedly to talk to Father Ferreira. My own two children stood there on the steps, while I was with Antonio, Lucia’s father. It was just a trick―this business of talking to the pastor―because when it was time for Jacinta and Francisco to go in, the mayor said: ‘It doesn’t matter now! We can all get started!’ Well, it was a smart trick, all right, because I hadn’t noticed the mayor’s carriage moving closer all the time to the steps where the children were standing. First thing I knew, the mayor had them seated with him. Francisco in the front, and the two girls in the back. The horse went off at a lively trot. For a while it looked as though they were going to the Cova da Iria, but when they got to the main road the horse was whipped suddenly and they were off, racing toward Ourem. And there was nothing I could do. The horse and carriage moved briskly along the road to Vila Nova de Ourem. Lucia turned to the mayor and said: ‘Where are you taking us? This isn’t the way to the Cova da Iria!’
Locked-Up and Isolated
“Ti” Marto continues with his account: “We have no precise report on the conversation that followed, except that the mayor, in uneasy possession of his kidnapped cargo, attempted to calm them. He was merely taking them to Ourem, he explained, to see the parish priest there, after which, he insisted, they would be returned to the Cova by automobile. He appears to have been a nervous and unskilled liar. Along the road now, people began to recognize first the mayor’s carriage, and then its unwilling passengers. Just how noisy or conspicuous they were, we do not know, but in any event the mayor did feel obliged to cover all three with a carriage rug on the floor to keep them out of sight.”
An hour or so later, they arrived at the Mayor’s house. He shut them firmly in a room, and advised them they would not be freed until they confided their precious secret to him. Precisely why his honor, the Mayor, wanted to pry the children loose from their secret, remains a mystery. After all, he was a man of avowed disbelief in the supernatural. What value could another of their imaginative discourses have for him? Except, of course, that the secret might prove so ridiculous that its publication alone would dissolve the band of faithful who had come to believe in the incredible but lively legend of the three little prophets and their Lady.
Lucia adds: “When we noticed that it was already past midday, and that they would not let us go to the Cova da Iria, Francisco said: ‘Perhaps Our Lady will come and appear to us here!’” Lucia further adds: “Francisco later asked me: ‘Tell me! Will Our Lady not come and appear to us any more?’ I replied: ‘I don’t know! I think she will.’ Francisco sighed: ‘I miss her so much!’” Alone, the children appraised their situation. “If they kill us,” Jacinta said, “it won’t matter much; will it? Because we’ll all go straight to Heaven!” A willing, and perhaps even an eager martyr by now, Jacinta was a bit ahead of schedule. Actually, the balance of this afternoon was not unpleasant. The mayor, if less kindly and conscience-ridden than Pontius Pilate, had a wife whose sympathies belonged to his victims, rather than himself. She managed to free them from the room where they were confined, and to feed them generously, offering her own children as companions for the afternoon. Later, in the terrifying hours they were soon to know, she brought them books and toys, and did all in her limited power to soften their brutal ordeal.
Our Lady Still Appears on Time
Meanwhile, back at the Cova da Iria, of course, the children’s appointment with Our Lady was not kept. Witnesses testified that the Queen of Heaven appeared on time―at noon as usual. One witness testifies: “The crowd this day was even greater than it had been in July. There were many, many more. Some came on foot and hung their bundles on the trees. Some came on horses. Some on mules. There were bicycles too, and everything else, and on the road there was a great noise of traffic. All around the tree―upon which Our Lady customarily appeared―the people were praying and singing hymns. But when the children did not appear, they began to get impatient. Then someone came from Fatima and told us they had been kidnapped by the mayor. Everyone began talking at once; there was great anger and I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t heard the clap of thunder.
“It was much the same as the last time. Some said the thunder came from the direction of the road and others said it came from the tree. To me it seemed to come from a long way off. But wherever it came from, the thunder was a shock to the people. Some of them began to shout that we would be killed. We all began to spread out, away from the tree, but, of course, no one was hurt in any way. Just after the clap of thunder came a flash of lightning, and then we began to see a little cloud, very delicate, very white, which stopped for a few moments over the tree, and then rose in the air until it disappeared. As we looked around, we began to notice some strange things we had observed before and would see again in the months to follow. Our faces were reflecting all the colors of the rainbow—pink and red and blue and I don’t know what. The trees suddenly seemed to be made not of leaves, but of flowers. The ground reflected these many colors, and so did the clothes we wore. The lanterns that someone had fixed to the arch above us looked as though they had turned to gold. Certainly our Lady had come, I knew, even though the children were not there. Then when all these signs had disappeared, the people started for Fatima. They were shouting out against the mayor and against Father Ferreira, too. They were against anyone connected with the imprisonment of the children.”
Angry Crowds
The father of Francisco and Jacinta, “Ti” Marto, was at the site of the apparition while his children were in captivity. He describes the disturbance he found:
“‘Let us go to Ourem and protest!’ some of the people were shouting. ‘Let us go and beat them all up! Let us speak to the priest, because it is his fault, too. Let us go now and settle with the mayor!’ I thought to myself that in a way they were right, but they had worked themselves into a temper of such violence that I feared what they might do. I began to shout at them: ‘Be quiet! Take it easy! There is no reason to injure anyone! Whoever has done something evil will be punished. This affair is in the hands of God!’ But they wouldn’t take any notice of what I said. They went on in their anger toward Fatima. As for me, I went to my house, and found my wife in tears. Olimpia was not easy to console. Her sobs continued, her fears multiplied. She had rushed with her bad tidings to Maria Rosa, the mother of Lucia, but that strange and difficult-to-fathom lady seemed more pleased than grieved to know a crisis had finally arrived. She simply said: ‘If they are lying, then it will teach them a lesson. And if they are not lying, Our Lady will look after them!’”
The Terrors of August 14th
On the following day, August 14th, the children, still in captivity, awoke in the mayor’s house at Ourem, and Jacinta, more than the others, found these strange surroundings difficult to bear. Above all she missed her mother. She began to pray for strength and guidance from the Virgin Mary. The Masonic Mayor, more like a goblin than a grown man, had marshaled his various hair-raising plans and tricks for the bitter business of the day. The first arrival in the isolated children’s locked room was an old lady inquisitor, who did everything, except spin on her horns, to try and extract the famous secret. She did not succeed, and was withdrawn and replaced by the Masonic Mayor himself. The children were brought before him at approximately ten o’clock in the morning. He at first tried charm. He placed shining coins and a beautiful gold chain on the table. “The secret, please?” he requested, but without success. The assistance of grace and angels no doubt kept high and solid the resolution of these little child saints who stood before him. The Mayor began to feel less clever, even though his bag of tricks had scarcely been opened.
Sent to Prison
The next step in his armory of tricks and coercion was put into action in the afternoon of that same day―August 14th―when he commanded that the children were put into the public jail. Lucia speaks of this traumatic time: “When, some time later, we were put in prison, what made Jacinta suffer most, was to feel that their parents had abandoned them. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she would say: ‘Neither your parents nor mine have come to see us! They don’t bother about us anymore!’ Francisco said to her: “Don’t cry! We can offer this to Jesus for sinners!’ Then, raising his eyes and hands to Heaven, he made the offering: ‘O my Jesus, this is for love of You, and for the conversion of sinners!’ Then Jacinta added: ‘And also for the Holy Father, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary!’”
The imprisonment was real. They were cast among adult and hardened sinners, with the Mayor’s solemn assurance that they would remain in the jail only until a cauldron of boiling oil had been prepared. When the oil was bubbling properly, they would be thrown into it—alive. They doubted neither the mayor nor his jailers, and for two hours they expected precisely this sizzling end to life on Earth. Again Jacinta appears to have suffered the most. She tried to conceal her tears from Lucia and Francisco by gazing through a window to the market square. But Lucia; who was stronger, and who loved her so dearly, wasn’t fooled. Lucia asked: “Why are you crying, Jacinta?” The seven-year-old Jacinta replied: “Because we’ll die without even seeing our parents! They haven’t even come to see us! That’s how much they care!” The betrayal, the abandonment, the end of love, were more cruel to her than the prospect of martyrdom. Francisco appears to have passed through this trial with extravagant courage. Like some small Saint Stephen, he was ready for sticks or stones or boiling oil. He tried to console his little sister, saying: “Don’t worry, Jacinta! We can offer this for sinners, too!”
This was not play-acting. Their conviction was complete. Nor was there self-conscious piety displayed. The act of reparation, the consignment of personal suffering to God so that He might find even greater mercy for others, had become a natural, everyday thing. They joined their hands and together said, “O my Jesus, this is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners....”
Following the Prison Tradition of Christ and Christians
The imprisonment of the innocent children brings to mind the arrest of the innocent Christ who was imprisoned overnight and then dragged before the governor Pontius Pilate for trial and judgment, and then condemned to death. It also brings to mind the imprisonment of St. Peter, St. Paul and the other Apostles, Martyrs and Saints throughout history. We are also reminded of the prophetic words of Our Lord from the Gospels: “They will lay their hands upon you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for My Name’s sake! … Lay it up therefore into your hearts, not to meditate before how you shall answer―for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and contradict!” (Luke 21:12-15).
Understandably, to their fellow prisoners, the children did not present an every day normal occurrence. Amazed and amused, nudging one another, the inmates crowded in close around the children. Awkwardly, fumblingly, each in their own ways, they tried to comfort them, without, however, retreating from their own conviction that these children were crazy. One of them suggested: “Look, be smart! Tell the Mayor the secret and you can go home. It doesn’t matter about the Lady!” Jacinta looked at the man in disbelief and said indignantly: “It doesn’t matter? But we’d much rather die than tell the secret!”
The puzzled prisoners were left scratching their heads. This sort of thing they had never witnessed before. It touched them―if not spiritually, then at least sentimentally. It tugged at chords of sympathy that they were embarrassed to know they still possessed underneath their hard gruff exteriors. Unable to dissuade their strange new friends from such grim resolve, they tried then, as best they could, to brighten the burden some way. One of the prisoners had a concertina which he began to squeeze like a musical muff. The result was joyful enough. Other prisoners began to sing.
Jacinta was feeling better now. The tears dried on her cheeks, a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. The rhythm and the pleasant nonsense of the moment went to her feet if not to her head. One of the larger inmates invited Jacinta to dance, and with solemn courtesy, she accepted. Lucia, whose sense of comedy has always been as broad as her charity, began to laugh. The prisoner tried valiantly to cope with the size of his partner, but found that the only reasonable solution was to gather her up like a loaf of bread in his arms and continue the dance himself. The concertina labored merrily along.
It was all very amusing, we are told, and gloom departed the jail cell like a frightened cat. But Jacinta, while being whirled, came suddenly to realize this was not—as far as she knew—an indulgenced preparation for martyrdom. She did not know if her beloved Lady would approve of the general commotion. She asked the prisoner please to put her down, and when he had, she dug deep in her pocket for a holy medal, which she then, with some ceremony, hung from a nail on one of the walls. Devoutly, with Lucia and Francisco, she knelt on the bare floor and began to recite the Rosary aloud.
Automatically, the older prisoners knelt in deep respect, the single flaw in their gesture being one man’s failure to remove his hat. Francisco, to correct this, got up and walked over to him and said: “Sir, when you pray, you are expected to take off your hat!” The prisoner, flustered by the amused hoots and howls of his cell mates, took it off and then threw it violently to the floor. Francisco very politely retrieved it, dusted it, and placed it gently on a bench. It was a lovely incident, and grace and the angels, it seems fair to assume, were working overtime.
Last Chance Before Being Boiled in Oil
But suddenly, while they were praying, there was a frightening clamor and noise coming from beyond the door. It opened and a prison guard stood there sternly looking at the children. “You three!” he said. “Yes, you! It’s time!” In their own minds, at least, they stepped forward to the doom for which they had prepared. Once again they were obliged to face the Masonic Mayor.
“Well?” he asked. There was no reply. No sign of capitulation. The Mayor was baffled. In the children’s presence he gave elaborate orders about the preparation of the boiling oil, and was assured by his aides that it was boiling very nicely. The Mayor then turned to the children and said: “It’s your last chance to tell the secret. Do you hear? Well—do you?” His glance settled on Jacinta, who trembled and paled. The terror swelled within her. “Take that one first!” he shouted to the guards. “Throw her into the cauldron!” Jacinta turned to Heaven and called out aloud: “Dear Jesus, help me! Our Lady help me!” The guards grasped her and shook her, but found her resolution still unshaken. The secret remained with her―she refused to reveal it. The door closed behind her. The staging and acting was very effective, and the drama, as far as the children knew, entirely real.
Lucia, left alone with Francisco, turned to him. He had really become quite a fellow and support. And if, as so many have concluded, he was the least favored of our Lady’s small friends, he had aimed himself point-blank at Heaven. Clearly, he could hardly wait for the glad “someday” of a promised Heaven.
Lucia gives us an account of this―she says: “During Jacinta’s interrogation, he confided to me with boundless joy and peace: ‘If they kill us as they say, we’ll soon be in Heaven! How wonderful! Nothing else matters!’ Then after a moment’s silence he added: ‘God grant that Jacinta won’t be afraid. I’m going to say a Hail Mary for her!’ He promptly removed his cap and prayed. The guard, seeing him praying, asked him: ‘What are you saying?’ Francisco replied: ‘I’m saying a Hail Mary so that Jacinta won’t be afraid.’ The guard made a scornful gesture and let him go ahead.”
The ominous silence was broken by the prison door swinging open. The guard who had taken his sister away, placed heavy hands on Francisco and sternly said: “Your sister’s well cooked by now, young man! It’s your turn next! You might as well come out with that secret! Don’t be a crazy and stubborn fool. Tell his excellency, the Mayor, what he wants to know!” Francisco resolutely replied: “I can’t! It isn’t possible! I can’t tell anyone!”
They led him through the door and only Lucia remained. Even though she was the oldest of the three children, she was only ten years old. From the beginning she had not doubted that the cauldron of oil was real. Her inquisitors, returning, and carrying their wrathful drama to its clumsy and faltering conclusion, were naturally as unsuccessful with Lucia as they had been with the others.
The Fake Cauldron of Boiling Oil Burns Itself Out
In another few moments the children were surprisingly and joyfully reunited together―alive and not dead, and the only thing resembling a cauldron of boiling oil, was the boiling temper of the Masonic Mayor, administrator, and torch-bearer of the new “enlightenment” who did not believe in God!
That evening the mayor’s wife fed them well, and they slept together happily under the Mayor’s roof. By the morning of August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption, the Masonic Mayor gave up, and, in concession to popular sentiment, returned the children by carriage to the presbytery of Father Ferreira, the pastor of Fatima. While the children were being returned to the presbytery of Fr. Ferreira, the priest was in act of concluding the last Mass of the holy day. His parishioners were restless through the final prayers. Glances were anxious and meaningful. Curiosity was high. As soon as they were outside the church, the people gathered close around “Ti” Marto―the father of Francisco and Jacinta. “Where are the children?” they demanded, “What has happened to them, Ti Marto? How much do you know? Or is it that you do not even care?”
Francisco and Jacinta’s Father Explains
“Ti” Marto takes up the story, saying: “Outside the church, I tried to tell the people that I really knew nothing about the children, but only trusted in God. On the day they were taken away, I explained that my stepson, Antonio, and some other boys, reported they had seen them playing on the veranda of the mayor’s house at Ourem, but they could be anywhere now, even at Santarem. Well, just as I was telling them this, I heard somebody shouting, ‘Hey, Ti Marto—look! There they are now, on the porch of the presbytery!’ I can tell you I don’t know how I got there, but the first thing I knew I was holding and hugging my Jacinta. I can even remember that I picked her up and held her in my right arm—so, like this, and I am not ashamed to say my tears were such that they got my little girl all wet. The other two, Francisco and Lucia, they ran up to me. ‘Father! Uncle!’ they said, “give us your blessings!” You can be sure I did, and that it was a wonderful moment for me. At that very moment, there appeared a funny little man, who is a kind of official. He works for the Mayor. Well, this man was so frightened he could not stop trembling. I have never seen anyone tremble in this way. He then said to me: ‘Well, here are your children!’ I then said to him: ‘This affair could have ended very badly, and it is not your fault that it hasn’t!’ He did not say anything. I continued: ‘You wanted them to say they were lying, but they would not! And even if they had been so frightened that they gave in to you, I would still have told the truth of it!’
“Well, by this time, in the square, there is a terrible noise of the angry people. They are shouting and waving their arms and making threats. They are on my side, you understand, but they are dangerous this way. Father Ferreira hears all this noise and climbs to the top of the presbytery steps where I am standing with the children. He thinks I am making the trouble and he says to me: ‘Senhor Manuel Marto—are you causing all this disturbance?’ Me? I was still holding Jacinta in my arms. I called down to the people in the square: ‘Be quiet, all of you! You are shouting against the mayor and you are shouting against Father Ferreira—quiet! You don’t even know why you are shouting! This trouble, I tell you, comes from a lack of Faith in God, and that is why He permits it!’ Well, Father Ferreira seemed satisfied. From the porch we had gone inside the house. He went to a window then and faced the people. ‘Senhor Marto is right; he is quite right!” he called to them.
“At this moment the Mayor himself arrived at the presbytery and came upstairs to where we were standing by the window. With authority now he shows himself to the people and says to me: ‘That is enough, Senhor Marto! That is enough!’ To keep the peace I said: “It is all right! Nothing has happened to the children!’ After a while the mayor called me into Father Ferreira’s office. Looking at me, he said to Father Ferreira: ‘For myself, I prefer the conversation of Abobora (meaning “The Pumpkin,” which is how he referred to Lucia’s father), but I suppose I must talk with Senhor Marto, too!’ He meant by this that he did not like the religious tone of my talk and Father Ferreira said to him, politely but firmly: ‘Mr. Mayor, we cannot do without religion!’
“Well, the mayor thought about this, and perhaps to show what a generous man he was, he invited me to have a glass of wine with him at the tavern. I refused his invitation, but just then I saw a group of noisy boys below us; they were armed with sticks, and I said to myself there will be serious trouble if the anger of the crowd is not relieved, so I said to the Mayor: ‘All right, I will have a drink with you!’ He felt better then, because he knew the way the people felt. At the bottom of the stairs, so that the people could hear him, he said loudly: ‘You can be sure I treated the children very well!’ I did not at the time know exactly how he had treated them, but they seemed all right to me. ‘It’s not me who is worried,’ I said to him. ‘It’s the people who want to know!’ The crowd broke up and the danger was past. In the tavern then, feeling more secure, he started a silly conversation of some kind, then tried to tell me that the children had told him their secret. Very calmly, I then said then: ‘Of course, of course―they wouldn’t tell the secret to their own mother or father, so it’s only natural they would tell it to you!’
“Meanwhile the children had gone to the Cova da Iria to pray. The mayor insisted on taking me in his carriage down to the post office where I had to go. It was amusing, in a way. Some of the people saw me in the carriage and began to shout: ‘There goes Ti Marto! He’s talked too much, and the tinker is taking him off to jail!’”
The children’s release from the Mayor’s custody brought joy and new hope to their followers—by now a sizeable and expanding group of followers.
Lessons to Learn
In all of the above events there are numerous lessons that need to be understood and applied to our own lives. In no particular order of importance, some of these lessons are as follows:
(1) God does not give His faithful followers an easy ride! No true Christian is “born with a silver spoon in their mouth” ― on the contrary, God prefers to place a cross on their shoulders: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
(2) God does not “molly-coddle” anyone―not even children―as we see in the above torments that God allowed to befall three young children, aged only ten, nine and seven! God even allowed His own newly born Son, an infant in Bethlehem, to suffer persecution and potential murder at the hands of King Herod. God then allowed Herod to massacre the “Holy Innocents” in the place of Christ. Our Lady reveals to Venerable Mary of Agreda: “My Son began to suffer, and as soon as He was born into the world He and I were banished by Herod into a desert, and His sufferings continued until He died on the Cross! … It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering, even after my most holy Son did suffer for them! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … You cannot follow Christ, if you refuse to embrace the Cross and rejoice in it! … Nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son! … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good. Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, willingly entering upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, to bear it after Christ!”
(3) Nor was Our Lady “molly-coddled” ― as she herself reveals to Venerable Mary of Agreda. She speaks of God “allowing me to follow the royal way of all men and gain many merits and great glory by suffering and dying ... In this pilgrimage [of life] … it was necessary for me to suffer and to be afflicted … I suffered poverty and want, loneliness and interior dereliction. When any creature rose up against me, I conceived no anger toward it, for I knew in reality it was an instrument of the Most High, directed by His Providence for my special good … I would have been ready to suffer the greatest torments of the world … I suffered much more than the martyrs in all their torments … I would have lost my life in this suffering … This desire for suffering, and the wishes of my divine Son, led me on in the way of suffering … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good.”
(4) Has God “molly-coddled” true Catholics over the centuries? No! ― “Whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth” (Proverbs 3:12) ... “As silver is tried by fire, and gold in the furnace―so does the Lord trieth the hearts!” (Proverbs 17:3). There are very few Catholics who are true Catholics―most are compromised Catholics, calculating Catholics, cafeteria Catholics, “cookie, cake and candy” Catholics. Take away their cookies, cakes and candies and they are all out of sorts! For them, Catholicism is synonymous with sweetness―if it “ain’t” sweet then it “ain’t” good! Of such The Imitation of Christ says: “Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion.” (Book 2, Chapter 11).
Our Lord Himself rules out all kind of “molly-coddling” when He says: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23) and “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). Hence He adds: “They will lay their hands upon you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for My Name’s sake! … And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends; and some of you they will put to death. And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Luke 21:12-17) … “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for the sake of justice―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake! Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you!” (Matthew 5:10-12). Yes―not only the prophets, but countless saints, confessors, virgins and martyrs. All Catholics who have received the Sacrament of Confirmation are automatically Soldiers of Christ―and soldiers are not “molly-coddled”!
We imagine that everything is “hunky-dory” and “a bed of roses” for those persons to whom Our Lady appears―yet this is far from the truth! Our Lady often brings “troubles” with her, in the form of consequent disbelief, mockery and even persecution. We see this to be especially true in the lives of the three seers of Fatima. In the following account―mainly from the mouth of Sister Lucia of Fatima herself―there are several chief figures that play a prominent part.
August 13th, 1917, was supposed to the date of the 4th apparition of Our Lady of Fatima―she herself had said to the children on May 13th, 1917: “I have come to ask you to come here for six months in succession on the thirteenth day of each month at this same hour.” In the successive months of June and July―everything went according to plan. However, in the month of August, the three children were prevented from keeping that “appointment” by being kidnapped and imprisoned by their local mayor, who happened to also be a Freemason.
The chief persons in this story are obviously the three young children to whom Our Lady appeared to at Fatima in 1917―Lucia dos Santos (aged 10 at that time), Francisco Marto (aged 9) and his sister Jacinta (aged 7).
Lucia’s father was António dos Santos, and her mother was Maria Rosa dos Santos. Francisco and Jacinta’s parents were Manuel Pedro Marto (known affectionately as “Ti” Marto) and Olimpia Marto.
The local Administrator or Mayor (of Ourem―the nearest large town) was the Freemason, Artur de Oliveira Santos. Although he had little formal education, Artur Santos was made the editor the local newspaper Ouriense, in which he displayed his anti-monarchical and anti-religious opinions. In his twenties he was elected to the Masonic lodge of Leiria, and then founded a separate Lodge at Vila Nova de Ourém, his native town. Shortly after that he was made Municipal Administrator of Ourém. This position was essentially an appointed mayor, a delegate of the central government who was tasked with, among other things, maintaining public order. Artur Santos was known for his hostility towards organized religion in general and Catholicism in particular. He was especially hostile with regards to the apparitions and repeatedly sent law enforcement officials to seek to impede public access to the site. He went so far as to kidnap the three children and place them in jail, in order to prevent them from proclaiming another apparition. Years later, Lucia would recall how the three had been jailed, and that Santos had threatened the children with being boiled in oil, unless they revealed to him the secret which the children had reported as having received from the Lady.
Mistreatment and Abuse of the Fatima Children
If Our Lord says: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10:14)―then why did God allow the three children of Fatima (Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta) to be accused, abused, mistreated, kidnapped and imprisoned? These accusations, abuses and mistreatment did not only come from strangers―but also from family members, who were disbelieving of Our Lady’s apparitions, believing instead that the children were making-up these stories and were blatantly and unashamedly lying. The children were directly the laughing-stock of many―even the newspapers―and this mockery indirectly rebounded on their families.
Home Atmosphere of Scorn and Contempt
Sister Lucia, in her memoirs, speaks of the general disbelief that surrounded Our Lady’s apparitions in Fatima:
“In the meantime, news of what had happened [the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima] was spreading. My poor mother worried more and more, as she saw the crowds who came flocking from all parts. My mother was getting worried, and wanted at all costs to make me deny what I had said. She was determined to make me confess that I was telling lies, and to this end she spared neither caresses, nor threats, nor even the broomstick. To all this she received nothing but a mute silence, or the confirmation of all that had already said. She told me that she had never tolerated a single lie among her children, and much less would she allow a lie of this kind. She warned me that she would force me, that very evening, to go to those people whom I had deceived, confess that I had lied and ask their pardon … I could see that my mother was deeply distressed, and that she wanted at all costs to compel me, as she put it, to admit that I had lied. I wanted so much to do as she wished, but the only way I could do so was to tell a lie. From the cradle, she had instilled into her children a great horror of Iying, and she used to chastise severely any one of us who told an untruth. She often said: ‘I’ve seen to it that my children always told the truth, and am I now going to let the youngest get away with a thing like this? If it were just a small thing! But a lie of such proportions, deceiving so many people and bringing them all the way here! These poor people come here, taken in by your trickery, you can be sure of that, and I really don’t know what I can do to undeceive them!’
“After these bitter complaints, she would turn to me, saying: ‘Make up your mind which you want! Either undo all this deception by telling these people that you’ve lied, or I’ll lock you up in a dark room where you won’t even see the light of the sun. After all the troubles I’ve been through, and now a thing like this to happen!’ My sisters sided with my mother, and all around me the atmosphere was one of utter scorn and contempt.
“A poor man―who boasted of making fun of us, of insulting us and of even going so far as to beat us―asked my mother one day: ‘Well, madam, what have you got to say about your daughter’s visions?’ She answered: ‘I don’t know! lt seems to me that she is nothing but a fake, who is leading half the world astray!’ The man replied: ‘Don’t say that out loud, or somebody’s likely to kill her! I think there are people around here, who’d be only too glad to do so!’ My mother answered: ‘Oh, I don’t care! Just so long as they force her to confess the truth! As for me, I always tell the truth, whether against my children, or anybody else, or even against myself!’ And, truly, this was so. My mother always told the truth, even against herself. We, her children, are indebted to her for this good example.
Taken to be Interrogated by the Priest
“Around that time, our parish priest came to know of what was happening, and sent word to my mother to take me to his house. My mother felt she could breathe again, thinking the priest was going to take responsibility for these events on himself. She therefore said to me: ‘Tomorrow, we’re going to Mass, the first thing in the morning. Then, you are going to the Reverend Father’s house. Just let him compel you to tell the truth, no matter how he does it; let him punish you; let him do whatever he likes with you, just so long as he forces you to admit that you have lied; and then I’ll be satisfied.’ My sisters also took my mother’s part and invented endless threats, just to frighten me about the interview with the parish priest.
“I told Jacinta and her brother, Francisco, all about it. They replied: ‘We’re going also! The Reverend Father told our mother to take us there too, but she didn’t say any of those things to us. Never mind! If they beat us, we’ll suffer for love of Our Lord and for sinners.’
My mother resolved to make a fresh attempt to compel me to retract all that I had said, as she put it. She made up her mind to take me back the very next day to the parish priest’s house. Once there, I was to confess that I had lied, to ask his pardon, and to perform whatever penance His Reverence thought fit or desired to impose on me. This time the attack was so strong, that I did not know what to do. At a certain point, I said to her, trembling: ‘But, mother, how can I say that I did not see, when I did see?’ My mother was silent.
Without another word, we climbed the stairs, and the good priest received us in his study with the greatest kindness and even, I might almost say, with affection. He questioned me seriously, but most courteously, and resorted to various stratagems to see if I would contradict myself, or be inconsistent in my statements. Finally, he dismissed us, shrugging his shoulders, as if to imply: “I don’t know what to make of all this!”
“Next day I walked along behind my mother, who did not address one single word to me the whole way. I must admit that I was trembling at the thought of what was going to happen. As we drew near the priest’s house, she declared: “Just you listen to me! What I want is that you should tell the truth. If you saw, say so! But if you didn’t see, admit that you lied.” I followed my mother out of the church over to the priest’s house, and started up the stairs leading to the verandah. We had climbed only a few steps, when my mother turned round and exclaimed: ‘Don’t annoy me any more! Tell the Reverend Father now that you lied, so that on Sunday he can say in the church that it was all a lie, and that will be the end of the whole affair. A nice business, this is! All this crowd running to the Cova da Iria, just to pray in front of a holm oak bush!’
“Without more ado, she knocked on the door. The good priest’s sister opened the door and invited us to sit down on a bench and wait a while. At last, the parish priest appeared. The good priest took and received us in his study with the greatest kindness and even, I might almost say, with affection. He questioned me seriously, but most courteously, and resorted to various stratagems to see if I would contradict myself, or be inconsistent in my statements. When I found that His Reverence was questioning me quite calmly, and with such a kindly manner, I was amazed. I was still fearful, however, of what was yet to come. The interrogation was very minute and, I would even venture to say, tiresome. Finally, he dismissed us, shrugging his shoulders, as if to imply: ‘I don’t know what to make of all this!’ His Reverence concluded with this brief observation: It doesn’t seem to me like a revelation from Heaven. It is usual in such cases for Our Lord to tell the souls to whom He makes such communications to give their confessor or parish priest an account of what has happened. But this child, on the contrary, keeps it to herself as far as she can. This may also be a deceit of the devil. We shall see. The future will show us what we are to think about it all.’
Called to Appear Before the Administrative Court
Lucia then speaks of the day they were summoned to appear in court to be questioned by region’s Administrator or Mayor― the Freemason, Artur de Oliveira Santos: “Not many days later (August 10th), our parents were notified to the effect that all three of us―Jacinta, Francisco and myself, together with our fathers―were to appear, at noon on the following day, before the Administration in Vila Nova de Ourém. This meant that we had to make a journey of about nine miles, a considerable distance for three small children. The only means of transport in those days was either our own two feet or to ride on a donkey. My uncle sent word right away to say that he would appear himself, but as for his children, he was not taking them. ‘I’m not going to take my children, nor present them before any tribunal! I’ll go myself and see what they want! There’s no sense in bringing two children like that before a court! Why―they’re not old enough to be responsible for their actions, and, besides all that, they could never stand the long journey on foot to Vila Nova de Ourém. They’d never stand the trip on foot, and, not being used to riding, they could never manage to stay on the donkey!’ My parents thought the very opposite. My father said: ‘My daughter is going! Let her answer for herself! As for me, I understand nothing of these things! If she’s lying, it’s a good thing that she should be punished for it!’ They all took advantage of this occasion to frighten us in every way they could.
Lucia continues: “Very early, the next morning (August 11th), they put me on a donkey and off I went. As we were passing by my uncle’s house, my father had to wait a few minutes for my uncle. I ran to say goodbye to Jacinta, who was still in bed. Doubtful as to whether we would ever see one another again, I threw my arms around her. Bursting into tears, the poor child sobbed: ‘If they kill you, tell them that Francisco and I are just the same as you, and that we want to die too! I’m going right now to the well with Francisco, and we’ll pray hard for you!’
“I then set off, accompanied by my father and uncle. I fell off the donkey three times along the way. How much Jacinta and Francisco suffered that day, thinking that I was going to be killed! As for me, what hurt me most, was the indifference shown me by my parents. This was all the more obvious, since I could see how affectionately my aunt and uncle treated their children. I remember thinking to myself as we went along: ‘How different my parents are from my uncle and aunt. They risk themselves to defend their children, while my parents hand me over with the greatest indifference, and let them do what they like with me! But I must be patient,’ I reminded myself in my inmost heart, ‘since this means I have the happiness of suffering more for love of You, O my God, and for the conversion of sinners.’ This reflection never failed to bring me consolation.
As regards her appearance at the tribunal of the local Administration, in Ourem which was 9 miles away, Lucia says: “At the Administration office, I was interrogated by the Administrator, who was also the mayor (the Freemason, Artur de Oliveira Santos), in the presence of my father, my uncle and several other gentlemen who were strangers to me. The Administrator was determined to force me to reveal the secret and to promise him never again to return to the Cova da Iria (the location for the apparitions of Our Lady). To attain his end, he spared neither promises, nor even threats. Seeing that he was getting nowhere, he dismissed me, protesting however, that he would achieve his end, even if this meant that he had to take my life. He then strongly reprimanded my uncle for not having carried out his orders, and finally let us go home.
Here is the account of that day in court, on August 11th, coming from the mouth of “Ti” Marto―the father of Francisco and Jacinta and also the uncle of Lucia:
“My brother-in-law, Antonio, had received the same summons to appear with his daughter at the Town Hall of Ourem on August 11th, at noon. They both came to my house that morning, while I was eating my breakfast, and the first thing Lucia asked me was: ‘Are Jacinta and Francisco coming?’ I replied: ‘Now, what would two small children like that be doing there at the Town Hall, Lucia? I’m going down to answer for them myself!’ Well, the next thing I knew, Lucia had rushed inside, and we could hear Jacinta saying to her, ‘If they’re going to kill you, tell them that Francisco and I are just the same as you, we believe the same thing, and we wished to be killed, too!’ And my little one meant it, but never mind now. I left with Lucia and her father. On the way Lucia fell off the donkey three times, and Antonio―who was full of fear of the mayor―went rushing ahead, so as not to be late. When Lucia and I finally got to the square, we saw Antonio waiting there.
“I asked him: ‘What happened?’ He was all excited and said: ‘The door was locked! There’s no one there!’ But it wasn’t noon yet, anyhow, so we waited. After a while we tried the Town Hall. It was still closed. Someone came along about then and told us the mayor didn’t work there any more, so we were taken to him, and the first thing the mayor demanded of me was: ‘Where is the child?’ I replied: ‘What child?’ I waited. He didn’t seem to know that there were three children, but, of course, in a while, he caught on. Anyway, I said to him: ‘Now, look, sir! It’s more than nine miles distance to our village and the little children couldn’t walk it. No, sir, and they’re not used to the donkey, either!’ I felt like adding a whole lot more―but I was wise enough to hold my tongue. Oh, he was very annoyed, but I didn’t care. He began to question Lucia then, trying to get the secret out of her. A fine chance he had. She wouldn’t tell him a word.
“Then the mayor turned to my brother-in-law, saying: ‘You people in Fatima―do you believe this stuff?’ Antonio said: ‘No, sir! We believe it’s just women’s talk!’ I interrupted then. I said to the mayor: ‘I’m right here, your Honor, and I believe everything my children say!’ He looked at me. ‘You do? You believe it?’ I replied: ‘Yes, I do!’ Well, everyone standing around began to laugh, but it made no difference to me. There were reporters there from the newspapers, and they said they were going to write it up. After a while they let us go, but right up to the end the mayor kept threatening Lucia. He even said that if she didn’t reveal her secret, he would have her killed. I said to him then, as we were leaving: ‘If you send for us, I know that we’ll have to come, but please remember we have our own lives to lead!’
Safe Return to Tears
It was Lucia’s first interview with the civil authorities, and, if it was not a pleasant one, she at least escaped unscathed. At home Jacinta and Francisco did not have this comforting assurance. They wept by the well in Lucia’s yard, and when they saw her, finally, they rubbed their eyes, as though gazing at some youthful resurrected Lazarus.
Lucia explains what happened once she had safely returned home: “When I got back at night fall, I ran to the well, and there were the pair of them on their knees, leaning over the side of the well, their heads buried in their hands, weeping bitterly. As soon as they saw me, they cried out in astonishment: ‘You’ve come then? Why, your sister came here to draw water and told us that they’d killed you! We’ve been praying and crying so much for you!’
Persecution Within the Family
“In the intimacy of my own family, there was fresh trouble, and the blame for this was thrown on me. The Cova da Iria was a piece of land belonging to my parents. In the hollow, it was more fertile, and there we cultivated maize, greens, peas and other vegetables. On the slopes grew olive trees, oaks and holm oaks. Now, ever since the people began to go there, we had been unable to cultivate anything at all. Everything was trampled on. As the majority came mounted, their animals ate up all they could find and wrecked the whole place. My mother bewailed her loss―she said to me: ‘You, now, when you want something to eat, go and ask the Lady for it!’ My sisters chimed in with: ‘Yes, you can have what grows in the Cova da Iria!’ These remarks cut me to the heart, so much so that I hardly dared to take a piece of bread to eat. To force me to tell the truth, my mother―more often than not―beat me soundly with the broom-handle or a stick from the woodpile near the fireplace.”
“Several people who came from a distance to see us, noticing that I looked very pale and anemic, asked my mother to let me go and spend a few days in their homes, saying the change of air would do me good. With this end in view, my mother gave her consent, and they took me with them, now to one place, now to another. When away from home like this, I did not always meet with esteem and affection. While there were some who admired me and considered me a saint, there were always others who heaped abuse upon me and called me a hypocrite, a visionary and a sorceress. On such occasions, I used to think to myself: ‘They are all mistaken! I’m not a saint, as some say, and I’m not a liar either, as others say! Only God knows what I am!’”
More Trouble on the Horizon
If Lucia’s family and Francisco and Jacinta’s family thought that the winds of trouble had blown by after that August 11th appearance before the tribunal of the local administration and its chief―the Administrator or Mayor, the Freemason Arturo dos Santos―then they had another think coming! The troubled winds had not blown-over, but were just starting! On the morning of August 13th ― the day of Our Lady’s regularly 4th apparition, scheduled for the usual time of noon ― the Freemasonic Mayor, Arturo dos Santos, turned up at Francisco and Jacinta’s home―having dragged along the local parish priest with him. “Ti” Marto ― the father of Francisco and Jacinta (he was also Lucia’s uncle) takes up the story as to what happened next on continues:
“On the morning of August 13th—it was a Monday—I got a summons to come home from my work at once. All right, I went. There were a lot of people outside my house, but I was used to that by now. I went inside and was washing my hands. My wife was sitting there. She was nervous and upset and all she did was point to the living room. ‘All right,’ I said: ‘I’ll go in there! Why such a fuss?’ So I walked inside still using a towel, and who should I see but the mayor himself. Even then, I suppose, I wasn’t very polite to him, because I saw that a priest was there, too, and I went first to shake hands with the priest. Then I said to the mayor, ‘I did not expect to see you here, sir!’
Full of Lies and Tricks
“He was a great actor, that man. He said to me: ‘I thought that, after all, I would like to go to the miracle today!’ What’s this? I asked myself, but the mayor went on: ‘I thought that we would all go together in my carriage. We will see, and then believe, like St. Thomas!’ [He was referring to the “doubting” St. Thomas the Apostle, who refused to believe that Christ had risen from the dead unless he saw the living Christ with his own eyes].
“I watched him closely now, because I could see he was nervous. He kept looking around before he finally said: ‘Aren’t the children coming? It is almost time for the apparition!’ I replied: ‘There is no need to call them. They will be ready when it is time to go.’ Just then they came into the room, the three of them, looking no different―and the mayor invited them to go in his carriage. That wasn’t necessary, the children told him. The mayor insisted, saying: ‘It will be better that way! No one will bother you on the way and, besides, I want to stop off at Fatima to see Father Ferreira!’ So what could we do? We went along—myself, the children, and Lucia’s father.
“Upon arrival, the [Freemasonic] Mayor went in to see Father Ferreira at the presbytery, then, in no time at all, he called down: ‘Send the first one up!’ I replied: ‘The first what?’ His tone was different now. He was full of authority. ‘Send Lucia!’ he said. ‘All right!’ I said. No use getting into too much trouble. ‘Go ahead, Lucia!’ I said―and she went into the house, supposedly to talk to Father Ferreira. My own two children stood there on the steps, while I was with Antonio, Lucia’s father. It was just a trick―this business of talking to the pastor―because when it was time for Jacinta and Francisco to go in, the mayor said: ‘It doesn’t matter now! We can all get started!’ Well, it was a smart trick, all right, because I hadn’t noticed the mayor’s carriage moving closer all the time to the steps where the children were standing. First thing I knew, the mayor had them seated with him. Francisco in the front, and the two girls in the back. The horse went off at a lively trot. For a while it looked as though they were going to the Cova da Iria, but when they got to the main road the horse was whipped suddenly and they were off, racing toward Ourem. And there was nothing I could do. The horse and carriage moved briskly along the road to Vila Nova de Ourem. Lucia turned to the mayor and said: ‘Where are you taking us? This isn’t the way to the Cova da Iria!’
Locked-Up and Isolated
“Ti” Marto continues with his account: “We have no precise report on the conversation that followed, except that the mayor, in uneasy possession of his kidnapped cargo, attempted to calm them. He was merely taking them to Ourem, he explained, to see the parish priest there, after which, he insisted, they would be returned to the Cova by automobile. He appears to have been a nervous and unskilled liar. Along the road now, people began to recognize first the mayor’s carriage, and then its unwilling passengers. Just how noisy or conspicuous they were, we do not know, but in any event the mayor did feel obliged to cover all three with a carriage rug on the floor to keep them out of sight.”
An hour or so later, they arrived at the Mayor’s house. He shut them firmly in a room, and advised them they would not be freed until they confided their precious secret to him. Precisely why his honor, the Mayor, wanted to pry the children loose from their secret, remains a mystery. After all, he was a man of avowed disbelief in the supernatural. What value could another of their imaginative discourses have for him? Except, of course, that the secret might prove so ridiculous that its publication alone would dissolve the band of faithful who had come to believe in the incredible but lively legend of the three little prophets and their Lady.
Lucia adds: “When we noticed that it was already past midday, and that they would not let us go to the Cova da Iria, Francisco said: ‘Perhaps Our Lady will come and appear to us here!’” Lucia further adds: “Francisco later asked me: ‘Tell me! Will Our Lady not come and appear to us any more?’ I replied: ‘I don’t know! I think she will.’ Francisco sighed: ‘I miss her so much!’” Alone, the children appraised their situation. “If they kill us,” Jacinta said, “it won’t matter much; will it? Because we’ll all go straight to Heaven!” A willing, and perhaps even an eager martyr by now, Jacinta was a bit ahead of schedule. Actually, the balance of this afternoon was not unpleasant. The mayor, if less kindly and conscience-ridden than Pontius Pilate, had a wife whose sympathies belonged to his victims, rather than himself. She managed to free them from the room where they were confined, and to feed them generously, offering her own children as companions for the afternoon. Later, in the terrifying hours they were soon to know, she brought them books and toys, and did all in her limited power to soften their brutal ordeal.
Our Lady Still Appears on Time
Meanwhile, back at the Cova da Iria, of course, the children’s appointment with Our Lady was not kept. Witnesses testified that the Queen of Heaven appeared on time―at noon as usual. One witness testifies: “The crowd this day was even greater than it had been in July. There were many, many more. Some came on foot and hung their bundles on the trees. Some came on horses. Some on mules. There were bicycles too, and everything else, and on the road there was a great noise of traffic. All around the tree―upon which Our Lady customarily appeared―the people were praying and singing hymns. But when the children did not appear, they began to get impatient. Then someone came from Fatima and told us they had been kidnapped by the mayor. Everyone began talking at once; there was great anger and I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t heard the clap of thunder.
“It was much the same as the last time. Some said the thunder came from the direction of the road and others said it came from the tree. To me it seemed to come from a long way off. But wherever it came from, the thunder was a shock to the people. Some of them began to shout that we would be killed. We all began to spread out, away from the tree, but, of course, no one was hurt in any way. Just after the clap of thunder came a flash of lightning, and then we began to see a little cloud, very delicate, very white, which stopped for a few moments over the tree, and then rose in the air until it disappeared. As we looked around, we began to notice some strange things we had observed before and would see again in the months to follow. Our faces were reflecting all the colors of the rainbow—pink and red and blue and I don’t know what. The trees suddenly seemed to be made not of leaves, but of flowers. The ground reflected these many colors, and so did the clothes we wore. The lanterns that someone had fixed to the arch above us looked as though they had turned to gold. Certainly our Lady had come, I knew, even though the children were not there. Then when all these signs had disappeared, the people started for Fatima. They were shouting out against the mayor and against Father Ferreira, too. They were against anyone connected with the imprisonment of the children.”
Angry Crowds
The father of Francisco and Jacinta, “Ti” Marto, was at the site of the apparition while his children were in captivity. He describes the disturbance he found:
“‘Let us go to Ourem and protest!’ some of the people were shouting. ‘Let us go and beat them all up! Let us speak to the priest, because it is his fault, too. Let us go now and settle with the mayor!’ I thought to myself that in a way they were right, but they had worked themselves into a temper of such violence that I feared what they might do. I began to shout at them: ‘Be quiet! Take it easy! There is no reason to injure anyone! Whoever has done something evil will be punished. This affair is in the hands of God!’ But they wouldn’t take any notice of what I said. They went on in their anger toward Fatima. As for me, I went to my house, and found my wife in tears. Olimpia was not easy to console. Her sobs continued, her fears multiplied. She had rushed with her bad tidings to Maria Rosa, the mother of Lucia, but that strange and difficult-to-fathom lady seemed more pleased than grieved to know a crisis had finally arrived. She simply said: ‘If they are lying, then it will teach them a lesson. And if they are not lying, Our Lady will look after them!’”
The Terrors of August 14th
On the following day, August 14th, the children, still in captivity, awoke in the mayor’s house at Ourem, and Jacinta, more than the others, found these strange surroundings difficult to bear. Above all she missed her mother. She began to pray for strength and guidance from the Virgin Mary. The Masonic Mayor, more like a goblin than a grown man, had marshaled his various hair-raising plans and tricks for the bitter business of the day. The first arrival in the isolated children’s locked room was an old lady inquisitor, who did everything, except spin on her horns, to try and extract the famous secret. She did not succeed, and was withdrawn and replaced by the Masonic Mayor himself. The children were brought before him at approximately ten o’clock in the morning. He at first tried charm. He placed shining coins and a beautiful gold chain on the table. “The secret, please?” he requested, but without success. The assistance of grace and angels no doubt kept high and solid the resolution of these little child saints who stood before him. The Mayor began to feel less clever, even though his bag of tricks had scarcely been opened.
Sent to Prison
The next step in his armory of tricks and coercion was put into action in the afternoon of that same day―August 14th―when he commanded that the children were put into the public jail. Lucia speaks of this traumatic time: “When, some time later, we were put in prison, what made Jacinta suffer most, was to feel that their parents had abandoned them. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she would say: ‘Neither your parents nor mine have come to see us! They don’t bother about us anymore!’ Francisco said to her: “Don’t cry! We can offer this to Jesus for sinners!’ Then, raising his eyes and hands to Heaven, he made the offering: ‘O my Jesus, this is for love of You, and for the conversion of sinners!’ Then Jacinta added: ‘And also for the Holy Father, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary!’”
The imprisonment was real. They were cast among adult and hardened sinners, with the Mayor’s solemn assurance that they would remain in the jail only until a cauldron of boiling oil had been prepared. When the oil was bubbling properly, they would be thrown into it—alive. They doubted neither the mayor nor his jailers, and for two hours they expected precisely this sizzling end to life on Earth. Again Jacinta appears to have suffered the most. She tried to conceal her tears from Lucia and Francisco by gazing through a window to the market square. But Lucia; who was stronger, and who loved her so dearly, wasn’t fooled. Lucia asked: “Why are you crying, Jacinta?” The seven-year-old Jacinta replied: “Because we’ll die without even seeing our parents! They haven’t even come to see us! That’s how much they care!” The betrayal, the abandonment, the end of love, were more cruel to her than the prospect of martyrdom. Francisco appears to have passed through this trial with extravagant courage. Like some small Saint Stephen, he was ready for sticks or stones or boiling oil. He tried to console his little sister, saying: “Don’t worry, Jacinta! We can offer this for sinners, too!”
This was not play-acting. Their conviction was complete. Nor was there self-conscious piety displayed. The act of reparation, the consignment of personal suffering to God so that He might find even greater mercy for others, had become a natural, everyday thing. They joined their hands and together said, “O my Jesus, this is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners....”
Following the Prison Tradition of Christ and Christians
The imprisonment of the innocent children brings to mind the arrest of the innocent Christ who was imprisoned overnight and then dragged before the governor Pontius Pilate for trial and judgment, and then condemned to death. It also brings to mind the imprisonment of St. Peter, St. Paul and the other Apostles, Martyrs and Saints throughout history. We are also reminded of the prophetic words of Our Lord from the Gospels: “They will lay their hands upon you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for My Name’s sake! … Lay it up therefore into your hearts, not to meditate before how you shall answer―for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and contradict!” (Luke 21:12-15).
Understandably, to their fellow prisoners, the children did not present an every day normal occurrence. Amazed and amused, nudging one another, the inmates crowded in close around the children. Awkwardly, fumblingly, each in their own ways, they tried to comfort them, without, however, retreating from their own conviction that these children were crazy. One of them suggested: “Look, be smart! Tell the Mayor the secret and you can go home. It doesn’t matter about the Lady!” Jacinta looked at the man in disbelief and said indignantly: “It doesn’t matter? But we’d much rather die than tell the secret!”
The puzzled prisoners were left scratching their heads. This sort of thing they had never witnessed before. It touched them―if not spiritually, then at least sentimentally. It tugged at chords of sympathy that they were embarrassed to know they still possessed underneath their hard gruff exteriors. Unable to dissuade their strange new friends from such grim resolve, they tried then, as best they could, to brighten the burden some way. One of the prisoners had a concertina which he began to squeeze like a musical muff. The result was joyful enough. Other prisoners began to sing.
Jacinta was feeling better now. The tears dried on her cheeks, a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. The rhythm and the pleasant nonsense of the moment went to her feet if not to her head. One of the larger inmates invited Jacinta to dance, and with solemn courtesy, she accepted. Lucia, whose sense of comedy has always been as broad as her charity, began to laugh. The prisoner tried valiantly to cope with the size of his partner, but found that the only reasonable solution was to gather her up like a loaf of bread in his arms and continue the dance himself. The concertina labored merrily along.
It was all very amusing, we are told, and gloom departed the jail cell like a frightened cat. But Jacinta, while being whirled, came suddenly to realize this was not—as far as she knew—an indulgenced preparation for martyrdom. She did not know if her beloved Lady would approve of the general commotion. She asked the prisoner please to put her down, and when he had, she dug deep in her pocket for a holy medal, which she then, with some ceremony, hung from a nail on one of the walls. Devoutly, with Lucia and Francisco, she knelt on the bare floor and began to recite the Rosary aloud.
Automatically, the older prisoners knelt in deep respect, the single flaw in their gesture being one man’s failure to remove his hat. Francisco, to correct this, got up and walked over to him and said: “Sir, when you pray, you are expected to take off your hat!” The prisoner, flustered by the amused hoots and howls of his cell mates, took it off and then threw it violently to the floor. Francisco very politely retrieved it, dusted it, and placed it gently on a bench. It was a lovely incident, and grace and the angels, it seems fair to assume, were working overtime.
Last Chance Before Being Boiled in Oil
But suddenly, while they were praying, there was a frightening clamor and noise coming from beyond the door. It opened and a prison guard stood there sternly looking at the children. “You three!” he said. “Yes, you! It’s time!” In their own minds, at least, they stepped forward to the doom for which they had prepared. Once again they were obliged to face the Masonic Mayor.
“Well?” he asked. There was no reply. No sign of capitulation. The Mayor was baffled. In the children’s presence he gave elaborate orders about the preparation of the boiling oil, and was assured by his aides that it was boiling very nicely. The Mayor then turned to the children and said: “It’s your last chance to tell the secret. Do you hear? Well—do you?” His glance settled on Jacinta, who trembled and paled. The terror swelled within her. “Take that one first!” he shouted to the guards. “Throw her into the cauldron!” Jacinta turned to Heaven and called out aloud: “Dear Jesus, help me! Our Lady help me!” The guards grasped her and shook her, but found her resolution still unshaken. The secret remained with her―she refused to reveal it. The door closed behind her. The staging and acting was very effective, and the drama, as far as the children knew, entirely real.
Lucia, left alone with Francisco, turned to him. He had really become quite a fellow and support. And if, as so many have concluded, he was the least favored of our Lady’s small friends, he had aimed himself point-blank at Heaven. Clearly, he could hardly wait for the glad “someday” of a promised Heaven.
Lucia gives us an account of this―she says: “During Jacinta’s interrogation, he confided to me with boundless joy and peace: ‘If they kill us as they say, we’ll soon be in Heaven! How wonderful! Nothing else matters!’ Then after a moment’s silence he added: ‘God grant that Jacinta won’t be afraid. I’m going to say a Hail Mary for her!’ He promptly removed his cap and prayed. The guard, seeing him praying, asked him: ‘What are you saying?’ Francisco replied: ‘I’m saying a Hail Mary so that Jacinta won’t be afraid.’ The guard made a scornful gesture and let him go ahead.”
The ominous silence was broken by the prison door swinging open. The guard who had taken his sister away, placed heavy hands on Francisco and sternly said: “Your sister’s well cooked by now, young man! It’s your turn next! You might as well come out with that secret! Don’t be a crazy and stubborn fool. Tell his excellency, the Mayor, what he wants to know!” Francisco resolutely replied: “I can’t! It isn’t possible! I can’t tell anyone!”
They led him through the door and only Lucia remained. Even though she was the oldest of the three children, she was only ten years old. From the beginning she had not doubted that the cauldron of oil was real. Her inquisitors, returning, and carrying their wrathful drama to its clumsy and faltering conclusion, were naturally as unsuccessful with Lucia as they had been with the others.
The Fake Cauldron of Boiling Oil Burns Itself Out
In another few moments the children were surprisingly and joyfully reunited together―alive and not dead, and the only thing resembling a cauldron of boiling oil, was the boiling temper of the Masonic Mayor, administrator, and torch-bearer of the new “enlightenment” who did not believe in God!
That evening the mayor’s wife fed them well, and they slept together happily under the Mayor’s roof. By the morning of August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption, the Masonic Mayor gave up, and, in concession to popular sentiment, returned the children by carriage to the presbytery of Father Ferreira, the pastor of Fatima. While the children were being returned to the presbytery of Fr. Ferreira, the priest was in act of concluding the last Mass of the holy day. His parishioners were restless through the final prayers. Glances were anxious and meaningful. Curiosity was high. As soon as they were outside the church, the people gathered close around “Ti” Marto―the father of Francisco and Jacinta. “Where are the children?” they demanded, “What has happened to them, Ti Marto? How much do you know? Or is it that you do not even care?”
Francisco and Jacinta’s Father Explains
“Ti” Marto takes up the story, saying: “Outside the church, I tried to tell the people that I really knew nothing about the children, but only trusted in God. On the day they were taken away, I explained that my stepson, Antonio, and some other boys, reported they had seen them playing on the veranda of the mayor’s house at Ourem, but they could be anywhere now, even at Santarem. Well, just as I was telling them this, I heard somebody shouting, ‘Hey, Ti Marto—look! There they are now, on the porch of the presbytery!’ I can tell you I don’t know how I got there, but the first thing I knew I was holding and hugging my Jacinta. I can even remember that I picked her up and held her in my right arm—so, like this, and I am not ashamed to say my tears were such that they got my little girl all wet. The other two, Francisco and Lucia, they ran up to me. ‘Father! Uncle!’ they said, “give us your blessings!” You can be sure I did, and that it was a wonderful moment for me. At that very moment, there appeared a funny little man, who is a kind of official. He works for the Mayor. Well, this man was so frightened he could not stop trembling. I have never seen anyone tremble in this way. He then said to me: ‘Well, here are your children!’ I then said to him: ‘This affair could have ended very badly, and it is not your fault that it hasn’t!’ He did not say anything. I continued: ‘You wanted them to say they were lying, but they would not! And even if they had been so frightened that they gave in to you, I would still have told the truth of it!’
“Well, by this time, in the square, there is a terrible noise of the angry people. They are shouting and waving their arms and making threats. They are on my side, you understand, but they are dangerous this way. Father Ferreira hears all this noise and climbs to the top of the presbytery steps where I am standing with the children. He thinks I am making the trouble and he says to me: ‘Senhor Manuel Marto—are you causing all this disturbance?’ Me? I was still holding Jacinta in my arms. I called down to the people in the square: ‘Be quiet, all of you! You are shouting against the mayor and you are shouting against Father Ferreira—quiet! You don’t even know why you are shouting! This trouble, I tell you, comes from a lack of Faith in God, and that is why He permits it!’ Well, Father Ferreira seemed satisfied. From the porch we had gone inside the house. He went to a window then and faced the people. ‘Senhor Marto is right; he is quite right!” he called to them.
“At this moment the Mayor himself arrived at the presbytery and came upstairs to where we were standing by the window. With authority now he shows himself to the people and says to me: ‘That is enough, Senhor Marto! That is enough!’ To keep the peace I said: “It is all right! Nothing has happened to the children!’ After a while the mayor called me into Father Ferreira’s office. Looking at me, he said to Father Ferreira: ‘For myself, I prefer the conversation of Abobora (meaning “The Pumpkin,” which is how he referred to Lucia’s father), but I suppose I must talk with Senhor Marto, too!’ He meant by this that he did not like the religious tone of my talk and Father Ferreira said to him, politely but firmly: ‘Mr. Mayor, we cannot do without religion!’
“Well, the mayor thought about this, and perhaps to show what a generous man he was, he invited me to have a glass of wine with him at the tavern. I refused his invitation, but just then I saw a group of noisy boys below us; they were armed with sticks, and I said to myself there will be serious trouble if the anger of the crowd is not relieved, so I said to the Mayor: ‘All right, I will have a drink with you!’ He felt better then, because he knew the way the people felt. At the bottom of the stairs, so that the people could hear him, he said loudly: ‘You can be sure I treated the children very well!’ I did not at the time know exactly how he had treated them, but they seemed all right to me. ‘It’s not me who is worried,’ I said to him. ‘It’s the people who want to know!’ The crowd broke up and the danger was past. In the tavern then, feeling more secure, he started a silly conversation of some kind, then tried to tell me that the children had told him their secret. Very calmly, I then said then: ‘Of course, of course―they wouldn’t tell the secret to their own mother or father, so it’s only natural they would tell it to you!’
“Meanwhile the children had gone to the Cova da Iria to pray. The mayor insisted on taking me in his carriage down to the post office where I had to go. It was amusing, in a way. Some of the people saw me in the carriage and began to shout: ‘There goes Ti Marto! He’s talked too much, and the tinker is taking him off to jail!’”
The children’s release from the Mayor’s custody brought joy and new hope to their followers—by now a sizeable and expanding group of followers.
Lessons to Learn
In all of the above events there are numerous lessons that need to be understood and applied to our own lives. In no particular order of importance, some of these lessons are as follows:
(1) God does not give His faithful followers an easy ride! No true Christian is “born with a silver spoon in their mouth” ― on the contrary, God prefers to place a cross on their shoulders: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23) … “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27) … “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
(2) God does not “molly-coddle” anyone―not even children―as we see in the above torments that God allowed to befall three young children, aged only ten, nine and seven! God even allowed His own newly born Son, an infant in Bethlehem, to suffer persecution and potential murder at the hands of King Herod. God then allowed Herod to massacre the “Holy Innocents” in the place of Christ. Our Lady reveals to Venerable Mary of Agreda: “My Son began to suffer, and as soon as He was born into the world He and I were banished by Herod into a desert, and His sufferings continued until He died on the Cross! … It is a great shame―nay, a great boldness―on the part of the faithful, that they should abhor suffering, even after my most holy Son did suffer for them! … Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him―for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross, they cast it aside! … You cannot follow Christ, if you refuse to embrace the Cross and rejoice in it! … Nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son! … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good. Therefore let mortals show themselves thankful, willingly entering upon the rough and thorny path and accepting the Cross, to bear it after Christ!”
(3) Nor was Our Lady “molly-coddled” ― as she herself reveals to Venerable Mary of Agreda. She speaks of God “allowing me to follow the royal way of all men and gain many merits and great glory by suffering and dying ... In this pilgrimage [of life] … it was necessary for me to suffer and to be afflicted … I suffered poverty and want, loneliness and interior dereliction. When any creature rose up against me, I conceived no anger toward it, for I knew in reality it was an instrument of the Most High, directed by His Providence for my special good … I would have been ready to suffer the greatest torments of the world … I suffered much more than the martyrs in all their torments … I would have lost my life in this suffering … This desire for suffering, and the wishes of my divine Son, led me on in the way of suffering … The Lord and I suffered and endured such bitter sorrows, in order that mortals might be encouraged not to refuse less severe sufferings for their own eternal good.”
(4) Has God “molly-coddled” true Catholics over the centuries? No! ― “Whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth” (Proverbs 3:12) ... “As silver is tried by fire, and gold in the furnace―so does the Lord trieth the hearts!” (Proverbs 17:3). There are very few Catholics who are true Catholics―most are compromised Catholics, calculating Catholics, cafeteria Catholics, “cookie, cake and candy” Catholics. Take away their cookies, cakes and candies and they are all out of sorts! For them, Catholicism is synonymous with sweetness―if it “ain’t” sweet then it “ain’t” good! Of such The Imitation of Christ says: “Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion.” (Book 2, Chapter 11).
Our Lord Himself rules out all kind of “molly-coddling” when He says: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23) and “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). Hence He adds: “They will lay their hands upon you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for My Name’s sake! … And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends; and some of you they will put to death. And you shall be hated by all men for My Name’s sake!” (Luke 21:12-17) … “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for the sake of justice―for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake! Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you!” (Matthew 5:10-12). Yes―not only the prophets, but countless saints, confessors, virgins and martyrs. All Catholics who have received the Sacrament of Confirmation are automatically Soldiers of Christ―and soldiers are not “molly-coddled”!
Article 4
Wednesday August 10th & Thursday August 11th & Friday August 12th, 2022
Held to Ransom! Will You Pay?
Wednesday August 10th & Thursday August 11th & Friday August 12th, 2022
Held to Ransom! Will You Pay?
Ransom or Redeem?
The words “ransom” and “redeem” are almost interchangeable. The word “ransom” is defined as: “The release of a captive, or of captured property, by making a payment; the money or price paid for the redemption of a prisoner, or for goods captured by an enemy; payment for freedom from restraint, or from a penalty, or a forfeit; a sum paid for the pardon of some great offense and the discharge of the offender; also, a fine paid in place of corporal punishment.”
Whereas the word “redeem” is defined as: “To purchase back; to regain possession of by payment of a stipulated price; to regain something by performing the obligation or condition stated; to ransom, liberate, or rescue from captivity or bondage, or from any obligation or liability to suffer or to be forfeited, by paying a price or ransom; to ransom; to rescue; to recover; as, to redeem a captive, a pledge, and the like; to rescue and deliver from the bondage of sin and the penalties of God's violated law; to pay the penalty of; to make amends for; to atone for.”
Christ the Redeemer and Ransomer!
By committing sin, we forfeit the merciful opportunity God offers to everyone of attaining eternal life in Heaven. Adam and Eve had no birthright to Heaven, nor did they have a right to immorality by living forever―those were generous opportunities that God gave them, provided that they obeyed God and did not sin. Through their Original Sin they lost both the possibility of attaining Heaven and not having to die. “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:15). We, likewise have sinned, and are in need of redemption: “All have sinned, and do need the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) … “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).
We are incapable of paying the price or “fine” for sin―for any and all sin against the infinite God ends up being an infinite offence, and we are mere finite creatures who cannot pay infinite debt. Hence we need someone who is able to pay an infinite debt―and such a person has to be infinite in order to do so. Christ is that person―for by being God He is infinite and can pay an infinite debt; and by also being man, He can pay our human debt for sin. “The Son of man is come to give His life as a redemption for many” (Matthew 20:28) ... “For you are bought with a great price!” (1 Corinthians 6:20) … “Know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, but with the Precious Blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19) … “Who gave Himself a redemption for all” (1 Timothy 2:6) … “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness … In Whom we have redemption through His Blood―the remission of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14) … “Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity” (Titus 2:14) … “In Whom we have redemption through His Blood―the remission of sins” (Ephesians 1:7) ... “Jesus Christ has washed us from our sins in His own Blood” (Apocalypse 1:5) … “Who, His own self, bore our sins in His Body, upon the tree” (1 Peter 2:24) … “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, by being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13) … “Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God, in Thy Blood” (Apocalypse 5:9) … “He is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2) … “You are bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 7:23) … “We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son” (Romans 5:10).
We are meant to be Mini-Redeemers and Mini-Ransomers!
We are called to be “redeemers” in our own little way―Holy Scripture makes that abundantly clear: “For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16) … “God hath first loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. If God hath so loved us, then we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10-11) … “If any man says, ‘I love God!” and hates his brother; then he is a liar. For he that loves not his brother, whom he sees, how can he love God, Whom he sees not? … He that says that he is in the light and hates his brother, then he is in darkness even until now! He that loves his brother, abides in the light and there is no scandal in him. But he that hates his brother, is in darkness and walks in darkness, and knows not where he goes―because the darkness has blinded his eyes” (1 John 4:10-11; 2:9-11) … “In this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid down his life for us―and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that has the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him? Let us not love only in word, nor in tongue, but in deeds, and in truth” (1 John 3:16-18).
If “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), then what on earth are we doing? If we have no interest in the salvation of others and do not work for their salvation―then we offending God “who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4) ― and it is WE, whether priests or laity, who have lead others to Him ― “being ready always to satisfy everyone that asks you for the reason of that hope which is in you!” (1 Peter 3:15). “Therefore, go teach ye all nations … teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20). “For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him, in Whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe Him, of Whom they have not heard? … Faith then cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:13-17) … “What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath Faith, but hath not works? … Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well! But the devils also believe and tremble! Wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead?” (James 2:14-20).
Our Lady says to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Without any excuse is the forgetfulness and negligence shown by each and every one of the children of the Church in regard to the spread and manifestation of the glory of their God by making Him known to all rational creatures. With this end in view the Lord founded His Church, enriched it with blessings and spiritual treasures, and assigned to it ministers. All these gifts are intended not only to preserve the Church in its present state, but to extend it and draw others to the Catholic Faith. All should help to spread the fruits of the Death of their Redeemer. Some can do it by prayer and urgent desires for the exaltation of His Holy Name; others by almsgiving, others by diligent preaching, others by fervent works of charity. Many of them, forgetting the terrible account which they will have to render, seek only their own vain honor instead of Christ’s. They waste the Blood of the Redeemer in undertakings and aims not even fit to mention; and through their fault allow innumerable souls to perish, who by proper exertions could have been gained for the Holy Church!”
Our Lady of Fatima echoes the above words when she says to the three young children―Lucia, Francisco and Jancinta: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
In other words, many souls are chained to the devil through sin an remain in that state, because there is nobody who is willing to the pay the “ransom” that would “redeem” them. Yes―Christ died once for all men: “Knowing that Christ, rising again from the dead, dieth now no more―death shall no more have dominion over Him. For in that He died to sin, He died once” (Romans 6:9-10) … “Christ also died once for our sins―the just for the unjust―that he might offer us to God” (1 Peter 3:18)―however, that one single death is both renewed or “stretched-out” so to speak on our altars in each Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout all ages and all places―and the graces earned by that one death have to be administered, applied and activated in the lives of every single person.
Or, to put in other modern terms―the Sacrifice of Christ, even though it took place “in time” (around 2,000 years ago), is also an eternal Sacrifice that never ends―thus, when a minister of Christ (a priest or bishop) offers a daily Mass, they, so to speak, “plug into” that eternal Sacrifice for a moment. Much like electricity―it is there all the time, but we only “plug into” it on a few occasions throughout the day. It is the one and same electricity for everybody and it is perpetually there―we have a share of it whenever we use it, but we don’t use it perpetually ourselves. Yet that electricity needs us to “plug into” it so that its power can be felt all throughout the world. We do not (as individuals) create that electricity, we simply use it and apply it. It is there where our mission as “little redeemers” or “appliers of Christ’s redemption” comes into play. Just like the electricity―it is Christ’s redemption, Christ’s sacrifice, Christ’s passion and death, Christ’s graces―yet He has placed them into our hands, He has placed them at our disposal―to either use or refuse; to share with others or refuse to share; to use with profit or be profitless.
In the months prior to Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima, the Angel of Portugal had essentially told the children the very same thing. On one occasion when he appeared to them he found the children playing (a pretty normal thing for children, don’t you think?). Well, the angel scolded and rebuked them, saying: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers unceasingly and sacrifice yourselves to the Most High. Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
Little Redeemers for Christ
The response of those three little children―Lucia aged 10, Francisco aged 9 and Jacinta aged 7―was phenomenal. If three little children could work for the redemption of sinners, then what excuse have you got for not doing the same thing? Sister Lucia, later recalls in her memoirs: “Jacinta took this matter of making sacrifices for the conversion of sinners so much to heart, that she never let a single opportunity escape her … One day we met some children who used to go round begging from door to door. Jacinta said to us: ‘Let’s give our lunch to those poor children, for the conversion of sinners!’ And she ran to take it to them … These were not the only times we fasted. We had agreed that whenever we met any poor children like these, we would give them our lunch. They were only too happy to receive such an alms, and they took good care to meet us; they used to wait for us along the road. We no sooner saw them than Jacinta ran to give them all the food we had for that day, as happy as if she had no need of it herself.
“Jacinta’s thirst for making sacrifices seemed insatiable. One day a neighbor offered my mother a good pasture for our sheep. Though it was quite far away and we were at the height of summer, my mother accepted the offer made so generously, and sent me there. She told me that we should take our siesta in the shade of the trees, as there was a pond nearby where the flock could go and drink.
On the way, we met our dear poor children, and Jacinta ran to give them our usual alms. It was a lovely day, but the sun was blazing, and in that arid, stony wasteland, it seemed as though it would burn everything up. We were parched with thirst, and there wasn’t a single drop of water for us to drink!
At first, we offered the sacrifice generously for the conversion of sinners, but after midday, we could hold out no longer. As there was a house quite near, I suggested to my companions that I should go and ask for a little water. They agreed to this, so I went and knocked on the door. A little old woman gave me not only a pitcher of water, but also some bread, which I accepted gratefully. I ran to share it with my little companions, and then offered the pitcher to Francisco, and told him to take a drink.
“I don’t want to.” he replied.
“Why?”
“I want to suffer for the conversion of sinners.”
“You have a drink, Jacinta!”
“But I want to offer this sacrifice for sinners too.”
When, some time later, we were put in prison, what made Jacinta suffer most, was to feel that their parents had abandoned them. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she would say: “Neither your parents nor mine have come to see us. They don’t bother about us anymore!”
“Don’t cry,” said Francisco, “we can offer this to Jesus for sinners.”
Then, raising his eyes and hands to Heaven, he made the offering: “O my Jesus, this is for love of You, and for the conversion of sinners.”
Jacinta added: “And also for the Holy Father, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
After being separated for a while, we were reunited in one of the other rooms of the prison. When they told us they were coming soon to take us away to be fried alive, Jacinta went aside and stood by a window overlooking the cattle market. I thought at first that she was trying to distract her thoughts with the view, but I soon realized that she was crying.
I went over and drew her close to me, asking her why she was crying: “Because we are going to die,” she replied, “without ever seeing our parents again, not even our mothers!”
With tears running down her cheeks, she added: “I would like at least to see my mother.”
“Don’t you want, then, to offer this sacrifice for the conversion of sinners?”
“I do want to, I do!”
With her face bathed in tears, she joined her hands, raised her eyes to Heaven and made her offering: “O my Jesus! This is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, for the Holy Father, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary!”
The prisoners who were present at this scene, sought to console us: “But all you have to do,” they said, “is to tell the Administrator the secret! What does it matter whether the Lady wants you to or not!”
“Never!” was Jacinta’s vigorous reply, “I’d rather die!”
As the Blessed Virgin had told us to offer our prayers and sacrifices also in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we agreed that each of us would choose one of these intentions. One would offer for sinners, another for the Holy Father and yet another in reparation for the sins against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Having decided on this, I told Jacinta to choose whichever intention she preferred.
“I’m making the offering for all the intentions, because I love them all.”
We were playing one day at the well I have already mentioned. Close to it, there was a grape vine belonging to Jacinta’s mother. She cut a few clusters and brought them to us to eat. But Jacinta never forgot her sinners.
“We won’t eat them,” she said, “we’ll offer this sacrifice for sinners.”
Then she ran out with the grapes and gave them to the other children playing on the road. She returned radiant with joy, for she had found our poor children, and given them the grapes.
Another time, my aunt called us to come and eat some figs which she had brought home, and indeed they would have given anybody an appetite. Jacinta sat down happily next to the basket, with the rest of us, and picked up the first fig. She was just about to eat it, when she suddenly remembered, and said: “It’s true! Today we haven’t yet made a single sacrifice for sinners! We’ll have to make this one.”
She put the fig back in the basket, and made the offering; and we, too, left our figs in the basket for the conversion of sinners. Jacinta made such sacrifices over and over again, but I won’t stop to tell any more, or I shall never end.
Some days later, as we were walking along the road with our sheep, I found a piece of rope that had fallen off a cart. I picked it up and, just for fun, I tied it round my arm. Before long, I noticed that the rope was hurting me. “Look, this hurts!” I said to my cousins. “We could tie it round our waists and offer this sacrifice to God.”
The poor children promptly fell in with my suggestion. We then set about dividing it between the three of us, by placing it across a stone and striking it with the sharp edge of another one that served as a knife. Either because of the thickness or roughness of the rope, or because we sometimes tied it too tightly, this instrument of penance often caused us terrible suffering. Now and then, Jacinta could not keep back her tears, so great was the discomfort this caused her. Whenever I urged her to remove it, she replied: “No! I want to offer this sacrifice to Our Lord in reparation, and for the conversion of sinners.”
Another day we were playing, picking little plants off the walls and pressing them in our hands to hear them crack. While Jacinta was plucking these plants, she happened to catch hold of some nettles and stung herself. She no sooner felt the pain than she squeezed them more tightly in her hands, and said to us: “Look! Look! Here is something else with which we can mortify ourselves!”
From that time on, we used to hit our legs occasionally with nettles, so as to offer to God yet another sacrifice.
This was how Jacinta spent her days, until Our Lord sent the influenza that confined her to bed, and her brother Francisco as well (Jacinta fell ill in October, 1918, and Francisco soon after). The evening before she fell sick, she said: “I’ve a terrible headache and I’m so thirsty! But I won’t take a drink, because I want to suffer for sinners.”
Whenever I visited her room first, she used to say: “Now go and see Francisco. I’ll make the sacrifice of staying here alone.”
On another occasion, her mother brought her a cup of milk and told her to take it.
“I don’t want it, mother,” she answered, pushing the cup away with her little hand.
My aunt insisted a little, and then left the room, saying: “I don’t know how to make her take anything; she has no appetite.”
As soon as we were alone, I asked her: “How can you disobey your mother like that, and not offer this sacrifice to Our Lord?”
When she heard this, she shed a few tears which I had the happiness of drying, and said: “I forgot this time.”
She called her mother, asked her forgiveness, and said she’d take whatever she wanted. Her mother brought back the cup of milk, and Jacinta drank it down without the slightest sign of repugnance.
Later, she told me: “If you only knew how hard it was to drink that!”
Another time, she said to me: “It’s becoming harder and harder for me to take milk and broth, but I don’t say anything. I drink it all for love of Our Lord and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our dear heavenly Mother.”
Again, I asked her: “Are you better?”
“You know I’m not getting better,” she replied, and added: “I’ve such pains in my chest! But I don’t say anything. I’m suffering for the conversion of sinners.”
One day when I arrived, she asked: “Did you make many sacrifices today? I’ve made a lot. My mother went out, and I wanted to go and visit Francisco many times, and I didn't go.”
Redemption of Prisoners and Captives
You could say that the month of August is the “Month of Prisoners”! How so? Well, it was in the month of August that Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta were arrested and taken to prison―just before Our Lady of Fatima’s scheduled appearance on the 13th of the month, on the very first day of this month. Thus the month of August saw them as prisoners! It was also during the night of August 1st, 1218, that Our Lady appeared separately to three men―a layman, a priest and a king. Those men were St. Peter Nolasco, his confessor St. Raymond of Penafort and King James I of Aragon―urging them to establish a new Religious Order for the purpose of redeeming captive Christians from the tyranny of the barbarous Saracens or Moors―who at the time held a great part of Spain―and to offer themselves, if necessary, as a ransom pledge. Neither man knew that the others were receiving the vision of Our Lady. The next day, August 2nd, Peter Nolasco went to tell his spiritual director, Fr. Raymond of Penafort, about the vision that he had experienced―but to his great surprise, he found the priest was already acquainted with the fact, because Our Lady had also revealed her wish to him also. In later approaching the King, seeking permission to found this Religious Order, they found out that Our Lady had revealed to the King that this project had the blessing of her Divine Son at the very same time that she had revealed the project to Peter Nolasco and Fr. Raymond.
Thus, on August 10th, 1218, King James established the royal, military and religious Order of our Lady of Ransom. It was first known as the Order of St. Eulalia. Later it was called the Royal, Military, and Religious Order of Our Lady of Mercy for the Redemption of Captives, now known as the Mercedarian Order, or the “Mercedarians”, bearing the name of Our Lady’s merciful desire—the word “merced” being the Spanish word for “mercy”. Most of the members were knights. The clerics were charged with the celebration of Mass and the Divine Office in the commandaries; while the knights guarded the coasts, and undertook the perilous enterprise of ransoming Christian captives. Thus, these holy men set about their heroic work, and while rescuing the bodies of Christians from the slavery of the Moors, they did their utmost to free their souls from the slavery of the devil.
Differing from the Order of the Most Holy Trinity (Trinitarians)―which had been already 20 years in existence―the Order of Mercy (Mercedarians) was founded as it were in the very face of the Moors; and hence it originally numbered more knights than clerics among its members. The members were granted the privilege of wearing the King’s own arms on their breast.
In addition to the usual vows of religion, they by a fourth vow bound themselves to remain, if necessary, in captivity till ransom could be procured for the liberation of the slaves. Pope Honorius III, by word of mouth, approved of this Brotherhood, and Pope Gregory IX, in 1235, solemnly confirmed and established it as a Religious Order. He gave its members the Rule of St. Augustine to guide them to perfection, and a white habit to remind them of the purity to which they were to aspire under the patronage of the most pure Virgin.
By the grace of God and under the protection of His Virgin Mother, the Order spread rapidly. This pious work spread everywhere and produced heroes of charity who collected alms for the ransom of Christians, and often gave themselves up in exchange for Christian prisoners. Its growth was increased as the charity and piety of its members was observed; they very often followed Our Lady’s directive to give themselves up to voluntary slavery when necessary, to aid the good work. It was to return thanks to God and the Blessed Virgin that a feast day was instituted and observed on September 24th, first in the Order, then everywhere in Spain and France. It was finally extended to the entire Church by Pope Innocent XII. Pope Leo XIII encouraged the devotion by making this feast proper to all the dioceses of England, with a focus on how Our Lady ransoms us from the slavery of our sins, and brings us the grace of conversion.
Even though in the Middle-Ages the members of this religious Order took a special vow to act as hostages, if necessary, to free Christian captives whose Faith was in danger from the Moors, the situation has changed over the centuries. This was “hostage replacement” was important at the time of the Crusades, but has since been adapted to changing historical circumstances.
Today, the main thrust of the Mercedarians’ apostolate is Reconciliation of souls with God. The Order exists today in 17 countries, including Spain, Italy, Brazil, India, and the United States. In the U.S. it has houses in New York, Florida, Philadelphia and Ohio. Today, friars of the Order of Mercy continue to rescue others from modern types of captivity, such as social, political, and psychological forms. They work in jails, marginal neighborhoods, among addicts, and in hospitals. In the United States, the Order of Mercy gives special emphasis to educational and parish work.
We may well be headed for a repeat of the dire circumstances of the Middle-Ages. The world political situation—especially in the Middle-East—is already showing similar barbaric trends as those of the Middle-Ages with its anti-Christian invasions, slavery and abuse. Would you risk your life to free someone from a concentration camp? Would you take the place of a prisoner? Would you sacrifice comforts and even necessities to save a slave? Would you pray and do penance for the freedom of Christian captives?
Prayer, Penance & Sacrifice is the Ransom for Today
Never has the world been as evil as it is today! That is what Our Lady herself said to Blessed Elena Aiello in 1956: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
At Akita, Our Lady said more or less the same thing, and added a potential solution―the ransom of prayer, penance and sacrifices: “In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind. With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father ... Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
Learning from the Religious Order of Our Lady of Ransom
Between the eighth and the fifteenth centuries, medieval Europe was in a state of intermittent warfare between the Christian kingdoms of southern Europe and the Muslim states of North Africa, Southern France, Sicily and Moorish portions of Spain. For over 600 years, these constant armed confrontations produced numerous war prisoners on both sides. Islam’s captives were reduced to the state of slaves, since they were considered war booty. In the lands of Visigothic Spain, both Christian and Muslim societies had become accustomed to the buying and selling of captives, so much so that 10th-century merchants formed caravans to purchase slaves in Eastern Europe. In the thirteenth century, in addition to spices, slaves constituted one of the goods of the flourishing trade between Christian and Muslim ports.
Our Lady herself requested the creation of the Religious Order of Our Lady of Ransom to liberate Christians who had been kidnapped by the Muslims and Moors, transported to African prisons, and cruelly tortured to deny their Faith in Christ―especially those captured Christians who were poor and had no personal means of being able to pay the ransom demanded by the Muslims and Moors in order to set them free. Members of this new Order of Mercedarians (later called the Order of Our Lady of Ransom) were to do this by means of prayer, raising money to pay for ransom, and taking a vow to offer themselves, if needed, in exchange for the enslaved Christians. Under Mary’s special protection, the order grew rapidly and those ransomed are numbered in the tens of thousands.
The words “ransom” and “redeem” are almost interchangeable. The word “ransom” is defined as: “The release of a captive, or of captured property, by making a payment; the money or price paid for the redemption of a prisoner, or for goods captured by an enemy; payment for freedom from restraint, or from a penalty, or a forfeit; a sum paid for the pardon of some great offense and the discharge of the offender; also, a fine paid in place of corporal punishment.”
Whereas the word “redeem” is defined as: “To purchase back; to regain possession of by payment of a stipulated price; to regain something by performing the obligation or condition stated; to ransom, liberate, or rescue from captivity or bondage, or from any obligation or liability to suffer or to be forfeited, by paying a price or ransom; to ransom; to rescue; to recover; as, to redeem a captive, a pledge, and the like; to rescue and deliver from the bondage of sin and the penalties of God's violated law; to pay the penalty of; to make amends for; to atone for.”
Christ the Redeemer and Ransomer!
By committing sin, we forfeit the merciful opportunity God offers to everyone of attaining eternal life in Heaven. Adam and Eve had no birthright to Heaven, nor did they have a right to immorality by living forever―those were generous opportunities that God gave them, provided that they obeyed God and did not sin. Through their Original Sin they lost both the possibility of attaining Heaven and not having to die. “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23). “Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death!” (James 1:15). We, likewise have sinned, and are in need of redemption: “All have sinned, and do need the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) … “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).
We are incapable of paying the price or “fine” for sin―for any and all sin against the infinite God ends up being an infinite offence, and we are mere finite creatures who cannot pay infinite debt. Hence we need someone who is able to pay an infinite debt―and such a person has to be infinite in order to do so. Christ is that person―for by being God He is infinite and can pay an infinite debt; and by also being man, He can pay our human debt for sin. “The Son of man is come to give His life as a redemption for many” (Matthew 20:28) ... “For you are bought with a great price!” (1 Corinthians 6:20) … “Know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, but with the Precious Blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19) … “Who gave Himself a redemption for all” (1 Timothy 2:6) … “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness … In Whom we have redemption through His Blood―the remission of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14) … “Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity” (Titus 2:14) … “In Whom we have redemption through His Blood―the remission of sins” (Ephesians 1:7) ... “Jesus Christ has washed us from our sins in His own Blood” (Apocalypse 1:5) … “Who, His own self, bore our sins in His Body, upon the tree” (1 Peter 2:24) … “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, by being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13) … “Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God, in Thy Blood” (Apocalypse 5:9) … “He is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2) … “You are bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 7:23) … “We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son” (Romans 5:10).
We are meant to be Mini-Redeemers and Mini-Ransomers!
We are called to be “redeemers” in our own little way―Holy Scripture makes that abundantly clear: “For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16) … “God hath first loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. If God hath so loved us, then we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10-11) … “If any man says, ‘I love God!” and hates his brother; then he is a liar. For he that loves not his brother, whom he sees, how can he love God, Whom he sees not? … He that says that he is in the light and hates his brother, then he is in darkness even until now! He that loves his brother, abides in the light and there is no scandal in him. But he that hates his brother, is in darkness and walks in darkness, and knows not where he goes―because the darkness has blinded his eyes” (1 John 4:10-11; 2:9-11) … “In this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid down his life for us―and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that has the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him―how does the charity of God abide in him? Let us not love only in word, nor in tongue, but in deeds, and in truth” (1 John 3:16-18).
If “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), then what on earth are we doing? If we have no interest in the salvation of others and do not work for their salvation―then we offending God “who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4) ― and it is WE, whether priests or laity, who have lead others to Him ― “being ready always to satisfy everyone that asks you for the reason of that hope which is in you!” (1 Peter 3:15). “Therefore, go teach ye all nations … teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you!” (Matthew 28:19-20). “For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him, in Whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe Him, of Whom they have not heard? … Faith then cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:13-17) … “What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath Faith, but hath not works? … Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well! But the devils also believe and tremble! Wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead?” (James 2:14-20).
Our Lady says to the Venerable Mary of Agreda: “Without any excuse is the forgetfulness and negligence shown by each and every one of the children of the Church in regard to the spread and manifestation of the glory of their God by making Him known to all rational creatures. With this end in view the Lord founded His Church, enriched it with blessings and spiritual treasures, and assigned to it ministers. All these gifts are intended not only to preserve the Church in its present state, but to extend it and draw others to the Catholic Faith. All should help to spread the fruits of the Death of their Redeemer. Some can do it by prayer and urgent desires for the exaltation of His Holy Name; others by almsgiving, others by diligent preaching, others by fervent works of charity. Many of them, forgetting the terrible account which they will have to render, seek only their own vain honor instead of Christ’s. They waste the Blood of the Redeemer in undertakings and aims not even fit to mention; and through their fault allow innumerable souls to perish, who by proper exertions could have been gained for the Holy Church!”
Our Lady of Fatima echoes the above words when she says to the three young children―Lucia, Francisco and Jancinta: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
In other words, many souls are chained to the devil through sin an remain in that state, because there is nobody who is willing to the pay the “ransom” that would “redeem” them. Yes―Christ died once for all men: “Knowing that Christ, rising again from the dead, dieth now no more―death shall no more have dominion over Him. For in that He died to sin, He died once” (Romans 6:9-10) … “Christ also died once for our sins―the just for the unjust―that he might offer us to God” (1 Peter 3:18)―however, that one single death is both renewed or “stretched-out” so to speak on our altars in each Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout all ages and all places―and the graces earned by that one death have to be administered, applied and activated in the lives of every single person.
Or, to put in other modern terms―the Sacrifice of Christ, even though it took place “in time” (around 2,000 years ago), is also an eternal Sacrifice that never ends―thus, when a minister of Christ (a priest or bishop) offers a daily Mass, they, so to speak, “plug into” that eternal Sacrifice for a moment. Much like electricity―it is there all the time, but we only “plug into” it on a few occasions throughout the day. It is the one and same electricity for everybody and it is perpetually there―we have a share of it whenever we use it, but we don’t use it perpetually ourselves. Yet that electricity needs us to “plug into” it so that its power can be felt all throughout the world. We do not (as individuals) create that electricity, we simply use it and apply it. It is there where our mission as “little redeemers” or “appliers of Christ’s redemption” comes into play. Just like the electricity―it is Christ’s redemption, Christ’s sacrifice, Christ’s passion and death, Christ’s graces―yet He has placed them into our hands, He has placed them at our disposal―to either use or refuse; to share with others or refuse to share; to use with profit or be profitless.
In the months prior to Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima, the Angel of Portugal had essentially told the children the very same thing. On one occasion when he appeared to them he found the children playing (a pretty normal thing for children, don’t you think?). Well, the angel scolded and rebuked them, saying: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers unceasingly and sacrifice yourselves to the Most High. Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
Little Redeemers for Christ
The response of those three little children―Lucia aged 10, Francisco aged 9 and Jacinta aged 7―was phenomenal. If three little children could work for the redemption of sinners, then what excuse have you got for not doing the same thing? Sister Lucia, later recalls in her memoirs: “Jacinta took this matter of making sacrifices for the conversion of sinners so much to heart, that she never let a single opportunity escape her … One day we met some children who used to go round begging from door to door. Jacinta said to us: ‘Let’s give our lunch to those poor children, for the conversion of sinners!’ And she ran to take it to them … These were not the only times we fasted. We had agreed that whenever we met any poor children like these, we would give them our lunch. They were only too happy to receive such an alms, and they took good care to meet us; they used to wait for us along the road. We no sooner saw them than Jacinta ran to give them all the food we had for that day, as happy as if she had no need of it herself.
“Jacinta’s thirst for making sacrifices seemed insatiable. One day a neighbor offered my mother a good pasture for our sheep. Though it was quite far away and we were at the height of summer, my mother accepted the offer made so generously, and sent me there. She told me that we should take our siesta in the shade of the trees, as there was a pond nearby where the flock could go and drink.
On the way, we met our dear poor children, and Jacinta ran to give them our usual alms. It was a lovely day, but the sun was blazing, and in that arid, stony wasteland, it seemed as though it would burn everything up. We were parched with thirst, and there wasn’t a single drop of water for us to drink!
At first, we offered the sacrifice generously for the conversion of sinners, but after midday, we could hold out no longer. As there was a house quite near, I suggested to my companions that I should go and ask for a little water. They agreed to this, so I went and knocked on the door. A little old woman gave me not only a pitcher of water, but also some bread, which I accepted gratefully. I ran to share it with my little companions, and then offered the pitcher to Francisco, and told him to take a drink.
“I don’t want to.” he replied.
“Why?”
“I want to suffer for the conversion of sinners.”
“You have a drink, Jacinta!”
“But I want to offer this sacrifice for sinners too.”
When, some time later, we were put in prison, what made Jacinta suffer most, was to feel that their parents had abandoned them. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she would say: “Neither your parents nor mine have come to see us. They don’t bother about us anymore!”
“Don’t cry,” said Francisco, “we can offer this to Jesus for sinners.”
Then, raising his eyes and hands to Heaven, he made the offering: “O my Jesus, this is for love of You, and for the conversion of sinners.”
Jacinta added: “And also for the Holy Father, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
After being separated for a while, we were reunited in one of the other rooms of the prison. When they told us they were coming soon to take us away to be fried alive, Jacinta went aside and stood by a window overlooking the cattle market. I thought at first that she was trying to distract her thoughts with the view, but I soon realized that she was crying.
I went over and drew her close to me, asking her why she was crying: “Because we are going to die,” she replied, “without ever seeing our parents again, not even our mothers!”
With tears running down her cheeks, she added: “I would like at least to see my mother.”
“Don’t you want, then, to offer this sacrifice for the conversion of sinners?”
“I do want to, I do!”
With her face bathed in tears, she joined her hands, raised her eyes to Heaven and made her offering: “O my Jesus! This is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, for the Holy Father, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary!”
The prisoners who were present at this scene, sought to console us: “But all you have to do,” they said, “is to tell the Administrator the secret! What does it matter whether the Lady wants you to or not!”
“Never!” was Jacinta’s vigorous reply, “I’d rather die!”
As the Blessed Virgin had told us to offer our prayers and sacrifices also in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we agreed that each of us would choose one of these intentions. One would offer for sinners, another for the Holy Father and yet another in reparation for the sins against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Having decided on this, I told Jacinta to choose whichever intention she preferred.
“I’m making the offering for all the intentions, because I love them all.”
We were playing one day at the well I have already mentioned. Close to it, there was a grape vine belonging to Jacinta’s mother. She cut a few clusters and brought them to us to eat. But Jacinta never forgot her sinners.
“We won’t eat them,” she said, “we’ll offer this sacrifice for sinners.”
Then she ran out with the grapes and gave them to the other children playing on the road. She returned radiant with joy, for she had found our poor children, and given them the grapes.
Another time, my aunt called us to come and eat some figs which she had brought home, and indeed they would have given anybody an appetite. Jacinta sat down happily next to the basket, with the rest of us, and picked up the first fig. She was just about to eat it, when she suddenly remembered, and said: “It’s true! Today we haven’t yet made a single sacrifice for sinners! We’ll have to make this one.”
She put the fig back in the basket, and made the offering; and we, too, left our figs in the basket for the conversion of sinners. Jacinta made such sacrifices over and over again, but I won’t stop to tell any more, or I shall never end.
Some days later, as we were walking along the road with our sheep, I found a piece of rope that had fallen off a cart. I picked it up and, just for fun, I tied it round my arm. Before long, I noticed that the rope was hurting me. “Look, this hurts!” I said to my cousins. “We could tie it round our waists and offer this sacrifice to God.”
The poor children promptly fell in with my suggestion. We then set about dividing it between the three of us, by placing it across a stone and striking it with the sharp edge of another one that served as a knife. Either because of the thickness or roughness of the rope, or because we sometimes tied it too tightly, this instrument of penance often caused us terrible suffering. Now and then, Jacinta could not keep back her tears, so great was the discomfort this caused her. Whenever I urged her to remove it, she replied: “No! I want to offer this sacrifice to Our Lord in reparation, and for the conversion of sinners.”
Another day we were playing, picking little plants off the walls and pressing them in our hands to hear them crack. While Jacinta was plucking these plants, she happened to catch hold of some nettles and stung herself. She no sooner felt the pain than she squeezed them more tightly in her hands, and said to us: “Look! Look! Here is something else with which we can mortify ourselves!”
From that time on, we used to hit our legs occasionally with nettles, so as to offer to God yet another sacrifice.
This was how Jacinta spent her days, until Our Lord sent the influenza that confined her to bed, and her brother Francisco as well (Jacinta fell ill in October, 1918, and Francisco soon after). The evening before she fell sick, she said: “I’ve a terrible headache and I’m so thirsty! But I won’t take a drink, because I want to suffer for sinners.”
Whenever I visited her room first, she used to say: “Now go and see Francisco. I’ll make the sacrifice of staying here alone.”
On another occasion, her mother brought her a cup of milk and told her to take it.
“I don’t want it, mother,” she answered, pushing the cup away with her little hand.
My aunt insisted a little, and then left the room, saying: “I don’t know how to make her take anything; she has no appetite.”
As soon as we were alone, I asked her: “How can you disobey your mother like that, and not offer this sacrifice to Our Lord?”
When she heard this, she shed a few tears which I had the happiness of drying, and said: “I forgot this time.”
She called her mother, asked her forgiveness, and said she’d take whatever she wanted. Her mother brought back the cup of milk, and Jacinta drank it down without the slightest sign of repugnance.
Later, she told me: “If you only knew how hard it was to drink that!”
Another time, she said to me: “It’s becoming harder and harder for me to take milk and broth, but I don’t say anything. I drink it all for love of Our Lord and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our dear heavenly Mother.”
Again, I asked her: “Are you better?”
“You know I’m not getting better,” she replied, and added: “I’ve such pains in my chest! But I don’t say anything. I’m suffering for the conversion of sinners.”
One day when I arrived, she asked: “Did you make many sacrifices today? I’ve made a lot. My mother went out, and I wanted to go and visit Francisco many times, and I didn't go.”
Redemption of Prisoners and Captives
You could say that the month of August is the “Month of Prisoners”! How so? Well, it was in the month of August that Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta were arrested and taken to prison―just before Our Lady of Fatima’s scheduled appearance on the 13th of the month, on the very first day of this month. Thus the month of August saw them as prisoners! It was also during the night of August 1st, 1218, that Our Lady appeared separately to three men―a layman, a priest and a king. Those men were St. Peter Nolasco, his confessor St. Raymond of Penafort and King James I of Aragon―urging them to establish a new Religious Order for the purpose of redeeming captive Christians from the tyranny of the barbarous Saracens or Moors―who at the time held a great part of Spain―and to offer themselves, if necessary, as a ransom pledge. Neither man knew that the others were receiving the vision of Our Lady. The next day, August 2nd, Peter Nolasco went to tell his spiritual director, Fr. Raymond of Penafort, about the vision that he had experienced―but to his great surprise, he found the priest was already acquainted with the fact, because Our Lady had also revealed her wish to him also. In later approaching the King, seeking permission to found this Religious Order, they found out that Our Lady had revealed to the King that this project had the blessing of her Divine Son at the very same time that she had revealed the project to Peter Nolasco and Fr. Raymond.
Thus, on August 10th, 1218, King James established the royal, military and religious Order of our Lady of Ransom. It was first known as the Order of St. Eulalia. Later it was called the Royal, Military, and Religious Order of Our Lady of Mercy for the Redemption of Captives, now known as the Mercedarian Order, or the “Mercedarians”, bearing the name of Our Lady’s merciful desire—the word “merced” being the Spanish word for “mercy”. Most of the members were knights. The clerics were charged with the celebration of Mass and the Divine Office in the commandaries; while the knights guarded the coasts, and undertook the perilous enterprise of ransoming Christian captives. Thus, these holy men set about their heroic work, and while rescuing the bodies of Christians from the slavery of the Moors, they did their utmost to free their souls from the slavery of the devil.
Differing from the Order of the Most Holy Trinity (Trinitarians)―which had been already 20 years in existence―the Order of Mercy (Mercedarians) was founded as it were in the very face of the Moors; and hence it originally numbered more knights than clerics among its members. The members were granted the privilege of wearing the King’s own arms on their breast.
In addition to the usual vows of religion, they by a fourth vow bound themselves to remain, if necessary, in captivity till ransom could be procured for the liberation of the slaves. Pope Honorius III, by word of mouth, approved of this Brotherhood, and Pope Gregory IX, in 1235, solemnly confirmed and established it as a Religious Order. He gave its members the Rule of St. Augustine to guide them to perfection, and a white habit to remind them of the purity to which they were to aspire under the patronage of the most pure Virgin.
By the grace of God and under the protection of His Virgin Mother, the Order spread rapidly. This pious work spread everywhere and produced heroes of charity who collected alms for the ransom of Christians, and often gave themselves up in exchange for Christian prisoners. Its growth was increased as the charity and piety of its members was observed; they very often followed Our Lady’s directive to give themselves up to voluntary slavery when necessary, to aid the good work. It was to return thanks to God and the Blessed Virgin that a feast day was instituted and observed on September 24th, first in the Order, then everywhere in Spain and France. It was finally extended to the entire Church by Pope Innocent XII. Pope Leo XIII encouraged the devotion by making this feast proper to all the dioceses of England, with a focus on how Our Lady ransoms us from the slavery of our sins, and brings us the grace of conversion.
Even though in the Middle-Ages the members of this religious Order took a special vow to act as hostages, if necessary, to free Christian captives whose Faith was in danger from the Moors, the situation has changed over the centuries. This was “hostage replacement” was important at the time of the Crusades, but has since been adapted to changing historical circumstances.
Today, the main thrust of the Mercedarians’ apostolate is Reconciliation of souls with God. The Order exists today in 17 countries, including Spain, Italy, Brazil, India, and the United States. In the U.S. it has houses in New York, Florida, Philadelphia and Ohio. Today, friars of the Order of Mercy continue to rescue others from modern types of captivity, such as social, political, and psychological forms. They work in jails, marginal neighborhoods, among addicts, and in hospitals. In the United States, the Order of Mercy gives special emphasis to educational and parish work.
We may well be headed for a repeat of the dire circumstances of the Middle-Ages. The world political situation—especially in the Middle-East—is already showing similar barbaric trends as those of the Middle-Ages with its anti-Christian invasions, slavery and abuse. Would you risk your life to free someone from a concentration camp? Would you take the place of a prisoner? Would you sacrifice comforts and even necessities to save a slave? Would you pray and do penance for the freedom of Christian captives?
Prayer, Penance & Sacrifice is the Ransom for Today
Never has the world been as evil as it is today! That is what Our Lady herself said to Blessed Elena Aiello in 1956: “People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! These are grave times! The world is in total turmoil―because it is in a worse condition than at the time of the deluge! All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth!”
At Akita, Our Lady said more or less the same thing, and added a potential solution―the ransom of prayer, penance and sacrifices: “In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind. With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father ... Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls … beloved souls who console Him by forming a cohort of victim souls ... who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this … Pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men … Pray very much! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Pray with fervor! … As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
Learning from the Religious Order of Our Lady of Ransom
Between the eighth and the fifteenth centuries, medieval Europe was in a state of intermittent warfare between the Christian kingdoms of southern Europe and the Muslim states of North Africa, Southern France, Sicily and Moorish portions of Spain. For over 600 years, these constant armed confrontations produced numerous war prisoners on both sides. Islam’s captives were reduced to the state of slaves, since they were considered war booty. In the lands of Visigothic Spain, both Christian and Muslim societies had become accustomed to the buying and selling of captives, so much so that 10th-century merchants formed caravans to purchase slaves in Eastern Europe. In the thirteenth century, in addition to spices, slaves constituted one of the goods of the flourishing trade between Christian and Muslim ports.
Our Lady herself requested the creation of the Religious Order of Our Lady of Ransom to liberate Christians who had been kidnapped by the Muslims and Moors, transported to African prisons, and cruelly tortured to deny their Faith in Christ―especially those captured Christians who were poor and had no personal means of being able to pay the ransom demanded by the Muslims and Moors in order to set them free. Members of this new Order of Mercedarians (later called the Order of Our Lady of Ransom) were to do this by means of prayer, raising money to pay for ransom, and taking a vow to offer themselves, if needed, in exchange for the enslaved Christians. Under Mary’s special protection, the order grew rapidly and those ransomed are numbered in the tens of thousands.
Article 3
Saturday August 6th to Tuesday August 9th, 2022
Enough of this Monkey Business!
This article us currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
Saturday August 6th to Tuesday August 9th, 2022
Enough of this Monkey Business!
This article us currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
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Elephants and Monkeys!
We have all heard the expression: “the elephant in the room.” It is an in English metaphorical idiom that refers to an obviously important or enormous topic, question, or controversial issue ― that everyone knows about, but no one mentions or wants to discuss it and so it is deliberately ignored, because it makes at least some of them uncomfortable and is personally, socially, or politically embarrassing, controversial, inflammatory, or dangerous. The more the world around us becomes Totalitarian and Communist, the more dangerous becomes the risk of pointing out “the elephant in the room” of politics, medicine, law and culture. To speak of “the elephant in the room” has almost become a hate crime―whereby it is now a “sin” to speak out against sin! Where truth is labeled as a lie, or misinformation, disinformation or a conspiracy theory―whereas lies are peddled as the truth, and conspiracies are peddled as “humanitarian acts” for the benefit of the common good; and crime is peddled as a “virtue”, but true virtue is now a crime. Thus we now have the murder of abortion being called healthcare; the murder of euthanasia being called compassionate care, etc. “The hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he does a service to God!” (John 16:2). “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil―that put darkness for light, and light for darkness―that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaias 5:20). Monkeying Around with People’s Lives One of major “elephants in the room” is the worldwide push for universal vaccination. Everyone must be vaccinated against the bogeyman Covid virus! You are a public enemy if you refuse to accept vaccination―a threat to society; a health terrorist; a granny-killer; a heartless fiend! You deserve to be locked-up, isolated, sacked, and have all privileges removed! Why? Because you refuse to accept a untried, undocumented, unproven vaccine for a disease that has a 99% recover rate!!! Insanity! In that case we should all be vaccinated against colds, runny noses, coughs, etc. Go stick your vaccine in yourself, you hypocrite (or hyperdermocrite)!! They are monkeying around with the lives of innocent men, women, children and babies! Yet we “zip-a-lip”, “shut-up-and-put-up”, close our eyes, plug our ears and tape our mouths so that we can see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil about the obvious, blatant, enormous “elephant in the room”! Those who legislate for and allow the murdering of babies in the womb by abortion, those same people will have no problem “aborting” or murdering adults outside the womb with vaccination. The so-called “vaccines” are killing adults and also killing babies in the womb by provoking miscarriages. Those who have not been vaccinated have a much greater chance of survival and life than those who have given-in to the propagandized pressure for universal vaccination. Death rates are the lowest among the unvaccinated in all age groups. In every single month since the beginning of 2022, partly vaccinated and double vaccinated 18-39-year-olds have been more likely to die than unvaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds. Triple vaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds however have had a mortality rate that has worsened by the month from February 2022 onwards. In February, 2022, triple vaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds were 27% more likely to die than unvaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds, with a mortality rate of 26.7 per 100,000 among the triple vaccinated and 21 per 100,000 among the unvaccinated. Things have unfortunately got even worse for the triple vaccinated ― by May 2022 data shows that triple vaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds were 52% more likely to die than unvaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds in May. The worst figures so far though are among the partly vaccinated, with May seeing partly vaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds being 202% more likely to die than unvaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds. Vaccines are the Monkey on Our Backs The definition for “having a monkey on your (or one’s) back”, is: “to have a problem or burden that is hard to solve and which lasts for a long time; a vexing emotional problem that makes one’s life difficult; a longstanding worry or anxiety.” The most likely explanation for this idiom is that the monkey refers to the devil. Monkeys have often, throughout history, been associated with evil, the devil, heresy, and other irreligious concepts. This is possibly because monkeys appear to be some kind of distorted caricature of humans―and when we sin, we become subhuman in a sense, we sink below the dignity that God gave us by making us in His own image and likeness, and, by sin, we become more like the originator of sin―the devil. “He that commits sin is of the devil―for the devil sinned from the beginning” (1 John 3:8). Furthermore, the devil has often been depicted as riding on a person’s back and has often been painted as a distorted monkey creature. In Christian iconography, monkeys represent base instincts such as lust, greed and malice, and can even represent the devil. In Christian art, the figure of the ape has often been used to symbolize sin―especially malice, cunning, and lust. Devil on the Shoulder Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome says: “The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! … Everyone is vulnerable! … Who becomes possessed? No one can consider themselves excluded: they can be young or old, believers or atheists, Christians or those of other religions. Through the years there have been Muslims who have had serious cases of possession. Not even consecrated religious are ruled out! Today, families are among the most targeted by the ordinary action of Satan! … There is no doubt that today’s media have done much in favor of Satan, first by the immorality of certain shows, the abundance of movies showing violence, horror or sex. Apart from this, the media have put in the limelight and have given popularity to figures of wizards and magicians―and so they give publicity to their evil works ... We must begin by setting aside the figures derived from traditional depictions of the devil with horns, a tail, the wings of a bat, talons, and inflamed eyes. Being a pure spirit, evidently he cannot embody these characteristics. If these images can help us to fear his actions toward us — and we have good reason to — then we should welcome them; but, on the other hand, we risk making the devil appear like an ancient relic, a frill of times past, and the stuff of simpletons. There is a great danger in over-relying on these images, and they can be of service to the devil! … The first thing we must do is to realize that the devil exists! If you don’t believe in his existence, then you are doing him a favor! That’s exactly what he wants you to believe! … Remember, when we jeer at the Devil and tell ourselves that he does not exist, that is when he is happiest!” Fr. Amorth then explains how Satan can virtually become a “devil on the shoulder” of everyone in the world: “The devil deals in two things ― He has an ordinary activity and an extraordinary activity. His ordinary activity is to tempt man toward evil, to lead him to temptation, to sin, to push him to break divine law. His extraordinary activity—and it is very rare—is to give people malign disorders.” Fr. Amorth then explains four different ways in which Satan can act in his extraordinary way upon people: “There are various ways in which Satan can act upon you, ranging from actual bodily possession, to torments, illnesses and possession of your home. Demon-possessed people, that is, those whose body has ‘physically’ been invaded by satanic spirits, are very rare. But there are many people who are disturbed or oppressed by Satan … One can be subjected to the attacks of the demon in four cases. Either because it constitutes a blessing for the person and such is the case with many of the saints, or because of irreversible persistence in sin, or because one is the victim of a curse uttered in the name of the demon, or else when one gives oneself up to practices of occultism.” (1) The most severe is demonic possession: “Satan, or one of his minions, enters the body of the possessed, who appear to be living with a devil within ... I believe God sometimes singles out certain souls for a special test of spiritual endurance, but more often people lay themselves open to possession by dabbling with black magic ... There are times when one enters into the possession of the devil, or under his influence, and experiences certain disturbances without being possessed and it is the person’s fault for having practiced occultism … Some are entrapped by a satanic cult. Others are the victims of a curse ... We have several saints who were possessed by the devil for even long periods of time, or who were tormented greatly by the devil.” (2) The second classification of demonic evil is obsession, or torment. This is when evil forces disturb someone from the outside, rather than directly inhabiting the soul. Fr. Amorth explains: “Think of [the stigmatic saint] Padre Pio. He used to be beaten bloody by the devil. He would be thrown off his bed every time he fell asleep, but he wasn’t possessed. He was simply tormented. Or think of people who become fixated on an idea or concept, that creeps into their very soul, and leads them to madness or even suicide. That is a demonic torment … I have had cases involving people from all walks of life: simple people, housewives, but also professors, doctors and politicians, lay people as well as priests and nuns. It is important to specify that demonic possession and obsession involves the body. Satan can affect someone’s body, but never their soul. He can only become the master of someone’s soul if that person hands it over to him by his/her own free will. Thus anyone can end up in Satan’s grip. There have even been saints who have been seriously disturbed by Satan’s force … Whoever lives in indifference, in absent-mindedness, far from God, is open to an easy satanic conquest. Worse still are those who look for experiences beyond the limit and seek out the satanic world. In these cases, it is practically impossible to avoid ending up in the Devil’s clutches ... The most frequent way that a person is tormented by the devil is because of a curse. It is possible for a person to go to a magician, a witch or someone related to the devil and pay him to call a curse down upon a certain person. If the person is in the state of grace and prays, it is difficult for the curse to take effect. But if the person is less protected from the spiritual point of view, it is easier for the curse to affect him.” (3) The third type is a vaguer and less direct method of satanic attack, a curse that can harm one’s work, health, and love life. “The Devil has the power to cause physical and mental illnesses. There have been numerous cases in which I have met people who had spent a fortune, going from one specialist to another, in an attempt to relieve their suffering. Yet, their doctors, having carried out all sorts of tests, including the most sophisticated, were unable to find anything wrong. And yet these people continued to suffer and feel themselves slowly dying. Such disorders are thus mysterious, but real, causing these people to lose weight, reducing them to skin and bones and making them often bed-ridden. In such cases, it is possible that the Devil has a hand in it, and thus only prayer and exorcism can produce useful results. I have seen people at death’s door, suffering from illnesses unknown to modern medicine, who have recovered thanks to the help of exorcisms.” (4) The fourth type is the traditional kind of haunting (think ghosts), which can infest houses, objects, and even animals. “Infestations affect houses, things, or animals.” Devil in the Vatican, Vaccine & Government The modern media plays into the devil’s hands by caricaturizing him as a smiling, bearded, tailed, pitchfork carrying devil in a red suit. Satan is ugly, sin is ugly, Hell is ugly ― there is nothing cute, pleasant, likeable or attractive about any of those things. The exorcist, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, says: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … Satan continually tries to dominate the world ― the whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Satanism is on the increase. Today Satan rules the world … And, yes, Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry. Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! … Evil exists in politics―quite often in fact! … The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office! Concupiscence, success and power are the three great passions on which Satan relies. In the same way that Christ was tempted, with Satan promising: “I will give you the whole world if you prostrate yourself before me!” ― in the same way we are also tempted; and Heaven knows how many fall at Satan’s feet today! … His strategy is always along the same lines. I have told him this and he admits it. He makes people believe that Hell does not exist, that sin does not exist, and that he is nothing but one more experience to try out. “Jesus works through His Church, Satan through his empire of evil … The battle against the evil spirits was begun from the very origins of the world, and will continue until the last day―as the Lord has attested. During this time, every man is on battle alert―because life on Earth is a trial of faithfulness to God. Even if this battle against Satan concerns all men and all times, there is no doubt that Satan’s power is felt more keenly in periods of history when the sinfulness of the community is more evident. When I view that period in history of the decadence of the Roman Empire, I see that today we are at the same level of decadence and moral disintegration. This is partly as a result of the misuse of the mass media (which are not evil in themselves) and partly because of Western consumerism and materialism, which have poisoned our society. “Satanism is spreading enormously! The loss of a sense of sin―that characterizes our era―helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God, weakens the consciences of men and women and leads them toward egoism, closing their hearts, lack of forgiveness, and doing everything for money, power, and sex. When the Faith retreats, superstition makes progress. In biblical terms, I can say that people are abandoning God to give themselves up to occultism. The terrible retreat of the Faith throughout the whole of Catholic Europe makes people throw themselves into the arms of magicians and fortunetellers, and satanic sects prosper. Devil worship is the object of great publicity among the masses―through satanic rock and celebrities like Marilyn Manson. Children are also under attack: there are magazines and comic strips that teach magic and Satanism. “Today the world does not turn from God because it is idolatrous; rather, it pursues pure atheism, so as to put science on the altar. But science does not create; it only discovers that which God has made. In turning away from the Lord, its breakthroughs are put to disastrous use. Without the Lord, progress, too, is misused. We see it in laws that go totally against nature, such as divorce, abortion, ‘gay marriage’ … we have forgotten God! … Divorce has been a disaster; abortion has been a disaster … Each year 50 million children are murdered by abortion. And euthanasia, the broken family, cohabitation ... It is all destruction! … God is God of life, and Satan is the lord of death! … Therefore, God will soon admonish humanity in a very powerful manner, He knows how to remind us of His presence! “God has instituted marriage between a man and a woman. God created men and women complementary, but here you go against the most basic principles of reason ... Jesus said, ‘What God has joined together let no man put asunder!’… Yet many Catholics vote for divorce ... Then, even worse, many Catholics voted for abortion. Abortion is against the 5th commandment: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ I have seen many Catholics vote for abortion, and those who practice abortion are murderers who have a patron―King Herod, the author of the Massacre of the Innocents. Doctors should cure the disease and not kill! We live in a world so upset and crazy, that if today a referendum were held on euthanasia, then it would be passed. If a referendum were held on adoption of children by homosexual couples―it would pass. It is a shattered world, so here it is essential that a Christian who wants to live as a Christian, must be different from the others. Christians must stand up for their beliefs and not be shy ... As regards that animal? It is he who should be afraid of me! I act in the Name of the Lord of the world. But as for him, he is nothing but God’s monkey!” “If the people of the Church do not unite themselves with determination against Satan and fight tooth and nail ― then Satan is free to create havoc and destruction with impunity. Our Lady’s messages speak about Satan. She often spoke about this. She underlined that Satan is powerful and that he wants to destroy her plans.” Our Lady―Monkeys & Demons Fr. Amorth calls Satan “God’s monkey”. In Christian iconography, monkeys represent base instincts such as lust, greed and malice, and can even represent the devil. Monkey faces are so varied―there are over 200 species of monkeys―that it is hard to have a generic, one-face-fits-all, kind of monkey face. There is even a species of monkey called Devil Monkeys! Therefore, you are going to get all kinds of different representations of Satan as a monkey―which you could say is fair, because, as theology teaches us, no two angels are alike―in fact, each angel (in Heaven or Hell) is its own species! We might label them all as angels―but that is more for convenience sake, than for the sake of reality. In the engraving to the left of this paragraph, you will see the engraving The Virgin and Child with a Monkey by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). The monkey at the feet of the Blessed Virgin is a symbol of the devil. Being at feet of Our Lady shows Satan’s subjugation to Our Lady―much like the serpent that she crushes under her feet in other paintings and statues. If you take a closer look, you will see that the monkey (Satan) is chained―this reminds of the words of Our Lady of Good Success concerning Satan and her victory over him: “I, in an amazing manner, will overthrow proud Satan, crushing him under my feet, chaining him in the infernal abyss!” This is also echoed by the Fatima message, whereby Our Lady revealed to Sister Lucia that “the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat!” Adding that “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!” Be More Like Christ―Less Like a Monkey Since, in Christian iconography, the monkey represents not only the devil, but also sin―especially lust, greed and malice―the chaining of the monkey represents controlling and restraining, not only the devil, but also sin in general. The more we sin, the more animal-like we become―because animals have no true intelligence and therefore cannot know God; they live solely on their instincts, passions and natural tendencies. We should not be “animal-like” but “godlike”―since God made man in His own image and likeness. Christ is the pinnacle and perfect example of human godliness―since He is both man and God, having both natures in one person. A baby―even though it has an intellect in what you could call “seed-form” that needs to grow―nevertheless at first acts more like an animal than a mature intelligent human being. Virtues need to be taught and cultivated and matured―that is the function and purpose of the Christian life. The devil, on the other hand, is always seeking to lead us back to our animal instincts, passions and desires. To put it one way―God is trying to make a holy human being out of us; but the devil is trying to make sinful brute animal out of us. Today, mankind seems to going backwards―back to being more animalistic than human―as the graphic below indicates. Progress has stopped and we are becoming more and more animalistic. 
Three Wise Monkeys or Three Stupid Monkeys?
No doubt you will have seen, at some point in your life, of the “Three Monkeys” ― one of whom covers his eyes; the other covers his ears and the third covers his mouth. If not―then you have the picture posted to the left of this paragraph. Usually, this monkey imagery is meant to represent the proverb of seeing, hearing, and speaking no evil. This imagery is relatively recent and modern in the West, but in the East, where it originated, this proverb and its physical representation go back to antiquity. Here’s a closer look at why the three wise monkeys became associated with the proverb and what it means. In Japanese culture, where many think this image originated, the so-called “three wise monkeys”—one covering his eyes, one his ears, and one his mouth—are known by their names Mizaru, Kikazaru, and Iwazaru. They symbolize the proverbial saying, “See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil”. Surprisingly, their Japanese names are also a play on words. In the Japanese language, the proverb is translated as “mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru,” meaning “see not, hear not, speak not.” The suffix -zu or -zaru is commonly used to negate a verb, or express its opposite meaning. However, the suffix -zaru can also be the modified and sounds like word for saru that means monkey in Japanese―that is why the proverb is illustrated by monkey images. The three monkeys are: (1) Mizaru, who sees no evil by covering his eyes; (2) Kikazaru, who hears no evil by covering his ears; and (3) Iwazaru, who speaks no evil by covering his mouth. The “three wise monkeys” represent the moral message of not looking at, not listening to, nor saying anything evil, as well as being morally upright in the face of any evil. However, the proverb is sometimes used sarcastically against those who like to turn a “blind eye” or a “deaf-ear” to something morally or legally wrong―as if by pretending not to have seen, or not to have heard about the wrongdoing, they will not be held accountable for it. However, as the Catholic Catechism teaches, there are nine chief ways in which we can be guilty of the sins of others: (1) by consent; (2) by concealment; (3) by command; (4) by counsel; (5) by partaking; (6) by provocation; (7) by praise or flattery; (8) by silence; (9) by defense of the ill done. Furthermore, you may have heard of the axiom: “Ignorance of the law excuses no one” which is a classic legal principle dating back to Ancient Roman―in Latin it reads: “Ignorantia legis neminem excusat.” Not knowing that you are breaking a law is not a viable defense if you are charged with a violation. With regard to the Faith, our moral obligations and our salvation―God will be totally fair. If we are truly ignorant THROUGH NO FAULT OF OURS, then God will look mercifully upon matters. However, if our ignorance is a result of indifference, or neglect, or laziness in finding out what we should have known―then God will not turn a blind-eye in His judgment of our guilt. Most Catholics are indeed guilty of indifference, negligence and laziness in matters of learning about Faith and Morals―they prefer to allocate their time to more interesting worldly things instead! They have no problem looking at a TV screen, computer screen or smartphone screen for many hours a day―but when it comes to sacrificing some hours to learn more about the Faith and Morals, then they are full of excuses. There will be no excusing such excuses! “They have a mouth, but they speak not! They have eyes, but they see not! They have ears, but they hear not!” (Psalm 134:16-17). |
Article 2
Tuesday August 2nd & Wednesday August 3rd & Thursday August 4th, 2022
The Machabean Resistance is Lesson for Today!
This article us currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
Tuesday August 2nd & Wednesday August 3rd & Thursday August 4th, 2022
The Machabean Resistance is Lesson for Today!
This article us currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
Learning From History
The history we do know is often “revisionist history’ or twisted history, or what we could call a “Hollywoodized history.” Yet, as the famous axiom goes: “Those who do not know their history, will learn by repeating it!” There is so much from the past that serves as a lesson for today. If we have little knowledge of the past, then we will fall for the tricks and deceptions of bygone years and make the same mistakes today.
The Chosen People of Yesterday and Today
There are great similarities between what God’s Chosen People of the Old Testament faced (the Israelites and then later, one portion of the Israelites, the tribe of Juda, the Jews) and what faces the Chosen People of the New Testament (Christians, and now the true remnant of Christianity, that is to say, Catholics). What the Jews―or the tribe of Juda―was in relation to the Twelve Tribes of Israel; that is what Catholicism is in relation to the many “tribes” of Protestant Christianity. You could further say that the Protestants are similar to the unfaithful “Lost Tribes of Israel”―whereas Catholicism is like the ‘faithful’ remnant of Juda (the Jews), who were often also unfaithful, which provoked God to punish them terribly, such as in the famous “Babylonian Captivity” when God allowed the city of Jerusalem with its magnificent Temple to God, to be utterly destroyed and razed to the ground, with most of the priests, teachers and upper-class being taken away as captives to Babylon.
A Time of Choosing or Losing
There is a time, “when push comes to shove”, when only one thing ultimately matters―which is our relationship with God and our salvation. The world―its politics, its culture, its direction, its enticements, its seductions, its bribes, its threats, and everything else connected with the world―has to take second place, or “the back seat”, when it comes to God and salvation. Our Lord pointed this out very clearly: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
Today, we are clearly reaching the point where we will have to choose between God and the world; between godliness and worldliness; between Christ and Satan; between virtue and sin; between faithfulness and betrayal; between courage and cowardice; between eternal reward and eternal punishment. The net is closing in on us; the noose is tightening; the pressures are increasing; the loopholes are being closed. The time is fast approaching when―either explicitly or implicitly―we will have to choose whether to side with Christ (and accept persecution), or to side with the world (and be free of persecution).
Our Lord warns us: “They will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues! And you shall be brought before governors and before kings, for My sake! … He that is not with Me, is against Me! … They shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death! … Brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! ... And then shall many be scandalized: and shall betray one another and shall hate one another! ... You shall be hated by all nations by all men for My Name’s sake―but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22; 12:30; 24:9-10).
Choose It or Lose It!
Yes―“he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” All Catholics obviously are given supernatural Faith when they are baptized―but how many Catholics profit from the Faith? How many Catholics use the Faith as it ought to be used? How many Catholics fail to use their Faith and ultimately lose their Faith―and lose their souls in the process? Sadly, it has to be admitted that most Catholics (never mind non-Catholics) end up losing their souls! Our Lord’s own words are a testimony to that truth:
“And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able ... Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it! … When the master of the house shall go inside and shut the door, you shall stand outside and knock on the door, saying: ‘Lord! Open to us!’ And He, answering, shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are!’ Then you shall begin to say: ‘We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!” And He shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are! Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity!’ Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!’ … For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Luke 13:23-28; Matthew 7:13-14; 7:21-23; 22:14).
Crazy Catholic Complacency!
Scary words, huh? Scary thought, huh? What can be scarier than losing your soul and being damned to an eternity in the fires of Hell, where the mutual hatred of the damned for each other will only add fuel to the fire! Yet, today, it seems that nobody is even perplexed about Hell and losing their souls! One bunch of “no-hopers” do not even believe there is such a thing as Hell―to them it is pure imagination, concocted or invented by Christians as a means of forcing people to become Christians and keeping them that way by holding their feet to fire (of Hell). Another bunch of “no-hopers” are those who imagine that everyone goes to Heaven―funny (or tragic, really) how wrong the majority can sometimes be! Yet another batch of “no-hopers” say that Hell is nothing other than Purgatory―and therefore it is only a temporary residence, and everyone who ends up going there, will one day be released and find themselves in Heaven! Then you have the Catholic “no-hopers” who imagine that no matter how much and how often and how gravely they sin―all they have to do is confess those sins in confession and―”abracadabra”, just like magic―all those sins are wiped away and they can go away and sin some more!
Balloons of Bumf
Our Lord and Holy Scripture burst that bold balloon of bumf (also spelled “bumph” or “bumpf”―meaning, blatant propaganda, rubbish, garbage or some cruder term) by warning us: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) … “Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14) ... “For if we sin willfully after having the knowledge of the truth, then there is left no sacrifice for sins, but only a certain dreadful expectation of judgment, and the rage of a fire which shall consume!” (Hebrews 10:26-27) … “Unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20) … “Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 18:3) …“If thy hand scandalize thee, then cut it off―it is better for thee to enter into life, maimed, than having two hands to go into Hell, into unquenchable fire, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not extinguished! And if thy foot scandalize thee, then cut it off―it is better for thee to enter lame into life everlasting, than having two feet, to be cast into the Hell of unquenchable fire, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not extinguished! And if thy eye scandalize thee, then pluck it out―it is better for thee with one eye to enter into the kingdom of God, than having two eyes to be cast into the Hell of fire, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not extinguished. For every one shall be salted with fire!” (Mark 9:42-48) … “The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars―they shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone!” (Apocalypse 21:8) … “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul― but rather fear Him Who can destroy both soul and body in Hell!” (Matthew 10:28) … “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12).
Nothing New Under the Sun―History Repeats Itself
We ignore the past at our own peril―he who ignores history, or refuses to learn from history, will end up learning it by repeating it! It is in this vein that St. Paul writes to the Corinthians:
“For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea; and all did eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased―for they were overthrown in the desert! Now these things were done in a figure of us, so that we should not covet evil things as they also coveted! Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them, as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play!’ Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand! Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents. Neither do you murmur, as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer! Now all these things happened to them in figure and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come! Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand―let him take heed lest he fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:1-12).
Yes―says St. Paul―do not be ignorant! These things were done in the past as an instruction for us today―they are written for our correction upon whom the end of the world are come! Do not do as they did! For with most of them God was not pleased! Is He pleased with us today? The obvious answer―if we are not suffering from illusions and delusions―is: “No! God is not pleased with us today!” That is why all these things are happening all around us! That is why God repeatedly sent Our Lady, in so many apparitions, to tell us that He is not pleased with us! You should be familiar with all her warnings by now―but here is a mere tip-of-the-iceberg memory jogger just to prove this point:
“Many men in this world afflict the Lord … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended … People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … These are grave times! All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth! … Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … God will strike in an unprecedented way ... In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful.” (Words of Our Lady of Good Success; La Salette; Fatima, Akita & to Blessed Elena Aiello).
Blind to the Truth―Blind to Reality
You get the picture―or do you get the picture? Most people refuse to look at the picture―and consequently they do very little or nothing about it! As Sister Lucia of Fatima lamented: “We always saw the Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions! She never smiled at us! This anguish, that we saw in her, penetrated our souls … The Blessed Virgin is very sad because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent! …
“Being children, we did not know what measures to devise―except to pray and make sacrifices … Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world! … For this reason, Father, it is my mission not just to speak about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to also tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin! …
“We should not wait for a call to the world from Rome, on the part of the Holy Father, to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So now, each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway. When God is going to chastise the world He always first exhausts all other remedies ... And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others!”
Fight the Fight―or Flee to Fun?
Make no mistake about it―you are called to the fight! It does not matter whether you are young or old―a child of 7 or an old-age pensioner of 77. Man or woman; healthy or sick; rich or poor; educated or uneducated; full of courage or cowardice; full of zeal or full of excuse; whether you want to or not―you are called to the fight! “And Moses answered them: ‘What! Shall your brethren go to fight, and will you just sit here?’” (Numbers 32:6).
► HOLY SCRIPTURE is full of fighting talk: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places!” (Ephesians 6:12). “Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion goes about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9). “This is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself!” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” ― and all the other true enemies of God (Hebrews 12:4). “Be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God!” (2 Kings 10:12).
► OUR LADY―yes the Lady who is sweet, loving, kind and gentle―is also full of fighting talk: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … I call on the true disciples of the living God! … I call on the true followers of Christ! … I call on my true faithful children! … Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!” (Our Lady of La Salette).
► SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA echoes the idea of fighting―speaking of “final battle” and a “decisive battle” between Our Lady and Satan in our times: “The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground … The Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin and, as you know, what most offends God and what will gain him the greatest number of souls in the shortest time is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them!” (Sister Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
► ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT, in speaking of the Last Days (which we have entered, according to Our Lady’s revelations to Sr. Lucia, also echoes the idea of fighting and speaking, as Our Lady did, of the apostles of the last days: “Mary will produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints who shall come at the end of the world are reserved for her ... These great souls, full of grace and zeal, shall be chosen to match themselves against the enemies of God, who shall rage on all sides; and they shall be singularly devout to our Blessed Lady … They shall fight with one hand and build with the other. With the one hand they shall fight, overthrow and crush the heretics with their heresies, the schismatics with their schisms, the idolaters with their idolatries and the sinners with their impieties ... By their words and their examples they shall draw the whole world to true devotion to Mary. This shall bring upon them many enemies, but shall also bring many victories and much glory for God alone.
“Mary must be terrible to the devil and his crew, as an army ranged in battle, principally in these latter times, because the devil will every day redouble his efforts and his combats―knowing that he has but little time, and now less than ever, to destroy souls. He will presently raise up cruel persecutions and will put terrible snares before the faithful servants and true children of Mary, whom it gives him more trouble to conquer than it does to conquer others. It is principally of these last and cruel persecutions of the devil, which shall go on increasing daily till the reign of Antichrist …
“God has never made and formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and grow even to the end. It is between Mary, His worthy Mother, and the devil—between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin, and the children and tools of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies, which God has set up against the devil, is His holy Mother Mary. He has inspired her, even since the days of the earthly paradise—though she existed then only in His idea—with so much hatred against that cursed enemy of God, with so much ingenuity in unveiling the malice of that ancient serpent, with so much power to conquer, to overthrow and to crush that proud, impious rebel, that he fears her, not only more than all angels and men, but in a sense more than God Himself―because Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God, and her humility humbles him more than the divine power …
“God has not only set an enmity, but enmities, not simply between Mary and the devil, but between the race of the holy Virgin and the race of the devil; that is to say, God has set enmities, antipathies and secret hatreds between the true children and servants of Mary and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love for each other. They have no sympathy for each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world (for it is the same thing) have always, up to this time, persecuted those who belong to our Blessed Lady, and will, in the future, persecute them more than ever … But the humble Mary will always have the victory over that proud spirit, and so great a victory that she will go so far as to crush his head, where his pride dwells. She will always discover the malice of the serpent. She will always lay bare his infernal plots and dissipate his diabolical councils, and even to the end of time will guard her faithful servants from his cruel claw.
“But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel―that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world’s esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But, in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity, superior to all other creatures by their lively zeal, and so well sustained with God’s assistance that, with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph.
“But who shall those servants, slaves and children of Mary be? They shall be the ministers of the Lord who, like a burning fire, shall kindle the fire of divine love everywhere. They shall be “like sharp arrows in the hand of the powerful” Mary to pierce her enemies. They shall be the sons of Levi, well purified by the fire of great tribulation, and closely adhering to God, who shall carry the gold of love in their heart, the incense of prayer in their spirit, and the myrrh of mortification in their body. They shall be everywhere the good odor of Jesus Christ to the poor and to the little, while at the same time, they shall be an odor of death to the great, to the rich and to the proud worldlings.
“They shall be clouds thundering and flying through the air at the least breath of the Holy Ghost; who, detaching themselves from everything and troubling themselves about nothing, shall shower forth the rain of the Word of God and of life eternal. They shall thunder against sin; they shall storm against the world; they shall strike the devil and his crew; and they shall pierce through and through, for life or for death, with their two-edged sword of the Word of God, all those to whom they shall be sent on the part of the Most High.
“They shall be the true apostles of the latter times, to whom the Lord of Hosts shall give the word and the might to work marvels and to carry off with glory the spoils of His enemies. They shall sleep without gold or silver, and, what is more, without care, in the midst of the other priests, ecclesiastics, and clerics; and yet they shall have the silvered wings of the dove to go, with the pure intention of the glory of God and the salvation of souls, wheresoever the Holy Ghost shall call them. Nor shall they leave behind them, in the places where they have preached, anything but the gold of charity, which is the fulfillment of the whole law.
“In a word, we know that they shall be true disciples of Jesus Christ, walking in the footsteps of His poverty, humility, contempt of the world, charity; teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not accepting persons; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in their own behavior.
“These are the great men who are to come; but Mary is the one who, by order of the Most High, shall fashion them for the purpose of extending His empire over that of the impious, the idolaters and the Mahometans. But when and how shall this be? God alone knows. As for us, we have but to hold our tongues, to pray, to sigh and to wait: ‘With expectation I have waited!’ (Psalm 39:2).” (St. Louis de Monfort, various selections from his book, True Devotion to Mary).
The Fighting “Big-Macs”
All this fighting talk brings us to subject of the “Fighting Big-Macs” of the Old Testament―the fighting Machabees (sometimes spelled “Machabees”). The name “Machabee” was originally the surname or nickname of Judas, the third son of Mathathias, but was later extended to all the descendants of Mathathias, and even to all who joined them and took part in the rebellion. It is also given to the martyrs in the struggle of that time (mentioned in 2 Machabees 6:18 & chapter 7). “Machabee” is commonly thought to mean “hammerer” or “hammer-like”, and would have been given to Judas because of his courage in combating the enemies of Israel. The family or dynasty of the Machabees was Hasmoneans or Asmoneans.
The Machabees were tired and fed-up of the constant compromises, insidious infiltrations, odious offenses, and endless erosions of the Faith and religious practices of the Chosen People in the last few centuries before the advent of Christ. What was happening in those bygone days is also happening in similar ways in our present day. The combative courage and selfless sacrifices that the Machabees made in their day―for the sake of God and the preservation of their Faith and the repelling of the worldliness that was corrupting the Jews―is something that we all need to find and exercise today because similar things are happening to us.
A Jewish priestly family, under the leadership of Mathathias, initiated the revolt against the tyranny of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, King of Syria ― who was attempting to force Greek paganism on his Jewish subjects by Hellenizing them (to “Hellenize” means he adoption of Greek culture, religion, language and identity by non-Greeks). Newly conquered cities were established along Greek lines, composed of colonists who came from different parts of the Greek world, and not just from a specific metropolis (“mother city”) as before. You see the same thing being done today by the political and financial conquerors of the world―who break down national barriers and “import” immigrants from all parts of the world in order to weaken and water-down any nationalistic and patriotic sentiments and organizations in the home country.
Hellenize or Hell-and-Nice?
This movement to Hellenize the Jews, was begun with the approval by a party among the Jewish aristocracy, who were in favor of breaking down the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile and of adopting Greek customs that had been begun by of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, King of Syria. When Antiochus IV Epiphanes (ca. 215–164 BC) began ruling the Seleucid Empire (175 BC), the office of High Priest in Jerusalem was held by the traditionally minded Onias III. In the eyes of Antiochus, the High Priest was merely a local governor that he could appoint or dismiss at will, whereas for the orthodox Jews the High Priest was divinely appointed by God.
The traditionally minded Onias was the High Priest―and was thus opposed to any kind of Hellenization. The brother of Onias, Jason―whose traditional name was Jesus, but who had changed his name to the Greek version: Jason―was far more Liberal and accepting of the pagan Hellenization of the Jews. He bribed Antiochus to make him High Priest instead of Onias. By promising the king a large sum of money, and by offering to become the promoter among the Jews of his policy of Hellenizing the non-Greek population of his domains, Jason obtained the overthrow of his brother as high-priest and his own appointment to the high-priesthood in his brother’s place (174 BC). As soon as he was installed as high-priest, he began the work of Hellenizing and carried it on with considerable success. Jason had established institutions of Greek education and, in later years, Jewish culture started to be suppressed including forbidding circumcision and observance of the Sabbath. A gymnasium was built below the Acra (citadel) in Jerusalem, in close proximity to the Temple, where the youths of Jerusalem were taught Greek sports. Even priests became addicted to the games and neglected the altar for the gymnasium. These athletes would perform naked. Many, ashamed of what a true Jew gloried in, had the marks of circumcision removed to avoid being recognized as Jews in the baths or the gymnasium.
Another Liberal Jew―who had also changed his Jewish name in favor of the Greek version: Menelaus―then also bribed Antiochus and was appointed High Priest in place of Jason! Sounds just as corrupt a state of affairs as we see today! The newly appointed High Priest, Menelaus had the Traditional ex-High Priests, Onias, assassinated. Menelaus’ brother Lysimachus stole holy vessels from the Temple; the resulting riots led to the death of Lysimachus. Menelaus was arrested for Onias’ murder, and was brought to trial before Antiochus, but he bribed his way out of trouble. The deposed High Priest, Jason, then managed to drive out Menelaus and became High Priest again. Yet all the while the Hellenization of the Jews continued.
This acceptance of Hellenization and the pagan Greek culture merited condemnation. All the idols of Gentiles are demons: “All the gods of the Gentiles are devils” (Psalms 95:5). “They mingled among the heathens, and learned their works and served their idols, and it became a stumbling-block to them. They sacrificed their sons, and their daughters to devils” (Psalm 105:35-37). “They sacrificed to devils and not to God―to gods whom they knew not, that were newly come up, whom their fathers worshipped not” (Deuteronomy 32:17). “You have provoked the eternal God who made you, by offering sacrifice to devils and not to God!” (Baruch 4:7).
Yet there was very little or no protest, no real sustained resistance, and no vehement rejection of this pagan Hellenization that was being forced upon the Jews―many actually liked this worldliness and gladly went along with it. Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism that combined Jewish religious traditions with elements of the pagan Greek culture. This led to a division among the Jews―with Traditionalists on one side and Liberals on the other. Hellenism― the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language and identity by non-Greeks―was seen by the Traditionalist Jews as a threat of pagan assimilation diametrically opposed to Jewish traditions which were centered and focused upon the One True God.
Enough is Enough!
The Machabean Revolt (the Hasmonean Revolt) was a Jewish rebellion led by the Machabees against the Seleucid Empire and against Hellenistic influence on Jewish life. The main phase of the revolt lasted from 167–160 BC and ended with the Seleucids in control of Judea, but conflict between the Machabees, Hellenized Jews, and the Seleucids continued until 134 BC, with the Machabees eventually attaining independence.
Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes had launched a massive campaign of repression against the Jewish religion in 168 BC. The reason he did so is not entirely clear, but it seems to have been related to the King mistaking the Traditional versus Liberal internal conflict among the Jewish priesthood as a full-scale rebellion. Jewish practices were banned, Jerusalem was placed under direct Seleucid control, and the Second Temple in Jerusalem was made the site of a mixed Pagan-Jewish cult. This repression triggered exactly the revolt that Antiochus IV had feared, with a group of Jewish fighters led by Judas Machabeus (Judah Machabee) and his family rebelling in 167 BC and seeking independence from the invading Seleucid Empire. The rebels as a whole would come to be known as the Machabees, and their actions would be chronicled later in the books of 1 Machabees and 2 Machabees.
The rebellion started as a guerrilla movement in the Judean countryside, raiding towns and terrorizing Greek officials far from direct Seleucid control, but it eventually developed a proper army capable of attacking the fortified Seleucid cities. In 164 BC, the Machabees captured Jerusalem from the Seleucids, which was a notable early victory. They saw to it that the Temple was cleansed of the idols of the mixed Pagan-Jewish worship. The Seleucids eventually relented and lifted the ban on Judaism’s religious practices and traditions, but the more radical Machabees, not content with merely re-establishing Jewish practices under Seleucid rule, continued to fight, pushing for a more direct break with the Seleucids.
Judas Machabeus died in 160 BC, during the Battle of Elasa against the Greek general Bacchides, and the Seleucids re-established direct control for a time, but remnants of the Machabees, under Judas’s brother Jonathan Apphus, continued to resist from the countryside. Eventually, due to internal division among the Seleucids and problems elsewhere in their empire, the Machabees gained their chance for proper independence. In 141 BC, Simon Thassi succeeded in expelling the Greeks from their citadel in Jerusalem. An alliance with the Roman Republic helped guarantee their independence. Simon would go on to establish an independent Hasmonean kingdom. The revolt had a great impact on Jewish nationalism, as an example of a successful campaign to establish political independence and resist governmental suppression of traditional religious and cultural practices.
How Did the Machabeans Succeed? What Lessons for Us?
Many people today―especially the youth―are clueless on the subject of the Machabees. Ask them about “Machabees” and they are likely to associate them with Bumblebees and Honeybees. If you tell them that the Machabees were Jewish―they will think of them as some kind of Jewish bee, found only in Israel. Mention the “Machabean Uprising” and they will think you are talking about “beans” sprouting!
“To be or not to be―that is the question!” is a line from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1). The line comes from a speech by Hamlet, wherein he contemplates death and suicide, bemoaning the pain and unfairness of life, but acknowledging that the alternative might be worse. To put some more context to the quote, Hamlet says: “To be, or not to be―that is the question! Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune―or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing them, end them?”
These words, penned by the Catholic Shakespeare, you could just as well place in the mouths of the Machabees of old, and also in the mouths of true Catholics today. To paraphrase them a little, you could say: “Whether to be a good Catholic or not to be a good Catholic―that is the question! Whether it is nobler to simply sit-down and shut-up in face of all these outrageous crises besieging both Church and Country, or to take up arms against the enemy and the tsunami of troubles they cause―and thereby put an end to them?”
The Machabees of old were the prototypes or figures of true Catholics today. Just as the Jews were being progressively “Hellenized” or “Greekified” by the Seleucid Empire (one of the Greek States) and were losing their God-given Faith in the process―likewise, we true Catholics of today, are being progressively “Liberalized” or “Worldlified” or “Materialized” or “Entertainmentized” or “Despirtualized” or “De-Catholicized” by the world (and its prince―Satan) today. Just as the Jews―and even Jewish priests―were immersed in and besotted by the pagan Greek culture at that time; likewise, Catholics are immersed in and besotted by the neo-pagan culture that is rampant throughout the world today. Satan―“the prince of this world” (John 14:30)―truly rules the world today, as often stated by the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … Satan continually tries to dominate the world ― the whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Satanism is on the increase. Today Satan rules the world … Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!” As Holy Scripture warned: “And that great dragon―that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan―was cast out and he was cast unto the Earth, and he seduceth the whole world” (Apocalypse 12:9).
Seduced by Seleucids ― Seduced by Satan
The very idea or notion of “seduction” is not something painful, nasty and ugly―but something pleasant, likeable and nice! That is how the devil has always operated and always will operate. He seduced the ancient Jews to accept the “pleasant, likeable and nice” Hellenization by the Greek State of old―and now he seduces Catholics into accepting the “pleasant, likeable and nice” aspects of this neo-pagan world of ours. Like Our Lady of La Salette, Akita and Good Success prophesied of our times: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God ... Those who should speak will fall silent ... As true Faith fades, a false light will brighten the people … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth. People will think of nothing but amusement … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness. This, then, will be the cause of the cursed demon taking possession … The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord ... The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … ... They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption. Woe to the children of these times! … The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity.”
Our Lady could just as well have spoken those words in the time of the Machabees, when the Jews were being “Hellenized” (or Hell―enized) and both priests and laity were falling for this pagan “injection” into their traditional God-centered religious culture. We are being “vaccinated” with worldliness today―and even our best Catholics, both old and young, are falling for it. As Our Lady lamented: “Those who should speak out will fall silent!” Catholics are silently (and gladly) received the “vaccine” of worldliness, which makes them just like the rest of the non-Catholics in the world―immune to God and immune to God’s one true religion, the Catholic Faith.
In the early part of the 2nd century BC, Hellenizing Jews took control of the high priesthood itself. As high priest from 175 to 172, the Greek-culture-loving Jewish High Priest, Jesus (who prefer to call himself by the Greek version of Jesus―Jason), established Jerusalem as a Greek city, with Greek educational institutions. He was replaced by an even more extreme Hellenizing group of Jews, who established Menelaus (died 162 BC) as High Priest―which led to a civil war in which Menelaus was supported by the wealthy aristocrats and Jason by the masses. The Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who initially granted exemptions and privileges to the Jews, intervened at the request of Menelaus’s party. Antiochus’s promulgation of decrees against the practice of Judaism led in 167 BC to the successful revolt of the priest Mattathias (died 166 BC) and his five sons—the Machabees.
The parallels with our present day situation are uncanny! Just as the Jews were progressively “Hellenized” or “Greekified” over a period of over 250 years, the Catholic Church has been undergoing a revolution that has “Liberalized” or “Modernized” or “Worldlified” the Church over a period of almost 250 years―since the French Revolution in 1789 (233 years ago). Just as the Hellenizing Jews took control of the High Priesthood itself―likewise Liberals and Modernists (who are in tune with neo-pagan culture) have taken control of the papacy and episcopacy (pope and bishops). The popes over the last 70 years or so―some would argue it goes back even further than that―have been increasingly “Hellenized” or “Hell―enized” by the world and its prince. Fr. Gabriele Amorth―an expert on Satan and also having lived in Rome for decades as its chief exorcist―had no qualms in saying: “Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry!”
Like the Machabees, True Catholics Must Resist and Fight
When someone grabs you and tries to get a hold over you―what do you do? Well, you probably do two things―you shout for help and you deliver whatever blows you can to your attacker. The same holds true for our battles with Satan and the world―who are trying to get a hold over us, trying to drag us down in the ocean of worldliness that has flooded the world today. We shout and we hit. We shout to Heaven for help and we hit Satan and his gang with prayers―especially the Hail Mary and the Rosary which is largely made up of Hail Marys. You can look at one Hail Mary as being a hammer, cudgel, stick or even a single-shot rifle, whereas a Rosary is like a machine gun of Hail Marys.
Hammering Away with the Rosary
The Jewish word “Machabee” means “Hammer”. The Machabees “hammered” their invading and occupying enemies with human weapons―we also have a “Machabee” or a “Hammer” with which we can hammer our enemies―Satan and the world. That “hammer” is the Hail Mary―as testified by Fr. Gabriele Amorth. Let him explain how this is―Fr. Amorth says: “During an exorcism Satan told me, through the possessed person, ‘Every Hail Mary of the Rosary is a blow to the head for me! If Christians knew the power of the Rosary, it would be the end of me!’” Therefore, each Hail Mary is like a blow of hammer to Satan’s head! Satan himself admits: “If Christians knew the power of the Rosary, it would be the end of me!”
That is exactly what Our Lady has been trying to knock into our thick heads all this time: “Say many Rosaries!” (Fatima, May 1917). “Say the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, June 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). “Continue to say the Rosary every day! Pray, pray very much!” (Fatima, August 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (Fatima, September 1917). “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, October 1917). “Pray very much! … Be faithful and fervent in prayer! … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach!” (Akita, 1973).
Sister Lucia further explains: God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others … As for the Holy Rosary, Father, in these last times in which we are living, the Blessed Virgin has given a new efficacy to the praying of the Holy Rosary. This in such a way that there is no problem that cannot be resolved by praying the Rosary, no matter how difficult it is ― be it temporal or above all spiritual ― in the spiritual life of each of us, in the personal life of each one of us, or the lives of our families, be they our families, of the families of the world, or Religious Communities, or even in the lives of peoples and nations. I repeat, there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve at this time by praying the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls”” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Satan knows this to be true and believes it wholeheartedly―that is why he lamented to Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “Every Hail Mary of the Rosary is a blow to the head for me! If Christians knew the power of the Rosary, it would be the end of me!’” Why don’t we believe that? Why don’t we use that “hammer”? Why are we not bashing the hell out of Satan and his minions with our spiritual “hammers”? We have the weapon―as Our Lady said: “The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!”―why are we not using that ballistic missile, that nuclear “hammer”? We will have to answer for that at our Final Judgment! Can you imagine the power of over 1,000 million daily Rosaries prayed by Catholics in a state of sanctifying grace!!! If there are around 1,400 million Catholics in the world, then 1,000 million are out of diapers and able to pray! If everyone prayed the full Rosary―15 decades or 3 Rosaries consisting of the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries―then you would have 3,000 million daily Rosaries being fired against Satan and his minions! They would have NO CHANCE! They would be the BIGGEST LOSERS history has ever seen―and this world would be a holy, God-centered, God-loving and God worshipping world―instead of the pit of Hell that is slowly evolving into!
The Other Weapon
The other “weapon”, which Our Lady speaks of, “the Sign left by my Son”, has to be the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―for the Mass is the greatest weapon of “mass” destruction that we have! This, too, has been the target of “Hell―enization” by Satan. He knows full well―more than any theologian―the damage that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass does to his plots and plans and machinations. This is why, even before the Second Vatican Council, the Mass was being eroded or weakening wherever possible―little by little and always under the so-called “guise of good”―which really means under the disguise of good, or being disguised as being good, when in reality it is harmful. Once the enemies of the Church succeeded in infiltrating the Church in sufficient numbers and were able to reach some key positions, then one of the chief things on the agenda had to be the disarmament of Catholics by neutralizing the Mass as much as possible. The Post-Conciliar period (after the Second Vatican Council) succeeded in introducing a pretty impotent Mass―whose effect has to be questioned―much like Fr. Gabriel Amorth complained about the introduction of a new rite of exorcism which also turned out to be impotent in fighting the devil―so much so that exorcists began to revert to the old traditional rite of exorcism if they wanted any success in battling Satan.
It is with the Mass and the Rosary that we have to fight the good fight of the Faith today. As Our Lord said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5)―and Our Lady, in reference to devotion to her Immaculate Heart and the Rosary―said: “Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary … because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). At Akita, in 1973, she added: The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
This supernatural intervention is of upmost importance―as we learn from the battles of the Machabees. In the Book of Machabees, in the Bible, we read that Judas Machabeus had the good habit of praying every time he went into battle―the result was that he was visibly protected by angels who also slaughtered the enemy. On the one occasion he failed to pray before battle―he was killed in that battle!
Supernatural Weapons of Judas Machabeus and the Machabees
Judas Machabeus roused his soldiers for battle, saying: “They trust in their weapons, and in their boldness―but we trust in the Almighty Lord, Who, at a beck, can utterly destroy both them that come against us and the whole world!” (2 Machabees 8:18).
“And after the Holy Book had been read to them by Esdras, and he had given them for a watchword, ‘The help of God!’ Judas Machabeus, himself leading the first band, joined battle with Nicanor. And the Almighty being their helper, they slew above nine thousand men” (2 Machabees 8:18).
“Judas Machabeus, and they that were with him, by the protection of the Lord, recovered the temple and the city again” (2 Machabees 10:1).
“Judas Machabeus, beseeching the Lord by prayers to be their helper, made a strong attack upon the strong holds of the Idumeans―and assaulting them with great force, won the stongholds, killed them that came in the way, and slew altogether no fewer than twenty thousand” (2 Machabees 10:16-17).
“A multitude of foreign troops and assembled horsemen, out of Asia, came to take Judea by force of arms. But Judas Machabeus and they that were with him, when he drew near, prayed to the Lord, sprinkling earth upon their heads and girding their loins with haircloth, and lying prostrate at the foot of the altar, besought the Lord to be merciful to them, and to be an enemy to their enemies, and an adversary to their adversaries. And so, after prayer, taking their arms, they went forth from the city, and when they were come very near the enemies, they rested. But as soon as the sun was risen both sides joined battle―the one part having with their valor the Lord for a surety of victory and success; but the other side making their rage their leader in battle. But when they were in the heat of the engagement, there appeared to the enemies from Heaven five men upon horses, comely with golden bridles, conducting the Jews. Two of whom took Judas Machabeus between them, and covered him on every side with their arms, and kept him safe―but cast darts and fireballs against the enemy, so that they fell down, being both confounded with blindness, and filled with trouble. And there were slain twenty thousand five hundred, and six hundred horsemen” (2 Machabees 10:24-31).
“When Judas Machabeus, and they that were with him, understood that their strong holds were besieged, they and all the people besought the Lord with lamentations and tears, that He would send a good angel to save Israel. Then Machabeus himself, first taking his arms, exhorted the rest to expose themselves, together with him, to the danger, and to help their brethren. And when they were going forth together with a willing mind, there appeared at Jerusalem a horseman, going before them in white clothing, with golden armor, shaking a spear. Then they all together blessed the merciful Lord, and took great courage, being ready to break through not only men, but also the fiercest beasts, and walls of iron. So they went on courageously, having a helper from Heaven and the Lord, who showed mercy to them. And rushing violently upon the enemy, like lions, they slew of them eleven thousand footmen, and one thousand six hundred horsemen, and put all the rest to flight” (2 Machabees 11:6-12).
“Timotheus, with five thousand footmen and five hundred horsemen of the Arabians set upon them. And after a hard fight, by the help of God, Judas Machabeus got the victory” (2 Machabees 12:10-11).
“Judas Machabeus calling upon the great Lord of the world, Who, without any battering rams or engines of war, threw down the walls of Jericho in the time of Josue, fiercely assaulted the walls. And having taken the city, by the will of the Lord, he made an unspeakable slaughter” (2 Machabees 12:15-16).
“Then Judas Machabeus … removed his army to Ephron, a strong city, wherein there dwelt a multitude of divers nations, and stout young men standing upon the walls made a vigorous resistance. And in this place there were many engines of war, and a provision of darts. But when they had invoked the Almighty, Who with His power breaketh the strength of the enemies, they took the city; and slew five and twenty thousand of them that were within” (2 Machabees 12:27-28).
“Judas Machabeus called upon the Lord to be their helper, and leader of the battle. Then, beginning in his own language and singing hymns with a loud voice, he put Gorgias’ soldiers to flight” (2 Machabees 12:36-37).
“Antiochus Eupator was coming with a multitude against Judea … having with him a hundred and ten thousand footmen, five thousand horsemen, twenty-two elephants, and three hundred chariots armed with hooks … Which, when Judas Machabeus understood, he commanded the people to call upon the Lord day and night, that as he had always done, so now also He would help them … and that He would not suffer the people … to be again in subjection to blasphemous nations. So when they had all done this together, and had craved mercy of the Lord with weeping and fasting, lying prostrate on the ground for three days continually, Judas exhorted them to make themselves ready … So committing all to God, the creator of the world, and having exhorted his people to fight manfully, and to stand up even to death for the laws, the temple, the city, their country, and citizens: he placed his army about Modin. And having given his company for a watchword ― ‘The victory of God’ ― with most valiant chosen young men, he set upon the enemy by night, and slew four thousand men in the camp, and the greatest of the elephants, with them that had been upon him, and having filled the camp of the enemies with exceeding great fear and tumult, they went off with good success. Now this was done at the break of day, by the protection and help of the Lord” (2 Machabees 13:1-17).
“The enemies [Nicanor and his army] were at hand, and the army was set in array, the beasts and the horsemen ranged in convenient places, Judas Machabeus―considering the coming of the multitude and the divers preparations of armor, and the fierceness of the beasts―stretching out his hands to Heaven, called upon the Lord that worketh wonders, Who giveth victory to them that are worthy, not according to the power of their arms, but according as it seemeth good to Him. And in his prayer he said after this manner: ‘Thou, O Lord, Who didst send thy angel in the time of Ezechias king of Juda, and didst kill a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the army of Sennacherib―send now also, O Lord of Heaven, Thy good angel before us, for the fear and dread of the greatness of Thy arm, so that they may be afraid, who come with blasphemy against Thy holy people!’ And thus he concluded his prayer. But Nicanor, and they that were with him came forward, with trumpets and songs. But Judas Machabeus, and they that were with him, encountered them, calling upon God by prayers. So, fighting with their hands, but praying to the Lord with their hearts, they slew no less than five and thirty thousand, being greatly cheered with the presence of God. And when the battle was over, and they were returning with joy, they understood that Nicanor was slain in his armor. Then making a shout, and a great noise, they blessed the Almighty Lord in their own language … Then all blessed the Lord of Heaven, saying: ‘Blessed be He that hath kept His own place undefiled!’” (2 Machabees 15:20-29, 34).
Hearing the news of Nicanor's defeat, the Seleucid ruler, Demetrius, dispatched a new army: “Judas Machabeus went forth to meet the enemy with a small company. But when they saw the army coming to meet them, they said to Judas: ‘How shall we, being few, be able to fight against so great a multitude and so strong―and we are ready to faint from fasting today?’ And Judas said: ‘It is an easy matter for many to be shut up in the hands of a few―and there is no difference in the sight of the God of Heaven to win with a great army, or with a small company! For the success of war is not in the multitude of the army, but strength cometh from Heaven. They come against us with an insolent multitude, and with pride, to destroy us, and our wives, and our children, and to take our spoils. But we will fight for our lives and our laws and the Lord Himself will overthrow them before our face―but as for you, fear them not!’” (1 Machabees 3:16-22).
“Judas Machabeus and his brethren saw that evils were multiplied, and that the armies approached to their borders: and they knew the orders the king had given to destroy the people and utterly abolish them. And the assembly was gathered that they might be ready for battle and that they might pray, and ask mercy and compassion ... And they fasted that day, and put on haircloth, and put ashes upon their heads: and they rent their garments … And they cried with a loud voice toward heaven, saying: ‘Behold the nations are come together against us to destroy us! Thou knowest what they intend against us. How shall we be able to stand before their face, unless Thou, O God, help us?’ Then they sounded with trumpets, and cried out with a loud voice. And after this Judas said: ‘Gird yourselves, and be valiant men, and be ready against the morning, that you may fight with these nations that are assembled against us to destroy us and our sanctuary. For it is better for us to die in battle, than to see the evils of our nation, and of the holies! Nevertheless as it shall be the will of God in Heaven so be it done!’ … (1 Machabees 3:42-60).
“Gorgias [the enemy leader] took five thousand men, and a thousand of the best horsemen … Judas showed himself in the plain with three thousand men only, who neither had armor nor swords. And they saw the camp of the Gentiles that it was strong, and the men in breastplates, and the horsemen round about them, and these were trained up to war. And Judas Machabeus said to the men that were with him: ‘Fear ye not their multitude, neither be ye afraid of their assault! Remember in what manner our fathers were saved in the Red Sea, when Pharao pursued them with a great army! Now let us cry to Heaven and the Lord will have mercy on us, and will remember the covenant of our fathers, and will destroy this army before our face this day! And all nations shall know that there is one that redeemeth and delivereth Israel!’ And the strangers lifted up their eyes, and saw Judas and his men coming against them. And they went out of the camp to battle, and they that were with Judas sounded the trumpet. And they joined battle―and the Gentiles were routed and fled into the plain” (1 Machabees 4:1-14).
“The following year, Lysias gathered together sixty thousand chosen men, and five thousand horsemen, that he might subdue them. And they came into Judea and Judas Machabeus met them with ten thousand men. And Judas saw that their army was strong, so he prayed and said: ‘Blessed art thou, O Savior of Israel, Who didst break the violence of the mighty by the hand of thy servant David! … Shut up this army in the hands of thy people Israel, and let them be confounded in their host and their horsemen! Strike them with fear, and cause the boldness of their strength to languish, and let them quake at their own destruction! Cast them down with the sword of them that love Thee, and let all that know Thy Name, and praise Thee with hymns!’ And they joined battle and there fell of the army of Lysias five thousand men. When Lysias saw that his men were put to flight, and how bold the Jews were, and that they were ready either to live, or to die manfully, he retreated to Antioch and chose even more soldiers, that they might come again into Judea with greater numbers” (1 Machabees 4:28-35).
Judas Machabeus is Slain in Battle
“Now Judas Machabeus saw the multitude of the army that they were many, and they were seized with great fear and many of his men withdrew themselves out of the camp, and there remained of them no more than eight hundred men. And Judas saw that his army slipped away, and the battle pressed upon him, and his heart was cast down: because he had not time to gather them together, and he was discouraged. Then he said to them that remained: ‘Let us arise, and go against our enemies, if we may be able to fight against them!’ But they dissuaded him, saying: ‘We shall not be able―but let us save our lives now, and return to our brethren, and then we will fight against them, for we are but few!’ Then Judas said: ‘God forbid we should do this thing, and flee away from them! But if our time has come, let us die manfully for our brethren, and let us not stain our glory!’ And the army removed out of the camp, and they stood over against them ― and they sounded the trumpets. And they also were on Judas' side, even they also cried out, and the earth shook at the noise of the armies: and the battle was fought from morning even unto the evening ... And the battle was hard fought, and there fell many wounded of the one side and of the other. And Judas was slain and the rest fled away. And Jonathan and Simon took Judas their brother, and buried him in the sepulcher of their fathers in the city of Modin” (1 Machabees 9:6-19).
Many commentators are of the opinion that Judas Machabeus failed to invoke God with the same fervor, faith and courage that he had shown in previous battles―and they attribute that negligence to invoke God as the chief cause of his being slain in battle. Why he failed to do so―was it complacency, pride in his past victories, a misplaced human imagination of invincibility, or something else―we do not know. Yet there is a lesson for all of us in our current day battles against Satan and his minions in the world whom he uses to try and destroy the Church and all that is godly. As Jesus said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) and Our Lady added: “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
It is not we who will be the ultimate reason for the victory of good over evil, of God over Satan, of the Church over the world―it will be of divine origin, even though we will have a part to play in it. As Our Lady said of this “final battle” and “decisive battle” with Satan and world: “Humanly speaking, evil will seem to triumph … This, however, will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss. Thus the Church and this country will be finally free of his cruel tyranny … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
Are you part of her triumph, or you contributing to the apparent triumph of evil? As Sister Lucia of Fatima said: “She [Our Lady] told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground!” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957). Are you part of the solution, or are you part of the problem? Are you ready to fight for Our Lady’s victory, or have you placed yourself among spectators? There can be no spectators, as Sister Lucia said: “From now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground!”
The history we do know is often “revisionist history’ or twisted history, or what we could call a “Hollywoodized history.” Yet, as the famous axiom goes: “Those who do not know their history, will learn by repeating it!” There is so much from the past that serves as a lesson for today. If we have little knowledge of the past, then we will fall for the tricks and deceptions of bygone years and make the same mistakes today.
The Chosen People of Yesterday and Today
There are great similarities between what God’s Chosen People of the Old Testament faced (the Israelites and then later, one portion of the Israelites, the tribe of Juda, the Jews) and what faces the Chosen People of the New Testament (Christians, and now the true remnant of Christianity, that is to say, Catholics). What the Jews―or the tribe of Juda―was in relation to the Twelve Tribes of Israel; that is what Catholicism is in relation to the many “tribes” of Protestant Christianity. You could further say that the Protestants are similar to the unfaithful “Lost Tribes of Israel”―whereas Catholicism is like the ‘faithful’ remnant of Juda (the Jews), who were often also unfaithful, which provoked God to punish them terribly, such as in the famous “Babylonian Captivity” when God allowed the city of Jerusalem with its magnificent Temple to God, to be utterly destroyed and razed to the ground, with most of the priests, teachers and upper-class being taken away as captives to Babylon.
A Time of Choosing or Losing
There is a time, “when push comes to shove”, when only one thing ultimately matters―which is our relationship with God and our salvation. The world―its politics, its culture, its direction, its enticements, its seductions, its bribes, its threats, and everything else connected with the world―has to take second place, or “the back seat”, when it comes to God and salvation. Our Lord pointed this out very clearly: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
Today, we are clearly reaching the point where we will have to choose between God and the world; between godliness and worldliness; between Christ and Satan; between virtue and sin; between faithfulness and betrayal; between courage and cowardice; between eternal reward and eternal punishment. The net is closing in on us; the noose is tightening; the pressures are increasing; the loopholes are being closed. The time is fast approaching when―either explicitly or implicitly―we will have to choose whether to side with Christ (and accept persecution), or to side with the world (and be free of persecution).
Our Lord warns us: “They will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues! And you shall be brought before governors and before kings, for My sake! … He that is not with Me, is against Me! … They shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death! … Brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death! ... And then shall many be scandalized: and shall betray one another and shall hate one another! ... You shall be hated by all nations by all men for My Name’s sake―but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” (Matthew 10:17-22; 12:30; 24:9-10).
Choose It or Lose It!
Yes―“he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved!” All Catholics obviously are given supernatural Faith when they are baptized―but how many Catholics profit from the Faith? How many Catholics use the Faith as it ought to be used? How many Catholics fail to use their Faith and ultimately lose their Faith―and lose their souls in the process? Sadly, it has to be admitted that most Catholics (never mind non-Catholics) end up losing their souls! Our Lord’s own words are a testimony to that truth:
“And a certain man said to Him: ‘Lord! Are they few that are saved?’ But He said to them: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able ... Enter ye in at the narrow gate―for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life―and few there are that find it! … When the master of the house shall go inside and shut the door, you shall stand outside and knock on the door, saying: ‘Lord! Open to us!’ And He, answering, shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are!’ Then you shall begin to say: ‘We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets!” And He shall say to you: ‘I know you not, whence you are! Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity!’ Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me! There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out!’ … For many are called, but few are chosen!” (Luke 13:23-28; Matthew 7:13-14; 7:21-23; 22:14).
Crazy Catholic Complacency!
Scary words, huh? Scary thought, huh? What can be scarier than losing your soul and being damned to an eternity in the fires of Hell, where the mutual hatred of the damned for each other will only add fuel to the fire! Yet, today, it seems that nobody is even perplexed about Hell and losing their souls! One bunch of “no-hopers” do not even believe there is such a thing as Hell―to them it is pure imagination, concocted or invented by Christians as a means of forcing people to become Christians and keeping them that way by holding their feet to fire (of Hell). Another bunch of “no-hopers” are those who imagine that everyone goes to Heaven―funny (or tragic, really) how wrong the majority can sometimes be! Yet another batch of “no-hopers” say that Hell is nothing other than Purgatory―and therefore it is only a temporary residence, and everyone who ends up going there, will one day be released and find themselves in Heaven! Then you have the Catholic “no-hopers” who imagine that no matter how much and how often and how gravely they sin―all they have to do is confess those sins in confession and―”abracadabra”, just like magic―all those sins are wiped away and they can go away and sin some more!
Balloons of Bumf
Our Lord and Holy Scripture burst that bold balloon of bumf (also spelled “bumph” or “bumpf”―meaning, blatant propaganda, rubbish, garbage or some cruder term) by warning us: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin!” (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) … “Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee!” (John 5:14) ... “For if we sin willfully after having the knowledge of the truth, then there is left no sacrifice for sins, but only a certain dreadful expectation of judgment, and the rage of a fire which shall consume!” (Hebrews 10:26-27) … “Unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20) … “Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 18:3) …“If thy hand scandalize thee, then cut it off―it is better for thee to enter into life, maimed, than having two hands to go into Hell, into unquenchable fire, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not extinguished! And if thy foot scandalize thee, then cut it off―it is better for thee to enter lame into life everlasting, than having two feet, to be cast into the Hell of unquenchable fire, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not extinguished! And if thy eye scandalize thee, then pluck it out―it is better for thee with one eye to enter into the kingdom of God, than having two eyes to be cast into the Hell of fire, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not extinguished. For every one shall be salted with fire!” (Mark 9:42-48) … “The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars―they shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone!” (Apocalypse 21:8) … “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul― but rather fear Him Who can destroy both soul and body in Hell!” (Matthew 10:28) … “With fear and trembling work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12).
Nothing New Under the Sun―History Repeats Itself
We ignore the past at our own peril―he who ignores history, or refuses to learn from history, will end up learning it by repeating it! It is in this vein that St. Paul writes to the Corinthians:
“For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea; and all did eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased―for they were overthrown in the desert! Now these things were done in a figure of us, so that we should not covet evil things as they also coveted! Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them, as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play!’ Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand! Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents. Neither do you murmur, as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer! Now all these things happened to them in figure and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come! Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand―let him take heed lest he fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:1-12).
Yes―says St. Paul―do not be ignorant! These things were done in the past as an instruction for us today―they are written for our correction upon whom the end of the world are come! Do not do as they did! For with most of them God was not pleased! Is He pleased with us today? The obvious answer―if we are not suffering from illusions and delusions―is: “No! God is not pleased with us today!” That is why all these things are happening all around us! That is why God repeatedly sent Our Lady, in so many apparitions, to tell us that He is not pleased with us! You should be familiar with all her warnings by now―but here is a mere tip-of-the-iceberg memory jogger just to prove this point:
“Many men in this world afflict the Lord … Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended … People are offending God too much! If I were to show you all the sins committed on a single day, you would surely die of grief! … If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them! … These are grave times! All is hanging on a slender thread! When that thread shall snap, Divine Justice shall pounce upon the world and execute its dreadful, purging designs! All the nations shall be punished because sins, like a muddy river, are now covering all the Earth! … Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … God will strike in an unprecedented way ... In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind! … If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never seen before! Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful.” (Words of Our Lady of Good Success; La Salette; Fatima, Akita & to Blessed Elena Aiello).
Blind to the Truth―Blind to Reality
You get the picture―or do you get the picture? Most people refuse to look at the picture―and consequently they do very little or nothing about it! As Sister Lucia of Fatima lamented: “We always saw the Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions! She never smiled at us! This anguish, that we saw in her, penetrated our souls … The Blessed Virgin is very sad because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent! …
“Being children, we did not know what measures to devise―except to pray and make sacrifices … Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world! … For this reason, Father, it is my mission not just to speak about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to also tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin! …
“We should not wait for a call to the world from Rome, on the part of the Holy Father, to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So now, each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway. When God is going to chastise the world He always first exhausts all other remedies ... And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others!”
Fight the Fight―or Flee to Fun?
Make no mistake about it―you are called to the fight! It does not matter whether you are young or old―a child of 7 or an old-age pensioner of 77. Man or woman; healthy or sick; rich or poor; educated or uneducated; full of courage or cowardice; full of zeal or full of excuse; whether you want to or not―you are called to the fight! “And Moses answered them: ‘What! Shall your brethren go to fight, and will you just sit here?’” (Numbers 32:6).
► HOLY SCRIPTURE is full of fighting talk: “The life of man upon Earth is a warfare!” (Job 7:1). “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places!” (Ephesians 6:12). “Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion goes about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9). “This is the victory which overcomes the world―our Faith!” (1 John 5:4). “Fight the good fight of Faith! Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Labor as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular businesses; that he may please Him to Whom he hath engaged himself!” ― namely God (2 Timothy 2:3-4). “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12). “For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” ― and all the other true enemies of God (Hebrews 12:4). “Be of good courage, and let us fight for the city of our God!” (2 Kings 10:12).
► OUR LADY―yes the Lady who is sweet, loving, kind and gentle―is also full of fighting talk: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … I call on the true disciples of the living God! … I call on the true followers of Christ! … I call on my true faithful children! … Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world! It is time they came out and filled the world with light! Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children! I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days! God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ! Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see! For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends!” (Our Lady of La Salette).
► SISTER LUCIA OF FATIMA echoes the idea of fighting―speaking of “final battle” and a “decisive battle” between Our Lady and Satan in our times: “The Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground … The Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin and, as you know, what most offends God and what will gain him the greatest number of souls in the shortest time is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them!” (Sister Lucia to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
► ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT, in speaking of the Last Days (which we have entered, according to Our Lady’s revelations to Sr. Lucia, also echoes the idea of fighting and speaking, as Our Lady did, of the apostles of the last days: “Mary will produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints who shall come at the end of the world are reserved for her ... These great souls, full of grace and zeal, shall be chosen to match themselves against the enemies of God, who shall rage on all sides; and they shall be singularly devout to our Blessed Lady … They shall fight with one hand and build with the other. With the one hand they shall fight, overthrow and crush the heretics with their heresies, the schismatics with their schisms, the idolaters with their idolatries and the sinners with their impieties ... By their words and their examples they shall draw the whole world to true devotion to Mary. This shall bring upon them many enemies, but shall also bring many victories and much glory for God alone.
“Mary must be terrible to the devil and his crew, as an army ranged in battle, principally in these latter times, because the devil will every day redouble his efforts and his combats―knowing that he has but little time, and now less than ever, to destroy souls. He will presently raise up cruel persecutions and will put terrible snares before the faithful servants and true children of Mary, whom it gives him more trouble to conquer than it does to conquer others. It is principally of these last and cruel persecutions of the devil, which shall go on increasing daily till the reign of Antichrist …
“God has never made and formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and grow even to the end. It is between Mary, His worthy Mother, and the devil—between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin, and the children and tools of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies, which God has set up against the devil, is His holy Mother Mary. He has inspired her, even since the days of the earthly paradise—though she existed then only in His idea—with so much hatred against that cursed enemy of God, with so much ingenuity in unveiling the malice of that ancient serpent, with so much power to conquer, to overthrow and to crush that proud, impious rebel, that he fears her, not only more than all angels and men, but in a sense more than God Himself―because Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God, and her humility humbles him more than the divine power …
“God has not only set an enmity, but enmities, not simply between Mary and the devil, but between the race of the holy Virgin and the race of the devil; that is to say, God has set enmities, antipathies and secret hatreds between the true children and servants of Mary and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love for each other. They have no sympathy for each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world (for it is the same thing) have always, up to this time, persecuted those who belong to our Blessed Lady, and will, in the future, persecute them more than ever … But the humble Mary will always have the victory over that proud spirit, and so great a victory that she will go so far as to crush his head, where his pride dwells. She will always discover the malice of the serpent. She will always lay bare his infernal plots and dissipate his diabolical councils, and even to the end of time will guard her faithful servants from his cruel claw.
“But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel―that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world’s esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But, in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity, superior to all other creatures by their lively zeal, and so well sustained with God’s assistance that, with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph.
“But who shall those servants, slaves and children of Mary be? They shall be the ministers of the Lord who, like a burning fire, shall kindle the fire of divine love everywhere. They shall be “like sharp arrows in the hand of the powerful” Mary to pierce her enemies. They shall be the sons of Levi, well purified by the fire of great tribulation, and closely adhering to God, who shall carry the gold of love in their heart, the incense of prayer in their spirit, and the myrrh of mortification in their body. They shall be everywhere the good odor of Jesus Christ to the poor and to the little, while at the same time, they shall be an odor of death to the great, to the rich and to the proud worldlings.
“They shall be clouds thundering and flying through the air at the least breath of the Holy Ghost; who, detaching themselves from everything and troubling themselves about nothing, shall shower forth the rain of the Word of God and of life eternal. They shall thunder against sin; they shall storm against the world; they shall strike the devil and his crew; and they shall pierce through and through, for life or for death, with their two-edged sword of the Word of God, all those to whom they shall be sent on the part of the Most High.
“They shall be the true apostles of the latter times, to whom the Lord of Hosts shall give the word and the might to work marvels and to carry off with glory the spoils of His enemies. They shall sleep without gold or silver, and, what is more, without care, in the midst of the other priests, ecclesiastics, and clerics; and yet they shall have the silvered wings of the dove to go, with the pure intention of the glory of God and the salvation of souls, wheresoever the Holy Ghost shall call them. Nor shall they leave behind them, in the places where they have preached, anything but the gold of charity, which is the fulfillment of the whole law.
“In a word, we know that they shall be true disciples of Jesus Christ, walking in the footsteps of His poverty, humility, contempt of the world, charity; teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not accepting persons; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in their own behavior.
“These are the great men who are to come; but Mary is the one who, by order of the Most High, shall fashion them for the purpose of extending His empire over that of the impious, the idolaters and the Mahometans. But when and how shall this be? God alone knows. As for us, we have but to hold our tongues, to pray, to sigh and to wait: ‘With expectation I have waited!’ (Psalm 39:2).” (St. Louis de Monfort, various selections from his book, True Devotion to Mary).
The Fighting “Big-Macs”
All this fighting talk brings us to subject of the “Fighting Big-Macs” of the Old Testament―the fighting Machabees (sometimes spelled “Machabees”). The name “Machabee” was originally the surname or nickname of Judas, the third son of Mathathias, but was later extended to all the descendants of Mathathias, and even to all who joined them and took part in the rebellion. It is also given to the martyrs in the struggle of that time (mentioned in 2 Machabees 6:18 & chapter 7). “Machabee” is commonly thought to mean “hammerer” or “hammer-like”, and would have been given to Judas because of his courage in combating the enemies of Israel. The family or dynasty of the Machabees was Hasmoneans or Asmoneans.
The Machabees were tired and fed-up of the constant compromises, insidious infiltrations, odious offenses, and endless erosions of the Faith and religious practices of the Chosen People in the last few centuries before the advent of Christ. What was happening in those bygone days is also happening in similar ways in our present day. The combative courage and selfless sacrifices that the Machabees made in their day―for the sake of God and the preservation of their Faith and the repelling of the worldliness that was corrupting the Jews―is something that we all need to find and exercise today because similar things are happening to us.
A Jewish priestly family, under the leadership of Mathathias, initiated the revolt against the tyranny of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, King of Syria ― who was attempting to force Greek paganism on his Jewish subjects by Hellenizing them (to “Hellenize” means he adoption of Greek culture, religion, language and identity by non-Greeks). Newly conquered cities were established along Greek lines, composed of colonists who came from different parts of the Greek world, and not just from a specific metropolis (“mother city”) as before. You see the same thing being done today by the political and financial conquerors of the world―who break down national barriers and “import” immigrants from all parts of the world in order to weaken and water-down any nationalistic and patriotic sentiments and organizations in the home country.
Hellenize or Hell-and-Nice?
This movement to Hellenize the Jews, was begun with the approval by a party among the Jewish aristocracy, who were in favor of breaking down the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile and of adopting Greek customs that had been begun by of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, King of Syria. When Antiochus IV Epiphanes (ca. 215–164 BC) began ruling the Seleucid Empire (175 BC), the office of High Priest in Jerusalem was held by the traditionally minded Onias III. In the eyes of Antiochus, the High Priest was merely a local governor that he could appoint or dismiss at will, whereas for the orthodox Jews the High Priest was divinely appointed by God.
The traditionally minded Onias was the High Priest―and was thus opposed to any kind of Hellenization. The brother of Onias, Jason―whose traditional name was Jesus, but who had changed his name to the Greek version: Jason―was far more Liberal and accepting of the pagan Hellenization of the Jews. He bribed Antiochus to make him High Priest instead of Onias. By promising the king a large sum of money, and by offering to become the promoter among the Jews of his policy of Hellenizing the non-Greek population of his domains, Jason obtained the overthrow of his brother as high-priest and his own appointment to the high-priesthood in his brother’s place (174 BC). As soon as he was installed as high-priest, he began the work of Hellenizing and carried it on with considerable success. Jason had established institutions of Greek education and, in later years, Jewish culture started to be suppressed including forbidding circumcision and observance of the Sabbath. A gymnasium was built below the Acra (citadel) in Jerusalem, in close proximity to the Temple, where the youths of Jerusalem were taught Greek sports. Even priests became addicted to the games and neglected the altar for the gymnasium. These athletes would perform naked. Many, ashamed of what a true Jew gloried in, had the marks of circumcision removed to avoid being recognized as Jews in the baths or the gymnasium.
Another Liberal Jew―who had also changed his Jewish name in favor of the Greek version: Menelaus―then also bribed Antiochus and was appointed High Priest in place of Jason! Sounds just as corrupt a state of affairs as we see today! The newly appointed High Priest, Menelaus had the Traditional ex-High Priests, Onias, assassinated. Menelaus’ brother Lysimachus stole holy vessels from the Temple; the resulting riots led to the death of Lysimachus. Menelaus was arrested for Onias’ murder, and was brought to trial before Antiochus, but he bribed his way out of trouble. The deposed High Priest, Jason, then managed to drive out Menelaus and became High Priest again. Yet all the while the Hellenization of the Jews continued.
This acceptance of Hellenization and the pagan Greek culture merited condemnation. All the idols of Gentiles are demons: “All the gods of the Gentiles are devils” (Psalms 95:5). “They mingled among the heathens, and learned their works and served their idols, and it became a stumbling-block to them. They sacrificed their sons, and their daughters to devils” (Psalm 105:35-37). “They sacrificed to devils and not to God―to gods whom they knew not, that were newly come up, whom their fathers worshipped not” (Deuteronomy 32:17). “You have provoked the eternal God who made you, by offering sacrifice to devils and not to God!” (Baruch 4:7).
Yet there was very little or no protest, no real sustained resistance, and no vehement rejection of this pagan Hellenization that was being forced upon the Jews―many actually liked this worldliness and gladly went along with it. Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism that combined Jewish religious traditions with elements of the pagan Greek culture. This led to a division among the Jews―with Traditionalists on one side and Liberals on the other. Hellenism― the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language and identity by non-Greeks―was seen by the Traditionalist Jews as a threat of pagan assimilation diametrically opposed to Jewish traditions which were centered and focused upon the One True God.
Enough is Enough!
The Machabean Revolt (the Hasmonean Revolt) was a Jewish rebellion led by the Machabees against the Seleucid Empire and against Hellenistic influence on Jewish life. The main phase of the revolt lasted from 167–160 BC and ended with the Seleucids in control of Judea, but conflict between the Machabees, Hellenized Jews, and the Seleucids continued until 134 BC, with the Machabees eventually attaining independence.
Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes had launched a massive campaign of repression against the Jewish religion in 168 BC. The reason he did so is not entirely clear, but it seems to have been related to the King mistaking the Traditional versus Liberal internal conflict among the Jewish priesthood as a full-scale rebellion. Jewish practices were banned, Jerusalem was placed under direct Seleucid control, and the Second Temple in Jerusalem was made the site of a mixed Pagan-Jewish cult. This repression triggered exactly the revolt that Antiochus IV had feared, with a group of Jewish fighters led by Judas Machabeus (Judah Machabee) and his family rebelling in 167 BC and seeking independence from the invading Seleucid Empire. The rebels as a whole would come to be known as the Machabees, and their actions would be chronicled later in the books of 1 Machabees and 2 Machabees.
The rebellion started as a guerrilla movement in the Judean countryside, raiding towns and terrorizing Greek officials far from direct Seleucid control, but it eventually developed a proper army capable of attacking the fortified Seleucid cities. In 164 BC, the Machabees captured Jerusalem from the Seleucids, which was a notable early victory. They saw to it that the Temple was cleansed of the idols of the mixed Pagan-Jewish worship. The Seleucids eventually relented and lifted the ban on Judaism’s religious practices and traditions, but the more radical Machabees, not content with merely re-establishing Jewish practices under Seleucid rule, continued to fight, pushing for a more direct break with the Seleucids.
Judas Machabeus died in 160 BC, during the Battle of Elasa against the Greek general Bacchides, and the Seleucids re-established direct control for a time, but remnants of the Machabees, under Judas’s brother Jonathan Apphus, continued to resist from the countryside. Eventually, due to internal division among the Seleucids and problems elsewhere in their empire, the Machabees gained their chance for proper independence. In 141 BC, Simon Thassi succeeded in expelling the Greeks from their citadel in Jerusalem. An alliance with the Roman Republic helped guarantee their independence. Simon would go on to establish an independent Hasmonean kingdom. The revolt had a great impact on Jewish nationalism, as an example of a successful campaign to establish political independence and resist governmental suppression of traditional religious and cultural practices.
How Did the Machabeans Succeed? What Lessons for Us?
Many people today―especially the youth―are clueless on the subject of the Machabees. Ask them about “Machabees” and they are likely to associate them with Bumblebees and Honeybees. If you tell them that the Machabees were Jewish―they will think of them as some kind of Jewish bee, found only in Israel. Mention the “Machabean Uprising” and they will think you are talking about “beans” sprouting!
“To be or not to be―that is the question!” is a line from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1). The line comes from a speech by Hamlet, wherein he contemplates death and suicide, bemoaning the pain and unfairness of life, but acknowledging that the alternative might be worse. To put some more context to the quote, Hamlet says: “To be, or not to be―that is the question! Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune―or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing them, end them?”
These words, penned by the Catholic Shakespeare, you could just as well place in the mouths of the Machabees of old, and also in the mouths of true Catholics today. To paraphrase them a little, you could say: “Whether to be a good Catholic or not to be a good Catholic―that is the question! Whether it is nobler to simply sit-down and shut-up in face of all these outrageous crises besieging both Church and Country, or to take up arms against the enemy and the tsunami of troubles they cause―and thereby put an end to them?”
The Machabees of old were the prototypes or figures of true Catholics today. Just as the Jews were being progressively “Hellenized” or “Greekified” by the Seleucid Empire (one of the Greek States) and were losing their God-given Faith in the process―likewise, we true Catholics of today, are being progressively “Liberalized” or “Worldlified” or “Materialized” or “Entertainmentized” or “Despirtualized” or “De-Catholicized” by the world (and its prince―Satan) today. Just as the Jews―and even Jewish priests―were immersed in and besotted by the pagan Greek culture at that time; likewise, Catholics are immersed in and besotted by the neo-pagan culture that is rampant throughout the world today. Satan―“the prince of this world” (John 14:30)―truly rules the world today, as often stated by the recently deceased (2016) chief exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “The influence of Satan is immense! Today, Satan has free hands … Satan continually tries to dominate the world ― the whole world is in the power of the evil one … The smoke of Satan has entered everywhere. Everywhere! Satanism is on the increase. Today Satan rules the world … Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan! The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office!” As Holy Scripture warned: “And that great dragon―that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan―was cast out and he was cast unto the Earth, and he seduceth the whole world” (Apocalypse 12:9).
Seduced by Seleucids ― Seduced by Satan
The very idea or notion of “seduction” is not something painful, nasty and ugly―but something pleasant, likeable and nice! That is how the devil has always operated and always will operate. He seduced the ancient Jews to accept the “pleasant, likeable and nice” Hellenization by the Greek State of old―and now he seduces Catholics into accepting the “pleasant, likeable and nice” aspects of this neo-pagan world of ours. Like Our Lady of La Salette, Akita and Good Success prophesied of our times: “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God … The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church … Satan, making use of both the good and the evil, will engage in a fierce battle to destroy it … The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God ... Those who should speak will fall silent ... As true Faith fades, a false light will brighten the people … The true Faith to the Lord having been forgotten … disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth. People will think of nothing but amusement … Many people, impelled by the malice of the devil, will rebel against the spirit of the Catholic Church … Many hearts consecrated to God in the priestly and religious state will fall into lukewarmness. This, then, will be the cause of the cursed demon taking possession … The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord ... The devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth … The Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the king of all hearts … ... They will focus particularly on the children, in order to achieve this general corruption. Woe to the children of these times! … The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity.”
Our Lady could just as well have spoken those words in the time of the Machabees, when the Jews were being “Hellenized” (or Hell―enized) and both priests and laity were falling for this pagan “injection” into their traditional God-centered religious culture. We are being “vaccinated” with worldliness today―and even our best Catholics, both old and young, are falling for it. As Our Lady lamented: “Those who should speak out will fall silent!” Catholics are silently (and gladly) received the “vaccine” of worldliness, which makes them just like the rest of the non-Catholics in the world―immune to God and immune to God’s one true religion, the Catholic Faith.
In the early part of the 2nd century BC, Hellenizing Jews took control of the high priesthood itself. As high priest from 175 to 172, the Greek-culture-loving Jewish High Priest, Jesus (who prefer to call himself by the Greek version of Jesus―Jason), established Jerusalem as a Greek city, with Greek educational institutions. He was replaced by an even more extreme Hellenizing group of Jews, who established Menelaus (died 162 BC) as High Priest―which led to a civil war in which Menelaus was supported by the wealthy aristocrats and Jason by the masses. The Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who initially granted exemptions and privileges to the Jews, intervened at the request of Menelaus’s party. Antiochus’s promulgation of decrees against the practice of Judaism led in 167 BC to the successful revolt of the priest Mattathias (died 166 BC) and his five sons—the Machabees.
The parallels with our present day situation are uncanny! Just as the Jews were progressively “Hellenized” or “Greekified” over a period of over 250 years, the Catholic Church has been undergoing a revolution that has “Liberalized” or “Modernized” or “Worldlified” the Church over a period of almost 250 years―since the French Revolution in 1789 (233 years ago). Just as the Hellenizing Jews took control of the High Priesthood itself―likewise Liberals and Modernists (who are in tune with neo-pagan culture) have taken control of the papacy and episcopacy (pope and bishops). The popes over the last 70 years or so―some would argue it goes back even further than that―have been increasingly “Hellenized” or “Hell―enized” by the world and its prince. Fr. Gabriele Amorth―an expert on Satan and also having lived in Rome for decades as its chief exorcist―had no qualms in saying: “Satan is in the Vatican! The devil resides in the Vatican. I have no doubt about the fact that the demon tempts the authorities of the Church especially―just as he tempts every authority, those of politics and industry!”
Like the Machabees, True Catholics Must Resist and Fight
When someone grabs you and tries to get a hold over you―what do you do? Well, you probably do two things―you shout for help and you deliver whatever blows you can to your attacker. The same holds true for our battles with Satan and the world―who are trying to get a hold over us, trying to drag us down in the ocean of worldliness that has flooded the world today. We shout and we hit. We shout to Heaven for help and we hit Satan and his gang with prayers―especially the Hail Mary and the Rosary which is largely made up of Hail Marys. You can look at one Hail Mary as being a hammer, cudgel, stick or even a single-shot rifle, whereas a Rosary is like a machine gun of Hail Marys.
Hammering Away with the Rosary
The Jewish word “Machabee” means “Hammer”. The Machabees “hammered” their invading and occupying enemies with human weapons―we also have a “Machabee” or a “Hammer” with which we can hammer our enemies―Satan and the world. That “hammer” is the Hail Mary―as testified by Fr. Gabriele Amorth. Let him explain how this is―Fr. Amorth says: “During an exorcism Satan told me, through the possessed person, ‘Every Hail Mary of the Rosary is a blow to the head for me! If Christians knew the power of the Rosary, it would be the end of me!’” Therefore, each Hail Mary is like a blow of hammer to Satan’s head! Satan himself admits: “If Christians knew the power of the Rosary, it would be the end of me!”
That is exactly what Our Lady has been trying to knock into our thick heads all this time: “Say many Rosaries!” (Fatima, May 1917). “Say the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, June 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). “Continue to say the Rosary every day! Pray, pray very much!” (Fatima, August 1917). “Continue to pray the Rosary!” (Fatima, September 1917). “Continue always to pray the Rosary every day!” (Fatima, October 1917). “Pray very much! … Be faithful and fervent in prayer! … The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach!” (Akita, 1973).
Sister Lucia further explains: God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others … As for the Holy Rosary, Father, in these last times in which we are living, the Blessed Virgin has given a new efficacy to the praying of the Holy Rosary. This in such a way that there is no problem that cannot be resolved by praying the Rosary, no matter how difficult it is ― be it temporal or above all spiritual ― in the spiritual life of each of us, in the personal life of each one of us, or the lives of our families, be they our families, of the families of the world, or Religious Communities, or even in the lives of peoples and nations. I repeat, there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve at this time by praying the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls”” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957).
Satan knows this to be true and believes it wholeheartedly―that is why he lamented to Fr. Gabriele Amorth: “Every Hail Mary of the Rosary is a blow to the head for me! If Christians knew the power of the Rosary, it would be the end of me!’” Why don’t we believe that? Why don’t we use that “hammer”? Why are we not bashing the hell out of Satan and his minions with our spiritual “hammers”? We have the weapon―as Our Lady said: “The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son!”―why are we not using that ballistic missile, that nuclear “hammer”? We will have to answer for that at our Final Judgment! Can you imagine the power of over 1,000 million daily Rosaries prayed by Catholics in a state of sanctifying grace!!! If there are around 1,400 million Catholics in the world, then 1,000 million are out of diapers and able to pray! If everyone prayed the full Rosary―15 decades or 3 Rosaries consisting of the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries―then you would have 3,000 million daily Rosaries being fired against Satan and his minions! They would have NO CHANCE! They would be the BIGGEST LOSERS history has ever seen―and this world would be a holy, God-centered, God-loving and God worshipping world―instead of the pit of Hell that is slowly evolving into!
The Other Weapon
The other “weapon”, which Our Lady speaks of, “the Sign left by my Son”, has to be the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass―for the Mass is the greatest weapon of “mass” destruction that we have! This, too, has been the target of “Hell―enization” by Satan. He knows full well―more than any theologian―the damage that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass does to his plots and plans and machinations. This is why, even before the Second Vatican Council, the Mass was being eroded or weakening wherever possible―little by little and always under the so-called “guise of good”―which really means under the disguise of good, or being disguised as being good, when in reality it is harmful. Once the enemies of the Church succeeded in infiltrating the Church in sufficient numbers and were able to reach some key positions, then one of the chief things on the agenda had to be the disarmament of Catholics by neutralizing the Mass as much as possible. The Post-Conciliar period (after the Second Vatican Council) succeeded in introducing a pretty impotent Mass―whose effect has to be questioned―much like Fr. Gabriel Amorth complained about the introduction of a new rite of exorcism which also turned out to be impotent in fighting the devil―so much so that exorcists began to revert to the old traditional rite of exorcism if they wanted any success in battling Satan.
It is with the Mass and the Rosary that we have to fight the good fight of the Faith today. As Our Lord said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5)―and Our Lady, in reference to devotion to her Immaculate Heart and the Rosary―said: “Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary … because only she can help you!” (Fatima, July 1917). At Akita, in 1973, she added: The only weapons which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son … I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
This supernatural intervention is of upmost importance―as we learn from the battles of the Machabees. In the Book of Machabees, in the Bible, we read that Judas Machabeus had the good habit of praying every time he went into battle―the result was that he was visibly protected by angels who also slaughtered the enemy. On the one occasion he failed to pray before battle―he was killed in that battle!
Supernatural Weapons of Judas Machabeus and the Machabees
Judas Machabeus roused his soldiers for battle, saying: “They trust in their weapons, and in their boldness―but we trust in the Almighty Lord, Who, at a beck, can utterly destroy both them that come against us and the whole world!” (2 Machabees 8:18).
“And after the Holy Book had been read to them by Esdras, and he had given them for a watchword, ‘The help of God!’ Judas Machabeus, himself leading the first band, joined battle with Nicanor. And the Almighty being their helper, they slew above nine thousand men” (2 Machabees 8:18).
“Judas Machabeus, and they that were with him, by the protection of the Lord, recovered the temple and the city again” (2 Machabees 10:1).
“Judas Machabeus, beseeching the Lord by prayers to be their helper, made a strong attack upon the strong holds of the Idumeans―and assaulting them with great force, won the stongholds, killed them that came in the way, and slew altogether no fewer than twenty thousand” (2 Machabees 10:16-17).
“A multitude of foreign troops and assembled horsemen, out of Asia, came to take Judea by force of arms. But Judas Machabeus and they that were with him, when he drew near, prayed to the Lord, sprinkling earth upon their heads and girding their loins with haircloth, and lying prostrate at the foot of the altar, besought the Lord to be merciful to them, and to be an enemy to their enemies, and an adversary to their adversaries. And so, after prayer, taking their arms, they went forth from the city, and when they were come very near the enemies, they rested. But as soon as the sun was risen both sides joined battle―the one part having with their valor the Lord for a surety of victory and success; but the other side making their rage their leader in battle. But when they were in the heat of the engagement, there appeared to the enemies from Heaven five men upon horses, comely with golden bridles, conducting the Jews. Two of whom took Judas Machabeus between them, and covered him on every side with their arms, and kept him safe―but cast darts and fireballs against the enemy, so that they fell down, being both confounded with blindness, and filled with trouble. And there were slain twenty thousand five hundred, and six hundred horsemen” (2 Machabees 10:24-31).
“When Judas Machabeus, and they that were with him, understood that their strong holds were besieged, they and all the people besought the Lord with lamentations and tears, that He would send a good angel to save Israel. Then Machabeus himself, first taking his arms, exhorted the rest to expose themselves, together with him, to the danger, and to help their brethren. And when they were going forth together with a willing mind, there appeared at Jerusalem a horseman, going before them in white clothing, with golden armor, shaking a spear. Then they all together blessed the merciful Lord, and took great courage, being ready to break through not only men, but also the fiercest beasts, and walls of iron. So they went on courageously, having a helper from Heaven and the Lord, who showed mercy to them. And rushing violently upon the enemy, like lions, they slew of them eleven thousand footmen, and one thousand six hundred horsemen, and put all the rest to flight” (2 Machabees 11:6-12).
“Timotheus, with five thousand footmen and five hundred horsemen of the Arabians set upon them. And after a hard fight, by the help of God, Judas Machabeus got the victory” (2 Machabees 12:10-11).
“Judas Machabeus calling upon the great Lord of the world, Who, without any battering rams or engines of war, threw down the walls of Jericho in the time of Josue, fiercely assaulted the walls. And having taken the city, by the will of the Lord, he made an unspeakable slaughter” (2 Machabees 12:15-16).
“Then Judas Machabeus … removed his army to Ephron, a strong city, wherein there dwelt a multitude of divers nations, and stout young men standing upon the walls made a vigorous resistance. And in this place there were many engines of war, and a provision of darts. But when they had invoked the Almighty, Who with His power breaketh the strength of the enemies, they took the city; and slew five and twenty thousand of them that were within” (2 Machabees 12:27-28).
“Judas Machabeus called upon the Lord to be their helper, and leader of the battle. Then, beginning in his own language and singing hymns with a loud voice, he put Gorgias’ soldiers to flight” (2 Machabees 12:36-37).
“Antiochus Eupator was coming with a multitude against Judea … having with him a hundred and ten thousand footmen, five thousand horsemen, twenty-two elephants, and three hundred chariots armed with hooks … Which, when Judas Machabeus understood, he commanded the people to call upon the Lord day and night, that as he had always done, so now also He would help them … and that He would not suffer the people … to be again in subjection to blasphemous nations. So when they had all done this together, and had craved mercy of the Lord with weeping and fasting, lying prostrate on the ground for three days continually, Judas exhorted them to make themselves ready … So committing all to God, the creator of the world, and having exhorted his people to fight manfully, and to stand up even to death for the laws, the temple, the city, their country, and citizens: he placed his army about Modin. And having given his company for a watchword ― ‘The victory of God’ ― with most valiant chosen young men, he set upon the enemy by night, and slew four thousand men in the camp, and the greatest of the elephants, with them that had been upon him, and having filled the camp of the enemies with exceeding great fear and tumult, they went off with good success. Now this was done at the break of day, by the protection and help of the Lord” (2 Machabees 13:1-17).
“The enemies [Nicanor and his army] were at hand, and the army was set in array, the beasts and the horsemen ranged in convenient places, Judas Machabeus―considering the coming of the multitude and the divers preparations of armor, and the fierceness of the beasts―stretching out his hands to Heaven, called upon the Lord that worketh wonders, Who giveth victory to them that are worthy, not according to the power of their arms, but according as it seemeth good to Him. And in his prayer he said after this manner: ‘Thou, O Lord, Who didst send thy angel in the time of Ezechias king of Juda, and didst kill a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the army of Sennacherib―send now also, O Lord of Heaven, Thy good angel before us, for the fear and dread of the greatness of Thy arm, so that they may be afraid, who come with blasphemy against Thy holy people!’ And thus he concluded his prayer. But Nicanor, and they that were with him came forward, with trumpets and songs. But Judas Machabeus, and they that were with him, encountered them, calling upon God by prayers. So, fighting with their hands, but praying to the Lord with their hearts, they slew no less than five and thirty thousand, being greatly cheered with the presence of God. And when the battle was over, and they were returning with joy, they understood that Nicanor was slain in his armor. Then making a shout, and a great noise, they blessed the Almighty Lord in their own language … Then all blessed the Lord of Heaven, saying: ‘Blessed be He that hath kept His own place undefiled!’” (2 Machabees 15:20-29, 34).
Hearing the news of Nicanor's defeat, the Seleucid ruler, Demetrius, dispatched a new army: “Judas Machabeus went forth to meet the enemy with a small company. But when they saw the army coming to meet them, they said to Judas: ‘How shall we, being few, be able to fight against so great a multitude and so strong―and we are ready to faint from fasting today?’ And Judas said: ‘It is an easy matter for many to be shut up in the hands of a few―and there is no difference in the sight of the God of Heaven to win with a great army, or with a small company! For the success of war is not in the multitude of the army, but strength cometh from Heaven. They come against us with an insolent multitude, and with pride, to destroy us, and our wives, and our children, and to take our spoils. But we will fight for our lives and our laws and the Lord Himself will overthrow them before our face―but as for you, fear them not!’” (1 Machabees 3:16-22).
“Judas Machabeus and his brethren saw that evils were multiplied, and that the armies approached to their borders: and they knew the orders the king had given to destroy the people and utterly abolish them. And the assembly was gathered that they might be ready for battle and that they might pray, and ask mercy and compassion ... And they fasted that day, and put on haircloth, and put ashes upon their heads: and they rent their garments … And they cried with a loud voice toward heaven, saying: ‘Behold the nations are come together against us to destroy us! Thou knowest what they intend against us. How shall we be able to stand before their face, unless Thou, O God, help us?’ Then they sounded with trumpets, and cried out with a loud voice. And after this Judas said: ‘Gird yourselves, and be valiant men, and be ready against the morning, that you may fight with these nations that are assembled against us to destroy us and our sanctuary. For it is better for us to die in battle, than to see the evils of our nation, and of the holies! Nevertheless as it shall be the will of God in Heaven so be it done!’ … (1 Machabees 3:42-60).
“Gorgias [the enemy leader] took five thousand men, and a thousand of the best horsemen … Judas showed himself in the plain with three thousand men only, who neither had armor nor swords. And they saw the camp of the Gentiles that it was strong, and the men in breastplates, and the horsemen round about them, and these were trained up to war. And Judas Machabeus said to the men that were with him: ‘Fear ye not their multitude, neither be ye afraid of their assault! Remember in what manner our fathers were saved in the Red Sea, when Pharao pursued them with a great army! Now let us cry to Heaven and the Lord will have mercy on us, and will remember the covenant of our fathers, and will destroy this army before our face this day! And all nations shall know that there is one that redeemeth and delivereth Israel!’ And the strangers lifted up their eyes, and saw Judas and his men coming against them. And they went out of the camp to battle, and they that were with Judas sounded the trumpet. And they joined battle―and the Gentiles were routed and fled into the plain” (1 Machabees 4:1-14).
“The following year, Lysias gathered together sixty thousand chosen men, and five thousand horsemen, that he might subdue them. And they came into Judea and Judas Machabeus met them with ten thousand men. And Judas saw that their army was strong, so he prayed and said: ‘Blessed art thou, O Savior of Israel, Who didst break the violence of the mighty by the hand of thy servant David! … Shut up this army in the hands of thy people Israel, and let them be confounded in their host and their horsemen! Strike them with fear, and cause the boldness of their strength to languish, and let them quake at their own destruction! Cast them down with the sword of them that love Thee, and let all that know Thy Name, and praise Thee with hymns!’ And they joined battle and there fell of the army of Lysias five thousand men. When Lysias saw that his men were put to flight, and how bold the Jews were, and that they were ready either to live, or to die manfully, he retreated to Antioch and chose even more soldiers, that they might come again into Judea with greater numbers” (1 Machabees 4:28-35).
Judas Machabeus is Slain in Battle
“Now Judas Machabeus saw the multitude of the army that they were many, and they were seized with great fear and many of his men withdrew themselves out of the camp, and there remained of them no more than eight hundred men. And Judas saw that his army slipped away, and the battle pressed upon him, and his heart was cast down: because he had not time to gather them together, and he was discouraged. Then he said to them that remained: ‘Let us arise, and go against our enemies, if we may be able to fight against them!’ But they dissuaded him, saying: ‘We shall not be able―but let us save our lives now, and return to our brethren, and then we will fight against them, for we are but few!’ Then Judas said: ‘God forbid we should do this thing, and flee away from them! But if our time has come, let us die manfully for our brethren, and let us not stain our glory!’ And the army removed out of the camp, and they stood over against them ― and they sounded the trumpets. And they also were on Judas' side, even they also cried out, and the earth shook at the noise of the armies: and the battle was fought from morning even unto the evening ... And the battle was hard fought, and there fell many wounded of the one side and of the other. And Judas was slain and the rest fled away. And Jonathan and Simon took Judas their brother, and buried him in the sepulcher of their fathers in the city of Modin” (1 Machabees 9:6-19).
Many commentators are of the opinion that Judas Machabeus failed to invoke God with the same fervor, faith and courage that he had shown in previous battles―and they attribute that negligence to invoke God as the chief cause of his being slain in battle. Why he failed to do so―was it complacency, pride in his past victories, a misplaced human imagination of invincibility, or something else―we do not know. Yet there is a lesson for all of us in our current day battles against Satan and his minions in the world whom he uses to try and destroy the Church and all that is godly. As Jesus said: “Without Me―you can do nothing!” (John 15:5) and Our Lady added: “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach! Those who place their confidence in me will be saved!”
It is not we who will be the ultimate reason for the victory of good over evil, of God over Satan, of the Church over the world―it will be of divine origin, even though we will have a part to play in it. As Our Lady said of this “final battle” and “decisive battle” with Satan and world: “Humanly speaking, evil will seem to triumph … This, however, will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss. Thus the Church and this country will be finally free of his cruel tyranny … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
Are you part of her triumph, or you contributing to the apparent triumph of evil? As Sister Lucia of Fatima said: “She [Our Lady] told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground!” (Sr. Lucia of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, December 26th, 1957). Are you part of the solution, or are you part of the problem? Are you ready to fight for Our Lady’s victory, or have you placed yourself among spectators? There can be no spectators, as Sister Lucia said: “From now on, we are either with God, or we are with the Devil―there is no middle ground!”
Article 1
Sunday July 31st & Monday August 1st, 2022
The Only Cure is a Spiritual Cure
This article us currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
Sunday July 31st & Monday August 1st, 2022
The Only Cure is a Spiritual Cure
This article us currently being written. Sections will be posted as they are completed. Please check back later.
The Two Powers
God made man with both a soul and a body. Society has two chief domains―the spiritual and the secular, Church and State. We live on Earth, but we were made to go to Heaven (or Hell if we refuse to cooperate with God). There are two loves that compete for our attention and dedication―love of God and a love of the world. There are two purchasing powers available to us―the money of the world, or the money of Heaven. The more money we have in the bank, the more things we can purchase on Earth. The more charity we have in the soul (the currency of Heaven), the more we can buy from God. There are essentially two kinds of cures for disease on Earth―the superior God-made cures that God has created and placed in nature; and the inferior man-made cures that proud man substitutes for God-made cures.
The Power of the Cross
As God so truly says: “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). Man seeks happiness through amassing one pleasure after another―whereas Christ promises happiness through the cross: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23). “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27). “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
The Imitation of Christ has some poignant and powerful passages that elucidate that truth―here are some extracts:
“To glory in adversity is not hard for the man who loves, for this is to glory in the cross of the Lord ... Why do you look for rest when you were born to work? Resign yourself to patience rather than to comfort, to carrying your cross rather than to enjoyment ... Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him … Do not those who always seek consolation deserve to be called mercenaries? Do not those who always think of their own profit and gain prove that they love themselves rather than Christ? … To many the saying, “Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me,” seems hard, but it will be much harder to hear that final word: “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.” Those who hear the word of the cross and follow it willingly now, need not fear that they will hear of eternal damnation on the Day of Judgment …
“Why, then, do you fear to take up the cross when through it you can win a kingdom? In the cross is salvation, in the cross is life, in the cross is protection from enemies, in the cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness, in the cross is strength of mind, in the cross is joy of spirit, in the cross is highest virtue, in the cross is perfect holiness. There is no salvation of soul, nor hope of everlasting life, except in the cross. Take up your cross, therefore, and follow Jesus, and you shall enter eternal life. He Himself opened the way before you in carrying His cross, and upon it He died for you, that you, too, might take up your cross and long to die upon it. If you die with Him, you shall also live with Him, and if you share His suffering, you shall also share His glory. Behold, in the cross is everything, and upon your dying on the cross everything depends. There is no other way to life and to true inward peace than the way of the holy cross and daily mortification ... The cross, therefore, is always ready; it awaits you everywhere. No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it, for wherever you go you take yourself with you and shall always find yourself. Turn where you will — above, below, without, or within — you will find a cross in everything and everywhere …
“If you carry the cross willingly, it will carry and lead you to the desired goal where indeed there shall be no more suffering, but here, on Earth, there shall be suffering. If you carry it unwillingly, you create a burden for yourself and increase the load, though still you have to bear it. If you cast away one cross, you will find another and perhaps a heavier one. Do you expect to escape what no mortal man can ever avoid? Which of the saints was without a cross or trial on this Earth? Not even Jesus Christ! … How is it that you look for another way than this―the royal way of the holy cross? The whole life of Christ was a cross and a martyrdom, and do you seek rest and enjoyment for yourself? … No man is fit to enjoy Heaven unless he has resigned himself to suffer hardship for Christ ... If, indeed, there were anything better or more useful for man’s salvation than suffering, Christ would have shown it by word and example ... Take courage! Let us go forward together and Jesus will be with us. For Jesus’ sake we have taken this cross. For Jesus’ sake let us persevere with it. He will be our help! Behold, our King goes before us and will fight for us. Let us follow like men. Let no man fear any terrors. Let us be prepared to meet death valiantly in battle. Let us not suffer our glory to be blemished by fleeing from the Cross!” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 2, chapters 10, 11 & 12; Book 3, chapter 56).
The Powerful Propaganda of Pleasure
Satan, on the other hand―whom Our Lord calls “the prince of this world” (John 14:30)―has other plans in store for us: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). Just as Satan tempted Our Lord in the desert with pleasures and power―so too does Satan tempt every person in this world: “Know that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world!” (1 Peter 5:9). He tempts all of us “to have the pleasure of sin for a time” (Hebrews 11:25), so that we find “laughter at the pleasures of sin” (Ecclesiasticus 27:14) and become “slaves to diverse desires and pleasures” (Titus 3:3) and “lovers of pleasures more than of God” (2 Timothy 3:4), so that we finally become “choked with the cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and yield no fruit” (Luke 8:14).
As the Imitation of Christ warns: “In truth, you cannot have two joys: you cannot taste the pleasures of this world and afterward reign with Christ! … If your life to this moment had been full of honors and pleasures, what good would it do if at this instant you should die? All is vanity, therefore, except to love God and to serve Him alone!” (Book 1, chapter 24). “The true lover of Christ, however, who sincerely pursues virtue, does not fall back upon consolations nor seek such pleasures of sense, but prefers severe trials and hard labors for the sake of Christ! … Our merit and progress consist not in many pleasures and comforts but rather in enduring great afflictions and sufferings!” (Book 2, chapter 9 & 12).
Nevertheless, the tsunami of pleasure rolls on―wave after wave! Never in the history of mankind has there been so much pleasure available to the common man as there is today. People who lived in bygone days would have a heart attack at seeing all the pleasures that are available to us today! The common man or woman of today has many times more the number of pleasures accessible to him or her than the kings and queens of old. Every department store is a palace of pleasures. Not one single king or queen of old ever owned a car―they could not even imagine or dream of one! Glass windows, double-glazing, humidifiers, dehumidifiers, air-filters, central heating or air-conditioning would have been a mere fairy-tale! Planes, cruise ships, trains, motorcycles and even bicycles were unheard of. Electricity, gas, solar panels, running water, drains, indoor toilets, showers, washing-machines, dishwashers, refrigerators, freezers, gas/electric ovens, vacuum-cleaners, electric kettles, microwaves, mixers, blenders, grinders, juicers, slow-cookers, coffee-makers, power-tools, fans, hair-dryers, electric-shavers, lawn-mowers, hedge-trimmers, leaf-blowers, electric chain-saws, excavators, tractors, fork-lift trucks, electric scaffolding, elevators, escalators, moving walkways, etc., etc., etc. Add to all those the almost universal pleasures of television, internet and phones. Not even the richest persons in the world possessed such things for thousands of years until such things were invented relatively recently―now almost any common person can be the owner of these things, or at least able to rent them.
The Cross is Seen as Evil
All of these things subscribe to the pleasure propaganda of the modern world―with its sales pitch of making things easier, more comfortable, faster, more convenient, etc. ― all of which flies in the face of and slaps the face of Christ’s teaching about the cross. Today, the cross is seen as an evil that has to be avoided as much as possible. This worldly spirit of comfort and ease has even infiltrated into the modern Church. Fasting and abstinence has been reduced to joke proportions―the Lenten fast has been reduced by 95% from 40 days of fasting to merely two days: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. All the Ember Days are gone. Friday abstinence is gone. For the early Christians, the fast was kept until sundown. In addition to the Lenten fast, there was also a 40-day Advent fast. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays―throughout the rest of the year―were also days of fast for many Christians, or at least days of abstinence. The fasting time before Holy Communion―which used to be from midnight until after you received Holy Communion―was at first reduced to 3 hours, and now to 1 hour.
In the later Middle Ages, after about 1000, the daily Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was usually offered in plainchant and lasted about one and a half hours―today, daily Mass can be “over and done with” in 20 to 25 minutes! Today, the regular and typical Sunday Mass readings are extremely short when compared to the Passion narrative that is recited (or sung) every year on Palm Sunday. This makes Palm Sunday somewhat unpopular with some Catholics. However, did you know that every Sunday may have been like that in the early Church? In those early years of the Church, there was a continuous reading of Sacred Scripture that was carried on from one week to the next. It was divided up into two separate readings, one from the “Law” and the other from the “Prophets”. In addition to those readings there was a reading from the Gospels. Yet, the length of each reading was not specified as it is today. St. Justin Martyr, in the 2nd century, wrote, “And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things.” The Catholic Encyclopedia further explains, “At this time, then, the text was read continuously from a Bible, till the president (the presiding bishop who was celebrating Mass) told the reader to stop.” This means that the recitation of Sacred Scripture varied between Christian communities and was dependent on the bishop who was presiding. If he wanted a long reading, he got one!
The “Penance” of Pleasure Replaces the Pleasure of Penance
All of the above “pleasure-packages” have seduced, distracted and drawn so many Catholics away from prayer, away from mortification, away from fasting, away from the Mass, and, ultimately, away from the Faith. As Our Lord so prophetically said: “The Son of man, when He cometh [again], shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). The answer is obviously: “No!” ― which has been underlined by so many different prophecies over the centuries, not least of all by Our Lady of Good Success, who, in speaking of our days, refers to “the small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith.” Why? Because, as Our Lady of La Salette points out: “Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth! … People will think of nothing but amusement!” Our Lady of Good Success adds: “The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs. In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls―who will be lost!” To which Our Lady of Akita adds: “The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness!” Sister Lucia of Fatima speaks of this sadness of Our Lady: “We always saw the Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions. She never smiled at us. This anguish that we saw in her, caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners, penetrated our souls.”
That is why Our Lady of Fatima said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
What do we do? We turn on the television, we browse the internet for trivial things in comparison the loss of souls, we get on the smartphone, tablet, laptop, etc. We head over to the refrigerator for a beer or a snack. We plan a barbecue for our family and friends. We go to the sports stadium. We watch a movie. We go shopping. We play games. Maybe we need our own Angel of Portugal, who appeared to the three children at Fatima―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―when they were playing and scolded them for playing so much: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
But, heck! Who wants to suffer? There is too much pleasure available for us to think about suffering! The gospel of the world does not speak of suffering; it does not speak of mortifications, sacrifices, penances, fasting and abstinence (unless it is in dieting for a more beautiful and pleasurable body)! The gospel of world preaches pleasure, indulgence, self-gratification, getting more and more while paying less and less. That is gospel that is listened to and loved; that is the gospel that penetrates the minds and hearts of most people―as Our Lady said above: “Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth! … People will think of nothing but amusement! … There will be an almost total and general corruption of customs ... There will be unbridled luxury that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls!” The world is going to pot; one after another, Catholics fall into the pit―the world is blind and is blindly leading everyone towards the pit of Hell: “They are blind and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit” (Matthew 15:14). Even Catholics who can see what is happening, do very little about to prevent it―most of them simply pacify themselves with more pleasures; the drug or anesthetize their minds and consciences with pacifying pleasures―more food, more drink, more entertainment, more distractions, etc.
There are a few who TALK of the world’s plight and problems (face to face, or on the phone, or on the internet)―but that is ALL they do, they JUST TALK THE TALK, but NOBODY WALKS THE WALK. As Our Lady laments:
Our Lady Laments a Lamentable World
“Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … God will strike in an unprecedented way. God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered ...
The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … They will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … . Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ...
“No one on the face of the Earth is aware from where comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents … Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... ... There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world … There are not any souls who, by their lives of immolation and sacrifice, appease the Divine Justice … I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of … beloved souls, who console Him forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this! …
“Already souls who wish to pray are on the way to being gathered together … Will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time? … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send to you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears, in the privacy of your heart. Implore our Celestial Father ... that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved.” (combination of quotes from Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita).
As Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed to Fr. Fuentes in 1957: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent! For this reason, Father, it is my mission not just to tell about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin. Father, we should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway.”
Pleasure Drunkards
The Imitation of Christ adds: “Do you think that men of the world have no suffering, or perhaps but little? Ask even those who enjoy the most delights and you will learn otherwise. ‘But,’ you will say, ‘they enjoy many pleasures and follow their own wishes; therefore they do not feel their troubles very much!’ Granted that they do have whatever they wish, how long do you think it will last? Behold, they who prosper in the world shall perish as smoke, and there shall be no memory of their past joys. Even in this life they do not find rest in these pleasures without bitterness, weariness, and fear. For they often receive the penalty of sorrow from the very thing whence they believe their happiness comes. And it is just. Since they seek and follow after pleasures without reason, they should not enjoy them without shame and bitterness. How brief, how false, how unreasonable and shameful all these pleasures are! Yet in their drunken blindness men do not understand this, but like brute beasts incur death of soul for the miserly enjoyment of a corruptible life. Therefore, My child, do not pursue your lusts, but turn away from your own will. Seek thy pleasure in the Lord and He will give thee thy heart’s desires.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 3, chapter 12).
“Here below man is defiled by many sins, ensnared in many passions, enslaved by many fears, and burdened with many cares. He is distracted by many curiosities and entangled in many vanities, surrounded by many errors and worn by may labors, oppressed by temptations, weakened by pleasures, and tortured by want ... Many persons often blame the world for being false and vain, yet do not readily give it up because the desires of the flesh have such great power. Some things draw them to love the world, others make them despise it. The lust of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life lead to love, while the pains and miseries, which are the just consequences of those things, beget hatred and weariness of the world. Vicious pleasure overcomes the soul that is given to the world. She thinks that there are delights beneath these thorns, because she has never seen or tasted the sweetness of God or the internal delight of virtue. They, on the other hand, who entirely despise the world and seek to live for God under the rule of holy discipline, are not ignorant of the divine sweetness promised to those who truly renounce the world. They see clearly how gravely the world errs, and in how many ways it deceives! ” (Imitation of Christ, Book 3, chapters 48 & 20).
Lament Your Lukewarmness!
Again, the Imitation of Christ speaks of pleasure-seeking lukewarmness: “Lament and grieve because you are still so worldly, so carnal, so passionate and unmortified, so full of roving lust, so careless in guarding the external senses, so often occupied in many vain fancies, so inclined to exterior things and so heedless of what lies within, so prone to laughter and dissipation and so indisposed to sorrow and tears, so inclined to ease and the pleasures of the flesh and so cool to austerity and zeal, so curious to hear what is new and to see the beautiful and so slow to embrace humiliation and dejection, so covetous of abundance, so niggardly in giving and so tenacious in keeping, so inconsiderate in speech, so reluctant in silence, so undisciplined in character, so disordered in action, so greedy at meals, so deaf to the Word of God, so prompt to rest and so slow to labor, so awake to empty conversation, so sleepy in keeping sacred vigils and so eager to end them, so wandering in your attention, so careless in saying the office, so lukewarm in celebrating, so heartless in receiving, so quickly distracted, so seldom fully recollected, so quickly moved to anger, so apt to take offense at others, so prone to judge, so severe in condemning, so happy in prosperity and so weak in adversity, so often making good resolutions and carrying so few of them into action” (Imitation of Christ, Book 4, chapter 7).
Using the Wrong Tool or Weapon for the Job
You would have thought that common sense would have told us that we must be using the wrong tools or weapons to solve the ever-increasing and ever-intensifying crises in both the Church and the world! Yet it seems as though common sense is no longer common! What fool would attempt to put out a forest-fire with a water-pistol? What idiot would try and tackle a flooded basement with a teaspoon? What nutcase would hope to shoot down enemy planes with a bow and arrow? Who would try to protect themselves against a tsunami with an umbrella? Or tackle a ferocious dog with a feather? Or cut down a large tree with a butter-knife? Or mow a lawn with scissors? In all these scenarios it is clearly a case of using the wrong tool or weapon for the situation at hand. It is furthermore a clear sign of stupidity!
Yet we are more or less taking the same stupid approach to the constantly escalating problems within the Church and the world. We fail to see that under all of these problems there is a spiritual, supernatural or preternatural cause―and so we try to tackle it with natural, material, physical, human attempts at solutions. As Our Lady of Good Success so clearly said―we are ultimately clueless about the means and methods we should apply to the problems besieging us. Ultimately, behind all the evil is the devil―and behind all the solutions there has to be God. Our Lord Himself said: “Without Me―you can do NOTHING!” (John 15:5)―which is why Our Lady said: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. Oh, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!”
St. Thomas, writing of prayer, says that what God decided from all eternity to grant us by His Divine Providence, He will give it to us by means of prayer, and on this depends the deliverance, salvation, conversion and cure of many souls and the progress and perfection of others. God has ruled that Matrimony begets children; plowing and sowing brings an abundance of crops―likewise, prayer brings abundant gifts and graces to the world.
St. Augustine says that prayer is the key of Heaven that fits all the gates of Heaven and all the treasure chests of God. Elsewhere he says that what bread is to the body, prayer is to the soul. And “He knows how to live well, who knows how to pray well.”
The saints say many wonderful things about prayer: “By prayer, man gives to God the greatest glory possible!” (St. Peter Julian Eymard). “As the body cannot live without nourishment, so our soul cannot be spiritually kept alive without prayer!” (St. Augustine). “It is simply impossible to live a virtuous life without prayer!” (St. John Chrysostom). “He knows how to live well who knows how to pray well!” (St. Augustine). “He who does not give up prayer, cannot possibly continue to offend God habitually. Either he will give up prayer, or he will stop sinning!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori). “When prayer is poured forth, sins are covered!” (St. Peter Julian Eymard). “He who prays most, receives most!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori). “The power of prayer is really tremendous!” (St. Therese of Lisieux).
Prayer Means Effort
Many find prayer difficult. That is only natural, since we are trying to communicate with the supernatural world: “Prayer always requires a certain effort, even from those who find in it their delight, because a certain strain is involved in the concentration necessary to speak to God; it is always more or less difficult to maintain the soul in an atmosphere which is above its usual level. That is why prayer can serve as a sacramental penance. We must not be surprised at this difficulty in applying ourselves to prayer: for to raise ourselves towards God, even in the smallest degree, is to exceed our natural powers” (Dom Marmion, Christ―The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
Living in these current times, we find ourselves to be spoiled little brats―born with a “silver-spoon” in our mouths―the “silver-spoon” of luxury, plenitude, easy availability and technology (as mentioned earlier above). All of this means much reduced effort in getting what we want. If we want hot water, we just turn on the faucet/tap, or put it on the gas/electric stove to boil, or turn on the electric kettle―we do not have to get wood for the fire to heat-up the water. If we want some meat for dinner, we do not have to hunt and kill an animal, dress and skin it, transport and store it―we just go to our refrigerator and pull out a store-purchased piece of ready-made meat. If we want milk―we don’t have to milk the cow, we just open a bottle or carton. If we want fruits and vegetables―we no longer have to plant seeds, tend to and grow the plants for months and then harvest them―we simply “harvest” them at the local store. The vast majority of work and chores have had the effort removed from them by modern technology―the result being that we have been raised to be an “effortless” race, people who no longer have to make any effort in doing most things, and who actually hate having to make an effort in doing anything!
Our Lord says: “Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7) ― which St. Teresa of Avila explains as also meaning: if you do ask, then you will not get anything; if you do not seek, then you will not find anything; and if you do not knock, no doors will opened to you! To which, you can add the above words of St. Alphonsus Liguori: “He who prays most, receives most!”
Is There Room for God?
Too many people limit prayer to an isolated part of the day―first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Yet God should be part of our whole day, not just a mere ten minutes: “Prayer in our life, must not be limited to a number of isolated, passing incidents. We must cultivate a spirit of prayer. What must we understand by this? A spirit of prayer is an habitual disposition of soul whereby, in our troubles and discouragements, as well as in our joys and successes, our hearts turn towards Our Lady and Our Lord, as to our best friends and most intimate confidants of our feelings. And it is not only in the morning and in the evening that the soul should be raised Heavenwards, but always: ‘My eyes are ever towards the Lord’” (Psalm 24:15) (Dom Marmion, Christ―The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15). Hence, Holy Scripture says: “We ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times!” (Luke 21:36). “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
The Power of Prayer of Petition
“Do we believe in the power of prayer? We know the common teaching of theologians: that true prayer―by which we ask something for ourselves with humility, confidence and perseverance, the graces necessary for salvation―is infallibly efficacious (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa IIae, Q.83, art.15, ad 2). We know this doctrine, and yet it seems to us at times that we have truly prayed without being heard. We believe in, or rather we see, the power of a machine, of an army, of money and of knowledge; but we do not believe strongly enough in the efficacy of prayer. At times we seem to think that prayer is a force by which we would try bending the will of God by persuasion. Yet God’s will has been made up from all eternity―nothing can change it” (Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, chapter 23).
Prayer is actually a bending of our will towards the will of God. He wishes the salvation of all, but all will not be saved―and one of the contributory causes is a lack of prayer; a lack of prayer by those who will be damned and a lack of prayer on the part of others for the conversion of those unfortunate souls.
“For material harvests, God prepared the seed, the rain that must help it germinate, the sun that will ripen the fruits of the Earth. Likewise, for spiritual harvest, He has prepared spiritual seeds, the divine graces necessary for sanctification and salvation. Prayer is one of the causes meant to produce that sanctification and salvation” (Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, chapter 23).
“St. Gregory the Great says: ‘Men ought by prayer to dispose themselves to receive what Almighty God from eternity has decided to give them’ (Dialogues, Book 1, chapter 8). Thus Christ, wishing to convert the Samaritan woman, led her to pray by saying to her: ‘If thou didst know the gift of God!’ In the same way, He granted Mary Magdalen a strong and gentle actual grace which inclined her to repentance and to prayer. He acted in the same way to Zacheus and the Good Thief. It is, therefore, as necessary to pray in order to obtain the help of God, as it is necessary to sow seed in order to have wheat. To those who say that what was to happen would happen, whether they prayed or not, is as foolish as to maintain that whether or not we sowed seed, wheat would still appear once summer came! Therefore, prayer is necessary to obtain the help of God, as seed is necessary for the harvest” (Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, chapter 23).
The problems we face arise from the fact that God is prepared to give far more than we are prepared to ask for―we are so lazy and negligent, lacking in confidence and perseverance, that we receive only a fraction of what God is prepared to give. The efficacy of prayer, correctly made, is infallibly assured by Christ: “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you 0shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you....And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? Or a fish, will he give him a serpent?...If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from Heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask Him?” (Luke 11:9-13).
Why Are Our Prayers Not Answered?
The problem does not lie with the Giver, but with us. St. Augustine tells us that there are three chief causes that result in our prayers not being answered. The word “BAD” applies to all three. The first “bad” is that in our prayers we ask for what is bad―either bad for ourselves, or bad for others, or bad in the sight of God. The second “bad” is that we ask badly, or in a bad manner―we might pray badly (rushed and hasty prayers; lukewarm and halfhearted prayers; not asking for long enough by giving up too easily if our prayers are not immediately answered, etc.). The third “bad” is that we ourselves are bad―meaning that we are too sinful, and especially if we are in a state of mortal sin.
“Now we know that God heareth not sinners―but if any man be a worshiper of God, and does His will, him He heareth.” (John 9:31). “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.” (Isaias 59:2). And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away My eyes from you: and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear: for your hands are full of blood.” (Isaias 1:15). “Then shall they cry to the Lord, and He will not hear them: and He will hide His face from them at that time, as they have behaved wickedly in their devices.” (Micheas 3:4). “The Lord is far from the wicked: but He will hear the prayers of the just.” (Proverbs 15:29). “He that turneth away his ears from hearing the law, his prayer shall be an abomination.” (Proverbs 28:9). “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” (Psalm 66:18). “And do you call Me ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “Not everyone that saith to Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23).
St. Thomas Aquinas, however, declares: “If sinners pray because of some good desire coming from their human nature― then God does hear them―not as a manner of justice, because sinners do not deserve this―but out of sheer mercy, provided certain conditions are met, that is to say, provided it is a prayer (1) made for oneself, (2) for things necessary for salvation, (3) made piously and (4) perseveringly.”
Getting Our Prayers Answered
Many of us become discouraged with prayer because our prayers are rarely, if ever heard. Yet there are ways in which we can almost infallibly get our prayers answered. The spiritual writers list the following cardinal points as “infallible” means of having our prayers favorably heard and answered:
1. Pray for what is good and not sinful or harmful to our salvation ― We should always remember that what we want is not always what we need. At times adversity is a better route to Heaven than prosperity. St. Augustine says: “We ought to be persuaded that what God refuses to our prayer, He grants to our salvation.”
2. Our prayer must be humble ― Remember the prayer of the Pharisee and the Publican. Remember, too, Our Lady’s prayer, the Magnificat, wherein she says that God has “regarded the humility of His handmaidYHe hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble.” The Old Testament says: “...nor from the beginning have the proud been acceptable to Thee: but the prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased Thee” (Judith 9:16). “May the Lord destroy all deceitful lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things” (Psalm 11:4). “Thou hast rebuked the proud” (Psalm 118:21). “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5).
3. Our prayer must be fervent ― Too often our prayers are said listlessly, routinely, mechanically; our heart is not in them. Of such Our Lord said: “This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:7). Our prayers should be like grains of incense, placed on the hot coals of our hearts.
4. We should amend our life ― If we persist in leading a life of sin, then we greatly handicap the chances of having our prayers heard. “He who turns his ears from hearing the law, his prayer is an abomination” (Proverbs 28:9).
5. We should forgive those who have injured us ― This was the example of Christ dying on the cross: “Father, forgive them...” “If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee―Leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother: and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). “Forgive thy neighbor if he hath hurt thee, and then shall thy sins be forgiven to thee when thou prayest” (Ecclesiasticus 28:2).
6. Our prayer should be united to good works or sacrifices ― “Prayer is good with fasting and alms” (Tobias 12:8).
7. We should pray with confidence ― Our Lord praised the faith and confidence of persons on many occasions, saying: “Go, thy faith has made thee whole!” (Matthew 9:22; Mk. 5:34; 10:52; Luke 17:19; 18:42). He also told us that “all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive” (Matthew 21:22). Do we have that confidence in prayer? Lord, I believe, increase my belief!
8. We should pray with perseverance ― “He defers the granting to increase our desire and appreciation” says St. Augustine. Our Lord Himself said: “Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say to you: Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Luke 11:8-9).
If we would only pray in the above manner, we would be amazed at the response our prayers would bring from Heaven! Keep in mind the words of the Little Flower: “The power of prayer is really tremendous.”
God made man with both a soul and a body. Society has two chief domains―the spiritual and the secular, Church and State. We live on Earth, but we were made to go to Heaven (or Hell if we refuse to cooperate with God). There are two loves that compete for our attention and dedication―love of God and a love of the world. There are two purchasing powers available to us―the money of the world, or the money of Heaven. The more money we have in the bank, the more things we can purchase on Earth. The more charity we have in the soul (the currency of Heaven), the more we can buy from God. There are essentially two kinds of cures for disease on Earth―the superior God-made cures that God has created and placed in nature; and the inferior man-made cures that proud man substitutes for God-made cures.
The Power of the Cross
As God so truly says: “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts! Nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9). Man seeks happiness through amassing one pleasure after another―whereas Christ promises happiness through the cross: “And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23). “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:27). “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:38).
The Imitation of Christ has some poignant and powerful passages that elucidate that truth―here are some extracts:
“To glory in adversity is not hard for the man who loves, for this is to glory in the cross of the Lord ... Why do you look for rest when you were born to work? Resign yourself to patience rather than to comfort, to carrying your cross rather than to enjoyment ... Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him … Do not those who always seek consolation deserve to be called mercenaries? Do not those who always think of their own profit and gain prove that they love themselves rather than Christ? … To many the saying, “Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me,” seems hard, but it will be much harder to hear that final word: “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.” Those who hear the word of the cross and follow it willingly now, need not fear that they will hear of eternal damnation on the Day of Judgment …
“Why, then, do you fear to take up the cross when through it you can win a kingdom? In the cross is salvation, in the cross is life, in the cross is protection from enemies, in the cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness, in the cross is strength of mind, in the cross is joy of spirit, in the cross is highest virtue, in the cross is perfect holiness. There is no salvation of soul, nor hope of everlasting life, except in the cross. Take up your cross, therefore, and follow Jesus, and you shall enter eternal life. He Himself opened the way before you in carrying His cross, and upon it He died for you, that you, too, might take up your cross and long to die upon it. If you die with Him, you shall also live with Him, and if you share His suffering, you shall also share His glory. Behold, in the cross is everything, and upon your dying on the cross everything depends. There is no other way to life and to true inward peace than the way of the holy cross and daily mortification ... The cross, therefore, is always ready; it awaits you everywhere. No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it, for wherever you go you take yourself with you and shall always find yourself. Turn where you will — above, below, without, or within — you will find a cross in everything and everywhere …
“If you carry the cross willingly, it will carry and lead you to the desired goal where indeed there shall be no more suffering, but here, on Earth, there shall be suffering. If you carry it unwillingly, you create a burden for yourself and increase the load, though still you have to bear it. If you cast away one cross, you will find another and perhaps a heavier one. Do you expect to escape what no mortal man can ever avoid? Which of the saints was without a cross or trial on this Earth? Not even Jesus Christ! … How is it that you look for another way than this―the royal way of the holy cross? The whole life of Christ was a cross and a martyrdom, and do you seek rest and enjoyment for yourself? … No man is fit to enjoy Heaven unless he has resigned himself to suffer hardship for Christ ... If, indeed, there were anything better or more useful for man’s salvation than suffering, Christ would have shown it by word and example ... Take courage! Let us go forward together and Jesus will be with us. For Jesus’ sake we have taken this cross. For Jesus’ sake let us persevere with it. He will be our help! Behold, our King goes before us and will fight for us. Let us follow like men. Let no man fear any terrors. Let us be prepared to meet death valiantly in battle. Let us not suffer our glory to be blemished by fleeing from the Cross!” (The Imitation of Christ, Book 2, chapters 10, 11 & 12; Book 3, chapter 56).
The Powerful Propaganda of Pleasure
Satan, on the other hand―whom Our Lord calls “the prince of this world” (John 14:30)―has other plans in store for us: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). Just as Satan tempted Our Lord in the desert with pleasures and power―so too does Satan tempt every person in this world: “Know that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world!” (1 Peter 5:9). He tempts all of us “to have the pleasure of sin for a time” (Hebrews 11:25), so that we find “laughter at the pleasures of sin” (Ecclesiasticus 27:14) and become “slaves to diverse desires and pleasures” (Titus 3:3) and “lovers of pleasures more than of God” (2 Timothy 3:4), so that we finally become “choked with the cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and yield no fruit” (Luke 8:14).
As the Imitation of Christ warns: “In truth, you cannot have two joys: you cannot taste the pleasures of this world and afterward reign with Christ! … If your life to this moment had been full of honors and pleasures, what good would it do if at this instant you should die? All is vanity, therefore, except to love God and to serve Him alone!” (Book 1, chapter 24). “The true lover of Christ, however, who sincerely pursues virtue, does not fall back upon consolations nor seek such pleasures of sense, but prefers severe trials and hard labors for the sake of Christ! … Our merit and progress consist not in many pleasures and comforts but rather in enduring great afflictions and sufferings!” (Book 2, chapter 9 & 12).
Nevertheless, the tsunami of pleasure rolls on―wave after wave! Never in the history of mankind has there been so much pleasure available to the common man as there is today. People who lived in bygone days would have a heart attack at seeing all the pleasures that are available to us today! The common man or woman of today has many times more the number of pleasures accessible to him or her than the kings and queens of old. Every department store is a palace of pleasures. Not one single king or queen of old ever owned a car―they could not even imagine or dream of one! Glass windows, double-glazing, humidifiers, dehumidifiers, air-filters, central heating or air-conditioning would have been a mere fairy-tale! Planes, cruise ships, trains, motorcycles and even bicycles were unheard of. Electricity, gas, solar panels, running water, drains, indoor toilets, showers, washing-machines, dishwashers, refrigerators, freezers, gas/electric ovens, vacuum-cleaners, electric kettles, microwaves, mixers, blenders, grinders, juicers, slow-cookers, coffee-makers, power-tools, fans, hair-dryers, electric-shavers, lawn-mowers, hedge-trimmers, leaf-blowers, electric chain-saws, excavators, tractors, fork-lift trucks, electric scaffolding, elevators, escalators, moving walkways, etc., etc., etc. Add to all those the almost universal pleasures of television, internet and phones. Not even the richest persons in the world possessed such things for thousands of years until such things were invented relatively recently―now almost any common person can be the owner of these things, or at least able to rent them.
The Cross is Seen as Evil
All of these things subscribe to the pleasure propaganda of the modern world―with its sales pitch of making things easier, more comfortable, faster, more convenient, etc. ― all of which flies in the face of and slaps the face of Christ’s teaching about the cross. Today, the cross is seen as an evil that has to be avoided as much as possible. This worldly spirit of comfort and ease has even infiltrated into the modern Church. Fasting and abstinence has been reduced to joke proportions―the Lenten fast has been reduced by 95% from 40 days of fasting to merely two days: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. All the Ember Days are gone. Friday abstinence is gone. For the early Christians, the fast was kept until sundown. In addition to the Lenten fast, there was also a 40-day Advent fast. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays―throughout the rest of the year―were also days of fast for many Christians, or at least days of abstinence. The fasting time before Holy Communion―which used to be from midnight until after you received Holy Communion―was at first reduced to 3 hours, and now to 1 hour.
In the later Middle Ages, after about 1000, the daily Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was usually offered in plainchant and lasted about one and a half hours―today, daily Mass can be “over and done with” in 20 to 25 minutes! Today, the regular and typical Sunday Mass readings are extremely short when compared to the Passion narrative that is recited (or sung) every year on Palm Sunday. This makes Palm Sunday somewhat unpopular with some Catholics. However, did you know that every Sunday may have been like that in the early Church? In those early years of the Church, there was a continuous reading of Sacred Scripture that was carried on from one week to the next. It was divided up into two separate readings, one from the “Law” and the other from the “Prophets”. In addition to those readings there was a reading from the Gospels. Yet, the length of each reading was not specified as it is today. St. Justin Martyr, in the 2nd century, wrote, “And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things.” The Catholic Encyclopedia further explains, “At this time, then, the text was read continuously from a Bible, till the president (the presiding bishop who was celebrating Mass) told the reader to stop.” This means that the recitation of Sacred Scripture varied between Christian communities and was dependent on the bishop who was presiding. If he wanted a long reading, he got one!
The “Penance” of Pleasure Replaces the Pleasure of Penance
All of the above “pleasure-packages” have seduced, distracted and drawn so many Catholics away from prayer, away from mortification, away from fasting, away from the Mass, and, ultimately, away from the Faith. As Our Lord so prophetically said: “The Son of man, when He cometh [again], shall He find, think you, Faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:8). The answer is obviously: “No!” ― which has been underlined by so many different prophecies over the centuries, not least of all by Our Lady of Good Success, who, in speaking of our days, refers to “the small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith.” Why? Because, as Our Lady of La Salette points out: “Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth! … People will think of nothing but amusement!” Our Lady of Good Success adds: “The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs. In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls―who will be lost!” To which Our Lady of Akita adds: “The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness!” Sister Lucia of Fatima speaks of this sadness of Our Lady: “We always saw the Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions. She never smiled at us. This anguish that we saw in her, caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners, penetrated our souls.”
That is why Our Lady of Fatima said: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved! … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them!” (Compilation of the words of Our Lady of Fatima from her apparitions in May, June, July & August of 1917).
What do we do? We turn on the television, we browse the internet for trivial things in comparison the loss of souls, we get on the smartphone, tablet, laptop, etc. We head over to the refrigerator for a beer or a snack. We plan a barbecue for our family and friends. We go to the sports stadium. We watch a movie. We go shopping. We play games. Maybe we need our own Angel of Portugal, who appeared to the three children at Fatima―Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta―when they were playing and scolded them for playing so much: “What are you doing? Pray! Pray a great deal! Offer prayers and sacrifices continually to the Most High! Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission all the sufferings the Lord will send you!”
But, heck! Who wants to suffer? There is too much pleasure available for us to think about suffering! The gospel of the world does not speak of suffering; it does not speak of mortifications, sacrifices, penances, fasting and abstinence (unless it is in dieting for a more beautiful and pleasurable body)! The gospel of world preaches pleasure, indulgence, self-gratification, getting more and more while paying less and less. That is gospel that is listened to and loved; that is the gospel that penetrates the minds and hearts of most people―as Our Lady said above: “Disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the Earth! … People will think of nothing but amusement! … There will be an almost total and general corruption of customs ... There will be unbridled luxury that will conquer innumerable frivolous souls!” The world is going to pot; one after another, Catholics fall into the pit―the world is blind and is blindly leading everyone towards the pit of Hell: “They are blind and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit” (Matthew 15:14). Even Catholics who can see what is happening, do very little about to prevent it―most of them simply pacify themselves with more pleasures; the drug or anesthetize their minds and consciences with pacifying pleasures―more food, more drink, more entertainment, more distractions, etc.
There are a few who TALK of the world’s plight and problems (face to face, or on the phone, or on the internet)―but that is ALL they do, they JUST TALK THE TALK, but NOBODY WALKS THE WALK. As Our Lady laments:
Our Lady Laments a Lamentable World
“Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! … God will strike in an unprecedented way. God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together … Physical and moral agonies will be suffered ...
The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ... Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell. They will put an end to Faith, little by little, even in those dedicated to God ... The Christian spirit will rapidly decay … Priests will become careless in their sacred duties ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger … They will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain … Several will abandon the Faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops … . Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls ...
“No one on the face of the Earth is aware from where comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars and the harmony between nations. All this is due to the prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents … Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... ... There is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world … There are not any souls who, by their lives of immolation and sacrifice, appease the Divine Justice … I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair―by their suffering and their poverty―for the sinners and the ungrateful … I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of … beloved souls, who console Him forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I desire this! …
“Already souls who wish to pray are on the way to being gathered together … Will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time? … Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send to you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? … Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort! … Sacrifice yourselves for sinners … Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them! … Continue to pray very much—very much! … Clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears, in the privacy of your heart. Implore our Celestial Father ... that He might take pity and bring to an end those ominous times! … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary! I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved.” (combination of quotes from Our Lady of Good Success, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita).
As Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed to Fr. Fuentes in 1957: “Father, the Blessed Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid attention to her Message―neither the good nor the bad. The good merely continue on with their life on the road of goodness, but without paying attention to this Message. The bad―the sinners―because of their sins, keep following the road of evil ignoring the Message and do not see the terrible chastisement about to befall them. But you must believe me that God is going to punish the world and chastise it in a tremendous way! The chastisement from Heaven is imminent! For this reason, Father, it is my mission not just to tell about the material punishments, that will certainly come over the Earth, if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity, if we remain fixed in sin. Father, we should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No―Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed! So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway.”
Pleasure Drunkards
The Imitation of Christ adds: “Do you think that men of the world have no suffering, or perhaps but little? Ask even those who enjoy the most delights and you will learn otherwise. ‘But,’ you will say, ‘they enjoy many pleasures and follow their own wishes; therefore they do not feel their troubles very much!’ Granted that they do have whatever they wish, how long do you think it will last? Behold, they who prosper in the world shall perish as smoke, and there shall be no memory of their past joys. Even in this life they do not find rest in these pleasures without bitterness, weariness, and fear. For they often receive the penalty of sorrow from the very thing whence they believe their happiness comes. And it is just. Since they seek and follow after pleasures without reason, they should not enjoy them without shame and bitterness. How brief, how false, how unreasonable and shameful all these pleasures are! Yet in their drunken blindness men do not understand this, but like brute beasts incur death of soul for the miserly enjoyment of a corruptible life. Therefore, My child, do not pursue your lusts, but turn away from your own will. Seek thy pleasure in the Lord and He will give thee thy heart’s desires.” (Imitation of Christ, Book 3, chapter 12).
“Here below man is defiled by many sins, ensnared in many passions, enslaved by many fears, and burdened with many cares. He is distracted by many curiosities and entangled in many vanities, surrounded by many errors and worn by may labors, oppressed by temptations, weakened by pleasures, and tortured by want ... Many persons often blame the world for being false and vain, yet do not readily give it up because the desires of the flesh have such great power. Some things draw them to love the world, others make them despise it. The lust of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life lead to love, while the pains and miseries, which are the just consequences of those things, beget hatred and weariness of the world. Vicious pleasure overcomes the soul that is given to the world. She thinks that there are delights beneath these thorns, because she has never seen or tasted the sweetness of God or the internal delight of virtue. They, on the other hand, who entirely despise the world and seek to live for God under the rule of holy discipline, are not ignorant of the divine sweetness promised to those who truly renounce the world. They see clearly how gravely the world errs, and in how many ways it deceives! ” (Imitation of Christ, Book 3, chapters 48 & 20).
Lament Your Lukewarmness!
Again, the Imitation of Christ speaks of pleasure-seeking lukewarmness: “Lament and grieve because you are still so worldly, so carnal, so passionate and unmortified, so full of roving lust, so careless in guarding the external senses, so often occupied in many vain fancies, so inclined to exterior things and so heedless of what lies within, so prone to laughter and dissipation and so indisposed to sorrow and tears, so inclined to ease and the pleasures of the flesh and so cool to austerity and zeal, so curious to hear what is new and to see the beautiful and so slow to embrace humiliation and dejection, so covetous of abundance, so niggardly in giving and so tenacious in keeping, so inconsiderate in speech, so reluctant in silence, so undisciplined in character, so disordered in action, so greedy at meals, so deaf to the Word of God, so prompt to rest and so slow to labor, so awake to empty conversation, so sleepy in keeping sacred vigils and so eager to end them, so wandering in your attention, so careless in saying the office, so lukewarm in celebrating, so heartless in receiving, so quickly distracted, so seldom fully recollected, so quickly moved to anger, so apt to take offense at others, so prone to judge, so severe in condemning, so happy in prosperity and so weak in adversity, so often making good resolutions and carrying so few of them into action” (Imitation of Christ, Book 4, chapter 7).
Using the Wrong Tool or Weapon for the Job
You would have thought that common sense would have told us that we must be using the wrong tools or weapons to solve the ever-increasing and ever-intensifying crises in both the Church and the world! Yet it seems as though common sense is no longer common! What fool would attempt to put out a forest-fire with a water-pistol? What idiot would try and tackle a flooded basement with a teaspoon? What nutcase would hope to shoot down enemy planes with a bow and arrow? Who would try to protect themselves against a tsunami with an umbrella? Or tackle a ferocious dog with a feather? Or cut down a large tree with a butter-knife? Or mow a lawn with scissors? In all these scenarios it is clearly a case of using the wrong tool or weapon for the situation at hand. It is furthermore a clear sign of stupidity!
Yet we are more or less taking the same stupid approach to the constantly escalating problems within the Church and the world. We fail to see that under all of these problems there is a spiritual, supernatural or preternatural cause―and so we try to tackle it with natural, material, physical, human attempts at solutions. As Our Lady of Good Success so clearly said―we are ultimately clueless about the means and methods we should apply to the problems besieging us. Ultimately, behind all the evil is the devil―and behind all the solutions there has to be God. Our Lord Himself said: “Without Me―you can do NOTHING!” (John 15:5)―which is why Our Lady said: “Woe to the world should it lack monasteries and convents! Men do not comprehend their importance, for, if they understood, they would do all in their power to multiply them, because in them can be found the remedy for all physical and moral evils ... No one on the face of the Earth is aware whence comes the salvation of souls, the conversion of great sinners, the end of great scourges, the fertility of the land, the end of pestilence and wars, and the harmony between nations. All this is due to prayers that rise up from monasteries and convents. Oh, if mortals only understood how to appreciate the time given to them, and would take advantage of each moment of their lives, how different the world would be! And a considerable number of souls would not fall to their eternal perdition! But this contempt is the fundamental cause for their downfall!”
St. Thomas, writing of prayer, says that what God decided from all eternity to grant us by His Divine Providence, He will give it to us by means of prayer, and on this depends the deliverance, salvation, conversion and cure of many souls and the progress and perfection of others. God has ruled that Matrimony begets children; plowing and sowing brings an abundance of crops―likewise, prayer brings abundant gifts and graces to the world.
St. Augustine says that prayer is the key of Heaven that fits all the gates of Heaven and all the treasure chests of God. Elsewhere he says that what bread is to the body, prayer is to the soul. And “He knows how to live well, who knows how to pray well.”
The saints say many wonderful things about prayer: “By prayer, man gives to God the greatest glory possible!” (St. Peter Julian Eymard). “As the body cannot live without nourishment, so our soul cannot be spiritually kept alive without prayer!” (St. Augustine). “It is simply impossible to live a virtuous life without prayer!” (St. John Chrysostom). “He knows how to live well who knows how to pray well!” (St. Augustine). “He who does not give up prayer, cannot possibly continue to offend God habitually. Either he will give up prayer, or he will stop sinning!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori). “When prayer is poured forth, sins are covered!” (St. Peter Julian Eymard). “He who prays most, receives most!” (St. Alphonsus Liguori). “The power of prayer is really tremendous!” (St. Therese of Lisieux).
Prayer Means Effort
Many find prayer difficult. That is only natural, since we are trying to communicate with the supernatural world: “Prayer always requires a certain effort, even from those who find in it their delight, because a certain strain is involved in the concentration necessary to speak to God; it is always more or less difficult to maintain the soul in an atmosphere which is above its usual level. That is why prayer can serve as a sacramental penance. We must not be surprised at this difficulty in applying ourselves to prayer: for to raise ourselves towards God, even in the smallest degree, is to exceed our natural powers” (Dom Marmion, Christ―The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15).
Living in these current times, we find ourselves to be spoiled little brats―born with a “silver-spoon” in our mouths―the “silver-spoon” of luxury, plenitude, easy availability and technology (as mentioned earlier above). All of this means much reduced effort in getting what we want. If we want hot water, we just turn on the faucet/tap, or put it on the gas/electric stove to boil, or turn on the electric kettle―we do not have to get wood for the fire to heat-up the water. If we want some meat for dinner, we do not have to hunt and kill an animal, dress and skin it, transport and store it―we just go to our refrigerator and pull out a store-purchased piece of ready-made meat. If we want milk―we don’t have to milk the cow, we just open a bottle or carton. If we want fruits and vegetables―we no longer have to plant seeds, tend to and grow the plants for months and then harvest them―we simply “harvest” them at the local store. The vast majority of work and chores have had the effort removed from them by modern technology―the result being that we have been raised to be an “effortless” race, people who no longer have to make any effort in doing most things, and who actually hate having to make an effort in doing anything!
Our Lord says: “Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7) ― which St. Teresa of Avila explains as also meaning: if you do ask, then you will not get anything; if you do not seek, then you will not find anything; and if you do not knock, no doors will opened to you! To which, you can add the above words of St. Alphonsus Liguori: “He who prays most, receives most!”
Is There Room for God?
Too many people limit prayer to an isolated part of the day―first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Yet God should be part of our whole day, not just a mere ten minutes: “Prayer in our life, must not be limited to a number of isolated, passing incidents. We must cultivate a spirit of prayer. What must we understand by this? A spirit of prayer is an habitual disposition of soul whereby, in our troubles and discouragements, as well as in our joys and successes, our hearts turn towards Our Lady and Our Lord, as to our best friends and most intimate confidants of our feelings. And it is not only in the morning and in the evening that the soul should be raised Heavenwards, but always: ‘My eyes are ever towards the Lord’” (Psalm 24:15) (Dom Marmion, Christ―The Ideal of the Priest, chapter 15). Hence, Holy Scripture says: “We ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). “Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times!” (Luke 21:36). “Pray without ceasing!” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
The Power of Prayer of Petition
“Do we believe in the power of prayer? We know the common teaching of theologians: that true prayer―by which we ask something for ourselves with humility, confidence and perseverance, the graces necessary for salvation―is infallibly efficacious (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa IIae, Q.83, art.15, ad 2). We know this doctrine, and yet it seems to us at times that we have truly prayed without being heard. We believe in, or rather we see, the power of a machine, of an army, of money and of knowledge; but we do not believe strongly enough in the efficacy of prayer. At times we seem to think that prayer is a force by which we would try bending the will of God by persuasion. Yet God’s will has been made up from all eternity―nothing can change it” (Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, chapter 23).
Prayer is actually a bending of our will towards the will of God. He wishes the salvation of all, but all will not be saved―and one of the contributory causes is a lack of prayer; a lack of prayer by those who will be damned and a lack of prayer on the part of others for the conversion of those unfortunate souls.
“For material harvests, God prepared the seed, the rain that must help it germinate, the sun that will ripen the fruits of the Earth. Likewise, for spiritual harvest, He has prepared spiritual seeds, the divine graces necessary for sanctification and salvation. Prayer is one of the causes meant to produce that sanctification and salvation” (Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, chapter 23).
“St. Gregory the Great says: ‘Men ought by prayer to dispose themselves to receive what Almighty God from eternity has decided to give them’ (Dialogues, Book 1, chapter 8). Thus Christ, wishing to convert the Samaritan woman, led her to pray by saying to her: ‘If thou didst know the gift of God!’ In the same way, He granted Mary Magdalen a strong and gentle actual grace which inclined her to repentance and to prayer. He acted in the same way to Zacheus and the Good Thief. It is, therefore, as necessary to pray in order to obtain the help of God, as it is necessary to sow seed in order to have wheat. To those who say that what was to happen would happen, whether they prayed or not, is as foolish as to maintain that whether or not we sowed seed, wheat would still appear once summer came! Therefore, prayer is necessary to obtain the help of God, as seed is necessary for the harvest” (Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, chapter 23).
The problems we face arise from the fact that God is prepared to give far more than we are prepared to ask for―we are so lazy and negligent, lacking in confidence and perseverance, that we receive only a fraction of what God is prepared to give. The efficacy of prayer, correctly made, is infallibly assured by Christ: “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you 0shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you....And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? Or a fish, will he give him a serpent?...If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from Heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask Him?” (Luke 11:9-13).
Why Are Our Prayers Not Answered?
The problem does not lie with the Giver, but with us. St. Augustine tells us that there are three chief causes that result in our prayers not being answered. The word “BAD” applies to all three. The first “bad” is that in our prayers we ask for what is bad―either bad for ourselves, or bad for others, or bad in the sight of God. The second “bad” is that we ask badly, or in a bad manner―we might pray badly (rushed and hasty prayers; lukewarm and halfhearted prayers; not asking for long enough by giving up too easily if our prayers are not immediately answered, etc.). The third “bad” is that we ourselves are bad―meaning that we are too sinful, and especially if we are in a state of mortal sin.
“Now we know that God heareth not sinners―but if any man be a worshiper of God, and does His will, him He heareth.” (John 9:31). “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.” (Isaias 59:2). And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away My eyes from you: and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear: for your hands are full of blood.” (Isaias 1:15). “Then shall they cry to the Lord, and He will not hear them: and He will hide His face from them at that time, as they have behaved wickedly in their devices.” (Micheas 3:4). “The Lord is far from the wicked: but He will hear the prayers of the just.” (Proverbs 15:29). “He that turneth away his ears from hearing the law, his prayer shall be an abomination.” (Proverbs 28:9). “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” (Psalm 66:18). “And do you call Me ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). “Not everyone that saith to Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-23).
St. Thomas Aquinas, however, declares: “If sinners pray because of some good desire coming from their human nature― then God does hear them―not as a manner of justice, because sinners do not deserve this―but out of sheer mercy, provided certain conditions are met, that is to say, provided it is a prayer (1) made for oneself, (2) for things necessary for salvation, (3) made piously and (4) perseveringly.”
Getting Our Prayers Answered
Many of us become discouraged with prayer because our prayers are rarely, if ever heard. Yet there are ways in which we can almost infallibly get our prayers answered. The spiritual writers list the following cardinal points as “infallible” means of having our prayers favorably heard and answered:
1. Pray for what is good and not sinful or harmful to our salvation ― We should always remember that what we want is not always what we need. At times adversity is a better route to Heaven than prosperity. St. Augustine says: “We ought to be persuaded that what God refuses to our prayer, He grants to our salvation.”
2. Our prayer must be humble ― Remember the prayer of the Pharisee and the Publican. Remember, too, Our Lady’s prayer, the Magnificat, wherein she says that God has “regarded the humility of His handmaidYHe hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble.” The Old Testament says: “...nor from the beginning have the proud been acceptable to Thee: but the prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased Thee” (Judith 9:16). “May the Lord destroy all deceitful lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things” (Psalm 11:4). “Thou hast rebuked the proud” (Psalm 118:21). “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5).
3. Our prayer must be fervent ― Too often our prayers are said listlessly, routinely, mechanically; our heart is not in them. Of such Our Lord said: “This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:7). Our prayers should be like grains of incense, placed on the hot coals of our hearts.
4. We should amend our life ― If we persist in leading a life of sin, then we greatly handicap the chances of having our prayers heard. “He who turns his ears from hearing the law, his prayer is an abomination” (Proverbs 28:9).
5. We should forgive those who have injured us ― This was the example of Christ dying on the cross: “Father, forgive them...” “If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee―Leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother: and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). “Forgive thy neighbor if he hath hurt thee, and then shall thy sins be forgiven to thee when thou prayest” (Ecclesiasticus 28:2).
6. Our prayer should be united to good works or sacrifices ― “Prayer is good with fasting and alms” (Tobias 12:8).
7. We should pray with confidence ― Our Lord praised the faith and confidence of persons on many occasions, saying: “Go, thy faith has made thee whole!” (Matthew 9:22; Mk. 5:34; 10:52; Luke 17:19; 18:42). He also told us that “all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive” (Matthew 21:22). Do we have that confidence in prayer? Lord, I believe, increase my belief!
8. We should pray with perseverance ― “He defers the granting to increase our desire and appreciation” says St. Augustine. Our Lord Himself said: “Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say to you: Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Luke 11:8-9).
If we would only pray in the above manner, we would be amazed at the response our prayers would bring from Heaven! Keep in mind the words of the Little Flower: “The power of prayer is really tremendous.”